This Memorial Day has a special significance for veterans of Operation Desert Storm.
This year marks the 25th anniversary of the operation that began in August 1990 when Saddam Hussein launched an invasion into Kuwait that prompted a response from the U.S. known as Desert Shield. The purpose was to deter aggression and defend U.S. allies.
When attempts at peaceful negotiations failed, the U.S. and its allies launched Operation Desert Storm, utilizing more than 600,000 service members in an air bombardment.
The attack isolated Iraqi troops and succeeded in stopping the invasion after a month of bombing and a 100-hour ground campaign.
A quarter of a century later, Army veteran John G. Lorusso has vivid memories of the war in which he flew UH-1H helicopters with the First Battalion, 159th Aviation Regiment.
Having grown up in a military family and being surrounded by Hueys flying to and from Valley Forge General Hospital near his childhood home in Phoenixville, Lorusso said joining the military after high school seemed like the obvious choice.
“After I graduated high school, I said, ‘You know what, that’s it. I’m going in the Army.’ It wasn’t a bad life for my dad. So I went in the Army, spent a couple of years as a junior enlisted and then applied for flight school and became a helicopter pilot,” he said.
Going into war
By the time Lorusso was 29, Operation Desert Storm was beginning.
“My brigade was the first bodies into the country. Before the 82nd got on the ground Fort 17th Cad was already there, and we had already sent a push package from my unit of five Hueys over there. I closed out our battalion heading over. I ran in the S-3 operation shop, and I was one of the last ones from our battalion to deploy over. We deployed the entire battalion, 33 aircraft and all the support personnel,” he explained.
Lorusso was stationed at Fort Bragg and belonged to an aviation company whose job was to support the 18th Airborne Corps headquarters.
He remembered the stifling 125 degree heat of August and September in the Mideast just as well as he remembered the events leading up to the ground war that ultimately isolated Iraqi troops.
“We operated our entire brigade out of an old building in the Dhahran airport. We built what was called West Helipad. There was nothing there but sand and we turned it into a helipad in a couple of days and that’s what we operated out of until the air war started,” he said. “Once the air war started we moved out to our tactical assembly area out in the desert which was all the way out Tapline Road toward the town of Rafha. We were stationed on the south side of Tapline Road in tactical assembly area Palm … From there is where we did the left hook into Iraq for the ground war.”
Lorusso lost one dear friend during his time in the operation. Warrant Officer 1 Kerry Hine, with whom he went to flight school, was killed when he was shot down over Iraq.
Building a memorial
Lorusso, now 54, and living in Gilbertsville with his fiance and her three children, is among 500 Gulf War veterans who will be marching on Memorial Day in the American Veterans Center’s National Memorial Day Parade in Washington, D.C. Lorusso happily stepped forward when the National Desert Storm Memorial Association reached out for veterans to march.
The veterans are participating to honor the legacy of the Gulf War through building a monument to the 383 service members who lost their lives. The parade is particularly important to him, he explained, not only because of impact of the operation but also because he wasn’t able to participate in the national parade that greeted returning soldiers after Desert Storm.
“When my unit got back to Fort Bragg, we knew there was going to be a national parade. And we knew that as a smaller unit underneath the 8th Airborne Corps, we didn’t belong to a division. We belonged directly to the Corps headquarters so we didn’t have a two-star division commander in charge of us. So we knew we were not going to be able to march in that parade. We were not going to be invited. So we didn’t get to do that and a lot of soldiers didn’t get to do that … So for me, this is my time to be in a parade …,” he said.
Lorusso said the monument planned to honor veterans of Desert Storm would also serve an effective tribute to veterans of other wars, noting the resurgence of patriotism that occurred upon the return of Desert Storm soldiers.
“America needs to realize the popularity and the resurgence of patriotism that Desert Storm invoked. It was not because of the Desert Storm families. It was because of the Vietnam veterans. Because they swore that not another generation would be treated the way they were when they came back from Vietnam. It’s the Vietnam veterans over a long period of time that were the welcoming committee for the Desert Storm soldiers,” said Lorusso.
“They’re the ones that are leading our organizations today: the VFW, the American Legion, AMVETS. It’s Vietnam vets but now we’re getting Desert Storm vets in there. We’re getting Iraq and Afghanistan vets in, but it’s the Vietnam vets that welcomed us all home and brought our nation back to being a proud tradition for Memorial Day.”
Legislation passed on December 19 approving the construction of a Desert Storm Memorial in Washington D.C. near other memorials such as World War II, Korea and Vietnam. Funds are being raised in order to construct the memorial.
“Brotherhood and sisterhood of service members is most important. No matter how many years have separated you, when we all get in DC it’ll be like one big happy family that we see each other again,” said Lorusso.
For more information on Desert Storm, the memorial or to donate, visit www.ndswm.org.
