BODYBAGS

"… When Colonel Geraghty was asked whether he ever anticipated a suicide attack, he was categoric in his answer: "No, no. It was new, unprecedented. We had received over 100 car-bomb threats-pickup trucks, ambulances, UN vehicles, myriad types. Those… things we had taken appropriate countermeasures toward. But never the sheer magnitude of the 5-ton dump truck going 50-60 miles an hour with an explosive force from 12,000 to 16,000 pounds. [That] was simply beyond the capability to offer any defense. When was the last time you heard of a bomb that size?"

-- Referring to the suicide attack in Beirut against the US Marines barracks which killed 241 US servicemen. Marine Corps Oral History Collection. Interview conducted May 28, 1983 related in From Beirut to Jerusalem by Thomas Friedman, pg. 204, © 1989.