Pat Tillman: Beautiful Man Who Will Never Come Home


A post from last November: The fake outrage from Mr Bush and company last week over Mr Kerry's mistake re: Iraq was worthy of something Vince McMahon might have scripted
for a scenario worthy of WWE. It only masked the real outrage that most people feel about this horror and how in reality the powers that be exploit those who may believe that their choices are limited and that signing up might just expand their horizons as depicted in the disturbing adverts with young men trying to talk their parents into letting them go into the army, and none more so than the young black man telling his mother, "It's time for me to be the man." Put aside that it is a poorly written line and reflect on what it says to young people and what the army allegedly does for them.

Galway Kinnell's poem, Another Night in the Ruins from 1966 speaks of his brother's death.

1
In the evening
haze darkening on the hills,
purple of the eternal,
a last bird crosses over,
‘flop flop,’ adoring
only the instant.

2
Nine years ago,
in a plane that rumbled all night
above the Atlantic,
I could see, lit up
by lightning bolts jumping out of it,
a thunderhead formed like the face
of my brother, looking down
on blue,
lightning-flashed moments of the Atlantic.

3
He used to tell me,
“What good is the day?
On some hill of despair
the bonfire
you kindle can light the great sky—
though it’s true, of course, to make it burn
you have to throw yourself in ...”

4
Wind tears itself hollow
in the eaves of these ruins, ghost-flute
of snowdrifts
that build out there in the dark:
upside-down ravines
into which night sweeps
our cast wings, our ink-spattered feathers.

5
I listen.
I hear nothing. Only
the cow, the cow of such
hollowness, mooing
down the bones.

6
Is that a
rooster? He
thrashes in the snow
for a grain. Finds
it. Rips
it into
flames. Flaps. Crows.
Flames
bursting out of his brow.

7
How many nights must it take
one such as me to learn
that we aren’t, after all, made
from that bird that flies out of its ashes,
that for us
as we go up in flames, our one work
is
to open ourselves, to be
the flames?

*****

David Bianco over at PlanetOut.com tells us:


In April 1971, a second and larger Moratorium Against the War was held in the capital, with an estimated 10,000 gay people taking part. Later that year, 15,000 gay protesters swelled the ranks of anti-war demonstrators in a similar march in San Francisco. GLF members carried signs saying: "Soldiers: Make Each Other, Not War" and "Bring the Beautiful Boys Home."






The point is this, how much more human life has to be wasted? The fake issues of cowardice and supporting the troops turn this war into something it is not: a noble cause keeping us safe.



And yesterday this appeared:

Family of Former Football Player Lashes Out at Pentagon

Voice of America News

27 March 2007


The family of former U.S. professional football player Pat Tillman has lashed out at the Pentagon, accusing the military of criminal wrongdoing following Tillman's friendly fire death in Afghanistan.

In a statement, the family alleged Pentagon officials tampered with evidence and deliberately deceived them on how Tillman died.

The Army knew almost immediately that Tillman had been killed by his own unit in April 2004, but for several weeks did not dispute initial military reports that he was killed by enemy fire.

The family charges the military awarded Tillman the Silver Star under false pretenses to conceal the events of his death, while exploiting Tillman's death as a "recruitment poster."

Pentagon investigators have found no criminal negligence in the events following the death of Tillman, but they say "critical errors" were made in reporting his death and failing to provide accurate details to his family.Investigators have recommended that nine officers, including four generals, be held accountable for the missteps.

Tillman turned down a multi-million-dollar contract with the National Football League in order to join the elite Army Rangers after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.


Some information for this report was provided by AP and Reuters.

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