JOURNAL ARCHIVE: 01/09/07 11:21 AM
I must have been here too. There are 215 days in the period 3/3/93 and 10/3/93. Multiplying 365 by .59 = 215. I wonder if I was that guy who had the RPG explode above his head in that one scene of the movie. There was that comment Mark Mogge made to me over the phone at Microsoft one day about how one the people that worked with him the Microsoft Charlotte office was in that battle, but it may be important that I didn't really believe him. The memory of not really believing him means something.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Hawk_Down
Based on the best-selling book detailing an ill-fated U.S. Army mission in Somalia on October 3, 1993.
JOURNAL ARCHIVE: 01/09/07 11:30 AM
Didn't I see that movie with Lynn and John? I think Lynn suggested it.
JOURNAL ARCHIVE: 01/09/07 11:44 AM
I think the guy who had the RPG explode above his head was the character Ewan Gregor portrayed.
[JOURNAL ARCHIVE 09 January 2007 excerpt ends]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_Star
Silver Star
The Silver Star is the third-highest military decoration that can be awarded to a member of any branch of the United States armed forces for valor in the face of the enemy.
The Silver Star is awarded for gallantry in action against an enemy of the United States not justifying one of the two higher awards - the service crosses (Distinguished Service Cross, the Navy Cross, or the Air Force Cross), the second-highest military decoration, or the Medal of Honor, the highest decoration. The Silver Star may be awarded to any person who, while serving in any capacity with the armed forces, distinguishes himself or herself by extraordinary heroism involving one of the following actions:
In action against an enemy of the United States
While engaged in military operations involving conflict with an opposing foreign force
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Marine_Corps
Wikipedia
United States Marine Corps
The United States Marine Corps (USMC) is a branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for providing power projection from the sea, using the mobility of the United States Navy to deliver combined-arms task forces rapidly. It is one of seven uniformed services of the United States.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Durant
Michael Durant
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Michael J. "Mike" Durant (born July 23, 1961) is an American pilot and author who was held prisoner for eleven days in 1993 after a raid in Mogadishu, Somalia. He was a member of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Night Stalkers) as a Chief Warrant Officer 3. He retired from the Army as a Chief Warrant Officer 4 Blackhawk helicopter Master Aviator in the 160th SOAR after participating in combat operations Prime Chance, Just Cause, Desert Storm, and Gothic Serpent. His awards include the Distinguished Service Medal, Distinguished Flying Cross with Oak Leaf Cluster, Bronze Star with Valor Device, Purple Heart, Meritorious Service Medal, three Air Medals, POW Medal
Upon appointment to Warrant Officer 1 in November 1983, he completed the UH-60 Blackhawk Aviators Qualification Course and was assigned to the 377th Medical Evacuation Company in Seoul, South Korea. By the time he was 24, he had flown over 150 medevac missions in the UH-1 and UH-60. After 18 months, he transitioned to the 101st Aviation Battalion at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. As a Chief Warrant Officer 2, he attended the instructor pilot course and flew air assault missions in the UH-60. Durant joined the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (SOAR) on August 1, 1988. Assigned to D Company, he performed duties as Flight Lead and Standardization Instructor Pilot. He participated in combat operations Prime Chance; Just Cause; and Operation Desert Storm, where he was the first helicopter pilot to engage a SCUD missile launcher.
During Operation Gothic Serpent, Durant was the pilot of Super Six Four, the second MH-60L Black Hawk helicopter to crash during the Battle of Mogadishu on October 3, 1993. The helicopter was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade in the tail, which led to its crash about a mile southwest of the operation's target.
Durant and his crew of three, Bill Cleveland, Ray Frank, and Tommy Field, survived the crash, though they were badly injured. Durant suffered a broken leg and a badly injured back. Two Delta Force snipers, MSG Gary Gordon and SFC Randy Shughart, had been providing suppressive fire from the air at hostile Somalis who were converging on the area. Both volunteered for insertion and fought off the advancing Somalis, killing an undetermined number, until they ran out of ammunition and were overwhelmed and killed, along with Cleveland, Frank, and Field. Both Gordon and Shughart received the Medal of Honor posthumously for this action.
The Somalis captured Durant and held him in captivity. Durant was the only one of his crew to survive. During part of Durant's time in captivity, he was cared for by Somali General Mohamed Farrah Aidid's propaganda minister Abdullahi "Firimbi" Hassan. After eleven days in captivity, Durant was released, along with a captured Nigerian soldier, to the custody of the International Committee of the Red Cross.
[ Bill Gates-Microsoft-Corbis-Nazi the cowardly International Terrorist Organization violently against the United States of America actively instigate insurrection and subversive activity against the United States of America with all Bill Gates-Microsoft-Corbis-Nazi staff partners contributors employees contractors lawyers managers of any capacity as severely treasonous criminal accomplices and that are active unlawful obstructions, combinations, or assemblages, or rebellion against the authority of the United States that actively make it impracticable to enforce the laws of the United States in the United States and in the Severely Treasonous and Criminally Rebellious State of Washington by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings ]
http://www.divxmoviesenglishsubtitles.com/B/Black_Hawk_Down.html
Black Hawk Down [ RACKETEER INFLUENCED AND CORRUPT ORGANIZATIONS US Title 18 ]
Juliet 25, hostiles advancing, parallel west to your position.
Women and children among them. Over.
