Army re-opens investigation into Tillman's death

ReddHedd comments on the fact that the Army is re-opening the investigation into the death of Pat Tillman who "gave up a $3.6 million dollar NFL contract to fight for his country in the wake of 9/11." and was subsequently "killed, in a "friendly fire" incident in Afghanistan, while fighting with his unit in April of 2004." But she goes on to say that...

Here's the rub, though: the Army only re-opened the investigation after Tillman's family had to publicly complain. The Tillman's lost their son, were lied to initially about their son's death -- they were told that "enemy fighters" had shot him, and the military used Pat Tillman publicly as their poster boy hero killed by al qaeda and the Taliban. Except this was not true -- and they knew it at the time, hushing the Rangers who had been with Pat at the time of his death.

Tillman was killed in a barrage of gunfire from his own men, mistaken for the enemy on a hillside near the Pakistan border—perhaps, we will soon learn, criminally. "Immediately," the Post reported, "the Army kept the soldiers on the ground quiet and told Tillman's family and the public that he was killed by enemy fire while storming a hill, barking orders to his fellow Rangers." Tillman posthumously received the Silver Star for his "actions."

The military investigation, exposed by the Post, "showed that soldiers in Afghanistan knew almost immediately that they had killed Tillman by mistake in what they believed was a firefight with enemies on a tight canyon road. The investigation also revealed that soldiers later burned Tillman's uniform and body armor."

As if that weren't bad enough, the Army then continued to lie to the Tillmans and stonewall up the chain of command after the initial investigation was concluded. Their questions were not answered, the Army continued to spin out its propoganda for public consumption.

Think about the timing of Pat Tillman's death for a second. April of 2004 was in the thick of the Presidential campaign. One of the bits that struck me most in Greg Mitchell's great review of this matter in E&P was the fact that George Bush delivered a taped message to Pat Tillman at an Arizona Cardinals game:

Mary, the mother, complained to the Post that the government used her son for weeks after his death. She said she was particularly offended when President Bush offered a taped memorial message to Tillman at a Cardinals football game shortly before the presidential election last fall.

The crassness of this just goes beyond my ability to express anger. Either George Bush knew that he was taping a message filled with lies to bolster the patriotic feeling about Pat Tillman, and by association George Bush, right before the election in Arizona, OR the Pentagon brass were lying to the President about the facts, but there is no evidence that any consequences have occurred among the upper level brass.