Monday, September 10, 2007

"Lone Survivor"

Putting aside the rant for once to talk about heroes. Not Superman or
Batman. Not even sports stars. I'm talking about real life struggling,
self-sacrificing heroes. What I'm really talking about is a book called
"Lone Survivor", and the hero at the center of it, Marcus Luttrell. Marcus
Luttrell is a Navy Seal (and just based on that he is worthy of our extreme
admiration) who was serving in Iraq when he and three of his team members
were deployed to Afghanistan. I'm not going to tell you much about the book,
because I want you to read it for yourself. Buy the book. Get it from the
library. Borrow it from a friend. Whatever. Just read the book. It doesn't
detail an epic battle that decided a war, or saved a bunch of people. In
fact, most of the bad guys are still on the loose. But what what really got
me about this book is what people are willing to do, not for headlines or
medals, but for pretty abstract ideas. Duty. Honor. Country. This isn't
about politics. It's about flat out courage. I don't have a lot of heroes in
my life. But Marcus Luttrell is one of them.

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