NYT : 2 Years After Soldier's Death, Family's Battle Is With Army

2 Years After Soldier's Death, Family's Battle Is With Army

By MONICA DAVEY and ERIC SCHMITT | March 21, 2006

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Patrick K. Tillman stood outside his law office here, staring intently at a yellow house across the street, just over 70 yards away. That, he recalled, is how far away his eldest son, Pat, who gave up a successful N.F.L. career to become an Army Ranger, was standing from his fellow Rangers when they shot him dead in Afghanistan almost two years ago.

"I could hit that house with a rock," Mr. Tillman said. "You can see every last detail on that place, everything, and you're telling me they couldn't see Pat?"

Mr. Tillman, 51, is a grieving father who has refused to give up on his son. While fiercely shunning the public spotlight that has followed Cpl. Pat Tillman's death, Mr. Tillman has spent untold hours considering the Army's measurements, like the 70 yards.

He has drafted long, sometimes raw, letters to military leaders, demanding answers about the shooting. And he has studied — and challenged — Army PowerPoint presentations meant to explain how his son, who had called out his own name and waved his arms, wound up dead anyway, shot three times in the head by his own unit, which said it had mistaken him for the enemy.

"All I asked for is what happened to my son, and it has been lie after lie after lie," said Mr. Tillman, explaining that he believed the matter should remain "between me and the military" but that he had grown too troubled to keep silent.

As the second anniversary of the death of Corporal Tillman, once a popular safety for the Arizona Cardinals, approaches, Mr. Tillman, his former wife, Mary, and other family members remain frustrated by the Army's handling of the killing but for the first time may be close to getting some of the answers they so desperately seek.

After repeated complaints from the Tillmans and members of Congress contacted by them, the Army is immersed in a highly unusual criminal investigation of the killing, and the Defense Department's inspector general, which called for the criminal investigation this month, is looking separately into the Army's conduct in its aftermath.

Senior military officials said Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld had expressed outrage to top aides that the Army was having to conduct yet another inquiry into the shooting, prolonging the family's anguish and underscoring the failure of the Army's investigative processes to bring resolution.

Gary Comerford, a spokesman for the inspector general, said the Army Criminal Investigation Command was "dealing with events leading up to the death, and we're looking at anything after that." Though Mr. Comerford did not say so, that could include the possibility of a cover-up, the Tillmans said they had been told by the inspector general's office.

No one wants answers more than the Tillmans. But by now, they said, they have lost patience and faith that any Army entity, even the Criminal Investigation Command, can be trusted to find the truth.

"I am sitting here on my own, going over and over and over this for two years," Ms. Tillman, 50, said in a telephone interview. "The whole thing is such a debacle. I am beyond tears. It's killing me."

Like her former husband, she has spent days reading the files, researching the episode, calling members of Congress, even trying to contact some of the soldiers involved. She criticized the military, as well as the news media, for failing to get to the bottom of what occurred, leaving her family, in essence, to figure it out themselves.

All of it, her former husband said, has even left him suspicious of the military's central finding in their son's case so far: that the killing was a terrible but unintentional accident.

"There is so much nonstandard conduct, both before and after Pat was killed, that you have to start to wonder," Mr. Tillman said. "How much effort would you put into hiding an accident? Why do you need to hide an accident?"

An examination by The New York Times of more than 2,000 pages of documents from three previous Army administrative reviews reveals shifting testimony, the destruction of obvious evidence in the case and a series of contradictions about the distances, the lighting conditions and other details surrounding the shooting.

Seven Rangers have received administrative disciplines — a pay cut, a loss of rank or a return to the rank-and-file Army — but the criminal inquiry is for the first time examining whether the soldiers broke military law when they failed to identify their targets before firing on Corporal Tillman's position. The earlier reviews found that a chain of circumstances and errors had led to the deaths of Corporal Tillman and an Afghan soldier fighting alongside the Americans.

A senior Pentagon official briefed on the criminal investigation, who was granted anonymity because he was not permitted to speak publicly while the new investigation was under way, said it would delve into highly sensitive areas.

"The balance that investigators now have to wrestle with is how much of a crime-scene approach they can take — nearly two years after the fact — into the fog of war, where soldiers were making decisions in milliseconds," the Pentagon official said.

Mr. Tillman spoke bluntly and angrily one afternoon here as he waded once more through the Army reports, the charts, even the details in his son's autopsy. He knows the smallest of details by heart — where his son was supposed to be standing, which way the sun was setting, what the Ranger ducking beside his son heard him call out last — and ticked them off unemotionally as he flipped through the worn reports.

Mr. Tillman's small office, though, belies his hardened shell. His trash can, pasted with orange and green paper, was a grade school project of Pat Tillman. So was the wooden pencil holder nearby, shakily carved with the letters N.F.L. A blurry photograph in a frame showed Pat Tillman at age 2, marching off toward a lake with his signature confident stride.

"At this point I don't believe that the facts of this case are going to come out without the serious threat of jail time hanging over some folks," Mr. Tillman said.

The Tillman family's first glimmers of distrust began in the month after Corporal Tillman was killed, at the age of 27, on April 22, 2004.

Within hours, military officers came to the family home here, the same house where Corporal Tillman had grown up. No one mentioned, though, that the shooting had been at the hands of his colleagues. Even Corporal Tillman's younger brother Kevin, who served in the same Ranger unit and was in a vehicle far behind the shooting and did not see what had happened, did not learn the truth for more than a month.

Instead, eight days after Corporal Tillman's death, Army officials awarded a Silver Star and issued a news release that seemed to suggest that he had been killed by enemy fire during an ambush.

At the end of May, as the rest of Corporal Tillman's unit was returning to the United States, the Army notified the family of what it believed really happened. In the months that followed, in private briefings for the family, the Army assured the Tillmans that a thorough investigation would be made and that those responsible would be disciplined.

"They said they'd take care of it, and I believed them," Mr. Tillman said.

Corporal Tillman's platoon of the Second Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, began the day that he died dealing with a minor annoyance in the southeastern part of Afghanistan where the soldiers were conducting sweeps, the Army records show: one vehicle would not start.

The platoon split into two parts so that half the team, including Corporal Tillman, could go on to the next town for sweeps while the second half could tow the disabled vehicle to a drop-off spot.

But both groups ended up in the same twisting canyon, along the same road, without radio communication. And after the sounds of an enemy ambush, three Rangers in the second group wound up firing at members of the first group — at an Afghan soldier who was fighting alongside Corporal Tillman, and then at Corporal Tillman.

The Army's administrative reviews that followed, parts of which have been described previously in other newspapers, including The Washington Post and The San Francisco Chronicle, have left the Tillman family with more questions than answers, they say. Some of those involved in the shooting have provided shifting accounts of what happened, the records show.

The decision to split the unit into two convoys, for example, was a crucial, and perhaps fatal, one. Brig. Gen. Gary M. Jones, who led the most recent of the three Army reviews, concluded that the decision was a result of "miscommunication" among several officers.

But at least one Army officer, the records show, changed his sworn statements about which supervisor had actually ordered the split and what conversations had occurred before the order was given.

Even the soldier who conducted the military's first review of Corporal Tillman's death — in the hours and days immediately afterward — expressed concern about the changes in the accounts.

That soldier, whose name, like many others, was redacted from the Army files provided to The Times by Mr. Tillman, said he believed Rangers had changed their versions of what happened and were not receiving the "due just punishment" for what he concluded was "gross negligence."

The stories, he said in a sworn statement as part of General Jones's subsequent review, "have changed to, I think, help some individuals."

"The other difficult thing, though, was watching some of these guys getting off with what I thought was a lesser of a punishment than what they should've received," the soldier who conducted the first inquiry said.

Among a number of conflicts in the descriptions of what happened, some Rangers said that in the dusk they could see nothing more than "shapes" and "muzzle flashes" even as Corporal Tillman tried to tell his colleagues who he was, waving his arms, setting off a smoke grenade signal and calling out. Others said they had seen and aimed for the Afghan fighter, his "dark face" and his AK-47.

After the shooting, the Rangers destroyed evidence that would be considered critical in any criminal case, the records show. They burned Corporal Tillman's uniform and his body armor.

Months later, the Rangers involved said they did not intend to destroy evidence. "It was a hygiene issue," one soldier wrote. "They were starting to stink."

Another soldier involved offered a slightly different take, saying "the uniform and equipment had blood on them and it would stir emotion" that needed to be suppressed until the Rangers finished their work overseas.

"How could they do that?" Mr. Tillman said. "That makes no sense."

The family still wants to know, he said, what became of Corporal Tillman's diary. It was never returned to the family, he said.

Ms. Tillman said her family could not rest until they knew what really happened. All of it, Ms. Tillman said, has left her wondering what other families who have lost service members in Iraq and Afghanistan may really know about the circumstances. In addition to Corporal Tillman, at least 16 service members have died in Afghanistan and Iraq as a result of shootings or bombings by fellow Americans, and none of the deaths, so far, have led to criminal convictions.

"This is how they treat a family of a high-profile individual," she said. "How are they treating others?"

Col. Joseph Curtin, an Army spokesman, said the Tillmans deserved answers.

"We deeply regret their loss," Colonel Curtin said, "and will continue to answer their questions in a truthful and forthright manner."

Monica Davey reported from San Jose for this article, and Eric Schmitt from Washington. David S. Cloud contributed reporting from Washington.

NYT : Army Ordered to Look Again at Battle Death

Army Ordered to Look Again at Battle Death

By MONICA DAVEY and ERIC SCHMITT | March 5, 2006

WASHINGTON, March 4 — In a rare rebuke of military investigators, the Defense Department inspector general has told the Army to open a criminal inquiry into the shooting death of Cpl. Pat Tillman, the former professional football player whose enlistment in the Army drew national attention, Pentagon officials said Saturday.

