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WASHINGTON Mar 5, 2006 (ABC/AP)– The Army said Saturday it will launch a criminal investigation into the April 2004 death of Pat Tillman, the former professional football player who was shot to death by fellow soldiers in Afghanistan in what previous Army reviews had concluded was an accidental shooting.
Col. Joseph Curtin, an Army spokesman, said the Defense Department office of inspector general had reviewed the matter at the Army’s request and concluded that a criminal probe was warranted. Members of the Tillman family were notified, Curtin said. In the past, Tillman’s father, Patrick Tillman, and other family members have criticized the Army and its investigations.
“We are obligated to answer the family’s questions, as we are with all grieving families.” Curtin said the scope of the new investigation by the Army Criminal Investigation Command had not yet been determined in detail.
His journal was lost immediately after his death
Tillman, 27, died on April 22, 2004, when he was struck by gunfire during a firefight along a canyon road near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. The Army said at the time that the barrage of bullets came from enemy fire.
A report by the Army later found that troops with Tillman knew at the time that friendly fire had killed the football star. Officers destroyed critical evidence and concealed the truth from Tillman’s brother, also an Army Ranger, who was nearby, the report found.
More than three weeks after a memorial service in San Jose, Calif., the Army announced on May 29, 2004, that friendly fire rather than an enemy encounter caused Tillman’s death. However, even at the time of the memorial, top Army officials were aware that the investigation showed the death had been caused by an act of “gross negligence,” the report said.
Despite the Army’s findings, the officer who prepared the Special Operations Command report, Brig. Gen. Gary M. Jones, concluded there was no official reluctance to report the truth. Army officials have acknowledged that they should have better handled the information they released on Tillman’s death.
The Defense Department’s inspector general started a review of the matter last August, in the wake of complaints from the Tillman family about how the matter had been handled.
Remember Pat Tillman? this Pat Tillman …
Pat kept a journal, writing in it regularly
Yet other Tillman family members are less reluctant to show Tillman’s unique character, which was more complex than the public image of a gung-ho patriotic warrior. He started keeping a journal at 16 and continued the practice on the battlefield, writing in it regularly.
His journal was lost immediately after his death
Mary Tillman said a friend of Pat’s even arranged a private meeting with Chomsky, the antiwar author, to take place after his return from Afghanistan — a meeting prevented by his death. She said that although he supported the Afghan war, believing it justified by the Sept. 11 attacks, “Pat was very critical of the whole Iraq war.”
“You know, this war is so f– illegal”
“I can see it like a movie screen,” Baer said. “We were outside of (a city in southern Iraq) watching as bombs were dropping on the town. We were at an old air base, me, Kevin and Pat, we weren’t in the fight right then. We were talking. And Pat said, `You know, this war is so f– illegal.’ And we all said, `Yeah.’ That’s who he was. He totally was against Bush.”
Another soldier in the platoon, who asked not to be identified, said Pat urged him to vote for Bush’s Democratic opponent in the 2004 election, Sen. John Kerry.
Classic novels in their down time
Tillman subscribed to the Economist magazine, and a fellow soldier said Tillman created a makeshift base library of classic novels so his platoon mates would have literature to read in their down time. He even brought gourmet coffee to brew for his platoon in the field in Afghanistan.
Baer said Tillman was popular among his fellow soldiers and had no enemies. “The guys who killed Pat were his biggest fans,” he said. “They were really wrecked afterward.” He called Tillman “this amazing positive force who really brought our whole platoon together.
A soldier who on April 23 burned Tillman’s bullet riddled body armor — which would have been evidence in a friendly-fire investigation — testified that he did so because there was no doubt it was friendly fire that killed Tillman. Two days later, Tillman’s uniform and vest also were burned because they were soaked in blood and considered a biohazard. Tillman’s uniform also was burned.
Did his “biggest fans” burn his diary too?
What an awful tale from Afghanistan. Was Kevin Tillman part of the second group?
“But I will not let myself be reduced to silence.”
▼ ▼ ▼ MY DIARY
Oui, you have definitely connected the dots w/this one!
I want to say this is unbelievable, but, sadly I can’t.
Recommended!
