Derek Morgan

Initially we were to replace the Army regiment in Mogadishu, with our Battalion, to begin the withdraw of Somalia. My understanding was the Army General did not want to relinquish his position to our Colonel, so we pushed out into the desert to provide an additional layer of security against arms and supplies entering the city. I don’t remember how long we patrolled out there before we moved back through the city to the airfield.

Filling the holes with our small Battalion was a stretch. Even my platoon was split to 3 different locations. Some went to the Old Port, some the New Port, and I stayed at the airfield and operated out of the “White House” (COC). I did not have any communication with either port. We ran patrols and stood guard at the airfield and traffic circle. Basically, we were “lightning rods” for every man, woman, and child with an AK and a grenade, not to mention the “tech vehicles” with machine guns mounted on the cab of Toyota trucks.

I was aware that Brown & Root Construction Co was in country mining uranium. I surmised later that was our real reason for being there.

Quick Draw was the name of the withdraw operation. My Company, Kilo 3/6, were the last ones on the ground. We were mechanized (Amtracks), once we linked the Pakistanis and Egyptians at the COC, we streaked down to the southern end of the runway (under heavy fire I might add) and splashed back to our ship (USS Spartanburg County-LST).