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 at 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 it's on him playing 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 or below the 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 sense of all you're trying to figure out isn't hip isn't falling which soviet designation helicopters were the army's rules of engagement the f. fifteen approach 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 blackhawks were configured slightly different that day normally a black hawk they have little wing lights on the side and sponsons and 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 camouflage and 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. a den a five friend or foe and this is equipment designed specifically to prevent this type of acts and remember her. 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 are 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 s are looking 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 equipped doing what they do every day normal behavior normal as ations 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 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 i'll talk to you 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 got 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 it stan and his dad was a football player macho and dave was not a macho kid but he wanted to be like is stan 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. and 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 that 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 his shadow sometimes it was like dave could do no wrong he was just a guy that then once you knew and 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 surrounded 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 quim later received so over stars for their heroic actions.

for thirty minutes the enemy engaged the soldiers many men down as 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 share it 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 sure its death the family began receiving information about the circumstances surrounding his death well yeah i believe they told us 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 what 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 haf. 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 fight 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. but. i would like to know that you know the price is the only industry specifically mentioned in the constitution and. that's because a free and open press is critical to our democracy right allmers. in fact the single biggest threat facing our nation today is the corporate takeover of our government and our crass cynical we've been hijacked why handful of transnational corporations will profit by destroying what our founding fathers once i'm tom hartman and on this show we reveal the big picture of what's actually going on in the world we go beyond identifying the problem the truck rational debate and a real discussion critical issues facing america if i ever go ready to join the movement then walk

a little bit. unexplored antarctica what is it in this i see expanse that attracts the people who come here . and love me and i know i only go to the duchesse. the day i see you. and enter into. a new generation of polar explorers is coming. we have a new group of specialists here. all of them are young how are they going to get along with each other and i don't know. who you. are used to be a bureaucrat. seriously. what adventures await in this mysterious land where do they live what do they eat and what are they actually doing in antarctica . the army did it

right that are only. four months after the incident dave in vicky 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 dead 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 him listed men who had bottle 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. there 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's 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 never surround the 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 angles now maybe he thought it was one of the terrorists trying to run out whatever day falls feet from him just feet from him for seconds later hits and gets up and retreats even more and the sheriff's knew early on did. 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 officers actions following the shooting further impacted their son's death as 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 men were on accounted for and lieutenant hansen 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 very little store cover very little moonlight 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 it has absolutely no place. so he goes silent office guys and they're there 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 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 leaded 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. colonel mcbride writes you are hereby reprimanded for failing to exercise adequate commanding control over your platoon your conduct contributed directly 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 is the final letter it was shredded now they

happened with it does 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 city who will say

anything i think the subtle implication there is 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 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 pain knowing their sons my friend and 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 a vision exactly what happened you want a picture of. individuals. may sometimes act in a way to cover their own. but the army is of interest to should 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 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 if you watch it on 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 they 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.

well. where did. the day is a lot. and now don't. forget are. you just. as we have a brother i used to have that don't know him now. doubt

where. they are. will. carry. on their way to antarctica the crew of the i can to make sure the face many challenges. here you have to look out for yourself crashing on to rocks trapped in pack ice in extreme conditions anything can happen antarctica always comes up with surprises you have to keep your eyes open because if there's always something going wrong the ship carries huge reserves of water food fuel as well as helicopters and

people able to survive extreme conditions they're ready for anything even an apocalypse she's really an incredible ship calling all antarctica stations and this is going to make a field of radio check please respond. it was a. very hard to make out. once again there is a law that never had sex with that they're number. one. of.

which. one of. the people. more news today violence is once again flared up. these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. shining top for a shelter on the day. that's

all i want to. pick up something that is quite simply. was no way oh. clearly they were just at the wrong place at the wrong time. and sold to the u.s. and turned over to the u.s. for. the sole that could be buried alive. was saved with great over. and they wanted to turn me into a terrorist so it was they wanted me to admit that i was a member of al qaeda or taliban and that i fought with them. about time i didn't even know what al qaeda is nevertheless there are people. rave enough to start a fight. something's going to be done that's going to be done by me i have a short amount of time to do it but it's going to impact me i'd be prosecuted but it's going to impact. the wife my daughter. the one time

a trap. on our t.v. . israeli troops are under fire for roughing up foreign diplomats and preventing them from delivering aid to palestinian bedouins whose entire community was demolished. syria keeps up with its chemical disarmament obligations by submitting an inventory of it toxic stuff piles to the international watchdog. and as germans prepares to vote in sunday's parliamentary election despite the almost certain return for uncle merkel this illusion remains over the growing income gap and tough job market.