In the early ‘90s, Mark Wentling’s career and passions took him all the way from attending Wichita State University to a meeting room in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, negotiating with Somali warlords. 

“Finally, we got them to agree to bury the hatchet, have peace, and I was thinking, ‘Maybe I don’t have to go to Somalia now that there’s peace breaking out,’ but that was naivety,” Wentling said. 

He was in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia on Oct. 3, 1993, when American helicopters were shot down by Somali forces in what is now known as Black Hawk Down or the Battle of Mogadishu. 

Wentling later wrote in an account of his experience on Oct. 3 that after a Marine told him the news of the crashed helicopter, “I followed the Marine up the ladder to the roof so I could see for myself but I no sooner arrived on the roof when I reversed myself and flew back down the ladder as we were being fired at by Somali snipers.”

In honor of his achievements, Wentling was inducted into WSU’s Fairmount College Hall of Fame on Feb. 4.

As a foreign service officer for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Wentling traveled throughout Africa and some parts of South Asia, facilitating humanitarian aid programs and sometimes participating in peace talks. 

One of the first things Wentling addressed while being interviewed was how the USAID department is being shut down under President Trump’s administration. 

According to the Pew Research Center, the U.S. has used between 0.7% and 1.4% of the yearly federal budget toward foreign aid since 2001. 

“There’s going to be a lot of hungry people,” he said. “You know, part of my role, I think, is to talk against any misconceptions. You know, I spent 40 years with the USAID — I didn’t see any deep state.”

Dropping out and joining the Peace Corps

His education began at WSU in the mid-1960s. Wentling dropped out of WSU with only one course left to complete his bachelor’s degree in anthropology, political science and economics. He wanted to join the Peace Corps. 

“It shocked many people, but at that time the Vietnam War and other stuff was going on,” he said. “The campus was in uproar. The flag in front of Morrison Hall was upside down due to the distress signal … The whole country was ablaze in protest against the Vietnam War, and you know, that affected me.”

He volunteered in the Peace Corps in Honduras, where he learned to speak Spanish. Later, he learned French while volunteering in Togo, Hausa while working in Niger, Portuguese before working in Angola, and Ewe and Kiswahili along the way. 

He returned to WSU and graduated in 1970,volunteered again with the Peace Corps in several Western African countries until attending Cornell University in 1983. Only one year later, Wentling graduated with his master’s in international agricultural development. 

“It was a lot to do in a year. I would take the first shuttle bus to campus in the morning and the last one leaving every night; If I wasn’t in class I was in the library,” he said. 

In the early 1990s, Wentling was selected as one of the two people from USAID to attend the National War College. He graduated in 1992 with a master’s in security and international strategic issues. 

Soon, the U.S. wanted to establish an embassy and a USAID program in Angola, where it was assumed that the civil war had ended. Wentling was the first director to go. 

“I went there for two weeks and then the civil war restarted so they evacuated us in a warplane,” he said. 

Since he couldn’t go to Angola, he was sent to Somalia. When he first arrived, it was nighttime.

“And you’re not supposed to drive out of the airport at night — you could be ambushed,” Wentling said. 

He and the rest of the team were protected by convoys and U.N. Security Officers, and over 120 Marines guarded where they slept. 

The president of Ethiopia had to oversee the peace agreement between Somali warlords —  he had to watch the top two shake hands. Both were based in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia. 

“They both were responsible for destroying Mogadishu — and they shook hands,” Wentling said.

The warlords were known for the atrocities they committed on citizens. A report produced by Amnesty International in July of 1992 said, “Between mid-November 1991 and April 1992 some 10,000 unarmed civilians were killed, sometimes at a rate of about 100 a week and including many children, in Somalia’s war-torn capital of Mogadishu.”

The warlords were also known for hijacking humanitarian aid trucks and selling the food for more weapons or feeding their livestock. 

He later wrote in a separate account that upon first arriving in Somalia, “I felt nauseous when I realized that we had arrived too late to fulfill our mission of saving the lives of many of these desperate people.”

Since then, Wentling has also worked in Mali, Ghana, Burkina Faso, Gabron, Nepal, Cambodia and several other countries, organizing and leading humanitarian aid projects. He has written many articles and essays detailing his experiences and reflecting on how it has affected him. 

Wentling has published 10 books about his more than 50 years in Africa. He’s currently trying to get his 11th book published.