Hey All!

Well, I'm still trying to write about the friends drifting in and out (which was inspired by a client, of all people), but I've gotta get this out first. The last few nights it's all I can think about in those moments before I fall asleep and maybe if I let it all out, I'll feel better. I, like so much of America, am thinking about Pat Tillman. I think alot of his "fanfare" has been misportrayed, and I feel the need to explain why so many nights have been taken up in thinking about him.

The news of his death came from my father. Oddly enough, it hit me like a ton of bricks. I was instantly sad. Sad for alot of reasons, most of which were my feelings about this war we are in. Pretty much the same way I react to horror movies where I know more than the actor. I sit around screaming "Get Out! Get Out! It was a trap!" or "There's a monster in there and you're in high heels... turn around! Leave before you get killed too!" Alas, they never listen. I can't help thinking Pat wouldn't have listened either. I've been trying to read every bit of info I can find about what happened, which led me to the Sports Illustrated article with him on the cover.

Before I go on, I feel the need to interject on myself. I'm a bit jumbled in my thoughts. They come streaming all overlapping, etc. My friends have all called it "overanalyzing" a word of which I'm not aware. What is this overanalyzing you speak of? ;)

So, while I want to know what happened, to gather evidence to make sense of his death and give myself some comfort, I feel as though I am betraying his very wishes to remain "another soldier" by doing so. How many other soldiers' deaths have I read into? How many other soldiers' families have I felt for? The answer, surprisingly enough is way too many. I have not delved into the stories as greatly as I have delved into his, but every article, in both the newspapers we received, on every local soldier, I read. And try not to cry. Maybe I am turning into an emotional woman in my old age, but I get upset by the though of another life taken for something so....not our fight. Then again, each soldier has not been as heavily reported upon as Pat and Kevin Tillman.

When the news stations first began reporting on Pat it was all about his leaving the NFL to join the Army. Everyone focused on the change in salary, how he was an athlete, how he was giving up his dream, and did we mention the money?, to do what he felt was right. I don't mourn for Pat because of his salary change. I didn't follow his story because he was an athlete. I followed Pat and Kevin's story because I too didn't see the big deal. September 11th outraged me as well. Once The Dad was accounted for and deemed safe, and the shock of the fact that a terrorist hase reeked so much havock in OUR country, I was outraged. How DARE they come onto OUR soil, take advantage of OUR freedom and education, then destroy OUR buildings, families, structures and basic ways of living from day to day!!!! We needed to show them just how much stronger they had made us!!!! We needed to let them know that NO ONE does that to US and gets away with it! (Yes, I am one of those red, white and blue idiots on Fourth of July who goes to every parade and fireworks show she can find!) We needed to find those behind this and torture them to every ounce of their being! (I know, not very Jenn like, but I was MAD!)

Apparently, Pat and Kevin felt the same way. They were right when they said they weren't leaving behind any more or less than those who were leaving families and their jobs behind. They were right when they said they didn't want to be any different than the person standing beside them in boot camp. In war, you just can't afford to feel you or your life is any more valuable than that of the uniformed soldier standing beside you. Pat and Kevin knew that. Had we as Americans (and perhaps media - ESPN) become so...snobbish?....that WE couldn't see that? How about if that was OUR brother or sister going to enlist and here's this "hotshot" who gave up millions of dollars and was going to be responsible for defending their life? Would I want my family member's life to be any less valued because he/she gave up a $40,000/year job and a spouse and kids? Not the NFL, but no less important. They had passion. According to the things I've read from friends and coaches, passion in everything they did and everything in their life. They too, couldn't let the United States of America be attacked and "demeaned" without standing up for it. So, off they went.

Can you imaging being married to a person like that? To know that your honeymoon might be the only time you spent together because his passion for what was right was carrying him into danger? I'm sure Pat's wife admired and even loved the passion inside of him. How hard would it be to love it knowing it could kill him? To support him knowing you might lose him?

Or to be the mother and father of not one, but two boys whose passion and idea of right and wrong was taking both of them into the center of danger? That you might get that dreded knock on the door and find a soldier standing there in full dress waiting to hand you the news that you would never again see the passion in the eyes of one of them? To stand there being proud of what they are doing? Proud that the children you have raised are so modest? noble? human? that they don't believe what they are doing is abnormal from what everyone should do?

All of the while, the rest (media) of America just doesn't get it. Why would you voluntarily leave millions of dollars and a cushy life for war?

Every night, when I lie down to sleep, I think about the Tillman family and what they must now be going through. A wife, newlywed, now a widow. A life that just months ago included kids and growing old together, now just wonders how to "grow" another day alone. A brother and soldier, who fought close enough to see his brother every week, whose brother joined to be with him as well as following his own "need", now escorts his brother home in a coffin. A mother and father, who raised wonderful, passionate, conviction-filled children and fielded questions and remarks about their sons choices, now lowering one into the ground. Doing all of this in the watchful eye of the media. It is his family I greive for, that my heart breaks for, and for which I always manage to just stop before shedding many tears. The symbol of so many lives going forward without a piece.

Eventually, the story will fade. The media will find another story to cover. The Tillman family, with an empty space in their lives will have to go on. As will every other family in America who has lost a loved one in this war. At this moment, the feelings inside the Tillman family is one that, ironically enough, is no different than that of many of the soldiers' families of soldiers that fought "next to" Pat Tillman. Pat and Kevin Tillman wanted to be like every other soldier in their unit, in the Army, in this war. Ironically, it is the resolve of the media to keep them "different" that has a nation mouring the loss of Pat Tillman. It is his passion that has drawn fans to the makeshift memorials set up in his memory. It is the fact that he left the NFL and millions of dollars to join the Rangers and fight that has named a stadium in his memory and honor. It is the fact that he, depite his protests to the contrary, was in the public eye for doing something that came so naturally to him, that will keep him alive in the memory of so many for years and years to come.