Black Hawk Down

A detailed Summary of Black Hawk Down

Blood.... Terror.... Insanity. Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War by Mark Bowden recalls the Battle of the Black Sea through the eyes of the American soldiers as well as the Somalia's. The events of October 3-4, 1993 came to be known as The Battle of the Black Sea. It began as a simple abduction of one of the factional warlords in the Somalia's lingering civil war and ended in a bloody chase through Mogadishu. Eighteen Americans and five hundred Somalia's were left dead. Mark Bowden gives an insightful look at what went wrong and how.

The Strike teams sent in to apprehend Mohammed Farah Aidid were made up of units of Army Rangers (elite Army Infantrymen) and Delta (the Armies equivalent to the Navy S.E.A.L.). Mark Bowden makes the rifts between the two different units evident. The Delta guys were didn't pay attention to orders from any of the high-ranking officers, they didn't have regulation haircuts, they had complete disregard for superior officers and they didn't follow rules of engagement. The D-boys as they were called; looked at the Rangers as arrogant and disorganized. In contrast the Rangers were in aw of the efficacy and skill of the D-boys. When the soldiers found themselves pinned down the difference in

These words, from Shakespeare's Henry V and was later quoted by Major General William F. Garrison, the two star commander of Task Force Ranger, in a memorial service for the 18 dead American soldiers.

After being there for months and support of the efforts over there in Somalia decreasing each day; the U.S. decides to try abduct one of the leading warlords Mohammed Farah Aidid and his high officials from a hotel in down town Mogadishu. The U.S. Rangers would secure the area around the hotel, as the D-boys would go in to kidnap the target. Air bourn snipers, rope repelling medics, and a network of satellites, helicopters, and high altitude spy planes would give the troops support. The plan was well organized and the troops were the best the U.S. had to offer. The mission was only suppose to last a couple of hours, so what could go wrong?

The Rangers having only planned to be out there for a couple of hours didn't bring any extra water, their night vision goggles which was one of their major technological advantages over the Somalia's and they were running low on ammo. After a night of hard fighting the Rangers are relived when the 10th Mountain Division shows up with a caravan of armored vehicles and tanks. They make one last desperate run from the inferno around them, leaving behind 500 dead Somalia's and leaving behind a few fallen soldiers, that were later paraded in front of media cameras for the world to see.

I think this book reflects what we have been talking about in class. This incident and the Vietnam War are closely related to one another. In Vietnam we were the police officer trying to stop the North Vietnamese from invading the South Vietnamese. We were tryi

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Approximate Word count = 1146
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English