Kevin Tillman

Last updated
Kevin Tillman
Born (1978-01-24) January 24, 1978 (age 43)
San Jose, California, U.S.
AllegianceFlag of the United States.svg  United States
Service/branch United States Department of the Army Seal.svg United States Army
Years of service2002–2005
Rank Army-USA-OR-04b.svg Specialist
Unit 2 Ranger Battalion Shoulder Sleeve Insignia.svg 2nd Ranger Battalion
75 Ranger Regiment Distinctive Unit Insignia.svg 75th Ranger Regiment
Battles/wars War on terror
Other work The Tillman Story (promotion)

Kevin Tillman (born January 24, 1978) is a former U.S. Army soldier and former Minor League Baseball second baseman. In 2002, Tillman left the Cleveland Indians organization after the September 11 attacks to enlist in the United States Army. With his older brother, former National Football League player Pat Tillman, he completed the Ranger Indoctrination Program in 2002, and they were both assigned to 2nd Battalion75th Ranger Regiment. Kevin and Pat Tillman were deployed to the Middle East together as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom. [1] In 2004, Pat was killed in combat while in Spera, Afghanistan by friendly fire.

Contents

Education

Tillman attended and played baseball at Arizona State University before transferring to California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly) in San Luis Obispo where he also played Division I baseball and led the Mustangs in hits and on-base percentage during the 2001 season. [2] [3]

Baseball career

Tillman was drafted by the Los Angeles Angels in the 31st round of the June 1999 MLB Amateur Draft. Prior to enlisting, he played just one season (2001) with the Burlington Indians and the Akron Aeros in the Cleveland Indians farm system. [4]

Military career

Tillman and his brother, Pat (an NFL player at the time), enlisted together on May 31, 2002, completed training and selection for the elite United States Army Rangers in late 2002, and were assigned to the 2nd Ranger Battalion in Fort Lewis, Washington. Both Pat and Kevin Tillman were deployed to South West Asia as part of Operation Enduring Freedom.

In late 2004, Tillman graduated from Sniper School at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. [5]

In July 2005, fulfilling his 3-year enlistment, Tillman was honorably discharged from the army.[ citation needed ]

On April 24, 2007, Pete Geren, acting U.S. Secretary of the Army stated "We as an army failed in our duty to the Tillman family, the duty we owe to all the families of our fallen soldiers: Give them the truth, the best we know it, as fast as we can." [6]

Awards and decorations

Tillman and his brother won the Arthur Ashe Courage Award at the 11th annual ESPY Awards in 2003.

Author

Kevin Tillman has been an outspoken opponent of the George W. Bush administration and the Iraq War. He has also been promoting the documentary which portrays the U.S. Government cover-up of his brother's death, The Tillman Story .

On October 19, 2006, Tillman wrote a blog article in memory of his brother that condemns recent American foreign policy. [7]

In late 2008, Tillman published the book The Transparent Pillage. [8]

Kevin Tillman works in the software industry. [9]

Quotes

Related Research Articles

Jessica Lynch US Army soldier

Jessica Dawn Lynch is an American teacher, actress, and former United States Army soldier who served in the 2003 invasion of Iraq by U.S. and allied forces. On March 23, 2003, Private First Class Lynch was serving as a unit supply specialist with the 507th Maintenance Company when her convoy was ambushed by Iraqi forces during the Battle of Nasiriyah. Lynch was seriously injured and captured. Her subsequent recovery by U.S. Special Operations Forces on April 1, 2003, received considerable media coverage; it was the first successful rescue of an American prisoner of war since World War II and the first ever of a woman.

Jason Everman American musician

Jason Mark Everman is an American musician and soldier who played guitar with Nirvana and Mind Funk, and bass in Soundgarden and OLD. He later served tours in both Iraq and Afghanistan with the U.S. Army as an Army Ranger and Green Beret. As of May 2017, Everman plays the guitar in a military veteran band called Silence and Light.

