42: Fallen Hero Mikey Monsoor, SEAL Vet Andrew Paul: Leadership, Life, Loss, & Lessons Learned

0:00:00 - Opening 0:11:54 - Andrew Paul 0:16:36 - BUDS with Leif 0:19:52 - Detailed to Boat Unit 0:22:54 - Delta Platoon, Task Unit Bruiser 0:27:30 - Work-Up, Mikey Monsoor Stories, Learning about Leadership, Rough Tactics 0:52:17 - Deployment. Challenges, Stories, and Leadership 1:16:25 - Homecoming / Mikey KIA 1:29:13 - Rough Transitions to Civilian Life 1:43:24 - The Unassuming Badass in the Mortgage Business 1:49:14 - Internet / Amazon / Onnit Stuff, JockoStore and Jocko White Tea 1:53:39 - Closing / Mikey Monsoor Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Jocko Willink?

  This is Jocko Podcast number 42 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. Good evening Echo.

• 0:08Speaker 01

  Good evening.

• 0:10Jocko Willink?

  Now, in podcast number 11, we brought on Leif Babin, who was the Charlie Platoon commander. Charlie Platoon was a part of Task Unit Bruiser. Obviously, Leif is one of my brothers. Guy wrote the book Extreme Ownership with, so...

• 0:32Jocko Willink?

  That's Leif, Charlie Platoon. And when he was on that first podcast, we talked about a bunch of things, but one of the main focuses of our conversation was some of the brothers that we lost. Mark Lee, who was the first SEAL killed in Iraq. We talked about Biggles. Ryan Jobe, who was gravely wounded in Ramadi and who later died after complications from a surgery to repair those wounds. And finally, we talked about Chris Kyle, who was also in Charlie Platoon, was the lead sniper in Point Man, and who ended up writing the book American Sniper,

• 1:16Jocko Willink?

  which was, you know, turned into a very successful movie. And Chris, as you know, was senselessly murdered as he tried to help out a fellow veteran.

• 1:29Jocko Willink?

  And on that podcast, we didn't talk in any depth at all about Mikey Monsoor, who is another one of our brother SEALs from Task Unit Bruiser, who was also killed in Ramadi. And if you don't know, Mikey was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor after he smothered a grenade with his body in order to save three of our other teammates.

• 1:58Jocko Willink?

  And one of the reasons I didn't want to focus on Mikey during that podcast is because Mikey was in Delta Platoon as opposed to Charlie Platoon. Charlie, there's two platoons in the task unit, Charlie in Delta, and Charlie was, Leif was the platoon commander, and Tony Frady, who was on the podcast as well, he was the, the platoon chief. And before I went and talked about Mikey, I wanted to bring somebody from Delta Platoon on the podcast. That's a little bit trickier than it sounds because most of the guys from Delta Platoon are still active duty. And the ones that aren't active duty, they're

• 2:41Jocko Willink?

  not around, I couldn't get, get ahold of them, or if I could get ahold of them, they, they were busy, or I, they were out of the area. So it's just been hard. It's been a challenge. But I did want to wait. And finally,

• 2:58Jocko Willink?

  and today, we're lucky because I got one of my, one of my good bros here, guy by the name of Andrew Paul, who was the assistant platoon commander in Delta Platoon, Task Unit Bruiser, SEAL Team Three. But I wanted to start off today by reading a speech that I gave at one of the ceremonies that took place when Mikey was awarded the Medal of Honor. And this was not the ceremony that took place at the White House with President Bush, which actually the entirety of Task Unit Bruiser did attend that, and it was

• 3:37Jocko Willink?

  awesome. But I gave this speech at a Navy ceremony that took place, I think it took place later in the day, or perhaps the next day, at the Navy Memorial in Washington DC. And that day, there was a ton of senior naval officers in, in attendance, and basically the whole of the seniority of, of the, of the Navy was there. You know, this, the Chief of Naval Operations and the Secretary of the Navy, and there was a bunch of other Medal of Honor winners there, including a couple other SEAL Medal of Honor winners. And it was a, a very fitting day. And it was a great honor for me to be able to give this speech.

• 4:27Jocko Willink?

  And here it is.

• 4:32Jocko Willink?

  Ladies and gentlemen.

• 4:35Jocko Willink?

  It is obviously very humbling to be here today as it was humbling to be on the battlefield of Ramadi with my fellow SEALs. And the 228 Brigade Combat Team, the Iron Soldiers. And then, the 11AD, the Ready First Combat Team. Which was formed up by our brothers from the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines.

• 5:02Jocko Willink?

  And it included such hallowed units as the 1st to the 506 Band of Brothers, the 137 Bandits, and the 38 Marines.

• 5:16Jocko Willink?

  I met Mike Monsoor when he checked into SEAL Team 3 as a new, highly motivated, young frogman. As we trained and prepared to deploy to Iraq, everyone learned that Mike was an incredible person. He was gifted in everything he did, hardworking, funny, and selfless.

• 5:37Jocko Willink?

  He was the ultimate teammate. The ultimate friend.

• 5:45Jocko Willink?

  When Mike died, a picture of him circulated in the news.

• 5:51Jocko Willink?

  It showed Mike and his platoon mates in the war-torn streets of Ramadi, shrouded in a mist of greenish-yellow smoke which was used to mask their movement from the enemy.

• 6:03Jocko Willink?

  That picture says so much.

• 6:08Jocko Willink?

  Mike's gun is at the ready, his face is calm, almost smiling, despite the obvious chaos and danger around him. Ramadi at the time was the epicenter of the insurgency in Iraq, a city filled with peril. The hardened enemy was bent on destruction, they fought with ruthlessness, constantly on the attack with machine guns, mortars, grenades, and IEDs.

• 6:36Jocko Willink?

  Brave men died or were wounded every day.

• 6:41Jocko Willink?

  And every day, brave men continued to push forward into the fray.

• 6:48Jocko Willink?

  For those of us who were there, that picture of Mike captures all of this.

• 6:54Jocko Willink?

  In the picture, his brother Seals are nearby, but Mikey is out front.

• 7:00Jocko Willink?

  I have looked at this picture over and over again, and it speaks to me.

• 7:06Jocko Willink?

  As someone that had the pleasure of knowing Mikey as a friend, and had the honor of serving with him on the battlefield,

• 7:14Jocko Willink?

  this photograph tells me a story.

• 7:18Jocko Willink?

  As I look at that picture, I hear a voice in a humble but confident tone.

• 7:27Jocko Willink?

  This voice says to me,

• 7:32Jocko Willink?

  "I am Michael Monsoor.

• 7:35Jocko Willink?

  I am patrolling through the streets of Ramadi. It is a city devastated by war. Bullet holes cover the rubble of the buildings. Burned out cars litter the streets. I am walking just behind my point man. I am ready. My eyes sting from the sweat. My gun and gear are heavy, but these things do not bother me. There is no comfort here, but this is the life I have chosen, and there is no other place I would rather be.

• 8:11Jocko Willink?

  I am Michael Monsoor. I pray and I believe. My faith is my shelter. My faith is my strength. Fear thrives in this place, but fear is no match for my faith. Faith conquers all.

• 8:29Jocko Willink?

  The word of the Lord proves true. He is a shield for all those who take refuge in Him.

• 8:37Jocko Willink?

  Lord, protect my brothers above all else. You have made me ready to protect them."

• 8:47Jocko Willink?

  I am Michael Monsoor. I am far away from home. I miss my family. I miss my mother, my father, my sister, and my brothers. Everything I am is rooted in them. I want to hold my nephews and nieces again. I want to make them smile and laugh. But I am far away from home. Instead, I smile at the Iraqi children when we pass them by. When we encounter Iraqi families, I treat them with respect and dignity. I know the importance of family, because there is nothing more important to me than my family.

• 9:29Jocko Willink?

  I am Michael Monsoor. I love my country, my fellow SEALs, and the men fighting alongside us. The men fighting alongside us in the streets are infantry men, grunts. I know these grunts are not just soldiers and Marines, but fathers, and brothers, and sons. I know because my father and brother were also grunts, proud Marine riflemen. We are fighting a determined enemy, but we are strong. Our strength is our brotherhood. Soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines fighting together. A brotherhood bound by sweat and blood and tears.

• 10:14Jocko Willink?

  Together, we live in dust, and dirt, and filth. And death. Death is everywhere. Many of my brothers have fallen. Mark is gone. But we fight on. For the men to our left and right, we fight on. I am so proud to be part of this band of brothers. I am Michael Monsoor. I am ready.

• 10:52Jocko Willink?

  Forged by faith and family, molded by belief and brotherhood, I have lived life to its fullest. I have not looked back. I leave nothing but love. And I have no regrets.

• 11:11Jocko Willink?

  I am Michael Monsoor.

• 11:14Jocko Willink?

  I am the Frogman on the high ground.

• 11:19Jocko Willink?

  And I have given everything. For you.

• 11:34Jocko Willink?

  And that was the. Speech.

• 11:40Jocko Willink?

  And I. Did my best to.

• 11:44Jocko Willink?

  Share my thoughts. About Mikey.

• 11:51Jocko Willink?

  And I'm honored here to have.

• 11:55Jocko Willink?

  Andrew Paul with me today. Like I said, the former Assistant Platoon Commander from Delta Platoon.

• 12:03Jocko Willink?

  To share some stories about. Ramadi and about Mikey and about tasking a bruiser and about. Himself. And the lessons that he learned over there.

• 12:15Jocko Willink?

  And how he carried those lessons. To civilian life and the kind of challenges he faced there.

• 12:24Jocko Willink?

  So.

• 12:27Jocko Willink?

  Andrew Paul. My brother. Welcome to the show. Thanks for coming on.

• 12:33Speaker 02

  Thanks for having me, bro. It's an honor to be here and you know. The main thing, listening to that speech, I remember when you gave it. My hope and prayer today is that whatever I do here today, it honors the legacy of our brothers.

• 12:46Jocko Willink?

  Absolutely. Absolutely.

• 12:51Jocko Willink?

  And we'll get, we'll get into. Plenty of that.

• 12:56Jocko Willink?

  But in order, and I hate to do this because everybody does this when they start. Like this type of situation. It's almost like a bar pickup line, you know, hey, so where are you from?

• 13:06Speaker 02

  Right.

• 13:07Jocko Willink?

  So, uh. That being said, Andrew, so where are you from?

• 13:11Speaker 02

  Where am I from? I'm from New England, New Hampshire.

• 13:13Jocko Willink?

  You know what? This is, we had Tony's, Tony was just on, another New Englander.

• 13:17Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 13:18Jocko Willink?

  If I don't get some boys from Texas on here, I'm gonna get, I'm gonna, I'm gonna start hearing about it.

• 13:22Speaker 02

  You gotta be real hard to grow up in New England, let me tell you. It's cold.

• 13:25Jocko Willink?

  True, true. So, so. You grew up in New England and, and by the way, for those of you that just listened on the podcast.

• 13:35Jocko Willink?

  What do you weigh? One?

• 13:37Speaker 02

  One fifty-five.

• 13:38Jocko Willink?

  One fifty-five. So, the, the, the image that everyone has of the big Navy SEAL is not, first of all, it's not true. Their SEALs come in every shape and every size, and Andrew comes in the smaller size. And, uh, so, but how did you, so, so, what, what'd you, how'd you hear, how'd you hear about the SEALs? Like, what made you decide that that was what you wanted to do?

• 13:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, you know, I'm, first of all, I've, I've always been the kind of person that like, tell me I can't do something, and I'm gonna just show you. So, I mean, things like, oh, we're in high school and someone says, we're talking about like, the Boston Marathon. And I'm like, oh, I'm gonna run, oh, you can't do the marathon, oh, okay, watch this. Ran the Boston Marathon. Um, but, you know, probably saw a movie, cause you know, when I was growing up, there wasn't a lot of information out there about SEAL teams. And so,

• 14:23Jocko Willink?

  Tell me about it.

• 14:24Speaker 02

  Right? I mean, even less for an old guy like you. Um, so, there wasn't a lot of information, but somehow, you know, probably saw a movie, ended up reading a book, and then, you know, started to do some research and found, well, first of all, I, outside my immediate family, uncles, grandfather, all served in the military. So, grew up with that song, strong sense of wanting to serve my country, and always had a sense of wanting to protect people who couldn't protect themselves. So, it was drawn to that kind of line of work. Then began to read about the SEAL teams, and at least from what information I had available, it seemed like, hey, they were the best. So, I'm like, alright, well, if that's the best, then that's what I wanna go do. And, you know, that was, you know, that was,

• 15:03Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 15:04Speaker 02

  in its infancy as a, as a young kid. But then, man, I just got onto that like a bulldog, bulldog on a pork chop, and just, I mean, tunnel vision went after it.

• 15:13Jocko Willink?

  And you get, you, did you go to college? Did you already have that decision in your mind when you went to college?

• 15:18Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 15:18Jocko Willink?

  So, you knew you were gonna go to OCS, you knew all that?

• 15:20Speaker 02

  No.

• 15:21Jocko Willink?

  Did you do ROTC?

• 15:21Speaker 02

  I did ROTC, so the thing is, is that, I didn't know, I didn't know anything. I mean, I didn't know about, I didn't even know what ROTC was, I didn't even know what enlisting was. I had no clue, no would, no, no exposure. I just knew I wanted to be a SEAL. So, you know, but we started looking at going to college, and I went down and I looked at Vanderbilt University, among others. John Hopkins, RPI, I was an engineering major. And I knew nothing. And all of a sudden, I walk into this almost like job fair kind of style thing, like, welcome, check out the school, and there's this guy in uniform, and he's of course got a picture of like, some Navy SEAL frogman coming out of the water over the beach. I was like, hey, what's this?

• 15:54Jocko Willink?

  Most realistic picture of all time.

• 15:56Speaker 02

  Right, because that's what we do every day. Right. And I'm like, hey, what's this? He goes, oh, this is ROTC. I'm like, what's that? He's, oh, well, you go to college. We pay for college and then you go in the Navy. And I'm like, wait, you can be a SEAL through this program? He's like, oh, yeah, absolutely. Big lie. Like, they take like 16 guys a year.

• 16:13Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 16:13Speaker 02

  But, oh, yeah, you can be a SEAL. Oh, okay. Well, let me get this straight. So I go to college. You pay for it. Watch this. I get to go in the Navy and I can be a SEAL. Yep. Oh, my, sign me up. So that's how I found out about ROTC.

• 16:25Jocko Willink?

  Recruiter, just straight truth from the recruiter. You gotta love it.

• 16:28Speaker 02

  That's right. Yeah. Yes, you can be a SEAL. Little did I know.

• 16:32Jocko Willink?

  So you get done with college, get your commission, you do ROTC.

• 16:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 16:37Jocko Willink?

  And then you go to, you go to BUDS.

• 16:39Speaker 02

  Show up to BUDS. That was funny. I showed up. So I asked the ROTC instructor, hey, um, you know, like, what's the process for checking in? Do I just, like, what should I wear? Oh, just wear, you know, appropriate civilian attire. So I, I show up to the BUDS quarter deck in like a collared shirt. Walk on to the quarter deck and one of the most sadistic instructors possible happened to be standing there. I walk on, I'm like, hey, uh, I'm here to check in, like, like the all seeing eye, just like glances, like, you said, what? I said, checking into BUDS, wearing that? I'm like, uh, maybe I should go put a uniform on. Yeah, good idea. Run out to my car.

• 17:24Jocko Willink?

  Be back here in three minutes in your uniform, son.

• 17:26Speaker 02

  Right. Went on, put on my SDBs, came back, promptly got wet and sandy.

• 17:31Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's how it works. SDBs, for those of you that don't know, it's like the, the high level uniform with all the ribbons and all that crap on it. And you gotta, you know, you gotta take good care of it. So when you take that and you wear it down to the ocean and then you jump in the ocean and roll around in the sand, it's not a good deal for that uniform.

• 17:48Speaker 02

  The good news is there weren't a lot of ribbons on there yet. So.

• 17:50Jocko Willink?

  You have one ribbon. So, so, and you ended up going through BUDS with Leif.

• 17:55Speaker 02

  Right.

• 17:55Jocko Willink?

  Which people know who Leif is, obviously, um, which is cool. And then you get done with BUDS. Any, I mean, BUDS is BUDS. I don't really care about BUDS.

• 18:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, some funny Leif stories, though. Talk about my bro. So I got, I got pneumonia in hell week, first time through. So I got rolled back, start over. So, um, and then, and then Leif transferred in. So Leif was our, was our class leader. And so me, the Delta Platoon commander, who one day you'll hear from, and he and I, we all went through BUDS together. But they were both lateral transfers in, so they were senior to me in rank, right? They were already like JG and a full lieutenant. And so there's games in BUDS, right? Like you're trying to win. So, you know, we were wise to the games already to try and win. And Leif, if, you know, my brother is like, life is black and white with my brother Leif. Okay?

• 18:47Speaker 02

  So I'm gonna hear about this one. But he, so, you know, it's right and it's wrong. And there's like, so we know, we're like, you know, in BUDS, sort of like, if you ain't cheating, you ain't trying. And if you get caught, you ain't trying hard enough. I mean, so, and there's an element of that in BUDS, obviously not completely, but. So, you know, we're pulling all kinds of games and his boat crew is losing because we are just, we're cheating to win. And he's getting so pissed, like after the race, like after class, he's like, hey, you got, and then he finally wizened up and started playing the game.

• 19:16Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that thing about you ain't cheating, you ain't trying, that's sort of, that's sort of one side of BUDS.

• 19:21Speaker 02

  Right.

• 19:21Jocko Willink?

  And what was cool is when I went through BUDS, they actually told us, like, these couple instructors were like, listen, that's a little saying, it's not true.

• 19:29Speaker 02

  Right.

• 19:29Jocko Willink?

  And they actually said, if you're cheating, you're cheating yourself.

• 19:33Speaker 02

  Right.

• 19:33Jocko Willink?

  Which I was, hmm. And then obviously, then they start saying, look, if you've got guys that are cheating here to get through this training, do you really want them in the teams with you? No.

• 19:41Speaker 02

  Right.

• 19:42Jocko Willink?

  I don't want a guy that has to cheat to complete a run or a swim. Negative.

• 19:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, there's a difference between like cheating, like cutting off the run versus like you're in competition, you're knocking the other guy, whatever, you know, competing.

• 19:53Jocko Willink?

  Hitting a guy in the face with a paddle, just that type of thing.

• 19:56Speaker 02

  Right.

• 19:57Jocko Willink?

  So you get done, so you get done, because you were junior, when you get to the, you went right to Team Three, right?

• 20:02Speaker 02

  Right.

• 20:02Jocko Willink?

  So you get to Team Three, but you don't get to go on deployment with Team Three, they hook you up with being a boat unit commander.

• 20:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 20:10Jocko Willink?

  So no one's gonna know what that is.

• 20:11Speaker 02

  All right. So, so the deal was in, this has changed throughout the years, but like, when I checked into Team Three, there was this brief period of time, whoever was in charge at the time decided that third O's in a platoon was a bad idea for officer development. This is no more third O's. So. Basically, I was faced with being a talk jockey or going over to the boat team and at least being in charge of something to get some leadership experience. So I went over to the special boat teams, which is part of Naval Special Warfare. And ultimately, when they deploy, they deploy as part of the task unit and or the task group. And it's all integrated in part of, you know, visit board, search and seizure, maritime operations,

• 20:54Speaker 02

  such as leadership interdiction, maritime interdiction operations. And so the boat unit, which is special boat teams, is run essentially at the at the leadership level by SEALs. So the commanding officer of the boat unit, the executive officers are SEALs, the boat dead OICs, the Mark Fives, although we don't have Mark Fives anymore, are SEAL officers. So, look, as a brand new officer, at least had an opportunity to deploy in a in a combat zone, to lead men, and to work with my SEAL brothers who were conducting operations in the Northern Arabian Gulf.

• 21:25Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and just an overview, I'm just gonna sum this up as quickly as I can. So obviously SEALs work on water a lot. And we we drive our own little boats, our own little, you know, 12-foot Zodiac boats with 55 horsepower motors on them, or 35 horsepower motors on them, or whatever. But the bigger boats, we don't, we don't drive those. So anything, you know, you see, any of those bigger boats are driven by these guys that are called, they're now called SWEC, Special Warfare Combatant Crewmen, which are guys that, that's what they do. They're boat drivers, and they do, they insert and extract us, you know, drop their, drop their boats out of various aircraft. It's so it's, it's a legit job, and they, and that's what they do. And so you were in charge of a group

• 22:07Jocko Willink?

  of those guys, took boats on deployment to the Arabian Gulf, and did what you did over there.

• 22:13Speaker 02

  Right.

• 22:13Jocko Willink?

  The reality is, is not the, it's not the dream for the SEAL, young SEAL officer, to be that, to do that. But it's a good, like you said, it's good, all of a sudden you're in charge of something real, you know, you're, when you're out on the water. And I tell people, I used to tell people this, when I was in the teams, I say, listen, when you're on the water, it's a real world op. Because because if something goes wrong when you're in the water, I mean, first of all, you can drown, you could, that's, and you can get lost. There's all kinds of bad things that happen. So if you don't plan right on the water, it doesn't matter if there's enemy or not, you got a big giant enemy. It's called the ocean, and it will kill you if you're not squared away. And I think actually that's one of the things that makes SEALs good is that we work in the water and the water is one of the toughest enemies you can come up against.

• 22:53Speaker 02

  So unforgiving, unforgiving, yeah.

• 22:55Jocko Willink?

  So that wraps up that. You come home from that deployment.

• 22:58Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 22:59Jocko Willink?

  And now you are still SEAL Team Three, or you go back to SEAL Team Three, I guess technically.

• 23:05Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 23:06Jocko Willink?

  And now we form up and you become the Delta Platoon Assistant Platoon Commander, checking in.

• 23:13Speaker 02

  Awesome.

• 23:13Jocko Willink?

  Working for the Delta Platoon Commander. Who you, you guys were bros already?

• 23:16Speaker 02

  We're bros, yeah. We've known each other for years. Went through BUDs together.

• 23:20Jocko Willink?

  And life. So you guys must have been pretty stoked on that.

• 23:23Speaker 02

  It was cool. It's kind of like getting the band back together, you know, and those, and look, those two guys had just come off of not the greatest deployments either in terms of a junior officer SEAL, right? Because they were deployed and they were the assistant commanders and they were getting stuck with not so fun work.

• 23:38Jocko Willink?

  Right.

• 23:38Speaker 02

  You know, so that we were stoked to be, alright. They were stoked like, hey, now we're the OIC. We're not going to be the guy stuck back doing the paperwork. And we were getting the band back together. And then when we found out you were our task unit commander, it was like, oh, because we, we all knew we were going to be in the platoon together and tasking together. We didn't know who our TU commander was going to be yet. And then we were all those rumor, rumor, who are we going to get? And then we heard this guy Jocko was coming over like, oh, ho, ho, ho, ho.

• 24:02Jocko Willink?

  Did you know who I was? How'd you know?

• 24:04Speaker 02

  I only knew who you were through them, like when other guys, like, oh, Jocko badass dude, this is going to be awesome, right? Because like, we already had an inkling that like, if, if this dude was going to be our TU commander, we had our best shot at getting it in combat. Although we had no idea what was about to happen.

• 24:19Jocko Willink?

  Good assessment.

• 24:20Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah, your reput- your reputation was great, but you were coming over in that case for being the Admiral's aide, right?

• 24:27Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I was coming from being the Admiral's aide, yep. Thirteen months with, with the Admiral, which was a, a, a rough tour in terms of things that normal SEALs

• 24:38Speaker 02

  Same thing, right?

• 24:38Jocko Willink?

  Don't like to do.

• 24:39Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 24:40Jocko Willink?

  And I, and, and. You know, for instance, I mean, just, just straight up wearing a uniform every single day. Which is so people don't, so people understand in the world when, and I don't know what it's like this moment today. When I was in the teams, when I was at SEAL Team One, SEAL Team Two, SEAL Team Seven, we, I didn't wear a shirt. Right? No, I'm a 35 year old man making money, doing with a family. I'm not wearing a shirt at work. Like, oh, I'm in my office. Cool. I'm not wearing a shirt. I'm wearing shorts and a pair of jungle boots.

• 25:07Speaker 02

  Right.

• 25:08Jocko Willink?

  That's it. So I do that for my whole life, right? Since I was a kid, since I was a 19 year old kid. When I got through, so I, now I go to be the Admiral's aide and I have to wear a uniform every day. Not just one uniform. I have to wear khakis, then whites, then blues. And you're just in this constant uniform and, and SEALs are not good about uniforms. They're just, they're just not, it's not one of our strong points. And so, so that's one of the things that made the job not very fun.

• 25:38Speaker 02

  But there's a good lesson there, right? So here, I mean, everybody knows you as an incredible leader, awesome SEAL. And yet for this period of time, you had to do this job that was not particularly fun. It's kind of like, you know, I had to go over and be the, the SEAL at the boat unit, right? But dude, life is full of things like that. And when you were part of the team, no matter what, you do it to the best of your ability. And you did an awesome job as the Admiral's aide, not necessarily what you wanted to do, being a tried and worn frogman.

• 26:04Jocko Willink?

  So I got an email from one of the assistant platoon commanders in Charlie Platoon. A, a year ago, and he said, hey, bro, I'm gonna go be the aide.

• 26:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, I know.

• 26:19Jocko Willink?

  And so he, I just saw him and he was laughing. He goes, your email back to me, you said, this is going to be very hard for you because you're not good at this kind of thing. And I was pretty good at it. So you're gonna have to work like extra hard to make this happen. And he was laughing. We were both laughing.

• 26:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 26:35Jocko Willink?

  Because you know who I'm talking about. He's not a guy that is all over the, the minutia. Of course he did a great job because he stepped up his game. But yeah, when you get a task with something, you do it and you do it the best of your ability. And, and you know, just to continue that story, because I have to say this, it was a, it was a pain in the ass job. It wasn't fun for me, but man, did I learn a lot? Did I understand a lot? Did I get to know all, all the inner workings of, of the community? Because I was there with the guy, you know, with the Admiral that was in charge of all the SEALs. I was with him. For 13 months, I mean, all day, travel, you know, wake up, PT, we were just, I, every meeting, you know, so it was a, it was a great learning experience for me and I was appreciative and he was a great guy.

• 27:20Jocko Willink?

  He's a great guy and he really cared about the SEAL platoons, which is, which is awesome. When a guy puts the number one priority, he'd always talk about, okay, what's, what's the SEAL platoon need? Or how does this affect the SEAL platoon?

• 27:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 27:32Jocko Willink?

  So then we got in, but now you're in your first workup, right? Going through workup, getting, getting your game on.

• 27:40Speaker 02

  Awesome. Best time of my life. Awesome.

• 27:44Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 27:44Speaker 02

  Anybody's in the military right now and active duty teams, if you're listening to this, man, just enjoy it, man. Enjoy it. I mean, there's other things in life, sure, but like you can, you just, you can't replace that time. It, and there's stupid stuff you deal with, yes, but trust me, enjoy this, man. You won't find it anywhere else. Nothing like that. Awesome.

• 28:06Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Do you, what do you, I, I talk about this sometimes. So one of the scars that you get from the milit, from the SEAL teams is if you go, if you like to shoot weapons still.

• 28:20Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 28:20Jocko Willink?

  And you wanna go shooting, you have to pay for ammunition. And ammunition is expensive and, and I'm serious. I remember times in the SEAL teams where, I mean, your, your thumbs are getting, your thumbs are literally getting sore from reloading magazines for days and days. You're shooting all the, all the bullets you could possibly ever, ever, ever wanna shoot, ever. You're gonna shoot them all in a week or two weeks. And so it's, it's so fun. It's so fun. And you know, for us, and for those of you that don't know, so you go through a workup prior to going on deployment, which is now you're working together for the first time. This is when I'm getting to know you guys. You guys are getting to know me. We're all getting to know each other where the whole, the whole unit is coming together as a team.

• 29:02Jocko Willink?

  And this is where the real bond forms and you're doing super hard training.

• 29:10Jocko Willink?

  You're, you're living together, you're working out together, you're working together, you're partying together, you're eating your meals together. It's just a 24 seven rock and roll awesomeness. And, and that's how, that's how, that's how you get to know these guys. That's how you get to know your, your, your team.

• 29:26Speaker 02

  Yep. So me, Mikey and another guy were the, were the new guys in that platoon.

• 29:32Jocko Willink?

  One other guy?

• 29:33Speaker 02

  He's still on active duty.

• 29:35Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Yeah. No, I'm just saying, there was only three new guys in that platoon?

• 29:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 29:39Jocko Willink?

  Dang, I forgot about that.

• 29:41Speaker 02

  Yeah. And our, and, and, and.

• 29:42Jocko Willink?

  In Delta.

• 29:43Speaker 02

  In Delta. Yeah.

• 29:45Speaker 02

  Needless to say, Delta and Charlie were of slightly different dynamic.

• 29:50Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. You guys were, you guys are a different dynamic, uh, different, just like people have different personalities. Platoons have different personalities and teams have different personalities and they can morph and change. But nonetheless, uh, both great platoons, both great platoons.

• 30:05Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 30:06Jocko Willink?

  And so it was only you and Mikey and one other guy?

• 30:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 30:09Jocko Willink?

