Black Hawk Down
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Already a classic of war reporting and now reissued as a Grove Press paperback, Black Hawk Down is Mark Bowden’s brilliant account of the longest sustained firefight involving American troops since the Vietnam War. On October 3, 1993, about a hundred elite U.S. soldiers were dropped by helicopter into the teeming market in the heart of Mogadishu, Somalia. Their mission was to abduct two top lieutenants of a Somali warlord and return to base. It was supposed to take an hour. Instead, they found themselves pinned down through a long and terrible night fighting against thousands of heavily armed Somalis. The following morning, eighteen Americans were dead and more than seventy had been badly wounded. Drawing on interviews from both sides, army records, audiotapes, and videos (some of the material is still classified), Bowden’s minute-by-minute narrative is one of the most exciting accounts of modern combat ever written—a riveting story that captures the heroism, courage, and brutality of battle.
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Executive Summary: I think this is a case of bad timing more than the quality of the book. I think choosing to read a nonfiction book about a lot of American soldiers dying near the holidays was a bad idea on my part.
Audiobook: Alan Sklar seemed to be a fine narrator. Unlike fiction books, I always prefer the narrator do as little as possible with nonfiction. He read clearly and with good inflection.
Full Review
I saw the movie adaptation of this book years ago when it first came out, and recalling thinking it a well told story. Well told doesn't necessarily translate to enjoyable however, especially when the subject matter is so dire.
Mr. Bowden seems to do a great job in gathering facts and input from a variety of people involved in what has come to be called The Battle of Mogadishu. This includes not only many of the soldiers who lived it, but a few of the Somalies as well.
I found the story slow and a bit dry at the beginning. I think Mr. Bowden wanted to ensure we knew whose these American soldiers were, and he goes into a lot of detail about many of them at the start.
Things really start to pick up as everything goes wrong. It's not really a story of American triumph however. That made for some hard listening at times.
Real life is always more fascinating than fiction, but I just never fully got into this book. I am glad I read it though, and I think it's an important story to have been told, especially at the time when it was released. If you enjoy military nonfiction, especially a fairly recent story, give this one a look.
