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Local Army pilot Durant details days in captivity

Retired chief warrant officer writes book on Somalia ordeal

05/06/03

By CHRIS WELCH
Times Entertainment Writer chrisw@htimes.com


As television cameras showed soldiers carrying rescued and injured POW Jessica Lynch on a stretcher to a hospital for care, it was all too familiar to Michael Durant of Madison, a retired Army chief warrant officer.

Lynch, like Durant, was ambushed and captured. He also was seriously injured.


Like Lynch, Durant was on his own for more than 10 days.

And Durant also miraculously made it back home alive.

Part of Durant's story was told in the hit movie "Blackhawk Down." He was shot down while piloting a U.S. Army Special Operations Blackhawk helicopter in Mogadishu, Somalia, and captured on Oct. 3, 1993. A mission to capture officers loyal to warlord Mohammed Aidid cost18 American lives and turned into the biggest U.S. firefight since the Vietnam War.

"There were some very interesting parallels," Durant said during a phone interview from a military base in Washington, D.C. "She was alone, I was alone. She got a lot of attention and so did I.

"She went to the same hospital at Ramstein (Air Base in Germany) that I was taken to. I really saw the similarities with the family members when they were trying to get out and thank everyone for what they were doing to help their daughter. It made me think of the things my family was doing."

Durant gives readers fresh insight into what prisoners of war like Lynch and himself faced in his new book, "In the Company of Heroes," written with Steven Hartov. The book comes out Thursday and Durant kicks off a national book tour in Huntsville that night starting at 7 at the Barnes & Noble on University Drive.

Durant, now director of business development for NLX Corp., a training and simulation company in Virginia with a Huntsville office, decided to write the book after the story of "Blackhawk Down" was told in a book that became the movie.

Durant's capture was mentioned in both the "Blackhawk" book and movie, but he feels they didn't really tell the whole story. Durant wants everyone, especially his five children, to know what actually happened and more about the men who gave their lives to protect and help him.

"I've had the idea kicking around my head for the last 10 years," Durant said. "I felt like the time had passed, a long while ago, but when 'Blackhawk' came out, attention was drawn back to it. There's been a lot of references to it with Afghanistan and the war on terrorism, so I figured there was never a better opportunity to give it a shot.

"A big part of it is, the captivity part of it has never been told. I think it's a unique story and certainly worth recording, if not for public knowledge, then at least so my kids can read it when they get old enough."

Even those who already know the story may be startled by new details of his ordeal:

"I looked up as a man raised something high above his head. For a second the sun haloed around the object, and then he swung it down on me like a club. It smashed into my face, breaking my right eye socket and cheekbone. For many years I have held my peace - for the sake of the survivors of the men who were killed - not refuting the claim that I was struck with the butt of a rifle.

"But the truth is long overdue. That object was not a weapon. It was soft and very heavy.

"It was the severed arm of one of my comrades."

For a Special Operations guy who doesn't seek media attention, the revelation is surprising - why tell it now?

"It happened, and the severed arm, in an extreme sense, describes the violence and hatred and mindset of people when they get that enraged and angry," Durant said. "That anger and frustration wasn't aimed at me, but what I represented - the U.S."

Durant wants Americans and the MTV generation to know what soldiers and POWs often go through to defend this country.

"I made the decision to write the book before (Operation) Iraqi Freedom," Durant said. "Part of it was that fewer and fewer people in the U.S. have a relative serving in the military. In the World War I and II era, everyone knew somebody serving in the military.

"Now, people don't understand what it's like, and you look at shows like 'Gomer Pyle' and it's nothing like that. Even dealing with captivity, maybe 'Hogan's Heroes' was like some prison camps, but I didn't see any like that and neither did the POWs in Iraqi Freedom.

"I wanted to tell the story. This is reality. This is what it's like. There's joy, there's sorrow, there's a lot of sacrifice and a lot of camaraderie. It's all said in the title of the book. I can't say enough about the regard I had for the guys I served with."

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One thing I did find "interesting" in that book was when he was on page 6 where it said:

Made me raise an eyebrow on that line. I wasn't there so I definately don't know, but it's hard to imagine them saying that.