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04/24/2004: "When Good Men Die"

It was a beautiful and sunny morning yesterday while I drove to work. The temperature was in the mid 60’s and the start of the weekend was just eight hours away. I was thinking about what I wanted to do with this treasured leisure time that I live for each week, when the news that Pat Tillman had been killed in Afghanistan came over the wires. Suddenly, I felt very sad, very selfish, and very, very small.

I recalled the first time I had ever heard of Pat Tillman. Not being a sports fan, I was baffled when my husband said incredulously one day “Did you hear that Pat Tillman quit today and is joining the Army Rangers?” I responded with my usual question regarding any famous athlete or actor “Who?” “Pat Tillman.” “Who’s that?” “You know who Pat Tillman is. He’s the (some football position like strong safety-hmmm, is there a weak one?) for the Arizona Cardinals…” My loving husband then went on to educate me in the academic and career highlights of this professional athlete. His patient recant took me from a mindset of “Oh, some inarticulate Neanderthal with an overactive thyroid…” to “Wow, what a guy.”

That conversation took place in May of 2002. Our eerie conversation occurred just last weekend upon hearing about our casualties on the nightly news I said to my husband “I wonder how what’s his name is doing with the Rangers.” “Get out of my head, I was just thinking about him myself.”

I didn’t know Pat Tillman but I will never forget him and neither should you. Today the media pays tribute to him and interspersed with these accolades are comments from people reminding us that he is just one of many who have made the ultimate sacrifice and they all deserve our thanks equally. Yes they do, it goes without saying. And when you make a point of saying it, it is as if there is a belief that by celebrating this one man’s life, we are diminishing the value of the life of others. Poppycock.

Probably the most unique thing about the Pat Tillman story is that he didn’t believe he was unique. He didn’t think he was doing anything different than every other person in the military. He might have been right. But he was certainly unique when compared to the rest of us. If you lined us all up and told us here are your two choices. Choice #1-You can have fame, fortune, live the good life and have all your dreams come true. Or Choice #2-You can work your butt off in Special Forces training, live in fox hole and be eaten alive by sand fleas, eat MRE’s, experience all the atrocities of war, and maybe loose your life but it will be for a good cause. Which one would you choose?

Most of us don’t answer that call to a higher purpose. We shield ourselves from it in our own little cocoon because we lack the sheer guts and integrity to do so. We are amazed when we see someone who does and we see ourselves for what we really are. We need role models like Pat Tillman. We need to get out of bed everyday with a goal that doesn’t just benefit ourselves. We need to hang tough in the face of adversity. We need to quit bitching about trivialities and minor inconveniences that consume us on a daily basis and find a purpose in this world. We need to answer that higher calling. Now.

PS-Memo to God
The pit in my stomach today and grief for all the someones I didn’t know is duly noted as my wake up call. But when good men die and schmucks live on, I am blinded by a sense of injustice. If you need a list of schmucks to fulfill today’s death quota, please let me know. Somehow, a bullet in Osama bin “F***head’s brain seems to right this injustice. How about one for all the Gippers? Soon.