Untold Lens of the Gulf War: As Told by Christopher Robey

00:03 Okay. Hi. Today I'm with Mister Christopher Robey who has served in the United States Air Force during the events of the Gulf War and the invasion of Iraq, otherwise known as Gulf War two. He is here to discuss his experience as a soldier during the heated military and political conflict. I would first like to start by knowing a bit about yourself. How long have you been serving for the US Air Force?

00:41 I served for just over 21 years. Basically entered into basic training in the early phases of my career in about mid 1989, and then was officially retired from active duty in 2010.

01:08 Okay. And as serving in the Air Force, what were your rank and duties? Ranks and duties?

01:23 Well, I started off as an e one basic enlisted member and rose to the rank of e seven, which is in the senior non commissioned officer ranked in the Air Force at e seven is known as master sergeant.

01:48 Okay, so moving to the Gulf War, how would you define the Gulf wars in your own definition? And also, why do you think the United States wanted to engage in the first Gulf War during the 1990s?

02:15 Well, I mean, it's pretty much as the historical narrative and documentaries, like, if you tune into History Channel or whatever, there was some tensions and uprising with movements, troop movements by Saddam Hussein, the first Gulf War, and subsequent invasion of Iraq, which led to two separate but kind of almost continuous operations. Desert Shield, Desert Storm. We, of course, forced him back into Iraq, then subsequently set up operations, sustained operations of, you know, denied flights and things like that. That was mostly what I was part of in the Gulf first Gulf War. We probably went in with other members to pre establish locations and basically supported the aircraft sorority to enforce the no fly zone and ensure that there were no further aggressions carried out subsequently in the second Gulf War and pushing into the invasion of Iraq. A lot of these things kind of just rolled up together, kind of rolling into the war on terror. You know, it was. There were rumors, you know, and there are, of course, some news reports that say the second Gulf war, because it was President George Herbert Walker Bush or president, the 41st president, you know, kind of had his son, quote unquote, finish the job as the 43rd president. But I don't know if that was necessarily true. There was a lot of. A lot of things going on, you know, that we in the active military community knew about. If you were cleared to a certain level, you could get information. And as civil engineers, while we didn't really know the day today, there was definitely a strategic level and kind of an awareness that something was ramping up because we would start getting notifications of and questions about our operational readiness status of our, what we call UTC packages or unit type code packages for deployment. You know, what was the status of those? Were they complete? Did we only have partials, things like this? So you kind of know things are ramping up for something when, when those type of questions start coming down. I hope that kind of, I painted with a very broad brush type of answer question.

06:23 No problem. Sorry about that. So where were you stationed at or where did you, where were you stationed at during this time?

06:46 So the first Gulf war, I was stationed at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana. And as we progressed into the second Gulf War, which extended into the war on terror, I was stationed in Florida at Tyndall Air Force Base. I was part of a contingency training detachment that was designed there with our parent unit being just a little further up the road on the peninsula at Eglin Air Force Base.

07:35 And in one of those air Force bases, how were you involved? Like, what did you contribute to the Gulf war in those? You can pick one of the bases that you're most significantly made involvement in, if that makes sense.

