319: "Shut Up and Return Fire" with Admiral Thomas "The Hulk" Richards.

0:00:00 - Opening 0:11:21 - Admiral Thomas "The Hulk" Richards 3:31:23 - Final Thoughts 3:45:18 - How to stay on THE PATH. 4:14:04 - 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 319 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. Good evening Echo. Good evening. As the SEALs inserted into a rice paddy near where they had taken fire, Carl Nelson's UH-1B Sea Wolf Gunship commenced a right turn at 80 feet above the ground to cover them. His co-pilot Earl Schott worked the LZ's edge with his miniguns while his gunners petty officers, Michael Dobson and Tom Clavon fired their M60s.

• 0:33Jocko Willink?

  The SEALs patrolled northeast and then east on a dike separating the two rice patties, and then moved north on one perpendicular to the first. As they advanced, the enemy began firing from well concealed and dug in positions on a dike covered with heavy vegetation. The SEALs and Nelson's Gunship immediately returned fire. As the patrol continued closer toward the tree line, the SEALs took accurate withering fire from both sides of the dike. Point man James Rowland fell, shot through the groin. He was hit again as he crawled for cover. Seconds later, the platoon commander Grant Telfer was shot in both legs. Both SEALs managed to return fire despite their wounds,

• 1:17Jocko Willink?

  but the severity of their injuries and the immediate necessity to extract them soon, took them out of action.

• 1:26Jocko Willink?

  Lieutenant JG Tom Richards immediately radioed Carl Nelson and his Sea Wolf for fire support as he and his fellow SEAL Gary Lawrence advanced under fire to assist the two seriously wounded SEALs. As he dragged Rowland to cover, one round passed through Richards' right hand, hitting the stoner's pistol grip. Nevertheless, while Lawrence, Wendell Hedge, and Donald Futrell returned fire, Richards continued to expose himself to enemy fire to drag the wounded to cover.

• 1:58Jocko Willink?

  When the automatic weapons man Futrell was shot in the chest, he cried out, "I'm hit, I'm hit." Richards, sensing the rising panic in Futrell's voice, suspected the man was going into shock. To distract him, Richards ordered Futrell to "shut up and return fire." Futrell briefly did so with his M60 and did not go into shock. As Futrell became semi-conscious, Richards pulled him back as well. When Lawrence and Hedge ran out of ammunition minutes later, Richards passed them the linked .556 ammo for his now inoperable stoner.

• 2:39Jocko Willink?

  The squad regrouped behind a dike and Richards urged the SEALs to keep pouring fire into the enemy as he radioed for emergency extraction. When Lawrence and Hedge ran out of ammunition minutes later, as the battle raged, extraction became imperative. Including himself, Richards had four wounded men, three of them critical. For pilot Carl Nelson and the Sea Wolves helicopter squadron flying in support of the SEALs, there was no hesitation. And here's a quote from him, "My crew knew that leaving anyone behind was not an option."

• 3:19Jocko Willink?

  When Nelson saw Richards dragging the wounded SEALs to cover, he alerted the transport helicopter flown by Lieutenant J.G. Edward Dyer to get ready for extraction and descended to cover it from an altitude of about 50 to 70 feet. From the ground, SEALs Lawrence and Hedge providing covering fire with their stoners, Nelson's gunship hit the enemy with devastating rocket and minigun fire while Dyer urgently searched for the SEALs' exact location. On his second pass, Dyer spotted them huddled next to a dike and came in hot, bleeding off airspeed during his approach. As the slick hovered, skids wet in a rice paddy, Richards dragged each of the three wounded

• 4:02Jocko Willink?

  SEALs in turn over the dike, then through the rice paddy to the helicopter, lifting each aboard with his one good hand.

• 4:12Jocko Willink?

  Richards later wrote, "With one hand, it was probably the heaviest lift I ever made. The best one, too." Enemy fire intensified during the loading. Lawrence, still providing cover fire, was about to climb aboard when Dyer began to pull pitch for liftoff as enemy rounds hit the fuselage. Lawrence grabbed the slick skid and held on for dear life. Until Lieutenant J.G. Richards reached down with his uninjured hand and hauled Lawrence aboard. For Richards' action and disregard for his own personal safety, the officer in charge of SEAL Team 1 Detachment Gulf, Telfer's immediate superior, recommended him for the Silver Star.

• 4:56Jocko Willink?

  The award recommendations summary of action stated, quote, "Without the conspicuous gallantry and cool perseverance of Lieutenant J.G. Richards, it is doubtful that the patrol could have survived." The next senior officer in the chain of command, located at Navy Special Warfare Group Vietnam and Saigon, endorsed the recommendation. Inexplicably, the Chief of Staff for the Commander, U.S. Naval Forces Vietnam, downgraded the award to a Bronze Star. That staff went so far as to change the wording cited in the original summary of action. The citation for the downgraded Bronze Star now read, "Lieutenant Junior Grade Richards'

• 5:40Jocko Willink?

  courage under fire, cool professionalism, and devotion to duty were in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service." Such a substantive change in wording undermined the rationale for the higher award. It remains unclear why the Chief of Staff, located more than 150 miles from the battlefield, made such an unusual decision. No explanation was ever given. The honor and recognition that were earned that day but not granted still rankles many of the SEALs and Sea Wolves who, along with Richards, risked everything to save 1st Squad from certain destruction. Some have even argued that his original award recommendation should have been upgraded to

• 6:23Jocko Willink?

  a Navy Cross, as Carl Nelson and Edward Dyer were awarded distinguished flying crosses, pointing out that Richards' extraordinary heroism, under fire at great personal risk with total disregard for his own life, mirrors that of those recommended for higher awards.

• 6:42Jocko Willink?

  Sea Wolf Pilot Carl Nelson, who is on this podcast, number 288, expresses the sentiments best. Having flown more than 600 combat missions with scores of those flights in direct support of two SEAL teams, Nelson vividly remembers the scene unfolding below his gunship as the wounded platoon struggled to survive. Nelson recalls, quote, "Watching a wounded Tom Richards under intense enemy fire drag each of his wounded SEALs to safety across a series of rice paddy dykes and load them onto the Sea Lord Hilo. It was the most heroic act that I have ever witnessed."

• 7:24Jocko Willink?

  Tom Richards heroism rates a Navy cross at minimum. He directly saved the lives of his platoon. Now that right there is from an article from Naval History Magazine, was written in April of 2020 by a guy named Captain Michael G. Slattery. In another section of the article, they give us some more, some more details, some more background on Lieutenant J.G. Tom Richards. And it says, "Christened the Hulk by his fellow SEALs, Tom Richards was well-liked and respected. And he enjoyed a reputation as a highly capable operator.

• 8:08Jocko Willink?

  He was a native of Bright Waters, New York, a graduate of Bay Shore High School, where he wrestled and played football. Following graduation, he attended Villanova University on a Navy ROTC scholarship. There, he lifted weights and routinely benched press 400 pounds. He was commissioned an ensign in the Naval Reserve in 1969. While still a midshipman at Villanova, Richards was accepted to basic underwater demolition SEAL training. When he began the rigorous program with Class 54, the six-foot-tall Richards weighs 235 pounds. He graduated 10 months later with Class 55 at a lean and hard 215 pounds.

• 8:51Jocko Willink?

  He was assigned to SEAL Team 1 in Coronado, California."

• 8:58Jocko Willink?

  So that's what the article focuses on, talking about that one day in Vietnam. But the Hulk continued to serve in the SEAL Teams. And if you follow his career forward from that event in 1971, and you go forward about 20 years to 1991, I was a new guy at SEAL Team One. I didn't even have my Trident yet. I wasn't even an official SEAL. I'd graduated BUDS, but I hadn't got my Trident yet. It was a Saturday morning, and I was in the gym by myself, and I was smashing some weights, and I was blasting Metallica on the stereo system.

• 9:40Jocko Willink?

  And this was a time at SEAL Team One where there was a five-disc CD player. And the entire thing was filled with all the Metallica albums. At that time, there were five, and it was locked shut. So the only thing you could listen, you had no choice. You were just gonna listen to Metallica. So I'm in there, I've got the music cranked up to an unhealthy level. And in walks Captain Richards, the Hulk. Now, he's a full captain. He'd just taken over as the commanding officer at BUDS. Actually, took over before I graduated, so we all knew who he was. And I immediately, I'm a junior enlisted guy, immediately run over, and I turned down the stereo, because I don't want to bother the senior officer. And as I turned down the stereo, Captain Richards, just me and him in there,

• 10:24Jocko Willink?

  on a Saturday morning, Captain Richards goes, "Hey!" And I look over, and he says, "Turn that shit back up." And so I did, and worked out, and he was working out, and we were throwing weight around, and he was throwing around more weight than me, by the way. I doubt that. And then you fast-forward a little bit further. I think it was 1996 or 1997, I think it was 1997. And now, I meet the Hulk again, only now, he's the Admiral. He's in charge of all the SEALs.

• 11:02Jocko Willink?

  And he interviewed me and wrote me a recommendation to become a SEAL officer. And I got accepted into that program. And carried on with the rest of my career, but never forgot the impression that Admiral Richards left on me and on the SEAL community. And it's an honor to have him here tonight to share some of his experiences, some of his stories, some of his lessons learned from a 30-year career in the SEAL teams. Admiral, thanks for coming by.

• 11:36Speaker 01

  Well, Jaco, thanks for having me here. When I sit here and listen to those excerpts from Michael Slattery's article, it takes me back to those rice paddies. And it is a day that I would have to describe as one of the worst days in my entire naval career. It had to be the worst day. But I'll also tell you, it was the best fucking day. Because I got those guys.

• 12:13Speaker 01

  I got those guys out of the kilos zone, over to the protection of Dyke, and then into the Hilo. Yeah, I was a big, strong guy. There's something called adrenaline rush, adrenaline high, and all that other stuff. And you know, maybe you could, you help some, you know, limp dick, you know, pencil neck geek, you drag some of those guys across the rice paddy. But I seriously effing doubt it. Thankfully, it was me who was only wounded in one hand, and I was able to drag those guys out of there.

• 12:51Speaker 01

  Listening to Carl Mills.

• 12:57Speaker 01

  Make those gun runs. I don't know if there's any car nuts in the room or listening in here, but one of my roommates in Villanova had a 1967 Corvette, 427, 425 damn horsepower. And when Skip stood on that thing, I believe he had a couple of cutouts, legal or not, but when Skip stood on that sucker, it roared. Well, that is the closest sound that I can describe to those who haven't been there, when a minigun rips off and lights off. And that was one of the most beautiful sounds that I've ever heard. So, as I'm going back

• 13:41Speaker 01

  and forth, Grant Telfer and his, uh, his update to the, uh, to the award recommendation, uh, you know, use those terms that you used in the article without regard to, uh, to my own personal safety or my life. Uh, I have to tell you that I never gave a thought to anything but my teammates, who were, you know, Grant was shot in both legs, uh, Rock, Jim Rowland, uh, shot in the chest and the groin. And of course, Jim's major concern

• 14:20Speaker 01

  with those injuries was with the equipment ever to work again. Uh, and then, uh, you you mentioned how, uh, Don Futrell was getting ready to go into shock. Uh, you know, I'd never been trained about what somebody going into shock sounds like or doesn't. Uh, I had no clue, but as soon as I heard Don, and, uh, you know, you could hear his voice going up a few octaves, uh, he referred to it in a, in a note to me about his girly voice, you know, "Hey, Don, you were just shot in the damn chest. Uh, and, uh, you you got a right to be, you know, you know, going into panic or whatever it is. I didn't, we didn't have that conversation. This is flashing through my mind." Uh, but, uh, I could hear it and I just said, you know, it just came to me as the...

• 15:03Speaker 01

  Get his mind off his situation and get it back on to our situation. Uh, I didn't realize how badly he was injured and that he was gonna be useless as tits on a boar hog after that. But, you know, I just wanted to get him back into action. Uh, and, and out of, out of any, any shock because, you know, we're, we're in the middle of nowhere. And, uh, you have no idea how, if we're even gonna get out of there. And if we get out of there, how long it's gonna take and so on and so forth. So, uh, you know, just the, uh, the great training from the legends in SEAL Team One before I got there. You know, that we used to call it SEAL Basic Indoctrination Training. And then we'd go through a pre-deployment, uh, training program.

• 15:44Speaker 01

  But, uh, those, uh, who, uh, set the history of SEAL Team One before I got there. Uh, those guys made all the, uh, made all the difference in the training and my reaction and everybody else's reaction in the, in the rice paddy. So as I was saying, it was the best of days and it was the worst of days. Uh, you know, thank God everybody got out of there. Uh, I don't know how often it happens, but I'm willing to bet not very often. Both Roland and Futrell, when they were shot in the chest, the bullets passed front to back, didn't touch a bone. You just went through soft tissue and the, uh, the heat of the round actually, uh, cauterized the, uh, cauterized the injury.

• 16:26Speaker 01

  Uh, those guys, you know, who are, you know, goddamn lucky is, uh, is, is all I can say. Of course, I didn't know that at the time. Uh, and, uh, you know, uh, it was just, uh, just a real, uh, a real, uh, you know, crappy situation. But, uh, as those guys got wounded, you know, my, you know, my focus became, we gotta get out of Dodge. You know, we gotta just get the hell out of here. And, uh, it was a hot DZ. We had seventy or eighty, ninety, uh, VC. We hadn't realized that, of course, uh, but we had all these guys, uh, uh, in the, uh, in the, uh, in the jungle on the other side of the, uh, the rice dyke.

