Purple Hearts Given to 14 in Iraq Downing

Reversing an earlier decision, the Pentagon will award Purple Hearts to 14 Americans killed when their helicopters were mistaken for hostile craft and shot down over Iraq.

“The incident took place in a geographic area where the presence of hostile forces was anticipated,” said a brief statement Tuesday from Air Force Secretary Sheila E. Widnall and Army Secretary Togo D. West Jr.

The Army refused in September to issue Purple Hearts on the ground that the military personnel were not engaged in hostile action. Several members of Congress asked the Pentagon to reconsider.

Among the soldiers killed in the incident were three Californians: Warrant Officer Erik S. Mounsey, 28, of Los Angeles; Col. Jerald L. Thompson, 48, of Oakland, and Chief Warrant Officer Michael A. Hall, 27, of Windsor.

A total of 26 people died in April, 1994, when U.S. F-15 fighter pilots shot down two helicopters over northern Iraq, mistaking them for Iraqi helicopters violating a no-fly zone.

The Blackhawk helicopters were ferrying members of an international group that had been working with the Kurds in northern Iraq since the end of the 1991 Gulf War. The others aboard included a State Department foreign service officer, five Kurds employed by the United States and military officers from Britain, France and Turkey.

Relatives of the servicemen praised the decision to grant them medals.

“This means so much. Now they have all the honor they deserve,” Lynette Ellner, mother of Army Spec. Mark Anthony Ellner, 21, told the News-Democrat of Belleville, Ill.

Judith Orrill, mother of Sgt. Michael S. Robinson, told the newspaper: “It doesn’t really help the situation, but they deserve it. They deserve a lot more. I can’t understand why the Army said no in the first place.”

One officer, Capt. Jim Wang, is facing a court-martial for alleged dereliction of duty. He was in charge of the AWACS radar plane that failed to inform fighter pilots that the Army helicopters were in the area.