i'd bet there's military planners that think every soldier death is avoidable from a philosophical point of view, with the height of technology, sensors, intelligence, etc. advantage that the US has against ragtag bands of decentralized (for the most part) irregulars.
when the scale of conflict is cranked up, say WW2, less attention is given to friendly fire incidents - like say a POW camp mowed down in a bombing raid or something.
at the end of the day the huge dependence on technology that american soldiers prove to have in every wargame against friendly nations is bound to crop up mistakes in a real firefight, like for example an infamous incident involving an apache and a british APC in the gulf war. the pilot had been hovering at night for some time and didn't realize he'd been drifted by wind, and his commanders told him that the silhouette he could barely make out was the enemy. oops. or as the triggerman put it, "this bud's for you".
during the same conflict a misfired missile that flew off the deck of a US carrier and slammed into the bridge of a turkish ship.
soldiers will die and regrettably sometimes it's from friendly fire. in the end it really doesn't matter too much, if anyone dies on the side of the far superior force it can always be looked back upon as a mistake somewhere.
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