<DIV>Already a classic of war reporting and now reissued as a Grove Press paperback, <i>Black Hawk Down</i> is Mark Bowden&#8217;s brilliant account of the longest sustained firefight involving American troops since the Vietnam War. On October 3, 1993, about a hundred elite U.S. soldiers were dropped by helicopter into the teeming market in the heart of Mogadishu, Somalia. Their mission was to abduct two top lieutenants of a Somali warlord and return to base. It was supposed to take an hour. Instead, they found themselves pinned down through a long and terrible night fighting against thousands of heavily armed Somalis. The following morning, eighteen Americans were dead and more than seventy had been badly wounded. <BR>Drawing on interviews from both sides, army records, audiotapes, and videos (some of the material is still classified), Bowden&#8217;s minute-by-minute narrative is one of the most exciting accounts of modern combat ever written&#8212;a riveting story that captures the heroism, courage, and brutality of battle.</DIV>