Worth Fighting For: An Army Ranger’s Journey out of the Military and Across America

Fanning combines memoir, travelogue, political tract, and history lesson in this engaging account of his 3,000-mile solo walk from Virginia to California to raise money for the Pat Tillman Foundation. Fanning recounts his childhood struggles and his rocky military career as an Army Ranger in Afghanistan, during which he grew severely disillusioned with the war over the course of two tours. That disillusionment led him to become a conscientious objector and request a discharge the service. Several years later, in 2008, he decided to walk coast-to-coast for the foundation that was set up to honor Tillman, the NFL safety who joined the Army and was killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan. Fanning’s descriptions of the hardships and highlights of the trip comprise the bulk of the book, and he infuses his left-wing politics into a narrative peppered with historical tidbits, most of which describe less-than-honorable moments in American history, such as the terrorist actions of the Ku Klux Klan and the nation’s Indian removal policies. What stands out most, though, is the selflessness and generosity—which come in the form of stories, hospitality, and donations for the foundation—of the people Fanning encountered during his journey. [em](Nov.) [/em]