Inside the Team Room: U.S. Army Rangers

Robin Sage Begins June 9th, Time For the SF Students to Step Up

The Special Forces rite of passage is about to begin for the next class of SF candidates. The final training in Special Forces Qualification Course (SFQC) for prospective SF soldiers is the Unconventional Warfare (UW) exercise “Robin Sage”, which we went over in detail in an earlier post, that you can read here:

The prospective Green Berets put all their training together and infiltrate into the fictional country of Pineland via an airborne operation. The SF candidates must raise and train a guerrilla force that will fight the enemy government troops and attempt to restore the friendly Pineland government.

The exercise’s notional country of Pineland encompasses Alamance, Anson, Cabarrus, Chatham, Cumberland, Davidson, Davie Guilford, Hoke, Lee, Montgomery, Moore, Randolph, Richmond, Robeson, Rowan, Scotland, Stanly, and Union counties. Throughout the exercise, Special Forces candidates and Robin Sage role-players not only conduct training missions such as controlled assaults and key-leader engagements but also live, eat and sleep in these civilian areas.

Robin Sage, derives its name from the town of Robbins, N.C., a central area of operations for the exercise, and former Army Colonel Jerry Sage, a World War II veteran and an Office of Strategic Services, or OSS officer who taught unconventional warfare tactics. Steve McQueen’s character Hilts in the film “The Great Escape” was based off Sage.

This current version of the UW exercise has been in use with only slight changes since 1974. To succeed, the prospective SF troops need to accomplish a few key tasks.

Build Popular Support with the Civilian Populace
Make Rapport with the target audience (Guerrilla Force)
Be an effective teacher and train the resistance force

Building Popular Support with the Civilian Populace: What makes Robin Sage so realistic? The civilian community in “Pineland” is nearly totally immersed in the operation. Not only have the citizens of the operational area given their support for the exercise, they’ve become deeply involved.

Many of the role players have been involved with the course for several years and they pass along to their children the drive to carry on and to take over the role of underground or auxiliary in the exercise. And they have proven time and again just how important having popular support in the UW area of operations is to mission success.

These role players help to ferry supplies and equipment, move troops in covered trailers around the operational area as well as provide an early warning network for the guerrilla force. As it is with all people who live in the country, nothing happens out there without all of them knowing about it and they invariably warned the good guys.

And make no mistake, the Special Forces students are the “good guys” in this exercise. It strikes home how important having popular support is when either helping or countering a resistance movement. It is a lesson all SF troops need to learn. No one can make a move in the operational area without the civilians knowing about it. And if they are for you, they will prove invaluable. If the team loses popular support, they are likely done.

Make Rapport With the G-Force: Building rapport with the locals that the SF team will train with, by and through is, among the most important tasks they will encounter. The ability to build rapport both with their foreign partners and with their team members is essentially the difference between Special Forces and all of the others. Alone, an SF team is just 12 men, but working with their foreign partners, they become force multipliers.

SF candidates will quickly learn that learning to communicate and respect the ways of the target audience, obeying their social graces as it is imperative. That is just the first step. Learning to make rapport with the local forces isn’t easy to teach and it is even harder to learn. Some guys are naturals at it and should always be out front, especially during the early “feeling out” process.

The ability to build a solid base of trust is one of the key skills learned by Special Forces troops in complex, austere environments. It can’t be massed produced or pushed thru a shake and bake course. Having troops just show up on the doorstep in the middle of a third world country and have them fall at your feet isn’t realistic and doesn’t happen.

Rapport building begins with checking your ego at the door and operating instinctively. Many times there won’t be a right or wrong answer and frequently the SF candidates will be forced to make difficult and complex decisions. The hallmarks of a successful Special Forces soldier is a mature, versatile and flexible operator in any environment. Being able to adapt to cultures other than our own is the true mark of building trust and reliability that our by, with and through the local forces that will mark a successful operation.

