lieutenant colonel at the harvard business school highlights the difficulties in determining both the cause of and criminal culpability in friendly fire incidents so friendly fire have a perverse relationship with friendly fire paratrooper and eighty second airborne division i was a victim of friendly fire in operation urgent fury and grenada and so for years this was ninety three i've had a perverse sense of curiosity how could sometimes some of the best trained best equipped people in the world sometimes fall short of the mark in his book friendly fire dr snoeck investigates an encounter in a no fly zone in which two u.s. f. fifteen fighters shot down two u.s. army black hawk helicopters instantly killing twenty six u.n. peacekeepers this happened in one thousand nine hundred four full three years after the end of the first gulf war was that a high shooting war going around there's not a lot of bad guys around on the ground or in a lot of enemy planes flying around near broad daylight unlimited visibility relatively benign conditions at the time can play in this one in the fog of war on

the call sheet that morning the two f. fifteen pilots were briefed that they would be the first aircraft to enter the no fly zone by regulation no helicopters were allowed to fly into the zone without fighter coverage. unbeknown to the f. fifteen pilots a last minute early morning trip was scheduled to get peacekeepers to appeal a town deep in northern iraq when the pilots entered the no fly zone that morning they were alarmed to see two helicopters appear on their radar nobody's supposed to be in front of them that day so you're already your expectations these are probably enemy helicopters that speeded that out too that this since all you're trying to figure out is a hip is a plane which soviet as a nation helicopters for the army's rules of engagement the f. fifteen approached the blackhawks to visually confirm that they were enemy aircraft before firing they were trained on this they take a lot of pride in this but of course a black hawk u.s. army black hawk. was configured these two black hawks were configured slightly

different that day normally a black hawk they have little wing lights on the side and sponsons in on this particular day the blackhawks were going about one hundred miles to the town of erbil inside deep inside northern iraq and so they attached extra fuel tanks to the blackhawks and these little wings and that changed the shape. what shapes what we see every day it's largely shaped by our expectations. by what we want to see what we expect to see and also then the ultimate you know sort of the physical stimulus that actually enters or i so it was a very ambiguous stimulus the speed the distance and everything camouflaged in a very strong set of expectations the visual identification has happened the intersection of a strong set of expectations possibly a little desire to maybe see an enemy aircraft and

a very ambiguous stimulus that actually came in the eyes of what we do as humans we fill in the blanks. and then finally both shooter and target aircraft were quipped with. a specially designed electronic equipment something we call i. identify friend or foe and this is equipment designed specifically to prevent this type of accident remember so how in the world could this happen. the helicopters were inside the no fly zone and squawking a code that coalition aircraft when they're in turkey they didn't realize that three years before the air force had changed to two different codes only get one code they were squawking the code they always squad fifteen's or checking for that correct code and of course it's coming back sour because the f. fifteen because helicopters are critical for turkey and the f. fifteen zero for the code in the no fly zone because they're. what keeps me awake at night is in complex organizations like this good people highly trained highly

quit doing what they do every day normal behavior normal organizations can actually result in terrible tragedy i would not want to subscribe to the proposition therefore that every episode of friendly fire can simply sort of be. dismissed it as an unfortunate reflection of the fog and friction of war there would be some episodes i imagine where one might say in this case the friendly fire episode was preventable. and therefore the people who failed to prevent it the people who perpetrated it ought to be held responsible ready reading. we're doing a lot of stupid over here. never forget those words. he said we're going on a mission for a couple of days after that. but he said we're doing

a lot of stupid. and i didn't know what that meant because i had no idea what they were doing and when you look at what happened and how it happened it was stupid the army creed has x. amount of lives lost in the last three or four lines one of them is i will never leave a fallen soldier or fallen comrade essentially i will never leave a man behind and what happened here what happened that day of on the battlefield was he got left behind not by another one of his peers but by his superiors by the commanding officer on the battlefield he left behind. around four am on january sixteenth two thousand and eight during operation hood harvest six individuals were spotted fleeing across an open field in an attempt to evade u.s. forces. are on right now. private first class dave sherrod and seven members of the aerial

reaction force landed nearby to intercept the six individuals believed to be on are members of al qaeda. departing the apache the aerial reaction force advanced towards a large they can also refer to as a burn where the six suspected insurgents had taken cover.

when dave was a little kid. he wanted to be exactly like its dad and his dad was a football player macho and dave was not a macho kid but he wanted to be like is stad and so i think he he almost forced his own personality to be more like dad which was tough and so on the exterior at times he was very top but inside he just had a really sweet heart we just had this bond that was it was father and son but it was something way beyond father and son. i was so heavily invested in making sure that he grew up knowing he was loved beyond knowing he was loved knowing that he was just important and. secure safe.

