Summary

• The decision to release the goat herders instead of killing them leads to a devastating loss of life for the Navy SEALs, as the villagers turned out to be Taliban sympathizers.
• The warning issued by the goat herders in Pashto is chillingly accurate, as three out of the four SEALs are killed in the subsequent firefight with the Taliban.
• The dark prediction of the goat herders also foreshadows the tragic fate of eight other SEALs and eight Army Special Operations Aviators, emphasizing the widespread impact of their decision.

The unfortunate encounter that kicks off the action in 2013's Lone Survivor features a dark and foreboding warning from two goat herders to the Navy SEALs of Operation Red Wings. Peter Berg's biographical war film chronicles the journey of a four-man team as they attempt to capture a dangerous Taliban leader, which unfortunately leads to a disastrous loss of life for the Navy SEALs involved in the mission. The SEALs are discovered by three local villagers, and in lieu of killing them to maintain the secrecy of their operation, they release them, which results in an extended firefight with Taliban soldiers.

The true story depicted in Lone Survivor is marked by high tension as the four SEALs decide which path to take with the villagers. Upon setting them free, both the older of the two boys and the old man with them issue a warning in Pashto, the local dialect. While it's not directly translated on the screen, as some of the other Pashto heard in the film is, their threat is both foreboding and, unfortunately, soon proved accurate.

The Meaning Behind The Boy & Old Man's Warning To The Soldiers In Lone Survivor Explained

The direct translation in Pashto is chilling.

After a brief discussion between the four Navy SEALs, the decision was made to release the three goat herders instead of leaving them tied up or killing them to preserve not only the SEALs' mission, but their own lives. Given the antagonistic nature of the older of the two boys they were detaining, it was fairly obvious that the goat herders were Taliban sympathizers, and as the SEALs feared, they immediately alerted the local Taliban to the SEALs' whereabouts. Before they return to their village, the boy and the old man both issue a warning to Murphy and his team.

The warning that was originally issued by the young man was, "Hear this, your deaths will be tonight." It is then repeated by the old man, in a more affirmative tone; a promise, as opposed to a warning. As of the SEAL team originally feared, the villagers were in fact Taliban sympathizers, and their information brought dozens of Taliban soldiers down on the heads of the four men in the mountains of Afghanistan.

How The Boy & Old Man Foreshadow The Fates Of Navy SEALs In Lone Survivor

Their dark prediction is, unfortunately, accurate.

The warning issued by the goat herders turned out to be chillingly accurate, as three of the four SEALs would be killed in the following hours during their extended firefight through the forest with the Taliban soldiers that attacked them. Only Marcus Luttrell, whose non-fiction, first-hand book served as the basis for the movie, managed to escape the mission with his life as seen in the end of Lone Survivor. His teammates Michael Murphy, Matthew Axelson, and Danny Dietz all lost their lives to the Taliban soldiers who were alerted by the very goat herders whose lives they spared.

As if that loss of life wasn't tragic enough, the goat herders' warning rang true for eight of the SEALs' comrades and eight Army Special Operations Aviators. A quick reaction force effort was made to rescue and extract Mike Murphy and his team from their predicament, but one of the helicopters sent in to rescue them was shot down by a Taliban RPG, resulting in the death of all 16 men on board. The dark Pashto warning issued by the boy and the old man in Lone Survivor unfortunately foreshadowed the fates of not just the small team of Operation Red Wings, but many of their comrades as well.