Full Battle Rattle

by Changiz Lahidji

  A half dozen blocks away, Sergeant Christopher Reid of C Company, a soft-spoken Jamaican immigrant and member of 2nd Battalion, 10th Mountain Division, had been sent as part of a QRF (quick reaction force) to help rescue the men from the burning Black Hawk.

  As Reid and members of his unit carried the bodies of Anderson, Williams, and Richardson from the smoldering helo to their APC, they came under heavy fire from Somali militiamen who spilled out of nearby streets and alleys. Reid was laying down cover fire when he took a direct hit from an RPG that severed his right hand at the wrist, blew off his right leg above the knee, severely burned his left hand, ruptured his eardrums, and blinded him temporarily. Still he managed to survive.

  When news of the attack and US deaths reached us back at base, we were shocked, saddened, and pissed off. We had come to Somalia to help save the people from starvation. Now some of them were turning against us.

  What was particularly unnerving was the fact that one of our Black Hawks—the most visible symbol of our technological and military superiority—had been shot down. To my mind what had seemed unthinkable a few days ago was only going to embolden Aidid’s ragtag gang of thugs.

  I’d find out later that the downing of COURAGE 53 hadn’t been a lucky accident. Aidid and his men were getting money and training from bin Laden and other members of Al Qaeda. Specifically, veterans of the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan like Yusef al-Ayeri and Saif al-Adel were teaching them how to replace the detonators on their RPGs with timing devices, so instead of blowing up on impact they could detonate in midair. They also taught them to aim at the Black Hawk’s tail rotor, which was its most vulnerable spot.

  By the end of September 1993 a showdown was looming in Mogadishu, and Aidid and most of his aides were still at large.

  9

  BLACK HAWK DOWN

  One week after the downing of COURAGE 53, the incident continued to haunt us members of Task Force Ranger. As I did PT, trained, or passed idle hours playing gin rummy, hearts, or blackjack in the hangar by the beach that served as our barracks or endured nightly mortar attacks, I wondered how we had quickly gone from heroes to villains in the eyes of the residents of Mogadishu and if the diplomats and generals who were guiding our mission really had a grip on what was going down in war-torn Somalia.

  Most of the guys I talked to had as much interest in going into the city as entering the white-shark-infested ocean to our east. If the Somalis didn’t want us here, what the fuck were we doing?

  The place was hot, uncomfortable, dirty, smelly, and swarming with disease-bearing bugs, rats, and mosquitoes; the water was undrinkable; the food sucked; and the militants who controlled the city were trying to kill us. In no way, shape, or form was it a friendly environment. What were we trying to accomplish? Keep them from killing one another, when they seemed to be directing most of their hatred at us?

  As soldiers we weren’t privy to the strategic thinking of UN envoy Admiral Howe or other decision makers in Washington. So we sucked it up and tried to make the best of what was an increasingly dangerous situation.

  Sunday morning, October 3, I ran into my old buddy Master Sergeant Tim “Griz” Martin, who was with Delta. He’d arrived in August and, like many of us, was counting the days until he got orders to return to the States.

  “Hey, Changiz. How’s it going?” Tim asked. “What’s the word from home?”

  Tim was an easygoing guy from Indiana with a good sense of humor and a seen-it-all, dealt-with-everything attitude. We’d met in Okinawa in 1990 when we were both assigned to 1st Group Special Forces. Tim, who had previously been in Delta and wanted to be promoted from E8 (First Sergeant) to E9 (Command Sergeant Major), took a year-and-a-half assignment in ODA 116, while I was with ODA 113. After getting his E9, he transferred back to the Dreaded D (Delta).

  Friday nights at Okinawa, he and I chowed together with a group of guys at the base cafeteria, where Tim would talk about his wife and three daughters and plans for retirement. He’d been in the Army since graduating from high school in ’74. There was a lot of wear on his military tires.

  But they didn’t show that Sunday morning outside the hangar. He looked as affable and confident as ever as he stood smiling and waiting for me to respond.

  “All good, Tim,” I answered. “I’ve got thirteen years in, another seven at least to go. How about with you?”

