lone survivor book review new york times

The New York Times

At war | seeing my friend depicted in ‘lone survivor’, seeing my friend depicted in ‘lone survivor’, movie review: 'lone survivor'.

The Times critic A. O. Scott reviews "Lone Survivor."

I dreaded the idea of seeing my old roommate’s death depicted on screen in the movie “Lone Survivor.” But when I saw a pair of Birkenstocks walking away from the camera on the big screen, I knew someone had taken the time to get the details right. Someone really cared about this story.

The actor Eric Bana plays the role of my friend, Erik Kristensen, a Navy SEAL officer killed in Afghanistan on June 28, 2005. I’d known Erik since I was a kid — he’d gone to Gonzaga College High School in Washington with my older brother Dave, and they later rowed crew together at the U.S. Naval Academy. A few years later, I followed them to Gonzaga and then rowed at the Academy, too. We’d known each other for 15 years, and we were roommates when he went through SEAL training in Coronado, Calif., and I was stationed on a destroyer across the bay in 2000.

Mr. Bana said of Erik: “He’s a guy I would have gotten along with had I gotten to meet him.”

A good story is in the details, and Mr. Bana himself ensured those details were included.

Here’s the back story.

Operation Red Wings Lt. Cmdr. Erik Kristensen was the Task Unit Commander when a SEAL mission that went terribly wrong. On this operation, 19 Americans died and only one SEAL, Petty Officer Marcus Luttrell, lived to tell the story. The movie, the book — it’s Petty Officer Luttrell’s story.

His four-man SEAL team deployed to the mountainous region of Afghanistan near the Pakistan border to begin surveillance on a Taliban leader named Ahmad Shah, but their location was discovered and they were soon outnumbered by enemy fighters.

On the mountaintop, the four SEALs radioed for help, and Erik personally led the response. But his helicopter was shot down before it could deploy Erik and the rescue team.

The Movie I already knew the ending, and didn’t want to see the movie. But when Erik’s mom, Sam Kristensen, asked some of his friends to accompany Erik’s cousins, Jen and Allison, to see an advance screening of “Lone Survivor,” I went.

You always do what a gold star mother asks.

As the story progressed, an actor appeared on screen wearing utilities with the name KRISTENSEN, but of course, it wasn’t Erik. Not our Erik.

But then I saw a glimpse of something that made me think of my friend. In the film, when communication with Petty Officer Luttrell’s reconnaissance team was lost, a petty officer named Shane Patton woke up Commander Kristensen — Mr. Bana — to update him on the situation. And as Mr. Bana walked away, the movie cut to a shot of his feet shuffling down the hall.

He was wearing Erik’s favorite sandals: Birkenstocks.

Now there are maybe a few dozen people in the world who’d see that scene and immediately grasp the significance: Erik was rarely without his Birkenstocks, and was even buried with a pair on his feet.

How did that get into the movie?

I wanted to know. So I emailed the production studio and ended up with a 30-minute interview with the actor.

“I Really Loved That Side of Him”

When asked about how he prepared for the role of playing Erik, Mr. Bana said, “There’s this fine line where you go digging for information as much as you can get in a short amount of time.” He added, “And there are a few constants in Erik’s character I loved reading about.”

One of them was Erik’s humility.

Despite his rank, Mr. Bana said he realized, “he didn’t take himself too seriously.”

“I know that’s a common theme with Special Forces,” Mr. Bana said. “But when the time came for orders to be given, he assumed that mantle and was extremely capable. I really loved that side of him.”

“The other constant was his sense of humor,” Mr. Bana continued. “He just seemed like a real interesting guy. A guy I know I would’ve gotten along with if I’d gotten the chance to meet him ”

With all the research he did on Erik, Mr. Bana acknowledged that “Lone Survivor” was a movie, not a documentary.

“At the end of the day, you’ve got to turn up and back your instinct that you know enough about him, but the real job now is you’ve got to do a good job as an actor,” he said. “Because we can all have these great intentions to honor everybody — and that can fail if we allow the overwhelming sense of responsibility to cloud our instincts as actors or our judgment as co-storyteller.

“Fortunately, the story is so compelling, and the beats of Erik within our film are really strong.”

At a premiere of “Lone Survivor” in Los Angeles, Mr. Bana met Erik’s parents: Sam, his mom, and Ed, his father, a retired two-star Navy admiral. “It was great to get a chance to meet them,” Mr. Bana said. “It meant a lot.”

Mr. Bana said his research had turned up a few mentions of Erik wearing Birkenstocks, and the fact that he was even buried wearing a pair.

