Or maybe, as all of those close to him say, he was moved by September 11th and a sense of duty and service, so he enlisted (and note that he enlisted, rather than becoming an officer). Now where did you derive your conclusions as to his motives from?
No, we don't know. We just know he HAPPENED to leave the NFL right after September 11th. Hmmmmmmm! I think aphex made it clear he admired him. But it was hard to tell what you thought given the leaps in your assumptions about his motives.
Are you suggesting that all of these "courageous" and "selfless" athletes, movie stars, and even us ETers who are "survivors" that have overcome divorce, bulimia, poor performances, root canals, hemroids, and other great tragedies, are not the true heroes?
There is nothing heroic about going out to Afganistan to kill a bunch of Taliban, who we ourselves had funded and set-up... It's just house cleaning... Tillman is a mere footsoldier, tidying up the mess that we created... he ain't a hero... True heros are people like Nelson Mandela and Schinder (as in Schindler's List) who actually fought for humanity, not for control of land space in order to lay a bunch of oil pipelines from the Caspian Sea reserves...
I don't know if he's a hero, obviously a lot of poeple consider him to be. I think joining the rangers to seek revenge for fellow citizens is an act that has been similarly demonstrated throughout history. I admire the abiltiy and desire to kill. As I've previously stated, I only support environmentally responsible modes of death. I find terrorists and religions to be amazingly primitive and stupid to such an extent that I'd never join to fight them for revenge, I'd join to experience battle and death. I'd go for the enlightenment. I'm not a sadist, I've never killed anything larger than a fish. I'd rather kill a person than a tree because trees are perfect and necessary in contrast to people whom are plentiful, thus expendable. I'd love to go and fight. At age 19 I was denied entry to the rangers.