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The report referred to the ammo cooking off (exploding because it was on fire). If that was true it sounds like a KIA tank.

Not necessarily. The M1A has blast doors between the ammo compartment and the crew compartment. It also has blow off doors on the top of the ammo compartment. Rounds cooking off don't really explode like you might think. They do "explode", but the cases aren't all that strong when not supported by the breech and the pressures never get all that high, and the blow off doors further prevent the pressures in the compartment from getting too high. The same thing effect can be seen with common shotgun, pistol and rifle ammunition. Throw it into a fire and you get a "pop" when the case ruptures, and the bullet is not expelled with much force, if at all.

This does illustrate an interesting point about the war. For all we know the reporter didn't report anything about this correctly. Yet here we are talking about small details (which is fine, don't misunderstand me).

The same thing is happening at the macro level. Some bonehead reporter probably talked to a marine who said that they were only getting one hot meal a day. Now this is actually pretty good since typically a soldier can only count on MRE's. But the reporter puts out that the front line is so unsupplied that they are down to one meal a day. Combine this with other bonehead reports mis-representing supply lines issues and (presto) an new urban myth about the war effort failing due to supply problems.

If the media reported football the same way they report the war there would be retired football coaches explaining to the talking head what that little brown object down on the field is called.

Fred: "Tom is our retired coach. Tom, what is that brown thing called?"

Tom: "Fred, we refer to that as the "football."

And at half time:

Mary: "Fred, Fred, we have to interrupt you. Sorry. We seem to have some breaking news occuring right now on the field. Initial reports are that both "teams", and by teams I'm referring to the groups of "players" that Tom talked about earlier, well they seem to be abandoning their positions and walking off the field.

Fred: "Mary, have you heard anything about this ahead of time? Apparently the coaches were caught off guard by this. Perhaps it is an operational pause?"

Mary: "Yes Fred, my contacts are saying it is an operational pause. I do have unconfirmed reports of water and gatoraid arriving. This, if true, would speak to the supply issues we discussed earlier..."