Editorial: Lest We Forget
Twenty-five years ago, on 23 October 1983, the Marine Corps suffered the largest single day casualty toll since the battle of Iwo Jima. At 0622 a suicide bomber drove a truck laden with explosives and enhanced with gas into the Beirut International Airport building that housed the headquarters of 1st Battalion, 8th Marines (1/8).
Driving through a fence and rushing past the two Marines at the vehicle entry control point, the driver detonated his bomb with devastating effect. The building was virtually destroyed, and in the aftermath, 220 Marines, 18 sailors, and 3 soldiers were dead. In addition, scores more were wounded. Several minutes later a separate suicide bomber drove a second explosive laden truck into the French Army’s 3d Company of the 1st Parachute Regiment and killed 58 French paratroopers.
This was one of the opening salvos of the war declared on us by Islamic terrorists. It is unfortunate that in the intervening years and against the background of the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks on 11 September 2001, the American people do not remember, in the way they should, the attack on the peacekeepers of the Multinational Force in Lebanon.
The cover of this month’s Gazette features a photograph of the Beirut Memorial that is at Camp Lejeune. The words on the memorial are a summation of the mission of the Marines, sailors, and soldiers who made the supreme sacrifice—“They Came in Peace.” Twenty-five years later we should honor the efforts and the sacrifices that they made to improve the lot in life of people in a far off land. Today in Iraq and Afghanistan Marines are still performing that admirable task. The tasks in those countries have not been without sacrifice, and the sacrifice of those Marines has not been in vain.
Fast forward to 22 April of this year. In Al Anbar Province, 1/9 and 2/8 Marines were doing a turnover of authority near Ramadi. A Marine from each battalion was jointly manning the entry control point. A truck sped through the control point, and at 100 yards the Marines opened fire. They killed the driver, but his explosives were probably rigged with a “dead man’s switch.” Although the vehicle stopped 10 yards from the Marines, it exploded, killing them. They saved countless lives at the sacrifice of their own. They knew the devastating effect that success by the bomber would have, and they stood their ground. They were prepared to stop a suicide attack because of the sacrifice of Marines 25 years ago and the lessons we learned at a horrific price.
President Ronald Reagan gave the most eloquent tribute to those who were killed 25 years ago in the Beirut bombing in a television address to the Nation on 27 October 1983. He said:
They were not afraid to stand up for their country or, no matter how difficult and slow the journey might be, to give to others that last, best hope of a better future. We cannot and will not dishonor them now and the sacrifices they’ve made by failing to remain as faithful to the cause of freedom and the pursuit of peace as they have been.
I think he spoke for a new generation of Marines as well.
Comment on Col Keenan's editorial over at the Marine Corps Gazette Discussion Board.