From 3/12/1942 ( during World War 2 Douglas MacArthur evacuates the Philippines and major general Jonathan Wainwright assumes command ) To 1/11/1998 ( RACKETEER INFLUENCED AND CORRUPT ORGANIZATIONS US Title 18 - The Seattle Times "Black Hawk Down" ) is 20394 days
20394 = 10197 + 10197
From 11/2/1965 ( my birth date in Antlers Oklahoma USA and my birthdate as the known official Deputy United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) To 10/3/1993 ( the Battle of Mogadishu Somalia begins as the scheduled criminal event staged by George Herbert Walker Bush & Bill Clinton for the explicit purpose of killing me Kerry Wayne Burgess the known official Deputy United States Marshal and United States Marine Corps chief warrant officer and as many other United States of America soldiers sailors marines as possible ) is 10197 days
From 2/8/1956 ( premiere US film "Time Table" ) To 4/18/1988 ( the United States Navy Operation Praying Mantis - my biological brother US Navy Fleet Admiral Thomas Reagan and I US Navy FC2 Kerry Wayne Burgess are both at the same time onboard the United States Navy warship USS Wainwright CG 28 when it evaded a Harpoon anti-ship missile from hostile Iran-Bill Gates-Microsoft-George Bush-Axis of Evil-Soviet Union-Communist forces but 2 United States Marine Corps aviators launched from USS Wainwright CG 28 killed this day ) is 11758 days
From 11/2/1965 ( my birth date in Antlers Oklahoma USA and my birthdate as the known official Deputy United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) To 1/11/1998 ( RACKETEER INFLUENCED AND CORRUPT ORGANIZATIONS US Title 18 - The Seattle Times "Black Hawk Down" ) is 11758 days
From 2/26/1991 ( the radio broadcast by Saddam Hussein ordering his troops to flee Kuwait City ) To 1/11/1998 ( RACKETEER INFLUENCED AND CORRUPT ORGANIZATIONS US Title 18 - The Seattle Times "Black Hawk Down" ) is 2511 days
From 11/2/1965 ( my birth date in Antlers Oklahoma USA and my birthdate as the known official Deputy United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) To 9/17/1972 ( premiere US TV series "M*A*S*H" ) is 2511 days
From 10/16/1959 ( premiere US TV series "The Detectives" ) To 12/25/1991 ( as United States Marine Corps chief warrant officer Kerry Wayne Burgess I was prisoner of war in Croatia ) is 11758 days
From 11/2/1965 ( my birth date in Antlers Oklahoma USA and my birthdate as the known official Deputy United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) To 1/11/1998 ( RACKETEER INFLUENCED AND CORRUPT ORGANIZATIONS US Title 18 - The Seattle Times "Black Hawk Down" ) is 11758 days
From 10/11/1962 ( premiere US TV series "McHales Navy" ) To 12/20/1994 ( in Bosnia as Kerry Wayne Burgess the United States Marine Corps captain this day is my United States Navy Cross medal date of record ) is 11758 days
From 11/2/1965 ( my birth date in Antlers Oklahoma USA and my birthdate as the known official Deputy United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) To 1/11/1998 ( RACKETEER INFLUENCED AND CORRUPT ORGANIZATIONS US Title 18 - The Seattle Times "Black Hawk Down" ) is 11758 days
http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19980111&slug=2728162
The Seattle Times Search
Sunday, January 11, 1998
Black Hawk Down -- An American War Story -- The Day U.S. Got Stung In Somalia
By Mark Bowden
The Philadelphia Inquirer
Late in the afternoon of Sunday, Oct. 3, 1993, attack helicopters dropped about 120 elite American soldiers into a busy neighborhood in the heart of Mogadishu, Somalia. Their mission was to abduct several top lieutenants of Somali warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid and return to base. It was supposed to take about an hour.
Instead, two of their high-tech UH-60 Black Hawk attack helicopters were shot down. The men were pinned down through a long and terrible night in a hostile city, fighting for their lives. When they emerged the following morning, 18 Americans were dead and 73 were wounded. One, helicopter pilot Michael Durant, had been carried off by an angry mob. He was still alive, held captive somewhere in the city.
The Somali toll was far worse. Reliable witnesses in the U.S. military and in Mogadishu now place the count at nearly 500 dead - scores more than was estimated at the time - among more than a thousand casualties. Many were women and children. This was hardly what U.S. and U.N. officials envisioned when they intervened in Somalia in December 1992 to help avert widespread starvation.
In the years since that humanitarian mission dissolved into combat, Somalia has had a profound cautionary influence on American foreign policy. When Washington policymakers consider sending soldiers into foreign crisis zones, there is invariably a caveat: Remember Somalia.
America's refusal to intervene in Rwanda in 1995 and in the former Zaire in 1997; its long delay in acting to stop Serbian aggression in Bosnia; its hesitation before sending troops into Haiti; and its present reluctance to arrest indicted war criminals in Bosnia stem, in some measure, from the futile attempts to arrest Aidid.
With the exception of the Persian Gulf War, modern American warfare no longer pits great national armies in sweeping conflicts. Instead, it is marked by isolated, usually brief, encounters between
U.S. forces and Third World irregulars as America seeks to alter the political equation in some tumultuous location - Lebanon, Grenada, Panama, Haiti, Bosnia.
The American public is rarely exposed to the realities of warfare. The Pentagon does not allow reporters to accompany soldiers directly into battle, a journalistic tradition that ended after Vietnam. What results is a sanitized picture of combat. The public knows only what the military chooses to portray, or what cameras are able to see from afar. Americans have little understanding of what awaits frightened young soldiers, or of their heroic and sometimes savage attempts to save themselves and their fellow soldiers.
