January 2, 2026 • 34 mins
Twenty years after Operation Red Wings, Marcus Luttrell walks us through the brutal firefight, the seven‑mile crawl, the Afghan villagers who saved him, and the chaotic night rescue the movie couldn’t show. A raw, riveting, first‑person account you won’t hear anywhere else.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
It's that time, time, time, time, luck and load.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
So Michael Verie Show is on the air. Marcus Latrell
(00:36):
is our guest. Twenty years after Operation Red Wings. Of course,
his diary would be published and Lone Survivor would be
a bestseller, the movie would be made, and a nation
was riveted. We were at war in Iraq and Afghanistan,
and I think that really humanized. The two guys from
(00:57):
that time that I grew to have such a credible
respect for were Marcus Attrell and his peers, his Navy seals,
and Chris Kyle. And I think the entire country was
absolutely and still is riveted by this story. So it
has become a firefight. Tell me, Marcus, what happens from there.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
Once that thing started, it was kind of a free
for all that they had us covered on three sides,
so the only way we could go was down the mountain,
and then a couple hours into that, they had come
up from the base of the mountain from the village,
so they had it in a three hundred and sixty
degree loop. It wasn't really anywhere we could go, which
means you had to keep moving the entire time. The
hardest thing to hit of the moving target, but because
(01:45):
of the terrain and the altitude, just making the movement
was tough enough. By a couple hours into it, everyone
was so exhausted that and shot up that they just
systematically picked us apart one by one as we were
going down the mountain. And then at the end of
the day, I would I had slipped into this ravine
and kind of was laid in between these rocks, and
(02:07):
I just laid there. I was paralyzed from the waist down.
I'd been shot up pretty bad and fragged, and my
back was broken and stuff. And as the sun went down,
I just laid there and I couldn't move. I waited
and waited, and then eventually I started to crawl out
of there and just started moving. And I crawled all
night into the next morning and halfway through the next
(02:28):
day before the villagers found me. It was right next
to a waterfall in the river.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
You've talked about not knowing how far you went, and
you know you weren't at yourself, as my grandmother would say,
but if you were to estimate how far you crawled,
what would that be?
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Oh, so we know now they've done a map study
and I've gotten debriefed by everyone who had anything to
do with the mission, and I crawled about seven miles.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
And you started how much after or after sundown or
after it got dark, Probably.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
About almost a couple hours afterwards. I just started making
a movement when I couldn't hear anything, and when I
thought that day a Matta had returned to base, I
just started moving.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
And there was zero chance you would have survived. If
you'd stayed there, they would have found you.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Right absolutely, because the helicopter had gotten shot down, which
brought more reinforcements from them, and so the mountain was
saturated with the Taliban and the al Qaeda. They kind
of worked together in that area of the Hornet's nest
is where we were at, and we had slipped in
there under the cover of darkness. So when the sun
came up and everybody was making movement, it was it
(03:40):
was saturated.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
When you saw the I'm assuming you saw the chinook
shot down.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
I didn't. That's how loud it was that I couldn't
hear it or see it get shot down and roll
down the mountain. I had my ear drum has been
busted out. I was bleeding out everywhere, so I didn't.
I didn't know that. I found that out when I
was in the village and the Taliban got a hold
to me. They told me one of the guys was
(04:09):
wearing one of my wedding ring. He said it was
from one of my buddies. He was trying to tell
me that they had shot a helicopter down and that
a bunch of the seals had died. But I didn't
I wouldn't believe it. And then when I got back
to when y'all finally found me and brought me back,
is when I when I got the news that was solid.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
I'm gonna ask a stupid question, why couldn't they get
the coms up? You know, you talk about this in
the book, and that's a central theme to the movie.
Why couldn't they manage to get comms back to the base?
I mean, was the equipment not good enough or what
was the issue?
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Now, all that has to do with location and where
we were set up, and they're just intermittent. Sometimes they
come in and sometimes they come out. There's no really
solid answer for why that happens. I know today with technology,
you can you can It's the same premise to why
your cell phone while you lose signal in certain areas,
like we don't Why can't I say right here and
then go two feet to the right and not have
(05:04):
or I can make communications. It's the same principle. But
go way back when you're get into two thousand and five,
you're dealing with the Tatcom radio and then the planes
moving overhead and the relays that we had back and forth.
It was just intermittent. That's just the way it works.
That's why we have checkpoints and waypoints as we're going along.
So if we do miss the calm window, then there's
another checkpoints when we get to that we can radio
back in before everyone starts losing their mind and trying
(05:26):
to come get us.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Do you remember the first hit you took?
Speaker 1 (05:33):
Yeah, oh yeah, you don't forget it absolutely, what's happen? Well,
you until you get hit, you don't know. You just
have this anticipation of what it feels like. And now
there's a difference between when you have this mentality of
when you're hunting men. I remember having that like it
(05:54):
kind of flowed through me. Well, my job when we
went out was to hunt things down, and then it's
a completely different feeling when someone's hunting you and there
and and they got you in their site to a
lot of times you couldn't see where any It was
so loud and at this and you couldn't you didn't
have any idea where the bullets were coming from. So
I remember thinking when I got hit that first time,
(06:15):
and I fell and knocked me out, and when I
came to the smell, that's the one thing that they
couldn't You can't duplicate as the smell of death when
that's around, And how the ground was on fire too,
and I remember the smoke and all that stuff like that.
It just kind of hit me, hit me pretty hard,
and and then it just changed the dynamic the way
(06:36):
you the way you move.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
Told me, you told me one time that as brutal
as the movie is, it's two hours long, and the
firefight lasted far longer than that, and of course you're
in the middle of it, and the smells and the
sounds and all that. What is the thing that the
movie was least able to convey that you remember vividly.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
Bringing me out of there. If I, if I, if there,
if there'd be another movie made, it would be about
the ending the way that what it took to get
me out of there, and and pay respect and give
acknowledgement to everything that went to pulling me out, that
that in itself was is a story because it happened
at night. In the in the movie they made Los Survivor,
(07:17):
it was a daytime rescue, and in reality, it was
at night, and I mean it was a free for all,
crazy scenario storms and everyone was out there. It was
probably the most intimidated, intimidating time because I didn't you know,
you think I'm getting rescued, but then there's a chance.
There's always a chance you can die. And when they
(07:41):
finally got me onto the helicopter we left out of there,
it was there was a roller coaster of emotions for sure.
But the one thing that we didn't capture in the film,
and like I said, it didn't have enough time, was
the ending how they actually had and what they had
to go through to rescue. Everyone who was in theater
was involved to getting me out of there, for sure,
(08:01):
and then to follow on to get all the guys
off the mountain. And my remember, our teammate was still
laying out there. We had a helicopter go down and
had fifteen guys on it. They had to recover all
those guys they were taking fire. It was it was
a crazy scenario.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
All these chairs can rolling around. Damn it all right?
This is Mark Chestnut and Jar Bizar of Talk Radio.
Marcus till Trail is our guest twenty years after Operation
Red Wings. Hard to believe it's been twenty years. He
has agreed to stay with us a little extra because
(08:40):
everything I want to know won't make it into this segment.
I could talk to him for hours on end and
have There's so many things he can't tell or doesn't
tell that are fascinating about all of this and his
incredible life. Marcus till Trail is our guest. Marcus, you
mentioned that the extra of you, the rescue of you,
(09:02):
didn't get covered properly in the movie because you couldn't
give everything justice. What are some things we didn't see?
