The 24th Marine Amphibious Unit (MAU) landed in Beirut Lebanon on May 29th, 1983, as part of a peacekeeping force during Lebanon’s Civil War. Once ashore, the MAU’s battalion landing team, BLT 1/8, took up positions around Beirut International Airport. Things escalated and the Marines began regularly taking fire. They suffered their first deaths on August 29th when Staff Sergeant Alexander Ortega and Second Lieutenant George Losey were killed by mortar fire. Then on October 23rd, the Marine barracks was attacked by a suicide truck bomber. 241 U.S. personnel were killed. This attack remains the single deadliest day in Marine Corps’ history since Iwo Jima. Jack Carr and James Scott tell the story in “Targeted: Beirut”.

Japan devastated the United States’ fleet with a surprise attack at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on December 7th, 1941. The Japanese followed up on their Pearl Harbor attack by seizing Guam, Wake Island, Hong Kong, Singapore, and the Philippines. The Japanese seemed almost unstoppable while the United States asked itself, “What are we going to do, or what can we do, now?” With direction from President Roosevelt to strike Japan, the United States came up with a plan. On April 18, 1942, sixteen U.S. Army bombers took off from the USS Hornet on a one-way mission to bomb Japan. James Scott explains how this raid was planned and executed in “Target Tokyo: Jimmy Doolittle and the Raid that Avenged Pearl Harbor.” Equally important, Scott explains the outsized impact of the raid on United States’ morale and Japan’s sense of security.

Rhodesia, now called the Republic of Zimbabwe, used to be a self-governing British colony. In November 1965, the Cabinet of Rhodesia unilaterally declared independence from Britain in an effort to preserve white minority rule. The Rhodesian Bush War, also known as the Rhodesian Civil War, followed. It lasted until December 1979. This protracted guerilla war pitted Rhodesia’s globally isolated government against the African nationalist Zimbabwe African Nationalist Union (ZANU) and Zimbabwe African People’s Union. Eventually ZANU prevailed and its leader, Robert Mugabe, was elected Prime Minister in February 1980. Paul Moorcraft and Peter MacLaughlin tell the story in “The Rhodesian War Fifty Years On”.