Security· West Africa NEO Operations
Op SHARP EDGE
Operation Sharp Edge was the noncombatant evacuation operation mounted to rescue American and foreign nationals trapped in Liberia as the country descended into a brutal civil war, the first of the Marine interventions in West Africa that would recur over the following years.
As fighting engulfed the capital, Monrovia, and the security situation collapsed, Marines from ships offshore moved into the city to protect the United States embassy and evacuate the endangered civilians caught in the violence. The Marines secured the evacuation sites, held their positions amid the chaos and the threat from armed factions, and brought the evacuees out to safety, exercising restraint in a volatile and dangerous environment. Sharp Edge was a protective extraction rather than a combat operation, the Marines projecting force from the sea to safeguard lives in a disintegrating country. It set the pattern for the Marine Corps' repeated role in the West African evacuations, the rescue of those endangered by the region's wars.
Record no. 94