Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
When I was on vacation in Colombia, I read two books,
and one of them I'm holding in my hand right now,
and it's called Targeted be Root, and it's Jack Carr's
first nonfiction book. You all know, Jack been a guest
on my show for every single book, and I've hosted
him many times in Denver for those books in the
Terminalist James Ree series. But this one is nonfiction. And
(00:23):
the subtitle of the book the nineteen eighty three Marine
Barracks Bombing and the Untold Origin Story of the War
on Terror. And Jack, I was sitting in Columbia on
vacation wearing the same hat you're wearing right now, reading
your reading your book while this news is just starting
to blow up. So as we talk about this, I'm
(00:45):
kind of going to weave in what's going on today
versus with what you wrote about. But why don't you
just start with a comment about, in a way, how
precient it is that this book is coming out right now.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Yeah, crazy, I mean it's three years ago when I
brought it up to Simon and Schuster for the first time.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Obviously, I had no idea of what would be happening.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Visit VI Beirut, Israel, Syria, Iran, yeahm and everything going
on in the Middle East right now. But it certainly
is coming out at a time when an understanding of
the region and how we got here is vital to
making wise decisions in the present. So and underlying understanding
of history is always the foundational to anything that we're
(01:24):
going to do in the president and president and going forward.
So it did become quite a lot more timely than
I suspected it would be when I first thought of it.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
But I kept going back to beir route nineteen eighty
three when I.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Was looking at all the different terrorist events that I
could kick off this new series with, and of course
there's been a lot, and I wrote down all the
ones I could think of from the end of World
War Two up to three years ago when I first
talked to Simon and Schuster about it, And I kept
coming back to this time because although there were terrorist
events before October nineteen eighty three and after, really what
happened on October twenty third, nineteen eighty three set the
(02:01):
model and that paradigm that we'd follow Israel would follow,
essentially pertaining as it pertains to dealing with Iran going forward.
So Iran set the rules with this attack through its proxies.
It taught Iran that terrorism works specifically through proxies, and
until the last couple weeks on Israel's side, we've been
playing by those rules ever since.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
And I will note for listeners that the Beyroot bombings
in nineteen eighty three were basically the first acts of
any significance by the newly formed Hesbelah. And Hassan Srala,
who was just killed, should have been killed a long
time ago. And I hope he suffered a lot before
he actually died, But I feel like Philly didn't. I'm
(02:45):
guessing he didn't. The building probably fell on him. He
was already a member of Hesbela when these bombings happened.
I don't have evidence that he was involved in these bombings,
but he was part of the group, and you know
this is Hesbela. So let's go into some of the
stuff in the book, Jack, And why did we come
to have American Marines in Beirut to begin with?
Speaker 3 (03:04):
That is the big question right there. Why were they there?
Speaker 2 (03:09):
And it's a bit nebulous, meaning they were put there
to do a mission. They were not trained up for
Marines are trained to go in and crush the enemy
and come home, and in this case they're put in
as a peacekeeping force, something for which they were not trained,
and they're put in a tactically disadvantageous position, just like
our servicemen and women at Abby Gate in August of
twenty twenty one, but they were put in this position
(03:31):
by people thousands of miles away in air conditioned offices
to keep the peace between a rapidly deteriorating situation between
a government trying to stand up forces, Sunni Shia factions,
marinit Drew's Israel incursions, and into this come the US
(03:51):
Marines with very restrictive rules of engagement and told.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
To keep of the peace.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
And it's not a good position to put marines into
any service members into.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
So looking back, that's one of the main reasons I
wanted to do this.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Series and start with this particular event because I wanted
to capture the strategic, the operational, and the tactical lessons
learned and also humanize it because you hear two hundred
and forty one marines killed, that's a large roun marines,
mostly US Marines.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
The single greatest the greatest single day loss of lifecence.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
You rejima in World War Two, but sailors and soldiers
were killed as well, and why were they there? And
humanizing this event so that people can understand if they
read this book, that those decisions made in the Oval Office,
that's a decision that trickles all the way down to
an eighteen nineteen twenty year old kid who is standing
(04:43):
at checkpoint somewhere around the world even today, holding a rifle,
finger on the trigger, off safe, watching a truck perhaps
approach that checkpoint, wondering if it's laden with explosives or
just has bad suspension. But that's the final decision maker
in a chain of decision makers that starts with the
President of the United State. So we tend to not
(05:03):
understand the nature of the conflict in which we're engaged
or about to commit US forces. And that's a lesson
that we learned the hard way over and over. We're
not good at learning from the lessons of the past
and applying them to present problem sets. But the least
I can do as an author is capture some of
those lessons learned and humanize the events so that people
understand that these decisions have multi generational impacts to the
(05:25):
people who make at home and those who do not.
Speaker 4 (05:29):
As I was.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
Reading your book, I was making a specific effort, which
I imagine was probably even more difficult for you writing the.
Speaker 4 (05:35):
Book to not.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
Put a post nine to eleven or even post nineteen
eighty three mindset in the sense that especially that first
bombing at the embassy before the bigger bombing at the barracks.
