That's great, but Pat Tillman happened on a squadron level in a combat situation.
The Liberty was attacked out at sea, and there were no arab planes in the area to shoot back. Taking a pass to identify the ship wasn't too much to ask for, IMO.
Fighter pilots are notoriously blind to events on the planet's surface. Then again, YOU try IDing a ship in a 10-mile-per-minute pass, and tell me how you do.
Sorry for the delay in replying to your post. I apologize for not being fully cognizent about the Liberty's attack. Supposedly the Israeli pilots thought it was an Egyptian ship? That seems evident from the transcript. Maybe they were trigger happy. Spector(sp.?) the pilot who's gone out of the way to defend his actions in an insulting manner -- usually people do that when they don't have a leg to stand on, which he doesn't, of course. This entire incident smells to high heaven. I think about Jonathon Pollard's treachery, Israel's selling of some of our tech. military stuff to China --- then I think about our bombing of the Chinese embassy, which I hope to God we did on purpose. Complicated business, real politik.