No Man Left Behind; Gothic Serpent, 21 years later
Editor’s Note: This is republished from 2008, but Operation Gothic Serpent was 21 years ago today. It’s lessons live on and we’re still waging a war that has it’s roots in that battle;
15 years ago today I lost a dear friend. Tim Martin and I showed up at the Reception Station in Fort Polk Louisana – I won’t mention the year, the fact that they were still doing Basic and Infantry AIT at Ft Polk should be enough to narrow it down for you. He was a huge, quiet and friendly guy and I felt lucky that we were attached alphabetically through those 16 weeks. I can’t count the times that I’d stumbled and looked up to see his outstretched hand to help me up.
After those 16 weeks, it four weeks together at the Basic Airborne Course in Georgia then he went to the 2d Ranger Battalion at Lewis and I went to Fort Stewart (yes, the 1st Battalion was actually on Fort Stewart in those days). We went off in our separate directions for four years and we rarely saw each other, but each time we met, the conversation picked up right where it had left off the last time.
I’ve never met anyone who ever met him that had a bad word for him. He loved the Army, and later I learned he loved his family more.
I found out his final fate on October 18th, 1993 while I was leaving my last duty station as a retired soldier when I read the casualty list from what is now down as the “Blackhawk Down” fiasco and found his name.
I spent the next seven years trying to find out what happened to him. I became a member of the fine Paratrooper.net forum, run by my good friend Mark (back when Mark and I were the only participating members). As the forum grew, I put together bits and pieces of the story and some wonderful soul sent his wife Linda my way. She sent me pictures of him which I’ve put on my accompanying website as a memorial to Master Sergeant Tim “Griz” Martin.
The movie Blackhawk Down did a great job capturing his personality and immortalizing his love for his daughters.
Another friend at paratrooper.net, 509thTrooper, helped me get Tim a brick at the Ranger Memorial in Fort Benning. Then he went and took a picture of it for me.
I stop and visit with Tim at Arlington at least twice every year on Veterans’ Day and Memorial Day and every Christmas when I make my rounds there. And every day I give thanks for men like Tim Martin who are willing to put everything on the line for the rest of us. But today, especially, I save for Tim. And for Linda and their girls who sacrificed everything for us as well.
And thanks to COB6 for reminding me to share it with you.
Category: Blue Skies, Historical
Lost a lot of damn good men that day. RIP Brothers.
1st SFOD-D
MSG Gary Gordon
Killed defending the crew of Super Six-Four
SFC Randy Shughart
Killed defending the crew of Super Six-Four
SSG Daniel Busch
Crashed on Super Six-One, died from wounds received defending the downed crew
SFC Earl Fillmore
Killed moving to the first crash site
SFC Matt Rierson
Killed on October 6, 1993 by a mortar which landed just outside the hangar
MSG Tim “Griz” Martin
Died from wounds received on the Lost Convoy
3rd Ranger Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment
CPL Jamie Smith
Died of wounds with the pinned-down force around crash site one
SPC James Cavaco
Killed on the Lost Convoy
SGT Casey Joyce
Killed on the Lost Convoy
PFC Richard “Alphabet” Kowalewski
Killed on the Lost Convoy
SGT Dominick Pilla
Killed on Struecker’s convoy
SGT Lorenzo Ruiz
Killed on the Lost Convoy
160th SOAR (Nightstalkers)
SSG William Cleveland Crew chief on Super Six-Four
SSG Thomas Field Crew chief on Super Six-Four
CW4 Raymond Frank Copilot of Super Six-Four
CW3 Clifton “Elvis” Wolcott Pilot of Super Six-One and died in crash
CW2 Donovan “Bull” Briley Copilot of Super Six-One and died in crash
2nd Battalion 14th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade 10th Mountain Division
SGT Cornell Houston
Killed on the rescue convoy
PFC James Henry Martin 10th Mountain also KIA.
RIP Houston, Sappers forward.
I had just re-enlisted into the Active Army from the Guard when this happened. Those who gave so much that day will never be forgotten!
Rangers Lead the Way, Night Stalkers Don’t Quit… and they proved it in incredible fashion.
As always, condolences on the loss of Tim. I have this odd feeling the both of you were identical in nature.
RIP, MSG Tim “Griz” Martin
Hooah
RIP, MSG, and all those who sacrificed that day.
R.I.P. Fallen Warriors, enjoy Heaven, you did your time in hell.
Thank you, as I am remembering him now, on the 21st anniversary of his death I look to see what is out there and know that this site is always there for, not only the guys and comrades of those who have given all but, also, the families. Thank you for that, John.
He is having the time of his life in Heaven, I’m sure…and I can’t wait to see him again, when I get there! God bless all our heroes.
Linda
Thanks for coming by, Linda. All my love to you and your daughters.
