Crossposted from entropy
The battle of Mogadishu has a special place in my psyche. It wasn't until I saw Blackhawk Down, and later read the book, that I really identified with soldiers. Sure, I could rattle off weapon system statistics like other kids could rattle off baseball players stats, I had read quite a bit about soldiers, was steeped in soldiering from the time I was barely a teenager, but it took Ridley Scott's movie for me to really connect. The music, the mannerisms, the look of the kids in that movie took my back to my own young adulthood, reminded me of my own friends, and ultimately brought home what soldiering really meant.
In the same vein helicopter pilots have a special place in my psyche. I read Robert Mason's excellent 'Chickenhawk' long before that term was reserved for neoconservative draft dodgers. Mason put a face on helicopter piloting that has stuck with me throughout my life. It also put a face on Vietnam that I needed to see when I was a young teenager and didn't quite grasp the pain and grief that my family was re-living as the United States turned to look back at Vietnam in the early eighties.
So, Michael Durant's book about Mogadishu and his career as a helicopter pilot should have been a slam-dunk for me. Durant was the pilot who was held by Mohammad Farah Aideed after the Battle of Mogadishu. Strangely though, while the book held my interest, I find that I've grown since I was an impressionable teenager reading Mason, and possibly have grown since I relived the exploits of Task Force Ranger.
Durant's writing is not as polished as Bowden's in Blackhawk Down, nor as personal as Masons. On it's own it is a good recounting of Durant's ordeal as well as some of his other experiences as a pilot, but in the end it rings just this side of hollow for me. Other reviewers have described it as jingoistic, which comes close but oversimplifies things.
The recounting of Durant's captivity is engaging, if peppered with veiled contempt for his enemies. The thing is, to me they seem sincere, and could very well be a reason that Durant survived through his captivity as well as he did. It's his never quite attitude that returned him to active flight status even after his injuries that is both inspiring, and just slightly unbelievable. Perhaps it's not my place to understand men that can be so self-assured and driven.
When Durant describes, Panama, Iraq, and his missions in South Korea they feel like filler. The generation of soldiers that served in those wars has spilled gallons of ink describing the events and Durant's recounts felt little different than a Tom Clancy novel. They are good in their own context, but I feel that I as a person have moved beyond having an interest in them.
I was more interested in Durant's activitied in South Korea as a Medevac pilot than his exploits in the 160th SOAR, the elite of the elite for Helicopter Pilots. I was interested in the story of a young Durant coming to grips with the realities of Medevac work, realizing that you couldn't invest too much emotional capitol in your 'customers'. Durant glosses past his time in South Korea though, as he glosses past other conflicts in Panama and Iraq. While I can understand this quick pace, the book is after all focused on his captivity in Mogadishu, these brief interludes left me wanting more.
As with other books of this type the events following Mogadishu feel tacked on. Here I can say that Durant is in good company, Mason's book degraded in the final chapters after the pilot had returned from Vietnam. It feels like Durant tacks on a chapter bringing us up to speed on what happened following his release. I'm sure that everyone reading this book wants to know what happened to him following his ordeal, but it just isn't exciting, or particularly compelling. I guess it is best that the book accelerates at that point to push us through the denouement.
I don't agree with Durant's worldview, or his views of other people that he deems below him, perhaps not in so many words. I am very glad though that there are people like him that are defending this country.