Posted on 10/24/2001 1:00:19 AM PDT by The Shrew
Today is my mothers birthday. Unlike a lot of guys I never have trouble remembering her birthday. Eighteen years ago I was on the USS Tarawa sailing off of the coast of India when the first message traffic started coming in about a bombing at the Beirut Hilton. I have had no trouble remembering her birthday every year since.
You see, my Battalion, BLT 3/3 had just spent the previous 32 days sitting off of the coast of that city in support of our Marine brethren stationed inside the airport. We had been ordered there after an extended R & R in Mombassa, Kenya.
I was 24 at the time.
After leaving the port of Mombassa and clearing the breakwater our little fleet of three amphibs, an LHA, LPD and LST turned to port instead of starboard. We were heading North.
The Commodore got on the ship's 1MC and announced, "You might have noticed that after leaving Port we turned Left instead of Right back there. We have just been ordered north by National Command authority to proceed immediately to the vicinity of Beirut, Lebanon to render whatever assistance we can to the US Marines stationed there."
The ships erupted in a cacophony of cheers! OOOOHHHH RAAAAHHH! We were young, excited, and full of ourselves. We were the flower of the Corps and proud of our work, our preparation and we were ready to serve!
In the weeks prior four Marines had been killed by mortar and rocket fire. We were supposed to reinforce and prevent any more deaths.
As we steamed north preparations to "go to war" instensified. All of the work we had done for the previous year paled in comparison to the work we now undertook. Now it was 'for real'. The situation was serious. As we steamed north we sailed through the territorial waters of several sovereign nations and the speed, course, and very obvious statement was, "Yea, So! What are you gonna' do about it?"
Our Harrier jets provided Combat Air Patrol and a destroyer left the Gulf to escort us through the Suez canal. Ships sailing through the Suez steam north one day and south the next. At various points in the canal there are cutouts were ships are staged for the next day's sailing. That way the canal is always full. On the day we arrived the ships were headed the wrong way - South!
Our need to get north - and send a message - was so important we paid a fee to change the schedule. Rumour had it that fee was 1 million dollars US. What we did was turn over all of our payroll on the four US ships. We raided the ship's stores to get the total to 1 million in cash.
Later that day an Egyptian pilot boat came out picked up the cash and we were escorted into the canal. I have always wondered how much of that money actually made it to Cairo.
As we steamed north the rollicking on the steel beach grew more subdued. We saw relics, antiquities and statues. It was a cheap tour of the Suez. The further North into the canal we steamed the hotter it got and the sand from the wind storms pelted our farmer tans and running shorts.
At several points there were crossing points between the Egyptian side and the Sinai. Israel still controlled the Sinai but thier presence was much less pronounced than it had been ten years earlier during the Yom Kippur War.
Much to my surprise the Sinai was tan, desolate and almost devoid of vegetation. It was a classic desert. Contrarily the Eqyptian side was irrigated, and palms, dates, and fig trees seemingly grew everywhere. What? I thought the Israelis had made the desert bloom. They had, but only further north.
After several hours my tankers started to grow solemn. I had a map of the Suez and as we approached the "Battle of Chinese Farm" - the Largest armored battle in history - we started seeing tanks. Burned tanks. Destroyed tanks. We started doing vehicle recognition classes. Tank Commanders pulled their crews close and started pointing out targets. Just as their Israeli counterparts had done 10 years before.
There was one tank none of my platoon had any trouble recognizing. It was an M-60A1 (Rise) Passive that looked amazingly like the ones we had in the well below the flight deck. It looked like a US Army vehicle that must have been drawn straight out of West Germany.
The only problem was it had a huge gaping hole in the turret armor! It looked like a Coor's beer can that had been hit by a .44 Magnum. 11 inches of hardened and angled steel! The view of that tank hit my tankers harder than anything I had been trying to teach them for the last year.
That transit led to a month sitting off of the coast. Preparing to go in. Working with the on shore battalion and then leaving.
My most poignant memory - and the reason I started this article - is of a friend of mine from The Citadel. You know how you meet someone and you just click? There is an almost instant connection. That is the way our friendship was. We just connected. We only knew each other for about an hour. In that time I learned of his family, his love for his Alma Mater and the Corps. I have never forgotten it.
He showed me the photo of his newly born daughter that he had just received in the mail. He was extremely proud of her - and his wife. He was due to rotate back in a couple of months. He was anxious to get home and see her.
He never did. He was killed 18 years ago today by a fanatic as committed and driven as the ones who plunged our own aircraft into the WTC and the Pentagon and those thwarted by the passengers on Flight 93.
That debt was never paid!
Our country never sought the reciprocity we needed to seek. We, as a nation, have shrunk from our responsibilities as a just nation. Worse, we have sent the message for years that we are too soft to stand up to tyranny, terrorism and the death and pain that they thrive on.
