Clemon "Clyde" Alexander

President Dwight D. Eisenhower issued a Proclamation on October 8, 1954 calling upon citizens to observe November 11th as Veterans Day.

The approaching 58th Veterans Day this November again reminds me of the loss of my tall, athletic, and charismatic youngest brother, *LCpl Clemon “Clyde” Alexander.  He was among 241 servicemen of a multinational force killed when a terrorist detonated a truckload of explosives into the U.S. Marine compound in Beirut, Lebanon in October 23, 1983.  The blast tore the building from its foundation and the barracks imploded in a few seconds.  It represents the largest loss of life in a single day for the U.S. Marine Corps since WWII in the Battle of Iwo Jima in 1945.

In the 1st Battalion 8th Marines (BLT), my brother served voluntarily because he believed in America and principles of inalienable rights: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness asserted in the Declaration of Independence in 1776.   He represented generations of servicemen and women before him. A grandfather served during WWI, and our father and several uncles served during WWII in segregated units.  As officers, two brothers served overseas, and in the Panama Canal Zone in the mid-’70s and early ’80s.   

In a letter from onboard the USS Austin just a few months before his death, Clemon wrote, “I had a choice of staying behind in the U.S. or making this trip.  I chose to come…”  He volunteered for the multinational peacekeeping mission in 1983 from a sense of pride in America, its accomplishments, and promise to all citizens to observe inalienable rights.  My brother and other soldiers who sacrificed life, liberty, and limb for democracy and country, would likely have wondered why, especially today, a disturbing percentage of Americans claim to love this country, but are so very willing to destroy it in their support and embrace of authoritarian figures and ideologies.  

The answer to this disturbing trend increasingly seems more about power and control by a self-designated few, rather than it is about ensuring a representative democracy for all Americans. 

 Left unchecked, America’s subversives and insurgents will also cause this nation to fall, just as the terrorists caused the destruction of the Marine barracks and killed our soldiers in Beirut, Lebanon in 1983.  Unless we revere America’s virtues and sacrifices, honor our soldiers, and acknowledge a painful and complicated shared history, our soldiers and sacrifices shall be in vain.

To honor our soldiers (past, present, and future) we must dedicate ourselves to be faithful to American ideals, always.  As Americans, we must honor our soldiers on Veterans Day and re-consecrate ourselves to the principles of democracy.

-Cynthia  Ebben

10369 Springhill Rd, Thomasville, Ga.

* To honor our brother’s memory, the Florida Legislature dedicated a marker along U.S. 90 between Main Avenue and Martin Luther King, Jr., Avenue in Jefferson County as the “Lance Corporal Clemon ‘Clyde’ Alexander Memorial Drive.