Surviving Black Hawk Down

One can totally relate with the negative reviewers wondering why the lives of the people from Somali were disregarded as enemies when I'm sure 3/4 of them were innocent bystanders. What they fail to realize is the Leader Mohammed was not a saint to the people. They cheered him because I believed that is all they know and whom they thought had their best interest as a whole.

This is why this style of documentary is important because it utilizes the old phrase: Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Were Americans wrong for acting like World Police? Or were the Somalians wrong for cheering and parading the dead body of a soldier, in an inhumane way.

I appreciate the view brought to us from the Somalian people because the movie itself gave me a one sided view of everything.

To sum it all up, there were no winners but many tragic losses. Its safe to say war never solves anything.

This documentary is well-produced, sharply edited, and visually gripping-but make no mistake: watching it is not easy. It's heavy, and at times, downright enraging.

"Surviving Black Hawk Down" gives a raw, personal account of the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu through the eyes of the American soldiers and pilots who lived it. Their courage, discipline, and brotherhood are undeniable. From the elite Rangers and Delta operators to the Night Stalkers who flew their birds into hell and back-these men exemplified everything honorable about service. The doc does a good job of capturing the chaos, the sacrifice, and the grit it took to survive nearly 18 hours under relentless fire, outnumbered, and cut off.

But while it succeeds in honoring our warfighters, it stumbles when it comes to broader context. The historical and political backdrop feels underexplored. Why were we there? What was the real scale of the mission gone wrong? For viewers less familiar with the background, it leaves too much unsaid. It doesn't fully connect the dots, and the bigger picture remains vague.

And then-there's the hardest part to stomach.

Seeing Somali militia fighters-the very men who shot at, mutilated, and dragged American soldiers through the streets-now sitting in front of a camera, smug, satisfied, and arrogant, boasting about ambushing Americans and downing helicopters. These are not survivors reflecting on war. These aren't misunderstood rebels. These are killers, smirking decades later like they won something. They bask in the memory of slaughter, gloating like warlords, spinning murder and barbarism into honor. These men talk about their "victory" like it was glorious. Like they earned something noble. It's deeply enraging.

But here's what they'll never understand:

They might sit in front of cameras, but they'll never have the brotherhood. They'll never have the sacrifice. The discipline. The honor. No smirk can erase that. No twisted version of history can undo what those American soldiers stood for that day.

This documentary may lack full context-but the courage of the men it portrays comes through loud and clear. Watch it to honor them. Watch it to remember. But prepare to be angry-and don't let go of that anger too easily. Some stories demand it.

I start of by saying, all the negative reviews is by blindsided patriotic Americans that just cannot comprehend the message this documentary is trying to send. It is showing ordinary people caught up in war, it's showing how disgusting war is. One dialoge in episode 2 actually sums up entire series, americans breach some house where family is with their new born kid, they tie up the man and pointing guns at the rest of the family, then you hear delta force guy recollecting the story a he says "at the time I was like F them!". Why is it part sums up the documentary? Because after watching one episode you understand both their views, and you realize nobody is the good guy here, just like in war, where you do things best to you ability and do things you have to in order to survive. Image you are some guy in Colorado with good life there, in your adulthood, you join the army and end up is Somalia, in some mission you lost many of your good friends, are you at the time gonna sympathize with the Somalian people? I don't think so. Same goes for the Somalian side of the story, are you actually gonna believe these Americans is here to save you, if all day you hear helicopters around, people dying everywhere and they treat you like a potential enemy etc. ? I don't think so.

It's story that shows how difficult and gore war actually is, I believe it's must watch for everybody try to join the Army or if you try to understand what these people have endure in combat. Good documentary.

I've long awaited this since I've seen it advertised, especially from the Somali perspective. I knew going into it, especially with said perspective, that there will be a lot of angry Somalis who have inevitably been mislead into believing propaganda that exists even to this day.

This documentary series leaves out a LOT of context, especially related to why the U. S. was even there.

Here's just some of the stuff it leaves out:

1. Hostility by locals to the UN mission, and attacks that occurred resulting in the deaths of 30 peacekeepers months before hand. 25 were Pakistani, 5 were American and 2 were Italian.

2. Aidid was originally on good terms with the UN / US, until the UN prevented him and his militia from stealing food aid to starve out his opposition and feed his growing army. As time wore on and he further weaponized starvation, a ICC warrant was issued for his arrest.

3. The reason for distrust among US / UN soldiers about Somali locals, which were a series of bombings committed by militia that blended in with the local population.

4. Women and children were in fact involved in the fighting, though the number of casualties of combatant women and children is unclear to this day. Old clips recorded at the time even show women / children with AK-47 rifles and RPGs, and reports of this were corroborated by other UN soldiers present in the area at the time. This event had a HUGE influence on the rules of engagement involving civilians during later conflicts such as the Iraq war, and influenced urban battle doctrine.

5. The involvement of the Malaysians and Pakistani troops in the rescue convoy.

Originally during Operation Restore Hope, the US had very limited involvement, as many Americans back home did not want to become entangled in yet another war. Somalia is not resource rich, and even to this day we have limited diplomatic involvement with it. The war is still going on to this day.

The documentary seems to unfairly paint the US as the agitator, despite the fact that Somali fighters were firing widely and launching RPGs in densely populated areas. Many civilians were killed during the Durant crash, which further caused anger among civilians, civilians who fail to realize that it was their own people who shot down the helicopter over a densely populated area. This is part of why the US is very hesitant to get involved in humanitarian issues abroad, as despite our intentions the local population never seems to be thankful and would take the word of a tyrannical warlord over us. There was outrage when we ended our involvement in Somalia in 1995 as well.

Ultimately it's a good documentary, but leaves out a lot of history and doesn't really add anything new to the story that can't be found in other documentaries, short of civilians and fighters who are always going to minimize their culpability, the only one being remotely thankful is the women who's house they had to use as shelter.

I was hopeful that this would accurately portray what occurred in providing both context and accurate definitions of those involved in this battle. I found that as other reviewers did, this series lacked an accurate portrayal of the events leading up to the battle, and somehow portraying the Somalis involved as sympathetic. Without any explanation of why Aidad clan was involved in the first place we are left to conclude that the Americans were the butchers. There is no or perhaps very little explanation as to why we are involved in the first place, jumping from American peacekeeping to American Aggression. There are definite good guys and bad guys in this story, but the series chooses to ignore the actions of the warlord Aidad or for all practical purposes hide it. This reminds me of Michael Moore's attempt to describe Iraqi Islamists as "minutemen." This series borders on being a farce as a "documentary."