Pat Tillman is not a hero: He got what was coming to him
By Rene Gonzalez April 28, 2004
When the death of Pat Tillman occurred, I turned to my friend who was watching the news with me and said, "How much you want to bet they start talking about him as a 'hero' in about two hours?" Of course, my friend did not want to make that bet. He'd lose. In this self-critical incapable nation, nothing but a knee-jerk "He's a hero" response is to be expected.
I've been mystified at the absolute nonsense of being in "awe" of Tillman's "sacrifice" that has been the American response. Mystified, but not surprised. True, it's not everyday that you forgo a $3.6 million contract for joining the military. And, not just the regular army, but the elite Army Rangers. You know he was a real Rambo, who wanted to be in the "real" thick of things. I could tell he was that type of macho guy, from his scowling, beefy face on the CNN pictures. Well, he got his wish. Even Rambo got shot in the third movie, but in real life, you die as a result of being shot. They should call Pat Tillman's army life "Rambo 4: Rambo Attempts to Strike Back at His Former Rambo 3 Taliban Friends, and Gets Killed."
But, does that make him a hero? I guess it's a matter of perspective. For people in the United States, who seem to be unable to admit the stupidity of both the Afghanistan and Iraqi wars, such a trade-off in life standards (if not expectancy) is nothing short of heroic. Obviously, the man must be made of "stronger stuff" to have had decided to "serve" his country rather than take from it. It's the old JFK exhortation to citizen service to the nation, and it seems to strike an emotional chord. So, it's understandable why Americans automatically knee-jerk into hero worship.
However, in my neighborhood in Puerto Rico, Tillman would have been called a "pendejo," an idiot. Tillman, in the absurd belief that he was defending or serving his all-powerful country from a seventh-rate, Third World nation devastated by the previous conflicts it had endured, decided to give up a comfortable life to place himself in a combat situation that cost him his life. This was not "Ramon or Tyrone," who joined the military out of financial necessity, or to have a chance at education. This was a "G.I. Joe" guy who got what was coming to him. That was not heroism, it was prophetic idiocy.
Tillman, probably acting out his nationalist-patriotic fantasies forged in years of exposure to Clint Eastwood and Rambo movies, decided to insert himself into a conflict he didn't need to insert himself into. It wasn't like he was defending the East coast from an invasion of a foreign power. THAT would have been heroic and laudable. What he did was make himself useful to a foreign invading army, and he paid for it. It's hard to say I have any sympathy for his death because I don't feel like his "service" was necessary. He wasn't defending me, nor was he defending the Afghani people. He was acting out his macho, patriotic crap and I guess someone with a bigger gun did him in.
Perhaps it's the old, dreamy American thought process that forces them to put sports greats and "larger than life" sacrificial lambs on the pedestal of heroism, no matter what they've done. After all, the American nation has no other role to play but to be the cheerleaders of the home team; a sad role to have to play during conflicts that suffer from severe legitimacy and credibility problems.
Matters are a little clearer for those living outside the American borders. Tillman got himself killed in a country other than his own without having been forced to go over to that country to kill its people. After all, whether we like them or not, the Taliban is more Afghani than we are. Their resistance is more legitimate than our invasion, regardless of the fact that our social values are probably more enlightened than theirs. For that, he shouldn't be hailed as a hero, he should be used as a poster boy for the dangerous consequences of too much "America is #1," frat boy, propaganda bull. It might just make a regular man irrationally drop $3.6 million to go fight in a conflict that was anything but "self-defense." The same could be said of the unusual belief of 50 percent of the American nation that thinks Saddam Hussein was behind Sept. 11. One must indeed stand in awe of the amazing success of the American propaganda machine. It works wonders.
Al-Qaeda won't be defeated in Afghanistan, even if we did kill all their operatives there. Only through careful and logical changing of the underlying conditions that allow for the ideology to foster will Al-Qaeda be defeated. Ask the Israelis if 50 years of blunt force have eradicated the Palestinian resistance. For that reason, Tillman's service, along with that of thousands of American soldiers, has been wrongly utilized. He did die in vain, because in the years to come, we will realize the irrationality of the War on Terror and the American reaction to Sept. 11. The sad part is that we won't realize it before we send more people like Pat Tillman over to their deaths.