Thanks for posting this again.
I joined the army two months prior to this happening and was a DEP still waiting to go to Basic when I saw this on TV.
Earlier this year I found COL McKnight’s book “Streets of Mogadishu” which is short but excellent and to the point. I’d read other books on the operation, but this is good for leadership aspects. I also found out I joined 20 years to the day after COL McKnight did, which I thought was interesting. (03 August 1993)
This is part of the reason why I hate the whole “we’ll just use special forces” nonsense that is coming out of our political class now. They seem to think that if we use a light footprint, we’ll somehow stay out of trouble, but we have a lot of experience that shows that sometimes special operations units are just enough force to get into trouble.
Look, I don’t intend any disrespect to SF troops, who I believe are highly trained, exceptionally motivated, top-notch troops, but in the end they are not supermen. One company of armor in Somalia could most likely have extracted those soldiers and saved us a lot of grief and suffering (and a company of regular infantry standing as QRF by might have done the same with operation Red Wings).
“Boots on the gournd” (another moronic turn of phrase that our political betters cling to almost superstitiously) matter. Use enough force to carry out the mission-or have we abandoned lessons learned?
I wrote a whole long post about a little known Navy participant but got a DNS error.
In short USS Rentz had been doing MIO, brought an arms smuggler into Mogadishu and had done some air control operations (comms relay mostly) with the group.
General Garrison had noted to us that the skinnies were freaked out about the “battleship” off the coast. We were in the process of working out an NGFS “demonstration” some time between Sept. 25th and Oct. 3rd, but it never bappened because we were unexpectedly recalled to the Gulf.
I can only guess but I think the idea might have been that us plinking 76mm HEPD rounds on the beach would have kept the militias at home. But we will never know.
Interesting-I guess I didn’t even think about indirect fire. I suppose we might have “carved a path” to safety if necessary (or if the command authority would have had the stomach for it).
First it’s SOF, not SF. And second both Redwings and Gothic Serpent don’t show the limitations of SOF. What Gothic Serpent did was establish a lot of SOPs in blood that would have taken another disaster to figure out. Things like integrated Comms Nets, having a dedicated GFC, the importance of having every one well briefed on the plan. GRGs and Comms to the lowest level shooter. And way to many others to list. What Redwings showed was what happens when a bunch of idiots when they decide to break those rules. Unfortunately with that it cost a lot of other guys who had nothing to do with the planning of that op their lives.
First it’s SOF, not SF
That’s a quibble, I conveyed my meaning (“a rose by any other name”), but whatever.
And second both Redwings and Gothic Serpent don’t show the limitations of SOF.
I’m not sure why you think that. Those limitations obviously exist-again these aren’t supermen, you can’t expect them to overcome any and every situation they encounter. We have conventional forces for a reason-they’re a big can of whoop-ass and when the fighting is heavy they’re the right tool for the job.
I’m not sure why you think it would have taken “another disaster in blood to figure out” how to operate in such an environment-for Christ’s sakes the South Africans had figured out that you needed wheeled vehicles with armored protection as far back as Namibia in the 1980s (v-shaped bottoms as well) and having up-armored vehicles instead of soft skinned HMMWVs and trucks would have saved many lives. It’s telling that almost immediately after the Mogadishu disaster that the Army sent 1-64 armor to Somalia and that they stayed until the next March when almost all other forces had withdrawn.
The mission didn’t go bad due to a lack of armor, it went bad due to lack of experience. Those guys where making up the playbook as they went along. You don’t need tanks and apcs to work in a urban environment, kinda goes against the point of having a quick and agile SOF force to begin with. Had they worked out one simple comms error, that in hindsight is super obvious, they would have been in out without ever losing a bird.
<i?The mission didn’t go bad due to a lack of armor…
Well I never said that it did, but when it went bad (and no plan ever survives first contact with the enemy) having the force necessary to correct the screw-up became paramount.
Armor would have accomplished that (Pakistani APCs eventually did</b? accomplish that). My whole point is that this whole "no boots on the ground" nonsense (except SOF, cause they don’t count somehow) is foolish because we won’t have the force necessary when things inevitably go bad. Do you disagree?
Lousy formatting errors-anyway I intended to only bold a word here and there and not that entire passage.
FWIW: US armor would almost certainly have been used if available, IMO most probably for the extraction or relief convoys, or on standby as a QRF in the event of unplanned events.
The senior US commander on the ground – MG Montgomery, who was then the deputy UN Commander in Somalia – had requested both armor and AC-130s be made available in Somalia well prior to Gothic Serpent. Those assets were refused by then-SECDEF Les Aspin on political grounds.
Roughly two months after Gothic Serpent, Aspin was ex-SECDEF. By then, US armor was en route to or had already arrived at Mogadishu.
