1993: Somalia Confidential

This is basically a war story. It is an account of my personal view of the well known events of '93 in the Horn of Africa, where I experienced my very first campaign and a totally unexpected sex adventure. I changed the names and slightly camouflaged some otherwise obvious facts, in order to avoid hurting personal feelings or pride. Any reference to real people of organizations is, obviously, purely coincidental.

As far as the sex scenes are concerned, I enriched them just as much as it needed to make the story interesting and readable.

The story begins just after my meeting with my wife-to-be Karin, a short (and hot!) stay at her place and my depart from A'dam to reach the Regiment before actual deployment...

***

The Hercules C-130 that took us to Mogadishu was loaded with supplies of any sorts, so we had to find a spot amongst the various goods.

I couldn't believe it: my first real operation abroad!

Operation "Restore Hope" had started in December, and in the beginning everything looked like being going well. Then, when our American friends finally realized they bet on the wrong horse, the shit had reached the fan.

After the first incidents between the Pakistani and the Aideed crowd, and the first UN soldiers killed, the Head of the Mission felt betrayed by his former buddy and declared him the worst enemy of the UN. Few days later, there had been the infamous episode of "Blackhawk Dawn", and the Americans had started playing hard inside the city.

We had the entireFolgoreParachutist Brigade deployed there, responsible for the Northern part of Mogadishu (including our own Embassy, which hosted the Bde HQ) and the whole Northern Sector along theStrada Imperiale and up to the Ethiopian border. It was probably the worst part of the Area of Responsibility (AOR), since it included both half of the main city and the "frontline" to the part of Somalia that was not under UN protectorate and completely under warlords' control. The 176th Para that we were going to substitute in a month was responsible of the northernmost part, inland and far from Mogadishu, covering most of the territory and the entire border. It was quite a challenge.

The flight was soft... I discovered that the tetra packs of wine, collected in pallets for air transportation, made a wonderful mattress, and used it.

Unfortunately, we had a stopover in Luxor, Egypt, and got a small malfunction at the gear, so we stayed there for the night... As it often happens, the Air Force crew just left for a three-star hotel, and we Army guys mounted the guard to our own weapons and equipment. Never heard of captains mounting the guard? I did.

It wasn't funny: fifty degrees centigrade and ninety percent humidity, and those poor Egyptian Special Police mounting the guard tousin theirblackuniforms... Uff!

Eventually we left Luxor and reached Mogadishu airport, with its interesting and colorful collection of multinational troops and its comfortable tent camp for troops in transit... Beautiful.

The night was especially characteristic, with special fireworks provided by the Americans, who were still bombing Mogadishu South (Pakistani Sector, where the bad guys of Aideed were hiding) with gunship AC 130sSpectre. It was a good anticipation of what was going to be.

We flew to Belet Weyne by G222, a two-engine tactical airplane, whose pilot chose to flytactical, meaning very low, fast and changing constantly altitude and direction to avoid AA. I normally don't suffer planes, but this time I was very close to puke.

We landed in the airstrip and a parachutist patrol escorted us to the camp... Which proved to be a sad hole in the sand, with a few pneumatic tents inside earthworks and hasty field fortifications, just outside the town? If I ever thought of the idea of an outpost, this was it. A small fort with a tricolor flag on top.

The town was a typical African one, with a small colonial age brick houses center and endless suburbs built with fetch, plastic bags and aluminum plates, with rubber tiers everywhere. Actually, tiers and plastic bags were the only real evidence of late 20th Century civilization.

The paras were there just since a few weeks; they came from the southern stronghold of Bulo Burti after the withdrawal of the Canadian contingents. Their accommodation was hasty at best (no showers yet, just field toilets and lavatory), and they were sleeping in sleeping bags on the ground.

Before leaving, the Canucks told the children of the area to greet us sayingMafiawith a big smile, because that was the friendly way to say hallo in our language... How kind of them.

As it has always been in our history, Logistics was shit. Our contingent deployed with our old field equipment, Cold War vintage, and the canvas field beds were crumpling and disintegrating in the hot dry weather, so our men were basically sleeping on the ground... Until somebody managed to trade a container of wine for US field beds in synthetic tissue.

