What's up with Pat Tillman's uniform?

April 24, 2007 1:44 AM

Why is Pat Tillman's uniform censored?

I just noticed while reading this article that Pat Tillman's uniform is censored of insignia and other identifying marks. Why? Is this a common practice that I've not ever noticed before?

posted by missed to law & government (7 comments total)

It's standard practice on operations to remove unit insignia and nametags (at least in the British Army it is) so that interrogators have less potential leverage if you're captured (i.e. we heard your unit got wiped out, I bet all your friends are dead). But this looks like a standard 'graduation' type shot. So, yeah, weird.
posted by Happy Dave at 2:40 AM on April 24, 2007

Maybe because he was famous and they didn't want enemies to know which unit he was in, so they could more easily find and kidnap/kill him for propoganda purposes.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 3:00 AM on April 24, 2007

The photo in the article doesn't look very censored to me. Did you have some other censored photo in mind?

The rank patches on his collar show that he was a Specialist at the time it was taken, and you can make out "TILLMAN" and "US ARMY" in black on dark green above his chest pockets. It's a bit hard to make those things out because they're the "subdued" color scheme that was designed to be worn on camouflaged uniforms (especially the predominantly dark green "forest" pattern BDUs that were the most common version through the 80s and 90s).

You can't see a unit patch in the photo, since it's worn on the left shoulder, which isn't in view. But you can see the "unit flash" on his beret -- the shield shaped badge above his left eye. The pattern of colors on the flash identifies his unit (although I'm not current on those designs, so I can't do it myself). This WP page shows the flash for the 1st Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, which looks pretty close to the one Tillman's wearing in the photo, although there isn't quite enough detail to be certain. He's also wearing his unit crest (the metal pin on the flash) which appears to be the crest of the 75th Rangers.

Paging through the slide show that accompanies the article, there are a few copies of the same file photo, but nothing there seems censored either.
posted by Zonker at 3:51 AM on April 24, 2007

I just think they pumped up the blacks a bit too much. with my monitor settings it looks fine
posted by matteo at 3:56 AM on April 24, 2007

It could be that his unit insignia was attached with Velcro and it was removed for the photo. That is pretty normal when going into combat, maybe even more so for Spec. Forces.

It used to be that Air Force pilots would have their squadron and wing insignia attached to flight suits with velcro so they could be removed easily if they were flying missions behind "enemy lines". That way if they're shot down there was no immediate indication of their unit.
posted by worker_bee at 5:06 AM on April 24, 2007

Matteo's got it. The blacks are too high in the photo so it looks like censor bars. There's a little bit of detail to be seen and a little photoshop could bring that detail back. Here's a quick job adjusting the photo (badly) for just the detail of the patches
posted by msbrauer at 5:30 AM on April 24, 2007

You know the Army burned his uniform after he was shot to try and suppress the story, right? It's all moot now, I guess.
posted by unixrat at 6:18 AM on April 24, 2007