I did not realize that this was the anniversary of the bombing in Beirut of the Marine Corps Headquarters building until I saw it on another forum. That led to the following:
"Rescue in Beirut
The BLT-Marine battalion landing team headquarters-in Beirut was demolished by an enormous truck bomb at 0622 on Sunday, Oct. 23, 1983. As many as 200 Marines, corpsmen, and U.S. Army artillery technicians were probably killed outright, but dozens of others were still alive and trapped in the rubble.
The organized rescue effort was launched at about 0625, only three minutes after the detonation. It took that long-an eternity, really-for the people in authority and their stunned organizations to come to the realization that the BLT was down and that perhaps scores of men had been injured or killed.
Although the Marine amphibious unit (MAU) commander, Colonel Timothy Geraghty, had only a vague initial comprehension of the extent to which the headquarters building belonging to the 1st Battalion, 8th Marines had been devastated, his instincts told him that the MAU had been badly wounded.
It was a tough personal decision, but Geraghty decided to keep his MAU staff intact. If the blast presaged a ground assault of some sort, then it would have to direct the defense by the surviving elements of BLT 1/8 as well as be responsible for fire-support coordination between the Marine artillery battery ("Charlie"/1/10), the flotilla of U.S. Navy surface warships offshore, and the naval air wing working off the fleet carrier stationed over the horizon. The rescue would have to be run by MAU Service Support Group 24 (MSSG-24) and other people who could be spared from their duties."
Rescue in Beirut | Marine Corps Association
The rest of the article is very sobering. God bless all who were there.
![[halfmast]](/xen/styles/default/xenforo/smilies.vb/040.gif "Half Mast [halfmast]")
"Rescue in Beirut
The BLT-Marine battalion landing team headquarters-in Beirut was demolished by an enormous truck bomb at 0622 on Sunday, Oct. 23, 1983. As many as 200 Marines, corpsmen, and U.S. Army artillery technicians were probably killed outright, but dozens of others were still alive and trapped in the rubble.
The organized rescue effort was launched at about 0625, only three minutes after the detonation. It took that long-an eternity, really-for the people in authority and their stunned organizations to come to the realization that the BLT was down and that perhaps scores of men had been injured or killed.
Although the Marine amphibious unit (MAU) commander, Colonel Timothy Geraghty, had only a vague initial comprehension of the extent to which the headquarters building belonging to the 1st Battalion, 8th Marines had been devastated, his instincts told him that the MAU had been badly wounded.
It was a tough personal decision, but Geraghty decided to keep his MAU staff intact. If the blast presaged a ground assault of some sort, then it would have to direct the defense by the surviving elements of BLT 1/8 as well as be responsible for fire-support coordination between the Marine artillery battery ("Charlie"/1/10), the flotilla of U.S. Navy surface warships offshore, and the naval air wing working off the fleet carrier stationed over the horizon. The rescue would have to be run by MAU Service Support Group 24 (MSSG-24) and other people who could be spared from their duties."
Rescue in Beirut | Marine Corps Association
The rest of the article is very sobering. God bless all who were there.
