NEWS FLASH!!!!

American soldier shot just moments ago, while standing on a bridge in broad daylight. Anyone else hear this on the radio?

I don't know, isn't it like past bed time over in the mid-east?

Perhaps my public music station has been taken over by the propagandists!

www.foxnews.com...

An American soldier was shot and killed Thursday in a bold daylight attack on a Baghdad bridge, military officers said.
The soldier, who wasn't immediately identified, was killed when an unidentified Iraqi walked up to him and opened fire with a pistol, according to senior U.S. Army officers in Baghdad who had heard reports of the shooting.

The officers said the slain soldier belonged to the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment from Fort Polk, La. Calls to that regiment's public affairs officer in Baghdad went unanswered Thursday night.

No further information was immediately available, and it was unclear what happened to the assailant. U.S. Central Command in Qatar said it was unaware of the incident.

Now I'm FREAKIN MAD!

Its true then, thats BS. I doubt shrub will do anythng about it.

Personally, if I'm a US Soldier in a battle zone (and yes, that's still what it is), I'll be damned if someone would get clost to me without me raising my gun....sounds like the guy was too complacent... Unfortunately, this will likely not be the first such incident....

I was thinking the same thing Gaz. It seems now that things have calmed quite a bit, the soldiers are more relaxed and complacent and therefore more susceptible to incidents like this. I hope this is alerts the other troops over there to not be complacent and hopefully this doesn't happen again. It would really suck to survive the heavy fighting and be killed this way.

My understanding is, Proud-A that few if any of the ecombatabnts are still there, and that the bulk of the occupying forces are Army units brought in after the "cease fire".
This certainly sound like a timely warning to the military to step up their alertness.

Our soldiers should be good to go, with all that MOUT training.
Btw, I wonder if half the troops that even went there had MOUT training?

MOS specific I guess, too bad they didn't intigrate it with Basic/AIT or OSUT.

OSUT sucked! So many people got recycled.

MOUT is standard for the M.P.'s I know, but that does not erase complacency. There is a big difference between urban combat and pseudo-occupation laxness.

Todays combat injuries and fatalities accourding to Iraq: Front-Line ER statistics, are wounds suffered from IEDs. Most end up being amputees, being even higher in number than any war including and since WW2.
It takes only four days to get back Stateside after the injury.

With this developing trend in war, isn't it time that a different technique or tactic was used? I beleive it is called "change it up". The reason IEDs work so well is because they are placed where they will work. If troops use the same routes all the time, it is called predictibility. Also, if such routes are to be used routinely they should have constant security.

Which in turn brings up the old subject of, Military Operation in Urban Terrain (MOUT).

TC brought up a valid point;
Laxness
Lacking in rigor, strictness, or firmness.

Now if you will, see;
War
A state of open, armed, often prolonged conflict carried on between nations, states, or parties.

As anyone can see, those two do not go together.
The basis of this post, is prevention. As it is my opinion that such could have been prevented, by proper use of a battleplan. Not to say I am going to criticize the current leaders of our Warfighters, but more so policy.

Our military, as well as many others around the world, are based on a principle of leading by example. Not saying much for US politicans, who supposedly are leaders of the USA. If it is their example our current Armed Forces are following, many more CALL/lessons learned are going to be the hard way.

[edit on 29-3-2006 by ADVISOR]

Should that soldier shoot that supposed civilian...possibility he would have been criticized for it. Usually you don't fire unless fired upon, but then its too late in this case. Tsk Tsk.

Gazrock- The soldiers are there 'winning hearts and minds' surely if you were an Iraqi walking in the general direction of an American solider and he pulled a rifle on you you would be disheartened and hold distrust for him? The Iraq war is 'over' officially. Our soldiers are virtually peacekeeping and the soldier in question can in no way be blamed for his actions.

Hello

It's war, so people die. It doesn't matter if is day or night nor if it's a bridge or a green area.

Have you seen the movies that are on the internet called "Juba Iraq" ? In it you would see how easy it is for a soldier to die/wounded in Iraq.

Crustas

Just seen some footage.. wish i hadn't. Just reinforces how unpopular the war is.

Still all American troops require such support. As the old saying goes
'Old men start the wars; young men die in them'.