David McRaney  |  Journalist

No One's Martyr

In the dead of night on April 22, 2004, deep in the mine-pocked desert of Afghanistan, a group of United States Army Rangers stood silent around a bonfire.

We will never know what went through their minds as the blaze licked the air between them. We can imagine the flames illuminated their stoic faces as they avoided eye contact. We can assume they stood with their rifles slung low, shifting their body weight and scratching to spend nervous energy. We can almost see them now, alone out there on the sands with one shared purpose for the night - destroying the evidence.

It wasn’t Pat Tillman’s body in the fire; it was his armor and later his uniform, the result of panic within his unit. Two of his fellow Rangers were wounded, a member of the Afghan militia was dead. The blood of a great football hero, the famous patriot, was on all their hands. But for weeks, only a handful of people would know how and why he was killed.

The U.S. Department of Defense announced March 4 they had reopened the case by launching a new criminal investigation into Tillman’s death. This, now the fourth inquiry into the matter, will focus on the cover-up that began before the body was cold.

EVERYONE’S CAUSE

Tillman, born in San Jose Calif., started his college career as a linebacker for Arizona State University in 1994. Proving to be an extraordinary athlete, breaking records and standing out from the crowd, he was drafted by the Arizona Cardinals in 1998. In May 2002, eight months after the 9/11 attacks, he turned down multi-million dollar signing deal and left a promising NFL career to join the U.S. Army.

Failure came swift for most who attempted to advance their cause through Tillman’s death.

Journalists who called him a "dumb jock" and wrote columns about how he was a "macho man" brainwashed by the Bush regime were forced to apologize when they learned he had a 3.8 GPA, majored in accounting and was fond of both Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. He had even arranged after his tour of duty to meet with Noam Chomsky, an often-quoted MIT professor who remains a key figure among the left wing of American politics.

Those who sought to build a hero and wrote of Tillman as an example of what constitutes true patriotism suffered the same fate. Bush referred to him as an "inspiration" at Tillman’s televised memorial. His fellow soldiers remember him campaigning for John Kerry and speaking out against the war. His brother said Tillman was not with God because he was not a religious man.

Then, with both sides circling his story for meaning, the military admitted he did not die in a prolonged firefight with the enemy as his family had been told weeks earlier; instead, he had been shot in the head by his own men after repeatedly screaming out his name and pleading for them to cease fire.

It was a killing blow for the campaign to canonize his image. His family soon spoke out about how they were deceived by the military, their anguish turning into rage.

STRUGGLE TO UNDERSTAND

"If you feel you are being lied to, you can never put it to rest," Tillman’s mother, Mary, explained to the Washington Post. "It makes you feel like you are losing your mind."

The recent decision to reopen the case may be result of the Tillman family’s relentless effort to inform the public about how his death was used as a propaganda tool in an official story based on intentional lies.

"It has been a cover-up from the start," said Tillman’s mother. "The military has had every opportunity to do the right thing and they haven't."

The family and their supporters, including Sen. John McCain, believe the truth was covered up on purpose. They believe someone in the Bush administration allowed the Tillman memorial service to continue, all the while knowing he had been snuffed out by American bullets.

Tillman’s father still believes the Army wished only to protect their image. He told the Washington Post, "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 thought they could control it, and they realized their recruiting efforts were going to hell in a hand basket if the truth about his death got out," he said. "They blew up their poster boy."

In their initial inquiry in May 2004, Brig. Gen. Gary M. Jones revealed Army investigators were aware of the nature of Tillman’s death days after the incident, yet senior officials still approved the awarding of the Silver Star, the Purple Heart and a posthumous promotion from Specialist to Corporal. The citation report accompanying these awards said Tillman was killed by enemy forces and contained a detailed description of a battle Army leadership knew had never taken place.

After pressure from the family and Sen. McCain, an inquiry launched in May 2005 concluded there had been no "official reluctance" to report the truth.

A RELUCTANT HERO

Tillman’s skills had been lauded in the press long before he became a national news story.

Sports Illustrated, among many others, took notice of the tenacious young athlete who seemed to defy convention by writing, "Most football players fit into a box. They're big, fast and strong… they submit to authority without resistance…Then there is Arizona State senior linebacker Pat Tillman, who not only doesn't fit into the box but also would have to consult a travel agent to find it."

In high school, he often defied his coach, running unapproved plays and improvising on the field. At 5-feet-11-inches and 195 pounds, it was likely he would be passed over by most college coaches anyway.

