[Vision2020] Rudy with a Bullet

[Tom Hansen]

Copied and pasted below is "Rudy with a Bullet" from Rick Reilly's "Life of
Reilly" column in Friday's (December 17, 2004) Sports Illustrated.  It, most
deservedly, gives us reason to pause and reflect on the selflessness of
those stout-hearted individuals who place themselves in harm's way.  Pro
patria.

 

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He's just a walk-on. Number 39 in your program, zero in your heart.  Means
nothing to you.  Just another sadly spotless jersey on the sideline. 

 

So how is it that Josh Amstutz is the toughest, bravest and most
inspirational member of Texas A&M's football team? 

 

Well, look at his right leg. There are two scars left by a bullet that
passed through it almost two years ago, a gift from an Iraqi sniper. How he
runs on it as well as he does is anybody's guess. 

 

Look at his jaw. It was stern and square enough for the Marine honor guard
that flanked President Clinton during ceremonial events at the White House
and led George W. Bush down Pennsylvania Avenue on Inauguration Day. 

 

Look at his eyes. They're practically Aggie maroon-and-white. What other
23-year-old Purple Heart winner would volunteer as scout-team meat five days
a week just so he can stand on the sidelines on Saturdays in the fall
yelping, "Gig 'em Aggies"? 

 

"I can't believe I'm on the team," says Amstutz, an A&M sophomore with
freshman eligibility. "One practice it was pretty hot and everybody was
complaining. But I thought to myself, Hey, this isn't bad. It beats being in
120 degrees in Iraq in a hazardous chemical protective suit. And at least
nobody's shooting at me." 

 

You want to bitch about the training table? There were days when all he had
to eat was one dried meal. "The scary part," he says, "was we got so hungry,
we started liking it." In fact, when he was recuperating in the hospital
after he got shot, a doctor saw him take a cookie off his lunch tray and
hide it under his pillow. 

 

"What are you doing?" the doctor asked. 

 

"Saving food for later, sir," Amstutz admitted. 

 

"Son," said the doctor, "you don't have to do that anymore." 

 

You want to rag about the road hotel? This is a guy who dug a hole for his
bed every night, "as deep as you could get it before you fell asleep." And
every time praying you weren't digging your own grave. 

 

You want to whine about the pressure of big-time college football? Amstutz
had to kill people. "All my teammates ask me that question, but it's not
something I want to talk about," he says. But he carried a machine gun and
an M-16 with a grenade launcher, and concedes that he did kill other men. 

 

Through it all, he never gave up his football dream. Gave up? Hell, it's
what kept him going. 

 

A tight end at Jasper (Ind.) High, catching passes from eventual LSU
standout Matt Mauck, he actually had two goals: become a Marine and play
college football. How could he have known that one wish would nearly wipe
out the other? 

 

Amstutz reported to boot camp three days after he graduated from Jasper in
1999, and he became such a dogged Marine -- he could stand for hours and
hours without so much as twitching -- that he was assigned to the White
House eight weeks out of camp. "The only bad thing about the White House is
the crazy squirrels there," he says. "They jump around in the trees, and the
branches slap you in the face and you can't do a thing about it." 

 

While in D.C., he met Fox TV intern and Texas A&M alum Jessica Fontenot and
eventually married her. On a trip out West with Fontenot in November 2001,
Amstutz witnessed one of the great spectacles in college football: a Texas
A&M game in College Station. "I knew right then I wanted to play for the
Aggies," he says. 

 

But 9/11 made him itch to fight. Before being shipped out to the Middle
East, Amstutz said goodbye to his father-in-law, who was dying of cancer. "I
won't be here when you get back," Jessica's dad said. "So come home and take
care of my little girl." 

 

That suddenly looked doubtful on April 8, 2003, when Amstutz's unit was
checking out a tip that there was a weapons cache in a school. "Bullets
started whizzing by like in Saving Private Ryan," he remembers. One went
clean through his leg, just above the knee. He dragged himself to a medic,
who told him he was lucky: The bullet got only muscle. 

 

Yet he wouldn't give up his dream of playing football. For a year he put all
his Marine determination into rehabbing that leg and added 40 pounds to his
post-Iraq weight of 155. Having served his four years of active duty, he
enrolled in a junior college in the fall of '03, transferred to A&M this
year and in August was one of about 60 students to try out for a half dozen
walk-on spots. He made the team as a safety -- Rudy with a bullet. 

 

"When I first met him, he told me, 'It's an honor to be in the same locker
room with you,'" says the Aggies' NFL-bound wide receiver, Terrence Murphy.
"But now that I know his story, I think the same exact thing about him." 

 

Amstutz hasn't been in a game yet, but if he could get in for just one play,
"I'd want to cover a kickoff. That's my dream. I wouldn't want any big glory
thing. Just one kickoff." 

 

On New Year's Day the Aggies play Tennessee at the Cotton Bowl. Hey, coach
Dennis Franchione, can't you put him in? 

 

After all, he went in for you.

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