Gary Ivan Gordon was a master sergeant in the United States Army and a recipient of the Medal of Honor. At the time of his death, he was a non-commissioned officer in the United States Army's premier special operations unit, the 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta, or "Delta Force". Together with his comrade, Sergeant First Class Randy Shughart, Gordon was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions during the Battle of Mogadishu in October 1993. Gary Gordon was born 30 August 1960, in Lincoln and graduated from Mattanawcook Academy in 1978. On December 4 of that year, at age 18, he joined the U. S. Army. Trained as a combat engineer, Gordon became a Special Forces Engineer with the 2nd Battalion of the 10th Special Forces Group. In December 1986, he volunteered and was selected to join the 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta, or Delta Force; as a Delta operator, Gordon advanced to Team Sergeant. Before deploying to Somalia, he married his wife Carmen and they had two children and Ian.

Gordon was deployed to Mogadishu, with other Delta members in the summer of 1993 as part of Task Force Ranger. On 3 October 1993 Gordon was Sniper Team Leader during Operation Gothic Serpent, a joint-force assault mission to apprehend key advisers to Somali warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid. During the assault, Super Six One, one of the Army's Black Hawk helicopters providing insertion and air support to the assault team, was shot down and crashed in the city. A Combat Search and Rescue team was dispatched to the first crash site to secure it and a short time a second Black Hawk, Super Six Four, was shot down as well. Ranger forces on the ground were not able to assist the downed helicopter crew of the second crash site as they were engaged in heavy combat with Aidid's militia and making their way to the first crash site. Gordon and his Delta Force sniper teammates Sergeant First Class Randall Shughart and Sergeant First Class Brad Halling, who were providing sniper cover from the air, wanted to be dropped at the second crash site in order to protect the four critically wounded crew, despite the fact that large numbers of armed, hostile Somalis were converging on the area.

Mission commanders denied Gordon's request, saying that the situation was too dangerous for the three Delta snipers to protect the Black Hawk crew from the ground. Command's position was that the snipers could be of more assistance by continuing to provide air cover. Gordon, concluded that there was no way the Black Hawk crew could survive on their own, repeated his request twice until he received permission. Sergeant First Class Brad Hallings had assumed control of a minigun after a crew chief was injured and was not inserted with Shughart and Gordon. Once on the ground and Shughart, armed with only their personal weapons and sidearms, fought their way to the downed Black Hawk. By this time more Somalis were arriving who were intent on either capturing or killing the American servicemen; when they reached Super Six Four and Shughart extracted the pilot, Chief Warrant Officer Mike Durant, Bill Cleveland, Ray Frank, Tommy Field from the aircraft, established defensive positions around the crash site.

Despite having inflicted heavy casualties on the Somalis, the two Delta snipers were outnumbered and outgunned. Their ammunition nearly depleted and Shughart were killed by Somali gunfire, it is believed. Shughart gave it to Durant to use. Shortly after, Shughart was killed and Durant was taken alive. After the battle, the Somalis counted 25 of their own men dead with many more wounded. According to "America and Iraq: Policy-making and Regional Politics" edited by David Ryan, Patrick Kiely, "his half-naked body was dragged horrifically through the streets of Mogadishu". Gordon's body was recovered and is buried in Lincoln Cemetery, Penobscot County, Maine. There was some confusion in the aftermath of the action as to, killed first; the official citation states that it was Shughart, but Mark Bowden, author of Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War, a book about the October 1993 events, relates an account by Sergeant Paul Howe, another Delta operator participating in the battle. Howe said that he heard Shughart call for help on the radio and that the weapon handed to Durant was not the distinctive M14 used by Shughart.

Furthermore, Howe said that Gordon would never have given his own weapon to another soldier to use while he was still able to fight. In Durant's book, In the Company of Heroes, he states that Gordon was on the left side of the Black Hawk, after both he and Shughart moved Durant to a safer location, only heard Gordon say, "Damn, I'm hit." Afterwards Shughart came from the left side of the Black Hawk with the CAR-15. After the attack on the United States on 11 September 2001, United States Special Forces units were inserted into Afghanistan to assist the Northern Alliance forces in overthrowing the Taliban and al-Qaeda terrorists. Following an intense mountain battle known as Operation Anaconda in March 2002, U. S. troops complex found a GPS unit and holding pouch labeled "G. Gordon". Intelligence analysts believed at first this was Sergeant Gordon's GPS unit that he purchased on the private market and used in Somalia; the Gordon family was notified of the find prior to the information being released to the public.

It turned out that it was not Gordon's GPS but one of a helicopter pilot lost in an earlier fight during Operation Anaconda. MSG Gordon's personal decorations include: During his military career he earned the following military decorations: Medal of Honor, Purple Hea

Gilles Tordjman is a French musicologist and literary critic. After graduating with a Master's degree in philosophy in 1984, he wrote for Le Matin de Paris and L'Express before joigning Les Inrockuptibles in 1992 where he was an editorial writer for five years. In April 1997, Gilles Tordjman left Les Inrockuptibles following a polemic in the editorial office about Michel Bounan's book, L'Art de Céline et son temps which he had defended, he joigned L'Événement du jeudi. Subsequently, Gilles Tordjman wrote in Technikart, Jazz Magazine, Épok, Playboy, Mouvement, on artnet.fr. Gilles Tordjman wrote books devoted to Duke Ellington and Leonard Cohen as well as numerous articles about jazz musicians, notably Django Reinhardt, Chet Baker, Eric Dolphy and Pascal Comelade, he is a literary critic interested in Emmanuel Bove, Henri Calet, Marius Jacob, Jacques Yonnet, Guy Debord and Fernando Pessoa, Sun Tzu and Baltasar Gracián to whom Gilles Tordjman devoted long articles or postfaces when their works were reissued.

