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SEAL's father: Survivor's book dishonors son's memory

Father of Patchogue's Lt. Michael P. Murphy says new account of death is a 'disservice' to slain men

BY MICHAEL ROTHFELD | michael.rothfeld@newsday.com

11:00 PM EDT, June 12, 2007

The father of Lt. Michael P. Murphy, a Navy SEAL from Patchogue who was killed in fighting in Afghanistan in 2005 and who is under consideration for the Medal of Honor for heroism, Tuesday called the first public account of the mission by its only survivor a disservice to the men who died.

Former Petty Officer 1st Class Marcus Luttrell, 31, spoke on NBC's "Today" show about the June 2005 battle in which three SEALs were killed.

His appearance was timed to the publication of his book, "Lone Survivor."

In an interview with "Today's" host Matt Lauer, Luttrell spoke of how the four SEALs were discovered hiding out on a mountainside in eastern Afghanistan by three local goat herders while they waited to kill or capture a high-ranking Taliban leader. He said the four men voted to spare the herders' lives, and that 45 minutes later they were surrounded by 80 Taliban fighters. Killed were Murphy, 29, Petty Officer 2nd Class Danny P. Dietz, 25, and Petty Officer Matt Axelson, 29.

In the NBC interview and in the book, Luttrell describes a discussion by the four SEALs and then a vote to let the herders go. That account, said Daniel Murphy, a former Suffolk County prosecutor and now a law clerk in State Supreme Court in Riverhead, is a far cry from what he said Marcus told the Murphy family not long after the death of their son.

"That directly contradicts what he told [Murphy's mother] Maureen, myself and Michael's brother John in my kitchen," said Murphy, who watched Luttrell on television but said he hasn't read the book. "He said that Michael was adamant that the civilians were going to be released, that he wasn't going to kill innocent people ... Michael wouldn't put that up for committee. People who knew Michael know that he was decisive and that he makes decisions."

Luttrell suggests that he sugar-coated the story later in a visit to Long Island, where he met Murphy's mother Maureen. She asked, he writes, "He didn't suffer, did he? Please tell me he didn't suffer."

"No, Maureen. He didn't," Luttrell wrote that he responded. "I had told her what she'd asked me to tell her."

In the book, Luttrell, who was subordinate to Murphy on the team, casts himself as the decisive player in the drama, writing that he cast the deciding vote to release the herders. He says he was torn between his "warrior's soul" that favored an "ice-cold military decision to execute these cats," and his "Christian soul ... crowding in on me."

Luttrell could not be reached Tuesday, and his publicist declined to comment.

According to the book, Murphy was against killing the herders not out of moral considerations but seemingly selfish ones. He quotes Murphy as saying, "The U.S. liberal media will attack us without mercy. We will almost certainly be charged with murder." He said Axelson was in favor of killing the herders, while Dietz said he didn't care.

"I looked Mikey right in the eye, and I said, 'We gotta let 'em go,'" Luttrell writes. "It was the stupidest, most southern-fried, lame-brained decision I ever made in my life ... I had actually cast a vote which I knew could sign our death warrant."

Senior Chief Petty Officer Scott Williams, a SEAL spokesman in San Diego, declined to discuss specifics of Luttrell's book but said it had been cleared ahead of time. The spokesman said the official rules of engagement in play for this incident remained classified. In nearly all situations in wartime, experts say, the killing of civilians can be considered murder.

"For this team to have been discovered like that really was a peril to their lives," Williams said. "I don't think it's unfair to say that the thought crossed their minds: 'Should we seal this breach in our security?'"

In the book and interview, Luttrell said he regretted the decision to spare the herders -- this, too, upset Daniel Murphy.

"I died on that mountain, too, sir," Luttrell told Lauer. "It'd be worth me doing the time in prison if my buddies were still alive."

Daniel Murphy said that was a "disservice" to the memory of his son and the two others who died. He said his son "would not have changed his mind even though he knew the result. That's the type of leader he was ... I think he did a disservice to Axelson and even to Danny Dietz to even suggest that they were ambivalent and prepared to dispose with civilians. Michael would never ... allow that to happen, ever."

Two years after his death, Michael Murphy is a candidate for the nation's highest military award, the Medal of Honor. In his NBC interview, Luttrell made it clear that Murphy all but sacrificed his life -- receiving several gunshot wounds -- while trying to make a mobile phone call atop the mountain for help.

Luttrell was awarded the Navy Cross for the incident. In the book, he describes Murphy as "an iron-souled warrior of colossal, almost unbelievable courage." He said Murphy went into dangerous open ground to call for help and, wounded, kept fighting.

"An act of supreme valor," Luttrell writes. "If they ever build a memorial to him as high as the Empire State Building, it won't be high enough for me."