Read Service: A Navy SEAL at War Online
Authors: Marcus Luttrell
Tags: #Biography & Autobiography, #Military, #Nonfiction, #Retail
Three times during those brutal months, K Company took casualties bad enough to knock it off the line. Each time, it came back from combat-ineffective status. In Operation Adair, a five-day operation fought in June, it suffered nine KIA from just two
platoons, which have about forty men apiece. The officer who replaced Lieutenant Tilley, Captain Joseph Tenney, was hit in back of the head and evacuated. Declared combat-ineffective once again, the K/3/5 returned in September to take part in another major operation. Back in command, Captain Tenney earned a Silver Star.
By the end of those six months, the Marines in the valley, though outnumbered in every fight, had destroyed most of the NVA division facing them. Six members of the K/3/5 received Silver Stars. But the triumph came at a high price: from April to December of 1967, the North Vietnamese boasted of killing more Americans in the Que Son Valley than anywhere else. The Marines soon began calling Road 534 the Road of Ten Thousand Pains, a phrase taken from Homer’s
Iliad
.
At the Rio Rio Cantina in San Antonio the night I met up with him and his unit, R. V. Burgin, the anchor of the Old Breed, held court and served as emcee. He had been the group’s treasurer for twenty-one years, taking care of the funds that paid for Marine Corps monuments that stand today on Peleliu and Okinawa. Just as Mr. Burgin looked up to his senior enlisted leadership—hard veterans of Guadalcanal, such as his first sergeant, Mo Darsey, or his sergeant, Johnny Marmet—the Vietnam generation looked up to him. The Marines who enlisted to fight in Vietnam didn’t need a history book to tell them what they’re all about. They had the World War II generation to look back to—and they did. “We never qualified to carry these guys’ mess gear,” said Harvey Newton, who served in the K/3/5 as a nineteen-year-old lance corporal in Vietnam.
I don’t endorse Mr. Newton’s modesty, because the legacy of K Company’s valor got a new chapter in Vietnam, and it’s gotten
one in our time as well. A Marine of my generation who served with the K/3/5, my friend Jeremiah Workman—a mortarman just like Mr. Burgin—received a Navy Cross for his actions during the Battle of Fallujah in December 2004. In April 2011, when Third Battalion returned from Helmand Province, Afghanistan, Jeremiah’s company had taken record casualties for a Marine Corps unit its size on a single deployment in the modern era: twenty-five KIA and another 140 wounded, including more than a dozen amputees. In spite of that bloody record, its instances of post-traumatic stress have been almost nil, largely thanks to the way the families of the veterans have circled up and looked after each other back at Camp Pendleton.
It takes that kind of close brotherhood to get by. I’ll never forget how the brotherhood circled around the Tumilson family in Rockford, Iowa. The SEAL family held close to them, ensuring JT isn’t forgotten. At the funeral, the presiding pastor recited from Psalm 18:
He made my feet like the feet of a deer and set me secure on the heights.
He trains my hands for war, so that my arms can bend a bow of bronze.
You have given me the shield of your salvation, and your right hand supported me, and your gentleness made me great.
You gave a wide place for my steps under me, and my feet did not slip.
I pursued my enemies and overtook them, and did not turn back till they were consumed.
This might be the Bible’s most powerful call to military service. Those of us who are forged in that vision can relate to the
way R. V. Burgin sums up his service: “What sticks with me now is not so much the pain and terror and sorrow of the war, though I remember that well enough. What really sticks with me is the honor I had of defending my country, and of serving in the company of these men.”
I see it all as a single piece of fabric. Americans should never forget that the founders of this country, like all who have served her in uniform, were willing to die defending everything its flag represents. It’s so easy to get lost in the controversies that divide us. But I believe, no matter what our race, religion, or beliefs may be, that Americans should be able to come together to keep our country rooted in what made it great: a land of opportunity, a place where people can make something of themselves, limited only by their imaginations and willingness to work hard; a country where we all can come together, whatever our differences, for the greater good; a country of hands up, not handouts, where we try to live by the meaning of the words “Love thy neighbor,” and put as much effort into helping others as we do helping ourselves. By doing those things, we can continue to live up to the idea of
One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
T
oday, Boss is still working in a classified capacity on a team that will be bringing hell to terrorists worldwide. He recently got hold of the original drawings that JT had used as a model for the elaborate Oriental carp design he had on his right arm. As I write this, Boss is finishing the last installment of the painful, eighteen-hour process to inscribe this work of everlasting art into his left arm. “Art, life, and remembrance of living through pain and loss,” Boss calls it. The ultimate tribute to a brother, fallen but not forgotten.
Prior to August 6, 2011, I was looking forward to nothing more than seeing Morgan return to Texas. His bags were just about packed in Virginia Beach as he finished his med boards. He was playing out time, waiting for his exit letter from the Navy. He was planning to shift gears, maybe go to graduate school, or even run for political office. He was also going to get busy working with me on the Lone Survivor Foundation.
