# 3 October



## Gypsy (Sep 29, 2008)

I know it's a tad early...but I just saw this video and thought the simplicity of the tribute was truly touching.

RIP Warriors one and all, we shall never forget you or your sacrifices.  

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4Oowxq3NBU"]YouTube - Black Hawk Down - A tribute to KIA[/ame]


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## AssadUSMC (Sep 29, 2008)

Great video.  Thank you for that.


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## Trip_Wire (Sep 29, 2008)

AssadUSMC said:


> Great video.  Thank you for that.



X2 RIP Warriors


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## tova (Sep 29, 2008)

RIP, Godspeed, PBS....


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## whiterose (Sep 30, 2008)

Great video. Other than Shughart and Gordon, I have not seen any photos of the KIAs before. The "Black Hawk Down" is a good book. Those guys were brave and did well despite the odds. Great testament to the fighting qualities of SOF and their supporters. But please remember also the Malaysians and Pakistanis in the relief force. The Malaysians had 1 killed and 7 injured. Pakistanis: 2 injured.


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## lancero (Sep 30, 2008)

RIP, Brothers. 
RLTW


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## HoosierAnnie (Sep 30, 2008)

Lest we forget.  Rest Well


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## QC (Sep 30, 2008)

Athens has lost its youth and the Spring has gone out of the year. 
One cannot see these fallen heroes now, neither can one see the gods. 
But from the honours which they receive, and the blessing they bestow, 
we know that they are immortal. 

Pericles


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## x SF med (Sep 30, 2008)

Peace, my brothers.  Blue Skies.
DOL


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## LibraryLady (Sep 30, 2008)

Thank you Gypsy for posting that.  I agree, that is a moving tribute.

Never forget!

LL


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## 0699 (Sep 30, 2008)

Thank you Warriors.  You are not forgotten.

RIP.


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## wardog763 (Sep 30, 2008)

Rest Warriors. NSDQ!


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## Totentanz (Oct 3, 2008)

Excellent post, Gypsy!

Just giving this a bump, as it's now Oct 3, 15 years later.

Rest well, gentlemen.


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## BS502 (Oct 3, 2008)

Never forgotten. ~S~


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## MsKitty (Oct 3, 2008)

RIP...

For those that sacrificed that day, and before and since.....we should NEVER forget!


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## Typhoon (Oct 3, 2008)

Reading Gary Gordon and Randy Shugart's MOH Citations always gives me a lump in my throat.

My thoughts and prayers out to all those who survived the battle on that perilous day, and to the families and friends of those brave and valiant men who did not return home.

I will never forget.

RLTW.

http://http://www.history.army.mil/html/moh/somalia.html


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## Centermass (Oct 3, 2008)

15 years....seems so long ago and just like yesterday. God made men like you to stand up for others that cannot or could not stand up for themselves. Your sacrifices were not in vain, nor will they ever be forgotten.

~S~


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## Poccington (Oct 3, 2008)

May all the warriors that died that day rest easy.

Those men were ridiculously outnumbered in a hostile city for a whole day and you know what? They kicked some serious ass that day. The actions of those soldiers in Mogadishu speaks volumes about the quality of personnel that have served and serve in the US Armed Forces.

Once again, rest easy warriors.


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## car (Oct 3, 2008)

There's a conference room in the basement of USASOC HQ that used to be called "The Top Secret conference room" - multi-media, cleared for weird, etc.....

While I was assigned there, they put protraits on the walls of that room of every SF NCO who has received the Medal of Honor. When they hung the portrait portraying Gordon and Shughart's "last stand," they officially re-named it "The NCO Conference Room."

Never forget.


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## x SF med (Oct 3, 2008)

Gary, Randy - it was an honor knowing you both, I am humbled by your sacrifices, and those of the other men that gave all or part on that day.  Not a day goes by that I don't think about what you guys did, or say a quiet prayer, knowing that you passed on a great legacy to all SF soldiers and Rangers through your deeds and integrity.

