Where is the sense of Outrage??

For some 22 years now myself, and the rest of the Beirut Veteran Community, have watched as our American Society has let itself forget the Men who fought the first battles in the War on terrorism. The recruiting of the insane Islamic who drove the Truck into our Battalion Headquarters on the Sunday Morning in 1983, started at least a year prior to the cowardly act.

America was coming off the heels of the Jimmy Carter administration where appeasement and compromise was heralded as the new beginning for Peace in Our Time. Ronald Reagan ushered in a new American Order designed to stop the appeasement and shut down the goals of the terrorists.

Somehow the Appeasement of the Carter Administration leaked into the Reagan Administration and suddenly the goal became the protection of the PLO and its leader Arafat. Could the State Department at the time still have holdovers from the Carter years? Its entirely possible. In 1982 in order to prevent the Israelis from "going too far" the Marines of the 32nd Marine amphibious Unit were sent in to Beirut to serve as a buffer zone so Arafat could escape to live another day. Casper Weinberger came to the port of Beirut to oversee the operation and have his picture taken with Marines eating "c-rations". All this, while Arafat laughed at the stupid Americans.

With Arafat and his entourage out of Lebanon, the Israelis and the Marines, pulled out of the Port of Beirut. The State Department patted itself on the back, ignored the comments from the Israelis about letting a dangerous snake loose, and looked for the next World Crisis to solve.