Warrior Soul: The Memoir of a Navy SEAL

“Since the first navy frogmen crawled onto the beaches of Normandy, no SEAL has ever surrendered,” writes Chuck Pfarrer. “No SEAL has ever been captured, and not one teammate or body has ever been left in the field. This legacy of valor is unmatched in modern warfare.”


Warrior Soul is a book about the warrior spirit, and it takes the reader all over the world. Former Navy SEAL Chuck Pfarrer recounts some of his most dangerous assignments: On a clandestine reconnaissance mission on the Mosquito Coast, his recon team plays a deadly game of cat and mouse with a Nicaraguan patrol boat. Cut off on the streets of Beirut, the author’s SEAL detachment must battle snipers on the Green Line. In the mid-Atlantic, Pfarrer’s unit attempts to retrieve—or destroy—the booster section of a Trident ballistic missile before it can be recovered by a Russian spy trawler. On a runway in Sicily, his assault element surrounds an Egyptian airliner carrying the Achille Lauro hijackers.

These are only a few of the riveting stories of combat patrol, reconnaissance missions, counter-terrorist operations, tragedies, and victories in Warrior Soul that illustrate the SEAL maxim “The person who will not be defeated cannot be defeated.”


From the Hardcover edition.

“Since the first navy frogmen crawled onto the beaches of Normandy, no SEAL has ever surrendered,” writes Chuck Pfarrer. “No SEAL has ever been captured, and not one teammate or body has ever been left in the field. This legacy of valor is unmatched in modern warfare.”


Warrior Soul is a book about the warrior spirit, and it takes the reader all over the world. Former Navy SEAL Chuck Pfarrer recounts some of his most dangerous assignments: On a clandestine reconnaissance mission on the Mosquito Coast, his recon team plays a deadly game of cat and mouse with a Nicaraguan patrol boat. Cut off on the streets of Beirut, the author’s SEAL detachment must battle snipers on the Green Line. In the mid-Atlantic, Pfarrer’s unit attempts to retrieve—or destroy—the booster section of a Trident ballistic missile before it can be recovered by a Russian spy trawler. On a runway in Sicily, his assault element surrounds an Egyptian airliner carrying the Achille Lauro hijackers.

These are only a few of the riveting stories of combat patrol, reconnaissance missions, counter-terrorist operations, tragedies, and victories in Warrior Soul that illustrate the SEAL maxim “The person who will not be defeated cannot be defeated.”


From the Hardcover edition.

