After the VIPs boarded their aircraft and headed home to America, Grant Sharp and Paul Wolfowitz left to tour the Gulf allies to consult, seek agreements, and secure support for the U.S. forces, while Ambassador Freeman, John Yeosock, his aide, Major Fong, Don Kaufman, Bill Rider, and Horner boarded a small, twin-engine C-12 prop plane operated by an outfit known as “GUTS Airline” (Greater USMTM29 Transportation System—Kaufman’s guys). Flying in this fragile-looking aircraft didn’t bother Horner, but the Ambassador and Major Fong looked a little worried as they bounced into the hot desert air. Horner sat back in his seat as the noise from the props drowned out attempts at conversation, and tried to work out what he had to do.

Earlier, he had already started to unleash the flood of aerial reinforcements by notifying Bob Russ at TAC to get the 1st Tactical Fighter Wing F-15Cs headed east to supplement the Royal Saudi Air Force F-15s and Saudi AWACS who had been guarding the skies around the clock since the invasion.

The 1st Fighter Wing would be assigned the air-to-air missions, while the other wing, the 363d Fighter Wing, would be assigned primarily to do air-to-ground missions with their F-16C swing fighters. These were the two Ninth Air Force wings Horner had put on alert in July at the start of the crisis. For this, he had taken some heat from his bosses in the Air Force who were not in the CENTCOM chain of command. He also had the other Ninth Air Force units leaning forward.

Meanwhile, the Navy had a carrier task force headed for the Gulf, and Marines embarked on transports were also en route, as was Horner’s good friend, Lieutenant General Gary Luck, with the lead elements of the XVIII Airborne Corps, primarily the paratroopers of the 82d Airborne Division.30

He then ran over where they would unload the Army and Marine Corps, as well as where to beddown the forces. How do we house and feed them? he asked himself, with the memory of the Beirut barracks bombing, where hundreds of Marines had lost their lives, still fresh in his mind. While Saudi Arabia was the safest nation in the world, some there would still side with Saddam Hussein. What could they do to our forces as they deployed into the airfields and ports? he asked himself. And then as they moved to the bases and into the desert? No matter how good the Saudi or U.S. forces were that were tasked to provide security, a single well-placed bomb could wipe out the deploying CENTCOM staff. Riyadh hotels were also an inviting target, vulnerable to a well-trained Iraqi special forces team.