329: The Son Tay Raid. Operation Ivory Coast, With Terry Buckler.

0:00:00 - Opening 0:03:35 - Terry Buckler and the Son Tay Raid. 2:33:27 - How to stay on THE PATH. 2:554:59 - Closing Gratitude. 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 329 with Echo Charles and me, Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening.

• 0:09Jocko Willink?

  At 1800, the Bull and Lieutenant Colonel Sidner walked on the stage.

• 0:16Jocko Willink?

  The room got dead silent when the Bull began to talk. Bull was a man of few words.

• 0:24Jocko Willink?

  The briefing theater was a short walk from our barracks. Inside, it had simple rows of wood seating, like 2x10 boards on short metal poles. No seat backs. It would seat around 100. There was an elevated stage with a screen. We had watched a movie there just a couple of days prior.

• 0:47Jocko Willink?

  Bull reveals a large map and says, quote, "We are going to rescue 70 American prisoners of war, maybe more, from a camp called Songtay. The target is 23 miles west of Hanoi.

• 1:05Jocko Willink?

  This is something our American prisoners of war have a right to expect from their fellow soldiers.

• 1:12Jocko Willink?

  We are all part of the same military family. We want these men to know that they are not abandoned by their military family. No man should feel that way. That's why we are going in there after them. You are to let nothing, nothing interfere with the operation. Our mission is to rescue prisoners, not to take prisoners. If there's been a leak, we'll know it by the time the second or third chopper sets down. If we're walking into a trap, if it turns out that they know we're coming, don't even dream about walking out of North Vietnam unless you've got wings on your feet. We'll be 100 miles from Laos.

• 1:57Jocko Willink?

  It's the wrong part of the world for a retrograde maneuver. If it happens, I want to keep this force together.

• 2:06Jocko Willink?

  We'll back up to the Songkong River if we have to, and by God, they're welcome to come across that damn open ground. We'll make them pay for every foot across that son of a bitch."

• 2:20Jocko Willink?

  For about four seconds, you could have heard a pin drop. Then, like a cannon shot, everyone bursts out, shouting, whooping, hollering, slapping each other on the back, raring like broncos, yelling, "Let's go get 'em."

• 2:36Jocko Willink?

  Bull tries to bring us back to earth by explaining, in no uncertain terms, that he estimates each man has a 50/50 chance of returning alive from this mission.

• 2:47Jocko Willink?

  He states that this is strictly a volunteer mission. If any man has a reason that he should not go on this mission, he should decide now.

• 2:57Jocko Willink?

  Not a single man backed out.

• 3:01Jocko Willink?

  The whole meeting, including Lieutenant Colonel Sidner's portion, lasted no longer than 10 minutes.

• 3:13Jocko Willink?

  And that right there is an excerpt from a book called "Who Will Go?" into the Sante POW Camp, written by Terry Buckler, and is about one of the most famous special operations missions of all time, the attempted POW rescue on the Sante prison camp in Vietnam.

• 3:38Jocko Willink?

  And the author, Terry Buckler, a special forces soldier, Green Beret, was on that raid. He was actually the youngest man on that mission, and we have the honor of having him here with us tonight to share some of his lessons learned from this incredible mission and from his life. Terry, thank you for joining us.

• 4:03Speaker 01

  My pleasure.

• 4:04Jocko Willink?

  It's an honor to have you here. This is something that I've heard about for many, many years. Anyone that's in the special operations community knows about this raid and the impact that it had, not just on the POWs, but also in the history and the continued evolution of special operations as a whole. So, it's pretty humbling to be sitting here talking to you that you were actually on that raid.

• 4:32Jocko Willink?

  Um, how'd you end up coming on this podcast? Was it your daughter?

• 4:35Speaker 01

  My daughter, she's acting like my agent. She had told me about you and I started looking up some of your podcasts that you had done. I thought, wow, and then started looking at your following. My goodness, you're better than Trump. So.

• 4:53Jocko Willink?

  I don't know about all that.

• 4:56Speaker 01

  But she's the one who got the ball rolling for it.

• 5:00Jocko Willink?

  Well, I'm, I'm definitely glad she, she reached out and this is just an incredible story. The, had an, had an awesome time reading this book. Um, and we'll go over some of this book today. I'll, I'll start off by saying, obviously I can't read the whole book. Um, get the book yourself if you want to hear the entire story, but I, I want to hit some wave tops of it. Cause it's just an incredible story and, um, well, usually like to start off in the beginning, kind of where you came from and to introduce those topics, I'll, I'll go to the book.

• 5:31Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 5:31Jocko Willink?

  So it says here, I was born in a two-bedroom house on a small 72-acre farm in central Missouri in 1950. We were six miles from Clark, six from Rennick and six from Higbee. Our mail came through Clark. I went to school at Rennick and our phone came through Higbee. Clark happens to be the birthplace of famous World War II general Omar Bradley. Our house had been built in 1870. We didn't have indoor plumbing until 1962, when I was 12.

• 6:05Jocko Willink?

  So that's a, that's a little different than people grow up now, huh?

• 6:09Speaker 01

  Uh, just a little bit.

• 6:12Jocko Willink?

  Um, what, what, tell me a little bit more about, you know, growing up in that, in those conditions.

• 6:18Speaker 01

  Well, you know, we were by ourselves. Our neighbors were in the same boat that we were pretty much. We had one neighbor down the road that actually had indoor plumbing. And it was always kind of nice. Uh, they had three kids and one of them was the same age as me. We grew up together. And, you know, some nights we'd spend nights at each other's house and it was always nice to go to his house. Cause you get a shake, get a bath and hot water.

• 6:43Jocko Willink?

  So what you guys, did you boil water to go and take a bath at your house?

• 6:47Speaker 01

  Sometimes, uh, sometimes we boil water. Other times we set a tub out in the sun in the summer.

• 6:53Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 6:53Speaker 01

  And then we'd bring it in the house and.

• 6:57Speaker 01

  One of the stories when I was growing up and my parents had gone to town and I was taking a bath and we had a stove and the stoves we had back in those days didn't have the metal surrounding it was just there was the the heat and there was a fire and I lost my balance and my butt fell back into the that against the stove and needless to say I had a nice little burn out of it and couldn't go to school for about a week because I couldn't wear any clothes and it was embarrassing to me to go to school and when people start saying why why were you out and I said I was just one of those things you know hurt my butt so that's what you call burn ins I guess.

• 7:45Jocko Willink?

  You say in here dad was a hardworking man but he also enjoyed having fun. When he returned from the war in 1946 he worked as a coal miner alongside his dad in Rock Springs Wyoming. After he was injured injured in a mine cave in, he decided he was not interested in a miner's career and moved back to Missouri where he'd been raised. In 1947 he purchased the 72 acres I came to know as our farm. He attended classes on agriculture at the Technical College under the GI Bill. And you say this, let me pause to tell you about my father's service in the army. World War II was when he served. He never talked about the war until one Saturday in July 1997 after he had had his stroke and was

• 8:28Jocko Willink?

  recovering in the University of Missouri Hospital. Dad and I started talking about what he did in the army from basic training until he was released from active duty. Dad spent 36 months in the South Pacific. We talked about what it was like to get shot at and how it felt to shoot another person. Dad was a very laid back person. It was hard to imagine him shooting someone. We compared the food the army fed us and the types of weapons we had. We both carried a Colt 45. Our long rifles were very different. We talked about fear while in combat.

• 9:01Jocko Willink?

  Now, you say your dad didn't really talk about that until 1997.

• 9:05Speaker 01

  Right.

• 9:06Jocko Willink?

  So, did you, did you hear, did you know he was in World War II growing up?

• 9:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, I knew he had been in World War II, but we never talked about it. And when I, I volunteered for the draft. And when I came home and told my parents what I had done, you know, my mom, of course, she broke into tears. And dad kind of understood the situation. And I remember he took me to the bus station to go to Kansas City for the induction or take my physical. And that's, that was really the first time we talked about what it was like in war. And he, he told me, don't volunteer for anything. So I really listened to him.

• 9:50Jocko Willink?

  Famous last words.

• 9:51Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 9:54Jocko Willink?

  You say, when I turned 15, I spent most of my summers working for a neighbor who'd farmed about 500 acres. My brothers had worked for him until they graduated, then I took their place. You were class president. You had a, you, you had a really small school growing up, 19, you're graduating class.

• 10:11Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 10:12Jocko Willink?

  You were class president.

• 10:13Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 10:14Jocko Willink?

  You played, the only sport you had was basketball.

• 10:16Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 10:17Jocko Willink?

  Which you were not genetically engineered to play.

• 10:22Speaker 01

  I wasn't the tallest guy on the team by any stretch of the imagination.

• 10:27Jocko Willink?

  But you played, did you play varsity?

• 10:28Speaker 01

  Well, we didn't have anything but varsity.

• 10:31Jocko Willink?

  So you were just playing.

• 10:32Speaker 01

  We had one team, you played on or you didn't play. So, and when you only got 19 in your class, you can't be real picky.

• 10:43Jocko Willink?

  You say, after graduating from high school, I moved to Columbia to work the summer for my Uncle Rodney, who owned a tree service since 1950.

• 10:52Jocko Willink?

  In the fall of 1968, I moved to Louisville, Kentucky to attend trade school for electronics. I had a job working construction in the mornings and went to school in the afternoon. I did this until January of 1969, when I ran out of money.

• 11:06Jocko Willink?

  It was the end of February 1969, when a couple of my high school buddies and I were riding around the big town of Moberly and decided to stop at the draft board to see where we were on the draft list. We'd all been in technical school and back then, when you lost your draft deferment from college, it seemed like you jumped up on the draft list. The lady at the draft board told me that it would probably be April before I'd be drafted. I asked her when the next group was scheduled to go, and she told us it would be March. I asked her to add me to the list. So that was it. I just volunteered for the US Army.

• 11:38Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 11:41Jocko Willink?

  So, this is 1969. I mean, the Vietnam War is clearly going on. And you're seeing this in the news every day. You know, I've had quite a few people on the podcast that when they were joining the military, it was 1965, 66. The Vietnam wasn't a guarantee like it must have been for you. You must have known 100% you were going to Vietnam.

• 12:03Speaker 01

  That was exactly right. I mean, in those days, they needed troops. And, you know, it cost me another year of my... I volunteered for a two-year. But to get into Special Forces, I had to extend another year for training. So, I became a three-year commitment.

• 12:24Jocko Willink?

  Were there, like hippies where you were in Moberly, or was there not?

• 12:30Speaker 01

  Not so much in Moberly, but at Fort Bragg, where I ended up after basic in AIT and jump school. Yeah, we had our drain fonder's and our, uh, those people that liked to protest.

• 12:47Jocko Willink?

  But it was, it seemed like for you and your group of friends, just patriotic, this is what's going on?

• 12:53Speaker 01

  Yep, exactly. It was a rural area. I mean, you know, hippies were kind of thought of as weirdos.

• 13:01Speaker 01

  Still are in my mind, but you know, that's just the way it goes, so.

• 13:08Jocko Willink?

  Uh, Summer of Love, I guess, was a little bit different for you in Mobley. Yeah, just a little bit. You say, "On March 17th, 1969, the day to report to the Mobley draft office, my mom got me up early and dad and fixed dad and me a big breakfast before she went to work. There in the kitchen, my mom gave me a big hug and we kissed. She told me she loved me. She told me to be safe. That was a tough day for mom as she walked out of the kitchen door to go to work. I could see she was crying. Dad had taken the morning off to drive me to Mobley so I could catch the Missouri Transit bus to Kansas City for my physical and my swearing in. It was bright sunny morning driving to Mobley. Dad had a nice talk to me about what to expect at Army basic training.

• 13:54Jocko Willink?

  He advised me to take it all with a grain of salt. Dad had served in the Pacific Theater during World War II and had seen his share of combat in the Philippines. Standing at the bus stop, we hugged and he gave me some more good advice. Keep your nose clean, your head down, and don't volunteer for anything." Dad wiped back his tears as he walked back to his car.

• 14:20Jocko Willink?

  It's got a little bit of a different meaning when the war's going on in Vietnam and your dad had actually fought himself in Southeast Asia. Yep. He knows exactly what you're getting into. Exactly.

• 14:34Jocko Willink?

  And he gave you some good advice, which we're gonna find out you did not listen to. You're right.

• 14:42Jocko Willink?

  Boot camp here. We were issued our new nice green uniforms and all the good stuff that comes with it. Underwear, socks, boots, and blankets, our new friends, the drill sergeants marched us, or at least we called it marching, over to get our first Army haircut. It took about one minute, but it was free. And you know what they say, you get what you pay for. I'd only been in the army a few days when our company was brought into one of our training buildings. There was this big, bad-looking Rambo guy who was looking for volunteers for the Green Berets. I didn't know a lot about the Green Berets, but I did know they were one of the most elite fighting units in the army. This guy looked as though he could have kicked any ten of us at once. I thought if I'm going to war, I want to go with the best.

• 15:26Jocko Willink?

  So I raised my hand when he asked if anyone wanted to volunteer for the Green Berets Special Forces. I knew this would cost me another year of service, but I figured another year is worth the price to pay to be among the army's best. I guess I was a poor listener when it came to my dad's advice about volunteering. So how much did you know about Special Forces?

• 15:44Speaker 01

  Not a whole lot, other than the Green Beret, you know, the song, Barry Sadler, had that out. And, you know, I knew that Special Forces was special. But I really, I knew no one at that time that was in Special Forces, but I had done a little reading on them when I was thinking about joining the military before I actually volunteered. But I always felt like if I was gonna go, I'm gonna go with the best.

• 16:18Jocko Willink?

  How many guys from your boot camp company do you think volunteered?

• 16:23Speaker 01

  Me. Yeah. It was kind of, you know, I thought, well, you know, that's why it's special, maybe.

• 16:34Jocko Willink?

  What percentage of your boot camp company was draftees, would you say?

• 16:37Speaker 01

  Oh, probably ninety percent. Yeah, we had, most of us are all draftees. We had a few guys that were in the Reserve or National Guard, but the rest of us were just draftees. And, you know, we were there because Uncle Sam needed us there. And so we took on the role of a soldier.

• 17:03Jocko Willink?

  What was the, what was the kind of shock value of boot camp for you having grown up on a farm? You've been working hard your whole life. I mean, were you, you're getting, it might've been easy for you. I had a, one of my guys worked on a dairy farm up in Minnesota and for him being in the military was easy, it was a vacation.

• 17:24Speaker 01

  I agree. You know, it wasn't, I remember that, you know, we had a, when my DEI, who was a veteran of Vietnam, found out that I was going to jump school and there was another Palmer, seventeen year old Palmer, and that guy got me in more trouble. He was going to jump school. And so anytime he messed up, I had to pay for it. So I started messing up, so he had to pay for it. And we had a run in battle. And Drill Sergeant Dunham was our Drill Sergeant and he just, I

• 18:02Speaker 01

  remember we'd be doing the pugil sticks and he'd call our number and we'd go out and then he'd call somebody else's number and they'd come in, but he wouldn't leave us. He left us out there, you know. And then when I got tired, he'd call for Palmer's number. And it got to a point where the guys felt sorry for us and of course Dunham said, you guys either start smacking him or we will start smacking you. And so, you know, they didn't have a really good choice. And those little helmets we wore weren't worth a peat pot for nothing. But I remember coming out of there thinking, man, my head was ringing crazy. But, you know, that was the way it was and.

• 18:44Jocko Willink?

  And why was Palmer going to airborne school?

• 18:46Speaker 01

  He just wanted to go to the eighty second.

• 18:48Jocko Willink?

  Oh, awesome.

• 18:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, he didn't want to go to special forces and he wanted to go to the eighty second airborne. And, but he was, he was a stocky young kid and seventeen years old, smart, knew everything he thought.

• 19:04Jocko Willink?

  I think we're all blessed with that at age seventeen.

• 19:08Speaker 01

  I kept thinking, keep your mouth shut, right?

• 19:12Jocko Willink?

  How long was boot camp? Do you remember?

• 19:13Speaker 01

  Eight weeks, yep.

• 19:15Jocko Willink?

  And did you get any infantry or is it just very basic kind of indoctrination military?

• 19:20Speaker 01

  Pretty, pretty basic, you know, and then my AIT, I was a combat engineer on the, my AIT, which is at Fort Eleven or Leonard Wood as well. So I spent basic in Leonard Wood and I spent my AIT at Leonard Wood.

• 19:35Jocko Willink?

  So that's just a

• 19:37Speaker 01

  Advanced training.

• 19:38Jocko Willink?

  Extended period of time you're there. Now, how did you end up getting an MOS of combat engineer? Did that get assigned to you?

• 19:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was, that was assigned.

• 19:47Jocko Willink?

  In case you didn't make it through special forces training?

• 19:50Speaker 01

  Exactly. Yeah. You, you went through your basic, whatever the army, you know, whatever your military occupation is going to be. And then once you got into special forces, then you decided you had a choice of, you know, medic, you know, we had the best medics and then weapons, communications and, and intelligence and all that was, and you were cross-trained on all that.

• 20:15Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, same thing they have now. Same, they have the same system now.

• 20:19Speaker 01

  Right.

• 20:20Jocko Willink?

  Um, you took your first airplane ride after AIT. You say, experienced my first airplane ride. It took me from Fort Leonard Wood, Leonard Wood to Fort Benning, Georgia. Jump school as much as I expected, a lot of running and pushups. And when you screwed up and morning inspections, I went through jump school in August. Fast forward a little bit here. You said, I had the good fortune of going through jump school with some Navy SEALs from Team Two, if I recall correctly. When they learned that I was headed for special forces training, they decided they would adopt me into their ranks. The water troughs we were, we had were about a foot deep and 18 inches wide. The SEALs stopped up one of the troughs and filled it with water. Then about six of them grabbed me and dunked me in the water until I thought I was going

• 21:05Jocko Willink?

  to drown. From then on, they deemed me an honorary SEAL. I guess you might say I had my first taste of water boarding. They were actually a great bunch of guys. One day we were headed back to the barracks after a day of training. One of the SEALs was made to run around the platoon while we did the airborne shuffle.

• 21:25Jocko Willink?

  Well, the SEALs have a very high degree of esprit de corps. If one of them was dropped for pushups, they all did pushups. So if one SEAL had to run around our platoon, they all would. Think about that. The SEALs were running circles around us as we soldiers did the airborne shuffle. Now, to say this pissed off the cadre is an understatement. The next thing I knew, we were running what felt like a sprint as the SEALs ran around the platoons. By the time we made it back to the barracks, we were all exhausted. The cadre then had the SEALs doing pushups for the next 10 or 15 minutes. I developed a real appreciation for the level of camaraderie the SEALs have. I went to airborne school. They don't, SEALs don't go to airborne school anymore in Fort Benning, Georgia. They go through, the Navy has their own little program now. But so I was, I don't

• 22:09Jocko Willink?

  know when they stopped it. It was quite a few years after me, but it was definitely that situation when we'd go down there, you know, we were, like you said earlier, we were, so we were young, so we thought we knew everything, but we were definitely in good shape because we were just coming out of SEAL training and airborne school, especially this is like 1990, 1991, I think, is when I was going through airborne school. So at that time, there's all kinds of people from the Army going through airborne school and the Air Force. It wasn't, there wasn't, it wasn't high standards of physical training, not very high. So, you know, we come out of basic SEAL training where we're like animals,

• 22:50Jocko Willink?

  right? And we're just having fun. They can't do anything to hurt us. But I had some really good memories of the black hats down there. They were awesome. They were, they were very cool. Yeah, it's, it's too bad they don't join us up for that anymore. It was kind of fun. Even though I'll tell you, I had a kid asking me about it the other day and man, that's where, that's where I really learned about the hurry up and wait like never before. I mean, you get, you know, we'd meet at 2 o'clock in the morning to start getting your parachute on. At four o'clock in the morning, you're getting your first inspection. At six o'clock in the morning, you're taking a bus out to the plane. At eight o'clock in the morning, you're getting on the plane.

