Book: When Men Win Glory
Author: Jon Krakauer
Publication: 2010
Pages: 406
Completed: 4/16/25
This book is about the life of Pat Tilman, who left a lucrative NFL contract with the Arizona Cardinals, to join the US Army as a Ranger after 9/11. A timeline of events is listed below:
1) Became a varsity football player as a high school sophomore, even though he was relatively small and lightweight until his senior year, when he had a massive growth spurt.
2) Spent 30 days in jail after high school graduation (1994) and before college as a result of an assault/fight outside of a burger joint with an opposing football team. He actually beat someone who was an innocent bystander.
3) Played football at Arizona State University in 1994-97 as an inside linebacker.
4) In April 1998, he was drafted to the Arizona Cardinals in the final pick. He got a $158,000 salary & $21,000 signing bonus to play safety. He was not expected to make it past training day, but with an incredible amount of work and training, he grew into the role and later became a starter on the team.
5) 9/11/01 happened. He felt that playing football was “insignificant” relative to what could be done.
6) He resigned from the NFL in April 2002, foregoing a $3.6 million contract. He got married in May 2002 to his long-time girlfriend from high school, Marie.
7) He & his brother, Kevin, reported to Fort Benning, GA on 7/8/02 for basic training, followed by AIT (advanced infantry training). He joined as an enlisted man, even though he could have joined as an officer with his college degree. In October, he reported to jump school and later Ranger indoctrination.
8) In March of 2003, he was sent to Iraq along with his brother who was serving in the same unit. They saw virtually no combat and Pat only fired his weapon once as a warning shot to an approaching car.
9) He returned to the US on 5/15/03 where he got a vacation. He started Ranger School (he had completed indoctrination, but had not yet completed the 61-day trial of Ranger School) that would complete his training and allow him to be come a “full-tabbed ranger.” Just to pass the PT test, he need to do 66 push-ups in 2 minutes, 73 sit-ups in 2 minutes and be able to run 2 miles in 13 minutes & 45 seconds.
10) He flew to Afghanistan on 4/7/04 and proceeded on a mission to FOB Salerno in Khosti province a week later.
11) He was killed on 4/22/04 by “fratricide” within minutes of the firefight. It was interesting to note that this was his first real “firefight” and the level of unprofessionalism associated with so many of the Rangers from his unit – many of whom were in their first combat as well. The team were aggressively aiming & shooting at several of their own men & were disobeying many aspects of their training. At least two were killed and 3+ wounded as a result of this friendly fire. Equally sad and interesting is the level that the US Army took to hide this from the Tillman family, even though much of the actual Ranger team knew almost immediately how Pat & his teammates were killed/wounded. They burned his clothes & other evidence and they attempted to misdirect all of this by awarding a Silver Star to Pat within 2 weeks of his death. The generals and even the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfield, knew and chose not to say anything – probably because Pat was famous and they were on a heavy propaganda tour before Bush’s second election.
12) Later, it was proven that several officers in the US Army were fraudulently hiding the facts of the mission & could have been charged with fraud and court-martialed. They claimed it was a coincidence that they falsified documents, withheld information and violated regulations up and down the command chain. Ultimately, the general who oversaw Tillman’s unit retired, so he was made the scapegoat of it all.
13) There was a statement from Chris Hodges in the book that said, “War is always about betraya, betrayal of the young by the old, of idealists by cynics and of troops by politicians.” That sounded accurate to me.
I learned the following from this book that will increase my prospects for success after prison:
1) During basic training, Pat & Kevin Tillman met a 30-year-old who left his high school teaching job and pregnant wife to join the military. He & the Tillman brothers counted on each other for support and intelligent conversation. They had college degrees that set them apart from the other recruits. This is very analagous to what I face in prison. There are a large number of fellow inmates who did not graduate from high school or barely did. Their idea of a good day is watchng home improvement shows, reality gold mining shows or sports. They virtually read nothing, get an abridged version of the news directy from TV & constantly talk about the gossip of the BOP. I am not saying I am better than them – just different. There are several others like me and we meet to talk about more interesting topics, read classic or self-improvement books, scan/study the Wall Street Journal for good articles and solve crossword puzzles. We tend to work in the office environment of Unicor using computers and our minds. Thus I am like the Tillmans – seeking out others to have intelligent conversation and proper support.
2) The US Army is similar to the BOP – staffed by those who want to fight, tell people what to do and in general boss people around and use the theat of violence to enforce their will on others. The employees (like many enlisted men) have similar educations and are driven by rules & regulations that may or may not make sense. As Tillman writes in his journal, the recruits are “resentful, ungrateful, lazy, weak, and unvirtuous, as often as not. They bicker, complain, lie, tell tall tales, mope & grumble incessantly.” Again, these traits are not that dissimilar with some (but not all) of the C.O.’s we experience on a daily basis in prison. I don’t know that I am actually learning much from it, but it is interesting to note the similarity of these two different government organizations.
3) Pat constantly wrote in his journal with the hope that others will see him as an honest, hard-working family man with good value. I am trying to be the same type of person so that people see me the same way.
