SwiftVets.com

[Knighthawk]

My sister in California is good friends with the Tillman Family, she sent me this, and I wanted to share it with everybodyelse.

Sgt. Tillman, thank you for your service to our country, you will greatly missed.
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Sgt. Pat Tillman earned a scholarship to play football at Arizona State University. While at ASU, he earned a 3.84 grade point average and graduated summa cum laude in 3-and-a-half years with a degree in marketing. The 5-foot-11, 200-pound Tillman was distinguished by an appetite for rugged play and intelligence. As an undersized linebacker at ASU, he helped lead the Sun Devils to the 1996 Rose Bowl and was the Pac-10's Defensive Player of the Year in 1997.

Sgt. Tillman was drafted in the seventh-round by the Arizona Cardinals in 1998 and became their starting strong safety. In practice, coaches often had to make Tillman slow down so that he would not hurt anyone in drills that were not supposed to be full-speed. Before the 2000 season, he ran a marathon. Despite being on five foot 11 inches tall, he set a team record for tackles in 2000. Before the 2001 season, he participated in a triathlon.

In an interview after the attacks on September 11, 2001, despite all of his accomplishments Tillman said,

"And I haven't done a damn thing as far as laying myself on the line."

In May 2002 — eight months after Sept. 11 — Tillman voluntarily turned his back on a job paying more than 1 million dollars a year to risk his life for a job paying $17,316 a year. Tillman and his brother, Kevin — a baseball player in the Cleveland organization — joined the Army Rangers.

The Rangers are an infantry force whose soldiers serve as shock troops, raiders and commandos who strike behind enemy lines. Every Ranger volunteers for the duty and must pass rigorous physical tests to serve.

Before making the decision to join the Army, Sgt. Tillman also turned down a contract with the St. Louis Rams for more than 3 million dollars a year because he wanted to continue playing for the team that gave him his NFL start — the Cardinals.

Sgt. Tillman, newly married to his long time girlfriend and talented enough to play in the National Football League earning millions of dollars, gave it all up because he felt he had a greater calling. He turned his back on fame and fortune to serve his country.


On April 22, 2004, Sgt. Pat Tillman was killed in a firefight in Afghanistan- he was 27 years old.

There is a lesson here for all of those who live their life sitting on a couch watching television, take drugs, drink too much, who ask why me and take there freedom for granted. Sgt. Tillman lived his life with honor, dignity, determination and courage. His story has inspired millions including this writer.
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Regards,
Brian

Beware of the lollipop of mediocrity! Lick it once and you'll suck forever.

If guns kill people, then I can blame misspelled words on my pencil.

Knighthawk's Pictures!

[TexasCop]

Unfortunately, liberals will bury the story of Pat Tillman instead of building statues and shrines to the man like he deserves. Do you hear anymore about him through the liberal media?

My 9 year old son is playing peewee football this year. His team? The Cardinals. His number? #40 When he's older I'll tell him about Pat Tillman. He won't be forgotten in my home.
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United States Army Military Police Corps 1987 - 1994
Civilian Police Officer 1994 - Current
OSHA Certified HAZMAT Tech - WMD Response Team
Survivor of the Dept. of Homeland Security COBRATF Live Agent facility (HUAH!)

[95 bxl]

Words… are my business. They are my tools…. My levers… My weapons… My bandages. I use them professionally to have an effect. I use them to anger… To inflame… To reach… To mold…. To teach…. To heal.

It’s after midnight just now. My job, where I am fortunate enough to work out of my own home as a political consultant, frequently averages between 12 to 16 hours… research, meetings, phone calls, writing, positions, strategizing…. As the impending political season starts to spool up in earnest (Washington State has one of the latest primary elections in the country… mid-September) and as the issues for those who’ve retained me begin to amp up, I find it sometimes difficult to turn it off enough for sleep to come.... sometimes, anyway.

And sleep has deserted me here once again. But work isn’t the reason. Work, for once, has nothing to do with this.

I am a veteran of over 14 years of service in the Army. One of every 7 days I’ve been alive was spent on one overseas assignment or another while I was in. Most of that was, relatively speaking, down time. Little of that duty, compared to the duty of the Rangers, could be termed “hazardous.”

I enlisted because my stepfather had thrown me out at the ripe old age of 16, and I had nowhere else to go. Leaving my home was basically a cost-free exercise. If one were to look up the word “dysfunctional,” one would find snapshots of my “family” there… in living color.

It was an easy decision to make for one in my position… so I made it. Hell, yes, I want Armor. I want to go out there surrounded by 52 tons of armor-platting with a 105 mm cannon to shoot back with. Give me that damned mobile foxhole. The pay was $288 per month… a fortune to a product of the welfare state like me.

Once I joined the Army, it didn’t take long to discover that it was a “game,” and once you figured out “the rules,” you could go far…

So, playing the game, I went from private to promotable staff sergeant in just over 7 years. I went from high school dropout to missing cum laude’ by .02 of a grade point. And I was given a Regular Army Commission… the same commission West Pointers received. And life was good.

Life continues to be good. My business is booming, I recently bought a really great house… where I’ll be building a roughly 600 square foot shop this summer. A family that has issues, but none in comparison to that of my childhood.

Even the weather’s been pretty good for this time of year.

And then, I heard about Pat Tillman.

And that is when the words stopped working for me.

I never knew Pat Tillman beyond the all-too-few articles written about his amazing, if not stunning, decision to turn his back on millions of dollars so he could become a Ranger and go defend his country.

But when I heard about him, the hook was buried. I talked him up at Legion meetings, Vietnam Veterans of America meetings, meetings at the VFW.

