73 Easting

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun

The first thing we did when news came over the wires that Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster was President Trump’s choice for National Security Adviser was to search on YouTube for “73 Easting.” Sure enough, it produced a cornucopia of videos in respect of the legendary engagement that erupted on February 26, 1991, during the famed “Hail Mary” against the army of Saddam Hussein in Operation Desert Storm. It has been called the last great tank battle of the 20th Century.

73 Easting is named for the Universal Transverse Mercator coordinate at which the fight erupted in the desert, as American armor, racing through foul weather, caught Saddam’s tanks by surprise. The battle began when the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment’s Eagle Troop, comprising nine tanks led by Captain McMaster, crested a rise in the desert and caught the enemy. Before 73 Easting was over, our side slew or wounded as many as 1,000 enemy soldiers, captured more than 1,300, and destroyed more than 400 tanks and vehicles.

It would be a mistake to make too much of 73 Easting. It is, after all, only one fight in Desert Storm, and only the beginning of General McMaster’s climb to glory. He became a scholar, wrote a thesis on Vietnam and taught at West Point. In 2003, he returned to Iraq as commander of the 3rd Armored Calvary Regiment, which was widely praised for securing the city of Tal Afar. He would go on to command the Army’s Maneuver Center for Excellence. In 2014, General McMaster was one of Time’s 100 most influential persons.

In his book on Vietnam, the future general viewed the first war we lost through the prism of his experience in Desert Storm: “The ease with which we could connect our combat mission to strategic objectives that seemed clear and attainable contrasted starkly with combat actions in Vietnam, which seemed to achieve nothing beyond adding more enemy dead to the weekly body count,” he wrote. He wondered how Vietnam had become a war in which Americans fought and died without a grasp of the role of their sacrifices in ending the conflict.

“By law,” the future general wrote, “the Joint Chiefs of Staff were the ‘principal military advisers to the President, the National Security Council, and the Secretary of Defense.’” He concluded he would need to “understand the role of the president, his principal civilian advisers, and the JCS in the decision-making process.” The critical history that followed — unsparing in respect of LBJ, Secretary of Defense McNamara, and the Joint Chiefs — has become a classic.

That the author has just fetched up as the national security adviser to the president can’t be a coincidence. He arrives amid talk of chaos in the White House, with war clouds scudding in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, and he strikes us as ideal for the job. At 73 Easting, his troop of nine tanks themselves took out more than 80 enemy tanks without losing a single GI. Could it yet turn out hiring national security advisers is one of the things for which President Trump has an instinct?


The New York Sun

© 2024 The New York Sun Company, LLC. All rights reserved.

Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. The material on this site is protected by copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used.

The New York Sun

Sign in or  Create a free account

By continuing you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use