Pat Tillman, The Real Story:

December 5, 2004 9:01 PM

Pat Tillman, The Real Story:"During several weeks of memorials and commemorations that followed Tillman's death, commanders at his 75th Ranger Regiment and their superiors hid the truth about friendly fire from Tillman's brother Kevin, who had fought with Pat in the same platoon, but was not involved in the firing incident and did not know the cause of his brother's death. Commanders also withheld the facts from Tillman's widow, his parents, national politicians and the public, according to records and interviews with sources involved in the case. " Believe nothing.
posted by owillis (46 comments total)

Not to denigrate this man's death or the grief of his family, but I find it a bit disingenuous that a single person's death has received so much attention, especially when his service was not of an especially important nature. He didn't die trying to save a family from a crumbling wall in Fallujah or anything like that. It's almost like a synechdochic process of grieving for many men by grieving for one.

There's this image in the Iliad which comes up again and again as the warriors die of a tree being felled, the branches shaking and crashing like the armor as the men hit the ground. Death makes trees of us all.
posted by clockzero at 9:11 PM on December 5, 2004

And Jessica Lynch was rescued in a hail of AK-47 fire and "allahu akbar!"s, herself killing seventy-two Iraqis. While unconcious.

Surprise.
posted by borkingchikapa at 9:12 PM on December 5, 2004

Just a point of order -- this was widely reported in May: CBS: Tillman's Death By Friendly Fire and MSNBC: Tillman 'probably' killed by friendly fire, and the Pentagon had conceded the cause by that time.
posted by dhartung at 9:13 PM on December 5, 2004

when his service was not of an especially important nature
Everyone's service is important.
(I won't go into the "No 'I' in team" cliche, but that synecdochic process is epitomized in the tomb of the unknown soldier - people seem to feel strongly about it)

Tillman got attention because he didn't go for the traditional "me" centered path.
What is irritating is that somehow it wasn't enough that he felt serving was more important than making money or being in the NFL.
It wasn't enough that he died. It wasn't enough that his death could illustrate just how chaotic and dangerous and (etc, etc) war is.
No, they have to go and lie and exploit the man's sacrifice (the initial sacrifice - signing up).
Why we can't have the honor without the REMFs pissing on it I'll never understand. The truth has more value.
posted by Smedleyman at 9:51 PM on December 5, 2004

O come on. Anyone who gives up millions of dollars to fight for what he thinks is right deserves respect. Case closed.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 9:53 PM on December 5, 2004

furiousxgeorge has it. And Smedleyman nails the frustrating, but possibly necessary, part of it.
posted by crawl at 10:08 PM on December 5, 2004

thank you furiousxgeorge
posted by kamylyon at 10:09 PM on December 5, 2004

Anyone who gives up millions of dollars to fight for what he thinks is right deserves respect.

As does anyone who grows up dirt poor, sees the armed forces as his only option, and dies trying to do his job. Spare me the Pat Tillman hero worship if you're not going to give equal treatment to all the others.

Congrats on the second term, Rummy.
posted by PrinceValium at 10:18 PM on December 5, 2004

The real story is that he is dead for no good reason. That he staked his life on the goodness of his country and his leaders and subsequently lost it.

Everything else is irrelevant. His story is the same as that of any of those inner-city kids, except that he happened to be worth more money alive than dead.
posted by Epenthesis at 10:23 PM on December 5, 2004

I just wanted to say that anyone who calls getting showered with bullets from a .50 caliber machine gun by your buddies 'friendly contact' has serious issues. That is all.
posted by majcher at 10:41 PM on December 5, 2004

Tillman died for nothing — and no amount of tinfoil-hat, hemming-and-hawing about how he died will change that sad fact.
posted by AlexReynolds at 10:55 PM on December 5, 2004

I'm usually a Ted Rall fan, AlexReynolds, but that strip rubbed even me the wrong way. Tillman, like thousands of other young Americans, was duped by a deceitful government. He doesn't deserve posthumous insults. His memory can best be honored by driving out of power the ones who sent him to his meaningless death.
posted by Faint of Butt at 11:03 PM on December 5, 2004

The real story is that he is dead for no good reason.

Says you. I'm sure he would tell a different story. I'm sure he had his reasons. You might not agree with them, but then again, you don't have to, because they were HIS reasons.

I didn't know the man, but I'm pretty sure his politics were quite different than your average mefi member. So he died for nothing only if you assign the values of a few people clicking away on a keyboard to the man.

Tillman, like thousands of other young Americans, was duped by a deceitful government.

I'm not sure which is more comical, that tired comic, or the fact that you assume to know that Tillman was 'duped'.

