From UPI: Film of the Week: 'Black Hawk Down'Steve Sailer is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. By STEVE SAILER, UPI National Correspondent LOS ANGELES, Jan. 17, 2002 (UPI) -- "Black Hawk Down" recounts with nearly scrupulous accuracy the 1993 battle in which elite but inadequately armed U.S. troops saw 18 men killed in an enormous ambush by Somali clansmen loyal to warlord Mohammed Farrah Aidid.
Just a minor point about something that caught my attention: you note that there were no female soldiers on screen in this movie made in 2002 about events occurring in 1994. But some two decades after the movie and almost three after the actual event, there were women in Iraq and Afghanistan in Female Engagement Teams.
At the height of the FET program between 2010 and 2012, all-female counterinsurgency teams were attached to Ranger, Green Beret, SEAL, Force Recon and MARSOC Marine Raider units and, in violation of the military combat exclusion policy that still banned women, participated in combat-intensive special operations missions. All these women were volunteers, but often they were, shall we say, "encouraged" volunteers.
It was not till after the female combat exclusion policy was revoked in 2013 that these women received the CARs, CIBs, Purple Hearts and valor awards due them.
I recommend this discussion/interview with guys who were there in 1993 (I believe Col. (ret) Lee VanArsdale was also involved in Operation Acid Gambit , Panama 1989 )
Forgot to mention that Norway had troops there also. When the first group who arrived in Mogadishu and unpacked the equipment, they found skis and winter camo .
Just a minor point about something that caught my attention: you note that there were no female soldiers on screen in this movie made in 2002 about events occurring in 1994. But some two decades after the movie and almost three after the actual event, there were women in Iraq and Afghanistan in Female Engagement Teams.
At the height of the FET program between 2010 and 2012, all-female counterinsurgency teams were attached to Ranger, Green Beret, SEAL, Force Recon and MARSOC Marine Raider units and, in violation of the military combat exclusion policy that still banned women, participated in combat-intensive special operations missions. All these women were volunteers, but often they were, shall we say, "encouraged" volunteers.
It was not till after the female combat exclusion policy was revoked in 2013 that these women received the CARs, CIBs, Purple Hearts and valor awards due them.
I recommend this discussion/interview with guys who were there in 1993 (I believe Col. (ret) Lee VanArsdale was also involved in Operation Acid Gambit , Panama 1989 )
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFwivrpFHE0
Forgot to mention that Norway had troops there also. When the first group who arrived in Mogadishu and unpacked the equipment, they found skis and winter camo .