Michael Durant
Yiret M. Garzon
Black Hawk Down
(Michael Durant)
Michael Durant was an US military forces pilot. In 1993, he was part of Restore Hope, a peacekeeping mission in Somalia to bring stability to a war-torn country so that relief organizations could provide food and resources for the country's starving people. During this mission he was captured by members of the Somali rebels directed by General Mohamed Farrah Aidid. He was wounded when his helicopter (Black Hawk) crashed, but he was still alive. He felt he was going to die when a group of rebels approached the crash scene and killed the rest of the soldiers that were there with him. Instead of killing him, he was taken alive and seriously wounded to make videos and “negotiate”, but he resisted saying that he was only a soldier and he was not in charge. He had a picture of his family the time he was capture, and most likely thinking about them at that time he did not gave up, but he felt courageous enough to resist the rebels’ propositions knowing that he could be killed. He kept his military values at all times even under that much pressure and fear for his own life.
The fear and the uncertainty of ever getting out of there alive with all those injuries had to be one of the worst parts of the whole situation, but helicopters were sent to send messages to him affirming that they were not leave him behind. Those words gave him hope, and in an interview he did for a military paper he said "When I regained consciousness, I had a back injury, a broken leg and broken bones in my face. They had shot me. I had injuries that would have led to me dying in 35 to 40 days." But his relationship with God also grew in those days. "I prayed more in the 11 days of captivity than I have my entire life," he said. Durant spent 11 days in captivity, being released after heated negotiations. He went on to fly with the
Black Hawk Down
(Michael Durant)
Michael Durant was an US military forces pilot. In 1993, he was part of Restore Hope, a peacekeeping mission in Somalia to bring stability to a war-torn country so that relief organizations could provide food and resources for the country's starving people. During this mission he was captured by members of the Somali rebels directed by General Mohamed Farrah Aidid. He was wounded when his helicopter (Black Hawk) crashed, but he was still alive. He felt he was going to die when a group of rebels approached the crash scene and killed the rest of the soldiers that were there with him. Instead of killing him, he was taken alive and seriously wounded to make videos and “negotiate”, but he resisted saying that he was only a soldier and he was not in charge. He had a picture of his family the time he was capture, and most likely thinking about them at that time he did not gave up, but he felt courageous enough to resist the rebels’ propositions knowing that he could be killed. He kept his military values at all times even under that much pressure and fear for his own life.
The fear and the uncertainty of ever getting out of there alive with all those injuries had to be one of the worst parts of the whole situation, but helicopters were sent to send messages to him affirming that they were not leave him behind. Those words gave him hope, and in an interview he did for a military paper he said "When I regained consciousness, I had a back injury, a broken leg and broken bones in my face. They had shot me. I had injuries that would have led to me dying in 35 to 40 days." But his relationship with God also grew in those days. "I prayed more in the 11 days of captivity than I have my entire life," he said. Durant spent 11 days in captivity, being released after heated negotiations. He went on to fly with the