TEMPE, Arizona, 25 April 2004 — He was a non-conformist and a surfer dude, a football star and a scholar — a 27-year-old with fame and fortune who traded both for life in a war zone.
On Friday, Pat Tillman was mourned as a fallen fighter in the war on terror, and hailed as a hero who forsook celebrity in a society obsessed with it — one who walked wordlessly away from the life of a National Football League millionaire, and paid the ultimate price.
Tillman was killed in a firefight Thursday evening in southeastern Afghanistan when his Army Ranger patrol was ambushed near the village of Sperah, about 25 miles southwest of Khowst, according to a Pentagon official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
He was the only American soldier killed in the shootout. Two others were wounded, and an Afghan government soldier was killed.
Tillman was part of the elite 75th Ranger Regiment of Fort Lewis, Washington. Friends said he declined to be interviewed about his decision in 2002 to leave the NFL’s Arizona Cardinals and enlist because he did not want to distinguish his sacrifice from those made by other troops.
He was lauded at the White House, where a statement called him “an inspiration both on and off the field.” On Capitol Hill a fellow Arizonan, Republican Sen. John McCain, said he was “heartbroken” by the news.
“The tragic loss of this extraordinary young man will seem a heavy blow to our nation’s morale, as it is surely a grievous injury to his loved ones,” McCain said.
Many American families have suffered the same sacrifice, McCain said. “But there is in Pat Tillman’s example, in his unexpected choice of duty to his country over the riches and other comforts of celebrity, and in his humility, such an inspiration to all of us to reclaim the essential public-spiritedness of Americans that many of us, in low moments, had worried was no longer our common distinguishing trait.”
He enlisted with his younger brother Kevin, a minor-league baseball player in the Cleveland Indian organization.
Pat Tillman turned down a $3.6 million contract offer from the Cardinals, where he played for four seasons after starring in football at Leland High School in San Jose, Calif., and Arizona State University.
The brothers graduated from Army Ranger school in late 2002 and were deployed to the Middle East. They received the Arthur Ashe Courage Award from ESPN last year in Los Angeles — an honor accepted by the youngest of the three Tillman boys, Richard, who lives in Los Gatos, Calif., with the brothers’ parents, Pat Sr., an attorney, and Mary, a teacher.
On Friday morning, motorists honked as they drove past Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe, Ariz.
One person rolled down his window and screamed, “Go Pat!” said Mark Brand, associate athletic director at Arizona State, where flags flew at half-staff.
“We have been flooded with e-mails, voice mails, people that are not even football fans,” Brand said.
Tillman enlisted shortly after returning from his honeymoon in Bora Bora with his wife, Marie, whom he dated at Leland High. They had no children.
While many pro athletes served in World War II and Korea, when a military draft was in place, Tillman is one of the few to interrupt a lucrative career to volunteer for war, and his death places him in even rarer company. According to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, 21 active or former players were killed during World War II and two in Vietnam.
To those who knew him, Tillman was one of a kind — a meticulous thinker, modest friend and ferocious tackler — who rode a beach-cruiser bicycle to practice and let his long hair spill over his shoulders.
In the Almaden Valley area of San Jose, flags flew at half-staff at Leland High.
After classes began Friday, no announcement was made to the students about Tillman’s death, in accordance with the wishes of his parents, said assistant principal Bob Setterland.
