Punishment in The Tillman Case

[tomahawk6]

Amazing that this matter has come to this conclusion.Smart officers have to know better than to be in this position.While reprimands are possibly deserved I dont agree that Kensinger should be reduced in rank.Unfortunately the Tillman family has decided to politicize this case so I am certain that this dog and pony show wont be going away.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070726/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/tillman_punishment

WASHINGTON - Army Secretary Peter Geren is expected to recommend that a retired three-star general be demoted for his role in providing misleading information about the death of Army Ranger Pat Tillman, military officials say, in what would be a stinging and rare rebuke.

Lt. Gen. Philip Kensinger, who headed Army special operations, is one of six high-ranking Army officers expected to get official reprimands for making critical errors in reporting the circumstances of Tillman's purported friendly-fire shooting in Afghanistan in April 2004.

The officials requested anonymity because the punishments under consideration by Geren have not been made public. The Army said that no final decisions have been made, and that once they are and the Tillman family and Congress have been notified, there will be an announcement sometime next week.

Geren also is considering issuing a letter of censure to Kensinger, who is receiving the harshest punishment of those involved in what has become a three-year controversy that triggered more than half a dozen investigations. Five other officers, including three generals, are expected to be issued less severe letters criticizing their actions.

Army officials opted not to impose harsher punishments, which could have included additional demotions, dishonorable discharges or even jail time. One senior officer, Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, commander of the Joint Special Operations Command, escaped punishment.

Tillman's mother, Mary, said the impending punishments were inadequate.

"I'm not satisfied with any of it," she said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press.

She rejected the Pentagon's characterization of the officers' offenses as "errors" in reporting Tillman's death, when several officers have said they had made conscious decisions not to tell Tillman's family that friendly fire was suspected.

Geren's pending decisions come four months after two investigative reports found that Army officers provided misleading and inaccurate information about Tillman's death. A central issue in the case has been why the Army waited about five weeks after it suspected the former NFL star's death was caused by friendly fire before telling his family.

The probes found that nine officers — including four generals — were at fault in providing the bad information and should be held accountable. But the reports determined that there was no criminal wrongdoing in the actual shooting, and that there was no deliberate cover-up.

Geren then tapped Gen. William Wallace to review the probes and recommend disciplinary actions. Wallace disagreed with initial findings against McChrystal, according to the military officials.

But Wallace also surprised Army officials by singling out a 10th officer for rebuke — one who had not been blamed in the earlier reports.

Brig. Gen. Gina Farrisee, who is director of military personnel management at the Pentagon, is expected to receive a letter of punishment for her involvement in the oversight of the awarding of Tillman's Silver Star.

Two others who were blamed in earlier reports are also expected to receive letters of admonishment: Brig. Gen. Gary Jones, who led one of the early Army investigations into the matter, and now-Brig. Gen. James C. Nixon, who was Tillman's regimental commander.

Jones, now retired from the Army, was faulted for failing to address several issues in his probe, leading to speculation that Army officials were concealing information about Tillman's death.

Nixon was criticized for failing to ensure that Tillman's family was told.

 

[3rd Herd]

http://news.bostonherald.com/national/view.bg?articleid=1013761
The usual disclaimer:

New documents shed light on Tillman’s death
By Associated Press
Friday, July 27, 2007 - Updated: 03:58 PM EST

SAN FRANCISCO - Army medical examiners were suspicious about the close proximity of the three bullet holes in Pat Tillman’s forehead and tried without success to get authorities to investigate whether the former NFL player’s death amounted to a crime, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.

    "The medical evidence did not match up with the, with the scenario as described," a doctor who examined Tillman’s body after he was killed on the battlefield in Afghanistan in 2004 told investigators.

    The doctors _ whose names were blacked out _ said that the bullet holes were so close together that it appeared the Army Ranger was cut down by an M-16 fired from a mere 10 yards or so away.
Ultimately, the Pentagon did conduct a criminal investigation, and asked Tillman’s comrades whether he was disliked by his men and whether they had any reason to believe he was deliberately killed. The Pentagon eventually ruled that Tillman’s death at the hands of his comrades was a friendly-fire accident.

    The medical examiners’ suspicions were outlined in 2,300 pages of testimony released to the AP this week by the Defense Department in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.

    Among other information contained in the documents:

    _ In his last words moments before he was killed, Tillman snapped at a panicky comrade under fire to shut up and stop "sniveling."

