Forever unknown unless somebody comes forward and tells the full truth of what happened. The clustering of bullet wounds in his head made his death questionable if it was murder or accident.

He should have never been there.

What’s with all this negativity with Tillman these days?

Guy was there because he wanted to be there. Maybe it’s not what you or I would have done in his position, but it was his life.

Mad respect for what he did.

https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/...0hhrg41930.htm


https://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/04...ing/index.html

Three ARMY investigations around that time have always bugged me for senior ARMY officer involvement and story telling- particularly early on in the events. I had involvement then in the other two.Not in Ranger Tillman’s but I have always been bothered by it. A good place to think is from the Pat Tillman bridge:

https://www.hdrinc.com/portfolio/mik...ver-dam-bypass

In case you’re curious/bored, the other 2 involving story telling then that I think then showed an overzealousness to get in front of strategic messaging and tales by senior ARMY officers;

Jessica Lynch:

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/re...-jessica-lynch

MarSoc with local KC connection:

https://www.marinecorpstimes.com/new...ion-from-hqmc/
Chaos Mattis kinda got some justice here, by preventing 1 of the story tellers from becoming a Combatant Commander, years later -but hardly equitable.

I know Fred Galvin well. Spent many, many hours discussing his and Fox Company's ordeal and wrote a few letters on his behalf, to likely no effect. Yes, some senior ranking A R M Y officers massively over-reacted and incredulously sided with the Afghan's story over our own troops. I find that incredibly disheartening, but perhaps not unsurprising considering whom was involved-- as I worked on Nicholson's staff once upon a time.

However, and I may be speaking out of turn, Fred will tell you he was hung out to dry by more than a few U S M C senior ranking officers as well, and does not have much of anything positive to say about the highly lauded former SECDEF/Warrior Monk who seems to have a popular following. But of course just one man's keyhole perspective...there's always three sides.

Concur. No out of turn. from what I know of Fred’s story from him and hell, I may have read your letter unless it was personal for the CMC- I spoke to Fred years ago and mainly knew the MarSoc CGs-so little tactically and then it was well after the investigation and most of the beltway politics of it. I was involved with the original SECDEF decision to create a MarSoc and subsequent USMC decisions and deployments.

It was jammed down usmc throats but in fairness the USMC had spoken for years out both sides of our mouths, and we knew it. I don’t dispute Fred’s or perhaps your view of chaos. But that is a little inside baseball. I had battles with Jim ever since he was a Bn Co. He always out ranked me, so tough to win unless I called bigger or equal dogs or could stand squarely on history/doctrine. He never forgets. I learned to use his chief (always moved with him while he was a GO. A old Co.co.for him).

I will share that some sense of ‘Chaos justice “ about Fred is why I think as SECDEF, Chaos prevented the original Army investigator from becoming a Combatant Commander, as he felt he was destined to be.

It was never about tactical capabilities, it was about Operational Control. Fred’s case was caught up in all of this beltway fight.


His case will never be right. It started with the first investigator in my opinion (never liked that guy, when I dealt with him before so there’s my bias.). I still believe he was chosen to keep the “Secret- no MarSoc” ArSOF philosophy. All led to chicken-shits of both services and Fred’s guys hung out-in my opinion.

Fascinating stuff. Well to me anyway, thanks for sharing to both of you.

And here I thought I was the only weird oh. As I read cheaters post, I realized my own was too harsh on the Army in Fred’s case. Both services had plenty of blame for leadership failures. I was thinking more about Ranger Tillman and Lynch as part of my Army centric rant.

Well, per the Ken Burns Vietnam documentary, later Vietnam-era soldiers used to frag commanders for being too gung ho.

Also for being racist.

Indeed, it’s like being a fly on the wall at the Pentagon

This joint sure has some heavy hitters, love it