• 23:33Jocko Willink?

  At 10 o'clock in the morning, the plane takes off and at noon you jump. I've been doing this for 10 hours. This is a 30 second evolution.

• 23:42Speaker 01

  And that hasn't changed.

• 23:45Jocko Willink?

  Good times. You finish airborne school and you roll into September 1969, Special Forces Training. You say, "One certain night in September 1969, 74 top notch soldiers out of a hundred screen, out of hundreds screened, jumped into the DZ at Camp McCall near Fort Bragg with all our equipment and one change of fatigues. That's all we would have for the next few weeks. We were about four miles from what would be our, what would become our base camp. It was about 10 PM and the welcome committee was ready for us. Now, you could tell these guys really looked forward to our arrival. The cadre quickly assembled and started marching us to camp up on this dirt road with our rucksacks

• 24:29Jocko Willink?

  and our weapons. So this is your start of Special Forces Training. You're going, you're jumping into school.

• 24:35Speaker 01

  Right, correct. Camp McCall.

• 24:37Jocko Willink?

  And you just have what you have on you, an extra change of cammies and your gear, your regular gear.

• 24:44Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 24:46Jocko Willink?

  What kind of brief did you get before this?

• 24:50Jocko Willink?

  Did you get a brief?

• 24:51Speaker 01

  I don't recall any briefing. We're going to Camp McCall and we all knew that's the year, that's where the washout started, you know?

• 25:00Jocko Willink?

  And so, so, once you start, once you start this, this section of Special Forces Training and people start washing out, are they quitting? Are they failing? What's going on?

• 25:09Speaker 01

  A combination. Some guys, you know, on the, just on the night in, that first night, we lost probably 15 guys. Just, it wasn't for them. I mean, they couldn't take the harassment and the guy, I mean...

• 25:24Speaker 01

  Those, the cadre out there were, you know, they, they knew how to get under your skin and, and in a very short time. I remember seeing some guys get so mad, you know, they'd take a swing at them and it was like, "Oh, you don't want to do that," you know. Wrong, wrong, wrong. And next thing you know, you know, that person isn't around anymore, you know. And, but that's, that's the way, one way of weeding them out, you know, and getting people there that really wanted to be in special forces and knew that there was going to be some ups and downs to the training part of it. And, and then all through, I

• 26:05Speaker 01

  think we were out there like eight weeks and, you know, you learned, you know, all the basics of, you know, patrolling, things like that. They went into a little more advanced, you know, how to set up ambushes and then, you know, different types of medical deals and going on a raid, you know, or a mission. And you had to write your mission reports and things like that. So it was a kind of an overall view of everything that you would need in an A-team. And, you know, at this point, we weren't medics, we weren't weapons, we were just green, green berets that, you know, were just hoping to get through the

• 26:48Speaker 01

  next level to where they could then select the MOS we wanted and go, that's when the training really started for special forces. This was, "We're going to weed you out. We're going to make sure that this is what you want. Because if you don't, can't handle this, you're not going to handle anything else. Then we don't want you."

• 27:08Jocko Willink?

  I forgot to mention that when you were in boot camp, you scored a perfect 500 on the, on the physical fitness test. So you were just a good athlete, for sure.

• 27:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was, I was in good shape back then.

• 27:19Jocko Willink?

  And, and a fast runner. You mentioned that specifically, you were a fast runner. And then you, you know, are you doing a lot of patrolling, like, long, long marches during special forces training? Because I think it's different now.

• 27:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was gonna say, it, they, they weren't long marches, but you know, you, you'd go out and camp out overnight, you know, and kind of make do with what you had, you know, everybody had their a little tents, but you know, a lot of times we didn't even use them. We'd just unroll a sleeping bag and sleep out under the stars, so to speak. And that was part of it as well.

• 27:57Jocko Willink?

  How much were you eating?

• 27:59Speaker 01

  Uh, well, you had, back then, we had the old sea rations, you know, so they would bring in the meals. I mean, we made, those were our meals for all three males, you know, we had pound cake.

• 28:19Speaker 01

  Ham and mothers was a favorite. And then beans and weenies, you know, of course, they'd put it, they'd bring it out in a big, you know, 50 gallon or 25 gallon full of water. And they put the heaters in them so they'd heat your food. And then you had your P38, open the can and, and that's, and you hear guys trying to barter with, you know, some ham and motherfuckers were the first, you know, nobody wanted them. And you'd hear some guy, I'll trade this for a pound cake, pound cake for rotten too. But, uh, you know, that, that was before sea ration or, uh, uh, LERPs came out for us. And so.

• 29:04Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's, it's always, uh, but I, you know, I, I went through basic SEAL training and there you get to eat and you get to eat actually a lot. Most of the time, you're getting three meals a day and usually one or two of them are in a chow hall where it's basically all you can eat. And I always feel, you know, the Rangers that get one MRE a day for whatever that is, you know, 85 days. And, you know, they, those guys always lose 20, 15, 20, 25 pounds. I gained.

• 29:36Jocko Willink?

  I gained 11 pounds going through SEAL training. Yeah, I went from 174 to 185. And that's working out however long you're working out, you know, doing a ton of physical activity. But I was just eating a ton and you could get like, get done at night. I would be ordering pizza at 10 o'clock or 11 o'clock at night. I'd order pizza. Domino's would would deliver. We would eat pizza just about, well, we eat up pizza on a lot of nights. So we're getting a lot of calories. But I always found that the, the army has a little bit more stringent about what they're gonna let you eat in their special forces schools.

• 30:13Speaker 01

  I, I remember the first time I ate at an air force. Oh, yeah. My God.

• 30:19Jocko Willink?

  Next level.

• 30:19Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. I mean, I remember they said, ask you how you want your eggs. And I'm thinking, you're asking? You know, normally it's scrambled, you know, and I told him how I like my eggs. And they said, okay. And I thought, I'm gonna like this place.

• 30:36Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, the air force definitely puts a priority on.

• 30:39Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 30:40Jocko Willink?

  On comfort. I will say on comfort. They do. I've always heard that the air force, like when they design a base, the first thing they build is the barracks. Then they build the recreation. Then they build the gymnasium. Then they build the pool. Then they build the golf course. And now they're just about any out of money. And they say to the government, well, we still need an air, you know, we still need an airstrip. You know, and some hangars. And they go, well, we don't have any choice but to build it. So that's what I've always heard. I don't know if that's true, but.

• 31:09Speaker 01

  Pretty smart idea, really.

• 31:10Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Was there anything that was really hard for you going through the initial special forces selection?

• 31:16Speaker 01

  No, I, you know, I kind of breezed through it. I remember the first time I was ever exhausted where I couldn't do pushups was the night we landed. And we kept up my, another guy, Law, and I kept up with the cadre all the way into the base camp. And then when we got there, you know, of course they asked you a question, are you tired? And we knew it was a trick question. And we said, no. And he said, drop and do pushups. And I, literally, I could not do another pushup. You know, I mean, I thought, oh no, this is it. They're gonna flush me. But, you know, when the other guys all got in, you know, they said, get up. And getting back and fall in. And so I thought, oh, we got a blessing there. So.

• 32:00Jocko Willink?

  You say this in the book.

• 32:04Jocko Willink?

  I always tried to add humor to anything that I do. One early morning, the company was in formation, waiting for the cadre to join us on that day. I was the student company commander. While we were waiting, I shouted out a command that anyone who that can't tamp that tap, tap dance must be a sissy. Well, the entire company started tap dancing in place. All of a sudden, they all stopped. I had my back to the cadre building and it was at that time that I realized I was the only one still tap dancing. I stopped and slowly turned around and stood there and there stood the cadre. They did have a sense of humor and got a chuckle out of it, but they told me to drop and start doing pushups. And here you have one of your first life lessons in this book.

• 32:47Jocko Willink?

  Life lesson one, add humor. It really helps when things are getting tough. Sometimes it's not easy to find it within you, but even the POWs somehow found a way to pass some slivers of humor through the cracks in the prison walls. The soul needs it. Make sure you contribute some for the benefit of the people around you. You know, I mean, it's interesting that we're sitting here laughing about these stories anyways, because you gotta have fun doing this stuff, even when it's miserable.

• 33:19Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 33:20Jocko Willink?

  Um, you get done with selection and you say, I was sent to my special forces MOS. In special forces, there were five MOS options, weapons, engineer, communication, intel and medical. Um, and you ended up with communications MOS. Now, is that because you, is that right?

• 33:39Speaker 01

  Uh, no.

• 33:40Jocko Willink?

  Oh, I thought you did.

• 33:41Speaker 01

  I, I, I did communications on the raid.

• 33:44Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 33:44Speaker 01

  But my MOS was twelve Bravo. I was an engineer.

• 33:48Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 33:49Speaker 01

  Weapon or demolitions.

• 33:51Jocko Willink?

  So they kept you and you were an engineer anyways. You'd been through A I T or that was as an engineer. So they put you as an engineer.

• 33:58Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 33:59Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 34:00Speaker 01

  They did some things right.

• 34:03Jocko Willink?

  And would you learn about, so, so, talk a little bit about engineers, what are you doing in that specialty?

• 34:08Speaker 01

  Uh, we learned how to build bridges, you know, across rivers and things like that. And then, of course, part of that was demolitions, you know, how to use det cord and how to build your own bombs for, you know, soap dishes and dust initiators, things like that, that were used. And then, you know, how to, how to basically use det cord to knock down trees and stuff. And it was, um, I remember the class after me, we lost about eight or nine guys in an accident out on the demo range.

• 34:41Jocko Willink?

  What happened?

• 34:42Speaker 01

  We had a, um, the, uh, guy that was doing connecting, uh, we did what's called a ring main. And in the ring main, the last one that connects, uh, is then connected to the hot wire on the battery. And we were using the electric blasting caps and they forgot to disconnect the other side. And we lost about eight or nine guys on one at the end of the day. And they were all kneeling over there, uh, working on it. Yeah, it was a, it was a real shame. But, you know, somebody forgot and lost some good men.

• 35:28Jocko Willink?

  Man.

• 35:29Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 35:31Jocko Willink?

  God, that's awful. Yeah, those, uh, you gotta pay attention when you're working with demolitions.

• 35:37Speaker 01

  Oh, you just have to, yeah. One, one little error like that can put an end to your career, that's for sure.

• 35:46Jocko Willink?

  Man. And I, I bet the guy that was actually near the blasting machine, he wasn't by a charge, right? So he lived.

• 35:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, he lived. Yep. And had to live with that the rest of his life.

• 35:59Jocko Willink?

  Man.

• 36:00Speaker 01

  So, yeah.

• 36:05Jocko Willink?

  Fast forward a little bit, you say here, "After I completed Special Forces MOS training in March 1970, we were all then assigned to a group. At this time, 5th Group was responsible for Vietnam and as warriors, everyone wanted to be assigned to 5th Group, including myself. However, there were two groups at Fort Bragg, 6th Group and 7th Group. I was assigned to 7th Group. Like any good soldier, you do as you are told and make the best of it. I was proud to be a Green Beret." That summer brought me to the Nottonhalla, am I saying that right?

• 36:38Speaker 01

  Nottonhalle.

• 36:39Jocko Willink?

  Nottonhalle National Forest, from which I was picked to be part of Bull Simon's mysterious mission. So on September 2nd, 1970, as a member of the advance party, we loaded on the C-123s southbound. So, Bill Simons, this guy's a legend. World War II, he fought in New Guinea, he was a Ranger, he conducted a raid, that was a POW rescue, they rescued in the Philippines over 500 POWs, many of whom had participated in the Baton Death March. Then, he'd gotten out for a couple of years, and then came back in, he was in

• 37:24Jocko Willink?

  Special Forces, he was in SOG, I mean, this guy was a legendary guy. And how did that happen that you got picked for this, for this mission? How'd you hear about the mission? How'd you get picked?

• 37:37Speaker 01

  Well, I was up at Natta Haley and I was training, I was working with a bunch of Master Sergeants and being E5, and we were teaching mountain climbing and rope tying to officers and some of the guys in 7th Group. And we needed some supplies, so Colonels told me to go into town and pick up supplies, which Natta Haley's about, no, probably 250, 300 miles from Fort Bragg. So, I went back down to Bragg. And a couple of my buddies said, when I got down there, they said, hey, did you see where Bull Simons is looking for volunteers? And of course, Bull Simons, I mean, just, I mean, that wasn't enough to excite you,

• 38:22Speaker 01

  then you didn't want to be there. So I said, well, I'm gonna go down and see what he's talking about. Because they said if you want to, he was gonna be down at the, we call it the Little White House there at Fort Bragg. Got down there, it was packed. I mean, there were probably 500 plus Special Forces guys there. And Bull came out on the stage and he always had a little cigar in his mouth. He never smoked it, I don't know, he just chewed on it. But he, I, and I had never seen the guy. So that was kind of my first introduction to Colonel Simons.

• 38:57Jocko Willink?

  And he, he looks like a legend. Just his, his physical appearance, he looks like a legend.

• 39:03Speaker 01

  Yes, he is a legend. And I, I mean, he's, yeah, there's no doubt about that. And so when he came on stage, you know, he said, I was looking for some volunteers for a moderately hazardous mission. And I always wondered what he called hazardous.

• 39:24Speaker 01

  Compared to what we were getting ready to go do. But he said, there's no TDY. So, you know, that eliminated some guys, you know, everybody wants temporary money, duty money. And he said, if you're interested, get back here and we'll start the interview process at 1300 hours. So I, I went back and put my name on the list and the next, I came back to, they had two Sergeant Majors doing a lot of the interviewing, two Command Sergeant Majors. And we were in a line at the 7th Group Facility, Billets.

• 40:07Speaker 01

  And it was about, oh, probably about 5:30, I guess. And I was standing there and nobody's called me, nobody's called me, everybody else pretty much gone. And out walks these two Sergeant Majors. And they're walking out the door and I'm thinking, well, they didn't interview me. And so I ran after them and hollered at them. I said, you know, hey, you guys didn't interview me. And they said, what's your name? And I said, Buckler. And they said, well, and he had a clipboard on him. He looked at it and he says, I don't have your two-on-one file. That's the military and army. That's your file. It tells you everything about who you are and what you've done and your records.

• 40:49Speaker 01

  And I said, they said, uh, well, I want to interview. And they said, well, you get your two-on-one file. I'll be back here first thing in the morning. We'll interview you. So, okay. So, a buddy of mine at that time was one of my roommates. A bunch of us lived off base. You know, we had seven of us in, in the sixth and seven of us in, uh, seventh group. So, we were, the only time we were together was payday and holidays. And so, we kinda, the neighborhood, I think, was glad to see us move. But, you know, there was a deputy sheriff lived down the road from us. And he was always stopping by and saying, guys, can you just hold it down just a little bit?

• 41:30Speaker 01

  We, yeah. So, but anyway, um, I went in for the interview, you know, and they asked me if I could weld. And I said, I grew up on a farm and our neighbor, Sam, welded everything we ever broke. So, I looked at that. I thought, I can do that. So, I said, yeah, I'm a welder. And, uh...

• 41:50Jocko Willink?

  You, so you felt like you could weld because you watched your buddy weld. Okay, I like it. I like your attitude. It's good attitude.

• 41:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, I didn't, they didn't have a welder, so I wouldn't have to prove myself.

• 42:00Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 42:02Speaker 01

  And then, uh, they wanted to know if I did scuba. And I, I hadn't at that point done scuba, so I said, no, I don't know scuba. And then they just asked me some general questions, you know, how, how much combat have you been? And I'm thinking, they got my two-on-one file. I have no combat experience. And so, I said, no, I'm, I'm no, none. So, I said, okay, well, thanks. I thought, well, at least they let me interview. So, you know, thank you. And I walked out the door, got back up to Natahaly then. And a couple of days later, a colonel from our, called me into his office up at Natahaly there. And he says, uh, pack your bag.

• 42:43Speaker 01

  And I said, well, okay. He says, you made Bull Simon's list. And I said, really? And he said, yep. So I said, okay. And down I went, you know, I'm very excited, not even knowing what we were going to do, just the fact that we made it.

• 43:00Jocko Willink?

  Did you have any idea why they selected you to this day?

• 43:04Speaker 01

  The only thing I could figure out is they needed some, in special forces.

• 43:09Jocko Willink?

  Aside from your crack welding skills?

• 43:14Speaker 01

  Never thought about that one, you know.

• 43:19Speaker 01

  I think what they needed was some grunts. And in special forces, an E5 is the lowest rank. So they, I was on the advance party and we went down and set up the compound and we, when they swept the building, we put the Constantina wire around and put the field phone out. And then I pulled guard duty on the, we had to guard that building 24 by 7. And I thought it was a little unusual because when we pulled guard duty at Bragg, you had, you got an M16 in one round, maybe, you know. And this one, we had an M16 in full round and when orders, if something goes south, shoot. And that, I thought, there's something serious

• 44:02Speaker 01

  on this mission that they're not telling everybody about, but you know, we did what we were told to do. And that's, I pulled guard duty and when I wasn't pulling guard duty, I was either sleeping or training because I had to train with the other guys during, when I wasn't pulling guard duty.

• 44:24Jocko Willink?

  You say this, so you fly down there, and where's the location you fly to in?

• 44:29Speaker 01

  Eglin Air Force Base.

• 44:30Jocko Willink?

  Eglin Air Force Base. So you say, now Bull wasn't the only legendary officer attached to the Son Tay raid. Captain Dick Meadows would lead Blue Boy Assault Group, which would land directly inside the POW camp walls. Enlisted in 1946, a paratrooper in the Korean War in the early 60s, Meadows served a stint with the British Special Air Service. In Vietnam, Meadows captured video footage proving North Vietnam Army was infiltrating South Vietnam and impressed General Wes Mooreland so much that in 1967, he received a battlefield commission directly to captain.

• 45:10Jocko Willink?

  He was the commanding officer of Ranger School when Bull Simons recruited him for the Sante raid. Lieutenant Colonel Bud Sidner was selected by Bull Simons to serve as the ground forces commander, whereas Bull Simons' role would be the on-scene eyes and ears of the Joint Contingency Task Group in constant contact with General Manor. Lieutenant Colonel Sidner had the reputation of a gentleman and a consummate professional. One day Brigadier General Blackburn from the Pentagon, Brigadier General Manor, Bull Simons, and Captain Dick Meadows showed up as a group and requested access to the Operations Center. I checked their IDs and called in for someone to come out and escort them in.

