True heroes to memorialize today

[ghengis86]

Idea from another thread; who are the real heroes today? Who should be remembered today did their sacrifice?

Bradley Manning and Hugh Thompson Jr
https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-prn1/533009_321117954632763_1768288606_n.jpg

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Thompson,_Jr.
In the early morning of March 16, 1968, Thompson's OH-23 encountered no enemy fire over My Lai 4. Spotting two possible Viet Cong suspects, he forced the Vietnamese men to surrender and flew them off for a tactical interrogation. Thompson also marked the location of several wounded Vietnamese with green smoke, a signal that they needed help.[5]

Returning to the My Lai area at around 0900 after refueling, he noticed that the people he had marked were now dead. Out in a paddy field beside a dike 200 metres (660*ft) south of the village, he marked the location of a wounded young Vietnamese woman. Thompson and his crew watched from a low hover as Captain Ernest Medina (commanding officer of C Company, 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment) came up to the woman, prodded her with his foot, and then shot and killed her.

Thompson then flew over an irrigation ditch filled with dozens of bodies. Shocked at the sight, he radioed his accompanying gunships, knowing his transmission would be monitored by many on the radio net: "It looks to me like there's an awful lot of unnecessary killing going on down there. Something ain't right about this. There's bodies everywhere. There's a ditch full of bodies that we saw. There's something wrong here."[6]

Movement from the ditch indicated to Thompson that there were still people alive in there. Thompson landed his helicopter and dismounted. David Mitchell, a sergeant and squad leader in 1st Platoon, C Company, walked over to him. When asked by Thompson whether any help could be provided to the people in the ditch, the sergeant replied that the only way to help them was to put them out of their misery. Second Lieutenant William Calley (commanding officer of the 1st Platoon, C Company) then came up, and the two had the following conversation:[7]

Thompson: What's going on here, Lieutenant?
Calley: This is my business.
Thompson: What is this? Who are these people?
Calley: Just following orders.
Thompson: Orders? Whose orders?
Calley: Just following...
Thompson: But, these are human beings, unarmed civilians, sir.
Calley: Look Thompson, this is my show. I'm in charge here. It ain't your concern.
Thompson: Yeah, great job.
Calley: You better get back in that chopper and mind your own business.
Thompson: You ain't heard the last of this!
Thompson took off again, and Andreotta reported that Mitchell was now executing the people in the ditch. Furious, Thompson flew over the northeast corner of the village and spotted a group of about ten civilians, including children, running toward a homemade bomb shelter. Pursuing them were soldiers from the 2nd Platoon, C Company. Realizing that the soldiers intended to murder the Vietnamese, Thompson landed his aircraft between them and the villagers. Thompson turned to Colburn and Andreotta and told them that if the Americans began shooting at the villagers or him, they should fire their M60 machine guns at the Americans:[8] "Y'all cover me! If these bastards open up on me or these people, you open up on them. Promise me!" He then dismounted to confront the 2nd Platoon's leader, Stephen Brooks. Thompson told him he wanted help getting the peasants out of the bunker:[8]

Thompson: Hey listen, hold your fire. I'm going to try to get these people out of this bunker. Just hold your men here.
Brooks: Yeah, we can help you get 'em out of that bunker—with a hand grenade!
Thompson: Just hold your men here. I think I can do better than that.
Brooks declined to argue with him, even though as a commissioned officer he outranked Thompson.

After coaxing the 11 Vietnamese out of the bunker, Thompson persuaded the pilots of the two UH-1 Huey gunships (Dan Millians and Brian Livingstone) flying as his escort to evacuate them.[9] While Thompson was returning to base to refuel, Andreotta spotted movement in an irrigation ditch filled with approximately 100 bodies. The helicopter again landed and the men dismounted to search for survivors. After wading through the remains of the dead and dying men, women and children, Andreotta extracted a live boy named Do Ba. Thompson flew the survivor to the ARVN hospital in Quang Ngai.

Upon returning to their base at about 1100, Thompson heatedly reported the massacre to his superiors.[10] His allegations of civilian killings quickly reached Lieutenant Colonel Frank Barker, the operation's overall commander. Barker radioed his executive officer to find out from Captain Medina what was happening on the ground. Medina then gave the cease-fire order to Charlie Company to "knock off the killing".

After the massacre

Thompson made an official report of the killings, and was interviewed by Colonel Oran Henderson, the commander of the 11th Infantry Brigade (the parent organization of the 20th Infantry).[11] Concerned, senior Americal officers cancelled similar planned operations by Task Force Barker against other villages (My Lai 5, My Lai 1, etc.) in Quang Ngai Province, possibly preventing the additional massacre of hundreds, if not thousands, of Vietnamese civilians.[12]

Initially, commanders throughout the American chain*of*command were successful in covering*up the My Lai Massacre. Thompson quickly received the Distinguished Flying Cross for his actions at My Lai. The citation for the award fabricated events, for example praising Thompson for taking to a hospital a Vietnamese child "caught in intense crossfire". It also stated that his "sound judgment had greatly enhanced Vietnamese–American relations in the operational area." Thompson threw*away the citation.[13]

Thompson continued to fly observation missions in the OH-23 Raven and was hit by enemy fire a total of eight times. In four of those instances, his aircraft was lost.[14] In the last incident, his helicopter was brought down by enemy machine gun fire, and he broke his back in the resulting crash landing. This ended his combat career in Vietnam, and he was evacuated to a hospital in Japan and began a long period of rehabilitation. He carried psychological scars from his service in Vietnam for the rest of his life.

