Oral History Interview
DSIT AE 099

Interview Conducted 3 June 1991 at Building AT-3058, Fort Bragg, North Carolina

Interviewer: MAJ Robert B. Honec, III (116th Military History Detachment)

MAJ HONEC: By the way, how many enlisted men and officers do you have in your team--in your detachment?

CPT MARTINEZ: It's a small, small detachment. We're authorized five enlisted and one officer. That would be me.

MAJ HONEC: Okay. Go ahead. Go ahead.

CPT MARTINEZ: That was over strength.

MAJ HONEC: That's over strength.

CPT MARTINEZ: At the time of deployment there were nine enlisted and myself, which equal ten.

MAJ HONEC: Okay, great. Break down in MOSs¹ for your enlisted.

CPT MARTINEZ: Okay. The majority of MOSs--MOS--was 91R, which are the food inspectors. They comprised six of the nine enlisted. The other two were 91Ts which were categorized family care specialists, okay, so they were two. Myself, I'm a 64A.

MAJ HONEC: Okay. Hang on for a second. Okay, we're going to stop real quick and identify where this is. This is Building AT-3058, on Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and today is the 3d of June, 1991. Okay, getting back to your structure, was this the structure you had in Saudi?

CPT MARTINEZ: More or less, yes. In August we had one ... one non-deployable pregnant female, and due to problems I think we'll address later on in my interview we were deployed in a piecemeal fashion.

MAJ HONEC: I see.

CPT MARTINEZ: So it took ... it took maybe two, two-and-a-half months before my entire small unit was over in the field of operation.

MAJ HONEC: When were you actually deployed? What date?

CPT MARTINEZ: Myself personally, or ... ?

MAJ HONEC: Yes.

CPT MARTINEZ: Myself personally, we deployed on 19th August.

MAJ HONEC: What did you take, a commercial airliner?

CPT MARTINEZ: Yes, sir. We took a Pan Am[erican Airlines] 747 out of Pope Air Force Base.

MAJ HONEC: What was the route?

CPT MARTINEZ: Pope Air Force Base, [North Carolina], to Bangor, Maine; Shannon--no ... yes. Bangor, Maine; Shannon, Ireland; Cairo, Egypt; and then to, eventually, Dhahran. Ourselves and two duffle bags and all our individual equipment.

MAJ HONEC: Okay. When you arrived in Dhahran did you have someone to meet you to take you to the 44th Med[ical] Brigade?

CPT MARTINEZ: No, because at that time everybody ... it seemed like everybody that was arriving there was being ... was being taken to DRAGON Base.² That seemed to be the major, you know, PHA,³ you know, at that time ...

MAJ HONEC: At that time?

CPT MARTINEZ: Early on, so we were all bussed over to DRAGON Base.

MAJ HONEC: Okay, good. Also, your specialty, in veterinary ...

CPT MARTINEZ: Veterinary ...

MAJ HONEC: Services, yeah--in the veterinary, what is your specialty?

CPT MARTINEZ: I don't really ... that's a good question. I'm a vet.

MAJ HONEC: Yeah, but is it large animal care, small animal care?

CPT MARTINEZ: No, I don't--no, there isn't any.

MAJ HONEC: It's just general, you know, veterinarian?

CPT MARTINEZ: Right. Right. That's my MOS. 64A is sort of a--sort of a general veterinary officer.

MAJ HONEC: Okay.

CPT MARTINEZ: I don't have one yet. I don't have a specialty yet.

MAJ HONEC: Okay. Okay, when you got to DRAGON Base, what was your mission ... and talk about the issues that you faced as in-country. What did you have to work on?

CPT MARTINEZ: At that time?

MAJ HONEC: Um-hum.

CPT MARTINEZ: Okay. At that time, we were faced with an ... with two immediate missions. One was the military working dog mission. There were no Army military working dogs in theater as of that time, but there were a lot of Air Force ... Air Force security police dogs, like over on the air base, over at Dhahran Air Base--you know, King Abdul Aziz Air Base. They deployed a canine platoon like on C+3, or something of that sort.

MAJ HONEC: How many dogs?

CPT MARTINEZ: Six.

MAJ HONEC: Six dogs?

CPT MARTINEZ: At that time.

MAJ HONEC: This was ... what air base was it?

CPT MARTINEZ: That was the ... officially, it's called the King Abdul Aziz Air Base.

MAJ HONEC: I see.

CPT MARTINEZ: That's where we all flew in and we know affectionately as Dhahran Air Base.

MAJ HONEC: Okay. Okay, and how old were these dogs?

CPT MARTINEZ: They varied. Probably the youngest was approximately four and the oldest was probably about up towards nine years of age.

MAJ HONEC: What sort of state of health were they in?

CPT MARTINEZ: Oh, fair. You know, fair to ... fair to good. Of course, you know the older animals were just old. I think they go from about five ... five years of age and you will probably see those geriatric animals have problems.

MAJ HONEC: Did they adjust ... did the older dogs adjust well to the desert environment, to the humid, hot conditions?

CPT MARTINEZ: When they arrived ...

MAJ HONEC: The older ones.

CPT MARTINEZ: No, none of them did initially, because when they arrived early in August they did not have any consultation available. We did not have any predetermined plan for acclimatizing their dogs. Consequently, due to the extreme heat and humidity two of the dogs just became totally nonresponsive. You know, heat trance. I don't think it was anything more serious. I wasn't there, but from what the ... from what the kennel master, whose name was Sergeant Galloway, described to me they were probably just being wiped out by the heat and the humidity. They weren't told, you know, not to work them hard at first, and they were having to pull 12-hour shifts, period; 12-hour shifts, both the dog and the human, and that went on for a month.

MAJ HONEC: How did they fare after they did get acclimated and started to work and get used to these 12-hour shifts? Did it improve any?

CPT MARTINEZ: No--yes and no. It improved somewhat because these guys were pretty ... these Air Force cops were pretty ingenious. They found themselves some air conditioners for their tents and they made themselves an air conditioned, you know, kennel; tent kennel.

MAJ HONEC: Interesting. Okay.

CPT MARTINEZ: At the same time, though these 12-hour shifts were fairly stressful on these dogs since they were not used to being out for 12 hours on their feet, actually working a lot of those 12 hours. So older dogs, you know, had arthritic problems in their hips anyway and that kind of work, or that kind of duty, would, you know, create more of the same ... flare-ups of arthritis.

MAJ HONEC: Okay. Okay, what else did you do besides ... is there anything else about the Air Force working dogs that are issues that ... or things that we can do better, or they can do better as a suggestion from your professional viewpoint?

CPT MARTINEZ: They need to think about ... think more about improvising kennel facilities. There were ... there was no standard plan for constructing field kennel facilities in this environment. I don't think they even had any plans, period. So we saw a lot of improvisation like with the air conditioners, and then we brought in gravel so they wouldn't be on the sand, and then they brought in, you know, four 60-30 Air Force pallets and they lined the tent with those, and just improvising all along, trying to improve. There wasn't any plan.

MAJ HONEC: Is this because they're more oriented toward duty in Europe, where air bases are ...

CPT MARTINEZ: These guys ...

MAJ HONEC: And environments are better?

CPT MARTINEZ: These guys ... yes, sir. These guys were from Langley Air Force Base, [Virginia].

MAJ HONEC: Yes, okay.

CPT MARTINEZ: And so they had ... they all have, you know, fixed ... even in Europe and other fixed installations they have fixed facilities and kennels and they would ride around a lot. So things are a lot ... a lot ... a lot different than what they had at that time. The other thing is that they brought, as I said, dogs upwards of 8-1/2, 9 ...

MAJ HONEC: Yes, why?

CPT MARTINEZ: ... 10, 11 years old. Because that's all they had.

MAJ HONEC: A low availability of animals?

CPT MARTINEZ: That's it.

MAJ HONEC: That's it.

CPT MARTINEZ: They were more interested in bringing their explosive detecting dogs, and they ended up over the months, you know, scrounging around CONUS⁴ Air Force bases for explosive dogs, and regardless of what their ages were they got snatched up and sent off, and so we ended up with old dogs and young dogs.

MAJ HONEC: So their performance at detecting explosives, being an advanced age, is less than newer dogs, you'd say ... than younger dogs, should I say? Or does experience take over for it?

CPT MARTINEZ: It depends. That's not what I'm trying ...

MAJ HONEC: It's the amount of work that you do?

CPT MARTINEZ: That's not my point.

MAJ HONEC: Okay.

CPT MARTINEZ: It's the environment, and the heat, and humidity, the amount of work, the amount of time on their feet, and the older animals, almost all of them have ... almost all of them have some degree of hip arthritic problems, hip dysplasia, and that, you know, predisposes them to more down time in order to, you know, rest. They won't work as much as the cops want them to.

MAJ HONEC: Okay. Rations. What were the dogs eating?

CPT MARTINEZ: The dogs were eating anything from ... from the commercially provided food called MSD, which is maximum stress diet, which is made explicitly--expressly--for military working dogs. Some dogs prefer other brands, and the cops would bring, you know, whatever's supplied, these other commercial brands that they could. It varied.

MAJ HONEC: Okay. Did you spend the entire time in the defensive phase doing that sort of thing, or did you have other missions that came up?

CPT MARTINEZ: Okay. Of the types ...

MAJ HONEC: Oh, any other ... you know, any other things that we haven't touched upon in this preliminary phase.

CPT MARTINEZ: On military working dogs?

MAJ HONEC: Yes.

CPT MARTINEZ: No, sir. I think that pretty much ... pretty much covers it. Other than there were Air Force ... Air Force security police dogs at other Air Force installations in Saudi, and in other Middle East countries, and I ... these animals weren't being, obviously, provided as close and immediate consultation as I was able, you know, to provide ...

MAJ HONEC: Oh, good point.

CPT MARTINEZ: The animals at the Dhahran site. One time, for example, in mid-September I got a call from LTC Lively.

MAJ HONEC: Yes, he was ...

