Via the AP (and building on an earlier post): Ranger alleges cover-up in Tillman case
An Army Ranger who was with Pat Tillman when the former football star died by friendly fire said Tuesday he was told by a higher-up to conceal that information from Tillman’s brother.“I was ordered not to tell him,” U.S. Army Spc. Bryan O’Neal told the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
He said he was given the order by then-Lt. Col. Jeff Bailey, the battalion commander who oversaw Tillman’s platoon.
Pat Tillman’s brother Kevin was in a convoy behind his brother when the incident happened, but didn’t see it. O’Neal said Bailey told him specifically not to tell Kevin Tillman that the death was friendly fire rather than heroic engagement with the enemy.
[…]
“He basically just said, sir, that uh, ‘Do not let Kevin know, he’s probably in a bad place knowing that his brother’s dead,’” O’Neal said. He added that Bailey made clear he would “get in trouble” if he told.
The time frame for the above story is unclear, but it does seem to indicate that some in the Army knew that it was friendly fire very early on. In other words, it doesn’t seem as if there was even all that much confusion from the get-go.
Kevin Tillman himself had previously testified:
In earlier testimony, Kevin Tillman accused the military of “intentional falsehoods” and “deliberate and careful misrepresentations” in portraying Pat Tillman’s death in
Afghanistan as the result of heroic engagement with the enemy instead of friendly fire.“We believe this narrative was intended to deceive the family but more importantly the American public,” Kevin Tillman told a House Government Reform and Oversight Committee hearing. “Pat’s death was clearly the result of fratricide,” he said, contending that the military’s misstatements amounted to “fraud.”
“Revealing that Pat’s death was a fratricide would have been yet another political disaster in a month of political disasters … so the truth needed to be suppressed,” Tillman said.
Kevin Tillman said his family has sought for years to get at the truth, and have now concluded that they were “being actively thwarted by powers that are more interested in protecting a narrative than getting at the truth and seeing justice is served.”
It would certainly seem to be the case that a grave disservice has been be perpetrated on the Tillman family. The deepest cut is clearly the death of Pat–however, to drag them through such a skein of deception for the sake of preserving a good story/avoiding embarrassment was an unconscionable (indeed, vile) act.
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Like the USA “scandal” the more information one has the less of a scandal it is.
Tillman was killed on April 22. Within minutes of the battle an officer on site told some of the rangers to not tell Tillman’s brother that it was possibly a friendly incident. Taking into account the anguish of just having your sibling killed and the facts of the incident not certain the officer could see no good coming from a such a disclosure.
The army then did an investigation which determined it was a friendly fire accident. The results were released to the family and the public on May 29. So in 37 days the facts were determined and information released. No scandal so far.
The administration did use Tillman’s sacrifice as an example of what our brave men and women were risking every day. They did not go back and proclaim all of those statements null and void upon learning it was a friendly fire incident. Is that scandal? I don’t think so.
The scandal in my opinion is Henry Waxman trying to make something out of nothing and forcing Tillman’s family to relive this horrible nightmare again. Waxman is also doing his best to present the worst possible picture of what happened and how it was handled. He is doing exactly as many of the Dems promised before the election, to drag this administration through hearings meant to defame the President and his policies.
The administration and army did not take the Tillman family and “drag them through such a skein of deception for the sake of preserving a good story/avoiding embarrassment”. Kevin Tillman’s statements about “being actively thwarted” in seeking the truth make no sense since the truth was told in just over thirty days from his brother’s death.
There is no scandal here.
Comment by Steven Plunk — Wednesday, April 25, 2024 @ 9:26 am
The military knew immediately that it was a case of friendly fire. However, they awarded Tillman a Silver Star (which is given for facing the enemy, when they knew he had not) and then they had a PR show for the memorial.
No, it is a scandal to use a dead soldier for propaganda–plain and simple.
Further, when they initially announced it was friendly fire they said “probably” and made it sound like an accident during combat, which it was not.
(And sorry, I still think that that USA situation is scandalous–how could you listen to Gonzales’ testimony and still say that the DoJ is being run well?)
Comment by Dr. Steven Taylor — Wednesday, April 25, 2024 @ 10:02 am
An honest difference of opinion on both of these. I don’t know if the justice is being run well but I do know the firings do not constitute a scandal based upon the available information.
One could look at the military honoring Tillmans’s death as a decent thing to do while still informing the family of the exact nature of what happened. What’s the harm? For Waxman it seems any excuse will do when your after the President.
In each of these incident I see things that are not perfect but far from what is being of them. I also see partisan politics behind each of them.
If in fact Tillman was glorified above what was necessary it wasn’t for partisan gain but for the good of the country’s and military’s morale. Not a big sin in my book.
Comment by Steven Plunk — Wednesday, April 25, 2024 @ 10:38 am