De Oppresso Liber, Brothers.  Blue Skies, and Thank You.


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## car (Oct 3, 2008)

x SF med said:


> Gary, Randy - it was an honor knowing you both, I am humbled by your sacrifices, and those of the other men that gave all or part on that day.  Not a day goes by that I don't think about what you guys did, or say a quiet prayer, knowing that you passed on a great legacy to all SF soldiers and Rangers through your deeds and integrity.
> 
> De Oppresso Liber, Brothers.  Blue Skies, and Thank You.



Condolences for the loss of your buddies, brother.


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## Muppet (Oct 3, 2008)

R.I.P. and condolences to all that have lost friends and brothers.

F.M.


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## Rabid Badger (Oct 3, 2008)

RIP to those fallen 3 October Warriors.......

Prayers out to every warrior who's sacrificed for this great Nation......


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## 275ANGER! (Oct 3, 2008)

Rest in Peace


RLTW


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## elle (Oct 3, 2008)

Rest In Peace.  

Prayers and thank you to all.


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## Ravage (Oct 4, 2008)

Ran the Mogadishu mile today. They went the distance, so can we....

RIP


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## Gypsy (Oct 6, 2008)

*15 years later...*

One woman's story, 15 years later....

http://www.fayobserver.com/article?id=306401

Rierson forges ahead since husband killed in Somalia

By Henry Cuningham
Military editor

Fifteen years ago this week, Trish Rierson was trying to help the wives of Delta Force members who had just learned that their husbands had been killed or were missing in a street battle in Somalia.

She was a “fortunate wife.” Her husband, Sgt. 1st Class Matt Rierson, was alive after three days of fighting. He was the leader of a six-man Delta team, and she had moved into “team leader’s wife mode” — visiting widows, coordinating food, seeing who needed what. All the while, she was juggling her responsibilities as a working mother of two small boys.

Amid her hurry, she had a moment of quiet.

“I was sitting waiting for my pizza when that calm came over me, and I got that feeling that I didn’t need to rush anymore, that everything could wait,” she said.

She later realized that was probably the moment her husband was killed by a Somali mortar round in what seemed to be the relative safety of the base camp.

“I’m still a mom, and I’m still a speech pathologist, but now I’m a widow,” she realized.

The future had seemed so promising for the young family. Both were established in their professions. Their son Kaleb was 28 months old, and Jacob was 4.

“And I have to figure out how I’m going to walk this road the same way Matt and I were going to walk this road, but without him,” she said.

Anniversary 
Friday was the 15th anniversary of the start of the battle of Mogadishu, Somalia, a conflict made famous by the book and movie “Black Hawk Down.” Six Fort Bragg soldiers died in some of the fiercest fighting between the Vietnam War and fighting in Afghanistan. Two of them posthumously received the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest military award. 

Afterward, politicians grilled generals over what went wrong and bickered for years over blame. On a national level, the battle influenced U.S. foreign policy for the rest of the 1990s, making America more reluctant to get involved in messy situations in foreign countries, even for the highest humanitarian motives.

On a personal level, Trish and her boys have forged ahead, but the loss of a husband and father still stings 15 years later.

“It takes a while,” Trish said. “You are still you, but you are never who you were prior to October 6 of 1993.”

She is 47 years old and still working. The boys, who have only vague or no memories of their father, are serious, sturdy and athletic. Like their father, both are about 6 feet tall. Their mother says she sees some of their father’s sarcasm come out in them. Jacob, a rugby player, is 19 and a sophomore at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

“I feel like, on some level, even though my dad has been dead for 15 years, that he has done a huge role in helping to raise me just out of me not wanting to disrespect his legacy,” Jacob said.

Kaleb, a championship wrestler, is 17 and a junior at Union Pines High School in Cameron.

The Rierson boys say they carry with them a sense of family honor.

“I’d go somewhere and something wasn’t feeling right, what would my dad do?” Kaleb said. “I would get out of the situation.”

