This is an email discussion i had with the USMC IOIC with regard to the friendly fire incident involving two A-10s and a USMC Mechanized Company.
It starts out a little heated with the Colonel wanting an explanation for my comments here on the board, then calms down and gets into some pretty good details. Hopefully some here will find this to be useful info. I am not including the Colonel's .mil Email addy for privacy's sake.
"Subject: A-10 friendly fire investigation
Date: Thu, 8 Apr 2004 09:01:08 -0400
From: "Barnhill, Paul C. CTR" ******
To:
m21sniper2000@yahoo.com
CLASSIFICATION:UNCLASSIFIED
Sir, (whoever you are)
I read this post attributed to you "Whatdya think the odds are that the jarheads that shot their mouth off here will come back and appologize now? Glad i wasn't one of those poor bastards." on the Warthog Territory Forum.
I'm curious as to what, exactly, you meant by this comment. Are you referring to the press coverage of this incident? Please, BE specific, or BE GONE. Also, have the balls to fully identify yourself.
Standing by to hear from you, though I doubt that I will. I have this feeling that not only were you NOT THERE in OIF, you're not even in the Air Force, let alone a pilot. But, I could be wrong. After 24 years as a Marine, both active and reserve, it's been my experience that those who brag of things they've "shot and broken" as your bio states, are typically wanna-bes who have done neither.
Here's a synopsis:
I've just finished a two year tour, including combat in OIF with 2d MEB. I spent the last seven months of that tour working this investigation, and planning the notifcation of the next-of-kin of the families of our fallen Marines. The final investigation, after having been re-opened by CENTCOM after the Cdr, CENTCOM returned it as incomplete, opened a lot of eyes. The harddeck for the aircraft on that incident was 15,000 ft. C Co had pushed beyond B Co, and A Co, after A Co (which was team-tank) went bingo fuel after rescuing what was left of the 507th Transportation & Maintenance Co. Co. B (Team Mech) pushed off the road to by-pass an area, and became bogged down in mudflats, grinding to a halt, under fire. C Co, (the Battalion reserve) went up the road, not realizing B Co was now behind them, and that C Co was now the lead element. Only 2 FACs are assigned per battalion. B Co still thought they were lead element. As they came under fire, B Co FAC, thinking they were the lead element, with the rest of the battalion to the south of them, cleared two A-10s, GYRATE 73 & GYRATE 74 for Type III CAS north of the Euphrates - which was where C Co was located. Again, C Co, as Bn reserve, had no FAC assigned to them. (You're a tough guy. You know what Type III CAS is? FAC does not have eyeballs on either the aircraft or the target). The A-10s made a total of eight runs, four per aircraft, dropping Mk 82 bombs, firing at least 3 Maverick missiles and gun runs. The results were devastating.
When GYRATE 73 & 74 were RTB, they were advised they may have had a blue-on-blue. A Cobra crew monitoring the net heard that call. When they landed, GYRATE 73 tunred in his gun camera tape to the Squadron S-2. The tape is now missing. The S-2 has apparently developed a case of amnesia as to what happened. GYRATE 74 said he inadvertently taped back over it on another mission.
When the investigation was re-opened, we pulled out all the stops: we used forensic pathology on the KIA and WIA. We did metallurgical tests on shrapnel. We did detailed examinations of the witnesses and all of the forensic evidence. The tapes would have helped, but the pilots did thorough MISREPs, and the forensics and pathologies bore them out, and opened a lot of eyes.
WRT to the CNN piece:
I spent 13 years as a cop in Virginia Beach. Experience has taught me that no matter how certain a witness is - particularly a witness who is in crisis (like combat) - what he sees may not necessarily be what actually happened. Such was the case with the CNN piece. When those Marines spoke on CNN - if you listen and read carefully to what the Marines actually said - not the spin put on the story by CNN's Aaron Brown - you will note that the Marines spoke only to what they actually thought they saw. That was before the investigation had concluded. DoD policy is to not comment on an open investigation. As for Capt Wittnam - I know him personally. He is a very fine young officer, highly regarded by his men, his commanders, and all who actually come into contact with him. He's a stand-up guy. He was also blind-sided. The CNN piece was set up in a hotel room out in Jacksonville, not aboard Camp Lejeune. The Skipper (Marine term of endearment for those officers holding the rank of captain) thought he was talking to his Marines. He didn't know the press was going to be there, and was spot interviewed almost as he walked through the door. CNN ambushed him, live TV.
