|
| 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
Buy New: $9.46
You Save: $6.53 (41%)
New (38) Used (12) from $8.00
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
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Brand New, Perfect Condition, Please allow 4-14 business days for delivery. 100% Money Back Guarantee, Over 1,000,000 customers served.
|
| Customer Reviews:
 Incredible story of courage in a desolate land June 15, 2007
27 out of 35 found this review helpful
After reading about Marcus Luttrell and his book in the Washington Post on 6/11 I had to have the book. I am not finished yet, but the courage and determination of these men is incredible and a credit to the US Special Forces.
America needs to hear more stories like these to keep support of our troops high. While I was totally opposed to going into Iraq, I support our troops. The men and women like Marcus need to be heard. Hopefully this story won't fade quickly.
God Bless our Troops and thanks for a continued job well done.
 Survivor's Guilt? July 23, 2007
26 out of 61 found this review helpful
The story of 20 dead SEALs and US Special Forces in the service of their country should be known to every American. But I'll wager that few people in this country know about this story, and that's a sad commentary of the Afghan war. That said, while Leading Petty Officer Marcus Luttrell is true patriotic sailor, he is not much of a storyteller, and less of a writer. He tells the story of the ill-conceived and botched Intel operation into the Afghan mountains, Operation Redwing. His story is filled with so many contradictions and half-baked political opinions, that it made the read almost an unbearable distraction. What's worse, he comes off sounding like an Ugly American. In Tom Clancy's "Shadow Warriors: Inside The Special Forces", Clancy describes how the US Army Special Forces work closely with the indigenous people to form a local resistance force, and they try to win their hearts and minds. It seems that the SEALs have no such training and clearly no such intention.
Like most of the military, LPO Luttrell is a stanch conservative. That's fine and understandable. He vows his undying loyalty to the United States of America, and to the Commander in Chief, as long as the Commander in Chief is George W. Bush. However, when he blames the deaths of his fellow SEALs on the liberal media, these rants become truly absurd. He comes from a SEAL culture of teamwork, never leave a fellow SEAL behind, and never leave your swim buddy. One wonders if much of this anti-liberal vitriol is not misplaced survivor's guilt. He needs to get his facts straight. It wasn't the so-called liberal media that put in the Rules of Engagement, (ROE), it was George Bush, Dick Chaney, and Don Rumsfeld. These policies he whines about come from a conservative White House, Congress, and Pentagon. He should think through the entire circumstance that brought him to that mountain top, then he can spout off about how the liberals that have ruined the war, the military, and this country.
**WARNING SOILERS**
The author makes it clear he has no respect for the Afghan people. He repeated ad nauseam how the Afghan and Arab people stared at him with burning hatred. It appears his Rules of Engagement (ROE) would be "kill them all and let God sort them out." This hackneyed John Wayne bravado went out in the 1950s. Obviously we can't kill them all, that tactic hasn't been used in the last 5 wars we've fought, so get over it. He drones on about how he might be charged for murder if he happens to kill a few unarmed Afghan civilians, when they're all just terrorists anyway and they deserve killing. Well, they're not all Talaban or al Qaeda. He laments that we can't fight the terrorists on their terms. He declares if we fought in their ruthless manner and quit worrying whether everyone still loved us, then we'd win the war in about a week. Would we? You can't destroy the village to save the village. Most of the population are just farmers, and most don't have TNT in the packs on their camels. That is of little concern for LPO Luttrell. He seems to feel that if he happens to kill a few innocents, it's just "his bad"; they'll say "sorry" to the families later. What he forgets in these xenophobic rants is it was these very Afghan farmers who saved his life and risked the lives of an entire village to do so.
Some of the writing is truly second rate; they clearly needed a much better ghostwriter. You really don't get to know his fellow SEALs well. You know they were really great guys with beautiful wives and fiances, but he skims over the surface of the true persons. There is no real description of the unit camaraderie or real insight into who they were. What's really embarrassing is some of the writing. When he describes how a fellow SEAL is fighting for his life and finally gets his head blown off, the best he can come up with to eulogize him was "what a guy." What a guy?
Finally, this is an important story and it deserves to be told. It simply needed a better storyteller. It needed a writer who sounds less like Glenn Beck and more of a reasoned, intelligent, and introspective USN SEAL.
 False Bravado and terribly written July 8, 2007
24 out of 108 found this review helpful
The United States is blessed to have sons of republic that value our country as much as Marcus Luttrell does. The warriors that defend democracy are needed, revered and are true heros. This book howedver does not honor any of those values and is poorly written. Mr. Luttrell sprinkles his tough guy image and over the top machismo throughout the book I was wonder just who the hell he was trying to convince how tough he is/was. Mr. Luttrell isn't too up on the Constitution and just how the government of his country is structured and the references to the liberal media, liberal politicians made me wonder is some fourth level hack from Karl Rove's office wrote the drivel. The men and women that serve in our Armed Forces are to be celebrated. They go on looking for WMD's even though there were never any and many of the people of the United States were aware of the lies years ago. This book is poorly written, heavily slanted and full of uninteresting drivel. Save you money and go buy Richard Marchinko's books about the SEAL Teams.
Mark July 26, 2007
24 out of 84 found this review helpful
Funny how a sailor who dedicates the first third of his book to bashing the liberal media and congress and lauding his belief in President Bush, "God", and Texas, would make the biggest decision of his life based upon his fear of what that very same liberal media and press would do to him. Not what i would expect from a member of one of the most professional fighting forces in the world. Mr. Luttrell's repeated emphasis on his politics and religion transformed what could have been a first rate book into a unreadable commercial for the GOP.
Thumbs Down August 18, 2007
24 out of 95 found this review helpful
Just got this book and was very dissapointed. I could only get to chapter three before getting bored with the writers arogance. Here was a person that was so in love with himself it bordered on narcissism. His view of the world was narrow minded and at the same time it showed how blind he was to how politics, war and life are all in the same boat. Sad
|
|
|
Powered by Associate-O-Matic
| |
