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Summary: The 30 minutes that took all night.
Review: This book is absoutly stunning! It shows what these brave men had to endure. Reading this book made me fee like I was there. The graphic nature of this book gives you a sense of reality that can't be found in any other book. Your emotions will flow with the book. When things are looking bad you feel depressed, when things are looking better you'll feel happy. Mr. Bowden is an exclent writer, and he did a surberb job with this novel. He needs to consider a sequel to this book. I recomend this book to everyone who wants to know what it's really like. I have talked to soldiers and they all agree that this book does the story justice.
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Summary: In the Middle of the Fight
Review: Writing about battles in a manner than makes the reader feel involved is more the genre of fiction than non-fiction. Mark Bowden accomplishes the extraordinarily difficult by accurately recounting the story of a brutal, desperate battle in a way that puts you right in the middle of the fight. The often overlooked battle of Mogadischu has been ignored or downplayed by many. It is to Bowden's great credit that he pulled back the curtain on this brave but ultimately futile action that many in the political sector were only too willing to keep hidden.
Bowden puts you in the helicopters beside the Rangers and Delta operators as they plunge into a routine mission gone terribly wrong. You sense the awful loss as comrades are killed or wounded and the helplessness of a small group of elite soldiers who are suddenly confronted by a guerrilla army of thousands in a dusty, dark, stinking pesthole on the Horn of Africa.
You share the bravery, loyalty and skill of these soldiers and you will weep over their loss. Even more troubling, you will recognize the utter waste when a vacillating and spineless political leadership abruptly yanks them out of Somalia on the verge of achieving the impossible goal - removal of 'General' Adid that the politicians had set in the first place.
That weakness of moral core was startling enough to give Osama bin Laden - present at the time in Somalia - the motivation to press his attack on the United States. The road to the attack on 9-11 begins on the Mogadishu Mile.
This is an important book from many points: to demonstrate the amazing character of the American soldier, to point out the ability of the US to carry out extremely difficult missions, and most of all to demonstrate the absolute necessity of having high level political backing for any commitment of military resources. Black Hawk Down has to be a part of any serious reader's library.
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Summary: an utterly moving classic of men at war
Review: This is a stunning, moving, fast-paced read, and I regret that I waited so long to read it. But now that I finally have, I can say it is one of the finest works on modern combat I've read. With admirable humility, Bowden dismisses his own capacity for military and strategic analysis, and this book isn't so much a book about why as it is who and where and what and when and how. It's an amazing narrative.Bowden takes us into the world of Mogadishu (the "Mog"), where warlords struggled for control of the city and where mobs roved. His comparison to the Mad Max films is particularly evocative. Into that world were inserted teams of elite American soldiers: the shadowy Delta Force (D-Boys) and Rangers. At first things go moderately well, and they come within minutes of success. But once events take a turn for the worse, they do so rapidly, and the fog of war quickly engulfs the fight. Soon, two helicopters are down, and the soldiers are trapped in the city, left to fight off angry and armed mobs. They spend a night in the city before being rescued, but not before they took on harsh casualties. I don't think I've ever read a book on military history that so often left me near tears. The devotion of these men, their courage and heroism (but they're still just men--or, most of them, just boys of nineteen, twenty, twenty-one), their sacrifice, the near rescues and close calls, the deaths, and finally the rescue--it's all highly emotional stuff. You root for them, know the cause was a noble one, and yet you're unbearably enraged by how these troops were used and abused by their nation. This is not an anti-war book, nor is it a patriotic celebration of the American soldier. It is a realistic, brutal look at modern warfare. It is already a classic.
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Summary: Read the book - see the movie
Review: I've always kind of identified with being a special forces soldier...dunno why. Seeing this movie and reading the book really brings home what it means to be the first in a combat zone...and sometimes when no one else even knows/cares about it. God bless these men, and good luck.
Rating: 
Summary: Intelligent - Excellent
Review: One would think that the US military would not be a fan of this book, since it covers a costly incursion of American Special Forces. Curiously, the military has embraced Black Hawk Down, eager to learn more about what went right and what went wrong in Modadishu. Through Vietnam-haunted movies, many people think of the military as incompetent, arrogant, stupid or just cold-blooded. Black Hawk Down's greatest contribution is a rebuke of those qualities. The book follows the lives of the men who went into Somolia with the goal of capturing Warlord Aidid. Politics and why's are just briefly presented; Bowden focuses on the soldiers as they fight their way home through the city. He portrays them as real and human people, the fighting spirits of America. These are husbands, sons, brothers and friends - Bowden stresses that fact above all else. They are not perfect. Somolian perspective is given a voice in the book, but the soldiers are the main point of view. Bowden said that he wanted to document the battle in the manner of a novel. He reports on the event like a journalist with an even hand. The city and the people are real and tangible, given dimensions that the movie fails to capture. The sheer amount of soldiers involved can be confusing at times, but Bowden does the best that can be done with it. The afterword presents the author's thoughts on the event and its repercussions, but at no time does he judge the actions of the soldiers on the ground. If you want to see the realities facing America and her military in the 21st Century, I cannot recommend this book highly enough.
