Toronto Star January 25, 2003
What was Top Gun thinking?
BY William Walker
No one knows what was going on inside Maj. Harry Schmidt's head the night he dove his F-16 jet down and mistakenly bombed Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan.
Only Schmidt does - and so far the 37-year-old Illinois National Guard pilot isn't telling.
He lives with the knowledge every day. No doubt he has endlessly wrestled with the split-second decision he made last April 18 and how he not only killed four "friendly" Canadian soldiers, but also destroyed his glorious career as a superstar of American fighter pilots. Lesser pilots arguably could have been confused by the lack of information Schmidt claims he had that night flying in crystal-clear skies over Kandahar. But as a defence for his actions, such excuses ring hollow given Schmidt's credentials.
Peers have described him as a "world class" F-16 fighter pilot. He taught the best pilots from all over America as an instructor at the Top Gun fighter training school. He has vast experience, with more than 100 combat missions under his belt.
A year before the incident, Schmidt told the newspaper at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada what combat was like.
"Any time you see real combat, you learn something you can bring back to the schoolhouse, whether it's surface-to-air missiles being fired at you, anti-aircraft artillery fire, or how hard or easy it is to find a target under different conditions," Schmidt said in an interview.
"The first thing I noticed about combat is that everyone, no matter how cocky they are, sits down and takes notice when people are shooting at them."
With a pilot so experienced, can air force officials considering criminal charges against Schmidt believe he did not see Kandahar airport, a U.S. installation lit up like a Christmas tree and commonly known as a major U.S. operations centre by even the lowliest private?
Can they believe that at nearby Tarnak Farms, a training range in use 24 hours a day, seven days a week by coalition forces, Schmidt could have convinced himself that enemy Taliban rebels would be lined up in formation, with heavy artillery, and be operating freely so close to where thousands of U.S. troops and fighter jets were located?
Could a pilot renowned for his tactical expertise really not have understood that most of those Taliban rebels had fled as far from Kandahar as possible to save their own lives, most of them to the mountains on the Pakistani border?
Gen. Michael Moseley, who was first charged with investigating the incident, wrote a memo shortly after it happened.
"It is difficult to imagine a scenario ... whereby we will not have time to egress the threat area, regroup, de-conflict and then engage in a well-thought-out and co-ordinated plan that ensures success," he wrote.
Indeed, if Schmidt had circled his jet around just one more time before bombing, he would have known the troops were Canadian. Air controllers received the information two seconds before the bomb struck, and radioed it to him immediately.
So what was Schmidt thinking?
Good question, said retired Lt.-Col. Piers Wood, a combat veteran and now Washington consultant who has headed friendly fire inquiries. But Wood told the Star that in some ways, all those issues are irrelevant given what happens to pilots in combat.
Particularly after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the U.S., pilots in Afghanistan trying to seek revenge would have felt "mission zeal" to get in on the action for their country. But Afghanistan offered little opportunity for aggressive pilots like Schmidt - nicknamed "Psycho" early in his career - to see real action.
"People involved in combat operations get bored with the lack of action," Wood said.
"Combat is 95 per cent boredom. That's when pilots get the most nervous when they have the slightest inkling they may be in danger. You get hypersensitive to minuscule threats.
"You're not just looking for an excuse to hurt someone, but ... you say 'I want to nip this in the bud.' Pilots who see constant action are actually calmer."
Such issues were not explored in depth during the nine-day Article 32 hearing here that will help decide whether Schmidt and wingman Maj. William Umbach will be tried on charges of involuntary manslaughter, aggravated assault and dereliction of duty in the deaths of four Canadians.
The American investigation report suggests Schmidt felt "peer pressure" to back up his Top Gun reputation and to enhance his new Illinois National Guard squadron's credibility with other full-time pilots.
"There's a feeling of inferiority in the air national guard as compared to the active air force," Wood said. "The air guard pilots have a little chip on their shoulders in the sense that they feel they have something to prove."
And since there was so little combat action the U.S. investigation report noted a "complacency in enforcement of discipline and standards."
It's a serious situation, not just in terms of the four Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry soldiers killed and eight injured, but also with coalition member countries, like Canada, now considering joining a U.S.-led war in Iraq.
During the 1991 Persian Gulf War, misidentification of ground forces caused 61 per cent of military accidents, and "friendly fire" was responsible for 24 per cent of U.S. casualties during that war.
"You're getting to the point where fratricide is becoming a major contributor to total killed in action," said John Pike of the Washington-based military think-tank GlobalSecurity.org.
"It's not so much that the rate of fratricide is going up as it is that the rate of deaths from hostile fire is going down."
Naval Reserve Lt.-Cmdr. Mark Kirk said: "In World War II if you dropped a bomb there was only a 3 per cent chance of hitting the target.
"Today the odds are overwhelming that you will, so it had better be a correct decision."
Copyright © 2003, Toronto Star Newspapers, Ltd.