Yet you said there had been terrorist attacks before, but
I think this was the first of this kind of scale,
and as you described in the book, is really the
(06:00):
beginning of the modern war on terror. And the idea
that there is no depravity too great for these people
really wasn't in anybody's consciousness in the early nineteen eighties.
Speaker 4 (06:11):
How did you deal.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
With that as a as a modern, more modern than
that warfighter writing this book to try to make sure
that you didn't put yourself in a post nine to
eleven mindset while writing about nineteen eighty three, Well, I.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
Knew I didn't want this to be just a regurgitation
of other books that I'd read on the Middle East
and on terrorism and then kind of adding my analysis
to it. I didn't want this to be pop history.
I wanted this to be an actual work of history,
primary sources, going into the archives, going into Reagan's diaries,
piecing together what was happening in the Oval office, with
Reagan and his advisors, talking to the family members of
those who lost loved ones, talking to those guys who
(06:50):
got up ran to the side of the bombing and.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
Started digging through that rubble with their.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Bare hands, kbar knives, maybe a shovel or a crowbar
if they could find it.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
So I wanted to do all those.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Things and do it from as a historian would, and
why I teamed up with James M.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
Scott, amazing historian, knows.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
What he's doing as far as doing all this archival
research and annotating the notes appropriately and legally at the end.
So that was a very conscious effort from the very beginning,
is not to make this pop history, not just to
be an analysis of what happened, but to really make
this a solid work of history that people can go
to for years to come, because there really wasn't the
(07:28):
seminal work on this event. If you'd ask me what
documentary should I watch, what movie should I watch? What
book should I read on this event around nineteen eighty three,
or the Marine experience, the American experience in Beirut.
Speaker 3 (07:37):
In the early eighties, or Lebanon in the early eighties.
There wasn't really that.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Book that you could point to to read on this subject,
so I wanted to make sure that it's out there
capture these stories. It was a distinct honor, privilege and
extremely humbling to be trusted by the veterans of Beirut
with their stories.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
This is not my book, it's not James Scott's book.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
This is this book for those who were there, and
this was our job really to get out of the
way of these stories.
Speaker 4 (08:04):
We're talking with Jack Carr.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
His new book, which is his first nonfiction, is called
Targeted be Root and the subtitle the nineteen eighty three
Marine Barracks Bombing and the Untold Origin Story of the
War on Terror, and folks, I read the entire book.
I will note just to show you the amount of
work that Jack and his co author James went to.
(08:26):
There are seventy pages of notes at the end of
this book talk about incredible in depth research and the
book is really really well written. Books, even about horrendous
subjects should be I want to use the word advisedly here,
but they should be enjoyable to read. The reading itself
(08:49):
shouldn't feel like an effort. This book is so easy
to read. It is compelling, and it's really hard to
put down. And I encourage everybody to go buy Targeted
be Roots by Jack Carr, which just came out last week. Jack,
I want to share with you a listener text that just.
Speaker 4 (09:02):
Came in Ross. I bought Jack's book on Saturday.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
I was serving at US European Command Headquarters in Germany
supporting the J two J three staff as an intelligence
officer when the bombings occurred. My focus was the Russians
and the East Germans at the time. I'm looking forward
to reading the book as I still have vivid memories
of those bombings and how our staffs went to work
to figure out who did it.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
Yeah, I mean this was a turning point in our
relationship with the Middle East in general, which is why
it's so important to go back to this time. But
even more important is humanizing these stories. The guys that
were there on the ground got to talk to someone
at Chaplin, who was the last person pulled alive from
the rebel five hours later, who's on that fourth deck
wrote it all the way down, ends up trapped in
(09:48):
the darkness, unable to move, slowly getting crushed by two
walls that had fallen almost like an a frame right
above over him, just barely giving him room to breathe,
that are air full of dust. Has the he had
a conversation with God, in argument with God as the chaplain,
and he thinks back to Louis Lamore novels that he
had read about miners and cowboys and Caven's and he's
(10:09):
the last person pulled alive from the rubble. Or Don
Howell who spends the night in the basement and the
building collapses on top of him and he.
Speaker 3 (10:16):
Closes his eyes, says a prayer opens.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
Him and there's a tiny shaft of light coming through
and then he digs his way out of that rubble.
So humanizing this being able to talk to these guys,
I had them on my podcast as well, so people
can hear these stories in their own voice. That was
of vital importance. Samanda James, as we started this and
wanted to approach it in a very thoughtful manner, thoughtful,
respectful because there's so many people obviously still alive who
(10:40):
are dealing with the still dealing today with the physical
and emotional trauma of that day. And then the family
members of those who have had an empty seat at
the dinner table ever since October twenty third, nineteen eighty three.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Folks, Jack's podcasts are all great.
Speaker 4 (10:53):
There's a bunch of ways to get to him.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
You can go to Officialjackcar dot com and find the
podcast there, Danger close Pods. What are your other favorite
ways for people to find your podcasts? And then we'll
keep going with the topic.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
Oh yeah, it's on YouTube, Spotify, Apple, but you can
get them through the through the website Officialjackcar dot com.
