Compass Points - 4th MEB Ops

What happens when a MEU is too small?

Compass Points - 4th MEB Ops

What happens when a MEU is too small?

August 16, 2025

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Standing at a cocktail party, one Marine did not know how much his world was about to change.

This week, the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit (SOC) deployed from Camp Lejeune. No doubt they will accomplish great things for Corps and Country. Sometimes, however, world events require the Marine Corps to supply an even larger force.

Author and Marine, Harry Jenkins, recalls standing in a cocktail party at the Second Fleet commander’s quarters, when Lieutenant General Carl Mundy, then the Commanding General, Fleet Marine Force, Atlantic, called him and said that an execution order for deployment was probably coming down soon.

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That was the middle of August. From the time we got the order until we actually embarked troops at Morehead City, North Carolina, and sailed for Southwest Asia, 11 days elapsed. That’s probably the quickest embarkation of any MAGTF [Marine Air-Ground Tas Force] of brigade size in history -- especially when you consider the size of the aviation and combat service support elements that went out with us.

-- Major General Harry W. Jenkins, Jr., USMC (ret), commander, 4th MEB and Task Force 158

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Major General Jenkins commanded the 4th Marine Expeditionary Brigade, headquartered at Little Creek, Virginia, at the outset of Operation Desert Shield. As the commander of Task Force 158 in the Persian Gulf -- one of the largest landing forces in Marine Corps history -- he helped create a major strategic diversion that divided Iraqi efforts to defend their positions in Kuwait. His comments are timely for Marine leaders facing operations today and tomorrow.

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When a MEU is too small

4th Marine Expeditionary Brigade Gets Underway in 11 Days

By Harry Jenkins

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The operational summary that follows reviews the challenges of planning and conducting amphibious operations at the MEB level in a live scenario. My aim is to show that operations above MEU(SOC) can be distinctly different and much more complex. Current officers may want to consider what needs to be done when a MEU is too small. I will use the experiences of 4th MEB in Desert Shield / Desert Storm as an example of what MAGTF commanders must be prepared for.

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BACKGROUND

If the United States is to sustain Global Presence in support of our national security objectives, it must have a Navy that can deploy a combined fleet with aircraft carriers, surface combatants, submarines, and Naval aviation that can respond to any contingency. There must also be a robust amphibious capability integrated within the fleet that supports the fleet commander as well as the Combatant Commander ready to respond to humanitarian crises or provide combat power at all levels of conflict if necessary.

For presence missions, the Marine Corps has a comfort zone with the MEU(SOC) concept after several decades years of refining the organization, tactics, and techniques. It has been very successful in a variety of missions both in and out of combat, and continues to provide an excellent resource to the Combatant Commanders for presence, humanitarian operations, or a variety of special operations missions. A MEU(SOC) unit is thoroughly trained and certified prior to deploying with the fleet. While it has excellent capabilities for operations at the low end of the conflict spectrum, in reality it does not contain much combat power for any kind of sustained conventional operations.

For larger operations, instead of a MEU, what is needed is a full MEB. A Marine Expeditionary Brigade (MEB) does not have the MEU's formal approach to training and certification. Typically, a MEB will participate in a variety of exercises to test contingency plans along with the capabilities of staff coordination with elements of the brigade GCE, ACE or the BSSG. If a real world contingency develops, the scramble will start to see what the commander will have assigned to him to deploy his force. The example in this paper will be the 4th MEB and its deployment to Desert Shield and Desert Storm. If Marine commanders are ever required to carry out a mission this size in the future with the available assets in the force today, there are serious questions regarding the ability to succeed both from a Navy and Marine point of view.

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DESERT SHIELD: the BUILDUP

In early August 1990 Iraq invaded Kuwait under the justiufictuion that it wanted to take back oil fields that belonged to Iraq. The 4th MEB was alerted to deploy to the Persian Gulf. The mission was not definitive other than to “Load and Go”. There was no established concept for landing in Kuwait so the embarkation plan followed a generic plan the Brigade had used in Norway. The first issue was ships. While the Navy had around 65 amphibious ships active in the fleet, the lift requirement for a MEB at the time was 21. The timing for the deployment was such that the CATF (PHIBGP-2) was only able to get 13 available ships. That caused much heart burn over what was going to load out and what equipment going to be left behind between RLT-2 and MAG -14. A week later the MEB left the east coast in three Transit Groups. TG -1 with four ships on August 17, TG -2 with 4 ships to include the Nassau on August 20, and TG-3 with 5 ships on August 21.

The 5 Commercial R0-R0 ships for the supplies for the MEB Assault Follow-on Echelon (AFOE) were not identified until after we had left the east coast. The 5 RO-RO s eventually joined us the Persian Gulf, but they were foreign- flagged so could not sail in the combat zone. At the time the defined combat zone was more up in the northern Persian Gulf.

