Combat· Dominican Republic Intervention (Op POWER PACK)
Santo Domingo NEO
The Marine operation in the Dominican Republic began as a noncombatant evacuation.
With Santo Domingo descending into chaos, gunfire in the streets, mobs, and a collapsing government, thousands of American and other foreign nationals were endangered, and the ready amphibious force offshore was ordered to get them out. The first Marines ashore secured an evacuation site and the approaches to it, establishing a protected perimeter through which civilians could be moved to safety and out to the ships and aircraft waiting to carry them clear. The Marines and Navy lifted thousands of people of many nationalities to safety in the operation's opening days. What began as an evacuation quickly expanded into the larger intervention as the situation deteriorated, but the initial noncombatant evacuation was the precipitating mission, a classic demonstration of amphibious forces protecting citizens caught in a foreign crisis.
Record no. 651