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Phantom Blooper
10-22-03, 09:46 AM
Students aided push to honor Beirut fallen
October 22,2003
TIMMI TOLER
DAILY NEWS STAFF

To Martha Warren, the Bradford pear trees that line the median of Lejeune Boulevard represent more than a memorial to the 241 service members killed in the Beirut bombing.

"I still see them as people, even after all this time," she said. "They represent somebody who died for me and my country, even though we weren't at war at the time."

Twenty years ago, Warren was a schoolteacher at Northwoods Park Junior High School, now known as Northwoods Park Middle, in Jacksonville.

The Jacksonville resident was out of town on Oct. 23, 1983. When she turned on the evening news and learned what had transpired that day in Beirut, Lebanon, she was heartbroken.

"To see the bombed-out building on TV - to know that it took the lives of 200 and some men from our community - I could not believe what was happening," she said.

When Warren got home, she wanted to make something happen.

"I saw a picture of Doris Downs (of the Jacksonville Beautification Commission) on the front page of the newspaper and the story about planting memorial trees. I decided I would start taking donations from my homeroom class. I knew we could get enough money for at least one tree," said Warren.

"Another homeroom wanted to buy a tree also, so they started collecting money. Finally, the whole school was collecting money to buy trees."

Warren also asked her students to donate something that could be auctioned to help raise money for the tree fund.

Student Shannon Parrish gave an early Christmas gift from her mother: a Cabbage Patch doll.

"Back then, everybody wanted one of those dolls," said Warren.

Parrish's donation raised $1,500, and the school's efforts raised more than $3,000 - enough for 150 trees.

The school's efforts attracted national attention. Two months after the bombing, donations were coming into Jacksonville City Hall at a rate of $400 to $500 a day - money that was earmarked for a permanent memorial to be built on Lejeune Boulevard at the entrance to Camp Johnson.

Students from the school also sent letters to the families of the Marines and sailors who died in Beirut.

"We were shaping young lives and teaching them to think of others, which is not usually how a middle school student thinks. The students put their own thoughts in those letters," said Warren, who retired in 1998 after 34 years of teaching.

"A lot of the families wrote back. Every one of the families said that's where their son wanted to be - serving his country. None of them blamed anyone for the fact that their sons were there."

The school held a candlelight memorial service on Dec. 16, 1983, to honor those who died in the bombing and to dedicate the trees.

"Each candle had a name of one of the men that died written on it, and as those names were called, the students would light the candle and go up on stage," Warren said. "The most touching part was seeing 241 candles lit and then telling the students to blow out the candles. I said, 'This is how fast their lives were taken.'

"I feel like the Lord really directed that ceremony in the way He wanted it to go."

Looking back on that day now brings mixed emotions.

"There's a feeling of sadness. It was a great sacrifice made not only by those men, but by their families," she said. "But there is also a feeling of gladness that people are still thinking about it. These men need to be remembered."