Somalia
A covert Delta Force element of Downing's 47,000-soldier command at Ft.
Bragg, N.C., had slipped into Somalia unannounced. It was made up of
Army Special Forces, the men who wear the Green Beret. From Ft.
Campbell, Ky., came the Night Stalkers of the 160th Special Operations
Aviation Regiment, reputedly the best helicopter pilots in the world.
The first attempt to grab Gen. Mohamed Farrah Aidid had gone badly.
On Aug. 30 the U.S. Delta Force and members of the 75th Ranger Regiment
cascaded from helicopter ropes into the worsening violence in Mogadishu.
Their primary target turned out to be an empty building. The secondary
target included one man who looked like Somalia's dominant political
leader but turned out to be a member of the UN Relief Mission. He was
released four hours later with profuse apologies from a U.S. Army
colonel.That first try to grab Aidid was painless compared to the
seventh and final effort five weeks later.
On Oct. 3 the elaborate American effort to capture Somalia's leading
politician ended in fierce battle that left 18 Americans dead and 77
wounded. More than 300 Somalis were killed and 700 wounded,including
women and children.
U.S. military concerns about locating Aidid in the dusty alleyways of
Mogadishu had become a reality. At least four risky missions ended in
failure because of bad intelligence, according to U.S. commanders in
Somalia.
From the outset Marine Gen. Joseph Hoar of Central Command, the
military headquarters responsible for Somalia, had argued that without
adequate intelligence, a Special Operations force would be useless. And
military intelligence capability had been reduced as most U.S. combat
troops were withdrawn as ordered by Clinton three months earlier.
In late June a CIA team skilled in intercepting communications and other
techniques was dispatched to Somalia. They were able to listen in on
satellite telephone and radio communications with Aidid's associates.
"But Aidid never called them," said one U.S. official. "He went into
deep cover." The CIA high-tech approach was useless in pinpointing
Aidid because the warlord communicated by using dated walkie-talkies
too low-powered to be detected by the CIA. And he used an old,
low-power transmitter aboard a truck to make mobile radio broadcasts to
his followers. In addition, Aidid's forces kept an eye on helicopter
operations at Mogadishu airport, where the Delta Force was based. "It
got so we were flying helicopters day and night just to cover our
operations," said one U.S. military commander.
On Oct. 3 the whitewashed buildings of Aidid's stronghold were obscured
by beige dust from hovering helicopter gunships. The purr and whump of
gunfire and grenades echoed everywhere.
Gallagher explained how 142 Rangers had been on the verge of a
12-minute drive to safety with 25 prisoners when a Delta Team
helicopter crashed. It was about 4:15 p.m.
Less than an hour earlier the helicopter had been one of six Blackhawks
that dropped 90 Rangers and Delta Force soldiers into the middle of
Aidid's neighborhood near the Olympic Hotel. The group of Aidid
supporters had been captured, and the escape convoy had pulled into
place with another 52 Rangers aboard to provide covering fire.
But now rescuing the crew of the downed helicopter became paramount.
"We weren't going to leave those guys," Gallagher said. From a
defensive position near the hotel, Lt. Tom Di Tomasso saw the
Blackhawk crashing four blocks away. With 13 men from his platoon,
Di Tomasso immediately began moving to the crash site.
While Di Tomasso was on foot, most of the Rangers were aboard armored
jeeps - Humvees with bulletproof windshields, doors and tops - and
unarmored trucks. The halting, twisting drive toward the downed
helicopter through a maze of narrow Mogadishu streets became a
bloodbath.
Five of the six Rangers died en route.
"It was like riding around in a shooting gallery," said Gallagher, who
was wounded while directing his jeep. From building windows, rooftops,
behind walls, Somalis showered them with automatic gunfire and grenades.
With 50-cal. machine guns and grenade launchers mounted on their jeeps,
the Rangers fired back.
Bands of Somalis filled the streets. A point-blank barrage of 40-mm
grenades was fired into one group by a Ranger jeep commander. Somali
men, women and children were left in a bloody sprawl.
But the withering fire from the Somalis was proving too much. Even
three of the Somali captives aboard one Ranger truck were killed. The
Ranger commander, Lt. Col. Danny McKnight, ordered the rescue convoy to
retreat to its base at the airport. More casualties were suffered en
route. But Di Tomasso's foot patrol pressed on.
