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4.08 AVERAGE
4.08 AVERAGE
adventurous
challenging
sad
tense
medium-paced
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
relaxing
sad
tense
fast-paced
As the lone survivor of a four-men SEAL team that was ambushed by over 400 Taliban fighters, Marcus Luttrell's Lone Survivor is an epochal testament to the courageous conviction of his fallen comrades, his herculean endurance, and the grit of his benefactors who fell back on a centuries-old tribal code of hospitality preceding Muhammad's Islam to save his life.
But Lone Survivor is not solely an account of his escapades from certain death or his observations. It is also a meditation on how leftist and liberal structures, in the name of accountability, upend basic common-sense on the battlefield forcing soldiers into untenable positions where killing suspected combatants nets them jail and letting them escape garners failure.
And this is what makes Lone Survivor so relevant to our times. Our dilemmas have no clear-cut solutions. And the choice Marcus and his team made resulted in a fatal cascading of events that not only result in the death of his teammates but still haunt him to this day.
But Lone Survivor is not solely an account of his escapades from certain death or his observations. It is also a meditation on how leftist and liberal structures, in the name of accountability, upend basic common-sense on the battlefield forcing soldiers into untenable positions where killing suspected combatants nets them jail and letting them escape garners failure.
And this is what makes Lone Survivor so relevant to our times. Our dilemmas have no clear-cut solutions. And the choice Marcus and his team made resulted in a fatal cascading of events that not only result in the death of his teammates but still haunt him to this day.
emotional
inspiring
sad
medium-paced
I am slightly appalled by the reviews the majority of people on Good Reads have given this book. Anyone who was expecting some gorgeously written tale full of philosophical ideas and morals, unfortunately you were trying to get the wrong things out a novel that is exactly what it says it is: an eyewitness account of a tragedy that Marcus Luttrell had to suffer through. It bothers me that people have to be so snobbish to dismiss this book merely because the writing isn't phenomenal, but the thing is, it isn't bad writing either. It's an honest, straightforward representation of what it means to be a Navy SEAL and what happened to Marcus on those mountains in Afghanistan. I was wrapped up in the story he told, all 430 pages of it. His writing style had no affect on me; his story was the only thing that mattered, and it's an amazing story.
challenging
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An amazing accomplishment, not so much for the writing as the story itself. Should be required reading for all Americans, most of us with no real idea of what our fighting men and women do for God and Country. It should also be required reading for all US journalists, who unfortunately have far more power in the life and death decisions made on the battlefield than they should. This is an amazing story of bravery, patriotism, and heart by an actual Navy Seal. So while it was co-written with a actual writer, it's not polished. It's told in the folksy voice of Luttrell, a Navy Seal from the great state of Texas, who uses enough metaphors to choke a horse: "their hearts were as wide as the Texas prairies." It does get bogged down a bit when he describes the training he endured, but then when he describes his ordeals in Afghanistan, it makes sense why he described the training in such detail. It helps explain how he managed to survive. And while some criticize Luttrell for being too self promotional, I disagree. He is understandably proud of his achievements, but he gives full credit for them to his family, the state of Texas, the USA, the Navy, God, and his SEAL brothers. This book made me proud of our country and the people who devote their lives to protecting it.
Let's face it...if it's a book by a Navy SEAL, includes stories of being a Navy SEAL and is about Navy SEALs who died in service...I'm just going to give it 5 stars. That's all I got!
A super page turner and a wonderful tribute to a very tragic event. Aside from the political under and overtones that he provides, he is/was a true hero and that’s what i would remind myself when he would go off rails a bit. Well worth the read.
challenging
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This is a very well written and compelling true story, but could be triggering to anyone who has family in the military or has been in war-torn situations.
5 stars for the intense central story. 1000+ stars for the absolutely incredible courage of Luttrell in the face of impossible odds. 2 stars for the plodding section on SEAL training. 1 star for the consistently wooden writing from novelist Patrick Robinson. 0 stars for the unavoidable scrubbing from military PR, which leads to a bare minimum of difficult military-facing questions about a tragically failed recon mission. 0 stars for the rambling and repetitive polemics against easy scapegoats like the "liberal media." 0 stars for claiming you're "not political" and then writing about George W. Bush like he's a cross between Churchill and Walker, Texas Ranger (the supposedly apolitical Luttrell would later endorse the ill-fated presidential campaign of Rick Perry). 0 stars for fact-checking (Luttrell repeatedly - and rather smugly - goes to bat for some of the war's most-debunked theories: WMDs, Saddam as al Qaeda cheerleader, etc. More strangely, the authors mistakenly garble or deliberately embellish some of the details of Luttrell's own mission).
Let's call it 2 stars overall. Hell of a story, hell of a solider, deeply flawed book.
Let's call it 2 stars overall. Hell of a story, hell of a solider, deeply flawed book.