• 45:54Jocko Willink?

  Lieutenant Colonel Sidner comes out the gate. Can you imagine how I felt? Here I am, a 20-year-old buck sergeant, standing in the midst of some of the most notable Special Operations Forces officers ever. I remember they treated me as one of them, making small talk with me. After a while Lieutenant Colonel Sidner took them inside. This is one of the great things about Special Forces. The officers and enlisted men treat each other with respect. I believe this is because you have to depend on one another when you operate in small teams like Special Forces. So they were super strict about who's coming into this building.

• 46:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, it was, you didn't get into the building. I don't care how many times you've been in that building. When you wanted back in, I had to check your ID and whoever the guard was, call in and we had a field phone set up. They'd call in, somebody would come out and verify that they were who they were and let them in and escort them into the building.

• 46:50Jocko Willink?

  Were you getting to go into the building?

• 46:53Speaker 01

  No, no.

• 46:54Jocko Willink?

  So you didn't even know what you're guarding?

• 46:56Speaker 01

  We used to laugh about that because we'd say, what the hell they got in there, you know? That they're so private to see about, you know? We kept thinking women. But we knew that couldn't happen because none of us had run escorted them in. But, yeah, they were very strict, I mean, on that. It was, they didn't want anybody in that building and there was only a limited amount of people that could get in there. And I'd say probably maybe 25 to 30 at the most that were ever allowed into the building.

• 47:32Jocko Willink?

  Well, you're standing this guard duty and you're doing the best of your ability, which leads us to another life lesson you have in here. Life lesson two, your life is significant, so be excellent in everything you do. No matter how insignificant you think your job is, it could turn out to be a life-changing position. One of the reasons Captain Dan eventually selected me to be paired with him was that during all the time I spent pulling guard duty and training, I never complained, but always did what was asked of me. I credit my dad for instilling this attitude in my brothers and me. He always told us, if you're gonna do anything, do your best.

• 48:07Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 48:09Jocko Willink?

  That's an important one. Uh, you go on to say here, as the member, as a member of the advanced party, another one of our tasks was to build this large mock-up of buildings using target canvas as the walls with doors with cutouts for windows. We began constructing it on Thursday, September 10th, and it took us several days to complete. We didn't know why we were having to build it. It wasn't until we did our first walkthrough during our initial training that I realized how it would be used. Even then, we had no idea it was a dimensionally perfect replica of all the buildings and walls of the POW camp in Sante, North Vietnam.

• 48:50Jocko Willink?

  So you guys built the full-sized two-by-fours or whatever, jammed two-by-fours into the dirt and then build little buildings, full-size walk-throughs.

• 48:59Speaker 01

  It looked like toilet paper on a, wrapped on a, uh, two-by-fours, is what it reminded me of, you know? But, uh, and, and one of the things we finally clarified in, in the book was, everybody said we used to take it down every night. Well, you know, it took us a week to build it and then we weren't gonna take that down every night because, uh, they, I mean, we trained, most of our training was at night.

• 49:28Speaker 01

  And so there's no way we could take it down and put it back up, but and one of the Air Force guys that actually guarded it, uh, said that confirmed that for us in the book. We were kind of trying to find out who could we talk to that. And the Air Force guy said, no, he said it was even up after you guys left, but they did fly over it and take pictures.

• 49:50Jocko Willink?

  Right. So they wanted to confirm that the whatever the Russians couldn't see it from satellites or from flyovers and aircraft or whatever.

• 49:58Speaker 01

  Exactly. Yep.

• 50:00Jocko Willink?

  But, but somebody had started the rumor that it was so secret that you would take it down.

• 50:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:05Jocko Willink?

  All every day.

• 50:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's exactly right.

• 50:09Jocko Willink?

  Um, fast forward a little bit, talking about some of the training you do, you, you were doing on Wednesday, September 9th, about a week after we arrived as the advance party, the other 78 or so Green Berets arrived and we started our training. The first 30 days of training were intense. Each day started with PT followed by running the Meadows Mile. Dick Meadows loved to run and he led many, many of our runs. Now I like to run, but not like Captain Meadows. If you were not in shape, you soon would be. I think this was one of the reasons I was selected as one of the Raiders. I was by no means the biggest man. In fact, I was the second shortest. The shortest Raider was also the oldest NCO,

• 50:49Jocko Willink?

  Master Sergeant Gallen Pappy Kittleson. Pappy was no stranger to combat. Pappy and I had several things in common. We were both short and stocky built. We'd both grown up on a farm in the Midwest. In World War II, Pappy was the youngest man in the raid on, on the POW camp in the Philippines. I was the youngest man on this raid, 25 years junior to Pappy.

• 51:13Jocko Willink?

  That's pretty awesome. So he's, he's what 45 then, cause you're 20 and he's 45 years old.

• 51:19Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 51:20Jocko Willink?

  And you're working with all these legends with all this combat experience.

• 51:23Speaker 01

  And you know, what's interesting to me was none of those guys ever led on like they were greater than anybody else. I mean, they were right there with us and if you had a question, they'd answer it for you. And I mean, they wanted to. And I remember when we, when we told the packer bag, we were leaving and we didn't have a, at that time, we didn't have a minister or anything. So Pappy was a Christian and he said, I'm gonna have a prayer service over in the building and if you guys want to, anybody wants to come, come. And when I walked in and I was amazed at how many of these guys that I didn't even think could spell God were there, you know, and they were on their

• 52:05Speaker 01

  knees praying and uh, and Pappy was leading us. And it made an impression on me to know that, you know, you're not in control of anything you just think you are. And the man upstairs is the one in charge. So.

• 52:25Jocko Willink?

  Getting into some of this training, you say our, our training began with us walking through our positions over and over again in daylight. During the first month, there were several changes to how we performed our mission. Each person had specific tasks to perform. Not only do we have to know our own role, but we had to know the role of the man to our left and right and where they would be when the firing started. Captain Dan and I were a two man team. As the RTO for Red Line Security Group, my job, as Captain Dan put it, I want you at arms length from me or I will be the one to shoot you. And if you knew Captain Dan, he would have. So you can bet I stayed damn close to him. The primary job of our two man team was to make our way to the communications building

• 53:09Jocko Willink?

  as fast as we could to neutralize the people inside before they could radio for reinforcements. We had two buildings to clear before we could get to the communication building. The technique we used for clearing a building was different from what our troops use today. As a two man team, we would first toss a concussion grenade into the building. Why use a concussion grenade and not a frag grenade? The answer is very simple. The buildings were, we were clearing of bad guys were not made of concrete, but of a thin material that a piece of frag would fly through. Captain Dan would stand to one side of the doorway and I would position myself on the other side across from him. When the concussion grenade exploded, it would

• 53:50Jocko Willink?

  generally blow the door open or in some cases completely off. As soon as the grenade exploded, Captain Dan would dive to the floor at the threshold firing in the room from the top left to the bottom right. At the same time, I would step over him firing top right to bottom left. By this, we created an X covering all the space in the room. Captain Dan would remain on the floor and I would back out and shine my flashlight into the room so Captain Dan could confirm that we had neutralized everyone. I would then put in a new clip depending on if I'd fired any tracer rounds. Captain Dan taught me that in combat, you don't have to, you don't have time to count how many bullets you fired.

• 54:32Jocko Willink?

  The technique is to first load five tracer rounds and then finish filling the magazine. When you're in a firefight and you see tracer smoking out the end of your barrel, you know you need to change magazines.

• 54:46Jocko Willink?

  That's a wild way to clear rooms. And I gotta make a note here. So when you say concussion grenade, so a lot of times like we, what we use now, we use something all the time called a, a, a crash grenade or a flash grenade or a flashbang. And those create a boom and a flash, but a concussion grenade is big. It's a different thing. It's not the same as a, it's not the same as a flashbang at all.

• 55:12Speaker 01

  No.

• 55:13Jocko Willink?

  It's a big, in fact, they're, they're a lot bigger than a frag grenade.

• 55:16Speaker 01

  Right.

• 55:17Jocko Willink?

  They're really big and they create a massive explosion. Now there's no fragmentation, as you mentioned.

• 55:23Speaker 01

  Right.

• 55:24Jocko Willink?

  But it is a massive explosion. And when you, when that happens inside of a closed room, you know, even if the doors or the walls aren't that strong,

• 55:36Jocko Willink?

  it's gonna create a, an issue. What did, what did you think the walls were gonna be made of there in the camp?

• 55:42Speaker 01

  Well, we, we anticipated being made just kind of like a thatch, you know, maybe an adobe. The compound itself was kind of a brick wall, but you know, remember the French were in there before and we were there and they had built the, the compound. But the buildings on the outside were, and the doors weren't really on there as far as the solid doors, you know, they were pretty flimsy.

• 56:12Jocko Willink?

  So you, so you toss a concussion grenade into the room. Then Captain Dan dives to the floor in the doorway and unloads a magazine on full auto from the top left to the bottom right. While you, while he's doing that, you straddle him in the doorway and fire a full mag on auto going top right to bottom left.

• 56:36Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 56:37Jocko Willink?

  This is, this is serious business.

• 56:40Speaker 01

  It was our own technique. When we were, we were trying to figure out how to best do it. This was Dan's idea. Well, he said, I'll hit the floor, you straddle me. And, you know, and then when you're, I'll fire this way, you fire that away and we'll create a T-X and hopefully that would put everybody down. And we see our, our mission was not to take POWs.

• 57:05Jocko Willink?

  Right.

• 57:06Speaker 01

  And we had to go through that same area coming back. And we, Bull Simon said, I don't want anything holding us up. So you neutralize everybody on the way through. And that was our orders. And that's what we did. And, you know, the, our way of clearing a building is quite different than the way they clear today. We didn't worry about collateral damage. You know, you were the bad guy and that's what it was gonna be. So we made sure that we neutralized and moved on to the next building.

• 57:40Jocko Willink?

  Now, were you worried about where your, or did you guys plan in such a way that your bullets that were going through this building, that there was no friendlies on the other side? Did you guys have the whole thing kind of mapped out to avoid that friendly fire?

• 57:54Speaker 01

  Yeah. In fact, even when the choppers came in and took out the guard towers, we made sure that we weren't shooting into one of the cells of the POWs. In fact, in order to do that, one of the PJs said, you know, he could fire and not hit the cell. So what they did, they put a sheet up and tested him. And the guy did exactly what he said he did. I mean, he took out the guard tower, but didn't have anything near close to the cells. So when they, when we flew in, in live mode, that's what they did to take out

• 58:39Speaker 01

  a couple of the towers. And then there was one tower that we had, the blue boy had to take out because it was in a situation where we didn't, couldn't fire into it and not think we might hit a POW. So that's how we did things. And it was a

• 59:01Speaker 01

  It worked. The only thing that was bad about it is the hearing that it, you know, like you said, those concussion grenades are brutal. And we didn't have, I had a headset, and I had my headset where one was on and one was off. But, you know, you stick your finger in your ear and hope that you could hear something. After I came back, there's for probably a good couple of months, I was just, and my hearing today is gone, you know, from it. And I, much of it is from the concussion grenades. Cause I mean, the idea of the concussion is blow your eyes, not ears out.

• 59:42Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's what it's supposed to do, is blow people's eardrums out.

• 59:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, it does. And it does, I can tell you.

• 59:49Jocko Willink?

  It's interesting, because when I first got in the SEAL teams, we, we didn't have a very big budget. And, and some of the training that we would do for our killhouses that we would set up, they were just made of plywood. So it was actually harder in some ways, because you had to be aware of where everyone else was in the house, or in the building. Because if you shot around into a target, or you missed the target, and we would have bullet traps, sometimes, we'd have bullet traps, but a lot of times, we'd just be shooting paper silhouette. And so the bullet would go through the whole house.

• 1:00:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:21Jocko Willink?

  And so we had to organize these things that you were all kind of staying online, even as you moved through a clearance of a building, in order to be safe. And, and then eventually, we ended up getting really nice ballistic walls. And then you get a lot, it's a lot easier to do. And luckily, where we were fighting in Iraq, most of the time, you know, it was, it was concrete walls or whatever. So you could, you could actually shoot in rooms, and they wouldn't generally go through the walls. But it takes a different level of planning, when you have to account for. Your rounds just continuing downrange, even pass through, you know, the building that you're in.

• 1:00:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean collateral damage on something like that could be pretty high if done wrong.

• 1:01:03Jocko Willink?

  I mean, when I, we got Terry Buck and Lieutenant Dan spraying thirty round mags. If you don't, if you don't have a good plan, that's gonna, you're gonna shoot your own people. So you guys had to think through a lot of these things in a lot of detail. And the good thing is where you were training was the same thing. It wasn't like you were training in a ballistic house. You were shooting through, you know, just, just whatever, paper or whatever.

• 1:01:25Speaker 01

  Paper and cloth, yeah, exactly.

• 1:01:26Jocko Willink?

  From all this training, you put together a life lesson three. You say, in your work, always be training and improving. During the first month of our training, there were several changes made to how we approached our positions. I learned a very important lesson. Invest timing, time in training, it pays off. Just like a football team trains for the big game, we were training for our big game. The major difference, our lives depended on how well we performed. Training sometimes gets boring, but when the bullets start flying in both directions, you're sure glad that you know what is expected of you and your team members.

• 1:02:04Speaker 01

  And you know, that, that probably is one of the more important messages that I think could come out of this book. Because I think the training that we did saved our lives. Cause we had, I mean, we had a hundred and seventy-seven rehearsals. And part of those were alternate, you know, like if red wine went down, it was red wine, alternate red wine. Green leaf went down, it was alternate green leaf. Well, we were sitting down that night in Sante.

• 1:02:45Speaker 01

  And I'm listening on my radio and I'm hearing alternate Plan Green. And you think the Pucker Factor didn't jump up then?

• 1:02:55Jocko Willink?

  Cause you just lost one third. We'll get to it, but that, at that moment, you lost one third of your assault force.

• 1:03:00Speaker 01

  But our training and the training that we did paid off in spades. Cause we, we knew how to react and it wasn't like, oh, now what do we do? We know what to do. We trained for it. And the, the planners of this Sante have done such an immaculate job of, of thinking of all the different scenarios. The only one they didn't think about was the POWs not being there. That was the one that we just, I mean, floored everybody.

• 1:03:34Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 1:03:34Speaker 01

  But, uh.

• 1:03:35Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And even I thought through that and we'll get to the actual raid itself, but as much planning went into it and as much they tried to think of all the different scenarios that could take place, something happened that they didn't plan for, which is, what is it? Greenleaf? Greenleaf came back to the target site. So you had to do a link up, which is one of the hardest things to do in a combat zone is linking up with friendly forces. In fact, I think it's the hardest thing to do. The hardest thing to do in combat is link up with friendly forces.

• 1:04:05Speaker 01

  Yep. And particularly like they, they got off just like we did. Anything in front of you is open game.

• 1:04:11Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 1:04:12Speaker 01

  And you know, we were, and for a few minutes there, it got pretty testy. And, uh, you know, uh, I, I have to compliment some of the, the guys that were on Greenleaf, you know, they, they knew they were coming back in on a hot LZ, but they also knew that, you know, uh, there's friendly guys out in front too. And, uh, they had to restrain themselves.

• 1:04:35Jocko Willink?

  Absolutely.

• 1:04:36Speaker 01

  It was, it was a, a pretty good, uh.

• 1:04:39Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And they were coming from a firefight themselves.

• 1:04:42Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:04:43Jocko Willink?

  So they got hot weapons, they're, they're amped up. They hear you guys shooting 400 yards away. Now they're landing their helicopters. And, and so it's a testament to the training, not just to the rehearsal of, hey, this is exactly what's going to happen. And here's the contingency plan, but here's something that we didn't expect to happen.

• 1:05:00Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:05:00Jocko Willink?

  But we still have the good standard operating procedures, the presence of mind to make, to, to make the right decisions. And that's a testament to all this training.

• 1:05:08Speaker 01

  Oh, it was, I mean, and that's, that's when I speak to military groups today, I said, I know we all hate to train, but I can tell you, I am living proof that what they, we trained on probably saved a bunch of lives. And.

• 1:05:24Jocko Willink?

  Awesome life lesson.

• 1:05:28Jocko Willink?

  Going back to the book here, you said, as one of the six guys assigned to guard the tactical operations center, I started to see that I might miss out on some of the key training. If I wanted to have a chance of getting selected for one of the assault force teams, I had to train when I was not pulling guard duty. Security was so tight that we didn't know who we would be rescuing or in what part of the world the mission would take place. There was a lot of speculation that it might be an attempt to free prisoners in Cuba, based on the three hour flying time of the mission. I had been training in pulling guard duty for about a month when I got my chance to speak up. I was checking Colonel Bull, Bull Simons for access to the talk, talk building. While we were waiting for an escort to take the bull in, he asked how things were going for me.

• 1:06:11Jocko Willink?

  I knew that he was only going to pick some of us for the actual mission. So I said, sir, I didn't volunteer to come here and pull guard duty. If I wanted to pull guard duty, I would have stayed at Fort Bragg. Now Bull always had a two inch cigar that he chewed on. He looked me right in the eyes and said, young man, hang in there. Things are going to change pretty soon. After that, he went into the building. I thought to myself, what the hell did I just do? First I chewed out two sergeant majors back at Fort Bragg trying to get on this mission. Now I just told a Colonel, and not just any Colonel, but Bull Simons, that I was tired of pulling guard duty. I, I just bitched to the bull about pulling guard duty. I thought, well, I'll probably end up pulling guard duty for the rest of my time in the army.

• 1:06:53Jocko Willink?

  However, what he said was true. Within the next week, things did change. The first cut was made on Friday, September 18th. They selected 51 men and an additional 10 men were identified as backup that could be used in any of the different elements. I was selected to be a part of the Red Wine Security Group. I would be the RTO for Captain Dan Turner. No more guard duty for me. The three groups were each placed in their own areas in the barracks building to help the team concept.

• 1:07:26Jocko Willink?

  You know, why do you think you got selected?

• 1:07:28Speaker 01

  Um, I, I sent an email to Dan Turner. Dan has passed away, but before he passed away, I sent him an email asking him that. And he, he said, basically, I didn't bitch about whatever I was asked to do. And he said, you always had a, a great attitude that, you know, I can do that. And whether I could do it or not, I, I took the attitude that I could get it done. And he just felt like I, I was older than the 20-year-old that he was accustomed to.

• 1:08:07Speaker 01

  So, and I think that's attributed to just growing up in a farm and, you know, you, you do things that, uh, you know, I started driving a tractor when I was six years old, you know? And, you know, it was just, I had to keep it between the bales of hay when we were picking up hay. And that was about it, you know, but that's, you, you do things, uh, far back in those days that you wouldn't have thought about doing. But, uh, um, I was, I was confident that I could do the right job for him. And hopefully, uh, I did.

• 1:08:48Jocko Willink?

