Army changes story about soldier's death

Army knew for a year he was not killed in action

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The U.S. Army said Saturday it knew for more than a year that 1st Lt. Kenneth Ballard was not killed in action in Iraq, as it initially reported.

The family was not told the truth until Friday.

Ballard's mother, Karen Meredith, of Mountain View, California, is a public critic of the war. She traveled last month to Crawford, Texas, to participate in the protest outside President Bush's ranch by another grieving mother, peace activist Cindy Sheehan.

On Memorial Day in 2004, the day after Kenneth Ballard died, the Army informed his family that he had been killed by enemy fire while on a combat mission in the south-central Iraqi city of Najaf.

The Army disclosed Saturday that Ballard, 26, actually died of wounds from the accidental discharge of a M240 machine gun on his tank after his platoon had returned from battling insurgents in Najaf.

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http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/10/iraq.armydeath.ap.ap/index.html

:wtf: