Black Hawk Down MTI

Rating:
Summary: Reads like fiction, but it's not
Review: This book is such a fast-paced read that you won't be able to put it down. This tells the story that infuriated so many Americans back in 1993, when an American pilot was dragged through the streets of Somalia on TV. This was the pilot of the crashed Black Hawk helicopter. This story is so well written and I would gladly read anything else Bowden writes. This also tells of the extreme odds the soldiers faced against the paople of Somalia. Even civilians had weapons and were shooting at the soldiers. The American forces were grossly outnumbered. This book is one of the best I have read and I am certainly recommending it.

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant Storytelling
Review: Black Hawk Down is a remarkably clear, detailed account of a 24-hour streetfight between two-hundred-odd American troops and thousands of Kalashnikov-toting Somalis in the slums of Mogadishu. The US soldiers were officially there to ensure that starving Somalis got the food hoarded by the "warlords" in Mogadishu. And the Somalis, in the UN's condescending official account, were a mass of trembling little sheep at the mercy of the "warlords" and their henchmen

As Bowden reveals, the official view of the two sides was almost entirely false. Both groups were lusting for a fight, and entered this one not just willingly but enthusiastically. The Somalis are a warrior people, for whom "unarmed man" is an oxymoron; the US Rangers who engaged them on the streets of Mogadishu were professional soldiers, lusting for a chance to try out their weapons in a real firefight. The fight was on, with no quarter on either side.

The battle begins when a US force goes into the slums of Mogadishu to bring back two lieutenants of the "warlord" clan leader Aidid. It's the sixth time the Rangers have pulled this sort of move, and they were successful the first five times. Not this time. A Ranger forgets to grab the rope and falls from a helicopter within seconds, and it's all downhill from there.

One of the oddest things about this book is that many of the problems faced by the US forces are like bloodier versions of suburban slapstick: an officer forgets to take his headphones off before jumping from the chopper, a convoy gets its directions mixed up and drives around the city for hours, lost, with wounded soldiers in the back screaming at the driver like nightmare versions of backseat-driving mothers-in-law, while the higher-ups mangle the directions on radio.

The fact that even the commanders hovering over the battle area couldn't get their directions straight only emphasizes Bowden's achievement in making this chaotic, running streetfight clear to the reader. Describing complex action taking place in several locations at once is probably the most difficult task a writer can undertake, and Bowden's brought it off so well that the reader always knows who's where, who's doing what (and to whom). It's an extraordinary display of narrative virtuosity, for which Bowden has received far too little credit.

Rating:
Summary: removes the romance of combat
Review: Many moves and books about combat have an almost abstract atmosphere. The participants casually think about great philosophy or remember their early lives while trying to kill each other.

Black Hawk Down, on the other hand, treats combat as a very intense, extraordinarily terrifying experience. The combatants are solely concerned with keeping themselves and their comrades alive for as long as possible.

I have had the good fortune never to be involved in a combat situation and now I hope like hell that I never do.

It's a very good book. I highly recommend it, provided that you don't start reading it within two hours of the time you plan to go to sleep. You'll glance at the clock to realise that five hours have passed.

After reading the book, I understand why people volunteer to go into the armed forces. However, it's probably a good idea for the recruiters to provide a copy of this book to a prospective volunteer, just to make sure that the person knows what he or she is signing up for.

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Summary: A story of a 20th century Little Bighorn?
Review: It could of have been another Little Bighorn: a few hundredAmerican soldiers found themselves surrounded in enemy territory byseveral thousand, heavily armed irregulars. Like Little Bighorn, it started with a well-intentioned political policy that went terribly off-tangent. Also like Little Bighorn, the situation was exacerbated by a leadership that had grossly underestimated the fighting ability of the opposition. If it had not been for the bravery and skill of the American helicopter crews, who really kept the enraged Somali mobs at bay, and the discipline and teamwork of the Rangers and "D-Boys", which held up under the stress of combat, the outcome could have been the same as that of the Little Bighorn.

The Battle of the Black Sea may indeed go down in history as the U.S. Army's most famous "small unit" action since the Little Bighorn thanks to Mark Bowden's excellent book. The parallels between the two battles are striking especially their aftermaths. The bodies of Custer's slain troopers were stripped and mutilated as were the bodies of a downed Blackhawk crew and the two D-boys who tried to rescue them. The images of gleeful Somalians dragging the corpses through the streets are still shocking and infuriating to witness. (Luckily, CNN did not exist in 1876, but stories of the desecreted dead still enraged the nation.) Yet American reactions were exactly the opposite. Within six months after Custer's defeat, the tribes of the northern Plains were broken. After Mogadishu, a chastened U.S. gave up its mission, and eventually fled from Africa altogether. The U.S. still carries the guilt of its treatment of the American Indian; yet in 1876 vengeance was more potent than morality. Has the U.S. finally "grown-up" and learned to cut short its losses before it is too late? Or is the "Day of the Rangers" an instructional lesson for every powermad, tinhorn "warlord" that the U.S. military is a paper-tiger that will cut and run if some of its soldiers are killed? "Black Hawk Down" is both a gripping story of modern warfare and a parallel lesson to our past.

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Summary: Superbly Researched Account
Review: Fascinating account of an incredible ordeal that only got a few minutes of airtime here in insular America. It shows the true measure of the demands that our government puts on our soldiers, putting their lives in jeopardy for what are sometimes nebulous or even contradictory political goals. However, this book is by no means liberal propaganda, nor is it targeted against the administration of the time. It is about the other end of the spectrum of political power, and it makes heroes of young men who follow the orders from on high. The author does a nice job of accounting the events, letting them speak for themselves, with a minimum of opinionating or subjective interpretation.Bowden has certainly done his homework on this one.