“The day when we were shooting the scene where Patton comes and knocks on the door and wakes me up, I was telling Pete [Peter Berg, the director] the story about the Birkenstocks, and he said, ‘That’s great, let’s put you in Birkenstocks.’ So he called the props and the wardrobe department, and they got us a pair straight away.”

“There’s always a way of someone showing individuality without bucking the system,” Mr. Bana said, “so a little detail can be really important.”

John Ismay is a former U.S. Navy Explosive Ordnance Disposal officer and a member of Columbia Journalism School’s class of 2014. You can follow him on his blog and on Twitter .

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Lone Survivor

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Effective January 1st, 2009, The Dove Foundation Review Team has ceased reviewing all NC-17 rated movies and certain extraordinarily explicit R-rated films. This decision was reached due to the fact that Dove reviewers are parents or grandparents with conservative values. As such, we feel that we can no longer expose these dedicated and caring people to movies that contain distasteful and appalling stories that are focused on graphic horror and violence, and/or gratuitous depictions of explicit sex and nudity. “Lone Survivor” is considered to be such a film. Our report is therefore limited to the business information (title, rating, distributor, producer, director, actors, etc), synopsis, and the content chart

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Lone Survivor

Ken hodgson.

350 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2001

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Peter Berg and Marcus Luttrell Talk LONE SURVIVOR, Cast and Crew Dedication, Making the Movie for the Right Reasons, Honoring Lives Lost, and More

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Click to Page 2 for more from Berg and Luttrell

[Top photo by Matthew Schuchman]

Is there any information that couldn’t be included in the movie?

LUTTRELL: Yes, ma’am. Some parts were classified, yes, ma’am. Absolutely. The same with the book. The SEAL team just said that we needed to put the story out to squash any rumors that were going around about what happened on the mountain that day, because the families would call me and say, ‘Hey, why didn’t you tell me a bout this? I didn’t know this had happened.’ I was in a hospital and then I worked up to trying to get back overseas to go fight and I would say, ‘I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about, ma’am.’ That happened so much that our higher commander actually said, ‘Hey, we’re gonna declassify this. We’re gonna put it out to the American public so they can understand what happened and then that answers the questions.’ But with that being said though, some of the stuff that was classified and we can’t talk about, we had to somehow make it so the book made sense where you could follow it and not get lost. And obviously if you have read the book, there’s probably some chapters where you’re going, ‘Hey, wait a minute. There’s obviously something that had to have happened right here, but it’s not in here.’ It kind of got jumped over and that’s because it’s classified. The same way with the movie, ma’am. We could only take so much information. You’ve got to understand, I was out there for five days and to make a movie like that would have been probably a mini-series or two-part series or something like that. So he did a great job with taking all the information that he had, condensing it and then putting it on the film, the same as we had to do with the book.

And to backtrack to your question about how we made the actors a cohesive unit and to work together as a SEAL team and as a unit is basically we took them for a month and some change ahead of production and we beat the snot out of them. We worked them from sunup to sundown like a SEAL team, and the way that you forge a bond, the way that you forge a unit and a brotherhood is not in a peaceful environment, not in a loving environment. That stuff is forged in chaos. That’s how you create a brotherhood, through blood and pain and sweat. Everybody in here who’s married, who has a brother or somebody like that, the reason you love them is because you’ve been through everything with them, the highs and the lows and it’s the lows that bring you closer together because you know that they have faults, they have weaknesses and the only way that I’m gonna be stronger is I’m gonna have that guy next to me. And I don’t have to look over there at him to make sure he’s gonna be there. He’s gonna be there and the only reason he’s not gonna be there is if he’s dead, and the reason I know that is because it’s been tested from day one, week one of training, every day until that very day that it happens because our training never stopped. The SEAL teams from the time we start to the time that we ether get out or we die, we’re training everyday or we’re fighting everyday, and that’s the difference between our unit and the other branches of the military, ma’am.

What about the protocols? Has anything changed since the incident?

LUTTRELL: I don’t think I can talk about that, sir. That would probably be off limits. I’m sorry.

Peter, can you compare and contrast your approach to this versus The Kingdom ?

