From September to December 1983, LCDR Ables, a journalist and speechwriter, served in the Lebanese theater as public affairs officer for Commander Task Force 61. After retiring from the Navy, he wrote for the Associated Press and consulted for Life magazine during the First Gulf War.

Articles by Alan Ables

October 1983: The U.S. Marine Corps’ Battalion Landing Team headquarters at the Beirut International Airport has been reduced to a rockpile after a gargantuan explosion triggered by a suicide-crashed 19-ton truck laden with high explosives. It is the deadliest day for the Corps since World War II.

Beirut: A Remembrance

By Lieutenant Commander Alan Ables, U.S. Navy (Retired)
December 2023
Early on a Sunday morning in October 1983, a suicide bomber in a truck delivered to the Marine Corps its largest single-day death toll since Iwo Jima. A look back ...