New Pipe Dreams

Exile On Main Street

Tuesday marked the re-release of the classic Rolling Stones record "Exile On Main Street". Most critics consider it to be the their finest album ever. The re-release features bonus tracks and alternate takes lovingly packaged for posterity.

So it's official. Rock N' Roll is Jazz.

Cathartic Trip Down Memory Lane.

It's been 25 years since I graduated high school. A perfect opportunity to set up a reunion. When I think about how much has changed since then. Words like Internet, Google, Wikipedia, YouTube, Ipod, Photoshopped and Pearl Jam were not part of our lexicon back in the day.


Now, I went through the same school system in Mt. Olive from the day I entered kindergarten at Mt. View North until the day I graduated more than 18 years later.

When Mt. Olive class of 1985 entered eighth grade in 1980, We combined three schools, Mt. View, Sandshore, and Tinc Road students in what we called our Upper Elementary school. This expanded our class to over three hundred students, giving us an opportunity to make a lot of new friends. We were the first class to spend four full years at our high school. We then graduated and went our separate ways. I was in contact with very few of my classmates over the years. Even in casual run-ins. So, I felt I left high school way behind. Or so I thought.

My own journey took me to NYC, Jersey City, Seattle and back to Jersey. No marriage, no kids but two marriage proposals that ended before marriage. Job wise I've done everything from doing freelance art, warehouse work, retail work, sous cheffing, box hauling, bar tending, occasionally getting published, movie extra work, forklift driving, chauffeur driving, bicycle building, one singing gig, caricature work, and now security work since I threw up the flat red hat into the air in June of 1985.

So, I was apprehensive about going to any reunion. I didn't succeed in the way I hoped I would. I left Flanders, New Jersey behind when I went to SVA in NYC. I then embraced a west coast lifestyle when I lived in Seattle, Washington for 14 years and I had not talked to even one of my classmates in almost ten years, until I went on Facebook in 2008.

Say what you will about it, Facebook is an effective way in reconnecting with people. I connected with some good friends and some high school mates. Some of whom I wasn't sure I would be friends with these days. Facebook is great way to get a gist of what they are like these days. I tried it with classmates.com but blanched when they started charging for services and it wasn't nearly as effective as facebook has proven to be.

As a result I hadn't got invited to my tenth or my twentieth reunion. Just as well, I wasn't really in a good place either of those times. Still I was wondering if I had any standing with my classmates whether anyone missed me or whether people I was really good friends with are so different that any reunion would spoil the good memories.

Talking online with some of them was cool but I wasn't sure how many life changes people have been through and whether I would have a problem with that or if I would offend people with how I live my life. Still, I thought it would be fun or at least cathartic. If it didn't go well, I can just wait til the 50th which when all is said and done would seem like less time going from age 43 to 68 than from 18 to 43.

I was definitely looked forward to seeing some people and almost dreaded seeing others. I was wondering if politic battles would come up. Or reminders of what a jerk I was in high school.


I took the week off from work and decided to use the whole day of Saturday the 15th to explore the old stomping grounds before I hit the hotel. I drove up 206 from rt. 22 from my place in Union. I forget how nice the ride is on this route. So green and serene are the rolling hills on the road to Flanders. May is a great month to be in Jersey. When I approached Chester I noticed Larison's Turkey Farm is now Larison's Steak House. The Mini Mac is still there but they now have outdoor seating. I rode through my old Sutton Park neighborhood, I couldn't help but notice that many of the houses need a little bit of maintenance, including the house I grew up in.


A little serendipity allowed for me to go to the Swim & Sports Club to donate blood. It's a private but humble club I belonged to when I was a kid. It hadn't changed much. The pool's the same unlined concrete structure it was thirty years ago. I chatted up with one of the managers there and he invited me to have a beer after donating blood. That wasn't gonna happen because of the danger of drinking alcohol after donating blood. The doctor said not to drink alcohol for 24 hours. That wasn't gonna happen either.

One stop I insisted on doing was to eat at the After Charbroil & Ice Cream Parlor. It's so great to see that it's still there and looks more or less the way it was back when it opened in 1970. That was the year my family moved to Flanders. As a matter of fact, one of my earliest memories was going there with my Dad even before we moved to there. We were still checking out the building progress of our house.