Not being a football fan, I had never heard of Pat Tillman until the news that the former National Football League player-turned-Army Ranger had been killed in Afghanistan on April 22. That was when I learned that two years ago Tillman turned down a three-year, $3.6 million contract with the Arizona Cardinals to join the Army. While his death was no more (or less) tragic than any other soldier's, Tillman surely deserved the title of hero that is so often wantonly applied to professional athletes. I wasn't planning to write about Tillman—until I clicked on a link from a popular weblog to a column whose title says it all: "Pat Tillman is not a hero: He got what was coming to him."
The April 28 column in The Daily Collegian, the student newspaper at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, reads like a twisted parody of an antiwar harangue. "You know he was a real Rambo, who wanted to be in the `real' thick of things," scoffs author Rene Gonzalez, a University of Massachusetts graduate student and occasional contributor to the Collegian. "I could tell he was that type of macho guy, from his scowling, beefy face on the CNN pictures. Well, he got his wish."
It goes downhill from there: "In my neighborhood in Puerto Rico, Tillman would have been called a 'pendejo,' an idiot...He was acting out his macho, patriotic crap and I guess someone with a bigger gun did him in...Tillman got himself killed in a country other than his own without having been forced to go over to that country to kill its people...he should be used as a poster boy for the dangerous consequences of too much `America is #1,' frat boy, propaganda bull."
Evidently, it never occurred to Gonzalez that if you're arguing for a fairly unpopular opinion, heaping insults on your country's war dead is not a promising tactic of persuasion.
But, beyond the name-calling, his column expresses a world-view mind-boggling in its estrangement from reality—a world-view worth examining because, while Gonzalez's rhetoric is extreme, his ideology may not be that far out of the "mainstream" on New England's college campuses. Notably, a counterpoint Daily Collegian column honoring Tillman stated that he "died in a war that many people don't support" and that "you don't have to support the war in order to support Tillman himself." In fact, about 90 percent of Americans—though only about 50 percent of college students—favored the war in Afghanistan. Unlike the war in Iraq, it also had strong international support.
Gonzalez conflates the two wars, mocking the notion that Iraq had anything to do with the Sept. 11 attack on America yet ignoring the fact that the Taliban regime in Afghanistan harbored the masterminds of that attack and refused to turn them over. Nor does he care that the Taliban killed far more Afghans than the Americans did: "Whether we like them or not, the Taliban is more Afghani than we are. Their resistance is more legitimate than our invasion, regardless of the fact that our social values are probably more enlightened." (And Hawaii is probably a nicer place to vacation than Afghanistan.)
According to Gonzalez, Al Qaeda cannot be defeated by force anyway, but "only through careful and logical changing of the underlying conditions that allow for the ideology to foster." Since Al Qaeda seeks nothing short of Islamic theocracy, one may wonder what conditions those are: The existence of secular democracy, perhaps?
Gonzalez's slam at Tillman elicited a strong reaction which prompted the Collegian to run a front-page message to readers, stating that it did not endorse the column but honored the author's right to express his views. Given the article's obscene tone, one may still question the paper's editorial judgment: Would it have run a piece that sneered at victims of rape, gay-bashing, or racially motivated hate crimes? One might also point out that in recent months, far more innocuous fare in college papers has led to official investigations and sanctions when deemed offensive to minorities.
Still, I'm glad the Collegian provided Gonzalez with a forum. For one, his screed is a stark reminder that a hate-America mindset on the left is not just a right-wing slander. It is also a powerful reminder that the US freedoms Pat Tillman fought and died to defend apply even to those who spout such venom.
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How suprised are we that the writer of that story is a state university student from Puerto Rico? Jesus Christ, I've never seen a group of people from America who look down on America as much as they do. It's assclowns like that that make me want to give that free-loading, subsidized, worthless piece of 3rd-world real estate to Cuba.
I guess the thing that just doesn't sit right with me is the fact that Tillman's story is being heard because of who he was BEFORE he joined the army. There's thousands of kids who left promising careers or dropped out of college to do what he did and I'm sure some who have died in action as well. We'll never hear their names or stories though because they weren't cool enough for the media/public to take notice of.
