Where Men Win Glory (Audio)

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Review

The bestselling author of "Into the Wild," "Into Thin Air," and "Under the Banner of Heaven" delivers a stunning, eloquent account of a remarkable young man's haunting journey.
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"Like the men whose epic stories Jon Krakauer has told in his previous bestsellers, Pat Tillman was an irrepressible individualist and iconoclast. In May 2002, Tillman walked away from his $3.6 million NFL contract to enlist in the United States Army. He was deeply troubled by 9/11, and he felt a strong moral obligation to join the fight against al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Two years later, he died on a desolate hillside in southeastern Afghanistan.
Though obvious to most of the two dozen soldiers on the scene that a ranger in Tillman's own platoon had fired the fatal shots, the Army aggressively maneuvered to keep this information from Tillman's wife, other family members, and the American public for five weeks following his death. During this time, President Bush repeatedly invoked Tillman's name to promote his administration's foreign policy. Long after Tillman's nationally televised memorial service, the Army grudgingly notified his closest relatives that he had "probably" been killed by friendly fire while it continued to dissemble about the details of his death and who was responsible.
In "Where Men Win Glory," Jon Krakauer draws on Tillman's journals and letters, interviews with his wife and friends, conversations with the soldiers who served alongside him, and extensive research on the ground in Afghanistan to render an intricate mosaic of this driven, complex, and uncommonly compelling figure as well as the definitive account" "of the events and actions that led to his death. Before he enlisted in the army, Tillman was familiar to sports aficionados as an undersized, overachieving Arizona Cardinals safety whose virtuosity in the defensive backfield was spellbinding. With his shoulder-length hair, outspoken views, and boundless intellectual curiosity, Tillman was considered a maverick. America was fascinated when he traded the bright lights and riches of the NFL for boot camp and a buzz cut. Sent first to Iraq--a war he would openly declare was "illegal as hell" --and eventually to Afghanistan, Tillman was driven by complicated, emotionally charged, sometimes contradictory notions of duty, honor, justice, patriotism, and masculine pride, and he was determined to serve his entire three-year commitment. But on April 22, 2004, his life would end in a barrage of bullets fired by his fellow soldiers.
Krakauer chronicles Tillman's riveting, tragic odyssey in engrossing detail highlighting his remarkable character and personality while closely examining the murky, heartbreaking circumstances of his death. Infused with the power and authenticity readers have come to expect from Krakauer's storytelling, "Where Men Win Glory "exposes shattering truths about men and war.

"From the Hardcover edition."

Annotation

One of the finest writers of narrative nonfiction tells the story of the most famous American casualty of the "war on terror," former NFL star Pat Tillman. Tillman transcended the world of sports and gained national renown when he left his multi-million dollar contract with the Arizona Cardinals to enlist in the army eight months after 9/11. When Tillman was killed in action in 2003, he was roundly praised as a heroic patriot, and President Bush and other members of the administration began using his example to justify the rightness of their cause in Iraq and Afghanistan. However, it soon became evident that Tillman had been killed by friendly fire, and that the military and government had gone to extraordinary lengths to conceal the circumstances of his death, even from Tillman's family. Jon Krakauer has established himself as a master of depicting the spirit and determination which drives men to seek achievement and adventure, and he has his most compelling subject yet in Tillman. As well as providing the first definitive account of the events surrounding Tillman's death and the extensive military cover-up which ensued, Krakauer delves beneath the superficial media portraits of Tillman as an athlete and a martyr to uncover a man driven by standards of integrity and honor which were an almost haunting presence in his life.

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