Pat Tillman, the other side

NFL football player-turned-Army-Ranger Pat Tillman died in action in Afghanistan, a victim of "friendly fire."

He was hailed as a war hero, but now his mother says her dead son was a critical thinker who believed the war in Iraq, where he had served, was "illegal."

When the Pro Bowler joined the Army Rangers, the Pentagon brass needed a loofah to wipe their drool: He was white, handsome and played in the NFL. For a chicken-hawk Administration led by a President who loves the affectations of machismo but runs from protesting military moms, this testosterone cocktail was impossible to resist. The problem was that Tillman wouldn't play their game. To the Pentagon's chagrin, he turned down numerous offers to be its recruitment poster child.

But when Tillman fell in Afghanistan the wheels once again started to turn. Now the narrative was perfect: "War hero and football star dies fighting terror." The Abu Ghraib scandal was about to hit the press, so the President found it especially useful to praise Tillman as "an inspiration on and off the football field, as with all who made the ultimate sacrifice in the war on terror." His funeral was nationally televised. Bush even went back to the bloody well during the presidential campaign, addressing his team's fans on the Arizona Cardinals' stadium Jumbotron.

After he returned from overseas, Tillman planned to meet with leftist author Noam Chomsky, who was one of his favorite authors.
[commondreams.org]