The After was also where us teenagers would eat after our finals were done and we were too early to wait for the bus and too young to drive home. We would walk the long walk and stop at The After. Great ice cream, great burgers and some of the best french fries around. But I have no idea why they called it "the After". After WHAT, exactly? In 1970, there wasn't much nearby to stop in AFTER anything. The high school wasn't around, The rolling skating rink was a Foodtown at the time. Still, It's refreshing to see an independent food stop that didn't have a kitschy faux nostalgic name and ta fake "50's" theme over the years. It was still wonderful. I enjoyed a medium rare Bison Burger with a fries and a Coke and other than feeling bloated It was like I was 16 again.


So it was mid-afternoon and I'm looking to check in to the former Holiday Inn where our reunion is taking place. But first I needed gas and to get a six pack just in case I, being a beer snob, was not satisfied with the offerings at the party. Going down route 10 I gazed at where the Roxbury Mall and the Ledgewood Mall is located. It's been at least 15 years since I've seen it and it's very difficult to figure out where one ends and the other begins. Neither looking at all like it was back in the 70's and 80's. It's a text book example of where we have gone as a country in recent years. Time was, these malls featured stores that were regional. Jamesway, Caldor, Rickel, The Wiz, H.L.Green and others you would not see if you went to other parts of the country. Now pretty much every store there, Home Depot, Best Buy, Wal-Mart and others are ones you'll see in every moderately populated area from coast to coast. And with the generic remodeling, They lost their unique character.

I was happy to see that the Circle Lanes are still in Ledgewood though the Ledgewood Circle is gone as is the Ledgewood Drive-In and even that old house that sold the hubcaps. (That's what we called rims back in the day kids!)


I checked in to the Quality Inn (Formally Holiday Inn) about 3 in the afternoon. It seemed empty of people. The lobby had no one around. The parking lot was thin of cars. I was wondering if I had the right place. I'm like that sometimes. I chilled a little watching a baseball game I wasn't interested in (The hotel had no SNY.) and made a feeble attempt to ride my bicycle around the area. Not bicycle-friendly to say the least.

I killed a few more hours before I took a shower, got dressed and headed to the lobby to enter the party. First I had to check my bank account on the lobby computer to see if my check cleared to spare an embarrassing moment at the door. No problem there. I stated my name to the women handling things at the door without really looking to see if they were familiar. Since they didn't know how my last name was spelled, I guess it wasn't anyone that knew me.

I went into the room and bee-lined it to the bar to grab a bottle of courage. Before I did, I confronted Don, The only person from my high school class I've seen in recent years. Then it was glad handing all around. Everyone I saw was glad to see each other. All the high school hang ups were gone. I talked a long time to people I was surprised to talk with. Everyone I talked to seem like people I'd be comfortable hanging out on a regular basis these days even those I wasn't comfortable talking with in high school.

















I was quick to drink. Thankfully Yeugling was there. That was the only one of the beer offerings that suited me especially in that it was an open bar. Like I said I'm a snob. Beer allows me to get buzzed but not drunk. Still, I musta told about 6 women I had crushes on them. Told several others I thought they were cute and they still looked great. Being around old high school chums with a better sense of who I am will do that.

I commit few faux pas. One was that I called one woman the wrong name. She looked like someone else who just happened to be standing on my left at that very moment. That same person was one of my facebook friends whom I didn't know because I didn't know her married name and she had no profile pic. I looked closer at the woman I called the wrong and knew who it was though I mispronounced her last name. She looked really good. Another faux pas was I did an in voluntary inward hiss when someone told me what he did for a living, I slipped. But the party was polite, Nobody talking too much about their jobs. Most of the folks (womwn mostly) didn't bring their respective spouses. I was surprised how many people live are teachers now, professors even. Many of the people who don't live in Jersey were more glad to be out than I was when I lived in NYC.

I reconnected with my art class chums. Particularly, Someone I was very close with in high school and she looked great. She helped me set my course of confidence back in my senior year that lasted about ten years after high school. Another guy who was voted most artistic left art way behind and is living well having made what turned out to be the right decision.