    _ Army attorneys sent each other congratulatory e-mails for keeping criminal investigators at bay as the Army conducted an internal friendly-fire investigation that resulted in administrative, or non-criminal, punishments.

    _ The three-star general who kept the truth about Tillman’s death from his family and the public told investigators some 70 times that he had a bad memory and couldn’t recall details of his actions.

    _ No evidence at all of enemy fire was found at the scene _ no one was hit by enemy fire, nor was any government equipment struck.

    The Pentagon and the Bush administration have been criticized in recent months for lying about the circumstances of Tillman’s death. The military initially told the public and the Tillman family that he had been killed by enemy fire. Only weeks later did the Pentagon acknowledge he was gunned down by fellow Rangers.

    With questions lingering about how high in the Bush administration the deception reached, Congress is preparing for yet another hearing next week.

    The Pentagon is separately preparing a new round of punishments, including a stinging demotion of retired Lt. Gen. Philip R. Kensinger Jr., 60, according to military officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because the punishments under consideration have not been made public.

    In more than four hours of questioning by the Pentagon inspector general’s office in December 2006, Kensinger repeatedly contradicted other officers’ testimony, and sometimes his own. He said on some 70 occasions that he did not recall something.  [continue] http://news.bostonherald.com/national/view.bg?articleid=1013761&format=&page=2

 

[Dissident]

Am I reading this right (I haven't followed this very closely), they seem to alledge that Tillman was victim of a "fragging"?

 

[LakeSup]

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/military/20070726-1632-ca-tillman-friendlyfire.html

 

[cameron]

Am I reading this right (I haven't followed this very closely), they seem to alledge that Tillman was victim of a "fragging"?

If there is any possibility that was the case it would make this unfortunate incident an even more disturbing one.

 

[LakeSup]

"At one point, he said: “You've got me really scared about my brain right now. I'm really having a problem.”
.....US 3 Star at the BOI

 

[LakeSup]

From a blog on Tillman :

The very private Tillmans have revealed a picture of Pat profoundly at odds with the GI Joe image created by Pentagon spinmeisters and their media stenographers. As the Chronicle put it, family and friends are now unveiling "a side of Pat Tillman not widely known--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. He was an avid reader whose interests ranged from history books...to works of leftist Noam Chomsky, a favorite author." Tillman had very unembedded feelings about the Iraq War. His close friend Army Spec. Russell Baer remembered, "I can see it like a movie screen. We were outside of [an Iraqi city] watching as bombs were dropping on the town.... We were talking. And Pat said, 'You know, this war is so f***ing illegal.' And we all said, 'Yeah.' That's who he was. He totally was against Bush." With these revelations, Pat Tillman the PR icon joins WMD and Al Qaeda connections on the heap of lies used to sell the Iraq War.

 

[LakeSup]

Here is the full article.....fair warning  " leftleaning author"

The Meeting That Never Was: Pat Tillman and Noam Chomsky 
by Dave Zirin
 

"I don't believe it," seethed Ann Coulter.

Her contempt was directed at a September 25 San Francisco Chronicle story reporting that former NFL star and Army Ranger war hero Pat Tillman, who was killed in Afghanistan last year, believed the US war on Iraq was "f***ing illegal" and counted Noam Chomsky among his favorite authors. It must have been quite a moment for Coulter, who upon Tillman's death described him in her inimitably creepy fashion as "an American original--virtuous, pure and masculine like only an American male can be." She tried to discredit the story as San Francisco agitprop, but this approach ran into a slight problem: The article's source was Pat Tillman's mother, Mary.

Mary and the Tillman family are relentlessly pushing for answers to the questions surrounding Pat's death in Afghanistan. They want to know why it took the Pentagon five weeks to tell them he died in a tragic case of friendly fire. They want to know why they were unwitting props at Pat's funeral, weeping while lies were told by eulogizing politicians. Mary is now hoping that a new Pentagon inquiry will bring closure. "There have been so many discrepancies so far that it's hard to know what to believe," she said to the Chronicle. "There are too many murky details."

