Lone Survivor Study Guide

Marcus Luttrell grew up in Texas and began training to become a Navy SEAL at the age of fourteen. He enlisted in the Navy in 1999 and served in Iraq during the 2003 invasion of the country. In 2005, Luttrell was deployed to Afghanistan, where he was involved in the famous Operation Red Wings (which he calls “Redwing”), the principle subject of his book Lone Survivor (2007). For his bravery in the aftermath of the operation, Luttrell received the Purple Heart and the Navy Cross. In the last decade, Luttrell founded the Lone Survivor Foundation for helping wounded American service members, got married, had two children, and began hosting After Action, a TV show about veteran issues.

The memoir revolves around the events of the War on Terror. Marcus discusses the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, which prompted the American government under President George W. Bush to invade the nations of Iraq and Afghanistan in the interest of defeating two terrorist groups, al Qaeda and the Taliban. The War on Terror is still considered a controversial part of American history, with advocates arguing that it made America safer and critics arguing that it inspired more new terrorists than it defeated. Marcus also discusses the changes afflicting the American oil market in the 1970s and 1980s, as the price fixing techniques of OPEC (the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, a group including many Middle Eastern countries) crippled the market for Texas oil companies.

The book that’s arguably most similar to Lone Survivor is American Sniper (2012) by Chris Kyle. Kyle, a friend of Luttrell, was also deployed to Iraq, and may have been inspired to “write” a book (like Luttrell, he used a ghostwriter) after the success of Luttrell’s memoir. Furthermore, both Luttrell and Kyle’s books have been made into Hollywood films—the former starring Mark Wahlberg, the latter starring Bradley Cooper. There have been many works of fiction inspired by America’s involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan in the last twenty years, though they tend to take a more cynical view of the war. One of the most critically acclaimed of these works is Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk (2012) by Ben Fountain, set during the course of a football game. Fountain uses this clever conceit to attack the exhibitionism and crudeness of American foreign policy during the War on Terror. Marcus Luttrell also mentions that his favorite film is The Count of Monte Cristo, based on the 1844 novel by Alexandre Dumas. In this famous adventure novel, Edmond Dantès, a man wrongfully accused of treason, seeks revenge against the men who plotted his downfall.