Families of the soldiers killed in last year's friendly fire incident in Afghanistan are expressing their bitter disappointment at a decision not to court martial the U.S. pilots who dropped a bomb that left four Canadian soldiers dead.

"Well, we're certainly disappointed. We were anticipating a more positive outcome ... we wanted to see these pilots never fly again and a court martial would have done that for us as far as we're concerned," Richard Leger told CTV's Lisa LaFlamme on Friday.

Leger's son, Sgt. Marc Leger, was killed along with Cpl. Ainsworth Dyer, Pte. Richard Green and Pte. Nathan Smith when two U.S. pilots dropped a 225-kilogram, laser-guided bomb in the Afghan desert last April. Eight other Canadian soldiers were injured in the incident.

On Thursday, Col. Patrick Rosenow, who presided over a special military hearing in January that looked into the case, recommended that Maj. Harry Schmidt and Maj. William Umbach should not go before a military tribunal for the accident.

Rosenow found that while there was sufficient evidence to send the pilots to a court martial, the charges should be dismissed and their case should be handled outside a military court. That could result in a penalty as mild as a letter of reprimand.

The final decision in the case now rests with Lt.-Gen. Bruce Carlson of the 8th Air Force, but it was not clear when he would rule.

Claire Leger, Marc's mother, told CTV she did not think it was a coincidence the U.S. military chose to make its decision while there was a war in Iraq.

"I think they chose this timing because ... of the war. Because it wouldn't have as much impact on Canadians as it did. So they chose this timing for a reason," she said.

Leger expressed bitterness at what she perceived to be an attempt by the families of Schmidt and Umbach to win sympathy in the media by releasing family photos.

"All those beautiful pictures of all the families ... they don't have our pictures of our son and his beautiful family. All we have is a pitiful little tombstone in Lancaster for our son," she said.

On Thursday, the mother of Cpl. Ainsworth Dyer also reacted with disappointment to the decision not to court martial the pilots.

"I want to see some punishment," Agatha Dyer said from her home in Montreal. "This is just a charade. They just get away with murder."

At the Edmonton military base where the four Canadian friendly fire victims were based, some troops said they were not happy with the recommendation.

Trooper Ed Morley said members of the victims' unit will be upset.

"It's their boys, it's their comrades. They've known these people and they're the ones who've lived through this whole accident," he said.

The U.S. government insists the pilots acted recklessly and dispatched the powerful bomb without retreating to properly assess the situation. Several witnesses said the pilots rushed into action and breached several rules of engagement.

Schmidt and Umbach, both members of the Illinois National Guard, were charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter, eight counts of assault and various forms of dereliction of duty.

Schmidt, a Top Gun pilot, was told to hold fire when he asked for permission to bomb the target. But seconds later, he declared self-defence and unleashed the explosive.

A joint U.S.-Canadian investigation concluded the pilots were to blame. The head of the investigation testified the men showed "reckless disregard" for standing orders against attacking.

With a report from the Canadian Press