Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10
Marcus Luttrell with Patrick Robinson. New York: Little, Brown and Company 2007, 390 pp., Illus. $24.99.
Reviewed by Lieutenant Colonel Robert G. Longino, U.S. Marine Corps (Retired)
It took a tragedy to produce an inspiring book. Marcus Luttrell's Lone Survivor (with Patrick Robinson) is an excellent eyewitness account of what happened on a mission that went awry. Luttrell's harrowing adventure began in late June 2005 when his four-man SEAL Team started their mission seeking out a dangerous Taliban leader in a mountainous region of northeastern Afghanistan. This, just one of many such missions taking place in the battle against al Qaeda and the Taliban, was unlike any other. Soon after it began, 19 Soldiers and Sailors were dead.
It is probably difficult for many readers to comprehend the dangers faced by special operations forces operating in hostile territory but Luttrell provides an incredible story of his close encounters with death and desperation. From the rugged terrain, to the determined enemy, to the unbelievable challenges he faced, this moving story should make all readers proud of our dedicated service personnel and what some endure on our behalf.
After a relatively normal beginning, the mission rapidly deteriorated. Afghani goat herders discovered Luttrell and his team. The SEALs initially detained the men but eventually released them despite believing the Afghanis might tip the Taliban of their presence. Within hours enemy fighters assaulted the team. Luttrell and his beleaguered team fought valiantly killing many of them but were constantly being flanked and literally forced to jump over ledges as they fought their way down the mountain.
Following several hours of intense fighting, Luttrell's three teammates were dead. Unknown to him at the time, a rescue mission was underway. Prior to being killed, Lieutenant Michael Murphy made a desperate call for assistance. A rescue attempt followed Murphy's call but the helicopter transporting the rescue force was shot down as it arrived in the combat zone, killing all 16 personnel aboard.
The author's instinct for survival—and perhaps a little luck—combined with Pushtun culture to save his life. Wounded and severely injured from his hair-raising descent down the mountain, Luttrell was taken in by Pushtun tribesmen who treated and protected him. He owes his life to them, as the Taliban knew where he was and were pressuring the tribesmen to turn him over. Protected by Lokhay, an historical tribal law that provided for and defended those taken in refuge, Luttrell survived.
This book is an easy read generally divided into two parts. The first is essentially a narrative on the background and training of SEALs and Luttrell's personal experiences in becoming a member of the elite community. This part of the book is good for readers who do not completely understand the role of SEALs and why their training is so demanding. This section takes a little time to get through but leads well into the second part.
That portion of the book is the powerful account of Luttrell and his team. This section hooks readers as they go from one incredible and nerve-wracking moment to the next. Helping to grasp the overall context of this ordeal is Luttrell's interweaving of events at his home in Texas and within the SEAL community with his plight on the ground. This technique ties two aspects of his life together: his fight to survive and the love and commitment of family and friends praying for his safe return.
Lone Survivor is a terrific story told by a tremendous American about the hardships, and in many cases the ultimate sacrifices, he and his teammates shouldered in protecting his fellow Americans' freedom. Without a doubt, this is a book worthy of being read.
This review would be incomplete without recognizing the fallen warriors of Luttrell's SEAL Team. Lieutenant Michael Murphy was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor and Petty Officers Matthew Axelson and Danny Dietz both received Navy Crosses posthumously for their actions. Luttrell was also awarded the Navy Cross.
Lieutenant Colonel Longino is an instructor with the Center for Army Tactics at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College.
Submarine Stories: Recollections from the Diesel Boats
Paul Stillwell, Editor. Annapolis, MD: U.S. Naval Institute Press, 2007. 295 pp. Illus. Index. $36.95.
Reviewed by Captain James B. Bryant, U.S. Navy (Retired)
This is a brilliant collection of stories that span the entire history of U.S. diesel-powered submarines. The tales—many never before published—will fascinate those with a casual interest in submarine life and re-energize experienced submariners. The nearly 60 first-person stories include activities in both peace and war and cover a wide variety of subjects. These boats spawned a unique breed of men and their stories provide a fascinating inside view of the life they lived.
