Larry Marmie, the defensive coordinator for the Arizona Cardinals who had loved Pat like a prodigal son, was visibly crushed by his death. "Pat lived life on his terms," Marmie told the audience with a faltering voice, "he walked away from the comfort and material things that most of us desire, he sought out danger for what he deemed to be a greater good." Marmie described Pat as "fiercely unique," with "a strong dislike for the easy way out. He was caring, he was thoughtful, and he was soft. Pat was soft in the heart. He was humble yet confident, reserved, but he was hard. You wanted this guy on your team, and it didn"t have to be a football team.... It was fun coaching Pat. It was challenging coaching Pat. It was an honor to coach Pat. I learned a lot from him. Players are usually trying to earn the respect of their coach. I found myself trying to earn Pat"s respect."
Many people spoke movingly of Pat, but perhaps the most captivating tribute came from Steve White, the Navy SEAL whom Pat and Kevin had befriended during Operation Iraqi Freedom. On the morning before the service, an Army representative asked White to announce that Pat had been awarded the Silver Star. In order to do that, White felt that first he needed to get the facts straight, so he requested that somebody in the Second Ranger Battalion provide him with details about the fatal firefight. "I called an enlisted person, whose name I cannot recall," White later testified. After this Ranger read the Silver Star citation to White over the phone, White rephrased the official narrative in his own words and then read it back to the Ranger. According to his sworn testimony, White asked this Ranger "if it was an accurate summarization, and he said it was, and that is what I went with in my speech."
White began his encomium to Pat by explaining how they met in Saudi Arabia just before the start of the Iraq War. "Pretty much every night for the next three months if we weren"t working," White recalled, we were out drinking coffee and enjoying each other"s company out there, getting to know each other....I got the news early on Friday morning about Pat"s death. I"d been spending the day flying back home, and I watched the news on every layover, waiting for the word to break. Once I saw that it was out, I contemplated at that point calling Marie. I knew that there was going to be a lot going on and I didn"t want to add to it. When my wife picked me up at the airport, she asked if I"d called Marie. I gave her my reason, and she looked at me and said, "If the tables were turned right now, would he have called me?" That"s the kind of man Pat was. I immediately picked up the phone....The Silver Star and the Purple Heart that Pat has earned will be given to Marie at a private ceremony. The Silver Star is one of this nation"s highest awards; the Purple Heart is rewarded for wounds received in combat. If you"re the victim of an ambush, there are very few things that you can do to increase your chances for survival, one of which is to get off that ambush point as fast as you can. One of the vehicles in Pat"s convoy could not get off. He made the call; he dismounted his troops, taking the fight to the enemy, uphill, to seize the tactical high ground from the enemy. This gave his brothers in the downed vehicle time to move off that target. He directly saved their lives with that move. Pat sacrificed himself so that his brothers could live.
"I, like everyone in the audience, was greatly affected listening to the young Naval officer speak," wrote Dannie Tillman, recalling White"s eulogy in Boots on the Ground by Dusk Boots on the Ground by Dusk. "He was the first person to give us an account of Pat"s death." The details White shared about Pat"s final moments brought Dannie a small measure of peace, she said, which had been absent since the family learned of his pa.s.sing eleven days earlier.
At the conclusion of the ceremony, three Rangers in formal military dress marched up to Marie and Pat"s parents and presented each of them with a folded American flag. The soldier who handed a flag to Dannie was Russell Baer. That evening, the Tillmans invited White and Baer to a gathering of their friends at Dannie"s cottage in New Almaden. Pat"s father asked Baer to share his recollections of the firefight. It was an awkward moment for the young Ranger. He told the Tillmans as much detail as he could without violating the order not to reveal that Pat was shot by his Ranger comrades, which of course led everyone to believe that Pat had been killed by the Taliban.
Afterward, Baer was furious that the Army had forced him to lie to Pat"s family and friends. "I had just handed the parents the flags," he said. "I saw the look on their faces. A few days earlier the guys I worked with had killed Pat and another guy, injured two more, and shot at me, and I wasn"t allowed to tell anyone." When he was ordered to return to Fort Lewis the next day, he decided to go AWOL instead, and went to stay with his grandparents in Livermore. When Baer failed to report for duty, the sergeant major of the Second Ranger Battalion repeatedly called his cell phone and left threatening messages. "He called me a deserter," says Baer. "He said I was the worst Ranger ever. I sat in my grandparents" house staring at a wall and didn"t return the calls."
The day after the memorial service, Captain Richard Scott delivered the final report of his 156 investigation of Tillman"s death to Lieutenant Colonel Bailey. Scott"s 156 determined, among other things: "Leadership played a critical role and greatly contributed to the fratricide incident that killed SPC Pat Tillman."
"By the time they were approaching the ridgeline where friendly forces were positioned; [sic] [sic] serial two was not receiving enemy fire. In fact, serial two never received effective enemy fire throughout the entire enemy contact.... It is clearly evident that the leaders in serial two failed to positively control their weapon systems and their Rangers." serial two was not receiving enemy fire. In fact, serial two never received effective enemy fire throughout the entire enemy contact.... It is clearly evident that the leaders in serial two failed to positively control their weapon systems and their Rangers."
"Gross negligence" was a factor in Tillman"s death, and headquarters should further investigate to determine whether there was criminal intent.
Scott"s report went up the chain of command to Colonel Nixon and Lieutenant Colonel Bailey and then disappeared. In response to repeated inquiries about what happened to it, the Army simply replied, "It does not exist." Nixon would later explain to investigators that because he believed the inquiry was "deficient," he didn"t consider it a "completed investigation" and never signed Scott"s final report. Officially, therefore, the investigation never happened. Nixon opined that in hindsight, "Captain Scott did not have the experience to investigate the matter." On May 8, Major General McChrystal appointed Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Kauzlarich-Nixon"s second-in-command, the executive officer of the Seventy-fifth Ranger Regiment-to initiate a new 156 investigation at the regimental level.
Following the memorial service in San Jose, Kevin and Marie returned to their house above Puget Sound. Although they did their best to struggle through each day, neither of them was ready to confront the gaping void left by Pat"s absence.
Back in Afghanistan, the Black Sheep of Second Platoon continued to function as a combat unit even though Pat was dead and Uthlaut and Lane were in an Army hospital convalescing from their wounds. "Despite what happened," says Sergeant Bradley Shepherd, "it was still the beginning of our deployment, and we were in enemy territory. The Army needed us to be combat effective. They tried to get us to put everything behind us and focus on the matter at hand."
"They had to go back to trusting each other," Jade Lane elaborates. "It"s a necessity over there. There was a war going on. Guys had to watch each other"s backs. They had to do their jobs. I think they fell back into that groove pretty quickly and kept moving forward. But for some of us that just wasn"t a possibility."
