WASHINGTON - Pat Tillman's brother accused the military Tuesday of "intentional falsehoods" and "deliberate and careful misrepresentations" in portraying the football star's death in Afghanistan as the result of heroic engagement with the enemy instead of friendly fire.
"We believe this narrative was intended to deceive the family but more importantly the American public," Kevin Tillman told a House Government Reform and Oversight Committee hearing. "Pat's death was clearly the result of fratricide," he said.
"Revealing that Pat's death was a fratricide would have been yet another political disaster in a month of political disasters ... so the truth needed to be suppressed," said Tillman, who was in a convoy behind his brother when the incident happened three years ago but didn't see it.
The committee's chairman, Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., accused the government of inventing "sensational details and stories" about Pat Tillman's death and the 2003 rescue of Jessica Lynch, perhaps the most famous victims of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.
Lynch, then an Army private, was badly injured when her convoy was ambushed in Iraq. She was subsequently rescued by American troops from an Iraqi hospital but the tale of her ambush was changed into a story of heroism on her part.
Still hampered by her injuries, Lynch walked slowly to the witness table and took a seat alongside Tillman's family members.
"The bottom line is the American people are capable of determining their own ideals of heroes and they don't need to be told elaborate tales," Lynch said......
2 comments:
I read a great column a few weeks ago. It was written
my a conservative a former congressional candidate,
but boy did he nail it. check it out
http://joeleonardi.wordpress.com/2007/03/30/true-american-heroes/
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Wow .... That is a good OP-ED ... Thanks for Sharing .... a snip of the article ...
The U.S. Government’s desire for an Iraq/Afghanistan Sergeant York or Audie Murphy has led to these insulting exaggerations. If those in this White House had any genuine military experience they would know overstatment is unnecessary. Mr. President we are well aware that you, the Vice President and many in your administration would not know tangible heroism if it was escorted to your door. But these men and women in uniform are all heroes, the events of their lives, deaths, or rescues do not have to be unnecessarily glorified for political gain.
Why do I get the unsettling feeling Karl Rove is behind this?
Joe Leonardi
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