Tillman and Lynch. We are apparently undeserving of the truth.

The BBQ Pit
1

The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is holding hearings on how the stories of Pat Tillman and Jessica Lynch were altered to present a simpler, more heroic picture than what actually took place in both cases.

I chose the Pit for this thread so I could say without hesitation…

Fuck you, you manipulative bastards. Fuck you for thinking the American people were too stupid to hear the truth. Fuck you for taking advantage of the death of one and the lifelong injuries of another to get a PR bump. Fuck you for thinking that we are gullible enough to swallow the lies and shallow enough to need them.

And most of all…a big “fuck you” for casting doubt on the next case of real heroism uder fire and for devaluing the Silver Star. The military is full of men and women who could be called on at a moments notice to give their lives in any number of sacrificial and heroic manners. The next time they do that and the military tells us about it, many people will simply say “Remember Tillman and Lynch? They are probably lying to us again.” And a deserving soldier or his or her family will be denied something that could be the most valuable reward of all to them…the sincere thanks of a grateful nation.

I hope they find the person or persons that thought this was a good idea. And I hope that those responsible are, at a minimum, forced to resign. I would actually like to see them prosecuted for falsifying official statements. I don’t care if it is Bush…Rove…Rumsfeld…DoD staff. I want this walked up the chain of command and all responsible parties to pay dearly.

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I couldn’t agree more. Well done.

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Of note, the hearing had a bipartisan air of pissed offedness.

This was a really really bad idea.

4

Volunteer for the military and you might get killed. Superstar or high-school drop-out. The bullet don’t care which.

5

And thank you so much for that insightful observation.

:rolleyes:

Next!

6

But what about “Good Old Shoe”? We have to be ever vigilant to protect the borders of our Homeland from Albanian terrorists with suitcase nukes. And to do that, you need a valiant all-American and preferably blue-eyed hero, a really catchy theme song, and a lot of thematically-rich bullshit. After all, it’s hard to grow AstroTurf.

The only surprise to me about all of this is how fundamentally surprised people are about it. I’d say Mamet was prophetic, but really he just peered a little deeper into the veil of unbridaled jingoistic patriotism and found the man behind the curtain. Nothing new here.

Stranger

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So, which one is Col. Cathcart and which one is Col. Korn?

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Clearly Bush is Cathcart (who keeps raising the number of missions and campaigning to get on the front page of The Saturday Evening Post, while Korn is Cheney or Rove (or a combination thereof).

Of course, I have the otherwise useless talent of relating nearly everything to Catch-22, so take it all with a grain of salt, and a bail of Egyptian cotton.

Stranger

9

And people get killed by friendly fire in every war too. Duh. But it would be nice if the government didn’t lie about it. But the old we don’t make any mistakes government we are stuck with these days distorts the truth first and thinks about it later.

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I suppose you should be commended for merely trying to bury the issue in irrelevant hand-waving, rather than trying to claim the OP is flaming Tillman and Lynch. Somewhere around the second page or so, I’m sure one of the usual suspects will be along to do just that.

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Folks at the Pentagon have supposedly asked Tillman’s family, “What can we do for you?” To which they’ve replied, “This isn’t about us, this about the American people.” Tillman’s family all deserve medals, IMHO, for not taking this lying down. What the brass did is a total dishonor for everything Pat fought and died for.

Jessica Lynch sounds like a lot of military vets in that she thinks the heroes are the ones who didn’t come back, and is rightly angered over the Admin’s attempt to exploit her (and she’s had the good sense to not let 'em). Still, I can’t help but wish that she’d have looked at her rescuers and instead of saying, “I’m an American, too.” she’d said, “Aren’t you a little short to be a stormtrooper?” (She’s also insanely hot.)

12

Would that be a bale of chocolate-covered Egyptian cotton?

13

Who really knows if Tillman and/or Lynch were “heroes” anyway?

None of us were there to see what really happened. The first thing that went through my mind with Tillman was, “Oh man, one of his own guys took him out…” It could have been jealousy, could have been envy, could have been that Tillman wanted to be the superstar and put other lives in danger, or maybe someone just didn’t like him. Who knows? Being in two combat situations myself (Desert Storm and Bosnia), I could see all of those. I don’t think it was an accident, only because the government has never firmly claimed such. But the truth? I don’t think the American people could handle it. And whatever wind his still pushing Bush’s little sailboat would disappear. Damn the government for using the image of Tillman for their political purposes.

He joined the military, he knew the risks, and he died. Can’t say that deserves a medal for that. Because he gave up a $4M NFL contract to join the Army, he doesn’t deserve a medal.

From what I can tell with Lynch was that she was ambushed and tortured. Can’t say it would have been such a huge story if she were a man, and this sort of thing happens a lot more than we hear about. But that’s not her fault, it’s the government’s for trying to put a likable face on a war that people were beginning to question. I don’t agree with her that “the heroes are the ones who don’t come back.” Damn the government for exploiting this young woman for all that she went through and making her a spectacle because of her gender.

