|
|
| Pat & Kevin Tillman in Afghanistan |
|
|
| Front of the Earhart cover-up MS, 'The People Versus The Executive Branch.' |
|
|
I: The Tillman
Cover Up
"A universal lack
of recall among senior officials at the White House." "A pervasive lack of recollection and absence of specific
information." 2008 House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on the case of Pat Tillman. Pat Tillman had begun
to speak out against the war.
|
II: The Earhart Cover Up
"I hope I've just got to never make it
public." White House Cabinet member Henry Morgenthau Jr.'s 1938 comment on the withheld Amelia Earhart truth. Morgenthau
cited how 'known pacifist' Earhart had "disobeyed all orders."
|
I: The Tillman Cover Up
Pat Tillman was
being fired on by his own convoy. He couldn't believe it and he didn't understand why. Right before he was killed he yelled
"I'm Pat f**king Tillman, why are you shooting at me!?"
Pat Tillman was an academic All-American football star who graduated with
a 3.8 grade point average in Marketing from Arizona State University. His grandfathers had served in the military and had
fought in wars. He played three great pro football seasons with the Arizona Cardinals from 1998 to 2001. Some months after
9/11, inspired by the tragic events that took place that day, Pat Tillman walked away from a multi-million dollar NFL football
contract offer to enlist as a private in the U. S. military, and he soon found himself on his way to Afghanistan. The war
there was not what he expected, and he was not your typical 'from the ground up' enlistee. And midway into his three
year commitment he found himself on a rooftop in Afghanistan watching U. S. fire bombs randomly raining down, saying to another
soldier, "This war is so f**king illegal."
Pat Tillman was killed in Afghanistan on April 22, 2004. He was twenty-seven
years old and had almost completed his three year military commitment. He did not want to be a future poster boy for
United States military enlistment. In the case of his death he had pe-circled the word "no" when asked if he wished
for a military funeral. He also added the words, "no military involvement" at all with his funeral, in the event
of his being killed in the line of duty.
Initially Pat Tillman's ending was falsely described by the military in heroic battle
terms. He was even posthumously awarded the Silver Star for his brave actions in the face of the enemy. All along though,
U. S. military command and evidently, even senior officials at the White House knew such a description of what actually caused
his death wasn't true. And after the seal to the ruse was compromised by an accidental military 'leak,' the cause of Pat Tillman's
death was eventually termed 'fratricide,' or 'he was killed by friendly fire.' True, among all of the soldiers in his convoy
of twelve Humvees, to include Pat's brother Kevin, not one could ascertain the enemy had ever been spotted. Pat, a 'team leader'
was killed along with a United States Afghan militia soldier who had been ordered with two other soldiers to accompany Pat
up to a lookout position, after an "unidentified mortar burst" was heard.
Originally a rapid fire machine gun was attributed
to causing Pat Tillman's death. However in 2007 the Associted Press quoted a physician who examined his body to have remarked
about how Pat was actually shot and killed; "The medical evidence did not match up with the scenario as described."
Accordingly, said physician also mentioned Pat's "wound entrances" made it appear as if he had been shot with an
M16 rifle from about 10 yards away. The U. S. Humvees on the road below were closer to a hundred yards away. Oddly, in a move
later described as 'bad judgment' the twelve Humvees had been split into two groups due to a mechanical problem with one of
them. Pat's group was ordered to move on ahead. When the second group was close to catching up with Pat's, previously unmentioned
U. S. snipers were later revealed to have been part of it. Less recalled now as well, army doctors had described how Pat's
wounds suggested "murder" and urged a criminal investigation. And once again, no members of Tillman's group had
seen the enemy or were hit by enemy fire. Later, a three-star general who withheld details of Tillman's death from his parents
for months described how he had a bad memory, and over and again with finality he mentioned how he could not recall details
of his actions adjacent to the Tillman incident.
In April of 2007 Bryan O'Neal, one of the four who went up the hill and
the last soldier to see Pat Tillman alive, testified he was warned by superior officiers not to reveal his awareness of how
a fellow soldier had killed Pat Tillman, especially to the Tillman family. Pat's brother Kevin, while there as well did not
witness how Pat died, although he later testified how it was his certain belief the military placed a spin his brother's death
in order to not draw attention to the pandemic failure of the U. S. military involvement in Afghanistan.
