Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War Reviews

 "It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, more desolation. War is hell."  - William Tecumseh Sherman

For all my interest in all things related to the military and especially military history, I have never lost sight of two very important concepts.

One, of course, is the obvious reality that war is never something to be undertaken lightly,  It doesn't matter, in the long run, whether we choose to go to war or it is forced upon us, but the whole endeavor is, by its very nature, messy, cruel and unpredictable....

Black Hawk Down, by Mark Bowden (1999)

Black Hawk Down, by Mark Bowden (1999)

Black Hawk Down is the story of a peacekeeping mission tasked on some valiant American troops, particularly members of the US Army Ranger task force and Delta Force. The lesson I learned from reading is the futility of the recent habit of US politicians putting troops in harm’s way without a clear mandate and commitment to win by the politicians. I just wish they would learn the lesson.

The story first appeared as a serial in the Philadelphia Inquirer, its popularity making it mandatory to be published as a...