When news of the massacre publicly broke, Thompson repeated his account to then-Colonel William Wilson [15] and then-Lieutenant General William Peers during their official Pentagon investigations.[16] In late 1969, Thompson was summoned to Washington DC and appeared before a special closed hearing of the House Armed Services Committee. There, he was sharply criticized by Congressmen, in particular Chairman Mendel Rivers (D-S.C.), who were anxious to play down allegations of a massacre by American troops.[17] Rivers publicly stated that he felt Thompson was the only soldier at My Lai who should be punished (for turning his weapons on fellow American troops) and unsuccessfully attempted to have him court-martialed.[1] As word of his actions became publicly known, Thompson started receiving hate mail, death threats and mutilated animals on his doorstep.[3]

Add your own.

[ghengis86]

War is a Racket
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smedley_Butler

[dillo]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smedley_Butler

Smedley Darlington Butler[1] (July 30, 1881 – June 21, 1940) was a Major General in the U.S. Marine Corps, an outspoken critic of U.S. military adventurism, and at the time of his death the most decorated Marine in U.S. history.

During his 34-year career as a Marine, he participated in military actions in the Philippines, China, in Central America and the Caribbean during the Banana Wars, and France in World War I. By the end of his career, he had received 16 medals, five for heroism. He is one of 19 men to twice receive the Medal of Honor, one of three to be awarded both the Marine Corps Brevet Medal and the Medal of Honor, and the only man to be awarded the Brevet Medal and two Medals of Honor, all for separate actions.

In his 1935 book War is a Racket, he described the workings of the military-industrial complex and, after retiring from service, became a popular speaker at meetings organized by veterans, pacifists and church groups in the 1930s.

In 1934, he became involved in a controversy known as the Business Plot when he told a congressional committee that a group of wealthy industrialists were planning a military coup to overthrow Franklin D. Roosevelt. The purported plot would have had Butler leading a mass of armed veterans in a march on Washington. The individuals identified denied the existence of a plot, and the media ridiculed the allegations. The final report of the committee stated that there was evidence that such a plot existed, but no charges were ever filed. The opinion of most historians is that while planning for a coup was not very advanced, wild schemes were discussed.

Butler continued his speaking engagements in an extended tour, but in June 1940 checked himself into a naval hospital, dying a few weeks later from what was believed to be cancer. He was buried at Oaklands Cemetery in West Chester, Pennsylvania; his home has been maintained as a memorial and contains memorabilia collected during his various careers.

[ghengis86]

Ike had some pretty good quotes about the MIC and the dangers of losing freedom at the hands of the government and not a foreign nation.

[Anti Federalist]

Pat Tillman

http://www.veteranstoday.com/2011/04/22/jb-campbell-killing-pat-tillman/

Today is the seventh anniversary of Pat Tillman’s assassination in Afghanistan. On April 22, 2004 Tillman and several other Army Rangers were given an odd order to split their motorized squad and proceed toward a village called Magarah. The original mission was to recover a broken-down Humvee from a rocky and almost impassable trail through a steep gorge. The Humvee was being towed by a local “jinga” truck, rather than by one of the working Humvees. Tillman and the others got to the village before the guys with the towed Humvee and were waiting for them when three Afghan kids fired an RPG, with an effective range of 250 yards, from 800 yards. It hit on the wall of the gorge and made some noise and loosened up some dirt and rocks. But, no harm done. Nevertheless, the vaunted Rangers lost control of themselves and fired their arsenal of a .50 caliber Browning, 40mm grenade machine gun, .30 caliber machine guns and .223 caliber machine guns plus their small .223 rifles, called M-4s. They fired until they were out of ammo and had to get into their reserve ammo supply.

Tillman and the other guys were watching this show from above. Tillman’s sergeant, Matthew Weeks, ordered him and Bryan O’Neal and an Afghan named Thani to go down on foot closer to the road, which they did. The lead Humvee came within view of Tillman and from a range of about one hundred feet, opened up on him and the two others, killing the Afghan and wounding Tillman after he waved his arms at them not to shoot. They dove behind a couple of one-foot high rocks and O’Neal asked if he was okay. One of Tillman’s legs was severely wounded. He threw a purple smoke grenade to show they were Americans and kept yelling at the nearby Humvee shooters. Both Tillman and O’Neal waved their arms at the Humvee. The Rangers in the Humvees stopped shooting for a minute. Tillman and O’Neal thought it was safe to show themselves.

Tillman identified himself loudly, saying “Hold your fire! I’m Pat f****** Tillman!” Specialist Trevor Alders opened up again with his .223 machine gun and hit Pat Tillman from about one hundred feet away. Now, both Tillman and O’Neal were in the same uniforms as the other Rangers, wearing the distinctive Kevlar helmets, carrying the same M-4 rifles. The Humvee guys knew that the other guys were up ahead and still they did this.

Here’s where it gets strange. The autopsy photos supposedly show three .223 holes in Tillman’s forehead, in a two- to three-inch group. I haven’t seen the photos. It is not possible to shoot a three-inch group into a guy’s forehead with a machine gun from one hundred feet, for several reasons. Number one, high-power rounds do not follow each other single file into the target; they veer off a little from the recoil of the one just before. Yes, once you get the gun settled down from the first few rounds, you can bring it to bear pretty closely but not that closely. A look at the rock next to Tillman’s position with about twenty hits on it shows the shotgun-like spread resulting from the weapons jumping around slightly. A hundred foot range allows a pretty good spread from any machine gun.

Number two, the Kevlar helmet covers the forehead and generally stops the .223 round. Number three, the guy drops from the first hit and you can’t follow him down to put the second and third rounds next to the first hole. Number four, a .223 round to the forehead doesn’t leave any forehead for the next two rounds to put holes in. The only way you can get a group of three .223 rifle bullets so tight is to kill the guy with the first shot and then shoot him again twice more when you get next to him. But three high-power holes in a tight little group? No way.

