The Lone Survivor

The Lone Survivor

       The Lone Survivor is a book about a Navy SEAL named Marcus Luttrell who goes into Afghanistan after 9/11 with his best friend Mikey. The book takes place when Marcus is reminiscing on the events that took place in Afghanistan like the death of his best friend and their position being compromised. They were forced to go into isolation for 2 months and they were living alone in Afghanistan until they were attacked by the Taliban. Marcus barely escaped and lived to tell this story hence the title of the story, "The Lone Survivor". This is a picture of Marcus Luttrell taken at Mikey's funeral in 2003.

       

       My realization after reading this book was that America's greatest strength and their greatest weakness is the same idea. It is called nationalism. Nationalism is a feeling that struck many Americans during the American Revolution, after 9/11 etc. This feeling is an idea that America is the greatest country and that we as Americans should fight for this great country and protect it. After 9/11, The United States sent many troops into Afghanistan to take down Al-Qaeda so that they can get revenge on the World Trade Center. The World Trade Center was a symbol of their economy, after they crashed the plane into the WTC, the Americans were very angry at Al- Qaeda and they themselves wanted to tear apart the organization. 

      An article that supports my realization is that which is written by Mariana Ortega and Linda Martin Alcoff. 

Link to Article:

https://www.sunypress.edu/pdf/61907.pdf

     This article states that after 9/11, Nationalism was in the air. The economy was extremely inflated because the building that played a major role in our economy was now on the ground. Due to this, Americans bonded their beliefs due to their hatred towards the terrorist organization, all races (blacks, whites etc). combined their beliefs and ideologies. The article states that there are negatives towards an increase in nationalism however, they can increase military violence and the civilians treated all Middle-Eastern people differently. They were racist towards them, and they wanted them gone form the US soil. But overall, the increase in nationalism helped bring together a unified country and got the people of America through hardships such as 9/11.