Since most of the women were married I wasn't looking to hook up with anyone but man I was very tempted. Anyway, The party at the open bar continued in the hotel bar in which I dropped a near empty glass of beer courtesy of my numb thumb on my right hand.

After the bar was closed I was not ready to let the night go and thankfully a group of 8-10 of us congregated in to a room where we just mellowed down talking about life in general. I was noting that the last time I saw these people, If we were to have gathered in a hotel room like this drinking beer it would have been a mini-scandal being underage and all in 1985. The only scandal now would be if someone in the room had lit a cigarette.

It got to the point when it was time to crash. Despite the fact we were not young kids, We did hang out until 4AM. We left en masse and I sauntered back to my room which for some reason was nowhere frickin' near where the rest of the class's rooms were. I tried to sober up by drinking lots of water and watching TV. But I nodded pretty soon after with the TV on. Shades of my art school days.

I woke up early enough but very groggy. I made it a point to make sure I grabbed some free food before they shut it down. But they didn't have much beyond cereal and bagels. So I ate the bagels, But what I really needed was water and coffee.

No one from the party was there but soon they would show up a little worse for the wear, I was thinking it was a shame it wasn't a weekend event, It would've been great to get more reacquainted with the ones I didn't get to talk to. But many of us only took the weekend off so they had to get back. Yep, We now are responsible citizens.

Oh well, A picnic was suggested for two years from now which would be the 40th anniversary of when we entered kindergarten. That would be an all day affair at Schooley's Mountain if all goes to plan. I'll show up early this time.

My friend Paul who lives in Queens, NY needed a ride back to the bus station so we were able to catch up a little more which was great. We were hoping some of the Sutton Park South crowd was there.




















So in conclusion. My original intent to hang out and not show up for one of these events until our 50th reunion is now out the window. I now look forward to any gathering that may come up in the near future even if I move back to the west coast.

I was saddened to hear who has died since 1985. All of them were guys. Two I was pretty good friends with, One who I knew all the way from kindergarten.

Thanks to facebook I'll be in touch with many of those I saw that day.

Thanks for everything Mark, Kevin, and Mike and anyone who worked hard to put the event together.

Baltimore Bound!

I am a baseball fan. I like going to the games but I'm not really close enough to Major League parks to make more than three trips a year. It's expensive and takes a lot of time out of my day to visit them.

However, I still like to visit them, Particularly ballparks that I haven't been to yet. Since I've been back to Jersey. I've been to Shea, Its replacement New Shea, New Yankee, and the new Phillies ballpark.

I went to several ballparks on my driving trip across the USA including the beautiful Pirates ballpark, Kaufman Field, and Jacobs Field.

When I lived on the west coast I've been to both Mariner ballparks, two of the SF Giants ballparks and whatever they called the Angels stadium back in 1995.

So, I've making a point to visit as much of the northern east coasts ballparks on the east coast before my eventual move back to the west coast. Fenway is out of the question because the tickets are too hard to get. However if someone else can get tickets or if the Re4d Sox continue their downward slide....

Since I'm a Mets fan, Any of the parks I go to needs to be when the Mets are in town. The opportunity to see the Mets in an American league venue is slim because they don't play there every year except at the Yankees ballpark (And That's an impossible ticket) So since I followed the Mariners when I lived in Seattle I opt to see them when they're in town. It's an easy ticket to get because they're not high profile around here.

I've been wanting to go to Oriole Park at Camden Yard since the day they opened it up back in 1992. It's a historic park in that it started the new wave of "retro" ballparks that arose around MLB the last twenty years. When it first opened, I lived in Seattle and anytime I visited my folks any trip out there was out of the question mainly because it was a difficult ticket back then. Since I've been back ,the Orioles have been bad for so long the novelty of the park has fallen by the wayside and it's an easy ticket, especially with every other team in baseball except the Dodgers, Red Sox, Cubs and Royals either in a new ballpark or on their way to building a new one.

