KENI THOMAS: 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: US troops stand guard
protecting the emergency food supplies
that are destined for...
RANDY RAMAGLIA: It was a simple humanitarian mission.
REPORTER: The troops were targeted in a deliberate attack.
REPORTER: The explosion killed four US soldiers.
REPORTER: Their armored personnel carrier ripped apart.
MIKE DURANT: When you start killing Americans,
you've crossed a line that we don't tolerate.
REPORTER: The attack has been blamed
on Somali warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid.
♪ ♪
[gunfire]
♪ ♪
[screams]
DURANT: I was pretty certain we were gonna die.
MAN ON RADIO: Black Hawk down.
THOMAS: 18 hours out of one day defined us.
[bullets whizzing]
RAMAGLIA: It was horrifying.
Because we left a man behind.
MAN ON RADIO: Black Hawk down, we got Black Hawk one down.
We got a Black Hawk crash, six-one.
♪ ♪
RAMAGLIA: Looking back, that battle changed our lives.
♪ ♪
[gunfire]
[helicopter]
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.
[gunfire]
[shouting]
[jet aircraft]
♪ Down at the bottom ♪
♪ Down, down ♪
♪ I'm gonna stay long gone ♪
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.
♪ But I don't know if I'll make it back home ♪
I said, you know what, I'm gonna join the army.
♪ ♪
KENI THOMAS: Third of October is always a day
that means something to me.
♪ ♪
Even nowadays I'm always thinking about that, that day.
The guys that did survive text each other nowadays
to say, hey, I'm glad you're still alive.
ANNOUNCER: Hey, out there in radio land,
you're listening to the best station in the city.
Don't touch that dial.
THOMAS: We weren't training.
It was just a day off.
People were doing whatever it is they do.
RAMAGLIA: Boom.
I'm unstoppable.
Keni and I were big fans of the board game Risk back then.
That was our thing.
World domination.
THOMAS: So we're just kind of hanging out.
All of a sudden a guy walks out of the airplane hangar
and yells out...
COMMANDER: Get it on!
THOMAS: And everybody drops what they're doing.
COMMANDER: This is it, guys. We're going in for a raid.
RAMAGLIA: There's gonna be a mission.
COMMANDER: We've received information
that a meeting's taking place in the heart of downtown Mogadishu.
RAMAGLIA: We start gearing up.
COMMANDER: Two of Aidid's top lieutenants
will be in attendance.
RAMAGLIA: The adrenalin does go up.
RAMAGLIA and THOMAS: Boom.
COMMANDER: 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.
RAMAGLIA: Snatch and grab. In and out.
COMMANDER: I'll see y'all back here in an hour.
RAMAGLIA: 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.
♪ ♪
[door slams]
♪ ♪
THOMAS: I loved riding in Black Hawks.
It's just a violent machine.
They're loud, they're not smooth, like they...
krrrh!
It's just this armada of American might.
[helicopter]
RAMAGLIA: 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.
♪ ♪
DURANT: 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.
THOMAS: You can tell you're getting close
to the target building because we'd start slowing down.
RAMAGLIA: The Delta operators had fast-roped
onto the top of the target building.
MAN ON RADIO: Delta team, go, go!
RAMAGLIA: And their job was to clear that building
from the top down.
Our job was to secure the block where the target building was.
THOMAS: Okay, here we go, we're getting ready, get your game on.
MAN: Ropes!
THOMAS: 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!
♪ ♪
RAMAGLIA: 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.
♪ ♪
DURANT: 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.
MAN: And point.
RAMAGLIA: You know, 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.
THOMAS: 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, with ill intent.
♪ ♪
RAMAGLIA: I saw him go back.
One of the ways they transported weapons to each other
was under their robes.
And again.
[gunfire]
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.
THOMAS: Something felt like just hit me with a bat.
Pow.
Whoop, and I just fell backwards.
RAMAGLIA: Keni!
Obviously the first thing is, is he,
you know, has he been wounded?
I see him drop the magazine from his weapon.
THOMAS: 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.
