Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman by Jon Krakauer

The author of Into Thin Air provides a “nuanced, thorough, and chilling” account of the cover-up of the death of Pat Tillman by friendly fire in Afghanistan.

(Doubleday, 383 pages, $27.95)

Pat Tillman understood that he made a fetish of personal virtue. “I follow some philosophy I barely understand,” he wrote in a journal shortly after his 2002 decision to turn down a lucrative new NFL contract and instead enlist in the U.S. Army. At the time, eight months after the attacks on the World Trade Center, playing football seemed below his personal standards. But Army training didn’t silence Tillman’s conscience. He dutifully “did his job” in Iraq even while strongly questioning the purpose of the 2003 U.S. invasion. On the final day of his life—April 22, 2004—honor ruled again. Watching from an Afghan hillside, as the rear half of his platoon came under enemy fire, the 27-year-old Ranger chose to scramble toward the firing. “Let’s go help our boys,” he said.

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