Hole in the Fence

Associated Press Photographer David Longstreath near Kuwait City during the first Gulf War

​​All around me the carnage of Gulf War 1 spilled out on the sands of Kuwait. There was destruction In every direction -- tanks, vehicles., too many men. The retreating Iraqis had set many of Kuwait's oil wells on fire. It looked like hell on earth.

I was 39 years old and in my eighth year as a photographer for the world's oldest and largest wire service, The Associated Press. I had served in the US Navy, ran loose with Navy Seals in training exercises. I had been shot off the flight deck of several aircraft carriers and earned expert marksmanship with both rifles and pistols. My last posting in the Navy was with the Atlantic Fleet Combat Camera Group. I had military experience, more than most of my AP brothers who had none.

I was one of the first AP photographers to arrive in Saudi Arabia prior to the first Gulf War. Sadam Hussein had invaded Kuwait and I and three other AP photographers were covering the war build-up that we thought was forever. 

After three months of photographing US forces in training, I went home convinced that there was never going to be any fighting. 

Then in mid January 1991 while in Tampa, Fla., to cover Super Bowl XXV, I fell one morning while jogging and fractured my elbow. It seemed my involvement in coverage of the war was over as I was in a cast from knuckles to mid right arm.

But six weeks later, the Allied air war had destroyed numerous Iraqi tanks and other armored vehicles. As it happened, the vice president of AP Photos, Vin Alabiso, called around Feb. 20 and asked if I wanted to return. I said yes and was on my way back the next day. I met up with AP photo editor Brian Horton and two others and soon we were on a Saudi Arabia Air 747 to Jeddah. It took some wrangling but we were flown into Dharan by the Saudi Air Force.  

Once there AP photographer Don Mell got me a spot in a Saudi media pool. Mell was the best scrounger/fixer I had ever worked with. From his time in Lebanon, he knew the Middle East and how to make things work. Nothing happened unless Mell first checked it out. 

The morning that I left with the Saudia photo pool Horton came over to say goodbye and good luck. My friend reached up and tightened the straps on my web gear and then stuffed a granola bar in one of the pouches. It turned out to be my only meal in the next 36 hours.

The pool was loaded and driven to a waiting Saudi C-130 cargo plane. It was a hell of a ride from there. We flew through some dangerous thunderstorms but arrived safely at an airstrip near the border city of Khafji.
We then rode into the ongoing liberation of Kuwait aboard an airlines shuttle van, the 
kind that one hops at LAX to go from the terminal to the rental car lot. 

A gaping hole in the concrete wall between Saudi Arabia and Kuwait was the crossing we took into the battle zone as we followed behind an Abrahams M1A tank on our way to Kuwait City.

The reporting pool soon arrived in Kuwait City and there were still street battles between Iraqi stragglers and Kuwait resistance fighters. All around buildings had been torched or bombed. Fires burned everywhere.  
We were given about 30 minutes to photograph or interview people on the scene before having to get back in the van for the return trip to Saudi Arabia. "Not me," I thought. I moved next to an open window in the van where an AP reporter was sitting. "Hey man give this to Horton," I said and then slipped him several bags of exposed film.

He looked at me and asked where I was going. "Not back", I told him. A burned-out Sheraton across the street became my rally point. A Kuwaiti handed me a warm 7-Up, hugged me and yelled: "We love George Bush".

In the time it took me to chug the drink the hotel manager had wrangled me an English-speaking driver and a late-model Buick LeSabre. Soon I was riding along in the middle of the carnage known as "the Valley of Death."

The six-lane road used as retreat by the Iraqis had been heavily bombed and strafed by US fighter jets. Dead soldiers and destroyed equipment was everywhere.

Eventually, I ended up at the Kuwait International Hotel where a Filipino maid handed me the keys to a suite. Iraqi soldiers had kicked all the doors in so the keys were really pointless. I slept that night on a very nice bed but kept my Swiss Army knife at the ready. I was joined the next morning by other journalists and we scrounged food and coffee from US ration kits that had fallen off the back of supply trucks.

Everywhere was chaos. The Kuwaitis who had not fired a shot in anger were hell bent on shooting up the sky. Burst after burst of automatic weapons fire was constantly shot off all around.

AP photographers Don Mell and Scott Applewhite arrived the next day with the equipment needed to process film and send the images back to the US. Most of the stuff was heavy, especially the generator and the maritime satellite dish.  

Meanwhile, all of the reporters were running loose, chasing stories on mass executions at the Kuwait City zoo. It was all bullshit. Chaos is a difficult thing to manage. I found that just getting out to take photos was the only realistic plan.

The following morning Horton arrived in a rented Audi with FOOD. Bags of delicious pita bread, corned beef and lots of Spam. He settled into the workroom and began editing photos and coordinating with the reporters and print editors. 

Each day was a new experience. Horton, myself, and the other journalists clung to the fragile belief that if we got into trouble someone somehow would help us.

In what seemed a short time, the Kuwait Hilton had generators brought in and electricity was restored. A week later there was water for showers. The chaos all but vanished as law and ordered slowly returned.

And then it was time to leave. Horton was needed back in the States and I was assigned to run the photo operations in Saudi Arabia.

The only way back was a road trip through the Valley of Death. So off Brian and I went with just a couple of bottles of water, some canned tuna and noodles and a cassette tape of Tina Turner's greatest hits.

About three hours into our drive the Kuwait border and its guards appeared. Not wishing to encounter trouble I swung in behind an Egyptian six-wheeled troop carrier. We were headed for that hole in the fence. The Egyptians easily made it through but seconds later I was stuck in high center, one half of our car in Saudi Arabia and the other in Kuwait.

Panic does not begin to describe my emotions. What now? Horton and I got out and surveyed the problem. We were stuck on what was left of a concrete barrier that tanks had knocked down. There was no way we could push it out. As we pondered our next move some other Egyptian soldiers thankfully came to our aid. 

They lined up their troop carrier and the bumper of our Honda and then "BANG" rammed us through the border hole. Horton cheered as I stopped just long enough to get him back in the car.

Tuna and noodles never tasted so good and Tina Turner never sounded so good as we safely headed to Dharan.