A version of this story first appeared Oct. 3, 2013, in Soldiers magazine online (http://soldiers.dodlive.mil/)
FORT DRUM, N.Y. -- For 10th Mountain Division (LI) veterans who served 20 years ago in the Battle of Mogadishu, thoughts of bravery, sacrifice and one of the most paramount tenets of their Soldier's Creed: "I will never leave a fallen comrade," sear memories as much as the stench, darkness and unmistakable bleakness of Somalia's capital city.
Veterans of the vicious fight Oct. 3-4, 1993 -- some of them still in U.S. Army uniform -- consider that experience in the Horn of Africa one of their greatest educations in life. On Facebook profiles, some describe themselves as graduates of the "University of Mogadishu."
"I had the opportunity to serve in one of the best battalions in the Army during the most influential and developmental years of my career," said Command Sgt. Maj. Clyde A. Glenn, 192nd Infantry Brigade senior enlisted adviser, referring to 2nd Battalion, 14th Infantry Regiment, 10th Mountain Division.
A veteran who later served in Iraq with the 82nd Airborne Division said nothing ever matched the kind of respect he still holds for the command team that led him in Mogadishu.
"I would follow (them) through the gates of hell, as would most of the troops who served under them," said Steven R. Whittredge, an English teacher from the Boston area who served in Somalia as a radio operator for 1st Platoon, A Company, 2-14 Infantry.
"I am still in awe over the team that came together for what we had to accomplish in Somalia," added Col. Drew Meyerowich, then A Company commander and now director of the U.S. Army's Command and General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth, Kan. "Throughout my career, this team has been the standard for me as far as professionalism, dedication and excellence."
A call for help
On the afternoon of Oct. 3, 1993, elite U.S Soldiers conducted a raid in downtown Mogadishu to capture top lieutenants of General Mohamed Farrah Aidid, a ruthless Somali warlord at the time.
The operation in the city's dangerous Bakara Market area disintegrated into chaos after rocket-propelled grenades downed two of Task Force Ranger's MH-60L Black Hawks -- the first one roughly four blocks north of the target location; the second some 10 blocks south of the target.
Rangers and other members of TFR immediately engaged in a deadly, block-by-block battle in an attempt to reach the first crash site and secure it.
When the second Black Hawk went down, hundreds of Somalis converged on the scene. Not long after, two volunteer TFR snipers were inserted to stave off the heavily armed mob.
By this time, commanders from TFR headquarters at the Mogadishu Airport had placed their call for outside assistance, according to retired Brig. Gen. William C. David, then a lieutenant colonel who commanded the "Golden Dragons" of 2-14 Infantry -- the ground component of the 10th Mountain Division's Quick Reaction Force.
The QRF arrived at the airport after 4 p.m., around the time that a TFR contingent was returning with wounded members of the assault team in tow.
David and his S-3, Maj. Mike Ellerbe, were briefed in the operations center. Within minutes, David's tactical command post (TAC CP) and the Soldiers of C Company, commanded by Capt. Mike Whetstone, were on their way to the second crash site.
At K-4 Circle intersection, the column was ambushed.
"The bad guys had a tendency to kind of close in around crash sites," David said, "because they knew we were going to come to them."
Taking heavy direct fire, the convoy scattered. The Golden Dragons returned fire.
At 2-14 Infantry headquarters at the University of Mogadishu compound by the U.S. Embassy, Soldiers with A Company, standing on the back of five-ton trucks, could see helicopter activity, tracer rounds and explosions about a mile away in the darkening skyline.
"I was getting very anxious to get on the ground and help," recalled Glenn, a 60-mm mortar squad leader at the time.
The dismounted firefight intensified at the K-4 Circle. U.S. Soldiers endured a storm of withering rocket, mortar and small-arms fire. At least an hour passed before David accepted that his men were outgunned and a different avenue of approach would have to be determined.
David and Whetstone had their men break contact. They reconsolidated and eventually linked up with Meyerowich and his company of Soldiers.