In 2012, he published an article against Bob Dylan in the special issue of Télérama devoted to the American singer. The truth changes according to the use; this period no longer needs a lie as a mode of government, as it no longer needs censorship as a mode of control: it is by showing everything that it perpetuates its secrets, it is by encouraging to say everything that it ensures the mastery of every word. 2006: Leonard Cohen, Le Castor astral ISBN 978-2-85920-671-0 1998: C'est déjà tout de suite, preface by Éric Holder, Céra-nrs éditions ISBN 2-9510395-1-4 1994: Duke Ellington, in collaboration with François Billard, Éditions du Seuil, ISBN 978-2020137003 2006: Philippe Robert, pop, éd. Le Mot et le reste 1997: Baltasar Gracián, L'Homme de cour, Éditions Mille et Une Nuits. 1996: Fernando Pessoa, Mille et une nuits 1996: Sun Tzu, The Art of War, Mille et une nuits 1995: Jonathan Swift, A Modest Proposal, Mille et une nuits 2014: Tarquin Hall, Les Aventures d'un bébé journaliste, translated from English, Globe 2013: Steven Levy, L'Éthique des hackers, translated from English, Globe 2000: Norman Cohn, chaos et le monde qui vient, translated from English, Éditions Allia 1990: Stan Motjuwadi and David Bristow, preface by Johnny Clegg, translated from English, Éditions Tallandier Leonard Cohen Les Inrockuptibles Présentation du livre sur Leonard Cohen on the site of the publisher Debord et l'honneur de l'imprécation, article published in Libération in December 1994 Article on Eric Dolphy published in Les Inrockuptibles in 1996 L'autisme critique, article published in Vibrations in 2004 Le MP3 mutile le son et l'audition, article published in Le Monde 2 29 August 2008 Open letter to Laurent Joffrin in February 2009 on mediapart.fr Jacques-Alain Léger: pas d'autre vie que la sienne, article published in August on 2013 larepubliquedeslivres.com Gilles Tordjman as a jewish crooner Leonard Cohen, un art de la guerre

Marilyn McAfee is a retired American diplomat who served as the United States Ambassador to Guatemala. McAfee was a history major at the University of Pennsylvania. After graduation, she attended The Johns Hopkins University. After Johns Hopkins, she began her eventual 31 year career as a foreign service officer. During her career, she spent four and a half years in Iran followed by three years in Washington, D. C. on the "Iran Desk" during the Iranian Revolution of 1979 and hostage crisis. She was responsibility for Afghanistan and Pakistan, both of which she visited multiple times. During her tenure, she spent ten weeks in Israel on official travel and served as Assistant Secretary General for Inspections in the Office of the Inspector General of the Department of State, which necessitated her travel for extended inspection visits to Russia, South Africa and China. Besides the Middle East, much of her time was spent in Latin America Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Venezuela and Bolivia where she was Deputy Chief of Mission with special responsibilities as Coordinator, Counter Narcotics Operations.

On May 28, 1993, she was appointed United States Ambassador to Guatemala by U. S. President Bill Clinton, she presented her credentials on June 16, 1993 and served until she left her post on June 20, 1996. McAffee had begun her career in Guatemala. While in Guatemala, McAfee focused on "supporting the institutionalization of democracy" and is remembered for her focus on human rights. While in Guatemala, the Central Intelligence Agency produced the "Murphy Memo" in 1994 based on audio recordings made by bugs planted in McAfee's bedroom that were placed by Guatemalan intelligence. In the recording, McAfee verbally entreated "Murphy"; the CIA circulated a memo in the highest Washington circles accusing her of having an extramarital lesbian affair with her secretary, Carol Murphy. However, there was no affair as the truth was McAfee was calling to Murphy, her two-year-old black standard poodle; the Guatemalan military resented McAfee's "emphasis on human rights had a plan to embarrass the Ambassador publicly, besmirch her reputation and damage the United States Embassy by spreading false rumors about her personal life."

The incident was revealed in 1993 during George Tenet's Senate confirmation hearings to become head of the CIA. After her retirement from the diplomatic service, she served six years as President of the World Affairs Council of Jacksonville, she participated in the World Affairs Councils of America special delegation visits to Morocco, Egypt and Baghdad in January 2009 at the invitation of Ambassador Ryan Crocker. She has lectured for World Affairs Councils of America. Ambassador McAfee, married, makes her home in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida and is a member of the University of North Florida Foundation Board, the Board of Baptist Medical Center Beaches, the Rotary International Foundation Board in Downtown Jacksonville. McAfee was awarded the Presidential Meritorious Award, the Superior Honor Award and the Distinguished Honor Award, she was promoted to the rank of Career Minister in 1997. She has been listed in Who's Who in America, Who's Who of American Women, Who's Who in American Politics. In 2005, McAfee was awarded The Florida Times-Union's Eve Award for Outstanding Volunteer Service.

Marilyn McAfee in WikiLeaks