Speaker 1 (09:11):
Okay? So I was the great There's a hodgepodge of
the guys who finally found me, and if you, if
you could have seen them, I made it look something
straight out of a movie. When they came in there,
they were beat up just to get to me. Was
was was an event just just to find me. And
then once they found me, they had to they surrounded
(09:32):
the village, and then the village was surrounded by the
Taliban and the al Qaida, just to keep me safe.
And then they had moved me down the mountain into
this little ravine area. I hadn't thought about this in
a minute. And we sat up and it was dark.
So by now the sun had gone down, and the
helicopter had to come in from the base of the mountain,
(09:53):
and it was we were so high up on the
mountain that they had all it was was fuel and ammo.
And I remember they had some water on there for
the guys, because the guys who found me were out
of water. And then a firefight ensued, and then above
the mountain where a bunch of fish wing aircraft were
dropping ordnance down on the bad guys. And then in
(10:14):
the distance at the base of the mountain, so down
the mountain it was a river, and the helicopter was
coming up the river, and the colsign of the guy
who was flying the bird's name of Spanking and Jeff Pearson, great,
great fricking guy. And and here you'll tell you it
was so dark and by this time they had juiced
me up, so I was kind of having a good time,
Like I wasn't feel any pain anymore, and I was
(10:35):
just kind of sitting there watching all of our guys
do their thing, and it was it was the most
amazing thing to watch them work. Normally, when you're in
something you don't you can't anticipate with that. But when
I had a chance to step back and actually watch
our guys go to war, and it was awesome. And
then that helicopter bo it came up over the side
of that cliff and the dust kicked up, and so
(10:57):
it was called a brown eye. We couldn't see anything
when he came to land. The ravine we were on
was about as wide as the helicopter itself. And he goes,
and that dust came up. I couldn't see nothing. And
then there was Pj's in the back of the bird
trying to land it, trying to tell them how far
from the ground they were, and nobody could see an ink.
And the helicopter actually had rotated, so when the nose
(11:19):
came over, it had spun around and the tail was
facing us. And then he goes, there was a plant
hanging from one of the houses. It was on the
side of the mountain. He goes, I was kind of
looking at that thing and I just sat it down,
and he did. He stuck it well. The Green Berets
they picked me up and were carrying me towards the HILO,
and I was dressed up in man Jamie, so I
looked like an agha and they pulled me up at
(11:42):
the tail so you don't come up on the tail rotor.
So the PGS turned around to actually take a shot
at us, and they had their lasers up and their
lasers hit our glint tape and that's how they knew
that not to shoot. So almost got killed on the rescue.
They told me that later. I was like, I'm glad
you didn't shoot me. And then they threw me on
the helicopter and we sat there for a while because
(12:02):
they had to unload the water for all the guys
who were still on the mountain because they had to
go on a follow on mission. They didn't even come
home with me. And then we sat there and then
the helicopter I remember, dumped off the side of the mountain.
That PJ came up. He asked me, He's like, who's
your Superhero and I was like Spider Man, and I
asked him my dog's name. I told him that it's
kind of verification code. And we went back and we
(12:24):
landed and they're still in a firefight. We landed on
a base and then they transferred me from a helicopter
to a C one thirty medical bird and kind of
laid me down and started going to work on me.
And then they flew me from there to Toboggram Air
Force Base where the rest of my platoon and all
(12:45):
the seals are waiting on me to get back.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
But then, how does that look when when they bring
you in? What tell me about that?
Speaker 1 (12:54):
So the ramp dropped off the helicopter or shoot me
on the back of the plane, and they had to
pick me. I couldn't really walk, so they picked me
up and we're carrying me down at ivy stuck out
of me and they they said they abandoned me up
and uh, I remember there was a lady standing by
the ramp and she covered her face and started crying.
I guess I looked worse than I thought. And then
(13:14):
they transferred me to these van There was a bunch
of vans sitting there and they put me in one
of those and then they took me to the hospital.
And then while I was in the hospital, they was
when we kind of started the debrief I tried to
tell them because all my guys were still out there.
I tried to tell them where I was and in
relation to where they thought we were, and it just
it all started from there. And then I was in
(13:35):
the hospital for a minute.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
Go ahead, are you able to talk at that point?
I mean, what does that look like?
Speaker 1 (13:43):
I was? Was I was able to talk? Uh. The
villagers did a great job of taking care of me.
I mean they doctored me up twice a day, banaged
my wounds, made sure my pain TIRRT, my pain was down.
So I was really I had a doctor in the
village and they just they say, my life for sure.
And then when I got back the all the army
(14:05):
guys started working on me, and then we started doing
the debriefs so they could go out and find our
other guys and bring them back. And I think that
took about two weeks to find all the guys. I'm
not mistaken, so and then I got transferred back to
the States.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
In the movie, there is a conflict within the village
of the you know, Gulab brings you back, and that
not everyone in the village wants you there because that
brings problems on them. Tell me a little bit about
your reception in the village to the extent you remember it.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Just like that. Well, there was there was something in
there that didn't want me in there, and I could
tell immediately who they were. They weren't trying to hide
that for sure. And then there were the villages and
the elder and Gulab. They were making sure that I
stayed safe, and they put a rotating guard on me.
I was in there for almost five days. And then
(14:54):
there was some people in the villageho were trying to
sell me, because the Taliban would show up every day
negotiating for my head, and they would tell me about it,
sit down in my room and have these little powwows
and these meetings, and then, which is kind of frustrating
because I didn't speak the language. Well, I didn't understand
what they were saying, but I could get the concept
of what was going down. And then eventually when the
(15:15):
when the Green Berets and rangers found me, I was
tucked in underneath this rock and a riverbed, and they
were They moved me around the village systematically and strategically
all day and every day through the night. So the
Taliban would get a beat on the room that I
was in and they started shooting in there or firing
RPG at the wall, and then the villagers would move
me somewhere else. So it was it was kind of
chaotic and stressful, for sure.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
It's amazing to think that after everything you had survived,
that you could have been killed at that moment or
at the moment you're being rescued. I mean that that's
just just just insane. So the moment they came to
get you, do you remember the first thing they said to.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
You, Sook call my name out. I'll never forget it.
I heard it in English the first time. And uh,
I was draped over these two guys and my head
was down and they were having to drag me through
the through the mountains, and I looked up and this
old boy came down the mountain and two of them.
I could see me very vividly, and I grabbed that guy.
I mean, I never heard a man like that. I
was gonna get in here, but I was going to
(16:15):
make sure he was real, because I was real sick
by then, and uh, and he called me by my name,
and uh, they picked me up and and took me
into this this stable. Uh, right underneath on the side
of the mountain, there was a stable down there they
would keep the huels in. And they laid me down
in there and started a bandaging me up. And then
(16:38):
that's when the beeps me for the first time. And
uh they got me out of there. Yeah, that happened,
but it was it was It was crazy for sure.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
Michael Barry Show, marceetell Is our guest. Our conversation continues
about the rescue. If you've read the book and seen
the movie, obviously in a matter of minutes, they can't
capture what actually happened. You know, you've alluded to a
number of things, Marcus, I'd like to rewind and let's
(17:06):
talk about how Gulab discovers you at the water. You know,
there's a scene in the movie where you threaten to
pull the pin. You have no belief that this guy
is going to drag you to his village and that
they're going to care for you, which they did and
save your life. Walk me through that process from you
interacting with him to you getting to the village and
(17:27):
then the eventual rescue and how long all this takes.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
So the sun had come up the following day and
I somehow had crawled and Michael, I don't know how
I did this, but I managed to get to the
top of this cliff where there's a waterfall. But I
couldn't I was so thirsty. This is what was driving me.
