SALUTE TO THIS BRAVE DUDE:CHRIS RYAN

In 1991, British commando Chris Ryan, a member of a team that was sent into Iraq on a mission that went awry, had to fight hunger and dehydration to hike nearly 200 miles across the desert to evade Iraqi forces and reach safety in neighboring Syria. The harrowing, death-defying feat earned Ryan lasting fame—especially after his 1995 memoir of survival, “The One that Got Away,” was made into a British television movie. That breakthrough helped propel Ryan into a successful career as an author of thriller novels that draw upon the knowledge and experiences that he amassed during his stint as a member of the UK’s elite Special Air Service. When a special forces mission went wrong in Iraq, an eight-man team was reduced to a single soldier who refused to be defeated by anything. But it wasn’t easy for Ryan. When he returned home, his body healed quickly from the deprivation, which had caused him to lose 36 pounds during his escape. But as he told an interviewer for the UK’s Sunday Mirror newspaper in 1996, his mind was slower to come around. At first, he rejected his wife and young daughter, and focused on his job in the military. “All I could see was my family life getting in the way,” he recalled. “….I just wanted to be myself, do my work, give full commitment to the regiment. It was totally wrong.” After a separation of a few months, Ryan had a change of heart. He and his wife reconciled—“It took a long time, but we talked it out,” he told the Mirror-and in 1994, he decided to leave SAS. In addition to taking up writing, he worked as a bodyguard, protecting clients such as a European businessman who was worried about falling victim to Russian criminals on his trips there. After his memoir sold 350,000 copies in hardback, though, his book editor clamored for a follow-up. At first, Ryan demurred—“I said, I'm not interested in doing any exposes about the regiment. I had something to say about my walk and that was it,” he told the Newcastle Journal in 1999. The editor suggested that he try writing fiction instead. The idea appealed to Ryan, who saw that he could utilize his real- life experiences and knowledge to make his work more plausible than the usual thriller. “'I've read the other SAS novels and you can pick holes in them,” he explained to the Journal. “You can see when they are not up to date or written by people who don't know what they are talking about. I'd hope mine are as realistic as they can be.'' He soon launched a successful series of books featuring an intrepid commando, Geordie Sharp, who encountered dilemmas based upon situations that Ryan had encountered in his military career. Meanwhile, Ryan continued to take security jobs in dangerous spots around the globe as well. In 2003, for example, he reportedly went to Iraq in the wake of the invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein to work for a U.S. private contractor. The jobs helped him to keep his novels realistic. “If I wasn’t having a crack with the guys and hearing their stories, then I'd lose touch and all my ideas for the books would dry up,” he told the Guardian newspaper at the time. “Plus, you do get a buzz from it, y'know?" Additionally, Ryan—still an adventure- seeker—took on other challenges. In 2005, he went on a 10-day trek in mountainous Nepal with a group of volunteers from the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Families Association, which raises funds to assist military veterans who are in need. Ryan also has utilized his notoriety to help young people, visiting schools and giving talks to students about the importance of applying themselves. “I squandered my own education because all I ever wanted to do was go into the forces,” he explained in a 2007 appearance, according to an account in the Coventry Evening Telegraph. “But I had to catch up because I needed to know languages, to know about explosions, and to understand mathematical formulas.” Even though he made a living fictionalizing his commando experiences, Ryan told the Daily Record newspaper in 2010 that it was still painful to think of battles in which he’d fought and comrades who hadn’t survived. “As you get older, you look at it differently. You look at yourself and you are greyer, wrinklier, and a bit heavier,” he explained to the Record. “The guys you lost never get older. You think of them as you last saw them and, as time goes on, as you push through the years, the reality of that is sadder. You just think, what a waste of life.” He’s also come to accept that his escape from Iraq may have taken a permanent physical toll. At one point during the ordeal, he drank water that was contaminated with nuclear waste. “This emerged during a 'well man' check-up,” he told the Newcastle Journal in 2015. “They found my red blood cells weren't working as they should do and were concerned it could have something to do with the fluid I drank in Iraq.” And as someone who knows what it’s like to live with danger and its lasting effects, he worries about a new generation of soldiers returning home from the war against terror. “You know, Iraq and Afghanistan, these young lads have done far more than, you know, I could even dream of doing,” he told an interviewer recently. “Yet they live normal lives and they carry on, you know, they get over what they've seen. Those guys, they're the ones who are really brave young soldiers.”

 

YOU MIGHT WANT TO CHECK OUT THE FILM THROUGH GOOGLE DO SO

 

