BEIRUT, Lebanon -- On the dusty perimeter of Beirut airport, six off-duty U.S. Marines settled in to sleep in the safety of their reinforced bunker. When they heard the sound of battle, they went to help four friends.
It was a fatal mistake.
Their tiny outpost took a direct hit from a mortar shell Sunday night, killing eight of them. Two others, badly cut by shrapnel but not critically injured, were being flown back Monday to the United States.
'Good men moved out of protective bunkers and into a fighting position. They felt it was the thing to do, and I don't fault 'em. I wish now they hadn't,' said their battalion commander, Lt. Col. Ray Smith, his hands shaking slightly.
On the Marine base Monday, the big earth diggers from the new Marine unit, which arrived two weeks ago in Lebanon from Grenada, continued to deepen bunkers. Teams of Marines worked under the sun filling sandbags.
'We were very fortunate to take as many rounds as we did and not have more casualties than we had,' Smith said. 'If it hadn't been for a lucky hit we would probably have had no casualties.'
All day Sunday, the Marines had been on their highest alert rating - Condition 1 -- virtually 'leaning forward in their foxholes' in expectation of an attack after the first U.S. bombing run against the Syrian army, according to Marine Commander Brig. Gen. Jim Joy.
Night had fallen on the flat U.S. base when a shootout between the Lebanese army and rebel Moslem militiamen spread to include Marine positions on the airport perimeter.
'We took small arms fire as close as 100 meters -- 23mm (antiaircraft) fire -- probably thousands of rounds,' Smith said. 'We took rocket-propelled grenades and smaller machine-gun fire from positions 200 to 700 meters away.'
At a position near a Lebanese army outpost, a four-man Marine evening watch entered the battle, responding to fire coming from the east and southeast. 'We used everything we had, artillery, naval gunfire, tanks,' Smith said.
The six off-duty guards of the post -- a sniper team, reconnaisance men and a machine-gun crew -- soon left their protective bunkers to join the battle.
'They heard their buddies in trouble and went to help them,' one Marine said.
'This position should probably not have had more than four men on top,' Joy said. 'However, we were on Condition 1, we were heavily engaged, the men up there were heavily engaged.
'A 120mm mortar round hit on top, and we lost eight very fine, young Americans and two wounded in action.'
