Down, Pat

When a strapping young man named Pat Tillman turned down a mutlimillion dollar contract to play footbal for the St. Louis Cardinals to enlist in the U.S. Army, there was an outpouring of national pride in the sense of duty 9/11 had inspired in Americans. Pat himself was determined to fight the terrorists where he believed they were: Afghanistan.

But that's not what happened. Tillman was first sent much against his will to Iraq, but then in 2004 he was indeed sent to Afghanistan, where he was killed by friendly fire.

That's the story. But it has only recently come forward. You see, when Tillman was killed, the pro-war crowd struggled to outdo themselves in denouncing those who questioned the meaning of Tillman's death and in lauding Tillman's every attribute. His patriotism, his unquestioning self-sacrifice, his willingness to take on any task America might set him to. Frontpagemag.com, Little Green Footballs, and Ann Coulter (and many more) publsihed articles elevating Tillman and blasting the Left which supposedly despised him.

It was soon revealed that Tillman had not died heroically fighting al-Qaeda, but had been shot by his own men who mistakenly thought he was a member of the Taliban. The Army covered this up, even going so far as to release a detailed description of the non-existent battle and to burn Tillman's body armor. The fratricidal elements of the story didn't deter the Right, though; Tillman still believed in the same things they did, no matter how he died.

Now, however, an article has appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle which contain some revelations that the Right finds it difficult to take. Among other things:

Interviews also show a side of Pat Tillman not widely known — a fiercely independent thinker who enlisted, fought and died in service to his country yet was critical of President Bush and opposed the war in Iraq, where he served a tour of duty. He was an avid reader whose interests ranged from history books on World War II and Winston Churchill to works of leftist Noam Chomsky, a favorite author.

*snip*

“I can see it like a movie screen,” Baer said. “We were outside of (a city in southern Iraq) watching as bombs were dropping on the town. We were at an old air base, me, Kevin and Pat, we weren’t in the fight right then. We were talking. And Pat said, ‘You know, this war is so f— illegal.’ And we all said, ‘Yeah.’ That’s who he was. He totally was against Bush.”

Another soldier in the platoon, who asked not to be identified, said Pat urged him to vote for Bush’s Democratic opponent in the 2004 election, Sen. John Kerry.

And, most 'shocking' of all:

Mary Tillman said a friend of Pat’s even arranged a private meeting with Chomsky, the antiwar author, to take place after his return from Afghanistan — a meeting prevented by his death. She said that although he supported the Afghan war, believing it justified by the Sept. 11 attacks, “Pat was very critical of the whole Iraq war.”

Then he would disagree with Chomsky about the Afghanistan war, then, but presumably their article would be about Iraq.

Reaction from Tillman's former defenders has ranged from silence to slack-jawed denial from those who simply refuse to believe it. And why not? In modern politics, no one must believe anything they don't wish to.