Terrorism not a new disease

By Deborah Lilly

Retired marine Monte Hoover BA ’73 calls terrorism a disease. Even if one faction is eliminated, another will likely pop up somewhere else.

Hoover has his own painful memories of terrorism. Nearly 20 years ago, he was a company commander in the United States Marines stationed on the outskirts of Beruit, Lebanon. His experience is documented in three photo albums that include pictures of fellow marines who didn’t make it back home.

Hoover and his company were sent to Lebanon on a peacekeeping mission. At that time, Israel had moved north into Lebanon, resulting in frequent skirmishes between the Israelis and different Lebanese factions. The United States hoped to assist in a peaceful resolution. “But people have been warring there for hundreds of years, so I don’t know if it was an attainable mission,” admits Hoover.

On the morning of Oct. 23, 1983, Hoover was on duty at the U.S. military’s airport, about a mile away from the six-story barracks that housed U.S. soldiers, sailors and marines. He had just stepped outside and was gazing toward the barracks when the building exploded.

“It was so large and devastating,” says Hoover. “I remember seeing the mushroom cloud and the debris nearly a mile away. My initial impression was that it was a tactical nuclear warhead, only because I’d never seen anything like that before.”

But it wasn’t a nuclear warhead. Hoover learned later a suicide bomber had driven a truck filled with dynamite strapped around gas cylinders up the front steps and into the foyer of the six-story building. The truck exploded, killing 241 people. Within 10 minutes, the same thing happened at the French military barracks. At that time, it was the worst terrorist attack on Americans ever.

On Sept. 11 Hoover watched another terrorist attack. This time the victims were civilians in a much larger act of violence; but Hoover felt the same frustration — the frustration of seeing something horrible happen and being powerless to stop it.

Hoover supports President Bush’s offensive against terrorism, but he warns that it will be a long journey. Imad Mughniyah, a suspect in the 1983 attack on the military barracks in Lebanon, is still on the “Most Wanted Terrorists” list.

Hoover advises that people should go on with their lives, but at the same time always be aware. “When your guard is down, that’s when you’re the most vulnerable,” he says.