by Mark Bowden
They held themselves to a higher standard than normal soldiers. With their buff bodies, distinct crew cuts—sides and back of the head completely shaved—and their grunted Hoo-ah greeting, they saw themselves as the army at its gung ho best. Many, if they could make it, aspired to join Special Forces, maybe even get picked to try out for Delta, the hale, secret supersoldiers now leading this force in. Only the very best of them would be invited to try out, and only one of every ten invited would make it through selection. In this ancient male hierarchy, the Rangers were a few steps up the ladder, but the D-boys owned the uppermost rung.
Rangers knew the surest path to that height was combat experience. So far, Mog had been mostly a tease. War was always about to happen. About to happen. Even the missions, exciting as they’d been, had fallen short. The Somalis—whom they called “Skinnies” or “Sammies”—had taken a few wild shots at them, enough to get the Rangers’ blood up and unleash a hellish torrent of return fire, but nothing that qualified as a genuine balls-out firefight.
Which is what they wanted. All of these guys. If there were any hesitant thoughts, they were buttoned tight. A lot of these men had started as afraid of war as anyone, but the fear had been drummed out. Especially in Ranger training. About a fourth of those who volunteered washed out, enough so that those who emerged with their Ranger tab at the end were riding the headiest wave of accomplishment in their young lives. The weak had been weeded out. The strong had stepped up. Then came weeks, months, years of constant training. The Hoo-ahs couldn’t wait to go to war. They were an all-star football team that had endured bruising, exhausting, dangerous practice sessions twelve hours a day, seven days a week—for years— without ever getting to play a game.
They yearned for battle. They passed around the dog-eared paperback memoirs of soldiers from past conflicts, many written by former Rangers, and savored the affectionate, comradely tone of their stories, feeling bad for the poor suckers who bought it or got crippled or maimed but identifying with the righteous men who survived the experience whole. They studied the old photos, which were the same from every war, young men looking dirty and tired, half dressed in army combat fatigues, dogtags hanging around their skinny necks, posing with arms draped over each other’s shoulders in exotic lands. They could see themselves in those snapshots, surrounded by their buddies, fighting their war. It was THE test, the only one that counted.
Sergeant Mike Goodale had tried to explain this to his mother one time, on leave in Illinois. His mom was a nurse, incredulous at his bravado.
“Why would anybody want to go to war?” she asked.
Goodale told her it would be like, as a nurse, after all her training, never getting the chance to work in a hospital. It would be like that.
“You want to find out if you can really do the job,” he explained.
Like those guys in books. They’d been tested and proven. It was another generation of Rangers’ turn now. Their turn.
It didn’t matter that none of the men in these helicopters knew enough to write a high school paper about Somalia. They took the army’s line without hesitation. Warlords had so ravaged the nation battling among themselves that their people were starving to death. When the world sent food, the evil warlords hoarded it and killed those who tried to stop them. So the civilized world had decided to lower the hammer, invite the baddest boys on the planet over to clean things up. ’Nuff said. Little the Rangers had seen since arriving at the end of August had altered that perception. Mogadishu was like the postapocalyptic world of Mel Gibson’s Mad Max movies, a world ruled by roving gangs of armed thugs. They were here to rout the worst of the warlords and restore sanity and civilization.
Eversmann had always just enjoyed being a Ranger. He wasn’t sure how he felt about being in charge, even if it was just temporary. He’d won the distinction by default. His platoon sergeant had been summoned home by an illness in his family, and then the guy who replaced him had keeled over with an epileptic seizure. He, too, had been sent home. Eversmann was the senior man in line. He accepted the task hesitantly. That morning at Mass in the mess he’d prayed about it.
Airborne now at last, Eversmann swelled with energy and pride as he looked out over the full armada. It was a state-of-the-art military force. Already circling high above the target was the slickest intelligence support America had to offer, including satellites, a high-flying P3 Orion spy plane, and three OH-58 observation helicopters, which looked like the bubble-front Little Bird choppers with a five-foot bulbous polyp growing out of the top. The observation birds were equipped with video cameras and radio equipment that would relay the action live to General Garrison and the other senior officers in the Joint Operations Center (JOC) back at the beach. Moviemakers and popular authors might strain to imagine the peak capabilities of the U.S. military, but here was the real thing about to strike. It was a well-oiled, fully equipped, late-twentieth-century fighting machine. America’s best were going to war, and Sergeant Matt Eversmann was among them.
2
It was only a three-minute flight to the target. With the earphones on, Eversmann could listen to most of the frequencies in use. There was the command net, which linked the commanders on the ground to Matthews and Harrell circling overhead in the Command and Control (or “C2”) Black Hawk, and with Garrison and the other brass back in the JOC. The pilots had their own link to air commander Matthews, and Delta and the Rangers each had their own internal radio links. For the duration of the mission all other broadcast frequencies in the city were being jammed. Inside the steady scratch of static, Eversmann heard a confusing overlap of calm voices, all the different elements preparing for the assault.
