October 3 1993 was the day our Rangers and Delta Force blew away attackers by the hundreds--anywhere from 500 to over 2,000 enemy were killed in the fight--and pulled out of Mogadishu's Islamist inferno with the enemy leaders they were sent to capture still in their hands.
We (and our enemies, too) speak of it as a defeat, but in any other war it would have been a point of pride and consdiered a victory of brave soldiers against overwhelming odds. A Thermopolye or Alamo but where the good guys survive and win.
In the hazy world of peacekeeping, losing a score of soldiers in one battle was too high a loss to be considered a victory.
Ridley Scott's 2001 movie Black Hawk Down provided our people with a look at that bravery.
I hope we will always remember the type of men who charge into infernos to fight in our name and protect us from vicious killers. They did a Hell of a job that day in Mogadishu and deserve to be known as American soldiers who remembered duty, honor, and country to carry out a difficult mission and decimate an enemy that dared try to stop them.
It isn't our soldiers' fault that we don't really realize just what they accomplished that day.
Hooah.