So, I was looking for an excuse to head to Baltimore to see them. I took a week off from work and since I had no real plans, it was a good opportunity to go down there and see the Orioles play the Mariners.





I thought about taking a train down but I waited too long to grab good (cheap) tickets down there so I opted to drive down there knowing that parking wasn't gonna be too expensive. It wasn't, but more than it needed to be. No the biggest expense in going to Baltimore involves toll roads and believe it or not the cheapest part of it is the New Jersey Turnpike. From exit 11 to exit 1 costs $4.75 which seemed like a lot of money but it is a decent distance at a cost of little more than 2 cents a mile. The Delaware Memorial bridge costs 3 dollars to cross and covers both directions so that was reasonable. But then you enter Delaware and 1-95. It costs $4.00 for a mere 11 miles. The most expensive toll road in the country. 39 cents a mile! What a scam! No wonder their state taxes are low!

But no one really wants to STAY in Delaware so it's on to Maryland and Baltimore. No toll on the way to Baltimore until you reach the Ft. McHenry Tunnel. $2.00 each way is reasonable for the well maintained tunnel.

So now I'm out $13.75 merely on tolls before I parked my car real close to the ballpark. I bought the cheapest ballpark ticket and entered the ballpark. It was an hour before the game so I wandered around taking in the vibe of the ballpark. It has aged well in its 18 years. I was surprised that the ballpark doesn't have a concourse with a full view of the field. I guess it was built before that became a regular feature in new ballparks.

I spotted former Oriole great Boog Powell at his namesake bar-b-cue stand. What a kick that was, Boog (what a great name) was a heavyset player with a powerful swing who was on the Orioles during their great years of the late 60's and early 70's. I bought one of his pork sandwiches for 9 bucks. For the second game in a row I got some food poisoning. Milder than the one I got at Citi-Field earlier this year but it put a damper on my movements. Booooog!











I finally sat in my assigned seat knowing I wasn't gonna be there too long. Not a bad view but looking down at all the empty seats available I felt the urge to sit down in the first section, Probably could have easily done it because the ballpark is very people friendly. Anyway Camden Yard is a good place to catch home runs. They have a short right field porch which can be caught by anyone who bought a ticket to the park. Three went in that direction the day I went. Too bad I'm not young enough to be more aggressive to dive after it. It including one from my favorite player in all of baseball, Ichiro Suzuki.




Besides Ichiro I'm not too familiar with most of the rest of the Mariners since I left Seattle. I noticed that about half their starting players are batting under 200. No wonder they are doing crappy. Their top pitcher Felix Hernandez was pitching okay and had a 5-1 lead until the Mariners brought in a new pitcher in the eighth, who promptly gave up a home run, a strikeout that allowed the batter to advance, a walk, a single and with one out a grand slam.

Bummer.

I left the game at that point and tried to make the most of tourism by walking around the Inner Harbor which is nice but very familiar in its attractions. though I loved the Barnes and Noble set up they have.




Time to head home. Once again I pay the toll masters. This time the amount was $15.35 for a grand total of $29.10 for tolls on the day. Holy Moley. There's got to be a way to avoid this. I stopped at a Roy Rogers (Didn't know they were still around) and over all had a good day but to pay nearly $30 for some of the least scenic roads in the country....

Yikes!




Over all a good day, But as far as Camden I dodn't expect to go back. Been there, Done that, Don't need to do it again.

Next ballpark, The one the Nationals play in Washington DC. I think I'll take a train or bus this time.

New Pipe Dreams

Tuesdays With Stevie

For the past two plus years I've had to accept the fact that I've had Tuesdays and Wednesdays off which means as a single guy I have to figure our places to go and things to do so I can have some enjoyment in my life. the days are easily occupied when the weather is nice. I ride my bicycle a lot exploring the surrounding areas of where I chose to live. I do this because my fat ass needs the exercise. I find it the most pleasurable way to do so.


Finding something to do that's fun in the evening presents a challenge, especially in the suburbs. I still have yet to find a Monday night activity nearby here in Union, NJ. Back in Seattle I had no problem finding something to do on a Monday or for that matter any day of the week. I could go to NYC but I would have to make sure I finish before the last bus leaves at around 12:30.

