ANTHOLOGY AND ANNOTATED BFBLiOGRAPHY                                       33


   Within days, Major (3eneral [John I.] Hopkins had brought the 7th MEB into
the theater, and was deploying his forces in their initial operating area near [the
port of] Al Jubayl. I stayed in close contact with him to ensure that his
immediate needs were being met by the CentCom staff. The inevitable problems
in coordinating with the host nation were best solved at the CinC level, so that
was another key task for me in Riyadh.
   About one month later--6 September, as I recall--we had enough combat
service support personnel in country to stand up the headquarters of the 1st
FSSG at Al Jubayl.   It was a composite unit, consisting largely of BSSG-?
[Brigade Service Support Group-?,   supporting the 7th MEB]; the smaller
BSSG-1, from Hawaii; and some of my own 1st FSSG people from Camp
Pendleton.   At the time I moved my flag from Riyadh to Al Jubayl, our
composite unit was roughly half the size of a full-fledged FSSO. (See map on
page 23)

Proceedings: These brigade service support groups had a lot of experience in
MPS [maritime prepositioning ships] deployments, didn't they?

Brabham: Absolutely.   This first combat MPS deployment [where Marines are
flown into a crisis area to "marry up" with heavy equipment and supplies carried
by ships of MPS squadrons) had been well-rehearsed, and it went very, very
well.  There was some hurry-up pressure to get Marines out to their defensive
positions, in light of the Iraqi threat--and we had to get used to working in the
heat and sand and other complicating factors--but we got a great assist from the
fact that we had exclusive use of the large, modern port of Al Jubayl. It is a
16-berth port with full facilities, and it even had an indigenous work force in
place, ready to assist.

Proceedings: Who coordinated that stevedore effofl?

Brahham: Initially, (3eneral Hopkins coordinated the offload of the 7th Marine
Expeditionary Brigade, and the follow-on 1st MEB handled their own unloading.
Once my force service support group was in place, however, we picked up
responsibility for the total port operation, including native workers and U.S.
Army units.

Proceedings: That's got to be a Marine Corps first!

Brahham: I guess it probably was.  But it was a cooperative effort, under 1st
FSSG guidance.    We had a naval support element that came with the MPS
squadrons and became the Navy 5 cargo-handling group.  Those sailors worked
alongside the Marine Landing Support Battalion. Eventually, we added an Army
cargo-handling group, the 10th Transportation Battalion, which handled some
Marine shipping as well as Army shipping. Everyone cooperated, and it didn't
matter who unloaded what.  We just worked against the priorities of the port,
and things turned out rather well.