Beirut: When the US Embassy Annex Was Bombed

Beirut: When the US Embassy Annex Was Bombed

Melvin "Mac" McField was in a shoe store in Beirut when the walls shook. The radio said the American Embassy annex had just been bombed. He raced back to the compound. That night, the RSO came to the Marine House with a warning — they were next. Mac and his buddy climbed to the rooftop armed and ready. What happened up there, he still can't fully remember. What followed were decades of untreated PTSD, drinking, fighting, and NJPs — things he never told anyone because he didn't want to be seen as broken. Somehow, through all of it, he made it to Master Gunnery Sergeant. This episode is about the bombing and the long road after. You can hear about this incident from another perspective on Episode 11, Burying Ghosts: A Marine's Account of the 1984 U.S. Embassy Bombing in Beirut

MSG DET Uganda: The Uzi, the Coup, the Condoms

In 1986, Staff Sergeant George Holguin arrived in Kampala, Uganda as a brand new detachment commander with one mission — establish the first permanent MSG detachment at the American embassy. Uganda had just come through a coup. On day one, the RSO handed him a .357 and an Uzi and told him to carry both around the clock. George talks about building a detachment from scratch in a post-coup country, navigating armed checkpoints, keeping young Marines focused, and an ambassador who had a very specific welcome for every single person who walked through his door — including a handful of condoms.

Under Arrest: The Night the Yugoslav Secret Police Took an MSG

Jim Vetternik was an MSG at the U.S. Embassy in Belgrade when Yugoslav secret police arrested him outside a casino and threw him in an interrogation room. What happened over the next five hours is something most Marines never experience — and something the Marine Corps would rather not talk about. That wasn't even the strangest night of his MSG career. That came later in Madrid, standing post outside the Secretary of State's hotel room, when a three-hour massage turned into a diplomatic situation nobody had a protocol for.

Midnight in Minsk: Standing Post When the World Might End

In this episode of the Post One Podcast, retired Marine Bill Gwaltney takes us back to the late 1990s and life as an MSG in Cold War Belarus. Bill shares what it was like standing post in Minsk during the Y2K scare with embassy vehicles gassed up and a plan to run for the Lithuanian border, navigating constant counterintelligence threats, and accidentally CS gassing the Russian embassy next door.

Tehran 1979: Inside the First U.S. Embassy Takeover in Iran

Former MSG Glenn Parsons takes us inside the first takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979. Glenn arrived in Iran to 100,000 people chanting "Death to America" at the airport. Weeks later, armed attackers stormed the compound. Glenn dodged sniper fire sprinting to his post, destroyed classified material as rounds came through the walls, and was lined up against a brick wall with machine guns aimed at the group. He shares how the Marines prepared to rush the guns, how the ambassador negotiated with the clerics at bayonet point, and how Glenn's own words to a captor nearly cost a fellow Marine his life.