- Home
- Collections
- Search the Collection
- Operation Desert Storm correspondence
Operation Desert Storm correspondence
Object Details
- Description
- This letter was sent by Marine Corps Major Reina M. DuVal to a friend back home in Maryland while stationed in Saudi Arabia during Operation Desert Storm. In the three-page, double-sided, handwritten letter she shares her thoughts on the purpose and course of the war. She condemns the actions of Saddam Hussain, describes her role with the Marines and talks of her willingness to continue fighting to get rid of tyrants. Interspersed with this are lighter comments on the youth of her companions and the spectacle of the extreme weather conditions.
- This letter demonstrates the continued importance of mail call in the morale of modern warfare. In it DuVal talks openly about how military personnel live for mail call and how they appreciate the people who take the time to write and connect them with reality. The Gulf War saw an outpouring of public letter writing to service men and women through ‘Any Serviceman’; a program designed to allow the public to express their appreciation to service personnel they had never met.
- Operation Desert Storm posed a considerable challenge to the Postal Service and Military Postal Service Agency. Military personnel in the Persian Gulf equaled that of the entire population of Wyoming and they were 8,000 miles away from the United States in an area the size of Alaska. Despite the difficulties these logistics posed, 60 million pounds of mail had been delivered to deployed personnel during the Gulf War.
- Data Source
- National Postal Museum
- Date
- February 27, 1991
- Object number
- 1991.0197.1.4
- Recipient
- Tom Bower
- Type
- Covers & Associated Letters
- Medium
- paper; ink
- Dimensions
- Height x Width (letter .2-.4): 9 x 6 in. (22.86 x 15.24 cm)
- Place of Destination
- Maryland
- Place of Origin
- SAUDI ARABIA (kingdom)
- Place
- United States of America
- See more items in
- National Postal Museum Collection
- Topic
- Covers & Letters
- Record ID
- npm_1991.0197.1.4
- Usage
- CC0
This image is in the public domain (free of copyright restrictions). You can copy, modify, and distribute this work without contacting the Smithsonian. For more information, visit the Smithsonian's Open Access page.
International media Interoperability Framework
IIIF provides researchers rich metadata and media viewing options for comparison of works across cultural heritage collections. Visit the IIIF page to learn more.