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BOOTS ON THE GROUND BY DUSK: MY TRIBUTE TO PAT TILLMAN |
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Chapter 3
The lights of an approaching car cast a hazy light onto my front yard. Richard gets out and walks toward the front door. His arms reach for me, and he holds me close. Michelle hangs back for a moment, and then she comes up to give me a hug. We walk into the house, where I put out some light snacks. They look exhausted. "How are you holding up, Mom?" Rich asks. "I'm okay, how about you two?" "I don't know. I never did believe the story about Pat charging up the hill to the enemy. Pat wasn't that stupid." "I know. There was something off about that story." "Did Kevin tell you anything about what really happened?" Michelle asks. "No. But I learned from Alex that his death was the result of military blunders." My eyes well up, and I can't say any more. "Yeah, that's all we know," Rich says. "Kevin didn't fill us in much. He just told me to head home. It's good to be here, Mom." "I'm glad you're here." I get up and walk behind him to wrap my arms around his shoulders as the phone rings. It's Kevin; he tells me the Army can't fly him and Marie home until tomorrow. "Is Rich home yet?" Kevin asks. "Yes, he and Michelle got here about fifteen minutes ago." "Good. I'm glad you're not alone. I just got off the phone with Dad. He sounds better than he did earlier in the day. Mary is with him," Kevin says. My ex-husband's girlfriend, Mary Badame, has been with him for more than five years. She is a very kind and gentle person who has been very supportive of all of us, before and after Pat's death. Rich and Michelle get their bags from the car. Rich grabs two sleeping bags out of the closet and lays them out in the family room. I straighten the kitchen as they get ready for bed. I give them each a hug, then go to my room. I read for about an hour, then lie rigidly on my back. I'm very tired but unable to sleep. Staring up, I focus on a patch in the ceiling that's illuminated by the hall light coming through the crack in the door. I think back to a stormy evening more than ten years ago. My husband's nephews had a wrestling tournament in Union City, a town about thirty miles north of San Jose. Patrick and Richard left early in the morning for the tournament. Pat and Kevin had a function of their own in the morning, so they'd arranged to take my car and meet up with their dad and Rich later in the day. I stayed home to get housework done. It was dreary and rainy; by early evening the wind had picked up and the rain was coming down in sheets. Our family room had flooded several years earlier, so I checked out the back window a few times to see if I needed to go outside to dig trenches. The ground was obviously absorbing the rain, so I went about my business. I walked into my bedroom to put some folded clothes in my dresser. When I switched on the light, I noticed dimples in my ceiling. "Oh, shit," I said under my breath. My husband had been putting a new roof on the house. I had forgotten he had not quite finished and had secured a section by covering it with a tarp. The wind must have blown the tarp off. I dropped the clothes on my bed and raced outside to get the ladder. I rummaged around the shed trying to find it, but it wasn't there. I came back in the house and grabbed towels, a bucket, and a kitchen stool, which I positioned under the crawl-space door in the hallway. I managed to open the door, but the stool wasn't tall enough for me to be able to hoist myself up. I could hear the rain coming down harder and had visions of my ceiling caving in. Just as I started to panic, I heard the front door open. "Hello! Can you believe this awesome rain?" "Pat, is that you?! Where are Dad and your brothers?" "They're still at the wrestling tournament. I have homework to finish." Pat looked down the hall and saw me standing on the stool. "Ma, what are you doing?" "The roof is leaking. Look at the ceiling in my bedroom. See the dimples? The tarp blew off the roof, and I can't find the ladder." Pat looked up at my ceiling. "Damn!" He ran out to the shed to locate the ladder. A few minutes later he yelled that he found it at the side of the house. I ran outside to find him on the roof securing the big blue tarp. "Be careful!" I yelled as the wind whipped around. With the tarp in place, Pat came in the house, threw off his jacket, and hoisted himself on the stool to look into the crawl space. Water that had come in through the exposed roof was still dripping