Now, the story has changed a little since the original lies were told. Now it’s said that the back of his head was missing, which would make sense after just one .223 hit him in the front, except for that helmet. Jack Kennedy was apparently hit with a .223 round from a Remington XP-100 and the back of his head was missing, too. But it’s come out that SPC O’Neal has said that all that was left of Tillman’s head was a flap of face-skin, which makes sense if three .223 rounds hit him in the head, so devastating is any high-power rifle round. Except for the helmet.

I didn’t know about the facial devastation until today. Like everyone else interested in this, I’d read that Tillman’s head looked pretty normal except for the three .223 bullet holes in his forehead, which meant only one thing: a low-power .22 pistol. The report that almost all of his head was gone indicates that he was not hit by Trevor Alders and his machine gun from a hundred feet but by someone else much closer with his M-4 carbine. The M-4 is just an M-16 with a short barrel and collapsible stock. The pathologist reported that the range of the shots was maybe five feet, which definitely makes it murder. How do you shoot holes in a guy’s forehead when he’s wearing a Kevlar helmet?

Stan Goff, a Ranger veteran writing for Counterpunch, assures us that Tillman was not assassinated but just killed by bad fire control, that the bizarre performance of the Rangers that day could not have been contrived to culminate in Tillman’s murder. He doesn’t explain how Pat f****** Tillman could be mistaken for a bad guy wearing what he was wearing, yelling and waving his arms, popping purple smoke in daylight, diving for cover behind a low rock, not shooting at anyone.

It didn’t have to happen that particular day. It just had to happen sometime when there were guns going off to make it “a mistake.” It was as good a day as any to kill Pat Tillman, because he had to be killed.

Tillman had naively made contact with the CIA’s Noam Chomsky to discuss his plans to reveal what he knew about the lies of Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld in the War on Terror. He was apparently also angry about the US Army’s support of the Afghan opium trade, started up by the army after the Taliban had eradicated it one hundred percent during their four-year reign. The US Army authorized the Northern Alliance to resume poppy production, according to Fox News shortly after we invaded Afghanistan.

The thing was, if you’ve forgotten, Pat Tillman had forsaken his multi-million dollar pro-football contract with the Arizona Cardinals to join his brother Kevin in the Army Rangers to hunt down the CIA’s Osama bin Laden directly after the attack on the World Trade Center in late 2001. Never mind that Osama had immediately denied any involvement in the massacre and had in addition pointed to the US government and the Mossad, the latter’s role now confirmed by the revelations of Dimitri Khalezov.

Pat Tillman was probably the greatest recruiting asset that the Neo-Cons had, until they sent him and Kevin from Afghanistan to Iraq in ‘03. Tillman became quite bitter and outspoken about the invasion of Iraq, figuring Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11. So they were sent back to Afghanistan, where they discovered the opium trade being protected and supported by the US Army. Now, they’re both pretty upset. Pat Tillman went from the Neo-Con dream to nightmare and needed to be shut up before he could tell America about the lies of its leaders.

Ironically, the Tillman brothers were part of the security detail of the joint services “rescue” of Jessica Lynch from an Iraqi hospital in April ’03. The Lynch saga was clumsy neo-con propaganda, a totally fictional tale of non-existent heroics and sexual assault following a vehicle accident. The truth was that Iraqi doctors had treated Lynch properly and well, saving her life, and repeatedly notifying the Americans of her location and condition, urging them to come get her. The rescue was as phony as the legend cooked up by the DC liars. Lynch did perform heroically when she revealed the lies that had been told about her. She’d been knocked unconscious in the accident and never shot or stabbed anyone nor pulled grenade pins with her teeth, etc., etc.

The death of Pat Tillman got the same heroic legend as Jessica Lynch got, with the first version being that he was shot by the Taliban while getting out of his Humvee. The second version, told to the family about the time of the funeral, was that he was shot while leading a charge up the hill toward the enemy. The third lie was that it was “friendly fire.” Friendly fire refers to the accidental killing of your own guys, which happens all the time, since weapons training regarding safety and fire control are virtually non-existent in the military. Such things have to be trained from childhood, over years.

Mary Tillman, Pat’s mother, wrote a good book about all this in 2008 in which she suggested that her son was deliberately murdered by his fellow Rangers, reserving most of her anger for General Stanley McChrystal, who led the lying coverup of the murder. Since then, she appears to have dropped the charge of assassination, for what reason is not clear. But there can be no doubt that the Rangers shot Pat Tillman deliberately and with malice on April 22, 2004. They shot and wounded him first and then waited while he popped purple smoke to let them know he was “friendly.” Then they started shooting again and didn’t stop until he was dead. The army gave him a Mafia funeral with the same Mafia sanctimony that Johnny Torrio sent to Dion O’Bannion’s funeral. The family only found out weeks later that it wasn’t enemy fire that killed Pat. It took a little longer to realize it wasn’t friendly fire, either.

[jdcole]

The third lie was that it was “friendly fire.” Friendly fire refers to the accidental killing of your own guys, which happens all the time, since weapons training regarding safety and fire control are virtually non-existent in the military. Such things have to be trained from childhood, over years.

Funny, since I just got out of the Marine Corps a little over a year ago. We had weapons safety drilled into our bodies - I don't know where you get this asinine idea that somehow our military is full of fuckups and flunkees.

I would ask all to remember that our military is voluntary in nature - nobody is forced to sign the dotted line. Nobody had a gun held to his or her head. These men and women, whatever their reason for enlisting, chose to do so in a time of war. They believe, as I did, that they are doing the right thing and that serving their country is a noble cause, which it is.

I had a much longer message in mind, but I find myself humbled by my brothers and sisters in arms. I pray for their safe and expedient return.

[dillo]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_P._Murphy

Michael Patrick Murphy (May 7, 1976 – June 28, 2005) was a United States Navy SEAL posthumously awarded the United States military's highest decoration, the Medal of Honor, for his actions in 2005 during the War in Afghanistan. He was the first person to be awarded the medal for actions in Afghanistan; and the first member of the U.S. Navy to receive the award since the Vietnam War.

