A terrific war movie that beautifully illustrates this love of soldiers for their fellow soldiers is "Black Hawk Down"...although it focuses, really, only on the Americans in the battle, not on the Somalis. Still, it's a superb movie about men in combat, and how they will give their lives willingly for their friends.

And why were these Americans engaged in battle? The battle began as an attempt to capture Moammed Farra Aidid, a Somali clan leader who was seizing UN relief supplies for sale on the black market, and attacking and massacring UN soldiers who were trying to coordinate an effort to keep the people of Mogadishu from starving to death. Sure, the American soldiers were motivated by the love of their buddies and the desire to survive, but what about their primary motivation for being there? Was this an attempt by the United States to seize Somalia as a stepping stone to controlling the Horn of Africa? Or was there not a tremendous hew and cry throughout the world that we could not stand idly by and watch a people starve to death? Good and Evil are not always on a sliding scale depending on your point of view. Feeding the starving and giving vital healthcare to the sick and dying, which was the UN mission in Somalia, was the right thing to do. Seizing these supplies to sell for profit at the cost of the lives of your fellow citizens is the wrong thing to do.
Should someone have thanked the 24 Pakistanis who were murdered and skinned by Aidid's clan for attempting to defend these vital supplies? Should anyone be grateful for the helicopter crews and ground troops who died in the attempt to capture Aidid and save their friends' lives?
I suppose many think it would have been better to ignore the starvation, oppression and disease in the name of peace and non-violence. Perhaps that is the bitter lesson we all learned in Mogadishu.