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Summary: An Amazing Action Thriller
Review: The story of Black Hawk Down is mainly about modern war. The story took place in Somalia, Mogadishu. The author of this book is Mark Bowden. The Rangers mission was to extract the target building and capture the two Somali warlords. The mission was supposed to last an hour, but something tragic happened. Two enemy RPG's hit the Black Hawk Super Six Four helicopter. After the battle 18 American soldiers died and 70 more were wounded. The bloody battle took place in October 1993. I liked this novel because it is interesting. I also like this novel because it made me sad for those soldiers who died in that battle. This novel made me feel a lot of emotions like sadness because of the corps of the died American soldiers being dragged on the streets of Mogadishu. This novel is very entertaining. This novel has full of action, which is why I spend an hour and fifteen minutes every night reading it. Another thing that I liked about this novel that it changed the way I look at modern wars and battles. It made me respect people who fight for our country. This novel tells the story of the soldier in that battle like Matt Eversman and Mike Durant. This novel also showed the point of views of the American soldiers and the Somali soldiers. This novel is very enjoyable and interesting I would be happy to recommend this novel for those people who like to read war stories
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Summary: The best history book i ever read
Review: This is the History of one of the most hazardous military missions in the Clinton Administration, because Somalia in 1993 was a contry in civil war and the Somalian militia was trainied to figth to the last, but in the other side it was the Task Force Rangers who includes the US Army Rangers and the Special Forces team Delta who went to trap the warlord Mohammed Farrah Adid. This book is great because you look the live of 100 soldiers traped in a city with all aingast they and how survivie only thust in theirs comrades, but i have read the spanish version of it nad i like it. Thanks to this book i can find some boys can be heroes just for saving the man next to they and many other things you never imagine like the doctor who try to save the live of a young Ranger with a wound in his tigth, or the pilot who has been trated well by his captors. This book show this : "I will never leave a fallen comrade in hands od the enemy" like said the Ranger creed. I highly reccomed this book in first place and later the movie.
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Summary: A harrowing yet compelling book about a battle no one won...
Review: On October 3, 1993, less than a year after President Clinton began his first term as President of the United States and almost eight years before Sept. 11, 2001, a small force of U.S. Army Rangers and members of the elite Delta Force were helicoptered into the heart of Mogadishu, Somalia's war-torn capital, in a daring daylight raid to capture two of Somali clan leader Mohamed Farrah Aidid's top lieutenants. The plan was simple -- drop four "chalks" of Rangers to secure a perimeter around the target building (near the Olympic Hotel) while the Delta commandos -- the D-Boys, as the Rangers referred to them -- gathered the prisoners. Then they'd be exfiltrated by a convoy of armed humvees and trucks and whisked back to the U.S. Army base in Mogadishu International Airport. But, as General of the Army (and later President) Dwight Eisenhower once said, no military plan ever survives intact once the first shots are fired, so instead of a quick in-and-out raid, the 100 men of Task Force Ranger found themselves in the middle of a hostile and anarchic sector of Mogadishu known as the Bukara Market (and also as "the Black Sea"), engaged in what was, until the recent war in Iraq, the most sustained and deadly firefight in American military annals since Vietnam. Mark Bowden, a long-time reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer, chronicles the harrowing "Battle of the Black Sea" in his bestselling book Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War with a fine eye for detail, a crisp and gripping narrative, and without bias toward either the Somalis or the Americans involved in the 18-hour firefight that left 18 American soldiers dead, over 70 wounded, and hundreds of Somali casualties. Despite having had no prior military experience or even any expertise on defense issues, Bowden has written a non-fiction work that joins such works as Cornelius Ryan's A Bridge Too Far and Lt. Gen. Hal Moore's We Were Soldiers Once...and Young as a true classic of military history.
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Summary: Shocking Reality
Review: Tough time to read this tough book about super tough soldiers. A non-fiction account of what happens in war when a mission goes astray. In the case of Black Hawk Down, helicopters get shot down in war torn Mogadishu. Bowden's reporter background helps tell an amazing tale of survival though a bit light on the local perspective. The thought distracting me from this well written story was the reality that these survivors are walking around with the memory of their fallen comrades. And similar missions take place every day in Iraq. Tough times in our country.
Michael Duranko
www.bootism.com
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Summary: one of my favorite books
Review: I first heard about somalia when i was way younger than i am now. i remember when my uncle got home from somalia and we had a reunion in tennessee where he lived at the time. i specifically remember this picture that was in the news paper(which we still have) of him giving my little cousin a peck on the cheek right after he got off the plane. anyway i didnt think much of it i didnt even know what somalia was at the time or know anything about the battle. i didnt think of it for a long time untill my mom told me they were making a movie about it called black hawk down and that i should read the book and see the movie. so i bought the book and read it. my uncle wasnt mentioned by name and i dont know what he really did there because he never talks about it. all i know is he was a ranger at the time. but this is an excellent book. it hits me closer to home but it is a good book for anyone to read. if your apprehensive because its nonfiction dont worry about it. it reads just like a fiction novel. it is not boring at all. if you havnt seen the movie yet read the book first. it is way more accurate. anyway just my two cents. excellent book i recommend it for anyone interested in the subject. so BUY IT. READ IT. you wont regret it.
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