View Full Version : Marine Officer Stops Tanks w/His .45!
Not long ago, I received an inquiry from a Marine requesting information on a certain Capt Charles Johnson who had reputedly stopped an Israeli tank column in Lebanon (1983) w/only his drawn .45! <br />
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BeirutMarine1
09-17-02, 08:09 PM
Gunny G
Why would you be considered racist? The facts are the Facts. We know the truth those of us who were there. We remember the nightly incursions on our positions not only by the Enemy but by our so called "friends" the Isralies.
Both have blood on their hands. The Isralies for having the for knowledge of the Truck bombing and the terriorist Lebanese for driving the truck.
In this day and age, we must choose the lesser evil, which certainly is Israel.
One constant remains true to the present, "Our First Duty is to Remember"
Thanks for your interest Gunny,
Semper Fi!!!
for your response, Marine--much appreciated!
Res Ipsa Loquitur...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/742371/posts
top1371
09-18-02, 12:58 AM
I remember the incident of the .45 - I was not there, but I was a
I was a LCpl on Okinawa and recall the news.
What I recall was that a column of tanks approached the line that the Marines were guarding and the LT pulled out his .45, jumped up on the tank and put the .45 to the head of the tank commander and told him to turn around.... they did.... there was a good newsreel type cartoon that went around for a while that had a drawing of the tank commander getting chewed out by his CO. His CO was rattling off that "you had [entire list of their armorment]" and then says ...... "and you were turned around by one U.S. Marine!" It was great....
Side note: I also remember the day that the barracks was bombed. I was on ACB (Air Contingency Battalion) and was supposed to go, they locked down the gates of Camp Hansen and we had a BN formation. They called out names and those Marines were deployed instead of the ACB Platoon! I never did figure out why. And to make it worse, they deployed to the Philippines to pick up ammo before going to Lebanon, the ammo was already gone when they got to the Philippines, so they pulled a week of libo and came back to the Rock!
Top
http://www.network54.com/Forum/message?forumid=135069&messageid=1031226665
(for some reason it won't read the above Netw54 URL)
Try this...
Printed Copy Here!
by Dick G
Dick G (Login Dick Gaines)
Forum Owner
Some see anti-American bias in 11 short films by international filmmakers about Sept. 11
Wed Sep 4,11:45 AM ET
By PAMELA SAMPSON, Associated Press Writer
PARIS - A French-backed cinematic experiment that aimed to find out how filmmakers from around the world view the Sept. 11 attacks is drawing criticism that it is anti-American.
Variety magazine said some of the 11 short films that make up "11'09"01" are "stridently anti-American."
And the Italian daily Il Foglio, calling the movie "garbage," said: "The French financiers recruit 11 well-known and some unknown directors ... they explain to us how the United States deserved what happened."
The film's producers say it does not have an anti-American slant, but is an exploration of tragedy from many different angles.
Discussions are under way with potential U.S. distributors, but the producers are in no rush to show the movie in the United States as the first anniversary of the world's deadliest terrorist attack draws near.
"This is now a period of mourning for Americans," said artistic producer Alain Brigand, who came up with the idea for the movie. "We are not in a hurry for this film to debut in the United States."
The film, produced by French media giant Vivendi Universal's StudioCanal and Galatee Films, will be shown at the Venice Film Festival on Friday and the Toronto Film Festival on Sept. 11. It opens in France and a dozen other countries on that date.
Each of the 11 contributing filmmakers was given up to dlrs 400,000 to spend, the only restriction being each film's length: 11 minutes, nine seconds and one frame. (The title corresponds to the date of the attack as it is written in France.)
The short films include American Sean Penn's portrayal of an isolated, aging widower; a love story by Claude LeLouch of France; Bosnian Danis Tanovic's meditation on the Srebrenica massacre; Israeli Amos Gitai's choreography of a suicide bombing; and Japanese master Shohei Imamura's denunciation of war.
Egyptian director Youssef Chahine's contribution is an 11-minute blast at U.S. foreign policy that stars the ghost of a handsome U.S. Marine killed in a terrorist attack in Lebanon in 1983. Chahine lectures the dead Marine on the destruction that U.S. meddling in the world has wrought ? from Hiroshima and Nagasaki to the current Middle East conflict. The ghost is grateful for being enlightened.
British filmmaker Ken Loach features an exiled Chilean living in Britain who writes a letter to the families of the Sept. 11 victims, drawing their attention instead to the events in Chile on Sept. 11, 1973, when a U.S.-supported coup d'etat ushered in an era of torture and death.
Indian director Mira Nair tells the true story of Salman Hamdani, a 23-year-old Muslim who died while trying to rescue others at the World Trade Center but who initially was thought to be a terrorist. Characters include intolerant white New Yorkers and insensitive FBI ( news - web sites) agents.
Nair said she was inspired by a desire "to react to the current of phobia against Islam" since Sept. 11.
A pause from some of the invective against the United States comes from Mexican director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, who intersperses a black screen with video footage of people throwing themselves out of the burning World Trade Center. The film ends with a message written across the screen in Arabic: "Does God's light guide us or blind us?"
On the lighter side, filmmaker Idrissa Ouedraogo of Burkina Faso puts together a poignant tale of a destitute little boy who quits school to earn money selling newspapers because he needs to buy medicine for his dying mother. One day, the boy takes a close look at one of the newspapers and notices that the front-page picture of Osama bin Laden ( news - web sites) bears a strong resemblance to a man in the street.
The boy becomes convinced the man is bin Laden, and enlists four friends in a comical attempt to capture the man for the dlrs 25 million bounty that the United States has placed on bin Laden's head.
