John served from 1980 as a corporal and radioman with 1st Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, part of the 24th Marine Amphibious Unit. From October 1982 to March 1984 he was stationed with the Multinational Peacekeeping Force in Beirut, Lebanon.
On October 23, 1983, at 6:15 a.m., John was walking toward the barracks when he ran into a buddy heading the opposite direction and stopped to chat. Minutes later, a truck driven by a suicide bomber crashed through the compound and struck the U.S. Marine headquarters, carrying an explosive with the equivalent blast of 12,000 lbs of TNT. The building completely collapsed. Because John had stopped to talk, he was still 50 yards away when it fell.
John became a rescuer of his fellow Marines, joining a horde of others on the rubble pile searching for survivors — the last, a chaplain, was buried for nearly six hours. 241 American service members died as a result of the attack.
Back home, information was scarce. His family spent days searching the lists of the dead and missing, not hearing from John until three days later, when he finally got through to call his mother. John was honorably discharged on May 22, 1987.
