259: When the Call Comes, You Go. w/ South Vietnamese Kingbee Pilot, Capt Nguyen Quy An

0:00:00 - Opening 0:16:38 - Captain An 1:55:58 - How to stay on THE PATH. 2:13:34 - Closing Gratitude. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

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

• 0:00Jocko Willink?

  This is Jocko Podcast number 259 with me Jocko Willink. The A1E's arrived just as the team started taking incoming mortar fire. Godwin quickly calculated the coordinates for the mortars location and and the information was passed on to Covey who in turn related to the A1E's. A laconic whistling voice came back down the line. It's crispy critter time, so y'all keep your heads down. Within seconds, the area in front of the team exploded into flame. The deadly napalm coating everything in its erupting path. Flaming NVA soldiers ran briefly toward the team before falling to the ground in agonizing death throws. The hand grenades and ammunition they carried cooking off like firecrackers.

• 0:44Jocko Willink?

  Unfortunately, the elephant grass was also set on fire. The napalm had definitely slowed the NVA advance, but it had not stopped it. Covey reported that extraction choppers were five minutes out and the team needed to move fast. Two gunships from the 7th Air Cav roared over the LZ. Watkins put out two bright orange marker panels and the gunships confirmed they had the team in sight. As they looped back to make their first strafing run, the gunships reported that a large enemy force was moving toward the LZ and they were going to attempt to discourage it. As they made their run pouring M60 machine gun fire and rockets into the enemy, RT Lion could see the air filled with green tracers hitting the helicopters.

• 1:30Jocko Willink?

  They were taking a vicious beating, but they hung in there and kept pouring fire down on the NVA. It was an incredible show of raw guts and determination. Covey came on the radio to say the gunships had taken casualties and were leaking fuel, oil, hydraulic fluid, and just about everything else. So they were being forced to head home, but the extraction slicks were on station.

• 1:53Jocko Willink?

  RT Lion looked around and could see its salvation coming toward it on its nose. Although they were flying at a good clip, it appeared as if they were moving at an agonizingly slow speed. As with the gunships before them, they were taking a horrendous amount of fire. One chopper was hit badly and began losing fuel. After a brief confab, the rescue package suddenly broke off its approach and headed back the way it had come, leaving nothing but smoke and RT Lion's hopes for rescue behind.

• 2:27Jocko Willink?

  When Watkins asked Covey what this meant in terms of time on the ground, all hardness could do was say that he'd contact the S3 and ask for a new set of extraction assets ASAP. In the meantime, he promised to get more tactical air support over the team and do all he could to keep them alive. While Watkins appreciated the sentiments, this did not do much to raise his spirits. In his heart of hearts, he felt the team's position was precarious and likely to get much worse and quickly.

• 2:57Jocko Willink?

  The NVA had literally thousands of men it could throw at the team while the team had only so much ammunition and not much by way of cover.

• 3:07Jocko Willink?

  What he told his team members, however, was that there was going to be a slight delay and reminded them to keep vigilant and be ready for an attack. What he didn't have the heart to tell them was it could be hours before another rescue attempt was made. Their stay at Oscar 8 was far from over. One of the Brews suddenly signaled that NVA troops were crawling toward the team through the elephant grass. The news was passed on to Covey who responded that he had two A1E's standing by, one loaded with CBUs and the other with rockets. Both aircraft had their deadly 20mm cannons locked and loaded. Watkins told Covey to bring in the CBU as fast as possible and to lay it down as close to the team as they could get. In less than two minutes, the team saw an A1E appear in front of their position, its

• 3:52Jocko Willink?

  20mm cannons roaring away. It flew so low, they could see the pilot turn his head to locate the team as he released his ordinance. Unfortunately, some of the mini bombs exploded so close to RT Lion that two Brews received light wounds. This was distressing, but Watkins consider it one of the acceptable prices a recon team paid to keep from being overrun by a superior force.

• 4:19Jocko Willink?

  As the A1E's departed, a small group of NVA suddenly rose up out of the grass behind the team and charged them, AK-47s blazing on full automatic. DeSeda, his red communist star facing forward, rose up and opened fire at near-point-blank range. The brood joined in as other groups of NVA popped up from the elephant grass and attempted assault after assault. What followed was several hours of deadly cat and mouse, with the mouse hunkered down in its little hole and the NVA cat making paw swipe after paw swipe in an attempt to claw it out or do it in. An ironic situation for the team to find itself in.

• 4:59Jocko Willink?

  While RT Lion fended off attacks, Covey directed airstrike after airstrike at the NVA troops, the storage area, the anti-aircraft guns and anything else he could draw a bead on.

• 5:11Jocko Willink?

  Throughout the day, primary and secondary explosions followed one another as the strikes found their mark. Whenever the team's fate, whatever the team's fate might turn out to be, the NVA were paying a hellacious price for messing with it. With daylight, ammunition and ideas running out, it was like a true message from God when Watkins heard Covey report that South Vietnamese Air Force 219th Special Operations Squadron had one of its legendary King Bee's N Route. For once, Watkins' spirits actually rose. Not that he didn't love the living daylights out of the 7th Air Cav, but the Vietnamese

• 5:52Jocko Willink?

  of the 219th had, time after time after time, proven themselves to be about the most daring, most imaginative, most aggressive and all-around finest pilots on the face of the globe.

• 6:07Jocko Willink?

  If RT Lion had any chance of getting out of this hellhole, a King Bee pilot was the one who would find it and exploit it no matter how slight the chance was or how deadly the odds.

• 6:20Jocko Willink?

  That was simply what they were pledged and committed to doing day after day.

• 6:26Jocko Willink?

  More good news followed when Covey relayed that the lone King B would be escorted by marine gunships from HML 367, a bad bunch of flyers that went by the code name Scarface. Things were definitely going to rock and roll with them on station. Scarface enjoyed nothing more than kicking NVA butt and taking names and then coming back around to kick more butt just for good measure, on general principle and for the sheer fun of it. However Covey splashed a healthy dose of cold water on Watkins by reminding him it was very nearly dark and that despite all the bombs dropped, rockets fired, and gun runs made, the enemy was still pumping out an enormous amount of fire and still moving forward.

• 7:10Jocko Willink?

  Pulling RT Lion out of Oscar Eight was going to be as difficult and dangerous an extraction as could be imagined, and they would have just one chance to pull it off. If they muffed it, RT Lion would be spending the night and would most likely not see the next morning.

• 7:27Jocko Willink?

  Sobering information indeed, but Watkins did not want to discourage his team, so he just gave them his best grin and said, "Let's get ready to go."

• 7:36Jocko Willink?

  In the distance Watkins could hear the distinctive sound of the old nine piston Sikorsky H34 King B chugging its way along, a steady bass note to the higher wop, wop, wop of the Hueys. He squinted into the twilight, and when he could finally make out their dim silhouettes, he flashed his strobe through the barrel of an M79 grenade launcher so as to mask it from enemy sight. The helicopters acknowledged having RT Lion's mark, and the Hueys immediately divided and made a split run, one raking the team's forward perimeter with rockets and machine gunfire, and the other working its rear. It was a beautiful show.

• 8:18Jocko Willink?

  Watkins yelled over the noise to blow all the claymores. By setting off all the claymores at once, he hoped to avoid having any uninvited NVA join the team. They went off in a deafening blast and blinding flash. The little mouse had roared.

• 8:33Jocko Willink?

  As the Scarface duo looped around to make their second and final run, they confirmed there were dozens of dead and dying NVA scattered around within feet of the bomb crater. Unfortunately, they also saw more troops advancing. It was down to the short strokes. As the Scarface gunships began their last pass, the King B tucked itself in behind them and came roaring on. But rather than sat down outside the crater and have the team come to him, as Watkins fully expected, the pilot pulled up and hovered over the crater. As the team looked up in disbelief, the old H-34 Warbird began gently settling itself down toward the team like a mother hen about to cover her chicks,

• 9:16Jocko Willink?

  thus also decreasing the silhouette to enemy troops. By the light of the burning elephant grass, Watkins was able to see into the King B's cockpit and was startled to find the co-pilot's seat empty.

• 9:33Jocko Willink?

  In the pilot's seat was his much admired friend, Captain Ahn, a man who had saved Watkins bacon on many other occasions, but none quite like what he faced here at Oscar VIII. Captain Ahn lowered his King B toward the team with a precision and steadiness that gave an entirely new meaning to the word "cool." His face was smooth and calm, but there was steel in his eyes as he worked both feet and hands to maneuver the choppers close to RT line as he could. At one point, Watkins could have sworn that Ahn nodded to him, as if in a casual greeting. The whole scene bordered on surrealistic. What with the LZ lit by a flickering brush fire, the sounds of gunfire and explosions,

• 10:18Jocko Willink?

  the smell of cordite and burned human flesh, and this improbable savior hovering above.

• 10:26Jocko Willink?

  As Watkins had experienced before, the action took on a dreamlike quality. Sounds faded as if someone had turned down the volume. The air thickened. Movement appeared to be in slow motion, and the brain snapped individual frames that would never, ever be forgotten. The looks of fear or pain on their faces, bodies being blasted backward, a piece of someone on the ground, a scrap of cloth, one's own hand clutching a weapon, or shaking wildly as it tries to execute some simple, well rehearsed, but now impossibly difficult task. This is what war looks like to a mind under stress. Watkins could hear small arms fire thumping into the King B's body as he fully expected that at any moment, it would either pull up and exit, or come crashing down on them. But it did neither.

• 11:11Jocko Willink?

  It settled into a stationary hover, its front wheels placed delicately inside the crater. And there it sat. An unbelievable vision, a heroic portrait of an old warrior, taking a pounding, but refusing to falter. Watkins, DeSada, and Godwin began heaving the brew into the chopper. Godwin followed. DeSeda, after taking an anxious look at his team leader, was next. His bright red star pointed over his right ear, as if he wasn't quite sure whether he wanted to be going or staying. Finally, in accordance with that time-honored tradition, the 1-0's feet were the last to leave the killing ground of Oscar 8.

• 11:55Jocko Willink?

  With the door gunner and team pouring small arms fire and M79 rounds into the perimeter beyond its rim, the King B lifted up, and out of the crater. As a last defiant gesture, Watkins threw a red smoke grenade onto the LZ. This gesture was universally understood by everyone who supported SOG, to signal that the team was safely out, the LZ clear, and everyone else was free to pound the living daylights out of it.

• 12:24Jocko Willink?

  But RT Lion was not home free, not yet at least. Anti-aircraft rounds were bursting around them like a World War II AK-AK fire. Captain An was dipping and jukeing in an effort to dodge the bursts and make himself harder to track. He still looked calm, cool, and collected, as if he were making a routine flight. For these guys, thought Watkins, maybe this was a routine flight. When the King B touched down at Kaysan, Dasada, Godwin, and the grinning door gunner walked around poking their fingers into bullet holes and counting them. But they soon gave up. There were too many.

• 13:06Jocko Willink?

  And besides, it was just too unsettling to contemplate what might have been. Watkins learned later that Captain An had chosen to fly solo in the Oscar Eight because he knew exactly how dangerous this mission was. He'd lost King Bs there before and was determined not to risk more lives than necessary. He figured if the gods ordained that his ship go down while trying to save RT Lion, it would just be him and the door gunner. It seemed like a simple and perfectly logical decision, no big deal. Incredibly, everyone who participated in the mission was alive and well.

• 13:51Jocko Willink?

  The men of RT Lion were home, seasoned veterans of Oscar Eight. It had indeed been their time after all. So, that is... that is a whole different kind of heroism. Because, look, when you're on the ground, in many cases, you don't even have a choice but to be a hero. You either step up or you die.

• 14:31Jocko Willink?

  But for these pilots, men like Captain An, they don't really have to do anything heroic. They could easily say that the landing zone's too hot, or they've already been shot, or they're low on fuel, or whatever.

• 14:51Jocko Willink?

  But they're safe in their aircraft.

• 14:54Jocko Willink?

  And they see the hell that is going on and they see the hell that they are going into. Bullets and rockets and anti aircraft and they go anyway.

• 15:07Jocko Willink?

  They go anyway.

• 15:10Jocko Willink?

  Men like Captain Nguyen Khyon. A pilot in the South Vietnamese Air Force who flew countless missions insanely dangerous missions. In support of American and South Vietnamese SOG teams.

• 15:27Jocko Willink?

  He's a recipient of the Silver Star and the Distinguished Flying Cross.

• 15:33Jocko Willink?

  And it is an absolute honor to have Captain On with us here to talk about his experiencing fighting in Vietnam, Laos. And Cambodia. Captain On, it's an absolute honor to have you here.

• 15:47Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 15:49Jocko Willink?

  And I guess also joining us once again is John Stryker Meyer, Tilt, Special Forces member. Of SOG who has been on this podcast before. Couple times. Couple times. 180, 181, 182, 186 with the Frenchman, 247, 248 and the last one with Cowboy Khan. Cowboy. 258, back again.

• 16:15Jocko Willink?

  Thank you so much. And, and when you first came on. After the first couple of times, people started asking almost immediately to if, if I could find a King B pilot. And I, I know as soon as, you know, you very quickly mentioned Captain On.

• 16:32Speaker 01

  Always.

• 16:33Jocko Willink?

  Number one King B.

• 16:35Speaker 01

  For sure. Thank you.

• 16:38Jocko Willink?

  So, so, uh, Alan, tell us about what it was like growing up. Where did you grow up?

• 16:43Speaker 01

  Uh, I was grew up at, uh, Hanoi, North of Vietnam. And, uh,

• 16:51Speaker 01

  My father decided to move the family to the south in nineteen fifty-four.

• 16:56Jocko Willink?

  Now, was that after, after the French got beat?

• 16:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:59Jocko Willink?

  So, did your father kind of recognize that bad things could happen?

• 17:03Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 17:04Jocko Willink?

  And what, what did your father do for a living?

• 17:07Speaker 01

  Uh, you mean before fifty-five?

• 17:09Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 17:09Speaker 01

  After fifty-four? Oh, he has the, uh, some kind of business to cut the lumber. Like a lumber boy. Yeah.

• 17:16Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 17:17Speaker 01

  And he, he, he hired people to do it, but he organized the, uh, the office. And, uh,

• 17:28Speaker 01

  after fifty-four, we moved down to the south. And he worked for one of the French company.

• 17:39Jocko Willink?

  Oh, he worked for a French company?

• 17:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:41Jocko Willink?

  Oh, okay.

• 17:42Speaker 01

  After forty, fifty-four.

• 17:44Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 17:44Speaker 01

  When we moved to the south.

• 17:45Jocko Willink?

  Okay. And what did you do? Well, how old were you when you moved to the south?

• 17:49Speaker 01

  Oh, I was fif- uh, eleven.

• 17:52Jocko Willink?

  Eleven years old?

• 17:53Speaker 01

  Yeah. And my, my, my, my father, same my cell and my brother, my younger brother, at, uh, that time, he was ten. And, uh, to try to, uh, with one of the friend to the south.

• 18:08Jocko Willink?

  Now, did you have any understanding of what was happening with the communists in North Vietnam? Did you have any understanding of that yet?

• 18:17Speaker 01

  Oh, but, uh, before we go to, uh, we, uh, we went to the south, then, uh,

• 18:25Speaker 01

  I remember I, uh,

• 18:28Speaker 01

  at night, my, I sit next to my, uh, my father. And, uh, he was, uh, criticize, criticize, uh, keep criticizing, which he mean?

• 18:39Jocko Willink?

  Uh huh.

• 18:40Speaker 01

  Uh, because my, uh, elder, oldest brother was killed in forty-five.