Michael Murphy was born and raised in Suffolk County, New York. After graduating from high school he went to Penn State, graduating with honors and dual degrees in both political science and psychology. After college he accepted a commission in the United States Navy and became a United States Navy SEAL in July 2002.

Murphy was sent on several missions while participating in the Global War on Terrorism and was killed on June 28, 2005 after his team was compromised and surrounded by Taliban forces near Asadabad, Afghanistan.

In addition to the Medal of Honor, Murphy received other awards including the Silver Star and Purple Heart. Since his death, a United States Navy destroyer, a post office, a combat training pool in Newport, RI Naval Base, and a park have been named in his honor.

this is what I think of when I hear of special forces

[Anti Federalist]

So the lies and horseshit that the Pentagon fed his family about the circumstances of his death were OK, because he "signed up for it"?

That about the long and short of it?


Funny, since I just got out of the Marine Corps a little over a year ago. We had weapons safety drilled into our bodies - I don't know where you get this asinine idea that somehow our military is full of fuckups and flunkees.

I would ask all to remember that our military is voluntary in nature - nobody is forced to sign the dotted line. Nobody had a gun held to his or her head. These men and women, whatever their reason for enlisting, chose to do so in a time of war. They believe, as I did, that they are doing the right thing and that serving their country is a noble cause, which it is.

I had a much longer message in mind, but I find myself humbled by my brothers and sisters in arms. I pray for their safe and expedient return.

[Galileo Galilei]

John Paul Jones.

[Anti Federalist]

From one of our own.

And I'm as guilty as he, we all are, we all are culpable and there ain't no saints in this mess.

We all have blood on our hands.


I write this Veteran’s day to apologize.

I swore to defend the constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and I failed that oath.

I failed to stand against a government who passed the PATRIOT act in violation of the 4th Amendment.

I failed by deploying without a formal declaration of war in violation of Article 1 section 8.

I failed to liberate people held indefinitely without charges in violation of Article 1, section 9, and the 5th Amendment.

I failed to stand against digitally strip searching, or enhanced pat-downs without probable cause or warrant in violation of the 4th Amendment.

I failed to defend Farmers from being raided by FDA agents for selling Fresh milk.

I failed to stand against assassinating American citizens on an accusation in violation of the 5th, 6th, and 14th Amendments.

I can’t name all the constitutional violations the federal government has taken. There are other violations by state and local governments such as the murder and cover-up of a deaf man by Seattle Police, or the violations from before I took my oath.

Victimless laws classified as crimes against government are what Thomas Jefferson defined as Tyranny, or that which is illegal for the people, but legal for the government.

I failed because I haven’t stood up. I am a coward, caring more for my career than for American’s liberty. I failed my duty, and I’ve no honor on Veteran’s day. America is not the land of the free because I haven’t been brave.

[jdcole]

So the lies and horseshit that the Pentagon fed his family about the circumstances of his death were OK, because he "signed up for it"?

That about the long and short of it?

Did I say that? My message was directed at the notion that somehow our troops don't learn proper weapons safety and handling, which I know from experience is a flat-out lie.

Fact of the matter is, the only people who actually know what happened that day were the Rangers on the ground - anything else is speculation and hearsay. It's shitty what happened, but since when do we value one life more than others? What happened to Tillman was a tragedy (and possibly a travesty), but only God and those Rangers know what really happened.

We do all have blood on our hands, but don't act so sanctimonious about it just because you acknowledge that fact. You're no better than the rest of us. We should instead focus on educating and informing, rather than back-biting, bickering, and straight insulting our men and women in uniform.

[green73]

This guy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Trxs-ypR804

[Anti Federalist]

rather than back-biting, bickering, and straight insulting our men and women in uniform.

Nowhere did I "insult" anybody.

At the same time, I will not canonize nor worship "the men and women in uniform".

Why should I?

They are the enforcement arm, the "pointy end of the stick" if you will, of a government that I believe has gone completely rogue, off the reservation and tyrannical.

Why should I celebrate the people that are doing the killing for that government, carrying out acts of aggression against and vaporizing people who have done nothing to me.

[Liberty's Landing]

Nowhere did I "insult" anybody.

At the same time, I will not canonize nor worship "the men and women in uniform".

Why should I?

They are the enforcement arm, the "pointy end of the stick" if you will, of a government that I believe has gone completely rogue, off the reservation and tyrannical.

Why should I celebrate the people that are doing the killing for that government, carrying out acts of aggression against and vaporizing people who have done nothing to me.

I notice you waited until 1201 to post this. I wonder if you had the computer all spooled up and ready so you couldn't be accused of posting it on Memorial Day. But, I don't know. I can only guess.

Lucky for you, you don't have to celebrate anything at all on Memorial Day. I don't celebrate anything, myself, on Memorial Day.

I do, however, spend some time thinking about four friends of mine. CPT Marcus Alford, CW2 Billie Jean Grinder, CW4 Daniel Cole, and 1LT Thomas Williams. All four of them loved their country, and died for it. None of them would expect you to 'canonize or worship' them.

And I don't expect you to 'celebrate' them either. Surely, not after last night's diatribe.

I see your point. It is well taken. I would only like to say that people serve in uniform for a variety of reasons and with a variety of concerns as they do so. Be careful not to paint everyone with a wide brush.

Maybe if you knew the four people I mentioned earlier, you would understand why someone like me might find all of your copying and pasting a full minute after Memorial Day offensive. But, you have that right I guess. I'll just keep it in mind as we interact here...or don't interact, as the case might be.

Edit: Just noticed that Anti Federalist didn't post the original post. He waited a few hours. Ghengis86 started the ball rolling. I didn't want to leave him out.

[pcosmar]

Died for their country.

