Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman
Jon Krakauer, 2009
Knopf Doubleday
416 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780307386045
Summary
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. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—April 2, 1954
• Where—Brookline, Massachusetts, USA
• Reared—Corvalis, Oregon
• Education—B.S., Hampshire College (Massachusetts)
• Awards—American Academy of Arts and Letters, 1999
• Currently—lives in Seattle, Washington
Krakauer was born as the third of five children. He competed in tennis at Corvallis High School and graduated in 1972. He went on to study at Hampshire College in Massachusetts, where in 1976 he received his degree in Environmental Studies. In 1977, he met former climber Linda Mariam Moore; they married in 1980 and now live in Seattle, Washington.
More
In 1974, Krakauer was part of a group of seven friends pioneering the Arrigetch Peaks of the Brooks Range in Alaska and was invited by American Alpine Journal to write about those experiences. Though he neither expected nor received a fee, he was excited when the Journal published his article. A year later, he and two others made the second ascent of The Moose's Tooth, a highly technical peak in the Alaska Range.
One year after graduating from college (1977), he spent three weeks by himself in the wilderness of the Stikine Icecap region of Alaska and climbed a new route on the Devils Thumb, an experience he described in Eiger Dreams and in Into the Wild.
Much of Krakauer's early popularity as a writer came from being a journalist for Outside magazine. In 1983, he was able to abandon part-time work as a fisherman and a carpenter to become a full-time writer. His freelance writing appeared in Smithsonian, National Geographic Magazine, Rolling Stone, Playboy, and Architectural Digest.
Into the Wild was published in 1996 and secured Krakauer's reputation as an outstanding adventure writer, spending more than two years on the New York Times bestseller list, which was adapted for film (director Sean Penn) and released in 2007.
In 2003, Under the Banner of Heaven became Krakauer's third non-fiction bestseller. The book examines extremes of religious belief, particularly fundamentalist offshoots of Mormonism. The book inspired the documentary, Damned to Heaven.
2010 saw the publication of Where Men Win Glory, about former NFL football player Pat Tillman, who became a US Army Ranger after 9/11. Tillman was eventually killed in action under suspicious circumstances in Afghanistan. (Adapated from Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
Once Tillman lands in Afghanistan…Krakauer's narrative lifts off. The death of Tillman is handled deftly—and sad it is, the end of a series of errors and misjudgments, some of which border on the criminal…While most of the facts have been reported before, Krakauer performs a valuable service by bringing them all together—particularly those about the cover-up. The details, even five years later, are nauseating to read.
Dexter Filkins - New York Times
Krakauer—whose forensic studies of the Emersonian Man in books such as Into Thin Air and Into the Wild yield so much insight—has turned in a beautiful bit of reporting, documenting Tillman's life with journals and interviews with those close to him...Must be counted as the definitive version of events surrounding Tillman's death.
Los Angeles Times
Jon Krakauer has done his job well; Where Men Win Glory is a tough read...[He] has tackled a task that required the distillation and organization of volumes of disparate information. That he has fielded a coherent narrative is a victory. That he has made it compelling and passionate is a difficult blessing...In mining Tillman's life and death, Krakauer uncovers a story much more compelling than anything that could be spun.
The Denver Post
Where Men Win Glory, Jon Krakauer's narrative of pro football player Pat Tillman's "odyssey," as he calls it, from the playing field to the battlefield, is nuanced, thorough, and chilling...[He] is up to the task of telling this brave man's story...Krakauer's tone is somber and judicious as he reports this ludicrous hijacking of the truth and its shameful cover-up, but the anger behind it charges every word. [He] has made sure that this shameful episode will not fade into obscurity and that Pat Tillman will be remembered for the man he truly was—and not as the faux symbol of a failed policy.
Portland Oregonian
In this masterful work, bestselling adventure writer Jon Krakauer renders an intimate portrait of Tillman and brilliantly captures the sadness, madness, and heroism of the post-9/11 world...Drawing on interviews with family, fellow soldiers and correspondence, Krakauer's page-turning account captures every detail—Tillman's extraordinary character, including the "tragic vitures" that led him to give up a comfortable life and athletic stardom for the army; the harshness of military training and life; the rugged terrain of remote Afghanistan— and, of course, the ravages of war.Most critically, by telling Tillman's personal story and blowing apart the "cynical cover-up" that followed his killing, Krakauer lays bare the best—and worst—of America's War on Terror.
Publishers Weekly
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for Where Men Win Glory:
1. Pat Tillman was a complex figure. Talk about the kind of man he was. What were the personal qualities that led him to forego a life of wealth and put his life on the line in the U.S. military? Where some of those traits evident in his childhood? If so, which ones?
2. Describe his sense of moral obligation after 9/11. Why did he feel it was vital to take part, personally, in the fight against Al Quaeda and the Taliban?
3. Tillman was first sent to Iraq. What were his feelings about that war?
4. What did Tillman reveal both about himself and the war in his journal and letters back home?
5. What, if anything, did you learn from Krakauer's book about Iraq and Afghanistan? Did you find his diversions about those countries, their history and politics, enlightening? Or did you feel they dragged down the pace of the overall narrative?
6. Talk about the way in which Tillman lost his life, the series of events—as well as the errors and misjudgments made by those far from the line of fire—that led to the tragedy. How common is friendly fire?
7. How did military commanders and politicians make use of Tillman's death? What were they hoping to achieve...or avoid? How was the cover-up promulgated...and what led to its eventual unraveling?
8. What were Tillman's own suspicions about the possibility of becoming a poster boy should he die in battle?
9. What was your experience reading this book? Were your emotions charged as you worked your way through the story? If so, in what ways?
10. Despite the manner of Tillman's death, can he still be considered an American hero? Is everyone who dies in the line of duty a hero? Or is "hero" a designation we hold in reserve for special circumstances?
(Questions issued by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks. )
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