Off topic, as someone already said, this isn't new, except for the details, and its all been covered before.
posted by justgary at 11:16 PM on December 5, 2004

I'm not sure which is more comical, that tired comic, or the fact that you assume to know that Tillman was 'duped'.

Let us know when you find those WMDs. Actually, don't tell us. Tell Tillman's widow and relatives.
posted by AlexReynolds at 11:20 PM on December 5, 2004

Tillman was in Afghanistan, where I feel we are fully validated in remaining until Bin Laden is killed and Al Qaeda neutralized. Iraq is a mistake, Afghanistan was necessary (though being fumbled as we speak).
posted by owillis at 11:24 PM on December 5, 2004

If guns didn't exist the Army wouldn't have had to lie about how Pat Tillman died.

I know, I know. Butcha see? You see why pacifism ain't so bad? You get to justify all this crap with pithy cliches as in: "if X never would have happened Y wouldn't even be an issue". That's why war is bullshit. It's stupid. You walk away from fights, you smooth the situation over, you agree to disagree and then you live and prosper. Somebody sometime is going to have to be the bigger person 'round here.

If you can't speak the language of the people you are fighting nor can they yours, you've gotta go to your higher-ups and ask "why is that so?". Why are we fighting and killing poor, unemployed, illiterate people who can't understand a word we say? Why?

They say Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator. Well so be it. At least he had translators when Donald Rumsfeld (and Rumsfeld his) came to visit.

They want to paint this broad swath of innocent humanity, born in the lands they were born in, with the international crime of "terrorism" when they finally get fed up with poverty, misery and oppression. The innocent are being killed (See the "accidental" death of Pat Tillman) while the "terror" is only, truly -- where it always has been -- in our heads, because they told us it was so. And we believed them.

No. We all die. Whether for a glorious purpose or not, there will always be someone with which to disagree. The question is: Do we kill them too?
posted by crasspastor at 11:28 PM on December 5, 2004

My apologies. Let us know when you find Bin Laden. Or maybe he's not as important as WMDs, or Unocal, or whatever it was that week Tillman died:

"So I don't know where [OBL] is.  You know, I just don't spend that much time on him, Kelly, to be honest with you."
posted by AlexReynolds at 11:32 PM on December 5, 2004

I'm totally in favor of going into Afghanistan, not the jerkwad president who's screwing it up.

I voted for the competent war hero senator. Silly me.
posted by owillis at 11:50 PM on December 5, 2004

Let us know when you find those WMDs. Actually, don't tell us. Tell Tillman's widow and relatives.

Oh god, are you serious? spare me your rhetoric.

I don't have to tell anyone anything. He was a grown man who made his own decision.

Not to mention that your response had nothing to do with what I posted. But hey, throwing out a few cliches is just too easy, huh?
posted by justgary at 11:58 PM on December 5, 2004

Smedleyman --

Yes, everyone's effort is necessary and important, but his was not especially so; in other words, it was ostensibly as important as that of many other young people whose deaths have not been popularly celebrated. And the tomb you mentioned is certainly an excellent illustration of the phenomenon we both mentioned; but in this war, owing to the nature of our modern military and the scale of this conflict, we can account for almost all of our casualties and attach a name to every lost military unit. That's why I think this synecdoche is deleterious to the popular perception of the war: all the soldiers who have died deserve to be recognized as individuals. I think the mounting sum of dead Americans will give some people the kind of pause which apparently neither the thousands of dead Iraqis nor a single purported hero's death can.
posted by clockzero at 12:20 AM on December 6, 2004

It's almost like a synechdochic process of grieving for many men by grieving for one.
- clockzero

(I won't go into the "No 'I' in team" cliche, but that synecdochic process is epitomized in the tomb of the unknown soldier - people seem to feel strongly about it)
- Smedleyman

Note: There is currently a cap on the use of the term "synecdochic process" - please limit it's use to one time per topic. In future we every hope that this restriction will be lifted, but unfortunately in the meantime the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few...
posted by fairmettle at 2:44 AM on December 6, 2004

I always like this article on the inability for Pat Tillman's death to fit into what the pro or anti-war camps wanted.

Why do we celebrate one man? Sometimes it's easier to understand and empathize with one over just a number. We like a story, not a statistic. So if Pat Tillman's death draws more attention than others, that doesn't demean the nameless in our news, it helps make us understand the wonder that each life spent in war is.

*sigh*
posted by Lord Chancellor at 3:50 AM on December 6, 2004

Doesn't every country in the world have a "tomb of the unknown soldier." Benedict Anderson talks about this as being a cornerstone of nationalism - or at least one of its most curious accoutrements -- in Imagined Communities.

