Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman

Commander Ghani* has just provided a vivid summation of the Pashtun principles of nang (honor), ghairat (pride), and badal (revenge), which—along with a fourth concept, melmastia (hospitality)—account for the most important tenets in an unwritten, overarching code of behavior known as Pashtunwali that has shaped culture and identity in this part of

This atomization of the nation—the hunkering of the population into a thousand premodern fiefs—proved to be ideal conditions for incubating a singularly virulent strain of terrorism that would shortly capture the attention of the world, and most especially the United States.

Before the Soviet invasion, Kandahar’s farmers produced an abundance of figs, melons, peaches, grapes, and pomegranates that were deservedly renowned for being the most delectable on earth.

The tenets of Pashtunwali are fluid, highly nuanced, and occasionally contradictory. According to the precept of melmastia, a Pashtun is obligated to show hospitality to all visitors, especially strangers. Guests are to be fed, sheltered, and protected from harm; if they request it, even mortal enemies must be given sanctuary.

According to the precept of badal, any injustice—no matter how slight—must be avenged. If a man suffers even the relatively minor insult of a personal taunt, for example, the insulted party must shed the taunter’s blood; if the taunter flees before justice can be carried out, the blood of his closest male relative must be shed in his stead. Endeavo

“What I take from Pat Tillman is that you are not who you are at your worst moment. After what Pat did to Darin, it seems like he really turned his life around and became quite an honorable person.”

As Aeschylus, the illustrious Greek tragedian, noted in the fifth century B.C., “In war, truth is the first casualty.”

This canyon was the most dramatic landform they’d seen since arriving in Khost: the sort of geologic wonder one might encounter in Utah’s Zion National Park, or the Mogollon Rim of northern Arizona. One soldier remarked that it would be “an awesome place to go rock climbing.”

The bomb had been assembled, delivered, and detonated by a Kuwaiti named Ramzi Yousef, under the supervision of his uncle Khalid Sheik Mohammed, who would later be identified as “the principal architect” of the attack against the same buildings on September 11, 2001.