PDA

View Full Version : 25 years,we still remember



Bruce59
10-20-08, 07:11 PM
On Oct 23, the 25th anniversary of the Beirut Barrack bombing. Its time to remember once again, to read the names of the lost. time to honor our lost brothers one more time. Time to welcome home the survives. I'll be there, will you?

Bruce

thedrifter
10-20-08, 08:15 PM
Bruce

Mark and I will be there...

I do know that Chuck(Phantom Blooper) will there..

There also be a few other friends of ours who are Active and Retired Marines..

Hope to meet You there....

Ellie

jetdawgg
10-20-08, 09:21 PM
A devastating Sunday Morning that is endelibly etched in my mind

Semper Fi:usmc::flag::iwo:

jetdawgg
10-22-08, 12:25 PM
http://www.beirut-memorial.org/history/c18095-4.gif

http://www.beirut-memorial.org/index.html

fontman
10-23-08, 06:54 AM
Beirut 25 Years Ago: Descent Into the Lion's Den
By CLAUDE SALHANI (Editor, Middle East Times)
Published: October 23, 2008

JACKSONVILLE, N.C., USA -- They came in peace. They came with good intentions. They came into a lion's den, in more ways than one.

Twenty-five years ago this 23rd October, 241 U.S. servicemen, mostly Marines, and 58 French paratroopers paid the ultimate price as a result of political incompetence, ill-defined foreign policies and gross misconceptions by Washington and Paris as to what role the Marines and other members of the Multinational Peacekeeping Force in Lebanon should be.

Where they to be peacekeepers or state-builders?

The difference between the first and the latter changed the nature of the deployment and the multinational force became seen by regional powers as outside interference that had to be neutralized.

The Marines, who had set off from Camp Lejeunne, North Carolina, had left behind them wives, mothers, sons, daughters, brothers and sisters to help bring peace to Lebanon, a country tortured by years of civil strife, foreign invasions and occupation. As did their brothers-in-arms in the French contingent; many of them never made it back.

On a clear Sunday morning, Oct. 23, 1983 at about 6:20 a.m., a suicide bomber drove a large truck into the building near Beirut International Airport where the men of the 1st Battalion, 8th Marines from Camp Lejeunne were housed.

After breaking through the security barrier, the driver drove his truck bomb into the lobby of the Battalion Landing Team (BLT) building where he exploded it. A Marine sentry who caught a glimpse of the driver recalls an eerie smile on the bomber's face.

The rules of engagement in Beirut were beyond comprehension: in a country that at one point counted more that 85 armed groups of various sizes and scope, where almost everyone carried weapons, the Marines were not authorized have their ammunition clips engaged. That included the sentries guarding the perimeter. By the time the sentry had retrieved his magazine, inserted it into his M16 and chambered a round, it was too late.

What followed was the largest non-nuclear explosion in history.

Two minutes later a second suicide bomber drove his truck into the "Drakkar" building about four miles from the Marine compound. The Drakkar housed a unit of French parachutist infantry. Many of them were on the balconies of the multi-storied building to see what had happened in the first bombing. Fifty-eight French paras were killed.

It was no coincidence that the men of the Marine Amphibious Unit (MAU) stationed in Beirut ended up sleeping under one roof. Initially, most were scattered around the perimeter, sheltered only by government issued canvas tents.

But when Shiite militiamen from Beirut's southern suburbs began lobbing mortar rounds at the Marines, the choice between remaining in the open with a thin canvas tent for protection, or moving into an eight-storey concrete building that had survived decades of bombing from the recent civil war, the choice was obvious.

As Col. Tim Geraghty, commander of the MAU at the time of the attack told a panel in Quantico, VA. last week, "It was the safest building in the area."

Forcing the Marines into the BLT building was part of the plan. A few days before the attack, this correspondent accompanied Col. Geraghty as he escorted a Congressional delegation around the compound.

Geraghty, who became the scapegoat for Washington's disastrous policy, explained to the visiting Congressmen that he was very uneasy about having all his men under one roof and the fact that the Marines were not allowed to carry loaded weapons.

One of the Congressmen placed his arm on Geraghty's shoulder and said: "Colonel, you are doing a fine job. Remember, we are here to show the flag."

The rest, as they say, is history. But it's a page of history that could have been written differently had the powers that be in Washington been more attentive to signals picked up on the ground. Those of us based in Beirut at the time saw the handwriting on the wall. Why did Western intelligence appear to have missed the point altogether?

John Diamond, a journalist and writer who has covered intelligence issues in Washington, now attached to the Woodrow Wilson Center, noted in his just-released meticulously researched book titled, "The CIA and the Culture of Failure," the shortcomings of the intelligence community.

Diamond states: "The 9/11 attacks and the war in Iraq sprang in no small part from the massive intelligence failures, that much is well understood. How the CIA got to a point where it failed so catastrophically, is not."

Diamond does not cover the Beirut period in his book, but three major developments marked similar intelligence failures in Lebanon.

