First Gulf War 30 years ago.

[Flamingo]

I cannot believe it is 30 years since Ken, Chris, and I were all cleaning and packing our kit, having been tipped off by Ken's father (one of the officers) that there was a high chance the unit would be off to somewhere hot and sandy in the event of mass casualties. In the meantime, the ITU I was working in was close to Heathrow and again was receiving information on the treatment of NBC casualties and the two unused bedspaces/storerooms were getting emptied out and cleaned up. Meanwhile at night, we were sitting up looking at the bombing in Iraq in realtime, and I was wondering about friends and colleagues from Ireland who had been working for Parc Hospitals in Iraq.

[HavocIRL]

I found these online and they are really, really, really well done for anyone with interest

[na grohmiti]

Of course, we are still dealing with some of the political fallout from that action.
It was quite a show of force and a chance for NATO to test their Cold War tactics in a live fire ex. Many costly lessons were learnt, such as the usefulness of smart missiles, and at the same time the pointlessness of low level ground attack aircraft, and the unnecessary cost in men and materials, for limited results.

[HavocIRL]

In hindsight it also showed the benefits of having clear mission goals and an exit strategy.

[hptmurphy]

Of course, we are still dealing with some of the political fallout from that action.
It was quite a show of force and a chance for NATO to test their Cold War tactics in a live fire ex. Many costly lessons were learnt, such as the usefulness of smart missiles, and at the same time the pointlessness of low level ground attack aircraft, and the unnecessary cost in men and materials, for limited results.

I would hazard a guess that more Coalition troops were killed in friend fire incidents and accidents that were lost in actual combat.