luttrell talks about his new book "service: a navy seal at ..

in mid way a great book won a number of awards. really interesting topic. it's a fantastic day to come down here to the navy me me your and see what we're about. we have a new book by stanley finishes fdr's final victory. he's done a number of book on fdr and the presidency. it should be a nice edition to the body of work. on july 19th, we'll have "arctic mission, 90 degrees by air ship and submarine about a post world war 2 to go to the north poll. on august of 3rd we'll have new book. "united states coast guard and national defense." they are noon at the navy

memorial. as you all know, and have been trying to get the book marcus' new book is service, service a -- service service a i navy seal at work. she is a nainttive of huntsville, texas. he joined the navy in 1999 and after becoming a navy seal 2002 severalled around the world. after serving two tours in iraq. he was deployed to afghanistan in the spring of 2005. for the action red wings he was warded the their i have cross in 2006 by george w. bush. after recovering the wounds, he

served a second tour in iraq and received a discharge from the navy in june 2007. he is the author of the book "lone survivor" and a very poplar speaker. we can see that by the great turnout. in 2010 to honor the comrades from operation redwing. he -- warriors by providings unique education, rehabilitatation, recovery and wellness opportunities to u.s. armed forces service mens and their families. please join me in westbounding -- in welcoming marcus lou trel to luttrell to the navy memorial. [applause] >> please, sit down.

all right. thank you all for coming out. for my first signing of service, i was pretty good entry. were there any questions? i don't know where you go from there. i guess we can take a little time and talk about the book service, kind wrf it came from, the idea behind it and where we're going with it and take some questions, is that cool? it's kind of a small crowd, if there's something burning in the back of your heads you'll get it out. like the gentleman said, finished up afghanistan was in the hospital for awhile having surgeries kind of putting humpty back together again. they didn't kill me but they wanged me up. it took me awhile to redeploy. it was the biggest thing

weighing on my mind. i was still an active duty fraudmen. they go to war. that's the way it is. the fact that i had to come off the line was bothering me. it's one of those thicks, if there are any country boys in here. you get your butt kicked. you get patched up and go back in for many. that's where i was standing. i got beat up badly and i lost my teammates. i used the term in the book, i talked about it a couple of times is revenge, the thing to go back. the things we deal with, revenge, robbery, and rape, we don't mess around with that. revenge is a powerful motivator. it will get you up and motivated. i was sitting around thinking of certain things, and when i got

ha that point, you know, about the revenge part. it fired me up. i got into it. i harness that kind of energy, if you will, to get back on the line. and truth be told, i probably wasn't ready. i shouldn't have gone back over. it cost me, but i ask nevertheless. i were when i went back over, i was scared to death. i don't know if i'm supposed to be saying that as knee have a navy seal. i didn't know how i was going to play out. and the worse part about it, when i platooned back up and i went back over i was supposed to be in a log gistics roam on a computer. something happened one of the chiefs went to go do something else. i got bumped up to the chief of the platoon. that's operational, you know, combat. so i was like, wow, i don't know if i'm ready for this. we went out and i remember the first time i got shot out.

i think i froze for about two or three seconds. all i remember is was the fact they hope my guys don't see this. you know, because that's another thing about fear, if you're in a leadership position. i'm sure you know, if you're afraid, but you can't say that. you can't let on that you're having problems with this. i was. but i put on a pretty good game face. three seconds went by and the next bullet zipped by and it was instilled back into me like, you know, pouring water out of pitcher, so to speak. i got the energy back and i was ready. so i hit the ground running and operated pretty good for about three months. we were ray maundy. i was hell on earth. it was right before the search, it was tougher. i remember thinking that had never seen anything like that how bad it was.

maybe it wasn't a good idea to come back her. all that stuff roles to your head. i played the game for about three months, like i said, on a particular operation i was up on the stairwell. fell off a stairwell busted my knees up, my back done again and i was out. the guys were having to carry me around if i sat down longer than twenty minutes, they had to pick me up. i was constantly in the doctor's office and doing i could to get back up and go back out. it wasn't in the cards. i remember thinking when i walked into the platoon space with my commander and the senior chief in there, when they sat me down and told me i was coming off the line. i remember thinking, that hit me like a ton of bricks. i felt betrayed and hurt, and, you know, kind of like a, you know, like a coward or whatever it was.