The new inquiry into the killing of Corporal Tillman, a member of the elite Rangers, will be conducted by the Army Criminal Investigation Command. The Army initially had said he died as a hero in a blaze of enemy fire in Afghanistan in 2004 before attributing his death to an accidental shooting by fellow Rangers.

The inquiry follows three other military investigations — two by his Army Ranger unit and one by its parent organization, the United States Army Special Operations Command — that the inspector general's office has now determined were deficient.

The earlier investigations found a series of crucial errors made by Corporal Tillman's fellow Rangers in the heat of combat, but found no criminal wrongdoing.

The new inquiry would be the first criminal investigation into Corporal Tillman's death, a move that military law experts said was unusual and significant.

"It obviously could lead to one of three things," said Eugene Fidell, who teaches military law at the Washington College of Law at American University. "Was there a negligent homicide? Was there a dereliction of duty? Was there a cover-up?"

Pentagon officials said no new evidence had prompted the inquiry and would not speculate about the outcome or timing. But the officials said that given the confusion on a battlefield, it would be highly unusual to pursue criminal charges against a soldier for the death of a comrade.

Col. Joseph Curtin, an Army spokesman, said that the scope of the new inquiry had yet to be defined but that investigators would look at whether the soldiers violated military law when they failed to identify their targets before opening fire on his position.

Corporal Tillman's parents, who were notified Friday of the investigation, have long complained about the findings and contradictions in thousands of pages of earlier investigations and have said there was evidence of a crime.

Patrick K. Tillman, Corporal Tillman's father, said Saturday that he remained distrustful of the military.

"You're assigning the same folks that have been asked several times to address this issue," Mr. Tillman, of San Jose, Calif., said in a telephone interview. "You're asking them to prosecute something when three times they have said there was nothing to prosecute? Do you really expect them to do it right?"

A Pentagon spokesman, Bryan Whitman, said that the inspector general in ordering another inquiry had not found evidence of a criminal offense, in Corporal Tillman's death or in the other investigations.

Rather, Mr. Whitman said, the inspector general concluded that the Army had failed to conduct a thorough enough investigation, including the possibility of criminal activity, immediately after Corporal Tillman's death on April 22, 2004.

Corporal Tillman's death first drew national notice because of who he was: a successful young N.F.L. safety who had walked away from a $3.6 million contract with the Arizona Cardinals to enlist, then qualified for the elite Rangers, with his brother after the terrorist attacks of 2001.

His death drew perhaps more attention than any other in the Afghanistan conflict, more so after it became clear that he had died not from enemy fire as he led his Ranger team up a hill, but from the fire of his own unit.

Earlier investigations found that for at least three weeks, as the Army allowed Corporal Tillman to be celebrated by the news media and mourned by his family as a war hero killed by the enemy, it actually knew of the more complicated circumstances of his death.

Corporal Tillman, 27, died beside a boulder along a craggy stretch of land in southeastern Afghanistan. His Ranger unit had been split into two parts, the first of a series of circumstances that led to confusion, miscommunication and fatal errors before his death, the Army's earlier investigations have shown.

At one point, one section of the unit reported coming under sudden attack and began returning volleys at what they said they believed was the enemy. After firing hundreds of rounds, the men in the convoy discovered that they had actually been shooting at men in the other half of their unit — a group they said they had believed was miles away, the earlier investigations showed.

An Afghan soldier fighting alongside the Rangers was killed, as was Corporal Tillman, who had tried desperately to alert his colleagues to his identity, the investigations showed. He had waved his arms frantically and called out, "Friendlies!" to alert the other Rangers, according to the statement of a Ranger who was near him.

Those who fired on Corporal Tillman described a hectic, confusing scene to investigators, and said they had made an unavoidable error in the blur of a firefight. They said they could not see him and fired in the direction of muzzle flashes that they believed to be the enemy.

Seven Army members faced administrative disciplinary action — though not criminal prosecution — after the shooting. They were cited by the military for failing to "provide adequate command of subordinate units," for dereliction of duty, and for failing to command and control the fire and movement of subordinates, Army documents show.

Corporal Tillman's family has long raised questions about the details of the investigations. His father has pointed to contradictions in descriptions by witnesses and investigators about the lighting at the time, the distances between those shooting and Corporal Tillman, and the communication between the groups. There have also been questions about the fate of much of the evidence, including his son's body armor and uniform, which were burned.

"We still don't know what happened," Mr. Tillman said.

Last year, the Defense Department inspector general's office opened a review into the case after the Tillman family criticized the earlier findings. Mr. Tillman said he was told on Friday that the inspector general's investigation would also continue.

Mr. Whitman, the Pentagon spokesman, said of the inspector general's decision to order the criminal investigation: "They've called a process foul on the Army for using the wrong investigative tools. That said, there's no reason to believe the outcome will be any different."

Mr. Whitman and Army officials cautioned, however, that it was too soon to tell what the new inquiry would turn up.

"The Army deeply regrets the loss of Corporal Patrick Tillman's life and the lives of all soldiers in this war," an Army spokesman, Paul Boyce, said Saturday. "We again extend our condolences to his family and are working to bring this matter to thorough resolution."

Eric Schmitt reported from Washington for this article, and Monica Davey from Chicago.

SF Chronicle : Criminal investigation into Tillman's death

Criminal investigation into Tillman's death

Matthew B. Stannard, Chronicle Staff Writer | March 5, 2006

The Department of Defense inspector general has asked the Army to open a criminal investigation into the death of Army Cpl. Pat Tillman, the football star turned soldier who was killed in Afghanistan by his fellow Rangers nearly two years ago.

The request, which came out of the inspector general's review of four previous investigations of the April 22, 2004, shooting, will likely lead investigators from the Army Criminal Investigation Command to return to Afghanistan and conduct a monthslong investigation into whether Tillman's death may have been a homicide, the result of criminal negligence or an accident, said an Army official who asked to remain anonymous.

Rep. Mike Honda, D-San Jose, told The Chronicle on Saturday that while he was gratified by the inspector general's recommendation, he was concerned about the Army "investigating itself" and said he may recommend a congressional inquiry into Tillman's death and a possible cover-up by the military.

The criminal probe is the latest twist in a case that has led Tillman's family members to charge the military with covering up the circumstances surrounding the death of the San Jose native and Leland High School graduate, who gave up a high-paying National Football League career with the Arizona Cardinals after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to join the Army along with his brother Kevin.

"The first investigative officer indicated two years ago there should have been a criminal investigation, and the Army took his investigative report and sent it up to the regiment level in what he thought was an attempt to find the truth, but which appears to have been an attempt to cover up the truth," Tillman's mother, Mary, said Saturday.

"The whole family has been trying to say there is something wrong here -- it's been there from the beginning, and we've had to go through this horrible process for almost two years. The Army used him. They knew right away he was killed by fratricide and used him for their own purposes to promote the war, to get sympathy for the war, for five weeks."

Military officials originally said Tillman was killed when his unit came under enemy fire in Afghanistan, a statement repeated a week after his death in a Special Operations Command press release announcing his posthumous Silver Star medal.

"Through the firing, Tillman's voice was heard issuing commands to take the fight to the enemy forces emplaced on the dominating high ground," the release said. "Leading his Rangers without regard for his own safety, Tillman was shot and killed while focusing his efforts on the elimination of the enemy forces and the protection of his team members."

It wasn't until the end of May, weeks after a May 5 memorial service in San Jose, that the U.S. Central Command announced Tillman died "as a probable result of friendly fire while his unit was engaged in combat with enemy forces."

In fact, according to documents obtained by The Chronicle, the first investigator had delivered a report on May 4, 2004, concluding that soldiers involved in the incident had committed "gross negligence" and should be appropriately disciplined.

Other testimony said Tillman's platoon was split after a humvee became disabled -- a decision one platoon leader protested was dangerous -- and the two sides lost contact in a canyon, with Tillman's group in the lead.

Some time later, according to testimony, the second group spotted Tillman's group and opened fire wildly, despite the efforts of their lead vehicle driver -- who recognized the group as friendly -- and Tillman's own efforts to identify himself by shouting and setting off a smoke grenade.

Some of those who testified in the first investigation later changed their stories, according to documents obtained by The Chronicle, and some evidence was mishandled, including Tillman's armor and uniform, which were burned.

The initial investigating officer became a key witness in a subsequent inquiry, in which he testified that he thought some Rangers "could be charged for criminal intent." For reasons that are not clear, the officer's investigation was taken over by a higher-ranking commander. That officer's findings, delivered the next month, called for less severe discipline than the initial investigator thought was warranted.

Tillman's death was the subject of four reviews -- two by the Army's 75th Ranger Regiment, one by U.S. Army Special Forces Command and one by the Army's Safety Center, which focused on preventing a similar case.

Seven soldiers received administrative reprimands, but no high-ranking officers have been disciplined. Tillman's parents, who obtained heavily redacted versions of the investigations from the Army, complained publicly that the documents showed that Pentagon commanders -- including Gen. John Abizaid, head of the U.S. Central Command -- had known soon after Tillman's death that friendly fire had killed him.

The Army apologized in June 2005. But Tillman's family, with the support of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and of Rep. Honda, demanded a further review of the case, and the inspector general agreed in August to conduct the review that led to Friday's request for a criminal investigation.

"The U.S. Army remains committed to thorough death investigations of all soldiers killed on the battlefield overseas," Army spokesman Paul Boyce said Saturday. "They are looked at each one on its merits and in its details. And we continue to keep the families apprised of these. It is our commitment and our obligation to them to do so."