But hearing this in their own voices, there's something about
hearing it from someone who is trapped in that rubble,
someone who dug themselves out, or from Arnie Resnakoff, a
rabbis who's there and is one of the first responders
on scene with another chaplain digging through the rubble, administering
(11:26):
last rites, trying to save as many people as they
possibly can. And another parallel today when we're talking about
this event, is that Abby Gate. Once again, we have
a bomb that goes off similar to what we had
happened in Beirut. They're in a tactically disadvantageous position, untenable position.
But a similar thing also it gives me hope is
that those that are blown off their feet by this
blast or hear it from across the compound or across
(11:49):
the airfield, they came running to the sound of that
explosion to save as many of their brothers and in
the case of Abbygate, sisters and arms as well as
they possibly could. Also, in the case of Abbegate, as
many innocent Afghan cillis as they possibly could, while others
are holding security because they didn't know if it was
just like in Beirut, the.
Speaker 3 (12:04):
First of many attacks to come.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
So it's heart wrenching, but there's also hope in that
it's one of the greatest rescue stories really in modern
US history, because there was nothing that these guys had
except their bare hands and kabar knives and a couple
of shovels to dig through this rubble on a race
against time to save as many of their brothers in
arms as they possibly could.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
I learned a lot from this book, and one of
the things that I learned that in a way I
wish I didn't learn. I mean, I'm always glad to
learn things, but the saga seems like a pretty significant
failure by Ronald Reagan, who is a guy that I
hadn't really thought of as particular having failed at anything really,
(12:46):
And my first vote for president was for Reagan in
his re election, and I realized, nobody's perfect. It's just
we've had such terrible president since then. But talk a
little bit about Reagan and his role here.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
Yeah, that was one of the things as well that
I didn't know about it.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
I got to look at some of his diaries never
before published. Excerpts are in the book, and what I
got a real sense of in in researching, and this
is what a.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
Big heart he had.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
And you can you can hear it in his voice
when he when he talks, when he addresses the American
people in the aftermath of this event, in the photos
that you see in him going to the White the
Correspondence dinner and saying that he's going to save his
speech for next year after being there to when when
bodies come back from Beirut, and you just got a
(13:36):
sense of what a big heart this guy had. You
also find out a little bit more about him is
being an actor. I think that he wanted that crowd,
that audience to like him, which means that he also
didn't like infighting in the cabinet, and in the situation
like this, having advisors argue it out have knocked down
drag out fights would probably have been official in getting
(13:58):
a better understanding of where you're committing US forces and
what position you're putting them in.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
But he didn't like that.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
And I talked to Michael Reagan about this actually, and
he told me that this event haunted his father until
the day that he died.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
One of the things that I really came away with
a strong sense of from your book is just following
up on the thing you just said about Reagan not
liking conflict among his advisors, the next step from him
not liking the conflict is it led him to be
indecisive on some issues where making a decision was really important,
and perhaps arguably the time loss due to indecision. You
(14:36):
don't argue directly, but you raised the possibility that Reagan's
indecision could have been a cause a cause, maybe not
the cause, but maybe the cause of everything the Americans
went through in Beirut.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
Well, certainly putting these marines there in the first place
and essentially made them targets. They were the symbol of
American might in the region, the US Marine Corps which
target on their back, which just got bigger and bigger
with each passing day as the situation continued to deteriorate
around them. But we had in the aftermath of this
event is even more important though, when it comes to
what happened next over the next four decades, and that's
(15:12):
no response from the US, A.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
Lot of tough talk out of the White House.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
And then we leave in nineteen eighty four as quietly
as we possibly can as we move into that election cycle,
essentially for Reagan and the administration.
Speaker 3 (15:27):
So what did that teach Iran?
Speaker 2 (15:29):
It taught them that terrorism works, and we've been seeing
the effects of that ever since.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
So we got about four minutes left, and I think
because you put so much emphasis on humanizing this story,
I think I'd like to take these last few minutes.
Speaker 4 (15:45):
I'm going to ask you about a couple of particular
stories in the book.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
And if you're just joining, we're talking with Jack Carr
about his incredible new book, Targeted Bay Route, which has
become shockingly timely with everything going on in Israel and Lebanon.
Right now, tell us a little bit about Corman Brian
Earle and his marriage.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
Oh my goodness, Well, this is one that we'd heard
about in the couple in the year and a half
that we were working on this, And then I went
to the fortieth anniversary commemoration events and was asked to
be a guest speaker there last year, so in October
of twenty twenty three.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
And of course, at this point the book is done.
At that point.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
Now it's just going through all the notes and confirming
things and editing and going.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
Through that whole process.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
But at that event, so many people came up to us,
and it was so humbling because they trusted us with
this story. And then the words started to spread that
this story's finally getting told. And a lot of these
guys thought, and I'd say almost to a man, that
the Marine Corps moved on very quickly in the aftermath
of this event, and no one really has told their story.
