'Lone Survivor' Marcus Luttrell on new movie
Posted by Non_mooching_artist 11 years ago to Movies
Exceptional story, and apparently, the film captured this brilliantly. The book was profoundly moving. The fact that this man lived through it astounded me.
And some of the racist liberals (whom I have no doubt never read the book or watched the movie) sully the reputation of these brave American Seals by spouting that all the movie has to show is that they had a Neanderthal view that "white good, brown bad." What a waste of good oxygen by those people.
I agree that the entire village risked their lives to help him, and still, I have no doubt, suffer the repercussions of having done so. I found that while I read the book, I had to get up and walk around because I could not believe what was endured. I had to take a step back, because it was intense. I cannot imagine living through all of what he did. And to be smeared by the left because they can't even come up with two balls between all of them, sickens me.
Good and evil aren't situational, but as evidenced by this event rely upon individuals, even in the worst of conditions.
Just one vet's opinion.
Did Luttrel and his team accomplish their mission?
At risk of sounding Objectivist, it cost fortunes for us to select, train, equip and deploy our soldiers. In this case it cost us their lives, as well, and certainly cost them before we got our money back from our investment. I'll get back to that in a minute.
As I said, I haven't read the book or seen the movie, but I do believe their mission had a purpose, and that other aspects of the war depended upon that purpose being fulfilled. We didn't send them there to protect goat herders or villages, but to prevent Moslems from being able to harm us again. At least, that was the putative goal.
I am not judging the soldiers (sailors? What do you call a Seal, other than "sir"?) or the morality of their decisions. I'm trying to stay true to my philosophy; we go in to benefit America. We come out ahead, one way or another. We minimize our own losses, even at the expense of natives. If our blood is spilled, the piece of land it falls upon and nourishes becomes ours.
This is a brutal and bigoted philosophy, but we now live in a brutal and bigoted world, and I can think of no way to minimize the price paid by our boys than by placing focus on accomplishing our goals and dominating every non-American in the area. IMO, the best period for the entire middle east was those brief few days after our tanks rolled into Baghdad. Even the Kremlin was stunned. Had we continued to dominate every human around, march in as conquerors, something the natives could understand, relate-to, and reflexively submit to, a lot of lives would have been saved, a lot of families would be whole, and the idea of submitting the world to the sword of Islam would be placed on the back-burner for decades.
This is all my opinion, of course.
Oh, about our investment...
It's easy and emotional to dismiss and condemn the cost of military operations... but wars are won or lost on logistics. Even the Cold War.
Nowadays, our military operations are actually astonishingly cheap in terms of life and manpower (by which I mean we have few casualties and deaths compared to previous wars), but that savings comes at the expense of technology. And we all know how expensive that technology becomes.
And in the spirit of Santayana, let me remind you all of the past...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S72nI4Ex_...
It doesn't matter how courageous, skilled and noble your soldiers are, if they haven't the tools to fight with. Therefore, we have to always get the most out of our monetary investment in the military, for there will always be the anti-American left wanting to steal money from national defense to invest in social welfare redistribution programs. There will always be the anti-capitalist left working tirelessly to destroy our industry and economy. Right now, as it is, we rely upon foreign suppliers for our military. Just like the Confederacy.
Do moral combatants justify the killing of non-combatants just because it MAY result in the military members having a higher risk? If you answer yes to that, then you should have been the lawyer to represent Calley (Mi Lai).
In studying military ethics (not an oxymoron) these are issues that are presented. Was it more or less moral to drop the atomic bombs on Japan? Would it be moral to execute a captured enemy soldier merely because you don't have the capability/resources to hold them as a POW - such as if an airborne attack took place and the unit had no lines of communication/resupply to their own forces.
Accomplishment of the mission must be done within an acceptable moral context. Else we have nothing.
Just my humble opinion.
Where they American non-combatants? Then I don't give a shit.
And, while wearing the uniform, their lives are NOT theirs to give.
Zen and stargeezer's lives mean more to me than a thousand Afghans.
