[tense music playing]
[indistinct chatter over radio]
[officer] We gotta have a ground reaction force.
I'm unable to see them anywhere on the ground.
[ominous music playing]
[fire crackling]
[ears ringing]
[Mike] Anyone who's been knocked out
probably feels the same way when they regain consciousness.
It's… it's like you're emerging from a deep, deep sleep.
There's confusion initially,
and gradually, things get clearer and clearer,
and you start to realize this is reality.
Unfortunately, reality was not very good.
I've got some serious injuries.
[soldier groaning]
I mean, my back hurt so bad that the pain was just excruciating.
-[soldier groaning in pain] -[indistinct chatter]
[Mike] I couldn't even feel my leg.
The next thing I know,
Randy Shughart and Gary Gordon are standing next to my cockpit door.
-[gun firing] -[Gary] Randy, hold him up.
It was a tremendous sense of relief.
-Hold on, hold on. -[soldier yelling]
[Mike] I mean, these are Delta Force guys.
If you're in a firefight, that's who you wanna be with.
They put me on the ground and went around the nose of the aircraft.
And I heard Gary say, "Damn, I'm hit."
[groans]
[Gary] Damn, I'm hit.
That's when I realized this is not a rescue force.
This is only two people.
We were vastly outnumbered,
and I'm not sure we're gonna be able to hold out much longer.
[guns firing rapidly]
[Mike] And then I heard some voices.
It didn't sound like friendlies.
All I know is death is on its way.
[crowd roaring]
[Yasin in Somali] We ran to the crash site.
And we were praying to come face-to-face with the Americans.
We were very angry.
We only wanted a chance to get at them.
I was among the first people who arrived at the crash site.
We thought they were all dead.
[gun firing]
[Yasin] Then we saw a wounded man.
He was wearing an American Marine's uniform.
They were ripping all my gear off.
[crowd shouting]
They broke my nose, my cheekbone, my eye socket.
[in Somali] He knows what he did. He bombed us and killed my relatives.
[in English] The guy ripped the green tag off from around my neck.
He said, "Ranger, Ranger, you die Somalia."
He hits me with something soft.
It was the arm of one of the crew.
[crowd yelling]
[Mike] And I… I just couldn't believe it.
I thought, there's no way out of here.
You know, you're going to die.
[Yasin in Somali] He screamed, "Help me! Help me! Help me!"
A Somali youth went to shoot him.
I grabbed and twisted the gun from him.
[dramatic music escalates]
I saved him.
They hoisted me up, threw me in the back of a truck,
but I'm alive.
[in Somali] By sparing his life, it shows we are better than the Americans.
[ominous tune playing]
[helicopter whirring]
[indistinct chatter]
[soldier in English] Listen, Jamie, it's gonna hurt, okay?
[Larry] We were holding on, waiting for a rescue force
right at the corner where the first black hawk went down.
I've got Corporal Jamie Smith.
He's wounded. He needs urgent care.
[soldier] We got a Ranger in critical condition.
[officer on radio] Waiting on the ground reaction force.
It goes without saying we need them here as soon as we can.
All we just knew is
they're putting together an armored convoy to be able to come and get us out.
[tense music playing]
[officer on radio] I've got urgent casualties
at the northern crash site.
[Brad] We rolled back out into the city on the rescue operation.
There were teams of our people hiding out around the first crashed black hawk.
[soldier] I will not…
We went out into the city,
and we started getting shot at almost immediately.
-[indistinct yelling] -[guns firing]
And it's game on. It's just chaotic.
[soldier shouting]
Let's get out of here.
[Yasin in Somali] The unit that I was part of came across a convoy
that was passing nearby.
We fired at each other.
We hit them and caused damage to the convoy.
[soldier in English] Let's go!
Now, I've got a vest on. If I get shot here, I'm gonna live.
The plate's gonna stop the bullet.
And if I get shot in the arm or the leg, most likely, I'm gonna live.
I may lose a limb, but it's okay.
I was terrified of getting shot in the neck or in the junk.