Meanwhile, Master Sgt. Gary Gordon and Sgt. 1st Class Randall Shughart, the two snipers dropped off near the second crash site, were eventually overrun. Somalis killed all U.S. Soldiers at the second site except for "Super Six Four" pilot, then-Chief Warrant Officer 3 Michael Durant, whom they took prisoner.
Shughart and Gordon posthumously received the Medal of Honor.
Regroup
The Golden Dragons had arrived in Mogadishu in August 1993. Although attached to United Nations Operation in Somalia II (UNOSOM II), the QRF was under the operational control of Col. Lawrence Casper, 10th Aviation Brigade, "Task Force Falcon" commander.
Several smaller elements of the 10th Mountain Division fell under the QRF as well, including 1st Battalion, 87th Infantry Regiment; 46th Forward Support Battalion; 2nd Battalion, 25th Aviation Regiment; and 41st Engineer Battalion.
Internal to 2-14 Infantry, David and his senior enlisted adviser, Command Sgt. Maj. Gerard "Jerry" Counts, had set up all three rifle companies on rotating 72-hour shifts -- from a mission cycle to a training cycle to a rest-and-refit cycle. Each company consisted of mobile gun sections, M35 "deuce and a half" trucks and Humvees that included two turtlebacks, two .50-caliber machine guns and two MK-19 grenade launchers.
By the time C Company and A Company reached the new port, it was dark. Thousands of Somalis now filled the streets near the crash sites, pinning down the Americans in one of the most dangerous areas of the city.
As conditions continued deteriorating, nearly 100 Rangers took up defensive positions in buildings and in the growing shadows of nightfall at the northern crash site. They treated their wounded and worked to free "Super Six One" MH-60L pilot Chief Warrant Officer Cliff Wolcott's remains from the wreckage -- all while holding off an onslaught of Somalis frantic to reach them.
Without mechanized vehicles, David began organizing multinational support. He wanted a rock-hard rescue convoy, capable of punching through barricades, machine-gun fire and the ever-thickening perimeter of kill zones that surrounded U.S. forces trapped in the Aidid stronghold.
David stood under a bunch of flashlights to hammer out a plan. In addition to a few other U.S. elements and the cover of attack helicopters, the convoy needed to integrate a Pakistani tank platoon and armored personnel carriers (APC) from two Malaysian infantry companies.
Putting together the coalition took time. Since arriving a little more than a month earlier, the Golden Dragons had never even trained with the foreign forces.
U.N. operations in Somalia had been mostly focused on nation-building since a civil war ravaged the countryside in the early 1990s, leaving most of the nation in agricultural ruin. As the situation worsened, UNOSOM I was established in the spring of 1992 to monitor a U.N.-brokered ceasefire while also spearheading emergency humanitarian relief.
But Somali clans -- most prominently one led by Aidid -- not only continued to fight, but they also thwarted international relief efforts, even hijacking shipments bound for people starving to death.
The U.S. led a United Nations-sanctioned multinational force to Somalia in December 1992. Unified Tasked Force (UNITAF), codenamed Operation Restore Hope, achieved some level of success through early 1993, and mass starvations that had claimed hundreds of thousands of Somalis stopped.
By summer, UNITAF transitioned leadership back to the United Nations. International efforts to help restore order were renamed UNOSOM II, codenamed Operation Continue Hope in the U.S.
Shortly after thousands of U.S. service members withdrew, however, Aidid became openly hostile.
In June 1993, militia presumed to be loyal to Aidid killed two dozen Pakistani peacekeepers.
On Sept. 25, three U.S. Soldiers were killed after an RPG took down their Black Hawk east of the port. One of the Soldiers, Sgt. Ferdinan C. Richardson, was an intelligence analyst with the 10th Mountain Division's 10th Aviation Brigade.
Even though stopping Aidid had become the focus of several elite U.S. units, U.N.-led efforts were still concentrated on restoring order, providing relief, rebuilding infrastructure and constructing some semblance of a government -- not throwing together massive multinational rescue operations in the dark.
'We were going in'
"Black Hawk Down," the book by Mark Bowden and the Hollywood movie that followed, captured the intensity and chilling dread of the Battle of Mogadishu, especially as it related to members of Task Force Ranger, according to 2-14 Infantry veterans.