  I don't know who the other guy was. Yeah. Yeah.

• 30:12Speaker 02

  The tick.

• 30:13Jocko Willink?

  You guys were the only three new guys in there?

• 30:15Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 30:15Jocko Willink?

  So it can be a harsh, it's, it's, it's a harsh environment to come into when you're, when you're a new guy in a SEAL platoon. But I, so I'm with, so I'm with Mikey and we're doing, we're just, I don't even think we're doing mobility, but we were driving out to the ranges. And he's the, uh, he's the turret gunner, right? And I say something to him like, hey, when we're approaching a road, you know? You look at your field of fire and if there's no vehicles coming, you know, say, clear right. And so he, he did it once and he's clear, clear right, you know, kind of quiet. I was like, hey, man, you gotta sound off. The driver's trying to drive. He's got a, he's got radio on. He's, he needs to know what's going on, man. You need to sound off.

• 30:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 31:00Jocko Willink?

  And the next intersection we got to, he's like, clear right. And he said it super loud. And I, I thought to myself, wait a second, is he, is he? You know, taking the piss out of me. Is he, is he being sarcastic with that yell?

• 31:13Speaker 02

  Right, no.

• 31:14Jocko Willink?

  And, no, he was not, no. I told him to yell. He was like, okay, I will yell. I will yell. And that's, that's the way it worked. And the other, one of my other favorite stories about Mikey was, and this is another like new guy related story, was, so you go through CQC training, close quarter combat, close quarter battle, whatever. It's basically shooting in small spaces, taking down buildings, that kind of thing. And it's, it's a, it's a, there's, there's a lot of instructor focus.

• 31:47Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 31:47Jocko Willink?

  On the mechanics of what you're doing. So it's a very, it's a very mechanical thing. And if you, if you're making mistakes, it's not going to work out good for you.

• 31:55Speaker 02

  And by the way, as a new guy, there's tough scrutiny, but the reality is, it doesn't matter if you're new or not. Like they are watching everybody.

• 32:01Jocko Willink?

  Everybody's getting watched.

• 32:02Speaker 02

  You could be a third platoon guy and get canned from the platoon for a safety violation. And you can get a safety violation in two seconds out there.

• 32:07Jocko Willink?

  In, in a half a second.

• 32:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:09Jocko Willink?

  It doesn't take much. So, and, and what they're trying to do is they're trying to put more stress on you.

• 32:13Speaker 02

  Right.

• 32:14Jocko Willink?

  Because they want, they want you to handle the stress. So they stress people out by just, you know, these little minute details of what you can do right and wrong. And to be honest with you, some of them don't matter. Some of them you're like, okay, that doesn't matter. And, and, and I know they don't matter because they, they morph over time and they'll teach, you know, one phase, they'll be teaching one thing and then if later they'll teach the phase, they'll teach another thing. Then later they'll teach another thing. So it's not, there's a million different ways to do it.

• 32:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:43Jocko Willink?

  And you could argue this one's better, but there's a million different ways to do it. But they do, they pick whatever they're going to choose for that block of training is what you're going to do. And, and if you want to sit there and argue with them.

• 32:56Speaker 02

  Oh, boy.

• 32:57Jocko Willink?

  It's not going to work out good for you. So what I told all the new guys in Delta and Charlie, I said, hey, listen, when the instructor cadre is telling you to do something, or they're yelling at you, or they're getting on your ass about something, you just look at them and say, Roger that. Guys got it?

• 33:11Speaker 02

  Roger that.

• 33:12Jocko Willink?

  And these guys are like, Roger that. And that's the best attitude you want to have, right? Cause what you, what do you want to be a new guy? That's like, hey, no, I don't agree with your tactics. They're a person that's deployed, you know, overseas 14 times. No, you don't want to be that guy. You might think you're right, but no, this is what you, no, that's not what you want to do. So I told the guys, say, Roger that. So we're going through the training, the training is great and we're doing really well. Our task unit's doing great, you know, but still guys are, guys are making mistakes, whatever. And finally, the master chief, and of course for like Tony and I, we're friends with all the cadre guys because they're all our bros from being in the teams. And one of the, the leader guy, he comes up to me and he's like, hey.

• 33:52Speaker 02

  He's hard, by the way, this guy is intense.

• 33:54Jocko Willink?

  He goes, hey, what's up with this guy, Monsoor? And I was like, I don't, what, what do you mean? What's up? He's, he's been doing a good job. What's up? He goes, every time I tell him something, all he does is just look at me and say, Roger that.

• 34:06Jocko Willink?

  And I go, hey, brother, you know what? He's doing exactly what I told him to do. I literally told him the only thing I wanted, wanted him to say to you guys, or wanted anything you guys to say to you guys was Roger that and make it happen.

• 34:17Speaker 02

  So when we were out there, there was another platoon that was there at the same time. Do you remember this? They were in, and I, I'm pretty sure the chief got canned from the platoon.

• 34:28Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 34:28Speaker 02

  He, safety violation. And there was some, and there was that talking back going on, right? Like, hey, I've got three deployments under my belt. And you know, there's a degree of humility in that Roger that response, right? That's what it's like, it's, it's Roger that I'm open to the correction you have for me.

• 34:43Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, for sure.

• 34:43Speaker 02

  And so, and these guys, you know, him, and there's a balance there. I mean, he's leading his platoon and taking a stand for, you know, and being in charge. But at the same time, like there's a humility and a respect in that response. And he was not doing that. And I'm telling you, like, he screwed some things up and the safety review board. I mean, I remember holding a safety review board for the chief of that platoon, which is not our task unit, but.

• 35:05Jocko Willink?

  It, they do not play around.

• 35:07Speaker 02

  No.

• 35:07Jocko Willink?

  And, and that's the way it's supposed to be.

• 35:09Speaker 02

  That's right. Because it's intense and what people don't get is that you're trying to recreate the intensity of combat as best you can. So they're creating high stress situations as stressful as possible. And like you said, sometimes creating elements that aren't necessarily real, but just to overload you with a number of things you have to process under pressure. And then are you going to make good decisions under pressure? And that right there is what translates to combat. Good decisions under stress and under pressure.

• 35:37Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, and you're right, though, about that humility piece. And that was our attitude going through.

• 35:45Speaker 02

  Right.

• 35:45Jocko Willink?

  You know what? I mean, between me and Tony, I don't think there was, I'm just trying to think if there's any instructor cadre that was putting us through.

• 35:54Speaker 02

  Right.

• 35:54Jocko Willink?

  You know, like, there were some guys that were, you know, but it wasn't like there was someone that was just, you know, had tons more experience than the two of us.

• 36:01Speaker 02

  Right.

• 36:02Jocko Willink?

  And yet, we, you know, both Tony and I, hey, Roger that. Yeah, hey, it sounds good. We'll, we'll make that adjustment. Because, you know what? It's great just having Tony on the other day. He was just saying, look, you can, I'm learning something new all the time. Learning something from the new guys. And that's the attitude that prevailed through the task unit. Not of, hey, we're the best. We don't have to listen to anybody, but hey, we're gonna work as hard as we can. We're gonna be the best we can, but we're, we got open minds and we're ready to learn at all times.

• 36:31Speaker 02

  It's a fine line between competent and cocky.

• 36:34Jocko Willink?

  No doubt about that.

• 36:34Speaker 02

  And, and, and being humble, you can be confident, you can be sure, and you can be humble and respectful and open to learning new things. And maybe you may be surprised at what you learn.

• 36:42Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, there's no doubt about that. So what else do you remember from workup in terms of, hey, you're a new guy, you're checking in? You know, Tony and I told some stories of what it was like when we were checking into Team One. It, it was when we were new guys, it was a very rough environment to roll into.

• 37:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 37:00Jocko Willink?

  What did you think when you got to, you know, being a new guy?

• 37:04Speaker 02

  Well, I, I remember, like, literally day, first of all, day one, that I was checking into the platoon space. I got like the combo to the platoon space, right? And I went in and I'm, I'm brand new. And so I'm gonna be protective of my platoon, you know, so I go in, I'm walking out of the platoon space, making sure the door is locked behind me. Cause you know, other platoon guys go in and just destroy another guy's platoon space or whatever. And I'm walking down the hallway and our LPO, who is, goes down to the door and he, he doesn't have the combo, right? And he goes, he goes, hey, hey, what's the combo to the space? I'm like, I gave him some wise ass remark.

• 37:40Jocko Willink?

  Did you not know him?

• 37:41Speaker 02

  No, didn't know him yet, right?

• 37:43Jocko Willink?

  How'd that work out for you?

• 37:44Speaker 02

  It was hilarious. Like, he, he, he goes, hey, what's the combo to the space? I'm like, hey, man, I can't give that to you. And I didn't know he was the LPO. And he's, he's, he goes, he goes, I'm the goddamn LPO. What's the fucking combo to the platoon space? Like, Roger that. Three, three, one together, then two, you know? And I proceeded to walk down the steps and I'm going, oh, God almighty.

• 38:05Jocko Willink?

  Welcome to the team.

• 38:06Speaker 02

  Just, I just met the LPO and it was not on good terms. Oh, man.

• 38:11Jocko Willink?

  That's awesome.

• 38:11Speaker 02

  And then he and I turned out to be good friends. But, um, then I remember we're out doing land warfare training. And this is like where, you know, you're cutting the metal. Like you said, you're getting to know each other. And, you know, the guys in the platoon also are trying to figure out with these new guys, like, all right, what have I, what have we got here? What can we rely on, you know? And, uh, so one night I remember us doing a little bit of boxing and it was.

• 38:34Jocko Willink?

  Forced boxing.

• 38:35Speaker 02

  New guy on new guy, you know? And, uh.

• 38:39Jocko Willink?

  Survival of the fittest.

• 38:40Speaker 02

  Oh, my. Dude, and, and it, and then, and then at times it was just three on, you know, every man for himself. And it's just like your head's on a swivel and it's Mikey, the tick and me. And we're just wailing away and it's just going and it's, hey, who's going to continue to fight basically, right? And dude, oh, everything, you know, I'm an officer and these two guys are just, you know, obviously wailing away. But I'm like, hey, man, I'm going to just fight to the bitter end. And it was, it was pretty awesome.

• 39:09Jocko Willink?

  Hey, did you do jujitsu before you got? Because you had just enough.

• 39:14Speaker 02

  I did.

• 39:14Jocko Willink?

  To make it that you could hold your own when I would, when I would do the officer kumites.

• 39:20Speaker 02

  Yes. I did do some, and you know, to keep in mind.

• 39:23Jocko Willink?

  Where did you train?

• 39:25Speaker 02

  On the east coast when I was in high school and I got, and I got into greasy jujitsu, like literally, like I was already training when the first UFC ever came out, right? And so it was pretty cool. And then.

• 39:37Jocko Willink?

  That was always a big shocker for people. Cause you were, you were by far smaller than the other platoon officers. And yet you had that jujitsu. And when you have the jujitsu, you didn't have a lot either. What were you, were you even a blue belt?

• 39:52Speaker 02

  I don't even know.

• 39:53Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you were probably like a high level white belt.

• 39:56Speaker 02

  But, but to be fair, like at the time, it was all very new, like the world of MMA today is.

• 40:01Jocko Willink?

  Oh yeah, totally different.

• 40:02Speaker 02

  Oh, totally different, as you know, but at the time, like, I mean, I even went to in high school with my, with my instructor, who was a, who was a teacher at my school, he was into it. So he and I would train like five in the morning before school, me versus him, much larger man, but we would learn Jiu Jitsu and then we went and did seminars with Hoist Gracie um in upstate New York, we would drive and uh it was cool. Like I got to get out of school and go train.

• 40:25Jocko Willink?

  Again, this is just proof that Jiu Jitsu is so good because he would, I would make these, these officers, like we meet at five o'clock in the morning and I'd say, okay, and I would train with everybody, but then I'd say, okay, now you, you two, fight to the death.

• 40:39Jocko Willink?

  And they would just get after it, but you, but he was, he was a hundred and fifty pounds. He's going against guys that are two hundred pounds, you know, they have him by fifty pounds.

• 40:46Speaker 02

  And taller than me.

• 40:47Jocko Willink?

  And taller and, and he would just, you know, there's, you know, it just doesn't work, you know, you gotta, you gotta know that Jiu Jitsu.

• 40:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, and I'm not gonna, and I'm not gonna say that I, well, and these are tough guys.

• 40:57Jocko Willink?

  No, you survive though.

• 40:58Speaker 02

  But that's right, that's right. Like they weren't tapping me out, you know?

• 41:01Jocko Willink?

  Didn't you usually tap them?

• 41:02Speaker 02

  I usually choked out a certain guy who didn't like that very much.

• 41:07Jocko Willink?

  It's hard, it's hard, man. Jiu Jitsu is a humbling thing.

• 41:10Speaker 02

  Yep, but you know, and, and the thing at that time, cause they were bigger than me, was more about energy conservation, right? And so like, I mean, I'd just let them wear themselves out and then they'd try and get things on me and then I'd just snake my way around there, buddy.

• 41:22Jocko Willink?

  I also remember you volunteering for the taser.

• 41:25Speaker 02

  Oh boy, yeah.

• 41:27Jocko Willink?

  So you actually had an attitude like, you had, you look like, I can, I'm gonna handle this, like no factor, what, you wanna tase me? Bring it.

• 41:34Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 41:34Jocko Willink?

  You know, you don't see the guys on Cops, when there's a big tough crazy guy all on PCP and he gets tased, he rips the taser out and throws the thing and he just keeps coming. That's what Andrew Paul had the look. Like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna just, yo, you gonna tase me? Bring it.

• 41:50Speaker 02

  Let's go. I mean, hey, I'm a new guy in the platoon, right? I mean, I gotta earn my spot, right? And so some, somewhere, somebody had, actually it was the LPO, he had, he had one of these things.

• 42:00Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 42:01Speaker 02

  And I was like, oh, and, and I'm gonna tell you what, like it had these like two modes, the one where you could shoot or you could like put it right up to the guy, you know? And I was like, hey, let's go, shoot him. He's like, I'm like, come on, let's go. And then like the whole platoon, like everybody like met down in the back cave and um there may be a video floating around somewhere. This one had the winter barbs, if those of you guys know what a taser is. Like the bar, like the, the winter barbs are longer to get through the sweater.

• 42:27Jocko Willink?

  Get through that down coat.

• 42:28Speaker 02

  Yeah. And, um, so when.

• 42:31Jocko Willink?

  Of course, he was like, what were you in a tee shirt or just no shirt?

• 42:34Speaker 02

  I was in a tee shirt. Yeah. And, uh, I was like, oh, wow.

• 42:38Jocko Willink?

  How'd those winter barbs work out for you?