CPT MARTINEZ: That's the staff officer of ARCENT,⁵ or one of the vet staff officer, you know, for ARCENT. He was all excited because he just received a phone call, some information that a dog at Umm As Shaheik had been cut. He got caught up in a lot of concertina [wire] and had some pretty bad cuts and everything. And I had to act on that right then. So I called the SPOIC⁶ at Shaheik and the story actually was, was that the dog got cut about two weeks ago, and the medics at the ATH tranquilized him, you know, sewed him up. Everything is hunky-dory. He's almost 100 percent recovered. So a lot of weird ... a lot of ...

MAJ HONEC: That brings up communication.

CPT MARTINEZ: That's the big issue with me--Intel[ligence]. No communication, not really able to get, you know, good, accurate, reliable information on what I feel are relatively, you know, simple, straightforward issues.

MAJ HONEC: Very good point, and one you should discuss. Are ... was it because of the ... the operation was evolving so quickly that communications--gaps in communications--were being caused? From your standpoint, what do you think the ... what are your problems in getting that sorts of information? What's the cause of that?

CPT MARTINEZ: At that point there was a physical, a hardware problem, obviously, you know. There weren't many, you know, tactical phones up ...

MAJ HONEC: Okay.

CPT MARTINEZ: And the commercial lines were immediately overwhelmed when we came into town. It was very hard to make immediate contact with whomever you wanted to. Spending hours and hours and hours a day trying to break through on a line, and then ... so that one was a problem. I'm sure other problems ... communication-wise was that some people would overreact to things, exaggerate things in order to gain priority on other people's lines ... obviously wrong. Sometimes we heard about military working dog problems from Health Services ... Health Services Command at Fort Sam Houston, Texas, when by some word of mouth from an air force base it got back to CONUS, you know, through the air installation over there, Air Force installation, and then back to San Antonio, Texas ...

MAJ HONEC: That's important for me to know.

CPT MARTINEZ: And then somebody goes, holy moly, the world is falling apart over there, and they'd call up all hot and furious and say, what is happening over there? Why aren't you doing your job, or you know, whatever, and then it falls ... you know, it filters, you know, to the team.

MAJ HONEC: At what rate were these priors happening, and did they get better? Just, I guess, to expand that, between the defensive phase and the offensive phase and then the retrograde phase, which is roughly the framework we're talking about, did it get better, and when did it get better?

CPT MARTINEZ: Did the communications?

MAJ HONEC: Yes.

CPT MARTINEZ: Get better? I don't think really ... I don't think that any communications improved much.

MAJ HONEC: Okay.

CPT MARTINEZ: Different issues arose. There were still instances of unreliable intel, inability to obtain intelligence, correct information. Actually, this mainly pertains to the food inspection mission.

MAJ HONEC: Inability to obtain information from people like the Corps--Corps food advisor, XVIII Airborne Corps food advisor. You've got 24th ID⁷ food advisor. Lack of cooperation, ARCENT food advisors ... things ... things ... things just weren't happening. ARCENT contracting ... it was a goat-rope, and you spent much of your time trying to ferret out information and acting on what you were told you were to act on, which many times was inaccurate information, or too late. It was a dead-end. I don't have ... I don't have specific examples of that, but that's just something that stuck in my mind.

MAJ HONEC: But from your viewpoint these were detractors from your regular job, doing this ... fighting fires, though, were they not?

CPT MARTINEZ: Fighting fires, yes, sir.

MAJ HONEC: Food inspection. Okay, issues, from the very beginning.

CPT MARTINEZ: Okay. So this would be like, you know, C+4 when we were still here.

MAJ HONEC: Good.

CPT MARTINEZ: When we were still here, and COSCOM ... you know, 1st COSCOM⁸ food advisor, I ... the staff sergeant and I made a call on MAJ Grice over there and he said that what was happening down range, in theater, was that MREs would be consumed exclusively for at least the next, you know, thirty days. She had no idea of the host nation PD programs, or at least she didn't, you know, tell me. A couple or a few days after that we get a message, you know, through brigade from Saudi, from the Corps service unit in Saudi saying that, you know, he needs a veterinary officer to go over there right now. So I prepared. Next day, the message was changed from a vet med officer to a food inspector, you know, to a 91R, to start inspecting operational rations, you know, which all makes sense with what MAJ Grice had told us.

So we started to prepare an E-5, food inspection NCO, for deployment, which is an issue in itself. It took us four days--four days to deploy SGT Mitchell, and it was a fiasco. He arrives in Saudi. A few days after that, I get a phone call from one of the other commanders in battalion to call back to preventive medicine. And one of the questions he had for me was if I could authorize my E-5 over there ... over there to conduct a commercial sanitary inspection on the commercial food establishment and ...

MAJ HONEC: Which is normally--to interrupt--but that's normally done by a veterinary officer, is not? But a food inspector ...

CPT MARTINEZ: Yes, it is.

MAJ HONEC: But accompanied by a food inspector ... okay.

CPT MARTINEZ: Yes, it is, and in other areas it can be done by a warrant officer in other commands, it could be done by an E-6 and above, you know. It might be ... you know, if he was qualified ...

MAJ HONEC: But what you had in country was an E-5, period. A Romeo, 91R.

CPT MARTINEZ: Right, yes, and I said ...

MAJ HONEC: Based on the information you were given.

CPT MARTINEZ: I said yes, you know, because obviously I got an inkling then that, you know, people were not eating ... eating MREs at DRAGON Base. In fact, that, you know, they had the kitchen and everything. That's what I found out, and I thought, you know, holy shit, you know, this is not what I've been told and things are out of hand. We need to try and do something. So I said, okay ... okay, you know, he can, you know, conduct this sanitary inspection. Obviously, you know, he's got common sense, if he sees stuff that is wrong, he can say that. So that was the first ... the first indication of what ... what turned out to be this host nation feeding program. And obviously when I arrived on the 20th or so ...

MAJ HONEC: Of August?

CPT MARTINEZ: Yes, sir, 20th August. The host nation feeding program had been in existence since the get-go. That there were ... there were hardly any MREs in theater, you know. Contracting had obviously, you know, been involved in this, even though ...

MAJ HONEC: How so, because host nation ...

CPT MARTINEZ: I know.

MAJ HONEC: As I understand it, it circumvented the normal contracting channels.

CPT MARTINEZ: Yeah. I'm sort of--I'm sort of jumping ahead of myself here.

MAJ HONEC: Okay.

CPT MARTINEZ: I'm sorry.

MAJ HONEC: Okay. That's quite all right.

CPT MARTINEZ: That was my fault, you know. Contracting and the food advisors, they always worked pretty well close together, in fact. So mainly it was the food advisors who were ... who were dealing with the ... with the point of contract for the ... for the host nation, you know, feeding program, whose name was Mr. Masri ... Masri.

There obviously had been no consultation with any level of direct PM⁹ personnel on this issue before they okayed it. My guess would be that the intel provided from the people--Americans, westerners--that were already over there that would like at ... like at USAMTM, [US Army Military] Training Mission over there, they obviously had been in country for years and they had no fear with eating out on the economy. So I'm sure that they said ... my guess is that they said, it's safe to eat here in general. And when, you know, King Fahd offered the feeding program, I'm sure we accepted it. And, you know, practically it was probably the wise thing to do, but we should have been involved in that from the get-go as well.

I mentioned ... I mentioned contracting, because I bring back what has happened in the past as far as veterinary food inspection on other operations like in [19]89, you know. In Jordan, when we were over in Jordan in '89, we got called over early because in ... contracting had gotten themselves back into the corner. They were starting ... they were wanting to, and had started to let contracts for food, and then, oh my God, we need to have this shit inspected and blessed. And so they were ... they early deployed us over. It ... we're always left out of the picture, or we're left out until ... until it's caught, or somebody says, oh, we better CYA¹⁰ and have the stuff on the approved list. That's why I mentioned in contracting. Contracting also later on in the SHIELD operation, they would still let contracts--contracts which would eventually be paid by the host nation, but I think at that point they were ... they were letting contracts for other kitchens without proper food inspection. Either vet inspection, or PM inspection of the kitchen facilities.

MAJ HONEC: Yeah.

CPT MARTINEZ: They would have the guy sign on the line and then they would say, you know, here's the contract with this kitchen. Check it out. And you know, it was always working ass-backwards.

MAJ HONEC: Yes. Yes.

CPT MARTINEZ: But the need, the immediate need was there, you know. Feed the people, and that was the short ... short-sighted need, and at that time, based on Mr. Masri's track record, I mean, it's a fairly good track record. I mean, it was ... it's a fairly good track record. The sanitary ... sanitary standards over there were, you know, higher than I had expected to see, you know, compared to other countries in the area I had seen like Jordan or Egypt, okay. So--and other Central and South American countries that I've also seen. They are a lot higher ... there's a lot more money over there so they an afford to bring people in.

MAJ HONEC: So was there a sort of informal approved list, then, of sources?

CPT MARTINEZ: There was not any informal ...

MAJ HONEC: ... or formal, either one.

CPT MARTINEZ: There was just ... the only thing existing over there was over at the military training mission--

USMTM--and they had a locally command-approved, approved food source list ...

MAJ HONEC: I see.

CPT MARTINEZ: That was compiled by the USMTM vet who had since PCSd.¹¹ In fact ...

MAJ HONEC: Oh, had seen at this time, in August had PCSd?

CPT MARTINEZ: Yes, sir, that's correct. CPT Singleterry was the veterinarian that was responsible at that time for that list.

MAJ HONEC: And Singleterry had PCSd where?

CPT MARTINEZ: I don't know.

MAJ HONEC: Okay, but was out of the theater.

CPT MARTINEZ: And his replacement, CPT Michael Larson, arrived in theater practically on the same day I did. The approved list out of USMTM was, in my opinion, a weak ... a weak document based on vague concepts of inspection for sanitary purposes. Some concepts, in my opinion, would become the foundation of the overall in-theater source list in many instances. That's my opinion.

MAJ HONEC: Sure. That's fine.

CPT MARTINEZ: For example, a grocery store is approved ... approved ... approved for what, you know? A vegetable market is approved. Approved for what, you know? There ... it wasn't ... it wasn't specific enough in many instances.

