490: Accept All Challenges Involved. With Travis Barnes

>Join Jocko Underground< https://www.jockounderground.com/subscribe After 9/11, Travis Barnes enlisted in the U. S. Marine Corps, driven by duty and purpose. He endured grueling training, served three combat tours in Iraq, and rose to Sergeant in a Recon unit, surviving IEDs and earning multiple commendations. After suffering traumatic brain injury and PTSD, he returned home, went to law school, and found healing through discipline — this time in crafting whiskey. In 2014, alongside his wife Hilary, he founded Hotel Tango, named in honor of their bond and his military roots. For Travis, distilling became a new mission: to create with precision, serve with honor, and lead with purpose. 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 490 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. Good evening Echo. Good evening. Realizing it is my choice and my choice alone to be a reconnaissance Marine. I accept all challenges involved with this profession. I forever shall I strive to maintain the tremendous reputation of those who went before me, exceeding beyond the limitations set down by others shall be my goal, sacrificing personal comfort and dedicating myself to the completion of the reconnaissance mission shall be my life. Physical fitness, mental attitude and high ethics, the title of Recon Marine is my honor. Conquering all obstacles, both large and small, I shall never quit. To quit,

• 0:43Jocko Willink?

  to surrender, to give up is to fail. To be a Recon Marine is to surpass failure, to overcome, to adapt and to do whatever it takes to complete the mission. On the battlefield, as in all areas of life, I shall stand tall above the competition. Through professional pride, integrity and teamwork, I shall be the example for all Marines to emulate. Never shall I forget the principles I accept, I accepted to become a Recon Marine, honor, perseverance, spirit and heart. A Recon Marine can speak without saying a word and achieve what others can only imagine.

• 1:28Jocko Willink?

  Boom, there you go. That is the Recon Creed, the creed of the Marine Corps First Reconnaissance Battalion, which is unique in that it's a standalone battalion with no parent regiment. It was activated in 1937, earned combat honors in World War II, Korea, Vietnam and in recent history in Iraq and Afghanistan.

• 1:53Jocko Willink?

  It is a hallowed unit.

• 1:57Jocko Willink?

  And of course, when recon Marines move on, while they still are and will always be Marines, they carry on and find a new mission and new goals. And it's an honor to have one of those recon Marines with us here tonight, Travis Barnes, who did three back-to-back tours in Iraq.

• 2:17Jocko Willink?

  And then carried on with a new mission. It's an honor to have you here tonight, man.

• 2:22Speaker 01

  Thank you, sir, very much. Pleasure to be here.

• 2:24Jocko Willink?

  And we got connected through Scott from the Horse Soldiers, what is it? Horse Soldiers Bourbon? Is it Horse Soldier, is it Horse Soldier Distillery? Or Horse Soldier Whiskey? What is it?

• 2:36Speaker 01

  I believe it's Horse Soldier Bourbon.

• 2:37Jocko Willink?

  Okay, so Scott connected us because you're also a bourbon guy.

• 2:43Speaker 01

  Yes, sir.

• 2:44Jocko Willink?

  And, and we'll get to Hotel Tango. What is it brewed with distilled with discipline?

• 2:49Speaker 01

  Distilled with discipline, that's right.

• 2:50Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, distilled with, maybe that goes, Charles smiled at the distilled with discipline. We like that. And we'll get to that, but you had, you had a very, man, talk about a, talk about a short and intense career in the Marine Corps, just back-to-back-to-back deployments, all combat deployments. Let's get it before we get into that, let's talk a little bit about your background. Where are you from? Where are you raised?

• 3:14Speaker 01

  Born in Sturgis, Michigan, grew up in Noble County, Indiana. Spent my formative years there.

• 3:21Jocko Willink?

  What's in Noble County, Indiana?

• 3:23Speaker 01

  Oh, man, it's the Paris of the Midwest, man. Gorgeous. No, a pretty rural farm community. You know, I had about 100 kids in my graduating class, so a small, tight-knit little hamlet of Indiana, but great, great people, great place to grow up.

• 3:43Jocko Willink?

  What'd your mom and dad do?

• 3:45Speaker 01

  Dad's a bricklayer, mom was a hospital administrator. So, you know, right down the middle class, kinda, you know.

• 3:52Jocko Willink?

  And what were you into growing up?

• 3:55Speaker 01

  Uh, you know, played basketball, ran track.

• 3:58Jocko Willink?

  Um, and you get a basketball?

• 4:00Speaker 01

  Of course, man, from Indiana.

• 4:02Jocko Willink?

  Oh, that's right.

• 4:02Speaker 01

  We didn't invent it, we just perfected it.

• 4:05Jocko Willink?

  Were you guys playing just basketball all the time?

• 4:08Speaker 01

  That's it, man. It was either baling hay or playing basketball growing up.

• 4:14Jocko Willink?

  And was Larry Bird, were you, were you, are you old enough to have Larry Bird? Were you guys just worshiping Larry Bird?

• 4:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was Larry Bird and Bob Knight. I mean, those two guys kind of just owned Indiana during the eighties and nineties.

• 4:27Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, my dad met Bobby Knight. And my dad would also say Bobby Knight was a psychopath, but he said he was pretty cool to him when he met him.

• 4:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think it's what day you met Bobby Knight was probably, you know, you'd get a different experience.

• 4:40Jocko Willink?

  So did you play, you played basketball through high school?

• 4:42Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 4:43Jocko Willink?

  Any chance of going to college?

• 4:44Speaker 01

  No, no, I mean, not at any D one level or anything like that, you know, it was, um, you know, I, I, I always knew that I was, I liked to just be around the guys as much as I did to, you know, play, so.

• 4:58Jocko Willink?

  And then what other sports you say you played?

• 5:00Speaker 01

  Ran track, did pole vault, uh, you know, just kind of as a time filler, I think, you know, again.

• 5:07Jocko Willink?

  And were you into school at all or was that your thing?

• 5:10Speaker 01

  No, no.

• 5:12Jocko Willink?

  What was your GPA? Let's get down to brass tacks. What was the GPA?

• 5:16Speaker 01

  Probably somewhere between a two, five and a three oh, man. I was, you know, I was always just, I don't know, having a good time, I think.

• 5:24Jocko Willink?

  Did you have any veterans in the family heritage?

• 5:28Speaker 01

  Had one uncle who was a Ranger, uh, in the nineties was an interpreter, uh, learned Arabic, uh, so I had, you know, but not a military family by any means, you know, for me, it was when nine 11 happened.

• 5:40Jocko Willink?

  What, when you were in high school and you were getting ready to graduate, did you, what were your plans?

• 5:45Speaker 01

  Uh, so at college, you know, I, I started off, uh, graduated. That's just what everybody would do. Or you went to work at the factory down the street at, you know, Dexter Axel or, or Bushy making widgets on a CNC machine. And so, you know, I went to college not really knowing what I wanted to do, but.

• 6:03Jocko Willink?

  Where'd you go to college?

• 6:05Speaker 01

  IU, Indiana.

• 6:06Jocko Willink?

  Okay. And, and you were in college when September 11th happened?

• 6:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I graduated high school in 2001, worked that summer and then first semester, first month, you know, in school. Uh, nine 11 happened. I was out at lunch with my uncle at Bob Evans and the waitress came over and was like. You guys see what happened on TV? By the time I got home, the second tower had come down and I was like, oh shit.

• 6:30Jocko Willink?

  And did you know at that point, were you like, yo, I'm gonna sign up?

• 6:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, for sure. I wanted to be the first kid on the block, you know?

• 6:38Jocko Willink?

  Check.

• 6:39Speaker 01

  So.

• 6:39Jocko Willink?

  But you had no real military background? You were slacking in school?

• 6:43Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 6:43Jocko Willink?

  You were a B grade basketball player?

• 6:46Speaker 01

  Solid.

• 6:46Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. But there's something just sparked as when September 11th happened. Cause you were, were you thinking about the military at all on September 10th?

• 6:55Speaker 01

  No, never seriously, you know? I've watched Full Metal Jacket. It was like, oh, that looks, that looks intense.

• 7:01Jocko Willink?

  Yep. Yeah. I always joke that the Full Metal Jacket, Platoon, Born on the Fourth of July and Apocalypse Now, all these anti-war movies, 100% made me want to go in the military. So.

• 7:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:14Jocko Willink?

  They, it goes, when you're a 15-year-old, 12-year-old, 14-year-old kid, all the anti-war stuff goes right over your head and it just lands with the war.

• 7:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. I mean, nine 11 actually, you know, that was a huge catalyst, obviously, but that was, you know, my only understanding of, were those movies of like, oh, the sexy, cool, weird, fun parts of it. Never the, you know, the real stuff.

• 7:38Jocko Willink?

  And how did you pick the Marine Corps?

• 7:42Speaker 01

  Oh, man, I think that recruiter saw me coming a mile away. Cause I, I did, I scored pretty high, you know, on the ASVAP, did, you know, I tested really high and all that stuff, but then, uh, he was like, what do you want to do? And I said infantry. And he's like, oh, man, you lucky bastard. We got one spot left.

• 7:58Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah.

• 7:59Speaker 01

  You got the last one right.

• 8:01Jocko Willink?

  Was there a line when you tried to sign up? Like, was it September 12th or 13th? Was it right away?

• 8:08Speaker 01

  Uh, so I went in probably, yeah, within the next couple of days and, um, they basically said, there was a line and said, come back later. So I waited a couple more weeks. By the time I got, you know, the appointment, um. It was oh three open, so infantry open contract was what I signed up with. And the soonest I could get out was the following April. I mean, they had booked that, they had stacked it that fast.

• 8:32Jocko Willink?

  The following April as in?

• 8:34Speaker 01

  Two thousand two.

• 8:36Jocko Willink?

  Oh, wow. Okay. No, okay. That's not too bad. I thought you meant like two thousand three following April, like April and then another April. Okay.

• 8:43Speaker 01

  No. So by that following April, started boot camp.

• 8:48Speaker 01

  And then graduated, did OC.

• 8:50Jocko Willink?

  How was, how was boot camp shock to the system? Were you pretty? You knew it was coming. You've seen film Metal Jacket enough times.

• 8:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, you know, I just remember my drill instructor just saying, you are the most feminine recruit we have ever had pass through these hollowed halls. I was like, fair enough. Fair enough, sir. Always stuck with me is like the most like low key insult you can get, right?

• 9:17Jocko Willink?

  Damn. I had my instructors in, in buds surround me and this warrant officer was like, hey, come here. And he's standing in my face during inspection. He's like looking at me like he's trying to, he looked like he's trying to read something on my face or something like that. And eventually they all surrounded me and they're like trying to figure out why this warrant officer is so intrigued with looking at me. And he goes, what do you think, guys? And they're all kind of like, you know, they didn't really know what to say to the warrant officer and he like, I think this is the ugliest motherfucker we've ever had come through training. I was like, Jack.

• 9:50Jocko Willink?

  Hey, I'll take that over most feminine, I guess.

• 9:52Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, yeah, again, if I learned there, like, all right, this is the worst they're gonna get me. Like, all right, fair enough, guys. I'll show you my show choir routine.

• 10:00Jocko Willink?

  And what were you, like nineteen?

• 10:01Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 10:02Jocko Willink?

  Check.

• 10:03Speaker 01

  Yep. Yep.

• 10:04Jocko Willink?

  And then from, you, you get done with boot camp?

• 10:07Speaker 01

  Infantry training just down the street, Camp Pendleton. And that's where they, you know, oh, three was open. So they bring in all the oh, three, eleven, basic infantry, thirty one machine gunner, forty one mortar man. And then the twenty ones walk in and they got the bling and they're just the fucking, you know, the peak performers. You can immediately tell, but just cool, laid back. And we're like, this is the coolest job you're ever going to be able to do in the Marine Corps. And

• 10:34Jocko Willink?

  Do you get to, or did you get to select what you wanted to do then out of those?

• 10:39Speaker 01

  Uh, so it went by, you know, ASVAP and your PFT and whatever other metrics they use to, to determine that. The recon was that like anybody that wants to give it a shot, try out or sign up and we'll be back for the indoc in, you know, a couple of days, which was basically thirty, Thursday, Friday, Saturday evolution of ruck run, swim, ruck run, swim. You know, just who's going to quit?

• 11:04Jocko Willink?

  How was your swimming?

• 11:06Speaker 01

  Really good.

• 11:06Jocko Willink?

  Uh, how was that? Did you grow up in?

• 11:08Speaker 01

  Grew up on a lake, grew up, yeah, hunting turtles. And I mean, that was, you know?

• 11:12Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, we got a turtle hunter over here. Oh, yeah.

• 11:16Speaker 01

  And just playing. I mean, I was outdoorsy, you know, growing up for sure, growing up out in the country. So that came just very natural. I was actually lucky. I think that because my run times are not great, I could, I'm a pack mule. I can carry a ruck all day. Uh, but the swim, obviously, you know, swimming is the great equalizer among men, right? You get a guy underwater and they just can freak out and, you know, then that's, you're done.

• 11:40Jocko Willink?

  So you did three day selection?

• 11:42Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 11:42Jocko Willink?

  And how, how many guys tried for it?

• 11:45Speaker 01

  There's probably sixty and five of us got, made it through.

• 11:47Jocko Willink?

  No kidding?

• 11:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:49Jocko Willink?

  Damn.

• 11:49Speaker 01

  There was, I mean, again, within the first day, it was down to, you know, eighteen, nineteen.

• 11:55Jocko Willink?

  Cause a bunch of people just can't swim.

• 11:56Speaker 01

  Can't swim. Yeah. So it was over. And then, then it's just attrition by who wants to be here and who doesn't. And it was weird because at that point, the, the first recon had just stepped up from a company to a battalion sometime, you know, after nine 11, before I got there. And so they were basically trying to fill slots. So we thought when we got, we checked in on nine 11, 2002. And us five guys, we thought we were immediately going to be put in a roper platoon, train up before we go to BRC, get some, some level of institutional knowledge, um, before we get, we got to go. And it was, no, you guys are going in slack man. We got to fill teams. So we're basically training up for the deployment for the invasion of Iraq. So from

• 12:39Speaker 01

  September through January, us five guys were just put into a team as the, you know, low man on the totem pole and said, learn as much as you can.

• 12:49Jocko Willink?

  Because normally you'd go to the course in Coronado, right?

• 12:52Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 12:52Jocko Willink?

  The B, it's called BRC, right?

• 12:54Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 12:54Jocko Willink?

  Basic Reconnaissance Course?

• 12:56Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 12:56Jocko Willink?

  And that's sort of, how long is that thing? That's like a pretty extensive course.

• 13:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's three months. It's, um, so first phase is just work up. You're just working out, running, swimming, lifting boats. Second phase is water phase. So you're doing boats, fins, um, just water. And then third phase is patrol phase. So you get, you know, you work up with all of your technical radio, uh, reconnaissance skills, and then you do a two week long mission up in Camp Pendleton.

• 13:27Jocko Willink?

  Do you go to, on the normal pathway, do you go to airborne and scuba?

• 13:31Speaker 01

  Yes. So yeah, the traditional path would have been, yeah, you, from there, you get to go to your select schools. So that's jump, dive, sear, ranger. I was a FAC, so that's where I eventually got to go and learn to drop bombs. But, um, yeah, and then it was, some guys got to ranger selection. Some guys got to go to, you know, whatever cool schools there are out there.

• 13:53Jocko Willink?

  So none of that for you and your five buddies, straight into a platoon, getting ready to deploy, and you know you're deploying to Iraq when you show up there?

• 14:03Speaker 01

  No, fuck, I didn't know anything.

• 14:07Speaker 01

  Barely knew my name at that point, but they were like, uh, get on the boat and, uh, we're, we're heading out. And at some point, once we were already deployed, they were like, we're headed to Iraq, guys. We're, there's going to be a big invasion. And that, we left, uh, somewhere in, right after Christmas. We got leave, came back, and everybody's like, pack your shit, get on the boat. And that was it.

• 14:30Jocko Willink?

  Were you pretty pumped about this whole scenario? Were you nervous? Were you like, let's go?

• 14:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, you know, you get to these units, right? And these guys are just superhuman, right? And they're so technically proficient. They're they're so good at the basic stuff. And we didn't know anything, right? We didn't know how to talk. We didn't know how to walk. We didn't know how to shoot. It was just OJT. You just you look at the guys that you look up to. And that seemed to be the stellar, most stellar in the platoon. And you just copy what they're doing.