08:11 Well, that's kind of the thing is, I think there is a. And I mean, it is true that those who actually forward deploy in a hostile situation could see firefights, you know, as we progressed into the war on terror and the wrap up of the second Gulf War, you know, improvised explosive devices and border attacks and things like this. I mean, while there's definitely significant contributions in that regard there, the folks who do not forward deploy also make significant contributions, especially from an Air Force perspective, because as I was in my latter half of my career for Gulf War two, the global reach, global power concept within the United States Air Force was quite prevalent, that we didn't really have to pick up a whole flying squadron or two or three and tankers and everything that halfway around the world, we could launch from steep side bases, even, and with coordinated efforts, make, you know, make strikes, and then just the forward deployed locations would be for sortie recovery, rearmament, and everything else. We could literally launch our aircraft from stateside if we had to. I know that a lot of the b two or stealth bomber sort of actually flew directly from Missouri to their intended targets in Southwest Asia, specifically Iraq. My contributions Gulf War one, is that were, it was very, very chaotic time. I mean, I was standing in a readiness line almost a dozen different times. Palletizing, re palletizing based on different types of aircraft that I was going to be deploying out on. And subsequently, the speed and precision with which the first Gulf War was executed, I really didn't end up deploying until the sustained and secure operations were going on, instead of enforcing the fly zones and things like that. But in that regard, those contributions were making sure that within the air force, it's mostly most of the heavy lifting is done by officers, the pilots, fighter pilots, bomber pilots, things like this. So, you know, all our, all our s pilots that were launching and doing their denies, late or no fly zone sorties, were supported both directly, indirectly by my contributing to logistical support with their quarters, their base operations, facilities for their sortie briefings, ensuring power, water, you know, waste management, getting the sewage and everything out of the way, keeping all that up and running, because anything like that, especially in a forward deployed location, and you lost the power, you're in the desert. So climate control is very important for comfort, being able to get pre rest in their quarters. Everyone has a role to play in it. And sometimes on the support side, we get a little lost in contributions to a war effort. But the execution of a battle plan is only as good and as strong as those who are able to move forward and execute it. And pilot doesn't have sufficient rest, the power to power up the computers and big screens to get the briefings and things like this. It can really slow things down, can delay possibly very significant operations. Yeah, we definitely, everybody in the air force, from a civil engineer to a personnelist cutting, cutting travel orders, it has a role to play and tributes. But that was basically my role was ensuring that any quarters, any facilities needed to conduct operations to execute the battle plan were properly maintained and functioning and had the proper logistical support as well.

14:39 Okay, so, okay, so the Gulf war in general, as you mentioned about the military buildup by Saddam Hussein as one of the events that led up to the Gulf War, what other events do you also believe led to the United States being involved in the Middle east? And also, is there any justification for any of the involvements?

15:39 Again, my views through the timeline. I mean, the first Gulf War, definitely clear line of justification. Even as far back at the early nineties, you know, the gold standard for currency is kind of waning, and the emergence of what they call the petro dollar, oil reserves really being the new money market standard it was coming in to own. And of course, the United States energy consumption at that point, looking into renewable and green energy type programs, really weren't on them. Fourth, we were very dependent on oil, kind of at the mercy of OPEC. And so having this kind of instability in Southwest Asia, the Middle east, with Saddam Hussein's invasion and trying to take over oil fields and things like this and even just blowing up and destroying oil fields in Kuwait, but it's the definite act of aggression. So therefore, serving our own interests and trying to protect those of economic allies at worst or regular allies was purely justified where things start to get a little gray for me, especially after I retired and was able to be a little bit more outspoken, free with my thoughts. I don't really know about the second Gulf War and the war on terror having quite the same justification. And as we've even seen through investigative journalism and things like this, that the intelligence wasn't that, how should we say, the necessary quality to execute such a massive operation. There was definitely not an equal level of global support, even. And there was a lot of skepticism. And so, yeah, I would have to say, sitting here as a retired military member, I just say that, you know, I did my duty. I followed orders, I executed what I was tasked to do, but there was definitely a part inside of me that kind of questioned, like, is this really legit? But when you wear the uniform, you can't be outspoken like that. I mean, you can, but it doesn't bode well for your career.

19:31 Okay, my next question is actually similar to what you have just said. So it is. What was your point of view during the United States involvement? Like, what more can you add on to? Like, one more. Sorry, I was getting somewhere. So did you have any other point of views during this us involvement, and do you still believe in them during the Gulf war?

