Narrative+Story

Tim Day 5/21/12 Dabrush L&L3

Narrative Story

In the freezing winter of 1992, Mike Conway and 24,999 of his fellow comrades were sent out to Somalia by then-president President George Bush. This operation was called Operation RESTORE HOPE.

Somalia needed an abundance of help. The country of Somalia was struggling with internal fighting and poor economic and social conditions for people during the last quarter century of the 1900’s. Clans, one led by Ali Mahdi and the other led by Mohammed Farah Aidid, were constantly fighting. This led to the destruction of agriculture, which eventually led to people starving and dying. The people had little hope towards their bright futures. As the situation got worse and worse, the U.S. decided to help the Somalis and sent troops on mission to help the Somalis. This mission ended in a fail, thus beginning the operation Operation RESTORE HOPE.

Mike Conway woke up and gathered all his stuff. He say goodbye to his wife and child and walked out the door. On the ride to Somalia, he looked out the window of the plane and looked into the blue sky with scattered puffy clouds. He thought about not seeing his wife and daughter ever again if he didn’t make it back. When he finally landed in Somalia, he was driven to the base. During the car ride he was surprised of how bad the situation was in Somalia. Abandoned houses with graffiti that covered the houses, ruined stores with the shattered glass on the sidewalk, and bodies of Somalis in the street were just a few things he saw. He had never seen anything like this before in whole life.

Once he and the other soldiers reached the base, they set up all the equipment and were assigned tents to stay.

“Conway, Smithers, and Lewis you’re staying here,” Sergeant Johnson yelled.

“Sir yes sir!” The three soldiers saluted, picked there stuff up, and went to their assigned tent. After they finally finished setting up, they decided to play some basketball because there was hoop for all the soldiers to play in their free time. Lewis, Conway, and Smithers played a game of 2-on-1. Lewis and Smithers teamed up against Conway, but Mike had the skills and burned them on every shot. All covered in sweat they went back to their tent, changed, and went to sleep.

The next day, all the soldiers were sent to clear the way for aid delivery and get rid of the famine. Cars drove by with crates of food and water, trying to aid the starving Somalis. Mike and other soldiers were securing and patrolling the streets checking for any initial threats. While Mike was patrolling the area, he saw a kid by himself. He walked over to him and asked him some questions.

“Hey, are you by yourself little boy?” asked Conway. The boy didn’t respond to him and just stood there. Other soldiers came over to see what was going on.

“This little boy is all by himself. We should get him somewhere safe.” he told the others. Then he saw something in the distance. An object was moving on the top of a building that was still being built. He was trying to figure out what it was. He told the other soldiers about it and they turned around to look. They all were discussing about what it was.

“It’s got to be an animal or something.” said one soldier.

<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;">“No. It’s nothing. You guys are just seeing things.” Lewis said. All of sudden they heard a loud sound. It was a setup. Mike saw one of the other soldiers on the ground, shot.

<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;">“Everybody get down! Take cover! Enemies on the top of the grey building.” One of the soldiers dragged the soldier to safety with a bullet wound in the leg. Pressure was put on the wound to stop the bleeding. Mike and everybody else sprinted for cover. Mike, Lewis, and Smithers behind a broken down car, while the other soldiers were slowly advancing toward the building. The men on the roof had plentiful of machine guns. Mike suddenly saw a man with a RPG.

<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;">“RPG inbound! Everybody get away!” screamed Mike. Everybody ran for their lives. The man shot the RPG right at Mike, Smithers, and Lewis. Just before the RPG hit the ground, all three soldiers dove.

<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;">“Mike? Get up! You got to get up!” Lewis exclaimed. Mike was on the ground motionless for about a minute. His ears were filled with a loud ringing noise from the impact of the RPG. All the soldiers had to help Mike, Smithers, and others up because they were too weak to get up without assistance. Mike was covered by the rubble from the street. After they helped him get up, he saw all of the men on the roof go down. There was an aid of soldiers who came and took the enemies out. The group of soldiers walked toward the others.

<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;">“What happened here?” one of the lieutenants from the other group asked. All the soldiers who went down were still recovering from the fierce impact.

