Call Sign Extortion 17 (29 page)

Chapter 53

Shocking Discovery: Bullets in the Bodies

Perhaps the most shocking revelation about this whole affair comes in information that has not yet been publicly revealed and was not in the Colt Report. It certainly wasn't touched upon in any of the questions asked on February 27, 2014, by the House National Security Subcommittee.

This author gained access to two autopsies of US Navy SEALs who died aboard Extortion 17. In both of the autopsies, bullets were found and removed from the bodies of the service members, immediately determined to be irrelevant by the pathologist, and then simply thrown away.

How did the bullets get into the bodies of the SEALs?

Why did the pathologist decide to throw the bullets away?

Normally it is up to a prosecutor, not a pathologist, to ultimately determine what's relevant or irrelevant in a crime scene investigation, and pathologists certainly should not throw away bullets found in a victim's body. But, incredibly, that's what happened here. In at least two cases—it is possible more than two bodies contained bullets (the author did not gain access to all the autopsies)—the pathologist unilaterally disposed of the bullets.

The revelations that bullets were found in the bodies appeared on page 4 of both of these autopsies, with these words: “Cook-­off rounds recovered at autopsy are not retained by the AFMES because they are of no evidentiary value.”

Then, in addition to the revelation about the “cook-­off rounds,” one of the two autopsies adds these words: “Four grey metal fragments are recovered from the torso and are retained by AFMES.”

What is a cook-­off round? It is a bullet that has “cooked off,” and exploded, usually in a fire. The Armed Forces medical examiner found bullets in the bodies of two SEALs who died aboard Extortion 17.Sounds like a reasonable assumption, right? That the bullets got so hot in the fire that they actually fired off and somehow fired into the torsos of these men? Actually, such an assumption wouldn't be reasonable at all.

Here's the classic example to demonstrate what happens with cook-­off rounds that aren't inside the barrel of a gun.

Assume there is a house that catches on fire. Inside the house, inside the master bedroom, say there is a box of .22 caliber bullets in the middle of the fire. Assume that the fire gets hot enough that the gunpowder is ignited inside those bullets. First off, it's not a given that this will happen, as bullets do not always cook off, even in a fire. But even if the rounds do cook off in a box, they are for the most part harmless, unless they are in the barrel of a rifle or a gun. That's because a bullet in a fire, even if it pops, has nowhere to go, unless it's in a gun barrel.

Anyone who understands how a bullet cartridge is put together will understand there is the projectile, that is the bullet itself, which, when fired from a weapon, actually flies through the air at a target, and then there is the casing, which usually falls to the ground, or simply remains in the gun, depending on the type of gun being used.

What we're discussing here is a topic within the field of
internal ballistics.
Internal ballistics is a subfield of ballistics that focuses primarily on the propulsion of the projectile. Internal ballistics studies how far and how powerfully the bullet is propelled through the air,
if at all
, toward the target. The phrase “if at all,” is significant, because as will be seen, bullets, even when there is an explosion of the propellant (gunpowder), are not always launched toward a target. This is particularly true of cook-­off rounds, because bullets not in a weapon often fizzle and go nowhere.

Usually, a round that ignites inside a box from fire simply separates. The bullet does not go flying off in the air, and usually the casing itself goes farther than the bullet.

The bullet and the casing may separate by a few inches at the most, and that's it.

Hatcher's Notebook

Major General Julian Hatcher was the chief of ordnance for the US Army during World War II and later became technical editor for
The American Rifleman.
General Hatcher spent a career studying internal ballistics, and compiled his findings in his seminal work from 1962 entitled
Hatcher's Notebook
.

One of the areas that the general studied and reported on was the subject of cook-­off rounds. This study was done in part to address concerns of police and fire departments regarding the safety of working in situations where unchambered ammunition might be threatened by fire.

Here's how General Hatcher addressed the study on page 4 of his book.

