1st LAI Takes Friendly Fire

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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 [make that Marines, and one sniper] 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 [make that Marines]; four others were killed by friendly ground fire.”

Alberto Bin; Richard Hill; Archer Jones. Desert Storm: A Forgotten War [Praeger Publishing, 1998, Pp. 128-129] (Kindle Locations 1943-1946). Kindle Edition.

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31 thoughts on “1st LAI Takes Friendly Fire”

      6. Let me know where, and I’ll gladly fix it; the academic dryness of those authors made me angry, so their error(s) need corrected.

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      8. Thanks. I really don’t like that ‘others’ etither although I am pretty sure the tough guys on L! and L2 would admonish me to suck it up.

        Liked by 1 person

      9. How can people remain nameless like that? Sickening! (As to those ‘toughies’: They can go to “L, and suck eggs…)

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      13. Will investigate….Update: thanks to my niece/research librarian, I may’ve found a couple likely titles. Stay tuned, ST.

        Liked by 1 person

  2. Just a bit of Memorial Day hangover. Funny how people with no connection to our war dead get all choked up on Memorial Day. Go visit a military burn unit.

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    1. Yes, amazing how social media gets flooded with all kinds of ‘solidarity’….Visit the wounded, console a Gold Star family you might know; or a Purple Star family, for that matter.

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      1. Getting up off of one’s arse is actually a bit too much so they just keyboard about how awful it must have been here or there at some moment in time.

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      1. The Army infantry and USMC grunts fought simultaneously in Iraq and Afghanistan for something like 10+ years, everything else was just support.

        America sent me into the heart of darkness and hates me now for what it made me do. My grateful nation keeps banning me and those who would associate with me from conservative blog sites. By others, I am merely hounded and stalked relentlessly.

        Thank you for making me feel alive.

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      2. There are pockets/corners of the world (virtual and otherwise) where you are honored/supported and if I may say so, cherished, ST….

        Liked by 1 person

      3. Nanda, they are more than just pockets and corners. You and I seem to live in different countries. I am sorry that your experience of America has been so terrible, but most of the people I know love and honor men like Simon. Several of my young relatives are combat veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. I continue to be amazed by how different your experience of America is from my experience of America.

        Liked by 2 people

      4. If you look at America and see very little that is good, maybe you need new glasses. Maybe you need to look closer, or to look around more, or something. America is far from perfect-God knows, we have serious problems, but Nanda, really, I think your view of things is incredibly distorted.

        Liked by 1 person

      5. Simon, the very tiny group of people who banned you do not represent all of America. I keep saying this, but you don’t seem to believe me. America does not hate you. America loves you. Why do you not believe me? How can you take a few editors and a handful of writers on a stupid controlled opposition website so seriously that you think they speak for all of America? No one speaks for all of America, certainly not L1.

        Weeping. You are wrong about this, Simon. I wish I could convince you of that, because it’s true.

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      7. You only have one stalker, as far as I know. I can’t stop her, but she is not America. She is not even American. She represents nothing and no one other than her bizarre self.

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  4. Americans seem to remember much of WW II and only the Battle of Belleau Wood from WW I. Speaking of the 5th Marines, I was an infantry platoon commander assigned to that regiment.

    “But there is only one unit that can boast of heroic participation in every one of our country’s wars over the last 100 years. That unit is the 5th Marine Regiment, nicknamed the “Devil Dogs.”

    The exploits of the 5th Marine Regiment are writ large in Marine Corps history, and with good reason. Over that long and bloody century from 1917 to the present, Marines of the 5th Marine Regiment were awarded 24 Medals of Honor. The Regiment, part of the 1st Marine Division, has received all nine Presidential Unit Citations awarded to that Division. It also earned two of its own, one in Korea and the other in Vietnam. It is the most decorated regiment in the Marine Corps.

    The regiment was first assembled in Philadelphia in 1917 for service in WWI. In 1918 they fought so ferociously at the Battle of Belleau Wood that the Germans started calling them “Teufelshunde,” or dogs from Hell. That name has stuck with the 5th Marine Regiment ever since. The nickname Devil Dog is commonly used by all Marines to describe themselves, actually.”

    The above from: https://blog.theveteranssite.greatergood.com/devil-dogs/

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