• Where Men Win Glory

  • The Odyssey of Pat Tillman
  • By: Jon Krakauer
  • Narrated by: Scott Brick
  • Length: 13 hrs and 8 mins
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars (2,336 ratings)

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Where Men Win Glory  By  cover art

Where Men Win Glory

By: Jon Krakauer
Narrated by: Scott Brick
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Publisher's summary

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 account of 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.

©2009 Jon Krakauer (P)2009 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

"Jon Krakauer has done his job well; Where Men Win Glory is a tough read...[He] has tackled a task that required the distillation and organization of volumes of disparate information. That he has fielded a coherent narrative is a victory. that he has made it compelling and passionate is a difficult blessing...In mining Tillman's life and death, Krakauer uncovers a story much more compelling than anything that could be spun." - The Denver Post

"Krakauer -- whose forenseic studies of the Emrsonian Man in books such as Into Thin Air and Into the Wild yield so much insight -- has turned in a beautiful bit of reporting, documenting Tillman's life with journals and interviews with those close to him...Must be counted as the definitive version of events surrounding Tillman's death." --The Los Angeles Times

"In this wrenching account of the life and eath of NFL star Pat Tillman, killed in friendly fire in Afghanistan in 2004, Krakauer brilliants turns investigative reporter...Krakauer will break your heart recounting how the military lied about Pat's death to his parents and fellow soldier Kevin." -- People

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What listeners say about Where Men Win Glory

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars

Good book, painful narration

Enjoying the content of the book, but it sounds like it's being read by Agent Smith from the Matrix. Slow, over-enunciation, and dramatic emphasis on words and phrases that needn't be dramatically emphasized.

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39 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars

Wonderful book, will have to read it in book form

I want my money back. Scott Brick's narration is so melodramatic, his voice just SOBS, saying mundane things like, "he was just under six feet tall," sob. What a weight of schmalz in that voice. It's like every sentence is a recitation of a prayer. It's like the devastating announcements that occur in soap operas. Jeez. Give me a break! P.S. Jon Krakauer is always great. I'll have to buy the book, now.

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32 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Great Read

Thoroughly enjoyable book. Very well researched and written, and a heart wrenching story as well. Pat Tillman had a humility most of us should aspire to and was a man of great principles. His story alone is no more important than any other soldier killed in action, however the attempts by Government and Army officials to use it to their advantage (against his will) are appalling.

Scott Brick's narration is excellent (no idea how one reviewer thought he was condescending). Highly recommended audiobook.

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18 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars

Not his best.

Krakauer is one of my favoite authors, but this is not his best work. The story of Pat Tilman is riveting and as usual, well researched, but the book devolves into a repetitively preachy "expose." I don't think anyone out there would still be to shocked to find out the Army tries to cover up it own mistakes. The narrator's tone is also annoying and dripping with an indignant air. I would have enjoyed it more if I had read it myself so I could skip over the syrup.

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17 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Read a different Book on Tillman

The author hates Bush and drags the story far beyond Tillman. Biased, boring and not well done.

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14 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars

Leftist anti-Bush diatribe

I have throughly enjoyed all of Krakauer's books until this one. It started off as well as any of his other books, but there were telltale signs early on. Still, given my experience with his other books, I assumed he'd keep his reporting to the facts. When his long rant about the 2000 election was over, filled with one sided inaccuracies about "selection", I almost stopped right there. Assuming he'd get back on topic, I continued. Unfortunately his biases did as well. Continuing with his personal obsession against Bush, the book became unreadable. His lack of objectivity on such an important subject has now caused me to rethink how his obsessions may have colored his other works as well.

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14 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Politics, politics and more politics

Shame on the author for using the Tillman story to put forth his own political views. In the process he made Pat Tillman look like an arrogant whiner.

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10 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars

Could have been better

The author lets his own political opinion enter into the narrative of the story. Some of his cited facts about the wars are more opinion, that as someone who was involved in some of those actions knows they are the typical incorrect group speak put out by reporter

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10 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars

CONSERVATIVES READ THIS!!!

I have always liked and respected Krakauer's work. 'Into thin Air' and 'Under the Banner of Heaven' are very good reads. I would sill highly recommend these two selections even after his political hatchet job in 'Where Men Win Glory'. The book starts out like any Krakauer work. It was insightful, direct to the facts and well written. Near the end of the first section Krakauer inexplicably concocts a rant about the 2000 presidential election. Krakauer details the 5-4 vote by the Supreme Court to stop the count but neglects to mention the more important vote of 7-2 declaring the Florida Supreme Court's decision for a selective recount unconstitutional. In another chapter he documents several occasions when Bush was warned about imminent attacks from sleeper cells in the US and how he discarded them but failed to mention how Clinton had numerous opportunities to try to take out Bin Laden but didn't. The rest of the book is filled with a non-stop attack at the Bush administration that could have been taken directly from moveon.org's web pages. In the past Krakauer has always presented the facts and let the reader decide. This time he let his true colors show through. Thus is not an honest work by Krakauer. It is a partisan piece of leftist propaganda. It is a shame that he chose Tillman's story to vent his leftist vitriol.

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10 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars

Author takes leftist license

It's really a shame that Krakauer exploited the heroic life of Pat Tillman to use as an excuse to flaunt his extreme leftist and unpatriotic view of the war on terrorism. Obviously, Pat Tillman did not feel the same. There were some interesting parts to the story but the flash back and forth nature of the writing was too frequent and disjointed. Much of the story had nothing to do with Pat Tillman. The story could have been told much better by a more objective author.

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8 people found this helpful