The True Story of Blackhawk Down
After going to see the recently released Hollywood version of the story of "Blackhawk Down" I was compelled to watch a History Channel documentary on the event, to gain insight and confirm the accuracy of Hollywood's take. I found that the movie to be very accurate with the documentary, but lacking some important information. The documentary covered the story as follows. In the early 90's Somalia was a war torn nation stricken with famine. The UN took initiative in 1992 to aid the Somalians, and make food deliveries. These delivery efforts met resistance from local militias who would often seize the shipments to feed their soldiers. In August of 1993 the US sent in Task Force Ranger, with the goal of eliminating Somalia's most powerful and troublemaking militia leader Mohamid Aidid. The Somalian people, who formerly were in full support of Americans saw this as an uncalled for invasion of the country's politics, and encouraged by false anti-American propaganda from militia leaders, turned against American forces. On October 3 1993 Task Force Rangers deployed their base outside of the city of Mogadishu, to conduct a raid and capture two key leaders under Aidid. The mission ran smoothly until as the troops were preparing to pull out
The documentery did a good job of explaining the events leading up to the battle. It was very diligent in describing why the mission took place and answered a lot of questions I had. The conflict was laid out clearly, and why the Somalian people turned on US soldiers was explained. It made more sense to me after watching the video why the people of Somalia so violently attacked the American soldiers that were trying to help them. The video also did a good job of describing what it was like to be in the battle. It accomplished this by interviewing a number of fighters involved on each side of the battle. I found what they had to say captivating, yet at the same time horrific. , only 30 minutes after arrival, a US Blackhawk helicopter was shot down. The ground convoy was detoured to the crash sight, under heavy Somalian fire. The battle the proceeded led to the loss of yet another Blackhawk, 18 American soldiers, and thousands of Somalians. The fighting went on through the night and into the next morning, when a large international convoy was able to get the stranded US troops out of the hostile city. Several individuals mentioned in the film had a significant impact on American
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 802
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)
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