Reposted from email:
This was emailed around most of the Corps on Veterans Day. It's a message from a Marine officer who was a 2nd Lieutenant in Beirut in 1983.
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I was down at Camp Lejeune, NC Thursday on business. Everytime I go down there I stop at the Beirut memorial to pay my respects to those who were killed in Lebanon. Most folks believe that only the 241 Marines and sailors who were killed in the BLT HQ blast are listed on the wall. Not true, there are a few dozen more who were killed in firefights and by shelling both
before and after the HQ tragedy. This fact is relatively unknown by most people, Marines included.
There is a friend and TBS/IOC classmate of mine, 2nd LT George Losey listed on the wall. George and his platoon sergeant were both killed during a mortar and artillery attack at the Beirut airport in August of 1983. I went to his funeral and it was heartbreaking to see George's grandfather, a Marine WW1 veteran of the battle of Belleau Wood, break down at the sight of his grandson as he lay dead at such a tender age. One can only imagine what he was thinking. It was one of the saddest scenes I have ever witnessed.
Also listed is Sgt Manuel Cox, a squad leader in Golf Co. 2/8. Sgt Cox was an immigrant from somewhere in South America. He came to the battalion from what is now the School of Infantry where he was a very popular instructor. All of the young boots in the battalion knew him and were in awe of him. Sgt Cox and his squad were put on an isolated outpost west of the airport. 2/8's first big scrap in Beirut took place in early December of 1983. It lasted about three hours on and off. The local Shiite militia decided it was time to see what the new Marine unit had in the way of testosterone.
They found out rather quickly that the rules had changed. The BLT shot everything; small arms, artillery, mortars, tank main gun, and even TOW and Dragon missiles (shot at enemy gunners in buildings, very effective)! Sgt Cox's position was really catching hell. I believe the Shiites wanted to kill everyone there and take the weapons,ammo,etc., for their own use.
For the entire fire fight Sgt Cox conducted himself in a manner that was simply awesome. The entire airport could hear him on the radio talking back to his company CP. He called for and adjusted arty, mortars, gave fire commands, the whole deal. Someone had about an hour of it on a tape recording, I always thought that they should have sent the tape to Squad Leader school and TBS and said to the students, "OK, here's how it should be done"!
As luck would have it the last enemy mortar round of the night hit the roof of the building that Sgt Cox was on. It killed him and seven other Marines. The 203 gunners vests detonated, it was a mess.
(cont'd)