MIKE EVANS

Mike Evans grew up on the South Side of Chicago. In 1987, during his junior year in high school, he dropped out, wanting to join the Army. Because he was seventeen, his mother had to sign enlistment paperwork. Mike served in the Army as an 11 Bravo infantryman and left the service as a staff sergeant. He now works in law enforcement.

Captain Flowers is doing paperwork when I enter his office. He’s got a TV on top of his filing cabinet, and it’s turned to the news, to the civil unrest unfolding in Mogadishu, the capital city of Somalia. It’s 1992, and the country is gripped by famine and conflict.

While two warlords fight each other for the role of dictator, dozens and dozens of smaller factions are thwarting the United Nations’ humanitarian efforts, hijacking and looting food convoys. The pictures of the starving Somalis—I’ve never seen anything that horrible. It’s like the worst nightmare courtesy of National Geographic.

I’m watching a Somali manning a weapon mounted in the back of a pickup truck when the captain says, “We’re going to wind up over there.”

He’s probably right. In fact, I know he is.

I’ve been trained to fight a conventional ground war against the Russians. During training, we shot at plastic targets dressed in green uniforms and green helmets with a red star on the front. If I’m sent to Somalia, I’ll be fighting guys dressed in civilian clothing and running around with guns and guys firing guns mounted in pickup trucks.

“Sergeant,” he says, leaning back in his chair, “I’ve got an anti-tank section that I want to turn into a reconnaissance section, for my company. The battalion commander has already signed off on it.”

That last part doesn’t come as much of a surprise. Gordy Flowers, Alpha Company, 2/87 company commander, is a fireball of energy and charisma. Whenever you debate him on a topic, you best be squared away because he’ll find a chink in your armor and crush you. He wins a lot of arguments.

“I want you,” he says, “to take it over.”

That surprises me—and not in a good way. His anti-tank section has got a bad reputation as a dumping ground for problem soldiers or those who are struggling. I have a good reputation, and it comes from the best platoon in the battalion.

And now he wants to send me there?

“So,” he says, smiling. “Can you fix this thing for me?”

“Yes, sir.”

I’m barely twenty-two years old.

  

I grew up on the southwest side of Chicago in this very, very tight-knit Irish community where young people were expected to be able to handle themselves. Dad wasn’t around much, Mom was struggling to raise three kids. I wasn’t a good student. I had problems focusing in class; I daydreamed a lot, fought even more. I knew the college life wasn’t for me—one of several reasons why I dropped out of my junior year in high school.

I needed to do something real—in the real world. Something as far away from my past, my neighborhood—and from Chicago—as possible.

From a young age, my dad introduced me to military movies and documentaries. I’d watched a story on 60 Minutes about the Army’s Ranger school and thought, Now that is real courage. That is a real challenge. And the guys, how they carried themselves, looking larger than life and sharp in their perfect uniforms—something about that personality type, that life, attracted me.

So I joined the Army. That day on the bus, driving away from home, I was scared to death, but I also realized that this was my chance to start over, turn myself into the person I wanted to become.

After basic training, I decided to go out for one of the riskiest jobs in the Army: a scout platoon in a light infantry company. These were the guys who acted as the eyes and ears of a battalion commander. You went out in five-man squads, anywhere from three to five klicks, and reported back. Out there on your own on the battlefield, you had to be extremely resourceful. Nobody was coming to help you.

I went out for it, got it, then got assigned to the scout platoon 2nd Battalion, 87th Infantry. I was seventeen.

And I still felt I had something to prove. The Army sent me to Ranger school, and I graduated at nineteen. Now I’m twenty-two, a doggone staff sergeant, and I’ve been asked to turn around thirteen men, whip them into shape.

I have no idea how to do it.

I seek out a previous leader of mine, a guy who is one of the hardest people I’ve ever worked for: Archie Spinner. I tell him about the section I’m about to take over and ask him what I should do.

“What you’ve got to be,” he says, “is a Bic lighter. You’ve got to be able to light these guys up and then shut it off. You’ve got to ask them how their day is going and how things are at home and really care. You go in there with standards so high they can’t possibly reach them, and then you slowly lower them until they do. Then watch how their pride changes.”

A week later, in early December, we receive word that we’re going to deploy to Somalia. I’m given some early intel—aerial photography from satellites showing a bunch of bandits setting up roadblocks in an African town called Wanlaweyn. Hardly anyone can pronounce it, so we call it Wally World.

“Roadblocks aren’t uncommon there,” Captain Flowers says, surveying the photos. “As to whether or not they’re preparing for our arrival, we don’t know.”

I nod, studying the roadblocks and the bandit patrols and the fortified positions the Somalis have set up in Wally World. My unit will be flying into an airfield southeast of Mogadishu called Baledogle. We’re told that Somalia’s most powerful warlord, General Mohamed Farrah Aidid, is using the airfield to supply his troops with weapons and plants called khat. The leaves contain a stimulant that causes excitement and, supposedly, euphoria. Aidid’s soldiers chew on them to stay awake and alert.

