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Black Hawk Down is the film adaptation of Mark Bowdens mesmerizing chronicle by the
same name. It recounts a 1993 incident involving U.S. Special Forces in Somalia, a
routine half-hour mission that turned into the longest sustained firefight involving U.S.
forces since the Vietnam War. A mixed group of helicopter-borne Rangers, Delta Force,
and a few SEALs, supported by air cover and a convoy of ground vehicles, converged on
a busy marketplace in downtown Mogadishu in a lightning raid to capture two top
lieutenants of renegade warlord Mohammed Farah Aidid. The raiders were blindsided
when literally thousands of Somali fighters emerged from the surrounding neighborhoods
with machine guns, rockets, and other sophisticated weapons. Two blackhawk helicopters
were quickly downed by rocket-propelled grenades, the ground convoy got battered and
lost its way repeatedly trying to rescue the downed crews, and the entire force on foot
found itself under seige until it was finally rescued the following morning. The casualties
included 73 U.S. fighters wounded and 19 killed, as well as 500-1000 Somalis dead.
Description: A deep vivid book about the occurence of Oct. 3 1 993 in Mogadishu, Somalia. This book is an in depth look at war thru the American Soldiers trapped in a city of millions of angry Somians. Soldiers have been sent to Somalia to feed and capture a warlord who has brought the people of Somalia to total starvation and violence. As the soldiers go to execute a mission as any regular previous missions, this one goes wrong. 2 Black Hawks get shot down by RPG fire and 3 Black Hawks are hit, but make it to safety. The troops battle it out to the crash site and then are suprised of what happens on a mission that was supposed to take an hours time but last till the next morning. This book is a detailed description by Mark Bowden of how ugly things can go, and what war is about. Mark Bowden is a brilliant writer and has won many awards, and has been praised by many on alot of his work.
ournalist Mark Bowden delivers a strikingly detailed account of the 1993 nightmare operation in Mogadishu that left 18 American soldiers dead and many more wounded. This early foreign-policy disaster for the Clinton administration led to the resignation of Secretary of Defense Les Aspin and a total troop withdrawal from Somalia. Bowden does not spend much time considering the context; instead he provides a moment-by-moment chronicle of what happened in the air and on the ground. His gritty narrative tells of how Rangers and elite Delta Force troops embarked on a mission to capture a pair of high-ranking deputies to warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid only to find themselves surrounded in a hostile African city. Their high-tech MH-60 Black Hawk helicopters had been shot down and a number of other miscues left them trapped through the night. Bowden describes Mogadishu as a place of Mad Max-like anarchy—implying strongly that there was never any peace for the supposed peacekeepers to keep. He makes full use of the defense bureaucracy's extensive paper trail—which includes official reports, investigations, and even radio transcripts—to describe the combat with great accuracy, right down to the actual dialogue. He supplements this with hundreds of his own interviews, turning Black Hawk Down into a completely authentic nonfiction novel, a lively page-turner that will make readers feel like they're standing beside the embattled troops.