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Phantom Blooper
10-24-05, 05:33 AM
October 24,2005
BY DIANE MOUSKOURIE
DAILY NEWS STAFF

They came in peace - then they paid the ultimate price through an act of terrorism.

It was Oct. 23, 1983, when 220 Marines, 18 sailors and three soldiers - most from Camp Lejeune - died after a delivery truck packed with 12,000 pounds of explosives was rammed full force into the Beirut International Airport where the Marines had built a makeshift home and established headquarters.

The young men with the 1st Battalion, 8th Marines, the sailors and soldiers were on a peacekeeping mission to help a war-torn country. On Sunday in Jacksonville, many of their fathers and mothers, sisters, brothers, wives, active-duty military, veterans and friends gathered to honor their memory at the Beirut Memorial.

Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Michael W. Hagee, a former commanding officer of 1/8, said he remembers well the sacrifices.

"Words fail us," he told those assembled Sunday at the memorial site. "I wish we could say - as with many anniversaries - that this is a time for peaceful remembrance; that we were gathered today to commemorate a danger that had long since passed; or that the attack of 22 years ago marked the ending, not one of the early shots in a protracted and difficult conflict. But we cannot."

Hagee said those who lost a son, a father or a husband during this attack likely want to know why it happened. More than two decades after the incident, the answers are still impossible to grasp.

"It is hard for free people to comprehend the mix of extremism and hatred that leads terrorists to murder people sent to help," Hagee said. "But perhaps we can take solace in the fact that throughout human history there have been those who seek power through fear and mass murder, but eventually all of them, every one, have fallen."

After the laying of wreaths at the foot of the Beirut Memorial, Gen. Robert C. Dickerson, commanding general of Marine Corps Installations East and commander of Camp Lejeune; and Hagee stood at attention for a 21-gun salute. Following the hour-long service, several family members and former comrades walked to the memorial to pay tribute.

President of the American Gold Star Mothers Judith Young traveled from Morristown, N.J., to attend. It was a special time to remember her son, Sgt. Jeffrey Young, she said. He was 22 the day he died.

"You never really get over something like that, but time does make it easier," she said.

Evi Cox-Jordan flew in from Orlando, Fla., with her husband, Bob Jordan. Evi was a 25-year-old wife and mother when her first husband, Sgt. Manuel Cox, was killed in the explosion, she said through tears.

"He died two days after my youngest son was born," she said. "You never really recover; you just learn to deal with it."

Maj. Lew Vogler, executive officer with 1/8 shared a story that illustrates the irony of life, he said.

When Lt. Col. Scott Alley, the current commanding officer of 1/8, was a captain at basic school, a young student came to him and asked for leave so he could attend a memorial in Jacksonville, Vogler said. The captain told the young man that leave was not allowed for those in basic training. But when the young man told the captain it was a service to honor his father, Capt. Peter J. Scialabba, who had died in the Beirut attack, he let him go.

Alley was a senior in high school in 1983 and remembers the bombing.

"Fully considering the war on terrorism on June 30 we changed the call sign of our battalion to the way it was at the time of the bombing," Alley said.

He said losing 220 Marines in a battalion of about 800 was a significant loss then as it would be now.

"One is too many," Alley said. "We just had 21 Marines killed in action during our last deployment to Iraq. We need to keep sight of what we're doing and remember those who went before us so that we always do what's right."

And the war on terrorism, which some say began with the Beirut bombing, continues, Hagee said.

"America did not wish to send Marines abroad, but we sent them," Hagee said about the Beirut bombing. "We did not ask for violence, but we've answered it. We did not begin the war on terror, but we will win it."

thedrifter
10-24-05, 06:54 AM
10/24/2005
War veteran remembers serving in Lebanon during suicide bombing
ROBERT CYR , Register Citizen Staff

BANTAM - Before 1997, all parades veteran Marine David Seelye attended seemed to skip over a military conflict that proved to be a defining moment in his life - the 1983 bombing in Beirut. The bombing took the lives of 241 Marines.
"It kind of put a thorn in my side that a whole group of men were skipped over," Seelye said. "What about the conflicts in the 80s - Croatia, Kosovo, Granada, Panama? They’ve all gone by, without notice."

After noticing parade after parade shift directly from Vietnam to the Gulf War in its commemorations, Seelye said he approached his commander at his Winsted American Legion, who gave him the go-ahead to put together a Beirut memorial.