  You, this also leads to another, uh, life lesson, life lesson number four. You say, have patience and aggressiveness and contentment. Guarding the talk, we are not allowed to know the why. As I saw my opportunity slipping away, I was aggressive, hungry to be in the middle of the action. That's okay. It's not a fault to be aggressive. It's a virtue. If you can choose in your heart and in your mind to be at peace and to be thankful, trusting God with the outcome. So you gotta know, you gotta be patient at the same time, you know, sometimes you gotta approach the bull.

• 1:09:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:09:23Speaker 01

  Yeah. And he, I could tell that he wasn't offended by it, you know, he just, he asked the question and I thought, here's my opportunity to tell him, you know, and if he said anything, I just gotta go with it.

• 1:09:40Jocko Willink?

  I mean, that's what you're looking for when you're in charge of a team. You want someone that wants to go, that wants to step up and that's the impression he gave him for sure.

• 1:09:49Jocko Willink?

  You say, "In our training at Fort Bragg, we used blanks, but for our training here at Auxiliary Field 3, we used live ammunition." "I remember one day we were throwing frag grenades and one of the guys got hit with some shrapnel. It was only a minor cut, but it drove home the point that we needed to stay sharp. By the end of the first month, we had practiced until every person knew not only his own position, but also the job of every person around him and the alternate plans." "Then, we started practicing at night."

• 1:10:18Jocko Willink?

  This is a serious rehearsals going on.

• 1:10:24Jocko Willink?

  You go on to say, "When we first started training using the helicopters, the plan called for Captain Dan to be the first man off and for me to be the second. Now I had watched enough war movies to know that the first men off any vehicle get killed. For a couple of weeks, we trained this way. I thought, oh shit, we aren't even gonna make it off the chopper. I can now admit that every time I stepped off, stepped off the chopper, the thought went through my mind of getting zapped before my foot even hit the ground." "Then after a few rehearsals, the plan changed to where Captain Dan and I were the last two off the chopper. All of a sudden, I thought, damn, now that I'm the last guy off, the bad guys will have their sights locked on. I will get nailed for sure. Eventually, I had to admit that if the good Lord wants me, he doesn't care if I'm the first, the last,

• 1:11:09Jocko Willink?

  or the middle. My Maker is going to bring me home when it's my time."

• 1:11:15Jocko Willink?

  That's uh, some good young paranoia, right? Either way, you're getting shot.

• 1:11:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's right.

• 1:11:23Jocko Willink?

  Uh, you say life lesson five, and this is an important one, be prepared for death. Don't worry about it. You can't completely control it. Make sure that the day you meet your maker is not the first time you've been introduced. If you are prepared at all times, you're free to live life fearless. And that was your attitude eventually. You had to say, you know what? Whether I'm first, whether I'm last, if it's my time, it's my time. I can only control so much.

• 1:11:50Speaker 01

  And you know, that point was really driven home last week when my wife passed away. That, uh, you know, uh, she, she was prepared to meet her maker. I know that. And, uh, she's in a better place today because of that. So it holds true in my mind. So.

• 1:12:16Jocko Willink?

  Well, I mean, it's, it's a testament when you can say that, you know, that your wife lived an amazing life. And, and she passed away. And you know, we were talking before we, we started that you said, well, we're going to come out here anyways. We're going to record this thing because she would want me to carry on with the mission.

• 1:12:36Speaker 01

  Yep, exactly.

• 1:12:41Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's a, it's a, it's an important part of the book, you know? And I think that, I think that happens with young guys going into combat. You have to get to a point where you say, man, you know what? This could, I could die tonight.

• 1:12:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, but you could do that walking across the road.

• 1:12:59Jocko Willink?

  Could do that walking across the road and you, you can only control the things you control. You can train hard, you can prepare, you can study the plan, you can mitigate the risk, but there's some risk you're not going to be able to mitigate.

• 1:13:10Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:13:11Jocko Willink?

  And if you concentrate on those things, it's going to drive you crazy.

• 1:13:14Speaker 01

  I was going to say it takes away from everything else.

• 1:13:17Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:18Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:13:21Jocko Willink?

  You talk more about some of the training that you did. Again, you gotta buy the book to get all the details. You talk about some of the Friday night fights, which was they would bring like a band and booze and women and they had like a bar set up. And so you do that on Friday nights. And again, it's crazy to think that you guys still didn't know where you were going. You guys had no idea where you were going. You thought you might be going to Cuba. I think there was somewhere else you thought you might be going.

• 1:13:50Speaker 01

  Planes hijacked on tarmacs around the world that we thought we might be going in to rescue, you know, people on hijacked planes.

• 1:13:59Jocko Willink?

  So you have no idea what you're doing.

• 1:14:01Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:14:01Jocko Willink?

  Which.

• 1:14:02Speaker 01

  And everybody, you know, it was, we didn't know. We just knew we were gonna do some type of rescue. And we trained for it.

• 1:14:12Jocko Willink?

  Did you know that it was real?

• 1:14:16Jocko Willink?

  So.

• 1:14:16Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:14:17Jocko Willink?

  Okay. Cause I know sometimes we would get spun up in such a way where they'd be like, hey, we've got a mission. And we think, actually, this is the very first deployment I went on. We got recalled. We had little beepers. And I was in Guam. And we had beepers and they said, hey, if this thing shows up nine one one, you know, you got 20 minutes to get to base because something's going on. So we get there and I'm, I'm, I guess I'm 19 or 20 at this point. Maybe I'm 20 or 21. But anyways, I'm young and very dumb. And I also think that I'm, you know, I think I'm going to Vietnam, you know, I think I'm, I think I'm gonna be like the combination of James Bond and Rambo and everybody else. So we show up in Guam on deployment, my SEAL platoon.

• 1:15:02Jocko Willink?

  It's 1992 or 1993 anyways. But I think there's just, you know, this is it. We're going to war. So we go out, we get all, we go out to the range, we get all of our weapons dialed in and I'm just

• 1:15:18Jocko Willink?

  totally ready. And then um, doing something and I get that, the nine one one on my pager. And I'm, oh, there you go. Here it is. It's on. It's go time. And we run, you know, rush into back to base. We're sitting in our platoon space and my leading petty officer comes in and says,

• 1:15:40Jocko Willink?

  Hey, they went and inspected the range. We didn't do a good job cleaning up. We gotta go clean up our brass.

• 1:15:48Jocko Willink?

  So, uh, yeah. Not exactly what I anticipated. But, um.

• 1:15:54Speaker 01

  Funny.

• 1:15:55Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah. Uh, so you guys are doing this Friday night. Oh, oh, my point was that we, we would sometimes get recalled to do something and they wouldn't tell us it was training until like we were ready to launch or, and we, some guys would know, some guys would go, this is just training. But of course I'd be like, no way, man. It's real, you know?

• 1:16:19Jocko Willink?

  But you guys, so did some of you think maybe this is just a big training operation?

• 1:16:23Speaker 01

  Uh, in the beginning, we kinda did, but with Bull being in charge and all the, you know, we saw a lot of brass around us. You know, this was the first mission ever to be under the direct control of Joint Chiefs of Staff. We didn't know that at the time either. I mean, we, we knew that, uh, there was guys in Washington coming down every once in a while and they would go into the building and we'd think, why are they there? You know, but, you know, nobody ever explained to us that, you know, they were doing the same thing up in Washington DC. But, uh, uh, it was, it was a, uh,

• 1:17:06Speaker 01

  we, we just kinda kept in the dark and fed on bullshit is what we were and that's the way it started and

• 1:17:16Speaker 01

  we were just told to do our job. And that's what we were doing.

• 1:17:21Jocko Willink?

  Speaking of Friday night fights, you say there's one in, one, uh, interesting incident that sticks in my mind. Our barracks were two stories world war two style with one big open bay for all of us. I was on the first floor and our beds were lined up on each side of the room. It was about 1:30 AM when I was awakened by crashing noises just four bunks down from mine. It was three NCOs wrestling a master sergeant to the floor in our barracks. Apparently the master sergeant, after quite a few drinks, had a disagreement with Bull Simons at the bar concerning how the team should perform their mission and was frustrated that the troops were being kept in the dark. The discussion got heated and the NCO came back to his barracks to get his weapon to persuade the good Colonel to use his ideas. The guys in the barracks held the NCO until he eventually

• 1:18:06Jocko Willink?

  cooled down. The next morning, the Bull and the NCO were on the PT field. The Bull had the NCO heels locked at attention while he chewed his butt up one side and down the other. The Bull convinced him that he should not disagree with him again, at least not with a threat of bodily harm. But the Bull did not let this affect his relationship with the NCO or anybody else. The Bull always said he didn't want a bunch of Boy Scouts. We always look forward to Friday night fights. And this is classic. The following entry was made into the official talk record of events. I believe this is the very discussion with that Master Sergeant. And so this is a quote from the actual record. It says, 27 October,

• 1:18:47Jocko Willink?

  1715, Colonel Simon's discussed grievances with operational personnel and discussed progress. End quote.

• 1:18:56Speaker 01

  Yeah. That was, uh, that was an interesting evening. And more importantly, the next day, we were, we were all looking out the window thinking, well, wouldn't you like to be a little mouse hearing what that conversation is about. But, uh, I mean, it was over and, he'd been on the mission with us and, uh, he, but the Bull said, you know, he didn't want Boy Scouts and he didn't have any, so.

• 1:19:26Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I know. As a leader, you want to have guys that are going to push back if they disagree with you because you might have a bad idea. Um, now you don't want them to go to their barracks and try and grab a weapon.

• 1:19:35Speaker 01

  No, to convince you.

• 1:19:37Jocko Willink?

  But you do want to hear their, hear what they're going to say and what, why they think that, you know. Um, fast forward a little bit. Monday, November 16th, 1970. We were told to pack our gear that we were leaving Eglin Air Force Base for our new undisclosed location the next day. We didn't have a chaplain to our group, in our group, but we did have Pappy. Pappy announced that he would be holding a prayer service in the barracks. Pappy was respected by all the Raiders and officers from the Bull down the chain of command. In World War II, Pappy had been an Alamo Scout, just like Bull Simons. They had both been on the raid that freed 500 POWs. There's a 2005 major motion picture called The Great Raid.

• 1:20:22Jocko Willink?

  Pappy was pretty famous in the Army, particularly in Special Forces. When I walked into the barracks where Pappy was holding the prayer service, it really struck me how many of these seasoned soldiers were there to pray on their knees to our Father in Heaven. I can tell you, there were no atheists in our group.

• 1:20:42Jocko Willink?

  The next morning, you guys get on board a C-141. First place you land is California. Next place you land is Alaska, and you still don't know where you're going. No. They still have not told you where you're going. The next stop would be our new home for a few days. It was a long flight. We didn't get much sleep, but at least we touched down at our final destination. It was November 18th at 3:00 a.m. when we stopped, when we stepped off the C-140 directly into a large hangar. They loaded us into what I thought were bread trucks. The air in this dark land had a sweet tropical smell, warm and humid. The old warriors thought we were in Southeast Asia, but we're not certain. We never knew it until many years later, but this was the CIA compound at the Takli, is I saying that right? Takli Royal Thai Air Force Base.

• 1:21:28Jocko Willink?

  When our trucks arrived at some barracks, most of us went straight to bed. Our trip had taken 28 hours. So you even know where you are?

• 1:21:36Jocko Willink?

  No. And some of the old timers are thinking, hey, it kinda smells like Southeast Asia. That's about all I got. Yep, that's, that's right. We were awakened at 6:00 a.m., had breakfast. It went about our morning as normal. We were told to be at the mess hall at 11:00 a.m., a little earlier than normal lunch. During lunch, we were told to go to our barracks immediately after we finished eating and get some sleep. To ensure we got some sleep, Lieutenant Colonel Joe Cataldo, our doctor, who would be going on the mission and into the compound with us, required every one of us to take a sleeping pill as we exited the mess hall. As we walked toward the barracks, the old timers explained that they had never had to do that before. It was pretty clear that this would be the night. I spent the rest of the afternoon walking around the compound and talking to the other raiders

• 1:22:20Jocko Willink?

  about what they thought was going on. The time passed very slowly that afternoon. By 5:00 p.m., everyone was awakened from our bunks and told to get to the mess hall for dinner, then meet in the theater at 18:00. By 17:30, we started filling the theater. You could tell everyone was getting pumped for what we were about to learn.

• 1:22:43Jocko Willink?

  And this is where you get the, uh, the speech that I opened this whole thing up with where you finally find out where you're, where you're actually going because you had no idea. And that, the, the way you write about that, that reaction that everybody had. Would you say, I mean, I would imagine that all these other possible missions that you could be going on, there would be none more favorable than going to actually rescue other American service members in Vietnam. I mean, that's, that's the, that's the pinnacle.

• 1:23:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's what we thought too. I mean, we were ready to, had they been there, they'd have been home that night. All 70 or more.

• 1:23:30Jocko Willink?

  So you get that speech.

• 1:23:33Jocko Willink?

  You say at 2100, the bread trucks took us to a hangar that we used as our staging area. We checked our weapons. I carried a Colt M1911, a 45 caliber pistol. My machine gun was a Car 15 with eight 20 round magazines and five 30 round magazines. I used the tips I'd learned from Captain Dan on how I should load my magazines. I strapped on two frag grenades and 10 concussion grenades. Captain Dan told me that if we ended up needing to use frags, well, we were probably in some deep shit. So I hoped I did not have to use them. We used the concussion grenades in, in clearing the buildings. My next task was to check the batteries on both my radios. I checked my handset and my headset on my Pric 25. That's the way we're, we were to communicate with Lieutenant Colonel Sidner's ground command team.

• 1:24:18Jocko Willink?

  The headset allowed me to listen to the radio traffic and still fire my weapon and toss grenades. Each raider carried, carried a survival radio, a Pric 90. When you turn on these radios, they send out a warble tone that allows SAR, Search and Rescue Team, to pull you out of a hot situation. Among the 56 raider, raiders, we had 92 radios.

• 1:24:42Jocko Willink?

  So you're getting your gear ready.

• 1:24:44Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 1:24:46Jocko Willink?

  And you go through some, it gets pretty cool in here, you know, for people that are gonna get the book, which I'm sure is a lot, you go through like a gear list of absolutely everything that you're carrying, every, all the specialty gear that you had.

• 1:25:00Speaker 01

  Chainsaw.

• 1:25:00Jocko Willink?

  Yep, chainsaws. The guys were carrying welder, uh, arc welders, which even though despite your incredible welding skills, you didn't get assigned. They assigned it to somebody else.

• 1:25:11Speaker 01

  Tiny. Tiny was probably about, oh, six, two, six, three.

• 1:25:17Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:25:17Speaker 01

  He could hunch those pretty easy, but nobody wanted to be around Tiny.

• 1:25:22Jocko Willink?

  You'd get shot. Those tanks get shot, it's gonna be a disaster.

• 1:25:28Jocko Willink?

  Time to go. C-130 landed at Udon at 2,300, ushered out, you guys are ushered out to your HH-53 choppers.

• 1:25:37Jocko Willink?

  And here we go at 2,317 with all the green berets aboard, Apple II lifted off, forming up with the other five helicopters and Lime 1 and Lime 2, the four-engine C-130 Hercules tankers that would take us to the border of North Vietnam. During our training, we had only made the full three-hour-long flight twice. The idea, I think, was to keep us from trying to figure out where we might be going. What I remember about that night was how hot it was and that the sky was very clear.

• 1:26:09Jocko Willink?

  On that long chopper flight from Udon to Sante, I spent a lot of time in prayer. You can learn a little bit about yourself, seeing what your mind latches on to when you know that in a few hours, you might be meeting your maker.

• 1:26:23Jocko Willink?

  God has an important, God has been an important part of my life as long as I can remember. My mother's side of the family attended church pretty regularly compared to my dad's side. The Bucklers like to drink, dance, and party. Not to say they don't believe in God, they just like to celebrate a little bit more. After about an hour of flying, most of the guys were lying back against the sides of the chopper. Some guys had their eyes closed, either praying or sleeping. I thought to myself, "These men are true warriors." Many of the raiders were married, some had kids my age or older. There was a lot of small talk. I figured each man was thinking, "There was not a lot of small talk." I figured each man was thinking of his family. Each one knew the risk he was taking. We were no different than other warriors before us.

• 1:27:04Jocko Willink?

  Our military is filled with men and women who are willing to risk their lives to protect this great country. I sat back and had a nice little talk with the big man upstairs. I asked him to protect us tonight. It was the longest three hours I had ever experienced. I thought about my mom and dad and how they would feel if I didn't make it back. I wondered what they would think when they read the letter I had written to them before I left. I thought about what my dad told me before I left for the army, "Don't volunteer for anything." So what did I do? I volunteered for airborne, then special forces, and now for this raid. I thought mom and dad would be heading to Moose Lodge this weekend for a Saturday outing. I thought about Doug, my oldest brother, who served in the Navy submarines for nine years.

• 1:27:48Jocko Willink?

  I thought about how my brothers and I fought and the crazy things we had done on the farm. I thought about the times I hunted squirrels with dad. I thought back to the first squirrel I killed. I'd shot him about nine times. And when dad and I were skinning it, he said, "We might get lead poisoning when we eat this one." I thought about my buddy Charlie Cottingham and the fun we had as kids. I thought back to the times Mike and I spent riding our horses into the woods around our farms. I guess I was trying to take my mind off the mission. Because I couldn't stop mentally rehearsing my duties for the mission over and over and over. I got up to stretch my legs and look out the window. I could see the other choppers in the moonlight.

• 1:28:29Jocko Willink?

  It was like we were doing just another rehearsal, so prepared we were. But this was the live run. We were actually going in. I sat back down and said another prayer for us and waited for us to arrive at San Tay, North Vietnam.

• 1:28:54Jocko Willink?

  It's a long flight. That's a long flight to be sitting there thinking about this target that you're going into.

• 1:29:00Speaker 01

  Yep, it certainly was.

• 1:29:02Jocko Willink?

  Were you, and there's so many details in this book that I'm not covering, because I don't want to read the entire book, but how well aware were you of the possibility of surface-to-air missiles?

• 1:29:17Speaker 01

  Well, we knew they had brought several of our pilots down, but we weren't, that wasn't on our mind. You know, we were grunts on the ground. So that, you know, Sams don't affect us until we had one fired at us and we realized just how damn close it got.

• 1:29:41Jocko Willink?

  So you guys were blessed with a little bit of, or at least you were, of being a little bit naive?

• 1:29:46Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:29:48Jocko Willink?

  And, and I know that we've, we've lost a lot of our naive attitude about helicopters because we've, we've taken some, some horrific hits in helicopters and lost a ton of incredibly great people.

• 1:30:03Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:30:04Jocko Willink?

  But, but for you guys, you weren't really thinking about that too much.

• 1:30:08Speaker 01

  No, we weren't. And, and you knew, we, we knew we had air cover with the A1Es. And, uh, you know, we had A1E flying over us all the time when we were on the compound. So, uh, the bridge, we were supposed to blow it because of the alternate. We didn't blow it, but the A1E took out, uh, the bridge force. So we, we knew we had good cover there. And then, of course, we weren't that aware of what was going on at the same time, uh, from the Gulf of Tacon, you know, there was 116 aircraft coming in, which, uh, I mean, that's the largest air raid in Vietnam history.