all kind of rolling through my head. i'm a nay sei veal. gunfire. that's what i do for a living that's what i was born to do. when something tells you you can't do what you're born do do. i'm sure there are people in here -- they go to work every day and do something they do it to do it. it's not what they really meant to do. i knew what i was meant to do. i followed that dream. when somebody told me i couldn't do it anymore. it was like hitting a brick wall at 30 miles per hour. not that i'm competent and not roll with the punches. i figured out how to go on with life within t always in the back of my head, every day from the time i wake up to the time of i go to bed the fabtd that i'm not a seal anymore. some days are harder than others, but it, you know, it's tough. and i remember i wasn't married while i was in the seal m

teams. i was married to the seal teams. i have kids come up to me to mentor them. and i tell them not to get married. i lived and breathed it. i'm married now. i met a wonderful woman who pretty much saved my life. and, you know, brought me out of the shadow, so to speak. and the funny thing was i wasn't looking for one. she appeared out of nowhere. i owe her everything. they say behind every man is a great woman. i didn't understand that phrase until i met my wife. it is truly something extraordinary. but that's another thing that when they came to me with the idea of about rying "service. there was a book written like this about the world war ii generation. it talks about the exploits men and women in the combat. when they came up with the idea,

i said it's a lot of idea. i served with a lot of guys down range who have zone things who make what i do and what i did fail in comparison. you'll never hear about it. it you never hear about it. it happens all the time. i said i'm going to give credit where credit is due. some of the stories that you read about are about some of the guys i served with and include everyone there. there's a couple of chapters about operation redwing we couldn't talk about in the beginning but we can now. another one is about matt axleman writing that chapter jerked my guts up. if it hits you hard, that chapter is going to get ahold of you. it talked about the guys on rescue. everything you read in "lone survivor" peals in comparison to what they did to get us out of

there. i tried to do justice for those guys as well. one of the chapters in there, like i said, is warrior queen, everybody in here knows the hardest job in the military is the military spouse. i think that they'll never get any credit for anything. normally they get the rough end behalf end of what goes on in our end. i wasn't married but i had a few buddies. i watched what went down. i thought why would i want to do? i think they needed recognition. i went around to some of the wives and widows and talked to them about it. they're reading their words in my script. it's my fen that's it. it's their words. i theep touches a lot of people too. everyone asks me what the most important chapter is, i think it's that one. it took me awhile to get that

one the way i wanted it. as a matter of fact, i remember the pub day on the book kept getting pushed back because that chapter wasn't ready. i didn't understand how the book world work. when "lone survivor" came out i was overseas. i didn't care anything. i said get the story out there and get it right. that's part of the "lone survivor" was written. the media was spinning. they told my mother i was dead. they had no clue what was going on. i don't know how you rebound from something like that. when the navy came up to me and said we're going to put the story out. you need to are narrate it and tell what happened. it was basically to set the record straight of how it went down out there. and services falls under that. "lone survivor" people asked me what happened after this and that. hopefully i filled in a lot of

the questions with everything i wrote. i'm sure there's going to be more questions they didn't answer. hopefully i got a god start on it. and basically closes out with, you know, like he was talking about earlier, what i'm doing now. like i said i started the "lone survivor" foundation. it was basically an idea that spawned from my own world. you know, i remember when i was in the hospital after one of the surgeries and the doctor said what can we do for you? i said sent me home to texas. let my mom fatten me up. hospitals do a great job of patching us up. after you lay in them for awhile. after the beeps and the pills and that sends you crazy. when they did, they came with me. whatever. [laughter] i was like that's not what i meant. i wanted to go home alone. it worked. i got better and stronger. i got surrounded by people who

wasn't telling my that i was injured or sick or that something was around my head. i was around my brother, teammates, and family saying you're a man you should get after that. we don't accept weakness in my family. most of that comes from my mother. so imagine that, you know, southern woman, she's don't cry around here. get back up and go back in it. that's what i did. i thought, you know, if that can work for me. i'm not special in any way. the only difference between me and other guys. you have to beat me half to death before i keep getting up and coming after you. we started it. it's working. one of the things between our foundation instead of others we bring the whole family. i got better with the family. a lot of the organizations focus on the individual themselves. heal them up and send them back to the family. the family is messed up already if you send them in they're going go back into it.

