Our operational area was a town that had once housed 60,000 Kuwaitis before being blasted and ransacked by the Iraqis. The houses and other buildings were made from cheap concrete blocks and plastered on the outside. Most had four rooms inside; the front of each house had its own little walled courtyard with entry through a tin door hastily fixed into the plaster.
We conducted a lot of urban combat training there and helped train the Amiri Guard who were responsible for the safety of the Amir. These guys saw action against the Iraqis but were swiftly overwhelmed by huge enemy numbers. The massive aircraft carrier USS Nimitz was in dock and some of their boys joined us as we took the Kuwaiti soldiers into the field. The Americans had fitted them out in brand-new uniforms and camouflage gear complete with M16 carbines. But what we didn’t realise was that there were a couple of boxes of live ammunition in this kit that they had started to load into their magazines. We were using blanks while conducting this training as a few civilians still lived in the area.