The interaction with host nation troops, both soldiers and leaders require a need for tact and diplomacy. Hammering home the message to the lower rank and file of the guerrilla force is quite different than that to a Colonel or politician/tribal elder that you’ll encounter. A career diplomat once told me the art of diplomacy is the ability to tell someone to go to hell in a way that they’ll enjoy the trip.

One of the best team sergeants I ever knew and a man I consider a tremendous mentor said, the best way to make rapport sometimes is to just shut up and listen. For the SF candidates, there is a time for talking and a time for listening. And when it is time to listen, they need to do so as if their collective lives depend on it. Because they do.

Be An Effective Teacher, Training the G-Force: As we’ve said here numerous times, teaching is an art in Special Forces. Unfortunately teaching and training a guerrilla force isn’t as sexy as taking down a target on a DA (Direct Action) mission and no one wants to see that…right? People want to see a video of guys “doing operator shit” with plenty of cool toys complete with heavy metal music overdubbed while the bad guys bite the dust.

While DA missions are linear and much easier to judge the success or failure of, the true art of a Special Forces A-team lies in their ability to teach an allied soldier or guerrilla fighter to do those same Direct Action missions. Setting up intelligence early warning networks or leading a dedicated guerrilla force to succeed in the Unconventional Warfare (UW) environment isn’t as tangible, nor as sexy. But it is the difference between winning and losing in the UW environment.

We all remember our time in Robin Sage as it was the final test before joining the Regiment, where the real learning begins in earnest. And my primary instructor at Robin Sage, Paul W. not only knew his subject matter extremely well, he knew the operational area as well as the locals and we as a team soaked up his lessons like a sponge. He would always answer questions framed around a question of his own and said frequently that “this is a thinking man’s game.” At the time, we didn’t completely get it but he was right.

And everything centered around the three primary tasks listed above. They were all interdependent on one another. Of course, there are several other things that the students will have to accomplish, but these three are keys to getting a successful operation conducted in Robin Sage and walking across the stage and becoming part of the best Regiment in the military.

Photo: US Army

The Strange Story of David Baez, Green Beret, and Sandinista Officer

One of the most bizarre stories to come out about Central America was the strange saga of David Baez. Baez was born in Nicaragua but became a U.S. citizen and later a Green Beret. Baez’s father was a military officer in Nicaraguan National Guard before being executed by the military’s leader Anastasio Somoza.

Baez grew up an intense hatred of the Somoza’s and their regime and later while serving as a Green Beret in Panama with the 3rd Battalion, 7th Special Forces Group, he’d leave the military to return to Nicaragua to join the Communist Sandinista regime to fight the troops of Somoza.

Greg Walker is an author and former Green Beret from 3/7 SFG who was one of the 55 advisors in El Salvador back in the same time frame. He has written an outstanding two-part story that gets to the truth of a very outstanding NCO in Special Forces that ended up fighting against the U.S.-backed Contras and for our enemy, the Sandinistas in the early 1980s.

Prologue: Operation Patuca River, Honduras, 1983
On July 19, 1983, a group of 96 Marxist guerrillas with extensive training in Cuba and six months of combat conditioning in Nicaragua fighting U.S.-backed Contras, successfully infiltrated Honduras on foot after crossing the Coco River by boat.

The mission was planned and led by Dr. Jose Reyes Mata (“Commander Pablo Mendoza”), a well-known and highly-respected Honduran icon in the Latin American Marxist-Leninist community. The newly-formed Armed Forces of the People, or FAP, was a multi-national revolutionary army made up of Hondurans, Nicaraguans, Cubans, and two North Americans. Reyes Mata, an original founder of the Revolutionary Party of Central American Workers, Honduras (PRTC-H) under whose umbrella the FAP fell, had fought in Bolivia during the second attempt by the survivors of Commander Che Guevara’s disastrous 1967 effort to overthrow that South American country’s government. Captured, Reyes Mata was sent to prison until escaping to nearby and revolutionary-friendly Chile.

