The Story of a Soldier in Afghanistan

Lone Survivor is the book which tells the story of a soldier in Afghanistan which is written by Marcus Lutrell. In the book, Marcus is a highly trained Navy SEAL, and has spent time in Afghanistan. The book is focused on telling the story of a specific mission, OPERATION REDWING, which led to three of his four team members being killed. Operation Redwing, the focus of the book, took place in late June of 2005. The goal of the operation was to kill Sharmak, a Taliban leader. To kill the leader, four men were sent; Marcus, Mike, Danny, Axe. Marcus and his three other teammates were in the Hindu-Kush area of Afghanistan. The four Navy SEALs set up on the hill near the village so it was easier to keep an eye on the whole village where Sharmak was thought to be. After a few hours they saw some goat herders in the mountains. The soldiers couldn't decide what to do with the goat herders. Their options were either to let them go, or to kill them.

They shouldn't have let the goat herders go because the goat herders were from the same village where Sharmak thought to be hidden. They could be Sharmak's secret agents too, so it was a pretty bad idea of letting them go. And after an hour or so Sharmak's people attacked the SEALs which led to the death of other 3 members of Marcus. The highly trained and equipped Navy Seals were able to kill a significant number of Taliban soldiers but the three soldiers serving with Marcus were killed. Goat herders were the one who told Sharmak about them that they are hiding in the mountains. We all have heard about the wars going on between The Afghans and the Americans. In the book, Marcus told us about the goat herders having a look in their eyes of anger and hatred towards the SEALs. Even though, Marcus saw the anger in their eyes, he still didn't kill them. The goat herders should have been killed by the Navy Seals.

At one point, Marcus tells us about the rules of engagement, which means laws for the soldiers. He said that rules of engagement were made by liberals in Washington DC. They are strict on what soldiers can do and can't do. Soldiers can kill the civilians too if they come in their way to get to their destination. And those goat herders were civilians too so Marcus could kill them. They could have killed them and buried them in the mountains and goats would have been used for food. No one would have suspected that the SEALs would have done that. Marcus also said that the Taliban's were ruling the village at that time and killing people so these 3 herders could be killed by them too. But at the same time, killing them could lead them to consequences of some kind so they did the right thing to let the herders go.

SEALs did the right thing of letting the goat herders go because after arguing and voting, they got to a conclusion in which Marcus was the tiebreaker and he decided to let the herders go. That was the right thing to do because they didn't