Marcus luttrell

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil: For Thou art with me; Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me . . .
That’s the Twenty-third Psalm, of course. We think of it as the Psalm of the SEALs. It is 
repeated at all of our religious ser-vices, all funerals. Too many funerals. I know it by heart. And 
I clung to its message, that even in death I would not be abandoned. 
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: Thou anointest my head with 
oil; my cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house 
of the Lord for ever.
It was all I had, just a plaintive cry to a God Who was with me, but Whose ways were becoming 
unclear to me. I had been saved from more or less certain death, and I was still armed with my 
rifle. But I did not know what to do anymore, except keep trying. 
I left the trail and once more went upward, heading for high ground again. I was listening, 
straining to hear the sound of the water I knew must be here somewhere. I was on a steep 
escarpment, hanging on to a tree with my right hand, leaning out away from the cliff face. Would 
I ever hear the tumbling sound of a mountain stream, or was I really destined to die of thirst up 
here where no American would ever find me? 
I kept repeating the Twenty-third Psalm in my head, over and over, trying to stop myself from 
breaking down. I was scared, freezing cold, without shelter or proper clothes, and I just kept 
saying it . . . 
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: He leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul: He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake . . .
That’s how far I was in the prayer when I heard the water for the first time. I could not believe it. 
There it was, unmistakable, way below me, a brook, maybe even a small waterfall. In this pure 

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mountain air, amid this awesome silence, that was swiftly flowing water. I had to find a way 
down to it. 
I guess I knew in that moment, I was not going to die of thirst, whatever else befell me. It was 
just one of those moments that make your life spin right out in front of you. I thought of home, 
and my mom and my dad, and my brothers and friends. Did any of them know about me? And 
what had happened? Maybe they thought I was dead. Maybe someone had told them I was dead. 
And in those fleeting seconds I was overwhelmed by the sadness, the heartbreaking, crushing 
sadness of what this would mean to my mom, the lady who always told me I was Mama’s angel. 
What I did not know at the time but learned later was that 
everyone
thought I was dead. Back 
home it was now some time in the small hours of Wednesday morning, June 29, and several 
hours previously a television station had announced that a four-man SEAL reconnaissance team 
that was on a mission in the northeast mountains of Afghanistan had all been killed in action. My 
name was among the four. 
The station, like the rest of the world’s media, had also announced the loss of the MH-47 
helicopter with everyone on board, eight SEALs and eight members of the 160th SOAR Night 
Stalkers. Which made twenty special forces dead, the worst special ops catastrophe ever. My 
mom collapsed. 
By the middle part of that Tuesday evening, people had begun to arrive at the ranch, local 
people, our friends, people who wanted to be with my mom and dad, just in case there was 
anything they could do to help. They arrived in trucks, cars, SUVs, and on motorbikes, a steady 
stream of families who all said damn near the same thing: