Pat Tillman

{{NFL.com player}} template missing ID and not present in Wikidata. Patrick Daniel Tillman, Jr. (November 6 1976 – April 22 2004) was an American football player who left his professional sports career and enlisted in the United States Army in May 2002 ([1]). He served in Iraq and later in Afghanistan, where he was killed. Reports in the media of his death and the background of his sacrifice symbolized a heroic image in the minds of many Americans.

Subsequently, Tillman's death became a national controversy after the Pentagon disclosed to the Tillman family over a month after his death, on May 28 2004, that he died as a result of a friendly fire incident. The family and other critics allege that the Pentagon delayed the disclosure for weeks after Tillman's memorial service out of a desire to protect the image of the U.S. armed forces ([2], [3]).

Biography

Born in San Jose, California, Tillman started his college career at the linebacker position for Arizona State University in 1994, when he secured the last remaining scholarship for the team. Tillman excelled as a linebacker at Arizona State, despite being relatively small for the position at five-feet eleven-inches (1.80 m) tall. As a senior, he was voted the Pac-10 Defensive Player of the Year. Academically, Tillman majored in marketing and graduated in three and a half years with a 3.84 GPA.

In the 1998 NFL Draft, Tillman was selected as the 226th pick by the Arizona Cardinals. Tillman moved over to play the safety position in the NFL and started ten of sixteen games in his rookie season.

In May 2002, eight months after the September 11, 2001 attacks and after completing the fifteen remaining games of the 2001 season which followed the attacks (at a salary of $512,000 per year) ([4]). Tillman turned down a contract offer of $3.6 million over three years from the Cardinals to enlist in the U.S. Army ([5]).

He enlisted, along with his brother Kevin, who gave up the chance of a career in professional baseball. The two brothers completed training for the elite Army Ranger school in late 2002 and were assigned to the second battalion of the 75th Ranger Regiment in Fort Lewis, Washington. Both Pat and Kevin were deployed to the Middle East as part of the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Tillman was subsequently redeployed to Afghanistan, where, on April 22 2004, he was killed in action by friendly fire while on patrol. His unit, according to the Army, was attacked in an apparent ambush on a road outside of the village of Sperah about twenty-five miles (forty km) southwest of Khost, near the Pakistan border. An Afghan militia soldier was killed, and two other Rangers were injured as well. The U.S. Department of Defense concluded that Pat Tillman's death was due to friendly fire aggravated by the intensity of the firefight. It was later learned that, in fact, no hostile forces were involved in the firefight and that two allied groups fired on each other in confusion over an exploded mine or remote controlled bomb. U.S. Army Special Operations Command, however, initially claimed that there was an exchange with hostile forces. A later investigation conducted by Brigadier General Jones found that the Army was slow to correct the story of a hostile exchange of fire after learning that it was false.

Tillman was the first professional football player to be killed in combat since the death of Bob Kalsu of the Buffalo Bills, who died in the Vietnam War in 1970. Tillman was posthumously promoted from Specialist to Corporal. He also received posthumous Silver Star and Purple Heart medals. He is survived by his wife Marie.

Controversy regarding circumstances of death

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Pat Tillman

A report described in the Washington Post on May 4 2005 (prepared upon the request of Tillman's family) by Brig. Gen. Gary M. Jones revealed that in the days immediately following Tillman's death, U.S. Army investigators were aware that Tillman was killed by friendly fire, shot three times to the head ([6]). Jones reported that senior Army commanders, including Gen. John Abizaid, knew of this fact within days of the shooting but nevertheless approved the awarding of the Silver Star, Purple Heart, and a posthumous promotion. The citation report accompanying these awards said that Tillman was killed by enemy forces and contained a detailed account of the alleged battle which Army leadership knew had never taken place.

Jones reported that members of Tillman's unit burned his body armor and uniform in an apparent attempt to hide the fact that he was killed by friendly fire. Several soldiers were subsequently punished for their actions by being removed from their Ranger unit ([7]). Jones believed that Tillman should retain his medals and promotion, since he intended to engage the enemy and, in Jones's opinion, behaved heroically ([8]).

Tillman's family was not informed of the finding that he was killed by friendly fire until weeks after his memorial service, although at least some senior Army officers knew of that fact prior to the service ([9]). Tillman's parents have sharply criticized the Army's handling of the incident; they charge that the Army was more concerned about protecting its image and its recruiting efforts than about telling the truth ([10]).

