Encoded for the Experiencing War web site for the Veterans History Project.
The recording of the interview with Rod Taylor was digitized.
This transcription was encoded with minimal changes to the original text in an effort to preserve original content and idiosyncrasies of the person interviewed. Period language and terminology are also retained. Encoding is literal with regard to the transcriptionist's capitalization, punctuation, and spelling. Spelling errors are indicated with [sic]; however, recurring errors in spelling within a single document have been marked the first time and not subsequently.
Okay. My name is Rod Taylor, T-a-y-l-o-r.
Forget the camera. It's the wizard of oz. Never mind the guy behind the curtain. Just talk to me.
All right.
Why'd you join the army?
Well, right after high school, I don't think I was ready for college or anything like that; not enough discipline, and supposedly the army would be a good opportunity to just have a little more time, get your act together. And then there was the GI Bill as well. So it was partly benefits and partly to get a little world experience. And since I wanted to go to Germany as well, I thought that would be a good opportunity.
Okay. It all sounds very familiar. Why medics?
Boy. The medic profession - or just being in the medic profession just to me sounds -- I want to help people. And that seemed to be the thing. Eventually I wanted to be a doctor; I'm of course not there yet. But I thought that was the best stepping stone in that direction.
My daughter went through EMT training and now she's graduating from medical school. So there's hope.
Oh, okay. I want to be a physician's assistant. So ---
Great. Well, talk to me a little bit about the 38th __ in Germany before the war, what was the training like? How well trained did you believe you were?
Well, I thought we were extremely well trained. They spent quite a bit of money on us. We were in what was considered the Fulda Gap area where the Russians would come charging through in event of a war. And at that time we believed that it could happen any time. But we also thought, half of us were on any given Saturday in Frankfurt drunk. So we thought that would be a terrific time for the Russians to attack because we would be completely caught with our pants down. But honestly, I thought we were extremely well trained. We went to gunnery a couple times a year. We spent time with the tankers out, right next to the gun ranges, and had a great time with it.
I'm assuming you were lucky enough not to ever have to deal with any training accidents or anything like that.
The worst training accident we would have was, I think a lieutenant who got his foot stuck behind somewhere in the turret, and what actually happened when they traversed the turret, his leg got stuck in some sort of hole. It was probably from maintenance or something. And it actually tore the back of his boot off. Nothing happened to his foot, luckily. But he was a little frightened. Then there was another occurrence where the gun, the main gun, it was a big breech inside the M-1 tank, comes back. He happened to have his arm right there - caught it; broke his elbow. So little things like that. Just stupid accidents, and that usually occurs - There were worse accidents that occurred with other units such as an M1 shooting at a Bradley with a training round or something like that which did severe damage anyway, even though it was a training round. But luckily we never had the problem. I don't want to say "opportunity."
__ +
Yeah, __ Graffinger (ph)
So tell me about being alerted to move to the Gulf and what your thoughts were as we've got this buildup toward this potential war. What were your thoughts? What was the climate in your unit?
Well, at the time we thought we were still essential to hold that Fulda Gap area in the event that the Russians decided to attack. But Gorbachev, thankfully, became our best friend. And within a matter of - I don't know, what was it, a year; the whole Iron Curtain pretty much went away. They were no longer our enemy, but thought that we were still needed there. So it caught me as kind of a surprise. The first time I heard about it was on TV while I was on TDY at a small dispensary and I just thought, "Well, they have other units, they'll probably send them." But then it dawned on me that these are the highest trained units, the one that were in Europe that were intended to go against the Russians. So why not send us? And as the months went, I can't remember exactly the timing, it became apparent that they were going to send us. Our equipment was packed up to be shipped and for quite some time we didn't have any equipment. It was basically in transit down the Atlantic, through the Mediterranean and then we basically when we got to Saudi Arabia, we probably spent about another week or so before our equipment arrived. And then we picked it up off the ships. So that's how that occurred.
