ANTHOLOGY AND ANNOTATBD BIBLIOGRAPHY                                       75


During Desert Storm, Colonel Pope was head of the Current Operations Branch
at Headquarters, U. S. Marine Corps, the "nerve center" of the Marine Corps.
He wrote this article the weekend after the end of the ground war.  while not
purporting to be the final word, this piece shows how the Marines monitoring
the action as it happened viewed the war,  before memories faded or an
"accepted" version of the war emerged.


U. S.   Marines in Operation Desert Storm

By Col John R. Pope

Marine Corps Gazette, July 1991.

   Operation DESERT STORM began on 16 January 1991 with the initiation
of the air carnpaign against Iraq and the Iraqi forces occupying Kuwait.  D--
day, 16 January, followed the 163-day-long Operation DESERT SHIELD, the
positioning and preparation of the Coalition Forces for the combat that was to
liberate Kuwait.  From 7 August 1990 until DAay, the U.S. Marine Corps
deployed approximately 86,000 Marines to Southwest Asia. By the cessation of
offensive operations on 28 February 1991, this number had grown to over
92,000 Marines, which included 24 infantry battalions, 19 fixed-wing and 21
helicopter squadrons, and the associated command elements and combat, combat
support, and combat service support organizations. These forces were required
to support a Marine expeditionary force (MEF) ashore on the Arabian Peninsula
and two Marine expeditionary brigades (MED) and a Marine expeditionary unit
(MEU) afloat in the Persian Gulf.   Adding the more than 24,000 Marines
deployed in the Mediterranean and in the western Pacific, which included an
additional 6 infantry battalions and 6 fixed-wing and 9 helicopter squadrons,
nearly 90 percent of the operational forces of the Marine Corps were deployed
simultaneously. These numbers included 96 percent of the active duty infantry
battalions (and 6 Reserve battalions), 79 percent of the active fixed-wing
squadrons (and 1 Reserve squadron), and 91 percent of the active duty helicopter
squadrons (and 3 Reserve squadrons).
   In the months preceding D-day, Marine forces deploying to the Comman-
der in Chief Central's (CinCCent's) area of responsibility (AOR) had been task
organized as Marine Central (MarCent)II MEF, and consisted of 1st and 2d
Marine Divisions (MarDivs), 3d Marine Aircraft Wing (MAW), and 1st Force
Service Support Group (FSSG) ashore in Saudi Arabia.    Afloat Marine forces
consisted of 4th MED, 5th MED with 11th MEU embedded, and 13th MEU,
embarked aboard NavCent amphibious ships in the Persian Gulf and north
Arabian Sea.  The buildup of Marine forces validated the Marines' maritime
prepositioning force (MPF) concept, with Marines falling in on equipment from
the three maritime prepositioning squadrons (MPSs), in the process providing
the first credible ground defense capability in the area following the invasion of