BERG: My approach for most of my films, Friday Night Lights , The Kingdom and certainly Lone Survivor , has been research, research, research. The most critical aspect of prep for me when I’m doing a culture, such as a Navy SEAL culture, in The Kingdom it was an FBI foreign crime investigative culture, Friday Night Lights was the culture of Texas football which in it’s own way is as intense as aspects of the military, believe it or not. They take the football pretty serious in high school football in Texas, as some of you guys know. If I’m gonna go on a film set as a director, as the boss and I’m gonna be standing there with Marcus Luttrell watching me or Mike Murphy’s dad or the Axelson family or any one of ten SEALs that Marcus had on the set at any given time who were good friends with these guys, if I’m gonna go there and act as if I’m in a position to run that, I better have a pretty decent understanding of what that world is. At least decent enough so that if I don’t know something, I can look at Marcus and go, ‘Hey man, I don’t understand this. Can you explain this to me,’ in a way that makes him still respect that I’ve done the work, that I know enough to at least understand what a good question is versus a stupid question, and I have to be able to manage it, you know? It’s not easy to manage these guys. They’re a very strong-willed, I don’t know if you can tell [laughs], but rather dynamic individuals and they’re not shy. If you get it wrong, they will not hesitate to tell you you got it wrong, particularly when you’re portraying their brothers who are dead. So for me, research was everything. It took a long time to make this film and one of the reasons was I needed to have as good an understanding of what their world was as I could before I felt confident enough to go on the set.

Marcus, did you have any say during the casting process? Were there any actors you had in mind to play you or your friends?

LUTTRELL: In the beginning, yes ma’am, that was tough. I thought about everyone else, but the guy who was gonna play me. Everybody was coming at me from all different directions like, ‘You need to have Matt Damon, Brad Pitt,’ and my reply to them was, ‘Okay, if I have somebody like that playing me and you go and watch a movie called Lone Survivor , who do you think is gonna make it off the mountain?’ Because in real life, when the parents were at home just sitting by the phone waiting to see which one of us made it off the mountain alive, nobody knew. I wasn’t special. I wasn’t the best frogman out there. The fact that I made it off the mountain was just pure luck and God’s intervention and stuff like that and a little bit of skill. When I was talking to Pete about it, I was like, ‘You need to blend the cast with all actors on the same level so when it goes down and the last guy’s standing, you’re like, wow, I didn’t see that coming.’ He picked Mark Wahlberg. I didn’t have a problem with that. When it came down to it, basically I was the professional at what I do and he’s the professional at what he does so really I don’t have that much capability to tell him what to do. It’s like telling a heart surgeon how to work on your heart and like, ‘I don’t think you should cut right here. Let’s go over here. I’m a little sensitive.’ [Laughs]

Ben Foster was the guy that I really kind of gravitated towards and when I saw him in the movies that he was in, I mean, that guy is probably one of the best actors in Hollywood in my opinion. Nothing against the other actors - Taylor and Emile, I love those guys like brothers for what they did – but there’s something about Foster. It got so intense that when he portrayed Matt Axelson, that’s Matt Axelson when you see him on the screen. That’s how he was. He’s just like Ben Foster. He was real quiet, it’s the guy you wouldn’t take a second look at when he walked into a room. You’d be like, ‘Hey, that’s a good looking guy, whatever,’ he’s standing there quiet, doesn’t say much, but when he threw his kit on and he grabbed his rifle, he was the most lethal man you ever met in your entire life. He doesn’t cut you any slack; it was one thing that comes down the pipe. He’s standing or your standing and that’s it.

In the SEAL teams, it’s real important, attention to detail. We throw that line out regularly and it really does mean something. Attention to detail doesn’t mean pay attention to detail. Like, move your shirt over a little bit because your button’s not in line with your belt, that’s attention to detail, and Ben captured that. He was always asking those questions like, ‘What do I do here?’ And when we got up to filming, literally, if we got into a scrape or something went down, I could throw Ben a rifle and he could go to work. He’s that good. One of the things that really got my attention is that he wanted to learn everything and really learn it. [Laughs] We put a live weapon in his hand and he was shooting at a target at 25 meters and I was like, ‘Okay, if you can hit that target at 25 meters, you could hit that target at 700 meters. Let’s do it. You ready?’ He’s like, ‘Yeah, I’m ready.’ Took two or three shots, he missed, I said, ‘Concentrate. Breathe. It’s not like 25 meters. Just think about it like that.’ And then when he got done, he was shooting targets at 800 meters, just painting it down the line and then moving, shooting, communicating. I don’t know if you’ve seen the film ma’am, but then you kind of understand where I’m coming from with that. And he never stopped. After the film, while filming, before filming, he’s always questions, questions, questions. All of them really put out like that and it was a blessing. But as far as the actor to play me, I probably could have just been like, ‘You need this guy to play me,’ and it was like that never happened, ma’am. I stayed back from that and let Pete do it.

Peter, can you talk about getting coverage on the mountain? You’ve got the altitude, the terrain, and people tumbling down those hills, which I imagine you don’t want them doing more times than necessary.

