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PZ Myers is a biologist and associate professor at the University of Minnesota, Morris.
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I think I like the Tillman family

Category: Godlessness
Posted on: September 26, 2010 6:08 PM, by PZ Myers

(via onegoodmove)

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Comments

Posted by: MAJeff, OM | September 26, 2010 6:22 PM

there's shit that goes beyond the lies and coverup with the Tillman story. It also involves the FBI's raids in Minneapolis yesterday. It involves the Obama administration granting itself the extrajudicial right to kill American citizens.

We are a worthless totalitarian state.

Posted by: Ströh | September 26, 2010 6:24 PM

Hey, I just watched that one too! A sad story - but what a character! Really brave of him to do what he did.

So, half of the coalition losses in the Gulf was friendly fire. Can't say I am surprised - the insurgents lack the firepower to kill anyone, the coalition has too much firepower to not kill anyone. Even if it is one of their own.

Posted by: MetalMoe | September 26, 2010 6:29 PM

The comments made by McCain at the funeral were vulgar. Just like atheists shouldn't say there is no god at the funeral of a religious person, the religious shouldn't mention god at the funeral of an atheist. Good on Richard Tillman for calling out McCain in unequivocal terms for the offensive bullshit spewed by McCain.

Posted by: MAJeff, OM | September 26, 2010 6:31 PM

John McCain believes in one and only one thing: John McCain. He's a terribly human being.

Posted by: KKBundy | September 26, 2010 6:32 PM

Damn! Never heard all this on Fox News. I'm not sure I buy into the shot on purpose idea, but there's an interesting story here. Mostly people put into terrible situations and under terrible fear make poor decisions, very poor decisions. People who are under such stresses often tend to pull the trigger in any even mildly questionable events.

I love the "He's Fucking Dead" saying. Genius! Can someone say this at my funeral. Honestly, if my son dies and someone comes up to me and says we'll meet him again in heaven or everything happens for a reason I'll likely drop 'em right there.

Blessed Atheist Bible Study" @ http://blessedatheist.com/

Posted by: Ichthyic | September 26, 2010 6:34 PM

Never heard all this on Fox News.

O.o

Posted by: lhikanliveson | September 26, 2010 6:37 PM

Am I a bad person for laughing at guy's funeral speech clip?

Posted by: Yoritomo | September 26, 2010 6:45 PM

So, half of the coalition losses in the Gulf was friendly fire. Can't say I am surprised - the insurgents lack the firepower to kill anyone, the coalition has too much firepower to not kill anyone. Even if it is one of their own.

I believe Maher's statistics were about the 1991 Gulf War, which was a conventional war. Of course the relative amount of firepower remains roughly the same.

Posted by: jeffery.g.davis | September 26, 2010 6:47 PM

They have handled the situation infinitely better than I would have.

#10

Posted by: namteo | September 26, 2010 6:49 PM

@lhikanliveson

I did; and there was stifled laughter from the audience too.

I don't like how most people believe that irony and comedy cannot coexist with seriousness. When you can laugh at something and still appreciate the pathos and gravity of a situation, I think there must be something special or important to learn from it.

#11

Posted by: David Marjanović | September 26, 2010 6:49 PM

Hey. Why is this in the Galápagos category?

And what does Tillman say when he explains he was not drinking? He just had a beer in his hand because...?

#12

Posted by: Audley Z. Darkheart OM, purveyor of candy and lies | September 26, 2010 6:53 PM

lhikanliveson:

Am I a bad person for laughing at guy's funeral speech clip?

If you are than I am, too. It was funny and heartbreaking all at the same time.

#13

Posted by: shreddakj | September 26, 2010 6:54 PM

I would really like to see the camera pan to McCain's face after Tillman said "he's not with god he's fucking dead"

#14

Posted by: https://me.yahoo.com/a/YW3Pa5F7guTh_x.TjYweRyxS6lHmIQ--#64d58 | September 26, 2010 6:58 PM

Sorry--this is mostly off-topic, but I just wanted to mention to any Squid porn enthusiasts that China Mieville is (or recently was) discussing his book Kraken on Firedoglake. Makes light of the elder gods, too.

#15

Posted by: Ströh | September 26, 2010 7:00 PM

@Yoritomi: you are perfectly correct, I realized it just before posting and changed "Iraq" to "Gulf" but forgot about the insurgent part.

In fact, I think the Gulf war was even more onesided if anything. The Iraqi national army had no air support, limited intel, tanks that could not see or even shoot as far as the coalition armor and got stomped by the fastest moving force in history. The big surprise isn't that they couldn't fight back, it is that they got any kills at all.

