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

I'm not sure I can separate this book review from my politics. Although, after reading some of the other reviews of this book, I'm not sure anyone reviewing this book has yet, so I'll just add my own bias to the pile.

Marcus Luttrell, a Navy SEAL, writes a first person narrative of his four member covert SEAL team's failed Operation Redwing mission: to take out a high ranking leader of al Qaeda, protected by members of the Taliban, in the remote and forsaken mountains of Afghanistan. The mission, attempted during June of 2005 and risky to begin with if everything went perfectly, turned into a bloody retreat as their location was apparently leaked to the Taliban by some unarmed goat herders Luttrell and his team mistakenly, or rightfully...depending on your ideology, set free after the goat herders stumbled onto their hidden location.

Luttrell and his SEAL teammates faced 4 against 100+ odds against a heavily armed, better positioned Taliban army and the results are disastrous for the SEALs. Within 24 hours, Luttrell turns out to be the sole survivor and his injuries and position give him little chance for rescue. Days later, dying of thirst, his legs destroyed from a grenade explosion and from seven miles of crawling, he is found and protected by an independent and stalwart Pashtun tribe who refuse to hand over Luttrell into the hands of the Taliban. With their protection, Luttrell is eventually able to send out an emergency beacon picked up by the US military and is later rescued by an elite team of Army Rangers.

Brave and physically fit as Luttrell is, elite as the Navy SEALs are, courageous and patriotic and confident as his team was...Luttrell does not give this story, or his team, the justice they deserves because he fills his book with so much personal bias, so much political and military rhetoric, and much too much tangent-flowing-pat-on-the-back-extraneous-information that this story of survival and valor is weakened to the point of failure. He failed to share his story in a neutral, matter-of fact way that could appeal to the masses, instead choosing to propagandize it to those who already agree with his personal political philosophies. The entire book reads like a Toby Keith song.

Recently, I was watching What Not To Wear on The Learning Channel and after a woman's boss told the video camera that she didn't feel like she could send her employee to certain meetings because of how she dressed, Stacy and Clinton told their victim that her clothing should never have a negative impact on the workplace. Neutral or positive....yes...but if her choice of clothing was hurting her opportunities for progress and promotion, she needed to change how she dressed for work.

Both for its perspective and understanding about the sacrifice and heroism those asked to defend our country display - this is an important story to tell. Unfortunately, I feel like Luttrell's choice of voice is like this woman's personal choice in clothes: it may be exactly what he thinks but how he tells it is not very helpful and perhaps even harmful. The writing was poor to distraction. According to the cover, there was a co-author involved but the writing felt so juvenile - it read like a high school, or worse, junior high school essay. First hand accounts of history are, of course, invaluable, but a grown-up story should be given the benefit of grown-up writing.

Beyond that, I lost track of how many times Luttrell veered off track his story of survival. Whether it was the detailed account of exactly how extremely physically fit Navy SEALs are through rigorous training is (his Bud/SEAL training fills the first 2/3 of the book), how liberal, unfair and anti-military the mainstream media is, personal stories of his family members and childhood, or the unnecessary repetition of military procedures and his personal racism, (I found his stereotypes of the Arab people disconcerting, particularly after Afghan men risked their lives, and the lives of their entire tribe, to protect and help him) this book ended up having too many objectives than the one the title claimed: the story of Operation Redwing and the fate of the SEALs who gave their lives to the cause.

Not ever having served in the military, nor knowing many people who have, I can only imagine the indoctrination that must occur to train and prepare soldiers for battle. Luttrell clearly believes certain things to be so but that does not necessarily make them so. The laws protecting human rights given in the Geneva Convention, the criminalization of torture, humiliation and harassment of an enemy, rules of engagement - all, according to Luttrell, written by a bunch of liberals in suits - might seem misplaced and unnecessary in Luttrell's mind, who has a Machiavellian belief that in the military realm, the desired end should justify any means. However, history has shown that without checks of power, mankind is notorious for disregarding human life. I'm not saying those rules and regulations make his job easy or fair, because, just as he complains, too many of our enemies do not abide by these same rules. He contends that unless the members of the military are given free-rein to do "whatever needs to be done to win" we will lose not only this war, but any war.

Maybe he's right. I don't know. Maybe he should have killed those goat herders who he believed betrayed their location. Maybe the coalition guards in Abu Ghraib had every right to humiliate and treat their prisoners like animals and slaves for the sake of their own morale. Maybe the only real way to be patriotic is to believe your country is stronger and tougher than any other. But I hope not.

