10/23/1983 Gone But Never Forgotten

At 6:22 a.m., a suicide bomber drove a yellow Mercedes-Benz truck loaded with the equivalent of over 12,000 pounds of TNT into the four-story Marine Battalion Landing Team headquarters building at Beirut International Airport. The blast collapsed the building, killing 241 U.S. service members (220 Marines, 18 Navy personnel, and 3 Army soldiers) and injuring over 100 others. It marked the deadliest single-day death toll for the U.S. Marine Corps since the Battle of Iwo Jima. The twin blasts killed a total of 307 people, including 241 Americans, 58 French soldiers, 6 civilians, and the 2 suicide bombers