Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War

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Bowden allows his subjects to have their say, which often involves them teeing off on the Clinton administration. Now a stunning film directed by Ridley Scott starring Ewan McGregor, Josh Hartnett, Sam Shepard and Ioan Gruffudd. Stripped down to their dirt-brown T-shirts and shorts, which is how they spent most of their time in the hangar, most looked like the pimply teenagers they were (average age nineteen). As usual in this sort of book, it`s quite difficult to understand exactly the location of the encounters and who did what.

Hundreds of thousands of clan members lived in this labyrinth of irregular dirt streets and cactus-lined paths. I have played the computer game, watched the movie at least a couple of times, and finally got the chance to read the book. There were four MH-6 Little Birds with benches mounted on both sides for delivering the spearhead of the assault force, Delta’s C Squadron, one of three operational elements in the army’s top secret commando unit. This ragged clan, led by warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid, had picked a fight with the United States of America, and it was, without a doubt, going down. The reader can visualize the action, smell the dust and sweat and the reek of explosives, and even enter into the exultation, fear, rage, pain, confusion, and exhaustion of the combatants.

S. soldiers were dropped by helicopter into a teeming market in the heart of Mogadishu, Somalia, to abduct two top lieutenants of a Somali warlord.

In a tight corner the elite troops are unwilling to take casualties to do what is necessary to fulfill their primary mission: protect civilians. The men had girded themselves with extra ammo, stuffing magazines and grenades into every available pocket and pouch of their load-bearing harnesses, leaving behind canteens, bayonets, night-vision goggles, and any other gear they felt would be deadweight on a fast daylight raid. The movie is a gore-fest, but the book chronicles all the background intricacies that you can't find in a movie (of course).A new interim central administration, the Transitional National Government, was eventually formed in 2000, a year after Bowden's book was published. A tall, slender, gray-haired man in desert fatigues with half an unlit cigar jutting from the corner of his mouth, Garrison had walked from chopper to chopper and then stooped down by each Humvee.

The hunt for Aidid included a disputed attack on a house of clan officials and resulted in civilian casualties as well as increasing civilian hostility against the UN efforts, especially their use of helicopters. He looks into the justifications and internal survival strategies that soldiers need to do what they do. The published online package contained videos, audio clips, graphics, maps, and links to external resources. One sad note: He was killed when the Medivac helicopter taking him to his cancer checkup in Baghdad was shot down in November 2003.

Back when they’d arrived in Mog five weeks earlier, they were so flush with excitement that cheers went up from Black Hawk to Black Hawk every time they boarded the birds. He has been a reporter at The Philadelphia Inquirer for eighteen years and has won many national awards for his writing. The Somali perspective, the thoughts and the anguish of the families and the widows back in the US, the political fiasco behind the involvement, Mike Durrant's ordeal in captivity.