Crossing the Intersection of

DeathBy Peter Grier

50 AIR FORCE Magazine / October 2013 TSgt. Timothy Wilkinson broke cover three separate times to aid severely wounded Rangers and Special Forces troops. His dashes across a wide in- tersection under an unceasing barrage of small-arms fire and rocket propelled grenades saved many lives.

t was a firebox hot Sunday afternoon in a US attempt to snatch local warlords. The aircraft Somalia, Oct. 3, 1993. Air Force TSgt. had spun down and crashed in bad guy territory. Timothy A. Wilkinson was sitting on an Wilkinson was a PJ, an Air Force pararescue ammo can in a US Army Black Hawk jumper. Finding and saving personnel in harm’s helicopter circling above the ruined city way is what PJs do for a living. Immediately, Intersection ofI Mogadishu. The call came in about 4:30 p.m.: Wilkinson and fellow members of his combat search A rocket propelled grenade had struck the tail of and rescue team began preparing for insertion to Super 61, another Black Hawk that was supporting the crash site. Another call came in: There were

TSgt. Tim Wilkinson earned the Air Force Cross for his heroism during 1993’s harrowing Battle of Mogadishu.

AIR FORCE Magazine / October 2013 51 eight US personnel on Super 61, not warren of stone walls and buildings that day. We were decisively engaged four. RPGs were fl ying through the near the Bakaara Market, epicenter right from the start,” said Wilkinson in airspace below, more than Wilkinson of the area of influence for warlord an oral history published in The Battle had ever seen on previous missions. Mohammed Farah Aidid and his Habr of Mogadishu: Firsthand Accounts Fast-rope was clearly the best way Gedir clan. From the Men of Task Force Ranger. in. Their pilot came in hard, banked, Wilkinson moved to a wall on the Somalia in 1993 was the defi nition and then fl ared up the nose of the Black west side of the street. He was sweating of a failed nation. It had been split by Hawk to about 30 degrees to slow the and could not see anything. He had no sectarian and ethnic warfare since the helicopter. Downwash from the rotors idea how to find the crash site of Super collapse of the government of Moham- kicked up Somali dust and created a 61. Then he saw some members of his med Siad Barre in 1991. Drought and brownout. Thick ropes dangled from team on the other side of the street, fi ghting over food stocks and relief both open doors. moving south to a corner about 130 supplies had caused widespread famine feet away. in the country in 1992, leading the US Heat, Dust, and AK-47 Rounds Wilkinson grabbed his medical bags to begin a food airlift. Violence con- Wilkinson was the last man on the and hustled after them as automatic tinued to hamper aid distribution, so in right side. He kicked out some medi- weapons fi re kicked up dirt in the December 1992, President George H. cal supply bags forgotten in the rush, street. He rounded the corner and W. Bush ordered in US military forces. then grasped the rope with his heavy blinked: Crammed in a narrow alley, “Their mission was to ensure that leather fast-rope gloves and slid off the wrecked Black Hawk seemed huge. relief supplies reached the people who into the dust. It was like descending It was sitting on its left side, tail boom needed them and thus to ‘break the a flexible fireman’s pole as fast as cracked, rotors missing. cycle’ of starvation and save lives,” ac- possible. Rangers and Special Forces at the cording to the publication “The United The second he cleared the door, site had established a command post States Army in Somalia: 1992-1994” by the Black Hawk took an RPG in its and casualty collection point about the US Army Center of Military History. main rotor. The pilots didn’t flee. 15 feet down the alley. Wilkinson Offi cially, the US military was oper- They waited until Wilkinson and his extracted some litters from his bags ating under the umbrella of the United fellow rescue team members were on and got them ready to load wounded. Nations Operations in Somalia, or the ground. Then they struggled away, He figured that a ground convoy of UNOSOM. During the course of the trailing smoke, with no oil pressure. Army personnel would arrive shortly Somali operation, 23 nations, including They would make it back to the air- and he had to be ready. He also fig- Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, port—barely. ured that they had a half-hour or so Italy, Malaysia, Morocco, and Pakistan The ground was a chaos of heat, until Aidid’s fighters could organize provided troops. dust, and snapping AK-47 rounds. themselves for a concerted attack. But US fi repower, intelligence, and Wilkinson was standing on Marehan That surmise was incorrect. The PJ logistics capabilities were the backbone Road, a narrow thoroughfare in a had just landed in a battle that would of the effort. Within a few months, aid stretch into the next day and be immor- was fl owing relatively freely to the talized in the book and movie “Black desperate Somali people. Hawk Down.” Wilkinson would earn Little violence occurred between an Air Force Cross for his actions. February and May of 1993. Markets “I was wrong about how much time reopened, travel within the country we had, as I was about everything else became possible, and some offi cials AP photo by Dominique Mollard DOD photo by PHCMTerry Mitchell

