Veterans hope for quick victory, safe return home for U.S. troops
Local veterans of the Persian Gulf War and World War II hope their brethren fighting in Iraq accomplish their goals quickly and safely and return home soon. But, Gulf War vet Ron Rankin of Menallen Township said he had to turn off television news coverage of Wednesday night’s start of the U.S.-led effort to disarm and topple Iraqi President Saddam Hussein because it revived bad memories of his experiences in Saudi Arabia in 1991.
“I watched a little on TV, but had to turn it off. It brought back a lot of bad memories. Stuff I want to forget, but you just can’t seem to do it,” Rankin said.
Rankin was in the Greensburg-based 14th Quartermaster Detachment, which lost 13 of its members Feb. 25, 1991, when a Scud missile fired from Iraq struck their temporary barracks in Saudi Arabia.
That attack killed 28 soldiers who were in a warehouse that was serving as a barracks. It was the single deadliest attack on American and allied forces during the Gulf War.
Rankin even remembers the time – 8:35 p.m. – when the Scud hit that day.
“That’s a day I’ll never forget,” he said.
He still feels pain from the shrapnel that struck his head, shoulder and back, and his ears still ring from the damage the missile blast caused his eardrums.
After he returned home, his injuries made it too difficult to continue to drive a gas tanker, like he had done for the 18 or 19 years before the war.
He wishes the allied forces had ousted Hussein during the Gulf War.
“They should have gotten that guy out of there then,” Rankin said. “They need to get him out of there (now). That’s for sure. I support the military 100 percent. The guy (Hussein) is totally crazy. He’s nuts. They should have finished this stuff when they were over there the first time.”
Joe Combs of Uniontown, an Army veteran who fought to liberate Europe from the Nazis, hopes U.S. soldiers in Iraq return home safely, like he did.
“I hope they come home in the same shape as me,” Combs said. “I came home in 1945.”
He recalls helping to build pontoon bridges across the Metz and Rhine rivers.
During one night of fighting near the Rhine, he came across an injured American soldier and carried him to the bridge abutment and propped him up against it before returning to the battle.
Darkness and flying bullets kept him from recognizing the soldier, who Combs later found out was his brother Howard. Unfortunately, Howard Combs died that night.
“I hope the guys don’t have to go through what I went through,” Combs said. “I think it’s not going to last too long – hope not. Drop a bomb and get rid of him (Hussein).”
He is not happy that France and Germany, the countries he and his brother fought to liberate, don’t support the United States now. “That’s what hurts.”
“After all we did for them,” the lack of support from France and Germany is “terrible,” said World War II veteran Stanley Stanish of Vances Mill.
He fought in both countries for 14 months as a member of the 12th Army Division before returning home in 1945.
Stanish said he wasn’t surprised that President Bush decided to proceed with the attack, and he wants the military to “get rid of” Hussein and his underlings.
“I hope it’s over soon,” Stanish said. “If we don’t lose any guys, that would be all right.”