The title gives the impression that this is a collection of blood-and-guts war stories. Readers won't be disappointed in those, but they will be surprised. Readers learn what President Theodore Roosevelt had to say about submarine duty after a short submerged cruise in Plunger (SS-2) on 25 March 1905 to two versions as to why the Squalus (SS-192) sank during sea trials, to the building of the submarine base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. But they'll also learn from then-Gunner's Mate Technician 1st Class Jerry Beckley about the very real possibility of having to launch Regulus missiles with nuclear warheads during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis from the Grayback (SSG-574). He armed the missiles very much like I remember the Mk 45 (Astor) nuclear-armed torpedo was prepared for launch. He was much relieved to disarm the missiles a short time later. His story fits in well with the description of the first missile-firing experiences in the late 1940s by then-Lieutenant Commander Eugene P. "Dennis" Wilkinson. He later was the first commander of the USS Nautilus (SSN-571) and sent the famous message "underway on nuclear power."
While some of the authors are among the Who's Who of U.S. submariners—Captain Slade D. Cutter, Vice Admiral Paul F. Foster, Captain Edward L. Beach, and Vice Admiral Lawson P. "Red" Ramage, among others—many are less known. But their stories are no less fascinating or informative. Retired Chief Interior Communications Electrician Hosey Mays describes his experiences during World War II as a black man in a boat with a nearly all white crew. And James B. O'Meara, then an electrician's mate, paints a picture of wartime liberty experiences.
There are stories by retired admirals and enlisted men who left the Navy after their first tour. These narratives provide great insight into the daily life of a submarine crew, including their hardships, how they relaxed, and the intense fear they faced during combat. The reader can follow the tactics developed by young submarine captains that made the boats so effective in World War II.
This book is not just highly entertaining, it provides details into little known parts of submarine history. If you have a library of books on submarines I highly recommend that you add this volume. You will find it as fine a reference as Clay Blair Jr.'s Silent Victory: The U.S. Submarine War Against Japan (Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 1975), just in a much shorter form.
Captain Bryant commanded the USS Guardfish (SSN-612) and was deputy commander of Submarine Squadron 11 before being assigned to the Navy staff in the Pentagon.
One Soldier's War
Arkady Babchenko. New York: Grove Press, 2008. 432 pp. Illus. $25.
Reviewed by Olga Oliker
Arkady Babchenko is in good company. A soldier who has written a memoir of his war experience, he joins the likes of Tim O'Brien, Erich Maria Remarque, and the master of the genre, Isaac Babel. Like them, Babchenko writes both for catharsis and as exposition: to tell what the war was really like, what it did to him and his comrades.
Babchenko went to Chechnya as a conscript in the summer of 1996. During his service, he faced combat on the front lines and survived. He also lived through hunger, abominable living conditions, and near-constant beatings—this, however, was behind the front lines courtesy of his fellow soldiers. Then he went home, finished his college degree, and fell in love; in short, he resumed a normal life.
Then, in 1999, the Russian Army returned to Chechnya. And despite all he had suffered as a conscript and without any particular belief that this fight made any more sense than the last, Babchenko walked into a recruiting office and voluntarily signed up to return to combat. Trying to explain this, he describes a feeling that he'd never actually left the war, that it was more real to him than his peacetime life. He returned to the violence of combat and of the barracks, and because he was now not a conscript, he was no longer at the bottom of the chain of beatings. At war again, he endured, saw, and caused still more suffering, misery, and death.
After he was demobilized in spring of 2000, he left the army, but still couldn't leave the war; he returned to Chechnya yet again, this time as a journalist. He also started to write down his thoughts and memories as vignettes and stories, combining autobiography and fiction. In Russia, they were published in magazines, newspapers, and a short book. Collected and translated for an English-reading audience, they appear together in One Soldier's War.
This book is not the best source for someone seeking a comprehensive discussion of the Chechen War. From his grunt's-eye view, Babchenko does not provide a new understanding of the war's causes or evolution, or new details of crucial battles or tactics. It is worth reading for other reasons.