MAJ HONEC: Okay. Mr. Masri, did he work for ... what company did he ... what was his position in the Saudi ... over in Saudi Arabia identified as?

CPT MARTINEZ: Mr. Masri was ... I'm trying to think of who was ... Astra. Astra was his ... was his company. Astra Foods, or Astra Farms ... I think it's Astra Farms.

MAJ HONEC: Farms. Astra Farms, yes.

CPT MARTINEZ: Mr. Masri was ... was ... was a Palestinian in that he was from the west coast over in--over in Tabuk. Apparently his uncle had owned Astra and he got into the company. Apparently his uncle and he had been feeding the Saudi Arabian National Guard [SANG] already. At least, that's what he told me, and King Fahd gave the baton to him to feed SANG and all the other troops, okay, which ...

MAJ HONEC: The population by now was how many thousands of troops, U.S.?

CPT MARTINEZ: In August it was probably only about ... about 25-35,000, I believe, at the end of August. I forget, but it wasn't much.

MAJ HONEC: Okay. So now August, and this list that was evolving at the time ...

CPT MARTINEZ: It was not evolving. Okay, I'm sorry.

MAJ HONEC: It wasn't ... well, the list ... the basic list came from the ... of approved sources were originally for the training folks.

CPT MARTINEZ: It was only for--only for MTM.

MAJ HONEC: Yes.

CPT MARTINEZ: So it was small.

MAJ HONEC: Yes.

CPT MARTINEZ: There were probably, you know, thirteen places in the Dhahran area, five places in Riyadh and I don't know where their other branch was, but it was small and vague. So I met with Mr. [Wesley] Wolf, you know, chief ... CW4, I believe. He was the ARCENT, you know, top food advisor.

MAJ HONEC: Yeah ... and what's ... top food advisor. So why is it ... why is it critical in the report that ... I'm quoting a report over here ... as to their attention to detail ... well, Masri I can see. He's a Palestinian. He's a ... you know, he's a trusted individual. He wouldn't think of having us inspect the food and make an approved source from each of the sources. But the CW4 on the other hand should be well aware of the way the Army does things. Why did he not have ... or start on this list immediately, start getting this list based on ... what we knew back then was that we're going to have many ... we're going to build up ...

CPT MARTINEZ: I can only ...

MAJ HONEC: Troops. You know, from your viewpoint, why didn't this happen? I don't understand. I really don't.

CPT MARTINEZ: Well, you know, first of all I can only speak in general terms as far as food advisors are concerned. Most of the warrant food advisors that I have seen and that I have had to work with do not readily ... they might say they want to work with the vets and the food inspectors, and of course that's the expected answer. Many of them do not want to because it impedes--it impedes their progress, can put a halt to what ... to their ideas. We get in the way, period.

MAJ HONEC: Interesting. Okay.

CPT MARTINEZ: And you know, he was ... Wolf was in ... you know, in LTG [William G.] Pagonis's¹² back pocket, and he did what he wanted to, when he could. And he could blow us off if not all the time, most of the time. That's my opinion.

MAJ HONEC: Go ahead. That's fine. I appreciate that.

CPT MARTINEZ: Mr. Wolf, Mr. Masri and I had a meeting, like within about two or three days after I arrived, where I learned the big picture of the host nation feeding program, where all of the locations were, where he was, you know, catering food out to units, out to our soldiers, how many locations. And it was growing. Mr. Wolf said that there will probably not be a TISA--a troop issue, you know, subsisting--troop issue subsistence activity--for several months. At which point things would probably transition ... you know, transition from the host nation program to a TISA operation, which never did.

MAJ HONEC: Can you figure out ... can you project why we got the idea that we're going to be eating MREs for at least thirty days and yet when you get over there, boom, you find this host nation support? Again, it goes all back to communication, the proper ... are people in the know getting the information back here? Now, how can we correct this in the future, for future operations of this type?

CPT MARTINEZ: I'm sure this is a problem with every exercise. [LAUGHTER] I mean, how can we fix it? We just have to educate people to it, you know, to convey accurate, reliable, precise information, and we just ... I mean, that sounds just simple, but that's a simple answer. Why make it a complex, you know, solution? And we need people who have initiative and to ask these questions, because not everybody wants to divulge this information. And maybe, you know with these food advisors ... they always seem ... Wolf and these guys, they always like to, you know, keep secrets. They never really, you know tell us anything. Never would tell us anything. So maybe that's another part of it.

MAJ HONEC: Okay, great. Please continue. We're in August, into September. You met with the ... you mentioned a meeting. You came away ... what was the results of the meeting you had?

CPT MARTINEZ: At that point, Mr. Masri ... from my understanding out of the meeting, the foods being used for the DRAGON Base kitchen and these other locations were all being procured from one food source distribution. Since, you know, Saudi has none of its ... no ... hardly any internal food resources. So he says that everything's being bought from this one place, you know.

MAJ HONEC: What was it?

CPT MARTINEZ: Called Abbar Zainey Food Distribution, and it turns out that they had, you know, branches everywhere: Riyadh, Jiddha. Anyway, ...

MAJ HONEC: Abbar Zainey, how do you spell that?

CPT MARTINEZ: It's A-b-b-a-r, I believe. Zainey is spelled Z-a-i-n-e-y.

MAJ HONEC: Thank you. And this was an import--basically an import operation?

CPT MARTINEZ: Food source import operation, yes, sir.

MAJ HONEC: Okay.

CPT MARTINEZ: So anyway ... so I said, okay, well, great, you know, I need to .... I need to inspect this, okay. Because this was the place that my NCO ... I had authorized him to inspect previously, and I wanted ... I'd like to see it, and so I went up there, you know.

MAJ HONEC: Yes.

CPT MARTINEZ: And it was ... it was approved as a food storage facility. I'm not saying that any one individual or food item was from an approved source.

MAJ HONEC: Okay. So that we haven't gotten to that point yet. It was storage ... and storage, could you describe ...

CPT MARTINEZ: Okay. Dry ...

MAJ HONEC: Your criterion?

CPT MARTINEZ: Dry storage and cold storage. Those are, you know, two types of--two classifications of food storage. Cold storage--anything from being chilled to being frozen, deep frozen. And dry storage obviously is being held in dry storage, no refrigeration at all. You're talking about big walk-in freezer rooms, warehouses.

MAJ HONEC: Okay. In the meantime, what were the troops eating up to this point? They were eating Class A rations?

CPT MARTINEZ: A Rations, yes, sir.

MAJ HONEC: Okay.

CPT MARTINEZ: A Rations, obviously, which were all being supplied by the one station.

MAJ HONEC: Okay. How was ... how was that going in the very beginning? How was it ... were there ... were there cases of ... any cases mounting, or was there ... it was pretty good, it was going along pretty well, as I understand?

CPT MARTINEZ: Cases of ... ?

MAJ HONEC: Like shigella, or ...

CPT MARTINEZ: Gastroenteritis.

MAJ HONEC: Gastroenteritis, you know. Was the troops ... was the food that was getting to the troops seem to be agreeing with them? You know what I mean?

CPT MARTINEZ: Yes, sir, I do. I'm trying to ... there were ... there were some cases of both ... of both, you know, shigellosis and, you know, salmonellosis, early on. There were just nonspecific types of diarrhea as well. In my opinion, since the entire operation was, you know, fairly small, in my opinion, these cases or small outbreaks were ... made a big deal. They were a big deal, and anybody would agree that it's not so much the food source as to how it's prepared, how it's handled, how it's stored. I mean, we could eat slime off the streets, as it were, if it were, you know, cooked at an adequate temperature and held in adequate temperature afterwards. So there were some problems there.

MAJ HONEC: But it wasn't military. There was some problem, but it wasn't critical, any show-stoppers. There was a lot of activity, and it's getting a lot of press time.

CPT MARTINEZ: I guess it was. I guess it was. Well, I mean you do have to be concerned about whether items ... you know, which aren't cooked, like, you know, milk products, dairy products, you know, cheeses. They can pose a problem, a risk to those people. But everybody looks around, sees all the ARAMCO¹³ people eating these products and the westerners eating grits. But I guess that was the attitude that the higher-ups held. How are we for time ... okay.

MAJ HONEC: No, go ahead.

CPT MARTINEZ: I don't want to ramble on here.

MAJ HONEC: No.

CPT MARTINEZ: I met with the Corps surgeon at that time, COL [Lawrence W.] Miller and I wrote down two things on him here. He was trying to ensure ... he was getting concerned. He wanted to ensure that the relatively ... the relative good luck with this host nation feeding program was due to the food inspection effort. He was not too thrilled with the fact that the host nation feeding program was overall doing well on its own. It was just too risky, you know, for him, and for us, because we did want to be more in control of it. So it was just ... it was a fair program on its own, but ...

MAJ HONEC: It was a reasonable assumption to be that cautious, in your professional opinion, anyway.

CPT MARTINEZ: Yeah.

MAJ HONEC: Yes, so ...

CPT MARTINEZ: It just made sense.

MAJ HONEC: Yes.

CPT MARTINEZ: I met with the ... this guy named ... this veterinarian who was the environmental hygiene officer for the 1st Tactical [Fighter] Wing, or the ATH out of Langley Air Force Base. His name was MAJ Williams. He was actually probably the first vet in theater, but his role was not the same as Army veterinarian technicians. An example of what went on between us. There was an ice plant on the base that all troops were obtaining their block ice from, and using it in potable or ... you know, ice.

MAJ HONEC: Where did the source of the water come from for the ice?

CPT MARTINEZ: Well, out of their water system, which MAJ Williams' people had tested, okay? And were continually testing, and tested the ice as well, and they had no reason to deny access to the ice based on their microbiological testing. And I went over there to inspect it based on a sanitary inspection. I failed it, okay? So that was a point of, you know, contention, and I forwarded it up to the Corps surgeon's office, and you know, it was still used, and ...

MAJ HONEC: Sure.

CPT MARTINEZ: You know.

MAJ HONEC: What was your objections? What was the sanitary objections? Obviously the microorganisms were getting in the water, specifically to the tract.

