The Eagle in The Desert:  U.S. Foreign and Military Policy and Operations in the Persian Gulf War.  Westport, CT:  Greenwood Press, 1996. ISBN: 0-275-95025-5 0-275-95391-1 (paperback) Click on the book or the title to purchase the book from amazon.com.     Click here to purchase the book (paperback) from BooksAMillion.

In the much ballyhooed motion picture MacArthur, the renowned actor, Gregory Peck, has one particularly poignant moment in the middle of the movie. It is near dawn off the Inchon coast. He is on the bridge of the invasion forces' flagship peering through is high-powered binoculars. One of his senior aides joins him as the first glint of sunlight crosses the skyline behind them. MacArthur looks at his aide and launches into a woeful stream of verbal doubts about the success of the daring Inchon Landing. "Colonel, this could be the shortest landing on record. What if the tides are too high, what if they have found out we're coming and are sitting out there waiting for us? Thousands of our boys will die, the Communists will win, and my career will be ruined!"

The aide, mouth gaping, is incredulous and amazed. After a long pause he declares, "General, are you serious?" MacArthur replies, "Why, didn't you know that even I have doubts?" Relieved, the colonel smiles, and the general returns to his inspection of the landing. Of course, this was a movie. The scene is apocryphal. Although it could have happened, and to some degree is very truthful, it is one more case of Hollywood taking literary license to heighten the drama of a defining theatrical moment and an important historical event.

There are times when real life is even more dramatic than the movies. In September 1991, while at an Army War College-Georgia Tech Conference entitled "Strategic Mobility, Forward Presence, and the Defense of American Interests," at Georgia Tech, then Brigadier General Richard Larson (later Major General), who had been General H. Norman Schwarzkopf's senior in-theater Army Supply and Logistics Officer, told a real-life story of equal poignancy.

It seems that one particularly dark desert night, not long before the opening of the ground campaign, General Schwarzkopf, in a rather agitated mood, collected Larson and several other senior officers, put them in some "Humvees," and drove everyone out to the forward areas. Once at the front lines, he peered through some high-resolution night vision binoculars at the enemy defenses. He then bade the remaining members of his group to do the same. After the last person had done so, he turned and declared to the gathered company, "Do you see those fortifications... that barbed wire... those tank trap? Two, three, four, ten thousand, maybe more of our boys could die taking those positions! I'll be responsible! How can I face their mothers and fathers? How can I face the American people?" Everyone present stood dumbfounded. After a tense moment of silence, the general turned and walked to the vehicles and everyone drove back to headquarters. No one spoke of the incident again.

A few days later, Allied troops swept through the fearsome Iraqi defenses and, within ten days, had won a smashing military victory with a loss of less than 300 lives. General Schwarzkopf not only could face the U.S. public, but also became one of its most celebrated military heroes of the post-World War II era. Knowing what we now now, we realize the Iraq was a fifth-rate Third World regional military force. Nonetheless, current realities beg for further investigation, including an examination of the human factors that lurk behind every military adventure. Many know of other poignant anecdotes such as the aforementioned--stories of fear and heroism, humor and tragedy, life and death. Popular wisdom says that the Allies won a spectacular victory. After all, didn't the general's book, CNN's videotape (for $29.95), and the myriad of other popular books frantically produced in 1991 and 1992 tell us just that? President George Bush officially declared that the Gulf Victory had "kicked the hell out of the Vietnam Syndrome."

However, as time has passed and critical analyses have provided a more sober perspective, it seems that there are still many more stories to tell than have been told; there are a vast number of critical military lessons begging to be learned, and there are reams and reams of documents, letters, diaries, memoirs, and so forth which still need to be researched. So the study of the Persian Gulf War has only just begun. Because Saddam Hussein still rules Iraq, tensions are still keenly felt in the region, and the potential for nuclear terrorism grows every day. The study of the Gulf War needs to continue until all the stories are told and all the lessons are learned--good or bad, happy or sad. The 300 Allied soldiers, along with the thousands of Iraqis who did die, deserve at least that much.

The Eagle in the Desert proposes to begin this new era of reexamination. Although it does not presume to be the only definitive work, it does seek to break significant new ground using the reams of new research and several fresh approaches to the analysis of the story. In the end, it will try to begin the process of placing the Gulf War in its true historical perspective.
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