From the start, air defense was the first order of business. Fortunately, much of this defense was already in place, owing to some congressmen who had weathered criticism in order to support the sale of F-15s and E-3 AWACS to Saudi Arabia. These very aircraft now made possible the safe passage of the giant USAF transports vital to the rapid buildup of U.S. forces.

The first deploying forces were USAF F-15 fighters and E-3 AWACS aircraft, to flesh out the Saudis who had been flying combat air patrols since the beginning of the crisis. Next came the U.S. Navy aircraft carriers, USS Independence and USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, with their attendant battle groups. Then came the first USAF air-to-ground attack aircraft, F-16s from the 363d TFW at Shaw AFB in the States, and others from Europe. A-10 tank busters, known affectionately as “Warthogs,” arrived from England AFB, Louisiana, and Myrtle Beach AFB, South Carolina. All of this was designed to provide enough airpower to blunt an Iraqi thrust, and to devastate their supply lifelines. Horner told Schwarzkopf what air units he wanted in what order, though there were also units that had not been anticipated—such as the F-111s from Europe or the F-117s—since they were not apportioned to CENTAF in the war plans.

Shortly after this, U.S. Marines aboard an Amphibious Ready Group (ARG) arrived offshore, followed by the larger and more powerful 7th MEB (Marine Expeditionary Battalion) from Twenty-nine Palms in California. These units drew their equipment from a just-arrived squadron of prepositioned ships based in the Indian Ocean at Diego Garcia. With them came a Marine air wing of fighters, attack aircraft, tankers, and helicopters to support their efforts. Then 82d Airborne Division began to land in Dhahran.

All these forces deployed along the east coast, the high-speed avenue of attack, to protect the strategic assets there—the oil facilities and the desalinization plants, which supplied water to the interior as well as to the ports, towns, and airports in the eastern province. The forces were small and light, without much of the armored muscle that would be required to stop an Iraqi advance if it came.

The fundamental job during this time was to find places to put all the people and equipment as they arrived, and to do it as fast as possible.

The USAF units were bedded down by Bill Rider and the CENTAF staff, who set up shop in the RSAF headquarters, and were working the USAF beddown right from the start. At Horner’s direction, the F-15s and AWACS went side by side with their counterparts in the RSAF. The F-16s went to the UAE, because they had the range to cover Saudi Arabia, and this way they were based pretty much out of harm’s way from either ground, air, or missile attack. The A-10s went into Fahd Air Base, ten miles west of Dhahran, since they would be vital to stopping an Iraqi tank attack—though in all likelihood they would have had to fall back in the actual event of an Iraqi attack. The F-111s and U-2s went to Taif, near Mecca, and the F-117s went to Khamis Mushayt, south of Taif and about thirty miles north of the Yemen border.