Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10
by Marcus Luttrell
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Book Summary Information
Author: Marcus LuttrellContributor: Patrick Robinson
Edition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2009-05-01
ISBN: 0316044695
Number of pages: 464
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Book Reviews of Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10
Book Review: Inspiring, but Flawed
Summary: 3 Stars
First, my son is a Marine and I'm fiercely proud of him and what he's doing, so please don't take any of what follows as evidence that I'm one of the bleeding-heart, anti-war liberals that Luttrell rails against in the book. Luttrell is a genuine hero, who came very close to giving everything for his country, and much of the book is thrilling and inspiring, but I think there are some very serious problems with it, both in style and, occasionally, substance.
The style problems aren't unusual in this genre. Much of the first half of the book feels bloated with material that could have been omitted without taking away from the central story. Luttrell's description of his early years may be hugely relevant to him, but it tells us very little that we need to know about what follows. If I were editing the book, I'd spend much less time on his youth, somewhat less time on his SEAL training, and more on his experiences in the attack and his long journey to escape. Whenever I see a book with "[Author] with [or, worse, as told to] [Ghostwriter]" on the cover, I know that there's a good chance that it will read as this book does. There are two voices, one coming from someone with notable experiences but little or no talent for writing and one with a talent for writing but none of the relevant experiences. The result is a combination of folksy and polished that is usually the best of neither.
It obviously requires an extraordinary amount of self-confidence to be a member of any of the special forces. That attitude understandably permeates the book, but this reader would have hoped for more introspection and self-analysis. Instead, Luttrell seems to want merely to focus blame on others, particularly the "liberal media," a phrase he uses until it's monotonous. This is one of flaws of substance in the book. As other reviewers have observed, he gives a very confused explanation of the team's decision to let the local goat herders go, saying at one point that his vote for that was a "Christian" decision, at another that it was based on fear that the "liberal media" would reflexively force the team to be prosecuted, and at another that it was based on the practical concern that the goat herders' tribe would come looking for them.
The entire discussion fails to consider one of the fundamental reasons we have rules of engagement at all. Ignore for the moment the morality of killing unarmed civilians. Winning a war in which you're fighting an insurgency, even if it is one that is largely fueled by outside forces, requires that you get and keep the general population on your side. If the SEAL team had killed those civilians, regardless of whether they were Taliban supporters, their mission would have been a failure, even if they had ultimately killed or captured the team's intended target. Luttrell makes the mistake of thinking that he is in a traditional war in which merely killing the enemy is enough. The war in Afghanistan, like the war in Viet Nam before it, will be lost if the population thinks we are attacking them or occupying their country. Perhaps more than any area in the world, Afghanistan has shown - over the course of millennia - that it will not be occupied or conquered. When Luttrell suggests that the lives of civilians are less important than the mission or when he shows disdain for or ignorance of local customs and culture, he betrays the cause for which he's fighting. Similarly, his dismissal of the outrage over Abu Ghraib shows a lack of understanding that what occurred there did more to damage our cause than dozens of terrorists ever could. Sometimes the sacrifice that is called for is not shown by bravery under fire, but by accepting the fact that there is something more important than the mission you were given and that the ends don't always justify the means.
Luttrell and the rest of the SEAL team deserve our admiration, gratitude, and respect. I just wish that his book about their experiences hadn't been burdened by what were, in my view, misguided attempts to lay blame, which ultimately distract from the inspiring story of their heroism.
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Summary of Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10
Four US Navy SEALS departed one clear night in early July 2005 for the mountainous Afghanistan-Pakistan border for a reconnaissance mission. Their task was to document the activity of an al Qaeda leader rumored to be very close to Bin Laden with a small army in a Taliban stronghold. Five days later, only one of those Navy SEALS made it out alive.This is the story of the only survivor of Operation Redwing, SEAL fire team leader Marcus Luttrell, and the extraordinary firefight that led to the largest loss of life in American Navy SEAL history. His squadmates fought valiantly beside him until he was the only one left alive, blasted by an RPG into a place where his pursuers could not find him. Over the next four days, terribly injured and presumed dead, Luttrell crawled for miles through the mountains and was taken in by sympathetic villagers who risked their lives to keep him safe from surrounding Taliban warriors.
A born and raised Texan, Marcus Luttrell takes us from the rigors of SEAL training, where he and his fellow SEALs discovered what it took to join the most elite of the American special forces, to a fight in the desolate hills of Afghanistan for which they never could have been prepared. His account of his squadmates' heroism and mutual support renders an experience that is both heartrending and life-affirming. In this rich chronicle of courage and sacrifice, honor and patriotism, Marcus Luttrell delivers a powerful narrative of modern war.
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