Retired Army Ranger and former Army chaplain Jeff Struecker — a veteran of the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu portrayed in the film “Black Hawk Down” — will visit Owensboro in May as the featured speaker for several National Day of Prayer events.
Struecker will speak during a series of community gatherings May 6-7, including an evening event at RiverPark Center and the annual National Day of Prayer gathering on the Daviess County Courthouse lawn.
For Struecker, the trip is also something of a homecoming. He spent several years in Kentucky earlier in his career while teaching and studying in Louisville.
“I spent several years in Kentucky,” Struecker said. “I went to school there, I did my seminary education in Louisville, and I also taught ROTC at the University of Louisville while I was still in the Army. So part of this is just getting back to some Kentucky Bluegrass country.”
Struecker’s career spans two distinct chapters of military service. He first served 13 years as an enlisted soldier, including a decade with the elite Army Rangers.
During that time, he deployed multiple times and was involved in the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu in Somalia, a mission that later became widely known through the book and film “Black Hawk Down.”
After leaving active duty for a brief period, Struecker returned to the Army in 2001 as a chaplain and served another decade providing spiritual guidance and support to soldiers.
“I basically had two different halves of my career,” he said. “The first half was as an enlisted guy, and the last 10 years in the Army I served as a chaplain.”
Today, Struecker travels widely speaking at community gatherings, churches, colleges, and corporate events. His presentations often combine stories from his military service with lessons on leadership and faith.
“Each event is different,” Struecker said. “But they all typically have something to do with my experiences in the military, my experiences in war, and also my faith and leadership — the leadership lessons that I’ve learned along the way.”
Those themes will shape his message in Owensboro, where he plans to share parts of his personal story while encouraging residents to reflect on their role in strengthening their community.
“I’ll share a little bit of my testimony and a little bit about my experiences,” Struecker said. “But more than anything else, I want to inspire people. I want to challenge them. I want to cause us to all be better citizens, better neighbors, and have a better community.”
Struecker said he hopes listeners leave the event thinking less about him and more about their own actions.
“What I hope is that when I’m done talking, people aren’t thinking about remarks about me,” he said. “They’re thinking about themselves, about their neighbors, and about their community.”
While he speaks on a variety of topics, Struecker said audiences often ask him to reflect on his experiences during the battle in Mogadishu, where American forces were caught in a prolonged firefight during a mission to capture militia leaders.
“More than half the time people say, ‘Jeff, that’s all great, but we want to hear you talk about Black Hawk Down,’” he said.
Struecker said he welcomes those conversations, especially because they allow him to remember fellow soldiers who did not survive the mission.
“Some of my friends didn’t make it back from Black Hawk Down,” he said. “I want to remember their names. I don’t want anybody to ever forget what kind of men these were.”
The battle later became the subject of the best-selling book “Black Hawk Down,” followed by the 2001 film adaptation in which an actor portrayed Struecker.
“They did a great job,” he said of the film. “For the fact that it’s a major motion picture, they really kept to the spirit of what happened to us over there.”
Beyond the historical significance of the battle, Struecker said his focus in Owensboro will be on unity and faith — themes that align closely with the National Day of Prayer.
“I’m a man of deep faith,” Struecker said. “My faith influenced the way that I served my country, the way that I view my country, and the way that I live my life.”
In a time when the nation often feels divided, he said events that bring people together around shared values are especially meaningful.
“Every day it feels like our country is becoming more and more divisive and polarized,” he said. “So anything that brings communities together, crossing lines and breaking down boundaries, inspires me. Especially when it’s our common faith that brings us together.”
Struecker said he is looking forward to returning to Kentucky for the event.
“I love Kentucky. I love this part of America,” he said. “And May in Kentucky doesn’t get much better than that.”
