THE WALL OF FACES

THE BOB KALSU STORY
IS BOTH TOUCHING AND TRAGIC

Buddy Thomas
Senior sports editor/columnist
The Standard Times
New Bedford, Massachusetts

BOB KALSU never reached All-Pro status in the National Football League.

Probably because he didn't play long enough.

But the big lineman from the University of Oklahoma was voted the team's top rookie in his first and only season with the Buffalo Bills.

That was back in 1968 when the American Football League was on the threshold of a merger with the rival NFL, and the 1-12-1 Bills were hoping to re-discover the glory days of mid-decade.

I was two years removed from Vietnam at the time and still trying to re-adjust to civilian life.

Part of that re-adjustment centered around watching professional football, trying to convince myself that the AFL was not just a cheap imitation of the real thing (NFL).

A year later I finally became convinced when the Jets beat my beloved Colts in Super Bowl III.

But I had never even heard of Bob Kalsu until sometime last week, when I saw his story on television.

I can't remember the exact night it was shown.

It was mid- to late-week, I think.

But I do know it was on the early version of ESPN's Sportscenter.

It probably was meant to be a filler piece.

You know, one of those five-minute mini-features that help fill the hour-long time slot when off-nights, Mother Nature or a combination of both leave the scoreboard virtually empty.

What it became was, quite simply, the most heart-rendering piece I've ever seen.

It was a story of life, love and devotion interrupted by an untimely death.

Bob Kalsu played the lead role.

On 21 July 1970, the Bills' lineman became the only active professional football player to be killed in Vietnam.

Details of his death came from the lips of a teary-eyed former soldier who saw Lieutenant Kalsu fall while helping defend something called Ripcord Base on an isolated jungle mountaintop near the Ashau Valley.

All through his high school and college days, football was a big part of Kalsu's life.

So was the ROTC -- Reserve Officers Training Corps.

But the biggest part of Kalsu's life was his sweetheart, Jan, who he married the day after his final college game in the Orange Bowl.

The Bills selected him in the eighth round of the '68 college draft - after such not-so-notables as Pete Richardson, a defensive back from Dayton, running back Max Anderson of Arizona State and Mike McBath, a defensive end from Penn State.

With the exception of first-round selection Haven Moses of San Diego State, the Buffalo draft list read like a roll call from the Society of Unknown Nobodies.

But Kalsu quickly became somebody in his first AFL season by earning the team's Rookie of the Year award with his stellar play at guard.

Sadly it would be his final season of football.

His wife had recently given birth to a daughter, Jill, and the future appeared bright.

But following the 1968 season, Kalsu began fulfilling his ROTC obligation with the United States Army and in November 1969, he received his orders to go to Vietnam.

He probably could have used politics to remain at home, but Kalsu said no.

After six months in Vietnam, 1st Lieutenant Bob Kalsu left his 11th Artillery unit of the 101st Airborne Division for a week of R&R in Hawaii.

There he was reunited with Jan, who was now pregnant with their second child.

Most of this information was recorded in newspaper articles - articles I never knew existed before watching last week's riveting television piece.

But while the written words put a lump in my throat, the spoken words induced tears that flowed freely from my eyes.

I sobbed when Jan told of the day she received word of her husband's death as she lay in her hospital bed after giving birth to her son, Bob Jr.

I sniffled when the young Bob revealed he had heard his father's voice asking him to have the first dance with his sister on her wedding day.

And I cried when Bob Jr. relayed how he saw his father sitting and smiling as he and Jill moved gracefully about the dance floor.

But when all was said and done, I probably felt worse about myself for never having known Bob Kalsu had even existed.





REMEMBRANCE

27 May 2002

SOME CHOOSE COUNTRY OVER FOOTBALL

By Len Pasquarelli
ESPN.com

You never know what will touch a nerve but, for Arizona Cardinals strong safety PAT TILLMAN, the terrorist events of last September 11 and the insidious sense of fear they engendered in all of us clearly were the equivalent of applying a cattle prod to an open wound.