But when JT, Matt Mills, Trey Vaughn and all the others went down, Morgan had a change of heart. It was an immediate decision on his part, though he didn’t tell me about it for a few weeks. He didn’t want to give me any distractions as we prepared to celebrate JT’s life in Iowa. Morgan knew right away what he
needed to do: he was staying in the teams and going back for another deployment, in honor of his fallen brothers.
Morgan went to his command, pulled his retirement papers, and told them he wanted to become operational again. He’s in the training cycle now and will be serving back in the Sandbox by the time this book is published. It will be his tenth combat tour. And he wasn’t the only frog to walk that path after this latest tragedy hit our community.
The war in Afghanistan may end someday, as the war in Iraq officially has. We’ll see headlines about the drawdown of conventional forces, leaving all the problems to the locals to deal with. For our special operations forces, however, employment opportunities downrange will continue to be plentiful—and more dangerous, after the Army and Marine Corps aren’t around to secure the areas we operate in.
It’s hard for me to express what all this means to me. Maybe words just can’t say the things that come so deeply from the heart. It’s a feeling that comes from experience, from blood, sweat, and mourning. There are many reasons why my military service has meant so much to me—and to those who have come before me and those who are yet to deploy. It isn’t the danger by itself. It’s the brotherhood, the bonds you form with people who, like you, are willing to give everything away for a greater good. The brotherhood carries on, and in this way, and in ways you’ll never read about, the flaming Ferris wheel really does continue to spin.
The urge to serve something larger than myself drew me into the military, and serving for nine years has taught me a few things. But service in the military isn’t the only way to go. Now that I’m out of uniform, I see that my deployments were only the beginning, a workup for whatever the rest of my years call me to do.
You can serve your family, and put their needs in front of yours. You can do the same thing in your community, your town, and your city. I think all of us who serve—in any type of uniform—can arrive at this broader view of service faster than most other people, because of what we go through.
Service is selflessness—the opposite of the lifestyle that we see so much of in America today. The things that entertain us don’t often lift us up, or show us as the people we can rise up to become. The people who appear in this book—and others who did things I can’t talk about—are my role models. They quietly live out the idea expressed in the Bible (John 15:13): “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”
But you don’t have to be a Christian, or even particularly religious, to serve. You just have to be willing to understand your place and put yourself at the end of the line. Still, my faith has helped me toward a deeper understanding of what service really means. You do what’s expected of you, and more. You look after others, and put their welfare ahead of your own. You don’t worry about the big purpose of it all—it’s beyond your pay grade. But if you do the small things right long enough, you might find yourself coming out the other side having done something important.
It’s an evolution you follow, a tour on the great Ferris wheel, which doesn’t have to burn. It never stops turning until the day you take your last breath. And you hope that by the time you leave this earth, it will be a better place than it was when you got here. The causes you’ve served in your life will have meant something. Someone will have picked up on your work, run with a legacy you left behind, and used it to put his or her own stamp on the world.
All I can really tell you after walking this particular path is that I’m proud to have served my country. I know that part of me will always bleed with the teams, and that my time in uniform, which at the moment seems so long, has been just a short chapter in a far longer book, and brief preparation for what the future holds.
Thank you, God, for all these days.
