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Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman
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$ 12.44
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| Retail Value |
$ 15.95 |
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$ 3.51 (22%) |
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| Item Number |
1605389 |
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Item Description...
Product Description
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 accountof 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.
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Item Specifications...
Pages 480
Binding Softcover
Release Date Jul 27, 2010
Publisher Anchor
ISBN 030738604X
EAN 9780307386045
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Availability 320 units.
Availability accurate as of Feb 22, 2012 09:43.
Usually ships within one to two business days from Commerce GA.
Orders shipping to an address other than a confirmed Credit Card / Paypal Billing address may incur and additional processing delay.
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Reviews - What do our customers think?
 | MUST READ Jan 16, 2010 |
| Awesome book! I highly recommend it to everyone. Very simple read in true Krakauer fashion. | | | | One good man Jan 13, 2010 |
You are nothing without principles and your principles don't mean anything unless you hold on to them under the most difficult of circumstances. This was the legacy of Pat Tillman. Has there ever been a person like Tillman in the history of the US? You can argue with Jimmy Stewart, Joe Lewis and the like during WWII, but that was not all voluntary. Tillman gave up everything and got killed by friendly fire in the end. He stands out, not only as an undersized, over-achiever on the football field, but as a man driven by his principles off and on the field. He turned down a 9-million dollar contract with St. Louis even after his first tour in Iraq. He turned down leaving Arizona because of his loyalties to the Cardinals. If Krakauer proves anything about his subjects, it is to capture the rugged individual as he did with Tillman and in a previous book "Into the Wild." with Chris McCandless.
The big criticism being voiced on this site review is that Krakauer is using Tillman's story as a vehicle to trash the Bush Administration. Nonsense! Read the book. All of it is about Tillman and how a generally non-political man tries to do what is right and becomes recruitment fodder for the Bush Administration. The cover-up with the friendly fire are part & parcel of the story and legacy of Tillman. It cannot be ignored simply because some people object to the US military and Bush Administration looking bad. Very little is about the Bush Administration actions. If it paints a bad picture of Bush's wars, it certainly reflects Tillman's and later his mother's views. Biographies are generally boring with many pages that can be skipped, but Krakauer captures the essence of a now legend and someone we can all use as a role model to live our lives by. | | |  | Bad Title, Great Read Jan 9, 2010 |
"Where Men Win Glory", stolen from Homer, is a worse choice than most titles ripped from the classics, given that the book is mainly about the Army's inglorious efforts to cover up the facts surrounding Tillman's death by friendly fire. It would be better entitled "Where Men Lose Glory" - those men being Rumsfeld and his subordinates at the time of Tillman's death.
Despite the title, "Where Men Win Glory" is a great read, as are most of Krakauer's books. Krakauer has heart and an old-style journalist's eye for the facts, and ultimately does a great job of telling us who Pat Tillman is. My only problem with the book is that it ignores the biggest ramification of what happens when an Army covers up the facts.
Ultimately, the real tragedy of this coverup is that so long as the Army is allowed to continue to bury the truth surrounding friendly fire incidents like the one that killed Tillman, there will be no investment in the improvement of its processes or technologies, and more young people will die.
More than four in ten of the number of casualties of the first Gulf War (41%) were caused by friendly fire - twice as many as very affected in World War Two.
Reading Krakauer's book, it is abundantly clear why young soldiers continue to be killed or wounded by their own team-members in such numbers - because the Army ignores its own written procedures, can't perform a simply ROI analysis at HQ or in the field (in the book, the Army places a value on a broken Humvee far in excess of the resources needed to salvage it), and has not invested in the kind of innovations that would allow friendly fire to be prevented altogether (this would not appear to be a difficult technical challenge, given that both sides of the equation are manipulable).
Note about the New York Times review of this book: I have never read a more lazy and inept review of a book by a major author. The reviewer clearly flipped through the book in a cursory fashion and didn't bother to check some of his conclusions. Please do not make a purchasing decision based on that review - it wouldn't be fair to Tillman's memory, or Krakauer's work. | | | | Drug War Gone Lethal --- Krakauer missed the big point of War Jan 9, 2010 |
As good as Jon Krakauer is as an author on boring subjects , he is captivatingly wonderful every time. I never want to read his books from the title , then I buy it knowing his magnetic eye power and am sucked in until I finish it with total shock at how great a reading experience I just had.
HOWEVER.... I humbly believe Jon K missed a huge point/subject or story line in this book that I hope he approaches in "The Movie" or His Next Book.
This is a situation where Drugged peasants are ruled by Drug Lords, against the Oil and Gas Industries and Drug Business (Drug Lords). Just like Siam or Mexico or Columbia, etc. It is definitely not a religious war nor a democracy war nor a war amongst countries, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan and India, as we are led to believe.
Look back at U.S. history and the West with Gold. Until it was Government controled , factions blew up everywhere for claims. Same with Drug farm land, warehouse centers, distribution channels, airports, seaports, etc. When the day comes that some sort of an honest goverment steps in , controls the drugs from crop areas to the users, worldwide, charging appropriate taxes along the way, THEN AND ONLY THEN WILL THIS WAR AND MOST OF THE CURRENT WARS END! OR AT LEAST ENTER INTO A CONTROLLED WAR ENVIRONMENT.
Once this is recognized , appropriate measures and taxes can be accomplished and the situation will be like controlling gold or diamonds or copper or even orange juice.
I rest my case. Sorry Tillman got sucked in.
P McLaughlin
Corvallis, Oregon
| | | | Heart-breaking, inspiring, educational Jan 9, 2010 |
I love Krakauer's other work -- and this is stunning to read as well -- with one flaw...
I agree with some of the negative reviews about the author's overt political statements. These statements are unnecessary because the facts as the author reports them clearly indicate for the reader just how unethical and maddening were the actions of the many people involved in the cover-up. My only guess is that the author was so personally upset by his research into Tillman's life that he couldn't help but interject himself with these intermittent comments.
I am grateful that I picked up this book at the library! I feel like I learned so much about the history of the wars, the Army, Tillman and his family, and the truly awful marketing of war... My heart goes out to the Tillman family...
5 stars - a must read | | | Write your own review about Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman
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