I am having trouble wrapping my head around that. I have heard the phrase used often. (way too often)

What exactly does that mean? Does it have any meaning?
Or is it just something said to explain a senseless and pointless waste of a life?

[phill4paul]

Died for their country.

I am having trouble wrapping my head around that. I have heard the phrase used often. (way too often)

What exactly does that mean? Does it have any meaning?
Or is it just something said to explain a senseless and pointless waste of a life?

Wilfred Owen
Dulce Et Decorum Est

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.

GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.--
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

[Liberty's Landing]

Died for their country.

I am having trouble wrapping my head around that. I have heard the phrase used often. (way too often)

What exactly does that mean? Does it have any meaning?
Or is it just something said to explain a senseless and pointless waste of a life?

The phrase speaks to the motivation of those who die while in service to their country. It isn't necessary for you to understand it. Or to agree with it. The subject matter is more complicated than can be addressed here. So I won't. I appreciate your view on the matter. I'm not going to get roped in to an argument on it, though. Maybe a PM. Maybe not for a few weeks though.

[pcosmar]

The phrase speaks to the motivation of those who die while in service to their country. It isn't necessary for you to understand it. Or to agree with it. The subject matter is more complicated than can be addressed here. So I won't. I appreciate your view on the matter. I'm not going to get roped in to an argument on it, though. Maybe a PM. Maybe not for a few weeks though.

http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4037/4649551287_b477011ac1_z.jpg

Yeah,, Tell me about it some time.

:rolleyes:

[jmdrake]

Did I say that? My message was directed at the notion that somehow our troops don't learn proper weapons safety and handling, which I know from experience is a flat-out lie.

Fact of the matter is, the only people who actually know what happened that day were the Rangers on the ground - anything else is speculation and hearsay. It's shitty what happened, but since when do we value one life more than others? What happened to Tillman was a tragedy (and possibly a travesty), but only God and those Rangers know what really happened.

We do all have blood on our hands, but don't act so sanctimonious about it just because you acknowledge that fact. You're no better than the rest of us. We should instead focus on educating and informing, rather than back-biting, bickering, and straight insulting our men and women in uniform.

The point you raise about the military receiving adequate training regarding friendly fire actually further damages the military in this case. There was clearly a cover up (lies, burning his uniform and journal etc). Why if it was just an "accident"? And how did the "accident" happen if there was proper training?

http://reason.com/archives/2010/09/16/the-pat-tillman-story
The Pat Tillman Story
A sobering new documentary raises more questions than it answers.

Greg Beato | September 16, 2010

The opening scene of the documentary The Tillman Story shows Pat Tillman taping a promotional video while still a college football player at Arizona State University. After saying his name, Tillman keeps looking at the camera while awaiting further instruction from unseen crew members. He seems good-natured about the process, but also eager to be done with it and maybe even a little disdainful, as if he can’t quite believe all the effort that is going into crafting empty pageantry designed to iconize himself and his fellow athletes.

A few years later, of course, a similar dynamic would play out on a larger scale. Tillman was far from a household name when he put aside his NFL career to enlist in the U.S. Army eight months after the 9/11 attacks. But at a time when there was a lot of high-minded talk about the price of freedom, Tillman quickly captured the nation’s attention as the most vivid example of all those who were actually willing to walk the walk. Just married to his high-school sweetheart, forsaking a $3.6 million contract extension offer from the Arizona Cardinals, Tillman was giving up an extremely enviable life to serve his country. That he understood his decision to do so made him no nobler than anyone else who’d done the same—and therefore refused to speak publicly about his enlistment—only added to his appeal.

In his long-haired days, Tillman looked like a cross between GI Joe and Kurt Cobain. With his military buzzcut, he looked like a cross between GI Joe and Sgt. Rock. His jaw was as fortified as a concrete bunker. His fierce glower packed so much firepower you could almost imagine him staring Osama bin Laden to death. In reality, Tillman was a complicated individual—an atheist who probably read more religious texts than all but the most devout, a patriot who felt morally obligated to defend his country but also admired Noam Chomsky. On a superficial level, though, he seemed tailor-made for propaganda and he knew it. He signed a form instructing that he did not want a military funeral should he die in combat. He once told a fellow soldier that he worried he’d be paraded through the streets if killed in action.

Ultimately, the story referenced in the title of The Tillman Story is not so much Tillman’s own biography as it is the tale his commanding officers concocted in the wake of his death. On April 22, 2004, less than two weeks after Tillman and his younger brother Kevin had deployed to Afghanistan—he’d done his initial tour of duty in Iraq—Tillman was shot three times in the head by one of his fellow Rangers.

The firefight had taken place at dusk, in disorienting terrain, but according to Bryan O’Neal, the Ranger who was kneeling alongside Tillman, it was immediately clear that Tillman had been killed by their fellow soldiers—that those soldiers had in fact been firing at them repeatedly even as they shouted and waved their arms to indicate their status as “friendlies.” Instead of conveying this inconvenient truth, however, the Army announced that Tillman had been killed by enemy fire during a chaotic exchange that had involved as many as a dozen enemy combatants.

The first person the Army told this lie to was Tillman’s brother Kevin, who’d been been traveling with the platoon but was too far back to witness his brother’s death. Then, the Army repeated this lie to the rest of Tillman’s family and eventually to the public at large.

Five weeks later, the Army changed its tune, announcing in a press conference that Tillman had “probably” died from friendly fire. At that point, Tillman’s family, especially his mother Mary “Dannie” Tillman, began pressing for more information. Who actually killed him? Who decided to say he’d been killed by the enemy rather than his fellow Rangers? Why had the Army burned his uniform, his body armor, and even his journal days after he’d been killed?

