Stories (narratives - including rumors, books, movies) present characters as heroes, role models, for others to imitate their virtues (loyalty, bravery, endurance) and actions (fighting hard, working, obeying orders).
The Hero: Jessica Lynch | Pat Tillman | the anti-hero: Saddam Hussein | Iraq Rumors

The most famous "human interest" story of the 2003 Iraq war was of Private First Class Jessica Lynch's capture and rescue.

In 2004, NFL football star Pat Tillman was killed in Afghanistan.

Both stories were used by military PR as heroic role models, omitting some key details.

 
As Amazon.com reviewer noted: "this captured the attention and captivated the emotions of millions of Americans. Accounts of the actual events surrounding Lynch were wildly varied as some took her to be a symbol of American righteousness while others made her out to be a pawn of the US military. But the Lynch that emerges in Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Rick Bragg's portrayal is an ordinary young woman caught up in an extraordinary series of events." See: I am a Soldier, too: The Jessica Lynch Story
BBC (Nov. 7, 2003) Jessica Lynch condemns Pentagon

"A US woman soldier who shot to fame after being taken prisoner during the Iraq war has accused the military of using her for propaganda purposes. A video of US commandos carrying a badly injured Private Jessica Lynch from a Nasiriya hospital was released at the height of the conflict.

But the 20-year-old criticized the release of false information about her capture by Iraqi forces.
She also said there was no reason for her rescue to be filmed. Miss Lynch, who was serving as an Army supply clerk, suffered broken bones and other injuries when her convoy was ambushed after taking a wrong turn near the Iraqi town of Nasiriya on 23 March.

The Pentagon initially put out the story that Private Lynch - a slight woman who was just 19 at the time - had been wounded by Iraqi gunfire but had kept fighting until her ammunition ran out. But she told TV interviewer Dianne Sawyer that she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, and that her gun had jammed during the chaos.

"I'm not about to take credit for something I didn't do," she said.

"I did not shoot - not a round, nothing. I went down praying to my knees - that's the last thing I remember."

Initial reports also suggested that Miss Lynch had been abused after she came round in the hospital. She says that again was untrue - there was no mistreatment, and one nurse used to sing to her.

She said she was grateful to the American special forces team which rescued her but, asked whether the Pentagon's subsequent portrayal of her rescue bothered her, she said: "Yes, it does. They used me as a way to symbolize all this stuff. It's wrong."

Quiet Heroism.

In April 2004, Pat Tillman, a well-known professional football player was a fatality in the Afghanistan fighting. His heroic story is more likely to be very significant because he had turned down a multi-million dollar football contract and enlisted in the Army as his "patriotic duty." (See the June 2002 story below.) In a wider context, during 2003-2004, there had been many articles noting that no member of the administration or of Congress had their own children in combat, and that most of the war casualties had come primarily from young people, children of the poor, who had volunteered for the military because of the unemployment crisis. But Richard Kohn, professor of military history at the University of North Carolina, said: "What's so unusual about Tillman is not that he gave up so much money. It was that, at a time when neither the president nor anyone else was calling for mobilization or sacrifice, Tillman felt the call of his country."

A Star NFL Player Leaves the Game to serve his Country
The following story originally appeared in the June 3, 2002 issue of Sports Illustrated.
 
Last week Cardinals safety Pat Tillman, 25, told the team that he was leaving football to enlist in the Army, with plans to attend Ranger School after boot camp. It's a remarkable story: Star athlete walks away from the game in his prime, leaving millions in cash on the table, to put his life at risk in service of his country during wartime. It is one, however, that you won't hear from Tillman. Given the chance to self-promote and wrap himself in the American flag -- on Memorial Day weekend, no less -- Tillman instead quietly declined to speak publicly about his career change.

No surprise. His decisions to leave pro football and to decline interviews are pure Tillman. The guy is a fearless nonconformist who has long refused to measure his life against ordinary standards. I met Tillman late in 1997, when he was a senior at Arizona State. He would soon be graduating after just 3 1/2 years with a 3.82 GPA, and he had been named Pac-10 defensive player of the year as an undersized (5'10", 202 pounds) linebacker. "It doesn't do me any good to be proud," Tillman said that year, "because I'll start being happy with myself and then I'll stand still and then I'm old news."

