Pat Tillman film a haunting blindside

[laststeamtrain]

Pat Tillman film a haunting blindside
Journalists gave the story of soldier Pat Tillman’s death six years ago the hero’s treatment. What it deserved was real journalism.

Bill Dwyre

April 24, 2010


I have never quite gotten the Pat Tillman story out of my system. Only now am I understanding why.

It has been six years and two days since he died, his head blown off amid a pile of rocks on the side of a hill in Afghanistan, murdered by guys on his own team, other U.S. soldiers. After lying about it, the military eventually called it friendly fire and treated it as a mistake. Horrible, yes, they said. But a mistake.

He was a football hero, a star safety for the Arizona Cardinals. Before that, he was a free spirit linebacker at Arizona State, whose hair flowed out of his helmet and whose tackles left physical and mental imprints.

When he walked away from a fat pro contract to become a soldier, fighting in the front lines of Iraq and Afghanistan, we all swooned. What a guy, what a hero, what a story.

<snip>

Thursday night, on the sixth year anniversary of Tillman's death, I went to a screening of "The Tillman Story." It is a documentary about the quest of Tillman's mother, Mary (Dannie) Tillman, to get the real facts of what happened on that hillside. Halfway through, I was mortified. I realized why the Tillman story has stayed in my gut.

Dannie Tillman did what a nation full of high-paid, overblown journalists should have done. She went after the real story while the beautiful people on TV and the nerds with notepads broadcast and wrote morality plays. She got in the military's face, in the government's face. She didn't let up. She was doing journalism while journalists were doing what we mostly do now — chase Web hits and take short cuts to higher profits.

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http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-0424-dwyre-20100424,0,1036733.column?track=rss

[Submariner]

1. I'm waiting for Oliver Stone to do the movie

Like Platoon, with all the graphic details.

[glitch]

2. Everybody underestimates Mothers. nt

[nosmokes]

4. +1000.n/t

[BK101]

3. Friendly Fire Isn't

You are dead regardless if the bullets came from the enemy or you fellow soldiers.

[kas125]

5. I can't wait to see it, I've heard nothing but good things.

I so admire Mary Tillman, she's the epitome of courage.

[Cowpunk]

6. "Murdered" changed to "killed" at link. Interesting.

Now I really want to see this movie.