Exclusive: Bestselling author Jack Carr shares excerpt from 'Beirut,' his new nonfiction book on terror

FIRST ON FOX: Editors' note: New York Times bestselling writer and erstwhile U.S. Navy SEAL sniper Jack Carr has teamed up with Pulitzer Prize finalist James M. Scott for a bid of nonfiction books that research cardinal violent events astir the satellite that changed the people of history.  

The archetypal book successful the series, "Targeted: The 1983 Beirut Barracks Bombing," is published this week, connected Sept. 24, 2024, by Atria Books/Emily Bestler Books, a part of Simon & Schuster — and readers of Fox News tin drawback an exclusive preview up of the authoritative release. 

"Those who person work my James Reece ‘Terminal List’ bid oregon who travel maine connected societal media cognize the importance I spot connected history, peculiarly the past of warfare, terrorism, insurgencies, counterinsurgencies and peculiar operations," Carr antecedently told Fox News Digital successful an interview.

JACK CARR, BESTSELLING AUTHOR AND FORMER SEAL, ANNOUNCES NONFICTION SERIES, ‘TARGETED,’ ON TERROR EVENTS 

The panic onslaught connected the Marine Corps barracks successful Beirut successful Oct. 1983 killed 241 U.S. subject personnel, including 220 Marines, 18 sailors and 3 soldiers. Another termination bombing conscionable moments afterward killed 58 French paratroopers; six guiltless Lebanese civilians were besides killed. 

By peculiar arrangement, present is an exclusive excerpt from the caller publication astir the devastating onslaught — 41 years agone this autumn — by Jack Carr and James M. Scott. It's already been deemed "required reading." 

Exclusive excerpt from ‘Targeted: The 1983 Beirut Barracks Bombing’ by Jack Carr and James M. Scott

The archetypal airy of dawn stretched crossed the Beirut entity astatine 5:24 a.m. that Sunday, Oct. 23, 1983.

Colonel Geraghty climbed retired of his bunk a fewer minutes later, pulled connected his azygous and boots, and washed his look with acold water. 

Jack Carr's newest book, co-authored with James M. Scott, is "Targeted: The 1983 Beirut Barracks Bombing and the Untold True Origin Story of the War connected Terror," from which this exclusive excerpt is drawn. The publication is published connected Sept. 24, 2024.  (Jack Carr/Simon & Schuster )

The Marine commandant lived connected the 2nd platform of what had erstwhile been the airport’s firefighting school, a two-story factual operation successful the shadiness of the overmuch larger gathering that present housed the Battalion Landing Team headquarters. 

Geraghty walked downstairs to the Command Operations Center, wherever helium checked successful with the ticker serviceman and thumbed done the latest communications. 

"Saturday night," helium recalled, "had been, by Lebanese standards, comparatively quiet."

The colonel stepped outside, wherever the greeting somesthesia hovered astir seventy-seven degrees. A fewer Marines returned from patrol portion a fistful of others prepared for carnal training. It was astir tranquil. Reveille, which usually blared astatine 5:30 a.m., would dependable astatine 6:30 a.m., giving troops an other hr of shut-eye. 

The archetypal airy of dawn stretched crossed the Beirut entity astatine 5:24 a.m. that Sunday, Oct. 23, 1983.

"Sunday is my favourite day," Hudson erstwhile declared, "because I get to slumber arsenic precocious arsenic I want." Brunch would travel from 8 a.m. until 10 a.m., a dainty that included omelets. 

The Navy Broadcasting Service planned a 1:55 p.m. showing of the Los Angeles Raiders versus the Washington Redskins — a crippled that had played unrecorded twenty-one days earlier — followed that evening by the 1960 Western "The Magnificent Seven," starring Yul Brenner and Steven McQueen. 

"Sunday was usually the time radical could expect speechmaking a book, penning a letter, oregon passing a shot around," remembered Staff Sergeant Randy Gaddo. "Later successful the afternoon, everyone would usually bask a cookout, featuring hamburgers and blistery dogs with each the trimmings."

Gaddo was 1 of the fewer up early. Even though it was Sunday, the "Root Scoop" editor had 8 rolls of movie helium wanted to make successful his photograph laboratory up connected the 3rd level of the Battalion Landing Team headquarters. 

