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On the evening of April 17, 2002, members of Alpha company were conducting a night time live-fire training exercise at the Tarnak Farms range just south of Kandahar. At the same time, the pilots of two F-16 fighters on their way home from a mission observed what they thought was surface-to-air fire aimed at them. The flight's wingman released a 500 pound laser-guided bomb directed at the source of the firing.
Moments later, Sergeant Leger, Corporal Dyer, and Privates Green and and Smith were dead while Sergeant Ford, Master Corporals Clark and Hollister, Corporals Brennan, Paquette and Perry, and Private Link were wounded.
So what happened? What is known from the subsequent investigations is that there was a communication failure between members of those services involved in the air flight. A tragic error with unthinkable consequences. Why it happened and what can be done to prevent it from ever happening again is something the experts involved will have to sort out.
Is this a matter for finger pointing and recrimination? If it is, then let's at least point those fingers in the right direction. The enemy is not the man who mistakenly released that bomb; the enemy is those whose attack on our continent caused both Canadians and US forces to be in Afghanistan to begin with. Those killed and wounded were as much the victims of the War on Terror as any other soldier killed or wounded in that theatre. They gave their lives to ensure that those of us back home could live without the fear of ever seeing another "9-11".
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