Would US armor and AC-130 gunship support have prevented all the casualties that day? Probably not. Would it have made a significant difference? Good question.
The Army’s position 7 months after the fact (May 1994) was that it would not have made much difference.
http://articles.latimes.com/1994-05-13/news/mn-57251_1_heavy-armor
I tend to disagree. AC-130 gunfire support would have reduced (though not eliminated) the need for low-level air support at risk of engagement by small-arms and RPGs. Even BFVs would have provided substantially more protection for both the “Lost Convoy” and the later extraction convoy than the unarmored vehicles that were used. And US armor would have presumably been “at the ready” under US control and immediately available vice obtained after much effort from other UN forces.
But we’ll obviously never know.
His (Garrison) testimony appeared to deflect some of the blame from former Defense Secretary Les Aspin.
Cough, cough, cough, cough!!!
Aspin said after the raid that he had turned down U.S. commanders’ request for more armor because he feared that Congress would object if the Administration appeared to be increasing the U.S. presence abroad at a time when it had asserted that the United States was winding down its operations in Somalia. That decision has been blamed in part for President Clinton’s decision to replace Aspin.
Boots on the ground!!!
I am not arguing that armor would not have been used or needed in 93. What I am stating is that with today’s SOPs and knowledge in SOF, had you conducted the same mission with a similar task force and even had a help go down early in it, it would have been greatly different. It would not have been the distaster it was. A lot of good men died on that day doing stuff we take for granted now, but were unknown ideas and concepts at the time.
I’m glad to hear that SOF have taken those lessons to heart (it seems that no one else in the Army ever does), but I hope that one of those SOPs is to have a “things have gone completely to shit” plan which involves having sufficient force standing by to deal with whatever problems eventually pop up.
That’s the point I am trying to make. Operation Gothic Serpent had no plan for shits hit the fan. They committed the majority of their force. And had no organic QRF or anybody on standby. Redwings had a bunch of cowboys just ignore every thing they were told and thought. Those ops don’t prove they can’t operate by themselves, just they can’t be stupid and about it.
It’s not that I don’t think that SOF shouldn’t have a lot of latitude and independence to do what they do, but that they are ultimately a useful asset to the overall commander who has to be prepared to pull their fat from the frier (or that of anyone else-for that matter). If they have planned for this themselves (and-more importantly-can make it happen) then all well and good. But he should have assets in place to do so if they fail to plan or if their plan fails.
And I am not arguing that the presence of armor and AC-130 gunship support would have made the mission a complete success – only that it might have mitigated the consequences when things “went south”. Given the original assault plan, the communications error that cost the assault force a substantial amount of time might well still have occurred. If so, we’d have taken casualties – just IMO not quite as many.
Of course, the presence of Armor could have resulted in a different plan altogether – one that was less dependent on surprise, close timing and precision. And that different plan in turn might or might not have succeeded completely.
We’ll never know either way.
What we do know is that the commander on the ground was denied assets he requested that should have been available in-theater at the time of the operation. He had to “make do” without them.
The commander on the ground should not have had to “make do”.
And yet Hondo, we still rolled into Iraq in 2003 with Canvassed Covered Hummers to engage in Urban Warfare.
After all those years the Troops were still “making do” Shame on those leaders
This-times several million.
I was in 278th Cav in 2004 when Rummy made his whole “you go to war with the Army you’ve got speech” to our regiment at Buehring.
What generally didn’t get reported is that we got brand new LMTV’s at Camp Shelby to prepare us for Iraq. But they weren’t up-armored and our maintenance guys worked night and day to “hillbilly” armor them before we went north.
We got kits put on them later, which was fine, but still made maintenance work even harder since the frames were not built to carry all that weight (my M997 “cracker box” ambulance used to slow our patrols down because it was already heavier than other HMMWVs, but didn’t have any kind of enhanced engine).
Don’t get me started on the planning for OIF – or more precisely, the post-conflict occupation phase of OIF. IMO that was an utter fiasco. It took us about 5 years to recover from screwing that up by-the-numbers.
The problems there IMO were far worse than “we won’t let you have the equipment you requested and need.”
This is why we persecute those guilty of stolen valor with a ruthlessness that many just don’t comprehend, because of the comrades we have lost who cannot fend for themselves anymore.
To one of the TRUE 1%. RIP Master Sergeant. Hand Salute.
Never Forget
Punish all POSer’s
Thank you for this story and reminder. May we never forget. Honorable men all. God bless and keep their families always and give these heroes the Rest of Peace a true warrior deserves.
Thanks Jonn. Hope there is solace for you in that you served with such a man.
I read this every year and it always sends a chill down my spine and puts a lump in my throat.
I just spent the last 45 minutes relearning this incident!
Bless Griz and all …
Hooah
He died too soon. He should have died hereafter.