Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman

by Jon Krakauer

All the recommendation material that McChrystal approved and submitted to Secretary Brownlee was painstakingly written to create the impression that Tillman was killed by enemy fire. By any objective measure, the recommendation was fraudulent. On June 2, 2009, after President Obama nominated McChrystal to command U.S. forces in Afghanistan, the matter of the misleading medal recommendation was raised during the general’s confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee. Senator John McCain asked McChrystal to explain why, five years earlier, he had submitted the falsified Silver Star recommendation to the secretary of the Army “in the form that it was in.”