Friendly-fire death torments battle unit

By Gregg Zoroya
USA Today

BAGHDAD, Iraq — It wasn't supposed to be this way. They weren't supposed to kill one of their own. But each night, soldiers in the Headquarters Company, 4/64 Task Force, 2nd Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division, go to sleep thinking about Capt. Ed Korn — a man they barely knew but now can never forget.

Capt. Ed Korn was killed by friendly fire on April 4 near Baghdad. Associated Press

"We talk about it every day," said the 28-year-old commander of a tank-like Bradley Fighting Vehicle that became involved in the incident. The three members of its crew asked that their names not be used for this story. "We sit and talk about it daily," the commander said. "We talk to the chaplain all the time."

In almost every war, "friendly fire" deaths are as much a part of battle as no sleep and bad sleep. Only seven of the coalition dead have been identified as victims of friendly fire; at least four more deaths remain under investigation.

The soldiers of Headquarters Company had hoped this war would be a proud moment in their lives. They were supposed to remember the day they swept into the Iraqi capital — the moment they seized the heart of this dark regime, its sprawling palaces and its bombed-out government citadels.

It hasn't been that way. Rarely does an event strike combat veterans with such a sledgehammer effect. But the death of Korn, its circumstances and the memories that may never die, have left the Bradley commander weeping and other soldiers wandering around in shock.

"It's something that's not going to go away," said the 26-year-old driver of the Bradley.

"How do I go home and explain this to my family?"

An enthusiastic newcomer

Korn had joined the unit only six days before he was killed, but the soldiers quickly grew to like him. Single, from Savannah, Ga., Korn brought with him a can-do attitude and had volunteered to be assigned to the task force.

"He'd fought his way to get to us," said Maj. Kent Rideout, 39, of San Antonio, the task force's executive officer and senior leader on the scene. "He was the kind of officer I wanted working for me."

Rideout replays the images of that broiling hot Friday — in a palm-forested area 15 miles south of Baghdad — endlessly in his mind.

A column of Headquarters Company vehicles was stalled on an Iraqi roadway. Armored elements of the battalion had encountered stiff resistance miles ahead.

The Iraqis had hidden their T-72 tanks there from coalition air attacks. They had camouflaged their vehicles with palm fronds or tucked them near buildings.

The Headquarters Company column fought whatever Iraqi forces the lead elements of their battalion failed to kill. They used heavy machine guns and the 25 mm main gun on the Bradley vehicles.

Where a dirt road crossed their path, they spotted an Iraqi tank and fired armor-piercing grenade rounds into it. Then they leaned back and watched it explode, the ammunition inside popping off as the wreckage burned.

It was about that time when Korn left his armored vehicle.

With a 9 mm pistol in his hand and a flak jacket on over his brown T-shirt, he headed into the palm forest. To this day, they are not sure why.

Perhaps he saw something. Maybe he wanted to leave the confines of his vehicle and get into the action.

'There are enemy dismounts'

A young sergeant went with Korn when he got out of his vehicle. The two headed down the dirt road that ran perpendicular to the Headquarters column of vehicles. When Korn spotted a second T-72 hidden in the palm fronds beyond the burning Iraqi tank, he sent his sergeant back to retrieve an anti-tank weapon.

Meanwhile, back at the Headquarters column, Rideout spotted a campfire just beyond the burning Iraqi tank — evidence of enemy tank crews still in the area. He could see a coffee pot simmering on the flames.

When a machine gunner opened fire at something he saw moving beyond the burning tank, everyone in the column became focused on possible enemy contact. Rideout doesn't believe the gunner hit anything.

Minutes later, Spc. John Durst, 24, of Grantsville, Md., who was in Rideout's armored personnel carrier, saw a figure move through the palms.

"Crunchies in the woods!" Durst called out. "Crunchie" is tanker slang for anything on foot — someone who can get "crunched."

Then Rideout saw a man perhaps 200 yards away, darting out from behind what was clearly another T-72 that lay beyond the burning hulk still sending off spent ammo rounds. From their glimpse of the figure, he didn't seem to be wearing the desert fatigues of an American soldier.

"There are enemy dismounts," Rideout said to Durst. "Engage."

Durst took a single shot and saw the figure crumple.

Rideout slapped Durst on the helmet, congratulating him for hitting a target so distant.

"That's the most incredible shot I've ever seen," Rideout said.

At about the same time, the Bradley vehicle commander authorized his gunner to open fire with a machine gun, but the weapon jammed.

And just then, the Bradley commander and his gunner saw something through their sights that they would not forget. A hand rose up from a figure on the ground, as if imploring the shooting to stop.

'Korn is in the woods'

Their thought was that the man might be finished, but that the tank next to him was still a threat. So the Bradley crew opened fire on the T-72.

Durst's shot had injured Korn. A shot from the Bradley killed him. Indeed, the explosive rounds had a devastating effect on the tank and everything around it.

Just then, the young sergeant who had accompanied Korn down the dirt road came running back, shouting, "Capt. Korn is in the woods!"

Rideout immediately ordered a cease-fire over his radio headset. He raised his fist to send his troops the same message.

The Bradley commander and Rideout exchanged glances.

"He looks back at me with a shocked look on his face, like, 'You got to be kidding,'" Rideout said.

Rideout led a search party right to spot where the figure had fallen.

They found Korn's body. For the entire 4/64 Task Force, a battalion-size fighting force that battled through much of Iraq to the center of Baghdad, he would be their only soldier killed in combat.

"I'll tell you, every time I close my eyes, I see that guy," said the Bradley commander. "Every time I lay down at night, that's what I see, again and again."

Many in the company were traumatized by what happened that day, Rideout and others said, mystified about how Korn could have elected to go into what would become a field of fire, virtually by himself.

"The soldiers will carry this around for the rest of their lives," Rideout said. He added that he feels particularly responsible. "I'm the one who told (Durst, the specialist beside him in the vehicle) to shoot. I'm the one who congratulated the guy for making such a good shot."

The three members of the Bradley said the event has bonded them closer than ever. All three said they must, someday, visit Korn's parents to talk to them about what happened.

Durst thinks that for him, the worst emotionally is yet to come. "I'm angry because I got put in that situation," he said. "I didn't have a choice.

"I think this is going to hit me when I get off the plane," Durst said. "Everybody else is going to go home, and he's not. And I had something to do with that."