One for the Team
Pat Tillman—football star, U.S. Army Ranger—did not aspire to heroism. But the sacrifices he made during his life defined it

Last December, a few days before the Arizona Cardinals were set to play the Seattle Seahawks, Dave McGinnis, then the Cardinals' head coach, got a call from U.S. Army Specialist Pat Tillman. Eighteen months after trading his Cardinals jersey for government-issue camouflage and six months after returning from a tour of duty in Iraq, Tillman was back with his 75th Army Ranger Regiment at its base in Fort Lewis, Wash. Soon he would ship out again, this time to Afghanistan. But now he wanted to come see his old team play.

After the game (which the Cardinals lost, 28Ð10), McGinnis asked Tillman to appear in the locker room. Ever reluctant to grandstand or play the hero, he agreed to meet the players but not to address them formally as a group. "When he walked in, there was just a tremendous amount of respect," says McGinnis. "I can still see vividly in my mind each player shaking his hand, everyone saying thank you and touching his shoulder." They may have wanted to make sure he was real. After all, this was the man who had walked away from a $3.6 million three-year contract with the Cardinals because there was another uniform he wanted to wear. In a culture obsessed with money, there's something hard to believe about a person who turns down that kind of offer for an $18,000-a-year job with the Army. And in a culture obsessed with fame, we hardly know what to do with a guy who doesn't even capitalize on the story. From the minute he decided to sign up, Tillman refused interview requests. What he did wasn't a publicity stunt. It wasn't a career move. It was that ancient, compelling thing—a sacrifice.

What we realize now is that there was a larger sacrifice to come. In Afghanistan Tillman was part of Operation Mountain Storm, a campaign launched in March by U.S.-led forces against Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters who have been regrouping in sanctuaries along the border with Pakistan. On Thursday, April 22, his special-forces unit was on patrol with Afghan militia near the isolated mud-brick village of Spera and Tillman's patrol was attacked. In the 12 to 15 minutes of shooting that followed, two Americans were wounded. An Afghan militia man was killed. So was Tillman. He was 27. (It was later learned that Tillman was killed by "friendly fire," not enemy bullets.)

Tillman grew up in San Jose, Calif., where his father Pat Sr. is a lawyer and former college wrestler. Like a lot of young Californians, the long-haired Pat Jr. could embody the surfer dude. In fact, "dude" was one of his favorite words. His other favorite word isn't printable. Cargo shorts, flip-flops and T shirts were his standard outfit. But at Arizona State University, he had the brains to get his marketing degree in 31Ú2 years—and with a 3.84-grade-point average.

In the fall of 1993, as a high school senior, Tillman got into serious trouble. Coming to the defense of a friend involved in a fight outside a pizza parlor, he beat his adversary so severely that he was eventually arrested and charged as a juvenile with felony assault. Tillman entered a guilty plea, and the following summer spent 30 days in a juvenile-detention facility, all the while worrying that he might lose the scholarship offered him by Arizona State. He didn't, and on his release his conviction was reduced to a misdemeanor. Years later he discussed the episode with a writer from Sports Illustrated. "I learned more from that one bad decision than all the good decisions I've ever made," he said. "It made me realize that stuff you do has repercussions. You can lose everything."

In his senior year at ASU, Tillman was named Pac-10 Conference Defensive Player of the Year—no small trick for a guy who weighed 202 pounds in a world where your average lineman looks like a major appliance with a helmet. When a reporter congratulated him, Tillman admitted that he was proud to win but allowed that the whole thing had him a little worried that he might "start being happy" with himself. "And then I'll stand still, and then I'm old news."

In 1997 Tillman helped the Sun Devils come achingly close to a national championship in that year's Rose Bowl. All the same, prior to the NFL draft the following year, the labels "too small" and "too slow" still clung to him. He came to the Cardinals as a seventh-round pick, 226th out of 241 overall. His signing bonus was meal money by nfl standards, just $21,000.

In 2000 Tillman established a team record of 224 tackles in a single season. The next year he turned down a five-year, $9 million-contract offer from the Super Bowl champion St. Louis Rams out of loyalty to the eternally underachieving Cardinals. But after Sept. 11, Tillman started thinking about larger loyalties. On the day after the attack he spoke about family members who had gone to war, like his great-grandfather who was at Pearl Harbor. "I haven't done a damn thing as far as laying myself on the line like that," he said. "So I have a great deal of respect for those that have."

In May, after returning from a honeymoon trip to the South Pacific island of Bora Bora with his wife Marie, Tillman enlisted, along with his brother Kevin, a minor league baseball player. Determined to avoid publicity, they began the process in Denver, where Pat might not be recognized. But the inevitable news still stunned many people. Tillman was one of the very few active nfl players to volunteer for military service since World War II, in which 638 nfl players served and 19 died.

Mark Brand, an assistant athletic director at ASU, says that when people asked Tillman why he was enlisting, he always had the same answer: he needed a new challenge. He got one at Fort Benning, Ga., where both Tillmans spent the second half of 2002 training to become Army Rangers, an elite outfit that only graduates about a third of those who start the course. They reached Iraq some time last year. It was only last month that Tillman left for Afghanistan.

"You're fortunate when you come across a Pat Tillman," says Lyle Setencich, one of his coaches from asu. "But there are many Pat Tillmans across the country. The spirit of Pat Tillman is the heart of this country." Tillman would not have wanted us talking about him this week, but if we were talking about him anyway, that's probably what he would have wanted us to say.

—from TIME, May 3, 2004

Questions

1. The writer states that there was something "hard to believe" about Pat Tillman's decision to join the Army. What does he mean by this? Do you agree?

2. What mission was Tillman's Army unit pursuing when he was killed?