Beauty Is

Your light's reflected now, reflected from afar
We were but stones, your light made us stars

Pearl Jam

It has been a month and I still have Pat Tillman on my mind. After reading and writing about the Jon Kraukaur book about his life, I have been unable to rid myself of the weight of his life. I recently read, Boots on the Ground By Dusk, another book about Pat written this time by his mother. This post, however, is not meant to be a review of the book, although it was beautiful and intimately written. This post is not even meant to be a deeper look at Pat’s life, although I will touch on it to springboard my thoughts.

I want to write about the impact learning about Pat Tillman’s life has had my life. Or better put, how I hope it will affect my life. There is a chapter in the book, where Mary Tillman transcribes the various speeches given at Pat’s memorial service. As I was reading, with tears in my eyes, I began to think about what kinds of things my friends and family would say about me at my service.

Reading about Tillman’s life has made me realize that life is too short to spend being apathetic and bored. The last three years have been rough on me. I can already see people shaking their heads, my wife included. Why would I complain about spending the last three years watching my two amazing daughters grow each day? I am not saying it has been all bad, but living here in Qatar has been one of the most difficult things I have ever done. It may be hyperbole to say that a part of me has died after living here, but it is not an exaggeration to say that I have had to spend much of my days on auto-pilot in order to stay sane. I have been a productive teacher, a loving father, a good friend, and I hope a reliable husband, but the part of my spirit that burns bright and fuels my creative spirit and those around me, the Pat Tillman in me, has been bidding his time. I am not sure if the moping, tired, withdrawn person who enters the rooms here in Doha is the same person that I could be. I am not sure that I am this guy anymore:

The single best thing about Pat’s life is that he made you feel alive…He made you challenge things, he made you appreciate everything every day, he made you appreciate your family and friends and respect them, he made you laugh, he made you think and made you want to be a better person.

Maybe, I am being to hard on myself or on Doha. Maybe this slowing down is all part of growing up. But I hope that after reading Tillman’s story and moving away from the desert, both literately and figuratively, I can focus more of my energy on spreading the light that I know still burns inside me. I have written enough posts about various things I want to do to become more like the person I want to be, so I will spare you reader a fresh manifesto. I simply want to say that I feel like the flame that has been flickering inside me for the last three years has had a fresh breath of air. Thanks to Pat Tillman, I hope that I can begin to appreciate the words spoken by Jake Plummer at Tillman’s memorial service:

To me beauty is living life to a higher standard, stronger morals and ethics and believing in them, whether people tell you are right or wrong. Beauty is not wasting a day. Beauty is noticing life’s little intricacies and taking time out of your busy day to really enjoy those little intricacies. Beauty is being real, being genuine, being pure with no façade-what you see is what you get. Beauty is expanding your mind, always seeking knowledge, nit being content, always going after something and challenging yourself.

Hero

When Pat Tillman died on April 22nd back in 2004, I was about to earn my master’s degree, get married, and we were thinking about moving overseas from New York City. My passion for football had waned, especially since the Raiders had recently been routed in a Superbowl. I barely remember the news of Tillman’s death. That is of course until the media circus really began to heat up and the clowns over at Fox news had turned Tillman into the poster child for the War on Terror.

I am sure I ignored or tried to ignore the image that was being created by the Bush administration. I was and am, however, enough of a football fan to have heard of Tillman to know that he was a cagey, undersized strong safety. An underdog who hit hard and didn’t talk much on or off the field. In short he was a solid player I admired. But once he became captain America meets GI Joe, I lost interest mostly because, like most Americans, I was duped and conned by the Army’s propaganda machine and eventual cover up of his death.

Now six years later, ironically on the anniversary of his death, I just finished Where Men Win Glory, the new Jon Krakauer book, which exposes the cover-up and sheds light on what an amazing human being Pat Tillman truly was. I wanted to read the book more so because of my love for Krakauer than Tillman. I have read every book Krakauer has ever written, and I had been waiting for this latest book well before it was released.