from the soaked rafters and seeping into my ceiling. Standing on the stool, Pat took off his shoes and socks, threw them in the open bedroom door, and pulled himself up into the crawl space. "Hand me the towels and bucket, Mom." I held them up. Grabbing them, he disappeared into the dark space under the roof. I could hear him rumbling around trying to sop up water as I got more towels out of the linen cabinet. "Mom, there's one spot that's leaking a lot. I'm going to put the bucket under if I can get to it. It's hard walking on these skinny ... holy shit!" A thud came from above my bedroom. "Pat, are you all right?" I yelled as I ran into the room. I heard a thunderous laugh as I looked up to see a size-twelve bare foot sticking through a hole in my ceiling. The memory is so vivid, I close my eyes with the hope of reliving it as I fall sleep. Waking up early, I put on some coffee. Richard and Michelle sleep until about ten. As they shower, I make breakfast. We sit around and talk for several hours while waiting for Kevin and Marie to get home. They pull up the driveway in a rented car at around two. We help them carry their things from the car, and I make them sandwiches that they hardly touch. We sit in the family room for an hour or so, deliberately avoiding the reason we are together. But gradually, our talk leads Kevin to get a notepad. He crouches in front of my chair and begins to sketch a map of the region where Pat was killed. Richard and Michelle sit on the floor on either side of us. Marie stays curled up on the far end of the couch. Her flawless skin looks particularly pale as she stares distantly out the window, revealing her apprehension about listening to details the Ranger commander had reviewed three days earlier, details too painful to fully absorb. Marie's fair and delicate beauty belies her quiet strength. For five weeks, with tremendous dignity, she has coped with Pat's death and struggled with the reality of facing life without him. As Pat's wife, the burden of making many painful decisions and dealing with overwhelming amounts of paperwork has fallen on her young shoulders. Watching her so bravely try to fathom the information she recently has been given fills me with sadness and pride. Kevin starts his narrative by writing the date "April 21, 2004" on the bottom right corner of the paper. My stomach tightens with anxiety, anticipating what I am about to hear. Kevin then points to a circle he has drawn just above the date. He labels it "Magarah." He begins, weaving his own memories of what happened that day into his recollection of what Lieutenant Colonel Jeffrey Bailey told him just days before. His and Pat's platoon, part of 2nd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, had been ordered to conduct "clearing operations" -- essentially, sweeping villages for Taliban fighters -- in a region of southeastern Afghanistan near the Pakistan border. As they were getting ready to begin operations, one of their vehicles, a Humvee [1] mounted with a .50-caliber machine gun, wouldn't start. The unit mechanic determined that the vehicle needed a new fuel pump, and one was flown in by a supply helicopter. But the pump didn't solve the problem. Kevin's vehicle towed the Humvee using tow straps. By the morning of April 22, the vehicle had been further disabled by being dragged around. The platoon stopped in a little village called Magarah and sat for nearly six hours while a decision was made about how to continue the mission. Requests by the platoon leader, Lieutenant David Uthlaut, to airlift the vehicle out were denied. Because the vehicle was holding up the mission, a lot of the soldiers in the platoon kept saying, "Blow the bitch up," but the chain of command would not permit them to destroy it or leave it behind. It was decided that a local truck driver would tow the Humvee on the back of a jinga truck. [2] Uthlaut received orders from a commander at the tactical operations center (TOC) in Khost, about sixty-five miles away, to proceed with their mission without further delay. He was told the commander wanted "boots on the ground" in Manah before dark. Because of the disabled vehicle, the only way to accomplish this was to split the platoon into two sections, Serial One and Serial Two. Serial One was supposed to go directly to the village of Manah and prepare for clearing operations. Serial Two was ordered to escort the disabled Humvee to a link-up point near the Khost highway to a village called Tit, where it would meet with a recovery team from Khost and drop off the