At the end of one interview with Tillman, I asked him if he had ever been arrested for anything, a question that unfortunately has to be asked with athletes today. Tillman didn't hesitate to admit that he had been charged with felony assault after beating up a kid while defending a friend during his senior year in high school. He spent 30 days in a juvenile detention facility, and his conviction was reduced to a misdemeanor upon his release. Here's the point: Since Tillman was underage at the time, his arrest record was sealed, and he didn't have to tell me anything. But he did, because he's honest. And smart. He learned from his mistake and never repeated it.

There were doubts about whether Tillman was big enough or fast enough to play college football, but he played superbly. There were much deeper doubts about whether he could play in the NFL, but he has been a four-year starter and in 2000 set a franchise record with 200 tackles. You cannot keep him off the football. Last spring he turned down a $9 million, five-year offer sheet from the Rams and accepted a one-year deal with the Cards for a little more than $500,000 out of loyalty.

Tillman says he'll resume his NFL career in three years, and Tillman does what he says. In 1994 when then Arizona State coach Bruce Snyder was recruiting Tillman, Snyder suggested redshirting him in his freshman year. "I'm not redshirting," Tillman told Snyder. "You can do what you want with me, but in four years, I'm gone. I've got things to do with my life."

Now we know what things Tillman was talking about. Big things. Wouldn't you want him in your foxhole?

Later, on May 30, 2004, Army investigators said Tillman was killed accidentally by "friendly fire. Three years later (March 28, 2007), after many, many investigations, had concluded that there was a cover-up of how Tillman died, the family charged that it was an Army public relations attempt: " the award of the Silver Star appears more than anything to be part of a cynical design to conceal the real events from the family — but most especially from the public — while exploiting the death of our beloved Pat as a recruitment poster.”

Family Criticizes Query Into Tillman’s Death
By JESSE McKINLEY | The New York Times | March 28, 2007
SAN FRANCISCO, March 27 — The family of Cpl. Pat Tillman has issued a scathing retort to a Pentagon investigation of their son’s death, calling the report “shamefully unacceptable” and asking for Congressional intervention.

In a lengthy statement released on Monday night, the family said the Army had repeatedly refused to release a complete account of the death of Corporal Tillman, a National Football League player who was killed by fellow Army Rangers in April 2004 during a firefight in Afghanistan.

“The Army continues to deny the family, and the public that pays for the Army with its taxes, access to the original investigation, and the sworn statements from that investigation,” the statement read, adding that eyewitnesses’ statements of Corporal Tillman’s death have been altered. “This is not a misstep. It is evidence tampering.”

The Pentagon report, released on Monday, said officers had suspected early on that Corporal Tillman had been killed by American troops in an accidental fratricide, not hostile fire, as was initially reported. But despite their suspicions, it said, officers did not immediately inform the family of the possibility of such a death, in violation of Army regulations. As a result, four generals, and five other officers, will face disciplinary action.

But the Pentagon found no criminal wrongdoing or evidence of a cover-up in the death, which resulted in the quick coronation of Corporal Tillman as a hero in the war on terror. A post-Sept. 11 volunteer who walked away from a lucrative football career for a life in fatigues, Corporal Tillman was awarded the Silver Star, for valor in the face of the enemy. The Army said Monday that the medal would stand, though the wording on the citation would be changed.

In their statement, the family members said the disciplinary action amounted to an “attempt to impose closure by slapping the wrists of a few officers” and dismissed their son’s Silver Star as an Army public relations move.

“No one who knew Pat doubted his physical or moral courage,” the statement said. “But the award of the Silver Star appears more than anything to be part of a cynical design to conceal the real events from the family — but most especially from the public — while exploiting the death of our beloved Pat as a recruitment poster.”

They also vowed to continue pushing for further investigation by other branches of government for themselves and other military families who “were deceived about the circumstances” of their loved ones’ deaths.

On Tuesday, Representative Michael M. Honda of San Jose, Calif., where the Tillman family lives, wrote to the chairman and ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee asking for hearings on the corporal’s death citing “nearly three years of obfuscation, delay and potential criminal actions on the part of senior military officers.”

An Army spokeswoman, Maj. Anne Edgecomb, called the Tillman family’s reaction “understandable.”

“The Tillmans’ son died, and they continue to grieve his loss,” Major Edgecomb said. “It’s not unexpected that they would be angry over our mistakes, our failure to get things right.”

Calls to Corporal Tillman’s mother and father were not returned. In an interview Tuesday morning with National Public Radio, the corporal’s mother, Mary Tillman, said she was not exactly sure how her son had died, but simply wanted a fuller picture of his final moments.

