'Friendly fire' pilot sues U.S. air force

[dogday]

The U.S. pilot who dropped a bomb on Canadian soldiers in 2002, killing four of them, is suing his country's air force, saying it ruined his reputation.

National Guard Maj. Harry Schmidt says air force officials erred when they released the letter of reprimand that he was given for the bombing.

INDEPTH: Friendly fire

The military violated privacy laws when it released confidential personal information. It also violated a settlement agreement that he signed at the time.

"The government flat out failed to comply with their agreement," Schmidt's lawyer, Charles Gittins, told the Associated Press.


http://www.cbc.ca/ns/story/ns-schmidt-sue20060409.html

[Richard Steele]

1. "Ruined his reputation?" Boo frickin' hoo!

[BlooInBloo]

2. I personally don't know enough about the situation....

Some questions a person MIGHT ask themselves BEFORE forming an opinion might be:

(1) Was this particular bombing run one of those where the pilot doesn't even see the to-be-bombed, and hence relies TOTALLY on the targetting folks for fire-or-not orders?

(2) How have other friendly fire incidents been handled in the past? Did they involve the "outing" of the shooter? If not, why and under what circumstances was THIS pilot out-ed?


But others might differ - they might not want to know ANYTHING ELSE before forming an opinion... ymmv...

[unblock]

3. not to defend friendly fire, but i wouldn't side with the gov't on this

if the gov't signed an agreement to keep his personnel file private, then they shouldn't have made it public.

it's not clear to me from the story if the guy acted properly or not. at a minimum, the gov't wasn't guilt-free in this friendly fire incident, so hanging the pilot out to dry doesn't sound cool to me.

[Atman]

4. I'm with you. By default, I wouldn't side with the government

They been demonstrated to be liars about Jessica Lynch, Tillman, the war itself...why should the be trusted to be telling the truth on this one?

[IChing]

5. They did this to shift blame like they always do to the

"few bad apples" which they did with Lynndie England who was guilty
Purge the DOD and the military. Anyone know what your Air Force Academy is up to these days?

[unblock]

7. link to du's home page story, for those who missed it:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/articles/06/04/08_airforce.html

[Squatch]

6. Which one ruined his rep more:

A: Releasing a letter of reprimand

B: Killing friendly soldiers

Good God.

Forward observer: Hey, I need a bomb dropped over there. Who do we have on station today? Schmidt? Good, I hear he doesn't have a letter of reprimand and that his reputation is intact....Schmidt, this is FO, fire mission, over.

[Neil Lisst]

8. I feel pretty strongly these guys were hot dogging it, too ready to fire

They were looking for something to shoot, and when they found something, they were too happy to do so. Canadian soldiers died due to the negligence of the US military, but as is sadly the case in too many friendly fire incidents, someone was being a cowboy.

Let me hasten to add something, though, which I feel confident is part of his lawsuit.

The Air Force was flying these guys too much, keeping them in the air too often, and they were already overworked. So, the military feeds them speed, in some pill form, and they are jacked up on it when they go on some missions. I'll be very surprised if that isn't part of the case. It almost has to be.