BERG: I’ve worked with the same crew for quite a while and I generally shoot three cameras, and the style of shooting that I generally use, we don’t cut a lot. We use RED cameras so we don’t have to cut and reload. We can just keep rolling and that worked very well for that environment. My cinematographer, Tobias Schliessler, is a German mountain climber so he was more dynamic up on that mountain than he was on a soundstage. And in general, the crew we had was just a very robust, hearty crew and they really got into it. I’ve worked on many films and generally film crews work hard, but it’s a job. There was something about this film, having Marcus on the guys on set so much, everyone had read the book, everyone felt extremely passionate to work harder, so we’d be up on the mountain and we knew we only had seven hours of light, we knew that weather could come in, we knew that we didn’t have a studio behind us so if we blew something, we couldn’t go to daddy for more money. Everybody worked very hard and was very focused. We were able to get the coverage because everyone just leaned into it. For lunch, Mark Wahlberg would get on a chairlift with everybody else, put an egg salad sandwich in his pocket and give him a piece of equipment, he’d carry it up. It wasn’t, ‘Okay, we’re gonna stop for two hours and have lunch.’ There were no chairs up there. There were no vanity squads. One makeup artist would run around and try and keep everybody under control. We were able to just focus on the work. It was a good feeling. At the end of the day, we’d come off real tired, go to bed, feeling good, just get up and hit it the next day.

Lone Survivor opens in New York and Los Angeles on December 25 th and nationwide on January 10 th .

• Lone Survivor

Book Review – Lone Survivor

“I tried to get a hold of myself. But again in my mind I heard that terrible, terrible scream, the same one that awakens me, bullying its way into my solitary dreams, night after night, the confirmation of guilt. The endless guilt of the survivor. ‘Help me, Marcus! Please help me!’ It was a desperate appeal in the mountains of a foreign land. It was a scream cried out in the echoing high canyons of one of the loneliest places on earth. It was the nearly unrecognizable cry of a mortally wounded creature. And it was a plea I could not answer. I can’t forget it. Because it was made by one of the finest people I ever met, a man who happened to be my best friend.”

In 2005, Marcus Luttrell was part of a four-man mission in the mountains of Afghanistan. A member of the elite Navy SEALs, he was tasked with killing a Taliban leader who had close ties with Osama bin Laden. This small team was hidden outside a village, surveying the area and looking for their target, when a small group of goat herders stumbled upon them. The soldiers quickly detained the two men and the teenage boy and debated what they should do. The most obvious solution and the one that would be most conducive to their mission would be to immediately execute their prisoners. But when the four soldiers put it to a vote, it was determined that they should let these people go. Morality won over personal preservation. But was it morality or fear? “Was I afraid of these guys? No. Was I afraid of their possible buddies in the Taliban? No. Was I afraid of the liberal media back in the U.S.A.? Yes. And I suddenly flashed on the prospect of many, many years in a U.S. civilian jail alongside murderers and rapists.” The former prisoners quickly and inevitably reported to the Taliban leaders and the SEALs were soon fighting for their lives. Before long three of the men were dead and the fourth, Luttrell, was running for his life (though not before the Americans killed somewhere around 100 enemy soldiers. Don’t mess with the SEALs!). It was a terrible slaughter, made worse when a helicopter carrying a rescue force was shot down, killing sixteen more Americans.

Lone Survivor tells the story of this mission through the eyes of Luttrell, the only man who lived to tell the tale. The book was released to great acclaim and has become a fixture on the bestseller lists. While the book is in many ways a typical war story (a description of SEAL training camp, tales of combat, lots and lots of bad language and tales of remarkable heroism) it goes beyond the story to share at least a couple of very important statements about warfare today. And this is, I think, where the reader stands to benefit most.

One of this book’s most important statements is that the current rules of engagement soldiers are required to adhere to are irrational and are the product of politicians who are far from the action. “Any government that thinks war is somehow fair and subject to rules like a baseball game probably should not get into one. Because nothing’s fair in war, and occasionally the wrong people do get killed.” American soldiers are being forced to fight in situations where they are almost guaranteed to take casualties because of restrictive rules of engagement. These rules may make sense to politicians safely ensconced in their Washington offices, but they are utterly unfair and unsafe on the battlefield. Luttrell states clearly and emphatically that these rules are costing lives and that the United States should not be willing to fight wars that she cannot fight to win.

The other important statement is about the role of the media in modern warfare. Luttrell’s disgust for the media knows no bounds. “It’s been an insidious progression, the criticisms of the U.S. Armed Forces from politicians and from the liberal media, which knows nothing of combat, nothing of our training, and nothing of the mortal dangers we face out there on the front line.” “I promise you, every insurgent, freedom fighter, and stray gunman in Iraq who we arrested knew the ropes, knew that the way out was to announce that he had been tortured by the Americans, ill treated, or prevented from reading the Koran or eating his breakfast or watching the television. They all knew al-Jazeera, the Arab broadcasters, would pick it up, and it would be relayed to the U.S.A., where the liberal media would joyfully accuse all of us of being murderers or barbarians or something. Those terrorist organizations laugh at the U.S. media, and they know exactly how to use the system against us.” Those of us who have watched recent wars from afar can attest that this is exactly the case. The media, and particularly the liberal media, seems too often to side with the bad guys. Soldiers are fighting brutal warfare, all the while more terrified of their own nation’s press than the guys shooting at them. They hardly know who the real enemy is.

