After the Beirut Bombing

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Just before dawn on 23 Octo­ber 1983, I awoke with a shock to a scene of chaos. Shards of glass hurtled through the air. Makeshift walls collapsed around me, and bookcases top­pled. Chunks of cement peeled off the ceiling, and as I jerked upright, I banged my head on a piece of cement caught by my mosquito net.

“Is anyone hurt? Is everybody all right?” I heard the urgent voice of Major Robert Melton, one of the five of us sleeping that night on the ground floor of the Marine amphibious unit (MAU) building, a converted firehouse within the perimeter of the Beirut International Airport. The building’s thick outer walls stopped two feet from the roof, which was supported by iron bars, and it was through this opening that the glass was rain­ing in. But where was it coming from?

Majors Robert Jordan and Randolph Cotton, whose cots had been overturned, had scram­bled to their feet and were pul­ling on their flak jackets and helmets. As I clambered from my cot, I thought of Amie Res- nicoff, Navy chaplain and rabbi, who was visiting. His cot, next to mine, was empty.

Suddenly Resnicoff appeared, ashen-faced. He had been shav­ing and was knocked off his feet by the blast, but he was only shaken. We grabbed our flak jackets and helmets, expecting that whatever hit us would try to hit us again.

While Resnicoff was scooping up his things, I ran to check my office, only a few feet away.

The heavy, padlocked wooden door had been blown off its hinges. I looked up at the roof, expecting to see a hole made by whatever had slammed into us. But there was nothing.

Several Marines rushed through the building. One of them clutched me. Stammering, he said, “The BLT’s been hit.” The battalion landing team’s sleeping quarters and offices, about 75 yards away from my building, housed about 350—by far the largest concentration of

U. S. Marines in Beirut.

Resnicoff and I raced along the old stone pathway that con­nected the two buildings. Debris was strewn everywhere. Glass, cement, clothes, papers, books, splintered trees, and twisted metal rods were scattered over the ground. What had happened? Had the BLT building really been hit? Where was it hit?

How badly? Were there casual­ties? My mind was outracing my feet.

I reached the spot from where, even in the dawn’s half light, I should have been able to see the building. I looked but could see nothing. And then, slowly, the truth enveloped me.

The four-story structure no longer stood. In its place was rubble. Then I thought, my God—my friends were in that building.

Three years have passed since that morning. Not a day goes by when I don’t think of that mo­ment and the long hours that followed. Since that morning when a terrorist act took the lives of 241 U. S. Marines, sail­ors, and soldiers, I have thought about terrorism not as something reported in the headlines and on the evening news but as some­thing direct and gut-wrenching.

There have been other terror­ist acts since then, notably: the Achille Lauro hijacking, in which wheelchair-confined Leon Klinghoffer was shot and pushed into the Mediterranean; the TWA Flight 847-hostage crisis; the Rome and Vienna air­port attacks; and the bomb­ing of a West German nightclub frequented by U. S. servicemen and women. In the last instance, evidence was found of Libyan involvement, and the United States responded with air strikes against Libyan sites where ter­rorists were trained and housed. Whether through such military retaliation we have descended to the level of the terrorists them­selves is one question I will address.

First, though, in confronting the past, I can recall moments that give us a reason for main­taining faith in God and in our fellow human beings.

That Beirut morning, every­thing was covered in thick, gray ash. We scrambled to lift the rocks, cement pieces, and metal debris. Suddenly, rescuers with jack-hammers, heavy equipment, acetylene torches, and a great many picks and shovels joined the effort. Lebanese with hard hats were moving in to help dig out our Marines. I saw Italian soldiers coming down the road with torches and heavy trucks. They were followed by French, then British, contingents. Sol­diers of various nationalities as well as Lebanese citizens were Working together, digging, lift­ing, and jack-hammering. The contrast between this remarkable display of aid and cooperation and the shattered surroundings was striking. I found myself deeply reassured by this sponta­neous affirmation of the underly­ing bond among people.