In Chile, he continued to promote and refine for export Che’s “foco theory” of revolution, a theory he hoped to personally plant the seed of in Honduras. Making his way to Nicaragua, he participated in the 1979 victory of the Sandinista FSLN guerrilla war against President Anastacio Somoza Debayle, thereby earning great favor with the new Marxist government in Managua as well as in Cuba where he was a welcome visitor and, at times, a resident.
Christened “the March of Liberty toward Victory,” the column, organized into four platoons, was to establish a series of logistical FAP base camps in Honduras from which to begin additional local recruiting, training, and finally to conduct guerrilla operations against the government and armed forces of Honduras. The FAP was to be the regional vanguard movement with expected support from the external PRTC forces in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Costa Rica.
Instead, in just two months, the column would be brutally annihilated by the elite Honduran Special Forces Squadron in close cooperation with its military intelligence sister unit, Battalion 316.
This NEWSREP three-part series relies upon current declassified documents, the extensive investigative efforts of both Honduran and U.S. media outlets, the declassified war diary of Dr. Reyes Mata, and personal recollections of those with first-hand knowledge of what took place in the rugged Olancho province of Honduras, as well as at the joint U.S./Honduran air base at El Aguacate.
Much has been speculated about–and written about–Operation Patuca River. To paraphrase SAS veteran Mike Coburn, author of the book “Soldier Five–The Real Truth About the Bravo Two Zero Mission,” retired Special Forces soldier Greg Walker offers: “It’s important to portray events as they really happened. Not only because the success of Operation Patuca River crushed a nascent civil war in Honduras, but because so many related to several of the FAP column have since searched for answers regarding their loved ones, regardless of their ideology, and to date found no resolution as to what happened to them.”
It begins with the family and friends of David Arturo Baez Cruz, the only known Green Beret to have willingly left his family and military career in 1980 to join the Sandinista Popular Army (EPS) in its fight against the Contras, and in 1983 against the Honduran Army as an FSLN combat adviser to the FAP.
Part One
Arturo was obsessive. He wanted to contribute something to the overthrow of the Somozas. For him it was like a sense of mission, especially after the death of [our] dad at the hands of the Somozas. He did not know him, but he grew up with ‘So, you’re Baez Bone, you must have ‘guevon’ [“big balls”] like your dad.” – Eduardo Baez, brother and former Sandinista officer
David Arturo Baez Cruz was born on December 19, 1950, in Jenotepe, Nicaragua. His father, Adolfo Baez Bone, was a young lieutenant in Nicaraguan president Anastasio Somoza Garcia’s National Guard. His grandmother, whose surname was Bone, was Guatemalan. In 1947, Adolfo was expelled from the National Guard along with other officers who had supported President Leonardo Arguello over Somoza Garcia.
On April 4, 1954, Adolfo and his brother, Luis Felipe Baez Bone, along with 23 others, sought to overthrow President Somoza Garcia by assassination. Also to be killed were the president’s two adult sons, Luis and Anastasio, the latter better known as “Tachito.” On the eve of the attack, to be led by Adolfo, an informer betrayed the conspirators, and all were arrested and imprisoned. Adolfo was personally beaten and tortured by Tachito for four agonizing days before he was fatally shot. Luis was also killed as were the others. Their bodies were burned and then secretly buried in a mass unmarked grave. In an eerie forecast of things to come, Adolfo was reported to have spat in Tachito’s face and warned him, “My blood with chase you!” before his execution.
Growing up Nicaraguan
“He [Arturo] grew up sleeping in the room where the closet held his father’s remains in a wooden trunk. The bones were eventually buried, but not Baez’s hatred for the Somozas. He always had something in his head about avenging his father.” – Eduardo Baez, brother and former Sandinista officer
Friends of the families of those murdered eventually located the mass grave. Adolfo’s remains were identified–despite having been burned–and his bones were brought to the family. They were hidden away until it was deemed safe to bury them properly. Today, in Managua, there is a monument to the “Heroes of April 4, 1954” with all 25 names of those considered martyrs inscribed on it.

