Marcus Luttrell is a fifth-generation Texan. He and his twin brother Morgan were born in 1975 and raised on a horse ranch. Like all Texas boys, they liked to hunt and fish and, you know, wrestle alligators!

The boys were destined to become warriors, influenced by a long line of family Veterans who have served in every 20th-century conflict. Marcus and Morgan set their sights on becoming Navy SEALs when they were teenagers. At age 14, with the help of Billy Shelton, a former Green Beret who lived nearby, they started training early to ensure that they would make it.

After graduating high school and a few years at Sam Houston State University, Marcus enlisted in the Navy in 1999. After boot camp and Hospital Corpsman A-school, he entered Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL (BUD/S), Class 226, the Naval Special Warfare Command’s 26-week SEAL training course. He suffered a fractured femur but would recover sufficiently to graduate a year later with Class 228. He followed BUD/S with the Special Operations Combat Medic (SOCM) course and graduated 18 Delta in 2001, becoming a Team Medic.

Petty Officer 2nd Class Luttrell describes himself as a God-fearing Christian and East Texas redneck, and despite his friendly demeanor, his 6'5" 240 lb. frame made him an imposing adversary.

Marcus first deployed to Iraq with SEAL Team 5 in April 2003, part of Operation Iraqi Freedom, assigned to search and destroy missions to disable the remaining Iraqi resistance.

In 2005, he was deployed to Afghanistan, and that is where we pick up his story from a previous profile of Medal of Honor recipient LT Michael Murphy.

On June 28, 2005, then-30-year-old Hospital Corpsman PO1 Marcus Luttrell was part of a four-man SEAL recon and surveillance team led by 29-year-old LT Murphy. The team also included 25-year-old Gunner’s Mate 2nd Class Danny Dietz and 29-year-old Sonar Technician 2nd Class Matt Axelson.

Their counterinsurgent mission was code-named Operation Red Wings in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. The tragic result of that mission was a story of Valor against overwhelming odds.

The SEALs were dropped by helicopter at 10,000 feet in the Hindu Kush mountains, deep into enemy territory near the Pakistan border. Their mission was to track down a brutal Taliban terrorist, Ahmad Sha, leader of a guerrilla cadre known as the “Mountain Tigers.”

Soon after the drop, their team was discovered by local goat herders, whom they decided to release.

The consequence of releasing them on the outside chance they would not expose the SEAL team position was a deadly miscalculation. The herders turned out to be Taliban sympathizers who alerted the local militia, and in the firefight that followed soon thereafter against more than 50 Taliban Islamists, each of the SEALs was wounded.

LT Murphy deliberately exposed himself to intense enemy fire in order to reach an open position where he could call for the extraction of his team. Shot a second time in the back, Murph was able to successfully contact the SOF Quick Reaction Force (QRF) at Bagram Air Base. The QRF responded to the call on two MH-47 Chinook helicopters, one flown by eight Army Night Stalkers from the 160th SOAR with eight additional SEALs on board. The Chinooks were escorted in by heavily armored Army attack helicopters.

Once over the surrounded SEAL team on the ground, Red Wings 11, the Chinook with the SEALs and Night Stalkers, was struck by a rocket-propelled grenade, causing catastrophic airframe failure and a crash into the mountainside, killing all 16 warriors on board. On that fateful day, three of the four SEALs on the ground were also killed, bringing the total of special operations forces who perished to 19.

It was the largest single-day loss of life in Operation Enduring Freedom and the worst loss for Naval Special Warfare operators since World War II.

Marcus, who was blown over a ridge side by an RPG and rendered unconscious, was the Lone Survivor that day, as outlined in his outstanding book by that title.

He says in retrospect: “If this came to a vote, as it might, Axe was going to recommend the execution of the three Afghans. And in my soul, I knew he was right. We could not possibly turn them loose. But my trouble is, I have another soul. My Christian soul. And it was crowding in on me. Something kept whispering in the back of my mind, it would be wrong to execute these unarmed men in cold blood.”

With a bullet wound to one leg, shrapnel embedded in both legs, and three vertebrae cracked, he managed to evade enemy combatants over the next four days, the last three of which he survived with the aid of sympathetic Afghan villagers. The Taliban confronted those villagers several times, but they refused to give up Luttrell. One villager took a note from Marcus to a Marine outpost, and a massive operation was launched to successfully rescue him.

Of the help he received from those villagers, Marcus says: “In the middle of everything evil, in an evil place, you can find goodness. … I’d even call it godliness.”

For his extraordinary heroism that day, LT Michael Murphy was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.

Luttrell was awarded the Navy Cross, the USN’s second-highest decoration under the Medal of Honor, and his teammates Danny Dietz and Matt Axelson were posthumously awarded the Navy Cross.

Marcus wears his Navy Cross on behalf of all his fellow special operators who perished in Operation Red Wings. He still lives by the SEAL Creed: “I will never quit. My nation expects me to be physically harder and mentally stronger than my enemies. If knocked down I will get back up, every time. I will draw on every remaining ounce of strength to protect my teammates and to accomplish our mission. I am never out of the fight.”

The disrespect and abject disdain shown to military Veterans by some leftist politicians and most Leftmedia talkingheads and scribes wear heavy on Marcus, but he says: “I am left feeling that no matter how much the drip-drip-drip of hostility toward us is perpetuated by the liberal press, the American people simply do not believe it. They are rightly proud of the armed forces of the United States of America. They innately understand what we do.”

I have had the privilege of spending time with Marcus and his wife Melanie, and they are both humble Patriots. They still live in Texas with their kids.

PO1 Marcus Luttrell and your fellow SEAL operators and Army Night Stalkers: Your examples of valor — American Patriots defending Liberty for all above and beyond the call of duty, and in disregard for the peril to your own life — is eternal.

“Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one’s life for his friends.” (John 15:13)

Live your life worthy of his sacrifice.

Footnote: In a recent column, “Congressional Veterans Condemn Walz for Stolen Valor,” I referenced the current Veterans serving in the 118th Congress. There are 80 House Veterans and 17 Senate Veterans, less than 10% of whom served in the National Guard. Predictably, about 75% of those Veterans are Republicans, and the ratio of those having served deployments in combat zones is 5:1 Republican. Notably, one of those serving is Marcus Luttrell’s twin brother, the aforementioned Morgan Luttrell (R-TX). He joins other outstanding Texas warriors in Congress, including fellow SEAL Rep. Dan Crenshaw.

(Read more Profiles of Valor here.)

Semper Vigilans Fortis Paratus et Fidelis
Pro Deo et Libertate — 1776

Follow Mark Alexander on X/Twitter.

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