From The Chapters: (Each page starts a story from a different person)

INSTINCT:
 

I had been in Somalia for a month, arriving there at the end of March 1993. The United Nations (UN) was not going to take over until the first week of May, so the Marines were still in control of Mogadishu. I was a Public Affairs Officer (PAO) with the US forces gearing up to take over. I had just left the Pakistani Brigade Commander’s Headquarters (HQ) on my way back to the UN Military Headquarters a few miles away. I was getting ready to put him in front of the media, so I was teaching him how to greet the press, about a press brief, and how to take questions, among other things. I was driving back to the HQ along a major artery, 21 Oct Road.

The city was fairly quiet. The Marines had called Mogadishu secure, so we wore flack vests for our torso but berets instead of kevlar helmets on our heads. I had a Norwegian shooter, Kel Nickolson, who rode in the passenger seat with a rifle. He was a big bear of a guy I called Iron Mike. I drove our white Jeep while Kel remained ready to respond to a threat with his weapon. As we drove back, we noticed that the road up ahead was clear. In fact, it was not only clear, it was void of movement, no pedestrians or traffic at all.

We were always taught to look for obstacles that stopped or slowed movement as a sign of an ambush. If there was an obstacle in the road, assume it was covered by fire, and that was an ambush. Well the converse is also true. If the road is absolutely clear with no pedestrians around, it is probably not a good place to be. Iron Mike and I had a deal. Whenever we were in the city, as we often were, we kept our windows rolled down. We did not use the air conditioning even though it was hotter than blazes. That way we could better hear, feel, and taste the environment around us. It was like employing a sixth sense. I had never heard a shot fired in anger up until that point, and it is true that you do not hear the shot that gets you.

I was going a good clip, about 50 miles per hour, through this stretch of road. There was a ‘snap’ on the door frame to my left front, and instantly the right rear window of the vehicle blew out. We did not know we were being shot at or that I had been hit by a bullet from an AK-47. We had no idea what was going on. When the round hit the door jam it exploded and peppered the side of my head with bullet fragments. When the right rear window blew out, we thought we were getting hit from the right. Then all of a sudden there was all sorts of firing, and I punched the gas to speed through the kill zone.

I looked in the left rearview mirror to see why my ear was ringing and saw blood spurting out of my temple, not just running, but spurting out as though an artery had been hit. A thought flashed through my mind as I remembered when I saw autopsies done on Marines who had been shot in the head from close range. Looking at myself I thought, ‘Boy, I’ve seen better looking corpses than this.’ I wondered, ‘Am I dead? Is this an out-of-body experience? What is this?’ It was very ethereal. I felt like I had been there before in some of my training. Still under fire and moving quickly, I took out a bandage from my LBE and held it on my head.

I watched the blood run down my head, still holding the bandage, and not really sure of what had happened. “Mike, I’m hit, but I don’t know if it was a bullet or a rock,” I said.

Iron Mike asked, “Do you want me to drive?”

I said, “No. If I pass out from blood loss here’s what we’ll do...,” and I went through a five-point contingency plan. We worked out how we were going to get back to the headquarters. Mike got on the radio and called ahead to the American Hospital. I was very disoriented. It was much like the confusion in Ranger School where you are tired and hungry but you still have to get to the objective. Somehow you find the fortitude to get there.

I was driving, in control of our fate, and though I was not certain I could maintain consciousness, ---//////////

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