To read the complete article, click here:

Photo of ODA-5 Panama and Baez: Robert K. Brown

AFRICOM Video Shows The Adventure of Conducting Airborne Operations

If you haven’t seen the video yet, during the recent “Operation Flintlock” United States Special Operations Forces conducted an airborne operation with unnamed host nation forces. The video highlights the level of training or lack thereof of some Third World nation’s airborne forces.

Ask anyone from our Special Operations Forces who have conducted airborne operations in some forlorn country where the paratroopers are supposedly “well-trained” and you will no doubt hear some good stories.

In this particular video during “Flintlock 2019”, the host nation troops were conducting a tailgate jump, which as any SF guy will tell you is the best jump out of any aircraft. Flintlock 2019 ran for a few weeks from mid-February to March 1, took place in Burkina Faso and Mauritania. More than 2,000 troops from 34 Western and African countries participated, including SOF units from the United States, Spain, Canada, Belgium, and Germany,

Judging from the video, either these troops have never conducted a tailgate jump or were totally freaked out at the aspect of the open back end of the aircraft yawing at them like a giant beast.

The first jumper reverts to his initial training which is geared toward jumping out of the door. He turns his body nearly 90 degrees and conducts a nearly perfect door exit, which no doubt resulted in the jumper having twists galore in his canopy.

Then one aspiring skydiver decides to launch himself out the rear of the aircraft HALO style…ouch. But the best one, and one we can all recall seeing at one time or another occurred when one intrepid paratrooper rushed to the tailgate, got cold feet and promptly sat down. Then, realizing that he had to go, he scooted on his butt and eventually, and thankfully, slid off the tailgate…Airborne all the way!

The video can be seen below:

This brought back some poignant memories of a trip to Paraguay back in the day with my team from 3/7 Special Forces. We conducted several airborne operations both with the Paraguayan SF troops we were training and some others with the host nation’s Airborne Brigade which was located in the capital city of Asuncion. The airborne brigade would use the same national airport as civilian air traffic and we’d load up using gates right beside planes readying for international flights.

Imagine waiting to board your plane heading to …wherever and looking out the terminal windows and seeing a bunch of C-130s and troops in camouflage uniforms donning parachutes. Even more so, when those troops could walk right into the terminal to use the facilities prior to jumping or get coffee from the vendors?

One particular morning our senior medic and I saw a huge commotion in the terminal and when we went to investigate, we ran smack into the television star Xuxa, who was famous at the time for having a kid’s show. That is a story for another time.

And we published the blackmail story of our Air Force CCT brothers who filmed me acting as a primary jumpmaster wearing cowboy boots, jeans, and a leather motorcycle jacket during the deployment here:

But on an earlier jump, the Air Force CCT were making a joint airborne operation with their airborne brigade counterparts. They had their portion of the jump covered, but the Paraguayans wanted to take advantage of the American C-130s there and jump some extra aircraft. The pilots, some great guys from the West Virginia Air National Guard, didn’t feel safe having host nation jumpmasters on their aircraft, so rather than break up the CCT guys from their own training, they asked if we’d support it. No worries, we had a slew of jumpmaster qualified guys on the team.

The first two planeloads of paratroopers and CCT guys were the more experienced members of the brigade. The final two aircraft, ones that the SF guys were going to jumpmaster were younger members of the brigade and who were making their cherry blast. A cherry blast for those uninitiated consists of a jumper’s first jump with the unit after his airborne training has been completed.

They were a nervous lot. Our pilot a Colonel from the Guard and Delta Airlines was a great guy. He made it clear that once we were over the drop zone, the aircraft and the jumpers were all ours, with one stipulation. “Chief, in the event of a jump refusal, I don’t want anyone thrown from the aircraft. The last thing we need is a towed jumper.” I concurred and promised him that we would not do that.