Americans recoiled at the images of soldiers' corpses being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu, but they had no inkling of the searing 15-hour battle that produced their deaths. There has never been a detailed public accounting. Most of the Pentagon records documenting the firefight remain classified, and most of the soldiers who fought are in special forces, generally off-limits to reporters.
For this series of stories, The Philadelphia Inquirer obtained more than a thousand pages of classified documents and reviewed hours of remarkable video and audiotapes recorded during the fight. It interviewed in detail more than 50 of the American soldiers who fought. Also interviewed in depth, in Mogadishu, were dozens of Somalis who fought the Americans or were caught in the crossfire.
The Battle of Mogadishu is known today in Somalia as "Ma-alinti Rangers," or The Day of the Rangers. It pitted the world's most sophisticated military power against a mob of well-armed civilians and Somali irregulars. It was the biggest single firefight involving American soldiers since the Vietnam War.
The battle was photographed and videotaped by sophisticated cameras aboard satellites, a P-3 Orion spy plane, and UH-58 surveillance helicopters hovering directly over the action. Many of the soldiers were debriefed by U.S. Army historians in the days after the battle. Top commanders were later subjected to a Senate inquiry.
The secret official documentation of the battle obtained by The Philadelphia Inquirer has been fleshed out with the powerful eyewitness accounts. The result is an unprecedented minute-by-minute record of what happened that Sunday in Mogadishu.
Most of those interviewed have never before told the complete story of their experience, including pilot Durant, whose 11-day captivity was briefly at the center of world attention. Many soldiers are still unaware of certain battle episodes that did not involve them. Several are members of the Army's Delta Force, a unit so secret the Army does not officially acknowledge it exists.
Well-laid plans gone awry
Theirs is a story of well-laid plans gone awry, of tragic blunders, of skillful soldiering, heroism, and occasional cowardice. The portrait reveals a military force that underestimated its enemy.
The assault was launched into the most dangerous part of Mogadishu in daylight, even though the Ranger and Delta forces were trained and equipped primarily to work in darkness - where their night-vision devices can afford a decisive advantage.
Commanders who thought it unlikely that Somalis could shoot down helicopters saw five shot down (three limped back to base before crash-landing).
Ground rescue convoys were blocked for hours by barricades and ambushes - leaving at least five U.S. soldiers to die awaiting rescue, including two Delta sergeants who were posthumously awarded Medals of Honor.
The American soldiers were so confident of a quick victory that they neglected to take night-vision devices and water, both sorely needed later.
Carefully defined rules of engagement, calling for soldiers to fire only on Somalis who aimed weapons at them, were quickly discarded in the heat of the fight. Most soldiers interviewed said that through most of the fight they fired on crowds and eventually at anyone and anything they saw.
Animosity between the elite Delta units and the Ranger infantry forces effectively created two separate ground-force commanders, who for at least part of the battle were no longer speaking to each other. Delta commandos took accidental fire on several occasions from the younger Rangers. Poor coordination between commanders in the air and a ground convoy sent vehicles meandering through a maelstrom of fire, resulting in the deaths of five soldiers and one Somali prisoner.
Official U.S. estimates of Somalian casualties at the time numbered 350 dead and 500 injured. Somali clan leaders made claims of more than 1,000 deaths. The U.N. placed the number of dead at "between 300 to 500." Doctors and intellectuals in Mogadishu not aligned with the feuding clans say that 500 dead is probably accurate.
The Task Force Ranger commander, Maj. Gen. William Garrison, testifying before the Senate, said that if his men had put any more ammunition into the city "we would have sunk it."
America went to war in Mogadishu in an effort to remove warlord Aidid from the political equation. The U.N. was attempting to form a coalition government out of the nation's warring clans but encountered stiff and bloody resistance from Aidid. Jonathan Howe, who managed the U.N. effort, sought and obtained the intervention of special U.S. forces for the purpose of arresting Aidid and other top leaders of his clan.
The mission that resulted in the Battle of Mogadishu came less than three months after a surprise missile attack by U.S. helicopters (acting on behalf of the U.N.) on a meeting of Aidid clansmen. Prompted by a Somalian ambush on June 5 that killed more than 20 Pakistani soldiers, the missile attack killed 50 to 70 clan elders and intellectuals, many of them moderates seeking to reach a peaceful settlement with the U.N. Interviewed for this series, Howe said he believes the number of Somalis killed in the surprise attack was closer to 20, and included only Aidid's military leadership.
Aidid clan at war with America
After that July 12 helicopter attack, Aidid's clan was officially at war with America - a fact many Americans never realized. By Oct. 3, images of dead soldiers being dragged through the streets shocked the American public, most of whom believed their soldiers were in Somalia to help feed the starving.
But Task Force Ranger was not sent to Mogadishu to feed the hungry. Over six weeks, it conducted six missions, raiding locations where either Aidid or his lieutenants were believed to be meeting.
On its first mission, the force inadvertently arrested nine Somali U.N. employees. A later mission arrested a friendly Somali general who was being groomed by the U.N. to take over a Mogadishu police force. But by late September, the task force had begun to hit its stride with the capture of Osman Atto, Aidid's banker. The deadly Oct. 3 raid was the sixth and last.
