SUN APR 22, 2012 AT 05:08 AM PDT
"Don't Ask, Don't Tell": There's a Reason Captain America Wears a Mask
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With the release of The Tillman Story (2010), Pat Tillman's brother, Richard, appeared on Bill Maher's Real Time and offered yet another narrative of Pat's life and death, one the Tillman family is willing to tell, but one the American public and ruling elite are unwilling to ask about or retell.
Richard was frank and struggling on Maher's HBO show, which included a clip from Pat's memorial where Richard made a blunt and impassioned effort to tell the truth about his brother in the face of the political need to maintain American Mythology—even when those myths are deceptive, even when those myths are at the expense of people.
Pat Tillman was a stellar athlete who succeeded in college and rose to unique status in the NFL, where he did a very un-American thing, stepped away from a multi-million dollar contract, to do a very American thing, enlist in the military after 9/11 in order to serve his country. The news and political stories of Tillman's decision played down the apparent rejection of