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Krakauer's new book examines Pat Tillman's death
Jon Krakauer has never shied away from assigning blame for blunders, especially fatal blunders. In his best-selling account of a disastrous 1996 climb of Mount Everest, "Into Thin Air," he dished out stinging criticism to a professional guide and even chastised himself.
His new book, "Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman," pulses with indignation at the generals, politicians and soldiers he holds responsible for the death of Tillman, the NFL star-turned-Army Ranger killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan in 2004.
But the sharpest rebukes are aimed at those Krakauer accuses of covering up the truth of Tillman's death, fabricating a more heroic story and then using it to distract the media and the public from bad news coming out of Iraq.
"You've got to explain what happened, and when you explain what happened, you've got to name names," Krakauer said in an interview in Boulder, where he lives.