They feel almost forgotten about because so few people actually
(16:48):
served there. This wasn't World War Two that impacted directly
a generation, or even Vietnam, where you were aware of
what's going on overseas and then seeing the seal, the
chaos in the streets of America in the late sixth
They're a very small group of Marines who were impacted
by this, and so so many people came up to
us to tell their stories, and this is what we'd
heard about but couldn't really confirm.
Speaker 3 (17:09):
And then we found out about Earl and.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
His his his wedding and he hadn't done the paperwork,
and then what has to happen to make his wife
a UF citizen, And we end up tracking her down
and getting to talk to her and tell that story
in the book, and putting a wedding photo in there,
and doing those things really meant a lot to these
to the Beirut veterans who felt really abandoned in the
(17:32):
wake of this. So it was extremely humbling to tell
these stories, and a lot of responsibility too, because in
a fiction and thrillers, if I make a mistake, not
saying that I ever have, but if I ever did,
I can just.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
Say, oh, it's ficted.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
But you don't have that luxury with a nonfic, especially
when you're dealing with people who lost loved ones and
people who are still alive.
Speaker 3 (17:49):
They were digging for their buddies through the rubble. But
really the emotional heart of this.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
Story is doctor John Hudson, and that's because we had
over six hundred letters that he wrote home and audio
cassettes that he had sent home, and he was like
the uh, like the Hawkeye in mash And for those
in the military, they know doctors are a little bit
different breed.
Speaker 3 (18:07):
They go to a couple of weeks.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
School to kind of learn to put their uniform on correctly,
but you're not really concerned about that. You just want
a good doctor, or in the case of the dentist,
you want to have someone who can do a good root canal.
And in this case, we had doctor John Hudson who
had had a premonition that something was coming and he
prepared his two friends, two dentists, for a mass casualty event.
And when this happens, unfortunately, doctor John Hudson is killed,
(18:28):
and these two dentists have to stand up in the
wake of this event and become really the leaders of
the rescue and recovery operations, something for which they were
only trained for because of doctor John Hudson. And so
you really got to know him, got to know his widow,
his son will and it's just it's a heartbreaking story.
But we got to bring that story to life. And
(18:49):
and and here also from everybody else about doctor John
Hudson and what an amazing guy he was.
Speaker 3 (18:53):
So he's really the emotional heart of this story.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
And that's because we had so many letters and got
to hear his works and really felt like we got
to know him over the course of the last couple
of years.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
I'll tell you what, I have multiple listeners asking the
same question that you do address in the book, and
it's not really one of those humanizing things, but since
so many people want to ask, I'm going to ask,
is it true that the Marines were not allowed to
have bullets in their guns? And this is a question
I was going to ask you anyway, because I was
(19:23):
really frustrated with that part of the story.
Speaker 4 (19:25):
I have to say I wanted to yell at the
colonel through your book.
Speaker 3 (19:28):
Yeah, no, it's a tough one.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
And we sent this to Colonel Garrity as well, and
he was He was incredibly helpful during the during this time,
an amazing, amazing guy. And there were some certainly tactical
mistakes made that Hopefully we've learned some of those, the
strategic ones, I feel that we have not, but some
of the tactical ones. Of course, you have a hardening
of bases and embassies around around the world over the
(19:52):
last few decades, not not all of them in the
wake of nine to eleven, of course, with bigger budgets
and more and a larger focus on terrorism, a lot
of what happens, but yeah, that is true. They were
certainly put in a position where the rules of engagement
hindered any sort of response, immediate or otherwise, which is heartbreaking.
But also in the wake of this, he took full
accountability for all of it, which is a lessons thing
(20:14):
we don't see coming out of Abbygate in Afghanistan. Zero
accountability for that as everyone's promoted involved in that or
moves on to work on boards of defense's industry companies,
no one held accountable. Colonel Garrity was held accountable and
got to send him this at a time and he
was in full support. Gave a blurb said thank you
for writing this. But was also amazing is at that
(20:36):
fortieth anniversary event, everyone who was there stood up gave
him a standing ovation and talked about how they would
follow him anywhere, which is also very telling.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
All right, give me a nine second answer on this
listener wants to know if you have a suggestion reading
the book versus the audio version of the book.
Speaker 3 (20:53):
Oh my goodness. People digest things in different ways.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
But the audiobook rape orter who does my thrillers also
did this, texted me he said. He said, He's like,
dang it, you made me cry multiple times, Sir, I've
never had that happen before. You made me cry multiple
times as I'm trying to record this. So Braver brings
things to life. So I highly recommend the audio on
this one as well.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
Jack Carr's new book is called Targeted Beyroot. It's his
first nonfiction event, and I'm sure there will be more
in this Targeted series.
Speaker 4 (21:20):
It is a must read.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
You will enjoy reading the book as much as you
can enjoy reading.
Speaker 4 (21:25):
About a terrible story.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
But the history that you will learn in this book
really really matters for today. Jack Carr, thanks as always
for another tremendous book.
Speaker 4 (21:33):
Appreciate your friendship, Thank you for your service to our country.
Speaker 3 (21:37):
Thanks so much for having me on. I appreciate it.
Hope I'll see you soon.
