A Marine’s two-decade journey of close calls from Lebanon to Kuwait and Iraq
He believed he’d only be activated for “something with a clear purpose.” Then he was deployed to Iraq.
By Reed Bonadonna, The War Horse June 20, 2021
The Lebanese captain spoke in an animated voice in, I supposed, Lebanese. I couldn’t understand what he said, but it aroused my interest when I noticed him seem to gesture with his arms as if pointing a rifle.
“He says they will take you somewhere where you can be shot at,” explained a helpful bilingual Lebanese man.
I laughed, I hoped convincingly.
This happened in October 1982. I was a lieutenant in the Marine Corps, and I was in what it seemed most appropriate to call “war-torn” Lebanon. There was no war at the moment, but in parts of Beirut, where we were stationed, every building had been knocked down, pockmarked, or even eroded by bullet holes. We’d landed only a few weeks before, too late to see any fighting. It still seemed an unlikely place for my baptism of fire, whatever the captain said.
https://taskandpurpose.com/news/marine-reflects-close-calls-at-war/
