The Lone Survivor

One of the gifts I received for Christmas was a book called the Lone Survivor. It is the true account story of Seal Team 10 in Afghanistan by Marcus Luttrell and ghost writer Patrick Robinson.

Marcus was a Navy Seal from Texas and was part of a 4 man team that went deep into the mountains in search of a Al-Queda leader. They were to spend several days to spot him and then kill him.

Instead, an off hand chance encounter with some goat herders had the men second guessing on what they should do. As the old saying goes, no good deed goes unpunished, definetely applied here. They let the peasants go, and even though they quickly moved to a new location, they had been discovered and were soon in for the fight of their lives.

Not since Leonidas and his band of Spartan, Thespians and Greeks stood against Xerxes was a force so outnumbered.

While in Greece some 2500 years ago, it was 5000 - 7000 against around 200,000 this was 4 against 140-200 Taliban lunatics.

In addition, Leonidas has the terrain on his side. A narrow pass that prevented them from flanked, these seals had no such luck. And the only way to prevent from being flanked and circled was to continue a downward battle by jumping off a series of successive cliffs.

Shot, battered, broken bones, and no where to go, these 4 brave men put up a battle that those Taliban will not soon forget. Their deadly accurate shooting accounted for over half the taliban fanatics, while RPG's and machine gun fire at them never ceased.

For every American this is a fantastic read. It is written in a story manner as if you are sitting around just chatting with Marcus.

These men deserve our greatest respect and admiration. I salute them.

Definitely pick this book up and give it a read. I am generally a slow reader, but knocked this book out in only a few days. You just cannot put it down. It is one of the best Non-fiction books I have ever read and should be on the required reading list in every High School in America.

Until next time....