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Tillman blasts Defense Department at hearing

Kevin Tillman on Tuesday blamed the government for trying to “hijack” his brother’s virtue and legacy when they withheld the truth about the friendly fire death of Cpl. Pat Tillman in Afghanistan.

“Pat was and still is a great man,” Kevin Tillman said in testimony at the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform hearing in Washington, D.C. “Pat wanted to leave a positive legacy and he did. For the government to hijack his virtue and legacy is horrific.”

Kevin Tillman, a former Ranger who joined the Army with his brother, also slammed the narrative that accompanied his brother’s Silver Star as “utter fiction” and said his brother was used as a “sales asset.”

The Army thought that “with any luck, our family would sink into our grief,” he said. “But they underestimated our family’s reaction.”

Pat Tillman’s death April 22, 2004, was clearly fratricide, his brother testified.

“This was not some fog of war. [The soldiers] simply lost control,” he said.

The hearing, “Misleading Information from the Battlefield,” focused on the initial and inaccurate reports of Tillman’s death and the capture and rescue of former Pvt. Jessica Lynch in Iraq.

The committee is examining why inaccurate accounts of those two incidents were disseminated, the sources and motivations for the accounts, and whether the appropriate officials have been held accountable, according to the committee’s Web site.

Pat Tillman, 27, was killed near Manah, Afghanistan. He had turned down a $3.6 million professional football contract to join the Army.

His family initially was told that he had been killed by enemy fire. It wasn’t until after his nationally televised memorial service that military officials revealed he had been killed by his comrades.

Spc. Bryan O’Neal, who was with Pat Tillman when he died, testified that he was told by his battalion commander not to tell Kevin Tillman that his brother’s death was caused by friendly fire.

“He made it known that I would get in trouble if I mentioned fratricide,” said O’Neal, now assigned to the 4th Ranger Training Battalion at Fort Benning, Ga. “I wanted to tell the family right away, especially Kevin, because I’d worked with him in the unit.”

O’Neal, who was 19 when he served in Afghanistan with the Tillman brothers, said that as he lay on his side after the shooting stopped, “I was 100 percent positive it was friendly fire.”

One of the statements used to support Pat Tillman’s Silver Star was written by O’Neal, who said Tuesday that his original statement was changed without his consent, to include statements about enemy fire. O’Neal said he knew from the beginning that Tillman was killed by his fellow soldiers.

The Silver Star award was part of an extensive Defense Department review. Thomas Gimble, acting Defense Department Inspector General, said his investigation showed O’Neal’s statement was tampered with, but he could not identify who made the changes.

Findings from the DoD review, which was released in late March, cited four generals and five other officers in Tillman’s chain of command for mistakes made in reporting his death. The officers have been referred to a four-star Army general for further review and possible punishment for providing misleading or inaccurate information regarding the way Tillman was killed.

Seven soldiers, both officers and enlisted men, have received nonjudicial punishment for what happened the day Tillman was killed.

Tillman’s family has rejected the Pentagon’s findings, and they called for congressional investigations into what they see as broad malfeasance and a cover-up.

Mary Tillman on Tuesday said she still has questions about the circumstances of her son’s death, including why the troops were split up and why the soldiers didn’t have the option of destroying the broken-down vehicle that was the reason the soldiers split into two groups.

Kevin Tillman added he doesn’t know why his brother’s uniform was cut off his body and burned.

“He got there [to the field hospital] 90 minutes after he was shot. Pat was gone,” he said. “They tampered with his body. It doesn’t make sense.”

Lynch was badly wounded and captured March 23, 2003, when 507th Maintenance Company was ambushed in Nasiriyah, Iraq. She was later rescued and hailed by Defense Department officials as a hero who fired her weapon during the ambush on her convoy until she ran out of ammunition and was captured.

That information was later found to be inaccurate when Lynch spoke out, saying she never fired her weapon and that, because of her injuries, her memory of that day’s events are unclear.

Lynch testified Tuesday that while she recovered from her wounds, “tales of great heroism were being told. My parents’ home … was under siege by the media, all repeating the story of the little girl Rambo from the hills who went down fighting. It was not true.”

“The bottom line is the American people are capable of determining their own ideals for heroes and they don’t need to be told elaborate tales,” Lynch said. “The truth of war is not always easy to hear but it is always more heroic than the hype.”

Nine witnesses testified Tuesday. Mary and Kevin Tillman were asked to testify about their communications with Army officials after Pat Tillman’s death and about the information provided to them concerning the circumstances surrounding the incident.

Lynch was asked by the committee to talk about her capture and rescue, and the information that was disseminated about her and the incident.

Dr. Gene Bolles, who was chief of neurosurgery at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany when Lynch was treated there, was asked to talk about whether there was medical evidence that Lynch had been shot, tortured or abused during her captivity.

Gimble was asked to talk about the findings of the review conducted by his office into Pat Tillman’s death, while Brig. Gen. Rodney Johnson, commanding general of Army Criminal Investigation Command, spoke about his agents’ investigation into Pat Tillman’s death.

Testifying in addition to O’Neal were Navy Senior Chief Petty Officer Stephen White, who spoke at Pat Tillman’s nationally televised memorial service and who didn’t find out that his friend had been killed by friendly fire until after the service; and Lt. Col. John Robinson, who was a public affairs officer for Central Command when Pat Tillman was killed.

DISCUSSION:

Tillmans testify