[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 11]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 16202]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                20TH ANNIVERSARY OF ``BLACK HAWK DOWN''

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. FRANK R. WOLF

                              of virginia

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, October 23, 2013

  Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, earlier this month, the veterans of the battle 
in Mogadishu, Somalia on October 3rd, 1993--commonly referred to now as 
``Black Hawk Down''--gathered at two different events in Fort Bragg, 
North Carolina and in Texas at the ranch of Ross Perot, Jr., to observe 
the 20th anniversary of these events and remember the 18 servicemen who 
were killed in action.
  I submit for the Record a statement I received from Lt. Gen. William 
G. ``Jerry'' Boykin who was the commander of Delta Force during this 
battle, which took the lives of 18 men and wounded 73 others.
  As Lt. Gen. Boykin notes in the statement, ``What came next was hours 
of fighting between ninety-nine Americans and tens of thousands of the 
Somali militia, all armed with rifles, grenades, and rocket propelled 
grenades (RPG) and determined to kill as many Americans as possible. 
The battle was now a matter of principle. No American would be left 
behind. It made no difference that the two pilots were already dead, 
their bodies would be brought out and returned home with dignity. No 
man was willing to leave his comrade's body because each man lived by 
an ethos known as the `Ranger Creed', which says in the fifth stanza `I 
will never leave a fallen comrade to fall into the hands of the enemy . 
. .'''

                   Black Hawk Down Twenty Years Later

               (By Lt. Gen. William G. ``Jerry'' Boykin)

       October 3rd, 1993 was a day when ``Uncommon valor was a 
     common virtue,'' according to John O. Marsh, Jr., the former 
     Secretary of the United States Army. Known to his friends as 
     Jack, Marsh was speaking at a memorial service at the Delta 
     Force facilities at Fort Bragg, North Carolina in November, 
     1993, just days after the unit had returned from Mogadishu, 
     Somalia, where sixteen of their comrades had died and another 
     72 had suffered wounds. The battle that Marsh was referring 
     to was later chronicled in the Ridley Scott and Jerry 
     Bruckheimer movie ``Black Hawk Down.'' Last week two key 
     commemoratives occurred in different places which drew the 
     participants of that battle together to honor their fallen 
     comrades. The first was at Ft Bragg, NC on October 3rd where 
     Rangers, Delta Force personnel, aviators from the 1/60th 
     Special Operations Aviation Regiment, and a small number of 
     US Navy and US Air Force warriors gathered on the twentieth 
     anniversary. On the 5th of October, many of the same group, 
     along with family members, attended an event sponsored by 
     Ross Perot Jr at his ranch in Grapevine Texas. Both events 
     were characterized by solemn camaraderie and stories of old 
     team mates who never made it home from that battle. Jack 
     Marsh was right about the valor shown that day in the most 
     intense firefight that US troops had been in since the Viet 
     Nam conflict.
       One of the somewhat obscure facts about the ``Blackhawk 
     Down'' battle is what those men were fighting for. The 
     mission that day was to capture three Somali militiamen who 
     were part of the network of a brutal tribal leader named 
     Mohammad Aideed. That mission was accomplished fairly quickly 
     and the task force was preparing to return to their base when 
     a Blackhawk helicopter, call sign Super 61, was shot down in 
     the vicinity of the Bakkarra market. The pilot and co-pilot 
     were killed on impact and trapped in the twisted wreckage. 
     Two other crew members survived the crash along with three of 
     the Delta Force operators, all of which were injured. Every 
     man from the task force was directed to leave their targets 
     and to get to the crash site and to recover the bodies of the 
     dead crewmembers and protect the survivors until they could 
     be evacuated. Some of the injured survivors were evacuated 
     fairly quickly by the quick reactions of courageous 
     helicopter pilots who saw the situation and reacted 
     instantly. After a very tough block-by-block street fight, 
     the task force finally assembled around the crash, only to 
     discover that the bodies of their comrades were hopelessly 
     entangled in the wreckage and would be nearly impossible to 
     remove without tools, which the task force did not have. What 
     came next was hours of fighting between ninety-nine Americans 
     and tens of thousands of the Somali militia, all armed with 
     rifles, grenades, and rocket propelled grenades (RPG) and 
     determined to kill as many Americans as possible. The battle 
     was now a matter of principle. No American would be left 
     behind. It made no difference that the two pilots were 
     already dead, their bodies would be brought out and returned 
     home with dignity. No man was willing to leave his comrade's 
     body because each man lived by an ethos known as the ``Ranger 
     Creed'', which says in the fifth stanza ``I will never leave 
     a fallen comrade to fall into the hands of the enemy . . .'' 
     So the die was cast and it quickly became obvious to all the 
     Americans in Mogadishu that until the necessary tools arrived 
     that would allow the task force to rip the helicopter apart, 
     the battle would continue; and it did, for eighteen hours. 
     Additional casualties were taken by the task force as they 
     stayed and defended the bodies of Cliff Walcott and Donovan 
     Briley. It was not until just before daylight on October 4th 
     that a relief force carrying the necessary equipment was able 
     to reach the surrounded Americans and extract the two bodies. 
     At that point, the entire force fought their way out of the 
     city and back to their base on the airfield in Mogadishu.
       While the cost was high, every man knew that he had done 
     what was expected of him and had no regrets. Fighting and 
     sacrificing for a fellow warrior is fundamental to the 
     warrior ethos. These men battled against incredible odds to 
     defend fallen comrades and did so without hesitation or 
     reservation. Honor was preserved but at a price. Given the 
     same dilemma again, it is a sure bet that every man would do 
     the same thing. That is one of the things that makes a man a 
     warrior and America is blessed to have people that know that 
     there are some values for which they will risk everything, 
     including their lives.

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