After we concluded the investigation, the Marines do not blame the A-10 drivers. We had an A-10 driver brief the witnesses, and he brought gun camera footage of a live fire training flight in which A-10s hit M113 hulks on a training range from 10,000 feet. That really woke up a lot of people. Those were mere specks on the ground. We would like to have had the gun camera tapes, but we don't, and that's that.
What's needed from this is some type of IFF technology, perhaps a transponder sqawking MOD 4, and systems installed on aircraft to interrogate those transponders for positive friendly ID.
So, here I am. My contact info is below. Standing by.
Very Respectfully,
Lt.Col Paul C. Barnhill
US Marine Corps Reserve
(formerly) 2d Marine Expeditionary Brigade
Task Force Tarawa
Commerical: (757) 836-8305
DSN 836-8305
MY INITIAL RESPONSE:
"Date: Thu, 8 Apr 2004 14:34:48 -0700 (PDT)
From: "bill clark" <m21sniper2000@yahoo.com> Add to Address Book
Subject: Re: A-10 friendly fire investigation
To: "Barnhill, Paul C. CTR" ******
I am board admin at
www.a-10.org, and a former infantry sniper team leader in the US Army(I ETS'd in 1990).
Right after this incident several Marines(who i lovingly refer to as jarheads) came to the board making all kinds of accusations and insulting the A-10 pilots that post at the board. They are the jarheads i was referring to. I was not speaking in regard to what any Marines may or may not have said on CNN or any other network, but what was said on my forum. They pissed me and a lot of our 'hoglets' off.
I did not serve in OIF, but i did serve in OJC in 1989. I am known to several of the posters on the board personally(who are themselves current or former USAF, USA, USN or USMC), and my military background can be confirmed by many of them.
Start a thread...see how many people there tell you i am the real deal.
In any case, is there some reason that the G-FAC ordering the CAS couldn't have radio'd the other Company 6's to find out if any of their people were North of the bridge? Seems like a pretty simple precaution to me...but then, i wasn't there either.
As far as 'liking to break things' it's no more than an attempt at humor. You might have noticed that my profile is full of similar comments.
I first went goofy on the Pilots when this incident broke(in a respectful manner i hope) until one of our Hogdrivers Air2Mudd(a Lt in the ANG stationed at NAS Willowgrove that i also know personally) explained to me that from 10,000 feet that a Amtrak might as well be a T-72, they are no more than specs. His comments mimic yours exactly on that issue.
I also agree that IFF would be EXTREMELY useful, and am pretty annoyed that more money isn't being spent to prevent Blue on Blues.
PS...I was trained to call CAS only via Visual reference and smoke marker(old school), i hardly know any of the finer arts of the trade(Though one of our posters Mr. Mudd is a former Jarhead Grunt and Viper driver in the USAF and spent ODS as a G-FAC with the USA Tiger Bde and can answer any questions i may have on the subject). Arty is another story. I had pretty comprehensive FO training. I always said the radio was the most powerful weapon a sniper team carried.
Happy with my debrief Sir?
Sincerely,
William Clark a.k.a. M21 Sniper
PS- Thanx for the official details of the incident."
HIS RESPONSE:
"Subject: RE: A-10 friendly fire investigation
Date: Fri, 9 Apr 2004 09:05:18 -0400
From: "Barnhill, Paul C. CTR" *******
To: "bill clark" <m21sniper2000@yahoo.com>
CLASSIFICATION:UNCLASSIFIED
Mr. Clark:
Now, we're getting somewhere. Thank you for your response, at least the air is getting clearer. Sorry, I didn't "feel the love" in the use of "jarhead" in the context within which you used it in your comment.
We've had a lot of press on this incident, and it has been badly spun, as you can imagine.
