In a two hour war game experience, conducted to enhance better understanding of the United States/Somali conflict of 1993, I played Major General William Garrison. In order to provide a realistic perspective, I was positioned in front of a television screen, which was hooked up to a video camera filming the game board, and was in charge of commanding Task Force Ranger from that position. Though I was never in danger of dying, many of the decisions I made either saved the lives of my soldiers, or resulted in deaths.

I primarily consulted with Lt. Col. Harrel on tactical and maneuver procedures. My main responsibility was the three Blackhawk helicopters that were used in the game. The helicopters had the greatest maneuverability of anything else on the board. This was advantageous for picking up wounded troops, but in this particular war game, it was advantageous for killing Somali fighters. For a majority of the two hour war gaming session, our Blackhawks were positioned in the north end of the board, their purpose being to fend off a heavy attack of Somalis. In fact, many of the eventual 450 Somali deaths came as a result of Blackhawk fire. Moreover, one of the Blackhawks was successful in extracting a number of wounded Rangers.

The only problem I found was while moving the helicopters. It was difficult moving them without crossing many of the Somali rocket-propelled grenades. One of the RPGs hit and crashed one of our helicopters, while another helicopter was hit but saved by a roll of the dice. Otherwise, I maneuvered the helicopters pretty successfully and found that over-moving the them is a big mistake.

Our battle was similar to the real one in that we killed more persons than they, however, we still lost one helicopter. We did not lose as many men as they did in the real battle, but with the game only lasting two hours, we were sure to lose more eventually.