13 out of 13 people found this review helpful.
The closest to war you'll ever want to get
Date of Review: Oct 29, 1999
I caught an interview with the author, Mark Bowden, and thought the book was worth a look.
He does an excellent job of immersing the reader in America's worst fire fight since Vietnam. By obtaining hundreds of first hand accounts of both American special forces and Somali militia, and viewing actual radio transcripts from the battle, he is able to give a moment by moment account, a difficult task in such a complex and confusing circumstance.
The excitement begins when, as the title describes, a black hawk helicopter providing air cover crashes in the center of Mogadishu, a hostile city. A convoy of Army Rangers and Delta Forces, the best units of the best army in the world run through a gauntlet of AK and RPG fire to rescue the pilots and only succeed in getting blown apart by Somalies residents, all of whom seemed to be armed and angry. When another black hawk crashes, things only get worse for the Americans.
This book read so much like a fiction that I had to remind myself that these horrifying events actually occurred. His detailed research leads to an unbiased and pretty much opinion free account. The insights into the officially-non-existent Delta Forces are reason enough to pick up the book. Strap yourself in, though, he does describe every injury in extreme detail. I understand a Jerry Brukheimer movie is in the works, but I can't believe it could match the book for its raw violence.