WRT your comms question: excellent question. Here's the answer: The radio systems work line-of-sight, point-to-point. Bn TAC, which companies use to communicate to both Bn and to one another, was hampered by a variety of factors: When the Bn CP, moving in trace of B Co also became mired in the mudflats, they came to a halt under power-up high tension lines, the EMP of which disrupted their communications capabliites. The FAC for B Co was in a built up area, with buildings blocking his LOS and, many of the vehicles had antennas sheared off due to enemy fire, as well as other types of battle damage. Bear in mind, the thing most people don't bear in mind as they read of this incident, is that all of this occurred during one God-awful stand-up hellatious fire fight, as bad as any the Marines have engaged since the Korean War. Multiple close-combat engagements, fire incoming from every direction, RPGs all over the place, 120mm mortars walking up and down ambush alley - you get the picture. The fighting in Nasiriayh went with bayonets and hand-to-hand, many times. We started the practice of (EDITED BY M21) to ensure the enemy was dead.
It's easy to lump all of this together as the "fog of war." I've been seeing that over, and over again from all sorts of comments - and not just on your forum, but all over the place. And it's aprospos. It also tends to mitigate just how tough the situation on the ground was to those who were there.
Bottom line: due to LOS conflict, battle damage and electromagnetic interefence, Bn could not talk, and neither could the companies, at a critical time. This resulted in a loss of S/A. Had that S/A not been lost, we wouldn't be having this discussion. B Co's FAC and CO both thought they were the northern-most element of the Bn, and therefore everything north of thier pos was enemy.
That you received angry comments on forum doesn't surprise me - however misguided such comments may be. The Marines were pissed - severely pissed off - that their friends died. There is still a question as to a lack of integrity on the part of GYRATE 73 & 74, as well as the squadron 2 that won't go away. What happened to those tapes? We figured it out without them, but how come they came up missing, when the aircraft pilots knew while RTB, that there was a possible blue-on-blue? You can't answer those questions. Nor can anyone except the individuals involved. You guys may not have liked the Marines leveling allegations - rightly or wrongly - but the Marines were dealing with the deaths of their comrades. And I would submit to you that the death of a comrade far, far outweighs being called names on an internet forum, wouldn't you agree?
It's water under the bridge, now, so to speak. The fight for the Bridges of Nasiriyah will go down in history as one of the tougher fights of recent history, and the Marines ultimately prevailed.
Semper Fidelis.
Barnhill"
MY RESPONSE:
"Date: Fri, 9 Apr 2004 11:20:33 -0700 (PDT)
From: "bill clark" <m21sniper2000@yahoo.com> Add to Address Book
Subject: RE: A-10 friendly fire investigation
To: "Barnhill, Paul C. CTR" ******
Thank you very much for the briefing on the incident sir. I have heard from many of our troops that the fight up ambush alley was really bad.
The Marines and Army troops that took Baghdad performed brilliantly, as is our unfailing tradition.
I can relate somewhat with the 'fog of war'. When our section was called into Panama City to help clear out the PDF DIGBATS and some PDF regular holdouts after our unit had siezed our primary objectives things got mighty chaotic because it was very difficult to keep track of who was where, and there was a lot of smoke from small fires that obscured vision considerably. There were a lot of civvies running around all over the place which made it hard to distinguish them from the (primarily) whiteshirted DIGBATs.
I had the benefit of high powered optics and a commanding position to ensure that i didn't do anything stupid, obviously your Marines(or the G-FAC) did not have the same luxury.
I would imagine that there are very few worse things that a soldier, sailor, airman, or Marine can have to live with than to know that he called or delivered fire on his brothers and got some of them killed.
I hope sincerely that we can learn from these mistakes and develop a system that will make blue on blue a thing of the past. It just troubles me that it isn't seen as our greatest priority yet. How many of our best young people do we need to lose for that to happen?
It's very frustrating to me. One lesson that seems apparent is to stay away from high-voltage towers if at all possible.
I'm actually really surprised that the tapes disappeared because it looks obvious that the pilots were doing exactly what they were told, and delivering their fires on the proper grid. It could be that a crew-chief was 'looking out for his pilot', i really don't know, but i did already know that the tapes had disappeared.
The A-10s are currently undergoing(in the very early stages) a precision engagement program that will fit either Litening II or Sniper pods and cockpit displays(and LGBs/JDAM). Hopefully the zoom feature of the pods will make positive unit ID a hell of a lot easier for the zoomies. The A-10 lacks any of that stuff currently(one of the reasons they've always got such a high readiness rate probably).
