WaPo : Panel Vows to Pursue Tillman Case

Panel Vows to Pursue Tillman Case

By Josh White | Washington Post Staff Writer | April 25, 2007

Members of a congressional oversight panel vowed yesterday to investigate whether the White House and top Pentagon officials played a role in deceiving the public about the 2004 "friendly fire" death of a former NFL player, Cpl. Pat Tillman, and argued that five investigations have failed to answer critical questions about the case.

During a dramatic hearing on Capitol Hill, Tillman's brother, Kevin, spoke publicly for the first time about the shooting and how members of the Army Ranger unit they both were with kept him in the dark about how Pat died on an eastern Afghanistan hillside. Kevin Tillman spoke about the "deliberate and calculated lies" the military told his family and the public, and how he believes military officials "hijacked" Pat's legacy by transforming his tragic death into "an inspirational message."

"The least this country can do for him in return is to uncover who was responsible for his death, who lied and covered it up, and who instigated those lies and benefited from them; then ensure that justice is meted out to the culpable," Kevin Tillman said, adding: "Anything less than the truth is a betrayal of those values that all soldiers who have fought for this nation have sought to uphold."

The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform hearing came three years after Pat Tillman was gunned down on April 22, 2004, by members of his own unit while on a bungled mission near the Pakistani border. It marked the first time the full Tillman family had gathered in public to decry the problems that have plagued the case. Mary Tillman, who has called for high-level investigations since 2004, continued to accuse the government of "using" her son's death to divert attention from the Abu Ghraib prison scandal and high casualties in the Iraq war.

Investigators found that the military destroyed evidence such as Tillman's clothes, manipulated the story by saying he was engaged with the enemy when he died and drew up a misleading Silver Star citation. Tillman's death gained worldwide attention in part because he gave up a lucrative pro football contract to enlist in the Army. The committee also heard testimony yesterday from Jessica Lynch, a former soldier whose ordeal in Iraq in 2003 was inaccurately portrayed in the media as a heroic fight against insurgents, when in fact Lynch never fired a shot.

"The American people are capable of determining their own ideals for heroes, and they don't need to be told elaborate lies," Lynch said.

Kevin Tillman -- who was in the convoy with his brother the day he died but was too far away to see what had happened -- testified that he was whisked from the area shortly after Pat's death and was sent home with his body in an attempt to keep him from the truth. Spec. Bryan O'Neal, who was with Tillman when other U.S. soldiers began firing on them, testified yesterday that he was ordered not to speak to the Tillman family or to mention that it was a friendly-fire case, with the implication that he would get in trouble if he did.

"I was 100 percent positive it was friendly fire," O'Neal said. He said he reported the incident that day.

Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), the committee's chairman, said the government violates its most basic duty when it fails to tell soldiers and their families the truth. He said he is awaiting the Army's top-level review of how to assign responsibility for the lies about Tillman's death but said he will continue investigating.

"We still don't know how far up this went," Waxman said. "We don't know what the secretary of defense knew. We don't know what the White House knew. These are questions the committee seeks answers to."

Acting Defense Department Inspector General Thomas F. Gimble, whose recent report blamed several senior officers for misinforming the public about Tillman's death, said his probe did not look into senior administration officials, and that Donald H. Rumsfeld wrote in a letter on his last day as defense secretary that he did not know about the friendly-fire aspect of the case until shortly before the family learned of it in late May.

Republican lawmakers also criticized the military. Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (Va.) called the military's actions "a disservice to the memory of Corporal Tillman, to his family, his unit and this nation."

Truthdig : After Pat’s Birthday

After Pat’s Birthday

By Kevin Tillman | October 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 America has become a country that projects everything that it is not and condemns everything that it is.

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