Soldier Speaks Up A Decade After Pat Tillman's Friendly-Fire Death

Ten years after the friendly-fire incident in Afghanistan that killed U.S. Army Ranger and former NFL star Pat Tillman, one of the soldiers who mistakenly pulled the trigger says he's still haunted by demons from the night of April 22, 2004.


Steven Elliott tells NPR's All Things Considered that on the night of the incident, he could see only "shadowy figures" and had every reason to believe that when his squad leader, Sgt. Greg Baker, opened fire on what turned out to be Tillman's position, there were no "friendlies" in the area.


"We'd all been firing our weapons at various positions, up to that point, effectively enemy positions," Elliot tells host Melissa Block. "The sun had been set for roughly 20 minutes, so the lighting conditions were poor to say the least."

Read the entire story and/or listen to the interview by clicking here.

From the ESPN website:

Gold Star mother feels betrayed, not ready for the truth, so she waits

AKRON, Ohio — Peggy Buryj might be a phone call away from answering the great mystery of her life.

But she hesitates.

Buryj thinks she knows the name of an American soldier who killed her son, Jesse, in a friendly-fire incident in Iraq on May 5, 2004.

According to a soldier who was there, the bullet came from the gun of a man who is still in the U.S. Army and living in Italy.

But knowing that has not brought her comfort. Instead, the Canton woman has concluded there’s nothing she can do about it.

So the agony and the grieving continue after eight long years. She often feels lonely, even among other Gold Star mothers, because her circumstances and pain are unusual. She doesn’t even celebrate military holidays like other survivors.

Read the entire story here.

Army dismisses officer who killed soldier in Iraq friendly-fire incident

By Tom Jackman, Published: July 2The Washington Post

The officer who shot and killed Pfc. David H. Sharrett II of Oakton in a friendly-fire incident in Iraq in 2008 should be terminated from the Army and stripped of a combat badge he received for a battle he fled, leaving the mortally wounded Sharrett and four other soldiers behind, military officials have ruled.

The move was revealed on the eve of what would have been Sharrett’s 32nd birthday, and was the result of four years of investigating and agitating by his father, David Sharrett Sr. , a retired English teacher at Langley and Chantilly high schools in Fairfax County.

Read the entire story here.

David Sharrett’s family still wants justice for friendly fire death in Iraq

Dave Sharrett Sr. still sees his son in his dreams.

In one, the son is home on leave from Iraq, a warrior, a man. His boots are caked in mud. His fatigues are dirty. “And as we talk,” Sharrett says, “I realize I have to tell him that I know how he is going to die.”

Four years after Pfc. David H. Sharrett II of Oakton bled to death near a clump of scrub trees in Balad, Iraq, the father finally knows how the son was killed: shot by his own lieutenant in a case of “friendly fire.” But he still doesn’t know why.

Read the entire story here.

Multiple missteps led to drone killing U.S. troops in Afghanistan

"Hey now, wait. Standby on these," the pilot cautioned. "They could be animals in the field." Seconds later, tiny white flashes appeared by the figures -- the heat signature of gunfire. "There they are," he said, now sure he was looking at the enemy.

At an Air National Guard base in Terre Haute, Ind., an intelligence analyst whose job it was to monitor the video to help prevent mistakes on the mission also observed the muzzle flashes -- but noticed that they were firing away from the embattled Marines.

Marines at Patrol Base Alcatraz, 12 miles from the firefight, watched their screens too, as they kept in contact with both the drone crew and the platoon members, who had set out from the base just an hour earlier. It would be their decision whether to call in a missile strike.

Thirty-one seconds after the pilot reported muzzle flashes, the Marines at Alcatraz ordered that the Predator be prepared to strike if the shooters could be confirmed as hostile. At 8:49 a.m., 29 minutes after the ambush began, they authorized the pilot to fire.
In minutes, two Americans would be dead.

Read the entire story here.

U.S. Deaths in Drone Strike Due to MIscommunication, Report Says

The Pentagon says Marines in Afghanistan and the crew controlling the drone in Nevada were unaware analysts watching the firefight via live video in Indiana had doubts about the targets' identity.

Reporting from Washington—

A Marine and a Navy medic killed by a U.S. drone airstrike were targeted when Marine commanders in Afghanistan mistook them for Taliban fighters, even though analysts watching the Predator's video feed were uncertain whether the men were part of an enemy force.