But the Ted Rall cartoon is violently stupid, all the same.
posted by raysmj at 3:52 AM on December 6, 2004

Tillman died for nothing

He didn't die for nothing, look at all the ax grinding* owillis is getting out of his death.


*What else do you call posting a 6 month old story that everyone already knows about?
posted by Mick at 5:13 AM on December 6, 2004

Because its a brand new story with actual reporting (tm) done. And again, I support the invasion of Afghanistan and find it interesting in the way the army uses events to their own benefit. Something that isn't president-specific in the least.
posted by owillis at 6:02 AM on December 6, 2004

Sorry, you were a paid shill for the DNC and it has tainted your credibility.
posted by Mick at 6:41 AM on December 6, 2004

O come on. Anyone who gives up millions of dollars to fight for what he thinks is right deserves respect. Case closed.

bah.
Osama Bin Laden did. do you respect him, too?
I don't, really.


you were a paid shill for the DNC and it has tainted your credibility

so elegant.
well, you may do your shilling for free, but it remains much lamer (and so much more shameless) than Oliver's. enjoy your quagmire. and don't stop patting yourself on your shoulder about it.
posted by matteo at 6:48 AM on December 6, 2004

People like GW Bush have made Tillman into an icon of their brand of patriotism. People like Ted Rall, with that idiot cartoon of his, have made him into their icon of everything wrong with America.

Truth is, he was just a human being who died tragically doing something he felt he had to do. To mold him into something else to force him to be a symbol of whatever worldview is no better than those who forced religion into his memorial aginst his wishes.
posted by jonmc at 7:04 AM on December 6, 2004

The more I read about this guy the more I like him. It's really tragic what happened.

Check out the mother's self-control:

When she first learned that friendly fire had taken her son's life, "I was upset about it, but I thought, 'Well, accidents happen,' " Mary Tillman said in a telephone interview yesterday. "Then when I found out that it was because of huge negligence at places along the way -- you have time to process that and you really get annoyed."
posted by xammerboy at 7:30 AM on December 6, 2004

ted rall is a cool pile of shit
posted by shoos at 7:44 AM on December 6, 2004

You're being generous.
posted by dhoyt at 8:04 AM on December 6, 2004

O come on. Anyone who gives up millions of dollars to (fights) for what he thinks is right deserves respect. Case closed.

And to be honest, the Tillman hero worship made me nauseous. It smelled very funny to me. If you look at the way the media used him it's clear Tillman was just standing in for the American ideal--he was a square jawed, (potentially), rich, football-playing whiteboy who "died to protect our freedoms." Just think about all the people who "mourned" Tillman but then complained so loudly when Nightline decided to recite the names of the Iraqi casualties.
posted by nixerman at 8:10 AM on December 6, 2004

nixerman, that's something of a conflation and a supposition. I think the names of the casualties should have been read on Nightline, but I still think it's wrong when people bad-mouth Tillman, if only for the mean-spiritedness behind a lot of it.
posted by jonmc at 8:29 AM on December 6, 2004

I wish I was a paid shill for the DNC. I do it for free now!
posted by owillis at 8:55 AM on December 6, 2004

jonmc, I don't think anybody has ever badmouthed Tillman. The question is how to interpret his death. It's become increasingly clear that Tillman's death was "marketed"--to the point where critical details (aka "facts") were left out because they'd detract from the message.

(There is something even more insidious about the media event that became of Tillman's death. There was the strong notion that if Tillman deserved mentioned because he passed up his NFL contract and "millions of dollars" and volunteered. What's implied is that most Americans would have done the opposite and thus his action is "exemplary." This isn't hero worship per se. We aren't celebrating Tillman so much as denigrating ourselves. When you look closely at what Tillman's death is selling it's not patriotism--it's guilt. This is what particularly bothered me about the whole thing.)
posted by nixerman at 9:15 AM on December 6, 2004

jonmc, I don't think anybody has ever badmouthed Tillman.

come again?
posted by jonmc at 9:29 AM on December 6, 2004

You're being generous.

Ok, ok.. room temperature.
posted by shoos at 9:53 AM on December 6, 2004

Pat Tillman's death doesn't belong to anyone. Both the government for making him a poster boy and Rall and the like for demonizing his efforts are equally wrong.

From the words of his own brother at his Funeral "Pat isn't with God,'' he said. "He's f -- ing dead. He wasn't religious. So thank you for your thoughts, but he's f -- ing dead.''

Let the man rest in peace.
posted by monkeyboy_socal at 10:02 AM on December 6, 2004

come again?

