Boots on the Ground by Dusk: My Tribute to Pat Tillman (Hardcover)

~ (Author), Narda Zacchino (Contributor)
Key Phrases: jinga truck driver, suspected fratricide, field hospital report, Pat Tillman, Serial One, Serial Two (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Tillman, the mother of the late professional football player and U.S. Army Ranger Pat Tillman, and former journalist Zacchino collaborate for this disturbing story of a mother's desperate search for the truth of her son's death. Pat Tillman constantly defied expectations; following 9/11, he shocked his family and football fans everywhere when he quit the NFL and joined the army rangers. On April 21, 2004, while on a combat mission in Afghanistan, Pat was killed in a firefight. Although commanders knew almost immediately that friendly fire was the likely cause of his death, the family wasn't told for weeks. Her suspicions aroused, his mother demanded answers, and the more she learned about the army's inept handling of her son's death, the more she was convinced that there was a conspiracy. Bereft, besieged by suspicions that the administration orchestrated [Pat's] death, Tillman recounts her story bravely, but her obsession with fixing blame and her recourse to conspiracy theories compromises her credibility. The result is a troubling, uneven account that raises serious questions, but offers little in the way of insights or answers. (May)
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From Booklist

Reminiscent of the 1979 TV movie Friendly Fire (in which a woman tries to find out how her son, a soldier in Vietnam, died at the hands of his own comrades), this gripping real-life account chronicles Mary Tillman’s attempts to get a straight answer about the death of her son, Pat, in Afghanistan in 2004. Tillman, who put on hold a career as a pro football player and enlisted in the army, was shot to death during a mission that was (to judge by the evidence presented here) poorly planned and disastrously executed. Although it seems clear that Tillman was killed by American soldiers—shot in the legs and then three times in the head—by men who surely should have known they were killing one of their own, the exact circumstances seem deliberately obscure. The army kept giving Tillman’s family a new version of the story of his death, often contradicting previous versions but never answering any of their questions. The book, which superimposes Mary’s search for the truth over memories of her son’s life, is both emotional and frustrating. We, like Mary Tillman, feel angry and bewildered over the government’s apparent lack of interest in providing her with a simple explanation for her son’s death. This story has made headlines for the last several years, and while there are no final answers here, those who have followed the controversy will be eager to hear from Tillman’s mother. --David Pitt

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Modern Times (April 29, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1594868808
• ISBN-13: 978-1594868801
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #15,719 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A mother's perspective on raising and losing a son and trying to find the truth behind his death after initial untruths., May 1, 2008

By	Thank You Pat! - See all my reviews

The most unique aspect of this book is hearing the family and friend's perspective on many events before and after Pat's death. I have followed the news stories for the last four years and watched the video on espn of the memorial service. This book differs from the past material in that there are new stories and you get the family and friends perspectives on these and other major events already covered in past articles and books. The book also has Pat's memorial speakers' words. This book is similar in that aspect to Walter Payton's book, "Never Die Easy" and the speakers at his funeral. The difference being the obvious different circumstances of death, and you get the Mother's perspective on how she felt about those speeches and that some of the speakers were not telling the truth about the events that led to Pat's death, that is the military speakers.

21 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Biter Sweet., May 6, 2008

By	Robert Carmody (Reno) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I certainly feel for the Tillman family.
Forty years ago my father, the only Olympic medal winner ever killed while serving in combat for the USA, was killed in Vietnam. My father was on a six man recon. team in a Ranger detachment and according to the statement by the commander of his ready reaction force, although his team was out of radio contact for nearly 11 hours, he was unconcerned because he had another force near the location that had heard nothing. Well, I have three other reports conflicting that statement. My father's team radioed at 915PM that his team was being approached by an enemy force. At 935PM his team radioed they were in a firefight and requested fire support. Not until well after 6AM the next morning did help arrive even though the ready reaction force was on ten minute alert and only 500 meters away with the fire power equivalent of three rifle companys. 5 of the 6 men on my fathers team were killed, one dying on the way to the hospital. I have the records proving that at 9AM that morning this CO met with a general and my father's commanding officer and four decades later have evidence that the most likely "enemy" that killed my father was the US Navy SEALs.
But I can get no answers after all these years. And that is why it is so biter sweet, this book and the circumstances surrounding Tillman's death. When I read in the newspaper that the Army assigns all these folks to research and serve the Tillman's, all these investigations by generals and boards it gives me a really sick feeling in side. Yes, the Tillman's deserve it, but what about the rest of us ? I wrote to the National Archives for my father's records and they responded telling me that they could not locate his records but let me know that they could happily tell me he served in the Army (duh). The Army told me that they are not historians. I was able to contact the commander of the L ready reaction force and he told me he could not help me because his tour ended before the investigation was completed. The intelligence officer my father's unit worked for said he was on R&R at the time, an imposter told me he was the only survivor and the stories go on and on...
Will the Tillman's ever get the truth ? Probably not because in the military only good news goes to the top. No officer is going to burn his chance at a promotion by being honest in a report that will screw him 20 years down the road.
I am glad to see this book. My heart goes out to the Tillman's because I understand their resentment. If you want to read about my father, SSGT Robert Carmody- go to ESPN and look in archives and search under the author "Mark Chalifoux'. The article is titled, "Heart of Bronze". (2005).

