The Fall Of The Cards

by LegolasLover2003

Black Hawk Down. This story tells of Private First Class Todd Blackburn's experiences in The Mog, his friendship with Berendsen and other Rangers, and that fateful day of October 3rd, 1993.

1. Prologue

The Fall Of The Cards

Prologue

It was not what I had expected. No, scratch that, I had expected the drills and the guard duty and the target practice, but all that seemed rather insignificant compared to our reasons for being here. I was also not expecting to see so much down time.

What can I say about Somalia? The landscape's rugged and what little vegetation there is resembled pigmy bushes or something of that sort. There was one thing however that caught my eye on the chopper ride in... the beach.

The beautiful beaches of Mogadishu reminded me of home, of what I'd left behind. As a teenager, I had spent countless hours dreaming of such a paradise. Too bad it was a paradise fraught with civil war.

I'd joined up with the Army Rangers fresh out of high school. All my life I've had a craving for adventure, for adrenaline pumping excitement. The Army Rangers could offer me just that.

So now here I was, standing in the middle of a tiny office that was so cluttered I was surprised to even find the floor. A computer, something I was hardly familiar with, sat atop the desk and, slightly behind that desk, was a steaming pot of freshly brewed coffee...