I am rarely anywhere near the leading edge of what is current, particularly when it comes to things political in nature.

A friend just passed along Jon Krakauer's recent book on the Pat Tillman story. I knew nothing of the event when I cracked the cover.

Pretty interesting on a number of levels.

Has anyone else checked the book out or know much about the Tillman tragedy?

I read the book and like you found it interesting--- a sad way to die.

I did. very intersting. I followed tillman for a few years before he enlisted. he was a semi-regular on the Jim Rome radio show. not your average athlete to say the least. It was a pretty big deal when he did enlist.

What was so disturbing was not that he died by friendly fire (although sad) but what the military/government did after his death. What a [censored] mess.

Read the book cover to cover twice now. Definately a sad book, but one that opened my eyes up to parts of the war that I didn't know about. A good read, but sad sad sad.

Haven't read the book, only the story about Tillman dying from friendly fire. That's sad and tragic and likely an unavoidable part of war. It's the military and government attempts at cover-up of such incidents that disgusts me. I'm an anti-war peacenik at the core, but I understand and accept that war is sometimes unavoidable. What I'll never accept is my government or military lying to me and covering up the truth. Lying, deceit, and betrayal undermine the values of patriotism and nationalism and discredit whatever good we may stand for.

Sg

+ many Salmo

+1 to Aunty and Salmo's posts!

Good book. The Army did him a major dis-service.

It's to bad our government doesn't serve it's citizens like it expects it's citizens to serve it.

Happy b-day AuntyM!

+ 1 to you and to Irie.

Happy Birthday!

isn't that the truth!

That story is so sad and leads one to really question the official story regarding a lot of things. Check out the Jessica Lynch story... a lot more lies all in the name of creating American heroes and building public support for a cause. Quite the propaganda machine.

Just finished the book today. First thing I did was write my wife a letter.

Towards the end of the book there is a letter from Pat's brother Kevin that I thought summed up the issues surrounding the whole event brilliantly. I will try and put it up.

Corruption, lies, deceit and self-centered motivations. It seems that with more power and higher profiles, these things tend to run rampant. Perhaps because those in high places have more to lose and are willing to go to great lengths to preserve what they have and what they want?

What little trust I had of the large scale political process is definitely gone.

I wasn't very surprised when I heard about the cover up about Patrick Tillman being killed by friendly fire. A stand up guy that died because of a mistake. It sadly happens in war but why lie about it? Tillman deserved to have his government be as stand up as him and take responsibility.
It's real ironic that the Turner Joy is proudly displayed in Bremerton since the Tonkin Gulf incident in which the ship played a big role was all contrived so Johnson could escalate the war in Viet Nam. Another big lie on display and many died because of a lie.
My Dad, a WW2 Marine, apologized to me for not talking me out of enlisting when I came back from Viet Nam because of the lies surrounding that war.