Black Hawk Down

Circling above, the men on board "Super 62" could tell that Mike Durant and his crew were in serious trouble. Two experienced Delta Force snipers, Randy Shughart and Gary Gordon, wanted to help out. They knew, of course, that theirs could be a suicide mission. They descended the rope anyway.

Shughart and Gordon saved Durant's life, but it was not long before they were both dead. In a shocking display of mob behavior, Somalis dragged Gordon's body through the streets of Mogadishu. Americans, at home, later watched the scene on the evening news.

Mike Durant (click on "media" after entering the site) was sure he was going to die. The mob would have killed him but for the intervention of Yousef Dahir Mo’Alim, a local Somali militiaman who thought Durant was worth more alive than dead.

The rest of the American troops would now face what no one would have earlier believed. As Tim Wilkinson later said, "We stumbled into a hornet's nest."