Pat Tillman: Patriot, soldier, hero. Oh, and was totally against Bush and the Iraq war.

Hat tip to AmericaBlog for pointing me to this post at The Cunning Realist: "Anatomy of a Disgrace," which quotes the SF Chronicle's article detailing Tillman's family's struggle to get to the truth about his death. The US military has been lying about the circumstances surrounding his death by friendly fire in Afghanistan and politicians exploited his "heroism" for their selfish purposes. Turns out, Pat Tillman was killed by military incompetence and he hated Bush and was against the war in Iraq. Here's an account from Spc. Russell Baer, sho served with Tillman and was next to him when he died:

“I can see it like a movie screen,” Baer said. “We were outside of (a city in southern Iraq) watching as bombs were dropping on the town. We were at an old air base, me, Kevin and Pat, we weren’t in the fight right then. We were talking. And Pat said, ‘You know, this war is so f— illegal.’ And we all said, ‘Yeah.’ That’s who he was. He totally was against Bush.” Another soldier in the platoon, who asked not to be identified, said Pat urged him to vote for Bush’s Democratic opponent in the 2004 election, Sen. John Kerry.

This war is so wrong. Don't believe me? Try this. Absolutely disgusting.