“We’ve gotta get your boys on the ground first,” Flowers tells me. “We need to scout all this stuff here, to figure out what’s going on in the city.”

For the next two weeks, I train my men and plan and prep recon missions. We don’t know what the topography is like, and we don’t know how we’re going to infiltrate this town after we land our C-130 on the airstrip ten miles away.

The day we fly out, Lieutenant Colonel James Sikes, 2/87 Battalion commander, delivers his speech. “This isn’t some humanitarian mission like you boys did in southern Florida after Hurricane Andrew. This is a combat deployment. You’re watching the news, you see what’s going on—you know there’s a recipe for something bad happening here. We’ve got to be on our toes.”

My men are lined up and dressed in what we call battle rattle—they’re wearing their full gear. As I do pre-combat inspections, I remind them to take the humanitarian stuff out of the mission because the news is reporting more and more violence. I’ve got to get them in the right mindset because we’re going in hot.

I climb aboard the C-130, feeling anxious. Showtime, I think. If you’ve got something to prove, this is where you prove it.

  

We hit the airfield really hot. The back gate drops before the plane even stops, and we haul ass outside.

The heat is stifling—it’s as if someone covered my face with Saran Wrap—and there’s dust everywhere, the plane kicking it up from the old and barely used airfield. I have no idea where the enemy is, what they have planned for us.

They’re not in the airfield tower. We clear it within minutes. We set up a perimeter and then begin to clear the rest of the airfield.

I don’t know much about the history of Somalia, so I’m surprised to discover, inside the old barracks, that the Russians had been here at one point. They left recruiting posters hanging on the walls, filing cabinets.

Only their stuff is still here. No people.

The airfield secured, we set up our leadership command post. Captain Flowers puts out the order to get American flags on the buildings.

“Sergeant,” he tells me, “I want you and your scout teams doing roving patrols outside this air base.”

I’ve endured four years of some of the hardest, most grueling training, and it’s all been preparation for this moment: going out and looking for the bad guy.

Wally World is ten klicks away. We slowly make our way through the high desert scrub. We don’t have any solid intel. We don’t know if the enemy is setting up on us or if they’re waiting for us. I’ve got guys that are locked and loaded with live ammo for the first time in their lives, and we’re expecting contact at any moment.

We don’t encounter a single soul along the way.

We reach Wally World, undetected, and start our recon.

Almost immediately I notice that all the women are working—and I mean doing everything.

The men are armed. Not just a handful but, like, every single one of them. It doesn’t seem right, seeing them all walking around smoking Sportsman cigarettes and carrying AK-47s, and there’s no way to tell the bad guys from the good guys. The village is small, but it has stores, and I don’t see a single person who is starving. One Somali woman, large and overweight, is carrying a basket on her head. It’s full of bread. The whole thing is surreal to me, just surreal.

  

The Marine Corps arrives two days later. They secure the airfield and relieve us. We’re getting pushed over to this coastal town called Merca. It’s a port city, like Mogadishu, and the aid shipments being sent by Oxfam and other independent charitable organizations—things like flour, grain, cooking oil, and little boxes of Kilimanjaro water—are being raided by powerful clans. They’re controlling the country by holding the food hostage. Our mission now is to secure the city and the food shipments and get rid of the bandits and drive them out of Merca.

On our way to the city, we take on fire—errant shots, but still, guys are shooting at us. I’m jacked with adrenaline, super focused and alert. This isn’t a training exercise; this is the real deal.

Game on.

I’ve been told there’s a sweet spot where you’re able to perform your job while also being able to think clearly and make good, solid decisions. That’s the place I find myself in right now as I engage the enemy.

By the time we reach the city, which is covered in clan graffiti, we’re all geeked up. We take on fire again—this time from Somalis in concealed positions—as we seize the port.

That’s our job for the next two months: defend the ports and defend the convoys so they can get the aid into the smaller cities where there are people who are really starving. These warring clans are starving these people to death.

  

Near the end of February, Flowers comes to me with new orders. “We’re heading down to a place south of here called Kismayo. Colonel Jess is head of one clan, Colonel Morgan the other. They were both trained by the US, back when the country had an actual government and was a strategic location. We trained a lot of them then.”

Big archways greet us on our way into Kismayo. I can tell they were probably beautiful at one time, but now they’re in near ruin, pockmarked with bullet holes.

No contact on arrival, though Flowers told me that Bravo Company had been ambushed here the week before. We get to work and declare martial law, send everyone home by 10:00 p.m. to keep these clans from battling it out on the streets. It’s a fairly big city, so we have to use a lot of patrols to enforce the curfew.

The terrain is going to make our job tricky. The city isn’t a perfect grid. You have a couple of major roads, but mostly a maze of alleyways that run between huts, some of which have compounds around them. You can get lost very easily, and there’s not a lot of room to maneuver in the event we get attacked. We break the city down into sectors.

Captain Flowers wakes me up my third night in Kismayo. He’s all smiles.

