Marie TillmanTillman's Wife: Real Leaders NeededPEGGY HARRIS | August 22, 2007 09:48 PM EST
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — The country needs "authentic leadership," the wife of NFL athlete-turned-Army Ranger Pat Tillman said Wednesday in her first public comments since her husband was cut down by friendly fire.
Marie Tillman told the audience at the University of Arkansas that it was difficult to talk about her best friend, a man who was dynamic and action-oriented.
"Pat was a man with enormous talent. His athletic ability was matched by a deep and complex moral and intellectual side," said Marie Tillman, a featured speaker at the Clinton School of Public Service. "He always tried to do the right thing, and he was the first to admit when he didn't."
Pat Tillman was killed April 22, 2004, by bullets fired by his fellow soldiers in Afghanistan, not by enemy fire, as the military initially claimed. The military said officers knew within hours that Tillman's death was from friendly fire but didn't tell his family or the public for five weeks.
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During a congressional hearing Aug. 1, former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and three former generals expressed regret with the Pentagon's delay in telling the truth. They took no blame for the violation.~snip~
In the
seventh investigation of the Tillman affair, most of the blame for the response to Tillman's death was laid on Philip Kensinger, a retired three-star general who led Army special operations forces after the Sept. 11 attacks.
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