“... I believe Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld knew Pat was killed by fratricide and permitted the cover-up.  It is not believable that a man known for his propensity to micromanage would not want to know what happened to his most high-profile soldier. I informed the committee that Pat received a personal letter from Rumsfeld shortly after he and his brother enlisted, commending him for his commitment to serve. Pat was obviously in Rumsfeld's consciousness."

"Well, that's one of the questions that we will never completely answer.  But it certainly is one of the areas that that raises questions. There are so many mistakes. So many things that happened. If you add them all together, it certainly calls into question the credibility of those who handled this. And raises the kind of questions that Ms. Tillman raises. I don't blame her for that. And I don't expect her ever to believe us. But there was no effort to deceive. There were mistakes and grievous errors by the legions. And as a result, we fell short of our duty to her as a mother of one of our heroes."

Only a certain amount of people handle the citation for the Silver Star, one of our highest military awards. Each commander signs a block on the document and there is a document called a transmittal letter that accompanies it from office to office. Only organizational will prevents the Army from prosecuting the criminal that a) faked an official document and b) tried to leave a lower grade enlisted Soldier to take the blame.

The awarding of the decoration was illegal, as the incident obviously didn't represent "gallantry in action against an armed enemy," as required by the Army's own regulations.  This award does a disservice to all of our veterans who have legitimately earned this august award. The Tillman family should return the award to the Army, which should then rescind the award as unjustified and issued illegally.

Yes, it may be true that this star represents "gallantry in action against an armed enemy." What could be more gallant than a young man giving up not only his career but his life?  Pat Tillman gave up his life to serve in an illegal war that has ruined our economy with the billions of dollars being wasted but, more important, the loss of the respect of the rest of the world.

Eddie Grant, the Giants’ third baseman, died in France in 1918. Christy Mathewson, the great Giants pitcher, had his life shortened from a mustard-gas accident in training near the end of World War I. And Nile Kinnick, the star running back from Iowa, died in a training flight in 1943. But Pat Tillman’s death was different because of the way he was used, posthumously, blatantly.

The Post-9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Act is designed to offer the brave men and women who have served honorably since September 11, 2001 a level of educational benefits on par with those provided to veterans of the World War II era.

Many people enlist to earn money for college, and almost everyone signs up for the education benefits -- which, in the case of the main GI Bill, requires a service member to pay about $1,200 into the plan-- but not everyone takes advantage of it. And that buy-in is not returned even if the benefits are unused.

About 70 percent use at least some part of it, said Keith Wilson, director of the education service, but the VA does not track how many earn degrees.

An independent study found that just over half use some part of the benefits, said Ray Kelley of AMVETS, a veterans support group, and only 8 percent use all. "Congress is realizing we're not giving them the benefits we say we're giving them," Kelley said. "They only have 36 months from the time they start using it to the time they finish." That means going to school full time, year-round.

I heard from a Army captain, who was the head of a rifle platoon, supposed to have 39 men in a rifle platoon. Ended up being sent to Afghanistan with 24, because 15 of those soldiers had been sent to Iraq. And as a consequence, they didn't have enough ammunition; they didn't have enough humvees.

They were actually capturing Taliban weapons because it was easier to get Taliban weapons than it was for them to get properly equipped by our current commander in chief. Now that's a consequence of bad judgment, and you know, the question is on the critical issues that we face right now who's going to show the judgment to lead.

I talked this morning with two friends who led rifle platoons in Afghanistan. Both confirmed to me that they did, at times, use captured or found weapons or ammunition. One relayed the story of mounting a Soviet 12.7mm heavy machine gun (the equivalent of a U.S. .50 caliber machine gun) on his HMMWV because it was too difficult to get the spare parts needed to fix their G.I. (government issue) .50 cal. Another told me his platoon carried AKs anytime they patrolled with their Afghan counterparts, and that it was always much easier to get 7.62mm ammo for the AKs than to go through the U.S. bureaucracy for ammunition requisition.

They also didn't have the humvees they were supposed to have both before deployment and once they were in Afghanistan, the Captain says.

"We should have had 4 up-armored humvees," he said. "We were supposed to. But at most we had three operable humvees, and it was usually just two."

So what did they do? "To get the rest of the platoon to the fight," he says, "we would use Toyota Hilux pickup trucks or unarmored flatbed humvees." Sometimes with sandbags, sometimes without.

