Operation Urgent Fury ~ 25 Years Ago
Operation Urgent Fury
October 25, 1983
Twenty five years ago, the United States invaded the island of Grenada to remove the illegal government that had deposed and executed the elected Governor. The United States and a coalition of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States battled the forces from Grenada and Cuba. On December 15, the island was returned to her people.
The invasion came just two days after the Beirut Bombings.
U.S. forces suffered 19 fatalities and 116 injuries. Grenada suffered 45 military and at least 24 civilian deaths, along with 358 soldiers wounded. Cuba had 24 killed in action, with 59 wounded and 638 taken prisoner.
Once again, when called, the United States Military performed admirably and heroically.
To see a beautiful tribute video, click this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaZUX3P-9dQ
October 29th, 2008 at 9:01 am
Thanks Flag Gazer,
This was a terrific testimony of American Military Can Do!
Thank you again
Doug Kirk
October 29th, 2008 at 10:00 am
Didn’t Clint Eastwood (as Gunny Highway) win this war with just his platoon of Marines?
July 15th, 2009 at 3:23 pm
Yes Crawfish, we did win that war technically. But because we were considered the bottom of the barrel in the Marine Corps the military decided to put us to sleep. Some of the Grenada invasion operations are still classified even today because of my unit. My unit was made up of tough Marines who lived rough lives when growing up and so the Marine Corps decided to use us to insigate the enemy and to draw fire. We beat the crap out of the enemy in hand to hand combat more than we shot them to be almost exact. We were under the command of a Colonel and not a NCO as like portrayed in Heartbreak Ridge. There were seventeen of us total and seven of us were wounded during the conflict.
Early October 25 my unit landed by helicopter on a beach near Grenville. It was my unit who secured Grenville. Imagine that, there were only seventeen of us who took Grenville and the media and the military reported it as like we took Iwo Jima. Grenville was a near ghost town actually. On that first day of the invasion seven of us were wounded but all survived. One early morning of October 26 my unit was ordered to the governors mansion to help support the Seals and to evacuate Scoon, his wife and their aids. There was a television documentary a few years ago that mentioned about us Marines “aka the bottom of the barrels” who had arrived at the manson to evacuate Scoon and the others. That part of the documentary was all that was ever disclosed to the public about my unit. After we brought Scoon and the others to an awaiting evacuation location my unit was given new orders to retake the spice island radio station. On late afternoon of October 26 we arrived at the radio station and had ourselves a turkey shoot with the enemy. The enemy we captured we released because we had no place to hold them. Throughout the night of October 26 until early morning of October 27 we had continous firefights with the enemy. We were able to hold our positions after capturing a enemy truck full of weapons, water and food. Those RPG rockets were great and so were the hand grenades. During the night the remaining Grenadian army arrived and they had us surrounded. The Navy dropped percussion bombs on the enemy during that night in order to lesson the death toll on the Grenadian people. The percussion bombing actually egged the enemy to stay on and fight and that they did until early morning when they realized by then that they were now surrounded.
I can’t understand why the military is still withholding “classifying” the operations that happened in Grenada. Why? Are they embarrassed that a bunch of street fighting misfits had won the war for them? Oh well, their loss, er I mean if my unit wasn’t there the brass would have probably turned Grenada into a killing field with a prolonged mini war.
Yours truly
A Dissociate who once hung out with a bunch of Sociopaths and a hardened Colonel while there in Grenada.