The Beirut memorial, which took place at the Bantam All Wars Memorial Sunday, originally took place in 1997 at the New Hartford War memorial, one of the few memorials in the area that mention the Beirut conflict, he said. Ever since 1998, the service has been held at Bantam.

In 1982, in conjunction with forces from France, Italy, and Great Britain, American Marines entered Beirut, Lebanon, to help stabilize the politically volatile country, and to evacuate Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Liberation Organization from the port of Beirut.

After returning, the Marines encountered a resurgent aggression that led to 16 American deaths, when in April 1983 a van packed with explosives detonated outside of the U.S. Embassy.

Seelye, who had only been in the Marines for two years, said he remembers well his 333-day tour of duty in Beirut, one in which he saw his 21st birthday. His ultimate aim is constantly remind his fellow Americans of the sacrifice that soldiers gave in Lebanon.

On the morning of Oct. 23, 1983, 241 American servicemen and women were killed when a truck loaded with explosives crashed through the front doors and detonated, leveling the compound and leaving a massive cater, he said.

"I’m just trying to make people remember these guys that gave their lives for something they believed in," he said.

In addition to the yearly ceremony, Seelye is involved with other educational endeavors. On Oct. 28, he said, he will be giving informational presentations to history classes at the Gilbert School to students who typically have many questions.

"They’re a great bunch of kids," he said. "It’s interesting for them to have someone talk with them who can give them another look at history."

He will also be involved in a Nov. 4 collaboration between Pearson Middle school and Charlie Company from Plainville, which will soon be deployed to Iraq, he said. Students will give the soldiers an American flag to fly over their base, and in return the students will receive a small red unit flag, the designation for the battalion.

"Students will also be able to correspond with the soldiers, back and forth," he said. "Through e-mail, letters, anything to keep in contact if they want to."

Among the dead from the Beirut bombing included six Connecticut servicemen: Maj. Randall Carson, Lt. Cpl. Thomas DiBenedetto, S.Sgt. Thomas Smith, Lt.Cpl. Devon Sundar, Pfc. Stephen Tingley, and Lt. Cpl. Dwayne Wigglesworth.

Robert Cyr can be reached by e-mail at newhartford@registercitizen.com.

Ellie

thedrifter
10-24-05, 09:31 AM
Ceremony honors local Marines who died in Beirut
The 1983 attack at the Marine barracks killed 278 Americans; 9 were from Rhode Island.
01:00 AM EDT on Monday, October 24, 2005
By KIA HALL HAYES
Journal Staff Writer

PORTSMOUTH -- Tiffany Giblin's eyes filled with tears as she remembered her father, Sgt. Timothy Giblin, who was killed 22 years ago by a suicide bomber in Lebanon.

"I never knew him," said Giblin, 24, of Cranston, who was 2 when her father died.

At a ceremony at the Portsmouth Historical Society, she and her mother, Valerie, joined the family and friends of nine Rhode Island Marines who were killed in the 1983 attack.

Among the fallen Marines was Thomas Julian, of Portsmouth, who grew up in a house behind the Historical Society.

Two hundred and seventy-eight American servicemen died in that attack at the Marine barracks in Beirut, and the loss felt by their families lingers.

"It's as if it was yesterday," said Shirley Zdanuk, who has been organizing the ceremony since 1984 to honor the Rhode Island Marines.

One mother told her there's not a day that she doesn't feel the pain of the loss of her son, she said. As the anniversary nears, the pain for many families is particularly strong, Zdanuk said.

After the first memorial service in 1984, one Marine's mother told her how pleased she was that the service was so well attended, but lamented that by the same time next year no one would remember the deceased Marines.

"I promised her that wouldn't happen," she said.

A spruce tree that was planted at the memorial site during that first service now towers over it. A wreath that was placed next to a granite memorial listing the names of the dead servicemen bears the words "Semper Fi," the Marine motto.

It means "always faithful," and it has dual meaning for the memorial, Zdanuk said.

"We feel we have to be always faithful to their memory," she said.

During the ceremony in the Historical Society Museum, retired Marine Ed Fitzgerald read the names of the nine Marines. Relatives, who were given red carnations, silently stood when their loved one's name was read.

Thanking the Marines for their sacrifices, Fitzgerald said the families aren't alone in mourning their deaths.

"We share the sorrows you have borne these past 22 years," he said.

After the service, the Navy Band Northeast played Taps as two Marines carried the wreath to the memorial site.

Fitzgerald, who has stayed in contact with local Marines and their families, said the annual ceremony gives families an opportunity to reunite and remember.