Right when the party gets rolling.


My favorite bar activity in recent years has bee karaoke. It was something I picked up in Seattle after a nasty breakup left me with no friends in the vicinity of where I was. So karaoke was what I came up with to meet new people. Since I can sing better than most participants, I got over my shyness in meeting people.

New Jersey is not a great place for karaoke. The stereotype of karaoke bars as being tacky, sad places are represented here. I found one that was good at the shore. Good host, Great selection of songs and a crowd that leaned on the local college crowd. After I moved up north, the haul down to Mad Hatter's was too long that I had to find a new venue. Most karaoke close to Union are on the weekends after 10 at night which is impractical for someone who gets up at 4AM.

I tried some places up here that wasn't up to snuff, so I would spend many Tuesdays down the shore, A hour plus ride. I found one place in Jersey City that did karaoke on Tuesdays called O'Connell's that I thought was okay but didn't warm up to it on my first visit.


But then I figured out something else to do on Tuesdays. I joined up a group called Meetup.com that is kinda like Match.com but it's a group gathering. I joined one groups that got together for board game nights which I find great but occurs only on a monthly basis. Then it dawned on me. What have I been wanting to do for almost 15 years but was too lazy and forgetful?

Drawing sessions using a live model.


I found one that did it on Tuesdays at Paul Vincent studios in Hoboken. Ten bucks gets you three hours of short to long poses. Any medium of your choice and the encouragement to BYOB. I bring two micro beers I buy at Super Buy Rite. And it's like I'm back in SVA classes minus the indoor smoking. Every model has been great and I get that great feeling of satisfaction in seeing my results.

The sessions are over at 10PM. An ideal time for those who work during the week. Also, It is early enough to head to O'Connell's where I have warmed up to the crowd there. It's a more cosmopolitan crowd than I would find in other bars. A great bartender named Sue who has to endure my need for her to dig deep in the fridge to grab whatever obscure beer I request from her.


I'm hoping that some of my friends would find themselves wanting to do either one of these events I do. They're fun.





Tuesdays with Stevie.

Where Was The Anger Back in the Day?

There is a lot of anger out there on the streets today. It features people shouting out slogans of hate towards the president and his agenda, Or at least their perception of what his agenda is, though it really is not based on reality or facts. Their anger is way out of proportion to what is going on in the current executive government. When one mentions how shocking the hatred to our current president is, The usual retort is that the hatred is nothing compared to the hatred of George Bush by those on the left.


Well, first I would disagree with that. At this point (2002) during the Bush years, There was nowhere near the amount of protests against the government. Certainly there was no media outlet on television that slammed Bush 24/7 back then. This was despite the fact that at this time during the Bush years he had stolen the presidency (Violated the 10Th Amendment of the Constitution in the process), Failed to prevent the largest terrorist attack in world history despite ample warnings, Gave money to the Taliban (Supposedly In reward for eradicating poppy fields), Started a mismanaged war in response while planning a disastrous war based on lies and Bush had an economy that was on a faster downward spiral than the economy is now.

No, We weren't attacking the president back then in significant numbers, We were told to respect the presidency by the dominant media of the day. Or else.

I just read the book "Where Men Win Glory" I picked out of the library. It wasn't my intention to read another book that reaffirms my negative feelings towards the Bush administration. I had just finished the book "Zeitoun" that showed how much the Bush administration was culpable in the New Orleans disaster. But when you read "Where Men Win Glory" by Jon Krakauer, You can't help but feel a real anger that WOULD justify the kind of protests that are out there today but money is more important to the teabaggers than people's lives so I guess I'm barking up the wrong tree.


"Where Men Win Glory" is a broad overview of the Pat Tillman story and the events surrounding his death. Pat Tillman was a NFL football player, Who right at the peak of his playing days rejected a million dollar football contract to join the US Army after the events of 9-11 convinced him that he needed to do something more direct than to put a yellow magnet on his car.

The Bush administration was using any opportunity to rally people to his so-called "War on Terror" and Pat Tillman's enlistment was a PR dream. A top tiered football player leaving his millionaire job to fight for his country. That was great! The rest of us can go back to shopping.