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I understand that it ended up being a high profile thing but if you read anything about Pat Tillman, you know he wasn't in the army for the exposure, or for anything other than what he and his family believed. He wouldn't have wanted anyone to take a minute out of their days to "honor" him. He was no better and no worse than any other soldier that dies for our country and that is how he would have wanted to be remembered. I think it is stupid that people want his jersey retired, or his number flown in every stadium for the whole season on a flag. It is even more bullshit that it took a former player to die before the majority of the sports world even recognized our armed forces defending our freedoms. That is how it always happens. They could learn a lot from these ladies...
-------------------- Gisel, I was looking at the picture page and I do have to admit, you look pretty good for a gaming female. Having said that, don't expect any sympathy when we meet on the battlefield. I am a fighter first, lover second. Posts: 2220 | From: Prescott, WI, USA | Registered: Apr 2001
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I don't question his motives for enlisting as being anything other than completely genuine. I can't imagine anyone joining the military and risking their life for "exposure". My beef is with the media and how they handle these stories.
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Both sides of the media are pissing me off with this story.
I agree with making this guy out to be a hero, but it has to be handled delicately. After all, it's a dead human being we're talking about. How aboutA little respect for the dead?
Ah well, knowing the ignorant masses, this story will be replaced by an even more negative anti-American story shortly...oh wait! It already has been!
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The author is a complete fuck I saw him on O'Reily and he was just on Hannitys show. He believes the shit that he puts in this comic didn't apologize one bit for it - not even to Tillmans parents when Hannity asked him to.
Tillman Cartoon Sparks Death Threats
Thursday, May 06, 2004
NEW YORK — Cartoonist Ted Rall (search) says he has received numerous death threats over a cartoon he did this week that satirized the media's response to the death of Pat Tillman (search), the former pro-football player killed in Afghanistan.
Rall said in an interview Wednesday that he has received about 6,000 e-mails in response to the cartoon, which was distributed Monday. MSNBC.com pulled the cartoon from its Web site, saying it "did not meet MSNBC.com standards of fairness and taste."
The cartoon said that Tillman "falsely believed" that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were linked to the Sept. 11 attacks, and that Tillman was a "cog in a low-rent occupation army that shot more innocent civilians than terrorists to prop up puppet rulers and exploit gas and oil resources."
Rall said the responses to the cartoon started out "extremely negative," with critical responses outweighing positive ones by nearly 100-to-1. But he said the tide has since turned, and now about 80 percent of the reaction has been supportive, which he called "the natural ebb and flow of this kind of thing."
Some 300 of the messages threatened Rall with "death or bodily harm," he said, and he also said he had received several death threats by phone.
Universal Press Syndicate (search), which distributes Rall's cartoons to about 70 newspapers, has received several e-mails from readers who objected to the content of the comic, spokeswoman Kathie Kerr said.
But Kerr also added that the syndicate often receives feedback about the political columnists and cartoonists it carries, which also include Ann Coulter, a conservative commentator, as well as the comic strips "Doonesbury" and "The Boondocks."
Bill O'Reilly had Rall on his program on the Fox News Channel on Tuesday, and the two traded barbs over the cartoon. O'Reilly closed the show by saying that Rall "should be ashamed of what you did to Tillman."
Rall addressed the controversy on his Web site, saying his cartoon was a "reaction to the extraordinary lionizing of Mr. Tillman as a national hero."
He also criticized the media's "decision to genuflect to a cult of death," which he said was "terrifyingly similar to the cult of Palestinian suicide bombers in the Middle East and the glorious coverage given by the Japanese during World War II to fallen kamikaze fighters."
Rall told the AP that a previous comic of his also caused a controversy two years ago with its depiction of widows from the Sept. 11 attacks. He also said that his "average of creating outrage is about one in 400."
"It's not like Bil Keane who does Family Circus," Rall said. "People who buy political cartoons know what they're getting."
Other cartoons have also caused controversy with war-related themes in recent weeks. "Doonesbury" and "Get Fuzzy" both depicted characters that lost a leg in the war.
Tillman's death has also been the subject of controversy elsewhere. The University of Massachusetts in Amherst has been roiled by a student's newspaper column that said Tillman was not a hero but rather a "G.I. Joe guy who got what was coming to him." Graduate student Rene Gonzalez also criticized America's military response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
UMass president Jack Wilson issued a statement saying the comments in The Daily Collegian on Wednesday were "a disgusting, arrogant and intellectually immature attack on a human being who died in service to his country."
Posts: 5484 | From: St. Paul, Mn | Registered: Apr 2002
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