[BikerNYC]

Yes, it's much better to lead the family to believe that he was killed by hostile fire, when you really don't know at all whether or not that is true.

Here's a completely honest thing to do: If you don't know, say so.

[AmishDude]

You could say that about every soldier. How pedantic and insipid to say: "Soldier X was killed in combat today, but we don't know yet whether he was shot by the enemy or one of his own or maybe his own gun misfired or maybe he had a heart attack or maybe he stepped on a rusty nail or maybe he spontaneously combusted or maybe he was just killed because he posted something incredibly stupid on FR and was executed for being too stupid to live.