Mogadishu Mile

The Mogadishu Mile refers to an alleged mile-long run by American Rangers and Delta Force soldiers from a helicopter crash site to the Pakistani Stadium during the Battle of Mogadishu on October 4, 1993. The Americans involved were part of Task Force Ranger, an attempt to overthrow Somali warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid. Originally they were supposed to take cover by running alongside a convoy of Humvees and armored personnel carriers, however when the convoy misunderstood that the vehicles were needed for cover, they left them and the soldiers were forced to run without support and with very little ammunition.

It is often believed that the soldiers involved in the Mogadishu Mile had to run all the way to the Mogadiscio Stadium, as it was shown in the 2001 film Black Hawk Down. However, in that scene the filmmakers took artistic license and dramatized the event, departing from the original A Story of Modern War book by Mark Bowden. In the film, the Mogadishu Mile ends with about a dozen soldiers entering the Mogadiscio Stadium having run all the way through the city. In the book, it ends with soldiers reaching a rendezvous point on National Street (in opposite direction to the stadium):

<blockquote>"As he approached the intersection of Hawlwadig Road and National Street, about five blocks south of the Olympic Hotel, he saw a tank and the line of APCs and Humvees and a mass of men in desert battle dress. He ran until he collapsed, with joy"Bowden, Mark,...
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