Krakauer’s book, Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman, quotes Aeschylus on the first page: “In war, truth is the first casualty.” This is what he alleges about the Tillman case — and he includes General McChrystal squarely in that assessment. But though that allegation only made big news this weekend on Meet The Press, Krakauer was equally emphatic a month ago on The Daily Show.

“That’s what McChrystal needs to understand – this isn’t gonna go away. he should come clean and tell what really happened.”

“Twelve hours later the coverup begins,” said Krakauer on September 30th, telling the story of Tillman’s death, and putting it into context: Abu Graib is just breaking, the battle of Falluja just happened, Bush is up for re-election in six months — “they need something to divert the country’s attention.” Said Krakauer to Jon Stewart: “That was a very conscious choice…the emails prove it…they are immediately talking about how to exploit this for political gain.”

What happened next is well-known: The military awarded the Silver Star to Tillman, in a citation that mentioned “devastating enemy fire” and which McChrystal as the presiding officer signed off on. The next day he sent a memo to top generals raising the possibility of friendly fire and urging them to downplay the “enemy fire” element. McChyrstal has said he did not intend to exploit Tillman’s death and “certainly regrets” how it unfolded.

Krakauer doesn’t agree, and said on the Daily Show: “Now this is awkward, because McChrystal is highly regarded. But he nevertheless was an instrumental – probably the point man – for this cover up.” Krakauer spoke of the tenacity of the Tillman family in getting to the truth: “That’s what McChrystal needs to understand – this isn’t gonna go away. he should come clean and tell what really happened.”

Krakauer was on over a month ago. It’s surprising that this one flew under the radar, given how many sharp-eyed journalists, bloggers and media-watchers tune into the Daily Show, and regularly report on the news it makes. But it can and does happen, and happened here. What this says about Krakauer, McChrystal and his book is no different than what was picked up from Meet The Press. But what this says about so-called ‘fake’ news is, keep your eye on it. People with important things to say make a point of trying to say them on the Daily Show. So don’t fall alseep before the interview.

Full Krakauer interview below; read an excerpt from Where Men Win Glory here.

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Ever since Homo sapiens first coalesced into tribes, war has been part of the human condition. Inevitably, warring societies portray their campaigns as virtuous struggles, and present their fallen warriors as heroes who made the ultimate sacrifice for a noble cause. But death by so- called friendly fire, which is an inescapable aspect of armed conflict in the modern era, doesn’t conform to this mythic narrative. It strips away war’s heroic veneer to reveal what lies beneath. It’s an unsettling reminder that barbarism, senseless violence, and random death are commonplace even in the most “just” and “honorable” of wars. Consequently, and unsurprisingly, when soldiers accidentally kill one of their own, there is tremendous reluctance to confront the truth within the ranks of the military. There is an overwhelming inclination to keep the unsavory particulars hidden from public view, to pretend the calamity never occurred. Thus it has always been, and probably always will be. As Aeschylus, the exalted Greek tragedian, noted in the fifth century b.c., “In war, truth is the first casualty.”

When Pat Tillman was killed in Afghanistan, his Ranger regiment responded with a chorus of prevarication and disavowal. A cynical cover- up sanctioned at the highest levels of government, followed by a series of inept official investigations, cast a cloud of bewilderment and shame over the tragedy, compounding the heartbreak of Tillman’s death.

Among the several thousand pages of documents generated by military investigators, some baffling testimony emerged from the Ranger who is believed to have fired the bullets that ended Tillman’s life. In a sworn statement, this soldier explained that while shooting a ten- round burst from his machine gun at the hillside where Tillman and O’Neal were positioned, he “identified two sets of arms straight up” through the scope of his weapon. “I saw the arms waving,” he acknowledged, “but I didn’t think they were trying to signal a cease-fire.” So he pulled the trigger again and sprayed them with another ten- round burst. How was one supposed to make sense of this?

Or this: in July 2007, the Associated Press published an article reporting that the Navy pathologist who performed Tillman’s autopsy testified that the forensic evidence indicated Tillman had been shot three times in the head from a distance of thirty- five feet or less. The article prompted widespread speculation on the Internet and in the mainstream press that he had been deliberately murdered.

Many other details about the fatal firefight that found their way into the public domain were similarly perplexing. Perhaps the greatest mystery, however, surrounded not the circumstances of Tillman’s death but the essential facts of his life. Before he enlisted, Tillman was familiar to sports aficionados as an undersized, overachieving football player whose virtuosity in the defensive backfield was spellbinding. But during the four years he spent in the NFL, Tillman played for the Arizona Cardinals—a mediocre small- market team that was seldom in the limelight—so his name wasn’t widely recognized beyond the realm of hard- core football fans.

Although it wasn’t Tillman’s intention, when he left the Cardinals to join the Army he was transformed overnight into an icon of post-9/11 patriotism. Seizing the opportunity to capitalize on his celebrity, the Bush administration endeavored to use his name and image to promote what it had christened the Global War on Terror. Tillman abhorred this role. As soon as he decided to enlist, he stopped talking to the press altogether, although his silence did nothing to squelch America’s fascination with the football star who traded the bright lights and riches of the NFL for boot camp and a bad haircut. Following his death on the battlefield, the public’s interest in Tillman shot through the roof. The posthumous media frenzy shed little light on who he really was, however. The intricate mosaic of personal history that defined his existence was obscured by the blizzard of hype.

Unencumbered by biographical insight, people felt emboldened to invent all manner of personae for Tillman after his passing. Most of these renderings were based on little more than rumor and fantasy. The right- wing harridan Ann Coulter claimed him as an exemplar of Republican political values. The left- wing editorial cartoonist Ted Rall denigrated him in a four- panel comic strip as an “idiot” who joined the Army to “kill Arabs.”

Neither Coulter nor Rall had any idea what motivated Pat Tillman. Beyond his family and a small circle of close friends, few people did.

Copyright 2009 Jonathan R. Krakauer Reprinted at Amazon.com with permission from Doubleday. Read more at the book’s Amazon page.