Keeping Pat Tillman on the front lines

ESPN ^ | 10-15-2006 | By William Weinbaum

[MissEdie]

On Veterans Day weekend, the Arizona Cardinals will honor the late Pat Tillman with a special halftime ceremony and give him a place on the team's Ring of Honor at University of Phoenix Stadium.

But a less-publicized tribute in the Phoenix area is paid to Tillman every time a 24-year-old war veteran and student at Scottsdale Community College takes the stage as the lead singer of the punk rock band Second Stint. Sgt. Brad "Jake" Jacobson was among the Army Rangers on a mission in southeastern Afghanistan when Tillman was killed by friendly fire in April 2004. Jacobson wrote and performs a song called "Combat Suicide" with his band, in memory of Tillman.

Firsthand accounts On "Outside the Lines" (9:30 a.m. ET Sunday, ESPN; reaired at noon ET Sunday, ESPNEWS), five Army Rangers who were with Pat Tillman in Afghanistan for his final mission share their accounts of his death and its aftermath. The interviews are the first on television with any of the 40 members of the 75th Ranger Regiment, 2nd Battalion, who were there for the friendly fire episode near the Pakistan border. For more, click here.

Also, read ESPN.com investigative reporter Mike Fish's three-part E-Ticket series on Tillman, titled "An Un-American Tragedy:"

• Part One: Pat Tillman's Uncertain Death • Part Two: Playing with Friendly Fire • Part Three: Death of an American Ideal • Survivor living with memories

"I was kind of awed," Jacobson says, recalling his first impression of Tillman. "What he had to leave [to join the Rangers] and what we had to leave were two different things. But he could still connect with people, which was amazing. He seemed more interested in other people's lives than he was about his own, or bragging, or anything like that. A down-to-earth guy and a real gentleman."

Jacobson was a mortar man, attached to Tillman's platoon to provide cover fire as they combed the Afghan hills for al-Qaida and Taliban forces. The Rangers' duties were to seek and neutralize the enemy and eliminate caches of weapons.

Late in the afternoon of April 22, 2004, Tillman's "Black Sheep" platoon of 33 Rangers -- along with seven fellow Rangers from the 75th Ranger Regiment, 2nd Battalion, attached to the platoon -- were split into two convoys to transport a disabled Humvee during a planned search and clear operation. Lt. David Uthlaut, the platoon leader, voiced concerns about a plan to split the platoon but was overruled by superiors who communicated their orders from a remote location. Uthlaut requested a helicopter to remove the Humvee so he could keep his men together and proceed with the mission, but that request was denied.

Jacobson and others who were there say they would have chosen to destroy the inoperable vehicle, or perhaps leave it behind, rather than try to move it.

"We proposed, 'Let's blow it up,'" Jacobson says.

Standard practice, though, prohibits destroying Army property or leaving potential propaganda tools for the enemy, so the mandate stood: Half of the platoon had to transport the Humvee to a location where it could be more easily picked up by a wrecker.

AP Photo/Photography Plus via Williamson Stealth Media Solutions Pat Tillman died by friendly fire in southeastern Afghanistan on April 22, 2004."I guess the most frustration was coming from the fact that we couldn't get a Chinook [helicopter] in to airlift out a Humvee," Jacobson says. "That, to us, was just asinine. We're Army Rangers. Why can't they afford us this one helicopter to fly out of here? We know how to hook it up. It isn't going to take us but 10 minutes to be ready. 'Bam!' We hook it up, and it's gone."

Splitting the platoon, Jacobson says, "made us combat-ineffective. … The decision, based on the conditions we were in, was wrong." That decision, he adds, proved pivotal in the events that led to Tillman's death.

In "Combat Suicide," Jacobson points blame at the superior who ordered the split and wonders why the officer hasn't been disciplined:

So who do we blame for the mistakes that we made? Not the colonel whose decision was played, To split us up in two … Converging elements on a battlefield map, Should've seen that his choice was such crap, But he pins on his star . . .

The song's title "encompasses all the chain of events and the decisions made, the avenues took, splitting up," Jacobson says. "If you really think about it, converging elements … it was suicide. Combat suicide."

Combat Suicide The lyrics to Brad Jacobson's song about Pat Tillman:

It all started when a Humvee broke down just outside a hostile little town where we split up in two . . . One went left through the canyon, one went right but turned and followed later and received a firefight a reign of AK fire . . .

(Chorus:) But this time can't decide Do we live or do we die on this hillside this was Combat Suicide And the bullets ricocheted around the hideouts we had made to be afraid to live to see a brighter day

Heartbeating seems to be the only sound that covers up the ringing in my ears I have found this nightmare seems too real . . . I hear voices calling out to bring a sled, who would've thought the celebrity would be dead? I dragged his body down . . .

(Chorus:) But this time can't decide Do we live or do we die on this hillside this was Combat Suicide And the bullets ricocheted around the hideouts we had made to be afraid to live to see a brighter day

So who do we blame for the mistakes that we made? Not the colonel whose decision was played, to split us up in two . . . Converging elements on a battlefield map, should've seen that his choice was such crap, but he pins on his star . . .

(Bridge:) While a true star lost his life, Gave the ultimate sacrifice on that hillside, this was combat suicide . . . And the bullets ricocheted, around the hideout he had made, to be afraid, to live to see a brighter day.