• 42:40Speaker 02

  So it's like, there's like, oh, they're getting ready to do it. They're like, oh, wait, wait. And, you know, these are my guys looking out for me. Appreciate it, guys. They're like, oh, here, here, put this iPro on. Oh, that's a good idea. Right. So put some iPro on. And then like, like it's got a laser on it, right? So the laser, I mean, if you see the video, like, like you can hear guys going, oh, like guys are wincing. Like, nobody's been tased. Like, nobody knows what's gonna happen right now, right? Boom. So this thing comes out at like 45 degree angle and one like goes into my sternum. And the other one goes below my belly button. All right. So I'm like instantly over, right?

• 43:16Jocko Willink?

  All that, all that thinking he was just gonna just rip those things out. He went rigid and thank God we put a mat down.

• 43:23Speaker 02

  Yes, there was a mat.

• 43:23Jocko Willink?

  Because he went rigid, straight and fell like a brick. Just boom, nothing. And then just.

• 43:30Speaker 02

  So it, so clearly, and I remember this too, like it hits you and like it hits you in that, in that spot. And like your hands go to gra, like you've been stung, you've been hit. So my hands, my hands get like three quarters of the way there. By the time the electricity freezes the body. So my hands are kind of like stuck in front of my chest and my abdomen as it attempted to grab the spot. So I go over and, um, all right, they turn the thing off. And then, um, they go to get these things out. Somebody's got a pair of pliers. And, and the barb, I remember.

• 43:56Jocko Willink?

  You know, it's good when you need pliers to dislodge the.

• 44:00Speaker 02

  So like it went into the muscle, like, because like, I remember ripping and coming free, but not free. And it was, but it was still beneath the skin.

• 44:10Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 44:11Speaker 02

  And, uh, and then it just like just rip it.

• 44:14Jocko Willink?

  This is the teams, man. This is what makes the team so fun.

• 44:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 44:17Jocko Willink?

  One day you show up at work, you just volunteer to get tased and you're gonna get some.

• 44:21Speaker 02

  The best thing you can do is just volunteer in a situation like that.

• 44:25Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 44:25Speaker 02

  You know, and just be like, come on, let's go.

• 44:27Jocko Willink?

  Yep. Bring it.

• 44:28Speaker 02

  And then the guy, oh, okay, right on, you know?

• 44:31Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Well, you did the right thing. Uh, I'm sorry it didn't work out too well for you.

• 44:35Speaker 02

  I think it worked out great.

• 44:38Jocko Willink?

  All right. So we get word. We get done with our workup and now it's time to go on deployment and, um.

• 44:46Jocko Willink?

  Get on deployment and we found out what two weeks before you guys were on leave when we found out we were going to Ramadi instead of where we were originally supposed to go, which was in Iraq, but we knew, I mean, I knew Ramadi was going to be the, uh, the best place to deploy to. And we show up over there and what was cool, I thought about with, uh, with that deployment is the way we task organized and every, basically every leader got their own element.

• 45:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:16Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And put you guys, it was like, oh yeah. You know how you've been working for this and we've been all what? No, you're going out on your own. You're, you're in charge.

• 45:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:23Jocko Willink?

  And that was, uh, that was awesome. And, and that, what made me feel good was that when we were in the workup and we made you guys run operations, even though you were new guys and made you, put you in pressure situations and put you in charge of ground force commander while you were, you know, most troops didn't do that.

• 45:39Speaker 02

  Right.

• 45:39Jocko Willink?

  But we were, but I knew that there was a possibility and furthermore, what happens if, you know, your platoon commander gets killed? What happens if I get killed and then you're the guy?

• 45:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:47Jocko Willink?

  Then you gotta be able to step up and run stuff. And so we did that through the chain of command and, and we did, I will admit to this, we made sure that we had crushed the workup. And then it was like, okay, we've dominated. Okay. Now we start training the new guys up on how to lead. And that was,

• 46:03Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 46:03Jocko Willink?

  That was important too. Cause it's, you, you want to do well in the workup. You want, because that's where your reputation as a task unit comes from is how well you do going through these various training.

• 46:12Speaker 02

  Well, that's why we earned, earned the spot to be able to go to Iraq. Great. Because the thing is, is that some guys are going elsewhere.

• 46:18Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 46:18Speaker 02

  And, and you're all vying, look, I mean, you're all vying because you want to go to combat and some guys are going someplace else, not in Iraq. And, um, you know, I hate to say it, but that's not where any of us really wanted to go.

• 46:29Jocko Willink?

  Well, nothing I hate to say about that. If you're in the SEAL teams, you want to go to war.

• 46:32Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 46:33Jocko Willink?

  That's what it is to it.

• 46:33Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 46:34Jocko Willink?

  We all wanted to go to war.

• 46:35Speaker 02

  That's what we were fighting for. We were competing. There are three task units. We were competing as a task unit to get top spot to the most dangerous place.

• 46:42Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 46:42Speaker 02

  And that's where we want to go. And that turned out to be Ramadi. Now, by the way, on that workout too, just from a leadership perspective, I don't know if you remember, you know, not everybody made it through the workout. There were guys who were cut loose. Um, safety issues, not stepping up, not leading, like pushing that leadership opportunity down to the junior officer or whatever, and not stepping up. We're doing something unsafe or just not having what it took. And, um, you know, and, you know, just from a leadership perspective, you have to be. Willing to make that hard decision. And in reality, and I know you and Leif have talked about it. When you've given everybody, that guy, every opportunity. When you've evaluated it and you've kept notes and you've tried to train and you've tried to correct. It's not a hard decision, right?

• 47:23Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, actually, the Commodore, I don't know if you were there, but the Commodore asked me, we were on deployment. And he goes, you know, hey, hey, Jocko, this is in front of everyone. He says, you know, well, I shouldn't say everyone, it's in front of the leadership. He says, hey, how are the guys that were in workup maybe weren't performing up to par? How are they doing over here? And I was like, sir, they're not in this task.

• 47:42Speaker 02

  They're not here. That's right. Yeah.

• 47:43Jocko Willink?

  They didn't make it.

• 47:44Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 47:44Jocko Willink?

  They've been removed.

• 47:46Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 47:46Jocko Willink?

  So, yeah, that's a great point. And again, it's a hard thing to do because you're really, you're really wrecking someone's life.

• 47:55Speaker 02

  Well, think about it, right? So this is a guy who was, who, so there's a guy who's an officer, right? So you're, I mean, we didn't really, we kind of glazed through it, but it's hard to get a spot to go to BUDS as an officer.

• 48:04Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 48:05Speaker 02

  It's very competitive. So this is a guy who's an officer who got a spot to go to BUDS. Made it through BUDS, which is hard.

• 48:13Speaker 02

  Made it through SQT, got to a platoon. This, this guy is not a slouch physically. You know what I mean? Like this is not, this is not some loser. You know, this is a guy who made-

• 48:23Jocko Willink?

  No, it's a great American-

• 48:24Speaker 02

  Right.

• 48:24Jocko Willink?

  Patriotic-

• 48:25Speaker 02

  That's right. That's right. A great guy who stepped up, who made it through something that many, many other men could not make it through. And had to make a hard decision, you know, on your part with the Delta Platoon commander to not have this guy continue with us. And so if that can happen even within the SEAL teams, any of those of you guys who are listening, right? I mean, don't you think that's also possible that within your organization, you might have to make a similar kind of decision? We also have to make that decision in the SEAL teams.

• 48:55Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 48:56Speaker 02

  We're not exempt from making that decision.

• 48:58Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and also very much like the civilian sector. You know, there's HR. Basically in the military, there's HR. There's, there's human resource department. You can't just walk into Anan like this guy, I'm going to fire him.

• 49:09Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 49:09Jocko Willink?

  No, okay, well, what, have you counseled him? Has you done paperwork on him?

• 49:14Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 49:14Jocko Willink?

  Does he know that? Have you verbally, have you written it? It's all these things.

• 49:17Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 49:17Jocko Willink?

  So he went through that whole procedure.

• 49:18Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 49:19Jocko Willink?

  And, you know, if there's an extreme case, of course, you can, you can make it happen, but it's going to cost you a little bit of political capital. Because honestly, if I'm your boss and you come to me and say, hey, I want to fire this guy? And I say, okay, why? Well, I don't, I don't, you know, he's not doing his job anymore. And I say, okay, did you counsel him? No, not yet, but I want to fire him anyways. That's going to cost you some political capital.

• 49:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 49:37Jocko Willink?

  I'm actually looking at you going, wait a second, why didn't you train this guy?

• 49:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, you as a leader, why didn't you step up and train this guy? What, what are you doing? Cause, cause that can be a cop out, right? Hey, if I'm too lazy to train mentor, then you're copying out as leader. But if you've done all those things as a leader and you can really document that and see that and the guy's still not performing, then the next leadership decision is time to part ways.

• 49:56Jocko Willink?

  And that really is, I mean, that really is one of the, the best things about the SEAL teams is, is when you're raising your guys up, when you're, when you're teaching guys what you know, and you're saying, hey, man, this is what you need to do. Hey, bro, here's, here's the way this works. Here's what you did over here. Here's what you should do. You know, that's just, that's your, that's your legacy. That's what you're leaving behind is, is hey, this is what I learned. And I want to teach it to as many guys as I can. That's what you're trying to do. So if you're, if you're not doing that, that's jacked up, you know, that's jacked up.

• 50:27Jocko Willink?

  And it's the same thing in the civilian sector. You know, here's a good one.

• 50:31Jocko Willink?

  I was working, we work with companies and I was working with a company the other day and, and they got a guy who sort of, you know, oh, well, well, maybe he's not the best mentor, right? But he wants to get promoted, of course, because everyone wants to get promoted. So this guy wants to get promoted. And they're trying to, they haven't had luck saying, look, you gotta be a mentor. You gotta lead. You gotta be a better leader. You gotta raise people up. And I just, you know, talked, talked to the, the boss and I said, well, ask him this question. Yeah. You know what? I definitely am looking forward to promoting you. Give me the three names of people that you've prepared to take your position.

• 51:06Speaker 02

  Right.

• 51:08Jocko Willink?

  Goose eggs, right? It's gonna be goose eggs because he hasn't done that.

• 51:10Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 51:11Jocko Willink?

  So that's a key component, you know, you definitely want to, you want to be, as a leader, you should be looking for your replacement all the time. And I with, with, with Leif and with the Delta Platoon Commander, I wanted those guys to be able to do my job. And that's my whole goal. And I wanted you to be able to do my job.

• 51:26Speaker 02

  Right.

• 51:26Jocko Willink?

  And, and I'll tell you, by the time we went on deployment, everyone pretty much could do my job. So that that was success for me because guess what that allowed me to do on deployment? Look at the look up and look out and figure out what we're going to do next and all that other stuff. So that should be your goal from a leadership perspective for sure. And as you just pointed out, when you get to a situation where you've done the coaching, you've done the mentoring, you've done the counseling, you've written, you've set the expectation, you have a person that still isn't cutting the mustard. You gotta go.

• 51:54Speaker 02

  Not a hard decision at that.

• 51:55Jocko Willink?

  And you have to be loyal. People get mixed up too because there's a loyalty component. Because you form this relationship. We just talked about an hour about this big relationship with all these people. Well, guess what? You have a relationship with that person that you're about to fire too. But then the question becomes, are you going to be loyal to that individual or are you going to be loyal to the team? Because you're hurting the team.

• 52:13Speaker 02

  That's exactly right. It's the team. Yep.

• 52:16Jocko Willink?

  So that's that. We went on deployment with a strong bunch of pipe hitters. All right. So we get on deployment, we you, you guys, we, we kind of, and this is again, this is something Tony and I talked about. We were task organized and we changed that. We changed it on a fairly regular basis. Okay. We know what we this area is getting hot. Need more guys over there. And we were just kind of.

• 52:36Speaker 02

  There's a lot to do.

• 52:37Jocko Willink?

  There's a lot to do. There's a lot of work to be done.

• 52:39Speaker 02

  There was a lot.

• 52:40Jocko Willink?

  Lot of bad guys.

• 52:43Jocko Willink?

  When you, when you look back and you're kind of, so now you're on your first combat deployment. What was the thing that struck you as? Damn, like, okay, this is what, because I'll tell you, people ask me that, like the first firefight I got in on my first deployment to Iraq. And honestly, I was like, okay, I felt like I was a hundred percent prepared.

• 53:04Speaker 02

  I agree completely.

• 53:05Jocko Willink?

  And I was like, okay, cool. Hey, guys, you know, it's just very simple, very straightforward.

• 53:09Speaker 02

  So some guy said to me one time, and this is an outside guy and said, he goes, kind of seems to me that in this field teams, you guys do stress inoculation really well. And so I would say yes, because that's, that is exactly my same first firefight I got in. I was like, no big deal. And you know, look, you know, when the rounds are close, right? Like, you know what that sounds like? And they're, and they're really close and it's no big deal. By the way, it's not really very loud when they're shooting at you, right? I mean, you hear a certain sound. But then of course he's firing maneuver and it gets a little bit loud, but that's awesome. It's just like every drill we've ever done. And it was no big deal. It was just. It was almost habit at that point. You knew exactly the maneuver. So, no big deal.

• 53:50Speaker 02

  The first, the first time I went out in a Humvee, in Ramadi, so keep in mind, like you said on the introduction, when we got there, guys were getting IED'd and killed every single day. Every day, the message traffic came over and it was KIA, you know, IED. So, first Humvee ride, I go out in and I'm looking out the window, and by the way, like, you can't really roll these windows down. It's not like you can, you don't want to roll these windows down, by the way.

• 54:21Jocko Willink?

  They're bulletproof windows, so you want to keep them up.

• 54:23Speaker 02

  Right. And, you know, so like, you actually can't shoot back if you want to, right? The only guy who can shoot back is your turret gunner. And for the first, like, I would just say, minute and a half, I was like, wincing. I was like, waiting for this clack to go, boom, boom, you know, and then finally, I was like, you know what? There's nothing I can do about it. And I literally let it go right then. So, that was, that was like, that's a strong memory. Like, I remember, even for all the training, and again, the first firefight was no big deal. And, but driving down in a Humvee, sitting in the back, completely helpless. I mean, you have two choices, and life is a lot like this. You can sit there and worry yourself away about it. Well, is it this intersection? Is it this intersection?

• 55:07Speaker 02

  Or you just go, you know what? Here's the deal. I can't control it. So, I'm just going to be ready. So, when it's my time to bust out this door, or do whatever we got to do, to do an immediate action drill, or whatever, I'm ready to do it. And the rest of it, you just let go. You let go, because anything else is not effective.

• 55:20Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you're not, you're not, yeah, it's not only just are you worried, but now you're, you're actually doing things bad. You're actually being negative. You're, you're thinking about things that you shouldn't be thinking about. And it's not helping you, it's not helping your team. So, I like that. Just to, just to kind of sum up what you said. You were in Ramadi for six months, you were scared for about a minute and 30 seconds.

