Marcus Luttrell of Seal Team 10 was with 3 other Seals on Operation Redwing in the Hindu Kush of Afghanistan searching for Ben Sharmak, a high level Al Qaeda operative in a Taliban stronghold .

Navy Seals are the toughest of the toughest. You have be tremendously fit to even be considered for training and only 1 in 5 make it through the final training. They are crossed trained in every area of combat known.

Luttrell and Mickey, Danny and Axe are observing a village looking for their target; they are hidden motionless when a goat herder, his two sons and a bunch of goats walk upon their position. They face three unarmed civilians. If they kill them they violate the rules of engagement; if they let them go they risk that they will bring hords of the Taliban upong them. After serious arguments the team lets them go, but Marcus knew it was a serious mistake.

Hours later the four Navy Seals are engaged in a horrific gun battle, surrounded by over a hundred vicious angry Taliban. The battle rages for hours, they retreat, slide and fall down steep mountainous rocky terrain. Marcus’ three buddies are killed, but not until they have been hit repeatedly with bullets and RPGs. They probably took out half of the Taliban force around them.

A rescue team is dispatched during the fire fight with 16 soldiers including 8 Navy Seals. A shoulder fired missile destroys the MH-47 Chinook helicopter with every one on board.

Marcus survives with fractured vertbrae from the fall, shrapnel in his leg and a bullet wound. An Afghan villager helps him and protects him from the Taliban who are searching for him. He is eventually found by a Army Ranger search party and returned to base to fight again. He lost 30 pounds in 6 days.

His story is in “Lone Survivor”, a gripping tale.

The rules of engagement cost 19 of the best warriors we have and probably 100 Taliban fighters. It was the worst special ops loss we have ever faced. Each one of these Seals is more valuable from a purely military perspective that a billion dollar plane.

It is ridiculous to restrict our soldiers when we are fighting an enemy who knows no rules and has no compassion for anyone other than their distorted pathological followers.

Number 1.

The greater the military’s ability to isolate combatants, the longer the war will last. Israel and the United States have developed incredible precision to take out enemy combatants while sparing civilian lives. This is the result of the higher moral code these armies operate under and the reality of fighting movements instead of countries.

Yet in wars past they ended from exhaustion not just defeat on the field of battle. In WWII we won as much from economic superiority as from military courage. We were just able to outlast the enemy and replace tanks and planes faster than they could.

The more the civilians are protected from the consequences of the combatants they harbor, the less likely they will surrender and turn against their parasitic vipers, and the longer the conflict will last.

Number 2

The greater the presence of the media (in western cultures) to report on military engagements, the more brutal they will become.

The longer a war rages on, the greater the chance that the press will report on the flawed strategies, civilian casualties, and inevitable brutal tactics. This weakens civilian support and increases political posturing.

The result is the military will take to using overwhelming force to win the war quickly. The military knows but will relearn anyhow that “short term ferocity saves lives” and that “victory forgives”.

HKO