Pirro, Carmon F. | December 30, 1943 | Anzio |
Donnell, John Gerald | January 30, 1944 | Anzio |
Olson, Richard Roderick | February 4, 1944 | Unknown |
Tascillo, Matteo | February 17, 1944 | Marshall Islands |
Abbott, George L. | June 6, 1944 | Normandy |
Alexander, Henry Richard | June 6, 1944 | Normandy |
Bussell, John Edward | June 6, 1944 | Normandy |
Cook, John William | June 6, 1944 | Normandy |
DeGregorio, Carmine | June 6, 1944 | Normandy |
Demmer, Peter Mathew | June 6, 1944 | Normandy |
Dillon, Thomas Justin | June 6, 1944 | Normandy |
Dombek, Walter Joseph | June 6, 1944 | Normandy |
Doran, William Robert | June 6, 1944 | Normandy |
Drew, Elmer Malcolm | June 6, 1944 | Normandy |
Duncan, Harold E. | June 6, 1944 | Normandy |
Fabich, Henry Samuel | June 6, 1944 | Normandy |
Fleming, Andrew Jackson | June 6, 1944 | Normandy |
Fuller, John Anthony Sr. | June 6, 1944 | Normandy |
Gouinlock, George Linzy | June 6, 1944 | Normandy |
Goulder, Preston Hardaway | June 6, 1944 | Normandy |
Greenfield, Edward Joseph | June 6, 1944 | Normandy |
Harang, Richard David | June 6, 1944 | Normandy |
Herring, Clifford Palmer | June 6, 1944 | Normandy |
Hickey, Arthur Burton | June 6, 1944 | Normandy |
Holtman, Orvid J. | June 6, 1944 | Normandy |
Hudson, Alton E. | June 6, 1944 | Normandy |
Jacobson, John A. | June 6, 1944 | Normandy |
Jarosz, Edward Anthony | June 6, 1944 | Normandy |
McDermott, John Daniel | June 6, 1944 | Normandy |
McGeary, Donald C. | June 6, 1944 | Normandy |
Millis, Conrad Clarence | June 6, 1944 | Normandy |
Mingledorff, Ozie Claud Jr. | June 6, 1944 | Normandy |
Olive, Jesse D. | June 6, 1944 | Normandy |
Perkins, Frank James | June 6, 1944 | Normandy |
Pienack, Raymond Rudolph | June 6, 1944 | Normandy |
Sullivan, Maurice Francis Jr. | June 6, 1944 | Normandy |
Vetter, Alvin Edward | June 6, 1944 | Normandy |
Weatherford, Milton Parker | June 6, 1944 | Normandy |
Weckman, Lawrence I. | June 6, 1944 | Normandy |
Weidner, Albert Garhardt | June 14, 1944 | Saipan |
Christensen, Robert V. | June 16, 1944 | Saipan |
Blowers, Ralph A. | July 15, 1944 | Guam |
Nixon, Thomas Dervus | July 21, 1944 | Guam |
Black, Robert Armstrong | August 14, 1944 | Yap |
MacMahon, John Churchill | September 2, 1944 | Yap |
Roeder, Howard Livingston | September 2, 1944 | Yap |
Audibert, Benoit Bernard | October 18, 1944 | Leyte |
Kasman, Brennan W. | October 18, 1944 | Leyte |
Lauderdale, Kenneth Broughton | October 19, 1944 | Leyte |
Tilton, Edward | October 19, 1944 | Leyte |
Blettel, David | January 12, 1945 | USS Belknap |
Castillo, Guadalupe | January 12, 1945 | USS Belknap |
Gamache, Wilfred Dolar | January 12, 1945 | USS Belknap |
Hopkins, Robert Lee | January 12, 1945 | USS Belknap |
Lewis, William Robert | January 12, 1945 | USS Belknap |
Malfeo, Marvin Antonio | January 12, 1945 | USS Belknap |
McKnight, Thomas Rex | January 12, 1945 | USS Belknap |
Rodriquez, James Lawrence | January 12, 1945 | USS Belknap |
Rossart, Joseph William | January 12, 1945 | USS Belknap |
Scoggins, F. P. | January 12, 1945 | USS Belknap |
Sugden, William Lloyd | January 12, 1945 | USS Belknap |
Anderson, Edward Wilson | February 17, 1945 | Iwo Jima |
Sumpter, Frank Warren | February 17, 1945 | Iwo Jima |
Yates, Lee Carlton | February 17, 1945 | Iwo Jima |
Allen, Kermit | February 18, 1945 | USS Blessman |
Beason, Edwin Albert | February 18, 1945 | USS Blessman |
Blackwood, Buress Lee | February 18, 1945 | USS Blessman |
Blanot, Harry Thomas | February 18, 1945 | USS Blessman |
Davis, Paul Harrison | February 18, 1945 | USS Blessman |
Dolan, Patrick Raymond | February 18, 1945 | USS Blessman |
Flemming, Joseph Leo | February 18, 1945 | USS Blessman |
Gordon, Paul Eugene | February 18, 1945 | USS Blessman |
Hilke, Earl Everett | February 18, 1945 | USS Blessman |
Kalman, Louis Emery | February 18, 1945 | USS Blessman |
Maki, Eugene Elmer | February 18, 1945 | USS Blessman |
Mecale, John | February 18, 1945 | USS Blessman |
Rodman, James Emerson | February 18, 1945 | USS Blessman |
Runnels, Adrian | February 18, 1945 | USS Blessman |
