Pentagon Faked Heroic Death Of Football Star Tillman
Pentagon Faked Heroic Death Of Football Star Tillman
The parents of a former American football star killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan yesterday accused the Pentagon of propagating a false account of his death to stir up patriotic fervour back home...
...The account of his death on a barren hillside in Afghanistan was like a heroic, boys' comic story. He was said to have been charging up a hill to attack Islamist diehards, bellowing orders to fellow Rangers, when he was mown down in an ambush.
But as with another stirring tale of valour at war - that of Private Jessica Lynch, whose capture in the invasion of Iraq was fantastically embroidered by the authorities - the truth was much more prosaic. Tillman was shot dead by Rangers in his own platoon who mistook him for the enemy. Army investigators deemed it an act of "gross negligence".
His parents, who learned the truth weeks after a nationally televised memorial service, broke their silence yesterday, accusing the Pentagon of telling "outright lies" to his family and the nation.
