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

major problems. An amphibious brigade intended to be used as a reserve could
not be landed until well after the ground war began so as not to interfere with
the war plan.
    "We changed plans while on the move," said Col. Ron Richard, plans chief
for the 2nd Marine Division.   "We were mapping things out in the sand." His
counterpart in the 1st Marine Division, Lt.Col. Jerry Humble, said commanders
sketched the final plan for the takeover of Kuwait International Airport on the
back of a C-ration carton just before troops began surrounding the field.
    "This was not the old classic frontal assault,' said 1st Marine Division
commander, Maj. Gen. James M. "Mike" Myatt.       "We wanted to create chaos
for them.  If we were there to destroy every artillery piece and every soldier,
we'd still be there."
    In the four months after-the Bush administration ordered the military to begin
planning for an attack against Iraqi forces, the Marine Corps changed its war
plan five times, shifting from one end of the Kuwaiti border to the other as~ Iraqi
forces changed their own defensive concentrations.
    "I had the general officers in once a week for months and we'd sit down and
war-game   it among  ourselves,"    said Lt.Gen.   Walt   Boomer,   three-star
commander of the Marine forces.    "Everybody had a favorite plan, an area they
favored, but by the time we finished there was general consensus, "Yeah, this
was the right place to go."
    But barely two weeks before the ground war began, Boomer agreed to the
most dramatic change of all.  At the urging of 2nd Marine Division commander
Maj.Gen. William M.   Keys, he decided to send the two Marine divisions
through separate breaches in the minefields, rather than one behind the other
through the same gap.
    Again, the plan meant major risks.    The 2nd Division, based at Camp
Lejeune, N.C., had less desert training experience than the California-based 1st
Division, had been in Saudi Arabia about half as long as its sister division, and
still had not received all of its mine-breaching equipment.
    "The 2nd Division had to gear up, they didn't have as much time," said
Boomer.    "But he (Keys) assured me they were ready to do it.   You have to
trust your commanders' judgment.    That's what we're paying them for."
    Keys, who like many of the Desert Storm commanders had earned a healthy
respect for the ferocity of minefields in Vietnam, said he was concerned that his
men could become trapped in Iraqi-constructed obstacle belts. He worried that
they could be pounded by artillery fire before they could reach the other side if
they were forced to wait in line behind another division.
    As both Army and Marine forces finished massive shifts westward across
the desert, ground  commanders     asked allied war chief Gen.   H.  Norman
Schwarzkopf for three additional days of aerial bombings, pushing back the
planned start of the ground campaign until 4 a.m. Feb. 24.
    Three days before allied forces punched through Iraqi minefields, a light
armored infantry division pushed into Kuwait near the western point along the
Saudi-Kuwaiti border that marks the shortest distance between Saudi Arabia and
Kuwait City, in an effort to trick Iraqi forces into believing the assault would