white lies

folks are spitting wooden nickels about the tillman affair, and rightly so. but i would like to take this opportunity to make sure everyone knows that this is far from the first time this sort of misinformation has been offered to the families of soldiers killed in iraq, or to the public. way back in september of 2005, news broke about a young man named kenneth ballard whose family had been notified via letter that his death in May of 2004 was the result of "a firefight with insurgents." over a year later, it was revealed that ballard was actually killed by the accidental firing of a machine gun after he and his platoon had returned from fighting. a 2006 review of army case files revealed that the families of six other soldiers, including tillman, had been given similarly false information. now, you might think to yourself, "only six? panties in a bunch much, juniper?" but the review only explored the deaths of 810 troops, or about 26 percent of the total number of servicemen killed in iraq and afghanistan by the time of the study. most of the cases involve a repainting of the situation similar to that in ballard's case—a stated cause of enemy fire or combat with insurgents when there were no such things in the general area at the time of death—but one soldier died of a heart attack after inhaling something sketchy from an aerosol can, and his family was apparently told that he died of completely natural causes (or that he was scared to death by insurgents; the article doesn't go into much detail). jesse buryj's mother had to file a freedom-of-information-act request in order to obtain a copy of her son's autopsy report, which revealed he'd died of a friendly-fire gunshot wound to the back, even though she had been told he'd been hit by a truck that had run a checkpoint.

i have no way of knowing who initiates these falsifications or what the motivation is. there could be sincerely good intentions at the root of it, a desire on someone's part to make these deaths seem a little less senseless or unnecessary. but given the way in which detractors of the war have been viciously and repeatedly attacked for chipping away at the morale of the troops or suggesting that fallen soldiers might have died in vain, i can not quite silence the angry, cynical part of my brain that thinks there could be a pr angle even to this aspect of the war's management. one cindy sheehan was hard enough to silence, wasn't she? if these families can be placated, if we keep using the words "enemy" and "insurgent," if we convince those suffering a loss here in the states that that loss is on the hands of a distant, bloodthirsty enemy, maybe they won't remember that that enemy is one we created out of nothing with our own war-hungry hands. maybe they won't let their fury and misery circle back around to its logical target. maybe.

whatever the reason, it's a terrible thing to do to. when the truth of the matter comes to light however many months or years later, it's as if the family is being informed of the death for the first time; essentially, they have to rip the scab off and start the grieving process anew, only this time with the added shock of having been lied to by the country their son or daughter or mother or father died serving. that's quite a blow. in fact, i can't think of many hits that would come harder—or that would be more likely to make the families of the fallen question the righteousness of the cause. just ask peggy buryj:

When your son's a soldier you know they could get killed. You know, you pray. But you know it—it's a reality. . . . Some—maybe some mothers could say, well, it didn't matter—oh, how he died. Well, it does. It's—it's important. It's a part of history. It's a part of my son's life, how he died. And they're not going take that away from him. . . . I like to think they think it hurts too bad to tell families that their son was killed by friendly fire. But that's not the truth. What hurts is not knowing. . . . The people that have come forward—and made the stink, and . . . questioned it, are the people that are getting the attention. . . . [Army officials] have two options, to tell me who killed my son, or to have a very good reason—why they can't figure it out. Those are their only two options. And one will not be acceptable.