I actually think the percentage for Afghanistan and Iraq might be lower, but casualties higher.

#16

Posted by: Tim | September 26, 2010 7:02 PM

David ... @ 11

Hey. Why is this in the Galápagos category?

My guess is that it's a mis-mouse. "Galapagos" is probably just above "Godlessness" in PZ's category list.

#17

Posted by: Mattir-ritated | September 26, 2010 7:07 PM

I'm so impressed by the Tillmans. And so unimpressed by John McCain. Hard to believe, but I actually like him LESS than I did 10 years ago.

#18

Posted by: Ichthyic | September 26, 2010 7:12 PM

Hard to believe, but I actually like him LESS than I did 10 years ago.

not hard to believe at all.

10 years ago, he was a liberal protestant railing against the GoP for continuing to utilize right-wing fundies as a grassroots power base.

that lost him the nomination.

in 2007, OTOH, he switched religions to southern baptist, selected Sarah Palin as a running mate, and indeed had no problems garnering the nomination.

I've always wondered if his platform was mostly an attempt to satire the current GoP, and succeeded far beyond even his own intention.

his warnings to the GoP in 2000 were rather prophetic.

#19

Posted by: Ichthyic | September 26, 2010 7:14 PM

liberal protestant

strictly in the religious sense, of course.

#20

Posted by: Mattir-ritated | September 26, 2010 7:18 PM

@Ichthyic - Yes, that's precisely what I meant. 10 years ago, I disagreed with him, but thought that he had some integrity. Now I think he's a desperate man with no character. It's sort of sad, actually, but I think it's likely that he had no integrity all along and the GOP's lurch into insanity just made it apparent.

#21

Posted by: Cuttlefish, OM, CR | September 26, 2010 7:18 PM

A chaplain spoke at my brother's funeral. I wish I had had the fortitude to explain to everyone the reason that the chaplain had to keep explaining that she did not know my brother, had never met him, was only learning about him from others there. It is not easy for a brother to say *anything*, let alone what Richard Tillman did (let alone to whom he said it). Makes me feel better to hear it.

Time to research their dna and look for what I propose will be called the "kick-ass" gene.

#22

Posted by: MadScientist | September 26, 2010 7:26 PM

The training will certainly have a lot to do with it - just think of how much training Pat Tillman got himself. You've got a lot of young folks scared shitless and they'll shoot at anything that moves. It takes a lot of balls to make an effort to properly assess a situation and the folks brave enough to hold fire knowing full well that they can be killed are pretty rare. Unfortunately the drivel in the movies is pretty much the only impression most people get of wars. You bomb the enemy and shoot at them until they come out waving a white flag. These days you don't even get that - just press a button and watch the magic weapons do their job. In reality you frequently see that it's someone from the side with superior firepower walking over with a flag and unarmed. The other side is usually too scared to surrender on their own; they believe that they'll all be killed. During the Vietnam war, as part of an assessment of the efficacy of airstrikes, aircraft were fitted with instruments to record when and where the bombs were released. A lot of the pilots were so terrified of being shot down over a site known to be held by the enemy that they'd simply drop the bombs elsewhere and fly back claiming mission accomplished.

I don't know why the friendly fire damages have gone up so much though; I get the impression that folks in WW2 got the least training before being shipped off. One possibility is that there are far more encounters with "friendly" forces than hostile forces, so the tendency of the frightened to simply shoot results in increased casualties on the friendly side. I guess we could say it's an alternative meaning to "we have met the enemy and they are ours". (The original, in geekspeak: "we pwned them!")

#23

Posted by: corkscrew | September 26, 2010 7:34 PM

I like this family, also.

#24

Posted by: Joker1225 | September 26, 2010 8:13 PM

I like this family as well. I just finished reading the Pat Tillman story via Krakauers book "Where Men Win Glory". I wish that I could have met Pat Tillman. The whole story makes me really angry, and I am Canadian.

#25

Posted by: CMT | September 26, 2010 8:29 PM

Interesting factoid about Tillman is that he was a member of the Arizona State Sun Devils team that was in contention to take home a share of the '96 National Championship title but came up short against Ohio St. in the Rose Bowl. Florida would be named consensus national champions that year. (Yeah, I know...Football.)

As an Alabama fan, I salute anyone who has had their dreams stripped away by the Florida Gators!

#26

Posted by: seemeisie | September 26, 2010 8:31 PM

If some arseholes get all religious at my funeral, I hope someone does the same as that dude!