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Summary: Literally The Best Book I Have Ever Read
Review: I read Black Hawk Down after a friend recommended it to me, and said that I would love it and in fact I did! Black Hawk Down is an incredible story of the war in Somalia, and how a group of soldiers orders were to capture a Somalian clan (Habr Gidr) and imprison its leader. The story tells of how heroic rescues were made, how soldiers died for their country, how things went un-according to plans while trying to capture a Somolian clan leader. I am a big army fanatic,(Even though i'm 14) and i loved this book so much! And I recommend this book to anyone who likes stories of war and to anyone who wants a good book to read. I give this book the HIGHEST RATING A BOOK CAN GET!

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Summary: An Object Lesson About the Profession of Arms and Politics
Review: This is an interesting, disturbing, and captivating book, and one every American interested in how contemporary foreign policy often injects our armed forces into hostile and violent political situations should read. As someone formally involved with the support of military operations, I found the situation alarming from the beginning, when these men were sent into an enemy stronghold without proper support and back up. But then, again, when the American media's approach to the seriousness of the military campaign is to be out on the beach filming the landing of American amphibious troops, one recognizes the absurdity of the situation. From the outset, this was hardly a straightforward military operation.

Once the troops are in place and ready to 'rock& roll' in the local environment, however, the multiple mistakes involved both in military assessment and then in military reaction slowly suck our troops into an increasingly unpredictable, dangerous and untenable situation. Of course, with hindsight, it is easy to second-guess the series of experiences and decisions made that led to sending 100 troopers into the heavily armed urban morass they became entwined in, but no one could have guessed how hostile, energetic, or persistent the heavily armed local thugs would be in prosecuting the battle. Yet it is precisely this possibility that senior military officers on the scene must anticipate and appreciate, and it is to their blood-stained hands (and the hands of civilian policy-makers) that we must look for the deaths of these fine young men.

On the other hand, given the mistakes made in establishing the rules of engagement, the single most striking aspect of this tale is that fact that it has been painted as a military defeat. Yet in more modest and realistic terms, any military engagement, which results in 18 dead and dozens, wounded counter-posed with literally hundreds of dead and wounded Somalis hardly constitutes an unalloyed defeat. Ambushed, surrounded, and attacked with a level of unsuspected ferocity, these men fought bravely and well, and inflicted almost unbelievable damage on an opposing force of overwhelming numbers and firepower.

One chief lesson here is that it was the manner in which the media portrayed the event that led to the subsequent events, up to and including the decision to pull American troops out of the region. Yet, anyone familiar with the nature of war understands it is patently ridiculous to suppose one can conduct serious military operations involving the outright use of deadly force without suffering loss of life. Pointing to situations both before and since only demonstrates our luck, the degree of caution employed, and the likely enforced timidity of our activities. Certainly the laughable operations recently conducted in the Balkans provides proof of this absurd idea. Until we once again have people experienced in the profession of arms manning decision-making positions in the Executive branch, people who understand the requirements for successful military operations, until then we will continue to suffer the slings and arrows of such outrageous fortune.

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Summary: Much more of a story than the press coverage suggested
Review: I flew in and out of Mogadishu in 1993, in support of the New Zealand airforce and army teams stationed there as part of the UN effort. A few months after I headed my Herc for home from what we saw as little more than a slightly exotic, mildly interesting destination, the events in this book unfolded.

While the geography was familiar, the intensity of the battle and the underlying tension that must have preceded it shocked me. While waiting for our Herc to be refuelled we drove to the airfield perimeter and bought souvenirs from the locals. After that we went to the top of the dunes where a bunch of Rangers were having their pictures taken in front of a pair of Hummers. Sure, there were plenty of weapons and wire, but it didn't seem like a hot zone in the least.

This book shows how wrong we - and perhaps the American public and government - were. It tells the story of a Ranger/Delta mission into the middle of Mogadishu that, while technically successful, cost 18 troops (and 500-odd Somalis) their lives. Its battlefield narrative is the most thorough I have ever read and draws on an incredible amount or research and interviews with participants from both sides.

What stood out for me though, was that despite having operated into Mog just months before the battle - and so having at least a passing interest in stories on the area - I never realised it had happened. As Colin Powel mentions in the book, in Vietnam an 18-casualty engagement wouldn't have warranted a press conference. But this isn't Vietnam, and the lack of attention the Battle of the Black Sea received is perhaps the most worrying aspect of this book.

If I had a reservation about recommending Black Hawk Down, it would be that the level of detail is so great it sometimes becomes a blur, and one name or event fades into another. But this is a small criticism of a strongly written, if sometimes disturbing (not for younger readers) book.

Rating:
Summary: One Really Awesome Book
Review: This is a really good book.I first read it when I was about eleven and loved it. (my goal is to join the special forces. I read anything i could get my hands and on and still do)This book was extremely interesting and informative. the author captured the moment very well and the emotion conveyed was wonderful. I think this is a great book.

Rating:
Summary: Grabs you from the first page!
Review: This book will grab you from page one. Mr. Bowdin has produced one of the best books written about close quarters combat. A reader will find that they have to catch their breath after reading this book--that's how much you'll get caught up in the action!

The heroism of the men who participated in this operation should never be forgotten.