All the War is a Stage

Last Tuesday House Democrats convened for a hearing in which Pfc. Jessica Lynch and family members of Cpl. Pat Tillman spoke about misrepresentation of their wartime experiences. Lynch was shot and captured by Iraqi soldiers and several members of her maintenance convoy were killed in 2003. Tillman was killed by friendly fire in 2004.


In the case of Private Lynch, military officials are accused of sensationalizing the circumstances surrounding her capture. Initial reports described the then 19-year-old heroically, saying she fought off Iraqis and fired her weapon until she was out of ammunition. Footage of Lynch's rescue from the hospital where she was being held was cycled on news programs around the country and a TV movie was made about her ordeal.

Private Lynch eschews the tales of her heroics, saying, "I am still confused as to why they chose to lie and tried to make me a legend when the real heroics of my fellow soldiers that day were, in fact, legendary." She maintains that she never fired a shot, and denies the “story of the little girl Rambo from the hills of West Virginia who went down fighting." "It was not true," Lynch says.

In an Op-Ed to the New York Times last Friday, Deputy Commander Michael Delong defended the military, saying it was politicians who pressed the heroic slant. He described being pressured to award Lynch a Medal of Honor before the initial reports could be confirmed.

...when the request landed on my desk, I told the politicians that we’d need to wait. I made it clear that no one would be awarded anything until all of the evidence was reviewed.

The politicians did not like this. They called repeatedly, through their Congressional liaison, and pressured us to recommend her for the medal, even before all the evidence had been analyzed. I would not relent and we had many heated discussions.

The politicians repeatedly said that a medal would be good for women in the military; I responded that the paramount issue was finding out what had really happened.

The family of Pat Tillman, the defensive back for the Arizona Cardinals who quit to join the Army Rangers, had stronger words for the hearing. Initial reports of Tillman's death described it as a result of enemy engagement, instead of friendly fire as it was later revealed to be. Tillman was awarded the Silver Star of Valor based on those initial reports.

Specialist Bryan O'Neal described being ordered to withhold information from the Tillman family:

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

Kevin Tillman, Pat Tillman's brother and a fellow army ranger, believes that the misrepresentation was a deliberate act meant to garner public support for the war.

To further exploit Pat's death, he was awarded the Silver Star for Valor... We believe the strategy had the intended effect. It shifted the focus from the grotesque torture at Abu Ghraib and the downward spiral of an illegal act of aggression, to a great American who died a hero's death...A terrible tragedy that might have further undermined support for the war in Iraq was transformed into an inspirational message that served instead to support the nation’s foreign policy wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Tillman's mother was similarly angered:

We have been asked over and over again, "What can we do for your family? How can we appease you?" and it makes me sick. It's not about our family... What is so outrageous is that this isn't about Pat, this is about what they did to Pat and what they did to a nation.

Links
New York Times: Panel Hears Falsehood on 2 Wartime Incidents
Huffington Post/C-SPAN: Video clips from the hearing