>I am not the type who would pay much attention to fallen US soldiers who fought the Vietnam, Iraq or Afghan wars. That’s because I believe in doing so, it would be insulting the real victims of war – the civilians whom the US soldiers kill, maim and torture.
However, for Pat Tillman, I am making an exception. I believe that he truly died a hero. Not because he fought the foreign enemy, but because he fought the enemy within – The US Govt.
This is the true story of Pat Tillman. An American Football star who turned down a multi-million dollar contract to serve the US Army – so that he could fight the enemy in Afghanistan. Or so he thought.
In 2004, Tillman was killed in combat. The US govt was only too eager to make him a hero, awarding his family the Silver Star. It turned out that the US govt lied the way he died so as to shore up public American support for the protracted Afghan War. This is Tillman’s story, and his family’s struggle to find the truth.
The Tillman Story Trailer
As it turned out, the govt lies could not hold. Soon the story changed and it was reported that Tillman was killed in a friendly fire.
What Happened To Pat Tillman?
http://cnettv.cnet.com/av/video/cbsnews/atlantis2/player-dest.swf
However, what is even more intriguing in a story of twists and turns, is that many suspect that Tillman was murdered – and that’s because he was about to speak too much. You can do a search on the internet and see many stories about why it was murder and not even friendly fire.
I find the following article below probably has the most relevant point. Tillman was about to tell the world when he comes home after his duty in Afghanistan, why the Afghan War is wrong. That would be a disaster because instead of a high profile Football Star being used to support the war, the US Army would now have that very star campaigning against the war.
Who Killed Pat Tillman?
Apparently a meeting between Tillman and Chomsky was planned for after Pat’s return to the U.S., but he never returned. Instead, he was killed – under circumstances that Pat’s mother, Mary, has always characterized as “murky,” at best, and that seem, to my eye, at least, suspicious at worst. And it isn’t just me. Now the release of thousands of pages of documents by the Pentagon, as the result of a Freedom of Information Act request, raise even more questions about the circumstances surrounding Pat Tillman’s death:
“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.”
This occurs after at least three investigations have supposedly been conducted, in which Tillman’s death was attributed to “friendly fire,” adding to the strong suspicion that there’s something they’re not telling us – something they have been trying desperately to cover up. “The Army used him,” says his mother. “They knew right away he was killed by fratricide and [they] used him for their own purposes to promote the war, to get sympathy for the war, for five weeks.”
Mary Tillman has long suggested that her son was deliberately murdered by his fellow soldiers. After initially dismissing her allegations as a case of grief-gone-over-the-edge, I’ve come to believe that there is something awfully fishy about this whole incident.
After all, why were Army attorneys sending “congratulatory e-mails” to each other for fending off criminal investigators on the case? The general who kept the details of Tillman’s death from the Tillman family and the public claimed that he was having a problem with his memory, and that’s why he just couldn’t recall any important details of how Tillman’s death was handled. Doctors who tried to reconcile the forensic evidence with the official account urged that a criminal investigation be pursued, but they were rebuffed. What’s really suspicious, however, is that evidence of enemy fire at the scene was singularly lacking: no one was hit by enemy fire, nor was any equipment damaged. According to numerous reports, there were no Taliban in the area.
Chomsky is a high profile anti-war activist, well known not only in the US, but around the world. If Tillman were to have that meeting with Chomsky, it would be big news that the guy who sacrificed his football career to fight the Afghan war is now an anti-war activist. The US Govt could not afford that.
Here is a discussion on Tillman’s death, which appears to be murder, on MSNBC.
Pat Tillman Murdered?
Kevin Tillman, Pat’s brother giving a piece of his mind -
How they lied when Pat Tillman Died
So was Tillman murdered or was it an accident?
What we know for sure is that Tillman was not the American Hero who charged up against enemy forces to save his men. That was a plain lie by the US Govt.
Murder or accident, The Tillman Story is a true tale of US Govt Lies, one family’s struggle to find the truth, America’s baggage of war in Afghanistan, and how the world is deceived to support an illegal war that has lasted nearly 10 years now.
Certainly a good movie not to be missed.
But good movie or not, this episode is about one man’s courage to tell the world that what the US Govt does in Afghanistan is morally wrong. He paid the price with his life. Truly, he is a hero fighting the enemy not in Afghanistan, but the enemy within the US Govt.