As to my use of the term 'jarhead', when i call a Marine a jarhead, it is a loving term regardless of the person in question, or the circumstances surrounding it....even back in the old days right before we were about to engage in some fist to face interservice rivalry. The term is to me one Marines should wear with honor just as i wore the term 'grunt' with honor. I have the utmost respect for all branches, the Marines are no exception.
By the way, i was not offended at all by your initial remarks. You were just standing up for your troops like i used to do for my section mates, and you didn't know me or the context in which i had made my remarks. Frankly, you were a lot nicer to me than i would have been to you had our roles been reversed. We SHOULD look out for our own within the constraints of the UCMJ, it's one of the jobs of a soldier(or Marine). Hopefully you have a clearer grasp of where i was coming from now, and can see that i was just doing the same thing when i made the comments i did. I view the service personnel(past and present) that post at a-10.org(Warthog Territory) as MY troops, and i do what i can to stand up for them...even the jarheads.
Besides, it's been a long, long, time since i raised the ire of a field grade. I used to be quite good at that. Fortunately for me i was just as good at getting away with it.
Sir, with your permission i would like to post the details of the incident on a-10.org, or even better have you post them, and perhaps answer some questions. There are a lot of hog pilots that post there(including a few field grades) and if there is anything in this whole mess that can help them to do their job better and take back to their squadrons and/or reduce the risk of fratricide it would be good for everyone in uniform. You know...lessons learned from this, that sort of thing.
I will await your answer before i post anything, and will respect your decision should you decline.
Thank you for your time, and for helping me to understand some of the details and circumstances of the incident.
A former grunt,
Willaim Clark"
HIS RESPONSE:
"
Subject: RE: A-10 friendly fire investigation
Date: Mon, 12 Apr 2004 10:20:50 -0400
From: "Barnhill, Paul C. CTR" ******
To: "bill clark" <m21sniper2000@yahoo.com>
CLASSIFICATION:UNCLASSIFIED
Mr. Clark:
(This is my second attempt to respond, as the first was kicked by the server here before it went out)
Thanks for your responses to me.
You may post my responses and contact info on your webpage. Better yet, you can go directly to CENTCOM's unclassifed website and download the redacted version of the final investigation. You need not take my word for anything, and can see it for yourself. I cannot recall the exact link, but if you hit CENTCOM's webpage and go the press releases, you can download the investigation, in seven sections, all in .pdf format.
This air-clearing has been most helpful. As to raising the ire of a field grade, I managed to do that a few times myself as a junior officer. (Even called a Bn Cdr incompetent to his face, once, and managed to survive.) My ire was not raised, just felf the air should be cleared a bit.
These types of discussions can help.
v/r
Barnhill"
MY FINAL RESPONSE:
"Glad i was able to help clear the air sir.
I'll post our email convo(unedited) so that the guys at the site can get a feel for some of the details, as well as a link to the entire report. I appreciate you sharing this information, and i can only hope that it will in some way help our Hogdrivers to learn a few things about what went wrong- that they might be able to avoid something like this in the future.
I never called my Bn Co incompetent, but i did 'snipe' him three days in a row when i was operating as part of OPFOR during a Bn wide field problem at Fort Sill back in about 1989. He was less than pleased with me. On the third instance he had the Bde Co with him, and some hours afterwards he summoned me to his CP and demanded to know why i 'shot' him instead of the full bird.
I responded by saying, "Don't be mad Sir, it's a sign of affection, and besides, you're the better officer- shooting you instead of him was a no brainer." LOL, he seemed to like that.
For some reason my team was always assigned to BLUFOR after that, even when the rest of the Scout Plt wasn't. Go figure.
In any case, i have enjoyed our conversation. If you find yourself back in harms way keep your head down and bring your behind back in one piece- there is a shortage of good officers around.
Sincerely yours,
William Clark"
Hope there are some details here that are helpful. The full official unclassified report is available on the centcom website as the Colonel stated.
Here is a link to the CENTCOM website:
http://www.centcom.mil/
"When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
An' go to your Gawd like a soldier."
Kipling-
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