In the midst of the training and deployment, Horner had a serious disagreement with the generals and lieutenant generals in Washington over rotation policy. They wanted to rotate troops back to the States; he didn’t.

He could not forget Vietnam, with its one year or 100 missions over the North, a policy that had robbed the deployed force of its commitment to success. He was going to have nothing like that in the Gulf . . . or he would go down swinging.

There were phone calls from General Russ, seeking Horner’s views about such a policy. “Chuck,” he asked, “what do you think about this—120 days in the AOR, and then we rotate the individual but not the unit?”

Horner’s reply was close to an ultimatum: “Respectfully, General, there’s no way I’ll ever agree to a rotation policy.”

“See here, Chuck,” General Russ answered, disturbed by Horner’s attitude. “This isn’t a discussion of whether or not we are going to have a policy. It’s a given that we are. Rather, it is a chance for you to give us your views about what policy we should implement. We can’t keep those people in the desert forever.”

To which Horner replied, “General, I respect what you are trying to do and appreciate your concern, but I will never agree to a rotation policy. We have been sent over here to do a job. When we get the Iraqis out of Kuwait, then bring us home. We are here until victory.”

These were brave words . . . and maybe foolhardy ones, Horner told himself, and sometimes he didn’t think he could make them stick. Yet he felt that this was one of those issues he needed to get fired over if it went the wrong way.

Fortunately, General Schwarzkopf felt as he did (probably as a consequence of his own Vietnam experience, though Horner can’t say this for sure), and so Horner’s policy stood—even in the face of higher-ups in Washington.

After that, Horner had to convey this hard message to the troops.

I found, he says, that if I told them the truth, they understood: That in fact I didn’t know when we would go home, that I didn’t know when the war might start, but that in Vietnam we had a rotation policy which made it our goal not to win but to stay alive until we rotated, and that I wasn’t going to be caught in that trap again.

I also told them that I wanted to be home as much as they did, and while I had better living conditions than theirs, I understood their frustrations. “We came to do a job,” I went on to say, “and it’s a worthwhile job. So as far as I’m concerned, we all stay until that job gets done. Sorry, but none of us can go home until the Iraqis are out of Kuwait, and the murder, rape, and robbery stop. It is my decision to make, and that is the decision I have made. If I get fired, then the new guy can do whatever he wants, but for us today it is here until victory.”