Come on, Dan, you're better than that. Why not say *speculation* continues to mount that Tillman may have been murdered?

I've heard from many sources, other than this one, that Tillman was an atheist.

Pat Tillman's atheism is very well known. You might Google up that huge profile that was published in Sports Illustrated awhile back about who he was and the investigations (5 now, and counting) into his death.

Some military asshole actually blamed the Tillman family for causing this ruckus because they're atheists and couldn't just say their son is with Jeebus now like they're supposed to.

"He never would have called me 'sniveling,"' O'Neal said. "I don't remember ever speaking to this chaplain, and I find this characterization of Pat really upsetting. He never once degraded me. He's the only person I ever worked for who didn't degrade anyone. He wasn't that sort of person."

I've followed Pat Tillman's life and death closely and this whole situation is just so sick. He truly was an exceptional person and everything that's happened since the day he was killed has just been appalling. Now it appears there were other soldiers there when Pat was killed that no one "remembered" previously.

Apparently, you have to be a compulsive liar to be in the US military these days. Someone's lying, but who and for frak's sake, why?

"Thanks Pat. I didn't write shit because I'm not a writer. I'm not just going to sit her and break down on you. But thanks for coming. Pat's a fucking champion and always will be. Just make no mistake, he'd want me to say this: he's not with God. He's fucking dead. He's not religious. So thanks for your thoughts, but he's fucking dead."

"A chaplain who debriefed the entire unit days after Tillman's death later described this exchange to investigators conducting a criminal probe of the incident."

Do chaplains normally debrief squads and platoons after an incident where a soldier dies? That doesn't seem right to me.

Fratricide? Yes. That's not necessarily murder.

He was shot multiple times, and the grouping suggests it was from moderately close range (i.e. close enough to tell he was a friendly). That's not much evidence, but combined with the deliberate coverup of other evidence it is suggestive.

There's also speculation (though no hard evidence that I know of) that there was another unit in the area, for whatever that's worth.

I swear, atheists are like newly-uncloseted queers - they want to see others like them everywhere.