#27

Posted by: CMT | September 26, 2010 8:43 PM

@#25

Oh shit, I hope I'm not speaking ill of the dead. Tillman may have be the guy who missed the tackle when Ohio St. ran in the touchdown with 19 seconds left to play.

#28

Posted by: Wanderfound | September 26, 2010 8:54 PM

@22:

I don't have any data on this (so I'm of course largely talking out of my arse here), but my first suspect for the increasing rates of friendly fire casualties is simply that the balance of military power has continued to shift towards the NATO forces, while the rate of human fuckuppery has remained constant.

10 friendly fire incidents + 90 enemy-inflicted casualties = 10% friendly fire. 10 friendly fire incidents + 40 enemy-inflicted casualties = 20% friendly fire. There doesn't have to be any actual increase in friendly fire incidence to explain the quoted figures. You'd want to look at the absolute numbers (in comparison with person-hours deployed) in order to get a real comparison.

#29

Posted by: Keith | September 26, 2010 9:31 PM

And what does Tillman say when he explains he was not drinking? He just had a beer in his hand because...?

That he had just started drinking and wasn't drunk yet. He was saying that it wasn't the alcohol talking at that point, nor did the alcohol provide him the bravery to say what he did.

#30

Posted by: Menyambal: Making sambal (it isn't dragon magic). | September 26, 2010 9:40 PM

Speaking of John McCain, military and friendly fire ... . He was in the 1967 USS Forrestal fire, right from the start. The fire started when a couple of rockets went off on a packed carrier deck and hit another aircraft, starting a fire. McCain was in one of the craft that first started burning. A couple of bombs dropped to the deck and things started going to hell. Nobody mentions which aircraft the bombs came from, and it seems odd that they were "knocked loose".

My speculation is that one of two pilots went into panic mode when the fire started, and dropped the bombs off his aircraft to get rid of them, instead of leaving them on so the plane could take them overboard, either by engine power with a fast eject, or by having the plane shoved overboard. McCain was one of the two. He may be the guy who let the fire get out of control and killed a few people.

No proof, of course, but there are some things that seem to be carefully avoided in the reports, and McCain's further non-involvement in fighting the fire is recorded and often criticized. And he had family with the power to cover it all up.

#31

Posted by: False Prophet | September 26, 2010 9:44 PM

#22,

Can't point to any data off-hand, but the unwillingness of infantry soldiers to pull the trigger in combat situations is fairly established. I think I saw one paper that claimed as few as 10% of Allied infantrymen in WWII actually fired their weapons in combat. Not that it's easy to actually hit targets with small arms fire in a firefight anyway. By "the training" I think Richard Tillman is referring to the more modern techniques that overcome a soldier's reluctance to pull the trigger.

Also, since airstrikes, artillery and armour have done most of the offensive work in battle since the close of WWI, I suspect less chances were taken using bombs and shells close to friendly troops when they were aimed by older manual methods. Today, computer targeting systems may give pilots and gunners a false confidence in their ability to give their comrades on the ground close-fire support.

Also, how often did the Western Allies in WWII get into urban-area firefights? How many battles in Vietnam were in urban areas? Things are a lot different when you're an occupying force.

#32

Posted by: Andyo | September 26, 2010 9:46 PM

Here is a video of their dad being interviewed by Anderson Cooper, where he says that Richard's speech was "the most eloquent of the bunch". If he was drunk, that's still true.

#33

Posted by: https://me.yahoo.com/a/If2ad5ANxIxbnty8UYzP2NzuuMFEAGMusZNhDjvlJ.rYtjxmKw--#a2812 | September 26, 2010 9:57 PM

the beer was already on the podium when Richard got there. He did take a drink of it, but Alex brought the beer to the podium before him.

#34

Posted by: Wolfhound | September 26, 2010 10:03 PM

I know that this will sound crude but I do believe that I want to have his babies. And we should get started right away.

#35

Posted by: BurtClifton | September 26, 2010 10:26 PM

If there's a hell, we're all going there for laughing at the funeral clip. Thankfully there's no cause for concern. As Richard himself might say, we'll just be fuckin' dead!

#36

Posted by: LarianLeQuella | September 26, 2010 10:38 PM

From one atheist in a fox hole to all my other atheist brothers in arms.

SALUTE.

And a beer is a perfectly acceptable salute.

#37

Posted by: Andyo | September 26, 2010 10:52 PM

Salud!

#38

Posted by: Wanderfound | September 26, 2010 11:10 PM

@#31

Also, how often did the Western Allies in WWII get into urban-area firefights?

Quite often.

Caen, Aachen, Eindhoven/Nijmegen/Arnhem, Warsaw, Ortona, Groningen, Stalingrad, Berlin, Budapest...

#39

Posted by: Maslab | September 27, 2010 12:16 AM

People who are under such stresses often tend to pull the trigger in any even mildly questionable events.

I would tend to agree... but Army Rangers? They're not the best, sure, but they're not exactly your average grunts. There are stories of Army Rangers who would have nightmares about Ranger School while they were serving in Vietnam.

Not that I'm leaning either way on the "he got shot on purpose" or vice versa, as I haven't done any research on the subject.

#40

Posted by: Outercow | September 27, 2010 12:29 AM

An entire family of badasses, no doubt about it. They are integrity through and through.

#41

Posted by: Ichthyic | September 27, 2010 12:36 AM

I think I saw one paper that claimed as few as 10% of Allied infantrymen in WWII actually fired their weapons in combat.

are you sure you're not recalling the plot from "Men who stare at goats"?

#42

Posted by: davric | September 27, 2010 1:18 AM

#40 - it seems to be about right. It was General Marshall who conducted the research at the end of WW2. Amongst the 10% who actually fired, only about 1% of those infantrymen actually fired *at* the enemy. A psychological profile of those 1% revealed that about half of them were clinically diagnosed psychopaths!

This confirmed what they'd begun to notice during the American Civil War. There was a case of a Union infantryman at Little Round Top whose musket was found to have 23 rounds in the barrel at the end of the battle. He'd stood up in the face of enemy fire together with his mates, but not fired. Then he'd reloaded on top of the previous charge … and not fired again.

There was clearly nothing wrong with his courage - but the conclusion was that the desire to be seen to stand up with his mates was one thing, but the psychological barrier to killing another human being was still too strong for him to be able to fire.

The 'problem' was in the training. People who'd been taught to shoot at targets found themselves unable to fire at real people - even when their lives were in danger. When they started training soldiers in more 'realistic' situations, with pictures of real people to fire at, the incidence of people actually firing their weapons increased.

#43

Posted by: Simulation of Sapience | September 27, 2010 2:14 AM

The military had to at minimum try to cover up the truth of Pat Tillman's death or cast it through the filter of Truthiness or else they'd have lost a golden opportunity for pro-war propaganda.
Al-Queda killing an All-American sports hero makes the conflict hit home for a lot more people than some kid getting a touch too trigger-happy would.If anything,that actually might hurt recruitment rates to give the impression that new recuits themselves could be on the recieving end of a fragging from cutting edge weaponry wielded by their own side.

It might have worked if they had accounted on the Tillman family themselves not going along with the ruse in silent compliance.

#44

Posted by: sharl | September 27, 2010 2:29 AM

The Tillman family has shown nothing but class and total honesty since losing Pat. Such qualities are completely lacking in their Senator, John Sidney McCain III.

McCain has had two really big things going for him - a domestic national political press he trained to eat out of his hands, and his imprisonment as a POW during the Vietnam War, which he has skillfully and subtly milked for all it is worth, with his good buddies in the press playing willing tools - war hero and all that, never required to be consistent, or held to the standards of other politicians.

Good journalism on him isn't widely available, but there has been some from his home state. I found some coverage at Phoenix's alternative news (weekly?) Phoenix New Times to be pretty informative, and I don't remember seeing any authoritative refutations for most of what they wrote.

Finally, on the matter of laughter at funerals, my fellow old farts who grew up with U.S. sitcoms may remember the episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show called Chuckles Bites the Dust. Here's the Wikipedia link - it looks like clips once posted on You-Tube have been yanked. Hilarious and kind of thoughtful all at once, IIRC.

#45

Posted by: https://me.yahoo.com/a/SaqGVG0xvJEQVwURVamS3DTCdvov0BLhXK1jOsYPPJQ-#b4893 | September 27, 2010 2:34 AM

Has anyone here seen the movie, "The Tillman Story", yet? I haven't; just wondered if many have.

Review of it here.

MikeM

#46

Posted by: John Phillips, FCD | September 27, 2010 3:45 AM

Ichthyic #18, I thought that about McCain also, i.e. getting back at the GOP. But only until he made it clear over the last year or so that he would do and say anything as well as reverse most if not all of his previous positions to stay elected.