On the evening of May 22, exactly one month after Pat"s death, the Black Sheep returned to Fort Lewis from Afghanistan. It was a Sat.u.r.day night, so Kevin wasn"t required to be at the base, but he drove in to greet his comrades when they arrived. "We were happy to be home," says Shepherd. "Guys were laughing and joking and looking forward to getting drunk, and Kevin was just standing there by the CQ desk, right inside the entrance, and I"ll never forget the look on his face when we walked in. You could tell he was like, "Pat is dead. How come everyone is celebrating?" He was hurt, and p.i.s.sed, and I understand why. It haunts me to this day."
Kevin went home and didn"t see any of the Black Sheep again until Monday morning when he reported for duty. He worked out with Ashpole and Elliott, oblivious to their role in Pat"s death, and then helped his platoon mates sort out their gear and clean their weapons. Around 11:00 a.m., Sergeant Jeffrey Jackson, Kevin"s squad leader, told him that Tommy Fuller, the first sergeant of Alpha Company, wanted to see him in his office.
Upon the Second Ranger Battalion"s return to Fort Lewis, Lieutenant Colonel Bailey had realized they had a serious problem. More than a year remained on Kevin"s Army contract, and he would be spending those months in close proximity with many soldiers who were privy to the circ.u.mstances of Pat"s death. Some of those soldiers were upset about being ordered to lie. Guilt, anger, and alcohol were likely to loosen tongues.
According to Bailey"s testimony, he called his boss, Colonel Nixon, and said, "Sir...We"re back, and I cannot separate these guys. I mean, you"ve got 600 Rangers. Everybody knows the story. This is going to get out. I"d like to go ahead and do it."
Without exception, every colonel and general officer interrogated by investigators-Bailey included-insisted that from the moment Pat was killed, he wanted to immediately notify the Tillman family that fratricide was the cause of their son"s death. But each officer claimed that he felt obligated to wait until a thorough investigation had been completed in order to avoid telling "the family something that was not true," as Nixon phrased it, "and it took a considerable time to get the truth." All of them seemed to be reading from the same patently disingenuous script, reciting a series of self-serving rationalizations intended to justify what was actually a very calculated effort to deceive not just the Tillman family but also the American public-which of course was the real target of the misinformation campaign.
By the morning of April 23, there was never any genuine doubt that Tillman had been killed by friendly fire. Scott"s investigation, which confirmed the fratricide, was completed on May 8 and then expunged, causing it for all intents and purposes to vanish from the face of the earth. Kauzlarich"s investigation, which unequivocally determined that "Corporal Tillman"s death was the result of fratricide," was completed on May 16, but then kept under extremely tight wraps, treated as if it were a grave threat to national security.
Nixon"s sworn testimony notwithstanding, it"s difficult to fathom how the obsessive secrecy, falsified doc.u.ments, and destruction of evidence were intended to protect the family from receiving a false impression of how Pat died. The available evidence indicates that McChrystal and his subordinates in the Seventy-fifth Ranger Regiment engaged in a coordinated effort to deliberately mislead the family, and high-ranking officials at the White House and the Pentagon abetted the deception. As Bailey"s testimony underscores, the only reason the Army finally decided to come clean was that Kevin was about to learn the truth on his own.
When Bailey recognized that it was no longer possible to keep the secret contained, First Sergeant Fuller was ordered to break the news to Kevin. After being summoned to Fuller"s office, Kevin sat down and listened as Alpha Company"s highest-ranking noncommissioned officer explained that Pat "may have been killed" by Rangers in his own platoon, but the words didn"t register. "It just didn"t make any sense," Kevin testified. He had been told that Pat was "running up the hill and he got shot.... But I didn"t-it just didn"t even cross my mind that he got hit by his own guys.... I mean, it didn"t cross my mind at all.... I thought he had been killed by the enemy."
Kevin was reeling when he walked out of Fuller"s office. He"d just spent the morning working alongside the soldiers who were responsible for his brother"s death, and they had all acted like everything was fine. "I did my PT [physical training] with two of the people that killed Pat," Kevin testified, "and then went to breakfast with the PL [platoon leader] who eventually got fired-telling him, "Hey, you did a good job out there"-not having a clue what really went on in that first part, so I"m trying to pump the PL up."
Kevin went home and told Marie what had just been revealed to him. A day later Bailey came to their house and officially notified them that fratricide was the cause of Pat"s death. Bailey, Kevin, and Marie then made plans to fly to San Jose so that Kevin could inform his parents in person late Friday night, May 28. Bailey a.s.sured Kevin and Marie that no information would be released to the media until the rest of the Tillman family had been notified.
Kevin was told of the fratricide by the Alpha Company first sergeant on Monday, May 24. So why did Bailey wait until the night of the twenty-eighth to notify the Tillman parents? The timing is baffling until one learns that the decision by Bailey and Nixon to preemptively let the cat out of the bag caught the Pentagon and the White House by surprise, and generated no small amount of consternation at those inst.i.tutions. Rumsfeld"s office wanted time to come up with a plan for containing the damage before the news was released to the media. Toward that end, it was decided that there would be no public disclosure until Sat.u.r.day, May 29-the start of the Memorial Day weekend, when few reporters would be at their desks and not many Americans would be paying attention to the news.
On May 28 a video teleconference was held on a secure military network to hash out a game plan for announcing the fratricide. Partic.i.p.ating were Bryan Brown, the four-star general in command of USSOC; Vice Admiral Eric Olson, deputy commander of USSOC; Lieutenant General Kensinger, commander of USASOC; Lieutenant General James Lovelace, representing the secretary of the Army; Major General R. Steven Whitcomb, CENTCOM chief of staff; a smattering of colonels; at least one lawyer; and Lawrence Di Rita, the number-two guy at the Pentagon, who was a close friend of Rumsfeld"s. Although Di Rita"s official t.i.tle was a.s.sistant secretary of defense for public affairs, his responsibilities at the Pentagon were considerably greater than merely serving as Rumsfeld"s press secretary. In truth, Di Rita"s relationship with Rumsfeld was roughly a.n.a.logous to Lewis "Scooter" Libby"s relationship with d.i.c.k Cheney, or Karl Rove"s relationship with the president. Di Rita was a major player in the Bush administration.
