The Mother and the General
Posted by Amy Davidson
What do the parents of soldiers want—for example, the mother of a soldier who was died in Afghanistan? And what don’t they want? Mary Tillman, the mother of Pat Tillman, who quit the N.F.L. to enlist, says that she does not think that a general, who, she has good reason to believe, helped cover up the circumstances of her son’s death, should be given a leading role on issues regarding military families. That officer is General Stanley McChrystal; Obama fired him last year, and rightly so, after he spoke disparagingly, in Rolling Stone, about everyone from the Vice-President to the people of France. This week, the Obama asked McChrystal to lead a three-person panel advising an initiative called Joining Forces, meant to address the needs of military families. (Joining Forces has been Michelle Obama’s big project, too.) “I think it’s a slap in the face to all soldiers,” Mary told ABC News. Jake Tapper, of ABC, asked about Tillman and McChrystal at a White House briefing yesterday.
Tapper: What’s the White House’s response to critics who say that because of his role in the cover-up of how Pat Tillman actually died and the pain he caused the family of Pat Tillman, that General McChrystal should not be on any sort of advisory committee having to do with military families?
Jay Carney: Jake, the President feels strongly that General McChrystal is the right person to help lead this advisory committee on this vital issue on—that this administration, this President, this First Lady, Dr. Biden, all believe, and of course the Vice President, all believe is vitally important, because we have now been in a situation where we have been—we have had our men and women overseas in wars for a decade….
Tapper: Is the President aware of the role that General McChrystal played in the cover-up of Pat Tillman’s death?
Carney: Jake, he is aware of—very aware, having worked closely with General McChrystal for some time, of the General’s resume.
As Carney says, we have been deploying men and women in these wars for a decade. That is why this is not just some symbolic commission, seats on which you give out to make up with someone after a fight. This is not, or should not be, about bridge-building between the people in the White House and their top generals. There are military families in crisis; why put a project that should be all about them in the hands of someone who is wrapped up in unresolved controversies of his own? (Isn’t that what the World Bank presidency has traditionally been for?) Soldiers are used quite enough to make not only wars but points.
And why, exactly, is Mary Tillman so angry about McChrystal? Because he had good information, a month before the family was told it was so, that Tillman had been killed not by the Taliban but by friendly fire. He was part of a Pentagon effort to use Tillman to tell a story that wasn’t true. He signed off on a Silver Star citation that was false—gratuitously so, because no one had to lie to make Tillman a brave man. (See Jon Krakauer’s “Where Men Win Glory” for more on that.) McChrystal, in his confirmation hearings, acknowledged that some statements “look contradictory,” but said his error was approving a citation “that was not well-written”—as if the problem was the clumsy language of his subordinates, and not his own. McChrystal may care a great deal about troops under his command, but given the choice, at that crucial moment, between Tillman’s uses as an icon and who he really was as a son, a husband, and a brother, McChrystal protected the symbol, not the man. That is not incidental to a project involving military families. Above all, parents want their children to come home. But if they don’t, they want the truth.
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http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/closeread/2011/04/the-mother-and-the-general.html#ixzz1JX5AsQre
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