Some Thoughts on Tillman

FYI: I heard that Tillman served several months in Iraq before going to Afghanistan.

I think that Tillman's story is an especially stark contrast with Bush and Cheney's attitudes towards Vietnam service. They were rich and had the chance to manipulate the system to stay out of any real danger. Tillman was rich too and didn't need to manipulate anything to stay out of danger since there isn't a draft. But he went out of his way to sign up. At the risk of sounding too partisan, I'd say Tillman is similar to John Kerry's case. John Kerry was a rich Yale grad (like Bush) who had contacts in Washington (like Bush) and could have easily stayed out of the military, joined the guard and stayed out of Vietnam (like George II Bush and Dan Quayle), or gotten a cushy job in Vietnam (like Gore) but he volunteered for hazardous duty that he knew would put him in the thick of it.

I would like to think that Tillman's death would make athletes think twice before engaging in contrived and staged nationalistic displays (like saluting each other like "soldiers" after touchdowns etc) but I fear the contrary will be true. How big of an idiot will Kellen Winslow sound like the next time he calls himself a "soldier" or "at war?"