You are right, these are excitable kids. And one of my best friends, possibly the calmest person I know, left the Air Force because his training as a missile launch officer was too realistic. (And Lemay insisted the SAC would always be in one state of readiness higher than the regular AF, a real burden for people.)

Consider the circumstances. This was NOT an Iranian F-14 whose intentions were unknown, or an American F-14 thought to be Iranian.

It was an airliner, big plane, flying at altitude, way, way up, in a regularly used airlane, squawking it's ID on a functional IFF, acting in no threatening manner.

The Vincennes was state of the art, with much of the training of the crew focused upon NOT shooting down that which should not be shot down. It is not their mission to start WWIII, which they could if they shot down the wrong airplane.

Ignore the BS excuses and look at the facts. Either the Vincennes was completely incompetent, not able to tell the difference between an airliner at altitude in an air lane and squawking an assigned IFF and a threatening F-14 or they were competent and following orders.

I am certain they could tell the difference between an Airbus 320 in an airlane and a hostile F-14. I refuse to believe they were so poorly trained and their equipment was so poorly maintained they were unable to recognize the differences.