Posted on 07/02/2007 11:52:31 AM PDT by Dubya
War forces terrible decisions on young men. No one knows that better than Marcus Luttrell.
In June 2005, on a barren mountain high in the Taliban-infested Hindu Kush, Luttrell and three fellow Navy SEALs came together to talk. Their mission — to locate and possibly take out an important Taliban leader hiding in the Afghan village below — had just been compromised. Three goatherds, one a boy of about 14, had blundered onto their position. Sitting against a log under the watchful eyes of their captors, the Afghans clearly weren't happy to see the Americans. On the other hand, they were unarmed, technically civilians.
As about 100 goats milled about, Petty Officers Matthew Axelson, Danny Dietz and Luttrell, and their commander, Lt. Michael Murphy, discussed what to do. Having tried and failed earlier to make radio contact with their home base, they were on their own.
As they saw it, they had two options: kill the Afghans, or let them go and hope for the best. They let them go.
It's a decision Luttrell bitterly regrets.
Within hours, more than 100 Taliban fighters descended on the SEAL team. In the terrible gun battle that followed, Murphy, Axelson and Dietz died. A few miles away, a Taliban grenade brought down a rescue helicopter on its way to help the trapped men, killing all 16 aboard. It was the worst day in the 40-year history of the Navy SEALs.
Luttrell, who was born in Houston and raised on a small ranch outside Huntsville, recounts the harrowing events of that day and the days that followed in Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10. Co-written with novelist and biographer Patrick Robinson, the just-released book includes one of the most gripping and heartbreaking descriptions of heroism in combat to come out of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. On Sunday, Lone Survivor debuted at No. 6 on the New York Times best seller list.
The book is also an astonishing survival tale. Luttrell, half-dead, was taken in by Afghan villagers, many of whom probably had family ties to the Taliban. Having discussed the matter, they decided to grant the injured man lokhay warkawal, the protection of the village. They would be honor-bound, under this strict Pashtun tribal law, to protect Luttrell and not give him up.
"One of the lessons I learned was that there are good people everywhere," Luttrell said. "That village, Sabray, saved my life."
Luttrell, who received his Navy discharge early last month and has moved back to Walker County, discussed Lone Survivor recently over lunch in downtown Houston. His 6-foot-5, 230-pound frame squeezed into his only civilian suit, he wasn't enjoying himself. He admits he hates doing interviews. In the book, he expresses frequent disdain for the "liberal media" and "liberals" in general, whom he blames for imposing naive rules of engagement that jeopardize American lives, and for second-guessing difficult, split-second decisions soldiers in combat must make. While polite, ending sentences with a military-style "sir," he's intense and terse.
His friends' deaths remain raw and immediate and understandably painful to talk about. "Thirty seconds of every minute," he shot back when asked how often he thinks of that day. He can't sleep. He just goes until he collapses, he said. Then the nightmares jerk him back awake.
"The endless guilt of the survivor," as he puts it in the prologue of the book.
What was the right thing to do on the mountain? In the book, Luttrell describes how the team talked it out, trying to find the best course of action. If they killed the men, they worried, the American media would get wind of it, and they'd be charged with murder.
Luttrell wondered what great commanders in the past — Napoleon, Omar Bradley, MacArthur — would have done.
"Would they have made the ice-cold military decision to execute these cats because they posed a clear and present danger to their men?"
On the other hand, he felt the promptings of "another soul. My Christian soul."
"Something kept whispering in the back of my mind, it would be wrong to execute these unarmed men in cold blood."
He reports that Axelson favored killing the goatherds. Dietz was neutral. Murphy and Luttrell voted to let them go.
"It was the stupidest, most southern-fried, lamebrained decision I ever made in my life," Luttrell writes. "I must have been out of my mind. I had actually cast a vote which I knew could sign our death warrant. I'd turned into a (expletive) liberal, a half-assed, no-logic nitwit, all heart, no brain, and the judgment of a jack rabbit.
"At least, that's how I look back on those moments now. Probably not then, but for nearly every waking hour of my life since. No night passes when I don't wake in a cold sweat thinking of those moments on that mountain. I'll never get over it."
