SNIPER ELITE: ONE WAY TRIP (audiobook) by Scott McEwen with Thomas Kolonair

Published by Simon and Schuster Audio in 2013.
Read by Brian Hutchinson.
Duration: 10 hours, 8 minutes.
Unabridged.

Author Scott McEwen co-wrote American Sniper, the autobiography of famed SEAL Chris Kyle and from those contacts and the stories he heard he was inspired to write this fictional story of American special forces in Iran and Afghanistan.

Sniper Elite: One Way Trip is about three separate operations deftly told as three separate stories with overlapping characters and a little overlap when they get back to base. The first operation is the insertion of a lone operative into Iran to kill a weapons designer. McEwen uses this fairly straightforward story to introduce the weapons and other equipment that will be used throughout the book.

The second and third operations deal with a captured American female helicopter pilot in Afghanistan. She is part of a unit that inserts and extracts special forces all of the time so the men feel a real connection to her. When a video is released showing her being raped by one of her captors the men of multiple special forces units decided to act, even when their orders tell them to stand down and let the diplomats try to free her.

The insignia of the Navy SEALs

The action is first rate, although I can honestly say that I have no idea how realistic it was at all. Nonetheless, it was very entertaining. There were interesting questions raised but not dealt with very well, such as the uniquely weird position of the Afghani translators - they are forever between their own people and a foreign military - part of both at the same time.

If you are easily offended by curse words I suggest skipping this book because men in combat tend to curse and F$@% is used at least one hundred times in the first couple of hours. After that, it was just part of the story.

Brian Hutchinson read this story and did a great job with different accents and depicting the men in different situations. This book was not read, it was performed as he whispered, shouted, threatened and made smart-aleck comments as the characters died in the middle of a firefight - all without making it seem hokey (this book had that potential if read incorrectly).

Very enjoyable.

NOTE: This book was provided to me at no charge by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5 and it can be found on Amazon.com here: SNIPER ELITE: ONE WAY TRIP.

Reviewed on October 13, 2013.

Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10 (abridged audiobook) by Marcus Luttrell with Patrick Robinson

Abridged Audiobook
5 CDs
Approximately 6 hours.
Read by Kevin T. Collins

I first heard the incredible story of Marcus Luttrell  on Glenn Beck's radio show. I'm not a frequent listener of Glenn's show but this interview was so compelling I had to hear the whole thing.

Lone Survivor is a much longer version of that story. It includes a long, detailed description of how Navy SEALs train and their "Hell Week" that washes out those who are not truly dedicated to being a SEAL. Luttrell also tells us about his childhood and how he aspired to be a member of a special forces unit as a young man in high school.

The bulk of the book is about "Operation Redwing" - an attempt to kill or capture a Taliban leader that remains unnamed in the book (he uses a false name for this man throughout the book). The operation consists of inserting 4 SEALs in open mountain territory in Afghanistan to observe a remote village where this leader may or may not be staying.

Operation Redwing has difficulties from the beginning, including a lack of cover to hide behind while observing the village and extremely steep terrain. Not long into the operation 3 Afghan goatherders stumple upon the 4 SEALs and nearly 100 Taliban soldiers start to hunt the 4 SEALs.

Luttrell's tale of how his comrades died one by one in an intense running firefight is gripping and awe-inspiring. Eventually, Luttrell is the last one alive, although he is also shot in the leg and suffers from any number of cuts, bruises and a broken nose. He uses every trick he learned in survival training and a few that he learned as avid hunter back in Texas and is eventually rescued by an anti-Taliban village that risks the lives of the entire village by daring to take him in.

The insignia of the Navy SEALs

Unlike another autobiographical tale of our current wars that I've recently read, Joker One, the strength of this book is not its writing. It is co-written by Patrick Robinson who lets Luttrell's voice come through loud and clear. If you are easily offended by liberal use of swear words as adjectives, this will not be the book for you. However, having known a few soldiers over the years I found it lent a good deal of authenticity to let Luttrell describe the battle as he normally would.

No, the strength of the book is the power of the story itself. The decision to spare the lives of the goatherders (who presumably left the SEALs and immediately informed the Taliban), the vicious firefight, the loss of Luttrell's companions, the story of the village that rescued him, the pain his family went through when they believed he had also been killed... The story is so strong that it demands and deserves to be heard, even if its prose is not Pulitzer Prize material.

Highly recommended.

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Lone Survivor

Reviewed August 21, 2010.