Reporter's Notebook: 'They Train And Train Again'
The Early Show's National Correspondent Thalia Assuras is in Kuwait, spending time with U.S. forces gathering for a possible attack on Iraq. She sent in some behind-the-scenes impressions.
There are tens of thousand of U.S. troops in the gulf region, preparing for potential war with Iraq. The military will not give us specific numbers - only generalities.
But the bottom line is that this is an operation that is well underway.
Some 85,000 Army, Marine, Navy and Air Force personnel are in the region, 40,000 in Kuwait alone. The biggest influx into Kuwait came just this past week.
Travel the highway to the Marine outpost called Camp Commando, a 30-minute drive from Kuwait City and you may well be slowed down by massive convoys: flatbed trucks loaded with tanks - enormous growling machines that somehow resemble dinosaurs; others carry supplies in huge metal containers; open-backed trucks with helmeted soldiers in their desert garb head to their various bases.
And everywhere there are all sorts of armored vehicles here with U.S. soldiers manning the machine guns on the roof.
I have traveled to the Marine outpost where the massive equipment and the tons of supplies are being brought in, tallied and tested.
Capt. Samuel Lee is the coordinator. Although he carries a book in which I expect he puts down hand-written notes, he and his team work in what they call their "office" - a tent - where laptop computers make their job so much easier. As one young Marine says, "This is like preparing for the Super Bowl".
The arrival of every piece of equipment, from a tiny screwdriver to the massive A1 Abrams, the enemy tank buster, is recorded with a handheld scanner. I comment that it looks like a supermarket scanner. "That's exactly what it is," I'm told.
Row after row of vehicles crowd this outpost, just 30 miles south of the border with Iraq. The Marines examine each vehicle carefully, calibrating gun sites, making sure the engines will run in this desert where the wind has whipped up 60-mile-an hour gusts.
Those gusts, bursting through the 40 mph. sustainedwinds, shut down the Marines' test firing of the Abrams tanks the other day. There simply wasn't any point in examining the barrel sites under these conditions.
They are harsh conditions, even for Marines. Corporal Cesar Flores said he's never seen winds like this, but added, "We are still capable of fighting in these conditions because of what the tank allows us to do. It's a little more difficult but not impossible."
One Marine after another tells me they have trained in similar conditions. After all, they are from Camp Pendleton, California. They will adapt to what few differences there are and still do their job, they all confidently said.
Company commander, Delta Co. Captain Greg Poland, explains that the Abrams has thermal capability. While it was impossible to see potential targets in such sandstorms with the naked eye, the tank is armed with computers that help them spot enemy tank busters. Target heat is captured as the locator, just like shooting in the darkest of night.
Night capability is what the military has often said makes the U.S. the fighting power it is. As for the Abrams' firepower, Capt. Poland said, "The type of artillery that we have has the ability to penetrate anything the Iraqis would have."
The Marines, average age 19 to 21- years old, say they're ready. Ready to do their job at any time.
They won't speak of a timetable for action and wouldn't reveal it if they could. Their answer: when President Bush says go, they'll go.
In the meantime, they try to keep the sand out of their eyes when those storms burst out, relying on goggles and scarves to protect themselves.
They train and train again.
War is a challenge they say they are up to. Their challenge for now may be combating frustration and boredom if they're out in the desert for weeks, before the word comes… if it does.