<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;">“There was a setup here, probably Aidid planned this knowing that we would be patrolling the streets.” said one soldier. Mike came close to getting hit and not being able to see his wife and baby daughter ever again. The RPG just missed his face and hit a building wall behind him. The troops were sent back to the base to rest.

<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;">As they got back to the base, medical aid checked out Mike and listened to the lieutenant from the group that took out the Somalis tell Sergeant Johnson about the situation. Johnson was shocked to hear the news and was thinking about what to do about Aidid going forward in their mission.

<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;">“I got an idea about how to deal with Aidid. Aidid has caused a lot of trouble in Somalia, so I think we should take him down. I will pay anyone $25,000 to capture this man, dead-or-alive.” explained Admiral Howe.

<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;">“I don’t know about this idea. This is crazy! What if we don’t capture this guy? We are here to help clear the streets to pave the way for food aid to end the starvation and give these people hope.” Johnson responded.

<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;">“I know we are here to give these people hope to end the starvation and pave the way for food aid, but Aidid is one of the reasons for the starvation to even occur here. He fought with the other clan of the United Somalia Congress, which led to agriculture here being destroyed. If we can capture this man, people will gain hope and not be afraid to step outside knowing that there will not be any danger and everything is ok. All the agriculture will come back and there will be no starvation.” Howe explained to Johnson.

<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;">“Even if we attempt to capture Aidid, when and how are we going to do this?” asked Johnson.

<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;">“We will pretend to have a deal with him. We will tell people from his clan that we have a proposal. The proposal is $500,000. We’ll tell him that he can have the money if he agrees to end the clan fighting and create peace within the Somalis.” said Howe.

<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;">“Ok. This better work.” Johnson stated.

<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;">“I promise, sir.” Howe said. Mike and the others went back to their tents and got some rest. Over the months, the soldiers began to fight daily with the Somalis that hated the U.S. A number of U.S. soldiers and Somalis had died during the battles. A number of Pakistani soldiers, who were working with the U.S. to help Somalia, died as well. Aidid was the one believed to be responsible for these attacks.

<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;">From that point on Admiral Howe sent Mike and 40 other soldiers to try to capture the wanted Aidid in the capital city Mogadishu. They split into three groups to advance to the building where Aidid was located. One of the lieutenants were on the top floor about to give Aidid the $500,000. Their plan was to make their way up the building and surprisingly attempt to capture Aidid.

<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;">Mike’s group advanced from one side, while the other groups advanced from the back and the other side. Mike and his group busted down one of the walls and moved toward the staircase. Mike slowly and quietly moved up each step checking for potential enemies about to attack. He saw one man in the corner, so he shot his M-16 with silencer and took the Somali out.

<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;">As the groups made there way onto the top roof, the lieutenant lay on the ground motionless. The soldiers starting firing their guns at Aidid and his clan. The soldiers ran behind stacks of brick for cover and started to shoot again. As Aidid’s clan and the soldiers were in battle, Aidid began to run towards the ledge of the building. Mike saw this and began to run after him. As he ran after Aidid he took out his two pistols and began shooting enemies that were firing their AK-47’s at him. The enemies went down in 1 second. When he got near shooting distance, he shot both of his pistols at Aidid, but he ran out of ammo. Aidid stepped onto the ledge and jumped. Mike and the other soldiers ran toward the ledge trying to find where Aidid went.

<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;">A chopper began to rise above the soldiers and shot at them. All the soldiers ran for cover as the helicopter began to fly away. The helicopter, which had Aidid inside, flew away out of Mike’s vision.

<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;">“Damn it! We let him get away! That was our only chance to try to capture this son-of-a-gun and we failed.” Mike screamed angrily. The captain used his device and let the sergeant know the news. The sergeant told them to come back to the base.

<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;">As they got back, the soldiers explained what happened when they were attempting to capture Aidid. Over the course of the rest of the operation, Mike and the other soldiers fought daily in battles with the Somalis. Even though the operation was complete, Somalis and U.S. soldiers lost their lives due to battle. Mike survived and was sent back with his fellow comrades on October 7, 1994.