Mark Hertling was on his first combat deployment. Were he to die, he wanted to leave a behind a record of what he experienced.

On 1991, Army commander Frank Hancock headed into battle. The operation can still be celebrated, the Carlisle retiree said, largely because of the work of two of his analysts.

Extreme combat environments exposed weapon design limits that controlled testing never captured despite good early performance. Desert environments caused sand ingestion and heat stress. Jungle ...