The caller nonfiction publication by No. 1 bestselling writer Jack Carr, pictured here, is based connected broad interviews with survivors and extended subject records, arsenic good arsenic idiosyncratic letters, diaries and photographs. The publication is the authoritative relationship of the deadly onslaught that occurred successful Oct. 1983.   (Jack Carr/Simon & Schuster)

The erstwhile eight-page newspaper, which had landed among the troops conscionable 3 days earlier, featured a roundup of the escalating sniper attacks against American forces, including the caller sidesplitting of Soifert and Ohler and the wounding of 8 others. 

In the play "Chaplain’s Corner" column, Father George Pucciarelli drew from the Old Testament publication of Ecclesiastes to connection comfortableness for the Marines successful these unsafe times. 

"Life is dear," the clergyman reminded readers, "but eternal beingness is dearer."

Gaddo near his structure for the office building, a way helium had done truthful galore times that helium knew it took him conscionable fifty-one seconds. Like Geraghty, helium noted the quiet; absent was the mean soundtrack of artillery and gunfire. 

At the past moment, Gaddo decided to dilatory down. It was, aft all, Sunday morning. Why rush? 

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Besides, helium could usage a cupful of coffee. He diverted to the Combat Operations Center, wherever helium poured a mug of acheronian brew, sweetening it with a mates of scoops of sugar. Coffee successful hand, helium returned to his tent, wherever helium sat astatine his tiny tract table and began to jot down notes. 

"The birds were singing louder than I’ve ever heard birds sing," Gaddo recalled. "It was similar a symphony."

Lance Corporal Burnham Matthews had conscionable returned from an all-night information patrol astir the southbound broadside of the airport, wherever the Marines had fanned retired on the perimeter to intercept anyone who mightiness infiltrate the compound. 

"The birds were singing louder than I’ve ever heard birds sing. It was similar a symphony."

The towering Texan climbed 3 flights of stairs and turned near toward the third-floor country helium shared with 5 different Marines connected the building’s northbound side, anxious to illness connected his cot. 

Once inside, Corporal Kenny Farnan, who was headed downstairs to shave, pointed to Burnham’s M16.

"Your firearm is filthy," helium advised him. "You request to cleanable your firearm earlier you spell to bed."

"Okay, Corporal," Matthews replied, sitting down astatine the woody table by the window, wherever helium began to field-strip his M16, opening with the rifle’s sling. 

Followed by the handguards. Then the bolt assembly.

Pulitzer Prize finalist and subject historiographer James M. Scott is co-author of the caller publication with Jack Carr, "Targeted: The 1983 Beirut Barracks Bombing and the Untold True Origin Story of the War connected Terror."  (Jack Carr/Simon & Schuster)

In the country adjacent door, Sergeant Pablo Arroyo was besides up and cleaning his rifle. "You don’t know," the autochthonal Puerto Rican said, "what the time is going to bring."

Unlike Matthews and Arroyo, astir of the 350 Marines, sailors, and soldiers crowded wrong the towering Beirut Hilton inactive slumbered. The men dozing successful military-issued sleeping bags came from a wide scope of taste and spiritual backgrounds. 

Troops hailed from large cities similar New York, Philadelphia, and Dallas arsenic good arsenic tiny towns, from Michigan’s Fire Lake to Little Mountain, South Carolina, location to conscionable 282 residents. 

Some had grown up connected sprawling farms portion others came from congested inner-city nationalist lodging projects. Education ranged from precocious schoolhouse to aesculapian school. 

The building, and the men dreaming successful it, represented a cross-section of America. Traces of the men’s lives were captured successful photographs of wives, girlfriends, and children taped to factual walls and tucked wrong worn wallets.

Traces of the men’s lives were captured successful photographs of wives, girlfriends, and children taped to factual walls and tucked wrong worn wallets.

Chaplain Wheeler, who had baptized First Sergeant David Battle the time before, snoozed successful his fourth-floor bunk successful the northeast country of the building. Steps distant connected the aforesaid floor, Hudson slept arsenic helium ever did, with his close manus implicit his face, thenar facing upward. 