75th Ranger Regiment Elite light infantry regiment

The 75th Ranger Regiment, also known as Army Rangers, is the U.S. Army's elite premier light infantry unit and special operations force within the United States Army Special Operations Command. The regiment is headquartered at Fort Benning, Georgia and is composed of a regimental headquarters company, a military intelligence battalion, a special troops battalion, and three Ranger battalions.

Pat Tillman American football player and US Army soldier (1976–2004)

Patrick Daniel Tillman Jr. was an American professional football player in the National Football League (NFL) who left his sports career and enlisted in the United States Army in May 2002 in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. His service in Iraq and Afghanistan, and subsequent death, were the subject of national attention when he was killed in action as a result of friendly fire.

Bob Kalsu American football player (1945–1970)

James Robert Kalsu was an American football player who was an All-American tackle at the University of Oklahoma and an eighth-round selection in the 1968 NFL/AFL draft by the Buffalo Bills of the American Football League. Kalsu joined the U.S. Army as an officer after the 1968 season and was killed in action in the Vietnam War in 1970.

Leland High School (San Jose, California) Public school in San Jose, California, United States

Leland High School is a public high school located in the Almaden Valley in San Jose, California. Leland is one of the nine high schools in the San Jose Unified School District and is a STEM school.

Stan Goff is an American anti-war activist, writer, and blogger. Prior to his activism Goff had a long career in the U.S. armed forces, serving in the United States Army from 1970 to 1996 with two breaks in service. After retiring from the military he became a political activist, adopting anti-imperialist, feminist, and socialist/Marxist views, and is now a Christian. He is an active blogger and is the author of several books, including Hideous Dream (2000), Full-Spectrum Disorder: The Military in the New American Century (2004), Energy War (2006), Sex & War (2006), Borderline - Reflections on War, Sex, and Church (2015), "Mammon's Ecology - Metaphysic of the Empty Sign" (2018), and "Tough Gynes - Violent Women in Film as Honorary Men" (2019). He has also been a contributor to CounterPunch and Huffington Post.

Jeremy Ray Staat is a former American football defensive lineman and offensive lineman who played for the Pittsburgh Steelers from 1998 and the St. Louis Rams for two games in 2003. He also played for the Los Angeles Avengers of the Arena Football League. He is a United States Marine, and has served in Iraq. On September 17, 2019, Staat, a registered Republican, announced his candidacy for Congress in California's 8th District.

Mahmudiyah rape and killings

The Mahmudiyah rape and killings were war crimes involving the gang-rape and murder of 14-year-old Iraqi child Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi and the murder of her family by United States Army soldiers on March 12, 2006. It occurred in the family's house to the southwest of Yusufiyah, a village to the west of the town of Al-Mahmudiyah, Iraq. Other members of al-Janabi's family murdered by Americans included her 34-year-old mother Fakhriyah Taha Muhasen, 45-year-old father Qassim Hamza Raheem, and 6-year-old sister Hadeel Qassim Hamza Al-Janabi. The two remaining survivors of the family, 9-year-old brother Ahmed and 11-year-old brother Mohammed, were at school during the massacre and orphaned by the event.

Bryan D. Brown United States Army general (born 1948)

Bryan Douglas "Doug" Brown is a retired four-star United States Army general. He retired in 2007 after four decades of military service. In his final assignment, he served as the seventh commander of U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM), from September 2, 2003, until July 9, 2007. As USSOCOM's commander, he was responsible for all unified special operations forces (SOF), both active duty and reserve.

Women in combat Role of women in military combat

Women in combat refers to female military personnel assigned to combat positions. The role of women in the military has varied across the world’s major countries throughout history with several views for and against women in combat.

Jeff Struecker American soldier, pastor and author

Jeffery Dean Struecker is an American author, pastor, and former United States Army Ranger who was involved in the Battle of Mogadishu in 1993. He also participated in the 1989 invasion of Panama and in Kuwait during Operation Desert Storm. Struecker has co-authored five published books. Struecker was portrayed by American actor Brian Van Holt in the 2001 film, Black Hawk Down, and in 2017, he was inducted into the Army Ranger Hall of Fame.