Two snipers aboard the Blackhawk were knocked senseless by the crash.
When they came to, one of them, Delta Team Sgt. Daniel Busch, 25, of
Portage, Wis., began firing at attacking Somalis. Di Tomasso, whose
platoon had reached the crash site, reported that Busch killed at least
10 before being mortally wounded.
As Di Tomasso's ground force arrived, one of the gunships, an MH-6
Little Bird helicopter, squeezed into the crash site.
Pilot Karl Maier held the controls with one hand while firing a
submachine gun with the other. His co-pilot, Keith Jones, scrambled to
the downed Blackhawk while firing a pistol. The wounded Busch and
another Blackhawk survivor were loaded on the Little Bird, and Maier
lifted off, guns blazing.
A search and rescue helicopter arrived next, dropping off 15 more
Rangers and rescue equipment. That chopper also was hit by Somali fire
but managed to limp back to base.
Inside the downed Blackhawk, the pilot and co-pilot were dead. They
were Chief Warrant Officer Donovan Briley, 33, from North Little Rock,
Ark and Chief Warrant Officer Clifton Wolcott, 36, from Cuba, N.Y.
They had crashed nose-first into a low wall after Somali rocket-
propelled grenades hit the chopper. Now 29 Rangers set up a defensive
perimeter and began trying to free Briley and Wolcott.
The force of the crash had wrapped the fuselage around the two men.
Circular blades of two rescue power saws failed to cut through the
twisted metal.
Six hours later a relief convoy finally fought its way through to the
crash site. A confused effort to get Malaysian armored vehicles to
carry the relief force had caused the delay. The U.S. commander, Army
Maj. Gen. Thomas Montgomery, had requested armored vehicles nearly a
month earlier, but his request had been rejected by Defense Secretary
Les Aspin.
On Oct. 3, as reports of the mounting casualties came in, Montgomery
bit his lips and cursed under his breath, said aides who overheard him.
"He clearly felt that this could have been prevented if he had his own
armor," a top aide said.
Running the Somali gauntlet was costly to the relief column. Three 10th
Mountain Division soldiers were killed. More than 30 were wounded.
After the relief convoy arrived, the Rangers attached truck cables to
the wrecked Blackhawk. "The trucks pulled the helicopter apart, and we
got their bodies," Gallagher said.
A second Blackhawk helicopter had crashed beyond the reach of the
Ranger force and relief convoys. The pilot, Chief Warrant Officer
Michael Durant, later recounted how two Special Forces sergeants jumped
from a hovering helicopter to save him. They were Master Sgt. Gary
Gordon, 33, of Lincoln, Maine, and SFC Randall Shugart, 35, of Newville
, Pa. They were killed along with three of Durant's crew in fighting
around the chopper.
"Without a doubt, I owe my life to these two men and their bravery,"
said Durant, who was captured and later released by the Somalis.
Gordon and Shugart have been nominated for the Congressional Medal of
Honor, the nation's highest award for valor. There will be a shower of
Silver Stars, the third-highest award, for the Rangers.
The Special Operations team had captured 22 supporters of Gen. Mohamed
Farrah Aidid captured that day. All but two of the Aidid supporters
rounded up on Oct. 3 were released later after Clinton abandoned the
hunt for the warlord as a mistaken policy decision.
No one from the administration attended the memorial for the men who
died following Clinton's secret Aug. 22 order to capture Aidid and
bring him to trial. Clinton considered attending the Fort Benning
ceremony, but scheduling conflicts kept him away, a White House
official said. On the stage of the Gen. George C. Marshall Auditorium,
six pairs of desert boots were aligned left to right; an upturned M-16
rifle was bayonetted next to each pair. Each rifle butt held a black
beret with the Ranger regimental crest.
Individual soldiers took turns reciting the Ranger Creed. The fifth
stanza revealed why most of those who died Oct. 3 did not escape
unscathed, as they had during six previous missions:
"I will never leave a fallen comrade to fall into the hands of the
enemy," the soldier recited.
The memorial ceremony in Marshall Auditorium was coming to an end.
Before three volleys of rifle fire and Taps, Bravo Company First Sgt.