• 55:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 55:40Jocko Willink?

  And after that, you're like, alright. And I think that's, that's the attitude that... I think that's the best, I hate, I don't know if this is the right thing to say or not, but to accept the fact that there's things you can't control, that you cannot control, and that one of those things is, you know, an IED, a sniper bullet. I mean, and now there's things that you can do to influence, because guess what? We do training, we prepare, we're keeping our eyes peeled, we're taking routes that we know have been cleared to the best of our ability, we're on the street, we're moving, we're moving from cover to cover, we're doing everything that we can, but guess what? It doesn't matter. You can do everything right, it doesn't matter. You can still get blown up, you can still get shot, that's the way it is. So if you sit around and just think about that all the time, it's just gonna drive you

• 56:25Jocko Willink?

  crazy, one, and number two, it's gonna make you do your job worse, because you're gonna be less aggressive, and I think you gotta stay aggressive to stay alive. You, you wanna be aggressive, you wanna be, you know what? Yeah, we'll go make that happen. Oh, there, do I wanna sit in the vehicle right now, or get out and, get out and get some ground? I mean, that's just the type of thing that-

• 56:44Speaker 02

  It's a mindset.

• 56:45Jocko Willink?

  It's a mindset that wins.

• 56:47Speaker 02

  That's it. It's the winning mindset, and if your goal is to win, then you have to recognize that certain thought processes are not effective, and they take away from your ability to win. And you know, I see people get worried about stuff, that kinda thing, right? So you just, you take a step back, you, "I wanna win." Right. A guy said to me one time, "Hey, uh, do you think, do you think fear is a, is a useful emotion?" I thought about it for a second, because I've heard lots of different people talk about fear, and you know, this and that, and, you know, I would say for, maybe I'll change this one day, but right now, this is where I've come to on fear. Maybe for the caveman who's walking through the jungle, and they get attacked by the saber-toothed tiger, and that fear, that fight or flight response, is enough to make him react in a

• 57:31Speaker 02

  moment in order to avoid being slashed by the tiger. But other than that, fear was not effective in battle, because you do not make good decisions when acting in fear, and you have a better chance of survival, you make better decisions, and you have a better chance of winning and defeating and crushing the enemy when you remain calm, when you do the oodle loop, right? Observe, orient, decide, act.

• 57:54Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Yeah, I've got, I get asked, I obviously get asked about fear a lot, and, you know, I always say, "Look, fear is, fear is not a bad thing, because it's the thing that makes you go, 'Okay, I need to be ready.'" It's the thing that makes you rehearse, it's the thing that makes you say, "Okay," because you, and for me- Again, the fear wasn't about the fear of getting killed, getting blown up. The fear was always about, I want to, I don't want to do a bad job. I don't want to make a bad decision. That, I'll tell you, you're in a leadership position. That is the heaviest fear that you have is I make a mistake. My team does something that doesn't, doesn't bring credit upon us as a unit. And by that, I mean, doesn't do a good job. Like you, you're just, I, I don't even know where that comes from.

• 58:39Jocko Willink?

  It's just want to do a good job. And the fear is, hey, I hope I don't do anything that gets my guys hurt or killed. I hope don't do anything that's a bad decision that makes, that does, that hurts us strategically as a nation. Yeah, those are the two fears that I think make you rehearse, make you practice, make you reinforce, make you aware of what's happening, but you can't, what you can't do. I mean, for me, fear, fear is makes me aggressive. Like, oh, I think this guy's gonna, gonna do something to me. Cool, I'm afraid of him. Cool, I'm gonna attack him. I'm gonna kill him. You know, I'm gonna take him out. I'm gonna do something, you know? And I actually see that time, you know, I see that in MMA too. Where when you see someone happen to somebody where they get a little bit, they get a little bit rocked or something.

• 59:22Jocko Willink?

  If they, if they let that fear make them back off and go into a defensive mode, it's exactly what you just said. If it makes you into a defensive mode, it's gonna, you're gonna, the person's gonna, because man, you can smell that.

• 59:34Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 59:35Jocko Willink?

  You can smell that. So when I think the reaction to fear is like, oh, I'm afraid right now. Cool, I'm gonna attack. I have to attack. Yeah, like, oh, I don't feel comfortable about where the troop is moving right now or where my squad is moving right now. I don't think it's a good thing. Cool, I'm gonna attack. I'm gonna take some high ground. I'm gonna maneuver. That's why.

• 59:50Speaker 02

  That's healthy.

• 59:51Jocko Willink?

  Yes, it's a healthy fear.

• 59:52Speaker 02

  That, that's healthy, but you're also trained and prepared mentally for that kind of thing. Most people, when they start acting in fear, they start making poor decisions.

• 59:59Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, oh, yeah, absolutely.

• 1:00:00Speaker 02

  So, so in that sense, it's like, hey, get over your fears because you have to recognize that when you're acting in fear, you'll have a less desirable outcome than if you can get over it. Calm down, sip, you know, observe or decide.

• 1:00:11Jocko Willink?

  No doubt about it.

• 1:00:13Jocko Willink?

  All right, what about, what about just playing leadership challenges? I mean, here we are, stressful deployment.

• 1:00:17Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 1:00:18Jocko Willink?

  It was, it was the most stressful deployment that anybody had had up until that point in Iraq.

• 1:00:24Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 1:00:26Jocko Willink?

  And even talking to, you know, the Vietnam guys, this was a stressful deployment.

• 1:00:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:00:31Jocko Willink?

  A very stressful deployment in the amount of combat that was happening.

• 1:00:36Speaker 02

  Well, urban combat, things happen so fast.

• 1:00:38Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 1:00:40Jocko Willink?

  So, but from a leadership perspective, what did you, was there anything that you didn't expect? Was there any lesson that got confirmed?

• 1:00:48Speaker 02

  Yeah. So, and it's funny because, you know, over time in the deployment, you really mature. Even in a short amount of time. And I'll, and I'll give you a quick, a quick story. So it was, it was one of my last ops before I left country. And there was another unit that had come in to kind of partner up with us. And we went and did this op. And so the officer in that unit, who's a good friend of mine, by the way, was, it might've been his second combat op, right? And so I've been on, I don't even know how many at that point. And so we went and did this operation and it involved some army units. And so we're sitting in this position and so,

• 1:01:32Speaker 02

  like classic blunder, the army guy who's sitting there is on the rooftop and he's smoking a cigarette. Like, like the classic World War II sniper victim, smoking a cigarette. Trail of smoke going up. And I mean, this is classic, I mean, single sniper shot. Shoots him and it, it just, I mean, it misses his face. Well, let me put it this way, it took his earlobe off, right? Round cracks into the wall behind us, that's it. Immediately, everybody just like, blah, like just unloads firefight, right? And so we're calling in medevac for this guy because it kind of, it still cut him pretty good.

• 1:02:15Speaker 02

  And I'm trying to figure out if there's going to be any more fire, whatever the situation is. So, so this guy's like, well, I'm like, hey, so, time to call a QRF and get out of here. He's like, well, you know, I think, I'm like, you think what, dude? What else do you think is possibly going to come from this? And, you know, I mean, I probably would have thought, hey, maybe we can still get something from this. It was my first or second, right? But it was just clear, like, I mean, at this point, I mean, we've already, we've already got a lot of guys hurt on this deployment. We've already lost Mark and a few other guys, you know, Biggles has already been shot at this point. So.

• 1:02:53Speaker 02

  You have to weigh like what, what more are you going to gain? I mean, first of all, this guy just, this sniper just got a bead on this guy. I mean, and by the grace of God, he is still alive. And we've shot like, so what else is going to happen? I mean, they're either just going to set up and get a better position or get another shot. But they certainly aren't going to do anything. We certainly aren't going to see anything that they don't want us to see at this point. So the battlefield is lost. I mean, this op is, it's over. It's, it's time to pull chalks and go. So anyway, the army came and busted down this wall with the fighting. It was awesome. I mean, I love the fighting, Bradley fighting vehicle. But you know, that's just sort of like a quick, it's like obvious, it's obvious to me at that point. And on a Monday morning, you know, quarterback 10 years later, as I'm explaining

• 1:03:36Speaker 02

  this, like anybody's listening and go, well, yeah, obviously time to go, right? But you know what? You're in that position and guys are still trying to get after it. And there's still things going on out there. You might think, well, maybe there's still something we can do here.

• 1:03:47Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And by the way, the, there was other times where similar situations happened and different decisions were made and they worked out great.

• 1:03:55Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 1:03:55Jocko Willink?

  You know, and so I think your overall statement is like you gained perspective.

• 1:04:03Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:04:03Jocko Willink?

  Over time and you're able to look at things from a, from a better perspective and from higher altitude, for a lack of a better way to say it, you're able to understand what's happening on the battlefield more. And that's definitely something that if people are listening and it's something that they want to become aware, it's, it's something that you can actually act on. Because that perspective, it can be gained through time and experience, but it can also be gained by detachment and saying, okay, what am I really doing here right now? What are we really going to gain? And you can make a faster progress down the line to have, to make good judgment calls based on not just experience, but just on knowledge and, and trying to capture the right perspective at the right time.

• 1:04:48Speaker 02

  Plus a big tactic for, for those guys was slowly evolving and, and happened after we left.

• 1:04:55Jocko Willink?

  So is there anything else that you start, that, that you learned again, that you didn't expect or that was useful for you?

• 1:05:07Jocko Willink?

  From a leadership perspective?

• 1:05:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, so you know, I found myself in a position a lot of times of kind of stitching the, keeping the platoon stitched together. You know, because in an intense situation, guys start to have different opinions about things, you know?

• 1:05:21Jocko Willink?

  They do indeed.

• 1:05:22Speaker 02

  Yep. And so, um, so on this deployment, I was not the platoon commander, right? My good friend was the platoon commander. And when you're in a position of leadership, you're making a lot of hard decisions. And not everybody always agrees with the decision that gets made. And so a lot of times, the role I needed to fill was to back my platoon commander and continue to keep the platoon together behind the platoon commander. Cause he, he had, he was tasked with making some hard decisions.

• 1:05:51Speaker 02

  So, um, sometimes it was, you know, sometimes, you know, so look, I would just, the analogy I would give to you is that you may be in a role in a company, in an organization where the best thing you can do to be part of the team is to help keep the team on focus for the mission. And that might mean, you know, spending some time with one or two guys who are over here, uh, uh, having a disagreement about the decision or which way things are going.

• 1:06:18Jocko Willink?

  And truly, one of the best ways that you end up having to do that or doing that is number one, you build the relationships with the guys.

• 1:06:24Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:06:25Jocko Willink?

  So they know and trust you. Number two, your platoon commander is got a lot of stuff on his plate.

• 1:06:32Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:06:32Jocko Willink?

  And so one of the easiest things for him to cut short is the guys of, of explaining, hey, here's why this is going on. Here's how, why this is gonna, so you as the intermediary said, okay, I know what he's doing. I know why he's making this decision. Let me explain this down the chain of command.

• 1:06:48Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 1:06:49Jocko Willink?

  And that's so helpful, so helpful.

• 1:06:51Speaker 02

  And when you've got guys in a platoon or any organization, a high performing organization that are really strong willed and have strong opinions. And, and by the way, are intelligent and can make really articulate points as to why they don't agree with something. You know, again, my role in that, in that situation was to ensure that mission success continued to happen, that we were still effective as a unit. And that meant me kind of behind the scenes, trying to keep, keep some guys on board.

• 1:07:18Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And it's interesting. I'm sure people have noted this already, but. When you said there's these different people inside of a platoon, I mean, just if you listen to the podcast that I just did with retired senior chief Tony Affrati. And you, you guys' personalities are are very, very different, very, very different. And that's just some of what you get in a SEAL platoon. And you know what? It's not just some would get in a SEAL platoon, it's some of what you get in any organization.

• 1:07:45Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 1:07:46Jocko Willink?

  There's no clones, there's not people being turned out. They can have the same background, they can go to the same school, they can have the same level of experience, they can be totally different people. That's the way it is, and that's the way it is in SEAL teams, and that's the way it is in every organization.

• 1:07:58Speaker 02

  It's part of why we're so good, right? Because you got guys that think differently, they look at problems differently.

• 1:08:01Jocko Willink?

  Yes. But I like the fact of what you're saying is you had to be, you found yourself in the role of, okay, you know what? I gotta make sure that the guys understand where the platoon commander's coming from. With the guy that if there's something that actually makes sense, I gotta bring it back to platoon commander and say, look, this isn't one of the guys, you know, complaining about something. Here's the legitimate point that's being made.

• 1:08:22Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:08:23Jocko Willink?

  And then you guys can have that discussion, maybe brings in one of those guys and say, okay, tell me what you're talking about here. And then you guys can move forward and come up with the best possible plan. But yeah, as a peacemaker, for all practical purposes, is is what's is where you what you end up being. And you know, before, the one other

• 1:08:46Jocko Willink?

  peacemakers needed, because there wasn't a lot of peace over there. Not a lot of peace. And one of the stories, I think that little Mikey story here that kind of shows you the level of violence that was happening in Ramadi. So I came to visit, because I was I was on the other side of Ramadi and the guys from Delta. First, a small section of guys from Delta, and then all of them ended up on the on the eastern side of Ramadi with the first, the 506 Band of Brothers. Awesome, outstanding unit, amazing guys to a man and with an amazing commander.

• 1:09:28Jocko Willink?

  But so Delta Platoon ended up over there. Well anyways, I had gone over to, to, to visit, go, go do some ops with them and see what was going on. And when I showed up, you know, I showed up and, and this was a few, this is probably like a month and a half in. Uh, because the guys had taken over some crappy, uh, building and

• 1:09:51Speaker 02

  Full Metal Jacket.

• 1:09:52Jocko Willink?

  Full Metal Jacket and had built it out FMJ. So if you guys seen the movie Full Metal Jacket, that's a, a, a scene in the movie where these guys, these buildings are all blown out. Well, this building where not, not just the SEALs, but a bunch of guys, army guys lived in this building and it was all blown out and it looked like

• 1:10:09Speaker 02

  It's awesome.

• 1:10:10Jocko Willink?

  It was awesome. It looked like Full Metal Jacket. And when we first got in there, the first one, when we first went out there, it was dirt, it was literally dirt floors, just mosquitoes everywhere. It was to, it was just horrible. And now some time had passed and the guys, of course, you put SEALs somewhere, they're going to dial some stuff in.

• 1:10:27Speaker 02

  It's the CBs that we had.

• 1:10:28Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, the CBs we had.

• 1:10:29Speaker 02

  Oh my gosh.

• 1:10:30Jocko Willink?

