Stray bullet kills US soldier in Iraq

[expatriot]

http://www.theadvertiser.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,6851381%255E25777,00.html


Stray bullet kills US soldier in Iraq
From correspondents in Washington
02aug03
A US soldier with the First Armoured Division died in Baghdad today from a gunshot wound received the day before, apparently by accident, US Central Command said in a statement.

"The soldier was standing outside when a bullet, fired from a celebrating Iraqi, struck him," the statement said.

"The soldier was evacuated to the 28th Combat Support Hospital and subsequently died."

The incident occurred at approximately 7.30pm local time (1.30pm AEST) yesterday. The statement gave no further details.

Since US President George W Bush declared an end to major combat in Iraq on May 1, the US-led coalition says 52 US soldiers have been killed in guerrilla attacks, while at least 56 have died in non-combat incidents.


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[expatriot]

1. here is an interactive map of the hometowns of US dead in Iraq

http://www.mapbureau.com/usersites/repatriot/hometown

[indictrichardperle]

2. "apparently by accident"

too damn many accidents :mad:

How do they know it was an "accident" ? was he firing straight ahead? if it was thought to be a falling bullet, how do they know it wasnt a sniper ?

[meisje]

3. how can any bullet in a war be deemed stray?

I guess this Iraqi did not take advantage of the big, "Turn in your gun and get a .0001 share of Exxon stock day"

[pansypoo53219]

4. lets

just say a lot of these fucking idiots die when they 'celebrate'.
maybe intensive physics classes could be used.

[expatriot]

5. i've always wondered, like especially in world war ii....

when there was a huge infantry battle raging and each army had super anti-aircraft guns with like a gagillion barrels that fired like 1,000 rounds a minute... i wonder how many people died from those anti-aircraft shells falling back down to earth.... i mean that is a lot of lead to have to fall back down at some point.

[jamesinca]

6. That would not happen in an infantry battle

They learned in WWII that close air support of ground troops was trouble. A lot of their own were killed from bomb and bullet drift. I remember on the History channel one day they were going on about greatest blunders. An entire U.S. batallion was taken out becuse of close air support and bad co-ordinates and navigation. They learned from that. Usually the AA was used against the bombers not the fighters. But it is kinda the war math thing here. Put the AA guns on the outskirts of town and stop the bombing runs, have the fighters intercept before they get to town etc. Then those that do get thru drop bombs and lets say take out an entire building with several people or production things in it. If some shrapnel from AA should fall on the town maybe the loss will be a few people in the building, not the entire building. There will be losses, they will just be minimised. Stop the bombing runs, and engage the fighters outside of town. It does happen, but it is a last ditch desparate thing when "broken arrow" is called and a bombing run is called in on your own position.

Last but not least, what goes up must come down.

[kskiska]

7. Well, since it was an accident

it won't be added to the total of, what is it, 50-plus combat deaths?

[joshcryer]

8. F* you Bush*!

FUCK YOU.

[are_we_united_yet]

15. Don't forget

Dumbsfeld and his merry band of OSP morons

[teryang]

9. They'll say anything to avoid classifying combat deaths

Whatever the facts were, this story only damages Centcom credibility with its conclusory report and lack of substantiation.

[NNN0LHI]

10. Move on now. Nothing to see here. Just a little accident

Only non USA papers are even reporting this "accident" so far.

http://news.google.com/news?q=Stray+bullet+kills+US+soldier+in+Iraq&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=nn

Sorted by relevance Sort by date


Stray bullet kills US soldier in Iraq
Melbourne Herald Sun, Australia - 8 hours ago
Stray bullet kills US soldier in Iraq - Melbourne Herald Sun
Stray bullet kills US soldier in Iraq - South Australia Advertiser
Stray bullet kills US soldier in Iraq - Daily Telegraph
NEWS.com.au - South Australia Advertiser - and more »

[saigon68]

11. I WONDER WHAT THE IRAQI WAS CELEBRATING

Maybe the end to the War

</sarcasm>

[donsu]

12. wonder who choose the word STRAY to use in the report?

the military? reporter? news agency?

the word STRAY should be shoved down the offenders throat.

[StandWatie]

13. it would be easy to tell..

if it fell out of the sky the bullet would only be moving at terminal velocity which while potentially lethal would make a far different wound than one made at muzzle velocity.

[NNN0LHI]

17. May not of been much velocity left in the bullet that killed this soldier?

What if an AK-47 is fired towards a group of soldiers from on top of a building at perhaps a half a mile or so away? Not that someone would be actually taking a true aim from that distance mind you. But just someone shooting indiscriminantly in the general direction of some US personel hoping to get a lucky shot in. My guess is that muzzle velocity is a very small factor in a war zone?

Don

[TacticalPeek]

18. That range may be only a tad out...

There were Iraqi stories of a sniper they call "The Hunter", that was consistently effective on USA, at least a couple of weeks ago.

(Maybe quieter now from him? Hope so.)

[NickB79]

19. I ran some numbers through my ballistics calculator and

A 124-gr, .312 caliber bullet fired from a 7.62x39 cartridge at an initial muzzle velocity of 2300 fps would only be travelling 800 fps at 1000 yds. At 2500 yds, half a mile, it would be down to ~400 fps and have way less energy than even a .22 rifle has at the muzzle. While even this could be lethal with a hit to the head at that range, that would be one hell of a Hail-Mary shot. I couldn't imagine that being lethal if hit anywhere other than the head; hell, heavy clothing on your chest and back could blunt most of the impact at that range and low energy.

So that implies that the "celebrating" Iraqi was relatively close, probably within a few hundred yards of the soldier. The soldiers were fine letting Iraqi's celebrate and shoot off rifles that close to them?

[TacticalPeek]

22. NickB79

Army.

[Sirius_on]

23. A 22 cal rifle can shoot through several 2X4s

Thats allot of force. A 22 rifle is well beyond 440 fps. A BB gun has 700 from the muzzle. I think the average 22 is like 1500FPS at muzzle.

[NickB79]

24. I was speaking in terms of kinetic energy

Yes, a .22LR round has 1200-1500 fps of velocity at the muzzle, but only fires a 35-40 gr bullet. The extra mass of the heavier 7.62mm bullet makes up for the lack of velocity when you calculate bullet energy, though.

[TacticalPeek]

14. Standard military combat casualty reporting. Where is it?

An elemental military datum is "fighting strength" of various echelons, and because of it's obvious importance there are ancient, established procedures for reporting casualties effecting fighting strength.

There are something like 8 to 10 classes of casualty, and on every Morning Report, after-action, etc. these numbers are listed.

In the past, this information was summarized and reported to and by the press in a familiar recap:

x killed
y wounded
z missing

I don't recall *any* media account giving this standard information.

I know the Pentagon has "changed the accounting rules" (sniff!) for some things, i.e., "civilian casualties". Guess that was removed from the taxonomy altogether.

But shouldn't the standard "killed, wounded, missing" info be available somewhere? Do the mil flacks not provide it, or does the media itself trim this down to "killed in hostile action"? Obviously fighting strength is also effected by suicides and aWols.

I'm particularly peeved that the public is provided little notion of the number of wounded.

[jbm]

16. the scroller..

on the cable news stations is reporting one soldier killed and three wounded (I keep catching only a portion of the scroller) but I can't find a story on the net. Is this that same soldier? Or has there been a different incident?

on edit...I think they mean the soldier that was killed last night. I get soooo confused..

[NickB79]

20. Nope, diff. incident

A US convoy was hit by another one of those wonderful grenades today from what I heard.

[Rose Siding]

21. This links to the other story

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=48300&mesg_id=48300