lt Charles

It was June 6, 1964, and Navy Lt. Charles Klusmann took off from the USS Kitty Hawk in an RF-8 Crusader jet on a reconnaissance mission over Laos. Suddenly, the pilot felt what he remembers as “a big thud.” He’d been hit by ground fire several times before on flights, but this time, he thought he might be in trouble, and he was. Red lights started flashing on his instrument panel—first one, then another. “Eventually all the red lights started to come on,” he later recalled. “Too many red lights and you’re out of airplane.” Klusmann was forced to parachute from the stricken aircraft, and a U.S. Central Intelligence Agency search-and-rescue team zoomed in an effort to pick him up. But when they got close, they came under heavy fire from the ground, and Klusmann, fearing for their safety, bravely waved them off. Instead, the pilot, who had injured his hip and knee when he landed, found himself surrounded and held at gunpoint by communist Pathet Lao guerrillas. They put a rope around his neck, tied his hands and led him back to their camp. Klusmann became the first U.S. pilot to be shot down and captured during the Vietnam War. Even more remarkably, not quite three months later, he also became first to escape from a POW camp and make it back alive. Shot down and imprisoned in makeshift jungle camps by Pathet Lao forces, an American pilot makes a daring escape after months in captivity. But why was Klusmann flying over Laos, and what was that country’s connection to the Vietnam War? Who were his captors, and how did he escape from them? Here is some basic context for understanding Klusman’s story, and its aftermath. When we remember the Vietnam War today, it’s easy to forget that the conflict spilled over into other countries in southeast Asia as well. One of those countries was Laos, a sparsely populated, mountainous nation that had a long eastern border that in 1964 that abutted both sides of the Vietnamese civil war—the communist North and U.S.-backed South. The Annam Cordillera mountain range and the Mekong River stretch through both countries, and Laos’ Plain of Jars was a traditional crossroads for trade. Those connections made Laos strategically important. Though the country, which was ruled by a monarchy, ostensibly was neutral, both sides secretly operated there. The North Vietnamese forces, with the support of homegrown communist guerillas called the Pathet Lao, used Laos as route to move troops and supplies and stage attacks on South Vietnam. The U.S., in turn, had clandestinely organized an army of 10,000 Laotian Hmong tribesmen to fight the communists. The CIA even operated a fake airline, Air America, which it used as a cover for a clandestine air force. By the June of 1964, that conflict had intensified, and President Lyndon Johnson ordered U.S. Navy and Air Force pilots to fly surveillance missions over Laos as well, as a show of strength against the communists. It was on one of those flights that Klusmann was shot down. Since the U.S. military didn’t have a search- and-rescue capability in the area, the CIA’s Air America got the dangerous job of trying to retrieve Klusmann. Unfortunately for him, they weren’t able to pull off that feat, but the agency did later rescue other military pilots shot down in Laos. The Pathet Lao, the guerilla force that captured Klusmann and held him captive, had extensive ties to the North Vietnamese military, according to a 1969 RAND Corporation report on the movement. The North Vietnamese provided arms to the Pathet Lao and brought its soldiers back to North Vietnam for training, and North Vietnamese advisors helped plan its military operations and even fought alongside the Pathet Lao to “stiffen” its forces, according to RAND. As Klusmann recounted in a 2014 newspaper interview, his captors held him in a woven bamboo hut, plastered with mud. The space that the pilot was confined was small, just 20 feet in length, which he calculated by walking back and forth it for exercise. “I would figure out how many times I would have to walk across to go a mile, and put a mark on the wall,” he recalled. During his time there, he estimated that he walked 263 miles in his cell. The pilot also found that he could chip through the mud walls and see outside, and also get some fresh air. While Klusmann’s captors did feed him, the portions were so small that in the course of his three months of captivity, he lost 40 pounds. The menu often consisted of turnip soup. “I never did like turnips,” he recalled. “I still don’t.” Klusmann gradually developed a plan to escape. On days that he and captured Royal Laotian Army soldiers who were also held in the camp were allowed outside to do their laundry, he gradually loosened nails in a section of the prison’s barbed wire fence. Finally, in late August, he and two Laotian POWs opened the fence and ran off. The escapees managed to evade capture for three-and-a-half days as they crossed rice paddies and ducked into clumps of tall grass to hide. After covering 25 miles, they reached an outpost of friendly forces. After his escape, Klusmann left southeast Asia but continued to fly and serve in the Navy for another 15 years before retiring as a captain in 1980. In that time, he also led a humanitarian effort to purchase food, clothing, and educational supplies for Laotian children. The Pathet Lao finally succeeded in overthrowing the monarchy and establishing a communist state in 1975. By the late 1980s, however, the county had begun a gradual, limited return to private free enterprise and was allowing foreign investment. According to a BBC News profile, despite economic reforms, the nation remains poor and heavily dependent upon foreign aid