I didn't want to die thirsty. I know that sounds absurd,
but when you thirst will do something completely different to
(17:55):
a man than pained and hunger. I mean, I'd never
been that thirsty. And when I tried to reach into
the waterfall, I started sliding down the side of the mountain.
I took it kind of took off, and I flipped
into the river and I actually knocked myself out again.
And when I came to, I crawled into I remember
(18:17):
I crawled back up a little ways because I had
seen a place that looked pretty, pretty inviting to drink
some water. And I got there and I probably had
two steps out of that waterfall before someone was screaming
at me. And they were screaming at me on the
ledge that I had just fallen off of excuse, so
I kind of like thought that they were following me.
(18:38):
And then above that there was a couple of guys
with Ak's maneuvering around and I could hear him screaming
and like they were trying to track me down. So
they started hunting me. So I made a move and
started crawling down into the lake, into the river and
through over these rocks and stuff, and I managed to
get into this crevice, into this ravine. It's hard to explain,
(18:58):
and I couldn't go anywhere. They bottlednick me and I
turned around to shoot, and the guy saw me and
he ducked, and then I swung around on the other
two and they saw me, so they sat down. And
then right after that happened right over the ravine I
was sitting under is when Gulac came over the rocks.
(19:18):
He was kind of just sitting there and he was
screaming at me, and he was screaming American. He's an American, American.
And I thought about this a minutement. So they thought
I was the Taliban. They were trying to hunt me
down and kill me because they thought I was the enemy.
But in reality, when they found out when they got
it close enough, they realized I was an American, so
that's what he was telling him, don't shoot He's an American.
And I kind of wasn't putting that together. I turned
(19:41):
around to engage to shoot him, and he put his
hands up and he was saying, okay, okay, okay. And
I don't know why I didn't kill him. I don't
know why didn't kill this guy? My God, I mean,
I had my faith yield.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
What weapon did you have left at that point?
Speaker 1 (19:58):
I had my rifle, That's the only I had.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
You still had your rifle?
Speaker 1 (20:01):
Okay, I still had him. I couldn't throw that thing away.
I mean it would leave my body and slide down
the mountain or flip off of me, and I tore
my lanyard, but I would always manage to get God
was like, hey, you know you need that. So when
I turned around, go ahead.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
Go ahead, I'm sorry, no, no, you go ahead.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
Well, he finally walked up on me and I lowered
my weapon, and he was he was like okay, okay, okay, okay,
and he's like, shampoo hydrate is what he's saying to me.
Shampoo hydrate. I'll never forget that I was like, I mean,
that sounds really good, but I was like, I need
some water.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
So why do you think you didn't kill him? What
did you know about him that he wasn't out to
do you harm?
Speaker 1 (20:48):
I don't know a look on his face. He just
had this look on his face like he didn't want
to like he wasn't there to hurt me. You can tell.
And once you're out there long enough and you hunt hunt,
you know, we fight these guys long enough, you can tell.
Even when we capture and have them with us, they
would still look at you like they want to kill you.
And once you see that, you'll never forget it. You
can anticipate with a man thinking just about the look
(21:08):
on his face and within his eyes. His eyes kill
a lot. And then these kids started coming out from
behind him. Two and then these some more adults started
walking up. And I lowered my weapon and I had
a grenade with me, and I pulled that thing and
I pulled the pin. I kind of put it down
by my hip, and then they brought me some water,
so I started drinking that, and they started looking at
(21:31):
my wounds and like patching me up. And then they
picked me up and carried me down into the village.
They sat me down, they gave me more water, and
then they picked me up and carried me into this
room and they stripped me naked, and there wasn't much
left in my uniform anyway, and they docked me up,
cleaned off my wounds, and then dressed me up in
(21:52):
instead of Man Jamie's. That was almost the first day.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
And what was hurting the worst at that point, Well,
i had.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
A lot of facial damage, and then I'd broken my
right hand. My thumb had been separated from the from
the where it was supposed to be. I couldn't feel
my lower extremities. It was weird. I busted my back
up real bad, and I've been shot in the button
that frag hanging out of my legs, but I couldn't
really feel that Because I didn't, I was kind of paralyzed.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
Was it was a blessing and a curse at that time.
Are you at that moment do you think you're going
to die? You're just fighting on for some crazy reason,
but do you are you certain you're going to die
or are you holding out hope?
Speaker 1 (22:37):
No, that would only cross my mind when I was
in a gunfight, and then even then on the first
day for sure, but the second day I just kind
of got it in my head that I was getting
out of there. I wasn't gonna I wasn't gonna lay
down and die. I was gonna the way our training
goes and everything that kicks in, a lot of people
(22:58):
they can't anticipate that, like what do you do when
this happens? And what do you think when this happened?
Does a trust me? It kicks in and I just
kept that. Ultimately, I did change the diplomacy. I mean
I kind of changed my attitude a little bit just
because they were helping me and I wanted them to
know that I appreciated all that. So I you know,
I was on my manners and I was real polite.
(23:20):
I did everything I could. I started throughout the week.
I started doctor and their kids like they would bring
their kids to me. I never told him I was
a steal I told him I was a doctor. Okay,
I'm not. I'm not a stealing a doctor. And I
don't know if they bought that or not, but you
do have it. I did, and I did, and that
helped me because when I would work on them Uh.
(23:41):
In the beginning, I didn't know if it was working
or not, but they kept bringing me people, so it
worked in my advantage. And then they were calling me
doctor Marcus. That weren't doctors.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
Universal talk to me about the original the core for guys, Danny, Axe,
Murphy and you. Why was each one of you chosen?
What was your role within the group, What were your
skill sets?
Speaker 1 (24:07):
Danny was our communicator. He could work the radios real well.
We weren't on the same delivery team, but he was
East Coast, I was West coast. But it doesn't matter.
When we throw us together, we work well together. I'd
known Danny since we were in pre training, so we've
been buddies for a while. Acts as our primary sniper
and our point man. It was his job to get
(24:28):
us in and out of the target, and then he
was obviously had the overwatch with the sniper rifle. Michael
was our lieutenant. He was our officer in charge, so
he was overall command and control. And then I was
also the medic and rear security. And then I was
the LPO of the platoons, so I was running it
and then that was our team. That's how we were
set up recon teams are really small, usually four to.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
Six men, and are there are there particular skill sets
that brought you all together? I mean, you know, of
all the guys that could have been chosen, how were
you four guys chosen? They had to have a strategy
behind that, I'm assuming.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
Yeah, absolutely, it was the qualifications that we have through
in the seal teams you get you get to go
to multiple schools, so me being the medic, and then
I was also a sniper, and I was also a
calm guy, and then I was also a j Tech
which means I could talk to the planes and drop bombs,
so that that was really useful in that environment. And
then acts being a sniper, a point man, nanny with
(25:25):
the with the comms and the communication. So we it's
kind of like redundancy. So if one of us gets
or goes down, the other guy can step up and
do his job. And we had just trained up together.