they were so close that the points that made me jealous is as a son because i felt like i was almost living in the shadows of bubbles like dave could do wrong he was just a guy that then once you knew. you wanted to be on his side you wanted him to to like you because. he was still great guy. i feel. the aerial reaction force around of the thicket demanding that the insurgents surrender instead the insurgents opened fire in the chaos private first class danny

kimmie was killed moments later specialist john sixty was killed. in the midst of exploding grenades and machine gun fire specialist rafael collins private first class brandon clan staff sergeant christopher mcgraw and private first class sharon tried to maintain their positions. collins in quin later received silver stars for their heroic actions. for thirty minutes the enemy engaged the soldiers many men down his blackhawks above attempted to provide cover. or to really. get a good. reinforcements

finally arrived from second platoon charlie company. they quickly destroyed the last of the insurgents and moved to secure the area and locate the wounded unable to determine how many soldiers were still on the ground officers called for help from the pilots above. all of the wounded were located except private first class sherritt over the radio second platoon notified air cover they clearly not able to locate want to show carefully. sixty six minutes after the fighting began share a badly wanted was located with a faint pulse he died on the helicopter headed for the combat support hospital

within a few days of private first class share its death the family began receiving information about the circumstances surrounding his death well yeah i believe they told us that it was a it was a fight and he was killed by a grenade fire it just seems like that's what the casualty officer told us because that's what was in the paper the casually officer came to the house and said well we think it may have been friendly fire and that was like whoa. and then i asked i said well would you have whoever is in charge over there in iraq call me up and tell me what's going on and he said i will and we got a phone call from his lieutenant colonel the next day who vehemently denied to me that it was friendly fire then i said to him would you please. tell me

what happened and he told me what happened then i said would you please send me an e-mail recounting exactly what you just told me which he did which i have. in the e-mail the lieutenant colonel wrote as dave's elements surrounded the position the enemy opened fire at very close range touching off a fierce grenade and small arms fire that resulted in the deaths of dave corporal john sigsbee and private first class danny kaye me in the next week dave was laid to rest at arlington national cemetery. mission. cretaceous three sports judges three major men three. three stooges three. and three broadcast quality video for your media project a free media don carty dot com. the fact that.

we're going to go digital the price is the only industry specifically mention in the constitution and. that's because a free and open press is critical to our democracy correct albus. role. in fact the single biggest threat facing our nation today is the corporate takeover of our government and our crowd semi-colons we've been hijacked by handful of transnational corporations that will profit by destroying what our founding fathers one still just my job market and on this show we reveal the big picture of what's actually going on in the world we go beyond identifying the problem try rational debate and real discussion critical issues facing america to find ready to join the movement then welcome to the big picture. i know c.n.n. the m s n b c news have taken some not slightly but the fact is i admire their

commitment to cover all sides of the story just in case one of them happens to be accurate. that was funny but it's close and for the truth and might think. it's because one politician in the mainstream media works side by side the joke is actually on here good to be coming back. at our two. in years we have a different approach. because the news of the world just is not this funny i'm not laughing dammit i'm not. you guys sort of the jokes will handle them. the army did it right at our only. four months after the incident dave and vicki

received the final incident report in direct contradiction to the lieutenant colonels initial e-mail the report stated that his son had been killed by friendly fire when his commanding officer lieutenant hanson shot him believing that he was the enemy. confused by the conflicting accounts of his son's death dave reached out to private first class jimmy's father dog a police officer in illinois doug became somebody who i spent literally hours on the telephone with and i shared this e-mail with him that had been sent to me being a cop he looked at this and instantly instantly had heartburn with and had serious issues with it after months of asking for additional information about the conflicting reports of their son's deaths and getting no answers from the army they've met with doug to me in person for the first time at a ceremony at fort campbell when we were at fort campbell and we were visiting for this memorial service we had kind of gotten to

a point where we both felt like we could release it and let it go after the ceremony the two fathers were talking in one of their rooms when there was a knock at the door to when listed men who had by the information about the night that their boys were killed and at them video of the incident they did that because they were sick and tired of the way that fort campbell had treated this that their superior officer treated this and they said there was a cover up going on. i was furious i was absolutely furious here is you know here's this organization that's supposed to protect me my son gave his life to protect me and they can't even tell me the truth they're covering up you know it was it was awful for the first time the family was able to truly begin to understand what happened that night. well it's four o'clock in the. morning there is very low visibility it's eight degrees. and our guys have we

know exactly where they are but we haven't got a clue what they're in there doing as it turns out they're all sitting back to back just waiting for our guys to come. they were told that the enemy was unarmed that we surrounded the thicket you never surround an enemy because once the firing begins you've got a circular firing squad tactically it was a nightmare. in the initial minutes of the firefight they've avoided enemy gunfire and return fire into the thick of. i can see dave he's hugging the earth his feet are moving he's squirming trying not to be seen the rounds are going over his head it's chaotic out the field. after five minutes of fierce fighting dave attempted to reestablish his position further back. i want to be able to watch. and as he sprints backwards he is shot by his lieutenant. and the way we

