Desert Storm: First hours of war transfix Richmond

Front-page from the Times-Dispatch of Jan. 17, 1991, the day after the start of Desert Storm.

When roommates Nicole Frost and Jackey Boyer opened the door to Buddy's bar in the Fan District last night, the hushed crowd was listening so raptly to President Bush's war message that the pair stood timidly at the door -- not daring to take a seat or place an order.

It was the first non-sports event to grace the Buddy's screens in two years. The sole sound besides Bush: two smatterings of applause, three whoops and a “Yeah!”

“It was like church,” Ms. Frost said later. Coverage of the Persian Gulf war's opening hours transfixed Richmonders, who formed clumps around televisions in restaurants, shopping centers and laundry rooms.

The cleaning people at Central Fidelity Bank on Gayton Road paused to soak up the news. The sisters of Alpha Omicron Pi at Virginia Commonwealth University watched the bulletins on the wide screen at the Common Ground pub for several hours before heading off to watch a rented video, “Sixteen Candles.”

The news shattered the hope some had built up in the day and a half that passed after the much-ballyhooed “deadline in the desert.”

“I was kind of hoping we were bluffing,” said Deborah Holland of Norfolk, who had stayed up till midnight in her Richmond hotel room the night of the deadline and woke up every hour after that to see if anything had happened.

Bush seemed to be getting nearly universal support.

“I was kind of pumped,” said Jeff Price of North Carolina, a Philip Morris USA employee visiting the plant in South Richmond. “You hit `em early. You hit `em quick.”

But one skeptic thought the president's speech was just a rehash.

“He didn't say anything,” said Brian Rojas, a salesman at the Radio Shack in Regency Square Mall, who watched people drift in and out of the store all night to listen to his radios and watch his televisions.

And Keith Liberatore of Richmond, an ex-Marine who fought in Vietnam, thinks Bush waited too long. The 42-year-old wished the bombing had begun right after the midnight deadline, which is 8 a.m. in Iraq.

“Our helicopters have been known to mess up at night,” said Liberatore, watching the news at the Ruby Tuesday restaurant at Cloverleaf Mall.

The televisions at Joe's Inn in the Fan District were turned to NBC and CNN, but few patrons knew what was happening. Bartender Tracy Armstrong had no way to turn the sets up enough for people to hear, and the early network coverage showed mostly maps.

“I'm not going to go around shouting, `We're at war,' “ said Armstrong, who tried to keep up by listening to National Public Radio.

For 100 or so legislators and horse-racing lobbyists and vendors gathered at Champions sports bar, the overhead TV sets were less interesting than the smoked oysters and other steam-table finger food.

“They heard the original announcement and went back” to talking and eating, said Russell B. Pace Jr., a retired Albemarle County businessman.

Some have simply had their fill of war. At the smoke-filled Military Retirees Club on Chamberlayne Avenue, last night's bingo game went on without television.

“The longer we wait, the worse it's going to be,” said H.B. Hamm, a retired Army veteran who served in the Korean and Vietnam wars.

Although most knew war was coming, its arrival sobered many.

At 7:30 p.m., four friends joshed about who'd be the designated driver as they tottered out of 6th Street Marketplace on their way to the Renegades hockey game at the Richmond Coliseum.

When told war was on, they stopped and stared. The smiles drooped. One softly uttered a single expletive.

Inside the Coliseum, Rod Weston, his two sons and a Hopewell neighbor solemnly held their hands over their hearts during the National Anthem. They'd heard about sporadic firing as they drove in, but weren't sure if war had truly begun.

“It's really started?” asked Weston, his face turning solemn. “It's kind of ironic coming here to watch a hockey game and they're over there fighting and dying.”

No announcement of the war was made at the game. “They came here to get away from it all,” Renegades owner Alan Harvie explained. “We want them to enjoy their evening.”

Three federal officials visiting Richmond heard about the air raid as they left Morton's Tea Room, but decided to take a walk in Shockoe Slip instead of rushing back to TV sets at the Linden Row Inn.

“We're going to be dwelling on this for awhile -- there's no sense in starting too soon,” said Lee Higgins of the General Accounting Office in Washington.

“Eventually, we'll have to go turn on the tube and knock back a few bourbons.”