30 years ago yesterday and today, a group of UN soldiers (including US Special Operations troops, and units from Malaysia and Pakistan) went out on a mission to capture high-ranking members of the Somali National Alliance (SMA) in Mogadishu.
Things went bad. Then they went very bad. When it was all over, 18 US soldiers had been killed, and another 73 were wounded. One Malaysian Army soldier and one Pakistani soldier were also killed.
Battle of Mogadishu from Wikipedia.
Also killed:
- Staff Sergeant Daniel Darrell Busch.
- Sergeant First Class Earl Robert Fillmore, Jr.
- Master Sergeant Timothy Lynn Martin.
- Sergeant First Class Matthew Loren Rierson.
- Corporal James E. Smith.
- Specialist James M. Cavaco.
- Sergeant James Casey Joyce.
- Corporal Richard W. Kowalewski, Jr.
- Sergeant Dominick M. Pilla.
- Sergeant Lorenzo M. Ruiz.
- Staff Sergeant William David Cleveland, Jr.
- Staff Sergeant Thomas J. Field.
- CW4 Raymond Alex Frank.
- CW3 Clifton P. Wolcott.
- CW3 Donovan Lee Briley.
- Sergeant Cornell Lemont Houston, Sr.
- Private First Class James Henry Martin, Jr.
- Lance Corporal Mat Aznan Awang (Malaysian Army, posthumously promoted to Corporal).
I have been unable to find a name for the Pakistani soldier who was killed.
Black Hawk Down is still a heck of a book, in my opinion. The movie’s pretty good, too, but I’m not going to stake my life on it being 100% accurate. (Though I do believe the movie makers tried very hard.)
“Folly and Redemption: Thirty Years After Black Hawk Down” from The American Conservative.
I remember the aftermath of that battle, and how it was sort of downplayed by the media. I wish that it had been shown to be more important as far as how it would affect history. Because from what I remember, it really seemed like a footnote at the time. Whereas now we know that it was actually a huge turning point in American history.
It is quite unfortunate that we learned nothing from our history, it seems. I look at Libya and how Obama with help from Ms. Clinton in a way helped paved the way for ISIS. Then her botched handling of the attack on the Embassy in Benghazi caused the death of a number of American lives.
Thank you for listing the names of all those who died during that rather somber incident in our history. They deserve to be remembered.
I wanted to specifically call out Sgt. Gordon and Sgt. Shughart’s MoH citations. I figured as long as I was doing that, I owed it to the others to name them as well.
And I had thought only US troops died in the battle: once I found out about the Malaysian and Pakistani troops, I felt an obligation to them as well. It’s unfortunate that information about the Pakistani soldiers is hard to find.