The pilots were out of Idaho, and had no previous combat experience.
They were cleared by the U.S. government.

very difficult to listen to this. very sad.

"thats affirmed. you are well clear of friendlies."

dupe

http://www.videosift.com/video/Cockpit-video-of-USBrit-friendly-fire-incident

When I posted this, that video was in two parts and had been pulled by YouTube.
This is from the BBC, and provides some much-needed editing and context.

So, not a dupe.

Its good to see we understand that war is what it is. Friendly fire incidents happen all the time. That is why you mark your lines, pop smoke, get your radio man out of harms way and take cover.

Imagine: You are in a room in a combat zone, with thick concrete walls and all hell has broken loose. You have been charged to keep a doorway secure so that your sarge can get a Air Strike. Multiple tangos inbound on your position and they parent gonna stop until every thing is dead. You are shaking so hard that you feel as if your heart is going to explode. You hear boots running towards that door, you clear the chamber of your SAW and prepare to let it loose. The "enemy" materializes in the door way, and let it go full auto praying that you don't get wasted by any ricochet, or the enemy. Because the air strike is just a second away. You wipe out all the guys at the door way and they are piled up almost to the top of the door frame, then you notice something about the moaning wounded, they have US flags on their shoulders.

These things happen, if some one runs up on your 6 with out yelling FRIENDLY and you turn round snap shoot them, there is nothing that can be done. We see it all the time in first person video games, and we will see it large scale and im die Fleisch in videos like these. Lucky for those guys in the video that they didn't wipe out the whole column.

It could have been worse.

NordlichReiter, if you listen to the video you will find that these things don't just happen. The pilots convinced themselves that they were seeing missiles after they were talking about orange pannels.

These guys had little or no combat training, and what they were told (the orange business), they ignored.

Insufficient prep and outfitting isn't an "accident", it's a product of an incompetent administration pushing a strained military.

Friendly Fire isn't uncommon tho,

Why would you paint your rockets orange anyway? It's not as if your going to be fighting on an orange background...

It's a pity everyone jumps to blame these guys. It's a war situation, and as NordlichReiter said, sometimes mistakes happen. The important thing to note as that there weren't any reported friendlies in the area, and no matter how the troops on the ground may look, if they aren't identified properly, a pilot will assume they aren't friendly. (After all, looks can be deceiving.)

As to whether they've had previous combat experience, well, not everyone in the military can be a veteran. People get experience as they go along. But one can't just assume that even if soldiers don't have combat experience that they aren't fit for duty. They need to get that experience somewhere, and where else would they get it but on the field?

It just annoys me how quick people are to negatively judge military personnel these days. Yes, there are occasional incidents, but in general, they do a good job. One can look back at previous wars, where incidents such as friendly-fire situations were a LOT more common, and yet they weren't treated as such a big deal just because they were so common, and also because the information of these incidents wasn't spread so quickly/easily as it is these days.

In any case, events like this do happen, and we can only be thankful that it didn't turn out a lot worse.

Friendly fire is unfortunately all too common. There have been numerous incidents in the first gulf war and the second one.

Today people gasp at this one incident, yet they do not know of the numerous blue on blue incidents in Vietnam, and World War 2. The numbers of which would shock.

Theo47 your criticism is unfounded given the complex dynamic battle scape faced by these soldiers. With regards to combat experience, the air force does not have an unlimited number of veterans. This is why the Air Force has the Red Flag army exercises.

Farhad you miss the point. No one is saying it doesn't occure often. The problem is that the US government denied the exsistance of the video, telling the grieving familiy there was no `chance of them ever finding out the truth. The MOD said that the video was classified and the property of the US army and should not have been leaked (not just the americans are currupt and heartless). I hope the family can find solice in the findings, though I fear that justice will never be seen.

This "friendly fire" incident was buried by the government.
Pat Tillman's "friendly fire" incident was twisted by the government.

What is truly a "pity", Sylvester, is everyone's willingness to forget personal responsibility in war time. People who throw up their hands and say "war is hell" every time there's an atrocity are the truly pitiable ones.

NickyP that's basically American arrogance for you. They will always defend their troops until the end. This is the same reason why the US hasn't signed on the International Criminal Court.

That issue I don't even want to talk about.

That´s a very serious thing here and therefore i will reduce my comment to the following: as long as they believe it´s an "enemy" they´ve most probably just killed, they are excited. As soon as they found out it has been a "friend", they feel horrible. The only difference between those is their place of birth. Screw that. I hate war and everyone involved with it.

It seems that the policy in the US military is 'if in doubt, shoot'. In every other professional, 1st world army it is the opposite. Why is this? Why do US pilots possess so few inhibitions about dropping their ordnance? If you listen to their cockpit radio chatter from Gulf War 1 all you hear is primitive whooping and cheering as they watch their bombs killing complete strangers. The RAF chatter by contrast is completely subdued and professional. Why is this? Is it just piss-poor training? Does the US military simply recruit the wrong kinds of people? Can any Americans enlighten me?

"It seems that the policy in the US military is 'if in doubt, shoot'."

They definitely don't teach us that.

Wow that sucks...

I have to agree with Conan's comment though. All Quiet on the Western Front.....

Buddhist thought of the day says...

War can only be understood and put an end to if you and all those who are concerned very deeply with the survival of man, feel that you are utterly responsible for killing others. What will make you change?

I get the impression that the pilots were a lot more concerned about their own welfare ("we're in jail, dude") than they were about the people on the ground.

good point there, theo.

Woah dudes! Ease up!

Those pilots were cussing, swearing, "oh shit"-ing, "I'm gonna be sick" and dead silent about what they did all long before one of them said "we're in jail".

Watch it again, madman - what were they "gonna be sick" and dead silent about? They don't say.

I'm not indicting the entire Air Force, but it's clear these 2 (3?) chuckleheads had no business being on bombing runs.

A similar incident happened in the first gulf war. A-10's usually fly in a "Kill Box" type of mission where they have an area to protect and their orders are to kill anything that enters their Kill Box. Friendly units are not supposed to enter these Kill Boxes, but the A-10's are still supposed to have a positive ID of the target before engaging.

*waronterror

Adding video to channels (Waronterror) - requested by raven.