Jonmc, to call that badmouthing a dead man is simplistic.

The larger point is he died for nothing and was being used by the government and media to paint lipstick on a pig.

There seems to be some dispute about that fact, for some reason, even well after his death, and well after the release of information that has showed that our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have done little to nothing to help our own security or improve the quality of life there for its residents.

I'll let him rest in peace when the hawks stop dragging his corpse around as a recruiting tool.
posted by AlexReynolds at 10:46 AM on December 6, 2004

Alex, you could maybe make that argument about the Rall cartoon, but the Gonzalez essay does stray into "bad-mothing" territory (to put it mildly). I don't like the war either, but that peice made my blood boil. Not everyone angered by such things is a "hawk," as you put it.

Just because I share some political ideas with somebody dosen't mean I'm not gonna call them out for being a 14k asshole, which Gonzalez was.
posted by jonmc at 11:03 AM on December 6, 2004

After clicking on the Ted Rall toon for the first time...

MetaFilter: Idiot? Sad? HERO!
posted by wendell at 11:26 AM on December 6, 2004

I read the article yesterday morning in our local coffee shop. This morning's Post had a follow-up. Hero-worshipping asidem it was one of the most heart-wrenching stories I have ever seen on newsprint. Nice work WaPo. *kicks sand in face of NY Times* (I am not a paid shill for the Washington Post.)
posted by Dick Paris at 1:42 PM on December 6, 2004

Note: this post contains no 10 buck words (like synecdochic)
clockzero - agreed. Tillman's effort wasn't especially noteworthy, but I refuse to try to quantify a measure of that effort. Must we all be Audie Murphy?
Best to say I suppose his service wasn't particularly spectacular - like any grunt.
As for what Tillman died for I'm of two minds. The pacifism thing is great, but at some point the scope gets too large for those of us who don't have PhDs in philosophy. (Ultimately is it morally right to kill to oppose the genocide of your people? Etc. - not to say there aren't good arguments on both sides)
But if his death is meaningless because of the military industrial complex, I'd have a lot more sympathy for that argument if the (hu)men(s) making it were dedicating their lives to opposing it. Mostly I suspect they're drinking latte's and whining, not mounting a revolution (pacifist or otherwise).
Not to get existential...But yeah, Tillman's sacrifice makes as much sense as standing in the driving rain guarding the remains of some unknown.
If you don't know why a man would stand in a hurricane to do that, you probably won't ever get it.
Pat Tillman's death doesn't belong to anyone.
Except himself.
Nice post monkeyboy_socal




posted by Smedleyman at 2:17 PM on December 6, 2004

Un tombeau pour Pat, courtesy of the late Indochinese Unpleasantness

Luang Prabang
(Dave Van Ronk) c. 1968

When I got back from Luang Prabang
I didn't have a thing where my balls used to hang
But I got a fuckin' medal and a big harangue
And now I'm a fuckin' hero

Chorus :

Mourn your dead, land of the free
If you wanna be a hero, follow me
Mourn your dead, land of the free
If you wanna be a hero, follow me

And now the boys all envy me
I fought for Christian democracy
With nothing but air where my balls used to be
Now I'm a fuckin' hero

Chorus

One and twenty cannons thundered
Into the bloody pale blue yonder
For a patriotic ball-less wonder
Now I'm a fuckin' hero

Chorus

In Luang Prabang there is a spot
Where the corpses of your brothers rot
And every corpse is a patriot
And every corpse is a hero

Chorus
posted by rdone at 3:05 PM on December 6, 2004

The larger point is he died for nothing and was being used by the government and media to paint lipstick on a pig.

Even most people on the left supported going into Afghanistan. And Tillman wasn't duped. You seem to be confusing Afghanistan with Iraq...you've done it the whole thread. You've waited so long to jump on the bandwagon at mefi that you just cant' get 'weapons of mass destruction ' out of your brain.

As far as being used by the right, it's almost hilarious that the complaints come in a thread being used by lefties for their own view points. Long live irony.
posted by justgary at 10:06 PM on December 6, 2004

There's so much misinfomation going into this war that I have a hard time blaming anyone for what they eventually come to believe. At times, it frustrates me greatly and even worse it sends me into bouts of deep sadness fused with a horrible sense of hopelessness.

At some level, we all seek out information to confirm a set of beliefs and ignore that which contradicts them in order to avoid the uncomfortable condition of chronic uncertainty. For uncertainty is now seen as synonymous with weakness when, in fact, in can be nothing but the natural result of confronting the face of chaos, corruption, and madness that embodies our time.
posted by john at 11:22 AM on December 7, 2004