Code Of Honor

The Rangers scrambled out of their vehicles as they came under ambush and charged the militants on foot. Suddenly Pat was down, Pat was dying. Two other U.S. soldiers were wounded, and a coalition Afghani fighter was killed in a fire-fight that lasted 15 or 20 minutes before the jihadists melted away. That's what the American military says.

Pat's truck hit a land mine, and he died from wounds caused by the explosion. That's what an Afghani coalition commander says. Either way, on Monday, four days later, Kevin made the long flight home with his brother's body.

The news whistled through America 's soul and raised the hair on the back of its neck. It tapped into people's admiration, their awe, their guilt. In a country where no civilians have been asked to sacrifice anything and where even the cost of the war is being forwarded to their children and their children's children, a man had sacrificed the biggest dream of all. The NFL . During World War II, 638 NFL players served and 19 died in action, but no well-known U.S. professional athlete in a quarter century had volunteered for service, and none had perished since Buffalo Bills lineman Bob Kalsu in Vietnam in 1970.

Memorials sprang up overnight, balloons and flowers and teddy bears and notes left, and a man stood before a photo of Pat outside Sun Devil Stadium—home to ASU and the Cardinals—and blew Amazing Grace through his bagpipes. Scholarships were founded, and the Cardinals announced that a plaza outside their unfinished new stadium will carry his name. Before its story had even been written, SI had received 103 letters about Pat's sacrifice. Pat had no need for the fuss. But the people did. At last they had a face to grieve.

"There is in Pat Tillman 's example," said Senator John McCain of Arizona , "in his unexpected choice of duty to his country over the riches and other comforts of celebrity, and in his humility, such an inspiration to all of us to reclaim the essential public-spiritedness of Americans that many of us, in low moments, had worried was no longer our common distinguishing trait."

"To me," said Kevin White , now the athletic director at Notre Dame, " Pat Tillman is without question the biggest hero of my lifetime."

The mist of human motive is as dense as the fog of war. Pat Tillman may have died in the Middle East last week because it was the only place on earth where he could get a good night's sleep. But anytime a man listens to his inner voice, refuses to wall it off with all the mortar and bricks that his culture can possibly offer, it's a moment to stand in wonder as well as to weep.

Elizabeth McKenrick, the wife of 4th Ranger Training Battalion Commander Terry McKenrick, couldn't help herself last Friday. As a rule she shields her three children from newscasts about the war because otherwise she knows that the next time their dad is shipped from Fort Benning , Ga., to the Middle East , she won't stand a chance of convincing them he'll return home. But when she saw the TV report about Pat Tillman , she called her nine-year-old to her side. "Listen," she said. "Listen to the story of what this man did."