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FRONT Capt Richard C. Zilmer leads his
Company F, Battalion Landing Team
2/8
Ma -
rines ashore from the landing ship Saginaw
(LST 1188)
at the port of Beirut on
29
Sep-
tember
1982
. (US.
Navy Photo)
U
.S . MARINES IN LEBANO N
1982-198 4
by
Benis M . Frank
HISTORY AND MUSEUMS DIVISIO N
HEADQUARTERS, U
.S
. MARINE CORP
S
WASHINGTON, D.C .
1987
Library of Congress Card No .
87-61985 1
USMC PCN
190 003098 0
0
For sale by
the Superintendent of Documents, U .S
. Government Printing Offic e
Washington, D .C . 20402
Forewor
d
This book is a straightforward account of the deployment of Marines to Lebanon i
n
the period 1982-1984 . The story begins with the landing of the 32d Marine Amphibiou s
Unit (32d MAU) in Beirut in August 1982 at the request of the Lebanese Governmen
t
to assist, together with French and Italian military units, in supervising the evacuatio n
of the Palestine Liberation Organization . It ends in February 1984 with the withdrawal
of the 22d Marine Amphibious Unit following the effective end of its mission and th e
nearly complete breakdown of order in Lebanon . In between is an ambiguous Marin e
mission of presence of 18 months' duration . Together with the British, French, and Italia n
members of the Multi-National Force, the Marines attempted, as "peacekeepers," to as-
sist the Lebanese Government in achieving stability and ending the factional fightin g
which has all but destroyed Lebanon as a viable political entity.
For any number of reasons, none of which are the concern of this book, the missio
n
of peacekeeping failed, and in the process, those who were there to help Lebanon achiev e
the peace so many Lebanese wanted—but too many others did not—were sorely trie
d
and severely mauled . As a history strictly of the Marines' role in Lebanon, this book doe s
not deal with the major, high-level decisions of the administration which put and kep t
Marines in that country. Nor does the book deal with American diplomatic efforts i n
the Middle East in this period except in those instances when the MAU Marines wer e
directly involved . This is simply the story of Marine Corps presence and operations i
n
Lebanon for the period concerned . It draws no conclusions .
The author, Benis M . Frank, is the head of the Marine Corps Oral History Program
.
As such, in two trips to Beirut and three to Camp Lejeune, he interviewed the majo r
members of the staffs and commands of the three MAUs (22d, 24th, and 32d) whic
h
were deployed to Beirut . For his second trip to Beirut in October 1983, he went by wa
y
of Grenada, where he joined the 22d MAU in transiting the Atlantic, conducting inter -
views about the Grenada operation en route to Lebanon
. Mr . Frank graduated from th e
University of Connecticut in 1949 with a bachelor of arts degree in history
. His schoolin g
was interrupted by World War II, in which he served as an enlisted Marine with the 1s t
Marine Division in the Peleliu and Okinawa operations and the occupation of North China .
He was a candidate for a master of arts degree in international relations at Clark Univer-
sity when he left school in 1950 to return to active service in the Korean War as a com-
missioned officer, again serving with the 1st Marine Division .
Mr . Frank joined the Marine Corps Historical Program in - 1961
. He is the coauthor of
Victory and Occupation,
the final volume of the official five-volume series,
History of
U.S.
Marine Corps Operations in World War II,
and author of
Halsey
; Okinawa, Touch-
stone to Victory
; Okinawa: The Great Island Battle ;
and
Denig 's Demons and How They
iii
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