Damascus to Tokyo: An MSG smuggled out of Syria & Reagan marks the Marines' Birthday in Japan

Retired Master Sergeant Lance Brown was a Marine Security Guard in Damascus in 1982 — a busy way station for envoys headed into war-torn Beirut fifty miles away. In this episode, he describes standing post at a small, exposed embassy with just nine Marines, the intel warning of thousands of Iranians about to storm the walls, and the two negligent discharges that put holes in a door handle and a wall.He recounts watching a reporter get chewed out for calling Secretary of State George Shultz an ex-Marine, and getting smuggled out of Syria after the post held him so long his exit visa expired.Lance then moves to Tokyo, night and day from Damascus. He stood post at one of the largest embassies in the world and handled a nervous walk-in trying to defect. He watched Japanese police beat back a protester climbing the embassy wall. And when his Marine Corps Ball was cancelled for a Reagan visit, the president arranged a cake cutting at a Tokyo palace instead.He closes on how the program built the independence and judgment that carried him through twenty years in the Marine Corps.