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This was in today's Boston Globe:
UMass president criticizes student's column on felled soldier
By Associated Press | April 29, 2004
AMHERST -- A University of Massachusetts graduate student who wrote a campus newspaper column saying former NFL player Pat Tillman was not a hero for being killed while fighting in Afghanistan was sharply criticized Thursday by the school's president.
UMass president Jack Wilson issued a statement saying Rene Gonzalez's comments in The Daily Collegian "are a disgusting, arrogant and intellectually immature attack on a human being who died in service to his country."
In his column, which ran Wednesday on the opinion page and was posted on the newspaper's Web site, Gonzalez called the former Arizona Cardinals safety a "G.I. Joe guy who got what was coming to him."
"That was not heroism," Gonzalez wrote. "It was prophetic idiocy."
His column also criticizes America's military response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Tillman, the San Jose, Calif., native who gave up his NFL career to join the Army Rangers in 2002, was killed in combat April 22 in Afghanistan.
While recognizing Gonzalez's right to free speech, Wilson said the student owes Tillman a "debt of gratitude," and said he should apologize to Tillman's friends and family.
Gonzalez did not respond to telephone and e-mail messages left Thursday by The Associated Press.
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