Combat· Gulf War (Op DESERT SHIELD/STORM)
Op DESERT STORM Ground War
The ground war was the swift, decisive offensive that liberated Kuwait.
After weeks of air bombardment, two Marine divisions spearheaded the assault into occupied Kuwait, breaching the formidable Iraqi defensive belts of minefields, fire trenches, and berms that the enemy had counted on to stop them. Moving faster than planners had dared expect, the Marines punched through the obstacle belts, fought off Iraqi armored counterattacks in sharp engagements amid skies blackened by burning oil wells, and drove north toward Kuwait City. The threat of a Marine amphibious landing held Iraqi divisions pinned along the coast, away from the real point of attack. In roughly a hundred hours the Iraqi army in the Kuwait theater collapsed, its soldiers surrendering by the tens of thousands, and Kuwait City was liberated. The campaign stands as a model of combined-arms maneuver and as the Corps' largest and most successful mechanized operation.
Record no. 729