Talk:Tarnak Farm incident

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1 Casualties
2 Title
3 Amphetamines
4 revert -- see talk
5 Charges

[edit] Casualties

Four men died. Our article says eight were injured, but only lists six names. Why aren't we listing all of them? -- Geo Swan 19:09, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Title

This article needs a new name. I recommend "Tarnak Farms Incident" or something similar. --M4-10 23:41, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Why? Chewbacca1010 01:29, 2 November 2006 (UTC) Nvm. Chewbacca1010 01:31, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Amphetamines

Why is it not included that the pilots were high on amphetamines. The article that most of this information comes from has it listed and this one doesn't. It's a fairly big deal, I'd say.Chewbacca1010 01:29, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] revert -- see talk

I asked the wikipedian who redirected the articles about the casualties for an explanation of this action. The explanation they offered was "wikipedia is not a memorial". They invited me to revert, if I disagreed. I do disagree, and I am reverting.

Here's the discussion.

Cheers! Geo Swan 22:55, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Charges

Does anyone know why the American soldier was charged with manslaught, as apposed to 1st degree murder? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.146.108.187 (talk) 16:31, August 21, 2007 (UTC)

I am not sure about U.S. law but in Canadian law this would be manslaughter. Even though these soldiers were "peace officers" the pilots could not have known that and thought they were in danger of their lives by enemies and negligently caused 4 deaths, Manslaughter is anything that does not fit into First or Second degree murder, which they do not, therefore this is Manslaughter. But I believe these crimes where reduced to just negligence. Bretonnia (talk) 16:37, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Why do you say the soldiers were "peace officers"? I do not believe this is true. In general the Canadian Armed Forces does not take on a constabulary role. When actual peace officers were required in Haiti we sent 100 RCMP officers. Soldiers aren't peace officers.

I do not believe you are correct to say "...the pilots could not have known that."

Schmidt claimed he wasn't briefed that nearby friendly forces were engaged in a training exercise. I don't believe this claim was ever confirmed or refuted.
But, he was ordered to hold his fire. The flight controller issued this order so he or she could check for the presence of friendly forces, before authorizing Schmidt to engage. If Schmidt had obeyed this order he certainly would have have learned that the ground fire was from friendly forces. This can hardly be disputed because less than a minute after he engaged the ground controller did tell him he was tracking friendly forces.
Schmidt did explicitly claim he was disobeying the order to hold his fire because he "was exercising his inherent right to self-defense". This claim is extremely dubious. Schmidt had to turn around to stay in range.
Schmidt, and his wingman, had been flying at an altitude well above the altitude where they would be vulnerable to all but the largest caliber ground fire. The Canadians were armed only rifle-caliber weapons and Carl Gustav rocket propelled grenades. If Schmidt had been a relatively inexperienced pilot it might be explainable why he couldn't distinguish rifle fire from large caliber anti-aircraft cannon fire. But Schmidt was a former instructor at the USN's Top Gun school. Presumably this put him in the very top percentage of pilots by skill and experience.

I strongly suspect that Schmidt was trophy-hunting, and that his claims that he thought he and his wingman were in danger are complete crap. How, if Schmidt had been a very highly skilled instructor in the USN's Top Gun school, did he end up in the Air National Guard? The USN has less need for Commanders, than it does for Lieutenant Commanders; less need for Commanders, than for Captains; less need for Captains than for Admirals. So it has a policy of "up or out". After a certain number of years at a certain rank, if you aren't chosen for promotion you are automatically retired. In spite of his skills as a fighter pilot Schmidt presumably lacked some quality that would have won him promotion. So, after his retirement from the USN he joined the Air Force Reserves. This was probably going to be his last chance to see active duty as a pilot flying actual war-time missions.

Cheers! Geo Swan (talk) 21:32, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Did Schmidt really retire from the US Navy as an O-3 (Lieutenant)? If so, it could mean that he was passed over for promotion, but it could also mean that he had served for a number of years as an enlisted serviceman before becoming an officer, and thus didn't have time to advance to a higher rank before he reached mandatory retirement. After leaving the service, many fighter pilots seek to join reserve or national guard fighter units so that they can continue to fly fighter aircraft in addition to whatever their usual full-time job is, usually airline pilot. I don't know if this was Schmidt's situation or not. Cla68 (talk) 23:10, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

If I am not mistaken the USN's rank equivalent to Major is Lieutenant Commander. I presume this was his final rank in the Navy. Geo Swan (talk) 10:41, 13 December 2007 (UTC)