• 18:49Speaker 01

  When he was seventeen.

• 18:51Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 18:51Speaker 01

  Yeah. By the communists.

• 18:53Jocko Willink?

  By the communists.

• 18:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:56Jocko Willink?

  So, once you got down to South Vietnam, now you're eleven years old. And what, what, did you, did you, were you just going to school?

• 19:04Speaker 01

  Yes, I did. And since the, uh, we move around all the time from Hanoi to Haiphong and then go to the south. And, uh,

• 19:17Speaker 01

  I myself and uh and my brother next to me. We all try to make a two great in one year.

• 19:26Jocko Willink?

  You try to make what in one year?

• 19:28Speaker 01

  Two great.

• 19:29Jocko Willink?

  Oh, okay.

• 19:32Jocko Willink?

  Were you able to do it?

• 19:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, we did.

• 19:34Jocko Willink?

  Nice, nice.

• 19:40Speaker 01

  Uh in sixty, sixty two, sixty two, yeah, I was on the Air Force. And my, my brother, he got a scholarship from USAM and he went here too.

• 19:53Jocko Willink?

  So nineteen sixty two is when you joined the Air Force?

• 19:56Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 19:57Jocko Willink?

  And, and um, once you joined the Air Force, did you know you were gonna be a pilot?

• 20:04Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 20:04Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 20:05Speaker 01

  But uh, I didn't believe it I would be. Because I couldn't uh ride the car, couldn't ride air, um, train. Or even air rain, a burst. Because every time I got in the car, my stomach would come up in my mouth.

• 20:24John Stryker Meyer?

  He was carsick. Truck sick, train sick, every sick he would get.

• 20:30Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's, that's not fun.

• 20:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:32Jocko Willink?

  But eventually you were able to get over that?

• 20:34Speaker 01

  Yes. The, the first time my IP, he demonstrated uh, um, engine quit all the autorization. And, and I talk, I, I feel my, my stomach come up. I feel, oh my god, how, how can fly? But later on, I get used with it.

• 20:55Jocko Willink?

  Right.

• 20:56Speaker 01

  And uh, I like it.

• 21:00Jocko Willink?

  I know that they, they have something for American pilots. And I don't know if they made you do this. They have something where if you get airsickness, they have something, I think it's in Texas. It's called spinning puke. And they basically put you in this machine every day and it spins you around and makes you sick until you get used to it.

• 21:17John Stryker Meyer?

  Really?

• 21:18Jocko Willink?

  Yep. Yep.

• 21:21Jocko Willink?

  So I guess you didn't do that?

• 21:22Speaker 01

  No.

• 21:23Jocko Willink?

  You didn't have to go to the spin and puke?

• 21:26John Stryker Meyer?

  One auto rotation helps.

• 21:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:29Jocko Willink?

  So, how, how long were you in the Air Force before you started training to become a pilot?

• 21:36Speaker 01

  When I was on in the Air Force, in uh, late sixty two and uh,

• 21:44Speaker 01

  And formerly it was on January first of sixty-three.

• 21:49Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 21:50Speaker 01

  And I was have the military training in Nia Xiang. And also the ESL for six months.

• 22:02Speaker 01

  And in July sixty-three, I was sent here to get the training.

• 22:11Jocko Willink?

  So you came to America.

• 22:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, and got the ESL again training in.

• 22:16Jocko Willink?

  English training. Yep.

• 22:17Speaker 01

  In San Antonio.

• 22:18Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 22:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:20Jocko Willink?

  So you go to San Antonio to first to learn how to speak English?

• 22:26Speaker 01

  Oh, in Vietnam.

• 22:28Jocko Willink?

  Oh, okay.

• 22:30Speaker 01

  When I got the military training and the ESL English training. For six months and then when I went to San Antonio, Texas. About another four months for ESL English. After that, I went to Fort Waters in Texas.

• 22:56Jocko Willink?

  Okay, and what was Fort Waters for?

• 22:59Speaker 01

  For the primary helicopter training.

• 23:02Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 23:03Speaker 01

  Is the S twenty-three.

• 23:05Jocko Willink?

  The S twenty-three chopper? S twenty-three. S twenty-three chopper?

• 23:11Jocko Willink?

  Small and ugly. That's like the, that's like the bubble canopy, right? Similar to that, yeah.

• 23:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:16Jocko Willink?

  Different variation, yeah.

• 23:18Speaker 01

  It's the old one.

• 23:22Jocko Willink?

  And then, so how long did you spend in America training to fly?

• 23:26Speaker 01

  From the first training, I had the advanced training on the S twenty-three too. And then after I finished it, I went to Alabama to get the training on the S thirty-four.

• 23:43Jocko Willink?

  The King Bee.

• 23:44Speaker 01

  The King Bee.

• 23:45Jocko Willink?

  And what was your first impression of the King Bee?

• 23:48Speaker 01

  It was big.

• 23:51Speaker 01

  Because from S twenty-three is a small one.

• 23:53Jocko Willink?

  Tiny.

• 23:54Speaker 01

  Tiny one. And.

• 24:00Speaker 01

  When I finished the training on the A34, I was thankful to get the training on the Huey.

• 24:11Speaker 01

  At that time, they only have the, at the school, they only have the A model. It's a weird, it's a small one.

• 24:18Jocko Willink?

  The A model Huey?

• 24:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:19Jocko Willink?

  What did you like better, what did you like better, the Huey or the King B?

• 24:22Speaker 01

  The King B.

• 24:25Speaker 01

  Because the King B have about, at that time have about

• 24:31Speaker 01

  1,050 horsepower.

• 24:34Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 24:35Speaker 01

  But the Huey, A model, have only 900 horsepower.

• 24:40Jocko Willink?

  But the Huey's a lot smaller than the King B?

• 24:42Speaker 01

  Yes, it is smaller.

• 24:45Jocko Willink?

  But you feel like you had more power in the King B?

• 24:47Speaker 01

  No.

• 24:48Jocko Willink?

  No?

• 24:50Speaker 01

  Because it's too easy, too easy to fly, that one.

• 24:56Speaker 01

  Because on the A34, I got total about 100 hours.

• 25:04Jocko Willink?

  How many hours?

• 25:05Speaker 01

  100 hours.

• 25:05Jocko Willink?

  100 hours?

• 25:06Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 25:07John Stryker Meyer?

  Wow.

• 25:07Speaker 01

  Total. And, but on the Huey, I only get the 900 hours.

• 25:13Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 25:15Speaker 01

  And the pilot, the captain pilot, who checked me, he said, okay, you can stay home, you don't need to fly anymore.

• 25:26Speaker 01

  You stay home so he can have more time to tend other people.

• 25:30Jocko Willink?

  Got it.

• 25:31John Stryker Meyer?

  Other people didn't learn as quickly as he did.

• 25:32Jocko Willink?

  Got it.

• 25:33Speaker 01

  So, I was off for one weekend, this go around.

• 25:40Jocko Willink?

  So then, so is that, is that what you got trained in? You completed all that training?

• 25:44Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 25:44Jocko Willink?

  And then it was going back to Vietnam?

• 25:47Speaker 01

  Yes, in 64, around Zulai 64.

• 25:54Jocko Willink?

  So in 64... America's there, but not super heavy engaged in combat operations yet.

• 26:01John Stryker Meyer?

  Not yet.

• 26:03Jocko Willink?

  What was it like when you got back? Were you, were you starting to anticipate? Were you, was it starting to seem like there was gonna be a, a broader war being fought there?

• 26:12John Stryker Meyer?

  Don't forget in June of 1964, Roger Donlan earned the first Medal of Honor at a Green Beret A Camp. So there were, there were major battles at the A Camps at that level. And so, and of course the King Bees even then were supporting some of the A Camps. So that was the beginning of that war at a serious level. And yes, the, we didn't get the American troops involved to Idrang Valley, but they began to build up and the Marines came into Da Nang. So he was all part of that.

• 26:42Jocko Willink?

  What year did the Marines come into Da Nang?

• 26:43John Stryker Meyer?

  It was 64, I think. 64, 65.

• 26:47Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, cuz it's always Idrang in 65. That's sort of, in my mind, marks the beginning of like heavy American combat operations.

• 26:57John Stryker Meyer?

  Yes, that's the formal battle between American first cab and the NVA.

• 27:02Jocko Willink?

  So, but yeah, definitely prior to that, it was advisors in there working by with and through the locals.

• 27:09John Stryker Meyer?

  Right.

• 27:10Jocko Willink?

  And, and yeah.

• 27:13Jocko Willink?

  So you were seeing all that happen. You were seeing that start to unfold. Were you, at what point did you start flying the King Bees in support of special operations?

• 27:23Speaker 01

  When I first came back from, from the US training, I, I was assigned to the 217 Squadron. And the 217 Squadron first stationed at Saigon. And in 60, later 65, was moved to Kha Tse in the south. And in...

• 27:53Speaker 01

  February nineteen sixty-six, I was assigned to the eighty-third group.

• 28:03Speaker 01

  This is the group that combined a fixed wing and helicopter to fight the Second Mission. And later on, the helicopter group become two-nineteen.

• 28:20Speaker 01

  But the group of the eighty, the helicopter group in eighty-third special group have only four helicopters. But when we become, became the two-nineteen, we have twenty-four of them.

• 28:37Jocko Willink?

  Did you know what you were getting into?

• 28:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:40Jocko Willink?

  With those kinds of...

• 28:41Speaker 01

  I like it.

• 28:44John Stryker Meyer?

  Of course, he's very modest. The first two years, basically, from, from when he went to that first, the two-seventeenth, the commander of that unit didn't like North Vietnamese. So he was only a copilot, but he fly copilot, he get very bored, he wants more action. So he finally gets to be quest, and he goes and gets the action.

• 29:06Jocko Willink?

  So once you, once you started doing that, what was, what was that like? What was it, what was it like to start going out on those operations where there was all this incredible intensity on the ground?

• 29:22Speaker 01

  I think he's more excited in a normal squadron.

• 29:27Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I'd say it's probably more exciting than a normal squadron.

• 29:34Jocko Willink?

  What was it, what was the, what was the operational pace like? How often were you getting called to fly? What would happen? Would you be on standby, waiting to go extract people? Would you sit and plan with the guys from SOG so you all were working together? How did all that, how did all that work?

• 29:54Speaker 01

  Everything uh uh worked like that.

• 29:57John Stryker Meyer?

  Cause they had a, he had a rotation, like one week they would be on assignment, one week they'd be training, and another week they'd be getting ready.

• 30:05Jocko Willink?

  Mm-hmm.

• 30:05John Stryker Meyer?

  And then in one week or so, they'd be on assignment, they could be up at Fubai.

• 30:08Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 30:09John Stryker Meyer?

  Then they go down to Khatun, wherever the most, depending on the weather, what missions were up.

• 30:14Jocko Willink?

  So would, would SOG ground guys go and, you know, would you sit down and say, okay, here's where we're gonna insert?

• 30:21John Stryker Meyer?

  They would get the op order and they would be in for their briefing prior to launch.

• 30:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, before that we went out to the operation, that we have the briefing. Uh what we are going to do, uh do, to do and where we are going to work. Uh but since I uh was so familiar with the, the whole, whole border from, from Khaisin down to uh Peku, Mami Tua, the whole border around the, on the, along the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

• 30:50Jocko Willink?

  Mm-hmm.

• 30:51Speaker 01

  I'm so fam- familiar that I just hear, well, I don't need to bring map.

• 30:56Jocko Willink?

  You were that familiar with it?

• 30:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:58John Stryker Meyer?

  And here's another, King, during those briefings, when uh there, there is a one zero, the King bees, as we went further into the war, their briefing would say, we found uh twenty-three Mike Mike here, thirty-seven Mike Mike, anti-aircraft weaponry in those targets. So they would tell the covey, and with their expertise would be another bonus that we had in terms of our briefing, where not to fly.

• 31:23John Stryker Meyer?

  That's one of the briefing parts, so it was like, we hear what the mission was, get that from S3, but we'd always hear from them, then the covey after that.

• 31:32John Stryker Meyer?

  Oh yeah.

• 31:34Jocko Willink?

  So you'd be flying basically some kind of combat mission every day or two days, three days at the most?

• 31:41Speaker 01

  Oh sometime in one day, we are approve uh three mission.

• 31:46Speaker 01

  It's mission last about less than two hours.

• 31:51Jocko Willink?

  Mm hmm. Yeah, see, that's what's cool about being a pilot, right? Two hours, you know, two hours and you're done.

• 31:59John Stryker Meyer?

  If you live to come home.

• 32:00Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, if you live to come home, you're doing all right. You're back eating good chow and drinking a cold beer.

• 32:05John Stryker Meyer?

  Indeed.

• 32:09Jocko Willink?

  So, so how long did it take before you finally ended up getting shot down?

• 32:15John Stryker Meyer?

  Ooh.

• 32:18Jocko Willink?

  Like, when did, I know you ended up getting shot down. How long were you flying for before you got shot down for the first time?

• 32:24John Stryker Meyer?

  Over four years.

• 32:25Speaker 01

  First time, let's see.

• 32:27John Stryker Meyer?

  Oh, it's like the first time.

• 32:28Speaker 01

  Sometime in sixty seven or sixty six, I don't remember. Because I was shot down four times.

• 32:36Jocko Willink?

  You were shot down four times?

• 32:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I don't even, I don't even remember which day it was. Except the last time I lost my hand.

• 32:47John Stryker Meyer?

  Remember that, yeah.

• 32:47Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, the first time you got shot, you don't really remember what happened the first time you got shot down?

• 32:51Speaker 01

  Oh, uh, the first time I was shot down was in south of the Marble Mountain. And in the morning, we supposed to take the, the platoon to make the security line south of the Marble Mountain.

• 33:11John Stryker Meyer?

  Marble Mountain, right where FOB four was. So this is an in-country mission and they're picking up a battalion to put it on the south side of Marble Mountain because FOB four was on the north side. But, and they were having some issues, they put the battalion out there for security purposes to work along with the Marines at that point. And so seven o'clock in the morning, South Vietnam, he gets shot down.

• 33:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's, I went now at six o'clock and.

• 33:39Speaker 01

  Insert the, uh, drop the, uh, the tube. And when the second king be the land and he said that he, uh, get, uh, he caught a, uh, gunfire. And I told him, remember which way.

• 33:57Speaker 01

  And I come back to, uh, mountain, pick up more people and then land again. And I see which, uh, which direction is that? He said two o'clock and I take up and have to two o'clock position, uh, direction. And I saw a line of people was moving with a, all the, uh, all the woman and she got a kid. And with the, you remember the two baskets that they carry on it?

• 34:28Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 34:30Speaker 01

  And I, I told the, uh, the crew chief, all the people, civilian people, don't, don't, don't shoot. And as, as long as I finished it, I heard a, a long fire. From that, from that line, from that people, from those people. And the engine just quit. And I make, I make a crash to, uh, on the rice paddy.

• 35:02Speaker 01

  And the, uh, the third shopper, them that came down to, uh, pick me up. And bring me, uh, back to the land. And at nine o'clock, I go, I go, wow, wow, again to take that shopper back. And we, we took that shopper back. The, um, mechanic, they couldn't find any, any round. So they keep asking me, tell, uh, tell them, uh, tell, tell, uh, tell them what happened? What really happened? If, uh, we couldn't find the, any, um, round, then it must be the technical problem. I say, yes, I did.

• 35:47Speaker 01

  I, I, I, I heard the, the round, I heard the fire. And later in the afternoon, one of the mechanic ship.

• 35:59Speaker 01

  He was, he opened the, the front door. Front door of the, uh, of the engine.

