Serious question about Pat Tillman
pjalive21
St. Louis, MO Posts: 2,818
ok, we praised this guy for giving up millions in the NFL to join the military but we find out he liked to read Chomsky and was totally against the Bush administration and the war all together??
ok so here is my question then why did he join? ok he wanted to serve his country and all that generic language, but then why would he sign up for a cause he was so against???? this seems so simple to me but no one is saying it or asking these questions
am i the only one here???
ok so here is my question then why did he join? ok he wanted to serve his country and all that generic language, but then why would he sign up for a cause he was so against???? this seems so simple to me but no one is saying it or asking these questions
am i the only one here???
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Where I'm not ugly and you're lookin' at me
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Remember... military service is duty for your country... not for the whims of the politician in charge.
Hail, Hail!!!
I waited on his brother-in-law last night, should've thought to ask...
They tipped me $35 on A $260 check. Cheap bastards! :mad:
Military people are here for what? To serve our Country.
What is 'Our Country'? The people who live here under the guidence of the principles written in our Constitution.
Who enlists to carry out political agendas set forth because the leader is a Republican or Democratic? No one.
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Bush has said that he doesn't care about Polls... polls of what the people are saying... the people of this country... that define what this country is.
Bush doesn't care what the people have to say... he doesn't care what Congress (Houses that hold our local elected officials who are supposed to speak for us) has to say. He thinks he can dictate his wishes, regardless of what we or our representatives have to say.
Look how he handled Iraq... Katrina... C.I.A. Spy leaks... Harriet Meirs for Supreme Court... the current U.S. Federal Prosecuters who were 'not loyalists'... I don't understand how ANYONE can still support this arrogant and smug guy. He is the worst President I have seen in my lifetime... and possibly, the worst of all time.
Hail, Hail!!!
The u.s. gave soldiers in vietnam DZ and LSD to make them better trained soldiers. It ended up backfiring, and soldiers ended up fragging officers near the end of the war, and many cases of "friendly" fire existed
Now the same seems to have happened. They killed a fellow soldier. I mean, its pretty obvious who is who on the battlefield out there. How could they be so stupid.
There reaction to his death is telling. Instead of facing up to the facts, they BURN HIS CLOTHES and hide the evidence. You dont do that if its a mistake. It wasnt a mistake. It was a deliberate action. The u.s. is continuing to give the soldiers LSD and DZ. Soldiers dont know whats going on.
Rent apocalyse now. Study the scene where Martin Sheen goes to meet the group of black soldiers on the bridge. The soldiers look dazed and completely out of it. He asks them "who is in charge here". The soldiers ignore him, in a daze as if he doesnt exist. He repeats himself, still no answer. Very hallucinatory actions, the movement of the black soldiers are deliberate and slow. He asks again, and they say "Aint you?". Very revealing scene. And its exactly what is occuring in Iraq.
No one is in charge. And when that happens all hell breaks loose.
What up?
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I heard him in one of the few interviews he gave because he didn't want to draw attention to himself. In a nutshell, he was so distraught over the events of 9/11 that he felt an overwhelming compulsion to do something, to fight a tangible enemy so this is why he wanted not only to be in the military but in the Special Forces. I'm sure a lot of us had these same feelings, he just had the guts and fortitude to act on it, and he gave up a lucrative career to do it. This is why he is so admired in my opinion and the fact that his own troops killed him and the inept way the military handled his death makes the story just dripping with irony.
the other foot in the gutter
sweet smell that they adore
I think I'd rather smother
-The Replacements-
very insightful!!!
thanks for everyone responding...such a tragic and confusing thing that i dont know what to think but something isnt right...a cover up? a good possibility...sad nonetheless
It is a total attempt to cover up a screw up. That does a great dis-service to the life of Pat Tillman. He deserves to have the truth be told... regardless of how horrible it may be. They are sacrificing Pat Tillman's honor to protect the bureaucrats in Washington. This is shameful and, in my opinion, deserves the ire of all Americans.
Hail, Hail!!!
The obvious? To combat terrorism, to find Osama Bin Laden and take the fight to the Taliban in Afghanistan. My guess is he wanted to help people and he wanted to do all he could to ensure an attack like the ones on 9-11 did not happen again and at the time he felt it his best course of action. Once you are in the military you are "fucked by the big green weenie" you are at the mercy of the dumbass in charge.
I honestly think this is also a murder cover-up. What happened out there, this supposed friendly fire, just sounds very unlikely to me. For one thing, these are special forces guys, they aren't dumb and given to making in heat of the battle mistakes like that. There was no 'in the heat of the battle' to begin with. Three bullets went into Tillmans head.
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I'm giving the fellow Rangers the benefit of the doubt here. They were caught in a situation where they were taking on fire from the high ground. Tillman and a couple others were dispatched to take on the ridge while the vehicles navigated the canyon.
