Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War

by Mark Bowden

The disdain was mutual. Steele accepted that these operators were good at their jobs, but he wasn’t in awe of them. He found their civilian manner and contemptuous attitude toward Ranger discipline hard to take. Sure, it was a good idea to encourage individual initiative and creative thinking in combat, but some of these guys had strayed so far from traditional army norms it seemed unhealthy. They could be comically arrogant. When they’d gotten a list of potential target sites, for instance, the D-boys had divvied them up among different teams. Each was assigned to draw up an assault plan. Since his men were involved, Steele had sat in on the meeting when the various schemes were presented. The captain’s experience with such a planning session was like this: You sat there and took notes and asked questions only to make sure you got things down correctly and then saluted on your way out. The D-boys’ meeting was a free-for-all. One group would present its plan and somebody would pipe up, “Why, that’s the stupidest thing I ever heard,” which would provoke a sturdy “Fuck you,” which quickly degenerated into guys screaming at each other. It looked to Steele like they were about to assume Kung Fu stances and have it out. Steele could imagine what would happen if a company of Rangers operated that way. Some of his men were still boys. As far as the captain could tell, most had just emerged from a lifetime of lounging on sofas eating Fritos and watching MTV. Basic and Ranger train...