Down connected the 2nd level dozed Lance Corporal Emanuel Simmons, who had gone to furniture the nighttime earlier dressed successful his boots and flak jacket. When helium woke up successful the mediate of the nighttime to usage the head, helium opted to portion down to conscionable his agelong underwear. 

Up connected the building’s roof, Corporal Joseph Martucci and others stretched retired successful sleeping bags, portion 5 stories beneath successful the building’s basement, Hospital Corpsman Third Class Don Howell resisted the impulse to find a urinal arsenic helium tried to drawback conscionable a fewer much minutes of quiescent atop a cot successful the Battalion Aid Station. 

A late-night alert had sent Howell to the basement. After the all-clear, helium had decided to stay wherever helium was alternatively of hiking backmost up to his fourth-floor bunk. 

Throughout the building, galore of the Marines, who disliked sleeping successful uncomfortable canine tags, had slipped them off, depositing them connected bedside tables, dangling them from the borderline of their cots, oregon lacing them up successful the beforehand of their dusty boots.

Security that greeting fell to a fistful of guards stationed astatine 7 outposts that encircled the compound. Lance Corporal Eddie DiFranco manned station six, 1 of 2 sandbagged positions that protected the southbound broadside of the building. 

Linkkila, precocious promoted to a lance corporal, guarded neighboring station 7 astir forty feet away. A enactment of concertina ligament divided the Marine compound from an adjacent airdrome parking lot, which was often utilized by transportation trucks and civilians, including kids who played shot and families who occasionally picnicked. 

On the weekends, galore Marines liked to portion disconnected their shirts and flip the shot alongside the barbed wire, hoping to impressment the charismatic Lebanese women who gathered connected the other side. Dressed successful helmets and flak vests, the Marines, who had been connected work since 4 a.m., carried night-vision goggles and M16s. 

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To forestall accidental discharges, Colonel Geraghty had ordered his men to support their rifles unloaded.

It had been an uneventful greeting for the guards. The lone enactment was the little quality of a lone stake-bed truck. It had entered the parking batch with its lights disconnected astir 5 a.m. 

The motortruck looked similar a transportation conveyance and was a communal show successful Beirut, peculiarly adjacent the airport. It circled the batch and departed, continuing southbound down the perimeter roadworthy toward the terminal.

The guards relaxed.

Thirty much minutes passed. Then an hour.

Corporal Farnan emerged from the building. Dirty and sweaty aft being retired each night, helium walked implicit to the h2o buffalo, a portable trailer wherever helium could brushwood his teeth and shave. 

"That’s the archetypal time," Farnan recalled, "that I ever near my firearm behind."

Shortly past 6:15 a.m., a 2nd motortruck pulled into the lot, which the greeting airy revealed to beryllium a yellowish Mercedes. It appeared to beryllium a akin vehicle, if not the aforesaid motortruck that had entered and past departed the batch an hr earlier. 

The motortruck turned west, paralleling the concertina wire, arsenic the driver, similar before, looped the lot. Unlike earlier, DiFranco heard the rev of the Mercedes’s motor arsenic the relation shifted into a higher cogwheel and accrued speed. 

"He was wearing a bluish garment and had the grin of a brainsick idiosyncratic connected his look erstwhile helium looked astatine me."

The operator past executed a crisp crook northbound and aimed his five-ton motortruck consecutive toward the ligament barrier. Something felt wrong.

DiFranco rammed a mag into his firearm and chambered a circular arsenic the motortruck crashed done the barbed wire, producing a popping sound that survivors would aboriginal archer investigators resembled gunfire. The Mercedes accelerated, charging crossed the 450 feet that separated the concertina ligament from the building. 

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Before DiFranco could enarthrosis his M16, the motortruck blew past him, the relation gripping the instrumentality with some hands. 

"I caught lone a glimpse of the operator arsenic helium passed by," DiFranco wrote successful a handwritten memo for investigators. "He was wearing a bluish garment and had the grin of a brainsick person connected his look erstwhile helium looked astatine me."

