"Sorry we forgot to tell you how your son really died"

"The Army said Saturday it knew for more than a year after 1st Lt. Kenneth Ballard's death in Iraq in May 2004 that he was not killed in action, as it initially reported. The family was not told the truth until Friday."

It seems that the military told Ballard's family that he was killed in a "firefight with insurgents." What they found out within a few days, and didn't reveal for 15 months, was that he " actually died of wounds from the accidental discharge of a M240 machine gun on his tank after his platoon had returned from battling insurgents in Najaf," when the tank "accidentally backed into a tree and a branch hit the mounted, unmanned machine gun, causing it to fire . . . Ballard was struck at close range and died of his wounds."

His mom, who has attended some events at Camp Casey, is understandably less than pleased to find out at this point that his death was caused not by enemy fire, but by a steering accident.

The Army has stated that it "regrets that the initial casualty report from the field was in error as well as the time that it has taken to correct the report and to inform his family."

http://start.earthlink.net/article/nat?guid=20050910/43225a40_3ca6_15526200509101114228829