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Notes -
I'm not trying to brag - maybe I am - but it was very clear to me while reading Lone Survivor that Luttrell was at best exaggerating. I called BS on the voting immediately.
I did some searches to see if I documented my disbelief of Luttrell. Looks like I asked a friend who was going to an event Luttrell was speaking at if he'd call Luttrell a liar. In another conversation I commented "now not like lone survivor where they're doing summersalts down a cliff dropping guys right and left"
I guess having myself careened down a mountain at 13,000 feet desperately trying to regain control of my ice axe made me skeptical...
Ah, but that's what it has going for it! Sheer gall. Even if you entered skeptical of the military and the inherently propagandistic nature of the picture (I saw the film first and then excerpts of the book), you'd just assume the death scenes were vastly exaggerated for jingoistic purposes and not dig any deeper. If you do like the military...you could come to the same conclusion and still find it emotionally true.
If you're really skeptical, you'll think that it coming down to a trolley problem of killing or not killing the allegedly random herders was way too convenient. Oh sure, they would have won but for fear of war crimes charges and liberal newspapers back home!
The movie gives you an exist where you can watch it and leave believing you've seen through it. And, in fact, how contentious a claim is makes you want to stop and argue that war crimes are never justified! But that's the trap, that's a much better argument for the Navy.
But, as someone who very much doesn't wage war, deeper arguments about why it was an operational omnishambles would have totally escaped me if I didn't run into a story about the disgruntled translator and gone down a rabbit hole. What comms systems work or don't in Afghanistan or what to do with the rope you rappel from isn't information I tend to have handy.
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