What really happened to Pat Tillman?

Tony Szamboti

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We all heard the change in the Pat Tillman story a year or so ago, that his death was actually due to friendly fire not enemy fire. It appeared to me that the initial cover-up of the true reason was due to those in command being embarassed that a star like Tillman was killed in a friendly fire incident.

However, the cover-up of a friendly fire incident is small potatos compared to the allegations which have come out about Tillman's death in this past week. I was simply totally taken aback with allegations that Tillman's death could have been the result of murder.

Below is from the Associated Press in the last week.

SAN FRANCISCO Army medical examiners were suspicious about the close proximity of the three bullet holes in Pat Tillman's forehead and tried without success to get authorities to investigate whether the former NFL player's death amounted to a crime, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.

"The medical evidence did not match up with the, with the scenario as described," a doctor who examined Tillman's body after he was killed on the battlefield in Afghanistan in 2004 told investigators.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/26/AR2007072602025.html

There also have been mainstream news stories where allegations are stated that he was shot from as close as ten yards away.

I am wondering what others are thinking about this. Personally, I am in wait and see mode at the moment and am not taking any position on this.
 
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OK, first off, Rangers are not your average run of the mill soldiers. They are elite. Rangers are the premiere light infantry units that regular legs wish they could be. I had the priveledge of serving with members of the 1/75 out of HAAF and trust me, they are THAT good. I'm damn handy with any kind of firearm but these guys made me look straight up silly on the range. Having said that, friendly fire. If you've ever been on any kind of night operation you don't need to explain how confusing it gets when you get seperated.

No one took him out. It was an accident. And I for one am thoroughly disgusted in how they tried to cover it up because of who he was.
 
realcddeal said:
We all heard the change in the Pat Tillman story a year or so ago, that his death was actually due to friendly fire not enemy fire. It appeared to me that the initial cover-up of the true reason was due to those in command being embarassed that a star like Tillman was killed in a friendly fire incident.

However, the cover-up of a friendly fire incident is small potatos compared to the allegations which have come out about Tillman's death in this past week. I was simply totally taken aback with allegations that Tillman's death could have been the result of murder.

Below is from the Associated Press in the last week.

SAN FRANCISCO Army medical examiners were suspicious about the close proximity of the three bullet holes in Pat Tillman's forehead and tried without success to get authorities to investigate whether the former NFL player's death amounted to a crime, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.

"The medical evidence did not match up with the, with the scenario as described," a doctor who examined Tillman's body after he was killed on the battlefield in Afghanistan in 2004 told investigators.

There also have been mainstream news stories where allegations are stated that he was shot from as close as ten feet away.

I am wondering what others are thinking about this. Personally, I am in wait and see mode at the moment and am not taking any position on this.
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So far the only thing new is your BS about it. The bullets have been know about before 2005. Where have you been.
 
Ten feet? The AP story says

The doctors - whose names were blacked out - said that the bullet holes were so close together that it appeared the Army Ranger was cut down by an M-16 fired from a mere 10 yards or so away.
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(Most M16 rifles have a 3-round burst setting.)
 
these days, they all do. But most Rangers carry the M4, basically a scaled down M16. Either way, you're correct without splitting too many hairs
 
Hmm, I was just looking into this a bit because of a copy/paste job someone did today on another forum, copied from wonkette. I hadn't heard of the Tillman story (or wonkette) until today, but my impression is that the only thing "new" here is that a blogger has compiled some "information". It's nice that they have everything laid out in an easy-to-understand point-by-point format. You'd think they might like to include an easy-to-follow-up-on citation for each point, but they don't.

If it was a top down assassination conspiracy, I'd expect them to make Tillman MIA, instead of this sloppy clothes burning stuff, and a body to argue with medical examiners over. Yet another perfect/imperfect cover up. But what do I know? I'm just sitting here alone playing with a Razor.
 
Pat Tillman was a Patriot. During his time in Afghanistan, he learned the truth about 9-11. He planned on going public with the info as soon as he returned to the states. The NWO became aware of this, and set up a "friendly fire" incident.

The NWO....we take crap from no one.
 
I'd personally prefer not to see a lot of joking around on this story. Tillman's death staggered me personally and a lot of other folks in Arizona. He was a larger-than-life person out here, a legend well before enlisting.

That his death has turned out to be accidental and covered up is certainly disturbing.
 
Did the gun have to be a M-16? I understand the SAWs use the same caliber of ammunition, and the distance could have been greater, perhaps, using a SAW.
 
