Free War Stories by Oliver North Page A

month.
    â€œI don’t know what really happened, Ali,” I say, as sympathetically as possible. He had told me the day before how he and his family had to flee when the Iraqis invaded in 1990 and how anxious his little girl was over what might happen to them.
    In fact, I looked for a report from Central Command that morning—something that would explain the sirens and the loud explosion. There was nothing.
    As we arrive at the main gate of the port, an enormous military convoy is departing through the exit, about fifty yards away. There are at least fifty HETs—forty-wheeled, heavy equipment transporters, loaded with desert-painted M-1 Abrams tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles—forming up on the highway. Military police in Humvees with .50-caliber machine guns mounted on top scurry in and among the HETs like gnats swarming around a herd of cattle.
    As I reach for my camera to shoot some footage of the convoy forming up, Ali holds up his hand and says politely but firmly, “Don’t do that here, Oliver. If you get caught we will not only not make it inside, we probably won’t make it back to Kuwait City tonight either.” I put the camera back in its bag and nod to Ali. He works for the Kuwaiti government and doesn’t want to lose his job.
    Griff Jenkins and I have coerced Ali into driving us to Kuwait’s commercial port, at the mouth of the Persian Gulf, so that we can shop for some necessities at the allied forces military exchange aboard the base. I’m the only one with a U.S. military identity card, and we have a long shopping list from the other two FOX teams that will be going into Iraq with U.S. units. Ali waits in the van while Griff and Ihead into the enormous air-conditioned warehouse that serves as the exchange.
    Inside the cavernous building is a well-ordered mob scene. At least a thousand American and allied soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines are queued up at more than a dozen checkout lines. Nearly all of them are garbed in desert camouflage, though the varying patterns adopted by the different American, British, and Australian service branches lend a distinctively international air to the scene.
    Nation of origin or branch of service doesn’t seem to matter when it comes to what they are buying. Each shopping basket seems identical, and nearly every one contains packages of disposable razors, shaving cream, scores of socks, bungee cords, CDs, cameras, film, videotape, batteries of every size and description, flashlights, sunscreen, insect repellent, sunglasses, foot powder, large packages of toilet paper, containers of baby wipes, and candies—particularly M&Ms and Skittles, which supposedly won’t melt in the oppressive heat—and brown, green, and tan T-shirts. Many shoppers also have GPS receivers, purchased in the electronics department of the exchange—an area that appears to be stocked with as many choices as any warehouse discount store back in the States.
    Griff and I pick up the items on our list and join one of the slow-moving checkout lines. It’s not long before I am recognized and there is a rush to take photos and get autographs. I’m soon out of the signature cards that FOX gives me for this purpose and I end up using a laundry marker to sign desert camouflage hats, helmets, and flak jackets. I begin to hope that I never meet the supply sergeants in these units for fear they will bill me for all the headgear that never gets turned in.
    â€œWhat unit are you going to be with when the shooting starts, sir?” asks a U.S. Army sergeant first class as we creep toward the line of cash registers. He’s a sharp-looking, well-built soldier with a close haircut and a 3rd Infantry Division patch on one shoulder and asmall American flag on the other. His hands and neck are deeply tanned, as is his face—except where his sunglasses have stopped the UV radiation, leaving him with the reverse-raccoon look so common among