Name: Where Men Win Glory
Rating: 4.111111111111111 (9 reviews)
ISBN: 9780385522267

Jon Krakauer

The Odyssey of Pat Tillman

Where Men Win Glory

Pat Tillman was well-known to American sports fans: a chisel-jawed and talented young professional football star, he was on the brink of signing a million dollar contract when, in 2001, al-Qaeda launched terrorist attacks against his country. Driven by deeply felt moral patriotism, he walked away from fame and money to enlist in the United States Special Operations Forces. A year later he was killed - apparently in the line of fire - on a desolate hillside near the Pakistan border in Afghanistan. News of Tillman's death shocked America. But even as the public mourned his loss, the US Army aggressively maneuvered to conceal the truth: that it was a ranger in Tillman's own platoon who had fired the fatal shots. In Where Men Win Glory, Jon Krakauer reveals how an entire country was deliberately deceived by those at the very highest levels of the US army and government. 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.

Sam Sherwood

Andrew John Kinney

Not one of Krakauer's best books, but I read it because I wanted to understand what happened, and the answer is that an incompetent machine gunner who was scared, mistakenly fired on his own guys and killed Pat Tillman. That's the short version. The slightly longer version is that the military tried to cover this up and make Pat Tillman into a hero who died heroically fighting the enemy. That was wrong, and not the truth, and anyway, he was a hero when he volunteered to serve. The world is a lesser place without Pat Tillman in it. I wish we had leaders worthy of him.

Erik Wallace

A tough book to get through, well written but really heavy. One of the only books I've been unable to read before going to bed. 

I'd recommend it to anyone who likes non-fiction. I know I was concerned it would be too focused on Pat Tillman, but in reality it was less of a biography and a good history lesson on the climate of Afghanistan from the Cold War to present day as well as the realities of war and friendly fire.

Jeannette Ordas

I think it's important to get a background on a story like this one, so I didn't mind that the story of the army cover-up regarding Tillman's death takes place within the last hundred pages or so. I got to know Pat Tillman as the person he was and this is what makes his death so tragic. Tillman was a good man with a strong sense of self who gave so much to his country only to have his country fail him and his family in the most callous way. This book also introduced me to an Afghanistan that I didn't know - it's tribal history, their battle with the Soviets and just how the USA implicated itself into the current Taliban conflict. Krakauer is a great journalist and storyteller, and while I skimmed over some of the pages, I found this to be a relatively engaging portrait of a hero.

Where Men Win Glory The Odyssey of Pat Tillman

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