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Editor’s Note: This column, “LBWA” (Leadership By Wandering Around), is based on the premise that, in order to find out what’s going on in the field, a parks and rec leader has to leave his or her desk and “wander around” the area of operations, talk to people, ask questions, and kick around ideas with the individuals in the thick of delivering services to the public. So the author will bring up issues and ask the leaders among the readership to share their knowledge and experiences.
October is always a reflective month for me, and it has been since October 23, 1983. I am compelled to write about that day because so many Americans take for granted the simple freedom of allowing children as well as adults to play and enjoy recreation in safety.
On that day in 1983, 220 Marines, 18 sailors, and three soldiers were killed in Beirut, Lebanon, when a terrorist bomber drove a cargo truck filled with military-grade explosives wrapped around gas cylinders into the military barracks and detonated them. Besides killing himself and the U.S. servicemen, the driver’s actions injured hundreds more. At the same time, 89 French paratroopers were killed, and dozens more wounded a few miles away in a similar attack.
The U.S. was in Beirut as part of a multinational peacekeeping force, along with French, British, and Italian troops. We had been brought in at the Lebanese government’s request to stabilize a completely de-stabilized region and give peace a chance after the president was assassinated.