He's certain the goatherds betrayed their presence to the Taliban. "In my opinion, we should have killed them," he says today. "I regret it every day. I miss my friends."
He wrote the book to pay tribute to his friends' heroism, he said. "No matter what I say or what I put into words, it won't do justice to what they did out there."
The 50-page narrative of the fight is riveting. In Luttrell and Robinson's telling, the SEALs fought furiously but coolly, inflicting terrific casualties on the enemy. But the Americans faced overwhelming odds.
At one point Luttrell likens the fight to a 21st century version of "Little Bighorn with turbans."
Three times the SEALs threw themselves down the sheer face of the mountain to escape the Afghans, who were coming at them from three sides. Axelson, Dietz and Murphy all sustained numerous wounds but kept fighting. Near the end, Murphy deliberately exposed himself, moving into an open space to try to make his cell phone work. He managed to get through.
"My guys are dying out here ... we need help," he told headquarters before a bullet in the back knocked him to the ground. He struggled back to cover and continued fighting. It was that cell-phone call that summoned the ill-fated helicopter rescuers.
Dietz died first, followed by Murphy, whose cries for help, Luttrell, pinned down, couldn't answer. In his nightmares, he still hears those cries.
As he cradled a dying Axelson in his arms, a grenade blew them apart and tossed Luttrell into a ravine.
His friends gone, Luttrell managed to work himself out of sight of the enemy. But he was in bad shape — his legs full of shrapnel, his nose broken, three cracked vertebrae in his back. That night and the next day, he dragged his wounded body over the mountains in a desperate search for water.
Having finally found a watering hole, he looked up to see a half dozen armed Afghans surrounding him.
"Taliban?" Luttrell asked.
"No Taliban," the leader responded, running the edge of his hand across his throat. "No Taliban."
The man was Sarawa, the doctor of Sabray, the village Luttrell's team had been observing. Sarawa and his men hauled the American down the mountain. But Luttrell was hardly home free. The Taliban arrived and for several hours roughly interrogated him, breaking his wrist.
Finally, the village elder came into the hut and laid down the law: Luttrell wasn't to be harmed. Lokhay warkawal.
The elder's son, Gulab, became Luttrell's friend and chief protector. But the Taliban continued to threaten the village, demanding the American's handover. Something obviously had to be done quickly.
Gulab's father took off on foot for a nearby American base. Not long after, Gulab was able to hustle Luttrell into contact with an American search party.
Six days after his SEAL team had helicoptered into the mountains overlooking Sabray, Luttrell landed back at his base in Bagram.
"They never wanted any money from me," Luttrell said of his protectors. "And I offered it to them. I said, 'If you can get me to a safe haven in one piece, there's a reward for my return.' I tried to give them my watch. They didn't want any of that."
He doubts the Taliban harmed the people of Sabray. "They use those villages for food and shelter," he said. "You go in there and kill a whole village, and you're going to have a problem on your hands."
Asked why he thinks Sarawa, the village doctor, stopped to help this foreign infidel, Luttrell said he doesn't know.
"I never asked him that. He was a good man. Someone who would help. That's the way I was raised, too."
For his part in Operation Redwing, Luttrell was awarded the Navy Cross, as were Axelson and Dietz. According to Newsday, Murphy is being considered for the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest award for heroism.
As for the future, the 31-year-old ex-frogman plans to go to medical school — the SEALs trained him as a medic. He thinks he might like to practice sports medicine.
He remains close to his twin brother, Morgan, who's also a SEAL. Both had known since their early teens they wanted to join the elite service, an ambition encouraged by their father David, a Navy veteran from the Vietnam War era.
Luttrell entered the Navy in 1999, shortly after earning his business degree at hometown Sam Houston State University. The early chapters of the book describe the brutally tough training required to make it as a SEAL.
"People make mistakes and bad things happen," Luttrell said, summing up the events of two summers ago. "We fought as hard as we could. We just ran out of bullets. My greatest honor was to serve my country."
fritz.lanham@chron.com
His book is an amazing story. Truly a must read. A shame that the MSM never reported his story only the deaths.
God Bless our troops and their families.
“...In the book, Luttrell describes how the team talked it out, trying to find the best course of action. If they killed the men, they worried, the American media would get wind of it, and they’d be charged with murder....”
