Jon Krakauer's "Where Men Win Glory", the story of former NFL player Pat Tillman who was killed in Afghanistan, is pretty ambitious- Krakauer not only attempts to tell the story of Pat Tillman's life and surprising rise to football and his subsequent enlistment and career in the army, he attempts to explain the recent history of Afghanistan (no easy task to be sure), as well as the mistakes made by the Bush administration before and after 9/11.  Because the scope of "Where Men Win Glory" is so broad, Krakauer's writing is not as strong as some of his earlier works.

That said, Pat Tillman's story is compelling- although he was a gifted athlete throughout his life, he was smaller than the average football player and is was questionable whether he would get a football scholarship at the college level or not. He was eventually accepted by ASU and was able to start much earlier than anticipated. An unfortunate incident in a parking lot which left another young man brutally injured at Tillman's hands resulted in Tillman's incarceration in the month just before he started at ASU, which Krakauer presented as a turning point in the young man's life.

Tillman's football career continued and he was drafted by the Arizona Cardinals into the NFL. Although he wasn't a top player in the NFL, he started many games at and played against many of the football greats. During his time in the NFL, he also completed a Master's Degree in history and was a devoted boyfriend to his high school sweetheart, Marie.

When 9/11 rolled around, Tillman was just as stunned as anyone else. Over time, he slowly developed the idea of enlisting in the military to fight for his country. His younger brother Kevin enlisted with him. As Krakauer points out in "Where Men Win Glory", the government was eager to give the young athlete special attention- Tillman even received a personal letter from no less than Donald Rumsfield.

As you already know, the Pat Tillman story does not have a happy ending. Krakauer does his best throughout the remainder of the book to highlight and contrast the Tillman's from many of the other soldiers around them while they were training in the United States and at Fort Lewis. Throughout his time overseas in both Iraq and Afghanistan, Tillman remained in frequent contact with his wife, Marie.

If you don't know the rest of the story and might read the book, I suggest that you stop here because Krakauer shines at the end of the book as he pieces together the cover-up surrounding Tillman's death and the investigation initiated by Tillman's family, including some damning actions by those in the military surrounding Tillman. In effect, the military mis-led Tillman's family and the American public about the cause of Tillman's death- friendly fire- for more than a month and offered little in the way of apology or explanation afterwards. It is obvious that the death of an all-American hero was meant to be  a rallying cry for patriotism, just as the Jessica Lynch story was fabricated to cover up a friendly fire incident on the fourth day of combat in Iraq.