gordonzola

I don’t believe there necessarily will be any one incident that will make the US war on Iraq completely untenable, domestically speaking. But it seems to me that The manipulation of Pat Tillman's death is a fairly big deal. Especially now that the he family is speaking out publicly about the Army manipulation of the reporting of events surrounding his death.

"After it happened, all the people in positions of authority went out of their way to script this," Patrick Tillman said. "They purposely interfered with the investigation, they covered it up. I think they thought they could control it, and they realized that their recruiting efforts were going to go to hell in a handbasket if the truth about his death got out. They blew up their poster boy."

For those of you who don’t follow pro football, Pat Tillman was not only the poster boy for jock patriotism, he was also a symbol of the state of the professional athlete. While the sports media is filled with discussion of greedy and ungrateful millionaire athletes, much of the discussion taking place with just barely coded phrases about race like "hip hop generation", Tillman was a throwback. He was an all-star player, making millions, who dropped everything after 9/11 to join the Army and volunteer for combat duty. He was often likened to WWII athletes who had volunteered for service, sacrificing their careers for duty. This link to WWII, followed the logic Administration’s assertion of the US’s right to invade and kill anyone they believed would become "another Hitler".

I do think that you have to admire the way Tillman backed up his beliefs, no matter how wrong they were. How many people anywhere would give up a multi-million dollar a year contract and actively put themselves in danger? Seriously ask yourself this. He trained his whole life to pursue a career that only employs 1350 people in a country of 200 million. He made that against all odd and quit at the very height of his career for abstract ideals with very real consequences.

Which is what gave his story such resonance. The Army immediately sensed the recruiting potential of this, assigning him to the same Army Ranger combat unit as his brother and highlighting his bravery and honor. The NFL, always in league with the military, made promotional ads about him and had all the teams in the league wear his number on their uniforms when he was killed. His memorial service was televised nationally, a gruesome Army infomercial. Announcers, whether having a sense of patriotism or seeing an opportunity to look stately for future advancement in their careers, piously detailed his sacrifice for the country which were hard to tell apart from the Army ads that ran during timeouts. I wonder how many recruits pat Tillman, in life and death, was responsible for?

Now the story comes out. "Gross negligence", "friendly fire"*, "Army investigation a sham" and the father saying sarcastically about the Army, "Maybe lying's not a big deal anymore."

Wonder how those recruiters are doing with their quotas these days.



* I am old enough, just barely, to remember when that phrase still sounded ironic.