26                                     U.S. MARINES IN THE PERS~N GULF, 19901991

Hopkins:  Not in August.     The first OV-lOs arrived in the latter part of
September.   They selfdeployed [via Greenland, Iceland, and down through
Europe].  The weather affected them.    So they didn't come till later, and that
was a mistake.
    Colonel Manfred Rietsch, who commanded Marine Aircraft Group 70, had
said, "Let's crane the OV-iOs on board the T-AVBs [the aircraft maintenance
ships USNS Wright (r-AVB-3) and the USNS Curtiss ~-AVBA)]." So I talked
to General [Royal] Moore, who commanded the 3d Marine Aircraft Wing, and
he said, "We'll let them go out with the 5th MEB." But the 5th MEB didn't
come out for a couple more months.
    If we had to do it again, we'd have to get the OV-iOs over earlier.    We
could see vastness of the desert from the maps, and we knew that the OV-1O
was a player.    They're money in the bank.    The one time you need them
justifies all you have to go through to get them there.  The carrier battle groups
are always going to be around.  But we've got to get the OV-lOs in there.  It's
tough. I don't want to belabor this, because it was a hiccup; we were still
combat ready. We used the Hueys to make up for it.

Proceedings: How did you tie in with the 82nd Airborne?

Hopkins: We had daily meetings with the 2nd Brigade of the 82nd, which was
also at Jubayl. I asked, "What are you guys going to do'?" We divided up the
pie and so forth.  The 82nd was going to send their antitank [AT] teams out
there, with tanks and AT weapons in front to hit them with whatever they've
got, and then try to delay to Dammam.

Proceedings: The carriers were there early, and the Air Force F-15s came in
fairly early; what kind of liaison did you have with the carriers?

Hopkins: We didn't go directly to the carriers.        We went through Central
Command and NavCent in Bahrain. Until we got our own aircraft there and we
had the self-sufficiency of the Marine air-ground task force, we were mainly tied
into the Air Force through CentAF in Riyadh.    At that time, remember, the
carrier battle groups were not coming up that far north because they didn't know
what the missile and mine threats were. That evolved--they came up later when
they knew the missile threat wasn't there.

Proceedings: How would you have gotten air support if you really needed it?

Hopkins: We would have gone right to the Air Force through our liaison
officers with CentAF in Riyadh.  We had our own attack helicopters, but every
day we were hoping Saddam wouldn't come down.            If he bad come down, it
might have been a different story in terms of the whole outcome.     We would
have hunkered down right around Jubayl. Jubayl is the petrochemical capital of
Saudi Arabia. All the water that they get in Riyadh comes out of the desaliniza-
tion plants in Jubayl, so they could have theoretically cut off Riyadh.