The drop zone (DZ) at the Army base was right in Asuncion, so the racetrack that the C-130s would fly after going over the DZ would take you right by some really high buildings, some of which were six or more stories tall. Seeing those buildings after the passes were completed both was a very cool sight, as I can’t remember hanging out of a door and seeing semi-skyscrapers…ever and struck home that the red light definitely meant stop.

During our pre-jump, we made that and our safety instructions quite clear. We did our JMPI (Jumpmaster Personnel Inspection) and the Paraguayans boarded the aircraft. Their nervousness increased. As our C-130s taxied to take our place in the waiting line for takeoff from the national airport, we began to don our own equipment. The Air Force loadmaster came up to me, “these kids looked scared shitless. Do you think they’ll jump,” he asked? We laughed, “wait until you open the doors,” I said. “Then the pucker factor will really show.”

After takeoff, we reached cruising altitude and we got the first pass up and did our jump commands, when the loadmaster opened the door, about 50 sets of eyes got the size of pie plates….here we go.

The first pass of jumpers went off without a hitch, they included the cadre members for the new recruits. One lieutenant gave me a wink and said, he wished we came down there more often, so they could jump more. I gave him a smile and thumped him on the shoulder to try to show the kids that this was just a walk in the park.

The second pass was another story. We made our racetrack over the city and we lined up on the DZ, as I came in from my last door check, the green light came on….”Go, go, go.” The first four jumpers went out the door…semi-professionally but not too bad, but our number five jumper was a charm.

He froze in the door, wouldn’t jump and then half in the door and half out the door, he slid down the frame until he was in a sitting position with his face plastered against the trailing edge of the door, with one leg out and one leg in.

Over the roar of the engines and wind rushing in, I could hear the loadmaster, yell, “Jesus Christ!” and was immediately on the intercom to the pilots. The #5 and #6 jumpers attempted to push past their guy sitting in the door, but I pushed them back. We got them back and attempted to haul in the kid in the door. He wasn’t having any of it.

“No, no, no!” he screamed, believing I was going to throw him out the door. As much as I tried to tell him that we weren’t going to do that, he held on tighter. We were now way off the drop zone, still flying straight and slow and over the buildings of Asuncion. There was no way he was going out then.

The loadmaster was yelling in my ear, “Chief, we have to shut the door!” I nodded. So what’s a guy to do? Using the fingertips of my left hand, I forced the kids head backward, tilting his old-style US steel pot as far as it would go. With all the force I could muster I punched in the face with my right. He let go with one hand to grab his face and that’s when the loadmaster and myself picked him up and threw him into the seat on the inboard side of the aircraft. We strapped him in. The door was closed as soon as we could bring the deployment bags in and we made a really tight turn to get back on our track.

The kid was claiming he hurt his ankle, which was why he didn’t jump, total BS, but we went along with the charade and told him to relax and he’d be fine. But we had the rest of the jumpers to go, the pilot wanted to know if we should continue and I said we’d be fine.

We reorganized our passes to get the rest of the 2nd pass out and I saw an officer amongst them and moved him to the front. We tried to quickly allay their fears and that everything was going to be okay. The kid who was the #6 jumper said something I couldn’t hear, and I still couldn’t hear him. The Paraguayan lieutenant said, “he said, he’s not afraid to jump, he just doesn’t want you punching in the fucking face.”

I asked the LT to arrange to send an ambulance over to the airport once we finished the last three passes and take care of the kid with the “hurt” ankle as soon as he hit the ground.

During the next pass of jumpers, their exits would have made the Blackhats at Ft. Benning proud….almost. But we got the last of the guys out without further ado. We got all of the deployment bags in and bagged up and once we taxied to our spot at the airport, the ambulance was already pulling up to the tarmac for our “injured” trooper. He was playing it up like he had a compound fracture, but it is what it is.