The ensuing discussion between Di Rita and the military bra.s.s was tense. The greatest disagreement concerned the choice of a spokesman to stand before the television cameras and announce that the Army had shot its poster boy. General Brown wanted someone from Rumsfeld"s office to do it, but Di Rita immediately quashed that idea. Part of his job was to make sure Rumsfeld"s fingerprints were wiped clean from crime scenes like this; he wasn"t about to let anyone a.s.sociated with his boss appear within a hundred miles of this scandal. Instead, Di Rita decreed that a uniformed general would be the bearer of bad tidings. Because Tillman was a Ranger who had been killed by fellow Rangers, and it was the Ranger Regiment that had failed to keep a lid on the fratricide, the job was given to Kensinger, the highest-ranking officer in the Ranger chain of command. "They wanted to keep, sir, the other organizations separate from it," a colonel who was present explained to an investigator. Everyone agreed that under no circ.u.mstances should Kensinger take any questions from the media after making the announcement. The press briefing was scheduled for the following morning at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
Friday afternoon, in advance of the briefing, Dannie Tillman got home from work to find a message on her machine from Billy House, a reporter at the Arizona Republic Arizona Republic, the Phoenix newspaper, asking her to call him. When she phoned him back, House asked what she thought of the news he"d just received from an Army source that Pat"s death may have been from friendly fire. Having been told repeatedly that Pat had been shot by the Taliban, Dannie slammed the phone down, stunned. The news had been leaked to the press before she had been notified.
Later that evening, Kevin called Steve White, the Navy SEAL he and Pat had befriended in Iraq, to tell him that Pat was a victim of fratricide. When White learned that he had been used to deliver propaganda, he testified, "I was shocked." He said he felt let down by "my military.... I am the guy that told America how he died, basically, at that memorial, and it was incorrect. That does not sit well with me."
The next morning at 9:15, Kensinger stood stiffly before the a.s.sembled news media at Fort Bragg and recited his lines, which had been vetted by Di Rita: Good morning. I would like to make a brief statement on the events surrounding the death of Corporal Pat Tillman on 22 April in Afghanistan. I will not be taking questions. A military investigation by U.S. Central Command into the circ.u.mstances of the 22 April death of Corporal Patrick Tillman is complete. While there was no one specific finding of fault, the investigation results indicate that Corporal Tillman probably died as a result of friendly fire while his unit was engaged in combat with enemy forces.... We regret the loss of life resulting from this tragic accident. Our thoughts and our prayers remain with the Tillman family. Thank you all for being here this morning.At the insistence of his superiors, the statement Kensinger had been given to read declared that "Tillman probably probably died as a result of friendly fire," even though the official investigation was unequivocal in its determination that fratricide was the cause of death. died as a result of friendly fire," even though the official investigation was unequivocal in its determination that fratricide was the cause of death.Following the press conference, perception managers from the Pentagon congratulated each other for limiting the damage. An Army colonel noted in an e-mail that the "story will run hot today and diminish over the weekend." A CENTCOM public affairs officer replied encouragingly that a recent attack in Saudi Arabia would help "dilute the story somewhat."Kensinger"s brief, insincere announcement on that Sat.u.r.day morning would turn out to be the only public statement issued by any official from the White House or the Pentagon acknowledging that Tillman had been killed by American soldiers, not enemy insurgents, as the world had been encouraged to believe.* Tillman was posthumously promoted to the rank of corporal. Tillman was posthumously promoted to the rank of corporal.* Gonzales would be appointed attorney general by President Bush ten months later. Gonzales would be appointed attorney general by President Bush ten months later.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR.
Over the previous weeks, the Tillman family had been starting to come to terms with Pat"s death. Then came the revelation of fratricide, which made them feel like he had been killed all over again. One small consolation was that the family learned an investigation had been completed-Lieutenant Colonel Kauzlarich"s 156. They were invited to Fort Lewis on June 16, 2004, to receive a briefing on its conclusions from Colonel Nixon and Lieutenant Colonel Bailey, prompting Pat"s father to request a copy of the 156 report before the briefing, in order to be able to ask informed questions. The Army refused to provide one in advance.
The meeting lasted for three hours. Bailey gave a PowerPoint presentation to explain how the fatal firefight unfolded. When the Tillmans asked if the soldiers responsible for Pat"s death would be court-martialed, Bailey replied that he didn"t know. Nor did Bailey or Nixon provide satisfactory answers to most of the other questions the family asked. As the meeting ended, the Tillmans were belatedly handed copies of the 156 report, which only raised even more disturbing questions.
When the Army announced the disciplinary action that had been taken in response to Pat"s death, the Tillmans were stunned. Major David Hodne and Captain William Saunders each received nothing more than a written reprimand for "failing to provide adequate command control of subordinate units." Staff Sergeant Greg Baker was busted in rank and "released for standards"-"RFS"d," in Army lingo-meaning he was expelled from the Rangers and sent to the regular Army. The three machine gunners in Baker"s Humvee-Trevor Alders, Steve Elliott, and Stephen Ashpole-were also RFS"d from the Rangers to the regular Army. Lieutenant David Uthlaut, the platoon leader, was RFS"d and received a verbal reprimand from Bailey for "dereliction of duty." For their part, Bailey was promoted from lieutenant colonel to the rank of colonel, and Nixon was made a brigadier general. All of which was regarded by the Tillman family as a despicable affront to Pat.
Some soldiers in Second Platoon took issue with the discipline meted out as well. There was unanimous agreement that Uthlaut was scapegoated. "Everybody thinks Uthlaut got the shaft," says Jade Lane. "They s.h.i.t-canned the PL for splitting the platoon, even though he didn"t want to split it at all. But because he was responsible for the platoon overall, he was booted out of the Rangers. If the Army has to decide whether to punish a lieutenant colonel at headquarters or a lieutenant in the field, you better believe the lieutenant"s going to take the hit every time. s.h.i.t rolls downhill."
Lane says there was disagreement among his platoon mates about the punishments doled out to Baker and the shooters: Some guys were like, "It was an accident. It was n.o.body"s fault." Well, I think everybody realized it was an accident. They didn"t shoot Pat and the AMF soldier on purpose. But some of us felt like the shooters were responsible for their actions, and the Army should have held them more accountable than they did. I"m not saying they need prison time. But to get nothing more than an RFS-that"s a slap on the wrist. You can get RFS"d for accidentally discharging your weapon, or not showing up for formation, or talking back to an officer. You can get RFS"d for getting a traffic ticket. So the Army gives the same punishment for killing two innocent people? The punishment just doesn"t fit the crime.
Despite the lenient sanctions given to Greg Baker, Trevor Alders, Stephen Ashpole, and Steve Elliott, all four soldiers objected vehemently when they learned they had been RFS"d, insisting that getting booted out of the Rangers for the fratricides of Tillman and Farhad was draconian. The greatest objections came from Trevor Alders, the SAW gunner who, according to the available evidence, fired the bullets that ended Tillman"s life. On June 4, Alders submitted a five-and-a-half-page, single-s.p.a.ced letter in which he insisted he did nothing wrong and implored the Seventy-fifth Ranger Regiment to reconsider his punishment. "I believe my actions were the right thing at the right time since I was not aware of a friendly force nearby," he wrote.
