From the Edmonton Journal (CP) 19/06/03
Two American pilots who killed four Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan last year will not be court-martialled, an American military official said Thursday.
Maj. Harry Schmidt and Maj. William Umbach will instead be disciplined in an administrative forum, said Lt.-Gen. Bruce Carlson.
Carlson of the 8th Air Force in Barksdale, La., recommended that Schmidt go before a flight evaluation board to determine whether he can continue flying after dropping a 225-kilogram laser-guided bomb on the Canadian troops on April 18, 2002.
This seems about right -- the initial allegations of "involuntary manslaughter" and "aggravated assault" were absurd overcharges, and contradictory on their face: the first implies negligence, the latter depends on establishing the concept of mens rea, or roughly, "malign intent."
However poor Maj. Schmidt's judgment was, you can't accuse him of knowing that the Canadians were likely below, and of deliberately bombing them. The case would have hinged on his perception of events, and his right of self-defence ultimately would have trumped whatever the prosecutors might present.
I think the Air Force lawyers, too, realized the court-martial would have shattered on that point and wisely withdrew it.
I'm no more than a few miles from where the PPCLI regiment is based, so this whole thing was a terrible shock to people around here.
All day long I've been listening to armchair generals on the radio claiming great expertise and denouncing the dreadful "hotdog American cowboys" (not just the pilots involved, mind you -- the entire wretched American race).
Uh-huh.
If the instant experts had any idea what they were talking about, they just might shut up for a moment. Cain't we all jes' shut up? Cain't we?
"Friendly fire" has been the tragic concomitant of war since chemical-energy weapons found their way onto the battlefield and likely long before: I wonder how many Spartans at Thermopylae fell from a misaimed spear-thrust.
It isn't just Americans who shoot first and ask questions later. Canadian pilots in the Battle of Britain had a well-earned reputation for ballsy recklessness, and maybe that's exactly the type of attitude you want in fighter jocks.
The axiom that "There are old pilots, and there are bold pilots, but there are no old, bold pilots" doesn't exactly hold true in wartime: There may be few old, bold pilots, but there are surely fewer old, timid pilots.
The Royal Air Force delivered on time, too, if occasionally a few hundred yards short. The joke in the British Army was, "We didn't know which to fear more -- Jerry, or the RAF."
Knock on wood, I've never been in war. All I know of it is that it involves a lot of men, under a lot of stress, making a lot of split-second decisions with imperfect knowledge...
that once made, are irrevocable.
Let's play hypotheticals for a moment. Imagine that an F-16 pilot patrolling over Kandahar doesn't pull the trigger, and as a result four Canadians die.
His targetting radar lights up an enemy tank, but he elects not to fire on it, because he isn't really, really, really sure about what he's got in his sights. Maybe the conviction for manslaughter of some previous pilot whispers in his ear.
Seconds later that tank fires into the Canadian position, and four young men are killed and eight others wounded. Who's to blame then?
When Maj. Schmidt landed back at base and was informed by his CO that he had in fact bombed friendly troops, he fell to his knees and vomited.
That's punishment enough for me.