THE BATTLE HAD RAGED FOR NEARLY NINE HOURS. Just before midnight, we got the Malaysians, Pakistanis, and the 10th Mountain Division launched toward the crash sites. When I knew they were en route, I walked outside with Chaplain Michalke from the 160th. In the darkness, we walked over near some sandbags fortifying a Conex. With scattered bursts of small arms fire in the distance, we knelt down and prayed for the men pinned down in the city.
Back in the JOC, I watched on the West-Cam as the rescue convoy wound toward the Six-Four crash site. But when the convoy stalled again, frustrated by Somali roadblocks, Macejunas rallied a small force to go and find Durant and the others on foot. With Mogadishu a blistering hornet’s nest, it was an incredibly brave act. But it’s what Shughart and Gordon would’ve done for them, what they had done for Durant and his crew. I watched on a FLIR, a Forward Looking Infrared monitor, as Mace reached the second crash site. The FLIR showed “warm” objects—like people and engines—as white images against a black background.
Praying silently, I watched Mace’s ghostly image moving among the remains of Super Six-Four, which appeared as a pale mass against a black field. I didn’t know what to hope for. Knowing the Somalis had already overrun the site, I didn’t think there was a chance in the world Mace would find our guys just sitting there alive and well. I was hoping he’d find some evidence of their escape—or, knowing what the Somalis did to the dead, at least find their bodies intact.
Mace keyed his mike: No signs of life, he reported. Also, no bodies.
For a moment, the JOC echoed with a hollow silence. In one way, Macejunas’s report was a devastating blow. Still, it left us with a shred of hope that Durant and his crew, plus Shughart and Gordon, had been captured and were still alive, or that they had escaped.
I called Gary. “Tell Mace to blow the helo.”
“Roger.”
The FLIR bloomed white as Mace and his team torched Super Six-Four with thermite grenades, then slipped back through the city to link up with the convoy.