Meet Morgan Luttrell—Husband, Father, Marine, Brain Scientist, and Legislator

Navy SEAL Morgan Luttrell in Afghanistan in 2004. Courtesy of Morgan Luttrell

To begin to appreciate the marrow and character of which Morgan Luttrell is made, it’s helpful to know about the chores that he and his identical twin brother performed as teens on the family’s quarter horse ranch near Houston.

During the school year, every morning before the school bus arrived at 6 a.m., the two had to feed and water all the family’s horses, which numbered as many as about 70.

When the brothers came home from school, they had to feed and water the horses again.

During the summer, they also had to fix fences, and in midsummer, they had to throw and stack hay.

“I’ll tell you what,” Mr. Luttrell said. “If you want to humble somebody, if you want somebody to appreciate a hard day’s work, have them throw square bales of hay during the summer in Texas.”

Mr. Luttrell, 47, now a U.S. representative, still lives in the Houston area. He’s in his first term in Congress and represents Texas’s 8th Congressional District. He won the seat, his initial try for elected office, in November 2022.

It’s easy to notice Mr. Luttrell as he makes his way along the corridors and around Capitol Hill. Like his brother, he stands at 6 feet, 5 inches and weighs 230 pounds.

Mr. Luttrell succeeded Kevin Brady in the office. Mr. Brady, a Republican, held the seat for 13 consecutive terms, from 1997 through 2023.

“My No. 1 priority as a member of Congress, and serving those in my district, is work to the end of getting Congress to do everything that we can to secure the border, stop the flow of fentanyl, and eradicate sex trafficking,” Mr. Luttrell said. “It is an abomination.”

U.S. Rep. Morgan Luttrell (R-Texas). U.S. Congress

“I have been involved with these issues, passionate about these issues, even before I was a candidate or a member of Congress. I have taken on these issues in my work in the nonprofit space. And now we have the opportunity to move legislation forward to make the border more secure, halt movement of fentanyl into the U.S., and end sex trafficking. It is a necessity to do this.”

Service and Sacrifice

Long before he ran for Congress, Mr. Luttrell established a track record of exceptional service to and sacrifice for the nation.

He and his brother chose to follow their father’s lead and serve in the Navy—both became members of the Navy SEALs—and continue a strong family lineage of military service, with men and women wearing the uniform.

In 2009, as an officer with the Navy SEALs, Mr. Luttrell was grievously injured in a training accident in the waters off the coast of Virginia when the Black Hawk helicopter in which he was traveling, amid high winds and high waves, crashed and blew up as it attempted to land on a boat.

In the accident, one of Mr. Luttrell’s team members was killed, and eight were wounded.

Mr. Luttrell broke his back in six places. His spinal cord was damaged, and he sustained mild and medium traumatic brain injury.

He remained unconscious for two days and was in a post-concussive state for about seven weeks. He was in a body cast for two months.

Mr. Luttrell remained in the Navy until 2014, when the spinal cord and brain injuries and their ongoing complications resulted in his retiring from the service with a medical discharge.

The helicopter crash was the second deadly service action in which the Luttrell twins were involved.

On June 28, 2005, Mr. Luttrell’s brother, Marcus Luttrell, and three of his SEAL team members were ambushed by Taliban fighters while on a mission in Afghanistan. All three of Mr. Marcus Luttrell’s fellow SEALs were killed, and he was hit by bullets and shrapnel and had his back broken.

A helicopter force sent in to save the SEALs was shot down, killing all aboard: eight SEALs and eight members of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, also known as Night Stalkers.

Twin Brother Rescued

Mr. Marcus Luttrell was found by friendly villagers who sheltered him until he was evacuated by a second rescue mission on July 2. That episode of the SEAL team became the focus of the book “Lone Survivor” by Mr. Marcus Luttrell and Patrick Robinson. Actor Mark Wahlberg played the part of Mr. Marcus Luttrell in a movie of the same name.

On June 29, 2005, while in the final days of SEAL jump school training, Mr. Morgan Luttrell heard that a helicopter had gone down in Afghanistan and that SEALs had been killed.

In recalling receiving that harrowing news, which didn’t include whether his brother was dead or alive, Mr. Morgan Luttrell spoke about a phenomenon for which there is no scientific proof and about which discussion is controversial, but many are sure exists: an extrasensory connection between twins.

“I hadn’t felt anything, so I knew he was alive,” he said. “I knew he was injured, and I also knew he was still with us.”

On July 3, 2005, now back at the Luttrell family ranch in Texas, Mr. Morgan Luttrell spoke to his brother for the first time following the ambush of the SEAL team in Afghanistan.