About a year and a half after he joined Pat Tillman died in combat after his unit got ambushed. The news was shocking to say the least. Still the PR machines went into overdrive about Tillman's heroics against the enemy combatants. Far Right Winger Ann Coulter was praising Tillman for fighting for the conservative cause and Left wing cartoonist Ted Rall did a cartoon that was misconstrued as slamming Tillman as a lunkhead who was an idiot for joining the Army Rall DID feel that Tillman was a tool. Neither of them got the story correct. Pat Tillman's story was more complicated than that.

For one thing Pat Tillman wasn't your typical football player. He was pretty much an atheist who was fascinated with other religions and philosophies and was always looking to expand his knowledge of the world. He was a listener who always sought out other people for debates, He deemed that everyone regardless of education had something of value to express. He was very tough guy who could be very sensitive and angst ridden. He was a cat person. He kept a journal that revealed among other things that his reaction to 9-11 wasn't as knee-jerk as we were led to believe.

For one thing He took time to examine all the reasons he should go or not go to fight. He thought it out for a long time before he joined the Army. He did not come from a military family, so it wasn't a family trait or duty. His parents encouraged free thinking.

He was critical of the Bush administration approach to the war in Afghanistan and did whatever he can to avoid being used as a PR tool for the cause. He gave no interviews after joining the army because he didn't want to be used as a tool for someone else's PR campaign. He even talked about voting for John Kerry in 2004 and set up a future meeting with left wing intellectual Noam Chomsky.

Pat Tillman in his efforts to convince his family he was doing the right thing always pointed out that he signed up for only three years and that when he got back he would be less than 30 years old and would have enough years in the NFL to live modestly enough to live comfortably for the rest of his life. He was confident enough to know he had the skills to become an elite Army Ranger and spent most of his time training to be one.

Meanwhile, Bush was planning on starting a second war with Iraq. Through a series of speeches and misdirects and a media that was shockingly uncritical of the information that was given them, Americans were convinced that we needed to fight in Iraq in order to win the "War On Terror" and to wipe out Saddam Hussein's "Weapons of Mass Destruction"

Tillman was already enlisted but was skeptical about any reason to got to Iraq. But when he was done with training it was Iraq that he went to. He was in the vicinity of where Jessica Lynch and her unit was ambushed by Iraqis during a botched mission. Tillman observed with interest how her story got played up in the media, How the first casualty of war, The truth, was on its way to being absent from any official news coverage of the day. The propaganda in telling the Jessica Lynch story to the American people was so laughingly transparently lacking in truth it made Tillman take notice.

Tillman became very aware of the possibility that his own possible death would be used for PR purposes and made every effort to ensure that it wouldn't. Tillman's brother Kevin joined the army and served in the same unit as his brother Pat. Tillman constantly talked to his brother and others to ensure that his death would not be party to propaganda. However, When you're dead, there is nothing you can do to prevent this.

On April 22, 2004, Pat Tillman was killed in Afghanistan. It was reported he was killed by the enemy in an ambush. It was an ambush all right but shot by the enemy? Well, if you're Pogo the possum there may be truth to it. Since it was one of our own soldiers that shot Pat Tillman dead. A victim of fratricide, otherwise known by the sickeningly evasive term "friendly fire"

In the immediate aftermath of Tillman's death, The media was reporting his death as the results of enemy fire, Fed by the deliberately evasive army and administration "official" reports. Sure enough, Tillman's worst fears came true as his death was being used as a recruitment tool. It was election year and both wars were starting to be bogged down by both incompetence and indifference and the idea that an NFL hero sacrificed his riches and his life to fight the "War on Terror" was gold for Bush and his election chances in 2004. And the media went along with that. They didn't investigate with any effort the real events that led to Tillman's death.


After the media had their field day reporting Pat Tillman's heroics, After Pat Tillman's unit was told to be silent about the events, After memorials for Tillman that called for some revenge, and after his story started to fade away the Tillman family was finally told that Pat Tillman "may" have been the victim of friendly fire.

