'The first casualty when war comes is truth," Sen. Hiram Johnson is reported to have said, but the second might be the reporters who dare question the military version of the truth.

I know this might come as quite a shock to some readers, but some people in government lie.

And sometimes a journalist who is skeptical about their version of the truth is made out to be a biased reporter "with an agenda."

I raise this issue because of two separate incidents a little over a week ago: the death of journalist David Halberstam and the congressional hearings into the death of Army Ranger Pat Tillman and the rescue of Pfc. Jessica Lynch.

Rep. Henry Waxman is enjoying the political tail-twisting of the White House. His House Oversight and Government Reform Committee took apart the Army's decision to cover up the fact that Tillman, a former NFL player, was killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan in 2004, and that the rescue of Lynch from a Baghdad hospital in 2003 might not have been as heroic as originally told by the Army.

Democrats will do anything legal these days to make President Bush's stomach acid roil. Clearly, there is some of that afoot here.

The larger point, however, is that the press often has an antagonistic role with the government, especially branches of the military during wartime. Its aggressiveness is often perceived as treasonous behavior. It is not.

Lynch was wounded in action, captured by the enemy and taken to an Iraqi hospital. After eight days in captivity in the hospital, she was rescued by American troops.

The original story, filmed by the military and fed to reporters, was that the "raid" on the hospital had been carried out at great peril. Later, the truth proved that there was no resistance. In fact, no Iraqi troops were guarding the hospital. (A Pentagon spokesman now says the reporters share the blame for hyping the story.)

"The American people are capable of determining their own ideals for heroes," Lynch testified. "The truth of war is not always easy. The truth is always more heroic than the hype. I had the good fortune to come home and to tell the truth. Many soldiers, like Pat Tillman, did not have that opportunity."

Tillman's death was originally described by the military as heroic, so he could be nominated for the Silver Star.

But his closest friend now says he was ordered not to tell Tillman's family that he was killed by friendly fire. The Pentagon says nine officers made bad decisions in not telling the truth in the Tillman story.

Troops are killed by friendly forces in battle all the time. It happens.

Rescues are made by forces that anticipate great danger but find the task much less dangerous than they anticipated.

It happens. America can handle this.

But after both of these incidents, when the American press began to question the veracity of the reports, military and politicians made the news media into villains for questioning the truth of these stories.

And this has been going on for decades, as I learned in reading more about Halberstam's life. He was a terrific journalist, and the Ventura County Star welcomed him as the keynote speaker at a symposium on the media we held in 1999. He was one of the first reporters starting to question U.S. military truthfulness during the Vietnam War when he covered it for The New York Times in 1963.

Halberstam and a small group of reporters were frustrated by the lack of information provided by the military about a battle in the Delta. When they could not get information from the brass on site, they started climbing the ladder of command.

At that day's press briefing, about 40 high-ranking officers crowded the room, which contained only 10 reporters. This was clearly an attempt to intimidate. But it did not end there. A major general started the briefing by berating the reporters who had gone over his head and said they were not to do it again.

Military officials and President Kennedy had already called Halberstam's boss and asked him to be removed from Vietnam.

Halberstam reminded the major general that the press works for the American public, not for the military, and after the American military goes into battle, the American public has a right to know how it turned out.

The reporter stayed in Vietnam. He never got a medal for his coverage, but telling the truth certainly helped America shape its decisions about Vietnam.

Tim Gallagher is publisher of The Star and can be reached at tgallagher@VenturaCountyStar.com.