Pat Tillman and his younger brother Kevin Tillman during hard times.
Better them than we
By John Esther
For reasons we may never know, when Pat Tillman gave up his multimillion-dollar career as a professional defensive end with the Arizona Cardinals to join the Army Rangers with his brother, Kevin, in 2002, he became a poster child of self-sacrifice for the alleged national good.
For the warmongers and the corporate media the message Pat’s sacrifice sent was black gold: if Pat was willing to give up so much, what was your excuse? (Another quieter signal was the hope that the war would not be perceived as the poor fighting on behalf of the rich.) In fact, Secretary of Defense (War!) Donald “Stuff Happens” Rumsfeld sent an email to the Secretary of the Army, saying of Pat, “We might want to keep an eye on him.”
Of course the eye was never so much to be focused on Pat, or any of the other men and women in the armed forces in harm’s way, but on the narrative of Pat, the troops and the war itself. From the boycott on photos of dead soldiers returning from Afghanistan and Iraq to the story of Pat, the sort of lies that got us into the two wars had to be maintained for propaganda’s progress.
So when Pat was killed on April 22, 2004, at the age of 27, the Army sent out falsehoods about the circumstances surrounding his death to carry on the Tillman myth.
Rather than accept anything official, Pat’s family wanted to uncover Pat's death and speak the truth about it to those listening.
A riveting story about real sacrifice, courage and the best of American (human) values, director Amir Bar-Lev’s documentary, The Tillman Story, exposes how the Tillman family stood up to the U.S. Army and demanded the truth be told surrounding Pat’s death.
Narrated by Josh Brolin (W; Milk), at the forefront of this confrontation is Pat and Kevin’s mother, Dannie Tillman, the kind of mother any sensible child would want on his or her side and the last thing the patriarchs in U.S. Army and U.S. Government expected.
Dannie loved and honored her son and there was no way she and the other Tillmans were going to let the Army use Pat for propaganda. A loving son, brother and husband, Pat made the ultimate sacrifice for a cause he increasingly questioned yet never shirked from, even though he was offered ample opportunities to be released from active duty.
While not a hero per se, in life Pat was no ordinary man, although not for the ordinary reasons ordinary people believe. “Pat fucking Tillman” was extraordinary for nearly all the reasons the Army and the Bush administration tried to hide in their narrative while noted truth-distorters such as Sean Hannity and Ann Coulter tried to deny in their narrative.
Engaging, enraging, edifying and undeniably patriotic, this Summer Showcase documentary attempts as much as it can to face the facts and set the record straight. If there are any shortcomings in its truth, it is because the powers that be continue to lie in the way.
Note to LAFF attendees: Brolin and Dannie Tillman are scheduled to appear at Saturday night’s screening.
Highly Recommended.
(The Tillman Story screens June 19, 9:45 p.m., Regal Cinemas; June 20, 1:30 p.m., Downtown Independent)