20:14 So after the first Gulf war, I was deployed to what was known as Dahdem Air Base in Saudi Arabia. And my point of view at that time was, okay, we're going, and we have this mission to keep Saddam Hussein from re invading any countries he needed to stay within his own borders, shoot off at the map all we wanted, but don't you dare cross these designated lines. Otherwise we're going to have to ramp up our enforcement. And so I definitely believed in that at that time. Of course, I was much younger, much more idealistic. But again, still, even now, over 20 years later, I am definitely still in the belief that what I went to do and everything was just. It was right. I know we as air force civil engineers, we're looking at all aspects of care and comfort from a facility. And like I said, utilities perspective for all people. And so the situation that we were in in Saudi Arabia, for our sustained operations, there was a. A lot of third country nationals or what we active duty folks refer to as tcns. And so these were individuals, mostly men that were brought in from other countries, India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, a lot of the southern Asia, even some Southeast Asia workers hired by Saudis to be, you know, base level workers for their businesses. And so air force is almost infamously known for contracting a lot of support operations and then just monitoring the contracts. So we had a lot of third country nationals taking care of basic level tasks, performing minor maintenance on appliances, washers and dryers for laundries. They basically handle a lot of our food services operations and things like this. And they had an area that was known as TCN or third country National Village. And I so, so proud of the commander that I served with Ezahan at that time. He got wind of this TCN village and just basically how deplorable the conditions were and how the Saudis really weren't taking care of this compound where some, oh my gosh, there's almost 30 to 40 Mendez. We're living in about a 3000, 3500 square foot home courtyard. There was failing electricity, barely potable water. The pipes were so corroded and everything, there was pestilence, you know, rats, bed bugs, lice, all sorts of things. It was just awful. And we, as deployed engineers went down, we took our electricians. I worked logistics to get fresh bedding and everything. And so we supported these folks that the saudi government and employers should have been taken care of. We, as the United States Air Force went in and took care of these folks because many of them worked contracts in support of our operations. So, yeah, so I'm really kind of proud of that. So my point of view is that deployment, of all my deployments that I had was probably one of my best and one of my brightest moments. I had another deployment that was a little closer to actually was just before the election of George W. Bush, President. George W. Bush, 43rd President, where I was in Alphalene, Kuwait. What we had to do, the effect when referred to as the rock. And that was just a mere try to remember what it was. I don't believe it was much more than maybe 40 km away from the kuwaiti iraqi border. And so that was, again, still kind of in the longer sustained no fly zone operations, just kind of keeping a present there. And I have to say that one was somewhat of a bed full. So it was just kind of going over, doing my rotation and coming back home. And of course, it wasn't but a year or so after that that the attacks on us soil, September 11 occurred and ushered in a whole new era and conflict. But again, all of that really, I have a much different viewpoint. Even when I was at Judy, you know, as an engineer and you're seeing these things go down, you're like, wow, who's doing this? And you want to go, you want to go get them. But as you take pause and you're watching and analyzing what's coming across the television, just certain things didn't start to no longer felt right and like something was different about all of it. And, yeah, I, I just remember there was a few of us in the unit that I was in at the time that kind of thought, wow, this is, this is completely different. What's, what's happening, what's going on? And subsequently after I retired, my viewpoint on the second Gulf war, the war on terror going into even Afghanistan and things like this, putting up puppet governments. And I think it was, gosh, I don't know that she's congresswoman, but also she needs guard. I think she's a lieutenant colonel in the army. Guard, Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard said, came up with the term regime change wars. And, yeah, that really kind of became my viewpoint that like, wow, the US military is just used as a house cleaning force to go in and take out leaders that we don't think are really somebody we can work with or want to work with anymore. And we try to put in who we want or believe can run things better. And I think history has kind of shown what that's gotten us. I maybe better stop there before I get my own satellite that tracks me.

30:28 No problem. Okay. So for someone who, for the first time or who have never heard of the Gulf War, how would you explain it to them? Like the first Gulf War and the second Gulf War.

30:53 So someone not knowing anything about them, I would probably explain it. Pretty much the way that I've answered thus far is that the first Gulf war was definitely a collaboration of nations to put in check a aggressive leader, dictator, I'll go as far to say dictator. And I know subsequently through research and other, you know, other people's work in digging into details and putting forth documentaries and things like this that, you know, there were members of the military, specifically high ranking leaders such as General Schwartze of late, General Fords gough, who felt that, you know, okay, look, we're in here. We pushed them back. Let's finish the job. And they wanted to remove Saddam Hussein from power at that point. I don't know. I haven't dug into it that far. But to say whether or not the United States was really ready for that at that particular time or not. Maybe history will reveal that at some point, if it hasn't already. But, yeah, that's how I would explain it, is that the first Gulf war was definitely, you know, multilateral, agreed, compromised effort among multinations to execute justified action. Where the second Gulf War was a little bit more the United States and some of its, dare I say it, not literally, but figuratively. So in quotes, our partners in crime, you know, our closest allies, are to execute something that was a little bit more self serving to our interests versus a true global strike at the aggression towards innocent nations. We just kind of ran things up, fabricated things, you know, weapons of mass destruction and so on and such and forth, and spun a rationale and a reasoning for a war that probably didn't have to happen.