Honda, expressing his concerns over the Army policing itself, said, "Given today's situation and the kind of things that don't become apparent, I'm highly suspicious, and I want to make sure every base is covered," he said. "In this day and age, I have very little trust in the institutions we have investigating themselves, and I want the public to have the utmost confidence in its outcome."

To that end, Honda said he plans to discuss with congressional colleagues the possibility of Congress investigating Tillman's death, as well as whether the circumstances of the death were covered up by people high in the military chain of command.

"We ought to move forward for an independent investigation with full powers of subpoena," Honda said. "My bottom line is to get to the truth and make sure that Mary Tillman and her family have the investigation and the outcome they are seeking, and justice, No. 1, is served and the truth comes out."

The results of the Army's criminal investigation will be available to Tillman's family and Congress and to the media through the Freedom of Information Act, the Army official said. A Tillman family member said the inspector general's investigation will continue separately and is expected to last several more months.

The Humanist : Who Killed Pat Tillman?

Who Killed Pat Tillman?

by Michael I. Niman | January/February 2006

The American mass media are like tired old dogs, dutifully fetching official lies on command and dropping them like bones at the feet of an unsuspecting public. We in turn reward them by buying both the products and the myths they sell us. Eventually, however, the products fail and the myths unravel. When the government's popularity wanes sufficiently, despite the support of a compliant press, even old dogs can come up with new tricks, reviving the lost art of investigative reporting.

Take the Pat Tillman story. Remember him? He was the star National Football League defensive back who, after the 9/11 attacks, walked away from his $3.6 million contract with the Arizona Cardinals to enlist as an elite U.S. Army Ranger and go off to Afghanistan to whip some terrorist ass. No matter what your opinion on the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, or your theory on who was ultimately responsible for the 9/11 attacks, Tillman was clearly acting as a selfless hero in the traditional sense of the word. The media sang only one song at the time-dirtbags in Afghanistan did this to us-and "deterrence" through violent retribution was the only discussable response. Both Tillman and his brother Kevin, like most every American, bought into the program-but they actually volunteered to fight.

After joining up, however, they weren't shipped off to Afghanistan, where they believed terrorists were holed up, but to Iraq to fight in a newly minted war that didn't exist when they signed away control of their lives. Here's where the recruiting poster image deviated from the script. There was a lot more depth to Tillman, who was pursuing a master's degree in history, than one would normally expect of an NFL gladiator. Afghanistan had been an easier sell, but Tillman would never buy the official line on Iraq. At one point, according to a San Francisco Chronicle article published nearly a year and half after his death, he told fellow Rangers fighting in Iraq that the war was, "so fucking illegal." A close friend told the paper, "That's who he was-he totally was against Bush." Tillman's mother clarified, explaining that her son believed the Afghanistan war was justified by the September 11th attacks but "Pat was very critical of the whole Iraq War." Another friend, who served with him, recalled how Tillman admonished fellow Rangers to vote Bush out of office in the forthcoming presidential election.

The Chomsky Factor

Tillman, we now know, was also in contact with one of his favorite authors, America's leading intellectual dissident, Noam Chomsky. According the Chronicle, Tillman had set up a meeting with Chomsky to take place when he returned from Afghanistan, where he eventually wound up after serving his tour in Iraq.

This image of a Chomsky-loving, anti-Bush, anti-Iraq-war hero (at a time when most of the U.S. population supported the administration's foreign policy), flew in the face of the official Bush administration portrait of Tillman, painted by dutiful media whores like Ann Coulter, who once described him in near-racialist terms as "An American original-virtuous, pure and masculine, like only an American can be." (Max Blumenthal, blogging for the online Huffington Post, asked if we could have Coulter's line in the original German).

As both wars droned on, Tillman, the picture perfect poster boy, evolved into something of a wild card. With a Chomsky meeting on the horizon there existed a very real possibility that Tillman, in the weeks leading up to the 2004 presidential election, might go public with his anti-war, anti-Bush views, dealing a critical blow to the very foundation of the Bush administration's propaganda pyramid. That day never came, however. On April 22, 2004, Tillman was killed while on patrol in Afghanistan by three American bullets to the head.

Jessica Lynch Redux

Immediately, evidence surrounding the killing began to disappear. One day after his death someone burned his body armor. Two days later someone burned his uniform. At some point his journal, which he religiously wrote in, went missing. With that journal disappeared Tillman's voice.

Meanwhile the Bush administration's professional liars began spinning one of their tallest tales, with their cohorts in the Pentagon explaining how the hero Tillman was killed by enemy fire. Bush himself chimed in to announce that Tillman was "an inspiration on and off the football field, as with all who made the ultimate sacrifice in the war on terror." The Pentagon, as it did with the Jessica Lynch story, spewed forth so many lies as to bury itself under an obvious pile of bullshit. The Army issued Tillman a postmortem Silver Star for bravery, explaining in the process how, "through the firing Tillman's voice was heard issuing fire commands to take the fight to the enemy on the dominating hill ground." And this is the story the media reported to the world.

Reports of Fratricide

But files obtained by Tillman's mother, from three Army investigations into the killing, document a different set of last words. According to testimony issued by a fellow Ranger, who was at Tillman's side when he was killed, the last words Tillman shouted before being shot were, "Cease fire, friendlies, I am Pat Fucking Tillman, dammit!"

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Ranger commanders received a report the day after his death stating that Tillman died in a suspected act of fratricide, the crime of killing members of your own group. But the more they were confronted with the truth of what happened, the harder Army officials stuck to the official lies. One week after his death they pulled the Silver Star move, successfully milking the hero dying in action myth in a compliant media environment. Two weeks after his death the Army's official casualty report stated that he was killed by enemy forces. Six weeks later, however, with the mythic version of Tillman's killing firmly embedded in the American conscious, and with the Tillman story safely buried in the ashbin of "old news," the Army finally told Tillman's family that the official cause of death was "fratricide."

By all accounts, Tillman was popular and loved by the troops with whom he served-supporting the theory that his death was in fact a tragic accident. One of the Army investigations, however, suggested leveling charges of criminal intent against the killer or killers, prompting Tillman's mother to ask, "I want to know what kind of criminal intent there was." But all she has been able to glean from over 2,000 pages of official reports are contradictions, continuously changing stories, and countless blacked out lines.

Putting It All Together

What we have with the Tillman case is a cover-up and a fabrication. What was covered up was the embarrassing reality surrounding the futility of his death-the wasting of an iconic American hero. What was fabricated was a fairy tale story of a heroic battle, one that would support the Bush administration's global war effort while not undermining its military recruiting. What was deliberately ignored was an incident at his funeral-reported in the May 4, 2004, San Francisco Chronicle and New York Daily News-when Tillman's youngest brother, Rich, took offense at words that Tillman was now "with God"; he stated to the gathering, "Pat isn't with God. He's fucking dead. He wasn't religious." More importantly, what was buried was the complex story of Pat Tillman's opposition to the Iraq war and the Bush agenda. Murdered in this fabrication and cover-up, therefore, was the real Pat Tillman. According to his father, "The administration clearly was using this case for its own political reasons. This cover-up started within minutes of Pat's death, and it started at high levels."

Only now, as a flood of public opinion is forcing the media to report critically about the Bush administration, will we possibly see a real investigation into how Pat Tillman died. And if we are persistent enough we might even see a proper investigation into why Tillman, and thousands of other Americans, and tens of thousands of Iraqis and Afghanis, had to give up their lives.

Michael I. Niman is a professor of journalism at Buffalo State College in New York. This article is adapted from the version appearing in the November 10, 2005, issue of ArtVoice. Dr. Niman's previous articles are archived at www.mediastudy.com.

Copyright © 2002, the American Humanist Association

Common Dreams : The Meeting That Never Was: Pat Tillman and Noam Chomsky

The Meeting That Never Was: Pat Tillman and Noam Chomsky

by Dave Zirin | CommonDreams.org | October 7, 2005

"I don't believe it," seethed Ann Coulter.

Her contempt was directed at a September 25 San Francisco Chronicle story reporting that former NFL star and Army Ranger war hero Pat Tillman, who was killed in Afghanistan last year, believed the US war on Iraq was "f***ing illegal" and counted Noam Chomsky among his favorite authors. It must have been quite a moment for Coulter, who upon Tillman's death described him in her inimitably creepy fashion as "an American original--virtuous, pure and masculine like only an American male can be." She tried to discredit the story as San Francisco agitprop, but this approach ran into a slight problem: The article's source was Pat Tillman's mother, Mary.

Mary and the Tillman family are relentlessly pushing for answers to the questions surrounding Pat's death in Afghanistan. They want to know why it took the Pentagon five weeks to tell them he died in a tragic case of friendly fire. They want to know why they were unwitting props at Pat's funeral, weeping while lies were told by eulogizing politicians. Mary is now hoping that a new Pentagon inquiry will bring closure. "There have been so many discrepancies so far that it's hard to know what to believe," she said to the Chronicle. "There are too many murky details."

The very private Tillmans have revealed a picture of Pat profoundly at odds with the GI Joe image created by Pentagon spinmeisters and their media stenographers. As the Chronicle put it, family and friends are now unveiling "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...to works of leftist Noam Chomsky, a favorite author." Tillman had very unembedded feelings about the Iraq War. His close friend Army Spec. Russell Baer remembered, "I can see it like a movie screen. We were outside of [an Iraqi city] watching as bombs were dropping on the town.... We were talking. And Pat said, 'You know, this war is so f***ing illegal.' And we all said, 'Yeah.' That's who he was. He totally was against Bush." With these revelations, Pat Tillman the PR icon joins WMD and Al Qaeda connections on the heap of lies used to sell the Iraq War.