But, as with any account of battle, viewpoints and perspectives are hopelessly imperfect. David said all who have been in combat would probably agree that everything they experienced depended on their unique assignment, their individual actions and the battlefield's many vantage points.
By 11 p.m., a long rescue column of armored vehicles was ready to roll out. The order of movement was A Company, TAC CP, C Company.
Meanwhile, David had ordered B Company, which had been conducting live-fire urban warfare training at an old Somali army site, to stand ready.
At the port, Meyerowich said the sense of urgency was palpable leading up to departure.
Glenn said the Soldiers were itching to join the fight.
"The anticipation of getting on the ground was killing me," he recalled.
Whittredge said he remembers overhearing that the Somalis were fighting back in numbers no one had seen before.
"We were going in," he said.
Helicopter gunships with Task Force Falcon and 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment buzzed above and ahead of the column as it turned north toward National Street, a large east-west avenue in the center of the city.
Inside the APCs, Soldiers could barely make out the faces of those in front of them, and with no way to see outside, they listened hard for clues.
In time, small-arms and rocket fire broke the silence near the head of the convoy. As rounds began pinging off the sides of Whittredge's APC, he said the M-60 gunner opened up through one of the small gun ports.
"It was the loudest noise I had ever heard," Whittredge said. "Everyone told him not to do it again."
A few minutes passed and things seemed to quiet down.
Glenn said lead elements continuously dismounted to clear obstacles on the barricaded roads.
Several blocks later, a much larger portion of the convoy came under heavy fire. The vehicles slowed. Mounted gunners returned fire.
Under a steady barrage from the enemy, the column tried to move again.
Then, due to a breakdown in communications, two Malaysian APCs carrying elements of 2nd Platoon, A Company, accidentally turned off course. The lead Pakistani tank continued, and the rest of the convoy followed behind the tank. The two APCs were immediately ambushed.
Spec. J.T. Cooper, an M-60 gunner with 2nd Platoon, said both APCs were destroyed and several Pakistani troops and American Soldiers were wounded, including Sgt. Cornell L. Houston, a combat engineer with 41st Engineer Battalion attached to 2-14 Infantry.
Combat ineffective and facing an enemy intent on killing them, the Soldiers got ready to dismount and seek cover.
"The most scared I've ever been in my life," Cooper said, "was hearing the AK-47 bullets rattling off the side of the vehicle and knowing I had to open the door and get out."
Everyone in the APC ran out and huddled on one side of the street. Combat engineers blew a hole in a wall. The Soldiers took cover in a courtyard.
Intense fighting ensued.
Members of the other APC found shelter on the other side of the street.
Cooper said if not for the presence of AH-6 Little Birds flying missions overhead all night, he would not have lived. C Company, which had fought an intense battle into the second crash site only to find no trace of the Black Hawk crew, linked up with the stranded Soldiers by daybreak.
More than half of the 14 Pakistani and American men ambushed in the incident were killed or wounded. Cooper, who was cross-trained as a combat medic, said despite working through the night on Houston, he would die a few days later in Germany.
Olympic Hotel
The convoy reached its designated release point on National Street. A Company turned right to the northern crash site, C Company turned left to the southern crash site and David situated the TAC CP in between the two.
A Company dismounted roughly five blocks from the Olympic Hotel, near the Rangers' original target location.
Enemy fire was so overwhelming that Glenn, who years later led 2-14 Infantry in Iraq as the battalion's command sergeant major, called it "probably the most intense 15 minutes of my life."
A destroyed U.S. five-ton truck burned in the road nearby as the Soldiers organized and moved up the street in a line. The leftover elements of 2nd Platoon took lead, then 1st Platoon and then 3rd Platoon.
It was a moving gun battle, most intense up at the front of the column, but making its way to the middle.
At one point, a lieutenant came through saying 2nd Platoon was hung up at the front. Whittredge heard chatter on his radio calling for a medevac.
It was for Pfc. James Henry Martin Jr.
Whittredge told his platoon leader; the lieutenant told him to keep it to himself for now.