Most of the Rangers who fought were only a few years out of high school. These young men were shocked to find themselves bleeding on the dirt streets of an obscure African capital for a cause so unessential that President Clinton called off their mission the day after the fight.
In strictly military terms, Mogadishu was a success. The targets of that day's raid - two obscure clan leaders named Omar Salad and Mohamed Hassan Awale - were apprehended.
But the awful price of those arrests came as a shock to Clinton, who felt as misled as John F. Kennedy after the Bay of Pigs. It led to the resignation of Defense Secretary Les Aspin and destroyed the career of Garrison, who in a handwritten letter to Clinton accepted full responsibility. It aborted a hopeful and unprecedented U.N. effort to salvage an impoverished and hungry nation lost in anarchy and civil war.
Every battle is a drama played out apart from broader political issues. Soldiers cannot concern themselves with the decisions that bring them to a fight. They trust their leaders not to risk their lives for too little. Once the battle is joined, they fight to survive, to kill before they are killed.
The story of a battle is timeless. It is about the same things whether in Troy or Gettysburg, Normandy or the Ia Drang. It is about soldiers, most of them young, trapped in a fight to the death. The extreme and terrible nature of war touches something essential about being human, and soldiers do not always like what they learn.
For those who survive, the battle lives on in memories and nightmares and in the ache of old wounds long after the reasons for it have been forgotten.
Yet what happened to these men in Mogadishu comes alive every time the United States considers sending young soldiers to serve American policy in remote and dangerous corners of the world.
http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19980111&slug=2728219
The Seattle Times Search
Sunday, January 11, 1998
Black Hawk Down -- An American War Story -- Reliving A Firefight: Hail Mary, Then Hold On
By Mark Bowden
The Philadelphia Inquirer
This series, the first detailed account of what happened during the Battle of Mogadishu - will appear daily in The Seattle Times over the next four weeks.
Chapter 1: The mission begins.
Staff Sgt. Matt Eversmann's lanky frame was fully extended on the rope for what seemed too long on the way down. Hanging from a hovering Black Hawk helicopter, Eversmann was a full 70 feet above the streets of Mogadishu. His goggles had broken, so his eyes chafed in the thick cloud of dust stirred up by the bird's rotors.
It was such a long descent that the thick nylon rope burned right through the palms of his leather gloves. The rest of his chalk, or squad, had already roped in. Nearing the street, through the swirling dust below his feet, Eversmann saw one of his men stretched out on his back at the bottom of the rope.
He felt a stab of despair. Somebody's been shot already! He gripped the rope hard to keep from landing on top of the guy. It was Pvt. Todd Blackburn, at 18 the youngest Ranger in his chalk, a kid just months out of a Florida high school. He was unconscious and bleeding from the nose and ears.
The raid was barely under way, and already something had gone wrong. It was just the first in a series of worsening mishaps that would endanger this daring mission. For Eversmann, a five-year veteran from Natural Bridge, Va., leading men into combat for the first time, it was the beginning of the longest day of his life.
Just 13 minutes before, three miles away at the Rangers' base on the Mogadishu beach, Eversmann had said a Hail Mary at liftoff. He was curled into a seat between two helicopter crew chiefs, the knees of his long legs up around his shoulders. Before him, arrayed on both sides of the sleek UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter, was Eversmann's Chalk, a dozen men in tan, desert camouflage fatigues. He had worried about the responsibility. Twelve men. He had prayed silently during Mass at the mess hall that morning. Now he added one more plea:
. . . Pray for us sinners, now, and at the hour of our death. Amen.
It was midafternoon, Oct. 3, 1993. Eversmann's Chalk Four was part of a company of U.S. Rangers assisting a Delta Force commando squadron that was about to descend on a gathering of Habr Gidr clan leaders in the heart of Mogadishu, Somalia. This ragtag clan, led by warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid, had challenged the United States of America.
Today's targets were two top Aidid lieutenants. Delta Force, the nation's elite commando unit, would storm the target house and capture them. Then four helicopter loads of Rangers, including Eversmann's men, would rope down to all four corners of the target block and form a perimeter. No one would be allowed in or out.
Waiting for the code word to launch, they were a formidable armada. The helicopter assault force included about 75 Rangers and 40 Delta Force troops in 17 helicopters. Idling at the airport was a convoy of 12 vehicles with soldiers who would ride three miles to the target building and escort the Somali prisoners and the assault team back to base.
The swell of the revving engines had made the earth tremble. The Rangers were eager for action. As they gripped the well-oiled steel their weapons, their hearts raced under their flak vests. They ran through last-minute mental checklists, saying prayers, triple-checking weapons, rehearsing their choreographed moves. They had left behind canteens, bayonets, night-vision devices - anything that would be dead weight on a fast daylight raid.
Mission is launched
It was 3:32 p.m. when the lead Black Hawk pilot, Chief Warrant Officer Michael Durant, launched the mission.
The swarm of black copters lifted up into an embracing blue vista of Indian Ocean and sky. They eased out across a littered strip of white sand and moved low and fast over the breakers.
Mogadishu spread beneath them in ruins. Five years of civil war had reduced the once-picturesque African port to a post-apocalyptic nightmare. The few paved avenues were crumbling and littered with mountains of trash and debris. Those walls and buildings that still stood in the heaps of gray rubble were pockmarked with bullet scars and cannon shot.
In his bird, code-named Super 67, Eversmann silently rehearsed the plan. When his Chalk Four touched the street, the D-boys (Delta Force soldiers) would already be taking down the target house, arresting the Somalis inside. Then the Americans and their prisoners would board the ground convoy and roll back for a sunny Sunday afternoon on the beach.
