A man once told me this story: He was a soldier involved with the American invasion of the island nation Grenada. He was ordered to destroy a school bus. He was told it was full of Cuban soldiers. He obeyed orders and destroyed the school bus. The school bus was, in fact, full of school children and their teachers, who were Catholic nuns. I don't know why this man felt compelled to tell me this story. I had no words to say, so I remained silent. This might make a good idea for a story, so I leave it here for that reason.
I'll never forget the way this man looked at me while he told me the story. He wanted something from me: words of comfort, perhaps. Or words of absolution. But I could give neither. Nothing I could say would make the man feel better.
I'm a little skeptical of this story, unless it was a small school bus, since I can't find any history of it. Of course, no nation is above hiding incidents that make them look bad especially during the Cold War. I did find documentation of something almost as bad: the Grenadan forces occupied a mental hospital and armed the staff, but locked the patients in a separate wing. At some point they all abandoned it but left the patients locked up. Later, U.S. Corsairs, having identified it as containing armed hostiles, bombed the facility, killing 18 patients.
I told this story in another thread and people are saying they don't believe it and that I have no proof so I shouldn't believe it either. I'm not sure what it takes to believe a story. Certainly, this man had no photographs of dead children and nuns in a destroyed school bus to prove his story. I believed him because he looked so haunted in his eyes that I knew he was telling me the truth. Also, what would motivate a man to tell a story as horrible as this if it weren't true? Perhaps some people think it's "un-American" to believe innocent civilians could be accidentally killed during an invasion of American military? I have no idea.
I just doubt it because the war is well documented and I can't find any evidence of it. Of course, disjointed communication seems to have been an issue on the U.S. side and this is the type of incident the Western Bloc would want to sweep under the rug. But it's not un-American to believe that the U.S. military accidentally has killed civilians. As I mentioned, they did just that in the same conflict, although the circumstances were more understandable. And that was years before the War on Terror where, due to the nature of the war, minimizing civilian casualties is more the goal than outright avoiding them.
The reason you never heard of this incident is because the military would do everything in it's power to cover it up. Do you think they would have a press conference and announce it happened and let the media inspect the destroyed school bus and the dead bodies of the children and nuns?
No, but I also think it would be hard to explain a busload of dead bodies. And it doesn't seem like the U.S. tried to hide the bombing of the mental hospital although that would be more difficult to sweep under the rug so they may have had no choice. I don't think it's impossible, it's certainly plausible, I just doubt it because there are no accounts from say family members or the Church asking about missing civilians, or an attempt to pin it on the enemy. But I never talked to the guy so I don't know how believable he looked. His story is similar to something that actually happened, so it's also possible he was involved with relaying the coordinates and just doesn't remember all that details (again, not sure what he said, if he said he attacked it with say an RPG or anti-tank weapon then the stories are totally different).
It doesnt sound plausible me either. You’d really struggle to blow up a bus so completely you killed everyone inside with anything short of an air launched missile or an artillery shell outside of hollywood vehicles don’t explode easily and there’s nothing man portable that was used in Grenada that would do a bus without leaving casualties alive ( things like the man portable thermobarrics absolutely would but they weren’t in use when Grenada occurred) the rangers and marines mostly employed M72 law rockets and M67 recoillless rifles against the Grenadian BTRs and BDRMs. Neither would destroy a vehicle so thoroughly that all the occupants would be killed Also if you had committed what amounts to a war crime that your country had then hushed up you wouldn’t be telling random people about it. added to which why was a bus full of school children driving around in the middle of an invasion? and why would anyone think it was Cuban soldiers ( soldiers usually go in either trucks, APEC’s or on foot not in school busses) over all my inclination is the reason we’ve never heard of this event is that it didnt happen and the guy who told the OP the story probably got it from a film or his fertile imagination
Sounds like "how can we make this story sound even worse than it already is? I know, let's make the teachers Catholic nuns!". I'm surprised they all didn't have their pet puppies with them.
I don't know, to me killing normal teachers vs Chatolic nuns seems to be equally bad. But if I was a Satanist, I would be more horrified if it were normal teachers that got offed.
the victims are always orphans and catholic nuns in these stories. it’s the war story equivalent of “ then everyone started clapping”
Here's my thought. Don't take it personal, I've spoken to my wife like this (although I regret it for a few days). There are three main possibilities: 1. He's telling the truth, and the U.S. successfully covered up this mistake resulting in civilian casualties. 2. He's lying, and made the whole thing up. 3. He's intentionally embellishing an actual event he took part in, or has confused some of the details. All things considered, I'm leaning toward #3, due to the similarities to the mental hospital bombing which is documented.
War stories told in bars ( generally to civilians) take two forms a) “ Im such a big hero” generally told to impress a pro war audience including a number of young ladies. “I shit you not, I killed 18 republican guards while armed only with a pair of nail clippers and stole a gold bath tap from saddams palace … the SAS wanted me to sign up but I chose to stay with the real soldiers” and b) “ war is hell” generally told to an anti war audience to emphasise that the teller is one of them “ no shit they made me fire on a bus loaded with nuns, orphans, puppies, and supermodels.., I see their faces in my dreams bro” the thing to remember about either type is that the principal difference between a fairy tale and a war story is that one starts “ once upon a time” and the other “No shit bro, I was there”
That said Things like this do happen in war and they are rarely hushed up effectively if at all Two incidents that spring to mind are the occasion in 2018 that the Saudi led collation hit a Yemeni bus with a GBU from an air strike killing 40 civilians many of them children and the time that Hamas launched a kornet laser guided anti tank missile across the border and hit an Israeli school bus killing one child and injuring the the driver. They claimed they didn’t realise it was a school bus when they fired
I put it in the lounge because while it definitely isnt research a weird apocryphal story like this isn't really a writing prompt either
I'm reluctant to share stories with people who say, with no proof at all, that the story I've related must be a lie.
Aside from No report of the incident from credible sources the high likelihood that it would be reported since children would have left bereaved parents Several independent inquests into the Grenada invasion having no record of the incident having occurred The extremely low likelihood that a school bus would be driving around during an invasion when schools were closed The equally low likelihood of a school bus being used to transport troops and the marines and rangers having nothing man portable capable of completely destroying a bus. ETA: and the incredibly low likelihood of someone who'd committed a war crime telling a stranger about it
Well, it's impossible to prove a negative. You can't prove that something didn't happen, only that something did.
Also the burden of proof is on the person making the claim, not the ones saying it's unlikely. How do we (or you, @Thomas Larmore ) know if the guy was a credible source? A guy (was it in a bar?) telling a story. Hardly unimpeachable.
Whether or not you believe the guy telling the tale, doesn't he still make an interesting character for a story?
