Part I: Overview

Tillman death marred by Pentagon

In sports, there is a tendency to overuse any word associated with the term hero.

But it does apply to one.

His name was Pat Tillman. And his death is making news again.

Tillman was an NFL strong safety for the Arizona Cardinals. He was fiercely loyal. The Pac-10 defensive player of the year out of Arizona State - who was on the winning side of the 1997 Rose Bowl with Jake Plummer and graduated college with a 3.84 GPA - turned down a five-year, $9 million offer from the Super Bowl champion St. Louis Rams in 2001 to stay with the Cardinals, who paid him $500,000.

Then the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on America gave Tillman a bigger calling.

In the spring of 2002, Tillman turned down a one-year, $3.2 million dollar contract with the Cardinals to enlist in the U.S. Army. He became an infantryman with the Rangers' 2nd Battalion out of Fort Lewis, Wash.

"I play football," said Tillman, who declined many interview requests to speak publicly about his career change. "It just seems so unimportant compared to everything that has taken place."

War is ugly.

Tillman was killed by fratricide, or friendly fire, in April 2004 in southeastern Afghanistan.

Two weeks ago, Tillman's family made their first public appearance together appealing for the truth of what happened. Their questions focused on how the specifics of his death were covered up.

Tillman died April 22, 2004. The Army knew immediately that his death was the result of fratricide, and a paper trail leading all the way up the chain of command proves it (in fact, last Friday a congressional committee requested documents from the White House and Pentagon describing how and when the Bush administration learned about the circumstances of Tillman's death). The family was not told he was killed by fratricide until May 29, 2004.

In the meantime, the Army submitted its recommendation for the Silver Star Award - the third-highest honor awarded to soldiers - with purposely massaged language on April 27, 2004.

Spc. Bryan O'Neal, the last soldier to see Tillman alive, testified to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee two weeks ago that his superiors had him write a statement for Tillman's Silver Star commendation and that the final version contained false statements about enemy fire that had been inserted by somebody else.

Tillman's Silver Star was approved April 29, 2004, (just two days after it was submitted) by Secretary of the Army Les Brownlee, who later proclaimed his ignorance of the facts and initiated the third of what would become five investigations into the case. The award was presented to the family a week later.

A few days after the award's presentation, the family held a memorial service. During that May 3 service, which was televised live on ESPN, a Navy SEAL told a phony version of the incidents leading up to Tillman's death.

At a White House Correspondents' Association dinner on May 1, 2004, President Bush made a reference to, what was at that time, Tillman's fictitious death.

Why were the details covered up?

At the time of Tillman's death, the Bush administration was dealing with a series of distressing public images that were shaping a negative perception of the war. The remains of American contractors strung up in Fallujah were appearing in news reports, and "60 Minutes" was preparing its broadcast of U.S. soldiers' abuse in Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison.

"Revealing Pat's death was a fratricide would have been yet another political disaster during a month swollen with disasters," Pat Tillman's brother, Kevin Tillman, told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee two weeks ago. "The facts needed to be suppressed. An alternative narrative had to be constructed, crucial evidence destroyed. (The narrative) was utter fiction. The narrative was meant to deceive the family and more importantly, the American public."

Kevin Tillman was in Pat's Ranger platoon, but did not see him die because he was in the very last vehicle of the convoy crawling up a narrow canyon.

O'Neal also testified to the congressional committee that he was ordered not to talk to anyone about the incident.

"I wanted right off the bat to let the family know what had happened, especially Kevin, because I worked with him in a platoon," O'Neal said. "I was quite appalled that when I was actually able to speak with Kevin, I was ordered not to tell him."

Pfc. Jessica Lynch also testified to the committee. Lynch, the private who was badly injured and taken hostage when her convoy was ambushed in Iraq during the first weeks of the war, said she was captured without firing a shot. But the Pentagon's early accounts of her capture depicted her as a "girl Rambo from the hills of West Virginia," who had emptied her gun as enemy soldiers closed in.

"The bottom line is the American people are capable of determining their own details of heroes and they don't need to be told elaborate lies," she testified.

The congressional committee is just beginning its investigation on how the Defense Department handled five Tillman investigations, including the first one that was destroyed because it concluded gross negligence on the commanders ordering Tillman's platoon.

In next Monday's Part II, I will tell you about Tillman's death and the investigations.

----

Carl Hennell is a sports reporter for The Daily Inter Lake. He was a parachute infantryman in the 82nd Airborne Division out of Fort Bragg, N.C., for three years. He can be reached at 758-4446 or by e-mailing chennell@dailyinterlake.com.