EJ Montini

The Republic | azcentral.com

We've never honored Pat Tillman's wishes and we won't this week on the tenth anniversary of his death.

Tillman gave no interviews when he left the National Football League to join the army. Neither did his brother, Kevin, who passed up a chance at Major League Baseball to sign up with Pat.

In a journal from his early days in the service Pat wrote: "Nub (his nickname for Kevin) & I have ... willingly allowed ourselves to be pawns in this game and will do our job whether we agree with it or not. All we ask is that it is duly noted that we harbor no illusions of virtue."

But they were virtuous, as were the thousands of other volunteers.

Young people like Robert Zurheide Jr., a 20-year-old from Tucson who died in the war shortly before Tillman.

He'd joined the Marines at about the time Pat and Kevin joined the army.

A high school teacher of Zurheide's told a reporter from the Tucson Citizen, "He didn't necessarily want to stand out in a crowd, be on the front page of the newspapers. He wouldn't have necessarily embraced it."

Zurheide's death didn't get anything close to the news coverage Tillman received. Tillman would not have liked that.

We know that much about him.

Perhaps as we remember Tillman this week, and honor him, we could also honor and remember some of the young people who, like him, served honorably and were lost.

Soldiers like Sgt. Elijah Wong. He was a member of the 363rd Explosive Ordnance Company from Arizona, who was killed in 2004. His sister, Helga, told me, "My brother gave his life for his country. He willingly went to Iraq. He believed that he could save the world, and, in many ways, he did."

Or Marine Sgt. Michael Marzano, who was killed in action in Haditha, Iraq, in May 2005. I have a photograph of him and his mom, Margy Bons, who has worked tirelessly for military families in the years since her son's death.

During the course of our two long wars I've spoken to a number of those who have lost family members.

There was Sandy Watson, whose son, Marine Lance Cpl. Michael Williams, was killed in action near the Iraqi city of Nasiriyah. And Marion Brooks, whose son, Spec. Nate Caldwell, died when the Humvee in which he was riding overturned. And Rhonda McCarthy, whose son, Marine Lance Cpl. Joseph McCarthy, died outside of Fallujah.

And Tina Armijo, whose 22-year-old son, Spc. Santos R. Armijo, known as "Bear," was killed near Baghdad.

She told me, "He was going to go over there, and so on that Memorial Day, we had a big cake, decorated red, white and blue. All his cousins were here ... He liked it very much."

Their families remember them.

We don't.

Maybe that's why Beth Pearson, whose 32-year-old son, Brice, was killed in Iraq in 2007, told me, "Why not have a moment of silence (to honor fallen soldiers) at every game? Every public event? At the beginning of every school day?"

Exactly.

Why not?

Perhaps because it's too difficult or too painful to remember each of them.

After all, we have trouble remembering even those we thought we'd never forget.

In the early days of the conflict, a 23-year-old Arizona soldier named Lori Piestewa lost her life in Iraq, becoming the first Native American woman to die in combat while serving in the U.S. military.

Then-Gov. Janet Napolitano decided to honor Piestewa's sacrifice by changing the name of Phoenix's Squaw Peak to Piestewa Peak.

Old habits are difficult to break, however.

I was there not long ago and people still refer to the popular hiking destination as Squaw Peak. There are plenty of others who have no idea how to pronounce the mountain's new name (pie-ESS-too-ah). And have no idea what, or whom, it stands for.

At least we remember Tillman.

Perhaps in keeping his memory alive we preserve the memories of all the others. Their names may be different but their sacrifice is the same.

In that sense, a Zurheide is a Wong is a Marzano is a McCarthy is a Pearson is a Piestewa … is a Tillman.

(Column for Apr. 20, 2014, Arizona Republic)