34:23 Okay, thank you for that. Moving on. I mean, as humans, we all make mistakes, right? I'm sorry.

34:38 Could you repeat that?

34:39 Sorry. As humans, we all make mistakes, right? So as a soldier, what would you consider as the, quote, unquote, actually the biggest mistake you ever. I mean, let me rephrase this. So what mistake? During your service in the Gulf war, did you make any mistakes? And in those mistakes, what would you have wished you have changed if you were to relive those days again in. During the Gulf war? Should I rephrase that? Or.

35:26 As I think of a more appropriate answer, I will say somewhat in jest, that in my second deployment to Kuwait, we're normally briefed by, you know, medical personnel and security personnel and things on, you know, what to expect, what to do, what not to do in a particular country, to kind of review the. What's called the sofa, which means status of forces agreement sofa. And one of my regrets was that I really didn't live to the public health personnel. And I went down, and I am just, to a fault, enjoy fresh fruit and vegetable juices. And I found this little corner vendor, not the most sanitary conditions and everything, and I partook of a lot of fresh ground carrot juice and subsequently gave myself a pretty bad case of dysentery. That's kind of a mistake that I made during, during my service in the Gulf War eras. I see that somewhat in jest, but I would have to say again, most of my forward operating deployments coming on the heels of the actual combat operations of the first Gulf War, no real mistakes, no regrets. They were actually very high points of my career. I was very much into the performance of my duties, trying to do the best job that I could and support the United States Air Force to the best of my abilities. And I would say I was very fortunate just by the way my assignments came down during the second Gulf War. You know, the subsequent hunt for Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, war on terror, all this that I just managed to be in a series of special duty assignments that were tagged non deployable positions. And so I never had a direct involvement or direct support of anything that I've subsequently come to believe in my retirement years. Washington, unjust and unnecessary. Okay, that answered your question. I know you're asking, like, what mistakes, if any, but other than my little joke about the fruit juice, no problem. The short answer is no, I really don't. Didn't have any mistakes. And in Gulf War two or on terror, I was fortunate enough to be assigned to must fill positions and therefore was not deployable.

39:18 So that's amazing. Yep. Okay, on a final note, what would you like people in this nation and around the world to know about the events of the Gulf War through your veteran experience in the United States Air Force? What would you like the future generations of America to learn from these various events during the Gulf War?

39:56 That's a really good question, and I go really deep into that, but I'll try to be succinct in my answer. I think, especially from the first Gulf War perspective, is just, you know, today's generations, spanning the number of years that they do, from. From my generation to your generation to even younger generation. Coming up, kindness. That the first Gulf war is a lesson in what? Unity, honesty and integrity for the most part. I mean, there's always little hidden agendas in conflict. I mean, wars do have a political element to them, but the execution of the operation, it took naval, Marine, armed air force forces to execute this large scale operation on the other side of the world. And even from a political standpoint, no one was really grandstanding or anything. There was. Yes, there were speeches made about this rogue leader and he must be stopped and so on and such and forth, but there was no personal agenda that. There was no. Look at me like we might have. There was no divisiveness of it. Well, you're with us or you're against us. You know, there could be. There were people that didn't support it, and that was okay. They weren't the enemy. They weren't deplorable. They weren't. We were. We were okay to hold whatever belief we wanted. As we moved into the second Gulf war, the war on terror became scary in how things became a little bit more autocratic. And subsequently, even now, where we are with, you know, from 2016 to 2020 and now going into the 2024 elections cycle. I mean, look at the divisiveness in our nation. It's frightening how almost black and white any issue has become. I mean, I've almost abandoned my social media presence because some people that I hold near and dear as friends sometimes get into the craziest of arguments over very insignificant matters. When you consider things on a global scale of what is going on with our planet and, you know, just the sides that are taken, and it's become so black and white. We don't seem to know how to work together, collaborate together for a common goal and a common cause. It's become very, very agenda driven. And I would just say, looking back at those, just see the deterioration from the first Gulf war forward of how things just became the lines and the contrast became so much crisper. And you're either with us or you're against us. Mentality started to evolve from that point forward. The first Gulf war into Gulf, the second Gulf War.