This mission wasn’t supposed to take more than an hour. The squad got the call to “Get it On,” or gear up for a mission. They had been in Somalia for almost three months running missions night and day. It was supposed to have been a day off for the men of TFR. A top secret, joint military special operations package consisting of Army Special Forces, Delta operators Rangers, Night Stalkers of the 160th Special Operations Air Regiment, Navy SEALs and Air Force commandos was formed, called Task Force Ranger (TFR). After twenty-two Pakistani UN peackeepers were gunned down by Aideed, American troops were assigned to guard food shipments by the new Clinton administration. Aideed and his troops confiscated these relief efforts and in 1992, President George Bush decided to step in through Operation Restore Hope, one of his last acts in the White House. In the 1990s, the UN was supplying humanitarian aid because of the civil war and starving Somalian people. Somalia, a country whose existence was threatened by civil war, was a haven for terrorists and warlords. He and his clan of Habr Gidir militia were attacking the United Nations (UN) food shipments. They were on the hunt for Muhammed Farrah Aideed. We knew a daylight raid was an increased risk….what we didn’t know is by the time it was all done, nineteen of us would never make it back,” says Keni. “We knew it was a dangerous part of town. One day while he was writing to his mom from a military base in Somalia, the call to gear up for a mission rang out and changed his life forever. (Rangers are a highly trained, highly motivated infantry unit who specialize in raids and dangerous missions behind enemy lines). After Keni went to college at the University of Florida, he enlisted in the Army in 1991 and successfully completed Army Ranger School. Enjoy, and stay safe out there.Keni’s father was an Army Ranger. You’ll hear more about his efforts to raise money for the sons and daughters of military servicemembers lost in battle - as well as an acoustic performance of the “Hold the Line” track - in the podcast. Turned out it was the weakest link in the unit, who was keeping to protocol, that saved everyone’s life when he shot at Somalis aiming RPGs down a corridor at the unit as they crossed. As Thomas and his unit were quite literally running behind tire-less (i.e., more or less running on rims) trucks out of Mogadishu toward the end of the fighting that fateful day, he found himself skipping protocol when crossing intersections - pause at corner, cover the man behind you, keep going, essentially - in an effort to keep up with the vehicles. The end of the tale broke down to a message of persistence - sticking to the things that you’ve learned actually work as the world throws you curveballs. Though I haven’t read Thomas’ book, my guess is that it’s probably worth checking out for you readers out there. My notes fell by the wayside as I was pulled into it. Thomas spoke and performed the song this past Thursday to open the Conversion Interactive / TCA recruiting/retention conference - his story was an unexpectedly gripping treat to start the day. The fact that I don’t have a bevy of quotes from the story here is pretty good evidence of how good the it was, in the end. Click through the image to read more about Thomas’ book chronicling his experience in Somalia. Thomas gets to a little bit of that in the podcast below, an excerpt from the tail end of his talk, introducing his “Hold the Line” song (it’s followed by the official video for the recorded track below, which I’d encourage you to also take a look at). The same could be said for a lot of things, of course, whether it’s making a decision to jump off the truck to grow the fleet, to break the reins tying your business to a larger leased entity to go out on your own with a set of different partners, or to finally put that down payment down on a truck of your own to revamp your relationship to the industry.īut just because life gets harder doesn’t mean it’s not worth moving forward, in the end. “But it gets hard when you come back to the other side.” “Making a difference and mattering and giving an example to follow - it’s easy in the uniform,” he went on, referring to his military experience, when he was a sergeant Army ranger caught in the now famous “black hawk down” episode in Mogadishu in Somalia. He was moving into a point about where exactly life and leadership happen, where the rubber meets the road in our on-highway parlance, noting that it all gets harder and harder the more advanced you become in whatever you’re doing. “I don’t get to wear the boots anymore,” said songwriter, author and former Army ranger Keni Thomas, capping a talk that was strong on storytelling, with no small amount of motivational-type elements thrown in to keep you thinking.
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