Pat Tillman gave up a promising career in professional football with the Arizona Cardinals, to join the military. Tillman join the Air Rangers , with his brother Kevin in 2002, and committed to a 3 year stint with the army. Kevin Tillman had a promising career in baseball. The government doing what they do best, distorted the facts by releasing that Tillman turned down 9 million dollars in 2001, to do his patriotic duty. When in fact he turned down the money to stay with the Cardinals out of loyalty. What I personally commend him on, is the fact that he did not want any notoriety about this, which he proved by turning down interviews while home on leave visiting friends on the team.
Well in it's need to get the country behind the war in Iraq, it tried to do just that.
The military tried to make him a recruiting tool, but they did it low-key. They would leak it to the press, who they new would run with the story. After awhile it faded as do most things, because citizens of the United States have short attention spans.
In an attempt to use Tillmans death to there advantage the Government changed a few things about his tragic death, and Pat tillman was made a hero, against his wishes. At the time, the Army's public account of Tillman's death April 22, 2004, in a remote canyon near the Pakistani border indicated he had been slain by Taliban forces during an ambush. But a report found that the Army did not tell his family or the public that Tillman, 27, had been killed mistakenly by fellow Rangers, thinking he was the enemy firing at them, until weeks after his nationally televised memorial service in San Jose last May.
The report also shows that his uniform and body armor were burned the next day, in order to cover up the fact that he was killed by friendly fire.
The Washington Post reported Wednesday that top U.S. commanders, including Gen. John P. Abizaid of U.S. Central Command, were told that Tillman's death occurred by fratricide days before a nationally televised memorial service was held for him.
Nonetheless, Tillman's family was not notified of that until May 29, 2004, when the first investigation was completed. That was nearly four weeks after the service.
At the time, Tillman's blood-covered uniform and armor were said to have been destroyed because they were considered a bio-hazard.
Yet the Jones report contains sworn statements from soldiers involved in the incident who said they burned the items because they had taken pictures of the scene, walked around, and knew how Tillman had been killed.
In the new report, soldiers reasoned "they knew in their heart of hearts what had happened, and we were not going to lie about it. So we weren't thinking about proof or anything."
So what have we learned out of this tragic incident. Well for one thing, that our Government will lie about anything, to continue with their attempt to keep a hold on the right-wing faithful. And if they lie about the small things, you have to ask yourself, what major things are they lying about to me.
Or will we go on making up excuses for why the government tells us lies?
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