Marcus luttrell

Taliban! Taliban are here! In the village! Run, Dr. Marcus, 
for God’s sake, run!

---

He pushed his right shoulder up under my left arm to bear some of my fast-dwindling weight, 
and I half hobbled, half ran, half fell down the hill. Of course by my own recent standards this 
was like a stroll on the beach. 
I suddenly realized we might have to fight and I’d left my rifle back in the house. I had my 
ammunition in the harness, but nothing to fire it with. And now it was my turn to yell, 
“Gulab! 
Gulab! Stop! Stop! I don’t have my gun.”
He replied something I took to be Afghan for “What a complete fucking idiot you’ve turned out 
to be.” 
But whatever had put the fear of God into him was still right there, and he had no intention of 
stopping until he had located a refuge for us. We ducked and dived through the lower village 
trails until he found the house he was looking for. Gulab kicked the door open, rammed it shut 
behind him, and helped me down onto the floor. And there I sat, unarmed, largely useless, and 
highly apprehensive about what might happen in the next hour. 
Gulab, without a word, opened the front door and took off at high speed. He went past the 
window like a rocket, running hard up the gradient, possibly going for the Hindu Kush all-
comers 100-meters record. God knows where he was going, but he’d gone. 
Three minutes later he kicked open the door and came charging back into the house. He was 
carrying my rifle as well as his own AK-47. I had seventy-five rounds left. I think he had more in 
his own ammunition belt. Gravely he handed me the Mark 12 sniper rifle and said simply, 
“Taliban, Dr. Marcus. We fight.” 
He looked more serious than I’d ever seen him. Not afraid, just full of determination. Up on that 
mountain, when he had first seen me, Sarawa had made the decision with his buddies that I, a 
wounded American, should be granted 
lokhay.
The doctor knew perfectly well from the first 
moment by that gushing mountain river that the situation might ultimately come to this. Even if I 
didn’t. 
It was a decision that, right from the start, had affected everyone in the village. I think most 
people had accepted it, and it had obviously been endorsed by the village elder. I’d seen a few 
angry faces full of hatred, but they were not in the majority. And now the village chief of law 
and order, Mohammad Gulab, was prepared to stand by that unspoken vow his people had given 
to me. 
He was doing it not for personal gain but out of a sense of honor that reached back down the 
generations, two thousand years of 
Pashtunwalai
tradition: You will defend your guest to the 
death. I watched Gulab carefully as he rammed a new magazine into his AK. This was a man 
preparing to step right up to the plate. And I saw that light of goodness in his dark eyes, the way 
you always do when someone is making a brave and selfless action. 
I thanked Gulab and banged a new magazine into my rifle. I stared out the window and assessed 
the battlefield. We were low down on almost flat terrain, but the Taliban’s attack would be 
launched from the higher ground, the way they always preferred it. I wondered how many other 
rock-and-mud houses in Sabray were also shielding men who were about to fight. 

---

The situation was serious but not dire. We had excellent cover, and I didn’t think the enemy 
knew precisely where I was. So far as I could see, the Battle for Murphy’s Ridge represented a 
two-edged sword. First of all, the tribesmen could be seething with fury about the number of 
their guys killed in action by Mikey, Axe, Danny, and me. This might even mean a suicide 
bomber or an attack so reckless they’d risk any number of warriors just to get me. I wasn’t crazy 
about either option. 
On the other hand, they might be slightly scared at the prospect of facing even one of that tiny 
American team that had wiped out possibly 50 percent of a Taliban assault force. 
Sure, they knew I was wounded, but they also knew I would be well armed by the villagers, even 
if I had lost my own rifle. I guessed they would either throw everything at me, the hell with the 
expense, or take it real steady, fighting their way through the village house by house until they 
had Gulab and me cornered. 
But an impending attack requires quick, expert planning. I needed to operate fast and make 
Gulab understand our tactics. He immediately gave way to my experience, which made me think 
he had never quite accepted my story about being a doctor. He knew I’d fought on the ridge, and 
right now he was ready to do my bidding. 
We had two areas to cover, the door and the window. It wouldn’t have been much good if I’d 
been blasting away through the window at Taliban down the street when a couple of those 
sneaky little bastards crept through the front door and shot me in the back. 
I explained it was up to Gulab to cover the entrance, to make sure I had the split second I would 
need to swing around and cut ’em down before they could open fire. Ideally I would have 
preferred him to issue an early warning that the enemy was coming. That way I might have been 
able to get into the shadows in the corners and take ’em out maybe six at a time instead of just 
gunning down the leader. 
Ideally I would have liked a heavy piece of furniture to ram in front of the door, just to buy me a 
little extra time. But there was no furniture, just those big cushions, which were obviously not 
sufficiently heavy. 
Anyway, Gulab understood the strategy and nodded fiercely, the way he always did when he was 
sure of something. “Okay, Marcus,” he said. And it did not escape me, he’d dropped the 
Dr.
part. 
When battle began, Gulab would man the end of the window that gave him the best dual view of 
the door. I would concentrate on whatever frontal assault might be taking place. I’d need to shoot 
steadily and straight, wasting nothing, just like Axe and Danny did on the mountain while Mikey 
called the shots. 
I tried to tell Gulab to stay calm and shoot straight, nothing hysterical. That way we’d win or, at 
worst, cause a disorderly Taliban retreat. 
He looked a bit vacant. I could tell he was not understanding. So I hit him with an old phrase we 
always use before a conflict: “Okay, guys, let’s rock ’n’ roll.” 

---

Matter of fact, that was worse. Gulab thought I was about to give him dancing lessons. It might 
have been funny if the situation had not been so serious. And then we both heard the opening 
bursts of gunfire, high up in the village. 
There was a lot of it. Too much. The sheer volume of fire was ridiculous, unless the Taliban 
were planning to wipe out the entire population of Sabray. And I knew they would not consider 
that because such a slaughter would surely end all support from these tribal villages up here in 
the mountains. 
No, they would not do that. They wanted me, but they would never kill another hundred Afghan 
people, including women and children, in order to get me. The Taliban and their al Qaeda 
cohorts were mercilessly cruel, but this Ben Sharmak was not stupid. 
Besides, I detected no battlefield rhythm to the gunfire. It was not being conducted with the 
short, sharp bursts of trained men going for a target. It came in prolonged volleys, and I listened 
carefully. There was no obvious return of fire, and right then I knew what was happening. 
These lunatics had come rolling out of the trees into the village, firing randomly into the air and 
aiming at nothing, the way they often do, all jumping up and down and shouting,