Pat Tillman.
I don’t think I need to say much more than that. Birdie wanted me to write about his fellow Ranger, but I really have no more particulars to offer than most of the other sites reflecting on his death.
I have written about the sense of honor that basic military training instills in our young people. Pat had it before he went to training. It is what made him volunteer. It is what put him in harm’s way in a foreign land.
I had an affinity for Pat. My oldest is like him in many ways. Slice was a very good linebacker in high school, he was recruited by Division I schools to be a safety because of his size. He played Division III instead so he could stay at linebacker, and get the education to go to medical school. Instead, he became a Marine. He is also in Afghanistan.
My youngest is, like Pat, a Ranger. He is now back in the US after tours in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Pat’s death touches me a little more deeply because I feel I knew him through my boys.
According to AP, “Tillman carried a 3.84 grade point average through college and graduated with high honors in 3 1/2 academic years with a degree in marketing.” So much for the military being the refuge for losers.
Sometimes it takes something like this to bring people to their senses and make them realize this is not some imaginary war, and we need to get the job done right. Rick left a comment at LGF quoting a man who had a tremendous sense of these things, and the ability to verbalize the right feeling:
It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.
General George S. Patton
David has started a campaign to have the NFL retire #40 as baseball did with Jackie Robinson’s number.
Commissioner Paul Tagliabue
National Football League, Inc.
280 Park Avenue
New York, NY 10017
(212) 450-2000.
UPDATE: The Drill Sergeant has a wonderful piece on this.