<(((*> In 2002, in his book _When You Ride Alone, You Ride With bin Laden_,
<(((*> Bill Maher had this to say about heroes and Pat Tillman.
<(((*> If you don't love Pat Tillman already for leaving football for life,
<(((*> and maybe death, how about this: he did the whole thing, made such a
<(((*> drastic change in his life, without sitting for one interview, or in
<(((*> any way involving the media.
<(((*>
<(((*> I don't know about you, but that's a hero to me.

I don't know about you, but that's a hero to me.

If you don't love Pat Tillman already for leaving football for life,
and maybe death, how about this: he did the whole thing, made such a
drastic change in his life, without sitting for one interview, or in
any way involving the media.

I don't know about you, but that's a hero to me.

In 2002, in his book _When You Ride Alone, You Ride With bin Laden_,
Bill Maher had this to say about heroes and Pat Tillman.

In 2002, in his book _When You Ride Alone, You Ride With bin Laden_,
Bill Maher had this to say about heroes and Pat Tillman.

=====

So much talk, so little action. But, that's the way it has to be if we
want to persist in stretching the meaning of "hero" the way we stretch
the meaning of everything else in America. If a "suite" is any room in
a hotel, and having sex with a girl when she's drunk counts as "rape,"
then "heroes" can be anyone caught in harm's way.

Except they're not. Victims find themselves in harm's way, heroes put
themselves in harm's way. Trapped miners are not heroes; they're guys
in a hard job who ran into some bad luck. It's also not heroic to
"beat" cancer or prevail in any other endeavor where your motivation
is totally saving or advancing your own ***** . A hero sacrifices
something on purpose, something big. When a culture purposefully blurs
that distinction, they're already making excuses for losing.

The airmen who landed our crippled spy plane in China in April of 2000
were lauded as heroes; they may be, but not for that. It's certainly
heroic just to choose military service in this prosperous, indulgent
society, and for that alone all our servicemen are due our ultimate
respect. But the heroic thing to do in the situation over Communist
China would have been to *not* land the spy plane with the treasure
trove of intelligence data.

"The problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans
in this world," Humphrey Bogart said in _Casablanca_.

I had to laugh in 1997 when critics kept comparing _Casablanca_ to that
year's Oscar winner _The English Patient_, because both films involved a
man caught between a woman he loved and the greater cause of winning
World War II. Of course, in 1943 the hero -- Bogart -- chooses *the war*
instead of the girl, and in 1996 the "hero" does the exact opposite --
a slight change in values.

In the forties, when Ted Williams first gave up his lucrative and
magnificent baseball career to go fight the Germans, that was heroism,
but it was also routine. Jimmy Stewart was a huge movie star, and he
went, as did Gable and Henry Fonda and Tyrone Power and plenty of
others. Rich kids, too, like Jack Kennedy and George Herbert Walker
Bush, also signed up, because some things were more important than
money. Nowadays, we talk a good game about how much we love and
support our military personnel, but the truth is it's a mercenary army
made up of the poorest members of society with the most limited career
choices, who stand up and fight so we don't have to. The public is
really no more in touch with the soldiers who protect them than
millionaire athletes today are in touch with the fans.

Which is why a Pat Tillman is so impressive. Because Pat Tillman is
doing the same thing Ted Williams did, but he's doing it *today*. Today,
when a guy would have to be missing the padding in his helmet to even
consider giving up the multi-million dollar contracts and the
endorsement deals all so he can go eat sand in Crapistan for eighteen
grand a year.

But that's exactly what Tillman is doing, having said goodbye to his
$1.2-million-dollar-a-year job as the Arizona Cardinals leading
tackler.

When it comes to understanding that "hero" is higher than "celebrity,"
and not the other way around, Pat Tillman gets it. Lots of Americans
don't, including the media, who attempt to "celebrify" every
legitimate hero of 9/11, and even did it to the first soldier killed
in Afghanistan, CIA agent Johnny Spann. You couldn't watch a news
broadcast the week he died without seeing some tear-jerk piece about
his career and his wife and his three children and exactly where he
lived -- you know, all the information a dead CIA operative would want
out there. Forget that he was a member of a clandestine service or
that publicizing his personal life might put his family at risk, the
important thing was that we got an _Access Hollywood_ segment out of it.