[bullets ricocheting]
[Brad] And over in the distance to our left,
you could see, you know, this glow of fire.
And like, "Wow, thank God we're not headed over there."
And we make a turn and we start heading right that way.
And it's like, "Holy shit, what are we getting into now?"
-[guns firing] -[anticipatory music playing]
[Saido in Somali] We could hear vehicles.
[baby crying]
[Saido] I was trying to breastfeed my baby,
but she would not feed.
We were in a horrible situation.
Somali fighters were attacking our house.
They were targeting the Americans inside.
[Tom in English] The Somalis were engaging us from every location.
I started shooting through the wooden shutters.
The big question was, "Who's gonna get there first?"
"Is our convoy gonna get to us first?"
"Or will the rest of the Somalis get there?"
-[guns firing] -[yelling in distance]
We were running out of ammo.
Had no water, no medical supplies.
I'm thinking, "This is it."
[Saido in Somali] I thought this was the end, and I felt scared.
[guns firing in distance]
If they would throw enough militia men at us,
at some point, we're not gonna be able to defend against that.
So I was thinking,
you know, "At what point do they decide to simply bum-rush us?"
[Tom] I'd given up the fact that I was gonna make it out of there.
Like, well, there's no reason to be nervous, right?
You know your outcome now.
I kind of resigned myself to, "I was gonna die tonight."
[soldier] Where's the help out there?
[officer on radio] I've done everything I can to get those vehicles to you.
[Larry] We were having radio calls
to try and find where the rescue forces are and what's going on.
[officer on radio] Can you give me a status?
We are running out of medical supplies.
I… I was like, "Don't tell me. They're on their way."
[indistinct radio chatter]
[soldier] Hang in there, buddy.
And we just continued to work and make Corporal Smith comfortable.
You could tell he was scared.
He knew he was in trouble.
Uh…
We kept, you know, just trying to pinch off the artery as best we can
to keep the direct pressure.
[indistinct conversation]
[Larry] Eventually, I… I called on the radio.
But I just said, "It's too late."
You know, "He is… he is… he is no longer with us."
[somber music playing]
I may have to hold on for a sec.
[Randy] We have wounded down the street.
We had numerous houses occupied with casualties.
[Tom] People were dying.
And when the team leader came in,
I said, "Do you think we're gonna make it?"
And he kind of paused and thought about it.
And he looked at me, and it wasn't a long pause,
and he's like, "I don't know."
[Randy] And I realized that this battle was gonna end one of two ways.
Either we were gonna fight our way out of the city,
or we were gonna be overrun.
[explosion rumbles]
[Mike] I could hear the battle raging.
[soldier panting]
[interrogator] You're killing children. Why?
[Mike] I was in this fairly small room,
and I couldn't really see anything that was going on outside.
And then there was an interrogator asking me questions.
[interrogator] Why come here?
[Mike] They had just chained me up, and then they just left me alone.
And that's when I really started to assess my condition.
You know, got another look at my leg and realized how bad that was.
It swelled so much
that it was stretching the fabric on my desert trousers,
which are usually quite baggy.
[shouting and gunfire in distance]
[Mike] I could hear the ground convoy.
It appeared like it was coming straight at me.
And… and in my mind, I'm thinking,
"All right, they tracked me. This is a rescue."
"Something really good's gonna happen."
It keeps getting closer and closer and closer.
It's gonna be over here in a minute.
[vehicle approaches, departs]
[Mike] I had no way to signal.
And all of a sudden,
it just passes by and starts getting further and further and further to,
"No. They don't know where I am."
[guns firing in distance]
[officer on radio] We are still moving out of the crash site at this time.
[Brad] We're driving along, you know.
I have no idea where we're going, why we're turning left,
why we're turning right, where we're going. I have no idea.
[guns firing]
And then we finally make it to the crash site.
[indistinct chatter]
[Tom] Then I looked out the door
and I noticed there were people on both sides of the street.
[soldier] Go, go, go!
"All right, the cavalry's here, right? The cavalry's here."
And it felt good.
[indistinct chatter]
[gun firing]
Just the relief of, "Somebody else bigger than our organization is here."
