Blood.... Terror.... Insanity. Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War by Mark Bowden recalls the Battle of the Black Sea through the eyes of the American soldiers as well as the Somalia's. The events of October 3-4, 1993 came to be known as The Battle of the Black Sea. It began as a simple abduction of one of the factional warlords in the Somalia's lingering civil war and ended in a bloody chase through Mogadishu. Eighteen Americans and five hundred Somalia's were left dead. Mark Bowden gives an insightful look at what went wrong and how.
             The Strike teams sent in to apprehend Mohammed Farah Aidid were made up of units of Army Rangers (elite Army Infantrymen) and Delta (the Armies equivalent to the Navy S.E.A.L.). Mark Bowden makes the rifts between the two different units evident. The Delta guys were didn't pay attention to orders from any of the high-ranking officers, they didn't have regulation haircuts, they had complete disregard for superior officers and they didn't follow rules of engagement. The D-boys as they were called; looked at the Rangers as arrogant and disorganized. In contrast the Rangers were in aw of the efficacy and skill of the D-boys. When the soldiers found themselves pinned down the difference in battlefield behavior and thinking between the two units comes out very clearly.
             The Reason the U.S. was even involved in Somalia was because the world saw this civil was tearing the land apart, and starving the people. The United Nations decided to get involved. They sent in famine relief workers and the U.S. was there to back them up. The U.S. found itself in the middle of a war that had been raging to decades. The Somalia warlords were attacking the distribution stations and taking the food from the people. The U.S. could only stand by and watch as the warlords slaughtered this people trying to get food. The U.S. couldn't do anything unless fired upon and the mil...