Posted on 03/04/2006 1:15:22 PM PST by Glenn
Edited on 03/04/2006 1:43:51 PM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
The uniform and body armor would be considered biohazard and be disposed of. This is SOP with any casualty and I have taken items like this to the burn pit myself. No cover up, just procedure.
I doubt if he was hit by a .50 cal., which would have killed him instantly. My understanding is that he was still talking after he was wounded and kept saying something like "I am Pat Tillman".
The MP involved was *collecting officers*. There was possibly a competition going on between the MPs to see who could get the most, with a pooled cash prize for the winner.
Patton refused to sign a ticket acknowledging responsibility for something his driver had not done, effectively a violation of the honor code that had been drummed into him since his West Point days. By ordering him to accept it, the responsibility for the falsehood passed upstairs to his superior.
Eisenhower, a somewhat more astute politician, got out of a similar situation via the more customary methodology of the period: a cash bribe.
I hope the Battalion surgeon threw an enormous fit and the BC threw it away (still, I'm not surprised that it happened-I've had to transport casualties in the back of my ambulance and they screamed bloody murder when we hit the speedbumps on the FOB).
You can see the stats for OIF and OEF online via the Army human resources command website.
They used to form two lines and pair off for taekwando training using real knifes and other weapons. If the instructors thought they were holding back, they would beat the offenders with bamboo canes.
I don't know what they did after breakfast. Probably grenade catching or something.
It will not be a pretty picture if it turns out that Tillman was killed by a fellow soldier whose first name was *Mohammed* or a spelling variant thereof. Nor will it be much better if it turns out that an *allied* soldier from the host nation or an incompetent junior officer screwed the pooch and got Tillman- and maybe others- killed.
If that was the case, I suspect that the Army would be very hesitant to re-open the case.
Of course, that also might explain why they were relucatant to come clean in the first place, necessitating this re-examination....
"Their methods for checking sentries at night was a little jarring at first, but effective"
Just out of curiosity, how did they check their sentries?
Interesting. I think I only read one FR thread on the topic. There were two separate groups of US troops in some sort of ravine without radio contact. In the fading daylight, one group spotted the AK toting Afghan scouts of the other unit and vice-versa without either group spotting the accompanying Americans. Someone fired and quickly, tracers were going in both directions. since green AK tracers were going both ways, the Americans saw incoming green tracers and returned fire. After some period of time, the Americans realized orange tracers were also coming in. It was about this time that Pat was hit in the head by a .50 fired from one of the other groups Humvees.
Is that how it happened? I don't know. It's just what I remember from the one FR thread I read about the subject.
That Wikipedia article left out the required photograph of a straw man.
They used to form two lines and pair off for taekwando training using real knifes and other weapons. If the instructors thought they were holding back, they would beat the offenders with bamboo canes.
I don't know what they did after breakfast. Probably grenade catching or something.
That was how they checked sentries. Their Sergeant of the Guard or Duty Officer would make the rounds of their perimeter positions and pick one to roll a frag grenade into. If one of the guys was asleep- they most usually held positions in pairs- no problemo, his partner would scoop it up and pitch it out into the wire.
If they were both asleep, the problem was corrected immediately, and without any intermediate paperwork.
Just out of curiosity, how did they check their sentries?
See #211, above.
If you care to go visit the Bull Simons Museum at Bragg, you'll find among the other goodies on display a PASGT K-pot *Fritz* helmet work by one of the US troops who went into Grenada on Operation Urgent Fury. At the time, the Kevlar brain buckets were so new that they'd not yet been certified for parachute drops, and those who jumped in did so wearing the old M1 steel helmet, then changed into the new K-pot.
One of the 82nd Airborne troops who did so later took a hit to the head from a 20 mm antiaircraft cannon'd direct fire, the high explosive shell hitting and detonating on his new K-pot, not surprisingly stunning him, but yet not wounding him fatally. The helmet was ruined but had done its job, and now sits on display to show the visitors how well our hardhats work...sometimes.
And indeed, a lot of guys became believers in the new head bucket after that, though some early Gen-Tex production versions suffered from delamination. They are now hopefully all out of the system.
I do not know if Tillman was wearing a K-pot, or if he was hit in the head by .50 fire. But I was told by someone who was there with 2/75 Ranger Bn. that fire from a .50 was involved, and until I am otherwise better informed, I'll stick with that.
