Honing in on Heroism

Black Hawk Down, a true account of the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu, Somalia in which 18 American Delta Force operators, Army Rangers, and Navy SEALs lost their lives making it the largest combat loss of American troops in any single battle since Vietnam. The precedents of heroism and sacrifice that took place during this battle left me speechless, I could not help but marvel at the valor with which the servicemen fought through such brutality and violence. For me, Black Hawk Down altered the image of the fearless invincible American soldier whom I so innocently imagined, not in a negative sense, but gave that image emotions, humanity, compassion, a respectable endowment to fear. I finished the movie with a renewed outlook on the human conflict associated with war, the struggle not to just stay alive and protect yourself as I had once believed, but to fight for the person next to you and gift him the opportunity to return home. For me, the movie withdrew a primal instinct with which I never quite realized I had in me, an odd sense of realization that fighting does not just entail survival but promise. Promises that a soldier makes to his comrades to ensure that they can make it on the plane back home and catch their child's fourth birthday, or to see their wife standing in the threshold of their home teary-eyed waiting for their triumphant return. The irony of this comes with the fact that I have never come close to experiencing even a slight hint of the bonds they share, not even a tinge of relativity, as to the way they endure, not only literally, but mentally and emotionally as well. This movie portrayed the heartache to war, the atrocities, the unnecessary  casualties, everything wrong with the way humans resolve conflict. Yet, just as beautifully as it shows the horror and the gore, it shows valor and camaraderie with which the men persevered, and although the suffered losses beyond measure they triumphed against all odds by holding out together. While other war movies glorify the image of the United States in all its glory, "Black Hawk Down" glorified the soldiers behind that image, the actual person under that uniform, and therein lays the reason this film rests on a pedestal for me. Because it exemplifies that the true valor that our soldiers bolster does not rest in their iconic image the media broadcasts, but the underlying grit and perseverance instilled in them as human beings.