Emotional Landmines: The Power of Hurtful Words

Bob Newman

In “The Dirty Dozen,” Lee Marvin, playing an Army major, chastises Colonel Everett Dasher Breed (played by Robert Ryan) for being emotional. The colonel was shown to be a fool then and later in the film. I recall watching the movie as a kid and thinking that, when I became a Marine (10 years down the road), I would be sure not to allow my emotions to get the best of me. Truth be told, I occassionally came up short on that pledge during my early years in the Corps, which more often than not resulted in a fight.

There’s no way of telling how many people are injured or killed annually because of the interplay of harsh words and emotion. From domestic violence and street crime to bar fights and wars, words are frequently the catalyst for sudden and protracted violence that sometimes results in someone getting dead. Making this even more perplexing is how people you might expect to know better say things at times and in venues they probably should not have. When certain spoken words are directed at the war effort, they can be even more controversial because they can aid the enemy. So the trick becomes how to steadfastly maintain our 1st Amendment rights while protecting the lives of Americans who may be targeted in part because of words someone said.

A recent website article (www.truthdig.com) written by former Army Ranger Kevin Tillman (the brother of the late former NFL player Pat Tillman, who was killed by friendly fire from his fellow Rangers in Afghanistan in 2004) is a vicious rebuttal of America’s freeing of the people of Iraq. Unfortunately, because of Kevin’s understandable emotional overload, the piece is akin to a “spray-and-pray” firefight in which the combatants, rather than taking careful, measured aim at distinct targets, dump as many rounds downrange on “full auto” as possible, hoping that some of the rounds find their mark. Of course, such tactics are frequently less than successful.

After reading and re-reading the piece, I can’t help but wonder if Tillman blames himself for his brother’s death because he agreed that joining the Rangers was a good idea. If he does think he is responsible, he is wrong. His brother Rangers are responsible because they killed Pat with friendly fire, which sometimes happens in the fog of war.

Early in the treatise, Tillman claims he could not say how he really felt while he was in the Army. This is false. The young Ranger could have said what he wanted to whomever. More accurately, Tillman chose not to say what he claims he truly believed about the war because there might have been career repurcussions, i.e., he was unwilling to suffer the likely consequences.

Tillman apparently feels it was a good thing to free the people of Afghanistan from the horrific tyranny of the Taliban, but in his article laments the freeing of the Iraqi people from the horrific tyranny of Saddam. Tillman does not bother to explain the contradiction.

The heartbroken soldier claims there were no terrorists in Iraq before Operation “Iraqi Freedom” kicked off. This is demonstrably false, of course, and there are a great many Marines who can attest to this fact who engaged, wounded, killed and captured quite an array of foreign terrorists on the march to Baghdad. Even one of the world’s most infamous Muslim terrorists, Abu Abbas, mastermind of the Achille Lauro hijacking, was captured near Baghdad in the early spring of 2003. Does Tillman think Abbas was there selling ice cream cones to children? Were the swarms of other international terrorists there working for Amnesty International?

Tillman claims the Bush administration stated Iraq had bought “weapons-grade uranium” from Niger. Also false. The Bush administration believed Iraq may have acquired yellow cake from Niger, which is a far cry from Tillman’s imaginary weapons-grade uranium.

He then goes on to complain about missions of “secretly kidnapping people,” which is a blatant attempt to mislead and misinform. Why didn’t Tillman admit that one of the missions a Ranger unit is trained to do is clandestinely capture enemy combatants, namely terrorists these days? Why did Tillman still volunteer for the Rangers, knowing such a mission could come his way? And Rangers live for such “sexy” missions, I promise you. Such missions are their raison d’etre. He sure wasn’t averse to missions like that when he was a Ranger.

Elsewhere in the article, Tillman claims it is official U.S. policy to torture prisoners. He fails, however, to provide any evidence to substantiate this claim and, I suspect, knows it is false.

Tillman writes how disgusted he is about the practice of American school kids writing to soldiers in support of them. Does he feel the same about all the kids in previous wars who wrote to soldiers to try to brighten their day? He didn’t say.

Ranger Tillman even states that our invasion of Iraq was illegal, yet he willingly assisted in the commission of that so-called crime. Has he since volunteered to be held accountable for his acts? Why hasn’t he reported to the stockade for incarceration? Has he never heard of the Gulf War? Does he somehow not know that Saddam violated the provisions of his surrender countless times since 1991 and that military action could be a result of those violations?

Tillman complains that the deaths of tens if not hundreds of thousands of people because of the war is tolerated, yet in the same article clearly believes we should have tolerated Saddam’s genocide.

He complains that profiting from tragedy and horror is tolerated, yet the Associated Press reports he was paid for the article. When I asked them, Truth Dig refused to comment on that report. And he was paid for every day he spent in the Army, which according to his rational, was payment for crimes.

And Tillman claims George Bush is a criminal, even though he volunteered to carry out the orders of the man he says is a criminal. That makes him an accomplice.

Still, I feel sorry for Kevin Tillman because he misses the great brother he had for far too short a time. I feel sorry for him the same way I feel sorry for Cindy Sheehan, but Sheehan never received any training or did anything noble that might have guided her down a different path. Tillman, on the other hand, did. He is the first Ranger I am aware of who knowingly and willingly misleads and to do so for personal or political gain is especially disappointing.

Some will call Tillman a traitor. I disagree, as the law on treason does not appear to apply to him in this instance. Tillman has simply had his heart ripped out, which has allowed his emotions to get the better of him. And who among us can say we have never said anything while in a highly emotional state that we later regretted?

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Bob Newman, a decorated, retired US Marine, is host of the “Gunny Bob Show” on Newsradio 850 KOA in Denver, and host of “Anger-Management Hour” on 630 KHOW, also in Denver. A ground-combat veteran, he is the director of international security & counterterrorism services for The GeoScope Group and is the military science & terrorism columnist for The Denver Daily News. He can be reached at bobnewman@clearchannel.com.

bobnewman@clearchannel.com