In July of 2008 the
House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform described about the Tillman incident how its "investigation was frustrated
by a near universal lack of recall" among "senior officials at the White House" and the military. It concluded:
"The pervasive lack of recollection and absence of specific information made it impossible for the Committee to assign
responsibility for the misinformation forwarded in Corporal Tillman’s case." It included the same about private
Jessica Lynch's later described "staged" rescue from a safe environment; one delayed until cameras could arrive
to record 'a brave (albeit unnecessary) military maneuver' to feed the U. S. public through the media in the interest of war-support
propoganda.
Today it is openly speculated how Pat Tillman's death was used as a media bargaining chip for the U. S. government
and military, in order to stave off the growing concern over the failing war being waged in Afghanistan. It was precisely
the last thing Pat Tillman would have wanted.
II: The Earhart Cover Up
Roughly six decades before Pat Tillman was killed, Amelia
Earhart was legally declared 'dead' after she was falsely described to have "vanished without a trace" in 1937.
Later in 1965, Admiral Chester Nimitz while still on active duty admitted it was long ago "known and documented in Washington"
how Amelia had actually survived her storied disappearance, and she henceforth ended up existing under the auspice of Japan.
Yet, how could such a thing have been? And why did the great Admiral's confession end up so deeply buried?
Amelia Earhart, that is the
'less known' Amelia Earhart was a devout pacifist who, as a possible 'world war' loomed on the horizon in 1937 favored the
isolationist viewpoint just as her friends Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh did. Amelia was known for her very high I.Q.
and an ability to speak several languages fluently. Before she went missing she had turned down opportunities to promote aircraft
for military use. Prior to her becoming famous at the age of thirty in 1928, Amelia had been doing settlement work in Boston
where she cared for impoverished and/or sick children of all ages and nationalities. There is no doubt she preferred to consider
herself a humanitarian as well as a patriotic American, and she truly fit both descriptions.
It was a tough fetch in the 1970s, when it
was described how Amelia had long ago befriended Japan's famous Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto when he lived in the United States
before returning to Japan and embarking on a brilliant military career. Or how she had befriended a well known Japanese plane
builder named Jiro Hirokoshi on Long Island a couple of years before she left on her final world flight. These mentions were
later squelched thoroughly, of course. But it was true how in the 1930s Amelia was a greatly loved American hero in Japan
just as Babe Ruth had been, and she was known for her adoration of the Orient and its cultures, and the eastern way of "contemplating
for the sake of contemplation." Not to mention friends who knew her well enough, few they were, had been privy to Amelia's
private wish to exit her 'confining' business-marriage after her self described 'last flight,' and how weary she had grown
from being hounded by the public just for being who she was. She could smile for the camera, sure, but she was quite different
when she wasn't in the public eye.
After a State Department employee leaked it in 1972, the very idea of pacifist Amelia having become
part of Japan's private plane building sector after she was said to have 'vanished' was also met with denials, but not before
causing some public consternation. Most notably, the government and military said nothing at all causing learned historians
to raise their eyebrows. The same leak had also included words from a classified "Earhart, Amelia: Special War Problems"
file citing how she had worked with Jiro Hirokoshi in Japan in 1938 who had returned to his homeland, and she had also test
flown planes there. As well, it mentioned a request she had made for nipponese naturalization in August of 1939, or, just
before Hitler invaded Poland. No surprise, as mentioned any questions about the 'leak' were greeted by 'official silence'
in Washingon and Tokyo, and no one pressed the matter further. Today, few are at all aware how there never was an 'official'
investigation into the Earhart-loss incident. Basically Uncle Sam and his military swept it all under the rug with a 'let's
move on' attitude, and there it has remained ever since.
Looking back, after she 'disappeared' on July 2, 1937 with no word of
her plane experiencing any mechanical trouble, and an estimated four to five hours of fuel remaining (her plane had a range
of 2,500 miles and she had only flown about 1,700 at the time she inexplicably 'flew off the radar...') the United States
Navy immediately embarked on a massive search effort, easily conveying to the world public how everything was being done to
try and locate the famous lady pilot, who five years earlier had become the first woman to solo a plane across the Atlantic
Ocean. Few realized at the time, the navy would never go near Japan's Marshall Islands during its search where 'insiders'
believed Amelia had grounded on an atoll, and where Admiral Nimitz described she had been "picked up" by Japan.
Even as recently as 2002 the Marshall Islands Ambassador to the United Nations, Alfred Capelle told the Associated Press how
it remained "common knowledge" in his country, how Amelia Earhart ended up there in 1937.