First, was the departure of the Palestine Liberation Organization from Lebanon in the aftermath of the 1982 Israeli invasion. The CIA had more than a handful of assets who were now dead or exiled in Tunisia.

Second, was the similar attack six months prior on the U.S. embassy in Beirut. Sixty-three people died in that attack, including most of the CIA's Middle East experts who were holding a regional meeting when the bomb exploded. The loss of most of its specialists set the agency back decades.

Robert Baer, a former CIA operative who worked in Beirut at the time, as well as other intelligence sources, believe that both the U.S. embassy explosion and the bombing of the Beirut Marine barracks was the work of Imad Mughnieh, a top Hezbollah leader, who was believed to have been running a number of terrorist operations on behalf of Iran and who acted, if not with the support, at least with the silent assent from Syrian President Hafez Assad. (Assad means lion in Arabic.)

And third was the lack of intelligence of the ground. The Marines lacked interpreters, mistook waves and smiles from the Shiites in the southern suburbs for signs of welcome. Indeed the waves and smiles were outwardly friendly but the accompanying words were not.

Coupled with all that, as soon as the French and U.S. forces began training the Lebanese army they stopped being peacekeepers and became, at least in the eyes of the agonists, just another militia in Lebanon's long and protracted war.

Time, it is said, heals all wounds. That may be true, but it certainly does not erase their memories. Today, 25 years after the bombing, the mothers, wives, sons and daughters gathered at daybreak at Camp Lejeunne, N.C., from whence the Marines had embarked upon this journey. They had come back to uphold a Marine tradition; without exception, no Marine is ever left behind, or forgotten.

-- Claude Salhani was based in Beirut at the time of the attacks.

YutYut
10-23-08, 07:59 AM
New York Times
October 23, 2008
Pg. 37
Lebanon’s Bloody Sunday
By Randy Gaddo
I remember that the morning of Oct. 23, 1983, in Beirut was pleasant and sunny; there was a light breeze, and it was very quiet. Sunday was generally a day of rest. We were usually given an extra ration of sleep and then a treat, omelets, at the barracks mess hall. We had no more omelets after Oct. 23.
I had gotten up early because I had work to do. As a Marine staff sergeant and a photographer, I had been sent to Beirut to document the deployment of the troops that were going to try to bring peace to Lebanon after years of civil war. That morning I had eight rolls of film to develop and print before I helped the rest of my unit waterproof our bunker, a necessity because we were heading into the rainy season. I had set up a makeshift photo lab in the only place we could find running water, a third floor bathroom in the barracks, although I didn’t sleep in the building.
At 6 a.m. I was halfway over to the barracks from my tent, and I remember the birds were singing louder than I’d ever heard them, maybe because for a change there was no distant sound of artillery in the mountains. I decided I needed a cup of coffee before I went to work, so I turned back to the combat operations center and got a cup and sat down at my little field desk to plan my day.
About 20 minutes later I heard two or three shots from an M-16. Before I had time to wonder, I felt a hot rush of air on my face, like a blast furnace. Then I heard and felt a thunderous thud and was lifted up and tossed back several feet like a rag doll.
I was dazed, but fortunately I had my helmet and flak jacket on, and they absorbed a lot of the shock wave. My first thought was that a rocket or artillery round must have hit close by, so I went outside expecting to see a smoldering hole outside the tent. What I did see is something I’ll never forget.
Over in the direction of the barracks, where I’d been headed 20 minutes earlier, I saw a mushroom cloud rising several hundred feet in the air. I took off running toward it, and I remember that as I rounded a corner of a building I saw that all the leaves had been stripped from every tree and bush in sight. I saw the cover of an ammo can embedded in the trunk of one tree.
Then, when I reached a spot where normally I would have seen the barracks, I saw the control tower of the Beirut International Airport, which was next to our camp. I stopped dead in my tracks — this simply wasn’t what I was supposed to be seeing. Then things went into slow motion for a while. A heavy gray dust was drifting down, covering everything like a thick blanket. As my brain started engaging again, I focused and began to see things, human things that snapped me back to reality because, without going into gruesome detail, it was obvious many men had died.
I ran back to the combat operations center to report what I’d seen and get help. I saw my boss, Maj. Bob Jordan, our public affairs officer, covered with dust and looking dazed because he’d been blown out of his rack too. I said — or probably yelled, I don’t recall — “The barracks is gone!”
Now, those words in Beirut in 1983 were as impossible to comprehend as the words “the twin towers are gone” were before 9/11. The barracks was a fortress with two-foot-thick reinforced concrete walls. It had served as a headquarters for Israeli troops; it had withstood artillery and heavy naval gunfire with barely a scratch. Yet it was gone. And with it, some 220 marines, 18 sailors and 3 soldiers died. Hundreds more were injured.
Five years ago, at the 20th anniversary remembrance of the bombing at the Beirut Memorial in Jacksonville, N.C., I met one of the many American children who were left fatherless that day. She had been a baby when the terrorists had killed her father, a Marine captain. She had come to find out about her father from the men who had served with him. Her father had written her many letters from Beirut; she had one with her and let me read it.
He had written it in September 1983. In it, he told her that people back home would question why the United States was involved in Beirut and why it was important to let the people there gain their freedom. He told her that it was far better to confront the terrorist enemy there where they lived rather than have to fight them 20 years later in the United States.
It turns out he was right about everything but the time frame — it took only 18 years for the war to come to America.
Had we stood our ground 25 years ago instead of pulling out after the bombing, it is possible that 9/11 would not have happened. Likewise, anyone who thinks we can pull back into a shell now and hope terrorism will go away simply isn’t looking at the lessons history offers.
People ask if we are accomplishing anything in Iraq and Afghanistan. I say yes. Terrorists no longer have a safe haven in Afghanistan. If we pull out of Iraq before the time is right, guess who moves in: Iran. The same Iran that trained the Hezbollah bombers who killed 241 of my comrades on that October morning in Beirut. Do we want to look back 25 years from now and regret not having stayed the course again?
Randy Gaddo is the director of Parks, Recreation and Library Services for Peachtree City, Ga.

