"They Used Pat for Public Consumption, Just Like Jessica Lynch": An Interview with Mary Tillman

By Emily Wilson, AlterNet. Posted May 26, 2008.

The official cover-up of football star-turned-soldier Pat Tillman's death by "friendly fire" has led his family on a four-year mission for justice.

After the Sept. 11 attacks, football star Pat Tillman left a multimillion-dollar contract with the Arizona Cardinals to join the Army Rangers, wanting to go fight Al-Qaeda. When the former NFL safety was killed in Afghanistan in April 2004, Army officials told his family he died in an enemy ambush. Five weeks later, after Tillman was posthumously awarded the Silver Star, and after Army officials at a nationally televised memorial had told a story of him charging up a hill in pursuit of enemy insurgents, the Army reported that, in fact, Tillman had been shot three times in the head by "friendly fire."

Since discovering that Tillman was killed by friendly fire, his family, led by his mother, Mary, and his brother, Kevin, who served with him in the Army, has been trying to find who was responsible for covering up what happened in Pat's death. After seven investigations, two Congressional hearings, and support from politicians ranging from Democratic California Rep. Mike Honda to Republican presidential candidate John McCain to retired general Wesley Clark, Mary Tillman says no one has been held accountable.

..... the link to the rest is below.

I have grave misgivings about this article. My son went to Fallujah. He was a millionaire athelete. He doesn't even speak to me! He's been bought off entirely. It REALLY hurts, too.
I've been SHUNNED by Cindy Sheehan and the other Gold Star mothers! which seems to be me really disgusting, actually. And you know, this damage will be going on for GENERATIONS. All that money that Pat Tillman's mother has simply THROWN AWAY. Sick making really.

But there is a comment I thought was very interesting - it shows you CLASS LOYALTY is always the carrier of the day: http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/86444/?page=1#comments

“I admire and I respect their goal, [Code Pink and Cindy Sheehan] but I don't respect their tactics… some of her actions are a little too militant, and if you are preaching to the choir, that's fine, but if you're trying to get other people in your corner, it just doesn't seem to work. … I had to be careful associating with certain factions.”

A brave woman, no doubt. However…

Since Mary Tillman considers Cindy Sheehan and Code Pink “too militant” in their endeavors to bust a completely phony and genocidal 9/11 “war on terror”, then what is the alternative? If Mrs. Tillman’s goal is to “get other people in your corner” and if she doesn’t “respect their tactics” [Cindy Sheehan, Code Pink, etc] then what and whose “tactics” does she respect? Who are these “other people” she wants in her “corner” and what is the so-called “goal” here?

“These soldiers are going and fighting for our system, and they hope the system works, and we hoped it would work for Pat.”

Really?

I doubt that’s much comfort to the roughly 1 million innocent Iraqis killed nor the thousands of Afghans murdered. On the other hand, hundreds of billions in cozy blood profits made off Big Oil and Wall Street “war on terror” is certainly another way to keep score. Quite a “system” . And it certainly does “work” quite well for de facto Fascist corporate crime.

From the sound of this mess, it looks as if Mrs. Tillman is courting people like impeachment-is-off-the-table Nancy Pelosi along with the usual cast of mealy-mouthed stooge sellouts at Washington and the MSM (most invested heavily one way or another into the “war on terror” blood money death trade).

With all due regard to Mrs. Tillman’s loss, if such is the case, she may as well be throwing darts at the moon.