On April 18, 1983, at 1:03 p.m., a suicide bomber in a delivery van drove 2,000 pounds of explosives into the front door of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut. The ensuing blast demolished the front of the building, causing the upper floors to collapse on top of each other. Sixty-three people were killed, 17 of them Americans.
When the bomb went off, I had been eating lunch in the embassy cafeteria—until suddenly I awoke outside covered in cement and with 19 broken bones. After months of surgeries and recuperation, my employer, the U.S. Agency for International Development, posted me to Sri Lanka. Recurring nightmares of the explosion forced me to retire early, in 1988, from the job I loved.
Two decades after the attack that all but ended my career, I am still waiting for justice. We know that senior officials of the Iranian government directly supported, approved and assisted Hezbollah in carrying out the attack. That much has been proved in courts of law.
Continue Reading: http://www.wsj.com/articles/iran-owes-millions-to-victims-of-its-terrorism-1434668002