The pain is as strong today as it was two decades ago, but the ceremony provides comfort, he said.

"It shows that their sons and husbands were not forgotten. They're still remembered, and we owe a great debt to them," Fitzgerald said.

That's why the Giblins come every year, Valerie said. They come to honor her husband, and reconnect Tiffany to the father she never knew.

"To let people know that we're not going to forget him," she said.

Ellie

thedrifter
10-27-05, 02:31 PM
http://p089.ezboard.com/fthefontmanscommunityfrm22.showMessage?topicID=845 7.topic

thedrifter
10-28-05, 06:06 AM
News program revisits death of Dwight Marine
By CARA PESEK / Lincoln Journal Star
Friday, October 28, 2005

Twenty-two years ago last Sunday, a Marine named Mark Helms died in Beirut.

He was killed with 229 other Marines after terrorists bombed their barracks. At the time of the bombing, Helms was three weeks away from returning to his family in Dwight.

Helms would be 41 now. His mother, MaryAnn Turek, often wonders what her son would be doing now, how many children he would have, whether he would have married the girl he was going with when he died.

And though Helms’ family moved to Dwight just over a year before his death, the Butler County community of 260 hasn’t forgotten him, either.

Helms’ picture hangs in the Legion Hall, right near the entrance.

His name is in the church bulletin on the days Mass is offered in his memory.

And people recall that the PBS news program “MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour” covered Helms’ funeral, during which military planes flew overhead.

Neither happens very often in Dwight.

“People remember,” said Janet Nemec, who was making lunch at Cy’s Cafe on Thursday.

Nemec said the date of Helms’ death — Oct. 23 — has always stuck in her mind. She thought of him on Sunday, she said.

And a lot of people in town thought of him in August when “NewsHour” returned to Dwight to revisit Helms’ death.

In honor of the show’s 30th year, its reporters and producers revisited five stories from the news program’s early days.

They looked back at stories about a struggling steel town, about immigration, the impact of NAFTA and the dot-com industry.

And they looked back at Helms’ death, his community and the United States’ current role in military conflicts around the world.

A 10½-minute segment will air Friday night at 6.

Producer Mary Jo Brooks said reporters spoke with members of the Dwight American Legion, with Helms’ mother, with families of soldiers currently serving overseas. They visited Cy’s Cafe, where they interviewed U.S. Poet Laureate Ted Kooser, and stopped by East Butler High School, where they talked with members of the cross country team.

They found, Brooks said, a community that’s as welcoming and patriotic as when they first visited 22 years ago.

And they found that Helms’ death left a mark on the town.

“Even people who were too young to even remember certainly know of it,” Brooks said.

Dwight Legionnaire Leonard Sisel was among those who spoke with “NewsHour” reporters.

Sisel said over the years Dwight, a Butler County town northwest of Lincoln, has done its part to support the military. The Legion Post still has more than 100 members, including some Iraq veterans.

But Helms’ death remains the community’s most recent military fatality, said Sisel, who served in the Marines from 1951 to 1954. It still stands out, even to Sisel, who met Helms just once.

“The boy did his job,” he said.

The Legion Hall will be open at 6 tonight so anyone who wants to watch the segment can. Sisel said he would watch it there, with the other Legionnaires, instead of at home.

To Turek, the “NewsHour’s” decision to return to re-examine her son’s life and death means a lot.

It means that her son’s death touched lives far beyond Dwight and Colorado Springs, where her family had lived before.

“I was kind of surprised,” she said, “but I thought what an honor to remember Mark.”

Turek remembers all the time.

She remembers her son’s smile and his laugh. She remembers that his classmates used to call him Mork because of his ability to imitate the Robin Williams character.

He was tall. He was a talented musician who played the viola, organ and guitar. He was close to his younger siblings, Christopher and Rebecca, and to his great-aunts and uncles.

Twenty-two years after his death, she still misses him every day.

On Sunday, the anniversary of Helms’ death, Turek’s daughter called and asked if it ever stopped hurting.

“It doesn’t and it doesn’t,” she said.

But it’s nice to know, she said, that other people remember, too.

Reach Cara Pesek at 473-7361 or cpesek@journalstar.com.

How to watch

A segment revisiting the death of Mark Helms, a Marine from Dwight who was killed in Beirut in 1983, will air on PBS’s “NewsHour with Jim Lehrer” at 6 p.m. Friday. The segment was shot in Dwight and the surrounding area over three and a half days in August.

Ellie