'Disturbing trend' seen in negligent discharges of weapons in Afghanistan

[lebkuchen]

In the past 18 months, troops in Afghanistan have accidentally killed themselves or others at least six times and wounded nearly two dozen more troops through unsafe weapons handling, according to Army statistics released to Stars and Stripes.

In what military officials call negligent discharges, last year troops mistakenly fired their weapons 24 times in Afghanistan, injuring 18 and killing four.

So far this year, five troops have been wounded and two more have been killed in 16 accidental discharges.

In the same time frame, 24 troops have died from combat-related injuries in Afghanistan.

http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=23620

Not sure what "same time frame" means...18 months or this year?

[lebkuchen]

1. The author of the piece wrote me

In the last 18 months in Afghanistan US troops have suffered:

24 combat related deaths

6 deaths due to troops accidentally shooting themselves

23 injuries due to accidental shootings


Our soldiers are killing each other in Afghanistan at a rate of 25%. I wonder what the statistic is in Iraq.

[saigon68]

2. That's HOW TILLMAN DIED

Shot in the back of the HEAD


BY ONE OF HIS OWN PEOPLE

For that Shrub gave him the Silver Star.

[lebkuchen]

3. silver star

I'm sure Tilman will treasure it always. Tilman's brother probably uses it as a thumb tack on a bulletin board.

<sarcasm off>

[lebkuchen]

4. "Negligent discharge" (NG) is not the same as "friendly fire"

So, the 25% rate at which our soldiers are killing each other as opposed to those killed by Al Qaida in combat does not include "friendly fire" stats.

The army's answer to this disaster is to condense combat training into 30 intensive days for new recruits before sending them into the fire, according to the NY Times?

Recipe for further disaster.

Pat Tilman was killed by "friendly fire," not "negligent discharge." It was during a firefight with insurgents, and others in his unit mistook the Afghan Army fighter that was with him for the bad guys.