Give me an impression of Saudi Arabia. You step off the airplane; here it is.
It was pretty interesting. It was actually Christmas Eve when we left. It was pitch black, early in the morning 0.30, the usual time when we leave to go anywhere. We left Frankfurt, traveled to Rome on -- I can't remember what airline. I remember the stewardess or the steward saying it was "CIA Airlines," something that --some kind of clandestine airline they utilize once in a while. And the movie - we had an in-flight movie, with - I think it was Days of Thunder with what's his name?
Tom Cruise.
Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman and I just -- I think it was the way dealt with stress was I almost slept the whole way there and woke up every once in a while to hear Nicole Kidman in her Australian accent --. So finally we got to Rome, we left Rome, landed near Dhahran. It was pitch black again, Christmas Day now, and I was utilized to take baggage and stuff off the 747. So we're down in the cargo area just knocking stuff out of the cargo area. Somebody else was grabbing it and loading it. And then we had to find our unit again - still pitch black, some place on the tarmac. It was just a big wide open area. And somehow we found our unit. Got in formation. They got us on busses, these small old Saudi Arabian municipal busses complete with stickers that said, "Women not allowed in the front; women in the back." Had the little circle with the slash through it with a woman dressed in the usual garb. So I think we spent pretty much all night trying to find where they wanted to put us. And then finally we ended up at a place that was nicknamed "the MGM." It was - I think it was The __Towers, I can't remember. It might have been bombed later on. I think that was the one. It was apartment complexes that were set up, from what I understand, for Bedouins. That they hoped to bring them in and associate them - make them more westernized. So we ended up with quite cushy facilities. Carpeting, we had our sleeping bags and everything so we didn't have any beds. But they were pretty nice apartments, actually -- for about a month or so until our equipment arrived. So I was pleased because I saw many of the other facilities. We drove by tent cities and other things and I was just wondering, "Well, we're probably going to be in this type of facility for a while." But actually, we spent our time in apartment buildings.
Tell me about picking up the equipment at the dock area - or where they assembled it for you, and describe what your equipment was like in terms of your own personal vehicles.
Okay. Our equipment -- basically, what we had was a 113, an M-113. That's an armored personnel carrier, but the guys used to joke that it's no longer armored. It could be pierced by a 50 caliber round. So they called 'em "PCs," personnel carriers. And what they were was a modification. They had many modifications and our particular version had chains that came down with hooks so you could put four litters in there and load four litter patients or quite a few individuals if they were sitting on the seats. And usually you had a crew of a tank commander, a track commander, and a driver, and a medic that would attend the patients and be in contact with us while we were driving or evacuating them. So we were picking these up and they still had the northern - the western, what is that - the woodland green camouflage which was black, green, and brown. And I remember thinking, "When are we gonna actually camouflage these?" We never got the opportunity, actually to do that. The people that were attached to the tank units actually went with their tank units and got camouflaged, but the majority of the support units were still dark camouflaged from Western Europe. But basically, what they had - they pulled the equipment off of the ships, they parked it, they told us where we were located. It was very organized. And we just grabbed our equipment, stowed everything away and drove off.
Okay. Where'd you go? And what did you do?
Well, what they did was they took us up a highway. They took us from Dhahran to pretty much, I can't remember the exact location, but it was south of Iraq. And it took a couple nights to get there. And supposedly we did this all without the Iraqis knowing. And we spent the next - about a month or so - in the middle of nowhere out in the desert just waiting; biding our time. And it was interesting because there was rain, we had to pull guard duty, it was freezing at night. We actually had -- our packing list said to bring our parka. We didn't believe it at the time, but we used it quite a few nights. We'd pull two hours of guard duty and be out there just talking to each other and, you know, singing, doing whatever it took to pass the time.
What kind of activities did they have you engage in? was there any kind of training or things like that while you were out in the desert waiting for actual war to start?
