Gen. McChrystal's Credibility Problem

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The latter clause is a lawyerly flourish on McChrystal’s part, intended to suggest that there was still doubt about the cause of death, when in fact he knew with near-absolute certainty that Tillman was the victim of fratricide. During the medal-recommendation process, McChrystal was shown the preliminary findings of a so-called Article 15-6 investigation that had been launched the day after Tillman died, which included detailed eyewitness testimony from more than a dozen soldiers in his platoon. Transcripts of these interviews described how Tillman, in order to protect a young private under his command, had exposed himself to a ferocious squall of bullets—hundreds of rounds from three machine guns shooting at him from close range. McChrystal ascertained, correctly, that the extraordinary valor of Tillman’s act was in no way diminished by the incontrovertible fact that the lethal fusillade had come from his American comrades. “So,” McChrystal testified, “I was comfortable recommending, once I believed that the people in the fight were convinced it warranted a Silver Star.” On April 28, 2004, six days after Tillman’s death, McChrystal reviewed a final draft of the medal recommendation, signed his name to it, and emailed it to the acting secretary of the Army, R.L. Brownlee.

The recommendation package received by Brownlee consisted of four documents: a one-paragraph “award citation” that summarized Tillman’s courageous deed; a five-paragraph “award narrative” that offered a more nuanced account of his actions; and two brief statements from soldiers who witnessed those actions. Astoundingly, none of these documents mentioned, or even hinted, that Tillman was killed by friendly fire. The award citation alleged, “Corporal Tillman put himself in the line of devastating enemy fire,” even though there was never any enemy fire directed at Tillman’s position during the incident. The witness statements (which also suggested he was killed by the enemy) were not signed, and the two soldiers whose names were attached to them later testified that both statements had been fabricated, apparently by one or more members of the Silver Star recommendation team.

In the week after Tillman was killed, however, McChrystal administered a fraudulent medal recommendation and submitted it to secretary of the Army, thereby concealing the cause of Tillman’s death.

In June of this year, during McChrystal’s confirmation hearing, Sen. John McCain asked the general to explain why, five years earlier, he had submitted the perjured Silver Star recommendation “in the form that it was in.”

McChrystal replied, “We sent a Silver Star that was not well written—and, although I went through the process, I will tell you now that I didn’t review the citation well enough to capture—or, I didn’t catch that, if you read it, you can imply that it was not friendly fire.” McChrystal insisted that the package of four short documents bearing his signature wasn’t meant to deceive. Although he closely supervised the drafting of these documents, he simply failed to notice that all of them had been painstakingly written to omit any reference to friendly fire.

During a presentation on October 3 of this year in Mesa, Arizona, to promote Where Men Win Glory, my book about Tillman, I described the testimony cited above and expressed skepticism about McChrystal’s honesty. Afterward, while I was signing books, an Army veteran approached me and said that he had served under McChrystal, admired him immensely, and took issue with my accusation that his former commander had dissembled to the Senate, or knowingly participated in any sort of coverup. He said that in his experience McChrystal was a man of unimpeachable integrity. I countered that McChrystal’s words were taken verbatim from a transcript of the Senate hearing, and then added, “Gen. McChrystal is known to be meticulous, a perfectionist. He doesn’t tolerate sloppiness or excuses. Do you really believe that he would sign his name to such an important, high-profile document without first reading it carefully enough to realize it was bogus?”

The ex-soldier frowned thoughtfully before answering. “No,” he admitted. “For him to do something like that, he’d have to be under incredible pressure.”

* * *

On April 28, 2004, the same day McChrystal sent the Silver Star recommendation to the secretary of the Army, he received word from Rumsfeld’s office that the White House was working on a speech in which President Bush would eulogize Tillman at the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner. Because the true cause of Tillman’s death had been restricted to a tight cadre that did not include the president’s speechwriters, McChrystal fretted they might inadvertently script something that would make the president look like a liar should the truth about Tillman eventually be leaked.

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