That was a feeling of relief.
[indistinct chatter]
[hopeful music playing]
[in Somali] I felt as if that rescue team was for me.
I was very happy that the ordeal was over.
[Brad in English] Everyone was starting to feel like this whole thing could be over.
But then there was a delay.
[ominous music playing]
They're in the process of,
you know, trying to extricate the last of the guys that had been trapped
and killed inside the helicopter.
You could kind of tell that people were starting to think forward to,
"How much longer are we gonna be here?"
And, "What's this gonna look like when the sun comes up?"
[Larry] We needed to move.
Time was of the essence.
-[tense music playing] -[indistinct chatter]
[Larry] We loaded up Corporal Smith into the armored vehicles.
We loaded our wounded.
[soldier] Let's get out of here.
The joke in the military is,
"How many people can you get in that vehicle?"
"One more." It's always one more.
We put the dead on top, the wounded in the back,
and it was time to get out of there.
I opened the door, pulled the latch out and pulled it open, and it was so packed.
So packed.
There was no room for us.
Not one more going in that vehicle. They pulled the door shut.
It shut, and I was like, "Well…"
I was told that we got to freaking run all the way back out, five miles.
You got to be kidding me.
Fucking great. Here we go again. We just got fucked again.
Really?
[Randy] The gunfire was starting to build up again.
[soldier] Are you kidding me!
And all I could think of was,
"Holy crap."
"I've got to run through that."
[soldier] Shit!
[Randy] Anyone out on those streets is just asking to get killed.
-[tense music playing] -[bullets whistling]
[Halima in Somali] I was running away from the school because of the fighting.
When I left the school, I was barefoot.
A helicopter was flying towards me.
The helicopter was never gone for long.
It kept flying over us, one way and then the other.
It would go very low to the ground.
They would fire indiscriminately, not knowing what they were shooting at.
When the helicopter got very low, I would take cover.
In my head I believed that it was stalking me.
[young Halima panting]
And then it flies away and then comes back shooting.
I went into the house and checked every room.
I found the house was empty.
[muffled shouting]
I was sure my family were dead.
[somber music playing]
When I left the house,
despair settled in
because I couldn't find my mother.
When I went outside, I was not looking for hope or life.
I wanted to sit outside and cry until the helicopter killed me,
as it had the other people.
I lost hope in life.
I told myself I will die today.
[guns firing in distance]
[Larry in English] They've been shooting all night and the sun is starting to rise,
and, you know, all those things I go, "Oh shit, here we go again."
"This is gonna get… It's gonna get interesting all over."
[Randy] The call had been made.
-"Hey, the armored vehicles are full." -[soldier] Go! Go!
And the plan is for us
to accompany those armored vehicles to the sides of them.
[soldier] Go, go, go!
Go!
[Larry] What you're gonna do is you're gonna move alongside the road
whilst these armored vehicles
ride right next to you.
[Randy] Use them for cover against the enemy.
[soldier] Move, move!
And no sooner did we get to the first intersection,
the convoys didn't stop to block.
The convoys kept going.
-[soldiers yelling] -[guns firing loudly]
Those armored vehicles just took off like,
"You don't have to worry about bullets. We worry about bullets."
They just took off.
It's one of those things where, "Well, this plan just went to shit quickly."
[Tom] I'm back in the same street I was the day before,
going back the same direction, which you never do,
following vehicles, which lets everybody know we're coming.
"I hear a vehicle. Let me look out the window."
"Oh, here's some people on foot. Let's shoot them instead."
-[guns firing] -[indistinct chatter]
It was one of those, "God, this never ends, does it?"
[Nuur in Somali] I was in the thick of the battle throughout.
My gun never had a rest.
Every time we fire a shot
or brought down any of their soldiers,
our sense of triumph increased.
We make it through the one intersection.
As I'm moving up along the wall,
it feels like somebody walks up and hits me in the back…
[soldier] Make way!
[Randy] …with a baseball bat.
[gunfire muffles]
I hear, "Goddamn it!" And I look across the street.