“They could have told us the truth,” Ms. Tillman said. “And if they didn’t want to tell us the truth, they could have said that we don’t know.”

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company
Soldier: Army ordered me not to tell truth about Tillman

Story Highlights: April 24, 2007_ CNN News
• Last soldier to see NFL hero alive says he was ordered not to divulge truth
• "The truth is always more heroic than the hype," Jessica Lynch tells panel
• Tillman's brother says military issued "manufactured narrative" on death
• House committee chair says Lynch, Tillman families weren't given the truth
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The last soldier to see Army Ranger Pat Tillman alive, Spc. Bryan O'Neal, told lawmakers that he was warned by superiors not to divulge -- especially to the Tillman family -- that a fellow soldier killed Tillman.

O'Neal particularly wanted to tell fellow soldier Kevin Tillman, who was in the convoy traveling behind his brother at the time of the 2004 incident in Afghanistan.

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

Asked who gave him the order, O'Neal replied that it came from his battalion commander, then-Lt. Col. Jeff Bailey.

"He basically just said ..., 'Do not let Kevin know, that he's probably in a bad place knowing his brother's dead,' " O'Neal told House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman. "And he made it known I would get in trouble, sir, if I spoke with Kevin on it being fratricide."

The military instead released a "manufactured narrative" detailing how Pat Tillman died leading a courageous counterattack in an Afghan mountain pass, Kevin Tillman told the committee.

Kevin Tillman said the military tried to spin his brother's death to deflect attention from emerging failings in the Afghanistan war. (Watch Kevin Tillman accuse the military of lying)

Also Tuesday, former Pfc. Jessica Lynch told the House panel that the military lied about her capture.

Lynch testified that after her vehicle was attacked in Iraq in March 2003, she suffered a mangled spinal column, broken arm, crushed foot, shattered femur and even a sexual assault.

But it only added insult to injury, literally, when she returned to her parents' home in West Virginia, which "was under siege by media all repeating the story of the little girl 'Rambo' from the hills of West Virginia who went down fighting," Lynch said. (Watch Lynch set the record straight)
"It was not true," she said before gently chiding the military. "The truth is always more heroic than the hype."

The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform invited the two to testify on how the Pentagon spread false stories about Tillman and Lynch. Waxman, D-California, went as far as to say that the military "invented" tales.

"The bare minimum we owe our soldiers and their families is the truth," Waxman said. "That didn't happen for two of the most famous soldiers in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars."

Brother calls tale 'calculated lies'

As the tide was turning in the U.S. battle against Afghan insurgents -- and as media outlets prepared to release reports on detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib in Iraq -- the military saw Pat Tillman's death as an "opportunity," Kevin Tillman told the panel.

Even after it became clear the report was bogus, the military clung to the "utter fiction" that Pat Tillman was killed by a member of his platoon who was following the rules of engagement, the brother said.

"They never felt threatened and they still shot up the village unprovoked," Kevin Tillman said. "This was not some fog of war; they simply lost control."
Tillman bristled at the military claim that the initial report was merely misleading.

Clearly resentful, he told the panel that writing a field report stating his brother had been "transferred to an intensive care unit for continued CPR after most of his head had been taken off by multiple .556 rounds is not misleading."

"These are deliberate and calculated lies," he said.

Pat Tillman, who became a national hero after he gave up a lucrative contract with the NFL's Arizona Cardinals to join the Army's elite Rangers force, was awarded the Silver Star, the military's third-highest combat decoration, after the Army said he was killed leading a counterattack.

The Army later acknowledged not only that Tillman was killed by his fellow soldiers, but that officers in Tillman's chain of command knew the counterattack story was bogus.

Though the military blamed the erroneous report on an inadequate initial investigation, Mary Tillman told ESPN Radio last month that everyone involved in the shooting knew immediately that her son had been shot three times in the head by a member of his platoon.

"The Tillman family was kept in the dark for more than a month," Waxman said. "Evidence was destroyed. Witness statements were doctored. The Tillman family wants to know how all of this could've happened."

Lynch: Truth 'not always easy'

Lynch's testimony began with a recollection of the March 23, 2003, attack and her purported rescue nine days later.

As she and her fellow 11 soldiers drove through Nassiriya, Iraq, they noticed armed men standing in the streets and on rooftops. Three soldiers were quickly killed when a rocket-propelled grenade slammed into their vehicle, Lynch said.

