By Brian Hughes ‘15

Critically acclaimed as one of the most realistic war movies ever, compared to that of “Saving Private Ryan” and “Black Hawk Down,” director Peter Berg’s film “Lone Survivor” follows lone survivor Hospital Corpsman Marcus Luttrell’s (Mark Wahlberg) eye-witness account of Operation Red Wings. The operation went down in history as the single largest loss of life for Naval Special Forces since World War II. But how closely matched is this gruesome film to the actual events it is based on? (Spoilers below, as if the title hasn’t given it away already).

Their mission, to kill or capture a Taliban associate named Ahmad Shah, goes south when the squad of four Navy SEALs is discovered by a group of goat herders that cross paths with them in the mountains. This part lines up with Luttrell’s book, but in the film the ultimate decision to let the civilians go and possibly allow them to go back to the Taliban is made by Lieutenant Michael Murphy (Taylor Kitsch) while in reality the team took a vote. Murphy and Luttrell voted to release the herders, Sonar Technician Matthew Axelson (Ben Foster) voted to execute them and Gunner’s Mate Danny Dietz (Emile Hirsch) abstained from voting. Either way, the final decision led to a brutal and horrific firefight that would take 19 American lives.

Another fictional aspect of the movie was the Taliban coming into the village where Luttrell was taken when a civilian named Mohammad Gulab (Ali Suliman) found him. The first time the terrorists arrive, they bring Luttrell out and nearly execute him, only stopped by a few villagers firing their AK-47s in the air to get them to leave. When the Taliban returns again, a warzone erupts in the village and Luttrell’s saviors fight them off until U.S. air support arrives, planes and helicopters guns-blazing.

Neither of these events really occurred. Although the Taliban found Luttrell and beat him, he was not almost executed with a machete, nor did the Taliban launch an attack on the village in retaliation later on. When American forces finally found Luttrell, they crossed paths with him and Gulab in the mountains, investigating a lead from a stress beacon Luttrell had triggered earlier.

However, just because Hollywood can’t resist putting its own twist on a delicate story does not mean the film isn’t worth watching. Berg and the actors worked closely with Luttrell himself and other former SEALs who walked them through which fighting tactics would make sense and to reenact the firefight to be as authentic as possible. The result is a convincing depiction of the realities of war and what these American heroes endured, thankfully leaving any political debate about the rules of warfare out of the picture while showing what true courage is about.