The Tillman Story does a good job of raising these questions, and it also captures the fierce love Tillman’s family have for him and his memory, and their anger and bitterness at the way they were lied to in the wake of his death. To a certain degree, though, director Amir Bar-Lev seems more interested in implications than answers, and The Tillman Story leaves all the major ones thoroughly veiled in the fog of agitprop documentaries. The movie shows Donald Rumsfeld and a succession of high-ranking Army officials in a congressional hearing all vigorously not recalling when they learned that Tillman had been killed by friendly fire, but it never offers a concise, convincing explanation for who specifically decided to modify the details of Tillman’s death. By not narrowing down the possibilities, The Tillman Story is free to keep the indictments it makes against the Army, the Bush Administration, and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as broad as possible.

In his 2009 account of Tillman’s story, Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman, Jon Krakauer takes a less sweeping but ultimately more damning approach. He doesn’t answer every long-lingering question about the incident and its aftermath either, but he does name the specific soldier who most likely shot Tillman and meticulously reconstructs how it happened. He identifies Gen. Stanley McChrystal, then the head of the Army’s Joint Special Operations Command, as the person who decided to officially contain the true facts of Tillman’s death from Tillman’s family, the public, and even the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division. Krakauer also reports that Gen. McChrystal was the person who initiated and expedited the Silver Star application so that it could be awarded before Tillman’s memorial service, even though he knew Tillman was not technically eligible for the medal. (Silver Stars are awarded only for gallantry against an enemy of the United States, and there were no enemies present when Tillman was killed.) He reports on the various ways the Army breached protocols when communicating information about Tillman’s death to his family, and ultimately, by taking this matter-of-fact approach, Krakauer sidesteps a trap The Tillman Story partially falls into: He keeps Tillman from devolving into a tragi-poetic metaphor for all that is wrong with our recent wars, and instead presents him as a real, specific person, against whom real, specific injustices were committed.

[jmdrake]

Back to the thread. John Darby.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6930197.stm
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/44038000/jpg/_44038231_joedarby203b.jpg
The US soldier who exposed the abuse of Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison found himself a marked man after his anonymity was blown in the most astonishing way by Donald Rumsfeld.


Joe Darby
Joe Darby was commended by the military for his actions

A soldier's dilemma

When Joe Darby saw the horrific photos of abuse at Abu Ghraib prison he was stunned.

So stunned that he walked out into the hot Baghdad night and smoked half a dozen cigarettes and agonised over what he should do.

Joe Darby was a reserve soldier with US forces at Abu Ghraib prison when he stumbled across those images which would eventually shock the world in 2004.

They were photographs of his colleagues, some of them men and women he had known since high school - torturing and abusing Iraqi prisoners.

His decision to hand them over rather than keep quiet changed his life forever.

The military policeman has only been allowed to talk about that struggle very recently, and in his first UK interview, for BBC Radio 4's The Choice, he told Michael Buerk how he made that decision and how he fears for the safety of his family.

Photos of abuse

He had been in Iraq for seven months when he was first handed the photographs on a CD. It was lent to him by a colleague, Charles Graner.


Naked detainees at Abu Ghraib with bags placed over their heads placed into a human pyramid (01/05/04)
I knew that some people wouldn't agree with what I did... They view it as - I put American soldiers in prison over Iraqis
Joe Darby

Most of the disc contained general shots around Hilla and Baghdad, but also those infamous photos of abuse.

At first he did not quite believe what he was looking at.

"The first picture I saw, I laughed - because one, it's just a pyramid of naked people - I didn't know it was Iraqi prisoners," he says.

"Because I have seen soldiers do some really stupid things. As I got into the photos more I realised what they were.

"There were photos of Graner beating three prisoners in a group. There was a picture of a naked male Iraqi standing with a bag over his head, holding the head, the sandbagged head of a male Iraqi kneeling between his legs.

"The most pronounced woman in the photographs was Lynndie England, and she was leading prisoners around on a leash. She was giving a thumbs-up and standing behind the pyramid, you know with the thumbs-up, standing next to Graner. Posing with one of the Iraqi prisoners who had died."

Promised anonymity

Joe Darby knew what he saw was wrong, but it took him three weeks to decide to hand those photographs in. When he finally did, he was promised anonymity and hoped he would hear no more about it.

Lynndie England holding a leash attached to a detainee in late 2003 at the Abu Ghraib prison
Mr Darby feared repercussions from the soldiers in the photos

But he was scared of the repercussions from the accused soldiers in the photos.

"I was afraid for retribution not only from them, but from other soldiers," he says.

"At night when I would sleep, they were less than 100 yards from me, and I didn't even have a door on the room I slept in.

"I had a raincoat hanging up for a door. Like I said to my room mate, they could reach their hand in the door - because I slept right by the door - and cut my throat without making a noise, or anybody knowing what was going on, and I was scared of that."

When the accused soldiers were finally removed from the base, he thought his troubles were over.

And then he was sitting in a crowded Iraqi canteen with hundreds of soldiers and Donald Rumsfeld came on the television to thank Joe Darby by name for handing in the photographs.

"I don't think it was an accident because those things are pretty much scripted," Mr Darby says.

"But I did receive a letter from him which said he had no malicious intent, he was only doing it to praise me and he had no idea about my anonymity.

"I really find it hard to believe that the secretary of defence of the United States has no idea about the star witness for a criminal case being anonymous."

Rather than turn on him for betraying colleagues, most of the soldiers in his unit shook his hand. It was at home where the real trouble started.

Labelled a traitor

His wife had no idea that Mr Darby had handed in those photos, but when he was named, she had to flee to her sister's house which was then vandalised with graffiti. Many in his home town called him a traitor.

"I knew that some people wouldn't agree with what I did," he says.

"You have some people who don't view it as right and wrong. They view it as: I put American soldiers in prison over Iraqis."

That animosity in his home town has meant that he still cannot return there.

After Donald Rumsfeld blew his cover, he was bundled out of Iraq very quickly and lived under armed protection for the first six months.