Morgan Luttrell (L) and Marcus Luttrell during Navy SEAL training in 2006. Courtesy of the Luttrell family

“He had been taken to Bahrain Naval Air Base,” Mr. Luttrell said. “And, you know, I got on the phone with him and I said, ‘I love you, Bro.’ And he said to me, ‘Bro, I had a really bad, bad day at the office.'”

Mr. Luttrell has told over and over again the remarkable story of his brother and the elation of his family learning that Mr. Marcus Luttrell had made it out alive.

Mr. Luttrell also repeatedly emphasizes the extraordinary loss of SEALs and Army special forces in the mission.

Studying the Brain

“The physical injuries, really, are the easy part,” Mr. Luttrell said in an interview in 2018 about his recovery after his training accident. “So, with modern medicine, you can lose a leg, an arm, lung, liver, heart, you know; we got you fixed. Neck down, a piece of cake. And I run faster, jump higher, catch and shoot better. Easy day.”

Mr. Luttrell said that it was from the “neck up,” in the brain, where the most daunting and difficult recovery challenges presented for him.

He quickly learned that the workings of the brain, and the neurological operations of the body—including how trauma affects and causes symptoms that disrupt lives and bring about misery—were areas of medicine and science that contained vast spaces of the unknown.

The unknown, and the pain and anguish rooted in the unknown, inspired and set Mr. Luttrell along a career path as an academic and researcher focused on how to “fix” the brain.

When he retired from the Navy, he already held a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Sam Houston State University. He went on to earn a master’s and doctorate in cognitive neuroscience from the University of Texas at Dallas.

He continues his research on the brain and is involved with several organizations that support and provide assistance to those with brain injuries. He devotes particular focus to helping military veterans with brain trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder.

And Mr. Luttrell believes that research on the brain, on cognition, just might someday reveal a scientific explanation for that unusual phenomenon that he and other twins say they have experienced—when one isn’t in the same location as the other, even sometimes removed by thousands of miles, with no spoken or other form of sensory communication between them, and yet, they still seem to be able to share information about their circumstances.

Rooted in Faith

Mr. Luttrell and his wife, Leslie, a native of the Dallas area, have been married for 11 years. They have two sons, Gunner and Lincoln.

The family lives in Magnolia, Texas.

Morgan and Leslie Luttrell and their sons Lincoln (C) and Gunner at a Sam Houston State University Bearkat football game in 2021. (Courtesy of the Luttrell family).

The family spends a lot of time together, much of it doing outdoor activities.

Religion is a vital and fundamental part of their lives.

“We are a faith-based family,” Mr. Luttrell said. “We regularly attend a small Bible church.”

When asked what his reaction would be if his sons said that they wanted to join the military, he said he would support that decision 100 percent. But Morgan and Leslie Luttrell are bringing up their children so their sons have many options available to them.

“We have no military memorabilia in the house,” Mr. Luttrell said. “We don’t talk about my time in the service. My sons know that I served, and that I served in a special warfare unit.

“I use examples that I learned along the way in the military to help raise them. But I’m not raising them to be SEALs. If they want to be SEALs, if they want to be Marines, that’s fine. My wife and I are pushing college for them. I’m an academic, and my wife and I are laser focused on their education.”

Congressional Duties

Along with issues involving and related to the southern border, Mr. Luttrell said that his priorities as a legislator are calling attention to and reducing the national debt and shoring up national defense and protection against cyberattacks.

And as a resident of and legislator for the Houston area, Mr. Luttrell is required to have the energy industry front and center on his radar. His father worked for Exxon as a land surveyor.

In his post-SEAL life, in addition to his studies and research in cognition and neuroscience, and before running for office, Mr. Luttrell worked for the U.S. Department of Energy from 2017 to 2019.

Since 2019, he has been the CEO of Trexxler Energy Solutions, a company that sends power through local area internet networks.

Mr. Luttrell said he seeks to protect domestic energy producers while also supporting alternative forms of energy.

“I respect advances in technology that fuel our national and global economy, and our way of life,” he said. “But I’m very hesitant to offload our fossil fuels because that’s how we sustain our way of life.”

When asked how military service influences his work as a federal lawmaker, Mr. Luttrell cites the qualities, with which he strives to serve, of humility, tact, character, and patience.

“Those qualities served me well in the military, and they serve me well in Congress.”

Mr. Luttrell talks about his efforts to be a part of bipartisan lawmaking.

“I work every day as hard as I can to reach across the aisle, to find harmony between the two parties,” he said. “I have co-sponsored legislation with my Republican colleagues and my Democratic colleagues.

“I have my stances, my conservative Christian stances, that I don’t walk away from. But what I have found is that when you’re not on TV, and you’re able to meet and talk with those in the other party, and you have a cordial professional conversation, a lot can be accomplished together.”