33rd Anniversary of the Beirut bombing
Republished from 2012;
Twenty-nine years ago today, 220 Marines, 18 sailors and three soldiers, were killed and sixty Americans were injured when a truck bomb disguised as a water truck penetrated superficial security at the Marine barracks in Beirut with about 12,000 pounds of explosives. Two minutes later, French barracks were struck resulting in in the deaths of 58 paratroopers from the 1st Parachute Chasseur Regiment and 15 others were injured. They were Multinational peacekeeping forces that had been in Beirut since the year before when Israeli forces drove Palestinians from it’s frontier with Lebanon.
On February 7, 1984, President Reagan ordered the withdrawal of US forces from Lebanon after some light shelling of suspected Shia positions and some brief French air attacks in the Bekkaa Valley. A raid on a camp where Iranian Revolutionary Guards were believed to be training Shia jhadists was called off by President Reagan because little evidence existed at the time that Iran was involved in the bombing.
The weak responses to the bombing by the US are believed to have emboldened jihadists around the world and contributed to the rise of Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed extremists in Lebanon. Iran has since admitted it’s participation to the attack.
Michelle Malkin lists the casualties.
At Together We Served, they’ve posted an online memorial to the casualties that day. Stars & Stripes publishes some of the witnesses’ accounts of that day. In 2004, Iran erected a memorial to the suicide bombers.
Category: We Remember
RIP 1st Lt Charles Jeffrey Schnorf USMC. In two weeks your Class will celebrate your 35th reunion.
Will the Dogs be 9-0 after that Saturday.
Ty, that is my brother. Thank you for remembering him. God bless you. Thank you for celebrating and remembering him at his 35th class reunion too. Susie 🙂
Blessed are the Peacemakers …. they came in Peace!
I awoke this morning to voices that asked, “Will you stand up today and remember me?”
It seems we are constantly changing the numbers of those KIA and WIA in Beirut. More than 273 did not return home alive from their deployment to Lebanon. Well over a hundred were wounded.
The order to withdraw was symbolic, we were still there. It is a humbling thing to live in the shadow of this day. Many were killed or injured before and after this day. This day, with the loss of so many, stands as the symbolic memorial to all those who left a part of themselves in that God Damned place.
For the life of me, as is the case for so many others, I can not ignore the voices that ask, “Do you remember me?”.
Here is the most accurate list in existence to those who gave all in that place:
http://www.beirut-memorial.org/memory/brtnames.html
It is the living who feel the pain.
Semper Fi, Dave.
Dave,
I knwe two guys who died in the bombing. Sam Maitland who was in my platoon (2063) in boot camp at Parris Island and Doc Earle who had been one of our corpsman with Lima 3/8 but then met a local girl and somehow got himself transferred to 2/8 and then when back to marry the girl. Semper Fi.
Mike
I must correct myself. I said 2/8, but meant 1/8. Sorry Marines! Semper Fi
Mike
Hey Jarhead,
2nd Battalion, D Company, Platoon 2026 Graduated 03/83. Boot!
Semper Fi Brother,
Jeff
Missing all of my Brothers from 1/8 Comm that were murdered 33 years ago today and every day.
I was a young Marine stationed at a training command at Lowry AFB in Denver when the bombing occurred. We were a small detachment and formed up on the grinder in front of the barracks when the word came down about the attack. To a man, we went to the personnel office and requested transfer to infantry training. The First Sergeant and Sergeants Lyons and Rodriguez put us back in formation to chew our asses and tell us our MOS was critical to the Corps. I lost three friends from boot camp in that attack. I will never forget. Fair winds and following seas my brothers. Semper Fi!
33rd Anniversary. 29 years ago. Huh?
GoldenDragon:
Jonn’s post clearly says that the information above is republished from 2012. 2012 would have been 29 years since the Beirut bombing. 2016 is 33 years after the bombing, therefore today is the 33rd anniversary.
This is a bad day in the memories of many of the Marines who participate here on Team TAH. Knowing that, I would respectfully request that you please refrain from (erroneously) picking at minutiae today in this thread.
Thanks.
Semper Fidelis.
I was on a Regimental Fire-ex in Fort Bragg, NC with 10th Marines when this happened. Will never forget how pissed off and helpless we felt as the reports of the number of Marines we lost kept getting higher and higher that day.
Good thing it was raining, that way we didn’t have to explain why our faces were wet.