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The Odyssey of Pat Tillman
Doubleday
September 2009
On Sale: September 15, 2009
416 pages ISBN: 0385522266 EAN: 9780385522267 Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
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. 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.
Comments
1 comment posted.
Re: Where Men Win Glory
I've added this book to my TBR list. I'd really like to learn more about Pat Tillman. (Karen Cherubino 10:14pm April 15, 2011)
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