• 17:07Speaker 01

  And, uh, constant fire, uh, the, uh, he goes, you know, Carl providing that fire at seventy, eighty, a hundred feet above, above ground level, he's, uh, he's right there in the, uh, in the, in the action, uh, uh, you know, that's, that's not a hard shot to make if you know how to shoot at helos, uh, thank God they didn't, uh, so Carl and his crew are in danger, uh, and, and then the, uh, then the slick, uh, the helo was called a slick is because it doesn't have the miniguns and the rockets and so on, slick comes in naked to, uh, to pull us out of a, uh, out of a, of a hot LZ, um, as you said, uh, he, he hovered there and I had to make those three trips under fire, uh, and, uh, without, uh, Wendell Hedge

• 17:52Speaker 01

  and Gary Lawrence providing that cover fire, I couldn't have gone back and forth to that Reichstike to get those guys, uh, you know, and so, uh, as, uh, I'll, I'll, I'll never forget it, uh, Gary Lawrence, uh, you know, you know, banging away and, uh, he, uh, he runs out of bullets and, uh, and he calmly turns to me and he says, "I'm out of bullets." Jesus H. Christ, uh, so seeing as my, uh, as my, uh, weapon didn't work and I usually went out with, uh, you know, a thousand to twelve hundred rounds of, uh, of ammo on my body, uh, I, uh, I ripped, I ripped off a bandolier and, and, you know, for a little bit of background is, you know, just like you see in those old movies with Pancho Villa

• 18:37Speaker 01

  and all those, you know, bad guys in the, in the westerns, they got these bandoliers of, uh, of ammo wrapped around their body, well, that's exactly what I had, but what I did is I put on a, uh, put on a T-shirt or a blue and gold, wrapped the bandoliers around my body and then on top of those, I put on a, uh, on a set of cammies, uh, not only to cut down on the, uh, on the noise, but it also cut down on the reflection of the, uh, the brass of the rounds and it protected them from anything that we might run into, uh, so when, uh, when those guys ran out of bullets, I did a button on my, uh, on my cami, uh, you know, shirt top and just popped the, uh, popped the link and, you know, threw a hundred and twenty rounds off to, uh, Lawrence and a hundred and twenty, and it's kinda like, you know, if you, if you watch it, it's kinda like a snake flying through the air and, uh,

• 19:22Speaker 01

  they grabbed it and they, uh, they pop it down and they, uh, you know, you know, slam it in the, uh, in the receiver of their, of the weapons and they start returning fire, uh, quite, uh-

• 19:33Speaker 01

  Quite a brave situation for those guys. And, and they were completely exposed, you know, well, we're all completely exposed. As, as I'm loading the, the guys into the helo, I'd, I'd like to take full credit for that, but the, the crew members, as I got these guys up out of the muck, I mean, you know, the, because they hadn't sat down into the rice paddy, the, the deck of the, of the cabin of the, of the Huey was too high for me to lift these guys and I'd, I'd get them up high enough and then the crew members had, you know, dragged them into the, dragged them into the helo. So, it was a, it was a bad day at Black Rock, a real shitty day at Black Rock, to be honest with you. So it was the worst day of my career and the best.

• 20:20Jocko Willink?

  I got a bunch of questions, so we'll, we'll get to Vietnam, back to Vietnam, because I'd like to hear about how that, you know, what your workup was like, how you ended up there, we'll get there, but just to give us a little background on you, let's just talk about, you know, what, what your childhood was like, how did you become the Hulk?

• 20:37Speaker 01

  Well, that was pretty tough becoming the Hulk, I'll tell you, and I'll tell you why. My, my dad was a policeman and today policemen who are first responders going out and dealing with god knows what in society, they're not paid well enough for what they do. Go back sixty or seventy years, they weren't paid, you know, period. So, there weren't a lot of second helpings at the, at the dinner table. So, while I grew to about, about six foot, five-eleven and a half is probably the God's honest truth. If, if it wasn't nailed down and anybody else in the house wasn't eating it, I was. You know, there's an old story about the only thing that ever broke was a handle on

• 21:21Speaker 01

  the refrigerator door. Well, I, I broke the handle on the refrigerator door more than once. But somewhere in, I, I, I never wrestled, I went to a, a Catholic grammar school.

• 21:35Speaker 01

  And I am a retired Catholic, but I went to a Catholic grammar school and got to high school was the first time I saw anything like wrestling and it was interesting. So I went out for the wrestling team and we had a great freshman wrestling coach and I want to say his name was Gordon Howserath, but a great, a great coach and he was kind of ambivalent on the benefits of weight training, but he also was helpful in getting me a lifeguard job in a village of Bright Waters at one of the beaches and that was on a bay and a canal.

• 22:20Speaker 01

  So he didn't need any open water skills at that point in time. So what I did that summer is I had probably like a 110 or 150 pound weight set and I brought it over to the, to the beach and we had a little garage kind of thing and, and on my breaks, you know, I'd go over and do a few sets, this, that, or the other thing. Lunch break, I'd do a few more sets and before I got on my bicycle and rode home, I'd do a few more sets. I came back to, to wrestling the, the next year with JV and Coach Howserath calls me out to, to use me as the demonstration dummy on some particular move that he was gonna

• 23:02Speaker 01

  do, right? So he, you know, calls me out and I laid down on the mat and he, he was telling the rest of the team what he's gonna do and I just locked. And here's this, you know, 35-year-old man, you know, 165, 170 pounds, you know, you know, wrestling, you know, champion in his, in his own right. And here's this, you know, smart ass kid who's been lifting weights all summer long and he couldn't move me. And he, and he said to me, he says, "What did you do?" And you know, changed people's minds about weightlifting and conditioning for wrestling, at least at Bay Shore High School.

• 23:40Jocko Willink?

  Where did you get, where did you get the idea? Were you looking at like, uh, magazines? I mean, how did you figure out even the idea of weightlifting? Where'd you get the weight set from?

• 23:50Speaker 01

  Well, Ray Plate, if you're listening to this, it's your fault. Uh, we had a, we had a guy on the, uh, on the, uh, on the football team. Uh, name was Ray Plate. Uh, and, uh, saw him in a, you know, 50 year reunion a few years ago and, uh, he's doing well. But Ray had arms that looked like somebody's legs. And Ray wasn't the biggest guy on the team, uh, by any stretch of the imagination, but Ray was our nose tackle and nobody on the other teams pushed Ray around. And I said, "That looks like it works. Let's give that a try." And so I did. And I learned, I learned a lot, uh, on my own, but, uh, I, uh, I went

• 24:32Speaker 01

  down to, uh, I, I got the Navy ROTC scholarship, you said, to, uh, to Villanova. And, uh, uh, that's a, uh, that's an academic scholarship. Uh, you've got to pass a physical, but it's, it's not like, uh, you know, going to Buzz. I mean, you gotta, you gotta fog a mirror, you gotta, you know, have 2020 vision and, uh, and, uh, and that kind of thing. And so, uh, I, uh, you know, got the scholarship and I went on down to Villanova. And, uh, you know, I could've, you know, tried to walk onto the football team. They did not have a wrestling team. I could've tried to walk onto the football team, but you know, I said, "I don't know what this academic stuff is really going to be. I've got this, uh, scholarship. So, uh, before I overload my, uh, myself, let me just, uh, you know,

• 25:15Speaker 01

  not go out for football." And so, uh, the football team at the time used the same weight room as, you know, the wannabes or the, uh, anybody else at the, at the school. So I, you know, I lifted, uh, you know, with the, uh, with a lot of the guys on the, uh, the football team and, uh, There were, there were a couple of monsters on the football team and the, the number one rated one hundred and ninety, one hundred and ninety-eight pound powerlifter, not only collegiately, but nationally AAU was on the Villanova football team. Name was John Zarenko, you know, stronger

• 25:55Speaker 01

  than the law allowed, but with a, with a name like Zarenko, his nickname was Dizzy. But John, John could, could quote only bench press about three and a quarter, three thirty-five, and he was always complaining. Now, listen, this is a hundred and ninety-eight pounder, you know, five foot eight, a hundred and ninety-eight pounder, played fullback, and he's benching three hundred and thirty-five pounds, you know. I mean, that's something to write home about. But John could squat six hundred and something. He could deadlift seven hundred and something. If somebody tried to tackle him around the waist, they were gonna break their shoulder. So, I really got interested in, in lifting at the time.

• 26:39Speaker 01

  And we had a, we had a hundred and ninety, another hundred and ninety-eight pounder at the, at the school, and Jim Rapucci was, was also ranked nationally, and he was the number two one hundred and ninety-eight college lifter. Jim was a little bit stronger in the upper body, and, you know, Jim had a hundred and ninety-eight pounds of four hundred and ten pound bench press, competition bench press. So, we, you know, we were always going neck and neck, and I lifted at two forty-two. Yes, I did get up to two fifty if my wife is listening to this. But I lifted at two forty-two, and I had, you know, I had, you

• 27:20Speaker 01

  know, a good, strong four fifteen bench press. In my last collegiate meet I went into, I opened at four, went to four fifteen because Jim's record was four ten, so I had to break it by five pounds. You gotta, you gotta screw with the boys, you know. So, I, I hit the four fifteen just to get the school record. And back then, the equipment was not as regulated, if you will, as it is today, you know. You know, the bench had to be, did not have to be- X number of centimeters high, X number of centimeters wide. So this bench was just a little bit wider than we were used to benching with. And when I hit that 415, I came down and it sort of, my shoulders sort of tweaked, but I pushed it up anyway. And I just said, you know, I've gotta, you know, do deadlifts here. I don't want to really screw up the

• 28:05Speaker 01

  shoulder. Cause my plan had been to set the record, and I'd done it in the gym at 435. But I never hit it in competition. Hit it in the gym, but not in competition. So that whole weightlifting thing became, it just, well, it's something that I'm still trying to do. So, fast forward to showing up at, oh, no, wait a minute, we gotta go back, we gotta go back.

• 28:32Jocko Willink?

  How'd you hear about the Siegel teams?

• 28:34Speaker 01

  Uh, Reader's Digest, if you can believe it. Reader's Digest Magazine.

• 28:41Jocko Willink?

  Was that in high school, or was that while you were at Villanova?

• 28:45Speaker 01

  That was when I got to Villanova. As I said, my father was a policeman. We didn't have a lot of money in the house. And I'll whale on my older brother and older sister, if there was any money to go to college, they got it. I did not. So, it was explained to me, if I was going to college, I was going to college on a scholarship. So, I actually had a part-time job that I was planning on doing the day of the ROTC exam. And my father says, you're taking this test. And what was 20 or 25 bucks, doesn't sound like much today,

• 29:24Speaker 01

  but in 19, what was that, 65? That was a lot of money, 64, 65. So, anyway, I passed on the 20 or 25 bucks and went into that ROTC test with a little bit of a bad attitude. But as soon as I got in the room, I said, oh, wait a minute, you're not getting the 25 bucks. You know, that's history. You know, let's take the test. So, as you may know, you have to take the test, then you have to pass the physical, and the ROTC program tells you that they will provide you with the scholarship. You then have to apply to the university and get accepted. So, a completely different process.

• 30:03Speaker 01

  So I did, my father being a practicing or a convert to Catholicism was adamant, he says, you know, there's, you know, there were about 50 schools on the list then that had ROTC scholarships. He says, "You can go to these five or six, those were like, you know, Holy Cross, you know, Villanova, Notre Dame, those were the, those were the schools that I had to apply to. I applied and, you know, that, the rest of that is history." So, it was a, it was, it was a great program. So I get to Villanova and I, let's back up a little bit more to, you know, staying in, in school. I was, I was a good student in, in high school. I was, you know, I was the one that the rest of the honor class kids

• 30:48Speaker 01

  couldn't figure out what I was doing in the room. So, and in, in, in New York, they had a, still do probably, a program called the Regents, Regents testing. So at the end of, end of the year, you would, you would take a statewide exam in, you know, math, chemistry, physics, whatever it might be. And I don't think I got under 94 in any of those. So that's part of what helped my, you know, my transcript for review by Villanova looked, looked pretty good. And I had scholarship offers to the State University of New York

• 31:32Speaker 01

  system. And I was, you know, pretty much determined that I was gonna go to a place called Cortlandt State. Cortlandt had a, an excellent, you know, PT program, you know, for, you know, teaching. And they, they also had a pretty good wrestling team at the time. So I- How good did you do in wrestling in high school? Uh, I, I, I did better than, better than it shows. And so I'll tell you my, my, my complaint on that one.

• 32:05Speaker 01

  I, uh, in my, uh, in my senior year, uh, I, uh, I, you know, was wrestling this one kid and, uh, I want to say it was from, uh, from West Islip, but, uh, one of our big rivals and so on. Anyway, the, uh, the guy stood on me, uh, from the, uh, in wrestling, you have a, you know, you start the, start the match, both guys are on your feet, and in the second and third rounds, you know, you start with one guy in what's called the bottom position and the other guy, uh, his arms around, uh, around the wrestler is in the top position. One of the most common moves is a stand from the bottom and the guy on the bottom will stand and rip the, uh, guy's hands off of his waist, uh, the guy who was on top and,

• 32:47Speaker 01

  you know, get away and get his one point for the, uh, for the neutral position. Well, I said, you know, "Okay, stand." So what I did is, as the guy was standing, I just, uh, went up with him, used his own, uh, his own momentum, lifted him off his feet and swung his body so it was kinda like perpendicular to mine. So now what I did is I, uh, instead of throwing him to the mat, I just, you know, bent down to the mat, I, you know, bent my knees, and as I said, this guy is, you know, perpendicular to me being upright, so he's parallel to the mat. So now that he's sliding down my side, my knee would hit the mat, he'd slide down, uh, along the side of my body and hit the mat.

• 33:31Speaker 01

  Nobody knew that this guy had had a couple of damn concussions during the football season. So when he bounced off the mat, he bounced and laid there. Uh, that was not my plan. My plan was to teach him not to stand on Tom Richards. Uh, and, uh, you know, so he's, he's laying on the mat, you know, I said, in terms other than "Oh shit," and, you know, "What the hell's going on here," you know, went through my mind. And, uh, unfortunately, I got quote branded as a dirty wrestler as a result of that. And, right after that, they rewrote the damn New York High School Wrestling Rulebook.

• 34:10Speaker 01

  That had said, "The man in control's knee had to touch the mat before the opponent," which is exactly what I did, "to the man on top must safely return the opponent to the mat." Now, I suppose it's an all-girls sport, I'm not sure. Yes, that shows a certain amount of, you know, male chauvinism, you're right. But, anyway, I get to the, I get to the county meet, and I'm in the semifinals or something like that, and this guy, a guy stands up and starts to get away from me, and I try

• 34:55Speaker 01

  to take him down, not in the manner that I just discussed, but just like a double-legged takedown, and I get him, and I pick him up, and he squirms away from me. I don't have control of him, he squirms away from me. Next thing I hear is a whistle. I get penalized one point because they claimed that when this guy got away from me, that I threw him down to the mat, and when he got away from me, I had managed to scramble around behind him and get control. So I should have had two points for a takedown. Long story short, the guy put on his track shoes after that, and the refs never called

• 35:39Speaker 01

  him for stall, and I chased him around the mat, yada, yada, yeah, I'm whining, but I can say that they rewrote the New York State High School Wrestling Rulebook. It was a real disappointment. But quite frankly, had I, and so he ended up like second or third in the state that year, and I'm just saying to myself, you know, you should have been a track star and not a wrestler, but anyhow. But all things considered, you know, I went on, I went on to the ROTC scholarship, and had I gone to New York, had I won New York State, I'd probably had any number of wrestling scholarships, so you wouldn't be talking to me today if that had happened. So, you know, we're good here.

