The helicopters get the attention, but there were Americans on the ground a few streets away the whole time, and it was one of them who opened the door of the van. Their year in that district is also the best-documented part of this entire story, for a reason that turns out to matter a great deal.
Who they were
The unit was an infantry company in a battalion of the 1st Infantry Division, which arrived in eastern Baghdad in the early part of 2007 and took responsibility for an area that included Al-Amin al-Thaniyah. Bravo Company was one of its rifle companies.
These were not special forces or aviators. They were ordinary infantry, mostly young, running patrols on foot and in armoured vehicles through streets where people were also doing their shopping.
They were ordinary infantry: mostly young, running patrols on foot and in armoured vehicles, through streets where people were also doing their shopping. Not special forces, not aviators.
The war they were actually having
By July their deployment had turned brutal. The battalion was losing people to roadside bombs, sniper fire and rocket-propelled grenades. Under the surge they were living in a small outpost inside the district instead of returning to a big base, which meant there was no part of the day that felt safe.
It is worth stating the obvious consequence. A unit in that state reports contact often and asks for air support often, and the crews overhead arrive already primed by what they have been told. The district page describes the streets; this is what the same streets felt like to the people patrolling them.
| By July 2007 the company had | Effect |
|---|---|
| Been in the district since February | Knew the streets, and was known in them |
| Taken repeated small-arms and RPG fire | Requested air support often |
| Lost people | Read the population as terrain rather than as neighbours |
| Been living in an outpost inside the neighbourhood | No part of the day felt safe |
The morning of 12 July
Soldiers from the company were operating in the area when the Apaches engaged. Within minutes of the van being fired on, ground troops reached the scene.
What they found is described in one of the very few first-hand accounts in this whole record. Specialist Ethan McCord looked into the front of the vehicle and saw two children, a girl and a boy, both badly hurt and both alive. He carried them out, one at a time, and got them to an armoured vehicle. Both survived.
Other soldiers were moving among the bodies in the street. Some of them had been in firefights in the same block in the previous days. They were, in the most literal sense, walking into the results of a decision made by people they had never met, several hundred metres above them.
- Two Apaches engage a group at a street corner.
- The company moves toward the scene on foot.
- Specialist Ethan McCord finds two wounded children inside.
- He carries them out, one at a time, to an armoured vehicle.
The reporter who was living with them
An American journalist had embedded with this battalion for much of its deployment. His 2009 book about their year described this engagement, including the radio traffic from the cockpit, more than six months before the footage leaked.
That detail is not trivia. It shows the recording and its transcript were circulating inside the military while Reuters was being told it could not have them. The book has its own page, and the refusals are covered here.
What it did to the men who were there
Two soldiers from the same company later spoke publicly, and both paid for it. Ethan McCord described what he saw at the van in interviews, and said plainly what carrying those children did to him afterwards. Josh Stieber, who served in the same company but was not at the scene that morning, joined him in 2010 in writing an open letter of apology to the Iraqi families.
Two soldiers, one letter
The letter is one of the very few documents in this story written by people who were physically present in that district and who chose to address the families directly. It is not an official document and it carries no legal weight. It is the nearest thing to an apology anyone involved has offered.
Why the view from the ground changes the story
Almost everything written about this event is written from the air, because that is where the camera was. Shifting to ground level changes two things.
It makes the distances real. The group of men, the van, the building and the soldiers were all within a few streets, and the men who arrived on foot could see colours, faces and a child's shoe in a way no sensor could. It also makes clear that the people best placed to describe what happened were never the people asked.
No member of the aircrew has ever publicly explained that morning. Two infantrymen who were not making the decisions have explained it repeatedly, at their own expense. If you want to understand why this case still sits badly with so many people, that inversion is a good place to start, and the accountability page follows it to the end.
Questions people ask about this
Which unit was on the ground?
Did the ground troops call in the strike?
Who found the children?
Where this comes from
- The Good Soldiers — David Finkel, Sarah Crichton Books (2009)
- July 12, 2007, Baghdad airstrike — Wikipedia
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