Lone Survivor is an enjoyable book, typical in many of its facets, but atypical in its deeper message. It is a book Americans would do well to read and to consider. (Do be warned, in case you missed it earlier, that Luttrell is a solider and he uses the language of a soldier.)

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Lone Survivor

49 pages • 1 hour read

Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10

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Summary and Study Guide

Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10 (2007) is a military-themed memoir by former Navy SEAL, Marcus Luttrell , with the help of ghostwriter Patrick Robinson. Based on a 2005 mission in Afghanistan, the book examines the intricacies of warfare. The narrative explores themes such as valor, self-sacrifice, and the multifaceted nature of combat. The book became a New York Times bestseller and subsequently inspired a 2013 film adaptation.

Labeled under military history and biography, Lone Survivor underscores the physical and emotional tolls of contemporary combat. The title hints at the book’s events, where Luttrell emerges as the sole survivor of his team.

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The narrative chronicles Operation Red Wings, a mission targeting the prominent Taliban leader, Ahmad Shah. Luttrell’s SEAL team , dropped into Afghanistan’s mountainous terrain, soon confronts a Taliban ambush. Despite their relentless defense, they’re outnumbered.

The aftermath is grim: Three SEALs perish, and Luttrell is seriously injured. Afghan locals, risking Taliban wrath, rescue and shield him. His ordeal culminates in a dramatic rescue, followed by recovery and remembrance.

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The book combines rapid-fire action sequences with introspective moments, presented from Luttrell’s point of view . Luttrell aims to put the reader in the middle of the fight while also pausing to reflect on broader themes like duty, brotherhood, and the complexities of war.

Luttrell highlights the grueling preparation SEALs undergo, their guiding principles, and the essence of split-second decisions in combat scenarios. The narrative also offers insights into Afghan viewpoints, especially through the villager who befriends Luttrell, underscoring the cultural and moral nuances of the anti-Taliban struggle.

Beyond its autobiographical facets, Lone Survivor offers commentary on combat rules, warfare morality, and the War on Terror’s impact on both individuals and the national psyche. It reflects on modern warfare and its repercussions.

This guide references the 2008 edition by Back Bay Books.

Plot Summary

As the memoir opens, Luttrell is driving across the country on a lonely mission to visit the families of his comrades who fell in battle, and to tell them of their loved ones’ bravery. Luttrell was part of an elite team of Navy SEALs deployed to Afghanistan who were armed with the best training available in the entire US military. Deeply proud of their creed and loyal to each other, the SEALs were deployed to the toughest areas of Afghanistan to stop the Taliban from re-establishing themselves as a force in the country. At the time, the Taliban were attempting to set up guerilla training camps and establish a shadow government in Afghanistan.

Luttrell grew up in Texas, and he knew he wanted to be a Navy SEAL from a young age. His father was a no-nonsense man who taught Luttrell and his twin brother about harsh truths in life and introduced them to SEAL training. After battling his way through the toughest training course in any division of the US military, Luttrell achieved his goal and headed into the most dangerous area in Afghanistan—a mountainous region filled with Taliban fighters and snipers.

While patrolling, Luttrell and his men come across a group of unarmed Afghan shepherds. Although the men know there is a good chance the shepherds are scouts for the Taliban, they follow the rules of engagement and let the men go unharmed. Hours later, that comes back to haunt them when the scouts summon fighters to surround the SEALs. Although the SEALs fight long and hard, they are surrounded by almost 100 Taliban fighters with no backup.

In the end, three of Luttrell’s four-man unit are killed in action. With no weapons and no way out, one of the men uses a cell phone to call for backup, despite knowing this will give away their location. A rescue team responds, but the Taliban fighters are able to shoot it down and kill more men. Ultimately, 19 US soldiers die in Operation Red Wings.

Injured and in enemy territory, Luttrell struggles to find water and shelter. He is found by Afghan villagers who shelter him, and who plot to fend off Taliban fighters and notify the US military. Luttrell’s family back in Texas knows he is missing and holds prayer vigils for his safe return. Although Luttrell has several close encounters with Taliban fighters who beat him and try to kill him, the villagers continue to protect him.

