THE BIGGEST FIREFIGHT INVOLVING AMERICAN SOLDERS SINCE NAM!

This book is well written and thoroughly researched on the battle of Mogadshu Somalia, October 3&4 1993. Mr Bowen is a reporter, he interviewed many of the Rangers and some of the Delta Force operators (this has to be impossible because Delta Forces does not exist, wink wink), that were involved in the fight. He traveled to Mogadishu so that he could see were the fighting took place, and he interviewed many of the Somalis combatives.

The book starts off with 160 men, 19 aircraft, 9 humvees, and 3 five-ton trucks on stand by at the Army compound near the Mogadishu airport. They are on stand by often and have completed 6 mission and had many more practice exercises. At 3:32 PM they get the go ahead and a group of Rangers and a smaller group of Delta Force take off in helicopters to fly into the city and snatch 2 top Lieutenants of Somalia Warlord Mojamed Farrah Aidid.

American Forces are in Somalia on a peace keeping mission to try and bring Democracy to the area. The country is controlled by warring factions. Aidid is the strongest faction and he happened make the USA very mad at him or as I tried to write P*I*S*S them off.

The 2 Lieutenants were rumored to be in a large house in the middle of Town. The helicopters flew the 3 miles from the base to the area of the house. The Ranger teams would fast rope down from the helicopters and secure about a 2 block area around the house at the 4 corners of the area. The Delta Force team would fast rope from the helicopter near the house enter it and grab the 2 Lieutenants. As soon as the Rangers deployed out of the copter one was very seriously injured. The Delta Force grabs the 2 Lieutenants and the force at the base in the humvees and trucks roll in and grab them.

By this time every Somalia with in a few miles is attacking the American forces. Man Woman, and Child are out to get the Americans. What the Military Intellegence did not know or the Command Staff did not take into account was the amount of combative that would be in the area. There were 1,000s of Somalis who at the very least supported Aidid and were in the city.

I will give a small example of what happened. The book is a most read for anybody that likes military books, or anybody that likes American history. The Somalis shot down 2 helicopters in the city. (They shot down more but not in the city) At one of the crash sites, they ended up taking a pilot hostage and the rest of the crew was killed. 2 Delta Force snipers fast roped down to the site to try and protect it. They fought until they were killed. These were the men you saw on the news being dragged through the streets on the news and in Newsweek and Time. What sucked even more for the families was that they did not even know they were dead yet.

If a book can be great about a very unfortunate incident in our History this is it. This is a most have for your Military library. No matter what your opinion of Americas involvement in Somalia, this book address it. It tries to look at all sides the White house, and the Military. It is unfortunate that the whole Somalia situation was kind of put up on the top shelve and forgotten about. There were 18 Americans killed and over 500 Somalis killed. Very few of the Americans involved were not injured and thousands of Somalias were injured.