Researched and documented by Benis M. Frank. Tells the story of the Marines who served in Panama around the time (1988 to 1990) of Operation Just Cause.

Researched and documented by Benis M. Frank. Tells the story of the Marines who served in Panama around the time (1988 to 1990) of Operation Just Cause.

Researched and documented by Benis M. Frank. Tells the story of the Marines who served in Panama around the time (1988 to 1990) of Operation Just Cause.

Examines how American military power was employed during Operation Just Cause, including the planning process and joint efforts of the U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps during major combat operations. Also details post-combat stability and nation-building operations.

This story is about the Marines who served in Panama around the time of Operation Just Cause. Since the Marine forces comprised only a fraction of the troops in Panama, the contribution has been overlooked in some other histories. This is especially true of the Marines who served in Panama before and after the operation itself. Nevertheless, they faced, and met, a very real set of challenges of their own, and wrote one of the first chapters in the Marine Corps' history of operations other than war since the fall of the Berlin Wall. The Marines who patrolled the jungles of the Canal Zone in the period before Just Cause, in what was neither peace nor war, broke new ground. So did the young officers and NCOs who, for all intents and purposes, took over the reins of municipal government after the operation.

This work is a complete history of the partnership between the Department of State and the United States Marine Corps. From its formation in 1775, the Corps developed a close working relationship with the diplomatic service of the Continental Congress and later, in 1798, with the newly created United States Department of State. The Marines accompanied U.S. diplomats to France in 1778 and worked closely with the State Department during the Barbary Wars and the opening of China. In 1905, an executive order by Theodore Roosevelt established a Marine Legation Guard, and the Corps played an increasingly important role in embassies across the globe. Today, the war on terrorism highlights this important relationship as Marines guard some of the most dangerous embassies in the world.