In this essay for The New Yorker, written after five U.S. soldiers were killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan's Arghandab District, Elliot Ackerman recalls a fratricide he witnessed during the Second Battle of Fallujah and reflects on why friendly fire leaves a particular kind of grief behind.

A Death in Fallujah

Ackerman describes watching an insurgent, stopped in the street by a comrade's shout, killed an instant later by a Marine machine gunner, an event he experienced less as combat than as a strange form of fratricide, and the moment he stopped believing a God was watching over the battlefield.

How Friendly Fire Happens

Ackerman explains the mechanics of calling in air strikes, the coordinates, the infrared lasers, the radio calls between forward air controllers and pilots, and how a single misplaced word or grid reference, as in a 2001 strike that wounded Hamid Karzai, can turn support into tragedy.

Pat Tillman and the Search for Truth

Ackerman revisits the friendly-fire death of Pat Tillman, contrasting the comforting language of his public memorial with his brother Richard's raw, unsparing eulogy, and argues that when a death carries no larger meaning, the only solace left is the truth of what actually happened.

Read the Original Article

This essay originally appeared in The New Yorker.

Read “The Wounds Caused by Friendly Fire” at The New Yorker →