FORT GORDON, Ga. — Troops and civilians spent Saturday sweating through a 5K and a fitness challenge at Fort Gordon, the Army post outside Augusta, in a tribute to the soldier whose name it carries.
The installation built the day around Master Sgt. Gary Gordon, who was killed while serving in Somalia. The workouts were meant to be tough: participants pulled weighted sleds, did deadlifts and hauled themselves up ropes that stretched 20 feet. A noncommissioned officer at the post’s academy headquarters described the event as a way to share military traditions, honor and the Army’s emphasis on excellence with people from outside the gate.
Gordon’s story is one of the best known from the 1993 fighting in Mogadishu. Born in Lincoln, Maine, in 1960, he enlisted at 18, trained as a combat engineer and later volunteered for the Army’s Delta Force, where he rose to team sergeant. On Oct. 3, 1993, he was leading a sniper team when a second Black Hawk helicopter, known as Super Six Four, went down in the city.
Gordon and fellow sniper Sgt. 1st Class Randy Shughart asked to be put on the ground to protect the wounded crew, even as armed fighters closed in. Commanders turned them down twice before granting the request. Both men were killed, and both were awarded the Medal of Honor after their deaths, the first such awards since the Vietnam War.
Saturday’s challenge gave the Fort Gordon community, soldiers and neighbors alike, a hands-on way to remember that sacrifice more than three decades after the battle in Mogadishu.
Filed under: Augusta GA Neighborhood News