124                                    U.S. MARINES IN THE PERSIAN GULF, I99~1991

tired, and I had only 18 of them.   When you start to run those 24 hours a day
in maybe two different fashions and maybe two of them up at any one time, that
gets very hard on that airplane.     So I found myself, after 20 days saying,
"Whoops.     I've got to slow down." I talked to everyone and said, "You're not
going to get this support.  You don't need it right now.  I'll give it to you this
hour and this hour and this hour, but I need to rest these guys a little bit.  I
need to maintain them."    It worked out well.

Proceedings: So it was not just the threat, but also maintenance hours and flight
hours on the OV- lOs that caused you to change some of your procedures?

Moore: It was a lot of things.    As I've said, I really held a very tight rein on
some airplanes, a tight rein in the regard that I wanted to have them when I
needed them, and the OV-1O was one of these. I told the OV-1O air crews, who
were flying a slow but very valuable airplane--if you use it correctly--that, be-
cause of the shoulder-fired missiles and AAA we were seeing, I wanted them to
stay south of a particular line.  I said, "Don't go above that line because the
threat starts to get too heavy. And, oh, by the way, I don't need to extend you
above that line, because you can do all that I want done on the battlefield
without going above that line."
    I did the same thing a little bit to the AV-8s; "Until I can get you dedicated
EA~B support, I want you to stay below this line.      Oh, by the way, there are
plenty of targets to work down there, so I don't need you to go above that line."
Those are the type of things I did.

Proceedings: The EA~Bs are probably the best jamming aircraft going, and the
Marine Corps can take a lot of pride in what it has done in the electronic
warfare field over the years.   But does this cause them to be fragged by the Air
Force? Could you get them when you wanted them?

Moore: The EA~B is very dear to my heart.     Early on, the Air Force, because
of lack of assets--and I would have done the same thing; this isn't anything bad
to say about it--came to me and said, "We want to unite all the EF-1 1 is and
EA~Bs."
    I said, "Hey, that's fine, but let me tell you. I spent a lot of time with Jack
Daley [General, US MC, now Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps] and
others going to North Vietnam in Support of somebody else, and I will not let
(nor did it bappen) any Marine airplane go north without EA~B support." The
guy looked at me like I [had] shot him in the chest.   I said, "That will just not
happen."    Now, if that means that we can send him back to a tanker and he can
come up and support an Air Force strike and we can work out something, then
that's fine. But not a Marine airplane went north without Marine EA~Bs and,
in some cases, some Air Force EF-1 1 is with them.        But we always had a
Marine EA~B up there.       They did do a magnificent job.   But they didn't try
anything fancy.  Just good, brute noise shut the Iraqis down.