thrilling, sobering and very insightful!

the extreme danger the men were in is what effected me, and yet giving up was just not an option to these brave and patriotic soldiers.

the blood and gore made my tummy turn! and yet i carried on becuase it was true! these guys got hurt and got hurt REAL bad!

if you are looking through reviews to decide what book to buy with your monthly credit....then look no further! but this one...it is truely epic!

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One of the best modern war accounts.

So much more information than the film and thoroughly broken down into blow by blow detail. Well researched, read and hard to stop listening too. Maybe the best Audible book I’ve listen too! Recommended.

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out standing loved it best book I've listen to in a while 10/10 amazing ❤

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Gripping account

A gripping telling of the events in Mogadishu. You really get a feel for the people involved and just how desperate the situation was.

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totally enthralling.

from the very start I hated having to turn it off when I had to go do other things, so caught up in what was happening in the moment, I'd seen the film as I'm sure most folk have but compared to the book it fades into a meager story. loved it.

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1 person found this helpful

Brilliantly Insightful

Loved the film, but think I love the book more! So much emotion, you could feel every bullet flying! What those guys went through…..!

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Great story and solid narration

I had seen the movie, this is far better.
The folks who rated this 1-star because they could not follow the different characters probably should have picked a book for junior high kids instead. The narrator makes the story come alive and it’s very easy to follow who is who and where they are.
It’s still a tragic tale of US and UN international strategy going totally awry and creating a situation that was totally avoidable for both sides. The Epilogue is a great summary of where is all went wrong.

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Brilliant

This book is so much better than the movie...and the movie is one of my favourites.

Far better critics have left far more eloquent reviews, that said after lostening to it i just have to pass on the enjoyment and satisfaction i got from it.

As a previous soldier i can honestly vouch for the accounts from the Rangers, albeit i have no experiance of combat but i have been to my share of current theatres, the boredom these men felt and the bravado and the natural playfullness of some accompanied with natural maturity of others is something any soldier can relate to. This book does an amazing job of showing the Rangers as being MEN. It takes away the "stormtrooper" mask wich is amplified by hollywood and leaves behind human men with lives that matter to them and their loved ones.

Black Hawk Down the book however does not stop there and instead it even goes as far as to show the humanity of the enemy, something that truly lack in all the modern media. We enjoy seeing our enemies as nameless targets. As soldiers we need this to remain detached to a degree but as humans its great to be reminded of the fact that we are there doing a job and they , the enemy are likewise just doing the job needed to be done.

I think the way the book acheives this is not a fortunate accident instead it is the very thing that is the point of the book, and furthermore its the whole point of what the Rangers in Somalia and other soldiers later in Iraq and Afghan and before in Vietnam and the Great Wars were feeling in their own times. I think that all soldiers since the beginning of time have been MEN first, not namless soldiers with no context of what brought them to their last battleground.

This book does simply a perfect job of bringing humanity back into a story where im sure men on both sides doubted if their was any humanity left on this planet, even down to when the humvee drivers laughed at knocking down the man in the street, its not because its funny to run men over, its because its so obsurd. It leaves wondering whos the good guys here and that because at that moment in time there is no good guys and equally there is no bad guys there is just men trying to survive a few more heartbeats, to just make it to the end of the street and then after that who knows, maybe they will be lucky and survive a little while longer.

I will finish before i end up writing my own book as a review, this book moved me whilst listening to it and im happy for that as it reminds me that I too am a man first and in any of the situations described by the people in this book weather they be US Forces or Somali i would probably of exactly the same as any one of them, I would of been afraid to go back out, i would of been over flowing with rage and needing to go back out to exact revenge, i would of wanted to pull down a Black Hawk from the sky to defeat the Americans seeming to invade my home, i would of tortued men who just killed my countrymen and i would of offered tea to a captive as well as receive it if i was indeed captive.........

We are all MEN first and when the time of words end and action begins then we have to adopt our primitive animal states and do things that no one and everyone can understand.

A truly excellent book depicting a 15 hour window of a conflict that no one cares about on a continent that is forfotten, fought by human beings against human beings which makes it the most relevant story to any culture since the first cultures exsisted.

Thanks to Mark Bowden for his persistent reaserach and to the all the men and women who allowed him to document their accounts for future generations to appreciate.

....Oh ye Alan Skar does an amazing job reading the story too, he truly bring the story to life and i cant imagine another voice that would of done it any justice.

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5 people found this helpful

Honest and Insightful

A neutral and in-depth analysis from inside a brutal, compact conflict. Well written, solidly performed and extremely honest.

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Brilliant

Eventually I hear the story after seeing the film many times. For me it underlines the futility of war. However one cannot ignore the fascination if the subject matter. The real human stories of fighting for your own survival.

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