I am adamant to state my case before those making the decision on my fate because I do not feel justified in being Released For Standards.... One thing that makes this so hard is that someone who does not know the people I work with or me is making this decision regarding my career and my life.... I ask why is it that a young Ranger that does everything that is taught to him to do to be successful on the battlefield is being released?...I went off the information that was at my disposal at that specific time to make the decision in that firefight. Is it my fault that the area of operation for the other half of my element was not pointed out since we changed our route in the beginning of our movement?...I do not think that I should be Released For Standards from the unit that I love, dedicated so much to, and sacrificed so much for.... If I am removed from the Regiment for this I do not feel the proper justice will have been done.... I am the littlest man in all of this being only 140 pounds soaking wet at 55 and if I have to have the largest voice on this then I will because if my [chain of command] won"t support what they have trained me to do then who will? I have not pushed myself to keep up and surpa.s.s others around me just to be fired without my honor as a warrior.... I gave 100% and then some every time I did anything in this unit.... Now someone wants to rip the heart out of me.... I hope that after reading this you will take into consideration all that I have stated when it comes time to make your decision. I pray to G.o.d almighty that justice will be done and my fate to be an honorable one. Rangers Lead The Way!
The thrust of Alders"s letter seemed to be that the primary victim of the tragedy was not Pat Tillman or Sayed Farhad but Trevor Alders.
On Sunday, September 19, 2004, during halftime of a football game between the New England Patriots and the Arizona Cardinals played in Tempe, the Cardinals honored Pat with a halftime ceremony, during which Marie, Richard, and Pat"s parents walked out onto the field and stood on the fifty-yard line. Marie received heartfelt cheers when she expressed thanks to the crowd for the overwhelming support the Tillman family had received from Arizonans. A huge Cardinals jersey imprinted with the number 40 was unfurled in the bleachers. Up on the JumboTron, President George W. Bush delivered a brief video tribute to Pat, but the crowd greeted the canned speech with a loud chorus of boos, apparently believing the gesture was inspired not by any genuine respect for Tillman, but rather because Bush was trailing in most opinion polls and the presidential election was just forty-four days away.
Because the Army had betrayed Dannie Tillman"s trust so completely, and because she had come to the conclusion that it was more interested in burying the truth than in illuminating it, soon after the Cardinals" tribute she compiled a long list of questions that Lieutenant Colonel Kauzlarich"s 156 investigation had failed to answer to her satisfaction. Then she e-mailed the questions to John McCain, the senator representing Pat"s home state of Arizona, along with a formal request that he help her receive the information she sought.
The nature of the anguish felt by the bereaved when a husband, child, or sibling is killed in combat varies from person to person but is almost always devastating. When the cause of that loss is fratricide, the torment is apt to be greater still. It is not unusual for survivors of the deceased to be overwhelmed by their woe, and to sink into a state of despair that renders them pa.s.sive and numb. It would have been convenient for the Army, the Pentagon, and the White House if the Tillmans had succ.u.mbed meekly to their pain in this fashion, allowing the incident to fade un.o.btrusively into the past, hidden among the war"s long tally of other tragedies. If that"s what these inst.i.tutions antic.i.p.ated, however, they underestimated the tenacity of Dannie Tillman. Channeling her grief into determination, she resolved to take whatever steps were necessary to uncover what really happened to her son, and to discover why the Army lied to her family and the nation, after which she intended to hold the guilty parties accountable.
Thanks to her perseverance, on November 8-six days after George W. Bush was elected to a second term as president-Kensinger appointed Brigadier General Gary Jones, the commander of the Army Special Forces, to conduct still another 156 investigation to address new questions raised by the Tillman family. Yet again, however, the Army"s ingrown special operations fraternity was being investigated by itself.
As part of General Jones"s inquiry, on November 13 he interviewed Kauzlarich. Near the end of this interrogation, Kauzlarich became defensive about a number of deficiencies in his investigation alleged by Dannie Tillman. "n.o.body is satisfied with the answers in that family that they"ve been given," he complained.
"Why do you think that the family is not satisfied?" Jones asked.
Kauzlarich explained that shortly before the Second Ranger Battalion sent Pat"s remains home from Afghanistan, he was arranging a repatriation ceremony when a sergeant approached him and said, "Hey, sir. Kevin Tillman doesn"t want a chaplain involved in his repatriation ceremony." When Kauzlarich, an evangelical Christian, asked why, the sergeant replied, "Well, evidently he and his brother are atheists. That"s the way they were raised."
To which Kauzlarich angrily declaimed, "Well, you can tell Specialist Tillman that this ceremony ain"t about him, it is about everybody in the Joint Task Force bidding farewell to his brother, so there will be a chaplain and there will be prayers."
Pat had in fact made his wishes known quite explicitly in this regard, and had clearly stated his views on religion, life, and death on several occasions as well. During his time on earth, he wrote in his journal while serving in Iraq, he wanted "to do good, influence lives, show truth and right." He believed it was important to have "faith in oneself" and to aspire to "a general goodness free of religious pretensions.... I"ve never feared death per se, or really given a s.h.i.t what happens "after." I"ll cross that bridge when I come to it. My concerns have to do with the "now" and becoming the man I envision.... I think I understand that religious faith which makes the holy brave and strong; my strength is just somewhere else-it"s in myself.... I do not fear what may await me, though I"m equally confident that nothing awaits."
Before deploying to Iraq, Pat had filled out a standard Army doc.u.ment noting his preferences for funeral arrangements in the event of his death, in which he unequivocally declared that he did not want either a chaplain or a civilian minister to officiate at any memorial services that might be held, and that all arrangements pertaining to his death or funeral should be made by Marie. On the final line of the doc.u.ment, which asked if he had "any special instructions," Pat scrawled in block letters, "I do not want the military to have any direct involvement with my funeral."
The fact that neither Pat, nor Marie, nor any of the other Tillmans wanted a military chaplain to formally offer prayers at a memorial service for Pat was incomprehensible to Kauzlarich. "Those that are Christians can come to terms with faith and the fact there is an afterlife, heaven, or whatnot," he testified to Jones. "I"m not really sure what they believe or how they can get their head around death. So, in my personal opinion, sir, that is why I don"t think they"ll ever be satisfied."
