The First Infantry Division and the U.S. Army Transformed: Road to Victory in Desert Storm, 1970-1991

This fast-paced and compelling read closes a significant gap in the historiography of the late Cold War U.S. Army and is crucial for understanding the current situation in the Middle East.

From the author's introduction:
“My purpose is a narrative history of the 1st Infantry Division from 1970 through the Operation Desert Storm celebration held 4th of July 1991. This story is an account of the revolutionary changes in the late Cold War. The Army that overran Saddam Hussein’s Legions in four days was the product of important changes stimulated both by social changes and institutional reform. The 1st Infantry Division reflected benefits of those changes, despite its low priority for troops and material. The Division was not an elite formation, but rather excelled in the context of the Army as an institution.”

This book begins with a preface by Gordon R. Sullivan, General, USA, Retired. In twelve chapters, author Gregory Fontenot explains the history of the 1st infantry Division from 1970 to 1991. In doing so, his fast-paced narrative includes elements to expand the knowledge of non-military readers. These elements include a glossary, a key to abbreviations, maps, nearly two dozen photographs, and thorough bibliography.

The First infantry Division and the U.S. Army Transformed: Road to Victory in Desert Storm is published with support from the First Division Museum at Cantigny.

For twenty-eight years, Colonel Gregory Fontenot served the United States Army in armor assignments in Iraq, Europe, Africa, and the United States. He commanded a tank battalion based at Fort Riley and Southwest Asia, and an armor brigade in Germany and Bosnia.

Colonel Fontenot served on plans and operations assignments at the Brigade, Division and major command levels. As an educator and trainer, he taught history at West Point and then served as Director of the School of Advanced Military Studies. He later commanded the Army’s Battle Command Training Program.

Following his retirement from the Army in 1999, Fontenot focused on training and experimentation for the U.S. Army, first as a contractor working with Army Research Institute, Army Research Laboratory, Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC), the Defense Advanced Research Programs Activity, and other agencies. From July 2002 through July 2004 he served as Director of Wargaming. From July 2004 through June 2013 he served as Director of the University of Foreign Military and Cultural Studies with the Deputy Chief of Staff, an assignment that supported campaign plan assessments in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Fontenot left civil service in June 2013 to focus on writing and to serve as a consultant on threat emulation for Army experimentation.

Colonel Fontenot was a member of the editorial board of Military Review from 2006-2013. Publications include articles in Army, Army History, The Infantry Journal and Military Review. Colonel Fontenot has written book reviews for Army, Armor, The Journal of Military History, Military Review, and Parameters. Colonel Fontenot authored a chapter in Martial Metropolis, edited by Roger Lotchin (Praeger, 1985) and served as lead author of On Point (CGSC Press, 2004).

Papers and presentations include: Annual seminar on the Balkans for the Marshall Foundation Marshall Awards Program (1997-2001), On Point: The US Army in Operation Iraqi Freedom presented at the 2004 Association of the United States Army authors symposium, presentations on Stability Operations in Urban Environments at TRADOC-Rand, Santa Monica Seminar 2000, McCormick Foundation, 2003, and JFCOM-IDF Joint Symposium 2006. Other papers include a presentation on Contemporary Military History in 2006 for the USMA Military History Symposium, “Mapping the Foreign” the American Literary Translation Association in 2008 and in 2015 “Dayton after Twenty Years” at the Watson Institute, Brown University.