Kevin Tillman: Grief Can Cause Mental Derangement

Update: See Confederate Yankee's excellent observations on Kevin Tillman's rant.

Grief over the loss of a loved one to Muslim terrorists has been known to cause temporary (we hope) insanity in some of his family. Cindy Sheehan really went off the deep end when her son Casey was killed in Iraq.

Today's news brings more evidence of this derangement syndrome. Kevin Tillman, younger brother to Pat Tillman (the football player who was killed in Afghanistan) is now loudly denouncing Bush and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, calling the wars "illegal" among other things. When someone dies, those left behind need someone to blame. Kevin has decided to blame his own government rather than the Muslim fanatics who are at the source of almost all conflict in the world today. As I mentioned before, I actually knew Pat and Kevin's family, their mom and dad and youngest brother Richard. We lived in the same neighborhood. Pat's father wrote a recommendation for my son to attend Bellarmine College Preparatory. My son and Richard were teammates in Pony League baseball, 1993 and 1994. My wife and I often saw their mom Danny Tillman at the local Starbucks as well as at games. She was beautiful, elegant and very nice.

I chatted with her and with Mr. Tillman many times about all sorts of things. He once told us of how he escorted Kevin to college to begin classes - if I recall correctly, that was Rutgers. This, however, does not square with recent news reports that say he also attended Arizona State University. Perhaps he transferred there later on.

I suppose we should give Kevin a pass on his irrational outbursts, even if he is allowing himself to become a tool and spokesman for the far left. I have to wonder how he thinks he is honoring his brother Pat in stating that the cause for which Pat died, the cause that Pat believed in, was worthless. I wonder if Kevin realizes that his words hurt both the morale of his compatriots still serving in these wars, or how his words give aid and comfort to America's enemies.

UPDATE: Check out Fat Ass the Conqueror's blog. F.A. does a nice job of dissecting Kevin Tillman's anti-war article that was published on truthdig.com. My son Cohiba called about this post and told me that Sports Illustrated had an article on the Tillman brothers a couple of months ago. Cohiba told me that Pat and Kevin were atheists or leaning towards it, and even their little brother Richard expressed a belief that "there is no God" at Pat's memorial service. Cohiba, who is a practicing Christian, said he went to bed that night quite depressed, saddened by the Tillman brothers' lack of faith or hope for a hereafter.

Michelle Malkin links to another story today, the story of how more victim bones have been found at Ground Zero. See Conservative Propaganda blog for the story "Tell Maura I love her." It's the story of Matthew Horning, a 26 year old database administrator in the North Tower who was able to call friends after the first plane hit. He told them to relay his message to his fiancee, Maura Landry, minutes before the tower collapsed and Matthew died.

Conservative Propaganda blog tells how Matthew's father Kurt has since gone off the deep end, perhaps also a victim of Grief Derangement Syndrome. Conservative Propaganda blog writes:

Kurt has taken it further than that, falling in with the Truther movement
that promotes the theory that the US government was complicit in the Sep 11
attacks which killed his son. He has signed a "911 Truth Statement" from the 911Truth.org that claims that half of New York City thinks the government knew of the attack and sat on its hands. They want a Congressional investigation to get to the "truth."

The tragedy of good people being killed by or because of Muslim barbarism is bad enough. The derangement syndrome it causes in those left behind only makes the tragedy that much worse.