• 36:05Jocko Willink?

  Mm-hmm.

• 36:06Speaker 01

  And he looked around and

• 36:10Speaker 01

  suddenly he, he, he saw the, the, uh, the, uh, the, uh, the lid, the cap of the, uh, Magneto.

• 36:18Jocko Willink?

  Mm-hmm.

• 36:19Speaker 01

  There's, there was a hole in there.

• 36:21Jocko Willink?

  Oh, so that was it?

• 36:22Speaker 01

  And, uh, he was wondering, why this is, there is a hole in here, why the, the, uh, the people didn't change it? So he called the mechanic and opened it. Oh, my, my bullet was in there and it makes all the, uh, excited.

• 36:40Jocko Willink?

  Wow.

• 36:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:42Jocko Willink?

  So you would go back out and you went back out and recovered that aircraft?

• 36:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:47Jocko Willink?

  Or did you tie straps onto it and bring it back or how'd you do it?

• 36:50Speaker 01

  I, I, I go, go out and with the two, uh, show them how to, to, to break, uh, bring the, uh, uh, the down aircraft back.

• 37:00Jocko Willink?

  Would you bring it back with another helicopter?

• 37:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:02Jocko Willink?

  Just tie it on and bring it back and then start working on it?

• 37:05Speaker 01

  Uh-huh.

• 37:06Jocko Willink?

  Did you feel jinxed going back in that aircraft again?

• 37:09Speaker 01

  No.

• 37:14Jocko Willink?

  Or did you feel lucky? You already got shot down, you let, you made it.

• 37:18Speaker 01

  You know, when, uh, when, uh, I, I, uh, class, uh, in, uh, on, uh, in the, uh, rice paddie, uh, I, um, I jumped out of the, uh, chopper and, uh, grabbed the, uh, the M thirty.

• 37:32Jocko Willink?

  Mm-hmm.

• 37:33Speaker 01

  The old one, the World War Two machine gun.

• 37:35Jocko Willink?

  Mm-hmm.

• 37:36Speaker 01

  And then my crew chief bring a little carry the, uh, armor box. And, uh, my, uh, my, my copilot, he ran along with me. When I, when I picked up the M thirty, I look back and I saw the, uh, the, the, um, the water on the rice paddie was swelling, swelling. Because in the, uh, from the, uh, they, they were shooting from the B R S.

• 38:00Jocko Willink?

  Oh.

• 38:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:01Jocko Willink?

  Still.

• 38:03Speaker 01

  And I ran to the border of the rice paddie and put the gun on, put the machine gun on and, uh, load it and I shot it.

• 38:13Speaker 01

  Idiot, I shoot one round at a time.

• 38:20John Stryker Meyer?

  Yeah, those old thirty calibers were not the most reliable after the first thirty years of combat.

• 38:30Jocko Willink?

  I know there's another story where you got shot down again.

• 38:38Jocko Willink?

  And the day before, a King B had been shot down, and then you went in. What happened on that operation?

• 38:44Speaker 01

  In that operation, the day before, we went out to resupply and bring the wound from the team.

• 39:01Speaker 01

  I landed and picked up some and resupplied some, but the second one got shot down by the RPG.

• 39:12Speaker 01

  It was about 5:00 PM.

• 39:17Speaker 01

  When I saw it, I came back to Dachto. And, no, we lost two King Bs at that time, yeah, two King Bs on the previous day.

• 39:35Speaker 01

  And I decided not to land anymore.

• 39:36Jocko Willink?

  How did you feel about going on an operation when there was two King Bs shot down the day before? And now you have to go back in there. What did that feel like?

• 39:49Speaker 01

  I think that we need to bring all of my friends back.

• 40:00Speaker 01

  When I landed at Dachto, the radio man from the camp, he went out. He said, "All of from Saigon, not to land anymore."

• 40:14Speaker 01

  He lowered his forehead, "But the last decision is yours."

• 40:21Speaker 01

  And I said, "Oh, I'm going out again." And I asked Kobe and the two gunship, and my number three, number four, King B.

• 40:37Speaker 01

  I will go in again and...

• 40:42Speaker 01

  When uh we were about, yeah, at the uh at um I I I tell them that this uh followed me and uh

• 40:53Speaker 01

  when we were about five kilometers from the LZ, then you people just skip orbiting. And I will go down by myself and uh

• 41:07Speaker 01

  I wait until seven o'clock, seven PM, it's dark and uh I say, let's go. And I turn on my light, the the light, even even the uh the dashboard light.

• 41:23Jocko Willink?

  You turn them off, turn them all off?

• 41:24Speaker 01

  Very, very, very, very faint, hard to see. And because anyway,

• 41:33Speaker 01

  for for for a long time, I I can listen to the uh engine and how and know how much it did. It was working.

• 41:45Speaker 01

  And how much, how how how many RPM it is running, I can listen to it. And uh

• 41:53Speaker 01

  when you were about five kilometers from the LZ, I turn off the light and uh tell other people to uh orbit, wait for me. And I asked the covey, do you see me? And he said that, yes. So I turn off the engine and go down, go down to uh to the top of the tree, recover it. And ask him again, do you still uh see me? And he said, yes. Okay, guide me in. And the guy turn right, straight, left, right, left, and the LZ ahead and make a three sixty

• 42:33Speaker 01

  with a ninety uh ninety uh not go mine, make a three sixty degree to uh to land on the LZ.

• 42:41Jocko Willink?

  So so the they were walking you in and telling you, covey was telling you exactly where to go, right? Guiding you in.

• 42:48John Stryker Meyer?

  Yeah. At night.

• 42:52John Stryker Meyer?

  At treetop. In the jungle, this is, and there's mountains here.

• 42:56Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 42:57John Stryker Meyer?

  It's not like we're flying in Cambodia where it's flat.

• 43:01John Stryker Meyer?

  He's flying over the hills too, just, and uh, that's just part of one, another day with a King Bee pilot, at night. With the lights out, and he got the, everybody out.

• 43:14Speaker 01

  And uh, the next day, I came in again. And uh, at uh, ten AM.

• 43:23Speaker 01

  And when I was taking off. And

• 43:29Speaker 01

  I heard a big brush. And the uh, the chopper, start to wake up. Because the engine was lost. The, the brush blew up the, blew up the engine.

• 43:44Jocko Willink?

  Wait, what blew up the engine?

• 43:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, the.

• 43:46John Stryker Meyer?

  The enemy fire.

• 43:47Speaker 01

  It was, it was hit by the RPG.

• 43:50Jocko Willink?

  Oh, okay.

• 43:50Speaker 01

  Right in the phone.

• 43:53Speaker 01

  I make the right, so I make the um, right move to, to keep the uh, the chopper to stick to the side of the hill. And still, and start to lower it, lower the uh, left side down. To, so it can hold on the side of the hill. And I start to jump out and

• 44:22Speaker 01

  I see that um,

• 44:26Speaker 01

  the copilot, when I jump out, my copilot, he, he was on my left thigh, and I said, run!

• 44:34Jocko Willink?

  So, so let me make sure I get this, your, your, the aircraft gets hit with an RPG.

• 44:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:40Jocko Willink?

  The engine dies.

• 44:41Speaker 01

  The engine came off.

• 44:43Jocko Willink?

  Oh, the engine came off?

• 44:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, it blew off the engine.

• 44:45Jocko Willink?

  Okay. And so then.

• 44:47Speaker 01

  That's why the, the chopper knows.

• 44:49Jocko Willink?

  So now the chopper goes nose up.

• 44:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:51Jocko Willink?

  You're gonna crash land and you have to do it on a hillside.

• 44:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:55Jocko Willink?

  And so you had to kind of maneuver the helicopter to be at an angle.

• 44:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, so it won't fall, it will roll out of the hill.

• 45:03Jocko Willink?

  And then, so you land it, basically you are able to crash land it. And then you look at your copilot and say, run.

• 45:12Speaker 01

  And we ran, we ran uphill.

• 45:15Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 45:15Speaker 01

  To sign the team.

• 45:17Jocko Willink?

  And then, so then you joined the SOG team on the ground.

• 45:20Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 45:21John Stryker Meyer?

  Did you carry the M, the M30 again for good luck?

• 45:24Speaker 01

  No, at that time, we already have M60.

• 45:28Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, okay. Oh, so you had, you got the M60 off of it?

• 45:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:33Speaker 01

  But.

• 45:33Jocko Willink?

  So then what happened when you joined up with the SOG team?

• 45:36Speaker 01

  The SOG team, because they, oh, the M16 and M18 was all over the, the, the dish. And I grabbed one of them, no, at first, I, yeah, I grabbed one of them, tried to shoot. And whoever they, they, they, I'll be come from, but they, it didn't work because they shot all over and, and they, they, they.

• 46:09John Stryker Meyer?

  Ran out of bullets?

• 46:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:13Speaker 01

  I think the, the, the gun was too dry.

• 46:17Jocko Willink?

  Oh, the gun was too dry?

• 46:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, and couldn't shoot anymore.

• 46:20Jocko Willink?

  Okay, so now you're in a perimeter, I guess.

• 46:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:23Jocko Willink?

  With your team, with the team.

• 46:25John Stryker Meyer?

  They're wounded.

• 46:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:27John Stryker Meyer?

  And this is a wounded people he had picked up.

• 46:29Jocko Willink?

  What team was this?

• 46:30John Stryker Meyer?

  I don't know, sure, Salacantun.

• 46:31Jocko Willink?

  Mm-hmm.

• 46:33John Stryker Meyer?

  This is before my time even, like 67, I think.

• 46:35Speaker 01

  So, so I, I ran around and, and found another M79 gun.

• 46:43Jocko Willink?

  Mm-hmm.

• 46:43Speaker 01

  And two, two bike of grenade, and it, so I just, okay, you shoot me now, I'll be, I'll give, I'll give back to you. I shoot, I shoot, I empty two bike of a M79. And I was shooting from 50 meters away from us to 200 meters away from us.

• 47:07Jocko Willink?

  How long were you guys on the ground for before you got extracted?

• 47:10Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 47:12Speaker 01

  And when I, after I shot the, on the grenade, I called the COB. And he said, you still alive? Yeah, I still alive.

• 47:24Speaker 01

  And I called my rescue pilot. Because he, he was on the sky and he saw the, he said that the, he saw the, the frame, the line of frame go and hit my chopper and my chopper explode. The, the front nose explode and he thought I was not dead. But he, he was lucky and he said, are you still alive? And I said, yeah, but don't land anymore. We have to move.

• 47:53John Stryker Meyer?

  Yeah, so you hear if that had been a UE, they're dead. Everybody's dead. But that's a King Bee.

• 47:58Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, the UE can't take that kind of hit.

• 48:00John Stryker Meyer?

  Hit the engine and blew it out, which is a nine cylinder World War Two engine from the B seventeen, but blew it out of the aircraft and he still was able to talk about it and walk away from it.

• 48:11Jocko Willink?

  And crash land that thing like that?

• 48:12John Stryker Meyer?

  On top of, on a sideways on a hill, yeah.

• 48:18Jocko Willink?

  So, so was the, did the other aircraft, the other King Bee then land and pick you guys up quickly or were you out there for a while?

• 48:23Speaker 01

  No, we have to, we have to run away from the LZ with the, with the team. From ten AM to four PM before I was picked up.

• 48:35Jocko Willink?

  So much for the two hour mission.

• 48:36Speaker 01

  Six hours, six hours.

• 48:39Jocko Willink?

  And you're getting shot up by the NVA the whole time?

• 48:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, many times.

• 48:44John Stryker Meyer?

  And he's learning how to shoot the M seventy nine in between the M sixteen and the M sixty, whatever rounds he has.

• 48:51John Stryker Meyer?

  On the job training in Laos.

• 48:55Jocko Willink?

  So then you come back from that mission. And then take a shower, get ready and go brief another mission. That's what you guys did.

• 49:04Speaker 01

  No, after that mission that I was shot down, I went back to, they brought me back to Dacto. And at that time, my commander, my squad commander and the whole staff of the squad had came down to Dacto to see what happened.

• 49:22Jocko Willink?

  They couldn't believe you're still alive.

• 49:23Speaker 01

  And, yeah, and.

• 49:26Speaker 01

  When I first, when I first see my, my squad command, I said that my friend need to have one week to, uh, on vacation to relax.

• 49:41Jocko Willink?

  Did he give it to you?

• 49:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, he said, okay.

• 49:45Jocko Willink?

  So all you had to do was take a RPG hit, have your engine blown out, crash land and do a six hour gunfight with the NVA to get a week's vacation?

• 49:55Jocko Willink?

  I don't know. That seems like a rough tour.

• 49:59Speaker 01

  But the, uh, the previous day, one of the shop also got hit by the RPG. And the co-pilot got killed. And the pilot and the, and the mechanic and the crew ship got burnt too. But, but, uh, I brought them home.

• 50:23Speaker 01

  And the, uh, before the, um, the next day before I, I left the LZ, I ran back to the, uh, the last standing of the, uh, of the shop that went down before, uh, yes, uh, the previous day. And tried to look for something, uh, if it could remain of the co-pilot of the previous day. But I couldn't find any.

• 50:51Speaker 01

  The whole thing was a white ass because the aircraft was the aluminum.

• 50:58Jocko Willink?

  Oh, so it just burned?

• 50:59Speaker 01

  It just burned.

• 51:07Jocko Willink?

  That, that wasn't your last time getting shot down?

• 51:10Speaker 01

  No, not yet.

• 51:13Jocko Willink?

  What about your tail rotor, tail rotor getting shot off?

• 51:17Speaker 01

  Oh, tail rotor cable?

• 51:21Speaker 01

  It was in Laos and I was taking it off. And, um, suddenly I feel somebody hit my, the, uh, on my, uh, my, my foot. On my feet, I mean, I mean. And I asked my, uh, crew ship, what's happening with the tail rotor? And he, he checked it a lot and he said, he, uh, got in the tail boom and said that the cable or the control cable of the terrorator, it was, uh, shut off, shut off.

• 51:56Speaker 01

  And so because when I feel the it hit the the the the somebody something hit the pedal. I the the chopper when I was taking off, this chopper start to turn right. Because we have we don't have the control of the tail. So I move the cyclic to the left and reduce the power. And I accept I accept to be shot with the other with other rather than crash landing. So I keep taking off with sixty knots and fly sixty knots a little bit sideways. And make from make from Laos to and I called my

• 52:43Speaker 01

  my my my the other team, be go ahead and land first and prepare for the all the extinguish.

• 52:52Speaker 01

  And because I I have to make a crash. And I went back make a long big traffic and land make a landing landing. When the tail wheel touched down, I told my crew, I cut off the power.

• 53:10Speaker 01

  And he cut off the power and the chopper slowly slowly stand down and then he start running. Start running and I hit the brake, I hit the brake to to uh to to stop it. But it wouldn't but before before I touched down, I told the my cruise ship, tell the the team nine of them in the chopper. Tell the team when I slowed down the chopper and tell them to jump out.

• 53:41John Stryker Meyer?

  Nine man team.

• 53:43Speaker 01

  Tell them to not to jump out, not to remain because we might make a crash. And and finally, the the chopper turn right and stop. When I look down, I look none of them jump out, is they still in the chopper.

• 54:05John Stryker Meyer?

  And did any of the nine members of the team get wounded? One guy was wounded?

• 54:10Speaker 01

  No.

• 54:10John Stryker Meyer?

  Nobody was wounded? But yet they shot the rotor, the cable to the rotor.

• 54:15Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's crazy.

• 54:16John Stryker Meyer?

  And the aircraft between the weight and the way he adjusted the cyclic stick.

