No Man Left Behind

Not a day goes by where at some point

I don't think about something in the streets of Mogadishu.

Reporter: Tens of thousands are starving as civil war tears Somalia apart.

Reporter 2: U.S. troops stand guard

protecting the emergency food supplies that are destined for...

It was a simple humanitarian mission.

The troops were targeted in a deliberate attack.

The explosion killed four U.S. soldiers.

Their armored personnel carrier ripped apart.

When you start killing Americans,

you've crossed a line that we don't tolerate.

The attack has been blamed on Somali warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid.

I was pretty certain we were gonna die.

Black Hawk down.

18 hours out of one day defined us.

It was horrifying.

Because we left a man behind.

Looking back, that battle changed our lives.

You can only imagine coming back and walking into a hangar,

where once there was 120 guys.

And over 70 of them were not there.

I grew up in a small town.

I knew there was a lot of world out there.

I always wanted to be part of something that was bigger than me.

I said, you know what? I'm gonna join the army.

Third of October is always a day that means something to me.

Even nowadays

I'm always thinking about that day.

The guys that did survive text each other nowadays

to say, hey, I'm glad you're still alive.

Out there in radio land, you're listening to the best station

in the city. Don't touch that dial.

We weren't training. It was just a day off.

People are doing whatever it is they do.

Boom. I'm unstoppable.

Keni and I were big fans of the board game Risk back then.

That was our thing. World domination.

So we're just kind of hanging out.

All of a sudden a guy walks out of the airplane hangar and yells out.

Get it on!

And everybody drops what they're doing.

This is it, guys. We're going in for a raid.

There's gonna be a mission.

We've received information

that a meeting's taking place in the heart of downtown Mogadishu.

We start gearing up.

Two of Aidid's top lieutenants will be in attendance.

The adrenalin does go up.

We are going in to apprehend them.

Delta Force will land on the roof of the building.

Ranger Regiment will rope down from Black Hawks

and secure the perimeter. Snatch and grab.

Snatch and grab. In and out.

I'll see y'all back here in an hour.

Get back and start playing Risk again.

We never finished that game of Risk.

That game board sat untouched,

because not all the guys that were playing that morning came back.

I loved riding in Black Hawks. It's just a violent machine.

They're loud, they're not smooth, like they...

It's just this armada of American might.

The aircraft would fly low enough

that you could clearly see some of the looks on people's faces.

At that point, we were very unpopular with the average Somali.

I doubt there were very many friendly faces looking up.

They knew what was gonna take place.

They knew guys were gonna slide down ropes.

And they knew bullets were gonna be flying.

I was in charge of the flight, so for me the anxiety level was higher.

Because there were factors here on this particular day

that we had not really encountered before.

Columns of smoke start rising,

and it was as though something was developing.

You can tell you're getting close to the target building

because we'd start slowing down.

The Delta operators had fast-roped onto the top of the target building.

Delta team, go, go!

And their job was to clear that building from the top down.

Our job was to secure the block where the target building was.

Okay, here we go, we're getting ready, get your game on.

Ropes!

Ropes. Kick it right out of the door,

and then you watch it tumble to the ground.

Now the rope's on the ground, everybody puts their goggles down,

you've got your big gloves on,

and then you just reach for the rope and you go.

Go! Go! Go!

I grab, swing out, slide down.

You know it's the start, you know, once you hit the ground,

it's, the mission is on.

I got the call the ropes were clear,

which means everybody's on the ground.

We pull up and out, and I lead the flight north of the city.

And point.

I remember people running across the streets and getting out of the way.

The unknown factor is, are there enemy combatants?

Are they prepared to engage?

Keni and I, we tended to give each other looks or a joke or a jab.

"Hey, what's up, Keni? How's it going over there?

Something caught my eye. A guy in a white robe.

Our rules of engagement were pretty strict.

Like you couldn't fire unless somebody had a weapon.

And you perceived that they were pointing it towards you

with ill intent.

I saw him go back.

One of the ways they transported weapons to each other

was under their robes.

And again.

And that's when I decided he's a threat.

The responsibility I have is to Task Force Ranger,

and you have to err on the side of caution.

I single-handedly decided whether that man should live or die.

That's a huge amount of power that you're wielding,

the power of life and death. And it was decided in seconds.

You lean forward and you're waiting.

And you're waiting.

Never came back out.

Something felt like just hit me with a bat.

And I just fell backwards.

Keni!

Obviously the first thing is, is he...

you know, has he been wounded?

I see him drop the magazine from his weapon.

Like a hot potato. What the...?

And it didn't occur to me what had happened.

One of the magazines had a perfect hole, right there,

and the back end was blown out.

You should keep it!

And Randy, he's laughing at me,

because it must have just looked silly, 'cause I was like...

That shot that was put on Keni, though, that was significant.

It's not just a mass of guys that are indiscriminately shooting.

You're being targeted.

From that point the volume of fire increased.

You start realizing, okay, things are starting to get close.

You're hearing the Delta guys go through the building,

and you can hear them calling out, and we could hear...

It's gradually getting more,

because we're there on target for a while,

and the longer you stay, the more people can come.

And they're all gonna come!

Fire 'em up!

At that point, Delta had secured the enemy combatants.

Delta's out. Delta's out.

The mission was done, wrapped up probably within 25, 30 minutes

of us roping out of the helicopter

to the point where they're saying, it's time to go.

Snatch and grab. In and out.

We're done.

There's a phenomenon in aviation we call "Get-home-itis".

It means you think the hard part's over and you relax.

That's when accidents happen.

And all of a sudden...

the radios light up.

We call it a helmet-fire.

It means I've now got five radio frequencies

that are all jammed with traffic,

all coming into my helmet at the same time.

And I hear...

Black Hawk down!

Black Hawk down.

We have a Black Hawk hit.

Super 6-1 was shot down.

And that changed the entire mission.

I don't know if I saw it or I heard it, but I looked up.

We all kind of look, and you see him.

And he's right here.

Just remember it kind of doing a weird turn.

And just disappeared off.

A couple weeks earlier a helicopter from another unit

had a mechanical issue, and that crew had to set down in the city,

and no one on that crew came home alive.

I watched that helicopter spin

to the horizon where I could no longer see it,

and then a moment later I could hear the impact of it crashing.

I can tell you exactly what we were feeling

when we saw the helicopter go down.

It's the same feeling that we all get

if you've been in a car wreck and it's, it hits you.

And we're all looking at it going, I can't believe that's happening.

That doesn't happen to those guys,

you know, they're the Captain Kirks of army aviation.

That's a confirmation, Super 6-1 is down, Super 6-1 is down.

You know that there's guys that are in trouble,

and you've got to go help 'em.

This is now a rescue mission.

All Ranger units to secure the crash site.

We get told mission's changed. Go secure the crash.

And just before we get ready to roll out...

our squad leader gets hit.

There's parts in this battle

that I watched unfold in slow motion.

In reality it's happening...

Doug gets hit across the neck, and he's bleeding pretty good.

Sergeant Watson goes over and checks on him,

comes right back to me and says...

Sergeant Thomas...

You're in charge.

The first thing that I did was start asking questions,

like is he gonna be okay? What are we doing?