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Another day of
infamy: October 23, 1983
By RANDY GADDO
Special to The Citizen
“Have you forgotten how
it felt that day, to have your homeland under fire, and her people blown
away?”
So goes the refrain of a popular country song by Darryl Worley about the
Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Those attacks killed thousands, devastated
the lives of thousands more, and changed the world forever.
But the words can also apply to another terrorist attack that happened
20 years ago, on Oct. 23, 1983, in Beirut, Lebanon. That attack left hundreds
dead, and changed the worlds of hundreds of families and friends forever.
That was the day a terrorist truck bomb carrying thousands of pounds of
dynamite wrapped around gas cylinders killed 241 servicemen in Beirut,
Lebanon. The truck slammed into the atrium of a four-story building where
400 servicemen slept, bringing it down to a story and one-half of rubble.
FBI investigators would later declare it was the largest nonnuclear explosion
they’d ever investigated. Some would say it was the largest-ever-terrorist
attack on Americans up to that time. Still others insist it was the opening
volley in the current War on Terrorism.
The big difference in the two attacks is that one was on a military target
in a recognized foreign battle zone; the other was on unsuspecting civilians
on American soil. A similarity between the two is that both attacks represent
a deliberate tactic employed by people who see themselves as combatants
in a long-running, perpetual holy war.
Another similarity in the two is that as time passes, people forget. The
fact is that both incidents are subject to the danger of the American
public’s selective amnesia. In our world of TV sound bites, instant
gratification and questionable values, as a people we tend to forget things
and move on with our lives. We have a short attention span. But, in this
War on Terrorism, we can’t afford to forget.
In 1983, the bombing of the Marine barracks was headline news, for about
two weeks or so. Then the media, and the American public, moved on to
other pressing issues. Over time that event in Beirut became a fading,
then disappearing, historical footnote.
But the servicemen, friends and families who were so closely touched by
its magnitude have never forgotten it. This year, on Oct. 22 and 23, hundreds
of them will gather at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, in Jacksonville,
N.C., to remember. It was mostly Marines, 268 total, who were killed in
Beirut during their two-year “peacekeeping” mission from August
1982 to August 1983. There were also soldiers and sailors killed.
A citizen’s committee in Jacksonville, called the Jacksonville Beautification
Committee, will host the 20th Beirut Remembrance. A servicemen’s
group, the Beirut Veterans of America (BVA), will co-host the event, staying
true to their motto, “Our First Duty Is To Remember.” A family
group, the Beirut Connection, comprising families of those killed in 1982
and ’83 in Beirut will bring its members to the event to help sponsor
it.
There will be a candlelight vigil, and a formal remembrance with former
commandant of the Marine Corps, General Al Gray, as guest speaker. There
will be a banquet for 400 guests.
But most of all, there will be remembering, and camaraderie. There will
be men there who have been living with the event for the past 20 years,
some who have never quite dealt with it. The Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist
bombings brought it all back for them.
There will be now-grown children of servicemen killed in the bombing,
who were infants when their fathers went off to a “peacekeeping”
mission never to return. They want to meet people who knew their fathers,
to hear about them, to know them through others because their chance to
know them was cut short by terrorists.
There will be mothers and fathers, now older and grayer, who lost their
young sons 20 years ago to terrorists, who still remember, still carry
the pain, still miss their child.
There will be friends of men who were killed, now 20 years older but still
keeping their buddies alive, by remembering.
It’s good to remember. It’s not good to let a memory stop you
from progressing beyond it. But it’s good to look back and recall
the lessons that past events should have taught us.
Take terrorism, for instance. The people who will be remembering in October
have known for the past 20 years, in their hearts if not in their minds,
that an event the magnitude of 9/11 was possible, maybe inevitable. They
learned the lesson because the evil hand of terrorism personally touched
them. Once it touches you, it’s like a plague; it won’t go away
unless you kill it.
“Some people say, we don’t need this war. I say there’s
some things worth fighting for,” continues the country song. “What
about our freedom, and this piece of ground. We didn’t get to keep
them, by backing down.”
Terrorism is not going away any time soon, at least not all by itself.
That’s a new reality that free people of the 21st century must accept.
Terrorism is an affront to humanity. It is a threat to basic human freedom
just as surely as a dictator who rules through intimidation and violence;
there is no room in this modern world for either of them.
Whether we like to admit it or not, it has already taken a great deal
of our freedom from us. We don’t move so freely around the world
as we did before 9/11. We don’t stand in a crowded public place anymore
without looking over our shoulders, or suspiciously eyeing anybody who
looks different. Some have quit flying entirely, while others do so only
when they have to.
Isolationists would say leave it alone; if we don’t bother them,
they won’t bother us. But it’s gone beyond that now, way beyond.
Terrorism is a cheap, cowardly tactic, but it is effective. It does kill
people and it does disrupt the flow of life. And it spreads like a cancer,
from cell to cell, each one mutating into a different strain of disease.
Like a cancer, it must be isolated and destroyed one cell at a time, until
they’re all gone.
It won’t be cheap and it won’t be quick to kill this cancer;
it’s ugly, but it has to be done. The last thing we as a people should
do is forget; go on with life, yes, but never forget.
Remember Sept. 11.
Remember Oct. 23.
[Editor’s note: Randy Gaddo is a retired Marine who served in Beirut
at the time of the bombing and is now director of leisure services for
the city of Peachtree City.]
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