• 36:23Jocko Willink?

  So then you pick up a Reader's Digest at some point, and you read an article about the SEAL teams? Or was it about UDT?

• 36:31Speaker 01

  So, my father, as I said, you know, didn't have the money for, uh, for his college, for, uh, for high school or college, uh, you know, tuition or anything like that, so.

• 36:39Jocko Willink?

  Was your dad a vet from World War II?

• 36:41Speaker 01

  Yes, he was.

• 36:42Jocko Willink?

  And what did he do in?

• 36:43Speaker 01

  He was a, uh, he was a, uh, a gunnery instructor. And, uh, uh, he, he actually never, never left the United States, uh, but, uh, you know, one of the places he was stationed was, uh, Portsmouth, New Hampshire. And, uh, after I retired, I ended up working for a company in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, right on the naval base where he was, uh, he was assigned. But, uh, go back to, uh, the, uh, the ROTC scholarship.

• 37:08Speaker 01

  That's, that was my, uh, that was my ticket to college, my ticket into the Navy. So as I'm looking around the Navy, I'm trying to figure out what it is that I want to do. I'd been a lifeguard for years and years and I was in, you know, decent shape. I could swim. Uh, and, uh, so I, uh, I, I, that Navy, uh, you know, still had, you know, PT boats, uh, you know, they were using them over there in, in Vietnam and so on. And I said, yeah, it's small boat stuff, you know, sounds like, you know, some fun, you know, cause I'd cut grass in the summertime and save money and I bought my own, uh, you know, 14-foot, uh, you know, boat with a, uh, 30 horsepower Johnson and a, you know, you know, Evanrude outboard motor. And so, you know, small boats were something I said, okay, this is what I want to do.

• 37:49Speaker 01

  Uh, and, uh, then of course, the Navy doesn't have much of an emphasis on that. And so I, I look around, I find this UDT stuff. I said, okay, that's swimming, you know, working in the, working in the, in the ocean and, uh, work with demolitions, you know, that sounds, you know, pretty interesting. Uh, so I said, oh, you know, I'll, I'll try for that. And then I find this, uh, this article about the, uh, about the SEALs and I said, that really sounds interesting. I, I, I think I'd really like to do that. Uh, so I couldn't find out much about it. Uh, but, uh, uh, while I was there at Villanova, I let the, uh, the, the staff know that, uh, this is, this is what I wanted to do. Uh, and I made the, made the application for, uh, for BUDS and, uh, and, and got accepted.

• 38:34Speaker 01

  Well, in my junior year at Villanova, I had, uh, changed majors. So in my, between my junior and senior year, which would have been your first class cruise as a midshipman, uh, I ended up going to summer school and I did not make my, uh, make my first class cruise. So I'm getting ready to graduate my senior year and the graduation and commissioning is held sort of simultaneously at Villanova. And I get called into the XO's office there at the ROTC unit and he says, I got some bad news for you, Tom. You know, you won't get commissioned here in beginning in May with everybody else because

• 39:15Speaker 01

  you've got to go on your first-class cruise before you can get commissioned. Well, you're not going to believe this. That's when, that's when the guy who did so well on his ROTC test, you know, got his brain back together. That's the first time I learned the power of the pen and independent thinking of the Navy. So I write this letter to Bu Pairs and say, hey, I'm going to be a frogman, I'm going to be a SEAL, I don't need this first-class cruise. What an arrogant jackass I was. So, long story short, the Navy comes back and says, okay, you don't have to go on your first-class cruise.

• 39:56Speaker 01

  I get commissioned with everybody and I go out to Bud's. Got to back up just a little bit here. So as I'm, you know, understanding that there's a certain amount of swimming required and probably running and other conditioning, you know, I've just gone out and, you know, bench pressed, you know, 400 pounds at the collegiate, you know, weightlifting champion.

• 40:18Jocko Willink?

  And you're walking around at 245?

• 40:20Speaker 01

  I was walking around at 245 at that point in time. And, you know, squat, you know, 500 and something, you know, deadlift, you know, five and a quarter or something at that point in time. Long story short, several years later in the career, in my, once I was in the Navy, you know, 10 years later in the Navy, 25 pounds lighter, 30 pounds lighter, I lifted more, except for the bench press, than I was at Villanova. But anyway, so, nobody in the ROTC staff could tell me what I needed to do, you know, when I showed up in Coronado. And so I said, well...

• 41:01Speaker 01

  UDT underwater, you know, gotta be some swimming here. So, yeah, I jumped in the pool at Villanova about three times, maybe four. And I said, "Well, if there's gonna be a lot of running involved," you know, you know, I started doing a little bit of road work, you know, and I had, I dropped ten or twelve pounds. And I showed up at Coronado thinking I was ready to go, right? So, I show up, they give me my first, you know, issue of equipment, and they tell me that the, uh, the class that was in pre-training at the time is, uh, is over, uh, here at the, at the oceanfront. "Go over there and tell them who you are and that you're joining the class." Well, I showed up and, uh,

• 41:43Speaker 01

  walk up and, uh, instructors look at me like, "Who the hell are you?" And, uh, before they even let me take a step, they make me go get a frickin' EKG, because they thought that I was some short, fat, you know, pile of whatever. And so, here, here's another time when, uh, when your, your, your alligator mouth overloads your hummingbird ass. So, uh, we got instructors, I don't, I don't remember if Terry Moy was there. He's a, you know, a legend in our time and a legend in his own mind. Uh, but Terry was, uh, was quite the guy. But there's another guy standing there, uh, your complexion, Echo. And, uh, he's, uh, his name is Dick Allen. Dick is about five-eleven.

• 42:26Speaker 01

  He's the all Navy, and I think he might have been the inter-service boxing champ. And Dick was standing there at about two fifteen, two twenty. And I, you know, looked at Chief Allen, and I said, you know, "Shit, if he can do it, I can do it." Oh, my God. That had to be one of the dumbest things that I ever said in public to anybody. So, uh, uh, they, they, they kicked the shit out of me. Uh, I did not pass my first screen test. Uh, like I said, I didn't even know what the screen test was. So, they rolled me back to, uh, from class fifty-three to, you know, class fifty-four. I didn't even, uh, you know, sign up with them. But uh.

• 43:06Jocko Willink?

  What year was this?

• 43:07Speaker 01

  Uh, this was nineteen sixty-nine.

• 43:09Jocko Willink?

  So Vietnam's in full swing.

• 43:11Speaker 01

  Full swing.

• 43:12Jocko Willink?

  You know you're going to Vietnam if you go to a SEAL team.

• 43:15Speaker 01

  Absolutely, and remember there were only two SEAL teams at the time.

• 43:18Jocko Willink?

  And I guess you, you, guys were still getting orders to UDT out of BUDS too at that time.

• 43:22Speaker 01

  The majority of guys coming out of BUDS got, got orders to, uh, to UDT, uh.

• 43:27Jocko Willink?

  Was there, was there any, I mean, wa- was the culture in America just so split that you just didn't even think about like the hippies that are running around and protesting wars? Did you, did you see any of them? Were those people around Villanova? Were those people in Coronado?

• 43:42Speaker 01

  So in my last semester at Coronado, uh, excuse me, uh, last semester at Villanova, uh, all these, you know, young, uh,

• 43:51Speaker 01

  politically active individuals decided that they had to make a statement. Uh, so they're holding a, uh, a rally and they're, uh, blockading, uh, yeah, access to, uh, to the campus. And you know, shit, I'm one of these guys, right? You know, well, yeah, no, I didn't, I didn't have the bank accounts. I didn't, I didn't go to Puerto Rico or the Virgin Islands on, uh, spring break. Uh, but I'm one of these guys. They know who I am, uh, cause I was, you know, my senior year, I was a bouncer at a couple of the bars that everybody went to. So, uh, here they are, they're having this big demonstration and, uh, I forget what particular class it was over at Barkley Hall that I had, but I'm walking over to Barkley Hall and you've got this, you know, you know, mass of students and say, "Campus closed, can't go, you can't go on campus."

• 44:36Speaker 01

  And I said, "Well, we, we have one minor problem here. I've got a class in Barkley Hall right over there." And I'm going to Barkley Hall and the, the only problem is that you're temporarily between me and Barkley Hall. So what's it gonna be? They stepped aside and I went to class. It was, it was easy.

• 44:57Jocko Willink?

  So you had no idea what was gonna happen at BUDS?

• 45:01Speaker 01

  I had no clue, not a clue. See, I cleaned that up pretty good. I had, I had, I had no idea what it was gonna be about. But while I was, while I was at Villanova, not only did I lift at the gym on base, but there was a YMCA in town. And I ran into this guy who claimed to be a retired Navy corpsman who would serve with the SEALs.

• 45:27Speaker 01

  Can't remember his name, 165-pound, dark-complected guy. I think he was Italian-American, whatever. And we got to talking and he told me a little bit about, you know, you know, the war stories and how tough it was. But one of the things that he said to me is he said, "Every one of those instructors is a humanoid. Every one of those instructors had done whatever it is they're about to ask you to do, or what they're about to do to you." So I said to myself, I locked in my mind at that point in time, I said, "If that human being, or that human being,

• 46:09Speaker 01

  or even that Marine over there can do that, I can do that." So that was the mindset I went into BUDS with. If he can do it, I can do it. And it worked.

• 46:22Jocko Willink?

  What was, was there anything that was hard for you?

• 46:28Jocko Willink?

  Was your running, did you suck at running, or did you get good at it pretty quick?

• 46:32Speaker 01

  I sucked at running till graduation day.

• 46:37Speaker 01

  But, you know, with a 500 and some odd pound squat, you know, going into, going into training, I could, I could, I could run. I could, I could do 50 or 100 yards. Quick. Uh, so when we, back when I went through training Jaco, you remember when it was hard? Uh, we, uh, we, we trained on the other side, uh, back where the ball fields are, Foreman Field is. So we'd finish up, uh, our, our PT on one side of Foreman Field, uh, the side away from the bay towards the ocean. And over on the, on the bay side of Foreman, Foreman Field, uh, was a, a row of, uh, pull

• 47:21Speaker 01

  up bars and dip bars. So after PT, uh, we would go run over to those bars and do pull-ups and dips. Well, the deal was the instructors would break you into groups of X amount of guys and you would run over to the, uh, to the pull-up bars. The first guy in each group got to stand there and, you know, scratch his ass while everybody else is in lean and rest punching out 20, 50, or however many push-ups. I never did push-ups after PT. I was always the first man in my running group to get over there. If it was over a hundred yards, I was the last man. Uh, but I never had to do push-ups in, in that group, but, uh, so, uh, I don't know

• 48:03Speaker 01

  if we still call them goon squads, when you went through, uh, I'm sure, Jaco, I'm sure you made a few of those.

• 48:09Jocko Willink?

  I made some goon squads. You probably made all of them.

• 48:13Speaker 01

  The deal was, and I didn't realize that the deal was with the instructor staff is that wherever Ensign Richards is, that's where we cut the goon squad. So one day, uh, you, you know of Admiral Ray Smith, he was in, he was in class 54 and 54 is a class I started with, went through third phase before I got a cellulitis infection. So, yeah, I'm a man of two countries or two classes, uh, but I graduated with 55. But anyway, uh, first phase, Ray and I were, uh, you know, uh, we're on one of the conditioning runs and we're running, uh, north towards the North Island Fence. And we're, uh, we're just about in front of the, uh, the lifeguard towers at Center Beach there in, uh, in Coronado.

• 48:54Speaker 01

  And Ray and I were running along just having a conversation, you know, I mean, because these conditioning runs weren't fast. Uh, they were, you know, hard enough, but they weren't real fast. So Ray and I are running along having this conversation and Ray looks around and he realizes, oh shit, we're, we're right about here at the, uh, uh, point where they're gonna cut the goon squads. He says, Tom, I gotta go.

• 49:18Speaker 01

  And Ray literally took off at that point in time and he was no more than 10 or 15 yards in front of me where the instructor stepped in and says, "All right, everybody assume the position, that is pushups, because we're starting the goon squad." Boom. And so they cut the goon squad wherever I was, except one time. So, we're doing a soft sand conditioning run. This time we're going south. And we're running down towards the, towards the, the public beach down there, and that's about a, a three mile point. But, right across from the, where the marina is, there used to be a great big pile of sand. And we called

• 50:02Speaker 01

  that Mount Suribachi. Well, the, the instructors would take us down the soft sand road, which was between the, the oceanfront and just probably about, you know, 30 or 40 yards in from the Strand Highway. We'd run down that soft sand road, and then we'd get to Mount Suribachi, and we'd run around Mount Suribachi, we'd run up and over Mount Suribachi. Well, I got tired of all this running up and down Mount Suribachi stuff, you know what I'm saying? I've, I've tossed my cookies, you know, more times than I can tell you, and, and I am one hurting son of a gun. So, they, you know, they go up and over Mount Suribachi, they loop around, and they head on down towards the, towards the state park

• 50:44Speaker 01

  beach there. And I don't even have the frickin' class in sight, right? You know, today, today an instructor gets shot for losing track of, of, of a student, but they, I don't even have a class in sight. So, the class goes down, and I know what, I know what the run is for the day, so they're gonna come back. So, I just, you know, loop around Suribachi real nice and easy this time, loop around Suribachi, the class comes back, I loop around in the back of the class, and, and it just worked out that the instructors were looking forward as I came up, and the goon squad had already been cut down by the state, the state park. So, I'm, I, I, as I had caught up to the class, this great big instructor

• 51:27Speaker 01

  by the name of Tracks, Bear Tracks, Williams, looks over the class and he sees me as the last man in the formation. And he looks at me, and he says, "Ensign Richards, I don't know how you got to be here."

• 51:45Speaker 01

  I do know you're not supposed to be here, but somehow you did it. So I'm gonna let you stay here and that is the only goon squad I ever missed.

• 51:56Jocko Willink?

  Uh, how many? So I guess you said you were in 54. That's who you went through hell week with?

• 52:01Speaker 01

  Right. I went through, uh, hell week and diving phase was the third phase at that point in time. So I went already all the way into the second phase of diving week before I got a cellulitis infection that actually hospitalized me.

• 52:13Jocko Willink?

  What do you? How many people quit during hell week?