• 54:21Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 54:22John Stryker Meyer?

  He flew back sideways and decreased his speed. It's like, I'd never heard that story. This is another one of those, oh my god, stories. Just another day flying King Bees.

• 54:33John Stryker Meyer?

  With captain on.

• 54:37John Stryker Meyer?

  Now you know why we say never one pilot.

• 54:43Speaker 01

  I tell you one thing. If at that time we have the gunship.

• 54:47John Stryker Meyer?

  Yes.

• 54:48Speaker 01

  To go for ourselves, then we can make a lot of things.

• 54:52John Stryker Meyer?

  Is that right?

• 54:52Speaker 01

  Yeah. Because we, you know that when you go out to the operation,

• 55:00Speaker 01

  the fueling and the thinking of the enemy,

• 55:06Speaker 01

  what they are thinking, we can guess. But the American, you couldn't guess what they are doing, what they are going to do.

• 55:16Jocko Willink?

  So you're saying that the Americans, we would do random things? But the enemy, you kind of knew what they were gonna do? They followed patterns?

• 55:24Speaker 01

  We can guess, most of them.

• 55:27John Stryker Meyer?

  Wow.

• 55:30Speaker 01

  The American just go out and receive a ground fire somewhere and just suppress it, try to suppress it. But for us, we can guess where they are going to put the gun or what they are going to plan.

• 55:48Speaker 01

  Because sometime, when, one time I was shot, I was taking off from the LZ and

• 55:57Speaker 01

  the, I heard

• 56:02Speaker 01

  heavy, heavy gunfire from the right side. And I look back and I saw the NVA shooting behind the 50 caliber and shooting at me. Less than 100 yards.

• 56:17Speaker 01

  And so I dived down to the bamboo top and make the zigzag fly. But I escaped, but the second King Bee came in and they made it.

• 56:33Speaker 01

  Second give me a red shut down.

• 56:35Jocko Willink?

  Shut down.

• 56:35Speaker 01

  Shut down and cut fire.

• 56:38Jocko Willink?

  Wow.

• 56:39Speaker 01

  It's too close, less than a hundred yard.

• 56:47Jocko Willink?

  Um, another one, uh, Tilt was telling me about was you, you, you got something hit, uh, you got hit by something and almost knocked you out of your seat.

• 56:57Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 56:57Jocko Willink?

  And there was like a two inch hole in the back of the King Bee. What was that?

• 57:02Speaker 01

  We couldn't find the foul, uh, we couldn't find the, the round and I don't, what, what kind of, uh,

• 57:10Speaker 01

  what kind of, uh, gun it was that? But, uh, at that time I was taking off from the LZ in Laos and suddenly just like some, somebody hit me with a hammer in the back and it hit me forward.

• 57:25Speaker 01

  Uh, I, so I, I use my left hand, left, left knee to hold these collective and keep flying and use my left hand to, to, to, to check my bike and I say, oh, it's still dry.

• 57:42Speaker 01

  I mean, I still okay.

• 57:43Jocko Willink?

  No blood.

• 57:44Speaker 01

  No blood. And when we got home, the, uh,

• 57:51Speaker 01

  I checked what was wrong and I saw the, of the back of, back seat, the back of my seat.

• 57:58Speaker 01

  The hole was bigger than this one.

• 58:00Jocko Willink?

  Hmm.

• 58:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:03Speaker 01

  Couldn't find it around.

• 58:04Jocko Willink?

  Did you guys, was there any armor at all on the King Bee?

• 58:07Speaker 01

  No.

• 58:08Jocko Willink?

  No armor, just aluminum?

• 58:10Speaker 01

  Aluminum, that's all.

• 58:11Jocko Willink?

  Can't stop anything?

• 58:13Speaker 01

  Except, oh, yeah, one, there is one, uh, armor plate.

• 58:18John Stryker Meyer?

  Underneath, underneath the engine.

• 58:19Speaker 01

  Underneath the engine.

• 58:20John Stryker Meyer?

  They had an armor plate.

• 58:21Jocko Willink?

  Oh, to protect.

• 58:22John Stryker Meyer?

  Maybe eighteen inches, eighteen inches wide. It would wrap up on the sides underneath the engine.

• 58:29Jocko Willink?

  That's about the only armor I'm aware of.

• 58:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:31Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. What'd you wear? Did you wear, did you wear a flak vest or anything? No.

• 58:36John Stryker Meyer?

  No.

• 58:36Jocko Willink?

  No point. No.

• 58:40John Stryker Meyer?

  They have really cool King Bee flight.

• 58:42Jocko Willink?

  Just a flight suit.

• 58:43John Stryker Meyer?

  Overalls. They have their King Bee signals on them and they have their holster on their hip like a cowboy.

• 58:53John Stryker Meyer?

  They they're really good looking uniforms. I like the black was best.

• 58:59Jocko Willink?

  How many operations do you think you flew?

• 59:04Speaker 01

  Let's calculate. I got four thousand hours. And minus one thousand hours for liaison or in the other other thing.

• 59:16Jocko Willink?

  So three thousand hours.

• 59:17Speaker 01

  Three thousand. Three thousand divided to two hours for each mission.

• 59:23Jocko Willink?

  So fifteen hundred or so missions.

• 59:26John Stryker Meyer?

  Yeah, give or take. Give or take a hundred.

• 59:30John Stryker Meyer?

  These are all solid missions.

• 59:32Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. How often, how often would you have enemy contact on the ground when you went in?

• 59:45Speaker 01

  Usually they.

• 59:50Speaker 01

  When I came in to insert the team and I saw something, one this is like one time when I landed to the LZ. And I saw the telephone line on the LZ. And the team was getting off and they come back, come back, come back.

• 1:00:14Speaker 01

  And they come back. That's the one time that I saw it and I need I brought their mic right away. But most of the time when we got shot, when we take off from the LZ, when the the the team were chased.

• 1:00:28John Stryker Meyer?

  For the extraction.

• 1:00:29Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, for the extraction.

• 1:00:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:31Jocko Willink?

  So most of the time you could get in, well, you you would just pull the team out almost immediately if you guys took contact.

• 1:00:37John Stryker Meyer?

  Right, yeah, we were compromised and we just tried to get it back, go out if we could.

• 1:00:42Jocko Willink?

  What percentage do you think you guys were compromised on the insert?

• 1:00:45John Stryker Meyer?

  Probably a lot more than we realized. Cause they have the LC watchers and they would like to get us on the ground first. Particularly by the end of sixty eight, cause they had the SOG hunter killer teams. That were out there and their main mission was to find us.

• 1:01:01Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I would think they would wanna wait till you inserted, see you insert, let the helicopters leave and then roll you up.

• 1:01:08John Stryker Meyer?

  There you go. So the insert usually would go well unless there are days. Like we had that time in November where we get shot out, the primary, the secondary and the alternate. And the King bees would go in, bing, bing, bing, go have lunch, they would refuel, have a little lunch. Here's another target, go back and do it again. And often they would come back with bullet holes, could we literally got shot out, they. If there's enemy activity there, we wouldn't go, you know, you're compromised, we wanna try at least get on the ground and get, get it going with the mission. And we had several days like that, back to back to back and the King bees got beat up. But fortunately, none of us got shot down.

• 1:01:50Jocko Willink?

  And the Sikorsky is just a, that's just a, that's just a hoss of an aircraft.

• 1:01:55John Stryker Meyer?

  Yeah, it only had one door, but it had the windows, so whenever we're distracted, our. The first man in the chopper would go to the, to the left window.

• 1:02:05Jocko Willink?

  You mean the port side?

• 1:02:06John Stryker Meyer?

  Port, that's what I meant. I always get the port confused with the star unless I'm drinking port.

• 1:02:16Jocko Willink?

  That's an army man right there, the left side.

• 1:02:19John Stryker Meyer?

  Yes.

• 1:02:21John Stryker Meyer?

  Is the bulkhead secure?

• 1:02:22Jocko Willink?

  The bulkhead is secure, there you go, you're all babies.

• 1:02:26John Stryker Meyer?

  And though, and then right here we can interject. Sometimes they would be in the air and there would be an emergency call for any helicopter. Which he did in August of nineteen sixty nine. I forget what you were on, but this is that mission with Scarface. And Scarface was making a gun run and they were working in conjunction with the. The hundred first airborne on their air mobile units. And there was a, like a river stream and they were making a gun run. So the hundred first had gone down with the Cobra, they had Cobras then. Scarface came in with a regular gunship, got hit.

• 1:03:09John Stryker Meyer?

  As it went down, it flipped over, two of the door, the crew members came out. It crashed upside down. They put out an emergency call. An was there. He responds to the call. The gunships went down and they made a gun run on each side of the down, upside down Scarface. He followed them right in. And he picked up the two, two of the, uh, crew members. He picked up, it was either, no, I didn't pick up, I just spot them.

• 1:03:40Jocko Willink?

  You spotted them first?

• 1:03:42Speaker 01

  Because I, uh, I, I, I flew along the stream to see what, uh, if I can find, I can find any pair of people. And I spot two of them standing on the big rock around this, this table. And I called them. Let them know. And then I keep, so they, they came down to pick them up. And I keep crying down the, uh, stream to look at, uh, other people. And I couldn't find anymore. I come back, I came back to the, uh, to the down Huey.

• 1:04:14Jocko Willink?

  It's upside down.

• 1:04:16Speaker 01

  And I couldn't see anywhere, couldn't see inside the cabin or a cockpit. So I use my, uh, right wheel to turn it back.

• 1:04:26Jocko Willink?

  Hmm, you flipped over the Huey.

• 1:04:28John Stryker Meyer?

  While under enemy fire.

• 1:04:30Speaker 01

  And I checked inside, there was nobody in there. So I tell them, I couldn't find anymore.

• 1:04:37John Stryker Meyer?

  Didn't you have your crew chief hanging out the door?

• 1:04:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:39John Stryker Meyer?

  And then he was able to say that he saw people in the pilot, the co-pilots. Uh, cause this day, there's two, those are two, uh, only two Scarface Marines aviators that are still listed as MIA. I think it was the pilot and, and the crew chief, cause the co-pilot got out. And they were able to rescue those two. And, uh, and the bubble of the front of the Huey where he put his, you know, the strut. Put the wheel in and lifted up the helicopter, his crew chief goes and hangs out. All while under enemy fire. So in August 2000, Scarface honored on at a banquet in San Diego to thank him for that

• 1:05:23John Stryker Meyer?

  heroic mission and they helped get your award for that mission, correct? Was that part of that?

• 1:05:29Speaker 01

  Hmm, no yet.

• 1:05:30John Stryker Meyer?

  Not yet, but that was one mission where he was just flying and they had to call for help. He responded to help Scarface because Scarface and the hundred first that protected King bees all the time. And you got shot up on that one, too. It wasn't like we're just another day in the park. He's helping the Marines try to find those aviators and I'm not sure how many hits he got, but just the fact to go down the stream, put the strut underneath the front nose that had been knocked out and lift it up to give them a status report. Just another day with the King bees. Amazing.

• 1:06:09Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, the, you know, the, the reputation you guys had must have been just, I mean, that opening that I read from this, like, it's just epic, you know, to hear the, the, the relief from Watkins when he hears who it is, like, okay, now we got a chance.

• 1:06:25John Stryker Meyer?

  Yeah. And it, you know, that was always our golden, our golden moment. When you're on the ground, you're in a firefight and they say, the King bees are coming. It's like, thank God for the King bees.

• 1:06:38Jocko Willink?

  On that mission, when you decide, hey, you know what? I'm not going to bring a co-pilot. I'm not going to bring a crew chief. I'm just going to bring me and the gunner. That's it. That seems like, uh, that seems like a kind of crazy decision to make.

• 1:06:53Speaker 01

  No, because we, we, well, I know that the situation was too bad and we have to go, go out as fast as we can so we can bring them home.

• 1:07:06Jocko Willink?

  As fast as you can, meaning it would have taken time to round up the copilot?

• 1:07:10Speaker 01

  No. If, one time when we was, they were putting mortar in the neck toe. And I saw, I saw the, the, the smoke came out from the gun on the other side of the hill. And I saw, I ran to my chopper and climb up and pick it up. And when I was taking off, the copilot was late and he subscribed.

• 1:07:44Jocko Willink?

  So you didn't care if you had a copilot or not?

• 1:07:46Speaker 01

  No, I didn't care.

• 1:07:51John Stryker Meyer?

  Well, that's just like that mission later in the book with the chapter 20, when they had the night bright light.

• 1:07:56Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:57John Stryker Meyer?

  Where the hatchet force had been in. They had severe casualties. They had all been exfiltrated out. The last helicopter went in was again a UED, went in on strings to pick up the team leader from the hatchet force. They had a sergeant that stayed back and a couple indigenous troops. And the chopper got shot down, crashed. And then that night, they asked to go in, this is October 69. And Lynn Black went in and on took them out. Again, with no crew. They took them out at night, found the LZ, thought, they thought they were going to have to rappel in it, but somehow he's able to find an area big enough to get the king bean and went down.

• 1:08:39John Stryker Meyer?

  Lynn Black got in, picked up the, picked up the team member who had a broken back. And the other survivors. And then he came back again at night, picked up the team. And I think this time they had to pull him out on strings. And then they pulled him out.

• 1:08:56Jocko Willink?

  Was there anyone else that could, that could fly at night like you could?

• 1:09:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, some of them.

• 1:09:03Jocko Willink?

  Was it your eyesight? Was it just the amount of hours that you had in the helicopter?

• 1:09:07Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, we can see.

• 1:09:13Speaker 01

  You know, at that time, the King Bee, we only have the, I see, the C model that we got from the army. Have the ADF, VHF, and FM. But the D model, we got from the Marine, have the Titan. UHF, VHF, FM.

• 1:09:40Speaker 01

  But since the Titan and the VSF, we don't use it often. We almost never use it, and it's too heavy, and it was installed in the tail boom. And it makes the each other heavy, tail heavy. So I remove all of them.

• 1:09:59Jocko Willink?

  You just take all those extra radios out?

• 1:10:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, we don't use it. We only need the UHF and the FM. That's all.

• 1:10:10John Stryker Meyer?

  And this leads me to a quick sidebar. I don't know if this is you or not, but we had in sixty-eight, the King Bees had, the Marines wanted to race the King Bees to Fubai.

• 1:10:23Jocko Willink?

  A race? You mean just a race?

• 1:10:24John Stryker Meyer?

  A race, race.

• 1:10:25Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 1:10:25John Stryker Meyer?

  They had their H thirty-four, no, no, no, this is just going from Da Nang, from the airbase. And the King Bees go, we'll race you to Fubai.

• 1:10:32Jocko Willink?

  So King Bees versus what?

• 1:10:33John Stryker Meyer?

  Versus the Marine Corps H thirty fours. They still have some H thirty fours.

• 1:10:37Jocko Willink?

  Oh, so it's just, it's King Bee versus King Bee?

• 1:10:40John Stryker Meyer?

  Yeah, but it's King Bee versus Marine Corps.

• 1:10:42Jocko Willink?

  Got it.

• 1:10:42John Stryker Meyer?

  With all the radios. So the Marines had to go around Hai Van Pass and go over the South China Sea. King Bees fly up and over, ping, they get to Fubai, win a hundred dollars. I don't know if that was you or not, but that was one of our favorite King Bee stories. The Frenchman always told that one.

• 1:11:04Jocko Willink?

  Man, and then who's your maintenance crews?

• 1:11:07Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:11:08Jocko Willink?

  Was it, was it Vietnamese?

• 1:11:09Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:11:10Jocko Willink?

  Air Force?