Tillman's transition from one-dimensional caricature to critically thinking human being is a long time coming. The fact is that in death he was far more useful to the armchair warriors than he had ever been in life. When the Pro Bowler joined the Army Rangers, the Pentagon brass needed a loofah to wipe their drool: He was white, handsome and played in the NFL. For a chicken-hawk Administration led by a President who loves the affectations of machismo but runs from protesting military moms, this testosterone cocktail was impossible to resist. The problem was that Tillman wouldn't play their game. To the Pentagon's chagrin, he turned down numerous offers to be its recruitment poster child.

But when Tillman fell in Afghanistan the wheels once again started to turn. Now the narrative was perfect: "War hero and football star dies fighting terror." The Abu Ghraib scandal was about to hit the press, so the President found it especially useful to praise Tillman as "an inspiration on and off the football field, as with all who made the ultimate sacrifice in the war on terror." His funeral was nationally televised. Bush even went back to the bloody well during the presidential campaign, addressing his team's fans on the Arizona Cardinals' stadium Jumbotron.

We now know, of course, that this was all a brutal charade. Such callous manipulation is fueling the Tillman family's anger. As Mary Tillman said this past May, "They could have told us up front that they were suspicious that [his death] was a fratricide, but they didn't. They wanted to use him for their purposes.... They needed something that looked good, and it was appalling that they would use him like that." A growing number of military families, similarly angered, are criticizing the war in Iraq through organizations like Military Families Speak Out.

As for Chomsky, whom Ann Coulter would undoubtedly label "treasonous," Mary Tillman says a private meeting was planned between him and Pat after Pat's return--a meeting that never took place, of course. Chomsky confirms this scenario. This was the real Pat Tillman: someone who, like the majority of this country, was doubting the rationale for war, distrusting his Commander in Chief and looking for answers. The real Pat Tillman, the one with three dimensions, must stick in the throat of the Bush-Coulter gang, a pit in the cherry atop their bloody sundae.

Dave Zirin is the author of "'What's My Name, Fool?': Sports and Resistance in the United States" published by Haymarket Books. Reach the author at dave@edgeofsports.com.

S.F. Chronicle : FAMILY DEMANDS THE TRUTH

FAMILY DEMANDS THE TRUTH

New inquiry may expose events that led to Pat Tillman's death

Robert Collier | San Francisco Chronicle | September 25, 2005

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?

“There have been so many discrepancies so far that it’s hard to know what to believe,” Mary Tillman said. “There are too many murky details.” The files the family received from the Army in March are heavily censored, with nearly every page containing blacked-out sections; most names have been deleted. (Names for this story were provided by sources close to the investigation.) At least one volume was withheld altogether from the family, and even an Army press release given to the media has deletions. On her copies, Mary Tillman has added competing marks and scrawls — countless color-coded tabs and angry notes such as “Contradiction!” “Wrong!” and “????”

A Chronicle review of more than 2,000 pages of testimony, as well as interviews with Pat Tillman’s family members and soldiers who served with him, found contradictions, inaccuracies and what appears to be the military’s attempt at self-protection.

For example, the documents contain testimony of the first investigating officer alleging that Army officials allowed witnesses to change key details in their sworn statements so his finding that certain soldiers committed “gross negligence” could be softened.

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.

Unlike Cindy Sheehan — who has protested against President Bush because of the death of her son Casey in combat in Baghdad — Mary Tillman, 49, who teaches in a San Jose public junior high school, and her ex-husband, Patrick Tillman, 50, a San Jose lawyer, have avoided association with the anti-war movement. Their main public allies are Sen. John McCain, RAriz., and Rep. Mike Honda, D-San Jose, who have lobbied on their behalf. Yet the case has high stakes because of Pat Tillman’s status as an all-American hero.

A football star at Leland High School in San Jose and at Arizona State University, Tillman was chosen Pac-10 defensive player of the year in 1997 and selected by the Arizona Cardinals in the NFL draft the following spring.

He earned a bachelor’s degree in marketing from Arizona State and graduated summa cum laude in 3 1/2 years with a 3.84 grade point average. Ever the student, Tillman not only memorized the playbook by the time he reported for the Cardinals’ rookie camp but pointed out errors in it. He then worked on a master’s degree in history while playing professional football.

His 224 tackles in a single season (2000) are a team record, and because of team loyalty he rejected a five year, $9 million offer from the St. Louis Rams for a one-year, $512,000 contract to stay with Arizona the next year.

Moved in part by the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Tillman decided to give up his career, saying he wanted to fight al Qaeda and help find Osama bin Laden. He spurned the Cardinals’ offer of a three year, $3.6 million contract extension and joined the Army in June 2002 along with his brother Kevin, who was playing minor-league baseball for the Cleveland Indians organization.

Pat Tillman’s enlistment grabbed the attention of the nation — and the highest levels of the Bush administration. A personal letter from Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, thanking him for serving his country, now resides in a storage box, put away by Pat’s widow, Marie.

Instead of going to Afghanistan, as the brothers expected, their Ranger battalion was sent to participate in the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003. The Tillmans saw combat several times on their way to Baghdad. In early 2004, they finally were assigned to Afghanistan.

Although the Rangers are an elite combat group, the investigative documents reveal that the conduct of the Tillmans’ detachment — A Company, 2nd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment — appeared to be anything but expert as it advanced through a remote canyon in eastern Afghanistan on April 22, 2004, on a mission to search for Taliban and al Qaeda fighters in a village called Manah.

According to the files, when one of the humvees became disabled, thus stalling the mission, commanding officers split Tillman’s platoon in two so one half could move on and the other could arrange transport for the disabled vehicle. Platoon leader Lt. David Uthlaut protested the move as dangerous, but he was overruled. The first group was ordered out in the late afternoon, with Pat Tillman in the forward unit. Kevin’s unit followed 15 to 20 minutes later, hauling the humvee on an Afghan-owned flatbed truck. Both groups temporarily lost radio and visual contact with each other in the deep canyon, and the second group came under attack from suspected Taliban fighters on the surrounding ridges.

Pat Tillman, according to testimony, climbed a hill with another soldier and an Afghan militiaman, intending to attack the enemy. He offered to remove his 28-pound body armor so he could move more quickly, but was ordered not to. Meanwhile, the lead vehicle in the platoon’s second group arrived near Tillman’s position about 65 meters away and mistook the group as enemy. The Afghan stood and fired above the second group at the suspected enemy on the opposite ridge. Although the driver of the second group’s lead vehicle, according to his testimony, recognized Tillman’s group as “friendlies” and tried to signal others in his vehicle not to shoot, they directed fire toward the Afghan and began shooting wildly, without first identifying their target, and also shot at a village on the ridgeline.

The Afghan was killed. According to testimony, Tillman, who along with others on the hill waved his arms and yelled “cease fire,” set off a smoke grenade to identify his group as fellow soldiers. There was a momentary lull in the firing, and he and the soldier next to him, thinking themselves safe, relaxed, stood up and started talking. But the shooting resumed. Tillman was hit in the wrist with shrapnel and in his body armor with numerous bullets.

The soldier next to him testified: “I could hear the pain in his voice as he called out, ‘Cease fire, friendlies, I am Pat f—ing Tillman, dammit.” He said this over and over until he stopped,” having been hit by three bullets in the forehead, killing him.

The soldier continued, “I then looked over at my side to see a river of blood coming down from where he was … I saw his head was gone.” Two other Rangers elsewhere on the mountainside were injured by shrapnel.

Kevin was unaware that his brother had been killed until nearly an hour later when he asked if anyone had seen Pat and a fellow soldier told him.

Tillman’s death came at a sensitive time for the Bush administration — just a week before the Army’s abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib in Iraq became public and sparked a huge scandal. The Pentagon immediately announced that Tillman had died heroically in combat with the enemy, and President Bush hailed him as “an inspiration on and off the football field, as with all who made the ultimate sacrifice in the war on terror.”

His killing was widely reported by the media, including conservative commentators such as Ann Coulter, who called him “an American original — virtuous, pure and masculine like only an American male can be.” His May 3, 2004, memorial in San Jose drew 3,500 people and was nationally televised.

Not until five weeks later, as Tillman’s battalion was returning home, did officials inform the public and the Tillman family that he had been killed by his fellow soldiers.

According to testimony, the first investigation was initiated less than 24 hours after Tillman’s death by an officer in the same Ranger battalion. His report, delivered May 4, 2004, determined that soldiers involved in the incident had committed “gross negligence” and should be appropriately disciplined. The officer became a key witness in the subsequent investigation. For reasons that are not clear, the officer’s investigation was taken over by a higher ranking commander. That officer’s findings, delivered the next month, called for less severe discipline.

The parents, protesting that many questions were left unanswered, found a sympathetic ear in McCain, who Mary Tillman later said was greatly admired by her son. Tillman was well known in Arizona because of his success there as a college and pro football player. McCain began to press the Pentagon on the family’s behalf, and a third probe finally was authorized. Its report was delivered in January.

The military is saying little publicly about the Tillman case. Most Army personnel who were involved in the Tillman incident or the investigations declined to comment publicly when contacted by The Chronicle. The inspector general’s press office also declined to comment, saying only that the new probe is openended.

Over the coming weeks, Pentagon investigators are scheduled to carry out new interviews with many of the soldiers, officers and others involved in the incident. As they carry out their reassessment, potentially controversial points include:

-- Conflicting testimony. 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.

“They had the entire chain of command (inaudible) that were involved, the [deleted], all sticking up for [deleted] … And the reason the [deleted] called me in … because the [deleted] … changed their story in how things occurred and the timing and the distance in an attempt to stick up for their counterpart, implied, insinuated that the report wasn’t as accurate as I submitted it …” the first investigator testified.

In another section of his testimony, he said witnesses changed details regarding “the distance, the time, the location and the positioning” in Tillman’s killing.

