EOD SNAFU

http://www.liveleak.com/player2.swf?token=18f_1201000704

that's unfortunate. I wish their families well..

??? Was that a drone plane circling? Was it our troops/allies or an enemy? What the Hell were they doing? I need a beer!

Didnt u listen. It was Militia soldiers. They were being retarded trying to dig up that shell.

hooooley crap. That fifth guy walked up at exactly the wrong time too.

I couldn't tell for sure from the audio who the guys were. They kept talking about militia men - does that mean they were Iraqis?

Either Iraqi or Afghani's

I had the sound muted. doh!

looks like a helo. My guess would be an Apache.

I don't think they were Iraqi or Afghan sorry to say....just my opinion though. Militia men could be code for some type of unit, but I still can't understand why they would be doing something like that (digging out a shell by hand) in the first place. They really should have robots, or machines doing that type of work. Sad, but stupid as well. That one guy walking around after the blast looked pretty upset...probably lost a friend.

AC-130 gunship.
Go play CoD4, there is a whole level devoted to it.

You'd be pretty upset if you saw pieces of people everywhere I'd imagine!

Why in the world would they try to dig it out by hand? If it was a danger, roll a grenade into the hole or shoot it or something. Good grief.

The only way it would make sense is if it was insurgents planning to try and reuse the shell. I think they use large artillery shells as IEDs. I had the sound muted too but is it clear these aren't bad guys? I figured they were friendlies because of what appears to be a Humvee parked nearby.

The one guy was trying to pry it out with what appears to be an AK-47. Us soldiers don't carry them. COrrect me if I'm wrong though..

That's exactly what I was thinking... drop a grenade in the hole...

RI Xterra - Yeah - definitely not American with the AK-47 comments... I feel kind of bad for feeling better (not good - but not as bad) about them dying since they weren't Americans... but I do.

Click the video; it takes you back to the main LiveLeak site.

The video has this caption:

US Army Aco 25 Cav Cis With IED - IRAQ

IED goes off while some heroic Iraqi volunteers trying to taken out the 155 round in the ground. "Rest In Peace" "Allah Yerhamkom"

It was an Apache patrol in north Abu Ghraib, Baghdad that was overwatching Iraqi volunteers trying to disarm and IED last year. Many of these volunteers are the ones that used to fight us and now work with us.

The Iraqis still don't have a lot of sophisticated equipment to disarm these bombs and many of them just believe "insh allah"- if God wills it.

I think that is Darwin at work... much like our "hey Bubba watch this types in the states"... instead it's "hey Alli Bubba, watch this".

That was my old AO and those guys used to attack me/my unit. I have a lot of respect for the volunteers because at least they fight for their pride and honor. I would expect we would do the same if anyone ever invaded the US. It took some time but they realized they were fighting the wrong people.

There is a lot of f'd up stuff that goes on over there that I would not attribute to Darwin...

Well, whatever it is it wasn't smart. Most sane people wouldn't be anywhere near a HOTEL ECHO round if there was a chance it could be boobied. Judging by the vehicles, they clearly have allied support so why not call in the bomb unit? Or, if they had no other choice, then why not just have ONE person start digging instead of putting a bunch of others at risk. I'm just sayin...

I completely agree with that. They just have an entirely different culture and that makes it really frustrating for us.