ISRAEL A GREAT NATION

speech from the prime minister of Israel
Benjamin Netanyahu, but at the end I say
glory to God.
Let's read together
Mr. Nethanyahu said:
Only 70 years ago! The Jews were taken to
slaughter like sheep.
> 60 years ago!
> no country. No Army.
Seven Arab countries declared war on the
small Jewish state, only a few hours after its
creation!
> we were 650 Jews against the rest of the
Arab world!
NO IDF (Israel Defense Army).
No powerful air force, only brave people with
nowhere to go.
> Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Jordan, Egypt, Libya,
Saudi Arabia
> all attacked at the same time.
> the country that the United Nations gave us
was a 65 % desert.
> the country is out of nowhere!
> 35 years ago! We fought the three armies
most
> Powerful in the middle east, and we swept
them in six days.
We fought against various coalitions of Arab
countries, which had modern armies and many
Soviet weapons, and we have always beaten
them!
Today we have:
> a country,
> an army,
> a powerful air force,
> A State-of-the-Art Economy, which exports
millions of dollars.
> Intel - Microsoft - ibm develops products at
home.
> our doctors receive awards for medical
research.
> we make the desert bloom, and sell oranges,
flowers and vegetables all over the world.
> Israel has sent its own satellites into space!
> three satellites at the same time!
> We are proud to be at the same rank as:
> The United States, which has 250 million
inhabitants,
> Russia, which has 200 million inhabitants,
> China, which has 1.3 billion inhabitants;
> Europeans - France, Great Britain, Germany -
with 350 million inhabitants.
> the only countries in the world to send
objects into space!
> Israel is now part of the family of the nuclear
powers,
> with the United States, Russia, China, India,
France, and
> Great Britain.
> (we have never officially admitted it, but
everyone knows it)
> and say that only 60 years ago,
> we were LED, ashamed and hopeless, to
slaughter!
> we have extirpés the smoking ruins of
Europe,
> we have won our wars here with less than
nothing
> we built our little "Empire" from nothing.
Who's Hamas to scare me?
> to terrify me?
> you make me laugh!
> Passover was celebrated;
> Let's not forget what this is about.
> we survived Pharaoh,
> we survived the Greeks,
> we survived the Romans,
> we survived the inquisition in Spain,
> we have the pogroms in Russia,
> we survived Hitler,
> we survived the Germans,
> we survived the Holocaust,
> we survived the armies of seven Arab
countries,
> we survived saddam.
> we will survive the enemies present
Think of any time in human history!
Think about it, for us, the Jewish people,
> the situation has never been better!
> then let's face the world,
Let us remember:
> all nations or cultures
> who once tried to destroy us,
> no longer exist today - while we still live!
> Egypt?
> the Greeks?
> Alexander of Macedonia?
> the Romans? (does anyone still speak Latin
these days? )
> The Third Reich?
> and look at us,
> The Bible Nation,
> The slaves of Egypt,
> We are still here,
And we speak the same language!
> then, and now!
> Arabs don't know yet,
> but they will learn that there is a God.
> as long as we keep our identity, we are
forever.
So forgive us for not worrying,
> not to cry,
> not to be afraid.
> things are fine here.
> they could certainly get better,
However:
> Don't believe the media,
> they don't tell you
> parties continue to take place,
> people continue to live,
> people keep coming out,
> people continue to see friends.
Yes, our morale is low.
> so what?
Only because we mourn our deaths while
others rejoice in the blood shed.
> that is why we will win, in the end.
Never sleep or sleep the guardian of Israel!
Yahweh God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
Forward this speech to the whole community,
> and to people around the world.
> they are part of our strength

 

