PAT TILLMAN

I feel so badly for Pat Tillman's Mom in her grief. However, it is time to let this go. From the very beginning and this is about the third time I've written about it: in Vietnam, we would sit around and talk about what we would want said if we got hit by friendly fire. To a man, the answer: killed by the enemy. I am the last one in the world to defend the Army as the bureaucracy can often screw up a two car funeral procession but my suspicion is that Pat Tillman's buddies were merely trying to make him look like a hero. The fact that he was Pat Tillman was beside the point. And, now we have a movie. Damned if it isn't time to be "at ease" with this and let the poor guy rest. In anybody's view with one eye and half sense, the guy is an extraordinary hero: giving up a NFL career and millions of dollars to fight for his country. Any combat soldier would have been proud to serve with him. And, trust me on this, that is the highest compliment.

Two times in Vietnam, I remember friendly fire. One happened with a Lieutenant, an artillery FO (forward observer) who literally had a short round drop on him and blew him away. The other was a young cherry, (soldier who was brand new to war) who was pulling guard duty and heard noises and panicked and fired his weapon, killing his squad leader who had come out to check on him. How were both of these incidents reported by soldiers? Killed by the enemy. Any soldier and I have talked to several of my buddies and all sing the same chorus, rather be thought to have been killed by the enemy than by my buds in arms. So, come on, it's time to let Corporal Tillman rest. And, a last thing, unless you've been in combat, you don't know shit about what goes on. Combat ain't no day at the beach and it doesn't help the loved ones of soldiers to keep thinking that some reporter or movie maker knows what happens out on the battlefield, whether it be in WW ll or Vietnam or Iraq or Afghanistan. As my departed poet soldier buddy, Phil Woodall, use to say, They may have died in vain (what he was referring to was the sorry war of Vietnam and we'd now add, Iraq and Afghanistan) but they lived in honor.