He has since left the army but did testify at the trials of some of those accused of abuse and torture. It is Charles Graner he is most afraid of.

"Seeing Graner across the courtroom was the only one that was difficult during the trial," he says.

"He had a stone-cold stare of hatred the entire time - he wouldn't take his eyes off me the whole time he sat there. I think this is a grudge he will hold till the day he gets out of prison."

Mr Darby and his family have moved to a new town. They have new jobs. They have done everything but change their identities.

But he does not see himself as a hero, or a traitor. Just "a soldier who did his job - no more, no less".

"I've never regretted for one second what I did when I was in Iraq, to turn those pictures in," he says.

[Anti Federalist]

What are you on about, now?

Post number 13 that you quoted:


Today 10:38 AM

Post number 10:


Today 12:31 AM

Post number 8:


Today 12:20 AM

Post number 5:


Yesterday 11:43 PM

azxd, is that you?



I notice you waited until 1201 to post this. I wonder if you had the computer all spooled up and ready so you couldn't be accused of posting it on Memorial Day. But, I don't know. I can only guess.

Lucky for you, you don't have to celebrate anything at all on Memorial Day. I don't celebrate anything, myself, on Memorial Day.

I do, however, spend some time thinking about four friends of mine. CPT Marcus Alford, CW2 Billie Jean Grinder, CW4 Daniel Cole, and 1LT Thomas Williams. All four of them loved their country, and died for it. None of them would expect you to 'canonize or worship' them.

And I don't expect you to 'celebrate' them either. Surely, not after last night's diatribe.

I see your point. It is well taken. I would only like to say that people serve in uniform for a variety of reasons and with a variety of concerns as they do so. Be careful not to paint everyone with a wide brush.

Maybe if you knew the four people I mentioned earlier, you would understand why someone like me might find all of your copying and pasting a full minute after Memorial Day offensive. But, you have that right I guess. I'll just keep it in mind as we interact here...or don't interact, as the case might be.

Edit: Just noticed that Anti Federalist didn't post the original post. He waited a few hours. Ghengis86 started the ball rolling. I didn't want to leave him out.

[Liberty's Landing]

Nope. Not him. Sorry.

I'll be off the net for a few days at the least. maybe a couple of weeks.

Maybe we'll talk some more then.

[Anti Federalist]

Nope. Not him. Sorry.

I'll be off the net for a few days at the least. maybe a couple of weeks.

Maybe we'll talk some more then.

OK, no problem.

I'll be here, more than likely.

[jmdrake]

Lt. Col. Anthony Schaffer of "Able Danger" fame.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJvABLaMUT8

Conservatives liked him when they thought he was just making Clinton look bad. It wasn't until they got the memo that Schaffer's testimony hurt Bush too that they were ready to dog pile him and even take out republican congressman Curt Weldon.

I didn't know they made an Able Danger movie.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAeuxllznUM

[Icymudpuppy]

You left out...

Lt. Ehren Watada

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f9/Lt._Ehren_Watada.jpg/225px-Lt._Ehren_Watada.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ehren_Watada

[oyarde]

From one of our own.

And I'm as guilty as he, we all are, we all are culpable and there ain't no saints in this mess.

We all have blood on our hands. Yes he wrote that pretty well......

[jmdrake]

You left out...

Lt. Ehren Watada

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f9/Lt._Ehren_Watada.jpg/225px-Lt._Ehren_Watada.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ehren_Watada

Another true patriot.

[phill4paul]

RIP Pat Tillman. Nov. 6, 1976, April 22nd., 2004.


Pat Tillman

http://www.veteranstoday.com/2011/04/22/jb-campbell-killing-pat-tillman/

Today is the seventh anniversary of Pat Tillman’s assassination in Afghanistan. On April 22, 2004 Tillman and several other Army Rangers were given an odd order to split their motorized squad and proceed toward a village called Magarah. The original mission was to recover a broken-down Humvee from a rocky and almost impassable trail through a steep gorge. The Humvee was being towed by a local “jinga” truck, rather than by one of the working Humvees. Tillman and the others got to the village before the guys with the towed Humvee and were waiting for them when three Afghan kids fired an RPG, with an effective range of 250 yards, from 800 yards. It hit on the wall of the gorge and made some noise and loosened up some dirt and rocks. But, no harm done. Nevertheless, the vaunted Rangers lost control of themselves and fired their arsenal of a .50 caliber Browning, 40mm grenade machine gun, .30 caliber machine guns and .223 caliber machine guns plus their small .223 rifles, called M-4s. They fired until they were out of ammo and had to get into their reserve ammo supply.

Tillman and the other guys were watching this show from above. Tillman’s sergeant, Matthew Weeks, ordered him and Bryan O’Neal and an Afghan named Thani to go down on foot closer to the road, which they did. The lead Humvee came within view of Tillman and from a range of about one hundred feet, opened up on him and the two others, killing the Afghan and wounding Tillman after he waved his arms at them not to shoot. They dove behind a couple of one-foot high rocks and O’Neal asked if he was okay. One of Tillman’s legs was severely wounded. He threw a purple smoke grenade to show they were Americans and kept yelling at the nearby Humvee shooters. Both Tillman and O’Neal waved their arms at the Humvee. The Rangers in the Humvees stopped shooting for a minute. Tillman and O’Neal thought it was safe to show themselves.

Tillman identified himself loudly, saying “Hold your fire! I’m Pat f****** Tillman!” Specialist Trevor Alders opened up again with his .223 machine gun and hit Pat Tillman from about one hundred feet away. Now, both Tillman and O’Neal were in the same uniforms as the other Rangers, wearing the distinctive Kevlar helmets, carrying the same M-4 rifles. The Humvee guys knew that the other guys were up ahead and still they did this.