• 14:59Jocko Willink?

  Did they were they not just kind of pissed that you guys were there? Did they?

• 15:02Speaker 01

  Oh, fuck.

• 15:03Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah, OK.

• 15:03Speaker 01

  Oh, God, it was horrible. I mean, the hazing that was, you know, again, this is wild west. So and it was.

• 15:10Jocko Willink?

  And did you have post Afghanistan guys? Guys who were coming home from combat in Afghanistan or no?

• 15:14Speaker 01

  Not yet. There were a few, but basically one or two platoons. And those guys were, you know, they were already working back up for the Mew. Or they were already at a schoolhouse or somewhere. So there wasn't a lot of changeover. It was basically a lot of green guys. Um, you know, the there were some guys that had done a few Mews. And they were the senior guys. Um, I think Rudy and some of the guys from Generation Kill had just gotten back from Afghanistan. But there was like one or two platoons that had made it over. And they were obviously, you know, some of the most, the guys we were looking up to, the guys that we wanted to be like. And, yeah, it just, um, we were hazed nonstop. I mean, it was training. Don't get me wrong. But it was the, you know, midnight wake up call. Go get the rock on the hill kind of thing.

• 15:59Speaker 01

  And then you get back and you're like, that was the wrong rock. Well, shit, maybe you should come up with me and tell me.

• 16:07Jocko Willink?

  Help me identify.

• 16:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:10Jocko Willink?

  Uh, yeah, I can't imagine like this is, I would say fairly the equivalent of like having guys put into your SEAL platoon that hadn't been to BUDS. You know, you'd be not quite because the, you know, the Navy boot camp has nothing to do with anything that you ever do in a in the field. But yeah, that's I can imagine there might have been some grudges.

• 16:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, there was, but it was a perfect storm. It wasn't our fault.

• 16:33Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 16:33Speaker 01

  Like, obviously, you know, but they didn't. There was no love lost there either. You know, it was you. If you're here, we're going to make you earn it one way or the other. And. Yeah, so that that initial kickoff on Iraq was, you know, we basically were thrown to the, you know, feet to the fire immediately and a lot of training, a lot of shooting on the ship on the way over there. Just, you know, again, so basic, but just enough to be dangerous, I guess, without having gone through any of the proper professional schools to earn the title and get to the team the traditional way.

• 17:08Jocko Willink?

  So, and so you show up, you get on the ship, you guys are training, you're heading over there, shooting off the fantail, getting your weapons dialed in. Um, then what, you get there and go right into Kuwait?

• 17:20Speaker 01

  Yes. The other big part was, I mean, we were basically fab welding pieces of metal off the ship to the Humvees because these were just basic and they were like, you guys might want to put some armor on there. And so they just, you know, they look like gypsy wagons with bolted on everything we could steal and scrap from off the ship. And yeah, uh, we landed in Iraq sometime in, you know, February, heloed off. Um, we're camped there in Kuwait for about a month, again, training, just getting acclimated. I'd never been, I'd never been out of the US, let alone, you know, uh, Indiana for

• 18:01Speaker 01

  that matter. Um, and then, you know, you're over there just like, holy shit, what's going on? And it was massive, right? So there's international force, you know, the Brits, the, everybody's there and they're just waiting like it's that, you know, before a race kicks off, you're just built up so much tension and anxiety that just, it was crazy. And then March, whatever, 19th, 18th, 19th of 2003, the war kicked off and we were in it.

• 18:30Jocko Willink?

  What did you think your possibility of survival was going in? Hundred percent? Cause I had Dean Ladd, who was a Marine going into Tarawa. And this is, he'd already done, I forget which other island campaign he did, but you know, I was like, oh dude, were you afraid of dying? He's like, no, that always happens to the other guy. You know, he's like, yeah, it's going into Tarawa, there's freaking explosions going off, machine gunfire. He's like, yeah, I'm getting on, I'll be fine. Of course, he ended up getting gut shot and barely survived, but. He would, he, you know, he made the comment like, yeah, it's all, young guys always think it's gonna happen to someone else. Were you in that camp or were you in the, uh, other camp or somewhere in between?

• 19:05Speaker 01

  I was certainly in, in the, the first one. Yeah. You're just so naive. You don't really, it, it doesn't click, right? Until that first time being shot at, and then it really clicks, right? And you think you want to touch the fire, right? You think you want to be that guy that's the alpha and out there and fucking Rambo. And then when bullets start coming in your direction and they're intentionally coming at you and barely missing, you're like, oh shit, this is real. And it just changes your mindset. Not in a way that you become afraid, that you just a- almost accept it differently, right? It's not, it's not gonna happen to me. It's, if it happens to me, it happens to me. It's my time.

• 19:46Jocko Willink?

  What was your, what was your mission as you guys were, before you headed in? What was your, like, what were they telling you the last briefing that you're going in? What was your mission? What were you guys doing?

• 19:55Speaker 01

  Eyes and ears for the entire force. You know, we were doing, we were out in front or off to one of the sides, basically the whole time to either, uh, create distractions for another unit to come through, um, or traditional S and R reconnaissance where we were, you know, Nazaria, we were there a few days before looking over the water, looking over the, the river to see who was moving where and, and what. Um, and that was it. I mean, there was, at that point, it was the wild west. So it was, we're gonna be the eyes and ears for the division.

• 20:28Jocko Willink?

  Then as you roll in and you start getting taskeding that you guys start doing assaults of cities and whatnot, it gets a little crazy.

• 20:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:36Jocko Willink?

  How did, how did that land with you? He didn't give a shit. You're like, oh, what was your job?

• 20:40Speaker 01

  Slack man. I mean, I was basically a donkey, uh, you know, to beans, bullets, Band-Aids, make sure we were stocked, the Hummer was ready. It was, you know, there was nothing missing loose. It was, and then a gunner, you know, up on the 50 cal. That was basically my job. You know, there was, I was not gonna be tasked with anything too crazy at that point. You know, PFC Barnes was still obviously pretty green, but everybody was, looking back, right? In the, in the moment, it's a totally different feeling than in hindsight, because at that point, there'd been guys that had been on a few muse, but that ain't combat.

• 21:14Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 21:15Speaker 01

  So we were all learning together in real time, you know, and. Again, you saw the guys that reacted very well and some guys that did not. Which was a huge learning curve too, that you you think you know somebody and how they're gonna react and people react.

• 21:32Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, I've I've I think I'm a decent judge. And it's still like even as a decent judge, six seventy percent, you know, like seventy percent like, I know this guy like, I think he'll do pretty good. Yeah, seventy percent of the time. And then thirty percent of the time you're like, well, where what just happened? And same thing is true that somebody go, ah, I'm not sure about this guy, but then they're good to go.

• 21:52Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 21:53Jocko Willink?

  And so, yeah, like, there's some level of judgment that's okay. But, yeah, you it's it's you I wouldn't put any money on anybody. I'll tell you that much.

• 22:02Speaker 01

  Not until you've been with them several times enough to know, right? I think there'd be you get you also get comfortable with guys that are in the fight with you and you know, like, I count on you to shoot the same direction and they're gonna be there to do that, right? So, um, yeah, I I I think that huge learning curve.

• 22:20Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it is very bizarre to think of whole battalions of Marines going in with probably no one having any combat experience. Yeah, that was, you know, the SEAL Teams. I mean, obviously, I was I was in the SEAL Teams in the nineties. No one had combat experience. And there's some weird there's some weird thing that you have to learn in combat. You have to go through where you all of a sudden have a better understanding of it. You go, okay. It, okay, got it. You know, it's one, it's like standing up on a surfboard for the first time or parachuting for the first time where you're like, okay, yeah, I there's a whole like mysterious part of it that's now gone. And now I can kind of function a little bit

• 23:05Jocko Willink?

  with a little bit better attitude and a little bit better understanding. But when you have whole battalions of those guys that no one has seen that yet, no one has that little extra level of understanding. That's pretty sketchy, especially because you're going in on and doing. Big giant operation. It's a freaking massive operation.

• 23:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 23:28Jocko Willink?

  I was very lucky. So I flew into Baghdad in oh, three, but it was like the fall of oh, three. And I had this really like sort of nice escalation of operations.

• 23:39Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 23:39Jocko Willink?

  Literally the first operation I went on, we, we went outside the gate and like drove around looking for possible mortar emplacements.

• 23:45Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 23:46Jocko Willink?

  Nothing happened, but came back from that. I was like, okay, there's like the, my night vision goggles work the same as they did. And the Humvees and guys are looking around, you know, and it slowly went from there and got more and more.

• 24:01Jocko Willink?

  I guess the word would be intense, but for, that was a lucky way to do it.

• 24:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:07Jocko Willink?

  For like you guys, okay, line up on this border of this entire nation and now ready, set, go.

• 24:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, it was a communal, uh, learning experience for everyone. So.

• 24:19Jocko Willink?

  So you mentioned Generation Kill. What, did you watch it when it came out?

• 24:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, I, I, I read it before it came out in the, in the Rolling Stone article, and then the book came out and then the, the mini series on HBO.

• 24:31Jocko Willink?

  How'd you like, how, how'd the book? I haven't read the book. How was the book?

• 24:34Speaker 01

  I thought it was accurate. I mean, you know, you know, there's some, uh, creative liberties, I think, but for the most part, I think it really did a good job of capturing that time and place. And the language and the speak and, you know, he, he did a good job of understanding what we were doing. And just, you know, the marine vernacular and that, again, it was, he just did a good job, I think, of capturing that time and place.

• 25:00Jocko Willink?

  And then how about the mini series when the mini series came out?

• 25:04Speaker 01

  Again, I, I think that it, you know, it, it painted some guys better than others. I think that, you know, there was some liberties taken. But at the end of the day, I was a PFC. So I did not understand or have, you know, the sight to be able to critique on what the, you know, battalion commander was doing, or even really any of the company commanders or platoon commanders at that level. It was like, I had, I got to talk to my ATL and my team leader and that was it. But so.

• 25:32Jocko Willink?

  So, uh, I was just talking to my buddy Leif, who was one of my platoon commanders. I was like the equivalent of a company commander. He was one of my platoon commanders. And we were talking about this very subject and he, one of his new guys, this guy, Ryan Jobe. We were talking about the chain of command or something like that. I was talking about the chain of command with Leif and. He was and Leif's like, I don't think Ryan even knows like who is above you in the chain of command. And sure enough, we went and asked him like, who's the XO at SEAL Team Three? And he's no idea. Who's the CO of SEAL Team Three? Couldn't name him. Like, who's your boss? He's like, Leif. And he's like, no, who do you work for? And he goes, Jeremy? He just named his, his, his NCO, his senior NCO, his platoon commander.

• 26:17Speaker 01

  Right.

• 26:17Jocko Willink?

  That was the, that's where his knowledge of the chain of command topped out.

• 26:21Speaker 01

  Right.

• 26:22Jocko Willink?

  Was me, you know?

• 26:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:24Jocko Willink?

  And, and so it sounds like you were in that boat.

• 26:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, I went from my, basically, yeah, my team leader to Donald Brumstelt.

• 26:31Speaker 01

  Like.

• 26:33Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and I, it's interesting. So I, I, I watched Generation Kill and, you know, you and I were talking about before hit record in, I, I think when, when they're making a movie, they have to add like volume to some parts of a person's character to make it a little bit more interesting of a story. So you got like the battalion commander. Look, I'm sure he was a hard dude, but they crank that up a little bit. So it's almost like he's, you know, like overly aggressive and overly hard. And then they had a couple of the company commanders where, hey, maybe the company commander wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed or maybe, I mean, but they crank that up to a point where you go, and it just makes the story, gives it more contrast. And they did that pretty much. It seemed like they did that with most of the characters.

• 27:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:19Jocko Willink?

  Just crank up the volume a little bit. Increase the contrast is what they do in the photography realm.

• 27:24Speaker 01

  I understand. Yep. Yeah, absolutely. And again, at least from, maybe there's some of those things were happening behind the scenes, but I can tell you that, you know, professionally, those guys, it would never leak out in front of the guys, the troops, right? So again, I never saw anything like that was inappropriate or, you know, you can always play armchair quarterback and second guess decisions, but you know, when you're on the ground making them, you know.

• 27:49Jocko Willink?

  And when you're, when you're pushing up, how long did you think the whole thing was gonna last? Like, did you think you were gonna be done in a week?

• 27:58Speaker 01

  No, I, I, I guess in my head, I thought it was the equivalent of like a World War II, right? Like, I was thinking, this is gonna be a year and a half, two years of fighting, you know, the Iraqi army to get to Baghdad. And then, again, I was so naive, I, I had no understanding that, you know, this is gonna be a nine-month deployment and I'll be back home and that'll be it.

• 28:19Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's weird, cuz I was older at the time and I was, I thought it was gonna be over in like a week. Cuz the first Gulf War lasted seventy-two hours and I wasn't at a SEAL team. I was going to college at the time, the Navy sent me to college, blah, blah, blah. But I was like, this thing's gonna be over in like seventy-two hours, I'm gonna miss the whole thing, it's gonna be terrible. And, yeah, but for your attitude, you're like, W W I I I is kicking off, we're going the distance.

• 28:46Speaker 01

  Right. And again, I had no concept of what the exit or the end game was. I don't know if anybody did at that point, you know, but I just was, I was like, I'll be here as long as they want me to be.

• 28:58Jocko Willink?

  Did you see the transition of the local populace from the flag-waving type, you know, thanks for showing up? Did, cuz that's what you experienced when you arrived?

• 29:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, yeah, USA, George Bush, like yelling in the streets, like chanting and for sure, that was in two thousand and three, everybody's happy to get rid of us at home, I think. That was the overwhelming response we had.

• 29:25Speaker 01

  We left sometime that summer in July, August of two thousand and three, by the time we got back the following year.

• 29:31Jocko Willink?

  Did you, when you left, was it still, hoo-ya, George Bush? Did you start to see any of the indicators of insurgency or anything like that?

• 29:40Speaker 01

  No, I mean, we were bored by the end, right? We were in some holding camp just south of Baghdad. And we went out and did, you know, intermittent patrols, just really, you know, like, bridge to nowhere kind of things, like, what are we doing? What are we looking for? No one, there wasn't a mission, it was just kind of presence ops, like, just go show that you're out there.

• 30:01Jocko Willink?

  Did you, did you get the feeling like you kinda won the war?

• 30:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. Oh, we're done.

• 30:05Jocko Willink?

  Mission accomplished, as, as George Bush famously, yeah.

• 30:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, turn the keys back over to the Iraqis and let them deal with it.

• 30:14Jocko Willink?

  And that's what you went home with. You went home with that attitude.

• 30:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, but again, it was, it was such a whirlwind. We, on the way back home, I think they told us on the, on the airplane, like, uh, guess what? You guys, we, some slots opened up, you're going to BRC. You're not, you don't get to take leave. You're gonna get three days, weekend, and you get to go right in, check into BRC. So I was like, okay, cool. Uh, and that's what we did. So, I mean, and again, at that point, we were thin, out of shape, just beat up from the deployment, basically. I looked like, you know, Wile E. Coyote, just grizzled, you know, as a nineteen year old, so, uh, or twenty year old at that point. So by the time we, we show up,

• 30:58Speaker 01

  all of these dudes were just peak performance, right? Like, they'd been training for six months to get the slot, and, you know, it was me and four other guys that just got off this deployment, that were like, oh man, we can't fail this. We gotta go. So, and that's what we did. So.

• 31:18Jocko Willink?

  But you guys were hardened, steely eyed combat vets.

• 31:21Speaker 01

  It was weird because that was truly like, you know, some of these other, you know, again, I was a Lance Corporal, so all these sergeants and guys had been waiting years to get a slot or training, you know, try to get to BRC. Yeah, they were like, what's it like? What, you know, what was it like? And so for us, it felt pretty cool, but at the same time, that disappeared first, first day of BRC. I was like, get back in the surf. Don't give a shit about your combat action ribbon. Cute.

• 31:51Jocko Willink?

  That sucks.

• 31:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:54Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I was, people would be like, oh, do you think you could still make it through BUDS and whatever, but the, the mentality that, that I had when I was a young kid, like, I'll do anything, whatever, like, I don't care about anything. But then when you're like twenty five, you're like, eh, I feel like doing that right now, you know? You seem like, you seem like an asshole to me, you know? As opposed to just when, like you're saying, when you're young and you're looking at those instructors like, that's God. So they're telling me to do something, that they must know that this is good for me. But then by the time you're like twenty five or twenty seven, you look at those instructors, you're like, that dude, I know that guy. The guy's an idiot.