The Soldiers moved forward, exchanging heavy gunfire with the enemy to the north, down alleyways and in surrounding buildings. They also began rendering aid to fellow Soldiers as the company took more casualties.
The fighting grew especially fierce as they approached the Olympic Hotel.
At one point, despite the concentrated crossfire, an M-60 gunner began firing his weapon from the hip towards the hotel.
Whittredge said that after hearing about Martin, the company commander was in no mood for reckless behavior. He said Capt. Drew Meyerowich grabbed the gunner and, in a flurry of expletives, explained that he should not do it again.
Glenn said with the Soldiers severely pinned down short of the hotel, 1st Lt. Charles Ferry, A Company's executive officer, called for the MK-19 grenade launcher to come forward. Ferry then spotted with tracer rounds as the gunner fired on the hotel.
"I remember seeing the entire facade of the hotel begin to explode," Whittredge said, "with clouds of smoke and chunks of concrete falling everywhere."
With devastating effect, the MK-19 was then directed at other enemy targets.
The explosions and the din from small-arms fire caused some Soldiers to temporarily lose their hearing.
Enemy fire quieted to almost nothing. With 1st Platoon taking point, the company was able to begin moving again.
Once 1st Platoon's lead element linked up with the Rangers, a defensive perimeter was established to suppress the constant rocket, mortar and small-arms fire on their position.
'Mogadishu Mile'
U.S. forces, combined with the strafing close-fire support of AH-1 Cobra and AH-6 Little Bird attack helicopters, defended the crash site through the night while other elements worked to free Wolcott's remains from the wreckage.
Whittredge said at one point, his company leaders rolled out tow cable attached to the side of an APC with plans to pull the helicopter apart.
Dawn approached, and word came that Wolcott's body had been extracted.
The dead and wounded were quickly loaded in APCs bound for a rallying point on National Street, where the main element of the convoy would depart to a soccer stadium held by Pakistani troops.
With little room left, Soldiers who could still fight were forced to follow on foot with the APCs providing rolling cover.
Meyerowich and other Soldiers of A Company were last in the order of movement; Rangers brought up the rear.
Lead elements pulled ahead. The Soldiers on foot, taking indiscriminate fire, began running. A nearby building exploding, most likely from Little Bird cover.
Near the Olympic Hotel, some Soldiers began falling behind.
Whittredge, weighted down by his radio and encryption equipment, said as members of his platoon disappeared around a corner a burst of rifle fire impacted on the ground in front of him. He turned around and dove behind a pile of debris. Peeking over the top, he tried to locate the source.
After encountering the same resistance minutes later, Soldiers from another squad jumped on top of Whittredge. He said the squad leader was hit in the shoulder. They tried to return fire, but not until a nearby gunner cleared out the enemy could they move again.
"By this time," Whittredge said, "we were well behind the rest of the company, and we were running at full speed."
To catch up to the rest of the platoon, one Soldier replaced another at each intersection, each one putting down suppressive fire on an enemy firing blindly up roads and alleyways, until everyone reached the rendezvous point on National Street.
'There's no way to understand that feeling'
Everyone was in a state of shock and confusion at the stadium. Triage personnel sifted through at least 100 litters spread across the field. Some casualties were immediately airlifted to hospitals behind the fence line or on ships off the Somali coast.
Back at the airport, B Company Soldiers had stayed awake through the night, receiving bits and pieces of information, feeling helpless, sidelined.
Jeffrey Kienlen, who served as an M-60 gunner for 2nd Platoon, B Company, said the site where they were planning live-fire training the day before was close to the battle. With Little Birds making passes overhead, diving into the city, mini-guns blazing, the whole company was full of adrenaline, he said, especially since they had tons of ammo on them.
But as evening approached, their orders were to move to the airport.
Medevac helicopters began appearing the next morning. B Company was sent to secure the port. When the Soldiers returned to the university compound, they learned that one of their comrades had been killed.
Kienlen, who knew Martin, said everyone was frustrated that they were not able to join the fight. "(And) we were now ashamed that our brothers were out there fighting, dying and getting wounded, while we did nothing," he lamented.
Cooper, who counted Martin as a best friend, said he will never forget the images and the huge silence at the stadium the next day.