In October 1993, U.S. Army Rangers Keni
Thomas and Randy Ramaglia were part of a
special ops team that was sent into
Mogadishu, Somalia, on a mission to
capture top lieutenants of a Somali
warlord. But the plan went awry when the
force came under heavy fire and two of
their helicopters were shot down.
Watch: Three brave U.S. soldiers who
fought against desperate odds in the 1993
Battle of Mogadishu tell their heroic story
of survival in the Real Black Hawk Down.
In the battle that ensued, 18 Americans
were killed and 73 were injured. Thomas
and Ramaglia, who took a bullet in the
shoulder, had to make a harrowing journey
on foot through streets occupied by enemy
gunmen, but both managed to reach safety.
Meanwhile, helicopter pilot Mike Durant,
who was seriously injured in the crash and
then had to endure a brutal beating from
Somalis, managed to survive 11 days of
captivity before a negotiator obtained his
release.
For all three men, the battle of Mogadishu
was a transformative life experience, but
one that put the former comrades on
markedly different paths. Today, North
Carolina native Ramaglia lives in
Elizabethtown, Pa., and commutes to Anne
Arundel County, Md., twice each week to
work 24-hour-long shifts as a professional
firefighter. Meanwhile, Thomas, who grew
up in Florida, has relocated to Nashville,
Tenn., but finds himself continually on the
road, as he pursues dual careers as a
country musician and inspirational speaker.
Durant lives in Huntsville, Ala., where he
runs Pinnacle Solutions, an aviation training
equipment and services company.
Ramaglia says that after leaving the Army in
1995, he had a difficult time finding a role
in life that seemed as meaningful as his
military service. “What I’d experienced in
the Rangers—the brotherhood, the
camaraderie—didn’t seem to exist in the
civilian world,” he recalls. “In the real
world, you worked for money. There was
no satisfaction.” By the mid-2000s, he had a
job in a fishing gear store, and felt so
unhappy that he considered reenlisting.
Randy Ramaglia today.
But instead, Ramaglia had a chance-meeting
with a fire captain, who encouraged him to
apply to the department and sign up for its
firefighting academy. The skills he’d learned
as a Ranger, and his experience with
performing under combat pressure,
combined to make him a natural fit for the
job of driving a fire engine and responding
to both blazes and medical emergencies.
He likes working on a close-knit team again,
and finds it rewarding to be able to help
people.
“You’re dealing with them on the worst day
of their lives,” he explains. “The situations
are sometimes gut-wrenching.”
Now that he’s spent a decade with the
department, Ramaglia prefers to be
respected as a veteran firefighter rather
than as a war hero, and confesses to feeling
a bit uncomfortable when a new recruit acts
awe-struck in his presence. “It’s very
awkward when someone comes up to me
and says, it’s an honor to meet you,” he
explains. “I don’t see myself as that. I just
try to be a good man.”
Thomas stayed in the Army for a couple of
years longer than Ramaglia, during which
he joined a six-man Ranger reconnaissance
team that served in trouble spots such as
Haiti and Bosnia. When he was back in
Georgia where his unit was based, he
played in a country-rock band on the side,
and started having so much success that he
decided it was time for a new career.
“I was just waiting to go back to combat,” he
explains. “The adrenalin, the intensity—it’s
addictive. Nothing compares to it. But then,
I started realizing that I had the band, my
music, my voice—other things that I could
do in life. I ended up getting out instead of
waiting.”
Keni Thomas today.
A few years later, in the early 2000s,
Thomas moved to Nashville, the capital of
country music, where he scored a
publishing deal as a songwriter and
eventually a recording contract. Since then,
he’s released several albums—most
recently, the 2014 effort “Give It Away,”
which is available on iTunes.
Increasingly, though, he’s in demand as an
inspirational speaker, a job that keeps him
continually on the road. Whether he’s
talking to insurance agents or shift workers
at a steel mill, though, Thomas says that he
spends little time describing the horrific
combat in Mogadishu. Instead, he focuses
upon the moral code that that he and other
Rangers relied upon to survive, and how it
can be applied to civilian life as well. “It's a
simple lesson,” he explains. “Your purpose
in life, the day you walk into the Ranger
regiment, is to take care of each other.” He
has future ambitions of starting a
leadership school, where he can guide
small units of students through training
missions in the woods.
Durant took his multiple brushes with
death in Mogadishu as a sign. “You have this
sort of rebirth,” he explains. “You thought
your life was over… what do you do with
it?”
As a result, “I have tried to raise the bar on
myself. Elevate my game. Do things that I
probably wouldn't have done, if I hadn't had
that experience. I've done a lot of things
that I would say stray outside the lines for
me. But I did them, because I realize that I
already had a second chance. I'm not going
to have a third. So I'm going to take full
advantage of what's offered to me.”
Mike Durant today.
While recovering from his injuries in the
hospital, Durant got a letter from woman
who was a cancer survivor, who advised him
not to dwell upon his ordeal, and why he
had survived while his close friends and
comrades had died. “Look back, but don’t
stare,” was her suggestion, and Durant has
strived to follow that advice. “It’s there, it
happened, if we can learn from it, you
know, talk about it but it doesn’t dominate
my life,” he says. “It isn’t who I am.”
10 months after his ordeal, Durant ran the
Marine Corps Marathon. Though he initially
was told that he wouldn’t be allowed to fly
again because of his injuries, the Army
relented after he was willing to sign a
waiver, and he served as a pilot for five
more years.
After leaving the service, in 2008 Durant
founded Pinnacle, which has grown
significantly under his leadership and
employs mostly fellow veterans. In his
spare time, he plays on a recreational
hockey team. He’d prefer that people think
of him in terms of his accomplishments as
a businessman and as a father to his six
children, rather than for his heroism two
decades ago. As he explained in a recent
CNN story, “there's something to be said
for taking something horrible and finding a
way to make it in any way positive."
While their lives have diverged, Ramaglia,
Thomas and Durant still have much in
common, in that they’ve found ways to use
what they learned in the military to help
others.

