U.S. Military: Playing the Atheism Card Against Pat Tillman

A professional football player who left a lucrative contract in order to volunteer to serve his country after 9/11, Pat Tillman was killed in Afghanistan. His family was devastated, but understood that sacrifice and risk come with the job - at least until they learned that he was killed by friendly fire and the government tried to cover it up. Now at least one officer is blaming the family for continually trying to learn the truth.

Stan Goff writes for TruthDig:

More than any other single person below the rank of general, [Lt. Col. Ralph Kauzlarich] is probably most responsible for the Pentagon’s embarrassment when NFL-player-turned-Army-Ranger Pat Tillman was killed on April 22, 2004, by his own comrades. Kauzlarich has been energetically avoiding responsibility for the fratricidal incident ever since. [...]

[A] recent ESPN.com exposé by Mike Fish aired an interview with Kauzlarich, who was the “cross commander” of the Rangers in Khoust, Afghanistan, in April 2004. Kauzlarich, in a stunning display of Christian empathy, blamed the family for continuing to ask questions about the circumstances of Pat’s death, and suggested that the reason they’d found no closure was that infidels such as themselves (the Tillmans did not belong to a church), when they die, are only “worm dirt.” ...

“His parents continue to ask for it to be looked at,” Kauzlarich told Fish petulantly. “And that is really their prerogative. And if they have the right backing, the right powerful people in our government to continue to let it happen, then that is the case.”

It may be that we wouldn’t even have learned as much as we know thus far if it weren’t for the efforts of Tillman’s family:

In fact, powerful people in government have had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the case by the dogged persistence of Pat’s family. So far the government’s efforts have been to assign aides to do enough to get the family off its back, and submit queries to the military that are answered with the same contradictions and equivocations that provoked the family’s suspicion in the first place.

“But there [have] been numerous unfortunate cases of fratricide,” Kauzlarich told ESPN, “and the parents have basically said, ‘OK, it was an unfortunate accident.’ And they let it go. So this is—I don’t know, these people have a hard time letting it go. It may be because of their religious beliefs.” [...]

“When you die,” the Reverend Kauzlarich explained to ESPN’s Fish, “I mean, there is supposedly a better life, right? Well, if you are an atheist and you don’t believe in anything, if you die, what is there to go to? Nothing. You are worm dirt.”

Well, if indeed the Tillman’s are nonbelievers, then they likely believe that the only way for justice to exist is for we humans to pursue it here and now — we are responsible for injustice and justice in our world. So, maybe they are pushing this harder than most families because, unlike most families, they don’t believe that their son is “in a better place” or that those responsible for his death will receive their just punishment in any way unless they make sure that it happens.

I’ll bet that’s got those responsible for his death worried.

“So for their son to die for nothing, and now he is no more,” continued Kauzlarich, “that is pretty hard to get your head around that. So I don’t know how an atheist thinks…. You know what? I don’t think anything will make them happy, quite honestly. I don’t know. Maybe they want to see somebody’s head on a platter. But will that really make them happy? No, because they can’t bring their son back.”

Nothing will bring their son back, but this doesn’t mean that it’s pointless to pursue justice. Maybe if a few of those callous and careless military commanders who caused Pat Tillman’s death — not to mention the dishonest ones who actively participated in the apparent cover-up — had their heads delivered to the public on a platter there will be fewer such incidents in the future. Nothing can bring Pat Tillman back, but this doesn’t mean that we can’t do things to make sure that there aren’t more cases like his in the future.

What’s really got to be sticking in the craw of these people is the contradiction between the real Pat Tillman and the mythological Pat Tillman they tried to create. The real Pat Tillman was an atheist who, after getting to the Middle East, perceived the truth and described the invasion of Iraq as “so f***ing illegal.” The mythological Pat Tillman was a hero who could be used a recruitment poster for the neo-conservative attempt turn the Middle East into a haven for democracy. The real Pat Tillman was inconvenient and his death was a reminder of how poor military decision-making could be. The mythological Pat Tillman could hopefully invigorate the relgio-nationalist cause.

I much prefer the real Pat Tillman, but unfortunately they killed him. It’s a good thing that his family remembers the real Pat Tillman and want to make sure that its his memory which survives rather than the fake one constructed by the military.

 

Read More:

• Guide to Ethics and Morality
• War and Morality
• War on Terrorism