Persian Gulf War veterans on this site

Well MGuns, I will be around long enough for sure (hopeful lifer at the moment). But I honestly want nothing to do with that airplane - too much computer and not enough fun flying. Glad to have someone around here who knows the horror of maintaining Harriers. Especially nice to have more green salt around here - all these chief petty officers keep trying to gang up on me!

 

Using your reference:

Coalition losses

"The DoD reports that U.S. forces suffered 148 battle-related deaths, plus one pilot listed as MIA (further 145 Americans died in out-of-combat accidents). The UK suffered 47 deaths, 38 from Iraqi fire, France 2, and the Arab countries suffered 39 fatalities(18 Saudis, 10 Egyptians, 6 from the UAE, 3 Syrians, and 1 Kuwaiti).[38][39]
The largest single loss of Coalition forces happened on February 25, 1991, when an Iraqi Al-Hussein missile hit an American military barrack in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia killing 28 U.S. Army Reservists from Pennsylvania. In all, 181 coalition troops were killed by Iraqi fire, 102 of them American. Out of a total of 358 coalition deaths, this showed how poor the Iraqi army was compared to the coalition forces. The rest were killed by friendly fire, exploding munitions, or out of combat accidents."

Don't quite understand the math. First it says 148 battle related deaths for the US, then it says 102 Americans killed by enemy fire??? The problem with Wikipedia is that it's written by the public and anyone can edit. IMO, not too reliable.

What's really interesting is this fact, "Of the 148 American troops who died in battle, 24% were killed by friendly fire, a total of 35 service personnel. A further 11 died in detonations of allied munitions."

 

It seems like there are some holes in that information. By the way, there were some really igorant guys in the Army when I was there. We were told not to drag our feet because of the danger of landmines and then the first thing this one moron did was walk around kicking everything he could. There were some people that did not need to be in the army and they just passed them through. I came across several guys who could not even read. How did they pass the asvab?

 

Jeez, flyboys and ground crew everywhere! What is the place coming to Welcome aboard Phrog.

The Gulf was pretty bad when it came to accidents etc, I seem to remember that out of 47 British casualties only 38 were caused by Iraqi fire, the rest were blue on blue with US forces. I guess these things happen though.

 

Easy math: battle related means they died in some sort of combat situation, etc. So you have 102 killed by Iraqi fire, plus 35 killed in blue on blue, plus 11 killed by detonation of munitions. 102+35+11=148.

 

Thanks! Glad to be here. Pretty interesting site.

Wish we could get rid of blue on blue casualties but it even happened in OIF. Fog of war! Really sucks!

 

Now that makes sense!!! That's why you get paid the big bucks!

 

I've seen my share as well. During our push into Iraq in '03, we were part of a 60 vehicle convoy headed to Baghdad. There were 13 Army vehicle driven by army medics that we were responsible for. After the convoy brief, their senior officer, a Captain, asked "What is condition 1?" referring to weapons condition. After I told him, he said "Hell no. I'm not having my soldiers with rounds in their chambers!" It was a long trip! Glad to get rid of them when we got to Numaniyah.

To be fair, though, on the other end of the spectrum you have the Rangers and Green Berets. Can't bad mouth them at all.

 

I'm with you on the technology part but I bet you're going to have fun doing a lot of crazy things you couldn't do with Harrier.

And a lot of pressure to keep them flying, too! My worst nightmare, someone drops a tool in the engine bay!!! Anyway, I'm here for you!

 

Exactly!

Glad to have you on here MG (whats the technical US Forces abbreviation for Master Gunner in general conversation?) Please keep in mind a Master Gunner over here has a crown over crossed Cannon, close enough to this:
to cause a bit of confusion to a junior officer at a glance.

 

It would be MGySgt. Master Gunz works as well as MGunz. Equal to a SgtMaj, E-9. BTW, that's supposed to be a bursting bomb in the middle of the chevron. My daughter says it's a pinapple!

 

Flaming Grenade we call them.

That's more than enough stripes for one man!