Classified information
For authorised personnel only
Executive Order 12958
April 17, 1991
File DW-1991-02
01 // Night raids · Kuwait · 1991
It's the dead of night. Lt. Commander Eddie S. Ray and his platoon move like shadows. Not seen. Not heard. They have been on night raids for weeks, tearing through the enemy like a predator. Then a vehicle breaks formation, setting off a chain reaction down the column. A driver loses his depth perception in the darkness and slams into the smaller vehicle ahead. Three Marines die in a horrible crash.
02 // Reassigned · The Burgan oil field
Ray has hard words with his Lieutenant Colonel over the tragedy, and they don't land well. Over the next few weeks Ray's troops are "reassigned" until his unit shrinks and shrinks. Then Ray himself is sent to the foot of the burning Burgan oil fields. Saddam Hussein lit the wells to spite America and her allies, and to raise a wall of hellfire and smoke. The place is hell on earth. Ray is left with nine LAVs, three men on .50 cals and two helicopters: one of the last lines protecting 1st Marine Division Headquarters.
03 // The playbook
Ray was a Division I All-American football player who once dreamed of the NFL. His father fought in World War II, so he followed him into service. He never left the game behind. He draws up football plays in the sand for the LAVs to run, and drills his Marines like a training camp until every call is muscle memory. No one knows what LAVs can do in combat. Ray's Wolfpack is about to find out.
04 // "In coming"
At basecamp, one of his men is scavenging for trinkets in the sand when he hears a rumble. Four Iraqi tanks storm out of the black smoke, a hundred yards past the perimeter. From a ridge, Ray sees the rest: 70 tanks against 9 LAVs and two helicopters. The LAVs are faster, but they cannot survive a single direct hit. Ray calls "Power Dive" and heads straight for the lead tank. He snaps the ball before the Iraqis can call their audible. When they scramble into attack formation, he calls another play: "Spread!"
05 // David and Goliath
LAVs and tanks slip in and out of the pitch-black smoke while fire tornados dance in the distance. Ray's troops follow his play calls to a tee, and his Cobra team, led by Michael Kruth, dismantles the Iraqis from the sky. Two hours go by, then six. When the smoke clears and reinforcements finally arrive, they can't believe what they see: more than 200 Iraqi soldiers on their knees and 55 destroyed tanks on fire. They didn't just survive. They won. After the war, Ray and Kruth both receive the Navy Cross for valor.
This is the story of how one man's love of football helped change the course of a war, and American history.