RAMAGLIA: You should keep it!
THOMAS: And Randy, he's laughing at me,
because it must have just looked silly,
'cause I was like, ga-ga-ga!
RAMAGLIA: 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.
[gunfire]
You start realizing, okay,
things are starting to get close.
[gunfire]
THOMAS: You're hearing the Delta guys go through the building,
and you can hear them calling out,
and we could hear, kak-kak!
[gunfire]
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!
♪ ♪
[gunfire]
RAMAGLIA: Fire 'em up!
[gunfire]
♪ ♪
At that point, Delta had secured the enemy combatants.
SOLDIER: Delta's out. Delta's out.
THOMAS: 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.
RAMAGLIA: Snatch and grab.
In and out.
Whew! We're done.
♪ ♪
DURANT: 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...
[radio chatter]
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.
[radio chatter]
And I hear...
MAN ON RADIO: Black Hawk down!
DURANT: Black Hawk down.
MAN: We have a Black Hawk hit.
RAMAGLIA: Super 6-1 was shot down.
And that changed the entire mission.
♪ ♪
[radio chatter]
♪ ♪
[gunfire]
♪ ♪
[gunfire]
[radio chatter]
[indistinct conversation]
RAMAGLIA: I don't know if I saw it or I heard it,
but I looked up.
THOMAS: 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.
RAMAGLIA: 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.
[engine whirring]
THOMAS: 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.
MAN ON RADIO: That's a confirmation,
Super 6-1 is down, Super 6-1 is down.
THOMAS: You know that there's guys that are in trouble,
and you've got to go help 'em.
MAN ON RADIO: This is now a rescue mission.
All Ranger units to secure the crash site.
THOMAS: We get told mission's changed.
Go secure the crash.
And just before we get ready to roll out...
[gunfire]
our squad leader gets hit.
There's parts in this battle
that I watched unfold in slow motion.
In reality it's happening, bam.
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 WATSON: Sergeant Thomas...
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?
And he said it again to me...
WATSON AND THOMAS: Sergeant Thomas, look at me,
you're in charge.
THOMAS: You do not have to be happy
about the situation that you find yourself in,
but you do have to take ownership of it.
RAMAGLIA: How 'bout that?
Squad leader, Sergeant Keni Thomas.
No one wants to get promoted like that,
but, you know, we've got a mission.
THOMAS: Now it's time to do your job and take charge.
Alright, men, listen up.
We have to get to that chopper first.
This is now a rescue mission, gentlemen.
Let's move out!
♪ ♪
DURANT: Our brothers in arms down there need the help,
and we're gonna give it to them.
So we broke out of the pattern
and we fly into the hornet's nest.
RAMAGLIA: Keni brought all his guys
onto the left side of the road.
I was on the right side.
We've got to move, we've got to move,
we've got to move.
Time is not on your side,
because you can see the enemy combatants
moving towards the crash site.
The internal intensity level at that point was maxed out.
DURANT: So when we fly in there, you could see, you know,
Somalis that looked like they were armed
trying to gain a tactical advantage on our forces.
THOMAS: Move! Move!
They were all running for that crash site.
You're not going to let them get there first, no way.
It was a race.
It was a race against the city.
♪ ♪
RAMAGLIA: When we finally made it to the corner,
everything stopped.
You realized that they were going to get there before us.
[crowd shouting]
I saw this flash.
The first explosion.
Rocks blowing onto you.
THOMAS: That's when everything exploded.
[gunfire]
The volume from gunfire was over the top.
[gunfire]
RAMAGLIA: It seemed like there was fire coming
from every direction.
[gunfire]
THOMAS: There's rounds crisscrossing.
When a round impacts somewhere near you,
it's as if somebody's ran up behind you
with a couple of 2-by-4's.
Bap!
Right by your ear.
Whoa, man, that was close.
RAMAGLIA: Across the street, the M60 gunner was shot.
THOMAS: Go! Go! Go! Move it!
It's not like I was like, 'Time out for a second, hold up,
I quit!'
You can't, it keeps coming.
