Remembering fallen heroes
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ELKINS - A somber anniversary was recognized in memory of Americans - including an Elkins native - who lost their lives in a terrorist attack in 1983.
Elkins Marine Corps League Commandant Roger Ware of Elkins placed a wreath at the Beirut Bombing Memorial on the Randolph County Courthouse lawn in observance of the 43rd anniversary of the terrorist bombing of the U.S. Marine Corps barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, which claimed the lives of 241 Americans, including USMC Lance Cpl. David L. Cosner of Elkins.
Facing Randolph Avenue, the granite Beirut Bombing Memorial monument features an engraved plaque listing the names of five West Virginians who died in the Oct. 23, 1983, bombing, including Cosner, Cpl. Medot Camara of Hinton, Lance Cpl. Russell Cyzicle of Star City, Cpl. Timothy Runnigan of Princeton and U.S. Navy Hospital Corpsman 2nd Class Martin Kees of Martinsburg.
Killed in the bombing were 220 Marines, 17 Navy medical personnel and four Army soldiers in the largest single-day loss of U.S. Marines since the battle of Iwo Jima in February 1945.
The wreath-placement ceremony was sponsored by Elkins Marine Corps League Detachment 956.
"In 1982, the Marines began a peacekeeping mission as part of a multinational force (MNF) in war-torn Lebanon,” according to the Marine Corps University website. “The Marines were to maintain a visible ‘presence’ in the capital of Beirut, in the hopes that it would deter further bloodshed among the various warring factions and militias fighting for control of the country.
“The United States government intended to provide a neutral, stabilizing force in Lebanon, but this proved increasingly difficult as the mission progressed,” the site states. “As the MNF gradually compromised their neutrality, the Marines became targets of militias and responded with deadly force as a means of self-preservation. Unfortunately, the Marines were fighting an enemy using terrorist tactics and 241 Marines, Sailors and Soldiers, lost their lives in a suicide truck bombing on 23 October 1983.”
On Oct. 23, 1983, a 19-ton Mercedes-Benz stake-bed truck drove into the lobby of the barracks. A suicide bomber detonated the explosives, and the force of the explosion leveled the four-story building to rubble.
The explosives used were later estimated to be equivalent to as much as 21,000 pounds of TNT.