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"At approximately 0622 on Sunday, 23 Oct. 1983, the Battalion Landing Team headquarters building in the Marine Amphibious Unit compound at Beirut International Airport was destroyed by a terrorist bomb. The catastrophic attack took the lives of 241 Marines, sailors and soldiers and wounded more than 100 others. The bombing was carried out by one lone terrorist driving a yellow Mercedes Benz stake-bed truck that accelerated through the public parking lot south of the BLT headquarters building, where it exploded. The truck drove over the barbed and concertina wire obstacle, passed between two Marine guard posts without being engaged by fire, entered an open gate, passed around one sewer pipe barrier and between two others, flattened the Sergeant of the Guard's sandbagged booth at the building's entrance, penetrated the lobby of the building and detonated while the majority of the occupants slept. The force of the explosion [12,000 pounds] ripped the building from its foundation. The building then imploded upon itself. Almost all the occupants were crushed or trapped inside the wreckage."
Petty Officer Keys was killed in the terrorist bombing of the Marine Barracks at the Beirut Airport Sunday morning 23 October 1983. To the best of my knowledge Marion was a corpsman assigned to the Battalion Landing Team assigned to the Battalion Aid Station. The BAS was located in the basement of the structure bombed. I knew him when I worked with him at Bethesda Naval Hospital. LCDR Leo Lundquist (Doc)
Petty Officer Keys served on the USS Intrepid 1968 and particpated in the Crossing the Line Cermony and became a shellback. The 1968 Cruise Book shows the Crossing the Line Cermony.