[gunfire]
RAMAGLIA: It was basically us against the city.
♪ ♪
The places where we were being shot at from
grew and grew and grew.
We were surrounded.
There was a feeling of vulnerability
that we hadn't sensed.
That was a new sensation for us.
Crossing!
♪ ♪
I did question whether...
[bullets whizzing]
♪ ♪
...you know, I was gonna make it out.
DURANT: You can just sense that absolute increase
in the sense of urgency.
Guys are surrounded,
and there's people coming their way to kill them.
There's a battle going on down there,
and we are going right into the middle of it.
Our mission is to take care of those folks,
and if that means putting my life on the line to do it,
I'm gonna do it.
I said to my co-pilot Ray, it's been real to this point,
but it's really real now.
We've got to be on top of our game
if we're gonna survive the next 30 minutes.
♪ ♪
And all of a sudden...
Bang!
I was pretty certain we were gonna die.
Aaah!
MAN ON RADIO: We've got a Black Hawk going down!
We've got a Black Hawk crash...
[radio chatter]
[crowd shouting]
[bullets whizzing]
♪ ♪
[boom]
DURANT: And all of a sudden, bang!
[radio chatter]
We spun so fast, out of control.
I knew right there we were gonna crash.
Super 6-4 is going down!
Whoof-woof-woof-woof.
I was pretty certain we were gonna die.
♪ ♪
The last memory I have is falling and spinning.
[radio chatter]
At that point I called out, 'Ray.'
Ray!
You can hear it in my voice.
Ray!
It's a 'man, this is it' kind of call.
6-4 is going down...
The last two or three seconds of that event
has been wiped from my memory.
It's probably a blessing,
because I don't know that you want to remember
the moment where you thought you died.
6-4 is going down.
[radio chatter]
RAMAGLIA: The word came down
that there was another helicopter lost.
[radio chatter]
This mission had gone in a direction
that no one could have ever anticipated.
[radio chatter]
[gunfire]
And that's when I saw a man's head snap back.
♪ ♪
It was Earl Fillmore.
It was the most brutal thing I've ever witnessed.
There is a natural emotion of fear.
[gunfire]
THOMAS: People are going down.
You're not invincible,
and then you realize if it's happening to them,
it could certainly happen to me.
I think that's when they made the decision, hey,
we're taking too many casualties out here in the street,
let's pull inside.
We got to go, we got to go!
Move! Move! Move!
[gunfire]
♪ ♪
DURANT: It's like coming out of that fog.
You're gradually starting to understand
piece of information by piece of information.
The first realization was, okay,
I'm in the middle of a shanty town
and questioning how it is I'm alive.
Ray!
Aah!
The pain is starting to become obvious.
Aah!
It was just incredible, intense pain
coming out of my back.
I can't move.
I can't run.
I can't hide.
[crowd shouting]
I could hear the mob starting to overcome the site.
♪ ♪
And, uh...
it's hard to explain.
But it felt like death approaching.
And I knew that in all likelihood
when they discovered me, they would kill me.
And I distinctly recall these clouds going by overhead
and believing that would be
the last thing that I would ever see.
♪ ♪
MAN ON RADIO: 6-4 is going down!
[radio chatter]
[boom]
[bullets whizzing]
♪ ♪
[gunfire]
♪ ♪
DURANT: And then they descended on me.
[crowd shouting]
I was surrounded so closely
that I could see nothing other than these angry faces.
[gunfire]
They were completely out of control.
♪ ♪
They were doing things that I just had never seen humans do.
[gunfire]
They beat me across the face
with a large, heavy, soft object.
♪ ♪
And I'm relatively certain
it was...it was the arm of one of my comrades.
[gunfire]
The pain was so extreme,
I believed that I was going to die.
♪ ♪
I have this distinct memory of leaving my body.
♪ ♪
I mean, I remember looking down on myself, thinking,
I don't feel the pain anymore.
♪ ♪
And suddenly I'm back...
realizing I wish I was dreaming again,
because this is as bad as it gets.