And so, rather than allow his sense of duty-bound responsibility to expire in a graveyard of good intentions, Tillman did something about it by depositing his football career in layaway for the next three years and enlisting in the United States Army, aspiring to become a member of the elite Special Forces group.

It was, for most of us hearing of his intentions last week, an inexplicable decision.

The free-spirited but still consummately disciplined Tillman turned his back on a three-year contract proposal worth $3.6 million for a gig that pays roughly 18 grand a year.

Then again Pat Tillman, a man whose carefully sketched blueprint for life was altered by the arrival of terrorism on our shores, is not most of us.

There is, it has been said, nothing sadder than the death of an illusion. But happy is that occasional man who thumbs his nose at convention, who clings to nonconformity as if it were the last piece of driftwood floating past a sunken ship, and who answers to his heart and not his wallet.

Freshly back from his honeymoon in Bora Bora last week, Pat Tillman apprised friends and relatives and the Arizona Cardinals coaching staff that there were more significant things in his life right now, that his conscience would not allow him to tackle opposition fullbacks when there is still a bigger enemy that needs to be stopped in its tracks.

" This is not," cautioned Tillman's agent and friend, Frank Bauer, " some kind of publicity stunt or anything. This is Pat Tillman, through and through. It wasn't some wild thought that just occurred to him. Believe me, he thought this out, and he's clear about it. This is something he feels he has to do. For him, it's a mindset, a duty. For him it isn't as big a deal as it is to the rest of us. He figures, ' Hey, I'm not the first, you know ?' "

Indeed, while Tillman's decision registers as incongruous for most who would sacrifice everything for a shot at the kind of celebrity he enjoyed, his own sacrifice is reminiscent this Memorial Day weekend of those made by other professional athletes.

The baseball record books, in particular, are filled with examples of star players -- Joe DiMaggio, Ted Williams, Stan Musial, Willie Mays, among others -- whose incredible feats would be even more prodigious had they not trudged off to war.

More recently, Hall of Fame quarterback Roger Staubach served time in Vietnam, as did Rocky Bleier, the former Pittsburgh Steelers running back who nearly had his foot blown off by a land mine, but came back to win four Super Bowl rings. And then there's the case of BOB KALSU, the only active NFL player killed in the Vietnam conflict.

Another former NFL player, Cleveland Browns offensive lineman DON STEINBRUNNER, was killed in Vietnam in 1967 when the C-123 PROVIDER he was piloting was gunned down by enemy anti-aircraft forces. His loss certainly was no less a tragedy than that of Kalsu, but Steinbrunner was 10 years retired at the time of his death, his ties to football then defined by a coaching stint at the Air Force Academy.

Bob Kalsu, conversely, had just one year of NFL seniority when he opted not to contest his call-up to active service after his 1968 rookie season with the Buffalo Bills. Chosen in the eighth-round of that year's " other " draft, Kalsu started eight games at guard.

" As solid a player and more important, as solid an individual, as they make," recollected Billy Shaw, the Hall of Fame member who played the other guard spot for the Bills, two years ago. " He would have been a great player, believe me, and not because he was the best athlete. He just wanted to be good, that's all, and wanted it so badly that it would have been enough."

At a time when it was acceptable for professional athletes to defer military service, Kalsu felt obligated to honor the ROTC pledge that had been as much a part of his life at the University of Oklahoma as had his All-American role on the football team.

And so Kalsu left his pregnant wife and young daughter to fulfill what he deemed to be a responsibility he could not ignore.

In writing of Kalsu for a column two years ago, when the Buffalo Bills organization chose to honor him on its " Wall of Fame ", this columnist spoke to family and friends and former teammates and gained some sense of the man.

Noted sportswriter William Nack was far more eloquent than yours truly in a Sports Illustrated piece on Kalsu last summer.

Doubtless many readers recall that feature, a narrative that thrust Kalsu into the public consciousness, if only for a too-brief time.

