Misleading Information from the Battlefield

This book provides the results of a review, which was initiated at the request of the Army Inspector General, of actions taken by the chain of command following the friendly fire death of Corporal Patrick Tillman in Afghanistan on 22 April 2004. This review sought to determine whether investigations were adequate, whether Army notification of next of kin complied with regulations and whether documentation to justify the posthumous award of the Silver Star was accurate. This book provides a summary of the concurrent investigation by the Army Criminal Investigation Command into the facts and circumstances of Corporal Tillman’s death (wherein a full report was issued separately). The review discussed in this book found that Corporal Tillman’s chain of command made critical errors in reporting Corporal Tillman’s death and in assigning investigative jurisdiction in the days following his death, and bears ultimate responsibility for the inaccuracies, misunderstandings and perceptions of concealment that led to this review. Those errors, in part, contributed to omissions and inadequacies in the three investigations that followed Corporal Tillman’s death.