Thirty years ago, 10th Mountain played role in Mogadishu battle

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Spectrum News
BY BRIAN DWYER FORT DRUM
Wednesday October 4, 2023

The Oct. 3, 1993 battle of Mogadishu, Somalia is best known from the book and movie “Black Hawk Down.” But one local retired Army chaplain said there’s a memory from that day that didn’t make the screen.

“The scene that deserves to be in the movie ‘Black Hawk Down’ is when 10th Mountain Division, the 2-14 Battalion, shows up at the base,” said Jeff Struecker. “The battalion's sergeant major is right in front of me, and he gathers his own NCOs around and he tells them what is being asked of them.”

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A 10th Mountain Division regiment — the Second Battalion, 14th Infantry or 2-14 — helped save numerous lives, including Struecker's.

“They didn't have the ammo that I had,” Struecker said. “They didn't have the training. They didn't have the weapons and the equipment that I had. But they stood on that battlefield and fought with us all night long. I would not be alive if it wasn't for this division.”

Retired Army Ranger Keni Thomas agrees. Thomas, like Struecker, had boots on the ground during the battle.

“There's 135 guys on the ground in that battle. By the time it got to be dark, we had 78 men wounded and 18 dead. You do the math on that. There's only about 30 of us left to fight. The guys in the vehicles kept coming. We needed … we counted on the 10th Mountain guys,” Thomas said.

At 4 a.m. on October 4, his rescue came.

“And the first vehicle comes to me. A young guy jumps out, he's a [private first class], and I knew he wasn't one of us because he just looked a little bit different. And I grabbed my goggles and I pick it up like, ‘who are you?’ And the first words out of his mouth were, ‘Hey, sir, I'm just a mechanic,’ ” Thomas said of the driver of his rescue vehicle, a mechanic with the 10th Mountain."

“And I looked at him like, ‘Hey, buddy, you're the guy that just can't do that firefight, right, that I've been listening to for 12 hours out there on the street.’ I said, ‘that weapon looks like you've been using it.’ And he says, ‘Roger that.’ I said, ‘Yeah, but I think you're not just a mechanic anymore. I think what you are is an American soldier right now and right now, you’re my hero. Let’s go',” Thomas recalled.

During the final stretch of the battle, the rangers being taken to safety by the 10th Mountain could not all fit into vehicles, so they used the vehicles as cover, walking to a Pakistani medical facility and safety.

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