This post is not meant to be a review of the book. I will simply say that Krakauer once again works his magic. The prose is crisp and elegant. As always the author weaves two stories into a beautiful tapestry illustrating the tragic story of Pat Tillman with the equally disastrous stories of the War on Terror and the rise of the Taliban and al Qaeda. I will leave it to you, reader, to get your hands on this book and see for yourself.

What I do want to reflect on in this post is the impact that Tillman’s life has had on me. The word hero is bandied about way too often for my taste in America. Our obsession with Super heroes, firemen, police officers and finally soldiers can be nauseating and cliché. So I asked myself what does the word hero mean to me? Do I have any heroes? Why? Why not? As always I started with a definition:

A hero in Greek mythology and folklore, was originally a demigod, their cult being one of the most distinctive features of ancient Greek religion. Later, hero came to refer to characters who, in the face of danger and adversity or from a position of weakness, display courage and the will for self sacrifice – that is, heroism – for some greater good, originally of martial courage or excellence but extended to more general moral excellence.

Upon reading this definition, I was left underwhelmed. After all, ambiguous words like courage and moral can seldom be considered objectively. I liked the idea of people acting for the greater good, and I liked the idea of sacrifice. I suppose it was this generic definition that Fox News and the Bush distraction tried to pin on Tillman, after all an American football player who leaves his professional sports career and enlists in the United States Army the aftermath of the September 11 attacks to join the United States Army Rangers and serve multiple tours in combat before he was killed by friendly fire in the mountains of Afghanistan sounds like your typical American Hero to me.

This standard image was the only one most people had seen back in 2004, and honestly while I admire this type of self-sacrifice, I do not really consider these acts to be heroic. But I am getting ahead of myself, because I have yet to define a hero for myself. Perhaps this entry from Tillman’s journal will shed some light on what I feel are heroic characteristic:

I do not intend to get dramatic, but life is about feeling and emotion…Love, laughter, and joy, as well as pain, longing and sorrow, are all part of the ride. Without the latter you cannot truly appreciate the former, cannot come to understand just how much you truly care…I’m experiencing and growing and with this comes suffering, but it’s all part of the deal. I feel I am headed in the right direction.

Passion is what makes life interesting, what ignites our soul, drives our curiosity, fuels our love and carries friendships, stimulates our intellect, and pushes our limits…A passion for life is contagious and uplifting….In my life I want to create passion in my own life and with those I care for. I want to feel, experience, and live every emotion. I will suffer through the bad for the heights of the good.

For me heroes have always been men and women who are never satisfied with the status quo and people who act on their dissatisfaction to help ignite the souls of others. People who exude, “a passion for life that is contagious and uplifting.” People who devour knowledge, push their own boundaries, and subsequently force others to push theirs. Simply put heroes are people who live their lives to the fullest with no regrets.

According to speakers at his funeral, Tillman was very well-read, having read a number of religious texts including the Bible, Qur’an and Book of Mormon as well as transcendentalist authors such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. The September 25, 2005, edition of the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper reported that Tillman held views, which were critical of the Iraq war. According to Tillman's mother, a friend of Tillman had arranged a meeting with author Noam Chomsky, a prominent critic of American foreign and military policy, to take place after his return from Afghanistan. Chomsky has confirmed this.

I also feel that heroes should never be predictable and follow the paths their followers try to carve for them. The biggest tragedy, besides his death by friendly fire in a war he did not believe in at the hands of men he did not respect was the lie that was sold to the American people. Rather than share the fireball, non-conformist, vocal, anti-war who he was, he was shrouded in a blanket of clichés and lies. After being propped up as a false hero, he was never allowed, until now, to be seen as the man he truly was.


I guess at the end of the day, Tillman’s story, his true story is not that unusual. I have been lucky to try and surround myself with these types of people my whole life. But to read Tillman’s words comforted me in a way that I have not experienced in some time:

Sometimes my need to love hurts- myself, my family, my cause. Is there a cure? Of course. But I refuse. Refuse to stop loving, to stop caring. To avoid those tears, that pain…To err on the side of passion is human and right and the only way I’ll live.

Spoken like a true hero. The following song is my simple tribute to Pat Tillman: