Word: commandos
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...Memphis, after a concert in 1976. Springsteen and a couple of pals made a midnight pilgrimage out to Graceland, where rock's first real King still dwelled. Outside those gates, a certain madness took hold. The Boss wanted to meet Elvis, and he made a sudden, sprung-loose, solo commando raid on the sacred fortress. He was grabbed and turned back, and it was then, as he still likes to tell it, that he cashed in all his chips. "I'm Bruce Springsteen!" he yelled. "I was on the cover of TIME! The cover of Newsweek! I got an album...
Mubarak had been criticized in October for his seemingly indecisive handling of the hijacking of the Italian cruise liner Achille Lauro, in which one passenger was killed. This time he moved briskly, sending a team of 80 specially trained commandos to Malta even as he placed his armed forces on alert and bolstered his defenses along the Libyan border. He authorized the commando operation only after the plane's captain, Hani Galal, told the tower at Valletta: "Please do something. They're going to kill...
...dropping from the wings. But 57 passengers died, including all nine of the children the hijackers had refused to release. Amid the pandemonium, Captain Galal suddenly found a chance to take personal revenge against the leader of the hijackers, a man who identified himself as "Nabil." After the commando assault began, said Galal, Nabil hurled a grenade toward the rear of the plane. Realizing he had taken his eyes off Galal, Nabil turned and fired at him. The pilot ducked, and the bullet grazed his head. Seizing a fire ax, Galal felled the terrorist with one swing, then jumped...
...publicity given to such commando feats as the 1976 Israeli raid at Entebbe and West Germany's 1977 rescue operation at Mogadishu, Somalia, may have inflated expectations. The fact is that such methods heighten the risk to hostages. According to a 1977 study by the California-based Rand Corp., 79% of all hostage deaths in terrorist situations occur during rescues. Says Uri Ra'anan, a professor at Tufts University's Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy: "The most difficult and risky type of operation is a rescue mission. It is the most likely to lead to loss of life...
...fall of Jack Kelley at USA Today, the dubious National Guard memos at CBS, Newsweek'suse of a doctored photo of Martha Stewart on its cover, and CNN and TIME's 1998 retraction of the "Tailwind" story that claimed the U.S. had used nerve gas during a 1970 commando mission in Laos...