As @Silversnake reminded me today, we should take time to reflect on the 20th Anniversary. There was a systematic failure during the operation in many regards. Due to that event, lesson's were learned, tactics modified and lives have been saved many a time, since that fateful day. What happened with the operation and the heroic stories of valor that came out from the actions of the men on the ground, many know today due to Black Hawk Down. A lot of good men died and heroes made, in the effort to save their fellow man from slaughter in a hostile country. I for one salute those men!! God Bless!!
For those that never heard the story or were to young. washingtonpost.com: Somalia 1993 Timeline of the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I lost a very good friend in Somalia, MSG Tim "Grizz" Martin. He was a true American who always put his country and his men before himself. I will be thinking of him, his wife Linda, and their two daughters.I will also be thinking of all the others lost while serving our country.
Rawles put a reminder on his SurvivalBlog about the anniversary .... looked over the TV schedule to see if anyone was broadcasting Blackhawk Down ..... not even the Military Channel .... pity
And a few days later SEAL's and Delta Force are back in Libya and Somolia. CNN) -- (CNN) -- In two operations in Africa nearly 3,000 miles apart, U.S. military forces went after two high-value targets over the weekend. One operation took place early Saturday in the Libyan capital of Tripoli, when members of the elite U.S. Army Delta Force captured Abu Anas al Libi, an al Qaeda operative wanted for his alleged role in the deadly 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa. In the second raid, a team of U.S. Navy SEALs in southern Somalia targeted a foreign fighter commander for Al-Shabaab, a terrorist group linked with al Qaeda, according to a senior Obama administration official. Early-morning capture Al Libi, 49, was returning to his house after morning prayers around 6:30 a.m. (Friday night ET) when a group of at least 10 men in four vehicles surprised him, his wife told CNN. Umm Abdul Rahman said some of the men were wearing masks and some weren't. She said the unmasked men looked like Libyans to her and spoke Arabic with Libyan accents. She couldn't say whether the other men were Americans. The capture was over very quickly, she said.
A nasty part of the world I am glad I never had the honor of visiting... God bless and protect those soldiers, for they do walk in the Valley every time they go down range!!