Fighting a war now-a-days involves not only the enemy, but also dealing with our media...
On a larger scale - how dems think today...
Where ever you go in the ME there is goat boy, and in SE Asia or Asia in general it’s an older women peeing in the woods. Never fails.
Same thing happened to those Bravo Two Zero guys from SAS during the first Gulf War.
I bet he misses his friends.
God bless Texas.
A couple of weeks back he was a guest on fox and friends in the AM.....the guys each asked him a reasonable question about his book and that day, for which he responded well......then it was Gretchen Carlsons tur; the ditz said “Being the lone survivor is a wonderful thing for you, but what about everybody else that died?”............obviously she had her peabrain somewhere else for the other diaglog and had absolutely no clue of how this fellow has lived every day of his life since then.......really, man, had I been within reach I’d have knocked every one of her teeth out with the back of my hand........he almost came to tears, and God or a producer intervened with cut direct to a commercial break.......
Heard him on Glenn Beck ... utterly amazing. Was his story an influence on the theme of Army Wives I wonder (the “bosco” character)? ROE collides with reality more often than not.
Just bought the book because of the interview on Glenn Beck.
I’ve only read a couple of pages and it practically brought me to tears.
God Bless them all. God grant Marcus Luttrell peace.
One of the overriding themes throughout the book is liberal yellow journalism . I’ve read many simimlar books on other conflicts and none have had so many references to such blantant liberal treason
Marines on a JTF6 mission in 1996 shot a goat herder on the US/Mexican border.
These SEALs fought with amazing bravery, courage and skills (to a man). Three members of this SEAL Team gave their lives in this battle....but AARs also show not before that mountain side was littered with the corpses of well over 60 + KIA Taliban (with additional likely wounded).
SEAL Lt. M. Murphy is up for consideration for the MOH for his actions. It was suspected he might have been awarded it this past week (marking the 2 year anniversary of this day)....that did not happen....But still hopefully will.
God bless each of these men and their families. How they lived, fought and died shows all that is good about our great nation.
Just finished this book yesterday - saw it at Costco and picked it up. Hard to know what to think about it.
I don't know the protocol, but this guy Murphy was their commander. Isn't the bad decision HIS? If they voted on it, it's because HE let them vote on it, isn't it? Why give a medal to the guy who made the mistake?
I agree it was absolutely the worst decision possible. But they were almost forced to make it.
Had they made the right decision, perhaps 19 expensive, highly trained fellow citizens might be alive today, but at least one, perhaps two of them would be scheduled for trial for murder.
Personally, I think whoever made the ROEs should be on trial as we speak.
Are you Fking kidding me!?! - There was no mistake made in terms of doing what was "right" - It was simply by doing such it put these men at much greater risk - A risk they took - A decision they came together as a TEAM (which is what being a SEAL is all about. Your TEAM). These men died for each other out there that day. Literally fought until their last breath for one another, after each being wounded multiple times.
These men were deep in Indian country (surrounded by some of the most evil SOBs this earth knows) on a highly classified Op
Lt. Murphy gave his life (knowingly put himself in position which would likely cost his life....Apprx 45/1hr into this hellish firefight in order to get a QRF on the scene in order to try and save his men).
You know absolutely nothing to even suggest such - Much less anything about SEAL doctrine and how they operate.
Furthermore killing these unarmed men was absolutely no guarantee of helping this SEAL RT (in the big picture looking back...nor for them specifically at that time in place). As when these goat herders didn't return or when it became obvious to those Taliban in the village that over a 100 goats were wandering haphazardly on the mountain face they would have been just as well alerted.
Why give a medal? You are a moron. These men voluntarily put themselves at such risk that 99.9999% would never even dream of doing (much less being capable of). Simply to ensure the safety of this nation.
In doing so they followed the ROEs that this Nation mandates on them (did so with honor) and fought with the skills, bravery, aggression and courage that most couldn't comprehend.
That's redundant.
Take a prosac. I said I didn't know the protocol. While I was reading the article, I was wondering why this guy was taking on so much guilt when there was a commander there. Your rage aside, it's a fair question. I didn't mean offense.
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