Snivel Me a River
The other Tillman is still whining:
Oh, sit down and be quiet, you sniveling little brat. Friendly fire is a part of war; it always has been. It is unfortunate and it is something you make every effort to avoid, but it is an unalterable fact of war. It can no more be eliminated than war itself can be eliminated.
Pat Tillman volunteered for one of the most dangerous jobs in the military, and he did it knowing the risks -- including the risk of death by friendly fire. Everyone who has ever volunteered for the infantry, myself included, has understood that risk implicitly.
The Pentagon was doing what is always done in the case of friendly fire incidents: try to mitigate the impact to morale and combat effectiveness. Disinformation is also a part of war -- a big one, in fact. The only "hijacking" here was done by you. In fact, from a certain point of view, you have aided and abetted the enemy by destroying carefully crafted disinformation, just as your cohort in ignorance Ms. Lynch did by denying the Army press releases. Information is a weapon as surely as a rifle or a tank.
If the Army's actions offended you, tough nuts. Their job is to win wars, not soothe your ego. Because until you have the balls required to earn and wear the uniform of an infantryman, and until you have actually been in the horrendous confusion of a firefight, your opinions on the subject mean less than nothing -- personal loss or not.
UPDATE: (See comments)
Kevin Tillman on Tuesday blamed the government for trying to "hijack" his brother’s virtue and legacy when they withheld the truth about the friendly fire death of Cpl. Pat Tillman in Afghanistan.
"Pat was and still is a great man," Kevin Tillman said in testimony at the hearing of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in Washington, D.C. "Pat wanted to leave a positive legacy and he did. For the government to hijack his virtue and legacy is horrific."
Kevin Tillman also slammed the narrative that accompanied his brother’s Silver Star as "utter fiction" and said his brother was used as a "sales asset."
"With any luck, our family would sink into our grief," he said. "But they underestimated our family’s reaction."
"This was not some fog of war. [The soldiers] simply lost control," he said.
Oh, sit down and be quiet, you sniveling little brat. Friendly fire is a part of war; it always has been. It is unfortunate and it is something you make every effort to avoid, but it is an unalterable fact of war. It can no more be eliminated than war itself can be eliminated.
Pat Tillman volunteered for one of the most dangerous jobs in the military, and he did it knowing the risks -- including the risk of death by friendly fire. Everyone who has ever volunteered for the infantry, myself included, has understood that risk implicitly.
The Pentagon was doing what is always done in the case of friendly fire incidents: try to mitigate the impact to morale and combat effectiveness. Disinformation is also a part of war -- a big one, in fact. The only "hijacking" here was done by you. In fact, from a certain point of view, you have aided and abetted the enemy by destroying carefully crafted disinformation, just as your cohort in ignorance Ms. Lynch did by denying the Army press releases. Information is a weapon as surely as a rifle or a tank.
If the Army's actions offended you, tough nuts. Their job is to win wars, not soothe your ego. Because until you have the balls required to earn and wear the uniform of an infantryman, and until you have actually been in the horrendous confusion of a firefight, your opinions on the subject mean less than nothing -- personal loss or not.
UPDATE: (See comments)
posted by Jar(egg)head at 11:54
2 Comments:
actually Jeff, Kevin Tillman joined the military at the same time that his brother did. Check out the Wikipedia entry on Kevin Tillman (how come I don't have a Wikipedia entry yet? Even .200 career hitters in baseball have entries).
That makes it even worse. Now he's a whiny brat who somehow managed to squeeze through Ranger School... I can't imagine how. He should already understand intuitively everything I wrote above.
If he honestly believes all that crap he's spewing, then he's descended to the level of Ron Kovic. I'd have more respect for him if he'd just been a slimy civilian. Now he can add betrayal of trust to his list of "accomplishments."
As I said, friendly fire incidents occur every day during a war. They always have. Just as a small example, there were several incidents in the World War II Pacific Theater where Allied forces attacked and sank Allied ships. But there wasn't a media circus about it, and there wasn't constant infighting, bickering, and accusations to feed our enemy's propaganda machine. The reasoning behind it should be blindingly obvious.
Yes, his brother was killed by friendly fire. Yes, the Pentagon decided to suppress the details for damage control -- just as they have thousands of times in the past. That sucks, to be sure. But undermining a two-front war effort is not going to bring his brother back to life, and that is precisely all that Mr. Tillman is accomplishing with this incessant media-whoring.
What is it he wants? Should the President of the United States stand up and say "Pat Tillman was not a hero. Pat Tillman didn't earn a Silver Star. Pat Tillman was shot down like a rabid dog by people who made the same mistake which has been made thousands of times since the dawn of history." Will that make it all better?
Kevin Tillman has made clear to me where his loyalties lay, and they are most certainly not in line with the oath he swore. I wonder if he even remembers it.
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