Where Men Win Glory - Krakauer

 “Where Men Win Glory”, as titled and literally is as subtitled, “The Odyssey of Pat Tillman”, by Jon Krakauer is either the most subversive and insidious text both brilliantly conceived and executed against that values of a conservative agenda or it is a fraud, as deceptive and ill intentioned as those Krakauer holds responsible for the Global War on Terror and Tillman’s sensationalized death from fratricide in that  far off land where he found himself to be duty bound and tragically at the wrong place at the wrong time.  I cannot determine which without personally conducting the 4th or 5th or 6th investigation into the death of Pat Tillman (I lost track of the number of investigations into his death).  But who is to blame is irrelevant in my mind as to the odyssey of Pat Tillman. Krakauer gets it right despite what his politics may reveal in him as a man rather than the fascinating story teller he has always been.

Krakauer captures in stunning detail the horrific yet all too common occurrence of fratricide on the modern battlefield using examples from both in Afghanistan and Iraq.  One would think with all the technology carried into 21st Century battle, the body armor, communications, the command and control, and the navigation equipment, fratricide would be a thing of the past.  But what if your GPS batteries go dead?  The lethality of the modern battlefield is fast, furious, and unforgiving.  Despite what Tillman’s family did not want to hear, and by all appearances the United States Army did not want to tell them, was that Tillman had become an ugly statistic.  To know your love one died for one’s country, and Pat Tillman did die for his country regardless of the circumstances, is what is important.  To dwell on the details of that death is to reduce war to that which is justified and that which is not justified.  A fools errand.  If the lethal round to Pat Tillman’s head had come from the Taliban would his death be any less tragic or heroic?  Would the Army attempt to go after the perpetrators at the behest of the family to uncover the murderer of their loved one?   In any war everyone dies for their country.  The Taliban die for their extreme cause and those who go to war as American’s are willing to die for something even more extreme.  And they die.  They die in accidents, they die in battles, they die from the indignity of an improvised explosive device, and they die in the fields of friendly fire.   To cast aspersions on any death in war cheapens the sacrifice of all.  Tillman’s family, to be comforted in their grief, was simply never willing to give up their son either to the Army or for the ultimate sacrifice he made.  His wife Marie was both was willing and able to do so.  She first overcame her fear and then her grief and in my mind became the heroin-- perhaps the true Übermensch of this story.  Nietzsche after all did not mean super-man (male). His meaning was to become more than human--to transcend that which makes us human.  And Marie Tillman did that first with Pat when she let him go to war, and then in it’s tragic aftermath as she ascribes meaning to the life Pat led before he died into the lives of others through her foundation.  

But this is Pat Tillman’s odyssey and his reasons and willingness to go to war, were as complex as the life that he led-- or that of any young man who has choices and opportunities--must lead before deciding for themselves the road they will follow.  Yes Pat Tillman heard the call to duty, but he also heard the call of war.  A man who would cast himself off tall cliffs for the challenge of surviving, not stupidly but with a fighting chance given to him by his wits, strength, and reflexes.    Perhaps he came to understand, as Philip Caputo has told us, that “…under fire, a man's powers of life heightened in proportion to the proximity of death, so that he felt an elation as extreme as his dread. His senses quickened, he attained acuity of consciousness at once pleasurable and excruciating.”  War is the ultimate adrenaline surge and he was there for the challenge.  He did not go to war without weighing the odds and believing he had, more than a fighting chance.  He believed that the experience would not only challenge him it would alter his life in ways far absent from his life as a professional football player.

Krakauer spectacularly achieves defining for us the American who we all knew as the NFL Star willing to throw it all away to follow the flag inspiring in us the sense of duty we all felt in the aftermath of 9/11 but for whatever our individual reasons we never made it to those mountain passes in Afghanistan to confront the Taliban face to face.  Pat Tillman did…and he did indeed throw it all away, a comfortable life, great friends and family, semi-stardom as both a collegiate and pro-football player and he paid the ultimate price, laying down his life for his fellow-man.  Not so much for those of us back here in the States or for the other altruistic reasons for being there, and certainly not because he had faith in his Commander in Chief, but more specifically he laid down his life for his brothers in arms for whom he was rushing back to rescue if only to be caught in their friendly crossfire.   His willingness to live, serve, and die earns him the glory he richly deserves, that all of our servicemen deserve, despite the tragic circumstances of his or their deaths.