There's Randy Ramaglia.
-[soldier] Move! -[Larry] He says, "I'm hit."
I reached into my vest and I'm expecting to find an exit hole.
No exit hole.
And then at any moment,
I'm expecting as I'm breathing to start hearing gurgling.
The unit medic yells across the street, "Hey, are you okay?"
And I give him the, "Yeah, I'm all right,"
even though I don't really know if I'm all right or not.
But the only thing I did know is that I could run.
[intense music playing]
Wounded or not, you had to keep going. You had to keep fighting.
-[indistinct chatter] -[guns firing]
[Yasin in Somali] You can't come back from being dead.
But being injured, there's still hope.
You're still alive.
I was shot here.
I am going to show you.
There is a hole now.
It does not matter being shot and the pain.
It's not a big deal.
We are made to either shoot or get shot.
[Randy in English] And we continue running.
[Tom] Finally,
we had reached the vehicles that had been sent to get us out of there.
A guy jumps out, grabs me, and just shoves me into a Humvee.
And they just took off.
You know, so, literally, we were one of the last guys off the street.
One of the scariest times in the battle was when we were in that armored vehicle.
I'm in the back just shooting everything that's shooting at us.
[Larry] And we were headed back to the base.
-[indistinct chatter] -[guns firing]
[tense music playing]
[Randy] Driving out of the city looked so much different to me today
than it did yesterday.
The only thing that had changed
from the previous day was my perspective.
And today it just looked ugly.
[indistinct chatter]
-[helicopter whirring] -[bullet whistles]
[Binti in Somali] Debris from the house had fallen on top of me.
I was under the rubble.
I spat blood from my mouth.
[eerie music playing]
My daughter, Ifrah, said,
"Mom, I can't see anything and my eyes are bleeding."
"My brother is not responding."
Her eyes were bleeding.
I said, "Don't you have eyes anymore?"
"No," she said, and I cried a lot.
[young Binti crying]
[Binti] I asked, "Where are the boys?" And I was told they are dead.
My eldest child, the one next to him, and my husband have all died.
The remaining four were injured.
Ifrah asked, "Where's my father?"
She was told, "He's dead."
"The Americans killed him."
She said, "The Americans should be killed and their eyes taken out too."
[tuts] Mm.
[sad music playing]
[Ahmed in English] You know, I woke up in the morning, early.
I'm afraid for my life.
But I know I had to go back out there.
Is the fighting still going on,
or it is a safe area?
I have to see.
[indistinct chatter]
[vehicle honking]
I got off my bike,
I took my camera,
and I pressed record.
[indistinct chatter]
[crowd in Arabic] God is great! God is great!
[Ahmed in English] Everybody was trying to come in front of the camera to talk
about what happened.
And they are happy!
[indistinct crowd chatter]
[in Arabic] God is great! God is great!
[Ahmed in English] They are jumping up and down on the crashed helicopter.
All the people, they are cheering and saying,
"We have defeated the Americans."
[in Somali] America, fuck off!
Look at this side.
There, two other men.
-[boy laughing] -Can you see?
Can you see my bullets?
[spits] Curse America!
[in English] They said, "We won. We won and get victory."
Yes.
[woman in Somali] If you are Rangers, we will beat you!
If you are Rangers, we will beat you!
Americans, move, move.
[indistinct crowd chatter]
[in English] When I was filming,
I heard one woman say,
"Look!"
[suspenseful music plays]
And then when I saw,
I realized it's one dead body of an American.
American soldier.
When I saw this body, I was shocked.
[somber music playing]
You know, they are very angry,
and then they are sometimes stepping on…
You cannot say any word about this.
I just wanted to get out of there,
but I had to do my job.
It's not right.
You should respect the dead, even your enemy.
You know, my aim is,
the whole world to see what is going on in Somalia.
In the morning, I went to the airport.
Every morning, there is a flight to Nairobi.
I sent three tapes,
and the same day, they broadcast it.
I know this footage will change everything!
[Brad] We get back at the hangar, finally.
