One night in January 2002, George W. Bush hosted a movie night's sleepover.

He'd only been in office for a year, but those first 12 months had been tumultuous.

9-11, the strikes in Afghanistan, and the looming threat of war in Iraq.

That winter, during a weekend retreat to Camp David, Bush invited strikes in Afghanistan, and the looming threat of war in Iraq.

That winter, during a weekend retreat to Camp David, Bush invited 20 Republican members of Congress to watch a movie with him. It was a film that had recently become a political talking

point, the 1990s set war movie Black Hawk Down.

Once that first bullet goes past your head,

politics go right out the window.

Directed by Ridley Scott, and based on a book by journalist Mark Bowden,

Black Hawk Down was the true story of a disastrous 1993 peacekeeping mission in Mogadishu, Somalia.

Hundreds of Somalis and 18 American soldiers were killed that day.

Not long afterward, the U.S. withdrew from Somalia altogether.

Black Hawk Down had been filmed in early 2001

and made with help from the U.S. Defense Department,

which supplied helicopters and trained some of the actors on flight simulators.

The result was an extremely visceral war movie.

At times, you could almost feel the rattle as machine gun fire

hit a U.S. Black Hawk helicopter.

C-2, this is 6-8. We've been hit. the rattle as machine gun fire hit a U.S. Black Hawk helicopter. Though the mission in Black Hawk down quickly turns deadly, the American soldiers are

strong-willed and clear-eyed, even when the odds are against them. In one of the film's

quieter scenes, a Delta Force soldier, played by Eric Banna, explains how he'll talk about the battle when he gets home.

He knows the kind of questions he'll get. Why do you do it? Why do you knowingly go into combat?

...