In some sense it seems like it was yesterday. My dad had been retired a few years at that point but we still had a lot of friends at Lejeune (and family in Jacksonville) so we were down there pretty frequently. We went to Jville about a week after the bombing, and the entire base and town were just so somber, a pall hung over the area. Flags, flowers, pictures lines 24/Marine Blvd. It was so very sad. One of the events that informed my decision to join the military a decade later.
I was in Infantry OSUT at Ft. Benning when it happened. Guy a year ahead of me in one of the high schools I attended was killed…Stanley Sliwinski. Second from the left: http://www.beirut-memorial.org/memory/23OCT1983/held-sliwinski-inglalls-fluegel.jpg
I can’t believe it’s been 40 freaking years.
I was sitting on the German Border.
It amazed me that it happened.
I was in high school, we had some students who had already joined the Marines (some kind of program where you join but still finish high school), learned about it pretty quickly that day.
That would be the Delayed Entry Program. I’d already joined the Army under that program but hadn’t left for basic yet. I only needed a half credit to graduate so had taken the one class I needed during summer school so I wouldn’t have to go back and go to school for a half day just to take one class and three BS electives.
Remember that all too well. Not the first nor the worst (at this point) but definitely a terrible day delivered by evil, terrorist, trash.
Neither Hezbollah nor Iran should have survived past November of that year, and there should have been hangings here over the whole “no ammunition” debacle.
We don’t learn from our mistakes !
This is what always pissed me off while serving.
Germans went in to Russia and got their asses handed to them in part due to having no winter gear for their Soldiers, then we turned around and did some very similar stuff in the Korean War.
I mean come on, those events were less than ten years apart, dod we learn nothing?
Aparently so.
These guys had done basic and were uniformed Marines, but still in high school. They wore their uniforms to school, khaki shirts and blue pants. Maybe they were reserves, not 100%. There were probably a dozen of them in my class.
The important thing is we canceled our sniper training programs immediately after WWII because when are we ever gonna need that again. We could probably do 50 pages on “what have we failed to learn militarily from any war in the 20th century?” I’m always amazed by how much hardship we inflict on ourselves when it comes to the EASY ONES that anyone should be able to figure out.
Years later when a Jihad sympathizer (who had been made an officer) named Nadal Hassan decided to shoot up Fort Hood, the forces on base similarly did not have access to weapons or ammo. This came years after 9-11 and we should have been on point for exactly that kind of attack.
I went to Basic (Army) during the summer between my junior and senior years of high school; went to AIT about a week after I graduated.
There was a dude who did the same thing with the Marines.
I can’t remember what the program was called, but we were both reserves. If I remember correctly, he was in the “active reserves” and went on to do a few years of full-time service.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Fort_Hood_shooting
Civilian physician assistant Michael Cahill also tried to charge Hasan with a chair, but was shot and killed.
I can’t express to you what a good Guy Mike was. Former SF Medic, quiet unassuming, local guy, he took a real personal interest in making sure as a Civilian I got to deploy with my Unit.
The man had real integrity and I was pretty lost when I found out he had died.
That was a Sunday. A dear friend from high school died in the explosion that morning.
Tuesday morning, I finally found a sober Marine recruiter. I was at MEPS on Friday. Sunday night I was standing on yellow footprints.
Why is that POS still breathing and not with his 72 goats?