Over the years of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Trish has reached out to the growing number of other women who suddenly find themselves in the same situation.

“It’s a sisterhood that nobody wants to be a member of, but just with Afghanistan and Iraq, you find yourself in that situation,” she said. “It’s just a blessing to be able to talk to people who have walked in your shoes.”

On Friday, she and Kaleb participated in the Special Operations Warrior Foundation Charity Golf Tournament at Anderson Creek Golf Club in southern Harnett County. The nonprofit organization provides scholarships to children of special operations soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines who died in combat or training. The foundation has 120 students enrolled in colleges and universities nationwide.

“These donations and contributions from businesses, from the smallest individual to a large corporation, are going to a Jacob and Kaleb Rierson, to kids whose dads were willing to put their life on the line for all of their freedoms and privileges that we have here,” she said.

Beginnings
Trish and Matt started dating in the 10th grade in their hometown of Nevada, Iowa. He was a linebacker and co-captain of the varsity football team. She was a varsity cheerleader.

Their paths diverged, but they stayed in touch and got married in 1984. Trish finished college and graduate school. Matt enlisted in the Army and joined the Rangers, the Army’s premier light infantry unit. Just as the challenges of the Rangers were wearing off and Matt was thinking about getting out of the Army and returning to college, Delta Force recruiters waved new possibilities in front of him.

Only a small percentage of soldiers make it through Delta Force’s demanding and secret selection process. Matt was one of them. They packed up and moved from Fort Lewis, Wash., to Fort Bragg.

“He was one of those very independent people,” Trish said. “Once he set a goal, he achieved it. He worked hard to do it. If somebody was better than he was, he took that as a challenge to work harder and be better. He was just a unique individual.”

Their sons were born at Fort Bragg’s Womack Army Medical Center.

“He was a great dad,” she said. “Special ops soldiers that I know that are family men seem to be two people. He was a loving, nurturing father — carried the diaper bag, changed the diapers, did everything a wonderful dad would do. When he had to go to work, he put on his warrior game face and he went to work.”

They didn’t talk much about what he did in one of the U.S. military’s most secretive units. Wives have to be careful what they say, even among each other.

“It worked for him, and it worked for me,” she said. “There is a comfort level in not knowing how risky things really are. You can go about your day-to-day business and not worry about them. ... I was confident that when he went to work, things would go well and he would come home and the family would be fine.”

In April 1993, the Riersons lost a friend, Sgt. 1st Class Robin V. Rapp, a Special Forces soldier. He died from injuries he received in a sport parachuting accident near Raeford.

Trish asked herself, “OK, God, what are we supposed to get from this experience?”

As it turned out, the death prompted the Riersons to talk through all the what-ifs should one of them die.

“Really, the gift was how would you look at your life if your mate was gone and what would you do?” she said.

They talked about everything from where they wanted to be buried to how they wanted to raise their sons.

Humor was the way they dealt with a serious subject. She told him, “Go ahead and remarry, and I will haunt you from heaven if she is crappy to my kids.”

In the fall of 1993, Delta Force deployed to Somalia to help get control over the warlords who were hampering humanitarian relief efforts. Special operations forces became embroiled in urban warfare in the dusty, chaotic Horn of Africa nation.

On Oct. 3, 1993, during a raid on a warlord’s compound, two Black Hawk helicopters were shot down. As soldiers fought to rescue the crews, a running street battle erupted across Mogadishu. Eighteen soldiers died.

Matt Rierson “led the successful assault on the target building that was the whole reason for our Oct. 3 operation,” retired Lt. Gen. Jerry Boykin wrote in his book “Never Surrender.” He came out unhurt. Then, he died as he was standing and talking near a hangar at the base camp. The same blast injured Boykin, the Delta commander; Gary Harrell, a future Delta commander; and Rob Marsh, the unit doctor and son of the secretary of the Army.

Widow’s future
According to his wishes, Matt was buried on Fort Bragg.

Trish, meanwhile, couldn’t escape the questions: “How am I going to make ends meet? How do I teach two boys to throw a football? How do I teach them how to shoot a gun?”

