Soldiers ordered not to tell the truth about Tillman
Army SPC Pat Tillman, a star in the National Football League before giving up a multi-million dollar contract to become a U.S. Army Ranger and fight in Afghanistan, was accidentally killed by friendly fire. The Army covered it up, apparently fearing a propaganda nightmare, failed to properly inform the Tillman family of what actually happened, and was finally called on the carpet by the Tillman family. It’s ugly, and it’s getting worse. Now, Congress is involved.
Speaking before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Army SPC Bryan O’Neal, who was with Tillman on the day of the incident, told the committee…
when he got the chance to talk to Tillman’s brother, who had been in a nearby convoy on the fateful day, “I was ordered not to tell him what happened.”“You were ordered not to tell him?” repeated Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
“Roger that, Sir,” replied O’Neal, dressed in his Army uniform.
Great. We already know the lock-down on information started early. Now, we are hearing that it extended to Tillman’s own brother, Kevin, another Ranger serving in Afghanistan.
Kevin Tillman was in a convoy behind his older brother, a former NFL star, on April 22, 2004, when Pat Tillman was mistakenly shot by other Army Rangers who had just emerged from a canyon where they’d been fired upon. Kevin Tillman didn’t see what happened. O’Neal said he was ordered not to tell him by then-Lt. Col. Jeff Bailey, the battalion commander who oversaw Tillman’s platoon.“He basically just said, Sir, that uh, ‘Do not let Kevin know, he’s probably in a bad place knowing that his brother’s dead,’” O’Neal testified. “He made it known that I would get in trouble, Sir, if I spoke with Kevin.”
O’Neal said he was “quite appalled” by the order.
I am too. Sadly, leaders in the Army have taken a tragic story and turned it into a scandal. How could they not know that the truth would eventually emerge?
Kevin Tillman, in his testimony, accused the military of “intentional falsehoods” and “deliberate and careful misrepresentations” in the portrayal of his brother’s death.
“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,” the brother said.
I used to think that Kevin Tillman was over-reacting in some of his earlier statements. I’m no longer inclined to think that.
He lost his brother, and the Army and/or agents in the U.S. government covered up the truth behind what really happened - apparently to avoid a propaganda embarrassment. It’s not right, and it shouldn’t have happened. Now, they are reaping that which they have sown.
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