First Lieutenant Kalsu died on 21 July 1970, on a stretch of desolate Ashau Valley mountaintop known as " Firebase Ripcord ", where his 11th Artillery unit of the 101st Airborne Division had been pinned down for weeks by relentless enemy fire. The legend was that he was shot as he sprinted across an open field to a helicopter, one he felt was delivering news of the birth of his second child.

His colleagues and family have debunked the legend, but Bob Kalsu Jr. was born within 24 hours of his father's death, and took years to accept that the dad he never knew would perish in a war that seemed to mean so little.

Years later, the junior Kalsu claims to have heard his father's voice during a reception for the wedding of his sister, Jill.

The voice, Kalsu Jr. suggested, was his father telling him to substitute for him during the wedding dance.

" It was clear and unmistakable," Kalsu Jr. said.

And so, apparently, was the voice that spoke to Pat Tillman in recent weeks.

Since he has deflected all interview requests and seems intent on allowing his actions to speak for themselves, it is difficult to precisely define Tillman's motivation.

But on the weekend reserved for honoring those who sacrificed careers, lifestyles, relationships -- and, yes, even their lives -- one of Tillman's teammates offered a pithy but profound explanation for his reasoning.

" He is," said Cardinals free safety Kwamie Lassiter, " a man who loves this country."

Len Pasquarelli is a senior writer for ESPN.com.





Transcribed by

WWW.HISTORICAL MILITARIA.COM



R E M E M B R A N C E

DEATH OF PAT TILLMAN PROMPTS MEMORIES OF BOB KALSU

EX-BILLS ROOKIE GUARD DIED IN VIETNAM IN 1970

THE LAST NFL VETERAN TO DIE IN COMBAT


23 April 2004

ORCHARD PARK, New York --

BILLY SHAW has remembered and respected former teammate BOB KALSU for sacrificing his life in the Vietnam War.

The Buffalo Bisons NFL Hall of Fame lineman now holds the same high regard for PAT TILLMAN.

Tillman, who left the NFL to join the elite United States Army Rangers in 2002, was killed during a firefight in Afghanistan on Thursday 22 April 2004.

News of Tillman's death prompted Shaw to recall Kalsu in an emotional response on Friday.

"What a tremendous character makeup both of these individuals had to put their careers on hold to defend our country," Shaw said. "They are the real hall of famers."

Tillman, who played four seasons with the ARIZONA CARDINALS, became the first pro football player to die in combat since Kalsu was killed by mortar fire in 1970.

A guard, Kalsu played at Oklahoma and was selected by Buffalo in the eighth round of the 1968 draft. He was voted the Bill's Rookie of the Year in his only season.

Kalsu began fulfilling his ROTC obligation after his rookie season and was sent to Vietnam.

The Bills honored Kalsu in 2000, placing his name on the RALPH WILSON STADIUM Wall of Fame, located in Orchard Park, New York, a suburb of Buffalo.

"It makes me proud to be an NFL alumnus and an American to know that someone in our fraternity would sacrifice some or all of his career for us to enjoy our way of life in this country," Shaw stated.

Inducted into the National Football League Hall of Fame in 1999, Shaw played nine seasons with the BUFFALO BILLS in the 1960s.

Copyright - The Associated Press



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R E M E M B R A N C E

"An God said who shall we send.I answered I am here,send me."

Isaiah 6:8

I have known for many years that Bob Kalsu was killed in Vietnam,(don't remember how I first heard about it) but like many others of us who served there, it was too much for me to deal with, to find out any more than just that. But with the passage of time I have been willing to revisit those days and think again about my experiences and my dead friends.
I recently did a search on his name on the computer and learned, finally, the details of his death. I saw the cover of the Sports Illustrated issue that memorialized him and called to order a copy. I have to say, I cried when I read it, for him, for my lost comrades, and for myself,left alive.
I remember Bob as a boy in junior high school and as an accomplished young man in high school. I was aware of his star athlete reputation, but more importantly to me was his affable, gentle manner. There was none of that cruel behavior sometimes practiced by the most popular kids in school. He seems to have posessed great qualities and accomplished extraordinary things in his short life. I am honored to have known him.