• 1:11:10Speaker 01

  They were, they are in the Vietnamese Air Force. And later on, we have the.

• 1:11:22Speaker 01

  Let's see, what, what was that? I totally forget. L O, I think L O D.

• 1:11:29Speaker 01

  The, uh, this is an American company.

• 1:11:31Jocko Willink?

  Oh, American company.

• 1:11:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, they, they, the, the main job is only to, to replace the part. I sup- I suppose to change the tail, uh, tail rotor. They bring the whole, the whole set and put it up. They change the whole set.

• 1:11:52Jocko Willink?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:11:53Speaker 01

  But I don't trust them.

• 1:11:56Speaker 01

  You know why?

• 1:11:57Jocko Willink?

  Why?

• 1:11:59Speaker 01

  Because one time, after they, uh, changed the, uh, the, the tail rotor. And, uh,

• 1:12:09Speaker 01

  after I checked everything, I start to crank up the, uh, chopper, crank up the engine. And the chopper start jumping up, up and down, up and down. And I just spread off the, uh, needle and, uh, cut off the engine. And the, the chopper was stuck like this and it just start to, the nose come up. And I go down and check, go around, check, check, and check the tail. Oh my God, my, only, only one, uh, the three blades, uh, remain. It's supposed to have, uh, the four blades.

• 1:12:43Jocko Willink?

  Oh, it only had three?

• 1:12:44Speaker 01

  But one was, was not there.

• 1:12:47John Stryker Meyer?

  A tail rotor was M I A.

• 1:12:51John Stryker Meyer?

  That, that could ruin your day.

• 1:12:54Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, we had a, um, uh, in Vietnam for the SEALs in Vietnam. They, they had a similar relationship that the SOG guys had with the Kimby's with the, with the Sea Wolves. And they had to kinda

• 1:13:08John Stryker Meyer?

  Improvise.

• 1:13:09Jocko Willink?

  Improvise. And their maintenance, they were very proud of, and, and very proud of their maintenance crews. Because their maintenance crews would keep those aircraft running and they would do whatever they had to do. And rob, cheat and steal to get the equipment.

• 1:13:21John Stryker Meyer?

  They were king of the scroungers.

• 1:13:22Jocko Willink?

  That's right. That's right. And they were already, you know, using birds that had, I forget, they scrounged up the aircraft themselves from somewhere. They were kind of leftover aircraft and, and so the, it wasn't just the, the pilots and the gunners. And then on top of that, these incredibly hardworking, you know, sailors in the Navy that were making those birds able to fly on a moment's notice. But it's a it's a very similar relationship for the Sog guys and the King Bee pilots as it is for the SEALs and and the Sea Wolf guys.

• 1:13:53John Stryker Meyer?

  Oh, they're of legend. Absolutely. Yeah. Outstanding.

• 1:13:58Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and and just the um it's a similar, you know, the the attitude, you know, what you said Khan or on earlier when I asked you, you know, what what are you thinking about when you need to go back into a spot where two King Bees have already shot down, been shot down? And your response was, I want to get my friends out.

• 1:14:16John Stryker Meyer?

  That's it.

• 1:14:18Jocko Willink?

  That's that's that's the esprit de corps that is just unmatched, you know, and and having that relationship with and

• 1:14:27Jocko Willink?

  just that that warrior brotherhood is

• 1:14:30John Stryker Meyer?

  And then there is a very human side, like there's a few times that we get pulled out right at last light. We go up to the King Bee pile, say, hey, come on, I'll buy you a drink. And Captain Ten would say, I'm going home to my family, or Captain Tuong. No, thank you, but I'm gonna go home, my family, I'll be back tomorrow, you buy me drinks tomorrow. And they come back and they had time and get in the clubhouse, have the drink before we go on the next mission. That's just amazing. So you had this whole

• 1:14:57Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's crazy.

• 1:14:57John Stryker Meyer?

  That dichotomy.

• 1:14:59Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:59John Stryker Meyer?

  They're with their they're flying home to their family.

• 1:15:02Jocko Willink?

  Jeez.

• 1:15:03John Stryker Meyer?

  And they always came for us. They never, you know, we never had them say no for us, any of our teams.

• 1:15:10Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, no, that's that's definitely something to think about because Americans, we are always fighting in someone else's country, right? We don't go home. We go on deployment.

• 1:15:19John Stryker Meyer?

  That's it.

• 1:15:19Jocko Willink?

  There's no family. Were you married during this time or were you, did you have kids during this time? Did you have your your bro-

• 1:15:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, I I married I I married in nineteen sixty nine.

• 1:15:34Speaker 01

  And I don't remember if I was shot down before it or after it. I don't remember. I said I said the last time.

• 1:15:46Jocko Willink?

  And you must remember, you know, going on a mission, getting your aircraft shot up and then going home to your wife and saying, hi, honey, I'm home.

• 1:15:54John Stryker Meyer?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:59John Stryker Meyer?

  Yep.

• 1:16:02Speaker 01

  Every time I was shot, but I think many times they missed me. One time I flew back from Khe Sanh back to Kwang Chi.

• 1:16:19Speaker 01

  And the weather was very bad and we flew low, low, about three hundred feet along the hillside.

• 1:16:33Speaker 01

  Suddenly, somebody fired a long line of crack at my ear. And I looked up, I looked uphill and I saw a lot of NVA. You know, in the civil war, the front line, the seat, the second line, the knee, and the third line, the stand, just like that. And they were on the hill and they're shooting at me.

• 1:17:09Speaker 01

  And I told my crew chief, "Shoot it back, shoot it back, shoot it back." And I saw the round, the round, pick up the whole, in front of the front line of them. I don't know if they hit any of them or not, because I was the last one in the flight at that time. And so I just kept flying back to Kwang Chi. And back to Kwang Chi, I counted, I found forty-nine holes.

• 1:17:45John Stryker Meyer?

  He's flying from Khe Sanh, where we had FOB-3, who would pick up teams and launch for targets from Khe Sanh. And of course, when you flew into Khe Sanh, this is during the offensive. So you know, that was, so he flies from that hot zone, flying to Kwang Chi, which is, quote, "a secure base." And en route, there's three lines of NVA just practicing target, hit them forty-nine times.

• 1:18:11John Stryker Meyer?

  Yeah, forty-nine rounds.

• 1:18:16Jocko Willink?

  What happened the last time you got shot down?

• 1:18:21Speaker 01

  The last time I got shot down was in Budak, north of Banmi Tuan. And I inserted the team and came back. When I came back, just like when you're

• 1:18:45Speaker 01

  when you're in service for a long time, in combat for a long time, you have some feeling. I would say a sixth feeling. And I feel something wrong on the ground. Now in the horizontal. So from fifteen hundred feet, I go down to check it.

• 1:19:07Speaker 01

  At about five hundred feet, they start to shoot at me.

• 1:19:10Jocko Willink?

  And this, is this when you're trying to extract them, or is this during the insert?

• 1:19:15John Stryker Meyer?

  He dropped them off, he's coming back from.

• 1:19:17Jocko Willink?

  Okay, so after you dropped them off, you're halfway home, and you decide you're gonna go look on the ground?

• 1:19:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:19:23Jocko Willink?

  And you start getting shot at?

• 1:19:25Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I got mad.

• 1:19:33Speaker 01

  I make zigzag fly, and I skip the line of fire. And I got mad, I said, this is my land, and I take care of it. My aircraft is there to shoot at me. So I come back and shoot. And I got hit again, and the shop got fired.

• 1:19:54John Stryker Meyer?

  The round hit the fuel tank, and then the fuel ignites. And the fire comes from the fuel tank into the cabin. He's at five hundred feet, trying to keep the aircraft stable to land while on fire.

• 1:20:12Speaker 01

  And I was on top of the frame, the frames come up from the uh, came up from the cabin to the cockpit. And I

• 1:20:25Speaker 01

  if I land right, right, right, uh, somewhere around there, it the, the, uh, it would be okay, but uh, I don't want it to be get caught.

• 1:20:37Jocko Willink?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:20:37Speaker 01

  So I keep fighting that to uh, boot up.

• 1:20:40Jocko Willink?

  So, so your plane's on, so your, your helicopter's on fire?

• 1:20:44Speaker 01

  On fire.

• 1:20:44Jocko Willink?

  You could crash, you could land.

• 1:20:46Speaker 01

  Right away.

• 1:20:47Jocko Willink?

  But you don't wanna get caught.

• 1:20:49Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:20:50Jocko Willink?

  Cause that's gonna be horror.

• 1:20:51Speaker 01

  And uh, I tried to get back to uh, boot up and uh, the frame could, uh, the frame keep um, keep burning and uh, one time, it was so hot that uh, I left, I, I left out of the uh, control. The corrective and cyclic, I love it. I keep my, my hand in my, at my chest. When I saw the, when I left the side, uh, cyclic, then the chopper start to dive down. And I, I saw the uh, rail coming up and uh,

• 1:21:33Speaker 01

  I said, I just tell, think in my head that it's on, it's over.

• 1:21:39Speaker 01

  But when it come close to the tree top, the uh, the instinct of uh, survival pushed me to grab the, the cyclic and pull it back. And the, the chopper was diving down and then it's suddenly, when I pulled the cyclic back so, so hard and it come up.

• 1:22:01Speaker 01

  I thought that the uh, main rotor would come off, but it didn't. And I saw, I saw it and I leveled it and the chopper is diving again. So it, it like, it, it fly like a uh, scene line in the sky. And finally, I make a uh, a blast landing and uh, in the open area.

• 1:22:28Jocko Willink?

  So the the the in the handles were so hot that you couldn't hold on to them.

• 1:22:34Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:22:34Jocko Willink?

  But then at the last minute, survival instinct.

• 1:22:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:22:38Jocko Willink?

  You knew what you had to do in order to.

• 1:22:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:22:40Jocko Willink?

  Get some kind of a landing, so you just grabbed those.

• 1:22:43Speaker 01

  Uh huh. And when I saw the LZ, I was flying at eighty eighty nautical mile. And it was ninety nautical mile and I moved the cycle to the right and pushed the right pedal all the way down. And so the the chopper at the ninety nautical mile make a three sixty degree. So quick that I thought the tail boom came off, but it didn't. And it started to settle down, and I touched down very smooth. And but it's still still running.

• 1:23:25Speaker 01

  So it hit the tree and on the wheel came off and the blade came off. And when it stopped, I grabbed the seatbelt lock and I pulled it. But instead, whatever I can pull it, my finger opened it.

• 1:23:46Speaker 01

  And for three times, I used my left hand, my left elbow to hit the buckle. And release the lock. And I grabbed the handle of the window. Because when I make a crash, it run and the window run forward, move forward and close it. So I grabbed the handle of the window, pulled it back, but it happened like on the seatbelt. I grabbed it, but the finger opened, but couldn't hold the handle.

• 1:24:20Jocko Willink?

  Because the skin was burning off.

• 1:24:21Speaker 01

  So I used my my shoulder to hit the window and broke the window out. And somehow, when somehow I saw from knee down.

• 1:24:34Speaker 01

  The other the material which came off, which burned off, except the zipper remained. And the the pro was still burning. So I rolled down on the grass, wet grass, and to put it off.

• 1:24:52Speaker 01

  And after it was off, I couldn't stand up.

• 1:24:57Speaker 01

  And my crew chief run by and grabbed me up.

• 1:25:03Speaker 01

  Maybe they guide me to the rescue shop, the number three, number three king bee.

• 1:25:11Jocko Willink?

  So then you get on the number three king bee, they get you out of there and you, obviously you go straight to the hospital?

• 1:25:17Speaker 01

  They, they brought me back to the military, the Kofa hospital. It was a military hospital in Saigon. And I stayed there for, until eleven A M to next morning. Next morning, the one king bee, one pilot, one king bee pilot from D N A field bank with the, with the American applies, brought me to third field hospital.

• 1:25:56Speaker 01

  And that where I stayed for eight months.

• 1:25:59Jocko Willink?

  Mm hmm. And what was that process like, those next eight months?

• 1:26:04Speaker 01

  Oh, they amputated my hand and make a sheet skin grab on my leg. Because my leg, when I was in hospital and they, the day the, the doctor, Dr. Smith, he amputated my hand, I, I asked him how about my leg? He said, oh, he didn't know until after the, after the operation.

• 1:26:35Jocko Willink?

  Did they amputate both your hands at the same time?

• 1:26:38Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:26:42Jocko Willink?

  And then what was the, what was the plan from there? What, what happened after that?

• 1:26:47Speaker 01

  After that, I go back and for, for eight months, no, the treatment, the main treatment about four or five months. But after that, I go back and forward to the hospital, to the, for the doctor to check, to check it.

• 1:27:03Jocko Willink?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:27:05Speaker 01

  And after that, after all the treatment, they send me back to the Vietnamese hospital.

• 1:27:14Jocko Willink?

  And at some point, I know you had a brother that was a AE1 pilot, right?

• 1:27:19Speaker 01

  He's AE1 pilot, yeah.

• 1:27:21Jocko Willink?

  And what happened with him?

• 1:27:22Speaker 01

  He was on the 95 mission and he was missing, that's all that we know.

• 1:27:32John Stryker Meyer?

  And 95 missions were across the fence also, right?

• 1:27:34Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:27:35John Stryker Meyer?

  No?

• 1:27:35Speaker 01

  He was missing about 30 kilometers north of, uh, northern.

• 1:27:46John Stryker Meyer?

  Tainan, northern Tainan.

• 1:27:49Jocko Willink?

  And then what was it like when the, when the war started to kind of wind down for, you know, America leaving and the communists are gonna take over? What was that, what was that like for you?

• 1:28:03Speaker 01

  Um, at the end of, uh, of, uh, April, April 95, yeah. One was a Kingly pilot, came to see me and he was my co-fire.

• 1:28:25Jocko Willink?

  This is in April of 1995?

• 1:28:27John Stryker Meyer?

  1975.

• 1:28:28Jocko Willink?

  Oh, 1975, oh, okay.

• 1:28:29John Stryker Meyer?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:29Jocko Willink?

  Got it.

• 1:28:30Speaker 01

  And, uh, he asked me, uh, what we are going to do? And I said, I really don't know what to do now. Is everything messed up?

• 1:28:44Jocko Willink?

  Did you, I mean, obviously, did you feel like the, when the communists took over, that you were just doomed? Because clearly you were a veteran that had fought for South Vietnam. It seems like you would, you, you, you must have felt like you would be doomed if they completed the takeover of Vietnam.

• 1:29:07Speaker 01

  No, I don't think so.

• 1:29:08Jocko Willink?

  No?

• 1:29:12Speaker 01

  The, uh, the thing that we, we were desperate because we lost the war as well.

• 1:29:21Speaker 01

  And, uh...

• 1:29:26Speaker 01

  On the uh.

• 1:29:31Speaker 01

  Let's see, thirty, uh, April thirty nineteen seventy five. I was on board of one of the ship, I still remember the uh, the name, the Sea Challenger. And when I heard the uh, it was off uh, of Wung Tao.

• 1:29:51Jocko Willink?

  So you were on an American ship?

• 1:29:53Speaker 01

  I don't know which is.

• 1:29:54Jocko Willink?

  The Sea Challenger?

• 1:29:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, Sea Challenger. And when I heard the uh, announcement of a surrender from Zhenhuanming. Oh, my uh, my tears just came out.

• 1:30:10Speaker 01

  And I want to do them over the war.

• 1:30:14Speaker 01

  But when I look back and I see my two kids, and they stole me.

• 1:30:21Speaker 01

  They stole me from jumping out.

• 1:30:26Jocko Willink?

  So then what happened? I mean, now you've got your two kids.

