‘The Tillman Story’ a Warning, Mom Says

September 01, 2010
Military.com|by Bryant Jordan

Pat Tillman became the quintessential "All American" when he left behind a lucrative football career to be a Soldier after the 9/11 attacks.

Army officials originally attempted to fictionalize his death on an Afghan hillside as a combat fatality -- they even went so far as to award him the Silver Star. As the truth emerged, it cast a shadow over the military and the mission in Afghanistan.

Tillman's fratricide death on April 22, 2004, its attempted cover-up and a congressional investigation that found no one culpable are now the subject of a documentary, "The Tillman Story," which his mother says should stand as much as a cautionary tale to Americans as an expose of what happened to her son.



"We've run across extremely honorable people in the military and they have helped us tremendously," Mary Tillman said. "But like any institution, you have the ones who are corrupt. And unfortunately we have to be careful of that. And we have to be careful of our leadership. We can't trust that they're telling us the truth all the time."

"The Tillman Story," which was screened in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 26 ahead of its Sept. 3 general release, makes the case that the truth about Pat Tillman's death was deliberately and quickly quashed almost immediately upon his death. By studying thousands of pages of Defense Department documents related to the death, the Tillman family -- guided by former Special Forces Soldier Stan Goff -- found blatant inconsistencies and contradictions between what the DoD claimed happened and what witnesses said -- including those who were shooting at their son that day.

While the Army claimed the men who shot at Tillman were returning what they thought was enemy fire, the documents show otherwise, according to the film. Witness statements reveal Soldiers who were more eager to shoot than careful about who they were shooting at. Soldiers assumed the enemy had been identified; they were "excited."

"I just wanted to stay in the fire-fight," one Soldier wrote.

But in none of the statements, Mary Tillman found, did any of the Soldiers say they were receiving fire from the hillside.

"They knew they weren't receiving fire. They testified they could see people waving their hands," she said. "Yet they continued to fire."

When it was over, Tillman was dead -- decapitated, according to the Soldiers with him. Strangely, his uniform and even his journal were burned, it was later revealed.

Mary Tillman said no one has ever given an explanation for burning his journal or a valid reason for burning the uniform. But she said the autopsy documents she read were odd because -- even though her son's head had been shot off -- the Army obviously intended to make it look like her son was still alive when they got him back to base. Burning the uniform of a dead Soldier is against regulations, she said, but if her son was alive it could have been burned as a biohazard, which is what the Army claimed.

Also highlighted in the movie was the House Committee on Government Oversight investigation into the death and cover-up, with testimony given by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld; Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Richard Myers; Army Gen. John Abizaid, commander of U.S. Central Command; and others -- none of whom could say for sure when they learned that Tillman's death was fratricide.



Mary Tillman said she is not pushing for any further investigations by Congress. The oversight committee's failure to find anyone responsible for trying to conceal the true circumstances of her son's death took away any faith she had in congressional committees.

"They had all kinds of ammunition that they just didn't use" to get at the truth, she said. She also does not expect that the movie will result in new information coming out that could shed light on the facts.

"That would be a good thing, but I don't think any of us believe that's going to happen," she said. "But [the movie] puts it out there to the public that at least they know you cannot trust your leadership … It's more of a warning to people … I would like to see people held accountable for their actions, but I just don't see that happening."

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nramarine said:

I've been ordered to lie to the families of lost men in my batallion before.

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Mjolnir said:

I've heard of this third hand and the guys who told me swore by it. Wouldn't come outright and state unless someone else made the comment first...

When you sit down and think about it it isn't really surprising at all. That's the sad thing and simultaneously the thing that trips up most Americans who seem to think evil cannot exist here.

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nramarine said:

I've been ordered to lie to the families of lost men in my batallion before.

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Suburbazine said:

I've also heard that some of the IED casualties from OIF were actually suicides. You can't exactly tell someone their kid committed suicide though, can you?

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