Quest For Truth
“Stop shooting! Stop shooting! Friendly! Cease Fire! I am Pat . . . Tillman," the former Army Ranger and NFL player repeatedly shouted before two bullets exploded his brain. It was Afghanistan, April 2004.
It's easy enough to say friendly fire even though the word friendly sticks in the craw. But the Army concocted a fish story that Hans Christian Andersen would have thought imaginative.
The Army portrayed that Pat lost his life leading a charge against the enemy. It even awarded the Silver Star, a medal given for one who died at enemy hands.
Over a month later a news reporter telephoned Mary Tillman, Pat's mother, and asked her what she thought of the military news release. "What are you talking about?" she probed. Hesitantly the reporter informed, "The military has come to the conclusion that Pat was probably killed by friendly fire."
Kevin and Pat, brothers, served in the same platoon. Kevin didn't reunite with his platoon until it returned from Afganistan. At about the same time the reporter dropped the bomb on Mary, his superior mentioned friendly fire to him.
Upset, Kevin sought details from the batallion commander and shortly afterward Lt. Col. Bailey provided the family information based on a written report.
Three weeks later an official briefing gave a watered-down version and the report Lt. Col. Bailey had relied upon was missing. "They gave us half-baked answers," Kevin said. At the conclusion, the Army provided them an investigative fratricide report. Mary described the family reaction, "We became absolutely appalled at what we were reading and that is where our quest for truth began."
After five unsatisfactory formal military investigations the Tillman family requested that Congress review the circumstances. The U.S. House Committee convened a hearing.
Mary hadn't start off asking the Army to tell her the truth. She assumed it had done so. She told the committee, "This family has great respect for the military. We had great trust in the officers that came to us."
It was not until she received incoherent responses, inconsistent with hard evidence, that she was jolted into an agonizing expedition. Kevin described the journey, "My mom has been hot on the trail for a long time. She has been pressing hard. I didn't get very far with my chain-of-command. They just kinda pushed me around."
Slowly the ruse began to unravel. Mary paraphrased from a report. An interviewed member had described that before the firing began, his platoon had seen hands waiving and that it had looked like the people were trying to say, "Hey! It's us." Nevertheless, the platoon engaged in fire.
Mary verbalized her suspicion that former Defense Secretary Rumsfield was involved in awarding the Silver Star and knew before it was awarded that Pat had been killed by fratricide. Rumsfield had previously written Pat a letter and knew his death would be high profile. She believes the government managed a potential political crisis by exploiting Pat to make him the President's War Hero poster child.
Kevin didn't mince words. He perceived the government had used deliberate and calculated lies. "To falsify a witness statement in the process of awarding the Silver Star is fraud," Kevin urged. It was fact that at least one statement had been tampered with before being used to support the award.
Kevin postulated the President had needed an acceptable story about the death because there was political uproar and finger-pointing over a high war casualty rate that month. Moreover, the President was receiving bad press due to prisoner torture at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
According to Mary, the autopsy report revealed Pat's body had "marks on his chest consistent with defibrillation" but also that there was "no brain due to trauma." In contrast, "the Army field hospital report said CPR had been performed and continued after Pat was transferred to ICU."
None of that makes sense in light of Specialist O'Neal's eyewitness account. He spoke about the bursts of fire. He saw that Pat had little cover before he, O'Neal, hit the ground. He heard Pat continue to yell, "Stop shooting. Help." Finally, the firing ceased. O'Neal "got up, checked on Pat, and discovered he was dead." It was ninety minutes before his body was removed to the field hospital. O'Neal was repeatedly ordered not to discuss the matter.
Pat Tillman is an American war hero. Neither his life nor death needed any hype. He was, like The Steadfast Tin Soldier, loyal to the end.
"Onward! Onward! Soldier! For death thou canst not shun."
© Coninc., TheDownsideUp.Com 2007
It's easy enough to say friendly fire even though the word friendly sticks in the craw. But the Army concocted a fish story that Hans Christian Andersen would have thought imaginative.
The Army portrayed that Pat lost his life leading a charge against the enemy. It even awarded the Silver Star, a medal given for one who died at enemy hands.
Over a month later a news reporter telephoned Mary Tillman, Pat's mother, and asked her what she thought of the military news release. "What are you talking about?" she probed. Hesitantly the reporter informed, "The military has come to the conclusion that Pat was probably killed by friendly fire."
Kevin and Pat, brothers, served in the same platoon. Kevin didn't reunite with his platoon until it returned from Afganistan. At about the same time the reporter dropped the bomb on Mary, his superior mentioned friendly fire to him.
Upset, Kevin sought details from the batallion commander and shortly afterward Lt. Col. Bailey provided the family information based on a written report.
Three weeks later an official briefing gave a watered-down version and the report Lt. Col. Bailey had relied upon was missing. "They gave us half-baked answers," Kevin said. At the conclusion, the Army provided them an investigative fratricide report. Mary described the family reaction, "We became absolutely appalled at what we were reading and that is where our quest for truth began."
After five unsatisfactory formal military investigations the Tillman family requested that Congress review the circumstances. The U.S. House Committee convened a hearing.
Mary hadn't start off asking the Army to tell her the truth. She assumed it had done so. She told the committee, "This family has great respect for the military. We had great trust in the officers that came to us."
It was not until she received incoherent responses, inconsistent with hard evidence, that she was jolted into an agonizing expedition. Kevin described the journey, "My mom has been hot on the trail for a long time. She has been pressing hard. I didn't get very far with my chain-of-command. They just kinda pushed me around."
Slowly the ruse began to unravel. Mary paraphrased from a report. An interviewed member had described that before the firing began, his platoon had seen hands waiving and that it had looked like the people were trying to say, "Hey! It's us." Nevertheless, the platoon engaged in fire.
Mary verbalized her suspicion that former Defense Secretary Rumsfield was involved in awarding the Silver Star and knew before it was awarded that Pat had been killed by fratricide. Rumsfield had previously written Pat a letter and knew his death would be high profile. She believes the government managed a potential political crisis by exploiting Pat to make him the President's War Hero poster child.
Kevin didn't mince words. He perceived the government had used deliberate and calculated lies. "To falsify a witness statement in the process of awarding the Silver Star is fraud," Kevin urged. It was fact that at least one statement had been tampered with before being used to support the award.
Kevin postulated the President had needed an acceptable story about the death because there was political uproar and finger-pointing over a high war casualty rate that month. Moreover, the President was receiving bad press due to prisoner torture at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
According to Mary, the autopsy report revealed Pat's body had "marks on his chest consistent with defibrillation" but also that there was "no brain due to trauma." In contrast, "the Army field hospital report said CPR had been performed and continued after Pat was transferred to ICU."
None of that makes sense in light of Specialist O'Neal's eyewitness account. He spoke about the bursts of fire. He saw that Pat had little cover before he, O'Neal, hit the ground. He heard Pat continue to yell, "Stop shooting. Help." Finally, the firing ceased. O'Neal "got up, checked on Pat, and discovered he was dead." It was ninety minutes before his body was removed to the field hospital. O'Neal was repeatedly ordered not to discuss the matter.
Pat Tillman is an American war hero. Neither his life nor death needed any hype. He was, like The Steadfast Tin Soldier, loyal to the end.
"Onward! Onward! Soldier! For death thou canst not shun."
© Coninc., TheDownsideUp.Com 2007
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posted by KKHC | 7:41 PM
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