[optimistically_conservative]

Not wrong. As CO you are responsible for your men.

Twitching your grenade for a hair-trigger pull is just plain stupid. Perhaps if Cleland had paid closer attention to his men in training or done a proper gear check on the helo, he wouldn't be an amputee now.

That's fair, and since he was a CPT at the time we can run that blame game all the way down the chain of command to the enlisted guy in charge of the rookie. Seems petty, but what the hey.

So, how 'bout those 101st guys that got fragged in Iraq before the war. Think we can come up with ways to criticize the officers and enlisted there too?

Know what? i don't even beleive Cleland's account to begin with. He probably tried to frag himself to get home sooner.

Yeah, I'm sure he didn't want to serve out that last month before his rotation stateside.

See, Ann's column has got the idiots out in force today.

[an amused spectator]

See, Ann's column has got the idiots out in force today.

Yeah, I noticed that. When were you leaving this thread, anyway? ;-)

[Fenris6]

that's fair, and since he was a CPT at the time we can run that blame game all the way down the chain of command to the enlisted guy in charge of the rookie. Seems petty, but what the hey. Strawman -it was a stupid accident resulting in casualties. The ultimate responsiblity lies with Cleland for not training & inspecting his own people properly. There's a frickin SOP for helo acticity to prevent just these kinds of things.

So, how 'bout those 101st guys that got fragged in Iraq before the war. Think we can come up with ways to criticize the officers and enlisted there too?

Yes.

"See, Ann's column has got the idiots out in force today"

Case in point. Get back to me when you 1) run out of strawmen 2) have a clue how the military works.