Gordon and Shughart - Greater Love Has No Man...

Sometimes Soldiers receive the Medal of Honor for displaying valor in a fight that turns against them unexpectedly.  On a few rare occasions, however, Soldiers have willingly entered an inferno from which they cannot possibly emerge alive.  October 3, 1993, in a battle made famous by the book Black Hawk Down by Mark Bowden and the movie of the same title, Americans of Task Force Ranger staged a daylight raid on Mogadishu, Somalia.  For eighteen men, it would be their last mission, but two of them earned immortality through their memorable sacrifice.

The mission that day was to capture some of the top lieutenants of the warlord Mohammed Farrah Aidid, who were meeting at a hotel near the middle of the city.  The plan seemed simple: Rangers would rope down from Blackhawks to seize the four road intersections around the hotel while elite Delta Force operators landed on the roof in OH-6 Little Bird choppers.   A ground convoy was to rush to the hotel, secure the prisoners that Delta captured, and take them back to the soccer stadium that served as the base of Task Force Ranger.  Unfortunately, the Americans underestimated both the number and sophistication of the weapons that Aidid's men could bring to bear against them.  Lacking both AC-130 Spectre gunships and Bradley Fighting Vehicles, the Soldiers in the ground convoy did not have the ability to clear the streets effectively as militia mobs put up a determined fight.  Helicopters provided some covering fire from above, but the men on the ground waged a tough running fight through the streets of Mogadishu, frequently losing their way as Somalis blocked roads with barricades of burning tires.  One specially-modified Rocket-propelled Grenade (RPG) struck a Blackhawk in the tail rotor and it went down in the city.

 Minutes later, while Rangers secured the crash site, a second RPG downed the Blackhawk "Super 64" outside the city in an area difficult for ground forces to reach.  Two Delta Force snipers on another helicopter provided covering fire for a while, but they could see that the hostile militias would reach the second crash site ahead of the American ground forces.  Master Sergeant Gary Gordon, a Delta sniper from Lincoln, Maine, requested permission to be inserted at the second site along with his fellow sniper, Sergeant First Class Randall Shughart, from Lincoln, Nebraska.  On their third request, their commander on the ground relented and gave permission for them to secure the second crash site on the chance that there might be survivors.

Gordon and Shughart, knowing that hundreds of the enemy would arrive before they could hope for any help, reached the wreckage and found one pilot, Mike Durant, was still alive.  Handing him one weapon to cover their rear, they fought it out with their CAR-15 and M-14 rifles, determined to sell their lives dearly and hopefully to save Durant's life.  In time, their ammunition supply ran low and Somali forces killed both Gordon and Shughart.  When they reached the crash site, however, the Somalis spared Durant, taking him prisoner.  In subsequent stories, the Somali militias reported having lost 25 Soldiers to the two men from Lincoln.  

Today, Gordon and Shughart remain symbols of the passage John 15:13, "Greater love has no man than this - that he lay down his life for his friends.  The Armed Forces have immortalized them in everything from a postage stamp to a ship, the  USS Gordon, to the "Shughart-Gordon Urban Warfare Training Facilities" at Fort Polk, LA and Fort Knox, KY.  Thankfully, these extraordinarily brave men will be remembered for years to come.