Another Powerful Website and a Remarkable Story - A BROTHER FINDS HIS VOICE…
“The NFL’s Tillman Offense: The league screams patriotism but is silent when the family of a patriot seeks its help”, by Dave Zirin. Here are the salient facts from that story:
Tillman’s death was mourned coast to coast, and the public and his family were told by the Pentagon that he died a “warrior’s death” charging up a hill, urging on his fellow Rangers. His funeral was nationally televised, and Arizona Sen. John McCain, now the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, was among those delivering eulogies.
President Bush took time from his 2004 reelection campaign to address Cardinal fans on a Jumbotron during an emotional halftime ceremony in which the Arizona franchise retired Tillman’s jersey number.
Yet the circumstances of his death turned out to be an obscene hoax. Tillman was, in fact, killed by friendly fire.
Now, after six investigations and two congressional hearings, there remain many unanswered questions about Tillman’s death and the Army’s initial investigation of it. His family has challenged the Bush administration, the Pentagon and the media to uncover the truth.
To keep the public pressure on, Mary Tillman has written a book, “Boots on the Ground at Dusk: My Tribute to Pat Tillman.” In a recent interview with me, she was highly critical of the actions of the NFL because she believes it continues to bathe in the glory of her son’s patriotic sacrifice while doing little to help the Tillman family find out how Pat died.
After Pat’s Birthday
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/200601019_after_pats_birthday/
Posted on Oct 19, 2006
Editor’s note: Kevin Tillman joined the Army with his brother Pat in 2002, and they served together in Iraq and Afghanistan. Pat was killed in Afghanistan on April 22, 2004. Kevin, who was discharged in 2005, has written a powerful, must-read document.
It is Pat’s birthday on November 6, and elections are the day after. It gets me thinking about a conversation I had with Pat before we joined the military. He spoke about the risks with signing the papers. How once we committed, we were at the mercy of the American leadership and the American people. How we could be thrown in a direction not of our volition. How fighting as a soldier would leave us without a voice… until we got out.
Much has happened since we handed over our voice:
Somehow we were sent to invade a nation because it was a direct threat to the American people, or to the world, or harbored terrorists, or was involved in the September 11 attacks, or received weapons-grade uranium from Niger, or had mobile weapons labs, or WMD, or had a need to be liberated, or we needed to establish a democracy, or stop an insurgency, or stop a civil war we created that can’t be called a civil war even though it is. Something like that.
Somehow our elected leaders were subverting international law and humanity by setting up secret prisons around the world, secretly kidnapping people, secretly holding them indefinitely, secretly not charging them with anything, secretly torturing them. Somehow that overt policy of torture became the fault of a few “bad apples” in the military.
Somehow back at home, support for the soldiers meant having a five-year-old kindergartener scribble a picture with crayons and send it overseas, or slapping stickers on cars, or lobbying Congress for an extra pad in a helmet. It’s interesting that a soldier on his third or fourth tour should care about a drawing from a five-year-old; or a faded sticker on a car as his friends die around him; or an extra pad in a helmet, as if it will protect him when an IED throws his vehicle 50 feet into the air as his body comes apart and his skin melts to the seat.
Somehow the more soldiers that die, the more legitimate the illegal invasion becomes.
Somehow American leadership, whose only credit is lying to its people and illegally invading a nation, has been allowed to steal the courage, virtue and honor of its soldiers on the ground.
Somehow those afraid to fight an illegal invasion decades ago are allowed to send soldiers to die for an illegal invasion they started.
Somehow faking character, virtue and strength is tolerated.
Somehow profiting from tragedy and horror is tolerated.
Somehow the death of tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people is tolerated.
Somehow subversion of the Bill of Rights and The Constitution is tolerated.
Somehow suspension of Habeas Corpus is supposed to keep this country safe.
Somehow torture is tolerated.
Somehow lying is tolerated.
Somehow reason is being discarded for faith, dogma, and nonsense.
Somehow American leadership managed to create a more dangerous world.
Somehow a narrative is more important than reality.
Somehow America has become a country that projects everything that it is not and condemns everything that it is.
Somehow the most reasonable, trusted and respected country in the world has become one of the most irrational, belligerent, feared, and distrusted countries in the world.
Somehow being politically informed, diligent, and skeptical has been replaced by apathy through active ignorance.
Somehow the same incompetent, narcissistic, virtueless, vacuous, malicious criminals are still in charge of this country.
Somehow this is tolerated.
Somehow nobody is accountable for this.
In a democracy, the policy of the leaders is the policy of the people. So don’t be shocked when our grandkids bury much of this generation as traitors to the nation, to the world and to humanity. Most likely, they will come to know that “somehow” was nurtured by fear, insecurity and indifference, leaving the country vulnerable to unchecked, unchallenged parasites.
Luckily this country is still a democracy. People still have a voice. People still can take action. It can start after Pat’s birthday.
Brother and Friend of Pat Tillman, Kevin Tillman
Courtesy of the Tillman Family
Pat Tillman (left) and his brother Kevin stand in front of a Chinook helicopter in Saudi Arabia before their tour of duty as Army Rangers in Iraq in 2003.
|
A Progressive Journal of News and Opinion. Editor, Robert Scheer. Publisher, Zuade Kaufman.
Copyright © 2008 Truthdig, L.L.C. All rights reserved.
|
June 9th, 2008 at 10:27 am
How powerfully put, everything from the intimacy of Kevin’s loss (& that of his entire family) to the largeness of what we all need to do: stop this war by speaking up & standing up for our beliefs.
Impossible not to be moved to do something.