TILLMAN'S DEATH PROVIDES FOUNDATION FOR OTHERS

July 05, 2004
Huntsville Times

Family of former football player, Army Ranger wants his name to live on

DECATUR - Alex Garwood's life was comfortable and secure. He was working for a networking corporate firm in California's Silicon Valley, one of the 4,000 high-tech companies dotting Highway 101 between San Jose and San Francisco.

Strikingly handsome in his late 20s, bright and unfailingly polite, Garwood and his wife, Christine, and their two small boys were living the American dream in their fashionable home in Los Gatos, 10 miles southwest of San Jose in the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains.

His career path seemed a textbook case of an ambitious and talented young man predestined to steadily climb the corporate ladder.

The path began veering sharply in another direction an April night 10 weeks ago when 27-year-old Army Spec. Pat Tillman of the 2nd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, was killed halfway around the world while on combat patrol in the jagged mountains along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

Within days, Alex Garwood had left his job in the Silicon Valley to answer a higher calling - a calling inspired by the life and death of his fallen brother-in-law, the former football star who became an American hero.

Alex Garwood has a new job now. He's the director of the Pat Tillman Foundation.

The Pat Tillman Foundation is dedicated to keeping alive the spirit and advancing the legacy of the remarkable man who voluntarily gave up the sort of riches and fame that most people only fantasize about, and who died a hero two years later in the service of his country, fighting Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

"This certainly isn't about me," said Garwood, who was in Decatur this weekend to accept the Spirit of America Festival's annual Audie Murphy Award in Pat Tillman's name.

"What I'm doing is just an example of the kind of life-changing inspiration Pat brought to his family and to others."

Tillman's parents, Pat Tillman Sr. and Mary, accompanied Garwood to the 38th annual Spirit of America celebration, which culminated in the award presentation Sunday night at Point Mallard Park.

It is the family's first such appearance outside the Arizona-California area since Tillman's death, although various invitations have already poured in from around the country.

"You have to decide which ones you can go to," Garwood said. "Initially, I was the only one who was going to come. But his parents came, too, because it was the right thing to do.

"How can you not come to something like this when it's the Audie Murphy Patriotism Award? It sounds like a cliche, but this represents all that's good about America. The list of people who've been given this award in the past is incredible. You almost hesitate to list them because you're afraid of leaving someone out.

"How could we not come?"

What better way?

A former all-conference linebacker and honor student at Arizona State, Pat Tillman was working on a 3-year $3.6 million contract with the Arizona Cardinals of the NFL when he abruptly, astonishingly, gave it all up to join the Army after 2001 season.

Shortly after marrying Marie Ugenti, his high school sweetheart and the sister of Christine Garwood, Tillman and his younger brother Kevin, a minor league baseball player in the Cleveland organization, enlisted in the Army, intent on become members of the elite Rangers.

They served in Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom last year and they were together in Afghanistan, in the same platoon, when Pat Tillman was cut down in his prime.

Although the Tillman boys declined interviews after joining the service, friends and family say both were always intensely proud of their family's military heritage - their grandfather and two uncles were at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941 - and that both felt obligated to serve their country in an proactive way following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Pat never spoke a public word about his decision to join the Army. Neither has Kevin. When they were jointly given the Arthur Ashe Courage Award last year at the ESPY Awards, they sent their younger brother Richard, an aspiring actor, to the presentation ceremony.

At the time the Tillman brothers decided to forego their professional athletic careers, only three people knew - Pat, Kevin and Marie.

"I didn't hear about it until after it was a done deal," said Pat Tillman Sr., a San Jose lawyer who describes himself as "a general practitioner, one of those dinosaurs of the profession."

Kevin called his father one day and said, "How would you feel about it if I joined the Army?"

"You've already done it, haven't you?" Pat Sr. said.

"Well, yes. And Pat, too."

"I think it's a good idea," said Pat Sr.

Thirteen months later came the war in Iraq. Twelve months after that, Pat was dead. Kevin accompanied his brother's body home from Afghanistan on a military transport plane.

"Pat was a good kid, a good man, a special guy," Pat Tillman Sr. said over the weekend. "He did things his own way. He saw himself as part of the big picture in life, but he didn't want to make a big deal out of it. I didn't even know he was involved with the March of Dimes until after he died.

"This sounds sappy coming from a dad," Tillman said, "but he deserved better than what he got. We're all proud of the recognition has received, but it's a difficult thing. It'll be a difficult thing for a long time."

Honoring the man

In the days and weeks after his death, Arizona State announced it would retire Tillman's No. 42 jersey and place his name on the honor ring at Sun Devil Stadium this fall. The Cardinals will retire his pro number, 40, and will name an area near a new stadium, now under construction, the "Pat Tillman Freedom Plaza."

Jointly, Arizona State and the Cardinals announced the establishment of an annual scholarship to the business school in Tillman's name.

The family decided to do more. That decision was the genesis of the non-profit Pat Tillman Foundation. They first announced their plans in early May before a crowd of more than 3,000 at a memorial service in San Jose.

"Our goal is to keep Pat's memory alive," Garwood said. "It's a very bold statement, but that's what we're going to do. We're going to deliberately inspire others to make positive changes in their lives and in the world around them.

"In order to do that, you've got to do some specific things. Pat was very deliberate about what he did when he went into the military.

"The foundation will be deliberate as well in terms of figuring out what we're going to do. We'll focus on the near term, on train-the-trainer educational programs to help our youth and in helping people work up the tools to make those changes," Garwood said.

"It's important to note that this is a family thing. Marie's on the board of directors. So is Kevin. Marie pretty much wrote our mission statement. She says, 'The things we're talking about doing sound just like Pat.'

"He was an outstanding man," Alex Garwood said. "He was the best friend I ever had. What we're doing with this foundation is important. What he stood for is important. All he wanted to do was help other people. What better way to be remembered?"

Tributes of a similar nature have become commonplace since Pat Tillman's death. None, perhaps, were more eloquentthan the words of Arizona senator John McCain, a prisoner of war for five years in Vietnam.

"While many of us will be blessed to live a longer life," McCain said, "few of us will ever live a better one."