thedrifter
10-23-08, 05:39 AM
Marines’ sacrifice remembered
Local soldiers died in Beirut bombing -25 years ago
By JOHN GOODALL-Tribune Chronicle
POSTED: October 23, 2008
NILES - It was hard then to see the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing, which claimed two local Marines, for what it was - a harbinger of the global terror that would put America in its crosshairs - a family member said.
A total of 241 U.S. servicemen were killed 25 years ago today in the blast. Among them was Marines Lance Corporal Stanley J. Sliwinski of Niles and Cpl. Edward A. Johnston of Struthers.
''That was a tragedy,'' Mike Sliwinski, a younger brother of the lance corporal, recalled. His family later would come to view it as more.
''In 1983, we weren't aware of the magnitude of terrorism,'' said Mike Sliwinsky, who now heads Trumbull County's Building Inspection Department. ''Everybody saw it as just a Mideast thing. We were isolated from it.''
The Sliwinskis consider their brother and son to have been an early casualty of terrorism that would flare in the United States with the 9/11 attacks and would spread to all corners of the planet. Stanley Sliwinski was a combat engineer stationed in Beirut, Lebanon.
''In retrospect, we can see it now,'' Mike Sliwinski said.
Stanley Sliwinski, the middle of five brothers, was a 1982 graduate of Warren John F. Kennedy High School. Mike, who was then a freshman, rode to school with him.
Johnston's father, Ed Johnston, said that his family had received the news that his son had died about two weeks after the attack. Now, four generations of the Johnston family return to the Peace Keepers Memorial monument along Lake Hamilton biannually to honor the deceased soldiers.
Sister Maryann Johnston Beck, now of Michigan, said, ''I think our country forgets because they are over there (in Iraq). We have said that we could probably forget, too, if my brother hadn't died during the attack. Maybe we would have been part of the dedication, maybe we wouldn't - but now we can't forget.''
The deadly blasts took place during the Lebanese Civil War. Targeted were U.S. Marines and French soldiers, members of a multinational peace keeping force in Lebanon.
Islamic Jihad took responsibility for the killings. But some investigations suggested the involvement of Hezbollah with assistance from Iran.
At about 6:20 a.m. a truck entered an access road leading to the compound at Beirut International Airport that housed the Marines. It carried a gas-enhanced explosive mixture, probably consisting of bottled propane, butane or acetylene.
The suicide driver accelerated through a barbed-wire fence, sped between two sentry posts and crashed through a gate and into the lobby of the four-story cinder block building where Marines were sleeping. When the explosion detonated, the structure collapsed.
Historian Eric Hammel said the force lifted the four-story building, shearing the bases of the concrete support columns that were 15 feet in circumference each and reinforced by one-and-three-quarter-inch steel rods. The structure then fell in on itself, he said.
A federal court judge described the explosion as the largest deliberate non-nuclear blast ever at that time. It was the equivalent of 12,000 pounds of TNT.
The attack led to the placement of protective barriers called bollards around critical government facilities in the U.S.
jgoodall@tribtoday.com
Ellie
Local soldiers died in Beirut bombing -25 years ago
By JOHN GOODALL-Tribune Chronicle
POSTED: October 23, 2008
NILES - It was hard then to see the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing, which claimed two local Marines, for what it was - a harbinger of the global terror that would put America in its crosshairs - a family member said.
A total of 241 U.S. servicemen were killed 25 years ago today in the blast. Among them was Marines Lance Corporal Stanley J. Sliwinski of Niles and Cpl. Edward A. Johnston of Struthers.
''That was a tragedy,'' Mike Sliwinski, a younger brother of the lance corporal, recalled. His family later would come to view it as more.
''In 1983, we weren't aware of the magnitude of terrorism,'' said Mike Sliwinsky, who now heads Trumbull County's Building Inspection Department. ''Everybody saw it as just a Mideast thing. We were isolated from it.''
The Sliwinskis consider their brother and son to have been an early casualty of terrorism that would flare in the United States with the 9/11 attacks and would spread to all corners of the planet. Stanley Sliwinski was a combat engineer stationed in Beirut, Lebanon.
''In retrospect, we can see it now,'' Mike Sliwinski said.
Stanley Sliwinski, the middle of five brothers, was a 1982 graduate of Warren John F. Kennedy High School. Mike, who was then a freshman, rode to school with him.
Johnston's father, Ed Johnston, said that his family had received the news that his son had died about two weeks after the attack. Now, four generations of the Johnston family return to the Peace Keepers Memorial monument along Lake Hamilton biannually to honor the deceased soldiers.
Sister Maryann Johnston Beck, now of Michigan, said, ''I think our country forgets because they are over there (in Iraq). We have said that we could probably forget, too, if my brother hadn't died during the attack. Maybe we would have been part of the dedication, maybe we wouldn't - but now we can't forget.''
The deadly blasts took place during the Lebanese Civil War. Targeted were U.S. Marines and French soldiers, members of a multinational peace keeping force in Lebanon.
Islamic Jihad took responsibility for the killings. But some investigations suggested the involvement of Hezbollah with assistance from Iran.
At about 6:20 a.m. a truck entered an access road leading to the compound at Beirut International Airport that housed the Marines. It carried a gas-enhanced explosive mixture, probably consisting of bottled propane, butane or acetylene.
The suicide driver accelerated through a barbed-wire fence, sped between two sentry posts and crashed through a gate and into the lobby of the four-story cinder block building where Marines were sleeping. When the explosion detonated, the structure collapsed.
Historian Eric Hammel said the force lifted the four-story building, shearing the bases of the concrete support columns that were 15 feet in circumference each and reinforced by one-and-three-quarter-inch steel rods. The structure then fell in on itself, he said.
A federal court judge described the explosion as the largest deliberate non-nuclear blast ever at that time. It was the equivalent of 12,000 pounds of TNT.
The attack led to the placement of protective barriers called bollards around critical government facilities in the U.S.
jgoodall@tribtoday.com
Ellie