The Sole Survivor

[Entropy]

I had missed this before, but another book is coming out on the subject, and this one looks quite promising.

[VMI_Marine]

I had missed this before, but another book is coming out on the subject, and this one looks quite promising.

This may help clear up something else that I have noticed a lot - there are a lot of references to Operation Red Wings comprising only the SDV team's recce of the village. Luttrell says it in the book, IIRC. This is false. The team's mission was merely a part of Operation Red Wings, which was planned and conducted by 2d Battalion 3d Marines. There is an excellent Gazette article which gives more detail on the operation, and especially the enormous headaches created for 2/3's staff by NavSOF and the JSOTF. We still have not cracked the nut of integrating SOF and conventional operations.

[jcustis]

The hilarious thing about the consumptionability () of the book is that out of 733 Amazon reviews, 546 gave it 5 stars.

[sapperfitz82]

I was around for Red Wings 2, not that that qualifies me at all to speak for Red Wings 1 (and not that that has ever kept my mouth shut either), but the book either leaves out a couple very key things or points out some flaws in this unit's SOPs.

Soft comp plans have been rehased in detail here (not a mention of them in the book), hard comp plans are completely missing. The authors make a big point of all this behind the lines stuff; no PDM's, no Claymores? Did they even have a plan for these contengincies?

Basic patrolling, never reoccupy. They went right back to a previous recce point. That's a pretty rookie mistake, or it speaks volumes to overconfidence.

On the locals. The immature nature of dealing with the locals is evident in most units. We have a real problem with this and the cultural sensitivity training is not helping. We need to develop our own character a great deal, as a profession.

Someone mentioned firebombing Dresden. The Army Air Corps and their Brit equivlent did an exhaustive study on the effects of strategic bombing during WWII. No positive correlation was found. In fact, war material production increased during that time. Pysche studies showed that there is not a corresponding factor of fear instilled in civilian population either. Pretty sure this translates to "killing civilians who support a war effort is an ineffective policy."

Oh, and as my guys were out there looking for him and his team and doing body recovery on the rest that tried to help them, I feel no remorse in saying that the piss poor planning and overconfidence of these guys led directly to their deaths. They did make a helluva a good fight, and I hope when its my time to go, I can be worthy of such a story.

RIP

[oblong]

Former SEAL says he misspoke on details of Afghan battle

http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?s...8&archive=true

And this:

http://www.blackfive.net/main/2008/0...-luttrell.html

[Tipy]

The civilian who assisted Marcus is a fiction writer. I would take nothing away from Marcus, but I wonder how much of this book was written by the civilian "fiction writer" and how much was written by Marcus.
Victory Point by Ed Darak gives a much more "non fiction" sounding explanation of what happeded. I highly recommend that anyone taking part in this website read "Victory Point" by Darak.
Possibly anyone retreating downhill in a very steep rock ravine with no cover dominated by a minimum number of taliban/gangsters would have the crap shot out from under themselves, as much by twenty gangsters as by 200 gangsters.
I have much doubt about this civilian fiction writer and just how much he sat down with a Lone Survivor "after" the book was written by the civilian. Possibly no chance to edit "Lone Survivor" on Marcus part?
I have no doubts about a Navy SEAL's honesty, but I have many doubts about the "fiction writer".
Besides I tried reading his fiction and could not force myself to finish any of his books. He (the civilian) is a very crappy writer, to put it mildly
Semper Fidelis,
Tipy.