Because someone joins the military, ends up in the infantry and subsequently dies, it can’t make them a “hero.” When I was in, few people had this “I’m fighting for freedom!” bullshit mantra, and they were looked at funny. But no one really knows where they’ll end up after basic training. Some wanted the high-risk-high-reward lines of work, others medium and others low. Everyone certainly had all sorts of reasons why they were there, a lot gave the “I’m here to serve my country” while some offered “I’m here for college money.” Who knows which one ends up dying? Who knows what someone’s going to do when the shit hits the fan? The guy there to serve his country could be the one crying in a foxhole while the guy who’s there for selfish reasons is out saving lives and saving the mission. I have a DD256 hanging on the wall in front of me, and I have 16 ribbons on my service dress uniform. I most certainly am NOT a “hero.” Damn the government for trying to manipulate the people by using terms of childhood fantasy, knowing that few of us ever grow up.

I agree with the OP, that awarding Tillman any elevated medal for anything other than valor is disingenuous to those who truly earned them and manipulative to the military-supporting public. Don’t give him a medal because he, on the surface anyway, represents every bullshit American theme we can think of your trying to sell a war. Damn the government.

14

I agree with you, but would like to add a fuck you for Pat Tillman’s brother. Face it bro, you’re pissed becasuse you now realize that your brother was killed fighting in a stupid needless war. The rest of the country knew this from day one, but not the macho Tillman brothers. You guys are a little slow, Pat probably from too many hits to the head in football, I get it. I’m sure your Great Santini-like father instilled in you two a love for God and Country from day one, and probably beat you as children if you lost the wrestling tournament or tried to help a hurt animal, fine. But what exactly is your point here, and what exact crime do you want punishment for? Do you really think you’re gonna have a Nathan Jessup-esque “you’re goddamn right I did” moment with Bush or Rumsfled or whoever the fuck? Or would you get a kick out of some 18 year-old from some hick town going to Leavenworth for six months because of an accident- a kid who probably only signed on to avoid spending the rest of his life working in a coal mine. Will that give you some satisfaction? Why don’t you wise up and realize that his death is his own fucking fault, that you two rubes were such narrow minded flag-huggers that you were duped by a smooth talking cowboy with a two digit IQ- how about them apples bro? And you want justice for being lied to? Is that a crime now- in the army it probably is for all I know. Again, I am no war supporter by a longshot, but they told you your brother died a hero- big fucking deal. Given the choice I would rather think my brother died saving a kid from being hit by a car than autoerotic asphyxiation. They used your brothers death for their own gain? Genius, they used him from day one, whether he wanted it or not, why stop just becasue he died? Face it, you were both stupid for enlisting, you volunteered to fight in a stupid war based on a false premise, and are now seemingly shocked to find small lies in the wake of the Big Lie? Boo-fucking hoo. You’ve been had, tuck your tail between your legs and go back home. You ain’t gonna bring Bush down, you may get a sergeant who was only following orders demoted at most, no point ruining another peons life because of your bad choices. It’s Chinatwon, baby, you’re over your head.

15

Um, didn’t Jessica Lynch participate in the writing of a book that featured at least some of the government-hyped stories?

I have not read the book, but I remember media reports about the book.

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Wee Bairn, before the pile-on begins, maybe you’d like to withdraw some of your vitriol for the Tillmans. Pat died in Afghanistan, which despite the subsequent failure to prosecute the war in an intelligent way, was not in, most people’s opinion, a “stupid needless war.”

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Not only that, but Pat Tillman expressed doubts about the Iraq war.

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Every day this war reminds me more and more of Catch-22.

I think Cheney is Milo. Col Korn may be Condi.

I view Rove more as Nately. The kind of guy that kills a prostitute, tosses her out a window, rationalizes it away and gets away with it.

That football player being killed by friendly fire will give a black eye to the red, white and blue.

But if we make him a hero, it will be a real feather in our cap.

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Hey, fuck you. No, really, fuck you with a rusty piece of barbed wire. What the fuck is wrong with you?

He loved his country, he trusted his government, he believed his president. And the used him, they used him up, and lied about his death and lied to his family. And you’re blaming the dead guy, and his brother? Fuck you! Blame the fuckin liars, you tragically twisted dipshit. And Pat Tillman’s brother, because he was used and tricked and lied to, now he’s not allowed to speak up once he sees the truth? Why, because he wasn’t as smart as you from the beginning? Yes, it would be wonderful if everyone was as smart and perfect as you, I’m sure. But since so many of our citizens are so terribly flawed, why don’t we fuckin HELP the people who wake up and make the difficult choices to do the right thing, no matter how long it takes them to get to that.

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This is the thing that really chaps my hide…

From ESPN:

*Kauzlarich, now a battalion commanding officer at Fort Riley in Kansas, further suggested the Tillman family’s unhappiness with the findings of past investigations might be because of the absence of a Christian faith in their lives.

In an interview with ESPN.com, Kauzlarich said: “When you die, I mean, there is supposedly a better life, right? Well, if you are an atheist and you don’t believe in anything, if you die, what is there to go to? Nothing. You are worm dirt. So for their son to die for nothing, and now he is no more — that is pretty hard to get your head around that. So I don’t know how an atheist thinks. I can only imagine that that would be pretty tough.”

Asked by ESPN.com whether the Tillmans’ religious beliefs are a factor in the ongoing investigation, Kauzlarich said, “I think so. There is not a whole lot of trust in the system or faith in the system [by the Tillmans]. So that is my personal opinion, knowing what I know.”*
The lack of faith in a christian god is what is keeping the Tillman family from letting this go?!

These people are simply horrible.