When I was on vacation in Colombia, I read two books,
and one of them I'm holding in my hand right now,
and it's called Targeted be Root, and it's Jack Carr's
first nonfiction book. You all know, Jack been a guest
on my show for every single book, and I've hosted
him many times in Denver for those books in the
Terminalist James Ree series. But this one is nonfiction. And
(00:23):
the subtitle of the book the nineteen eighty three Marine
Barracks Bombing and the Untold Origin Story of the War
on Terror. And Jack, I was sitting in Columbia on
vacation wearing the same hat you're wearing right now, reading
your reading your book while this news is just starting
to blow up. So as we talk about this, I'm
(00:45):
kind of going to weave in what's going on today
versus with what you wrote about. But why don't you
just start with a comment about, in a way, how
precient it is that this book is coming out right now.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Yeah, crazy, I mean it's three years ago when I
brought it up to Simon and Schuster for the first time.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Obviously, I had no idea of what would be happening.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Visit VI Beirut, Israel, Syria, Iran, yeahm and everything going
on in the Middle East right now. But it certainly
is coming out at a time when an understanding of
the region and how we got here is vital to
making wise decisions in the present. So and underlying understanding
of history is always the foundational to anything that we're
(01:24):
going to do in the president and president and going forward.
So it did become quite a lot more timely than
I suspected it would be when I first thought of it.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
But I kept going back to beir route nineteen eighty
three when I.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Was looking at all the different terrorist events that I
could kick off this new series with, and of course
there's been a lot, and I wrote down all the
ones I could think of from the end of World
War Two up to three years ago when I first
talked to Simon and Schuster about it, And I kept
coming back to this time because although there were terrorist
events before October nineteen eighty three and after, really what
happened on October twenty third, nineteen eighty three set the
(02:01):
model and that paradigm that we'd follow Israel would follow,
essentially pertaining as it pertains to dealing with Iran going forward.
So Iran set the rules with this attack through its proxies.
It taught Iran that terrorism works specifically through proxies, and
until the last couple weeks on Israel's side, we've been
playing by those rules ever since.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
And I will note for listeners that the Beyroot bombings
in nineteen eighty three were basically the first acts of
any significance by the newly formed Hesbelah. And Hassan Srala,
who was just killed, should have been killed a long
time ago. And I hope he suffered a lot before
he actually died, But I feel like Philly didn't. I'm
(02:45):
guessing he didn't. The building probably fell on him. He
was already a member of Hesbela when these bombings happened.
I don't have evidence that he was involved in these bombings,
but he was part of the group, and you know
this is Hesbela. So let's go into some of the
stuff in the book, Jack, And why did we come
to have American Marines in Beirut to begin with?
Speaker 3 (03:04):
That is the big question right there. Why were they there?
Speaker 2 (03:09):
And it's a bit nebulous, meaning they were put there
to do a mission. They were not trained up for
Marines are trained to go in and crush the enemy
and come home, and in this case they're put in
as a peacekeeping force, something for which they were not trained,
and they're put in a tactically disadvantageous position, just like
our servicemen and women at Abby Gate in August of
twenty twenty one, but they were put in this position
(03:31):
by people thousands of miles away in air conditioned offices
to keep the peace between a rapidly deteriorating situation between
a government trying to stand up forces, Sunni Shia factions,
marinit Drew's Israel incursions, and into this come the US
(03:51):
Marines with very restrictive rules of engagement and told.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
To keep of the peace.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
And it's not a good position to put marines into
any service members into.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
So looking back, that's one of the main reasons I
wanted to do this.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Series and start with this particular event because I wanted
to capture the strategic, the operational, and the tactical lessons
learned and also humanize it because you hear two hundred
and forty one marines killed, that's a large roun marines,
mostly US Marines.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
The single greatest the greatest single day loss of lifecence.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
You rejima in World War Two, but sailors and soldiers
were killed as well, and why were they there? And
humanizing this event so that people can understand if they
read this book, that those decisions made in the Oval Office,
that's a decision that trickles all the way down to
an eighteen nineteen twenty year old kid who is standing
(04:43):
at checkpoint somewhere around the world even today, holding a rifle,
finger on the trigger, off safe, watching a truck perhaps
approach that checkpoint, wondering if it's laden with explosives or
just has bad suspension. But that's the final decision maker
in a chain of decision makers that starts with the
President of the United State. So we tend to not
(05:03):
understand the nature of the conflict in which we're engaged
or about to commit US forces. And that's a lesson
that we learned the hard way over and over. We're
not good at learning from the lessons of the past
and applying them to present problem sets. But the least
I can do as an author is capture some of
those lessons learned and humanize the events so that people
understand that these decisions have multi generational impacts to the
(05:25):
people who make at home and those who do not.
Speaker 4 (05:29):
As I was.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
Reading your book, I was making a specific effort, which
I imagine was probably even more difficult for you writing the.
Speaker 4 (05:35):
Book to not.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
Put a post nine to eleven or even post nineteen
eighty three mindset in the sense that especially that first
bombing at the embassy before the bigger bombing at the barracks.