The force at this point consisted of 9,000 troops embarked in 13 ships, 20 AV8B Harriers on Nassau, and 40 helicopters from MAG 40 spared across the force. MAG-40 F-18s and A-6A attack jets were forward deployed and bedded down for the MEB in theater. The transit to the Persian Gulf was spent trying to get better organized and establish communications along the route. The Task groups came together off of Masirah in mid-September. On September 13, USNAVCENT directed the 13th MEU(SOC), which had been deployed in the region, become part of the 4th MEB. It was integrated into the MEB, maintained its tactical integrity, and utilized as the advance force in the upcoming rehearsals. The amphibious force now had 12,000 Marines embarked in 18 ships. On September 21st the first of the five RO-ROs steamed into the Persian Gulf, and all five would eventually be downloaded at Al Jubayl over a 30 day period. CENTCOM then established the 4th MEB as the theater reserve.

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OPERATIONS

The initial relations with NAVCENT were difficult primarily because there were no Marines on the fleet flagship (Blue Ridge), and only one officer had any knowledge of amphibious operations onboard. That changed in December when General Gray made an inspection trip to the theater in the Fall. He dispatched a special staff to go aboard the Blue Ridge in January 1991. Shortly thereafter the Initiating Directive was published directing guidance for the upcoming conflict. The rehearsal schedule was promulgated in late September which gave the troops a chance to get ashore, and download the equipment to maintain and reconfigure it for embarkation back aboard ship . Four MEB- level rehearsals were conducted in Oman over the next four months that covered all phases of amphibious operations. Both the MEB and the 13th MEU(SOC) also participated in Allied Maritime Interdiction Operations that intercepted several Iraqi bound ships in the Indian Ocean while looking for contraband. The 4th MEB conducted a NEO in Somalia in January 1991 which rescued nine ambassadors and over 281 civilians.

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DESERT STORM

On January 13,1991, the 5th MEB arrived off of Masirah in ships belonging to PHIBGP- 3 from the west coast. 5th MEB with RLT-5, MAG-50 and the BSSG had been coordinating with the 4th MEB as they were making their way across the Pacific in December. NAVCENT then designated both PHIBGPs TF-156 , while placing 4th MEB, 5th MEB and 13th MEU (SOC) under the 4th MEB as TF-158. The size of this force was now 17,200 Marines embarked in 31 amphibious ships. The force structure consisted of 8 infantry and artillery battalions in the GCE, plus 25 AV-8 Harriers and 139 helicopters in the ACE. Relations were good between the three MAGTF commanders as well as their Navy counterparts. Our first step was to conduct the fourth and largest amphibious rehearsal in central Oman in order to sort out tactics and procedures within the force. This was accomplished without any clear idea as to the missions in the Initiative Directive that would be tasked to us when the war broke out.

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THE REHEARSAL – SEA SOLDIER IV

The rehearsal was scheduled for early February 1991. The scheme of maneuver for the landing force would task the 13th MEU(SOC) as the advance force with a variety of spec ops missions in the landing area. The 4th MEB with RLT’s 2 and 5 would make the initial helicopter-borne and surface assault supported by the ACE and 14 LCACs we had in the force. Following the landing both RLTs would stand down and conduct unit training under their own commanders. Two days later 5th MEB was tasked to conduct an amphibious withdrawal of both RLT-2 and RLT-5 under cover of darkness back to the ships. The command and control of all of that worked really well as was the required maintenance of the equipment. Once back on the ships the staffs continued to develop plans for the potential tasks listed in the Initialing Directive. Meanwhile the logisticians had developed plans to combat load the AFOE for the 4th MEB in to one of the empty MPF RO-ROs sitting in the common- user pool in theater. This was accomplished and it was ready to go into the Gulf when the amphibious force moved up thorough the Strait of Hormuz prior to the outbreak of hostilities. That proved to be a major success.

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OPERATIONS

There were several plans that were drafted as the conflict approached. The entire force was tasked to go through the Straits of Hormuz in broad daylight as a show of force. We did that while small Iranian patrol boats darted in and out of the column. 4th MEB Harriers were the first Marine aircraft to conduct combat air strikes off of an amphibious ship. Over an eight day period during the air campaign their sortie rates climbed from 19 on the first day to 47 on the 8th day. The MEB ACE also conducted three night helicopter feints off the Kuwaiti coast in order to reinforce the idea of an impending amphibious assault. That worked as the Iraqis reacted to each one of those feints with missiles on one instance , and anti-aircraft fire in others. The end result of all of this activity was to pin six Iraqi divisions to the Kuwaiti coast while I MEF swept north behind them. At the close of hostilities the 5th MEB flowed units ashore to become the I MEF Reserve. 13th MEU(SOC) started an immediate redeployment for home. 4th MEB began to move out of the Persian Gulf with two stops in Israel and Rota for vehicle wash downs, and then continued movement toward the east coast.

For the 4th MEB this was an eight and a half month deployment. I just cannot praise enough our young warriors -- Marines and sailors. They make the concept of high-speed maneuver warfare at sea a reality,

-- Major General Harry W. Jenkins, Jr., USMC (ret), commander, 4th MEB and Task Force 158

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Compass Points salutes Major General Harry W. Jenkins, Jr., USMC (ret) for his ongoing service to the Marine Corps and the Nation, and for his reminder that as useful as a Marine MEU is, sometimes world events will require the Marine Corps to supply an even larger force.

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USNI Proceedings

Interview With Major General Harry W. Jenkins, Jr., USMC

May 1992

Proceedings

Vol. 118/5/1,071

https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/1992/may/interview-major-general-harry-w-jenkins-jr-usmc