Luttrell is missing for six days when he is finally found by US troops. He recovers in a military hospital abroad and then flies back to the United States to reunite with his family. After his recovery, he returns and finishes his tour overseas. He later makes a cross-country tour to meet with the families of the fallen. He is given an award at the White House by then-President George W. Bush for his heroism in combat, and eventually goes on to serve another tour in Iraq.

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Book Review: Lone Survivor by Marcus Luttrell

There is a certain kind of man who has what it takes to become a Navy SEAL . There is a good chance that you and I are not that kind of man.  Marcus Luttrell and the men he served with are those kind of men. In his excellent book Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10 , Luttrell recounts in vivid detail both what it takes to become a SEAL and also what it looks like to fight and die as a SEAL.

This book is not for the faint of heart. It is, however, for those who long to know the hearts and minds of our greatest warriors. If this story were written 200 years ago, we would count the achievements of these heroic “characters” as those of legend, built-up upon story after story. But no, they and many (yet few) like them are real, and best of all, they love and serve this great nation.

Lone Survivor Book Review

I’m proud to say I read (or rather listened to on Audible ) this book before watching the movie, which does not do the story any kind of justice, but, if it helps point people to the book then so be it, because the book is just excellent. This book is painful to read, simply because it’s real. It’s equally painful because you know to some degree how the story ends. The challenge, from a reader’s perspective is purely an emotional one: you are going to get attached to the men in the book who you know will not live. Danny, Axe, Mikey , all men of incredible valor, they will not live no matter how much power the author of this story has. And yet that is exactly the point; to love the men who gave so much and to gain respect for those who are still fighting. Well, mission accomplished!

In 2005, four Navy SEALs, Marcus, Danny, Axe, and Mikey, took on a recon mission in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. Shortly after getting into position a group of goat herders stumbles upon them placing the entire mission in jeopardy and leaving the four SEALs with a difficult choice: kill the goat herders and face hell and likely prison from the liberal American media, or let the herders go and pray they don’t tell the Taliban. You might be able to guess which decision they made.

The story starts with Marcus visiting the wives and family of his fallen friends, quickly moves into the recon mission, and then jumps out again to his and his twin brother’s childhood, and then continues from there with the events leading up to those fateful days: basic training, BUD/S, SEAL specialist training, etc.

SEALs are awesome…really awesome

When I was in the Navy the SEALs were some kind of mysterious class of guys that I wasn’t even allowed to look at much less talk to. I knew they were tough but I really had no idea of why they were treated with such god-like reverence. I remember hearing stories of them rafting up to the ship (an aircraft carrier), climbing the massive ropes to the deck, and stripping down bare-ass naked like they owned the place. I have since gained some understanding of their special kind of awesomeness, but it wasn’t until I read this book that I really began to understand what it took to become a SEAL. Luttrell takes us into the world of BUD/S (Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL) and through Hell Week and we get to see man after man — tough as hell guys too, no mamma’s boys — crack and leave, one after the other. Something in them just snaps.

It isn’t just the physical toughness of these guys, but it is their overall spirit that is being constantly examined: their character, their demeanor, the way they deal with stress and pain, not just that they make it through.

SEALs love America

I don’t think I have read a more patriotic book in quite a while. At several points in the story Luttrell points out the incredible affection and pride each SEAL has for his country. Perhaps that is one of the reasons our soldiers and our media don’t always see eye to eye. One of the great points Luttrell makes is that so many of the terrorist we are fighting against are doing it for money. They are getting paid to be evil. We often get them to give up information by giving them a few dollars and they completely turn on their own people. Our guys on the other hand, are not doing this for money, God knows, but out of love for country and the pride of doing what is right .

SEALs have a strength and valor that can’t be imagined

No doubt the hardest part to get through it the book are the deaths of Danny, Mikey, and Axe . It’s so difficult because they just kept fighting. Gushing blood, shot in the neck, head half blown off, it didn’t matter, they just kept fighting. What we hear, back home, from the media is that a “few soldiers were killed in combat”. We never hear about how it happened or how brave those guys were. It’s as if they just took a bullet and hit the dirt; clean and painless. But that isn’t the reality of war and something is missed when our sons and daughters don’t hear how heroic their fathers were in action. Marcus’ recounting of his escape from the immediate threat, after watching each of his best friends die, himself dehydrated to the point of not being able to speak, shot numerous times…is awe inspiring. I can’t think of a man still alive that I would be more proud to just catch a glimpse of than Marcus Luttrell. What a privilege it would be to tell my sons and grandsons that I lived in his age and saw that man with my own eyes.

Nothing to report. Well, maybe some cursing.

There is a good deal of cursing in the book, which is to be expected, so just be warned it may not be something for the kiddos. I’m not going soft on the book, I just really enjoyed it. Granted I listened to it rather than read it, which no doubt changes some of my perception on the flow of the writer and whatnot, but the book, being a slice of American history, is just great.