In addition to all of this,
no one was aware until the late 1970s when an infamous 1938 White House transcript was unearthed, how nine months after the
Earhart incident occurred Eleanor Roosevelt had queried FDR right hand man and Presidential Cabinet member, Henry Morgenthau
Jr. on the possibility of releasing some still-held information concerning her gone friend Amelia's flight ending, and even
renewing the search for her. The suggestions were greeted by disdain and quickly shouted down by Morgenthau, who oversaw the
President's 'secret service' division. He passed along to the First Lady how "Amelia Earhart absolutely disregarded all
orders" and "releasing" the information held at the White House concerning her last flight would "ruin
her reputation." He also mentioned how he "just hoped he never had to make it public," with 'it' ostensibly
referring to what actually became of Amelia.
Yes, in 1938 even Eleanor Roosevelt herself was convinced to accept how when it came
to Amelia Earhart's true ending, no matter what happened she was 'dead' according to the White House, and she would always
remain so according to official United States history too. As well, there is virtually no doubt the hidden truth about Amelia's
continued existence was relegated to be buried by war time propoganda and double talk. Like Pat Tillman, Amelia Earhart's
awkward reality was converted into a campaign of fallen comrade heroism, with hers geared toward American men who were needed
for the U. S. war effort against the axis powers, that by 1941 Japan was legion to. No better example appeared for this than
was found in the late 1942 RKO film Flight For Freedom starring Rosalind Russell in the Earhart styled role. The film was
widely shown to U. S. servicemen on ships and overseas as well as in the United States, depicting Amelia Earhart as the first
American casualty of World War Two.
Produced with the cooperation of Earhart's former husband George Putnam, Flight For Freedom's premise
conveyed how Amelia had secretly taken on an assignment to enable the U. S. Navy to spy on the Japanese in the Pacific. It
even showed her bravely commiting suicide at the end of the film with an airplane nose-dive into the sea; an apparent, if
not convenient effort to destroy all evidence and back door convey the government's preferred certainty to all, of Amelia's
final death as an American hero. The American public, still boiled over about Pearl Harbor just as it would be after 9/11
years later, willingly ate and digested the film's schmaltzy version of Amelia's story.
Nothing was farther from the truth. Nary a
public soul was aware Amelia had survived her so-called 'disappearance' to eventually change her name in the interest of future
anonymity. Even Admiral Nimitz himself was uncertain of what became of Amelia beyond his awareness of her initial continued
survival under Japan's guise. And although her post-loss survival was surely hinted at in the 1970s, few believed or accepted
how the former Amelia Earhart died in the United States in 1982, after helping to run Radio Luxembourg in Europe in the 1960s
and 1970s, that incidentally, was a free-world news and music radio station that had helped introduce the Beatles to Russia.
Today, with a
past blind eye from Amelia's sister Muriel, (Amelia's only sibling who died in 1998, Muriel had known about and supported
her iconic sister's complex survival) the public remains encouraged through the media to keep trying to locate Amelia's plane.
All along Muriel knew Amelia's plane would never be found, but too, as long as people were encouraged to look for it her sister's
invented 'mystery' would remain in tact, as preferred by official history. For Uncle Sam's desire for the mystery of Earhart
to endure was something both sisters eventually grew to understand and accept. After all, it became more of a 'Sophie's choice'
Amelia found herself facing as a result of World War Two, as opposed to something she had been forced into by the United States
or Japan.
No matter about all of this, for Amelia Earhart always loved
her country as much as Pat Tillman did. And while both were outlandish victims of fratricide, Tillman physically and Earhart
spiritually, neither wanted their names to ever be associated with promoting the art of war. Where Pat Tillman's sure physical
death was documented fully, his truth now lives on as a hard rung bell for those who wish to know how military and government
deceit can and sometimes does work in order to promote a favored objective. And where Amelia Earhart's body continued to exist
beyond the date of her conveyed 'disappearance,' in a way the Earhart person people knew and loved in the 1930s did die on
July 2, 1937. For after that day she became someone else beyond who she used to be, both physically and legend wise. Back
then though, information did not flow as freely as it does today, so we never learned Earhart's truth until her false legend
was solidly cemented in. It's also a shame, where we live in a world where such things could even happen to the great human
beings both Amelia Earhart and Pat Tillman were known to have been. But clearly, we do.
|
