Knee Deep in the Hooah!

This was posted at VA Joe’s yesterday by Flag Gazer. This was the largest terrorist attack against Americans until 9/11. Does it amaze you at how quickly we stopped remembering and memorializing this attack? Is it because we are removed from it as citizens since it was directed at our Marines? Does 9/11 affect us more since it was directed at us, the citizens? Regardless, I am telling you that every day in Iraq and Afghanistan our Soldiers and Marines are taking the punches that could just as easily be aimed at us.

How can we ever be grateful enough?

Beirut Bombing ~ 25 Years Ago
Posted in: Gazing at the Flag — Flag_Gazer @ 12:11 am

Excerpt
LINK

Beirut, Lebanon

October 23, 1983

THEY CAME IN PEACE ~ but the bombings of the Marine barracks in Lebanon on October 23, 1983 cost the lives of 220 Marines, 18 Sailors and 3 Soldiers. Many more were critically injured. The US Marines were posted in Lebanon in the summer of 1982. On March 34, 1983, the 24th Marine Amphibious Unit, stationed at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, received orders to Beirut, Lebanon. Their mission from President Reagan: Help keep the peace in the war torn country.

The Marine Barracks before and after the bombings.

At 6:22 am, a Sunday morning, on October 23, 1983, a suicide bomber crashed a truck laded with explosives through barbed wire and concertina fence and penetrated into the central lobby of the United States Marines Headquarters building and detonated. The force ripped the building from its foundation and the building imploded upon itself. The occupants inside were crushed. A near simultaneous attack was made on a building housing French paratroopers and killing 58.

We were in Beirut because the Lebanese Government had asked for our help. They saw their country slipping into total anarchy; they saw the United States and her Marines and Sailors as their saviors. We truly did come in peace. We came to do what Marines have done since the beginning of this country: to protect the rights of the innocent and advance the interest of freedom.

LINK to article