Friendly Fire by Michael Friscolanti

[armyvern]

"Friendly Fire" by Michael Friscolanti has just been released.

"Based on dozens of exclusive interviews and thousands of pages of previously classified testimony, Friendly Fire also reveals what was said inside closed-door interrogation rooms as military investigators probed the explosion. Until now, the public has never been privy to those conversations.
The book also recalls the night of the bombing, including the heroic actions of many Canadian soldiers who scrambled to save some of their wounded comrades.
The military prosecutors who fought to have the pilots thrown in jail also tell their side of the story."

http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/item.asp?Item=978047083686&in_merch=1&Catalog=Books&N=35+528250&Lang=en&Section=books&zxac=1

"The accidental killing of four Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan by an American Top Gun pilot in a friendly fire incident badly shook the U.S.-Canadian alliance. While the pilot and his wingman walked away with a sentence of forced retirement and demotionsâ “ instead of a possible 64-year prison termâ “ the families and comrades of the dead soldiers still struggle to come to terms with their loss. The first in-depth investigation of t tragedy by an award-winning journalist, Friendly Fire offers an unflinching look at the military catastrophe that transformed lives on both sides of the border. Based on classified   documents, never-before-seen photographs, and dozens of exclusive interviews, Friendly Fire dramatically recreates the tragic event and its chilling and haunting aftermath."

http://www.canada.com/components/printstory/printstory4.aspx?id=1ebe3fdd-584d-4cb0-85ce-644a36d2b25e

Well, I'm going to pick it up today and give it a read based on it's many interviews and due to it's adressing of heroic actions which also occured that day by many fellow Canadian Soldiers. I'll let you know if it makes me feel any more comfortable about the whole tragedy.  

 

[9nr Domestic]

Thank you very much for letting us know the book has been released. Unfortunately they don't have it available where I live so I will have to order it online.

 

[geo]

9R... look for it on Amazon

It's been in the press that Maj Schmidt wants to talk to the families

figure he's got something on his chest and wants to talk.... wonder what will come of that.

 

[Gunner98]

For concurrent ref - DND's BOI is found at: http://www.vcds.forces.gc.ca/boi/intro_e.asp

 

[Elisha]

I just picked up this book for my husband today and he has not put it down since. It is by a Canadian journalist.  Its a great read for understanding what happened overseas.  And I have noticed a few names I know in the book (including my husbands). 

I definatly recommend the book.


Elisha

 

[HollywoodHitman]

Elisha,

Is this book referring to the Tarnac Farm bombings of 3VP?

 

[Elisha]

Hi,

Yes this is in regards to the Tarnak Farms incident in 2002 when the 4 Canadian soldiers passed on and numersous others were injured. 


Elisha

 

[cbt arms sub tech]

Was your husband one of the men injuried, god forbid....

 

[Elisha]

No my husband was not one of the terribly injured men that night but did receieve a few bumps, brusies and a scar to show for it.  He has a piece of bomb surapnal (sp) too. 


Elisha

 

[cbt arms sub tech]

I'll have to look for the book & read it...

 

[Elisha]

I have read bits and pieces of the book and it tugs at a few heart strings.  My husband did not even know he was mentioned in the book until I opened the back index and we joked about him being in it.  It is a reality for those that were there that night.

Its definatly a book i'd recommend to anyone that wants to know what those men and woman experienced that night.  I don't know if it will put anything to rest but definatly explain the whole tragic incident.

Elisha

 

[armyvern]

Link to an excerpt of the new book published today in the National Post:

http://server09.densan.ca/archivenews/051029/npt/051029c5.htm

:'(

 

[gunner56]

Friendly Fire is also available through Military Book Club.I've ordered a copy,and I'mlooking forward to reading it.MBC can be found online if anyone's interested.

 

[CallOfDuty]

  Well has anyone finished the book yet?  What do you think?
Cheers all
Steve

 

[armyvern]

  Well has anyone finished the book yet?   What do you think?
Cheers all
Steve

I'm about 1/2 way through (apparently spending too much time on this forum!!). So far I have cried, laughed and gotten angry. It's tough reading about this incident which involved a childhood friend of mine whom I was in cadets and class with for years and his injuries (but excellent attitude) whose biggest dream in life was to serve with the CAR after his cadet para course. It's tougher still to know that others died while doing while doing what they loved. I guess it's hard for me to read because I know so many of the troops involved either directly in the incident itself, or in it's aftermath from my Petawawa days. My heart goes out to each and every one of them, and I wonder if I would have re-acted in the same outstanding manner they have.

