After Pat Tillman inspired this writer to enlist, he discovered his own family legacy

In his new memoir, “Roadside,” Iraq veteran Dylan Park-Pettiford tells the unlikely story of his decision to enlist in the military. Or at least, he thought it was an unlikely story, back when it was happening.

In the years since he returned from the war and began reflecting on his experience, his perception has shifted.

Park-Pettiford joined The Show to talk about how he says perhaps it was kind of inevitable.

Full conversation

DYLAN PARK-PETTIFORD: You know, not to drop names, but I remember I was talking to Seth Rogen when I was writing this. I was telling him about my family history, and I think he called me the Black Lieutenant Dan. Because I didn’t realize that, like, there’s been a member of the Pettiford family that has participated in every conflict in American history, including the Revolution.

I don’t know if generational trauma is the right phrase, but yeah. Those are my people. So I wanted to share them with the world.

SAM DINGMAN: Well, then you also write about discovering the military service of family members on your mom’s side, the Korean side of your family. What was that like for you? Because if I understood correctly from the book, a lot of the backstory of your mom’s family was unknown to you for most of your life.

PARK-PETTIFORD: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, again, if I had never joined the military, there never would have been a background check. That kind of highlighted these things that I didn’t know. And you’re specifically speaking about the chapter where I found out that my mother’s family is from North Korea, which is something I didn’t know.

And it was actually horrifying to find out, when you’ve got two federal agents sitting in front of you and telling you that you’re related to someone that fought for, an enemy of the state.

DINGMAN: Right. I should just say this is a very amazing scene where you’re working at, I believe it’s a coffee shop.

PARK-PETTIFORD: Yeah, I’m working at a coffee shop, and I have two federal agents pull me out of the coffee shop. I’d never been in trouble with the law. I just remember thinking about, like, my years of Napster and LimeWire downloads had caught up with me, and I was going to jail for downloading whatever album was out.

They kept asking me if I’m a communist sympathizer. And then they finally let me know that my grandfather, who I knew very little about, served in the North Korean army. My grandfather on my other side of the family, he fought in the Korean War as well. So on a different timeline, my two grandfathers could have killed each other on the battlefield, and I wouldn’t be sitting here having this interview with you right now.

DINGMAN: Well, hearing you describe all of this, someone who hasn’t read the book yet might assume that, “Oh, well, there was this legacy of service in your family that must be what pushed Dylan to want to serve.”

But that’s not actually true, as I understand it. It was something else. What called you to serve?

PARK-PETTIFORD: You know, I was kind of bored. I was kind of lost. I actually grew up not too far from the Pat Tillman family. I was actually at his memorial at the Rose Garden in San Jose. And I don’t know what it was, but something in that moment. You’re like an impressionable 18-year-old, 19-year-old, however old I was at the time — and you’re talking about a man who was making millions of dollars playing football, and he gave up that dream to serve his country.

And however flawed that may have been, there was something incredibly poignant about that. It was just a moment where I said, “You know what? I need to do something with my life.”

DINGMAN: That’s an incredible moment in the book, I have to say, because I remember thinking, reading that you talk very vividly about hearing Tillman — I think it’s his brother — get up and speak. And he says, “Pat would want me to say that he is dead. It’s not like he’s alive and his spirit lives on. He wouldn’t want it romanticized. He is dead. This killed him.”

And it’s walking out of that moment where you’re like, “I think I should join the military.” It’s a very stirring moment.

PARK-PETTIFORD: Yeah, yeah. And looking back on it, you’d think that that would actually propel me to do the opposite, you know? Get back in school. But again, I was a confused 18-year-old.

DINGMAN: But it’s very interesting too, because one of the other things that you write about is how much, as a kid in particular, you really kind of buckled against authority, particularly when you were in Catholic school. And there was a real streak in you of wanting to kind of call out what you saw as some hypocrisy there.

PARK-PETTIFORD: You know, ironically, my parents took me out of public school as a child and put me in this private school to kind of like get me away from the trouble they thought I was going to be in if I stayed in public school. And what they didn’t know is that putting me in private schools was like a fast track to that delinquency.

Because before that, I’d never seen drugs. I didn’t really know what sex was. I hadn’t experienced any of these things. But then you put me in a school, surrounded by a bunch of rich kids who have never been in trouble before and can get away with whatever they want. It was just a different world.

Religion and the military — for me personally, anyways — have been two of the most kind of hateful experiences that I’ve gone through, which is a weird thing. Ironically, you join this institution — I’m speaking about the military — and the whole thing is like “the land of the free, the home of the brave, blah, blah, blah.” But when I joined the military, I had never experienced that much racism in my entire life. It was a normal thing in the military, unfortunately.

DINGMAN: Yeah. Well, I almost get the sense in hearing you talk about it that it was almost more of a pursuit of truth than, I don’t know, defending democracy or something that prompted you to join. Am I going too far with that?

PARK-PETTIFORD: Yeah. You’re totally correct. I just thought, like, there’s got to be something bigger.

DINGMAN: Well, some of the truths that you discover are really painful. One of them has to do with this kid that you meet during your deployment in Iraq named Brahim. Tell us who Brahim was and how you struck up a relationship with him.

PARK-PETTIFORD: Brahim was just one of these local kids. He was a local national. And you just had these groups of kids who weren’t always going to school because sometimes they didn’t have school to go to, and they were kind of just hanging out. It was like a little slice of normalcy in this place where you’re surrounded by death. And just having some kid with a smile on his face asking, like, what music you’re listening to and kind of bonding with him over little human experiences, that made the situation, I think, better for everyone involved.

DINGMAN: Well, I have to ask you: There is a really astonishing moment in the book related to Brahim. You leave Iraq thinking you’re never going to see him again, and then you get in a cab one day in Phoenix, and Brahim is driving the cab.

PARK-PETTIFORD: Yeah, I mean —

DINGMAN: I had to honestly put the book down when that happened. I literally said out loud, like, “What?!”

PARK-PETTIFORD: Yeah. And for someone who just said that they’re not religious or anything like that, the universe works in weird ways sometimes. And I think that that’s foundational to my experience as a person. My life has been full of those moments, and that’s what makes me who I am, I guess.

DINGMAN: Well, Dillon Park-Pettiford is the author of “Roadside: My Journey to Iraq and The Long Road Home.” Dylan, thank you so much.

PARK-PETTIFORD: Thank you for having me.