ABSTRACT
This chapter provides some historical background of the plot developed in Lone Survivor. The battle, and its aftermath, that makes up the subject of the movie took place in 2005 in northeastern Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom. As it turns out, the sole survivor of the battle, a former US Navy Seal named Marcus Luttrell, arguably owes his life to a centuries-old unwritten Pashtun moral code known as Pashtunwali. The chapter provides some historical background on the military operation that sent Luttrell and his team members into the mountains of the Hindu Kush. A few key scenes in Lone Survivor occurring after Luttrell’s rescue by Mohammad Gulab and the other Pashtun villagers bring to light an important game-theoretic principle. One of these depicts how the large search-and-rescue operations carried by the US military to rescue Luttrell and his fallen comrades likely helped Shah and his Taliban militia locate Luttrell in the Pashtun village.
