News-Info-Alerts

To: ALL

From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci

(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Re: Black Hawk Down - The Real People

Date: January 17, 2002

"Soldiers Who Relive Fateful Battle Say 'There Are Heroes Among Us'

By Linda D. Kozaryn
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Jan. 17, 2001 -- Chief Warrant Officer Rodney 'Sam' Shamp, an Army helicopter pilot, admitted to shedding quiet tears as he watched "Black Hawk Down," a new film about the Army's October 1993 battle in Mogadishu, Somalia, against Mohamed Farrah Aidid's militia.

Shamp, now 39, is assigned to the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, also known as the Night Stalkers. In Somalia, he flew the helicopter dubbed "Super Six Seven." He spent 18 hours in the cockpit during the battle that left 18 American soldiers and more than 1,000 Somali dead.

(Editor's note: A 19th soldier died a few days later in a separate Somali mortar shelling; the movie includes this soldier in its death toll.)

Using rocket-propelled grenades, Somali militia shot down two Black Hawks that day. They captured one pilot who was later released, but other pilots and crew died. One soldier who'd volunteered to protect the downed choppers was killed and a mob dragged his body through the city streets.

Watching "Black Hawk Down" brought it all back for Shamp and other veterans of the battle who attended the Jan. 15 premiere here.

"It was like watching a Vietnam veteran walk the Wall the first time," Shamp said. "You don't just see it. You relive it. There are emotions that come flooding back to the surface that you had dealt with, and you had closure on, and then you see them once again."

Fortunately, he said, he was sitting with two senior sergeants who had been with him in "the Mog" that day. "We all had the same shared emotions," Shamp said. "They could understand me and I could understand them. If I shed a tear, they understood."

Watching anew the deaths of their friends and comrades in arms was hard, the battle vets said.

The visual depiction of the events was "a bit gripping," said Sgt. 1st Class Matt Eversmann. "I'd made peace with this. I don't harbor any bad feelings or ill will. Certainly, it's difficult to watch a recreation of it, but I'll always know inside my heart the real memories and that's all that counts."

Eversmann, played by actor Josh Hartnett, said he believes the public "should know that we've got great soldiers that are ready to slide down a rope into a furnace at a moment's notice to defend our freedom and to defend our liberties. That is something that I hope all of America takes away when they see this movie."

Even though it was tough to watch, Eversmann and several other vets said they were glad producer Jerry Bruckheimer and director Ridley Scott made the film. They were glad their story was told.

"A lot of courageous things went on that day, and it's good that the public gets to see what some of those things were," said Sgt. 1st Class Jeff McLaughlin of the 75th Ranger Regiment, Fort Benning, Ga., who was also there that day.

Slated for national release Jan. 18, the film is based on Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Mark Bowden's book "Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War." Both tell what happened on a raid into the Somali capital to apprehend two of Aidid's top lieutenants.

As the U.S. troops go in, the Somali militia, armed with small arms and rocket-propelled grenades rally.

"We saw a range of people from 10-year-olds on up with weapons," Shamp said. "We saw women with weapons. It doesn't matter what your technology is in an urban environment. It still gets down to the man with the rifle. History's proved that over and over again in the battle for Hue, the battle for Seoul, the battle for Stalingrad."

Like Steven Spielberg's "Saving Private Ryan," "Black Hawk Down" graphically depicts bloody, gut-clenching action. Troops and officers -- those who were there and those who've served in combat elsewhere -- said the film accurately and authentically portrays the chaos, pain and horror of combat.

It also portrays the bonds formed under fire and demonstrates the ultimate commitment "to leave no man behind." Whether they fought in the jungles of Vietnam or the deserts of the Middle East, the combat veterans said, 'the crucible' of combat cuts with the same blade and ultimately forges the same strengths.

And like the soldiers depicted in the film, they said, U.S. service members now serving in Afghanistan, Kosovo and elsewhere face the same dangers.

"The film shows the public that our troops put it all on the line," said Army National Guard Command Sgt. Major John Leonard, a Vietnam and Desert Storm vet with 36 years of military service.

"You go to war for your country, but when it gets down to (combat), you're doing it for your fellow man," he said. "You think you're invincible, you're made out of steel, until one of your buddies goes down."

Today, Leonard said, people may think our troops in places like Kosovo are not in a lot of danger, "but they are. It's just waiting for them to make a mistake, for them to slip up. The enemy's there."

Lessons learned in Somalia and elsewhere, according to the vets, help prepare the military for future missions.

"The lesson that was "stamped on my ticket was the reality of this profession," Eversmann said. "This is unbelievable that I would say it, but you don't realize that in modern warfare men are going to die. Good men that are very well trained, that fight hard and train hard and are well equipped. They could fall at the hands of a far inferior enemy, and that is a reality."

Shamp noted that he's often asked why he flew his bullet- riddled Black Hawk back into a dangerous hot zone. To him, the answer is simple.

"The bottom line is that guy on the ground," he said. "His life is dependent upon me doing my job. How do I sit back and not do my job knowing it will cost him his life? How do you sacrifice someone else's life for your own? How can you look a guy in the eye and say, 'I'm going to let you die because I'm afraid?' You can't. To this day, I could not."

Are these men heroes? Yes, Shamp said, the soldiers in Mogadishu were courageous. They performed heroic acts to save themselves and their comrades in arms, driven by the same ethic as the police, firemen and military who emerged as heroes during the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

"There are heroes out there who are everyday people," he said. "They're like me. They're like my friends. We have families. We go to church. We are normal people. The heroes are there. You just have to look for them." "