As the afternoon progressed and the sunlight waned, Tillman's half of the platoon -- the first convoy, accompanied by five allied Afghan soldiers and an Afghan interpreter -- made it through a narrow, foreboding canyon on its way to the clearing mission at a village. Jacobson was in the second convoy, which was escorting the disabled vehicle. That half of the platoon unexpectedly changed its route at the urging of an Afghan truck driver hired by the platoon to tow the Humvee for about $120. The second convoy detoured to follow the first convoy, which was just minutes ahead, but the steep cliffs surrounding the canyon road made radio communications impossible.

As the second convoy attempted to pass through, Afghan insurgents unleashed a barrage of firepower from positions on both sides of the canyon.

The second convoy was ambushed.

"We're inside this enclosed canyon, and you hear this deafening 'BOOM!'" Jacobson recalls. "Somebody is dropping these rounds, actively engaging us."

Meanwhile, the Afghan truck driver towing the disabled Humvee kept stopping on the narrow road and getting out of the truck, preventing the other vehicles in the convoy from escaping.

"We can't go around this guy. We're stuck. We're like fish in a barrel," Jacobson recounts.

Sgt. Greg Baker finally forced the Afghan truck driver to get out of the way so the convoy could regain mobility. The Afghanis who started the firefight failed to wound any of the Rangers or inflict any other apparent damage.

"We're fortunate that nobody was shot at that point in time," Jacobson says. "I mean, thank God these guys are bad shots."

With the tow truck out of the way, Baker's Humvee became the lead vehicle in the second convoy. He and three gunners emerged from the tense battle, still firing as they exited the canyon. The Rangers in the second convoy apparently didn't realize that the first convoy, including Tillman, had taken positions up ahead in a counterattack to assist the trailing group.

"We were just like bats out of hell, just coming out of this extremely tense situation," says Jacobson, whose vehicle was behind Baker's.

Baker said later that he mistook a friendly Afghan soldier firing an AK-47 rifle as an enemy Afghani. He said the allied Afghan soldier, who was standing near Tillman and firing on the enemy beyond the approaching friendly vehicle, looked and dressed like enemy combatants, who also carried AK-47s.

At dusk and in the chaos of what was the first firefight for nearly half the platoon (although not for Tillman, who had seen earlier action in Iraq), Baker shot and killed the friendly Afghani soldier.

Three other gunners on Baker's vehicle, trained to follow Baker's lead, shot at the same area, where Tillman was standing. Tillman screamed to cease fire and even ignited a smoke grenade as a distress signal, but, like the allied Afghani, was shot and killed.

"I cannot just condemn [the shooters] for shooting at this position, based on just the emotional anxieties coming out of this claustrophobic state of the canyon," Jacobson says. "But at the same time, they did not do what they were trained to do. … We're taught to identify, acquire and then engage."

Why didn't the shooters follow those three steps when they emerged from the canyon?

"Emotion overcame logic," according to Jacobson.

Of the men in his own vehicle, Jacobson says, "Nobody in our jeep shot, because the commander of our jeep let it be known that he did see friendlies and so he gave us the 'do not fire' sign."

In the moments after Tillman's death, and once the platoon determined it was safe from enemy fire, word spread that there were fatalities.

Jacobson heard a report on his radio with the first letter of a victim's last name. Tillman wasn't the only Ranger in the platoon whose last name began with "T."

"It never crossed my mind that it would be Tillman," Jacobson says.

But the realization soon came.

"It was just unreal to even hear that this hero had died," he says. "It's like Superman. Just to hear that he died was just awful."

AP Photo/Matt York The day after Tillman's death in 2004, fans signed a memorial for him at the Arizona Cardinals' training facility.There was a call for a stretcher, and Jacobson climbed a steep hill to bring one to where Tillman's body already was covered with a tarp. He then helped carry Tillman's body down the hill.

Two helicopters were summoned -- the first to take two wounded Rangers, including Uthlaut, the second to take the bodies of Tillman and the Afghani soldier.

"Not only did he pay the ultimate sacrifice, he gave the giant sacrifice before that just to come in and just be a part of what we were doing," Jacobson says. "I remember saying just a little prayer -- and I hadn't prayed in like a year and a half -- next to him, for him. Just hoping for the best for him, wherever he's going after this. … When the [helicopter] landed, I just remember grabbing one of the straps and pulling it to the bird and helping load him up. And I was just like, it was almost an honor to be the last person to see him, before he left."

Jacobson says he doesn't want people to forget Tillman. And he decries the reassignment of Uthlaut from the Rangers in the wake of the incident.

"It was a complete insult and a total 'scapegoat' to send this guy on his way when he initially didn't agree with the command that was given to him," he says. "He did the best he could in the situation; and then he gets let go because of why? They needed someone to place the blame on."

Uthlaut was shot in the face by friendly fire but continued to give orders throughout the battle, unaware that blood was streaming from his mouth.

"'Combat Suicide' is my way of locking in a kind of timelessness so that people can look at that event and say, 'Yeah, that was … messed up," he says.

But the main message for audiences, the songwriter says, is that Tillman was "one of the greatest men who ever lived."

It's a theme reinforced at the end of every performance of "Combat Suicide," when Jacobson raises a bottle of water toward the sky.

Eyes also skyward, he tells the audience, "Let's give this one up to Pat … the ultimate sacrifice."

William Weinbaum, an ESPN television producer, interviewed Jacobson and four other Army Rangers who were with Pat Tillman, for Sunday's "Outside the Lines" program.

[MissEdie]

We need to remember Pat Tillman and others like him who have given the ultimate so that we may remain free. I did not see this posted anywhere else and thought some of ya'll would like it.

[misterrob]

I just watched it on ESPN.

[the invisib1e hand]

I wonder what Pat Tillman's mom thinks of Cindy Sheehan?

[MissEdie]

If her opinion is anything like mine, not much. :0)