"The Army would not say whether Pat Tillman had ever declared himself an atheist"
For any of you familiar with the Army and it's religious policy you need to understand how the US Military covers the proportion of "alternative religions" - that is non-Christian religions.
US Military policy written or implied is to hide pagan, agnostic, atheist, and other religious and non-religious individuals from enumeration.
Ask any individual that has entered processing how the religious question is dealt with if the answer is not one of the "approved" Christian denominations.
The standard reaction to atheist, pagan, agnostic, and others is - "recruit you want to change that to something identifying you as Christian or "no preference" or the members of other religions (typically now identified as Muslim as the official boogieman) will never give you any peace.
Of course this translates into "we officially unofficially support particular religions and you are messing up our spreadsheet charts with your unfavored thinking - and we don't like thinking"...
Back to the shame of the Pat Tillman coverup.
The most disgusting thing about this entire propaganda failure is the reaction from the "patriotic" neocons and the hardline Christians both groups have and continue to denigrate Tillman and his service. Because his story does not fit into the desired "party line" the preference is to ignore or denigrate rather than deal with the facts rationally and logically.The Associated Press reported that a doctor who examined Tillman's body after his death wrote, "The medical evidence did not match up with the scenario as described," also noting that the wound entrances appeared as though he had been shot with an M16 rifle from fewer than 10 yards away. A possible motive, however, has never been identified. According to one of his fellow soldiers, Tillman "was popular among his fellow soldiers and had no enemies."
No atheists in foxholes, is bullshit indeed...
you know, i read the "insider" article from SI about Tillman and his death. and i agree the army did attempt to cover up his death, in an effort to use his service for recruiting purposes.
ReplyDeletei do not remember anything from that article in which friends or family mention Tillman being an atheist. as i still have the issue, i can refresh my memory, and will.
of course i respect his service, but i also know from reading the article the guy died because he violated one of the cardinal rules of combat-don't stand up in the kill zone, as well as one of murphy's laws of combat-friendly fire isn't
the SI writer, unwittingly in my estimation, clearly showed through interviews with both friends and family, that Tillman was a hot head who died as a result of a larger than life ego.
very sad when you think about it. had he have used a bit of discretion, he may still be alive today, killing AMERICA's enemies, where ever they may be.
I don't think how Pat Tillman died is in dispute anymore, what people are upset about is not the friendly fire, but the cover-up. Trying to point a finger at Tillman doesn't explain anything about how the Army mythologized his death, or how Christians hijacked his funeral.
ReplyDelete"the guy died because he violated one of the cardinal rules of combat-don't stand up in the kill zone, as well as one of murphy's laws of combat-friendly fire isn't
ReplyDeletethe SI writer, unwittingly in my estimation, clearly showed through interviews with both friends and family, that Tillman was a hot head who died as a result of a larger than life ego."
The problem with your statement is that recent investigations have belayed that favored story by the religionists in the Army.
New information points to a coverup by the Army, destruction of his journal (old information) and that far from the favored story "it was fault because he was stupid" it has come out that he was actually helping a fellow soldier who had crouched in fear to pray and was killed in actions trying to help.
A debilitating bout of narcissism would be consistent with personalities exposed to the worship common with "sports heros" in the US, but any "hot headed" in fact no person deserves the coverup and abuse by the religionists in the Army.