“Man, have you heard about that Tillman kid? Can you believe it? NO ONE turns their back on $9 million dollars to stay with a team paying a third less (just ask Alex Rodriguez) and then NO ONE turns their back on $3.6 million to go chase bad guys in Afghanistan!”

And, no one does. Except… except for Pat Tillman.

I believe I understand something of what he felt when he decided to leave football to be a soldier. The terrible events of 9/11 effected me to some extent the same way they seem to have effected him. I tried to re-enlist… I told the Army I’d even go back in as a Spec 4. I told them I could teach weapons or something at Benning, and free up a young, hard-charging Staff Sergeant to go chasing around the hills of Afghanistan. I took a run at it… an all together too short of a run… but I made the attempt. I even took it to the White House… but to no avail. (“Too old… too broken up… too friggen fat.”) My conscience: assuaged.

But when I look at what Pat Tillman gave up… when I look at the strength of his convictions…. When I see that he was willing to put aside every earthly thing he had, including his brand-new wife… to go fight in a far off foreign land, when he COULD have stayed home and made millions playing a game…. It literally brings tears to my eyes that I am so unworthy in comparison to that.

I never met Ranger Tillman. I fear I could consider myself lucky to be half the man he was in the 27 all-too-short years of his life. I sit here in the luxury of my office… wired, three computer-networked on broadband air conditioned Cokes or coffee mere feet away my bed just down the hallway past my big screen TV… and tears roll out of my eyes at the thought of what a tremendous loss this Country has sustained with Pat Tillman’s death.

That is not to belittle the deaths or wounds of any of the others. I consider them all my brothers and sisters. But I have already read the remarks from some who simply cannot know, as Pat Tillman knew, exactly what he was giving up, for exactly what he was getting in to.

Pat understood. He understood the debt that we all owe for the fabulous life (compared to 96% of the rest of the people on this planet) we all have here in America. Clearly, he felt compelled to make the effort to repay that debt, by seeking out the most challenging, dangerous duty he could find.

His very success in the Army facilitated his death. Yet, even knowing what little I know about the man… so much younger then I, yet so much more admirable in so many ways, I cannot help but think that even if he knew the outcome… he wouldn’t have changed a thing.

As I close in on the start of my 6th decade of life, I will do everything I can to emulate Pat Tillman in the ways open to me. To be as true to myself as possible. To understand those things that are most important in life. To take a stand… and in the time remaining to me, make a mark.

Suddenly, I feel very tired. I had to get this down… had to make sure it wouldn’t get lost. I got that much done… and I see it as the least I can do.

In closing, Henry V’s words seem startlingly appropriate, so I leave you with them.

"This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember'd;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day."

[AMOS]

95 bxl, Nice tribute to Pat Tillman. There are way too few of them. The story of Pat Tillman, his accomplishments and sacrafices should be taught in our elementary shools as a lesson in life.

In short, Pat Tillman was a STUD and a definite role model for me.

Semper Fidelis.

Amos.

[Redleg]

I have the greatest respect for Pat Tillman. Pat gave up a heck of a lot more of financial assets than anyone can imagine to follow his big heart and to serve his country. Unfortunately, we also lost Pat as a true freedom fighter and American hero.
I personally enjoyed watching Pat play for the Cards as he hussled on every play of every down. He always played well against my Redskins team and I used to yell at him and sometimes throw my slippers at the TV when he had made an exceptionally good play.
RIP Pat, you are not forgotten.
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FIRE MISSION: Kerry campaign in line of sight.

[Knighthawk]

95bxl


I have fowarded you beautiful words to my sister, and she said she would pass them on to the Tillman family.

I will let you know if I hear anything back.
_________________
Regards,
Brian

Beware of the lollipop of mediocrity! Lick it once and you'll suck forever.

If guns kill people, then I can blame misspelled words on my pencil.

Knighthawk's Pictures!

[buffman]

Pat Tillman---the type of man every kid wishes to grow up to be like and every man wishes he were.
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Never Ever Give Up
America First

[95 bxl]

Knighthawk wrote: "95bxl


I have fowarded you beautiful words to my sister, and she said she would pass them on to the Tillman family.

I will let you know if I hear anything back."

Thank you, Knighthawk. That they might give even a tiny measure of comfort would be the ultimate achievement for me.

[pathfinder]

Well said-

As a paratrooper and Infantry grunt most of my 22 year career I have always looked up to and tried to emulate Rangers, all rangers. Pat Tillman sacrificed greater wealth than most any of us can imagine, but the life he lost is no less than that of the other 1,000 that bled for us. They all sacrificed their dreams, family and loved ones, for us. Ranger Tillman had the knowledge of a much greater future fame and wealth-wise, but how do we place a cost on the dreams of a young man of his new wife and new-born child? Is that somehow less than a career in the NFL? Would you trade kissing your daughter in the front of your church on her wedding day or holding your firstborn grandchild for your name on an NFL jersey? I can't.
I have to admit here that I had some serious concerns how this MTV watching, time-out card flashing generation would hold up under fire, I don't any more. We have a 22 year old marine up for the Medal of Honor for rolling onto a grenade and saving his buddies at the cost of his own life, along with a thousand other stories we'll never hear on the alphabet channels but should be drilled into our children's minds as heros to emulate instead of drug-addeled rap criminals glorifying rape, murder and drug dealing. Obviously if we're finding the quality of human-beings we have that wear our Country's uniform every day, that stand at the gate on our behalf, we're still doing something right.
In closing I'd like to thank you for adding the quote, I used that same one in my toast at my Ranger-buddies weding last November.
"Envy the nation with heros huh! I say pitty the ones that need 'em."
MOLAN LABE "Come take them"