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Title: Black Hawk Down
ISBN: 0552999652
Author:
Mark Bowden
Publicate Date: 2002-01-14
Publish: 2002-01-14
List Price: $14.45
Average Customer Rating: 4.5
Format: Paperback
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $2.99
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $1.77
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| Customer Review: |
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1: Ooh-Ahh!! For the Hoo-ah. Gung-ho best takes on the Somalis.
Black Hawk Down by Mark Bowden is an intense book about a U.S. military mission that started out as a seemingly easy assignment, but went terribly wrong. This story concerns events that actually happened during two days in October 1993 in the sandy desert city of Mogadishu, Somalia. The main mission for the members of the Rangers and Delta Squad was to capture two important Habr Gidr clan members, and possibly the warlord, Mohamed Farrah Aidid. Instead, the troops found themselves involved in a bloody battle with Somalis determined to eliminate the soldiers.
Black Hawk Down is a very engrossing book. Mark Bowden does a great job making the reader feel as if they were right in the action. The book is occasionally gory, especially with the descriptions of gunshot wounds, but shouldn't be too bad for most readers at and above high school age. There wasn't a moment in the book when I wasn't rooting for the soldiers to survive against the odds. The book follows many individuals. The differences in each character's point of view on the action gives the reader a better look into modern warfare.
I recommend this book, since it is one that will keep anyone on the edge of his or her seat. It opens a portal into the horrors of war and doesn't go soft for a single sentence.
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2: Book Summary and Review
Black Hawk Down is a fascinating book about an American war against Somali's, that goes terribly wrong. The American soldiers were dispatched from base on a mission that was expected to last only 3 hours, therefore they leave behind most of their equipment. Then once they get there, even before the battle starts, things start going wrong. From then on, event after event, the conditions just keep on getting worse, until a Black Hawk is seen dropping down fast from the sky, smoke coming from the tail. From then on, the American soldiers continue to lose hope, and believe that they will be stuck there forever, without their necessary supplies and equipment.
The 486 page long book, written by Mark Bowden, is an amazingly true story about a modern war taken from all aspects of the soldiers in the war. The book is written in 3rd person omniscient, and literally uses each soldier in the war as a character. In this book you will get to hear the war happening, and everything that each soldier is thinking and shooting. But there are many characters (emphasis on many) in this book, and to fully enjoy it, I would recommend re-reading it so that you can understand each character. In some points of the story the book does get slow, talking about some soldiers lives before the war, but in the long run, it helps you understand the behaviors and characteristics of each soldier, making the book that much more enjoyable.
Black Hawk Down does use some terminology that is war related and sophisticated, but you most likely won't need to be going into a dictionary to discover the meanings of their code words and weapon terminology. The novel is somewhat gory and graphic, but not extremely horrible. Ages +14 should be able to handle this book of a true war story.
Overall this novel is a great insider story on modern war. It shows what actually happens in wars, without the Hollywood effects added in. And since there are plenty of characters in this book, you should definitely be able to relate to one of them, and see how you would do in a war situation such as this. Therefore I give this book a 4 out of 5 stars (I would give it 4.5 stars, but there is no option) because of its honesty of war, and its great detail in which it immerses you into the story with.
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3: taut action thriller...
from the first page until the very last paragraph you'll find a taut action thriller..you'll almost feel the bullets whizzing by in this Somalia saga..and it's all true...what started out as a humanitarian rescue effort eventually escalated into a botched attempt to capture a warlord with Al Qaeda footprints all over the resistance effort before most Americans had ever heard of Al Qaeda..what could aptly be described as the first big battle of the war against terror..
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4: Great
this was the singal greatest story of war i have evr read. He describes the situation in Somalia and how the soldiers deal with it. This is a great buy and you will not be able to put it down once you start.
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