Conduct unbecoming

Rating: 1/10 (8 January 2014)

Lone Survivor, the movie, is based on a (supposedly) true story. The source of that story is the book with the same title by Marcus Luttrell, who was indeed the sole survivor of a four-man SEAL team in the mountains of Afghanistan. Endorsing this movie requires ignoring basic military protocols, suspending the laws of physics, and disregarding the capabilities of the human body. The Devil, as always, is in the details.
Love of country and reverence for its armed forces runs deep in the United States. This is as it should be, and is unsurprising. We want to believe in the honor, strength and heroism of our men in battle. It is, therefore, relatively easy for a film maker to successfully appeal to our emotions. For example, in the case of this movie, the Director Peter Berg makes it very painful for the viewer to watch as our men are cut down and fighting till the end; the viewer is also inspired. The emotions squeezed from the audience makes almost irrelevant the actor's craft. Instead, we are preoccupied with the images of our bloodied countrymen fighting for their lives.
This movie further muddies the water about the catastrophe that the SEALs brought down on themselves. Now we have to contend with the movie, the book, and military reality. Most of us will have a grossly distorted view of that reality by way of Schwartzenegger-like movies, or this one, Lone Survivor.
In some ways, this movie improves on realism when compared to Mr. Luttrell's book of fantasies. The Director seems to have found Mr. Luttrell's imaginings too hard to accept. For example:
1. MOVIE: When the Afghan goatherds are taken prisoner, the commanding officer (Lt. Murphy) decisively orders that the prisoners not be killed in cold blood, and sets them free.
Mr. Luttrell says in his book that there was a vote taken on whether to kill the prisoners, and the author plays a starring role--as he does throughout his book--in the final vote to release them.
2. MOVIE: The Lt. Murphy character recognizes that their mission has been compromised and so orders his team to move to higher ground and seek extraction ASAP.
Mr. Luttrell says in his book that his team merely moved a few hundred meters, and continued the mission.
3. MOVIE: Jumping over cliffs was kept to a minimum--two, I think.
Mr. Luttrell describes, in his book, jumping over cliffs and down slopes 6, 7, 8, 9 times or more, with nary a broken bone, and an unsecured weapon close at hand.
Unfortunately, the Director chose to accept Mr. Luttrell's wild (and unsupported) claim of 200 enemy soldiers poised to engage the SEALs. In the movie, the SEAL team actually see 200 armed enemy in the village. Mr. Luttrell, in his book, sees 80-100 enemy directly above his position--and notes each enemy soldier's armament; he later just assumes the estimate of 200 in all. Mr. Luttrell has remarkable observational abilities.
The number of enemy is vastly reduced in the SEALs' own commendations. Furthermore, other very respected sources give the number of enemy as 8- 10. The SEALs placed themselves in a textbook, tactically worst-case position. A single enemy rifleman could have been fatal to one or more members of that SEAL team.
The Afghans in this movie are shown as ambulatory targets, without a hint of soldierly virtue. They know nothing of cover, or how to aim a weapon. Yet, they discovered the precise location of the SEALs, maneuvered on them, and caught them flat-footed.
In both the sanitized version (the movie), and in Mr. Luttrell's book, the SEALs' incompetence and disregard for basic military principles is manifest. War is unforgiving, and the SEALs paid the logical price. We should not forget, too, that their failures cost the lives of 16 other American servicemen. Had Lt. Murphy survived, rather than Mr. Luttrell, he should have been court-martialed.