placed him with 2d Marine Division just as it moved forward. During the ground campaign, the unit's executive officer, Lieutenant Colonel Ronald J. Brown, and our museum specialist, Lieutenant Colonel Frank V. Sturgeon, arrived to handle the onerous job of collecting and cataloging a myriad of documents and artifacts. Ron Brown later accompanied a humanitarian relief joint task force to northern Iraq in Operation Provide Comfort.

During the air campaign of Operation Desert Storm ! alternated locations with the I MEF command post at Safaniyah, Saudi Arabia, and with air groups of the 3d Marine Aircraft Wing. During the ground campaign I was either with the I MEF command post near Al Khanjar' or forward with the divisions.

This monograph was written from mid-1991 to February 1992 and consists of events and issues from the perspective of the I MEF commander, Lieutenant General Boomer, who incidentally made the historians' job infinitely easier by recording all of his staff meetings. At the time it was written, the reports of the Marine Corps' Battle Assessment Team under Colonel Clifford L. Stanley were not yet completed. When future historians write the final history of this epoch, they will benefit greatly from the detailed analyses of this group.

I wish to thank Lieutenant Colonels Cureton, Brown, and Mroczkowski for their unstinting assistance in the Persian Gulf and in the preparation of the manuscript. This work is dedicated to the memory of Lance Corporal Dion J. Stephenson, USMC, killed in action near the southwest corner of the Kuwait-- Saudi Arabia border on 29 January 1991.

QUILTER II
Colonel, U.S. Marine Corps Reserve

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