Above and beyond

Ranger Sergeant Randy Shugart was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor posthumously in 1994. At the Medal of Honor ceremony Shugart’s father said to President Clinton that he was not fit to be commander in chief.
When Mark Bowden was asked by the Philadelphia Inquirer to profile President Clinton for its Sunday magazine during the election campaign of 1996, that encounter became the focus of his profile. As Bowden met the families of the men who had served and died in Mogadishu, however, he wanted to find out more about the Battle of Mogadishu itself. His desire to find out more led to his great book about the battle, Black Hawk Down. (Bowden tells the story in the epilogue to the book.)
In a class by itself this morning is a Wall Street Journal column by Dorothy Rabinowitz about the acts taken by Shugart and fellow Ranger Sergeant Gary Gordon (also killed in action) that resulted in their being awarded the Medal of Honor: “Above and beyond.”