Kauzlarich speculated further on the relationship between the Tillmans" religious views and their dissatisfaction with the investigations during a subsequent interview with the journalist Mike Fish, published online at ESPN.com: KAUZLARICH: There"s been numerous unfortunate cases of fratricide, and the parents have basically said, OK, it was an unfortunate accident. And they let it go. So, this is-I don"t know, these people have a hard time letting it go. It may be because of their religious beliefs.... So when you die, I mean there is supposedly a better life, right? Well, if you are an atheist and you don"t believe in anything, if you die what is there to go to? Nothing. You"re worm dirt. So for their son to die for nothing, and now he is no more-that is pretty hard to get your head around that. You know? So I don"t know, I don"t know how an atheist thinks. I can only imagine that that would be pretty tough. There"s been numerous unfortunate cases of fratricide, and the parents have basically said, OK, it was an unfortunate accident. And they let it go. So, this is-I don"t know, these people have a hard time letting it go. It may be because of their religious beliefs.... So when you die, I mean there is supposedly a better life, right? Well, if you are an atheist and you don"t believe in anything, if you die what is there to go to? Nothing. You"re worm dirt. So for their son to die for nothing, and now he is no more-that is pretty hard to get your head around that. You know? So I don"t know, I don"t know how an atheist thinks. I can only imagine that that would be pretty tough.FISH: So you suspect that is probably a reason that this thing is dragging on? So you suspect that is probably a reason that this thing is dragging on?KAUZLARICH: I think so.... I think so....FISH: OK. What do you think would make the family happy? ... OK. What do you think would make the family happy? ...KAUZLARICH: You know what, I don"t think anything will make them happy, quite honestly. I don"t know, maybe they want to see somebody"s head on a platter. But will that really make them happy? No, because they can"t bring their son back. You know what, I don"t think anything will make them happy, quite honestly. I don"t know, maybe they want to see somebody"s head on a platter. But will that really make them happy? No, because they can"t bring their son back.
On May 16, 2007, Representatives Henry Waxman (Democrat) and Tom Davis (Republican) of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform declared, in a letter to Kauzlarich"s commanding officer, "We believe these statements were cra.s.s, insulting to the Tillman family, and completely inappropriate for an Army officer and an official representative of the U.S. military speaking to the press."
For her part, Dannie Tillman told Waxman that she was "appalled" by Lieutenant Colonel Kauzlarich"s comments, which revealed his utter failure to grasp why the Tillman family was angry.
In March 2005, the Jones investigation was completed and approved by his superiors. This 156 was much more thorough than the one done by Kauzlarich, and if one takes the time to painstakingly study its bewildering, heavily redacted 2,099 pages, one is rewarded with a reasonable understanding of how Tillman was killed, and how the Army"s bungled response to the fratricide unfolded. But the evidence buried among the pages of the report did not support the most important conclusions ultimately issued by General Jones, leaving the Tillman family more dissatisfied and distrustful than ever. After relentless prodding from Pat"s mother, in August 2005 the Department of Defense inspector general"s office announced that it would conduct a "review of the Army"s handling of the Tillman incident."
Seventeen months later, on March 26, 2007, portions of this review-which was auth.o.r.ed by Thomas F. Gimble, the acting inspector general-were made public. At one point during Gimble"s investigation, Dr. Craig Mallak-the pathologist who performed Pat"s autopsy, the chief of the Armed Forces medical examiners-was asked, "Would you have any reason to believe that this would be anything other than a friendly fire? For instance, do you think that there would be any criminal intent on somebody"s part?"
Without hesitation, Dr. Mallak replied, "Sure.... It makes us suspicious because every story, including the most current 156, doesn"t match the medical evidence." One of the inconsistencies that troubled Mallak was the fact that the three .223-caliber rounds that killed Tillman struck his brow in an exceedingly tight cl.u.s.ter, less than two inches from one another. "I"ve asked everybody in the office," Mallak testified, "if they thought they could [shoot] a cl.u.s.ter that closely together of three rounds from an M16-a three-round burst from 100 yards, from 50 yards-and everybody said no." Mallak then offered a hypothesis that might explain the exceedingly close proximity of Tillman"s wounds: "If somebody said, "Yeah, I spun around and a three-round burst went off on my M16 and I was about ten yards away," I would say, "OK, that makes sense.""
Based on this testimony, the journalist Martha Mendoza wrote an article for the a.s.sociated Press published on July 27, 2007, in which she reported that Mallak "said that the bullet holes were so close together that it appeared [Tillman] was cut down by an M-16 fired from a mere 10 yards or so away." Predictably, Mendoza"s article uncorked a torrent of speculation that Tillman had been deliberately a.s.sa.s.sinated-speculation that still rages among conspiracy theorists today. But Mallak had a.s.sumed the bullets that killed Tillman had been fired from an M16 (or an M4, a very similar weapon), because he was unaware that Trevor Alders had been firing a Squad Automatic Weapon-which happens to use the same ammunition as the M16 and M4.
Unbeknownst to Mallak (and Mendoza), in November 2006, Dr. Robert Bux and Dr. Vincent DiMaio-forensic pathologists considered to be among the world"s leading authorities on gunshot wounds-had carefully examined Mallak"s autopsy report and photographs and concluded, "The pattern of the bullet impacts suggests that the rounds were all part of a single burst from the Squad Automatic Weapon." Several expert SAW gunners, including members of Tillman"s platoon, have confirmed that it would not be especially difficult for a competent SAW gunner to place three rounds within a two-inch-diameter target from a distance of forty or fifty yards, even while shooting from a moving vehicle.
An unfortunate aspect of the hysteria ignited by Mendoza"s article was that it obscured the fact that Gimble"s investigation for the Office of the Inspector General confirmed most of the failings in Jones"s 156 a.s.serted by Dannie Tillman. Gimble found, for example, that "Corporal Tillman"s chain of command made critical errors in reporting Corporal Tillman"s death and...bears ultimate responsibility for the inaccuracies, misunderstandings, and perceptions of concealment that led to our review."
In striking contrast to all three of the Army"s 156 investigations, Gimble"s investigating officers (who were civilians not beholden to anyone in the Army chain of command) looked closely at McChrystal"s role in the mishandling of the Tillman fratricide, in particular his responsibility for the fraudulent Silver Star recommendation. While interviewing McChrystal on November 26, 2006, a special agent from the Office of the Inspector General demanded of him, "Why did you recommend the Silver Star one day and then the next day send a secret back-channel message [the P4 memo] warning the country"s leaders about using information from the Silver Star in public speeches because they might be embarra.s.sed if they do?"