<i>Redacted</i> (film) 2007 film directed by Brian De Palma

Redacted is a 2007 American war film written and directed by Brian De Palma. It is a fictional dramatization, loosely based on the 2006 Mahmudiyah killings in Mahmoudiyah, Iraq, when U.S. Army soldiers raped an Iraqi girl and murdered her along with her family. This film, which is a companion to an earlier film by De Palma, 1989's Casualties of War, was shot in Jordan.

LaVena Lynn Johnson was an E3 Private First Class in the United States Army. She was found dead in a tent. Her death was controversially ruled as a suicide but the evidence of rape and battery led many to believe the United States Department of Defense covered it up.

Stanley A. McChrystal US Army general

Stanley Allen McChrystal is a retired United States Army general best known for his command of Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) in the mid-2000s. His last assignment was as Commander, International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and Commander, United States Forces – Afghanistan (USFOR-A). He previously served as Director, Joint Staff from August 2008 to June 2009 and as Commander of JSOC from 2003 to 2008, where he was credited with the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, but also criticized for his alleged role in the cover-up of the Pat Tillman friendly fire incident. McChrystal was reportedly known for saying what other military leaders were thinking but were afraid to say; this was one of the reasons cited for his appointment to lead all forces in Afghanistan. He held the post from June 15, 2009, to June 23, 2010.

<i>Where Men Win Glory</i>

Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman, a 2009 book written by Jon Krakauer, is a biography of Pat Tillman, an American football player who left his professional career and enlisted in the United States Army after the September 11 attacks. He subsequently was killed in 2004 in the US war in Afghanistan by friendly fire, an incident which the US government attempted to cover up. To write the book, Krakauer drew heavily upon Tillman's journals, interviews with the Tillman family, Boots On the Ground by Dusk: My Tribute to Pat Tillman by Mary Tillman, and extensive research on the ground in Afghanistan.

<i>The Tillman Story</i> 2010 American film

The Tillman Story is a 2010 American documentary film directed by Amir Bar-Lev. The film is about the death of football player turned U.S. Army Ranger Pat Tillman in the war in Afghanistan, the coverup of the true circumstances of his death, and his family's struggle to unearth the truth. It was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. It was named 2010 Best Documentary by the San Francisco Film Critics Circle, the St. Louis Gateway Film Critics Association, and the Florida Film Critics Circle. The film is narrated by Josh Brolin.

A Second Knock at the Door is a documentary on friendly fire in Iraq and Afghanistan. The film follows military families after they are told their family member died in a "fratricide" incident. All the families profiled in the film only learned their family member was killed by a comrade, not an enemy, months after they first learned of their death.

<i>The Yellow Birds</i>

The Yellow Birds is the debut novel from American writer, poet, and Iraq War veteran Kevin Powers. It was one of The New York Times's 100 Most Notable Books of 2012 and a finalist for the 2012 National Book Award. It was awarded the 2012 The Guardian First Book Award, and the 2013 Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award.

References

  1. SPC Kevin Tillman
  2. "Pat Tillman's Brother Blasts Iraq War, Bush". The Washington Post. 2006-10-23. ISSN   0190-8286 . Retrieved 2021-03-25.
  3. SLO graduate Archived 2011-09-27 at the Wayback Machine
  4. "Kevin Tillman Minor Leagues Statistics & History". Baseball-Reference.com. Retrieved 2021-03-25.
  5. Fish, Mike. "An American Tragedy|Pat Tillman Timeline". www.espn.com. Retrieved 2021-03-25.
  6. "Pete Geren quote". Archived from the original on 2007-10-15. Retrieved 2007-04-24.
  7. "After Pat's Birthday". Truthdig: Expert Reporting, Current News, Provocative Columnists. Retrieved 2021-03-25.
  8. Tillman, Kevin (October 2008). The Transparent Pillage. Booksurge. ISBN   978-1-4392-1074-1.
  9. Tillman, Kevin. "Kevin Tillman". TomDispatch.com. Retrieved 2021-03-25.
  10. San Diego Union-Tribune Archived 2009-01-19 at the Wayback Machine
  11. "Mercury News". Archived from the original on 2007-10-15. Retrieved 2007-04-24.