Wednesday, May 05, 2004

Pat Tillman: Human being

This opinion piece shows a side to Pat Tillman that we haven't been getting elsewhere. Using quotes from the memorial service, Tillman is shown as a much more complicated person than the prescribed story would make you think.
Tillman's youngest brother, Rich, wore a rumpled white T-shirt, no jacket, no tie, no collar, and immediately swore into the microphone. He hadn't written anything, he said, and with the starkest honesty, he asked mourners to hold their spiritual bromides.
"Pat isn't with God,'' he said. "He's f -- ing dead. He wasn't religious. So thank you for your thoughts, but he's f -- ing dead.''

There's a lot more. It's a good article check it out.
By the time the ceremony ended, after his brother and brother-in-law sipped the Guinness that Garwood poured in Tillman's honor, the funny, thinking, wild, crazy man had come to life. The family's loss, the loss of every soldier's family, seemed more real.

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