A Special Investigation: Pat Tillman as Everyone's Political Football The Fog of Fame
STAN GOFF, Counterpunch
In 1979, after a break in my Army service and having recouped my sergeant's stripes as a mechanized cavalry scout in Fort Carson, I volunteered for the Rangers. Off to Ranger School I went, and upon completion I was assigned to 3rd Platoon, Company A (Alpha Company), 2nd Ranger Battalion, 75th Infantry Regiment in Fort Lewis, Washington. Each of the three rifle platoons (organizations of around 40 light infantrymen) had nicknames, in this case, First to Fight, the Blacksheep, and Third Herd. A Company, known for its iron discipline, was called the Alpha-bots. When I left there in 1981 to become a tactics instructor at the Jungle Operations Training Center in Panama, I never had a notion that I might somehow be entangled with Alpha Company again ... two-and-a-half decades later. Brothers Pat and Kevin Tillman were Alpha-bots, assigned to the Blacksheep (2nd Platoon), when Pat was killed by friendly fire on April 22, 2004 near a tiny village called Manah in Paktia Province, Afghanistan, near the Pakistani border. When I was a member of the adjacent platoon in the same building, Pat was a baby...
continua / continued
In 1979, after a break in my Army service and having recouped my sergeant's stripes as a mechanized cavalry scout in Fort Carson, I volunteered for the Rangers. Off to Ranger School I went, and upon completion I was assigned to 3rd Platoon, Company A (Alpha Company), 2nd Ranger Battalion, 75th Infantry Regiment in Fort Lewis, Washington. Each of the three rifle platoons (organizations of around 40 light infantrymen) had nicknames, in this case, First to Fight, the Blacksheep, and Third Herd. A Company, known for its iron discipline, was called the Alpha-bots. When I left there in 1981 to become a tactics instructor at the Jungle Operations Training Center in Panama, I never had a notion that I might somehow be entangled with Alpha Company again ... two-and-a-half decades later. Brothers Pat and Kevin Tillman were Alpha-bots, assigned to the Blacksheep (2nd Platoon), when Pat was killed by friendly fire on April 22, 2004 near a tiny village called Manah in Paktia Province, Afghanistan, near the Pakistani border. When I was a member of the adjacent platoon in the same building, Pat was a baby...
continua / continued
Reprimands In Tillman Case Won't Go In Officers' Records
Associated Press MARTHA MENDOZA August 10, 2007 05:37 PM
Tillman's direct superiors knew within hours of his April 2004 death in Afghanistan that the former football star had been killed by fellow Army Rangers, but the truth was kept from the public and Tillman's family for five weeks _ in direct violation of Army regulations.
"You should not consider this as an adverse action," letters to the officers say. "This document will not be filed in any system of records maintained by the Army."
Tillman's direct superiors knew within hours of his April 2004 death in Afghanistan that the former football star had been killed by fellow Army Rangers, but the truth was kept from the public and Tillman's family for five weeks _ in direct violation of Army regulations.
"You should not consider this as an adverse action," letters to the officers say. "This document will not be filed in any system of records maintained by the Army."
posted by Kangaroo Brisbane Australia at 4:47 PM
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