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Fallen Hero's Tragic End Stirs Controversy.
A real "Great American" was shot by his fellow soldiers and the Pentagon's manipulation of the story has come back to bite them in the most tender of spots. Pat Tillman was a star football player at Arizona State University who went pro and had what most of us who have called the great life. But, after 9/11 he was compeled to join his brother Kevin in the invasion of Afghanistan.
The Bush Administration and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld specifically touted the enlistment of Tillman as a great show of patriotism... which it was... and used the story to boost enlistments with this type of promotion 'If Tillman will leave $millions to join... You can too!'
However, things didn't go according to plan for the Army, the Defense Department nor the Bush Administration. Tillman, who enlisted to fight the Talaban because he belived the reports that they were behind al Qaeda and the attack of 9/11 was not infavor of invading a soverign nation like Iraq which was not involved with 9/11... even though the Bush Administration flooded the news media with this connection.
According to reports of interviews with Tillman's family and freinds, Pat believed the invasion of Iraq to be illegal. This obviously through a wrench into the war machinery of the Bush Administration and then he was killed.
At first, there have been several versions of what happened reported by the Defense Department and the Army, the story was that Tillman was killed by the Talaban in a fierce battle. The nation mourned this great American and his tragic end. He was granted the Silver Star for Bravery. The Defense Department used his loss as another reason to enlist.
But, Tillman's family was not able to obtain his belongings nor his diary and complained that there were too many questions about his death.
Then the story was changed when Tillman's family would not go away quietly. The second story was that he was killed by his our men in an accidental shooting. The family was now told that his uniform and his diary were burned. This has led to an "investigation" by the Army and have concluded that many officers including Generals were involved with a obstuction in the reporting of what happened to Tillman.
One is left to wonder if Tillman, who was a staight arrow... obviously, or he wouldn't have left his life in professional football... knew too much about the opium trade that began to flourish after the U.S. invaded Afghanistan (remember, the Talaban were fundamentalist Muslims and outlawed the entire poppy production which produced Billions of dollars in illegal heroin.) Could he have found out that the CIA, as reported, was using the opium production to fund special operations?
Mrs. Tillman was recently discussing the latest variation of the story of her son's... Pat... death and is so frustrated that she says that she "can not rule out" that he was actually killed on purpose by his fellow troops or by Special Forces.
(Photo: File- Valley Publishing Company)
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