Anybody belonging to this site served any time over in Mogadishu. What branch and unit did you belong to and what was your MOS. What time frame where you in country at.

Greetings. What info are you looking for?

I was in Mogadishu from 28 Dec 02 until 15 Mar 03, and again for a week or so in May/June 03 when we were pulling out. The remainder of my time in Somalia was spent in Belet Uen (near the Ethiopian border). I was an infantryman in Mortar Pl of the Canadian Airborne Regimental Battle Group.

While in Mogadishu, some of us worked with 55th EOD (US Army) almost daily. Spent the mornings destroying damaged ordnance, and the afternoons driving around the city to all the checkpoints.

Ex-royal was in the CAR then, so chances are that he should be also be able to comment on Mogadishu and Somalia as well.

Cheers,
JP

I would like to do a diorama or two, mainly of the street corners. So my question is, what where they like any curbs, street signs, how dirty where they. If there was any burnt out vehicles, what makes and models. You had mentioned about check points, that would be a intrusting dio also. What did they look like? and where were they placed. Would you have a pictures to share. Thanks for any feed back.

Like JP said I was in Somalia also, From 27 Dec '92 Till 20 May '93. I did several trips to Mogadishu. To answer your questions Mogadishu is very much a european city in terms of its architecture and layout. . It has an Italian or French Riviera feel ALA S*** hole if you get my meaning.. The Streets were dirty and I do remember seeing some burnt out vehicles but not like in the movies. Here are a couple of pics. HTH
cheers,
Bryan

Here's a few pics that I scanned from my photo album.

Bearing in mind that Somalia was an Italian colony for many years, Mogadishu is a mix of Italian architectural influences and Arab styles in an interesting manner.

Where you were in the city had a lot of bearing on the degree of filth, burnt out vehicles and buildings, etc that you encountered.

Checkpoint 50 was manned by USMC. Typically there was an AAVP7A1 sitting on this side of the sandbagged wall, but here it had been moved so that we could destroy some UXO in their 'blow pit' off to the left of that. This photo was taken near the north end of the city looking south.

The other photo was taken across the street from Checkpoint 77 (also manned by Marines), while heading to the Old Port. This was a heavily contested area of the city, sometimes referred to as 'the Green Line'. As seen in this photo, something that was commonly used for barricades at other checkpoints was concrete sewer sections standing on end.

Vehicles - heavily beat up. All sorts.

Here's my first attempt at posting photos at Armorama:




Hope these are of help.

Cheers,
JP

Hey guys, thanks for the pictures they will help very much. I aslo enjoyed the little back ground history as i did'nt know a few of those things. Hey by the way, where in Canada are you guys at. Anywhere near the Mighty Niagara?