CPT MARTINEZ: Mainly in the processing, in the handling, in the facilities, due to a lot of old moldy wood, stuff like that. But then again, the troops would come in their trucks and throw the block of ice on the back of their trucks, so it gets contaminated anyway, so there's ... there wasn't ... they could have picked up nice, clean ice, and contaminated themselves.

MAJ HONEC: Sure.

CPT MARTINEZ: As well as all these other ... as well as all these other cases of non-specific diarrhea. They could have just from poor personal hygiene, you know, could have infected themselves. So about everybody food-borne illness category, you know.

MAJ HONEC: Okay.

CPT MARTINEZ: Who else did I meet with. I already ... I told you about CPT Larson, the USMTM veterinarian?

MAJ HONEC: Yes.

CPT MARTINEZ: Okay.

MAJ HONEC: Who had arrived, to recap again, arrived just about when you did to take over from ...

CPT MARTINEZ: From MAJ Singleterry.

MAJ HONEC: CPT Singleterry.

CPT MARTINEZ: Right. I said that the food hygiene standards in Saudi were surprisingly higher than I had anticipated and I had seen other developing countries in the area--Jordan. In my opinion, the effort from that point on to get a theater-approved food source list ... the numbers of ... numbers of ... well, let me ... the approved source list was a--was a high priority issue. That was the main mission.

MAJ HONEC: Okay. About September, are we talking about?

CPT MARTINEZ: Yes, sir.

MAJ HONEC: September ...

CPT MARTINEZ: On, yes, sir. Probably, you know, September through the middle of November.

MAJ HONEC: Was this due in part to the ... any pressure from, say, like the Corps surgeon, or from anybody else to ... was there any kind of pressure to get this up off the ground and this list developed?

CPT MARTINEZ: Yes, sir. And pressure as the motivation came from ...

MAJ HONEC: Yes, that's what I'm trying to nail down.

CPT MARTINEZ: From ... it came from COL Arm, the ARCENT head staff vet, and LTC Lively.

MAJ HONEC: Lively.

CPT MARTINEZ: They arrived, I believe, on the 11th of September. COL Arm was a very energetic, motivated man. He told me that he could not ... he came over ... he was, you know, supposed to have retired on that previous week, you know, but he told me that he couldn't pass up ... pass up a theater command. [LAUGHTER] And that was an issue, because it raised a flag immediately, and we had ... we (the other vets) had a change of command problem with that ... with that kind of arrangement, or that kind of concept, you know.

But the pressure for the approved list, you know ... I mean, it was ... it was being generated, you know, from the ARCENT staff, ARCENT, you know, surgeon's office, okay. And the pressure was to produce as large a list as possible at that time.

MAJ HONEC: Which means an intensive inspection requirement.

CPT MARTINEZ: It was a requirement ...

MAJ HONEC: How many people did you have ...

CPT MARTINEZ: Well, at that time ...

MAJ HONEC: To take care of all this inspection so that you could get more food sources?

CPT MARTINEZ: At that time, it was only myself and CPT Larson over at USMTM. Shortly thereafter it was the 43d JB team, essentially, that was just coming down from Germany, and they had like eight veterinarians, a total of about 31 personnel.

MAJ HONEC: Yeah, I want to point out of that a JB is a large veterinarian, a large team.

CPT MARTINEZ: Large activity. The food inspection mission was linked to the approved sources, and the numbers on the list, you know: 300 approved, 200 disapproved, was used as proof that the food-borne illnesses were minimized.

MAJ HONEC: Were they?

CPT MARTINEZ: Well, actually I believe it would be more of a ... more of a food preparation, food handling, food storage issue. It helps out, yes. It helps out. Like, you know, for example, Air Force out west had an outbreak of salmonella, and it was traced to eggs. Eggs from a non-approved source. That's a fact. But the other fact was that at this mess hall they were ... they were cooking eggs to order, and you don't take that kind of a risk. Not so much even in the States, you know. You cook things well, and if you cook things well you don't take the risk of contracting a food-borne illness. So it was ... it was, you know, half--at least half being from a non-approved source and half from ...

MAJ HONEC: Operations.

CPT MARTINEZ: From operations, from the food preparation.

MAJ HONEC: I see.

CPT MARTINEZ: But you know, that was ... it was a food approved list issue, period.

I ... shortly after I arrived, in one of the 44th Med Brigade in the morning or evening news, I forget what time it was, basically, we heard that 7th Med Com[mand] was making an offer to provide some troops, some units.

MAJ HONEC: So ... oh, additional veterinarian resources?

CPT MARTINEZ: Anybody.

MAJ HONEC: Anybody, okay.

CPT MARTINEZ: Medevac, you know ...

MAJ HONEC: Oh, okay, I see.

CPT MARTINEZ: Ambulances, any type of med asset.

MAJ HONEC: 7th Med Com is from where?

CPT MARTINEZ: From Europe.

MAJ HONEC: Okay.

CPT MARTINEZ: I requested ... I forgot exactly. Maybe six or eight 91Rs, and that they please bring their own transportation, because we weren't allowed to deploy any air-land vehicles or equipment.

MAJ HONEC: It is not a tangent, but it's a good point. When you arrived, what sort of transportation assets did you have?

CPT MARTINEZ: Zero.

MAJ HONEC: Why was that?

CPT MARTINEZ: Because ...

MAJ HONEC: What your most important mission of ...

CPT MARTINEZ: The only unit allowed out of our brigade to early deploy with vehicles were the preventive medicine unit, okay, and they left nine days before I did. I had one food inspector on that flight out with them. Our vehicles were earmarked to leave by sealift and they didn't arrive until mid-September.

MAJ HONEC: Yeah, it would have been three weeks on the water to get to Dhahran, or Dammam. So you had no wheels.

CPT MARTINEZ: Before I left, I told my commander, you know, I said look, sir, I have a present and growing mission over there. I need to get my unit over there. As a result, we deployed in a piecemeal fashion; my troops arriving as late as 15 October and all my equipment and vehicles didn't arrive until mid-September. In the meantime, though, I was able to ... I put a request in for a rental car, which I finally got. And that helped a lot.

MAJ HONEC: When? When did you finally get it?

CPT MARTINEZ: I don't remember, quite honestly. It was sort of like a shared car at first, and then this is probably is at the end of August, last week of August, I believe. And then we shared it with the PM guys--with the preventive med guys.

MAJ HONEC: Okay. Continue. 7th Med Com ...

CPT MARTINEZ: Okay. So then I called ... I called up the name is COL Barck--B-a-r-c-k, I believe it is spelled ... he's the veterinarian, you know, staff vet for the Surgeon up there at 7th Med Com. I talked to COL Barck. I said--I told him what the situation was, and that included inspecting incoming operational rations, MREs, Tray Rations (T Rations), at the ports, at Dammam, at Jubayl. And there ... rations were being airlifted into Dhahran as well, so we also had to make sure that all those rations were also being, you know, covered. And there wasn't any way, at that time, myself and two 91Rs, could handle whatever role. So I told--I told COL Barck that's what the situation is. I put in the request for more 91Rs and transportation assets as well. I did not request any veterinary officer because at that point I didn't "foresee" this approved list from being under its ... the urgency of the approved list.

So mid-September the 43d Med Detachment, the JA team, you know, the larger vet services, arrived in three sorties. They were told ... they were mad. They were mad that they were there, and they were asking me why I was crying for people, for vet officers and everything. And the whole team--we got off to a bad start.

MAJ HONEC: I would say so. They arrived in Saudi by aircraft?

CPT MARTINEZ: Yes, sir. Three sorties.

MAJ HONEC: How was their transportation going to get there?

CPT MARTINEZ: Air sortie. They came with everything. Three air sorties; [C]-141 [Starlifters].

MAJ HONEC: So what was done with this augment now? You had augmentation. Now, how did it go?

CPT MARTINEZ: Okay, then I fell ... my unit fell from my parent medical battalion, which is the 56th Med Battalion. I got chopped from the 56th to under the 43d, okay, and COL Arm was directing the 43d, you know. He talked to COL Faust and ... by and by MSC¹⁴ officers, you know, they just let the vets ... everybody just lets the vet do what they want. That's not, you know, how we were raised here at [Fort] Bragg, you know. There's a chain of command, all the stuff, which is the way the Army operates. So then the emphasis became trying to knock out all the sanitary inspections that we could. COL Arm had a formula: per vet officer three or four ... three or four sanitary a day, every day. We each now had, like, quotas on our heads.

MAJ HONEC: Sure, and were these easily reachable places? Did you have proper maps and everything to find these places?

CPT MARTINEZ: We ...I had maps. I had--I had requested some Saudi street maps of the Eastern Province area and Dammam, Dhahran. Obviously, all these places are not easy to find. Many of the places ...

CPT MARTINEZ: Many of the places aren't ...

MAJ HONEC: Khobar is very difficult. There's no street names, I noticed right off the bat, off the highway. It is very hard to navigate around there because they do exist but it's hard to find where you're at. So you experienced the same thing. Also, three or four inspections a day? So how were your hours?

CPT MARTINEZ: Well, we weren't able to accomplish three or four a day, period. I wasn't. So that made COL Arm [and] LTC Lively upset, irate. You know, pressure filtering down from there.

MAJ HONEC: When you went into these places, were they big? There was a lot to inspect. How much time did you spend on site at each of them?

CPT MARTINEZ: It depended on the size. We inspected places which were huge, and other places which were just a one-room place.

MAJ HONEC: Okay. That's what I need to document.

CPT MARTINEZ: I mean, we were ... we were tasked ... I mean, we had no idea. All these, you know, sources, were being supplied by the individual kitchen managers or by Mr. Masri. Sometimes the kitchen managers would do their own thing, unbeknownst to Mr. Masri, so there was a lot of, again, a lot of breakdown in communication. Again, in Mr. Masri's company of people, between him and his subordinates, and it was a very, very complicated food issue.

