Pat Tillman's sacrifice - just as costly as all the others

APRIL 28, 2004
By GREG RUMMO

     WHAT IS IT about Pat Tillman’s death that draws the attention of so many Americans? Was it the $3.6 million contract he turned down to play professional football with the Arizona Cardinals?

Solomon wrote in the book of Ecclesiastes: “Money answers everything.” When the wise king wrote those words, it was at a stage in his life when he had developed a worldly and a cynical perspective about everything—like many Americans today—who tend to measure the value of something by how much it costs.

 “Money talks,” so the tragedy isn’t so much about Tillman’s death but that he gave up so much more than the average Joe to go and fight for his country, or so the line of thinking goes.

Such philosophical ruminations are the inevitable result of living in a country where ease comfort and pleasure are treated as entitlements. We have taken “the pursuit of happiness” to bacchanalian excesses.

In this MTV wonderland of ours, we sit transfixed night after night in front of the boob tube watching the latest reality show which has gone beyond babes and hunks looking to fornicate or eat live insects or cow guts while leaping from tall buildings in a single bound in the hopes of winning $25,000.  Now, the latest obsession, when we’re not ogling Janet Jackson’s exposed breast or glued to every facet of her brother’s sexual molestation trial is with ugly people getting face lifts, nose jobs and breast implants as a means to ward off poor self-esteem and become “successful.”

It’s no wonder many of us have missed the true value of Pat Tillman’s sacrifice. We’ve lost our sense of the true worth of a human being.

Pat Tillman is no different from any of the other soldiers fighting in the war against terrorism. They all have a family—a mom and a dad, brothers and sisters, a wife and perhaps a son or a daughter. Each has a dream that has been unselfishly put on hold, much like Pat Tillman’s, because something more important has been allowed to intrude into their lives.

They all understand what is at stake. They have all willingly sacrificed themselves and in some cases, have been called on to make the ultimate sacrifice.  

It’s not a political ideology that has motivated them to risk all in this war against the evil darkness that threatens not only America but the entire civilized world.

It is something deeper. 

Duty, Honor, Country. Semper fidelis. Aim high. A love for God and a sense that this mission is morally right and good and involves a higher calling.

To those of us who have never fought in a war to defend America, a full understanding of the depth of the commitment made by these valiant men and women is simply not possible.

And so when it was announced that Pat Tillman had been killed in Khost, Afghanistan, many Americans here at home defaulted to money and fame and good looks as a means to measure his loss and somehow magnify it beyond what it really is.

But our lens has distorted the true picture.

Pat Tillman’s death goes way beyond what any NFL contract can measure in terms of dollars and cents.

The men and women of the armed forces who are in Iraq and Afghanistan making it possible for our lives to be pretty normal here at home are heroes—all of them.

Their dreams and their ambitions—we don’t know what they are but trust me, they are just as important as catching a football—each one of them represents an offering that has been willingly placed on an altar of sacrifice so that you and I and our posterity can enjoy the fruits of freedom for generations to come.

That's something to really cheer about. n

Greg Rummo is a syndicated columnist. Read all of his columns on his homepage, www.GregRummo.com.