Word: choppered
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...capturing warlord Mohammed Farrah Aidid, luck ran out when he spotted several armed Somalis firing rocket-propelled grenades at his Black Hawk attack helicopter. Turning the craft broadside to give his gunners a bet- ter shot, Wolcott became a perfect target. A grenade exploded into the side of the chopper. "Super six-one is going down," he yelled into his headset, "Six-one is going in." Those would be his last words. The crash of Wolcott's Black Hawk transformed what had been planned as a textbook operation to decapitate Somalia's most powerful warlord into the longest sustained fire...
...several relief convoys to reach and extricate the trapped Task Force Rangers and -- above all, the capture, beating and humiliation of helicopter pilot Michael Durant. One part of the story has gone largely unreported, however: the 15-hour pitched battle that took place around the wreckage of Wolcott's chopper, an extraordinary display of valor by 99 men under calamitous circumstances. TIME has been told that two of those men who gave their life to protect Durant -- Sergeant First Class Randall Shugart and Master Sergeant Gary Gordon -- have been recommended to receive the nation's highest award for valor...
...with Somali fighters bombarding Wolcott's wreckage with AK-47 assault rifles and grenades. Facing directly into the enfilade, Maier's only defense was a light submachine gun, which he fired from the cockpit with his right hand. That left the pilot only his left hand to steady the chopper, while copilot Keith Jones struggled to load two injured Rangers aboard, then yelled at Maier to take off. Left behind were a handful of wounded Rangers, plus the bodies of Wolcott and his copilot, Donovan Briley, 33, of Little Rock, Arkansas...
...from the wreckage of Wolcott's chopper, pilot Dan Jollota was struggling to hold his aircraft steady while 15 Rangers "fast-roped" to the ground by sliding down a 40-ft. line at a rate only slightly more controlled than a free fall. In the cockpit, Jollota could hear the thunk-thunk-thunk of his rotors punctuated by the deadly whoosh of rocket-propelled grenades. With two Rangers still on the ropes, the chopper took a direct hit that chewed holes in a main rotor blade. The steel-nerved pilot bit off the impulse to flee. "It was remarkable," said...
...Little Bird whizzed by, its guns blazing, Bray felt dozens of hot projectiles * striking his body. "I thought I'd had it," he recalled. It took Bray several seconds to realize it was not bullets raining down on him but the brass casings pouring out of the chopper's twin Gatling guns...