Movie: Black Hawk Down

I’ve been wanting to do a write up on Black Hawk Down for quite some time. It’s the movie I want to watch over and over again. Whenever I’m feeling down, this is the movie I go to. So I gues I would have to call it my “favorite movie”, right now.

Directed by Ridley Scott

Book by Mark Bowden

Only the dead have seen the end of war. – Plato

That’s the opening text of the movie. That seems to resonate so powerfully these days.
It takes place in East Africa 1992 – Somalia. This is based on true events.

The jist of the set up is that there is a massive famine that kills 300,000 civilians. Mohamed Farrah Aidid rules the capitoal Mogadishu. He controls all of the food shipments. 20,000 Marines go in and get the food delived to the people. In April 1993, Aidid waits for the Marines to leave and then once again seizes all of the food. In June Aidid kills 24 Pakistani soldiers and begins targeting Americans. In late August, America’s elite soldiers, Delta Force, Army Rangers and the 160th SOAR are sent to Mogadishu to remove Aidid. A 3 week missiion turns into 6 weeks and Washington is getting impatient.

I get so sucked into this movie because of the opening music. It is captivating:
If you are interested in the soundtrack, you can get it here:

The scene opens up at a Red Cross food drop where Aidid’s men come in and shoot up the place.
Josh Hartnett (SSgt. Matt Eversmann) is outrages and wants to engate.
Super 64 (their Black Hawk) cannot intervene.

Sam Shepard who plays Maj. Gen. William F. Garrison captures a gun dealer for Aidid’s malitia. The gun dealer explains that this is civil war. Garrison explains back that this is genocide. “This isn’t Iraq, ya know. It’s more complicated than that.” Oh those were the days.

CWO Cliff ‘Elvis’ Wolcott played by Jeremy Piven is a Black Hawk pilot for 61. Black Hawk 64, piloted by CWO Michael Durant played by Ron Eldard is convinced that ‘limo’ cannot be played in scrabble because it’s not in the dictionary. Wolcott and Durant are apparently in the middle of a heated scrabble game.

Here’s the official scrabble rule:
Scrabble, Scrabble Rules, Play Scrabble online, email scrabble, Correspondence Scrabble, interactive play, scrabble board, scrabble on-line, scrabble game with chat room, scrabble games, word games, word puzzles: “All words labeled as a part of speech (including those listed of foreign origin, and as archaic, obsolete, colloquial, slang, etc.) are permitted with the exception of the following: words always capitalized, abbreviations, prefixes and suffixes standing alone, words requiring a hyphen or an apostrophe.”
But that doesn’t really end the conversation. This scene has been discussed in a fair amount of detail here:
Limo – Off Topic

Enter: Orlando Bloom playing: Pfc. Todd Blackburn enters born: 2/27/75 “I’m here to kick some ass.” He becomes the cog in the wheel that comes off the axle.

Blackburn reports to Eversmann (Hartnett). Blackburn is as green as they come.

Now we start flying through the characters:
Capt. Mike Steele (Jason Isaacs) is the tough ass.
Danny Hoch playing Sgt. Dominick Pilla is caught by Steele who he’s making fun of.

Ioan Gruffudd playing Lt. John Beales is watching a scene from The Jerk (1979). He suddenly has a seizure and can no longer be in the army. He’s epeleptic. Eversmann takes his chalk. “Rangers are the way, sir. All the way.”

Steven Ford playing Lt. Col. Joe Cribbs is writing a scarey cartoon story for his daughter.

Maj. Gen. William F. Garrison sets up a plan to capture some top Aidid men at a meeting they know is happening. These are the specifics:
They are after two people.
15:45 Assault team Delta will infiltrate the target building and seize all suspects within.
15:46 4 Ranger Chalks will rope in under the command of Captain Steele and will hold a four corner parimeter around the target area.
Tom Sizemore playing Lt. Col. Danny McKnight is in charge of the extraction Humvee force. (He utlimately becomes my favorite character).
15:47 McKnight will drive in and wait for the green light. When Delta gives the word, McKnight will move to the target building and load the prisoners on flat bed trucks.
The four ranger chalks will colapse back to the target building load up on the Humvees and the entire ground force will go back the 3 miles to base. This should not take any longer than 30 minutes.
Garrison had requested light armor and AC 130 spectre gunships. But Washington decided against this because it was too high a profile.

Here’s a picture of what they should have had protecting them:

The C-130 Spectre Gunship is Armed with Miniguns, Cannons and an On-Board Howitzer.

They didn’t get that so Black Hawks and little birds will provide the air cover.

Mission Lauch code work is: Irene.

They are going into the Bakara market – an extremely hostile area.

Lt. Col. Danny McKnight is worried. “Down on the street it’s unforgiving.”

