Marcus Luttrell is the author of New York Times best-selling book Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10, which tells the harrowing story of four Navy SEALs who journeyed into the mountainous border of Afghanistan and Pakistan on Operation Redwing.  An unparalleled motivational story of survival, the book is also a moving tribute to the friends and teammates who did not make it off the mountain.

Leading Petty Officer Marcus Luttrell joined the U.S. Navy in March 1999 and became a combat-trained SEAL in January 2002. After serving in Iraq for two years, he was deployed to Afghanistan in the spring of 2005. As a SEAL, Mr. Luttrell was trained in weapons, demolition and unarmed combat. He also served as Platoon medic.  After recuperating from the events detailed in Lone Survivor, he redeployed to Iraq for a second tour. In the spring of 2007, Leading Petty Officer Luttrell retired. He was awarded the Navy Cross for combat heroism in 2006 by President George W. Bush.

Operation Redwing's mission was to gather intelligence on a Taliban leader with ties to Osama bin Laden. When the team encountered several goat herders, the SEALs questioned them and, after a debate about the rules of engagement, let them go. Shortly after a large Taliban force ambushed the four-man team on a remote ridge, Mr. Luttrell and his teammates valiantly fought for hours, displaying characteristic SEAL determination and bravery, refusing to retreat from the fight despite being heavily outnumbered. Hours later, after Mr. Luttrell had watched all three friends die and had literally been blown off the mountain by an RPG, a rescue helicopter carrying 16 special operation forces was shot down, killing all on board (it is the single largest loss of life in a day in SEALs history.)

His face shredded, nose broken, rotator cuff torn, three vertebrae cracked, his body riddled with shrapnel and unable to stand, Mr. Luttrell began to crawl through the mountains in search of shelter. Help arrived by way of the Afghan villagers of Sabray. They took him in, cleaned up his wounds and, honoring their tribe's custom, protected him from the Taliban at the risk of their own lives. As the Taliban circled the village and the threats intensified, the village elder sought help from the nearest Marine outpost. Five nights after the nightmare began, Marcus Luttrell was rescued.