It was the unit's sixth mission since coming to Mogadishu in late August. Now Maj. Gen. William Garrison, their commander, was taking a calculated risk in sending them in daylight into the Bakara Market area, a hornet's nest of Aidid supporters.
The Delta commandos rode in on MH-6 Little Birds, choppers small enough to land in alleys or on rooftops. In the bigger Black Hawks, Rangers dangled their legs from the doorways. Others squatted on ammo cans or sat on flak-proof panels laid out on the floor. They all wore flak vests and helmets and 50 pounds of gear and ammo.
Stripped down, most Rangers looked like teenagers (their average age was 19). They were products of rigorous selection and training. They were fit and fast. With their buff bodies and distinct crew cuts, - sides and back of the head shaved clean - the Rangers were among the most gung-ho soldiers in the Army.
Inside Super 67, Eversmann was anxious about being in charge. He'd won the distinction by default. His platoon sergeant had been summoned home by an illness in his family, and the guy who replaced him had suffered an epileptic seizure.
Now, as they approached the target site, he felt more confident. They had done this dozens of times.
By the time the Black Hawks had moved down over the city, the Little Birds with the Delta Force troops were almost over the target. The mission could still have been aborted. But the only threat spotted was burning tires on a nearby street. Somalis often burned tires to summon militia. These, it was determined, had been set earlier in the day.
"Two minutes," came the voice of the Super 67 pilot in Eversmann's earphones.
Two advance AH-6 Little Birds armed with rockets then made their "bump," or initial pass over the target. It was 3:43 p.m.
Cameras on spy planes and circling helicopters relayed the scene back to commanders at the Joint Operations Center on the beach. They saw a busy Mogadishu neighborhood. The landmark was the Olympic Hotel, a five-story white building, one of the few large structures still intact in the city. Three blocks west was the teeming Bakara Market.
In front of the hotel ran Hawlwadig Road, a paved, north-south avenue crossed by narrow dirt alleys. At the intersections, drifting sand turned rust-orange in the afternoon sun.
One block up from the hotel, across Hawlwadig, was the target house. It was flat-roofed with three rear stories and two front stories. It was shaped like an L, with a small courtyard enclosed by a high stone wall. In front moved cars, people and donkey carts.
`About 100 meters short'
Conditioned to the noise of the helicopters by months of overflights, people below did not stir as two Little Birds made a first swift pass, looking for trouble. Seeing none, the four Delta Little Birds zoomed down to Hawlwadig Road, disappearing into swirling dust as the Delta commandos leaped from their helicopters and stormed the house. Next came the Black Hawks with the Rangers.
Eversmann's copter hovered just above the brown storm. Waiting for the three other Black Hawks, it seemed to the sergeant that they hung there for a dangerously long time. A still Black Hawk was a big target. Even over the sound of the rotor and engines the men could hear the pop of gunfire.
The 3-inch-thick nylon ropes were coiled before the doors. When they were finally pushed out, one dropped down on a car. This delayed things further. The pilot nudged his aircraft forward until the rope dragged free.
"We're a little short of our desired position," he told Eversmann. They were going in a block north of their assigned corner. Still, that wasn't crucial. The sergeant thought it would be a lot safer on the ground.
"No problem," he said.
"We're about 100 meters short," the pilot warned.
Eversmann gave him a thumbs-up. He would be the last man out.
A fallen Ranger
When it was Eversmann's time to jump, the strap on his goggles broke. Flustered, he tossed them and sprung for the rope, forgetting to take off his earphones. He jumped, ripping the earphone cord from the ceiling.
In the excitement, time slowed. All his movements became very deliberate. He hadn't realized how high they were. The slide down on the rope was far longer than any they'd done in training. Then, on his way down, Eversmann spotted Todd Blackburn splayed out on the street at the end of the rope.
Eversmann's feet touched down next to the fallen Ranger, and the crew chiefs in the copter released the rope. It fell twisting to the road.
Pvt. 2 Mark Good, Chalk Four's medic, was already at work on Blackburn. The kid had one eye shut. Blood gurgled from his mouth. Good inserted a tube down Blackburn's throat to help him breathe. Sgt. First Class Bart Bullock, a Delta medic, started an IV. Blackburn hadn't been shot, he'd fallen. He'd somehow missed the rope and plummeted.
He was still alive, but unconscious. He looked pretty busted up. Eversmann stepped away. He took a quick count of his Chalk.
His men had peeled off as planned against the mud-stained stone walls on either side of the street. That left Eversmann in the middle of the road with Blackburn and the medics. It was hot, and sand was caked in his eyes, nose and ears. They were taking fire, but it wasn't very accurate.
Passing bullets made a snapping sound, like cracking a stick of dry hickory. Eversmann had never been shot at before. As big a target as he made at 6-foot-4, he figured he'd better find cover. He and the two medics grabbed Blackburn under his arms, and, trying to keep his neck straight, dragged him to the edge of the street. They squatted behind two parked cars.
Good looked up at Eversmann. "He's litter urgent, Sarge. We need to extract him right now or he's going to die."
Eversmann shouted to his radio operator, Pvt. Jason Moore, and asked him to raise Capt. Mike Steele on the company radio net. Steele, the Ranger commander, had roped in with two lieutenants and the rest of Chalk One to the block's southeast corner.
Minutes passed. Moore shouted back to say he couldn't get Steele.