• 52:18Speaker 01

  We started with slightly over, uh, slightly over 200 guys in class 54 and we ended up with, uh, right around 52, 54 guys, uh, you know, graduating out of 54. So we lost 150 guys.

• 52:36Jocko Willink?

  Just ringing out.

• 52:37Speaker 01

  Ringing that bell.

• 52:39Jocko Willink?

  Kinda crazy. And then you said at this time, some guys would get orders to UDT, some guys would get orders to SEAL Team. It seemed like at one point it was you were gonna go to UDT most likely and a couple of guys would go to SEAL Team. And you ended up getting orders to SEAL Team?

• 52:57Speaker 01

  Yes. Uh, and as far as I'm concerned, that was no accident because what I did is uh, I realized that the situation is just as you expressed, uh, and that only a few guys ended up going to the SEAL Teams. Well, uh, I petitioned a couple of the, uh, of the instructors, uh, that, uh, hey, I really wanna go to SEAL Team. Uh, and, uh, you know, one of them was a, uh, a highly decorated, uh, SEAL chief by the name of, uh, you know, Tommy Hatchet. I don't know if that name rings a bell to you, uh, but, uh, Tom was, uh, was one of the few black guys we had in the teams at the time. And I went up to, uh, to Chief Hatchet and I said, you know, chief, uh, uh, I really wanna go to, you

• 53:42Speaker 01

  know, go to SEAL Team 1. I said, I think that's where I belong. And, uh, I went up to a couple of other of the instructors and now at this point in time, uh, Chief Hatchet was, uh, uh, Chief Hatchet was in, uh, second phase and I'm in third phase. But, you know, I went to those guys because, uh, second phase, of course, not of course, second phase was land warfare and those are the, uh, the SEAL guys. And I said, you know, this is, this is what I wanna do. And, uh, obviously that must've said something to somebody, uh, cause, uh, cause they let me go.

• 54:12Jocko Willink?

  So you show up to SEAL Team One.

• 54:13Speaker 01

  Let's back up. I want to tell, I want to tell two training stories here.

• 54:17Jocko Willink?

  Hundred percent.

• 54:19Speaker 01

  In, uh, uh, different, different hell weeks have, uh, have different, uh, layouts and you know, what's done when, uh, because of course the, uh, the, the students, you know, learn too much about what's coming up, uh, next and, and they can sort of, you know, get their minds, uh, get their minds around it. So, uh, when, uh, Admiral Smith and I went through training together, uh, one of the events that they did was, uh, you know, I don't know what they called it, but let's call it the last man standing. That is, they drew a circle in the sand, put the class inside the circle and said that the last guy inside the circle gets X number of points for his, uh, for his boat team. Well, uh, you know, Ray Smith was a, uh, was a boxing champion at the, at the Naval Academy. Uh, I, Jesus, I want

• 55:03Speaker 01

  to say, uh, uh, he, he was a, uh, he was a weight man. That is, he threw, uh, uh, threw the, uh, the hammer or something like that. Uh, so Ray was a pretty, pretty strong guy. Ray was about 200 pounds, maybe 205 at the most, maybe a buck 95. So.

• 55:20Jocko Willink?

  He was taller too, right?

• 55:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, about my height.

• 55:22Jocko Willink?

  Oh, really?

• 55:22Speaker 01

  Might've been just a little bit taller. Oh, I mean, cause he, he, he did look kind of skinny next to me.

• 55:29Speaker 01

  So, uh, uh, Ray and I went up to each other and we said, hey, let's, let's make this easy on ourselves. We'll throw everybody else out of the circle and it'll be you and I and see who gets the points of the boat group. That's exactly what we did. We threw those other 50 suckers out of the, uh, out of the circle and, uh, came down to Ray and I wrestling on the ground and I'm trying to, you know, pick them up and throw them out of the circle. When, uh, you know, instructor Moy sees and I've, I've raised my head to, you know, see where the line is and where I've got, uh, where I've got Ray so I can, you know, toss them out of there. And just as I raised my head, Instructor Moy had a IBS paddle full of sand and threw it in my face. Basically, I had eyes, ears, nose, and mouth full of sand, and quite frankly,

• 56:14Speaker 01

  I thought I was blinded. But the students say that after I roared at Instructor Moy, that I only missed them by a couple of steps. Because I said, "Screw it, Lieutenant J.G. Smith, I'm going after that son of a bitch who just filled my face full of sand." I missed the instructor, and they had one of the guys take me down to the water and clear me out. And the crappy thing is, that Ray Smith didn't even get the points for his boat crew, because he didn't throw me out. I left in my own accord. So, fast forward 20 some odd years,

• 56:58Speaker 01

  I'm now the skipper of BUDS. And Ray is the Admiral in charge of Naval Special Warfare Command. And Ray and his wife Kathy are living across the street on the amphib base. And Ray's son is going through SEAL training. So, Ray, you know, we have the breakout, and, you know, some people, and the breakout includes busting the students out of the barracks, giving them all sorts of confusing directions and things to do. There's also instructors

• 57:37Speaker 01

  firing blanks from M60 machine guns, using, you know, flashbangs, which are a very bright, very loud explosive simulator to disorient the students. And yet, here, you know, a couple of hundred yards away, on the other side of the Strand Highway, is Navy housing. So, usually, that Sunday night when we started Hell Week, the phones lit up, and one night it was...

• 58:05Speaker 01

  Admiral Smith's wife Kathy complaining to Ray, you know, what is Tom doing to those boys? So as their son goes through training, I was, you know, particularly careful to make sure that, that I did not single, you know, him out, but I was, it was also, you know, attentive to the fact that, you know, sometimes the son of, we call them legacies going through training, just like they did in what was that, what was that movie? Animal House, you know, legacies, but we, we wanted to make sure that, you know, if somebody's father had been jackass of the week to one of the, the instructors, that,

• 58:47Speaker 01

  that that didn't carry over and taint his, uh, son's attempt to get through training. But anyway, I remember, I remember Ray coming, you know, telling me the story about, Ray, do you realize what they're doing to these boys? I'm sorry Kathy, if you hear this, but Ray was, Ray was concerned about, or Kathy was concerned about her son. Ray and Kathy were married when, when Ray and I went through training, but you know, Ray obviously did a phenomenal job of not, you know, telling Kathy about what, how bad his day was.

• 59:17Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's a hard thing to camouflage too, because you're coming home with you chafing, you're bruised up and beat up, you've got cuts and nicks all over your body and swe- your ankles and knees are swelled up, it's pretty savage.

• 59:29Speaker 01

  Absolutely, but, you know, Kathy obviously didn't appreciate what Ray was going through when he went through training. So, we get through Nate's first phase, he makes it, makes it through hell week, and, well, not quite, uh, so, when Ray and I went through training, hell week secured on Saturday morning. Not that you had it easy Jaco, I understand. Training, training secured on Saturday morning. Well, when I was the, the skipper of the center, uh, training secured on Friday morning.

• 1:00:01Speaker 01

  You got a whole 24 hours off. So, uh, the, uh, as I mentioned earlier, uh, you know, guys learn, you know, tricks about what happens at what point in time during hell week. And so the classes had come to understand that, okay, around 10, 10:30, maybe 11 o'clock on Friday, they're going to secure you, you know, because the corpsmen got to give you a check and then, uh, you know, they gotta, you gotta make sure that we get anybody over to Balboa who needs to go to Balboa, that's Balboa Naval Hospital. Uh, but, uh, of course, the instructors want to get off by, uh, by three or four o'clock in the afternoon. So got to secure everybody early enough. So the students knew this. So the students, uh,

• 1:00:41Speaker 01

  so I, I, I get the instructor staff together. I say, this is what we're going to do. The students think that at the end of this particular evolution, their week is over. So when they get, when you get them lined up here, they're thinking, we're done. So we're not done. So what I did is I went out to, you know, they thought I was coming over the, uh, coming over the dune to these guys lined up by the, uh, by the ocean that I was going to secure training, uh, secure, secure hell week. Secure means to, uh, you know, finish it up, close it down. So I come over the, uh, come over the, uh, the berm and I walk down to the class and I start to engage Ensign Smith in conversation. Along the lines of, you

• 1:01:25Speaker 01

  know, Ensign Smith, you, you probably remember stories of your father that he and I went through, uh, through BUDS together and everybody is a soup sandwich at the end of hell week, whether it's Friday morning, whether it's Friday morning or Saturday morning. Everybody's a soup sandwich. Ensign Smith was no better. And he has no idea what the hell I'm talking about. He just knows that they're standing there getting ready to get secured. So I said, "Ensign Smith, uh, do you recall that, uh, when your dad and I went through SEAL training? Uh, SEAL training didn't secure until Saturday morning." This is only, this is only, you know, ten thirty Friday morning. I guess you guys got another twenty-four hours. And I turned around and I left.

• 1:02:09Speaker 01

  I did not secure Hell Week. We got all these kids thinking, we're done, we've made it. Maybe I can get a hot shower. I can't take another step if I had to. And there's guys with tears running down their faces. Uh, and they turned, uh, turned to each other. I, I, I can't do it. I, I, I can't, I can't make another twenty-four hours. So the deal I had with the instructor staff was, okay, they, you know, you know, mustered the kids up and, you know, off they go on a, uh, on a, on an IBS carry towards the, uh, towards the rocks in front of the Hotel Dell. And, uh, what I wanted them to do was to suck it up and do whatever was necessary.

• 1:02:52Speaker 01

  And so these kids sucked it up and they went down to the, uh, to the Hotel Dell and came back. And I secured them. And when I secured them, I said, this is a lesson you're probably never gonna forget in your life. You thought that this was gonna happen. That is, Hell Week was gonna be secured an hour ago. It didn't happen. You needed to suck it up and figure out what to do. At that point in time, and maybe it still goes on today, but classes, uh, would, uh, have a T-shirt made for, uh, for their class. And there'd be some kind of a cartoon or caricature on it and a, uh, and a saying. Well, that class's saying was, it isn't over till it's over.

• 1:03:35Speaker 01

  And every one of them, uh, every one of them learned a lesson. Not only in that class, but for the next several classes, they didn't know what was gonna happen. That was my objective. Keep them confused. Keep them confused. Something else I did when I was a SEAL, buds, uh, was...

• 1:03:57Speaker 01

  Establish something called the Junior Officer Training Course. Now, as we all know today, SEAL training is broken into several sections, but two distinct sections. The first approximate six months is equal to what I did back when I went through training. The second six months, where you earn your qualification as a SEAL, is more advanced training. In my day, they had something called SEAL Basic Indoctrination Training. That is, you would get to the SEAL team, you would go through this five or six weeks of advanced training, which is what today's second six months is.

• 1:04:38Speaker 01

  You would go through that next six weeks or so of advanced training, and the decision would be made whether or not the commanding officer was going to recommend you for your Trident to become a SEAL. When I graduated from SEAL training, me and X number of guys, as we discussed a few moments ago, went directly to SEAL Team One. Bunch of guys went to UDT's 11 and 12. Their team was still around then, too. So, what happened was, those friendships that you, and believe me, as you know Jaco, and I'm sure you guys understand, there are no tighter associations or friendships than you form when you go through BUDS training.

• 1:05:21Speaker 01

  So, what would happen was, naturally, when you get a bunch of guys, 10 or 15 guys from a particular class, going to a particular team, they tend to hang out together, to include the junior officers. And the, you know, Naval Special Warfare is probably one of the few organizations where there are a lot of close friends between the officers and the enlisted, and I mean really close friends. First-name basis, you name it, you know, grandparents to kids, you name it. Close association. What I wanted to do was, I wanted to break that. Bond, I wanted to break that dependency. I wanted those junior officers to have to go to a team and stand on their own, not be able

• 1:06:06Speaker 01

  to lean on a bunch of guys that they had gone through training with. They were now officers. They were now going to have to make some significant decisions that would potentially affect some of their fellow classmates. They were always officers, if you will, and you know, going through training that officers were assigned more responsibilities and leaned on harder than the than some of the troops. But I wanted to give these guys not only separation, but I want to give them some tools to work with. So I started at that point in time what I called the junior officer training class. And it was only two and a half or three weeks at the at the outset. I don't know what it is today. But we set that set that program up for for two reasons.

• 1:06:51Speaker 01

  Leadership training, you know, management, you know, training, exposure to to other other factors about the Navy other than BUDs training. So I I set that up and and now that junior officer training is is part of that second six months of of of the of the BUDs training. But I feel I feel proud in the fact that that still exists and and I and of course it's part of that evolution of training that is naturally going to happen. But it was one of the one of the best things that I thought that I did while I was the SEAL of BUDs.

• 1:07:32Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and just it's expanded a ton. I know my my buddy Leif was actually, when we got home from our last deployment together, he took over the that JOTZI course, expanded. We started, he started taking guys out in the field. We really focused on leadership and I think it by by the time he was done, I think it was out to maybe six weeks. And just trying to make it more more comprehensive and get the guys more prepared for when they do show up at a SEAL team.

• 1:07:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, so yeah, it's still there. We put together a, a reading list, uh, you know, and, uh, we, uh, not just so that, uh, guys that have a list to refer to, we, uh, we made everybody take a book and, uh, provide a, uh, a summary. Uh, I forget the name of the, uh, the young ensign who, uh, took, uh, Dick Marcinko's first book, uh, Rogue Warrior. And before I say anything else, uh, sorry to see that, uh, Dick has passed. Uh, he was a, uh, a very influential individual in the development of, uh, development groups, field team six, whatever, whatever they're called today. Uh, although, you know, Dick did things his own way, uh, you know, ruffled

• 1:08:39Speaker 01

  a few feathers in the process. Uh, I have nothing but the greatest personal respect for Dick Marcinko. So Dick gets out of the Navy after a, uh, some kind of a felony conviction. Uh, Tom Richards personally feels that, you know, I don't think, I don't think Dick Marcinko would do anything like, you know, of a felony nature. It just, that's just not who Dick was. Dick could be a royal pain in the ass and, uh, you know, you, you name it, but, uh, uh, you know, Dick, Dick got some things done. So anyway, he writes this book Rogue Warrior, uh, first of his books. And, uh, in it, he reveals a number of things that

• 1:09:23Speaker 01

  were probably, uh, you know, you know, classified at the time and, but he, he just, uh, you know, served some time and I think, uh, I think he retired as a commander. Uh, I'm, I'm not sure what, uh, what happened to him. He had, he had been promoted to captain, but in any event, uh, the, uh, the Navy decided not to, uh, slap his wrist about some of the things that were in the book. Uh, but you could tell reading the book, uh, that, uh, Dick had not separated from the Navy on the greatest of terms. Uh, and so, uh, this young junior officer who was the first guy to review Dick's book, titles his book review Rogue

• 1:10:06Speaker 01

  Weiner, as opposed to Rogue Warrior. Uh, I'll, I'll, I'll never forget that, uh, that, that ensign and, uh, he had, he, he noted some of the things that, uh, Dick said and he saw some of the, uh, the way that Dick was, uh, you know. Poking his finger back in the eye of the United States Navy. Kid did a very good, uh, very good job. And of course, that's exactly what Dick was doing, saying, "Fuck you, the United States Navy." Cause, uh, you know, Dick, uh, well, that's who Dick was. That was, uh, Junior Officer Training Course was a, uh, was something that I was really proud of.