Here’s where it gets strange. The autopsy photos supposedly show three .223 holes in Tillman’s forehead, in a two- to three-inch group. I haven’t seen the photos. It is not possible to shoot a three-inch group into a guy’s forehead with a machine gun from one hundred feet, for several reasons. Number one, high-power rounds do not follow each other single file into the target; they veer off a little from the recoil of the one just before. Yes, once you get the gun settled down from the first few rounds, you can bring it to bear pretty closely but not that closely. A look at the rock next to Tillman’s position with about twenty hits on it shows the shotgun-like spread resulting from the weapons jumping around slightly. A hundred foot range allows a pretty good spread from any machine gun.

Number two, the Kevlar helmet covers the forehead and generally stops the .223 round. Number three, the guy drops from the first hit and you can’t follow him down to put the second and third rounds next to the first hole. Number four, a .223 round to the forehead doesn’t leave any forehead for the next two rounds to put holes in. The only way you can get a group of three .223 rifle bullets so tight is to kill the guy with the first shot and then shoot him again twice more when you get next to him. But three high-power holes in a tight little group? No way.

Now, the story has changed a little since the original lies were told. Now it’s said that the back of his head was missing, which would make sense after just one .223 hit him in the front, except for that helmet. Jack Kennedy was apparently hit with a .223 round from a Remington XP-100 and the back of his head was missing, too. But it’s come out that SPC O’Neal has said that all that was left of Tillman’s head was a flap of face-skin, which makes sense if three .223 rounds hit him in the head, so devastating is any high-power rifle round. Except for the helmet.

I didn’t know about the facial devastation until today. Like everyone else interested in this, I’d read that Tillman’s head looked pretty normal except for the three .223 bullet holes in his forehead, which meant only one thing: a low-power .22 pistol. The report that almost all of his head was gone indicates that he was not hit by Trevor Alders and his machine gun from a hundred feet but by someone else much closer with his M-4 carbine. The M-4 is just an M-16 with a short barrel and collapsible stock. The pathologist reported that the range of the shots was maybe five feet, which definitely makes it murder. How do you shoot holes in a guy’s forehead when he’s wearing a Kevlar helmet?

Stan Goff, a Ranger veteran writing for Counterpunch, assures us that Tillman was not assassinated but just killed by bad fire control, that the bizarre performance of the Rangers that day could not have been contrived to culminate in Tillman’s murder. He doesn’t explain how Pat f****** Tillman could be mistaken for a bad guy wearing what he was wearing, yelling and waving his arms, popping purple smoke in daylight, diving for cover behind a low rock, not shooting at anyone.

It didn’t have to happen that particular day. It just had to happen sometime when there were guns going off to make it “a mistake.” It was as good a day as any to kill Pat Tillman, because he had to be killed.

Tillman had naively made contact with the CIA’s Noam Chomsky to discuss his plans to reveal what he knew about the lies of Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld in the War on Terror. He was apparently also angry about the US Army’s support of the Afghan opium trade, started up by the army after the Taliban had eradicated it one hundred percent during their four-year reign. The US Army authorized the Northern Alliance to resume poppy production, according to Fox News shortly after we invaded Afghanistan.

The thing was, if you’ve forgotten, Pat Tillman had forsaken his multi-million dollar pro-football contract with the Arizona Cardinals to join his brother Kevin in the Army Rangers to hunt down the CIA’s Osama bin Laden directly after the attack on the World Trade Center in late 2001. Never mind that Osama had immediately denied any involvement in the massacre and had in addition pointed to the US government and the Mossad, the latter’s role now confirmed by the revelations of Dimitri Khalezov.

Pat Tillman was probably the greatest recruiting asset that the Neo-Cons had, until they sent him and Kevin from Afghanistan to Iraq in ‘03. Tillman became quite bitter and outspoken about the invasion of Iraq, figuring Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11. So they were sent back to Afghanistan, where they discovered the opium trade being protected and supported by the US Army. Now, they’re both pretty upset. Pat Tillman went from the Neo-Con dream to nightmare and needed to be shut up before he could tell America about the lies of its leaders.

Ironically, the Tillman brothers were part of the security detail of the joint services “rescue” of Jessica Lynch from an Iraqi hospital in April ’03. The Lynch saga was clumsy neo-con propaganda, a totally fictional tale of non-existent heroics and sexual assault following a vehicle accident. The truth was that Iraqi doctors had treated Lynch properly and well, saving her life, and repeatedly notifying the Americans of her location and condition, urging them to come get her. The rescue was as phony as the legend cooked up by the DC liars. Lynch did perform heroically when she revealed the lies that had been told about her. She’d been knocked unconscious in the accident and never shot or stabbed anyone nor pulled grenade pins with her teeth, etc., etc.

The death of Pat Tillman got the same heroic legend as Jessica Lynch got, with the first version being that he was shot by the Taliban while getting out of his Humvee. The second version, told to the family about the time of the funeral, was that he was shot while leading a charge up the hill toward the enemy. The third lie was that it was “friendly fire.” Friendly fire refers to the accidental killing of your own guys, which happens all the time, since weapons training regarding safety and fire control are virtually non-existent in the military. Such things have to be trained from childhood, over years.

Mary Tillman, Pat’s mother, wrote a good book about all this in 2008 in which she suggested that her son was deliberately murdered by his fellow Rangers, reserving most of her anger for General Stanley McChrystal, who led the lying coverup of the murder. Since then, she appears to have dropped the charge of assassination, for what reason is not clear. But there can be no doubt that the Rangers shot Pat Tillman deliberately and with malice on April 22, 2004. They shot and wounded him first and then waited while he popped purple smoke to let them know he was “friendly.” Then they started shooting again and didn’t stop until he was dead. The army gave him a Mafia funeral with the same Mafia sanctimony that Johnny Torrio sent to Dion O’Bannion’s funeral. The family only found out weeks later that it wasn’t enemy fire that killed Pat. It took a little longer to realize it wasn’t friendly fire, either.