The order to halt and withdraw turned out to have been one of the most consequential turning points in the war, Macgregor says.

In other words, to carry on and destroy Saddam Hussein's regime. 'He literally was pleading with me to continue the attack,' Macgregor says.

He told Macgregor 'Major, you must go to Baghdad and end this. Macgregor recalls speaking with an Iraqi officer who had surrendered. 'The sad truth of the matter is that the body of the Republican Guard Corps - this 80,000 man force - had escaped intact,' he says. But shortly after, Cougar Squadron was ordered to 'break contact' - stop the attack. 'We break the back of the enemy defense and we run out of the targets to shoot,' Macgregor says. Once Cougar Squadron made contact with the Iraqi soldiers, a heavy tank battle began that lasted several hours. Most of us were covered with this by the time the battle ends,' Macgregor tells Guy Raz. Macgregor tells the story in a play-by-play manner: That morning, as Cougar Squadron made its way toward 73 Easting, bad weather and a sandstorm obscured its range of vision. His unit was ordered to confront a contingent of the Republican Guard dug in along a defensive line in southern Iraq.

Douglas Macgregor, who writes about the lead-up and the aftermath of the battle in a new memoir called Warrior's Rage: The Great Tank Battle of 73 Easting. The man who led that group into battle was then-Maj. 26 around a gridline on a military map known as '73 Easting.' The unit at the tip of the spear was the 2nd Squadron of the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment, known as 'Cougar Squadron.' To the man who led the squadron, the battle was a portent of things to come. To history buffs, the 'Battle of 73 Easting' is legendary. 1991, an American Army squadron defeated an elite Iraqi brigade almost twice as large in what is now regarded as the largest U.S.

73 easting greatest tank battles