• 32:33Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, you know, they're holding water over here, you know, and I'm just like, I don't know how this relates to anything we're gonna be doing in Iraq, guys, just to be clear here. Back in the pool, Barnes. Right with that.

• 32:45Jocko Willink?

  Uh, any big challenges getting through BRC?

• 32:48Speaker 01

  Um, again, no, it was for me, it was just, you know, put your head down and left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot. That's, you know, I think the mentality you gotta have. Um, it was certainly, you know, physically, anybody who says it's not challenging is insane.

• 33:08Speaker 01

  You know, we started probably with, I don't know, 50, 60 guys and we graduated 18, 19.

• 33:15Speaker 01

  And most of those were water phase and injury, but they, you know, either got to retread or just said, I'm out, D R. And, um,

• 33:28Speaker 01

  I would say, you know, if anything, the patrolling was probably not, it was for me, the, because it's putting all those technical skills together into one tight little package where you're getting graded and it's pass fail. Right? So, and then our instructor that we had, just, he just had so many CS grenades, they're the, the, the, just smoke in our face for seven days straight was just horrible. I remember that. You know, just, why?

• 33:58Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And did you get, did you get, you, did you get wounded on the, on your first deployment at all?

• 34:05Speaker 01

  No.

• 34:05Jocko Willink?

  You guys didn't take that many casualties, did you?

• 34:08Speaker 01

  On our first tour, no. Uh, there were a few injuries, but I don't think we lost anybody in our company. Um, our second and third for sure. Um, but no, again, and it was weird because each tour was very different from the combat, right? Like the first was it, when you're in Naziriyah shooting across the bridge, I mean, it looked like a scene out of Saving Private Ryan. I mean, there was full on uniformed bad guys on the other side with binoculars calling in mortars. You saw it, right? And you could see the guys, you know, shooting at you from across, and they were the enemy. By the time we got back on our second deployment, it had completely shifted to the insurgency.

• 34:49Speaker 01

  And, you know, I remember as we were getting briefed before we left on my second tour, like you guys, we call everybody in, there's a big class about IEDs and no one had heard that. They're like, what the fuck's that? And they're like, basically, it's everything and anything that you see outside of the wire. And we're like, what? What does that mean? And they were just showed pictures of all the clever little shit they were doing to hide these things and pressure plates and just the way that they, I mean ingenious, right? They were like clever little hillbillies that were able to like rig together, you know, some pretty sophisticated stuff. If you can turn over a Humvee or a tank, right?

• 35:31Speaker 01

  I mean, that takes some technical proficiency. So I think, uh, once we got there, we learned very quickly that IEDs were, that was gonna be the thing.

• 35:42Jocko Willink?

  So you, you got done with BRC, you do a workup. Did you have much of a workup after you got done? Cause it seems like you're pretty much, we're gonna go pretty quick back on deployment.

• 35:53Speaker 01

  No, I, I, I went to SERE school and I got, I was turned 21 and I got in trouble, didn't graduate SERE school that time. So I went back.

• 36:06Jocko Willink?

  What'd you do?

• 36:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, ended up, my buddy was perpendicular parked outside of the base and

• 36:16Speaker 01

  the MPs came over and like, you idiots. They took us back, turned me into the SERE commander and I was sent back to my unit without graduating. So they're like, you know what you need Barnes? A double CACs. So they sent me out to 29 Palm for two combined arms exercises as penance for my, you know, drinking mistake. So I went out there as, while we're out there.

• 36:43Jocko Willink?

  Meanwhile, you're thinking, somebody have to start a bourbon brand.

• 36:47Speaker 01

  Get over it. While we're on the CACs, they were like, guess what? Battalion just got orders, we're going back. So by the time we were out there again, it was bring everybody back. We're getting worked up. Everybody's getting re-slotted into companies and platoons. Uh, I ended up, I stayed in Alpha Company, um, but was basically with several of the same guys that I was with on my first tour. And we deployed again February, March, I think of that year, went right back into Camp Fallujah at that point, which was really getting built up to what it eventually became by my third tour. I mean, it was a fully operational military base.

• 37:26Jocko Willink?

  So when you were in like February, March of oh four is when you left or when you went to back to Iraq?

• 37:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:33Jocko Willink?

  So you and I overlapped for like a month or two there, because I think I came home in April. And one of the last things that my platoon did was this operation, direct action mission to go capture, kill this guy named Yakubi, who is one of Sodder's top lieutenants. And they kept telling us, we're going to get solder, maybe we won't, maybe we will, maybe we won't target him. No, don't target him. And finally, they said, all right, well, let's just see what happens if we get one of his top lieutenants. Because it seems a little sketchy to get him. There's, we don't know what's going to happen if we get him, but let's just test the waters a little bit. And we tested the waters and it was like, that's,

• 38:14Jocko Willink?

  Iraq erupted after that. It just fully erupted and, and went crazy.

• 38:21Jocko Willink?

  And then we left. So, sorry.

• 38:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, when we got there, there was open hostility. I mean, it was night and day from when we left the first time, right after the, we, we took Baghdad to my second tour. I mean, openly upset. And you could tell, I mean, we're getting, Fallujah was getting mortared every single day, every night.

• 38:43Speaker 01

  Indiscriminate, you know, pop shots, basically at all times of the day. You didn't dare go into some areas at that point because you were asking for trouble.

• 38:52Speaker 01

  You know, while we were there, they had some massive ambushes that took out entire platoons while we were there. Mass casualty stuff. And yeah, just completely different. I mean, it was the true insurgency, you know?

• 39:12Jocko Willink?

  And what was your job at that point in, what was your mission and what was your job specifically?

• 39:17Speaker 01

  I mean, we had so many, it changed almost, you know, sometimes daily. It was traditional S and R. It was sniper, counter sniper. We participated in some Trojan horse missions where we got to work with some SF guys to basically dress up like Iraqis and go out Trojan horse, right? Like, see what, how they react.

• 39:40Speaker 01

  And basically, we were essentially using ourselves as bait, right, to go pick a fight. And that worked for a while. I mean, they were openly recruiting insurgents to come fight Americans, right? And we stumbled upon that a few times. And it was like, this is insane. Where, you know, our interpreter is like, no, they're asking people to go fight with them to kill Americans. So it was just, the mindset had completely shifted.

• 40:06Speaker 01

  And I mean, there were, that's when the IEDs were going off every single day. They were so, you know, nonchalant about it. I mean, there was one outside the base every day, right? I mean, they would just throw a sack out or drop something and say, good luck.

• 40:21Jocko Willink?

  And, and your, what's your job in the platoon at this point?

• 40:26Speaker 01

  I was a assistant radio operator. So again, moved up, you know, one slot. And then when we'd do dismounted patrols, I'd be a point man.

• 40:35Speaker 01

  And again, but 90% of our time over there was probably spent in mounted patrols.

• 40:41Speaker 01

  And even with, you know, three to six Hummers going out and moving in formation wherever we were. And again, most of this was right outside of Fallujah. So a lot of the countryside and along the euphrates on either side. We'd get pulled up to Ramadi, we'd get pulled up over to TQ, basically to run missions out of. And then from there, we would also utilize some sort of, you know, big house as a fob for a day or two, and then move on.

• 41:12Speaker 01

  Again, the mission just changed so dramatically. You know, we were doing ambushes on certain stretches of the road between TQ and Fallujah, to figure out who was doing that. We would do direct action, sometimes with SEALs, sometimes with SF. Sometimes it was a cordon off portion. Sometimes it was the actual go and get these fuckers right now because the SEALs are over here doing something. It just shifted so quickly, I remember. And, you know, the ROIs changed as well. Sometimes it had to be a uniform guide wearing, you know, the whatever. And other times it was like, if it's a military age man out there, they're engaged. They're not supposed to be there. So it just shifted that so quickly all the time. It was really hard to keep up, honestly, you know?

• 41:56Speaker 01

  And again, with some of those, they were not afraid to go, go to battle with you. I mean, they would engage and, and true ambush. I mean, L shape and just they would, they're extremely coordinated. And, um, yeah, just wild times. There were no rules in Fallujah in 2004.

• 42:16Jocko Willink?

  And the off tempo is every night?

• 42:19Speaker 01

  It just depended again, yes, basically you were on call. Um, if you weren't, um, out actually in somewhere out in the bush. You, if you were in, uh, back in Camp Fallujah, you were still on QRF, right? I mean, there were just so many limited guys that there was no off time. It was immediately refit once you get back. Make sure you got enough beans, bullets and water to go back out for another 10 to 14 days at a time. That's primarily kind of how we would go out would be anywhere from seven to 10 days back for one or two, right back out.

• 42:50Jocko Willink?

  And would you go out to support like a battalion commander that needed help or a company commander? Or was it like, oh, we're getting intel on this area being bad. We're going to send you guys there.

• 43:01Speaker 01

  We were on our own, man. It was literally go out, find a house that's got a nice big fence around it. Pay the family, kick them out for a day or two and set up watch for either to traditional, you know, uh, reconnaissance, or, uh, it was a staging area for something bigger that would happen. A hit on a house or, you know, we think that somebody's over there. We could figure out pretty quickly who was involved in bad stuff and who was not. A lot of it was just going out looking for caches at that point too, right? You just have, we got an engineer attached and like you follow a deer trail out to a patch by the Euphrates River. You're like, I wonder what's in there, right? I'm going to check it out. And then you go back and have a talk with the homeowner and he's like, it's not mine.

• 43:47Speaker 01

  My property line ends right there. Oh, all right. Well, you're free to go. Just kidding. You're not.

• 43:54Jocko Willink?

  Is there any other, is there any major operation that you remember that was, um, like you considered successful and impactful during that, during that second deployment?

• 44:06Speaker 01

  Um, you know, we had some big engagements, just sustained firefights for a few hours that, you know, I think those were probably, and again, we're out on our own. It was, um, you know,

• 44:21Speaker 01

  That's just what it felt like for, you know, while you're in that moment, like, we gotta fight our way out of this. And I think, not one specifically on my second tour, I think it was just, you know, there were, there were a lot on that tour that just constant, it was just them constantly testing the wire, you know, from a pop shot. So you never knew what it was gonna be, right? Is it, are they just testing? Or is this gonna, is that the test for the next big one that's coming? So you were always on edge.

• 44:49Jocko Willink?

  And how did you like it?

• 44:55Speaker 01

  I think that, for me, that tour was, there was, there was a lot of fog, right? That, we didn't know who the enemy was at that point. We didn't know what the rules of engagement were. We didn't know, or how often they were gonna change, right? It just kept on evolving in ways that we were always a little one step behind where however they were evolving, right? So from IEDs that were using one mortar to then a cellphone, then to whatever the trigger would be. So they were, you know, for what means they had to operate a war, I mean, they were extremely good at it, you know? So, and Iraq is just

• 45:38Speaker 01

  built for ambushes between the date groves, the water, the berms on the side of the road. I mean, you literally are in just a kill zone all the time. It just depends on how far out they are, right? And, yeah, I think that, I don't think I would say I enjoyed it. I was certainly glad to get home from it. And at that point, I thought I was getting out. I was like, there's no way. There's no way they're gonna send me back. I've got a year and a half left. But they did. They found a way.

• 46:09Jocko Willink?

  So you, you were, you were thinking like, oh, this is not gonna be my career?

• 46:14Speaker 01

  Uh, I mean-

• 46:15Jocko Willink?

  By the time you were in your second platoon?

• 46:16Speaker 01

  At that point, they were starting to stand up, uh, Marsoc, there was, you know, they were talking about like, you know, this is the future of kind of Marine Corps Special Forces, what we're planning on doing with this, we're gonna stand this up. So they were looking for guys and experienced guys that they wanted to bring over. I was certainly recruited to do that, but I was also, I was getting burned out, for sure, you know? And I was like-

• 46:40Jocko Willink?

  Did you get blowed up at all?

• 46:42Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. We were hit by multiple IEDs, uh, my second tour.

• 46:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, completely blew off the back end of one. Um, and then another one just came in from the side. Um, yeah, luckily I was, um, just some TBI and, you know, shaken up and, you know, the fuzzies, I guess. Um, but you have that happen a few times and it gets old. You know, you start wondering, when is my time gonna be, right?

• 47:17Jocko Willink?

  So you, so you come home from that deployment, you, did you guys take any cats? You lose any guys on that one?

• 47:24Speaker 01

  Uh, not our platoon. Uh, Bravo Company had a, yeah, a major, um, uh, ambush where they lost several guys. Um, both WIA, KIA. Um, but we were on the QRF, so we went after them. And by the time we got there, I mean, it was chaos, um, as far as just, you know, bodies stacked. So, um, yeah, pretty wild, uh, pretty wild times on that one for sure.

• 47:58Jocko Willink?

  So that gives you the feeling going home like, all right, they got their, they got their pound of flesh out of me. I got a year and a half left. I'm gonna

• 48:07Speaker 01

  I'll end up being, you know, uh, lifeguard, right down at Horno, right? Exactly.

• 48:12Jocko Willink?

  And, and that's it. I'm gonna carry on with the rest of my life. Cool.

• 48:17Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 48:17Jocko Willink?

  The Marine Corps had a different idea for that?

• 48:20Speaker 01

  Well, again, I think that, you know, a lot of guys at that point were like, you know, they were either, uh, it was time to go to the schoolhouse to be an instructor somewhere or get out. And after my second tour, I mean, there was just a mass exodus of a battalion. So they had to find ways, um, to bring in other guys, um, that were coming back or wanted to be in the unit or were from third or second and wanted to come over to first. Because at that point, I think they were starting to figure out the deployment schedule.

• 48:50Speaker 01

  Well, um, while I was there, um, I started to work up with a team that they were like, you know what, you're probably not going to finish out, but just stick around to help some of the younger guys learn and teach them whatever you can. And I said, okay. Well, over that period of six, nine months, we lost, I lost two team leaders, um, both to car accidents. And so at that point, they're like, look, we'll give you your own team. If you want to take these guys over, um, and you'll be a TL in Charlie Company. And I was like, mm, okay, I'll do that one more time. Um, but again, these kids were 18, 19,

• 49:32Speaker 01

  fresh out of BRC. They'd gone through the pipeline, right? So they did the traditional route, but had not been deployed yet. And I said, all right, I'll, at that point, I was 22 and I was the old man.

• 49:43Jocko Willink?

  I was gonna say, you were an old man at that point.

• 49:44Speaker 01

  So, and I had a ton of knowledge, a ton of just combat experience to say, all right, let's, you know, I'll go do it. So I extended my contract out for a few more months, uh, to be able to go over to Iraq with those guys and, you know, do that. So, third tour was fairly similar to my second as far as, uh, the mission. Um, again, we were involved in, uh, we actually worked very closely with the SEAL team in Fallujah, um, at certain points during the Battle of Fallujah and, uh, the afterward. And that was the, also the year that they, my second, I think it was 2004 where they had the vote, right?

• 50:25Speaker 01

  And then 2003 was again, kind of that aftermath of figuring out what the vote even meant, right? And how they were going to carry on with life in Iraq. Um, again, this is really right before the uprising in 2006 and seven. Um, but you could just feel the powder keg building, right? You just, the amount of caches we were finding, we did Operation Green Titan Trident on, um, that deployment where we found, I forget how many metric tons of ammunition. I mean, everything, Russian, Chinese, old French, weird shit like they had. He had everything buried, uh, in this hole.

• 51:05Speaker 01

  Um, and that was, you know, that was one day. Uh, again, we were constantly, uh, taking pop shots. Um, and yeah, I mean, we, we had to fight our way out of a, a couple of tight spots, uh, as a single six man team on that deployment, but we didn't lose anybody. And, uh, I think we were extremely lucky because it was kind of right before the top blew off. And I think that was when you came.

• 51:32Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 51:32Speaker 01

  We changed over and it just, again, Wild West.

• 51:36Jocko Willink?

  How did you, um, how did you like being in that leadership position? How did that impact you?

• 51:43Speaker 01

  Uh, certainly, you know, the most responsibility I think I've ever had, um, as an adult, you know, is, is, uh, taking those guys over and extremely proud that we didn't lose anybody, that we made it through. Um, but nerve wracking, right? Before I was just one of the guys in the team, make sure the radios are clean and the 50 cal's ready to go. And now you got, you know, five other 18 year old dudes that are looking to you like, what do we do, man?

