ANTHOLOGY AND ANN~ATED BiBUOGRAPHY                                             Ii


MEF was formed by "compositing" or fitting together the elements of the 7th
MED and 1st MED.    In Marine Corps language, the 7th MEB "stood down'1 on
that date.  Either "deactivated" or "dissolved" would be much too strong a
word; 7th MED could be readily reconstituted if the situation required it.  Major
General Hopkins, the commanding general of the 7th MED, now became the
deputy commander of I MEF.
   I MEF's command element had come from Camp Pendleton, California. The
commanding general, Lieutenant General Walter E. Doomer, arrived at Riyadh
on 17 August.    Boomer is a North Carolinian, commissioned in the Marine
Corps in 1960 after graduating from Duke University.   As a captain he had two
tours in Vietnam, the first as a rifle company commander and the second as an
advisor to a Vietnamese Marine Corps battalion. He is an outdoorsman, whose
favorite pastime is hunting.  He received a Master's degree in technology of
management from the American University in 1973, and then taught at the Naval
Academy.    As do most general officers, he has a chest full of ribbons, but the
most significant are his two Silver Stars from Vietnam.   Silver Stars require
gallantry in action and are not given lightly by the Marine Corps. He had taken
command of I MEF at Camp Pendleton on 8 August, immediately before
deployment, coming from command of the Reserve 4th Marine Division.           He
is now 52 years old.
   At the same ceremony, Brigadier General James M. Myatt became the new
commanding general of the 1st Marine Division. 11 Myatt had been commissioned
a second lieutenant in the Marine Corps after graduating from Sam Houston
State University in Texas.  Later he would receive a master of science degree
in engineering electronics from the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey,
California.  He served two tours in Vietnam, the first as a platoon leader and
company commander and the second as an advisor to the Vietnamese Marines.
He, too, has a Silver Star.
   On 5 September (C + 29) the 1st Marine Division "stood up," signifying
that the headquarters of the division was in place, having arrived from Camp
Pendleton, and was ready to assume control of the ground combat element of I
MEF.20
   By 6 September, the three major subordinate headquarters of I MEF were in
place: the 1st Marine Division, the 3d Marine Aircraft Wing, and the 1st Force
Service Support Group, the last commanded by Brigadier General James A.
Brabham, Jr. General Brabham is a native Pennsylvanian, born in 1939, and a
1962 civil-engineering graduate of Cornell University.  During the first of his
two Vietnam tours, he commanded a company in a shore party battalion; during
the second he was an engineer advisor to the Vietnamese Marine Corps.        Like
General Boomer, he had a tour on the faculty of the Naval Academy. In recent
years Brabham had been the Deputy J-4 at USCentCom, an almost ideal
preparation for his present assignment.  In addition to being the commanding
general   of the 1st Force   Service Support Group,    he also functioned      as
ComUSMarCent; that is, commander of the Marine component of the Central
Command until General Boomer's arrival.