Mary Tillman Wants The Truth
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in History, The War On Terrorism
Remember Pat Tillman, the NFL player who quit his job to fight for our country?
Well, his mother wants answers about his death. Unfortunately, she’s running into roadblocks.
From SF Gate:
The battle between a grieving family and the U.S. military justice system is on display in thousands of pages of documents strewn across Mary Tillman’s dining room table in suburban San Jose.As she pores through testimony from three previous Army investigations into the killing of her son, former football star Pat Tillman, by his fellow Army Rangers last year in Afghanistan, she hopes that a new inquiry launched in August by the Pentagon’s inspector general finally will answer the family’s questions:
Were witnesses allowed to change their testimony on key details, as alleged by one investigator? Why did internal documents on the case, such as the initial casualty report, include false information? When did top Pentagon officials know that Tillman’s death was caused by friendly fire, and why did they delay for five weeks before informing his family?
So here are the facts we know so far. Pat signed up for the conflict in Afghanistan, but was instead shipped to Iraq in 2003. Eventually, in 2004, Pat Tillman went to Afghanistan and died by result of friendly fire.
However, originally it was reported that he died at the hands of the enemy.
U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Matthew Beevers said Saturday that Tillman was killed Thursday night in a firefight at about 7 p.m. on a road near Sperah, about 25 miles southwest of a U.S. base at Khost.[snip...]
Beevers said Tillman was killed by enemy fire, but he had no information about what type of weapons were involved in the assault, or whether he died instantly.
And concerning Pat Tillman’s political leanings.
Interviews also show a side of Pat Tillman not widely known � a fiercely independent thinker who enlisted, fought and died in service to his country yet was critical of President Bush and opposed the war in Iraq, where he served a tour of duty. He was an avid reader whose interests ranged from history books on World War II and Winston Churchill to works of leftist Noam Chomsky, a favorite author.
Could it be said he was a moderate? Nobody knows. But the important part is that his family wants answers and our government should be forthcoming.
But they aren’t.
In his Nov. 14, 2004, interrogation, the first investigator expressed frustration with “watching some of these guys getting off, what I thought … was a lesser of a punishment than what they should’ve received. And I will tell you, over a period of time … the stories have changed. They have changed to, I think, help some individuals.�The investigator testified that after he submitted his report on May 3, higher-ranking officers permitted soldiers to change key details of their testimony in order to prevent any individual from being singled out for punishment.
Accountability is key in this investigation and I sincerely hope that the government gives Mary Tillman some peace-of-mind soon.
(HT: Andrew Sullivan and the Times Online)
This entry was posted on Monday, September 26th, 2005 and is filed under History, The War On Terrorism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
September 27th, 2005 at 12:24 am
The Pat Tillman story deserves to be told in full. It seems part of the problem was incompetence among commanding officers — hardly a new thing in a war.
The story is getting a very different spin, however, on the left:
Fascinating. And of course if there’s never a scintilla of evidence produced to the effect that that was so, it will just be more proof to numnskulls like the one who wrote that, that it’s because Shrubbie McChimpler with his incompetence/omnipotence, managed to cover it up again.
When you lie to the people, you only strengthen the paranoid.
September 27th, 2005 at 8:18 am
Yeah, stuff like this only cheapens the argument, but lies do breed these sort of thoughts.
Ha! Never thought I’d hear that from you. Too funny.
September 27th, 2005 at 1:59 pm
Irony, my friend, irony. I meant to write “Shrubbie KKK McChimplerburton the Death Merchant.” Read a little Democratic Underground and you can pick up all kinds of lovely tags. My favorite recent one was the woman whining that her Republican friends were so mean to her because they complained about their high taxes in her presence, even though they knew she was a Democrat. It made her so mad! Except all through her post, she never used the word “Republicans,” only the DU-approved “rethugs.”
September 27th, 2005 at 2:53 pm
I have no doubt that certain fringe Dems will pick this up and run with it in a very bad way, but those of us who can separate the wheat from the chaff see that the government is wrong here and needs to fess up.
In short, tell the Tillman family the truth. Anything less is wrong.
March 5th, 2006 at 1:43 am
[...] The last time I visited the story of Pat Tillman’s tragic death was to highlight the plight of his mother Mary Tillman. You see, she is the anti-Sheehan. Not because of politics, but because she’s somebody who has asked important questions free from the rhetorically dishonest pattern that Sheehan so easily fell into. [...]
December 25th, 2006 at 12:48 am
Does anyone know how to contact Pat Tillman’s parents,
please e-mail me at [email protected]
-Aaron
April 24th, 2007 at 11:11 am
I too would like to contact Mary Tillman or her son to offer my appreciation and support for their bravery in not giving up in their quest for truth. If anyone knows how to contact them, please send the information to me at [email protected]. Thanks.
April 24th, 2007 at 7:07 pm
The Gardner and Callimachus replies are more unfounded then the “ignorant” democratic-leaning views they admonish. I don’t know you’re site, but Donklephant is also wrong to use Mary Tillman to smear Cindy Sheehan. Yeah, I get it. Both wings are ludicrous, but only you– the difference splitters– are calm and rational enough to see the truth. Please! You want evidence? I can see destroying forensic evidence like Tillman’s boots, uniform and socks (plus ballistics) to cover-up friendly-fire. But why would they get rid of his diary, which reportedly contained views questioning how sincerely the army went after Bin Laden in Tora Bora (so as not to interrupt the bogus march into Iraq)???
