• Pat Tillman: Exploited in death Pat Tillman: Exploited in death St. Louis Post-Dispatch May 27, 2005 As if the nation needed another reminder that the cover-up is always worse than the crime, now comes the outrage of Patrick and
• Pat Tillman: Exploited in death
Pat Tillman: Exploited in death
St. Louis Post-Dispatch May 27, 2005
As if the nation needed another reminder that the cover-up is always worse than the crime, now comes the outrage of Patrick and Mary Tillman. Bad enough to lose a son to war, and worse, by friendly fire. Now, the Tillmans have learned that their son’s death was exploited by the Army for its own purposes.
“They purposely interfered with the investigation; they covered it up,” Patrick Tillman Sr. told The Washington Post. “I think they thought they could control it, and they realized that their recruiting efforts were going to go to hell in a handbasket if the truth about his death got out. They blew up their poster boy.”
The Tillmans’ older son, Pat, was extraordinary in every way – deeply affected by the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, he walked away from a $3.6 million contract extension from the NFL’s Arizona Cardinals in 2002 to join the Army. He enlisted with his younger brother, Kevin, a minor league baseball player. Their Ranger unit served in Iraq in 2003, and in the spring of 2004 was sent to the mountains of eastern Afghanistan.
On April 22, 2004, a broken-down Humvee led to their platoon being split in half while on patrol near the village of Manah. At twilight, a firefight broke out in a steep, narrow canyon. The Army reported that Pat Tillman, 27, had been killed leading his men in a counterattack. President George W. Bush joined the NFL and the Cardinals in paying tribute to Cpl. Tillman’s heroism and sacrifice.
But even as the tributes were underway in the United States, the Army – all the way up to John P. Abizaid, the general in charge of Central Command – knew that Cpl. Tillman and an Afghan militiaman with him had been killed by rifle and .50-caliber machine-gun fire from other members of their own outfit. Nonetheless, Cpl. Tillman was awarded the Silver Star for bravery and posthumously promoted to sergeant. Not until May 29, well after a televised memorial service, did the Army acknowledge the truth.
In response to questions from his parents and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the Army prepared a 2,000-page report on the incident. On Monday, the Post reported Patrick and Mary Tillman’s response to the report. “The military let him down,” Mary Tillman said. “The administration let him down. It was a sign of disrespect . . . the fact that they lied about it afterward is disgusting.”
Patrick Tillman said, “Maybe lying’s not a big deal anymore. Pat’s dead, and this isn’t going to bring him back. But these guys should have been held up to scrutiny, right up the chain of command, and no one has.”
Of late, in light of the erroneous Newsweek story about interrogators at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the White House has been stressing that the news media need to hold themselves accountable for accurate reporting. We totally agree, and trust that the administration will hold itself to the same standard.