By the time the Black Hawks had moved down low over the city for their final approach from the north, the advance Little Birds were already closing in on the target. There was still time to abort the mission.
Burning tires on the street near the target triggered momentary alarm. Somalis often set fires to signal trouble and summon militia. Could they be flying into an ambush?
—Those tires, have they been burning for a pretty good period of time or did they just light them, over? asked a Little Bird pilot.
—Those tires were burning this morning when we were up, answered a pilot on one of the observation birds.
“Two minutes,” the Super Six Seven pilot alerted Eversmann.
The Little Birds moved into position for their “bump,” a sudden climb and then a dive that would sweep them over the target house with their rockets and guns pointing down. One by one, the various units would repeat “Lucy,” the code word for the assault to begin: Romeo Six Four, Colonel Harrell; Kilo Six Four, Captain Scott Miller, the Delta assault-force commander; Barber Five One, veteran pilot Chief Warrant Officer Randy Jones in the lead AH-6 gunship; Juliet Six Four, Captain Mike Steele, the Ranger commander aboard Durant’s bird; and Uniform Six Four, Lieutenant Colonel Danny McKnight, who was commanding the ground convoy poised to take them all out. The convoy had rolled up to a spot several blocks away.
— This is Romeo Six Four to all elements. Lucy. Lucy. Lucy.
— This is Kilo Six Four, roger Lucy.
— This is Barber Five One, roger Lucy.
— Juliet Six Four, roger Lucy.
— This is Uniform Six Four, roger Lucy.
— All elements, Lucy.
It was 3:43 P.M. On the screen in the JOC, commanders saw a crowded Mogadishu neighborhood, in much better shape than most. The Olympic Hotel was the most obvious landmark, a five-story white building that looked like stacked rectangular blocks with square balconies at each level. There was another similar large building on the same side of the street one block south. Both cast long shadows over Hawlwadig Road, the wide paved street that ran before them. At the intersections where dirt alleys crossed Hawlwadig, sandy soil drifted across the pavement. The soil was a striking rust-orange in the late afternoon light. There were trees in the courtyards and between some of the smaller houses. The target building was
across Hawlwadig from the hotel one block north. It was built in the same stacked-blocks style, L-shaped, with three stories to the rear and a flat roof over the two stories in front. It wrapped around a small southern courtyard toward the rear and was enclosed, as was the whole long block, by a high stone wall. Moving in front, on Hawlwadig, were cars and people and donkey carts. It was a normal Sunday afternoon. The target area was just blocks away from the center of the Bakara Market, the busiest in the city. Conditioned to the helicopters now, people moving below did not even look up as the first two Little Birds came sweeping into the frame from the top, from the north, and then banked sharply east and moved off the screen.
Neither chopper fired a shot.
“One minute,” the Super Six Seven pilot informed Eversmann.
The Delta operators would go in first to storm the building. The Rangers would come in behind them, roping down from the Black Hawks to form a perimeter around the target block.
Delta rode in on benches outside the bubble frames of the four MH-6 Little Birds, each chopper carrying a four-man team. They wore big black flak vests and plastic hockey helmets over a radio earplug and a wraparound microphone that kept them in constant voice contact with each other. They wore no insignias on their uniforms. Hanging out over the street on their low, fast approach, they scanned the people below, their upturned startled faces, their hands, their demeanor, trying to read what would happen when they hit the street. As the Little Birds came in, the crowd spooked. People and cars began to scatter. Wind from the powerful rotors knocked some people down and tore the colorful robes off some of the women. A few of the Rangers, still high overhead, spotted people below gesturing up at them eagerly, as if inviting them to come down to the streets and fight.
The first two Little Birds landed immediately south of the target building on the narrow rutted alley, blowing up thick clouds of dust. The brownout was so severe that the pilots and men on the side benches could see nothing looking down. One of the choppers found its original landing spot taken by the first chopper in, so it banked right, performed a quick circle to the west, and came down directly in front of the target.
Sergeant First Class Norm Hooten, a team leader on the fourth Little Bird, felt the rotor blade on his chopper actually nick the side of the target building as it came to a hover. Figuring the bird had gone as low as it could, Hooten and his team kicked their fast rope and jumped for it, planning to slide down the rest of the way. It was the world’s shortest fast rope. They were only a foot off the ground.
They moved directly toward the house. Taking down a house like this was Delta’s specialty. Speed was critical. When a crowded house was filled suddenly with explosions, smoke, and flashes of light, those inside were momentarily frightened and disoriented. Experience showed that most would drop down and move to the corners. So long as Delta caught them in this startled state, most would follow stern simple commands without question. The Rangers had watched the D-boys at work now on several missions, and the operators had moved in with such speed and authority it was hard to imagine anyone having the presence of mind to resist. But just a few seconds made a difference. The more time those inside had to sort out what was happening, the harder they would be to subdue.