Perhaps the fact that he was planning to come stateside for a meeting with Noam Chomsky in the months before November’s election, could be the motive behind such a risky act. After all, he wasn’t a typical soldier without access to the media. He was a national hero, with first-hand experience in Afghanistan. But you partisans pretending to be middle-of-the-roaders won’t even show this comment, most likely. Or you’ll demand more evidence than this admittedly-limited speculation. Well, just like my inability to prove how many Democratic votes went unrecorded in Ohio (due to Secretary of State Blackwell and Diebold at. al. not doing a thorough recount, sharing the source code or even preserving any verifiable-evidence for historians) or the White House destroying emails, yet never naming who exactly came up with the list of the fired US attorney’s (clue: Rolly Kove) the theme is always the same. Destroy the evidence and then scream and cry, hoping that the ball-less Dems are afraid to lose their “credibility.” by making the charges publicly and demanding sworn testimony. Sadly, however, the Democrats and even The New York Times, refuse to even mention Tillman’s diary, so its people like Mary Tillman who are forced into a quandary that only triples her already-terrible suffering. Concede its only a case of suppressed friendly-fire (thus ending any chance of a REAL investigation by Congress that puts Rumsfeld’s minions under oath ) or say out loud what they know will be called unobjective and overly emotional. Its bad enough for her to endure what she has had to face from this group of White House criminals. But the Democrats in Congress will always unfortunately settle for the small victory (afraid of the counter-attack on their credibility). Perhaps if they focused on what Princeton’s Prof. Ed Felten, R.S. Magazine’s RFK Jr., and HBO’s documentary “Hacking Democracy” have already demonstrated, the reason why Bush ordered Gonzo to press the grand-total of 88 supposed democratic voter-fraud cases, will be obvious. He wanted to give ammunition to water-carriers like Rush Limbaugh, when the charges of a stolen re-election inevitably were raised in books and magazines. MIT and Johns Hopkins statisticians estimated that the odds Bush got 3 to 5% more than exit polls showed he would in 9 battleground states in 2004 were 40 million to one. But hey, let’s see the evidence, cry the so-called middle-ground smarties. I wonder what you would have said to blast Democratic-leaning skeptics when the missing eighteen minutes of Nixon’s Rosemary Woods’ “accidentally-erased” White House tapes were discovered in 1972.
June 2nd, 2009 at 5:36 pm
I had to put Mary’s book down several times while I was reading it. I was horrified, but not suprised at the Bush administration. I wanted to contact Mary after reading it, but do not know how to contact her.
I would have liked her son very much if I had met him. Every mother wants their son to be a man like he was.
January 29th, 2011 at 12:24 pm
After veiwing the film The Tillman Story I was full of emotions. Anger towards our government who betrayed thie family and all Americans with the lies and cover ups and worst of all the public display of a family and nations greif of our lost son. To use the death of this man as pulic propaganda is unforgiveable and may those who so cowardly denied their knowledge and involvement suffer the same fate in their lives someday. Where is the pride of this government ? When did our leaders lose sight of our trust in them to do the “right thing” no matter what. THAT is the rule of our nation and supercedes any of the military “good ole boys club” rules.
From one woman to another, your dedication , strength, hope, courage and perserverence to uncover the truth, words can hardly express my admiration for what you must have endured and the gradtitude to you for the inspiration to others to find their inner strength to be steadfast on their path to let the truth be told.
As a mother, I feel the pain of losing a son and the lifetime of grieving the loss of his presense and the love you carry in your heart for a son who gave you his love and admiration, joy, laughter, tears, heartache and pride. Even though a death of a child is to be your own personal journey we are a grateful nation of mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, wifes, sons and daughtersl to have had the honor to share in greiving the loss a son of our nation Patrick Daniel “fuckin” Tillman. Thank you for your story. Godspeed!
February 9th, 2011 at 12:00 pm
I have watched and read this Pat Tillman saga from the start. I agree with Mary that this issue isn’t so much about Pat, as it is about all of us. Specifically, the liar’s club that makes up the great circle and intrigue formed by the military echelon and the White House. Today’s blog, my own (www.cybercandor.blogspot.com) comments on Mary’s mission, specifically the epic documentary, “The Pat Tillman Story,” which I hope I did not, in my impassioned remarks, walk in hers or anyone’s mind with my dirty feet. I would like to pass her message on, as well as endorse this documentary, to as many people as possible. Sometime last month I wrote a series of blogs about the military and its lame operations, even featuring Pat’s saga (in part). After watching, yesterday, the documentary, well, it was so overwhelming I had to write and say something. It is the only way I can vent, and of course maintain my humanity by not jumping through the screen every time I see the generals, especially Rumsfeld and Cheney, et al., and twisting their damn ears off. These people do not hear, they do not see, but talk. I am not a religious person, but I think if the Christian sense of a devil exists on this planet, then it spends time going back and forth from the White House to the Pentagon.
Mary, keep up your impassioned crusade, for Pat’s sake, for all of our sakes. It is the ignorance of this country, this military, that his tragic death has become so iconic. Nothing can replace him, yet the inspiration he and you and your family give to the rest of us, simply sine qua non. Just wanted you to know in case this humble and grateful message ever gets to you. RK
October 16th, 2011 at 11:49 pm
Mary,
I just wanted to tell you to keep your eye out in the Almaden Times. I am writing an editorial about the destruction of special ed since you left Bret Harte. I didn’t realize what you were going through when you were Rebecca’s teacher since I had just moved here. I want you to know I really appreciated that you tried to help Rebecca. I have often thought of you through the years. I watched the documentary. You and I are alike in that we both could never let a lie stand. Thankyou for standing up and doing what you had to do for Pat. I cannot imagine the strength it required. My thoughts are always with you. Heidi Schlossberg