Welcome back, Billie! We sure missed you ladies yesterday.
What's on tap for today?
Winter has been strange, believe it or not, we had a dusting of snow this AM.
4, did you ever get that while you were here?
Good morning from Southern Oregon! Cold here and expecting rain/snow showers later. Creeks are full and really roiling along. Even small ones can be heard at some distance. Halleluljah! The Klamath farmers will have water this summer.
Hi, Jinx - what's on the agenda for today? Well, coffee's on, State of the Union speech tonight, Super Bowl coming up.......let's just play by ear!
That's wonderful news. I haven't read much about the Klamath farmers lately, so that's great to know. Thanks, John!
Morning, Aeronaut. Back in a bit!
Soldiers share memories made in Somalia
War movie leads to chance reunion By RON MARTZ
Atlanta Journal-Constitution Staff Writer
Scott Galentine (left) and Danny McKnight happened to spot each other in a Conyers theater just after seeing "Black Hawk Down," a movie about the 1993 battle in which both fought. It was a moving moment.
As the final credits for the movie "Black Hawk Down" were rolling and the lights were coming up in the theater, two men sat separately collecting their emotions.
When they turned to leave, a flicker of recognition passed between them. After a slight hesitation, they walked toward each other and without a word embraced and began to cry.
For retired Army Col. Danny McKnight of Snellville and former Sgt. Scott Galentine of Covington, that accidental reunion this week in a Conyers theater was an emotional moment. It was evidence, they said, that the bond they formed under fire more than eight years ago during a bloody afternoon in Mogadishu, Somalia, was as strong as ever.
"That we would end up in the same theater at the same time was very, very strange," McKnight said. "Maybe it just shows that there's something special about soldiers who have been in combat together."
McKnight and Galentine knew each other only briefly in Somalia and had not seen each other for several years. Neither knew the other was living in the Atlanta area or that they would be at the same showing of the movie, until it was over.
After seeing McKnight, said Galentine: "It was good to know there was someone else there who knew what it was really like that day."
That day was Oct. 3, 1993, when a group of Army Rangers from Fort Benning's 3rd Battalion, 75th Regiment were among an assault force sent into downtown Mogadishu to capture several top lieutenants of Somali warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid.
For the first 30 minutes the raid went exactly as planned. Commandos from the Army's Delta Force seized Aidid's men. The Rangers provided security, and a ground convoy under McKnight's command was ready to take the prisoners back to the U.S. base. Pilots from the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment flew overhead, providing cover. The only casualty had been a Ranger who had fallen about 70 feet while fast-roping out of a helicopter.
"The mission was a success. We were within minutes of being out of there and having everything done when that helicopter got shot down," said McKnight, 50.
Then the mission deteriorated into a deadly street fight with thousands of Somalis, some of them women and children, who converged on the crash site and battled the soldiers for more than 18 hours. When it was over, 18 Americans had died and more than 75 were wounded. Estimates of Somali dead range from about 500 to more than a thousand. Two weeks later, President Bill Clinton pulled U.S. forces from Somalia.
The movie, which is based on the best-selling book of the same name, re-creates in stunning detail many portions of the battle, and McKnight said it was "70-75 percent accurate. It was as accurate as they could make it given the limitations of Hollywood."
McKnight, who was played by actor Tom Sizemore, said there were times "when I was not in the movie theater anymore. I was back in Mogadishu."
Once such incident, he said, was when a bullet shattered the windshield of the Humvee in which he was riding, wounding him in the neck and arm. Another was a particularly graphic scene when Galentine's left thumb was nearly severed by a bullet.
But Galentine, 30, played by actor Gregory Sporleder, said that scene did not bother him "because that's not the way it really happened. But it was enough to make my heart skip a beat for a second."
McKnight, who retired Jan. 1, said Sizemore called him twice during the filming. "He really wanted to be as accurate as possible. If anything, he played me too cool. I don't know if I was as unflappable as he plays me," McKnight said.
Galentine, a native of Xenia, Ohio, said he thought the movie represented fairly "the violence, the gore, the amount of bloodshed, the amount of fire, the utter chaos. It gets the point across that we were dropped into a hornet's nest. But you can't really get in two hours what 130 guys saw from different perspectives."
McKnight, who was born in Columbus, Ga., but grew up in Florida, said the movie shows "war is a very ugly thing. When bullets are flying and people are getting killed it gets very ugly."
Mogadishu was McKnight's second exposure to combat. He had been under fire in Panama with the Rangers during Operation Just Cause. But for Galentine, who had been in Somalia less than a week before the raid took place, it was his first time in combat. And no matter how graphic it might seem on the screen, there's no way the chaos and confusion of the real thing can be replicated, he said.
McKnight said he was particularly pleased that the movie shows the training and dedication of the soldiers that kept them fighting and guarding the helicopter crash site until the bodies of the two dead pilots could be recovered. That dedication is also evident in the efforts of two Delta snipers, Sgt. 1st Class Randy Shugart and Master Sgt. Gary Gordon, who volunteered to guard the crash site of pilot Michael Durant, who was in a second Black Hawk that was shot down. Durant eventually was taken prisoner and later released. But Shugart and Gordon died. Both received Medals of Honor for their actions, the first awarded since Vietnam.
"They weren't doing it to be heroes," McKnight said of the two snipers. "They were doing it to take care of each other. That's what they were trained to do. The movie is focused on us taking care of each other."
But Galentine said that among his fellow former Rangers who have seen the movie, there is one chief complaint: that director Ridley Scott dedicated the movie to his mother.
"I thought that was in poor taste," Galentine said. "He should have dedicated it to the men who died."
I'm anxious to see the movie. That was interesting to read. Have you seen it yet? (We NEVER go to the movies - always wait until it's out on video) :^)
War has come to our shores. It was committed on American soil. We have been able to live in Freedom only because of those who have fought in the past wars giving life, limb and all the sacrifices for us to live in Freedom and go about our day without fear. 
This is the Freeper version of the USO Canteen. Where soldiers could come and feel a small part of being at home. It is a place where you that have family in the military can post a thought to a loved one that might be able to read it far away from home. A place where we that support our military can help support them, post to them, fun graphics showing the price in America and our troops. Poems, quotes, cartoons, or articles of how America is behind our troops.
