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thedrifter
04-05-07, 09:01 AM
Last updated April 4, 2007 5:26 p.m. PT
Hold judgment on friendly-fire cover-ups

EDWARD F. PALM
GUEST COLUMNIST

The friendly-fire death of football-star-turned-Army-Ranger Pat Tillman was a tragedy, but I wouldn't rush to judgment on the ensuing cover-up. In my experience, as a career Marine and a student of military affairs, it makes a world of difference why people in the chain of command may not have told the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about this tragic incident.

As it just so happens, I am no stranger to friendly fire or friendly folly. In Vietnam, on a night in the fall of 1967, my unit was strafed by an AC-47 gunship -- popularly known as "Puff the Magic Dragon," the precursor of the AC-130 gunship being employed in Iraq. Two of our Vietnamese allies were killed, one was wounded, and two Marines were wounded before we could get through on the radio and call it off.

The two Marines were given Purple Hearts for wounds officially listed as due to enemy artillery. The pilots did come to the hospital to apologize, explaining that it is difficult to know exactly where you are over Vietnam at night. I don't know if they suffered official sanction. Likewise, I don't know what our government did, if anything, about the two dead Vietnamese soldiers. The government, it seemed to me, was intent on covering up the incident so as to avoid further embarrassment over an already unpopular war. That was wrong.

But what if one of the Marines died, and what if an investigation determined there to be no negligence or culpability? Would it have been a bad thing to try to mitigate his family's pain by letting them believe he had died as the result of enemy fire?

Perhaps. But, along the same lines, it used to be standard practice to comb through the personal effects of anyone killed in action, or even during a peacetime deployment, before sending those items home. It was understood that we were to remove and destroy anything that the next of kin might find hurtful or disillusioning. Did we have the right to do that? I don't know. I only know that, in at least one case, I thought it was the right thing to do.

What I'm waiting to learn, therefore, is why the officers concerned covered up what happened to Tillman. I, personally, could understand, and even condone, a sincere, but ill-advised, attempt to spare his family unnecessary pain. What I could never condone would be a cynical attempt to capitalize on Tillman's fame -- to manufacture a hero out of a hapless victim in order to promote the war.

That would be inexcusable.

Edward F. Palm of Bremerton is dean of social sciences and humanities at Olympic College.

Ellie