Distant Valor

Out of the crucible of war has come a long list of best-selling, award-winning, and long-remembered novels: The Red Badge Of Courage, All Quiet on the Western Front, The Caine Mutiny, Fields of Fire and The Thirteenth Valley. But none so far has ever captured the power and drama of the United States Marine Corps's ill-fated mission to end the war for Lebanon, which ended in the barracks bombing that killed almost three hundred Marines. For Sergeant David Griffin, a "peace-time" Marine, Beirut was the chance to prove himself capable to the generation of Marines who had been bloodied in the Vietnam War. For Corporal Steven Downs, Beirut was a struggle to separate the civilian from the soldier, his distrust of the politicians' decisions from the military mission. For all of the Marines serving in Lebanon, it was another war in a foreign country where the enemy could be anywhere or anyone. Faced with Griffin's court-martial for engaging the enemy against orders, these two young men...