The following editorial appeared in the New York Daily News on Tuesday.

The true story of Pat Tillman’s death in the mountains of Afghanistan takes nothing away from the heroism that he and fellow members of the “Black Sheep” platoon displayed, but the Army served him, his family and the country poorly in glossing over the tragic friendly fire that took his life.

Cpl. Tillman’s loss last spring drew special notice because he had given up a career in the National Football League to volunteer for the Rangers with his brother after the Sept. 11 attacks. He had forsaken public adulation and millions of dollars to serve his country, and the Army’s initial and misleading account of his death in action against the Taliban further burnished his inspirational image.

But no such burnishment was necessary for Pat Tillman, as shown by a Washington Post report that detailed far more clearly than the Army ever has what really happened. The two-part series showed him to be every inch the hero, a soldier willing even to dump his body armor so he could better charge a firing enemy. Tillman’s final battle wasn’t as described in his Silver Star citation, but it was still spectacular, just like the conduct of many of the men around him.

Some of them, though, were confused in the heat of battle after their squad was ambushed in a treacherous canyon. Pumped up, they mistakenly fired on Tillman and a separate squad that had approached to join the battle. Pinned down, his men shouted, waved their arms and sent up two flares. “Cease fire! Friendlies!” he is said to have shouted. One Ranger told Army investigators that Tillman “said this over and over again until he stopped.”

The Army is now probing how Tillman died, and some Rangers have been quietly disciplined. But it was clear even before Tillman’s memorial service and the posthumous award of the Silver Star that he had not been killed by the Taliban. It should not have taken this long for the full story to emerge, and only through the work of a newspaper. The Army should know America can handle the truth.