43 years after Beirut terror attack killed 241 Americans, rabbi recalls chaplains’ extraordinary response

Rabbi Arnold Resnicoff never intended to be in Beirut in Lebanon, on Oct. 23, 1983, when suicide bombers drove explosive-laden trucks into Marine Corps barracks, killing 241 American service members. But as Resnicoff told Fox News Digital, his presence during that event and advocacy thereafter would bring solace and support for a multitude of American service members, leading to his strong belief that "a coincidence is just God acting anonymously."

Tasked to the U.S. Navy’s 6th Fleet, Resnicoff was part of a three-chaplain team supporting service members across 40 ships stationed in the Mediterranean. On Friday, Oct. 21, Resnicoff arrived in Beirut to perform a memorial service for a Jewish Marine who had been killed in the line of duty. Navy leadership wanted to send him back to the boat the following day, but as an observant Jew, he refused to travel on the Sabbath.

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Resnicoff woke early on the morning of Oct. 23 and was brushing his teeth at 6:22 a.m. when his building began to shake violently. As doors came off their hinges and windows exploded, Resnicoff and others took cover on the floor, believing their building had been hit by a rocket or mortars.

When the ruckus stopped, the men began to hear "these terrible, terrible screams" coming from the building 50 yards away from where Protestant minister Danny Wheeler lived with a host of Marines. 

Whenever Resnicoff visited Beirut, he alternated staying with a Catholic chaplain, George Pucciarelli, and Wheeler. Based on his schedule, Resnicoff ought to have stayed at Wheeler’s residence on Friday, but chose instead to stay with Pucciarelli, who had something to discuss with the rabbi. "Who knows what it was we talked about," Resnicoff reminisced. "But that probably saved my life."

As recognition dawned on those around him, Resnicoff watched Pucciarelli put his purple stole around his neck, "probably because he knew he was going to have to say many last rites." Pucciarelli looked at Resnicoff and said, "Follow me."

Outside, Resnicoff said that "the big, four-story building was gone with the smoke." Buried under the rubble were 241 American service members, including 220 Marines, 18 Navy sailors and three Army soldiers. The Navy casualties included "a complete medical detachment," leaving no one "trained medically to help those left alive."

Resnicoff, Pucciarelli and other first responders began working their way through the debris looking for survivors. He said, Pucciarelli "went to one body on the ground, I went to another. We just cradled these wounded men and said, ‘Help is coming.’" Each attended to the men as best they could, ripping apart their clothes to wipe the blood, dirt and dust from their faces. When Resnicoff had torn apart his shirt, he used his Jewish head covering, called a kippah, which soon "got bloody and dirty and lost."

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Eventually, ambulances and helicopters arrived on scene, allowing Pucciarelli and Resnicoff to catch their breaths. Pucciarelli remarked that he had never seen Resnicoff without his head covered. "I told him what happened to my kippah, so he tore a piece of his camouflage uniform and put it on my head."

Pucciarelli told Resnicoff that, "In this country where every religion is killing every other religion, I want everyone here to remember not only that you and I, the chaplains, were helping everyone regardless of whether they had a religion or what religion they had, but that you and I had different religions [and were] standing together."

Wheeler was the last living service member to be pulled from the wreckage five hours after the explosion. Resnicoff said that it took four days to dig out the hundreds of bodies buried in the rubble. "These tough Marines were crying, helping their fellow military personnel," Resnicoff said.

Resnicoff pulled from an element of his own Jewish tradition as he ministered to the Marines mourning and laboring in the wreckage. "After the death, we have a week of family gathering around and telling stories about the person who died," he explained. "The tradition is if you visit the family during that period, you don’t initiate the conversation, just show your concern and love through your presence, and if the mourners talk to you, then you have a conversation. So, when I would go from Marine to Marine, they were digging up the bodies of their comrades, I used that Jewish approach. I didn’t start the conversation, I just stood next to them to show them I was there, and then if they wanted to talk, I talked."

Resnicoff said that the tradition hearkened on the words of Catholic friar St. Francis of Assisi, who taught his followers to "preach the gospel everywhere. Use words only if absolutely necessary."

Before the Beirut bombing, Resnicoff reported that gaining permission to wear the kippah "was always a struggle" for Jewish service members.

In the early 1980s, Resnicoff says that Congress was debating the Religious Apparel Amendment, which would have allowed Jews serving in the military to cover their heads. "For two years, this amendment had failed. And then, in the Congressional Record, they told the story of this priest making this head covering for me," Resnicoff said. "The amendment passed. They understood that it was a matter of pride that we could work side by side from different religions. Then-Vice President George H. W. Bush asked Resnicoff to write a report on his experience. Former President Ronald Reagan would share that report with a group of 20,000 Baptists, "who evidently appreciated it," Resnicoff recalled.

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In chaplain school, Resnicoff said that chaplains were trained to attend to severely wounded personnel from different religious backgrounds than their own. "But it turned out none of the people I comforted in Beirut asked me a religious question. It was just ‘if I die, tell my mother I love her.’ Most of those Marines were too young to have their own children." He says that "I was reminded that the role of the chaplain is so much broader and bigger than just being a religious representative."

"I always used to believe that the military was ahead of the civilian world when it came to understanding and working together. And when you’re in a foxhole or a bunker, you don’t really care if the guy next to you is a Democrat or Republican or independent, you don’t really care what their religion is. You just care that they’re going to protect you like you’re going to protect them and we’re all in this together."

Resnicoff says that the Beirut bombing showed him that "if the world had more interfaith foxholes, we would have less need for foxholes and more room for faith."