Friday, April 20, 2007

One of the Few Public People I Admire

Most people have heard of Pat Tillman, the guy who gave up millions in the NFL to serve in the military, and who ultimately died in a case of friendly fire in Afghanistan. There isn't much more to say. This guy felt enough for his country that he would enlist out of the blue to fight the fight. Hard to criticize someone who's willing to die for what they believe (the matter of how to regard those willing to kill for their beliefs, especially if combined with the aforementioned, is a little dodgier), and this guy gave up a lot with no provocation. Kudos to him. One of the truly worthy was killed.

The facts around Tillman's death have been contested from the start, but they take on a new importance with the disclosures by the man he saved right before three American bullets tore up his skull. I'm disgusted that these people are still considered vets. That the government has obfuscated both fronts to the extent where we don't know what the hell is happening. Other than we are not getting Osama.

This was in the Afghanistan theater, where I think the real war is being fought, or was before Dubya screwed up the entire Middle East. Real soldiers fighting the right cause, and one of the signature figures got pegged by a friendly.

Nice.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Iraq vs. Afghanistan.

Its certainly true that we could have done a lot more for the inhabitants of Afghanistan and for the stability of the world if we had expended our capital (1/2 Trillion dollars and 3000+ lives) in Afghanistan and not pissed it away in Iraq. Afghanistan was (is) one of the world's greatest feudal shitboxes, while Iraq was relatively functional. Now we have created a second, larger sectarian shitbox. Fantastic. That'll be one for the old presidential legacy. Lets consider it the gift from Dubya that keeps on giving.

As an aside, I love it how in your last paragraph, when writing about a military issue, you write like a soldier (sailor if you will) not like an english major. Some things are just imprinted on the brain very strongly I guess. See, Uncle Sam didn't just give you some of the wildest drunkfests of your life, he gave you another voice to write from. Hard to put a price on that, GI Bill or not ;-)

Jason said...

I noticed my voice coarsening as I wrote that, but didn't think too hard about its provenance. You're right, though. The more I thought about it the more clipped my expressions became, and I have Uncle Sam to thank for that.

What drunkfests?

Anonymous said...

Just because you cannot remember large portions of drunkfests, does not in fact mean that they did not happen ;-)

Ask yourself "If Jason tripped over a concrete wall in a drunken stupor but did not feel the consequences, does that mean that it didn't happen?

Jerry said...

Considering the "consequences" he did not feel consisted of a sports car. . . I would say that the fests were very drunk indeed.