October 23 1983 isn’t like 9/11 in the
minds of most UW-La Crosse students. Most were too young to remember, and many
others weren’t born yet. Today is the the 30th anniversary of the first
large-scale terrorist attack against America. Widely unfamiliar today, the date
will never be forgotten for the friends and families of 241 US servicemen lost.
“I don’t know − I think I might have heard something about it, but
it’s not something I’m familiar with or think much about,” says Josh, a UW-L
philosophy major. He adds, “I was just a kid then.”
A premonition of things to come, the terrorist bombing of October 1983 on the Marines in many ways represents the ignominious relationship the US has with the region. The attack not only took the lives of 241 Americans, but set in motion events still playing-out today.
The bombing of the US Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, changed
the way foreign policy is conducted to this day. Stout security, complex
intelligence, and increased vigilance are paramount considerations when
operating in a forward-deployed area. Troops are inserted and extracted in the manner best to minimize their exposure to danger. Also, US forces abroad
now also work in tandem with other units in their proximity and draw support
from a network of elements. The bombing affected the way by which the American
military operates in hostile environments, and it ended US involvement in
unarmed “peacekeeping missions.”
America’s involvement in the Middle East goes back decades, and
hostility in the region is nothing new. In the early 1980s, then President
Ronald Reagan committed 1,800 US Marines to an international peacekeeping force
in Lebanon. Civil war and religious unrest between rivaling factions were
tearing the country to pieces. One of the main warring groups involved, Islamic
Jihad, was the precursor of the modern-day Hezbollah.
Assuming the role of peacekeepers, the Marines were there to quell
violence and build relationships. In keeping a non-confrontational posture,
they were not armed with live ammunition, and their barracks, a four-story
concrete building protected only by a chain-link fence, afforded little
protection.
“I lost my best friend from sniper fire in Beirut. He was right
beside me and got the whole back of his head blown off,” says Jeff Lee, a
Beirut veteran with the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit. “We had no ammo and no means of
retaliation. I escorted him all the way home to Kansas. It still haunts me and
pisses me off.”
Like today, foreign presence− let-alone that of Americans− in the
Islamic world was not welcomed by all. One Sunday morning, a yellow Mercedes
truck slowly approached the Marines’ perimeter. Expecting a water delivery and
unaware that the truck had earlier been hijacked, sentries were not concerned
as they watched the truck approach. The lumbering truck suddenly picked-up
speed and crashed through the gate. Horrified sentries frantic for
authorization to engage helplessly watched the driver speed across the compound
towards the main barracks. Seconds after the truck slammed through the command
post and came to rest in the large central atrium, a flash of light accompanied
the detonation of 12,000 pounds of explosives and compressed natural gas. 220
Marines, 18 sailors, and three soldiers, most still asleep at just after 6 that
morning, were killed instantly.
A subsequent FBI investigation would determine that the blast
lifted the barracks a foot in the air before collapsing all at once on the
Americans. The explosion still stands as the largest intentional non-nuclear
detonation in history. To this day the bombing remains the greatest single-day
loss of life for the Marines since World War II.
