In addition personnel were deployed on aircraft carriers in support of three separate VMFA Squadrons.
During the Korean War the Squadron insignia depicted Al Capp's "WolfGirl" from the comic strip Li'l Abner.
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The squadron also fought from the forward air bases of Espirito Santo, Turtle Bay, Bougainville, and Emirau.
Early in the Nimitz deployment, several of the squadron members were interviewed for the PBS documentary Carrier.
From January to April 1994, the Thunderbolts flew close air support missions while deployed to Aviano, Italy supporting Operation Deny Flight in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
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Thirteen months later on July 1, 1946, VMF-251 was reactivated at Grosse Ile, Michigan as a ready-reserve squadron.
During the cruise, VMFA-312 participated in Operations Southern Watch from the Red Sea and Persian Gulf, then Operation Sharp Guard and Operation Deny Flight from the Adriatic Sea.
In the 1996 science fiction film Independence Day, Will Smith plays a U.S. Marine Corps pilot from VMFA-314, Captain Steven Hiller, stationed at MCAS El Toro.
It was during this deployment that the squadron got its only air to air kill when Major Lee T Lasseter, USMC along with his RIO, Capt. John D. Cummings shot down a MiG-21 over North Vietnam, near Hanoi.
Fox's photographs are in the permanent collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA), the Museum of Photographic Arts (MOPA), the Southeast Museum of Photography (SMP), The Patrick and Beatrice Haggerty Museum of Art at Marquette University, the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin and the Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art at the University of Florida.
Upon returning to the United States, he was assigned to VMFA-251 at Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort as a pilot, and later, and as the legal officer to Marine Aircraft Groups 31 and 32.
Reassigned to Quantico, he entered the Command and Staff College, completing the course in June 1966.Morgan was ordered to Marine Aircraft Group 32, 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing at MCAS Beaufort, South Carolina in July 1966, where he served as Group Operations and later as Commanding Officer, Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 312.