What justifies the killing is the necessity of accomplishing the mission. I'm reluctantly willing to risk our soldiers' lives for that, after all, it's their stock in trade, but I'm not even going to consider risking their lives *and* their mission for the sake of the very people upon whose necks we're attempting to place our boot.
yes it was moral to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki because the fanaticism of the Japanese meant we'd have had to fight door, village, putting more U.S. lives at risk to accomplish the same goal.
would it be moral to execute a captured enemy soldier... depends on what intelligence the enemy soldier had, what his rank was, value in exchange, and whether or not holding him would impair the mission's success.
And, I consider shooting a goatherder so he doesn't give away the mission perfectly moral, in context.
What's your moral context of a 12 year old boy tossing a grenade into a bar frequented by U.S. servicemen?
2) Despite your soul-searching novel below, you espouse the exact characteristics that the liberals and media make of the members of the military - blood-thirsty immoral killers. The army that I served in wouldn't have tolerated you.
In the first place, just because YOU think it's immoral to kill the enemy, not all of us do. In the second place, I DO support our military; I already said that were I the CinC, it didn't matter which decision they made I'd back them up on it.
In the third place, what is immoral is sending AMERICAN BOYS over to be mutilated and killed without establishing and achieving concrete objectives.
The 12 year old tossing the grenade is not hypothetical; such incidents happened. Had one of the soldiers blown the little bastard's head off to prevent the toss, YOU would try him for murder. I'd give him a promotion.
This is not the Big Red One fighting its way up the Italian peninsula. This is a different war in a different place against different people.
War is serious business; as CinC, it would be my job to achieve as many goals as possible as cheaply as possible, in men and material.
Countless young American men have died in the past decade fighting this war YOUR way. THAT is immoral.
Which branch did you serve in?
I want to share something that brought tears to my eyes. My dad is a veteran of the Korean War. Staff Sgt. He was out having breakfast on Veterans Day, and wearing his Korean War Veterans hat, when a young woman came up to him, and thanked him for his service, and said she would like to pay for his meal. He said he was so touched by that it brought tears to his eyes. It did mine, too. He has related to me how it wasn't always the case, first for the Korean War Vets, then for the Vietnam War Vets. He said it disgusted him the way they were treated when they returned home. And that he's pleased with how that has turned around.
So would like to say again, thank you for doing what you did and risking all. Thank you.
Respectfully, and in gratitude,
NMA
It was one thing to learn the lesson that nearly all that make it back from such a trial experience - that the stories of heroic, romantic, adventuresome, patriotism that drives one when first entering into such a 'duty to the country' commitment, when so many your age are searching for avenues out, whether that's college (you can't afford), marriage and a child (you aren't ready for), running to Canada (when you haven't been more than 100 miles from your home), or hiding in a Hippie underground (you have no idea of or desire how to connect with), are for the most part totally false propaganda. That the special duty you seek out, is misused and misapplied by self serving orders from politically connected officers and others in the command structure that results in maiming and death of the men you become closer to than brothers. That the 'duty to the country' you think you're fulfilling has no relation what-so-ever to actually defending the country or the oath you believed in and took with a thrill in your heart. That your 15 months out of country doing and experiencing things you never could have imagined will continue to fuck with your life, your dreams, your sleep, your relationships, your family, for the rest of your life. That you'll be permanently altered as a human man to something you and others close to you often fear.
Those were one set of lessons - then you walked out of the base for the last time to be met either at the gate or in your home town by hate filled rhetoric of idiots, fools, young women (also idiots and fools), and even family you hoped to reintegrate with. The old WWII and Korean vets shun your 'undeclared police action war' experiences. Then your government does a Penn State or Chicago Democratic convention and Nixon, Agnew, and Kissinger show their true colors. You almost want to go back. But you know you can't. You suck it up, push it down, and start to hide it.
If you're extremely lucky, you find something other than the local bar or drug dealer that you can exert yourself at, something so different than that other life that you can set aside the urges to just give up, and that will mask you from the rest of the 'normal' world. There were actually some things you've brought home with you that you can figure out how to apply and use in your new life. But the other stuff comes back. It chews at the back of your neck and your heart, it destroys your ability to enjoy. It's always waiting in the shadows for you to let your guard down just a little bit.