  The CBs we had were phenomenal. And if you don't know what CBs are, they're, they're sort of the Navy's version of engineers and they're, they're fanatically hard workers. And the crew that we had with us in Ramadi, that was, that was, we, they were part of our task unit. They were just total hard chargers and bust their ass and make stuff happen. So they had, and the other thing, the other thing you have to do when you're a CB is you have to learn to acquire things.

• 1:10:55Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:10:56Jocko Willink?

  Because there's a lack of things in combat zones.

• 1:10:59Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 1:10:59Jocko Willink?

  And so your good CB can come up with, let's call it, you know, a hundred and twenty sheets of four by eight plywood.

• 1:11:07Speaker 02

  Right. That, our master, our CB master chief was awesome. When we got there, dude, they had, they had these racks built out for us in this blown out concrete building. That had like shelves and stairs to go to the upper, dude, it was awesome.

• 1:11:21Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. It was, so they take, they, that's what they had done. It's taken and just built the, like into these basically small plywood condominiums inside the Full Metal Jacket. And I, so I showed up there one time and, you know, we're hanging out and, you know, the platoon commander's giving me a little debrief on stuff and just kind of telling me how things are going. And then someone says, uh, hey, did you see Mikey's video? And I go, I go, no. And I go, go, go see Mikey's video. And so I go, okay, so they go, his room is back there. And what does his room say on it?

• 1:11:53Speaker 02

  Oh, man.

• 1:11:53Jocko Willink?

  Like Mikey's Palace or something like that?

• 1:11:55Speaker 02

  So I've got a great story about Mikey's Palace, by the way, so.

• 1:11:58Jocko Willink?

  Go ahead. Let's hear about Mikey's Palace.

• 1:12:00Speaker 02

  So the, so the Seabees had built these awesome plywood paradise for us and um, so you know, people will sleep, we would sleep at all different times, right? I mean, daytime, nighttime, whatever, because the op cycle was so intense. And so everything was totally blacked out. And I got like an odd sleeping style. Like I could, well, as a mole rat, you know, we have slightly different cycle. So Mikey had a different cycle. Like everybody would be asleep and I would be awake and be like, ah, I always could find Mikey awake. And Mike, so you go in, you go in, he was on the ground floor. And so you, you'd go down and it was pitch black and you had to like feel your way through it, all these bunks. And then you'd go down around this corner, down this hallway, and you make a sharp right.

• 1:12:41Speaker 02

  And um, and then there'd be this faint glow coming from Mikey's Palace. And so Mikey's bunk was the last one up against the wall. And there was like an extra like three feet between his bunk and the wall, just the way like, the way it worked out. And so he had like these tapestries that his family had sent him hanging from the wall. And uh, and he'd have like poncho liners all hung out, blocking the whole thing out. And so it was all dark. It was like his little cave. And you go back in there and uh, I don't know where he got them. He had like extra pillows on his bunk. And like he had his laptop like, like rigged. That's like a TV screen. He'd be always be watching movies. And he always had all kinds of gedunk back there. So I go back in there and I go in and the glow from Mikey's Palace. I go back in there and then we just sit there. He'd go, hey, man, you want some of these? He'd have beef jerky. He'd have sodas.

• 1:13:26Speaker 02

  He'd have like ramen, ramen noodles. And he'd always have, he had like this heating element, like ones like you plug into the wall. He'd be like, hey, man, and you'd hook up the heating element, boiling water right there with some ramen. I could, if ever I was hungry in the middle of the night, I could get down there to Mikey's Palace. I knew I could get some grub. And he and I'd hang out and watch movies and stuff. And uh, he was always up weird hours like me and it was just cool, man. He had this, yeah, it was cool. Pictures, posters hanging on the wall. He had that thing tricked out.

• 1:13:53Jocko Willink?

  Dialed.

• 1:13:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:13:55Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. So these guys are like, hey, have you seen Mikey's movie? And I go, no. So they go, well, go back to Mikey's Palace and check it out. And so I make my way back there, same thing. You know, you're making your way back there in the dark at the headlamp on, even though it's noon or something like that outside, but the place is blacked out. Anyways, I get back there and. I'm like Mikey and and he he didn't know I was at that I was at Craigador, you know? So he was just, you know, kind of like hop to or whatever in a very, I don't want to make that sound too extreme, you know, but he was surprised to see the commander, right? But anyways, I'm like, Mikey, he's like, oh, he's like, hey, you know, and he's all chill. And I said, hey, let me see your movie, man. And he gets a smile on his face and I go, okay, this this must be interesting.

• 1:14:40Jocko Willink?

  So anyways, he breaks out his camera, he's showing me the movie on the camera, right? But it's got volume and I'm sitting there watching it. And anyways, the the movie is it's a a big firefight going on. It's just there's this is a big, bad firefight. There's machine gun fire going off and he's literally sticking his hand up with the camera above the edge of a rooftop and he's filming. You can see stuff getting shot and whatever. And then the funny part is he brings the camera down. He's, you know, hiding in this rooftop and he points the camera at himself. And the area of Ramadi that they were working in was a place called the Malab district. And like many things in the military, it had taken on its own little life, its own little legend, the Malab district.

• 1:15:22Jocko Willink?

  And Mikey points the camera at himself and he says, it's the moolab. The moolab, baby. And so it was really funny and and I get done watching this and of course I'm still, you know, Mr. Big Bad Jocko and and I get done watching it, I go, I go, hey, Mikey. Listen, bro, when you're out there, you shouldn't be filming stuff. You need to be on your gun. I mean, that's just, that's just what you need to be doing. You need to get on your gun and and you need to keep shooting. You need to be putting down suppressive fire. And he and he looks at me and he's kind of sheepishly, you know, because he felt bad. And he goes, he goes, uh, he's like, hey, sir, I was out of ammo.

• 1:16:03Jocko Willink?

  And I started laughing because that's probably eight hundred rounds.

• 1:16:06Speaker 02

  Maybe, maybe more, maybe twelve hundred.

• 1:16:09Jocko Willink?

  Probably twelve hundred, just a massive amount of machine gun rounds that he had gone through. And he'd shot them all. That's what Winchester means, means you'd shot, you had nothing left. And he said, you know, sir, I'm sorry, sir, I was I was Winchester. And I just started laughing. I was like, well, if you're Winchester, make some good movies, then I guess, my brother.

• 1:16:28Speaker 02

  He got after.

• 1:16:28Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, so that's another good Mikey story. So.

• 1:16:35Jocko Willink?

  You actually ended up going home early from deployment.

• 1:16:40Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 1:16:40Jocko Willink?

  And because you had another kid on the way.

• 1:16:44Speaker 02

  Yep, Gunner. He, um, and, and the thing is, is it's like, gosh, I mean hindsight's 2020, man. You know, when, when, man, when this stuff goes like this.

• 1:16:59Speaker 02

  We had planned, we knew that that was going to be the end of the deployment. And so it's like, all right, cool, you know, you just go back with the, with the Advon for the redeploy. And so that was all part of the plan, um, from day one, basically. All right, cool. Um, because my first son had been born on my last deployment. So as it was, and, and by the way, so start heading back. Wife gives birth early anyway. So there you go, two deployments, two kids, not there. Common story for a lot of military guys, um, but for people who are not, you know, I mean, imagine like you're not being there for your, for either of your kids. My wife, she's a trooper, but she was running out of steam. Um, so it was cool to be able to go back and at least try to be there. Uh, but Gunner's always been in a hurry. So he came early.

• 1:17:39Speaker 02

  Um, and then, so, yeah, went back, um, start handling the redeploy and.

• 1:17:45Jocko Willink?

  So by that, he means we're, some guy comes home from deployment a little bit early to start basically preparing for us to come home, getting ready for all the administrative stuff that's going to take place. And Andrew was that guy making that happen.

• 1:17:59Speaker 02

  And then there was like three other guys that like a week later came and followed me too. So it was, it was, you know, near the end, but a tough, but a tough call anyway. And then, um, I mean, I remember where I was when, when I got the award. So, you know, I was back at the team and, uh, I was, I was actually chatting with Delta Platoon Commander,

• 1:18:22Speaker 02

  via a method that we use. And he, uh, and so I knew they were going out. And, um, and I mean, I distinctly remember going, all right, man, get some, get some for me, you know? And, uh, so I was home, I got the call at like. 12:30 at night, um, our time, local. And, uh, so I knew right away that it was one of our guys. Uh, they wouldn't, you know, nothing over the, you know, over the phone specifically, but I knew because I had just talked to our guys, you know? And I was like, God almighty. So I raced into. So you get the call that just says, come to work? Yep. Get to work. And I'm like, all right. So, and admittedly, I'm a little frantic, you know? Because these are my brothers, you know, and I'm not there. That's really hard. So.

• 1:19:11Speaker 02

  You know, you can have some survivor's guilt over that kind of thing, you know?

• 1:19:16Speaker 02

  Uh, you know, it seems like, hey, look, we got this. Deployment's basically over.

• 1:19:22Speaker 02

  And go back thinking you're making a right decision, trying to balance stuff with your family.

• 1:19:29Speaker 02

  And then for that to happen, uh, and you know, he's one of my guys. He's one of my guys and I wasn't there. And, uh, that's hard.

• 1:19:41Speaker 02

  You know, it's been almost 10 years now and time helps to heal those kinds of things. But I had a lot of guilt over that. And, um, so anyway, we kind of figure out what's going on. Um, I get the brief and figure out who it is. So, um, start figuring out, okay, so now it's, now it's a race for those of you that don't know. I mean, look, here's the thing. We live in a 24 seven news world. And it's a race to notify the family before they find out through some other means. And, uh, he, you know, lives up in Orange County. So we started assembling a team, um, and you know,

• 1:20:17Speaker 02

  admirals and, uh, Commodores are involved. And, uh, it, look, this is the second guy that we have not lost SEALs in Iraq to this point, Mark and Mike now. So,

• 1:20:33Speaker 02

  you know, who's going to go up and do the notification? And I mean, like, I had to like dig my heels in. I was like, listen, this is my guy. I'm going. And it was at first like, mm, and then I was like, no, no, no, no, I'm going. And thank God I did that because I mean, I wouldn't have had it any other way. Um, we're racing, we put, put the guys together, throw the blues on, we driving up. And, um, you know, look, when we, when we got to Mikey's family's house, um, you know, look, and all they wanted was to talk to somebody who knew Mikey. And the other four guys that were standing there didn't know him, didn't serve with him, didn't work up with him, didn't deploy with him. And, you know, in this grand scheme of God's plan, I have to ask, you know, we pulled over before pulling up the, uh, pulling up to the house and put on our blues. And I literally thought to myself, okay.

• 1:21:20Speaker 02

  That we are about to give the worst possible news to, to a parent. About their kid is dead. And, um, I remember thinking, you know, God, just use me right now. I don't know why I'm here in this timing. Um, but just work, work through me, just use me, you know? Uh, so, you know, we knocked on their door and, and, um, you know, Mrs. Monsoor looked out and she later knew, you know, that we, I mean, she took a few minutes to get to the door. She looked out and saw five men standing there in blues. So that was very hard, you know, you go in and obviously family is upset and you're doing the best you can to keep it together. I mean, for me, this was my guy, this was my brother.

• 1:22:05Speaker 02

  And I'm standing there giving them the news and trying to keep it together myself. And, um, you know, they, the good news is, is that one by one, they sort of looked around and said, well, did anybody know Mikey? And I was like, yeah, I knew Mikey, he was mine. And, uh, so they, you know, politely asked everybody to leave, uh, but wanted me to stay and just talk about the deployment, tell stories about Mikey, what he was like, what was going on.

• 1:22:31Jocko Willink?

  And, you know, I want to, uh,

• 1:22:36Jocko Willink?

  the Monsoor are an unbelievable family. And I totally want to respect their privacy.

• 1:22:43Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 1:22:43Jocko Willink?

  Their private family. Um, and they're just, they've just been so amazingly humble and gracious through this whole thing. And I just don't want to sit here and tell stories about, about this.

• 1:22:58Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:22:58Jocko Willink?

  I don't want to do it. Um.

• 1:23:06Jocko Willink?

  One of the things that the only, the only thing I'll, I'll say about this again, out of disrespect for the Monsoor family.

• 1:23:16Jocko Willink?

  Um, is when, when you just said about, about, um, you telling them what deployment was like. Well, in talking to them, one of the things that they said was their impression of the deployment. So, so like I said, and you guys have heard stories about Ramadi and you could go and, you can go on YouTube and just put Ramadi 2006 and you'll see what Ramadi was like. That's what Ramadi was like. And it was incredibly violent and crazy. And these guys,

• 1:23:53Jocko Willink?

  Charlie and Delton were in the thick of it, in the thick of it. On a almost daily basis. And the reason I'm building that up is because the emails that Mikey had sent home to his family were, "Oh yeah, having fun. Not much going on here." Right. "Don't worry about me. We're just training some Iraqis. Don't worry about me. Oh, we're just, we're just, uh, trying to work on the infrastructure. Don't worry about me. It's all good here. I'll be home in a little bit." Those are the kind of emails that he was sending home in order to make sure that his family wasn't worried about him. Right. And it shows you what kind of a guy that Mikey was.

• 1:24:34Jocko Willink?

  Um, so, so

• 1:24:39Jocko Willink?

  any, is there anything else again, without, without going into your personal, you know, your personal interactions with this incredible family? That you want to say, and maybe from the perspective of

• 1:24:57Jocko Willink?

  As much as I hate to say this, there's gonna be other people that are gonna do this job. Being this person that does the notification. Is there anything else that you could give advice to people that have to do this job? Or, you know, if that ever befalls people that are, we get a lot. Andrew, we get a lot of military guys that that reach out to me all the time that are active duty, that are doing work. And anything that strikes you as something that you learned from this experience?

• 1:25:28Speaker 02

  Here's what I learned is the worst thing I've ever done in my life. And the worst thing. And combat itself was a piece of cake compared to this. I would love to go back to combat. Any issues or concerns or anything from my military service was completely centered around this. It is an extremely heavy burden to bear. So if you are ever in this position, I don't have any good advice for you. There's nothing you can do to prepare yourself for this type of situation. The only thing I could tell you is reach out to guys who've done it before. I will gladly talk you through it because one of the best salves that I've found for this kind of pain is hanging out with your brothers and spending time with them.

• 1:26:11Speaker 02

  I will always have time for someone who's had to be a Kegel, always. Call me, let's go out, let's hang out. I won't suggest drinking a beer, but if a beer is what you want to do, we'll do it. But the bottom line is, is that just the intimacy of being around another guy who's been there is very comforting. And so, you know, when you go through a stressful situation like this, do not isolate yourself. There are other guys who have been through this and and a true brother will be willing to take the time for you. I'll find the time for you, no matter what, no matter how busy I am. And so I just want to be a resource. Now, I know that there's only so many hours in the day, but if you're going through something, if you've gone through something like this, reach out to your brothers. Find a connection to another military guy. Cause nobody can understand it like another military guy.