 

[Hunter]

If anyone in Ottawa is looking for this book, I checked Chapters online and the site says they have 50+ copies at each of the Ottawa stores.  I'm going to pick it up at lunch today.  It looks like a book that will be tough to put down.

 

[Michael Dorosh]

it's at Chapters in Calgary also - picked up a copy before the weekend.  Looks interesting.

 

[MdB]

Here's a point of view coming from Alison Auld, of The Globe and Mail.

Didn't read the book, but the Maj. Schmidt's attitude showed in the past events confirms what is mentioned in the article.

Mother of slain soldier slams U.S. pilot
By ALISON AULD

Wednesday, November 23, 2005 Posted at 10:34 AM EST
Canadian Press

HALIFAX -- The mother of a Canadian soldier killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan has angrily denounced comments made by the U.S. pilot who dropped a laser-guided bomb on her son, saying he is trying to portray himself as the victim.

Doreen Young, whose son, Private Richard Green, died in the 2002 accidental bombing, said statements made by Major Harry Schmidt in a new book show he is unwilling to take responsibility for what happened and feels little remorse for killing Pte. Green and three other Canadian soldiers.

"He won't be accountable for any of it," Ms. Young said yesterday from her office in Tantallon, N.S. "I mean, he dropped the bomb. He killed our boys and the arrogant son of a bitch is just a coward."

Ms. Young and her lawyer, Dick Murtha, say they will send a letter to Major Schmidt's lawyer to express their frustration with his comments in Friendly Fire: The Untold Story, which chronicles events on April 18, 2002, when the pilot mistook gunfire from a Canadian training exercise for an enemy attack.

"Mr. Schmidt, notwithstanding your attempt to celebrate your 'victimhood,' the facts remain the same," reads the three-page letter to Major Schmidt. "You dropped the bomb. You killed four and wounded eight . . . Your failure to take responsibility is shameful."

Major Schmidt, who has been assigned to desk duty for the balance of his career, contends in the recently published book that he was the fall guy in a Pentagon cover-up of a dysfunctional command-and-control system. "You're going to put America's command-and-control structure on trial?" he says in the book. "It's not going to happen.

"My situation is not unique as far as the accident is concerned," he adds. "The circumstances are what's unique, and that's what ended up burying me. They didn't want to fix the problem. They wanted to fix the blame."

Major Schmidt argues that he was targeted because the incident involved Canadians, not U.S. forces. "I think I'm a victim of the fact that it was an international accident," he writes.

Richard Léger, whose son, Sergeant Marc Léger, also died in the bombing, calls that ludicrous.

Mr. Léger, who is reading the book, by journalist Michael Friscolanti, said Major Schmidt has consistently portrayed himself as the victim in a wider conspiracy.

"It follows the way he treated us -- the victims of this -- all the way through," Mr. Léger said from Stittsville, Ont. "We are the victims, not him. He just doesn't get it."

Pte. Green, Pte. Nathan Smith, Corporal Ainsworth Dyer and Sgt. Léger were killed in the air strike near Kandahar. Eight other members of Edmonton's 3rd Battalion, Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry were seriously wounded.

Major Schmidt said he had no idea the Canadians were conducting exercises near their base that night, even though the Canadians had informed U.S. authorities.

Major Schmidt was convicted in July, 2004, of dereliction of duty. He was reprimanded, lost a month's pay and was barred from flying U.S. Air Force jets.

© Copyright 2005 Bell Globemedia Publishing Inc. All Rights Reserved.

 

[geo]

already a thread that discusses the event at Tarnac farm so there is no point discussing it again but there were definite problems with the US Command and control system. The practice of knowingly providing their pilots with "go" pills is just wrong. These guys fly over the Afghan countryside while doped up.... is there any surprise that something like this ever happened?

The US has experiences many instances of "friendly fire". Some with us, some with the Brits but mostly involving their own troops... and the subject of the Go pills only came up when we & the press pushed.

Maj Schmidt is no poster boy.... neither is the USAF (IMHO)

 

[Armymedic]

A critique by Scott Taylor:

With friends like him . . .
By SCOTT TAYLOR

Saturday, November 26, 2005
Posted at 5:08 PM EST

Friendly Fire:

The Untold Story of the U.S.

Bombing That Killed Four Canadian Soldiers in Afghanistan

By Michael Friscolanti

Advertisements







Wiley, 596 pages, $36.99

In the interest of full disclosure, I should acknowledge from the outset I once served in the ranks of Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry. Therefore, the April 17, 2002, tragedy in Afghanistan that claimed the lives of four soldiers from my former regiment is something that I have followed very closely and with strong personal interest.

