https://sputnikglobe.com/20230214/nfl--us-military-excoriated-for-using-slain-player-turned-soldier-as-recruiting-prop-1107392215.html
NFL & US Military Excoriated for Using Slain Player-Turned-Soldier as Recruiting Prop
NFL & US Military Excoriated for Using Slain Player-Turned-Soldier as Recruiting Prop
Sputnik International
Americans reacted with outrage Sunday night as the NFL once again invoked the name of slain football-star-turned-soldier Pat Tillman during Super Bowl LVIII
2023-02-14T05:13+0000
2023-02-14T05:13+0000
2023-02-14T05:13+0000
americas
us
nfl
https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e5/06/02/1083055589_0:0:3093:1740_1920x0_80_0_0_1c3ddac62f88e2d8ee8593015c189e25.jpg
Prior to Sunday’s big game, students receiving scholarships from the Pat Tillman Foundation were brought on-field for the coin toss. Afterwards, viewers were shown a segment in which Tillman was described as a patriotic hero who died "in the line of duty."Posts garnering millions of views on social slammed the NFL and the US military for using Tillman as a recruiting prop after he was killed by US forces with three shots to the head at close range after criticizing the War in Iraq as "f*cking illegal.""Obviously the Army killing Pat Tillman and covering it up afterwards is the worst thing the U.S. military did to him, but the years they’ve spent rolling out his portrait backed by some inspirational music as a recruiting tool is a surprisingly close second," American journalist Jay Willis wrote on Twitter.Tillman joined the US Army in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks which killed nearly 3,000 Americans. But he quickly realized that the reality of the situation wasn’t quite what was advertised.After participating in the initial invasion of Iraq in 2003 and subsequently becoming an Army Ranger, Tillman began to grow increasingly skeptical of the US military’s declared motives in the Middle East. He reportedly confided in a colleague that he thought the war in Iraq was "f*cking illegal” and one of his diary entries questioned the attempted capture of Jessica Lynch, a private first class. Though he hoped to see her rescued, “sending this many folks for a single low ranking soldier screams of media blitz," he wrote."Then," as his brother Kevin would tell Congress several years later, "on April 22, 2004, my brother Pat was killed in a firefight in eastern Afghanistan."Indeed, "the content of the multiple investigations reveal a series of contradictions that strongly suggest deliberate and careful misrepresentations," Kevin explained. "We believe this narrative was intended to deceive the family, but more importantly to deceive the American public."Despite actually being killed by his own comrades, the fake story of Tillman's slaying was widely disseminated in American media and, his brother says, used to distract from an explosive report by investigative journalists Christian Parenti and Seymour Hersh exposing the US military’s torture of Afghan detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison.According to a 2009 report from CBS, "Spc. Jade Lane, a friend of Tillman's, told Krakauer that during their first night as Army Rangers in Iraq, Tillman had told him he was worried that if anything happened to him, the government would create a media blitz around him."In an interview with Sports Illustrated, his mother, Mary Tillman, had few kind words for US military officials, who she says "attached themselves to his virtue and then threw him under the bus."
americas
Sputnik International
feedback@sputniknews.com
+74956456601
MIA „Rossiya Segodnya“
2023
News
en_EN
Sputnik International
feedback@sputniknews.com
+74956456601
MIA „Rossiya Segodnya“
Sputnik International
feedback@sputniknews.com
+74956456601
MIA „Rossiya Segodnya“
pat tillman killing, how did pat tillman die, pat tillman case, who killed pat tillman, nfl parades pat tillman
pat tillman killing, how did pat tillman die, pat tillman case, who killed pat tillman, nfl parades pat tillman
NFL & US Military Excoriated for Using Slain Player-Turned-Soldier as Recruiting Prop
Americans reacted with outrage Sunday night as the NFL once again invoked the name of slain football-star-turned-soldier Pat Tillman during Super Bowl LVIII, with many accusing the league of whitewashing the suspicious circumstances of his death.
Prior to Sunday’s big game, students receiving scholarships from the Pat Tillman Foundation were brought on-field for the coin toss. Afterwards, viewers were shown a segment in which Tillman was described as a patriotic hero who died "in the line of duty."
Posts garnering millions of views on social slammed the NFL and the US military for using Tillman as a recruiting prop after he was killed by US forces with three shots to the head at close range after criticizing the War in Iraq as "f*cking illegal."
"Obviously the Army killing Pat Tillman and covering it up afterwards is the worst thing the U.S. military did to him, but the years they’ve spent rolling out his portrait backed by some inspirational music as a recruiting tool is a surprisingly close second," American journalist Jay Willis wrote on Twitter.
"Losing my mind at the NFL referring to Pat Tillman's "dying in the line of duty," wrote the author of another viral post, who added "ok but how did he die though???? any specifics that seem worth mentioning???"
Tillman joined the US Army in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks which killed nearly 3,000 Americans. But he quickly realized that the reality of the situation wasn’t quite what was advertised.
After participating in the initial invasion of Iraq in 2003 and subsequently becoming an Army Ranger, Tillman began to grow increasingly skeptical of the US military’s declared motives in the Middle East. He reportedly confided in a colleague that he thought the war in Iraq was "f*cking illegal” and one of his diary entries questioned the attempted capture of Jessica Lynch, a private first class. Though he hoped to see her rescued, “sending this many folks for a single low ranking soldier screams of media blitz," he wrote.
"Then," as his brother Kevin would
tell Congress several years later, "on April 22, 2004, my brother Pat was killed in a firefight in eastern Afghanistan."
"Immediately after Pat's death, our family was told that he was shot in the head by the enemy in a fierce firefight outside a narrow canyon," Kevin noted. But "there was one small problem with the narrative, however: It was utter fiction."
Indeed, "the content of the multiple investigations reveal a series of contradictions that strongly suggest deliberate and careful misrepresentations," Kevin explained. "We believe this narrative was intended to deceive the family, but more importantly to deceive the American public."
Despite actually being killed by his own comrades, the fake story of Tillman's slaying was widely disseminated in American media and, his brother says, used to distract from an explosive report by investigative journalists Christian Parenti and Seymour Hersh exposing the US military’s torture of Afghan detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison.
According to a 2009 report from CBS, "Spc. Jade Lane, a friend of Tillman's, told Krakauer that during their first night as Army Rangers in Iraq, Tillman had told him he was worried that if anything happened to him, the government would create a media blitz around him."
"One night he said that he was afraid that if something happened to him, they would parade him through the streets," Lane reportedly said. "And those were his exact words: 'I don't want them to parade me through the streets.' It just burned into my brain, him saying that."
In an
interview with Sports Illustrated, his mother, Mary Tillman, had few kind words for US military officials, who she says "attached themselves to his virtue and then threw him under the bus."
"They had no regard for him as a person," she said, adding that her deceased son would "hate to be used for a lie." But "I don’t care if they put a bullet through my head in the middle of the night," she told the interviewer. "I'm not stopping."
