‘Gilding the Lily in Grenada’
It was fitting and proper that President Reagan as commander-in-chief honored the servicemen we lost in the invasion of Grenada. The simple monument to their memory and the laying of a wreath at its base remain an eloquent and dignified tribute to them.
However, there was another and more grievous loss of servicemen that preceded the 1983 Grenada adventure.
“At approximately 0622 on Sunday, 23 October, the Battalion Landing Team (BLT) headquarters building in the Marine Amphibious Unit (MAU) compound at Beirut International Airport was destroyed by a terrorist bomb. This catastrophic attack took the lives of 241 U.S. military personnel and wounded 100 others.” So read the first two sentences of the official U.S. account of this tragedy.
Because these Marines were assigned a peacekeeping mission, was their’s a lesser valor, a lesser sacrifice? Where is their monument? When will they be remembered?
WILLIAM J. RUP
Lompoc
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