I hope there is room for a little humanity in the world. I hope, like that Pashtun tribe in Afghanistan, there is room to do the right thing regardless of the guns pointed at you. I hope there are people everywhere who do the right thing because it is right and not because there is a law against doing something else that is wrong. I did not get the sense from Luttrell that in his world of war games and war, he believes many human beings are capable of doing the right thing. Except, of course, Americans and only if those Americans happen to be from Texas, think Bush is the greatest commander-in-chief ever or members or relatives of members in the military. Otherwise, those actions are a surprise and perhaps even an anomaly.

Luttrell may be brave, tough and patriotic. He may be highly trained, confident and a finely tuned warrior.

But....I hope, for my own sons' future, that he is wrong.

I Fell Bad About My Neck

I think Nora Roberts is an almost David Sedaris. Not quite as funny, probably because her topics are safer and less random. She writes about female things, with great wit and perspective, and I enjoyed each chapter. However, it's been several weeks and now I find the entire book a bit unmemorable. Regardless, it was a nice lighthearted, pick-up-when-I-only-have-a-few-minutes-to-read kind of boo

Dress Your Family In Corduroy and Denim

What if you could write about whatever you wanted? What if no topics were off limits, no person's feelings or privacy taken into consideration, no personal flaws purposely left unmentioned in order to be protected from ridicule?

You would probably write exactly like David Sedaris.

To actually write like David Sedaris, however, you'd also have to be intelligent, impeccably attentive to details and most importantly - uncommonly funny. With that winning combination, Sedaris's unencumbered writing creates a truly fascinating look into his life and way of thinking.

Take, for instance, a neighborhood family that supposedly doesn't watch any television. You've know them, or at least heard about them. But have you hidden yourself in bushes outside their house watching them at night? Sedaris spied on this family with fascination, watching them interact at the dinner table during the evenings and feeling sorry for the absence of television in their lives. After watching one of their children at school being left out of a joke that made reference to a TV show, Sedaris writes, "It occurred to me that they needed a guide, someone who could point out all the things they were unable to understand. I could have done it on weekends, but friendship would have taken away their mystery and interfered with the good feeling I got from pitying them. So I kept my distance."

Then, when this same family showed up for Trick-Or-Treating the day after Halloween, Sedaris expresses what must be universally believed: "Asking for candy on Halloween was called trick-or-treating, but asking for candy on November first was called begging, and it made people uncomfortable. This was one of the things you were supposed to learn simply by being alive, and it angered me that the Tomkeys did not understand it."

The subject matter varies wildly from chapter to chapter, but each contains Sedaris's hilarious spin on what would probably appear to most outsiders, nothing to write home about. Although there are several uncomfortable chapters that touch on situations involving his homosexuality, his willingness to expose himself, and, I suppose his willingness to expose his loved ones, give his writing an important and appreciated perspective. It's so enjoyably honest! I mean, he writes about going through the Anne Frank House while simultaneous apartment hunting and wanting to live there because it's "cute." Totally irreverent. But when he talks about ripping out the wood stove so that the fireplace would be the focal point and thinking the attic, with its charming dormer windows, could be his office...it ends up being really funny.

The best chapter for me was called Six To Eight Black Men when he describes in laugh-out-loud detail the Christmas traditions in the Netherlands. Of course he begins the chapter by pointing out some of the more unusual local gun laws in various states of the USA, mentioning as an interesting fact that in Michigan - blind people are allowed to hunt...alone. As the chapter nears its end, and you wonder what the two stories have to do with each other, he finishes by sharing his thoughts while sitting in a Dutch train station. "I couldn't help but feel second-rate. Yes, the Netherlands was a small country, but it had six to eight black men and a really good bedtime story. Being a fairly competitive person, I felt jealous, then bitter. I was edging toward hostile when I remembered the blind hunter tramping off alone into the Michigan forest. He may bag a deer, or he may happily shoot a camper in the stomach. He may find his way back to the car, or he may wander around for a week or two before stumbling through your back door. We don't know for sure, but in pinning that license to his chest, he inspires the sort of narrative that ultimately makes me proud to be an American."

Funny, funny stuff.

Look Me In The Eye

In a day when a cure is expected for nearly every ailment, flaw or disorder, I was struck by John Elder Robinson's assertion that those with Asperger's Syndrome, a neurobiological disorder on the autism spectrum that the author lived with undiagnosed until he was forty, needs no cure - only understanding.

