Boy Scout Troop 325
By George Denise, Scoutmaster
Excerpted from the Wall
Street Journal, Monday, April 26, 2004
Army Ranger Pat Tillman died last Thursday when his patrol was ambushed near the Afghan-Pakistani border. He was 27 years old. Pat Tillman graduated from Leland High School here in San Jose. He was star football player there, went on to star for Arizona State, and finally for the Arizona Cardinals. But after 9-11, his priorities changed. Specialist Tillman never talked about it publicly, but the entire world knew he had given up a multi-million dollar contract in the NFL for a chance to serve his country.
Why did he fight? For an answer, we turn to President Reagan's June 6, 1984 speech in front of the U.S. Ranger Monument at Normandy, commemorating the Rangers' charge up Pointe du Hoc during World War II. Mr. Reagan's words apply equally to Pat Tillman, and all the other American men and women who have made the ultimate sacrifice in the war on terror:
"Forty summers have passed since the battle that you fought here. You were young the day you took these cliffs; some of you were hardly more than boys, with the deepest joys of life before you. Yet, you risked everything here. Why? Why did you do it? What impelled you to put aside the instinct for self-preservation and risk your lives to take these cliffs? What inspired all the men of the armies that met here? We look at you and somehow we know the answer. It was faith and belief; it was loyalty and love.
"The men of Normandy had faith that what they were doing was right, faith that they fought for all humanity, faith that a just God would grant them mercy on this beachhead or on the next. It was the deep knowledge - and pray God we have not lost it - that there is a profound, moral difference between the use of force for liberation and the use of force for conquest. You were here to liberate, not to conquer, and so you and those others did not doubt your cause. And you were right not to doubt.
"You all knew that some things are worth dying for. One's country is worth dying for, and democracy is worth dying for, because it's the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man. All of you loved liberty."
Sooner or later, everyone dies. I don't think it is how long you live that is as important, so much as how you lived. What does your life stand for? What will your contribution be? Are you willing to risk your life for it? Pat Tillman was. He put his life on the line for all of us. He lived for us, and he died for us. He was an American hero.
Trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, clean, and reverent.
Thank you. And God be with you.