Another memory: Later in the morning, when the count had reached 112 wounded and 72 dead, Resnicoff came toward me. His khaki Navy uniform was blackened with dust. His face was sweaty and dirty and he looked tired. “Well,” he remarked, looking up at the remains of the building, “we have a Christian and a Jew tak­ing care of our men—a priest and a rabbi working side by side.” Again, in the midst of desolation and death, I was re­minded of the brotherhood of man.

As the dead were dug out, Marines would come up to me to ask that the bodies of their buddies be blessed. A small group of Marines would gather around and watch solemnly as I anointed the forehead of the life­less form before me. They had found a way to show respect for their dead comrades, and I was touched by how mindful the Marines were to provide services for their fallen brothers and by the strength they drew from prayer.

We worked throughout that day and into the night. Huge floodlights, set up around the building, illuminated the site, which looked like a scene from Hell. The situation was made endurable only because of a deeply sensed feeling of fellow­ship among the rescuers. 1 re­member one episode in particu­lar. A Marine, without thinking, had taken over the handle of a stretcher, thus denying a young Lebanese Red Cross worker the privilege of carrying the body to the battalion aid station for identification. 1 could see the hurt in the youth’s face. He was straining to show the Americans that he and others were willing to help, to make up in some small way for what had hap­pened. When I mentioned my observation to the Marine, he insisted that we search for the Red Cross volunteer, because he wanted to shake his hand. But we could not find him.

The following day, I went over to Landing Zone Brown with Colonel Timothy Geraghty. For the first time I saw the sil­ver caskets. They were lined up, and our men were placing into each a green plastic bag that contained the body of one of our comrades. The men then placed twelve caskets on a pallet and strapped them down with vinyl ties. A fork-lift truck rolled over, picked up a pallet, and turned toward the plane that was to take these men home to their families.

Suddenly, Colonel Geraghty stopped the fork-lift in place and called for an honor guard. Two rows of 12 Marines lined up, facing one another, as the colo­nel and I moved to the left. The signal was given, and the fork­lift approached. As the pallet loads of caskets moved slowly between the columns of Ma­rines, the colonel, myself, and the squad saluted. There were no television cameras, no impor­tant officials, no large forma­tion. This was a personal, sin­cere gesture by our colonel who, in this private way, showed his respect for his fallen Marines.

We knew that sometime in the days ahead there would be an impressive public memorial ser­vice, with full media coverage and dignitaries from all over the world. But this was different: just the colonel and his men, alone on the sands of Beirut.

When I think of the Marines who died in Beirut, I always think of one man, who for me has come to memorialize all the fine young men who died there. This Marine, trapped deep within the building, had sur­vived the blast itself. He lay in a tiny niche created by the way in which the ceilings and walls had fallen. His left arm had been cut up badly and bled pro­fusely. His legs were pinned in the fallen debris. Yet in his en­trapment he found that he could still move his right arm. He took out a bandage in an effort to stop the bleeding. It was hopeless. He next reached into his wallet and withdrew photo­graphs of his wife and children. He placed them on a ledge in front of him—and in this way, remembering his family, he died.

We were a peacekeeping force. Although Marines, our government had sent us to Leba­non, at the request of all com­batants, to show the flag, to maintain a presence, to forestall hostilities. But in the powder keg that is Beirut, no one who speaks out and stands up for peace is safe. The terrorists have seen to that. As terrorists, they have a stake in the status quo.

And the status quo in Beirut is violence.

Terrorists seek to define what is “terror” and what is not. Their actions, they say, are jus­tified by the rightness of their political cause; that is “the ends justify the means.” Any re­sponse, such as a military strike against terrorist support centers by a democratically elected gov­ernment is, they say, terror. The one distinction between the ac­tions of terrorists and a response by a democratic government is a moral one: a society has a moral right to defend itself and protect its members; a terrorist organiza­tion has no moral right to mur­der innocent civilians.

It is a mistake to think of ter­rorists as “freedom fighters,” as people with a deep and sincere political grievance. The pretense of a political grievance provides the framework of the rationale they cite for their actions, but, in reality, they are people who pursue violence for its own ends. For this reason, they are outside the league of civilized humanity. Nor are they “guerril­las,” as they sometimes claim. Their targets are not other com­batants and military installations. Their targets are anyone and everyone who is not one of them. The virtue a society most needs to cultivate within itself to help prevent it from sliding into chaos is the opposite of terror­ists’ ruthlessness: tolerance.

