Ever since Ethiopian forces went into Somalia, and more so since this week’s US AC-130 gunship attack on what is said to have been a Somalian Al Qaeda encampment, news commentators and reporters have been talking about Black Hawk Down. As in: “US forces strike Somalia again, more than 13 years after Black Hawk Down.”
When they say “Black Hawk Down,” they’re referring to the 1993 US raid in Mogadishu that ended with the deaths of 18 US servicemen and the loss of two helicopters.
Something about using Black Hawk Down as shorthand for the raid bothers me. For a few years after the raid, it was called the Battle of Mogadishu, or the “botched US raid.” No one called it Black Hawk Down.
As far as I know, Black Hawk Down was first used as a title in 1997, for a series of Philadelphia Inquirer articles on the raid. The newspaper series later became a book, which went by the same title. In 2001, Ridley Scott directed a movie about the raid, also titled Black Hawk Down.
So when reporters swap Black Hawk Down for our 1993 raid in Mogadishu, it’s like the screech of fingernails on a blackboard to me. One thing is a movie. The other thing is a significant military event that happened in Somalia. It’s as if reporters quit referring to the sinking of the Titanic as the sinking of the Titanic, and started calling it “Titanic” instead: “Today’s regulations on the number and location of lifeboats were developed in the wake of Titanic.”
The other thing that bothers me about this use of Black Hawk Down is that reporters and commentators never explain it. Apparently we all know exactly what Black Hawk Down means, and it’s not necessary to explain that it refers to the disastrous 1993 US raid in Mogadishu. But then how come they feel they have to explain everything else, even things everyone presumably knows?
When it comes to explaining things everyone knows, National Public Radio is probably the worst offender. A typical NPR interview goes something like this:
Guest: “And then Franklin Roosevelt created . . .”
Interviewer (interrupting): “That would be Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the 32nd President of the United States.”
Guest: “Yes. Anyway, then FDR created . . .”
Interviewer (interrupting): “FDR being Franklin Delano Roosevelt.”
Guest: “Yes. Then FDR created the Works Progress Administration . . .”
Interviewer (interrupting): “Commonly known as the WPA.”
. . . and so on . . .
But Black Hawk Down? They never explain that. They think they have to explain everything else, as if their listeners just emerged from a Rip Van Winkle sleep. Surely there are some listeners who don’t know what the hell Black Hawk Down means.
Nope, I don’t like it. It’s the sinking of the Titanic, not Titanic. It’s the disastrous 1993 US raid in Mogadishu, not Black Hawk Down.