Humvee with the maintenance team so they could fix it back at the forward operating base in Khost. Once Serial Two delivered the Humvee, it was to travel along a pre-determined route and link up with Serial One in the village of Manah. Uthlaut vehemently objected to this plan. He didn't want to split his troops in dangerous terrain on the border of Pakistan and risk losing communication in the canyon. He also was concerned because he had only one .50-caliber machine gun, which meant one of the serials would be without a big gun. But he was told again that there must be no more delays. There were six vehicles in Serial One. Pat was in the second vehicle. Serial One left Magarah about fifteen minutes ahead of Serial Two, which included Kevin. On the paper, Kevin draws a path showing the route Pat took with Serial One. Pat's serial headed west along a route that would take them through steep canyons and difficult terrain. Kevin's group took a northerly route to deliver the disabled Humvee to the drop off point. Kevin's vehicle was the last in a convoy of five, not including the disabled Humvee that was towed by the jinga truck. He watched the tail end of Pat's serial as it split west and disappeared into the canyon. When Kevin's group, Serial Two started their movement, a Humvee was leading the convoy, followed by the jinga truck which was towing the disabled Humvee. But when the jinga driver realized he couldn't negotiate the intended route due to poor road conditions, the driver adamantly refused to continue along the planned route. It was decided by the Platoon Sergeant, the Serial Two would back track to the point where Serial One traveled into the canyon and pick up the same route. As Serial Two re-adjusted their route, the lead Humvee also backed up and fell in behind the jinga truck, making the jinga truck and the disabled Humvee the lead vehicle for Serial Two. As the convoy entered the canyon, Kevin remembered looking at the canyon walls and thinking it was crazy to be taking this route in daylight, especially after they'd sat in Magarah for six hours, making their presence known to any enemy in the area. He remembered thinking they were going to get whacked. Serial One moved through the canyon safely. It was supposed to take a left turn and head south to get to Manah, but the serial mistakenly turned right and headed north. The soldiers in Serial One quickly realized they made a wrong turn and stopped their movement and began to turn their vehicles around and get back on the right route. As Serial One started to re-adjust their vehicles, Serial Two, traveling along the same route, but minutes behind Serial One, came under attack by what soldiers thought were RPGs -- rocket-propelled grenades -- or mortar fire and small arms fire from the northern and southern ridgelines. At first they thought one of their vehicles had hit an IED -- improvised explosive device -- so they stopped and dismounted, as they were trained to do. Within seconds, they realized they were in an ambush. They quickly got back in their vehicles, started firing, and tried to maneuver out of the canyon. The MK-19 [3] on Kevin's vehicle failed to fire and his rifle also was jammed. He started shooting with his pistol. The situation was extremely confusing. Serial Two returned heavy volumes of fire. Soldiers were firing every weapon system to include their 60mm mortar and AT-4s. The canyon walls were high and made it difficult for the soldiers to fire at the enemy who occupied higher ground. Bullets were ricocheting everywhere. But at no time did anyone in Serial Two receive any injuries from enemy fire. Back at the intersection, the Serial One soldiers heard the explosions and gunfire coming from the canyon. They immediately identified the machine gun fire as friendly forces. Lieutenant David Uthlaut attempted to contact Serial Two, but was not able to make contact. Everyone in Serial One was surprised to hear gun fire since they knew Serial Two was not supposed to be moving along the same route. They stopped their vehicles close to a cluster of houses near the road, and were ordered to dismount. A group of soldiers moved on foot past the houses. Pat moved to the eastern slope of the spur with Private Bryan O'Neal; an Afghan Militia Force (AMF) soldier followed them. Sergeant Matt Weeks and his squad moved on the west side of the tiny village. Uthlaut, the platoon leader, stayed by the village with his radio operator, Specialist Jade Lane, in an attempt to communicate with Serial Two. Ordinarily, Pat would have been maneuvering