Somalia ambush survivor teaching troops urban tactics
SOUTH OF THE KUWAIT-IRAQ BORDER, Kuwait (AP) – Young troops huddle around and listen closely to their grizzled sergeant, a hero of the bloody firefight in Somalia that has become known simply as “Black Hawk Down.” “I can’t tell you what the threat will be for you,” Battalion Sgt. Maj. Robert Gallagher says in a voice as gritty as the sand of the Kuwaiti desert. “But the decisions you make will be ones you live with for the rest of your life.”
Friend or foe? Civilian or combatant? Kill, handcuff or ignore?
Such decisions need to be made in a split-second by soldiers barely out of their teens if they enter the confused, supremely risky battlefield that Gallagher is training them to survive – urban warfare, possibly in the streets of Baghdad.
Deep in the desert south of the Iraqi border, where the United States is massing tens of thousands of troops, Gallagher’s battalion, Task Force 315 of the Army’s 3rd Infantry Division, is honing skills to fight street to street, building to building.
Training around the clock at an old mining camp and a mock village vaguely resembling a film set, the soldiers practice how to move smoothly through streets blocked by cars, check for boobytraps before kicking through doors and to identify enemies dressed as civilians.
Gallagher leans on lessons learned from Oct. 3, 1993, when Somalis shot down two Black Hawk helicopters taking part in a mission to capture Gen. Mohamed Farah Aidid, a warlord deemed a menace to U.S.-led peacekeeping operations.
Gallagher was part of the ground force of Humvees and trucks. They came under withering fire as they tried to rescue the trapped helicopter crewmen. Eighteen Americans died that day, including six of Gallagher’s men. He was wounded in the hand, arm and neck.
An estimated 300 Somalis were killed and 700 wounded during the 12-hour firefight, many of them women and children Aidid’s forces used as human shields.
“It was the best day of my life because I saw my men perform under extreme stress as they were trained to do,” Gallagher said. “There were some tough situations presented to them.”
“It was the worst day because I lost soldiers,” he said. “They were mine, and I was responsible for them. There isn’t a day that goes by when I don’t think about them in some way, shape or form.”
The battle, documented in the book and film “Black Hawk Down,” led to a U.S. pullout from Somalia and raised questions about peacekeeping and urban tactics employed by U.S. forces hitherto focused on repelling a massive Soviet invasion of Germany. Gallagher’s role is documented in the book, but he does not appear as a character in the movie.
The military has since taken on numerous peacekeeping missions – in Haiti, Bosnia and Kosovo – and ones where the line between fighting and keeping civil order have been less clear, such as Afghanistan.
The military can expect a mix if President Bush orders an invasion to eliminate Saddam Hussein’s alleged arsenal of weapons of mass destruction.
Since he would be outgunned in a desert tank battle and has virtually no air force since the Gulf War, Saddam may try to draw U.S. forces into a battle in Baghdad, hoping casualties among U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians would erode Bush’s support at home and abroad.
Gallagher’s battalion of the 3rd Infantry Division’s 2nd Brigade has shifted gears from participating last month in the military’s biggest tank and infantry exercise since the Gulf War to preparing for city fighting.
Gallagher stresses to his soldiers that they could face non-uniformed enemies taking shots at them and mingling among civilians for cover. After seeing a news report recently of Iraqi troops parading through Baghdad’s streets, he expects some attackers might be in their early teens.
“At the end of the day, our morals define us,” Gallagher said. “Be sure of the threat, positively identify the threat, and do what you’re trained to do in a manner consistent with our values.”
His sun-leathered face split by a ready smile, Gallagher has a gift for gab that underscores an Irish heritage he is proud of, noting one of his grandfathers fought for independence from British rule.
But he seldom gives interviews and only reluctantly discusses his experiences in Somalia, other than to emphasize points to his men that bring home the reality of why they’re training. “They make a bigger deal out of it than I do,” he said of his Somalia experience.
Last year in El Paso, Texas, Gallagher took the parents of one of his soldiers killed in Somalia to see “Black Hawk Down” and was able to explain to them what happened that tragic day.
“That meant more to me than anything,” he said.