Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War

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Perhaps the best book ever written on military special operation forces (SOF) in a combat environment, Black Hawk Down provides unseen view into the world of both overt and covert warfare.

Jumping in the midst of the town would always result in considerable collateral damage and civilian deaths. Estimates for Somali fatalities vary widely depending on the source, and range from hundreds to possibly even thousands of people. The purpose was to capture several higher-up Somali warlords who were reeking havoc on the local populace in their bids for power. Last weekend I also watched the movie (directed by Ridley Scott) and there's a couple of disconcerting differences, the main being that the movie strips out most of the uncomfortable parts of the book. So the civilized world had decided to lower the hammer, invite the baddest boys on the planet over to clean things up.

This isn’t warfare as depicted in a typical history book, viewed from thirty-thousand feet, the blood and noise and violence muted, replaced with cold statistics and tactical conclusions. We are rewarded with a story that reveals the complex and chaotic events of October 1993 in a manner that is as breathlessly exciting as it is informative.

They describe feeling weirdly out of place, as though they did not belong here, fighting feelings of disbelief, anger, and ill-defined betrayal, this cannot be real.Authoritative, gripping, and insightful, Black Hawk Down is a heart-stopping, minute-by-minute account of modern war and is destined to become a classic of war reporting.