His mother Mary Tillman told the Washington Post, "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's father, Patrick Tillman, Sr., was incensed by the coverup of the cause of his son's death, which he attributed to a conscious decision by the leadership of the U.S. Army to protect the Army's image:

After it happened, all the people in positions of authority went out of their way to script this. 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 ([11]).

He also blamed high-ranking Army officers for presenting "outright lies" to the family and to the public ([12]).

Later, Tillman's father suggested in a letter to the Washington Post that the Army hierarchy's purported mistakes were part of a pattern of conscious misconduct:

With respect to the Army's reference to 'mistakes in reporting the circumstances of [my son's] death': those 'mistakes' were deliberate, calculated, ordered (repeatedly), and disgraceful -- conduct well beneath the standard to which every soldier in the field is held ([13],[14]). These complaints and allegations led the Pentagon's Inspector General to open a further inquiry into Tillman's death in August 2005 ([15]).

On March 4, 2006, the U.S. Defense Department Inspector General directed the Army to open a criminal investigation of Tillman's death. The Army's Criminal Investigative Division will determine if Tillman's death was the result of negligent homicide ([16]).

Anti-war stance

The September 25 2005 edition of the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper reported that Tillman held views which were critical of the Iraq war and did not support President Bush's re-election. According to Tillman's mother, a friend of Tillman had arranged a meeting with Noam Chomsky, to take place after his return from Afghanistan. Chomsky confirmed this ([17]). The article also reported that Tillman urged a soldier in his platoon to vote for John Kerry in the 2004 U.S. Presidential election (see [18]). On October 23rd 2006 his brother Kevin a former solider in Afghanistan critzied George W. Bush saying that what was happening in Iraq was an illegal war.

Religious beliefs

Tillman is known to have been a well-read individual who had read a number of religious texts, including the Bible, Koran, and Book of Mormon. He was also particularly fond of the American transcendentalist philosophers Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau ([19]).

Controversial criticisms

In a column published on April 28 2004 in the University of Massachusetts student newspaper, Rene Gonzalez, a graduate student, wrote that it was "hard to say I have any sympathy for his death", that he made "himself useful to a foreign invading army, and he paid for it" and was a "G.I. Joe guy, who got what was coming to him." ([20])ESPN later reported that in an email to a television station, Gonzales apologized to the Tillman family "for all the pain that my article has brought them" and stated that he made his point "in such an insensitive way, that the article was not worth publishing" ([21]).

A May 3 2004 editorial cartoon by Ted Rall [22] distributed by Universal Press Syndicate portrayed Tillman as a misled "idiot" who had enlisted to "kill Arabs." Later, after claims of Tillman's privately held anti-war sentiments became public, Rall said that he was wrong to have assumed Tillman to be a "right wing poster child", when in fact Tillman regarded the invasion of Iraq as illegal ([23]).

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A memorial to Pat Tillman was created at Sun Devil Stadium, where he played football for the Sun Devils and the Cardinals.

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Tillman's portrait - Faces of the Fallen gallery - Arlington National Cemetery.

Memorials and tributes

After his death, the Pat Tillman Foundation was established to carry forward its view of Tillman's legacy by inspiring and supporting those striving for positive change in themselves and the world around them.

A highway bypass around the Hoover Dam will have a bridge bearing Tillman's name. When completed in 2008, the Mike O'Callaghan-Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge will span the Colorado River between Nevada and Arizona.

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Memorial Decal worn throughout the NFL

On Sunday, September 19, 2004, all teams of the NFL wore a memorial decal on their helmets in honor of Pat Tillman. The Arizona Cardinals continued to wear this decal throughout the 2004 season. Former Cardinals quarterback Jake Plummer requested to also wear the decal for the entire season but the NFL turned him down saying his helmet would not be uniform with the rest of the Denver Broncos.

The Cardinals retired his number 40, and Arizona State did the same for the number 42 he wore with the Sun Devils. The Cardinals have named the plaza surrounding their University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Pat Tillman Freedom Plaza.

Pat Tillman's high school, Leland High School in San Jose, California, renamed its football field after him.

On Saturday, April 15, 2006, more than 10,000 participants turned out for Pat's Run in Tempe, Arizona. The racers traveled along the 4.2-mile course around Tempe Town Lake to the finish line, located on the 42 yard line of Sun Devil Stadium. A second race took place in San Jose. Sponsored by the Pat Tillman Foundation, a total of 14,000 runners took part. In 2005, about 6,000 took part in a single race in Tempe ([24]).

External links