When Reagan Sent in the Marines

The Invasion of Lebanon

By: Patrick J. Sloyan

Narrated by: Richard Poe

Length: 6 hrs and 16 mins

Publisher's Summary

From a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who reported on the events as they happened, an action-packed account of Reagan's failures in the 1983 Marines barracks bombing in Beirut.

On October 23, 1983, a truck bomb destroyed the US Marines barracks in Beirut. Two hundred and forty-one Americans were killed in the worst terrorist attack our nation would suffer until 9/11. We're still feeling the repercussions today. 

When Reagan Sent In the Marines tells why the Marines were there, how their mission became confused and compromised, and how President Ronald Reagan used another misguided military venture to distract America from the attack and his many mistakes leading up to it. 

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Patrick J. Sloyan uses his own contemporaneous reporting, his close relationships with the Marines in Beirut, recently declassified documents, and interviews with key players, including Reagan's top advisers, to shine a new light on the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and Reagan's doomed ceasefire in Beirut. 

Sloyan draws on interviews with key players to explore the actions of Kissinger and Haig, while revealing the courage of Marine Colonel Timothy Geraghty, who foresaw the disaster in Beirut, but whom Reagan would later blame for it. 

More than 35 years later, America continues to wrestle with Lebanon, the Marines with the legacy of the Beirut bombing, and all of us with the threat of Mideast terror that the attack furthered. When Reagan Sent In The Marines is about a historical moment, but one that remains all too present today.

©2019 Patrick J. Sloyan (P)2019 Recorded Books

Makes me rethink the Reagan’s quote about the Marines

A good history regarding the Marines in Lebanon. I am not a history buff but paints a different picture I had of a president that I respected because of his other actions during that time period.

Tells another story of how the military sometimes is the scapegoat for another’s higher political ambition.

Well Documented With Disturbing Details

Better than I expected. Much of this was unsettling, but it was written well. I am familiar with the events of October 23, 1983, much more than I would like to be. What I was not aware of was the back story; understanding earlier events makes it so much easier to understand what happened at that time of the bombíng. As a result, the tragedy is amplified. The only critique I would make is that there wasn't enough written about the Marines who were at the BIA prior to and at the time of the bombíng. I knew some of them. And I knew some of the dead. It would have been nice to have some of their stories told.