Final Thoughts

There is so much more to the book than I can put in a review. I really wanted my oldest son to read it, but I don’t think he is quite ready for it just yet. We, Americans, don’t get the frontline report like we used to, mostly because it would distract us from our comfort and ease, which is why this book made such an impact on me. Get this book and check out Marcus Luttrell as well. This is a man you can follow and be proud of.

Did you read it?

If you read the book I would love to get your feedback! Respond in the comments below.

– Yarbrough

Mike Yarbrough

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‘Lone Survivor’ carries out its mission, reviews say

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“Lone Survivor,” Peter Berg’s new movie about a Navy SEAL mission gone horribly awry in the mountains of Afghanistan, gives away its ending in the title. But spoilers are beside the point for the gritty drama based on Marcus Luttrell’s 2007 memoir, critics say, as Berg is more concerned with the bonds of brotherhood and the horrors of war. According to these reviews, the film succeeds in bringing the mission to life, although it avoids probing the deeper issues at hand.

The Times’ Betsy Sharkey writes , “Berg has finally found the right war to fight and the right cast to fight it. … Whether it will be your kind of war depends.” With its “gruesome energy” and “remarkable reality,” Sharkey says, “this movie is not for the faint of heart.”

The production and costume designers nail the details, she writes, and the actors, led by Mark Wahlberg, Ben Foster, Emile Hirsch and Taylor Kitsch, hit their marks: “As visceral as all four make the pain, it is the raw emotions that are so riveting. Pain in their eyes, tension rippling across faces, acceptance of the inevitable, but never retreat.”

WATCH: Cast, crew discuss the making of ‘Lone Survivor’

The New York Times’ A.O. Scott says , “‘Lone Survivor’ is not messing around.” Berg, “an unusually thoughtful action director,” has delivered “a combat movie with the spare, clean contours of an old Western, as attuned to ethical questions as it is to gunplay and hot pursuit.” The defining trait of the film, Scott adds, “is professionalism. It is a modest, competent, effective movie, concerned above all with doing the job of explaining how the job was done. Afterward, you may want to think more about reasons and consequences, about global and domestic politics, but while the fight is going on, you are absorbed in the mechanics of survival.”

Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune says that roughly half of “Lone Survivor” is “standard-issue Hollywood … But the other half — the hour or so of writer-director Peter Berg’s film dealing specifically with what happens when four men are cut off in Taliban country, scrambling under fire — is strong, gripping stuff, free of polemics, nerve-wracking in the extreme.”

At its best, Phillips adds, the film “accomplishes its mission, which is to respect these men, dramatize what they went through and let the more troubling matters of moral consequence trickle in where, and how, they may.”

PHOTOS: Behind the scenes of movies and TV

The Boston Globe’s Ty Burr, however, doesn’t let the film off the hook as easily. He argues that “the wars we fight aren’t simple anymore and the best recent movies about them — from ‘Three Kings’ to ‘The Hurt Locker’ to a dozen great documentaries like ‘Restrepo’ and ‘Gunner Palace’ — aren’t simple either. They have to address contexts of why we’re there, whether we’re wanted, how culture clashes macro and micro, military and civilian, play themselves out. To not do so, as Peter Berg’s rousing, well-made field tragedy does not, is to end up with an old-fashioned war movie.”

Burr concludes, “Berg gives us courage under fire and a moving, bullet-chipped plaque of a drama. It’s very good as far as it goes. But it doesn’t go far enough anymore.”

Nor is Burr alone in that sentiment. Michael O’Sullivan of the Washington Post writes , “What’s missing here is something, or rather, someone, to care about. … The film presumes our emotional investment in Luttrell and his fellow soldiers’ mission, simply by virtue of — well, it’s never quite clear what.”

He adds, “We need something — Compassion? Commiseration? Connection? — to leaven the monotony of the mayhem.”

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Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10 Kindle Edition

• Print length 401 pages
• Language English
• Sticky notes On Kindle Scribe
• Publisher Little, Brown and Company
• Publication date June 12, 2007
• File size 5787 KB
• Page Flip Enabled
• Word Wise Enabled
• Enhanced typesetting Enabled
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• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B000QRIGLC
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Little, Brown and Company; 1st edition (June 12, 2007)
• Publication date ‏ : ‎ June 12, 2007
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• File size ‏ : ‎ 5787 KB
• Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
• Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 401 pages
• #1 in Biographies of the Afghan War
• #2 in Biographies of the Iraq War
• #19 in Iraq War History (Books)

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Petty Officer First Class Marcus Luttrell was born in Huntsville, Texas in 1975.

