There are times when events break out of the boundaries of space we usually devote to the cover story, or when a concatenation of news creates in effect more than one cover story. Both conditions applied last week as the U.S. military continued to take the toll of its losses in Lebanon and spearheaded an invasion of the Caribbean island of Grenada. To meet the challenge of covering and explaining these stories half a world apart, the editors devised a special section that, at 31 pages, is the equivalent of four normal cover stories. It reflects the efforts of 34 New York-based editors, writers and reporter-researchers, plus dozens of correspondents and photographers in Lebanon, the Caribbean and round the world.

One of those correspondents and one of those photographers were positioned to give U.S. readers a unique and extraordinary view of the Grenada invasion from start to finish. Sensing that the invasion was imminent, TIME Correspondent Bernard Diederich and Photographer Claude Urraca joined five other journalists in persuading a fishing-boat captain to ferry them to Grenada. They arrived in the capital, St. George's, well before the invading forces reached it. Diederich's exclusive report of the U.S. assault as viewed from behind the defenders' lines, with Urraca's pictures, is part of the special section.

With every story it runs, every photograph it publishes, TIME touches lives directly. On occasion, what happens to those lives returns to touch those of us at TIME directly and profoundly. One such story is that of Rick Crudale, 21, a Marine lance corporal from West Warwick, R.I., stationed in Beirut. Only five weeks ago, Crudale was pictured at the Beirut International Airport on TIME'S Oct. 3 cover, "Holding the Line" in Lebanon. Due to return from leave the day after the headquarters bombing, he did not report and at first was listed as missing. Apparently, he came back a day early and was among those sleeping in the doomed building. Late last week, his family was told he had died. Last week, too, TIME received a letter from a colleague of Crudale's in Beirut, Lance Corporal J.B. Owen of Virginia Beach, Va. "With our job not yet finished," he wrote, "we must not leave this country in such a critical state. Marines never leave a job undone." Owen will not see that task completed. He also is among the confirmed dead in Beirut. This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.