In adjacent station seven, Linkkila had lone concisely served arsenic a guard, his punishment for getting into a fight. His archetypal motion of occupation came erstwhile the motortruck tore done the wire, but similar DiFranco, helium simply couldn’t load his firearm accelerated enough.

"I would person emptied the mag into the truck," helium aboriginal testified to Congress, "but determination wasn’t immoderate time."

Bestselling writer Jack Carr's archetypal nonfiction publication is retired this week. "The full onslaught had taken conscionable 10 seconds," helium writes successful the publication astir the Beirut bombing of Oct. 1983. "The blast, which investigators aboriginal determined exceeded 12,000 tons of TNT, proved much than six times arsenic almighty arsenic the 1 utilized against the American Embassy successful April." (Jack Carr)

Sergeant of the Guard Stephen Russell manned the building’s entranceway successful a plywood shack reminiscent of a summons booth, though reinforced with a treble partition of sandbags. 

The twenty-eight-year-old Massachusetts native, who had followed his 2 older brothers into the Marine Corps, had been connected work since 8 p.m. the nighttime before. 

His M16 was propped against the partition of his defender shack. He wore a 1911A1 .45-caliber pistol connected his web belt. Russell faced the wrong of the gathering arsenic helium chatted with a chap Marine who was astir to caput retired for a jog erstwhile helium heard the commotion down him. 

He wheeled astir arsenic the motortruck threaded a way betwixt defender posts six and 7 and past swerved astir respective metallic sewer pipes that had been strategically placed successful an effort to forestall conscionable specified an attack. 

Follow Jack Carr connected Instagram astatine https://www.instagram.com/jackcarrusa

The Mercedes, present traveling successful excess of thirty-five miles per hour, bore down connected him.

"What is that motortruck doing wrong the perimeter?" helium thought.

Then helium realized.

"Get the f--- outta here!" helium hollered astatine the Marine adjacent to him.

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Russell served arsenic the past enactment of an intolerable defence — 1 antheral equipped with a handgun lasting betwixt a violent successful a five-ton motortruck weaponry and hundreds of sleeping Marines and sailors. There was thing helium could do.

"Hit the deck!" Russell shouted arsenic helium charged retired of his guardhouse and raced northbound crossed the building’s atrium. "Hit the deck!"

Farnan, who seconds earlier had washed his face, darted toward the gathering but instinctively stopped. "I conscionable watched it spell in," helium remembered. "Went close successful the lobby."

The nonfiction publication is published this week. "The demolition was contiguous and catastrophic," Carr and Scott constitute astir the 1983 onslaught connected U.S. Marines. "The building’s unfastened interior architecture, capped by a extortion that functioned similar the cork connected a champagne bottle, trapped and magnified the devastating violence. The detonation blew retired the bottommost of the building, driving the factual slab 8 feet into the earth."  (Jack Carr/Simon & Schuster; iStock)

Russell looked backmost implicit his enarthrosis arsenic helium ran to spot the Mercedes obliterate the defender shack and penetrate the building’s atrium, spraying soil crossed the level of the lobby. The motortruck came to a abrupt stop, snagged connected the atrium’s overhang. Silence followed. One 2nd turned to two. 

"Son of a b----," Russell said of the terrorist. "He did it."

The timepiece successful the basement recorded the precise infinitesimal of detonation: 6:21:26 a.m.

The full onslaught had taken conscionable 10 seconds.

The blast, which investigators aboriginal determined exceeded 12,000 tons of TNT, proved much than six times arsenic almighty arsenic the 1 utilized against the American Embassy successful April. 

"The FBI Forensic Laboratory," a Pentagon study aboriginal noted, "described the weaponry arsenic the largest accepted blast ever seen by the explosive experts community." 

For those connected the ground, the split-second detonation, which would termination and maim hundreds, proved unimaginable. 

For those connected the ground, the split-second detonation, which would termination and maim hundreds, proved unimaginable. 

"It was," arsenic 1 subsister aboriginal recounted, "like each atom successful the beingness blew apart."

The demolition was contiguous and catastrophic. The building’s unfastened interior architecture, capped by a extortion that functioned similar the cork connected a champagne bottle, trapped and magnified the devastating violence. The detonation blew retired the bottommost of the building, driving the factual slab 8 feet into the earth. 

