Troops blinded by own "LASERS".

[citizenbushido]

current com

"An American soldier was blinded in one eye and three others required medical evacuation out of Iraq in a series of laser "friendly fire" incidents, the U.S. military has disclosed. These injuries are caused by the misuse of dangerous green-laser dazzlers."

"Since November 2008, a single unit in Iraq "has experienced 12 green-laser incidents involving 14 soldiers and varying degrees of injury. Three soldiers required medical evacuation out of Iraq and one soldier is now blind in one eye," writes Sgt. Crystal Reidy, from the 3rd Sustainment Command (Expeditionary), or ESC.
Captain Russell Harris, a Troop Commander with 3rd ESC reports that his troops have suffered "temporary blindness, headaches and blurred vision,” as a result of laser incidents. Others describe severe, 48-hour migraines after lasing."

They now need to create high powered sunglasses for soldiers so they can point lasers in their eyes all they wan't. Or just go back to a good o'l M16

Another article I reported on not too long ago about these same types of lasers, now we know what they can do on the battlefield.

 

[Switch]

Their own lasers, "misuse" , one single unit with 14 soldiers, medical evacuation. Sounds pretty damn intentional to me. :

 

[RA_pierce]

You know this is gonna appear in the next "terrorist attack on aircraft" article...

"High powered laser weapons used to target commercial airliners in (insert location) endanger 350 passengers. Experts say these lasers are used on the modern battlefield for dazzling enemies, designating targets, and as targeting devices for rocket based weapons. Recently, several troops were sent home after being blinded due to misuse of these lasers. The same lasers are even available on e-bay for less than $20 and can travel a distance of over 50 miles without diminishing in strength. (insert several more misconceptions and exaggerations)."***

And everyone will think that the ebaysers are the equivalent of a Class IV Infrared Laser marker.

This is very irresponsible on the soldiers' part, but it's funny how they blame the laser rather than the idiot who thought it would be fun to point >1W of IR/green at his buddy's face.

***The "article" above isn't real- just an example of how the press will handle laser "attacks" in light of this new incident.

 

[BlackCandlez]

You know this is gonna appear in the next "terrorist attack on aircraft" article...

"High powered laser weapons used to target commercial airliners in (insert location) endanger 350 passengers. Experts say these lasers are used on the modern battlefield for dazzling enemies, designating targets, and as targeting devices for rocket based weapons. Recently, several troops were sent home after being blinded due to misuse of these lasers. The same lasers are even available on e-bay for less than $20 and can travel a distance of over 50 miles without diminishing in strength. (insert several more misconceptions and exaggerations)."***

And everyone will think that the ebaysers are the equivalent of a Class IV Infrared Laser marker.

This is very irresponsible on the soldiers' part, but it's funny how they blame the laser rather than the idiot who thought it would be fun to point >1W of IR/green at his buddy's face.

***The "article" above isn't real- just an example of how the press will handle laser "attacks" in light of this new incident.

Kinda like I say when people do drugs or somthing.

It's not the supplier its the buyer.

 

[Mohrenberg]

i sold some lasers to a guy who said he had just got back from iraq and that his unit used these things....which is what got him interested in lasers.

 

[maxkillz]

They now need to create high powered sunglasses for soldiers so they can point lasers in their eyes all they wan't.

they have those, you can get them for roughly $30 from dragonlasers.com or novalasers.com

 

[Switch]

Oh comme on.....there were 14 people evacuated from the same unit.And it wasn't just one incident with one guy waving a laser in the eyes of 14 people, there were 12 incidents. I'm 80% sure that the first guy really had an accident and the other 13 just found a way out of Iraq. : Headaches and migranes are probably are just invented symptoms  that you can't check with retina pictures. :

Either that or the people from that unit are way more stupid than from other units, or the lasers they used are really dangerous and easy to misuse and somehow all the other soldiers that got injured were left out of the statistics.

 

[SuicideKing]

Boredom is the number 1 cause of non-enemy injuries.
I can just picture the corporal trying to explain things to his platoon sergeant:

"Well sarge, Jones was messing around with his and got me in the eye, so I got him back, to show how it wasn't funny and then he tried to get me again and got Smith by mistake and pretty soon, it was a laser free for all in the rec room..."


When I was in the Army, they gave you blanks to fire in your weapon during training maneuvers. It never took very long for 17 to 19 year old kids, to figure out that an M16 blank and a six inch section of steel cleaning rod made for a heck of a boredom killer.

A couple of times a year, some guy would have to be medevac'd to the hospital, 'cause his buddy missed the squirrel he was aiming at and ended up skewering his friend in the chest with four inches of steel cleaning rod.



Some day I'll tell the story about the four guys who had a rock throwing contest, to see who would be the first to hit a dud 155 howitzer round.



"...you do realize you're giving the same teenagers you wouldn't trust to wash your car, machineguns AND grenades..."  - Oliver North

 

[Krutz]

hmm, lets see if they still try to tell us these dazzlers are all harmless, and are nothing like what you would think is a genevra banned blinding laser warface weapon?
how many iraqis will already have been blinded with these "warning-devices"?
*shakes head*

manuel