"to wander about carrying anything that looked even remotely like a weapon"

Well as other films have shown, carrying cameras, stretchers and all sort of things look remarkably "like weapons" to drugged up spaced out pilots with itchy trigger fingers - and even being in Allied Tanks with all the magic identifying paraphernalia never stopped US "blue on blue".

"in a position in advance of US Troops who had already been under attack"

Unlike you they did not posses infallible telepathy that informed them of where US troops were.

"I take it that their transport was "Marked Up" so that it could be identified as a vehicle carrying "Press" representatives?"

So that has not always saved journalists before now - just how many have died?