it works. it has so for a. i'm not saying it's end of all be cures. it does do things. there's usually multiple vets at here in the time. they tried to send me to the head shrinkers. that's the good thick about being an interrogator. i used to have a lot of fun with those guys. you know, you get three or four guys out on the ranch, out in the middle of nowhere hunting or fishing eventually the conversations are going to cocouple. this is what's going on in my head. what's going on in your yours? this is how ideal how do you? you'll be surprised how well it works rather than some lecture of someone who hasn't been in battle. don't get me wrong, doctors do a lot of good but what we do does a lot of good as well. there's a rot of things going on

in the book, i'm proud of it. i usual busted my hump pretty hand on it. i wanted it to -- i wanted to get a lot of stuff off my chest, basically, is what it is. "lone survivor" i was kind of locked down on whey couldn't and are could say and i got it out in there book. that helped out a lot. i hope you enjoy it as much as enjoyed writing it. ment to get any questions? yes, sir? >> when you were in iraq, did the enemy know you were there and did they have a bounty on you because of what you did in afghanistan? >> in afghanistan. , i mean, i would imagine it trickled out. we did a real good job of keeping me undercover. you know, there was obviously reran across stuff that was leaked out here and there.

but for the most part, my team surrounded me. and cralgded me and covered me. i wasn't worried about it. someone is going to get me, they're going to get me. there's nothing you can really do about it. that's what a lot of people don't understand about terrorist. if someone is willing to give their life to take yourself you're probably not going make it out of there unless you're one step ahead of them. i don't ever worry about dying. it's part of life. i've done a lot of living. i don't really suite it. obviously now that i have a wife and kid it weighs on me more. bring it on, that's the way i look tat. >> yes? [inaudible] >> we started last january, because i was in hospital. i remember that. we put the deadline on it and i'll get it out there. watch me work. i wound up in the hospital for another surgery and i got married and i had a kid and i was like, i'm going need little

bit more time. they were like nope, no more time. i was like all right. it was pretty comical. i had five different version of the books laid out on the floor. i was like that's wrong, it doesn't jive. this needs to be here and that needs to be there. i don't think i write like conventional writers. it all comes from my experience. i'm not a writer, i'm more of a disaster teller. that's the difference between me and other people. it's basically like i'm sitting here talking to you. i did good in english. i'm not a literature major. there's no big words in there. a lot of pictures. you know, that's kind of how -- yeah, january to a little over a year, i guess. anybody else? >> yes, sir? >> what would your advice be to a young vet who wants to be a navy seal? >> young man who wants to be a navy seal?

how young are we talking about? >> 18. >> he's a man. >> yeah. that's what you want to do. i'm happy to do with it now. i have a boy. my wife is like he's not going to be a seal. i said mma or something then she agreed on seal. i'm mentoring a kid in sixth grade. my biggest focus on him is education. i said i don't need you out running you don't need to worry about that. the sharpest thing about the seal is the mind. that's what separates us from everybody else. you know, i think 70 or 80% have the degrees and a lot of guys have their masters. i tell him, focus on your education. when he's talking to me, i expect as out of you. i try set the bar as high as i can for him. and i throw little games at him. he'll e-mail me from time to

time and say how do i make my mind scrapper. happenner. your dad gets up and leaves work and remember that. at end of the week say you wore this shirt. or sit in the window and watch the cars drive by. when you get to ten remember those. the next day do it again. it's the mind games that make you sharper and sharper. he asked me about college. i said i went to college first. my dad was big on education. bad people are always going to be there. you don't have to be in any rush to get in there and, you know, i know guys can't waiting to get into combat and get the gun on. it's not like you think. it's not like that at all. combat is very different. especially when your friends starts dying. don't be any rush to get there and see that. because it -- there's no coming back from it.

so, i was like not only will the seal teams be there when you get there, they're also going to be there long after you're gone. you have to having something to fall back on. the navy is going to open up of yourled -- to do but make sure you're educated and smart. no one can ever take that away from you. i hit on him about that. the 18-year-old 19-year-old guys coming in to, you know, over to me and asking me about stuff like that. should go to college or not go to college. i'm like, you know, in my opinion i think you should go there first. what i just said. some guys are ready to go pane college is not going to be for them. they're not ready. they're ready to go to teams. you can go to the college in the navy. you want to get if the sooms teams and go to college after that? do that. our whole plan was to be in the seal teams thorough 20s.

