October 3,

Yossarian

Forum Resistance Leader
In the early 1990s , Time Magazine featured a main topic over starving children in Somalia, stating various realities about starving children , and hundreds upon thousands dying or already dead from hunger and sickness, Hundreds of thousands sent money, and mulitple world humanitary organizations poured food and support into the country, but the, the shipments where seized at the ports, witch ultimatily led to the sending of US troops to the capital , Mogadishu, to Restore order,

The first indtorduction of U.S. troops came along with reinforcements of UN peace keeping forces who were already in the area. Pakistan, also had mulitple instailations for peace keeping forces to use and operate from, but were at a constant challenge of being threatened by Somali warlords, the largest of them , the clan led by Generel Aidid. A large U.S. force of United States Marines were sent to the Capital to restore order, and remove the stress on the UN peace keepers, the threats were neutralized, and order was restored, a few months later, the Newly formed Clinton Administration order the Marines out, and then the Civil Conflict and Bloodshed continued , the situation worsened. Then , shortley after , Washintgon ordered the U.S. Army Task Force Ranger, witch Consisted of Army Ranger teams, some U.S. Navy Seals, as well as some USAF Air Combat controlers, and Pararescue jumpers, and aslo supported by the U.S. Special Forces group , Delta Force, as well as the 10th Montian unit, and 160th SOAR, to Somalia, to restore order.

However ,on the opisite end of the spectrum, the Islamic Extremists group, know by Muslims as "The Base" and to westerners today as "Al Qade" sent multiple opritives, and funds to assist in the resistance agaist the U.S. and UN forces. Task force Ranger, however soon began to show its operational differences from the UN forces, and Task Force Ranger began to make multiple arrests. The hidden Al Qade opritives however began to urge the largest of the Warlords, Generel Aidid, to greaten his hostilities towards the U.S. forces and UN peace keepers.

On the begining of October 3, as part of Operation Gothic Serpent, Washington cleared for a arrest of the leader of the largest war clan, Led by Generel Aidid and a small group of Lituenents, after the succeseful arrest of one of Aidid's Largest arms dealers. In a Ineteview with one of the top leaders in Task Force Ranger's Chain of Command, Generel Anthony Zinni stated, when asked:

Can you talk about the warlords [that] were in power at that point? Who were you in touch with in the UNITAF operation?

"When we first got there we discovered that there were 15 factions that were really vying for power in one form or another. Obviously most people have heard of General Aidid or Ali Mahdi, the two probably most prominent of the "warlords" or faction leaders, but there were 15 throughout
Somalia that we dealt with."

Almost less than 24 hours before the raid to capture Aidid, Washington denied the use of AC 130 Specture Gunship support, stating that ,the use of that much force would had not been nessecsary. Even agaist military leaders adivice, Washington denied any armor support for Task Force Ranger as well,

So on October 3, 1993, Task Force Ranger launched a combat group of twelve vehicles, ninteen aircraft, and over 160 men involved in the operation to arrest and detain Aidid. However , not less than 2 hours into the operation , things began to go wrong, men inside the convey began to take heavy ammonts of gunfire from technical vehicles and gunmen. And in chopper force, who roped into the combat zone via UH60 Black Hawk Helicopter , had the first casualty. A sodlier had fallen out of a chopper as it performed evasive manuvers to counter a incoming rocket propelled gernade.

The causlity reports then began to mount, as some of them, began to probe fatal, hundereds, upon thousands of armed gunmen, and miltia members began to pour into the city, then , the first aircraft down, a UH 60 Black Hawk, Super Six One, was hit by a rocket propelled gernade , causing it to crash into the city,

Hundereds of gunmen attacked the crash site, causing the operation to become the largest fire fight for U.S. forces since Vietnam, although some casualties were evacuated via convuey to Mogadishu Intl Airport, Task Force Rangers base of operations, close to a hundered U.S. service men remained traped in the city, with out proper ammunition and medical equitment, they we one their own, then, another Black Hawk helecopter was shot out of the sky, Super Six Four, also piloted one of the most well know men in the battle, pilot Mike Durant, who survived the crash only to be captured by armed miltia, he was held captive for days as the U.S. goverment strived to get him realesed.

After the second helicopter was shot down, the night began to fall across the city, on the evening of October 4, after intesnse fighting, the U.S. forces finally got UN armored vehicles to the crash sites, and to the straned soldiers, to remove them from the city and place them in a Pakistani held stadium, just oustide the city, the Pakistani soldiers however, did allow any more U.S. service men to ride inside the protection of the Armored Vehicles, and, as they left towards the stadium, mulitple U.S. service men we left to run, the last long run to the saftey of the stadium, long holding its name, as the "Mogadishu Mile".

After those 2 and a half days, of bitter fighting, the United States had over 73 wounded, and 18 were killed in the fire fight, witch was teh largest the United States had been involed in decades. The Somali casualties range from 3000-4000 wounded, and 1000-1500 dead, but there is only Amercian estimates, no Somali estimates were ever taken.

The raid failed, and went down in U.S. military history, American citizens turned on their televisions, to only bodies of U.S. soldiers being dragged through the streets of the city.

Only after reciving back the captured pilot of Mike Durant, the United States, pulled out all military and civilian forces out of Somalia, and withing 4 years, had no international relations of any kind in Somalia. The foods shipements were then seized again, to feed Aidid's forces and continue the fighting among the destabilized nation, and even after his death, his Amercian educated son continued to run the clan, in a now destroyed Somalia.

Also, Muslim Extremists in the Group called Al Qade, celebrated the U.S. withdrawl from Somalia, and vowed to still further remove them from Africa completely, for using Saudi Arabian bases in the Gulf War of 1990. The Leader of the Terrorist group, Osam Bin Laden, recently out cast from his family, and from Suadi Arabia, had then moved to Sudan, only to be outcast form there as well, had congratulated the Somalies on causing the failure of the relieve effort led by the United States, and made multiple speeches on that examlpe of failure of U.S. foreign policy.

To date no Official report of any kind involing the Battle For Mogadishu , was ever realesed, and are all, still classified....

(I dont know what exactly happened that day, but I do know this, no matter witch stance you look at it from, it will never be forgotton, and I do praise those who were the uniform of any nation, and do the duties for their flag, as well as their contrymen, god bless all of you , especially those in the coalition now, in the war of today, and I know full well, that if you are not overly careful in some parts of operational area in the coalition, a simple city street, can turn into Mogadishu, or Ira Drang Valley very quickly, yet, you still, with , vigor , honor, or sense of duty, go on that one more patrol, lets all learn something from the mistakes of the ones before us, I think I will, )
 
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You're thinking of November 9 there, pal. October 3 was the following year, when East and West Germany officially joined back together.
 
I had to write a research paper on this topic for Am. History...
as I'd already done one analysis for another paper, and had done a lot of background reading beforehand, I did essentially very little on the project.
I'm skeptical of the line about no information being released- otherwise, Mark Bowden and other writers would have no information to base their works upon, other than the otherwise unsubstantiated interviews of over 200 men.

Somehow I also turned out the only perfect grade, for having only spent two days writing it.
 
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