American military engagement in the Persian Gulf area during the first half of 1991. The
United States was part of a multinational force opposing the August 1990 invasion of
Kuwait by Iraq. Despite the short duration of the conflict, the dominant military power of
the United States and its allies, and the high-tech nature of the warfare, typical wartime
folklore quickly appeared.
Already in late 1990, when the United States had troops in the area as a show of force
(“Operation Desert Shield”), a rumor swept the country that the Pentagon, in anticipation
of bloodshed to come, had special-ordered massive numbers of caskets to be shipped to
Saudi Arabia. The alleged orders escalated from an early rumor of 10,000 to 23,000
eventually to as many as 40,000 or 50,000. “Those rumors are baloney,” one U.S.
military spokesman said, while a Gannett News Service report in December 1990
concluded, “The casket story has bounced from sea to shining sea with enough strength
for it to be nominated as an ‘urban legend.’”
On January 16, 1991, President George Bush ordered active U.S. engagement in the
conflict to begin (“Operation Desert Storm”), commanded by General Norman
Schwarzkopf. “No war or run-up to war is complete without its tales of atrocity,” an
article in the Nation stated on February 4, 1991; the article went on to show that “the
single most publicized atrocity was untrue.” The story, widely repeated by politicans and
the press, was that Iraqi troops entering Kuwait City had raided hospitals, removing more
than 300 premature babies from incubators, which were then shipped to Baghdad.
Amnesty International, at first accepting the report, inquired further after the end of the
war in April 1991 and “found no reliable evidence that Iraqi forces had caused the deaths
of babies” by such means or in such numbers.
A homefront horror story described an injured Gulf War veteran telephoning his
parents from the hospital to ask if he might bring home a wounded comrade who was
both blind and a multiple amputee. The parents said no, that this would be too much of a
burden on them, so their son killed himself, since he was describing his own injuries. The
vet realized that his parents would never be able to accept him again in his condition.
Many other rumors, tales, and warnings relating to the Persian Gulf War circulated by
word of mouth, on radio talk shows, and over the Internet. A frequent theme was
“amazing coincidences”—things that may have happened in reality but were modified
and exaggerated as the tales were repeated. Typically, an American soldier opens a letter
or a package of cookies addressed to “Any Soldier” and finds that it was sent by a
relative of his as part of an organization’s “support our troops” effort. Another common
notion was that an Iraqi prisoner spoke fluent American English, wore American
clothing, and was eager to be “captured,” since he was a U.S. citizen who happened to be
visiting relatives in Baghdad when the war broke out. A group calling itself Mothers
against Saddam Hussein (MASH) warned that return addresses should be removed from
discarded envelopes containing mail from home, because the enemy was collecting addresses from the trash to target American families for terrorist attacks. Stateside,
yellow ribbons were widely displayed as symbols of support for our troops.
The advanced electronic weaponry employed in the Gulf War produced its own
folklore, including accounts of incredible accuracy that were contradicted by other
reports of failures of equipment or errors in strategy. One amusing story claimed that on
an island in the Gulf that was controlled by the enemy, the Iraqis had put up wooden
decoys of military vehicles and installations, hoping to fool the American bombers.
Supposedly, after Air Force intelligence recognized the trick, the bombers retaliated by
dropping decoy bombs onto the decoy targets.
Anti-Iraqi riddle jokes by the hundreds were circulated, picturing the enemy as inept,
ill trained and poorly supplied, and hopelessly outclassed in the conflict. Some examples:
What do Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Baghdad have in common?
Nothing, yet.
How do you get 100 Iraqis on a twenty-passenger bus? Throw in an
MRE. (“Meals ready to eat,” American combat rations, disliked by our
troops, but allegedly superior to anything the enemy had to eat.)
What do the Iraqis use sandpaper for? Maps.
Why is it so easy to teach Iraqi pilots how to fly?
Because you don’t have to teach them how to land.
Newspaper editorial cartoons satirizing or criticizing Saddam Hussein, Iraq’s president
(referred to by President Bush as “The Butcher of Baghdad”), were recopied and posted,
while numerous anonymous photocopied drawings and fliers appeared. A favorite was a
poster for the “Baghdad Air Show of 1991,” which advertised the bombardment of the
Iraqi capital as being merely an aerial firepower demonstration. One cartoon showed an
American fighter jet chasing a camel-riding Hussein out of Kuwait with the caption
(borrowed from a cigarette ad) “I’d fly 7,000 to Smoke a Camel.” There were several
variations of the “weapons versus camels” theme, including one that showed a supposed
Iraqi mobile Scud mis-sile launcher consisting of a camel with the missile in its mouth,
having its testicles struck with a mallet. Another cartoon was in the form of a dart board
inviting the player to choose the punishment for Saddam Hussein’s war crimes; each
subsection of the board offered another bizarre torture, including “Feed him to the
Israelis.”
Israel had agreed to remain passive in the face of missile attacks and the fear of
chemical warfare from Iraq. This unaccustomed wartime role spawned numerous grim
jokes, such as:
What is Israeli roulette?
Three gas masks and four people in a sealed room.
What does Scud stand for?
Saddam Comes Again Damn-it!
Hey, but Scud is spelled with a “U.”
True, but Saddam doesn’t know English.
What’s the similarity between Scuds and married love
making?
Both start at the frequency of five times a night and
finish with one time every five nights.
The abrupt end of the conflict in April 1991 with the Iraqi government accepting allied
surrender terms was followed by widespread charges that high-tech American weapons
used in the Gulf War had not performed as perfectly as the government claimed. An aura
of folklore cloaked the subject, as, for example, in NBC News commentator John
Chancellor’s remarks (published in the New York Times) that the war had created “facts
misperceived, truth bent out of shape, and a fog of myth and misconception.”
Jan Harold Brunvand
References
Nevo, Ofra, and Jacob Levine. 1994. Jewish Humor Strikes Again: The Outburst of Humor in
Israel during the Gulf War. Western Folklore 53:125–146.
Santino, Jack. 1992. Yellow Ribbons and Seasonal Flags: The Folk Assemblage of War. Journal of
American Folklore 105:19–33.
Wukasch, Charles. 1992. The Folklore of the Gulf War. Tennessee Folklore Society Bulletin
55:158–159.