Posted on 08/06/2007 6:47:34 AM PDT by RDTF
A three-star general was rebuked and may lose a star and a half-dozen other brass took it on the chin for their part in misleading the public and the family of Pat Tillman in the aftermath of his accidental death three years ago in Afghanistan. The U.S. military had gone so far as to fabricate a medal citation for Tillman to divert attention from the true cause of his death.
Tillman was a genuinely heroic figure, leaving a lucrative professional football career to enlist. But the circumstances of his death, at the hands of his own men, evidently weren't suitably heroic for his superiors, so they played fast and loose with the facts. Tillman's celebrity and persistent, skeptical family combined to help bring the true story to light.
My guess is that there is a lot more tinkering with the truth about combat deaths than the military cares to admit, and not always for bad reasons. The fact is that the battlefield is a hazardous workplace where accidents are common and where it's sometimes understandable why the military would want to make the death of a loved one less painful by not being fully candid. In my infantry outfit during World War II it was widely understood that casualties attributed to "snipers" were almost always due to weapons fired by our own troops.
-snip-
There is nothing shameful about death by friendly fire, but those who treated it that way tarnished Tiilman's death by making of it a work of fiction.
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...
God bless you Pat Tillman. I wish those in charge would have told the truth from the get go. This administration always gets in front of things way too late.
Geez, I cannot believe somebody got it right. I know several guys who died "a hero" because they did something unbelievably stupid. No CO ever wrote a grieving mother, "Dear Mrs. Jones, you son died doing something very, very stupid."
"...fabricate a medal citation..."
"...divert attention..."
"...they played fast and loose with the facts..."
"...tinkering with the truth..."
"...work of fiction..."
More honestly, how about - Lies and a Cover Up?
.............and we wonder why so many Americans don't believe anything presented as truth by our elected officials and the military...........
It’s not what happened that gets you into trouble, it’s the coverup.
Unless you’re a Kennedy, in which case the coverup succeeds.
Stonewall Jackson was killed by one of his own sentries
As was Colonel Mickey Marcus ,a Jewish American Army officer helping the Israeli Army back during its first war
There was a movie about him starring Kirk Douglas
“Cast a Giant Shadow “
If I remember correctly, in the First Gulf War we lost more men to friendly fire than enemy fire.
We probably have less of this than ever before, but stuff still happens. And the immensely increased lethality of our fire makes incidents more deadly.
The most disturbing part of the Tillman story are some claims that his death by friendly fire might not have been an “accident.”
World War I Poem by one of the soldier poets.
The Hero
‘Jack fell as he’d have wished,’ the mother said,
And folded up the letter that she’d read.
‘The Colonel writes so nicely.’ Something broke
In the tired voice that quivered to a choke.
She half looked up. ‘We mothers are so proud
Of our dead soldiers.’ Then her face was bowed.
Quietly the Brother Officer went out.
He’d told the poor old dear some gallant lies
That she would nourish all her days, no doubt
For while he coughed and mumbled, her weak eyes
Had shone with gentle triumph, brimmed with joy,
Because he’d been so brave, her glorious boy.
He thought how ‘Jack’, cold-footed, useless swine,
Had panicked down the trench that night the mine
Went up at Wicked Corner; how he’d tried
To get sent home, and how, at last, he died,
Blown to small bits. And no one seemed to care
Except that lonely woman with white hair.
Siegfried Sassoon, 1917
This story should never gotten beyond the military. It has no place in the public domain.
Let me explain. I don’t believe this unit had been in combat very long
When out there in hostile territory where the enemy may be behind a rock over there, or building here, or you see a huge hoard of quilted uniforms coming right at you, your gut is anything but calm. Even a rustling noise may have a response of 100 rounds. The American GI can throw out some lead - big time.
These are times when one makes snap judgements, sometime they are mistakes. Survival of you and your buddies is paramount, as is the mission.
I doubt investigators can really understand the conditions present at such times - how could they? And, as you should well know, eight people on patrol will give eight versions, same as an auto accident down at the corner. If the stories were identical, you know there is a cover-up.
I seriously doubt the chaplain who took testimony from Tillman’s unit understood or got it right. The guys dispute his report. My experience from many years ago is that miltary investigations during wartime are riddled with error.
I don’t know what happened in the Tillman matter - I doubt anyone else really knows either.
I wonder if the writer ever experienced incoming rounds, or had the dirt kicking up around his hole.
These prosecutions from combat mistakes should never happen.
(Korea, ‘52-’53)
Excuse me but wasn’t this story covered about 18 months ago? It seems to me that I heard Tillman’s death was caused by friendly fire within a month of his death. Why is this a story over and over and over again?
Geez, it’s the best-publicized ‘cover-up’ since Watergate!
CS Lewis was sent home from the trenches of WWI due to shrapnel injuries from a British shell...
All military police in the British Army (whose mission encompasses what our Army's CID does) can not become MPs until they've reached at least the rank of Lance Corporal in another MOS, and many come from the combat arms...IMHO, not a bad system; however, their MPs don't have all the battlefield missions ours do, so we have a legitimate requirement for more privates. To become a CID agent in the US Army, IIRC, one must be at least an E4, promotable to Sergeant. While most of those do come from the ranks of line MPs, that's not a hard and fast rule, and I've known several who came from some pretty divergent MOSs.
The thing about Tillman's death is, CID would not even look into the matter if there was no suspicion of criminality. In the event of fratricide, I would suspect the first O6 in the chain of command would have appointed an investigating officer to conduct a commander's inquiry under AR15-6, and the findings would have stayed within the chain.
Fratricide is, sadly, just another one of the grim realities of war, but I think in this case, the Army is largely wrestling with a public relations nightmare of its own making.
According to the wingnuts at Daily[P]OS, not only was it friendly fire, but it had to covered up to hide the fact that he was deliberately assasinated. A delusion that Tillmans family is feeding through the typical vague innuendo.
The fact is that until proven otherwise, all combat deaths are assumed to be by enemy fire.
From what I have seen, this was the crux of the initial report on his death. Later, when the truth became known by his chain-of-command, they simply declined to correct the initial report. Why? For the age old reason of making the bitter pill of his death easier for the family to swallow.
There is no justice being served by this “investigation”, and the Tillman family, IMHO, is now squarely in the Cindy Sheehan camp.
Fraticide may be a reality of war, but with these young men in uniform, highly trained volunteers, Rangers, I suspect very, very rare. Except for one story of questionable reliability, there is no indication Tillman was a victim of such.
No, officials reporting these matters to the press is a major mistake and if it continues, over a period of time, will result in the serious reduction of the military’s effectiveness. Contrary to widespread opinion, the public has no “right” to be fed all these stories.
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