# "Pat Tillman is not a hero: he got what was coming to him." **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [April 29, 2004, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pat-tillman-is-not-a-hero-he-got-what-was-coming-to-him/242745 "2004-04-29T21:00:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![furt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/439d5e/32.png) [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2004, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pat-tillman-is-not-a-hero-he-got-what-was-coming-to-him/242745/41 "2004-04-30T04:33:39Z")
Yep, **Spooje** , you got it. Months ago, Karl Rove secretly planted him on that newspaper’s staff … :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Negative](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/typo_negative/32/484_2.png) [@Typo\_Negative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Negative)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2004, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pat-tillman-is-not-a-hero-he-got-what-was-coming-to-him/242745/42 "2004-04-30T04:51:33Z")
> [@furt](#): > > Yep, **Spooje** , you got it. Months ago, Karl Rove secretly planted him on that newspaper’s staff … > > :rolleyes: Who said it had to Karl Rove? Perhaps Mr Gonzales is at heart a loyal Repulican? Or perhaps he just wanted to see how far some folks would run with it? ---
**Author:** ![furt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/439d5e/32.png) [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2004, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pat-tillman-is-not-a-hero-he-got-what-was-coming-to-him/242745/43 "2004-04-30T05:05:49Z")
> [@spooje](#): > > Who said it had to Karl Rove? Perhaps Mr Gonzales is at heart a loyal Repulican? > > Or perhaps he just wanted to see how far some folks would run with it? Your mayonnaise anticonductant needs freshening. ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Negative](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/typo_negative/32/484_2.png) [@Typo\_Negative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Negative)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2004, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pat-tillman-is-not-a-hero-he-got-what-was-coming-to-him/242745/44 "2004-04-30T05:21:49Z")
> [@furt](#): > > Your mayonnaise anticonductant needs freshening. Quite possibly. But something about it smells fishy to me. ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2004, 5:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pat-tillman-is-not-a-hero-he-got-what-was-coming-to-him/242745/45 "2004-04-30T05:56:45Z")
**Spooje** , I hadn’t thought about that possibility, but I think that you might be right. It would be interesting to learn if Gonzales has been consistent in criticism of the war. I do think that only the shabbiest of pundits would suggest that that view represents liberal thinking. ---
**Author:** ![armedmonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@armedmonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/armedmonkey)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2004, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pat-tillman-is-not-a-hero-he-got-what-was-coming-to-him/242745/46 "2004-04-30T06:12:45Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > Proves what I have been saying for years…there is a generation growing up with no sense of, knowledge of, or feelings of honor. It is just a word to them, and a word they don’t know the meaning of. > > It is a word Pat Tillman knew. You’re a moron. At the time of his death, Pat Tillman was 26 years of age. Rene Gonzalas, the author of the article, is a graduate student and therefore most likely also in his mid twenties. The two men are members of the same generation. People looked like fools when they bitched about “kids today” during the Roman Empire, and they look like fools now. Now go reminisce about the 60’s, 70’s or whatever time you grew up, grandpa. You remember the 60’s and 70’s don’t you? It was a time when men knew the meaning of “honor”, and no one would ever dream of inulting fallen soldiers. ---
**Author:** ![leander](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/bcef8e/32.png) [@leander](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/leander)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2004, 7:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pat-tillman-is-not-a-hero-he-got-what-was-coming-to-him/242745/47 "2004-04-30T07:59:44Z")
Apparently, he has now [apologized](http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=1792673) : > [@](#): > > AMHERST, Mass. – A University of Massachusetts at Amherst graduate student has apologized to Pat Tillman’s family. > … > “I felt that his celebrity had been a factor in American society calling him a ‘hero,’ and I felt American society had arrived at that conclusion without much thinking, but rather as some sort of patriotic ‘knee-jerk’ into hero worship,” he wrote. “That was my point. I did it [admittedly] in such an insensitive way, that the article was not worth publishing.” ---
**Author:** ![kung\_fu\_lola](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f4b2a3/32.png) [@kung\_fu\_lola](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kung_fu_lola)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2004, 8:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pat-tillman-is-not-a-hero-he-got-what-was-coming-to-him/242745/48 "2004-04-30T08:03:46Z")
I am glad that Pat Tillman did what he wanted to do, but I’m not really comfortable with condoning indulgence in revenge fantasies. ---