McCain echoed Bush and Cheney’s talking points that the U.S. would only be in Iraq for a short time.

McCain said winning the war would be “easy.”

Senator McCain has constantly moved the goal posts of progress for the war – repeatedly saying it would be over soon.

Senator McCain opposed efforts to end the overextension of the military that is having a devastating impact on our troops.

John McCain is a true war hero, and we all respect his service. I don't doubt for a second that he cares for our troops. But, every time he opens his mouth, I'm less and less convinced that he realizes how dangerous his off the cuff words would imperil our men and women in harm's way, and our national security, if he said them as President.

From Newsweek's Dec. 31, 2007-Jan. 7, 2008 issue:

I grew up in an era when war veterans were the aging men at Memorial Day parades wearing triangular hats. It never crossed my mind that a vet might someday be a kid like me. If it had never crossed yours, either, this year probably changed all that. At my graduate school in New York, I can count at least five classmates who know an Iraq War veteran firsthand—and that's just one class, in one school. More than 1 million veterans have returned from Iraq and Afghanistan, lifting our collective profile by the sheer weight of our numbers.

During the past year, veterans' issues were all over the media—and often the news was grim. In February the Walter Reed hospital scandal broke, with revelations about decrepit housing and substandard care. Next came a series of reports on Iraq War data: we learned that the Army suicide rate had reached a 26-year high in 2006; that there'd been 4,698 desertions during the 2007 fiscal year, an 80 percent increase since 2003; that the number of Iraq vets diagnosed with mental-health issues triples during their first six months at home. I followed these stories with a strange sense of relief. For too long, people seemed to think veterans came home and simply melted back into society. Now vet issues were finally getting attention—even if it took bad news to make it happen.

When I started my blog this year, I wondered if there would be enough news about veterans to get me through one day. I couldn't have been more wrong. There we were in the rhetoric of politicians, in countless newspaper features, even on reality TV. For the blog, I've made an effort to examine not only the challenges that my fellow veterans face but also their accomplishments. As one Wall Street Journal columnist wrote, "The media struggles in good faith to respect our troops, but too often it merely pities them."

Stories like the Walter Reed scandal can invite this kind of pity and overshadow the fact that most of us are immensely proud of our service. A single tour in Iraq or Afghanistan can define a person's entire life; collectively, our experiences will echo for decades. If 2007 was the year when veterans' issues entered the public's consciousness, we need to make sure they don't go away in 2008.

Photo: Seth Wenig/AP

He was killed on Aug. 16, 2006-shot by a sniper near Fallujah as he went to rescue a wounded Marine, Lance Corporal Glover, who also died that day. Their funerals both took place in New York City within the same week.

I often wish that every American could attend at least one funeral of a soldier killed in Iraq or Afghanistan. They are one of only a few occasions when military and civilian rituals can come together as one. They are the proud and largely unknown moments of American history. Since 9/11, they’ve taken place more than 4,000 times.

I wait for emails from my former Iraqi translator to appear in my Inbox—too long a wait, and I assume he’s dead. I fear mentioning any part of his name that might identify him to the wrong people.

Sitting on the steps of my platoon’s HQ in southern Iraq some time in 2003, I asked our translator what he had done while his city was being bombed by Americans during the invasion. 

He started into an impassioned 5-minute monologue. A 20-year-old student, he told of how Saddam’s Fedayeen guerrillas tried to recruit his university’s English class to defend the city as Marines closed in. He described days of remaining in his home as the fighting began, the fervent praying in a cramped room with his sister’s annoying children.

In subsequent conversations he would speak of life under Saddam’s regime, the murder of his anti-government uncle and the torture of a friend whose fingernails had been ripped out after emailing the United States.  

He still tells stories.

In November 2003 he wrote to my unit (then recently returned from Iraq) about the bombing of our former HQ, where he was working Italian soldiers.

"im okky my friend god help me from this explosion i was in petrol with my friend italian it was every thing horrible thanks for god because he saved me"

He wrote that he feared being killed and how he hated Iraq and wanted to leave it.

"just tell me what ican do if when i walk in the street one day terrerist man will kill me in front of all people in the markit or in any where."

Another email, sent on April 10, 2004: