Customer Reviews

Doorway to Hell: Disaster in Somalia

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I was in Somalia as a member of the Army's 10th Mountain Division and bar none, I can't imagine any book that could be better written about the situation in Somalia in 1993 than this one. I've bought copies for everyone in my family because by reading it, they will know what I went through.
"Blackhawk Down" was brilliantly done, but it was only about a 2 day battle in Mogadishu in October, 1993. "Doorway To Hell" is about the whole operation and it is so accurate, I had flashbacks when I read about the horrific conditions which I lived through.
It is a book that will be appreciated especially by anyone who was in country, and will be hated by those who made the policy decisions that caused the U.S. to be there in the first place.
I was especially impressed by the breadth and scope of the narrative. It ranges from the policies in the United Nations, White House and Pentagon regarding Somalia; to the experiences of the common soldier who went head to head with Somalian warlord gunmen.
Brigadier General Wheeler and LTC Roberts have done a great service to every one of the 80,000 American veterans who served there and each one of them should get a copy of this book.

General Wheeler and Colonel Roberts have put together a blockbuster that exposes what happens when US troops are placed under United Nations command (foreign officers), and are subject to ill-defined missions then progress in "mission creep" to such fiascos as depicted in the movie "Blackhawk Down." More importantly, they show the REAL reasons our troops were sent to Somalia that include the economic (oil) and strategic (Somalia guards the entrance to the Red Sea and is across from Yemen). One also finds that Osama bin Ladin's "al Qaida" is responsible for training and equpping the Somalis, and still exist there in training camps on the Horn of Africa. A must read, before it's too late and we end up in another quagmire like this one.

This is a book that should be read by everyone in a policymaking position in Washington down to a Marine or soldier in a frontline unit. It covers the Somalia operation from the strategic to the tactical to the impact on the individual. The reader will have a hard time putting this down and there will be times when reading it, the reader will be angry at the incompetence of decisionmakers, sad to the point of tears with regard to the horror and heartache that our troops were exposed to, and extremely proud of the work that our American soldiers and Marines did to help save a starving nation. I am buying copies of this book for presents but only for those who are intelligent enough to understand how complex and challenging was Somalia.

This book has much greater breadth than Black Hawk Down for instance, but it does not present much depth. It is a primer for a subject which is painfully undocumented.

I very much enjoyed the more panoramic view of the social/political environment in Somalia during that period - but I feel like the book really misses a chance to be an authoritative book on the subject. More background information, more detail on foreign troop deployments, diagrams, interviews - the framework is there to make a comprehensive history of the operation.

That being said, I doubt that was the goal of the authors, who did a splendid job documenting a truly awful piece of foreign policy - and a somewhat forgotten piece of egg on Mr. Clinton's face. I wonder if Bill saw Black Hawk Down?

As a professor of history I've read my share of historical narratives. This book ranks among the best for a quick read and understanding of the events that surrounded the commitment of advanced nations in the world to help a starving Somalia.
It ranges from international strategic planning and prosecution of hidden agendas, to the horrors experienced by those on the ground that ranked with the liberation of Dachau and Auschwitz.
The authors -- both retired American military officers -- even cover such detail as the disbandment of the Canadian Parachute Regiment following Somalia, as only retired officers can tell it.
The book "Blackhawk Down" was supremely well done, but it only focused on one battle. "Doorway To Hell" tells the whole story ... and at points, it is a hard story to choke down.
Don't buy this book as a present for some weenie, thin-
skinned, get-offended-at-everything, yuppie, politically-correct, mucker. It takes someone with enough sand to deal with the hard truth to appreciate it.

Rather than rehashing the same aspects of the Somalian disaster that have become common knowledge with the release of "Blackhawk Down", in "Doorway to Hell", General Wheeler and Lt. Col. Roberts take on a mission of far greater scope.

Their work takes the reader through every dimension of soldiering in the barren and forgotten wasteland that was Somalia, through copious attention to detail, and unmatched access to first-hand accounts. Further, the authors seamlessly tie this microcosmic view from the ground in Mogadishu to the wider geo-political and economic factors that dominated foreign policy decisions in the Clinton years, enticing the reader with insights and perspectives seldom alluded to in historical commentaries of this type.

Whatever one's interest level or knowledge of the war in Somalia may be, this book presents both the perfect starting and ending point for understanding the disaster in Somalia.

I purchased this book for a research paper on Somalia and was very disappointed. I wanted to read about the US military side of the situation, but unless you already know about the conflict, this book is quite confusing. The book is definitely missing an index of acronyms for all of the political movements. For example, how is it possible to understand "Compounding that challenge was the opposition of the SSDF and SPM who, believing they were disenfranchised by the provisional government, aligned themselves against the USC (p.7)" when the authors do not inform the reader about who these groups are?
I also found that the book lacked professionalism and was even hesitant to include the book in my bibliography. Somehow an incomplete sentence in a published work (p.58) makes me question the integrity of the entire text. If an author (or editor) doesn't verify sentence completion, how can I trust elements presented as fact?
Perhaps those who served in Somalia during this conflict or those who are quite knowledgeable about the subject would appreciate this book. However, if you are just beginning your research or looking for an overview of the military aspect of the conflict, I would recommend that you look elsewhere.