They came in peace ... long hoped for, yet elusive

[thedrifter]

Borrowed from hubby's site...


They came in peace ... long hoped for, yet elusive

By Bonnie Throckmorton
The Jacksonville Daily News
Oct. 20, 2002

The words are etched in our minds, we who lived in Jacksonville 19 years ago. Our Marines and sailors were serving in Beirut, Lebanon, as peacekeepers. Indeed, they went that bullet-riddled den of unrest under orders; they were there as a part of some misguided foreign policy dreamed up by politicians.

In the end, 241 came home in flag-draped coffins — never to see their loved ones again. Dear God, what a tragic and unnecessary loss of life that October morning when terrorism visited Jacksonville and her citizens.

Just as the incredible blue skies, splashed with the scarlet of fire, will always represent Sept. 11 to me, the torrential rains of the wee hours of Sunday, October 23, 1983, will always bring back the Beirut bombing. It was an atypical fall day, no burning leaves, no crisp autumn weather, just a steady drumbeat of rain on the roof and the incessant ringing of the telephone.

Phone calls at 5 a.m. on a Sunday are rarely good news. To this day, I can close my eyes and remember the call. My husband, then a Marine captain, grabbed the receiver, listed for a few seconds and hung up. “What’s wrong?” I asked. He replied, “Heavy casualties in Beirut.” He was gone within minutes.

The rest of the day was spent doing what hundreds of other Marine wives were doing. Making telephone calls, baby-sitting for the children whose Dad’s were in Beirut but whose fate would not be known for days, cooking, crying, praying and grieving. Everyone wanted to do something, anything to ease the pain but there was so little we could do. So we turned to the mundane, a necessary reaction to unthinkable events.

We craved information. As I watch “instant” television today, it’s almost impossible to remember what it was like to seek news but not be able to find any. In its infancy, cable news was pitiful. Only CBS had a news program but it was woefully inadequate by today’s standards. So we waited for days as casualty officers made their grim rounds throughout our community.

As The Daily News printed the names of those who had perished — day-by-day the list grew longer. Community leaders were already meeting; they too felt this enormous need to acknowledge to the loss of so many fine young men. People whom they had come to know as scout leaders, Sunday School teachers, coaches, neighbors and friends. For the first time, in a very long time, there was no “us” and “them.” Jacksonville was one city and its residents — military and civilian alike — wove a tapestry of togetherness that still exists today.

Two weeks after the bombing, hundreds gathered on the banks of the New River at Camp Lejeune to pay homage to those who died. President Reagan and his wife attended as did several injured survivors, dozens of family members, city and county officials and military personnel. Fittingly, it rained that day too, the drops mingling with the tears of those in attendance.

As time passed and we tried to pick up the threads of our lives, the community planted 241 Bradford pear trees along Lejeune Boulevard representing the lives lost that tragic Sunday. Three years later, a proud city offered up the Beirut Memorial, paid for by hundreds of small donations collected at dozens of events by tireless volunteers. It was dedicated October 23, 1986, and serves as a symbol of those who made the ultimate sacrifice for their nation.

Regrettably, we are no longer alone in our knowledge of terrorism. The list of terrorist acts is long and growing longer. We remember PanAm Flight 103 which blew up over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988; the first bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993; the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah building in Oklahoma City; the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia; the embassies in Africa; the USS Cole; and of course, the World Trade Center and Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001.

Now we add to this horror the terrorist acts in Bali and the terror caused by a lunatic killer in and around Washington, D.C.

As a nation, we continue to pray that those responsible for all of the horror are caught and brought to justice.

Still, as we remember one our our darkest moments — Oct. 23, 1983 — we also remember the caring community that wrapped its arms around its citizens and said, “We will never forget.”

And we haven’t. The Beirut Memorial is not merely a shrine, it is a beacon of hope and a prayerful gathering place. The names on the wall are personal; the phrase, “They Came In Peace” is universal. In that special place, there is peace, honor, courage and hope.

http://www.thefontman.com/

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Thursday, October 19, 2006
Remembering Beirut sacrifices

By Col. Charles Dallachie
Base Commander

For Marines, great victories, great defeats, and great sacrifices are never forgotten, but are remembered with battle streamers attached to unit colors. Unfortunately, there are no battle streamers to remember the ultimate sacrifice made by Marines and sailors in Beirut in 1983.