The other eight died in the ensuing fighting or from injuries incurred during the fighting, she said. Lynch later woke up at Saddam Hussein General Hospital.

"When I awoke, I did not know where I was. I could not move. I could not call for help. I could not fight," she said, explaining she had a six-inch gash in her head and numerous broken bones. "The nurses at the hospital tried to soothe me, and they even tried unsuccessfully at one point to return me to Americans."

On April 1, U.S. troops came for her.

"A soldier came into the room. He tore the American flag from his uniform, and he handed it to me in my hand and he told me, 'We're American soldiers, and we're here to take you home.' And I looked at him and I said, 'Yes, I'm an American soldier, too,' " she recalled.

She was distraught to come home and find herself billed as a hero when two of her fellow soldiers had fought bravely until the firefight's end and another had died after picking up soldiers and removing them from harm's way.

"The American people are capable of determining their own ideals for heroes, and they don't need to be told elaborate lies," she said. "I had the good fortune to come home and to tell the truth. Many soldiers, like Pat Tillman, did not have that opportunity.

"The truth of war is not always easy. The truth is always more heroic than the hype," she said.

Lynch became a celebrity after U.S. troops filmed what they said was a daring raid on the hospital. Lynch, the Army claimed, was shot and stabbed during a fierce gun battle with Iraqi troops that left 11 of her comrades dead.

Hospital staffers, however, said there were no Iraqi troops at the hospital when the purported rescue took place.

It was later learned that Lynch never fired a shot during the firefight because her gun was jammed with sand.

© 2007 Cable News Network.
Tillman's brother lashes out
The slain Army ranger's sibling says officials exploited the death
for political gain and knowingly hid the facts.
By Adam Schreck | Los Angeles Times | April 25, 2007

WASHINGTON — The brother of Army Ranger Pat Tillman accused the Pentagon and the Bush administration Tuesday of deliberately concealing the circumstances of the former football star's friendly fire death in Afghanistan in an attempt to avoid embarrassment.

Speaking publicly for the first time since his brother was killed in Afghanistan three years ago, Kevin Tillman at a congressional hearing accused Army and administration officials of exploiting his brother's death to shift attention away from the detainee abuses at the U.S.-run Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, which at the time was about to become a public relations nightmare for the military.

Investigations by the Army, including an inspector general's report late last month, have not established any conspiracy to cover up the cause of Tillman's April 2004 death. But top officers, including four generals, have been criticized for failing to tell his family the truth for more than a month afterward, and could face criminal charges.

Kevin Tillman, who gave up a minor league baseball career to enlist with his older brother in the aftermath of Sept. 11 and was near his sibling when he was shot by fellow American soldiers, said the military's early, heroic depiction of Pat's death was "utter fiction" intended to deceive not just a grieving family, but the entire country.

"To our family and friends, it was a devastating loss. To the nation, it was a moment of disorientation. To the military, it was a nightmare," Kevin Tillman said, his voice wavering with emotion. "But to others within the government, it appears to have been an opportunity."

He charged that in his brother's case, evidence had been destroyed, an autopsy did not conform to regulations, and witness testimony "disappeared into thin air."

Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said he called the hearing — which also included testimony by former Iraq prisoner of war Pfc. Jessica Lynch — because "the bare minimum we owe our soldiers and their families is the truth."

In the cases of Pat Tillman and Lynch, Waxman said, "the government violated its most basic responsibility."

Referring to the military's efforts to portray Tillman as a combat hero, he added: "I come from Hollywood. I expect show biz in Hollywood, not from the military."

The hearing showed how Tillman's death and the military's response provoke heated emotion and produce gripping drama three years after the botched Army operation in Afghanistan.

Army Spc. Bryan O'Neal, a witness to Tillman's death and the last person to see him alive, told lawmakers that one of his superiors instructed him not to tell Tillman's brother or other family members about the circumstances of the shooting, even though he knew it was a case of fratricide.

"I was ordered not to tell them," O'Neal said, adding that the order came from Jeff Bailey, then the lieutenant colonel in charge of the platoon. "He made it known that I'd get in trouble" for speaking with the family, he added.

Waxman asked O'Neal if he found such an order troubling.

"Yes, sir," he shot back. "I wanted right off the bat to tell the family."

Waxman released a copy of a "valorous award witness statement" attributed to O'Neal that suggested Tillman died during a fight with enemy combatants. But O'Neal reiterated an assertion he made to Pentagon investigators that the unsigned document had been changed from the version he submitted.