Terrorists calculate that their actions will render legitimate government impotent and will weaken the resolve of a demo­cratic society. The one ability most necessary to counter terror­ists is the ability to interdict their plans and attacks: in a word, intelligence.

Terrorists hope to induce fear. If we refuse to give in to fear, then we prevent the terrorists from winning. I don’t know a single Marine in Beirut who, after the bombing, voiced a de­sire to abandon the Lebanese people. If the choice had been ours to make, we would have stayed. These Marines demon­strated the quality necessary to defeat terrorists: courage.

Terrorists present us with a clear choice. The choice is be­tween a world where respect for the rule of law and the sanctity of human life is the governing force and a world where bar­baric expediency holds sway. The 241 U. S. servicemen who died on 23 October 1983 left, as their legacy to all of us, a sharp understanding of the dif­ference.

Commander Pucciarelli served as Regi­mental Chaplain to the 8th and 10th Marines at Camp Lejeune, North Caro­lina, from 1981-84. He was 24th Ma­rine Amphibious Unit Chaplain in Beirut from May to November 1983. Com­mander Pucciarelli is now Brigade Chap­lain at the U. S. Naval Academy.

Vincent Astor Memorial Leadership Essay Contest

The United States Naval Institute and the Vincent Astor Founda­tion take pleasure in announcing the Eleventh Annual Vincent Astor Memorial Leadership Essay Contest for Junior Officers and Of­ficer Trainees of the U.S. Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard. The contest is designed to promote research, thinking, and writing on the topic of leadership in the U.S. Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard.

FIRST PRIZE: $1,500, a Naval Institute Gold Medal, and a Life Membership in the Naval Institute.

FIRST HONORABLE MENTION: $1,000 and a Naval Institute Silver Medal.

SECOND HONORABLE MENTION: (two to be awarded) $500 and a Naval Institute Bronze Medal.

The first prize essay will be published in the U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings. The Institute's Editorial Board may elect to publish any or all of the honorable mention essays in any given year, but is not obligated to do so. The Editorial Board may, from time to time, publish collections of the award winning essays and other essays in book or pamphlet form.

This contest is open to:

1. Commissioned officers, regular and reserve, in the U.S. Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard in pay grades 0-1, 0-2, and 0-3 (ensign/2nd lieutenant; lieutenant (junior grade)/1st lieutenant; and lieutenant/captain) at the time the essay is submitted.
2. U.S. Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard officer trainees within one year of receiving their commissions.

ENTRY RULES

1. Essays must be original and may not exceed 4,000 words.

2. All entries should be directed to: Executive Director (VAMLEC), U.S. Naval Institute, Annapolis, Maryland 21402.
3. Essays must be received on or before 1 March 1987 at the U.S. Naval Institute.
4. The name of the author shall not appear on the essay. Each author shall assign a motto in addition to a title to the essay. This motto shall appear (a) on the title page of the essay, with the title, in lieu of the author's name and (b) by itself on the outside of an accompanying sealed envelope. The sealed envelope should contain a typed sheet giving the name, rank, branch of service, address, and office and home phone numbers (if available) of the essayist, along with the title of the essay and the motto. The identity of the essayist will not be known to the judging members of the Editorial Board until they have made their selections.
5. The awards will be made known and presented to the successful competitors during the graduation awards ceremonies at their respective schools, if appropriate, or at other official ceremonies. Mrs. Astor or her personal representative will be invited to pre­sent the first prize each year.
6. Essays must be typewritten, double-spaced, on paper approx­imately 8¹/₂ x 11”. Submit two complete copies.
7. Essays will be judged by the Naval Institute’s Editorial Board for depth of research, analytical and interpretive qualities, and original thinking on the topic of leadership. Essays should not be merely expositions or personal narratives.

Deadline: 1 March 1987

WIN $1,500