I cannot believe all of the posters on this thread who support lying to this family.
This was not a white lie told to protect an investigation or calm a potentially volatile brother.
The Army spun an entire set of lies that hid the truth about Tillman’s death and on top of that they developed a false scenario to try to turn his death into a dramatic, heroic act to use him as a poster boy. His leavine a lucrative career was heroic. His volunteering for the Rangers and combat was heroic. Then they saw his death as an opportunity- ghoulish.
They hurt this family and the realization by the American people of what happened has weakened the war effort.
If you are a family in Iowa, listening to a military officer describe how and why your son is not coming home, how many mothers and fathers are going to doubt the story. How many, now have a tiny grain of doubt, “If they lied to the family of Pat Tillman, how can I know that they are not lying to me?”
Not according to the IG, who seemed to be the only non-hysteric at the hearing today.
According to HawaiianGecko, who actually watched the proceedings today:
I watched the entire testimony today on C-Span and the author is leaving a bunch out. First, the Tillman's came across nearly as lunatics. I'm not saying they didn't encounter a terrible tragedy, but they really had the tin foil wrapped tightly. They could not answer a single question asked of them and continuously wandered back to rambling. The I.G. that investigated states flat out that none of several reports and investigations ever said Tillman was killed by anything other than friendly fire.
Rep. Issa of California had the best questions. He kept asking them who "they" was in their stories. They didn't know. He asked if they had even a shred of evidence that any of this was done for political reasons and their response was all hypothetical. Not a bit of evidence. Just answers like "Everyone knows that military-101 says you don't split into two groups." Huh?
Seems like the only ones developing any false scenarios are the surviving Tillmans.