Post by Moses on Apr 15, 2005 6:54:43 GMT -5
www.nytimes.com/2005/04/15/national/15friendly.html?th=&emc=th&pagewanted=print&position=
....According to the investigation report, a lack of critical information had caused the confusion. Hours before, a Navy F/A-18 fighter had been shot down near Karbala. American commanders at air bases in Saudi Arabia and Qatar suspected that an American Patriot missile had struck it, in part because a Patriot had mistakenly shot down a British Tornado jet about a week before. The Patriot's role was later confirmed by the military.
But that night, "information went out from Crows Nest" - a commander's perch - that no one would discuss the possibility of a Patriot accident, an officer later told investigators. As helicopters and jets were assigned to the search and rescue mission, they were allowed to believe that an Iraqi surface-to-air missile was the culprit.
One of those jets was an Air Force F-15E fighter. Earlier that night, the pilot and his weapons officer, both instructors with seven years experience flying missions over Iraq to police the no-flight zone, had seen what looked like a surface-to-air missile hit the Navy fighter. As they searched for the pilot, they saw what appeared to be missiles fired from near the crash site - and were convinced it was an Iraqi battery firing on American aircraft.
It was, in fact, Battery D. But when the pilot and his officer looked for indicators that it was a friendly unit, they saw none and requested clearance to attack. Believing the warplane was in danger, and without checking for friendly ground forces, the crew of an Awacs reconnaissance plane gave the pilot a green light.
The explosion threw Lieutenant Fernandez out of his cot. Kicking off his sleeping bag, he realized his feet had been torn apart. He grabbed his Kevlar vest, helmet and gun, then tried to pull Sergeant Oaks, who had been sleeping beside him, away from the burning Humvee, which was loaded with ammunition and was leaking gasoline.
They escaped before the Humvee exploded, but it took more than an hour for an evacuation helicopter to arrive, according to the report. Though Sergeant Oaks, 20, was conscious as he was flown away, witnesses said he died within hours. Two other soldiers, Sgt. Todd J. Robbins, 33, from Penthingyer, Mich., and Sgt. First Class Randall S. Rehn, 36, of Longmont, Colo., were also killed, probably instantly.
At daybreak, soldiers discovered pages from a Bible scattered around the remains of the Humvee. Sergeant Oaks's family believe they came from his Bible, which he was trying to read cover to cover.
"It was the most devastation I had seen in the war," said William E. Thompson, an Army reservist who photographed the scene.
Lieutenant Fernandez, who has retired from the military, says he no longer frets about how the accident might have been avoided. Now 27, he lives on Long Island with his wife and their infant daughter and is attending graduate school to become a math teacher.
Still, he occasionally wonders. "I know that the pilot didn't mean to do it," he said, adding he hopes that the pilot had taken "some preventative measures" to make sure he was going after the enemy. "If not, then he should be held responsible."
Jeff Coyne wants to go to college to become a sports journalist. But he struggles with back pain and says he has found the Veterans Administration bureaucracy difficult to navigate. He says he still grieves deeply for the dead.
"It always seems in war they take the best ones from you," he said.
And Samuel Oaks's bitterness runs deep. He and his wife, Mary, helped raise Donald, the quiet, hardworking only son of their only son, after his parents divorced when he was 5. They tried to discourage him from joining the Army and worried frantically when he was deployed to Iraq. But he loved the military and rose rapidly in its ranks, winning promotion to sergeant posthumously .
Just before the second anniversary of the accident, his father visited Sergeant Oaks's grave, a simple black stone etched with his likeness a few miles outside Erie.
"You'd think it gets easier with time," Donald Oaks Sr. said. "But it doesn't."
....According to the investigation report, a lack of critical information had caused the confusion. Hours before, a Navy F/A-18 fighter had been shot down near Karbala. American commanders at air bases in Saudi Arabia and Qatar suspected that an American Patriot missile had struck it, in part because a Patriot had mistakenly shot down a British Tornado jet about a week before. The Patriot's role was later confirmed by the military.
But that night, "information went out from Crows Nest" - a commander's perch - that no one would discuss the possibility of a Patriot accident, an officer later told investigators. As helicopters and jets were assigned to the search and rescue mission, they were allowed to believe that an Iraqi surface-to-air missile was the culprit.
One of those jets was an Air Force F-15E fighter. Earlier that night, the pilot and his weapons officer, both instructors with seven years experience flying missions over Iraq to police the no-flight zone, had seen what looked like a surface-to-air missile hit the Navy fighter. As they searched for the pilot, they saw what appeared to be missiles fired from near the crash site - and were convinced it was an Iraqi battery firing on American aircraft.
It was, in fact, Battery D. But when the pilot and his officer looked for indicators that it was a friendly unit, they saw none and requested clearance to attack. Believing the warplane was in danger, and without checking for friendly ground forces, the crew of an Awacs reconnaissance plane gave the pilot a green light.
The explosion threw Lieutenant Fernandez out of his cot. Kicking off his sleeping bag, he realized his feet had been torn apart. He grabbed his Kevlar vest, helmet and gun, then tried to pull Sergeant Oaks, who had been sleeping beside him, away from the burning Humvee, which was loaded with ammunition and was leaking gasoline.
They escaped before the Humvee exploded, but it took more than an hour for an evacuation helicopter to arrive, according to the report. Though Sergeant Oaks, 20, was conscious as he was flown away, witnesses said he died within hours. Two other soldiers, Sgt. Todd J. Robbins, 33, from Penthingyer, Mich., and Sgt. First Class Randall S. Rehn, 36, of Longmont, Colo., were also killed, probably instantly.
At daybreak, soldiers discovered pages from a Bible scattered around the remains of the Humvee. Sergeant Oaks's family believe they came from his Bible, which he was trying to read cover to cover.
"It was the most devastation I had seen in the war," said William E. Thompson, an Army reservist who photographed the scene.
Lieutenant Fernandez, who has retired from the military, says he no longer frets about how the accident might have been avoided. Now 27, he lives on Long Island with his wife and their infant daughter and is attending graduate school to become a math teacher.
Still, he occasionally wonders. "I know that the pilot didn't mean to do it," he said, adding he hopes that the pilot had taken "some preventative measures" to make sure he was going after the enemy. "If not, then he should be held responsible."
Jeff Coyne wants to go to college to become a sports journalist. But he struggles with back pain and says he has found the Veterans Administration bureaucracy difficult to navigate. He says he still grieves deeply for the dead.
"It always seems in war they take the best ones from you," he said.
And Samuel Oaks's bitterness runs deep. He and his wife, Mary, helped raise Donald, the quiet, hardworking only son of their only son, after his parents divorced when he was 5. They tried to discourage him from joining the Army and worried frantically when he was deployed to Iraq. But he loved the military and rose rapidly in its ranks, winning promotion to sergeant posthumously .
Just before the second anniversary of the accident, his father visited Sergeant Oaks's grave, a simple black stone etched with his likeness a few miles outside Erie.
"You'd think it gets easier with time," Donald Oaks Sr. said. "But it doesn't."