Tillmans family vents

last updated 8 January 2015

Washington, D.C.

The parents of Pat Tillman, the NFL star who gave up a lucrative football career to join the Army after 9/11, said the government tainted his memory by lying about the way he died in Afghanistan. “Pat had high ideals,” his mother, Mary Tillman, told The Washington Post. “The military let him down.” Tillman was killed last year by fellow soldiers after they mistook him for the enemy. The Army initially claimed he died storming a hill. When an investigation uncovered the truth, said Tillman’s father, Pat Tillman Sr., high-ranking officials covered it up to avoid scaring away recruits. “They blew up their poster boy,” he said.