Looking for some opinions on this book " Victory Point: Operation Red Wings and Operation Whalers"
I've started reading it, and I am reservations about it, mainly that it serves as a complete rebuttal to Marcus Luttrell's account of the operation, stopping just short of calling him completely full of shit. I have found alot of contradictions in the book.
The author claims that he had access to classified After Action Reports.(Which I find highly unlikely)
Here are some of the issues outlined in the book pertaining to "Operation Red Wings" that the author criticizes Luttrell about.
4. Commo The Marines suggested the SEALs carry a PRC-117 20 Watt radio, but in spite of the suggestion the SEALs carried (5 Watt) PRC-148 handhelds, which proved to be ineffective in the valley.
The SEALs carried a Iridium 9505A satellite phone, which the author makes a big deal that "Lone Survivor" called it a cell phone.
5. There are many more issues to list, but the one that bothers me the most.
"Victory Point" claims that the SEALs were ambushed by 6-8 ACM fighters, not the 100+ that are claimed in "Lone Survivor", goes on to say that in Luttrell's intial AAR he stated that they were ambushed by 20-30 fighters. The author is using the video taken during the ambush as his proof for the number of fighters. Why would Marcus put his reputation on the line, and over-estimate the number of fighters in his book? I can understand being off by 20-25, but off by over 100? We are talking about an elite operator highly trained in reliable information gathering
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I will attempt to address some of your questions before this thread gets entirely off track and closed.
There are two sides to every story. It would not surprise me if the account related in Lone Survivor was somewhat "exaggerated" or was missing some details. Any combat veteran can tell you that recollections of battles are not entirely reliable because you really can't trust your memory. Your mind is subject to a host of human factors to include combat stress, physical trauma, time distortion, tunnel vision and auditory exclusion. This is why we compile debriefs and after action reports from multiple personnel from various vantage points. Marcus Luttrell tried his best to tell his story according to how he remembered it.
That being said, Luttrell's book was co-written by a New York Time bestselling FICTION author who made his name writing cheesy military thriller novels. Keep that in mind when you read the book. Patrick Robinson is out to entertain readers and make money. He is not trying to tell a factual, unbiased account of what happened. Dick Couch would have been a better co-author in my opinion because he is ex military and has produced some excellent NON FICTION NSW and SOF books. (ironically, Dick Couch is a USNI author). Ed Darack (Victory Point) is an independent photographer and writer who has mostly written books about his "adventures" traveling to the andes, Baja California etc. Until Victory Point was written, he was most famous for his photography. Do you think an unknown writer would benefit from some controversy like we are seeing in this thread? I bought the book to learn more about it and I am sure I am not the only one (granted I saw it in the four dollar bargain bin but hey profit is profit). So both authors have reasons to be less than truthful. So I would say neither account can be considered entirely factual and the truth is somewhere inbetween. It doesn't mean that you shouldn't read either book. There is something to learn in each of them.
Two: I am going to do a test with you. I am going to get twenty to thirty of my buddies and shoot at you with AKs. Then after ten minutes Freefalling is going to shoot at you with 100 of his friends but I won't tell you who is going first. Bet you can't tell the difference. Now do it after you have been shot, your friends are dying and you are evading. 20-30 dudes is a lot of dudes. It isn't easy determining the size of an enemy force under fire, especially when all you see is brief snapshots of battle as you try to raise your head to look around without getting shot. It is perfectly reasonable for him to be off by a hundred. I don't care how well you are trained.
On the other hand, it is equally likely is that the intel reports were way off as well. How are they getting the reports? There is no magic battle tracking system or battlefield CSI, at the end of the day they are getting that information from mathematically challenged Afghans. I won't go into details into the various "ints" you can use to get this information but suffice it to say you will get reports varying from there were two guys to 500 guys. At the end of the day no one has any idea how many guys were there, and Marcus Luttrell was actually there so I would give him the benefit of the doubt. And what if there were "only" thirty? It doesn't take anything away from his heroism. 30 guys on key terrain will certainly put a hurting on a four man team.
Lone Survivor and Victory Point are two very different perspectives on the same event or time period and like I said, the truth is somewhere between the two. This doesn't make either book unvalid or not worth reading. Victory Point is a good book, everyone should read it. People make it out to be some sort of counter Lone Survivor book, but it really isn't. Sure there is a lot about Lone Survivor in it but there is also a lot about COIN operations and a lot of brave, young Marines doing good work. They deserve to have their story told and not be overshadowed by some sort of perceived battle for the truth with Lone Survivor.
As to your other questions, remember that while some people here are read into the situation, no one here can really answer your questions or really discuss them at length because of the sensitivity of this operation (and all SOF operations in general). This was a SOF mission and as such, discussion of equipment and tactics utilized could compromise other missions and personnel.
