Former Arizona Cardinal Pat Tillman.
Photograph: Photography Plus/APFor the US military, Pat Tillman was that rare thing - an unequivocal good news story. And rarely has such a story unravelled so completely.
Tillman was hailed as a hero for giving up a multimillion-dollar American football career after September 11 to sign up to the army on a salary of $18,000 (£9,100) a year. With his modest distaste for publicity and almost cartoon-sized lantern jaw, he was the poster boy of choice for the US-led intervention in Afghanistan.
When Tillman, then 27, was killed in that country in April 2004, the military said his patrol had come under fire from local militia forces. Tillman become an instant martyr, his example breathlessly recounted in eulogies such as this in Time magazine
Matters could hardly be more different now. While no one questions Tillman's motives for signing up, he is no longer good PR for the Pentagon.
It gradually emerged that not only was Tillman killed by friendly fire, but senior officers knew this from the start and lied to his family.
Yesterday, a military investigation into the affair criticised nine officers for their conduct but said there had been no criminal wrongdoing.
Tillman's increasingly aggrieved family responded with a vehement, 1,000 word-plus statement accusing the army of serial deceit and evidence-tampering:
In our opinion, this attempt to impose closure by slapping the wrists of a few officers and enlisted men is yet another bureaucratic entrenchment.
Describing themselves as "props in a Pentagon public relations exercise", the family pledged to lobby Congress to investigate not only Tillman's death, but those of other soldiers whose families were told similar untruths, complaining:
In three years of struggling with the Pentagon's public affairs apparatus, we have never been dealt with honestly.
