All this changed in 1993 in Mogadishu, Somalia. The United Nations had been handing out food to the starving people in this East African country. There were several warlords in Somalia, and most of them had no problems with the U.N. One, Mohamed Farrah Aidid, saw the U.N. as a threat to his power. He began to ambush and kill U.N. workers. In one raid he killed and mutilated 24 Pakistanis.

The goal of my unit, Task Force Ranger, was to capture Adid and bring his key men to justice for the death of those Pakistani workers.

Prior to our final mission on October 3^rd and 4^th, Task Force Ranger had conducted six successful operations. Everything had gone exactly as planned. But on that seventh mission, generally referred to as Black Hawk Down, things changed.