Well, there was. Very early on we just went into town, there was a lot of map reading, (? mop gear,?) the chemical suits - how to get them on as soon as possible. At the time we were very concerned about chemical warfare, much like they are now. We just spent as much time as possible just getting into that equipment and doing this as fast as we could. Everything else - nothing really happened until we got out to the desert and then we started doing maneuvers. And it was basically designed so that we could coordinate large-scale maneuvers and turns in the desert without running into other units. And we did that just a few times, actually. Most of the time was just getting our gear ready and waiting and pulling guard duty. So --
One of the __ + was there any emphasis on working at night?
Not really. I - back in Germany, there was a lot of night maneuvering going on, and I think everybody was well versed in the use of their thermal sights, and since we were an armored unit half the training I think occurred at night. And of course that was our distinct advantage, was being able to maneuver at night and see at night.
Tell me a little - you're not in a tank, so you don't have __ + so how do you guys get around at night?
We have our heads sticking straight out of the turret, or actually it's a - I was the driver and track commander since we had at the time only one person, and he was sent over from another unit just to fill in and augment our unit. And what we basically do is try to see as well as we can at night. And usually what they have under normal circumstances and under training is blackout drive, which is a small light that is placed kind of off to your shoulder and it shoots straight down in front of you. So you have this small area in front of you that you can see. And I just remember one time in Germany where I think I almost killed somebody in a jeep because we were cruising along, I couldn't see anything, and all of a sudden there was a jeep traveling by, and I thought, boy, I'm lucky I didn't kill somebody there. I luckily didn't. But you get used to it. You learn to see small lights, and you see them turning. You time -- you turn the same time. And luckily at the time as well, it was before we went into combat, there was full moons. It was almost as though, I don't know, you could still see. It was light enough. You just had this kind of a lunar landscape and you could make out sand dunes, hills, and that sort of thing pretty well, as long as it wasn't cloudy.
Okay. So the air war kicks off, you guys are still out in the desert and after the bombing, what -- did you see lots of airplanes flying around?
Not really. We - what I remember distinctly is listening to the BBC, CNN and getting their perspective of what was going on and comparing it to our perspective of what was going on. And sometimes we learned more from the BBC, and sometimes you learned more from your own unit intelligence as to that sort of thing. I remember hearing just this rolling thunder every night. You could tell that they were just getting pounded. You couldn't tell which direction, you could tell the general direction, but you couldn't pinpoint it. And there were no flyovers at the time. We were -- I think we were probably off to the west of the flight patterns since we were going to attack into and surround Kuwait. So we didn't see many flyovers at all. But I do remember one rumor that there was a helicopter attack with 8,000 Iraqis and they had us all out there scrambling and in our trenches and waiting for something to happen. And it was raining, and my glasses were falling out into the mud and we were just -- it was kind of a hairy situation. Nothing occurred. I think they were all just trying to keep us on our toes and keep us from getting complacent.
It worked.
It worked, yeah.
Okay. Well, talk about the start of the ground war and what you did.
The start of the ground war -- I remember that two nights, or two days prior, we did the maneuvers to try to get that straight. And at our level, we couldn't tell how well they were doing, but they must have felt ready. So we took off, and I remember just traveling hours and hours, moving -- stopping, stopping for maybe a half hour to an hour. Some of us fell asleep; some of us had to be woken up. Drivers were just sitting there asleep. Had to be slapped on the helmet, "Come on, let's go," as the vehicle in front of them was maybe hundreds of yards further than they remembered before they went to sleep. And we just traveled and we stopped and bedded down one night, and I remember pulling guard duty -- wild dogs just -- it was interesting. These domestic dogs were wild running through our camp. You didn't bother them, they just ran by you. And I remember seeing -- what we did was we traveled in a group. We'd be the support units, which is the ammunition, food, and fuel, as well as the medics would be in the center. We were the "soft targets" and our tank units; Alpha, Brava, Charlie, and Delta would be on our four corners. And we traveled in one large unit, and then we'd have sort of a sister unit on either side all traveling in one large line onslaught across the desert. And, I lost my train of thought. But that's what we did until we made contact with the Iraqis.
