Smell of gunpowder
Cartridge spent, bullet is sent
Friendly fire is not
First Haiku Attempt
Published
Warrior and rabid defender of the US Constitution. We strive to remain financially friendly. Amenš
ST UnWoked & UnVaxxed! 
Unique employment of the form, hermano; your inner samurai is showing. (This would be a perfect chapter title or epigraph for the book.)
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I want to talk, sometimes, about L.A.I.’s friendly fire incident during Persian Gulf I.
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Copy, thatās a great start; it draws us in, and subtly lets us know that something life-altering/life-ending happened.
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Tell that to the moms of the good boys who died that day.
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Let me clarify, here; I meant that; if you were going to tell that story, this might be a way to give those whoād hear it, or read it, a heads-up that āsomething horrendous this way comes, no more or less than that. Itās got layers of meaning in it.
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Thnx
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Your version would be a lot less dry and clinical than the account in āDesert Storm: The Forgotten Warā for certain…..That page or so is so dispassionate, I didnāt know what it was describing until you filled it in for us when you linked to the book. It took some doing to read that. The authors just recount the whole event as a statistic. (I know thatās what they intended for the whole book, but it upset me that people were just numbers on a chart.)
Forgive my rambling; guess itās lights out for me. Thanks, as ever. Chao for now; back later. Peace,…Out.š„±
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Can you tell us how they describe the event? I have not read that book or read any accounts of that event outside official and classified military documents.
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I can, and will, gladly, when Iām able to have the book in front of me…..Wait one, please/thanks?
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Take your time, Grasshopper.
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Many thanks, Master Po; the book is on my desktop computerās Kindle. Iāll access it once Iām at my desk later.
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Again, copy….
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Most of the time I don’t.
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Solid copy….
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How/ why unique?
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Unique, for me, and perhaps others, in that it doesnāt have the softer, muted feel that most of the examples of the form Iāve encountered have had….Like a scene obscured by mist, that slowly reveals peace/beauty; or like my newly-blooming orchid.
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solid that
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“Can you tell us how they describe the event? I have not read that book or read any accounts of that event outside official and classified military documents.”
As promised, ST, here’s the account from: “Desert Storm: A Forgotten War”:
RAS AL-KHAFJI AND OTHER MAJOR GROUND ACTIONS
(29/30 JAN 1991)
“The first attack occurred in the west; units of the U.S. Marine First Light Armored Infantry Battalion (LAI) engaged the Iraqi forces, calling in artillery and close air support from AH-1 Cobra helicopters, AV-8 Harriers, and A-10 Warthogs in addition to using their own TOWs mounted on LAVs. At about the same time, another LAI battalion repulsed the probe coming from al-Wafra.
The LAI was meant to be a reconnaissance and screening force, and was not designed to stop attacks by heavy armor; thus it had no armor, although it had anti-tank weapons. Nevertheless the LAI succeeded in stopping the Iraqi attacks, and the LAV performed very well its first time in combat. By the time the fighting ended, some 33 Iraqi tanks and 29 APCs had been destroyed. Eleven U.S. soldiers were killed in two friendly fire incidents. One involved a Maverick missile launched from an A-10 Warthog: the missile lost its intended target and instead destroyed an LAV, killing seven soldiers; four others were killed by friendly ground fire.”
Alberto Bin; Richard Hill; Archer Jones. Desert Storm: A Forgotten War (Kindle Locations 1943-1946; Pp. 128-129). Kindle Edition.
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It is strange, the use of soldier instead of Marine.
How are we to know “the missile lost its intended target?”
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Strange, indeed. I wonder if the authors are non-US/non-military, not to make the distinction. A truly mystifying question re: “intended target”….
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The very dryness of this made it hurt worse, somehow.
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“…the missile lost its intended target and instead destroyed an LAV, killing seven soldiers;”
Four of those seven Marines were grunts attached to 1st LAI from a ‘straight leg’ USMC unit.
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What an unbelievable loss. No words.
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