  “My girls miss me, and I miss them. This coming June I’ll hit twenty years active service. Probably pack it in and start a business.” While at Okinawa, Tim and I had trained at the firing range together. He’d taught me some advanced pistol-shooting techniques, which had come in handy since.

  “Sounds good, Tim. Hopefully we’ll be out of this hellhole soon.”

  “Your words to God’s ears, Changiz.”

  “Yeah, life’s good.”

  Several hours later, while cleaning my gear, I was summoned with my teammates to a nearby two-story whitewashed structure that served as Task Force Ranger HQ. There, in the downstairs briefing room, a major from S-2 told us that they had received recent intel that located several of General Aidid’s top aides at a meeting in a building across the street from the Olympic Hotel in downtown Mogadishu. The plan, approved by TFR commander General William Garrison, called for Special Forces and Ranger teams to establish a perimeter around the area so that Delta could fast rope into the street from MH-6 Little Bird helicopters, secure the building, and seize the targets—Aidid’s foreign minister, Omar Salad Elmi, and his top political advisor, Mohammed Hassan Awale.

  Meanwhile, another Delta and Ranger recovery column would drive to the site in nine armored Humvees and three five-ton trucks to take the assault team and its prisoners out. The entire mission was to be in and out in thirty minutes.

  The major reviewed call signs and orders of battle and answered questions that mostly had to do with timing and air support. Someone asked why we weren’t going in under cover of night.

  “Because the targets are there now,” he snapped back. He went on to assure us that this was a high-priority mission and all available assets including Black Hawks would be aloft and ready. The code word for launch was Irene.

  Our role in ODA 596 was to help secure Chalk 2—a perimeter several blocks north and east of the target. I knew the area well. It was not only one of the most upscale sections of the city and had two- and three-story stone houses with inner courtyards instead of tin-roofed huts but also an Aidid stronghold that offered a perfect urban fighting environment with lots of tight streets, alleys, and passageways, as well as flat roofs. Not a place you wanted to engage the enemy. Only a few wide streets ran through the area and were capable of accommodating the twelve-vehicle recovery convoy that was a key component of the plan.

  I pushed whatever fears and doubts I had out of my head, said a quick prayer, and hurried back to the hangar to grab my gear and weapons. ODA 596, like the other Special Forces and Ranger units, was lightly armed with M16 assault rifles and small-caliber M60 and SAW M249 machine guns. Our Humvees mounted with .50 cals would be parked 500 meters away from the perimeter so we could get out of there fast. Our lack of heavy armor was deliberate so we could move quickly in and out.

  For heavy support, should we be attacked, we’d have to count on the miniguns and .50 cal machine guns on the Black Hawks and Little Birds overhead. Air command would be controlled by a Delta official circling in another Black Hawk and a US Navy P-3C would provide overhead surveillance. The powerful AC-130 Spectre gunships previously available had been recalled from Mogadishu due to their propensity to cause collateral damage.

  At 1350, TFR intel received confirmation that Omar Salad Elmi and Mohammed Hassan Awale had arrived at the building downtown. Ten minutes later, we got the order Irene, triple-checked all our gear—in my case an M16, thirteen mags of thirty rounds each in my vest and pouch and another five in my pockets, a 9mm pistol, grenades, body armor, helmet, goggles, gloves, and knee pads—and hurried to our Humvees. There we were joined by six Gr
een Berets from another A-team. The eighteen of us packed into four vehicles and started to deploy single file north toward the port. Our instructions were not to shoot unless the enemy shot first.

  From the port, we hung a left and proceeded up dirt-packed Hawlwadag Street. I stood in the back of the lead Humvee manning the .50 cal, goggles shielding my eyes from the thick clouds of yellow dust that rose from our tires. I chewed on a wad of gum to keep my mouth from turning dry.

  By all appearances, it looked like a typical hot, sleepy Sunday afternoon with very few people on the streets. As I sweated under my Kevlar helmet, desert boots, and cammos, I waved at an old woman lugging produce from the market and young boys kicking a soccer ball that had been made out of rags. A few curious men poked their heads out of their tin-roofed huts to see what was going on.

