Misplaced Pages

Pat Tillman

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 68.41.150.114 (talk) at 22:20, 19 November 2009 (→Death). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Revision as of 22:20, 19 November 2009 by 68.41.150.114 (talk) (→Death)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)
Pat Tillman
Pat Tillman
AllegianceUnited States of America
Service / branchUnited States Army
Years of service2002–2004
RankCorporal
Unit2nd Ranger Battalion
Battles / wars2003 Invasion of Iraq
Operation Enduring Freedom - Afghanistan (OEF-A)
AwardsSilver Star
Purple Heart

Template:NFLretired Patrick Daniel Tillman (November 6, 1976 – April 22, 2004) was an American football player who left his professional sports career and enlisted in the United States Army in May 2002 in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. He joined the United States Army Rangers and served multiple tours in combat before he was killed by friendly fire in the mountains of Afghanistan. Details about the circumstances surrounding his death have been the subject of controversy and military investigations.

He is the second recently active professional football player to be killed in combat; the first was Bob Kalsu of the Buffalo Bills, who died in the Vietnam War in 1970.

Biography

Religious and political beliefs

According to speakers at his funeral, he was very well-read, having read a number of religious texts including the Bible, Qur’an and Book of Mormon as well as transcendentalist authors such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau; his younger brother Rich stated that he "is not with God... He was not religious." Another article quotes him as having told then-general manager of the Seattle Seahawks Bob Ferguson in December 2003 that "you know I'm not religious".

The September 25, 2005, edition of the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper reported that Tillman held views which were critical of the Iraq war. According to Tillman's mother, a friend of Tillman had arranged a meeting with author Noam Chomsky, a prominent critic of American foreign and military policy, to take place after his return from Afghanistan. Chomsky has confirmed this.

Reactions to Tillman's death

Memorials and tributes

File:Tillman - portrait.JPG
Tillman's portrait - Faces of the Fallen gallery - Arlington National Cemetery.

After his death, the Pat Tillman Foundation was established to carry forward its view of Tillman's legacy by inspiring and supporting those striving for positive change in themselves and the world around them.

A highway bypass around the Hoover Dam will have a bridge bearing Tillman's name. When completed in September 2010, the Mike O'Callaghan-Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge will span the Colorado River between Nevada and Arizona.

Lincoln Law School of San Jose has established the Pat Tillman Scholarship in honor of Tillman. Tillman's father, Patrick Kevin Tillman, earned his Juris Doctor from Lincoln in 1983.

On Sunday, September 19, 2004, all teams of the NFL wore a memorial decal on their helmets in honor of Pat Tillman. The Arizona Cardinals continued to wear this decal throughout the 2004 season. Former Cardinals quarterback Jake Plummer requested to also wear the decal for the entire season but the NFL turned him down saying his helmet would not be uniform with the rest of the Denver Broncos. Plummer would later grow a full beard and his hair long in honor of Tillman, who had such a style in the NFL before cutting his hair and shaving his beard off to fit military uniform guidelines. Plummer, now retired from the NFL, has since gone back to cutting his hair short but maintains the beard.

File:Tillman memorial.jpg
A memorial to Pat Tillman was created at Sun Devil Stadium, where he played football for the Sun Devils and the Cardinals.

In 2005, Mike Ricci of the Phoenix Coyotes switched his uniform number to 40 in honor of Tillman.

The Cardinals retired his number 40, and Arizona State did the same for the number 42 he wore with the Sun Devils. The Cardinals have named the plaza surrounding their University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Pat Tillman Freedom Plaza. Later, on November 12, 2006, during a Cardinals game versus the Cowboys, a bronze statue was revealed in his honor. ASU also named the entryway to Sun Devil Stadium the "Pat Tillman Memorial Tunnel" and made a "PT-42" patch that they placed on the neck of their uniforms a permanent feature.

Pat Tillman's high school, Leland High School in San Jose, California, renamed its football field after him.

In 2004, the NFL donated $250,000 to the United Service Organizations to build a USO center in memory of Tillman. The Pat Tillman USO Center, the first USO center in Afghanistan, opened on Bagram Air Base on April 1, 2005.

Forward Operating Base Tillman is close to the Pakistan border, near the village of Lwara in Paktia Province, Afghanistan.

On Saturday, April 15, 2006, more than 10,000 participants turned out for Pat's Run in Tempe, Arizona. The racers traveled along the 4.2-mile (6.8 km) course around Tempe Town Lake to the finish line, on the 42-yard (38 m) line of Sun Devil Stadium. A second race took place in San Jose. Sponsored by the Pat Tillman Foundation, a total of 14,000 runners took part. In 2005, about 6,000 took part in a single race in Tempe.

