What becomes of Tillman's Silver Star

[NJmaverick]

The army in it's rush to capitalize on Tillman's death made a major blunder. They awarded Tillman the Silver Star.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/04/30/tillman /

Now that we are learning the truth, Tillman did not qualify for this award. There were no enemy, which is required. In fact if you read the army report, Tillman was a major cause of the whole friendly fire incident and ordered his men to fire at his own people. So what becomes of this medal, is it taken back now that the truth is known?

[Media_Lies_Daily]

1. It just gets worse and worse, doesn't it?

[Curious Dave]

2. Could you please

Provide a link to the Army's report on this. Thanks

[NJmaverick]

7. The Army VS the Truth

Here is the Army's story:

"Tillman's platoon was split into two sections. Tillman was the team leader of the lead section when the trail section began receiving suppressive mortar and small-arms fire. ... cavernous terrain made it extremely difficult to target enemy positions, and there was no room for the trail element to maneuver out of the kill zone.

Even though his element was out of the area that had come under fire, Tillman "ordered his team to dismount and maneuvered his team up a hill toward the enemy's location," the Army said.

During the battle, he issued "fire commands to take the fight to the enemy on the dominating high ground," the statement continued.

"Only after his team engaged the well-armed enemy did it appear their fires diminished."

Because of Tillman's leadership and his team's efforts, the trail section under fire "was able to maneuver through the ambush to positions of safety without a single casualty," the Army said.



Here is what really happened:

But an Afghan official told The Associated Press a different account of what he heard from Afghan militiamen.


The source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the two groups had drifted apart while on combat patrol.


"Suddenly, the sound of a mine explosion was heard somewhere between the two groups, and the Americans in one group started firing," the official said.


Tillman's death was the latest in a series of friendly fire incidents in Afghanistan and Iraq that have taken the lives of more than 30 U.S. troops. Most of the deaths are the result of targeting errors with bombs and missiles.

[daa]

3. Nothing will be done

didn't OxyMoron do a whole show on this guy?

[kalian]

4. He ordered to fire on friendlies....?

Wasn't the original "report" stating that they had been ambushed and
that "several" Taliban were killed...? Does this mean that we had
a very bad case of "blue-on-blue" were several Rangers were killed?

Hmmm...very interesting.

Who knows...maybe Tillman went renegade.

[tabasco]

5. He will keep it.

- His unit was engaged in combat against an enemy unit. Apparently he was fighting quite courageously, and unfortunately, was killed by bullets from US troops. That doesn't detract from his actions in response to enemy contact. Very sad.
- I maintain that the US could have conducted a much more effective operation in Afghanistan, if the Bush cabal was not withholding forces for the unjust war in Iraq. We could have kept casualties on both sides lower without the cruel and ineffective carpet bombing, and we would have captured more al qaeda. If the Bush cabal had focused on Afghanistan, the situation could have been stabilized sooner, and Tillman might still be alive.

[alcuno]

6. I heard that there was no enemy combat unit.

There were two groups of Americans and Afghans who split up. There was a possible explosion in the distance and someone in one of the groups mistakenly fired on the other group. They were shooting at each other; not the enemy.

[tabasco]

10. I've only read that there was contact, and things went FUBAR.

I don't think the Army is lying about what happened. They came out and admitted it was friendly fire, so I don't think there's a cover up happening. He might have been maneuvering his team to help another unit in contact, when the other unit fired on him by mistake. That's what I figure happened. I haven't seen any reports that said there was no contact, but if you can provide links, I would be interested in reading them.

[madrchsod]

8. you`re right in thinking that they

could have run a better operation. they used the wrong troops in key operations-using troops untrained in mountain operations,etc,etc. there should have been better use of special ops and other speciality "items" to track bin and his band of merry men...but maybe they really didn`t care..we are coming up on a thousand days since bush said -"dead or alive" and still no bin..the whole thing is a farce and the american military know it.

[tabasco]

9. IMO, not enough ground troops.

I thought they would put one division at one end of Tora Bora, and another division at the other end, and send a brigade through the pass to chase out the guerillas. But the Bush leadership team relied on Afghan warlords, Pakistanis, and carpet bombing to get the job done. Anybody that has been in the military for a few days will tell you have to put troops on the ground for this type of operation. It almost seems like they wanted to screw it up. Total incompetence and outright, intentional sabotage of the mission, because they wanted Iraqi oil. The Bush cabal is a gang of traitors. In my dreams, they rot in prison.

[progressivebydesign]

12. We're buying Bush's lines that OBL was even there!

Hell... he could have been anywhere.. we're taking Bush's word on that to justify the attacks. Remember, we promised the Taliban that if they did not agree to our plan to run that oil pipeline, they'd be carpeted with bombs.. that was back in June 2001. 9/11 gave Bush the opening to do just that. All he had to do was make Afghanistan and the Taliban tie in to OBL. Hell.. I don't speak their language, I'll never know if they were hiding OBL or not. If we can now see how Bush lied his way into Iraq, can any of us deny that the same deception could have been used to start that war in Afghanistan?

A war on terror is something that Clinton was doing all along.. police actions, covert activities, and good diplomacy, not to mention fair economic practices toward other countries. The war on terror cannot be "won", because terrorism will never go away.. it's a method, not an enemy.

[progressivebydesign]

11. No.. he wasn't under fire... the last report said that..

.. they jumped the gun, so to speak, when a mine went off, and began firing at each other's group.

He'll keep his medal, but it looks pretty obvious it was just a complete, tragic mistake.

[tabasco]

15. Well, I'm glad they didn't cover it up.

This is even more FUBAR than I imagined, then.

[scarface2004]

13. according to army regs...

he will be stripped of his silver star tomorrow.

[stopbush]

14. Oh, they'll let Tillman's family keep it as a foil to Kerry's SS.

That way, Coulter and Rush can say things like, "Kerry earned a SS? So what? What's that take? Hell, you can get shot in the back by your own troops and they'll give ya the SS."