On October 1, 2022, four teams from KY-051 (Harrison County High School) participated in the “Mogadishu Mile” held near Georgetown, KY. The Mogadishu Mile is a fundraiser and a memorial event held by the Kentucky Wounded Heroes organization. Proceeds go to aid military veterans and first responders from Kentucky who have been injured in the line of duty. Additionally, the event remembers those 19 military members lost on October 3rd and 4th in 1993. Below is an except of the event from the Kentucky Wounded Heroes website.
On October 3rd, 1993, members of the 3rd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment and 1st SFOD-D
(Delta Force), supported by pilots from the 160th Aviation Regiment (Nightstalkers) and other SF
units, went into the city of Mogadishu, Somalia to execute Operation ‘Gothic Serpent,’ an
attempt to apprehend key players in Mohammed Farrah Aidid’s dictatorship. While the initial
mission went smoothly, things took a turn for the worse when two aircraft were shot down,
forever coining the phrase ‘Blackhawk Down.’ Determined to not leave a man behind, and also
facing the task of securing the crash sites, Rangers and Deltas, scattered at several locations
throughout the city, under heavy fire, most of them wounded, and low on supplies, held their
positions until the morning hours of October 4th. As help from the 10th Mountain Division finally
arrived, the armored vehicles could not accommodate all of the soldiers. At this point, some of
them began their exit to a rally point on foot, under heavy fire, dehydrated and sleep deprived,
all of them wounded in one way or another. This has become known as the “Mogadishu Mile.”