• 1:30:52Jocko Willink?

  Did they brief you guys on any of that?

• 1:30:54Speaker 01

  No, we had no idea about it till we got back.

• 1:30:57Jocko Willink?

  Cause they had basically set up a massive diversionary operation.

• 1:31:01Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:31:02Jocko Willink?

  On the other side of Hanoi.

• 1:31:03Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:31:04Jocko Willink?

  To distract from what you guys were doing.

• 1:31:07Speaker 01

  And I, and I think it really worked if you, you know, some of the after action reports that came back. Uh, said that, you know, some of the, and the MiGs didn't even get off the ground. Because they were confused as where they were coming from and, you know, we were dropping flares. Over Hanoi and while we were sneaking in the backside. Um, to Sante, so all their attention was coming from the Gulf of Tonkin. And there was a SAM site just south of us and anti aircraft as well. I mean, I think we had a total of 20 SAMs fired at us at night.

• 1:31:47Speaker 01

  And, uh, one of them, the first one, the first and the only one I really remember. Was the one when we, we had landed, done our deal and we were coming out. And, uh, we got on the, uh, bird and we, our count was off. You know, yeah, so we did another count and it was still off. And then, so we did a third count and then this time Dan Turner counted himself. So, which was kinda in the excitement, I guess, you know, but, uh, anyway, so we, we got up and we. We were sitting there, we had a PJ between us and Dan and I were on both sides of the tail.

• 1:32:30Speaker 01

  As we were leaving, uh, North Vietnam and, uh, the chopper as it turned and. We were looking over the lights of Hanoi, just like you'd be looking over the lights here in San Diego. I mean, couldn't believe how big it was. And then we were flying, we thought, well, we got it made, you know, we're back on the boat. And we're heading home and about that time, our chopper just dropped and we thought, oh, we. We got hit or something and about that time, big.

• 1:33:04Speaker 01

  Looked like a light pole flying up our rear and it probably missed us, I would say no more than 200 meters. It was, I mean, it was close. And of course, our pilots, we had the very best pilots the Air Force had. Those guys, I swear, they, they did a fantastic job of getting us in and getting us out. And it was, it was a little bit, that's where, that's where I really got scared, honestly. Because, you know, I kind of had control of everything on the ground, but when you're up there, those pilots, man, I have a lot of respect for those guys. They're sitting ducks. And, you know, they,

• 1:33:45Speaker 01

  and we lost one, not one of the choppers, but one of the jets was taken out by that night. But the pilots were recovered the next morning. So, but it just shows you how quick it can happen.

• 1:34:03Jocko Willink?

  As you're going in, are you thinking, what are you thinking your chances are?

• 1:34:09Speaker 01

  You know, my, my thoughts were, okay, the good Lord is with me and with us, and we're gonna be all right. But I gotta do my duty, whatever it takes, you know. One of my biggest fears was would I freeze, you know, having never been in combat, you know. I mean, I've heard of guys that have been in combat before freezing, even guys that have been in for a long time, you know. But that was a concern of mine, would I be able to. But all the old timers kept coming up to me and said, don't hesitate, don't hesitate, whatever you do, don't hesitate.

• 1:34:48Jocko Willink?

  Was there anyone else that had no combat experience?

• 1:34:51Speaker 01

  There was four of us that had never been in combat before.

• 1:34:56Jocko Willink?

  Out of how many?

• 1:34:57Speaker 01

  Out of 56, four of us had never been in combat. So it was an eye opening experience.

• 1:35:07Speaker 01

  Dan Turner told me one time afterward, he says, you saw more combat than I saw in a year in Vietnam. I said, really? He goes, oh, yeah.

• 1:35:19Jocko Willink?

  Um.

• 1:35:22Jocko Willink?

  So here we go. 0220. Saturday, November 21st, 1970. When we were just about to la- land, I heard through the chatter in my headset, the voice of Sergeant First Class Howell came through. He was the RTO for Lieutenant Colonel Sidner, the ground force commander for the raid. Alternate plan green. I repeat, alternate plan green. Do you copy?

• 1:35:50Jocko Willink?

  This was only the first of the bad news I would hear tonight. I responded, say again? Sergeant First Class Howell. Alternate plan green, alternate plan green, over. I said back into my hand mic, Roger, alternate plan green, over. I thought to myself, holy crap, this can't be real. I turned to Captain Dan and told him we were going to alternate plan green. Captain Dan gave me that oh shit look and calmly told me to pass the announcement on to others in red wine. Alternate plan green meant one thing to all of us on the red wine chopper. We knew that we had 22 fewer men. There would be a lot less firepower as we hit the ground.

• 1:36:32Jocko Willink?

  Whether Greenleaf Group had mechanical problems or had been shot down, we knew the mission, including the alternate plans. With that, with or without the 22 men of Greenleaf Group, we were going to execute the mission and would now have to perform their role as well as ours. So what had happened here, and again, you go into these details in the book. But. Greenleaf, this one other chopper. Had landed in the wrong spot. Uh, there was a schoolyard that was 400 yards to the south. And it looked kinda like the POW camp, like a little school compound. Right. And that's where they landed.

• 1:37:11Jocko Willink?

  The Colonel, Colonel Bull Simons, was with them. Yes. So you get this call that, hey, we're going, so we're still going, they're in the wrong spot, but we're still going, you still need to execute the mission and this is where you have life lesson number six, don't be indispensable. Always be training a backup person for your job and always be learning to be a backup for your teammates. This applies to any job in life. The graveyards are full of indispensable men.

• 1:37:40Jocko Willink?

  But uh, yeah, that's a sketchy situation. All of a sudden you got one-third the troops. And, and as this is happening, I'm going back to the book. At that moment, the minigun in the door to our right fired off a few hundred rounds. For those of you not familiar with the minigun, it's a gun that fires 4,000 rounds of ammo per minute. It has been, it is electronically driven rotary breech to feed the ammo belt at lightning speed. Now, my heart was already pounding, but the sound of that minigun firing two feet from me really took me to a new level. I adjust my headset on the Pric 25 on my back and feel for my ammo pouches. I check for frags and my concussion grenades. I place my finger on the safety and make sure I have the safety off.

• 1:38:21Jocko Willink?

  And my Car 15 is set on auto. I make sure to have the 30-round magazine well seated and I chamber a round. In training, I've done this 100 times, but this is it. My first time in combat. This is no game. I'm not as scared as much as I am excited. This is the moment I have trained for, the reason I joined the Green Berets. I don't, I can't let Captain Dan down or the other raiders. As the RTO for the Red Wine Security Group, my job is to stay close to Captain Dan. He's the commander of Red Wine and I am expected to protect his backside. The tailgate is lowered, the chopper is feathering to the ground. We are about to touch down on the enemy's homeland and there's no rescuing us if there has been a security breach.

• 1:39:04Jocko Willink?

  I feel the chopper settle as it has done so many times in training. Red Wine Group is unloading exactly as we have practiced over 170 times. The major difference is that this time the bullets are flying in both directions. It is amazing how fast you can exit a chopper. Captain Dan and I start off the tail of the chapter, the last two men off. I am literally one step to his right side as we run. Our boots have just started splashing the rice paddies when a North Vietnamese Army soldier fires at us from the very building we were to clear. A couple of bullets zip by us, a natural reaction. I place the green dot from my Armalite single-point sight on the guard's chest and fire three rounds. He immediately falls to the ground. In that instant, I don't hesitate.

• 1:39:47Jocko Willink?

  What the seasoned warriors taught me really paid off. Don't hesitate. I imagine most of the warriors in your first time downrange wonder in the back of your mind how you respond in that moment. Would I freeze when I faced with the decision to kill or be killed? I'd only just stepped onto the enemy's ground and I had my first kill. There'd be more to come as we cleared the buildings.

• 1:40:14Jocko Willink?

  Out of the gate. You know, I watch a lot of fighting and they always talk about, you know, who's got the fastest record knockout in a fight?

• 1:40:27Jocko Willink?

  You might have the fastest kill on enemy territory that you step off and you're immediately engaging a guy. That's kinda crazy to think about.

• 1:40:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, it is. I hadn't thought about it that way.

• 1:40:41Jocko Willink?

  Uh, you go on. Captain Dan thanks me as we charged towards our first building. I am following Captain Dan with bullets blazing and men moving to their positions. Alternate Plan Green is proceeding. We hear our chopper Apple II loudly lift off the rice paddies to wait about a mile away until they are called back in to take us home with the POWs we came to free. In the back of our minds, if these birds get battle damage, it will be a long way back to friendly lines. No time to think about that. We move forward to clear our designated buildings. Nearest to us, Master Sergeant Joe Lupiak and his red wine element two, which includes him, Sergeant First Class Tyrone Adderley and Sergeant First Class Billy Martin. Each of us knew this was going to be much more

• 1:41:24Jocko Willink?

  difficult than it was during training. These are buildings that Green Leaf Group would have neutralized according to the original plan and they would have had 14 of their men on this task. Under alternate plan green, five of our team were now going to have to do it. They also had more firepower. Sergeant First Class Jake Jack Avenko was carrying an M60 bipod machine gun, which we don't have on our team. What we did still have was the element of surprise. Bull Simons told us if there was a security leak, we would know it by the time the second chopper landed. We turned out to be that second chopper and we are operating like a well-oiled machine. Captain Dan is redirecting our red wine group

• 1:42:07Jocko Willink?

  comprised of four elements and it is making sure we are getting the job done.

• 1:42:14Jocko Willink?

  As, as a virgin to combat and as Captain Dan's RTO, I stay close to him. You have to respect and trust the men with whom you go to battle. This is where the months of training play pay off. We know what we have to do next. Alternate Plan Green means that the bridge north of the POW camp will remain open to enemy reinforcements crossing it. Since we didn't have enough raiders to send someone to blow it. Over the radios Lieutenant Colonel Sidner directs the A1E Sky Raider pilots to light it up with Rockeye missiles. If anyone tries to cross it, the A1s will open up with 20mm cannon. Those flyboys are cocky, but damn, they're good at their job.

• 1:42:54Jocko Willink?

  What amazes me is that in all this chaos, the only one of us, only one Green Beret gets wounded. That is Sergeant First Class Joe Murray. Joe is a member of Master Sergeant Herman Spencer's team. Whose job is it is to secure the area south of the south wall. That's the wall closest to where the helicopters dropped, dropped us off and will later pick us up. Master Sergeant Spencer is carrying a 40-pound block of C4 explosives slung over his shoulder. It is to be used to blow the bridge. It turned out to be a good shield for him. As we landed and spilled out of our helicopters, Spencer and Murray immediately rushed towards their objective, the guard shack by the south wall.

• 1:43:37Jocko Willink?

  Spencer took a couple rounds from a guard with an AK-47 in the block of C4 he was carrying. Joe Murray would not be that lucky and that's something that surprises people is that C4 is relatively stable. When it's, when it's by itself. Right. That's why you have blasting caps or detonation cord, because those things will blow up and then they make the C4 blow up. Right. But, but C4 by itself is relatively stable. Yeah.

• 1:44:08Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book, when Spencer was dealing with that guard, that delayed Spencer just such that Joe arrives at the guard shack alone. The building needs to be cleared immediately before the enemy troops inside can all emerge. So Joe decides to use a frag grenade instead of a concussion grenade. As he is about to toss it in the window, he feels his leg push forward with a burning sensation. Joe tosses the frag grenade in, neutralizing the guard shack. He then turns to eliminate the threat. Spencer now arriving fires his machine gun first and eliminates three guards. Joe is the only army raider to receive a Purple Heart.

• 1:44:46Jocko Willink?

  That's crazy. That's, and there's like, is there just a massive amount of gunfire at this point?

• 1:44:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, it's, everybody's letting loose with everything that we got, you know?

• 1:45:00Jocko Willink?

  And you have one guy get hit in the leg?

• 1:45:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:45:04Speaker 01

  The back of his leg.

• 1:45:08Jocko Willink?

  Going on, for Captain Dan and me, the objective is to get to the communication buildings as fast as possible to prevent them from calling for reinforcements. It's a good 50 meters ahead of us and it's an open area with no cover. We have two buildings to clear before we clear the communications building. We were told that we would not take any North Vietnamese Army prisoners and to neutralize everyone. We will be coming back through the same area and Bull doesn't want anyone preventing us from getting back to the choppers. To do this, we have to ensure that there is no one alive to ambush us on our way back.

• 1:45:41Jocko Willink?

  Captain Dan and I are getting closer to the communications building. We can see the main guardhouse is on fire and people are running away from us. Clearing the main guardhouse was the job of another red wine element and they apparently are succeeding. We still have two more buildings to clear. The first one is empty. The second one has a few North Vietnamese Army soldiers. I toss a concussion grenade into the room and as soon as it explodes, Captain Dan drops to the floor and I stand in the door straddling him. We create a crossfire with me firing fully automatic from right to left and he from left to right. He yells clear and I back out and shine my flashlight so he can confirm we've neutralized everyone. Because there are a number of them, we do a closer check that they are all neutralized.

• 1:46:23Jocko Willink?

  In the clearing of the buildings at Sante, Captain Dan and I are the only two man team. Depending on how close you are to the grenade when it explodes, it can bust your eardrums and pretty well mess you up. And building 12, as I'm confirming everyone is dead, it's a grim task. Whatever you're thinking right now, it is far more grim than that. A guard raises his weapon behind me. Captain Dan neutralizes him. There is no doubt with that decisive action, Captain Dan saved my life.

• 1:46:53Jocko Willink?

  So you're sitting, you're going through the buildings. Are you just doing security rounds on these guys?

• 1:46:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:46:58Jocko Willink?

  And then one of them that you haven't gotten to yet?

• 1:47:02Speaker 01

  We just, you know, we just put a bullet in everybody's head.

• 1:47:05Jocko Willink?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:47:06Speaker 01

  And made sure.

• 1:47:08Jocko Willink?

  And while you're doing that, one of those guys that you hadn't gotten to yet?

• 1:47:11Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:47:12Jocko Willink?

  Decides he's gonna take a shot at you?

• 1:47:14Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:47:15Jocko Willink?

  And Captain Dan sees him and kills him?

• 1:47:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, I had my back to him when he did it. And when Dan fired, scared me.

• 1:47:23Speaker 01

  I thought, I thought somebody was shooting, you know, but it was, it was Dan shooting alright, but shooting the guy that was gonna take me out, so.

• 1:47:35Jocko Willink?

  Approaching zero two two eight, Lieutenant Colonel Sidner receives notification that Greenleaf group is not out of commission. We can hear Appa One landing and are told to hold fast until Greenleaf elements get to their original planned positions. With 22 men of Greenleaf team, including Bull Simons, we are back on track. Within one minute, Greenleaf has secured the guard quarters per the plan and takes over their roles that the Red Wine team members have been handling for them. Again, that's a comp that seems real easy. But when you got all the shooting going on and now you got friendlies moving into positions where there's other friendlies and you got enemy shooting at you, that, this is a sketchy thing.

• 1:48:13Speaker 01

  It, it was very intense right there. And we were kind of away from it because we were, we were going towards the communication building and over here was where they were coming from. Of course, you know, Addle was, he had a M79 grenade launcher, so he was booping them right in the windows and he, you know, old Kentucky Windies worked real well for him. In fact, Tyrone is getting the Bull Simons award from SOCOM.

• 1:48:43Jocko Willink?

  Oh, outstanding.

• 1:48:44Speaker 01

  In May.

• 1:48:45Jocko Willink?

  Outstanding.

• 1:48:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, so well deserved.

• 1:48:48Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's outstanding.

• 1:48:52Jocko Willink?

  You go on here at 0229, we had just reached the communication buildings when I heard on my headset, "Negative items." I told Captain Dan, he asked me, "Are you sure?" "Items" was the code word for POWs. It didn't make any sense. The next radio call I heard was at 0230, "Begin extraction to choppers." We entered the communication buildings without tossing a grenade, it was empty. At this time, we started to move back to the LZ for extraction. We still moved with the assumption that there could be more enemy soldiers lying in the bushes. While the helicopters were en route, were returning to extract us,

• 1:49:33Jocko Willink?

  one of Red Wine's roles was to clear the planned LZ by cutting down certain light poles. That task revealed one frustrating surprise. We had brought a chainsaw to cut down certain wooden telephone poles, but Sergeant First Class Charles Maston and Sergeant First Class Ronnie Strahan were to blow up a tall concrete light pole. The moment that Maston and Strahan finished placing the four one-pound packets of C4 explosive, were ready to blow and were confirming that they should activate the fuse, Apple One was arriving. They waited until Apple One had landed, offloaded Greenleaf and departed. Ensured of safety, they detonated the C4. As the pole rose into the air, a huge flash of light.

• 1:50:16Jocko Willink?

  Maston and Strahan could see that this was not a light pole. It had four large, high-tension power lines. Dancing sparks were everywhere as the four huge power lines hit the rice paddies, the very rice paddies in which our soldiers and POWs would be marshaling to load the returning choppers. We were going to have to find a new location, were we going to have to find a new location for the LZ? Maston, Strahan and Captain Jim McClam, as the marshaling area control officer immediately set about ensuring they understood the location of all the lines and whether they were hot. After assessing the situation and ensuring there were no other potential hazards,

• 1:50:56Jocko Willink?

  they began placing the beanbag lights in an area suitably distant from the power lines.

• 1:51:05Jocko Willink?

  As everyone returned to the LZ waiting for the helicopters, we had a few minutes to gather people and equipment to load on Apple One and Apple Two.

• 1:51:18Jocko Willink?

  You snuck one of your life lessons in here. Don't be a complainer. The world is moving on and needs people to solve problems. Evaluate your situation, make a decision, and execute any new plan without complaining and feel sorry for yourself.

• 1:51:34Jocko Willink?

  Not gonna help. Not gonna help the situation. You gotta make things happen.

• 1:51:39Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:51:42Jocko Willink?

  No POWs was not something we had spent time thinking about. I could hear chatter on my headset. I heard the RTO for Bull say that Bull was coming into the compound. Bull had to verify with his own eyes that there were no POWs. At 0237, Apple One landed facing east toward Hanoi and loaded Red Wine Group and Blue Boy Group. Captain Dan and I were the last ones to board. The two of us sat in the tail of the chopper, loading the door fully down and open with a minigun mounted right between us manned by an Air Force PJ. At 0240, we lifted off and turned west. Looking out of the tail, we had a front row seat with a bird's eye view of Hanoi.

• 1:52:26Jocko Willink?

  I will never forget that view. I couldn't believe how big Hanoi was and how close we were to it. It looked like any major city in America. We were only about 20 miles from the capital of North Vietnam.

• 1:52:39Jocko Willink?

  Never before had the North Vietnamese Army been violated like this. That's when it really hit me, what we had just done.

• 1:52:48Jocko Willink?

  We were rising only a minute or two after liftoff. Suddenly, our chopper took a hard dive to the left. What looked like a telephone pole with a bright red fireball shot by us. I yelled over to Captain Dan, "What the hell was that?" Before he could answer, the gunner standing between us yelled that it was a surface-to-air missile, a SAM. Now I was scared while I was on the ground, but now I was really scared. And this is what you were talking about before. On the ground, I have a fighting chance, but being in a chopper at 600 feet, you feel like a sitting duck. Thank God for some of the best pilots we could have. These guys knew how to handle it. We were soon out from the threat into the dark jungle mountains and headed for Udon.

