Few know how to deal with another's sorrow. On a long ago Autumn day, not unlike any other brisk day in late 1983, I received a call. My caller said a close mutual friend, Kevin, was believed killed in a shocking bombing in southern Beirut, Lebanon. Kevin was a Marine slain by a suicide bomber who drove a non-descript truck laden with the equivalent of six tons of explosives. Upon detonation, the Marines' quarters collapsed in a cloud of acrid smoke, fire, and mammoth blocks of rubble. 241 Marines died that day and many, many more were critically wounded, sent to hospitals across the region.
