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| Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10 | 
 enlarge | Author: Marcus Luttrell
Creator: Patrick Robinson
Publisher: Back Bay Books
Category: Book
List Price: $15.99
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Avg. Customer Rating:  786 reviews
Sales Rank: 854
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 416
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.2 x 5.4 x 1.2
ISBN: 0316067601
Dewey Decimal Number: 958.1047
EAN: 9780316067607
ASIN: 0316067601
Publication Date: May 1, 2008
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| Customer Reviews:
 Easy read, but some cautions are in order. July 8, 2007
32 out of 53 found this review helpful
I love any book about the Navy Seals, Army Rangers, etc. and their remarkable training and operations. I began reading this book at 5 pm and was finished by midnight. A number of reviewers have complained that there are introductory chapters about growing up in Texas and then lengthy history of his SEAL training. The reviewers are right that these are not the main focus of the book but they are wrong to dismiss them. They are integral to the story and an understanding of the author. Everything is simply written so you can move briskly through them if you don't want to study them.
Because of my respect for the men and women in the armed forces, I am not going to disrespect the author or his book as a couple of other armchair warrior reviewers have, for the failure of the mission or decisions made along the way. The book reports a number of life and death decisions and maybe not the ones the armchair warriors would have made but they were not made in armchairs but in some of the most difficult combat conditions one could imagine.
I do caution potential readers in one respect and I do criticize the author in the same respect. As you can tell from other reviews, the author delivers extreme right wing political views. He speaks with contempt of "liberals" and the "liberal media" and "Congress" because he wants the freedom on the battlefield to use his judgment and kill whoever and whenever he deems it advisable, and he blames these forces for "rules of engagement" that inhibit that imperative. Moreover, in his narrative, he attributes a critical decision that the team makes to fear of punishment for violating those rules. He believes (with no hard evidence) that this decision leads to the death of his comrades. Unfortunately, military strategy is not designed solely to maximize the interests of the men and women on the battlefield. Often the interests of individual soldiers are sacrificed for the larger goal. It is the acceptance of that risk that makes military service so noble. It is naive to believe that a nation could inspire men and women to service or inspire other nations to ally with it without behaving in a principled manner. Thus we have rules of engagement and we have a civilian government and press that invest in monitoring them for the greater good. As for the specific incident, it appeared to me that communications failures, the operational failure to have a backup plan for monitoring and checking in with the SEAL team when communications failed and putting the SEAL team in a poor location to begin with, are all more to blame than liberals back home. It is worth noting that today's (7/8/07) NY Times carries a front page story that is closely related to the mission described in this book and provides interesting background to the aborts reported in this book. In contrast, the author goes so far as to state that journalists killed in combat should not be considered as heroes. Frankly, although he is a very zealous patriot, as one would expect and desire in a SEAL, the only parts of America for which he expresses anything positive are (1) Texas and (2) members of the armed forces. He has earned the right to express those views, having made great sacrifices to protect America (as he conceives of it) and I am grateful to him for having protected the rest of us along with that, but he does not appear to have given any thought to his views. He does not seem to recognize that the weapons he uses and all the resources available to him are supplied by the taxes of hundreds of millions of Americans, most of whom don't live in Texas or presently serve in the armed forces, but sure are helping him survive out there. Although we do not make the same sacrifice as he has made, we are all part of the same team and neither he nor the military as a whole would endure long independent of the rest of us and our principles as he seems to believe. I suspect the vehemence of his views is bound up in some way with the horrible psychic impact of the events he narrates and I wish him a full recovery in that regard and I thank him for his service.
HEROISM'S MANY FORMS June 12, 2007
31 out of 135 found this review helpful
Luttrell's endurance, bravery, and self sacrifice are undeniable. Hats off to him for his actions in Kunar. Readers should know, however, that the man who saved Luttrell, the Afghani Muhammed Gulab, got dumped unceremoniously by Luttrell, the SEALs, Coalition forces, and the U.S. For helping to save Luttrell Gulab came under the threat of death from the Tali and was forced to leave his village, never to return. He is a simple wood merchant. He fled to Asadabad where he was given menial work at the Coalition base there. Luttrell, according to Gulab, promised him money to resettle himself and his family. He never received a sou. Later, he tried to get in touch with Luttrell, to no avail. Calls and emails were not returned. Worse still, when he talked about these issues with a Newsweek correspondent based in Islamabad, American forces incarcerated him at the Asadabad base for days, interrogating him without ever telling him what he had done to deserve such treatment; his questioners wanted to know why he had talked to Newsweek about unfulfilled promises. He was terrified. He remains confused. His life is in ruins. He can't go home. He was too afraid for his life even to visit the village for his mother's funeral. If he had saved your life -- as he did Luttrell's -- you surely would do everything in your power to repay Gulab. Wouldn't you? Has Luttrell given or even pledged any of his book advance and royalties to Gulab? Gulab doesn't think so. Luttrell in the book says he offered his wristwatch and money but Gulab refused. Please. Luttrell should not insult the readers' intelligence. The sum I heard was $20,000. Never to be fulfilled. Long forgotten. This is a hearts-and-minds issue. Counter-insurgency can never succeed if we treat people as Gulab has been treated. And one last point: Gulab says he helped Luttrell less out of compassion than because he reckoned that the Coalitiion forces would not bomb his village in retaliation for the attacks on the Redwing team if the village helped one Redwing team member to survive. Guess what? Once Luttrell was safe again, Coalition forces bombed Gulab's village, killing 17 civilians, women and children. Commanders at Bagram later apologized to President Kharzai who had demanded an explanation. Luttrell did a good job getting himself out of a tight spot, but the aftertaste of Redwing is somewhat bitter, and should be known and told.