Szych, Chester | February 18, 1945 | USS Blessman |
Watkins, Thomas Jackson | February 18, 1945 | USS Blessman |
Willbanks, Herman Delmar | February 18, 1945 | USS Blessman |
Lynch, Francis Joseph | March 30, 1945 | Okinawa |
Bock, Leonard Joseph Jr. | April 9, 1945 | USS Hopping |
Masden, Charles F. | June 8, 1945 | Balikpapan |
Frey, Edward Ivan Jr. | January, 19, 1951 | Korea |
Satterfield, Paul Veston | January, 19, 1951 | Korea |
Fay, Robert Joseph | October 28, 1965 | Vietnam |
Gough, Marcell Rene | November 29, 1965 | Vietnam |
Machen, Billy Wayne | August 19, 1966 | Vietnam |
Boston, Donald Earl | April 7, 1967 | Vietnam |
Mann, Daniel McCarthy | April 7, 1967 | Vietnam |
Neal, Ronald Keith | April 21, 1967 | Vietnam |
Patrick, Donnie Lee | May 15, 1968 | Vietnam |
Funk, Leslie Harold Jr. | October 6, 1967 | Vietnam |
Antone, Frank George | December 23, 1967 | Vietnam |
Mahner, Lin Albert | May 25, 1969 | Vietnam |
Nicholas, David Lamprey | October 17, 1969 | Vietnam |
Wolfe, Richard Ogden | November 30, 1969 | Vietnam |
Ashton, Curtis Morris | December 27, 1969 | Vietnam |
Brewton, John Cooke | January 11, 1970 | Vietnam |
Donnelly, John Joseph III | June 23, 1970 | Vietnam |
Durlin, John Stewart | June 23, 1970 | Vietnam |
Gore, James Raymond | June 23, 1970 | Vietnam |
Solano, Richard John | June 23, 1970 | Vietnam |
Thomas, Toby Arthur | June 23, 1970 | Vietnam |
Palma, Luco William | September 18, 1970 | Vietnam |
Williams, Lawrence C. Jr. | September 18, 1970 | Vietnam |
Bomar, Frank Willis | December 20, 1970 | Vietnam |
Riter, James L. Gasman | December 20, 1970 | Vietnam |
Thames, James Franklin | January 19, 1971 | Vietnam |
Birky, Harold Edwin | January 30, 1971 | Vietnam |
Collins, Michael Raymond | March 4, 1971 | Vietnam |
Moe, Lester James | March 29, 1971 | Vietnam |
Dry, Melvin Spence | June 6, 1972 | Vietnam |
Schaufelberger, Albert Arthur III | May 25, 1983 | El Salvador |
Butcher, Kenneth John | October 23, 1983 | Grenada |
Morris, Stephen Leroy | October 23, 1983 | Grenada |
Lundberg, Kevin Erin | October 24, 1983 | Grenada |
Schamberger, Robert Rudolf | October 24, 1983 | Grenada |
Connors, John Patrick | December 20, 1989 | Panama |
McFaul, Donald Lewis | December 20, 1989 | Panama |
Rodriguez, Isaac Georgetti III | December 20, 1989 | Panama |
Tilghman, Christopher Chris | December 20, 1989 | Panama |
Burkhart, Chad Michael | November 24, 2000 | Kosovo |
Roberts, Neil Christopher | March 5, 2002 | Afghanistan |
Bourgeois, Matthew Joseph | March 28, 2002 | Afghanistan |
Retzer, Thomas Eugene | June 26, 2003 | Afghanistan |
Tapper, David Martin | August 20, 2003 | Afghanistan |
Ouellette, Brian Joseph | May 29, 2004 | Afghanistan |
Axelson, Matthew Gene | June 28, 2005 | Afghanistan |
Dietz, Danny Phillip Jr. | June 28, 2005 | Afghanistan |
Fontan, Jacques Jules | June 28, 2005 | Afghanistan |
Healy, Daniel Richard | June 28, 2005 | Afghanistan |
Kristensen, Erik Samuel | June 28, 2005 | Afghanistan |
Lucas, Jeffrey Alan | June 28, 2005 | Afghanistan |
McGreevy, Michael Martin Jr. | June 28, 2005 | Afghanistan |
Murphy, Michael Patrick | June 28, 2005 | Afghanistan |
Patton, Shane Eric | June 28, 2005 | Afghanistan |
Suh, James Erik | June 28, 2005 | Afghanistan |
Taylor, Jeffrey Scott | June 28, 2005 | Afghanistan |
Lee, Marc Alan | August 2, 2006 | Iraq |
Monsoor, Michael Anthony | September 29, 2006 | Iraq |
Schwedler, Joseph Clark | April 6, 2007 | Iraq |
Lewis, Jason Dale | July 6, 2007 | Iraq |
Carter, Mark Thomas | December 11, 2007 | Iraq |
Hardy, Nathan Hall | February 3, 2008 | Iraq |
Koch, Michael Eugene | February 4, 2008 | Iraq |
Harris, Joshua Thomas | August 30, 2008 | Afghanistan |
Freiwald, Jason Richard | September 11, 2008 | Afghanistan |
Marcum, John Wayne | September 11, 2008 | Afghanistan |
Job, Ryan | September 24, 2009 | in surgery for wounds sustained in Iraq on August 2, 2006 |
Brown, Adam Lee | March 18, 2010 | Afghanistan |
Thomas, Collin Trent | August 18, 2010 | Afghanistan |
Looney, Brendan John | September 21, 2010 | Afghanistan |