• 52:11Jocko Willink?

  What next?

• 52:12Speaker 01

  What's next?

• 52:12Jocko Willink?

  What's the call?

• 52:13Speaker 01

  Right. Where are we going?

• 52:15Jocko Willink?

  And, and what, what was the, uh, was it a similar mission set where you were kind of finding what, finding work?

• 52:22Speaker 01

  Jack of all trades. Um, you know, once we got over there, there was a rumor going around that, because we were getting a lot of direct action and we were getting a lot of these cool missions. And, uh, the rumor was that the SEAL team that was there got benched because they were in a firefight and someone took out an AT4 and took down a minaret from one of the mosques, uh, that was apparently a no-no, but when you're getting shot at from one, I don't know what you're supposed to do. Um, and so we eventually just were getting, uh, trade off with the SEALs. We're, I think at that point, there was a lot of intel going back and forth between, hey, we think there's a guy over here. Can you go rattle him up? We're going to be over here at the same time, getting another

• 53:05Speaker 01

  guy, night after night after night. Right? So that was the, the op tempo was just constant going and looking. As soon as they, it was, we knew we had somebody, go get them, go roll them up.

• 53:17Jocko Willink?

  Did and you can do that in like fifteen minutes, twenty minutes. I remember my, my boss had asked me, this was on my first deployment where now we were running the same thing, like it's the same thing. We're getting intel. Here's the target. Here's the house. We think they're in boom. And my boss is like, my, my commanding officer was like, how long do you need? You know, how much warning time do you need to prepare your guys to go out and hit a target? And I said fifteen minutes and he thought I was kidding. I was like, oh, I was like probably fifteen minutes, sir. And he's like, no, what I mean, really, look, what do you need? And I said, no, fifteen minutes. Like we will get our gear on. All I need is the frequency of the local conventional commander that owns the battle space and a grid coordinate of where the bad guy is and we'll go.

• 53:59Jocko Willink?

  And yeah, so you get in that pattern of that direct action and.

• 54:05Speaker 01

  And our leadership is the same way. Our platoon sergeant, platoon commander, company commander were like, if you guys can do this, go do it. And they were all for like, didn't matter if we'd never done it before, but they were like, we'll figure it out. We'll get, just give us the coordinates. We'll get it done. And that was the mindset of like, well, you didn't, no one wanted to give up that mission, right? There were so many bad guys out there at that point that it was like, uh, you know, who's going to be the one to get the next big one? So there was that feeling too of right? Um, that you wanted to be out there to, to go take that door down and see what's behind it.

• 54:39Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, there's something very immediate gratification from doing a direct action mission that I think our whole country got focused on that. Like all of our leadership was like, oh, we got this bad guy. We got this bad guy. We got this bad guy. We got this bad guy. And you think you're making progress. But when I showed up in two thousand and six and I was like, wait a second, we're still doing, we got this bad guy. We got this bad guy. We got this bad guy over and over again. And we're now enemy attack are up three hundred percent and it was just bad. And we needed to take a different approach, um, which eventually we did thankfully. Uh, how about, did, now, did you get, did you take, uh, get blown up again on that deployment?

• 55:21Speaker 01

  No, I was pretty unscathed. My last firefight was March fifteenth, two thousand and six. And it was, we were kind of doing the left seat, right seat with, um, the second battalion from out east. And um, I was up on watch on a roof and you know, did the early shift and I'll never forget it. Uh, I was just kind of standing there looking out over the horizon, you know, and I could hear the, the thwaps going by, right? And I look around and I, as I'm turning, my buddy Dane was already coming toward me saying, they're shooting at you motherfucker. And as soon as he said that, our other guy on the other side of the roof, he started

• 56:04Speaker 01

  engaged with a saw. And I was like, at that point after that, you know, and then the guys down on the ground were up on the 50 cal. So, I mean,

• 56:11Jocko Willink?

  Where was this in Fallujah?

• 56:12Speaker 01

  Mm hmm. So again, we're out just in a farmhouse, uh, out and they were behind a couple of berms and you know, had a sniper rifle and taking a few pop shots and um, luckily they weren't, they weren't a good shot. Cause I mean, and uh, yeah. And that was it. I had to march. That was my last time. And then within 30 days, I was back home, San Diego. Another 30 days, I was out of the Marine Corps, back home in Indiana.

• 56:42Jocko Willink?

  That was, that was what, like a four year and a few months hitch?

• 56:45Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 56:47Jocko Willink?

  And three combat deployments?

• 56:49Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 56:49Jocko Willink?

  And how are you feeling when you get done? You're like, hey, I got it done. I'm moving on.

• 56:55Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, you, you know, again, you don't realize how important the camaraderie, how important the guys are until you don't have them and how, you know, how much of a crutch that is that you don't realize it. You know, you can call it a crutch or a support system or whatever, but it really is. When you have it, you don't realize it. When you, when you leave it, like I did, and several guys, you know, you immediately kind of feel that there's something missing, right? And then I go back, I start school and there's no one, you can't talk to anybody about it, right? You can't, there's no one that will understand. Um, so you just learn to kind of cope for me. It's, it was all about the next thing,

• 57:37Speaker 01

  the next, you know, school, uh, pilot, uh, you know, law. So there was always this kind of goal that I would set out in front of myself and just go as hard as I could that way. Cause as soon as I start, you start thinking about, you know, you know, what was, you know, never going to be that cool again. Uh, it's a bad spiral, right? You can start, you know, what if and regret and all that shit. And that's, you know, that's toxic. So I think that for me, it's always been about, you know, life goes one direction. It's forward. There's no going back. There's no take backsies. It's, you know, what was, what was is what was, great memories, uh, great people, but also it's, it's really

• 58:18Speaker 01

  for me, and again, I struggled with PTSD and TBI and, uh, I don't think that ever necessarily goes away, right? Because the farther away you get from combat and the things that you did, that you didn't think about in the moment about collateral damage or about the, you know, why did I go left instead of right? And what impact did that have on the guy to my left and my right? Once you get out and you start having time to think about those things. I mean, it's, it is, um, it's very complicated, right?

• 58:49Jocko Willink?

  So you're, you get out of the Marine Corps, you're back in Indiana, and now you're sitting in a freaking classroom, listening to the professor talk about stuff. Well, how, how did you pull that off? Cause I was, so I came home from my last deployment to Iraq with 2006 and, and I remember so I took over, uh, something called trading detachment. And pretty quickly I was doing paperwork and I remember thinking, yeah, I have to, I have to like focus and re- recognize that as a professional, I have to do this paperwork right now because the entire other part of my brain, that was 10% of my brain, 90% of my brain was like, this shit don't matter. What are you doing? This

• 59:31Jocko Willink?

  is bullshit. And I had to really just override that and be like, okay, yep, this is what you're doing. This is part of the military and you're going to sit down, you're going to do this paperwork. I think you're supposed to cool. And, but it was not, uh, fun. And I would imagine if it was something totally different, like, oh, cause I, I was at least able to say, well, these, this is part of the military. This is the professional, you're in a leadership position. You got to do this. So shut up and do it. But if the other thing was random college course on whatever college course, I would, I don't, I think I would have had a little bit of a harder time convincing myself that I should uh get it done.

• 1:00:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, uh for sure. Uh I'm, I'm uh extremely blessed that I moved in right back next to my parents. I bought a house uh right next to where I grew up and they were really instrumental in helping me heal, identifying when I wasn't acting normal, when I wasn't, you know, um dealing with, uh you know, moving on from the military in productive ways. Um and they, they were able to, you know, kind of help guide me through that, just, you know, nudge here and there. And I think I'm very thankful for them for that.

• 1:00:46Jocko Willink?

  What, what would kind of make them say, hey Travis, hmm, we need to give you a nudge in this direction. Were you like drinking? Were you just?

• 1:00:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:55Jocko Willink?

  She's like, yes.

• 1:00:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, all that, man. Uh, you know, uh, but, but I, I think it was just also attitude, you know, extremely intense, uh, you know, always on edge, uh, could get upset about anything and everything that wasn't a big deal, you know? They, they're like, look, hey bro, no one's shooting. It'll be okay. And, you know, it, it took it several times to hear that before. I was like, okay, they're right. Like, it, this isn't Fallujah. This is not the end of the world stuff. And also to like, hey, how was school going? Just that, right? Like checking in, I think is a, is a huge deal because they realized in the same time that uh I didn't have a support system. I didn't have the guys that

• 1:01:39Speaker 01

  I was always around, that they knew who were my buddies while I was in. So, and then I didn't, you know, have a ton of friends once I came back, you know, all those guys that I grew up with were either out of college or had jobs and families. And um so I, it, it was a weird spot. You know, you're 22, you're going into your freshman year and you have nothing in common with these people that you, you think, right? The world is, your lenses have changed significantly from when I left four years ago to where I am now. And obviously you have a much broader uh lens. You have a worldview that very few people can understand or even I, you know, identify with.

• 1:02:19Speaker 01

  And on top of that, I think that I just personally had a very unique experience of that short amount of time with such intense combat over and over and over and then just back out. I mean, they released a feral, wild thing back into, you know, Noble County, Indiana. So, yeah, I think that.

• 1:02:38Jocko Willink?

  Did they throw anything when you were getting out? Did they throw anything at you? Did they throw shore duty at you? Did they like try and tempt you to stay in?

• 1:02:47Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. And I, I, my, my company commander, it was Captain Dill, Colonel Dill, when he got out, and my platoon commander, who's now the CEO of Raider Regiment, went on to do unbelievable things. Both of those guys tried. I mean, I, I think that they, you know, they said, look, Barnes, you're either going to get out and you're going to be in jail in six months, or you're going to end up being a senator. We don't know which, but you're, you're, you're pretty dangerous.

• 1:03:16Jocko Willink?

  Let's not roll the dice.

• 1:03:17Speaker 01

  So why don't you think about coming in, doing another four years? You know, you'll, you'll, we're going to catch you into the Marsoc pipeline. We're going to, you know, whatever you want. If you want to go to college, you know, we talked about, you know, getting a pilot's license or coming back in through an aircraft contract. And at that point, you know, I, I just thought to myself, I'm healthy enough. At that point, I was like, man, this war is not going anywhere for a while. So if they need me, you know, I'll always have the opportunity to get out. But I, on the other hand, I thought, man, if I don't get out now, I'm going to be back in a platoon, going right back over to Iraq or Afghanistan

• 1:03:59Speaker 01

  in six months. Cause that's where I wanted to be. And there were so many slots open that that's where I was going to end up. And several of my buddies ended up doing that. A few got killed. So, you know, for me, it was.

• 1:04:12Speaker 01

  It was more of the opportunity and I always thought I can do more for the Marine Corps outside of the Marine Corps than I can in like when you're in you're one guy that can affect a few guys when you get out you know there's veteran causes there's um you know ways to interact back in the military that you don't have the opportunity to do while you're in the military I didn't know what that was or how I was gonna do that but that was just I guess pie in the sky of like I gotta give this a try first and if I get through college maybe I can come back as an officer something like that um but I was I was certainly gonna give myself an opportunity to get out and just see how it went.

• 1:04:51Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's impressive because the gravitational pull of the military and of your friends and your job and the and the stability of it that's a strong gravitational pull that a lot of guys can't escape you know even I I retired at 20 years and there was guys that told me like dude I can't believe you had the ner- like the nerve to retire because they're like I'm I'm you know I'm doing 30 you know I could get the I have a family I got a mortgage and they just couldn't believe that I had the the nerve to retire at 20 it's like well you know like I I I was able to escape that gravitational pull because you feel it you know when yeah when the skipper calls

• 1:05:35Jocko Willink?

  you and is like hey we got this slot you know you for me it was like I had screened for XO so that's like the next bit you know big uh career move you know like you're we're gonna pull you over to this team and we got this skipper he would he wants you requested you by name like they start throwing all that stuff at you and it's like really and then you have the boys right and all the boys are going back to war and you're like yeah it's tough I'm I'm impressed at a 22 year old like that like you were was able to escape that gravitational pull that's impressive.

• 1:06:08Speaker 01

  Well, thank you but yeah I mean and you're right that was and as soon as you get out you're like man I'm not ever gonna get that bad I'm never gonna be that cool I'm never gonna live a Spartan life never gonna be like in it like that intense where you're you're so focused and you know like what you want to do and your part and everybody with you your left and your right they also want to do the same thing and like you're never pushed that hard you're you're never gonna be that good again at one thing. And you realize that very quickly, I think, once you get out, but you there's trade offs, right?

• 1:06:40Jocko Willink?

  And by the way, cause I I was also that guy for much of my career that was saying, hey dude, what are you gonna do when you get out? I used to I used to have guys give me a business plan. And the business plan wasn't like a business plan that you think of when you're presenting to some public uh private equity. No, the business plan was like, how are you gonna pay for your car payment, which is $422 for your truck? And your rent. And by the way, you've got a kid. Like, just tell me, just tell me how you're gonna buy groceries. And and then like I I can let you go. And I would say, I'd say I got about 50%. 50% of the guys were like, they'd they'd go away for uh one more trip and they come back like, hey, I'm redlisting. I'd be like, cool.

• 1:07:22Jocko Willink?

  And 50% of the guys were like, yep, I'm getting out. I've got I got a plan. This is what I'm gonna do. This is how I'm gonna afford it. I'm gonna move back home, whatever. So, yeah, to those guys that are listening right now, just make sure you have a freaking plan. Cause if you don't have a plan, you get out and you will uh you will not become a senator. You will be in jail.

• 1:07:39Speaker 01

  Yes, yes.

• 1:07:41Jocko Willink?

  So your parents are helping you out, uh helping you and and who are you hanging out with at this time? Cause like you said, you're in college, but it's you're 22, but you're a freaking old 22, 23 year old. Compared to the 18 year old freshman that you're in class with.

• 1:07:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, I didn't. I I mean, I I really didn't have um friends, uh you know, to speak of. I mean, I I certainly met some while I was at school, a couple of veterans, uh that, you know, obviously you gravitate toward those guys. Um, and I would, you know, I was a poly sci major, so Iraq and Afghanistan were topic du jour and um.

• 1:08:18Jocko Willink?

  Did you know? Did you have a plan with that degree?

• 1:08:21Speaker 01

  Well, I didn't really, I I that's what I was interested in. So that's what I wanted to study. And then I, you know, about halfway through it, we're all talking and like, basically this degree qualifies us to move furniture guys. So it's either that or law school and. So that's, that's how I ended up there. I got a, um, while I was an undergrad, there was an opportunity for an internship with Senator Luger from Indiana to go out in DC, sit on the Foreign Relations Committee and learn kind of how the sausage gets made. And, um, you know, Senator Luger is, was an unbelievable statesman and the, the stuff that he, he did kind of under the radar is just unbelievable. And when I, you know, I asked him for a

• 1:09:03Speaker 01

  recommendation for law school and I, I think that and my military background got me in because it certainly wasn't my GPA. So.

• 1:09:10Jocko Willink?

  Your GPA in college wasn't good either?

• 1:09:12Speaker 01

  It certainly improved, but, uh, you know, I think that those little extra gold stars there probably pushed me over the line.

• 1:09:19Jocko Willink?

  Well, how did you, cause now that, what, what year is this now? Like oh, eight, oh, nine?

• 1:09:25Speaker 01

  Uh, yep. So I graduated college undergrad in 2010. So, uh, while I was out in DC, uh, I took the LSAT, um, took, you know, all the entrance tests to get in. And that's where, you know, you apply and you find out whether or not, what schools you got accepted into and.

• 1:09:42Jocko Willink?

  How did your perception of what you had done as a Marine in Iraq change once you saw, once you got to DC and you saw what that freaking system was all about?

• 1:10:04Speaker 01

  It depends. I, I do think that there, there were certainly folks, uh, like Senator Luger who did understand, you know, the issues and the problems that were ongoing. Um, and watching him kind of navigate that struggle between implementing change, which is extremely difficult within the Senate and, um, supporting our troops, but also, um, criticizing in the right way that, you know, one protects veterans, but also protects our troops while we were there. Um, you know, I, I got to have several private conversations with him about that. And, you know, just why do we have to do this or that? Or it

• 1:10:46Speaker 01

  doesn't feel like there's a good plan here, uh, you know, on, ongoing and to exit. So,

• 1:10:56Speaker 01

  It was certainly eye opening to see how things come together and how things don't come together sometimes. For me, you know, I was extremely happy to see Senator Luger was a Republican, how he worked with Senator Ted Kennedy, who's a Democrat, right? And how those guys both worked together to solve issues. I mean, I can tell you that that was certainly heartening to see and gave me faith in our system and that there are people there that want to help move this country forward and have our best interests in mind, even if they don't necessarily agree fundamentally on how to make those changes happen. But I

• 1:11:39Speaker 01

  will say that I was very happy to see that there are still people in Washington that have have our best interests in mind.

