This short study of the role of the U.S. Marines in Operation Urgent Fury is in some ways an experiement in the writing of comtemporary military history. The near-coincident Beirut deployment and Grenada intervention presented us with the problem and opportunity of collecting operational history in real time. The brief account was prepared within a few weeks of the events it describes and relies heavily upon the first hand testimony of the participants. The viewpoint presented, therefore, is very much that of the participants and the story is told almost entirely in terms of their perceptions and beliefs.