The pilot, as we retold the story was relieved and laughed…after the fact. He told me that he’ll have nightmares of that kid falling out with skyscrapers all around. I hastily hooked a ride with the ambulance guys over to the DZ which was part of the base.

The Airborne Brigade commander was there and was aware of what happened. I quickly went over and apologized for hitting one of his troops, which can be a very touchy subject regardless of the circumstances. He was fine with how it played out, having already heard the story from his own lieutenant. He put his arm around me and told me he would have done the same thing that the kid’s safety was more important than his hurt feelings. We were good.

We did jumpmaster a mass tactical exercise later during the deployment. The Brigade Commander was the #1 jumper on my aircraft. As we were getting ready to put them out the door, he winked at me and covered his eye with his free hand as if to say, “don’t punch me, I’m going!” We laughed.

The Air Force CCT guys later told me the kid who froze in the door was given another chance and got over his fear and made his cherry blast…Good for him.

Just another stellar day in 3/7. DOL

Photo/Video: AFRICOM

Remembering Pat Tillman, Ranger, NFL Player Died on This Day 2004

The endless Global War on Terror has claimed about 7000 American soldiers lives, mainly in Iraq and Afghanistan and have claimed over 500,000 lives of all the peoples involved since the 9/11 attacks in New York. Arguably one of the most well-known American soldiers to die was Pat Tillman, who gave up a million-dollar NFL career to enlist in the Army. He joined the 2nd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment and fought in Iraq and Afghanistan and was killed there on April 22, 2004.

At the time of his death, he was seen as an American hero who sacrificed all for his country while giving up a very lucrative career, just hitting its peak. Later, his name resurfaced during the controversy over the Colin Kaepernick Nike ads and the practice of many NFL players to kneel during the national anthem. Many tried to point out that Tillman would be against this practice and be a better spokesman for Nike than Kaepernick’s “Be Willing to Risk Everything” campaign. But his widow quickly extinguished those thoughts.

Early Life and College:

Tillman was born in Fremont, California in November 1976. He was the oldest of three sons in a very close-knit family. Tillman would remark later in his journals from Afghanistan that he drew great strength from his family and close friends. He was a standout football player from Leland High School’s State Championship team and parlayed that into the last scholarship offer of the year (1994), from Arizona State University.

Tillman was a standout if undersized linebacker at ASU at just 5’11, 202 pounds but he helped them go undefeated and play in the Rose Bowl after the 1996 season. In 1997, he was Pac-10 Defensive Player of the Year. But as much as he excelled on the football field, he was equally as successful in the classroom. A marketing major, he graduated in just 3.5 years with a 3.65 GPA.

He earned three consecutive selections to the Pac-10 All-Academic Football Team, a 1st team Academic All-American honor, as well as the NCAA’s Post-Graduate Scholarship for academic and athletic excellence. He also earned a B.S. in Marketing, graduating Summa Cum Laude from ASU’s prestigious W.P. Carey School of Business

NFL Career:

In 1998, Tillman was selected by the Arizona Cardinals with the 226th pick in the 7th round of the NFL Draft. Arizona moved him to safety but not many people thought he’d make an impact or last in the NFL. But he not only made the team but became a starter.

In 2000, he set a Cardinals record for tackles in a season with 224. The then St. Louis Rams offered him a contract for 5-years and $9 million dollars but he stayed out of loyalty to the Cardinals. The attacks of 9/11 affected him deeply. The next day he told a reporter, “At times like this you stop and think about just how good we have it, what kind of system we live in, and the freedoms we are allowed. A lot of my family has gone and fought in wars and I really haven’t done a damn thing.”

After the season was over, the Cardinals offered him a three-year, $3.6 million dollar contract to remain. But he had made other plans. In the spring of 2002, Tillman married his long-time girlfriend Marie and after their honeymoon, he told the Cardinals that he was putting his NFL career aside for the next three years to enlist in the Army.