 

The second new chapter covers the subject of explosions and powder fires, as well as the behavior of ammunition when it is exploded, accidentally or otherwise, while it is not in a gun. The many inquiries on this subject that I received from Police and Fire Departments, state and municipal authorities, and from readers of the magazine caused me to make a large number of interesting experiments to be able to answer their questions with certainty. The information thus developed is of great value, and is so important that it should be preserved permanently in convenient form for reference.

 

General Hatcher specifically examined what happens when an unchambered bullet goes off in a fire. He turned to this very topic at Chapter XXI, page 521 of his book, under the topic of “Explosions and Powder Fires.”

General Hatcher covered numerous experiments, under controlled and uncontrolled circumstances, and then, under the topic “Small Arms Ammunition as a Fire or Explosion Hazard,” concluded at page 540 that “Enough experiments have been made on this subject so that almost any question that might arise can be answered with definite information based on tests. As for any possible explosion hazard from small arms ammunition, even in large quantities, it can be said with confidence that there is no danger.”

Here is an example of one of the tests cited in
Hatcher's Notebook
, at page 533 [author's emphasis]:

 

A fibreboard case containing 500 12-gauge shotgun shells was placed on a metal rack over a pile of kindling wood and the wood was ignited. After the case was burning, the blazing wood was dragged away. The burning continued until all the shells had burned. At no time did any of the shells explode with violence.
The powder charges burned quietly, and barely opened the crimped shells. No propelling of shot charges could be detected.
However, some of the primers did pop off audibly.

 

So in this controlled experiment, even with five hundred shotgun shells set on fire and burned, very few actually “cooked off.” On the next page, Hatcher was even more to the point demonstrating that (a) cook-­off rounds are rare, and (b) even if a round cooks off, it isn't dangerous.

 

Moreover, in other tests by the same organization, a large number of metallic cartridges and shotgun shells were burned in a fire of oil-­soaked wood. The cartridges and shells exploded from time to time, but there was no general explosion or propulsion of shot or bullets with any great force or to any great distance. Throughout the test, the men conducting it remained within 20 feet without injury. The test showed that small arms cartridges, whether they are metallic cartridges or shotgun shells, will not explode simultaneously but rather piece by piece, and that the material of which the cartridges or shells are made will usually not fly more than a few feet.

 

This point should be emphasized: A cook-­off round, which rarely occurs even when there is fire, which is not inside a gun, is not going to penetrate the body of a Navy SEAL. Consider these results, laid out at page 539 of General Hatcher's book [author's emphasis]:

 

In another exhaustive series of experiments, I took various cartridges for both rifle and pistol, loaded with smokeless powder and with black
powder, and placed them downward in a lead melting pot that was arranged to be heated by electricity. On top of the pot I laid a piece of corrugated cardboard, with the cartridge standing on its base so the bullet was pointing directly at the cardboard. Then the heat was turned on until the cartridge exploded.
In no case did the bullet pierce the cardboard, or even dent it
deeply.

 

Two points should be drawn from General Hatcher's extensive research, points that are now widely accepted in the field of ballistics. First, it is unlikely that ammunition is going to cook off in a fire to begin with. And second, even if the ammunition does cook off, unless that ammunition is in a gun that is pointed directly at the Navy SEAL, it is not going to penetrate through the SEAL's thick Kevlar uniform, let alone penetrate the skin.

Consider the combat uniforms typically worn by Navy SEALs. The SEALs typically wear the AOR1 Navy SEAL combat uniform, made with Kevlar, which is the same material used in bulletproof vests. While a gun pointed at that uniform point-­blank would penetrate it, a cook-­off round popping off from an ammunition box is
not
going to penetrate it.

Remember also that when Extortion 17 went down, the US military was so unconcerned about the danger posed by cook-­off rounds that units approached the helicopter while parts of it were still burning at least twice. Remember that the Pathfinder leader testified that the aircraft was “still smoldering” when they approached it to search for the black box.

