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He said members of Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry wore infrared tape on their helmets and left shoulders and some wore flashing infrared strobe lights on their helmets.

HINT: Don't wear/use strobes in the middle of a live fire. They look just like small arms fire from a pilot's perspective (not excusing the pilot's actions here).

Ford said the one positive that has come out of the tragedy is that Canadians now better realize the dangerous work their soldiers do and have been doing on peacekeeping missions since the Korean War.

PSST...Hey Canada, get a clue. This isn't a peacekeeping mission, it's war, and, oh by the way, how about the approval for those Bronze Star Medals we want to give your snipers. That was damned fine shootin'. Hell, if you are too ashamed of them, maybe you can lend 'em to us for the rest ot the war...

1 posted on 05/03/2002 9:45:48 AM PDT by TADSLOS
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To: TADSLOS
Thanks for this. Our spineless and clueless Minister of National Defense Art Eggleton, when asked if Canadian troops had the proper equipment to be compatible with U.S. Friend or Foe designation gear was almost petulant in insisting they did. This was after it emerged that U.S. troops use some sort of transponder to identify themselves. Here we are sending troops in with reflective tape and strobe lights. Gee, I guess after that filthy Chretien threw 100 million dollars (that's Canadian dollars, about 250 bucks to our friends south of the border) away on new executive jets for himself we didn't have enough money left over to provide our boys with inexpensive and standardized means of protecting themselves. Maybe that's why they went all teary and mournful when the accident happened...they wanted to appear as if they actually cared about the troops. A more telling behavior is their unwillingness to allow the U.S. to give our snipers Bronze Stars. Wouldn't want to send a signal that there's anything honorable about being a soldier, not to mention fighting along side the Americans, now would we (disgust with my government dripping like drool on my keyboard).

It's enough to make me want to spit.

2 posted on 05/03/2002 10:10:35 AM PDT by mitchbert
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To: TADSLOS
Your point about the strobes is a good one. But, it looks like the pilot made a bad judgement call. Chalk this up to a new way of screwing up that is not likely to be repeated.
6 posted on 05/03/2002 10:52:12 AM PDT by Cold Heat
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To: TADSLOS
"HINT: Don't wear/use strobes in the middle of a live fire. They look just like small arms fire from a pilot's perspective (not excusing the pilot's actions here)."

And reflective tape only reflects light thrown upon it, so unless an illumination flare was in the air at the time, it would only reflect the tracer light.

Also, anyone that has ever seen night fire knows when tracer fire hits a hill or other object it recochets skyward, which could very well have been diverted directly into the pilots general vicinity.

A sad series of very unfortunate events and a real tragedy for all concerned.

12 posted on 05/03/2002 1:41:59 PM PDT by theirjustdue
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