ONE OF THE BLACK HAWKDOWN SURVIVOUR :MICHEAL DURANT-THE DOWN PILOT

MICHAEL DURANT heard birds singing and the voices of children at play. He had no idea where he was in Mogadishu, but the sounds and the sunlight beaming through holes in the concrete walls seemed at stark odds with everything that had happened hours before. The injured, captive Blackhawk pilot was flat on his back on a cool tile floor in a small octagonal room with no windows. Air, sunlight and sounds filtered in through crosses cut into the concrete of the walls. There was a dusty odor. He smelled of blood and powder and sweat. The room had no furniture and only one door, which was closed. Durant on the first room he was held in It was Monday, Oct. 4, the morning of a day Durant thought he would never see. He had not slept. The previous evening, he had been attacked and carried off by angry Somalis who had overrun his downed helicopter crew and two Delta sergeants who had fought to protect them. The others were all dead, but Durant did not know this. His right leg ached where the femur was broken, and he could feel the ooze of blood inside his pants where the bone had poked through his flesh in the manhandling he'd endured. It did not hurt that badly. He didn't know if that was good or bad. He was still alive, so clearly the severed bone had not punctured an artery. His back was what really bothered him. He figured he'd crushed a vertebra in the crash. The Somalis had bound him with a metal dog chain. They had wrapped it around his hands, which were pulled together on his stomach. During the long night he had worked one hand free. He was sweating so that when he relaxed his hand it slid easily from the chain. It had given him his first sense of triumph. He had fought back in some small way. He could wipe the dirt from his nose and eyes and straighten his broken leg somewhat and get a little more comfortable. Then he wrapped his hand back into the chain so his captors wouldn't know. Durant on getting unchained The birdsong made him think he was in a garden, and that this strange room was some kind of garden house. The children's voices made him think of an orphanage. He knew there was one in northern Mogadishu. Durant had passed out when he was carried off. He'd felt himself leaving his body, watching the scene from outside himself, and it had calmed him briefly. But the feeling hadn't lasted long. He'd been thrown roughly into the back of a flatbed truck with a rag tied around his head. He had been driven around for a while. The truck would go and then stop, go and then stop. He guessed it was about three hours after the crash when they'd brought him to this place, removed the rag, and bound him with the chain. The pilot had no way of knowing, but he had been kidnapped from Yousuf Dahir Mo'Alim, the neighborhood militia leader who had spared him from the attacking crowd. Mo'Alim and his men had been trying to take Durant back to their village, where they intended to contact leaders of his clan, the Habr Gidr. Durant couldn't walk, so they were carrying him when they were intercepted by a Land Cruiser with a big gun mounted on the back. The men in the vehicle were freelance street fighters, bandits not aligned with any clan. They considered the injured pilot not a war prisoner to be traded for captured Habr Gidr leaders, but a hostage. They knew somebody would pay to get him back. Mo'Alim's men were outnumbered and outgunned, so they reluctantly turned Durant over. This was the way things were in Mogadishu. Whoever had the bigger guns prevailed. If the Habr Gidr leader, Mohamed Farrah Aidid, wanted the pilot back, he would have to pay for him. The kidnappers had placed Durant in this room, and chained him. During the long night the pilot heard the roaring guns of the giant rescue column blazing its way into the city. At one point he heard several armored personnel carriers roll right past outside. He heard shooting and thought he was about to be rescued, or killed. There was a furious gunfight outside. He could hear the low, pounding sound of a Mark 19 and the explosions of what sounded like TOW missiles. He had never been on the receiving end of a barrage, and he was shaken by how powerful and frightening it was. The explosions came closer. The Somalis holding him grew more and more agitated. He heard them shouting, and several times they barged in to threaten him. One of the men spoke some English. He said, ``You kill Somalis. You die Somalia, Ranger.'' Durant couldn't understand the rest of their words, but he gathered they intended to shoot him before letting the approaching Americans take him back. Durant on hearing the battle His captors were all young men. Their weapons were rusted and poorly maintained. He listened to the pitched fighting with terror and hope. Then the sounds marched on and faded away. He found himself, despite the danger, feeling abject at their departure. They had been so close! Soon dawn came. Durant was still frightened and uncomfortable and very thirsty, but the sunlight and the birds and children calmed him. He felt safer than at any moment since the crowd had closed on him. Then a gun barrel poked around the door. Durant caught the motion out of the corner of his eye and turned his head just as the barrel flamed and the room rang with the sound of a shot. He felt the impact on his left shoulder and his left leg. Eyeing his shoulder he saw the back end of a round protruding from his skin. It evidently had hit the floor first and had ricocheted into him without fully penetrating. A bit of shrapnel had entered his leg. Durant on getting shot He slid his hand free of the chain and tried to wrench the bullet from his shoulder. It was an automatic move, a reflex, but when his fingers touched the round they sizzled and he winced with pain. The bullet was still hot. It had burned his fingertips. He thought, lesson learned: Wait until it cools off. WORD SPREAD QUICKLY through the hangar back at the base early the next morning, Tuesday, Oct. 5. There was something on the TV, on CNN, they had to see. Something horrible. The aching and tired Rangers and Delta soldiers, many bandaged and bruised, watched the screen with disgust and anger. The pictures showed jubilant Somalis bouncing on the rotor blades of Super 64, Durant's helicopter, and then showed a thing almost too wounding and terrible to watch. They had bodies. Bodies of these men's brothers, crew members from the helicopter or Delta soldiers, it was hard to tell from the angles and distances of the camera shots. They were dragging a body through the street at the end of a rope, kicking and poking at the lifeless form. It was ugly and savage, and the men went back out to the hangar and cleaned their weapons and waited for orders that would send them back out. Delta Sgt. Paul Howe was ready. If he was going back out, he was going to kill as many Somalis as he could. He'd had enough. No more rules of engagement, no more toeing some abstract moral line. He was going to cut a gruesome path through these people. BASHIR HAJI YUSUF was disgusted and ashamed by what he saw. The bearded lawyer had come down to the Bakara Market after the shooting to witness and photograph the aftermath. Bodies had been pulled off the streets, but he saw dead donkeys on the road, bloated and stiff. A great deal of damage had been done to buildings around the crash site nearest the Olympic Hotel. Map of Mogadishu and the crash sites He was snapping pictures of the helicopter wreckage when he heard the sounds of an excited crowd and ran to it. The Somalis had a dead American soldier draped across a wheelbarrow. Bashir stayed on the fringes of the angry crowd. He snapped a few pictures. Then the people took the body of the soldier from the wheelbarrow and began dragging it in the dirt. Women were screaming curses, and the men were shouting and laughing. The lawyer wanted to stop it. He wanted to step up to the men with the ropes and remind them that the Koran teaches respect for the dead. But he was afraid for himself so he stayed back. These people were wild with anger and revenge. It was a festival of blood. He followed the crowd for a few blocks, then slipped away and went home. A contingent of Saudi Arabian soldiers in U.N. vehicles encountered the crowd pulling the dead American by the K-4 Circle. The crowd had grown quite large. ``What are you doing?'' asked one of the Saudi soldiers, clearly shocked. ``We have Animal Howe,'' one of the young Somalian ringleaders said, referring to the hated American U.N. administrator, retired Adm. Jonathan Howe. ``This is an American soldier,'' one of the Saudis said. ``If he is dead, why are you doing this? Aren't you a human being?'' One of the Somalis pointed his rifle at the soldier. ``We will kill you, too,'' he said. Some in the crowd began shouting at the Saudis: ``Leave here! Leave it alone! The people are angry. They might kill you.'' ``But why do you do this?'' the soldier demanded. ``You can fight and the Americans can fight, but this man is dead. Why do you drag him?'' Angry men in the crowd again threatened the Saudis, who climbed back into their vehicles and left.

