Before Black Hawk Down: What SEAL Team 5 Was Actually Doing in Somalia

About this video

Jason Gardner, former SEAL Team 5 Command Master Chief, recounts his difficult childhood after his father’s severe logging accident when Gardner was 10, which left the family financially strained and eventually led to his parents’ separation. Gardner explains how he worked as a horse wrangler before joining the Navy, then describes his early SEAL deployments including the First Gulf War. He details his February 1993 deployment to Somalia (two years before Black Hawk Down), where he participated in the UN withdrawal operation and engaged in a firefight using a .50 caliber sniper rifle, according to his account.

Key takeaways

• Gardner describes his father being severely injured in a 1990 logging accident (tree fell on him, breaking his neck and hip), which ended his logging career and created financial hardship that Gardner believes contributed to his parents’ later separation
• Gardner recounts answering a quarterdeck phone call at SEAL Team 5 asking for a sniper replacement for a Somalia deployment and volunteering himself for the assignment
• Gardner details a firefight in Somalia in February 1993 where, according to his account, he engaged multiple armed individuals with a .50 caliber rifle at ranges from 600 to 1000 yards after his position was fired upon with small arms, RPGs, and a recoilless rifle

Episode details: published May 25, 2026 · 8.1K views · 31:30 long. Summary written by Self Growth Videos from the episode itself. Stories told by Mike Ritland’s podcast guests are the guests’ own accounts, attributed to them — not independently verified. Commentary is Ritland’s, presented as his analysis.

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