Now, the army has a history of not revealing all the facts of goes on in a time of war. They feel it hurts morale so they do whatever they can to soften the blow. They thought that telling the family the truth (as little as necessary) would allow any possible investigation to fade in the sunset.

But there was a fly in the ointment. That fly was named Mary Tillman, Pat's mother. She was not satisfied with the army's version of the truth. She and her family took advantage of Pat's notoriety to find out the truth. Her tenaciousness finally got the absurd events that led to Pat Tillman's death and the absurd efforts to cover it up.

It all started with a broken down Humvee while Tillman's unit was on patrol in Afghanistan in April of 2004.

The breakdown of the Humvee was definitely a problem. One solution was to call for a helicopter to come and take it away. That was deemed impractical to the higher ups as that type of resource was being put to "better use" in Iraq. (By 2004, Bush was not concerned with Bin Laden anymore despite the fact that Saddam Hussein was already captured and the war in Iraq was really over and that the only reason we were still there in my estimation was so Bush would win his election in 2004. Remember, Daddy Bush left Iraq too early in 1991 and lost his re-election bid in 1992. George Bush Junior didn't want to make that mistake.) So any efficiency of moving that Humvee by helicopter was out of question.

Leaving the Humvee behind even with all the equipment taken out and leaving a burning husk was also out of the question for "security" reasons. So the unit had to figure out how to tow away the Humvee while continuing their mission. They hired a local tower to tow it.


Then the platoon gets a command (from afar) to split up into two groups despite hard protests by those who were in-country. They were ordered to fulfill an arbitrary Donald Rumsfeld created timetable, and the broken down Humvee threatened this goal. They split up, Serial One with Pat Tillman going one way, Serial Two with Kevin Tillman going another way. Treacherous roads forced Serial Two to backtrack and head back the same path as Serial One.

Meanwhile it got dark and Serial One was set up in the hills to await any possible ambush by the enemy. Meanwhile Serial Two approaches and mistakes Serial One for the enemy and starts shooting. Serial One knew quickly that Serial Two was friendly and did whatever it took to indicate they were friendly. That included Pat Tillman standing up declaring "I'm Fuckin' Pat Tillman!" but to no avail. In the "fog of war" soldiers can get trigger happy and tragic results can happen. Pat Tillman was shot in the head at close range by a soldier in his own unit who never bothered to confirm whether he was shooting at an enemy.

You can expect misinformation to come out of a tragedy as this but the amount of lies, cover ups, and propaganda surrounding Tillman's death was shameful. The Bush administration was effective at using the emotions of Tillman's death to further their agenda that when the truth finally did come out, Americans were tired of the story and were weary of the war enough to not be outraged at a cover up at Watergate proportions.

Bush won in 2004, barely. No American president has ever lost an election during a time of war but Bush came really close.

Yes, Jon Krakauer rakes the Bush administration over the coals, particularly Donald Rumsfeld. But he does expose all facets of Patrick Tillman's personality including some of his character flaws. Krakauer examines Osama Bin Laden's history and matches time lines of his life with that of Pat Tillman to give you a sense on how such different paths of the two men would meet in the world theater.


But the most shocking revelation in Krakauer's book is in his overview of the history of Afghanistan that Jimmy Carter may have been responsible for the end of the Cold War. (my interpretation) Krakauer was not giving props to Jimmy Carter. He was critical of his behind the scenes actions that drew the Soviet Union to invade Afghanistan and get lost in a decade long quagmire that ultimately severed the Soviet Union will.


This book made me angry at the stupidity of war, Angry at the way Tillman's death was covered up, Angry at how easily the populous can be led to believe obvious lies of an administrations. Angry enough to understand teabagger like protests (minus the illiterate racist signs)if it were to occur back when the events of Tillman's death happened.


But Krakauer is no liberal hack. He is an outdoors man who identified with Pat Tillman's gusto for adventure and danger. He wrote "Into The Wild" and "Into Thin Air". "Where Men Win Glory" gives a good overview of both wars and the history of Afghanistan and Bin Laden that will give enough Bush apologists enough meat to overlook any Bush bashing. I recommend it but be forewarned it may make you angry.