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Comment by sitkack | Hacker News Reader

> Military experts were hard-pressed to think of another case where elite U.S. troops turned on one another.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_Tillman#Surrounding_Tillma...

That appears to have been a simple friendly-fire accident, no? I'm sure they mean cases where there was actual hostile intent.

> Jones reported that members of Tillman's unit burned his body armor and uniform in an apparent attempt to hide the fact that he was killed by friendly fire.[23] His notebook, in which – according to author Jon Krakauer – Tillman had recorded some of his thoughts on Afghanistan, was also burned; "a blatant violation of protocol."[24] Several soldiers were subsequently punished for their actions by being removed from the United States Army Rangers. Jones believed that Tillman should retain his medals and promotion, since, according to Jones, he intended to engage the enemy and behaved heroically.[23]

Tillman had, at the time, an ongoing correspondence with Noam Chomsky on the illegality of the Iraq War and how he felt betrayed.

Wow I had no idea about the correspondence with Noam Chomsky. Apparently that has been well known for at least 10 years.

There are also some pretty frank interviews in Ken Burns and Lynn Novak’s Vietnam War documentary in which the subjects discuss “fragging” unpopular officers. Though maybe the quote was referring just to recent cases.

Edit: Whoops, missed the “elite” part of that quote.

These men are humans, not mythical warrior gods.

Stories like this suggest that perhaps after years of continuous wartime service there are some cracks in the armor.

>>where elite U.S. troops turned on one another

Tillman was already dead. So no one turned against him (friendly fire happens a lot) they tried to save their ass after he was dead. A mistake, but they didn't kill him on purpose.

that was "friendly fire", which i assume was unintentional.

It's okay to assume that. But we really don't know that it's unintentional. It's more than a conspiracy theory to suspect the fire was nefarious.

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