• 1:26:56Speaker 02

  And that's part of the stress of it. Part of the stress of it is that you don't feel like you can possibly explain what you're dealing with to anybody else. There's no way they could possibly understand and comprehend it. But another guy who's been to combat can. And we can sit in the room next to each other, even if we sat there and said nothing, we would get each other. And so you gotta reach out to each other. Do not isolate.

• 1:27:17Jocko Willink?

  That's, that's great advice. And actually, one thing that's very interesting to me is that I get emails from guys and they're basically doing that. They're gonna do that right now with us. There's some of those guys out there that are, that are going, okay.

• 1:27:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:27:35Jocko Willink?

  And, and the message is, yeah, I mean,

• 1:27:39Jocko Willink?

  the military guys that have been through this kind of stuff before, again, I was never Kiko. I never even came home for my guys, you know, there was another kind of,

• 1:27:49Jocko Willink?

  another kind of misery, I guess, to just know you're just sending people home.

• 1:27:55Jocko Willink?

  It's awful.

• 1:27:58Jocko Willink?

  But yeah, don't isolate yourself. Talk to your brothers. Find them and tell them what you're thinking about.

• 1:28:06Speaker 02

  Yeah. And, and this is awesome, right? Because Twitter and Facebook and messages like this, you know, we can kind of reconnect, you know? We can kind of talk about doing some cool stuff together, whether it's jujitsu or running a badass race or doing something to challenge you physically or mentally. We all can kind of give ourselves a electronic high five, you know, through something badass you're still doing today. And you know what? Here's the other thing too, transition man, man. So, so, so, so

• 1:28:33Speaker 02

  we, so that happens, I'm home and in February 2007, I get off active duty and I go.

• 1:28:40Jocko Willink?

  So for those of you that don't track in the calendar here, Mikey died September 29th, 2006. That whole thing unfolds. We got home. I got home. I was the last, with the last group to leave and we left Ramadi October 21st. Took us a couple of days to get home, but now we're home. We get post deployment leave. We reassemble, do post deployment, kind of debrief types up, then we get post deployment leave. So now you're talking, it's December, all of a sudden December, you know, October, it's November, it's now it's Thanksgiving, now all of a sudden it's December, boom. And. So not much time has gone by. It's been packed and February, you're getting out of the Navy.

• 1:29:22Speaker 02

  I'm gone. And that war machine keeps cranking, by the way. So the guys are back, they're ready to do another platoon. They're doing pre-deployment work, whatever dude, whatever. It just, it keeps on cranking. And, and then poof, I'm out of the Navy. And I jumped right into the mortgage business. Cause you know, nothing like a natural transition from the SEAL teams and the battlefield of Ramadi to doing 30-year fixed mortgages.

• 1:29:45Jocko Willink?

  And it's, and it's 2007 though. So you actually weren't doing fixed mortgages for 30 years. The mortgage industry, for those of you that don't know, the mortgage industry in 2007 was a place where a lot of people were making a ton of money. And it was about to all come to a screech.

• 1:30:02Speaker 02

  I was not making a ton of money. I would just like to add, I was brand new, right? So I leave this steady two-week paycheck, brotherhood and a job I'd wanted to do. My entire adult life at that point. And had just come from great deployment and get into mortgage. Now I did that because I need to be home. And by the way, as much as the struggle was to get out and, and I really, my heart was truly torn in two opposite directions. Um, man, I look back in the last nine, 10 years that I've had, the opportunity to raise and shape my two young boys, to be the young men that they're becoming have been absolutely priceless. And, but you know, so I found myself February, sitting in the quiet office of a mortgage office at like 6:30 in the morning.

• 1:30:45Speaker 02

  Cause that's just how I roll. I got a key. I'm going to get in there early. I'm going to figure it out. And then nobody, first guy's not showing up at like nine, you know, I'm in there reading guideline books, trying to just, you know, I have no, I have no paycheck. I have no income. And so, man, it got rough. I started to struggle. I'm struggling financially, for one thing. I'm struggling emotionally. Um, I'm struggling in building new relationships and you know, kind of like a little bit of a chip on the shoulder and a sort of a little bit of an attitude from combat to trying to build relationships in the civilian world. And that was tough. Um, but I mean, there were mornings I sat there quietly. And by the way, that picture that you talked about at the beginning of this deal, I have that hanging on my wall. I look at it every single day. And, um,

• 1:31:31Speaker 02

  One of the things that continued to drive me, and for military guys who are listening, as corny as this may sound, the legacy of my brothers is what drives me. The opportunity to help my fellow veterans drives me. Because, you know, doing mortgages, yeah, not super exciting, right? But I sat there quietly trying to figure it out. I all, I got divorced, I lost a house to foreclosure, I sold another house. There's a time when I looked over and my young son Gunner is sleeping on the floor. I got no furniture in the house, a house that's days from, it's already been foreclosed and it's days away from the sheriff coming to say, "Get out." And that drives me.

• 1:32:11Speaker 02

  And I think about Mikey and the sacrifice that Mikey and Mark made, and it drives me. Because they made a sacrifice. And in some ways, this is, this is bad talk right here. In some ways, I beat myself up that I wasn't on the roof that day with Mikey. Because that was my platoon. And I came home early for my son. And then I think, "Well, if I had been on that roof, maybe it could have been me." And then there wouldn't be a father there to raise Gunner and to raise Tristan into the next generation of warriors. And either way, the sacrifice that Mikey made, he made that so that I could live.

• 1:32:50Speaker 02

  And I have an obligation to use every ounce of my ability, to use my mind and my body and my drive and my determination to fight and kick and scratch every single day to honor his legacy, to build and to mentor young men, to help my fellow veterans and to make this country a greater country. And all of those things, the more I do, the more I feel like I can honor Mikey and his legacy. And to do anything else would be to slight the great sacrifice that he made. And so, think of your brothers, if you're in the military and you're out now and you're trying to figure out, think of your brothers, honor them.

• 1:33:31Jocko Willink?

  Andrew, you and I were having dinner, uh, actually, we were having dinner at the christening of the USS Michael Monsoor.

• 1:33:39Speaker 02

  Awesome ship.

• 1:33:40Jocko Willink?

  And you were going into that situation and you just kinda rattled it off just now, like it wasn't no big thing, right? Your kid is sleeping on the floor because you have no bed, no furniture. You're that, by the way, that, that paycheck you've been accustomed to getting for whatever, five years in the, in the Navy is gone.

• 1:34:00Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:34:00Jocko Willink?

  When, when you get out of the military after five years, you don't get anything. You get nothing. So you have no paycheck coming in, but there's no salary in the mortgage industry.

• 1:34:08Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:34:09Jocko Willink?

  So it's all a hundred percent commission. Your son is sleeping on the floor because you have no furniture.

• 1:34:15Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:34:15Jocko Willink?

  You foreclosed on one house, you short sold another house, and you're about to get evicted. That's your life at this point.

• 1:34:24Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:34:26Jocko Willink?

  Not to mention, in the back of your mind, or in the front of your mind, you got this thought that Mikey died and you weren't there.

• 1:34:40Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:34:42Jocko Willink?

  How did you look at all that? And shrug your shoulders, grit your teeth, and say, "I'm gonna kick this thing's ass." Where did you start?

• 1:35:00Speaker 02

  At the very bottom. I'd like to think I bounced because I hit so hard. Never give up. The legacy of my teammates, I mean, here's the deal. I think about guys that are committing suicide today, or thinking about committing suicide, and think about this, do you wanna give that nasty enemy even one more victory? Fuck them. I am going to win because I am not going to let them defeat me.

• 1:35:39Speaker 02

  And I look at my boys, I prayed a lot, right? For me, it's my faith. And Jesus Christ saved me. So I keep fighting. And you know what? That's just never gonna quit, never. You are not done until you're six feet under. You ain't done. I would tell you, if I ever found myself in combat, where I was shot and dying, and often my own in Afghanistan or something like that, for example, I would take the last grenade I had, pull the pin and lay it underneath myself. So that when the enemy came to try and get my gear, they'd blow themselves up. Because I am not done until I am gone.

• 1:36:21Speaker 02

  And even then, if you've laid the right foundation, the legacy you leave, the messages and what you've done to help the next generation, that's it. I'm just never gonna quit, never. You can knock me down and I will get back up. You can knock me down and I will get back up. I will get back up. I will get back up.

• 1:36:38Jocko Willink?

  And obviously, well, for those of you that don't know, because you don't know Andrew, he did get back up. He absolutely got back up. He now runs a very successful business and is out kicking ass on a daily basis and taking names. And it's been, you know, a lot of this, you know, again, whenever I look at myself and I went on this big little, or I went on this big kind of

• 1:37:04Jocko Willink?

  tirade about how you need to mentor your people and all that, and take care of your brothers. Well, guess what? You know where I was when Andrew was going through this shit? I was working. I was working. He didn't call me, he didn't, and I didn't make myself available. You know, so you go, you know, taking care of, of your friends goes beyond just when they ask for help. You need to seek them out and make sure that they're doing all right. Because I let him go and that was that. He got out of the Navy and it was bye bye.

• 1:37:40Speaker 02

  And keep in mind, I wasn't gonna come and ask you because maybe I was a little embarrassed, you know, about how dire my situation was. So if you're a leader, just know, just like kids who are going through BUDs, they're gonna hide their injuries, right? Because, you know, I don't want to come to the guy who I respect and say, hey, I am flat out right now, bro. You know, so I'm just gonna keep digging. And I know we've talked about it. You're like, man, why didn't you come to me? I don't, you know what? It wasn't in my nature to do so.

• 1:38:04Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:06Speaker 02

  Maybe that wasn't the best decision. Maybe I should have reached out, but either way, I wasn't gonna quit.

• 1:38:14Jocko Willink?

  Well, that's awesome. And it's awesome to see what you've done and see where you're at now. Like I said, kicking ass and taking names and raising two badass young men.

• 1:38:26Speaker 02

  They're good boys, man. The next generation of warriors. That's one of the things I've become passionate about. I'll tell you, you know,

• 1:38:32Speaker 02

  when you get out and you transition, it's hard because you leave this brotherhood, you leave this common sense, this common goal. And you know, you're fighting for freedom, you're fighting for liberty, and you're fighting for your brother and your sister, your right and left. And then you get into some job where you're sitting at a desk, typing on a computer, which is boring. Um, so you have to, look, here's the deal. You have to find a purpose behind what you're doing. And mortgages, like seriously, jumping out of planes, blowing things up, shooting guns, diving, re, there's a hall, all high ends up to doing thirty year fixed mortgages? I mean, wah, wah. I mean, how do you, how do you get excited about that? Look, you don't. You don't get excited about doing that, right? I'm gonna be honest with you. What you get excited about is something else behind it.

• 1:39:13Speaker 02

  And for me, it's helping my fellow veterans. So, for those of you don't know, ninety percent of my business, I do VA loans. Okay? So, why? Because I want to help my fellow veterans. Nobody will take care of a veteran better than I will. And that's, that's, that's my mantra, right? If, if, if a guy goes down the street, he will not be taken care of better than if he comes to me. Because I am deeply passionate about helping my fellow veterans. And that's how I get passionate about the job that I do now. I find a purpose behind what I'm doing. And so you might be in some job now that you're out, and you might be like, God, this sucks, you know? But find a reason behind it. It could be a small thing, right? Like there were jobs in the military that sucked. There were jobs, there's parts of every job that sucks. You've just got to deal with it. That's life. And find a purpose behind what you're doing.

• 1:39:57Speaker 02

  And then, and then I'll just tell you, this is a, this is like one of these secrets of life that I have found. Life is easier when you find a way to help somebody else. When you find a way to help somebody else, miraculously, your problems begin to go away. So, focus on somebody else's problems and how you can help them. And all of a sudden, you forget about yours. And so, find a way to help other veterans. I see guys, I see veterans today who are, who have been blown up and lost limbs and have been in similar difficult situations. And they are making, they're doing fantastic because they've started organizations, or are leading organizations, or are deeply involved in organizations that are helping fellow veterans. And there it is. It's like this, it's like this miracle.

• 1:40:39Speaker 02

  You set out to help somebody else and all of a sudden, your problems just seem to melt away. So if you're struggling right now,

• 1:40:47Speaker 02

  you can reach out to me, Facebook, Twitter, whatever. Just share your story, connect, and then find a way to help someone else. And do it in a way that you're passionate about, man. I mean, I'm passionate about raising my two boys into the next generation of warriors. I'm, I'm passionate about, I mean, first, look around at the spineless cowards that society is raising today. Who is raising the next generation of warriors to keep America the greatest country on the planet? This generation that says that everybody gets a trophy. That you get a freaking graduation certificate when you graduate from first grade. That's bullshit. Alright, so.

• 1:41:30Jocko Willink?

  You get a piece of coal and a kick in the ass.

• 1:41:32Speaker 02

  That's right. You get something when you earn something. And so, raising my boys into hard young men to become gentlemen, strong warriors, men of character, who will, who will have a spine and stand for something. That's what we need to do. And those of you guys who've been to combat, served in our military, you know how to do that. If you don't have kids, find a way to get involved in local high school. Maybe a local middle school. And set, be a role model and set an example for some young boys to be the next generation of badass American warriors who will stand for and protect this country and protect liberty. That's something to get pretty excited about. I get passionate about that.

• 1:42:12Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's something that everybody needs to get passionate about. And like you said, especially the veterans that. That no one understand that and they no one understand and appreciate what real freedom is.

• 1:42:22Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 1:42:25Jocko Willink?

  Well, I think that's

• 1:42:28Jocko Willink?

  all we've got for tonight. Did you have any closing comments? I think you just about summed up.

• 1:42:37Jocko Willink?

  Well, first and foremost, Andrew, thanks for your service. Thank you for answering the nation's call and I appreciate what you did for me and what you did for the teams. Thanks for coming on the podcast and sharing your lessons learned, not only about combat, but about what comes after combat.

• 1:43:00Jocko Willink?

  And for those of you out there listening to the podcast and you want to keep listening to the podcast, you want to support the podcast. My brother Echo Charles is going to tell you how to do that.

• 1:43:13Speaker 01

  Before I tell you, I actually have a question.

• 1:43:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:43:15Speaker 01

  This is a way light-hearted question compared to, you know.

• 1:43:18Speaker 02

  Let's go.

• 1:43:20Speaker 01

  So when you go into the mortgage industry.

• 1:43:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:43:22Speaker 01

  And you know, there's other people in the office as well. Like what did they think about, did they know, you know, your, your, your past?

