Bridging the Gulf - desert warfare 12 years on (From Western Telegraph)

Bridging the Gulf - desert warfare 12 years on

Twelve years ago, former Western Telegraph news editor Len Mullins experienced a New Year's Day with a difference. It is one which will live in his memory and which he is never likely to experience again.

He joined the press corps in the desert in Saudi Arabia on the eve of the Gulf War. There he met Pembrokeshire men and women who only a few weeks later would be on the front line in the battle against Iraq.

As the second Gulf War gets under way, Len - now press and public relations officer with Pembrokeshire County Council - remembers and pays tribute to our men and women in the Armed Forces:

The newspaper headlines have a familiar ring - Gulf War Looms, At War, Green Light For War are just a few.

They could have come from any of the tabloids from the last few weeks though actually they belong to the past. From 12 years ago to be precise.

And they were the reason I found myself at RAF Brize Norton, in Oxfordshire, with a small party of UK regional journalists on New Year's Eve, 1990.

The Ministry of Defence was flying us 4,000 miles to Saudi Arabia to meet some of the British servicemen and women preparing to liberate Kuwait from the clutches of Saddam Hussein.

Although we were going into what was termed a 'theatre of war', our group was never going to be in any real danger. Desert Storm - the operation to free Kuwait -wouldn't begin for another couple of weeks.

Our biggest threat would be the scorpions in the desert sand. That said, the menace of war was vividly brought home before even leaving British soil when we were issued with gas masks to be carried at all times in a pouch strapped around the waist.

In the event of a pre-emptive strike by Iraq, we were told, the respirator had to be on the face within nine seconds.

I was assigned to meet some of the 150 men and officers of A Squadron of The 1st The Queen's Dragoon Guards. Known as the Welsh Cavalry, the QDGs are largely recruited in Wales and had trained at the RAC Range at Castlemartin.

With men from west Wales among their number, they were among the first of the British troops to arrive in the Gulf. I met them far out into the Saudi desert, just 70 miles from the border with Iraqi-occupied Kuwait. They were at the sharp end of operations. Their mission, as a reconnaissance regiment, was to operate in advance of the heavy tanks, to spy out the lie of the land and report back on enemy activity and position.

As their CO told me: "We are the eyes and ears of the British military presence in the Gulf."

Despite the dangerous role they were being asked to play, A Squadron had settled well into life in the desert.

The soldiers told me about the local pubs they frequented while training on the Pembroke peninsula - the Castle Inn, Pembroke; Royal Edinburgh, Pembroke Dock and Chequers nightclub in Penally.

Of course, being January, they did not have to cope with the blazing temperatures their modern-day counterparts are now facing.

Still, they had to follow certain rules such as no lights at night; drinking ten litres of water a day; preparing food away from vehicles so as to not attract the flies; using plastic eating utensils just once before burning them with the other rubbish in a hole in the sand and, of course, keeping an eye out for those pesky scorpions.

Christmas Day had dawned spectacularly, if noisily, with 12 Jaguar aircraft flying 15 feet over their camp, while a Boxing Day rugby match with the Irish Hussars - played at 7 in the morning - ended in 9-9 draw.

Yes, spirits were high even though they had good reason to be miserable - one more so than the others.

I remember that a Lance Corporal Ken Evans, from Whitland, had to call off his New Year wedding. I wonder if he did make it up the aisle in the end?

To my knowledge, all of A Squadron returned home unscathed from the conflict.

They and their service colleagues achieved the military objective of freeing Kuwait. Some say they should have carried on and pursued Saddam all the way to Baghdad, but that was never the plan.

On my return I was able to attend meetings of groups which had sprung up around the county to offer support and advice to the families of servicemen then out in the Gulf. There were several of them in the towns and villages of Pembrokeshire, I recall, and they served a useful purpose until the war ended.

And so we have turned full circle. We are at war again. My view is that whatever the rights or wrongs of the present conflict, we should unite behind our troops and pray for their safe homecoming. It is the least they deserve.