As the wounded Luttrell descended the gulch, he encountered a Pashtun named Mohammad Gulab Khan from the mountain village of Salar Ban. Gulab, Spies learned from the second person associated with Luttrell, was furious, swearing "in the name of Allah" that he had never talked to Yousafzai. For more than a decade, the Taliban's threats kept him awake at night. "A lot of people look at me," Gulab later tells me, referring to his traditional Afghan clothes. That is until early 2006, when he and his brother-in-law were walking on a rural road outside of Asadabad. I had to go back to my mountains. So in early 2013, the former SEAL sent him an intriguing message through a new interpreter, a fellow Pashtun. (Gulab denies these allegations. "Stomach acid," he says. Gulab, in his apartment in Fort Worth, Texas, holds a photo of Luttrell taken during their confrontation with a Taliban-linked militia. The Afghan pressed on—he bought another truck and hired workers to haul timber. In his statement from Buzbee, the former SEAL disputes this, saying he encouraged Gulab to stay but that he left on his own accord. Robinson, Luttrell's co-author, recalls a similar exchange: "[Luttrell and his wife] offered to build Gulab a large house on a river," he says, "and to provide him with livestock…that would give him an income and he would be safe there forever. The next morning, the sky is gray and filled with clouds when Fazilhaq arrives at my hotel. At first, it seemed to help, but life in Delhi was harder than it was in Afghanistan, and their apartment now felt even more crowded. Gulab felt betrayed. Because they can't be hidden." They tried to kill him at night. Gulab almost didn't make it to the States. After Luttrell and company freed the locals, the gunmen waited for the right moment to strike. In April, however, an Afghan friend loaned him thousands of dollars to buy his wife and three daughters plane tickets. We pile into Fazilhaq 's silver Honda Odyssey and snake over the highways—a concrete labyrinth of pickup trucks and SUVs. Gulab admits there are certain parts of his story he doesn't remember, and I see some inconsistencies in his version of events. "The main problem," Luttrell recalled Murphy, the team leader, arguing, "is the goats. The Americans were badly injured, Luttrell wrote, but continued to fight back, killing as many Taliban as they could, until they were nearly out of ammunition. As he stood near the doorway, two men on motorcycles pulled up and fired at him with pistols. "I was a stranger in this country," Gulab says. Luttrell had not only profited from the book and film but also landed a lucrative career as an inspirational speaker, earning $55,000 to $60,000 a pop to tell his story, according to Speakerpedia. They had no rope to tie up the men, but letting them go might be a fatal mistake; the Afghans could alert the Taliban. A short while later, all of Luttrell's teammates were dead, and then a Taliban grenade blew him sideways and over a ravine. Now there were just 30 to 40 fighters on the mountain. The Afghan hadn't worked for the U.S. military long enough to qualify for the Special Immigrant Visa program. The Afghan says he was on the call but claims he said: "I won't keep silent!". It not only signed away his rights to review the manuscript but also indicated he had to split the profits three ways. He wasn't on the mountain with Luttrell but says everyone in the village could hear the gunfire. "He told me he heard there were 100 dead Taliban on the mountain.". "The allegations that the Luttrells mistreated Gulab in any way are absolutely false," the lawyer said. This time, he traveled roughly 50 miles to a U.S. military base in Jalalabad, where he met a muscular man with a beard named Joe Fairchild, who Gulab says worked as a military adviser. They had something important to discuss. Wildes showed the Daily News a letter written in Pashtu, addressed to Gulab and posted publicly in Afghanistan recently as a threat. In the winter of 2014, Gulab was forced to make an agonizing decision: Flee with half his family or wait and risk another attack. "), As Luttrell spoke to Cooper, it was clear that his fallen comrade still haunted him. "He was my guest. "Your Jewish friends cannot save or protect you. He had also received permission from his superiors to publish his memoir, which he worked on with Patrick Robinson, a British novelist. Shortly before becoming aware that Gulab was making these ever-changing, and false, allegations, the Luttrells, were approached by people claiming to be acting for Gulab, who asked for substantial amounts of money. Lone Survivor became a blockbuster, earning nearly $155 million at the box office globally. (Andrew MacMannis, a former Marine Colonel who helped draw up the mission and was on scene during the search and recovery effort for the dead SEALs and other military personnel, says there were no reports of any enemy casualties.). Over the course of several months, Gulab saw the film three times. Lone Survivor hero Mohammed Gulab fights for asylum in the U.S. … The next day, their mission unraveled. Paying smugglers was too dangerous and expensive. In exchange, a Taliban-aligned group freed a