General Order No. 1 (Gulf War)

General Order No. 1 was a general order issued by General Norman Schwarzkopf Jr. to United States Central Command in the Middle East during the Gulf War (Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm). The order contains provisions restricting the behavior of troops and was intended to show respect to the laws of Saudi Arabia where many US troops were deployed. The order, for the first time in the US Army, prohibited the possession, manufacture, sale or consumption of any alcoholic beverage. It also restricted the possession of "sexually explicit" material, which was broadly defined and led to relatively innocuous documents such as underwear catalogues and bodybuilding magazines being banned. A ban on the taking of war trophies from Iraqi prisoners was later amended to permit US troops to retain captured bayonets as souvenirs. The order influenced those issued in later campaigns, many of which also include bans on alcohol consumption even where US troops are not deployed in Muslim countries.