The story of Pat Tillman is one that seems to come up as a debate at least every few months and it’s pretty heated. Some people believe he died in an accidentally friendly fire incident during an ambush while out on patrol, and others believe he was murdered.
We will start with what we know. Tillman was a solid football player and in the 1998 NFL draft he was selected 226th by the Arizona Cardinals. He led a promising NFL career for the Cardinals and even turned down a $9 million contract offer from, at the time, the St. Louis Rams. In May of 2002, just a few months after 9/11, Tillman turned down a contract renewal offer of $3.6 million over 3 years. Instead, Tillman enlisted in the US Army along with his brother on May 31st, 2002. Both Tillman and his brother completed the Ranger Indoctrination Program and were assigned to the 2nd Ranger Battalion in Fort Lewis, Washington. Tillman participated in Operation Iraqi Freedom, and by November 2003 he graduated Ranger School. Shortly after Ranger School, he was redeployed to Afghanistan.
This is where the water gets muddy. On April 22nd, 2004, Tillman was reported to have been killed by enemy combatants alongside an Afghan Militia Force allied solider. It was claimed Tillman and his unit were attached in an ambush just outside the village of Sperah, Afghanistan. However, an investigation by the US Department of Defense concluded that both Tillman and the allied Afghan Militia solider died from friendly fire which was aggravated by the intensity of the firefight.
What really aggravated the situation was when the Washington Post revealed a report by Brigadier General Gary M. Jones which outlined members of Tillman’s unit burned his body armor and uniform in an attempt to hide he was killed by friendly fire. Furthermore, Jones revealed Tillman’s notebook was also burned. Several of Tillman’s fellow soldiers were punished for burning the items and subsequently removed from the Army Rangers.
Things got worse when the Tillman family found out several weeks after his funeral that he died from friendly fire, causing Tillman’s father to publicly criticize the army for how they handled the incident. His brother, Kevin Tillman testified before the United States House Committee and advised:
“The deception surrounding this [Tillman] case was an insult to the family: but more importantly, its primary purpose was to deceive a whole nation. We say these things with disappointment and sadness for our country. Once again, we have been used as props in a Pentagon public relations exercise.”
The Associated Press requested a FOI which caused the Defence Department to release close to 2,300 pages of documents pertaining to the incident. In these pages, it was revealed, amongst other things, that there was no evidence of enemy fire on the scene, no members of Tillman’s group were hit by enemy fire, and Army doctors believed Tillman’s wounds suggested murder.
Shortly afterwards, family and friends of Tillman revealed he was an atheist and opposed President Bush, and the Iraq War. In fact, although some had believed Tillman enlisted for some kind of post-9/11 patriotism were shocked when they were told he actually did it to fulfill his idea of duty and shared sacrifice. He had allegedly made an appointment to meet with Noam Chomsky after he returned him from the military. This along with the destruction of Tillman’s uniform, body armor, and notebook along with the report on the incident led some people to believe Tillman was murdered.
Was he murdered to prevent him from damaging the reputation of the government and deter support from the war effort? To be used as a poster boy for the war effort? Or was he simply the victim of an accidentally friendly fire incident. You be the judge.
RIP Patt Tillman (November 6th, 1976 – April 22nd, 2004)