It was our it was our primary mission set, so
they utilize us in that capacity.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
You've got the Michael Berry's show. Marcus Latrell is our
guest twenty years after Operation Red Wings, when when this
was over and and you came home, you you convert
your diary to what becomes a book. You go back
to Iraq, and first time I ever talked to you
(26:01):
about this, which is well over ten years ago, the
thing that really just wrenched my gut was that you
committed to go and talk to Patsy, to go and
talk to the families about what had happened. You wanted
them when did that happen and how did that go down?
Speaker 1 (26:19):
I'd gotten back, but it happened pretty quick, and I
was sitting I was in the hospital for a while,
and then the rest of my at platoon came back
from Iraq, and then they had like a week or
two of downtime, and then the command actually facilitated that movement.
They lined out where we were going, when we were going,
and how we were going to get there. So they
(26:41):
flew us back to the States. We were in Hawaii.
They flew us back into the States and we started
and we went from family each family member and told
them what happened. I told him face to face. I
wanted they needed to hear it from the command. Wanted
that to make sure because there was all kinds of
stories going around there's about what had happened, how it
went down. I mean still to this day, but they
know the real story.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
How hard was that to do?
Speaker 1 (27:05):
I was rough? That was rough. Just yeah, it's just tough.
Like our CaCO officers, the officers that are actually in
charge of go around and tell the families that his
son's been injured or he's dead. I mean, I don't
That's got to be probably the hardest job in the military.
(27:25):
So I really wasn't trained for that. And I you know,
I love those guys. So when their family I understand.
Look if I if I could love, if I had
to lose everything I had right now just to bring
all of them back to their family members could have
my wood. That may sound mean or crazy, but I
because they're great people and their sons are great men,
(27:48):
and I that was that's part in combat. But the
families have always been great to me. They're they're they're
good to me. They've watched out for me, they've never,
you know, never try to tear me down. So that
was a blessing to me.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
You know, the book and then the movie and your
story and you as the frontman for all of this
has to have been the greatest boon to recruiting before
Donald Trump was president in Cinvil War two. I would
imagine there were a lot of young Marcus Latrell wannabe's
(28:26):
who said, I want to do what that guy has done.
Has the Navy ever told you.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
That, Yes, sir, all the time. That's why I carry
myself the way I do. I realized that the opportunity
and the position that I was put in God, God
has a plan for everything. I had no idea I
was going to be doing this. But it may have
been twenty years, but I think about it every day,
from the minute I wake up the minute I go down.
I'm constantly trying to better myself, collect wisdom, sharping my discipline,
(28:54):
starting my manners and everything that I do. Since I
am an example, once put that cross on me that
changed my life forever. Seals are usually kind of in
the shadows, but I was. I was brought up, you know,
kind of into the light in front of everybody, and
I had extensive training from the military that I'm still
with them. I mean, they've been watching out for me
(29:15):
forever and they still do. And I, you know, thank
you doesn't really do it. It works on almost everything
else in there. I don't have any words to describe
how how how much it means to me and how
thankful I am not only put the military, but for
our people, like the American people and especially Texas. I mean,
you've been around me for a long time. You see it.
(29:35):
One of the reasons I'll go on public. Man, it's
it's so overwhelming how nice people are to me and
what they do for me and I and it only
it keeps getting stronger. That hasn't faded away. So uh.
And I'm trying to be a good father and raise
my kids. But then and turn that around. The one
thing I've preached them is how great our people are. Hey, look,
(29:57):
that's why I'm so hard on them. I was like,
when you walk out in public and you went across
that's one of our people. Man, you better show some
say because of what they They saved my life. Y'all
saved my life. Y'all brought me back and gave me
everything I got. So I never anticipated that. I didn't
grow up to expect that. It just kind of I
got put into it, and man, I'm so thankful for it.
(30:18):
I don't even know what to stay most of the time.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
Marcus Latrell is our guest for those who don't know
what became of you after all of that. Talk about
your personal life, Melanie, the whole story.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
Okay, So anybody who still runs around me and knows
anything knows the one thing that I got in the
hook up, the greatest hook up I got was my wife,
and she's absolutely, hands down the most amazing thing ever.
And then I have three kids. My oldest son, Hunter,
he's twenty seven, he's out of college and got a
great job in World Traveler was it was a blessing
(30:54):
day to get him. And then I have Acts and
then Adelaide. So most of my day is spent when
I get up in the morning, I'm really trying to
be a good father. I want to do that. I
want to be good at that so bad. I work
hard at it and I actually study it so right.
When I got back, I was on the road so much.
I lived out of a suitcase, wrote three hundred days
(31:16):
out of the year. And then when you bring a
wife and a family into the picture, it kind of
changes everything. So she she does a great job of
watching out for me every single day. She's she's such
a blessing to me. And then those kids make me
a better human beat. That definitely phases in a man's
life when he's growing up. The life that I had
before being a teen guy running and gun and is
(31:37):
not conducive to being a family man out in civilian world.
Those two things kind of butt heads. So the hardest
thing I probably had to go through was getting rid
of that, was letting go of that old being a steal,
that whole ego that goes with that, the bravado and
everything that comes into that package. I mean, I don't
(31:57):
wear the same watches anymore, the same sunglasses. I don't.
I try not to talk like that anymore.
Speaker 3 (32:01):
Matter of fact, when I get around my teammates, you
want to talk about dragging me back to the old days,
it's I get so fired up when I see them
that I know I can't stay around very long because
how much I loved that life. It was it was
my heart and my soul. When I got done with that,
I literally had to retrain myself to be a civilian again,
starting with with just who I was, and then trying
(32:23):
to be a good husband and what that looked like,
and then a good father. I I I get on
the internet and around the people that I see who
are great fathers. You're a good father. I mean your boys,
look at them, and then Rick Perry all that just
you know, I got to take examples of the men
that are around us, the pillars that are around us,
and copy that, try to mimic what they do and
(32:45):
put that into my routine and live it out, not
year by year, but kind of moment by moment and
then transferred to the next one. And it's it's been great.
I truly love it.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
You've been at your father in law's home when you
host a lot of Navy seals, and I've described you
as the mayor of Silville. It really feels to me,
and I'm a complete outsider that this experience and all
the public attention because you know the scenes where y'all
are training as Navy seals, people have a lot better understanding.
(33:19):
As you've told me, people die in Navy seal training
and are brought back to life the difficulty of this training.
You know, I think back to Officer and a Gentleman
and that Apocalypse now and what movies do to to
really make the public focus on these sorts of things.
And I think your case and then Chris Kyle got
(33:41):
folks really aware of the personal toll these things take
and the preparation these things take. It's not a movie.
It's real life. And I guess there's not a question there,
but I would ask for your reaction to that.
Speaker 1 (33:55):
For sure before we let y'all. Fee is one thing
and the behind the scenes, just like like a regular movie.
I mean, you see the the overall finished product, but
you want to know what what it took to make
that thing, and that's where we The only way you
can actually see that is to be in the community itself,
and it's it's the greatest fraternity that I that I
(34:16):
was able to be a part of being in the fields.