For me, never take the future of another young man and throw it into the face of the winds of battle and war at the mad desire of some arrogant politicians or behind the scenes motivators, unless and only unless it's to defend this country from someone truly threatening our very shores. And then, throw the entire might of this nation at them and totally remove their desire and ability for such a stupid and suicidal effort for generations to come. For you are destroying the lives of other young men, either dead or returning, that you can't, (nor will) ever compensate for. All the BS of glory, heroism, duty, patriotism spent on policing the world or trying to change the behavior of others beyond our shores is just flotsam on the waves and tides of history.
I'll stand, welcome Home, and thank returning vets when they have actually defended these shores and I'll wish deeply that someone had the nerve and self awareness and integrity to teach them before their venture, how very important their life and their future is to them, and that they have a duty to themselves, to that life, to protect and shelter it from the waste a group of greedy old, self centered fools in DC would make of it.
I apologize for running on so much is this comment and this will be the last statement I make of any kind in reference to my war.
KYFHO
With profound respect,
NMA
In "This Kind of War", T.R. Farhenbach has a chapter entitled "Proud Legions" about the Korean War, which was most enlightening.
Political correctness forced Farenbach to describe sergeant "Gypsy" Martin as "no-good".
He hated "gooks" and didn't care who knew it. According to Farenbach, he was worth a hundred men in those hills and valleys of Korea.
When they found his body, the butt of his rifle was broken, and there were nine dead "gooks" laying all around him.
He got no awards or medals.
For me, that's metaphorical of Korea.
My dad said he felt sorry for your dad, cause Korean War vets got overlooked and ignored, between the WWII vets and Vietnam vets.
(that would include my uncle Johnny who eventually hanged himself; always disturbed me that in moments of stress my mother would mistakenly call me by her brother's name...)
But apology was necessary.
When I was 8 years old, my big fantasy in life was to join the army, make sergeant and fight overpowering enemies in far away lands.
I didn't understand, and thought we were still fighting WWII. I was so in love with being a soldier, my parents considered sending me to military school.
As the Indochinese War progressed (aka, "Vietnam"), I watched the news reports of the war, and became confused and dismayed.
I didn't understand even the possibility that the news media would not only be wrong, but would tell lies; lies that would hurt the country.
So I watched, and believed. I believed when they told me our soldiers were "baby killers", cowards who "fragged" their officers, got perpetually high on dope and shirked combat duty, and worst of all, couldn't whip a bunch of backwards bush-beaters. I was too young to distinguish a news report showing dirty, exhausted soldiers in a combat theater, and one showing filthy, long-haired, hatred-spewing anti-American agitators wearing army suprlus and smoking dope on camera.
I was ashamed of our military, and I wanted nothing to do with them. I set my life on a different course and didn't look back...
Until about a decade after the war ended, I began reading articles and essays relating the truth. I learned that our boys won every major engagement of the conflict. I learned that the Tet offensive, far from being a defeat for us, was an utter disaster for the Viet Cong, the people we had been sent to defeat. In 1968, we'd effectively accomplished our goal.
I learned about the politics behind events, and where the real shame lay. I learned that our ARVN allies, trained by us, fought courageously deprived of the supplies we promised. I learned how our traitorous CONGRESS refused financial, and ultimately military aid, in spite of promises made. I learned that when S. Vietnam fell, it fell to 4 armored corps employing more troops than the Normandy Invasion and more supply trucks than Patton's famous "Redball Express".
30 years later the shame of my betrayal still burns, and with it the hatred for the traitorous American left and the media that aided them. They were evil for betraying their country, and even more evil for aiding the forces of collectivism.
So, you did your bit, and deserve my apology for not having faith. I swore "never again". I will always have a... grudge... against Clinton for Mogadishu, and Bosnia, and Haiti. I have a similar grudge against Obama for Benghazi, Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Pakistan.
I'll never believe a negative thing a reporter has to say against the honor of our military. Never again.
Thank you for being willing to say what so many won't, because it makes you a far better man than they can ever know when they look into a mirror.
thank you for being willing to stand with those who have served, bled and with those who gave all they had.
Every time you tell some soldier thank you, you are thanking all of us. What can we say, but thank you too........
When did you serve?
Thank you for writing what you did. The utter lack or respect the left-owned media has for the military is contemptuous at best.
You spoke what so many feel, having learned the truth behind the bs that was spoon fed to us, the ignorant masses.
Thank you for showing what really matters.
Thank you Zen :-).
I salute him and his brethren. They do for this country what few can and will do. .