Story by Meranda Watling
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• Desert Storm: A Perfect War - Maj. Joe |
More than a decade before men and women were being sent to serve in Operation Iraqi Freedom, soldiers like Maj. Joe Paydock, an Army ROTC instructor at Kent State, were being deployed to Iraq for Operation Desert Storm.
Paydock, who joined the Army after joining the ROTC in college, says the war he fought in was a conventional war, unlike the current conflict.
“The biggest difference is that the current force is occupying the country,” he says. “When we were there, we went in there, freed Kuwait and we were done.
“In many respects it was the perfect war. The country supported it, it didn’t last long and not many people died. We would love to be in a conventional war now.”
Paydock says today’s soldiers are having an entirely different experience.
“They are staying in the cities, trying to build a new state. I think we had it easier. We knew the danger was out there, but for these guys, it’s imminent.”
The most stressful part of the Persian Gulf War was heading into it because they didn’t know what to expect, Paydock says.
“We didn’t know what the enemy was capable of,” he says. “They were ordering body bags and predicting thousands were going to die. When they finally said ‘cease fire’ and it was over, it was hard to believe it was over so soon.”
Americans supported Desert Storm because of the lack of support during Vietnam, Paydock says. The lack of support back home was demoralizing to the troops in Vietnam, and people didn’t want to see that happen again.
People also supported the war because there weren’t many casualties and it didn’t last long, so there wasn’t time for the patriotism to “go stale,” he says.
“This generation of Americans hasn’t been through a drawn-out war and losing lots of people,” Paydock says. “We haven’t been through this, and we don’t like it.”