It was the summer of 1992, Desert Storm was over, but Project Overlord was ongoing for 2 years afterward. Project Overlord was the mission where coalition forces secured the Kuwaiti border and made sure Iraqi missile trucks would not use Kuwaiti farm land to attack Kuwait City.
There was a heavy rotation through Camp Doha, on the coast of the Red Sea, during the time. My unit, 3rd Squadron of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, was there during the fall of 1992. We flew over to Ireland in a civilian plane, then landed in Kuwait in the morning. It all seemed so foreign to us. The bus driver was blaring some Arabian pop music that sounded like garbage. Off to the side of the road, there were burned out tanks and remnants of the war still sitting there. The war may have been over for people in the U.S. but trust me, the war was still going on.
We arrived at Camp Doha and were taken to our "Barracks" which were just empty airplane hangars with bunk beds everywhere. Camp Doha was pretty interesting. We constantly were on guard at the motorpool and outside the barracks. Arabs worked within the camp and this is where I found out that Kuwaitis don't use toilet paper, they use their left hand.
Our main mission was to patrol the Kuwait and Iraq border which was about 15 miles from Camp Doha. The entire time we were there we just rotated 12 hours on and 48 off. Each unit currently assigned to Camp Doha had a stretch of the border to cover.
One day, I was on guard duty and we mounted the HumVee. I was on the 50 Caliber machine gun mounted on the top. We made the drive to the border and I knelt inside to keep myself from getting dust-blinded. We basically just laughed and told jokes the whole ride. Once we got to the border we slowed down and I stood up. It was 1700, 5 p.m. civilian time, and we drove back and forth on a two mile stretch.
On our first pass, I saw dust and what looked like a big truck to the left of a farm. I radioed this to my HumVee commander and we stopped. He used binoculars and saw what I saw. It was an old Russian missile truck. We started towards the farm and I heard gunshots hit the front of the HumVee. My commander hit my leg twice which was a signal to fire. We had been fired upon and that was good enough for us. I started lighting up the farm and black specs I could see. The guys inside of the Hummer fired as well when they faced the farm. As I fired, I felt hot wind going by me and saw orange streaks of light pass by my arms and the Hummer. There's nothing like the feeling of getting shot at, except when you get shot.
I grabbed another ammo case for the 50 cal, and while doing so, saw the truck leave the farm and realized that the gunfire stopped. We waited a few minutes for our companion vehicle and we approached the farm from the east and west with the truck driving away to the north.
We got to the farm and dismounted. We patroled the house and didn't find anything. It was dark, so we couldn't see any blood. To this day, I don't know if I killed or injured anyone.
We got back to the guard house and slept and went out again around 0400, 4 a.m. for civilians. When we returned from that patrol, we were done with guard duty for the next few days. We got back to our real "barracks" around 8 a.m. and someone had the TV on. CNN already had coverage of a small gunfight in the area of our operations. The guys that were with me in the Hummer couldn't believe CNN already heard about it. I went to bed and slept till about noon and then we played football in the desert.
Offically, I received combat pay for that tour of duty and I received a southwest Asia service medal too. Even though the war, as the US media knew it, was officially over, the government knew it wasn't and took care of us accordingly.
