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For Marines, great victories, great defeats and great sacrifices are never forgotten, but are remembered with battle streamers attached to unit colors. Unfortunately, there are no battle streamers to remember the ultimate sacrifice made in 1983 by Marines, sailors and soldiers in Beirut, Lebanon.
In the very early morning of Oct. 23, a building serving as the command post for 1st Battalion, 8th Marines, was hit by a suicide bomber driving a stake-bed truck loaded with compressed gas-enhanced explosives. The explosion and collapse of the building killed 241 Marines, sailors, and soldiers. Bomb experts who examined the blast site said the explosives, equivalent to 12,000 pounds of TNT, constituted the largest non-nuclear bomb in history. For the Marines it was the biggest loss of life in a single day since the Corps fought the Japanese on Iwo Jima in World War II.
In 1982, Lebanon, the country once known as the "Switzerland of the Middle East" because of its European flavor, its prosperous economy and its ethnic diversity and tolerance, was mired in a bloody ethnic and religious conflict that would permanently destroy its character and leave its people shattered and demoralized. After repeated Palestinian Liberation Organization cross-border attacks from strongholds in southern Lebanon into villages in northern Israel, Israeli Defense Forces launched Operation Peace for Galilee. Throughout that summer, CNN brought to the world's living rooms images of Israeli air and artillery pounding heavily populated Beirut as they sought to destroy the PLO fighters there, who were surrounded by the Israeli forces. The terrible suffering, more than 12,000 killed in 70 days, focused world attention on the beleaguered city. At the request of the Lebanese government, the United States, along with Britain, France, and Italy inserted a multinational peacekeeping force into Beirut, hoping its "presence" would provide a measure of stability to help the Lebanese government get back on its feet. Unfortunately, America was sticking its hand into a thousand-year-old hornet's nest.
By the summer of 1983, as diplomatic efforts failed to achieve a basis for lasting settlement, Muslim factions came to perceive the Marines as enemies. This led to artillery, mortar and small-arms fire being directed at Marine positions — with the Marines responding in kind against identified targets. By mid-October, seven Marines had been killed and 26 injured.
The truck bomb that exploded at the Marine barracks was the equivalent of 12,000 pounds of TNT. This image is part of an exhibit at the National Museum of the Marine Corps, "The Story of the U.S. Marines and Navy in Beirut." (Photo: Defense Department)
Then came the introduction of a new and deadly weapon to the Middle East, the truck bomb.
Immediately following the tragedy, there was an outpouring of grief and support for the families and loved ones if the fallen by the residents of Jacksonville, North Carolina. As part of that support, they raised funds for a memorial to honor those who had died in Lebanon during the peacekeeping mission. Today, near the entrance to Camp Johnson, a subsidiary base of the Camp Lejeune complex, a memorial wall was erected, nestled among the Carolina pines. The Wall, completed on Oct. 23, 1986, bears a list of those Americans who died in Lebanon. Only four words are inscribed on the Wall: "They Came in Peace.'' In 1988, a statue of a lone Marine keeping vigil over his fellow Marines, was added to the site. In addition, for each man killed, Jacksonville residents planted a Bradford pear tree in the median of Lejeune Boulevard, Highway 24
A Marine officer, now retired, recalls that in August 1992, while still on active duty and traveling to Camp Lejeune, he couldn't help but notice the trees lining the middle of the road. Knowing that each tree was dedicated to an individual Marine, sailor or soldier who had lost his life in Lebanon, he felt saddened as the vehicle sped past tree, after tree, after tree. Before arriving at the main gate he asked the young Marine who was driving him if he knew the significance of those trees. The Marine quickly looked at a few of the trees as he sped past them, then looked over to his passenger and said, very matter-of-factly, "Hell, I don't know. I've never noticed them before. I guess they're just trees."
Emergency crews work in the rubble of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut Oct. 23, 1983 after a terrorist bomb destroyed the building, killing 241 U.S. servicemen. (Photo: Bill Foley/Associated Press)
The Bradford pears have grown since first planted, and as evidenced by the young Marine's comment, their growth has been meaningless to those who were either too young to remember that October 1983 tragedy, or to those who have never been told of their significance. It is somewhat ironic that a young Marine, of all people, could have been so cavalier in his response, because if anyone should be concerned about what happened in Beirut, it is Marines who are and will be stationed with Fleet Marine Forces.
Unfortunately, in October 1983, the vast majority of Americans had little knowledge of what was going on in Beirut — it was so far away. On this anniversary of that awful day, let us honor, but also learn from, the sacrifices of those who have gone before, so we do not give the citizens of Jacksonville a reason to plant more trees along a stretch of highway that leads to the main gate of their military base.
Retired Marine Col. Charles A. Dallachie served in Beirut as a 1st lieutenant and was inside the barracks when the bomb went off. He was administered Last Rights, but after being hospitalized for a year, he fully recovered.