McChrystal became angry, complained the agent"s questions were demeaning, and insisted there was nothing duplicitous about his P4 memo. He nevertheless failed to offer a plausible explanation for the glaring contradiction, as the findings of Gimble"s official report to Secretary of the Army Pete Geren made clear: "Lieutenant Colonel Bailey, Colonel Nixon, and Major General McChrystal are accountable for the inaccurate and misleading a.s.sertions contained in the award recommendation package.... We also find Major General McChrystal accountable for not notifying the award processing channels that friendly fire was suspected to ensure that the recommendation was considered based on accurate information." In the concluding paragraph of his report, Gimble urged Secretary Geren "to consider appropriate corrective action."
The charges specified by the inspector general were serious. According to Punitive Article 107 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, "Any person...who, with intent to deceive, signs any false record, return, regulation, order, or other official doc.u.ment, knowing it to be false, or makes any other false official statement knowing it to be false, shall be punished as a court-martial may direct." If found guilty of making a false official statement, Bailey, Nixon, and McChrystal could be dishonorably discharged and imprisoned for up to five years.
Despite the occasionally censorious tone of Gimble"s report, however, in many regards his investigation was as flawed as those that preceded it. He was much too credulous, for example, in accepting testimony from McChrystal, Nixon, Bailey, and other officers that they had acted in good faith. Gimble concluded that Tillman"s chain of command was for the most part guilty merely of "perceptions of concealment" rather than deliberate acts of deception. Furthermore, Gimble freely admitted that it never even occurred to him to investigate the role his boss, Donald Rumsfeld, or the White House may have played in the cover-up. Perhaps the greatest deficiency of Gimble"s investigation, however, was that it lacked any real teeth. As inspector general of the Pentagon, he could merely recommend "corrective action." It was left to the Army to determine what action, if any, to actually take.
On April 24, the House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, chaired by Henry Waxman, summoned Gimble to explain the apparent shortcomings of his two-year inquiry at a hearing t.i.tled "Misleading Information from the Battlefield." Representative John Sarbanes of Maryland said to Gimble, "You talk about how the first investigation [Captain Scott"s 156] was deficient. The second investigation [Kauzlarich"s 156] was deficient. Then there was a third investigation [Jones"s 156] that was deficient. There was a failure to abide by the protocols that would normally be triggered right away in terms of having a legal investigation into friendly fire death ..., that the Regimental Commander [Colonel Nixon] failed to notify the Army Safety Center of a suspected friendly fire death as required by Army regulation." Sarbanes was therefore puzzled by Gimble"s "strange credulity," pointing out that when Army officers repeatedly violated procedures and protocols, "it makes it hard to believe that after a certain point of time this was accidental-that there wasn"t some kind of pressure; maybe not direct, but an atmosphere of indirect pressure being brought to bear." Gimble did not dispute Sarbanes"s observation.
In addition to Gimble, Jessica Lynch, Kevin Tillman, Dannie Tillman, Bryan O"Neal, and Steve White testified at the hearing. Lynch recalled how her family"s home "was under siege by the media, all repeating the story of the little girl from West Virginia who went down fighting. It was not true.... The bottom line is the American people are capable of determining their own ideals for heroes. They don"t need to be told elaborate lies.... The truth of war is not always easy. The truth is always more heroic than the hype."
When it was Kevin Tillman"s turn to testify, he spoke about his older brother at length, and with electrifying conviction: Revealing that Pat"s death was a fratricide would have been yet another political disaster during a month already swollen with political disasters, and a brutal truth that the American public would undoubtedly find unacceptable. So the facts needed to be suppressed. An alternative narrative needed to be constructed....Over a month after Pat"s death, when it became clear that it would no longer be possible to pull off this deception, a few of the facts were parceled out to the public and to the family. General Kensinger was ordered to tell the American public...that Pat died of fratricide, but with a calculated and nefarious twist. He stated, "There was no one specific finding of fault," and that he "probably died of fratricide." But there was was specific fault, and there was nothing probable about the facts that led to Pat"s death.... specific fault, and there was nothing probable about the facts that led to Pat"s death....After the truth of Pat"s death was partially revealed, Pat was no longer of use as a sales a.s.set, and became strictly the Army"s problem. They were now left with the task of briefing our family and answering our questions. With any luck, our family would sink quietly into our grief, and the whole unsavory episode would be swept under the rug. However, they miscalculated our family"s reaction.Through the amazing strength and perseverance of my mother, the most amazing woman on Earth, our family has managed to have multiple investigations conducted. However, while each investigation gathered more information, the mountain of evidence was never used to arrive at an honest or even sensible conclusion....The handling of the situation after the firefight was described as a compilation of "missteps, inaccuracies, and errors in judgment which created the perception of concealment."... Writing a Silver Star award before a single eyewitness account is taken is not a misstep. Falsifying soldier witness statements for a Silver Star is not a misstep. These are intentional falsehoods that meet the legal definition for fraud.Delivering false information at a nationally televised memorial service is not an error in judgment. Discarding an investigation [Scott"s 156] that does not fit a preordained conclusion is not an error in judgment. These are deliberate acts of deceit. This is not the perception of concealment. This is is concealment. concealment.Pat is, of course, not the only soldier where battlefield reality has reached the family and the public in the form of a false narrative....Our family has relentlessly pursued the truth on this matter for three years. We have now concluded that our efforts are being actively thwarted by powers that are more...interested in protecting a narrative than getting at the truth or seeing that justice is served.That is why we ask Congress, as a sovereign representative of the whole people, to exercise its power to investigate the inconsistencies in Pat"s death and the aftermath and all the other soldiers that were betrayed by this system.The one bit of truth that did survive these manipulations is that Pat was, and still is, a great man....But the fact that the Army, and what appears to be others, attempted to hijack his virtue and his legacy is simply horrific. The least this country can do for him in return is to uncover who is responsible for his death, who lied and who covered it up, and who instigated those lies and benefited from them. Then ensure that justice is meted out to the culpable.Pat and these other soldiers volunteered to put their lives on the line for this country. Anything less than the truth is a betrayal of those values that all soldiers who have fought for this nation have sought to uphold.Waxman, the oversight committee chairman, observed,The Tillman family wants to know how all of this could have happened.... One of the things that make the Afghanistan and Iraq wars so different from previous wars is the glaring disparity of sacrifice. For the overwhelming number of Americans, this war has brought no sacrifice and no inconvenience, but for a small number of Americans, the war has demanded incredible and constant sacrifice. Those soldiers and their families pay that price proudly and without complaint. This is what Jessica Lynch and Pat Tillman did, and it is what their families have done, but our government failed them.... The least we owe to courageous men and women who are fighting for our freedom is the truth.
At the end of the hearing, Waxman stated in frustration, "What we have is a very clear, deliberate abuse intentionally done. Why is it so hard to find out who did it?"
