Remembering D-Day
I was too backed up to post about the anniversary of D-Day, but wanted to jot a few thoughts down. In my post about visiting Fort McHenry, I mentioned how shipyards in Baltimore churned out the Liberty Ships that made D-Day (and the Allied victory) possible. As it happens, I am also in the middle […]
Memorial Day at Fort McHenry
On Memorial Day I visited Fort McHenry in nearby Baltimore, where almost 200 years ago, the Star-Spangled Banner was written after the Fort held out against a British bombardment and prevented a British fleet from entering Baltimore harbor and sacking the city. In studying the history of the fort, it encapsulates the history of what […]
Remembering the Beirut Embassy Bombing: April 18, 1983
Twenty-five years ago today a late model GMC truck packed with explosives slammed into the U.S. Embassy in Beirut and crashing through the lobby door. In his memoir See No Evil former CIA operative Robert Baer, who devoted much of this career to identifying the perpetrators of the bombing, “Even by Beirut standards, it was […]
Anniversary of the Marine Barracks Bombing
Almost a quarter-century ago today a multiple simultaneous suicide bombers struck the barracks of U.S. Marines and French paratroopers who (along with British and Italian soldiers) were attempting to stabilize the war-torn city of Beirut. International terrorism had long been on the world scene since the PLO sky-jackings that started in 1968 and continued throughout […]