The patriot game

Christian Century, Nov 15, 2005

THE PATRIOT GAME: Pat Tillman, the NFL football player who volunteered for the Army Rangers after 9/11 and was killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan, was hailed by many as a paragon of patriotism. Pundit Ann Coulter called him "an American original--virtuous, pure and masculine like only an American male can be." But it turns out that Tillman did not exactly fit the mold that Coulter and others put him in.

One of Tillman's army buddies reported that Tillman called the Iraq war illegal and said that one of his favorite authors was the leftist Noam Chomsky. Tillman's family is pressing the Pentagon on why it took the military five weeks to disclose that his death was due to friendly fire (Nation, October 24).