Shortly past daybreak on the morning of Oct. 23, 1983, Jack Carr reminds us, a Mercedes truck tore through the concertina wire that surrounded the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon:
The truck was loaded with PETN explosive wrapped in compressed gas canisters.
Inside the four-story Battalion Landing Team headquarters and barracks — colorfully known as the “Beirut Hilton” — some 350 American troops still slumbered. It was Sunday — a day of rest.
American troops were in Lebanon to help stabilize a nation torn apart by eight years of civil war that had killed tens of thousands and devastated the once-beautiful capital of Beirut, formerly hailed as the “Paris of the Middle East.”
The driver accelerated, covering the 450 feet that separated the concertina wire from the barracks in 10 seconds.
The Marines he passed at their guard posts had been prohibited from having a round in the chamber of their rifles.
The truck crashed through the sandbags stacked in front of the barracks and came to a stop 13 feet inside the lobby.
The subsequent explosion — immortalized on a clock in the building’s basement at 6:21.26 a.m. — proved to be the largest nonnuclear explosion on record, one that equaled as much as 20,000 pounds of TNT.
The blast claimed the lives of 220 Marines, 18 sailors, and three soldiers.
Another 112 were wounded.
Not since the invasion of Iwo Jima in February 1945 had the Marines lost so many men in a single day. A near-simultaneous bombing a few miles north killed 58 French paratroopers.
What followed is one of the greatest rescue stories in modern history.
[…]
American intelligence immediately zeroed in on the attackers, who were Iranian-backed Shiite terrorists, part of a new group that we know today as Hezbollah.
White House infighting blocked a proposed American retaliation, but French and Israeli planes attacked terrorist training camps in the Bekaa Valley.
[…]
In the immediate aftermath, Marine Corps Commandant General Paul Kelley testified before Congress. During a moment of frustration, as he grappled with myopic lawmakers, the general asked whether it would take a suicide bomber crashing an airplane for America to wake up to the reality of this new war.
Obviously the CO issuing the order should have been shot. A serious military would have had the entire chain of command court martialed. That this occurred to shock troops of the Empire demonstrated the fallacy of American martial competence.
The Fox News article has several bad mistakes.
“White House infighting blocked a proposed American retaliation”
Dec 15, 1983 — The battleship New Jersey opened fire for the first time against targets in Lebanon today, hurling 1,900-pound shells.
“proved to be the largest nonnuclear explosion on record, one that equaled as much as 20,000 pounds of TNT.”
Not even close:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Largest_artificial_non-nuclear_explosions
From wiki – which should be noted have completely unreliable information from partisan journalist Robert Fisk – example no reference to Damour massacre.
On September 26, 1983, “the National Security Agency (NSA) intercepted an Iranian diplomatic communications message from the Iranian intelligence agency, the Ministry of Information and Security (MOIS),” to its ambassador, Ali Akbar Mohtashemi, in Damascus. The message directed the ambassador to “take spectacular action against the American Marines.”[35] The intercepted message, dated September 26, would not be passed to the Marines until October 26: three days after the bombing.[36]
ROEs have killed more soldiers in recent years than battles with the enemy.
1. The orders to not chamber rounds would have come from DC or a much higher level than the on the ground CO, who is crippled to this very day, and woke up in a hospital weeks later.
2. ROE/Rules of Engagement were originally for *potential* Belligerents not Combat Choreography, or really *Ritual Warfare* our rituals being legal and managerial bureaucracy. Only on the ground de facto insubordinates [in all humility including me] can overcome this nonsense. So one must choose: choose your men. Many did. Many are gone. Few remain.
Perhaps enough to spare the men unnecessary suffering. Perhaps not.
3. However all this treachery and madness, cowardice DOES have the needed effect of teaching us contempt for the law, and showing us who are leaders….aren’t.
“Obviously the CO issuing the order should have been shot. A serious military would have had the entire chain of command court-martialed.”
You could have a loaded mag in the weapon without chambering a round. The command was probably afraid of accidental discharges.
Supposedly the French troops guarding important sites in France the same way. They have an unloaded mag in the rifle to look tough but carry a loaded mag on their person. Once more the staff officers afraid of an accidental discharge killing a tourist foremost on their minds.
My guess.