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James Lechner is a former US Ranger whose first combat experience came in Somalia, where he was one of the Rangers besieged near the crash site during the ‘Black Hawk Down’ battle, where a force of around 200 Rangers and Delta operatives supported by air power held off a much larger force of Somalia militia
One valuable aspect of the book is that the author takes us all the way through his path into the Rangers, including his time at The Citadel, South Carolina’s military academy, Army training, Ranger training, and the sometimes convoluted trail that eventually saw him reach Somalia with the Rangers.
Some aspects of his education and training will appear odd to British eyes – we don’t have anything similar to the US system of university level military academys. The Citadel has a particulary unusual looking ‘Fourth Class’ system designed to instill an especially fierce form of military discipline in new students, and which despite the author’s comments still exists at the Citadel. This system clearly worked for the author, but it is also clearly vulnerable to abuse, and recent changes to the system seem to be designed to keep the key aspects of instilling discipline while eliminating the bullying and hazing aspects.
In some ways this book comes from a more innocent time, when the US military had very limited recent experience of combat. Lechner saw soldiers who had taken part in the very short invasions of Granada and Panama as grizzled combat veterans. His own combat career began in Somalia, with more intense fighting than anyone will have seen in either of those conflicts, and continued well into the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The account of the author’s time in Somalia is excellent. We get a useful look at the situation that led up to the arrival of the Rangers, their attempts to capture the Somalian leader Mohamed Farah Aideed, alongwith with an understanding of why that failed, and why it wouldn’t have achieved its purpose even if it had succeeded. The account of the main battle itself is compelling, and is one of those narratives that makes you wonder just how the defenders managed to hold out against such heavy odds. Lechner was badly wounded in the leg, so we finish with an account of his medical care and rehabilitation that is just as interesting as the combat section, and a tribute to the impressive quality of US military medicine. Remarkably Lechner recovered from an injury that saw 4in of bone destroyed in one leg to return to the Rangers!
Chapters
1 – Seed Corn
2 – Climbing the Mountain
3 – Steel Sharpens Steel
4 – Drumbeat
5 – On the Hunt
6 – Into the Valley
7 – Storm of Steel
8 – Borne the Battle
Author: James Lechner
Edition: Hardcover
Pages: 288
Publisher: Osprey
Year: 202