Hey me, thank you, and good night. H
It's that time, time, time, time, luck and load.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
So Michael Verie Show is on the air. Marcus Latrell
(00:36):
is our guest. Twenty years after Operation Red Wings. Of course,
his diary would be published and Lone Survivor would be
a bestseller, the movie would be made, and a nation
was riveted. We were at war in Iraq and Afghanistan,
and I think that really humanized. The two guys from
(00:57):
that time that I grew to have such a credible
respect for were Marcus Attrell and his peers, his Navy seals,
and Chris Kyle. And I think the entire country was
absolutely and still is riveted by this story. So it
has become a firefight. Tell me, Marcus, what happens from there.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
Once that thing started, it was kind of a free
for all that they had us covered on three sides,
so the only way we could go was down the mountain,
and then a couple hours into that, they had come
up from the base of the mountain from the village,
so they had it in a three hundred and sixty
degree loop. It wasn't really anywhere we could go, which
means you had to keep moving the entire time. The
hardest thing to hit of the moving target, but because
(01:45):
of the terrain and the altitude, just making the movement
was tough enough. By a couple hours into it, everyone
was so exhausted that and shot up that they just
systematically picked us apart one by one as we were
going down the mountain. And then at the end of
the day, I would I had slipped into this ravine
and kind of was laid in between these rocks, and
(02:07):
I just laid there. I was paralyzed from the waist down.
I'd been shot up pretty bad and fragged, and my
back was broken and stuff. And as the sun went down,
I just laid there and I couldn't move. I waited
and waited, and then eventually I started to crawl out
of there and just started moving. And I crawled all
night into the next morning and halfway through the next
(02:28):
day before the villagers found me. It was right next
to a waterfall in the river.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
You've talked about not knowing how far you went, and
you know you weren't at yourself, as my grandmother would say,
but if you were to estimate how far you crawled,
what would that be?
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Oh, so we know now they've done a map study
and I've gotten debriefed by everyone who had anything to
do with the mission, and I crawled about seven miles.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
And you started how much after or after sundown or
after it got dark, Probably.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
About almost a couple hours afterwards. I just started making
a movement when I couldn't hear anything, and when I
thought that day a Matta had returned to base, I
just started moving.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
And there was zero chance you would have survived. If
you'd stayed there, they would have found you.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Right absolutely, because the helicopter had gotten shot down, which
brought more reinforcements from them, and so the mountain was
saturated with the Taliban and the al Qaeda. They kind
of worked together in that area of the Hornet's nest
is where we were at, and we had slipped in
there under the cover of darkness. So when the sun
came up and everybody was making movement, it was it
(03:40):
was saturated.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
When you saw the I'm assuming you saw the chinook
shot down.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
I didn't. That's how loud it was that I couldn't
hear it or see it get shot down and roll
down the mountain. I had my ear drum has been
busted out. I was bleeding out everywhere, so I didn't.
I didn't know that. I found that out when I
was in the village and the Taliban got a hold
to me. They told me one of the guys was
(04:09):
wearing one of my wedding ring. He said it was
from one of my buddies. He was trying to tell
me that they had shot a helicopter down and that
a bunch of the seals had died. But I didn't
I wouldn't believe it. And then when I got back
to when y'all finally found me and brought me back,
is when I when I got the news that was solid.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
I'm gonna ask a stupid question, why couldn't they get
the coms up? You know, you talk about this in
the book, and that's a central theme to the movie.
Why couldn't they manage to get comms back to the base?
I mean, was the equipment not good enough or what
was the issue?
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Now, all that has to do with location and where
we were set up, and they're just intermittent. Sometimes they
come in and sometimes they come out. There's no really
solid answer for why that happens. I know today with technology,
you can you can It's the same premise to why
your cell phone while you lose signal in certain areas,
like we don't Why can't I say right here and
then go two feet to the right and not have
(05:04):
or I can make communications. It's the same principle. But
go way back when you're get into two thousand and five,
you're dealing with the Tatcom radio and then the planes
moving overhead and the relays that we had back and forth.
It was just intermittent. That's just the way it works.
That's why we have checkpoints and waypoints as we're going along.
So if we do miss the calm window, then there's
another checkpoints when we get to that we can radio
back in before everyone starts losing their mind and trying
(05:26):
to come get us.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Do you remember the first hit you took?
Speaker 1 (05:33):
Yeah, oh yeah, you don't forget it absolutely, what's happen? Well,
you until you get hit, you don't know. You just
have this anticipation of what it feels like. And now
there's a difference between when you have this mentality of
when you're hunting men. I remember having that like it
(05:54):
kind of flowed through me. Well, my job when we
went out was to hunt things down, and then it's
a completely different feeling when someone's hunting you and there
and and they got you in their site to a
lot of times you couldn't see where any It was
so loud and at this and you couldn't you didn't
have any idea where the bullets were coming from. So
I remember thinking when I got hit that first time,
(06:15):
and I fell and knocked me out, and when I
came to the smell, that's the one thing that they
couldn't You can't duplicate as the smell of death when
that's around, And how the ground was on fire too,
and I remember the smoke and all that stuff like that.
It just kind of hit me, hit me pretty hard,
and and then it just changed the dynamic the way
(06:36):
you the way you move.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
Told me, you told me one time that as brutal
as the movie is, it's two hours long, and the
firefight lasted far longer than that, and of course you're
in the middle of it, and the smells and the
sounds and all that. What is the thing that the
movie was least able to convey that you remember vividly.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
Bringing me out of there. If I, if I, if there,
if there'd be another movie made, it would be about
the ending the way that what it took to get
me out of there, and and pay respect and give
acknowledgement to everything that went to pulling me out, that
that in itself was is a story because it happened
at night. In the in the movie they made Los Survivor,
(07:17):
it was a daytime rescue, and in reality, it was
at night, and I mean it was a free for all,
crazy scenario storms and everyone was out there. It was
probably the most intimidated, intimidating time because I didn't you know,
you think I'm getting rescued, but then there's a chance.
There's always a chance you can die. And when they
(07:41):
finally got me onto the helicopter we left out of there,
it was there was a roller coaster of emotions for sure.
But the one thing that we didn't capture in the film,
and like I said, it didn't have enough time, was
the ending how they actually had and what they had
to go through to rescue. Everyone who was in theater
was involved to getting me out of there, for sure,
(08:01):
and then to follow on to get all the guys
off the mountain. And my remember, our teammate was still
laying out there. We had a helicopter go down and
had fifteen guys on it. They had to recover all
those guys they were taking fire. It was it was
a crazy scenario.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
All these chairs can rolling around. Damn it all right?
This is Mark Chestnut and Jar Bizar of Talk Radio.
Marcus till Trail is our guest twenty years after Operation
Red Wings. Hard to believe it's been twenty years. He
has agreed to stay with us a little extra because
(08:40):
everything I want to know won't make it into this segment.
I could talk to him for hours on end and
have There's so many things he can't tell or doesn't
tell that are fascinating about all of this and his
incredible life. Marcus till Trail is our guest. Marcus, you
mentioned that the extra of you, the rescue of you,
(09:02):
didn't get covered properly in the movie because you couldn't
give everything justice. What are some things we didn't see?
Speaker 1 (09:11):
Okay? So I was the great There's a hodgepodge of
the guys who finally found me, and if you, if
you could have seen them, I made it look something
straight out of a movie. When they came in there,
they were beat up just to get to me. Was
was was an event just just to find me. And
then once they found me, they had to they surrounded
(09:32):
the village, and then the village was surrounded by the
Taliban and the al Qaida, just to keep me safe.