with his squad leader, Sergeant Jeffrey Jackson, but Uthlaut assigned Jackson to Serial Two. Uthlaut was trying to compensate for the lack of the .50-caliber gun by giving Serial Two more men. Pat was acting as a team leader due to the circumstances. He noticed the enemy on the southern ridgeline. Because he had no radio, he ran across the crest to the ridge Sergeant Weeks was occupying. Pat asked Weeks if he could take off his body armor so he could move faster and assault the enemy. Weeks told Pat he could not remove his body armor, but he could assault the enemy. Pat ran back to his position to explain his plan to O'Neal and the AMF soldier. In the meantime, Serial Two vehicles could not move forward because the jinga truck had stalled in the middle of the road. At some point Sergeant Greg Baker, the squad leader in charge of the lead Humvee, was able to get the stalled jinga truck out of the way so his driver and the other vehicles could get around it. Now positioned where the canyon road opened up, Baker got out of his vehicle. A crew member on the vehicle shouted, "Contact three o'clock!" Baker saw the bearded Afghan soldier near Pat with an AK-47 [4] 200 to 250 meters away. It looked to Baker as though the Afghan was shooting at his vehicle. He shot him about eight times and watched him fall. The soldiers in the lead vehicle started shooting where their team leader had shot. Meanwhile, Serial One soldiers on the ridgeline were trying desperately to signal that they were friendlies. Pat and O'Neal, who were just several meters behind the fallen AMF soldier, frantically waved their arms and yelled, "Cease fire! Friendlies!" They tried to take cover behind two rocks that were being sprayed with machine-gun fire from the lead Humvee. Pat may have shot off a flare; he definitely threw a smoke grenade in an attempt to signal there were friendlies on the ridgeline. After Pat threw the smoke, there was a lull in fire. Pat and O'Neal believed the shooters in the lead vehicle saw the smoke and recognized that friendlies were on the berm. They thought it was safe at this point and got out from behind the rocks. Pat came around the rock and started to head toward the enemy position when the soldiers in Baker's vehicle opened up their weapons again. O'Neal was able to take cover. Pat was shot in the legs and dropped to a squatting position, yelling "Cease fire! Friendlies! I'm Pat fucking Tillman!" Seconds later, O'Neal heard pain in Pat's voice. The soldiers had opened up on Pat again. He was hit three times in the head. Kevin pauses for a few seconds; he continues the story. Baker's vehicle drove down the road shooting up the ridgeline and the houses. Uthlaut and Lane were hit with shrapnel -- Uthlaut in the face and Lane was shot in the knee. Kevin is now silent. His tired and glassy eyes stare into mine as he places the notepad with his diagrams in my hands. I gaze numbly at the "P" Kevin wrote on the paper, indicating Pat's final position. Gently, I run my fingers over it, as if by stroking it softly I'm able to soothe the horror of Pat's last moments of his life. My son knew his own men were killing him. I see Kevin's pained and helpless expression and wonder what images swim in his head and haunt him. The memory of Pat's face the last time he saw him? The sight of the last vehicle in Serial One fading into the canyon? The final view of a helicopter's silhouette as it lifted his brother's body into the Afghan sky? Richard sits on the floor with his back against the wall, staring across the room. His face is pale and his eyes are bloodshot. I can see his defenses building. The anger he has carried the last five weeks is palpable. My heart sinks at the thought of what this new reality will do to him. I glance down at Michelle, who is sitting at my feet. Her face is stricken and also watchful of Richard's reaction. I see Marie's slender frame curled up on the couch, eyes dull and fixed on the floor. The five of us sit quietly in our own thoughts for many minutes. Hesitantly, I ask Kevin how he was informed that Pat may have been killed by friendly fire. He tells us his platoon arrived at Fort Lewis from Afghanistan late Sunday or early Monday. The first time he saw anyone was Monday morning. He hadn't seen the men in his platoon since Pat was killed, and he had no idea at the time of Pat's death that he had been shot by a fellow Ranger. Kevin had been in the last vehicle of Serial Two, and by the time he reached the scene, no one was talking about fratricide. He didn't even know for about forty-five