The Sole Survivor

[tequila]

Great article in the Washington Post about the rescue of Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell in Afghanistan.

The blood in his eyes almost blinded him, but the Navy Seal could hear, clattering above the trees in northeast Afghanistan, rescue helicopters.

Hey, he pleaded silently. I'm right here.

Marcus Luttrell, a fierce, 6-foot-5 rancher's son from Texas, lay in the dirt. His face was shredded, his nose broken, three vertebrae cracked from tumbling down a ravine. A Taliban rocket-propelled grenade had ripped off his pants and riddled him with shrapnel.

As the helicopters approached, Luttrell, a petty officer first class, turned on his radio. Dirt clogged his throat, leaving him unable to speak. He could hear a pilot: "If you're out there, show yourself."

It was June 2005. The United States had just suffered its worst loss of life in Afghanistan since the invasion in 2001. Taliban forces had attacked Luttrell's four-man team on a remote ridge shortly after 1 p.m. on June 28. By day's end, 19 Americans had died. Now U.S. aircraft scoured the hills for survivors.

There would be only one. Luttrell's ordeal -- described in exclusive interviews with him and 14 men who helped save him -- is among the more remarkable accounts to emerge from Afghanistan. It has been a dim and distant war, where after 5 1/2 years about 26,000 U.S. troops remain locked in conflict.

Out of that darkness comes this spark of a story. It is a tale of moral choices and of prejudices transcended. It is also a reminder of how challenging it is to be a smart soldier, and how hard it is to be a good man ...

[Culpeper]

At 1:20 p.m., about an hour after the Seals released the Afghans, dozens of Taliban members overwhelmed them. The civilians he had spared, Luttrell believed, had betrayed them. At the end of a two-hour firefight, only he remained alive. He has written about it in a book going on sale tomorrow, "Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of Seal Team 10."

I remember when this battle hit the news.

[JeffC]

I just finished reading Marcus Luttrell's book "Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10". It's outstanding, heart-breaking, and inspiring. He also raises an important issue regarding Rules of Engagement, and how worrying about the possible ramifications of breaking ROE may have contributed to the single greatest loss of life in Navy SEAL history.

Please read it and pass it along, if you haven't done so already.

[Bill Moore]

Jeff your comment could be interpreted as you're advocating shooting unarmed civilians. I haven't seen the AAR on this incident and have no inside knowledge, but in general we can run missions pretty much when we want (weather dependent obviously) to nab or a kill a bad guy, which means you generally have the option of aborting the mission if you have been comprised, because you can come back another day. The article stated that these men thought they may have been compromised, yet they agreed to accept the risk and drive on with the mission anyway. I don't think shooting unharmed civilians was an option to begin with, and either did they. They had two options apparently, one was to drive on with the mission, and the other was to abort. As they suspected in (according to the article), the civilians they released reported their location to the Taliban, thus the ensuing fire fight. I don't question their judgment for a minute (I would if they shot unharmed civilians for a target of moderate importance), unfortunately the situation took a turn for the worst, and we lost several brave men that day.

[JeffC]

Jeff your comment could be interpreted as you're advocating shooting unarmed civilians. I haven't seen the AAR on this incident and have no inside knowledge, but in general we can run missions pretty much when we want (weather dependent obviously) to nab or a kill a bad guy, which means you generally have the option of aborting the mission if you have been comprised, because you can come back another day. The article stated that these men thought they may have been compromised, yet they agreed to accept the risk and drive on with the mission anyway. I don't think shooting unharmed civilians was an option to begin with, and either did they. They had two options apparently, one was to drive on with the mission, and the other was to abort. As they suspected in (according to the article), the civilians they released reported their location to the Taliban, thus the ensuing fire fight. I don't question their judgment for a minute (I would if they shot unharmed civilians for a target of moderate importance), unfortunately the situation took a turn for the worst, and we lost several brave men that day.

--- If you read the book, you'll see that the circumstances surrounding the mission, which had been attempted multiple times in the past, and which involved tracking a very high profile target, made the decision about what to do with the goat herders a bit more complex then just re-scheduling it for another day. In fact, even if they aborted the mission and headed for an extraction point, they'd still be exposed by the goat herders, and tracked by the Taliban. A fight was inevitable if they let them live.