Confusion and lack of communication lead the Rangers to believe Tillman's group were part of the enemy and opened fire. Rangers are a tightly knit brotherhood... they mourn the loss of their own and it must be extremely tough on the ones who pulled the triggers.
The Rangers reported the incident correctly... their commanding officers and the Pentagon chose to lie about it as not to tarnish the campaign, especially since it was Tillman who died. Has it been a 'regular' Ranger, the inicident would have probably been reported truthfully (I hope). But, with this symbol at risk... the politician in the military leadership came out and the lies spew out easily.
Hail, Hail!!!
It takes time to draw a bead on someone's head. Now, either the same person shot him three times in the head, or three different people also drew a bead on his head. It just sounds very unlikely. Another, uglier scenario is that somebody shot him on the head while he was on the ground.
The Rangers may be tight-knit, but they're also no less susceptible to having the lunatic fringe amongst them, following orders.
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Still, they were probably firing in bursts... and they had the .50 cal firing from the turrent. A HMMWV filled with Rangers in a combat situation can unload a lot of bullets in a small area in a very short amount of time.
Confusion, dust, Sun, smoke and incoming fire... tough call.
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I'll check to see if any of the Rangers involved in the shooting has said anything publicly.
Hail, Hail!!!
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"According to the detailed Post account, the Tillmans’ unit, 2nd Platoon, A Company, 2nd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, also knows as the “Black Sheep,” was in the tenth day of a sweep near Khost in Paktia province, near the border with Pakistan, looking for Al Qaeda or Taliban fighters. One of the nine vehicles carrying the platoon, a Humvee, had a broken fuel pump, and the platoon commander, Lt. David Uthlaut, had called in for a replacement part. The platoon mechanic, however, could not fix the vehicle, which finally broke down.
Over Uthlaut’s objection, a senior commander at the Rangers’ operation center at Bagram Air Base outside of Kabul ordered him to divide his platoon of 34 men in half, sending one group ahead to reach the day’s objective, a village called Manah, and leaving the remainder to guard the broken-down vehicle and await a local Afghan tow-truck driver. The Post account suggests that reaching Manah had no military purpose, since the unit would arrive too late to conduct operations, but would allow military higher-ups to record another objective achieved.
The lieutenant left his platoon’s heaviest weapon, a .50-caliber machine gun, with the group staying with the Humvee, commanded by Sgt. Greg Baker, who were more vulnerable to ambush. Uthlaut pushed on towards Manah. The Tillman brothers also split up: Pat went with Uthlaut, while Kevin remained behind with Baker.
The second unit proceeded down a different road from the first, but when the tow truck found the going too rough, Baker turned back and began to follow the same path the first group had taken towards Manah, The two groups were not in radio contact because of the high mountains and steep canyon walls.
Entering one canyon, Baker’s unit was hit by several explosions, either mortars, land mines or roadside bombs. According to the Post account, the soldiers had fallen into an ambush and saw Afghan attackers on the ridge above them. They opened fire and then forced their way through the canyon, guns blazing.
Meanwhile, Uthlaut’s group, hearing the gunfire, moved toward the sound, with Tillman leading one of three fire teams sent ahead to find out what was happening. They climbed a ridge, Tillman accompanied by another young Ranger and an Afghan militia fighter. Tillman was pressing forward. As far as he knew, his younger brother might be in an ambush.
As Baker’s unit emerged from the canyon, several soldiers saw Tillman’s Afghan companion, and mistook the bearded man for a Taliban. They opened fire with the heavy machine gun at a range of only 100 meters, killing the Afghan. Tillman tried to save his comrade, waving his arms and attracting more gun fire, which killed him as well.
Other soldiers from the first unit brought the engagement to a stop by firing flares and smoke grenades to identify themselves. Among those wounded were Uthlaut and his radio operator, who had been trying to communicate with the second unit.
Kevin Tillman arrived on the scene after his brother’s death. Mercifully, he had played no role in the shooting, serving as the rearguard of the second unit. He was told to take guard duty over the battlefield, and only later was told that his brother had been killed. It would be another five weeks before he learned that Pat had been killed by his own comrades.
According to the Post account, the Pentagon seized on Tillman’s death as an opportunity to tell a heroic story. The newspaper wrote: “[H]is superiors exaggerated his actions and invented details as they burnished his legend in public, at the same time suppressing details that might tarnish Tillman’s commanders.”
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Sad.
Hail, Hail!!!
I don't know if that is true. That's just what i heard. take it for what its worth.
-Big Fish
isnt it weird that we really dont know what this guy was like in real life...we got the family and media point of views that obviously have been biased and then you say this, which like you said we can take for what its worth, but still interesting to ponder
all we know is the legacy of Tillman is a disaster at best because of the cover up
I don't recall where i read that or what he said the contribution of that feeling was to his joining. I wish I remembered...