"Out across that field of litters, and at one end of the soccer stadium, they got black bags lined up," he said. "You know that somewhere in those black bags is your best friend in the world. There's no way to understand that feeling."
Cooper met Martin in boot camp at Fort Benning, Ga. During their second week there, Cooper got word that his brother had died in a tragic accident. Members of the platoon, including Martin, took up a collection to fly him home.
When he returned to the platoon, Cooper said he would sit in the showers after lights out holding a photo of his little brother, mourning his loss.
"Martin came in and sat on the other side of the showers," Cooper said, "just so I wouldn't cry by myself. He never would say anything. He'd just come in there and sit."
Cooper and Martin became roommates and best friends when they checked into 2-14 Infantry at Fort Drum.
In Somalia, a memorial ceremony was held in Martin's honor at the university compound three days after the battle. Cooper, now a country music singer living near Nashville, wrote the eulogy for his friend.
Into the valley we led the way
Fighting on we earned our pay
For the life we choose there's no regret
And when winning the battles even better yet
Stories come and stories go
But the only ones who will ever know
Have walked the path and met a man
Then stolen their life from his dying hand
With each victory there is a cost
For something gained there's something lost
Should this be my final breath
Lord may I die a Warrior's Death
The Right of the Line
The Battle of Mogadishu was the U.S. military's costliest firefight since Vietnam until Marines fought in the Second Battle of Fallujah, Iraq, in 2004.
Task Force Ranger lost 16 Soldiers and saw 57 wounded. In addition to the loss of Martin and Houston, 2-14 Infantry suffered more than 20 wounded.
David said he has always been extremely proud of the Soldiers he served with that night. The Golden Dragons accomplished their mission, he said, with a minimum loss of life and minimum casualties.
"We took some pretty tough shots that night," David said. "But I would like to think that we gave better than we took.
"Tactically," he added, "we executed exactly as we had planned it, even though it was a very hasty plan. There were no fratricides; we didn't run out of ammo; we didn't leave anybody behind."
Soldiers who served in Mogadishu under David and Counts said 2-14 Infantry was an extraordinary unit because of their leadership.
"When I served as a new Soldier with 2-14 Infantry, I thought every unit in the Army was that good," said Whittredge, who fought in Iraq more than 10 years after Somalia. "As I actually began to serve with other units, it became apparent to me that we were a part of something very special.
"It is my opinion that our battalion was exactly the right group of Soldiers, with the right training and the right leadership, in the right place at the right time," he added.
In his 25-year Army career, Glenn said he never observed a better battalion command team than the one led by David and Counts.
"The Golden Dragons represent what is great about our Army," Glenn said. "The thing that made (David and Counts) great was that they were always there. They were there at training; they were there at PT; and they were there in combat.
"They are the leaders I always aspired to be."
Fighting through to the crash sites under the constant threat of death earned each Golden Dragon a place of honor at the "right of the line" -- 2-14 Infantry's regimental motto that denotes the unit's frontline bravery during the Civil War.
The battalion's actions significantly impacted not only the 10th Mountain Division's proud history but the Army's as well.
Matthew P. Eversmann, then a chalk leader with B Company, 3rd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, said the 10th Mountain Division lived up to the Army's warrior ethos of never leaving a fallen comrade.
"When I think back on the battle in Mogadishu 20 years ago, I am still amazed that any of us made it out of that city," the former Ranger said. "The combined efforts of Task Force Ranger and the 2-14 Soldiers under fire were remarkable.
"(And) when I think about (2-14 Infantry's) virtually 'no notice' mission to head out to support us, I am thankful that those warriors were there to answer the call," Eversmann added. "God bless them always."
Meyerowich, writing just days after the battle, told the loved ones of A Company that his men fought bravely, for nearly eight hours, ensuring that no man was left behind.
"Leaving American Soldiers to die behind enemy lines has never been (nor) ever will be acceptable to our armed forces," Meyerowich wrote. "Your sons or husbands fought without question, just as they would expect the Rangers to do for us.
"You should be proud of your son or husband," he said. "Almost 100 Rangers will forever be in their debt."
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