[3] During WWII, Warner Brothers and Disney designed many patches for military units, including one for VMTB-242 with Bugs Bunny riding a torpedo.

[5] During the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962, VMA-242 deployed to Naval Air Station Key West, Florida and maintained a ready posture until the Soviet withdrawal of offensive weapons from Cuba.

The transition training was conducted by VA-42, the East Coast A-6 Fleet Replacement Squadron at Naval Air Station Oceana, Virginia.

Initially the squadron supported allied ground forces, but during April 1967, they were also assigned to the first of many Operation Rolling Thunder missions over North Vietnam.

During the squadron's tour in the Republic of Vietnam, VMA(AW)-242 logged 16,783 combat sorties and delivered 85,990 tons of ordnance.

During August 1983, VMA(AW)-242 was the first Marine squadron to deploy to the African continent as part of Operation Eastern Wind in Berbera, Somalia.

On 14 December 1990, VMA(AW)-242 was re-designated as Marine All Weather Fighter Attack Squadron 242, and began conversion to the F/A-18D Hornet.

Utilizing the combat callsign "Profane", VMFA(AW)-242 spent seven months flying out of Al Asad Airbase, Iraq.

Squadron sections flew cyclic missions dropping over 300,000 pounds of ordnance in support of Marines and Soldiers on the ground overtaking the city.

Just two months later, in January 2005, over a five-day period, squadron aircraft were airborne twenty-four hours a day in order to deter insurgents' efforts to undermine Iraq's first democratic elections.

VMA(AW)-242 was the subject of a ProPublica investigation, "Faulty Equipment, Lapsed Training, Repeated Warnings: How a Preventable Disaster Killed Six Marines," primarily focussing on a fatal accident in December 2018.