"What do you mean you can't get him?" Eversmann asked.
Neither man had noticed that a bullet had severed the wire leading to the antenna on Moore's radio. Eversmann tried his walkie-talkie. Again Steele didn't answer, but after several tries Steele's lieutenant, Larry Perino, came on the line.
The sergeant made a particular effort to speak slowly and clearly. He explained that Blackburn had fallen and was badly injured. He needed to come out. Eversmann tried to convey urgency without alarm.
So when Perino said, "Calm down," it really burned Eversmann. This is one hell of a time to start sharpshooting me.
Fire was getting heavier. To officers watching on screens in the command center, it was as if their men had poked a stick into a hornet's nest. It was an amazing and unnerving thing to view a battle in real time. Cameras on the surveillance aircraft circling high over the fight captured crowds of Somalis erecting barricades and lighting tires to summon help. People were pouring into the streets, many with weapons. They were racing from all directions toward the spot where circling helicopters marked the fight.
Eversmann's men had fanned out and were shooting in every direction except south toward the target building. He saw crowds of Somalis way up Hawlwadig to the north, and others, closer, darting in and out of alleys, taking shots at the Rangers. They were coming closer, wary of the Americans' guns.
The Rangers had been issued strict rules of engagement. They were to shoot only at someone who pointed a weapon at them, but already this was getting unrealistic. Those with guns were intermingled with women and children. The Somalis were strange that way. Whenever there was a disturbance in Mogadishu, people would throng to the spot: men, women, children - even the aged and infirm. It was like some national imperative to bear witness.
Things were not playing out according to the script in Eversmann's head. His chalk was still in the wrong place. He'd figured they could just hoof it down Hawlwadig, but Blackburn's falling and the unexpected volume of gunfire had ruled that out.
Time played tricks. It would be hard to explain to someone who wasn't there. Events seemed to happen twice normal speed, but from inside his personal space, the place where he thought and reacted and watched, every second seemed a minute long. He had no idea how much time had gone by. It was hard to believe things could have gone so much to hell in such a short time.
`We've got to get him out'
He kept checking back to see if the ground convoy had moved up. He knew it was probably too soon. It would mean that things were wrapping up. He must have looked a dozen times before he saw the first Humvee - the wide-bodied vehicle that replaced the Jeep as the Army's all-purpose ground vehicle - round the corner three blocks down. What a relief! Maybe the D-boys are done and we can roll out of here.
He radioed Lt. Perino.
"Listen, we really need to move this guy or he's going to die. Can't you send somebody down the street?"
No, the Humvees could not move to his position.
Good, the medic, spoke up: "Listen, Sarge, we've got to get him out."
Eversmann summoned two of Chalk Four's sergeants, rock-solid Casey Joyce and 6-foot-5 Jeff McLaughlin. He addressed McLaughlin, shouting over the escalating noise of the fight.
"Sergeant, you need to move him down to those Humvees, toward the target."
They unfolded a compact litter, and with Joyce and McLaughlin in front and medics Good and Bullock in back, they took off down the street. They ran stooped. Bullock was still holding the IV bag connected to the kid's arm. McLaughlin didn't think Blackburn was going to make it. On the litter he was dead weight, still bleeding from the nose and mouth. They were all yelling at him, "Hang on! Hang on!" but, by the look of him, he had already let go.
They would run a few steps, put Blackburn down, shoot, then pick him up and carry him a few more steps, then put him down again.
"We've got to get those Humvees to come to us," Good said finally. "We keep picking him up and putting him down like this and we're going to kill him."
So Joyce volunteered to fetch a Humvee. He took off running on his own.
After the helicopter force had moved out over the beach, Staff Sgt. Jeff Struecker had waited several minutes in his Humvee with the rest of the ground convoy at the base. His was the lead in a column of 12 vehicles. They were to drive to a point behind the Olympic Hotel and wait for the D-boys to wrap things up in the target house, which was just a five-minute drive from the base.
Struecker, a born-again Christian from Fort Dodge, Iowa, knew Mogadishu better than most guys at the compound. His platoon had driven out on water runs and other details daily. The stench was what hit him first. Garbage was strewn everywhere. People burned trash on the streets. They were always burning tires. They burned animal dung for fuel. That added to the mix.
In this African city people spent their days lounging outside their shabby rag huts and tin shacks. When the Rangers searched the men, they would often find wads of the addictive khat plant they chewed to get high. When they grinned their teeth were stained black and orange. In some parts of town the men would shake their fists at the Rangers as they drove past.
It was hard to imagine what interest the United States of America had in such a place. But it wasn't Struecker's place to question such things. Today his job was to roll up in force on Hawlwadig Road, load up Somali prisoners, the Delta teams and the Rangers, and bring them back out.
He had three men in his vehicle: Spec. Derek Velasco, Spec. Brad Thomas and a company favorite, Sgt. Dominick Pilla. "Dom" Pilla was a big, powerful kid from Vineland, N.J. - he had that Joy-zee accent - who used his hands a lot when he talked. Pilla was just born funny. He loved practical jokes. He had bought tiny charges that he stuck in guys' cigarettes. They'd explode with a startling Pop! about halfway through a smoke. Most people who tried that kind of thing were annoying, but people laughed along with Pilla.
Struecker and the rest of the column timed their departure so they wouldn't arrive at the hotel before the assault on the target house had begun. Then they immediately got lost. Struecker, who was leading the convoy, took a wrong turn and watched with alarm as the rest of the vehicles drove in a different direction. He'd found his way back, but only after the rest of the vehicles had already moved up to the target house to load prisoners.
