Duncan Campbell on the cerebral man whose extraordinary decision will provide a recruitment boost to the US army

Thousands of Americans have applied to join the armed forces since September 11th, but none has grabbed the limelight like Pat Tillman. When it was announced last month that one of the stars of the Arizona Cardinals football team was giving up his multi-million-dollar career in the hopes of hunting down Osama bin Laden in the caves of Afghanistan, it left the sporting press rummaging through their kit bags for the right military metaphors. This week he is due to report for duty.

Tillman's decision has made waves far beyond the world of sport, and nowhere has the effect been greater than in the Cardinals' home town of Phoenix.

"The response has been fantastic," says Greg Gladysiewski, the club's spokesman. "The letters to the editor (in Arizona newspapers) are - well, you'd like to frame them. People are so grateful to him and they've really supported his decision."

If the Cardinals are unhappy at losing one of their star players for the next three seasons, they are not letting on. They hope Tillman will be returning to them after his tour of duty, although he will have to maintain a level of fitness that may be hard even in the more active branches of the military.

"It's hard enough to come back after one year away," says Gladysiewski, "and it would certainly be unusual to come back after three years, but if anyone has the mindset and the physique to do it, it's Pat. The team would absolutely welcome him back. He has been very valuable not only to the team but to the city, the community at large and the whole football family."

The Cardinals' general manager, Bob Ferguson, is also outwardly relaxed about Tillman's decision. "His commitments and life go beyond the selfishness and greed you see in pro sports these days," he said last week, adding that Tillman was resolute in his determination to get involved in action of a different level to that available on a football pitch. "Pat wants those tunnels in Afghanistan."

The value of a high-profile sportsman joining up has not been lost on Republican politicians. "I was surprised and yet really very impressed by this kind of dedication to serve the country at great personal expense," says Arizona Senator John McCain, the Vietnam vet who challenged George Bush for the party's presidential nomination in 2000 and who now serves on the armed services committee. McCain says Tillman's decision indicated that it was no longer "uncool" to join the military - although traditionally "jocks" were always pro-army anyway.

"Perhaps the last vestiges of the Vietnam war have disappeared in the rubble of the world trade centre," McCain said. "I don't think there will be any doubts about his capabilities as a soldier but also as a recruiting tool. He'll motivate other young Americans to serve as well."

It is not unusual for sportsmen to volunteer for service at time of war. The first World War archives are full of photos of whole football teams in uniform setting off for the trenches from Britain; the whole of the Hearts team from Edinburgh volunteered at the start of the war and all were dead within a few weeks.

During the second World War, too, US sportsmen were feted when they swapped their baseball kit for khaki. More than 600 National Football League professionals served in the US armed forces in the second World War. Nineteen died. But what is unusual about Tillman's case is that, officially, the US is not at war, there is no draft, nor, indeed, any shortage of troops.

Aged 25, Tillman is already something of a legendary figure in his adopted home town, where he set a record in 2000 for the number of tackles he made. An eccentric, cerebral character from San Jose in California and a former Arizona State student who bicycles to the training ground, he has turned down offers from bigger clubs to stay with the Cardinals. Now he is swapping an annual $1.2 million for a military salary of $1,022 a month.

More unusually, he has also declined all interviews about his latest move, saying that if he went down that path then people might imagine that he was doing the whole thing as a publicity stunt. He has even asked the army not to use him in their publicity - fat chance - and has requested that journalists do not approach his family for quotes - his young brother Kevin, aged 24, who plays baseball for the Cleveland Indians but is not as well known, has also enlisted.

Tillman's aim is to join the Army Rangers, an elite squad but, according to his team-mates, he is not a classic gung-ho character, reading books between training sessions and finding quiet places to meditate.

The Tillman brothers report to Fort Benning in Georgia this week. And then it may be off to wherever the war happens to be. By next spring, if President Bush pursues his current ambitions, Tillman could be lining up against Iraq, which would make a change from the Green Bay Packers.

The NFL is a staunchly pro-military body. The season was suspended for two weeks in the wake of September 11th and there have been many patriotic displays at subsequent games. In the first games after the attacks, the NFL handed out a million American flags at the turnstiles across the country. Football players were shown giving blood.

The Super Bowl in New Orleans this year was so heavily patriotic that even some hard-bitten sports writers felt it had all become a flag-wave too far. But it would be a brave sportsman indeed who uttered any word of criticism about Bush's conduct of the war.

Older readers may recall what happened when Elvis Presley was drafted and had to serve in the military. It led to the film GI Blues, lots of moody shots of Presley in uniform and an enormous boost for the army. Tillman seems to be handling it all slightly differently. But be sure that some film executive is even now wondering how best to approach the Tillman story, and who should play him.

Guardian Service