Tillman should serve as our hero
By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Staff Columnist
Far from fields where games are played, Pat Tillman has reminded us again of what a hero is.
And it isn't, as we often like to believe, the player who makes the last-second basket or scores the game-winning touchdown before an adoring crowd. It isn't the person triumphantly pictured in your newspaper the morning after the big game.
Instead, the designation is rightfully the province of those who make the extraordinary and, often, ultimate sacrifices on behalf of us all. Folks whose deeds may not receive much public acknowledgement, even when their flag-draped caskets come home.
The tragedy of Tillman's death occurred in a remote region of eastern Afghanistan near the Pakistan border Thursday, or about as far from the world of the high-profile NFL he used to inhabit as an Arizona Cardinal safety as it is possible to get.
Tillman is not the first member of the U.S. military to die in that bitterly divided land and, sadly, probably won't be the last before peace is restored, either.
The others are very much heroes in their own right. The grief of their families is as great even if we don't always recognize their names or know well their personal stories.
Tillman's death, because of the visibility that a successful career in sports has provided, puts a wider, more public face to the unsung sacrifices of so many. It should give us all pause for thought.
Professional athletes make headlines all the time for turning down mega-buck contracts, usually out of self-interest or greed. Tillman did something much more remarkable. Two years ago, at age 26 and in the prime of his career, he walked away, quietly and without fanfare, from a three-year, $3.6 million offer from the Cardinals.
Not because he wanted more money or more playing time, but because he apparently felt a higher calling as a patriot.
Friends have said Tillman was profoundly touched by the events of Sept. 11 and determined to do what he saw as his part in the war against terror. So much so that he and a brother, Kevin, a former minor league baseball player, signed up for a three-year hitch in the Army intent on earning the coveted black-and-gold insignia of Rangers and the salary of less than $20,000 a year.
If he didn't know what he was getting himself into, then, basic training, the rigors of infantry and airborne training, jump school and the Ranger Indoctrination Program and all the rest surely opened his eyes to the perils of the path he had chosen.
Tillman, like the brave men and women he served with, went ahead anyway without lament for the sacrifices he might be called upon to make. For that is what heroes do.
Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8044.