• 1:11:48Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I was, I worked in the Pentagon, or I didn't work in the Pentagon, but I was the Admiral's aide in between my two deployments to Iraq. And so, you know, I was in a lot of really high level meetings. And yeah, we'd start, you'd start really paying attention as a young junior officer going, wait a second. Like you said, like, is there a plan? Is there a plan here? Do we have an exit strategy? Does anyone, were you going to talk about that at all? And even those questions would get brought up. So, yeah, and then, and so I think that for you, seeing the political side of things must have been very interesting for, for coming from your background of three intense deployments where that you were the

• 1:12:31Jocko Willink?

  person that executed these freaking policies that these people came up with.

• 1:12:35Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:12:37Jocko Willink?

  You know, you talked about a little bit about TBI and PTSD. And I know that those things really have become more and more known as time has gone on. But I don't think

• 1:12:50Jocko Willink?

  Like, did, did a single person to you, when you got, when you were getting out of the Marine Corps, did anyone talk to you about either of those subjects?

• 1:12:57Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:12:58Jocko Willink?

  Check.

• 1:12:59Speaker 01

  No, it wasn't on the, on the checklist of getting out of the Marine Corps or, you know, but again, again, they really hadn't had to deal with these things since Vietnam. So there was a 30-year gap between, um, on a mass, right? Not just me, but like guys coming out with real issues that they were not staffed for it. They didn't have the training to do it. They didn't know how to screen for it. Um, it just seemed like it was one of, again, one of those things that no one thought about as we went in like, hey, we're gonna have this, there's gonna be a lot of wild, feral dudes out here roaming around. If we don't have the system set up to take care of them and help them.

• 1:13:39Jocko Willink?

  Mm-hmm. And you didn't get any of that?

• 1:13:43Speaker 01

  I certainly, after a while.

• 1:13:45Jocko Willink?

  At what, at what point did you realize like, like, hold on, there's something, something ain't quite right here?

• 1:13:52Speaker 01

  The summer I got back home, I, I, you know, again, when my mom and dad pulled me aside and it's, it's, it becomes instinctual. It becomes this second nature to you, just like clearing a rifle, right? Like you just react certain ways to certain instances that you don't even realize you're doing. And, um, I think that that just takes, um, a lot of patience, a lot of practice to realize,

• 1:14:23Speaker 01

  that you're, you are going through these things, that your lenses have changed and that you need to be aware of them so that, you know, you can engage more appropriately, I guess, in, in society. Yeah.

• 1:14:38Jocko Willink?

  Did you ever get any other help besides your parents?

• 1:14:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, this is a little frolic and detour, but my sister was in the Navy. When I got out, she actually enlisted and went in and she became a saco. So she was a substance substance abuse counseling officer within the Navy for 10 years. And she was very helpful in both as a sister and a veteran and a therapist to kind of talk through some of these things. And my sister and I are extremely tight. So just the having her there that I somebody that I could trust, that I could talk to, both as a family member and as a veteran, I think, is, you know,

• 1:15:24Speaker 01

  finding that one person that you are able to share those things, that they have some idea of, you know, what you went through. Obviously, she did not do three combat tours. But she still had that, you know, military mindset and could speak the language and just understood, you know, what what I went through.

• 1:15:44Jocko Willink?

  And then, did you get any kind of like, specific diagnosis? Did you ever get your brain scanned? Where so you got all that?

• 1:15:52Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:15:53Jocko Willink?

  And was that through the VA?

• 1:15:55Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:15:56Jocko Willink?

  And how was the was the VA good to go?

• 1:16:00Speaker 01

  Um, yeah, all of the services I would say that I've received from the VA have been pretty good. I think you have to be extremely proactive about your treatment and what services you earned, which is one thing, you know, my wife and I are still very supportive of the kind of local organizations within our own community that help fill in some of the gaps that the VA doesn't provide, which is really helping veterans understand what services are available to them and how to utilize them.

• 1:16:36Speaker 01

  And again, I, I think I was just um out there ambitious enough to go and figure out like, hey, I'm, I don't have insurance anywhere else. I gotta, like, I don't have another choice. So, and I, and I did have a lot of Vietnam vet guys say, you need to get this documented. You need to make sure, don't let this go too long. Protect yourself, protect your future family because you earned these benefits. You did three tours. Don't let them get wasted.

• 1:17:03Jocko Willink?

  So. And was there any like eureka moment that you had that maybe from your sister or from some, some other source at the VA that you said that, that helped you? Like, was there a pivot point or was it just like a gradual adjustment to the world?

• 1:17:29Speaker 01

  I, I think I'm still pivoting. Uh, you know, I, I think that, you know,

• 1:17:36Speaker 01

  PTSD with combination TBI, I think that, you know, you, the farther away you get from it, your, it changes, you know, how you look back on it. Sometimes there's um pride, sometimes there's regret, sometimes, and, and it's, again, it's on this linear thing. It doesn't just stop. It shifts and it changes, you know, and how you're, you're, you remember things, you know, when you go back and talk to guys about how things, certain things happened that were with you there. It's funny how experiences sometimes shift and you, your memories change, right? And they're all kind of, the, the core is there, but some of the

• 1:18:15Speaker 01

  details are, are, you know, shifted 15 degrees. Uh, so I think it's constant, you know, I think it's important both to remember.

• 1:18:27Speaker 01

  What we did while we were in Iraq, but also to move on from it and not let that, you know, pain, regret, you know, remorse overtake you because it can, it can become overwhelming. And, you know, we've, I've lost several guys to suicide since I got home that, you know, I think that that's what ends up happening with these guys is they, they're alone, they don't have a support system and they, they get into this spiral of thinking about the past with a, an eye that has remorse and regret and shame, probably embarrassment that, you know, some of the things that happened and, and they're not able to take

• 1:19:07Speaker 01

  a step forward. It's kind of always moving back or retreading, right? So it, for me at least, one of the most important things, my eureka moment was keep moving forward. Don't, don't stop.

• 1:19:22Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's, I've, I tell, I've told many people and I say myself, remember, but don't dwell. So like, yeah, you gotta remember what happened. You remember your friends, but you can't dwell in the past. You can't just constantly stay there because like you said, that turns into a, a downward spiral pretty quickly. You kept moving forward, which meant you eventually go to law school.

• 1:19:42Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:19:42Jocko Willink?

  And you get done with law school. So you're going to become a lawyer? Is that the plan?

• 1:19:47Speaker 01

  When I went, yeah. You know, I thought I'd, you know, go to law school and move back to my hometown and be a small town prosecutor or hang my shingle and that would be, you know, that was what the goal was. So that was, you know, what I, I, I expected. Once I got there, you know, I think I realized pretty quickly that I didn't necessarily want to be a lawyer, but I really enjoyed the school part of it and the, you know, the intellectual gymnastics that, that the law school teaches you kind of how to, how to think and rethink things through. So I really enjoyed that part of it. I also met my wife, first semester, first, you know, class we had together. She couldn't keep her hands off me. So.

• 1:20:34Jocko Willink?

  Poor girl's not here to defend herself.

• 1:20:36Speaker 01

  That's right. Microphone's too far away.

• 1:20:41Speaker 01

  Um, and I will also say she was extremely helpful too, as far as just, you know, being someone that you can talk to and trust and who was inquisitive, she was inquisitive about my experiences, but not nosy and just she was really wanting to learn and, and understand.

• 1:20:57Jocko Willink?

  Did she have any military veteran heritage in her background?

• 1:21:01Speaker 01

  Uh, her dad was in the army, um, but I don't, not a military family by any means, uh, you know, no, um, yeah, no.

• 1:21:11Speaker 01

  But was also extremely, you know, interested in that part of my life.

• 1:21:16Jocko Willink?

  Well, I, I just think it's important because you know, you've got someone that you met that was like you said, inquisitive, but not nosy and probably was able to sense, oh, this may be a little bit too sensitive right now, back off a little bit, but at the same time, oh, looks like there's an opening here and probably wants to express some of this stuff. So just a good thing to pay attention to and that, you know, again, not just to like, veterans, but I can tell you right now, if you've got kids, like knowing when to like ask some inquisitive questions and also knowing when to back away and be like, ah, they don't really feel like talking about that right now. I just got a text from one of my friends this morning, uh, something like,

• 1:21:56Jocko Willink?

  do, did your daughters bottle their feelings up and not, and you couldn't figure out what's going on? And I wrote back, yeah, for a little while, but then eventually you, you know, to get the, get, get in there and find out what's happening. And, and then he wrote, would it come out very emotionally all at once? And I wrote, yes, sometimes. So.

• 1:22:15Speaker 01

  Oh dude, my house, I got a five, a four and a two year old little girls right now. In my house, sometimes it feels like Fallujah because there's screaming, there's crying, there's blood, no one knows, but there's feelings everywhere. Just it's fucking wild.

• 1:22:30Jocko Willink?

  Jack. So at what point did you start, uh, making bourbon?

• 1:22:37Speaker 01

  So the law in Indiana started to change around, there was talk around it changing in 2010. So Indiana used to have a very robust distilling industry. Then during prohibition, the US Legislature Congress said there's only going to, we're only going to allow six distilleries to continue operation. Five were in Kentucky, Jack Daniels was in Tennessee. And they basically have had a monopoly on it for 70 plus years. Well, Indiana said around 2010, we're interested in opening back, opening it back up to artisan distilling, which that artisan moniker is important because it allowed small craft guys the ability to produce and then sell directly to consumers out of their tasting room without having

• 1:23:20Speaker 01

  to go through the three-tier system, which is enacted in every state, which is basically you, you don't have to use a distributor to move your alcohol. So that's about a 30% margin increase. So it gave us a little bit of an advantage. The law was shot down for a few years and then in 2013, it finally passed and we were one of four within the state to get that initial both federal DSP distilled spirit plant license and our state license with that artisan moniker on it. And

• 1:23:50Jocko Willink?

  It was good that you were a lawyer at this point. I'm assuming because you're doing paperwork.

• 1:23:53Speaker 01

  It was huge. We started the company while we were in law school, our last year. We incorporated ourselves. The, the state of Indiana really didn't know, you know, they'd cobbled together regulations from a few other states and, but they were still kind of figuring out exactly how they were going to implement these regulations. And it was all honestly was based around taxation and not serving under 21. Those are the two big guideposts, right? Pay your taxes, don't serve under 21. If you do those two things, there's a lot of wiggle room inside that goalpost. But absolutely, the, the legal degree that, you know, Hillary and I started it with a couple of other buddies. I mean,

• 1:24:35Speaker 01

  I, I, it's, it's hard to say how many tens of thousands of dollars we saved by not having to go and just hire a law firm. They would have been learning at the same time because there hadn't been this opportunity for 70 years. So no one had worked with alcohol under this system within Indiana for over half a century. So we really, I think

• 1:24:56Speaker 01

  Learned became kind of subject matter experts within this particular section of alcohol law within Indiana, which was a huge advantage. Because I don't think if we would have had that, we wouldn't have got the license within the timeline that they outlined, and then we would have missed the opportunity completely. Luckily, we were Johnny on the spot, and we were, we got that, the federal license and the distilling license, the state license in 2013. We spent the next few, six months raising capital, which, again, I had never done that before, I'd never asked anybody for any money. But getting into bourbon is extremely capital intensive.

• 1:25:40Speaker 01

  It's, you know, the equipment is very expensive, but also the wait period for bourbon, right? So you gotta have a lot of money, and it's gotta be patient money.

• 1:25:49Jocko Willink?

  What's the minimum amount of time?

• 1:25:50Speaker 01

  Bourbon becomes bourbon at two years in the barrel. Anything over that becomes straight bourbon. And then it, then it becomes, you know, reasonable minds can disagree when it is fully matured, right? Some guys let it go six, eight, 10, Pappy's got 15 and 21-year-old, right? So it's really about what you like. There's no bad bourbon, only better bourbon, in my opinion. So, different strokes for different folks.

• 1:26:21Jocko Willink?

  How much money did you have to raise to kick this thing off?

• 1:26:25Speaker 01

  My seed round was $200,000. We were, we literally started it with student loan money, you know, to just kind of incorporate and get the building, and you have to have, you have to have a building to get the license because the license runs with the geographic location, and then, you know, you gotta get it zoned, right? You have to do all these things. So we were, literally, we were doing all of these things in real time. So it was, it was an education unto itself just to get the license. Once we had that, we had our business plan, very rudimentary, you know, it was basically, we had outlined kind of what the margin was, where the opportunity was, and then I thought, look, there is a huge opportunity in the military. Like, when I was in, you had a choice, Jim Beam or Jack Daniels, whatever you wanted,

• 1:27:09Speaker 01

  and it was on every shelf. And really, it's controlled by a few of the very big strategic alcohol companies that are out there.

• 1:27:22Speaker 01

  That was really, I think, kind of the niche advantage we had early on. And I had a buddy that was working as a bartender at a private, kind of old, old guy club within Indianapolis and said, hey, man, they're doing this high-end Scotch tasting. I'll, I'll give you 10 minutes, come over and do your elevator pitch and see what happens. So I, I went over, I had built my own still, so I dragged this little thing over with me and I had a little bit of product that I had made in the backyard. And I got up, give my little song and dance, and it, it turned into an episode of Shark Tank, I shit you not. I mean, there were guys in the room, I, I had no idea who I was talking to, but they

• 1:28:04Speaker 01

  ended up being some of the pillars of Indianapolis that were, you know, intrigued. And then the next morning, I got a, a few phone calls from the guys that were there the, the night before, and they're like, I'm interested, how do we do this? And then, over the course of the next couple of weeks, month, we put together a business plan and operating agreement, and they each put in 50,000, and I was off to the races.

• 1:28:33Jocko Willink?

  And you ended up, did you say you had to buy a building, or you just had to lease a building?

• 1:28:37Speaker 01

  Had to lease it, but it had to be zoned properly. So, again, to get that through the Neighborhood Association, the Land Use Committee, and it was also in a historic district, both from the state level and the federal level, like the all African-American Civil War unit bivouacked on the, this site. So, I mean, this thing is like triple-protected from a, you know, you can't do anything on this site without multiple permissions. And everybody's like, I don't know, a distillery, that sounds, I don't know, alcohol, boogeyman kind of thing. So, we eventually convinced everybody that this was going to be a good thing for the neighborhood, and it would, you know, lower the tax base and increase traffic through,

• 1:29:19Speaker 01

  and, you know, you know, so we did, we did a lot of studying, and we had to present and represent, and finally got it over the line, and we opened our doors in September of 2014.

• 1:29:30Jocko Willink?

  And, and is it called, is the tasting room, what is it called? Is it tasting room, what's it called?

• 1:29:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, so that's under the, you know, nomenclature of the, the law itself, tasting room, artisan distillery.

• 1:29:41Jocko Willink?

  And and it's called Hotel Tango Artisan Artisan Distillery.

• 1:29:46Speaker 01

  Hotel Tango Distillery.

• 1:29:47Jocko Willink?

  And when did you open the doors on that?

• 1:29:49Speaker 01

  September of 2014.

• 1:29:52Jocko Willink?

  And how was the reception like?

• 1:29:54Speaker 01

  It was incredible. I mean, at that point, we had three tiny stills. We were producing during the day to sell it at night. I mean, we could barely keep up. It was great. And we, you know, at that, the next following year, we saved some up. We put enough back. We were ready to enter distribution.

• 1:30:16Jocko Willink?

  Wait, if you produce it during the day, when's that two year?

• 1:30:20Speaker 01

  So we were putting bourbon away in barrels, but we were also making gin, vodka, rum. That we could also supplement that period of time to allow the bourbon to age.

• 1:30:31Jocko Willink?

  Got it. How long do you have to wait to make to drink gin?

• 1:30:35Speaker 01

  Just like beer. I mean, you can, it's about a seven day process.

• 1:30:38Jocko Willink?

  Got it.

• 1:30:39Speaker 01

  So.

• 1:30:40Jocko Willink?

