Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman

The bestselling author of Under the Banner of Heaven, Into the Wild, and Into Thin Air presents a powerful, poetic tale of an extraordinary young man's eerie trip.

Pat Tillman was an uncontrollable individualist and iconoclast, much like the individuals whose epic tales Jon Krakauer has previously published in his best-selling books. Tillman turned down a $3.6 million NFL deal in May 2002 in order to enroll in the US Army. He was profoundly disturbed by the events of 9/11 and felt compelled by moral principles to take up arms against the Taliban and al-Qaeda. He died away on a lonely mountaintop in southeast Afghanistan two years later.

The majority of the two dozen troops there saw that a ranger from Tillman's own battalion had fired the fatal bullets, but for five weeks after his death, the Army made a concerted effort to conceal this knowledge from Tillman's widow, other family members, and the general public in the United States. President Bush often used Tillman's name at this period to further the foreign policies of his government. The Army reluctantly informed Tillman's closest family that he had "probably" been killed by friendly fire long after his nationally broadcast memorial ceremony, but it persisted in lying about the circumstances surrounding his death and the person who caused it.

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. Sports fans knew Tillman as an undersized, overachieving safety with the Arizona Cardinals, whose skill in the defensive backfield was captivating, before he enrolled in the army. Tillman was regarded as a maverick because of his shoulder-length hair, candid opinions, and insatiable intellectual curiosity. When he gave up the bright lights and wealth of the NFL for boot camp and a buzz cut, America was enthralled. Sent first to Iraq, a war he would later publicly denounce as "illegal as hell," Tillman was motivated to fulfill his three-year commitment by complex, emotionally charged, and occasionally incongruous ideas of duty, honor, justice, patriotism, and masculine pride. However, on April 22, 2004, a flurry of gunfire from his fellow troops would take his life.

In addition to emphasizing Tillman's extraordinary character and personality and delving deeply into the confusing and terrible events surrounding his death, Krakauer writes a gripping account of Tillman's tragic and captivating journey. Where Men Win Glory reveals shocking facts about men and battle, imbued with the strength and genuineness that readers have come to expect from Krakauer's writing.

taken from the ISBN 0385522266 / 9780385522267 inside cover