On July 31, 2007, Secretary of the Army Pete Geren held a press conference at the Pentagon to answer this and other questions about the alleged cover-up, and to announce that the Army had taken action against six of the officers found accountable by Inspector General Thomas Gimble"s investigation four months earlier. Such action could have included demotions, courts-martial, dishonorable discharges, incarceration, and/or letters of reprimand. But Lieutenant Colonel Bailey and Colonel Nixon received nothing more than mild "memoranda of concern," and Nixon"s memorandum of concern wasn"t even placed in his military record. The Army, moreover, took no action of any kind against McChrystal, despite his central role in the scandal.
The only officer who received anything resembling punishment was Lieutenant General Philip Kensinger Jr., who had retired from the Army eighteen months previously, and was censured for lying under oath to investigators.
The Army"s leniency was stunning. It prompted a reporter to ask Geren, "You"ve described a litany of errors and mistakes going more than three years involving a lot of people, yet all the blame falls on General Kensinger.... He happens to be retired. Is there a coincidence there?"
Secretary Geren a.s.serted "the buck stops with General Kensinger." Brushing aside overwhelming evidence to the contrary, Geren was adamant that n.o.body, including Kensinger, had engaged in a cover-up.
Although he admitted there were "errors and failures of leadership," Geren maintained there was "no intent to deceive" by anyone in the Army: "No one has found evidence of a conspiracy by the Army to fabricate a hero, deceive the public or mislead the Tillman family about the circ.u.mstances of Corporal Tillman"s death." The perception that the Army vigorously misled both the Tillmans and the public for five weeks, Geren a.s.sured the a.s.sembled media, resulted from nothing more than a "misunderstanding of Army regulations and policy about secrecy.
"Almost incredibly, but true," he insisted, it was merely a coincidence that Army personnel falsified doc.u.ments, withheld information, and violated regulations "up and down the chain of command.... There was no cover-up. There was misinformed action on the part of multiple soldiers, and you had a perfect storm of mistakes by many soldiers."
This was a new tack. For three years the Army had been insisting it misled the Tillman family in order to avoid telling them "something that was not true," as Colonel Nixon put it. Perhaps Geren realized that Nixon"s rationale was rather too reminiscent of the infamous explanation given by an Army major in 1968 in response to questions from journalists about why it was necessary to wipe out the Vietnamese village of Ben Tre during the Tet Offensive. "We had to destroy Ben Tre," explained the officer, "in order to save it."
For whatever reason, Geren jettisoned Colonel Nixon"s fatuous rationale, choosing instead to defend the cover-up with a fresh bit of casuistry. Rangers are Special Operations Forces, went Geren"s new reasoning, so Tillman"s platoon was by definition on a covert mission that had to be kept secret. This, despite the fact that it was supposed to be a routine clearing operation that had been piggybacked onto the platoon"s journey back to FOB Salerno: "Hey, let"s just...turn one last stone and then get out" is how Major Hodne described the mission in his testimony during the Jones 156 investigation. As Hodne explained, the only reason the Black Sheep were dispatched to Mana in the first place was to check the village off a list so Alpha Company could proceed to a new area of operations.
In Geren"s telling, however, it was an important Spec Ops mission, which meant that it was supposed to be covert. After Tillman was killed, soldiers in the Seventy-fifth Ranger Regiment were therefore under the impression "they were to keep all information close-hold, including keeping it from the family until the investigations were complete and approved by higher authority."
But this fails to explain why, if the Rangers believed it was crucial for "operational security" to keep details of the mission secret, the Army didn"t keep details about the Silver Star Tillman had been awarded during the mission "close-hold," or why the Navy SEAL Steve White was given an account of the fatal firefight to read at Tillman"s nationally televised memorial service. Such mendacity has damaged the Army"s credibility beyond repair in the eyes of the Tillman family.
On August 9, 2007, nine days after Geren addressed the nation, President Bush held a press conference at the White House to trumpet his signing of an unrelated bill t.i.tled the "American Compet.i.tiveness Initiative." Afterward, while taking questions from the press, the president was asked about Tillman by the CNN correspondent Ed Henry: HENRY: You speak often about taking care of the troops and honoring their sacrifice. But the family of Corporal Pat Tillman believes there was a cover up regarding his death, and some say perhaps he was even murdered, instead of just friendly fire. At a hearing last week on Capitol Hill your former Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, and other officials used some version of "I don"t recall" 82 times. When it was his turn to step up, Pat Tillman gave up a lucrative NFL career, served his country and paid the ultimate sacrifice. Now you have a chance to pledge to the family that your government, your administration will finally get to the bottom of it. Can you make that pledge to the family today, that you"ll finally, after seven investigations, find out what really happened? You speak often about taking care of the troops and honoring their sacrifice. But the family of Corporal Pat Tillman believes there was a cover up regarding his death, and some say perhaps he was even murdered, instead of just friendly fire. At a hearing last week on Capitol Hill your former Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, and other officials used some version of "I don"t recall" 82 times. When it was his turn to step up, Pat Tillman gave up a lucrative NFL career, served his country and paid the ultimate sacrifice. Now you have a chance to pledge to the family that your government, your administration will finally get to the bottom of it. Can you make that pledge to the family today, that you"ll finally, after seven investigations, find out what really happened?BUSH: Well, first of all, I can understand why Pat Tillman"s family, you know, has got significant emotions, because a man they loved and respected was killed while he was serving his country. I always admired the fact that a person who was relatively comfortable in life would be willing to take off one uniform and put on another to defend America. And the best way to honor that commitment of his is to find out the truth. And I"m confident the Defense Department wants to find out the truth, too, and we"ll lay it out for the Tillman family to know. Well, first of all, I can understand why Pat Tillman"s family, you know, has got significant emotions, because a man they loved and respected was killed while he was serving his country. I always admired the fact that a person who was relatively comfortable in life would be willing to take off one uniform and put on another to defend America. And the best way to honor that commitment of his is to find out the truth. And I"m confident the Defense Department wants to find out the truth, too, and we"ll lay it out for the Tillman family to know.HENRY: But, Mr. President, there have been seven investigations and the Pentagon has not gotten to the bottom of it. Can you also tell us when you, personally, found out that it was not enemy fire, that it was friendly fire? But, Mr. President, there have been seven investigations and the Pentagon has not gotten to the bottom of it. Can you also tell us when you, personally, found out that it was not enemy fire, that it was friendly fire?BUSH: I can"t give you the precise moment. But obviously the minute I heard that the facts that people believed were true were not true, that I expect there to be a full investigation and get to the bottom of it. I can"t give you the precise moment. But obviously the minute I heard that the facts that people believed were true were not true, that I expect there to be a full investigation and get to the bottom of it.
