In the Company of Heroes : A True Story of Black Hawk Pilot Michael Durant and the Men Who Fought and Fell at Mogadishu

by Durrant, Michael; Hartov, Steven

• ISBN13: 9780399150609
• ISBN10: 0399150609
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-05-12
• Publisher: Putnam Adult

Summary

His battered face appeared on the cover of Time, Newsweek, and U.S. News & World Reportto the shock and horror of all Americans. Black Hawk pilot Mike Durant was shot down and taken prisoner during America's biggest firefight since the Vietnam War. Published in the tenth anniversary year of the Somali conflict, this gripping personal account at last tells the world about Durant's harrowing captivity and the heroic deeds of his doomed comrades. And, as readers will discover, Durant proves himself to be nothing less than a hero.

Author Biography

Michael J. Durant retired from the army as a Chief Warrant Officer 4. In addition to participating in Operation Restore Hope in Somalia, he saw action in the Persian Gulf, Panama, and Kuwait. His awards include the Distinguished Service Medal, the Distinguished Flying Cross with Oak Leaf Cluster, the Bronze Star with Valor Device, the Purple Heart, the Meritorious Service Medal, three Air Medals, the POW/MIA ribbon, and the Army Commendation Medal with three Oak Leaf Clusters.

Steven Hartov is a novelist and a respected authority on military matters. He served in the Israeli Defense Forces Airborne Brigades and a Special Operations branch of Military Intelligence, and is a regular contributor to Special Ops-The Journal of Elite Forces.

Excerpts

Chapter 1 DOWN AND DIRTYSomalia I woke up in the silence of my own grave. At least that's what I believed in that first moment, because in my last flash of consciousness I had clearly seen the clawing hand of the Grim Reaper. I did not know where I was. I did not know who I was. It was like emerging from an altitude chamber with a case of hypoxia as my mind began to stagger, slowly, through the darkened hallways of my concussed brain. And when my eyelids finally fluttered open, I was stunned to take in the light. The chopper's windshield was almost completely gone, pierced and disintegrated by a slab of corrugated metal that had stopped only inches from my face. Yet my first sense of emotion wasn't relief, but fury at the disfiguring of my helicopter by that rusty blade. I reached up to shove the thing from my cockpit, and then the pain swept over me like a wave of molten lava. My back was broken. Super Six-Four had come down like Dorothy's house in The Wizard of Oz, spinning fast, falling even faster, and finally slamming its nine tons of steel into the hard-packed ground. Two of my vertebrae had smacked together on impact, displacing the disk between them and pulverizing each other. Every muscle in my back must have tried to prevent that catastrophe and been ripped apart in the effort, and it felt like some evil giant had me on his worktable, squeezing my spine in an iron vise. I stopped moving and just tried to breathe without passing out. I sure as hell was fully conscious now, although my thoughts and reflexes seemed to trudge through a sort of syrupy fog. Slowly I moved my aching head and glanced around the cockpit, and found I was sitting level with the floor. The pilot seats in a Blackhawk are designed to stroke downward in a major crash, and mine had done that and more. Its supports had snapped like the legs of a child's chair under the girth of a fat man. My right leg felt strangely numb, and as soon as I tried to move it I knew that the femur had broken clean in half over the edge of my Kevlar seat. My M-9 pistol was still strapped to my right thigh, and as its weight shifted I could feel the splintered ends of my bones grinding against one another. But it didn't hurt all that much. My crushed vertebrae were monopolizing my pain centers. I was dead sure that I couldn't get myself out of the cockpit. A Blackhawk's hard enough to get out of when you're healthy. You have to contort yourself and maneuver your limbs around the seat and the controls. Now I could barely move. I unhooked my harness and took off my helmet, feeling rivulets of cold sweat running down my temples. Some guys come back from every mission soaked through, while I rarely break a sweat. Today was different. I peeled off my Nomex gloves and then, for some strange reason, I slipped my watch from my wrist, with my wedding ring still encircling the band, and laid them on the console. To this day, I'm not sure why I did that. Maybe I knew that "time" was about to become a non-issue here. Or maybe it was the ring, and I didn't want to be distracted by thoughts of home. It was like something a man might do before surgery, or certain death. I saw my MP-5 submachine gun lying on the floor near my left foot, right where I'd left it. If I had abided by written safety procedures, that "Skinny Popper"-our callous nickname for the compact German weapon-would have been behind me, strapped down somewhere in the back and inaccessible. So I was grateful for having a touch of the renegade in me as I reached for it, made sure it was locked and cocked and laid it across my lap. I could hear some thin, muffled shouts in the distance. The Somalis would surely try to overrun us, and it looked like I'd just have to fight it out right there where I sat. And then I remembered that I wasn't alone. I looked over at Ray. His helmet was gone and he was slowly edging himself off his seat, which had