Pat Tillman had a career most guys dream of but few ever have. He was a professional football player who was offered a $3.6 million dollar contract to continue playing with the Arizona Cardinals.

He turned the contract down, not because he wasn't grateful to the Cardinals or that he demanded more money, but because his gratitude to his country was so much deeper. Instead of playing football with the Cardinals, Tillman chose to play in the really big leagues -- he joined the U.S. Army.

Instead of $3.6 million over three years, he was content with a specialist's pay and three squares a day, if he was lucky. Instead of displaying his abilities on the football field, he chose to use his abilities on the field of battle.

Tillman paid the price for his choice. He was killed while serving with the 75th Ranger Regiment in Afghanistan.

After the news broke there were many people who paid tribute to the sacrifice Tillman willingly made. Unfortunately there were several who made comments that disparaged Tillman and the sacrifice he made.

One place that prominently featured such comments was the Portland, Ore., branch of the Independent Media Center, also known as Indymedia.com, an anti-globalist Web site. Above a story about Tillman's death, the Web site ran the headline "Dumb Jock Killed in Afghanistan."

I hate to break it to the people who wrote that headline but Pat Tillman wasn't a dumb jock, far from it. Tillman graduated from Arizona State University in 3 1/2 years with a 3.84 grade point average. I'd like to see the transcripts of the people posting comments about his intelligence and see how they stacked up intellectually against this "dumb jock."

I'm tired of these kinds of comments coming from people who are so sure of themselves that they feel anyone who disagrees with them are either stupid, evil, or both. The thing that really puts the icing on the cake is that the people spreading this kind of blind, uncaring propaganda are the people who claim to be open-minded, nonjudgmental and truly concerned for the welfare of everyone.

Making disparaging comments hardly qualifies one as open-minded. The comments show that the people making them are making judgments and making harsh judgments at that. I'd like to know whose welfare these hateful comments are supposed to help.

It's one thing to disagree with a policy. No one expects blind obedience to our leaders -- the only places like that are Cuba, North Korea and other totalitarian countries -- but it quite another thing to disparage and vilify anyone who has the temerity to disagree with your disagreement.

I've noticed that anytime someone makes one of these obnoxious statements and someone else comes along and disagrees, the first person claims their First Amendment rights are being trampled or the second person is questioning the first person's patriotism.

Nonsense!

The First Amendment protects citizens from government censorship, and that's it. It doesn't protect anyone from other Americans expressing their right to disagree with the first group.

What is truly strange is the fact that the site has now pulled the comments despite the fact that it boasts that it uses what it calls "open publishing." Open publishing must mean that as long as what is written doesn't rock the boat, they'll publish it. I guess censorship is hunky-dory if it is Indymedia doing it under the rubric of "open publishing."

The facts speak for themselves. Tillman turned down millions of dollars to fight for what he believed in. Whether you disagree with him or not isn't important. What is important that those who disagree with him at least recognize that he believed enough in what he was doing to give up his life for those beliefs and that he had the right to make that choice.

Tillman was a Christian, one who believed in the Bible. Jesus is quoted in the Bible as having said, "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." Pat Tillman proved that, for him, all of humanity was his friend.

Steve Moyer is a staff writer for the Nevada Daily Mail. and Herald