I am an Air Force veteran. I’m also a student at Arizona State University, where Pat Tillman became a household name before he ever played an NFL snap. Like so many others who served in the post-9/11 era, I saw Tillman not just as a hero, but as a mirror, someone who believed in something bigger than himself. When he walked away from a multimillion-dollar contract with the Arizona Cardinals to join the Army Rangers, it felt profound. It still does.
But what’s also profound and painful is how far we’ve drifted from the truth of who Pat Tillman really was. He’s been turned into something clean, easy and convenient. A symbol of unquestioned patriotism. A myth.
That’s not what he was. And deep down, Most of us know it.
Tillman’s story has always meant more to me than a catchy tribute reel or a name on the back of a jersey. I know that because I bought that jersey. After his death, I ordered one almost immediately. I wanted to honor him. I wanted to feel close to his story, maybe even closer to my own reasons for serving.
But looking back now, I realize I wasn’t honoring the man. I was buying into the image.
The real Pat Tillman was complicated. He kept journals. He questioned U.S. foreign policy. He reportedly wanted to meet Noam Chomsky. He didn’t enlist because he wanted to be a symbol. He enlisted because he believed in duty.
In a letter to a friend, he wrote:
“Somewhere inside, we hear a voice. It leads us in the direction of the person we wish to become. But it is up to us whether or not to follow.”
That voice led him to enlist. But it didn’t lead him to sell out his values. If anything, he remained deeply critical of how the war was unfolding. That’s the Pat Tillman we don’t talk about enough.
Pat Tillman was killed on April 22, 2004, not by enemy combatants, but by fellow soldiers in a tragic friendly fire incident in the mountains of Afghanistan.
What followed was a government cover-up.
The military initially reported he was killed while heroically charging an enemy position. That story was false. And worse, it was knowingly false. Internal reports revealed that officials, including top commanders, delayed telling the truth to his family so they could use his death for public relations. The Army even burned his uniform and equipment before investigators could review them.
It took over a month for Tillman’s family to learn the truth. His mother, Mary Tillman, had to fight tooth and nail to expose what really happened. His brother Kevin, who had deployed with Pat later gave blistering testimony to Congress, calling out the Pentagon for manipulating the narrative and using Pat’s name to promote the war.
To this day, the truth about his death is treated like a footnote.
Despite all this, Pat Tillman’s name has become institutionalized, used on T-shirts, stadiums, slogans and recruitment posters. His legacy has been packaged into a brand. And as much as it hurts to say, Arizona State University plays a part in that.
As an ASU student, I see his image everywhere. There are statues, murals, and halftime videos with swelling music and reverent tones. But there’s rarely space for real reflection, no mention of how he died, or what he actually believed in. The university loves the legacy, but not the complexity.
It’s a contradiction I carry every time l see his name on campus. It honors his courage, yes, but not his curiosity. It promotes his loyalty, but ignores his dissent.
And it’s not just ASU. The NFL regularly invokes his name during military appreciation games. Politicians have referenced him in speeches about “sacrifice.” His jersey is still sold for profit. None of this feels like the way Pat Tillman would have wanted to be remembered.
This isn’t just an indictment of institutions. It’s also personal.
I was part of the problem. I bought into the hero narrative because it was easier to digest. I wanted to see him as a clean symbol, someone who made sense in a chaotic world. But that version of Pat Tillman was never real.
What’s real is that he questioned the war, and yet served anyway. What’s real is that his death was covered up. What’s real is that his image is still being used to promote ideals he doesn’t agreed with.
As a veteran, that should bother all of us. Because if we can’t honor one of our own truthfully, if we have to sanitize and spin his story just to make it palatable, then what does that say about how we treat the rest of our veterans?
Pat Tillman didn’t ask to be turned into a symbol. He lived his life trying to understand what it meant to be human in a world that often tries to make us one-dimensional. He believed in thinking critically, acting with integrity and never settling for easy answers.
That’s the person we should remember, not the mascot, not the jersey, not the halftime tribute.
If we truly want to honor Pat Tillman at ASU, in the NFL, in this country, then we need to start telling the whole story. We need to be honest about the way he died, the way his legacy has been manipulated and the way he would feel about all of it if he were still here.
Because Pat Tillman wouldn’t want us to salute a lie.
He’d want us to think.
To question.
To tell the truth.
