Friendly Fire: The Untold Story of the U.S. Bombing That
ISBN: , SKU: , AUTHOR: Friscolanti, Michael, PUBLISHER: John Wiley & Sons, ong>Theong> text below is an excerpt from Friendly Fire. it is ong>theong> early morning of April , following ong>theong> mayhem of a bomb attack on a section of ong>theong> Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, outside Kandahar, Afghanistan. ong>theong> Edmonton-based soldiers were conducting a live-fire training exercise at a former al-Qaeda compound when a U.S. fighter pilot mistook ong>theong>m for ong>theong> enemy. At Tarnak Farm, A Company begins to board ong>theong> trucks ong>thatong> will take ong>theong>m back to camp. Out of habit, Lt. Luft conducts a roll call of his platoon. 1 Section. Here. 2 Section. here 3 Section. Alastair stops himself. ong>theong>re is no 3 section. Except for Cpl. Chris Oliver, ong>theong> troops are eiong>theong>r dead or in ong>theong> medical tent. ong>Theong> guys left behind watch ong>theong> trucks drive away. For nearly two hours, everyone has been operating on instinct, on training. but now, all ong>theong> noise, all ong>theong> adrenaline, are gone. It's suddenly real. Four men are dead. Outside ong>theong> ambulance, Wilson and Speirs are chain-smoking Korea 88s, replaying ong>theong> chaos and confusion of those first few minutes. could we have been faster? Did we save everyone who could be saved? ong>theong>re will always be doubts... By now, ong>theong>re is little doubt about what happened. Some of ong>theong> guys heard ong>theong> jet. Some even saw it. ong>Theong>y don't know ong>theong> details yet. Nobody really does. but ong>theong> Taliban doesn't have any F-16s. ong>thatong> was a U.S. bomb. " How could this happen to us? Sgt. Favasoli asks Cpl. Filis. how could this happen to coalition forces?"