Gulf War Postal History

The Gulf War (2 August 1990 – 28 February 1991), code-named Operation Desert Shield (2 August 1990 – 17 January 1991) for operations leading to the buildup of troops and the defense of Saudi Arabia, and code-named Operation Desert Storm (17 January 1991 – 28 February 1991) in its combat phase, was a war waged by coalition forces from 35 nations led by the United States against Iraq in response to Iraq's invasion and annexation of Kuwait arising from oil pricing and production disputes. The war is also known under other names, such as the Persian Gulf War, First Gulf War, Gulf War I, Kuwait War, First Iraq War or Iraq War, before the term "Iraq War" became identified instead with the 2003 Iraq War.

Scanned below from my postal history collection is an Operation Desert Shield cover. This United States Marine cover is postmarked October 25, 1990 with a US MARINE UNIT 12 cancel to Des Moines, Iowa, USA.



Also from my collection, this is a cover from Operation Desert Storm from the 350th Evacuation Hospital to Des Moines, Iowa, USA, postmarked February 24, 1991. The 350th Evacuation Hospital, home based in Canton, Ohio, USA, was deployed to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in support of Operation Desert Storm.

Linus

(Source: Wikipedia)

Very interesting Linus! Are there many collectors in this area or do you largely have the field to yourself?

I do not know anybody else who collects this area.

Very nice! I imagine it will take a while for much of this kind of mail to migrate out of the hands of the families to whom it was sent and get into the philatelic market, but now is a good time to start studying it. It is a shame that the first one has a cancel that is so under-inked but most of it can be read which is good.

Second Gulf War period

I had a nephew in the second Gulf War in the 2005 time frame. Virtually no communication was done by snail mail to his family, it was all e-mail and telephone.

I sent him a few philatelic covers which he mailed back. Sadly, the postal marking was jittery, and I can only speculate that it reads APO AE 09368.



He was in the Air Force Military Police Unit at the air base in Kirkut, Iraq at the time. If anyone can confirm the APO identification, I would be grateful.

I searched the internet and came up with Camp Marmal, Mazar-i Sharif, Afghanistan. See links below...

www.answers.com/Q/What_count..._APO_AE_09368

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Marmal

There are two post offices located there.

Regards,
Linus

Linus:

Thank you. Doesn't seem to agree with "family folklore", but who knows how distorted the stories from 15 years ago might be.

Mike