I have followed this story but not that closely. If you read the latest story it seems likely he was deliberately shot and killed by his own unit.
Sounds like the script from the movie "Courage Under Fire". The medical evidence doesn't lie.
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/news/story?id=2951521
The story just keeps getting sadder. 10 yards away? 3 shots, milimeters away from each other in the skull. No evidence of contact with the enemy. No criminal investigation conducted.
One ugly and sad episode. Something definatley very fishy.
The US Army standard rifle (M16A4) is chambered for the .223 remington (5.56mm) round which unfortunatly is the standard round for many different rifles used by millitary forces around the world. However, if the wounds matched any other round (7.62 x 39mm for example, the round used in an AK-47 a popular weapon for "irregular forces) they would most certinatley not be from friendly fire.
But since this continues to drag on, the wounds either were from a .223 round or were not able to be identified to a particular weapon type.
All the way around, just a bad deal.
Careful, folks. Let's not turn this into a P thread. Not that it is even close, but a word to the wise.
Originally Posted by Raisor
Wow. Just wow. That's about all I can say. I hope the truth as to what really happened can be determined.
"Hey...Dad. Wanna Have A Catch?" Kevin Costner in "Field Of Dreams."
Obviously I don't know what really happened. But IMHO this is a case where a really great guy, a hero really, was killed by a stupid accident or because someone simply wasn't paying close enough attention to what they were doing. And I think that a lot of people have a problem with that sort of death for such a great individual, it doesn't fit. Come on, Pat Tillman, a guy who gave up the NFL for the military, killed in a senseless accident? He was too good for that sort of death, somebody had to be out to get him.
I could be wrong, but I hope I'm not. Hopefully we'll find out for sure, but we may not.
"I know a lot about the law and various other lawyerings."
Hitters who avoid outs are the funnest.
I hope so but it certainly isn't impossible that it wasn't an accident either. I'm sure we've all heard stories of this kind of thing happening in Vietnam, WWII, etc. etc.
School's out. What did you expect?
It will be a shame if the truth doesn't come out eventually. I feel sorry for Tillman's family that the story continues to trickle out in this fashion.
From the article....
He was there. That's enough for me. It was an accident. Nothing more. Unless someone can show solid evidence (not theories) as to why his fellow soliders wanted to deliberately murder him?The Army Ranger who was alongside Pat Tillman when he was shot in Afghanistan told ESPN.com Friday that he remains convinced that the former NFL player was accidentally killed by friendly fire, rather than a target of a malicious act....."No, there is no way the guy was 10 yards away. That is just completely unlikely," O'Neal told ESPN.com. "If he was there initially, like the way the conspiracy theorists work that he was there to kill Pat, why wouldn't he have killed me? That doesn't work so well."
It will probably make a good movie project for someone.
"In my day you had musicians who experimented with drugs. Now it's druggies experimenting with music" - Alfred G Clark (circa 1972)
Yeah, just taking somebody's word is the way to go. It's gotten us this far.
There's no way this doesn't turn into a forbidden topic.
I've been to dinner at Jimmy Buffet's house, and I've eaten it at a homeless shelter. And there's great joy and harrowing terror to be found in both places.
-Todd Snider
You are probably right, but the issue really isn't a "political" one to me. The Tillman family--for that matter, all of us--have a right to have Pat Tillman's death fully investigated, and for the truth, as best as it can be determined, revealed. Tillman's death probably was a tragic accident of "friendly fire," which does happen, but as Pedro noted, there have been reports in other wars of soldiers being intentionally killed by their supposed fellow troops.
"Hey...Dad. Wanna Have A Catch?" Kevin Costner in "Field Of Dreams."
It was a fellow soldier who was with Tillman Dom. Unless someone can come up with a valid reason as to why he should lie and want to cover it up, and more importantly, why his fellow soldiers would want to intentionally murder him, then I really have no reason to doubt it wasn't from friendly fire and a tragic accident.
We're always looking for a conspiracy behind something.
I've got a distant relative who was accidentally killed by his own soldiers. His name was Stonewall. Was that a conspiracy?
Last edited by GAC; 07-29-2007 at 06:23 AM.
"In my day you had musicians who experimented with drugs. Now it's druggies experimenting with music" - Alfred G Clark (circa 1972)
I'm only read where there was only one soldier next to Tillman when he died. And that soldier is denying what he told the chaplain just after the incident...
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/200....ap/index.html"A chaplain who debriefed the entire unit days after Tillman's death later described this exchange to investigators conducting a criminal probe of the incident. But O'Neal strongly disputes portions of the chaplain's testimony, outlined in some 2,300 pages of transcripts released to the AP this week by the Defense Department in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.
The chaplain told investigators that O'Neal said Tillman was harsh in his last moments, snapping, 'Would you shut your [expletive] mouth? God's not going to help you; you need to do something for yourself, you sniveling ...
"He never would have called me 'sniveling,"' O'Neal said. "I don't remember ever speaking to this chaplain, and I find this characterization of Pat really upsetting. He never once degraded me. He's the only person I ever worked for who didn't degrade anyone. He wasn't that sort of person."
Why would a chaplain get it so wrong? Why would the soldier strongly dispute it?
RBA, this is from the espn article quoted in the first post on the thread. It was the chaplain's phrasing O'Neal objects to really. Not really a huge difference.
That said, if the medical professionals think there should be a more thorough investigation, then there probably should be. But we don't have enough information to draw conclusions deeper than that.
The chaplain said that O'Neal told him he was hugging the ground at Tillman's side, "crying out to God, help us. And Tillman says to him, `Would you shut your [expletive] mouth? God's not going to help you; you need to do something for yourself, you sniveling ..."
O'Neal told ESPN.com his words did not match the chaplain's recollection. "The way he put it is wrong. I wouldn't say it is entirely inaccurate," he said.
"I just remember a point where I realized what was going on so I said a quick prayer -- help us get through this. And Pat was like, 'Hey, praying is not really going to help you right now.' So he kind of got me back to what was going on, so I was a little more situationally aware," O'Neal said.
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