His brother Kevin had been signed to baseball contract with the Cleveland Indians but he too put that on hold and together the two brothers signed up in May 2002.

Military Career and Death:

The brothers enlisted together and completed basic training together at Ft. Benning, GA in September of 2002. They then successfully completed the difficult Ranger Selection and Assessment Program (RASP) and were assigned to the 2nd Ranger Bn. at Ft. Lewis, WA.

The two brothers deployed together on a tour to Iraq in 2003 with the Rangers as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom. While in Iraq, Tillman had strong feelings about why the U.S. was there and although he performed admirably, disagreed with the invasion and thought it was illegal.

After returning from Iraq, the Tillman brothers both attended Ranger School in September of 2003, both graduating on November 28, 2003. After returning to the 2nd Ranger Bn. (Alpha Company, 2nd Plt) they deployed to Afghanistan and were based at FOB Salerno.

Tillman was becoming increasingly anxious to put the military behind him, his journals recall and he questioned the U.S. motives behind our actions in the region. He began to consider leaving as soon as his enlistment was up. The NFL had moved on, but he knew he could return to Arizona.

In the last conversation Tillman had with his agent, “he said, “you won’t believe the letter I got from Bill Belichick.” In the letter, Belichick, the coach of the New England Patriots, praised him for his courage, his leadership, his willingness to set an example for people in this materialistic society, and he said it was an honor to be in the same league he’d been in. Belichick closed the letter by telling Tillman that if he ever needed a job when he was released by the Army to give him a call. That was never to be.

On April 22, 2004, the Rangers were conducting an operation 40 km southwest of Khost along the Pakistani border when one of the units came under fire, just after the sun was setting. In the increasing darkness, Tillman and one element, with an Afghan soldier tried to come to the aid of fellow Rangers who had come under attack. As Tillman moved along the ridgeline to support the troops under fire, fellow Rangers, seeing “shadowy figures” on the ridge incorrectly identified them as enemy combatants and opened fire.

Tillman and an Afghan soldier were killed. His Platoon commander and his RTO were wounded. It was initially thought to be enemy fire that killed Tillman and the Afghan allied soldier. It wasn’t until after Tillman’s burial did the truth emerge that friendly fire was the cause of his death.

Army CID conducted an investigation and ruled in 2007 what the Rangers had known soon after the horrible mistake was made. That Tillman had been killed by friendly fire. Their report states the facts here:

…during their movement through the canyon road, Serial 2 [Tillman’s platoon had to split up because of a broken Humvee; the parts were called Serial 1 and 2] was ambushed and became engaged in a running gun battle with enemy combatants. Serial 1 [Tillman’s portion of the platoon] had just passed through the same canyon without incident and were approximately one kilometer ahead of Serial 2. Upon hearing explosions, gunfire, and sporadic radio communication from Serial 2, Serial 1 dismounted their vehicles and moved on foot, to a more advantageous position to provide overwatch and fire support for Serial 2’s movement out of the ambush. Upon exiting the gorge, and despite attempts by Serial 1 to signal a “friendly position”, occupants of the lead vehicle of Serial 2 opened fire on Tillman’s position, where he was fatally shot.

Steven Elliot, the Ranger machine gunner who probably fired the shots that killed Tillman gave an interview a few years ago that detailed what happened.

“The events leading up to one of the most infamous friendly-fire deaths in U.S. military history were rife for second-guessing from the start: After an Army Humvee broke down in the mountains, Tillman’s platoon was ordered divided by superiors so that the Humvee could be removed; a local truck driver was hired as the hauler. But the two groups struggled to communicate with each other as they traversed the steep terrain. And the second group soon became caught in a deafening ambush, receiving fire as it maneuvered down a narrow, rocky canyon trail.”
“Tillman’s group, which had traveled ahead, scaled a ridgeline to provide assistance to fellow Rangers under attack. But a squad leader, Sgt. Greg Baker, in Elliott’s armored vehicle misidentified an allied Afghan soldier positioned next to Tillman as the enemy and opened fire, killing the Afghan and prompting Elliott and two other Rangers to fire upon what Elliott called shadowy images, later learned to have been Tillman and then-19-year-old Bryan O’Neal.”

