Military

1st Marine Expeditionary Brigade

On 25 August (C + 18) 1990, the air flow of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Brigade from Hawaii began. The core of 1st MEB was the 3d Marines, with two infantry battalions. No command element was sent, for there was already a sufficient Marine Corps command structure in Saudi Arabia to receive the 1st MEB's ground and aviation components. On 26 August, MPSRon-3 arrived at Al Jubayl from Guam, and the marriage of 1st MEB and MPSRon-3 proceeded.

The MEB concept has been around since the 1950s. With service in the Korean War, the Dominican Republic, Vietnam, and Desert Shield/Desert Storm, the robust and scalable command and control capability and combat effectiveness of the MEB is unquestioned. Eliminated Marine Corps-wide in the early 1990s, a MEB was activated within each MEF as of January 1, 2000.

In early November 2001 it was reported that the 2,200 Marines and sailors who spent October in Egypt would return home. The 1st Marine Expeditionary Brigade and the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit had been participating in Bright Star, an exercise with nine other nations that included a total of 70,000 troops. Marines and sailors from Camp Pendleton, Miramar Marine Corps Air Station and Twentynine Palms Marine base took part in the monthlong drill with 21,000 other U.S. military members. However, other reports in late November 2001 suggested that the bulk of these Marines had remained in Egypt for potential deployment under Operation Enduring Freedom.