To the editor:

The reluctance of the military to bring to light the truth about the tragic death of Pat Tillman is just a recent example of its unwillingness to take responsibility for its actions.

An older example of this is the Battle of the Hurtgen Forest in World War II.

The Hurtgen Forest was a tangle of trees and undergrowth on steep hillsides and ravines. From September 1944 to the beginning of the Battle of the Bulge in December, and then after the end of the Bulge into February 1945, division after division of the U.S. Army was thrown into the meat grinder of the Hurtgen Forest in a futile attempt to capture three dams before the German Army could blow them up. The U.S. Army suffered more than 33,000 casualties in the Hurtgen, which was a major reason the German Army had such initial success in the Bulge. A major part of the U.S. Army had been bled white in the Hurtgen.

This was a major battle of World War II, but has the average reader of this newspaper heard of it? Probably not. The only reason I know of it is because my mother’s first husband, Gerald Elston, was killed in the battle. Few history books on the war mention the Hurtgen. Most World War II documentaries totally ignore the battle.

Why is this? Could it be that the military and its supporters back then were no more anxious to acknowledge errors than is the military today?

Kerry Altenbernd,

Lawrence