No Man Left Behind

The account of the October 3, 1993 firefight in Mogadishu by Mark Bowden in Black Hawk Down has been highly praised as the most realistic and moving account of modern warfare. The book is based on the true story of a mission to raid Mohammad Farrah Aidid’s headquarters and capture two of his aides, and turned into one of the most horrendous, bloody battles in modern warfare. The United States Army sent Rangers in to conduct a classified mission that was to be brief and effectively accomplish the task at hand while drawing little attention from the media to the American presence in Somalia. This firefight, however, now well known by the average American, had a huge psychological and emotional impact on each individual survivor, beginning with the poor mental preparations for their encounters, peaking with the traumatic scenarios and huge losses encountered during the fighting, and being reconfirmed by the lack of recognition by both the government and the American people to the tragedies these men endured. The firefight began with an rocket propelled grenade launching into one of the helicopters, damaging it and watching it’s demise to the ground after first hitting a house before coming to rest on the side of an ally. Most of the Rangers conducting missions in Somalia were able to see this crash. The men, both on the operation front lines and back at their operating base, were not mentally prepared for the initial crash. The impact of seeing a Black Hawk helicopter filled with your brothers in arms spinning to a fatal crash on the ground in a hostile country during a civil war after being bombed by the enemy, and not knowing the status of your friends, or the level of safety you are in yourself will lead any man, highly trained or not, to fill with fear. Of course their mission had changed gears and needed to switch to a rescue mission, where other soldiers would then enter the city of Mogadishu in the same manner that the downed aircraft had. The men endured terrible visions or loss and horrific violence, and then had to accept the fact that they could end up with the same fate. At the same time that America’s soldiers were in Somalia conducting operations that would either end or change their lives forever, the United States Government under the Clinton administration was trying to, in a sense, cover up the actions and prevent any blame of the mess on the government and the US military. Of course, this action following a mishap is normal and will continue well beyond the current wars, but it does lead the soldiers to feel that they are being forgotten when no one is aware of the intensity they had to endure. After the movie was released and more people became aware of the events in Mogadishu in 1993, the words “failed mission” rang throughout the surviving Ranger’s ears, piercing their pride. Soon after the government removed troops from Somalia, re-enforcing the “failure” idea, whereas the soldiers involved in the operation would likely disagree, insisting that their mission was conducted in the best manner possible given the circumstances. This brings forward the responsibility of each citizen to consider their own actions and words in reference to a soldier who has had little time to debrief and re-adjust to society, or who may not be able to ever fully recover. Many soldiers will face scrutiny and protesting for actions when they know that those scrutinizing does not have any idea as to what they are talking about, what they are demanding, or what accusations they are really making. The men in Black Hawk Down are heroes; they deserve to be treated as such. Having risked their lives in a combat environment with such a low probability of survival to rescue fellow soldiers is an action that few are able to comprehend, let alone succeed at. They truly live by their code to leave no man behind. Although the fighting and the injuries must have left irreparable psychological and emotional damage on the men involved in the fighting, the pride and the self-worth that must be gained from knowing that you live what you train, what you preach and what you want to be has to be highly motivational and reassuring. I have seen soldiers give up. I have seen people in combat stop trying to help a dying person, a person that will not be able to make it on their own. I could not see them having a positive outlook on themselves the same way someone who does everything in their power to help a fellow soldier would have. The impact of family, the government, fellow soldiers, media and the citizens they go home to, as well as their personal viewpoints of what they have accomplished had and still has a huge impact on the soldiers in the fighting in Mogadishu, Somalia in the operation on October 3, 1993. Although some may view the loss of lives and the constant need to readjust to be a failure of mission, the men in the fighting would surely disagree, knowing that they did what they were trained to do, as well as they could, and for that reason they should have pride and be regret free. They will, however, be continuously dealing with the horrors they encountered and the knowledge that they lost friends in that battle. When you go into enemy lines you know that you cannot fully return unless every soldier that deploys with you returns as well. It’s as if you leave something behind you, something that no one can get back for you and that you can not truly retrieve yourself. The brutality of war is a huge stressor, leaving the survivors of this tragic encounter to deal with combat stress that most men and women, even those who have seen some combat in their lives, could never imagine. The fear and the images will never leave those men, and they will forever be coping with the losses of their friends.