The Tillmans have dismissed as insufficient repeated Pentagon inquiries into the killing. They are angry that Army officers let them bury Tillman while believing he had been killed in a battle with Taliban-allied fighters, and that he was awarded a Silver Star based on false premises.

Afghan villagers in the area where Tillman was killed told The Times in 2004 that they saw no militant activity at the time. But military investigators said that local residents told them that guerrillas were firing at the Rangers. Tillman was killed, according to the investigators, when he was shot mistakenly by other Americans who had been attacked moments before.

After the release of last month's inspector general's report, the San Jose family renewed their push for congressional hearings.

The House panel released an exchange of messages indicating that the White House had been seeking information about Tillman days after his death for use in a speech by President Bush. A response at the time from military officials suggested that senior officers were aware that Tillman's death probably was caused by fratricide.

An officer, whose name was redacted, wrote to U.S. Central Command: "I felt it was essential that you receive this information as soon as we detected it in order to preclude any unknowing statements by our country's leaders which might cause public embarrassment if the circumstances of Corporal Tillman's death become public."

A speech by Bush days later that included a reference to Tillman but did not mention the circumstances of his death.

Kevin Tillman has been largely silent since his brother's death, although he posted an essay on the website http://www.truthdig.com in October in which he criticized what he called an "illegal" war in Iraq.

Pfc. Lynch, the Army supply clerk who was captured in an ambush on a convoy in which she was riding during the early days of the Iraq war, recounted how the news media repeated "the story of the little girl Rambo from the hills who went down fighting."

She added: "It was not true."

She said that the story of her capture and a dramatic rescue videotape that was released to the media by U.S. forces may have helped "inspire our troops and rally a nation," but that the real heroes were her comrades who died during the ambush.

"The bottom line is the American people are capable of determining their own ideals for heroes," she said. "They don't need to be told elaborate tales."
Copyright 2007 Los Angeles Times
The Anti-Hero A not-very heroic story about Saddam Hussein's capture suggests how fragment reports develop into stories.

Inside Red Dawn: Saddam Up Close
Out of the hole: Saddam struggled and spat, until a commando slugged him.
Behind one of the most intense manhunts in history
By Evan Thomas and Babak Dehghanpisheh Newsweek Dec. 29/Jan. 5 issue


"The Special Forces commando had already pulled the pin. He was primed to toss the grenade into the "spider hole," a Vietnam-era nickname for lethal hiding places. But the man cowering inside did not use the pistol resting in his lap. He raised both hands in submission and, speaking in English, announced, "I am Saddam Hussein, I am the president of Iraq and I'm willing to negotiate."

As the story was later told, one of the Special Forces operators looked down at the disheveled, bearded, seemingly dazed man and replied, "President Bush sends his regards." And coming out of the hole, Saddam accidentally bumped his head. But a knowledgeable U.S. official told NEWSWEEK that it didn't quite happen that way. In fact, as Saddam was being handcuffed, he began to struggle with his captors. He spat at the soldiers. One of the commandos decked him, either with a punch or a rifle butt. (The military later tidied up the story of his capture for popular consumption.) ..."

TIME. PRESS RELEASE: EXCLUSIVE: SADDAM HUSSEIN SPIT ON A G.I.
AS HE WAS HANDCUFFED LAST WEEK OUTSIDE HIS SPIDER HOLE,
U.S. GOVERNMENT SOURCES TELL TIME -- SOLDIER PROMPTLY SLUGGED SADDAM

Sunday, Dec. 21, 2003

New York – U.S. government sources familiar with the accounts given by troops who helped capture Saddam Hussein tell TIME that the fallen dictator apparently made one feeble attempt at defiance, TIME's Timothy Burger and Phil Zabriskie report. As soldiers were handcuffing him after he was extracted from his "spider hole," these sources say, Saddam spit on his captor.
As the incident was reported by the military, according to a U.S. source, a soldier promptly slugged the old tyrant -- probably the first time in more than two decades that Saddam was powerless to exact lethal revenge on someone who stood up to him.

An official military spokeswoman in Iraq claims no knowledge of the incident. "I think this is an urban legend," she says. But the full story is yet to be told. A U.S. intelligence official, meanwhile, casts doubt on another widely reported tale: that a U.S. soldier hailed the nemesis of two Commanders in Chief named George Bush by saying: "Regards from President Bush." This person says some officials suspect the story is "apocryphal."

Top