Bills lineman Kalsu killed in '70 in Vietnam

[The_Philster]

Andrew Bagnato
The Arizona Republic
The phone began ringing in the Buffalo Bills media relations office shortly after news broke Friday morning that former Cardinals safety Pat Tillman had been killed while serving in Afghanistan.

What's the connection?

Tillman, 27, joined former Bills guard Bob Kalsu in a mercifully small fraternity: NFL players who died in combat. Kalsu was killed by mortar fire July 21, 1970, in Vietnam. He was 25....
more (http://www.azcentral.com/sports/cardinals/tillman/0424kalsu0424.html)
http://www.virtualwall.org/dk/KalsuJR01d.jpghttp://i.cnn.net/si/images/football/nfl/players/4455.jpg

[chernobylwraiths]

Was trying to look up Simeon Rice's actualy comments about Tillman and came across this article:

http://espn.go.com/nfl/s/2003/0415/1539258.html

excerpts

Tillman, at 26 years old, left a three-year, $3.6 million contract on the table to enlist in the Army with his brother Kevin after the 2001 season. Tillman will make no more than $17,000 this year. He is believed to be the first NFL regular to leave the game for military service since World War II, when 1,000 players served and 23 were killed

It also goes on to talk about Ted Williams and Bob Feller who enlisted, like Tillman, during the middle of Hall of Fame careers while they were in their prime after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

People like them are amazing to me.