ecfree
10-23-08, 09:04 AM
I am very depressed today because I could not make it to the Memorial in J'ville.
I've never been,but I vow to be one day.

Today the BEIRUT MARINES and CORPSMEN will be in my thoughts and prayers..:iwo:

BR34
10-23-08, 12:01 PM
Video about the bombing...

http://mobcom.mfr.usmc.mil/MOBCOM.asp

darkgreen0311
10-23-08, 12:09 PM
Yeah, I remember it like it was yesterday. My Battalion was over in Okinawa and we had been there since May of 83 and were leaving in November back to the States. I know Marines that were over there in the Barracks. One guy was John Nash who just retired as a Msgt. He was in my platoon in boot camp. The Other Marine was Martin Levier who helped locate bodies from the rubble i went to high school with him.









:marine:SEMPER FI 4 LIFE

ringoffire
10-23-08, 01:29 PM
I was not there for the Memorial this morning...but I was there for our friend Manny Simmons retirement ceremony, which was held after the Anniversary ceremony...very emotional. Pretty much cried thru most of it, especially when they talked about today 25 years ago. When asked why he wanted his retirement ceremony today at the Beirut Memorial, his response was..."My Marines are all here, they're names are on that Wall behind me. We all wanted to retire as Marines...and I did, for them". High emotions, I'm crying now, remembering the words.
Just wanted to share some of what I expierenced today. I was 14yrs old, when the bombing happened and I can't honestly say I knew what was going on in our world back then. Although I didn't know anyone personally who was involved in the Beirut bombing, my emotions were the same as they were the first time I went to the Vietnam Wall in DC. God bless all of those who were there this day 25yrs ago, those still with us and those who are not, and Thank You, from the bottom of my heart.

wargrudge
10-23-08, 01:58 PM
I had hoped that my command would have some sort of ceremony to remember those that lost their lives, but I didn't receive anything regarding the subject. I had wanted to spend my birthday commemorating the lives of those lost at a ceremony, and instead ended up just staying in my room alone watching t.v casts covering the subject.

vipere6
10-23-08, 02:21 PM
Simper Fi to my fallen brothers. I remember that day well. GOD BLESS them and there families.

cplcdtaylor
10-23-08, 03:52 PM
I was stationed in Iwakuni that fateful day, as soon as we had heard the base was on alert. . .8 years later, I am assigned to BLT 1/8 H & S Co. headed to the Persian Gulf. I have seen the Memorial in J-ville and it is a magnificient monument to those who paid the ultimate price so that we, as veterans, civilians, military badmouthers, can live in relative peace. Because they were the ones who carried the burden for those who had done their time in the Corps or crossed the border in cowardice and refused to serve this great country in time of need. God Bless the USA, Semper Fi and Happy Birthday, Marines.

Cpl C. D. Taylor, USMC
Not as Lean, Not as Mean, But Still a Marine

cplcdtaylor
10-23-08, 03:55 PM
Semper Fi & Happy Birthday Marine. Even a moment of silence and a prayer for all those who have been left behind is memorial enough when it is only you or a handful who commemorate

Eric Hood
10-25-08, 10:19 AM
I was out of the Corps, when this happened. But, lest we forget.
Semper Fi,
Eric

osborne
10-26-08, 01:29 AM
On 23, Oct 1983, I sat in the living room of my Grandma's house and watched the news casters tell us that the Marines had been hit in Beiruit. 4 days later Ssgt Columbel stopped me in the hall at my high school and invited me to take a pre-asvab, that's the day my life changed forever, because even though I didn't know it then, the change is forever. I've been Desert Stormin' ever since, even though I left the Corps and joined the Air Force, I've been at these cowards ever since. Even now as I sit in Kyrgyzstan as civilian contractor I am a US Marine for life, Semper Fi for life. Never forget the brothers of the Corps we lost that day, one love.