The book's main strengths are two. First, One Soldier's War is a fierce indictment of the violence endemic in the Russian Army. In Babchenko's account, violence permeates all units and all ranks. It goes deeper, he argues, than the infamous system of hazing, or Dedovshchina. Colonels beat majors, majors beat captains, and everyone beats conscripts. Soldiers speculate that back in Moscow, the President must beat the Defense Minister. Men hit instead of talking. Babchenko depicts a broken military and men damaged beyond repair fighting a war none of them understands. This picture of the Russian armed forces in Chechnya is only one perspective, but it is an important one.
Second, although Babchenko may intend to write about Chechnya in particular, not war in general, his descriptions of the friendships forged in combat, the horrors of battle and the brotherhood of combat veterans echo the voices and tales told by chroniclers of other wars. Whatever the specifics of the Chechen war, when Babchenko takes the reader behind the eyes of a radioman on the front lines, he performs a crucial task that is broader than Russia and Chechnya. If Babel and O'Brien did this more beautifully, this intelligent young journalist does it well enough. There is always a temptation for analysts, civilian and military, to step back from the fight and view conflict from a distance, in broader contexts. But Babchenko drags us back to face what every officer, politician, and citizen must be reminded of, again and again: war, however just or however senseless, comes down to human lives destroyed, whether they survive or not.
Ms. Oliker is a senior international policy analyst at the RAND Corporation. She has written extensively on Russia, Iraq, and international relations and national security issues.
Evolution of U.S. Counter-Terrorism Policy
Yonah Alexander and Michael B. Kraft, editors. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger Security International, 2008. Three volumes. 1,456 pp. $299.
Reviewed by Sean N. Kalic
Although the events of 9/11 highlighted the threat of terrorism to the vast majority of Americans, Yonah Alexander and Michael B. Kraft have assembled a comprehensive collection of more than 600 documents that detail how America has wrestled with terrorism as a security threat. Their work outlines the development of U.S. national counterterrorism policy from 1972 to 2006 as a means to capture the evolution of terrorism as an international threat.
The bulk of the three-volume set consists of documents that feature the U.S. government's actions dealing with the emergence of terrorism as a significant national and international security issue. The documents are grouped into two broad categories: pre- and post-9/11 and further categorized by origin. While the vast numbers of documents are initially overwhelming, strong introductory chapters assist in outlining their basic tenets. In these, Alexander and Kraft advance the thesis that since 1972 the United States has continually adapted to the evolving danger of terrorism.
For the editors, the bombing of the Marine Corps barracks in Beirut in 1983, Khobar Towers in 1996, and the USS Cole (DDG-67) in 2000 serve as points along the developmental path of U.S. counterterrorism policy. To reinforce their point, they highlight the government's policy development in the wake of these events in their introductions and documentation. The attacks of 9/11 acknowledged that transnational terrorism is a significant national security threat that demands full and constant attention.
To establish a context within which to understand the documents, Alexander and Kraft define "terrorism" and "super terrorism," as well as provide intellectual and historical tenets that support their thesis. Of specific importance is Alexander's introduction in which he outlines "three long wars" that the United States has engaged in since the end of World War II: the Cold War, the Iranian Revolution of 1979, and the rise of al Qaeda. Although Alexander's classification of these distinct periods needs further refinement and additional clarification, they do provide a useful framework to understand how the United States has concurrently developed counterterrorism policies over the last 36 years.
To supplement his discussion of the long-wars Alexander provides a cogent discussion on the important definitions and types of terrorism. This section of his introduction succinctly highlights the major debate within the international communities over the lack of an official, or agreed upon, definition. In short, he constructs a broad and useful background through which the documents detail the development of U.S. policy.
Kraft's introductory chapter, "Evolution of U.S. Counterterrorism Laws, Policies, and Programs," takes a different tack to understand the trajectory of America's counterterrorism policy. He defines the historical record by focusing on action taken by the United States and its allies to fight terrorism. Moving beyond the larger issues outlined by Alexander, Kraft provides a detailed discussion by examining the actions and policies developed and used to combat terrorism.
The authors demonstrate a high-level understanding of the interconnected and complex issues involved. Taken in isolation, the chapters merit attention by those interested in the current primary national security threat. When the editors' introductions are combined with the many documents, the collection takes on even more significance for comprehending the history of U.S. counterterrorism policy. Simply, these texts should be the first source used by anyone interested in researching or understanding the complex and daunting issues associated with developing counterterrorism policy.