We put our gear down, and all of a sudden everybody is running
in the hangar to the back corner where there was a television.
Evening. Thanks for joining us. I'm Angela Robinson.
And I'm Morris Jones.
The price of US involvement
in Somalian relief efforts is sharply escalating.
There's a crowd of, like, 50, 75 people.
And so we go over there to see what's happening.
We wanna caution you,
some of the pictures in this report are extremely graphic.
And on the TV is an American soldier getting dragged through the streets.
[Robinson] They pulled him by ropes and stopped to stomp on him.
[Brad] Everybody there was just in disbelief,
and there were people yelling at the TV.
You know, "What the fuck?"
It was just almost like a circus.
I was just in total disbelief.
[Robinson] Somalis also jumped in celebration
on one of the US helicopters shot down.
[Larry] Not only the world is seeing this…
and these people celebrating over the corpse of a human being.
And more so, it was our… it was our folks.
It was ours.
Uh… [tuts]
[Brad] It was absolutely disgusting.
And it occurs to me, you know, people's families can see this.
[birds chirping]
When I married Gary, you know,
I had no idea, really, what the Unit meant.
I just knew, you know, it was a special forces thing.
Wives were not privy to that information.
Before he left for Somalia,
I had no idea that he was going anywhere.
He didn't say where he was going
or if it was a, you know, a mission or anything like that.
It was just like, you know, "I've gotta go on a trip."
-[water running] -[utensils clattering]
[Carmen] A few months had passed,
and I was told that he was MIA in… in Somalia.
I was trying to imagine what Somalia looks like.
You know, the term "MIA," you heard that term during Vietnam.
It didn't compute to me.
It just didn't make sense.
And then I turn on the TV, and there's a, you know, news report.
I saw the bodies being dragged through streets.
[indistinct crowd chatter]
I just couldn't wrap my mind around…
[sniffles] …how humanity could be so…
cruel.
Just then, looking at the TV to see,
and then for me, it became,
um… my mission to see if I could recognize him.
[tense music playing]
Like, I don't understand how people are unaccounted for
at that point, you know.
I knew who… who from my vehicle is here.
Are we missing people? Where are they?
The questions start, you know, "Where's so-and-so?"
"Where's so…?" You know, "Where's…?"
"They went on this target. Have you heard from 'em?"
"Well, Griz is dead."
"Oh, okay."
"I saw Earl get wounded. How's he doing?" "No, no, Earl's dead. He died instantly."
"He got shot in the head and died instantly."
I had no idea.
There were so many more in the hospital, getting taken care of.
Um… up… up to 100 wounded.
It's a sinking feeling of,
"This is a lot worse than I even considered."
And then there's all those vehicles full of blood and sand and the bleach smell.
[somber music playing]
[Tom] Just bullet holes everywhere.
Then I heard there were body parts in garbage bags being sent back to us.
Angers you.
Really angers you,
and it makes you wonder how humans can do that.
I was enraged.
I think we're at a point where people were almost losing control.
[David] Back at the hangar,
they unloaded the prisoners that we took on the original mission.
And they rounded 'em up, put 'em in a Conex,
took this one high-value target,
uh, and put him in a separate room, and then told me to go guard this guy.
I can still see that guy's face, white beard, white hair.
Older guy.
Frail as fuck.
I'm just staring at this guy.
It's the weirdest encounter you can fucking imagine.
He can't say shit to me. I can't say shit to him.
We're just staring at each other. We know we don't like each other.
He's curious if I'm gonna kill him, and I'm curious if I'm gonna kill him.
What I thought of first was stabbing him.
That just kept coming to my mind. "Stab him."
You know, I'm plotting this guy's murder, basically.
I really wanted to do that.
That guy in that room, is a lucky fucker, that day,
'cause I should've killed him.
[somber music playing]
[Tom] We were all reeling from the news we were getting.
And then they start identifying who's missing,
and it was Gary, Randy, and Durant.
We all just wanted to know,
"Are any of them still out there?"
[indistinct crowd chatter]
[Ahmed] I was in my office.
I was doing some editing.
Someone I knew who had contact with Aidid appeared at the door.
He said, "Ahmed, there is an American soldier."
"He's alive and in prison."
"So, can you go with me and record?"
I say, "Yes!"
International journalists, they don't have the power to go,
but I could
do that.
I took my camera. I go with him.
[vehicle honking]
[Ahmed] I'm afraid for my life.
We go inside of the house.
Then I saw one white man… sitting.
His face, it looks like he's afraid.
-[interrogator] Which army? -US Army.
-[interrogator] You a Ranger? -No.
-I'm not a Ranger. -[interrogator] No.
[Ahmed] He has a greenish T-shirt.
His eyes full.
CW3, Mike Durant.
[Mike] They had me propped up,
where I was holding my weight off of my spine,
but I'm still struggling with the pain levels.
[tense music playing]
That guy with me is asking questions.
[interrogator] Where are you from?
United States.
[indistinct conversation]
[Mike] I'm caught in this trap.
What do you say?
Do you answer anything?
It isn't worth dying
to avoid saying, "I'm a black hawk pilot."
I'm a black hawk pilot.
"Which army are you? Where were you born?"
US.
This is a… a team of people who clearly have an objective
to get me to say something that will be politically useful for them.
And they're trying to manipulate me
and get me to say something I don't wanna say.
[interrogator] How do you think this operation is going?
This operation is…
[Mike] And I said,
-"I'm a soldier. I do…" -I'm a soldier. I do what I'm told.
Then they went on to another question,
and kept working on it, working on it, working on it,
and they… they said…
[interrogator] Do you kill the innocent people?
[Mike] It's pretty obvious to me what they want me to say.
They want me to say,
"Yeah, Americans are here."
"We're killing innocent Somalis, and we're here to take over the country."
None of that is true.
So, I'm not going to say that.
But how do I say something that gets us beyond this point?
Innocent people being killed is not good.
When that last word comes out of my mouth, they turn the camera off and walk out.
[Ahmed] I'm just trying to do my job.
To broadcast, you know?
But my tape changed the whole world.
Good evening.
Somewhere in Somalia tonight, an American serviceman,
perhaps several, are being held hostage.
A frightened and bloodied captive,
whose interrogation was videotaped by his captors.
I'm a black hawk pilot.
[President Clinton] We have issued the sternest possible warning
that if anything happens to them,
the United States will view this matter very gravely
and take appropriate action.
[Carmen] I remember seeing Michael,
and, um, my first thought was his wife…
and what she must've been going through.
[tense music playing]
[woman] I'm making this statement in the hope that it will reach my husband.
I want him to know that Joey and I are doing well.
Joey is waiting for you to get back before he starts walking.
He wants his father to see his first steps.
Take care of yourself.
Don't worry about us.
We'll be fine.
How she must have been so worried about what was gonna happen to him.
The trauma, or whatever they were doing with him.
[sniffles]
And then, um…
thinking that, "Well…
[exhales]
…maybe if he's alive, maybe Gary is still alive."
[bee buzzing]
[Carmen] I was at home, and we heard a car pull up,
and I remember turning around,
and I saw two guys get out in uniform.
And I knew that meant that the news was coming.
And I remember turning my head away really quick,
like if I just ignored it,
it wouldn't happen.
It wouldn't be real.
"This isn't happening."
-[birds chirping] -[somber music playing]
[Carmen] The guy sat down with me and told me… [sniffles]
…that Gary's body had been recovered.
Then I…
hit him on his chest multiple times.
Just begging for it not to be true.
[young Carmen] Ian, look at Ma. Say hi.
Ian, you gonna put on a worm on the fishing pole?
Yeah.
[young Carmen] Oh, there we go.
Father and son.
All right.
Here they go again.
[somber music playing]
[Carmen] What do you tell a little boy who just turned six?
How do you explain something like that?
[young Carmen] Reel it in, Ian!
Hurry up, you caught a fish!
Oh! Wow, come up here and show Mom!
Wow!
[Carmen] There's nothing, as a mother,
that you can do to take that pain away.
[sniffles]
I guess I could say I have some comfort
that maybe Gary's, you know, passing saved Michael Durant's life.
[Larry] When we found out that Mike was still alive and in captivity,
the only thing in my mind was,
"If we're gonna do anything, it's not to get Aidid."
"It's to recover Mike Durant, by any means necessary."
We were starting to kind of, "Okay, are we gonna go do this?"
And people are ready to go jump in a vehicle
and drive back out there to go drive around and look for him.
All we were told was, "Stand down. You're not doing anything."
Good evening, everyone.
There's word of a possible ceasefire offer in Somalia.
Warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid
has apparently said he will accept a US outline for peace.
[male reporter] US special envoy Robert Oakley spent much of the day inside
the United Nations compound in Mogadishu,
searching for a political solution to the crisis in Somalia.
Sources say Oakley met with leaders of warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid's clan,
and that could be a prelude to an agreement
in which the US would drop its efforts to arrest Aidid
in return for the freedom of captured helicopter pilot Michael Durant.
[Mike] So, I wake up that day,
and, uh… you can feel there's a little bit of a buzz.
I mean, things are… things are different.
Then a Red Cross doctor came in,
and he gave me the morphine,
and that's when I started to cave and started to believe that,
"Okay, this is probably real."
[indistinct chatter]
[Mike] And then they put me on a… a litter.
We get out in the street. There's cameras all over the place.
They stick me in the back of a vehicle.
We take off. I almost slide out the back of the vehicle
'cause he accelerated too fast.
Army Warrant Officer Michael Durant
was released after being held hostage for 11 days.
[male reporter] The American pilot has broken bones,
but Somali thugs couldn't break his spirit.
[Mike] Finally get to the U.N. compound.
[crowd cheering]
Freedom's never tasted so good.
Hear! Hear!
[all cheer happily]
Once you're inside the compound
and you see faces of people you know,
you know this is… this is not an illusion.
This is real. I'm… I'm out of here.
[male reporter] A hero's welcome for army helicopter pilot Mike Durant.
[Clinton] Tonight, Michael Durant is on his way home.
We are thankful beyond words that Chief Warrant Officer Durant
will be reunited with his family and that he will recover from his wounds.
[crowd cheering]
[Mike] Then stopped in Washington DC,
and I got my Purple Heart pinned on me there.
Pretty moving to see, you know, that many people come out
and celebrate the fact that I got released.
There's a tremendous sense of relief, you know, knowing that
this… this ordeal is over for me and my family.
The only question I still had was, "What's happening with the mission?"
[indistinct radio chatter]
We were all sitting around kind of speculating
as to what was gonna happen next.
"What are we doing? Are we doing more missions?"
[Larry] That's when we get told that President Clinton
called off the mission.
It is essential that we conclude our mission in Somalia
but that we do it with firmness and steadiness of purpose.
[Ahmed] Bill Clinton decided
to withdraw, you know, their troops from Somalia
and asked General Aidid for a ceasefire.
American troops in Somalia are packing up and heading home.
[male reporter] The last US soldiers in Somalia left the country today.
Almost 16 months after they stormed the beaches,
the final planeload of 120 troops took off for Delaware.
[Randy] For those of us that… that were still mobile,
we didn't wanna leave.
We wanted to stay.
My friends died, and now you wanna pull out.
That's a waste of lives.
We wasted our time. We wasted these lives.
And I was enraged.
Pissed. Pissed, pissed, pissed.
[somber music playing]
[David] It's what happened to our people that bothers me.
We should've continued the fight.
[somber music fades]
But we didn't.
Powers to be decided on something else, so,
that's what we, uh… that's what we went with.
Yeah.
Sorry.
[sniffles, clears throat]
Yeah, that part bothers me a little bit,
how we just kind of left like that, but, you know…
just gotta move on.
Try to just continue on.
Continue on.
[somber music playing]
[in Somali] The United States, claiming to be a superpower,
should feel ashamed
for highlighting their loss of around 20 soldiers,
when on 3rd October they were killing every Somali on sight.