IN THE FIRST DAY of captivity, still flat on his aching back on a tile floor in a small octagonal room, his right leg broken, with a bullet wound now in his shoulder, Blackhawk pilot Mike Durant was asked by his captors to make a video. ``No,'' Durant said. He was surprised they'd asked. If they wanted to make a video, they were going to anyway. But, since they asked, he said no. It was safer not to be in that position, speaking to the world from captivity. Durant on being asked to make a video It was Oct. 4, a Monday. America had awakened to a tragedy in Mogadishu. Eighteen dead soldiers. More than 70 wounded. Hundreds of Somalis dead. On the TV screen came horrible images of a dead American soldier being dragged through the city's dusty streets by angry crowds. President Clinton was in a hotel room in San Francisco when he saw the pictures. He was horrified and angry, according to an account in Elizabeth Drew's book On the Edge. He wanted to know who had made the decision to undertake this mission. Why hadn't he been informed? ``How could this happen?'' he demanded. Stephanie Shughart, the wife of Delta soldier Randy Shughart, had received word at 10 the night before. One of the other Fort Bragg, N.C., wives had called with the first drop of bad news: ``One of the guys has been killed.'' One of the guys. She had talked on the phone with Randy on Friday night. As usual, he had said nothing about what was going on, just that it was hot, he was getting enough to eat, and he was getting a great tan. He told her he loved her. He was such a gentle, loving man. It seemed so odd how he made a living, that he was a warrior. One of the guys. At the hangar in Mogadishu, the men had watched the dead soldier being dragged through the streets. They crowded into the back room and watched it replay on the screen. No one said a word. Some of the men turned away. The pilots wanted to mow them down, just mow them all down, land, and recover the body. But the commanders said no. There was a big crowd around the body. It would be a massacre. Clan elder Abdullah Firimbi on why bodies were dragged through the streets Sgt. First Class John Macejunas was getting ready to go back out. The blond D-boy had gone out into the fight three or four times the day and night before. When the rescue convoy couldn't reach Durant's crash site, Macejunas had led a small squad to the site on foot, scouring the area for his friends. Now he was dressed as a civilian, a journalist. He was going back out into the city to look for his brothers, alive or dead. The Rangers who saw him were in awe of the man's courage and cool. AT VOLUNTEER HOSPITAL, surgeon Abdi Mohamed Elmi was covered with blood and exhausted. The wounded had started coming in early the evening before. It was just a trickle at first, despite the great volume of gunfire. There were burning roadblocks throughout the city, and the American helicopters were buzzing low and shooting, and most people were afraid to venture out. Before the fight started, the Volunteer Hospital was almost empty. It was located down near the Americans' base by the airport. After the trouble had started with the Americans, most Somalis were afraid to come there. By the end of this day, Oct. 4, all 500 beds in the hospital would be full, and at least 200 more wounded would be lined in the hallways. And Volunteer wasn't the biggest hospital in the city. The numbers were even greater at Digfer. Most of those with gut wounds would die. The delay in getting them to the hospital - many more would come today than came yesterday - allowed infections to set in that could no longer be successfully treated with what antibiotics the hospital could spare. The three-bed operating theater at Volunteer had been full and busy all through the night. Elmi was part of a team of seven surgeons who worked straight through without a break. He had assisted in 18 major surgeries by sunrise, and the hallways outside were rapidly filling with more, dozens, hundreds more. It was like some tidal wave of gore. He finally walked out of the operating room at 8 a.m., and sat down to rest. The hospital was filled with the chilling screams and moans of broken people, dismembered, bleeding, dying in horrible pain. Doctors and nurses ran in the hallways, trying to keep up. Elmi sat on a bench smoking a cigarette quietly. A French relief worker who saw him sitting down approached him angrily. ``Why don't you help these people?'' she shouted at him. ``I can't,'' he said. She stormed away. He sat until his cigarette was finished. Then he stood and went back to work. He would not sleep for another 24 hours. DURANT'S CAPTORS showed up with a camera crew that evening, Oct. 4. It had been a full day since he crashed and was carried off in an angry swarm of Somalis. He was hungry, thirsty and still terrified. His face was bloody and swollen from where a militiaman had smacked him in the face with the butt of a rifle. There were about 10 young men in the crew. They set up lights, a lot of lights. Only one of the crew spoke to him. The man spoke fairly good English. Durant on the camera crew Durant had been trained to undergo trials such as this. The key was to offer as little information as possible, to be cagey, not confrontational. His interrogators were not very skillful. There was a code of conduct spelling out what he could say and what he couldn't say, and Durant was determined to abide by it. Men had been questioning him on and off all day, trying to get him to tell them more about who he was and what his unit was trying to do in Somalia. When the camera was turned on, the interviewer began pressing him on the same points. The Somalis considered all the Americans with the task force to be Rangers. ``No. I'm not a Ranger,'' Durant told him. He was a pilot. Durant on how he was trained to react ``You kill people innocent,'' the interviewer insisted. ``Innocent people being killed is not good,'' Durant said. That was the best they got out of him. Those were the words people all over the world would be seeing on their TVs the next day. Durant's swollen, bloody face, with his dark hair sticking straight up, and a wild, frightened look in his eye, lifted off the videotape, would soon be in newspapers and on the covers of newsmagazines worldwide. Durant on what he said on video After the camera crew left, a doctor showed up. He was kind, and he spoke English well. He told Durant he had been trained at the University of Southern California. He apologized for the limited supplies he had with him, just some aspirin, some antiseptic solution and some gauze. He used forceps and gauze and the solution to gently probe Durant's leg wound, where the broken femur poked through the skin, and he cleaned off the end of the bone and the tissue around it. It was sharply painful, but the pilot was grateful. He knew enough about wounds to know that a femur infection was relatively common, even with simple fractures. His was compound, and he had been lying on a dirty floor all night and day. When the doctor left, Durant was moved from the room where he had awakened that morning to the sounds of birds and children. He was loaded into the back of a car, and a blanket was placed over him. It was terribly painful. Two men got into the car and sat on him. His leg was moving all over the place. It had swelled badly, and the slightest move was torture. They brought him to a little apartment and left him in the care of a tall, pot-bellied man with thick glasses, a man he would come to know well over the next 10 days. It was Abdullahi Hassan, a man they called ``Firimbi,'' the propaganda minister for clan leader Mohamed Farrah Aidid. Durant didn't know it, but the warlord had paid his ransom

