NFL Two Dolphins see what war really is

Zach Thomas and JasonTaylor visited wounded solders in Germany.
By HAL BOCK
AP SPORTS WRITER
Zach Thomas and Jason Taylor of the Miami Dolphins have a message for America this Memorial Day weekend.
"This is a day for more than a barbecue in the back yard," Taylor said. "This is a day to think about what Memorial Day really means, to think about the men and women who went over to Iraq to fight for freedom."
That's what the two Pro Bowl teammates will do.
Thomas and Taylor have just returned from Germany, where they visited troops at Rhein-Main Air Base and Landstuhl Regional Medical Center. They were affected by the experience, more than they ever thought they would, more than anyone could imagine.
"It was unbelievable, one of the best things I've ever done in my life," Taylor said. "It was a very emotional trip, really touching, sometimes tearjerking.
"There was one guy, a 19-year-old, fresh in the Marines. He had one hand blown off from picking up spent ordnance that they were cleaning up after securing Baghdad. It blew up in his face. He was on the way home for his Purple Heart, but he didn't want to go and leave his guys behind.
"He's 19. He's got his life but he's someone who's been to war, someone who's seen way more in life than we have."
Thomas remembered that Marine.
"He felt like he was letting his guys down," Thomas said. "He wanted to go back out. They put their lives on the line every day. That's a true hero. We need to think about them. They are the true heroes. If they mess up, somebody is dead This is no game. I was so proud to be an American, watching how they stick together."
From touchdowns to tears
Thomas and Taylor are tough guys, brothers-in-law and defensive partners who make their living in the rough world of the NFL. They've seen knees blown out, bones broken. But they've never seen what they saw in the intensive care units of those military hospitals.
"The ICU was really bad," Thomas said. "There was one guy, his Humvee had flipped over on top of him. He was on a breather. He kept saying 'Thank you. Thank you.' It made me tear up. He put his life on the line for America.
"Going through the hospital moved you. They want to get back out. It made me so proud of these guys. I wish more people could see them."
There is an antiseptic feeling about war happening half a world away in TV images or newspaper stories. That was how Thomas and Taylor had experienced the action in Iraq until the joint NFL-USO tour gave them a close-up look.
They will never look at it the same way again.
"A lot of Americans know what war is," Taylor said. "But they don't understand what war is. Being that close to it, talking to men and women who had friends killed, it makes me understand what war is, the blood and tears, the destruction war causes."
Thomas remembered one battalion of about 100 men who had been in Iraq for some time. "These were special operations guys," he said. "They had seen it all, and the oldest ones were maybe 25 or 26. There was a helicopter crash and some of them dove into a canal to save their buddies. We wanted to tell them they are not forgotten even though they feel isolated. This put faces on these guys."
The NFL incorporates the language of war in its games, using such words as "bomb" and "blitz." Taylor said he won't use that particular imagery from now on.
"Football is like chess, not war," he said. "What we do is a game. My job is important to a point. If I make a mistake or don't do my job, it's a touchdown for the other team. If they don't do their jobs, somebody gets killed. What these young men and women do is life and death. Nobody's dead if I make a mistake."