At the aforesaid time, the blast tore the precocious 3 floors disconnected the factual enactment columns, each with a fifteen-foot circumference and supported by 13⁄4-inch robust rebar. 

"The building," 1 study concluded, "then imploded upon itself and collapsed toward its weakest constituent — its sheared undergirding."

The Beirut barracks panic onslaught connected U.S. Marines successful Oct. 1983, said U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken past year, was the "single deadliest time for the U.S. Marine Corps since the Battle of Iwo Jima." (Reuters/Evelyn Hockstein/Pool)

Up connected the roof, Corporal Martucci, who had heard the archetypal furor acold below, started to beryllium up successful his sleeping container conscionable arsenic the weaponry exploded. 

"We saw the halfway of the extortion really lift, stroke out," the corporal recalled. "We had wrapped ourselves successful our sleeping bags; I conjecture it was instinct owed to the noise, but we rode the extortion down aft that."

Sergeant Arroyo, cleaning his firearm connected the 3rd deck, heard what helium thought was gunfire, a communal dependable successful the Lebanese capital. 

"It’s Beirut," helium said to himself. "That’s similar a rooster croaking successful Puerto Rico successful the morning." 

Next door, Lance Corporal Matthews caught the commotion arsenic helium reassembled his M16. "There is thing going on," Matthews hollered to different Marine successful his room. "Wake everybody up."

Matthews ne'er heard the bomb’s explosion, but helium saw a agleam orangish flash arsenic the escaping unreserved of unit tore the doorway disconnected its hinges, lifted him retired of his chair, and hurtled him done the window. Matthews flipped implicit erstwhile successful the aerial and past landed connected his feet 3 stories below, wherever helium collapsed and rolled to a stop. 

"I was pinned. I couldn’t move. I didn’t cognize what happened."

He climbed backmost up onto his feet. "I turned astir and looked," Matthews remembered, "and the gathering was gone."

Matthews was 1 of the fortunate ones.

The detonation had thrown him wide of the building, where, similar an accordion, the 4th level had collapsed upon the third, followed by the second, and past the crushed floor. 

Corporal Farnan was 1 of the fewer to witnesser the building’s disintegration. The blast unit had ripped his garment off, knocked the upwind retired of him, and tossed him against a adjacent curb. 

He struggled to respire arsenic factual fragments rained down connected him and a unreality of particulate roseate into the sky. 

"I was successful the oculus of a hurricane," Farnan said. "I can’t judge I wasn’t killed." 

Hundreds of Marines and sailors laic buried beneath the rubble of a gathering that seconds earlier had been their home. 

Many were dead, crushed nether tons of pancaked factual and rebar — men who had gone to sleep, ne'er to aftermath up.

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Others, however, had survived, trapped beneath cots, desks, and toppled walls that for the infinitesimal shielded them from the onerous value of the wreckage.

Hospital Corpsman Don Howell, connected a cot successful the basement, heard what sounded similar the roar of a freight bid arsenic the gathering came down connected apical of him. 

A portion of factual struck him successful the close eye. 

"It felt similar a boulder," helium said. "That’s erstwhile I turned astir and tried to screen my head." 

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Lance Corporal Simmons, who had been dormant connected the 2nd floor, struggled to recognize what happened. 

"I ne'er heard the blast, ne'er felt myself falling," helium said. "I couldn’t spot thing and each I felt was dirt." 

Chaplain Wheeler, who had been dormant connected the 4th floor, experienced the same. 

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"I didn’t perceive anything," helium remembered. "Next happening I knew, I woke up beneath the level and beneath the debris — buried. That’s erstwhile I archetypal realized things weren’t right. I was pinned. I couldn’t move. I didn’t cognize what happened."

The timepiece present ticked connected their survival.

Excerpted from "Targeted: Beirut: The 1983 Marine Barracks Bombing and the Untold Origin Story of the War connected Terror" by Jack Carr and James M. Scott, published by Emily Bestler Books/Atria, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. Copyright © by Rainsford Consulting LLC. All rights reserved. By peculiar arrangement.