Marcus luttrell

Nostrils about eight or nine inches from his eyes, 
so he’s eight or nine feet long.
Morgan executes a ramrod-straight low-angled dive right on top 
of the gator, clamping its jaws shut with his fists, then he twists it and turns it, gets on its back, 
all the while holding those huge jaws tight shut and laughing at the panic-stricken beast of the 
deep. 
After a few minutes they both get fed up with it, and Morgan lets it go. I always think this 
is the most dangerous part. But I never saw a gator who felt like having another go at Morgan. 
They always just turn around and swim away from the area. He only misjudged it once, and his 
hand bears a line of alligator-teeth scars. 
You know, I think Dad always wanted us to be Navy SEALs. He was forever telling us 
about those elite warriors, the stuff they did and what they stood for. In his opinion they were all 
that is best in the American male — courage, patriotism, strength, determination, refusal to 
accept defeat, brains, expertise in all that they did. All through our young lives he told us about 
those guys. And over the years, it sunk in, I suppose. Morgan and I both made it. 
I was about twelve when I realized beyond doubt that I was going to become a Navy 
SEAL. And I knew a lot more about it than most kids of my age. I understood the brutality of the 
training, the level of fitness required, and the need for super skills in the water. I thought I would 
be able to handle that. Dad had told us of the importance of marksmanship, and I knew I could 
do that. 
SEALs need to be at home in rough country, able to survive, live in the jungle if 
necessary. We were already good at that. By the age of twelve, Morgan and I were like a couple 
of wild animals, at home in the great outdoors, at home with a fishing pole and gun, easily able 
to live off the land. 

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But deep down I knew there was something more required to make it into the world’s top 
combat teams. And that was a level of fitness and strength that could only be attained by those 
who actively sought it. Nothing just happens. You always have to strive. 
In our part of East Texas, there are a lot of past and present special forces guys, quiet, 
understated iron men, most of them unsung heroes except among their families. But they don’t 
serve in the U.S. Armed Forces for personal recognition or glory. 
They do it because deep in their granite souls they feel a slight shiver when they see Old 
Glory fluttering above them on the parade square. The hairs on the backs of their necks stand up 
when these men hear the national anthem of the United States. When the president walks out to 
the strains of a U.S. military band’s “Hail to the Chief,” there’s a moment of solemnity for each 
and every one of them — for our president, our country, and what our country has meant to the 
world and the many people who never had a chance without America. 
These men of the special forces have had other options in their lives, other paths, easier 
paths they could have taken. But they took the hardest path, that narrow causeway that is not for 
the sunshine patriot. They took the one for the supreme patriot, the one that may require them to 
lay down their lives for the United States of America. The one that is suitable only for those who 
want to serve their country so bad, nothing else matters. 
That’s probably not fashionable in our celebrity-obsessed modern world. But special 
forces guys don’t give a damn about that either. I guess you have to know them to understand 
them. And even then it’s not easy, because most of them are shy, rather than taciturn, and getting 
any of them to say anything self-congratulatory is close to impossible. They are of course aware 
of a higher calling, because they are sworn to defend this country and to fight its battles. And 
when the drum sounds, they’re going to come out fighting. 
And when it does sound, the hearts of a thousand loved ones miss a beat, and the guys 
know this as well as anyone. But for them, duty and commitment are stronger than anyone’s 
aching heart. And those highly trained warriors automatically pick up their rifles and ammunition 
and go forward to obey the wishes of their commander in chief. 
General Douglas MacArthur once warned the cadets of West Point that if they should 
become the first to allow the Long Gray Line to fail, “a million ghosts in olive drab, brown 
khaki, in blue and gray, would rise from their white crosses thundering those magic words,