What was that like? I realize you weren't on the front, but you were listening to what was going on.
Actually, that was as close to the front as you could get. The front element of tanks which was one of the four sides was probably within, like, a hundred yards or like a football field from us. I can see now the back of the M-1 tank. And what we did, I remember moving along. Suddenly the physician assistant who was our leader at the time, I remember him yelling at another radio, "Turn around, go back." Then I see him waving in our direction. So it took us a while to figure out what was going on. It was a simple command of turn around, go back. But seeing him actually point and yell made us realize, oh, we'd better turn around and go back. So we turned around, traveled back, I don't know, maybe about 15 minutes. And what I learned later was we were getting within range of the Iraqi artillery and that what they had done was were trying to bracket us with artillery. These rounds were going off on either side; we were oblivious. We were just -- what we were trying to do was follow the vehicle in front of us; stay within their treads so if they were to hit a mine, we wouldn't hit the mine. Only one vehicle would be taken out. So you've got the driver just focusing on the vehicle in front of him; you don't know what's going on around you. What I learned later is that they were trying to get us bracketed with artillery so that they could maybe pepper us and cause some damage. But luckily we turned around, and I guess we were probably on the periphery of their range, and then we got out of that range. So that was the initial contact with the Iraqis.
Usually when people go into combat, they're young and they're cocky and indestructible, and something occurs you just think pretty early on that makes them thing they're not so indestructible. Did something like that occur to you?
Yeah. I think I was always nervous. I didn't show it, but inside I have memories of imagining how bad it could be; seeing my comrades injured, me being responsible for treating them, getting them evacuated, and thinking that I had better do a really good job or these people could die. And that is something you -- that is a tough thing to deal with. And I remember being very relieved after our first contact and with the Republican Guard and defeating them pretty soundly and that we probably wouldn't have any casualties and I wouldn't have to deal with that situation. But for months prior to that, we didn't know what to expect. This was the 4th or 5th largest army in the world and we thought we were going to take some casualties. And we did, but we didn't take nearly as many as we'd imagined.
Well, what about that? [Interview interrupted by unidentified person walking past the camera and then a door slamming.]
Well, what about that? You know, in terms of casualties and something like that, __ + did you have to deal with any American casualties? You talked about being relieved, but was it so one sided you were just amazed or __ +.
I was amazed. When I came to the realization that -- it was rather late, it was probably at the time of the battle that -- we were two generations ahead of the Iraqis as far as technology was concerned. We could fire engage them before we came into their range and that advantage, that huge advantage, just made it so one sided that it was pretty much a turkey shoot. I remember hearing on the radio the tankers talking about they're coming out of their bunkers, they're jumping into their vehicle, then they fired at the vehicle and they destroyed it. Just to have that much advantage over your enemy is kind of a sobering thought that it was completely one sided. You thank God that you were on the winning side, but you can't help but feel a little sorry for the Iraqi soldiers who didn't want to be there in the first place in most cases. But it was very much a relief. After the initial contact and watching the tanks right in front of me fire on this hill which contained the Republican Guard, and seeing explosives -- explosions pretty much the whole night. And I'm sure some of the vehicles were engaged twice because the (? sabo?) rounds can go right through a vehicle without igniting it and you don't know if it's been destroyed or not. And later on that -- when it was morning, I just realized that this was gonna be not fun, but this was gonna be easy compared to what I had anticipated. Watching the F-16 drop cluster bombs and it was just massive firepower. You knew you had them beat. And later on we traveled through what we had engaged all night long and there was pretty much nothing left; just burned out vehicles, Russian BMPs, and that's about it. Maybe some old T-55s but very old equipment not capable of dealing with an M-1 tank. So it was one sided.
