Jeff Struecker - The Road to Unafraid: How the Armys Top Ranger Faced Fear and Found Courage through

ROAD TO UNAFRAID
2006 Jeff Struecker

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Jeff Struecker is represented by The Nashville Agency, P.O. Box 110909, Nashville, TN 37222.

Dean Merrill is represented by Mark Sweeney & Associates, 28540 Altessa Way, Suite 201, Bonita Springs, FL 34135.

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from The Holy Bible, New Living Translation (NLT), 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

Other Scripture references are from the following sources:

The Holy Bible, New International Version (NIV). 1973, 1978, 1984. International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Bible Publishers.

The New King James Version (NKJV), 1979, 1980, 1982, Thomas Nelson, Inc., Publishers.

Editorial Staff: Greg Daniel, Acquisitions Editor, and Thom Chittom, managing editor.
Cover Design: DesignPoint, Inc.
Page Design: Walter Petrie

The views presented are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of Department of Defense or its Components.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Struecker, Jeff, 1969

The road to unafraid : how the Armys top ranger faced fear and found courage through Black Hawk Down and beyond / Jeff Struecker with Dean Merrill.

p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-8499-0060-0 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-5955-5132-0 (trade paper)

1. Struecker, Jeff, 1969 2. United States. ArmyCommando troopsBiography. 3. United States. ArmyOfficersBiography. 4. United States. ArmyChaplainsBiography. 5. BaptistsUnited StatesClergyBiography. 6. FearBiblical teaching.
I. Merrill, Dean. II. Title.
U53.S778A3 2006
355.0092dc22
[B]

2006012964

Printed in the United States of America

08 09 10 11 12 RRD 6 5 4 3 2 1

To Dawn,
an awesome wife
and my best friend.

CONTENTS

U.S. ARMY RANGERS DONT GET SCARED. WEVE MADE A name for ourselves as the fearless ones. Were a tough, disciplined, quick-strike force that parachutes or helicopters into nasty situations, kicks down doors, captures the bad guys, and forces openings for the rest of the army to followhence our motto, Rangers Lead the Way.

Give us the hardest, most dangerous, most challenging mission you can think of. Well take it on. Were the elitefewer than half a percent of all active-duty soldiers. We go where others are not able or not trained to go. We instinctively run toward the fight, not away from it.

At least thats the mystique. Line up any one hundred guys who have served successfully in the Ranger Regiment and ask if theyve ever been afraid. Youll get no takers.

We stand in the long, proud line of those Rangers who first pushed onto Omaha Beach on D-Day back in 1944. It was Rangers who scaled straight up the ninety-foot cliffs of Pointe-du-Hoc that day to knock out a nest of 155-millimeter German cannons that were holding off the Allied invasion.

It was Rangers who jumped onto the airfields of Grenada (1983), taking on the enemy with no backup for hours. We Rangers did the same in Panama (1989). We were the ones who came oh-so-close to breaking the back of Somali warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid and restoring sanity to that desperate country (1993)until our government pulled us out. If youve read Mark Bowdens excellent bestseller BlackHawk Down or seen the Academy Awardwinning movie, you know all about that. In this book, Ill give you my take on what happened there.

Along the way I may surprise you by admitting that Ive been afraid more than once or twice during my thirteen-plus years in the Ranger Regiment. That may upset some people. But its true.

Ive felt the same fears as those whove never worn the uniform. Fear of death. Fear of losing your most valued relationships. Fear of running out of money. Fear of getting sick. Fear of violence. Fear of embarrassment. These happen all across the human spectrum.

How we handle our fears makes a huge difference. We can let them paralyze us, or we can find the courage to rise above them. Through my experiences, I share some extreme examples of facing threats and overcoming the panic they generate inside. My hope is to encourage you in your private battles.

A U.S. military firebase somewhere in Afghanistan during the Global War onTerrorism.

IT WAS A SUNDAY AFTERNOON, BUT I CAN ASSURE YOU nobody was taking a nap. Earlier thoughts about organizing a volleyball game in the warm sun at our Mogadishu airport compound by the ocean were long forgotten. Intelligence was now saying we had a golden opportunity to catch not one but two high aides to Mohamed Farrah Aidid, the warlord who was basically ruining Somalia.

This desert country on the tip of northeast Africa didnt just have a bad government, it had not had a functioning government at all for the past two years. If you wanted to mail a letter, there was no postal system to accept or deliver it. If you had a child who needed schooling, there was no such public institution. If you were in trouble and needed a police officer for protection, youd better have a bribe ready.

It was such a shame, because as I had looked around Mogadishu, I couldnt help thinking it had the potential to be one of the worlds great resort cities. The gentle breezes off the Indian Ocean, the sandy beaches, the warm sunshineit all compared to the French Riviera. Instead, it was currently shot to pieces, totally trashed, the most violent place on earth. Only the mosques seemed to have been spared.

Aidid and his competitors ran daily life through sheer force, controlling the drug trade and choking off the worlds food aid as soon as it arrived in the port. He had a sinister scheme for getting and keeping fighters. His policy was simple: free drugs if youll join my militia. As a result, he had recruited thousands of desperate young men who stayed high much of the time. The average Somali lived in daily fearmore than two million had been driven from their homes, and three hundred thousand had starved to death.

The United Nations had commissioned us, along with troops from several other nations, to take care of this bully once and for all, ushering him toward a trial for crimes against humanity. In the two months Task Force Ranger had been in Mogadishu, wed already conducted six raids into the dusty, chaotic city, nabbing key players in Aidids militia each time. Cooperative Somalis who wanted a better life for their country fed us tips on where to look. Soon our small helicopters swooped down from the sky to drop special operators on the designated rooftop or in alleys nearby. They kicked in the doors, immediately threw flash-bang grenades to stun everyone inside, and then handcuffed them with flexbands before the targets knew what hit them.