Remembering September 11th

Space Shuttle Columbia

Pat Tillman

Ronald Reagan

On July 14, 2004, Pat Tillman was honored at the ESPY Awards in Los Angeles, with these words from Tom Cruise:

The news came out of Afghanistan, that an athlete turned soldier was gone. And when we heard the news on that April day it stopped us all in a long and profound silence. And we all know why, because Pat Tillman was a transcendent figure in the life of this nation. Because Pat Tillman wrote a story with his life that was so unique and will forever be resonant.

Only a year ago on this stage, Pat and his brother Kevin were honored as recipients of the Arthur Ashe Award because, like the great Arthur Ashe, they exhibited such extraordinary courage and such rare conviction. Now we are moved to think of the legacy Kevin's brother has left us.

In some ways it's easy because Pat's vision was so clear. On the other hand Pat Tillman followed a path few ever travel. Behind that boisterous laugh, and his ability to fill up the room, and the shining intensity was a core of integrity, and honor, and responsibility.

Think of what he did...

Pat Tillman surrendered a life of fame and security to set an example. An example of something that we deeply value, but so often take for granted. Our freedom, in this nation, to choose our own destinies. 

As a man who thought it possible to seize every moment he read, with a pen in hand in order to underline words that touched his soul. And Pat Tillman, Arizona Cardinal become Army Ranger, underlined this quotation from Ralph Waldo Emerson:

"You'll always find those who think they know, what is your duty better than you know it. The great men however, is he who in the midst of a crowd keeps with perfect sweetness, the independence of solitude."

We should remember that Pat Tillman sweetly and independently followed his heart. And now in death he leaves us with a great, noble and difficult challenge, that on this earth we should live not to follow the crowd, but first and foremost and only, to remain true to our own integrity.

"Blessed is he who sheds his blood in defense of his brother, for he that sheds his blood with me, shall be my brother."

A Heroic Life

Pat Tillman turned his back on fortune and football fame to serve under fire. The story of a warrior

He went pro with the Arizona Cardinals and became known for his hippielike, shoulder-length hair—and his bone-rattling hits as a strong safety. But days after the terror of September 11, 2001, Tillman saw himself as just another millionaire athlete. "You know, my great-grandfather was at Pearl Harbor, and a lot of my family have ... fought in wars," he told a team camera crew, almost in shame. "And I haven't really done a damn thing as far as laying myself on the line like that." Six months later, Tillman shocked the sports world by enlisting in the Army and shipping out. Last Thursday, he laid it all on the line. He was killed in an ambush near Spera, a tiny town of mud huts and a new mosque, in a region rife with Qaeda warriors. He was 27 years old.

This is the cost of war in Afghanistan and Iraq: the loss of so much promise and potential. More than 800 American men and women have now died in the military effort, and thousands have been wounded. American troops tend to be honorable but anonymous—working-class or poor, disproportionately black, brown or rural. If they come home, they often return to quiet lives as clock punchers. But in Tillman, the sacrifice of war suddenly bears a face of stardom. The Pentagon can try to block images of flag-draped coffins. But Tillman's death is a startling billboard of grief, a reminder that these lost soldiers—all of them, famous or not—had so much left to give.

Tillman had everything: riches, smarts, good looks. An academic All-American, he had a 3.84 grade-point average in marketing at Arizona State. He joined the service just after a honeymoon to Bora Bora with his high-school sweetheart, Marie. He and a younger brother, Kevin, slipped off to enlist in Denver, where they could avoid publicity. Kevin, who gave up a budding minor-league baseball career, remains in the Army. Pat Tillman wanted no attention, no glory, for joining the rank and file. He "didn't want to be singled out from his brothers and sisters in the military," says former Cardinals coach Dave McGinnis. Tillman apparently had made a pact with his family to stay silent about his service, a promise they have kept. They have gathered to grieve inside the comfortable family home in a leafy enclave of San Jose.

His was no simple case of patriotism; Tillman was never known as a flag-waver. His agent, Frank Bauer, told reporters he had suspected that Tillman might quit to teach or to practice law like his father, Patrick Sr., but not to join the military. Snyder, his college coach, said Tillman never used the word patriotism when he explained his plans to enlist. "He just seemed to think something had to be done." When players asked why he enlisted, he didn't want to talk about it. McGinnis says there were "reasons Pat said he had that he didn't want to divulge," and the coach respected his view and his right to make his own path. Tillman had always been different. When he joined the pros, he rode a bicycle to practice because he didn't own a car. He refused to buy a cell phone. A sports publicist at Arizona State once described him as "a surfer dude."