Glenn Harris conducted the Last Roll Call.
"Sergeant Joyce?"
There was no answer.
"Sergeant James Joyce?"
Silence.
"Sergeant James Casey Joyce?"
Finally a friend answered. "Not present, First Sergeant."
The litany continued through five more names. Glenn concluded: "These
men were all killed in combat operations in Somalia."
The ceremony intensified the grief and anger of Larry Joyce over the
loss of his son. Joyce, a retired Army officer who spent two tours in
Vietnam, voted for Clinton and said he had rationalized away the
president's efforts to avoid the draft and his role as Vietnam War
protester.
"My son opposed my support for Bill Clinton," Joyce said in a letter to
Congress. "His death in Somalia - brought about by weak and indecisive
amateurs in the Clinton administration - confirms my son's wisdom and
my naivete."
Along with some of the families of 26 other Americans killed there
since last December, Joyce wants Congress to find out what went wrong
and why Aspin refused to provide armor for the relief force.
"Those reinforcements might not have helped my son because he apparently
was one of the first killed," Joyce said in the letter. "But they
certainly would have helped many of the other soldiers who were killed
and wounded. To put them into combat with no way to reinforce them is
criminal."
Reporters were barred from Walter Reed Army Medical Center during the
Oct. 24 session when an uneasy Clinton met with some of the 77
Americans wounded during the covert operation.
Hospital officials who accompanied Clinton said the young
commander-in-chief was shocked by the encounter.
One soldier had lost his left hand, right leg, sight and hearing.
Another had had his hand grafted to his stomach so a shattered arm
could heal. Bullets, shrapnel and fire had maimed a young private.
A sergeant had his leg in a steel birdcage after the first of a series
of bone grafts.
"Clinton was visibly moved," said one hospital official. "He didn't
know what to say. The men could see that."
Some were pleasant and respectful. "Clinton is a nice guy," said PFC
Alberto Rodriguez, 20, of Naranjito, P.R. He had been riddled with
bullets and shrapnel.
Others were cool, even hostile. Sgt. John Burns, 26, of Philadelphia,
whose leg was shattered, balked at an offer to have his picture taken
with the president. "I don't want to end up in some political
propaganda picture - you know, 'President Visits Wounded Soldier',
Burns said while Clinton was in his room. Burns, who balked at the
White House photographer, resents the perception that his mission in
Mogadishu was a failure. "That's what kills me," he said in an
interview later. "We did our job. My friends did not die in vain."
But the president's visit to the hospital was prompted by a call from
an angry Walter Reed physician. According to hospital sources, the
doctor called the White House. "He said these men have been here for
three weeks, and no one had paid any attention to them," said a source
informed of the exchange. "The White House called back and said, 'The
president will be there tomorrow morning.' "
Some within the military feel that what they consider Clinton's
cold-shoulder treatment demeans the heroics and sacrifices made in
behalf of the president's ill-fated policies.
Within the administration, there was even a debate over whether Clinton
should write the families of the 18 men killed in Somalia on Oct. 3.
"Some argued the letters should be written by [Defense Secretary Les]
Aspin - not the president," said one insider. In the end, Clinton wrote
personal notes to everyone.
The defense secretary admitted it was a mistake for him to turn down
requests for armored vehicles to protect U.S. troops there. Some
members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff would like to see Aspin fired.
One soldier Aspin visited was Sgt. Christopher Reid, 24, of Brooklyn.
On Sept. 25, while retrieving the bodies of three Americans killed when
their helicopter was shot down in Mogadishu, Reid was hit by a
rocket-propelled grenade. The blast blew off his left hand and right
leg and riddled his groin with shrapnel. The explosion broke his
eardrums and blinded him.
His hearing has returned, and after a series of operations, most of his
vision was restored. But Reid had to shield his eyes from the overhead
light when he talked to Aspin.
"We could have used that armor, sir," Reid said.
At the Award Ceremonies, the soldiers at Walter Reed are among those
selected for decorations in the aftermath of the Oct. 3 battle. There
will be a number of Silver Stars, the third-highest award for valor,
and at least two soldiers killed in the fighting have been nominated
for the Congressional Medal of Honor, the nation's highest award.
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