The very private Tillmans have revealed a picture of Pat profoundly at odds with the GI Joe image created by Pentagon spinmeisters and their media stenographers. As the Chronicle put it, family and friends are now unveiling "a side of Pat Tillman not widely known--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. He was an avid reader whose interests ranged from history books...to works of leftist Noam Chomsky, a favorite author." Tillman had very unembedded feelings about the Iraq War. His close friend Army Spec. Russell Baer remembered, "I can see it like a movie screen. We were outside of [an Iraqi city] watching as bombs were dropping on the town.... We were talking. And Pat said, 'You know, this war is so f***ing illegal.' And we all said, 'Yeah.' That's who he was. He totally was against Bush." With these revelations, Pat Tillman the PR icon joins WMD and Al Qaeda connections on the heap of lies used to sell the Iraq War.

Tillman's transition from one-dimensional caricature to critically thinking human being is a long time coming. The fact is that in death he was far more useful to the armchair warriors than he had ever been in life. When the Pro Bowler joined the Army Rangers, the Pentagon brass needed a loofah to wipe their drool: He was white, handsome and played in the NFL. For a chicken-hawk Administration led by a President who loves the affectations of machismo but runs from protesting military moms, this testosterone cocktail was impossible to resist. The problem was that Tillman wouldn't play their game. To the Pentagon's chagrin, he turned down numerous offers to be its recruitment poster child.

But when Tillman fell in Afghanistan the wheels once again started to turn. Now the narrative was perfect: "War hero and football star dies fighting terror." The Abu Ghraib scandal was about to hit the press, so the President found it especially useful to praise Tillman as "an inspiration on and off the football field, as with all who made the ultimate sacrifice in the war on terror." His funeral was nationally televised. Bush even went back to the bloody well during the presidential campaign, addressing his team's fans on the Arizona Cardinals' stadium Jumbotron.

We now know, of course, that this was all a brutal charade. Such callous manipulation is fueling the Tillman family's anger. As Mary Tillman said this past May, "They could have told us up front that they were suspicious that [his death] was a fratricide, but they didn't. They wanted to use him for their purposes.... They needed something that looked good, and it was appalling that they would use him like that." A growing number of military families, similarly angered, are criticizing the war in Iraq through organizations like Military Families Speak Out.

As for Chomsky, whom Ann Coulter would undoubtedly label "treasonous," Mary Tillman says a private meeting was planned between him and Pat after Pat's return--a meeting that never took place, of course. Chomsky confirms this scenario. This was the real Pat Tillman: someone who, like the majority of this country, was doubting the rationale for war, distrusting his Commander in Chief and looking for answers. The real Pat Tillman, the one with three dimensions, must stick in the throat of the Bush-Coulter gang, a pit in the cherry atop their bloody sundae.

Dave Zirin is the author of "'What's My Name, Fool?': Sports and Resistance in the United States" published by Haymarket Books. Reach the author at [email protected]. This piece is running in this week's print edition of the Nation. It is also available at thenation.com.

 

[cameron]

Thanks for posting WarmandVertical, the more I learn of Pat Tillman, the more I admire him.  He was more of a man than Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld put together could ever hope to be.

 

[LakeSup]

He gave up a lot to join and he did it for patriotic reasons.  I hope the investigation sheds some light and gives his family justice.
When will we learn not to cover up!

 

[LakeSup]

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20070729/D8QM1Q380.html

 

[tomahawk6]

ONeal is the soldier who is thought to have put 3 rounds in Tillman's forehead.

 

[exspy]

T6,

Thought by whom?  Are you aware of facts that have so far been left unreported?

I'm not wanting to start anything but I find this story interesting and would like to know.

Dan.

 

[Blakey]

ONeal is the soldier who is thought to have put 3 rounds in Tillman's forehead.

T6,

Thought by whom?  Are you aware of facts that have so far been left unreported?

I'm not wanting to start anything but I find this story interesting and would like to know.

Dan.

More Info. (Blog)
http://www.fm1071.com/lol/user/FM107_Ian/blogs

It has been widely reported by the AP and others that Spc. Bryan O'Neal, who was at Tillman's side as he was killed, told investigators that Tillman was waving his arms shouting "Cease fire, friendlies, I am Pat (expletive) Tillman, damn it!" again and again.

But the latest documents give a different account from a chaplain who debriefed the entire unit days after Tillman was killed.

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 ..."

Anger as a motive? ( pure speculation on my part of course )

Editited to add the strikethrough because, after re-reading it and other articles on the subject, it just didn't make sense.

 

[tomahawk6]

The shot group was 3 bullets in the forehead inside a 2" diameter. Rather improbable for the shots were fired from anything but close range. The investigation discounted a sniper as none were with Tillman's element. The Army clearly feels the shooting was accidental but then I dont think a forensic investigation was ever done.