Those are the findings of a Pentagon investigation of the first known case of friendly fire deaths involving an unmanned aircraft, the April 6 attack that killed Marine Staff Sgt. Jeremy Smith, 26, and Navy Hospitalman Benjamin D. Rast, 23.

Read the entire story here.

"Friendly Fire"

Link to discussion of "friendly fire" non-combat deaths on The Truth Has Changed radio show.

Link to "friendly fire" documentary trailer and showing dates.

Documentary on Friendly Fire Deaths to Premiere

ASKATD Long Trailer from 5414Productions on Vimeo.

In the works for over two years, A Second Knock at the Door offers a rare glimpse into the lives of military families dealing with the loss of loved ones to friendly fire. Through interviews and investigative reports obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, this documentary explores several key incidents in which the families of the fallen were forced to embark on a quest for the truth after the Army attempted to bury the true cause of death within the "fog of war."

Unwilling to allow these soldiers to be defined by their death, A Second Knock at the Door thoroughly explores these men outside of the uniform through the eyes of their community where they were known simply as sons, husbands, fathers, fiancés, and friends.

A Second Knock at the Door is a portrait of strength and sacrifice, faith and honor, and an undying belief in the goodness of the men and women who give their lives for their country.

Read the entire story here.

Unfriendly Fire

I’ve just finished reading Unfriendly Fire:  A Mother’s Memoir by Peg Mullen. 

Peg Mullen used the energy generated by her son’s death by “friendly fire” during the Vietnam War to protest war.  She marched in protest all the way up to the first Gulf War.  Peg died in 2009 at the age of 92.  She was a very Catholic lady who had friends in the clergy with the convictions to support the Anti-War Movement.  This was a consistent theme in her memoir.

Peg felt that keeping our country from engaging in wars of aggression was key to stopping the bloodshed.

Statistics published after the Vietnam War was over suggested that "more than 10,000 casualties were caused by accidents, murder, friendly fire, drug overdose and other unexplained causes, all labeled nonhostile deaths."

There was a book, “Friendly Fire”, written five years after Michael Mullen’s death which Peg Mullen found disappointing.  The family had agreed to allow Courtlandt Bryan  to write the book.  Peg felt the author placed his personal views and support for the military above the family’s narrative.  Peg explained that "(t)he passage in Friendly Fire accusing the men in the 14th Artillery of drunkenness was not our story,  It came from Colonel Norman Schwarzkopf, commanding officer of Charlie Company of the 198th Battalion."

A made-for-television movie, which the Mullens approved of, also titled “Friendly Fire”, had Carol Burnett playing Peg.

Still, the story always lacked a definitive reason for the error by which Michael was killed by shrapnel from US artillery fire.

The category, “friendly fire” is not, technically, considered non-combat death by the military.  A death caused by our own military to its members in battle is considered to be a combat death.  It’s a very strange dichotomy.

When I read books by family members, I always look for the common threads, the wisdom gained, the solutions offered. 

Peg Mullen, at a time before the Internet was invented, took the time and trouble to write letters to the families of other military men killed by “friendly fire” in the same area.  She corresponded with people, called them on the telephone and answered calls from numerous people over the years.  She and her husband traveled to meet some of the people and opened their home to people similarly affected by non-combat death.  She appeared at Congressional hearings and engaged in interviews in the media.

For all the years after her son was killed in 1970, Peg worked to try to get straight answers from the military.  She analyzed the false information given initially and followed up on tips sent by men who seemed to know what led to the accidental deaths. 

Now, families can contact one another via the Internet.  We maintain the same sort of close relationships as those formed in the 1970s and 1980s after the Vietnam War.  We get the same treatment from the military as well:  lies, obfuscation, and the willful withholding of information about how our loved ones died.

We are determined to fight for truth, although we regret that it is our very own government we are up against.

 Donna Janeczko

McChrystal resurrected? Not so fast, says Pat Tillman’s mom.

April 14th, 2011 | Outside the wire | Posted by Joe Gould



Gen. Stanley McChrystal, a hero fired for a minor flap, is brought back into the fold, made useful again as the co-chair of a White House initiative on military families.

All is well with the world again, right?

Not according to Pat Tillman’s mom.

Read the entire story here.

