Mary Tillman discussing Pat’s death ~ ESPN/Jim Rome

Mary Tillman discussing her son’s death & the Bush/Rummy military cover-up for political gain on ESPN/Jim Rome

Video Transcript

pets hillmaninordinately lost his lifebecause he wanted to make a difference everybody else is askingwise life storybright smilescruising down to the ground clinging to go through the rangerstogethernobody askedbernardsend jealouswhat's wrongback my guest is the mother pat tillman she is also the author of the book isentitledpolice on the ground by just like to be two pats on the ninety one right now bymary tell me mary says that the other program are youi'm fine thank you thanks for having me absolutelythere and know that you an intensely private person i would have to thinkthat writing a book was probably the furthest thing from your mindwhat motivated you to do sowell the motivation was really the fact that the public seem tennis understand alot of the reasons that we've been pushing so hardto get accountability and so i felt it was importantto cut everything down so people would understand and also to do you know tocut down our story so either families who are in the same position we've beeninwould feel maybe someone validatedbefore we talk more about what happened or what may not happentalk from it about pat give us an idea what was pat likewellheadyou know pat was a really annan fine and these ng percent i mean he was alwaysvery curious in inquisitive tenaciousphysicalyou know but is he got older he really had it a desire to be a better personand near to try to make the right decisions in his lifedonto benefit himself into the people around himpaneer so your family was told that he died heroically in a fire fight andseveral weeks later you found outthere was a result of friendly fire when you found out that what did you thinkonly first heard about the friendly-fire you know be very very sad and it was sotragic but you know friendly fire is a part of war and that was something wevery much understoodyou know we heard it on the story of the fratricide situation and then threeweeks later we went to fort lewis to get an official briefing of what happenedand those stories are so drastically different one crucial information whohad been changed and that we became very suspiciousand that's when we started asking a lot of questions so in your opinion why wasa military not straightforward enough wrong with you in the familywell i think that part of the reason ways for one meter the ranger regimentwould've been very very grossly embarrassed actually because of thegross negligencethem with respect to the soldiers they think they killed packand also if they're deadirresponsible orders have gone they came from a tactical operations centerbut i also believe because this was the month of april two thousand four theother great prison scandal broke the week that pat was killed one pollutionwas in chaospresident bush's approval rating was very weak and the most cats do the wartaken place at thatthat monthso i think that all of those things were so embarrassing comin tragicthat the administration and the military wanting to use pat step to deflectpublic attention away from those thingsand to use pad as a propaganda toolto rally support for the war in iraqthey all that saidhow did that make you and your family feelwell itit's grotesque is for a test that any soldier on me you know is used in anyfashionto promote to promote the war or too you know to deflect attention away fromsomethingi think that onyou know pat was a very honest person he had a lot of integrity he enlisted ondat you know i had a lot of country as do all soldiers and i think that youknow they've been disrespect that he was shownon deserves to be there for you knowthe people who did that deserve to have they looked into entered be heldaccountable for it he'll be seen as sort of accountability nears anybody takeresponsibility to the except you like to seenow not at all the army is apologize of course they'll apologize for mistakesyou know missteps in errors but the congressional oversight committee hasalready deemed that pat's death was a deliberate cover upanti don't see anyone being held accountableaccountable for that no one has apologized for the uh... shoulderliberate deception and they should be they should be held accountableso it's a deliberate cover up how high up do you think that goesi personally believe that one is highest donald rumsfeld how much the presidentknew or didn't know i'm not certain of that but i'm pretty certainand that i'm very certain that that donald rumsfeld was aware of thecover-up and in fact probablyinitiated itpitch it's just speak with him right now what would you say to himwhile i would just would one hinted to come forth and sit with the truth nambut i don't believe the best possible i believe that you know the someone isgoing to have touncover the truth i don't think that he is going to be forthcomingwith what happens but he was that you know pat was very much in his radar andheated indicated today the deputy secretary are mediated a certain pointthat hedot pat was a very special individual and think that military she keep an eyeon himso it's ludicrous to think that he was not told and immediately the palacekilled by friendly fire so he had to have ninety had to be unaware of thecover upmary you've heard this criticism before budetti or a committee why does thefamily kipushing why did mary tilma need to write this book why did they not let it go themilitary's already apologized what were you looking for how do you respond thatwell as i just sat they've apologized for making mistakes this is not amistakethis is an a deliberate attempt to cover up what happened to pat and they went togross measures to do that they destroyed his uniformthey try to convince the ifirst investigate what they did convince thefirst investigative officernot to tell the medical examiner pat was killed by friendly firebut the medical examiner in the corner could tell by pat saloon patternthat he was indeed not killed by the enemyso they've refused to sign yacht party so they administration and the militarywere forced to tell us the truththis this is that this is absolutely a heinous thing they didand i think it's sad that the public doesn't see thatbut unfortunately the last eight years that we've been lied to so much by thisadministrationthat people are someone nam two things that are really very outrageousfamily ascii was writing the book starting anywayor do just open up these wounds few all over againwell i've been working on the book for quite a while and the last twelve youknow if i worked on it for a year in three monthsbut before that i was you know looking into the investigation looking at allthe reports that are received from the militaryso i'd be sort of been is constant it but i think that writing the book hasbeen very helpful on actually and i think that you know we are a resultfamily are moving on quitequite well pat was a wonderful man we have that to to look to but this is aresponsibility i think we haveyou put forth what happen to us so other peopleyou know the public individuals can read it and see what you know the militarythe government actually did and i also have examples of you know five othersoldiers in the bookwhose families rely to a lot about the way they died and that is just notacceptable man mary tillman joining usperry thank you so much appreciate on good luckthank you very much thank you

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