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US Soldiers Expose Fake Heroism
"I am still confused why they chose to lie and make me a legend," Lynch said
WASHINGTON — Two high-profile US army personnel have accused the military of spreading outright lies and manipulating their stories for a hero-starved public to distract attention from the failures in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"I am still confused why they chose to lie and make me a legend," Jessica Lynch told a Congress session on Tuesday, April 24, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Lynch, a 23-year-old woman, was injured by a rocket-propelled grenade in the southern city of Nasiriyah in the early days of the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq.
Eleven fellow soldiers were killed in the attack.
At the time, the US army claimed Lynch, a driver in an ambushed convoy, fought heroically until she was taken by Iraqi forces and then rescued from hospital by US troops.
Lynch said the US army sought to portray her as the "plucky little girl-Rambo" who fought to her last bullet.
"At my parents' home in Wirt County, West Virginia, it was under siege by media, all repeating the story of the little girl Rambo from the hills of West Virginia who went down fighting," she recalled.
"It was not true," she told Congress.
Lynch said she did not fire a shot and was partially paralyzed from her injuries and Iraqi doctors had cared for her.
She added that her removal from the hospital was coordinated with the Iraqis themselves.
"The bottom line is the American people are capable of determining their own ideals for heroes, and they don't need to be told elaborate lies."
Fiction
Kevin feels betrayed by the army's lies, accusing the army of hijacking his brother's "virtue and legacy"
Specialist Kevin Tillman also accused the US military of lying about his brother's death in Afghanistan three years ago.
"Our family was told that he was shot in the head by the enemy in a fierce firefight outside a narrow canyon," Kevin told the Congress hearing.
The army said Pat Tillman, a football star, was killed while fighting valiantly but several weeks later, it came out he died from multiple bullet wounds to the head fired from 35 yards away by a fellow ranger.
"It was utter fiction," Kevin said.
He asserted that in the hours immediately after Pat's death crucial evidence was destroyed -- including Pat's uniform, equipment and notebook.
"The autopsy was not done according to regulation and the field hospital report was falsified," said the grieved brother.
He insisted that a political decision was reached to create a "false narrative" of his brother's death in part to distract from the abuses by US guards at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
"This was not some fog of war. They simply lost control," Kevin said, accusing the military of "deliberate and careful misrepresentations."
An army ranger who was with Pat when he was killed told the Congress panel that he was ordered by their battalion commander to conceal the facts from Pat's family.
Specialist Bryan O'Neal said Lt Col Jeff Bailey also made it clear he would "get in trouble" if he told the truth.
Last month, the Pentagon called for action against a three-star general and eight other officers for their handling of the episode.
Betrayed
Kevin said he felt betrayed by the army's lies about his brother's death, accusing the army of hijacking his brother's "virtue and legacy".
"Pat's death was clearly the result of fratricide," he said.
"It was due to a series of careless actions by several individuals in our own platoon after a small harassing ambush."
Kevin joined the US Army Rangers after the 9/11 attacks along with his older brother who gave up fame and fortune to serve his country.
Kevin, who was assigned to the same unit, abandoned a promising pro baseball career to become an army Ranger.
"Revealing that Pat's death was a fratricide would have been yet another political disaster during a month already swollen with political disasters, and a brutal truth that the American public would undoubtedly find unacceptable."
Islamonline.net