have figured this elf ballistically and through the autopsy reports it had to have been. extreme close range he is shot in the back the lower left buttock but he fell just feet away from the man who shot him and the man who shot him his lieutenant had to have gone. like this to do it he would have had to swallow at this kind of angle now maybe he thought it was one of the terrorists trying to run out whatever day falls feet from him just feet from him four seconds later hanson gets up and retreats even more knew early on that dave was mistakenly shot by lieutenant handsome but it wasn't until receiving the videos nearly a year later that they fully understood how the commanding officer's actions following the shooting further impacted their son's death. there's two dead there's one one on the bed two on the battlefield left who are alive and fighting and one

who is dying who is still alive. then that's my side. and this guy gets on the chopper an injured in the battle lieutenant hanson boarded the first helicopter out of the zone with two badly injured soldiers he's the one guy who knows where his men would be but he left his men on the battlefield he walked. the time five of his memoir on accounted for and lieutenant hanson took the only active radio. the one guy who has any means of communication has got on a chopper left. this son of a bitch shoots my brother in the leg not intentionally because it because it was night time it was four in the morning there was fit a very little star cover very little of light stayed there to point out his position because when they got to him there was a faint heartbeat. so the whole idea of brotherhood an author

and then and camaraderie in this sense it was in this context that has absolutely no place. so he goes silent of these guys and they're trying to assess where people are assess what the situation is and he's silent dave is out there for. many minutes vick eighty. yeah dying. there's precious minutes spent trying to find him they don't know where he is.

when they found him he had a pulse and they they worked c.p.r. on him till they put him on the bird so he lost precious minutes because his lieutenant left him on the battlefield and didn't apprise anybody who landed where his men were. with the new information in hand dave contacted army officials and demanded that they reexamined the actions of lieutenant hanson in hopes of appeasing the sheriff family colonel mcbride wrote a scathing reprimand of lieutenant hanson in it colonel mcbride writes you are hereby reprimanded for failing to exercise adequate command and control over your platoon your conduct contributed to rectally to the death of one of your soldiers from friendly fire your mission was ill planned and poorly executed resulting in grievous consequences to the unit based on your actions i have grave doubts concerning your potential for future military service as it turns out the letter was filed locally in iraq what was the final letter it was shredded now they

happened with it doesn't go past like asian nobody ever sees it and so when lieutenant hanson comes up for a promotion nobody sees this and he skates up to being captain which is what happened he gets promoted to captain that really was the final poke in the eye for us frustrated by lieutenant hansen's promotion dave contacted a former student james me a military affairs correspondent with the new york daily news as meek gathered documents and video for a lead story army officials began to question the motives of the family. in an internal e-mail to higher ranking officers uncovered by me a public affairs officer notes that we may rapidly be reaching the point where respecting slash understanding mr sharon's grieving process becomes secondary to defending the actions of the leadership involved in this incident i've been described as a grieving father who will say anything to bring published that he who will say

anything i think the subtle implication there are not so with cation if you will is that i'll make up things in order to try to publicize what happened to my son because i'm so overwrought with grief just people don't take accountability for their actions. and. this i forgive them i would but i have a lot of anger it in my heart in my mind towards this man for what he did and the more i find out about the situation the more it just it's unbelievable. you know there's a sort of old since the. soldier who gives his life for his country is a hero. and these people have given their life for their country. so there is a feeling i think i'm actually feeling the why should i burden the family complicate. things further for them i would love to believe that they're trying to

protect us from the now in our sons were killed by friendly fire. but it's just not knowing the truth causes more pain. people might think that you can take it but what you want to know is you want to know exactly what happened you want to invision exactly what happened you want a picture of the. individuals. may sometimes act in a way to cover their own. but the army is that institution i think. generally avoid such a cover up should. we make mistakes and i think any honest person in the army understands that we make mistakes is willing to admit that. oh my to sit back and judge a man in the heat of combat. and i don't know what that's like you don't know what

that's like and then nobody who's never been in it doesn't really have any idea you wash it out in the movie or whatever it happens. unfortunately it happened to us. fire and issues oh do the same thing. illegal for justice justice for your son. are you looking for the truth. you know the the the simple things which don't seem like big things to ask for a start to deal with. the world's largest army bureaucracy. hope that justice is done and where if we get justice maybe everybody who has suffered a little bit and then even know it gets a little justice maybe the little guy wins some day.

where dick got. the days a lot. and now don't know me. all bad. just. as we have a brother i used to have that don't know him now. doubt where. they are they are.

our will. carry. put it on your comment like. college face time you know.

a pleasure to have you with us here on t.v. today i'm sure. i would rather ask questions to people in positions of power instead of speaking on their behalf and that's why you can find my show larry king now right here on our t.v. question for. it

took. over but. did you know the price is the only industry specifically mention in the constitution and. that's because a free and open press is critical to our democracy correct office. to you know i'm sorry and on this show we reveal the picture of what's actually going on we go beyond identifying the truck crash will be a real discussion critical issues facing america about ready to join the movement then welcome to. the on tell him our been in washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture on thursday the housing.