CelestialFamily

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My Review of Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman by Jon Krakauer

(Warning: There are a few spoilers)

First of all, I must confess that the only reason I chose to read this book was because I love Jon Krakauer’s work. As I pointed out last week I think he is an excellent investigative reporter. Even when the events he’s reporting on are partially concealed by the Alaskan back-country, the deadly slopes of the highest mountain in the world, secretive polygamist societies or in this case by the chaos and fog of war. I had made up my mind about Pat Tillman and was not really interested in devoting my reading time to this poster-boy of the war effort in Iraq. It was only my history with Krakauer’s work that made me reconsider my prejudices. And my preconceptions about Tillman couldn’t have been more wrong.
Since I don’t understand football I didn’t have any clue who Pat Tillman was before the Bush administration chose to make him the poster boy for the war effort when he turned his back on a $3,000,000 contract to join the Rangers and do his part to help out in the war in Afghanistan. I don’t think that football players are a special class of people so I saw his sacrifice as just the same as any other person who chose to put their life in danger to protect my rights. And I got a particular bee in my bonnet after his death when the right wing media tried to spin his death as meaning more than any other soldier’s death. Tillman put himself in harm’s way to protect my liberties. He literally gave his all. Yet so did thousands of other soldiers. Their future earning potential is irrelevant. They gave their lives for this country.
So I had pigeon-holed Pat Tillman, without any research on my part, as a mindless jock who just jumped behind the war effort because he’d heard Toby Keith’s song and wanted to go act it out. Indeed that is the way much of the talk show noise spun his enlistment. If you still believe this distortion of who Pat really was you will be very disappointed when you read the book.
Pat was probably one of the more literate people to ever wear an NFL jersey. When the other players on his team were buying the fanciest cars they could and just partying, Pat was being teased about driving his used Volvo to practice and spending most of his spare time completing his Master’s degree. Pat was a voracious reader. Among his favorite authors was Emerson, Thoreau, Homer and Noam Chomsky. The title of the book is a quote from the Odyssey, which Tillman particularly like and had a copy of it with him in Afghanistan.
Pat kept meticulous journals. Much of the book is quotes taken straight from these journals. At a couple points Krakauer used phrases that I thought were unnecessarily partisan. I thought that he was just putting his own opinions into the book which wouldn’t have been appropriate for an investigative report like this. Then I stepped back and realized that these weren’t Krakauer’s opinions, they were Tillman’s taken straight from his journals. With my preconception of Pat I just hadn’t expected him to make statements like, “the neo-conservative brain-trust in The White House” and “that cowboy at the helm”. Those were some of the nicer things that Pat said about his Commander-in-Chief. You see Pat really didn’t fit the mold. He didn’t think we had any business in Iraq at all. He and his brother, Kevin, had enlisted to assist in the war in Afghanistan. They were both very vocal and upset and felt tricked into fighting in a war they didn’t agree with.
Krakauer departed strictly from Tillman’s story for a little bit to give a history of U. S. friendly fire accidents. Although the press didn’t dwell on it too much the first confirmed deaths of the Iraq war were friendly-fire accidents. This short history of accidental fratricide in the military was necessary to show the predisposition of the military to covering up the facts. In a friendly fire death the investigative agency is the military itself. There is no other agency involved like there is with other accidents. In a plane crash the airline doesn’t investigate themselves. That task falls to the NTSB in order to avoid a conflict of interest. So with the military there is a serious conflict of interest and tendency to push the blame as far down the chain of command as possible. This section seemed hauntingly familiar and I kept thinking about Zimbardo’s work on situational evil.
The descriptions of war in this book are quite graphic and not for the squeamish. The day I finished the book I was so emotionally jarred by it that when I came home and saw my son taking joy in a war video game I just couldn’t stay quiet. He deserved to be criticized for his behavior, but I was definitely responding more to my feeling about this book than I was to his behavior.
“When the military is confronted with the fratricidal carnage that predictably results, denial and dissembling are its time honored responses of first resort.”
After Tillman’s death the extent to which the military and the government took to spin and cover up the specifics was particularly unnerving. The members of Pat’s unit were sworn to secrecy about the incident even from Pat’s brother, Kevin who was in the same unit. The doctor who performed Pat’s autopsy was denied the details of his death and ultimately refused to sign the official report because his investigation had been so hindered that he knew his autopsy was incomplete. Pat’s brain was never actually recovered. Pat’s uniform, body armor and personal effects were removed and burned in open defiance of military protocol. Along with the uniform was a notebook that Pat had been keeping his journal on while they were deployed. Of the two letters written for Pat’s posthumous Silver Star one was edited so much in the final edition that the author didn’t even recognize it and the other was unsigned and the alleged author did not remember even writing it.
I’m glad I read this book. It put a face on the men and women who are dying in our country's wars. I’m glad I got to know Tillman better. I still think it’s a shame that there isn’t a similar book written about every single soldier killed in action. The Bush administration unashamedly tried to spin Tillman’s story into a ideal of post 9-11 patriotism. Instead Tillman’s story became a story of unnecessary sacrifice, inept leadership and cover-up. But Pat’s legacy is stronger than that. Thanks his mother, brother, wife and this book Pat still refuses to be reduced to a stereotype and lives on in the lives of those he inspired.