 Good, if you share his views June 19, 2007
31 out of 145 found this review helpful
If you're interested in finding out about some aspects of our current military conflicts, and what it takes to be a SEAL then this book may be for you. Mr. Luttrell is a keen observer of people and places (probably a huge asset for his job.) He is also someone who has a giant ego (again, important asset for one of the most difficult jobs in the world.) He's part of a long tradition of brave men who have served, and this review is no comment on his character, but he gets sidetracked with personal comments that take away from some great moments. If you're fairly conservative, his political comments won't bother you. If you think enemies of the United States are inherently evil and not quite full-fledged humans, again, you won't be distracted. Based on the comments surrounding another negative review I think it's prudent to say that these comments are just a review of the book. I don't think the author would mind if one "Liberal" told another that this book contained partisan commentary that, in my humble opinion, turns a tribute of brave men into something else. As a book, I think it would have been more compelling with some humility and a degree of objectiveness. That aside, America is lucky to have people like Mr. Luttrell.
Lone Dissent August 27, 2007
31 out of 57 found this review helpful
This book rubbed me the wrong way. Luttrell and his three Navy SEAL team members deserve our love and gratitude for their valor, no question. My problem with the book is the way Luttrell digresses from his story to blame the "liberal media" for his team's disastrous mission and the deaths of his three comrades.
Briefly, the four stumbled upon an adult and two teenage goat herders - all of them unarmed - high in the Hindu Kush soon after deploying on their mission to capture/assassinate a known Taliban leader. Having satisfied themselves the three were not Taliban, the SEALS opted not to kill them and sent them on their way. Soon after, the team was ambushed by more 150-200 Taliban and fought a heroic but desparate battle against unimaginable odds. Only Luttrell escaped. He was taken in, fed, cared for and protected by local villagers until his rescue by Army Rangers.
Luttrell cast the deciding vote sparing the lives of the goat herders, who apparently tipped off the Taliban, and is is now wracked by sleepless guilt. He lays the blame for the deaths of his three comrades on military rules of engagement prohibiting the killing of unarmed civilians. Moreover, he faults the U.S. media and "Liberals" for these rules, asserting that they are unrealistic in a war zone like Afghanistan where civilians and combatants are indistinguishable.
The book is laced throughout with gratuitous assaults on "politicians," "the media," "Liberals" and "Lefties" whom he argues are more concerned about amorphous, "so-called human rights" than the lives of soldiers sent into conflict without the necessary leeway to kill at will. Luttrell claims he would have voted to shoot the goat herders had he not been fearful of vilification by the press and prosecution in the courts.
This is where I part company. If Luttrell has problems with military rules of engagement he shouldn't be in the Navy SEALS - or any other branch of the U.S. military. The rules may be inconvenient; they may even cause U.S. casualties, but they stand for what we as Americans are about and what he was fighting to defend. We do not kill unarmed civilians. The Taliban does; al Queda does, but we do not because that is what makes us better than them.
There are practical as well as moral reasons for this, but Luttrell doesn't dwell on those either. Nowhere does he stop to consider whether the villagers who saved him would have been so inclined if U.S. forces killed as wantonly as he believes they should be allowed to.
Luttrell's complaint with military rules of engagement rests more properly with the White House and Pentagon that sent him to Afghanistan, not the "liberal media" he relentlessly vilifies. He might also do well to consider where his command and his team may have gone wrong.
The team deployed after two false starts because of faulty intelligence that proved faulty again. The team was apparently unaware that the terrain they were traversing was frequented by goat herders and blew its cover almost immediately. Its radio communications failed inexplicably when they came under attack and was desperately needed. A working radio set - or a backup, for that matter - could have saved them.
One even wonders what Navy SEALS were doing were doing high in the Himalayas in the first place; their training and strength is in amphibious assaults. I found it sadly ironic that Luttrell's four-man team of SEALS was discovered within a day of being deployed while the 20-man team of Rangers sent to rescue them went undetected for nearly a week.
But Luttrell doesn't dwell on that either.
 HERO? August 9, 2007
29 out of 88 found this review helpful
Poor planning does not make you a hero. nor does killing unarmed civilians, which not only is against the geneva convention, but immoral, and no officer worth his salt would consider this as a viable option, mush less put it to a vote. This book fails on many levels. Why did they not have blood chits? why did they have secret information with them? they did not need it. watch the video on youtube. Where were their contingencies? commo failure, compromise, QRF? And why is this guy so full of himself?
This is a poorly written book by another SEAL among many who have no understanding of todays battlefield. They ignored all the intel which was available and took a mission SF turned down. This mission was a series of horrible decisions, the results of which the author blames on the liberal media.
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