• 1:43:29Speaker 02

  They find out, you know, but it's hard too, right? Because in the SEAL teams, we have, we have a quiet professionalism. And so one of the things that I've struggled with is, you know, look, I'm certainly proud of my service, but I don't want to use my service and my background in the SEAL teams as a way to advertise. And they're, I mean, they're douchebags in the mortgage business who prey on military, dude. And, and they've got some great fancy marketing, but their heart's not in the right place. So relationships little by little, it, it, it sneaks out and it's fine if other people know. But no, I don't walk in there and tell people that, hey, I'm a Navy SEAL. I mean,

• 1:44:04Jocko Willink?

  Tony was just on it. And, and I don't know why we've never talked about this before. I've never talked about this before. But like anyone that actually calls themselves a Navy SEAL is like suspect. Right. You go, hey, how's it going? I'm a Navy SEAL or I wasn't a Navy SEAL. That's just so like, you can tell immediately you're going, wait a second, what's this guy's deal?

• 1:44:18Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:44:19Jocko Willink?

  No, no.

• 1:44:22Speaker 01

  But like you, like, okay, Jocko walks in. We meet Jocko, for example. And he's, you know, whatever he's Jocko, we're going to be kind of like, hey.

• 1:44:34Speaker 01

  Are you a Navy SEAL? Kind of thing, but you, you're kind of like an everyday guy kind of thing. So you're like, kind of like the guy in the movie. Who they show him working or whatever, and it flashes back to his past and he's kind of the superhero, you know? You're like one of those kind of guys.

• 1:44:50Speaker 01

  Do they like, do you think that they looked at you like that? Like, oh yeah, you're just, you know, our guy coworker kind of thing, but, and then maybe one guy heard a rumor. Hey, this guy is, you know, this, this hardened warrior in there. The other guy's like, no, no, no way. Look at that guy, you know what I mean?

• 1:45:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's, um, and that's how I'd prefer it. I mean, I'd rather be.

• 1:45:07Speaker 01

  Oh, they're not knowing.

• 1:45:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'd rather be in the shadow. I mean, cause look, here's the deal. None of us do this for accolade. None of us do this for the look at me. And the guys who advertise it, like Jocko was saying, they're suspect because they probably didn't really do it, you know? Um, but I'd say probably one of the best compliments I probably ever got was I, I heard about a conversation that happened when I wasn't there. And this guy was like, hey, yeah, did you know that guy's a Navy SEAL? And the other person said, no, no way. That guy's, he's so nice. You know?

• 1:45:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. That's what I mean.

• 1:45:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'd rather be, I'd rather be stealth like that.

• 1:45:40Speaker 01

  You know what makes it even more interesting is again, we'll use Jocko as an example. If Jocko kind of walks in a room and guys, you know, let's say a troublemaker guy. They're gonna look at him and be like, ah, I don't know, I'm not starting anything with this guy. Big, he may or may not have been a, you know, a team guy. But then you, you don't have that to look at you, you know? But not only.

• 1:46:01Speaker 01

  And you know jujitsu though. To me, that makes it even more, but that's all you need, really. So it makes it that much more interesting to me, you know?

• 1:46:10Speaker 02

  And, and it's great, right? Because you know what? A lot of times. I would say more often than not, when we, if we were out as a platoon, guys would actually want to start a fight with a guy that looks like Jocko. Because they're, they're looking to like test themselves.

• 1:46:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:46:24Speaker 02

  Whereas like guys, I mean, that would be a massive miscalculation.

• 1:46:27Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:46:28Speaker 02

  Like really end of life event, extinction life event kind of decision. To be, not to counter, I know exactly what you're saying, but like.

• 1:46:37Jocko Willink?

  The, the, the facts are, people don't mess with me when I'm out in public.

• 1:46:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:46:41Jocko Willink?

  They just don't. But I know exactly what you're talking about. It's always some big guy, the tall guy, get somebody coming up to him. And, uh, and actually, you know, you and I talked about this too. For those of you on the podcast, you can't, that are listening. Andrew doesn't look like stereotypical SEAL. He's 155 pounds. He's, what, how tall are you?

• 1:46:58Speaker 02

  Five, seven.

• 1:46:59Jocko Willink?

  Five, seven. Susan, look, he's not your stereot- not your stereotypical SEAL looking guy. Now again.

• 1:47:05Speaker 02

  That the public would think.

• 1:47:06Jocko Willink?

  That the public would think. Cause I was gonna say, there's no stereotype and some of the most badass guys are, they're every size. But this is something that Andrew said to me one time, which was, you know, he's, you know, basically people see me and what do they think? They think, oh, this guy, you know, he's just gonna be a knuckle dragger and, and he thinks everybody needs to be big, giant, uh, you know, head smashers, right? And the fact of the matter is, what, what I care about is can you do your job and can you do it well? Are you tough? Are you brave? Can you lead? And that's why Andrew, I, I, he was like actually surprised, like when he, when he finally told me, you know, he's like, man, you know,

• 1:47:49Jocko Willink?

  I was kinda thought you might not like me, you know, because I'm, you know, smaller and, and, you know, I don't look like a SEAL. And I was like, bro, it's not about how, what you look like. It's about how you act. And can you do this job? Are you brave? Are you gonna step up? Can you lead?

• 1:48:07Speaker 02

  Great example of leadership, right? Like that's what you, that's what you, that was one point is you focused on what was the capability of the person on your team, not what they look like. And, and some guys can do that, right? They can, they can go, well, you know, this or that. Um, but you were like, hell, no. I mean, this guy, he puts out, he can get the job done. He's leading. So.

• 1:48:23Jocko Willink?

  You know who you're kinda like is, um, Dalton. You ever watch, uh, Roadhouse?

• 1:48:28Speaker 02

  Oh, I remember. Yeah.

• 1:48:30Speaker 01

  When they're like, hey, I thought you'd be bigger. He's this badass bouncer with this.

• 1:48:33Speaker 02

  Right, right.

• 1:48:34Speaker 01

  Is that a bad comparison? Will that get me killed?

• 1:48:36Jocko Willink?

  Well, he does. He does actually, you know, look a lot like Patrick Swayze there.

• 1:48:40Speaker 02

  Thank you. I appreciate that.

• 1:48:42Speaker 01

  Very handsome, yes.

• 1:48:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'd rather remain stealth, you know, and, and, and use that to my advantage, you know, um, and kind of remain thought as the underdog, you know? He won't see me coming. My, remember we were hanging out at your house, Jocko, and, and Tristan said, he goes, "Hey, who would win in a fight, you or Jocko?" And I was like, "Thanks, buddy." Right in front of Jocko. And I was like, "I'm gonna smash you later." And I go, "Well, I'm not stupid enough to start a fight with Jocko. I will wait till he's asleep."

• 1:49:17Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, awesome. I'm glad we're on the same team, brother.

• 1:49:20Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 1:49:21Speaker 01

  But, yes, if you do want to support this podcast, there are some ways. If you, if you don't know already, uh, we didn't talk about supplementation or many things that would require supplementation, but if you're into it, Onnit has the best ones, common knowledge, I know. 10% off, Onnit.com slash Jocko, 10% off. If you need info on any of these supplements, like the literature behind it, all that stuff, it's on there. Extensively, if you want. 10% off. Support yourself, your wallet as well. Also, when you do Amazon shopping, um, we have a click-through link on our websites, which supports the podcast, you know, when you shop.

• 1:50:05Speaker 01

  And of course, subscribe to the podcast on, uh, iTunes and YouTube.

• 1:50:08Jocko Willink?

  Leave a review.

• 1:50:10Speaker 01

  Leave a review, yeah.

• 1:50:11Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, leave a review. Let, let me know what's up.

• 1:50:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:50:13Jocko Willink?

  Let us know what's up.

• 1:50:15Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, those reviews are helpful, man, 'cause...

• 1:50:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, like if they're like, hey, Jocko, stop saying like, like all the time.

• 1:50:25Jocko Willink?

  No, I don't say like.

• 1:50:26Speaker 01

  Right? That's why.

• 1:50:27Jocko Willink?

  That's why.

• 1:50:28Speaker 01

  You know what I mean? So, yeah, there you go. Um, but you know, yeah, so yeah, leave a review, man, if you're in the mood. And then, uh, of course, Jocko's store, you can buy some shirts, some mugs,

• 1:50:40Speaker 01

  some rash guards, some stickers. Uh, we have women's coming out in three days. It'll be out by the time this is out, it's out. Yeah, women's is out.

• 1:50:49Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:51Speaker 02

  I gotta say, I like the krill oil. I use the krill.

• 1:50:54Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:55Speaker 02

  And I'm on, yeah, and I'm on the, um, I like the, um, the much, what's that?

• 1:51:00Jocko Willink?

  Shroom Tech.

• 1:51:01Speaker 02

  Shroom Tech. That is good to go.

• 1:51:03Speaker 01

  You do the workouts, yeah.

• 1:51:04Jocko Willink?

  You got the Shroom Tech on, huh?

• 1:51:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, I like it.

• 1:51:05Jocko Willink?

  Did I, was I, was I bullshitting you?

• 1:51:07Speaker 02

  You're good to go. I like it.

• 1:51:08Jocko Willink?

  The Shroom Tech is legit.

• 1:51:09Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 1:51:10Jocko Willink?

  As is the krill oil.

• 1:51:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:51:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, the krill oil. I was, I was telling him last time where I started the krill oil and cause I was looking where when I work out, I have strong, you know, sore joints. But I do have sore joints when I wake up. I just never thought about that when people say sore joints and stuff, you know, you just sore my ankle, all this. And my daughter would jump on my back to wake me up. And I gotta walk downstairs with this girl on my back. Take krill oil, maybe three, four days later. No problem. I can get up. I'm walking down the stairs easy, like noticeably, you know?

• 1:51:42Speaker 02

  Nice.

• 1:51:43Speaker 01

  So yeah, krill oil, jump on it.

• 1:51:46Jocko Willink?

  A, uh, also on Amazon. Got that. Get some of that Jocko white tea right here. Tasting good. You can step up your game with the antioxidants and a micro dose of caffeine. Get you rocking and rolling. And while you're out there, just go ahead, just go ahead and grab yourself a, uh, go ahead and grab yourself a copy of Extreme Ownership. The book that me and my brother Leif Babin wrote. And if you already have a copy, that's cool. Just go ahead and get one for your boss, man. Get one for your team, your mom, your dad, whoever. Hardcover digital. Or if you want to hear Leif and I talking for eight straight hours, get the audiobook because that's what it is. And also, if you want even more, come out to the Extreme Ownership

• 1:52:30Jocko Willink?

  Master, October 20th and 21st in San Diego, California. Leadership Conference will be breaking down the fundamental principles of combat leadership and teaching and talking about how to employ them on the battlefield in business and in life. So, register and we'll see you there. Andrew Paul's gonna be there, by the way.

• 1:52:50Speaker 02

  Oh dang, I'll be there.

• 1:52:52Jocko Willink?

  Echo Charles is gonna be there, by the way. We're gonna be getting after it, so come on out. And as always, if you want to keep kicking it with Echo Charles and with me, we're all up in the interwebs, Twitter, Instagram, and even that Facebook-y, we're there. Echo is at Echo Charles. I am at Jocko Willink. And if you want to get Andrew Paul, go.

• 1:53:18Speaker 02

  The Andrew M. Paul. The Andrew M. Paul.

• 1:53:23Jocko Willink?

  Is that on Twitter?

• 1:53:24Speaker 02

  On Twitter.

• 1:53:25Jocko Willink?

  The Andrew M. Paul. So if you want to get the Andrew M. Paul, and you can hit him up. Facebook?

• 1:53:31Speaker 02

  I'm on Facebook, Andrew Paul Veteran Advocate.

• 1:53:34Jocko Willink?

  Well, there you go. Boom, boom. Awesome. And, uh, once again, Andrew, thank you for coming on.

• 1:53:42Speaker 02

  Thank you, brother.

• 1:53:43Jocko Willink?

  It means a lot to me to have you on here, and I really appreciate you coming on. And now, to everybody listening, people in uniform, people in business suits, people in coveralls, people, everyone, we talked today about Mikey Monsoor. And I want to leave you with this. Mikey Monsoor was named after Saint Michael. Saint Michael is the warrior archangel that led Heaven's army against Satan.

• 1:54:25Jocko Willink?

  Saint Michael was known as the principal of the angelic warriors.

• 1:54:33Jocko Willink?

  And was seen as a protector against the darkness.

• 1:54:41Jocko Willink?

  And in the Christian religion, specifically in the Anglican and the Catholic and the Lutheran churches, September 29th. September 29th is known as Michael Mass.

• 1:54:58Jocko Willink?

  Or Saint Michael's Day.

• 1:55:02Jocko Willink?

  And that day,

• 1:55:05Jocko Willink?

  September 29th, 2006,

• 1:55:11Jocko Willink?

  was the day that our Saint Michael,

• 1:55:15Jocko Willink?

  Mikey Monsoor,

• 1:55:18Jocko Willink?

  was killed in Iraq. In the city of Ramadi, sacrificing his life

• 1:55:27Jocko Willink?

  to save the lives of three of his teammates.

• 1:55:33Jocko Willink?

  Three of his brothers.

• 1:55:36Jocko Willink?

  Three of his friends.

• 1:55:42Jocko Willink?

  And I would ask you this.

• 1:55:46Jocko Willink?

  When September 29th comes around,

• 1:55:52Jocko Willink?

  remember,

• 1:55:56Jocko Willink?

  and I would ask that while you honor the hero and you honor the warrior

• 1:56:04Jocko Willink?

  that Michael Monsoor was, please,

• 1:56:10Jocko Willink?

  also remember

• 1:56:13Jocko Willink?

  that Mikey was a person.

• 1:56:18Jocko Willink?

  He was a smiling kid.

• 1:56:23Jocko Willink?

  He was a joker.

• 1:56:26Jocko Willink?

  He was a determined man.

• 1:56:30Jocko Willink?

  A brother. A son. An uncle.

• 1:56:37Jocko Willink?

  A friend.

• 1:56:41Jocko Willink?

  And Michael Monster was a young man

• 1:56:46Jocko Willink?

  with hopes and plans and aspirations and dreams.

• 1:56:55Jocko Willink?

  Dreams for his future and dreams for his life.

• 1:57:08Jocko Willink?

  And in that moment of truth,

• 1:57:14Jocko Willink?

  he gave them all.

• 1:57:18Jocko Willink?

  All those hopes and all those dreams. He gave them all

• 1:57:27Jocko Willink?

  to us.

• 1:57:34Jocko Willink?

  Remember that.

• 1:57:45Jocko Willink?

  And until next time,

• 1:57:49Jocko Willink?

  this is Echo and Jocko

• 1:57:54Jocko Willink?

  and my brother Andrew Paul.

• 1:57:58Jocko Willink?

  Out.