• 1:10:43Jocko Willink?

  So you, obviously, at the end of BUDS, for you, you didn't have Junior Officer Training Course. You just showed up to the SEAL Team.

• 1:10:50Speaker 01

  And that's why, that's why I created that Junior Officer Training Course, cause I, I saw what I was missing. I mean, I walk into a team and now I've got a, uh, you know, how many years did you have, uh, before you got commissioned, Jaco?

• 1:11:02Jocko Willink?

  I had eight.

• 1:11:03Speaker 01

  Eight years. Here I go. You know, wet behind the ears, uh, Ensign, and I'm walking in, and I've gotta be the guy in charge of guys like Jaco, who's got eight years under his belt. Or, uh, in, in my SEAL platoon, we had, uh, uh, Jack Schultz, and, uh, who was he? Randy Sheridan, two, uh, two first class. I think Jack made chief during that period of time, you know? I really should have been in a learning mode, as opposed to a leading mode at that point in time. And I learned as much as I could from those guys. Uh, so, again, that, that goes back to, uh, the, the whole, uh, the whole premise of that, uh, J O T C.

• 1:11:48Jocko Willink?

  So, so you graduate from BUDS, now, it's just checking into SEAL Team. How many guys from your class went to SEAL Team One?

• 1:11:54Speaker 01

  I don't remember, uh, you know, uh, Gary Stubblefield, uh, you know, best man of my wedding, and so on. Uh, and, uh, he and I deployed to Vietnam, surely they're after.

• 1:12:04Jocko Willink?

  Was it, was it 1970 when you graduated?

• 1:12:06Speaker 01

  Right. I graduated in, in April of, uh, April of 1970. Uh, that was 55. Class 54 graduated in February. Uh, and, uh, uh, Gary was from 54. Uh, there were, there were half a dozen of us, maybe, uh, no more than a dozen, uh, that went to, uh, to Team One. And, uh, you know, right into, uh, right into platoons, uh, right into pre-deployment training, and boom, gone.

• 1:12:33Jocko Willink?

  I know I talked to some of the guys from Vietnam and they said when they checked into Team One, I remember one guy telling me like you got in the shower, you know, after a PT or something and he's looking at everybody's like shot up, everybody's wounded. It's just so much combat for those guys back in that time. And the SEAL Team, SEAL Team One and SEAL Team Two, that's it for the SEAL Teams. And there's, what'd you have, 150 guys at the team?

• 1:12:58Speaker 01

  Thereabouts. That's a, that's a good number. And we had, we had situations in SEAL Team One where a platoon would be, you know, scheduled to, you know, come back from a, from a deployment and the deploying platoon is headed on over there and, and maybe they, they hook up in the Philippines where a couple of guys from that platoon that was supposedly coming back to the States, a couple of those guys would augment that platoon and go right, go right back in country. There were, there were a lot of, there were a lot of deployments like that and, and a lot of, a lot of hard men.

• 1:13:36Jocko Willink?

  How long did it take for you to get your trident? So you went through SBI and SBI you said was like eight weeks long?

• 1:13:40Speaker 01

  About, probably closer to six. And

• 1:13:45Jocko Willink?

  And that must have just been straight, just jungle training?

• 1:13:47Speaker 01

  Jungle training. You remember Nile and out there in California and the Salton Sea and the, the irrigation canals and so on that feed into that provided some really, you know, interesting terrain. And of course, it's the frickin' desert, so it's hot. So it was, it was a really good place to train.

• 1:14:09Jocko Willink?

  And then you, and then at the end of SBI, that's when you get your trident?

• 1:14:14Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:14:17Jocko Willink?

  And then you get put into a platoon?

• 1:14:19Speaker 01

  Absolutely. And at that point in time, you were going into a platoon and the, the challenge for the CO and XO at the time, of course, is okay, what's the makeup of the platoon? We normally want to have a, an officer making a second deployment. And then you've got, you know, a couple of, a couple of senior enlisted and maybe a couple of junior enlisted. Senior enlisted might be on their third trip, the junior guys might be on their, on their second. But we had a

• 1:14:51Speaker 01

  We had a, a, a green platoon. Grant Telfer was a, a surface warfare officer, uh, before he went through training. And he started training as a lieutenant, so, uh, and I don't remember how many, uh, you know, how many, uh, years senior to me he was, uh, but he started training as a lieutenant, uh, and, uh.

• 1:15:12Jocko Willink?

  Was that his first platoon as well?

• 1:15:13Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:15:14Jocko Willink?

  Oh, wow.

• 1:15:14Speaker 01

  Uh, he, he, he and I graduated in class fifty-five.

• 1:15:17Jocko Willink?

  Oh, okay.

• 1:15:18Speaker 01

  So, uh, the, uh, XO called me in and, uh, you know, asked if, uh,

• 1:15:25Speaker 01

  asked if I, uh, wanted to be, uh, the, uh, A O I C in, in Grant's platoon. And I said, sure, uh, that, that gets me, uh, get, that gets me where I want to go sooner than it normally would have. Now, you bet. And as I said, we had, uh, Jack Schultz, who, uh, later got commissioned, retired as a commander out of, uh, out of Dev Group, uh, and, uh, Randy Sheridan, uh, who, uh, got wounded and I, and I think he was medically retired, uh, uh, from, uh, from, uh, you know, in action in, uh, uh, in, in Vietnam with, uh, with the platoon. Uh, Randall Hedge, uh, and I think Moses Marquez were the other two guys who had, uh, prior, uh, prior deployments.

• 1:16:07Speaker 01

  So, we, out of, out of fourteen guys, uh, ten of us were F N Gs.

• 1:16:14Jocko Willink?

  So, you do a workup and you're preparing to go. Now, now you're together with your platoon and how long is that? Do you spend six months like nowadays we do?

• 1:16:22Speaker 01

  Oh, no, uh, in, in that case, as I said, so I got, I got there in April. We deployed in the end of August. I got there in April and went through S B I. Yeah, doing the math.

• 1:16:32Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:32Speaker 01

  I, I, I go, I go through S B I and finish up S B I and they're putting together this platoon, Zulu platoon. And, uh, then we, we get Zulu platoon put together, we go right into, uh, right into pre-deployment training. So, uh, and it was only X number of weeks, uh, you know, a couple of months, uh, cause we had to, you know, finish up, uh, you know, we had enough time to give, give guys a, uh, a week or ten days off before, uh, deploying just to, you know, take care of business. Uh, so it was, it was a pretty, uh, you know, slam bam situation.

• 1:17:04Jocko Willink?

  But you had, the, the awesome thing is you had guys coming back from Vietnam that were running your training for your platoon?

• 1:17:10Speaker 01

  Oh, absolutely. The, uh... SBI program, when I went through it was run by guys like Master Chief Al Huey and, you know, Uncle Al. Master Chief Al Huey was a fantastic individual. I don't think I ever heard him raise his voice and I don't think I ever saw anybody working for him not do exactly what the hell they were told to do. He was a piece of work. I remember, I remember working with Al later in life and it was just, just a pleasure. But Al, Gary Gallagher, you know Gary?

• 1:17:51Jocko Willink?

  I just know these names.

• 1:17:52Speaker 01

  Okay, Gary Gallagher, nickname Muncher, Navy Judo Champion. He's one of the instructors. So we set up this, this event where we're supposed to take down a hooch. We're supposed to enter it, search it, and if there's anybody in there, you know, take them hostage and, you know, search for whatever might be there. So we go to the, we go to the hooch and we, we set up, I'm, I'm on the outside of the door and I'm, I'm facing away from the hooch just as security, just in case somebody comes up while the guys are inside. Well, the bad

• 1:18:30Speaker 01

  guy in there is Muncher. Muncher is 200 pounds. Like I say, all Navy Judo Champion, right? Muncher throws a couple of guys away in the, in the inside of the, inside of the hooch. He comes blasting out the door. The Hulk is on his knees, you know, you know, there to, to provide security. I got my, my, my weapon, you know, at the ready and as Al Huey ripped on Master Chief Gallagher, you let that...

• 1:19:07Speaker 01

  220 pound ensign who was on his knees, catch you and wrap you up. Cause I mean, I caught him from behind. I caught Gallagher from behind and just, uh, you know, wrapped them up in a nice neat package. And, uh, Master Chief Uwe had a, uh, had a blast with that. But, uh, yeah, but lesson learned, you know, there, there we go. Here's this, uh, here's this bleeder coming out and, uh, you know, you gotta be prepared for, uh, for those, uh, for those bleeders coming out.

• 1:19:36Jocko Willink?

  And you guys were re- uh, there was no other mission that you were looking to do, uh, you know, you're going to Vietnam and that's just a hundred percent of the focus?

• 1:19:43Speaker 01

  Complete. Uh, I mean, when you look at the, uh, the mission focus that the SEAL platoons have today, uh, the breadth of, uh, the breadth of the, the type of missions they can get, you know, like, uh, interdiction at sea, taking down a ship at sea. I never thought of that. You know, I mean, uh, I wouldn't have had a clue of how to do it. Yeah. I'm sure, uh, as our guys have done today, we've clearly figured out how to do that. Uh, and, and, and those type of things. No. You know, we, uh, we were, uh, we were focused on one thing. We were created by President Kennedy to do that.

• 1:20:17Jocko Willink?

  And did you always carry a stoner?

• 1:20:19Speaker 01

  Right. That was my, that was my weapon in the field. Uh,

• 1:20:22Jocko Willink?

  And even when you were telling that story, you, you were throwing linked 556 ammo to two other guys.

• 1:20:27Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:20:28Jocko Willink?

  So how many stoners did you have in that squad?

• 1:20:30Speaker 01

  Uh, let me see, where Gary and, uh, Gary and Wendell might've been the only other, uh, cause I think, uh, yeah, I think Gary and Wendell was probably the only other two guys. The rest of the guys had, uh, you know, M16 or M16 variants. But the important part of that is, and one of the reasons why, uh, multiple guys were carrying stoners is so that you had that ammunition interoperability. And, you know, my, uh, the receiver group of my weapon took four rounds, uh, and the, and the guys said if, if, uh, if that stoner hadn't been across my chest where it was, I'd have been, I'd have had four holes. I, I wouldn't be, I wouldn't be here having that conversation today. So my gun was an inoperable model. Uh, but as I said, I carried, you know, anywhere from a thousand, 1,200 rounds on a, uh, on an op and, uh, I had,

• 1:21:14Speaker 01

  I had plenty to give away.

• 1:21:16Jocko Willink?

  When, so when you guys, so you guys get done with deployment and now you're going, you're flying over to Vietnam. Did you guys fly commercial over to Vietnam? How'd you get over there?

• 1:21:23Speaker 01

  Fly commercial by ass.

• 1:21:25Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, all kinds of Sog guys flew over there. A lot of Army replacements. They flew over their commercial air. Or I guess it was chartered flights. That's what it was. So the regular Army guys would fly over there in commercial flights.

• 1:21:36Speaker 01

  We, we flew over and I believe what might have been the last United States Navy C-118, I believe it was. And, uh, you know, we were gonna go to Hawaii, from Hawaii to the PI and into, uh, and into, uh, you know, Tonsilut Airport in, uh, in Saigon. So,

• 1:21:58Speaker 01

  as Navy pilots would have the habit of doing, ah, shucks, we got to Hawaii and we broke down for a few days. Well, uh, uh, none of us, you know, none of us were rich at the time, uh, or now, but, uh, you know, I had, uh, I had a few bucks and, uh, you know, managed to waste it. Uh, but I also, uh, you know, was able to distribute a few bucks to some of the other guys in the platoon because we had no money. We didn't figure we were gonna be anywhere. We were gonna have to pay for anything or have a chance to go buy a beer. Uh, but, uh, we, uh, we broke down in, uh, broke down in Hawaii. And,

• 1:22:41Speaker 01

  that's where, that's where Grant Telfer showed us his, uh, his, uh, palm tree climbing skills to go up and, uh, you know, pick a coconut.

• 1:22:50Jocko Willink?

  And then from there you go, did you stop in the PI?

• 1:22:53Speaker 01

  Uh, we did.

• 1:22:54Jocko Willink?

  And then from there you get into Vietnam. What, what's the, what's, what's it like when you hit the ground in Vietnam?

• 1:23:00Speaker 01

  Hotter than I could have imagined. We're talking August in, in, in Vietnam. And, uh, you know, I, I didn't grow up with, uh, with air conditioning, but I grew up on Long Island and you had the Long Island Sound on one side and you had the Atlantic Ocean on the other side. So it never got, really got, you know, particularly hot. Uh, so, uh, you know, the, uh, uh, going through, uh, going through training in the summer in Coronado was as hot as I'd ever been before I got to, uh, before I got to Vietnam. And, uh, it was just hot, humid, muggy, uh, and, uh, a, uh, a hyperkinetic level of activity. Like, it's hard to describe. So what was your, where were you located?

• 1:23:44Speaker 01

  Uh, we, uh, we spent a few days in Saigon and, uh, then we were shipped down to, uh, uh, the, the very southern tip of, of Vietnam. If you look at Vietnam on a map, there's kinda like a little tail, kinda like the, uh, the Keys in, uh, in Florida, well, there's this little tail down there and, uh, uh, the very bottom part of, uh, of Vietnam and we were on the, uh, we were on something called the Kulon River down there. And did you have another platoon with you or is it just Zulu? There were several platoons, uh, you know, cycling through there. What we had was something called, uh, Sea Float and Sea Float was a series of barges lashed together in the, in the river, uh, with, uh, detachments of, uh, you know, patrol

• 1:24:28Speaker 01

  boats operating from there and SEAL platoons operating from, uh, uh, from the, uh, from the barges. Shortly after we got there and, and when we arrived, they had already started building a, uh, a, uh, a short airstrip, uh, and some, uh, what do they call them? Sea huts, uh, you know, uh, you know, plywood and, uh, you know, screen sides and, uh, you know, you know, didn't do much more than, uh, block the rain. Of course, there was no, no AC. And what was the mission set you guys were given? We were, we were there to, uh, to look for, uh, for VC, uh, you know, VC tax collectors, uh, you know, anybody, uh, infiltrating that, uh, that part of the world.