Robinson starts his story with his earliest memories -a failed attempt to make friends in a sandbox - and meanders through his shame at being called a deviant and a psychopath because he avoided eye contact (although his explanation about how he still doesn't understand most people's need to stare at somebody's eyeball while speaking to them is hilarious), leaving home in the middle of his teenage years, finding himself as part of the 70s rock scene and creating flaming guitars for KISS, faking his way through a job interview for a position as an engineer and getting it by reading and memorizing books about the subject, his parallel struggle to "be a team player" through out his career, until he finally arrives at understanding and acceptance for both his gifts and oddities.

Although this book contains many fascinating stories that stem from his dysfunctional childhood rather than his Asperger's Syndrome, Robinson's experiences and viewpoint sheds a great deal of light on an "Aspergian's" way of thinking. I have a nephew who has been diagnosed with Asperger's and a brother and sister-in-law who constantly seek balance between his way of seeing things and their own understanding. I found myself asking my sister-in-law the question, "Do you think he needs a cure?" Who is to say? Robinson made clear in his book that while he has learned a great deal about appropriate social responses through trial and error, he still finds them unnatural and really, more to the point, unnecessary. What is normal? How much of life's successes are social? What parts of our own personalities should be fixed? I mean, I can't imagine an enjoyable existence where we are all the same.

But, if Asperger's Syndrome falls on the Autism Spectrum, and we observe those with the kinds of autism that render them completely unable to connect to the outside world, certainly we feel they miss out on opportunities for relationships and meaningful experiences. Certainly we would choose a cure, if there was one to be found. So at what point of the spectrum do we intercede?

These are simply the questions that I had after reading this book. You may or may not have similar kinds. However, if you get a chance to read this illuminating book, you will definitely have a glimpse into a colorful and fascinating life.

The Simeon Solution

This book had two strikes against it before I even started to read it. First, my husband brought it home from the library and told me, "You should read this." The author is a radiologist he works with whose name I have heard and seen on his many radiology textbooks. Unfortunately, we have rather different tastes when it comes to book choices and both of us have been burned by this seemingly harmless advice. When I read its description on the inside jacket, my inner ump cried, Strike Two! It's a non-fiction, inspirational church book.

Why that's a strike, I have no idea. I only know I have a hard time getting through books like this. They invariably seem redundant and turn into a really long relief society lesson in my mind. Always a good message, but rarely anything I haven't heard before, or even thought of before. Yes, it's always good to have reminders, but when it comes to reading, I'm usually in too much of a hurry to trudge through a message book. I know. I have a serious failing here.

This book was in no danger of striking out, however, after I read the first two pages of the introduction. Anne Osborn Poelman's voice is clear, intelligent, interesting, funny and honest. I was completely drawn into her story and finished this short book within a couple of hours. Very, very enjoyable. Oh...I'll just add one more very. Very!

While this book was published 13 years ago, I wish it were more well known amid reading circles today. How applicable this book is to my generation! Or to any church member of any age. The thing I admired most about it was the fact that a highly intelligent professional woman didn't intellectualize her faith. In fact, she explains incredibly reasonably how she lives by an almost opposite principle, which she calls The Simeon Solution. Simeon was a High Priest briefly mentioned in the New Testament who had been promised by the Holy Ghost that he would meet the Messiah. Much later in life, he is prompted to go to the temple and sees Joseph and Mary there with the Christ child, knows that the promise was fulfilled. (Luke 2:29-32) By this time, he was very old, and must have lived an entire lifetime on that brief bit of knowledge or inspiration he had earlier in life. How easy it would have been to doubt his faith after years and years of waiting. Most of his peers did. Many ridiculed anyone who believed in something that they certainly did not know "for sure" would ever happen - the coming of a Messiah. But Simeon remembered the promise he had from the Lord, and recognized its fulfillment. Similarly, Anne Osborn Poelman realized her faith was much like Simeon's. During a lively discussion of faith at a dinner party, questions were directed to her wondering how she justified being a member of a sexist faith that "withholds" the priesthood from women. Her answer, with support from another guest at the party who helped explain how she felt into a concrete idea, is the basis of the book. So simple, yet so easy to dismiss. It's about having a testimony that the Lord fulfills his promises.

Osborn Poelman uses her own conversion, which happened DURING medical school, and her later trials that came with being a new member, a single sister, a world famous radiologist, and a married-later-in-life to a general authority woman. I don't think this book will disappoint anyone. It's perfect for those who are looking for more than a pat on the back but simple and clear enough for those who are looking for encouragement in an increasingly intellectual literary crowd.

