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The ‘Battle of Mogadishu’ is better known to everyone as the ‘Black Hawk Down’ incident. It has received renewed attention recently after Netflix released the 3-episode series Surviving Black Hawk Down which featured interviews from Army Rangers and Somali citizens who were involved in the conflict.
One of those Army Rangers who was part of the Battle of Mogadishu was Colonel Larry Perino. His real-life role in the battle was sort of combined with 2 other soldiers for the role that Josh Hartnett played in the 2001 movie.
With the renewed interest in Black Hawk Down after the Netflix series, Colonel Perino was a guest on Barstool’s ‘Bold American’ show this week where he discussed his background, his service, and the 2001 film.
Interestingly, it is brought up how Black Hawk Down has been deemed the most realistic war film ever made by Hollywood which brings me to why we’re all here… Colonel Larry Perino discusses what the movie got right about the Battle of Mogadishu, the parts of the conflict he believes were most true to his experience having lived through it. His answer starts at 39:06 but I’ve pulled some quotes below:
Colonel Perino says he thinks the film “captured the intensity fairly well, just the intensity. Sometimes even more (intense).” He went on to add that he believes Black Hawk Down “captured the interactions between the Rangers and the operators and the pilots.”
He added that the book is a little bit different from the film, saying it seemed like there was a big clash between the various organizations involved “but there really wasn’t. It was a couple of individuals. But for the lieutenant to the senior NCO to the officers, for us we got along with them just fine.”
Perino went on to say that “half the people from that other unit came from a Ranger background anyway and we knew them. So that’s what I thought was really good (about the film).”
After that, he recalled how his ‘old platoon sergeant’ came to him and said “‘Hey Larry, it’s a movie,’ so was it accurate? No. I wasn’t expecting it to be… It had a few scenes in there like the scene where Corporal Smith had passed and I was like ‘oh s—, I wish it was that nice.’”
For more on his interview with Barstool’s Bold American show, hit the ‘play’ button on the video above and be sure to smash the ‘subscribe’ button for more from them if you enjoyed that content.
Content shared from brobible.com.