6                                      U.S. MARINES IN THE PERSIAN GULF, 1990-1991

 Boomer intended that the force be ready to fight when the first battalion and
 squadron was on the ground.2
    Within 96 hours, the 7th Marine Expeditionary Brigade combined arms task
 began embarking from air bases in southern California at San Bernardino and
 El Toro as the first echelon of I Marine Expeditionary Force to deploy. The Air
 Force's Military Airlift Command flew a total of 259 missions to transport the
 members of the brigade to Saudi Arabia.      As they flew, ships of Maritime
 Pre-Positioning Squadron 2 began steaming north to Jubayl, Saudi Arabia. The
 squadron carried the brigade's equipment that had been previously staged at
 Diego Garcia, an island in the Chagos Group in the Indian Ocean, for such
 contingencies.
    The first troops landed at Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, on 14 August. Uncertain
 of the security of Saudi ports and airfields, General Hopkins loaded some of the
 initial flights of his brigade with combat-ready troops.  At Dhahran, they
 disembarked from their aircraft with weapons at the ready. This display alarmed
 Saudi officials who were attempting to calm the local people, most of whom
 realized that the Iraqis were only a half day's road march away from the densely
 populated tri-city area of Dammam (Ad Dammam), Al Khober, and Dhahran.
 The Marines then shifted 100 kilometers north to billets in warehouses at the
 commercial port of Jubayl to marry up with their equipment.
    The twin commercial and industrial ports of Jubayl were built during the
 l970s at the direction of the Royal Saudi Commission for Jubayl and Yanbu.
 Nearly all of the force's equipment would pass through the commercial port
 which was large enough to handle the simultaneous offloading of an entire
 squadron of the Maritime Pre-Positioning Force.   The nearby Jubayl naval air
 facility soon become the main aerial port of entry for Marines.
    Getting the troops and equipment of the 7th Marine Expeditionary Brigade
 out of the port itself was another matter, however.   The brigade arrived so
 quickly that the local Saudi government and military authorities were taken by
 surprise. At first they refused to let the Marines deploy tactically away from the
 port.    General Hopkins was unused to the more languid pace of business that
 was customary in the Middle East and he fumed as his troops sweltered in the
 120-degree heat of the port's huge and unsanitary metal warehouses, unable to
 leave.
    Within Saudi Arabia there was a sizable element of conservative and deeply
 religious citizens for whom the notion of allowing non-believing foreign troops


    `The 7th MEB would be the first force to use the Maritime Pre-Positioning Force in a combat
 situation. The concept was implemented in 1979 and became operational in 1984-86 as part of
 the Military Sealift Command. In the summer of 1990, three maritime pre-positioning squadrons
 (MPSRon-i, -2, -3) of large cargo ships were in service, each named posthumously after Marine
 holders of the Medal of Honor. Civilians erewed the ships and each squadron was loaded with
 the equipment of a Marine Expeditionary Brigade. The ships of MPSRon-2 were MV Cpl Louts
 J. Hauge Jr. (T-AK3OOO), MV PFC Wll~rn B. Baugh Jr. (T-AK3OOl), MV JsiLt Alexander Bon-
 nyrnan Jr. (T-AK3003), MV Pvi Harry Ftsher (T-AK3004), and MV PFC Jatnes Anderson Jr. (T-
 AK3OO2).