resulted in the call up of about 36 percent of the Marine reserve support structure. This caused the reserve units to be employed in ways that the Marine Corps Selected Reserve commander termed less than optimal. The Marine Corps:

• Relied on the Army to haul its fuel.
• Disregarded its mobilization principle of unit replacement and integrity when it activated its only reserve motor transport battalion and then broke it up to provide drivers for the two active transport battalions, and to create a graves registration unit.
• Activated and retrained other reserve units to get 600 drivers needed to enable the remnant of the reserve motor transport battalion to meet new missions (driving commercial tractor trailers, or supervising third - country national contract drivers).
• Placed the reconstituted reserve motor transport battalion under the direction of an active - duty officer.
• Broke up its only reserve engineer battalion in order to retrain 150 of its people to be bulk fuel handlers, and attached the rest of the engineers to active units where combat engineers were in short supply.

        In short, like the Army, the Marine Corps found its support structure severely stressed by the Operation Desert Storm requirements. Unlike the Army, which found it had sufficient depth in the reserve structure to meet most requirements, the Marine Corps had no depth from the beginning either in the active or reserve support structures.

Overall Impact of Marine Reserve

        In summary, the Marine Corps mobilized about two - thirds of its selected reserve, including most of the 4th Division's combat units, and integrated them fully into the active - duty units. Limitations in training ( and in some cases equipment ) prevented the adequate preparation of battalion and regimental - sized units. Company - sized reserve combat units provided effective combat capabilities during Operation Desert Storm.

        Whatever the problems and deficiencies they faced during Operation Desert Shield, Marine reserve units overcame them and performed in Operation Desert Storm with distinction.

AIR FORCE

        The Air Force has structured its 200,000 guard and reserve people primarily into small units ( e.g., squadrons ). In wartime these units would surge their routine peacetime support to the Military Air Command ( MAC ) for airlift missions, to the Strategic Air Command ( SAC ) for air refueling missions, and to the Tactical Air Command ( TAC ) for tactical combat missions.

The Mobilization

        The Air Force relied more heavily and earlier on its reserves than the other services:

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