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Sir,
Please forgive my lack of protocal for this question. I have never gotten the impression that Maj Schmidt had leadership training. My question is nothing more is this a personal defence mechanism for the Maj or a leadership cultural chasim between the army and the AF.
Schmidt haunted, not sorry
Families of dead soldiers angry pilot not taking responsibility
By The Canadian Press
The U.S. fighter pilot who dropped the bomb that killed four Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan says he is haunted by memories of the incident and the suffering of the victims' families, but he still can't say he's sorry.
Maj. Harry Schmidt, in his first major interview since the 2002 incident, told a U.S. publication that not a day goes by that he doesn't think of the families of the dead Canadian soldiers.
But Schmidt says he was a victim of circumstances beyond his control.
"I was the wingman," the former pilot tells Chicago Magazine in its April issue.
"I was not in charge of making decisions. It was, 'Shut up. Hang on and say, Yes, sir.' I was the lowest person on the totem pole. I was, in effect, along for the ride."
The attack killed Pte. Richard Green, Pte. Nathan Smith, Cpl. Ainsworth Dyer and Sgt. Marc Leger. They were the first Canadians to die in combat since the Korean War.
Eight others, all members of the Edmonton-based Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, were injured.
In a reprimand from the U.S. Air Force, Schmidt, an Illinois National Guardsman, was accused of acting "shamefully" and exhibiting "arrogance and lack of flight discipline" during the deadly incident.
He was grounded and fined $5,000.
Schmidt appeared stoic during the inquiry into the incident, but his wife, Lisa, says she thought he was suicidal.
"I was afraid he was going to kill himself," Lisa Schmidt says in the magazine article.
Schmidt's personal anguish provides little solace for relatives of the four victims.
Joyce Clooney, grandmother of Pte. Richard Green, said Tuesday she would like Schmidt to stop defending his actions and say he's sorry.
"He should have made a public apology to the families," Clooney said in an interview from her home in Bridgewater.
"It would have meant a lot more coming from him than the president apologizing to the prime minister. It wasn't the prime minister's children or grandchildren who were killed. His problem is he always blames everyone else for what happened."
Lloyd Smith, father of Pte. Nathan Smith, said he's indifferent to what Schmidt does "any time now or in the future."
"I think he had his chance, and he elected not to take advantage of it at the time of the trial and shortly after the incident happened," Smith said from his Tatamagouche home Tuesday evening.
"He's made his bed. He'll have to lie in it," he said. "To look for forgiveness, he'll have to look to the big guy upstairs.
"We're just trying to move on with our lives and put this incident behind us and do the best we can to go forward."
Smith said from what he has heard through testimony, Schmidt was responsible for his actions on that fateful day.
"He was given good sound advice by traffic controllers and ground controllers and he elected to ignore that advice.
"He was given all the advice he could be given under the conditions . . . and he gambled. He rolled the dice."
Smith said an apology from Schmidt three years after the fact would be cold comfort.
"He's not showing a whole lot of remorse," he said.
Richard and Claire Leger, parents of Sgt. Marc Leger, told CTV the U.S. pilot's comments are too little, too late.
"I felt suicidal and I'm pretty darn sure that all of us felt suicidal," Claire Leger told Canada AM. "So welcome to the gang. . . . We're all stuck in the same boat."
Richard Leger added that Schmidt would do well to remember his role in their son's death.
"He has never really helped any of the families. If he did anything, he made it worse."
Schmidt blames the bombing, on the morning of April 18, 2002, on "the fog of war," saying he mistook the Canadian gunfire for an attack from Taliban fighters.
The pilot says superiors never told him the Canadians would be conducting live-fire exercises near Kandahar airport that night.
As well, Schmidt says he was flying under difficult conditions on an 11-hour mission pumped up on amphetamines called "go pills."
He tells Chicago Magazine that the fight to defend himself, to explain his actions to the government, the military and the people of Canada and the United States, has inhibited his own grieving process.
"I don't know if I have been able to fully grieve," he says. "Because I was in a position where I had to protect my family from the start."
Schmidt was originally charged with manslaughter and aggravated assault, which could have resulted in a jail term, but the charges were reduced to dereliction of duty.
Maj. William Umbach, the flight leader, was also charged with assault and manslaughter.
Those charges were dismissed last summer and he was allowed to retire from the Air National Guard, as he had requested.
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