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October 23, 1983 Login/Join 
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On October 23, 1983 the Marine barracks, in Beruit Lebanon, was attacked by a suicide bomber.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik...ut_barracks_bombings
 
Posts: 2222 | Location: Lawrenceburg, In | Registered: May 20, 2007Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Peace through
superior firepower
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I was working the clubhouse camera at Delta Downs in Vinton, Louisiana when I heard the news. The sun was shining, the ponies were running, and I was thoroughly pissed off when I heard of this attack.

It was a Sunday. I don't even have to look it up.
 
Posts: 107266 | Registered: January 20, 2000Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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I remember - was 14 at the time, but a few years ago a buddy I knew had been in the Marines opened up about this. He was there cleaning up after, was not in the barracks when it went and part of the recon marines that went after the bad guys. They had pay back.

These are not things that "happen to someone else" it is your friends and neighbors - and this showed us we have to be strong and merciless. Something we have forgotten off and on since...





“Forigive your enemy, but remember the bastard’s name.”

-Scottish proverb
 
Posts: 1999 | Location: South Florida | Registered: December 24, 2007Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Semper Fi - 1775
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I was 14 years old and this was the first time I became truly aware of evil in our world.

God bless, gentlemen. A toast to you this evening.

Semper Fi

(220 Marines, 18 sailors and 3 soldiers)


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All it takes...is all you got.
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For those who have fought for it, Freedom has a flavor the protected will never know

ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ
 
Posts: 12305 | Location: Belly of the Beast | Registered: January 02, 2009Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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I was in the sixth grade, so it must have been the next day at school. I remember, Mrs. Wilson, our school principal and former Marine, was crying and quite emotional (she was usually pretty stern).


P229
 
Posts: 3809 | Location: Sacramento, CA | Registered: November 21, 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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I was only 11 when this happened. It took me a few years to understand what happened and why. I think it’s part of the reason I never went through the mushy headed world peace phase of childhood.
 
Posts: 13735 | Location: Shenandoah Valley, VA | Registered: October 16, 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Go ahead punk, make my day
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I was young but remember the news, since my parents always watched it.

Later on in my life I went to school with the son of one of the Marines who was killed in the bombing. It was sobering to see photos of his father on the fireplace mantle and some medals he was awarded.
 
Posts: 45798 | Registered: July 12, 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Crusty old
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I'll never forget the day. My brother is a Marine who served in the late 60's and he called me to see if I'd seen the news about the bombing. I hadn't and he could hardly express his feelings about it. He's a pretty solid and unemotional guy but I could tell that the news cut into his heart. Very sad day indeed.

Jim


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"If you can't be a good example, then you'll have to be a horrible warning" -Catherine Aird
 
Posts: 9791 | Location: The right side of Washington State | Registered: September 14, 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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I have a friend who was in the bombing. The only thing he remembers is waking up two weeks later in a state-side hospital. He still has physical issues and I believe he is on 100% disability.
 
Posts: 985 | Location: Nashville | Registered: October 01, 2009Reply With QuoteReport This Post
semi-reformed sailor
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I remember.

I was 13.



"Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor.” Robert A. Heinlein

“You may beat me, but you will never win.” sigmonkey-2020

“A single round of buckshot to the torso almost always results in an immediate change of behavior.” Chris Baker
 
Posts: 11247 | Location: Temple, Texas! | Registered: October 07, 2006Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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I was stationed at Fort Campbell at the time. We were put on alert and confined to our barracks, but were not deployed.
 
Posts: 735 | Registered: February 25, 2011Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Lead slingin'
Parrot Head
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I was working an air show in a rural area when news of the attacks came but, as this was pre-internet, news came in small radio sound bites and spread by word-of-mouth. As we were focused on keeping our spectators and crew safe and putting on a good show we really didn't get a chance to get details until that night. Once I got home that night and saw the TV images I was devastated.

I remember returning to my high school the next day both sad and angry...and that mood could be sensed in all my classes throughout that day. It was difficult to focus in class...sadness and anger.

Years later, after the 9/11 attacks, I remembered that I felt some of the same things as the Beirut attacks, but of course with even more questions, fear, sadness, and ANGER.
 
