I was in Beirut in 1983…

We were there in Lebanon on a peace-keeping mission, staying at a four-story bunker near the airport.

Because I had experience unloading helicopters and running some of the logistics, I was transferred on October 16, 1983 from the Marine bunks (where a couple hundred of us lived) to a ship just off the coast.

(The ship was so close that you could see the beach the airfield bumped up against there in Beirut… which was right next to the bunker. So the new assignment “moved me” just a few miles off coast.)

I remember it well…

Because on October 23, 1983 the Marines suffered the greatest single event loss ever since Iwo Jima.

👇

A suicide bomber routed his truck around our outposts and all the way INTO the first floor of the building. When he arrived in the exact center, he detained a bomb equivalent to a nuclear blast.

The explosion created a 30+ foot crater, as well as a blast radius that pancaked the entire building.

Most of the Marines and other personnel in the bunker died in their sleep.

There were 16 Marines in the room I used to occupy. Only one of them survived, my best friend— still my best friend to this day.

The Marine who took my bed, Lance Corporal William John Stelpflug (Billy) didn’t survive.

⭐️

I wondered about it a lot.

Not immediately, because we were so occupied with tending to the wounded— they all triaged across the deck of our ship over the next few days.

But after that.

Why was I still here and the man who took my bunk— who only had it for a few days— gone?

🤷‍♂️

Years later, I was at an Auburn football game. I saw some veterans from a Marine Post, so I went to see them.

“We have a post down here,” they said.

Then they told me the name— “Detachment #1064… named for Lance Corporal William John Stelpflug.”

“What?” I replied.

When they saw my shock, they asked me if I was OK…

“He’s the Marine who took my place in the bunker. He died on my cot.”

🪦

There were so many close calls when I was in Beirut.

I could have been taken out by a sniper— as were others. I could have gotten ill— as others did. I could have been in that blast— as 241 did (220 Marines, 18 Navy sailors, 3 Army soldiers).

I had survivor’s guilt after that, for sure.

And I’ve often wondered why I’m still here, what God has me on this planet to do.

And I’ve thought about if He made the right choice— if someone might have made a bigger mark or take a better shot with a second (or third, or whatever) chance.

🤷‍♂️

My wife told me, “You could have moved anywhere. And you could have bumped into Marines from any post. But God had you meet the Marines from THAT post named after Stelpflug so that you would know…

“It’s OK. He still has something for you to do.”

👇

I’m walking that out now.

I’ve been involved with the local American Legion post for years. And I’m getting trained to learn how to communicate to others— so they can heal the hurts of PTSD and Moral Injury and move forward into their next chapter, into their “calling” in this season of life, whatever it looks like.

I was at a training workshop not to long ago and actually wrote on the feedback form, “I have Moral Injury.”

That’s what this thing created…

… and, it makes sense in light of what I experienced.

But, we don’t have to stay there. We can identify the hurt, heal it, and then help others.