GUN POWDER ;article writtenby afolabi micheal

 

 

DID YOU KNOW THAT IT WAS NOT THE EUROPEANS THAT INVENTED THE GUN POWDER

Alchemist were the first people in ancient China to dabble inChemistry.in Chemistry. In search for” Pills of immortality”, it was found that a mixture of sulfur, salt peter and charcoal could cause an explosion. People called the mixture of these three materials “gun powder”.A book in the middle of the Tang dynasty recorded the method to make gunpowder.At the end of the Tang dynasty,gunpowder was applied for military use.

In the song dynasty, gunpowder was widely used. Not only was it used in daily life, such as for hunting, stone-mining and fireworks, but also for military actions. This technique of making firearms had entered a new stage. The gunpowder weapons made in the Northern Song Dynasty were mainly for burning and explosion firearms such as fire arrows,pili burning balls and  jili burning balls. In the southern song Dynasty, the Fistulous firearms were invented .The song army had invented a fistular kind of ‘fire arms’ and used them to fight against the Mongolian army. The fire gun was made by putting the gunpowder into bamboo canisters and then zike into them .zike resembled bullet in character, but was made of stone and iron block. This was the oldest  crude muskets in the world with which showed great progress in the history of firearms.so china is worth commending for they pioneered this adding to the military so hoorah!!!!!!!!!!!!Chinese

military sport men

 heroism is not measured in touchdowns. Profound courage is not displayed by limping into Game 7 of the NBA Finals. Real sacrifice isn’t something that advances a runner in a baseball game. But that doesn’t mean that real heroes have not graced the World Series or been cheered in arenas and stadiums across the United States.
From Hall of Fame baseball legends like Ted Williams and Bob Feller to former NFL player Pat Tillman, there have been dozens of standout American athletes who left behind adoring crowds and traded in uniforms meant for games for ones that meant something much more.
“Combat is an experience that you never forget. A war teaches you that baseball is only a game, after all — a minor thing, compared to the sovereignty and security of the United States,” Feller later wrote for Military.com: “I once told a newspaper reporter that the bombing attack we lived through on the Alabama had been the most exciting 13 hours of my life. After that, I said, the pinstriped perils of Yankee Stadium seemed trivial.”
Here are 11 of the many athletes who risked — and, in some cases, lost — their lives to join the U.S. armed forces and serve their country.

• Pat Tillman

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  A standout college football player at Arizona State, Tillman was drafted into the NFL in 1998. After spending four seasons with the Arizona Cardinals, Tillman walked away from the NFL to enlist in the U.S. Army in 2002 after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. An Army Ranger, he was killed in a friendly-fire incident in Afghanistan in 2004. He was posthumously awarded the Silver Star and Purple Heart.
• Ted Williams

  Regarded by many as the greatest hitter of all time, Williams twice interrupted his Hall of Fame career with the Boston Red Sox to serve his country. He missed the 1943-45 seasons after enlisting in the Navy reserves in May 1942. His high marks during training as an aviator earned him a commission in the Marine Corps, according to Military.com. Williams resumed his MLB career in 1946, but returned to active duty in 1952, flying with the first Marine Air Wing during the Korean War. He flew 39 ground-attack combat missions.
• Bob Kalsu

