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.
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.
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