2 US servicemen mistakenly killed by drone attack in Afghanistan

NBC: Pair died in missile airstrike in an apparent case of mistaken identity

By Jim Miklaszewski
Chief Pentagon correspondent

NBC News NBC News
updated 4/11/2011 2:04:23 PM ET 2011-04-11T18:04:23
WASHINGTON — A U.S. Marine reservist and a Navy corpsman were killed in a drone airstrike in Afghanistan last week in an apparent case of friendly fire, U.S. military officials tell NBC News.

Marine Staff Sgt. Jeremy Smith and Navy Corpsman Benjamin Rast were reportedly killed Wednesday by a Hellfire missile fired from a U.S. Air Force Predator in what appears to be a case of mistaken identity, NBC reported. Smith and Rast were part of a Marine unit moving in to reinforce fellow Marines under heavy fire from enemy forces outside Sangin in Helmand province in southern Afghanistan.

The Marines under fire were watching streaming video of the battlefield being fed to them by an armed Predator overhead. They saw a number of "hot spots," or infrared images, moving in their direction. Apparently believing that those "hot spots" were the enemy, they called in a Hellfire missile strike from the Predator.

It's believed that this is the first time that U.S. service members have been killed by a Predator in a friendly fire incident.

Smith, 26, of Arlington, Texas, was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 23rd Marine Regiment, 4th Marine Division out of Houston. Rast, 23, was assigned to the 2nd Marine Division out of San Diego.

The U.S. military is investigating the incident. Military officials say the families of both service members have been informed of the possibility this was a friendly fire incident.

© 2010 msnbc.com Reprints
Read the original here.

Soldier killed by US friendly fire was a New Zealander in British army

A paratrooper killed when an American fighter fired on friendly forces in Afghanistan was a New Zealander serving with British forces.

 Private John 'Jack' Howard was serving with 3rd Battalion The Parachute Regiment in Nad 'Ali

By Robert Winnett, Deputy Political Editor at Camp Bastion, Afghanistan and Paul Chapman in Wellington 7:00AM GMT 07 Dec 2010

He has been named as Private John "Jack" Howard, from Wellington.

It is understood Private Howard was hit by cannon fire from the American F18 jet during a firefight with the Taliban in poor weather conditions.

The troops from the specialist Brigade Reconnaissance Force called in close air support after they came under small arms fire from an insurgent ambush five miles west of the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah

Read the rest of the story by clicking here.

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Leaks Provide More Information about non-combat deaths

Leaked papers detail local war losses

The scene after a deadly attack on a Stryker left little hope that anyone would emerge from the obliterated infantry carrier

Read more: http://www.thenewstribune.com/2010/10/26/1396352/leaked-papers-detail-local-war.html#ixzz13Sh7Fe53

More specific non-combat cases:  click here.

US Soldier Held In Iraq Over Colleagues' Deaths

(RTTNews) - A U.S. soldier has been detained in connection with the death of two of his colleagues in a non-combat shooting incident in Iraq last week, the U.S. military said on Tuesday.

According to the U.S. military command in Baghdad, Spc. Neftaly Platero is currently under "pre-trial confinement" in connection with the deaths of his comrades in a shooting incident that took place last Thursday in Fallujah, some 40 miles west of the Iraqi capital.

The killed soldiers were identified as Spc. John Carrillo Jr., 20, of Stockton, California, and Pfc. Gebrah P. Noonan, 26, of Watertown, Connecticut. Both died on Friday due to injuries sustained in the shooting incident.

To read the entire story, click here.

In Tillman's Story, Echoes of a Daughter's Pain

By Karen Spears Zacharias, Special to CNN
August 27, 2010 7:52 p.m. EDT

Editor's note: Karen Spears Zacharias is author of After the Flag has been Folded and Will Jesus Buy Me a Doublewide?

Hermiston, Oregon (CNN) -- In war, one family's story echoes the pain of another. I was reminded of that while watching Larry King interview Pat Tillman's parents last week.

Spc. Pat Tillman, who forfeited a multimillion-dollar football contract to serve his country, died in Afghanistan in 2004.

Many may consider this couple's relentless pursuit for truth futile -- it won't resurrect their son -- but I understand it. It took me eight years to discover what really happened the day my father died in Vietnam's Ia Drang Valley.

They say the man who killed my father went nuts. I don't know if that's true or not -- he was dead by the time I got around to looking for him. I wonder sometimes if he took his own life. I could find that out easily enough if I really wanted to know, but I don't.

The men who were there in 1966 know how hard Sgt. C. took it. He and Daddy were good buddies. Our families often gathered for weekend barbecues and fishing along on Oahu's North Shore before the 25th Infantry, stationed there, shipped out.