A Long Way Gone: Memoirs Of A Boy Soldier

Heartbreaking. I can't believe people have life experiences like Ishmael Beah. Ishmael, a 27 year-old refugee from Sierra Leone now living in New York City, left his home with his brother and some friends to practice a new rap routine in a neighboring village. He was twelve years old. He never saw his home or his parents again. Rebel forces attacked his village, killing most, and causing the rest to flee.

Without a home to return to, he and his peers managed to spend several months wandering from village to village but eventually, as they were old enough to be mistaken as soldiers themselves, they became objects of fear. Left starving and hiding in the forests, Ishmael and his group were eventually captured and forced to become soldiers.

A boy whose favorite thing was to perform rap songs for people was suddenly cutting throats and shooting anyone that moved. He became a drug addict, as higher ups encouraged the boys to swallow white capsules and sniff cocaine to "give them more energy".

Years later, he was fortunate to be chosen by his lieutenant and UNICEF workers and was enrolled in a rehabilitation unit. It took him eight months to fight the drugs out of his system and to turn into a child again. His agony and nightmares about what he had done are intense. He was only fifteen years old.

When the fighting moved from the villages into the city, Ishamel knew that he could not become a soldier again. Earlier in the year, after he had completed his rehabilitation, he traveled to New York to represent UNICEF and the youth in Sierre Leone at the UN. From this experience, he contacted one of the women he had met in New York to ask if she would be willing to allow him to stay with her if he could get out of his country. Amazingly, he managed, got to New York and has since graduated from the UN's International School and graduated from a university.

What amazes me when I read books like this, because I don't really enjoy them, is how deplorable certain areas of our world really are. We are often told of the blessings we enjoy from living where we live: freedom, prosperity, security. We worry about losing zero percent interest for credit cards and avoiding trans fat, while other people in the world literally watch their best friends get blown up. Certainly our problems and worries are real, but when put into perspective, they are molehills compared to mountains.

I'm grateful this boy got another chance. I'm horrified that most do not.

My Thirteenth Winter

This book was a complete surprise for me. A few weeks ago, my mother sent me an email which included a beautiful quote from this book. It was about being a writer, and my mother was paying a compliment to me in regards to my dedication to blogging. Interested in reading the book where the quote came from, I found myself reading about a very bright girl whose world collapsed around her as she struggled through her elementary school years with an undiagnosed learning disability.

Samantha Abeel was a bright, precocious and highly confident young child. Her memories of Kindergarten and first grade are of being in the top of her class and proudly so. She knew she was known as one of the smart kids and did her best to live up to her reputation, even as she inwardly began to realize that sometimes, particularly during math time, she had to fake it.

As her school years progressed, and she couldn't keep up with her peers in math, and she couldn't admit that she had no idea how to tell time, she turned inward in humiliation and depression, while secretly praying that the difference was merely because she was special and wise, and not at all slow.

After many unfortunate delays and misdiagnoses, Abeel was finally diagnosed with a math and sequencing learning disability known as dyscalculia. Throughout her schooling, Abeel realized that although she couldn't understand the rules of grammar and had a hard time spelling, she had a gift for words and poetry and channeled her gift into a skill of writing. As a ninth grader, she, with help from several teachers and artists, published a book whose name was later changed to Reach For the Moon. While it gave her confidence and success, she still drifted into social isolation and depression throughout high school and later, college.

Reading about her change, her isolation and fear, made my heart pound as I thought about the possibility of any of my own children suffering in this way. Particularly Henry, as we continue to worry about whether or not his speech will come or if it will be a continual battle for him throughout his life.

The faults I have with this book lies in its slow, repetitive pace. As the story begins with her memories as a kindergartener and ends with her graduating from college, it's got more than enough "space" for her memoir, the sort of book usually reserved for a later time in life. Additionally, Abeel frequently transitions the style of writing from autobiography to memoir, which sometimes works but often times feels incredibly jarring. It's like she's a narrator to her own memories, but without first giving a warning to the reader to "fade to screen".

Aside from that, I think this would be a valuable and worthwhile book to discuss. From our current education model to the causes of depression and its treatment, I think many women, mothers and friends could relate to its material. I also think it would be a good book to recommend for older children with learning disabilities or their peers.

And, now, for the quote that started it all, which is actually quite relevant to her own story, but also a beautiful passage for anyone who enjoys writing.

For an admissions essay to Mount Holyoke College, she writes:

Sometimes on winter mornings, I try to see myself in gathered wrinkles, my dark hair forsaking me to silver. I try to see my hands traced by blue veins and my eyes in vintage brown. I try to see myself a little bent, a little withered. I close my eyes and see me all in white, all in gray, draped in the webs of age.

