Friday, April 20, 2007

ORDERED TO BURN TILLMAN'S CLOTHES

The details about the aftermath of U.S. Army Ranger Pat Tillman's death have me shaking my head. The Ranger leadership at Camp Salerno in Khost in 2004 apparently ordered an NCO to burn Tillman's bloody uniform - good lord, once they found out he was shot by other Rangers.
Still, the knee-jerk reaction by the Army leadership unfortunately makes sense to me. Friendly fire killing your football hero is not good press for the Rangers. I've seen the Army do stuff like this before - "oh shit - bad news - hide it like hell so the press don't find out."
Bad news always becomes worse with time.
Plus, this compromised the integrity of several soldiers involved in the cover up - hardly the values instilled in U.S. soldiers. And Tillman's family have had a longer and likely harder time to reconcile with their loss.

The leadership should be ashamed.

Here's a link to the story from the AP:
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/04/20/america/NA-GEN-US-Tillman-Information-Clampdown.php

1 comment:

Skellig Michael said...

I listened to an OPD this week from Tillman's former BC. Everyone knew within 1 hours of his death that it was fratricide. The former BC gave a detailed anayslis of what exactyly happened.

It is not what you are reading in the newspaper! I'm sure after the Congressional the media will continue to spin a different story of their own liking.

~ PC
www.worthmysalt.blogspot.com