Pat Tillman

[woot]

I watched The Pat Tillman Story last night, and was so moved by it I've been up all night reading Krakauer's book on the same subject. I'd previously read a bit about the cover-up but hadn't gotten that level of detail before.

There's much to be said, much of which I'm sure has already been mentioned on the forum, but I found it interesting that only 3 schools offered Tillman a scholarship out of high school: ASU, SJSU, and BYU. Our guys know talent, it seems.

[DrumNFeather]

I watched The Pat Tillman Story last night, and was so moved by it I've been up all night reading Krakauer's book on the same subject. I'd previously read a bit about the cover-up but hadn't gotten that level of detail before.

There's much to be said, much of which I'm sure has already been mentioned on the forum, but I found it interesting that only 3 schools offered Tillman a scholarship out of high school: ASU, SJSU, and BYU. Our guys know talent, it seems.

Was this the conspiracy theory movie? Is it out on DVD already?

[woot]

Was this the conspiracy theory movie? Is it out on DVD already?

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_tillman_story/

The conspiracy isn't emphasized, and the movie doesn't discuss how high up the chain of command it went, but it does explain how the circumstances of his death are still poorly understood, largely due to a lack of cooperation from the military leadership. What we do know is that he was killed by his own guys who subsequently covered it up. A story about how he saved the lives of his unit before being killed in a firefight with up to 20 insurgents was then concocted and used to try to turn Tillman into a patriotic pro-war icon. Some of the soldiers who were there insist that there were at least two insurgents present, but it seems more likely that there were no enemies present at all.

Some of the circumstances surrounding his death are very fishy, which has caused some to believe that Tillman's death wasn't the result of negligence, but rather malice. That seems like a pretty huge stretch and the sort of thing I am unlikely to accept without some very compelling reason to do so, but I'll keep an open mind about it.

[CJF]

I knew Pat a little bit. I had conversations with him about religion. He knew I was LDS and mentioned BYU a few times. He was a good guy. A little strange, but a good guy. I'll have to see movie.

[Green Monstah]

I watched The Pat Tillman Story last night, and was so moved by it I've been up all night reading Krakauer's book on the same subject. I'd previously read a bit about the cover-up but hadn't gotten that level of detail before.

There's much to be said, much of which I'm sure has already been mentioned on the forum, but I found it interesting that only 3 schools offered Tillman a scholarship out of high school: ASU, SJSU, and BYU. Our guys know talent, it seems.

Didn't realize we offered him. I lived in Phoenix during ASU's run in 96 and during his first few years with the Cards. He was a hero of mine, and I was pretty shocked when he died. I've heard good things about the book and the film, so will see/read both.

[Indy Coug]

I knew Pat a little bit. I had conversations with him about religion. He knew I was LDS and mentioned BYU a few times. He was a good guy. A little strange, but a good guy. I'll have to see movie.

The 1 Degree of CJF never ceases to amaze.

[woot]

More connections: Tillman hung out with a bunch of Mormons in high school, one of his best friends and the only member of his unit with him when he died was a Mormon, and he probably made up his mind to join the military while in Provo visiting a friend of a friend.

[CJF]

The 1 Degree of CJF never ceases to amaze.

LOL I think we've talked about him. For a few years I had a pretty strong in with the Cardinals and ASU.

[woot]

So I finished the book over the weekend and figured I’d leave some thoughts.

It’s a good book, but not perfect. I read the paperback version, which is apparently much improved over the hardcover version, but it’s still in need of some pretty major revision. There’s way too much background information relative to the amount of information given about the various investigations and other aftermath, and the organization seems a bit haphazard. Still, the account is relatively thorough. It seems that simply axing several chapters worth of mostly irrelevant (but still informative in a general interest type-way) background info would mostly fix it.

