Ignorant Twitterer

Killed by "friendly" fire (looking more like a deliberate killing by fellow soldiers), covered up by US military and government. Parents had to fight for three years to uncover the truth about how their son died.

Our dead soldiers are fodder for exploitation by our politicians. The truth is often something else.

Tillman was the first NFL professional since the Second World War to voluntarily leave the game for military service, and his recruitment was a public relations gift for the army. Rumsfeld, after sending Tillman his personal letter of congratulations on June 28 2002, emailed the Secretary of the Army, Tom White, noting that Tillman 'sound [sic] like he is world-class. We might want to keep our eye on him.’ But Tillman refused to play the role of poster boy. He declined to explain why he had enlisted, turning down all interview requests from the media and asking family members not to comment. He was quietly offered a 'safe’ posting at home, but turned that down too.

After basic training, Pat and Kevin were assigned to the US Army Rangers, an elite combat corps, with the rank of 'specialist’ – between private and corporal – and in March 2003 they were among the first US forces deployed in the invasion of Iraq. Doubts soon began to set in. At 25, Pat was older than most of his platoon, and according to his mother he grew frustrated at the lack of intellectual stimulation. 'It disturbed him that the military didn’t use people to their full potential and that things were done that seemed to make no sense.’ He also began to question the prosecution and legality of the war in Iraq.

Returning home after his first tour of duty, Tillman told his mother that the war was 'pretty much bullshit’.

  Telegraph

I'm guessing the Twit in Chief doesn't know much about Tillman, other than hearing his name and the fact that he was in the NFL, never mind that the story and the cover up were national news for months.

Among the things [Tillman and his mother] discussed was his concern that he seemed to undergo more psychological evaluations than other soldiers in his platoon. 'I said, “Maybe it’s because they’re curious about you,” ’ Mary recalls. ' “Why would you give up so much to join the military?”’

In the years following his death, the family were eventually able to obtain two of these evaluations under the Freedom of Information Act. 'They said things like, he didn’t respect authority, all kinds of stuff…’ Mary says.

[...]

In Afghanistan, a series of highly unusual steps had been put in train in the immediate aftermath of Tillman’s death. Other members of the platoon were ordered to say nothing of the incident, and phone and internet connections at the base were shut down. His brother Kevin, who had not witnessed the incident and knew only that Pat had been killed but not how, was put in 'quarantine’, and within days would be sent home with Pat’s body, accompanied by another soldier who was under strict instructions not to tell Kevin or the family what had happened.

[...]

The army wanted to give Tillman a full military funeral with honours, but his wife, Marie, refused. Apparently mindful of how the army might continue to use him in the event of his death, Pat had given Marie written instructions that 'I do not want military involvement’ at his funeral. But Pat Tillman was too public a figure for his death to be allowed to pass quietly.

[...]

In April 2005, after Tillman Sr received his briefing from Brig Gen Jones and Jones’s report into his son’s death, he wrote Jones a scalding letter. Picking apart the assertion that the shooting had happened in '4-5 seconds’, Tillman Sr pointed to the evidence that his son had actually been fired on from at least two separate locations while the shooters were stationary. He was hit first by machine-gun fire to his body armour, knocking him down. Two further rounds fired by another weapon took off the back of his head. Then a third – in army jargon – 'kill shot’ entered the top of his head as he fell. He and O’Neal were standing only 40 yards from the shooters – close enough for whoever had shot him to clearly identify him as a 'friendly’. This was no 'fog of war’.

Turning to the cover-up, Tillman Sr went on that rather than fratricide having been 'suspected’, it was known instantly. Fourteen people had witnessed it, and a colonel had been at the scene within hours. 'Telling us the truth about how Pat died was the least you could do,’ Tillman Sr wrote to Jones. 'Every one of you have disregarded your duty, acting deliberately and shamelessly to kill my son and lie about it.’ He concluded his letter: 'In sum, ---- you… and yours.’

[...]

'I will not assume that there was some mistake made, or some fog of war and that this was simply an unfortunate accident,’ he says. 'I won’t do it. The reports all say this was done improperly, or this was an oversight. It was just one screw-up after another. But if you start from the top and work your way down, it makes perfect sense: everything was done in accordance to plan. People don’t burn evidence; you don’t destroy a soldier’s diary, it’s just not done. Some very serious people were involved in falsifying several homicide investigations and issuing my son a Silver Star. And when you look at some of the communications – [Brig Gen Yellen’s statement] “we handed you the steak…” – it’s painfully obvious this thing was choreographed.’

Pat Tillman, whom Dotard J Trump uses to support his assertion that NFL players need to "respect" the flag by standing during the national anthem, believed the war was "bullshit". And he paid for his belief with his life.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

Draw your own conclusions, but this whole affair with Pat Tillman could appear like somebody took the opportunity to get rid of him in order to avoid the embarrassment of the govenrment/military having to eat crow.

Baer told The Chronicle that commanding officers were to blame for the friendly fire because they split the platoon and ordered it to leave a secure location in favor of a region known as a Taliban stronghold.

[...]

“It’s a well-known military doctrine that privates first learn going through basic training — if you are in enemy territory and you are stopped for a prolonged period of time, the best thing to do is to wait until nightfall. Why they thought that moving us out in broad daylight from our position, dragging a busted humvee slowly through a known hotspot after we had been stranded there all day was a good idea will forever elude me. Who made that decision? Bailey? Saunders? That’s what I want to know.”

[...]

The officer who led the first investigation testified that when he was given responsibility for the probe the morning after Tillman’s death, he was informed that the cause was “potential fratricide.’’

  SF Gate