General To Lose A Star OverTillman's Death

While I can understand that a high profile death like Pat Tillman can be a bad morale blow, the families and investigators deserve the truth.

A retired three-star general criticized for misleading investigators probing the controversial death of Cpl. Pat Tillman could be stripped of a star and face a decrease in retirement pension, Pentagon officials told CNN.

Unless the person involved was killed during a classified mission, the truth is the very least that is owed to the families. I would rather the military come to me and say "your son was killed due to friendly fire. There were numerous mistakes made and we are correcting them so it doesn't happen to any other soldier in the future. I am terribly sorry for your loss." That I can understand. I can even forgive those who killed my child if it was due to a mistake. As hard as that would be for me to swallow, the fog of war is very real and sometimes good people die.

However, you lie to me about the circumstances surrounding the death of my child, and I'll be more enraged then ever and will want to see heads roll for it. If the mission was classified, the very least you owe me is, "your child was killed during a classified mission. It was due to friendly fire. I am deeply sorry for your loss, but unfortunately, I cannot give you details beyond that because of the sensitive nature of the mission your son was on."

That I can handle. That's the truth without giving away any sensitive, classified information. That isn't what the Tillman's got. They got a lie, then a cover up to that lie. If the information was incorrect, then it was incorrect, but to lie about it after you know the truth isn't fair to those who sacrificed and paid the ultimate price to serve our country. If the military thought it was due to enemy fire and told the Tillman's that it was due to enemy fire, that's just a mistake. Had they then found out about the friendly fire afterwards, they owed it to the Tillman's to come back and say "after further investigation, we found it was due to friendly fire. I apologize for giving you wrong information, but that is what we thought had happened at that time."

Any one of those above mentioned scenarios is completely understandable and no one would have gotten as angry and rightfully so, as they are now.

Travis
travis@rightwinglunatic.com