Washington Post exposes horror of Tillman’s death

THE last minutes of the life of footballer Pat Tillman, who turned down a fortune to fight for his country, were a horror of misdirected machine-gun fire and signals to firing colleagues that were misunderstood as hostile acts.

It took the Army a month to change the record to show that Tillman, the Arizona Cardinals defensive back who gave up a $3.6 million contract to become an Army Ranger, was killed last April not by Afghan guerrillas but by his Ranger colleagues.

Even then, the statement by Lt. Gen. Philip R. Kensinger Jr., head of the Army’s Special Operations Command, gave few specifics of the corporal’s death and implied that he was trying to suppress enemy fire when he “probably died as a result of friendly fire“.

The Washington Post published what it described as the first full telling of how and why Tillman died. The newspaper said it had access to “dozens of witness statements, e-mails, investigation findings, logbooks, maps and photographs.”

A series of mishaps and missteps began the chain of events that resulted in Tillman’s death in eastern Afghanistan, the newspaper said. A Humvee broke down, which led to the splitting up of his platoon.

The segment of the platoon with Tillman, Serial One, passed through a canyon and was near its north rim. The other segment, Serial Two, changed its plans because of poor roads and followed the same route into the canyon. It came under fire from Afghan Taliban fighters.

Men in Serial One heard an explosion that preceded the attack, and Tillman and two other fire team leaders were ordered to head toward the attackers, the Post said. The canyon’s walls prevented them from radioing their positions to their colleagues, just as Serial Two had not radioed its change in plans.

Tillman’s group moved toward the north-south ridge to face the canyon, and Tillman took another Ranger and an Afghan ally down the slope.

“As they pulled alongside the ridge, the gunners poured an undisciplined barrage of hundreds of rounds into the area Tillman and other members of Serial One had taken up positions,” the Post said Army investigators concluded. It said the gunner handling the platoon’s only .50-caliber machine gun fired every round he had.

The first to die was the Afghan, whom the Americans in the canyon mistook for a Taliban fighter.

Tillman was shot repeatedly by rifles, succumbing to the machine gun.

There was then “a broader Army effort to manage the uncomfortable facts of Pat Tillman’s death.”