Lynch, Tillman's Brother: US Military Lied
CNN News

Tuesday 24 April 2007

Washington - The last soldier to see Army Ranger Pat Tillman alive,
Spc. Bryan O'Neal, told lawmakers that he was warned by superiors not to
divulge - especially to the Tillman family - that a fellow soldier
killed Tillman.

O'Neal particularly wanted to tell fellow soldier Kevin Tillman, who
was in the convoy traveling behind his brother at the time of the 2004
incident in Afghanistan.

"I wanted right off the bat to let the family know what had
happened, especially Kevin, because I worked with him in a platoon and I
knew that he and the family all needed to know what had happened,"
O'Neal testified. "I was quite appalled that when I was actually able to
speak with Kevin, I was ordered not to tell him."

Asked who gave him the order, O'Neal replied that it came from his
battalion commander, then-Lt. Col. Jeff Bailey.

"He basically just said ..., 'Do not let Kevin know, that he's
probably in a bad place knowing his brother's dead,'" O'Neal told House
Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman. "And he
made it known I would get in trouble, sir, if I spoke with Kevin on it
being fratricide."

The military instead released a "manufactured narrative" detailing
how Pat Tillman died leading a courageous counterattack in an Afghan
mountain pass, Kevin Tillman told the committee.

Kevin Tillman said the military tried to spin his brother's death to
deflect attention from emerging failings in the Afghanistan war.

Also Tuesday, former Pfc. Jessica Lynch told the House panel that
the military lied about her capture.

Lynch testified that after her vehicle was attacked in Iraq in March
2003, she suffered a mangled spinal column, broken arm, crushed foot,
shattered femur and even a sexual assault.

But it only added insult to injury, literally, when she returned to
her parents' home in West Virginia, which "was under siege by media all
repeating the story of the little girl 'Rambo' from the hills of West
Virginia who went down fighting," Lynch said.

"It was not true," she said before gently chiding the military. "The
truth is always more heroic than the hype."

The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform invited the
two to testify on how the Pentagon spread false stories about Tillman
and Lynch. Waxman, D-California, went as far as to say that the military
"invented" tales.

"The bare minimum we owe our soldiers and their families is the
truth," Waxman said. "That didn't happen for two of the most famous
soldiers in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars."

Brother Calls Tale "Calculated Lies"

As the tide was turning in the U.S. battle against Afghan insurgents
- and as media outlets prepared to release reports on detainee abuse at
Abu Ghraib in Iraq - the military saw Pat Tillman's death as an
"opportunity," Kevin Tillman told the panel.

Even after it became clear the report was bogus, the military clung
to the "utter fiction" that Pat Tillman was killed by a member of his
platoon who was following the rules of engagement, the brother said.

"They never felt threatened and they still shot up the village
unprovoked," Kevin Tillman said. "This was not some fog of war; they
simply lost control."

Tillman bristled at the military claim that the initial report was
merely misleading.

Clearly resentful, he told the panel that writing a field report
stating his brother had been "transferred to an intensive care unit for
continued CPR after most of his head had been taken off by multiple .556
rounds is not misleading."

"These are deliberate and calculated lies," he said.

Pat Tillman, who became a national hero after he gave up a lucrative
contract with the NFL's Arizona Cardinals to join the Army's elite
Rangers force, was awarded the Silver Star, the military's third-highest
combat decoration, after the Army said he was killed leading a
counterattack.

The Army later acknowledged not only that Tillman was killed by his
fellow soldiers, but that officers in Tillman's chain of command knew
the counterattack story was bogus.

Though the military blamed the erroneous report on an inadequate
initial investigation, Mary Tillman told ESPN Radio last month that
everyone involved in the shooting knew immediately that her son had been
shot three times in the head by a member of his platoon.

"The Tillman family was kept in the dark for more than a month,"
Waxman said. "Evidence was destroyed. Witness statements were doctored.
The Tillman family wants to know how all of this could've happened."

Lynch: Truth "Not Always Easy"

Lynch's testimony began with a recollection of the March 23, 2003,
attack and her purported rescue nine days later.

As she and her fellow 11 soldiers drove through Nassiriya, Iraq,
they noticed armed men standing in the streets and on rooftops. Three
soldiers were quickly killed when a rocket-propelled grenade slammed
into their vehicle, Lynch said.

The other eight died in the ensuing fighting or from injuries
incurred during the fighting, she said. Lynch later woke up at Saddam
Hussein General Hospital.

"When I awoke, I did not know where I was. I could not move. I could
not call for help. I could not fight," she said, explaining she had a
six-inch gash in her head and numerous broken bones. "The nurses at the
hospital tried to soothe me, and they even tried unsuccessfully at one
point to return me to Americans."

On April 1, U.S. troops came for her.

"A soldier came into the room. He tore the American flag from his
uniform, and he handed it to me in my hand and he told me, 'We're
American soldiers, and we're here to take you home.' And I looked at him
and I said, 'Yes, I'm an American soldier, too,'" she recalled.

She was distraught to come home and find herself billed as a hero
when two of her fellow soldiers had fought bravely until the firefight's
end and another had died after picking up soldiers and removing them
from harm's way.

"The American people are capable of determining their own ideals for
heroes, and they don't need to be told elaborate lies," she said. "I had
the good fortune to come home and to tell the truth. Many soldiers, like
Pat Tillman, did not have that opportunity."

"The truth of war is not always easy. The truth is always more
heroic than the hype," she said.

Lynch became a celebrity after U.S. troops filmed what they said was
a daring raid on the hospital. Lynch, the Army claimed, was shot and
stabbed during a fierce gun battle with Iraqi troops that left 11 of her
comrades dead.

Hospital staffers, however, said there were no Iraqi troops at the
hospital when the purported rescue took place.

It was later learned that Lynch never fired a shot during the
firefight because her gun was jammed with sand.

You posted this one already. Like I said- local failure, not Bush or
any other major official's fault. Field commanders have been known to
say stuff like that since long before modern warefare.

"You posted this one already. Like I said- local failure, not Bush or
any other major official's fault. Field commanders have been known to
say stuff like that since long before modern warefare."
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RIGHT!!! Not bush..He never lies!!

Not in this case, at least. He never got a chance to.

retarded

hey shadow>

I noticed you are creating multiple copies of your topics.

That would move all the existing threads of the screen.
Are you trying to bury a thread? Is there a thread in the current
events that has information you think needs buried?

Wonder which one it is?