Top MacDill enlisted leader, veteran of Mogadishu's 'Black Hawk Down' battle, to retire

TAMPA — Chris Faris was wounded in Mogadishu in 1993 as a member of the elite Delta Force during the battle made famous in the book and film Black Hawk Down. And he has spent nearly six years deployed overseas since 2002, often while on secret missions in the world's most-dangerous places.

But the work one of the grand marshals of the 2015 Gasparilla celebration wants to be remembered for is his effort to encourage soldiers to seek the help they might need after returning from war. Faris was until Dec. 18 command sergeant major — the top enlisted leader — of U.S. Special Operations Command at MacDill Air Force Base, and has earned seven Bronze Stars and a Purple Heart in his 31 years in the Army. He will retire at the end of February.

That, Faris said, is enough.

"As the expression goes, 'Okay, Uncle Sam. You've gotten all the blood out of this turnip. There ain't no more.' It's time for something new," Faris said.

Faris, 53, is ending a storied military career after more than three years at SOCom and is opening the civilian chapter of his life with plans to become a motivational speaker. It's a role that isn't much different from the one he played at SOCom working to buttress the morale of the enlisted ranks, often speaking to troops around the nation.

In what might be his final official act in the military, Faris is serving as a co-grand marshal of Gasparilla, including the parade in Tampa on Saturday. The other grand marshal is TV host Mario Lopez.

Faris said his participation in Gasparilla is one way he can give back to a community that he said supports MacDill and U.S. troops unconditionally.

"Tampa Bay's different here than any place I've seen," Faris said. The support for troops "is very genuine and sincere."

Faris might be one of the last veterans of the Black Hawk Down battle still in uniform. In a brief interview last week, Faris was reluctant to discuss the battle simply because he's been asked so often about it, both by reporters and by other troops.

"It's been written about so much," Faris said. "I don't know if you can get in trouble for plagiarizing my story. It's pretty much the same no matter how you write it . . . You get tired of answering the same questions over and over again."

He acknowledged the battle that cost the lives of 18 U.S. troops and left 73 others wounded is never far from his mind.

"I probably think about it two million times a day, every day," Faris said. "You don't go to war without being changed."

U.S. troops went to famine-ravaged Somalia on a humanitarian mission beginning in 1992 that soon focused on the capture of warlord Mohamad Farrah Aidid, whose troops often confiscated food aid intended for starving Somalians. A routine Oct. 3, 1993, mission to capture several of Aidid's lieutenants turned into a raging battle when one, then a second U.S. Black Hawk helicopter were downed.

A quick raid turned into a protracted mission to rescue the Black Hawk crews.

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According to an account by Daniel Klaidman in the DailyBeast.com to mark the 20th anniversary of the battle, Faris was on the initial Delta team assigned to capture Aidid's aides. But he soon found himself diverted to the first Black Hawk crash site.

But Faris and a group of troops were ambushed as they moved to the crash. A bullet hit Faris' body armor without penetrating it. But the bullet hit with enough force that Faris suffered internal bleeding.

"In a house the team had occupied, Faris held up his wedding band and said goodbye to his wife and his two small daughters," Klaidman wrote.

Faris went on to climb to the highest enlisted ranks of special forces. But the toll of all that fighting and time overseas, he came to recognize, was destroying his relationship with his family.

In prior interviews with news media, Faris and wife Lisa have discussed how troops learn to shut down their emotions in combat. But to Faris, that led him to become distant from his family when he returned home. He would not re-engage with his family, he said, knowing he would soon be overseas again.

There was a revelation when Faris' 18-year-old daughter reminded him that he had last been home for a birthday when she was 10. Faris said he sought counseling to repair his marriage. And he and his wife made it a mission to speak to troops and their family members around the nation as Faris worked to end the machismo attitude of solders who think asking for help is a failing.

Faris told the Times he once shared that attitude. "I thought: There's nothing wrong with me. I'm big and strong. There's no chinks in my armor. I fooled myself into believing I didn't need help."

He said it was much more difficult emotionally to get up the nerve to talk about such personal issues with the troops than recounting old war stories.

Faris said he hopes his work helping troops cope with the stress of deployment is his legacy — not Mogadishu.

"The only thing I want to be remembered for, frankly, is having made a positive difference in someone's life," Faris said.

Contact William R. Levesque at levesque@tampabay.com. Follow @Times_Levesque.

This story has been revised to reflect the following correction: Chris Faris, a grand marshal of the Gasparilla celebration, relinquished his post as senior enlisted leader at U.S. Special Operations Command on Dec. 18.