A mother from a Buffalo suburb recounts how the Roswell Park hospital "virtually cured" her infant son.
Uncle Ray and his exploits were only part of the family history my mother recounted to me proudly.
The mother even recounts a visit to Fernald's home.
"That was it for me," the mother recounted.
The filmmaker's mother recounts their family's experiences, and the film is illustrated with Balass family home movies and photos.
"I ran down the steps and grabbed you away, naturally," Lila's mother recounted.
In the mid-1950s he was drawn to American rock and roll; his mother recounts that he repeatedly saw the 1956 film Rock Around the Clock.
"He said, 'I want to understand my religion,"' recounted his mother, Faten Abu Ali.
Both he and his mother later recounted that he was rarely in trouble at home or school, except when carrying out practical jokes.
In the book, Pat Tillman's mother, Mary, recounts what the family has gone though in the years following his death.