• 1:25:10Speaker 01

  Gather the intelligence, try to find out who these folks were, where they were and go after them. Uh, we did, uh, we, we did specific, uh, ops going in for an individual at, at a location. Uh, we did things like, uh, going out in, uh, Sampanes, patrolling at night, looking for the, uh, for the VC tax collectors, uh, you know, trying to hit up the, uh, the locals. Uh, we'd sit on, uh, sit on, uh, you know, riverside ambushes, uh, you know, looking for these guys. Uh, I missed a particular, uh, operation, but, uh, uh, Grant, uh, Grant Telfer's squad had a, uh, had a phenomenal op, uh, you know, based

• 1:25:50Speaker 01

  On some intelligence that we generated and again, you know, Jack Schultz would would go off, you know, checking with the PRUs, the advisors and, you know, looking for, you know, bits and pieces of intelligence and one of the, one of the coups that they came up with was a, a weapon storage facility, not too far from, from where Solid Anchor was located down there in the Nam Can province. At that point in time, our squad was up in a place called Dam Doy, you know, 25, 30 miles up the river, something like that, and operating out of, out of there. We thought, you know, it might be some virgin territory. We could go find some bad guys. But while

• 1:26:35Speaker 01

  we were up there, you know, Grant and the other guys found this, you know, one of the largest ammo caches, you know, VC ammo caches located in the, in the war. Yeah.

• 1:26:47Jocko Willink?

  What was your op tempo like? How often were you guys going out? I've heard, didn't, didn't they sometimes rotate squad one tonight, squad two tomorrow night and then go back and forth?

• 1:26:55Speaker 01

  Absolutely. And sometimes if you, if you didn't have something to work with, it might be every, every third day, it might be every fourth day. But, oh boy, we had a, we had a, a little sign hanging on the, on the, on the outside of the hooch. Actually, that, that's, that, you know, where you draw the little lines and then a slash through it and you have five, those are the, those were the, that was a tally that what we, of the, of the known KIA's. I, I really don't remember the, the total number of ops that we did in that, in that six months.

• 1:27:33Jocko Willink?

  But it was a, but it was a heavy op tempo. You were working a lot.

• 1:27:36Speaker 01

  It, it was, it was heavy enough. Yeah. I, I would not have wanted to have to go out more often than that. You come back, you know, because you go out and you completely break your circadian rhythms. You know, you, you go out, you go out at night and you're, you're exhausted. You're slogging through, through ankle knee deep, you know, mud carrying you know, 50, 60 pounds of, of gear. And if you, you, you patrol, you know,

• 1:28:02Speaker 01

  Five, ten clicks, fifteen clicks doing that stuff? You're a whipped puppy. And it takes a couple of days to respond. Cause you don't wanna go out tired. And you don't wanna go out not fresh. Because if you do, somebody's gonna die.

• 1:28:16Jocko Willink?

  So you had, would you guys have, did you guys have fourteen men in your platoon?

• 1:28:21Speaker 01

  Exactly, fourteen guys.

• 1:28:22Jocko Willink?

  The squads you were going out with was seven?

• 1:28:25Speaker 01

  Seven, six, five, whatever, whatever, uh, whatever we felt was, uh, necessary. We, uh, we were sitting down there at, uh, on the, on Solid Anchor. And we were routinely getting mortared, uh, you know, from someplace, you know, a few clicks, uh, to the east and a few clicks north. So, uh, what you do is you, you look at the, uh, at the impact of the mortar. And you can tell by the, uh, the size of the hole that the mortar makes, whether it's a, uh, uh, fifty-one or eighty-two millimeter mortar. That's the, the bad guys did the eighty-two, we had eighty-ones, right? Okay, thanks, it's been a while. Uh, so you could tell by the size of the, uh, of the crater, what, what, uh, what size mortar it was.

• 1:29:09Speaker 01

  And that tells you the, uh, the maximum range of the mortar. And again, looking at the crater, you could also tell if it was a, uh, if it was a high angle shot coming down from a, you know, short range or, or, and so you could, you could kind of figure out that range. And then, of course, the orientation of the, of the crater from the impact tells you the, uh, the azimuth, the back azimuth where it's coming. So we kinda did that and we said, okay, they're probably coming right down this here river and setting up about here. So we went out early and set up further so that they'd have to come down in front of us. Uh, you know, we were tired of having card games interrupted by a mortar attack, you know? So, uh, we, uh, quite frankly, that's true.

• 1:29:52Speaker 01

  There were several mortar attacks where we were out of that, out of that card game and into the, uh, into the bomb shelter before the frickin' cards hit the floor, I'm telling you. Uh, but, so we went up there to, uh, to try to intercept this, uh, this mortar crew. And, uh, of course, you wanna be careful and not tip your hand with, uh, with any kind of, uh, uh, VR, visual reconnaissance of the, uh, of the area. So we- We did a VR and then we came, then we set the up a few, a few days later. But the canopy was so hard, what we missed was another trail on the river. So we set up X number of yards off the river. So we'd have a field of fire on the river, because we figured they were coming down the river.

• 1:30:36Speaker 01

  Oh no, these boys are coming down this well-worn track behind us. You know, you know, whistling Dixie or whatever the Vietnamese were, were doing there. All of a sudden, we're sitting here facing the river and we hear this chatter going on behind us. As these guys are walking behind us with the, with the, with the mortar. And we couldn't, we couldn't do anything. That is, if we started to make the noise to shift and try to take them under fire, we'd have given, these guys are walking down the trail with their, with their guns in their hands. You know, we're sitting there, sitting there, lying there, kneeling there, you know, in position, facing the river. With their guns pointing in the wrong direction. Guns pointing in the wrong direction.

• 1:31:19Speaker 01

  So we'd have, we'd have made a hell of a lot of racket and we'd have, you know, taken some hits. So we call off the mission and, you know, later on, we were, we're in our own sandpans, paddling back to, back to Solid Anchor. And you look off in the distance and you see this flash. Well, the, the Vietnamese had a 105 millimeter battery across the river from Solid Anchor. And we also had a, a shared TAC, you know, Tactical Operations Center. And before we went out, we put in a designated no-fire zone.

• 1:32:00Speaker 01

  So we're paddling our sandpans back down the, the river. And I see these flashes. And because of the angle of the flash, you know it's headed in your frickin' direction. And, you know, I said, well, it not could be anywhere near us. All of a sudden, there's an airburst almost directly above us. And then a few more airbursts, you know, up and down the river where we are. I get on that radio and I, you know, to the US side of the talk, you know, cease fire. Probably said a few things on the air that I shouldn't have said, but I said, cease fire. They cease fire.

• 1:32:44Speaker 01

  And, and I got back to the talk and, and I'm a JG. I had this fucking lieutenant about hanging from the rafters as I was explaining to him, you know, how he almost, how he almost, you know, killed some of us. I could not believe, you could see, you could see the shrapnel peppering the water all around us. Nobody got hit. I don't know how that happened. Another lucky day on the ranch.

• 1:33:13Jocko Willink?

  How often would you say you guys would get in enemy contact when you guys went out?

• 1:33:20Speaker 01

  I don't want, the kind of guy I am, not enough. We went over there to kill bad guys, you know? These people had caused the United States of America to get into a shooting war over here. And so, my job was to kill the bad guys. And we didn't, we didn't have enough contact as far as I'm concerned. You know, I, you know, I'll, I'll finish up with another thought on that, but, you know, that's, that's, that's what I signed up to do. And if the nation comes to a point where that needs to be done, send me, coach. You know, that's, that's, that's, that's who is in the SEAL teams.

• 1:34:04Speaker 01

  That's why you have SEAL teams, special forces, Green Berets, Air Force special operations guys. These guys, you know, send me, coach. That's what we're here for.

• 1:34:16Jocko Willink?

  So a- as you got towards, because the, the event that we started off talking about, that was one of the last operations that you guys were scheduled to do. Is that right?

• 1:34:25Speaker 01

  Absolutely. We had, we had deployed in, in, in August of 70 and we were, you know, scheduled to, to come back the beginning of February of 71 and, and, and my squad had, you know, started, you know, cleaning the gear and preparing the gear to pack it up and, and, and send it home. Because one of the last things you have to do is, is clean everything because it's going to be inspected to make sure you're not bringing back any particular mud, flora, fauna, or whatever from, from overseas. So you, you gotta, it takes a while to prepare. We'd started that process in my squad and Grant, Grant wanted to do one more operation and since it was Grant with whatever, whatever information he had had, I wasn't

• 1:35:08Speaker 01

  paying attention to it. I was working with my guys, getting ready, getting ready to come home.

• 1:35:15Jocko Willink?

  But his operation didn't quite go as he planned. Because he flew, they, they got contacted in the helicopters.

• 1:35:21Speaker 01

  They, they took fire on the way into the area where they were going to go. And that's when Marcus Arroyo got shot in the shoulder and wounded seriously enough to end up being medically retired.

• 1:35:36Jocko Willink?

  So they, they, so Squad One goes out to execute this mission. As they're flying into this LZ, they take fire, Arroyo gets wounded, it's bad enough that they can't, they have, they have to abort the mission. They come back to base.

• 1:35:51Speaker 01

  They come back to base and they take Marcus off the, the plane, our corpsman, you know, Doc Harris, Tom Harris, who's on his deathbed. Tom Harris takes Marcus down to, you know, we had a, call it a sick bay, not much more than that, there at Solid Anchor. And Tom is monitoring, you know, what's going on with Marcus.

• 1:36:16Speaker 01

  Doc Harris was, uh, excuse me, Marcus was, uh, uh, the radioman for that, that squad. Uh, Doc Harris was the other radioman, the other radioman in the platoon. Uh, Doc Harris is taking care of Marcus Arroyo and, uh, so, uh, Grant needed a radioman. And so, uh, my basic thought is it's not smart to go back. Grant wanted to go back, uh, and I said, "Well, you're going back, someone's gonna have to carry your ass out of the rice paddy and I'll carry the radio." Uh, words to, uh, words to that effect.

• 1:36:55Speaker 01

  Uh, and, uh, we, uh, you know, it wasn't too, you know, to, to Grant in, I don't want to say in defense, but, you know, in Grant's thought process, it wasn't exactly where he was going in. Uh, but so anyway, we go back to that area and, uh, we, uh, we took fire as we were coming in and, uh, we, uh, we, we landed and, you know, we went up a rice paddy over one and up the next and, uh, we were, as I say, taking fire almost immediately, but we went up that, uh, third, uh, section of rice paddy, uh, we were just, uh, we were just in a kill zone.

• 1:37:30Jocko Willink?

  Had you guys had anyone wounded prior to that?

• 1:37:32Speaker 01

  Yes. Uh, uh, Randy, uh, Randy Sheridan had been, uh, seriously wounded, uh, uh, he, uh, he basically lost his elbow, uh, as a result of the wound that he got on, on one of my squad operations.

• 1:37:49Jocko Willink?

  Had you guys had anyone killed in your platoon?

• 1:37:51Speaker 01

  No. Oh, yeah, and, uh, you know, you know, I feel fortunate to be able to talk about the Operation, um, thirty-one, uh, January, uh, nineteen seventy, thirty January nineteen seventy-one.

• 1:38:08Speaker 01

  Because nobody was killed with that number of bad guys and without the flying and dedication of how three Carl Nelson in particular and his, you know, his door gunners. I'm not here to have the conversation. So it's interesting to be able to have that conversation. Any smart eyes remarks that I might make about it, call it seal humor, but you know, that's what it is. I'm happy to be alive. I'm glad those guys are alive, too.

• 1:38:49Jocko Willink?

  And then that ended up being the last mission that you guys did?

• 1:38:54Speaker 01

  Absolutely. There was nobody left to go anywhere. We, and unfortunately, there was not much of a debrief. You know, we were all there and we all there in Bintui, I think, except Marcus. Marcus had, Marcus went, well, I don't know what his evac process was, but the rest of us were there in Bintui, Third Field Surgical Hospital, you know, together for a few days. But then we went different directions in the process. Jim Roland went one place. I came back to San Diego.

• 1:39:38Speaker 01

  I don't remember where Grant went, but you know, I basically, Jesus, I don't know how many years it was before I saw Grant again. It was just one of those deals.

• 1:39:47Jocko Willink?

  How bad was your hand messed up? I can't imagine getting shot in the hand. It seems like for you to be totally mobile with your hands, what, just get lucky?

• 1:39:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, I got lucky and you know, when you tell somebody that you were wounded, people wanna, you know, people are almost hesitant to ask about your war wearing because they figure you're gonna pull down your pants and show where you're shot in the ass, you know? But I've got a better one because I was holding on to the pistol grip of a machine gun.

• 1:40:18Speaker 01

  The round went through the end of my thumb, through my finger. You can see how the nail there is somewhat damaged. And then through the, through the hand and just shattered the, the bones in the hand. So, I was a radio man at this point in time. And I was fortunate, I was able to use my thumb, my index finger, in order to, to operate the handset because the, the end of, end of my middle finger was no good, my ring finger was no good, and neither was my, my pinky finger. So I had, I had two fingers to, to work the radio with and, you know, I was fortunate to be able to do that.

• 1:40:57Speaker 01

  In, in Grant Telfer's recounting of how this, this went down, he said, you know, he, he heard me yell or scream when I first got hit. And then he, then he mentions in, in the summary that he provided for Captain Slattery, I heard, you know, Tom yelp a second time. Well, let me tell you about that second time. We've all seen people like John Wayne or, what's his name, Clint Eastwood, get, get wounded and, you know, go on and do great wonderful things. And I don't remember if it was Two Mules or Sister Sarah where, you know, Eastwood takes an arrow in the shoulder and he puts a little gunpowder on the, you know, hole

• 1:41:41Speaker 01

  in the front of his shoulder and the hole in the back of the shoulder and pulls the arrow back out through. So I said, hey, shit, Eastwood can do it, I can do it. So I looked down at my hand after I got hit and I see what I thought was the bullet sticking out of the back of my hand. So, hey, you know, let's just take a second and take care of this. So I reached down and I grabbed what I thought was the bullet between my teeth and I, and I just give it a good yank to, to get that bullet out of there. Well, it was one of my finger bones and that finger bone was still attached.

