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    Black Hawk Down
    Black Hawk Down
    Black Hawk Down
    Audiobook15 hours

    Black Hawk Down

    Written by Mark Bowden

    Narrated by Alan Sklar

    4.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Ninety-nine elite American soldiers are trapped in the middle of a hostile city. As night falls, they are surrounded by thousands of enemy gunmen: Their wounded are bleeding to death. Their ammunition and supplies are dwindling. This is the story of how they got there -- and how they fought their way out.
    This is the story of war.
    Black Hawk Down drops you into a crowded marketplace in the heart of Mogadishu, Somalia with the U.S. Special Forces -- and puts you in the middle of the most intense firefight American soldiers have fought since the Vietnam War.
    Late in the afternoon of Sunday, October 3, 1993, the soldiers of Task Force Ranger were sent on a mission to capture two top lieutenants of a renegade warlord and return to base. It was supposed to take them about an hour. Instead, they were pinned down through a long and terrible night in a hostile locked in a desperate struggle to kill or be killed.
    When the unit was finally rescued the following morning, eighteen American soldiers were dead and dozens more badly injured. The Somali toll was far worse: more than five hundred killed and over a thousand wounded. Award-winning literary journalist Mark Bowden's dramatic narrative captures this harrowing ordeal through the eyes of the voting men who fought that day. He draws on his extensive interviews of participants from both sides -- as well as classified combat video and radio transcripts -- to bring their stories to life.
    Authoritative, gripping, and insightful, Black Hawk Down is a riveting look at the terror and exhilaration of combat, destined to become a classic of war reporting.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster Audio
    Release dateFeb 21, 2012
    ISBN9781442353442
    Black Hawk Down
    Author

    Mark Bowden

    Mark Bowden is the author of Road Work, Finders Keepers, Killing Pablo, Black Hawk Down (nominated for a National Book Award), Bringing the Heat, and Doctor Dealer. He reported at The Philadelphia Inquirer for twenty years and is a national correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly. He lives in the Philadelphia area.

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    Reviews for Black Hawk Down

    4.5/5

    1,014 ratings41 reviews

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    • 5/5
      So much different then the movie. I love the different perspectives. It can be hard to keep track of all the different people. But really great listening too after watching the movie a thousand times. This would be a great book to own as a hard copy
    • 4/5
      Fantastic book. As with most books it's much better and more detailed than the movie.
    • 5/5
      Very good, details from all sides of the actual battle
    • 5/5
      Best book I have listened to! Being Kenyan, no military history who lived around the time of the war! Very captivating! Thanks
    • 4/5
      This is an exercise in reflexivity, critically evaluating my own work for the benefit of others. The way this book came into being may interest readers as much as the book itself. Embroiled in a 3 year study of workplace democracy, the importance of gender dynamics continually surfaced until - with the encouragement of fellow academics - a decision was made to change the theoretical contribution of my doctoral thesis. This book is *not* the thesis. It is, however, a popular style examination of the data and issues that pervaded the study, and presents some of the theory that will mark my contribution to the gender debate.In short, the book examines a range of issues related to organisation behaviour from the perspective that occupational segregation and norms of sexual behaviour are influenced more by the patterns and processes of attraction than domination. Domination does occur, but only during periods of serious relationship breakdown (which occurs far less frequently than attempts to develop attraction). The book, therefore, provides partial support for feminist claims by recognising and validating some of the social relations that develop in the workplace, but also provides a critique of feminism by illustrating the extent of women's power to control men, and the techniques they deploy. My hope - and this is for others to judge - is that this work will change the bedrock on which future gender theory will develop, and encourage a more inclusive (and less stereotype driven) debate about men's and women's power. If there is a weakness (for me) it is that I would have liked to spend more time broadening my reading before concluding the book. This will be addressed in future books and academic articles.
    • 4/5
      This is one of the best works of military non-fiction written. It's an almost perfect book. Bowden's account of the 1993 US fiasco in Somalia is a fast, absorbing read. Based on interviews with participants in the engagement, and he made some efforts to interview Somalis who were present as well as conducting exhaustive interviews with American soldiers and commanders. His insights into the mindset of the Americans is very convincing.
    • 4/5
      Excellent account of war in Somalia against guerrilla rebels soldiers and how a convoy attempted to rescue some Black Hawk helicopter pilots who had been shot down.
    • 4/5
      I saw the movie before I read the book so I think that affected my review. I enjoyed the movie so I was sure I would enjoy the book. This is one of those books that requires a certain knowledge of visual things. Describing a Black Hawk helicopter versus a Little Bird Attack helicopter is not done well. It requires that you know what these things already look like in order to understand their importance. That's the bad part about just reading the book for someone who does not understand all the frames of reference. The story is what it is so you either like it or you don't. I think this is the kind of book that you read then immediately watch the movie afterwards to get the full experience of what you read.
    • 5/5
      I've seen the film years ago and this book outshines it. Amazing writing, amazing story, I kept forgetting this was real. Even if you hate history and think war is awful, this is still worth reading. It makes we want to regrade half of the books I read because this has expanded my idea of what a book can be.

      Just to be sure I don't come across as a military nut, I think what happened in Somalia was awful and the US shouldn't have bothered with any interventions there and they just added to the misery. I'm in awe of the book, not the politics surrounding it.
    • 4/5
      This really a very remarkable book, but not necessarily for the reasons one might presume. I read this book from the perspective (1) of someone who had viewed the movie based on the book more than once, and (2) of someone who has read many non-fiction books by both historians and journalists, especially those covering the Iraq-Afghanistan wars. Regarding the first perspective, I found myself very surprised that the very fast-paced, intense movie did little justice to the actual horrors of the event documented in the book. The book establishes that the movie makers pulled a lot of punches in showing how truly horrible the setting was when the U.S. military tried to capture two people in the heart of Somalia's Mogadishu. On a lesser point, the book also shows, as do most books on modern U.S. combat, that America has extraordinarily well trained "foot soldiers" and, very regretfully, leaders not up to the task of leading them properly. And I'm not talking about politicians getting in the way of the generals, nor of the "politics" within the military. I'm thinking more of the weekend home improvement warrior with the best tools one can buy and little of the skills or training to use them to advantage. Regarding my second perspective, this book takes neither of the two most common "war history" approaches. It is not written by an historian, an academic who has pulled together reports and the like to reconstruct the past in an objective way. Neither is it from the perspective of the embedded journalist, also under fire, which is so common in reporting latter day military operations. This author had to go back and piece things together like an historian, but unlike, say, a civil war historian, this person was able to go directly to the people involved on both sides, from multiple levels, and reconstruct both what and why things went the way they did, on a very intimate level. In fact, when the author was done, he didn't reveal what others already knew, he actually pulled the pieces of a puzzle together into a whole that no one person had known before. Finally, I must ask, what idiot would put us in the situation we've been in Iraq and Afghanistan after reading this book?
    • 5/5
      Mark Bowden only writes good books. You will not find a better book on this event.
    • 3/5
      Compelling blow-by-blow account of The First Battle of Mogadishu in 1993. The book suffers a bit from the writing style during some passages but the harrowing ordeal is brought home to the reader in graphic detail. Put together from individual interviews and actual video recordings from battle command, Bowden has done a great job of parsing the information into a fairly cohesive timeline of events. Recommended if you have a relatively strong stomach.
    • 5/5
      wow.Words can not express what I'm feeling after this book. I am inspired by the courage of these young men and am humbled by the sacrifice their family makes. I know the story of what took place in 1993 but had no idea of the details...clearly eye opening.Well written and worth your time to read.
    • 4/5
      Author was on book tour and I bought this book after reading the article about his appearance. I can honestly say that he seemed to do a good job of placing you in the scene and showing that "for want of a nail" something that should have been straightforward turned into a real skin-of-the-teeth situation.
    • 5/5
      Graphic real life tale of modern warfare; makes you really really proud of our military while at the same time causing you to truly feel sorry for the people they are fighting against; but without diminishing the knowledge that our boys did what they needed to do for their brothers
    • 4/5
      I just read this book after reading Howard Zinn's lifetime collection of speeches against war and promoting civil disobedience. The most shocking thing about the book is the frank admission of killing women and children in the streets by Americans and the fact little has been writting about it either at the time or since. More political background would have been helpful and explanation of the clans. Clinton had justg taken office and he and his staff were caught unprepared to deal with it. We just pulledout.....think Reagan in Lebanon. Not that we probably could have done otherwise. Interesting to read it after the Bush interventions and now Obama...still in Afghanistan
    • 5/5
      I recently read the book Black Hawk Down by Mark Bowden. The book took place in Mogadishu, Somalia. On October 3, 1993, Delta and U.S. Army Rangers were suppose to drop in on a univited gathering of Habr Gidr clan leaders. This ragged clan was led by warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid. The mission was to arrest two of Aidid’s lieutenants. The mission was to drop off four chalks of U.S. Army Rangers around the four blocks surrounding the target building. Then Delta force was supposed to enter the building and get the lieutenants. All the men thought that this would be a hit and run mission. So they left a lot of extra ammo at the camp. When all the helicopters were at the designated spot to drop the men one of Chalk four’s men fell rappelling down the rope. When everyone from Chalk four was on the ground they were taking fire from the militia. One of the