One of the Humvees in the column held a group of Delta soldiers and Navy SEALs, that service's elite commando unit. They raced on ahead of the convoy to join the assault force, which had found 24 Somalis in the house and were handcuffing them. As this Humvee approached the house, SEAL John Gay heard a shot and felt a hard impact on his right hip. He cried out. Master Sgt. Tim "Grizz" Martin, a Delta commando in Gay's Humvee, tore open Gay's pants and examined his hip, then gave Gay good news. The round had hit smack on the SEAL's knife. It had shattered the blade, but the knife had deflected the bullet. Martin pulled several bloody fragments of blade out of Gay's hip, and bandaged it. Gay limped out, took cover, and began returning fire.
`HE'S DEAD!'
In the mounting gunfire, they were startled to see a Ranger running toward them down Hawlwadig Road. It was Casey Joyce. He quickly explained Blackburn's condition, and pointed back to where the others were waiting. He jumped into the Humvee, and they drove up a block to where the young private waited on the litter with Sgt. McLaughlin and the two medics.
They set Blackburn in the back of the SEAL Humvee and got permission to take him back to the base immediately.
Struecker and his companion Humvee had just found their way back to the main convoy and were ordered to escort the SEAL Humvee. It had no big gun on top. Struecker's had a 50-caliber machine gun, and his companion Humvee had a Mark 19, which could rapidly fire big, grenade-like rounds. The three-vehicle column began racing back to base through streets now alive with gunfire and explosion.
This time Struecker knew which way to go. He had mapped a return route that was simple. Several blocks south of Hawlwadig was a main road that would take them all the way down to the beach, where they could turn right and drive straight into the base.
But things had worsened. Armed street fighters were sprinkled into the crowds of civilians. Roadblocks and barricades had been erected. The Humvees drove around and through them, with Struecker in the front vehicle and Blackburn in the middle Humvee. Good, the medic, was holding up the IV bag for him with one hand while firing his rifle with the other.
They started taking fire. A Ranger in Blackburn's Humvee shot down two Somali gunmen who ran right up to the rear of the vehicle as they moved past an alley. At every intersection came a hail of rounds. People were shooting from rooftops and from windows and from all directions.
Up in Struecker's Humvee, he instructed his M-60 gunner, Dom Pilla, to concentrate all his fire to the right, and to leave everything to the left to the 50-caliber. They didn't want to drive too fast, because a violently bumpy ride couldn't do Blackburn any good.
Pilla wheeled his gun toward a Somali standing on the street just a few feet away. They both fired at the same time, and both fell. A round tore into Pilla's forehead and the exit wound blew blood and brain out the back of his skull. His body flopped over into the lap of Spec. Brad Thomas, who cried out in horror.
"Pilla's hit!" he screamed.
Just then, over the radio, came the voice of Sgt. First Class Bob Gallagher, leader of the vehicle platoon.
How things going?
Struecker ignored the radio, and shouted back over his shoulder at Thomas.
"Calm down! What's wrong with him?" Struecker couldn't see all the way to the back hatch.
"He's dead!" Thomas shouted.
"How do you know he's dead? Are you a medic?" Struecker asked.
Struecker turned for a quick look over his shoulder and saw that the rear of his vehicle was splattered red.
"He's shot in the head! He's dead!" Thomas screamed.
"Just calm down," Struecker pleaded. "We've got to keep fighting until we get back."
To hell with driving carefully. Struecker told his driver to step on it, and he hoped the others would follow.
Inside Struecker's Humvee, Sgt. Gallagher's voice came across the radio again.
How's it going?
"I don't want to talk about it," Struecker said into the radio.
Gallagher didn't like that answer.
You got any casualties?
"Yeah. One."
Struecker tried to leave it at that. So far nobody on their side had been killed, as far as he knew, and he didn't want to be the one to put news like that on the air. Men in battle drink up information as if downing water; it becomes more important than water.
Who is he and what's his status? Gallagher demanded.
"It's Pilla."
What's his status?
Struecker held the microphone for a moment, debating with himself, and then reluctantly answered:
"He's dead!"
At the sound of that word, all radio traffic stopped. For many long seconds afterward, there was silence.
Tomorrow: Trying to save an injured Ranger.
http://www.history.army.mil/html/reference/army_flag/ww2_ap.html
CENTER OF MILITARY HISTORY
UNITED STATES ARMY
U.S. ARMY CAMPAIGNS
WWII - ASIATIC-PACIFIC THEATER
On 12 March 1942, General MacArthur was ordered by the President to leave for Australia. His successor in command was Lt. Gen. Jonathan M. Wainwright who, for a short period (21 March to 6 May 1942), commanded the so-called U.S. Forces in the Philippines (USFIP), although General MacArthur remained the nominal commander.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_M._Wainwright_(general)
Jonathan M. Wainwright (general)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jonathan Mayhew "Skinny" Wainwright IV (August 23, 1883 – September 2, 1953) was a career American army officer and the commander of Allied forces in the Philippines at the time of their surrender to the Empire of Japan during World War II. Wainwright is a recipient of the Medal of Honor.
