Russell Pollack Personal History

Personal History by SSG Russell Pollack

Hi, I was in D/5/18/2nd plt BC of D-23. SFC January was the platoon sergeant and I'm still looking for him. We departed on 3 or 4 Jan 91.  We called it MGM Grand, across from Ryhad airbase.  We were the IRC company for MGM; we pulled base security for almost a month before deploying to the desert.  Sunthonlop was my gunner at the time and we were able to watch many Patriot launches to intercept Scud attacks.  We pulled out to the desert to our TAA
with 25 Hummvees and linked up with our Bradley gunners and drivers at the TAA.   My vehicle was still at the port with Montes, Seehaver and Fatula. On 15 Feb we pulled out to the FAA;  it took a little over 2 days to get there. At this point there were many air refuelings going on overhead. You could see the flashes of the bombs of the air war. On 23 Feb we departed the FAA for our 2nd FAA and crossed the line of departure on 24 Feb, my son's birthday.  On 25 Feb our third platoon engaged a BMP or MTLB On 26 Feb we arrived in Kuwait – tanks and PC's were empty. We stopped taking POW's since they were slowing us down.  28 Feb we started to blow up BMP's, tanks and bunkers.  I'm not sure how long this lasted, but did try to make first phone call to home or about 7 Mar.  I did not keep journal entries after this.  I would like to contact SFC January or SSG Orr from this time period about some things we saw which may help me with the VA and gulf link. Good luck and be safe.


Staff Sergeant USA (retired) Russell Pollack