• 1:42:19Speaker 01

  That's as Grant heard me yelp the second time.

• 1:42:24Speaker 01

  I mean, I don't know what the pain is like giving birth, but I'm telling you, that was, that was absolutely amazing. I swear to God, my toes curled. And, but that's the kind of guy you have in the teams. That's who the fuck we are. Yeah, okay, I got a hole in my hand. That's a bullet. Let me get rid of the bullet. You know? There's an old saying, you fuck with the truck and you get dumped, right? That's who the special forces are. If you want somebody to go in there and do the job, you want somebody to ignore pain and do what it is that they're supposed to do. 1-800-SPECIAL-OPERATIONS.

• 1:43:07Jocko Willink?

  You're coming home now from Vietnam. Did you know the war was gonna, did you know that was probably gonna be your last deployment?

• 1:43:14Speaker 01

  No, I didn't. And quite frankly, I, I got, got that information sort of like as a surprise. My, you know, when I was first wounded, they told me they were probably gonna have to have a second operation on my hand to restore, you know, full function. So I, I get to Balboa Hospital and they, they unwrap the, the cast and so on and, and they say, we don't think you're gonna be able to, to move your ring finger. And so I moved my ring finger and, you know, not a whole lot of strength there, of course, but I said, oh, well, you know, if you don't think we need to go in again, and, and, you know, straighten out the, the bones and so on, it seems to be functioning, uh, just go through a recovery process and you're good to go.

• 1:43:58Speaker 01

  So I, I said, well, if I don't have to have another operation on my hand, that's good for me. And so I went through the rehab and I, as soon as, soon as I was given a medical clearance and I was good to go.

• 1:44:12Speaker 01

  I went back into the XO's office and said XO, sign me up. And he said, Tom, I'm afraid I can't do that. The war is starting to wind down, as you just said Jaco, and the leadership, rightly so, wanted to make sure that a bunch of guys, a bunch of guys, the rest of the guys who had not had actual combat experience, would have that opportunity for that exposure. Let's make sure we understand opportunity, exposure, and the required experience that you want in your military fighting forces. So, the CO and the XO were getting as many new guys the opportunity to deploy and get

• 1:44:57Speaker 01

  that exposure to, holy shit, I'm gonna die, or maybe I'm gonna live. And live through it and you're a different person. That's what they were trying to do. XO tells me that unfortunately, I'm not gonna be able to become a member of another platoon. And I said, well, I'm outta here. I can't, I can't stay here and watch these guys go do what I wanna do. So at that point in time, I went through a decision process, trying to figure out, do I get out of the Navy? If I do, what do I do? Border Patrol? FBI?

• 1:45:42Speaker 01

  You know, what's, what's gonna be? Do I, do I stay in the teams? If I do, what do I do? And so, I, I went from SEAL Team One to the Training Center as a diving officer. And that was a, that was a great experience, you know, dealing with the kids, the new guys, kids, new guys, they're like four years, the officers are like three or four years younger than me, right? So, I, I had that job, it was a, it was a great experience. So I said, well, I'll stick around for a little while longer. And, you know, it ended up being 30 years. But I was, I was really, I was really disappointed not to get the opportunity to go back.

• 1:46:27Speaker 01

  And as you know, I went to El Salvador when Lieutenant Commander Schaffelberger was killed. And...

• 1:46:36Speaker 01

  As soon as I heard about Al's death, I raised my hand. Uh, and, uh, I was surprised that there weren't a few more people raising their hand, but, uh, I raised my hand to go, go down there. I mean, that's where, that's where my trade and my experience and my skills were going to be needed in some way, shape or form. I want to do that. That's why I signed up.

• 1:46:58Jocko Willink?

  So before you went down to El Salvador, so you did, you went to BUDS for a little while as, as a dive phase officer?

• 1:47:05Speaker 01

  I had a two-year, a two-year tour at BUDS and, uh, one of the things that I felt was a, uh, was a failure on the, on the mission where we all got, uh, got wounded there in the 30th of January was an intelligence failure. So from BUDS, I went to Defense Intelligence School. It was a nine-month program back at, uh, uh, at, uh, the Navy Yard in, uh, in Washington to see, actually the Anacostia Annex. Nine-month program. And from there, I went to, uh, two years as the, uh, as the intel officer at Naval Special Warfare Group Two. Uh, then I got to, uh, to Team One, to Team Two as the, as the ops officer and, uh, uh,

• 1:47:45Speaker 01

  that's where I met folks like, uh, uh, Bruce Van Herdum, Dick Marcinco, uh, uh, you name it, uh, all the, uh, cast characters. Uh, Bob, uh, was it Bob, uh, Bob Wagner, the, uh, Navy Cross, Navy Cross winner from, uh, one of the Navy Cross winners from SEAL Team Two, was, uh, was running the, uh, the training program, uh, at, uh, at, at Team Two. And he was, uh, he was a, uh, he was just a hard-as-nail son of a bitch. Uh, you know, you know, great guy. He wanted to make sure that the guys were, uh, were trained and ready to go and do what, uh, do what they needed to do.

• 1:48:25Jocko Willink?

  What was the, at this time, in the late seventies, I mean, there'd just be, there'd been no money for the SEALs, I'm imagining. No, like, what was the, as the, as the, as the Navy drew down, you know, during like the CARGER years? What was that like?

• 1:48:48Speaker 01

  Seeing as I'm not sure if the Navy can stop my pension, I have a hard time answering that question. When I came back from Vietnam, we had, and before I left to go to be the diving officer, the Navy was tearing down its brown water Navy. And they weren't really thinking about special operations, they were just thinking about brown water Navy. You interviewed Carl Nelson from HAL 3. The helicopter attack light squadrons that were set up in Vietnam were commissioned

• 1:49:30Speaker 01

  in Vietnam and disestablished in Vietnam, never even came back to the United States. There was not a commitment by the Navy to support special operations aviation assets. When I came back, SEAL Team 1 had a directive to reduce end strength by, it was either 30 or 34. Oh yeah, they sent guys to the fleet, right? They sent them back to the fleet. The expression that sticks in my mind was the 30 34, as we called them. Might have been the dirty 30, but it was 30 or 34 guys.

• 1:50:11Speaker 01

  And, you know, Bruce Van Herdum and George Worthington, God rest his soul, George just passed away. But can you imagine, you know, somebody in the Navy were reducing end strengths, comes down and they tell Commander Worthington and Lieutenant Commander Van Herdum, "Okay, you got a shit can, 34 of your guys who've just been through some of the most difficult training in the world, and send them back to the fleet." They came up with the best set of criteria that they could at the time for people who

• 1:50:54Speaker 01

  had only been in the team for a certain period of time, guys with no deployments, guys under the rank of such and such, you know, there were a number of those things. But they did the best that they could, but it sucked. And a bunch of those guys came back. Probably most of those guys came back. But what that shows, what I just said about the how situation, the SEAL Team 1 and I'm sure SEAL Team 2 went through the same thing, I actually have never talked to anybody about that. But you look at the Green Berets, the Army was tossing those guys left and right.

• 1:51:34Speaker 01

  So, the military did not understand, the Department of Defense, State Department, did not understand what was going on in the world and the type of conflicts we were going to see coming down the road. To your point there in the 70s, it was a period of time when not much was going on. But you turn around and you start looking at El Salvador and other locations, the operations we did down there in Panama, you know, things are starting to look pretty stinky around the rest of the world. And you're not going to send an aircraft carrier or a battleship to do that. You're going to send somebody like us. And

• 1:52:17Speaker 01

  you even fast forward to the Gulf Wars, you know, multiple, who was it that was getting, you know, most of the assignments? Every once in a while, a ship or a submarine would launch a few missiles on a particular strike. But, you know, who was getting all the press? Who was doing all the missions? Naval Special Operations, Navy Special Warfare. We've evolved, as you asked me earlier about some of the types of missions then as compared to now, we've evolved incredibly. And that evolution is absolutely key. We today are the same

• 1:53:02Speaker 01

  people that we were 50 years ago. Jesus, time flies. We are today the same guys as we were 50 years ago.

• 1:53:13Speaker 01

  The guys who figure out how to get it done. Uh, you know, people like to use the term out of the box thinking. If you think there is the box, you're already constrained. There is no box. And as we move forward, people, people wonder about what it is about naval special warfare. We are problem solvers. We need, we figure out how to, how to get it. We are given some of the most difficult missions there are in the inventory of missions. And told to, told to figure out how to do them. Sure, we draw in all kinds of other specialties, but that's exactly what we do. We draw in, you know, look at that whole business with, uh, you know, bin Laden.

• 1:53:58Speaker 01

  Uh, you know, that wasn't all us, but look at what was brought to bear when we went. Incredible intelligence assets, incredible aviation assets, incredible planning assets. Our guys figured out how to fly behind mountains and out of, uh, out of radar signatures. So, uh, uh, so the host nation wouldn't even know we were there. That takes a lot of innovation, problem solving. When I talk to people about who the military is, what we do, people think of us as, uh, you know, you know, bullet launchers, tank drivers, airplane drivers, uh, you know, submarine skippers. They don't understand all the planning and thought and problem solving.

• 1:54:42Speaker 01

  Personnel management, you name it, that goes into having a successful, uh, successful unit. It's not, it's not just pushing a button and launching a missile that, uh, General Dynamics might have built. It's all the other planning that goes on before and after that is so important. It's what sets, that sets, sets the military aside.

• 1:55:00Jocko Willink?

  So when you, let's talk about El Salvador. And this is one of the small conflicts that was going on. Um, how, how'd you end up getting down there?

• 1:55:11Speaker 01

  Well, unfortunately, I was at a, at a team party back in May of 1983. And people were shooting the breeze and it turned out that Lieutenant Commander Al Schafferberger, who was, you know, serving a tour down there as a SEAL member of the Military Advisory Group, had been assassinated. Boy, there's, there's so much that I can, I can say about that. I learned, I've had, I've had the opportunity to have some great jobs in the Navy. Each one of them, I've learned so many things and you, you don't have enough time to listen. But, look, look at El Salvador. So I, Al gets killed, I volunteered to replace him.

• 1:55:53Speaker 01

  And I was a commanding officer of Special Boat Unit 13 at the time. Great opportunity. So the requirement for the guy for, you know, replacing Al Schafferberger was they wanted SEAL experience, they wanted boat experience, and they wanted the guy to be able to speak Spanish. They also wanted the guy to be a volunteer. Well, when the, when my name was forwarded to the, to the commander of the Military Advisory Group, he said, "Well, three out of four ain't bad." Because I didn't, I didn't speak Spanish. But I, I had, had the other stuff down. But that's exactly what I did. As I mentioned a little bit earlier, that's, that's why I went to Naval Special War for it. That's what I wanted to do.

• 1:56:35Speaker 01

  You know, the, you know, one of the, one of the guys at SEAL Team One had his, when I was a skipper, had, had his brother come out and they were running around and did PT with us and so on and so forth. And this guy says to his brother, the SEAL, says, "Who is that guy? It looks like, you know, there ought to be a sign there. It says, 'In case of war, break glass.'" And he, he told me about that and, and I had to laugh. But that's what I want to say about each and every guy in the teams. In case of war, break glass.

• 1:57:16Speaker 01

  So that's why I went down to, went down to Salvador. I wanted to see what was going on. I had two or three weeks of personalized...

• 1:57:30Speaker 01

  Spanish training, but I was the outgoing commanding officer of a unit. I had, because it was active and reserve, I had X number of active and I had three times that many reserve officer fitness reports, you know, chief evaluations to get out. And the other thing is, a lot of those guys did things that deserved recognition during the period of time that I was commanding officer. So I had awards to get written up. And so it was a hard period of time. I didn't get a whole hell of a lot of Spanish. But by the time I left El Salvador, I was dreaming in Spanish. How long were you down there for? I was down there for a full year.

• 1:58:12Speaker 01

  But it was, I first got down there and I, working in the embassy, whether they were Americans or, you know, Salvadorans, they all had to speak fluent English. So, we could get business done, because num nuts here couldn't speak Spanish. We could get business done speaking English. And I tried, tried doing it all in Spanish when I first got there. And it was enough of a delay. I said, "Okay, we'll work on this gradually." You know, habla inglés. So, we went and we spoke English. But that was one of the most exciting times that I've ever had in the military.

• 1:58:57Speaker 01

  I got down there and there was a civil war going on. The mil group commander, a guy by the name of Joe Stringham, Colonel Joe Stringham, Smokin' Joe Stringham. The, I don't want to say the guy was on speed, but I don't know what made this man tick. That man never slowed down, that Smokin' Joe. I mean, parapetetic, hyperkinetic, you pick your term, that was Joe. I couldn't keep up with the man, and I thought I was pretty good. So, I get down there. I'm there for about 10 days or two weeks. And I have, you know, taken over the job that Al was doing, part-time.

• 1:59:42Speaker 01

  And I'm the XO at the office as well as a Navy rep. And there's a retired, or Hilda wasn't in the Air Force long enough. Hilda, the secretary, was Hispanic American. And she was a piece of work. She brought out this piece of paper that Colonel Stringham had written. This is, Colonel wants me to type this up. I can't read this. And so Hilda and I were going over this particular piece of paper. And the only reason I could make sense of it, figure out what it was, was because I had been part of the conversation. I knew what he was trying to do.

• 2:00:26Speaker 01

  But that's, I mean, he didn't have, he didn't have time to write clearly. So 10 days after I'm down there, I finally, you know, he's, my position is I could see the door to his office and maybe even see partly into his office. And Colonel Stringham's getting ready to go off, back over to the Estadio Mayor. The Estadio Mayor is their equivalent of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He worked with all the leadership of the Salvadoran military. He's getting ready to blast off and go over to the Estadio Mayor.

• 2:01:02Speaker 01

  And I was not at my lifting peak, but I was, you know, pretty big, about almost Jaco's size. And Colonel Stringham was a few inches shorter and, you know, a good 50 pounds, maybe 60 pounds lighter. So I just stood in the door. And I said, Colonel, we gotta talk. I gotta have some left and right margins. And so he said, okay, come on over to the house tonight. All right. But that was a fantastic year. Colonel Stringham spent his time working very closely with the Estadio Mayor, because as you remember, there were things like death squads going on before I got down there and

• 2:01:47Speaker 01

  before the Colonel got down there. I think there had been a number of nuns who'd been kidnapped, raped, killed, and all that other stuff. And it was being blamed on some of the Salvadoran armed forces, not the bad guys, but the Salvadoran. So Colonel Stringham was doing everything that he could to provide that.