[crowd shouting]
Suddenly the beating stopped,
I'm thrown on the back seat of a car,
and then we drive away.
I remember just trying to focus
on what is it gonna take to survive this.
♪ ♪
Thinking about my son Joey, who had just turned one,
was a real motivation for me.
I thought about him growing up without a father
and what kind of an impact that would have on him.
That was a real driver to ensure that I never lost hope
and I wouldn't give up.
He was my, he was my motivation.
♪ ♪
[man groaning]
♪ ♪
RAMAGLIA: The first thing that I noticed
when I went into the room with the casualties
was the odor.
The smell of death.
THOMAS: You could smell the saline from the IV bags.
♪ ♪
RAMAGLIA: I looked across the floor.
It appeared that the entire floor was reflecting light.
It was like the entire floor was polished.
♪ ♪
I slid myself down the wall.
♪ ♪
When I pulled my right hand up...
I had just an odd sensation on my hand.
And I'm looking in the low light,
it almost appeared black.
And I realized what I had on my hands was blood.
And I looked around,
and I was sitting in a pool of blood.
♪ ♪
And even though I was sitting in one of my fellow Rangers' blood,
I, I didn't get up to move out of it.
I just kind of sat there.
♪ ♪
[lock jiggles]
♪ ♪
DURANT: The blindfold finally comes off.
And I just immediately began to look around
and try to figure out where I was.
There were a couple of guards.
One came in and wrapped this chain around my wrists.
♪ ♪
[door slams]
I started thinking about home...
♪ ♪
...how badly I needed to get out of there.
And just how big a challenge it was going to be
to achieve that.
♪ ♪
[radio chatter]
RAMAGLIA: Our exit strategy was dependent
on the Ranger convoy making its way to us.
[radio chatter]
THOMAS: You could hear 'em fighting all night long.
[radio chatter, gunfire]
RAMAGLIA: It was intense.
It took a lot of courage for them to come out into a city
and attempt to make their way to our position.
Eventually the convoy does make it to us.
SOLDIER: Alright, boys, everybody up!
THOMAS: Alright, convoy's up, guys.
Help 'em.
RAMAGLIA: Soon after we realize
there's not enough room for us to get in the armored vehicles,
that we only had enough room to get our casualties in.
THOMAS: Come on, let's move!
RAMAGLIA: And that we were gonna have get out of the city
on foot.
Move out, let's go, let's go!
[gunfire]
[crowd shouting]
♪ ♪
[door slams]
♪ ♪
[radio chatter]
THOMAS: Convoy's up, guys.
Let's move.
♪ ♪
[gunfire]
So the idea was to get to the safe zone,
it was a soccer stadium, about a mile away.
So for those of us who could still move on foot,
that's what we're gonna do.
RAMAGLIA: Yeah, there was that moment of,
are you freakin' kidding me?
But what's the alternative?
THOMAS: We loaded up all of our wounded,
and now the sun's starting to come up,
and then the morning prayers start.
[call to prayer]
Sure enough, shhhzzzz, right across the street.
[explosion]
Bam!
Rocket launcher. That'll wake you up in the morning.
Time to get going.
[gunfire]
♪ ♪
And on that run out,
we had people shooting at us and rockets going.
RAMAGLIA: Here we are making our way down the same street
that we fought up the day before.
I thought to myself, didn't we just do this yesterday?
♪ ♪
[bullet whizzes]
And it felt like somebody had walked up and hit me
in the back of the left shoulder with a sledgehammer.
♪ ♪
THOMAS: I saw Randy get hit, and he just kind of stumbled.
But he just kept running.
RAMAGLIA: What I did know was I was still mobile
and I could still fight.
♪ ♪
I was going to get out of that city.
[gunfire]
[explosion]
♪ ♪
[distant gunfire]
DURANT: All of a sudden I hear a gun battle.
I'm hearing projectiles flying through the air.
I'm hearing rounds hitting walls, I'm hearing explosions.
And it's marching toward me.
I'm thinking, wow, somehow
one of these reconnaissance aircraft tracked me.
So I'm thinking, awesome, they know where I am,
they're coming to get me.
