Pat Tillman was a hero

I've mentioned before that I want to write a blog entry about Pat Tillman; I've wanted to for years now. Actually I want to write a hundred blog entries about Pat Tillman, but I just can't bring myself to write about him. It is just too hard. Today I'm going to try again.

Simply, Pat Tillman was a hero.

That's a word, hero, that gets thrown around so much that it is almost devoid of meaning most of the time it is used. I'm not using that word lightly here. I think I'm using it in a way meant to convey almost the same sense as when religious people speak in wonder and awe about their personal deity. But like Pat Tillman I'm an atheist, and as people without supernatural perfect beings for inspiration, we only have principles and ideals of our own choosing. We tend to think of these ideals as pure and good and right, just as religious people think of their gods as pure and good and right. (I mention this here not to start an argument against religion as I often do, but to relate my emotions to something that maybe more people can understand.) I call Pat Tillman a hero, and he inspires a childlike sense of awe, and writing about him is so hard, because he was a man who lived up to his ideals, and died for them.

Just thinking about him in that regard is an emotionally powerful thing for me. How many people could do what he did? There are hundreds of thousands of people in the military, and this shouldn't take away from their honor, but I wonder how many of them would have given up everything that Pat Tillman gave up. This was a man who left behind what most people would consider a dream life, a hero's life - professional athletic career, wealth, fame, a beautiful wife - to fight for what he believed was right. He had everything anyone could want, and his conscience compelled him to walk away and fight for his ideals. That is what made him a hero, and what inspires such strong feeling. I'm typically not emotional on a visceral level, but I get choked up thinking about it.

Pat Tillman risked and lost his life for his ideals. And before his body was cold, terrible people began using his death as a cynical weapon against the pure and good and right ideals for which he fought.

The first part is enough to make me want to cry. The second part is enough to make me want to rip the beating hearts from the chests of the the disgusting pigs who make a mockery of the ultimate sacrifice. They are the self-serving politicians who cynically throw the word hero around to suit their political agenda, but try to destroy a real hero. They are the credulous reporters and media organizations who mindlessly and gutlessly regurgitate the politicians' propaganda and lies, and then congratulate themselves on their tremendous work. They are the parasitic pundits who collect fat checks to scream about how we're in the ultimate war to end all wars, but make no sacrifice of their own, and certainly aren't putting on a uniform. They are the soldiers who betrayed their fallen brother's memory by allowing the lies, and by insulting his family.

It is maddening to contemplate. I can't imagine that I'll ever be able to reflect calmly about Pat Tillman until Bush and his entire disgusting administration are impeached and prosecuted for their crimes; until every media outlet runs front page stories about their own pathetic failings and implements serious policies to make sure they never repeat their mistakes; until every fat pathetic pundit who cheered on the war that Pat Tillman knew was "so fucking illegal" and defended the Bush administration's inexcusable offenses has been shamed into obscurity; until every soldier who spread the lies they were ordered to spread has apologized; and until the officer who smeared the Tillman family is dishonorably discharged.

I can at least take a sliver of hope from seeing that the Tillman family continues to fight for Pat's memory. I can take a bit of hope that honorable political commentators are showing how the media has failed us. And I can take a bit of hope that the Democratic Congress is beginning to exercise some oversight of the Bush administration.

That's all I can write about it now. This is too much.