Now I remember when former NFL player Pat Tillman decided to leave football to fight for his country after 9/11. Now what was truly amazing was the fact the he and his brother chose to do what many other men and women did and that was to enlist in the army and marines to defend their country. Not the fact that he left a professional sport and with it opportunity millions of dollars.

When I heard that he was killed on Friday, I was watching all the news coverage and every report I saw commented on how much of a 'hero', 'patriot', and 'a great American' he was. At first I though it suited him cause I remembered hearing of him years earlier. However, hour after hour well into the night on every news show and even ESPN, he was heralded as something special. Was he that much more special than the other young men and women who signed up after 9/11? If he gets such coverage from the media, don't the hundreds of solders that have given their lives also deserve to have their stories told on the nightly news with friends and families telling the nation of how much of a loving person their son, daughter, sister, brother, cousin, father, wife, husband, wife, or fiancee was?

Of course such logical and substantive questions are blocked form the consciousness of the media for the purposes of nielson ratings, that's obviously clear. They're all around heartless bastards when the opportunity presents itself. I guess you can call them "on screen lawyers", so that's not what's troubling. What is troubling, at least to me is that from what I've heard of Pat Tillman from the same media interviewing his closest friends and family, Tillman himself would find all of this coverage of himself appalling. When he chose to leave football he didn't want to hold any press conferences of any kind cause he felt that his decision was no more significant than the decisions made by those who weren't nearly as famous or well off as he.

The coverage views Tillmans sacrifice as more significant that those who already lost their lives and it kind of tells you, if you didn't already know of how trivial the news media portrays a person's life. If the media can make someone's sacrifice a story where that can make a hero story out of that person, then they'll forsake the stories of those who made the very same sacrifice. I heard anchors say, "Tillman made the ultimate sacrifice for his country." Well so did hundreds of others men and women, but of course they won't tell they're stories.

Tillman's selfless decision has been and will be, at least for another couple of days, view as something heroic. It's funny and disgusting how the media freely uses that word on one individual while at the same time forgetting others who deserve the same recognition.

Pat Tillman like others who gave their lives was a hero, but not the special hero the media is portraying him to be.

Just had to get this off my chest!

I'm Ghost!

Ghost Dragon