Further, they were not of one mind regarding killing them. One team member favored it, one abstained, one opposed it, and Luttrell couldn't make up his mind, although eventually he says that he was swayed not by his military training but by his religious upbringing to let them live. Today, he believes that he made the wrong decision, and should have killed them.

Two Taliban sympathizers versus 19 dead SEALs. What would you have done?

[Tom Odom]

Two Taliban sympathizers versus 19 dead SEALs. What would you have done?

The math as you pose it is irrelevant; it is not only hindsight, it presupposes committing a war crime. Bill is absolutely correct.

Tom

[Ironhorse]

Tom, well said, I just went to refill my coffee as I struggle with the same fatally flawed argument.

I have not read the book and have little but passing news info on the events. My comment is on the structure and process of the argument.

It is extraordinarly easy to slip into wargaming actions based on the clarity of hindsight. And as a Monday morning QB who was actually in the game on Sunday, Luttrell will be exposed to many emotions and may feel he has the blood of his compadres on his hands. 2 sympathizers for 19 of "us" - sure, easy math, war is full of tough choices, should'a would'a could'a didn't.

But it doesn't work that way. Time flows in the other direction. If one uses foresight instead of hindsight to QB this thing on the prior Friday afternoon instead of Monday morning, and starts using that calculus against every potential threat who might pose a risk --- that generates atrocities, not good military decisions.

From the thumbnail I've got, sounds like "didn't" was the right call. People still die when the right calls are made. It's war. Can't start doing the wrong thing just because of that. Then war truly would be hell.

[Steve Blair]

The math as you pose it is irrelevant; it is not only hindsight, it presupposes committing a war crime. Bill is absolutely correct.

Tom

Not only that....

How do you KNOW they were sympathizers? Maybe the Taliban had family members as hostages, or had the capability to grab said family members. We are, after all, dealing with an enemy that has done this sort of thing before and wouldn't hesitate to do it again. If you're that goatherd, are you going to risk your son, daughter, or wife to help some palefaces that you'll never see again and who can't really protect you in any case? Doubtful.

Sometimes pushing on isn't the right answer. If you're blown, you abort and live to track another day. What you don't do is hand the enemy a IO victory by shooting goatherds or by pushing on when you know (or strongly suspect) you're blown and risk the lives of your people without good cause. The balance shifts somewhat if the target is high priority, but that still shouldn't justify handing the bad guys a free press opportunity by killing bystanders.

Americans are indoctrinated by sports and other scenarios to want to avoid anything less than a clear (and hopefully crushing) victory. Sometimes we forget that surviving can be a victory all its own and that restraint and patience are also a component of long term victory.

[JeffC]

The math as you pose it is irrelevant; it is not only hindsight, it presupposes committing a war crime. Bill is absolutely correct.

Tom

The Taliban leader who was their target was actively involved in launching attacks on coalition forces as well as killing other Afghans who weren't part of the Taliban. Every time an operation against him was aborted, more people died. So let's expand the math to include them as well. You're probably now in the hundreds, particularly civilian loss of life. When does the math add up? 2 lives for 100? 2 lives for 1000?

In addition to that issue, do you make a distinction for enemy spies who aren't carrying a rifle? Does the fact that they're spies "arm" them in the eyes of the Geneva Convention?

[Culpeper]

Jeff your comment could be interpreted as you're advocating shooting unarmed civilians. I haven't seen the AAR on this incident and have no inside knowledge, but in general we can run missions pretty much when we want (weather dependent obviously) to nab or a kill a bad guy, which means you generally have the option of aborting the mission if you have been comprised, because you can come back another day. The article stated that these men thought they may have been compromised, yet they agreed to accept the risk and drive on with the mission anyway. I don't think shooting unharmed civilians was an option to begin with, and either did they. They had two options apparently, one was to drive on with the mission, and the other was to abort. As they suspected in (according to the article), the civilians they released reported their location to the Taliban, thus the ensuing fire fight. I don't question their judgment for a minute (I would if they shot unharmed civilians for a target of moderate importance), unfortunately the situation took a turn for the worst, and we lost several brave men that day.