So we might do one or two if we were able to find the other place. If we make the phone calls and people speak English, that helps out a lot. If not, you know ... the easiest places were the ones, you know, where the people in them spoke English and if they could give some amount ... some amount of direction, to find the place. Otherwise, it was a real challenge. And it's a challenge because you need to carry your weapon and your mask--and somehow dress in civilian clothes which weren't ... which we did not bring. But it was ARCENT policy that, you know, veterinary officers or veterinary inspectors be in a civilian vehicle, be in civilian clothes on these, you know--when you're performing these commercial sanitary inspections. And quite honestly I was not always in compliance with either of those two requirements because I thought I had to get the job done, and ... . You know, it goes back to what you were saying before, trying to please everybody and trying to please the Saudis and I was not in the mood to, you know, please the Saudis out there. Not in that respect.

MAJ HONEC: But the inspection you did do--did--when ... going back to the JB teams, those officers, when they found out the scope of the test, did that quiet their fears that they're over there ... why were they over there? Did that answer their question as the critical need for them to be there?

CPT MARTINEZ: Yeah. I think it became, from what was confided with me from these officers, they realized that this was a ... this mission was being driven--generated and driven--at ARCENT surgeon level, and so that's where it would have been coming from.

MAJ HONEC: Okay. I wanted to get that point. That's relatively important.

CPT MARTINEZ: It was also obvious, you know, to us that we were inspecting places and putting them on the approved list, and these were places that were ... that were storage facilities, and they were placed on the approved source list. It was vague as far as what the approved source list was. We finally got them to put in there, they realized that they just cannot put a place ... ARCENT--ARCENT, the surgeon's office--they realized that they couldn't put the name of a place and say approved, on the approved list, without, you know, specifically saying what it was approved for. And, you know, that's just part of our memorandum. So we needed to place in our memorandum exactly what that facility was approved for. And many of the places were approved for the storage, distribution of certain types of food items, you know, non-perishables or perishables. Many times it did not, you know, did not specifically state what ... exactly what kind of food items. Because everything's imported and you can't really inspect chickens from Brazil or France if they haven't been inspected by some other command. Food was being imported from Chile, from Australia, from Singapore--all over. Wisconsin. All over.

MAJ HONEC: Yeah, so the variety of sources kind of precluded intense myopic inspection.

CPT MARTINEZ: Right.

MAJ HONEC: You kind of had to do a broad-based, broad brush ...

CPT MARTINEZ: Yes, sir. We were faced with, you know, trying to at least assure that these food items were being handled in the best possible way over there, okay? Which is the best we could do. But again, the numbers of these food stores--food storage facilities. You know, for example, we had 350 on the approval list, you know, and maybe two-thirds of them, you know, were just dry and cold storage facilities. What does that really mean?

MAJ HONEC: For a country that does not produce its own food ....

CPT MARTINEZ: What does that really mean as far as approved for a food item?

MAJ HONEC: That's true, yeah.

CPT MARTINEZ: But it was ... it's a numbers game. How thick is your approved list? Mine's thicker. And there weren't any foods going out.

MAJ HONEC: Okay. Please continue.

CPT MARTINEZ: In October LTC [Ronald E.] Dutton arrived. He's the PROFIS¹⁵ brigade staff vet from [Fort] Bragg here.

MAJ HONEC: What did he assume command of when he arrived?

CPT MARTINEZ: No, he was brigade staff.

MAJ HONEC: He was brigade staff. Okay, so he had no ... okay.

CPT MARTINEZ: I have here ... I have an issue here. A lot of veterinary officers need to ... need to get more into the real Army, need to learn more about the chain of command, how the Army works.

MAJ HONEC: Good point. No, good point. That's fine.

CPT MARTINEZ: It was a problem over there, with the chain of command either from ARCENT, ARCENT staff veterinary and brigade staff vet.

MAJ HONEC: Good.

CPT MARTINEZ: That's not really ... acknowledging, or respecting, or ignorant of ... I don't know. It just was not ... it was not well-handled.

MAJ HONEC: It was very disruptive to normal operations when you don't have a line of ... when you have seven bosses to answer to, so to speak.

CPT MARTINEZ: No. And you know, who do you answer to, and you piss everyone else off.

MAJ HONEC: Yeah, that's true. The converse is also true. [LAUGHTER]

CPT MARTINEZ: That's what happened.

MAJ HONEC: Okay. Good point.

CPT MARTINEZ: Especially with our unit. Our unit was more or less the bastard child. We got chopped from one command and control to the next. Like I say, we deployed over there with the 56th Med Battalion. We got chopped from them to the 43d. We got chopped from the 43d to the 62d Med Group for about two days, and then after processing through them we get moved over to the 1st Med Group, and we stay with them until March and then we just got grabbed again by the 56th. It's a big problem, and when you have all these staff guys trying to run your unit as well, it becomes very frustrating.

MAJ HONEC: I can imagine.

CPT MARTINEZ: The unit is small ... my unit is small. All we have are food inspectors, animal care technicians. We don't have, you know, maintenance people, we don't have clerical help, we don't have any admin[istrative] personnel, who can handle details. We have to depend entirely on our ... our command and control unit for support. That isn't any problem, until you need it, you know. And then you find yourselves, as we did, scrounging around for maintenance. We had people working on trucks from other units because we weren't able to get things done, get supplies in, get most of the type of timely assistance and support, and ...

MAJ HONEC: What sorts of vehicles do you have?

CPT MARTINEZ: We're authorized two M-1008s.

MAJ HONEC: Okay. The CUCV¹⁶ series.

CPT MARTINEZ: Right. Right.

MAJ HONEC: Of pick-up trucks; these are pick-up trucks. Okay.

CPT MARTINEZ: So that was a major problem.

MAJ HONEC: Jumping from ... being chopped from command to command to command, it's a learning experience, or it's a getting-used-to experience each time. Support ... so, in personnel, how did that work?

CPT MARTINEZ: In personnel?

MAJ HONEC: Yes.

CPT MARTINEZ: My personnel?

MAJ HONEC: Yes. I've got to go through ... when you were chopped ... go ... when you were chopped each time to different commands, how did that affect your personnel, or didn't it?

CPT MARTINEZ: Oh, yeah. I mean, we all felt like we were just being ... just being kicked around. As I said, we all felt we were the bastard children.

MAJ HONEC: But I mean, in administration. Did you have as many problems with getting administration done, normal, routine, PAC¹⁷-type items done from PAC to PAC to PAC, as you were being torn around?

CPT MARTINEZ: Surely, because we needed to be to ... people would ... one PAC would offload ... our PAC--our personnel information since we had left, and so we would have to go back to the 573d,¹⁸ get a PF copy, get it from them, take it our next command and control. Do that for the next one, and do that for the next one. Ended up back to our parent unit, and they had already dumped all of our stuff out of their memory banks. It's a real pain in the ass. It is very ...

MAJ HONEC: But I think it's important to note this ...

CPT MARTINEZ: It's very angering ...

MAJ HONEC: Yes.

CPT MARTINEZ: You just got--we got--we got shit on, in my opinion. And that left me and my people with a very bad taste in our mouths.

MAJ HONEC: I appreciate you bringing that up. Admin. How about supply?

CPT MARTINEZ: Well, same thing.

MAJ HONEC: Okay. Same thing there?

CPT MARTINEZ: We would scrounge, we would put in orders through our parent--our parent at that time. And we ended up scrounging, taking stuff from whomever would offer.

MAJ HONEC: Maintenance we've already talked about.

CPT MARTINEZ: Maintenance, yeah ... whomever. Air Force people, Army people, whoever had the ... whoever liked us and felt sorry for us. Or our own people. You know, fortunately, I had myself and two other ... two other of our guys were fairly mechanically inclined. But we don't have any tools, which was an natural problem I think we need to address.

MAJ HONEC: Good.

CPT MARTINEZ: I don't have any tools at all. I don't even have a slave cable. I don't have a tow bar.

MAJ HONEC: You're supposed to be 100 percent mobile, dependent upon need, the ...

CPT MARTINEZ: Oh, yes, dependent upon whoever is supposed to provide you support, and ... it's a real issue, agreed ... a real issue. And then, to jump back to August.

MAJ HONEC: Yes.

CPT MARTINEZ: I was told we needed to deploy with everybody I had. I had ten people. I'm authorized six. I don't have enough vehicles. I don't have an adequate amount of transportation for a unit of ten personnel. I don't have an adequate tentage for ten personnel. I don't have ten weapons. I don't have ten gas masks, protective masks. I only have ... you know, so you also had to scrounge for that stuff. Jump through your ass over and over and over again. When we deployed our E-5 food inspector early in August, to try and find him a CPOG¹⁹ on post here was a goat-rope. It took us three days. My battalion commander had to call up the commander of the 307th Med Battalion trying to find one CPOG so we could deploy one man over to Saudi Arabia. And I had to make several phone calls. And we couldn't find any until finally we find one, and I don't know where ... a large, which he drowned in, or which he would drown in. Trying to get that man out of here ... at Green Ramp²⁰ ... changing requirements at Green Ramp. One time they said no because he was not in the right ... was not in the right uniform. He was wearing ...

MAJ HONEC: He was in woodland and not DCUs?²¹ Yeah, DCUs.

CPT MARTINEZ: They said that he could not deploy and fly away unless he was wearing DCUs. This was one day. The next day it was he couldn't fly away because he had to have twelve MREs in his rucksack and four ... something like three or four gallons of water on his body. I mean, absurd, ludicrous requirements ...

MAJ HONEC: Requirements?

CPT MARTINEZ: Changing ...

MAJ HONEC: Before they'd allow him on the planes.

CPT MARTINEZ: Changing every 24 hours.

MAJ HONEC: Really.

CPT MARTINEZ: It's just incredible. That's why ...

MAJ HONEC: What was it now, when he finally got to deploy ... was he in DCUs?

CPT MARTINEZ: No.

MAJ HONEC: Okay. Did he have the twelve MREs?

CPT MARTINEZ: No. No. No.

MAJ HONEC: How about the gallons of water? [LAUGHTER]

CPT MARTINEZ: He had ... what, you know, two quarts.

MAJ HONEC: Two quarts. Two quart canteens. Okay. Or two quart ... two quart bottles of ...

CPT MARTINEZ: Two quart ...

MAJ HONEC: Two single quart canteens?

