The Untold Story with Martha McCallum, exclusive interviews with top newsmakers who share their inspiring stories of perseverance, positivity, and more.

Now, here's Martha McCallum.

Former NFL player Pat Tillman became a national hero in the aftermath of 9-11.

Turning down a multi-million dollar football contract to serve his country, it came crashing down in 2004 when the Army Ranger was shot and killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan.

My next guest, Steve Elliott, is one of the men believed to have fired those shots. Fifteen

years later, he is speaking out about the tragedy and sharing his side of the untold story

in his new book, War Story. So I'm here with Steve Elliott. You know, it's hard to know where

to start with this because it's such a it's such a tough story and just you know

reading some of your book it's obvious that it's obviously been such a difficult chapter for you

so I guess we have to start at the at the beginning and explaining you know in your mind as you

look back what happened that day yeah it was April 22nd, and our platoon was conducting combat operations on the Afghan-Paxden border.

Our platoon was split, which was not normal.

We had not operated that way to achieve two different objectives at the same time.

And essentially, we had lost communication.

Our radios weren't talking to each other between those two elements. And essentially, we had lost communication. Our radios weren't talking to each other between

those two elements. And our element of a platoon, as we were moving to our objective, we were

moving through a very narrow canyon at dusk, and we started taking enemy fire at that time. And

unbeknownst to us, the other element of the platoon in which Pat was in

responded to our engagement by dismounting and moving along the ridge line to try and support us.

And so by the time we exited that canyon and were feeling relief that perhaps, you know, we were going to be okay.

We saw individuals on that ridge line as well and mistook them for the enemy and treated them as such, sadly.

Yeah. So when did you realize what had happened?

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