Remembering George Bush, the Iraq War, and the Murder of Pat Tillman
A story of propaganda machines, cover-ups, and lies
Here is Pat Tillman.
He started his career in Football as a linebacker at Arizona State University, in 1994. He graduated with a 3.85 GPA, was named Arizona State’s MVP for his last season, and was voted the Pac-10 Defensive Player of the Year.
In the 1998 NFL Draft, he was picked up by the Arizona Cardinals.
He was listed in the 2000 NFL All-Pro team with 155 tackles, 1.5 sacks, 2 forced fumbles, 9 pass deflections.
He turned down extra money offered by the St. Louis Rams as a show of loyalty to the Cardinals. It was a $9 million contract.
In May of 2002, Pat turned down a contract offer of $3.6 million from the Cardinals and, instead, decided to enlist in the U.S. Army.
He felt his duty was to defend the country after the September 11 attacks.
He didn’t care about money.
Early 2004, he was deployed in Afghanistan, and based in FOB Salerno. On April 22, 2004, he was reported to have been killed by enemy combatants. The Army claimed that the unit was attacked in an ambush, leaving an Afghan Militia soldier killed and injuring some platoon members.
Almost 3 years later, after he was buried, the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command concluded that he was killed in friendly fire. An allied group fired upon another in confusion when nearby gunfire was mistaken for the enemy’s.
According to the Army doctors, just days after his death, it was revealed that Tillman was shot no less than three times in the head less than 10 yards away.
It was revealed that Army commanders knew this.
They still posthumously promoted Tillman to the rank of Corporal, awarding him a Silver Star and a Purple Heart.
His body armor and uniform were burned in a fire to hide the fact that he was murdered by his own.
Not bad enough that he was killed by his own people.
Not awful enough that there was material in Tillman’s notebook which documented how illegal the Afghanistan war was and still is. They burned that notebook along with his armor.
Not disgusting enough that his own members lied to his family at his funeral.
You murder a man several thousand miles away from his home. You concoct a whole story about his murder. You instead create a poster boy to sell a war effort that nobody wants.
A human with all the smarts and the talent in the world to have a multi-million dollar Football contract. Who just wanted to help his country. Who wanted to stand for something.
You kill him.
You rewrite his own story.
You lie to his family.
And then you fix things with the embarrassment of an “investigation”, years later, to clean your act.
When everybody already knew what happened.
Tillman wanted to do what was right despite how wrong everything was.
It wasn’t bad enough how wrongly his life ended; the Bush administration and the Pentagon had to withhold key documents that related important details about his death.
They denied any document requests from Congress, citing executive privilege.
It wasn’t just unfair.
It was absolutely disgusting.
And every single person knew — who went along with it anyway.
Tillman gave up everything to live in the shadows, and the people around him dug him there and danced on his gravestone.
His whole life, subtracted to a lack of recollection by his general, withheld documents, and lies.
