{"id":31867,"date":"2023-10-23T11:14:55","date_gmt":"2023-10-23T11:14:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/marinecorpstimes\/uncategorized\/2023\/10\/23\/40-years-after-beirut-how-the-bombing-still-haunts-the-corps-today\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T21:02:07","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T21:02:07","slug":"40-years-after-beirut-how-the-bombing-still-haunts-the-corps-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/marinecorpstimes\/news\/your-marine-corps\/2023\/10\/23\/40-years-after-beirut-how-the-bombing-still-haunts-the-corps-today\/","title":{"rendered":"40 years after Beirut: How the bombing still haunts the Corps today"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

At ceremonial mess nights,<\/a> Marines toast to those who came before them: to the Marines who served in the Revolutionary War and Grenada<\/a> and Afghanistan and everything in between, retired Marine Col. Chuck Dallachie said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Everything, that is, except for Beirut, in Dallachie\u2019s experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBecause it was a mistake,\u201d said \u00adDallachie, who served there in 1983. \u201cThe Marine Corps does not celebrate mistakes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the morning of Sunday, Oct. 23, 1983, a suicide bomber,<\/a> later found to have links to the militant group Hezbollah, drove an explosives-laden truck onto the compound at Beirut International Airport that housed barracks where hundreds of Marines were sleeping.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What ensued was the largest \u00adnonnuclear blast in history<\/a>, according to statements from FBI forensic experts at the time, initially \u00adlifting the barracks building off its foundations, according to the \u00adPentagon\u2019s December 1983 investigation into the event. \u00adShortly after, another bomber drove a truck into a building that housed French peacekeepers, part of the same multinational force as the Marines.<\/p>\n\n\n

<\/atype-video-jwplayer>
Marine veteran and Beirut Veteran of America member Richard Truman recounts helping wounded Marines after the Beirut barracks bombing on Oct. 23, 1983.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n

Two hundred forty-one U.S. service members \u2014 220 Marines, 18 sailors and three soldiers \u2014 died in the explosion of the barracks, according to the Pentagon\u2019s tally. Fifty-eight French troops and six \u00adcivilians were also killed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bombing remains the largest \u00adsingle-day loss of life for Marines since the Battle of Iwo Jima in World War II.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The attack ushered in heightened \u00adworries about the security of service members, <\/a>especially those stationed \u00adoverseas, and led to the development of new security measures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And it profoundly affected Marines across the Corps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A new \u2018way of life\u2019<\/b><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The Marines from 1st Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, had been sent on a peacekeeping mission to Lebanon as it was racked by a turbulent civil war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even before the devastating \u00adbombing, Marines in Lebanon were subject to violence from grenades, shelling and small-arms fire, according to the Marine Corps University. In April 1983, a terrorist bombing of the U.S. embassy in Beirut killed 63 people, including one Marine security guard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dallachie, who was a first lieutenant during the bombing and was badly wounded, said he believes the Marines should have been pulled out of Beirut well before the bombing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf your mission is peacekeeping, and there is no peace to keep, shouldn\u2019t you get out of there?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
In this Oct. 23, 1983 file photo, British soldiers give a hand in rescue operations at the site of the bomb-wrecked U.S. Marine command center near the Beirut airport, Lebanon. A bomb-laden truck drove into the center collapsing the entire four story building. (Bill Foley, File\/The Associated Press)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Marines were situated on low ground near the airport in Beirut and were \u201csitting ducks\u201d for fire from nearby mountains, Patrick Sloyan recounts in his 2019 book, \u201cWhen Reagan Sent in the Marines.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Marines in Beirut didn\u2019t \u00adreceive enough support in gathering intelligence or turning it into useful analysis, the \u00adDefense Department\u2019s \u00adinvestigation later found.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When a driver on a suicide mission accelerated his yellow Mercedes truck toward the Marine facility, \u201cthe only outer defensive perimeter\u201d he faced was chest-high concertina barbed wire, Sloyan writes. The driver rammed right through it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marines at guard posts saw the truck breach the flimsy defenses and drive through an open gate, but their magazines weren\u2019t in their weapons because of the peacekeeping rules of engagement, and they couldn\u2019t fire in time, the DoD investigation found. Even if guards had managed to halt the truck on the roadway, the explosion still would have caused significant casualties, according to the \u00adinvestigation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The investigators determined the commanders on-site should have done more to keep the Marines secure. The defense secretary in February 1984 ordered the issue of \u201cnonpunitive letters of instruction\u201d to Col. Tim Geraghty and Lt. Col. Larry Gerlach. Gerlach, whom Marine Corps Times attempted to reach out to and received no reply, received his letter while in a hospital bed from injuries that had left him partially paralyzed, according to \u201cThe Root,\u201d a 1985 book by military historian Eric Hammel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For many Marines who survived the attack, the reprimands of their commanders felt like \u201ca personal insult,\u201d Hammel wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\t