Another disputed detail was whether the soldiers were firing while speeding down the canyon or whether they stopped, got out and continued shooting. In testimony in the third investigation, the soldiers said they did not stop. However, the medical examiner’s report said Tillman was killed by three bullets closely spaced in his forehead — a pattern that would have been unlikely if the shooter were moving fast. Spc. Russell Baer, a soldier pinned down by gunfire on the hillside near Tillman, said in an interview with The Chronicle that at least two soldiers had gotten out of the humvee to fire uphill. One other soldier confirmed this account to a Tillman family member.

One soldier dismissed by the Rangers for his actions in the incident submitted a statement in the third investigation that suggests the probe was incomplete: “The investigation does not truly set to rest the events of the evening of 22 April 2004. There is critical information not included or misinterpreted in it that could shed some light on who is really at fault for this,” he wrote.

-- Commanders’ accountability. According to the documents and interviews, Capt. William Saunders, to whom platoon leader Uthlaut had protested splitting his troops, was allowed to change his testimony over a crucial detail — whether he had reported Uthlaut’s dissent to a higher ranking commander. In initial questioning, Saunders said he had done so, but when that apparently was contradicted by that commander’s testimony, Saunders was threatened with perjury charges. He was given immunity and allowed to change his prior testimony.

The regiment’s commander, Lt. Col. Jeffrey Bailey, was promoted to colonel two months after the incident, and Saunders, who a source said received a reprimand, later was given authority to determine the punishment of those below him. He gave administrative reprimands to six soldiers, including Uthlaut, who had been seriously wounded in the face by shrapnel in the incident. Uthlaut — who was first captain of his senior class at West Point, the academy’s highest honor — was dismissed from the Rangers and re-entered the regular Army.

“It seems grossly inappropriate that Saunders would determine punishment for the others when he shares responsibility for the debacle,” Mary Tillman said.

Baer told The Chronicle that commanding officers were to blame for the friendly fire because they split the platoon and ordered it to leave a secure location in favor of a region known as a Taliban stronghold.

“It was dumb to send us out during daylight,” said Baer, who was honorably discharged from the Rangers earlier this year and lives in the East Bay.

“It’s a well-known military doctrine that privates first learn going through basic training — if you are in enemy territory and you are stopped for a prolonged period of time, the best thing to do is to wait until nightfall. Why they thought that moving us out in broad daylight from our position, dragging a busted humvee slowly through a known hotspot after we had been stranded there all day was a good idea will forever elude me. Who made that decision? Bailey? Saunders? That’s what I want to know.”

-- Inaccurate information. While the military code gives clear guidance for informing family members upon a soldier’s death when cases are suspected of being a result of friendly fire, that procedure was not followed in the Tillman case. After Tillman’s death, the Army gave conflicting and incorrect descriptions of the events.

On April 22, the family was told that Tillman was hit with enemy fire getting out of a vehicle and died an hour later at a field hospital.

Although there was ample testimony that Tillman died immediately, an Army report — dated April 22, 2004, from the field hospital in Salerno, Afghanistan, where his body was taken — suggested otherwise. While it stated that he had no blood pressure or pulse “on arrival,” it stated that cardio pulmonary resuscitation had been conducted and that he was transferred to the intensive care unit for further CPR.

On April 23, all top Ranger commanders were told of the suspected fratricide. That same day, an Army press release said he was killed “when his patrol vehicle came under attack.”

On April 29, four days before Tillman’s memorial, Gen. John Abizaid, chief of U.S. Central Command, and other top commanders were told of the fratricide. It is not known if Abizaid reported the news to Washington. Mary Tillman believes that with her son’s high profile, and the fact that Rumsfeld sent him a personal letter, the word quickly reached the defense secretary. “If Pat was on Rumsfeld’s radar, it’s pretty likely that he would have been informed right away after he was killed,” she said. White House, Pentagon and Army spokesmen all said they had no information on when Bush or Rumsfeld were informed.

On April 30, the Army awarded Tillman a Silver Star medal for bravery, saying that “through the firing Tillman’s voice was heard issuing fire commands to take the fight to the enemy on the dominating high ground.”

On May 2, the acting Army Secretary Les Brownlee was told of the fratricide.

On May 7, the Army’s official casualty report stated incorrectly that Tillman was killed by “enemy forces” and “died in a medical treatment facility.”

On May 28, the Army finally admitted to Tillman’s family that he had been killed by friendly fire.

“The administration clearly was using this case for its own political reasons,” said the father, Patrick Tillman. “This cover-up started within minutes of Pat’s death, and it started at high levels. This is not something that (lower-ranking) people in the field do,” he said.

The files show that many of the soldiers questioned in the inquiry said it was common knowledge that the incident involved friendly fire.

A soldier who on April 23 burned Tillman’s bullet riddled body armor — which would have been evidence in a friendly-fire investigation — testified that he did so because there was no doubt it was friendly fire that killed Tillman. Two days later, Tillman’s uniform and vest also were burned because they were soaked in blood and considered a biohazard. Tillman’s uniform also was burned.

The officer who led the first investigation testified that when he was given responsibility for the probe the morning after Tillman’s death, he was informed that the cause was “potential fratricide.’’

After they received the friendly-fire notification May 28, the Tillmans began a public campaign seeking more information. But it was only when the Tillmans began angrily accusing the Pentagon of a coverup, in June 2005, that the Army apologized for the delay, issuing a statement blaming “procedural misjudgments and mistakes.”

-- Legal liability. In testimony on Nov. 14, the officer who conducted the first investigation said that he thought some Rangers could have been charged with “criminal intent,” and that some Rangers committed “gross negligence.” The legal difference between the two terms is roughly similar to the distinction between murder and involuntary manslaughter.

The Tillmans demand that all avenues of inquiry remain open.

“I want to know what kind of criminal intent there was,” Mary Tillman said. “There’s so much in the reports that is (deleted) that it’s hard to tell what we’re not seeing.”

In Congress, pressure is building for a full public disclosure of what happened. “I am committed to continuing my work with the Tillman family to ensure that their concerns are being addressed,” said Rep. Honda. He added that he expects the investigation to do the following: “1) provide all factual evidence about the events of April 22, 2004; 2) identify the command decisions that contributed to Pat Tillman’s death; 3) explain why the Army took so long to reveal fratricide as the cause of Pat Tillman’s death; and 4) offer all necessary recommendations for improved procedures relating to such incidents.”

Patrick Tillman drily called the new Army probe “the latest, greatest investigation.” He added, “In Washington, I don’t think any of them want it investigated. They (politicians and Army officials) just don’t want to see it ended with them, landing on their desk so they get blamed for the cover-up.” The January 2005 investigation concluded that there was no coverup.

Throughout the controversy, the Tillman family has been reluctant to cause a media stir. Mary noted that Pat shunned publicity, refusing all public comment when he enlisted and asking the Army to reject all media requests for interviews while he was in service. Pat’s widow, Marie, and his brother Kevin have not become publicly involved in the case, and they declined to comment for this article.

Yet other Tillman family members are less reluctant to show Tillman’s unique character, which was more complex than the public image of a gung-ho patriotic warrior. He started keeping a journal at 16 and continued the practice on the battlefield, writing in it regularly. (His journal was lost immediately after his death.) Mary Tillman said a friend of Pat’s even arranged a private meeting with Chomsky, the antiwar author, to take place after his return from Afghanistan — a meeting prevented by his death. She said that although he supported the Afghan war, believing it justified by the Sept. 11 attacks, “Pat was very critical of the whole Iraq war.”

Baer, who served with Tillman for more than a year in Iraq and Afghanistan, told one anecdote that took place during the March 2003 invasion as the Rangers moved up through southern Iraq.

“I can see it like a movie screen,” Baer said. “We were outside of (a city in southern Iraq) watching as bombs were dropping on the town. We were at an old air base, me, Kevin and Pat, we weren’t in the fight right then. We were talking. And Pat said, ‘You know, this war is so f— illegal.’ And we all said, ‘Yeah.’ That’s who he was. He totally was against Bush.”

Another soldier in the platoon, who asked not to be identified, said Pat urged him to vote for Bush’s Democratic opponent in the 2004 election, Sen. John Kerry.

Senior Chief Petty Officer Stephen White — a Navy SEAL who served with Pat and Kevin for four months in Iraq and was the only military member to speak at Tillman’s memorial — said Pat “wasn’t very fired up about being in Iraq” and instead wanted to go fight al Qaeda in Afghanistan. He said both Pat and Kevin (who has a degree in philosophy) “were amazingly well-read individuals … very firm in some of their beliefs, their political and religious or not so religious beliefs.”

Baer recalled that Tillman encouraged him in his ambitions as an amateur poet. “I would read him my poems, and we would talk about them,” Baer said. “He helped me grow as an individual.”

Tillman subscribed to the Economist magazine, and a fellow soldier said Tillman created a makeshift base library of classic novels so his platoon mates would have literature to read in their down time. He even brought gourmet coffee to brew for his platoon in the field in Afghanistan.

Baer said Tillman was popular among his fellow soldiers and had no enemies. “The guys who killed Pat were his biggest fans,” he said. “They were really wrecked afterward.” He called Tillman “this amazing positive force who really brought our whole platoon together.

He had this great energy. Everybody loved him.” His former comrades and family recall Tillman as a born leader yet remarkably humble. White, the Navy SEAL, recalls one day when “some 19-year-old Ranger came and ordered him to cut an acre of grass.

And Pat just did it, he cut that grass, he didn’t complain. He could have taken millions of dollars playing football, but instead he was just taking orders like that.”

Mary Tillman says that’s how Pat would have wanted to be remembered, as an individual, not as a stock figure or political prop. But she also believes “Pat was a real hero, not what they used him as.”