• 1:30:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:30:30Jocko Willink?

  You're, you're in Vietnam, the South has surrendered. What, what, what happened then?

• 1:30:37Speaker 01

  We go back to uh, go back home and then wait for what happened. And.

• 1:30:48Speaker 01

  In uh.

• 1:30:53Speaker 01

  July, yeah, in July sixth, uh, July seventy five. I was in uh, I uh, they put me in the uh, re-education camp.

• 1:31:03Jocko Willink?

  In a re-education camp?

• 1:31:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:31:06Jocko Willink?

  What was that experience like? Jeez.

• 1:31:11Speaker 01

  They just talk about uh.

• 1:31:16Speaker 01

  Propaganda? Yeah, propaganda, that's all. And the thing is that. The people who, they want to, they want us to go to class every day. And we have to go to class every day, and they keep talking, but the guy who tell, uh, who, who talk.

• 1:31:36Speaker 01

  This this level of knowledge. Oh my god. This is like the maybe well class two or the grade three.

• 1:31:47Jocko Willink?

  So you're being reeducated by a third grader.

• 1:31:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, right, third grade. And they keep and all of them talk in the same way.

• 1:31:54Jocko Willink?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:31:55Speaker 01

  Just like the machine.

• 1:31:57Jocko Willink?

  It's just indoctrination.

• 1:31:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, indoctrination, yeah.

• 1:32:01Jocko Willink?

  How long did and how long were you at the reeducation camp for?

• 1:32:04Speaker 01

  I was there for uh July, I don't from uh from June to uh August.

• 1:32:11Jocko Willink?

  And then how did you get out of the reeducation camp?

• 1:32:13Speaker 01

  Oh, one time I was uh going out with my uh the other prisoner to uh clean up the uh the camp. And I was putting the uh bubble wipe with them. And uh one of the uh one of the guy, the uh MVA, told me that uh you keep uh working and we have the inspection team uh from Saigon to come see.

• 1:32:40Jocko Willink?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:32:41Speaker 01

  And uh when I I saw that, I heard that. I I don't wanna, I don't want, I don't pull the, I didn't uh pull the bubble wipe anymore. I just keep going along with my friend. And one of the guy, one of the guy in the inspection team, he came by my side and asked my name

• 1:33:09Speaker 01

  and my military uh ID.

• 1:33:11Jocko Willink?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:33:13Speaker 01

  And uh after that, he said, okay, you keep going working with your friend. And he left, he keep walking uh away and about fifty meters away, he pull out the uh notebook and start writing something. I don't know.

• 1:33:33Jocko Willink?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:33:34Speaker 01

  But one week later, they transfer me from Longzao to Sui Mao. And from at the Sui Mao camp, I stayed there for another week and.

• 1:33:50Speaker 01

  One day, they called, they, they, uh, they announced on the, uh, on the radio that, uh, your people have name below, be prepared to be, uh, to have your family to pick, uh, your people back home.

• 1:34:08Jocko Willink?

  Hmm.

• 1:34:10Jocko Willink?

  So that was it, and then you got out of the camp?

• 1:34:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:34:14Jocko Willink?

  And so now it's still nineteen seventy-five?

• 1:34:16Speaker 01

  Nineteen seventy-five.

• 1:34:18Jocko Willink?

  And then what happens? Then what do you start doing?

• 1:34:20Speaker 01

  Hmm, then we leave, start to live with my brothers. After seventy-five, you know, you walk, uh, after the, when they can, they can take over the, the south. And the life was miserable. You know, the people who, uh,

• 1:34:42Speaker 01

  everything is a stamp.

• 1:34:45Speaker 01

  Food stamp, everything stamp.

• 1:34:49Speaker 01

  And, uh,

• 1:34:52Speaker 01

  one month maybe each of them, uh, each people only can buy maybe a hundred, a hundred gram of meat.

• 1:35:02Jocko Willink?

  A hundred grams of meat a month?

• 1:35:03Speaker 01

  A month, maybe.

• 1:35:07Speaker 01

  Or sometimes they don't, but it say meat, but in fact, they, they can, they can even can give you, uh, either the hide or the fat.

• 1:35:17Jocko Willink?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:35:18Speaker 01

  Or anything.

• 1:35:22Speaker 01

  And I still remember one time when the, uh,

• 1:35:27Speaker 01

  one, one of the guy who work in the, um, in the district, he, he, uh, he, he ride bicycle to around the, uh, the street near my, my house, near my house. And said that, the fish, go, people go to buy fish. And then my, my, uh, my, my son, he was at, he's seventy-five, seventy-six. He was nine, uh, seven or nine, I don't remember. He just grab the basket and run to the, so he can, he can buy the, the fresh one. But if, uh, uh, he came late, if he, he reached the, the, uh, selling place,

• 1:36:11Speaker 01

  there will be rotten fish only.

• 1:36:14Jocko Willink?

  Only rotten fish?

• 1:36:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:36:18Jocko Willink?

  So you lived in that regime for how many years? How many years did you have to live like this?

• 1:36:28Speaker 01

  From seventy-five to, I don't really remember exactly, maybe around eighty-four. About eighty-four.

• 1:36:36Jocko Willink?

  And you, and you tried to escape a few times?

• 1:36:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, I did. The first time I tried to escape with my son and we got caught.

• 1:36:45Jocko Willink?

  How was your first escape attempt? What did you do?

• 1:36:50Speaker 01

  I asked my neighbor, he, she, she has some, some information through, from other people. And so we, every time we had to pay. And

• 1:37:07Speaker 01

  the first time we got caught and at Nam Khan. Way south to Kamau.

• 1:37:14Jocko Willink?

  Way south, yes.

• 1:37:15Speaker 01

  Kamau. And we were in prison.

• 1:37:20Jocko Willink?

  So they put you and your son in prison?

• 1:37:22Speaker 01

  Yeah. You know, the, the, the prison in Nam Khan is

• 1:37:32Speaker 01

  a case, maybe, wooden cage, not a prison. About one point five to the side of this room. They made it from the

• 1:37:44Jocko Willink?

  So maybe twenty feet by twenty feet or something?

• 1:37:47John Stryker Meyer?

  Not even that.

• 1:37:48Jocko Willink?

  Not even that.

• 1:37:49Speaker 01

  And you know, the, the tree in the swamp, in the swamp, that grow in the swamp?

• 1:37:57Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 1:37:58Speaker 01

  Yeah. They cut it and they make, make it the, just like a cage.

• 1:38:03Jocko Willink?

  Just a cage?

• 1:38:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, this is a cage. And they covered the top with bamboo wire.

• 1:38:10Jocko Willink?

  How were you planning to escape? What was the plan? Were you gonna go by boat? Were you gonna walk?

• 1:38:16Speaker 01

  The only thing we can go is by boat.

• 1:38:18Jocko Willink?

  By boat.

• 1:38:19John Stryker Meyer?

  Yeah. Four cores, like a lot of canals, water, much water.

• 1:38:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:38:24John Stryker Meyer?

  Very few roads.

• 1:38:26Speaker 01

  And uh.

• 1:38:27Jocko Willink?

  How long were you in this cage for with your son?

• 1:38:30Speaker 01

  Uh, maybe a couple of months and then they transferred me, they transferred us to uh to uh, Sok Chiang, Sok Chiang.

• 1:38:42Jocko Willink?

  Was it?

• 1:38:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. And uh, you know the case, you know in um Nam Khan?

• 1:38:52Speaker 01

  There, there, there were a lot of mosquito. A lot mosquito and every day we have only one, you know the uh Tiger Beer in Vietnam? Yeah, the bottle by this, this big and every day only one, one bottle of water. For one day, for the only, everything.

• 1:39:16Jocko Willink?

  For months, you're like this, in a cage with barbed wire on top?

• 1:39:19Speaker 01

  Uh, and uh.

• 1:39:23Speaker 01

  The mosquito at uh, about five o'clock, five P M, we have to sit in there with the, the uh mosquito net. If not, they, but this, here is, is a swamp of, of mosquito, just like bee.

• 1:39:44Speaker 01

  And uh, after a couple of months, we, they, we were moved to uh

• 1:39:53Speaker 01

  uh, somewhere, moved to uh.

• 1:39:57Jocko Willink?

  Was it, was it another prison?

• 1:39:58Speaker 01

  Another prison.

• 1:40:00Jocko Willink?

  How long was, were you in total prison for and what, why did they eventually let you out?

• 1:40:04Speaker 01

  Uh.

• 1:40:04Jocko Willink?

  Or how did you get out eventually?

• 1:40:07Speaker 01

  My, my family and the other, the other who, the, the people who, who organized the, the escape.

• 1:40:17Speaker 01

  They get in touch with the local. And every time they want, myself and my son, we were released, we had to pay uh about a six or seven, six or seven ounce of gold.

• 1:40:34Jocko Willink?

  Six or seven ounces of gold?

• 1:40:36Speaker 01

  No, no, no, not ounce.

• 1:40:38Jocko Willink?

  Oh.

• 1:40:38Speaker 01

  That's it, uh, point six or point seven ounce of gold.

• 1:40:42Jocko Willink?

  Got it. Where would you find gold?

• 1:40:47Speaker 01

  They like gold.

• 1:40:48Jocko Willink?

  Jeez.

• 1:40:51Speaker 01

  The time I was, I got caught in Nam Can. The police. He just got in, put his hand in my pocket. And found a ring, a gold ring.

• 1:41:06Jocko Willink?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:41:06Speaker 01

  And he just take it and put in his pocket. And my pack of cigarettes. He take it out and smoke and put in his pocket too.

• 1:41:19Jocko Willink?

  That's when you got caught the second time?

• 1:41:21Speaker 01

  No, it's the first time.

• 1:41:22Jocko Willink?

  Oh, the first time. So you lost your gold ring, you lost your pack of smokes.

• 1:41:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:41:26Jocko Willink?

  And then you tried to escape a couple more times?

• 1:41:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, another two times. But after the first time, I saw that my uh. My son is getting bigger. I don't want him to. To be assigned, to be called to service by with the N B A.

• 1:41:43Jocko Willink?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:41:44Speaker 01

  So I let him go by himself.

• 1:41:47Jocko Willink?

  So your son escaped by himself? Did he make it?

• 1:41:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, he made it in eighty seven.

• 1:41:54Speaker 01

  I mean, he, at that time, he was sixteen, sixteen, seventeen.

• 1:41:59Jocko Willink?

  So you were facing either you get, either your son escapes or your son is gonna have to actually serve in the N V A who you had fought against for however long, six years.

• 1:42:08Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:42:10Speaker 01

  And.

• 1:42:11Jocko Willink?

  Jeez.

• 1:42:13Speaker 01

  After my son have uh. Have escaped. And I brought my uh, my, my, my daughter. To escape another two time, I got caught too.

• 1:42:24Jocko Willink?

  Oh, my God. And was the punishment as severe the second two times?

• 1:42:28Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:42:31Speaker 01

  The second time, it's okay, but we. After we, we can get out a couple months after we pay about point six, point seven hours ago.

• 1:42:43Jocko Willink?

  Where do you find gold?

• 1:42:45Speaker 01

  Oh. Luckily, that my, my, my, my sister. Who passed away the early this year. He sent the money to help my, my mom.

• 1:43:01Jocko Willink?

  Where was your sister?

• 1:43:02Speaker 01

  My sister in France.

• 1:43:04Jocko Willink?

  So she was in France?

• 1:43:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:43:05Jocko Willink?

  So she was able to somehow send money to your mom?

• 1:43:08Speaker 01

  No, he, he, she didn't send money. She sent medicine.

• 1:43:13Jocko Willink?

  Medicine?

• 1:43:14Speaker 01

  And I sell it, I sold it.

• 1:43:16Jocko Willink?

  Okay, got it. So you were a drug dealer?

• 1:43:17Speaker 01

  At that time, there's no, no medicine in Vietnam.

• 1:43:21John Stryker Meyer?

  And during that time too, your father was killed, right?

• 1:43:23Speaker 01

  My father died in sixty-three.

• 1:43:27John Stryker Meyer?

  Sixty-three?

• 1:43:28Speaker 01

  Sixty-three.

• 1:43:29John Stryker Meyer?

  Okay, I'm sorry.

• 1:43:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, the day I, I joined the Air Force.

• 1:43:33Jocko Willink?

  The day you joined the Air Force?

• 1:43:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, my dad passed away. My father died, passed away that day.

• 1:43:42Jocko Willink?

  So how did you finally, how did you finally get out of Vietnam and get to America?

• 1:43:47Speaker 01

  Oh, let me see, uh, in eighty-eight,

• 1:43:54Speaker 01

  then I heard the HO program. I am not, I am not qualified for that program.

• 1:44:01Jocko Willink?

  You say HO?

• 1:44:02Speaker 01

  HO, yeah, humanitarian organization, departure, yeah. And it helped the people who was in, who was in service or who was in prison, in the communist prison for more than three years,

• 1:44:19Speaker 01

  can come, apply to come here. And...

• 1:44:23Jocko Willink?

  How did you not qualify for that?

• 1:44:25Speaker 01

  Because the total time I, I spent in prison is only two and a half year.

• 1:44:30Jocko Willink?

  Well, so you needed to spend some more time in prison to qualify. Jeez.

• 1:44:33John Stryker Meyer?

  Can you imagine that? After all the service?

• 1:44:35Jocko Willink?

  Good Lord.

• 1:44:37Speaker 01

  And, uh,

• 1:44:40Speaker 01

  so I thought that maybe I would, I might be leaving Vietnam forever. So I prepare for my, what I'm, I plan to, what I'm going to do, to, to leave. But at that time, the...

• 1:45:02Speaker 01

  The South Vietnamese Air Force Association in San Jose. They met Colonel Masuoka. He was the Air Force retired Colonel.

• 1:45:17Jocko Willink?

  So this is an American Air Force retired Colonel, Masuoka?

• 1:45:20Speaker 01

  Masuoka, yeah.

• 1:45:21Jocko Willink?

  And he was working with the San Jose South Vietnamese Air Force Association?

• 1:45:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, and he the South Vietnamese Air Force Association asked me to help me. Asked him to help me. And he went to Vietnam and saw me. And I he asked me to bring all kind of paper that I had. And I brought it to him and when he saw the DFC.

• 1:45:55Speaker 01

  And he said.

• 1:45:56Jocko Willink?

  When he saw the what, the DFC?

• 1:45:58Speaker 01

  No, DFC, Disengaged Flying Cross.

• 1:46:02Jocko Willink?

  What's that? American award. Oh, the DSC, got it, got it, got it. Or the Disengaged Flying Cross, got it, okay.

• 1:46:08Speaker 01

  I have it here.

• 1:46:09Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, no, I got it. I misunderstood you. That's okay. Okay, so he saw that.

• 1:46:13Speaker 01

  But he didn't say anything. But later on, he said that, he told me that he didn't believe it. Because usually the DFC is supposed to give to a WIBI award to the American only.

• 1:46:27Speaker 01

  So after he looked all kind of pay on my paper and he said that he will try a hundred percent, but he is not guaranteed. A hundred percent.

• 1:46:39Speaker 01

  And he came back to state and

• 1:46:48Speaker 01

  he called one of the guy who worked in the archive, National Archive. And that guy was

• 1:46:58Speaker 01

  It was working with him in the military.

• 1:47:00Jocko Willink?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:47:01Speaker 01

  When he was colonel, he was uh second. Lit, no, no, the colonel, second, second lieutenant, no, second colonel.

• 1:47:12Jocko Willink?

  Okay, like a lieutenant colonel.

