42 Years ago today BLT Beirut

[rey]

Sorry to see no one else posted a remembrance for the 241 Marines lost on this day in the BLT bombing in Beirut.

Semper Fi, brothers.

[nwrep]

Battalion Landing Team. A tragedy during the Reagan era. Trump has learned from such mistakes.

[Brian Griffin]

I’ve posted this several times before:

“terrorists drove two trucks filled with explosives into buildings housing a multinational peacekeeping force, killing 241 U.S. service members and 58 French military and civilian personnel in Beirut.”

“’The giant, four-story building that I expected to see was so demolished that it seemed as if it had just disappeared. Through the smoke and the air filled with dust, I could see the rubble and, worst of all, the pieces of bodies strewn throughout the area’”

“While the rescue and recovery operations were underway, the peacekeeping force was under sporadic attack from snipers and artillery fire.’

“The Marines’ withdrawal from Lebanon was completed Feb. 26, 1984. The British, French and Italian forces making up the rest of the peacekeeping force withdrew about the same time.”

https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/3566652/us-remembers-service-members-killed-in-beirut-bombings-40-years-ago/

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

I remember it very well. The democrats screamed we were invading Grenada to cover for it.
One of the last marines identified was from a town near here.

[montag813]

U.S. Marines serving as peacekeepers in Beirut in 1983 were operating under U.N. rules of engagement that required them to keep their weapons unloaded. This policy was in effect at the time of the deadly truck bombing on October 23, 1983, and was a major contributing factor to the high casualties.

[Rummyfan]

I remember this day well. I was in The Netherlands at the time and listening to AFN as the casualty count just kept going up and uo through the morning. God Bless Them All. And the French too.

[rktman]

😠. Still after that long!

[sgt_lau]

I remember and will never forget. Still makes my blood boil. Filthy muslims.
Semper Fidelis

[NorthernDancer]

My cousin was one of those killed, Navy Corpsman William D. Elliot, Jr.

[PGR88]

I’d like to think they didn’t die in vain, but its difficult to see how Beruit, Lebanon or anyplace around there is any better than in 1983

[rlmorel]

BFL

[Seruzawa]

I was thinking that Reagan should have carpet bombed Lebanon with BLT sandwiches. Get a bunch of bacon all over the place.

[SuperLuminal]

Reagan’s biggest mistake was not carpet bombing the entire ME to rubble...

We knew, then, that islam was coming for us, and did nothing about it...
What has been the total cost of that inaction?

[ansel12]

“”””””I remember it very well. The democrats screamed we were invading Grenada to cover for it.””””””

If they would look at the records of the timelines they would see that when the bomb went off the invasion of Grenada was already started, the go ahead had been given before the bombing, ships were moving, plans and order given, and 47 hours after the bombing our troops were already in ground combat in Grenada.

[DesertRhino]

Horrible. That was the same year US Marine Captain Johnson stopped three Israeli tanks in Lebanon with his .45. They were passing his peacekeeping position and refused his orders.
He had orders that neither side could pass his his position. They used Marines as peacekeepers... and they made the IDF back down.

Captain Johnson jumped on the lead tank and told the Israeli Colonel he would only go forward “over my dead body”.
That was before they owned the DC government.

And to this day, the DC government is reluctant to use Marines as peacekeepers.

That building was the antithesis of “don’t bunch up”. The wise leaders from above and their bright idea to use that building.

[DesertRhino]

https://www.upi.com/Archives/1983/02/02/A-Marine-captain-his-gun-drawn-and-loaded-jumped/5716413010000/

[DesertRhino]

https://www.wearethemighty.com/popular/this-us-marine-stopped-3-israeli-tanks-with-just-a-sidearm-and-anger/

[DesertRhino]

ROE at the time.

Until October 23, 1983, there were ten guidelines issued for each U.S. marine member of the MNF:

When on post, mobile or foot patrol, keep loaded magazine in weapon, bolt closed, weapon on safe, no round in the chamber.

Do not chamber a round unless instructed to do so by a commissioned officer unless you must act in immediate self-defense where deadly force is authorized.

Keep ammo for crew-served weapons readily available but not loaded in the weapon. Weapons will be on safe at all times.
Call local forces to assist in self-defense effort. Notify headquarters.

Use only minimum degree of force to accomplish any mission.
Stop the use of force when it is no longer needed to accomplish the mission.

If you receive effective hostile fire, direct your fire at the source. If possible, use friendly snipers.

Respect civilian property; do not attack it unless absolutely necessary to protect friendly forces.

Protect innocent civilians from harm.

Respect and protect recognized medical agencies such as Red Cross, Red Crescent, etc.

***The perimeter guards at the U.S. Marine headquarters on the morning of October 23, 1983, were in full compliance with rules 1–3 and were unable to shoot fast enough to disable or stop the bomber***

[rlmorel]

This is SGTMAJ Frederick B. Douglass. He was killed in the bombing of the USMC barracks in Beirut. I think of him every single year around this time, because he was one of the most impressive people I have ever seen.