If you don't love Pat Tillman already for leaving football for life,
and maybe death, how about this: he did the whole thing, made such a
drastic change in his life, without sitting for one interview, or in
any way involving the media.

I don't know about you, but that's a hero to me.

In 2002, in his book _When You Ride Alone, You Ride With bin Laden_,
Bill Maher had this to say about heroes and Pat Tillman.

=====

So much talk, so little action. But, that's the way it has to be if we
want to persist in stretching the meaning of "hero" the way we stretch
the meaning of everything else in America. If a "suite" is any room in
a hotel, and having sex with a girl when she's drunk counts as "rape,"
then "heroes" can be anyone caught in harm's way.

Except they're not. Victims find themselves in harm's way, heroes put
themselves in harm's way. Trapped miners are not heroes; they're guys
in a hard job who ran into some bad luck. It's also not heroic to
"beat" cancer or prevail in any other endeavor where your motivation
is totally saving or advancing your own ***** . A hero sacrifices
something on purpose, something big. When a culture purposefully blurs
that distinction, they're already making excuses for losing.

The airmen who landed our crippled spy plane in China in April of 2000
were lauded as heroes; they may be, but not for that. It's certainly
heroic just to choose military service in this prosperous, indulgent
society, and for that alone all our servicemen are due our ultimate
respect. But the heroic thing to do in the situation over Communist
China would have been to *not* land the spy plane with the treasure
trove of intelligence data.

"The problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans
in this world," Humphrey Bogart said in _Casablanca_.

I had to laugh in 1997 when critics kept comparing _Casablanca_ to that
year's Oscar winner _The English Patient_, because both films involved a
man caught between a woman he loved and the greater cause of winning
World War II. Of course, in 1943 the hero -- Bogart -- chooses *the war*
instead of the girl, and in 1996 the "hero" does the exact opposite --
a slight change in values.

In the forties, when Ted Williams first gave up his lucrative and
magnificent baseball career to go fight the Germans, that was heroism,
but it was also routine. Jimmy Stewart was a huge movie star, and he
went, as did Gable and Henry Fonda and Tyrone Power and plenty of
others. Rich kids, too, like Jack Kennedy and George Herbert Walker
Bush, also signed up, because some things were more important than
money. Nowadays, we talk a good game about how much we love and
support our military personnel, but the truth is it's a mercenary army
made up of the poorest members of society with the most limited career
choices, who stand up and fight so we don't have to. The public is
really no more in touch with the soldiers who protect them than
millionaire athletes today are in touch with the fans.

Which is why a Pat Tillman is so impressive. Because Pat Tillman is
doing the same thing Ted Williams did, but he's doing it *today*. Today,
when a guy would have to be missing the padding in his helmet to even
consider giving up the multi-million dollar contracts and the
endorsement deals all so he can go eat sand in Crapistan for eighteen
grand a year.

But that's exactly what Tillman is doing, having said goodbye to his
$1.2-million-dollar-a-year job as the Arizona Cardinals leading
tackler.

When it comes to understanding that "hero" is higher than "celebrity,"
and not the other way around, Pat Tillman gets it. Lots of Americans
don't, including the media, who attempt to "celebrify" every
legitimate hero of 9/11, and even did it to the first soldier killed
in Afghanistan, CIA agent Johnny Spann. You couldn't watch a news
broadcast the week he died without seeing some tear-jerk piece about
his career and his wife and his three children and exactly where he
lived -- you know, all the information a dead CIA operative would want
out there. Forget that he was a member of a clandestine service or
that publicizing his personal life might put his family at risk, the
important thing was that we got an _Access Hollywood_ segment out of it.

If you don't love Pat Tillman already for leaving football for life,
and maybe death, how about this: he did the whole thing, made such a
drastic change in his life, without sitting for one interview, or in
any way involving the media.

I don't know about you, but that's a hero to me.