[Yasin in Somali] For the Americans, October 3rd is a tragic day,
but for us this was a dark moment.
[birds chirping]
When I think about what happened, my head starts hurting.
It left me with a grudge and painful memories.
I hate to see Americans.
[Ahmed in English] What I saw was heartbreaking, you know.
It affected me totally.
When I saw the horrific things done on October 3rd,
October 4th,
what I saw with my eyes and my camera…
After that, I stopped filming again.
It's too much horror, yeah.
[somber music playing]
[Binti in Somali] Dying is one thing,
but my daughter being blind is what hurts my stomach.
The dead are gone, but there's nothing worse than losing the eyes.
[tuts]
But when I see Ifrah, I get tearful.
She would fall, here and there.
Praise be to God.
She was just a child.
[somber music playing]
[young Carmen] Hey, oh, let's hold it straight.
Ooh, what kind of fish is that?
Huh?
[Ian whistling]
[Carmen] My son, Ian, you know, looks so much like his dad, Gary.
[birds chirping]
[Carmen] You know, the tenderness in his eyes.
He, uh… called me one day and, um, said, "Mama…"
He says, "I… I think I'm gonna join the Rangers."
I was like, "Oh, I knew that was coming."
Well, he followed in his father's footsteps.
[dog panting]
Good boy.
[Carmen] It was hard. Um, when he first went in,
to comfort myself, I always said, "It can't happen to me twice."
"It can't."
And, uh… and he had, um…
he had a couple of really close calls,
and, um, I just have to believe that his dad is his guardian angel,
for sure.
[somber music playing]
[Saido in Somali] She was a beautiful baby girl.
[baby crying]
[Saido] She inhaled the dust and smoke
caused by the rockets and the helicopter crash.
All this is not something a newborn baby can endure.
She became so sick, I thought she would die.
But, thank God, He saved her for me and now she is beautiful.
Amina was the name of her grandmother.
And she was born on the day of the war with the Rangers.
[Saido laughs]
So we called her Amina Rangers.
[helicopter whirring]
[Halima] When I found my home empty, I was terrified.
I thought I was the only one left.
When I saw my mom, I couldn't believe it was her.
But then I recognized her, and we hugged each other.
My heart relaxed.
I was overjoyed when my mother came to me
and she told me everyone was okay.
Getting my mom back was so precious to me.
Hmm.
[birds chirping]
[Tom in English] They want you to go to war, so they train you to go to war.
But they don't train you to deal with it after the fact.
And they certainly didn't train me how to deal with it now.
It's not normal, it's not healthy, and it lasts with you forever.
"Thou shalt not kill."
Well, I've killed.
You don't stop to think about the people till later,
and that's when it kills you.
[somber music swells]
[Brad] I deployed a number of other times,
and nothing that I ever saw
in the entire rest of my military career
was anything close to the things that I saw
in Mogadishu in 1993.
-[explosion booms] -[soldiers yelling]
[gun firing]
[David] I've met guys along the way, claiming they were in Somalia.
After talking to them for two seconds,
I can tell there was no fucking way they were in Somalia,
at least not with us.
You know, that's a small group of guys, you know.
It's a small group, and very, uh…
[inhales]
…few people can… can talk to what happened there that day.
[somber music playing]
[in Somali] It was just a battlefield for them.
It was home for me.
Mmm…
[explosion booms]
[in English] My aim and my priority
is to record history.
We need to show our children what happened.
-[helicopter whirring] -[children screaming]
The Americans are the ones who came to fight here,
and themselves, they became even the victims of the war.
You can see, themselves also.
[guns firing]
[David] You gotta be able to separate it in your mind.
I don't know, maybe someday I'll go batshit crazy.
I have no idea. But, uh, you know, it… it was my job.
I like to think that day,
I was just giving cover to my friends.
[Randy] You know, it's a bittersweet event in my life.
You know, there's things that I'm furiously proud of,
and then there's a… a degree of, you know, sadness.
And I've come to realize that some things in life are just never settled.
You just… You learn to live with it.
[somber music playing]
[somber music continues]