They say that Sgt. C. drank too much. There's some that say his drinking is the cause of the fratricide -- that's what the Army calls it when one of your buddies kills you.

After Daddy died, Sgt. C. sent Mama a rambling letter about how he wished he could marry her. That's the sort of crazy thing a fellow says when he's talking out of his head. The sentiment doesn't offend me. It shows me how much heart he had, sober or not.

When his widow learned that I was writing a book about what happened to my father, she hired a lawyer, who sent me a snarky letter by certified mail. The widow threatened a lawsuit if I quoted from her husband's letter. She didn't have any legal grounds to stand on: You can't slander a dead man. I could tell you his name and quote from the letter if I wanted, but hurting others has never been the point.

They say when Sgt. C. returned from Vietnam he didn't go home to Alabama. Instead he went to a head hospital in Texas. They say he spent months there, trying to forget everything he remembered. How that blast from Sgt. C's 105-howitzer pushed my father's guts straight out into Daddy's hands. Sgt. C likely overheard, the way others there that day did, my father pleading with the young doctor, "Please don't let me die."

These things happen in war, everyone says so, even Mama. She didn't really understand why I needed to know the truth: "It won't bring your father back," she warned. I wasn't trying to bring Daddy back -- I was trying make sense of a world gone mad.

I didn't know when I started my search that my father was killed by his buddy. I wasn't aware that there were two official Army reports -- the first one the truth and the second one a lie meant to protect Sgt. C. and, if you believe military officials (and I don't), to "protect the family."

Pat Tillman's family doesn't feel protected. They feel betrayed. His parents are in the news again, telling us, this time in a documentary, what they've been telling us for the last six years: That their son was killed by men in his own platoon and that the military knowingly and willingly participated in covering up the truth to protect, not the family, but their own sorry asses. (Excuse my potty mouth but there are times when behinney is the inappropriate word).

All this reminds me of a quote I read: "The central defect of evil is not the sin but the refusal to acknowledge it" (Dr. M. Scott Peck, "People of the Lie").

The military only needs to practice the integrity they preach. Instead they do the blame-shift thing. In an interview with ESPN's Mike Fish, the Army officer who directed the first inquiry, Lt. Col. Ralph Kauzlarich, admitted officials knew which shooter killed Tillman but he saw no value in going there.

"I don't think it really matters," Kauzlarich said.

The point, he said, isn't who really killed Tillman but rather his parents' lack of faith:

"There [have] been numerous unfortunate cases of fratricide and the parents have basically said, 'OK, it was an unfortunate accident.' And they let it go. These people have a hard time letting it go. It may be because of their religious beliefs."

He went on to say:

"When you die, I mean, there is supposedly a better life, right? Well, if you are an atheist and you don't believe in anything, if you die, what is there to go to? Nothing. You are worm dirt. So for their son to die for nothing, and now he is no more -- that is pretty hard to get your head around that."

You may recall that at Pat Tillman's funeral, his younger brother Rich chided the crowd for their false piety:

"Pat's not with God. He's f***ing dead. He's not religious. So, thanks for your thoughts but he's f***ing dead."

It's painful to see a brother come undone that way, in front of God and everybody. But given the propensity we Americans have to manipulate God for our own patriotic, and particularly militaristic purposes, I appreciate the pain that propels the Tillman family.

Kauzlrich ought to take a lesson from the General in Isak Dinesen's tale, "Babette's Feast":

"Man, in his weakness and shortsightedness believes he must make choices in this life. He trembles at the risks he takes. We do know fear. But no. Our choice is of no importance. There comes a time when our eyes are opened and we come to realize that mercy is infinite. We need only await it with confidence and receive it with gratitude. Mercy imposes no conditions. And lo! Everything we have chosen has been granted to us. And everything we rejected has also been granted. Yes, we even get back what we rejected. For mercy and truth have met together, and righteousness and bliss shall kiss one another."

If Lt. Col. Kauzlrich, and others charged with handling the Tillman investigation, had only been as relentless in their pursuit of truth as they were in covering it up, it would have been a grace to the Tillman family.

A grace that may have helped them make sense of a world gone mad.

A grace that surely would have enabled them to put their son rest and perhaps, restore to them, in some small measure, a glimpse of the God of mercy and truth.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Karen Spears Zacharias.

Pat Tillman's Family is Not Alone

Cilla McCain has written a post:

Click here to read it.