Yet you said there had been terrorist attacks before, but
I think this was the first of this kind of scale,
and as you described in the book, is really the
(06:00):
beginning of the modern war on terror. And the idea
that there is no depravity too great for these people
really wasn't in anybody's consciousness in the early nineteen eighties.
Speaker 4 (06:11):
How did you deal.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
With that as a as a modern, more modern than
that warfighter writing this book to try to make sure
that you didn't put yourself in a post nine to
eleven mindset while writing about nineteen eighty three, Well, I.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
Knew I didn't want this to be just a regurgitation
of other books that I'd read on the Middle East
and on terrorism and then kind of adding my analysis
to it. I didn't want this to be pop history.
I wanted this to be an actual work of history,
primary sources, going into the archives, going into Reagan's diaries,
piecing together what was happening in the Oval office, with
Reagan and his advisors, talking to the family members of
those who lost loved ones, talking to those guys who
(06:50):
got up ran to the side of the bombing and.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
Started digging through that rubble with their.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Bare hands, kbar knives, maybe a shovel or a crowbar
if they could find it.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
So I wanted to do all those.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Things and do it from as a historian would, and
why I teamed up with James M.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
Scott, amazing historian, knows.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
What he's doing as far as doing all this archival
research and annotating the notes appropriately and legally at the end.
So that was a very conscious effort from the very beginning,
is not to make this pop history, not just to
be an analysis of what happened, but to really make
this a solid work of history that people can go
to for years to come, because there really wasn't the
(07:28):
seminal work on this event. If you'd ask me what
documentary should I watch, what movie should I watch? What
book should I read on this event around nineteen eighty three,
or the Marine experience, the American experience in Beirut.
Speaker 3 (07:37):
In the early eighties, or Lebanon in the early eighties.
There wasn't really that.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Book that you could point to to read on this subject,
so I wanted to make sure that it's out there
capture these stories. It was a distinct honor, privilege and
extremely humbling to be trusted by the veterans of Beirut
with their stories.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
This is not my book, it's not James Scott's book.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
This is this book for those who were there, and
this was our job really to get out of the
way of these stories.
Speaker 4 (08:04):
We're talking with Jack Carr.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
His new book, which is his first nonfiction, is called
Targeted be Root and the subtitle the nineteen eighty three
Marine Barracks Bombing and the Untold Origin Story of the
War on Terror, and folks, I read the entire book.
I will note just to show you the amount of
work that Jack and his co author James went to.
(08:26):
There are seventy pages of notes at the end of
this book talk about incredible in depth research and the
book is really really well written. Books, even about horrendous
subjects should be I want to use the word advisedly here,
but they should be enjoyable to read. The reading itself
(08:49):
shouldn't feel like an effort. This book is so easy
to read. It is compelling, and it's really hard to
put down. And I encourage everybody to go buy Targeted
be Roots by Jack Carr, which just came out last week. Jack,
I want to share with you a listener text that just.
Speaker 4 (09:02):
Came in Ross. I bought Jack's book on Saturday.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
I was serving at US European Command Headquarters in Germany
supporting the J two J three staff as an intelligence
officer when the bombings occurred. My focus was the Russians
and the East Germans at the time. I'm looking forward
to reading the book as I still have vivid memories
of those bombings and how our staffs went to work
to figure out who did it.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
Yeah, I mean this was a turning point in our
relationship with the Middle East in general, which is why
it's so important to go back to this time. But
even more important is humanizing these stories. The guys that
were there on the ground got to talk to someone
at Chaplin, who was the last person pulled alive from
the rebel five hours later, who's on that fourth deck
wrote it all the way down, ends up trapped in
(09:48):
the darkness, unable to move, slowly getting crushed by two
walls that had fallen almost like an a frame right
above over him, just barely giving him room to breathe,
that are air full of dust. Has the he had
a conversation with God, in argument with God as the chaplain,
and he thinks back to Louis Lamore novels that he
had read about miners and cowboys and Caven's and he's
(10:09):
the last person pulled alive from the rubble. Or Don
Howell who spends the night in the basement and the
building collapses on top of him and he.
Speaker 3 (10:16):
Closes his eyes, says a prayer opens.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
Him and there's a tiny shaft of light coming through
and then he digs his way out of that rubble.
So humanizing this being able to talk to these guys,
I had them on my podcast as well, so people
can hear these stories in their own voice. That was
of vital importance. Samanda James, as we started this and
wanted to approach it in a very thoughtful manner, thoughtful,
respectful because there's so many people obviously still alive who
(10:40):
are dealing with the still dealing today with the physical
and emotional trauma of that day. And then the family
members of those who have had an empty seat at
the dinner table ever since October twenty third, nineteen eighty three.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Folks, Jack's podcasts are all great.
Speaker 4 (10:53):
There's a bunch of ways to get to him.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
You can go to Officialjackcar dot com and find the
podcast there, Danger close Pods. What are your other favorite
ways for people to find your podcasts? And then we'll
keep going with the topic.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
Oh yeah, it's on YouTube, Spotify, Apple, but you can
get them through the through the website Officialjackcar dot com.
