View From The Porch: "We got a Black Hawk crashed in the city..."

Thursday, October 03, 2013

"We got a Black Hawk crashed in the city..."

It was twenty years ago today.

19 comments:

Matthew said...: "When Master Sergeant Gordon learned that ground forces were not immediately available to secure the second crash site, he and another sniper (SFC Randall Shugart) unhesitatingly volunteered to be inserted to protect the four critically wounded personnel, despite being well aware of the growing number of enemy personnel closing in on the site. After his third request to be inserted, Master Sergeant Gordon received permission to perform his volunteer mission."; 8:02 PM, October 03, 2013
Tam said...: I can't read that without getting choked up.; 8:06 PM, October 03, 2013
Anonymous said...: Thanks Tam!; 8:16 PM, October 03, 2013
Matthew said...: Me neither.

I think the movie captured that scene well.; 8:30 PM, October 03, 2013
Bram said...: Still haven't forgiven Les Aspin for denying requests for tanks and some heavier ground forces.; 9:55 PM, October 03, 2013
CountryRebel said...: One of my favorite movies. Read the book before I saw the movie and went right along with it.; 10:04 PM, October 03, 2013
Reno Sepulveda said...: Words escape me... I'd never paid attention to those lyrics before. Thanks Tam, I needed that!; 10:15 PM, October 03, 2013
Paul said...: May the feckless bastards that put such men in the way of danger without proper support rot in hell for all eternity.

We are for ever in such men's debt as the honor and bravery that was shown by Master Sergeant Gordon and SFC Randall Shugart showed that day.

Greater love hath no man than one who will willing lay down his life for another.; 10:26 PM, October 03, 2013
jeff said...: I worked with one of the Rangers that was there. Good troop. I still look at it as the day that 160 men took on an entire city, and won.; 10:35 PM, October 03, 2013
Anonymous said...: DURANT: "Where's the rescue team?"

GORDON: "We're it."

NSDQ.

I can't imagine what it must have been like for all of them.

Matt
St Paul
@1077idaho; 11:45 PM, October 03, 2013
Peter O said...: I think it is getting dusty in here again...; 4:58 AM, October 04, 2013
~Katherine~ said...: Thank you for this.

Do you know, until I read this post and did a little subsequent research, the only thing I knew (or, rather, thought I knew) about the whole business was that a) there was a movie of that name made about ten years ago and b) it was a military fiction shoot-em-up movie.

No, seriously, I was quite sure it was a Top Gun-meets-Tears of the Sun-with-helicopters sort of thing.

In my defense, I was about six when it happened, and my formal history education might be considered a very bad joke at best.

Heroes, indeed.

Now to go read the book.

Thanks again.; 9:36 AM, October 04, 2013
RandyGC said...: Still haven't forgiven Les Aspin for denying requests for tanks and some heavier ground forces.

IIRC there were also high level (DoD or higher)denials of requests for gunship (AC-130) support.

One Specter overhead with Gordon and Shugart designating would have made this a LOT different story.

Thanks for the reminder Tam, now got to clear out those air filters...; 12:06 PM, October 04, 2013
Tam said...: ~Katherine~,

"Thanks again."

This comment made all my blogging this week worthwhile. :); 4:01 PM, October 04, 2013
Drang said...: As of my retirement (13 years, one month and four days ago) pretty much everybody was in agreement that the denial of AC130s came from the Oval Office, and that Hillary was behind it. Everyone I knew who had been in SOCOM in the previous 10 years swore it was so.

FWIW.; 5:51 PM, October 04, 2013
Goober said...: I never did understand the "we're only gonna shoot them a little bit" idea of limited warfare that so many politicians have. That more than anything mafe me think twice about joining up. Iif they aren't gonna support you when the chips are down, why go?; 6:39 PM, October 04, 2013
Anonymous said...: Landed on Mogadishu airport on Jan 2, 1994. Bigtime CF until the pull out in April. Now I feel old, 20 years in a flash. Still don't like Somalis.; 9:53 PM, October 04, 2013
Charlie Foxtrot said...: RIP; 10:52 PM, October 04, 2013
Boat Guy said...: I had recently arrived at an assignment to a Joint SOF command (rather than just NSW) when one of my colleagues came through and reminded us "It's October third". This was a couple of years before Bowden's articles were serialized and then published. It's good that more people know what the guys did there, especially Randy Shugart and Gary Gordon.
Friends worked on the movie and it was VERY well done.; 10:05 AM, October 07, 2013