I totally never got the impression that they had busted Mike Durrant out. After showing the struggles the guys went through to save him, his capture, and words with his captors - I assumed that he was still imprisoned. I guess it’s because they made such a huge deal out of the way that he was taken captive, I assumed that if they had gotten him out then, it would have been shown. It would have been an audience cheering type moment and no movie would just gloss over that in favor of watching some guys running down a street. Then, especially when the Delta guy went back in, I figured that Durrant was one of the guys he was gonna try and find.
Yeah, I definately remember them going in to protect him. They were repeatedly asked if they knew the risk. What I’m saying is I don’t remember there being an effort to retrieve the bodies of the two Delta after they were killed. When help finally reached that chopper, they found one of them’s shattered helmet. Did the movie address any effort not to leave Shugart and Gordon behind as well?
I meant my post to sound more like interface2x’s. THat is the way I felt leaving the theater. Of course, having read the book, I knew what happened (I also remember very vividly seeing Durant’s face on Newsweek from his time in captivity).
I think the whole thing comes down to semantics. Did they “leave him behind” because they didn’t rescue him with guns or did they NOT leave him behind because they were still in Mog patrolling while the diplomats gained his surrender? I think the latter. I think they didn’t leave him behind in Mog as opposed to the POWs that were left behind in Vietnam. To me, that is the definition of left behind. When the WHOLE unit pulls out without their comrades.
There is likely more to the story that we didn’t get. The only reason we got Delta Force info is because they were accompanied by Rangers. I imagine if the Delta Force guys go on a mission by themselves, the details are a more guarded.
(Actually I just remembered seeing a documentary with an ex-Delta Operator being interviewed with his image concealed. I guess there are some big mouth Delta boys).
I think the tagline should have been the quote from Plato at the beginning of the movie:
Upon reading it I distinctly remember getting an eerie chill up my spine, followed by the realization I’m completely ignorant when it comes to classical Greek philosophy.
Yo Dude, that Sew Crates guy is awesome!
A 3-disc special edition DVD was just released last month, and having seen it, I can say that almost every question you could possibly have about both the actual battle of Mogadishu and/or the making of the movie is answered somewhere on one of the DVDs. There is even a commentary track with four of the men who are veterans of the fight (including Danny McKnight, the man Tom Sizemore played in the movie), which addresses every change and every accuracy in the film. I’ll quote Jason Isaacs in one of the on-set interviews and say, not to sound like a surfer, but it’s awesome – 3 commentary tracks, a 2.5-hour documentary on the making of the movie (that includes interviews with Ridley Scott, the cast, and the military advisors who were veterans of the firefight), both the Frontline and History Channel documentaries, 3 Q&A sessions with the filmmakers and military advisors, and lots more I haven’t seen yet. You can get it with a 25% discount here from Amazon.
jk1245’s question up there about William Fichtner’s character was answered in one of the commentaries – the guy his character is based on is still an active Delta op, so his name had to be changed for the movie.
There is footage of Michael Durant’s recovery in the History Channel documentary of the battle included on one of the DVDs. First of all, the movie was limited to the timeline of the firefight from Oct 3 - 4, so they didn’t want to include scenes that occurred in the following weeks. From the documentary, it seemed that what happened was that news of Durant’s capture reached Clinton/the Pentagon, who sent many more troops, tanks, even gun boats to the area, and said basically, “Give him back or we’ll crush you.” Durant was then released to US custody (though it’s not exactly clear how this happened). There is footage of him being carried by US soldiers in a stretcher back to the base.
Regarding lieu’s question about Shughart and Gordon, they were the two men whose bodies were dragged through the streets and mutilated (beyond retrieval, was my impression) by the Somali crowds. It isn’t clear, at any rate, if their bodies were ever recovered into US custody.
Here is the story of Mike Durant’s rescue, taken from Mark Bowden’s original online serial. (This is a great site – tons of pictures, .rm interviews, maps, glossary, who’s who, etc.)
OK, this is really a question not about the movie, but about the the incident, and about the military in general: Is it really standing policy to “leave no man behind dead or alive?” I can understand it if they’re alive. Rescue missions make sense to me. but if they know someone is dead, do they really go back for the body? I mean, I know the dead deserve respect and such, but it doesn’t make sense to me to risk more death to retrieve a corpse.
I’m far too cowardly to ever be in the military, but if I were KIA, I’d want them to leave me until it was safe to retrieve my body by diplomatic means. And if it never happens, and I’m torn to shreds by angry rioters, so be it. At least no one else would be killed for no reason. (Don’t want to spark a GD here, I’m saying my opinion)
I might be wrong about this, but I believe that Col. Lee Van Arsdale (Delta Force) makes a comment either in one of the documentaries or in the commentary to the film that it was the images of dead US and Pakistani soldiers being dragged through the streets during the earlier weeks that made him so adamant about getting the dead pilots retrieved from the crash sites. He says something to the effect of it not being a question of risking live men to retrieve dead ones (I think he was speaking specifically about the attempt to retrieve Cliff Wolcott, who was trapped in the wreckage – the rescuers were not under fire at the time). Van Arsdale does go into some detail about wanting to retrieve the bodies…I’m just not remembering it well.
At any rate, it seemed to me that “leave no man behind” really means “no living man,” but they will make every attempt to retrieve the dead, as well.
Now someone who actually knows what they’re talking about can answer the question better.
(Seriously, though, the DVD has your answer somewhere…)
Just speaking for myself, I had no trouble understanding that Durant was still a POW at the end of the film. Nor did I have any trouble reading the text at the end of the movie, despite watching it on HBO (no pause function) on a 20" set. Others M obviously V. And I don’t think the “Leave no man behind” tag line was at all misleading: Durant is not currently a prisoner in Somalia, so clearly we didn’t leave him behind. His release was simply outside the scope of the already overburdened screenplay.
Incidentally, I think the idea of going back for dead soldiers is that its often hard to tell who’s dead and who’s merely wounded in the middle of a firefight. So, you get everybody out, and sort out who’s who after you get back to safety.