But hearing this in their own voices, there's something about
hearing it from someone who is trapped in that rubble,
someone who dug themselves out, or from Arnie Resnakoff, a
rabbis who's there and is one of the first responders
on scene with another chaplain digging through the rubble, administering
(11:26):
last rites, trying to save as many people as they
possibly can. And another parallel today when we're talking about
this event, is that Abby Gate. Once again, we have
a bomb that goes off similar to what we had
happened in Beirut. They're in a tactically disadvantageous position, untenable position.
But a similar thing also it gives me hope is
that those that are blown off their feet by this
blast or hear it from across the compound or across
(11:49):
the airfield, they came running to the sound of that
explosion to save as many of their brothers and in
the case of Abbygate, sisters and arms as well as
they possibly could. Also, in the case of Abbegate, as
many innocent Afghan cillis as they possibly could, while others
are holding security because they didn't know if it was
just like in Beirut, the.
Speaker 3 (12:04):
First of many attacks to come.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
So it's heart wrenching, but there's also hope in that
it's one of the greatest rescue stories really in modern
US history, because there was nothing that these guys had
except their bare hands and kabar knives and a couple
of shovels to dig through this rubble on a race
against time to save as many of their brothers in
arms as they possibly could.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
I learned a lot from this book, and one of
the things that I learned that in a way I
wish I didn't learn. I mean, I'm always glad to
learn things, but the saga seems like a pretty significant
failure by Ronald Reagan, who is a guy that I
hadn't really thought of as particular having failed at anything really,
(12:46):
And my first vote for president was for Reagan in
his re election, and I realized, nobody's perfect. It's just
we've had such terrible president since then. But talk a
little bit about Reagan and his role here.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
Yeah, that was one of the things as well that
I didn't know about it.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
I got to look at some of his diaries never
before published. Excerpts are in the book, and what I
got a real sense of in in researching, and this
is what a.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
Big heart he had.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
And you can you can hear it in his voice
when he when he talks, when he addresses the American
people in the aftermath of this event, in the photos
that you see in him going to the White the
Correspondence dinner and saying that he's going to save his
speech for next year after being there to when when
bodies come back from Beirut, and you just got a
(13:36):
sense of what a big heart this guy had. You
also find out a little bit more about him is
being an actor. I think that he wanted that crowd,
that audience to like him, which means that he also
didn't like infighting in the cabinet, and in the situation
like this, having advisors argue it out have knocked down
drag out fights would probably have been official in getting
(13:58):
a better understanding of where you're committing US forces and
what position you're putting them in.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
But he didn't like that.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
And I talked to Michael Reagan about this actually, and
he told me that this event haunted his father until
the day that he died.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
One of the things that I really came away with
a strong sense of from your book is just following
up on the thing you just said about Reagan not
liking conflict among his advisors, the next step from him
not liking the conflict is it led him to be
indecisive on some issues where making a decision was really important,
and perhaps arguably the time loss due to indecision. You
(14:36):
don't argue directly, but you raised the possibility that Reagan's
indecision could have been a cause a cause, maybe not
the cause, but maybe the cause of everything the Americans
went through in Beirut.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
Well, certainly putting these marines there in the first place
and essentially made them targets. They were the symbol of
American might in the region, the US Marine Corps which
target on their back, which just got bigger and bigger
with each passing day as the situation continued to deteriorate
around them. But we had in the aftermath of this
event is even more important though, when it comes to
what happened next over the next four decades, and that's
(15:12):
no response from the US, A.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
Lot of tough talk out of the White House.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
And then we leave in nineteen eighty four as quietly
as we possibly can as we move into that election cycle,
essentially for Reagan and the administration.
Speaker 3 (15:27):
So what did that teach Iran?
Speaker 2 (15:29):
It taught them that terrorism works, and we've been seeing
the effects of that ever since.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
So we got about four minutes left, and I think
because you put so much emphasis on humanizing this story,
I think I'd like to take these last few minutes.
Speaker 4 (15:45):
I'm going to ask you about a couple of particular
stories in the book.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
And if you're just joining, we're talking with Jack Carr
about his incredible new book, Targeted Bay Route, which has
become shockingly timely with everything going on in Israel and Lebanon.
Right now, tell us a little bit about Corman Brian
Earle and his marriage.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
Oh my goodness, Well, this is one that we'd heard
about in the couple in the year and a half
that we were working on this, And then I went
to the fortieth anniversary commemoration events and was asked to
be a guest speaker there last year, so in October
of twenty twenty three.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
And of course, at this point the book is done.
At that point.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
Now it's just going through all the notes and confirming
things and editing and going.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
Through that whole process.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
But at that event, so many people came up to us,
and it was so humbling because they trusted us with
this story. And then the words started to spread that
this story's finally getting told. And a lot of these
guys thought, and I'd say almost to a man, that
the Marine Corps moved on very quickly in the aftermath
of this event, and no one really has told their story.