Growing up in San Jose, Tillman went to Leland High School. "All the girls loved him," says a former classmate, "and all the guys wanted to be him." But he was not perfect. His Spanish teacher, Carla Lucarotti, recalls that he had a mischievous streak about him. "They were all young and crazy," Lucarotti says. In high school Tillman got into a fight—defending a friend—and ended up being charged with felony assault as a juvenile. He pleaded guilty and served time on a work farm the summer before entering Arizona State. A sports reporter, Tim Layden, wrote about Tillman's candor when asked if he'd ever been arrested or gotten into trouble. "Nickel and dime stuff—he didn't have to tell me the truth," Layden wrote.

Tillman gave up a $3.6 million contract to join the harrowing world of life as an Army Ranger. The training alone is nearly intolerable: working to exhaustion—in conditions of swamps, jungles, mountains—about 20 hours a day. Rangers are sent to places where the danger is the worst. That's where Tillman was on Thursday. Dusk was falling and the new moon hadn't risen yet—the darkest time of the night for eyes still smarting from the blinding mountain sun and daytime temperatures of 105 degrees. Military officials say that Tillman's unit was ambushed in a region where Qaeda forces sneak across from Pakistan. The coalition returned fire. Two other Americans were hurt. One Afghan soldier was killed.

On a trip home in December—after serving in Iraq—Tillman made a surprise visit to his old Cardinals teammates at a game in Seattle. Again he refused to explain why he gave it all up for the harsh life of a soldier. His intensity was not unexpected. His former teammate Pete Kendall says, "The people who knew Pat, the less surprised you were." He told his pals he intended to return to football after his tour of duty. Just before he left, he thanked McGinnis for letting him come to visit. "No—thank you," said McGinnis. And then Tillman slipped out a side door, intent on avoiding attention.

Known for engaging his teammates in deep talks in the weight room, Tillman had always looked for a hurdle to jump. Bored during one off-season, he ran a marathon. Next he did a triathlon. Renowned for his toughness, Tillman seemed bulletproof. Bauer, his agent, says NFL coaches and execs would joke that if anybody was going to find Osama bin Laden, this was the guy to do it. He died trying.

With Robina Riccitiello and Karen Breslau in California, Ronald Moreau in Pakistan, Owen Matthews in Afghanistan, T. Trent Gegax in New York and Randy Collier in Arizona

And determination.

And what it means to sacrifice for your country.

It was reported Friday morning that Tillman, 27, who walked away from a $3.6 million contract with the Arizona Cardinals in 2002 to join the U.S. Army (salary: $1,800 per month), was killed in action as part of the 75th Ranger Regiment, an elite special-operations unit in the largely forgotten ongoing battles of Afghanistan.

Tillman cited the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks as his sole reason for dropping football in the prime of his career. Known as one of the most reckless hitters ever in the history of his position of strong safety, Tillman always took the fight to his opponents. He saw Afghanistan as another way to do that.

Tillman did not conduct any interviews with the press before going off to the Army. Upon arriving there, he asked his superiors not to give him any special treatment whatsoever. Said Cardinals safety Kwamie Lassiter after Tillman told the team he was leaving for the military, "It's the type of guy he is: 'What else can I do to help somebody?'"

Tillman’s intentions to leave the violent life of the National Football League in favor of the potentially fatal life of Army Ranger mirrored that of Bob Feller, the Hall of Fame pitcher for the Cleveland Indians from 1936-1956. During World War II, Feller received a deferment to take care of his ailing father, his mother and his sister. But after Pearl Harbor shocked the country, Feller enlisted in the Navy two days later.

During World War II it was common for star athletes to enlist in the armed services. In total, 638 NFL players fought in World War II, 19 coming home in body bags.

One lost in action was University of Iowa Heisman trophy winner Nile Kinnick, who won the award after the 1939 season. He was killed trying to land a disabled fighter plane in the Caribbean.

Angelo Bertelli, the 1943 Heisman trophy winner out of Notre Dame, was more fortunate, participating in several operations as a Marine but surviving to return home.

Another was Jack Lummus, New York Giants, at Iwo Jima. After losing both legs, he reportedly told medics: “Well, it looks like the Giants have lost a good end.” He died that night. Awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.

Al Blozis, of the New York Giants, was killed two weeks after he was shipped to France. Considered prospect for Olympic gold after setting a collegiate shot put record at Georgetown University.

Ted Williams might have been the home run record holder Barry Bonds would be chasing if not for his service in World War II and the Korean War. After being labeled unpatriotic by fans after receiving a draft deferment to take care of his mother, Williams joined the military a year after hitting .406 and became a fighter pilot.

Rocky Blier is the most recent star pro athlete to serve in a major war, Vietnam. The former Notre Dame star was awarded the Purple Heart, Bronze Star and two campaign medals after sniper fire and shrapnel from a grenade severely wounded both feet and legs.