  We were the first team in and our team leader, Chris, kept in constant contact with Delta commander Lieutenant Colonel Gary Harrell in the command Black Hawk overhead. Their chatter echoed through the earpiece I had taped to the inside of my helmet.

  “Six-Four, this is Tiger Six-Two. Two minutes to Chalk Two. No hostile activity encountered so far. Over.”

  “Tiger, Six-Four. We’ve got eyeballs on you from up here. Proceed with caution. Over.”

  “Will do, Six-Four. Over and out.”

  Our destination was the intersection of Marehan Road, National, and several alleys, a few blocks east and north of the target site. I kept looking left and right, keeping an eye on rooftops and alleys. All good. No militants in sight.

  We parked about 500 meters south of the intersection and left a driver and one soldier to guard each vehicle. The remaining ten of us continued up Hawlwadag in staggered formation, fingers on triggers, scanning left and right, up and down, then right on National, and left of Shalalawi, which ran parallel to Hawlwadag. There, roughly two blocks east and three blocks north of the target, streets and alleys ran together to form a rough circle.

  Like much of downtown Mog, the intersection was littered with garbage, burned carcasses of vehicles, and other detritus of war. The buildings around it were ghostly, pockmarked shells, covered with brown dust. Like a scene from an apocalypse film.

  Dust had found its way into my boots and under my uniform. I wanted to get this over quickly.

  Chris gave the signal, and five of us peeled away to inspect the three-story apartment building on the southeast corner. The makeshift tin door that covered the entrance was held together with a piece of wire. I pushed it open, entered, cleared the hallway, then hand-signaled to my teammates to move quickly into the rooms on the first floor. We cleared them one by one, just as we’d practiced hundreds of times in CQC.

  The place stank of feces and garbage. While my unit searched the first building, Chris and the rest of the team entered a dust-covered two-story building farther south. We (Alpha) kept in constant radio contact with Chris’s group (Tiger), the guys back at the truck (Beta), and one another.

  “Tiger Six-Two, first floor clear.”

  “Roger, Alpha One. Continue up to deck two.”

  “Roger that.”

  We stepped around the bent rim of a bike tire on the stairs. The guys ahead of me heard something moving on two. One of them used hand signals to indicate the direction and that we should proceed with caution.

  While we cleared buildings to the south and east of the circle, a team of Rangers fast roped from a Black Hawk into the intersection and started clearing streets and alleys to our left (west).

  Meanwhile, the heavily armed twelve-vehicle Delta/Ranger recovery convoy, which included my buddy Tim Martin, proceeded up Hawlwadag Street from the port, following the same route we had taken.

  All the windows of the apartment building we inspected were missing and the floors were covered with rubble, garbage, and dirt. I spotted a purple and orange head scarf peeking out from a pile of bricks, mortar, and garbage in the corner on two. Huddled there was a woman with her arms around two young children. I held my left finger to my mouth, and whispered in Arabic to be quiet and not to panic, we weren’t going to harm her. She and her kids looked scared and emaciated. I asked, “Is there anyone in the rooms behind you?”

  She shook her head.

  My teammates confirmed that seconds later. Then as two guys kept watch, the rest of us cleared the third floor, which was empty, then hauled ass to the roof. We saw Black Hawks and Little Birds swooping in from the south and east. Three of the bigger helos hovered over the other three Chalk sites south, west, and southwest of us and Rangers started to fast rope down and secure their spots on the perimeter. Todd Blackburn, a young PFC in Chalk 4, missed the rope and fell seventy feet to the street. As a medic and another guy in his unit ran over to help him, they started to take fire.

  I heard chatter through my headset.

  “Man hit. Need immediate medevac, Chalk Four.”

  Then I watched four bubble-front MH-6 Little Birds pass to my left carrying Delta C Squadron. As the first two helos landed they kicked up an enormous cloud of dust that obscured my view. On the street below, I saw several Somali men in loose pants running toward the target site and shouting.

  Four blocks from us, on the street in front of the target site, Delta C Squadron, wearing hockey-style helmets, hurried out of the Little Birds and into the target building, setting off flash grenades, ordering people inside to drop to the floor.

