Black Hawk Down, Book_Reports, College Term Papers.com


		Data Bases
		• Custom Term Papers • Free Term Papers • Free Research Papers • Free Essays • Free Book Reports • Plagiarism?

		Links
		• Top 100 Term Paper Sites • Top 25 Essay Sites • Top 50 Essay Sites • Search 97,000 Papers @ DirectEssays.com • Search 101,000 Papers @ ExampleEssays.com • Search 90,000 Papers @ MegaEssays.com

		Free Essays
		• Term Paper Sites • Chuck III's Free Essays • Free College Essays • TermPaperSites.com • My Term Papers • Get Free Essays • Essay World • Planet Papers

Search Lots of Essays

Back to Subjects - Book Reports

Black Hawk Down

Black Hawk Down Mark Bowden's ''Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War'' is a minute by minute reconstruction of the climactic battle in the short, American military campaign in Mogadishu. The Battle of the Black Sea, as it is known, was the most serious firefight involving American troops since the Vietnam War. Eighteen American soldiers were killed, and more than 70 wounded, in 15 hours of ferocious fighting. More than 500 Somalis combatants were killed, among more than a thousand casualties. Bowden, a reporter for The Philadelphia Inquirer, was not in Mogadishu at the time. But his account, built on interviews with battle participants and Army records, has great immediacy nevertheless. Although the Americans suffered some losses the United States clearly won the battle. The author Mark Bowden shifts the narrative point of view, rapidly and regularly, from one battle participant to the next. The Rangers see themselves as ''predators, heavy metal avengers, unstoppable, invincible,'' and the book tells of the confusion and panic of individual soldiers as the operation begins to unravel. Black Hawk Down describes the type of men who become Rangers, very young (average age, 19), physically fit, highly motivated, white males and I came to know something about the remarkable array of weapons they carry. The indigenous people are known as ''Skinnies'' or ''Sammies.'' A limitation to the author's seeming omniscience becomes evident only when the battle grows desperate: you realize that the fighters to whose thoughts we are privy must be those who, however imperiled, survived. Somalia had not had a central government since 1990, when its longtime dictator was overthrown by rebel factions. Warlords had so ravaged the nation battling among themselves that their people were starving to death. Then the world sent food, the clan leader hoarded it and killed those who tried to stop then. So the civilized world had decided to intervene. The United Nations, having taken responsibility for the American-led intervention, naturally preferred to have a government to which it could hand over authority. And so the international agency got into the ''nation-building'' business, seeking to reconcile Somalia's faction leaders to a power-sharing arrangement. But Mohammed Farah Aidid, whose Habr Gidr clan militia had been the main player in the dictator's overthrow, was not interested in sharing power. He believed he had earned the right to rule the country. In August 1993 President Bill Clinton granted Commander Howe's request for an elite American force to help capture Aidid, sending 450 commandos, most of them Army Rangers, to Mogadishu. The Rangers soon became the new focus of local hatred. Their powerful Black Hawk helicopters whipped the roofs off whole neighborhoods with the force of their rotor wash even, according to Bowden, tearing infants from the arms of their mothers. Under pressure to find Aidid swiftly, the Rangers, forced to rely on poor intelligence, floundered at first. But then they seemed to make progress, arresting some of Aidid's lieutenants in lightning raids It was one of those raids, launched on Oct. 3, which became the Battle of the Black Sea. The targets were two of Aidid's senior advisers, reported to be in a house in the Black Sea neighborhood, a Habr Gidr stronghold. The Rangers, led by small units of highly specialized and trained soldiers known as Delta Force operators, went in by helicopter. The plan was to leave by ground convoy. The operation was supposed to take 30 to 40 minutes. Things began to go wrong immediately. A Ranger fell 70 feet out of a helicopter. Ground fire was unexpectedly intense. Then one of the Black Hawks was shot down by a well-aimed rocket-propelled grenade. This act is what led to a long draw out battle as the soldiers when to the aid of the fallen pilots, have a strict leave no one behind policy. The Sammies were armed with many RPG’s that prevented the helicopters from landing and pulling the troops out. The ground convoy made up of Hummers and flat bed truck that planned to pick up the soldiers started to receive massive volleys from the Somalis. The Somalia militia quickly swelled to a large number and the grounded convoy started to suffer a high number of casualties. Then things really started to heat up and the Somalis down another Black Hawk Helicopter. The ground convoy did not have the numbers, armor, or the firepower to draw the Rangers out, forcing the team to fortify a position near the first downed helicopter. The army would be forced to seek help. Italian and Malaysian U.N. troop were also in the area and they agreed to help extract the Rangers from the city of Mogadishu. The Malaysians provided four tanks and the Italians provided some Deutsch built armored cars. The international convoy eventually extracted the Ranger, but not till almost five in the morning. There was one prisoner of war, but he was released in the following weeks. Those not so lucky to make it out of had their corpses drug though the dusty streets with ropes and were spit on, kicked, and generally dismembered by the savages. As a result of this battle, Washington’s will to fight was broken. The hunt for Aidid was called off. The international campaign to help the Somalis form a government collapsed, and within 18 months the United Nations had packed up and left the country. Somalia still does not have a Democratic government. Before this book was published, surprisingly little has been written about this conflict. Especially when you consider that it is one of our larger firefights in resent history. One thing in particular that stuck me as odd was that Washington considered the battle a “lost”. The battle was not lost. On the American side eighteen men were killed, and on the Somali side five hundred men were killed. This is an unbelievable ratio that shows the superior ability of our troops. Two of my cousins died in France, but I didn’t think we lost WW2. What kind of warped logic is this? As America changes from a nation of pioneers to a nation of immigrants, and from a nation filled with solidarity to a nation of pluralism, she has become intolerant to any loss of life in military conflicts. This sound contradictory to me and the book left me wondering why we send soldiers into battle anywhere if we can not tolerate any loss of human life. On the other hand the book provided an excellent first person perspective on war and I believe gained from the reading. I think it helps me to appreciate the sacrifice my kin and others have made for this nation. Bibliography:

Word Count: 1207