THOMAS: Come on, move, move, move, move, move!
[gunfire]
DURANT: That gun battle is marching toward me.
It's getting louder and louder and louder, and I'm thinking,
oh, my goodness, they're about to come through the door.
SOLDIER: Come on! Move, move, move, move!
[gunfire]
Move, move, move, move, move!
[gunfire]
[gunfire fading]
DURANT: And then it just keeps going by.
SOLDIER: Move, move, move!
♪ ♪
DURANT: So they, they never knew I was there.
So I went from this sense
of there could be a rescue here immediately
to they don't know where you are.
♪ ♪
You're on your own.
♪ ♪
MAN ON RADIO: Super 6-4 is going down!
We got a Black Hawk going down!
We got a Black Hawk crashing...
♪ ♪
[crowd shouting]
♪ ♪
DURANT: Ah!
♪ ♪
[explosion]
THOMAS: I got into the stadium first.
I just was, just exhausted.
♪ ♪
I knew it was over for now, and I just,
I mean, tears just started running down my eyes.
♪ ♪
There was all the casualties,
all the guys that are still wounded.
There was just bodies lined up.
You knew that those were someone that you knew.
♪ ♪
[sobbing]
♪ ♪
RAMAGLIA: You start looking around to see who's there.
And I saw Keni.
I remember Keni had...
had a...a look.
THOMAS: And Randy walks up to me,
and bless his heart, he said, 'Are you alright?'
And I looked at him, and it's a shame
it has to come down to losing people in front of you
for you to realize the value of the people around you.
♪ ♪
You never lose that, but you never get that back.
You never get that level of...
of absolute...
trust and brotherhood.
♪ ♪
[camera beeping]
♪ ♪
DURANT: The morning of the second day, October 4th,
a cameraman shows up with an interrogator
and they start asking me questions.
MAN: Why do you hate Somalia?
DURANT: And I said nothing.
In the end they were very persistent
about a couple questions.
They kept asking,
'How you think this mission in Somalia?'
♪ ♪
I finally just said...
I'm a soldier, I do what I'm told.
♪ ♪
And then they said, 'You killed the people innocent.'
And I said...
Innocent people being killed...
...is not good.
I mean, those were my exact words.
Innocent people being killed is not good.
RAMAGLIA: The first time I saw Mike Durant's face on TV,
I was mortified.
Because that was one of our guys.
DURANT: Mike Durant. US...
Army.
RAMAGLIA: The Ranger creed states
you never leave a fallen comrade.
And that operation resulted in us leaving a fallen comrade.
It was horrifying.
THOMAS: And we all looked at him,
and that was all we were thinking.
We didn't care what he was saying,
it was like, oh, good, he's alive.
Let's go get him.
[horns honking]
[motor scooter passing]
[dog barking]
[helicopter approaching]
DURANT: All of a sudden I heard a helicopter,
and it sounded like a Black Hawk.
[helicopter approaching]
And then...
I felt like I heard what sounds like music.
♪ ♪
I recognized this riff from a song that I really like.
♪ ♪
[laughing]
And then I heard this voice calling to me from the sky,
saying 'Mike, we won't leave here without you.'
♪ ♪
And to this day, it is the one thing
that consistently sends a chill up my spine
when I think about it.
SOLDIER: Mike, we won't leave here without you.
DURANT: And it just did.
That feeling, that you're not alone.
♪ ♪
I don't have dreams, I don't have nightmares.
It won't ever go completely away,
but I'm taking advantage of this gift that I've been given
and living as full a life as I possibly can.
♪ ♪
THOMAS: None of miss the job, but we all miss each other.
♪ ♪
[laughing]
♪ ♪
RAMAGLIA: What I'm most proud of
is not the fact that I was involved in a historic battle,
I'm proud of the fact that I've spent my entire enlistment
with some of my best friends.
♪ ♪
DURANT: I lost friends in Somalia.
Obviously I would do anything to change that.
But in terms of the experiences that I had,
the people I worked with,
it's pretty special.
♪ ♪