  Is there anything you can get faster than that? Or does it all have to ferment for some time?

• 1:30:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, basically, we're taking beer one step further, right? So you take grain, water, yeast, sugar. That makes beer. From there, we'll take large vats of that, say 500 gallons, and we will distill that. The high octane alcohol out of it to 50 gallons, say. So. It's basically just refining over and over and over again, right? Until there's very, there's a lot less alcohol, but just much, much higher proof.

• 1:31:12Jocko Willink?

  Do you still make gin or vodka?

• 1:31:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 1:31:15Jocko Willink?

  Echo Charles, you like vodka, right?

• 1:31:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, vodka's cool for sure.

• 1:31:21Jocko Willink?

  That could, you used to drink vodka, like a decent amount, probably too much.

• 1:31:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, probably too much at one point, sure.

• 1:31:28Jocko Willink?

  But and you offer all these different types of alcohol to this day?

• 1:31:32Speaker 01

  Yep, yep. So it's really about, at that point, it's the, how high you're distilling it down, the proof that you're taking it up to. Will determine what the product is, right? Vodka has to be colorless, odorless, flavorless, and that happens at about 190 proof. And from there, we'll cut it back down with water, just aro, reverse osmosis water. And that's, that is the process of vodka. That's how everybody makes it. That's how everybody has made it for hundreds, if not thousands of years.

• 1:32:01Jocko Willink?

  What about gin?

• 1:32:02Speaker 01

  Gin is, um, there's multiple ways to do it. You can either macerate it. So you will put in botanicals. It has to be predominantly juniper. That is what is the, that's the flavor that you're getting from gin. And then from there you can add in anything your heart desires. Elderflower, orange peel, star anise, you know, whatever, you know, you've got laying around in the kitchen from a spice rack, that makes a gin. Uh, you can soak it in a high proof, um, vodka and then re-distill it to create the gin, or you can layer all of those, um, botanicals in a, a cake inside of a gin basket. That's actually an attachment to the still and the vapors

• 1:32:45Speaker 01

  will go through it and will take on the flavors of those botanicals as it passes up and over through the still and then comes back down, goes in vodka, comes out gin.

• 1:32:55Jocko Willink?

  And obviously you're into this kind of stuff.

• 1:32:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, man. I mean,

• 1:32:58Jocko Willink?

  That's, that's what, that's what kicked this whole thing off was you were enjoying making bourbon.

• 1:33:06Speaker 01

  Absolutely. Uh, you know, it's, there's, it's half science, half art, right? There's a recipe you gotta follow, but within that there's tweaks that you can make along the way that add your own flavor to it, right? That make it yours individually. And we, you know, with those tiny skills, we were, they're, they're manuals, right? There, there's no automation at all. So you're pulling levers that will dictate the flavor profile that comes out on the other end. So, learning on those tiny do it yourself stills really allowed us to play with flavor profile proof, um, and just kind of overall experience of that particular spirit.

• 1:33:48Jocko Willink?

  All right. So you get the doors open, things are going well. And what's the trajectory over the last 10 years been like?

• 1:33:56Speaker 01

  Well, it's been wild. I can tell you that. I kind of talk in two terms. There's pre-COVID and post-COVID. Pre-COVID, you know, the world really operated on a three-legged stool, right? You had beer, wine, and alcohol. And when we got into it, bourbon was on this massive upward trajectory, right? Everybody was watching Mad Men and wanted Old Fashioned, and you know, that was the cool hip drink. And a lot of other artisan distilling, uh, distilleries were coming online. And it was just high growth, right? People couldn't get enough of it. And there's all these, you know, Easter egg bottles that are going on the secondary market for thousands

• 1:34:33Speaker 01

  of dollars. Um, it was just an unbelievable time of growth. Um, and, and we had a good story. So, right? So the, for us, you know, in the bourbon world, you, I think that the ingredients that make a successful brand are you, you've got to have a good product, obviously, but you have to have a good story and be authentic. Um, and I think that that's kind of what set us apart early on, was, you know, veteran-owned, veteran-made, and, um, people wanted to support that, right? And then COVID happens, and everybody thinks the world's gonna end, right? And at the same

• 1:35:14Speaker 01

  time, they, their pantry loading, so sales are, you know, still growing, but it's also, it shut down our tasting room. So in 2020, we had a budget built out, uh, for how we thought we were gonna reach our sales goals for the end of the year. Well, they shut us down in February, I think, of that year, where, you know, and if you have asked me 30 days before, I was like, there is no way, no way that there will be riots on the street if they shut down bars and restaurants. I was wrong. Um, so within about 30 days, not even, I mean, we were one of the first in the country that we pivoted and said, we got all the ingredients

• 1:35:55Speaker 01

  to make hand sanitizer. We can keep the wheels on this thing moving. And, uh, so we totally shifted. We kept everybody employed. And we basically turned our event space that we were just getting ready to open into hand sanitizer factories. So we had totes of vodka that we were adding denaturing flavoring to and you know, the what made it hand sanitizer.

• 1:36:18Jocko Willink?

  Wait, what's denaturing?

• 1:36:20Speaker 01

  It's so you can't drink it. It'll make you throw it up.

• 1:36:23Jocko Willink?

  Got it.

• 1:36:24Speaker 01

  Which I was like, I can't believe we have to add this.

• 1:36:26Jocko Willink?

  That hurt. That hurt your soul to do.

• 1:36:28Speaker 01

  Well, there are people out there are actually drinking this to get high. Instead of, I was just like, man, this, that is intense. But we started giving some away. We started selling some and the bell curve on this was intense. I mean, we became a hand sanitizer company for about 90 days and then it was over. And we, we, I said, look, we gotta cut this off because this is gonna go away. Everybody's in panic mode right now, but it's gonna end.

• 1:36:58Jocko Willink?

  Did you do well in the 90 days?

• 1:37:01Speaker 01

  Very well.

• 1:37:01Jocko Willink?

  I would think that

• 1:37:02Speaker 01

  I mean,

• 1:37:02Jocko Willink?

  hand sanitizer was in high demand.

• 1:37:05Speaker 01

  Well, everybody was out. I mean, the big guys did not have the reserves that they were not expecting this. And again, it was that panic buying. So everybody's like, I gotta get hand sanitizer and toilet paper.

• 1:37:15Jocko Willink?

  Or I'm gonna die.

• 1:37:16Speaker 01

  Right. I gotta, I gotta be able to wipe my ass and wash my hands. And this is the only way to do it. So yeah, we, we, we did very good, but then we immediately shifted back to, okay.

• 1:37:26Jocko Willink?

  Did you shift back before the demand signal dropped? Were you kind of ahead of it? Or were you like, oh wait, no one wants our hand sanitizer anymore?

• 1:37:35Speaker 01

  We were before, we had made enough to where the residual like was gonna carry on, but we're like, we cannot continue doing this. This is, this is not our business.

• 1:37:45Jocko Willink?

  Because you knew Johnson and Johnson and whoever else was gonna get caught up and then you'd be screwed.

• 1:37:49Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 1:37:50Jocko Willink?

  And no one wants to buy a artisan hand sanitizer.

• 1:37:54Speaker 01

  Well, there's just no need for it, right? That was, you know, again, where I thought this is going to end and we do not want to be stuck with so much inventory that we can never give it away.

• 1:38:05Jocko Willink?

  And so then what happened after that? How long did it take before they were allowing you to open up the restaurant or the tasting room?

• 1:38:12Speaker 01

  Uh, I mean, it was six months. We were shut down and we were, you know, trying to figure out ways. We sold cocktails to go in pouches, like, you know, the old high C pouch. Uh, we, Indiana went through just kind of a weird, you know, sometimes then we could do it with masks. We had to create outside areas. Um, so we just, again, we were kind of taking what the defense gave us as far as like, okay, if we're allowed to do that, then we can, we can do that. And if they haven't said we can't do it, then do it until they say we can't do it. Um, so there was a little bit of that, but always, you know, trying to stay within the, the square lines of like, okay, we're, this is no go, this is go. And again, sometimes as we're changing on day to day basis, right? So the ROIs for that

• 1:38:56Speaker 01

  were changing. Um, also trying to not become so distracted within that period of time to lose focus on what our core business was.

• 1:39:08Jocko Willink?

  Did you have to take on more capital or were you guys, did you guys get to a point where you're kind of profitable and you're making money and you don't need to bring in more?

• 1:39:16Speaker 01

  Uh, well, we've always, our goal is, you know, grow, grow, grow. So, you know, we've raised capital several times over the last 10 years. Um, and we're very close to cash flow positive and getting to a spot where it's more sustainable. That's also what really has changed in the last few years is what a strategic would be looking for in a artisan distillery to bolt on. Um, you know, before COVID, it was growth at all costs, EBITDA to be damned. We just care about your top line and that you've got enough barrels behind you that we can plug you into our system and take you from 50,000 cases to 200,000 immediately. Um, since then,

• 1:39:58Speaker 01

  There's this perfect storm. So within since COVID, several things have happened. RTDs have been introduced to the market. So they're ready to drink high noon. Marijuana has basically become it's legal in 25 states plus now.

• 1:40:14Jocko Willink?

  And they're getting marijuana drinks now, apparently.

• 1:40:17Speaker 01

  So Indiana.

• 1:40:18Jocko Willink?

  Saw a Wall Street Journal article about that.

• 1:40:21Speaker 01

  It's gonna be huge. It will be, it will be a billion dollar industry if it's not already.

• 1:40:28Speaker 01

  Abstinence. So Gen Z, they don't drink, they don't drive, they don't screw, they don't do anything.

• 1:40:33Jocko Willink?

  That's my kids. My kids are like, cause I got older kids and they're Gen Z. And what's that for Gen Z? Gen A, back to Gen A. But yeah, that's kind of like the, at least, yeah, that's kind of the new thing. They're not drinking, they're super healthy. They're like, on the weekends, let's do ice bath saunas. And that's like how we get crazy, like factory reset in the sauna. You know what I'm saying? It's, I mean, I'm, I'm kind of, and I'm not just talking about my kids, like all their friends. We're not all their friends, but many of their friends, the same way. They want to be smarter. They want to be tougher. They want to be like in better shape. They want to be healthy. And so they ain't drinking bourbon. They don't even drink like freaking uh, uh, uh, pasteurized milk.

• 1:41:16Jocko Willink?

  You know, if it's not raw milk, we're not putting in our body. We want that raw milk.

• 1:41:22Jocko Willink?

  So, yeah.

• 1:41:24Speaker 01

  Well, you know, different strokes for different folks.

• 1:41:28Speaker 01

  I think the, the other big thing that has happened is um, that I recently read about was online gambling. Has taken a huge chunk out of people's disposable incomes. And then the big one that is really going to be the biggest disruptor for alcohol are the weight loss drugs. Manjaro, Wegovy, Ozempic, that, um, you know, you put 70 people, 70 million people that are diabetic on one of those. They're going to, the, the reduction in drinking is going to go down. So right now we're going through this.

• 1:42:00Jocko Willink?

  Is this because you can't drink when you take those drugs?

• 1:42:02Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 1:42:04Jocko Willink?

  At all?

• 1:42:05Speaker 01

  I think you, again, I can, I can tell you anecdotally that I know folks that, you know, they'd go out and they would have two or three old fashions before we'd go to dinner. Now that they're on that, they'll say things like, man, I can only take one of these. I want to have another one, but like my body is just saying, nope, you're done.

• 1:42:22Jocko Willink?

  Those drugs are out there, huh? Like, a lot of people are taking those drugs.

• 1:42:26Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's going to be, you extrapolate that, over 70 million people that have, are diabetic in the US. There, there's going to be an impact on alcohol.

• 1:42:36Jocko Willink?

  Plus, it's 70 million adults.

• 1:42:37Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 1:42:38Jocko Willink?

  Right, because kids aren't on Ozempic, right?

• 1:42:40Speaker 01

  Not yet.

• 1:42:41Jocko Willink?

  Friggin' hope they're not.

• 1:42:42Speaker 01

  So.

• 1:42:43Jocko Willink?

  Get a treadmill for his children.

• 1:42:45Speaker 01

  So, yeah, so all of these things have happened in the past, minus the, you know, the, the weight loss drugs, but all of the other things have happened, just never at the same time. So, right now, there's just this inflection point of how consumers are drinking, what they're drinking. And it used to be that, you know, 30 years ago, a Budweiser guy was a Budweiser. So, he'd have it at the ballpark, he'd have it on the lake, he'd have it out at dinner. Now, that same guy might have a Budweiser at the baseball game, but he's gonna have a bourbon at the campfire and a High Noon out on the lake, right? Or eat a gummy, or whatever, you know? So, there's these, there's an experience component of what people are choosing to get their fix on at a particular time and place.

• 1:43:29Speaker 01

  And so, that is also just disrupting the, the industry because it's never had this optionality before, of you can pick your poison based on, you know, whatever the time and place is. So, um, I think there's gonna be, you know, a new kind of hierarchy of, you know, what brands and what, um, products continue to move off the shelf, right? There's, there's gonna be a thinning of the herd.

• 1:43:59Jocko Willink?

  Mm-hmm. And people are making non-alcoholic, there's a, there's like a beer company that doesn't even make alcoholic beer.

• 1:44:07Speaker 01

  It's the fastest growing category in alcohol right now.

• 1:44:10Jocko Willink?

  Yep, and, uh, my wife, who doesn't drink, she drinks...

• 1:44:17Jocko Willink?

  Like, I don't even know what to call it. It's alcohol. It's non-alcoholic alcohol. Meaning, like, my wife's a Brit, you know, they, that's part of that's drinking is part of the whole jam over there. But she doesn't drink anymore. So, but you know, this is a girl that when she was fourteen years old, had a gin and tonic at dinner with everybody, everyone else in the fam. Like, that's what we're doing.

• 1:44:41Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:44:41Jocko Willink?

  And so now, like, she doesn't do that anymore, but she still wants to have something. And so she's got these weird creations in our house that come in really nice bottles. It kind of reminds me of what I'm looking at right here with your stuff. So, maybe you gotta get into that. But I think it's, I want to use the word botanical, but I'm not a hundred percent sure.

• 1:44:59Speaker 01

  No, you're right. I think that's, that's right. Yep.

• 1:45:01Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, uh, but yeah, it's just this, this trend is definitely here and it, it's not something that popped up overnight either. It's not like, oh, this is a trend that's going to last for a little while, like like the hula hoop. It seems like it's been a slow building of a trend where things are just growing and growing.

• 1:45:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, there's, there's certainly evidence to suggest that, um, you know, alcohol is not necessarily a healthy lifestyle choice if you're, especially if you're abusing it, right? I think everybody's known that for a long time. I think the difference now is it's that information plus lifestyle, right? So you're not just doing the one thing, but it's an incorporation into an overall plan of, you know, I'm gonna exercise more, I'm gonna drink less, I'm gonna, you know, whatever, you know, be mindful, like, so there's this whole, it's a part of the puzzle, but it's also when you, people are looking at the whole puzzle more. And when that happens, um, you know, for us, it's,

• 1:46:03Speaker 01

  you know, how do we get, how do we gain that consumer in that particular time and place to pull a Hotel Tango bottle instead of a Jim Beam bottle, right? That's our fight.

• 1:46:13Jocko Willink?

  And why do they? Taste better? Higher quality? What's the deal?

• 1:46:17Speaker 01

  Well, it, it, all. Uh, I would argue that, you know, our smaller batch, we get a, um, there's certainly a different profile. It is artisan. It's not going to be your standard everyday bourbon, whichever one that is. And I think that's what's fun about the art side of bourbon, right? There's nuances and little micro changes in each barrel that every barrel is individual. It's a different, you're gonna have two barrels that were distilled the same day, put in the barrel the same day, aged for the same amount of time. And when you pull it out, they're going to be different. There might be a little bit of difference, but there might be a lot of difference. There's so much impact that the wood and the charring have on it. And in some cases, where it's stored geographically, right?

• 1:47:02Speaker 01

  A barrel in Indiana might taste different than the ones that's been stored in Kentucky or even farther in Texas.

• 1:47:10Speaker 01

  You know, so there's so many little nuances that can happen within the artisan guys that aren't just that massive industrial, you know, kind of bourbon. And then with the flavored, I think it's really getting into that optionality again and for the experience of the time and place, right? So our Schmalo, it's a campfire whiskey. It's lower proof, it's sweeter. You can either drink it on ice, you can drink it in a hot toddy. And our Swiss Mist is certainly a seasonal thing that you can drink in your hot cocoa or hot coffee. You can also drink it on its own and you can also put it in an old fashioned. So it's, it gives, it's utilitarian and it's not just your everyday kind of thing that

• 1:47:55Speaker 01

  you see all the time. I think that's what we're trying to give people is the optionality.