And then they had moved me down the mountain into
this little ravine area. I hadn't thought about this in
a minute. And we sat up and it was dark.
So by now the sun had gone down, and the
helicopter had to come in from the base of the mountain,
(09:53):
and it was we were so high up on the
mountain that they had all it was was fuel and ammo.
And I remember they had some water on there for
the guys, because the guys who found me were out
of water. And then a firefight ensued, and then above
the mountain where a bunch of fish wing aircraft were
dropping ordnance down on the bad guys. And then in
(10:14):
the distance at the base of the mountain, so down
the mountain it was a river, and the helicopter was
coming up the river, and the colsign of the guy
who was flying the bird's name of Spanking and Jeff Pearson, great,
great fricking guy. And and here you'll tell you it
was so dark and by this time they had juiced
me up, so I was kind of having a good time,
Like I wasn't feel any pain anymore, and I was
(10:35):
just kind of sitting there watching all of our guys
do their thing, and it was it was the most
amazing thing to watch them work. Normally, when you're in
something you don't you can't anticipate with that. But when
I had a chance to step back and actually watch
our guys go to war, and it was awesome. And
then that helicopter bo it came up over the side
of that cliff and the dust kicked up, and so
(10:57):
it was called a brown eye. We couldn't see anything
when he came to land. The ravine we were on
was about as wide as the helicopter itself. And he goes,
and that dust came up. I couldn't see nothing. And
then there was Pj's in the back of the bird
trying to land it, trying to tell them how far
from the ground they were, and nobody could see an ink.
And the helicopter actually had rotated, so when the nose
(11:19):
came over, it had spun around and the tail was
facing us. And then he goes, there was a plant
hanging from one of the houses. It was on the
side of the mountain. He goes, I was kind of
looking at that thing and I just sat it down,
and he did. He stuck it well. The Green Berets
they picked me up and were carrying me towards the HILO,
and I was dressed up in man Jamie, so I
looked like an agha and they pulled me up at
(11:42):
the tail so you don't come up on the tail rotor.
So the PGS turned around to actually take a shot
at us, and they had their lasers up and their
lasers hit our glint tape and that's how they knew
that not to shoot. So almost got killed on the rescue.
They told me that later. I was like, I'm glad
you didn't shoot me. And then they threw me on
the helicopter and we sat there for a while because
(12:02):
they had to unload the water for all the guys
who were still on the mountain because they had to
go on a follow on mission. They didn't even come
home with me. And then we sat there and then
the helicopter I remember, dumped off the side of the mountain.
That PJ came up. He asked me, He's like, who's
your Superhero and I was like Spider Man, and I
asked him my dog's name. I told him that it's
kind of verification code. And we went back and we
(12:24):
landed and they're still in a firefight. We landed on
a base and then they transferred me from a helicopter
to a C one thirty medical bird and kind of
laid me down and started going to work on me.
And then they flew me from there to Toboggram Air
Force Base where the rest of my platoon and all
(12:45):
the seals are waiting on me to get back.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
But then, how does that look when when they bring
you in? What tell me about that?
Speaker 1 (12:54):
So the ramp dropped off the helicopter or shoot me
on the back of the plane, and they had to
pick me. I couldn't really walk, so they picked me
up and we're carrying me down at ivy stuck out
of me and they they said they abandoned me up
and uh, I remember there was a lady standing by
the ramp and she covered her face and started crying.
I guess I looked worse than I thought. And then
(13:14):
they transferred me to these van There was a bunch
of vans sitting there and they put me in one
of those and then they took me to the hospital.
And then while I was in the hospital, they was
when we kind of started the debrief I tried to
tell them because all my guys were still out there.
I tried to tell them where I was and in
relation to where they thought we were, and it just
it all started from there. And then I was in
(13:35):
the hospital for a minute.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
Go ahead, are you able to talk at that point?
I mean, what does that look like?
Speaker 1 (13:43):
I was? Was I was able to talk? Uh. The
villagers did a great job of taking care of me.
I mean they doctored me up twice a day, banaged
my wounds, made sure my pain TIRRT, my pain was down.
So I was really I had a doctor in the
village and they just they say, my life for sure.
And then when I got back the all the army
(14:05):
guys started working on me, and then we started doing
the debriefs so they could go out and find our
other guys and bring them back. And I think that
took about two weeks to find all the guys. I'm
not mistaken, so and then I got transferred back to
the States.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
In the movie, there is a conflict within the village
of the you know, Gulab brings you back, and that
not everyone in the village wants you there because that
brings problems on them. Tell me a little bit about
your reception in the village to the extent you remember it.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Just like that. Well, there was there was something in
there that didn't want me in there, and I could
tell immediately who they were. They weren't trying to hide
that for sure. And then there were the villages and
the elder and Gulab. They were making sure that I
stayed safe, and they put a rotating guard on me.
I was in there for almost five days. And then
(14:54):
there was some people in the villageho were trying to
sell me, because the Taliban would show up every day
negotiating for my head, and they would tell me about it,
sit down in my room and have these little powwows
and these meetings, and then, which is kind of frustrating
because I didn't speak the language. Well, I didn't understand
what they were saying, but I could get the concept
of what was going down. And then eventually when the
(15:15):
when the Green Berets and rangers found me, I was
tucked in underneath this rock and a riverbed, and they
were They moved me around the village systematically and strategically
all day and every day through the night. So the
Taliban would get a beat on the room that I
was in and they started shooting in there or firing
RPG at the wall, and then the villagers would move
me somewhere else. So it was it was kind of
chaotic and stressful, for sure.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
It's amazing to think that after everything you had survived,
that you could have been killed at that moment or
at the moment you're being rescued. I mean that that's
just just just insane. So the moment they came to
get you, do you remember the first thing they said to.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
You, Sook call my name out. I'll never forget it.
I heard it in English the first time. And uh,
I was draped over these two guys and my head
was down and they were having to drag me through
the through the mountains, and I looked up and this
old boy came down the mountain and two of them.
I could see me very vividly, and I grabbed that guy.
I mean, I never heard a man like that. I
was gonna get in here, but I was going to
(16:15):
make sure he was real, because I was real sick
by then, and uh, and he called me by my name,
and uh, they picked me up and and took me
into this this stable. Uh, right underneath on the side
of the mountain, there was a stable down there they
would keep the huels in. And they laid me down
in there and started a bandaging me up. And then
(16:38):
that's when the beeps me for the first time. And
uh they got me out of there. Yeah, that happened,
but it was it was It was crazy for sure.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
Michael Barry Show, marceetell Is our guest. Our conversation continues
about the rescue. If you've read the book and seen
the movie, obviously in a matter of minutes, they can't
capture what actually happened. You know, you've alluded to a
number of things, Marcus, I'd like to rewind and let's
(17:06):
talk about how Gulab discovers you at the water. You know,
there's a scene in the movie where you threaten to
pull the pin. You have no belief that this guy
is going to drag you to his village and that
they're going to care for you, which they did and
save your life. Walk me through that process from you
interacting with him to you getting to the village and
(17:27):
then the eventual rescue and how long all this takes.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
So the sun had come up the following day and
I somehow had crawled and Michael, I don't know how
I did this, but I managed to get to the
top of this cliff where there's a waterfall. But I
couldn't I was so thirsty. This is what was driving me.