• 1:47:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, lieutenant colonel, I'm so sorry. And uh they they look at, they found the D F C.

• 1:47:22Jocko Willink?

  They found your D F C.

• 1:47:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, and they found all the record and the uh paperwork on that uh D F C.

• 1:47:32Jocko Willink?

  Wow.

• 1:47:33Speaker 01

  And uh.

• 1:47:37Speaker 01

  They managed the uh National Enquirer, the magazine.

• 1:47:42Jocko Willink?

  The National Enquirer magazine?

• 1:47:45Speaker 01

  They they they they found, they found the um. The poor four guy that I uh I rescued.

• 1:47:55Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 1:47:55Speaker 01

  And uh.

• 1:47:58Speaker 01

  One pilot came to see me, and he is a zone liner. And his uh squadron commander is Morrison. And they came, they uh National Enquirer bought the uh uh airplane ticket, they took it over here to see me.

• 1:48:17Jocko Willink?

  Wow. And so then they set up that program to get you back here. So what year did you finally get back here? Or what did you get to America?

• 1:48:27Speaker 01

  Uh let's see, I came here in ninety four.

• 1:48:30Jocko Willink?

  Nineteen ninety four.

• 1:48:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, nineteen ninety four.

• 1:48:32Jocko Willink?

  What family did you leave back in Vietnam?

• 1:48:35Speaker 01

  Uh my mom, when I left Vietnam, my mom's still there, but I I. I told my nephew, the uh the son of my uh. My uh my missing brother.

• 1:48:49Jocko Willink?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:48:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, to take care, to come over, I leave it her, so I can go.

• 1:48:54Jocko Willink?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:48:55Speaker 01

  And I came here in uh.

• 1:48:59Speaker 01

  I left Vietnam on uh January ten ninety four. And I came, I reached uh Travis here to on uh.

• 1:49:13Speaker 01

  Then we fifty ninety four.

• 1:49:17Jocko Willink?

  And then what happened? Did you have any family here? Did you know anybody?

• 1:49:21Speaker 01

  No, at first I live in the same house with the uh the chief of the uh the South Vietnamese Air Force Association there.

• 1:49:30Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 1:49:31Speaker 01

  Yeah. I live for six months. After that, I moved out.

• 1:49:38Jocko Willink?

  And then did you get a job? What did you do?

• 1:49:40Speaker 01

  Not yet. At that time, my uh my my my son and my brother, my son and my daughter work to support me.

• 1:49:47Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 1:49:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, and uh.

• 1:49:49Jocko Willink?

  When you made it out, so you had your son and your daughter with you when you made it out?

• 1:49:53Speaker 01

  My my my son came here before.

• 1:49:56Jocko Willink?

  Oh, that's right. So he was already here. That's right.

• 1:49:59Speaker 01

  But when I came here in ninety four, my daughter came with me.

• 1:50:03Jocko Willink?

  Got it.

• 1:50:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:50:05Jocko Willink?

  So your so your son and your daughter were here, or your son was already here, your daughter came with you? And now they're working and starting to figure out life in America.

• 1:50:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:50:16Jocko Willink?

  How big of a shock was that to you?

• 1:50:18Speaker 01

  Oh, at that time, I was uh I was sad because just stay home and do nothing.

• 1:50:25Jocko Willink?

  Hmm.

• 1:50:25Speaker 01

  And waiting for the uh for what is going to happen. Because at that time, they uh

• 1:50:34Speaker 01

  they they were trying to get the citizenship for me.

• 1:50:37Jocko Willink?

  Hmm.

• 1:50:38Speaker 01

  So I can get uh so they can keep me here. And it's a lot of petition at that time.

• 1:50:45Jocko Willink?

  Hmm.

• 1:50:46Speaker 01

  Guinness would have had as well a lot of petition.

• 1:50:52Speaker 01

  Senator Senator Greenery, yeah.

• 1:50:54Jocko Willink?

  Right.

• 1:50:55Speaker 01

  Uh and in sixty ninety ninety six,

• 1:51:02Speaker 01

  yeah, I got a citizenship.

• 1:51:04Jocko Willink?

  Nineteen ninety six, you got your citizenship here in America. Jeez.

• 1:51:09Jocko Willink?

  Then you went to the Santa Clara Fire Department?

• 1:51:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, I before that, I, uh, no, I, uh, after that, I, uh, I go to school for the, um, accounting class.

• 1:51:20Jocko Willink?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:51:21Speaker 01

  And after one year, I got the, uh, a job in the Santa Clara Fire Department. Worked for almost three years and then they ran out of, uh, budgets and I was a job and, uh, I then applied for six months and got another job in the IRS.

• 1:51:44Jocko Willink?

  Oh, you worked for the IRS?

• 1:51:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:51:46Jocko Willink?

  Okay, well, suppose we'll have to figure that out.

• 1:51:48John Stryker Meyer?

  Yeah, he's one of them. He goes from a good guy, a hero, to the IRS.

• 1:51:56Jocko Willink?

  And how long were you at the IRS for?

• 1:51:57Speaker 01

  Uh, from, uh, two thousand to two thousand thirteen, thirteen years.

• 1:52:04Jocko Willink?

  And that was it? After that, you retired?

• 1:52:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:52:07Jocko Willink?

  And what are you doing now?

• 1:52:10Speaker 01

  Sleep and watch TV.

• 1:52:14Jocko Willink?

  No more prairie fire emergencies, huh?

• 1:52:16Speaker 01

  But at first, I, I was, it was really boring. I, I tried to look for the part-time job.

• 1:52:23Jocko Willink?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:52:24Speaker 01

  But I couldn't.

• 1:52:27Speaker 01

  Couldn't find a part-time job.

• 1:52:31Jocko Willink?

  So then you just had a, you're just pure retirement now?

• 1:52:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:52:35Jocko Willink?

  You looked for a part-time job? There wasn't anything?

• 1:52:38Speaker 01

  I don't care. Well, I want, I want, I want, I want with everything. It's just maybe about four hours, six hours a day.

• 1:52:47John Stryker Meyer?

  You're ready to work.

• 1:52:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:52:49Jocko Willink?

  Ready to work. Sick of watching TV.

• 1:52:55Jocko Willink?

  And you're up in, in this area here, in the San Jose area?

• 1:52:58John Stryker Meyer?

  Yes, San Jose.

• 1:52:59Speaker 01

  Since the day I came here.

• 1:53:00Jocko Willink?

  Okay, because we might be able to find a job for you. Somebody probably looking for someone.

• 1:53:03John Stryker Meyer?

  Got to, yeah. We'll have to work on that.

• 1:53:06Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah. Uh, Tilt, did I miss anything? I mean, I, well, let me rephrase that. I know we missed, I know there's all kinds of stories. Um, is there anything else that you want to bring up?

• 1:53:16John Stryker Meyer?

  No, I think those are the major stories, uh, just the-

• 1:53:19Jocko Willink?

  The documented ones.

• 1:53:20John Stryker Meyer?

  Indeed.

• 1:53:21Jocko Willink?

  Because that's, that's one thing, I mean, when you talk, when we talk, when we broke down your three thousand combat flight hours. I mean, we could probably, you could talk for- You know, 3,000 hours explaining what happened on all those missions. So, I mean, uh, just unbelievable that you were able to get through all that. Crazy.

• 1:53:44Speaker 01

  All of my, my friend, he, uh, he told me that I, I, they, they couldn't believe that I still alive until today.

• 1:53:52John Stryker Meyer?

  For sure.

• 1:53:54Jocko Willink?

  For sure. For sure. Um, so Tilt, anything else, though?

• 1:53:59John Stryker Meyer?

  No, I, I, we've covered the major points there and, uh, you know, just like that one time where the Marines need help, here he comes. He just went there under fire and so many times his King bees got shot up. I mean, 40, 50 rounds, holes, it's just amazing stories. And the men, there's so many of our SOG guys are alive today, thanks to the King Bee pilots, period. And of course, the other aviators. But in our case, we had that direct relationship with them. They were our primary assets. They put us in. They always came to pull us out. The Pat Watkins thing you let off with, just a classic moment. Just captured the essence

• 1:54:42John Stryker Meyer?

  of that on the ground, intense firefight, here comes a King Bee. Not only do you come, he settles into a bomb crater so you can get on the helicopter and go home.

• 1:54:54Jocko Willink?

  Uh, on anything else you want to add?

• 1:54:56Speaker 01

  Uh, I think this, I see that.

• 1:55:00Jocko Willink?

  Well, I'll tell you what, it's just been an honor to talk to you and, and thank you so much for coming on. And more important, thank you for your service and your sacrifice. It's, it's, um, we, we won't forget it. And you took so many risks. You took so many risks and you paid such a price in order to save your comrades and your, and your brothers in arms and to be there for the, for the guys on the ground. And we appreciate that and we appreciate the fact that you stood the line to defend freedom in the world. So, thank you.

• 1:55:35John Stryker Meyer?

  And during the secret war, the King bees were... Another secret that nobody knew about. And so I thank you for doing this to get the story about our heroic on and the other King Bee pilots. Unfortunately, many of whom we've lost. We buried Captain Tuong two months ago, three months ago. And our secret war had its secrets. And one of the gems, one of the great assets were our King Bees. And we salute you every day and they're brothers in arms. So thank you for doing that, Jaco.

• 1:56:08Jocko Willink?

  It's an honor.

• 1:56:09John Stryker Meyer?

  We appreciate it.

• 1:56:10Jocko Willink?

  Thank you.

• 1:56:13Jocko Willink?

  And with that, Tilt and On have left the building. And once again, we are left with an example of what human beings can do, what human beings can face, what human beings can overcome. Pretty amazing.

• 1:56:31John Stryker Meyer?

  Yes, sir.

• 1:56:32Jocko Willink?

  Pretty humbling.

• 1:56:34John Stryker Meyer?

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 1:56:45Jocko Willink?

  Feel like we can do more.

• 1:56:48John Stryker Meyer?

  Yeah.

• 1:56:49Jocko Willink?

  I mean, that's pretty much the general kind of overall consensus is I feel like we can do more. I feel like we need to do more. Feel like I need to do more anyways. I don't want to like bring you over.

• 1:57:01John Stryker Meyer?

  Yeah, like group me into your whole thing.

• 1:57:03Jocko Willink?

  My whole process of trying to do more because I think sometimes I think you feel like maybe you're good with what you're doing.

• 1:57:09John Stryker Meyer?

  Sure. Well, yeah, I don't know. Maybe, maybe not. But yes, I think so. So, you know, he mentioned, and we all know that he lost both his hands. And then later on, joined the fire department. So.

• 1:57:23Jocko Willink?

  Well, he was an accountant at the fire department, but yes, he's at the fire department with no hands.

• 1:57:27John Stryker Meyer?

  Yeah.

• 1:57:28Jocko Willink?

  And by the way, I mean, this is, he lost his hands, both hands. And I asked him about it. He's like, oh yeah, well, then I went to. He, there's no like, there was no.

• 1:57:39Jocko Willink?

  Uh hesitation in carrying on with what he was gonna do. He's just gonna whatever. I guess he's gonna get hooks and he's gonna carry on. That's what he's doing.

• 1:57:47Speaker 03

  And then at the end, which kinda gives you an insight to like how he's thinking where he's like, yeah, I'm like retired and I kinda just, you know, made a joke like I just sleep and watch TV. And he's like, man, I'm kinda looking for a part-time job. Like I gotta go do some stuff.

• 1:58:04Jocko Willink?

  You know what I was thinking about? If somebody told you a story where they said, listen, here's what's going on. I was in a helicopter. I was flying the helicopter.

• 1:58:13Jocko Willink?

  And the the controls of the helicopter were burning and they were on fire. But and I couldn't hold on to him. So I just let him go. And then right as we were about to crash, I just grabbed on to him and I steered the plane or steered the aircraft, the helicopter, and I got it to land and we lived. But those those controls were so hot.

• 1:58:35Jocko Willink?

  It was crazy. Okay. So if you heard that, you would think one level of the word hot, right?

• 1:58:41Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:58:41Jocko Willink?

  And there's no way that the level of hot that could be explained to you is so hot that you lose both of your hands from voluntarily grabbing the controls.

• 1:58:51Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:58:51Jocko Willink?

  Like that does. And then as you're trying to get your seatbelt off, your hands are just ripping apart, falling apart.

• 1:58:57Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:58:59Jocko Willink?

  So, yeah, and that opening, that opening that I read from on the ground with the book on the ground by John Strickermeyer. It's just, it's crazy to think, you know, oh, guess what? There's gonna be too dangerous. So I'm not gonna take a co-pilot or a crew chief. Alls I'm gonna bring is a door gunner and me. That's it.

• 1:59:19Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:59:20Jocko Willink?

  That's what we're doing.

• 1:59:22Jocko Willink?

  That's that's another level.

• 1:59:24Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:59:25Jocko Willink?

  By the way, you're sitting on a base like warm, whatever. I don't know. Cool. Maybe you're in AC. You just had a piece of chicken or something. Like life is pretty good, right? And not to mention these guys in Vietnam, they're they're like have to go home at night like Tilt was saying.

• 1:59:41Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 1:59:42Jocko Willink?

  Hey, oh, cool. I'm gonna go home now.

• 1:59:46Jocko Willink?

  Cause I think when I was on deployment, I just put all that family stuff out of my brain.

• 1:59:50Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:59:50Jocko Willink?

  I wasn't thinking about my wife and kids. Yeah. I was in just the deployment mode. I think it would be really hard to go, oh, deployment mode. Well, uh, singing ballet recital with the child, with the daughter.

• 2:00:04Speaker 03

  Yeah. You know how they say, hey, don't bring your work home or what, you know, what's that saying?

• 2:00:08Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:00:09Speaker 03

  Right. That's another level right there.

• 2:00:10Jocko Willink?

  It's another level. Check.

• 2:00:13Speaker 03

  So yes, we can do more. So yeah, all right. Well, keep yourself, keep us, we're keeping ourselves. In the game.

• 2:00:23Speaker 03

  We're all getting older. We're not getting younger, put it that way.

• 2:00:26Jocko Willink?

  Maybe some of us are.

• 2:00:27Speaker 03

  Uh, okay. Okay. So you're just going back in time.

• 2:00:31Speaker 03

  When you edit video, there's a thing you can do that freezes the frame.

• 2:00:35Jocko Willink?

  Mm hmm.

• 2:00:35Speaker 03

  Right? So that's kind of what you, you, you feel that you're doing, freezing the frame.

• 2:00:40Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:00:41Speaker 03

  Okay, cool. Well, when you're working out anyway, you need supplementation. That's undeniable. I guess you could deny it if you wanted to. Nonetheless, supplementing.

• 2:00:51Jocko Willink?

  That'd be a mistake.

• 2:00:52Speaker 03

  I think you'd be a mistake. Yes, sir. So anyway, Jaco has supplements called Jaco Fuel. So these supplements include, but not limited to joint warfare for your joints. Super Creole oil also for your joints, general health.

• 2:01:05Speaker 03

  Some omega threes in there.

• 2:01:08Speaker 03

  These are important is what I'm saying. Also, discipline, discipline, go. Three versions, no, three versions of the dis- discipline powder. Do you drink powder every day in the morning?

• 2:01:18Jocko Willink?

  Kind of, yes. Matter of fact, yes.

• 2:01:20Speaker 03

  And so I was thinking about this. So in the morning I drink coffee. I'm a, am I a coffee drinker? I don't know. Maybe, maybe not. I don't drink coffee every single morning.

• 2:01:29Jocko Willink?

  Mm hmm.

• 2:01:29Speaker 03

  But that's like, as far as morning routines go, coffee's not part of your routine. I know that.

