The Hero and the Unknown Soldier: (Rick Reilly Barf Alert)

Sports Illustrated ^ | May 03, 2004 | Rick Reilly

[O.C. - Old Cracker]

Do you have a subscription to SI? I just cancelled ours.

[Not A Democrat]

I read this last week and wanted to hurl. For every decent article Rick Reilly writes, he writes three that I totally disagree with.

This is over the top, though. Mega-projectile barf.

[68skylark]

I read this earlier, and it really ticked me off. Liberal crap.

[Tax-chick]

Compare the subjects of the article to the author ... we have *some* great people in this country!

[randog]

He [Todd Bates] wasn't a good enough player to get a scholarship, yet he desperately wanted to go to college. So in 2002 he took the only road available to him -- he left home and joined the Ohio Army National Guard. Nobody wanted to take a picture of him getting his haircut.

Nope, no one was there to record his haircut--not even his would-be champion Rick Reilly. Why not Rick? Why the sudden interest in Todd Bates? Oh, it's because you have something to sell. Todd Bates is more useful to you dead than alive.

Hypocrite.

[O.C. - Old Cracker]

Email Rick Reilly at:

reilly@siletters.com

[gworvis]

I never got to meet Todd but after reading this story I will never forget his name. He is a hero and he put his life on the line to protect the american dream and did what he thought was the right thing to do. He is a hero in my book

[litany_of_lies]

"At least" he didn't take personal shots at either dead soldier.

I do resent him swooping down like a vulture to gather crummy quotes from grief-stricken family. Some day, when time has passed and the events that we expect have transpired and the Middle East is at least marginally a better place, they will look back proudly on their son's life, his service, and his heroism (he was a hero, he just wasn't successful).

I don't like the fact that Reilly has obviously swigged the far-left Kool-Aid, but I noted on the Rall thread that war has a way of bringing far-lefties out of the closet. It's also oh-so-easy to pretend to have the military expertise to opine that we don't have enough troops is Afghanistan. I think it's at least as likely that we have too many troops--from the other NATO and UN countries--and that our soldiers can't do their job correctly because of it.

It's useful to know for the purpose of perspective where Reilly is coming from if/when I read his past and future articles. I used to read him pretty regularly until they put him behind the subscriber section of the site.

[gaspar]

Reilly has made a career of destroying reputations. Now he hopes to do it posthumously.

[math=power]

What crap...

Whenever someone dies many people stand up and claim it was for nothing. How shortsighted. My cousin Jean died on her 30 birthday from diabetes. Her kidneys failed and she was on dialysis for a year before she died. Was this for nothing?

I think Pat Tillman has inspired a lot of people...he died doing what he believed in. That's certainly not for nothing. The other young man in the article died trying to save a drowning friend...could have happened in any lake or river in Ohio...was that for nothing?

This author is the one who is destroying their memory not the circumstances of their deaths.

Sorry for the rant.

Jeff

[O.C. - Old Cracker]

"At least" he didn't take personal shots at either dead soldier.

No, Reilly's too clever a writer for that. But make no mistake, Reilly's more poisonous to our efforts against the enemy than a Rene Gonzalez or Ted Rall. His audience is sports enthusiasts all over the world, and he is well aware of the pulpit he commands.

[O.C. - Old Cracker]

I agree with you completely, and I didn't hear you rant.

[litany_of_lies]

Points well taken, both as to destroying reputations and his outsized irresponsible influence.

I had forgotten what a hatchet job SI as a magazine and Reilly individually did on Marge Schott. Well, it turns out that the "old bat" (I say that with affection) died a few months ago and left $100 MILLION DOLLARS to various charities.

Any chance we'll see a kind word from Reilly or SI about this? Nah. Remember the $100 mil the next time someone makes a stupid comment and some hack uses it as an excuse to drag ol' Marge out of the grave.

[jocon307]

Excellent points! The poor second fellow didn't even die in combat, and presumably his death might have come about that same way even if he never joined the service or left the USA. I gotta agree with OC, that was certianly not a rant, no offense, but you're going to have to get a lot louder and more hyperbolic than you did to qualify for rant-dom!

L-o-L, thanks for the update on Marge Schott, OF COURSE, I never heard that.

These press people really are nothing but hyenas.

[TheSilverHair]

They never, ever show the GOOD side....
Just like they never reveal the bad side of their own stupidity....
In fact, they never reveal truth, period....

[Criminal Number 18F]

Do you have a subscription to SI?

Actually, never have done, and I probably couldn't name five NFL teams. But I was more offended by his brainless equation of soldiers with pro-sports athletes than by his brainless attempt to use the deaths of these men to further his politics. In a sports magazine... maybe he can't name five NFL teams either, he's too busy trying to run foreign policy. I'm sure that LtG Barno is glad to have Reilly's input, and will reevaluate his troop requirements now that an actual sportswriter has graduated from putting down athletes and coaches to insulting soldiers and generals. How did George Washington ever deat Cornwallis without Sports Illustrated's advice?

It was bad news about Bates, but Lord love a duck, that accident could have happened at home station. What the article doesn't mention, but other news stories did, is that Bates couldn't swim. Dude, if you can't swim, let someone else do the Baywatch rescues and just drive the boat or something. Or stay ashore and take pictures.

Y'know, if I was a sportswriter, I might suggest that the services could teach their men to swim and save a few lives every year. It wouldn't occur to the sportswriter me, to tell generals how to fight wars. I guess that's why Rick Reilly is in SI and I am not, huh!

d.o.l.

Criminal Number 18F

[GodBlessRonaldReagan]

Bite me, troll.