**Author:** ![Jeff\_Lodoen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b3f665/32.png) [@Jeff\_Lodoen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jeff_Lodoen)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2004, 10:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pat-tillman-is-not-a-hero-he-got-what-was-coming-to-him/242745/49 "2004-04-30T10:07:31Z")
> [@kung fu lola](#): > > I am glad that Pat Tillman did what he wanted to do, but I’m not really comfortable with condoning indulgence in revenge fantasies. What? Where? ---
**Author:** ![duffer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duffer/32/1026_2.png) [@duffer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/duffer)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2004, 10:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pat-tillman-is-not-a-hero-he-got-what-was-coming-to-him/242745/50 "2004-04-30T10:45:56Z")
This can’t be him. PLEASE tell me this isn’t a major you can earn at a nationally accredited University. Nothing wrong with the study of the art, but a 4-year degree in it?!? [http://www-unix.oit.umass.edu/~jbcp/rene.html](http://www-unix.oit.umass.edu/~jbcp/rene.html) Oh, I hope this is the wrong guy. ---
**Author:** ![duffer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duffer/32/1026_2.png) [@duffer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/duffer)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2004, 10:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pat-tillman-is-not-a-hero-he-got-what-was-coming-to-him/242745/51 "2004-04-30T10:51:14Z")
I just noticed his homepage link. Every click on it gets you a different spam site. Come to think of it, I almost hope it is him. Now I have a pic to go by. 😉 Also notice a graduation date of 2001. That would put him in the graduate age group right around now. With the end of semester coming up, this looks like a tremendous flame-out/resume for NY Times type of thing. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2004, 10:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pat-tillman-is-not-a-hero-he-got-what-was-coming-to-him/242745/52 "2004-04-30T10:57:27Z")
> [@](#): > > I do think that only the shabbiest of pundits would suggest that that view represents liberal thinking. You say that like there aren’t a lot of shabby pundits out there. 😉 What the guy wrote was dumb and in incredibly bad taste, but something leaves me feeling uneasy about the University President going out of his way to criticize a student. It’s not that what he says is wrong, but I don’t like it. Perhaps it’s because he’s transparently covering the university’s collective ass at the expense of one of the students who pays his salary, I don’t know. > [@](#): > > PLEASE tell me this isn’t a major you can earn at a nationally accredited University. Nothing wrong with the study of the art, but a 4-year degree in it?!? What’s wrong with a degree in African-American Music and Jazz Studies? ---
**Author:** ![Dead\_Badger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/848f3c/32.png) [@Dead\_Badger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dead_Badger)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2004, 11:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pat-tillman-is-not-a-hero-he-got-what-was-coming-to-him/242745/53 "2004-04-30T11:14:06Z")
> [@Lord Ashtar](#): > > I am also a part of this kid’s generation, **Garfield**. You and I must run in different circles because I agree with **silenus’** statement. Well, I am too, and I have to say that statements like **silenus’s** piss me off no end. “Kids these days” has been the battle-whinge of a thousand pillocks since the dawn of time, and is as stupid today as the day it was first uttered, presumably when Ug bemoaned the fact that _he_ never had these stones-that-walk to do all the work for him. The **only** conclusion we can draw from this article is that the kid who wrote it is a twat, and possibly that if he has an editor, that person is also a twat. Really. That’s all. There is a generation growing up today that has some twats in it, just like every generation before it and every one that will come after. Let’s promise to keep them away from stuff like keyboards, and mock their enormous teeth; but lordy, let’s not pretend they’re an epidemic. Deal? ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2004, 11:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pat-tillman-is-not-a-hero-he-got-what-was-coming-to-him/242745/54 "2004-04-30T11:30:49Z")
Well said, **Monkey** , **Badger** , et al. ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Ashtar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ea924/32.png) [@Lord\_Ashtar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Ashtar)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2004, 11:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pat-tillman-is-not-a-hero-he-got-what-was-coming-to-him/242745/55 "2004-04-30T11:56:38Z")
> [@Dead Badger](#): > > The **only** conclusion we can draw from this article is that the kid who wrote it is a twat, and possibly that if he has an editor, that person is also a twat. Really. That’s all. There is a generation growing up today that has some twats in it, just like every generation before it and every one that will come after. Let’s promise to keep them away from stuff like keyboards, and mock their enormous teeth; but lordy, let’s not pretend they’re an epidemic. Deal? Fair enough. ---