Despite being told by doctors he would never play again, he went on to play for 12 years for the Pittsburgh Steelers and helped win four Super Bowls. Blier has since been involved with the Intrepid Foundation’s Fallen Heroes Fund, which provides $10,000 gifts for families who have lost a member in Afghanistan and Iraq.

One professional football player died in the Vietnam War: Bob Kalsu, an offensive tackle for the Buffalo Bills, served in the Army’s 101st Airborne Division and was killed by North Vietnamese mortar fire.

It is believed that Tillman is the first active NFL player to leave the game voluntarily for military service since World War II. Just being called a “former NFL star” is extraordinary when it comes to Tillman, who should not even have made it on to a NFL roster if advanced scouting means anything. Overall, the Cardinals selected Tillman with the 226^th pick out of 241 in 1998. Five months later, he was the Cardinals' starting safety.

If football wasn’t going to work out for Tillman, he could always fall back on a marketing degree he earned with a 3.84 grade-point average in 3½ years.

Athletes are called heroes all of the time by those in the press box.

But in terms of the true definition of the word, Pat Tillman was truly brave, truly noble, and most of all, a true American hero that kids and adults alike should look up to. 

Once, in America, the news of an athlete dying in some distant place was both sad and all too common. There were 5800 professional baseball players in this country on the day the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. By January 1^st, 1945, of those 5,800, 5,400 were serving in the United States military.

Today, it is enough to merit comment from the White House.

Patrick Tillman Jr. was 27 years old of the  U.S. Army Rangers, 2^nd Battalion, 75^th Regiment, and was killed in action last night, 25 miles southwest of the military base at Khost, Afghanistan.

Patrick Tillman, Jr., better known in the National Football League as Pat Tillman, safety of the Arizona Cardinals, had turned down a new 3 year-$3.6 million contract from that team to instead enlist in the army nearly two years ago.

Pat Tillman shipped out to Iraq in March of last year, and his 75^th Rangers were later transferred to Afghanistan for “Operation Mountain Storm,” the effort to stem the backlash from what’s left of the Taliban. And now, he is believed to be the first recently-active professional athlete to be killed in battle since Bob Kalsu of football’s Buffalo Bills was killed in Vietnam in July of 1970.

Tillman’s death will bring the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan not just to the front pages, but to the sports pages. It will put a face on the sacrifice of the troops and how its singularity contrasts to a time when “93 percent of baseball” went to war.

Military service by athletes, professional and amateur, was once barely newsworthy. Neither, of course, was it always voluntary.  But it says something about both the American conflicts of the last 100 years.

Among the fatalities of wars have been arguably the greatest baseball pitcher of all-time, the winner of the award honoring the top collegian in football, and the man for whom the award for the top collegian in hockey is named. Each war has claimed at least American professional athlete:

• Christy Mathewson of the New York Giants, as popular in his time as any other athlete of any other time, was poisoned by mustard gas while on active service in France in World War One. Never again healthy, he died of tuberculosis seven years later.
• Nile Kinnick, the star in whose memory, the University of Iowa re-named its football stadium, was a Heisman Trophy winner in 1939. He was a 24-year old U.S. navy ensign when his fighter crashed in 1943.
• Hobey Baker is another magical name in sports. He single-handedly put college hockey on the map while at Princeton, whose award honors the game’s best each year. He never played professionally. He instead went to France, as a flier with the famed Lafayette Escadrille. He was killed when his plane crashed shortly after the Armistice in 1918.
• Bob Kalsu was an All-America at Oklahoma and a field artillery commander in Vietnam who died in July, 1970.
• Bob Neighbors, a shortstop with the 1939 Washington Senators was a veteran flier of World War II. He was shot down over North Korea in August, 1952, among 16 baseball professionals killed in that conflict.
• Baseball’s Elmer Gedeon was shot down over France in the Second World War.
• Harry O’Neill died at Iwo Jima, and at least 55 minor league players died in that war.
• Eddie Grant, captain of the Harvard baseball team and third baseman of the New York Giants, killed in the Argonne Forest during World War One... and Troy Bunn and Alex Burr of the Yankees, and Bunn Troy of the Tigers, killed in the final month of that war.

We think of soldiers as one group, and athletes as another. These men, and hundreds of others, merged the two groups, and gave the military losses indelibly recognizable faces.

This was the fifth story on Friday's 'Countdown with Keith Olbermann.' The show airs weeknights, 8 p.m. ET on MSNBC.

April 23, 2004 - WASHINGTON - Pat Tillman, who gave up a lucrative contract with the Arizona Cardinals of the National Football League to join the Army Rangers, was killed in action in Afghanistan, military officials said Friday.