Well, what about dealing with the Iraqis -- the wounded Iraqis -- __ + .
Well, luckily, all I saw were Iraqis that had surrendered, and one of them had a bag of grapes. These guys were in horrible shape, they were saying -- they were spitting on the ground, saying, "'Blank'" Saddam Hussein." They wanted to be friends with us. They wanted to establish that they had no allegiance with Saddam Hussein whatsoever, and that was about it. I just saw Humvees packed with these guys heading back south. And I also heard reports that they were eating MREs which contained pork and other things that Muslims don't necessarily eat. But these guys had been out there for months with cold temperatures. It had been raining, windy, suffering from exposure, and they were ready to eat whatever we gave them regardless of their religious beliefs. So -- and part of the advantage was, the leaflets that you dropped - that we dropped - contained stuff that you'd get a warm shower, you'd just have everything you wanted, everything you craved out there as you're freezing, you'd get that when the Americans showed up. And we turned them over to the Saudi Arabians, mainly, because they would probably be able to relate to them a little bit better than your average American. So seeing that guy with the grapes kind of brought it home, having no food whatsoever. And I also heard reports - it's a rumor - that their underwear was taken away so they'd have nothing white to surrender with. And that they were using little leaflets that we had dropped on them to surrender. You'd see crowds of them coming.
At one point, one of the generals was briefing us and he talked about late in the war, after about the -- you know, as they were approaching the end of the war, some of the units were having trouble getting the men to fire because it was so one sided, and they had such sympathy for the enemy because they weren't firing back. They were just running away. Did you hear about any of that?
No, didn't hear about any of that. We seemed to be ready to go. We wanted to get this thing over with. And the tank -- the tankers that I heard on the radio were enthusiastic. They wanted to find the target, anything that glowed in their thermal vision, and shoot it. And like I said before, they probably shot vehicles twice because they wanted to make sure they saw a target pop up, engage, boom. They shot -- maybe later on, when they realized that it was so one sided, it probably became pretty much -- what is it -- you could tell that there was sympathy for the enemy. After we engaged, destroyed the Republican Guard, went up through the hill and traveled further east, we came across a lone Palestinian who was just standing out there in the desert at what used to be an aid station. We approached him. My platoon sergeant actually was hugged by the guy because he was alone for probably a day or so, and he said that if you'd been here a day or two earlier, this would just be teeming with people. It was a working aid station but that the commanders had said that they were leaving for a command staff meeting and they never came back. So the Iraqi leadership left and left their soldiers. And they did not take vehicles; they walked out on foot because vehicles were immediately destroyed. That was the target of choice. So he said that they just streamed northward towards Iraq, and I could honestly say that we did have sympathy. We saw this guy standing out there; we just approached him and engaged in conversation. That was about it. It was pretty much these poor people
Well, tell me about the end of the war and how you knew -- how you felt about that.
I think we were just relieved. It almost became fun. We were finding bunkers that were abandoned. A friend of mine who was from (? Aritrea?) in a previous life, both him and I would jump out when we had -- or jump out of our vehicles when we were stopped. We would be stopped for an hour or so and check out these bunkers. And we thought we were - we were pretty young - we thought we were hot stuff. We'd pull things back with a long string, look inside. I think one time we opened up a big wood chest and all we found were a pair of flip-flops in there. We were hoping for something cool like binoculars or anything. So we just were going through a lot of notebooks, anything we could find. Still got a few souvenirs of Iraqis sitting - or standing next to a -- what is it -- a large tractor. They're just these two guys that probably owned a construction company or something, and this is -- they're standing in front of this bulldozer and on the back it's got the date in Arabic. So we had these great souvenirs and we could only imagine who they belonged to. And I still kind of have sympathy - I do have sympathy for these people and -- but there's nothing they can do about it.
So after the war was over, how much time elapsed before you came back? I assume you went back to Germany? (End of interview.)