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I recently finished reading Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10 (Little, Brown and Company 2009), Marcus Luttrell’s engrossing story of his experience in surviving a vicious battle against the Taliban in Afghanistan. I recommend the book highly to anyone who is interested in United States foreign policy.
Lone Survivor is not a great book. A substantial part of it – particularly the parts of Luttrell’s Navy SEAL training – are repetitive and unnecessary. Likewise, Luttrell’s political views are somewhat simplistic and do not add much to the story.
But Luttrell’s story is spot on in portraying the troubling problem that the U.S. Armed Forces face in fighting wars under rules of engagement that constrain doing what is necessary to accomplish the purpose of the war. During their mission, Luttrell and his squad mates had to make a key decision under the rules of engagement — and it was not even a clearly wrong one — that ultimately resulted in a disaster for the squad.
Luttrell’s story is also insightful from a cultural standpoint. After fending off over a hundred Taliban attackers in battle, Luttrell was ultimately saved by members of an Afghan community who decided to resist the Taliban. The cultural dynamics at play are as confusing as they are fascinating.
Should the United States be sending true American heroes such as Luttrell and his comrades into such a complicated cultural conflict under rules that hinder them from accomplishing the mission?
It is a question that should be much more difficult for our government’s leaders than it appears to be.
Tom, I agree with your review. Although the SEAL training and bootcamp details were insightful it did seem it took longer than necessary to get through that part of the book. However, once you get to the core of the book it shows the bravery and life/death decisions these guys make in the course of combat. Combine that with the rules of engagement that they have to abide by and it shows the true difficulty these guys are faced with. I recommend the book to friends and have bought copies for other to understand more what our elite forces are about.
I also had the opportunity to hear Marcus Luttrell speak and his recount of these stories in person are for more engrossing than in the book. He is a compelling and compasionate individual and we’re lucky to have him on our side.
Mark, one of the things that struck me was the utter randomness of the combat experience in Afghanistan. The decision that Luttrell and his mates made that resulted in disaster (trusting the goat herders) was the same one that Luttrell made (trusting the villagers) that ended up saving his life. Between that randomness and the limiting rules of engagement, it is amazing that the American armed services are able to accomplish anything, much less victory.