Home > War in the Persian Gulf > Samuel G. Putnam III

Excerpt from a letter to his wife describing his participation in the ground war with the U.S. Army

Letter dated February 28, 1991; reprinted in War Letters: Extraordinary Correspondence from American Wars, 2001

After bombing targets in Iraq and Kuwait for nearly six weeks, the U.S.-led coalition launched a major ground assault on February 24, 1991. The goal of the ground war was to force Iraqi troops to withdraw from Kuwait. Rather than simply attacking the Iraqi defensive positions from the front, however, coalition leaders came up with a daring plan to surround the Iraqi forces and attack them from the rear.

Coalition forces made it appear as if the ground attack would come from Saudi Arabia (south of Kuwait) and the Persian Gulf (east of Kuwait). In the meantime, a large coalition attack force called the VII Corps secretly moved west along the Saudi...