Marcus Luttrell Remembers Real Life "Lone Survivor" Rescue

There's so much stuff that we kept from the story that if I told you, you wouldn't believe me. Now when it came to the movie, we filmed it around the gunfight. Like what? So we filmed the movie around the gunfight because that's when everyone was alive. I was like, you shouldn't have known that I was going to be the guy that make it out. When they were picking the actors, I was like, so if you get somebody like an A-list actor and then everybody, they'll know that he's the one that made it out. I was like, when you're watching the movie, you shouldn't know that. Of course, Hollywood does kind of does their own thing. But the craziest part about that whole operation was getting me out of there. And that wasn't in the movie. In the movie, they did a daylight extract. They came in, landed, and a couple of shots, and they got out of there. In real life, it wasn't like that. It was unbelievable. I mean, it was a night. And I mean, the world was blowing up. We were in this like a volcano, like sitting in the middle of this volcano. And I remember looking down the mountain. There's a river running down. I mean, it looked like miles down. And they had moved me. They had to carry me. I couldn't walk. And they kind of like, and we would stumble over the Green Brazen Rangers. It was a hodgepodge. Let me tell you something. When them guys showed up to rescue me, when they found me, I was laying in a river bed, dried up, tucked under a rock. And the villagers had shoved me underneath this rock. And there was this one guy I had never met before. And he was sitting there listening to an AM-FM radio. And he was scrolling through the channels. We hand those out for morale. Like the US military hands those out. And he had one of them. I recognized it. And he was listening to the different channels. And I could recognize the different languages. German, Japanese. And he was like, hey, they're talking about you. And I was like, okay. I didn't know who he was. He was kind of messing with me a little bit. Because I couldn't move. And he had this sting. Anyway, it's not important. And then the gulab and a couple of the villagers came and picked me up. They had to carry me everywhere. Why did they save you? Because in the movie, it's confusing. It is. Because in the movie, it's like these guys save you and you don't know why they're saving you. When he found me. They have to fight the Taliban. Yeah. Can you believe that? Crazy. So I had been crawling for a day and some change. I was crawling through the mountains. And I had somehow, some way got to the top of this ridge line. I was so thirsty. I mean, I thought about this. There's an insanity that goes with thirst. I was so thirsty that I was willing to kill anything to get water. I mean, you can't even believe it. I was drinking my own urine, my own blood. Nothing would quench the thirst. God, I didn't thought about this in a while. And I got to the top of this ridge line and there was a waterfall. And I was trying to slide down into it. I was like, I'm just going to go down in here and I'm going to hit that water. And it's going to be something to create a drink. So I tried to slide down. I just took off. I got uncontrollably. I started sliding. I rotated upside down. And I remember looking over and my rifle was sliding beside me. I couldn't throw that thing away. It's like every time I'd lose it, one of my boys was like, hey, you're going to need this. And I flipped into upside down, over backwards, into the river. And I remember my knees hitting me in the face and it knocked me out again. And I was kind of, I mean, I was a blobbering mess. Everything was broken. And I rolled over and I remember kind of sitting on all fours. I picked my head up and I looked up and there was that water fountain there. And I remember sliding down. This is the craziest thing. God, I hadn't thought about this. And I remember seeing this little pool of water and I was like, oh, that'd be a great place to get something to drink. So I climbed, I crawled back up into this thing and I leaned into that waterfall. And I remember washing my face and hands. My gloves were, I had gloves on the mechanic gloves and all the fingers were ripped out and the palms were ripped out. So I just kind of, and it was the best water I ever had. I'll never forget it. It's cold. And I was hurting real bad. And I remember hearing somebody screaming at me. And I kind of turned around and over my shoulder, there was a guy standing there looking at me, pointing at me. He was like, Taliban, Taliban. So I swung around with my rifle and then all of a sudden behind me again, there was like, I hear someone screaming at me. They're like, and they were, and I look up and there's this guy standing on the hill that I'd just fallen off of. But he didn't have a weapon. He was just pointing at me. And then there were some guys on the ridge line moving around. They had weapons. I saw him. So I turned back around and I kind of started to crawl. I was like, man, I was in a channelized area. It was kind of bad. And I remember I was leaning against this rock. I was sitting on my butt. I had my rifle on me and I was breathing. I couldn't breathe. I had bitten my tongue in half. And I was like, that's a crazy story. But the guy screamed at me again. I turned around to shoot and he saw me and he ducked behind this rock. And then I mean right over my left shoulder, probably 30 yards. Not even that. I hear American, American. And I kind of turned around and it was Gula, one of the main villagers who rescued me. And I turned around and I had my gun at my hip. My safety was off. My tension was out of my trigger. And he was kind of looking at me. We were staring at each other straight in the eyes. And I mean, I was like, like death. You know how you can smell death when it's there? I