Marcus Luttrell
Vets for Freedom National Hero 

New York Times best-selling author Marcus Luttrell is a former U.S. Navy SEAL and Petty Officer First Class who was awarded a Purple Heart, and a Navy Cross for combat heroism on the front lines in Afghanistan. The sole survivor of a mission in which four Navy SEALs were sent into a Taliban stronghold on the Afghan-Pakistan border to capture a key Taliban leader, Luttrell was badly injured yet managed to escape capture and later author the best-seller, Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10. A film based on the book is currently being considered.

Born into a Huntsville, TX-ranching family in 1975, the 6-foot-five-inch Luttrell began training for the military at a young age and ended up attending Sam Houston University. He graduated and in March 1999 joined the U.S. Navy. He completed Basic Underwater Demolition SEAL training and was sent to Baghdad, Iraq.

After two years in Iraq, Luttrell was deployed to Afghanistan in 2005. On June 28 of that year, he and three colleagues of SEAL Team 10 were sent on Operation Redwing, a mission to capture Ahmad Shah, a Taliban leader believed to be a close ally of Osama Bin Laden. Luttrell was the team’s sole survivor after a fierce firefight against a force of some 150 Taliban fighters, 100 of whom were killed by the four SEALs.

After his rescue and recovery, Luttrell was once again deployed to Iraq. He returned to the U.S. in 2007 and has been telling his story far and wide through his book and in interviews with The Washington Post, on the Today Show, on National Public Radio’s Morning Edition and other national outlets.

Luttrell has an identical twin, Morgan, who is also a Navy SEAL and is still active. They each bear tattoos of half of a Navy SEAL trident on their backs—when they stand next to one another they form the full trident.