U.S. Troops to Lebanon?
October 1983 was a month I'll never forget.
On October 23rd, I was commanding a small team of troopers who were conducting vehicle inspections at a missile site in West Germany. Car bombs were all the rage at the time, and there were two very active terrorist groups in Germany that liked making things go boom. As I helped inspect a civilian contractor's vehicle, one of my trooper's ambled up with a very serious expression on his face.
"Sarge, phone call. It's battalion."
Lovely. Like I need to talk to some Major who has nothing better to do than sit around and think up stuff for some young buck Sergeant to do. A few minutes later, I briefed my team that the Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, had been bombed. Naturally, it was a car bomb. 241 Marines and other servicemen were killed that day. Our security ramped up immensely after that.
Two days later, the invasion of Grenada was launched, co-spearheaded by a unit that I had just PCS'd from.
For a long time, those two days haunted me. Grenada, because I knew that my unit had seen combat without me and that I had missed out on the fighting that I had been training for for so long. And Beirut, because I could still the faces of the Marines that they pulled out of those destroyed barracks. The ones who lived and the ones who died.
I learned to live with missing Grenada. Beirut, not so much.
Maybe it was the fact that we never seemed to do anything to retaliate for what happened to those brave men. As if we could ever do enough, or kill enough, to even the score.
So naturally, a story like this makes me nervous. The possibility that we could send more "peacekeepers" to Lebanon, however unlikely, scares me. We don't need more brave men and women sitting over there, under the auspices of the U.N., with big targets on our their backs.
Support Israel? Yes. And with combat troops, if necessary. But no more "peacekeepers." It's someone else's damned turn.
On October 23rd, I was commanding a small team of troopers who were conducting vehicle inspections at a missile site in West Germany. Car bombs were all the rage at the time, and there were two very active terrorist groups in Germany that liked making things go boom. As I helped inspect a civilian contractor's vehicle, one of my trooper's ambled up with a very serious expression on his face.
"Sarge, phone call. It's battalion."
Lovely. Like I need to talk to some Major who has nothing better to do than sit around and think up stuff for some young buck Sergeant to do. A few minutes later, I briefed my team that the Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, had been bombed. Naturally, it was a car bomb. 241 Marines and other servicemen were killed that day. Our security ramped up immensely after that.
Two days later, the invasion of Grenada was launched, co-spearheaded by a unit that I had just PCS'd from.
For a long time, those two days haunted me. Grenada, because I knew that my unit had seen combat without me and that I had missed out on the fighting that I had been training for for so long. And Beirut, because I could still the faces of the Marines that they pulled out of those destroyed barracks. The ones who lived and the ones who died.
I learned to live with missing Grenada. Beirut, not so much.
Maybe it was the fact that we never seemed to do anything to retaliate for what happened to those brave men. As if we could ever do enough, or kill enough, to even the score.
So naturally, a story like this makes me nervous. The possibility that we could send more "peacekeepers" to Lebanon, however unlikely, scares me. We don't need more brave men and women sitting over there, under the auspices of the U.N., with big targets on our their backs.
Support Israel? Yes. And with combat troops, if necessary. But no more "peacekeepers." It's someone else's damned turn.
posted by Cop the Truth at 10:36 PM
4 Comments:
I noticed you have not allowed my post in "Civil War In Iraq?" yet. I see you had time to write this post. So, what is up with that?
If you want to write posts, get your own blog. Intelligent people read this one, and they like to read things that makse sense, generally speaking, and much of what you write, well, just doesn't. Good luck, though!
Since my words sometimes scare you too much to allow others to read, I am leaving you to your black and white world and will never post here again. Good Luck Coppie and I hope to see you at 2Bs. You can censure me here, but not there.
HC
HC,
Friend, you have a serious case of multiple-personality disorder, among other things. One day it's polite HC, the next it's panic HC, then insecure HC. Please, please, take your meds, and maybe these psychotic episodes of yours will cease. As I've told you at least twice now, if you want to comment on what I post here, or on other comments reagrding my posts, be my guest. If you want to write your own posts for others to read, get your own blog, and stop trying to hijack other people's. But, of course, you wouldn't be able to hide and post anonymously, so I can see why you're too scared to do that.
It seems your reading skills are as bad as you're writing and spelling skills. If you want to stop commenting here, be my guest. Some other whacko will be along presently, I'm sure.
It seems a typical left-wing nut job tactic, really: the old "if-you-don't-play-by-my-rules-I'll-take-my-toys-and-go-home" thing. Well, don't go away mad, just go away.
And can anyone else out there tell me what a "coppie" is?
Post a Comment
<< Home