Mike Durant
๐ค SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
And I'm not pinning responsibility on the 10th Mountain.
I'm just telling you what happened.
They did a good job.
I mean, they did the mission the way they were trained to do it.
But the fallout of it is, Adid now has information that he can share with his people to convince them that the Americans are not here to help you.
They're here to kill our people and take over our country.
It's not exactly what he was saying, but essentially what he's trying to get the Somalis to believe.
And proof of how effective that was, President Bush went to Somalia after, well, he was about to leave office.
And the people are in the streets celebrating.
Viva President Bush, waving American flags.
This is, I think, in January of 1993.
Ten months later, they're dragging the bodies of Randy, Gary, and my crew through the freaking streets.
Now, you talk about losing the hearts and minds of the people.
That's the best example I've ever heard of.
I mean, we lost the battle for the hearts and minds of the people.
This went from fighting...
you know, diehard supporters of a deed to essentially the whole population of the city because he was effectively convincing them of something that just wasn't true.
Essentially.
Totally anti it.
Now, we didn't help.