How is it possible that our troops kill their own?

Question

Monday morning quarterbacks and conspiratists continually accuse the US military of being complacent and derelict in preventing Friendly Fire Incidents.

In my latest article, "The Fog of War" I take you on a realistic but hypothetical mission in Afghanistan. Will you make the right call? Can you decide in the split second whether to kill an enemy about to kill you or your teammates?

Can you choose correctly and quickly enough to kill the enemy and spare your colleagues?


War on Terror Blog, http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-DfkctJU7dK5B7LcNROoyVQ--?cq=1

No politics. Just the groundtruth from a combat veteran that has been to both fronts in the War on Terror, backed up with independent research and historical study.

ConRanger: I cannot attest to the firefights you've been in, nor will I challenge you as to how many it has been.

A firefight is not a day at the range.

I cannot attest to the accuracy of Lebanese militants, but I can attest to the accuracy of Afghanis. "En shallal" is there answer to everything including to why they do not aim.

It takes seconds for 12 men to fire thousands of rounds. It takes minutes for a 240 or 249 to fire thousands of rounds.

As a military veteran, I'm sure you know the visibility at dawn, which is the best time to mount an attack.

I will not try to tell you how the IRA or Lebanese fight, because you were there and I was not.

Please do not try to tell me how the Afghanis fight, as I was there.

Steve, I can appreciate your expectation of truth from the military and the government.

I won't get into movies and plots as they are written to provide a moral that you are supposed to take away from it. Considering the politics of Hollywood, it's usually not in favor of the government or the Constitution.

When a soldier is killed in combat, the most likely cause and the expectation is that he was killed by enemy weapons. When it is a head shot, it is not conducive to readily seeing otherwise. The military therefore will continue on with proceedings as if it were enemy fire until such time that there is reason to believe otherwise. This is the correct assumption to work under.

The next phase is an investigation and that takes time, particularly when the battlefield is on a mountaintop no longer occupied and potentially still full of enemy combatants. It will not make statements of the cause while the investigation is ongoing, nor should it.

I had to help protect an investigation team. The investigation of an incident that occured before I got there was not complete when I left.

It diverted our team from other missions we needed to be doing.

And in the end, the family that had charged a Soldier with killing an unarmed civilian, demanded that his weapon be given back to them.

Cody, that is a very real possibility on how it can happen.

Answer 1

We take a lot of precautions to prevent such incidents as much as possible. However, consider that these soldiers and Marines are under the hardest of conditions. Likely it's sweltering hot, they're hungry, tired, thirsty, anxious, nervous, etc and they get in a firefight. Firefights are pretty confusing and hectic, and then all the politics get thrown away. It's about survival.

Yeah, I was in a firefight and I came dangerously close to killing some guys that were a few rooftops away before we positively ID'd them as friendlies. It isn't as simple as black and white as some people would like to believe.

Answer 2

John, all I can say is that I know friendly fire incidents happen.

I have immense respect for the military. I don't particularly like it when the military tries to come up with excuses or change their story as to how something happened.

Pat Tillman is such an excellent example. I mean, we're talking three years of investigation with possible punishments to those involved.

I'm intelligent enough to know that friendly fire can't be avoided. It happens.

The only thing I like is the truth. I just wish the army would have said it was friendly fire right from the start.

That's my only beef with situations like that.

I saw a movie on HBO called Afterburn. It was about an Air Force pilot who died in the jet he was flying for the Air Force.

His wife was not convinced that she was being told the truth. She kept digging and digging only to find out that the Air Force knew of the trouble with this particular jet (it was something to do with screws that would eventually grind into the insulation of the electrical wiring).

Here's the thing. The screw that kept grinding into the insulation of the wiring caused his instrument panel to malfunction.

It caused him to go nose dive into the ground because his instrument panel wasn't working properly.

One of the wifes in the movie didn't want her to be investigating so hard into what happened because it could cause fear amongst the rest of the pilots.

Well, her husband's jet did the same thing. He crashed. Nose dived strait into the ground.

If it wasn't for her and her stubborness, she would have never found out the truth.

That is all we want as citizens. The truth.

Hey, if friendly fire causes a death, then report it as such. If a plane nose dives and kills a pilot, investigate to find out why and then report the truth.

Now, with all that said, I don't believe the military is in the business of covering up those who die in combat.. That is not what I'm implying. All I want is when there seems to be something suspicious and we, the people aren't being told the whole story, is to be told the truth.

It makes life so much simplier.

Answer 3

"Blue on Blue" are tragic if seldom common occurrences, when you have many people operating over a wide area, not all fully up to speed on who is who and who is where these occurences will continue to happen.

With regards "The enemy does not practice marksmanship or disciplined fire. Afghanis have a hard time hitting a man sized target at 25 yards. They pull the trigger and expect ‘allah’s will’ to take over. No aiming but a little pointing in the general direction of what they are shooting at."

You would be quite surprised at how good the locals can shoot, they have been practising all their lives and ammo is harder to come by than in the "Green Machine". They managed to knock up quite a kill ratio against the Russians and against fellow Afghani warlords troops.

Whats with " because only a few minutes before there were a dozen weapons firing thousands of rounds. . . . . . do you know how long it would take 12 guys to fire "thousands of rounds" surely your well trained soldiers would practise fire control to conserve ammo until they knew what they were up against??

Just then your bad guy sticks his head out from behind that rock. You know an AK is following it and there is only a split second before it goes automatic on your brazen teammates who have been sticking their own heads up trying to find more enemy, bodies or breathing.. .. .. ..

I found from my own experience that when using a rifle the barrel was always projected to the front before the head was visible, the head being behind the weapon, only somebody with limited experience would stick his head out first!!!

Your little blog does not read true to this veteran.

Answer 4

This is something that I brought up to my husband (who's a marine, and has been to Iraq) I found it unbelievable that they wouldn't know the difference. Among the many reasons he gave me, one stuck out. Every time there is a problem, the solution has been to put more people there. Sooner or later, it's going to get to the point where there are so many, they're practically tripping over one another. In a situation like that, such accidents are bound to happen. I'm not saying that's what has happened, but it was a disturbing thought

Answer 5

Friendly fire can and does happen. BUT soldiers kill each other. It used to be called fragging. Did TIllman die of an accident or on purpose? No clue but three bullets in the head from 10 meters away could result on how the weapon was set to fire or he could have had some one in his unit that really did not like the man.

Answer 6

Here's how friendly fire usaully happens the combat gets hectic some troops go and flank (move around or behind to attack) the enemy while the remaining troops give suppressing (lots of fire power to keep their heads down and distracted from the flanking). then when the flanking troops accomplish what they set out for they come back and sometimes they get mistaken for the enemy and get shot at. The flankers try to tell them they're friendlys but the suppressing troops don't know if it's just the taliban so they might fire. and there you have friendly fire.

Answer 7

As a combat veteran, you are probably well aware of the term fragging. It refers to intentional murder designed to look like friendly fire. It is an extremely rare event, but occurred more often in Vietnam. It does happen, I cannot say if that's what happened to Tillman (I don't know) but it does happen and it is possible.

Answer 8

It is a tragic mistake but it has happened in every war from the begining of time. A fact of war.

Answer 9

The Fog of War is the military way of saying stupidity in combat.. yes it dos happen and one risen why it happen is pore Situational awareness..

Answer 10

tragic mistake