Charlie Hofheimer playing Cpl. James ‘Jamie’ Smith is friends with Eversmann. He’s assuring that everything will be ok.

Ewan McGregor playing Spec. John Grimes (did I tell you that already) is the coffee maker. “It’s all in the grind, Sizemore [Matthew Marsden plays pec. Dale Sizemore]. It can’t be too fine, can’t be too coarse. This, my friend, is a science.” He made coffee through Dessert Storm and Panama. Sizemore had a ping pong accident. Grimes is taking his place. Eversmann tells Grimes (nicknamed ‘Grimesy’) to stick with Pvt. John Waddell played by Ian Virgo. They tell Grimes not to worry about the Somoalis. “They can’t shoot for shit.”

This is Eversmann’s first time as chalk leader.

Incidentally, people in the military say a chalk is when an airplane is carrying a special load, especially a group of soldiers in a single airplane.

Eversmann is nervouse but seems up for the job.

They don’t take any water, or night vision goggles because they aren’t going to be out there long enough. Grimes takes out this armor, like everyone else.

Delta tapes their bood type to their boots.

Blackburn is pretty amped. He says he’s been training his whole life for this.

OK. I’m sorry to spend so much time on that few minutes of the movie. But it’s so important because ultimately it never happens. And it’s what everyone was counting on. We learn a ton of information in those few minutes. I’ve never really gotten it until now. I wrote that as much for me as for you.

“Y’know what I think? Don’t really matter what I think. Once that first bullet goes past your head, politics and all that shit just goes right out the window,” says Eric Bana playing Sfc. Norm ‘Hoot’ Gibson in talking with Eversmann.

Abdibashir Mohamed Hersi playing Abdi. He is a Somali spy for us. He is who we are relying on to get our people to the correct target. He lifts the hood of his car to give the sign that is where the target is.

All units Irene.

Garrison comes by Eversmann’s chalk and wishes them luck. Eversmann says he’s never done that before.

A young Somali boy outside of town sees the Black Hawks coming. He phones the militia that they are coming. The militia is able to have a few minutes to arm themselves.

The first bird is down at 15:42… only 3 minutes a head of schedule.

The pinnacle moment is coming. This is why service businesses are so hard. And you really must think of the military as a service business. Ultimately, this is why this movie endlessly facinates me. As an owner of a service business I have have become so aware of the variables of service.

Blackburn falls out of his bird. He falls off his rope when a RPG goes past the copter and throws him off balance. Eversmann ropes down to him. He radios for Steele but can’t raise him. They need to get Blackburn out. Eversmann is freaked out and no one is giving him help. As they take care of Blackburn, the corner becomes weak.

Delta is secure. They have done their job and captured the people they wanted to capture.

A group is running Blackburn to the Humvees.

McKnight’s group gets the call to move out and get the prisoners.

Grimes is distracted by a prisoner brushing his shoulder and consequently almost gets hit by an RPG.

Brian Van Holt playing SSgt. Jeff Struecker is lead Humvee. He’s moving quickly throught the market trying to get everone out.. Pilla is hit. Danny Hoch played Sgt. Dominick Pilla who was on the 50mm gun. He is KIA.

An RPG hits Super 61 – Wolcott’s bird. “61 going down.” Wolcott is so calm. I don’t know how those pilots do it. But you hear this kind of

“We got a Black Hawk down, we got a Black Hawk down.” This becomes the defining moment of Somolia.

“We just lost the initiative,” Garrison says.

I remember watching an Oprah once where she said that there was a lot of value in seeing how celebrities and wealthy people decorated. Because these people have endless money, you can see what the hightest kind of decorating is. Once you see that, you can apply those decorating ideas to your own house for much cheaper. I love watching military movies because they are all cautionary tales of service businesses going wrong. They are people who are dying for their service, and on top of that, the military has endless money to perfect their systems. You can see how they make mistakes and potentially learn from those mistakes and apply the lessons you learn to your own service business.

Over and over again, when the military fails, it’s not because they were inferior, it’s because they miscommunicated. They had operational failure. That’s the story of 9/11 and that’s the story here.

Every minute of this mission was accounted for except for the minute where Blackburn fell out of that chopper. It changed everything.

The convoy finally makes it back to the base. And finally, Chalk 4 has made it to the crash site.

2 pilots are dead, 2 crew chiefs are wounded. One guy is hurt bad and is flown out.
Spec. Lance Twombly and Spec. Shawn Nelson are abandon and are trying to make it to the crash site. Nelson looses his hearing.

Super 68 has smoke coming out of his roter. He drops his last man.

Super 64 comes in to takes Wolcott’s position. Super 64 gets clipped. The tail roter is lost. 64 is going down. This is Durant’s bird.

Throughout the movie Delta and Army Rangers do not communicate. They simply are not working together.

