Memorial Day will forever be linked with the Cardinals because of Pat Tillman. There are fewer higher-profile losses of life in the military than Tillman. Today is about all the thousands that have lost their life serving this country, regardless of how it happened. (I did not know, admittedly, that Memorial Day began originally to honor those who were killed during the Civil War.) Those who choose to join the military in any realm deserve our praise, and to make the ultimate sacrifice deserves our attention and everlasting thanks.
Still, this being a Cardinals site, Tillman is at the forefront. Former Cardinals wide receiver Rob Moore — now the receivers coach for the Buffalo Bills — tells of his relationship with Tillman to the Bills website. It’s a good read.
I also got a chance to catch up with Jake Plummer recently — there will be a story posted on the homepage later today — and asked him about Tillman, his longtime teammate with both the Cardinals and at Arizona State.
“It was awesome to be a teammate with Pat, from ASU through the Cardinal days,” Plummer said. “He brought a lot of passion to everything. Not just playing but the locker room, the training room, and to your friendship. He was all about passion and living life and challenging yourself. He was a lot like myself. I never went half-assed out there because I wasn’t good enough to be lackadaisical. I had to go 100 percent, whether it was practice, conditioning, whatever. Pat was like that too and it was fun to be with a guy the same kind of make and mold, effort-wise, with tenacity and courage.
“I’m sad he’s gone, just because I wanted to see what he had planned next. The guy was constantly moving forward.”