For the moment, all that is left are the memories and the thick binders spread across Mary Tillman’s dining room table in San Jose. As she waits for the Pentagon investigators to finish their new probe, she wonders whether they will ask the hard questions. Like other family members, “I just want accountability,” she said. “I want answers.”

‘IT’S HARD TO KNOW WHAT TO BELIEVE’

That’s the lament of Mary Tillman, above, a teacher of special education in a San Jose public school. She has long pressed the Army to reopen its investigation into the friendly-fire killing of her son, Pat Tillman, in a canyon in Afghanistan on April 22, . The persistence of Mary Tillman and her former husband, Patrick Tillman, was rewarded when the Pentagon’s inspector general opened a new inquiry in August, the fourth such probe. Mary Tillman says she hopes questions created by discrepancies in past testimony will finally be answered.

STORY CHANGES OVER TIME

An officer in Pat Tillman's Ranger battalion who directed the first investigation into the soldier's death served as a witness on Nov. 14, 2004, in the third investigation, which was led by Brig. Gen. Gary Jones. The first investigator complained that the officers in charge of the second investigation had allowed Rangers involved in the shooting to change their testimony.

THREAT OF PERJURY CHARGES

An excerpt from a March 3, 2005, memorandum by Brig. Gen. Gary Jones describes how Capt. William Saunders, the commander of Pat Tillman's Ranger company, was threatened with perjury charges. Jones' memo said Saunders made false claims that he had informed his superiors that platoon commander Lt. David Uthlaut had protested orders given to him leading up to the incident. Despite this threat, Saunders was allowed to change his testimony and was granted immunity.

E-mail Robert Collier at rcollier@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page A - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle

LA Times : A Cover-Up as Shameful as Tillman's Death

A Cover-Up as Shameful as Tillman's Death [or here]

Robert Scheer | June 1, 2005

Once again it has taken grieving relatives to point out that the Bush administration will exploit even a heroic death for its own partisan purposes.

As with the widows of Sept. 11 who demanded that our obfuscating leaders investigate what went wrong on that terrible day, or the wounded Army Pfc. Jessica Lynch, who resisted efforts to make her into some kind of Rambo figure, so relatives of late NFL star Pat Tillman are demanding to know why their celebrated war hero son's death in 2004 was exploited for public relations purposes by the U.S. military and the administration.

"They blew up their poster boy," Tillman's father, Patrick, a San Jose lawyer, told the Washington Post last week. He joined his former wife to demand accountability for the latest military cover-up to happen on Commander in Chief Bush's watch. High-ranking Army officials, he said, told "outright lies."

"After it happened, all the people in positions of authority went out of their way to script this," Tillman said. "They purposely interfered with the investigation …. 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."

A devastating series of investigations and Post stories has shown that the Army's command structure was eager to cover up the embarrassing truth: that Pat Tillman, who turned down a $3.6-million contract with the Arizona Cardinals to join the Army Rangers after 9/11, was accidentally killed by his fellow Rangers while on patrol in Afghanistan a year ago.

Last spring, after months of increasingly damaging reports exposing the Abu Ghraib prison scandal and cover-up, the administration found some public relations relief in the sad, patriotic tale of a man who spurned fame and fortune to make "the ultimate sacrifice in the war on terror," in the words of a White House spokesman at the time. A nationally televised memorial service and a Silver Star commendation cemented Tillman's place as the nation's first war hero since the story of Lynch's capture and phony details of her rescue were foisted on the public in 2003.

Now, thanks to the reporting of the Post and the fury of Tillman's parents, we know that the military's top commanders were covering up the truth to protect their image, and that of the Bush administration's costly and deadly "nation-building" exercises in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Although "soldiers on the scene said they were immediately sure Tillman was killed by a barrage of American bullets," according to the Post, and "a new Army report on the death shows that top Army officials, including the theater commander, Gen. John P. Abizaid, were told that Tillman's death was fratricide days before the service," Army officials decided not to inform Tillman's family or the public until weeks after the memorial. And even then, they provided no details and answered no questions, saying only that friendly fire "probably" killed Tillman.

"The fact that he was the ultimate team player and he watched his own men kill him is absolutely heartbreaking and tragic," Tillman's mother, Mary, told the Post. "The fact that they lied about it afterward is disgusting."

The soldiers on the ground said they burned Tillman's bullet-riddled uniform and body armor, the Post reported, because they considered them a biohazard, and because, as one said, "we knew at the time, based on taking the pictures and walking around it, it was a fratricide…. so we weren't thinking about proof or anything."

So, given all this, why has nobody high in the Army chain of command, such as Abizaid, been held accountable for this cover-up?

Did President Bush know about it? If not, why not? After all, this was the most prominent soldier to die since Bush took office four years earlier, a prize recruit for his controversial spate of foreign invasions.

In any case, the White House has refrained from making any public apologies for the cover-up. Indeed, Mary Tillman said she was particularly offended that even after the facts were known, Bush exploited her son's death with a message played before an Arizona Cardinal game last fall before the election.

"Maybe lying's not a big deal anymore," Patrick Tillman said. "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."

For the Tillmans, as with Pfc. Lynch and the 9/11 widows, the path to true patriotism means confronting your government when it lies.

WaPo : Tillman's Parents Are Critical Of Army

Tillman's Parents Are Critical Of Army

By Josh White | Washington Post Staff Writer | May 23, 2005

Former NFL player Pat Tillman's family is lashing out against the Army, saying that the military's investigations into Tillman's friendly-fire death in Afghanistan last year were a sham and that Army efforts to cover up the truth have made it harder for them to deal with their loss.

More than a year after their son was shot several times by his fellow Army Rangers on a craggy hillside near the Pakistani border, Tillman's mother and father said in interviews that they believe the military and the government created a heroic tale about how their son died to foster a patriotic response across the country. They say the Army's "lies" about what happened have made them suspicious, and that they are certain they will never get the full story.

"Pat had high ideals about the country; that's why he did what he did," Mary Tillman said in her first lengthy interview since her son's death. "The military let him down. The administration let him down. It was a sign of disrespect. The fact that he was the ultimate team player and he watched his own men kill him is absolutely heartbreaking and tragic. The fact that they lied about it afterward is disgusting."

Tillman, a popular player for the Arizona Cardinals, gave up stardom in the National Football League after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to join the Army Rangers with his brother. After a tour in Iraq, their unit was sent to Afghanistan in spring 2004, where they were to hunt for the Taliban and Osama bin Laden. Shortly after arriving in the mountains to fight, Tillman was killed in a barrage of gunfire from his own men, mistaken for the enemy as he got into position to defend them.

Immediately, the Army kept the soldiers on the ground quiet and told Tillman's family and the public that he was killed by enemy fire while storming a hill, barking orders to his fellow Rangers. After a public memorial service, at which Tillman received the Silver Star, the Army told Tillman's family what had really happened, that he had been killed by his own men.

In separate interviews in their home town of San Jose and by telephone, Tillman's parents, who are divorced, spoke about their ordeal with the Army with simmering frustration and anger. A series of military investigations have offered differing accounts of Tillman's death. The most recent report revealed more deeply the confusion and disarray surrounding the mission he was on, and more clearly showed that the family had been kept in the dark about details of his death.

The latest investigation, written about by The Washington Post earlier this month, showed that soldiers in Afghanistan knew almost immediately that they had killed Tillman by mistake in what they believed was a firefight with enemies on a tight canyon road. The investigation also revealed that soldiers later burned Tillman's uniform and body armor.

That information was slow to make it back to the United States, the report said, and Army officials here were unaware that his death on April 22, 2004, was fratricide when they notified the family that Tillman had been shot.

Over the next 10 days, however, top-ranking Army officials -- including the theater commander, Army Gen. John P. Abizaid -- were told of the reports that Tillman had been killed by his own men, the investigation said. But the Army waited until a formal investigation was finished before telling the family -- which was weeks after a nationally televised memorial service that honored Tillman on May 3, 2004.

Patrick Tillman Sr., a San Jose lawyer, said he is furious about what he found in the volumes of witness statements and investigative documents the Army has given to the family. He decried what he calls a "botched homicide investigation" and blames high-ranking Army officers for presenting "outright lies" to the family and to the public.

"After it happened, all the people in positions of authority went out of their way to script this," Patrick Tillman said. "They purposely interfered with the investigation, they covered it up. 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."

Army spokesmen maintain that the Army has done everything it can to keep the family informed about the investigation, offering to answer relatives' questions and going back to them as investigators gathered more information.

Army officials said Friday that the Army "reaffirms its heartfelt sorrow to the Tillman family and all families who have lost loved ones during this war." Brig. Gen. Vincent K. Brooks, an Army spokesman, said the Army acts with compassion and heartfelt commitment when informing grieving families, often a painful duty.

"In the case of the death of Corporal Patrick Tillman, the Army made mistakes in reporting the circumstances of his death to the family," Brooks said. "For these, we apologize. We cannot undo those early mistakes."

Brooks said the Army has "actively and directly" informed the Tillman family regarding investigations into his death and has dedicated a team of soldiers and civilians to answering the family's questions through phone calls and personal meetings while ensuring the family "was as well informed as they could be."

Mary Tillman keeps her son's wedding album in the living room of the house where he grew up, and his Arizona State University football jersey, still dirty from the 1997 Rose Bowl game, hangs in a nearby closet. With each new version of events, her mind swirls with new theories about what really happened and why. She questions how an elite Army unit could gun down its most recognizable member at such close range. She dwells on distances and boulders and piles of documents and the words of frenzied men.

