32                                  U.S. MARINES IN THE PERSIAN GULF, 1990-1991


Proceedings: Mow did the LAVs hold up?

Hopkins: Remember that the Marine Corps and the Army went together on the
LAV and then they left us. This is General [Alfred M.] Gray's initiative.  One
of the things in combined arms, and one of the things in the desert, is mobility.
You can't walk.  You've got to have mobility.     The LAV is a dynamic weapon,
and that includes the TOW and mortar variants.        The 25-mm chain gun was
deadly.   The LAY held up.  It could go 30-40 miles per hour across the desert
floor.   We used it when we were determining where we were going to breach
and before G-Day, we used the LAY to run up and down the border of Kuwait
to confuse the Iraqis on where our penetration was going.

Proceedings: Are you referring here to deception operations such as Troy?

Hopkins: Yes. [Brigadier General] Tom Draude ran that, and the LAY was a
big player.  The tires held up, everything worked.

Proceedings: Did you have any tank transporters?

Hopkins:    No, our tanks went on their own tracks, or we got host-nation
support.  We did do that. Or you borrow them from the Army, once they are
established.

Proceedings: What is the 7th MEB story?

Hopkins: I'm very proud of what happened.           Since the Iran affair with the
hostages, a lot of people in the Carter administration, the Marine Corps, and the
Navy, invested in the MPS concept; it went like clockwork.     We were the only
service that had any initial sustainability.  We could have fought on 25 August
and sustained ourselves, but everyone else had to wait about six months for the
buildup.
    The Army moved all its combat service support into the reserves.         In
contrast, we were feeding hot meals in the mess hall within 16 days, before the
MEF arrived.    We had kept our field messes, had brought them with us, and
had the capability to serve cooked Bravo [canned] rations augmented by some
fresh food that came in from the infrastructure.
    The secret of the MPS concept, of course, is exercises. When I came aboard
in 1989, a year before, we took four ships and went to Exercise Thalay Thai.
I had the same Colonel Powell who commanded the Brigade Service Support
Group; I had Colonel Fulford with the ground combat arn~.       The only officer
I didn't have was the MAG-70 commander, Colonel Fratarangelo, who was
transferred to Central Command; Colonel Rietsch took his place.
    At Thalay Thai my staff and those commanders did a two-ship offload in a
worst-case basis--6,000 meters off the beach--by ferrying everything.    People
knew each other, and they knew me.