World War II
In September 1940, Wainwright was promoted to Major General (temporary) and returned to the Philippines, in December, as commander of the Philippine Department. As the senior field commander of Filipino and US forces—under General Douglas MacArthur—Wainwright was responsible for resisting the Japanese invasion of the Philippines, which began in December 1941. Retreating from the Japanese beachhead of Lingayen Gulf, Allied forces had withdrawn onto the Bataan Peninsula and Corregidor by January 1942, where they defended the entrance to Manila Bay.
Following the relocation of MacArthur to Australia in March, to serve as Allied Supreme Commander, South West Pacific Area, Wainwright inherited the unenviable position of Allied commander in the Philippines. Also that March, Wainwright was promoted to Lieutenant General (temporarily). On April 9, the 70,000 troops on Bataan surrendered under the command of Major General Edward P. King. On May 5, the Japanese attacked Corregidor and on May 6, in the interest of minimizing casualties, Wainwright surrendered. By June 9, Allied forces had completely surrendered.
Wainwright was then held in prison camps in northern Luzon, Formosa, and Liaoyuan (then called Xi'an and was a county within Manchukuo) until his liberation by the Red Army in August 1945.[1] He was the highest-ranking American POW, and despite his rank, his treatment at the hands of the Japanese was not pleasant. After witnessing the Japanese surrender aboard the USS Missouri (BB-63) on September 2, together with Lieutenant-General Arthur Percival, he returned to the Philippines to receive the surrender of the local Japanese commander, Lieutenant-General Tomoyuki Yamashita.
Dubbed by his men a "fighting" general who was willing to get down in the foxholes, Wainwright won the respect of all who were imprisoned with him.
http://www.divxmoviesenglishsubtitles.com/B/Black_Hawk_Down.html
Black Hawk Down [ RACKETEER INFLUENCED AND CORRUPT ORGANIZATIONS US Title 18 ]
Listen to this:
If one skinny kills another his clan owes the dead guy's clan a hundred camels.
A hundred camels.
Camels. I wouldn't pay one camel.
Must be a lot of fucking camel debt.
Is that really true, Lieutenant?
Ask Sgt. Eversmann. He likes skinnies.
Sgt. Eversmann, you really like the skinnies?
It's not that I like them or I don't like them. I respect them.
See, what you guys fail to realize is the sergeant is a bit of an idealist.
He believes in this mission down to his bones. Don't you, Sergeant?
Look, these people, they have no jobs...
...no food, no education, no future.
I just figure that, I mean, we have two things that we can do.
We can help...
...or we can sit back and watch the country destroy itself on CNN.
Right?
I don't know about you guys, but I was trained to fight.
Are you trained to fight, Sergeant?
Well, I think I was trained to make a difference, Kurth.
Like the man said, he's an idealist.
http://www.divxmoviesenglishsubtitles.com/B/Black_Hawk_Down.html
Black Hawk Down [ RACKETEER INFLUENCED AND CORRUPT ORGANIZATIONS US Title 18 ]
C-2, we're at the 64 crash site, securing perimeter.
- You all right? - Yeah, I'm good.
You're locked and loaded.
Any skinnies come around these corners, you watch our backs.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0265086/quotes
IMDb
Memorable quotes for
Black Hawk Down (2001)
Grimes: Why aren't you shooting?
Waddell: We're not being shot at yet.
Grimes: How can you tell?
Waddell: A hiss means it's close. A snap means...
[a bullet whizzes close by]
Waddell: Now they're shooting at us!
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0644882/releaseinfo
IMDb
The Internet Movie Database
Release dates for
"McHale's Navy"
An Ensign for McHale (1962)
Country Date
USA 11 October 1962
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0644882/
IMDb
The Internet Movie Database
McHale's Navy (TV series 1962–1966)
An Ensign for McHale (#1.1)
Ernest Borgnine ... Lt. Commander Quinton McHale
Release Date: 11 October 1962 (USA)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0265086/releaseinfo
IMDb
The Internet Movie Database
Release dates for
Black Hawk Down (2001) [ RACKETEER INFLUENCED AND CORRUPT ORGANIZATIONS US Title 18 ]
Country Date
USA 18 December 2001 (premiere)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0540703/releaseinfo
IMDb
Release dates for
"Chopper One"
Pilot (1974)
Country Date
USA 17 January 1974
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0540703/
IMDb
Chopper One: Season 1, Episode 1
Pilot (17 Jan. 1974)
Jim McMullan ... Officer Don Burdick
Dirk Benedict ... Officer Gil Foley
Release Date: 17 January 1974 (USA)
http://www.divxmoviesenglishsubtitles.com/B/Black_Hawk_Down.html
Black Hawk Down [ RACKETEER INFLUENCED AND CORRUPT ORGANIZATIONS US Title 18 ]
Lieutenant Colonel Cribbs for you, sir.
Cribbs?
- They're still debating the route. - How long?
At least a couple of hours.
We haven't got that long, Joe.
Pakistani General says, since we didn't deign to inform him of the raid...
...it'll take some time to mobilize the 10th Mountain and 100 vehicles.
You tell the general this:
I understand, but it is my duty to remind him...
...that my men are surrounded by thousands of armed Somali militia.
It's imperative that we move them out of the hostile area and into the safe zone.
I need his help now.
Yes, sir.
Durant.
Michael Durant.
Yes.
You are the Ranger who kills my people?
I'm not a Ranger. I'm a pilot.
That's right.
None of you Americans smoke anymore.
You all live long, dull, uninteresting lives.
- posted by H.V.O.M - Kerry Wayne Burgess 02:33 AM Pacific Time USA Sunday 10 June 2012
