" One has to seriously question how the fly-boys manage to make so many mistakes, though, especially in situations where there is little or no hostile fire coming at them."

Because the zoomies go so damned fast that they don't have time to distinguish friend from foe. True ground support aircraft, such as the A-10 or the venerable Cosair or any number of others, fly and flew much more slowly and gave the pilots time to determine who was who. This was true in Korea, in 'Nam, and in the first Gulf war. It was because of the experiences in the past where the jet jockies laid napalm or bombs on the friendlies that the US Army started to develop its own air-to-ground support aircraft (helicopters); the USAF then brought out the A-10 to keep them in the ground support role -- and the A-10 was slated to go to the Army in 1993, but the its role in Gulf I convinced the AF to keep it instead.

The USMC adopted the Harrier jump-jet because it didn't need long runways to work and could therefore provide more immediate support.