Marine's death came at hands of U.S.-paid security forces

By Chuck Goudie
Daily Herald Columnist

Marine Lance Cpl. Joshua Birchfield, 24, left, was killed while on patrol in Afghanistan on Feb. 19. Navy HM3 Christopher "Doc" Marsh, right, said "Josh was truly one of a kind. He was the glue that held his squad together."

No American soldier should die the way Josh Birchfield did.


There was much more to his "supporting combat operations" death than what the military put out.

It was the standard Pentagon release.

A soldier is killed. A clerk types in their name. "____________ died while supporting combat operations."

There is no Pentagon form titled "What Really Happened."

If there was, in the case of the metro Chicago Marine, this is how it would read:

"Lance Cpl. Joshua H. Birchfield, 24, of Westville, Ind., died Feb. 19 after being shot in the head by a doped-up private security contractor hired by the U.S. government. We're sorry we hired the guy, obviously didn't check him out very well and we are devastated that we didn't do a better job protecting our own."

This disturbing information came to me after last week's column, in which I reported how Lance Cpl. Birchfield deserved more attention in dying for his country than Tiger Woods, who at the same hour had commandeered the nation's airwaves to apologize for cheating on his wife.

"Although I respect the fact that you wrote about Josh to let the world know that he died a hero, and he did, your facts are not even close to the truth," wrote one of Lance Cpl. Birchfield's friends and fellow Marines in an e-mail from Afghanistan.

Because the military hadn't yet reported the death, I surmised that Birchfield was in the Marjan province, where Marines had been in regular firefights with the Taliban.

Actually, he was on a routine patrol in the Helmand province.

"He was killed by American Hired Local National Contractors that were high on opium the morning of the 19th."

The author of the e-mail was part of a Marine quick-response team that tried "to bring him back from the fatal gunshot to the head. There has never been a more charismatic and honorable man I have ever met than Joshua Birchfield."

Birchfield was on his first combat tour for the 3rd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Twentynine Palms, Calif.

His wake last week in La Porte County, Ind., drew several thousand people. To accommodate the mourners, his funeral on Saturday was held in the high school where he had graduated just few years ago.

But none of them knew the real story of what happened.

He was on a security patrol about a half-mile from a Marine forward operating base. About 7 a.m., as day broke, shots were fired at Birchfield's patrol team, according to members of his unit. The ambush was by U.S.-hired security guards who were supposed to be protecting a highway paving project from Taliban-installed roadside bombs.

"The contractors were able to have such proximity to a U.S. patrol because we pay them to work on our FOB (forward operating base), pave the 515 (highway), and provide security from Taliban IED (roadside bomb) implacers in the area," I was told.

Because the U.S.-backed contractors "are ordinary Afghanis, they are subject to corruption and play both sides of the fence between the U.S. military and the local Taliban," reported one of Birchfield's fellow Marines. "These men are armed to the teeth and supposedly here for our protection."

He said the shooter and six other guards were arrested after the killing and are in the custody of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service.

"They are also drug abusers. The shooter was found to have copious amounts of wet opium on him shortly after the shooting ... we found a bag of wet opium in the compound that the contractors were using to get high."

The Pentagon had no comment on the incident on Sunday.

But the Marine said that Josh Birchfield died for two reasons. "A mix of drugs and gray areas of loyalty between U.S. forces and Taliban seems to be the motivation behind the shooting."

Although Birchfield was the first U.S. service member he recalls being killed by a U.S.-paid Afghan guard, "we have been shot at by the contractors on several cases before this incident. We have been told to refrain from returning fire and attempt to identify ourselves as Marines so they stop shooting."

His fellow Marines held a small memorial service for him last Friday in Afghanistan. They huddled around the boots and helmet he once wore. And the gun he never had a chance to fire at an enemy bought and paid for by his own government.

• Chuck Goudie, whose column appears each Monday, is the chief investigative reporter at ABC 7 News in Chicago. The views in this column are his own and not those of WLS-TV. He can be reached by e-mail at chuckgoudie@gmail.com and followed at twitter.com/ChuckGoudie

Discussion of the Exploitation of Pat Tillman's Death

A short video from The Daily Show: click here.

Krakauer Explores Pat Tillman's Death And Cover-Up : NPR

Krakauer Explores Pat Tillman's Death And Cover-Up : NPR

To access the story, click here.

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--submitted by Patti Woodard