Oh, I will ache a little and have one of those chronic coughs. I will sit in my chair and pull at curtains that reveal a window etched with white doves of frost. Then, maybe just then, I will know what I was and who I am. I will know all that I took and all that I gave.

It is here that I want to be a messenger, a courier of everything I've gathered. I want to tell my grandchildren of the games my friends and I would play. I want to pass on the legends that creep around us. I want to tell them of the sand dunes and of the lakes. I want to tell them of the many ghosts that look fondly upon them. I want to say that I have made a difference. I want to give them the world through my eyes.

However, for now, my center, my sense of self, my purpose is yet unclear to me. I see it like one sees a fish in a river, only silvery flashes of fin and tail. Never seeing all of it at once. The journey to discover these things lies ahead. When I am in the November of my life maybe then I will understand my June. I do know that I want desperately to understand what I don't, and give the understanding of what I do to others.

Perhaps one day, after I have sunken into the shadows, my granddaughter will read one of my poems to her daughter, or show her a book that I collected, maybe even pass on one of the stories that I told. Then, there in that moment, is all that we can ever hope to be. That one little niche in time, when what we gave, or passed on, is given again.

I could never say it quite so well, but this is what I hope too.

Traveling Mercies

Can you tell what I've been doing? This is the selected book group book and I read it a bit unwillingly. I have about four more books on my nightstand that I would have chosen to read instead, but with book group tomorrow and me on the mend, I wanted to be able to participate.

Parts of this book I hated, parts of it I loved. It is written by Anne Lamott, a dread-lock sporting, liberal, single-mother, recovering drug addict Christian. I think if we were in the same room, she would hate me and I would drive her crazy. We have very little in common life-wise, belief-wise, socially-wise and morally-wise. She seems kind of loud and full of herself and one prone to drama. But in the privacy of her novel, she reveals herself as she is, warts and all, and I find that I like her. I really like her humor and her writing. She is laugh out loud funny at times and her ability to find meaning in the humdrum of her life and translate them into inspirational stories is a gift.


This book reminds me of a well-written blog. If you're into that kind of thing, check this book out.:)

Letters

You know the wife of President Hinckley must have been an amazing woman. This book is a compilation of letters she wrote that were saved by her children, sisters, friends and grandchildren and was published after she died in 2004. Her own words show her to be funny, strong, supportive, compassionate, a hard worker and true believer. In addition, her and President Hinckley's history is told with wonderful bluntness. The busyness of business, the jet lag, toll on family and marriage that come from being an apostle and prophet all glare at the reader. But so does the unwavering faith and joy that each of them found in spreading the gospel. There is a letter written by President Hinckley at the end of the book, that brought tears to my eyes. This is a wonderful and inspiring read.

Gift From The Sea

I had never heard of this book a month ago. Andrea bought it for last month's book club book exchange and after all of the books were opened, switching so she could have it back. Curious about her motives, we decided to read it this month. I didn't know the author. Lindbergh. Not an obscure name for sure but I didn't connect the dots at all (she was the wife of Charles Lindbergh - the pilot of the Spirit of St. Louis). Four nights ago I climbed into a hot bath and started reading. I immediately recognized that this book was special. Why does this woman know my thoughts?

Lindbergh uses the seashells she finds on her vacation as representations of the various stages and complications in a woman's life. The beginning of her book talks about the importance of finding space and solitude every once in a while for balance and recharging. What woman doesn't need that? What human doesn't need that? The next phase is the early love, the passionate period, when the relationship is pure and intense. I don't think this is exclusively romantic love either. I couldn't help but think of friendships with other women when you are first getting to know each other and we show our best selves. Then after a few years of friendship, the flakiness shows up or the selfishness. Children, work, callings, husbands -- crowd that former ease and to remain friends takes much more effort. The effort moves into the next phase which was my favorite because it is life - the oyster phase. The shell is not necessarily beautiful but strong and purposeful. The bond between the two halves has many connections - habit, love, devotion, history. The last part of the book delves into the later years, which I'm sure I will find deeply profound when I am experiencing it.

At the end of this copy of the book, the author revisits her words twenty years later. In that bathtub, I thought, "I had no idea this book was written in the seventies/eighties." Only to discover that it was written in the fifties. I would have never thought that my GenXness would relate to a famous, upper class woman on the east coast fifty years ago. To achieve such timelessness is a worthwhile feat. It wasn't her intent but the result speaks for itself. It is our lives as women and while we are essentially alone to experience it, we have this commonality that once acknowledged, should give us tremendous support to one another.