And are the anti war Bush hater asshats and moonbats going to come out of the woodwork now...

While any death of young men and women in war are sad, it is of course particularily sad to get killed by friendly fire. But that does happen often in war and nobody should be surprised. I checked on a site the other days with "faces of the fallen". There you can find some short info about the cause of death for most of the losses in Iraq. Some cases are particularily sad:
1. one female medic died with around 40 y in a Bagdad hospital from heart attack
2. one soldier was killed in his car when it was crushed by a dump truck, which got out of controll when the driver was shot trying to break through some control point
3. several soldiers were killed in plain car accidents
4.in at least two cases soldiers died from electro shock suffered while swimming in a pool
5.one soldier was killed while inspecting a destroyed Iraqy tank - an antitank helicopter mistook him for iraqy crew
and so on.....
While it is unimportant somehow, how you've died once you are dead, I still would feel pissed off if I had gone in some of the ways above instead in a plain fight.

(taking a deep breath bracing for the backlash from this one)

War is, and always has been, a very horrible, ugly thing. I've always felt as if much of the American outrage over happenings in Viet Nam were rooted in the fact that technology made the atrocities of war more "public knowledge" than in past history. The general populace is largely ignorant of the more detailed historical accounts of war, and therefore more outraged than is warranted when stories come from the front lines of barbarism or erroneous actions. Such has been an inherent part of warfare for centuries, and will continue to be, regardless of technological advances.

Because of the preconceptions of a "civilized" society (over-civilized, in my opinion) and the indescretions of an irresponsible media, stories that detail these unsavory elements of battle tend to turn public opinion against the war and to decrease morale of our troops. And just to ward off those who would defend the media against my allegation that there is an undeniable agenda at work, recall that the media as a unit deemed the scenes from September 11 too "disturbing" to continue to replay, but have plastered every television and newspaper in America wall-to-wall with the photographs of the alleged prison abuses of late.

This war is very important to the security of Americans, at home and abroad. War is ugly, but at times, war is necessary. Such are these times, when Americans otherwise are at the mercy of those who refuse to acknowledge the sanctity of human life, and hold a deeply rooted hatred for everything American.

Since the first conflict, and until the last, the quotation attributed to W. T. Sherman holds true: "War is hell."

And for the benefit of the pacifists, another quote: George Orwell wrote, "The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it."

<standing behind Bo to help him withstand the backlash>

Tillman is still a hero in my eyes and always will be. Not for how he died, but becuase he was a person who put principle above profit. He is an inspiration to me. I am sad that he lost his life period, I think had he lived, God would have had Great things in store for this young man.

Ditto to David's remark.