wrr'i TIlE 1ST MARINE DIVISION IN DESERT SHIELD AND DESERT STORM            11?


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                                Photograph by 1st Marine Division Combat Camera Unit
LAV-25s with an LA V-L from Company D, Task Force Shepherd (attached to Task Force
Ripper), inoveforward dunng a break in the generally poor visibility that characterized
26 February 1991. The vehicles are approaching the power lines southwest ofthe Kuwait
International Airport.

   Myatt did not leave Shepherd at that location for long. Task Force Taro had
been unable to negotiate its way through the Al Burqan at night and would be
late arriving at the Kuwait International Airport to conduct the final assault.
Myatt needed the airport occupied and gave the mission to Task Force Shepherd.
At 2230 Myers received the assignment. By 2300 the LAVs were on the east-
west highway heading for the airport.
   It had been a frustrating day for Colonel Admire. It started well when, at
1005, General Myatt notified him that he wanted Task Force Taro to move by
truck to secure the airport. Yet, sufficient transportation proved unavailable,
outside of what the task force already had to carry its supplies and the heavily
armed jeeps and commercial utility vehicles (CUCV) of Task Force X-Ray.
Admire  felt the task ft~rce needed transportation more than supplies       and
immediMdy emptied the trucks. Leaving 1st Battalion, 3d Marines, to secure the
main supply road between the obstacle belts with heavy machine gun teams, he
mounted the `Alpha" command group and most of 2d Battalion, 3d Marines. It
was on a mixed collection of Jeeps, Toyota pickup trucks, M998s, HMMWVs,
and trucks that Task Force Taro set off at 1600 for its journey north into the Al
Burqan Oilfield.
   Colonel Admire missed Myatt's afternoon orders group because of the
distance involved in getting to the division forward command poSt. Now he
faced moving Taro over the same ground and over a battlefield crisscrossed
with enemy defensive positions and littered with abandoned and destroyed enemy
vehicles. It was also a battlefield still alive with Iraqis. Fortunately, all wanted
only to surrender. In the journey north, more than 200 Iraqis gave themselves
up to Task Force Taro. This slowed progress as the drive to the airport was