A gunner on a US Army Black Hawk covers the fl ight of a Cobra gunship US marines stand guard while others load ammunition and weapons seized in a during a patrol over Mogadishu, Soma- raid at the Bakaara Market in Mogadishu. US forces were originally in Somalia to lia, in October 1993. ensure that relief supplies reached the needy. 52 AIR FORCE Magazine / October 2013 began talking of reinstituting a Somali national police force to enforce the shaky calm. “However, clan rivalry and US reluc- tance to engage in long-term ‘nation- building’ operations soon doomed the effort,” concludes the US Army Center Corbis photo by Chris Rainier of Military History. May was the turning point. The US, eager to bring troops home, turned control of the mission completely over to the UN. The military situation then began to unravel. Warlord Aidid seemed to have little respect for the UN or the new UNOSOM II forces. On June 5, his fi ghters ambushed and killed 24 Pakistani UNOSOM II soldiers. In response, US AC-130 gunships began hammering Aidid’s weapons depots, radio station, and A soldier for one of the warring factions struggling for control of Somalia hefts a related facilities. rocket launcher through Mogadishu in 1993. The UN issued a warrant for Aidid’s arrest. In August, Aidid’s men detonated Aidid’s forces slammed TF Ranger ner and crew chief was still strapped a mine under a UNOSOM II vehicle, with heavier fi re than in previous raids. in his seat—and alive. The PJ dug at killing four US military policemen. As Another Black Hawk went down a mile the junk that covered the gunner and the security situation worsened, UN south of the fi rst destroyed helicopter. began to cut his seat straps. A Special Secretary-General Boutros Boutros- Forces medic dropped in to help. The Ghali asked new US President Bill Inside the Snow Globe gunner, freed, began to stand up. At Clinton to help catch Aidid. The Battle of Mogadishu was on. that moment the interior of the Black The answer to this request was Task The two-day fi refi ght would develop Hawk lit up with enemy fi re. Force Ranger. An assault force composed into the fi ercest engagement for the US “It looked like the inside of one of of Delta Force special operators, Army military since the Vietnam War. those little snow globes that you shake Rangers, Air Force pararescuemen and At the Super 61 crash site Wilkinson and watch the fl akes swirl about,” said combat controllers, Navy SEALs, and found more US personnel than had Wilkinson in his Battle of Mogadishu a special operations aviation element, roped in with his team. Some of the fi rsthand account. TF Ranger was in Somalia by Aug. 28. Rangers and Special Forces personnel All three men were hit by shrapnel. Over the next few weeks it staged six involved in the nearby snatch-and-grab Wilkinson was wounded in the face and raids into Mogadishu from its base at had moved in to lend support. arm while the gunner lost two fi ngertips. the airport on the outskirts of the city. One of the helicopter crew chiefs They began ripping up the Kevlar fl oor TF Ranger snatched one of Aidid’s key was walking about dazed, still stunned panels of the helicopter and leaning lieutenants. It limited Aidid’s mobility from the crash. A Special Forces sniper them against the sides to provide some to areas of the city under his more-or- was trying to lift the copilot out of the protection against bullets. After they less direct control. But resistance was top right side of the wreckage. The slid the gunner outside, Wilkinson and stiffening. Aidid’s men seemed more copilot was dead. The sniper said the the Special Forces medic handed out the and more willing to engage US forces pilot was dead, too. Kevlar panels to place around the casu- with every weapon at their disposal, Wilkinson crawled into the wreckage alty collection point at the aircraft’s tail. from small arms and RPGs to 106 mm from the right side door, which was Wilkinson tended to the wounded recoilless rifl es. now at the top since the Black Hawk while Rangers kept up a steady stream of Then on Oct. 3 TF Ranger launched was lying on its side. The sniper was suppressing fi re. Somali RPGs seemed its seventh mission. Intelligence had right: The pilot, like the copilot, had to come in waves, with a large volley revealed that Aidid aides were meeting been killed by the impact of the crash. every 20 minutes or so. The PJ surmised near the Olympic Hotel, in an area known The body was trapped underneath the that was the length of time it took for as the Black Sea. If the US could capture crushed instrument panel and would Aidid’s fi ghters to return to their ware- his top men it would be an audacious not be easy to remove. house, stock up, and get back to the strike against the warlord in an area Wilkinson wiggled back out to see battle. Not every grenade exploded, central to his power. if there was any way to dig underneath perhaps due to the poor quality of the But things quickly began to go wrong. the helicopter to get at the pilot. No Russian-made munitions. Helicopters carrying the assault and go. He dropped back into the fuselage. At 5:30 p.m. another call came: blocking forces arrived at the target in Then he saw a small patch of desert US forces wanted a medic across the good order. The assault team captured 24 camoufl age cloth under the debris piled intersection of the alley and Marehan Somalis and prepared to load them into at the cabin’s bottom. Was someone Road to the south. About a dozen Rang- ground convoy trucks. Then a circling still inside? ers and Special Forces personnel were Black Hawk—Super 61—was downed He called out and saw a fl ight glove hunkered down in a courtyard. Some by an RPG three blocks away. move. A hand waved. The left-side gun- were wounded and needed help. AIR FORCE Magazine / October 2013 53 Their position took fi re throughout the night and the defenders suffered further casualties. At one point a Ranger was wounded by an RPG, which pep- pered him with shrapnel and covered him in black residue from the explo- sion. He looked like a cartoon character who had survived an exploding cigar,

