He played three years in the NFL. You are not qualified for the NFL pension until you have five years under your belt.
According to this article:
“Tillman played four seasons with the Cardinals before enlisting in the Army in May 2002.” (not playing tit for tat, I seriously thought he’d played five) The SGLI is a government insurance policy.
I did no such fucking thing! And No! Not everyone here mourns any such thing! I do, but not everybody does.
I tried to respond by e-mail but you have chosen to not make your e-mail availible. I can understand not wanting to make it availible to some of the nut jobs (you may even consider me one) that pass through, but consider a yahoo account or other free account.
Anyway, my e-mail is availible in my profile, if you really want to discuss war with a guy who has been to war, feel free to send me an e-mail. I will respond respectfully as long as you treat me with respect.
Horseshit. It’s war, people die. And pretty much at the same frequency whether they’re just some poor, dumb, unlucky schmuck, or they’re Parent of the Year, Pulizter Prize candidates. Each of them is to be mourned in his time.
UncleBeer: Thank you for providing me an oportunity to say that you are absolutely fucking 100% correct! (in this case)
Well as I said there are many other threads about this subject.
Like this one in GQ.
And there is this one from MPSIMS again.
All of these threads were started before this thread was and the OP is hardly a rant. Now this guy is a guest so maybe he didn’t know to look for the other threads first but coming in and seeing all these threads for this one guy is a little strange to me.
And as I commented, I don’t find his death more or less tragic than the others.
However the OP certainly does not mention any of the other volunteers there that have died. So I don’t know if he cares about them or not. I do care.
So IIRC, Tillman turned down $9 million from the Rams, and signed with Arizona for $500,000 out of loyalty. Then after 9/11 turns gives up $3.6 million from Arizona to go join the army.
Wow.
You really don’t get it do you? My posts about you have nothing to do with the number of other threads, the amount of vitrol the OP put into his post, or how much more valuable one person’s life or death (or for that matter one person’s ability to express their pain and the reasons for it). They had to do with how incredibly rude, obnoxious, and asinine I think it is to question the OP’s grief and the value of Pat Tillman’s death in this thread.
Well, let me rant a little bit…
Have any of y’all been to Ebay? Goddamned profiteers are having a field day, with a bunch of people jumping on the tragedy to sell football cards for up to $15,000 a piece! And these aren’t just people who happened to have Pat Tillman stuff for sale (and there are those): Look at the number of “1 day auctions”, designed to cash in on as much of the emotional impact as possible.
Of course, the fucknugget(s) who buys a stupid card for $15,000 is slightly less contemptable, but only because you know they’re going to lose their ass in, oh, 2 days, when their pre-news $1.99, now $15,000, card depreciates to $2.25.
However, 3 hours ago there were a lot more items at highly inflated prices for sale, so maybe Ebay is doing some sort of crackdown. If so, good for them.
Personally, I don’t see how
There are a bunch of threads about this guy.
But I don’t find his death any more or less tragic of a loss than the deaths of the hundres of other American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Questions the OP’s grief or the value of Pat Tillman’s life.
I had and have no intention of offending. I only want all of the soldiers to get their due.
How about you go start a thread about them and stay the fuck out of this one because you are offending.
You are right, I do not make my email available for those reasons even though I do not consider you a nut job. I do not check my emails as frequently as I do here, and I intend to keep it that way. Opening another email account just means I have to spend more time reading email which to me is a chore.
When I checked your profile (when I considered sending you an email), I also viewed the history of threads that you started, and based on what I have read, I will dismiss the severity of your first post in this thread as cathartic anger (based on your personal history) due to your own issues that I have discovered in some of those threads that I have viewed. I wish you luck in resolving them in the future.
As for Pat Tillman, he could have stayed home (like the other players) and played football; getting richer and more pampered, being on a “team” that pretends that their “war in the trenches” every weekend during the football season was more important than some war on the other side of the world. But feeling the necessity to serve his country, he decides to finish his football contract and then enlist because of 9/11 and his brother. What makes his death stand out was that it bridged two separate realities (war and sports) and brought a dose of reality to the spoiled brats of professional sports…something that very few of us would expect in this day and age. I am not lessening the deaths of the rest of the soldiers; as lives lost, they are all equally hard to take. I do pray for them all, including my relatives who have passed on post-war.
This thread is the perfect embodiment of why I won’t be continuing on these boards. No common decency for someone who has fallen for his country, but plenty gnashing of teeth, shedding of tears, and condemnation over a fucking cat in another thread.
Most posters here have lost any sense of proportions and reality.
At the risk of getting caught up in this ridiculous pissing contest, I don’t see any threads or articles or anything saying that Tillman’s death was more tragic than any other soldier’s. Even the most thick-headed person does have to realize that the reason the Tillman story is getting so much press is that it his story was , to say the least, a bit more unusual than most. Again, not more (or less) tragic, but certainly more unusual, and thus, more newsworthy (at least for now).