"It makes you feel like you're losing your mind in a way," she said. "You imagine things. When you don't know the truth, certain details can be blown out of proportion. The truth may be painful, but it's the truth. You start to contrive all these scenarios that could have taken place because they just kept lying. If you feel you're being lied to, you can never put it to rest."

Patrick Tillman Sr. believes he will never get the truth, and he says he is resigned to that now. But he wants everyone in the chain of command, from Tillman's direct supervisors to the one-star general who conducted the latest investigation, to face discipline for "dishonorable acts." He also said the soldiers who killed his son have not been adequately punished.

"Maybe lying's not a big deal anymore," he said. "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."

That their son was famous opened up the situation to problems, the Tillmans say, in part because of the devastating public relations loss his death represented for the military. Mary Tillman says the government used her son for weeks after his death, perpetuating an untrue story to capitalize on his altruism -- just as the Abu Ghraib prison scandal was erupting publicly. She said she was particularly offended when President Bush offered a taped memorial message to Tillman at a Cardinals football game shortly before the presidential election last fall. She again felt as though her son was being used, something he never would have wanted.

"Every day is sort of emotional," Mary Tillman said. "It just keeps slapping me in the face. To find that he was killed in this debacle -- everything that could have gone wrong did -- it's so much harder to take. We should not have been subjected to all of this. This lie was to cover their image. I think there's a lot more yet that we don't even know, or they wouldn't still be covering their tails.

"If this is what happens when someone high profile dies, I can only imagine what happens with everyone else."

WaPo : Tillman Killed by 'Friendly Fire'

Tillman Killed by 'Friendly Fire'

Probe Cites Error By Platoon Mates

By Josh White | Washington Post Staff Writer | May 30, 2004 | Page A01

Pat Tillman, the former pro football player, was killed by other American troops in a "friendly fire" episode in Afghanistan last month and not by enemy bullets, according to a U.S. investigation of the incident.

New details released yesterday about Tillman's death indicate that he was gunned down by members of his elite Army Ranger platoon who mistakenly shot in his direction when the unit was ambushed. According to a summary of the Army investigation, a Ranger squad leader mistook an allied Afghan Militia Force soldier standing near Tillman as the enemy, and he and other U.S. soldiers opened fire, killing both men.

That Tillman, 27, wasn't killed by enemy fire in a heroic rescue attempt was a major revelation by the U.S. military more than a month after the April 22 incident, which the Pentagon and members of Congress had hailed as an example of combat bravery. Tillman's sacrifice of millions of dollars when he left the National Football League's Arizona Cardinals to become a soldier has been held up as a stark contrast to the prison scandal in Iraq.

Shortly after his death, Army officials awarded Tillman a Silver Star for combat valor and a Purple Heart. He also was promoted from specialist to corporal. They said Tillman was killed while charging at the enemy up a hill, allowing the rest of his platoon to escape alive.

Instead, it appears Tillman's bravery in battle led him to become a victim of a series of errors as he was trying to protect part of his stranded platoon, which Army officials say was attacked while hampered by a disabled vehicle it had in tow. The report said Tillman got out of his vehicle and shot at the enemy during a 20-minute firefight before he was killed when members of his unit opened fire after returning to the scene to help.

A woman who answered the door at the home of Tillman's parents in San Jose said the family did not have anything to say publicly.

News of Tillman's death by friendly fire was first reported yesterday in the Arizona Republic and the Argus of Fremont, Calif., and new details emerged yesterday.

Military officials could not explain the discrepancy between earlier reports and the releases yesterday, saying that a month-long investigation into the attack helped clarify the events. The investigation reports that Tillman was killed after he got out of his vehicle and fought about a dozen insurgents in restricted terrain and in poor light conditions.

"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," said Lt. Gen. Philip R. Kensinger Jr., who is in charge of the U.S. Army's Special Operations Command, based in Fort Bragg, N.C. "The results of this investigation in no way diminish the bravery and sacrifice displayed by Corporal Tillman. Corporal Tillman was shot and killed while responding to enemy fire without regard for his own safety."

The report summary, however, leaves no doubt that Tillman was killed by friendly fire, saying that the Afghan fighter was "misidentified" by a Ranger squad leader, who then attacked. The report said other soldiers, who generally look to squad leaders for guidance, followed suit.

"Other members of the platoon, observing the direction of fire by the squad leader, oriented their fire in the same direction," the summary says. "This fire fatally wounded one Ranger and the AMF soldier."

Two other U.S. soldiers were injured by friendly fire in the same melee, though Army officials said yesterday that they could not provide details. The full investigative report has yet to be released.

According to summary, the incident was the result of a series of problems and failures as the Ranger platoon moved from one assignment to another through the mountainous terrain along the Pakistan border, about 90 miles south of Kabul, near the village of Spera.

First, a vehicle with Tillman's unit broke down and the platoon mechanic could not fix it. Then, without air resources to lift the vehicle out of the area, the soldiers decided to tow the vehicle as they moved to their next assignment. On April 22, the soldiers split the platoon, sending a working vehicle ahead while Tillman's unit towed the disabled one, slowing it down, according to a spokesman for the U.S. Central Command in Florida.

"Approximately 30 minutes after the platoon split off in their separate directions, the section with the non-mission capable vehicle was ambushed by anti-coalition forces," the summary said. "Hearing the engagement, the other section of the platoon maneuvered to the location of the ambush and engaged in the fight."

It was then that the Afghan soldier was mistaken for the enemy and was killed when the other half of the platoon returned. Tillman, who was by his side, also was shot, the report said.

Tillman and his fellow Rangers were attacked in a region where U.S. forces have been searching out Taliban and al Qaeda leaders who are believed to be hiding there. Operation Mountain Storm has been scouring the area for months -- looking for such leaders as Osama bin Laden -- and has frequently been involved in skirmishes.

Kensinger, in his statement yesterday morning at Fort Bragg, said Tillman's unit was ambushed with small-arms and mortar fire at about 7:30 p.m. local time in the vicinity of a military base in Khost, Afghanistan. He described the ensuing firefight as "intense" and involving about a dozen enemy fighters shooting from multiple locations.

"There is an inherent degree of confusion in any firefight, particularly when a unit is ambushed, and especially under difficult light and terrain conditions which produce an environment that increases the likelihood of fratricide," Kensinger said.

Marine Capt. Bruce Frame, a Central Command spokesman, said there has been one other friendly-fire investigation during Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, arising from a combat death in March 2002. According to the Defense Department, 51 U.S. soldiers have been killed in action in and around Afghanistan, and 122 U.S. soldiers have died in the operation.

The friendly-fire incident appears to be a classic example of what can happen in a chaotic combat situation, with soldiers getting out of vehicles in bad light while trying to engage an unknown enemy on unfamiliar terrain. It also highlights the potential for problems that can come with assembling multinational forces -- in this case, an Afghan coalition fighter mistaken as the enemy touched off the volley of friendly fire.

"Blue on blue" fire has become less of a problem for U.S. forces in the modern era, as they increasingly rely on better technology for airstrikes and have fewer soldiers out in the field doing operational missions. Still, such attacks occur, especially at night.

"It can be very confusing, particularly in an environment like that," said Allan R. Millett, a professor of military history at Ohio State University and a retired colonel with the Marine Corps Reserve.

"Everybody is piling out of vehicles, and they pile out shooting. That's always a dangerous situation. Doctrine is to put out a lot of fire and keep moving. If people respond properly, there are a hell of a lot of bullets flying around. It sounds like Tillman was just unlucky."

Millett said modern-day friendly-fire incidents are statistically low, especially compared with previous wars. U.S. forces in World War II had about 40,000 friendly-fire deaths, or about 10 percent of total losses.

A member of Company A of the 2nd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, Tillman was one of an elite force of Army light-infantry soldiers often used for difficult assault missions around the globe. He and brother Kevin joined the Army in 2002 after he expressed deep patriotism in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Kevin Tillman also was an Army Ranger and was part of the same battalion.

Pat Tillman, a safety with the Cardinals, walked away from a $3.6 million contract and made less than $20,000 in the Army. He shunned media attention, telling his family and the military he wanted to be treated like other soldiers.

More than 600 NFL players served in the military during World War II and 19 were killed. One U.S. pro athlete -- James Robert Kalsu, an offensive lineman for the Buffalo Bills -- was killed in combat in Vietnam.

About 3,000 people, including politicians, soldiers, professional athletes and relatives, honored Tillman at a 2 1/2-hour memorial service in San Jose on May 2. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) spoke that day of Tillman's resolve.

"Pat's best service to us all was to remind us what courage really looks like," McCain said.

Last week, the owners of the 32 NFL teams began discussing how the league would pay tribute to Tillman. NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue mentioned the possibility of a decal being placed on each player's helmet, but said no decisions had been made.

Gene Upshaw, executive director of the NFL Players Association, said in a midweek meeting with Washington Post editors and reporters that Tagliabue would honor the family's wishes.

"I know how Tagliabue feels about this," Upshaw said. "He wants to make sure that it's done with the best interests of the family and what the family wants."

Staff writers Thomas E. Ricks, Mark Maske and Steve Fainaru contributed to this report.

© 2004 The Washington Post Company

NYT : Service for Ex-N.F.L. Player Killed in Combat

Service for Ex-N.F.L. Player Killed in Combat

By NICK MADIGAN | May 4, 2004

SAN JOSE, Calif., May 3 — Led by the wails of bagpipes, hundreds of friends, relatives and admirers of Pat Tillman, the football player turned war hero, gathered on Monday in a sun-drenched park in his hometown to hail his life and mourn his death last month in a firefight in Afghanistan.

In a long afternoon of remembrances, there seemed barely enough time to say it all.

As they streamed into the San Jose Municipal Garden, the mourners signed messages of condolence on long white sheets of paper: "God bless a true American." "My fellow soldier, you have joined the ranks of history." "You make all athletes remember that there is more to life than just sports."

