Just want to let everyone know, I've been at Ft Bragg last two days...just returned.
Received some rock solid information regarding Tillman from men who have been to the scene.
Bottom line - Tillman's actions were absolutely heroic from the moment the gunfight started. He never backed down, instead he ran to the sound of the ambush gunfire completely disregarding his own safety to establish a commanding terrain overwatch position from which to protect his comrades.
Tillman's Silver Star is well documented and appropriate. If Congress wishes to find some cheap Silver Stars, they need only to look in their own ranks.
RE: fratricide. It has to this day not been established beyond a reasonable doubt that Tillman died from friendly fire. There is no available physical evidence proving that. But, he may been so killed.
What we are likely to see now is one or more generals punished for alleged administrative failings. There will be no mention that they did not commit moral turpitude. Or that there is absolutely no evidence of personal gain, and there was no way such could have been available. What these men did was protect and defend the honor and heroism of a genuine American hero who fell in combat voluntarily. If that has become a cardinal sin, America has problems too big to overcome.
I believe this latest investigatory event was concocted by Congress to divert attention from themselves and their failures and their personal culpability for a war that is going badly. The attitude is (and was so stated by one senator) let's burn some generals, they screwed it up. Of course members of Congress never acknowledge the damage done by their flip flops or their own culpability because afterall it was their votes supporting this war that got it all started. Let's not forget GWB asked congress for a vote before the war started and Congress voted overwhelmingly to go to war.
Unwilling to accept responsibility for their own actions, inactions, flip-flops and failures, Congress is searching for warriors to publicly punish in order to assuage your feelings of defeat thereby protecting their jobs. The astonishing fact that these warriors put their lives on the line day in and day out to fight the war congress ordered them to fight is meaningless to the scape-goat seeking politicians.
In the same vein, weak military leaders who lack the intestinal fortitude to stand up to the political hacks and their BS will now hide behind the Uniform Code of Military Justice and impose inappropriate and unearned punishments to protect their own hides from congressional investigations and in the hopes of winning yet another promotion.
Finally (for today) I am convinced we have screwed the pooch called GWOT in Iraq to death. Our senior and conventional military leaders continue to believe more firepower is the answer to the Iraq problem. Therefore, I no longer believe a US Army military solution is possible. Feasible yes! But the changes necessary to effect a win will not be instituted by those running this one and we are tiring fast, too fast for a new strategy to be introduced when this one fails.
The war in Iraq will have to be settled by the politicians. Our military cannot win a traditional military victory imho.
Changing the name and acronym will not change the situation. The war presently known as GWOT will continue. I believe the Army must reevaluate and demand strict adherence to its stated system of core values. Something has to give. We cannot afford more Iraqs. Yet the fight will go on. We must develop and inculcate in our conventional military leaders a new battlefield paradigm. One that respects and values innocent civilian lives and rights more than dead enemy soldiers. For certain the continuing fight will involve killing but it will have to be surgically done, with little to no collateral damage and the utmost care taken to protect non-combatants.
We have but one force that uses those fighting techniques and tactics. It is long past time to put America's Green Beret Generals in charge of this fight.
uw |
