Black
Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War
by Mark Bowden
Paperback: 392 pages ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.90 x
8.45 x 5.47
Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper); ; (February 28, 2000)
ISBN: 0140288503
Ninety-nine elite American soldiers are trapped in the middle
of a hostile city. As night falls, they are surrounded by thousands of
enemy gunmen. Their wounded are bleeding to death. Their ammunition and
supplies are dwindling. This is the story of how they got there — and how
they fought their way out. This is the story of war.
Black Hawk Down drops you into a crowded marketplace in the heart of
Mogadishu, Somalia with the U.S. Special Forces and puts you in the middle
of the most intense firefight American soldiers have fought since the Vietnam
war. Late in the afternoon of Sunday, October 3, 1993, the soldiers of
Task Force Ranger was sent on a mission to capture two top lieutenants
of a renegade warlord and return to base. It was supposed to take them
about an hour. Instead, they were pinned down through a long and terrible
night, locked in a desperate struggle to kill or be killed. When the unit
was finally rescued the following morning, eighteen American soldiers were
dead and dozens more badly injured. The Somali toll was far worse; more
than five hundred felled and over a thousand wounded. Award-winning literary
journalist Mark Bowden's dramatic narrative captures this harrowing ordeal
through the eyes of the young men who fought that day. He draws on his
extensive interviews of participants from both sides — as well as classified
combat video and radio transcripts — to bring their stories to life. Authoritative,
gripping, and insightful, Black Hawk Down is a riveting look at the terror
and exhilaration of combat destined to become a classic of war reporting.
The
Publisher
Journalist 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. This will quickly be realized
as a modern military classic. John J. Miller - Amazon.com
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