Back at base, they start to put together a rescue force.
Sizemore goes along even with his cast. Thomas doesn’t feel like he can make it. Strueker says, “Thomas, everyone feels the same way you do. It’s what you do right now that makes the difference.”

Sgt. Scott Galentine tries to raise Twombly and Nelson on the radio but he can’t reach them.

Here’s the thing about war movies. If you want to use military equipment, everything has to be cleared by the military and you can’t put our military in a negative light. So, as you see nuances of communication failure in a movie like this you know that they are trying to tell you that it’s a major deal. They are trying to get it across to you without pissing off the military.

Apocalyse Now Redux is all about showing you scenes that the military intially didn’t approve of.

Walcott is alive in his Black Hawk. He is single handedly fighting off Somalis.

Nikolaj Coster-Waldau playing MSgt. Gary Gordon and Johnny Strong playing Sfc. Randy Shughart have volunteered to be let off to secure crash site 2 until ground support can arrive. They have no confirmation as to when that might be.

They get to Walcot. His leg is broken and his back feels weird.

16:54 Convoy returning to base.

Crash site one is left isolated.

Garrison wants to get the Tenth Mountain in and move everyone back to the Pakistani stadium.

Gordon and then Shughart are killed defending crash site 2. Walcott is left stranded. This is the famous scene where the Somalis parade an American body through the streets. Walcott is hit in the head and taken prisoner by Aidid’s people.

Hoot arranges a Delta group to go to the crash site on foot.

17:50

Sanderson is coming to Eversmann’s group.

Twombly, Nelson and Yurek finally get to Eversmann’s position as well. Twombly is hit. Then Smith gets hit critically. Smith gets hit saving Twombly.

Hoot’s group makes it to the second crash site and secures it by blowing it up.

The Pakistain general says it’s going to take a couple hours to move 100 vehicles. The Safe Zone – Pakistani Stadium – 10th Mountain and U.N. Base

“That’s right. None of you Americans smoke anymore. You all live long, dull, uninteresting lives,” says Abdullah ‘Firimbi’ Hassan. He goes on to say: “You have the power to kill but not negotiate. In Somalia killing is negotiation. Without victory there can be no peace. There will always be killing. This is how things are in our world.”

Smith’s femoral artery has retracted into his leg. They try to clamp it but it tears and disappears into his leg.

Hoot is coming in with 3 friendlies.

23:23 the 10th Mountain moves out.

Smith knows he is dying. He can’t hold on. “It’s nothin’”

Hoot to Eversmann: “See you’re thinking. Don’t. Cause seargent you can’t control who gets hit and who doesn’t. Who falls out of a chopper and why. It ain’t up to you. It’s just war.” “Seargent you got your men this far. You did it right today. You need to start thinking about getting these men out of here.”

Eversmann marks the target with a strobe. He misses first. But he goes out and puts it up on the roof.

McKnight makes it to the crash site.

2:05 – the convoy arrives.

McKnight is calm and determined. He’s just a great leader.

5:45 they finally dismantle the cockpit and remove the dead soldiers. Crash site 2 is secured.

Not everyone can get into a vehicle. So several men have to run out.

A man carrying a dead young child crosses the street in front of the convoy.

A lady runs screaming. She turns and raises a gun. She is killed.

Eversmann, Hoot and their men make it to the safe zone – the stadium.

So, as the viewer you want to find some symbolism. You want a moral. What’s the message. Is it, “Communicate better.” “Is it, “Make better systems.”

“It ain’t up to you. It’s just war.” That’s a rough message. We want more than that. We want to be able to walk away and say, “This is what I learned from Black Hawk Down.” We want something actionable.

Hoot: “When I get home people ‘ll ask me, “Hey Hoot, why do ya do it man? Why? Just some war junkie?” Ya know what I’ll say? I won’t say a goddamn word. Why? They won’t understand. They won’t understand why we do it. They won’t understand that it’s about the men next to you, and that’s it. That’s all it is.”

Hoot is the philosopher.

His insight is unsatisfying. Truth, unfortunately, however, is unsatisfying. It’s just the truth.

War is really just about the men next to you. That’s why these men fight. That’s why they die. And that’s the lesson. Maybe the meaning you are looking for in life is just “the men next to you, and that’s it. That’s all it is.”

1000 Somalis and 19 Americans died in this incident.

Imdb: Black Hawk Down (2001)
Open Directory – Arts: Movies: Titles: B: Black Hawk Down

Movie Titles > Black Hawk Down in the Yahoo! Directory

soundtrack:

Black Hawk Down (3-Disc Deluxe Edition)

Black Hawk Down
by Mark Bowden
Journalist Mark Bowden delivers a strikingly detailed account of the 1993 nightmare operation in Mogadishu that left 18 American soldiers dead and many more wounded.