The president neglected to mention that three months earlier, as part of the investigation launched by Congress to finally and definitively "get to the bottom of it," Representative Waxman had sent a letter to the White House formally requesting "all doc.u.ments received or generated by any official in the Executive Office of the President, including the Communications Office and Office of Speechwriting...that relate to Corporal Tillman," and sent a similar request to the Department of Defense. The recipients responded by sending Waxman more than thirty thousand pages of material, most of which were nothing more than press clippings about Tillman. E-mails, memos, and other doc.u.ments that might have shed light on the cover-up were conspicuously withheld. As Emmet T. Flood, special counsel to the president, explained, "We have not produced certain doc.u.ments responsive to the Committee"s request because they implicate Executive Branch confidentiality interests." Despite praising Tillman"s patriotism and courage at every opportunity, the White House in fact used every means at its disposal to obstruct the congressional investigation into Tillman"s death and its aftermath.
In a report issued in July 2008, Waxman"s oversight committee noted, "The White House was intensely interested in the first reports of Tillman"s death," sending or receiving some two hundred e-mails concerning Tillman on the day following the tragedy. But after the Army belatedly revealed to the American public that he was the victim of fratricide, "the White House could not produce a single e-mail or doc.u.ment relating to any discussion about Corporal Tillman"s death by friendly fire.... [T]he intense interest that initially characterized the White House"s and Defense Department"s reaction to Corporal Tillman"s death was followed by a stunning lack of curiosity about emerging reports of fratricide and an incomprehensible carelessness and incompetence in handling this sensitive information."
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE.
On April 25, 2004, three days after Tillman"s pa.s.sing, the Black Sheep of Second Platoon a.s.sembled at FOB Salerno to debrief and decompress. The meeting was led by a chaplain, an Army captain named Jeff Struecker, who was famous in the Ranger Regiment and beyond for surviving the disastrous 1993 firefight in Mogadishu, Somalia, described in the best-selling book Black Hawk Down Black Hawk Down, by Mark Bowden. A number of the Rangers were distraught over Tillman"s death, and looked to Struecker for guidance.
"Speaking from his experience in Somalia, Chaplain Struecker said it really helped him to talk about what happened over there, instead of carrying it around inside," says Mel Ward, remembering that meeting. "I"m not religious in any way, but Pat was a personal friend, and to have to package him and handle his body like we did...I didn"t know what the long-term effects of that would be. You see these old guys on the History Channel talking about being in World War Two. A guy will still be bawling over some friend that died sixty years earlier. I don"t want to be that guy. So I talked about what happened, my little piece of it. Others did, too."
Ward didn"t judge any of the other soldiers, even the shooters-not initially. But then he heard that some of them may have gotten together and changed their stories between the first investigation and the second. "I would not ordinarily point fingers at anyone on the ground," he says. "Friendly fire happens. But if someone has lied or changed their story, they can f.u.c.king hang. I don"t care who they are. If you are going to lie and cover up what happened to someone who gave their life, who believed so firmly in the importance of coming over here that he left his wife without a husband-then you deserve to f.u.c.king swing. When I started hearing about the false award recommendations, spinning the facts, changing their stories-I was so p.i.s.sed. The dishonor the Army is doing to Pat"s family by the things that have led to this f.u.c.king media frenzy, it"s unforgivable."
After Pat"s death, Ward decided not to reenlist when his Ranger contract was up. Although being a noncommissioned officer in the Special Operations Forces, he says, "is something I"m naturally good at," the aftermath of the Tillman fratricide left him terminally disillusioned with the Army leadership. "From the moment you first join the Ranger Battalion," Ward explains, it"s ingrained in you that you will always do the right thing. They"re not like, "Please do the right thing." It"s "We will f.u.c.king crush you if you don"t do the right thing." You will adhere to every standard. You will always tell the truth. If you f.u.c.k up once, you"re out on your a.s.s. Then you see something like what they"re doing to Pat-what officers in the Ranger Regiment are doing-and you stop being so naive. The only two times where I personally was in a position to see where the Army had the choice to do the right thing or the wrong thing, both times they chose to do the wrong thing. One of those times was what they did to Pat. It made me realize that the Army does what suits the Army. That"s why I won"t put that uniform back on. I"m done.If I had been killed that day, and it had not suited the Army to disclose to my wife the manner in which I died, n.o.body would ever know what really happened because I"m not famous. I"m not Pat. It wouldn"t have been a news story. For the rest of her life, my wife would think I was killed by whatever bulls.h.i.t story they decided to make up. They"d write up a couple of medals like they did for him, and that would be it.I think my wife would deserve to know the truth about how her husband died. And I think Pat"s wife deserves the same.
The enormity of Dannie Tillman"s loss drove her to embark upon what has proven to be a Sisyphean effort to pry truth and justice from the Army and the U.S. government. Pat"s death provoked a different kind of reaction in Marie Tillman.
"I didn"t feel like I could focus on the investigation and maintain my sanity," Marie explained in September 2006, still trying to cope with Pat"s death two and a half years after his pa.s.sing.I would read through the doc.u.ments, picture Pat being shot, and it haunted me. I couldn"t detach this person that I loved from the horrific details in the doc.u.ments, and I couldn"t function in that state of mind. I had a lot of guilt at first that I wasn"t able to focus on fighting the military, but I also realized that if I went down that path, I"m not sure I could have kept it together. When Pat died, I shut down in a lot of ways-I lived in a pretty dark, quiet place for years and struggled....I have an enormous amount of respect for Dannie and how she has handled everything. Trying to get answers from the military is like banging your head against a wall, and she carried that burden for all of us. I wasn"t able to do it, but I"m grateful for her strength, and what she has done to uncover the truth and hold people accountable. To know Pat and know how he lived his life, and then to see how his death was treated by the military and government is heartbreaking-it goes against everything he stood for.
In May 2004, a week after the memorial service for Pat in San Jose, Marie returned to her rented home overlooking Puget Sound. "I got back to town on a Monday or Tuesday," she remembers.
I wasn"t supposed to return to the office until the following week, but I was just sitting around the house. So I went back to work.Probably for the first couple of months that I was back, I would sit at my desk and look out the window all day. The company I worked for was really understanding. They let me come in and just sit there. I had no idea what I was supposed to do next. The life I"d had was basically gone. So every morning I would get up at quarter to five, get in the car, go up to Seattle, and look out the window. I"d get home at seven at night, sit on the couch for an hour, talk to Kevin, and go to bed. That was it. And I did that for months and months and months and months.Kevin decided he was going to stay in the Army and finish his commitment. In some ways that made things easier for me, and I decided to stay there with him. It gave me some time before I needed to make any decisions about where to go.
Kevin fulfilled his contract with the Army in July 2005. "By that time," says Marie, "I knew I needed to le