Pat Tillman wasn't a hero because he gave up a million dollar contract to fight. I'd say the guy who leaves four kids at home with mom and fights for 35grand or less is the hero.

Now, in my opinon, Tillman was a hero because he spoke his mind. His mother and friends are painting a very interesting picture of Tillman, a free thinker, who read Chomsky, criticized Bush and believed the Iraq war was illegal.

This tragedy is thickened by the fact that this administration paraded Tillman as the poster boy for some noble cause. I wonder if those same people who lionized Tillman would have praised him as highly if they knew his true feelings about the war.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/09/25/MNGD7ETMNM1.DTL
 
I had never heard of Tillman until he was killed, but he sounds like he was an upright kind of guy.

Recently I've read some about how his parents had to pressure the military to get the true story told, which is disgusting. However, one aspect that has been reported is that a person in the Army gave an interview to ESPN talking about how he thought the reason Tillman's parents persisted so much is that they are atheists, and if you think that after you die you're worm dirt, he can see that this would be extra upsetting to someone.

Mrs. Tillman took offense to that statement, and many other atheists did too. See for example this This Modern World cartoon which talks about it.

I'm not so sure - the Army guy said what we atheists have always said - life is more precious when you're an atheist and don't have a belief in any aferlife.
 
I met Tillman, once, very briefly, before he deployed. He seemed rational and professional. I am seeing a lot of professional soldiers becoming disillusioned with the way that W is conducting his wars.

Somebody is covering up a lot more than a screwed-up mission. It is entirely likely that Tillman was going to do something that would destroy his value to the Bush administration and their spin machine.

Burning his diary was a crime in itself. It is a historical document and the personal property of the decedant and his family. It would have contained the last communications they could have had with Tillman.

Any soldier has to be at least a bit disturbed about that.

This stinks terribly, and could only have happened as it did in Rummy's army.
 
Rummy will be testifying on Capital Hill tomorrow about this. It'll be the typical whitewash. They already named that General as the fall guy.
 
leftysergeant said:
This stinks terribly, and could only have happened as it did in Rummy's army.
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Nonsense. A little bit of research will turn up many cases of coverups of military fratricide and other fatal accidents. Tillman's case gets more coverage because he was more prominent than the other victims. Here's a case that current presidential candidate Fred Thompson was involved with:

Additionally, Thompson initiated a Congressional investigation into a friendly fire incident during the Gulf War which claimed the life of Sgt. Lance Fielder of Nashville. The Army had covered up the fact that Fielder was killed by friendly fire, and then bestowed medals on the higher-ranking officials who made the decision to fire upon Fielder in an area where they knew that American forces were operating. The investigation ultimately resulted in the forced retirement of the commanding officer of the unit that fired shots at Sgt. Fielder and others, and the revocation by the Army of the medals that had been awarded to those responsible for the incident.
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Have you forgotten Jessica Lynch?

Generally, as regards defense, I have always considered the GOP to be more about form than substance.

Burning the diary still stinks. And it opens more questions than just the bullet holes.
 
beachnut said:
So far the only thing new is your BS about it. The bullets have been know about before 2005. Where have you been.
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Sorry to be so uninformed that, like realcddeal I had not heard about that untill about a week ago either - and you may note that there was a coverup on details originally. There has even - but wait, you must already know about it, us being so slow as to have to wait for news reports not blocked, shortened or otherwise underreported - been another thread on it but I assume you already went through it a few days ago here.
 
Lefty, I addressed your claim that such an event could only happen in a particular administration. As I said, you can easily find examples that disprove your claim, if you're interested in the facts.
 
I'm just saying that the people who feed W his military policies have a long history of throwing money at contractors and claiming they are doing something for the defense community, mistakenly thinking that bluster and a full toybox are more important to military success than is taking care of and morally supporting the ground-pounders. Rummy and Cheney are permanently imbedded in the GOP military philosophy and have been for years.
 
Wonkette used to be at least amusing when Cox was writing there. Now it's just tedious. I certainly agree that there was a very concerted coverup after the fact, but to go from that to what they're claiming--assassination--is nutty. Tillman visiting with Noam Chomsky would have done nothing in terms of support for the war, or in terms of defeating the Bush reelection effort. In fact visiting Chomsky would have made it easy for the Republicans to discount Tillman.

The only state that might have been affected by Tillman would have been Arizona (where he was, as I mentioned before, a legend already), but Bush won Arizona by ten percentage points. It is unlikely Barry Goldwater himself could push that many votes to a Democrat had he been so inclined.
 
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