helicopters was hit by a RPG (rocket propelled grenade) The helicopter went down crashing blocks away from the target building. Now instead of a hit and run mission it was a rescue mission. All of a sudden another helicopter went down. Now the Rangers had to rescue everyone from two helicopters.I loved this book. Mark Bowden did an outstanding job writing this book. He wrote this book like he was there. But he wasn’t. He interviewed all of the young, brave men who experienced it. This book is based on a true story so I wouldn’t recommend anyone under like 13 or even 14 to read this book. This book could be a little disturbing at some points because Mark Bowden described the wounds the men took in the battle. If you read this book I recommend that you have a piece of paper with the names of the Rangers and Delta. I would give this book a 4.5 out of 5.
    • 5/5
      Black Hawk down, a chopper has been hit! A group of special operations soldiers including Rangers, Airborne, and Delta have one mission. To kill or capture a Somali dictator and warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid in Mogadishu. For the special operations soldiers this seems like a walk in the park. They thought that they would just have to go in, get the job done, and the choppers would cover them. This unfortunately turned out for the worst. As soon as the soldiers made it to the street of the warlord’s safe house Somali militia started defending the compound. The struggle began. Heavy fire and RPGs caused the men to split up and loosen their hold of ground. Into the long fight 2 choppers were shot down the first was a “Little Bird” helicopter. They thought it wouldn’t happen again. Then the situation grew far more worse. Another chopper was shot down and this one was a “Black Hawk” helicopter! This caused a loss of men because the instant reaction was save the men in the downed birds. Many hours went by until they got support and then went back to base. Many men were killed, few got out, and one was captured. Did this operation prove anything? All it brought was chaos and death! Was it for glory and honor? Was it worth it?Black Hawk Down by Mark Bowden was a fantastic book. I give it 5/5 stars. It was a good topic, a good storyline and good detail! I would not recommend this to people or students below the age of 13. It was graphic in intense detail, but you cannot write a war story without graphic detail. It was a good storyline the author Mark Bowden did a phenomenal job. This book amazed me to great heights. A great storyline, a great Author, great detail, and overall a FANTASTIC BOOK!
    • 4/5
      “Black Hawk Down” by Mark Bowden was a good book with exceptional details. It started off, like in the movie, with a group of highly trained US Army Rangers and Delta operators storming a compound in the Somali city of Mogadishu. Their objective was to capture two top lieutenants of the local militia. The mission was accomplished but at a cost. All 90+ men are trapped in the city overnight, fighting for their lives. Compared to the movie I think the book was better. I think it was easier to follow and was as detailed as in the book. Mark Bowden did a good job with this one.
    • 5/5
      Bowden's book is every bit as riveting as the film based upon it, every bit as harrowing and visceral. It takes us minute by minute through the terrible battle on the streets of Mogadishu in Somalia on October 3, 1993. The American mission to capture two of clan warlord Aidid's top people was supposed to "take an hour" and at first seemed like it would be completed within minutes of their taking off from base. But then a black hawk helicopter went down, then another, and "ninety-nine American soldiers [were] surrounded and trapped" overnight and fighting for their lives. These were elite soldiers. The Rangers were volunteers thrice over--they had to choose the army, then the airborne, then the Rangers. And the Delta Force soldiers were the elite of the elite. They were what the Rangers aspired to be. They were backed by observation helicopters, on ground intelligence, spy planes and satellites. Their average age was only 19. The account of the warfare is detailed and spools before your inner eye as vividly as any film--it reads like a novel. In his Afterward Bowden writes about how he tried to efface himself from the story, that he tried to "get out of its way." I greatly appreciated that--I think in another book I read recently, Blood Diamonds, the author was too much in the story. This story was seemless and felt authentic--what came through was the voices and humanity and courage of the soldiers. It was hard to read at times--Bowden doesn't pull any punches in graphically relating what bullets and shrapnel does to vulnerable flesh and bone. But you do feel like he gives you the most vivid account of modern warfare possible without going into combat yourself. I not only learned about the combatants from both sides, but why the mission was almost inevitably doomed to failure. In that regard the Somali perspectives were invaluable. Not simply because they humanized "the enemy" but because of their explanation of how the initially welcomed American intervention soured for them. As one Somali put it, the Americans "were trying to take down a clan--the most ancient and efficient social organization known to man." And the experience in Somali haunted US Foreign Policy to at least the events of 9/11. As one US State Department Official put it, "Somalia was the experience that taught us that people in these places bear much of the responsibility for things being the way they are. The hatred and the killing continue because they want it to--or they don't want peace enough to stop it." As a result, for better or worse America didn't get involved in Rwanda or Zaire's bloody civil conflicts. As a result of that firefight in Mogadishu, 18 American soldiers lost their lives, and 73 were wounded. The toll on the Somali side was horrific. "Conservative counts numbered five hundred dead among more than a thousand casualties." Even more sobering? It's twenty years later, and Somalia is still a "failed state" in the midst of war. And after that battle in Mogadishu, no one in the international community cares to come between them killing each other.A gripping and unforgettable book.
