Michael Durant was a United States Army Black Hawk helicopter pilot. He was a Night Stalker. He was part of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment as a Chief Warrant Officer and, on a night in early October in 1993, his aircraft was shot down in Mogadishu, Somalia. He, along with fellow crew members and soldiers Bill Cleveland, Ray Frank and Tommy Field, were very soon thereafter captured by enemy forces.

You probably know the story.

It was the subject of the 2001 Hollywood film Black Hawk Down.

It’s impossible to watch the following video and not be inspired by Durant’s words. In it, the retired soldier tells what it was like to be the only one to survive the famous battle, be a hostage, and how finally opening up about the traumatic experience allowed him to heal, and eventually build a successful civilian career …