I can recall a sense of outrage when I first learned of the accident while passing through the Amsterdam airport. The initial details were sketchy and the names of the deceased were not public, yet the U.S. pilots involved were already hiding behind institutional anonymity and blaming the Canadian soldiers for the entire mishap. In an official statement, the unnamed pilots claimed they had only dropped their 225-kilogram bomb in "self-defence" after being targeted by ground fire. The official Pentagon spin (that most U.S. media picked up) was an incorrect reminder that "Canada has not been at war since Korea." The impression intended was one of nervous, inexperienced Canadian soldiers mistakenly engaging the U.S. planes and thereby causing their own tragic deaths.

In Friendly Fire: The Untold Story of the U.S. Bombing That Killed Four Canadian Soldiers in Afghanistan, Michael Friscolanti thoroughly debunks this myth in a complete and comprehensive review of the incident itself, the subsequent top-level investigations, desperate legal wrangling and cross-border political intrigue, while offering some insight into the personal lives of those directly involved.

Although Friscolanti has no military experience, his close involvement with this story over the years as a reporter for the National Post has certainly allowed him to capture the character of front-line soldiers. In the first chapters, Friendly Fire chronicles the sequence of events that brought the principal players together at the Tarnak Farm firing range on that fateful night. Friscolanti's depiction of Canadian soldiers in action -- including their penchant for using the word "fuck" continuously -- is refreshingly believable. In one emotional moment immediately following the bombing, Sgt. Arnie Parris tells the lifeless form of his close friend, "Get the fuck up. You're lazy." Having served with Parris in the same platoon, I could actually hear my old friend's voice and feel his anguish as I read the passage.

Friscolanti has also done his level best to present a completely balanced account of this entire affair. To achieve this, his research includes interviews with the U.S. pilots, their lawyers, the prosecutors, investigators, eyewitnesses and families of the victims. Nevertheless, it is the pilot who actually dropped the bomb -- Maj. Harry "Psycho" Schmidt, who emerges as the central figure throughout the chapters dedicated to the pretrial and eventual court martial.

Despite public professions of sincere remorse at his hearing, Schmidt's actions speak louder than his words. Were it not for diligent digging by Canadian reporters, Schmidt's name would have remained unknown throughout the entire legal process. In fact, the initial Canadian top-level board of inquiry, headed by former Gen. Maurice Baril, despite praising the Americans for their "openness," was never advised of the pilots' identities, let alone given access to question them.

Once he was caught in the public spotlight, Schmidt and his lawyer, Charles Gittens, used every legal dodge and courtroom trick to avoid any and all accountability. The governor of Illinois even took up the torch and rallied popular support statewide for Schmidt's legal defence. They believed that a top-gun pilot and member of their Air National Guard unit was being used as a scapegoat by the Air Force brass in an attempt to placate the Canadian government.

Gittens's defence of his client did shed some light on the lack of co-ordination between ground troops and air force controllers, as well as questioning the routine practice of issuing "go pills" (speed) to pilots conducting long-range missions. However, the smoke and mirrors of Schmidt's defence counsel cannot create the intended "fog of war" scenario necessary to justify the errant pilot's claim of self-defence. The Canadians were not firing at his aircraft that night -- nor did they have weapons capable of engaging him at the altitude he was flying.

Having read through all the testimony presented in Friendly Fire, it is with a sense of relief that one reads the final passage in the reprimand issued to Schmidt by U.S. Air Force Gen. Bruce Carlson: "Following the incident in question, you lied about the reasons why you engaged the target after you were directed to hold fire, and then you sought to blame others. You had the right to remain silent, but not the right to lie. In short, the final casualty of the engagement over Kandahar on 17 April 2002 was your integrity."

The promotional material for Friendly Fire asks, "Was justice done?" By detailing Schmidt's punishment, Friscolanti provides us with that answer: The major was found guilty yet received only a letter of reprimand and a fine of two half-month's pay totalling "$5,672 U.S., a tad more than $1,400 for each dead paratrooper."

It is through bringing to light the personal, ongoing suffering of the victims and their families, that Friscolanti reveals the truly "untold story" of this horrible tragedy.

Former soldier Scott Taylor is the editor-in-chief of Esprit de Corps Canadian Military Magazine. As a war correspondent over the past 17 years, he has reported extensively from the world's hot spots and authored six books. His latest, Among the Others: Encounters with the Forgotten Turkmen of Iraq, includes details of his five-day hostage ordeal in northern Iraq in September, 2004.