Posted by
William D. Dannenmaier on Saturday, August 04, 2007 3:38:35 PM
Tillman
By
William D. Dannenmaier
There are times when the actions of Congress and the news media would make possums and vultures vomit. The current Tillman investigation is one of them.
My friend, Charley, was killed while he was laying telephone wire to replace other wire that had been blown up. Charley was a gentle person: no smoking, no drinking and plans to marry and farm when he got home. The only fight that Charley was ever in, to my knowledge, was when he was caught stealing food from the mess hall for a stray dog. Charley was killed because the United States was at war and he volunteered to “do his duty.” He was doing his duty, the duty the army assigned him, when he was killed. Would it help his girl or his family, to know that he was simply laying wire in the wrong place at the wrong time when he was killed?
My friend, Joe, was changing a tire when he was killed. The men who rolled him over said there was just one small mark on his body; one small piece of shrapnel, probably no larger than the piece that cut my foot, hit him in just the right place. He died, they said, quickly and quietly. Would it help anyone who loved him to know that instead of charging an enemy he was simply changing a tire when he died? He was there, in a combat zone, because the army sent him there and he was doing the job the army gave him. Had there been no combat, he never would have been there. To my mind, his was a combat death. Let his loved ones remember that and, if anyone thought to tell them, a painless death.
A man in my platoon stood up at the wrong moment during a fight. His body was brought back. A friend who remains friends with the man who shot him says that man grieves to this day. But it wasn’t his fault. Both of those men were doing their best in a job the Army handed them. It was an unfortunate accident. What good would it do to make great announcements that he died as a result of “friendly” fire?
I wonder if there is anyone who has served time in combat who hasn’t been shot at by his own side or, hasn’t shot at someone from his own side. I was shot at by “friendly fire” twice that I know of. Once, on a patrol, we had been in a fight and returned to the front line in a place where we weren’t expected. We didn’t know how close we were to our own troops until someone threw a grenade at us. We yelled and they let us come in – but kept a machine gun trained on us until they were certain that we were friends, not foes.
On the other occasion, during a daylight patrol, some idiot called in artillery on us. They should have killed all of us as we were out in the open, but they were really lousy shots. Finally, after a half a dozen shells were aimed at us, they caught on that nine men in American uniforms and carrying American weapons might be Americans and quit shooting.
I’ve been on the other side also. One night our bunker door opened and a stranger entered to find several rifles, fingers on triggers, aimed at him. Fortunately, we all held our fire. He was a “new kid on the block” and hadn’t yet learned that you don’t walk into a front line bunker unannounced. People who let people do that get killed.
Combat is a vicious, confusing, dangerous business. People kill and people die. Sometimes people kill the wrong people, but it happens. Why make a national event out of something that is part of combat?
So Pat Tillman was killed by “friendly” fire. So what? He left a job where tens of thousands of people cheered him and he made more money in a year than most of us make in our lives to enter the army and go into combat. He did this voluntarily, because, like Charley and Joe, he thought his country needed him. And we did and we do. Him and thousands more just like him. He should have been permitted to die for what he was, a hero in combat.
The current Congressional investigation and news media frenzy only diminishes him. Shame on them all! They disgust me.