CPT MARTINEZ: Two one-quart canteens.

MAJ HONEC: Gotcha, okay.

CPT MARTINEZ: And he had one CPOG.

MAJ HONEC: He did get the CPOG, then? It's important for him to do that. And he had a weapon, and he had his protective mask?

CPT MARTINEZ: Protective mask. He had his protective mask.

MAJ HONEC: Okay. That's a good digression, though. I think it's important for this particular interview. Okay.

CPT MARTINEZ: Well ... okay.

MAJ HONEC: All right. In October, LTC Dutton came in. Also that was the month of the big shigella outbreak at DRAGON compound, was it not?

CPT MARTINEZ: The big one? I don't know what the big one was. What was the big one? I don't ...

MAJ HONEC: The first week of October there was quite a significant ... due to lettuce, basically ... a significant outbreak of gastroenteritis and was isolated in several ... shigella was isolated in several fecal samples, so there was a big problem with the food supply and it was traced to the lettuce from three different food sources.

CPT MARTINEZ: Had a problem with fecal rates, right?

MAJ HONEC: Yes. Well ... okay. Of course, the ... is there anything in that, do you know ... or we can continue on with your notes.

CPT MARTINEZ: Yeah. I don't really have anything to say about that. By that time I had taken things into my own hands and moved the unit off of DRAGON Base and onto the air base.

MAJ HONEC: How did you do that?

CPT MARTINEZ: I talked directly with the head Air Force cop over there, COL Pack I believe his name was, and with our guys over there, and I had offered ... I had made the request that we co-locate next to their field site and we could provide needed close military working dog support and in exchange I'd have a place to live, because ...

MAJ HONEC: Did you locate in an Air Force compound, then?

CPT MARTINEZ: No, sir. We--these guys were out on the east side of the flight line out in the middle of nowhere, and it was all under canvas, all under camouflage, and it was just like a field set-up out in the middle of nowhere, in short.

MAJ HONEC: Okay. A little digression. Describe the living conditions over there under canvas. Did you have ... was it covered floors and air conditioning, things like that?

CPT MARTINEZ: We ordered ...

MAJ HONEC: Creature comforts?

CPT MARTINEZ: We procured our own plywood and our 2x4s and tools and stuff and we made our own floors. As time went on, everything was floored and we also were able to procure a field shower. And it took us weeks but we were able to get ARCENT to expand their contract for the water tanker so they would come by and fill up our field shower. And we also did the same thing with our field latrine. So we had a nice--a nice field set-up. It was fairly private, and we were able to, you know, keep clean ... fairly clean, because you know how the field latrines can get. We were able, thanks to my detachment sergeant, to two get more tents--RFAB tents--which provided us with the opportunity to expand our sleep tent and to have a really nice working dog clinic which was used pretty much, at that point. Because at that point also LTC Dutton had told me that we were earmarked as the theater veterinary dispensary, a mission that is a bit more than what my MTOE²² says, so we had to require, procure, requisition a lot more supplies, medical supplies and some equipment, in order, in my opinion, to fulfill that responsibility.

MAJ HONEC: Okay. Very good. This was in October, still under DESERT SHIELD?

CPT MARTINEZ: Yes, sir.

MAJ HONEC: Okay. Go ahead.

CPT MARTINEZ: If I could just slightly back up, chronologically. Two Army working dogs came in the theater. They were stationed at DRAGON Base. They were from the 503d MPs.²³ The only thing I'd like to say about that was that we enforced an acclimatization period which meant that they didn't do any work for several ... several days and then night-work and then some in the day. That eventually meant that we were didn't have any problems with those two dogs. They were a slight ...

MAJ HONEC: This regimen was the way it should be for this particular desert environment?

CPT MARTINEZ: In my opinion, yes.

MAJ HONEC: Yeah. So it went well.

CPT MARTINEZ: We just had minimal problems with those two dogs. We had one scorpion sting on a paw, and a slightly dry nose on one other. Otherwise they worked well. Also, when I asked them around the end of September, mid-September--I forget--the Army-Air Force Exchange System is--all the food items that were sold by AAFES also fall under the responsibility of the vet food inspectors, and early on ... early on, even in August, they were the first to request our services and ... because they wanted to expand the PX there on the air base and buy more stuff, and they were buying stuff off the economy. So that was the responsibility that we had as well.

Another interesting thing, 24th ID in late August when they were all holed up on quarters with the big warehouse [at the Dammam port]. There was a chicken restaurant there on the port. The division surgeon, LTC [Benjamin] Hall, had requested that the place be inspected since all the troops were paying out of pocket to eat there. CPT George Magnin, who's the PM commander of the 714th [Medical Detachment] and I did a joint inspection of the restaurant and dumped it just like that. The place was atrocious as far as their food preparation, food handling and food storage.

MAJ HONEC: Really. Okay.

CPT MARTINEZ: We both signed our joint memorandum, sent it up through channels, and nothing was done ... which was typical.

MAJ HONEC: Did they ... but after you flunked it, you obviously had interplay with the officials there at the restaurant. Did they try to correct anything?

CPT MARTINEZ: The officials there ...

MAJ HONEC: The Saudis ... there are the Pakistanis ...

CPT MARTINEZ: The workers there ...

MAJ HONEC: The workers managing the place.

CPT MARTINEZ: They didn't speak any English.

MAJ HONEC: So ... and many of the places ... did you find the language barrier is a real problem?

CPT MARTINEZ: Only in a few.

MAJ HONEC: Only in a few, okay.

CPT MARTINEZ: The problem ... . One instance that I can think of is when all food--all the host nation food--was being stocked at the ARCENT/host nation food warehouse, the ...

MAJ HONEC: Where was that?

CPT MARTINEZ: Local. That was up by the port.

MAJ HONEC: Okay, Dammam. Okay.

CPT MARTINEZ: Yes, sir, the port of Dammam. The local truck drivers who drove the reefer²⁴ vans, they weren't ... they weren't able to ... our people weren't able to communicate to them about you know, cleaning out their reefer vans of all the food and debris. And even after it was it translated to them, they still wouldn't do it.

MAJ HONEC: They showed no interested in that sort of thing. And you had no Saudi representative that perhaps could bring pressure to bear on them?

CPT MARTINEZ: Except for Mr. Masri, and ...

MAJ HONEC: I see, and he was too far up the chain to ...

CPT MARTINEZ: Maybe. Maybe. But it was a real uphill battle. I don't know if we ever really won that battle at all. There was a real lack of cooperation between the ARCENT food advisors and the ARCENT staff as we sent that forward. As I said before, there was no ability to get any information about the food situation, especially the host nation feeding program. These guys, the food advisors, really kept things under wraps, it seems like.

MAJ HONEC: Can you give me some for instances? I didn't ... last time you brought it ... give me some good for instances, so that we can document, perhaps, what to watch out for next time.

CPT MARTINEZ: When the ARCENT host nation warehouse opened up, the very first one, it had been in operation, you know, several days before we heard anything about it. When the new ARCENT ... when the replacement ARCENT host nation food warehouse opened up, we were told things like, the old one was going to be closed up completely, or the old one was being used by the Wolfmobile operation ...

MAJ HONEC: Ah, that was that hamburger restaurant on wheels, the Wolfburgers?

CPT MARTINEZ: Which was Chief Wolf's, you know --

MAJ HONEC: I see. Okay.

CPT MARTINEZ: Chief Wolf's brainchild. When in fact it was being used for both the Wolfmobiles and for just normal host nation feeding programs.

MAJ HONEC: It meant you didn't have a chance?

CPT MARTINEZ: It was being closed ... you know, we would drop people over there, it would be locked up, you know, which was what we were told it was supposed to be, closed except for the Wolfmobile. It would be open at other times. We really could not get any answer on when or what it was being used for. We just knew that it had food items in there. We couldn't get access to it easily. Just ... things were very hard to accomplish. The food advisor for the 24th ID ... very hard to get information out of. It turns out after a 45-minute conversation with this man, that (and after asking repeated questions about certain sources of the food items of the A Rations) one of Mr. Masri's lieutenants, if you will, had his own ... has his own warehouses that weren't being covered by any food inspection program. Stuff like that.

MAJ HONEC: This is 24th ID food advisor was a national? It wasn't ...

CPT MARTINEZ: No, it was our guy.

MAJ HONEC: It was our guy.

CPT MARTINEZ: A warrant. I think his name's Moore.

MAJ HONEC: Okay. That's why I wanted to identify him.

CPT MARTINEZ: Yeah.

MAJ HONEC: Moore.

CPT MARTINEZ: I think his name's Mr. Moore.

MAJ HONEC: Okay. I see.

CPT MARTINEZ: You know, trying to find out ... you know, trying to get information out of these guys is like trying to pull teeth.

MAJ HONEC: I see.

CPT MARTINEZ: And you spend a long time asking questions, quite pointed questions--repeatedly--in order to get some kind of idea. And you still walk out of there shaking your head, sometimes, and you turn around and ask him again, and you start a dialogue, and it never improves.

MAJ HONEC: It never improved?

CPT MARTINEZ: There was no sincere or prompt effort on the food advisors' part or the host nation food advisor like Mr. Masri and his crew, to give straightforward, accurate information. There was no effort to enforce approved-source procurement. We would always find food items that were not approved in stock.

MAJ HONEC: I see, and then if an inspector did find this out, the next thing to do is try to find out where they came from and an address of the source and what not, and it would be different than what's on the list, perhaps?

CPT MARTINEZ: Um-hum.

MAJ HONEC: I see.

CPT MARTINEZ: And then our inspectors ... that brings up an issue, too, the issue of the authority of our inspectors to reject unapproved food items. And that has always been in their authority to reject food items, and over there ...

MAJ HONEC: Of course.

CPT MARTINEZ: And over there we couldn't. We could not. We would have to ... have to take them in and make a note and send it up the chain.

MAJ HONEC: Okay. To where? This would go to ... ?

CPT MARTINEZ: ARCENT staff.

MAJ HONEC: ARCENT staff. Go through?

CPT MARTINEZ: Well ...

MAJ HONEC: The normal channels.

