"Nothing is going to bring Pat back. It's about justice for Pat and justice for other soldiers. The nation has been deceived.." - his mother, Mary Tillman
"Nothing is going to bring Pat back. It's about justice for Pat and justice for other soldiers. The nation has been deceived.." - his mother, Mary Tillman
The wheels of justice have turned too slowly in the case of Pat Tillman, San Jose football star turned patriotic icon. This week, more than three years after his death by friendly fire in Afghanistan, military sources say some top-ranking brass will be disciplined for covering up what happened.That's not enough for Tillman's parents, who have led the quest for truth in their son's tragic death. And it should not alter the course of the congressional investigation aimed at bringing out the facts. Without the persistence of civilian investigators, we'll never know if the impenetrable U.S. military has placed blame where it belongs and not just on scapegoats.
more on the jump
This is getting uglier and uglier by the minute.
The American people deserve the truth.
Pat Tillman's memory deserves nothing less.
"I don't believe it," seethed Ann Coulter.
The very private Tillmans have revealed a picture of Pat profoundly at odds with the GI Joe image created by Pentagon spinmeisters and their media stenographers. As the Chronicle put it, family and friends are now unveiling "a side of Pat Tillman not widely known--a fiercely independent thinker who enlisted, fought and died in service to his country yet was critical of President Bush and opposed the war in Iraq, where he served a tour of duty. He was an avid reader whose interests ranged from history books...to works of leftist Noam Chomsky, a favorite author." Tillman had very unembedded feelings about the Iraq War. His close friend Army Spec. Russell Baer remembered, "I can see it like a movie screen. We were outside of [an Iraqi city] watching as bombs were dropping on the town.... We were talking. And Pat said, 'You know, this war is so f***ing illegal.' And we all said, 'Yeah.' That's who he was. He totally was against Bush." With these revelations, Pat Tillman the PR icon joins WMD and Al Qaeda connections on the heap of lies used to sell the Iraq War.
Any dictator would admire the uniformity and obedience of the U.S. media.
Noam Chomsky
New Documents Shed Light On Tillman's Death(AP) SAN FRANCISCO Army medical examiners were suspicious about the close proximity of the three bullet holes in Pat Tillman's forehead and tried without success to get authorities to investigate whether the former NFL player's death amounted to a crime, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.
"The medical evidence did not match up with the, with the scenario as described," a doctor who examined Tillman's body after he was killed on the battlefield in Afghanistan in 2004 told investigators.
The doctors -- whose names were blacked out -- said that the bullet holes were so close together that it appeared the Army Ranger was cut down by an M-16 fired from a mere 10 yards or so away.
Ultimately, the Pentagon did conduct a criminal investigation, and asked Tillman's comrades whether he was disliked by his men and whether they had any reason to believe he was deliberately killed. The Pentagon eventually ruled that Tillman's death at the hands of his comrades was a friendly-fire accident.
"The administration clearly was using this case for its own political reasons. This cover-up started within minutes of Pat's death, and it started at high levels. This is not something that (lower-ranking) people in the field do."
--Pat Tillman Sr.
We have confirmed that Tillman had arranged to meet with a leading anti-war intellectual, Noam Chomsky, upon his return stateside. One can imagine the panic in the Office of the Secretary of Defense at the vision of the much trumpeted poster-boy hero of the War on Terror returning home and speaking out against the evil charade of the War.
That aspect, combined with the nature of the wounds, the destruction of evidence, the first-level coverup, and the dream promotion of the commander in charge... well, you see where this is going.
"Propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state." -Noam Chomsky
Unlike Cindy Sheehan - who has protested against President Bush because of the death of her son Casey in combat in Baghdad - Mary Tillman, 49, who teaches in a San Jose public junior high school, and her ex-husband, Patrick Tillman, 50, a San Jose lawyer, have avoided association with the anti-war movement. Their main public allies are Sen. John McCain, RAriz., and Rep. Mike Honda, D-San Jose, who have lobbied on their behalf.
New Details on Tillman's Death
_ Army attorneys sent each other congratulatory e-mails for keeping criminal investigators at bay as the Army conducted an internal friendly-fire investigation that resulted in administrative, or non-criminal, punishments._ The three-star general who kept the truth about Tillman's death from his family and the public told investigators some 70 times that he had a bad memory and couldn't recall details of his actions.
Congress Wants Answers on Tillman Death
Congressional investigators told the White House on Tuesday that they intend to question several former Bush administration officials about their knowledge of Pat Tillman's death, escalating their inquiry into the high-profile friendly fire case.Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., chairman of the House Oversight Committee, and Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., the committee's top-ranking Republican, also pressed for drafts of a speech President Bush made in the weeks before it became publicly known that the former NFL star was killed by his own troops. In the 2004 speech at the White House correspondents' dinner, Bush didn't mention how Tillman died.
Friendly-fire deaths alone will not destroy faith in our armed forces. But lying will. Congress must push on with its inquiry until the truth is known.