20 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Courageous Mother's Tribute To A Fallen Son, May 15, 2008

By	H. F. Corbin "Foster Corbin" (ATLANTA, GA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

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Many of the facts of Corporal Pat Tillman's life and tragic death have been played and replayed: his joining the military from a deep love of his country after the attacks of September 11, 2001, his giving up a career as a professional football player and leaving his young bride to do so, his platoon's ill-fated mission in Afghanistan that led to his death on April 22, 2004, his memorial service where the likes of Maria Shriver and Senator John McCain gave eulogies, his receiving both the Purple Heart and Silver Star for bravery, then the news soon thereafter that he had died of (such an ugly oxymoron) friendly fire.

Now Tillman's mother Mary covers both the life and death of her son, the effect it has had on her, his wife Marie, his brothers Richard and Kevin-- who was in the same platoon as Pat-- his father Patrick, other family members and a multitude of friends. Additionally with the determination and courage of a woman possessed-- why shouldn't she be-- she traces the family's quest to find out the truth of what really happened on that awful day in April, 2004. Her journey will take her to countless meetings with military types, where she has difficulty getting a similar story from different people, and ultimately to two Congressional hearings.

What Ms. Tillman learns is sad and depressing beyond measure as she and others excavate the layers of a cover-up. Apparently Corporal Tillman was given CPR hours after he died so that his uniform could be destroyed since the bullet holes in it would indicate clearly that he died from U. S. fire. (If a soldier is still alive, his uniform, because it is a biohazard, can be taken off him and destroyed.) A Navy Seal was told to give false information about Tillman's death when he spoke at his memorial service. Records were changed; documents were lost. The list goes on and on. Then there are cruel, petty gestures on the part of some of the military. One of the officers placed in charge of one of the many investigations, for example, believed that no one in the Tillman family was satisfied or would ever be satisfied because they were atheists, unlike Christians, who could come to terms with "'faith and the fact that there is an afterlife, heaven, or whatnot.'" The Army reneged on its promise to fly Tillman's wife Marie to Dover, Delaware to meet Kevin Tillman with her husband's body. (An anonymous man had her flown there in his plane.) Then the Army tried to persuade Marie to have a military funeral for Pat.

Ms. Tillman includes many of the eulogies verbatim from her son's funeral--his baby brother Richard's was irreverent and deadly-- as well as written reports that she has received from the Army in her attempt at finding out the truth about Pat's death. She also prints here an article Kevin Tillman wrote for Truthdig entitled "After Pat's Birthday" that rises to the level of poetry: "Somehow those afraid to fight in an illegal invasion decades ago are allowed to send soldiers to die for an illegal invasion they started."

BOOTS ON THE GROUND BY DUSK-- the book gets its title from the order that Lieutenant David Uthlaut received on April 22, 2004 that his platoon (Kevin and Pat Tillman's) was to leave the town of Magarah and "have boots on the ground before dark" in Manah, a small village on the border of Pakistan-- is very well-written; and not all of it is so dark although parts of it are almost too painful to read. I'm thinking now of Ms. Tillman's account of the return of her son's body to the local mortuary in his hometown. I decided that if this brave woman could write the book, then surely I, who along with the rest of stay-at-home Americans, have been urged by my president to support the troops by going to the mall, can finish it. She said a couple of nights ago in a sparsely-attended reading she gave at the Carter Library in Atlanta that she wrote this book to encourage other families in the same predicament as she, families that have lost sons, daughters, fathers, and brothers in Iraq and Afghanistan, to help them deal with their grief. And she made this statement in the library of a former president of the U. S. and naval officer, who, when asked by a reporter on his 80th birthday, what he would want to be remembered most for as president, responded that no American soldiers died in combat during his four years in office.