Expeditionary· Gulf War (Op DESERT SHIELD/STORM)
Marine Forces Southwest Asia
Marine Forces, Southwest Asia, was the higher command and administrative organization through which the Marine Corps managed its forces in the Gulf theater.
It was not a battlefield formation but the headquarters element that coordinated the deployment, sustainment, and employment of the large Marine air-ground force committed to Operations DESERT SHIELD and DESERT STORM, and that oversaw the eventual redeployment of those forces after the liberation of Kuwait. Such a command provided the framework that linked the combat divisions, the aircraft wing, and the support establishment into a coherent whole and connected them to the joint and coalition command structure running the war. Its function was organizational and logistical rather than tactical, but it was the institutional backbone that allowed the Marines to project and sustain combat power across the theater, the unglamorous command machinery beneath one of the Corps' largest modern deployments.
Record no. 732