Combat· Lebanon Multinational Force (Beirut Bombing)
Multinational Force in Lebanon-Phase II
The second Marine phase in Beirut was the "presence" mission that defined the deployment and led it into tragedy.
Having returned to the city after the assassination of Lebanon's president-elect and the massacres in the Palestinian refugee camps, the Marines took up positions around Beirut International Airport as part of the Multinational Force, charged with supporting the Lebanese government and lending stability by their mere presence rather than by combat. The mission was ambiguous from the start, the Marines were neither at war nor at peace, occupying exposed positions amid a multi-sided civil war whose factions increasingly came to see them as a party to the conflict. Over months the situation deteriorated from watchful presence to sporadic shelling and firefights, the Marines constrained by restrictive rules of engagement even as the danger mounted. This phase carried the deployment from peacekeeping toward the disasters that would follow.
Record no. 654