We Honor and Remember:

PVT Robert D. Talley 
Hometown:  Newark, NJ
Age: 18
Died: February 17, 1991, Operation Desert Storm
Unit:  1st Battalion, 41st Infantry Regiment
Incident: Died of injuries suffered when his Bradley fighting vehicle came under friendly fire from U.S. helicopters

PVT Robert Talley  was killed by friendly fire from an Apache helicopter on February 17, 1991 prior to the start of the ground war during Operation Desert Storm.  He became the youngest soldier to die in the Operation Desert Storm War.

The Army said Private Talley was one of two soldiers killed and six wounded when the commander of a battalion of Apache helicopters mistakenly fired into two American armored vehicles during a skirmish between American and Iraqi border patrols in Saudi Arabia. The officer was later removed from his job.

A Newark resident and Barringer High School graduate, Talley entered the United States Army before pursuing his goal of becoming a doctor. He was shipped to the front lines during Operation Desert Storm where he was killed in action, the first and youngest casualty of this conflict.

In some ways, Lou Ann Monroe says, the days have been a blur since the morning of Feb. 18, when a solemn Army sergeant rang the doorbell at her house on Triton Place.
Peering through the window of the front door, Mrs. Monroe, who has seen her husband, brothers, in-laws and son choose military service at various times during the last 40 years, knew immediately what had happened:
Her 18-year-old grandson, Pvt. Robert Talley, had been killed at the front in Saudi Arabia.

Within hours of the Army sergeant's brief, sympathetic visit  the Talley-Monroe family began gathering for their sad reunion.
Neighbors on the street on a cul-de-sac between Broadway and McCarter Highway in the North Ward, where American flags and yellow ribbons are ubiquitous, "have been available around the clock," Mrs. Monroe said. Mayor Sharpe James, City Council members and members of churches from throughout the city have made pilgrimages to the brown house with red trim.
This afternoon the family continued to attend to the burial details. As Mrs. Monroe sat talking with a visitor, her daughter, Deborah L. Talley, Robert Talley's mother, met in another room with the family's lawyer, preparing for her son's wake.

Mrs. Monroe and her husband, James, share the three-story house with Mrs. Talley and Robert's two brothers, William, 16, and Ronnie, 12. They talked of Robert Talley, whose service in the Army was to be the route to becoming a doctor. That had long been his dream.

Athletic and packing a solid 184 pounds on a 5-foot-7-inch frame, Private Talley had forgone sports at Barringer High School in Newark to concentrate on his studies and the school's Reserve Officer Training Corps program, which he joined in his junior year. He planned to serve his country, and then use his benefits to attend college and medical school, the family said.

He graduated from Barringer in June, entered the Army on Aug. 7, left for three weeks of training in Germany in early December and arrived in the Persian Gulf just after New Year's. He was sent to the battlefront, with the First Infantry Division, in mid-February. "He had only been there seven days," said Mrs. Monroe, 68. "He called Feb. 9 to tell us goodbye."
"They're sending me to the battlefront," she said he told her.

"I said, 'Never say goodbye. Never say goodbye. Say so long,' " Mrs. Monroe said, her voice rising, then falling. "But it was goodbye. We never heard from him again."

In letters written in January, but which the family received after his death, he said that he was worried about being at the front, but that he had a job to do and was going to do his best.
"He wrote he had seen more in the past six weeks than most people see in a lifetime," Mrs. Monroe said. "He said it only strengthened his determination to become doctor, to help ease other people's suffering."

Mrs. Monroe said her grandson was "a trusting, thoughtful young man; determined, dedicated and lovable in every respect."

             "He served our country like he Wanted to do,
             To defend the great honor Of the Red, White and Blue.
             A friend of us all, he was one of the Best.
             Taken by the Lord, may his soul now rest."

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SGT Jeffery Middleton and PVT Robert Talley were killed by friendly fire from an Apache helicopter on February 17, 1991, prior to the start of the ground war during Operation Desert Storm. SGT Middleton and PVT Talley were among 35 friendly fire casualties during the Persian Gulf War.

On February 17, 1991, at approximately 1:00 a.m. (Persian Gulf Time), a U.S. Bradley Fighting Vehicle (Bradley) and an M113 Armored Personnel Carrier (M113) were destroyed by two Hellfire missiles fired from an Apache helicopter commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Hayles. Two U.S. soldiers were killed and six others were wounded in the incident.

The incident occurred after U.S. ground forces, which were deployed along an east-west line 5 kilometers north of the Saudi-Iraqi border, reported several enemy sightings north of their positions. In response, ground commanders called for Apache reconnaissance of the area. A team of three Apaches subsequently found two vehicles, which appeared to be those described by ground forces. These vehicles were, in fact, a Bradley and an M113. (flight-level.com)

The Apache helicopters had apparently drifted into a location that caused the pilots to believe that they were looking at enemy territory.
Colonel Hayles was relieved of command for violating orders by leading the mission himself. Hayles later went on to dedicate his life to championing new technology designed to identify friendly forces with certainty and prevent fratricide from ever happening again.

The video contains actual unedited in-cockpit video of LTC Hayles on Feb 17, 1991, Iraq.

Photograph courtesy of SGT Crenshaw...

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