  A standout offensive lineman at Oklahoma, Kalsu was drafted into the NFL by the Buffalo Bills in 1968. After his rookie season, he left the Bills for the Army. Having completed the ROTC program at Oklahoma, he had graduated with a commitment to service. Unlike many other professional athletes, Kalsu didn’t use his stature to avoid active duty, according to Grantland. He would become the only active NFL player killed while serving in Vietnam, dying on July 21, 1970 at age 25.
• Tim James

  

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  A first-round NBA Draft pick by the Miami Heat in 1999, James spent three seasons with the Heat, Charlotte Hornets and Philadelphia 76ers. After a few stints playing basketball professionally overseas, he enlisted in the Army in 2008 at age 31, initially not telling his fellow soldiers about his hoops career. He then served in Iraq for 12 months as a member of the Observe, Detect, Identify and Neutralize unit.
• Bob Feller

  

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  The first major leaguer to enlist in the military following the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, Feller joined the Navy at age 23. He would be assigned to the USS Alabama as a gun-captain, seeing action in the North Altantic and Pacific during World War II. He missed three seasons.
• Jerry Coleman

  A four-time World Series champion with the New York Yankees and participant in two wars, Coleman flew 120 combat missions in World War II and Korea combined as a Marine Corps pilot. He was awarded two Distinguished Flying Crosses, 13 Air Medals, along with three Navy citations. He was the only MLB player to serve in combat in both World War II and Korea, according to Military.com. Coleman would go on to become a legendary broadcaster for the San Diego Padres after his playing days were behind him.
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As the military ramped up its Hurricane Irma response on Monday, Florida bases in Hurricane Irma's path began assessing storm damage.

Bill Dougherty, spokesman for Navy Region Southeast, said the Navy's two bases in Jacksonville — Jacksonville Naval Air Station and Mayport Naval Station — appeared to be weathering the storm. 

"We've had some reports of power outages, but nothing major," he said, as the bases remained on lockdown waiting for Irma to pass.  

Navy leaders were expecting updates on the condition of Key West Naval Air Station later on Monday, Dougherty said.

"We were thankful that there were no injuries reported (from Key West NAS )," he said. 

On its Facebook page, the Key West base said it had called additional "mission essential" personnel to return and began assisting with storm recovery. 

Lt. Col. Charles Scronce and Lt. Col. Lisa Reeves of the 156th Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron help transport a patient from the Lower Keys Medical Center in Florida to a North Carolina Air National Guard C-130 Hercules for evacuation prior to the arrival of Hurricane Irma, while at the Key West Naval Air Station, Key West Florida, Sept. 6, 2017. Hurricane Irma is a category five storm that is expected to cause catastrophic damage to the regions it makes landfall. The 156th Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron of the North Carolina Air National Guard provides medical care for wounded individuals while transporting them to alternate locations for further care.  Courtesy of Senior Airman Sonia Clark

Other bases in the storm's path, including Tampa's MacDill Air Force Base, remained closed. 

Navy and Air Force bases throughout Florida flew aircraft and moved ships out of the storm's path long before Irma's arrival.

The Air Force's Special Operations Command at Hurlburt Field moved some aircraft just in case the storm affected the western Panhandle, said Air Force Lt. Kayshel Trudel, a spokeswoman for the base. 

On Monday, Hurlburt became a staging area for a California Army National Guard unit called in to help with relief efforts in other parts of the state. Trudel said the guard unit brought two cargo planes loaded with relief supplies, along with numerous helicopters for search and rescue. 

Nearby Eglin Air Force Base has become a staging area for FEMA, said base spokesman Andy Bourland.  

The U.S. Air Force Reserve has activated all of its special mission units in response to Hurricanes Irma and Harvey and the fires on the West Coast. The reservists were doing everything from spraying insecticides to fight Zika outbreaks in the storms' aftermath to flying into the hurricanes and monitoring wind speeds and other conditions, the agency said in a news release. 

Florida Gov. Rick Scott activated nearly 8,000 members of the Florida National Guard to respond to Irma. Scott said the guard units were doing search-and-rescue missions, supporting law enforcement and providing other assistance. 

The Army said late Monday that more than 16,700 soldiers, members of the U.S. Army Corps of engineers and civilian support staff were helping with the recovery effort in Florida, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico.  

Members of the Corps of Engineers were monitoring the Herbert Hoover Dike on Florida's Lake Okeechobee, as well as working to restore power in the U.S. Virgin Islands and in Puerto Rico, according to a new release from the Army. 

The Navy has sent eight ships to support recovery efforts, including the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln. 

Navy Lt. Cmdr. Brian Wierzbicki said the sailors and marines were prepared to help with medical evacuations, rescues, humanitarian relief and however else they are needed. 

Wierzbicki said the ships would also help any Florida bases impacted by the storm. 

"We will provide whatever support is requested," he said. 

The U.S. Northern Command said early Monday the USS Wasp had completed 44 medical evacuations for critical care patients from St. Thomas to St. Croix. Wierzbicki said Navy and Marine crews were also flying search-and-rescue mission in the U.S. Virgin Island. 

The Coast Guard said Monday it was preparing for search and rescue flights, damage assessment and pollution response in all ares impacted by the storm. 

This article is not written by me but based on research