Operation Provide Comfort

In April of 1991, Saddam Hussein had been defeated in Operation Desert Storm. He turned his wrath upon the Kurds in northern Iraq with air attacks. Remembering that in 1981 he had killed them by the thousands (many by chemical weapons), they hastily fled into the mountains. A coalition of nine nations began Operation Provide Comfort to protect and sustain the vulnerable refugees whose recent rebellion had been encouraged by the U.S. President. A no-fl y zone was established to prevent Saddam’s genocide from the air and combat ground units deployed to block Iraqi ground forces. Food and supplies were rushed to the fl eeing Kurds. The U. S. Army Reserve 321st MMC (Th eater Material Management Center) assisted from Saudi Arabia. Theater airdrop material was immediately issued to package supplies for delivery by parachute. Civil Affairs Personnel (some already scheduled to re-deploy) drew supplies from the 321st and moved to northern Iraq. Drop zones had to be managed and eventually refugee camps built for over a million refugees. Robert “Booder” Dempsey, Tim Bastien, Loren Strickland, and I served with the 321st MMC during Operation Provide Comfort, four of the fifty or so military from Calhoun County deployed. The U.S. Air Force supported the operation from an airbase in Turkey flying 7,000 tons of material in 31 days, more than the Berlin Airlift after WWII. -USAF History

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