Marcus Luttrell the Sole Survivor veteran featured in a CNN documentary pushed back on Jake Tapper’s line of questions referring to the “hopelessness” he felt while watching the film.
Tapper let the interview speak for itself until other media outlets picked it up and seemed to slam him as just another member of the elite mainstream media beating up the troops. Tapper’s career, though, tells a completely different story. The CNN anchor, one of the few respected by both left and right for his professionalism and objectivity, never hides his respect for the American military and is usually front-and-center covering stories centering on America’s veterans: from award ceremonies to segments involving funding for veteran programs.
In late November of 2012, Tapper released The Outpost: An Untold Story of American Valor, a non-fiction book about Afghanistan that centered on the heroism of a group of cavalrymen stationed at a remote outpost. Kurt Schlichter, an Army veteran, gave it a rave at Breitbart News.
Partial transcript as follows:
Luttrell: I don’t know what part of the film you were watching but hopelessness really ever came into it, Where did you see that? We never felt like we were hopelessly lost or anything like that.
Tapper: Just the sense of all these wonderful people who died, It seemed senseless. I don’t mean to disrespect in any way, but it seemed senseless — all of these wonderful people who were killed for an op that went wrong.
Luttrell: We spend our whole lives training to defending this country and then we were sent over there by this country, so you’re telling me because we were over there doing what we were told by our country that it was senseless? And my guys, what? They died for nothing?
Tapper: No, I’m not saying that at all.
Luttrell: That’s what you said.