• 1:53:32Jocko Willink?

  During the next three hours on the flight back to base, I had plenty of time to replay what we had done that night. Like the rest of the Raiders, I was very disappointed that we came home with no POWs. I kept thinking, what went wrong? Why? When? When had the POWs been moved? That flight returning to Udon seemed a lot longer than the flight to Sante. We'd been so pumped up about our mission. To find no POWs was the last thing that would have ever crossed our mind beyond the two wounds received. US Air Force Tech Sergeant Leroy Wright's ankle was broken during one of the crash landings, and Sergeant First Class Joe Murray, America's only casualty. Our night, that night, was our morale. And

• 1:54:16Jocko Willink?

  that's something, again, you covered these details in the book, but one of the aircraft actually crash landed on purpose into the compound.

• 1:54:25Speaker 01

  Right. Blue Boy.

• 1:54:27Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:28Speaker 01

  And the reason for that was, the people making the planning, initially, they thought we'd drop in a C-130, but they didn't know if the guards had orders to shoot the POWs, if there was a rescue attempt, or exactly what. So they planned on having control of the guards within 60 seconds, a minute. They gave us a minute to have complete control of the guards inside the compound. And that meant taking out the two guard towers and

• 1:55:07Speaker 01

  the third one up by Blue Boy, and then controlling the guards and being in there. And that's what we did. I mean, they did a, they did a great job on their end. It's just that there was no POWs in there. And the, you know, people say, well, why were there guards? And, you know, we don't know if they were, why there were guards, but they were still in the towers when we, I say we, the red, the green, or Blue Boy took care of them. So our job was outside.

• 1:55:46Speaker 01

  We were really, teams, Red, White, Green, Leaf and Blue Boy, all had specific tasks to accomplish. And that's what we did. We worked on our task to get that done. And if everybody did their task like we had practiced and rehearsed so many times, it would be a great success. And it was a success from the standpoint of doing the job of eliminating the threat and controlling the POW camp and the guards. We just didn't anticipate the POWs not being there. And that was the heartbreaking part of it.

• 1:56:28Jocko Willink?

  You say this, to say we were disappointed would be an understatement. Some of us talked about how maybe we should have gone into Hanoi. We were thinking crazy thoughts like that. That's how confident we were. We got some rest at Udoon for a couple hours. We flew a C-130. And we were briefed again in the auditorium what to say and more importantly, what not to talk about. We packed our duffel bag, secured our equipment and had a few hours to relax. The C-141 that we boarded was one that had been prepped for medevac, ready to bring POWs home. Now its mission was just to bring us to Eglin.

• 1:57:06Jocko Willink?

  All the after action reports were finalized at auxiliary field number three and we spent two days before heading home to North Carolina on C-123s.

• 1:57:20Jocko Willink?

  So that's it. You do like a debrief, you fill out your paperwork explaining what exactly you did. And then you wrap up, you know, at that training site where you'd spent all this time preparing for the mission. And then you say this, landing at Pope Air Force Base, North Carolina, a couple of days later was a very happy time. It was happy for the Raiders and for all the people awaiting us, families, friends, and the Army support personnel there to process us back to our normal world at Fort Bragg. In fact, for me personally, that is the most memorable moment. It was not the training, or the day, or of the launch, or the landing at Sante. For me, it was the landing at Pope Air Force Base. I will never forget what I witnessed that day. I was a single guy,

• 1:58:02Jocko Willink?

  so a couple of my buddies came to pick me up. But, standing there on the flight line, when I looked around at the men unloading from the airplane, I saw their wives and childrens running out to meet them. It really hit me. The bull had warned us that we had a 50/50 chance of not coming home, a 50/50 chance of this moment never happening. If there had been a security breach, it was unlikely that we could have been rescued. These warriors had laid their lives on the line to rescue fellow warriors.

• 1:58:42Jocko Willink?

  Four days after the raid on Wednesday, November 25th, 1970, President Nixon honored the Sante Raiders by having Raider representatives in a televised ceremony in the White House's East Room. That had to be pretty...

• 1:58:56Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm. That's pretty cool.

• 1:58:58Jocko Willink?

  Pretty crazy. It was so as on the news and everyone now, almost immediately, knew what had happened.

• 1:59:04Speaker 01

  Right. And the only reason for that was the fact that Hanoi had come on and said they had been bombed. And what they had been, not bombed, but they had flares dropped out over the city. And that was the diversion process. And so, the United States had to come on and say, "No, we didn't bomb them. We did a POW raid." And these were aircraft that were dropping flares to offset the Sante Raiders coming in on the backside. So, it was kind of a political, but, you know, to justify what we had done. And the

• 1:59:49Speaker 01

  fact that the attempt was made to free POWs, which was, went a long way in that arena back then.

• 2:00:00Jocko Willink?

  This is, uh, how, how would you say this level of, uh, of media attention compared to the bin Laden raid?

• 2:00:09Jocko Willink?

  I mean, the, the thing about the bin Laden raid was we weren't, the, the war wasn't intent, as intense at that point as Vietnam was. I mean, Vietnam was

• 2:00:20Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:00:20Jocko Willink?

  full on, so it would have gotten a little bit less attention. I mean, the, the bin Laden raid was

• 2:00:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, compared

• 2:00:28Jocko Willink?

  about as, about as big of a news story as there's ever been, I think.

• 2:00:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, that's true. And, you know, uh, the, the good thing, if you look at the bin Laden raid compared to the Sante raid, uh, they were, uh, they copied what the Sante raid is about. And that's the, the good part about the Sante raid is the impact it's had over the years on all the raids that have been done since then have been modeled after the Sante raid. Because, not because of the success it had of getting in and getting out, but the way, the, the, the way they planned it and all the information that went

• 2:01:13Speaker 01

  into that and how they, how they planned it made an impact on the success of it.

• 2:01:20Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I mean, um, I know, I know you know, Admiral McRaven, he wrote, it was sort of like his thesis when he was at the postgraduate school about all the most important special operations missions in history.

• 2:01:34Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:01:35Jocko Willink?

  And he wrote about the Sante raid. And then he was also like one of the guys, one of the senior guys conducting the planning for the bin Laden raid. So yeah, there's a direct

• 2:01:46Speaker 01

  Connection.

• 2:01:47Jocko Willink?

  connection between the lessons learned and, uh, and the protocol that you use to, to get this done. And yeah, no, no doubt about that. It's a

• 2:01:57Jocko Willink?

  Pretty interesting to see this thread in history.

• 2:02:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, it is. I mean, and today, the Sante raid is taught at all the military schools. And, you know, SOCOM, in fact, they're making a movie on this. It's a, and...

• 2:02:14Jocko Willink?

  Is SOCOM making the movie? Or is Hollywood making the movie?

• 2:02:18Speaker 01

  It's a, a group of people that are doing a documentary.

• 2:02:22Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 2:02:23Speaker 01

  But the Seventh Special Forces is going to, my understanding is they're going to participate in having the Sante raid as a training film for future. Because what they've done, they've interviewed a lot of the people on the raid. And they've interviewed the POWs. And they've kind of combined it all together. In fact, next, in May, I'm going down, they're doing a screening on it at SOCOM. And I'm going down to see the screening and make sure. We, we always told anybody that's going to do this, we want, we want it to be authentic. We don't want Hollywood.

• 2:03:03Speaker 01

  So, last year, I went out to Phoenix and did a, a group, the group that's building this movie on it. And they actually built the compound. And they used, they had one of us from each group, Red Wine, Green Leaf, and Blue Boy. And then Navigation, John Gargus, Colonel Gargus, who was Air Force, the navigator that took us in. And they made all of the, they wanted to know how we cleared a building. They wanted to know all that stuff. And throwing the bomb, you know, throwing the hand grenades in and all that stuff. And they did a really good, have done a really good job on it.

• 2:03:47Speaker 01

  And they're, they're shopping it, I think, to Netflix and everything right now. But they're very close to having it completed. But they've really done a nice job of making it authentic as to what actually took place and how it happened. So, it'd be a good training film, definitely.

• 2:04:04Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that'll be awesome to see.

• 2:04:08Jocko Willink?

  You say here, "I remember being told to report to the parade field in my dress greens." This is December 9th, 1970 for an award ceremony. "It was a nice sunny, cool day when Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird personally presented the medals to the members of the Sante raid. There I stood, spit-shined jump boots, jump wings, expert rifle badge, and the 7th Special Forces Group ribbon. Brigadier General Henry Emerson, the commander of Special Forces at Fort Bragg, thanked the Raiders for their courage and dedication. We had reflected well on the Green Berets." And then you all were awarded. It was, I think, six Distinguished Service Crosses.

• 2:04:52Jocko Willink?

  Five Air Force Crosses were awarded. There was a total of 85 Silver Stars, which included all of the Raiders.

• 2:05:00Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:05:03Jocko Willink?

  And the following comments were made by Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird. He said this. "We are here to honor the brave and dedicated men. We confer on them today awards that express their gratitude, their country's gratitude and admiration. The mission for which these men volunteered called for undaunted courage and deep compassion. They were asked to go deep into enemy territory to search for and, if possible, to rescue their comrades in arms who are prisoners of war. They performed their mission flawlessly. From the outset, the President, the nation's top military leadership, and I gave total

• 2:05:48Jocko Willink?

  and unqualified support to this mission. I knew, as these men did, how grave were the risks they willingly undertook. I knew, as these men did, that there was a chance of disappointment and even of failure. But the reasonable chance to return to freedom Americans held captive made this mission well worth the risk. If a similar chance to save Americans were to arise tomorrow, I would act just as I did in approving and supporting the effort at Sante."

• 2:06:34Jocko Willink?

  Man, that's not too often the Secretary of Defense shows up at your command to start handing out eighty-five Silver Stars.

• 2:06:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:06:40Jocko Willink?

  Huge deal. After that, I'm going to the book here, you say, "They gave each of us thirty days of leave, uncharged against our balance, so you got thirty days of free leave, that's nice." So I went home for a whole month of December. Back home in Missouri, we talked about, a little about the mission, but not too much. It's funny how some people don't understand the significance of a combat raid. I wasn't going to try and impress it upon them. Most of my friends had not gone into the military, so I didn't have any significant conversations with them about the raid. Some had gotten married and were busy with their own lives. My dad was a good listener for me, he expressed his pride. And after a few beers at the East Side Tavern in Moberly, he even told me some of his friends, even told some of his friends what I had done.

• 2:07:24Jocko Willink?

  But to tell you the truth, after about four or five days, I was ready to head back to Bragg and my army buddies.

• 2:07:32Jocko Willink?

  And you've got life lesson eight here.

• 2:07:36Jocko Willink?

  It says, "Veterans, we all have a mission. Listen to your fellow veterans. It is important for the veteran, but it's also important for the listener. It is important for America. Good stories and bad, they need to be told. Please take my request to heart and talk with a veteran." And that's one thing that you have in this book.

• 2:07:56Jocko Willink?

  You've got a whole, it's over a hundred and forty pages of this book, is all the different perspect, we just told you your perspective. And it's very interesting to hear your perspective as the youngest guy on the raid, somebody with no combat experience. But you have the perspective of a bunch of different people, not just the raiders, but the support people, the aircraft, the pilots, the crew, you've got incredible amount of stories to be told, that are told in this book, that every one of them gives a different angle of the story.

• 2:08:27Speaker 01

  And how that came about, when I started writing, I started writing the book in 2012, my daughter went to Afghanistan that time, and she was asking, you know, "What all did you do?" And I thought... On a document, there's been several books on the raid, but none by anybody that was on the ground. So, that's what prompted me to do it. So, but the, the thing that I, I got out of that was, in the process, I realized that I wanted more than my opinion. So, I, we have an email chain that we go out on. So, I sent an email out to all the POWs and the Raiders and support guys.

• 2:09:12Speaker 01

  If you have something that you would like to put in the book, you know, send it to me, I'll put it in, unedited, into the book. And I got about forty of them. And some are one paragraph, some are three, four, or five pages, you know, but it's their memorable moment on the raid, or about the raid, or whatever it might be. And, you know, it just gives a whole different perspective, you know, from a POW standpoint to a guy flying a, you know, mid-cap over us. And it really, I think, rounded out the book.

• 2:09:49Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's, I'm not gonna read it today, get the book, but the story about the guys that got hit with a frag from the surface-to-air missile and ended up punching out. Just hearing that story with him talking about, you know, they're, they're just having a conversation.

• 2:10:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:10:04Jocko Willink?

  Like, we're about to, we're about to eject from an aircraft, which, by the way, is a life and death thing.

• 2:10:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:10:11Jocko Willink?

  When, when you eject from an aircraft, there's, I don't know what the chance is that you're gonna die, but there's definitely a strong chance that you're, you're, you know, ejecting through the canopy, going four hundred miles an hour, or whatever it is.

• 2:10:24Speaker 01

  That was Ted Lowery.

• 2:10:25Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. There's a decent chance you're gonna die just from that. And then you're gonna land in wherever, Vietnam, Laos, the ocean. You don't know what the hell's gonna happen. And these guys are talking about it like, hey, I think, I think we're gonna have to punch out. Yeah, okay, well, let, let me know when you're ready. They're, they're doing it like this.

• 2:10:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:10:40Jocko Willink?

  Freaking calm, cool, and collected.

• 2:10:43Speaker 01

  Ted Lowery's a really, a great guy, too, dude. Get to meet him.

• 2:10:48Jocko Willink?

  Man. And then, and then, of course, they end up having to get picked up, you know.

• 2:10:52Speaker 01

  Next day.

• 2:10:53Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, the next day, they spend, it's like a little afterthought of the book, but it's, it's its own story in itself. So, you're taking your own advice on life, lesson eight, and getting these other stories out there.

• 2:11:05Jocko Willink?

  So check that out, check, get the book for that stuff as well. You say here, "Life goes on." "The next week, I was back at D Company, Seventh Special Forces Group at Fort Bragg." "That's it. Back to, back to normal life."

• 2:11:18Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:11:19Jocko Willink?

  You end up, uh, you end up getting involved in the sport of orienteering, which is like map and compass.

• 2:11:26Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:11:26Jocko Willink?

  While you're running.

• 2:11:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:11:28Jocko Willink?

  Basically, the next year, uh, you, you spend time doing this orienteering, sort of like as the, as part of the team of Seventh Special Forces Group.

• 2:11:39Jocko Willink?

  You say, "By December of 1971, our team had represented Special Forces in several orienteering meets." "I finished 15th in the US Military Championship, 7th in the US Championship, 45th in the Canadian Championship." So you go through that and then, uh, you say, "When I heard in December 1971 that the Army was offering early outs, that really appealed to me. I felt ready to do my own thing and not to be told what to do all the time. I took advantage of the opportunity separating January 5th, 1972. Started back at junior college, January 7th, back home."

• 2:12:13Jocko Willink?

  So, how long was your total service?

• 2:12:15Speaker 01

  Well, I was active three years and I was in reserve for four. I stayed in.

• 2:12:22Jocko Willink?

  Okay, so were you, were you, uh, were you actually doing reserve duty on the weekends and whatnot?

• 2:12:27Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm. I was making money to go to college.

• 2:12:33Jocko Willink?

  So you go to school, uh, what'd you study in school?

• 2:12:36Speaker 01

  Uh, business. Bachelor of Art in Independent Study of Business.

• 2:12:41Jocko Willink?

  And then you graduate and you're not, you know, it's 1974. You're having a little bit of trouble finding a job, but.

• 2:12:48Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:12:50Jocko Willink?

  But, uh, at one of the Sante Raiders, uh, reunions, you, you get connected with Ross Perot.

• 2:12:58Speaker 01

  Yes. He, uh, he had a reunion in, uh, 1974, I guess, with all the POW's and the Raiders at San Francisco and, uh...

• 2:13:11Speaker 01

  We had an afternoon, he brought all the Raiders and the POWs together and he said, you know, if there's anything I can ever do for any of you, let me know. And as a result of that, I thought, you know, I'm out of college, I don't have a job, I need help, you know, so I wrote a letter to Ross Perot and I got a response back that they flew me down for an interview and I was hired to work for EDS and so he kept his word.

• 2:13:42Jocko Willink?

  That's pretty amazing. And then how long did you do, how long did you work for EDS?

• 2:13:45Speaker 01

  I worked for EDS for about three years.

• 2:13:47Jocko Willink?

  And then you end up with another job?

• 2:13:49Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:13:49Jocko Willink?

  And what was the next job you got?

• 2:13:51Speaker 01

  I went from there to selling computer furniture and worked for a company called RightLine. I worked for them for about five years and then I was hired away from that company by Greg Kahles, who was my old boss at that time there, and selling United Micrographics. And he sold the business and I decided to start my own, so I went into my own business of document imaging.

• 2:14:22Jocko Willink?

  Document imaging?

• 2:14:24Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm. Where we scan documents and store them, digitize them.

• 2:14:27Jocko Willink?

  And is that still running today?

• 2:14:29Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:14:29Jocko Willink?

  What's it called?

• 2:14:30Speaker 01

  Delta Systems.

• 2:14:32Jocko Willink?

  Delta Systems.

• 2:14:33Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm. Nothing to do with Delta Force. It just happens to be the name of the company. And we're in Kansas City and we...

• 2:14:43Jocko Willink?

  And you were doing that in the late 80s, you were doing that?

• 2:14:46Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:14:47Jocko Willink?

  You might have jumped started because that's, everything is digital now.

• 2:14:50Speaker 01

  I know. And it's amazing how much is still being printed though today.

• 2:14:54Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:14:55Speaker 01

  It's crazy.

• 2:14:56Jocko Willink?

  And that's still running right now, Delta Systems?

• 2:14:59Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm. Yep.

• 2:15:00Jocko Willink?

  How big is the company?

• 2:15:01Speaker 01

  Uh, well, there's only about five of us. So, we're a small company, but we, we do a lot of work. We're, we're in probably, oh, maybe 15, 20, 30 states. And we have resellers that sell our product. And then we do a lot in the healthcare, medical, but you name it, Nindus, we probably have a system installed in it, so, whether it's government or...

• 2:15:33Speaker 01

  We just uh.

• 2:15:34Jocko Willink?

  You're out there.

• 2:15:35Speaker 01

  Anybody's got paper, I'm gonna get rid of it. We can help.

• 2:15:40Jocko Willink?

  And you, you know, you mentioned earlier, your wife, Marcia.

• 2:15:47Jocko Willink?

  When did you meet her?

• 2:15:49Speaker 01

  I met her.

• 2:15:50Jocko Willink?

  And what was that? What was the arc, the story arc there?

• 2:15:54Speaker 01

  We were, uh, I, at the time, I was a member of the Data Processing Management Association in Kansas City. And we were, I was on the board of directors for that. And we were, um, down at a bar after a board meeting one night and Marcia and her girlfriend walked in, the place was packed and a couple of the guys that were on the board happened to get up and leave just as they walked in. So we had two open seats. And we said, come sit down here with us. And they did. And, uh, so I met Marcia. That was in September of, let's see, that would have been eighty.