prisoner of their own: Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl. Some of the other patrons stare. Eight members of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment and eight Navy SEALs had quickly boarded a helicopter to come to his rescue. He's grateful to Robinson for writing the book but feels he hasn't been properly compensated. The Afghan learned about dinosaurs at the Houston Museum of Natural Science and flew to Washington, D.C., where he was impressed by the splendor of the White House and moved by the memorial for soldiers who died in Afghanistan. Later, the villager claims, he asked the interpreter if Luttrell and Universal would draw up a contract. Killing the men would be a problem too—the SEALs, Luttrell wrote, worried they'd be charged with murder if the media found out. "He said, 'I just can't bring myself to help him sell this book. Luttrell became a SO1 by the end of his eight-year career in the United States Navy.. Luttrell co-hosts After Action, a TV show in which former … Schneiderman Newsweek May 2016 Permalink I've had Marines wounded there. Gulab wasn't the first to question the accuracy of Lone Survivor. "But a lot of things are different [than in Afghanistan]. ", That conversation was one of the last Gulab says he had with Luttrell in the U.S. Not long after the 60 Minutes interview, Gulab returned to the home of the translator's parents in California. On June 24, Vocativ published the story, and it quickly went viral. A photo of former Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell dressed in traditional Afghan attire during his stay in the village of Sabray during the summer of 2005. Over the next year, Gulab and Luttrell periodically kept in touch through an Afghan intermediary, and both seemed frustrated at times by the language barrier. You can see it in his face—from the wrinkles on his forehead to the dark circles under his eyes. When he came to, the SEAL realized the blast had blown his pants off, and he was badly injured: His back and nose were broken, and his face was busted up, he wrote. With a Taliban bounty on his head, he had to leave his village, and he's spent the past decade on the run, while trying to protect his family. Some are small: He got the name of the operation wrong—it was Red Wings, like the hockey team, not Redwing. He didn't specify a sum; that would have been impolite, but he said yes. "The Luttrells believe that Gulab has come under the influence of one or more handlers in Afghanistan, who are manipulating Gulab for their own financial gain. "Maybe Marcus called them?" ", Gulab claims that one afternoon, while sitting with Luttrell in his father-in-law's living room, he brought up some of these discrepancies. When the clicks waned, however, Gulab was still in Afghanistan, still in hiding, still afraid and still angry. Now he appeared to indicate Murphy alone decided to let the goat herders go. So that pretty much makes me a coward…. ", Luttrell was busy promoting the movie, but the Afghan enjoyed spending time with him when he could. At the urging of several Marine commanders, Gulab received some cash and a job at the base in Asadabad. "I [had] sacrificed a lot. Luttrell emptied his clips, determined to go down fighting despite his injuries, till he fell into a river and lost consciousness. I was out in the open, waving my hands. Luttrell went on to write the best-selling memoir, Lone Survivor. Nearly a decade ago, an Afghan villager named Mohammad Gulab saved the life of U.S. Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell. His wife and children had to flee, and his family lost nearly everything: Their home and most of their clothes, their taxi and timber business, their apple trees and the land, where they had planted wheat and corn. The blast woke his children, who ran to a neighbor's house for safety while Gulab and his wife grabbed their Kalashnikovs and climbed onto their roof. The American abandoned you, Gulab recalls him saying, referring to Yousafzai's article. "[Soon]," Luttrell wrote, "I met my first real friend, Mohammad Gulab.". Photo of Marcus Luttrell taken by Mohammad Gulab during his stay in the village recovering from his injuries. Wahlberg, with Ali Suliman, who played Gulab in the movie version of 'Lone Survivor.'. Gulab says he appreciates the freedom he has in the U.S., the safety and security. I've was just reading up on it again for some reason or another and came across this fairly popular claim that there was only around 8-10 Taliban fighters, this number seems to be coming from the book "Victory Point" by Ed Darack, who simply out maneuvered the 4 Seals before ambushing and killing them, except of course Marcus Luttrell who survived. To release it in his area foundation took care of that another villager went a... Area, heard the helicopter drop the Americans again tried to calm him fearing. `` [ but ] there were American troops nearby, and he 'd been used the.! Matter. threat to the States he got off the plane, he borrowed money their. Son, Shahidullah, and Afghans now face stiffer requirements movie 'Lone Survivor, ' which also revealed Gulab contacts... 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