© All rights reserved. E Martinez In the background is Potter's Field on Hart Island, NYC. According to Dr. Phil, it is rumored that a missle silo instalation was put in a number of years ago. The City of New York has undertaken the responsibility of laying to rest the bodies of those in the City who died indigent or unbefriended, since the early part of the 19th century, when they were interred at Washington Square in Greenwich Village. In 1823, these remains were removed to Fifth Avenue and 40 - 42 Streets, Manhattan. When this site was selected for a reservoir, the remains were again removed to Fourth Avenue and 50th Street, this ground being later granted to the Women's Hospital. In 1857, the remains of 100,000 paupers and strangers were transferred to Ward's Island, 75 acres of which were allocated for this purpose. The laws of 1868 authorized the Commissioners of the New York City Department of Public Charities and Correction to purchase and take title to any plot of ground, convenient and accessible to the City and large enough for a public cemetery....In the same year, the City of New York acquired Hart Island from John Hunter and son for $75,000. During the yellow fever epidemic of 1870, the southern part housed diseased persons confined to isolation. Forty-five acres on the northern tip of the hundred-one acre Island were designated as a burial site, or Potter's Field, on April 20, 1869. Louisa Van Slyke, an orphan who died alone in Charity Hospital at the age of 24, became the first to be buried there. In 1895, the Department...established a Branch Workhouse for aged and infirm men, narcotics addicts, and short-term inmates. In 1905, the Department also established a reformatory at Hart Island for young offenders known as a "Reformatory for Misdemeanants." This was transferred to another location off the Island in order to rectify the lack of segregation between adolescent and adult inmate programs. In 1941, the bodies of the Civil War veterans who had been buried in the Civil War Cemetery on Hart Island were disinterred and removed to Cypress Hills National Cemetery. After World War II, the Army was allotted 10 acres...to build a Nike base. This was abandoned by the Army on June 30, 1961, and returned to the City. Monument erected by the NYC Army Reserve, on May 10, 1877, in memory oi the Veteran Union Soldiers and Sailors buried at the Civil War Cemetery on Hart Island. The monument still stands on Hart Island, although the remains of these dead were removed to Cypress Hills National Cemetery in 1941. In 1950, the Board of Estimate adopted a resolution authorizing the release of Hart Island to the Department of Welfare to be used for the rehabilitation of homeless men, on the assumption that Rikers Island facilities would sufficiently accommodate the steadily increasing inmate population. During the early part of 1954, when increased inmate population made the capacity of housing on Rikers Island inadequate, custody of Hart Island was returned to the Department of Correction. Departments Involved - Laws Since 1941, New York State Social Welfare Law No. 141 (now called Social Services Law No. 141, as per 1967 amendment) has made it compulsory for the City to provide for the burial of the dead, or to reimburse friends or relatives of the deceased for the costs of the burial, in whole or in part, if legally responsible relatives of the deceased were not able to do so. Present laws of the City of New York authorize joint jurisdiction over Potter's Field by the Department of Correction and the Department of Welfare... Records and Burial Procedure Any citizen who becomes aware of the death of any person is required by law to report the death to the local Police precinct, who notifies the Chief Medical Examiner. If a person dies in a City hospital or institution, and his body is not claimed within 24 hours from the time mailing notice of his death is received, the Department of Hospitals is authorized to allow his burial at Potter's Field. CREDITS Copy for A Historical Resume of Potter's Field was prepared by Gale Silver, Public Relations Unit, NYC Dept. of Correction, 1967. Photos were by Arthur Aidala, Public Relations Unit; C.O. Cecil Rsamsey, Reception and Classification Center for Men, and freelance photographers Robert E. Hood and Bryan R. Tolbert, 1967. Printed at the Rikers Island Print Shop Inmate Vocational Training Program, 1967. Originals are available for viewing in the NY Correction History Society's Research Reading Room. See NYCHS Archives Services web page for details. The body of a deceased pauper is sent to the county morgue of the county in which he dies, and the medical examiner applies to the Board of Health for a burial permit. If the body is unclaimed, the burial permit and the deceased are sent to the central morgue at Bellevue Hospital on East 29 Street, Manhattan. There, services are said for the deceased...Actually, no one knows t

Last week we sat down with one of the Mr.'s old photo albums, the one with science fair ribbons and elementary-era soccer team photos and pro baseball ticket stubs. And it reminded me that when The Boy was born we'd picked up an archival quality blank album, some fancy silver foil embossed photo corners and a photo printer. The little printer has long since been in disfavor in the household. The still-blank book and sealed package of corners were found recently amongst decorative filler. As were some cheesy head-cocked, half-smiley school photos from Houston. So that's how this morning found us, in between breakfast and soccer class, cutting up sheets of wallet-sized photos and inserting them into tongue-moisted corners (The Boy's job, obviously). Added in soccer certificates and pirate coins and tickets to the museum, all that stuff we don't have in digital. And dreamed up more memories to tuck into those corners.

Four US Navy SEALS departed one clear night in early July 2005 for the mountainous Afghanistan-Pakistan border for a reconnaissance mission. Their task was to document the activity of an al Qaeda leader rumored to be very close to Bin Laden with a small army in a Taliban stronghold. Five days later, only one of those Navy SEALS made it out alive.

This is the story of the only survivor of Operation Redwing, SEAL fire team leader Marcus Luttrell, and the extraordinary firefight that led to the largest loss of life in American Navy SEAL history. His squadmates fought valiantly beside him until he was the only one left alive, blasted by an RPG into a place where his pursuers could not find him. Over the next four days, terribly injured and presumed dead, Luttrell crawled for miles through the mountains and was taken in by sympathetic villagers who risked their lives to keep him safe from surrounding Taliban warriors.

A born and raised Texan, Marcus Luttrell takes us from the rigors of SEAL training, where he and his fellow SEALs discovered what it took to join the most elite of the American special forces, to a fight in the desolate hills of Afghanistan for which they never could have been prepared. His account of his squadmates' heroism and mutual support renders an experience that is both heartrending and life-affirming. In this rich chronicle of courage and sacrifice, honor and patriotism, Marcus Luttrell delivers a powerful narrative of modern war.