Beirut Barracks Bombing (October 23, 1983): Marine Security Guard (MSG) Recalls the Terror

Beirut Barracks Bombing (October 23, 1983)

DSS Physical Security Specialist recalls the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine Corps barracks in Beirut

DSS ARTICLES

BY ERIC WEINER

On the afternoon of April 18, 1983, Sgt. Charlie Light – then the Marine Security Guard (MSG) assistant detachment commander at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon – was sitting in his office spit-shining his boots in preparation for an upcoming inspection. He remembers being annoyed by the constant backfiring and revving noises made by a newly installed generator in the embassy basement when suddenly, at 1:05 P.M., everything went black.

Light woke up covered in brick and mortar in a room that was not his office, thinking the generator had exploded. What had actually happened was a suicide bomber drove a pickup truck under the awning of the building and detonated 2,000 pounds of TNT.

Light was choking on dust and debris when an uncharacteristic breeze cleared the air, and he found himself lying in the rubble of a section of the building that had been completely destroyed. His surroundings were unrecognizable with only a few of the building’s pillars remaining upright.

The explosion blew Light’s shoes off and shattered the window in his office, driving shards of glass into his arms, back, and face. Despiting drifting in and out of consciousness, he remembers the smell the CS gas — a type of tear gas — leaking out of the damaged storage vault, and the sounds sirens, and people moaning, screaming, and crying.

A woman came up to Light, crying in pain because the blast seriously damage to her face. He dragged her to where the embassy entrance once had been and saw that the front of the building had collapsed like a deck of cards. He found one small, v-shaped opening large enough to squeeze through, but there was fire on the other side. Pipes in the upper level of the embassy had blown and water was cascading down. Light soaked a blanket he had found, wrapped it around the woman, soaked himself as best he could, and crawled with her through the opening and emerged where the bomb had detonated.

Light ran towards the stopped traffic in front of the embassy, and he found a taxi to take the injured woman to the hospital.  The driver initially refused, but when Light pulled his weapon, the additional persuasion had the desired effect.

Upon returning to the U.S. embassy to help, Light saw saw dead and disfigured bodies everywhere he looked.

“As a Vietnam veteran I had experienced that kind of destruction before,” said Light. “But I think very few people inside the embassy had ever seen anything like that.”

Light directed the other Marines to help the injured people and secure classified information and currency. The 24th Marine Amphibious Unit (now known as the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit) arrived to help ferry the wounded to the hospital, and set up a staging area next to the leveled embassy to recover and identify the dead before sending them to the morgue.

Despite his injuries, Light worked around the clock for the next 18 days.

Light remained in Beirut for several more weeks before he turned over command to a new detachment commander.  He then flew home for surgery on his neck and elbow.

When asked what kind of barricades or countermeasures protected U.S. Embassy Beirut at that time, Light said, “there was nothing.”

There was no physical deterrent preventing vehicles from driving up to the front of the embassy. The regional security officer (RSO) parked the ambassador’s chase and lead vehicles on the semi-circular drive that connected the street to the building. There were two small guard shacks on each side of the circle manned by Lebanese policemen who were vaporized when the bomb exploded.

The U.S. Embassy Beirut bombing was one of a few policy-changing attacks in 1983 that led to the development of countermeasures like anti-ram barriers that are now required for all U.S. office facilities and some residences overseas.

After retiring from the Marine Corps, Light joined the Diplomatic Security Service and deployed to Baghdad as an assistant RSO. After the Gulf War, the U.S. constructed a new embassy, and Light worked with Overseas Building Operations to strengthen physical security and install sub-surface anti-ram barriers on every road entering and exiting compound.

“My experience in Beirut formed all of my ideas about what security should and shouldn’t be,” said Light. “I’m proud of the part I played in securing the Baghdad embassy.”

The Diplomatic Security Service (DSS) Physical Security Division is fortunate to have Richard Truman on its staff. The physical security specialist works to ensure that the strictest possible security standards are incorporated into U.S. embassies and overseas buildings. His advocacy for safety is driven by his harrowing experience with the 1983 suicide bombing of the U.S. Marine Barracks in Beirut, Lebanon.

Truman deployed to Beirut in May 1983 with Marine Helicopter Squadron 162 as part of a multinational peacekeeping force. The squadron was part of the air combat element for the 24th Marine Amphibious Unit (MAU) that had infantry and ground units positioned at outposts guarding the Beirut airport and outlying buildings. As crew chief of the CH46 Sea Knight, Truman flew logistics and supplies between the marine camp located at the north end of the airport known as Rock Base and the USS Iwo Jima, a landing platform helicopter ship anchored five minutes off the coast.

Lebanon was in the middle of a long civil war. In June 1983, factions in Beirut were fighting regularly and Truman and his unit watched the nightly firefights in the mountains across from their camp. The fighting started high up in the mountains and, day after day, moved steadily downhill towards the airport. By mid-July fighting had broken out in the town across from the airport and factions began shooting and shelling Rock Base and the adjacent Lebanese Army boot camp. That same month the USS Iwo Jima departed Beirut on liberty leave, but was promptly recalled because daily fighting had intensified. As shelling and fatalities increased, helicopter operations were moved from Rock Base to the Iwo Jima.

At 6:22 am on October 23, 1983, a truck drove through the airport barriers and marine guard post and detonated 12,000 pounds of TNT underneath the four-story building housing the barracks of the 1st Battalion, 8th Marine Regimental Battalion Landing Team. 220 marines, 18 sailors and 3 soldiers were killed in the explosion. Truman and his unit were waking up onboard the Iwo Jima when they received word that the barracks had been bombed. They thought it was another mortar attack, but soon learned that the barracks had been leveled. They were ordered to stand by for mass casualties.

Truman was asked to stay on board USS Iwo Jima. As a trained EMT he was needed to help treat the wounded. Every available helicopter deployed to the airport to retrieve wounded, and fly them back to the ship where large aircraft elevators lowered the wounded to the hangar deck triage area. Injured marines were stabilized and the more serious cases were flown back to the Beirut airport and transported to three U.S. military hospitals in West Germany on large passenger planes.

Just the night before, Truman had been eating at the barracks chow hall with the marines who were now on the operating table in front of him. Truman vividly remembers assisting a chief surgeon by inserting a chest tube into a badly wounded Marine who was going in and out of consciousness while holding onto his hand. The marine kept telling him he didn’t want to die. Truman went into what he called “EMT mode” for the next 12 hours. When he finally stopped treating the wounded, he went up to the flight deck and noticed that it was dark outside; the entire day had passed in a surreal blur.

The next day Truman flew to the airport to help with recovery. “Unloading bodies from ambulances and putting them into body bags was one of the most difficult things I have ever done.”

Truman and his unit deployed to Beirut thinking nothing was going to happen to them because they were part of a peacekeeping force. A suicide bomb changed all that.

A decade after the attack, Truman ran into the marine whose hand he had held on the operating table; he too, had lived to tell his story.

Twenty-one service members who lost their lives in the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine Corps barracks in Beirut, Lebanon are buried in Section 59 at Arlington National Cemetery, near a memorial which honors all 241 American service members killed in the attack.