Just south of San Jose, California, in the small community of New Almaden where Pat Tillman grew up, a memorial was constructed near the Almaden Quicksilver County Park. This memorial was dedicated in September 2007 during the annual New Almaden Day celebration.

The skateboarding bulldog featured on YouTube and in an Apple iPhone commercial was named after Tillman.

Two books about Tillman were published in 2009. Jon Krakauer, best-selling author of Into Thin Air and Into the Wild, chronicles Tillman's story in Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman, published by Doubleday on September 15. Meanwhile, Tillman's mother, Mary Tillman, also wrote a book about her son, Boots on the Ground by Dusk, which was released in April.

Following Tillman's death, the Ohio State Linebackers Corp consisting of A.J. Hawk, Bobby Carpenter, and Anthony Schlegel, as well as center Nick Mangold grew their hair in tribute to Tillman, imitating Tillman's trademark locks.

In September 2008, Rory Fanning, a fellow Army Ranger who was stationed with Tillman in Fort Lewis, WA, began his "Walk for Pat" — a walk across the United States in an effort to raise money and awareness for the Pat Tillman Foundation. The stated fundraising goal is $3.6 million — the value of the contract Tillman turned down when he decided to enlist in the military.

Controversial criticisms

After reports of Tillman's anti-war views became public, Ted Rall said that he was wrong to have assumed Tillman to be a "right wing poster child" when Tillman regarded the invasion of Iraq as illegal.

Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Kauzlarich, Regimental Executive Officer at Forward Operating Base Salerno on Khowst, Afghanistan under which Tillman was serving at the time of his death, and who led the second investigation into Tillman's death, has made controversial statements about the Tillman family’s search for the truth based on Tillman's apparent agnosticism. In comments to ESPN, Kauzlarich said: "These people have a hard time letting it go. It may be because of their religious beliefs" and "When you die, I mean, there is supposedly a better life, right? Well, if you are an atheist and you don’t believe in anything, if you die, what is there to go to? Nothing. You are worm dirt. So for their son to die for nothing and now he is no more... I do not know how an atheist thinks, I can only imagine that would be pretty tough." Lt. Col. Ralph Kauzlarich conducted the second investigation into Tillman's death which lasted a week, from May 8, 2004, to May 15, 2004. Brigadier General Rodney Johnson, the Commanding General of the United States Army Criminal Investigations Command, testified before Congress that he found these statements "totally unacceptable." Acting Department of Defense Inspector General Thomas Gimble also testified that he was "shocked" that Lt. Col. Kauzlarich would make these statements. According to AP analysis, Kauzlarich may be one of three lower level officers expected to be punished whose names have not yet been released by the military. Tillman's mother continues to reject the Pentagon's characterization of the officers' offenses as "errors" in reporting Tillman's death, because several officers have said they made conscious decisions not to tell the Tillman family that friendly fire was suspected.

See also

References

  1. "True hero athlete". San Francisco Chronicle.
  2. "Fallen Ranger Tillman turned down NFL overtures for 2004 season". USA Today.
  3. "Pat Tillman, Our Hero". The Nation.
  4. Landers, Jim, "Tillman's Legacy Lives On At Center", Dallas Morning News, January 18, 2009, p. 22.
  5. "The Last Outpost".
  6. "Memorial to honor Pat Tillman, a kid New Almaden knew well, San Jose Mercury News, August 4, 2007".
  7. "Tillman the Skateboarding Bulldog".
  8. "Lot of bang from the Buckeyes, USA Today, March 8, 2006".
  9. Ted Rall (October 8, 2005). "Pat Tillman Redux". Retrieved 2007-07-28.
  10. Robert Collier (2005-09-25). "Family demands the truth: new inquiry may expose events that led to Pat Tillman's death". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 2008-06-03.
  11. Stan Goff (July 28, 2006). "Playing the Atheism Card Against Pat Tillman's Family". Retrieved 2007-07-28.
  12. Mike Fish (Spring 2006). "Pat Tillman Timeline". Retrieved 2007-07-31.
  13. Henry Waxman and Tom Davis (May 16, 2007). "Letter to General Ham" (PDF). Retrieved 2007-07-31.
  14. Associated Press (July 26, 2007). "Report: General faces demotion in Tillman case". Retrieved 2007-07-31.

Books

  • Krakauer, Jon (2009). Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman. Doubleday (September 15, 2009). ISBN 978-0385522267.
  • Tillman, Mary (2008). Boots on the Ground by Dusk: My Tribute to Pat Tillman. Modern Times. ISBN 1594868808. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)

External links

Arizona Cardinals retired numbers

(*) number was unretired during J. J. Watt's time with the Cardinals

Template:Persondata

Categories: