The only tall structures still standing after years of civil war were the ornate white towers of mosques—Islam being the only thing all Somalia held sacred. They are creatures of pop culture who grew up singing along with Sesame Street shuttling to day care, and navigating today's hyper adolescence through the pitfalls of drugs and unsafe sex. What I liked best was the inclusion of the Somali perspective, some insights into why the Americans were the enemy to so many Somalis, what was the aftermath of this mission.

He has written for Men's Journal, The Atlantic Monthly, Sports Illustrated, and Rolling Stone over the years, and as a result of his book, Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War, Bowden's received international recognition.But in doing so, he pays little attention to the elitist attitudes and actions of these "peacekeepers" that ultimately caused this conflict. Bowden never loses sight of the human qualities and reactions that are, in the end, decisive in battle.

As usual in this sort of book, it`s quite difficult to understand exactly the location of the encounters and who did what. Written with such intensity, this military history volume by journalist Mark Bowden, brilliantly captures every minute moments from one of the longest modern day infantry engagements. Instead, they were pinned down through a long and terrible night in a hostile city, fighting for their lives against thousands of heavily armed Somalis. While it appeared blurry and bewildering at first, what emerged over time was an assiduously detailed, essentially kaleidoscopic study, replete with a wealth of fascinating, significant facts. If you like reading military non-fiction books, then I would strongly urge you to give this one a try.The next time I hear that our "elite forces" will be sent into battle, I will be hard pressed to forget that though highly skilled and trained, they are probably not much older that nineteen, twenty, or twenty one. Both forms of fuck up also undermine the trust of people in the ability and the will of the international community to protect them. Additionally, the piece remarked how Bowden simultaneously manages to capture the siege mentality felt by both civilians and the US soldiers, as well as the broad sentiment among many residents that the Rangers were to blame for the majority of the battle casualties. With their buff bodies, distinct crew cuts—sides and back of the head completely shaved—and their grunted Hoo-ah greeting, they saw themselves as the army at its gung ho best.