They feel almost forgotten about because so few people actually
(16:48):
served there. This wasn't World War Two that impacted directly
a generation, or even Vietnam, where you were aware of
what's going on overseas and then seeing the seal, the
chaos in the streets of America in the late sixth
They're a very small group of Marines who were impacted
by this, and so so many people came up to
us to tell their stories, and this is what we'd
heard about but couldn't really confirm.
Speaker 3 (17:09):
And then we found out about Earl and.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
His his his wedding and he hadn't done the paperwork,
and then what has to happen to make his wife
a UF citizen, And we end up tracking her down
and getting to talk to her and tell that story
in the book, and putting a wedding photo in there,
and doing those things really meant a lot to these
to the Beirut veterans who felt really abandoned in the
(17:32):
wake of this. So it was extremely humbling to tell
these stories, and a lot of responsibility too, because in
a fiction and thrillers, if I make a mistake, not
saying that I ever have, but if I ever did,
I can just.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
Say, oh, it's ficted.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
But you don't have that luxury with a nonfic, especially
when you're dealing with people who lost loved ones and
people who are still alive.
Speaker 3 (17:49):
They were digging for their buddies through the rubble. But
really the emotional heart of this.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
Story is doctor John Hudson, and that's because we had
over six hundred letters that he wrote home and audio
cassettes that he had sent home, and he was like
the uh, like the Hawkeye in mash And for those
in the military, they know doctors are a little bit
different breed.
Speaker 3 (18:07):
They go to a couple of weeks.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
School to kind of learn to put their uniform on correctly,
but you're not really concerned about that. You just want
a good doctor, or in the case of the dentist,
you want to have someone who can do a good root canal.
And in this case, we had doctor John Hudson who
had had a premonition that something was coming and he
prepared his two friends, two dentists, for a mass casualty event.
And when this happens, unfortunately, doctor John Hudson is killed,
(18:28):
and these two dentists have to stand up in the
wake of this event and become really the leaders of
the rescue and recovery operations, something for which they were
only trained for because of doctor John Hudson. And so
you really got to know him, got to know his widow,
his son will and it's just it's a heartbreaking story.
But we got to bring that story to life. And
(18:49):
and and here also from everybody else about doctor John
Hudson and what an amazing guy he was.
Speaker 3 (18:53):
So he's really the emotional heart of this story.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
And that's because we had so many letters and got
to hear his works and really felt like we got
to know him over the course of the last couple
of years.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
I'll tell you what, I have multiple listeners asking the
same question that you do address in the book, and
it's not really one of those humanizing things, but since
so many people want to ask, I'm going to ask,
is it true that the Marines were not allowed to
have bullets in their guns? And this is a question
I was going to ask you anyway, because I was
(19:23):
really frustrated with that part of the story.
Speaker 4 (19:25):
I have to say I wanted to yell at the
colonel through your book.
Speaker 3 (19:28):
Yeah, no, it's a tough one.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
And we sent this to Colonel Garrity as well, and
he was He was incredibly helpful during the during this time,
an amazing, amazing guy. And there were some certainly tactical
mistakes made that Hopefully we've learned some of those, the
strategic ones, I feel that we have not, but some
of the tactical ones. Of course, you have a hardening
of bases and embassies around around the world over the
(19:52):
last few decades, not not all of them in the
wake of nine to eleven, of course, with bigger budgets
and more and a larger focus on terrorism, a lot
of what happens, but yeah, that is true. They were
certainly put in a position where the rules of engagement
hindered any sort of response, immediate or otherwise, which is heartbreaking.
But also in the wake of this, he took full
accountability for all of it, which is a lessons thing
(20:14):
we don't see coming out of Abbygate in Afghanistan. Zero
accountability for that as everyone's promoted involved in that or
moves on to work on boards of defense's industry companies,
no one held accountable. Colonel Garrity was held accountable and
got to send him this at a time and he
was in full support. Gave a blurb said thank you
for writing this. But was also amazing is at that
(20:36):
fortieth anniversary event, everyone who was there stood up gave
him a standing ovation and talked about how they would
follow him anywhere, which is also very telling.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
All right, give me a nine second answer on this
listener wants to know if you have a suggestion reading
the book versus the audio version of the book.
Speaker 3 (20:53):
Oh my goodness. People digest things in different ways.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
But the audiobook rape orter who does my thrillers also
did this, texted me he said. He said, He's like,
dang it, you made me cry multiple times, Sir, I've
never had that happen before. You made me cry multiple
times as I'm trying to record this. So Braver brings
things to life. So I highly recommend the audio on
this one as well.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
Jack Carr's new book is called Targeted Beyroot. It's his
first nonfiction event, and I'm sure there will be more
in this Targeted series.
Speaker 4 (21:20):
It is a must read.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
You will enjoy reading the book as much as you
can enjoy reading.
Speaker 4 (21:25):
About a terrible story.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
But the history that you will learn in this book
really really matters for today. Jack Carr, thanks as always
for another tremendous book.
Speaker 4 (21:33):
Appreciate your friendship, Thank you for your service to our country.
Speaker 3 (21:37):
Thanks so much for having me on. I appreciate it.
Hope I'll see you soon.
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