Today in class we had talked about the Holocaust and related it to such events as the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as well as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. When people make a choice to kill 300,000 Japanese lives to save 1,000,000+ Allied lives or to kill the Taliban to save countless Americans', it's their own decision to do so, whether it affects the people we're trying to punish or our own lives. In the case of Marcus Luttrell, a Navy SEAL during the 2005 fight against the Taliban, known as Operation Redwing where he and 3 fellow SEALs came across a goat herder that had stumbled upon their position. They had a choice to either kill him or let him go, Luttrell chose to let him go. The next 3 hours were consumed with a hale of gunfire that led to the death of his 3 fellow SEALs and a Blackhawk filled with 16 other men onboard sent to rescue them. In my opinion, I think that Luttrell could have at least held the herder captive to keep him quiet. Do you think that Luttrell made the right choice in letting the herder go?
Article about "The Lone Survivor":
http://m.today.com/news/real-lone-survivor-seal-coming-out-alive-not-victory-2D11722306
I believe that with morals in mind that Luttrell made the right decision that night to let the goat herder go however unfortunate the consequences were. If I remember correctly from reading about this story before the reasons that the Americans didn't at least tie up the goat herder was because they didn't have any rope or anything to tie the man up. If I were to just asses the situation with a cold heart I don't think that the soldiers made the right decision to let the man go. The safest option would have been to kill the man to save their lives, its very cold but would have been the safest option for them.
ReplyDeleteThe result of the letting the goat herder go was horrible as he went to the Taliban and told them of the locations of the Americans and 3 hour firefight followed that led to the loss of 19 Americans lives. However I believe that the decision of letting the man go goes to reflect well on the military as it shows that soldiers aren't just a bunch of cold hearted killers with guns but rather they do have a conscious. The men knowing it was extremely risky to let the man go decided that was better than justifying his killing because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Luttrell wanted to believe that this man was good and wanted to believe that this man was no threat to his team. But in the heat of the moment, it is hard to decipher what is the right thing to do. Luttrell didn't know that this man was going to warn the Taliban that there were American intruders, and he didn't know that he was going to lose 19 men. Although he probably should have kept the man captive until they had knowledge of the location of the Taliban, he did what he thought was best at that time.
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