CPT MARTINEZ: ARCENT staff. And we kept on asking about the authority to reject, and weeks and weeks we kept on being brushed aside.

MAJ HONEC: This was ... the root cause again was our concern for sensibilities, Saudi sensibilities?

CPT MARTINEZ: Yes, sir.

MAJ HONEC: This was being offered to us ... the food was being offered to us?

CPT MARTINEZ: Yes, sir.

MAJ HONEC: And we couldn't ... we felt ... it would be awkward to turn it down if it was bad food. Okay. Another point. Were you aware of the sweet water offer that the Prince made to ...²⁵

CPT MARTINEZ: I don't think so, no.

MAJ HONEC: To some of the units down there? Oh, okay. All right. That's an issue I'll have to bring up later then with LTC Dutton. That's water sources. Anything else on food and food inspectors? Because one other thing we need to cover is water sources.

CPT MARTINEZ: Okay, yes.

MAJ HONEC: Bottled water inspecting, but we could finish up with this.

CPT MARTINEZ: Okay. I'm sorry. Food inspection, one instance is certain ... certain commercial food establishments would be inspected. They would fail. Political avenues would be taken. We would be called--not me, but, you know, other vet officers would be called to reinspect the place; it would pass. It seemed like there was a certain amount of ...

MAJ HONEC: But was this the same inspector that flunked the place?

CPT MARTINEZ: Rubber stamping involved.

MAJ HONEC: Oh, I see.

CPT MARTINEZ: That's what it seemed like to me. I can't prove that, but it was a high topic of conversation.

MAJ HONEC: But in your impression, that was a possibility of happening over there?

CPT MARTINEZ: Yeah. The embassy would be called, and ... it was incredible. Like when the ... like when the Coca-Cola plant in Yemen, I think ...

MAJ HONEC: Yemen?

CPT MARTINEZ: Was inspected ... yeah, in Yemen. I think it was ... not Yemen ... not Yemen, UAE.

MAJ HONEC: Oh, the United Arab Emirates. Okay.

CPT MARTINEZ: UAE, not Yemen. [LAUGHTER]

MAJ HONEC: Please continue. Go ahead.

CPT MARTINEZ: At UAE it was failed, okay. A phone call went all the way back up, I was told, to State ... to the State Department in D.C. I mean, this went sky high--sky high. It went back ... it went back down to the Coke people who, you know, were really upset. Really upset, and they sent people over there to UAE, and they "fixed everything" and it was immediately reinspected. A lot of politics, especially with the Saudi and commercial food establishments owned by princes and other members of the family--of the royal family. Let me look here and see if I have any other food inspector/food mission issues here.

MAJ HONEC: These ... the report, especially about the Coca-Cola, is interesting. You did not know this first-hand, though, that you had gotten ...

CPT MARTINEZ: No. I talked to the officer who inspected Coca-Cola.

MAJ HONEC: Okay.

MAJ HONEC: Okay. Okay, we're back. Talk about ... the next subject to talk about was the water inspection that you did. Any desalination plants anywhere? Did you do a lot of water inspection?

CPT MARTINEZ: No. I ...

MAJ HONEC: Were you involved in any of it?

CPT MARTINEZ: Did not do, or was not involved in any drinking bottled water inspections at all. About the extent that we got involved was with the ice ... ice plants.

MAJ HONEC: Yes.

CPT MARTINEZ: And that was the extent that I personally got involved with water.

MAJ HONEC: Okay. The defensive phase ... we're into the offensive phase. Is there anything else, other issues that might have come up in this short interlude that need to be talked about for the defensive ... for the DESERT SHIELD phase, since now we're going to launch into the offensive phase? The ground war started in January and brought forward. What sorts of missions did you have?

CPT MARTINEZ: At that time, when ...

MAJ HONEC: Yes.

CPT MARTINEZ: D-Day,²⁶ I was out with the 24th ID. We had relocated from the air base to the VIDALIA Assembly Area in the 24th ID AO.²⁷ We were at that time under the 1st Medical Group command and control. We were co-located with the 46th Combat Support Hospital. We had strictly a food inspection mission. There were no MP dogs out there. We were covering about eight or ten Class I supply points, DSU/GSU-type Class I supply points.²⁸ We were averaging about 100 to 125 miles a day on a vehicle, on that ...

MAJ HONEC: Was it all centered around one base, Logistics Base CHARLIE, the big Class I ...

CPT MARTINEZ: No, sir. This was down south.

MAJ HONEC: South, was it? Okay.

CPT MARTINEZ: Before everybody moved up to CHARLIE.

MAJ HONEC: Okay. Okay.

CPT MARTINEZ: So we were there for about a month from the beginning of January to the beginning of February. At which point the 24th packed up and they started to marshal and move north, and we moved up to Log Base CHARLIE. And our unit and two of the combat support hospitals, a few other smaller medical companies, smaller medical detachments were ordered to "wait ... out."²⁹ We were part of the 1st Med Group's Medical Task Force 4, which crossed into Iraq on G-Day, I think it was H+22³⁰ or something like that. So we waited. Our entire task force was enclosed. We did not have a mission until the 24th of February ...

MAJ HONEC: Okay.

CPT MARTINEZ: ... on G-Day.

MAJ HONEC: Okay. What did you do in that time? What was your duty like?

CPT MARTINEZ: Our ... we were trying to prepare, trying to get our vehicles up and running, trying to get support, trying to scrounge support. Luckily, I was able to sign for a Blazer [M]-1009, you know, when the divisions were swapping out all their CUCVs for the HMMWVs?³¹ They were handing down all these abused CUCVs, so I was able to get one that I had asked for back in December. And that really helped us out as far as transporting personnel, especially when you're crossing the LD,³² and you're ... you're sitting two per cab with your rucksacks in between you, and you know, where do you expect to put ... even if I had, you know, six people, my authorization, where do you expect to put six people in that configuration in two trucks, with all of your equipment and supplies just jammed into the back of your truck? So with the added transportation space of [M]-1009 we were able to tactically transport my troops.

MAJ HONEC: Okay. How did they perform? How did the vehicles perform in Iraq? Did they ... mobile ... be able to keep up?

CPT MARTINEZ: Yes.

MAJ HONEC: They were? Good. No problems at all.

CPT MARTINEZ: By that time, we had spent a good two-and-a-half weeks working on our vehicles--my guys, some of the maintenance people from the combat support hospital--the 46th.

MAJ HONEC: Did you experience any problems with using the Jet-A?³³

CPT MARTINEZ: Oh, yes.

MAJ HONEC: What sorts of things happened to your truck?

CPT MARTINEZ: It dies ... a slow death. A slow death. You know, of course, the ...

MAJ HONEC: What was that attributed to?

CPT MARTINEZ: Well, the very ... it's a non ... a non-lubricated fuel. First of all, you accumulate sludge in various places, you know. All of the internal sludge that's normally there as a result of burning diesel fuel accumulates at certain points in the engine system, a certain non- ... certain non-affecting points.

MAJ HONEC: Yeah.

CPT MARTINEZ: And when you start to burn cleaner fuel ...

MAJ HONEC: Yes. It breaks those loose?

CPT MARTINEZ: It breaks them loose. It sort of dissolves and redeposits at other points that do tend to screw up the components of your engine. It also eats away at your rubber gaskets around your fuel pump housing and you end up with leaks everywhere, and the truck won't start, and the accelerator sticks, and this and that, and ...

MAJ HONEC: Just a whole myriad of problems.

CPT MARTINEZ: We had engine slops .. engine slops, leaking in our ... we just had an incredible amount of problems.

MAJ HONEC: Okay.

CPT MARTINEZ: We had trailer problems. Do you want me ...

MAJ HONEC: Yes. Trailer problems?

CPT MARTINEZ: We had problems. We have two old M-101 three-quarter-ton trailers, and we were not able through the normal system to get--to requisition to find M-101 trailer tires. We had to find them from the Marines ... no, I'm sorry. No. I take that back. We found two M-101 trailer tires at a supply point in Riyadh.

MAJ HONEC: Really?

CPT MARTINEZ: In Riyadh, and then when we were trying to find these plain old truck tires for our [M]-1008s, and we had a hard time finding the [M]-1008 tires, and we had to find those from the Marines in Jubayl. I mean, I don't know where they were.

MAJ HONEC: I see. This was during the offensive phase?

CPT MARTINEZ: No. A week prior to G-Day.

MAJ HONEC: Okay, good. Good.

CPT MARTINEZ: Our vehicles are broke, and we're trying to make 'em run.

MAJ HONEC: Very good. How about when you went across the LD into Iraq? Did you have communications?

CPT MARTINEZ: No.

MAJ HONEC: Should you have?

CPT MARTINEZ: Yes.

MAJ HONEC: Did you have G--global positioning?

CPT MARTINEZ: No. Oh, well, our ... the ...

MAJ HONEC: The SLGRs?

CPT MARTINEZ: Our task force had.

MAJ HONEC: You did? Oh, only one per task force, so you knew where you were going, though, if you followed the task force.

CPT MARTINEZ: If you followed them.

MAJ HONEC: If you got bogged down along the road, where would you have been?

CPT MARTINEZ: In the middle of nowhere.

MAJ HONEC: I see.

CPT MARTINEZ: Or in a sandstorm.

MAJ HONEC: Okay. Good point. Obviously you were mobile enough, with the requisition of the additional truck. Let's go into, real quick, some TOE changes that you perhaps need. Do you have enough personnel to do your job in your detachment?

CPT MARTINEZ: No, but I honestly think that the JA team ... JA team concept should be changed, and drastically.

MAJ HONEC: How?

CPT MARTINEZ: In my opinion, I think it should probably in using ... using SHIELD to STORM as a basis, there should have been Corps-level JB teams--JB teams at corps, you know, smaller team that would have provided immediate integrity, clear-cut, you know, command and control. Now, you know, for example a JA team is fine for operations in JUST CAUSE,³⁴ you know, smaller-scale stuff.

MAJ HONEC: Certainly. But the scale of this one ... ?

