The Tillman Mess
“Cease fire, friendlies, I am Pat (expletive) Tillman, damn it!” the NFL star shouted, again and again.
How do we know this? I am not questioning that just to be a jerk. I would really like to know who reported that Tillman was screaming to identify himself. Surely not the guys who were shooting at him. Maybe there were others down in the hole with him that just laid low until the shooting stopped and they are the guys who heard his cries. I just don’t know.
Also, I feel sure it is not standard operating procedure for a soldier to shoot at anybody who is standing up and waving his arms.
One of the four shooters, Staff Sgt. Trevor Alders, had recently had PRK laser eye surgery. He said although he could see two sets of hands “straight up,” his vision was “hazy.” In the absence of “friendly identifying signals,” he assumed Tillman and an allied Afghan who also was killed were enemy.
Maybe we could update the manual and indicate that two sets of hands straight up in the air could possibly fall under the “friendly identifying signals” category. What is a friendly identifying signal? Name the loser of the 1936 World Series? That is kind of hard to do when you are down in a canyon dodging bullets.
Impatience was rising at the tactical operations center at Forward Operating Base Salerno, near Khowst, Afghanistan, where officers coordinated the movements of several platoons. Led by then-Maj. David Hodne, the so-called Cross-Functional Team worked at a U-shaped table inside a 20-by-30-foot tent with a projection screen and a satellite radio.
When I read this I couldn’t help but think of the words
I feel terrible for soldiers. Especially those who are God only knows where doing God only knows what for only God knows who.
I agree with Stanley Baldwin. War would end if the dead could return.