Well, it was so bad it could only get better.

We started shadowing our pairs, who were getting ready to leave the theatre as soon as possible (paras don't like to get stuck somewhere: they prefer to open a new front and then leave the problem to us). Their S2 was a friendly giant with a quite disillusioned view of the situation.

"Stop thinking as a European," he told me the first evening, sitting on the earthwork and looking at the mass of children, crowding at the barbed wire where Savarese was giving them the leftovers of our dinner, "It is misleading. If you reallywantto understand what is happening here, you need to understand these people way of thinking, which is based on values and priorities completely different from ours. For them, we are as alien as Martians, they onlypretendto understand our arguments because we have better guns than theirs, and theydounderstand strength."

"But we are here to save lives," I countered, "We distribute food, we care for their children.Thismust be understandable."

"It'snot. We start from the wrong assumption that the value of life is universal, and that they should be grateful for us saving their children, for example. But they don't really understandwhywe do that. They think it's stupid of us: we should rather kill all warlords and establish our rule, so that they could live in peace under our protection and mastership. That's what a real warrior should do according to them, and that's what they expect we should do."

"You mean they don't keep life in such consideration as we do?"

"Bingo. Life itself is not such a universal value, as we believe it is. Here, for example, life has little or no value at all. I am not talking of somebody else's life, I mean that here, they don't keep in such a high regardtheir ownlife. If you think of it, it makes sense: do they live a nice life here? Most of them I mean, not the few privileged ones...Theydo care for themselves. But all the poor people living in those huts of mud and waste bags, never washing themselves nor having any greater fun in life than throwing stones at stray dogs or chewingchat: they do not care much if they die tomorrow. That's why so many of them are so keen to fight each other for no real reason: they have fun, and if they die, well, that's a dignified way to die, far better than TBC or AIDS, and I can't blame them... Can you?"

I was dumbfounded: "I never thought of it."

"Nobody does in Europe or in America. But this is fundamental to start understanding what the hell is happening here. You will see..."

And saw I did, with time.

The Paras run a major operation while we were shadowing them, before our Regiment arrived. I was a big thing, involving an heliborne deployment into a border area on the border with Ethiopia, were supporters of late Somali leader Siad Barre were still holding their ground with the support of Ethiopian Authorities.

It was very interesting. We fell on this village called Balen Balle at dawn with a number of heavy choppers, CH47s, escorted by attack helos A129Mongoose, and seized the military compound before any resistance could be put on. Regiment Commander was already talking with the local warlord when our armored cavalry squadron arrived with half a dozen ofCentauro105 mm gun wheeled tanks and a couple of motorized Nigerian coys. All in all, the warlord enthusiastically agreed to the idea of immediately destroying all of his heavy gear, which included ten soviet-vintage tanks and a number of BTRs andTecknikas. Funny how warlords become cooperative at the sight of armored vehicles and attack helicopters...

Our sappers were fast, and the disposal of all the heavy gear, light weapons, mines and ammunition was quite spectacular. The only small stain on the mission was my GPS: even if our maps were more or less white (uncharted area), it clearly showed we wereinsideEthiopia...

I mentioned it to the Commander, and he just pointed out flatly: "I don't care what the damned thing says: we are in Somalia, and that's anorder. Understood?"

I was young and naïve at the time...

Our colleagues from 12th Bersaglieri and from 76th Mech arrived, and soon enough the Paras left, so we were fully in charge. And I was fully responsible for military intelligence in Northern Somalia.

Little I knew that this status would trigger one of the most funny (and nice) episodes of my otherwise not-so-jolly African experience.

We had taken over full responsibility of our Area of Responsibility (AOR, the whole region under the control of our Regiment) since a couple of days only, and I was pretty busy. The whole area was about 20% of the whole UN-controlled part of Somalia, included four main towns, the border to Ethiopia, the only permanent river and the only paved road of the country, about 40 tribes belonging to five of the most important clans (including the Aideed's Habr Gadir, the bitter enemies of UNOSOM), and six UN compounds, three of which in Belet Weyne. There were us, with the Regiment HQ and the recce squadron, there was the German contingent (logistics only, plus own security), and a Nigerian battalion under our Tactical Control; our own battalion with our Logistic Base was in Bulo Burti, another coy-level garrison was in Gialalaxi, and our Field Hospital with another coy-level garrison was in Balad. All of that was under our operational control, and all intelligence sources were coming to me. Then, I was to report to the Brigade HQ in Mogadishu, which in turn reported to the Multinational Force HQ.

I was busy.

A further complication was given by the fact that I was also the only decent English speaker of our compound, meaning I was the drafter of all documents in English, and the interpreter for any contact with the local UN administrator, with the subordinate Nigerian battalion and with the local Non Governmental Organizations... Yes, those volunteer, disaster-relief private bodies that provide help where nobody else was caring, or those vulture associations making business out of human sufferings, depending where your feelings about them stand.

Well, there was a bunch of these NGOs in Belet Weyne, mostly US and Canadians, and it was the S5 task to liaise with them. Usually they were minding their own business, employed local gunmen to protect their well-fortified compounds downtown, and didn't like us very much. You know, apart from the local bodyguards, NGO people usually tend to see the military as the origin of the problem and not as part of the solution, and no matter weather "military" are warlord bands or UN forces. NGO people usually are either hardcore mercenaries with little taste for western Authority representatives, or left-wing idealists and pacifists with an obvious distaste for their own countries military. Of course, all these bad feelings evaporated at the first sign of danger, in which case they all really loved us.

The usual, old story that Rudyard Kipling told many, many years ago...

But I was telling about my own experience, right?

It was a Sunday morning, and I was preparing to leave the camp with my jeep to liaise with local police, meet the local UN coordinator, check the behavior of our soldiers at the checkpoints and, in general, monitor the situation. My driver and my two escort boys were ready; I was wearing my Kevlar helmet and my flack jacket and cursing the heat, when the NCO on duty at the gate came for me, saying there was somebody at the main gate. Somebody speaking English and... And somebody who was ashe.

You know, at the time we had no girls in our Army, the locals were taboo (basically due to AIDS hazard, but also to their smell, poor girls), and even our friends and allies were weary to send women so far away.

I drove to the gate and got quite a surprise.

It was a girl all right. A white girl (sorry, anexpatriate, a member of the International Community, or whatever else is the politically correct way to put it at the time you read; and her skin was Caucasian-light). I thought the closest whitegirlwas at least a couple of thousands clicks away, since also NGOs female tends to be quite adult (to put it mildly), but there she was, with a funny peas-green jeep parked next to our gate.

Our sentries at the gate were almost fainting looking at her.

Blonde, young (20? 25?), not so tall. Tanned, but not enough to show a long permanence in Africa. Pretty face, slim body, loving smile, pity for a quite oversized bum, but nice tits under a simple Sahara shirt.

"Hi. What can we do for you, miss...?"

Her smile widened hearing me speaking English. Showing me an ID, she said: "Hi. My name is Linda Howland, and I work for the Worldwide Health Association, the NGO dealing with premature children."

Wow. American accent, but very clean. Midwest, maybe Colorado?

"'Morning, Miss Howland. I'm Captain Roberto Serra. I am the officer in charge to deal with NGOs, so you may tell me directly..."

"Oh, great!" another lovely smile, "Listen, there are a few things I wanted to ask you, since now you guys are in charge of security and freedom of movement. Is there any fresher spot we can talk?"

I frowned, since the only fresh spot in the camp at the time was the fridge container.

"...Or, maybe, you could come to our residence to talk, and we could have a cold drink there?"

Residence? Cold drink? These things belonged to another world for me... It was hard to refuse, so I didn't.

"Well, if it's not something urgent, Miss Howland, maybe I could come to your compound this evening. Would that be fine with you?"

"Oh, it would be fantastic. I will be there from lunch on. Do you know where it is?"

"Of course."

"Well. See you then!"

I completed my daily tour downtown and later to the German and Nigerian bases, spoke to their S2's, reported to the Regiment Commander, and finally drove into the town to the WHA compound.

