After they landed and had dealt with Blackburn the men had two missions. The first mission was to get Blackburn to the hummers. The second mission was also trying to get their very first mission completed. They ran into a delay, the enemies were in between them and the hummers which were two blocks away. That meant they had to go around them, which made the mission harder.
“Kasoobaxa guryaho oo iska celsa cadowga!” (Come out and defend your homes!”) I liked this one because it shows that there army probably wasn’t incredibly big. They had to tell people to come out and pretty much help them fight the Americans.
I have a question for the Somalia army. If you are having to ask civilians to come out and help to defend, then why don’t you just give up the thing that the Americans want? If you won’t do that then why don’t you guys try and train more people?
Chp 5
Another mission they had to do was round up some Somalia hostages. SO far the Americans had rounded up plenty they rounded up twenty-four. As they did that they got one of the primary targets, Omar Salad, that’s from the first floor. As they went to go check the top floor they saw nothing but a mattress on the floor, once they got around the room volley of machine-fun fire slammed the ceiling. The machine-gun almost hit one of Howe’s men in the head.
My question is for the soldier that almost got hit. Was it hard to get back to focus on what you were assigned to do? What were you thinking when those bullets went past your head?
I was extremely scared when those bullets went right passed my head. I could only think of one thing when the bullets went passed me, “did anybody else get hit?” Is everyone ok or are we in trouble? I was glad to know that I didn’t get hit anywhere. I was also really glad that I didn’t get hit because that meant that I didn’t have to go home and I could finish what I came here to finish.Chp 6
“Be all you can be.” I like the saying in general but I also like the way that Johnny Stebbins listened to the commercial. Now either he listened to the commercial or he did what he wanted to do for a living. “I want to jump out of airplanes, shoot a lot of ammo, and shop at the PX.” I like this because it sounds just like what any man would say. “Stebby, you better grab your stuff, “his commanding officer told him. “You’re going to war.” I think this one is great because Stebby finally gets to do what he signed up for, instead of doing something that he didn’t really want to do.
I was excited when they old me to get my stuff ready. That I was going to war. I was so happy that I got to do what I had wanted to do. The only thing that I was having a problem with was I didn’t train for this. When I signed up to jump out of helicopters and shoot guns I got put behind a desk. For four years I got coffee all day long and filled out papers.
It was important that everyone that could fit in the helicopters got in the helicopter, so they could have enough soldiers to help them out. If they didn’t put as many guys as they could in the helicopters then they probably would have ran into a lot more trouble in the beginning then just having Blackburn falling out of the helicopter.
Chp 7
Nelson, why did you think that the man with the afro would just walk to you? How come you didn’t think to look at him closely? Why were you shocked that it was hard to kill him? Did that right there tell you to check everyone closely from there on? Would you have waited for him to walk closer to you?
After the helicopter went down Nelson went to help those who survived. Nelson moved Waddell over to a wall on the south side of the alley. When Nelson got Weddell to the wall, Weddell saw someone open a few rounds at Nelson. So Weddell shot and killed a man for the first time. Nelson was shocked that Weddell didn’t take a moment to pull himself together since that was the first man he had killed.
I was surprised that I just killed a man with one shot. I didn’t have time to think about what I just did. I am just glad that Nelson was still alive because of what I just did. After that I felt kind of good that I was able to shoot like that. I hope that I can do it every time.