minutes that the soldier who was killed along with the Afghan was his brother. Then he was flown out shortly afterward to escort his brother's body home. Kevin returned to Fort Lewis after Pat's memorial in early May. He was happy to see the soldiers from his platoon, particularly the guys from his and Pat's units, return home. "Those were the guys that served with Till," Kevin says, referring to Pat by the nickname he had given him in college. Kevin says he went through physical training exercises with his unit early Monday. At some point after that, Sergeant Baker walked up to Kevin and told him he had shot the AMF soldier in the chest. Kevin had no idea what Baker was talking about and looked at him blankly. Kevin knew an AMF soldier had died when Pat was killed, but he never heard the facts of the situation. It never occurred to him that the deaths of Pat and the AMF soldier were related. Baker must have seen from the look on Kevin's face that he was confused and walked away. Kevin found Baker's behavior a bit strange, but he didn't dwell on it. A short time later, Kevin was approached by his squad leader, who told him to report to First Sergeant Thomas Fuller, whom Kevin hadn't seen since Pat was killed. Kevin assumed Fuller just wanted to see how he was coping with Pat's death; once seated in Fuller's office, however, Kevin got the sense he was called in for another reason. Sergeant Fuller gently began to explain that Pat may have been killed by his own men. Kevin was stunned. "That doesn't make any sense. Pat was shot by the enemy in the forehead running up a hill," he said, repeating the story the family had been told about Pat's death. "His own guys were behind him. It doesn't add up." The sergeant patiently explained what he knew. He said there were numerous shells from a .50-caliber machine gun found all around the area where Pat's body was recovered. He told Kevin the Army was conducting an investigation to find out exactly what happened. He informed him that his Ranger commander, Lieutenant Colonel Bailey, would be talking to him the next day to give him more details. Kevin thought the information he had just received was ridiculous. Pat couldn't have been killed by his own guys. Kevin left the sergeant's office and spent the rest of the day in a fog. Finally, it was time to go home. He would have to tell Marie what he had learned. Kevin drove to the little sage-green house where he, Pat, and Marie had lived so contentedly, the house he and Marie would continue to share until his obligation to the military is over. Marie took the news stoically. It was difficult for her to comprehend or to see how it mattered; Pat wasn't coming back. On Tuesday, Kevin was called in to talk to Lieutenant Colonel Bailey, who briefly reviewed the events surrounding Pat's death. The following day, Bailey made an official visit to Marie and Kevin's house, where he went into great detail describing what happened on April 22. Bailey told Kevin and Marie the media would be given no information until the rest of the family had been informed, and he indicated that he would be flying to San Jose over the coming weekend, Memorial Day weekend, to tell us the story. By now it's about five. We are emotionally and physically exhausted. Marie has fallen asleep on the couch. Michelle places a pillow under her head as Rich covers her with a blanket. Kevin gets up when he hears a vehicle coming up the driveway. It's my brother Mike. We go outside to greet him, then Michelle and I go into the kitchen to prepare vegetables and salad. Kevin, Rich, and Mike get the barbecue ready. We let Marie rest until it's time to eat. After dinner, Marie takes the rental car to her parents' house. She's going to spend the night there and return in the morning. Michelle and Rich go for a walk. Kevin and Mike sit at the table to drink coffee and talk politics while I wash and put away dishes. Once it's dark, all of us sit around the fire pit. Michelle and I quietly sip our wine. Mike listens gravely as Kevin tells him what he has learned about the day Pat died. When he is done, he sits back in his chair. Mike's stricken face peers into the dying fire. "Jesus Christ," he says. "This is unbelievable!" _______________ Notes: 1. HMMWV -- High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle, used primarily for personnel and light cargo transport. 2. Also known as a jingle truck, a flatbed truck used for local towing. 3. A 40 mm grenade launcher or grenade machine gun. 4. A gas-operated assault rifle that can fire up to 600 rounds per minute. |