Those were the things that Matt was good at.

Trish received calls from investors who knew she had a large sum of insurance money and wanted to take her to lunch.

She told them, “No, I don’t know you from Adam. I don’t know your credentials. How dare you call me just because you read his name in the paper?”

The military moves on. Somebody was put in Matt’s position. His wife became the team leader’s wife.

“You just don’t really fit in anymore,” Trish said. “You are still loved and surrounded, but you don’t have the same focus anymore. You start to look at your life almost like a broken mirror, and you are trying to put the pieces back together.”

However, the community around Fort Bragg was home. At the time of the funeral, her refrigerator overflowed with food from friends. Co-workers offered to let her relatives stay in their homes. Neighbors mowed her lawn without being asked.

Trish bucked her own family’s desire for her to move back to their hometown of 6,500 in the Midwest.

“I have a strong religious faith, so I know that Matt’s in a better place and that someday I will see him in heaven,” she said. “I have that to fall back on, my faith, when things get difficult.”

Over the years, Matt’s teammates stopped by to take the boys to the park. They used the services available at Fort Bragg and Womack.

“We really did have extended family support,” she said. “If it wasn’t our military family, it was my school family. ‘Mothers’ who nag them if they do something wrong. ‘Uncles’ who cheer them on.”

The result — that her family has not just survived, but thrived — has filled Trish’s heart.

“Fifteen years later, I’m proud of my children and their accomplishments,” she said. “They are wonderful young men. I think their dad would be proud of me. I’m just shocked that it’s gone by so fast.”


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## dknob (Oct 7, 2013)

Gypsy said:


> *15 years later...*
> 
> One woman's story, 15 years later....
> 
> ...



Matt Rierson's son - Kaleb. Died in a car accident two days ago.


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## Muppet (Oct 7, 2013)

dknob said:


> Matt Rierson's son - Kaleb. Died in a car accident two days ago.


 
Fucking Christ. Condolences.

F.M.


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## RackMaster (Oct 7, 2013)

Horrible.  RIP.


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## Red Flag 1 (Oct 7, 2013)

Such sad, sad news. Prayers out; Rest In God's Own Peace.


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## x SF med (Oct 7, 2013)

found this, thought it was appropriate here in this thread.


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## Muppet (Oct 7, 2013)

Kinda of dusty in here, don't you think?

F.M.


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## Gypsy (Oct 10, 2013)

dknob said:


> Matt Rierson's son - Kaleb. Died in a car accident two days ago.


 
That is freaking horrible.     I literally got tears in my eyes.  RIP, and yet more thoughts and prayers to the family.


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## BloodStripe (Oct 3, 2014)

May they never be forgotten.


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## Ravage (Oct 3, 2014)

When the roll was called that morning,
We listened for their names;
We paused in solemn silence,
For each it was the same.

None answered to the roll call,
Each one had passed away;
We felt the pain and the anguish,
On that sad and mournful day.

Each of us who knew them,
Knew it was not their last fight;
For God will take them home,
With him, they'll make their last flight.

Only those who fought with them,
On their final day;
Know what heroes they really were,
Yes heroes, we all will say.

For each of them was more concerned,
With the welfare of others;
This selfless love they possessed,
Makes us a band of brothers.

There was no hesitation,
With bullets round them flying;
They came to help their buddies,
For they knew others were dying.

Yes these men were heroes,
What each Warrior wants to be;
But these were special ones,
For they were Night Stalkers, you see.

So when their story is told,
Everyone will then admit;
It's more than just a motto;
"Night Stalkers Don't Quit!"

Gen. Jerry Boykin
In honor of fallen Night Stalkers


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## BloodStripe (Oct 3, 2014)




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## x SF med (Oct 3, 2014)

21 years... still miss you Gary.


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## Grunt (Oct 3, 2014)

You have not been forgotten....


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## pardus (Oct 4, 2014)

We Will Remember Them...


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