In memory of the 241 American service members, 220 Marines, 18 sailors, and 3 soldiers, killed in the bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, on October 23, 1983, and the 58 French paratroopers lost the same morning. We also honor every Marine and sailor of the 24th Marine Amphibious Unit and 1st Battalion, 8th Marines who served in Beirut, those who came home wounded, and those who still carry it. Their mission was called peacekeeping. What they lived through was war.
Content advisory: This episode contains firsthand accounts of combat, sniper engagements, the aftermath of a mass-casualty bombing, graphic injuries, post-traumatic stress, and thoughts of self-harm. It also includes strong language. Please listen with care. If you are a veteran in crisis, call 988 and press 1, text 838255, or visit VeteransCrisisLine.net.
Frank Roberts comes from a family that has served since the Revolution, but he was the first of them to enlist rather than commission. He shipped to Parris Island at 18, spent eight months at sea on the USS Nassau, and was then selected for Scout Sniper training. First came amphibious recon school at Little Creek, where only 8 of 30 Marines and Navy SEALs finished. Then came Scout Sniper School at Stone Bay, where Carlos Hathcock taught him that a single leaf turned the wrong way means someone has been there. By 20, Frank was on his way to Beirut with 1st Battalion, 8th Marines.
The mission was called peacekeeping. Frank calls it a fraud. Marines patrolled the rubble of a city in civil war without rounds chambered, and every bullet from his sniper rifle had to be justified up the chain before he could draw another. As the fighting grew, his two-man sniper teams were in such demand that they were moved from position to position across the airport perimeter. He describes being ambushed in a ditch after a stray puppy wandered up to him, and watching a militia commander in a jacket and tie raise a white handkerchief because he knew he was in Frank’s crosshairs.
At 6:22 a.m. on October 23, 1983, Frank was asleep in the dirt near Charlie Company, 400 yards from the battalion headquarters, when a truck bomb leveled the four-story building. He was there only because he had been sent to the line days earlier; otherwise, he would have been inside. Both of his sniper partners were killed, along with his first sergeant, his company commander, and 237 others. For more than a week, the Marines left on the perimeter had no ammunition, food, or water resupply, and the radio returned only static. When a plane arrived to take him to Germany to help identify the fallen, Frank walked back to the front lines and stayed with his Marines until they were relieved.
He came home weighing 128 pounds, down from 182. His mother didn’t recognize him. Frank went on to train new snipers, then worked undercover narcotics in New Haven and joined an FBI task force that brought down the Latin Kings in the largest RICO case in Connecticut history, surviving a contract on his life along the way. Today he raises millions of oysters a year on his farm near Beaufort, South Carolina, a few miles from where his Marine Corps journey began. He still dreams about the men he lost every night. “I have to respect my guys,” he told us. That’s why he tells their story.