Through the numbing effect the media is having on me covering this war, I am hearing ‘friendly-fire’ accident way to much. The name itself is a tad misleading. Being shot by someone on your own side does not seem at all friendly. Has anyone else shared this sentiment?
Does anyone know the origin of the phrase?
Caught in the cross-fire would probably be incorrect in many circumstances.
How about call such tragic incidents “Oopisie-daisies”?
It’s called “fratricide” but the newsies wouldn’t expect you to know that so they call it friendly fire.
Its interesting really that more of “our boys” (myself being a citizen of the UK) have been killed by our allies than by the Iraqis.
So we’ve sent our soldiers off, against public opinion to be killed mostly by Americans in order to show how much we support their country and their war.
Great.
But “fratricide” still basically means being killed by a friend or brother.
How about something light like “Dude’s been fragged.”
Or, we could go deeper into “Gov-Speek” and call it something like “Non-Enemy ammunition expenditure incident.”
As an American I find this decidedly disturbing as well. And is one of the main reasons I posted this here.
Do you have a cite for that? My understanding is that to Brits in a Torpedo were shot down by a Patriot missile. Another two in a tank were killed by another British tank in a case of misdirected fire. Otherwise I am not aware of any other “friendly fire” incidents. I’d thought Britain had suffered about 10-20 casualties, but I may be mistaken on that. Most were not combat, but there were about 8(?) killed in a helicopter crash that also claimed American lives. I’m not sure whether it was a British or American helicopter.
“Dude, where’s my guts?”
Just an update on my post above. According to BBC News, there have been 20 British killed so far in the war on Iraq. The eight British and four Americans were killed when there Sea Knight helicopter crashed. My assumptio is that a Sea Knight is a British helicopter. Anyway, this seems to be an accident, which unfortunately happen sometimes in military options, during war and peace.
They have also been refered to as “blue on blue” accidents.
Why exactly do people think this is an oxymoron?
“Friendly fire” is gunfire from friendly forces. How is that misleading?
The people shooting at you are supposedly your friends, so it’s a perfectly logical construction.
The complainants are usually the same people who seem to think “jumbo shrimp” is an oxymoron, too. As long as you’re referring to the shellfish, it is not.
I think the problem comes in when one associates a friend with something good. And why should a good term be used for such a horrible event? Getting shot by a friend is not a good thing last time I checked…I mean we are not talking about a hunting accident.
“Soory for shoot’in your husband in the back of the head…my bad…just friendly fire…”
Geez, even I think that last remark was innappropriate, scratch that last part.
The problem is that ‘friendly’ really means ‘in a friendly way’ not ‘by friends.’ If you said you were greeted friendly, you’d think ‘greeted in a friendly way’ not ‘greeted by a friend.’
However, since ‘fired at in a friendly way’ pretty much is meaningless, friendly has come to mean ‘by friends.’ I don’t think its misleading - it’s fairly obvious it doesn’t mean the first.
But if you don’t like it:
Friend fire?
Self casualties?
Shot accidently?
I don’t know.
No, the UK does not operate any Sea Knights, but is presumably relying heavily on US air transport. Other than that, you’re absolutely correct. To date, two British soldiers have been killed by US friendly fire (the Tornado crew), two by British friendly fire (the crew of a Challenger 2 tank mistakenly engaged by another tank), two by Iraqis, 14 in accidents, plus at least two missing. There is speculation around more casualties, but not through friendly fire.
Me? If I had to pick a new term, I’d stick with “fucking tragedies”.
The CH-46 Sea Knight that crashed with 8 British aboard in Kuwait was a US Marine helo. The four US Marines killed in that accident were its crew.
Two Royal Navy Sea Night helos collided over the Gulf and killed one US Navy Lieutenant along with the 6 Royal Navy deaths.
Two British deaths are attributed to US fire. Two British deaths are attributed to British fire. 14 are attributed to accidents, and one to enemy fire.
“Enemy” is both a noun and an adjective.
“Friend” is a noun, and “Friendly” is the adjective.
My mistake, they were two Royal Navy Sea King Mk7 helos. Not Sea Knight.
Sea King AEW/ASACs, just to be pointlessly pedantic. The Ark Royal’s service was on British TV - not to hijack, but it seemed such an intrusion into the crew’s grief.
Another correction: Two British deaths to enemy fire.
Sorry, UncleBill, missed your post on preview. Ignore mine complete.y