Corporal Tillman, who died on April 22 while serving in the Army Rangers, had startled some of his friends here by giving up a lucrative career with the Arizona Cardinals in 2002 and signing up for military service. His first tour of duty overseas took him to Iraq, the second to Afghanistan.

"He had everything going for him," said Charles Ward, a former Marine sergeant who served two tours in Vietnam and came by to pay his respects. "That's what a lot of people strive for, the big bucks, but he said: `I don't need it. I'm going to do what I need to do.' It takes a certain kind of person to just drop everything like that."

Placed in a semicircle under a stand of towering redwoods, enlarged photographs showed moments of Corporal Tillman's life — as a red-shirted football player, in Army fatigues, on his wedding day — and he was smiling in every one. Speaker after speaker recalled his sense of humor, which sometimes involved donning pink slippers, a Christmas sweater and a kimono and acting as though it were the most normal thing in the world.

Corporal Tillman's parents, Pat Sr., as he is known, and Danni, his brothers, Kevin and Richard, and his widow, Marie, his high-school sweetheart, sat in the front row. Behind them, the crowd swelled to 2,000 or more.

Jim Rome, a syndicated radio host who had followed Corporal Tillman's career since the young man's early days as a player at Arizona State University, told the audience that he could not wait to sit down with his 3-year-old son, Jake, when he is older "and tell him about Pat."

"Pat is the man I want to be," Mr. Rome said. "Pat is the man we all want to be."

Maria Shriver, the wife of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, read a letter from the governor, who said he wished he could have attended the ceremony but was in Germany visiting an American military hospital.

"Pat was one of California's golden sons," Ms. Shriver read. "I've been told Pat admired me. Well, let me tell you, it's the other way around."

Ms. Shriver invoked her uncle, President John F. Kennedy, and his inaugural speech 43 years ago, in which he advised Americans, "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country." She said Corporal Tillman and his brother Kevin, who is also in the Rangers, "have lived those words."

Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, said that he had not known Mr. Tillman and that he was "poorer for it."

"He loved his country and the values that make us exceptional, and good," said Mr. McCain, who served in Vietnam.

At Arizona State, where Mr. Tillman joined the football team in 1994, he was known as Braveheart, a 200-pound, 5-foot 11-inch linebacker who gained renown as a determined underdog. He received a degree in marketing, graduating summa cum laude in three and a half years.

In 1998, he joined the Cardinals. Approached by the St. Louis Rams in 2001 with a five-year, $9 million offer, Mr. Tillman turned it down, out of what by all accounts was a sense of loyalty to the Cardinals.

Nine months after the Sept. 11 attacks, however, Mr. Tillman walked into the office of his coach, Dave McGinnis, and told him he had decided to join his brother Kevin in the Army. A higher duty called, he told Mr. McGinnis, according to accounts published at the time. By donning a military uniform, Mr. Tillman walked away from a three-year, $3.6 million contract with the Cardinals.

After Corporal Tillman's death, an Army spokesman announced that he would be given the Silver Star, the third-highest award for valor.

The Army also released details of the firefight that took his life. The Army said that he and his platoon were not initially in danger, but that he had ordered his men out of their vehicles to confront small-arms and mortar fire that had pinned down the rear of their convoy.

Corporal Tillman, 27, led his team members up a hill and directed them into firing positions. "Tillman's voice was heard issuing commands to take the fight to the enemy forces," the Army said.

Near the crest of the hill, he was shot while firing his automatic rifle. His actions, the Army statement said, helped the trapped soldiers emerge from their positions "without taking a single casualty." Mr. Tillman protected his team "without regard to his own safety," the Army said. Two American soldiers were wounded and an Afghan soldier was killed.

The firefight occurred near Sperah, a village 26 miles southwest of Khost, during a spring offensive intended to eliminate remnants of the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

MSNBC : Ex-NFL star Tillman makes ‘ultimate sacrifice’

Ex-NFL star Tillman makes ‘ultimate sacrifice’

Safety, who gave up big salary to join Army, killed in Afghanistan

NBC, msnbc.com and news services | April 26, 2004

WASHINGTON — Pat Tillman, who gave up the glamorous life of a professional football star to join the Army Rangers, was remembered as a role model of courage and patriotism Friday after military officials said he had been killed in action in Afghanistan.

“Pat Tillman was an inspiration on and off the football field, as with all who have made the ultimate sacrifice in the war on terror. His family is in the thoughts and prayers of President and Mrs. Bush,” Taylor Gross, a spokesman for the White House, said in a statement.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the author of a recent book about courage, said he was “heartbroken” and raised the prospect that “the tragic loss of this extraordinary young man” could be a “heavy blow to our nation’s morale, as it is surely a grievous injury to his loved ones.”

Tillman, 27, was a member of the 2nd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, based at Fort Lewis, Wash. The battalion was involved in Operation Mountain Storm in southeastern Afghanistan, part of the U.S. campaign against fighters of the al-Qaida terror network and the former Taliban government along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, military officials told NBC News.

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.

After coming under fire, Tillman’s patrol got out of their vehicles and gave chase, moving toward the spot of the ambush. Beevers said the fighting was “sustained” and lasted 15-20 minutes.

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.

An Afghan militiaman fighting alongside Tillman also was killed, and two other U.S. soldiers were wounded.

A local Afghan commander, Gen. Khial Bas, told The Associated Press that nine enemy fighters were killed in the confrontation.

Bas said six other enemy fighters were believed to have escaped. Beevers said he had no information about any enemy fighters killed.

Overall, 110 U.S. soldiers have died, 39 of them in combat, during Operation Enduring Freedom, which began in Afghanistan in late 2001.

Spokesmen at the Defense Department and the Army would not comment Friday, in keeping with a policy that no U.S. casualties of war be identified for at least 24 hours. But Tillman’s death was confirmed by the House Armed Services Committee, whose members were notified by the Defense Department, The Arizona Republic reported on its Web site.

‘Pat knew his purpose in life’

Tillman turned down a three-year, $3.6 million contract with the Arizona Cardinals of the National Football League to enlist in the Army in May 2002 in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, which killed about 3,000 people in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.

“My great grandfather was at Pearl Harbor, and a lot of my family has ... gone and fought in wars, and I really haven’t done a damn thing as far as laying myself on the line like that,” Tillman told NBC News in an interview the day after the attacks.

Tillman had played four seasons with the Cardinals, winning league-wide respect as a smart and hard-hitting, if somewhat small and slow, defensive safety before he enlisted with his younger brother Kevin.

Pat and Kevin Tillman — who also is a highly regarded athlete, having once been a minor league baseball prospect in the Cleveland Indians’ organization — denied requests for media coverage of their basic training and ultimate deployments. Army officials said at the time that they wanted no special treatment or attention but wanted to be considered soldiers doing their duty.

The brothers both successfully completed training for the Rangers, the Army’s elite infantry regiment. Pat Tillman was first deployed to Iraq in March 2003; it was not immediately clear when he was sent to Afghanistan, where he served in the same unit with his brother.

“Pat knew his purpose in life,” said Dave McGinnis, Tillman’s former coach with the Cardinals. “He proudly walked away from a career in football to a greater calling.”

McGinnis said he felt both overwhelming sorrow and tremendous pride in Tillman, who he said “represented all that was good in sports.”

Tillman’s agent, Frank Bauer, once called him a deep and clear thinker who never valued material things. In 2001, his client turned down a $9 million, five-year offer sheet from the Super Bowl champions, the St. Louis Rams, out of loyalty to the Cardinals, and by joining the Army, he passed on millions of dollars more from the team.

“He is a hero,” said Michael Bidwill, vice president of the Cardinals. “He was a brave man. There are very few people who have the courage to do what he did, the courage to walk away from a professional sports career and make the ultimate sacrifice.”

The Republic reported that prominent Arizonans were calling on the Cardinals to name the team’s new stadium, which is under construction in Glendale, near Phoenix, in Tillman’s honor.

Intelligence, toughness

Tillman, who at 5 feet 11 inches tall and 200 pounds was considered undersized for his position, nevertheless distinguished himself by his intelligence and appetite for rugged play.

As a linebacker at Arizona State University, he was the Pacific 10 Conference’s defensive player of the year in 1997. He graduated summa cum laude in 3½ academic years, earning a degree in marketing. Flags were being flown at half-staff at the college Friday.

Tillman set a Cardinals record with 224 tackles in 2000 and warmed up for last year’s training camp by competing in a 70.2-mile triathlon in June.

“You don’t find guys that have that combination of being as bright and as tough as him,” Phil Snow, who coached Tillman as Arizona State’s defensive coordinator, said in 2002. “This guy could go live in a foxhole for a year by himself with no food.”

The Tillman brothers last year shared the Arthur Ashe Courage award at the 11th annual ESPY Awards, a television program that aired on the ESPN cable sports network.

Denver quarterback Jake Plummer was a teammate of Tillman for seven years, three at Arizona State and four with the Cardinals.

“We lost a unique individual that touched the lives of many with his love for life, his toughness, his intellect,” Plummer said in a statement released by the Broncos. “Pat Tillman lived life to the fullest and will be remembered forever in my heart and mind.”

The Cardinals said they will retire Tillman’s No. 40 and name the plaza surrounding the new stadium under construction in suburban Glendale the “Pat Tillman Freedom Plaza.”

Arizona State will retire Tillman’s No. 42 jersey during a Nov. 13 game and place his name on the honor ring at Sun Devil Stadium. The university and the Cardinals also are collaborating on a scholarship fund in Tillman’s name.

NBC’s George Lewis in Phoenix and Jim Miklaszewski in Washington, MSNBC.com’s Alex Johnson, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.