By Chad Pillai.
This weekend, my family and I watched “Lone Survivor” and found the story both compelling and reassuring. Immediately after watching it, I read some of the various Facebook and Twitter comments on the movie with some disparaging it for not being 100% historically accurate and some worse to include a former Marine blasting Marcus Luttrell as a coward who left his buddies behind – sentiment I couldn’t disagree with more. I shared my thoughts of these comments with my wife, who as always, was correct to point out that what was important for folks like her is that the story was being told for the American people to develop a greater appreciation for what our military has been doing in Iraq and Afghanistan for the past 12 years.
As I think back, my wife’s comments make me recall a conservation I had with the barber my father and I would visit when I was growing up. He was a Coast Guard veteran of World War II who never spoke much about the war and during Desert Shield/Desert Storm expressed dismay that the country was entering another war. When I was home from Airborne School before returning to College, I asked him if he had seen the newly released “Saving Private Ryan” and he indicated no, and that he most likely wouldn’t. When I returned from Christmas Break for another haircut, he quietly told me he got around to seeing the movie and the opening 20 minutes of the Normandy Invasion were portrayed exactly how he remembered. I didn’t know it at the time, but as a Coast Guardsmen, he was tasked with driving the landing boats to the beaches and he clearly remembers the carnage of that battle. What I took away from that experience with my barber was that while the movie “Saving Private Ryan” was fictional, the portrayal of the horrors of war and the camaraderie displayed were important lessons for myself as an officer in the U.S. Army.
As a young Lieutenant stationed in Korea, the entire Division was directed to watch the newly released “Black Hawk Down” movie based off the popular book that recounted the events in Mogadishu, Somalia. The producers of the movie went to great lengths, working with the military, to portray the Rangers, Nightstalkers, and Delta Force in the most realistic manner possible. Despite this, there were inaccuracies in the movie such as the fusion of several real life warriors portrayed by one or two characters such as Hoot. Despite this, the book and the movie provided valuable lessons such as operational planning, combat inspections, and etc for military leaders. Additionally, it provided the American people a glimpse of the unpredictability of war and that even the best trained, best equipped warriors can be caught by surprise by a tenacious enemy.
“Lone Survivor” is the memoir of Marcus Luttrell, the lone surviving SEAL from Operation Red Wings. The movie took some license to change some elements from the book. However, it must be noted that Marcus and the families of the fallen SEALS were intimately involved in the movie’s production. In addition, the movie honored the 16 dead SEALS and Nighstalkers who were killed in the Chinook. The movie was gritty and the sense of violence and danger real. The brotherhood displayed was heart wrenching and reassuring. Watching those brave men die brought tears to my eyes as I recalled the lives and deaths of friends and a family member who died in Iraq and Afghanistan. Did the portrayal have to be 100% accurate to illicit this response? My answer would be no. Did the message regarding the heroism of our warriors come across? Yes it did. Did some people gain appreciation that no all Afghans are bad and that they would risk their lives to fight the Taliban? The answer again was yes. As a Soldier, did the lesson that the training we endure and the bond we develop is our greatest weapon when outnumbered and technology has failed us? Again, my answer would be yes.
My recommendation for all is to remember that the movie is meant to be entertainment. However, remember that Marcus’s mission was to inform a larger section of our population of the sacrifices his buddies made that day. As he says, he accomplished his mission, even if the movie is not a documentary that needs to be 100%. These stories, including countless others such as “Killer Angels”, Thucydides “The Peloponnesian War”, and Homer’s tales of Troy are stories derived from the memories of people who lived through the events, but whose accuracy of each individual detail can’t be confirmed. However, the countless lessons derived from such tales can’t be discounted for it allows us to peer into the soul of war through the lens of the human heart and spirit. We can honor our fallen though books and Hollywood films without losing sight that the most important aspect is that their stories are being passed to future generations. Decades from now, the story of 4 SEALS fighting and dying for each other, and many others fighting to save them, no matter how inaccurate the specific details, will be part of our military lore, and rightfully so.
