General Garrison

General William F. Garrison

In my personal opinion, a hero must be selfless, determined, intellegent, caring, and fearless. General Garrison, the Commanding Officer in Somalia in 1991, hits the nail on the head.

General Garrison is a man to be honored for all of his achievments in Somalia, and his conduct during the Mogadishu incident. He stood strong, and was determined to bring his soldiers home. In my opinion, he is a TRUE hero, because he took the hits so that others could go on. I think that he has probably earned the respect of every man and woman that served below him. Before the "Black Hawk Down Incident" in Mogadishu, he insisted on using only tanks and C130 gunship cover for the assault, but his request was denied by Washington, "in all their wisdom," as he put it. During the assault, he lost two AH-60 Black Hawks. The mission's main objective was abandoned, and the mission then became one of rescue. A team of rangers, and an AH-6 Little Bird were on site to help within 15 minutes of the first crash. In addition to losing two Black Hawks, almost 130 men were stranded in the city under heavy fire. When the convoy of Hummers and large flat-bed trucks failed to extract them, the men assembled at two locations: a casualty-collection point, and at the point of the first Black Hawk crash. General Garrison worked night and day to organize tanks and APC's to extract them. By daybreak, a day and a half later, all of the troops had been extracted from the city. After many tough choices, only 18 soldiers had lost their lives. General Garrison took full responsibility for the incident, although it seems that it was clearly not his fault. On a side-note, General Garrison retired on August 1, 1996, the same day the warlord he was tasked to capture died. He winks at the mention of a coincidence.

Here are traits that General Garrison showed which I think are heroic. He took total responsibility of the failed assault on Mogadishu, showing absolute selflessness. During the assault, General Garrison did not sleep for 36 hours, until every last one of his soldiers had been extracted from the city. This shows true determination. In the time leading up to the assault on Mogadishu, he had requested tanks and air-support to aid the assault. This shows intelligence, in that because he did not have the desired resources to accomplish his mission, he asked for what he needed. At the start of the mission, Garrison went around to every man to wish him luck, and told him that no one would be left behind, showing he cared about each and every one of them. To extract his men from the city, he stepped on hollow ground to get Pakistan to mobilize over 30 tanks and APC's to help. Although this could have ignited an international incident, he did it oblivious to any punishment he might receive. He was fearless.

General Garrison is my hero and my idol. He is what I strive to become one day, not because of what he did, but rather because of the character traits that enabled him to do what he did.