Several Rangers were kicked out of the Battalion for their actions after the friendly fire incident. Tillman’s body armor and uniform were burned to conceal the friendly fire that killed him as well as his journal which contained several anti-war sentiments.

Tillman’s family was incensed (and rightfully so) for portraying his death as a heroic public relations stunt and not identifying it for what it truly was.

His family and his wife carried on his legacy of service by creating the Pat Tillman Foundation in 2008, whose mission is to support active-duty service members, veterans and their spouses with academic scholarships, a national network, and professional development opportunities for their lives after military service.

He was posthumously awarded a Silver Star, the Purple Heart and laterally promoted from Specialist 4 to Corporal.

His remains were cremated and his ashes scattered at sea.

Arizona State University dedicated a statue of Tillman outside of Sun Devil Stadium.

Photos: Pat Tillman Foundation

“Saving Private Ryan” Re-released for the 75th Anniversary of D-Day

One of the biggest blockbuster war films is being re-released for the 75th anniversary of the D-Day Normandy invasion of France. Steven Spielberg’s classic “Saving Private Ryan” is being brought back in 600 theaters nationwide for just two days, June 2 and June 5 at 3 and 7 p.m. on those days to commemorate the Normandy landings.

It is hard to believe that Spielberg’s masterpiece is turning 21 this year. Released in 1998, the film had an absolutely stellar cast including Tom Hanks, Matt Damon, Tom Sizemore, Barry Pepper, Edward Burns, Giovanni Ribisi, Vin Diesel, and Adam Goldberg. The gritty and graphic filming, especially during the opening minutes showed the ugliness and realism of the awfulness of real combat.

The film begins with the Rangers of the 2nd Battalion coming ashore at Normandy. They were in the worst possible position in any of the beaches, code-named Omaha. The Germans held the high ground on the beaches and had plenty of prepared positions manned by a seasoned, well-trained and led division.

“Ryan’s” opening beach sequence which takes about 28 minutes was brilliantly filmed where the absolute chaos of combat meets up with coherence of the troops trying to complete their assigned missions. This was no sanitized Hollywood version of the invasion. Spielberg spared no details as bodies and body parts were flung in the air from mortar rounds, machine guns ripped bodies to shreds and entrails were strewn about from the German guns.

Spielberg takes the audience out of their seats as just bystanders and puts their asses right in the surf of the Channel. They are instantly transported to 1944 and put right in the action with the infantry. So intense was the filming of this sequence, that many World War II veterans who had been to Normandy for the actual invasion, got symptoms of PTSD from watching the film and triggering memories of their own experiences.

That opening sequence was filmed in Curracloe, Ireland over 15 days and cost over $12 million dollars to film.

Spielberg’s story begins after the Rangers led Hanks and Sizemore survive the opening day of the invasion and get tasked to venture far inland to find a paratrooper (Damon) of the 101st Airborne, who lost all of his brothers in combat and to be sent home. As Hanks’ men die one by one while attempting to find and then rescue Ryan, they’re left wondering if all of that sacrifice for the purpose of saving one man’s life is worth it.

Saving Private Ryan was nominated for 11 Academy Awards and ended up winning five, for Best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing, Best Sound Editing and Best Sound Mixing. It made $481 million dollars in 1998. In today’s dollars, it would equate to earning nearly $750 million. In 2014, the film was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress.

For more information about the re-release and to find out the times and locations for “Saving Private Ryan” is playing on the 2nd and 5th of June, visit the Fathom Events website.

Our only wish is that the re-release would be extended to cover Memorial Day as well.

Photo: Paramount Studio Still