• 1:47:59Jocko Willink?

  If they're gonna do it, might as well take it to a little bit of a unique spot.

• 1:48:04Speaker 01

  Right. You know, a little bit of fun, authentic. And again, we've, we only released this for a few months out of the year. It's there.

• 1:48:12Jocko Willink?

  The Swiss Mist.

• 1:48:13Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:48:13Jocko Willink?

  Schmalo.

• 1:48:14Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:48:15Jocko Willink?

  And by the way, I don't think we've said this yet. The name of the brand is Hotel Tango, which is named after you Tango, T and your wife, Hillary Hotel.

• 1:48:23Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:48:23Jocko Willink?

  And that's how we got to Hotel Tango. And she comes first because she's, you know, smarter than you.

• 1:48:28Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:48:29Jocko Willink?

  Better looking.

• 1:48:30Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:48:30Jocko Willink?

  You know, the whole nine yards.

• 1:48:32Speaker 01

  Hundred percent. No, no, no, no denying that.

• 1:48:37Jocko Willink?

  Awesome, man. So what, where do we go from here? What's the next big move with Hotel Tango?

• 1:48:43Speaker 01

  Well, you know, you'll continue to see us growing in stores. Really, you know, we're focused over the next couple of years of seeing how the market shifts and trends. You know, we're dealing with some, you know, international stuff with trade that impacts us by the big guys pulling back and, and, you know, kind of loading in the shelf with lower priced items. So

• 1:49:04Jocko Willink?

  Flooding the market here stateside.

• 1:49:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, you'll see a handle of Jim Beam and Jack Anials for under 30 bucks sometime, you know, that that's going to be, we can't drop our price like that. So we have to, you know, aim small, miss small. And so I would say, you know, potentially another maybe springtime offering of a schmalla. We're playing around in our tasting tasting room right now with some other fruit products. We might have a raspberry bourbon coming out in the next year or so. We'll see.

• 1:49:33Jocko Willink?

  The raspberry bourbon. Right on, man. Well, does that, does that, uh, does that get us up speed?

• 1:49:38Speaker 01

  That's it. Yeah. Look for it at anywhere that fine spirits are sold and yeah, order online. Come check us out. If you're ever passing through Indianapolis and you're a veteran, you know, hit me up online. I'm, I live five minutes away from the shop. So I love to host guys and gals and love to have a drink and tell some lies to each other.

• 1:49:57Jocko Willink?

  And if you want to order online, it's hoteltangodistillery.com.

• 1:50:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, that'll get you there.

• 1:50:04Jocko Willink?

  You've got a, you've got Twitter, which is Hotel Tango Indy. And then on Facebook and Instagram, it's a hotel at Hotel Tango Distillery. That's where people can check things out and see what you got going on. Awesome. Echo Charles, you got any questions? Uh, here we go. The real interview starts with Echo Charles.

• 1:50:26Speaker 02

  Yeah. So the hand sanitizer, was that called Hotel Tango Hand Sanitizer?

• 1:50:31Speaker 01

  Yes, sir.

• 1:50:31Speaker 02

  Okay. All right. Was it, was it kind of artisan or was it just like, no, we're just going to provide?

• 1:50:36Speaker 01

  Um, I mean, it was certainly artisan. I mean, it was, I mean, it was pretty, you know, rudimentary when we were making it, but, uh, I mean, it was crazy. We sold every, you know, we gave it to schools, we gave it to hospitals. Uh, actually the US government bought a bunch of it, um, shipyards. Um, again, it was really for, for us, it was the way to kind of keep the wheels moving for everybody else. That was kind of one of the sticking points that the government put out there that you got to have cleaning stations. You got to have, if you want to stay operational, you got to do the mask, whatever. And that was our, it, it, there was this kind of You know, World War II feeling when we were doing this because everybody was chipping in to just make it work. Like this does, it's not going to be perfect, guys. But you know, if we all work

• 1:51:21Speaker 01

  together and lean in on it, we'll get this over the line. It will help everything, hopefully fix this faster. So we're not shut down, but also allowing everybody else to continue operating, which was felt really good.

• 1:51:34Jocko Willink?

  I had a similar little scenario. I got a clothing manufacturing company in America with all American made materials called Origin, Origin USA. And it's funny because one of my buddies, Sarge, he's, you know, like a, he's a SEAL, retired SEAL, and he's kind of, he does security work all over the world. And he was doing security work over in Europe. And he sent me a text like, bro, there's something going on over here. You should make masks. And this was pre anyone hearing about COVID. And I was like, what are you talking about? He goes, yeah, there's this weird like, disease over here and it's spreading and you should make masks. And I said, well, what kind

• 1:52:16Jocko Willink?

  of mask? And he's like, N95, because he's a medic, he's a corpsman. So he's like, uh, he's like, N95 masks, see if you can make them. And I go, cool. And I talked to my buddy Pete from Origin, who's my, my co-founder at, at Origin. I'm like, hey, dude, my buddy's calling me from overseas saying we should make masks. And he's like, well, what are they, N95? And he goes through the thing. And he's like, he calls me back the next day. And he's like, hey, dude, like, we'd have to tool up with like a plastic press, like we, it was equipment we have to buy. And, eh, okay, pass. And then fast forward like a month now COVID's here. And they're like, hey, putting cloth over your face. And I'm like, dude, that sounds, that doesn't sound like it's going to help anything. And Pete, you know, he's like, hey, should we make these things? And I'm

• 1:52:59Jocko Willink?

  like, dude, how is putting a piece of cloth over your face? Like, I don't, I don't think that's a real thing. And he's like, yeah, yeah, cool. And then the next, I like that afternoon, I went home and they, they had a press conference and someone from New York, I think it was New York, was saying, Uh cloth face masks are mandatory. It was a Friday and I called Pete. I'm like, yo, they're making these things mandatory. And he's like, I'm on it. And sure enough, over the weekend, designed like a face, a cloth face mask, a cloth face mask, like that's a thing. Designed it. And we started making it and we used, because by the way, we, we, that part of the company makes uh jujitsu clothing. And every jujitsu, you know, school in the country shut down. So we weren't

• 1:53:44Jocko Willink?

  selling any jujitsu clothing. All right. Well, here we go. When we started making these masks and, you know, we ended up same exact thing where we had companies, because I have another consulting company. And so a lot of those big companies that we work with, they're like, we heard you're making masks. We need them. And I'm like, okay, how many you need? 28,000. All right, cool. We're on it. 42,000, you know, it's just like boom, boom, boom. And we were the only people that could supply them. Because a lot of the other companies that have different materials in their clothing, even if they're sewn in America, they didn't have the material. So they were screwed and we just delivered. So we did have a little bit of that. World War II, kind of get everyone on board. Uh, same kind of feeling that you had.

• 1:54:22Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yep. Necessity is the mother of all inventions. So, yep, when you gotta have it, and you figure it out.

• 1:54:28Jocko Willink?

  Yes, indeed. Anything else I could, Charles?

• 1:54:31Speaker 01

  What's a easter egg bottle? Uh, so some of those would be our tenure that we have, uh, put away. Um, you know, single barrel stuff, like, um, again, the, we will have guys that'll come over and do barrel picks. And there's no right or wrong answers. It's what the, that particular, you know, bottle shop guy will want. But it's a very, you know, it's different in his opinion, or my opinion, I guess, than, uh, all of the other bottles or barrels out there. So, I mean, within the bourbon world, you could think of it as like, maybe the Blantons, single barrel release, right? The Blantons? Blantons. That's one of my favorites. Um. Do you know Blantons?

• 1:55:13Jocko Willink?

  No, I do not.

• 1:55:14Speaker 01

  It's, it's owned by Sazerac. It's, you know. Do you know Sazerac?

• 1:55:17Jocko Willink?

  I do not.

• 1:55:17Speaker 01

  Okay. You know Fireball? Oh, Fireball?

• 1:55:20Jocko Willink?

  Yes, yes. Fireball.

• 1:55:22Speaker 01

  So they own both of those. And kind of the opposite end of the spectrum, right? Like, Fireball is, you know, you shoot it. It's, you know, a lot of college kids drink it. More of a party atmosphere. Blantons, when you think of that, it is, you know, the old timey, like Colonel Sanders on the front porch rocking chair sipping on it and just really enjoying, like, the experience of a straight bourbon that's been aged for, you know, eight, 12, 15 years.

• 1:55:49Speaker 02

  So it's like, uh, like a special edition?

• 1:55:52Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:55:52Speaker 02

  Kind of scenario?

• 1:55:53Speaker 01

  Yeah. If you find one, I mean, and that's crazy, cause like, people will get, you know, they'll go in and they'll buy them off the shelf, and they'll be selling it out in the parking lot. And it will go like that. I mean, it's just, it's crazy, these collectors.

• 1:56:05Jocko Willink?

  Is this like drop culture? Echo Charles.

• 1:56:09Speaker 02

  Maybe not the workflow, but kind of the result a little bit, right? You know, the, the, the, do they, they don't re redo them? Like, is there like other runs in the future? Or is it just limited runs? Or is it just the one run?

• 1:56:22Speaker 01

  That's it. Once that barrel's gone, man, that's it. So it's kind of like a, you know, NIL thing, like.

• 1:56:27Jocko Willink?

  How many bottles do you get out of a barrel?

• 1:56:30Speaker 01

  Depends on the age. So the older, you know, you lea- you lose between five and eight percent of volume within a barrel every year. So their standard bourbon barrels, 53 gallons. So depending on how old, it can, it'll, it will reduce by gallons, you know, over, over time. Um, so anywhere between, uh, I'll say a hundred bottles for a very old barrel to 240, uh, bottles for a, you know,

• 1:56:57Speaker 01

  uh, four or five year old bourbon.

• 1:56:58Jocko Willink?

  Jack.

• 1:56:59Speaker 01

  So.

• 1:57:00Speaker 02

  It's like a whole thing then, huh? Like a whole culture.

• 1:57:03Speaker 01

  Oh, dude, it is.

• 1:57:05Speaker 02

  Remember, I think it was doggy, well, somebody was saying how like, some people, they don't even drink. They just collect the stuff. Wine, bourbon.

• 1:57:13Speaker 01

  I know several guys. There, there's an aftermarket that's, and it's huge, uh, you know, secondary, third, tertiary market that are just, guys will buy these bottles just to put them on their bar back and say, look what I've got. You know, it's kind of a status symbol.

• 1:57:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, kind of when you think about the whole. Culture that kind of rises um with a lot of these things alcohol is one of them. It does get kind of weird and hard to keep up in a way, especially with the non alcoholic. Alcohol like beverage like we already know non alcoholic beverages. It starts from water all the way up to like. Soft drinks. That's kind of we always had that since you know, literally since people could drink water.

• 1:57:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:57:54Speaker 02

  And now they have non alcoholic alcoholic beverages. It's it's kind of like this weird loop that we did. Just because of the culture.

• 1:58:02Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:58:02Speaker 01

  Hundred percent. I mean.

• 1:58:04Jocko Willink?

  We buy water for three dollars a bottle, right?

• 1:58:07Speaker 02

  Artisan water.

• 1:58:09Speaker 01

  It's crazy how how the the circle kind of comes full after, you know, a few years.

• 1:58:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, the difference between the water and stuff, which is obviously half joking is. Does it completely like not even ninety nine percent, a hundred percent defeats the purpose. You know how you have like these cocktails, non alcoholic cocktails, it defeats the whole purpose.

• 1:58:31Speaker 01

  I think it's a mindset. So we in our tasting room, we have it on our menu, these mocktails. And I think for some people, it's it's really about participating in the experience of the communal aspect without getting. You know, the buzz.

• 1:58:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly right. And that's kind of that's the point.

• 1:58:47Jocko Willink?

  And there is a taste thing that I don't identify with it because I have the taste buds of like a freaking piece of wood like. I I'm just like, I I can't tell. Nothing tastes like anything to me. I just don't like anything. But my wife, you know, who like she drank wine. She would tell like, oh, I like this bottle, not that bottle. And and she's like that with food too, like with the sauce and with the thing. And so for her. You know how much like, okay, I like uh, I like chocolate milk, right? I'm, we might even say I'm a connoisseur of chocolate milk. I love chocolate milk, right? I've been drinking it my whole life. And when I. Get a really good chocolate milk. It's like, oh, I mix up, you know, we we make chocolate protein and I'll mix up a really good one with, you know.

• 1:59:33Jocko Willink?

  I just nail it and it's the good temperature and I'm kinda into it, but she does that with like normal like everyday stuff. And so she buys this fake alcohol. And I've tried it. To me, it's literally disgusting, by the way. Like I drink it. I'm like, this is gross. But she's like excited to drink it and she's getting no buzz, obviously, because it's non-alcoholic. But she likes the taste and the notes, right? The tones that are in there. She's into it. So you need to back off a little bit. You see what I'm saying? Because it's not just water.

• 2:00:09Speaker 02

  I'm not, I'm not stating any opinion on the matter. I'm just identifying, you know, kind of the characteristics. Yeah, because you write about the experience, wherein that's kind of my whole point, where it's like, okay, you have alcohol that gives you an experience. Right? Which usually is like a supplement to something. Maybe you went, you know, I mean, you, we went to, I don't know, fishing or something like this, right? And the alcohol gives us the enhanced experience, right? That's kind of how like, kind of the one-to-one deal.

• 2:00:35Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 2:00:36Speaker 02

  Then afterwards, it's kind of like, wait a second, this alcohol combined with the fishing kind of gave us this almost like third experience in and of itself. See what I'm saying? And then the culture just builds and builds and builds. And now people are kind of giving, you know, subtracting one of the main ingredients of the original formula. But meanwhile, the culture is so robust that you can still kind of have the experience now.

• 2:01:00Jocko Willink?

  Yep, absolutely.

• 2:01:01Speaker 02

  I'm saying, yeah, it's weird.

• 2:01:02Jocko Willink?

  People want to participate.

• 2:01:04Speaker 02

  And the whole thing with tasting is my theory. They say that females have more acute taste than males. This is why I think, I think like tasting stuff and different like notes or whatever you said, has to do with like your emotions. And that's why I think your palate is very unrefined.

• 2:01:23Jocko Willink?

  Oh, because I'm just an emotional robot over here.

• 2:01:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, you got one, two, three emotions and then that's sort of it. You're taking action after that. A lot of us like, bro, we kind of relish in certain emotions, even the negative ones, by the way. So it's like boom, we're gonna taste different things. See what I'm saying? Meanwhile, you're ignoring those things.

• 2:01:39Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah. Unless it's They just don't get, they don't get through. They don't, they don't even break squelch with me.

• 2:01:43Speaker 02

  Unless it's hot chocolate.

• 2:01:44Jocko Willink?

  Unless it's a hot chocolate.

• 2:01:45Speaker 02

  Or chocolate milk or whatever. See what I'm saying?

• 2:01:46Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:01:47Speaker 02

  So that's kind of like your little emotional, uh, weak spot right there. Your kryptonite.

• 2:01:50Jocko Willink?

  Mmm.

• 2:01:51Speaker 02

  Oh yeah. You didn't like that, huh? But it's true.

• 2:01:53Jocko Willink?

  Mmm.

• 2:01:53Speaker 02

  Given my theory.

• 2:01:54Speaker 01

  I, I think you're right. I think that there's certainly, uh, an aspect of that. Yes.

• 2:01:59Speaker 02

  Yep, it's true.

• 2:02:00Jocko Willink?

  Right on.

• 2:02:01Speaker 02

  Alright, that's all I got. Good to, good to meet you right on.

• 2:02:03Speaker 01

  Thanks, sir.

• 2:02:04Jocko Willink?

  Travis, any, uh, any closing thoughts, bro?

• 2:02:06Speaker 01

  Just thank you very much for this opportunity. Really appreciate it. Thanks for the hang.

• 2:02:09Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, man. Uh, thanks for joining us and, and very cool to hear your story and, and hear some of these lessons learned. I mean, you had just had a what a poignant career in the Marine Corps. And it just shows you what a great, what a great organization the Marine Corps is. So thanks for stepping up. Thanks for your service in the Marine Corps. Thanks for taking the fight to the enemy. And, uh, thanks for continuing to live a life that exemplifies the freedom that you fought for, brother. Appreciate it.