I didn't want to die thirsty. I know that sounds absurd,
but when you thirst will do something completely different to
(17:55):
a man than pained and hunger. I mean, I'd never
been that thirsty. And when I tried to reach into
the waterfall, I started sliding down the side of the mountain.
I took it kind of took off, and I flipped
into the river and I actually knocked myself out again.
And when I came to, I crawled into I remember
(18:17):
I crawled back up a little ways because I had
seen a place that looked pretty, pretty inviting to drink
some water. And I got there and I probably had
two steps out of that waterfall before someone was screaming
at me. And they were screaming at me on the
ledge that I had just fallen off of excuse, so
I kind of like thought that they were following me.
(18:38):
And then above that there was a couple of guys
with Ak's maneuvering around and I could hear him screaming
and like they were trying to track me down. So
they started hunting me. So I made a move and
started crawling down into the lake, into the river and
through over these rocks and stuff, and I managed to
get into this crevice, into this ravine. It's hard to explain,
(18:58):
and I couldn't go anywhere. They bottlednick me and I
turned around to shoot, and the guy saw me and
he ducked, and then I swung around on the other
two and they saw me, so they sat down. And
then right after that happened right over the ravine I
was sitting under is when Gulac came over the rocks.
(19:18):
He was kind of just sitting there and he was
screaming at me, and he was screaming American. He's an American, American.
And I thought about this a minutement. So they thought
I was the Taliban. They were trying to hunt me
down and kill me because they thought I was the enemy.
But in reality, when they found out when they got
it close enough, they realized I was an American, so
that's what he was telling him, don't shoot He's an American.
And I kind of wasn't putting that together. I turned
(19:41):
around to engage to shoot him, and he put his
hands up and he was saying, okay, okay, okay. And
I don't know why I didn't kill him. I don't
know why didn't kill this guy? My God, I mean,
I had my faith yield.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
What weapon did you have left at that point?
Speaker 1 (19:58):
I had my rifle, That's the only I had.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
You still had your rifle?
Speaker 1 (20:01):
Okay, I still had him. I couldn't throw that thing away.
I mean it would leave my body and slide down
the mountain or flip off of me, and I tore
my lanyard, but I would always manage to get God
was like, hey, you know you need that. So when
I turned around, go ahead.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
Go ahead, I'm sorry, no, no, you go ahead.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
Well, he finally walked up on me and I lowered
my weapon, and he was he was like okay, okay, okay, okay,
and he's like, shampoo hydrate is what he's saying to me.
Shampoo hydrate. I'll never forget that I was like, I mean,
that sounds really good, but I was like, I need
some water.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
So why do you think you didn't kill him? What
did you know about him that he wasn't out to
do you harm?
Speaker 1 (20:48):
I don't know a look on his face. He just
had this look on his face like he didn't want
to like he wasn't there to hurt me. You can tell.
And once you're out there long enough and you hunt hunt,
you know, we fight these guys long enough, you can tell.
Even when we capture and have them with us, they
would still look at you like they want to kill you.
And once you see that, you'll never forget it. You
can anticipate with a man thinking just about the look
(21:08):
on his face and within his eyes. His eyes kill
a lot. And then these kids started coming out from
behind him. Two and then these some more adults started
walking up. And I lowered my weapon and I had
a grenade with me, and I pulled that thing and
I pulled the pin. I kind of put it down
by my hip, and then they brought me some water,
so I started drinking that, and they started looking at
(21:31):
my wounds and like patching me up. And then they
picked me up and carried me down into the village.
They sat me down, they gave me more water, and
then they picked me up and carried me into this
room and they stripped me naked, and there wasn't much
left in my uniform anyway, and they docked me up,
cleaned off my wounds, and then dressed me up in
(21:52):
instead of Man Jamie's. That was almost the first day.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
And what was hurting the worst at that point, Well,
i had.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
A lot of facial damage, and then I'd broken my
right hand. My thumb had been separated from the from
the where it was supposed to be. I couldn't feel
my lower extremities. It was weird. I busted my back
up real bad, and I've been shot in the button
that frag hanging out of my legs, but I couldn't
really feel that Because I didn't, I was kind of paralyzed.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
Was it was a blessing and a curse at that time.
Are you at that moment do you think you're going
to die? You're just fighting on for some crazy reason,
but do you are you certain you're going to die
or are you holding out hope?
Speaker 1 (22:37):
No, that would only cross my mind when I was
in a gunfight, and then even then on the first
day for sure, but the second day I just kind
of got it in my head that I was getting
out of there. I wasn't gonna I wasn't gonna lay
down and die. I was gonna the way our training
goes and everything that kicks in, a lot of people
(22:58):
they can't anticipate that, like what do you do when
this happens? And what do you think when this happened?
Does a trust me? It kicks in and I just
kept that. Ultimately, I did change the diplomacy. I mean
I kind of changed my attitude a little bit just
because they were helping me and I wanted them to
know that I appreciated all that. So I you know,
I was on my manners and I was real polite.
(23:20):
I did everything I could. I started throughout the week.
I started doctor and their kids like they would bring
their kids to me. I never told him I was
a steal I told him I was a doctor. Okay,
I'm not. I'm not a stealing a doctor. And I
don't know if they bought that or not, but you
do have it. I did, and I did, and that
helped me because when I would work on them Uh.
(23:41):
In the beginning, I didn't know if it was working
or not, but they kept bringing me people, so it
worked in my advantage. And then they were calling me
doctor Marcus. That weren't doctors.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
Universal talk to me about the original the core for guys, Danny, Axe,
Murphy and you. Why was each one of you chosen?
What was your role within the group, What were your
skill sets?
Speaker 1 (24:07):
Danny was our communicator. He could work the radios real well.
We weren't on the same delivery team, but he was
East Coast, I was West coast. But it doesn't matter.
When we throw us together, we work well together. I'd
known Danny since we were in pre training, so we've
been buddies for a while. Acts as our primary sniper
and our point man. It was his job to get
(24:28):
us in and out of the target, and then he
was obviously had the overwatch with the sniper rifle. Michael
was our lieutenant. He was our officer in charge, so
he was overall command and control. And then I was
also the medic and rear security. And then I was
the LPO of the platoons, so I was running it
and then that was our team. That's how we were
set up recon teams are really small, usually four to.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
Six men, and are there are there particular skill sets
that brought you all together? I mean, you know, of
all the guys that could have been chosen, how were
you four guys chosen? They had to have a strategy
behind that, I'm assuming.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
Yeah, absolutely, it was the qualifications that we have through
in the seal teams you get you get to go
to multiple schools, so me being the medic, and then
I was also a sniper, and I was also a
calm guy, and then I was also a j Tech
which means I could talk to the planes and drop bombs,
so that that was really useful in that environment. And
then acts being a sniper, a point man, nanny with
(25:25):
the with the comms and the communication. So we it's
kind of like redundancy. So if one of us gets
or goes down, the other guy can step up and
do his job. And we had just trained up together.
It was our it was our primary mission set, so
they utilize us in that capacity.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
You've got the Michael Berry's show. Marcus Latrell is our
guest twenty years after Operation Red Wings, when when this
was over and and you came home, you you convert
your diary to what becomes a book. You go back
to Iraq, and first time I ever talked to you
(26:01):
about this, which is well over ten years ago, the
thing that really just wrenched my gut was that you
committed to go and talk to Patsy, to go and
talk to the families about what had happened. You wanted
them when did that happen and how did that go down?
