Semper Fi Society plans local memorial for 241 killed in Beirut attack

The dead included Lance Cpl. John Blocker of Yulee, Staff Sgt. Patrick Prindeville of Gainesville and Lance Cpl. Nathaniel Jenkins of Daytona Beach — three of 220 Marines, 18 Navy sailors and three Army soldiers killed Oct. 23, 1983, when a Hezbollah suicide bomber attacked the four-story Marine barracks in Beirut.

A memorial for them, emblazoned with "They Came In Peace," is outside Camp Gilbert H. Johnson, part of Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, in Jacksonville, N.C.

Now the Semper Fidelis Society wants to erect one at Evergreen Cemetery in Jacksonville, and founder and Marine Corps Reconnaissance Battalion veteran Robert Adelhelm said it is long overdue to honor them.

"I served in Beirut, and I lost a lot of friends in the building," Adelhelm said. "The reason for the memorial is to remember it all. It has always bothered me that there is nothing in Jacksonville to remember. This memorial we will put up is the first in Florida to honor those killed in that building. Of those 220 Marines, 22 are from Florida, everyplace from Yulee to Daytona and Miami. We want to make sure we honor those Marines."

The Lebanon bombing was the largest loss of life in a single action since the Vietnam War of the 1960s and the worst for the Marines since World War II's Iwo Jima assault. The memorial also would remember the 1983 invasion of Grenada in Operation Urgent Fury, which began two days after the Beirut bombing, said Adelhelm, the society's first president when the local marine support organization was formed in 1999.

The planned monument will be a 4-foot-tall, 3-foot-wide granite block with the large bronze eagle, globe and anchor Marine Corps emblem over a plaque memorializing the Beirut dead. Organizers plan to have it installed Oct 23, then dedicated Nov. 10 at the annual Semper Fidelis Society Memorial ceremony that also rededicates its Fleet Marine Force monument installed there in 2004.

The society needs $12,000 to erect the monument at the cemetery on North Main Street. Anyone who wants to contribute can send a donation to Semper Fidelis Society, Attn: Beirut Memorial, PO Box 28188, Jacksonville, FL 32226, or go to the group's Facebook at facebook.com/jaxsemperfi/.

Dan Scanlan: (904) 359-4549