Morgan Wallen paid his respects to fallen hero Pat Tillman in his latest performance in Phoenix Arizona. He was Chase Field, the home of the Arizona Diamondbacks on Wednesday and Thursday, June 19-20.
The country singer decided that the right thing to do was to pay homage to the former Arizona Cardinals superstar, who left his lucrative sports career to fight for his country after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. He perished on his job in Afghanistan in 2004. For his supreme sacrifice for the country and shunning the riches to lay down his life, he remains a national hero.
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So, it was not surprising that Morgan Wallen chose to honor Pat Tillman on his visit to the state he used to play in. However, it did not go down kindly with a lot of people. Many claimed that he was using the fallen soldier’s name as a cheap stunt. Here are some of the responses on Twitter.
Why do so many people feel that Pat Tillman would have hated Morgan Wallen?
Nowadays, nothing is bereft of controversy and seeing a country singer wearing a hero’s jersey also raises strong reactions. That in itself is not surprising but the certainty with which a lot of people claimed that Pat Tillman would have hated Morgan Wallen is jarring.
But what gives rise to such thoughts is because of what the slain soldier stood for. At his memorial service, his brother Richard Tillman said,
“Hold your spiritual bromides. … Pat isn’t with God. He’s f-ing dead. He wasn’t religious. So thank you for your thoughts, but he’s f-ing dead.”
Aside from being an atheist, Reports also suggest that Pat Tillman was not in favor of the war in Iraq. That put him in a political category that can be described in the current climate as liberal or progressive.
On the other hand, Morgan Wallen has never overtly expressed his political affiliation. But he did criticize Joe Biden’s election party when the current President was elected when some guidelines still prohibited large crowd gatherings during the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, he was involved in a controversy when he used the N-word, something that is certainly not acceptable in regular discourse. It must be noted that he has since apologized for that.
Perhaps based on these indicators, people have ascribed certain motivations to the characters in question. What remains undeniable, however, is that Pat Tillman remains a hero whose sacrifice deserves to be celebrated.