Pat Tillman NFL Star\Army Ranger

Conversation tonight with a friend reminded me of a web project I started and did not complete. It is a Retreat in Daily Life called “Finding God in all Things, a retreat for a pilgrim in a busy world.” It is based on the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola which is a four week retreat that has been converted into many forms. This one is in the form of 13 weeks of gathering of a small group with daily reflections. I have been thinking of finishing it for some time now and maybe this is the time. Although my work in my Growing Power Model Home Garden is just getting going my activities with resistance at Marquette University and change with St. Vincent de Paul Society are slowing down. I have been thinking of taking a time out from action for awhile and making more time for reading, reflection and writing. This project would be a good start.

There are a lot of projects I would like to do, especially one involving research and history. But research information and learning from history seem to be an unwanted commodity in today’s society so maybe focusing on the spiritual would be attractive. Working on the garden and doing some spiritual writing and reflections seem like a good way to spend the summer months. The garden is outside and the writing and reflection is inside.

Also by chance life just happens and offers an opportunity for reflection if we are looking for it. I have been talking a lot about reflexive shooting, killing without conscience but last night in escaping to sports on ESPN I found by chance a good example. It was an ESPN Outside the Lines story on Pat Tillman, the famous NFL football player who was killed by friendly fire by Army Rangers in Afghanistan. There were two interviews of Army Rangers present that day, 10 years ago, one with Pat Tillman on the hillside and one with a group of Army Rangers below that were firing on them, mistaking them for the enemy. The one with Pat Tillman being fired on commented that if the soldiers below had taken a few seconds before firing they would have realized they were shooting at their own guys. The soldier below talked about how they were trained to shoot at a target the commander officer was shooting at, without thought, just instinctively. After the death of Pat Tillman both soldiers suffered greatly with marriage problems and divorces, with alcohol and Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). They never talked to each other but felt an overwhelming sense of guilt from this death, a result of military training of reflexive killing, killing with thinking or conscience.

The story of Pat Tillman’s death might be a greater understanding to a student of the results of military teaching to kill reflexively at Marquette than any research or preaching.

There are examples of our spiritual and value beliefs all around us if we have the eyes to see and the ears to hear. The tragic death of Pat Tillman is just one.

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