Tillman, 27, who turned down a three-year, $3.6 million contract with the Cardinals to enlist in the Army in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, was first deployed to Iraq in March 2003 with the 2nd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, based at Fort Lewis, Wash. It was not immediately clear when he was sent to Afghanistan.

Tillman’s battalion was involved in Operation Mountain Storm in southeastern Afghanistan, part of the U.S. campaign against fighters of the al-Qaida terror network and the former Taliban government along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, military officials told NBC News.

Tillman’s death was confirmed by the House Armed Services Committee, whose members were notified by the Defense Department, The Arizona Republic reported on its Web site.

Other officials told The Associated Press that a formal announcement was expected later in the day. Spokesmen at the Defense Department and the Army would not comment.

White House praises Tillman
Lt. Col. Matt Beevers, a spokesman for the U.S. military in Kabul, said only that a soldier died after a firefight with anti-coalition militia forces about 25 miles southwest of a U.S. military base at Khost, which has been the scene of frequent attacks.

Two other U.S. soldiers on the combat patrol were injured, and an Afghan soldier fighting alongside the Americans was killed. Overall, 110 U.S. soldiers have died, 39 of them in combat, during Operation Enduring Freedom, which began in Afghanistan in late 2001.

Although the military had not officially confirmed Tillman’s death, the White House put out a statement of sympathy that praised Tillman as "an inspiration both on an off the football field."

Dave McGinnis, Tillman’s former coach with the Cardinals, said he felt both overwhelming sorrow and tremendous pride in Tillman, who "represented all that was good in sports."

"Pat knew his purpose in life," McGinnis said. "He proudly walked away from a career in football to a greater calling."

NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue said in a statement that Tillman "personified all the best values of his country and the NFL. He was an achiever and leader on many levels who always put his team, his community and his country ahead of his personal interests."

The Republic reported that prominent Arizonans were calling on the Cardinals to name the team’s new stadium, which is currently under construction in Glendale, near Phoenix, in Tillman’s honor.

Friends say 9/11 influenced decision
Tillman played four seasons with the Cardinals before enlisting in the Army in May 2002, which he joined with his younger brother Kevin, who also is a highly regarded athlete, having once been a minor league baseball prospect in the Cleveland Indians’ organization.

Tillman denied requests for media coverage of his enlistment, basic training and ultimate deployments. Army officials said at the time that he wanted no special treatment or attention but wanted to be considered just one of the soldiers doing his duty for his country.

Tillman made his decision to enlist after returning from his honeymoon with his wife, Marie. Several of his friends have said the Sept. 11, attacks influenced his decision.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., noted that Tillman declined to speak publicly about his decision to put his football career on hold.

"He viewed his decision as no more patriotic than that of his less fortunate, less renowned countrymen who loved our country enough to volunteer to defend her in a time of peril," McCain said in a statement.

Tillman’s agent, Frank Bauer, has called him a deep and clear thinker who never valued material things.

In 2001, Tillman turned down a $9 million, five-year offer sheet from the Super Bowl champions, the St. Louis Rams, out of loyalty to the Cardinals, and by joining the Army, he passed on millions of dollars more from the team.

In December, during a trip home, he made a surprise visit to his teammates with the Cardinals.

"For all the respect and love that all of us have for Pat Tillman and his brother and Marie, for what they did and the sacrifices they made ... believe me, if you have a chance to sit down and talk with them, that respect and that love and admiration increase tenfold," McGinnis said at the time. "It was a really, really enriching evening."

Intelligence, toughness
Tillman, who as 5 feet 11 inches tall and 200 pounds was considered undersized for his position, nevertheless distinguished himself by his intelligence and appetite for rugged play.

As a linebacker at Arizona State University, he was the Pacific 10 Conference’s defensive player of the year in 1997. He carried a 3.84 grade-point average and graduated with high honors in 3½ academic years, earning a degree in marketing. Flags were being flown at half-staff at the college Friday.

Tillman set a Cardinals record with 224 tackles in 2000 and warmed up for last year’s training camp by competing in a 70.2-mile triathlon in June.

"You don’t find guys that have that combination of being as bright and as tough as him," Phil Snow, who coached Tillman as Arizona State’s defensive coordinator, said in 2002. "This guy could go live in a foxhole for a year by himself with no food."

The Tillman brothers last year shared the Arthur Ashe Courage award at the 11th annual ESPY Awards, a television program that aired on the ESPN cable sports network.

NBC’s Jim Miklaszewski contributed to this report.

40  Pat Tillman
Height:  5-11 Weight:  202 Born:  11/06/1976	College:  Arizona State NFL Experience:  5