  Simultaneously, our team leader, Chris, and Group Tiger started to engage in a firefight with armed men in the building to our right. It ended quickly as the militiamen retreated and ran.

  Before I left the roof I heard sporadic small-arms fire to my left, in the direction of the Bakaara Market and the approximate location of Chalk 4. Through the swirling yellow dust I spotted the first of many columns of black smoke. They came from tires that had been set on fire signaling to militiamen where to gather and that the fight was on.

  What I couldn’t see were the thousands of armed militiamen who were streaming into the area and assembling to our north, west, east, and south. Nor could I hear the militiamen who were running through the streets and alleys shouting through megaphones, “Come out and defend your homes!”

  Four blocks south, the operators in Delta C Squadron had found and identified Omar Salad Elmi, Mohammed Hassan Awale, and had even bagged another Aidid lieutenant, Abdi Yusef Herse. It was 1550 hours and the three men lay prone and flex-cuffed in the courtyard as other operators spread through the target building looking for more suspects.

  Meanwhile, my friend Tim Martin was waiting in front of the target building with the rest of the twelve-vehicle extraction convoy. Tim, who was sitting in the rear seat of the third Humvee, jumped out to check on a Navy SEAL seated beside him who been shot in the right hip a few blocks before they reached their destination. Tim tore open the SEAL’s pants and discovered that the round had hit the blade of his knife, shattering the blade and deflecting the bullet.

  “You’re a lucky man,” Tim said as he pulled several fragments of the blade out of the SEAL’s hip and bandaged the wound. That’s when the convoy started taking fire from rooftops and alleys to the north and west.

  My teammates and I were back on the street, arms ready, waiting for the signal to exfil, and expecting it any second. Through my headset I heard one of the Rangers in the Humvee taking PFC Blackburn back to base say that they were encountering groups of armed militants. Cracks of gunfire echoed from the alleys to our left.

  The intersection and Chalk 2 remained clear and calm. I felt my heart pounding in my chest. The teammate to my right growled, “What the fuck are we waiting for?”

  “Beats the shit out of me.”

  What I didn’t know was that there had been a slight mix-up at the target site. Delta Squadron C remained inside the building waiting for a signal from the recovery convoy, while the convoy waited for Delta C and its prisoners to come out. Finally, thirty-seven minutes after Delta C had launched, they started to load their prisoners into the convoy’s trucks and
pull out. A Black Hawk passed low to our left, positioning itself to support the convoy.

  I breathed a sigh of relief. The mission was almost over.

  I turned right and spit the spent gum out of my mouth and, as I did, heard a loud explosion to my left. I looked up to see where it had come from. Two seconds later, I heard people shouting through my headset.

  It was so frantic, I didn’t register what they were saying at first. Then I made out distinctly, “Holy shit! Black Hawk hit! Black Hawk on fire!”

  Other voices overlapped the first. “It’s losing control!”

  “Fuck! It’s going down!”

  “Black Hawk down!”

  “Black Hawk … fuck!”

  I spotted the injured bird in my left periphery. Black smoke rose from the rear rotor and the chopper started to go into a spin. As it neared the ground the helo spun faster. I made out the silhouette of the pilot and copilot in the cockpit, and several operators through the open door, holding on and bracing themselves for a crash landing.

  It seemed unbelievable. Guys around me were shouting and taking cover. The big injured bird careened toward us.

  “Oh Jesus!” someone beside me gasped.

  “Oh, fuck!”

  “Watch out!”

  I took cover behind a four-foot-high wall.

  Chief Warrant Officer Cliff “Elvis” Wolcott, pilot of the Black Hawk Super 6-1, and copilot CWO Donovan Lee “Bull” Briley, both of SOAR 160, had practiced for an emergency like this and knew to pull back on the power control levers, which cut the engines. That’s what caused the bird to spin counter to the direction of the rotors.

  Understanding that he had no control of the chopper, CWO Wolcott said calmly over the radio, “Six-One going down.”

  As the helo screamed closer, I dove behind a pillar and made myself small. Next I heard a horrible screech of metal as the rotor hit the ground and flew free, followed by the violent smash of the 6-1 slamming to the ground 200 meters to my left, throwing up sparks and a huge cloud of dust.