Children are also central to Iranian director Samira Makhmalbaf, who tells the story of a teacher trying to convey the meaning of the Sept. 11 attacks to Afghan refugee children. The lesson ends when she gathers them at the foot of a tall chimney billowing smoke that looks hauntingly like one of the twin towers on fire.
Response From Beirut Marine!!!
by Dick G
Dick G (Login Dick Gaines)
Forum Owner
'Ghost' of dead Marine lectured in film
http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20020912-024206-6764r
By Lou Marano
From the Life & Mind Desk
Published 9/12/2002 4:35 PM
WASHINGTON, Sept. 12 (UPI) -- A former U.S. Marine who served in Lebanon is angry that an Egyptian filmmaker would presume to lecture the ghost of one of his dead comrades about U.S. foreign policy in relation to the Sept. 11 attacks.
The movie montage, titled "11'09"01 September 11," which was screened at the Venice Film Festival last week, consists of the short contributions of 11 directors from around the world.
Egyptian auteur Youssef Chahine uses the artistic device of having the director's alter ego tell the ghost of a Marine killed in Lebanon about the suffering of the Palestinian people and the myriad deaths caused by the United States from Hiroshima to Vietnam.
"Mr. Chahine should look to his own country for the cause of U.S. foreign policy," said William Brownawell of Newville, Pa.
Ayman al-Zawahiri, an Egyptian physician, is considered to be Osama bin Laden's top lieutenant and the real brains behind the airplane hijackings.
"Experts say bin Laden's terror network grew in part out of Egyptian extremist groups, and many of al Qaida's leaders are Egyptians," said a Council on Foreign Relations fact sheet.
"In recent years, bin Laden brought two leaders of (the) Egyptian Islamic Jihad, Ayman al-Zawahiri and the late Muhammad Atef, into the top echelons of al Qaida ... Dozens of Egyptian militants passed though al Qaida training camps in Taliban-run Afghanistan," it said.
Brownawell served with the Marine peacekeeping force in Lebanon in 1983. In the summer of 1982 the Lebanese government requested a U.S. military presence in that country to serve as a buffer between warring Muslim and Christian factions. In March 1983, the 24th Marine Amphibious Unit, stationed at Camp Lejeune, N.C., received orders to head to Beirut.
Initially the Americans, along with French, Italian and British forces, provided a measure of stability. But as diplomatic efforts failed to achieve a basis for a lasting settlement, the Muslim factions came to perceive the Marines as enemies, and their positions came under artillery, mortar and small arms fire.
Brownawell blamed U.S. leaders not for their foreign policy decisions but for "tying the hands of the commander on the ground. They refused to let us carry loaded weapons or fortify our compound," he said. "They felt these measures would be seen as aggressive and inconsistent with our 'peacekeeping' role."
In the early morning of Oct. 23, 1983, Iranian-backed Hizballah suicide bombers crashed a truck through the security perimeter of the First Battalion, 8th Marines, headquarters building at Beirut International Airport.
The Marine sentry on duty, who was not allowed to keep a loaded magazine in his rifle, couldn't react in time. The resulting explosion and the collapse of the building killed 241 Marines, sailors and soldiers.
At almost the same time, another truck bomb killed 58 French peacekeepers.
"In Vietnam our (military) leaders were limited by the leadership in Washington," Brownawell said, "and in Somalia when the commander on the ground asked for tanks and heavy artillery to be moved on shore, his request was denied. Our government does not learn from its mistakes, and I fear for our servicemen today."
But he directed his strongest criticism against Chahine. "I am angry that anyone, let alone an Egyptian, would use the image of a Beirut Marine in this way," he said.
"He mentions Nagasaki and Hiroshima as if these were acts of terrorism carried out by the U.S. military. These were acts of retribution for the terrorism committed by the Japanese navy in an unprovoked attack on Pearl Harbor. As for the Middle East crisis, even the Palestinian government now realizes that peace cannot be had through the killing of innocent women and children."
In the film, the father of a Palestinian suicide bomber says: "Israel fools everyone. Bush lets them decide who the terrorists are, but imagine your house or the olive trees your ancestors planted being bulldozed."
Brownawell said the "ghost" Chahine attempts to enlighten "is one of the 241 friends I lost that day, killed in his sleep by cowards for bringing peace, not war, to Lebanon. These young men were there to separate the warring parties, including the IDF (Israeli Defense Force), so that a lasting peace could be established and the killing stopped. Neither they nor the U.S. government had any other objective than to assist the Lebanese government in securing peace."
The BBC reported that Chahine's segment brought boos from the audience in Venice.
"Some Americans ... felt the film showed a one-sided view of world events," the network said. It quoted Taran Davies, a New Yorker who was at the festival to show an independent film about Afghanistan in the wake of Sept. 11.
"People are going too far," Davis said. "They are criticizing a lot of purported atrocities committed by the United States rather than the atrocities committed against the United States."
http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20020912-024206-6764r
Alain Brigand, the film's French producer, said the collage of shorts wouldn't be shown in the United States "while the American people are still mourning."
Copyright © 2002 United Press International
This message has been edited by Dick Gaines from IP address 66.133.135.33 on Sep 15, 2002 11:03 AM
I was Dragon with 3/8 when that happened Capt. Johnson wasnt alone my gun team had crosshairs on 2 of them Johnson had the third
BeirutMarine1
03-28-05, 05:36 PM
What ever happened to the Dragon's? I remember dry fire practice at Geiger. Shooting at the Jeep with the Huge Target!!
greensideout
03-28-05, 07:56 PM
That TV image of the Capt jumping onto the tank with his .45 is burned into my mind forever! I have told the story of him at least a hundred times.
(How many Marines does it take to stop a tank convoy? One Marine with a .45).
Semper Fi