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Title: Pat Tillman Film a Haunting Blindside
Source: [None]
URL Source: http://freedomsyndicate.com/fair0000/latimes0017A.html
Published: Apr 29, 2010
Author: BILL DWYRE
Post Date: 2010-04-29 06:25:14 by Ada
Keywords: None
Views: 740
Comments: 16

Journalists gave the story of soldier Pat Tillman’s death six years ago the hero’s treatment. What it deserved was real journalism.

I have never quite gotten the Pat Tillman story out of my system. Only now am I understanding why.

It has been six years and two days since he died, his head blown off amid a pile of rocks on the side of a hill in Afghanistan, killed by guys on his own team, other U.S. soldiers. After lying about it, the military eventually called it friendly fire and treated it as a mistake. Horrible, yes, they said. But a mistake.

He was a football hero, a star safety for the Arizona Cardinals. Before that, he was a free spirit linebacker at Arizona State, whose hair flowed out of his helmet and whose tackles left physical and mental imprints.

When he walked away from a fat pro contract to become a soldier, fighting in the front lines of Iraq and Afghanistan, we all swooned. What a guy, what a hero, what a story.

We are so used to pro athletes being incapable of gazing beyond their own navels, unable to fathom anything of importance beyond their next contract and ensuing trip to the jewelry store, that we couldn't get enough of Tillman. Journalism celebrates the unusual, and this sure was.

Like other writers in the West, I had a head start. I had been face to face with Tillman, had met him, had a feel for him. Once, after an otherwise unmemorable UCLA-Arizona State game, my postgame question, as we walked along, brought him to a stop. I had danced around something controversial and he did what no other athlete, before or since, has done. He called me on it.

"That's not what you really want to know," he said. "Ask it again."

I did, this time straight to the point. He answered the same way. I was now a Pat Tillman fan. Veteran scribe learns from long-haired linebacker.

I laughed when he was taken near the end of the NFL draft and the babblers at ESPN assured all that he was too small to make it. They had likely never talked to him, certainly never been hit by him.

I loved the stories about him riding his bike to training camp and, when he drove, parking his junky old car next to the Beemers and Mercedes in the team lot.

When he died, when the tragedy dripped from the front pages and wept from the TV screens, I fell right in line. It was a story of heroics, the red, white and blue kind. It was more apple pie and Chevrolet than Don McLean, more American than John Wayne.

He wasn't just a hero. He was our hero.

In June 2006, I flew to San Jose to see Alex Garwood, Tillman's brother-in-law, who had been acting as a family spokesman in the absence of much speaking of any kind by the rest of the family. Garwood was cooperative, friendly and clearly a person who knew lots more than he was saying. By then, the story of Tillman being killed by the enemy had changed to friendly fire. Still, I didn't press Garwood much. I was looking for tears, when I should have been looking for facts.

My column ran on the Fourth of July. I blathered on about barbecues and water skiing with the family, about cherishing the freedoms we have because of heroes such as Tillman. All I missed were some rockets red glare. I was so pleased with myself. Heroes are a columnist's best friend.

Thursday night, on the sixth year anniversary of Tillman's death, I went to a screening of "The Tillman Story." It is a documentary about the quest of Tillman's mother, Mary (Dannie) Tillman, to get the real facts of what happened on that hillside. Halfway through, I was mortified. I realized why the Tillman story has stayed in my gut.

Dannie Tillman did what a nation full of high-paid, overblown journalists should have done. She went after the real story while the beautiful people on TV and the nerds with notepads broadcast and wrote morality plays. She got in the military's face, in the government's face. She didn't let up. She was doing journalism while journalists were doing what we mostly do now — chase Web hits and take short cuts to higher profits.

A housewife got the real story, or as much of it as anybody probably will. Professionals trained to do so gathered moss and wrote slop.

The youngest of the three Tillman boys, Richard, said of his mother, "She hit the ball out of the park, but the government kept moving the fences back."

The documentary won't be out until August. It won't be in many theaters, and it won't be around for long. You need to watch for it. It will make you angry and ashamed. Like I am.

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Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 10.

#6. To: Ada (#0)

"......shot three times in the head by his own unit."

Was the shooter (s) a member of Tillman's unit? In WWII, General Patton was regarded as a threat to the Political Machine were he to return to the U.S. and the throngs who adored him. Tillman possibly was feared by some for being such an individualist. It's worth remembering that Congressman Lawrence Patton McDonald, a cousin of General Patton, also was quite outspoken against some Government agendas and was shot down in the crash of Korean Airlines 007.

Bub  posted on  2010-04-29   10:43:31 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#10. To: Bub (#6)

www.jonesreport.com/articles/040407_pat_tillman.html

Pat Tillman: Killed by Friendly Fire or Executed by His Own Government?

Charles E. Carlson / WHTT | April 4, 2007

The Bush Administration knew at the top that celebrity soldier Pat Tillman had been killed by persons in, or attached to his own unit, yet it purposely chose to muffle the incident for more than two years; lying to the family while lionizing the victim as a war hero. Circumstantial evidence, primarily illogical actions at very high levels of the administration, suggests more than a cover up of a “friendly fire” accident (a common mistake during war.)

christine  posted on  2010-04-29   11:18:04 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


Replies to Comment # 10.

#11. To: christine (#10)

Yes, if the shooter(s) was only 70 yards distant as Mr. Tillman claims, it is probable that the shooter did not know Pat Tillman personally but was acting under orders. I'm assuming that Pat probably was well-liked throughout his unit. Something is terribly amiss here...

Bub  posted on  2010-04-29 11:52:49 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#12. To: christine (#10) (Edited)

in the units i served in, the most despised people in those units were hotdogs, "heroes" ---at least in their own minds--- whose recklessness and ego endangered the people they led.

in one squadron, we had a guy that vowed to "win" a congressional medal of honor before he left vietnam... and crews dreaded flying with him because he was a magnet-ass hotdog... and it didnt take long to figure out the awards system was a racket, once you'd got a few veiled hints from one of these guys that you ought to "write him up" after some particularly idiotic operation.

these guys seemed to lead charmed lives, going into the worst shit sandwiches and coming out unscratched... and maybe the shit sandwiches werent always that bad, after all... maybe the hotdogs exaggerated... or maybe it was a combination of both exaggeration and foolhardiness.

the fact remains, these guys ---and there was at least one in every unit--- were the most hated people in the unit.

groundresonance  posted on  2010-04-29 12:08:10 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#13. To: christine (#10)

from a sports illustrated article published right after tillman's death...

In practice, coaches often had to make Tillman slow down so he wouldn't hurt anybody in drills that weren't supposed to be full speed. Slowing down was always tough for him.

Tillman killed in Afghanistan Friday April 23, 2004

groundresonance  posted on  2010-04-29 12:10:36 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


End Trace Mode for Comment # 10.

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