Marcus luttrell

Here, 
here, and here, guys, that’s where they are.
The fact was, the bastards were everywhere, all 
around us, waiting for their chance. I did have a feeling that Sharmak might have grown wary of 
facing heavy American firepower head-on. He’d had half his army wiped out on the ridge by just 
four of us. There were a lot more of us now, gathered around the goat pens while Travis did his 
number. 
I asked the Ranger captain how many guys he had. And he replied, “We’re good. Twenty.” 
In my view that was probably a bit light, since Sharmak could easily be back to his full strength 
of maybe 150 to 200 warriors, reinforced by al Qaeda. 
“We got gunships, Apache Sixty-fours, standing by,” he said. “Whatever we need. We’re good.” 
I stressed once more that we were undoubtedly surrounded, and he replied, “Roger that, Marcus. 
We’ll act accordingly.” 
Before we left, I asked them how the hell they’d found me. And it turned out to be my 
emergency beacon in the window of the little rock house in the mountain. The flight crews had 
picked it up when they were flying over and then tracked it back to the village. They were pretty 
certain the owner of that PRC-148 radio was one of the original SEAL team but had to consider 
the fact it might have been stolen by the Taliban. 
They did not, however, think it had been operated by Afghan tribesmen in this instance, and they 
thought it unlikely the beacon had been switched on and aimed skyward by guys who had not the 
slightest idea what it was for. 
They thus reasoned that one of the SEALs was right down there in that village, or in any event 
pretty damned close. So the guys just closed in on me, somehow moving their own dragnet right 
past the Taliban dragnet. And suddenly there I was, dressed up like Osama bin Laden’s second in 
command, arms wrapped around a couple of tribesmen like we were three drunks falling up the 
hill, the village policeman right behind yelling, 
“Two-two-eight!”
Led by Gulab, we set off for the village and moved back into my second house, the one where 
we’d sat out the storm. The army threw a security perimeter all the way around Sabray, and they 
carried me up past that big tree and into the main room. I noticed that rooster was right there in 
the tree; he was quiet for a change, but the memory of him still made me want to blow his 
freakin’ head off. 
The guys rustled up some tea and we settled down for a detailed debriefing. It was noon in 
Sabray, and in attendance was a very serious group of army personnel, from captains on down, 
mostly Rangers and Green Berets. Before we started, I was compelled to tell ’em I had hoped to 

---

be rescued by the SEALs — because now I’d definitely have to put up with a lot of bullshit from 
them, telling me, “See that, the SEALs get in trouble, and they gotta send for the army to get ’em 
out, like always.” 
That got a loud cheer, but it did not disguise my eternal gratitude to them and what they had 
risked to save me. They were really good guys and took total control in the most professional 
way. First they radioed into base that I had been found, that I was stable and unlikely to die, but 
regretfully, the other three team members had died in action. I heard them confirm they had me 
safe but that we were still in a potentially hostile Afghan village and that we were surrounded by 
Taliban and al Qaeda troops. They were requesting evacuation as soon as night fell. 
The debriefing went on for a long time as I tried to explain details of my actions on and off the 
battlefield. And all the time, the kids kept rushing in to see me. They were all over the place, 
hanging on to my arm, their own arms around my neck, talking, shouting, laughing. The adults 
from the village also came in, and I had to insist they could stay, especially Sarawa, who had 
reappeared, and Gulab, who had never left. I owed my life to each of them. 
So far, no one had found the bodies of Mikey, Danny, and Axe. And we spent a long time going 
over satellite photographs for me to pinpoint the precise places they had died. The army guys had 
some data on the battle, but I was able to fill in a lot of stuff for them. Especially to explain how 
we had fallen back under Mikey’s command, and then kept falling back, how we never had any 
option but to establish our defense farther down the mountain, always farther down. 
I recounted how Axe had held our left flank with such overwhelming gallantry, and how Danny, 
shot so many times, kept firing, trying to hold our right flank until his dying breath. And how, in 
the end, there were just too many of them, with too much firepower, too many of those big 
Russian-made grenades, the ones that finally blew Axe and me clean out of the battle. 
Taliban casualties had been, of course, high. It seemed everyone knew that. I think all of us in 
that little room, including Gulab, thought the Taliban would not risk another frontal assault on 
the Americans. And so we waited until the sun began to slip behind the mountains, and I said 
good-bye to all the kids, several of whom were crying. Sarawa just slipped quietly away. I never 
saw him again. 
Gulab led us down to the flat field at the base of the village, and with the comms up and running, 
we waited it out. The Ranger security guard was in formation around the perimeter, in case the 
Taliban decided to give it one last shot. I knew they were out there, and I never took my eyes off 
that mountain slope as we all sat there, around twenty army personnel and maybe ten villagers, 
the guys who had stuck by me from the beginning. 
We all sat in the dark, backs to the stone wall, looking at the field, just waiting. Way over the 
high horizon, shortly before 2200, we could hear the unmistakable distant beat of a big U.S. 
military helicopter, clattering in over the mountains. 
We saw it circling, far away from the slopes where I believed the main Taliban and al Qaeda 
forces were camped. And then suddenly Gulab grabbed my arm, hissing,