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Sorry, say that again? I drove these roads twenty years ago.
You ? Yes. Yea.
1993 ? 1993 - yes
IN 1993 US SPECIAL OPERATIONS FORCES WERE SENT TO SOMALIA TO CAPTURE WAR CRIMINAL MOHAMED FARRAH AIDID: A MISSION MADE FAMOUS BY THE MOVIE "BLACK HAWK DOWN" (Radio chatter) We got a Black Hawk down, we got a Black Hawk gone down. We got a Black Hawk crashed in the city - 61. 61 you OK?.
There is a great deal of killing, a whole lot of violence in the movie Black Hawk Down.
But to be honest with you, it is a fraction of what really happened in Somalia.
JEFF STRUECKER IS ONE OF SEVERAL ARMY RANGERS WHOSE STORIES INSPIRED THE MOVIE. (radio static)
If you look at all the bullet holes around here, most of these are from us.
Life and death became a lot less
significant for me in Mogadishu.
I don't know if that's a piece of me that's still over there, I don't know if that's
something not up there, I don't know if that's just who I am now. I don't know the answer to that.
It was my job to lead the Humvees on all of the missions that
Task Force Ranger did in Somalia.
For the first 30 minutes, man this thing went down like clockwork,
except for one of the Rangers who was flying in on the Black Hawks,
Todd Blackburn, when he left the Black Hawk to slide down the rope,
he missed the rope and he
fell somewhere between seventy and ninety feet
from the helicopter. So as soon as I got to the target building I was already getting
a call to take Tod Blackburn back to the base and drop him off.
And when I turned the corner I got hit with the most intense enemy
gunfire I've ever experienced in my life.
In the course of one or two city blocks Dominic Pilla was killed behind me,
and most of the vehicles were shot to pieces.
For the first time I started to panic,
and everybody around me started to panic,
and I was thinking, I know I'm gonna die.
When I finally made it back to the airfield I was surprised that any of us survived.
In fact, I took my helmet off and I
threw it, I was so angry at what I just went through - threw it across the
black top, and that's almost the exact moment that my platoon leader said Jeff,
Mike Durant's helicopter has crashed in the city and we don't have anybody else
who can go back out there. I need to get your men, get back on the Humvees,
go back up to the Durant crash site and see if anybody's alive there.
I started to clean the blood, and the brain matter off of the sides of this Humvee,
getting ready to go back out into the city streets, and I was listening
over the radio as this operation was spinning out of control,
and people's voices were getting more and more terrified.
I started thinking about my family, I started thinking God I'm gonna die in
the next few minutes.
Everything inside of me was thinking,
don't go back out there. So at that point I just kept doing what I was doing and I
started praying,
God I'm in big trouble now and I know I'm gonna die,
and I need your help. Whatever you want to happen to me tonight, God I'm putting my
life and my future in your hands.
It was in an instant, as soon as I said that, I was still
totally convinced that I was gonna die, but from that moment the rest to the
night I didn't fear death at all.
I think that is the only thing that gave me the courage to get on Humvees and
drive back out on the city's streets repeatedly.
What nobody has done at this point from Task Force Ranger who was in
Somalia,
nobody's gone back there.
A good friend of mine, Keni Thomas, who was in Somalia with me
called me out of the blue and said, Jeff are you interested in going to Somalia?
And I was the one telling Keni, do you realize how dangerous Somalia, and
specifically how dangerous Mogadishu is?
And he said, look man I'm willing to go if you're willing to go.
I don't feel much emotional difference today than I did flying into Mogadishu twenty years ago. It doesn't feel like it's been that long.
I haven't specifically thought of what it's going to be like
for me personally, or emotionally or psychologically going back over there.
I probably haven't thought about it on purpose.
I'm the security supervisor
here in Mogadishu for SKA.
The situation in Mogadishu is...
I can say it's not any better.
There's a lot more activity still happening.
IED's,
roadside grenade attacks,
uh,drive-by shootings,
are still happening.
I would not advise that we go into the Bakaara area.
Hey, I'll see you on the other side man. (Keni) Irene
(Keni on radio) Hey Jeff, do you recognizing anything yet?
Alright, so anything on your right should be the Wolcott crash site,
and right up here where those trees are to your left should be the Durant crash site.
I was parked right here.
In fact I can still recognize some of those buildings that I spent the whole night parked in front of.
(Keni on radio) So this is how you came in to get us, right?
That's right.
I think if you *** a right up here by this large five-story building you're
gonna get real close to the original target building.
(Keni on radio) You know Jeff, tell the driver we're gonna go right.
Alright, we got it.
(Keni on radio) Taking a right.
(Jeff) Roger.
Hey Keni, you know that we're in the Bakaara Market right now, right?
(Keni on radio) Acutely.
This is what the roads looked like with people, except for the people all had guns.
You're in the area of town that everybody said don't go into right now,
because it's very dangerous.
(Keni on radio) Hey Jeff, let's just tell Abdi we got to find our way out of here pretty quick.
Yea, sounds good.
Hey, will you call them and tell them to go north to...ah...to whatever, and then let's go back down Via Lenin.
(Driver) Blockade?
(Jeff) No, don't turn back. tell them to go north,
hit...ah...21 October, and go down Via Lenin.
(Cameraman) Is that a roadbock?
(Jeff) That's OK, keep going, keep going.
You're good.
(Driver) That is the building of my house.
It is? That's your house?
(Driver) That is the building of my house.
Hey, we did a lot of shooting back here twenty years ago, by your house.
Is this Hawl Wadaag?
(Driver) Yea, Hawl Wadaag district.
Yea, OK.
We got into a big fire fight right here, man.
I drove down a narrow alley way next to the target building and then I made a right turn onto that road,
and when I made a right turn onto that road,
that's where I got hit with about a couple of hundred to a thousand enemy fighters
within a few city blocks.
That's where Dominic Pilla was killed, that's where the majority of the initial firefight that I experienced was there,
and to this day it's still the most intense firefight I've ever been in.
What I remember thinking distinctly when we were driving back into the
city the second and third time is, OK, I know I'm gonna die,
but I know where I'm going to spend my eternity.
Now I just need to do everything necessary to make sure that my men don't die.
I can't believe I survived that.
Good gracious.
There's no real explanation
why I'm standing here right now.
Today driving back through the city streets, I think that's as close as I've come to
the feelings of Somalia
twenty years ago, and Black Hawk Down.
And today really, really drove this home for me. When the fire fight was over with,
a lot of guys were coming up to my little cot, saying you got something that I
don't have. What is it?
You, you are able to do something that I wasn't able to do.
I could hear it in your voice over the radio. What is it?
I was very calm, I had made peace with God, I was ready to die in the next few moments,
and it influenced the way that I fought.
And seeing that spot today, where I washed the blood out of the back of the Humvees,
and where God gave me the sense of peace,
has reminded me that death
really became less significant to me in Somalia.
And I wonder,
if life-and-death here on earth became less significant,
because eternity became so much more real to me in Somalia.