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Thread: 37 years ago.....lest we forget

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    37 years ago.....lest we forget

    Amid all the turmoil of 2020 and the election crap going on right now, this is a dark day in American history.

    RIP to those who died in Beirut on Oct. 23, 1983. HUGE waste of life.

    Was in Infantry OSUT at Ft. Benning when it happened. Weren't allowed to watch TV but we "heard" about it. I think someone got a newspaper too. It's hard for me to grasp how the country felt, as my world right then was rather isolated but I'm sure the inundation of TV news reports was overwhelming.

    Guy a year ahead of me in high school was killed there, Stan Sliwinski.
    11C2P '83-'87
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    F**k China!

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    RIP. #NeverForgiveNeverForget
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    Ye best start believin' in Orwellian Dystopias, mateys... yer LIVIN' in one!--after Capt. Hector Barbossa
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    I was in Germany at the time. 17 miles straight line distance to the Border. I was a 23 year old Tank Commander.
    I seem to remember we started exercises during alerts where we started downloading small arms from our Conex's about that time. I think it woke a lot of people up to the seriousness of how bad something can go wrong.
    I remember the photo's, complete destruction.

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    The 197th Infantry Brigade (Mechanized) was a permanent party unit at Ft. Benning then. They had just come back from NTC out in California, and their vehicles were still painted desert camo colors. There was a rail line just down the hill from our basic training barracks on Sand Hill. The train cars with the 197th's APC's and such sat there for a few days. The Drill Sergeants told us the 197th had been told not to unload until further notice. Since this had just gone down in Beirut (kind of desert-ish) and this stuff was already railheaded and painted desert camo we figured "Yeah, makes sense". It was a few days before that stuff disappeared. Looked down that way each morning to see if they were still there. Not to mention that two days later, on the 25th, the U.S. invaded Grenada. Kind of brought a bit of sobering insight to my 18yo ass like "WTF did I get myself into?"
    11C2P '83-'87
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    [QUOTE=ABNAK;2895054 Kind of brought a bit of sobering insight to my 18yo ass like "WTF did I get myself into?"[/QUOTE]

    Kind of a cool way to grow up wadannit?

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    I was in Beirut at the time and had been at the complex the day before.

    RIP Devil Dogs

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    My machine gun instructor at the School of Infantry was there. He "suppressed" several Hezbollah fighters as an 0331 during his deployment. That incident is what prompted Commandant Al Grey to implement a change in USMC policy that required every Marine on sentry duty anywhere in the world would carry a loaded weapon.
    Last edited by Nightvisionary; 10-23-20 at 14:23.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Nightvisionary View Post
    My machine gun instructor at the School of Infantry was there. He "suppressed" several Hezbollah fighters as an 0331 during his deployment. That incident is what prompted Commandant Al Grey to implement a change in USMC policy that required every Marine on sentry duty anywhere in the world would carry a loaded weapon.
    IIRC they had loaded weapons but weren't allowed to have a round chambered, which I always thought was odd (and fvcked up) because they had been in firefights and been shelled quite often both before and after the bombing. The guy on guard at the gate had to unsling his weapon and chamber a round, but by then the truck had zipped right on past. Having said that, I recall reading somewhere that an FBI forensics report estimated that due to the size of the explosion (~20,000lbs worth of blast) the building would have gone down even if it had detonated outside. Maybe less would have died, but who knows.
    11C2P '83-'87
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    Quote Originally Posted by Averageman View Post
    Kind of a cool way to grow up wadannit?
    A week before I left for the Army the Soviets had shot down that KAL flight, then while I was at Benning there was Beirut and Grenada. Certainly pales in comparison to 9-11 and the bloody years afterward but for that era it was kind of touch-and-go.

    I will also say, as with many things learned the hard way, that those 241 guy's lives may not have been altogether in vain. Ever since then, especially during the GWOT, the bad guys have been looking for that one "big score" like the Beirut barracks bombing. Our force protection measures were seared into our brains at a great cost in lives but our enemies haven't been able to pull it off again. Simple things like concrete barriers making a zig-zag necessary to approach a gate, things like that. I'm also sure something obvious like a round in the chamber came into accepted protocol.
    11C2P '83-'87
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    F**k China!

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    I was just a few days shy of turning 15, my dad had retired from the Marine Corps, out of Camp Lejeune. We still knew a lot of people in the Corps down there, and we still had friends and some family in Jacksonville so we'd go down four or five times a year. We went down just a few days after, the whole town and base had a heartbreaking pall, it was awful. The 8th Marines out at Hadnot Point, their area, it was just emotionally awful.

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