Little attention has been paid to Gen. Stanley McChrystal's back-story and his rise to the height of military command of U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Before becoming the voice of gravity and a champion of higher troop levels in the eight-year long war, McChrystal's resume was sullied by a controversy in that same theater: the misclassified death of Pat Tillman.
McChrystal was the head of Special Operations command in Afghanistan during Army Ranger (and former football star) Pat Tillman's death. McChrystal was the one who approved paperwork awarding Tillman a Silver Star despite knowing (or at least suspecting) that he had died in fratricide and not, as originally determined, enemy fire.
This was once a big embarrassment for the army and, to a lesser extent, McChrystal himself (though he has copped to making an innocent mistake). But when the general was elevated to top spot in Afghanistan this past spring, relatively few publications revisited the affair.
