As Rangers in the second group emerged from the canyon, some, seeing their first action, fired with abandon at the hills lining the road. While steering his Humvee out of the canyon, their driver claimed that he was momentarily confused by the sight of the Afghan. But soon, aware that his platoon mates were shooting at friendly troops, he reported that he yelled at them to stop. Rangers in the other vehicles radioed as well.
After injuring another soldier and even their own platoon leader, neither severely, they killed an Afghan solder paired with Tillman, who waved and called out. But, with attempting to properly identify their targets, investigating officer Capt. Scott asserted, they continued to blast away. Finally Tillman detonated a smoke grenade and the firing ceased.
He and the surviving soldier with him, Specialist Russell Baer, stood. The Rangers then resumed firing and injured Tillman, who first identified himself as a friendly and then by name. The firing continued and, wounded and exposed on the slope, Tillman was shot dead.
One can fairly see the questions jockeying for position to mount their assault:
1. Though the driver of the Humvee claimed he screamed at the crew in his vehicle while driving, "the medical examiner's report," Collier wrote, "said Tillman was killed by three bullets closely spaced in his forehead -- a pattern that would have been unlikely if the shooter were moving fast."
In fact, Baer, backed up by another soldier, claimed that at least two soldiers stepped out of the Humvee to fire. In other words, if the driver halted, couldn't he have called the troops off while they were exiting the vehicle or gotten out himself and stopped them?
2. Not only was the vehicle likely stopped, but the driver was unlikely to have stopped unless the vehicle wasn't under fire at the moment. According to Goff, "not one bullet hole [was] discovered in anyone's vehicle." In fact, Captain Scott said a soldier in the lead vehicle remarked that the Afghan wasn't shooting in their direction, which, obviously, suggested he wasn't enemy. However, demonstrating what Scott called gross negligence, the soldier shot and killed the Afghan anyway. Was the vehicle then neither moving nor under fire?
3. Baer told Collier that the soldiers who were shooting "made eye contact with us." Though it was dusk, they were only seventy yards away from Tillman, the Afghan, and Baer. No matter from how far in left field, the question begs to be asked: Is there any chance the shooters identified their targets?
4. Once Tillman detonated the smoke grenade, which is usually used to provide cover but also serves as a signal, why did the soldiers resume shooting?
5. Also, isn't showing yourself to the enemy a universal sign that you're friendly. Why wasn't the sight of Tillman and Baer standing sufficient to keep the soldiers from shooting?
6. Was it that critical the platoon stay on schedule that a commanding officer put it in even more harm's way by ordering it to split up while traveling through enemy territory?
7. Couldn't a commander have pulled some strings and requisitioned a helicopter?
8. A local Afghan towing the broken-down vehicle couldn't negotiate one of the canyon's narrow passes with his truck. It's not as if the Humvee were a million-dollar vehicle like the Stryker. It's tough enough navigating through enemy territory -- why handicap them by forcing them to tow a vehicle that should have been discarded to save lives?
Flashback to Vietnam
Was Tillman's death then fratricide by friendly fire -- or was it fragging?
Born of the word fragmentation from the grenade of the same name, the practice of fragging was devised by American enlisted men and draftees in Vietnam. The grenade was rolled into the tent of an officer who was imperiling his unit with either his bravado or his bungling. Along with assassinations by gunfire in the field, there were over 500 such incidents and more than 80 killed.
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