Rachel, Noah and Eve went in for their yearly check-ups last week. Only Noah needed a shot. He got the Chicken Pox booster. I told him he could squeeze my hand if he needed to. I watched his mouth pop open when the needle went in, then he shut it. I looked at him and asked if it hurt? The nurse had the bandaid ready and was looking for the puncture, but wasn's finding it and asked Noah were it was. Then Noah said, "If shots were as painful as they are rumored to be you think I would be able to find it."

Everyone is growing well and pretty healthy. I asked about Noah's ever present bumps on his face. The doctor said it is a hereditary condition called pilaris keratosis. He also has patches on the back of his arms. The doctor recommended Lac-Hydrin. Noah wondered if that meant he could stop washing with the acne wash I had for the kids. I told him no. His skin has a harder time naturally sloughing off cells, so he gets some acne too. Some treatments list Retin-A, but Eve is allergic and so is my nephew Tyler. It leaves red burned patches of skin where the ointment touches, so that idea is out for any of my kids. The doctor said the condition should lessen as he gets older. Noah seemed to get the majority of the attention on this visit. We had him show the doctor how he can pretzel twist his fingers together in a really disturbing, yet interesting way. I wondered if this was a contributing factor to his poor fine motor ability, but the doctor didn't think so. He said that Noah just appeared to have very lax joints. We joke with Noah that he has little paws, and old man ear lobes, so we know his just has lax joints and connective tissue. Hmmm...interesting.



A fun and busy weekend. On Saturday morning I joined Rachel, Julia, Hannah, and Julia's mom, Karen in front of the Wallsmart to sell Girl Scout cookies at a booth sale. It was chilly, but we enjoyed being silly together. Sometimes people would walk out of the store with their carts loaded with different items and we would yell happily about how well that item went with cookies. I made Karen lose her train of thought when I yelled as a man passed by that cookies went great with Bud Light. Later, Rachel told a customer that cookies went well with birdseed. Hey, we worked with what we had. The girls made up a song to the old "Camp Town Races" tune:

C-o-o-k-i-e-s, Cookies! Cookies!
C-o-o-k-i-e-s, Cookies are our friends! Whoo!

We sold most of our wares with just a few dosidos and trefoils left.

Then, we went to Steak and Shake. I called Michael and invited him to bring Aaron, Aaron's friends Jeremy (who slept over) and Shafer. The place was packed so we had to do two nearby booths. Rachel and Julia crumbled a couple of samoas into their vanilla shakes.

The rest of the day I hung out at my mom and Jim's house and kept an eye on my brother so they could go out to a church activity. Michael stayed with Aaron and Rachel. I was able to finish The Lightning Thief by Riordan. Noah begged me to read this book. He gets very animated when he talks about the series and wanted to be able for me to understand what he was so excited about.

I saw the movie before reading the book, which is not the order I like to do things. I was rather stunned as each chapter rolled by that the only thing resembling the book that was in the movie was some of the main characters and the book title. I was less than unimpressed by the movie, but was willing to give the book a chance. The book is directed at the Middle School aged audience, but really hits the mark for the 4th-6th grade set and hovers there. The perils and adventures in the life of Percy Jackson are explained away as the whims and petty jealousies of the bickering Greek gods. I can see why young kids would find this book quite a lot of fun, but I found it rather tedious and am curious its literary staying power.

On a more positive note about this book series, it lit the flame of reading under my reluctant 9 year-old, and for that I am thankful to Mr. Riordan. I find Noah perched (yes, he perches when he reads. I'll have to post a picture of it some time)reading all the time now. He finished every book in the Percy Jackson series and is reading a Mythology book from his teacher's collection. He is also into the ,Animorphs book series.

Another Book Review:
I am absolutely amazed by Navajo Code Talkers. Thanks to Noah's teacher, who lent me this book of historical fiction of the invaluable contribution of the Code Talkers during WWII, I was able to learn more about their struggles.
I agonized over the way the government tried to strip the tribal peoples of their language and culture. The Navajo, along with other tribes, were physically harmed if they used their language or ways, then were called upon to use that same banned language to assist the war effort with their unbreakable code. They were unable to talk about what they did for the U.S. and freedom until the lifting of the top secret status in 1969.
I found it fascinating that they were very suited to the strenous life of a Marine, except for the cultural mistrust of water, which they overcame. Their stoic nature made it difficult for them to get help for the post traumatic stress that the horrors of war brought to them. The war gave them the opportunity to prove that their language is valuable and if the government and bigotry had won out, than that same government may have sewn the seed of its own destruction. I think these cautionary tales need to be frequently read. We can use this story into other facets of our life to realize the thing we destroy today, or disregard its value is the very thing that may preserve our lives tomorrow.