was like, man, okay, let's go. And, uh, God. I don't know why I didn't kill him. I don't know why I didn't kill him. I didn't have to even go to my shoulder to kill him. I mean, I had the tension out of my trigger. I was just sitting there looking at him. He was looking at me and he wouldn't say it. He said American a couple of times. And then he said it again. I was like, Taliban. And he was like American. And then he kind of put his hands up and I came off my trigger. Kind of wanting to kill him. And he started walking down on me. He's like, okay, okay, okay, okay. Shampoo, hydrate, shampoo, hydrate. This is what he's telling me. Shampoo, hydrate. That's what he said. Two English words he knew. I was like, shampoo, hydrate. You know how good that sounded? I was like, bro, I would love some water. And if you want to wash my hair, it's so funny. So if you ever get into a bad situation and you're about to lose your mind, just say shampoo and hydrate and you'll be fine, dude. And I'm like, can you believe that? That's what he said to me. That's crazy. And I dropped my muzzle down and he walked up on me. And I pulled a grenade out. I pulled a pin. Don't ever do that. And I was going to say, if you try something, I'll just kill us all. I don't care. But then he kind of rolled me over and he's like, it's okay. I got you. You know, I could just tell, you know how many you can tell like, hey, man, I got you. I fricking got you. You can feel that. Like you can feel if someone's like, hey, man, I got you. And then I'm going to jack you up later. And this guy was like, man, I got you, man. And I repin that grenade. I'll never forget. I was like, I heard you. You're not supposed to do. I mean, there's so much crazy stuff. Anyways, all these kids came running out from everywhere and they picked me up. I couldn't walk and they carried me down, started carrying me down the ridge line into the into the valley. And there was a village down there. And then the kids and everybody they were laughing and whatnot. And they pulled me into this room and they started kind of doctoring. They doctored me up, stopped my bleeding, pass me up, gave me all the water I could drink. And then the Taliban came in after that and then snatched me up. But so how much of what what was in the script? I know you didn't see the movie, but how much of what was in the script was accurate? Every bit of it. Everybody died. Like in the movie, when you see those guys falling down a mountain looks cool. Imagine going past cool to when it looks like chaos. Imagine playing your favorite sport on the side of a mountain with people shooting at you. It didn't look cool. I was like, it looked horrific. Sexy. I mean, I was terrible. I mean, like getting ripped apart. And like we would come in and the guys would just be like, man, we shot in the face and it was kind of his eyes were gone. I'm like, I'm a medic. Someone was bad. Someone was bad. But then, you know, I was like, I didn't know what to do. I started. I never knew what to do. Isn't that crazy? I was like, man, it's well trained. I was like, I got my ass on a pickle. I couldn't get out. I didn't know what to do. And I would just sit there and there'd be times when I would talk, think about my brother and all my buddies. I was like, Hey, man, you guys are stupid. I'm still here. Come get me. And then I could see aircraft flying overhead and I was like, I'm right here. And they would just keep flying. And then someone would try and kill me like a wall would blow up or a bullet would sit through the wall and then they'd have to move me. Man, it was a hell of a week. It was rough. They left me in this hole for a while. They buried me. And I was like, man, I'm a foreign man, a foreign land. Everybody's dead. And I mean, who knows where I'm at? I was in hell. I was literally in hell. And if it wasn't for them, I mean, and the way that whole thing worked out, I. It's funny what I talk about. It's hard to wrap your head around it, right? I mean, I don't know why I'm even sitting here because you all came and got me. I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe it when you all showed up. I signed up to be an expendable asset to die if necessary. That was the sexiest thing I ever heard of. I was nobody. I'm, you know, I have a special skill. I was expendable asset and you work till you become dependable and they'll kind of keep you around. So when you all showed up, I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe it. I remember talking to them guys like, man, I can't believe y'all made it out here. We were out in the middle of nowhere. And then and then the first time I ever got like scared was when they when they were with me and trying to get me out of there, I was like, hey, man, I hope you all get me out of here. Is that selfish? That's selfish, is it? I was like, I sure would like to live, man. And they threw I mean, it was a crate to get me out of there was the it's a whole different movie altogether. Those Green Berets, those Rangers and PJs that were on that plane on the hill, the pilots like Spanky. He was one of the pilots of skinny. When they came in, they came in to crash. They don't ever talk about that. Like he had to crash that bird on the side of a mountain to get to get in there. And he did it. He didn't give a shit. He's like, watch this and just brought it in. I mean, there's a gunfight going on from the top and the bottom. Every aircraft we had in country was wagging like spinning overhead. The Specters, that's a hand of God, you know, the finger of God. I mean, the weapon rehab and they can look down on you and just erase you. And they got me out of there. I couldn't believe it. I hadn't thought about that in a while. Spotify is absolutely free. You don't have to have a premium account to watch new JRE episodes. 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