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with a twelve-day continuous exercise for the full brigade. On the advice ofsenior Army leaders, Clark designed a training sequence that incorporatedlessons drawn from the Middle East, such as breaching the obstacles suchas those Iraq had erected in Kuwait and defending against Iraqi tacticsused in the eight-year war against Iran. The 48th continued its trainingthroughout January and February, completing it on 28 February, the daythe cease-fire was declared in Iraq and Kuwait. The unit did not deployto the Persian Gulf.The 155th Armored Brigade had a somewhat similar experience.While waiting for the 48th to finish at Fort Irwin, the 155th trained atFort Hood. Its crews did experience serious difficulties on the gunneryranges. The commander of the 155th later acknowledged that training atFort Hood “was an eye opener.” The ranges were up to 1.8 miles widerand 2.5 miles deeper than the unit’s normal training range at CampShelby, Mississippi. After intensive training at Fort Hood, the brigadespent three weeks at the National Training Center.The training of the 256th Infantry Brigade created new rounds of controversyregarding the use of roundout brigades in combat. The brigadehad received M1 Abrams tanks in 1989 and was still in the new-equipmenttraining process when federalized. The soldiers had only recently learnedto drive the tanks; and maneuver, gunnery, and maintenance traininghad not yet been scheduled. In addition, the 256th, like the 155th, hadarrived at its mobilization station, Fort Polk, Louisiana, with insufficientchemical protection and communications equipment, partially becauseof extensive redistribution of equipment to other National Guard unitscalled up earlier. They too did not finish their training in time to deployto the Gulf.The two field artillery brigades, the 142d and the 196th, were federalizedabout the same time as their armor and infantry counterparts.However, both artillery brigades were nearly fully trained in gunneryand, unlike the maneuver brigades, the artillery units did not need mostof the movement and synchronization skills best taught at the NationalTraining Center. On 21 November, the 142d Field Artillery Brigadeand its three subordinate units—the 1st and 2d Battalions, 142d FieldArtillery, from Arkansas and the 1st Battalion, 158th Field Artillery, fromOklahoma—reported to active duty. The brigade arrived at its mobilizationstation, Fort Sill, Oklahoma, between 23 and 25 November and beganfocusing on “last minute” chemical-warfare and communications skills.By 15 December, only twenty-four days after federalization, the 142dBrigade had its equipment at the Port of Galveston, Texas, awaiting transshipmentto Southwest Asia. Consequently, the 142d borrowed equipment26