WIN THE WAR
In the early morning darkness of January 18, 1991, an Iraqi Scud Missile streaked high over the desert of Saudi Arabia, bound for the heart of the coalition forces allied against Saddam Hussein. “Condition Red! Condition Red! Gas Masks!” the voice boomed through the camouflaged encampment of 2nd Battalion (Patriot) 7th Regiment Air Defense Artillery in Saudi Arabia. In a small control van, two lieutenants and a sergeant monitoring the radar screens saw the fast-moving blip. Their system was up and running. With a great concussion and a roar, a Patriot missile fired from its canister. An ABC television crew on the roof of a nearby building caught what happened next. The Patriot fireball streaked into the sky, breaking the sound barrier with a boom and blew away the incoming Scud. it was history’s first wartime intercept of a ballistic missile. Hussein thought that the Soviet-made Scud missile would be his trump card just as it had been in the…
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