• 2:02:38Speaker 01

  Thank you very much. Appreciate that.

• 2:02:41Jocko Willink?

  And with that, Travis Barnes has left the building.

• 2:02:46Jocko Willink?

  Tense few years in the Marine Corps. And, um, listen, hey, by the way, this whole thing that you brought up, I was thinking about when I was talking to Travis and his wife Hilary before they left. This whole thing about I don't have a, a taste palate because I lack emotions.

• 2:03:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:03:12Jocko Willink?

  Interesting concept that you have.

• 2:03:14Speaker 02

  I would say your emotions are very, um, what do you go, like they're, uh, they're not like, the spectrum is more of a low resolution. So you got one emotion, you got two emotion, you got your third emotion, maybe, maybe a fourth that, that kind of runs in, you know, comes in, onto the scene every once in a while.

• 2:03:31Jocko Willink?

  What are my three emotions?

• 2:03:31Speaker 02

  And that's sorta it.

• 2:03:32Jocko Willink?

  What are my three emotions? Like?

• 2:03:33Speaker 02

  I don't know.

• 2:03:34Jocko Willink?

  I, I want to say number one, I think, especially since I'm sitting here with you.

• 2:03:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, happy.

• 2:03:38Jocko Willink?

  Disappointment.

• 2:03:38Speaker 02

  Okay, alright. Then we'll go with it. Well, you got, you got, you're happy, you're sad, you're mad and you're impatient. There you go. There's your, your whole deal.

• 2:03:48Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you're right. I don't think I have any of those.

• 2:03:50Speaker 02

  Well, I'm not saying, I'm not saying anything about your behavior. I'm just saying I've witnessed you feel these emotions.

• 2:03:58Speaker 02

  At some point, I feel like, I feel like I have witnessed it. How about that?

• 2:04:02Jocko Willink?

  I would like to see evidence.

• 2:04:03Speaker 02

  All right. Well, there you go.

• 2:04:06Jocko Willink?

  Hey, no, but awesome to have him on and hear, hear that perspective. I'm telling you, those, those were three like

• 2:04:13Jocko Willink?

  deployments that were heavy. So, um, yeah, he's taking an edge off now and listen. Take your edge off a little bit. Some people want to drink some bourbon. Hey, we, we, we will support, uh, Hotel Tango Bourbon, just distilled with discipline. But listen.

• 2:04:32Jocko Willink?

  Maybe bourbon's not your thing. And even if you're going to drink bourbon, I recommend that you don't drink too much of it.

• 2:04:38Jocko Willink?

  Sometimes you gotta have other drinks.

• 2:04:41Jocko Willink?

  When you need those other drinks, which should be the majority of the time, I recommend, uh, you drink Jocko Fuel. And listen, I have like a PSA scenario to report here. So.

• 2:04:55Jocko Willink?

  If you are having trouble finding Jocko Fuel, there is probably the primary, like if there's something you want from Jocko Fuel and whoever you're normally getting it from, it's not there. Whether that's one of the big online retailers, whether it's a store that you go to. If you go to jockofuel.com, it's stocked and we will be able to get you what you need. And if you order from jockofuel.com, you're gonna get Jocko Fuel. Cause believe it or not, this is crazy. You remember how? You know how there's people that make fake Jocko T-shirts?

• 2:05:29Speaker 02

  Yeah. And the knockoffs.

• 2:05:30Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Knockoff Jocko T-shirts, made in China, by the way. There are actually, and this is, this is like, took me a little time to wrap my head around it. There's fake Jocko Fuel. Out there in the world. And so. They, they make it, they sell it at like a cheap price and it's junk. We're, we're on it like, or you can, you can go after them and we go after them. But you know, it's out there. So if you're buying straight from the source, if you're buying from jockofuel.com, you're going to get. You're going to get Jocko Fuel, which is good. Also. If you.

• 2:06:10Jocko Willink?

  Go to jockofield.com. We have, we have like deals that we run on there. Sign up for the SMS. You'll find out there's, you know, there's some product that you drink a lot of, or you use a lot, get a little text message, sign up for the SMS. You'll be like, oh, cool. We got a, we got the goodness right here. And by the way, here's another thing. Look, we, we've grown and we used to ship everything from Maine. And sometimes it was rough. We didn't have, like, we're small. We didn't have a total, like, workforce in there. We had a few people getting it done, but it would take a while to get it done. So, and so sometimes shipping would take a little bit long, but now we have like a logistics partner.

• 2:06:52Jocko Willink?

  They ship everything from Texas. If you order it, it's getting shipped that day. Maybe if you order in the afternoon, it's getting shipped the next day, but it's getting shipped quick and you're going to get it fast. And another reason some, some of those people like to use like the big online retailers is because they have free shipping. And if you want free shipping, if you spend 99 bucks, you'll get free shipping at jockofield.com. So, cause we're trying to like help you, right? But shipping is expensive, so we can't just ship like one pack of creatine. You know what I mean? For free. So if you, but if you buy a little bit more, then you'll be good to go at jockofield.com and, and we got everything. Um, we also bring some new products on there.

• 2:07:37Jocko Willink?

  And we have like a whole loyalty, like reward program. Take care of the people, right? That's benefits. You can, you can get loyalty points and you can use those report, those points to get rewarded, get like free gifts, access to new products when they come out. So there's a bunch of reasons. And finally, the, the last thing I'll talk about is this subscription scenario. I know you like subscription scenarios. So if you subscribe.

• 2:08:05Jocko Willink?

  To whatever product that is you want. There's some benefits. First of all, like it's a reduced price. So you go like 10 or 20% off depending on the product itself. And it's going to show up. So you're never going to run out of it. Have you run out of a product at Jocko Fuel? Have you run out of something? Yeah, creatine. I just ran out. Oh, look at you, dude. Subscribe. I need to subscribe. Subscribe and save. And not to mention, you'll get uh, some gifts. So like if you subscribe for two months, eventually two months of subscription. Jocko Fuel Shaker Cup coming your way. A fourth month of subscription will suddenly like a another gift. And then six months of subscription, you get to choose like a gift.

• 2:08:50Jocko Willink?

  So we got all kinds of things that we try and help you out. If you're going to Jocko Fuel.com. So, so check out Jocko Fuel.com. That's, that's my recommendation. If you want the goods. Now, listen. Also, we do have our products in a bunch of different places as well. We just talked to Travis. Uh, they're up there and they're, they, they shop at Meyer. And guess what? Guess what you can get at Meyer? Jocko Fuel. So Walmart. Wawa Vitamin Shop, GNC. Military Commissaries, Afees, Hanafers, Dash Stores, Wake Fern, ShopRite, HEB down in Texas. Wegmans, Harris Teeter.

• 2:09:34Jocko Willink?

  Publix down in the Southeast, man, killing it. So everybody that shops those stores, thank you. We appreciate it. And then Shields, Lifetime Fitness, I think. Uh, I said that, but another, another place you can get it. And by the way, if you got like a gym. You can get this stuff into your gym. If you got Victory MMA and you want to sell. Email [email protected]. Make a little more money for your gym. Right? You got a gym? You want to take care of your customers, your clients, get them healthier and make a little bit more money? Cool. Email [email protected]. We'll get you hooked up. And there you go. And also.

• 2:10:13Jocko Willink?

  We have Origin USA where we make 100% American made products here in America. To tariff, that's, that's been put on some of these countries overseas, not affecting us at all. Why is it not affecting us? Because we don't bring anything from overseas. Every, the cotton is from America, the zippers, it's all from America. 100% American made, originusa.com, jujitsu gear, jeans, boots, hoodies, sweatshirts, hunt gear. We got all, we got it all. Workout gear, we got everything. So check out originusa.com. Get a bunch of American made gear and wear it with pride.

• 2:10:59Speaker 02

  True. Speaking of gear, more gear, discipline, gear made with discipline and with discipline on the gear. So anyway, jocko store.com. So yeah, discipline equals freedom. You can represent, um, good, the idea of good. Got a few good shirts. I need to put more designs just on the general store. We need to revamp there.

• 2:11:19Jocko Willink?

  But anyway, step up your game.

• 2:11:20Speaker 02

  Step up the game. Yeah, totally. But nonetheless, available now, hats, some socks on there, some good stuff.

• 2:11:27Jocko Willink?

  Dude, you can give me some of those socks?

• 2:11:29Speaker 02

  Yes, I'll give you some.

• 2:11:30Jocko Willink?

  I've been asking you that for nine podcasts now.

• 2:11:33Speaker 02

  Yes, well.

• 2:11:34Jocko Willink?

  And I've got no socks.

• 2:11:35Speaker 02

  They coming, you know, they're in transit.

• 2:11:37Jocko Willink?

  And what about my shirts?

• 2:11:38Speaker 02

  Shirt, same deal, you know.

• 2:11:39Jocko Willink?

  In transit to my house?

• 2:11:41Speaker 02

  Well, you know, let's say the wheels are turning as far as like, you know, the process.

• 2:11:45Jocko Willink?

  My confidence level is so low. It is literally so low.

• 2:11:50Speaker 02

  I will guarantee, personal guarantee that you will have your socks and shirts.

• 2:11:56Jocko Willink?

  Timeline?

• 2:11:56Speaker 02

  I will, you know, within the next, how about this? By the time we see each other again.

• 2:12:02Jocko Willink?

  So one week?

• 2:12:03Speaker 02

  Maybe one week.

• 2:12:04Jocko Willink?

  Okay. One week I will have socks.

• 2:12:07Speaker 02

  You will be not.

• 2:12:08Jocko Willink?

  And the shirts I requested.

• 2:12:09Speaker 02

  You will not.

• 2:12:10Jocko Willink?

  The shirts I requested, by the way, are the, the shirt locker shirt with a cool looking skull on it. And a death core flag on its great engraved in its head.

• 2:12:19Speaker 02

  Yep. All hand drawn, by the way.

• 2:12:21Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Looks sick.

• 2:12:23Speaker 02

  Uh, comfort is a curse.

• 2:12:24Jocko Willink?

  Comfort is a curse, written with runic Viking writing. Dude, it looks sick.

• 2:12:29Speaker 02

  Thank you. Yes. Good shirt. I agree. It was.

• 2:12:31Jocko Willink?

  Did you design that?

• 2:12:32Speaker 02

  Good design.

• 2:12:33Jocko Willink?

  Did you design it?

• 2:12:34Speaker 02

  Yes, sir, I did.

• 2:12:35Jocko Willink?

  He usually said hand drawn, so you drew that.

• 2:12:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, on the computer, I didn't draw it with you. So yeah, yeah, all good.

• 2:12:43Jocko Willink?

  Dude, you are being real dodgy about that question. Did you draw that shirt?

• 2:12:46Speaker 02

  Well, because you're asking me a technical question. I didn't, I didn't write the runes.

• 2:12:50Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 2:12:51Speaker 02

  That's like a thing. And then, you know, and then I use Illustrator and then, yeah, then I gotta use. It's a whole process. See what I'm saying? Hand drawn to me lands on something that I took my hand and a pen and drew out the whole thing, 100%.

• 2:13:03Jocko Willink?

  Oh, but you didn't do that?

• 2:13:05Speaker 02

  No.

• 2:13:05Jocko Willink?

  Okay, so it's not hand drawn?

• 2:13:06Speaker 02

  Part of it is hand drawn. How about that? You want these shirts? You don't want these shirts?

• 2:13:09Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I want them. I've been guaranteed them.

• 2:13:11Speaker 02

  You're behaving like you don't want these shirts. Anyway, there's a lot of other designs on there. You mentioned the Shirt Locker, which is a subscription scenario, which yes, we do like. You get a new design every month on your shirt. So good. Check it out. So it's called the Shirt Locker. It's all on JacoStore.com.

• 2:13:28Jocko Willink?

  Right. And also check out PrimalBeef.com, ColoradoCraftBeef.com. Subscribe to the podcast. Check out Jocko Underground. We got a YouTube channel. Jocko Fuel has a YouTube channel. Origin USA has a YouTube channel. Check all those out. We got books. Check out Modern Submission Grappling by Miha. Bunch of good information there. And by the way, also has like a, a computer, an online course you can take. And it's really good for the context that you need for your, your jiu jitsu. I train with, I train with Miha quite a bit. He's probably my most frequent training partner, individual.

• 2:14:10Jocko Willink?

  You know, because of course you're training with other people, but training a lot with Miha. So, good skills.

• 2:14:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, he's good too, because there's, there's all different types of jiu jitsu people. Like, and I'm, then I say that super broadly for, for a reason, because there's a guy who's like, he's super athletic. He has some knowledge or whatever, but he's a competitor. So it's like, that's his thing. He's more like, uh, his capability is super high. But it's like, you could ask him maybe hypothetically, like, oh, could you explain how I did that? He'd be like, mm. He'd have a hard time explaining it because he just sort of does it.

• 2:14:40Jocko Willink?

  Just take the leg and pull it over there.

• 2:14:41Speaker 02

  Exactly right. And then there's guys who over index on the, not over index, but the index hardcore on just the teaching.

• 2:14:47Jocko Willink?

  Just the knowledge.

• 2:14:47Speaker 02

  But, you know, when you roll with them, it's kind of like, wait, you seem to know that in theory, but you're not pulling it off in higher level rounds. You know, so what, Miha's a good like balance with that, that, uh, that cerebral part of it. Like, he can break it down really good. Like, he's really good at doing it and he's good at teaching it. So it's, it's appropriate that he has this kind of system.

• 2:15:05Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. So check out his book. Modern submission grappling. Also, I've written a bunch of books.

• 2:15:11Jocko Willink?

  I've written a bunch of kids books. Way of the Warrior Kid, one, two, three, four, and five. We had a movie coming. We got Mikey and the Dragons. We got Extreme Ownership. Not really a kids book, but kids read it. Dichotomy of Leadership. We got Leadership Strategy and Tactics, Field Manual. Hey, I've written a bunch of books. Check them out. Also, I have a leadership consulting company, Echelon Front. We solve problems through leadership. We help out so many different organizations, so many different companies, so many different businesses, so many different teams, so many different departments.

• 2:15:41Jocko Willink?

  If you have issues inside your team, inside your company, inside your organization, they are leadership issues. And therefore, they can be solved through leadership. So if you need help, go to echelonfront.com and we will help you. Also, we have some live events that you can go to. We've got the muster. We've got FTXs. We've got the council. We've got Battlefield. Next council is June 26th, 20 through the 29th. I think we sold one out. We got one left. So if you want to come to that, register ASAP. And then finally, we have the Extreme Ownership Academy, where you can learn leadership skills for every aspect of your life. Go to extremeownership.com for that.

• 2:16:21Jocko Willink?

  And if you want to help service members, active and retired, you want to help their families, you want to help Gold Star families, check out Mark Lee's mom. She's got an incredible organization.

• 2:16:30Jocko Willink?

  She helps out so many of our veterans. If you want to donate or you want to get involved, go to AmericasMightyWarriors.org. Also, check out HeroesAndHorses.org. Also, check out Jimmy May's organization, BeyondTheBrotherhood.org. And if you want to connect with Travis and Hotel Tango Distillery's on the interwebs, go to hoteltangodistillery.com. Check out the social media at Ho- this is on Twitter, Twitter X, at Hotel Tango Indy, I-N-D-Y. And then Facebook and Instagram is Hotel Tango Distillery. And if you want to connect with us, you can check out Jaco.com for me and then on social media, I'm at Jocko Wilk, Echoes@EchoCharles. Just be careful when you go in there.

• 2:17:16Jocko Willink?

  Because there's a, there's a time thief in there called the algorithm and it's going to win if you're not careful. Thanks once again to Travis Barnes for joining us. Thanks for your service and for continuing to lead. And thanks to all our personnel in the armed services and today a reverent Semper Fi to the recon Marines of the first reconnaissance battalion and everything that you have done and sacrificed for corn country. Also, thanks to our police, law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, border patrol, secret service, as well as all other first responders. Thank you for your sacrifice that you make to protect us all here at home. And everyone else out

• 2:17:59Jocko Willink?

  there, let's just, let's just follow the lead of those recon Marines. Exceed beyond all limitations, sacrifice personal comfort, conquer all obstacles, never surrender, never give up, never quit, and be the professional for all others to emulate. And that's all we've got for tonight. Until next time, this is Echo and Jocko, out.