Boots on the Ground by Dusk: My Tribute to Pat Tillman | 
 enlarge | Author: Mary Tillman
Creator: Narda Zacchino
Publisher: Modern Times
Category: Book
List Price: $25.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  9 reviews
Sales Rank: 23784
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 368
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.4
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.4
ISBN: 1594868808
Dewey Decimal Number: 796.332092
EAN: 9781594868801
ASIN: 1594868808
Publication Date: April 29, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Brand new book!!
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Product Description
On April 22, 2004, Lieutenant David Uthlaut received orders from Khost, Afghanistan, that his platoon 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. It was an order the young lieutenant protested vehemently, but the commanders at the Tactical Command Center disregarded his objections. Uthlaut split his platoon into two serials, with serial one traveling northwest to Manah and serial two towing a broken Humvee north toward the Khost highway. By nightfall, Uthlaut and his radio operator were seriously wounded, and an Afghan militia soldier and a U.S. soldier were dead. The American soldier was my son, Pat Tillman. The Tillman family was originally informed that Pat, who had given up a professional football career to serve his country, had been shot in the head while getting out of a vehicle. At his memorial service twelve days later, they were told that he was killed while running up a hill in pursuit of the enemy. He was awarded a Silver Star for his courageous actions. A month and two days after his death, the family learned that Pat had been shot three times in the head by his own troops in a "friendly fire" incident. Seven months after Pat’s death, the Tillmans requested an investigation. Boots on the Ground by Dusk is a chronicle of their efforts to ascertain the true circumstances of Pat’s death and the reasons why the Army gave the family and the public a false story. Woven into the account are valuable and respectful memories of Pat Tillman as a son, brother, husband, friend, and teammate, in the hope that the reader will better comprehend what is really lost when our sons and daughters are killed or maimed in war. In the course of three and a half years, there have been six investigations, several inquiries, and two Congressional hearings. The Tillmans are still awaiting an outcome.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 4 more reviews...
 Blistering Indictment (while loving tribute) July 4, 2008
Our country was shocked when Pat Tillman, who left a lucrative NFL career to join the army, was killed in Afghanistan in April, 2004. But that was just the beginning of it. The circumstances under which Tillman was killed, were unclear, and as it turned out were covered up. Now comes this book from Pat Tillman's mom.
In "Boots on the Ground by Dusk: My Tribute to Pat Tillman" (344 pages), Mary Tillman (with help from journalist Narda Zacchino) brings an blistering indictment of how the Army misinformed and covered up the circumstances of Pat Tillman's death that fateful day. The first part of the book brings a mix of the author's memories about her son, together with the confusion if those early days and weeks after his death of what happened. Mary Tillman's recounts of how she dealt with the loss of her son are heartbreaking (I found myself choking up one a number of occasions). But the real value of this book comes in the second part of the book, in which she dissects, page after page, fact after fact, how the Army's explanations were inconsistent and untruthful. It is nothing short of an eye-opener.
When a country is at war, "friendly fires" are going to happen, you can say. But is it not acceptable that the authorities (in this case: the Army) are not forthcoming about what really happened. The culprits in this tragedy are many. I do not understand the mentality that clearly exists about covering up the facts. Pat Tillman was a 'celebrity' and hence this incident has gotten a lot of attention, but as Mary Tillman points out in her book, there are many other incidents like it that have not gotten the attention but still happen. This book is not an easy book to read, in fact it makes for a devastating read, but I nevertheless highly recommend it. The "authorities" need to be accounted for, and be held accountable. The last has not been said on the Tillman case. Meanwhile my heart goes out to Mary Tillman and her family.
 Boots on the Ground by Dusk: My Tribute to Pat Tillman June 28, 2008
This is a heart-felt expression of her grief and pain due to the death of her son. It is also an honest expression of her frustration and outrage at dealing with the deception of the military and government officals regarding her son's death. It is a moving read.
Boots on the Ground by Dusk a Great Father's Day Gift June 19, 2008
0 out of 3 found this review helpful
I perchased this book for my husband for Father's Day.
My husband was extremly happy to receive the book and is looking forward to reading it.
I will get back to you with his opinion of the book once he finished reading it.
Pat Tillman: a good man done wrong June 8, 2008
This book allows us to get to know Pat Tillman as a person rather than just the football player turned soldier. It also provides insight into how his death was used for publicity for the war in Iraq and the many lies and mistruths that the Tillman family had to endure. Most importantly as you put it down you think you know Pat Tillman and why he did the things in life that he did.
A Courageous Mother's Tribute To A Fallen Son May 16, 2008
14 out of 17 found this review helpful
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.
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