According to Sports Illustrated, Tillman was once asked by Sun Devils coach Bruce Snyder what he thought of the recruiting process. "It stinks," Tillman said. "Nobody tells the truth."

The following August, he told Snyder he wouldn’t take part in redshirting, the tradition of training an incoming freshman for one year before putting them into play. Tillman told Snyder he had things to do with his life adding, "You can do whatever you want with me, but in four years, I'm gone."

At Arizona State, Tillman progressed from special-teams madman as a freshman to situational sub as a sophomore to defensive standout as a junior. He had the second-most tackles and most interceptions, pass deflections and fumble recoveries on the team

By the time Tillman had grown his close-cropped hair into a flowing, golden mane, Sports Illustrated was referring to him as the best player in the country who didn’t have his own award campaign.

After being named the league's defensive player of the year, he told the magazine, "Dude, I'm proud of the things I've done, my schoolwork - because I'm not smart; I just worked hard."

Tillman added, "But it doesn't do me any good to be proud. It's better to just force myself to be naive about things, because otherwise I'll start being happy with myself, and then I'll stand still, and then I'm old news."

Tillman looked like a surfer but was fond of jumping through the forest from treetop to treetop like Tarzan minus a rope. He played football like an insatiable beast, but he majored in marketing. He wasn’t religious, but he often circled passages of the Bible, Torah and other such texts, sending them to friends so they could discuss the implications.

After being drafted by Arizona State, Tillman was arrested and charged as a juvenile for felony assault. He had defended a friend in front of a Pizza Hut at 17, reducing the 20-year-old attacker to a pulp. In the summer of '94, he served 30 days in a juvenile detention facility. His conviction was reduced to a misdemeanor upon his release – two weeks before his first college football practice.

"I'm proud of that chapter in my life," Tillman said. "I'm not proud of what happened, but I'm proud that I learned more from that one bad decision than all the good decisions I've ever made. I'm proud that nobody found out, because I didn't want to come to Arizona State with people thinking that I was a hoodlum, because I'm not. It made me realize that stuff you do has repercussions. You can lose everything."

In 2001, Tillman turned down a $9 million, five-year offer from the Super Bowl champion St. Louis Rams to remain with the Arizona Cardinals. The next year, he turned down a three-year, $3.6 million contract with the Cardinals to enlist in the Army. Most assumed he had been moved in the wake of 9/11.

"My great grandfather was at Pearl Harbor," he told NBC News soon after the attack on the towers. "I really haven’t done a damn thing as far as laying myself on the line like that."

Tillman had played four seasons with the Cardinals before he enlisted for a three-year stint in the Army with his younger brother Kevin. He told Sports Illustrated he would return to the NFL after his service.

Both denied requests for media coverage of their basic training and deployments. Officials said the two wanted no special treatment or attention – they wanted to be considered soldiers doing their duty.

THE BATTLE

A number of accounts have surfaced after three inquiries into Tillman’s death. This much is clear, something went terribly wrong on the battlefield.

According to testimony, on April 22, 2004, a Humvee in the 30-member A Company, 2nd battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment led by Lieutenant David Uthlaut, broke down as the unit drove towards Manah, south of Kabul.

The patrol halted and took up defensive positions while attempting to repair the vehicle.

After failing to revive the Humvee, the patrol split in two. The forward unit moved ahead while the rear unit followed towing the disabled jeep with a truck. The rear group was about 15 minutes behind in a deep ravine, out of visual and radio contact, when they believed they were ambushed.

Tillman left the forward group and headed back with another Ranger and an Afghan militiaman. He set up on the side of the ravine opposite where enemy fire was supposedly coming from. The Afghan and Tillman rose from cover to shoot at the enemy’s position. His fire drew the attention of the rear group in the ravine, and they answered with every weapon they had.

The Afghan was killed instantly. Tillman, fellow soldiers testified, waved his arms, yelled "cease fire" and set off a smoke grenade to signal he was not an enemy.

A soldier in the ravine called for a cease fire. When the firing stopped, Tillman and his colleague stood up. Then, for reasons still unclear, the shooting resumed. Tillman’s body armor was riddled with "numerous" hits.

One soldier testified, "I could hear the pain in his voice as he called out, 'Cease fire, friendlies! I'm Pat f----ing Tillman, dammit.' He said this repeatedly until he fell, hit by three bullets in the forehead."

Later, they would burn his bloody, bullet-punched body armor and uniform.

A CONFUSING MEMORIAL

Despite knowing much of the particulars of Tillman’s death, officials pressed forward with his televised, emotionally-charged, patriotism-soaked memorial service. But already something stirred among those who knew Tillman best.

