NO REGRETS ~ An American Adventure in Afghanistan by David Kaelin Page B
Authors: David Kaelin
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Officer.
Fallen Soldiers: The Pat Tillman Story
April 2004
John was a friend from my Army days. We were in TOG—The Old Guard—in Washington, D.C. together. I’d left D.C. to head off to Egypt to be part of the Multinational Force and Observers, the peacekeeping organization tasked with acting as a barrier between Egypt and Israel. John was infantry and sometime after TOG, he had gone on to Special Forces, alternately known as the Green Berets. When I ran into him in Bagram, he was wearing civilian clothes and had a full beard. I asked him what he was doing in Afghanistan. He told me that he was Civil Affairs and then asked me if I wanted some booze.
“Dude, when did you go SF?”
“I didn’t say shit about SF.” I always get a chuckle out of SF types. In the rear, they’re a bit too freakin’ obvious. They try to be all Secret Squirrel . It rarely works. We talked about the good old days in D.C. and he asked me again, “So, you want some booze or not?”
That’s one of the boons of being SF. Those guys always had booze.
A few weeks later, John showed up again and asked, “Dave, did you hear?”
“Hear what?” I asked.
“Pat Tillman got killed.”
“Shit John! Everyone’s heard about that. I heard last night. They say it was a Taliban ambush. Up near Khost.”
John shook his head, “Taliban my ass. Dave, don’t believe everything you hear.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“I can’t say but it’ll come out soon enough.”
I jumped up from my chair. “Dude, you can’t leave me hangin’ like that. What the hell are you talking about?”
John crossed his arms and took a deep breath. “Dave, they’re going to make him out to be a hero. Probably give him a medal or two. I’m hearing that they’re going to posthumously promote him to sergeant. But the truth will come out and it ain’t gonna be pretty.”
“What do you mean?
“Can’t say right now. You know how the Army is. They’ll throw up propaganda … smoke screens. Pat got fucked and they burned all of the evidence!”
“I can’t argue that one. The Army is FUBAR HQ, 12 man. That’s why I got the fuck out but I still have no idea what the hell you’re talking about?”
“Can’t say, brother. I’ll bring you a bottle of JD tomorrow.”
Pat Tillman was the NFL player who famously enlisted in the U.S. Army a few months after the Twin Towers fell and whose death was notoriously fabricated into heroism by General Stanley McChrystal and his cronies in the Pentagon. These guys claimed that Tillman was killed by enemy fire. The Army brass made everyone involved maintain silence and put Tillman in for battlefield commendations, posthumously promoting him for bravery in an action fully concocted from thin air by his chain of command. Later, it came out that Tillman had been killed by friendly fire, i.e., by U.S. soldiers in Tillman’s own platoon. Unofficial records of the autopsy allegedly show that Pat was triple tapped to the forehead and that the rounds were in a sniper-like close shot group. A “triple tap” means three rounds in a tight-shot group. A shot like that is difficult. It suggests a professional sniper of the sort that are only extant within elite military and paramilitary groups. Meanwhile, there were rumors that a CIA team was accompanying Tillman’s platoon the day he was killed, giving rise to legitimate questions surrounding Tillman’s death. There are rumblings in the conspiracy theory underground that Tillman was murdered by the CIA because he was about to become a potent symbol for the anti-war movement. Tillman had contacted Noam Chomsky while he was on mid-tour R&R. He supposedly wanted to share his views and experiences on what he had seen in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Chomsky is one of America’s most outspoken war critics. Good old Noam’s been going strong with his anti-establishmentarian (anti-West, anti-Israel, anti-war) quest since the ‘60s. The theory goes that Bush, and his
Fallen Soldiers: The Pat Tillman Story
April 2004
John was a friend from my Army days. We were in TOG—The Old Guard—in Washington, D.C. together. I’d left D.C. to head off to Egypt to be part of the Multinational Force and Observers, the peacekeeping organization tasked with acting as a barrier between Egypt and Israel. John was infantry and sometime after TOG, he had gone on to Special Forces, alternately known as the Green Berets. When I ran into him in Bagram, he was wearing civilian clothes and had a full beard. I asked him what he was doing in Afghanistan. He told me that he was Civil Affairs and then asked me if I wanted some booze.
“Dude, when did you go SF?”
“I didn’t say shit about SF.” I always get a chuckle out of SF types. In the rear, they’re a bit too freakin’ obvious. They try to be all Secret Squirrel . It rarely works. We talked about the good old days in D.C. and he asked me again, “So, you want some booze or not?”
That’s one of the boons of being SF. Those guys always had booze.
A few weeks later, John showed up again and asked, “Dave, did you hear?”
“Hear what?” I asked.
“Pat Tillman got killed.”
“Shit John! Everyone’s heard about that. I heard last night. They say it was a Taliban ambush. Up near Khost.”
John shook his head, “Taliban my ass. Dave, don’t believe everything you hear.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“I can’t say but it’ll come out soon enough.”
I jumped up from my chair. “Dude, you can’t leave me hangin’ like that. What the hell are you talking about?”
John crossed his arms and took a deep breath. “Dave, they’re going to make him out to be a hero. Probably give him a medal or two. I’m hearing that they’re going to posthumously promote him to sergeant. But the truth will come out and it ain’t gonna be pretty.”
“What do you mean?
“Can’t say right now. You know how the Army is. They’ll throw up propaganda … smoke screens. Pat got fucked and they burned all of the evidence!”
“I can’t argue that one. The Army is FUBAR HQ, 12 man. That’s why I got the fuck out but I still have no idea what the hell you’re talking about?”
“Can’t say, brother. I’ll bring you a bottle of JD tomorrow.”
Pat Tillman was the NFL player who famously enlisted in the U.S. Army a few months after the Twin Towers fell and whose death was notoriously fabricated into heroism by General Stanley McChrystal and his cronies in the Pentagon. These guys claimed that Tillman was killed by enemy fire. The Army brass made everyone involved maintain silence and put Tillman in for battlefield commendations, posthumously promoting him for bravery in an action fully concocted from thin air by his chain of command. Later, it came out that Tillman had been killed by friendly fire, i.e., by U.S. soldiers in Tillman’s own platoon. Unofficial records of the autopsy allegedly show that Pat was triple tapped to the forehead and that the rounds were in a sniper-like close shot group. A “triple tap” means three rounds in a tight-shot group. A shot like that is difficult. It suggests a professional sniper of the sort that are only extant within elite military and paramilitary groups. Meanwhile, there were rumors that a CIA team was accompanying Tillman’s platoon the day he was killed, giving rise to legitimate questions surrounding Tillman’s death. There are rumblings in the conspiracy theory underground that Tillman was murdered by the CIA because he was about to become a potent symbol for the anti-war movement. Tillman had contacted Noam Chomsky while he was on mid-tour R&R. He supposedly wanted to share his views and experiences on what he had seen in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Chomsky is one of America’s most outspoken war critics. Good old Noam’s been going strong with his anti-establishmentarian (anti-West, anti-Israel, anti-war) quest since the ‘60s. The theory goes that Bush, and his
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