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13 Hours Between Alive And Dead

On the night of September 11, 2012, Benghazi – the second most populous and the dusty Mediterranean port city in Libya – was quite peaceful until a sudden attack occurred towards the United States Department Special Mission Compound a.k.a. American diplomatic outpost by group of armed men.

Christopher Stevens, the US ambassador to Libya, who just arrived at the compound from his office in Tripoli, including the DSS (Diplomatic Security Service) team members, were not ready as the attack was run very fast. The attackers were unstoppable even by the 17 February Martyrs Brigade, a Libya armed militia which tasked to guard the gate and protect the compound.

Some people were slain by the armed attackers who then set the building on fire where several persons including the ambassador were trapped inside the ‘safe haven’ room.

About 1.5 mile from the burning US compound, there was a CIA secret venue called as “The Annex” where a team of Global Response Staffs (GRS) was stationed. The GRS is a team under CIA which consist of some private military contractors. They could be from any military units but had a lot of experiences as combatant ever assigned in various dangerous places such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, etc.

This book, written by Mitchell Zuckoff – a professor of journalism at the Boston University – tells a story during 13 hours critical situation (from the night of September 11, 2012 into the morning of the next day) when the six men of GRS team fought the battle that repulsed the attackers and saved roughly two dozen American staffs and officers.

Professor Zuckoff wrote the story chronologically based on exclusive firsthand accounts that described the bloody assault, tragic losses, and heroic deeds by Mark “Oz” Geist, Kris “Tanto” Paronto, John “Tig” Tiegen, Jack Silva, Dave “D.B.” Benton, and Tyrone “Rone” Woods (Jack Silva and Dave Benton are pseudonyms to satisfy their privacy).

Oz was former US Marine, Tanto was former Army Ranger, Tig was former US Marine, Jack was former Navy SEAL, D.B. was a former US Marine and SWAT and Rone was former Navy SEAL. Sadly, not all of those GRS team survived at the horrific night.

The book has been filmed with the same title in 2016, directed by Michael Bay and written by Chuck Hogan. The film, where the shooting was taken place in Morocco and Malta, now can be watched in Netflix.

Not only about the courage, the 13 Hours story also tells the humanity touches, loyalty and dedication, and also solidarity. Despite the toughness and bravery, they also expressed their soft feelings how they love their family, how the economic needs has made them no options but to take the dangerous job as the security contractors and to leave their loved ones at home. How bitter story and dilemma of life.

The six men will be remembered as brave Americans who put themselves in harm’s way, who believed in their work and their country, and who died serving others. This also proved that the professionalism would always come first despite they were no longer official military but the "outsourcing team".

I have watched the film twice in Netflix.

***

Serpong, 26 Mar 2022

Titus J.

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