How about a twin spin? 
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
Recent military history. Any thoughts, FRiends?
Thanks, freema, for the ping.
I’m running around in front of my computer right now looking for a sand goblin to strangle. These stories get me so worked up. Reading about the actions and death of these incredible warriors is like listening to the melancholic howl of wolves, it tugs at my entire being, sparking an involuntary bloodlust. I guess I’m just gonna have to settle for a hippie.
But also the Lt. commanding the force voted to let the goat herders go.
This is another example of why there is no slander our media can perpetrate that would ever change my view of our fighting soldiers as the most honorable and valiant soldiers ever fielded to do battle.
And why our cause against the forces of darkness will eventually be triumphant.
We are the side of good and let those that doubt be destroyed.
How about a twin spin?
I realized that at the end of GW1. Saddam got absolutely lit up - Highway to Hell.
He goes back to Iraq and is hailed as a hero...not because he fought the Great Satan, but because he survived.
More and more I believe the only policy should be scorched earth.
It’ll never happen.
LOL!
There are moments in some lives when the decision is between awful and God awful.
No matter what this young man and his unit had decided to do, he would have had nightmares and regrets. That is the nature of war.
Because it is the Medals of HONOR.
Not the Medal of Murder.
Call me ignorant but what about somewhere in between taking them prisoner?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.