• 2:16:33Jocko Willink?

  Eighty-four?

• 2:16:34Speaker 01

  Eighty-four.

• 2:16:35Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 2:16:36Speaker 01

  Yeah. And, uh, so we ended up getting married and, uh, had a, she had a little boy, Aaron, who is down in Texas. And my daughter, which you met here, Hannah. And, uh, so we're, uh, we got married in October twentieth of nineteen eighty-four. And, uh, I started the business nineteen eighty-nine. So it was, uh.

• 2:17:07Jocko Willink?

  And what was the deal? Was there some story about scuba diving in here? Did you guys get married underwater or something? Or engaged underwater? What was the story?

• 2:17:14Speaker 01

  We were got engaged. I had a, we were in Hawaii, a place called Witcher's Brew, which is in, around Honoma Bay, on the island of Oahu. And, um, I have a friend over there that was a dental hygienist and she had some, that red dental floss. So I wrapped the ring in that, tied it on it, put it in a little, remember when they had the thirty-five millimeter camera cases?

• 2:17:38Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:17:39Speaker 01

  Put that down in my web suit. We swam out to the place called Witch's Brew and we went down about thirty feet under. And I stopped her and I said, I pulled out mine and I dangled it. Of course, everything's three times bigger underwater, you know? She thought she was hitting a little rock.

• 2:17:58Speaker 01

  Of course, it melted when we got on the surface.

• 2:18:03Jocko Willink?

  She went from one point five carats to point five.

• 2:18:08Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 2:18:10Jocko Willink?

  And then you had a, so you had a son?

• 2:18:13Speaker 01

  Aaron.

• 2:18:14Jocko Willink?

  And then your daughter, she ended up joining the army?

• 2:18:17Speaker 01

  Yes, she was a.

• 2:18:18Jocko Willink?

  So you got third generation army?

• 2:18:21Speaker 01

  That's true.

• 2:18:22Jocko Willink?

  And she actually shipped off to Afghanistan at one point?

• 2:18:25Speaker 01

  Correct, right. She was a chemical officer and.

• 2:18:30Jocko Willink?

  How hard was that for you?

• 2:18:31Speaker 01

  That was tough. I know it was tough on her and it was tough on me, you know, I just, you know, it's, it's one thing, you know, when you, when you go, but it's when your daughter goes, you've got a lot of other thoughts going through the mind and she's a very strong woman. She was, went to college at Warrensburg and she was the first ROTC female battalion commander. She was the first female to go to jump school from there and the first one to go to Afghanistan. So, and now she's a deputy sheriff for Johnson County, Kansas and she's, loves her job.

• 2:19:15Jocko Willink?

  Must be the daughter of a Sante raider.

• 2:19:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:19:19Speaker 01

  Well, she got it, got it honestly, I guess, you know? Of course, her brother always worried about her, but I tried not to show my concerns. But it was when your daughter's in harm's way, you gotta be a little crazy.

• 2:19:37Jocko Willink?

  Heck, I worry when my daughters, one of my daughters goes to the grocery store where I can't even imagine she'll go to Afghanistan. So God bless you.

• 2:19:46Jocko Willink?

  And, you know, that's the, the last life lesson that you have in the book. You say life lesson nine sacrificial living. That scene as we arrived at Pope Air Force Base back in November 1970 really made an impression on me. It's not only the soldiers, but also their wives who are heroes. These families are the type of people our world needs. People who know this life is not just about their own convenience. I am thankful for what these families and also those of first responders in civilian life do for our country and for freedom around the world. And that's your, uh,

• 2:20:29Jocko Willink?

  that's sort of your, your final life lesson there. Mm hmm. And like I said, the stories in the book, and we only covered a fraction of the book today, but it's packed full of more information. The just, it's

• 2:20:46Jocko Willink?

  very powerful. And there's one, one thing I wanted to cover, which we haven't really touched on yet, which is the impact of the raid. Right? Because clearly you go on this operation, the operation is to rescue POWs. And as we've covered, there was no POWs there. And it'd be easy to think, well, then that must be a failed mission. But that couldn't be further from the truth. The, there was a huge impact for the POWs and, and part of the section of the book where you have other people's stories. You have a bunch of commentary from some of the people that were POWs in Vietnam. And we've had some of these heroes on this podcast, incredible human beings.

• 2:21:32Jocko Willink?

  You have some, I'm going to just read some of these highlights. US Air Force First Lieutenant J H Spike Nazemith, POW from 1966 to 1973. He says, I was in Hanoi six and a half years. After the raid, the guards were clearly shaken by what they heard. They were digging holes like mad. It was a real show to watch. At dawn, the NVA were still running around. You've heard of a Chinese fire drill? They're digging foxholes right outside our cell. They've got machine guns set up all over the prison yard. They're digging in foxholes real deep. I can't believe all the frigging foxholes. First time I'd seen the little bastards work up a sweat.

• 2:22:12Jocko Willink?

  U.S. Air Force First Lieutenant Joe Krekka, POW, 1966 to 1973. On the night of November 21st, 1970, I was a POW in Camp Faith, a camp just about 10 miles south of Sante and about the same distance west of Hanoi as Sante. It didn't come out until a few days later what had happened. Within 48 hours, we were all packed up, placed onto six by six trucks and ferried into Hanoi. So this is an impact, direct impact of the raid. They started consolidating these prisoners, which is a massive morale boost. He says, "Whereas before we had been held in much smaller groups, one, two, three, four, or even eight or 10, there were now 50 of us all together in a room of about 35 feet by 70 feet.

• 2:22:57Jocko Willink?

  New faces, new stories to tell and hear and putting faces of fellow Americans we only knew by main, by name. Language classes were taught in German because they organized like a educational system. Once they were together, they had a, just a, they started being more productive. Language classes were taught in German, Spanish, and even Russian. Math classes were divided into three levels, appropriately X, Y, and Z. We also had courses in history, sociology, politics, religion, wine selection. Yes, we had a wine tasting class, meat cutting, and lumber selection. And I taught of a course in physics, automotive theory and practice, as well as one on classical music themes and composers."

• 2:23:40Jocko Willink?

  He said, "We were still being held captive, but since the raid on Sante prison camp by the incomparable Sante Raiders, life was so much better. Hats off to all the Raiders and those who supported the raid, Air Force, Navy, Marines, and all those at their support bases on land and sea. Bravo." Another one, Captain, U.S. Air Force Captain Leon Lee Ellis. Sante POW Camp, from 1967 to 1973. "The night of November 20th and 21st at Camp Faith, we POWs were awakened in the middle of the night, hearing explosions, aircraft, SAMs launching, and several minutes of chaos. We could not have guessed that our old camp at Sante, just a few miles up the road, was entertaining guests, uninvited guests for sure.

• 2:24:25Jocko Willink?

  The next morning, we saw fear in the eyes of the guards and turnkeys, and within 48 hours, we were loaded up and moved back to Hanoi. For the first time ever, we were in large groups." That we were not rescued by the raid. In many ways, our sanity and teamwork were saved by that event. We will always be indebted to the Raiders for what they did for us.

• 2:24:49Jocko Willink?

  U.S. Navy Lieutenant, Junior Grade Porter, Halliburton, POW, 1965 to 1973. At Camp Faith on November 21st, we heard gunfire and jet noise from somewhere close by, but had no idea what was happening. The elation we felt, knowing that our government had tried to rescue us, was the most powerful morale booster imaginable. We were especially thankful to the guys of the Sante Raiders, who had volunteered for this mission and risked their lives to try and rescue us. Another one. U.S. Navy Commander Paul Galante, Sante POW Camp. He said, "The Sante Raid itself was the most memorable moment of my captivity. We knew Uncle Sam wouldn't forget about us.

• 2:25:33Jocko Willink?

  The Sante Raid proved that."

• 2:25:37Jocko Willink?

  U.S. Air Force First Lieutenant Mike Burns, POW, 1968 to 1973. "We were all jubilant because after so many years of waiting, something finally happened. Fighter pilots like to make things happen and are probably the worst, probably worse than most people at doing nothing."

• 2:25:53Jocko Willink?

  U.S. Air Force Major D.W. Wayne Waddell, POW, 1967 to 1973. "You guys made the biggest positive change in our sojourn in North Vietnam, and we can never repay you for taking that risk. Thanks."

• 2:26:12Jocko Willink?

  And I'll read one more. This is U.S. Air Force First Lieutenant Larry Lucky Chesley, Sante POW Camp, 1966 to 1973. "I was captured in 1966 and spent the next 2,495 days, just short of seven years, as a POW. I was at Sante." We had prayed for months that God would move us to a better camp. He did on July 14th. I guess a person needs to be careful what he prays for. He might get it. We loaded in the trucks and went to a better camp, which fulfilled our prayers. Then the raid came. We were blessed once more. We were moved to a better camp in Hanoi where we had big rooms.

• 2:26:52Jocko Willink?

  About forty-eight of us in a room. We could now teach each other things such as languages, choir, movie. We told movies and we had programs on each Sunday and also for Christmas, Easter, Fourth of July, Marine Day, etc. When we got packages, and that was not very often, those who got packages shared them with those that received nothing. I never received any packages or letters for four years. Yes, for four years, my wife and family did not know if I was alive or dead. I am eternally grateful to the heroic things that the men of the Sante raid did for our country and those incarcerated in Vietnam.

• 2:27:34Speaker 01

  And then came the Fourth Airline Allied Command. Their motto was return with honor.

• 2:27:44Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's outstanding. Yeah, and as I said, I was just hitting the highlights. I didn't even cover all these POWs, the impact that you all had conducting this operation, which by the way, I haven't mentioned the operation name was Ivory Coast. That was the name of the operation.

• 2:28:04Jocko Willink?

  But, you know, the impact that you all had was just incredible and amazing to be able to sit here and and talk to you, someone from a raid that I've studied and read about for many, many years. And just an incredible opportunity to be able to sit here and talk to you and hear these stories from you. For everybody out there, the book is just incredible piece of history and it's available on Kindle. If you're one of these digital people, there's an audiobook, traditional print. You know, whether you want soft cover, hardcover, but just an incredible book. Go out and get it. We just covered a fraction of the stories today.

• 2:28:51Jocko Willink?

  It's an amazing, amazing piece of history.

• 2:28:54Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 2:28:55Jocko Willink?

  Um, probably a good place to, to wrap it up. Echo, Charles, do you have any questions?

• 2:29:00Speaker 02

  I got nothing. Outstanding.

• 2:29:02Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 2:29:03Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 2:29:04Jocko Willink?

  That's, that's a rare occasion.

• 2:29:07Speaker 02

  I was gonna ask about the wine tasting, but that wasn't your thing, right?

• 2:29:10Jocko Willink?

  No, we'd have to ask Captain Charlie Plummer.

• 2:29:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:29:13Jocko Willink?

  Maybe Will Reader, Bill Reader, about that one.

• 2:29:16Speaker 02

  Do we know what we learn in a wine tasting class? Do any of us know that?

• 2:29:21Jocko Willink?

  Probably different ways that wine are made to taste different ways and.

• 2:29:27Speaker 02

  No, I think he goes deeper.

• 2:29:28Jocko Willink?

  When you talk to the POWs, we've talked to POWs, the.

• 2:29:31Speaker 01

  How is come next time? Cause I don't know.

• 2:29:34Jocko Willink?

  The amount of focus that they have on food.

• 2:29:36Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:29:36Jocko Willink?

  Is incredible. They go through everything that they've ever eaten in their whole lives. Literally, they have, they'll talk about menu, they'll prepare a, a Christmas Eve dinner menu for months.

• 2:29:48Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:29:48Jocko Willink?

  And just think about what they're gonna eat. I mean, cause those guys were getting fed, uh, you know, these little, little balls of rice with piece, chips of wood in it.

• 2:29:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:29:57Jocko Willink?

  They'd be happy if there was a bug in there, cause they'd get a little extra protein.

• 2:30:00Speaker 01

  No kidding.

• 2:30:01Jocko Willink?

  Um, yeah, that's amazing. I know I, I'm due to have those guys back on the podcast. It'll be, it'll be awesome to be able to ask them, you know, what they remember about, about this and how it impacted them. But amazing story. Terry, you got any final thoughts you wanna share?

• 2:30:16Speaker 01

  No, I, uh, you know, it was a team effort from the guys that's supporting us. I mean, when you think about how many people were involved in the Sante raid, uh, 56 guys were on the ground. But we had, I would say 5,600 helping us. Guys that were on the ships, you know, we had, where the air, their aircraft came from, uh, three different, uh, uh, air, air purging.

• 2:30:49Speaker 01

  Carriers and I think it was six or seven bases and it was a joint effort. I mean, there were so many people involved in it. But what's interesting is nobody knew what was going on.

• 2:31:05Jocko Willink?

  They were all compartmentalized.

• 2:31:06Speaker 01

  They were all compartmentalized. Colonel Sidnor or Colonel Simons and General Manor had a letter from the Joint Chiefs of Staff that said, if these guys need anything, give it to them, no questions asked. And that's what they hand carried to every base they went to. And there was no questions, they never was turned down on anything they requested. And, you know, so that's how high in the echelon it went. But also how many people lower in the echelon had an impact and helped with the Sante raid.

• 2:31:50Speaker 01

  And some of them probably didn't even know they were doing it because of secrecy.

• 2:31:54Jocko Willink?

  Well, you barely knew you were doing it until a few hours beforehand.

• 2:31:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's the part, you know, an hour before we took off is when we knew where we were going. So.

• 2:32:05Jocko Willink?

  Well.

• 2:32:06Speaker 01

  But security was for our own benefit.

• 2:32:08Jocko Willink?

  Absolutely.

• 2:32:09Speaker 01

  So, you know, I've never questioned why they kept it a secret. I was just glad they did, you know, so.

• 2:32:17Jocko Willink?

  Well, I'm glad we can hear about the secret now and thank you for joining us out here.

• 2:32:21Speaker 01

  My pleasure. It's been a real honor to be, and to all the veterans out there, thank you for your service to this great country. I know we got some rough rerides out there, but we also have been through them before and we'll, we'll survive. We just have to pick up our bootstraps and chug on.

• 2:32:42Jocko Willink?

  Well, you, you all have given us lessons learned and, and thank you for your, for your service and for your contribution to America and for your contribution to special forces and really to special operations as a whole. As I said, you and your, your brothers in arms that conducted this, this operation, you made a huge impact. Not only, like I said to the POWs, but you made a huge impact to the morale of the country and you made a huge impact to special operations and our trajectory in history.

• 2:33:22Jocko Willink?

  So, thank you for coming on and thank you for everything that you and your fellow San-Tay Raiders have done. We will not forget you.

• 2:33:33Speaker 02

  Thank you, sir.

• 2:33:34Jocko Willink?

  Thank you.

• 2:33:37Jocko Willink?

  And with that, Terry Buckler has left the building. Pretty awesome to be able to sit down and talk to him, Echo.

• 2:33:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:33:47Jocko Willink?

  How do you feel about?

• 2:33:49Speaker 02

  It's interesting.

• 2:33:49Jocko Willink?

  How do you feel about that whole scenario? Not knowing where you're going to execute this massive mission and you don't know where you're going until an hour before you go?

• 2:34:01Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah, obviously, kinda, there's a lot to think about it to start with where it's one of those things where it's almost like your mind, I would imagine anyway, that your mind just kinda goes to, okay, um, I'm here to essentially do a mission. And so it kinda blocks that. Of course, you can be wondering, I would imagine, I don't know. But of course, you're imagining what you're gonna do. But either way, it's like it forces your mind to just be prepared for kinda anything.

• 2:34:29Speaker 02

  But it's still very off-putting to know. This is what I thought about even more so, though, than that is. So you know how he started the, his business afterwards, right? And it's like, oh, digitizing like documents. It's like, oh, bro, you didn't start like some tactical shooting course or, you know, something like, but it just goes to show where like, even Tilt, wasn't he like a reporter?

• 2:34:55Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, Tilt was a reporter for a full career, by the way.

• 2:34:59Speaker 02

  Yeah. So it just goes to show like how a military man, kinda like a jujitsu man.

• 2:35:07Speaker 02

  Is like, bro, you don't know, like he can be anybody and he can go and perform and do these crazy things. Hold the Guinness Book of World Records for quickest kill and whatever you said there. And then go to his quote unquote, normal life and just start printing or digitizing printed documents. Just like in jujitsu, you're like, man, this guy, he's kicking my ass. He must be some sort of a like, I don't know. Construction guy or maybe like some, some real hard job and he's like, oh no, he's an accountant. Okay. All right. And it, it just paints that picture more, you know?

• 2:35:43Jocko Willink?

  And there's something to be said for, that's the way veterans have done it for a long time. I mean, the world war, two veterans came home and they went and got jobs doing things, you know? They went back to school. They did the GI Bill. Like you, you don't have to, you know? Not everyone's going to come home and start a tactical shooting company, you know, like that's not, that's not the normal thing. What makes it seem normal is you know, when someone owns a tactical shooting company that they were a veteran. So you're like, oh, well, everyone that's a veteran must start a tactical shooting company. That's not necessarily true.

• 2:36:19Speaker 02

  That's how it feels. That's, yeah.

• 2:36:20Jocko Willink?

  It feels that way. Yeah. It feels that way because there's no one that went to college and studied, you know, studied economics and then started a tactical shooting company, right?

• 2:36:32Speaker 02

  That's true.

• 2:36:32Jocko Willink?

  So you don't, you don't have that data in your head. So you think, well, oh, this guy's got a tactical shooting company. He was a veteran. Another guy has a tactical shooting company and he's a veteran. Another guy, so all veterans must start tactical shooting companies. No, a lot of veterans go and start, well, data processing companies and I work with, I mean, I work with a lot of companies where I work with veterans all the time that, that, you know, we're talking about their business. We're talking about what they do. And then occasionally, oh yeah, well, I was in the army or oh, I was in the Marine Corps. And they have a totally separate job and they have a different career and that's very normal. It's not abnormal. It's actually more normal. It's more normal to do that than it is to start a tactical shooting company.

• 2:37:19Jocko Willink?

  Very, it's more normal.

• 2:37:20Speaker 02

  And even, and this is more to, I don't mean to put too fine of a point on it, but of course, tactical shooting company, okay, but like any kind of adventurous, and this is just my experience, like the bias I came from my experience with meeting all these guys, we got Micah Fink, doing all these adventurous things now, you know, where it's like you go through these crazy missions, or all these crazy military experiences, you come home and boom, let's switch missions into some other quote unquote adventurous scenario, you know, and a lot of people, a lot of us, or not us, but a lot of people do that, and we see that, you know?

• 2:37:54Jocko Willink?

  I think it's your awareness bias.

• 2:37:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:37:56Jocko Willink?

