The Army pogues a Silver Star for politics

[exlrrp]

Some very intersting reading yesterday in the SF Chronicle. http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cg...NGD7ETMNM1.DTL It turns out that the US Army, among other things, pogued up Pat Tilman's Siver Star. There was no actual combat going on when he was killed by friendly fire.
The real truth:
...According to testimony, Tillman, who along with others on the hill waved his arms and yelled ?cease fire,? set off a smoke grenade to identify his group as fellow soldiers. There was a momentary lull in the firing [towards him from "friendlies"-jw] and he and the soldier next to him, thinking themselves safe, relaxed, stood up and started talking. But the shooting resumed. Tillman was hit in the wrist with shrapnel and in his body armor with numerous bullets.

The soldier next to him testified: ?I could hear the pain in his voice as he called out, ?Cease fire, friendlies, I am Pat f?ing Tillman, dammit.? He said this over and over until he stopped,? having been hit by three bullets in the forehead, killing him...."

The Army story: "...On April 30, the Army awarded Tillman a Silver Star medal for bravery, saying that ?through the firing Tillman?s voice was heard issuing fire commands to take the fight to the enemy on the dominating high ground....?
Thats quite a bit of diffference in the two stories--whats the difference between truth and reality? the US Army and the Bush administration was trying to gain all the reflected "glory" from the death of Pat Tilman that they could.
"...Tillman?s death came at a sensitive time for the Bush administration ? just a week before the Army?s abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib in Iraq became public and sparked a huge scandal. The Pentagon immediately announced that Tillman had died heroically in combat with the enemy, and President Bush hailed him as ?an inspiration on and off the football field, as with all who made the ultimate sacrifice in the war on terror.?
His killing was widely reported by the media, including conservative commentators such as Ann Coulter, who called him ?an American original ? virtuous, pure and masculine like only an American male can be.? [Sieg Heil!-jw] His May 3, 2004, memorial in San Jose drew 3,500 people and was nationally televised...."

I wonder what Ann Coulter would have said if she knew Tillman was a "...a fiercely independent thinker who enlisted, fought and died in service to his country yet was critical of President Bush and opposed the war in Iraq, where he served a tour of duty..."
Then, of course he would have been a Liar, Coward and Traitor like all the rest of us who served our country well and then voted against Bush. The qualifications for being called a L, C or T by Ann Coulter are very broad, consisting of not voting for Bush. She would have said this no doubt to the grieving parents if she had the chance.

It looks to me like The US Army once again pogued a medal for political reasons. I mean Tillman was a great patriot who put his life on the line for what he believed in, but reading the accounts, there is no basis for a Silver Star at all
Thats the way I remember the awards and decorations process to be--arbitrary, heavily political, weighted towards officers. I thought you would have had to kill people or save someone to get a Silver Star (Kerry did) but no, if the Army thought they could get some political yayas over it, they gave out medals like peanuts. I always thought so.

Whats interesting in this article is to get the sense of Tillman as a man--I wish I had paid more attention to him, he was a real hero and obviously an independent thinker:
"...He was an avid reader whose interests ranged from history books on World War II and Winston Churchill to works of leftist Noam Chomsky, a favorite author...although he supported the Afghan war, believing it justified by the Sept. 11 attacks, ?Pat was very critical of the whole Iraq war.?..."
This shows me once again that heroes can be aginst the war they fight in and it is as much their duty to speak against it as fight it.
Although I got into being a Ranger through the backdoor, (lrrps were grandfathered into the Ranger Association) Tillman is the type of guy I remember serving with--independent thinkers, some of them well educated, with all the balls it took to pull off incredible adventures.
But poorly led and this is another example of that, as in Somalia.
There the Rangers' werre the victim of their own errors--going the same way SIX TIMES in a row (according to Hackworth) Here is was dividing the unit in the middle of a hostile area, failure to communicate,poor fire discipline and more.
The CO, who ordered the division of troops over the platoon leader's objections, was--you'll be glad to hear--reprimanded.

The charges leveled in this story are outrageous--if half of them are true, then heads should roll at every level for these blatant lies and coverup. What do you bet that nothing happens at all--the government is no longer accountable to the American people, especially the military
Stay good
James