CPT MARTINEZ: But the scope of this one is take a team out of the JB team and send it on operations like JUST CAUSE, or smaller operations. But I think Bragg ... I think Corps needs a JB team and not a JA team.

MAJ HONEC: Good point.

CPT MARTINEZ: JA team MTOE modifications, if that ... if the JB team, you know, concept crumbles and were shot down, then I'd probably have a JA team with a food inspection technician warrant officer. I'd have probably had JA team detachment sergeant at least an E-7 or above.

MAJ HONEC: That slot should be a warrant officer?

CPT MARTINEZ: Go up to [WO]-2, [WO]-3.

MAJ HONEC: Well, he's dealing on a peer level. Doesn't he have to have the same ...

CPT MARTINEZ: Yeah, maybe a -3. Yeah, if he's ... all these food advisors are so ****ing important.

MAJ HONEC: Okay, E-7 would look good, and going along with enlisted?

CPT MARTINEZ: Yeah. You know, I think it needs a stronger ... a stronger first sergeant of a rank other than an E-6.

MAJ HONEC: Okay.

CPT MARTINEZ: Equipment, as I said, you know, tools ...

MAJ HONEC: For the trucks.

CPT MARTINEZ: And tow bars, you know, slave cables, you need ... we need HMMWVs and not these old CUCVs that blow tires at every rock. We need an adequate number of vehicles to tactically transport these personnel.

MAJ HONEC: These long distances were a factor in hampering your mission accomplishment. But also the numbers, sheer numbers of businesses that you were expected to inspect a day, did you have ... ? You know, you obviously didn't have the equipment to do that, too, as well as the time and the resources.

CPT MARTINEZ: Well, I'm saying that ... I mean, if that is [INAUDIBLE] sir, I'm saying this more on the lines of ... more on the lines of tactics. I mean when you're in your MOPP suit, wearing your [protective] vest, wearing your LBE, and you have your M-16 there, and you have to have your rucksack with your CPOG and your survival stuff at your ready, you can't put three people in the cab of a truck. You can't put ... you know, you need space, and the MTOE authorization says you know, six personnel. Well, we can fit three people in the front seat of a pick-up truck. Well, sure you can around Fayetteville, North Carolina, but you're not ... but you won't ... but you won't be able to under ...

MAJ HONEC: That tactical condition.

CPT MARTINEZ: That tactical situation.

MAJ HONEC: Good point.

CPT MARTINEZ: Training-wise ...

MAJ HONEC: Yeah.

CPT MARTINEZ: JA teams and all ... all teams probably need a lot more training available to them. Health Services Command cuts out FORSCOM, you know, FORSCOM units. They limit access to certain types of training. We need more training, and we need more training in local procurement of food items ...

MAJ HONEC: Good, yes. Be specific.

CPT MARTINEZ: And we need more training in subsistence depot operations and the Class I supply points. I feel strongly that the vet services team should be closely coordinating with the quartermaster and police elements. I don't really know ... I question ... the vet services are coexisting with the medical elements, because I don't think they get high enough priority. If they were assigned to ... attached to quartermaster units, where the action is, and MP units, where the action is, then we would have a higher priority, a lot more timely, reliable, accurate information in order to accomplish the mission.

MAJ HONEC: Okay. That's a good point. That's a good point. One thing, what were you ... I don't think we covered what you were expected to do in Iraq?

CPT MARTINEZ: Oh, yeah ... yeah, sure. In Iraq ...

MAJ HONEC: As a final note.

CPT MARTINEZ: Yeah.

MAJ HONEC: What was your mission in Iraq?

CPT MARTINEZ: My mission in Iraq, we're supposed to provide food inspection support to the GSU--the Corps GSU--which would jump as we moved eastward to Basrah, and all that plan, that went out the window of course. We were supposed to be inspecting MREs almost exclusively, and these MREs were supposed to be through-put direct from CONUS with no in-between inspection. That's what we were told. That's why we were sent over there. As it turned out, the Corps--the Corps Class I officer, CPT ... CPT Feldon, I believe it is ... had told LTC ...

MAJ HONEC: Dutton?

CPT MARTINEZ: LTC Dutton that all the MREs being trucked up to Log Base ROMEO, they would be the through-put MREs, they would obviously need inspecting.

MAJ HONEC: The bottled water also?

CPT MARTINEZ: I didn't have any ...

MAJ HONEC: Okay.

CPT MARTINEZ: Any involvement with that ...

MAJ HONEC: Fine. That's fine. That's fine.

CPT MARTINEZ: At all. As it turned out, MREs that we found up there at ROMEO were from other stocks, had been inspected. Some were containerized, which was ... that's what ... that's the way they're supposed to be in order to afford maximum protection against any kind of, you know, chemical or biological agent.

MAJ HONEC: Yes, at the Special Troop[s] Battalion³⁵ at the Class I point. Yeah. There was numbers ... great numbers of containers full of both water and MREs. Were these those that you were ... ?

CPT MARTINEZ: We were supporting the 227th GSU ...

MAJ HONEC: Okay, GSU. Okay.

CPT MARTINEZ: Operation. Now, they were also receiving flatbeds, S&P ... of just, you know, palletized MREs, which also had already been inspected. Palletized, uncovered, unprotected. It didn't make too much sense.

MAJ HONEC: How could you tell that these had been inspected already?

CPT MARTINEZ: We checked the ... what you check for, on the outside of the MRE, the MRE carton is ... there's a date of packing and allotment number, and we had ... prior to crossing the LD we had obtained a list from the other JA team in the corps of what they had been inspecting up in the Log Base CHARLIE area.

MAJ HONEC: I see. Okay.

CPT MARTINEZ: So that type of information, again, passed along you to us was inaccurate.

MAJ HONEC: Very good point. Okay.

CPT MARTINEZ: When I went into Iraq also I checked out several blocks of sheep on the basis ... on the reports from other units that there were massive die-offs of sheep. We had to drive out into these wadi areas and talk to these Iraqi Bedouins and check out their sick and dead sheep.

MAJ HONEC: What became of this? Anything?

CPT MARTINEZ: No.

MAJ HONEC: Just dying on that.

CPT MARTINEZ: To cause us ... well, they have a lot of infectious problems up there. They probably have a five, ten percent, just normal mortality rate.

MAJ HONEC: Good point. Good point.

CPT MARTINEZ: I don't have information on anthrax yet.

MAJ HONEC: Okay.

CPT MARTINEZ: Anyway, so that's it. That's what ... and we ... our people just ... they were used in the task force to, you know, humping litters, and I did too, and just those things.

MAJ HONEC: When you aren't doing your inspection ... when you didn't need to inspect you were just doing general support. Okay. Coming back, what date did you come back from Iraq ... I mean, from Saudi Arabia? Okay. I think the tape ran out. Anyway, Saudi Arabia ... what time?

CPT MARTINEZ: We came back from Saudi on the 29th of March. I left two of my people back there with equipment and everything, and they got back on the 12th April.

MAJ HONEC: So the equipment is still on the water?

CPT MARTINEZ: Our trucks just came back last Thursday. Our equipment is ... God knows.

MAJ HONEC: Thursday would have been in May, the end of May.

CPT MARTINEZ: I'm sorry. Whatever date ...

MAJ HONEC: That's quite all right. That's all right. And your equipment, though?

CPT MARTINEZ: My equipment is in the conex, you know, somewhere ... somewhere.

MAJ HONEC: On a container ship somewhere, still.

CPT MARTINEZ: Somewhere still ... there.

MAJ HONEC: Okay. Very good. What was your route back?

CPT MARTINEZ: We flew ... we flew Continental from ... from Dhahran to London.

MAJ HONEC: Okay, the Gatwick Airport? Gatwick Airport?

CPT MARTINEZ: No.

MAJ HONEC: And then from there to New Jersey?

CPT MARTINEZ: Yeah, to Newark.

MAJ HONEC: To Newark?

CPT MARTINEZ: New Jersey, and then to Pope.

MAJ HONEC: Okay. Okay. Okay. Thank you very much.

CPT MARTINEZ: Thanks for your time.

Endnotes
1. Military Occupational Specialties.
2. Technically DRAGON CITY, a vacated Royal Saudi Air Defense base located several miles from the King Abdul Aziz Royal Saudi Air Base and used during DESERT SHIELD at the Main Command Post for XVIII Airborne Corps.
3. Personnel holding area.
4. Continental United States.
5. United States Army Forces Central Command. Furnished on this deployment by Third Army.
6. Security Police Officer in Charge.
7. Infantry division.
8. 1st Support Command (Corps).
9. Preventive medicine.
10. Cover Your Ass.
11. Departed on Permanent Change of Station.
12. Commanding General, ARCENT Support Command.
13. Arab-American Oil Company.
14. Medical Service Corps. MAJ Honec is a MSC officer.
15. Professional filler system. See DSIT-AE-100.
16. Commercial Utility Cargo Vehicle.
17. Personnel and administration center, a cell found in the headquarters of a battalion-sized organization.
18. 573d Personnel Services Company, the organization on Fort Bragg that cares for the records of non-divisional units.
19. Chemical Protective Outer Garment. Also commonly called a MOPP suit (for Mission-Oriented Protective Posture).
20. The personnel and equipment staging area at Pope Air Force Base.
21. Desert Camouflage Uniform.
22. Modified Table of Organization and Equipment.
23. 503d Military Police Battalion. Also see DSIT-AE-058.
24. Refrigerated tractor-trailers.
25. One of the Saudi royal family princes donated a shipment of bottled sugar water directly to a number of Army and Marine Corps units. Inspectors discovered that it was contaminated.
26. 17 January 1991. The actual ground offensive began on G-Day, which was 24 February.
27. Area of operations.
28. Direct support unit/general support unit. Supply Class I is rations.
29. A reference to radio procedures in which a unit is told to wait until someone contacts them.
30. H-Hour was considered 0400C on 24 February.
31. M-998-series High Mobility Multi-Wheeled Vehicles.
32. Line of departure.
33. The fuel available in DESERT SHIELD and DESERT STORM was Jet-A, rather than standard diesel.
34. The intervention in Panama in December 1989 and January 1990.
35. A provisional subordinate element of 1st Support Command.