Perspective on Pat Tillman

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1. Retired Spook

   July 27th, 2007 at 8:03 am

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   I’ve been reading your blog for a couple months, but this is the first time I’ve felt compelled to comment.

   I’ve read the linked article twice, and I don’t see anything that reflects negatively on Pat Tillman’s patriotism or any reference to Chomsky. Am I missing something? Now his brother, Kevin, is something else — he’s a Leftist kook.

   I do concur that 3 in the forehead, even from 30 feet away, is a pretty good grouping to be accidental. If the wounds were side by side, though, it’s possible that he stood up just as someone behind him fired off a side-to-side burst from an M16 on full auto. The article doesn’t say whether the shots were through and through or whether the rounds were recovered and matched to a specific weapon. And I haven’t followed this story closely enough to know whether or not that information has been made available to the public. This may be one of those instances where we’ll never know the whole truth unless someone gets a guilty conscience and confesses.

2. Macranger

   July 27th, 2007 at 8:47 am

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   Spook, my bad.

   It’s not a question of his “patriotism”, simply stating the fact that Pat was in fact antiwar before he was killed. As to his “Chomsky” meetings, Here’s the link

   http://www.reason.com/blog/show/111117.html

   In spite of that, no one - even a liberal soldier - deserves to be killed by his own comrades, and let me be clear, if true there must be justice.

3. jonswift

   July 27th, 2007 at 10:15 am

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   It’s shocking that anyone could believe you support fragging American soldiers, even liberal ones, just as the folks at Blackfive certainly don’t support fragging Scott Thomas Beauchamp. They just want to rough him up a little. But, you know, accidents can happen.

4. clarice

   July 27th, 2007 at 12:28 pm

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   This post was not worthy of you. He gave up a lucrative position to serve his country.
   As for his being a leftist, the evidence is thin.

   I think you should add an apology or remove the post, Mac. It reflects badly on you.

5. Macranger

   July 27th, 2007 at 1:07 pm

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   Nothing in the post slames Tilman or his sacrifice - howbeit by accident or otherwise.

   According to two of his bunk mates and his brother he was a clear fan of Noam Chomsky as the link entails, and according to his brother who served next to him once referred to the war as “F-king illegal”.

   Doesn’t subtract from his life, motives or sacrifice.

   However, he was misused by the right as much the left and both uses abhorant because they subtracted and clouded who he actually was. Simply a soldier who perished in the battle.

   No apology for that, just the facts as they are.

6. anduril

   July 27th, 2007 at 2:38 pm

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   Anyone who has any familiarity with an M-16 will have been struck by the business about 3 shots to the forehead. An M-16 has 3 manually selected firing modes:

   1. single shot–one trigger squeeze = one round fired;

   2. short burst–one trigger squeeze = THREE rounds fired;

   3. full auto–one trigger squeeze = fire until the trigger is released or you run out of ammo. A sensitive trigger finger can yield short bursts in full auto mode, as well, but in combat that would be very unlikely–if you wanted to fire single shots or short bursts you’d select accordingly, if you had it on full auto you’d let it rip.

   I have to agree with spook: when I saw three bullet holes in the forehead my reaction was, that was some fine, well aimed shooting by someone who had his M-16 on short burst mode and was firing at pretty darn close range.

   While the M-16 has rather light recoil characteristics, even short bursts of three rounds will cause the muzzle to rise and the target pattern to spread to the right and upwards. At 10 yards, putting those three rounds into a human forehead requires an aimed shot (not just a reflex shot) and excellent control of the weapon. Even at that range it would be normal for the last shot to be off target (for a target as small as a normal human forehead), since the tendency is to aim for the center of the target and not to the left of center.

7. shm10

   July 27th, 2007 at 2:57 pm

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   Mac:

   Check out Blackfive.

   He seems to have a lot of questions about this report. I wish they would let this man RIP.

   I do not know enough about munitions to speak intelligently on this but one of his questions stood out..Did the family not know this in viewing Pat Tillmans body or seeing an autopsy report prior to this?

   I do not know what to make of this all the way around and will certainly be watching to see as news develops.

   We are in agreement, if the brass screwed up, then they should be disciplined. And if someone committed murder, they should be punished.

8. DaleinAtlanta

   July 29th, 2007 at 5:11 am

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   Mac: gotta take a seperate path from you on this one!

   First, I don’t know if he was a “leftist” or not; personally, I find the post-mortem reports of his suddenly “leftist” political leaning a bit too convenient, if you ask me.

   Regardless of his political leanings however, he choose to volunteer, and served his country in both theaters of war, and he was killed by his brothers-in-arms in circumstances that seem to me, a former Vet myself, to very suspicious at the worst, and just plain downright criminal at best.

   But the whole cover-up, Silver Star thing at the end, IS criminal, and a disgrace; and I think your flippancy is a bit misplaced on this.

   Andruil: I agree, having fired many thousands of rounds out of the M-16A2, which is the first version to come equipped with the 3-round burst function you mention, even from 10yds away, to put 3 rounds into that tight of group, is almost impossible!

   This thing stinks to high-heaven!