Gary Gordon was a master sergeant in the United States Army and was a non-commissioned officer in the United States Army’s premier special operations unit, “Delta Force.” Both he and Randy Shughart, who was also a U.S. Army soldier and member of “Delta Force,” were awarded the Medal of Honor after their heroic actions which lead to their deaths in 1993.

Here is their story.

The military gave the Somalians food because they were starving. Then, a bad guy named Aidid took their food to feed his troops.

The US wanted to capture Aidid and the men who worked for him.  On the day Gary Gordon and Randy Shughart became heroes, the Army Rangers and the Delta Force were trying to capture some of Aidid’s top officials.  The US forces went in to capture them and put them in their Humvees to bring them back to their base.

However, something went wrong when they were trying to get back to base. One of their Black Hawk helicopters that was used for cover for their mission was shot down.  One of the guys in the crash survived and the American troops were trying to get to the crash site because the commander said, “Do not leave anyone behind.”

The guy who survived the crash bravely fought off the Somali’s even though he was injured. Then, there was a helicopter called a “Little Bird” that came in and saved the one guy that was alive in the Black Hawk that went down.

However, another Black Hawk went down and the American forces were either too pinned down, had road blocks everywhere or too many injured troops to be able to reach the second crash site right away. Randy and Gordon were in a Black Hawk just above where the second crash sight was.  They wanted to save or help the guys in the crash.

So, even though they knew that it would probably cost them their lives, they requested to be lowered in anyway.  They went down to save Michael Durant who was the Black Hawk pilot in the crash.

They fought as hard as they could. Thousands of Somalians tried to kill Michael and Gordon and Randy, but they fought very bravely and hard.  Gordon was the first to die and then Randy died.

After those two were killed, the mob went in to kill Michael, but then a Somali man, who worked for Aidid, came to take him as a hostage.  They wanted him to say something about America too, but he did not. Then 11 days later, Michael was released.

Randy and Gordon died with honor trying to save a fellow soldier.

This reminds me about where in the Bible is says, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”

They were awarded the Medal of Honor, but even better than that, they were willing to lay down their lives to save others.