The Death of Pat Tillman
by Brian Dunning, Apr 09 2009
It’s often suggested to me that I do a Skeptoid episode about Pat Tillman. I’m still on the fence.
For anyone who has lived under a rock for the past five years, Pat Tillman was a young professional football player who gave up a large contract to go to war after 9/11. A star linebacker from Arizona State University, he eagerly joined the Arizona Cardinals in the 1998 draft. At the completion of the season during which 9/11 struck, Tillman was offered $3.6 million over 3 years to stay on, more than double his previous salary. He turned down the offer, and along with his brother Kevin, a promising baseball player, felt a higher calling. They enlisted and joined the Army Rangers.
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Did I want to start considering the other side? Are there reasons that a well-meaning person might decide the whitewash for the greater good? Can it be justified? Is that really where I want to go?
Did I want to look at the evidence of the actual event? MP5s can be switched into triple-tap mode, where three bullets are fired virtually at the same instant, and all strike the target within inches of each other. This mode is commonly used in combat. Did I want to suggest that three shots to the head doesn’t necessarily mean a Godfather style execution?
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So if I were to do an episode about Pat Tillman, I’m just not sure where I’d go with it. I’d probably just encourage people to focus on what’s good, instead of magnifying what was bad. I certainly don’t see myself taking sides, trying to prove that he was or wasn’t murdered, or that the coverup was or wasn’t an evil conspiracy. I’d probably just suggest that you think of Tillman’s example and give him a mental high-five for being a rocking kind of guy. You don’t have to agree with his decision to go to war to be inspired by his example of self sacrifice.
More:
http://skepticblog.org/2009/04/09/the-death-of-pat-tillman/