#47

Posted by: Cosmic Snark | September 27, 2010 7:19 AM

Kudos to the Tillman family for having the courage to speak against such cowardly dissembling and incompetence from the U.S. military. I had no idea that over 50% of current combat deaths are from friendly fire. I also applaud Richard for getting up there and letting the godbotters know that the family did not appreciate the "he's with God now" bullshit. Of course, that's the least of it. At least McCain was mouthing what he probably sincerely believed to be nice platitudes. I am acquainted with a woman who used to be engaged to a police officer. That officer was shot and killed in the line of duty. At the funeral, a Catholic woman went up to the bereaved betrothed and told her the reason her fiance was dead was because he was Catholic and she wasn't, and God didn't like that. Amazingly, my friend did not beat the shit out of this insensitive, inhuman gawdwhore, although in retrospect she regrets not doing just that.

#48

Posted by: Dunmore Throop | September 27, 2010 8:27 AM

There is no question that Pat Tillman was fragged by his fellow troops. The real question is: was it a friendly fragging or not? Was he shot by mistake, at close range, by one of his fellow soldiers, or was someone ordered to kill him by the higher-ups? The speed and thoroughness of the cover-up suggests to me that he was killed on orders, probably from McChrystal.

#49

Posted by: percyprune | September 27, 2010 10:03 AM

Just to jump in here, but SLA Marshall's work on the number of US infantrymen firing weapons--what he termed his 'ratio of fire'--has been under close examination in recent years. Marshall's methodology appears to have been more anecdotal than scientific and his detailed interview records cannot be found. There has been the suggestion that he was a man in search of data to fit a theory and made it fit. It doesn't help that Marshall has also turned out to be something of a fabulist regarding his own military career.

There has been some good work in recent years to that suggest Marshall's 'ratio of fire' theory does not stand up to examination, at least in non-US armies. However, most of this is based on post-war records, with the exception of Robert Engan's work on the Canadian forces in northwest Europe.

However, the 'ratio of fire' did lead to actual changes in training, specifically designed to increase the amount of firing the American soldier did. Marshall's own assessment by Vietnam was that close to 100% of US soldiers were firing.

Now, it's difficult to say how true this is. But there may well be a correlation of training in aggressive rifle fire and the increase in reported friendly fire incidents since 1945.

Just sayin'.

#50

Posted by: Zorya | September 27, 2010 10:29 AM

I think that I am in love.

#51

Posted by: gussnarp | September 27, 2010 10:59 AM

That guy is awesome. I think he's my new hero. Apparently enormous fucking balls run in the family.

#52

Posted by: 'Tis Himself, OM | September 27, 2010 12:52 PM

As percyprune in #48 says, SLA Marshall's data are quite suspect. Roger Spiller wrote an analysis of Marshall's work and found some major holes in it.

This calculation assumes, however, that of all the questions Marshall might ask the soldiers of a rifle company during his interviews, he would unfailingly want to know who had fired his weapon and who had not. Such a question, posed interview after interview, would have signalled that Marshall was on a particular line of inquiry, and that regardless of the other information Marshall might discover, he was devoted to investigating this facet of combat performance. John Westover, usually in attendance during Marshall's sessions with the troops, does not recall Marshall's ever asking this question. Nor does Westover recall Marshall ever talking about ratios of weapons usage in their many private conversations. Marshall's own personal correspondence leaves no hint that he was ever collecting statistics. His surviving field notebooks show no signs of statistical compilations that would have been necessary to deduce a ratio as precise as Marshall reported later in Men Against Fire. The "systematic collection of data" that made Marshall's ratio of fire so authoritative appears to have been an invention.

Marshall was not a serious historian. He was a brilliant combat journalist who put a premium on telling a good story.

#53

Posted by: percyprune | September 27, 2010 1:09 PM

The problem with Marshall is that there is so little actual data from the era. These are the earliest days of Operational Research (a discipline pioneered by the British). The nearest this to a contemporary record on the matter of shooting was some questionnaires handed to British and Canadian officers late in the war. Robert Engen (not Engan as I misspelled above) has mined this trove and shows that far from firing too little, fire discipline and firing too much was a problem with Canadian units. Which suggests that Marshall's theory, if true, may have been unique to the US Army.

However, Marshall *was* very influential. Programs were put in place to encourage more shooting.

I would be unsurprised if this training was not a contributing factor to Tillman's death. And should at least be considered.

#54

Posted by: Darreth | September 27, 2010 2:12 PM

Having been a former US Marine, and having seen the insidious infiltration of fundie Christianity in the military THIRTY freakin' years ago, I suspect Tillman's diary contained items deemed far too atheistic for his shallow mythology-addicted peers.

#55

Posted by: https://me.yahoo.com/hairychris444#96384 | September 27, 2010 3:15 PM