Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman

by Jon Krakauer

The ensuing discussion between Di Rita and the military brass was tense. The greatest disagreement concerned the choice of a spokesman to stand before the television cameras and announce that the Army had shot its poster boy. General Brown wanted someone from Rumsfeld’s office to do it, but Di Rita immediately quashed that idea. Part of his job was to make sure Rumsfeld’s fingerprints were wiped clean from crime scenes like this; he wasn’t about to let anyone associated with his boss appear within a hundred miles of this scandal. Instead, Di Rita decreed that a uniformed general would be the bearer of bad tidings. Because Tillman was a Ranger who had been killed by fellow Rangers, and it was the Ranger Regiment that had failed to keep a lid on the fratricide, the job was given to Kensinger, the highest-ranking officer in the Ranger chain of command. “They wanted to keep, sir, the other organizations separate from it,” a colonel who was present explained to an investigator. Everyone agreed that under no circumstances should Kensinger take any questions from the media after making the announcement.