Images of U.S. Marines assaulting Pacific beaches in World War II have
stereotyped the service's roles and personnel for more than 50 years.
This frank firsthand account of Marines sweeping over sands of a
different sort in fast armored vehicles retires that popular legend and
recasts the Corps as the modern, professional fighting force it was in
Desert Storm. Battling a savage environment; an unknown enemy
brandishing threats of nuclear, gas, and biological attacks; and a host
of technological and tactical snafus, Alpha Company of the 1st Light
Armored Infantry Battalion pushed forward at the "tip of the spear" past
burning oil fields, hundreds of Iraqi tanks and vehicles, and
heartrending friendly casualties to help liberate Kuwait City and drive
the Iraqis back to Baghdad. Here G. J. Michaels, a section leader and
vehicle commander, provides a vivid, personal chronicle of events as
they unfolded. Michaels further draws on his 13 years of LAV experience
to examine lessons learned from the war as well as its controversies,
including the confusion over use of the LAV as both recon scout and
infantry support and the lack of effective identification/friend-or-foe
systems.