“Got an intel brief on Morgan and Jess,” he says. “The two clans have agreed on a temporary truce to come together and fight us. They’re going to hit our compound tonight. We’re going to find them and hit them first.”

I’m up and on my feet.

“All right, Sarge,” he says, “we’re gonna see what your boys are made of. We’ll break down into teams. I’m gonna take half your sections, you’re gonna take the other half, and we’re gonna go out and find some bad guys.”

Flowers is a warrior, a born fighter and leader. I just love the guy, and like so many others, I find the man inspirational. I want to please him.

Flowers leads us to the sector he wants to clear. He takes one of my sections. I take the other half, about six men each. We’re making our way through the night-black alleys, trying to parallel each other in case something goes down, when I hear his section light up.

In that environment, gunshots are loud as hell. The gunfire stops by the time I rendezvous with Flowers.

“What’s going on, sir?”

“Made contact,” he says. “Engaged two guys, ran right into them—I mean face-to-face. One guy got away. We’re going after this one.” He points to a trail of blood.

We follow it to a residence.

“Our bad guy’s in here,” Flowers says. “Everyone: set up.”

We get the home surrounded very tactfully, very stealthily. Flowers radios in our coordinates and location while I’m kneeling down, a gun pointed at the front door. He comes over to me and says, “Hey, Sarge, you ain’t got that building cleared yet?”

“I didn’t know what we were doing, sir. You want me to clear it?”

“Yeah. Let’s clear it.”

I take Kevin Smith, one of the guys from my old scout platoon, with me. We’re crammed into this little area that can’t be more than five meters in diameter. The door is to my twelve; Smith and a couple of other guys are at my two and four; and Flowers, my seven, is at my due left.

This door isn’t like the ones back home. It’s about the same size but it’s cut down the middle so you can open one half or the other. I kick it as hard as I can and hear it splinter.

The guy in there lights it up. I see a muzzle flash.

Start to fall backward.

Start shooting as Captain Flowers, to my left, charges his weapon.

I’ve got thirty rounds in the magazine, a full combat load. By the time I hit the ground I’ve put the butt of my weapon right into the center of my chest and I’m firing off as many rounds as I can into the doorway. Everyone is around me lighting it up, too, except Kevin Smith. He grabs me by the flak vest and pulls me out and through our guys who are firing and firing.

I’m lying on my back, thinking about the muzzle flash, how close it was, when Flowers orders a cease-fire. I barely hear him say it. My ears are ringing from all the gunshots. I hear someone nearby yelling for a medevac.

I’m hit. Oh, my God, I’m hit.

Only I don’t feel like I’ve been shot.

Holy shit, am I already dead?

Kevin is kneeling next to me, working on removing my vest.

“I feel good,” I tell him. “Nothing hurts.”

“That’s the adrenaline.”

I’ve taken a round in the chest. The shooter was right there; I could’ve touched that muzzle blast. There’s no way he missed—and I’m wearing a really old vest. Those vests don’t stop anything.

Kevin rips open my shirt.

Freezes.

“Shit,” he says.

“How bad is it? Tell me.”

Kevin looks at me. His face is pale. It must be bad.

“You’re fine,” he says. “You’re fine,” he says again, like he can’t believe it.

I can’t believe it. I touch my chest and feel skin—solid skin. No gunshot wound. It has to be there, I tell myself, and keep checking my body. The guy was less than five feet away and I saw the muzzle flash. There’s no way he could have missed.

But he did. He did miss.

Flowers and his section have finished clearing the house. They come out with the shooter. Our interpreter talks to him first, then to us.

“He says he’s not a bandit—he’s not a bad guy. He didn’t know who you guys were.”

But I’m not really listening or caring because I’m staring at the shooter. The guy doesn’t have a scratch on him.

How I missed him—how we missed him—I don’t know. It’s unbelievable. We were the same distance apart.

Flowers thinks the guy dumped into a corner. Probably wasn’t his first battle, probably not his first firefight, probably not the first time he shot at somebody. He probably dumped into a corner and waited for us to finish lighting it up.

“The compound is big, with these little rooms,” Flowers tells me. He seems unfazed by everything that just went down.

Inside we find weapons—and women and children.

Nobody got shot.

  

Later that night, we go back to our command post—an old schoolhouse. I sit on my cot, still geeked up, trying to figure out how that guy missed me. I keep turning it over in my head, and I can’t come up with an answer.

Flowers comes into the room. He still seems unfazed. This was his first combat deployment, and nothing seems to bother the guy.

That’s why he’s a warrior.

“Boys,” he says, pointing at me. “That’s the luckiest man in Somalia right there.”

He’s right—I am lucky to be alive—but hearing him say it—hearing someone say the words out loud, maybe—wakes up something in me. Wakes me up to life. I’m the luckiest man in Somalia. I’m not gonna die in this country. I just got a second chance at life—and I’ve got a lot more to do in my life than this. It’s really profound, this feeling, and it stays with me for a long, long time.