"They Used Pat for Public Consumption, Just Like Jessica Lynch": An Interview with Mary Tillman

By Emily Wilson

The official cover-up of football star-turned-soldier Pat Tillman's death by "friendly fire" has led his family on a four-year mission for justice.

After the Sept. 11 attacks, football star Pat Tillman left a multimillion-dollar contract with the Arizona Cardinals to join the Army Rangers, wanting to go fight Al-Qaeda. When the former NFL safety was killed in Afghanistan in April 2004, Army officials told his family he died in an enemy ambush. Five weeks later, after Tillman was posthumously awarded the Silver Star, and after Army officials at a nationally televised memorial had told a story of him charging up a hill in pursuit of enemy insurgents, the Army reported that, in fact, Tillman had been shot three times in the head by "friendly fire."

Since discovering that Tillman was killed by friendly fire, his family, led by his mother, Mary, and his brother, Kevin, who served with him in the Army, has been trying to find who was responsible for covering up what happened in Pat's death. After seven investigations, two Congressional hearings, and support from politicians ranging from Democratic California Rep. Mike Honda to Republican presidential candidate John McCain to retired general Wesley Clark, Mary Tillman says no one has been held accountable.

Now, with Narda Zacchino, former deputy editor of the San Francisco Chronicle, she has written a book about Pat's life and her struggle to find out the truth about his death. The title is Boots on the Ground by Dusk: My Tribute to Pat Tillman. AlterNet writer Emily Wilson sat down with her recently in San Francisco to talk about the book.

Emily Wilson: In the book you have a lot of stories about Pat as a toddler, a kid and a teenager. Why did you choose to include those?

Mary Tillman: I included the stories about Pat growing up because I felt that for the reader to care about what happened to him, they had to have a little bit of an understanding about who he was. I felt the media coverage sort of turned him into a caricature. I wanted to present him as a human being.

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