The one positive that came out of that bombing came from Caspar Weinberger. I'll quote from: “My American Journey” by General Colin Powell
Page 291-292
What I saw from my perch in the Pentagon was America sticking its hand into a thousand-year-old hornet’s nest with the expectation that our mere presence might pacify the hornets. When ancient ethnic hatreds re-ignited in the former Yugoslavia in 1991 and well-meaning Americans thought we should “do something” in Bosnia, the shattered bodies of Marines at the Beirut airport were never far from my mind arguing for caution. There are times when American lives must be risked and lost. Foreign policy cannot be paralyzed by the prospect of casualties. But lives must not be risked until we can face a parent or a spouse or a child with a clear answer to the question of why a member of that family had to die. To provide a “symbol” or a “presence” is not good enough.
Page 302-303
I knew that Weinberger, for all his outward self-possesion, had been deeply troubled by the tragic bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut. I did not realize how deeply until a singular draft document came out of his office. He asked me to take a look at it and circulate it to the administration’s national security team. Weinberger had applied his formidable lawyerly intellect to an analysis of when and when not to commit United States military forces abroad. He was put off by fancy phrases like “interpositional forces” and “presence” that turned out to mean putting U.S. troops in harm’s way without a clear mission. He objected to our troops being “used” in the worst sense of that word. He had come up with six tests for determining when to commit American forces.
Weinberger’s antagonist, George Schultz, was dismissive of Cap’s approach. I had watched the irony of their squabbling for months. The Secretary of State was often ready to commit America’s military might, even in a no-man’s-land like Lebanon. What was the point of maintaining a military force if you did not whack somebody occasionally to demonstrate your power? On the other side was the man responsible for the forces that would have to do the bleeding and dying, arguing against anything but crucial commitments.
Not only did Weinberger want to sell his guidelines inside the administration; he wanted to go public that summer. We started considering possible speaking platforms, but White House political operatives nixed any such controversial speech until the election was over. After Reagan’s reelection, Weinberger addressed the National Press Club on November 28. I went with him to hear him describe the tests he recommended “when we are weighing the use of U.S. combat forces abroad.”
(1) Commit only if our or our allies’ vital interests are at stake.
(2) If we commit, do so with all the resources necessary to win.
(3) Go in only with clear political and military objectives.
(4) Be ready to change the commitment if the objectives change, since wars rarely stand still.
(5)Only take on commitments that can gain the support of the American people and the Congress.
(6)Commit U.S. forces only as a last resort.
In short, is the national interest at stake? If the answer is yes, go in, and go in to win. Otherwise, stay out.
- 0 -
I post this letter to remind us all of the long term commitment this war will take. I post it as a tribute to my friend, his family and his daughter whom he never met. If she were to ever read this I would hope that she would know that her father was in every way a hero that she should be proud of - and that he loved her with all his heart.
This war easily meets Secretary Weinberger's 6 criteria. It is vital that we insist that the politicians and the Press allow the military to do their job. It is vital that US Military personnel overseas have the rules of engagement that allow them to defend themselves. Even in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan or Turkey - not just in Afghanistan.
Politicians who wimp out on this must be made to pay a political price. And politicians who attempt to use this war for their own aggandizement or agenda must be held accountable as well.
None of those soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines deserve to have their country turn their back on them because it may become politically expedient. None of those men need to serve under officers more concerned about their career than the accomplishment of the mission and the lives of their men and women.
And, IMHO, President Bush needs to start being as tough with the military brass and the Clinton appointed senior leadership as he has been with Congress! That message must be sent.
For if that message of accountability and responsibility is not sent there will more fatherless daughters wondering "What their daddy did in the war" eighteen years from now than there need be!
We as a citizenry must demand it.
Semper Fi,
The Shrew
Regards,
TS
TS
TS
Regards,
TS
TS
Regards,
TS
Anchors Aweigh!
TS
TS
My cousin was one of the Marines in the barracks in Beirut when it was bombed. Thank God he did come home alive, but he like so many others had so much pain when he returned. Prior to the bombing he was walking point with his best friend and a sniper shot his friend. My cousin tried so hard to save him, but to no avail. Even knowing that his friend had not made it, he continued to try to save him. From my understanding his friend was dead as soon as he was shot, but Ritch (my cousin) could not accept this at the time.
He told me a few things that he had witnessed after the bombing and when he spoke of it, it was that stare, the stare that one has when one has seen death.
Thank you so much for posting your story. My cousin Ritch would thank you as well. Be well my friend.
Celticgael
It's worth remembering that this war has gone on for years despite our best attempts to ignore it...
Semper Fi!
TS
Wild Blue Yonder Regards,
TS
It is time to shake that memory from our minds and get to work!
Regards,
TS
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