when the cutoff hit we were going cross over to the dark side and leave. our whole thing is you've got learn to follow in the teams and get the school sniper communicator as a listen man. when you're an office and the commute cairlt is like, i can't get such because of sun spots. that's crap. because you know everything. somebody else is like okay cool. it's not. if you're going to go into the teams, it's a commitment that , i mean, i was the same way. if you watch the stuff on tv. you see the discovery channel stuff, the posters. they do a great job of making what we do for a living look cool and sexy. it's not cool like that at all. it's a job, it's a man's world. when you step into the that, be ready. they're not going to take pity on you. 18 years old you're a grown

man. i was ready to go at 18. there's not going to be any kind of young and immature. guess, what you can take your butt somewhere else. we don't want that. if you feel in your heart, and that's what you know what drove me is my heart and my gut. i knew i had to be a seal. get ready for it. if you're young right now, as a training regimen, i wouldn't say if you're getting ready to go don't do the 1015 miles per hour run. gar tounge break yourself. you're going to break something. don't worry about that. you don't want to go in there busted. you in busted you're going to come out faster than you went in. make sure your in great shape. there's plenty of great things online the opportunities these guys have that we didn't have. you suck it up. now they are getting to with the they are in peak physical

condition. you should be able to run through the wall and not have a problem with it. you know, but i tell the guys when they get in there, there's a lot of people who like, i can't wait until next week to see what happens. in field training. i took it from meal time to meal time. i was like, all right i'm going to make it lunch and they know i'll quit. then i was going to go to dinner and question quit. that's how i did it. i had a problem. it was hard. and i just kept doing that. i was like, i'll quit during dinner time. they were like are you going quit? dinner within i'll quit during dinner. i didn't quit and they'd beat me rerelentless. there's no quitting breakfast. i don't like getting up early. just to take my mind of what was going on. you have to think that instructors are going to get tired of beating you. there are some crazy guys that

will stay out there as long as they can. that aside they don't want to be throughout any longer. it eventually ends. the chaos will always end. you're going to make it through or they're going to kill me. that's the whole 0 philosophy i ran with and it worked. i cover you? all right. >> recently the past couple of years and couple l months the seals have been getting a locate ever press. they are supposed to be stealthy or in the shadows. >> i can assure you, it wasn't our fault. yeah. what do i think about that? i have a real problem with it. i'll leave it at that. that's the reason why we have the shadows warriors. the stuff that we do is offline. not online. you get people killed.

people going to die. i remember when media when the bad bin laden raid went down. the day before they didn't care about it. it wasn't on anybody's radar. the day after it that's all everyone talked about. it should have been u.s. forces whatever i won't get that. i remember talking to a guy, and a week from now you're not going to care about us. everything you put out here is going to endanger us. i have buddies over there that reporters camped out at the scoop at the restaurants and it was a nightmare. and they were just like, you know, i don't know what to do. and when so you frog man says that, there's a problem. you know. you're about to get me worked up. did i answer your question? all right cool. [laughter] >> yes, ma'am? >> i have identical twin daughters. can you share your

relationship. >> yes, sir, i'll talk about that. my brother and i are identical as well. we have saying that we live by from the womb to the tom. we came into the world together we're going to leave together. if i don't talk to my brother three times a guy i get anxiety. my father was my father. he wasn't my friend. we'd hang out. he toss us beatings regularly. his whole philosophy on my brother and i are we are the only ones that are going to be there for each other. your brother is your blood he'll be there for you always. he pounded that into us. it was certain situations we'd come home and something that happened to my brother, if he got back in the day, young boys fowlgt. and it was over with. now days i don't know how it works. but, you know, if i came home and my brother black eye and i

didn't he'd whip me for not sticking up to my brother. the last fight we had we were 17 both of us ended up in the hospital. not so much as an argument since. if we ever got into it. he would whip the one for beating up his brother and the one who lost for losing. my mother was the shoulder to lean on. she was the company factor. my dad was ruled the nest with an iron fist. always. yeah. the whole people say the thing about twins. i know, when any my brother is sick even when he's not there. i know, everything in his head. he for me. he's probably been in the hospital more times than i have, i think. but, you know, i