    • 5/5
      “Black Hawk Down” is an absolutely wonderfully exhausting book. The sheer magnitude of the action and number of discrete narrative threads make the book an enjoyably significant investment. Bowden provides an apt description of the experience of “Black Hawk Down”. He writes, “You could be prepared for the sights and sounds and smells of war, but the horror of it, the blood and gore and heartrending screams of pain, the sense of death perched right on your shoulder, breathing in your ear, there was no preparation for that. Things felt balanced on an edge, threatening at any moment to spin out of control.”Mark Bowden’s investigation into a single battle in Mogadishu, Somalia, is painstakingly detailed and thoroughly notated. Bowden weaves hours of interviews into a cohesive narrative, that doesn’t feel stretched, or forced into a beginning, middle and end for mass consumption. In a world desensitized to violence by TV, video games, movies, Bowden has written a heart-wrenchingly real depiction of a real battle fought by real humans with very real feelings (physical and emotional).American troops had been placed in the African nation to help support the rebuilding of the small, poor and desolate place. Bowden gives a sense of this distant battlefield: “Mogadishu spread beneath them it its awful reality, a catastrophe, the world capital of things-gone-completely-to-hell. It was as if the city had been ravaged by some fatal urban disease.” Army Rangers and members of the elite Delta Force were on a base on the outskirts of Mogadishu while periodically making small and seemingly effective raids in the capital city. In early October, 1993, a Delta team, supported by Rangers, was dropped into the city with the hopes of capturing high ranking insurgent officials. The mission started to fall apart very quickly. Not one, but two helicopters were shot down. U.S. convoys drove around the city lost, and before they knew it, what started off as a routine mid-day mission, became an overnight, almost two day long nightmare.Bowden does an amazing job of synthesizing official reports and hours of his own interviews into a solid narrative. While the book isn’t long, it’s certainly overwhelming. But it’s not supposed to be an ‘easy’ read. It’s well-written, but it’s also very real. One soldier’s bravado in one scene becomes a very child-like fear in the next. As a soldier is asked to return to the battle after supporting a small convoy of wounded returning to the U.S. base, Bowden writes of an exchange with a more senior officer: “The difference between being a coward and hero is now whether you’re scared, it’s what you do while you’re scared.”The only downside of this book is that it doesn’t include a summary of the characters and their relative relationships. There are dozens of soldiers with varying degrees of impact on the story of the battle. I simply could not keep up with who was who, and who was in which unit, and where they were at the different phases of the battle. Consider this a heads up for future readers. To be clear, reading this book is an amazing experience. I don’t consider myself a regular reader of military fiction or non-fiction, but I consider this a tremendous piece of work.
    • 5/5
      Black Hawk Down is a story about a Delta squad helicopter that goes down in Somalia. The story takes place during an operation to capture a Somali warlord in Mogadishu. Army rangers are tasked with the job to search and rescue any survivors. This is not an easy task, though. The Rangers must face Somalian militia members armed with an assortment of weapons and RPGs. They suffer many casualties as they advance towards their ultimate goal, Delta squad.I really enjoyed the book, Black Hawk Down. I thought that it was an amazing true story. It really showed a vivid viewpoint of the soldiers that were there during the Battle of Mogadishu. The entire book is based off of Rangers stories and they even have some militia stories. It is interesting seeing the two viewpoints. There isn’t one main character or one goal since it has stories from both viewpoints. The militia is trying to stop the Rangers, while the Rangers are trying to rescue the Delta soldiers. The details are so vivid and well written. You can feel the emotional and physical pain everyone in the story felt. It really got me thinking about how terrible it must have been for them. This was an amazing book and I definitely would recommend it to anyone. I give the book 4 and a half stars.
    • 5/5
      One of the finest and most authentic description of urban warfare when a planned 'snatch' of some bad guys went terribly wrong, costing two helicopters and more than 20 Ranger lives in one of the most dramatic firefights in modern military history. Bowden had access to tapes of radio transmissions and interviewed many of the participants from both sides to give a balanced view of the conflict. Made into a motion picture.