In the very early morning of Oct. 23 in Beirut, Lebanon, a building serving as the command post for the First Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment was hit by a suicide bomber driving a stake bed truck loaded with compressed gas-enhanced explosives.

The explosion and collapse of the building killed 241 Marines, sailors, and soldiers. Bomb experts who examined the blast called the approximately 12, 000 pounds of TNT the largest non-nuclear explosion in history, For the Marines it was the biggest loss of life in a single day since the Corps fought the Japanese on Iwo Jima in World War II.

In 1982, Lebanon, the country once known as the “Switzerland of the Middle East” because of its European flavor, its prosperous economy and its ethnic diversity and tolerance, was mired in a bloody ethnic and religious conflict that would permanently destroy its character and leave its people shattered and demoralized to this day.

In June 1982, after repeated Palestinian Liberation Organization cross-border attacks from strongholds in southern Lebanon into villages in northern Israel, the Israeli Defense Forces launched Operation Peace for Galilee. Throughout the summer of 1982, CNN brought to the world’s living rooms images of Israeli air and artillery pounding heavily populated Beirut as they sought to destroy the PLO fighters surrounded in the city by the Israeli forces. The terrible suffering, more than 12,000 killed in 70 days, caused Beirut to become the center of worldwide attention.

At the request of the Lebanese government, the United States, along with Britain, France, and Italy inserted a multinational peacekeeping force into Beirut hoping its “presence” would provide a measure of stability to help the Lebanese government get back on its feet. Unfortunately, America was sticking its hand into a thousand year old hornet’s nest.

By the summer of 1983, as diplomatic efforts failed to achieve a basis for lasting settlement, the Moslem factions came to perceive the Marines as enemies. This led to artillery, mortar, and small arms fire being directed at Marine positions – with the Marines responding in kind against identified targets. By mid October, just before being introduced to a new and deadly weapon – the suicide truck bomber, seven Marine had been killed and 26 injured.

Immediately following the tragedy, the residents of Jacksonville, N.C., expressed an outpouring of grief and support for the families and loved ones of the Marines and sailors who had been killed. Part of that support included raising funds for a memorial to honor those who had died in Lebanon during the peacekeeping mission. Today, near the entrance to Camp Johnson, a subsidiary base of the overall Camp Lejeune, N.C., complex, a memorial wall was erected and now permanently stands nestled among some Carolina Pine trees.

The Wall was completed on Oct. 23, 1986. It is similar to the Vietnam Wall in Washington, D.C., as it bears a list of those Americans who died in Lebanon. Only four words are inscribed on the Wall: “They Came in Peace.”

In 1988, a statue was added to the Wall, it represents a lone Marine keeping vigil over his fellow Marines. In addition to the Wall, the residents of Jacksonville planted a Bradford Pear tree for each man killed in the explosion on the center median along Lejeune Boulevard, on Highway 24.

A Marine officer now retired, tells the story of when in August 1992, while still on active duty and traveling to Camp Lejeune, he couldn’t help but notice the trees that line the middle of the road. Knowing that each tree was dedicated to an individual Marine, sailor, or soldier who had lost his life in Lebanon, he felt saddened as the vehicle sped past tree after tree after tree. Before arriving at the main gate he asked the young Marine who was driving him if he knew the significance of those trees. The Marine quickly looked at a few of the trees as he sped past them, and looked over to the passenger and said very matter-of-factly, “hell, I don’t know. I’ve never noticed them before. I guess they’re just trees.

The Bradford Pear seedlings have grown since first planted, and as evidenced by the young Marine’s comment, their growth has been somewhat meaningless to those who were either too young to remember that October 1983 tragedy, or to those who had never been told of their significance. It is somewhat ironic that a young Marine, of all people, could have been so cavalier in his response, because if anyone should be concerned about what happened in Beirut. It is Marines who are and will be stationed with the Fleet Marine Forces.

Unfortunately, in October 1983, the vast majority of Americans had little knowledge of, less interest in, and no great concern with what was going on in Beirut – it was so far away. Today, let us honor, but also learn, from the sacrifices of those who have gone before, so we do not give the citizens of Jacksonville a reason to plant more trees along a stretch of highway that leads to the main gate of their military base.

Ellie