Today Is The 17th Anniversary Of Operation Gothic Serpent

"Gothic Serpent" may not ring a bell but the book and movie based on it will...Blackhawk Down.

Jonn Lilyea emailed me the reminder and has a remembrance of a friend he lost that day, Master Sergeant Tim “Griz” Martin (Delta Force) at This Ain't Hell.

Though I suppose a lot of fights could claim the title of the first battle of the current war on terror (or whatever Obama renamed it), we should never forget that one Osama bin Laden watched and learned from our Somalia withdrawal after this battle.

America assumed the titles of world leader and master of the new world order. After a few blows, it forgot all about those titles and rushed out of Somalia in shame and disgrace, dragging the bodies of its soldiers. America stopped calling itself world leader and master of the new world order, and its politicians realized that those titles were too big for them and that they were unworthy of them. I was in Sudan when this happened. I was very happy to learn of that great defeat that America suffered, so was every Muslim. ...

The lessons he drew from that ill fated day and intervention only applied to the leadership of the time. Bin Laden would soon come to find out that a new American President wouldn't be so easily pushed around and that the fighting skill shown that day in Somalia by American forces (2 were awarded the Medal of Honor) would infuse a whole new generation of American servicemen and women committed to the fight.

While thousands have since died in battlefields around the world in this same war, we should never forget the 19 Americans, including Master Sergeant Martin, who died that day.

posted by DrewM. at 07:32 PM

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