Lots has already been said about Pat Tillman, the NFL player who gave up a multi-million-dollar career to become an Army Ranger, fighting in Afghanistan where he was killed.
But one thing that hasn’t been said a lot is the despicable nature of the right, willing to use this man’s death as a rallying cry for a horrible war. They attack the Nightline “Fallen” program as propaganda, but can’t resist parading Tillman around like a poster boy, complete with tearful elegies and junior-high-level poetry to a man they never met. That sickens me.
Fortunately, Tillman’s brother Rich injected a little humanity during Pat’s memorial service.
“Pat isn’t with God,” he said. “He’s fucking dead. He wasn’t religious. So thank you for your thoughts, but he’s fucking dead.”
Rich Tillman was talking about people imposing their religious beliefs on the service. But he could have easily been talking about the right-wing’s willingness to use his brother’s death for “They killed *one of us*!” propaganda.
Pat Tillman deserves better than that, especially in death.