The lead assault team that landed on the southern alley, led by Sergeant First Class Matt Rierson, tossed harmless flashbang grenades into the courtyard and pushed open a metal gate leading inside. They raced up some back steps and directly into the house, shouting for those inside to get down. Hooten’s four-man team, along with one led by Sergeant First Class Paul Howe, charged toward the west side of the building, facing Hawlwadig Road. Hooten’s team entered a shop with colorful cartoons of typewriters, pens, pencils, and other office items painted on the front walls, the Olympic Stationery Store. Inside were six or seven Somalis who promptly dropped to the floor and stretched their arms in front of them in response to the barked commands. Hooten could hear sporadic gunfire outside already, much more than he’d heard on any of the previous missions. Howe’s team entered through the next doorway down. The thickly muscled sergeant kicked the legs out from under a stunned Somali man just outside the doorway, dropping him. Howe swept the room with his CAR-15, a black futuristic-looking weapon with a pump-action shotgun attached to the bayonet lug in front. It was important to assert immediate control. All he found was a warehouse filled with sacks and odds and ends.
Both teams knew they were looking for a residence, so they quickly moved back out to the street. They ran south along Hawlwadig and turned left, heading for the courtyard their teammates had already broken into. They rounded the corner in a worsening dust storm. The Black Hawks were moving in.
The first, carrying the Delta ground commander and a support element, flared and hovered about a block north of the target on Hawlwadig as Captain Miller and the other commandos on board roped down. Along with another Black Hawk full of assaulters, they would be the second wave to storm the house. Behind them came the Rangers on four Black Hawks, roping down to positions at the four corners of the block to form the assault’s outer perimeter.
As ropes dropped from Black Hawk Super Six Six, hovering over the southwest corner, Chalk Three began sliding down to the street in twos, one man from each side of the bird. A crew chief shouted, “No fear!” to each man who exited his side of the aircraft. As Sergeant Keni Thomas reached for the rope, he thought, Fuck you, pal, you’re not the one going in.
Hovering high over Hawlwadig two blocks north, the Super Six Seven pilot told Eversmann, “Prepare to throw the ropes.”
Chalk Four was at about seventy feet, higher than they’d ever fast-roped, yet dust from the street was in the open doors. Waiting for the other five Black Hawks to get in position, it seemed to Eversmann that they had held their hover for a dangerously long time. Even over the sound of the rotor and engines the men could hear the pop of gunfire. A Black Hawk hanging in the sky like that made a big target. The three-inch-thick nylon ropes were coiled before the doors on both sides. Specialist Dave Diemer was waiting in the right-side door with Sergeant Casey Joyce. At the head of the line at the left door was the kid, Blackburn. When they kicked out the ropes, at the pilot’s command, one dropped down on a car. This delayed things further. The Black Hawk jerked forward trying to drag the rope free.
“We’re a little short of our desired position,” the pilot informed Eversmann. They were going in about a block north of their corner.
“No problem,” he said.
The sergeant felt it would be safer on the ground.
“We’re about one hundred meters short,” the pilot warned.
Eversmann gave him a thumbs up.
Men started leaping. The door gunners shouted, “Go! Go! Go!”
Eversmann would be the last man out. He removed the headphones and was momentarily deafened by the noise of the helicopter and the explosions and gunfire below. Ordinarily Eversmann wore earplugs on missions, but he’d left them out today because he knew he’d have the headphones. He draped them over his canteen and reached for his goggles. Battling the excitement and confusion, all his movements became deliberate. He would fasten the goggles over his eyes and then, mindful of the crew chief’s instruction, would set the headphones on his seat before he left. But the damn strap on his goggles snapped. Eversmann fiddled with it for a moment as the last of his men leapt out, trying to find a way to fix them, saw that it was his turn to hit the rope, chucked the goggles, and jumped, ripping the headset cord from the ceiling and taking the earphones right out of the helicopter with him.
He hadn’t realized how high up they were. The slide down was far longer than any they’d done in training. Friction burned through his heavy leather gloves, leaving the palms of his hands raw, and he felt terribly vulnerable, fully extended on the rope for what felt like twice the normal time. As he neared the ground, through the swirling dust below his feet, he saw one of his men stretched out on his back at the bottom of the rope. Eversmann’s heart sank. Somebody’s been sh
ot already! He gripped the rope hard to keep himself from landing right on top of the guy. It was the kid. Eversmann’s feet touched the street next to him, and the crew chiefs above released the ropes. They dropped twisting and slapped down across the pavement. As the Black Hawk moved away the noise and dust began to ease, and the city’s musky odor bore in like the smell of something overripe.