  Because when you become aware of something that sounds like that, you go, what's that person's background? Oh, they were a veteran, that makes sense. You don't look at an accountant and say, whoa, I wonder what military branch they were in, when they probably were, there's a decent chance that they were in the military. There's all kinds of veterans out there working. I mean, I meet veterans all the time when I go and work with companies. Companies, just so you know, companies have veteran programs inside their company. So I'll work with a financial company, and inside their financial company, they have like a veterans group. And they'll say, hey, can we spend 15 minutes doing Q and A with you? And I go, oh, with who? And they go, oh, we have a veterans group. We have, you know, of our 2,000 employees,

• 2:38:38Jocko Willink?

  we have 274 veterans, and we, we sell insurance, or we manufacture widgets or whatever, but they have a bunch of veterans that work there. And that's every, I mean, when I work with big tech companies, they have veterans. When I work with financial companies, they have construction companies, everyone's got veterans. It's just that it stands out in your head when someone owns a shooting company, because you think it's cool. So it's normal for a veteran to come home and do what they're gonna do. That's, that's, that's the way the world works. But, and this is a good example. The interesting thing about his career was just...

• 2:39:15Jocko Willink?

  It's it's almost like this guy was in the NFL for one season and he didn't play any games except the Super Bowl, right? Like that's the kind of incredible and then he and then that was it. He retired after the Super Bowl, one game and went out there, won the championship and and then carried on with the rest of his life. Did three years, three years, like and doing that such a such a high profile mission, probably one of the most, well, the most high profile mission for special operations at that time. It's amazing. So, uh, good stuff. Awesome to be able to talk with him.

• 2:40:00Jocko Willink?

  And this is a hugely influential mission for special operations. Uh, we appreciate you supporting us, by the way, out there. If you want to support us and you want to support yourself, get, go to jockofield.com, get some of these beverages, by the way, freaking, I did not get a lot of sleep last night. Got, I got stuck in my, in my roller coaster of brain thought, which is, which is not, I, I can't stand it, you know, I can't stand it. And I, the, here's what was a bummer was I, I had bad sleep the night before and I was like, oh, I had a good workouts and I thought I'm gonna be asleep like a baby tonight. I'm going to bed early, like, you know, 9:30, I'm getting ready to go to

• 2:40:44Jocko Willink?

  sleep. I'm thinking, oh, this is gonna be great. I'm gonna feel great. I went to bed, but, you know, 10, 10, I'm, I'm laying in bed in the darkness and I've got the eyes are shifting back and forth, you know, counting the walls and thinking about this and thinking about that and thinking about this and thinking about that and thinking about this. So that happened until one o'clock in the morning.

• 2:41:04Speaker 02

  Wait, so when that happens, then, okay, so this, because that happens, that's a real thing where, but is it the kind where you're thinking about one or two things over and over and over and over

• 2:41:12Jocko Willink?

  I can describe this. This is the way it feels. Have you ever been to Disneyland?

• 2:41:20Speaker 02

  No.

• 2:41:20Jocko Willink?

  Okay, there's a ride there. It's called Space Mountain. And in Space Mountain, you're on a roller coaster, but you can't see very much in front of you. It's in the dark, basically. So you're suddenly you're going in one direction, then you go in a different direction, then you go in a different direction. So that's what my mind is like. I'm on, I'm on a roller coaster. It's dark, but I just keep seeing like a new idea comes up, then another new idea, then another new idea, then another new idea. And it just doesn't stop. And maybe sometimes it does circle back to the original idea, which just starts the whole process again. But I am getting, I probably slept two and a half hours last night, which, which sucks. I wanted to sleep more, but

• 2:42:01Jocko Willink?

  here I am. Here I am. So, and I drank, this is, I normally don't have two goes in one podcast, but I did today. So you may need some clean energy in your life. You don't need to have necessarily some jittery energy. You don't need to have, you don't need to have sugar intake. You don't need to give yourself type two diabetes. You can just get yourself a go. Get yourself a go. Jacofuel.com. Get yourself some milk. I'm gonna go home and have milk, by the way, because I haven't eaten yet, because I fasted.

• 2:42:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:42:32Jocko Willink?

  So we're feeling that.

• 2:42:34Speaker 02

  Yeah. And especially I said this before, it's, but if, if you're lifting weights or, or exertion.

• 2:42:39Jocko Willink?

  Which I did lift this morning. By the way, bad workout. Not a great workout. Like, I mean, I was borderline, hey, am I gonna get the benefit from this workout right now? The answer was finally yes.

• 2:42:51Speaker 02

  So how many days of like shitty sleep do you have to go through to actually get a bad work? Cause you can go one day junk sleep and still get a sick workout.

• 2:43:00Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I, I don't know. I don't know, but I will get good sleep tonight. That's, that's the nice thing.

• 2:43:06Speaker 02

  Bro, for me, two days. If I go the second day, bad sleep, sorry, workout, workout, might as well not even do it. Yeah, junk workout.

• 2:43:13Jocko Willink?

  It depends on what I kinda, if I, if I go into it and get kinda like a little bit of anger going, that I'm pissed. Then I might get jacked some more still, but I did a week workout today.

• 2:43:25Speaker 02

  But you, do you, are any of your work, because it's different kind of workouts, but are any of your workouts, um, like based on? For lack of a better term, like a bodybuilding scenario. Okay.

• 2:43:36Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:43:36Speaker 02

  Put it this way then, and tell me if this applies to your workouts or you. So if I do, I don't know, chest Monday, where are we at? And then I don't feel the pump and I'm tired. That is like, there's something wrong with me physically, whether I didn't get enough sleep, I didn't eat enough, I'm not hydrated or whatever. But if you don't get the pump, that's a big indicator. And then there's other stuff where it's like, you just feel weak and just not into it mentally. All this stuff. There's other, other factors. But do you have any workout where it's like you're, you feel that physical like pump versus if you don't?

• 2:44:09Jocko Willink?

  I'd say I kind of feel that on a lot of workouts.

• 2:44:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:44:13Jocko Willink?

  You know?

• 2:44:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, like dips, you feel.

• 2:44:15Jocko Willink?

  Dips to feel good, but muscle ups too. Like when you get done with muscle ups, you feel like kind of jacked all the way around.

• 2:44:21Speaker 02

  Oh, for real?

• 2:44:23Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. So you know what? When Jason Gardner said the other day that he takes a one discipline go pill in the morning, that's, I haven't tried it yet, but that seems like a good move.

• 2:44:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:44:33Jocko Willink?

  Just to get a little, a little kicker.

• 2:44:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:44:36Jocko Willink?

  I haven't tried it yet. I, I have them before I'm like going to speak and I don't want to have a bladder filled with liquid.

• 2:44:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:44:43Jocko Willink?

  Distracting you. But you can feel those things.

• 2:44:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:44:46Jocko Willink?

  Feel those things for real. Um, so there you go. You want some milk? You want some joint warfare? You want some krill oil? Go to Jaco Fuel dot com. You can get that. You can get the drinks at Wawa, by the way. We're moving to some other convenience stores right now. Also some other, some other big, uh, news coming on the front.

• 2:45:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:45:04Jocko Willink?

  For Jaco Fuel. Vitamin shop, you can get it there as well. So check that out. Jaco Fuel dot com.

• 2:45:10Speaker 02

  That's true.

• 2:45:10Jocko Willink?

  What else?

• 2:45:11Speaker 02

  Also, Origin USA.

• 2:45:12Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 2:45:13Speaker 02

  American manufactured goods, durable goods, as it were. I didn't know what that meant, by the way.

• 2:45:18Jocko Willink?

  Mm hmm.

• 2:45:18Speaker 02

  Durable goods. Yeah, it's like clothes, work clothes, pants, shoes, that kind of stuff. Um, the new hunting line thing.

• 2:45:26Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:45:27Speaker 02

  When is that going down? Cause look, do I hunt? Hmm. You know, it's debatable.

• 2:45:32Speaker 02

  Probably not.

• 2:45:32Jocko Willink?

  I don't think it's debatable.

• 2:45:33Speaker 02

  Well. Either way, uh, like it can be used for other stuff.

• 2:45:39Jocko Willink?

  We will have the hunting line this summer, late summer to be prepared for the hunting season in September.

• 2:45:49Speaker 02

  That's hunting.

• 2:45:50Jocko Willink?

  So, well, there's, there's other hunt, but the, the hunting season we're aiming for is that September hunting season. So, yeah, we're coming.

• 2:45:58Speaker 02

  Is there different hunting seasons for different places?

• 2:46:01Jocko Willink?

  Different places, different animals, different weapons.

• 2:46:05Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 2:46:06Jocko Willink?

  So there's a whole bunch of things and it can go, you know, in it. Yes, different, different animals, different weapons, different seasons. You've got a bunch of stuff to contend with, um, and we'll be making stuff for all of it. Very, very cool venture, working with some great people, working with Cam Haynes, which is awesome. I mean, he's just a machine, so it's, it's, that guy is possessed and obsessed with hunting. And so it's great to have him giving guidance on making the gear exactly as it should be made. No compromise. Hey, it has to be able to perform. If you're going to keep up with Cam Haynes.

• 2:46:48Jocko Willink?

  In the woods, like that clothing has to keep up with campaigns. That clothing is thinking to itself, all right, I'm going to be put through the wringer. So that's what we're talking about. We have the highest possible standard.

• 2:47:01Speaker 02

  Yeah. And like as it applies to actual hunting, because let's face it, when I'm looking at that thing, I'm, I'm pretty much only concerned on about how it's going to look on me.

• 2:47:12Speaker 02

  Or when I'm doing whatever I'm be doing with it, but, um, yeah, that makes, that makes sense. Campaigns, I recently connected with him on, online too, so.

• 2:47:20Jocko Willink?

  There you go. Got a new friend.

• 2:47:22Speaker 02

  Hell, yeah. Hell, yeah. Boys.

• 2:47:23Jocko Willink?

  So, originusa.com, if you want to check some of that stuff out.

• 2:47:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, also Jiu Jitsu stuff.

• 2:47:28Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:47:28Speaker 02

  By the way.

• 2:47:28Jocko Willink?

  Of course.

• 2:47:30Speaker 02

  Oh, Jesus stuff. All made in America. It's a big deal.

• 2:47:33Jocko Willink?

  That's a huge deal. Maine and North Carolina, we're, we're making it. Unbelievable. Bringing it back.

• 2:47:40Speaker 02

  Also Jaco has a store, JacoStore.com. That's where you can get your Discipline Equals Freedom shirts and hats and merch. It's good stuff. It's quality. It's not just, it's not just like, my daughter always says that stuff. You know, it's weird how kids nowadays, well, let's face it, my kids and their friends, I'm sure it's, you know, most kids were. Their terminology is like, you know, merch is like, obviously, we know what that means. It's short for merchandise, which merchandise is a specific thing. So we know the translation. They don't even know. They're just like merch.

• 2:48:12Jocko Willink?

  It's merch.

• 2:48:12Speaker 02

  That's the official word, you know?

• 2:48:14Jocko Willink?

  My daughters speak in a kind of their own language with, and I went and saw one of my daughters up at my middle daughter up at college and got to listen to her and her friends and they have their own words, their own language. And it's pretty funny to listen to.

• 2:48:29Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. Sus.

• 2:48:30Jocko Willink?

  Oh, for sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What is it? Suspect?

• 2:48:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, which is suspicious. Like, right? So we know that. We know sus. Like, oh, that look kind of sus. So I'd be like, okay, obviously she, that girl meant suspicious.

• 2:48:43Jocko Willink?

  Also like, oh, that's a suspect situation. So either one of those things can be sus.

• 2:48:47Speaker 02

  But suspect is a slang term derived from suspicious, right? Because suspect as a word is a person.

• 2:48:54Jocko Willink?

  No, but you could also say, oh, that, that chair is suspect, whether it's going to, you wouldn't say suspicious. You'd say that thing is suspect.

• 2:49:02Speaker 02

  No, you'd say suspicious.

• 2:49:03Jocko Willink?

  You could say that. You could say that.

• 2:49:06Speaker 02

  I'm pretty sure suspect is a noun.

• 2:49:08Jocko Willink?

  Well, I guess we'll have to go to the O E D.

• 2:49:12Speaker 02

  I know you're an English major, but we might want to revisit that. Here's my hypothesis. Suspicious is the adjective. Suspect is the noun. Sus is like.

• 2:49:23Jocko Willink?

  Could go both ways.

• 2:49:24Speaker 02

  The amalgam of the whole deal.

• 2:49:27Jocko Willink?

  All right. Well, your whole English literature understanding is sus at this time.

• 2:49:34Speaker 02

  Either way, JacoStore.com is where you can get all this merch.

• 2:49:38Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:49:39Speaker 02

  But it's more than just merch. It's like, it's quality. It's like, it's stuff you're supposed to actually wear.

• 2:49:44Jocko Willink?

  And it's, it's also, you know, you know.

• 2:49:48Speaker 02

  It's part of the game.

• 2:49:49Jocko Willink?

  It's part of like, you know, if you're in the game.

• 2:49:52Speaker 02

  It's part of the culture.

• 2:49:53Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's part of the game, part of being in the game. I remember when we first kind of had the podcast, I would say like, oh, how'd you get into the game?

• 2:50:02Speaker 02

  I still say that.

• 2:50:03Jocko Willink?

  People, I haven't said in a while, maybe I need to bring it back. Yeah. How'd you get in the game? And they go, I heard you on Rogan, you know, I heard you on Tim Ferriss or whatever.

• 2:50:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:50:11Jocko Willink?

  You know, how'd you get in the game? My uncle told me. Or whatever.

• 2:50:14Speaker 02

  It's real.

• 2:50:15Jocko Willink?

  So there you go. If you want to get in the game. JockoStone.com.

• 2:50:18Speaker 02

  And represent. It's true. Also subscribe. If you haven't already, leave a review. And you can subscribe to a bunch, not a bunch, but other podcasts as well that we're doing. If we don't know. Which ones.

• 2:50:31Jocko Willink?

  Jocko Unraveling with Daryl Cooper. We're getting kind of crazy sometimes on those.

• 2:50:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:50:37Jocko Willink?

  Getting kind of crazy with DC. That's how you got to roll. DC's got a long trajectory of thought.

• 2:50:42Speaker 02

  I understand.

• 2:50:42Jocko Willink?

  By the way, I try and explain that to people.

• 2:50:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:50:44Jocko Willink?

  DC's got a long trajectory of thought. He's, he's going to make his case over. Of extended period of time. So if you, if you hear him say something, and when I say say something, when you hear Daryl Cooper say something for three hours.

• 2:50:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:50:58Jocko Willink?

  He's only representing, that's like the warm up for him.

• 2:51:01Speaker 02

  Right. You gotta keep listening.

• 2:51:02Jocko Willink?

  So keep listening to that. And then you'll see that there's probably a more balanced overall picture, but sometimes he seems a little bit. You know, you gotta take, gotta, gotta listen to DC. You gotta listen to the man. So check out, check out that one, Jocko Unraveling, uh, grounded podcast, Warrior Kid podcast. We got the Jocko Underground. Appreciate your support there. JockoUnderground.com. If you want to support freedom of speech.

• 2:51:26Jocko Willink?

  You gotta, you gotta kind of pay attention to that. Right now we know we got Elon Musk. He just bought a chunk of Twitter.

• 2:51:34Jocko Willink?

  Hopefully that's a positive sign in the world.

• 2:51:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, maybe he bought it to maybe influence more freedom of speech. Hey, you never know.

• 2:51:41Jocko Willink?

  I mean, that's the concept, right? Cause that's what kind of he's about. That and putting rockets into space and making electric, electrical cars.

• 2:51:52Speaker 02

  It's true.

• 2:51:52Jocko Willink?

  Made in America. So there you go. That's, uh, jockounderground.com. If you want to help us out there, check out the YouTube channel, check out Psychological Warfare, check out Flipside Canvas, Dakota Meyer. Dakota Meyer, we gotta get, he just went to Ukraine, by the way.

• 2:52:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:52:04Jocko Willink?

  Whatever. This Dakota Meyer, he's a Medal of Honor recipient. I was talking to him yesterday. He's like, I just got back. I'm like, oh, how was Ukraine? He was in Kiev, right? Dude, I mean. Just getting after it. So if you want to help support Dakota Meyer and all of his madness, go to flipsidecanvas.com, buy some, something cool to hang on your wall. That's what you should do, in my opinion. Got a bunch of books. Check out the books. Who will go into Sontec POW camp? That's what we covered today. We covered a fraction of it today. Terry Butler, check that out. I written a bunch of books too. If you want to get some more of the conceptual

• 2:52:42Jocko Willink?

  ideas that I speak of, you can check out any of the books that I wrote. You can check out, we have a leadership consultancy called Echelon Front, echelonfront.com. If you want to come, check some of that out. We have, we have an online academy for human beings that have to interact with other human beings. Go to extremeownership.com. You can, you got a question for me? Come and ask me. You can ask me on a Zoom call. I'm there. You can just ask me your question about your boss, about your employee, about your girlfriend, about your boyfriend, about your kid, about your jiu-jitsu tournament, whatever you want to ask me. We want to hear your questions. Go to extremeownership.com. Take, we got a bunch of courses to take about

• 2:53:26Jocko Willink?

  how to utilize the dichotomy of leadership, about how to utilize cover and move.

• 2:53:34Jocko Willink?

  Lots of important things. Extremeownership.com. If you want to help service members, active and retired, you want to help out their families, Gold Star families, check out Mark Lee's mom, Mama Lee. She's got a charity organization. It's a wonderful thing that helps out in incredible ways. If you want to donate or you want to get involved, go to AmericasMightyWarriors.org. You can also check out heroesandhorses.com. Micah Fink, who I think you mentioned a few minutes ago. Yeah. Cause you're like, well, what is Micah Fink gonna do when he gets done with his time in the SEAL teams? He's probably gonna do something badass. So heroesandhorses.com, check that out. As far as Echo and I go, we're both on.

• 2:54:17Jocko Willink?

  We're on Twitter, we're on the Gram, we're on Facebook. We're, we're possibly gonna pull you into the algorithm, but we don't want you to get pulled into the algorithm. We want you to cut away from the algorithm. Echo is at Echo Charles. I am at Jocko Willink. You can also check out Terry Buckler. He's got a Facebook page. If you want to check out his Facebook page, see what he's up to. Facebook at Terry Buckler. And thank you once again to Terry Buckler for coming on, for sharing his experiences. And thanks to Terry and the rest of the Sante Raiders,

• 2:54:57Jocko Willink?

  the mighty Special Forces, Green Brays, and the other support personnel, the pilots, the air crew that took the risks to attempt to rescue our fellow servicemen.

• 2:55:10Jocko Willink?

  And thanks to all the military personnel out there right now, who are willing to take risk to protect and secure freedom around the world. And thanks for the work done by our police and law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, Border Patrol, Secret Service, and all first responders who sacrifice to protect and secure us and our way of life here at home. And to everyone else out there, remember some of the key lessons from Terry Buckler today.

• 2:55:45Jocko Willink?

  Add humor to your life, especially in tough situations. Be excellent in everything you do. Always train and improve. Be patient, but know when to be aggressive. Don't be a complainer. Don't be indispensable. Be thankful for those who sacrifice for our freedom. And be prepared for death. Make sure the day that you meet your maker isn't the first time you've been introduced. Because if you're prepared for death, you are free to live life fearlessly. And that is a good plan.

• 2:56:29Jocko Willink?

  So go out there and get after it. And until next time, this is Echo and Jaco. Out.