Pat Tillman declined a multi-million dollar contract with the Arizona Cardinals of the National Football League to join the United States Army after the Islamist attack on September 11. In doing so, he shunned publicity, insisting that he was no more special than any other man in uniform. He was right; every soldier fighting in the war against terrorism is a hero.
Tillman was killed in combat in Afghanistan today, fighting for things about which he cared deeply enough- country, duty, honor and freedom- to sacrifice the immense rewards he had reaped and was poised to continue reaping at the pinnacle of secular American society. He recognized that his achievements were possible because America secures life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all of her citizens, and that this patrimony requires defending if it is to be passed on to future generations.
Fabrizio Quattrocchi went to Iraq as a contractor to an American security company to earn sufficient money to marry and set up home in Italy. Earlier this month he was kidnapped, forced to dig his own grave, and then shot in the neck by Islamists. Quattrochi too is a hero. To the last moment, he defied his murderers who filmed what they hoped would be a means of humiliating and intimidating the Italian people. Instead, Quattrocchi tried to remove the hood placed over his head, and his last words were audible on the videotape, “Now I'll show you how an Italian dies.”
Al Jazeera, the Islamist mouthpiece that masquerades as a news station, refused to broadcast the kidnappers tape of the execution claiming that it was too bloody. In fact, al Jazeera does not back away from airing any footage that advances the Islamist cause. In this case, al Jazeera chose not to broadcast a Western hero defying Islamist bigots even unto death because doing shows Islamism as the bullies game that it is.
While liberals in the Western world oppose the war against terrorism in terms that sound moral, but really boil down to a concern for material convenience, Tillman and Quattrocchi demonstrated that life becomes moral when we struggle for freedom. A prosperous life is good, but not at the price of enslavement. A peaceful death is good, but not at the price of humiliation. There are times when good men are confronted by evil and the only moral response is action and defiance. We live in such times- Islamism is an objective evil. Tillman and Quattrocchi are heroes because in living and dying, they answered the moral call for action and defiance. In living and in dying the made the world a better place, they shall not be forgotten.
Posted by publius at April 23, 2004 04:02 PM