Ask the question: If Pat Tillman was murdered, who didn't want him to come back alive?

Once again (in what we are learning is a story which seems to get worse every time we get closer to the truth,) we've learned some disturbing new details regarding the death of Pat Tillman.

Tillman, you may recall, was the NFL star who left a career worth millions of dollars per year to join the elite U.S. Army Rangers (along with his brother Kevin) after 9/11 so he could fight in Afghanistan against the people who had actually attacked us. After a stint in Iraq, where he told comrades that he opposed the Iraq war and believed that it served no purpose in the war against bin Laden and al-Qaeda, he was redeployed to Afghanistan where he died on April 22, 2004. Within hours, a heroic story about his death was put out, and he was even awarded a silver star. A nice touch, it turned out to what was even then known to be a big lie.

But in today's story, we learn much more. Much more disturbing.

SAN FRANCISCO - Army medical examiners were suspicious about the close proximity of the three bullet holes in Pat Tillman's forehead and tried without success to get authorities to investigate whether the former NFL player's death amounted to a crime, according to documents obtained by the Associated Press.

"The medical evidence did not match up with the scenario as described," a doctor who examined Tillman's body after he was killed on the battlefield in Afghanistan in 2004 told investigators.

The doctors, whose names were blacked out, said that the bullet holes were so close together that it appeared the Army Ranger was cut down by an M-16 fired from a mere 10 yards or so away....

The documents show that a doctor who autopsied Tillman's body was suspicious of the three gunshot wounds to the forehead. The doctor said he took the unusual step of calling the Army's Human Resources Command and was rebuffed. He then asked an official at the Army's Criminal Investigation Division if it would consider opening a criminal case.

"He said he talked to his higher headquarters, and they had said no," the doctor testified.

We also learned this:

• No evidence at all of enemy fire was found at the scene - no one was hit by enemy fire nor was any government equipment struck.

After their first set of lies was exposed, the Pentagon and the White House are still sticking stubbornly to their second story, that it was a friendly fire 'accident,' even now offering up the heads of several generals on a platter.

But the evidence is still there, that this was no accident. And the motivation is clear: Pat Tillman was well known to personally oppose the Iraq war, which was not the war he signed up to fight. And after his commitment was over, he'd have been a devastatingly effective opponent of that war. Even Ann Coulter would have had a tough time attacking Tillman after he got home from both Afghanistan and Iraq, and began speaking out against the Iraq war. April 2004 was the month that Iraq boiled over and it was clear that the U.S. would be there longer than Tillman's commitment. So suddenly he died, conveniently in the war he had volunteered for, and within hours the heroism story was out, carefully scripted and made to order, complete with silver star.

Mary Tillman is right, this doesn't pass the sniff test. There is more here that needs to be investigated. Let's hope that Congress demands to know the names of the doctors involved and determines why their suspicions that it was murder weren't acted on. It is true that the army did eventually conduct an inquiry in which they asked if any of the men in his unit disliked Tillman. But maybe that isn't the inquiry that needs to be asked in regard to what appears to be a cold blooded case of murder. Maybe the question needs to be asked, who was afraid of Pat Tillman, and how far would they go in order to prevent him from saying what he was going to say after he left the army?

How many more families deserve the truth but aren't getting it?

Today we learned during testimony before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, we learned just how far some in the Pentagon and the administration were willing to go in order to perpetuate a good image, and prevent Americans from learning the truth about two events that made headlines during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In perhaps the most damning evidence of a cover up to date, Army Spc. Brian O'Neal, a member of the Army Ranger team that also included Pat Tillman, testified that he was ordered to lie about the circumstances surrounding Tillman's death.

WASHINGTON - An Army Ranger who was with former NFL star Pat Tillman when he died by friendly fire in Afghanistan testified Tuesday that he was told by a higher-up to conceal that information from Tillman’s family.

"I was ordered not to tell them," Army Spc. Bryan O’Neal told the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, which was also looking at how the military portrayed the rescue of Army Pfc. Jessica Lynch.

He said he was given the order by then-Lt. Col. Jeff Bailey, the battalion commander who oversaw Tillman’s platoon....

"He basically just said, 'Do not let Kevin [Tillman, Pat's brother and also a Ranger] know, he’s probably in a bad place knowing that his brother’s dead,'" O’Neal said. He added that Bailey made clear he would "get in trouble" if he told....

Mary Tillman said family members were "absolutely appalled" upon realizing the extent to which they were misled. "We’ve all been betrayed. ... We never thought they would use him the way they did."

We also learned from Lynch that the army made her out to be something she was not. She said that the official story that they put out, claiming that she had been involved in the firefight during which she suffered extensive injuries, was not true. In fact her rifle jammed because it was full of sand and was never fired during the battle, and most of her injuries were suffered when the vehicle she was riding in crashed.

The bottom line is the American people are capable of determining their own ideals of heroes and they don’t need to be told elaborate tales,” Lynch told the committee in prepared testimony.

And she is right about that. To be honest, both Pat Tillman and Jessica Lynch do qualify as heroes-- they went, after all. Since I have not gone, I certainly can't condemn those who have, and who continue to do their best job on behalf of America (though I certainly do condemn those who have sent them there, especially Iraq, because of an agenda backed by lies.)

It is an old saying that truth is the first casualty of war. Perhaps, but that doesn't mean that we should just accept that and not ask for the facts. The Tillman family could have been satisfied (as much as the word could apply) with the official story of his bravery, wrapped up nicely and sealed with the posthumous Silver Star that went along with it. But they weren't willing to accept a lie, no matter how brightly it glittered, and neither should we.