Towards the end of this book, Marie Tillman describes her first few months after the death of her husband, Pat Tillman:
“Probably the first couple of months that I was back, I would sit at my desk and look out the window all day. The company I worked for was really understanding. They let me come in and just sit there. I had no idea what I was supposed to do next. The life I’d had was basically gone. So every morning I would get up at quarter to 5, get in the car, go up to Seattle, and look out the window…And I did that for months and months and months and months.” (p.386)
Yes, the word ‘months’ was written four times.
I’ve read and re-read that short paragraph many times. Cos if you want the simplest truest description of grief (esp the time immediately following your loved one’s death), that’s probably it.
“Staring out the window 24/7” — even if you’re not or if you’re very busy doing stuff.
“Staring out the window 24/7” — that describes how I’ve felt after my wife’s passing, esp the first 2 months.
I didn’t expect to be emotionally slammed by that passage after 300+ pages of a book I was expecting to finish soon, but such is the unpredictability of books I guess.
Jon Krakauer’s brilliance is his ability to bring out human trauma, despair, anguish, yet coupled with desire, willpower in it’s 200% no-holds-barred intensity. He demonstrated this in his classic “Into the Wild”, a story about the uber-idealistic Chris McCandles who walked off society’s grid and into the wilderness of Alaska; “Where Men Win Glory” has a similar theme.
This book is about Pat Tillman, a pro-football player turned Ranger who was killed in Afghanistan from friendly fire. This dude, not unlike McCandles, chucked aside a promising millionaire career playing football to enlist in the Army. Why? Because he felt he had a duty to fight for the country after 9/11.
That’s it.
That kind of psychology/mindset ALONE is probably worth a few tomes.
How many ppl you know are gonna put aside ‘everything’ (money, career, comfort, a wonderful marriage) to do something relatively dangerous (for a few years), simply because of beliefs or ideals?
The book details how all the branches of U.S. military leadership from the Army up to the White House purposefully deceived the family and the media about the cause of Tillman’s death, portraying it was KIA thru enemy fire, in their attempts to bolster PR for the war.
It’s also partially a history book outlining military-historical developments in Afghanistan from the 70s’, the Russian and CIA involvement, the rise of Osama bin Laden, the involvement of Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Pakistan, the Taliban and so on leading up to 9/11 and the U.S. invasion.
Think of a Khaled Hosseini novel chapter, with a lot less ‘flourish’ and a lot more info.