Speaker 1 (26:19):
I'd gotten back, but it happened pretty quick, and I
was sitting I was in the hospital for a while,
and then the rest of my at platoon came back
from Iraq, and then they had like a week or
two of downtime, and then the command actually facilitated that movement.
They lined out where we were going, when we were going,
and how we were going to get there. So they
(26:41):
flew us back to the States. We were in Hawaii.
They flew us back into the States and we started
and we went from family each family member and told
them what happened. I told him face to face. I
wanted they needed to hear it from the command. Wanted
that to make sure because there was all kinds of
stories going around there's about what had happened, how it
went down. I mean still to this day, but they
know the real story.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
How hard was that to do?
Speaker 1 (27:05):
I was rough? That was rough. Just yeah, it's just tough.
Like our CaCO officers, the officers that are actually in
charge of go around and tell the families that his
son's been injured or he's dead. I mean, I don't
That's got to be probably the hardest job in the military.
(27:25):
So I really wasn't trained for that. And I you know,
I love those guys. So when their family I understand.
Look if I if I could love, if I had
to lose everything I had right now just to bring
all of them back to their family members could have
my wood. That may sound mean or crazy, but I
because they're great people and their sons are great men,
(27:48):
and I that was that's part in combat. But the
families have always been great to me. They're they're they're
good to me. They've watched out for me, they've never,
you know, never try to tear me down. So that
was a blessing to me.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
You know, the book and then the movie and your
story and you as the frontman for all of this
has to have been the greatest boon to recruiting before
Donald Trump was president in Cinvil War two. I would
imagine there were a lot of young Marcus Latrell wannabe's
(28:26):
who said, I want to do what that guy has done.
Has the Navy ever told you.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
That, Yes, sir, all the time. That's why I carry
myself the way I do. I realized that the opportunity
and the position that I was put in God, God
has a plan for everything. I had no idea I
was going to be doing this. But it may have
been twenty years, but I think about it every day,
from the minute I wake up the minute I go down.
I'm constantly trying to better myself, collect wisdom, sharping my discipline,
(28:54):
starting my manners and everything that I do. Since I
am an example, once put that cross on me that
changed my life forever. Seals are usually kind of in
the shadows, but I was. I was brought up, you know,
kind of into the light in front of everybody, and
I had extensive training from the military that I'm still
with them. I mean, they've been watching out for me
(29:15):
forever and they still do. And I, you know, thank
you doesn't really do it. It works on almost everything
else in there. I don't have any words to describe
how how how much it means to me and how
thankful I am not only put the military, but for
our people, like the American people and especially Texas. I mean,
you've been around me for a long time. You see it.
(29:35):
One of the reasons I'll go on public. Man, it's
it's so overwhelming how nice people are to me and
what they do for me and I and it only
it keeps getting stronger. That hasn't faded away. So uh.
And I'm trying to be a good father and raise
my kids. But then and turn that around. The one
thing I've preached them is how great our people are. Hey, look,
(29:57):
that's why I'm so hard on them. I was like,
when you walk out in public and you went across
that's one of our people. Man, you better show some
say because of what they They saved my life. Y'all
saved my life. Y'all brought me back and gave me
everything I got. So I never anticipated that. I didn't
grow up to expect that. It just kind of I
got put into it, and man, I'm so thankful for it.
(30:18):
I don't even know what to stay most of the time.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
Marcus Latrell is our guest for those who don't know
what became of you after all of that. Talk about
your personal life, Melanie, the whole story.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
Okay, So anybody who still runs around me and knows
anything knows the one thing that I got in the
hook up, the greatest hook up I got was my wife,
and she's absolutely, hands down the most amazing thing ever.
And then I have three kids. My oldest son, Hunter,
he's twenty seven, he's out of college and got a
great job in World Traveler was it was a blessing
(30:54):
day to get him. And then I have Acts and
then Adelaide. So most of my day is spent when
I get up in the morning, I'm really trying to
be a good father. I want to do that. I
want to be good at that so bad. I work
hard at it and I actually study it so right.
When I got back, I was on the road so much.
I lived out of a suitcase, wrote three hundred days
(31:16):
out of the year. And then when you bring a
wife and a family into the picture, it kind of
changes everything. So she she does a great job of
watching out for me every single day. She's she's such
a blessing to me. And then those kids make me
a better human beat. That definitely phases in a man's
life when he's growing up. The life that I had
before being a teen guy running and gun and is
(31:37):
not conducive to being a family man out in civilian world.
Those two things kind of butt heads. So the hardest
thing I probably had to go through was getting rid
of that, was letting go of that old being a steal,
that whole ego that goes with that, the bravado and
everything that comes into that package. I mean, I don't
(31:57):
wear the same watches anymore, the same sunglasses. I don't.
I try not to talk like that anymore.
Speaker 3 (32:01):
Matter of fact, when I get around my teammates, you
want to talk about dragging me back to the old days,
it's I get so fired up when I see them
that I know I can't stay around very long because
how much I loved that life. It was it was
my heart and my soul. When I got done with that,
I literally had to retrain myself to be a civilian again,
starting with with just who I was, and then trying
(32:23):
to be a good husband and what that looked like,
and then a good father. I I I get on
the internet and around the people that I see who
are great fathers. You're a good father. I mean your boys,
look at them, and then Rick Perry all that just
you know, I got to take examples of the men
that are around us, the pillars that are around us,
and copy that, try to mimic what they do and
(32:45):
put that into my routine and live it out, not
year by year, but kind of moment by moment and
then transferred to the next one. And it's it's been great.
I truly love it.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
You've been at your father in law's home when you
host a lot of Navy seals, and I've described you
as the mayor of Silville. It really feels to me,
and I'm a complete outsider that this experience and all
the public attention because you know the scenes where y'all
are training as Navy seals, people have a lot better understanding.
(33:19):
As you've told me, people die in Navy seal training
and are brought back to life the difficulty of this training.
You know, I think back to Officer and a Gentleman
and that Apocalypse now and what movies do to to
really make the public focus on these sorts of things.
And I think your case and then Chris Kyle got
(33:41):
folks really aware of the personal toll these things take
and the preparation these things take. It's not a movie.
It's real life. And I guess there's not a question there,
but I would ask for your reaction to that.
Speaker 1 (33:55):
For sure before we let y'all. Fee is one thing
and the behind the scenes, just like like a regular movie.
I mean, you see the the overall finished product, but
you want to know what what it took to make
that thing, and that's where we The only way you
can actually see that is to be in the community itself,
and it's it's the greatest fraternity that I that I
(34:16):
was able to be a part of being in the fields.
Hey me, thank you, and good night. H
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.
Two Guys, Five Rings: Matt, Bowen & The Olympics
Two Guys (Bowen Yang and Matt Rogers). Five Rings (you know, from the Olympics logo). One essential podcast for the 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics. Bowen Yang (SNL, Wicked) and Matt Rogers (Palm Royale, No Good Deed) of Las Culturistas are back for a second season of Two Guys, Five Rings, a collaboration with NBC Sports and iHeartRadio. In this 15-episode event, Bowen and Matt discuss the top storylines, obsess over Italian culture, and find out what really goes on in the Olympic Village.