Lone Survivor

The book Lone Survivor is an incredible story about how SEAL team 10 fought and died in the Hindu Kush Mountains of Afghanistan.  It tells the gripping story of Marcus Luttrell and how he survived through his own skill, sheer luck and the unlikely help from a foreign stranger he thought was his enemy. 

It all started when Marcus and his team were dropped down into the Hindu Kush Mountains in Afghanistan.  Their mission was to find and capture or kill a terrorist insurgent by the name of Ben Sharmak.  Sharmak, otherwise known as, “the bomb master”, was responsible for thousands of civilian and military deaths.  He had access to any kind of weapons or materials he needed to do almost any job asked of him involving terrorist activity. Unfortunately, soon after Marcus and his team made it to their set up area, and begin to scan the village for Sharmak, a heavy fog set in limiting their visibility into the village, and forcing them to a lower position on the mountainside.  No sooner did they find a wide-open cliff side overlooking the village, a goatherd and their shepherds begin to approach their position.  Marcus and his team were forced to come out of hiding and take the shepherds captive.  From there they began to face their most difficult decision, what to do with the captive shepherds and their goats?  They can’t just let them go because there is a good chance the shepherds will go and warn the village causing 200 plus Taliban fighters to rush up the mountain to hunt down Marcus and his team.  The odds are against them in a firefight of 4 on 200 plus they consider killing the shepherds and hiding the bodies.  Concerned that eventually the shepherds and their goats would be missing forcing a search party to head up the mountain, option 2 didn’t seem all that great either.  The whole team decides to take their chances on letting the shepherds go.  As the shepherds descend down the mountain the team returns to their spot to wait for Sharmak.  As they wait Marcus gets a nudge from his teammate to look behind him.  When Marcus turns around he sees at least a hundred men with dark beards, turbans, holding AK-47’s lining the ridge above them.  Marcus immediately turns and points his rifle at the group.  As Marcus scanned them he comes face to face with one of the men through his scope.  The man had brown eyes filled with hate, and a long scruffy beard the kind that hasn’t been trimmed in a decade. Concerned by the AK rifle pointed at him, Marcus lined his sights up right between the eyes of the man and squeezed the trigger of his mark 12 rifle.  A moment later the bullet pierced the skull of the man and a hail of gunfire exploded from the ridge down toward Marcus and his team.  Marcus and his team begin to fire back picking the Taliban fighters off one by one with relative ease, but eventually Marcus and his team are overwhelmed by gunfire and are forced to retreat by jumping off the ridge behind them and sliding down the steep rock face. Marcus was the first one down and then two more of his teammates came crashing down.  When the last team member came hurtling down the mountainside and into cover, Marcus could see blood gushing from his teammates side and knew instantly that he had been shot.  As the Taliban continued its relentless pursuit down the mountain, again Marcus’s team was overwhelmed with gunfire.  They knew they had to continue to roll down the mountain in retreat.  Each drop became bigger and bigger and harder to make.  As they continued down the cliff they bolted across a ridge and went into the cover one at a time.  The SEAL that was shot and another SEAL made it over the ridge and rolled down to better hiding.  Marcus and the other ran for it but after making it to cover his teammate popped up to start laying down covering fire he was shot in the throat.  His teammate dropped for a second but then popped right back up and started firing again.  They then ran for the next piece of cover and his teammate caught one right in the back.  The bullet must have hit his spine because he could not walk.  He dragged himself back into cover with Marcus still shooting at the enemy with seemingly every shot finding its mark.  Marcus then tried to drag his teammate to the ridge but as Marcus was dragging him a bullet hit his teammate right in the face.  His fellow SEAL’s head jolted back, he dropped his rifle and just laid their lifeless.  Marcus knew that the bullet had killed his teammate, and worse there was nothing he could do but leave the body there. Leaving a fallen comrade behind was the hardest thing a SEAL could do, but he knew if he tried to drag him down further he too would have been killed.  Marcus then ran for the ridge and rolled down to his last two teammates. They dove into a small crevice in the side of the mountain where they decided to make their last stand.  They began to start picking the Taliban warriors off one by one again.  Marcus swore he had killed more then fifty and counting.  Suddenly a bullet rocketed through the opening from which his teammate was firing from and lodged itself right in his head.  The SEAL slumped back and stayed there.  He was dead.  Now it was just Marcus and the injured SEAL who was still bleeding profusely.  Just then an RPG rocket was fired right at the crevice where Marcus and the other SEAL were.  Marcus could see the white smoke trail behind it right before it exploded in-between Marcus and the other SEAL.  When Marcus gathered his thoughts he saw the injured SEAL on his back blood oozing out of his mouth and ears and shrapnel lodged in his face while his uniform was cut to shreds.  Marcus then looked down and saw the bloody mess that was his leg.  Just then another RPG came crashing into the crevice and flung Marcus out onto the ridge.  Marcus then rolled off the ridge and down into hiding.  Marcus somehow evaded another firefight after rolling down the last ridge.  He was now alone and begun to crawl in search of safety.  He eventually came upon a stream, which he crawled to.  After a drink of water and sitting their trying to think of someway to get out of this he heard footsteps.  He then saw bearded men carrying AK-47s.  They came up to him yelling no Taliban, no Taliban. At first Marcus thought they were there to capture him, instead they brought him to their village, which was run by a man by the name of Gulab.  They took care of Marcus and helped him heal.  After Marcus’s leg had healed enough to walk they set out for the nearest military base where Marcus was then saved.

I would recommend this book to everyone because it is an incredible story about the bravery of SEAL team 10 in Operation Redwing.  I thought the book gripped me do to the fact that I love military type of books but I also think anyone would like it because it shows the true dedication and sacrifice of Marcus and his team

Book Review by Parker M.