'Lone Survivor' Luttrell Says He Wouldn’t Have Wanted a Prisoner Exchange
June 9, 2014 - 12:18 PM
By Barbara Boland
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The former Navy SEAL behind the "Lone Survivor" book, Marcus Luttrell, was asked by Anderson Cooper Friday, "Had the situation with you been different, would you have wanted an exchange of prisoners?"
"No," Luttrell responded.
"I can tell you from my experience... the only negotiations for me was that the [Taliban] were trying to get me out of that hole that I was in, and cut my head off," he said. Luttrell was captured by the Taliban in 2005 after a deadly shootout which claimed the lives of three of his fellow SEALs.
"Would [the prisoner exchange] have been something that would have cut you the wrong way?" Cooper asked.
"When I went out there, I knew the risks and I accepted those," he added. "If I died on the battlefield, then that was the way it was supposed to be. When I did get captured, the only thing I held onto was the fact that my teammates were going to come get me, period."
"I understand the fear - when he was in the back of that truck, I remember that look, I had it. I mean it's the unknown," Luttrell said of the video showing Bergdahl's release.
Luttrell also said that the criticism of Bergdahl's father, Robert, isn't "a good idea."
"I know from experience when I was missing that my family and what they went through, my mother and my father - it's got to be the most painful thing any parent can experience. And to drop down on them the way a lot of people have, is probably a little, outside the box," he said.
"The Army will take care of" Bergdahl if he really did "leave his men behind," Luttrell said. But he cautioned against coming to judgment too quickly: "The problem with that whole social media campaign - I mean, heaven help this kid if he's not a deserter, because he's branded already."
Luttrell added that President Obama should have had the parents of the soldiers who died looking for Bergdahl at the Rose Garden ceremony along with Bergdahl's parents.