This is the first in the series of books set in the dystopian world a few hundred years from now when the "Rusties" have left some of the world in desolation. There are cities that rose from the rubble with advanced technology and the desire to stop future aggression and destruction by making everyone virtually the same. You are an "Ugly" until your 16th birthday, then you get an operation to make you physically attractive and almost impervious to illness. You also become rather docile. This life of perfection is the thing that most uglies desire. Tally Youngblood, the main character, looks forward to her operation, but in the mean time likes to do "tricks" to pass the time. Tally learns that there are people in "The Smoke" that want to live the rest of their lives ugly.

The book is aimed at the young adult group and really hits the mark. I thought the ideas were a great extension of an old Twilight Zone episode. The book is fast paced and interesting throughout. The character of Dr. Cable is a good foil for Tally's character. A good start to the series.




The second in the series finds Tally "Pretty". She finds friends in a clique called "The Crims" who did a lot of tricks during their ugly days. She lives in a world of beauty, parties, limitless food (with calorie purgers), yet is visited by feelings of inadequacy and longing for something she can't quite remember.

This series is like watching a chess match. The interesting thing is that Tally Youngblod's character seems to shift from pawn, to queen, to pawn again. Again the pace is fast and the pretty language is kind of Valley Girlesque, but appropriate. A solid sequel. I look forward to the third book.

The book I'm reading now is, Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell.

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Well, Michael made a yummy late lunch of scrambled eggs, bacon, and sweet potato/russet potato hashbrown, so I'm ready to curl up with a book. Two kids are in timeout for fighting and the other two just got out. There is an air of peace in the house, so maybe I could slip in a nap too?

Later!

The White Mountain from charles on Vimeo.

ZZ Shutters
A little bit of a different take on the things to see at Callaway Gardens.

African Daisy

I initially read Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith when it first came out six or seven years ago. That was before several recent high profile polygamy cases and the HBO series “Big Love”. These recent events prompted me to read it again. I also had a friend tell me that he was interested in hearing what I thought of the book. I couldn’t find my original review so I’ll do my best to cover all those details as well as post some of my impressions from reading it the second time.
Krakauer has a very easy to read style. His books feel like the in depth investigative reports that they are. All of them have a similar approach that works very well. He starts with quick overview of what hit the news. Then he goes backwards as far as he has to on each line to explain why the events unfolded as they did. I’m currently reading Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman. He’s using this same format to tell Pat’s story and it’s working very well.
In Under the Banner of Heaven the news story was the savage 1984 murders of Brenda Lafferty and her daughter, Erica by her two brothers-in-law Dan and Ron Lafferty. The Lafferty brothers were members of a polygamist sect of the LDS church. The details of the murders were very tough to read. But had Krakauer stopped with the events of that year it would have been very incomplete. It was important to explain what lead up to the murders and what caused these murders to believe that they had the right and even the duty to murder innocent family members.
To get those answers Krakauer had to go back to the early 1800s and pull a lot of skeletons out of a lot of closets. This is the primary section that most Mormon readers will be uncomfortable with. The history of Joseph Smith is presented based on the contemporary evidence. Most LDS readers would not be familiar with this since they are likely used to the whitewashed “official” versions of the history of the early church. That being said I did not think that one sentence of the history was mean spirited or could honestly be classified as persecution. But if you’re the type that refuses to accept any imperfections in the people you have chosen to follow you might want to stay clear.
The simple truth is that polygamy would not exist to anywhere near the extent that it does in the United States if it were not for the actions of one man, Joseph Smith. Giving an accurate account of the Lafferty murders without mentioning Joseph Smith would be like writing a book about September 11th, 2001 that did not mention Islam. Like it or not, the LDS Church will be forever linked to these polygamist sects who, incidentally, all believe that it is the Salt Lake church that has gone astray and they are preserving the true teachings of Joseph Smith.
I’ve detailed some of my own opinions on polygamy previously on this blog and explained how it’s a mathematical recipe for child abuse. And here is a link to some of my Great-Grandfather's journals. He grew up in a home that still practiced polygamy long after the 1890 declaration by the church stating that it was a forbidden practice. One of the next books I have on my reading list is Lost Boy. Victoria just finished reading it and from her report it seems to validate my mathematical theory.
In my humble opinion Under the Banner of Heaven should be read by every Latter Day-Saint. The practice of polygamy never should have been officially sanctioned by the church and I believe that Salt Lake should take much more drastic measures to apologize, make amends and distance themselves from this evil practice. Simply saying “Yeah but that’s in the past. We don’t do that anymore.” is seriously inadequate.

African Daisy

African Daisies II

Loganville Sunrise 03-01-2010
As is usually the case when shooting from my backyard there's really not much to compose with except for a long line of roof tops and privacy fences. I need to move.