• 2:01:35Jocko Willink?

  Definitely not part of my routine.

• 2:01:36Speaker 03

  But is the discipline, because you get a workout, right? So you take the discipline every morning before the workout.

• 2:01:40Jocko Willink?

  Nope. I take it before I work, work.

• 2:01:43Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 2:01:44Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:01:44Speaker 03

  After the workout.

• 2:01:45Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. When I wake up in the morning, I don't drink anything. I just drink water.

• 2:01:47Speaker 03

  Water, boom, go. Yeah, that's a good one. All right. Interesting. That is interesting. I, I just assumed.

• 2:01:53Jocko Willink?

  When I'm going to the.

• 2:01:56Jocko Willink?

  Juju it's on the way there on drinking discipline for sure.

• 2:01:59Speaker 03

  Scoops out there.

• 2:02:01Jocko Willink?

  Three scoops actually. Sometimes actually four.

• 2:02:06Speaker 03

  There you go. But nonetheless, and then, um, yeah, so there is powder version also capsule version. Cool. That's when you're on the go and then the energy drink, healthy energy drink version. See, this is a good one. So in as far as energy drinks go, like we say, you can have an energy drink, but if even saying energy drink kind of brings along the stigma of the energy.

• 2:02:35Jocko Willink?

  Definitely.

• 2:02:36Speaker 03

  Discipline, go, energy drink, RTD does not have that stigma because it is factually healthy.

• 2:02:43Jocko Willink?

  Truth.

• 2:02:44Speaker 03

  True. Anyway.

• 2:02:45Jocko Willink?

  Sometimes you look at me, you want me to give you backup on your statement.

• 2:02:49Speaker 03

  No.

• 2:02:50Jocko Willink?

  And I just got that look, but then you were made a complete thought, right? So nothing else for me to add.

• 2:02:55Speaker 03

  Yes, sir.

• 2:02:56Jocko Willink?

  No, it's good for you.

• 2:02:57Speaker 03

  A lot of times I look at you because like, sometimes you'll have this look like, oh, let me, uh, like you remembered something. Yeah. Like you want it, you know, and I just want to give you that opportunity.

• 2:03:09Jocko Willink?

  Oh, thank you. Thank you. I always have a nice, thank you for the opportunity.

• 2:03:12Speaker 03

  Just saying sometimes, sometimes you say some good stuff. Anyway, also milk, these are in the form of protein, protein in the form of the dessert.

• 2:03:22Jocko Willink?

  Six and one half dozen the other.

• 2:03:23Speaker 03

  Yes, sir.

• 2:03:24Jocko Willink?

  Either way, we do know this, we're getting something that's tasty and good for us.

• 2:03:28Speaker 03

  Good for us and.

• 2:03:29Jocko Willink?

  So you could essentially just say it's good.

• 2:03:30Speaker 03

  It's good.

• 2:03:31Jocko Willink?

  Cause that covers all bases.

• 2:03:33Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:03:33Jocko Willink?

  Good for you, good tasting.

• 2:03:35Speaker 03

  It depends on what kind of good, because there's a lot of kinds of good and for good, uh, the, uh, various things.

• 2:03:41Jocko Willink?

  You've been doing a lot of, a lot of lawyer activity with me lately about, well, it depends on what you mean by.

• 2:03:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, because it's true. Yeah. Cause you can't just blanket statement a lot of stuff like, okay, so my daughter asked me, what's your favorite color? So I'm like, all right, well, it kind of depends. Like, let's say black was my favorite color. But same time, like, I don't necessarily want everything to be black. Some things I want to be red. Like, I don't want to eat a black strawberry. I'll tell you that.

• 2:04:10Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 2:04:11Speaker 03

  You see what I'm saying though?

• 2:04:14Speaker 03

  A lot of these questions.

• 2:04:15Jocko Willink?

  Okay, like I said, you're doing a lot of.

• 2:04:17Speaker 03

  A lot of these questions demand a little bit of.

• 2:04:20Jocko Willink?

  Color camo, next question.

• 2:04:21Speaker 03

  All right, well, you'd want to eat a camo orange.

• 2:04:23Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 2:04:24Speaker 03

  You do want to eat.

• 2:04:25Jocko Willink?

  If there was such a thing, if you get an orange that was camo and we just called it a camo instead of an orange.

• 2:04:31Speaker 03

  All right, well, I just think of like, what if my wife's face was camo? Not again, that wouldn't be too bad either. Camo, all right, well, whatever. All right, cool. I'll simplify my answers. How about that? Cool?

• 2:04:44Jocko Willink?

  Cool.

• 2:04:45Speaker 03

  Anyway.

• 2:04:45Jocko Willink?

  By everybody in the world.

• 2:04:47Speaker 03

  All these things, Jaco Fuel, available in various locations, including.

• 2:04:52Jocko Willink?

  Mm hmm.

• 2:04:52Speaker 03

  Orjamine.com.

• 2:04:53Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 2:04:54Speaker 03

  Vitamin shop.

• 2:04:55Jocko Willink?

  Absolutely.

• 2:04:55Speaker 03

  And as far as discipline go, energy drink cans, Wawa.

• 2:04:59Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 2:04:59Speaker 03

  Available, straight up.

• 2:05:01Jocko Willink?

  And by the way, also on Amazon.

• 2:05:04Speaker 03

  Yes, sir. Also, speaking of origin orjamine.com, you can get there, you can get.

• 2:05:11Jocko Willink?

  Wawa, Florida, right now, Wawa, Holy East Coast, January. There I said it. It's looking like January for the Holy East Coast. Thanks to the Floridians.

• 2:05:23Speaker 03

  Yes, sir.

• 2:05:23Jocko Willink?

  The Florida troopers out there getting after it, clearing shelves, moving us in the right direction that we can hope for. A, January. Full loadout, Wawa. The people from Pennsylvania are fired up.

• 2:05:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:05:39Jocko Willink?

  Have you, have you noticed that on, on social media? People from Pennsylvania, people from Jersey, people from Virginia are like, we need it up here in this Wawa.

• 2:05:47Speaker 03

  Yes. Yeah, I did see a Pennsylvania probe in there for sure. Um, yes, good. Okay, back to orjamine.com. American made stuff, including gies, rash guards, jeans, American denim and boots.

• 2:06:04Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and you might think to yourself, oh, oh, American made jeans, right? Okay, I know what that's going to be. That's going to be a $350 pair of jeans.

• 2:06:13Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 2:06:13Jocko Willink?

  That's what you, you might be thinking that.

• 2:06:15Speaker 03

  Potentially.

• 2:06:15Jocko Willink?

  You're thinking wrong.

• 2:06:16Speaker 03

  Wrong.

• 2:06:16Jocko Willink?

  Actually, you're thinking wrong. Get yourself a couple pair of Origin jeans. And listen, they're not as cheap as we want them to be right now, but as we grow, as we scale, we should, we will be able to get the price down even more. But join the, join the club of supporting America.

• 2:06:40Speaker 03

  That's true.

• 2:06:42Speaker 03

  Also boots, like I said, also Choco's store. It's called Choco's store. And speaking of clubs, we have another club. It's not really a club. Yeah, the club, I mean, really, anyway, it's a subscription based t-shirt scenario.

• 2:06:57Jocko Willink?

  I like that way better than club.

• 2:07:00Speaker 03

  Club.

• 2:07:01Jocko Willink?

  I think club is something that you do, unless you're in a motorcycle gang, club.

• 2:07:06Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:07:06Jocko Willink?

  Then that's one, that's like one.

• 2:07:08Speaker 03

  Oh, so it depends. Oh, doesn't it?

• 2:07:10Jocko Willink?

  Well, that's just sort of a old school name.

• 2:07:12Speaker 03

  Right, but it depends on the word, uh, what you mean by club.

• 2:07:15Jocko Willink?

  Why are you being a lawyer?

• 2:07:16Speaker 03

  Because you're over here, you know, you see what I'm saying? Anyway, yes, club, subscription based t-shirt. Situation.

• 2:07:24Jocko Willink?

  Which you are wearing one today. Is this the initial launch mode?

• 2:07:27Speaker 03

  It's one of the other ones.

• 2:07:28Jocko Willink?

  I must say, that one's dope.

• 2:07:30Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:07:30Jocko Willink?

  And you know, I don't throw that phrase around very often at all.

• 2:07:33Speaker 03

  In a while, yeah, but yes, yes, sir.

• 2:07:35Jocko Willink?

  Lots of layers.

• 2:07:36Speaker 03

  Lot of layers. And yeah, you know, these t-shirt ideas, you know, they come, they go, some stick, some don't stick. But this is like an opportunity for all of us to sort of, you know, capitalize on some of the cool t-shirt ideas that just fly in from time to time. Yeah. And, and just like the ideas come and go, the shirts will come and go every month.

• 2:07:57Jocko Willink?

  You got one shot to get one of these shirts.

• 2:07:58Speaker 03

  Then they're gone. Anyway, choco store.com, that's where you can jump on that if you want. Also on choco store.com, you can get the discipline equals freedom. Uh, good, all these, all this stuff, shirts, hats, hoodies. You know, some cool stuff on there. So yeah, if you want something, get something.

• 2:08:15Jocko Willink?

  It makes sense to me. You can subscribe to this podcast too, if you haven't done that, wherever you subscribe to podcasts. I also got some other podcasts, Chaco Unraveling with Daryl Cooper. Which used to be called The Thread. Now it's called Jaco Unraveling, also Grounded Podcast, also Warrior Kid Podcast. We also have a YouTube channel where Echo gets to manifest his little video fantasies.

• 2:08:40Speaker 03

  Okay, so you will always say that and hey man, good, but when you think about it, YouTube channel, you're talking about enhanced videos, videos that we at some point started calling enhanced. Okay, maybe I made that up, but either way, there are not that many of them. They're all just like the video version of this podcast and some excerpts of this podcast. So technically the YouTube channel is that's more you than anything. So, you know, I'm just saying you put it on me a lot. So I'm just saying it's kind of both of us.

• 2:09:11Jocko Willink?

  I don't know. It's sort of the outlet for your stuff though, kind of.

• 2:09:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, I guess that's kind of true.

• 2:09:17Jocko Willink?

  Like I don't see your stuff being out. You haven't written any books yet.

• 2:09:20Speaker 03

  That's true.

• 2:09:21Jocko Willink?

  You don't, you, do you have a podcast? I guess you have this podcast.

• 2:09:25Speaker 03

  Technically, yeah, I guess. No, that's true because yes, if I want to express myself in any capacity creatively, yeah, where's it gonna land? It's gonna land on the YouTube

• 2:09:34Jocko Willink?

  Like me, I'm overwriting songs. I'm overplaying guitar. I'm doing art. I'm painting. I'm drawing. I'm writing books. I'm just all, but video, that's your realm. I let you do that.

• 2:09:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, you make a video or two every once in a while, which is good, which is very good. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

• 2:09:54Jocko Willink?

  Check. All right.

• 2:09:56Speaker 03

  Nonetheless, yes. Okay. So I understand now. I understand what you're saying and you're correct and I am corrected and I understand that fully and I accept that. Also, Psychological Warfare, it's an album. You know, you were talking about you make music sometimes. You're just making albums.

• 2:10:11Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, there you go.

• 2:10:12Speaker 03

  So this is one of them. Anyway, it's not a music one though. This is Jaco helping you with each track, identify and help you overcome any weakness that might, that you might encounter. So that one is one of those things that's helpful, but it's 100% effective.

• 2:10:32Jocko Willink?

  Check. Also, we have a visual form of that, flipsidecanvas.com Dakota Meyer making all kinds of cool stuff to hang on your wall. Got a bunch of books. The books, today I read from On The Ground. We also have Across The Fence, Sog Chronicles, all those three by John Stryker Meyer, Tilt, and also Whiskey Tango Foxtrot by Lynn Black. These are some of the Sog books that are just awesome. About Face by Colonel David Hackworth. I wrote the foreword to that. It's available now. Leadership Strategy and Tactics Field Manual, The Code, The Evaluation, The Protocols, Discipline = Freedom Field Manual, Way of the Warrior Kid IV Freedom Field Manual is out right now. You can better order that ASAP if you want it for Christmas. Mike and the Dragon, actually, anything you want for Christmas,

• 2:11:14Jocko Willink?

  order it right now. Right now. That's my encouragement to you. Because otherwise, it's not going to be there by Christmas. You've got all these, everyone's ordering everything, and delivery people and delivery planes and delivery trucks are short. They're going to run out. So, your package is going to be sitting in a warehouse somewhere, and your kid's going to be crying. And why are they crying? Two reasons. Number one, they don't have Warrior Kid. Number two, they don't have Warrior Kid. Because if they did, they wouldn't be crying about it. Yeah, that's true. They would put their emotions in check. So, you might want to check that out. And also Extreme Ownership and The Dichotomy of Leadership. Echelon Front is my leadership consultancy. Go to echelonfront.com if you want help with your leadership EF Online,

• 2:11:59Jocko Willink?

  where we are training leadership online all the time. Go to efonline.com if you want to ask me a question, or you want to figure out some leadership problem that you have, come and ask us. muster 2020. I'll let you know about the dates for muster 2021. That's where we're heading. EF Overwatch, if you need people inside your organization that understand the principles we talk about here, go to efoverwatch.com. We will supply you with military personnel who are ready for their civilian job to go out and lead. And if you want to help service members, active duty, and retired families, Gold Star families,

• 2:12:41Jocko Willink?

  if you want to help out in a bunch of different ways, then check out Mark Lee's mom. Her name is Mama Lee. She's got a charity organization. And if you want to donate, or you want to get involved, go to AmericasMightyWarriors.org.

• 2:12:56Jocko Willink?

  And listen, if you seek personal, internal agony, it's what you want. What you want is to cause pain to yourself, then we can deliver. You can get more of my lackluster allucations.

• 2:13:12Jocko Willink?

  Or if you need more of, I think this one's good. If you need more of Echo's inexplicable explanations.

• 2:13:21Speaker 03

  Semi-explorable.

• 2:13:24Jocko Willink?

  You can find us on the interwebs, Twitter, Instagram, which, just so Echo knows what I'm talking about when I say Instagram. I know you only refer to as thegram. And on Facebook, Echo's at Echo Charles. I am at Jocko Willink. And most important, John Stryker Meyer is on Instagram, at J Stryker Meyer.

• 2:13:43Jocko Willink?

  And thanks once again to Captain On for taking the time

• 2:13:49Jocko Willink?

  to share his experiences with us and more importantly, for risking his life over and over and over again, for his brothers on the ground and for freedom.

• 2:14:03Jocko Willink?

  And thanks to every one of you out there in every branch of service, Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, and to all of our allies that have stood by us on the battlefield to protect the sacred ideal of freedom. Thank you. And thanks to those of you in uniform on the home front. Police and law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, Border Patrol, Secret Service, and all the first responders. Thank you for keeping us safe here at home. And to everyone else out there.

• 2:14:38Jocko Willink?

  Think of Captain On.

• 2:14:42Jocko Willink?

  Think of taking care of others. Think of recognizing the risk of his mission. Going into an area where they had already lost helicopters and deciding

• 2:14:54Jocko Willink?

  at the moment of truth that he would just go with one other man.

• 2:15:00Jocko Willink?

  So as to save as many lives as possible. A decision which for him was perfectly logical. And as he said, no big deal.

• 2:15:12Jocko Willink?

  When the call came, he went.

• 2:15:16Jocko Willink?

  And we all should do the same.

• 2:15:20Jocko Willink?

  Go.

• 2:15:24Jocko Willink?

  And until next time, this is Echo and Jaco. Out.