Many of today’s sports stories are about athletes using their positions to avoid responsibilities, be it for criminal activity or life’s daily demands.

This is about sports and athletes being used. It is ugly but typical of today’s political environment based on money, power, God, and deceit.

Pat Tillman was a former St. Louis Cardinals football player who, after 9-11, left the game and millions of dollars to join the Army and serve his country. He was sent to Iraq and then Afghanistan.

A year ago he was killed there in a hail of bullets. We now know he was killed by fellow American soldiers in a botched firefight. A Pentagon investigation now says Tillman’s death resulted from “gross negligence.”

The Pentagon’s own investigation shows the Army knew almost immediately that friendly fire killed Tillman. They hid the facts but concocted a story of Tillman moving his troops up a hill to firing positions. An Army Special Operations Command statement on April 30, 2004, said, “Tillman’s voice was heard issuing commands to take the fight to the enemy.”

In fact, Tillman was not a commander in charge of a Ranger unit. He was not yelling fighting commands, he was trying to stop other members of the unit from shooting at him and others. He was being the real hero, but the Army and the administration needed something else.

Tillman’s parents recently talked with the Washington Post as part of an extensive investigation of their son’s death. The Post reported, “…they believe the military and the government created a heroic tale about how their son died to foster a patriotic response across the country.”

Mary Tillman, his mother, said, “Pat had high ideals about the country; that’s why he did what he did. The military let him down. The administration let him down. It was a sign of disrespect. The fact he was the ultimate team player and he watched his own men kill him is absolutely heartbreaking and tragic. The fact that they lied about it afterward is disgusting.”

The father, Patrick Tillman Sr., has reviewed all the investigation materials he can get his hands on. He calls the incident a “botched homicide investigation” that included high-ranking Army officers telling “outright lies.”

Said the father, “After it happened, all the people in positions of authority went out of their way to script this. They purposefully interfered with the investigation; they covered it up. I think they thought they could control it, and they realized that their recruiting efforts were going to go to hell in a hand basket if the truth about his death got out. They blew up their poster boy.”

The Post reported that Mary Tillman believes, “the government used her son for weeks after his death, perpetuating an untrue story to capitalize on his altruism…. She said she was particularly offended when President Bush offered a taped memorial message to Tillman at a Cardinals football game shortly before the presidential election last fall. She again felt as though her son was being used, something he never would have wanted.”

“Every day is sort of emotional,” said the mother. “It just keeps slapping me in the face. … This lie was to cover their image. I think there’s a lot more yet that we don’t even know or they wouldn’t still be covering their tails.”

Just as despots have always wrapped themselves in the flag, in today’s world those same people will wrap themselves in the false patriotism of sports to hide the truth.

Fans, beware.

Old Town native Gary Thorne is an ESPN and ABC sportscaster.