His service, she told CNN, “should never be politicized in a way that divides us. We are too great of a country for that.”

“The very action of self expression and the freedom to speak from one’s heart — no matter those views — is what Pat and so many other Americans have given their lives for. Even if they didn’t always agree with those views,” she said. “It is my sincere hope that our leaders both understand and learn from the lessons of Pat’s life and death, and also those of so many other brave Americans.”

The transformation of multidimensional men and women into one-dimensional symbols is not an internet-era phenomenon. But social media, with its emphasis on the visual and symbolic and an often limited word count, has accelerated the process by which a person comes to represent a single idea.

And while other athletes are now able to use social media to push back, speaking for themselves on Twitter, Instagram and elsewhere, Corporal Tillman cannot.

Jon Krakauer, who wrote about Mr. Tillman’s life in his 2009 book, “Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman,” was astonished by the soldier’s depth.

“I thought he was probably an interesting story, but I had no idea how interesting and complicated he was until Marie confronted me with his journals,” he told The New York Times in an interview about the book. “He was so different from the way he had been publicized.”