For me, it seems a bit more personal. Not that I knew him or anything, but I knew more about him than the others. I don’t happen to personally know anyone who has been killed or wounded in this war. I suspect most people don’t. Hopefully, things don’t get to the point where most of do know someone killed or wounded over there. Tillman became a kind of vicarious acquaintance that was in harm’s way. He puts a personal face on the war for people that don’t have a friend or loved one serving, but followed or knew about his story. Each one of those caskets coming home to Dover (or England or Italy or even staying in Iraq) contains a Pat Tillman. We are all diminished by each loss equally.
Everybody here need to back off a step, take a deep breath and go find a story by Ernie Pyle called The Death of Captain Waskow. It is in his Brave Men, Henry Holt and Co., 1944, and is reprinted in Ernie’s War, Touchstone-Simon and Schuster, 1986, and can be found here: http://www.kwanah.com/txmilmus/36division/sweeney.htm
Also read the dedication to Pyle’s Brave men, it says
“IN SOLEMN SALUTE TO THOSE THOUSANDS OF OUR COMRADES – GREAT BRAVE MEN THAT THEY WERE – FOR WHOM THERE WILL BE NO HOMECOMING, EVER”
That and that alone should be enough for this young man, and all the others.
We can argue about whether his death was, and their deaths were, in vain later. Not now.
- me again, thread starter.
FWIW I wasn’t aware of the other threads on the subject - the hamsters were seriously slow for me this afternoon and I posted here in The Pit because I was pissed off, but once I started typing I just felt sad.
The death of Tillman DID hit closer to home for me than other combat deaths because, as I stated, I was a student at ASU when he played there, I held season tickets and watched the guy kick ass on the field (as a walk on). I saw him on campus occasionally as I was in the business school and he was too (back then he had long hair so it was easy to spot the guy as you walked to class). I cheered for him in the draft, watched him play for the sucky Cardinals and work his way up to a starter (I lived so close to Sun Devil Stadium I could see it from my balcony and I’d sneak into games for the second half sometimes). I was blown away by his decision to walk away from everything he’d worked for to put his life on the line, and to do it completely without fanfare. Shit, he’s a former football star and a good looking guy, he could so easily have done a few talk shows and recruitment commercials but he stayed completely away from the media once his decision was made. I don’t think I will ever measure up to a guy like that.
Did I know him well? No. Does this combat death stand out? Yes. They’re all depressing. Until now, I knew nothing of anybody else who has died.
I know 2 guys, also in special forces, also in Afghanistan. I last saw them in Feb of last year. If they die (heaven fucking forbid), I may well be back. I hope nobody will start pointing out that I’m paying THEM too much attention.
Let’s take it easy a little but, shall we. First of all, why is this in the Pit? That only encourages people to rant, rave and curse even though they wouldn’t have if this were in another forum. Yes I know there are other threads on Tillman; I entered this one partly to see if someone was pitting Tillman himself. I am glad to see they are not.
I am touched and upset by the loss of Pat Tillman because of his feeling of duty to this country. The guy left a high paying career and celebrity to go into combat. That is worthy of a great deal of respect.
Every one of the U.S. fallen deserve our respect and thoughts, but forgive me that this is the only thread I’ve entered to discuss my feelings.
I am a way-left wing guy who is quite upset that we are at war in Iraq. (Yes, I know he died in Afghanistan). I also don’t always have a lot in common with military people even though much of my family served. If Pat and I had sat down in a bar and discussed our country’s current war situations, we might have had many disagreements. We probably would never have been close friends.
But I find his sacrificing fame and fortune to put himself in harms way truly commendable–the sort of thing that we don’t have enough of in our nation.
And I will slip in one little political barb-- Pat Tillman was a man much too brave and honorable to have fought under a CINC like George W. Bush. Tillman deserved a lot better. He also deseved, as our whole country does, more personnel, equipment and support in Afghanistan. Of course, because of the deadly Fool’s Errand in Iraq, we, and he, have been terribly let down.
I don’t believe in God, but if you did, Pat Tillman, may He bless you, your family, and every man and woman who can see past their petty needs to serve a greater cause.
RIP
I heard on ESPN Radio last week that Tillman was criticized by some NFL players when he enlisted. They made some sort of comment about him not cutting it in the NFL, and the Army was the only thing he was qualified for.
Does anyone have any idea what I’m talking about?
It was Simeon Rice on the Jim Rome show … Rome was talking about wasn’t it great how Tillman was joining the Army, after being such a stud on the field etc. etc., the Rice came out with something along the lines of “not really, though.” Not really, what? “it’s not like he’s one of the top players at his position, he’s no pro bowler” or something along those lines.
Needless to say Rome threw him to the wolves over that comment and Rice was roundly condemned in the greater sports media until they found something else to talk about 24 hours later.
Thanks, RTA. Here’s an interesting link from Rome’s website:
http://www.jimrome.com/archives/february/2102003/quote_unquote.html