WORM DIRT?

April 26, 2007 - Is Pat Tillman “worm dirt” as Lt. Col. Ralph Kauzlarich says that he is? No! Pat Tillman is a hero. He became a hero when he sacrificed a multi-million dollar contract to serve his country. He became a hero when he became an Army Ranger as his patriotic reaction to the attack against our country. He became a hero when he volunteered to sacrifice his comfortable existence while his President refused to ask other millionaires to make any sacrifices to defend their country against terrorism.

Pat Tillman did not die a hero. He died a victim as he screamed, “I’m Pat – goddammit- Tillman. Stop firing!” He died in a mismanaged and forgotten war. He died in the only front line of the international war against terrorism. He died in the war that his President neglected so that he could prosecute a war for oil – a war of lies.

His President needed a hero. The Army gave him one and awarded a medal. The citation, for which no one in the Army will take responsibility, was a work of fiction. It ordered those soldiers who knew the truth to keep silent, to withhold the truth from his family. The Army kept the family from knowing that he was not killed by Al Qaeda or the Taliban but by soldiers of his own Army. That had to be done so that the President would have the hero the Army had given him.

But, as the Bard of Avon wrote, truth will out and truth did. This week the Tillman family told Pat’s story to Congress. Members of his unit testified to Congress and spread the truth upon the record. This week the Pentagon launched its coordinated attack on the Tillman family and its credibility. Colonel Kauzlarich was the point man. “The Tillman family will never accept any investigation,” he said. Why? The Tillmans are not Christian. That means that Pat Tillman did not die for a reason and is just “worm dirt”. The President has still not spoken to the Tillman family.

No, Colonel, Pat Tillman was and is a patriot. Pat Tillman was and is a hero. Your institutional lies did not make him a patriot. Your fictional story spun about his death did not make him a hero. His family, what ever their religious beliefs, made him a patriotic hero long before he left the Arizona Cardinals to become an Army Ranger. You, Colonel, should be ashamed of yourself. Your comments are, as Representative Waxman said yesterday, conduct unbecoming an officer. Your President’s silence is conduct unbecoming even a Lieutenant in the Texas Air Guard. Colonel, you have shown yourself to be the very definition of “Worm Dirt”.