I have a few anecdotes about him, he was from my state, and I saw him quite a bit over the course of a few years.

When the JFK went into Alexandria, Egypt in 1977, there was an open invitation to the crew of the JFK to attend a party at the USMC quarters for the embassy.

Now, I have to tell you...when I heard that it was open house while I was ashore one night with a buddy, we said "Okay..let's go!" I thought there would be a thousand guys there in...what I didn't know. Maybe I thought it would be a soccer field on the grounds of the embassy or something like that...I was clueless, but my friend and I took a horse drawn carriage over...told them where to take us and away we went.

When we got there, it was a walled estate with a few buildings on it and a lot of vegetation. I was fairly lit by that time, and it was dark when we got there, but I do remember walking into that place. My memory is flawed here, because I have seen it in my thoughts so many times that I have no idea if it is reality or not. I remember going through a gate in what appeared to be a 10 foot high turquoise painted, cracked concrete wall. No broken glass or barbed wire on top of the wall. Anyone could have climbed over. I remember vegetation and some walkways inside what I guess had to be an acre. I also remember a lot of alcohol of all types flowing very freely. I thought the whole ship's company would have showed up, but I have to guess it was less than 100 people total, which was still a lot of people in that space. To be honest, it could have been 400 people in 4 acres...

But the most memorable part of that night was when I went to the bathroom. There was this little closet sized bathroom with a porcelain toilet in the outside wall side of the room, with two dinky little beat up aqua colored shutters right over the toilet at just below eye level.

The sink was full of unmentionable things...as was the floor.

Anyway, I am relieving myself, one hand on the wall to stay upright, and I hear someone talking on the other side of those little shutters. Someone is getting chewed out, and I mean, royally. I heard scaps of "...kick your ass..." and "...embarrassment..."

So, I lazily reach over, open the shutters and peer out. There is a big, muscular black guy chewing this baby faced blond haired guy out. Heck, I am 19 or 20, and even to me he looked like a kid. And this black guy swivels his head to look at me and says "If you don't close that window and mind your own business, you're going to be sorry."

Man, I shut those shutters quick. It was SGTMAJ Douglass, the ranking enlisted with the Marine detachment aboard the JFK. (I don't think he was SGTMAJ at that time)

He was a most impressive guy.

There were two other occasions that stuck out in my mind...he was sparring in the hangar bay with a guy from my squadron who we nicknamed "Bruce Lee" (his real name was Timmy Naurimaya) because he came to the squadron with a reputation as some high level blackbelt in Tae Kwon Do. They were sparring in the Hangar Bay, and it was pretty interesting to the uninitiated to see this big 6'4" (I think) guy sparring against this 5'4" guy.

But it was the other time I saw him that left the most lasting memory was in Naples, Italy one night. Raining like hell, 0200 on Fleet Landing waiting to go back to the ship on a liberty launch with maybe 200 guys. Probably, all of them were drunk on that nasty Peroni beer, as was I. No wonder Naples was such a lousy place...all the people drank Peroni!

Anyway, the boats had not been running for maybe an hour because of the bad weather, and things were heating up. Two guys got into a fight, everyone else urged them on. The volume rose, then for some reason there was a whole bunch of Shore Patrol guys surrounding some drunk guy with a stanchion in his hands (from one of the rope guides for people to stand in line)

The rope still went through the top of it, and the guy swing it like a baseball bat. None of the Shore Patrol wanted to risk getting hit in the face by this drunk guy. (This was before the days of tasers) The crowd of drunk sailors standing in the rain were enjoying this unusual spectacle, and began encourage the guy swinging the stanchion to nail the Shore Patrol with it.

All this on the Fleet Landing under spotlights.

I was watching all of this with great interest, and I remember pulling my eyes away from this guy holding off the Shore Patrol, and becoming acutely aware of how unruly and bordering on being out of control this entire scene around me was. As I looked back at the guy yelling and clumsily waving the metal rope stand, SGTMAJ Douglass walked right up to the guy past the Shore Patrol and clocks the guy who dropped like a sack of cement, and it seemed like before he even hit the ground the SGTMAJ turns to this crowd and yells out "YOU MEN SHUT UP. NOW."

You could have heard a pin drop.

THAT was astounding. Everyone just stopped in their tracks like a switch had been flipped.

After I got out of the Navy, I went to college on the GI Bill (one of the last to get in before it went the way of the Dodo) I was reading the Boston Globe one morning, and the story was about the recent bombing of the Beirut Marine Barracks. I was just heartsick as I read this, and then there...down at the bottom of the page, was the face of that Marine SGTMAJ. Staring out of the picture, I saw the same eyes that I saw on that dock, and the same eyes looking back at me through those shutters. Very intense eyes.

I nearly fell out of my chair. I knew who that guy was. He had been killed in the bombing of the barracks, I think he was the highest ranking enlisted man killed there.

I have a huge amount of respect for US Marines. I look at this man who gave his life in the dedicated service of his country, and I know that he is not unique in the USMC. For that I thank God, and I am grateful to his memory, and to all those who serve and have served. And I think of those men who died that day in Beirut.