General Hatcher wasn't the only ballistics expert to come to this ­conclusion—that cook-­off rounds outside of a weapon, if there is a cook-­off at all, are not inherently dangerous.

Dr. Di Maio and the Harmless Cook-­Off Round

One of the nation's most noted forensics pathologists is Dr. Vincent J. M. Di Maio, who some may remember as an expert forensics witness in the George Zimmerman murder trial. Dr. Di Maio, who was a US Army Medical Corps pathologist and served as chief medical examiner for San Antonio, Texas, is a professor of pathology at the University of Texas at San Antonio.

He is among the world's foremost authorities and, indeed, may be
the
foremost authority in the world on the topic of gunshot wounds. His magnum opus, appropriately entitled for the area of expertise for which he is most renowned, is
Gunshot Wounds: Practical Aspects of Firearms, Ballistics, and Forensic Techniques
, published in 1985.

Though Dr. Di Maio's studies on the issue of cook-­off rounds may have come more than two decades after General Hatcher's, his observations and conclusions are remarkably similar to the general's.

In Chapter 10 of his book, in a section entitled “Behavior of Ammunition and Gunpowder in Fires,” Di Maio comments as follows on pages 284 and 285:

 

Occasionally a story appears in a newspaper describing how fire fighters fought a blaze in a sporting goods store as bullets from exploding ammunition “whizzed by” and cans of gunpowder “exploded” around them. Although this type of story makes fine newspaper copy, it bears no relation to what actually happens in a fire involving ammunition and gunpowder.

Smokeless powder is used in all modern cartridges. When it is ignited in a gun, heat, and gas are produced, both of which are confined initially to the chamber. As the pressure of the gas builds up, the chemical processes of combustion are speeded up so that the rate of burning becomes relatively instantaneous, and an “explosion” is produced. This explosion, however, occurs only when smokeless powder is ignited in a confined space such as the chamber of a gun. Outside of a gun, the powder will only burn with a quick hot flame.

 

Then, on the next page, after citing some of the experiments conducted by General Hatcher, Di Maio further illustrated his findings on the notion of a cook-­off round in a fire.

 

Occasionally one hears that an individual has been “wounded” when a cartridge was accidentally dropped into a fire and detonated. Investigation of such incidents usually reveals that the victim was really injured when they or another individual was playing with a gun.
When small-­arms ammunition is placed in a fire, the cartridge case may burst into a number of fragments and the bullet may then be propelled forward out of the case. In centerfire cartridges, the primer may blowout. None of these missiles, however, is dangerous to life under ordinary circumstances. The bullet in fact is probably the most harmless of all these missiles because with its relatively great mass it will have very little velocity.

 

All Hatcher and Di Maio's studies point to one conclusion: The bullets found inside the bodies did not come from ammunition just cooking off inside the helicopter, as the autopsies might imply. The bullets came out of the barrel of a gun.

This brings us to another question. What about a cook-­off round which explodes inside of a gun?

That's an excellent question, because a round that cooks off inside the barrel of a gun can pose a danger, provided that the gun is aimed at its target.

Think about that. For the bullets inside the bodies of the SEALs to have come from a cook-­off inside the gun barrel, someone would have had to aim the gun at the SEALs long enough for the bullet to have gotten hot enough to have cooked off. Or the SEALs would have to have found themselves juxtaposed in front of gun barrels at the moment of cook-­off.

This isn't plausible, for two reasons.

First, the SEALs' weapons were found on the ground outside the aircraft, with no indication they were even burned. In Exhibit 65, the Pathfinder leader (PF PLT LDR) and the Pathfinder platoon sergeant (PF PSG), answering questions from the ADSAT officer, testified about where they found weapons.

 

ASDSAT3:
Any other weapons' components policed up on the battlefield?

PF PLT LDR:
We recovered all three 240H's from the aircrafts. Is that what you are referring to?

ASDSAT3:
No [inaudible]. Keep talking. Anything else? Did you find anything else?