Words To Live By Podcast

Today, the subject is the Middle East. And after years of struggling to find peace and end terrorism in that region, Ronald Reagan characterized the challenges by saying, “it was like walking on a tightrope.” From 1982 to 1991, over thirty U.S. and other Western hostages were kidnapped in Lebanon by Hezbollah. Some were killed, some died in captivity, and some were eventually released. Specifically, the year 1983 brought new and complex challenges to President Reagan’s doorstep. In Beirut, Lebanon, our U.S. embassy was destroyed in a suicide car-bomb attack on April 18th when a one-half ton pickup truck laden detonated its load of 2000 pounds of TNT. 63 died, including 17 Americans. Hezbollah and the Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility. It was the deadliest attack on a U.S. diplomatic mission to date, and changed the way the U.S. Department of State secured its resources and executed its missions overseas. Six months later, on October 23rd in Beirut, Shiite suicide bombers exploded a truck near U.S. military