| Veterans
News Flash 
From
the NFL to the Marines
A former NFL player who left the sport to join
the Marines and was motivated by college roommate
Pat Tillman was heading for Iraq on Tuesday night.
Tillman died in the conflict in Afghanistan.
Lance
Cpl. Jeremy Staat, seen in this picture, a
former defensive lineman for the Pittsburgh Steelers
and the St. Louis Rams who had been playing Arena
football, was one of 300 Marines in the 1st Battalion,
3rd Marine Regiment being deployed from Kaneohe
Bay. The unit is expected to be in Iraq for seven
months.
"The way I look at it, we're spreading freedom,
and you have to support the troops and you have
to support the war," Staat, 29, told KITV
in Honolulu on Tuesday as he prepared to leave
from Hawaii. "You can't just tell some Marine
who just lost his buddy that we supported you but
not the war, because in that case you're basically
saying that Marine, his buddy, just died for nothing.
We're one team."
Tillman, who played defensive back for the Arizona
Cardinals, was killed by friendly fire near the
Pakistan-Afghanistan border in April 2004. The
Defense Department is investigating allegations
of a cover-up, including the Army's failure to
tell Tillman's family for several weeks that he
had been killed by gunfire from his fellow Army
Rangers, not by enemy fire as they initially were
told.
Tillman gave up a $1.2 million NFL contract to
join the Army Rangers.
Staat said he felt compelled to join the military
after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, but
Tillman, who was his roommate at Arizona State,
advised him to stay with professional football
until he qualified for retirement benefits.
"I felt there is more to life than just a
game," Staat said, adding that Tillman's death
helped motivate him to enlist.
Staat played for the Steelers from 1998 to 2000,
and played two games with the Rams in 2003. He
was playing for the Los Angeles Avengers of the
Arena Football League before being put on the league's
suspended list.
He graduated from the San Diego Marine Corps Recruit
Depot in March 2006.
To enlist, the 6-foot-5 player said last year
that he dropped from 310 to 260 pounds. He said
three months of boot camp training gave him a deeper
appreciation for team camaraderie.
"The Marine Corps is completely different
... it's more of a marathon than a sprint," he
said Tuesday.
Source: The
Associated Press
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