Tillman was, I understand, on his third tour, having served tours in Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003 and in Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom in 2004. From what I've been told, I do not think he made a *dumb rookie* mistake.
Whether someone else did or not, I'll leave to the investigators to figure out, to the satisfaction of their assorted bosses and masters. The future opinion of other various snakeeaters, castlewreckers and heartbreakers may be influenced by their findings, as by other things, but the word will get out, and it will be spread in that close community.
Interesting. I think I only read one FR thread on the topic. There were two separate groups of US troops in some sort of ravine without radio contact. In the fading daylight, one group spotted the AK toting Afghan scouts of the other unit and vice-versa without either group spotting the accompanying Americans. Someone fired and quickly, tracers were going in both directions. since green AK tracers were going both ways, the Americans saw incoming green tracers and returned fire. After some period of time, the Americans realized orange tracers were also coming in. It was about this time that Pat was hit in the head by a .50 fired from one of the other groups Humvees.
Is that how it happened? I don't know. It's just what I remember from the one FR thread I read about the subject.
A key question that remains unresolved is who decided to split the unit into two groups and send them into enemy territory with a disabled vehicle. From Spc. Russell Baer, who was also stuck on the hill near Tillman: Why they thought that moving us out in broad daylight from our position, dragging a busted humvee slowly through a known hotspot after we had been stranded there all day was a good idea will forever elude me. Who made that decision? Bailey? Saunders? That’s what I want to know.
The Washington Post report, also based on redacted millitary documents, suggested the decision was made solely to keep to a schedule:
According to investigative records, a senior officer in the Rangers' operations center [far away at Bagram, near Kabul], whose name is edited out of documents obtained by The Post, complained pointedly to A Company's commander, Uthlaut's immediate superior.
"This vehicle problem better not delay us any more," the senior officer said, as he later recalled in a sworn statement. The 2nd Platoon was already 24 hours behind schedule, he said. It was supposed to be conducting clearing operations in Manah, a southeastern Afghan village.
The 2nd Platoon commander -- Lt. David Uthlaut, a recent graduate of West Point -- objected to the decision to split the group. In an e-mail to the operations center, dated 5.03 pm, he said: "I would recommend sending our whole platoon up to the highway and then having us go together to the villages." Splitting the platoon would be fruitless because it would be dark before the group could reach Manah, and procedures prohibited search operations after dark.
The fact that this question remains unanswered, after multiple investigations into what went wrong that day, is tremendously troubling -- particularly since redacted testimony suggests names have been named. Isn't there a chain of command for a reason?
It is equally troubling that Uthlaut's superior, when faced with a perjury charge, was allowed to change his testimony. A 3 March 2005 memo from Brig. Gen. Gary Jones (who conducted the January 2005 investigation) asserts that Capt. William Saunders, the commander of Tillman's company, was able to skirt perjury charges. He had originally claimed that he had told his superiors of Uthlaut's e-mail protesting the division of his men. He was allowed to change his testimony to avoid the perjury charge and he was granted immunity.
Tillman's father draws the only logical conclusion: "The administration clearly was using this case for its own political reasons. This cover-up started within minutes of Pat’s death, and it started at high levels. This is not something that (lower-ranking) people in the field do.”
As it happens, I have been in that same museum and seen that helmet. But my recollection is that it was hit by small arms fire, not a 20 mm AA gun. Frankly, even if the .50 cal round was "stopped" by the helmet, I would expect the force of the impact to break the soldier's neck. Tillman may have been alive during the firefight, but I simply do not believe that he survived being hit by a .50 cal round in the head.
Yep, 91B I saw that too and remember it was an AK round at point blank range that was still stuck in the helmet to the best of my memory.....
Maybe there were two brain buckets in the display and I missed the 20MM version.....:o)
After I saw that I asked my WWII Army infantry vet grandfather if the steel pots would have stopped or deflected a round and he just laughed. When I was a boot in 1985 we wore the steel pots throughout basic. They were comfortable, but the new kevlar (with pads inside like a crash helmet) are not too bad and offer a lot of advantages over the old k-pot.
BTW-I was just looking at your page and see that you are EOD. In Iraq we accompanied EOD on a lot of missions and I have a tremendous amount of respect for them. I have some pictures of the Air Force EOD guys that worked with us using the robot to strip a suicide bomber which you might be interested in. Freepmail me with an e-mail address if you are interested and I will send you some of them.
You mean they actually used LIVE grenades for those checks?
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