Targeted: Beirut
The 1983 Marine Barracks Bombing and the Untold Origin Story of the War on Terror
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Targeted: Beirut
Narrated by:
Ray Porter
Buy Now for $28.04
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Narrated by:
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Ray Porter
About this listen
1983: the United States Marine Corps experiences its greatest single-day loss of life since the Battle of Iwo Jima, when a truck packed with explosives crashes into their headquarters and barracks in Beirut, Lebanon. This horrifying terrorist attack, which killed 241 servicemen, continues to influence US foreign policy and haunts the Marine Corps to this day.
Now, the full story is revealed as never before by Jack Carr and historian and Pulitzer Prize finalist James M. Scott. Based on comprehensive interviews with survivors, extensive military records, as well as personal letters, diaries and photographs, this is the authoritative account of the deadly attack.
Harrowing event and great writing
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Well written and researched account
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informative
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I’ve enjoyed some of Carr’s fiction, but this was my first dive into his nonfiction. While the intent is admirable and the subject matter deeply important, the execution didn’t quite land for me. The book is filled with countless personal recollections—letters home, individual anecdotes, timelines of who died, who survived, who had just become a parent—which became difficult to track. Without a strong central narrative to anchor these stories, I often found myself lost in the granular detail, unsure where we were in the timeline or why certain information mattered.
Some accounts were genuinely moving: the Marine who returned to Beirut to marry a young Lebanese woman only to die days later, and the powerful image of the minister and rabbi digging through rubble together—complete with a makeshift yarmulke fashioned on the spot. But these touching moments sit alongside long stretches of repetition, overly graphic descriptions, and what felt like pages of “aw shucks” letters home, rather than deeper historical insight.
Where this book gains in immediacy, it loses in depth. The bombing was monumental and messy—politically, religiously, and regionally—but the narrative often flattens these complexities into a simple good-versus-evil frame. Carr’s SEAL background gives authenticity but also shapes a lens that sometimes feels more like a political thriller than investigative nonfiction. The result is a story that reiterates itself frequently, could be trimmed to a third of its length, and rarely steps back to offer the macro perspective I think the subject deserves.
Despite these frustrations, the authors honour the courage and sacrifice of the Marines who found themselves in an impossibly dangerous situation. The tragedy’s preventability remains debatable, but the lives lost are depicted with care and respect. I’m still interested in what Carr plans for the rest of this series—but this instalment wasn’t quite the compelling, tightly woven narrative I had hoped for.
Powerful Story, but Lacking Narrative cohesion
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