Regarding questions over whether Tillman’s death was accidental or intentional, Krakauer points out that the physician who conducted the autopsy misinterpreted the type of gun used to kill Tillman. He was assuming it was an M-4, when it was actually a SAW that shot the fatal bullets. Both guns use the same ammo, but a SAW fires much more rapidly, explaining the proximity of the 3 holes in Tillman’s forehead. If it had been an M-4, the shooter would have needed to be much closer, which certainly would have been very suspicious. As it is, there doesn’t seem to be any reason to think it was intentional. Lots of internet sites still think it was, but they seem to be wrong.

There was a broad conspiracy to cover up the cause of Tillman’s death. This number includes people at the highest levels of the Pentagon and the White House. Krakauer pins the most blame on Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who seems to be the one who made the initial decision to cover up what happened and who created the phony story about Tillman’s bravery during the ambush. This story was used to get Tillman a silver star (complete with falsified witness accounts). A great number of other people subsequently assisted in impeding investigation into the matter, as orders were given at every level to lie to investigators about what happened. It therefore isn’t surprising that Rumsfeld, McChrystal, et al., also lied when later called to testify. Still, each of several official investigations nevertheless concluded that it was fratricide caused by gross negligence on the part of the leadership and the soldiers in the unit.

This was all happening right as the Abu Ghraib story was breaking and the battle of Fallujah was going on, which probably motivated the powers that be to keep it under wraps. War is about marketing as much as anything, after all, and the war’s popularity was already plummeting at that time. So while Tillman’s death would have been a disaster to the struggling war effort (and Bush’s similarly plummeting favorability ratings), painting him as a hero who sacrificed himself for the cause did the opposite, and actually ameliorated some of the negativity, just as the story concocted for Jessica Lynch had done. This is precisely what Tillman feared would happen. He refused all media interviews from the time of his enlistment until his death. He didn't want to be used in a propaganda campaign, and decided shortly after getting to Iraq that the war was illegal and unnecessary. He believed in the Afghanistan war, but he was not given the opportunity to do any good there before he was killed.

When it was clear that the true cause of his death was finally going to come out, the White House arranged to release the news on the first day of Memorial day weekend so the story wouldn’t have as much impact.

To his credit, John McCain asked McChrystal in 2009 why he had falsified Tillman’s story. McChrystal lied again, of course.

While it is disconcerting that such a large conspiracy within the US government is possible, it seems to happen quite often in times of war, and especially in cases of fratricide. It is also notable that this is yet another case that shows just how hard it is to keep conspiracy under wraps –the biggest lie lasted only 5 weeks or so – and therefore why it is generally easy to dismiss claims of widespread conspiracy that so often happen (9/11, aliens, Apollo landings).

I was reminded of The Wire, in which backroom deals take place to decide who would take the fall when things go wrong. After the 7th major investigation into Tillman's death took place and somebody finally had to take responsibility for it, the army chose an already-retired general who didn’t seem to have any special involvement with the conspiracy, other than being one of the many participants, to receive official blame. Even then, they officially denied that any cover-up actually took place.

Bush was definitely told that it might have been fratricide 7 days after Tillman was killed, but it seems there’s a good chance he knew about it the day after it happened. He later lied to the press about it, and further impeded yet another official investigation into the matter by refusing to provide necessary documents, so he was a good part of the problem. Obama later gave McChrystal responsibility over the entire Afghanistan war effort, so even he is tainted by this.

It’s a shame some of these details aren’t more widely known. I have to think that an 18-year-kid thinking about joining the military would be interested to know that it’s only slightly more likely that they’ll get killed by the enemy as it is they’ll be killed by a zit-faced punk with a Napoleon complex, and that if it happens they shouldn’t expect the government to provide much in the way of information or support for their family.

It is quite sad that the US is so willing to use the same tactics against its own people that it ostensibly seeks to eliminate in other countries. This case is one of a broad conspiracy among government and civilian leadership done for the purpose of propaganda and in betrayal of the soldiers involved and of the American public. I’m very cynical when it comes to our government, and this episode certainly doesn’t help.