Photo Theodoreby Liasi/Bambino Images according to Wilkinson, but fortunately his injuries were relatively minor. In the early morning hours of Oct. 4, the armored vehicles of a pick-up quick- reaction ground force fi nally arrived. Wilkinson loaded his wounded into a Malaysian armored personnel carrier and jumped in after them. The APC moved a bit down the street, and then stopped to take on another casualty. It The picked-over remains of a US Black Hawk helicopter photographed in Mogadi- stayed still for an hour-and-a-half while shu in 1994. Eighteen US servicemembers were killed in the Battle of Mogadishu. RPGs rattled the walls. Finally the convoy rolled out, reach- The location was about 150 feet try and retrieve them. Plus, the bags ing the relative safety of a soccer sta- away, but it might as well have been might well burst on impact, making dium at about 8 a.m. When Wilkinson a mile. The wide intersection was a the whole attempt a waste. reached the US base at the airfi eld some shooting gallery, and the shooters Wilkinson decided he would rather hours later he was shocked at what he were Somalis with automatic weapons. run across the street twice than stop saw: piles of weapons, bullet-riddled Wilkinson did not hesitate. He in the middle once. So he put his head and bloodstained Humvees, and the picked up his medical sack, moved down and bowled back across to his empty cots of the 18 US personnel to the corner of the intersection, and original position amidst the familiar killed in action. said, “Cover me!” His colleagues later crack of automatic weapons. “It was then that I became aware of said they just laughed at what they all just what a huge impact this battle had knew was a cinematic absurdity. What I’m Paid To Do had on Task Force Ranger,” Wilkinson As he broke into the open, Wilkinson He stuffed IV bags in his pockets, said. thought to himself that he just needed plus some bandages and other assorted Wilkinson earned the Air Force to put his head down and plow ahead, supplies, then yelled, “Cover me!” Cross, the service’s highest honor for as if he were stealing second base. But again. For the third time he raced gallantry in combat, for his actions his boots felt heavy and he seemed to across an open killing zone under fire, in the Battle of Mogadishu. He was be stealing that base in slow motion. though “raced” might be something of the fi rst enlisted airman to receive the AK-47 rounds zipped around him. an exaggeration. award since 1975. Somehow, he made it to the courtyard He made it to the courtyard safely. His citation mentions that he re- unscathed. “My teammates have come up with peatedly exposed himself to enemy Three casualties awaited him. The a couple of theories to explain my suc- fi re to pull dead and wounded crew most seriously wounded was a Ranger cess in transiting the hostile no-man’s- members from the wreckage of Super who had taken a bullet in the hip and land between the two isolated groups 61, and that he ignored all concern for groin. He was in great pain and bleeding of the task force,” Wilkinson said in personal safety to cross the deadly open heavily. Wilkinson tried to wrap the his account. “One theory suggests that intersection. wound as tightly as he could with a while I was running across the road I “Sergeant Wilkinson’s medical skills pressure dressing. Then he slipped rub- was clumsily dropping pieces of my and uncommon valor saved the lives of ber pneumatic pants over the Ranger’s gear and had to stop to pick them up, multiple gravely wounded American legs and pelvis and pumped in air to thereby creating a stop-start, up-down soldiers in the longest sustained fi refi ght apply more pressure still. target the enemy couldn’t get a good involving United States combat forces The bleeding slowed and stopped. bead on. The other theory is that an in over 20 years,” reads the Air Force He gave the Ranger a dose of morphine exaggerated rate of arm swing com- Cross citation. and kept up IV fluids. At the rate he bined with a pathetically slow rate of “I didn’t do anything spectacular,” was using up bags his fluid supply movement created the optical illusion Wilkinson said of his actions that day. would soon be exhausted. of moving faster than I actually was, so “People were counting on me to do what Wilkinson radioed back to the ca- the enemy was constantly leading me I’m paid to do,” he told Air Force offi cials. sualty collection point for more. At too much. I don’t think either theory “I was just holding up my end of the deal first he told them to try and throw the holds much merit. I think God just on a bad day; everyone there was doing fluids across the street. Then he thought watches over fools.” what was expected of them.” I better of this approach; if the toss did not make it, the bags would be lying Peter Grier, a Washington, D.C., editor for the Christian Science Monitor, is a long- in the street, an aim point for Somalis time defense correspondent and a contributing editor to Air Force Magazine. His waiting for a US soldier to stoop and most recent article, “Dinner for Heroes,” appeared in the August issue. 54 AIR FORCE Magazine / October 2013