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The rift between Nancy Reagan and Oliver North continues. The retired Marine colonel and star of Fox News Channel’s “War Stories” was set to be the guest speaker at a planned March 25 dinner for the Pacific Legal Foundation, to be held at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California.
But when Library execs got word that North was coming, they told the Foundation to drop him or find another venue.
The hostility between Mrs. Reagan and North goes back to the Ronald Reagan presidency and the embarrassing Iran-Contra affair.
North coordinated the illegal sale of weapons to Iran to fund the Contra rebels fighting to topple the Sandinista government of Nicaragua. Reagan denied he knew about the deal and he fired North in 1986. Still, North was hailed as a hero by conservatives for keeping the Contras’ struggle alive – one that eventually led to Nicaragua holding free elections.
North later wrote a book, “Under Fire: An American Story,” in which he claimed that Reagan must have known about the deal. Sources says Mrs. Reagan was incensed by the claim.
When North ran for the Senate from Virginia in 1994, she told a reporter on the eve of the election that North had lied to her husband about the Iran-Contra affair. North lost the election.
According to Dick Bradley, a spokesman for the Pacific Legal Foundation, Reagan Library officials told the Foundation that Col. North was simply not welcome at the Library.
Bradley said former Reagan speechwriter Peter M. Robinson – who wrote the famous speech in which President Reagan told Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down this [Berlin] wall” – is the new speaker, replacing North.
A Library official, Robert Cuillard, flatly denied that Col. North was barred from appearing at the dinner, and referred us to a Library public relations spokeswoman, Melissa Geller, who we were unable to reach.
Col. North was not available for comment.
● Iran-Contra Affair: The Making of a Scandal, 1983-1988
● PLF – Pacific Liberty Foundation
“But I will not let myself be reduced to silence.”
▼ ▼ ▼ MY DIARY
Oui, you did it again. Friendly fire occurs in war. But the cover up is what is done here. If they had just admitted to it and gone on, this would not have been such an issue. What is it that they wanted to cover up? The Army is the one that needs to be blamed here. They orchestrated the whole thing, if you ask me. The story that got out is, Pat was supposed to have yelled at them, the shooters, that it was he up there in the area of which they were firing. They just kept firing. Then what was in the journal that was so important that they destroyed it. A lot of questions need answering.
is hard to deal with. Rangers aren’t your garden variety of soldier, and we send them to do our worst nastiest tasks. They have been trained to kill very efficiently and effectively and leave conscience to the Command and the Command is God. Some of them are very indoctrinated and not exactly what I would call “prone to free thinking”. It is conceivable that a Ranger would “take out” a fellow Ranger over disagreements about 9/11 and what one Ranger feels is an illegal war in Iraq and another feels are treasonous thoughts and ideas being expressed and shared with other Rangers and destroying order and authority. It is also conceivable that the Army would attempt to cover up such a thing happening to their poster boy Pat Tillman. I think they would do almost anything to avoid ever exposing such an incident could have ever taken place!
Thank you Oui!
A friend of mine from the San Jose chats stated that the military covered up his death and the Scared Yellow Crowd attacked him for his statement.
I wonder now if they will start attacking the Tillman family?
I shared this with my hockey friends. Thank you
with Groos Negligence
Why was ONE soldier allowed to burn anything???
Biohazard?? Wouldn’t that be part of the hospitals job? Not some “lone” soldier?
This has always smelled.
They even killed off their Patriot Poster Boy. Mission accomplished Yellow Fasisct Pukes.
I bet they wish “friendly fire” could happen in the states, too. They could get rid of all the people who show signs of dissent.
Friendly fire??? My ass. Tillman was murdered for what he stood for.
They are reinvestigating supposedly because Tillman’s family just won’t let it go. But the corollary seems to be true – they won’t investigate until months and years and continued complaints keep coming.
My friend who lives in San Jose and in the same arena as Pat’s mother… shared this iwth me last night.
Tillman’s funeral was held in the Rose Garden. Where most student graduations take place. Not a church.
The Lemmings who held aloft the Poster Boy of their Warmonger Lust, showed up and kept envoking the name of G-d.
Tillman’s family reminded speakers to please respsect Pat’s wishes and to honor that he was an athiest. They didn’t and continued to G-d this and G-d that.
clarify – that should reak she WORKS in the same arena – special education.