So, I promised I'd tell you what I thought when I had the chance to see "Lone Survivor".

I'm glad I saw it. I think everybody should go see it. Not because it's a good movie. But because it's a true story about some incredibly brave soldiers. Going in, after reading the book, I thought it would be sad to see it all play out on the screen. And I wondered how Hollywood would treat the story.

If you read the book and see the movie, you'll recognize some factual differences in the movie, but that's why they say "BASED on a true story".  From what I read in the book, it appears that, for the most part, the action you see in the firefight with the terrorists is accurate. There are a couple of scenes they invented for the sake of drama, but if you haven't seen it yet, I don't want to spoil it for you - you can always look up the facts after you see it.

However, I don't think I'll spoil anything about the end of the story (in fact, I personally think it makes it better) when I tell you that, after being rescued, Marcus Luttrell walked off the C-130 he flew in back to his home base, Bagram Air Base. In the movie, you're led to believe he's near death. He WAS in bad shape. He'd been shot, beaten and had grenade shrapnel in him. AND he had a broken nose, wrist and three cracked vertebrae. Oh yeah, and he'd lost thirty seven pounds in less than one week. After he got on the tarmac, they insisted he get on the stretcher and they loaded him into a van for the ride to the hospital. And, in the van, when his commanding officer asked him if there was anything he needed, Marcus said, "Do you think I could get a cheeseburger?"

And Saturday night, after the movie was over, and before the credits rolled, we were all shown photos and video of the soldiers who lost their lives - all nineteen of them - during the actual mission and the rescue effort. And then the lights came up. And everybody filed out very quietly. I thought I'd be sad. But I was proud. Proud that everybody there respected the story they had just seen. And happy to know that the story we'd just seen proves that the  tough, fearless America that gets downplayed on the nightly news, is still out there.

Waiting patiently to prove itself again.

See this movie, and rent the documentary about Lt. Michael P. Murphy called  "Murph: The Protector"

By: U.S. Navy/Getty Images News
By: U.S. Navy/Getty Images News
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