Survivors of Mainer slain in Somalia wary of book, movie

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A Hollywood movie depicting the battle of Somalia, which took the life of a former Lincoln Special Forces Green Beret eight years ago, is drawing good advance reviews.

But members of Master Sgt. Gary Ivan Gordon’s family, who live in Maine and Virginia, won’t be rushing out on Jan. 18 to see it.

The movie, called “Black Hawk Down,” is about the bloodiest battle of the U.S. peacekeeping mission in Mogadishu, Somalia, in 1993. Many of the 18 American soldiers killed in a fierce 15-hour battle were U.S. Army Rangers and members of the Special Forces. They were part of a covert effort to capture Gen. Mohammed Farah Adid and his top clansmen.

A number of things went wrong during an Oct. 3, 1993, raid. The operation, which was supposed to take only 40 minutes, turned ugly. Dozens of soldiers were tortured and killed. At least two Black Hawk helicopters were shot down, stranding their crews – some of whom were injured – in the heart of an angry mob.

The 33-year-old Gordon, a sniper team leader in the Army’s Special Operations Command, was among the 18 soldiers killed that day. He and Sgt. 1st Class Randall Shughart lost their lives after jumping into the middle of the brutal battle to defend the crew of a downed helicopter as hundreds of armed Somalis were closing in on them.

Their efforts saved the life of the pilot, Chief Warrant Officer Michael Durant of New Hampshire, who was taken hostage for 11 days. Later, Gordon and Shughart were posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest honor for valor.

The movie is based on the book titled “Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War,” written by Mark Bowden. It was published in 1999.

Horrified by images of the bodies of dead American soldiers being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu, Bowden set out to learn all he could about the battle. Those images are not in the movie.

“I was really struck by the image of this small group of American soldiers, 99 of them, trapped in the city of Mogadishu, surrounded by thousands of armed Somalis, fighting for 15 to 18 hours to survive,” he said during a recent telephone interview.

His research lead to a 29-part serial in The Philadelphia Inquirer, the book and now the movie, which Bowden says is a faithful adaptation of his book.

Carmen Gordon, Gary Gordon’s wife, who now resides in Virginia with their two children, and Betty Gordon of Lincoln, his mother, say they were never contacted about the book or the movie. Both works are stirring up emotions for the Gordon women.

“I’m not sure it’s something I would want to see,” said Betty Gordon, who is leery about how graphic the movie may be. The Motion Picture Association of America rates it R for intense, graphic war violence and for language.

“It was such a mess over there,” she said. “We know what happened. There is a lot of stuff we kept to ourselves. It is something that you would just like to lay to rest.” The Lincoln woman has been advised by relatives not to read the book.

Carmen Gordon says she is going to wait to see what a few friends, who plan to see the movie, say about it. “I will take it from there,” she said. Gordon said the movie might give her a better understanding of what some of the other soldiers went through.

“It’s not a happy movie and it is not going to resolve anything for me, so I don’t know why I would want to see it.”

Gordon, who says she doesn’t know how she will react when the movie comes out, has read only the parts of the book related to her late husband.

She bought the book at one of Bowden’s promotional book signings in Fayetteville, N.C. Sitting in her car in the parking lot, she began reading it. “All of a sudden I realized I was not reading what the citation had said,” Gordon recalled.

Gordon is upset about the book’s contradicting information she was told by top military officials, Gary’s friends who served with him there, and in the Medal of Honor citation.

“When I found out my husband passed away, it was extremely important for me to somehow find some kind of peace and some sense of closure,” explained the 37-year-old woman. “I didn’t have a body I could say goodbye to or touch for the last time or see his face. The way I dealt with it was to instantly find out what happened to him, everything. I wanted to follow Gary’s last footsteps.”

Gordon said military officials were concerned about whether she could handle hearing about the details of the torture to her husband’s body.

After volunteering three times, Gary Gordon and Randy Shughart, who were flying a combat air patrol above the battle, received permission to be lowered to the ground to protect the downed crew. Their first attempt was aborted by ground fire.

Equipped with only sniper rifles and pistols, they fought their way through “a dense maze” of shacks to reach the injured crew, located about 100 meters away. They pulled the pilot and crew from the helicopter and kept the Somalis at bay until they ran out of ammunition.

Gordon retrieved some of the crew’s weapons and ammunition from the wreckage. He gave Durant a gun and radioed for help. Shughart was shot and killed. Gordon, who returned to the helicopter, found a rifle and five rounds of ammunition. He gave it to the pilot and continued to fight with his pistol until he was killed, according to the citation.

But in Bowden’s book, Gordon is the first to die.

“When the story changed, all of these feelings came up … like, ‘Oh, my God, when am I going to know the truth?'” she said. Carmen Gordon went back to the commander, who told her the unit disagreed with the book and that the account of her husband’s death was exactly as the citation stated. She contacted Bowden, who told her his information came from extensive research and interviews.

Bowden contends the information in the citation mixed up the actions of Gordon and Shughart. He said his book explains that there are two versions of events. “My judgment is that the Medal of Honor citations are wrong,” he said.

Carmen Gordon says she disagrees with the book and trusts the military investigation, which led to her husband’s Medal of Honor. “I wish it was the other way,” she said. Gordon said the gunshots her husband suffered did not kill him right away.

“Gary’s death was ugly,” she said. “I have to live with the thought that he was in and out of consciousness … and at moments he may have realized what they were doing to him. If he was the first one hit, at least I could have peace of mind that he was dead when they got to him.”

Bowden said both men were heroes.

“To be able to sit in the catbird seat looking down at this desperate situation,” he said, “and volunteering to go down, put yourself in harm’s way like that to try to save the lives of your fellow soldiers and hold off that mob for probably a good 15 to 20 minutes, is just an extraordinary act of valor.”

Betty Gordon says she can just see her son shrugging his shoulders and with that special grin on his face, saying, “What is the big deal? We were doing what we had to do.”