Posts: 7324 | Location: the Centennial state | Registered: August 21, 2006Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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I remember when it happened. The Embassy as well.
A few years later, I had a few SNCO's that were there in Beirut when the barracks were hit.


______________________________________________________________________
"When its time to shoot, shoot. Dont talk!"

“What the government is good at is collecting taxes, taking away your freedoms and killing people. It’s not good at much else.” —Author Tom Clancy
 
Posts: 8322 | Location: Attempting to keep the noise down around Midway Airport | Registered: February 14, 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Told cops where to go for over 29 years…
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I was stationed at MCAS El Toro in Santa Ana CA. Two years in to what would be 9 years active duty USMC.

We have a saying, ”Every Marine is a Rifleman”, MOS 0311. You don’t become a Marine if you don’t qualify with the rifle. No matter what job specialty you go on to, or what other MOS you achieve, 0311 stays with and you still qualify with that rifle. Every. Year.

On that day Avionics technicians like me, aircraft refuelers, parachute packers, jet engine mechanics, admin clerks, cooks, and every other Marine on that base, likely every Marine on any base, would have loved nothing more than to head to the armory, get that rifle and go do our most basic job to avenge the loss of our brothers.

Emotions ran high that day and for quite awhile after. In the language of today, that is when “Shit just got real” for me and I fully understood what I signed up for and what it meant to serve your country.

The deadliest single day to hit the Corps since Iwo Jima.






What part of "...Shall not be infringed" don't you understand???


 
Posts: 10920 | Location: Western WA state for just a few more years... | Registered: February 17, 2006Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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I was a SSgt and remember it well, I would like to forget that day but I lost a very good friend. RIP John (Bonehead). Semper Fi.
 
Posts: 1949 | Location: Northern Virginia/Buggs Island, Boydton Va. | Registered: July 13, 2011Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Sigforum K9 handler
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I was 14 years old. My father and I had been bow hunting. We came home and turned on the TV and saw it on CBS News. My memory was the seeing the devastation, and then the camera showed a black GySGT loading a rifle and he yelled "Lock and Load" at platoon out front of the damage.

For whatever reason, I remember that image to this day. I also remember seeing my father tear up. I was too young to understand the brotherhood at that time, and it would be four more years before I would understand from having stood on those yellow footprints.

Semper fi.




www.opspectraining.com

"It's a bold strategy, Cotton. Let's see if it works out for them"



 
Posts: 37084 | Location: Logical | Registered: September 12, 2004Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Resident Undertaker
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I handled the funeral of a Navy Corpsman killed in the attack.


John

The key to enforcement is to punish the violator, not an inanimate object. The punishment of inanimate objects for the commission of a crime or carelessness is an affront to stupidity.

 
Posts: 1727 | Location: People's Republik of Maryland | Registered: November 14, 2007Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Sig Forum Smart-Ass
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I was 19 and just finished basic training at Fort Jackson, SC. I was at Fort Gordon, GA for AIT shooting pool in the dayroom when it come on the TV. Rumor mill had us loading onto C130s and heading over. That didn't happen but as 911boss said "Shit got real" for me at that moment. I mean I was old enough to remember some of the news footage from Viet Nam and I knew it was a possibility when I took the oath.





Dripping water hollows out stone, not through force, but through persistence.
-Ovid

NRA Life Member
NRA Certified Basic Pistol Instructor
 
Posts: 10192 | Location: Land O Lakes, FLA | Registered: June 18, 2006Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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I have a friend of mine that was there. He was sleeping outside the barracks/building when the bomb went off. IIRC, his leg was injured.

I didn't know him at the time, but met him in around 2002, when I walked into his gun shop.



Loyalty Above All Else, Except Honor

ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ
 
Posts: 3873 | Location: Colorado | Registered: December 19, 2003Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Staring back
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I was sitting in an ICU room in Billings with my brother who'd broken his neck the week before. I remember seeing it all happen on the TV, but between the two, my attention stayed home.

The gravity of it was not lost of course, but I didn't give it much thought until later on. When I did, I was rather dismayed that Reagan didn't go in and turn Lebanon into a parking lot. Had he, I often think that the Middle East would be a different place today.


________________________________________________________
"Great danger lies in the notion that we can reason with evil." Doug Patton.
 
Posts: 19975 | Location: Montana | Registered: November 01, 2010Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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