Review: Lone Survivor

October 21, 2007

Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10.
[rating:5/5]

This will easily be the best book I read all year. And I read a lot. Marcus Luttrell tells the story of SEAL Team 10, and you can’t help but be awed by their courage. The story of the SEALs’  heroism is so compelling that even Luttrell’s borderline talk-radio conservative bravado can’t spoil it:

How about when a bunch of guys wearing colored towels around their heads and brandishing AK-47s come charging over the horizon straight toward you? Do you wait for them to start killing your team, or do you mow the bastards down before they get a chance to do so?

That situation might look simple in Washington, where the human rights of terrorists are often given high priority. And I am certain liberal politicians would defend their position to the death. Because everyone knows liberals have never been wrong about anything. You can ask them. Anytime.

The rules of engagement that Luttrell fought under end up forcing he and his team, deep in Taliban country, to make a decision: kill a shepherd who stumbled upon their hiding spot, or let him go and risk being discovered. They let him go and are engaged shortly after:

I fixed my Mark 12 in firing position, pulled my head back a few inches, and looked up the hill. Lined along the top were between eighty and a hundred heavily armed Taliban warriors, each one of them with an AK-47 pointing downward. Some were carrying rocket-propelled grenades. To the right and to the left they were starting to move down our flanks. I knew they could see past me but not at me. They could not have seen Axe or Danny. I was unsure whether they had seen Mikey.

My heart dropped directly into my stomach. And I cursed those f*king goatheards to hell, and myself for not executing them when every military codebook ever written had taught me otherwise. Not to mention my own raging instincts, which had told me to go with Axe and execute them. And let the liberals go to hell in a mule cart, and take with them all of their fucking know-nothing rules of etiquette in war and human rights and whatever other bullsh*t makes ‘em happy. You want to charge us with murder? Well, f*king do it. But at least we’ll be alive to answer it. This way really sucks.

Don’t get caught up in Luttrell’s Texas conservative attitude. This is a book about warriors. What follows is a raging gun battle between the four SEALs and dozens of Taliban fighters:

Danny was saturated in blood, still conscious, still trying to fire his rifle at the enemy. But he was in a facedown position. I told him to take it easy while I turned him over. “C’mon, Dan, we’re gonna be all right,”

He nodded, and I knew he could not speak and would probably never speak again. What I really remember is, he would not let go of his rifle. I raised him by the shoulders and hauled him into an almost sitting position. Then, grasping him under the arms, I started to drag him backward, toward cover. And would you believe, that little iron man opened fire at the enemy once again, almost lying on his back, blasting away up the hill while I kept dragging.

Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10.
[rating:5/5]

Posted by Trent Nelson | Filed Under Reviews, The Best (no longer updated) 

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