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Review: Rocking Out, and Falling in Love, in ‘The Lonely Few’

Lauren Patten and Taylor Iman Jones star in an achingly romantic, softly sexy new musical by Rachel Bonds and Zoe Sarnak.

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By Laura Collins-Hughes

Of all the juke joints in all the towns in all the South, Amy had to walk into Paul’s.

OK, yes, he invited her. A musician with a touch of fame, whom he’s known since she was a child, she’s stopping in for a visit on a break from her solo tour.

For Lila, the frontwoman of the local band that’s playing the bar that night, the world shifts permanently when Amy glides in, trailing all the glamour and cool of a life so much bolder than anything Lila has ever lived.

“Great set,” Amy tells her afterward. And when Lila bashfully shrugs off the compliment, Amy repeats it. “No, really — great set,” she says, her words unambiguously flirtatious. The chemistry between these two is instant, and profound. As soon as they sing together, so is the harmony.

“The Lonely Few,” the achingly romantic, softly sexy, genuinely rocking new musical by Rachel Bonds (“ Jonah ”) and Zoe Sarnak at MCC Theater , is Lila and Amy’s love story. The telling of it gives us more of Lila’s world than of Amy’s, though — the same way that the 1999 rom-com “Notting Hill” is grounded more in the world of the ordinary bookseller than of the movie star who wanders in and claims his heart.

Meticulously directed by Trip Cullman and Ellenore Scott, “The Lonely Few” is beautifully cast, and it has an absolute ace in its Lila: Lauren Patten, bringing the full-voiced ferocity that she unleashed in “ Jagged Little Pill ” — and won a Tony Award for — and the endearing awkwardness that she lent to “ The Wolves ,” alongside a vulnerability that could just about break you.

In Lila’s tiny Kentucky hometown, music-making is the passion she gets up to when she isn’t working her grocery store job with her bassist and best friend, Dylan (Damon Daunno), or keeping an anxious eye on her brother, Adam (Peter Mark Kendall), whose drinking is out of control.

Her life is gritty and messy and small. Once Amy (Taylor Iman Jones) comes along, Lila is a little ashamed of that, and of her inability to escape to something better — maybe in a place where the fact of her sexuality isn’t met with averted eyes.

“God, I wouldn’t be able to breathe,” Amy says, though of course she recognizes the feeling. Her songwriting hit is a wistful breakup tune called “She,” about her ex-wife, that made it big only when a man recorded it.

Amy’s tour, as it happens, is on pause; her opening act bailed, and she needs to find a new one. Sensing talent as well as a spark, she enlists Lila and her band, the Lonely Few — which also includes Paul (Thomas Silcott), on drums, and JJ (Helen J Shen), on keyboard — to join her for the rest of the tour.

On the road, romance ensues, and so do family complications: Lila’s fretful guilt as Adam spirals without her, still grieving their mother’s death; Amy’s enduring anger that when Paul — the drummer who was her stepdad long ago — left her alcoholic mother, back in New Orleans, he left her, too.

With a habit of cutting people out of her life, Amy is more of a loner than Lila, but each of them has constructed a carapace. The question is whether they are brave enough to shed them for each other.

This intimate, tightly woven musical envelops the audience: with Sibyl Wickersheimer’s wraparound set, which seats some of the crowd in the bar; Adam Honoré’s rock-show lighting, whose beams touch all of us; and the pulse of the songs, which we feel in our bodies — the hard-driving numbers and the quiet ones, too. (Music direction is by Myrna Conn, leading a mostly offstage four-piece band. Sound design, worryingly muddy at first, is by Jonathan Deans and Mike Tracey.)

It might seem for a while that Daunno, a Tony nominee in 2019 for Daniel Fish’s “ Oklahoma! ” revival, is being squandered in a too-small role. But each of the men gets a number in which he demonstrates the depth of his affection — Dylan and Adam for Lila, Paul for Amy — and each of the actors smashes it. Daunno’s tender reprise of “Waking Up Thirty,” a song about surrendering to dead-end, small-town American life, is devastating.

Seen in an earlier, longer version last year in Los Angeles with a partially different cast, this intermissionless show is constitutionally unsentimental. Ever-present in Bonds’s book and Sarnak’s lyrics is a knowledge of the craggy complexity of life and relationships, and the ways that pain can forestall possibility. Still, “The Lonely Few” puts up a fight against such bleakness.

Over in a corner of the bar is an untouched piano, lurking like a gun in Chekhov. When someone at last sits down to play it, watch out. That’s the cue for one of the scariest human emotions: hope.

The Lonely Few Through June 2 at MCC Theater, Manhattan; mcctheater.org . Running time: 1 hour 45 minutes.