The long anticipated Boston arrival of The Tillman Story took place on Friday. The documentary was very interesting and I hope it comes to TV or DVD soon. I knew a lot about Pat's story going into it and the film was informative enough to enlighten me to the struggle of his family and the specific details of the military cover up and attempts to use Pat as a poster child for a war that Pat thought was "illegal as hell". Donald Rumsfeld and military Generals despicably hide the truth and dodged questions about Pat's death in a Congressional hearing. Pat's mother worked years to get this hearing and the majority of it was shown in the movie. Each high ranking official took turns dodging questions and leaving out specifics so that no conclusion could be reached. The head of military special ops took the fall for the whole thing despite the orders coming from much higher up. The most depressing part of the movie was after the hearing when all the politicians and military leaders stood up laughing and joking with one another directly in front of Pat's family. The film also focused on Pat's atheistic beliefs and the military's disgust at his lack of religious commitment. One of the most powerful moments was at Pat's funeral when he younger brother got up and delivered a short speech praising Pat as a champion and thanking everyone for their thoughts but that Pat was "fucking dead". I found that clip in an interview with Pat's father on AC360. The whole interview is long and the clip of his younger brother comes at about 7 minutes in. I recommend seeing this movie at some point.
No comments:
Post a Comment