It was a typical Somali house, one-floor with a small courtyard surrounded by a square wall taller than the house itself, completed with barbed wire and broken glasses. The only entrance was a thick iron door framed by a larger iron gate, with no possibility to watch inside.

The thug at the gate wanted my pistol, got told off and went for orders, leaving me out. He came back a few minutes later with a tall Caucasian woman in her late forties, who had looked like to be in charge there.

"I'm Carolyn Wedger, Chief station here. May I ask you...?"

"Good evening ma'm. Captain Serra, I'm the CIMIC Officer of UNOSOM Forces in Belet Wayne. Miss Howland asked me to come for some information exchange."

"Oh! Sure, she told me. I didn't expect you to be so young ..."

I smiled: "Pure appearance, Ms Wedger. Can you explain your security guy that no UNOSOM member is to be disarmed by anybody within the UN Area of Operation?"

"Uh? Oh, sure. Please, come in. May I offer you a drink?"

Now, the only legal thing that was clear in Somalia at the time was that any sort of alcohol outside Army compounds was strictly forbidden, so I was not surprised to find the drink was a nicely cool peach tea, which was served in a quite comfortable veranda opened on the cultivated courtyard.

We sat in two wooden couches facing each other and a local girl served us our teas on the small table in between.

Carolyn was very tanned by the time spent in Africa, with a worn out face and sparkling blue eyes, but a well shaped tall and slim body that looked to be in full shape for her age. She was a doctor, like almost all the components of the WHA team in Belet Wayne: six women, plus a nurse and Lisa, who was kind of a secretary and just arrived to replenish a previous vacancy. Contacting us was Lisa's idea, but Carolyn had nothing against it: actually, it made sense to have some sort of coordination on security matters with the local UNOSOM Forces.

I was on the point to reply that we had already organized a weekly bulletin for all IC members in town, when Lisa showed up.

It was quite an entry. She wore an open shirt and shorts in sand color, which made no ambiguity about her having quite nice legs, as well as a rich bosom.

She sat next to Carolyn, and graciously crossed her smooth legs with a nice smile to me.

"Sorry for being so late," she said, "I was just taking a shower."

'It doesn't matter," I said, "I just got introduced with your structure and job. You mentioned an information exchange on security matters, right?"

Carolyn sobbed and suddenly stood: "I think I will leave this to the two of you, since it is out of my expertise field. I believe Lisa will take good care of this with you, Captain... Serra."

She offered her hand through the table and left quickly, leaving me alone with her lovely junior colleague.

Lisa smiled with all her teeth. With Carolyn quick exit, I suddenly realized the warm air was suddenly permeated with the young girl perfume. It was weeks since I last inspired perfume...

"Hi Bob," she purred, moving her hair with a hand, "Do you like our residence?"

I couldn't believe it: the girl wasflirting!

"It's far better than ours, I must say." I sipped my tea, and then I tried to look businesslike: "So, Miss Howland, you wanted to exchange information..."

"Oh, please, call me Lisa. We are totally informal here in our community."

"Okay Lisa. Now, if you need to have a regular update on security issues..."

"Yes, please! You know, we are continuously around, not only in Belet Weyne, but also in all the villages throughout the whole Mudugh region, and we have no idea about the situation with these bands ofMarehanaround... I mean, it would be really nice to have a short briefing from you guys before leaving for our tours: what if we go straight into an operation of yours, or into a newly mined area?"

It was so sensible it didn't sound true. It was exactly what I tried to explain these NGOs since I first met them. The problem was that usually they simply feared that justdealingwith us could hamper their relationship with the natives and put them in danger.

I tried to hold a weekly meeting with all of the NGOs which were interested in receiving a security bulletin, but most of them were not attending it, and actually WHA did not either. Worse of that, the ones who attended, were ready to take the bulletin but absolutely refused to share information about whattheyknew or saw around. They behaved like we were an invasion army and they had to keep neutral, instead accepting we were an UN-mandated Peacekeeping Force trying to settle a pretty messy situation.

"Lisa, you just have to come to the meetings I organize weekly. I think it is for the best, to exchange information all together, and for everybody to listen."