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He didn't like being set up as a hero. He didn't seek adulation. He didn't prance about as a hero.
He liked letting his actions speak for him. He was
comfortable just setting the right example. He believed that when bad things
were done one should participate in setting things right.
He was big and strong. He was a professional football player.
To his parents not just he, but all their children were heroes.
You can learn more about him when you see The Patrick Tillman Story now showing in movie houses across the county.
After you see the movie, you must decide if this good man was setup. You must decide how your family would handle such a loss.
You should decide whether just the American deaths (now over 7,000) and casualties (officially over 32,000 but estimated over 100,000) in Afghanistan and Iraq are worth making this many fallen heroes so far from Middle America's needs and shores.
As you ponder public policy and fallen heroes, consider the loss carried by Mary Tillman's good friend and Gold Star burdened mother, who represents so many other Gold Star Mothers.
Reread those first three paragraphs. Everything said there, except the last sentence, applies to another Patrick, Patrick McCaffrey.
Another Patrick, Another Gold Star Mom
The day after 911, this Patrick, compelled like Patrick Tillman, told his Vietnam Veteran father and Hospice mother that he had to do "something." He trusted his recruiter's words that he would be stationed stateside. Believing in his government's competence and veracity, this well paid father of two joined the 579th Engineer Battalion's Alpha Company of Santa Rosa, who had not been involved in combat since World war II.
Within six months, this Patrick was in a tent near Balad, Iraq, protecting FortAnaconda, training Iraqis, and fighting and searching for insurgents.
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