thedrifter
07-30-06, 09:56 AM
Return to Lebanon recalls dark chapter
July 29,2006
DANIEL MCNAMARA
DAILY NEWS STAFF
On Oct. 23, 1983, 220 Marines, 18 sailors and three American soldiers were killed when a suicide bomber barreled through security at the Marine barracks in Beirut and detonated a 5,000-pound truck bomb.
“It’s a dark chapter in the Marine Corps’ history,” said Capt. David Nevers, a spokesman for the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, which is based at Camp Lejeune and just completed rescue operations in Lebanon. “We lost a lot of good Marines on that day.”
Like many of the Marines and sailors killed that day, Dick Dudley was attached to the 24th MAU — which would later be redesignated the 24th MEU — when the bomber blew up the barracks.
The retired sergeant major remembers the aftermath, both immediately after and during the months that followed:
British forces arriving to set up a perimeter as American troops sifted through the rubble in hopes of finding survivors; fellow Marines from the 22nd MAU arriving from Grenada to relieve them; remaining aboard ship after the bombing; changes of command.
“We stayed there and did our thing,” Dudley said.
And even though the irony is not lost on Dudley that the same unit that suffered such casualties would return nearly 23 years later on a humanitarian mission, the longtime Marine praised the younger generation of leathernecks not for their famous return but for just doing their thing.
“Those Marines really did a superb job this time,” Dudley said.
Ellie
July 29,2006
DANIEL MCNAMARA
DAILY NEWS STAFF
On Oct. 23, 1983, 220 Marines, 18 sailors and three American soldiers were killed when a suicide bomber barreled through security at the Marine barracks in Beirut and detonated a 5,000-pound truck bomb.
“It’s a dark chapter in the Marine Corps’ history,” said Capt. David Nevers, a spokesman for the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, which is based at Camp Lejeune and just completed rescue operations in Lebanon. “We lost a lot of good Marines on that day.”
Like many of the Marines and sailors killed that day, Dick Dudley was attached to the 24th MAU — which would later be redesignated the 24th MEU — when the bomber blew up the barracks.
The retired sergeant major remembers the aftermath, both immediately after and during the months that followed:
British forces arriving to set up a perimeter as American troops sifted through the rubble in hopes of finding survivors; fellow Marines from the 22nd MAU arriving from Grenada to relieve them; remaining aboard ship after the bombing; changes of command.
“We stayed there and did our thing,” Dudley said.
And even though the irony is not lost on Dudley that the same unit that suffered such casualties would return nearly 23 years later on a humanitarian mission, the longtime Marine praised the younger generation of leathernecks not for their famous return but for just doing their thing.
“Those Marines really did a superb job this time,” Dudley said.
Ellie