**Author:** ![rockle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/73ab20/32.png) [@rockle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rockle)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2004, 12:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pat-tillman-is-not-a-hero-he-got-what-was-coming-to-him/242745/56 "2004-04-30T12:11:53Z")
> [@Jimmy Chitwood](#): > > I’m not sure if you’re reading a disagreement with that sentiment on my part. I didn’t mean some sort of slight towards the youth or the state of Massachusetts. Massachusetts is safer than Afghanistan, is all I’m saying. Hell, I’m a kid sitting on my ass in Florida, so it’s not like I’m putting on airs here. Ah. My bad. Sorry. (I was up past my bedtime.) ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2004, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pat-tillman-is-not-a-hero-he-got-what-was-coming-to-him/242745/57 "2004-04-30T12:27:08Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > What the guy wrote was dumb and in incredibly bad taste, but something leaves me feeling uneasy about the University President going out of his way to criticize a student. It’s not that what he says is wrong, but I don’t like it. Perhaps it’s because he’s transparently covering the university’s collective ass at the expense of one of the students who pays his salary, I don’t know. I don’t feel bad about it at all. The university president is, by definition, an educator. And in this case, though it seems stunningly rare, we seem to have a man who takes his role as an educator seriously. Rene Gonzalez was sorely in need of an education, and Jack Wilson stepped up to give him one. We need more teachers like him, in my book. ---
**Author:** ![Fionn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Fionn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fionn)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2004, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pat-tillman-is-not-a-hero-he-got-what-was-coming-to-him/242745/58 "2004-04-30T13:32:34Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > Perhaps it’s because he’s transparently covering the university’s collective ass at the expense of one of the students who pays his salary, I don’t know. That reminds me a lot of the flap between UT-Austin’s president calling a professor a “font of undiluted foolishness” after the professor wrote an op-ed piece after 9-11. If UMass is a public institution, the president has to be a lot more concerned with the way the legislature and the public view the university, as well as the feelings of the other students who “pay his salary.” On the “these kids today” bitching, I’m with **Garfield** and a **A Monkey with a Gun**. People haven’t changed since the Pleistoscene, and that includes honorable people. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2004, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pat-tillman-is-not-a-hero-he-got-what-was-coming-to-him/242745/59 "2004-04-30T13:40:18Z")
The head of a university is not an educator, he’s an administrator. His job is to make sure the school runs properly, not to criticize students on a personal level or weigh in on the content of the newspaper. The guy is not showing spine or his mettle as an educator, he’s just contributing to a pile-on. > [@](#): > > If UMass is a public institution, the president has to be a lot more concerned with the way the legislature and the public view the university, as well as the feelings of the other students who “pay his salary.” It’s got to be public, but I think it’s highly unlikely the university will lose funding over something that is specifically disclaimed in the paper to be the opinion of an individual, not of the university or any of its employees. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_One](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/45deac/32.png) [@Evil\_One](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_One)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2004, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pat-tillman-is-not-a-hero-he-got-what-was-coming-to-him/242745/60 "2004-04-30T13:44:07Z")
Gonzales lives in a cozy little leftist land where reality is kept at bay. It’s a place where he and his peers can tell each other that their opinions are incisive and brilliant and a cut above the sheep who obviously don’t get it. I’m sure that he thought his article would impress his friends and perhaps get a couple of girls to put down those anti-war signs long enough to drop thier pants. Well, it got a little more attention than he anticipated. My feeling is that he wrote the article because he resented Tillman and what people are saying about him. People like Rene don’t want to hear that soldiers are dying so they won’t have to. He doesn’t want to be reminded that the scum that people like Tillman have killed won’t have the chance to blow themselves up in the middle of Disneyland. It’s a lot easier to sit back and take a contrary opinion and mock someone who contributed more to the well being of this country by simply waking up in the morning than he himself ever will. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pat-tillman-is-not-a-hero-he-got-what-was-coming-to-him/242745.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pat-tillman-is-not-a-hero-he-got-what-was-coming-to-him/242745.md?page=4)