"friendly" fire

you gotta love when the military describes a u.s. soldier's killing as "friendly fire". what the fuck? what's friendly about it? sure, the person might have been killed by someone on the same side. but the fact still remains that they were killed.

no fire seems to be friendly to me. i mean, if i were shot, and whilst in the process of dying, one of my fellow soldiers cried, "i'm so sorry i shot you," i'm not going to feel any better about dying from one of my own soldiers than i am from "the enemy". in fact, i might feel worse. i might think, "ah shit, at least i could've died whilst battling the other side. instead, one of my own dumbass friends shot me on accident."

another thing that i like about this article is that they speak of the soldier dying when he "came in contact with indirect fire". huh? what does that mean? the way they phrased it, it sounds as if there were gunshots and he walked into it, rather than someone shooting him. it almost makes it sound like it's his fault. ah, the pr of government.