    • 5/5
      This book was simply outstanding! This has to be one of the most intense military novels that I have read so far. The author does a great job of making sure we feel the same way the actual Rangers and Delta's felt during their night spent in Mogadishu! This heart pounding mission that these military members went through was insane. With only 100 soldiers they took on pretty much an entire city for several hours.Now, normally when you read a book and then watch a movie you notice how ridiculously over the top the action sequences are compared to the novel. This process was reversed with this adaptation. There were scenes from the movie that were massively underplayed. One such part in the movie, an Army Ranger and his crew are in a fire fight with some Somalis and the Ranger takes a shot to his hand blowing off his thumb. In the movie the Ranger yells and his quickly bandaged up by his buddy. In the novel however, the Ranger yells instantly grabs his gun with his other hand and tells his buddy, "He's mine!" With a few shots fire and one successful hit the Somali's brain matter says goodbye to it's recent dwelling. Fingers get blown off and duct taped back together on numerous occasions.So if you have an appreciation for the military and the situations they put themselves into for the sake of our freedoms to be preserved this novel will solidify those feelings. If you possible still don't have any affection towards them, I do feel sorry that you have not come to appreciate your comfortable lifestyle within the United States.In reading this my huge respect for my own brothers in arms increased. This book should be a must read for all military individuals and perhaps even recommended reading for the entire school system. It would be good knowledge for the citizens and future votes of the United States to understand exactly what goes on in other parts of the world to secure our safety. By continuing to keep our enemies engaged we keep our nation safe. It would be a scary day to wake up and realize that the enemy brought the fight to our doorstep if we decided to let terror run a muck.Semper Fi
    • 5/5
      A riveting account of "The Day of the Rangers" as the Somalis call the day of The Battle of the Black Sea (Oct. 3, 1993) or more commonly referred to as "Black Hawk Down." The journalist turned author enables the reader to see, feel, hear, and experience the battle that is largely a footnote on modern military references, but shaped American policy and politics for years to come. It is essential reading for any American as it gives insightful perspective to Third World culture and our inability to control society through military might. Great book with descriptive accounts based on countless interviews as well as audio and video tapes from the mission itself!
    • 5/5
      This book was nasty scary; made me think I was in the middle of everything. It gave me a whole new respect for our soldiers and what they have to deal with.
    • 3/5
      Sad and scary, but needs to be read 1) if you want to understand modern war 2) because what happened there should not be forgotten.
    • 4/5
      Bowden's account of the 1993 US fiasco in Somalia is a fast, absorbing read. His work is, for the most part, based on interviews with participants in the engagement, and he made some efforts to interview Somalis who were present as well as conducting exhaustive interviews with American soldiers and commanders. His insights into the mindset of the Americans is more convincing than his explanations for the extraordinary behaviour of the Somalis, many of whom were civilians that were seemingly willing to throw themselves against the far superior weaponry and armour of the Americans. Bowden suggests that clan loyalties lay at the root of this behavior, and in several passages Bowden contrasts the "leave no one behind" mentality of the Americans with the Somali determination to defend clan and nation against the American Rangers.
    • 3/5
      Black Hawk Down is a solid genre American war book with plenty of heroics, blood and piles of dead enemies. If a FPS (First Person Shooter) could be made into a book, this might be a model. As a book it is important mainly because it documented the most intense urban fight America had experienced since Vietnam. Also during the 1990's there was a drought of military action for the United States, Black Hawk Down was a spiked drink to keep the blood pressure pumped when otherwise bases were closing and the military contracting in the wake of the Soviet collapse. The American military was adrift, not unlike the men in this story. Now that we are post 9-11, the 90s seem quaint compared to the epic battles of real consequence in Iraq and Afghanistan. There is no deeper meaning or lesson here. Only that it was the ferocity and bravery of the Somalians who were the primary actors of the battle. A book written from their perspective would be compelling.
    • 4/5
      A story of the complexities and the fog of war. The confusion was top-down in Mog. Classic mistakes were made: underestimation of the strength of the enemy; fighting on his ground; attacking in daylight; wrong equipment; etc. etc. Bowden ties so many threads together into a marvelous and engrossing tale. Deserves to be read again and again. If you want to find out about those secretive Delta guys, this is a good introduction. Great first person perspectives.