Marcus Luttrell

My family grew up with one of the best guys on the planet, Marcus Luttrell. He was fun to be around and he even used to spin me around in circles like a helicopter. But, after his mission in Afghanistan went terribly wrong, he wasn’t the same anymore. He moved away from us and we hadn’t seen him for four years until he published his book Lone Survivor. You see, Marcus is the only survivor of a Navy SEAL mission that happened on June 28, 2005. Peter Berg and Marcus made a movie out of his book. Marcus is still haunted by the things he experienced that day. Marcus and three other SEALS, Mike Murphy, Matt Axelson, and Danny Dietz were sent to do some recon on a terrorist in an Afghani village. While they were hiding out in the mountains, three Afghani goat herders stumbled upon them. These goat herders were not armed, but Marcus’ team knew if they let them go, they would warn the Taliban. Because of our war laws, called the Geneva Convention, Marcus’ team had to let the goat herders go free. They did exactly what the SEALs knew they would do. They had alerted the Taliban and hours later, Marcus and his team were ambushed. Marcus wanted to make his book a movie so that all Americans would know how his SEAL brothers died protecting our freedoms.
One incident that made me really mad was when Marcus was trying to heal his wounds, both physically and mentally. Marcus was given a lab puppy to help him through the healing process. He named her Dasy. The puppy’s name meant something very special to Marcus. D was for Danny Dietz, A was for Matt Axelson, S was for Shane Patton (he died on the helicopter that was shot down, it had been sent to try to extract the four man team) , and Y was for Mike Murphy also known as “Yankee” because he was from New York. One night, Dasy started barking. Marcus went outside to see what was wrong with her. Some thugs (I think they were illegals) were going around town killing dogs, and they had shot Dasy. Dasy did not survive. Marcus jumped in his truck and chased them at nearly 100 mph and he called 911 while he was driving. He finally stopped them and held them at gunpoint until the local sheriff arrived. Luckily, those idiots got what they deserved and went to jail. They were also very lucky that Marcus didn’t shoot them!

A couple of years ago, Marcus came to a book signing at Bay Books right here in Coronado. We finally got to talk to him after a very long time. He was very glad to see us too. We took our copy of Lone Survivor and waited in line for more than an hour to reach the table where he was signing books. He did not even recognize my sister and me! He asked my sister who he should make it out to and she said “Doodlebug Warlick.” He looked up at her confused, and then he looked at me even more confused. My mom and dad were hiding behind a book shelf, but they could not hold back their laughter any longer! He was so surprised at how we had grown and so glad to see all of us that he stopped signing books for about 20 minutes just to talk to us. I haven’t seen Marcus’ movie yet, but I would definitely like to because Marcus is like family to me and I don’t want to let him down.