Maria Schriver, wife of California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, read from a letter written by her husband, "I was told he admired me but it's the reverse. Pat's journey, that's the American dream, and he sacrificed that. That to me is a real hero."

Shriver went on to quote John F. Kennedy.

"My uncle once said, 'Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.' You, Pat, have lived those words," she said.

"It was an honor to coach Pat," former Cardinals assistant coach Larry Marmie said. "I learned a lot from him. Players often look for the respect from their coaches. I found myself trying to earn Pat's respect."

His brother-in-law and close friend, Alex Garwood, came to the ceremony dressed as a woman. "We had two godfathers, no godmother,'' Garwood explained.

His brother Rich attended in a plain white shirt and blue jeans. When he reached the podium he cursed and ranted in an unprepared speech telling the audience, "Thank you for your thoughts, but he’s f----ing dead."

The ceremony at the San Jose Municipal Garden concluded with an excerpt from one of Tillman’s favorite Emerson quotes, "It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great person is one who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.''

It wasn’t long before detractors, sickened by the iconography, spoke out.

The Portland, Ore., chapter of Indymedia.org posted the news of Tillman's death accompanied by a headline reading, "Dumb Jock Killed in Afghanistan." Comments on the website suggested alternate titles for the piece, like "Privileged Millionaire, Blinded by Nationalist Mythology, Pisses Away the Good Life," and "Capitalist Chooses to Kill Innocents Instead of Cashing Check." The Urbana-Champaign, Ill., chapter ran an article about Tillman with a headline reading, "Pat Tillman is gone good riddance." A commenter wrote, "I saw the Post this morning, on the front page. It was sickening. They built this guy up like he was Audie Murphy or something, publishing this foto of him in his Ranger getup, all tough-looking and stony-jawed, like a god----' recruiting ad ... Puke-o-rama. Cold as it may sound, 'Dumb Jock Dies for Pipeline in Afghanistan' pretty much sums it up."

Most of the websites and news organizations have since apologized publicly for their ignorance after statements from Tillman like one calling the war in Iraq "so f----ing illegal" surfaced. In the initial inquiry it was revealed Tillman joined the Army specifically to fight Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, but was sent to participate in the invasion of Iraq against his wishes.

As before, Tillman defied those who would jump to conclusions about his motives.

THE NEW INQUIRY

Now Tillman is once again being studied.

His family, who refuses to give in, want to know what did Donald Rumsfeld know about Tillman's death and when did he know it? They suggest if Army Ranger commanders and the Army Secretary knew Tillman was killed in a fratricide, Rumsfeld must have known too.

When Tillman first joined the Army, Rumsfeld personally commended him with a signed letter. If Rumsfeld knew the nature of Tillman's killing in April, 2004, some believe he directed the obfuscation of the truth.

"There have been so many discrepancies so far that it’s hard to know what to believe," Mary Tillman told the San Francisco Chronicle. "There are too many murky details." The files the family received from the Army about Tillman’s death are heavily censored, with blacked-out sections and deleted names on almost every page.

"I want to know what kind of criminal intent there was," Mary Tillman told the Chronicle.

Tillman’s father 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 MAN, THE METAPHOR

Russell Baer who served with Tillman told sfgate.com 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."

Other soldiers remember Tillman created a makeshift base library of classic novels so his platoon mates would have literature to read in their down time.

Baer also told sfgate.com Tillman was popular among his fellow soldiers recalling, "The guys who killed Pat were his biggest fans."

The Cardinals retired Tillman’s No. 40 and named the plaza surrounding the new stadium under construction in suburban Glendale the "Pat Tillman Freedom Plaza."

Arizona State retired Tillman’s No. 42 jersey and placed his name on the honor ring at Sun Devil Stadium.

A highway bypass around the Hoover Dam will have a bridge bearing Tillman's name. When completed in 2008, it will span the Colorado River between Nevada and Arizona.

Pat Tillman's high school in San Jose, Calif., renamed its football field after him.

His family remains hopeful this new investigation will prove the U.S. government lied about his death for one reason; they created a hero, and then they killed him.

Tillman's former roommate, Zack Walz, took a newspaper clipping to the podium at the memorial and read about how his teammates made up faux dog tags for themselves years ago, declaring their unit a band of warriors.

"Soldiers, battlers, lay it on the line,'' Walz said, weeping. "What the hell did we know? Listen to the words. Listen to the metaphors. How hollow they ring."

Originally published in The Student Printz on March 21, 2006