Even if they aborted, as suggested, they still would have had a mean fight on their hands. What's done is done. They morally did the right thing. Luttrell's vote was the deciding vote. They dealt with the rest like professionals. In a similar situation I wouldn't care if a SEAL team discussed this mission in determining what to do next. In fact, we would never hear about it. In fact, had they killed the natives we probably wouldn't be hearing about this mission as well. I don't recall in the book any talk about shooting the locals. It was going to be more personal. They were just up the mountain from the target. It has never been determined if the locals warned anyone of the SEALs. If they did then they were not innocent civilians. BTW, we bombed the crap out of France before D-Day killing thousands of innocent French civilians along with numerous French collaborators. What's the diff? Micro Macro. The SEAL team knew enough about the danger to discuss it and take to a vote. In hindsight, I don't understand that at all. Since when have SEALs not discussed the possibility of running into locals that may compromise their position and what are the options as a part of SEAL doctrine? With that in mind, it should never have been a matter of a democratic vote. Nevertheless, after that they did everything they could to survive according to the rules of engagement.

[Ken White]

ask for opinions?

We don't know. Luttrell says vote in the book; he apparently told the Murphys something else...

We'll never know. Nor, really, do we need to.

[Culpeper]

ask for opinions?

We don't know. Luttrell says vote in the book; he apparently told the Murphys something else...

We'll never know. Nor, really, do we need to.

You're right and I'll take it a step further and state we don't have a need to know. Actually, I think we know too much.

[negotiator6]

Having done some travel along the Paki-Afgh border in 2003, I offer the following reference the lost of 3 SEALS that terrible day.

First, the SEAL team was equipped with an Iridium SAT phone..a company that went bankrupt in 1999 (try Google search to validate). The billion dollar investment went for a paltry sum of less than $100,000 at the bankruptcy hearing.

DOD had invested (as alleged) $300-400 million because DOD was the primary user of the Iridium SAT system and had the phones fully integrated into the DOD system.

The Iridium phones were totally un-reliabe. LT Murphy had an Iridium SAT phone which required inserting nearly 20 digits into the handset before one might..I repeat..might hear a ring tone. Hardly the kind of communication system required for 4 SEALS on a TS covert behind enemy lines mission. The background and complaints about the Iridium were wide spread-DOD knew...or should of known these phones were not operational in the field most of the time.

I used a Thuraya SAT phone which worked every time..with speed dialing in the event one did not have the time to make a concerted relaxed call to "somewhere". The Thuraya also had a built in GPS..allowing step one to get a long/lat, then place the call to provide the position and SITREP if required. ( I used a Thuraya in both Sudan and Afghanistan and never had a problem..)

In short, the Department of Defense and the leadership at Bagram AB who planned the insertion using the Iridium SAT phone as the primary means of communication were grossly negligent in providing LT Murphy and his team the best communication available.

Being shot in the back while attempting to insert up to 20 digits into a phone during a firefight was perhaps the last option for the team. Written articles and the book define the last moments..

But, again, ask just about anyone about the Iridium SAT system and most will tell the same story. The problem is....these SAT systems are still being used today!

If the mission were so dangerous..why did not the AF have a drone overhead providing real time feed on the SEALS. And...lastly, some of you may recall Operation Anaconda which commenced on 3 March 2002 launching from Gardez (I was there in March of 2003). A SEAL team was sent to secure a mountain top; but bad guys had already secured the top of the mountain with 12.7 mm plus fortified bunker system. The SEAL team retrograded down the mountain...the team commander tried to use his Iridium to contact Bagram AB, but could not..He ended up calling his base back at Norfolk..the duty officer, if I recall correctly. Again, where was the base line logic and coordination with such important missions as LT Murphy's mission and the SEAL mountaintop mission just prior to launching Operation Anaconda? One has to really question the organizational leadership on both operations.

I have some AAR photos of the hilltop eventually taken by the Rangers; if anyone who was there wishes several, please email me. Out here!

[Distiller]

On killing those three civilians: Sheperds are usually alone for extended periods, but who knows? On that particular day they might have had their scheduled food supply, or one of them was just visiting and expected back soon. In any case disrupting their usual (unknown?) behavioral pattern might as well have alerted the villagers, so killing them wouldn't really have safed the situation any more.

The loss of the team is bad, but #### happens. I don't think that they could reasonably hope to remain undetected anyway. That a Chinook went down afterwards is a different story. Again shows not to pack too many people onto one vehicle!.