"The Tillman Story"

I found this documentary film while flicking through Netflix. The film is directed by Amir Bar-Lev and narrated by Josh Brolin. The story, when it broke in 2007, passed me by completely. One more bullet into the corpse of belief in the integrity of governments. Pat Tillman, an American football player, enlisted in the army after the September 11 attacks. When he was killed in Afghanistan, the military lied to his family that he died from a firefight with the Taliban. Apparently they did not want to make an unpopular war even more unpopular by reporting the death by friendly fire of an All-American athletic icon.

The family, in particular, the mother Mary 'Dannie' Tillman, pursued the truth of what had happened, and found the cover-up extending all the way up into the Bush White House. It was infuriating to watch in the film Donald Rumsfeld and military top brass claim forgetfulness regarding a confidential memo sent to them about the friendly fire. Led by Democrats, the Congressional Oversight Committee questioning them did not do its job. In his turn President Obama promoted the General who covered up the truth.

After watching the film, GH raged against the family for being stupid enough to enlist, and then to complain when the military deceived them. They should have known better than to support the war and believe their government. I was surprised that he was more upset by the family than by the government. When I told him so, he said that he assumes the government will fuck you over.

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