My Brother by Johnny Atkins

I can’t honestly say I remember very much about that day. I was 9 years old, after all. The significance did register in my mind, but only years later would I take it to heart and begin to remember.

Twenty-six years ago this week, the headquarters of Battalion Landing Team 1/8, 24th Marine Amphibious Unit, were destroyed by a truck bomb. 220 Marines, 18 Navy Corspmen, and three American soldiers were killed in the attack.

Two minutes later, the barracks of the 3ème Compagnie, 1er Regement de Chasseurs Parachutistes, was attacked in the same manner. 58 French Paratroopers also lost their lives just a few miles away.

In the weeks, months, and years since that somber day, many have debated where the blame lies and what could have been done differently to prevent such a travesty. It remains the single bloodiest day for our Corps since Iwo Jima.

I certainly have my own ideas and opinions… but I’d much rather share my respect and gratitude for those who gave their lives that day. Their sacrifice – and that of their loved ones – became a significant factor in my choice to enlist in the Marine Corps, and continues to have a significant impact on my life daily.

I remember the scenes on the evening news afterward, and one particular newsreel that I will remember always. A Marine, stripped from the waist up, helping to move whatever rubble he could with his bare hands, shouting and directing others to assist him. A reporter asked him why he was clawing his way into the carnage barehanded when recovery equipment was on the way. His response?

“My brother is under there.”

He didn’t mean anyone born into his family, either.

I heard later in Boot Camp the story of LCpl Jeffrey Nashton, who was severely injured in the blast. The Commandant of the Marine Corps, General P.X. Kelly, travelled to Landstuhl, Germany to personally present the Purple Heart to him and every other Marine who survived the blast. President Reagan quoted the Commandant in retelling his story, and I’ll do the same:

“He couldn’t see very well. He reached up and grabbed my four stars, just to make sure I was who I said I was. He held my hand with a firm grip. He was making signals, and we realized he wanted to tell me something. We put a pad of paper in his hand—and he wrote ‘Semper Fi’.”

Well, if you’ve been a Marine or if, like myself, you’re an admirer of the Marines, you know those words are a battle cry, a greeting, and a legend in the Marine Corps. They’re marine shorthand for the motto of the Corps—Semper Fidelis—”always faithful.”

After seeing what LCpl Nashton had written… well, it’s the only moment in history when I’ve ever heard of the Commandant weeping openly.

“If there is to be blame, it properly rests here in this office and with this President,” Reagan said. Again – I can’t speak with authority on that, but I do know that 241 of my brothers who went before me rest in Section 59 of Arlington National Cemetery.

Exactly ten years later, I was signing some pink, yellow and white carbons to enlist in the Marine Corps, hoping to one day live up to their legacy.

I’ve driven countless times past the 241 trees planed in the median strip along Lejeune Boulevard in Jacksonville, NC, knowing full well what each tree represents. Every year in October, this town is pretty much aware that Beirut veterans and their families will be returning to honor and remember them. I have never found it in myself to actually witness that solemn gathering, those moments of somber reflection and remembrance, and take part in it all.

But now, 26 years after the fact, I finally feel ready – worthy – to put on my dress blues and join in honoring their memory here at Camp Lejeune, near a memorial where these words are written:

It does not stand in Washington
By others of its kind
In prominence and dignity
With mission clearly defined.

It does not list the men who died
That tyranny should cease
But speaks in silent eloquence
Of those who came in peace.

This Other Wall is solemn white
And cut in simple lines
And it nestles in the splendor
Of the Carolina pines.

And on this wall there are the names
Of men who once had gone
In friendship’s name offer aid
To Beirut, Lebanon

They did not go as conquerors
To bring a nation down
Or for honor or for glory
Or for praises or renown.

When they landed on that foreign shore
Their only thought in mind
Was the safety of its people
And the good of all mankind

Though they offered only friendship
And freedom’s holy breath
They were met with scorn and mockery
And violence and death.

So the story of their glory
Is not the battles fought
But of their love for freedom
Which was so dearly bought.

And their Wall shall stand forever
So long as freedom shines
On the splendor and the glory
Of the Carolina pines.