• 2:02:08Speaker 01

  US influence on how to conduct warfare. And so, in order to do that, he needed to spend a lot of his time over there. So I ended up being the stuckey in the embassy. And when I say stuckey, you know, that meant this meeting that came up, that meeting that came up, or this delegation coming down to Salvador, and so on and so forth. So, it was a wonderful opportunity. Let me drift right back to Ray Smith for a second. Secretary Armutage, name was Rachel Armutage, was a Naval Academy graduate.

• 2:02:47Speaker 01

  And, you know, Secretary Armutage at the time was the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, I think it was. He had a couple of active-duty military assistants. Ray Smith, his classmate from Naval Academy, and another guy. So, International Security Affairs is what paid for what goes on, you know, what money comes to El Salvador. And they monitor it and review it and so on.

• 2:03:17Jocko Willink?

  And it was a lot of money at this time.

• 2:03:19Speaker 01

  It was a lot of money.

• 2:03:20Jocko Willink?

  Billions and dollars were going down there.

• 2:03:22Speaker 01

  I don't remember the numbers, but, and I should, because I can't tell you how many hours or weeks I spent going over the numbers, this, that, and the other thing. So, about, after we had that conversation, you know, Colonel and I, you know, so I'm in country, you know, no more than three weeks, no more than four weeks. And Secretary of Defense comes down to visit. Casper Weinberger. Secretary Weinberger comes down, and Assistant Secretary Armutage is with him. And, in my...

• 2:03:59Speaker 01

  Accelerated preparation to go down to Salvador. I went to a couple of courses and there was this Air Force, was he a major at the time? Anyway, he and I became friends in this three-week course at Air Force Basin. He ends up being an assistant to Weinberger. So Weinberger comes down for the full treatment and I'm handling the backside operations, making sure that everybody's where they're supposed to be, yada, yada. And so I didn't have any contact with Armoredage, you know, Weinberger, this Air Force major that I had met.

• 2:04:43Speaker 01

  Colonel Stringham comes back, we're having a debrief of the day, and first thing out of his mouth is, he says, "Who are you?" "What do you mean?" "Who are you?" He said, "Three or four people on the Secretary of Defense staff today asked me, 'How's Tom Richards doing? Who are you?'" So I said to him, I said, "Well, one of my Bud's classmates is a special assistant to, you know, the Secretary of Armoredage and, you know, if we ever needed to play an ace in the hole and things weren't quite going right, I could always call Ray and, you know, he'd be more than happy to help figure out how to unscrew something." And Stringham just shook his head.

• 2:05:27Speaker 01

  But one of the, there are any number of stories, you may recall that we had a limitation on the number of advisors we could have in country at a given point in time, and that number happened to be 55. And as I say, there's a number of stories about how that number came up. Be that as it may, that was a number that we had to live with. I can count to 55 in my sleep, starting with my left hand, my right hand, my left foot, my right foot. If we had 56...

• 2:06:00Speaker 01

  American military individuals in country. The press was all over us like a hangover on Saturday morning. Oh, you're not living up to your obligation. You're trying to get too many trainers in country. You're doing this. Bottom line is, my job, my ass was gonna lose a chunk if number fifty-six was in country. We were at some points in time, we had guys getting off the airplane in, at the Salvadoran Air Force, you know, base, and other guys getting on at the same time, just to make sure we stayed at fifty-five.

• 2:06:36Speaker 01

  And at one point in time, we had a series of challenges, security challenges in country. I had my go-bag packed. I always had my go-bag packed.

• 2:06:49Jocko Willink?

  Did that fifty-five include like the embassy security Marines and all that?

• 2:06:52Speaker 01

  No, that's where I was gonna go. The Marines had a security detachment, and it was one of the largest. It was, oh, twenty-five, twenty-eight guys. It was, it was a large, you know, Marine security detachment. And so you had the Marine security detachment, you had the military advisory group staff. So that was me, the Colonel, Ms. Martinez, you know, a couple of, you know, three, four Army officers and Air Force officers who were, five, six, Air Force officers who were Army and Air Force officers, who were doing various things as part of the middle group staff.

• 2:07:34Speaker 01

  Then you also had the Defense Attache's office, Defense Attache's office. There were only a handful of guys over there, half, no more than half a dozen. So we had a meeting at the embassy. We called everybody in to get everybody in uniform on the same page. It was about, you know, security kinds of things. And of course, there's a half a dozen media personnel, always keeping an eye on. They counted. And there was no way, we had fifty-five of our advisors there, but we had a bunch of our advisors there, we had a bunch of the Marines there, we had our Mil Group staff,

• 2:08:15Speaker 01

  we had our attache staff, so they counted well over fifty-five, you know, military guys. And so I spent part of a press conference explaining to them, you know, who these people are and how they count and how close attention we do pay to that, pay to that number. But that was a real, a real pain in the, in the butt. So I, so as I mentioned, I'm talking to the, to the press about that. Mrs. Richards' little boy Tommy did not go to Salvador prepared to be, you know, fielding questions from the Washington Post, the New York Times, San Diego Union. I mean, give me a break.

• 2:08:56Speaker 01

  I was a fast learner though, but it was, it was, it was difficult, you know, they had, they had, they had a, they had an agenda and I had a, I had a mission. And so I won't say never the twain shall meet, but I had to, I had to be very careful with, with my answers and I had to debunk a number of their, of their concerns. While I was there, and I apologize for not being able to recall the man's name, there was actually a reporter from San Diego who was killed on a, in the battle zone. And of course, the Colonel was over at the Estadio Mayor, so I was taking that next press conference.

• 2:09:39Speaker 01

  And I'm saying that they, you know, one of the things they press complained about was the, you know, the number of what they were calling non-combatant injuries that were occurring. And of course, this reporter's injury or death is, is, is as non-combatant as you can get. But I tried to explain to them, there's a firefight going there, there's a gunfight going out there. These, these bullets, when they come out of the end of the gun that are aimed by people are not necessarily the best marksmen that they are, that there could be, these bullets don't have name tags on them. And, you know, it's hard to tell where they're gonna go and who's gonna get hit.

• 2:10:21Speaker 01

  One of the things that the, uh, that the guerrillas did because they were, you know, guerrillas and they didn't have the, uh, the kind of funding that you might have wanted to have was, uh, when the shooters, the guys are out there, one of the guys gets hit, fall down, one of the women or one of the kids go right out onto the battle zone to collect the gun and the bullets for the other guys so they still have weapons and ammunition to carry out the fight. They're right there in the middle of the, uh, of the firefight. Of course they're gonna get hit. It isn't our decision that they choose to make them combatants, but that's what they have done. They're no longer women and children, they are, they are combatants.

• 2:11:04Speaker 01

  They are right there on the, on the, in the combat zone. That's the kind of thing that these different countries with these different senses of values do to the Americans. And they, and they do it, uh, uh, you know, throughout the, uh, throughout the Middle East, they were doing it in, uh, in Salvador, and that's the type of battles that our young servicemen are forced into. You take an American kid, whether he's coming out of high school or college, what do we talk about today? We've got, uh, we've got, uh, uh, you know, women's rights, we've got gays' rights, we have, uh, you know, equal opportunity, uh, you know, you know, LGBTQ, whatever the, uh,

• 2:11:46Speaker 01

  whatever the, uh, variety of things are, that our youth of today is drilled to be so aware of and so conscious of. Uh, we treat women in the United States, uh, my wife weighs about a buck eighteen or a buck twenty. If I was to raise my hand to that lady, I'd break her in half. I've never even thought about it. In foreign countries, they use women as flak jackets to protect themselves from, uh, from bullets coming in. Those kinds of things. Are so antithetical to what we think and we believe as Americans.

• 2:12:26Speaker 01

  And yet, we take this kid out of, you know, Peoria, or, you know, pick your, you know, Central United States or Central American values. We take this person and we put them in the middle of this shitstorm. This, this soup of total disregard for human rights and human life, human values. And, you know, we, we do this to people on a, on a daily basis. Uh, that's, uh, that's the kind of thing that I really first encountered in Vietnam. Saw it brought home again in El Salvador, uh, you know, being on the, uh, being on the ground as I was.

• 2:13:08Speaker 01

  So, we, we do some pretty interesting things to our, uh, to our youth of America by throwing them into this cauldron of, uh, of discontent that we do.

• 2:13:21Speaker 01

  I could, I could go on, go on for that one, uh, a little bit more, but, uh, that's, uh, that's a, uh, that's, that's incredible thing. So, I will go on with that for just a little bit more. Let me talk about something people call PTSD.

• 2:13:37Speaker 01

  And I won't use some of my, you know, terminology on your, on your podcast, but we need to lose the D. Let's just go back to my day in the rice paddy in, uh, January of, uh, of 71.

• 2:13:54Speaker 01

  I got Don Futreau with a bullet hole in his chest. I got Grant Telfer shot in both legs.

• 2:14:02Speaker 01

  I got Jim Rowland with a bullet hole in his chest and his groin. My hand is, you know, looks like a, uh, looks like kinda, you know, raw hamburger, you know, left in, uh, left in a pile of juice. I'm not ever going to unsee that.

• 2:14:19Speaker 01

  I'll say that I don't mind, and I really don't because we had signed up to do that. That's what we're there for. But people today are coming back from wars, and they're seeing far worse. They're seeing roadside IEDs, you know, supposedly impenetrable, you know, armored vehicles, you know, ripped apart like a beer can. And the parts of the people inside of that, that they try to drag to safety if they happen to be a survivor. And they just watch bleed out, or the corpsmen that have to deal with that on a daily basis.

• 2:15:02Speaker 01

  You cannot unsee any of that. It's not gonna go away. You look at our first responders of today. You've got a knife fight, you've got a gunfight, you've got a fire at a house, you've got a gas explosion. What do those people see? They see fellow members of their township, or whatever their association is, in parts. Blood everywhere, you know, sometimes human forms, irrerecognizable, if there is such a term. You're never gonna unsee those things. So, let's not talk about post-traumatic stress as a disorder.

• 2:15:44Speaker 01

  If you don't have some thoughts, some concerns, if you didn't wish your fellow American wasn't such a jackass at times, to cause this kind of hate, discontent, pain and misery on other people, if you didn't have some form of thought process of, again, regret that these things happened, wish they didn't happen, wish that you didn't happen to see it, if you didn't have those kinds of thoughts, that's the disorder, you know.

• 2:16:17Speaker 01

  I tell my wife that I don't have any post-traumatic stress. I don't have any flashbacks. You can call me a lion mother, but uh, uh, you know, I, there are things. We were standing outside a, a, a dinner theater shortly after I came back from Vietnam. Car backfired. Jackie looked. Where am I? I'm on the ground. I'm looking for what the problem is, where it came from, what I need to do about it. I wouldn't call that post-traumatic stress. I'd say that's good training. But as we, as, as we look at all these, all these individuals who come back from these situations, and I wanna, I wanna include the first responders who face these things

• 2:17:01Speaker 01

  every day. As, as we look at these people, we need to understand, we will never understand some of the things that they cannot unsee, but we need to understand that they have been in those situations. And we have put them there. We, the American people, sent Chaco and myself, the rest of us, to various places around the world we never could find on the map before we went there, to do things, to try to support people in democratic pursuits. And shit happens. And it's not, it's not pretty, but yet we do that to the youth of America, time and time again. So, we need to understand that this post-traumatic stress exists.

• 2:17:43Speaker 01

  It's not a disorder, and we need to make sure that we address it.

• 2:17:48Jocko Willink?

  So. Where did you, when you, when you came home from Vietnam and like, you know, you just talked that story about the, the gunfire, or the backfire in the car. What about the rest of your platoon? It sounds like you guys kinda went to the four winds and all in different directions.

• 2:18:04Speaker 01

  We sure did. I think I mentioned earlier in the, in the podcast that uh, I hadn't seen Grant Telfer for, you know, fifteen, twenty years, maybe even more after that. And he, he later became a commanding officer of SEAL Team One. While he was in that position, I was on the, on the east coast. And years later, I bumped into, into Jim Rowland. And Don Futrell went to, went into EOD. Another one of those easy, easy Warfare specialties. He went into EOD and Don retired as a, as a W4. But shortly after, after he went, left the platoon, I, I lost track of Don.

• 2:18:46Speaker 01

  I knew he went into EOD, but we reconnected and I, I spoke at his retirement. But, you know, crap, that was not much to say for, for, you know, keeping tabs on your platoon members. Other guys got out. Marcus Arroyo was a, was a highly successful, you know, executive in the, I believe it was the FFAA or was it FFAA, I believe. And, you know, so, but, but we lost track of each other. And so, we're really, I know, I am really looking forward to seeing some of those guys again here this weekend.

• 2:19:27Jocko Willink?

  But those guys, you know, they, they carried on, right? So whatever PTS they had, they were able to say, okay, this is my, this is what I'm gonna do now. I'm gonna go to the FAA or I'm gonna get out and go to EOD. And, and were able to kind of push through those, whatever, whatever was going on in their heads.

• 2:19:45Speaker 01

  That appears to be, that appears to be the case. And of course, not of course, Jim Rowland got out of the Navy for a little bit after, after Vietnam, but he came back and retired as a senior chief.

• 2:19:57Jocko Willink?

  So, let's go back. You get, you get home from El Salvador. What's next on, on the agenda?

• 2:20:05Speaker 01

  Uh, let's see. Where did I go from El Salvador? I came, I came back here to beautiful, sunny, Southern California. And I, I was, I was on the staff of Special Warfare Group One. And I, I worked for a couple of folks who, who ended up being flag officers, Chuck Lemoine and...

• 2:20:28Speaker 01

  George Worthington, a couple of good guys and of course not a whole lot of other good guys. And what I'll say, what I need to say here is, when I retired, that's what I missed most, the guys. I missed the guys and of course knowing what was going on in the world, but you missed the guys. You missed the organization, the association. So I went to Group One and from Group One I went over to BCO, SEAL Team One. Now, that's almost like cheating because I was the operations officer at Group One. So I knew how the group staff worked. I knew how the group commander worked.

• 2:21:10Speaker 01

  And when I say the staff, just how it functions, who did what to whom. Who you could call, you built those little relationships. Right. And Admiral Worthington and Admiral Lemoine had a, and several other guys who were the commander there, had a secretary by the name of Lena. And I'm embarrassed I can't remember Lena's last name. But Lena was a piece of work. Lena knew everything. And if you were good to Lena, you learned a lot. But I remember one day, I think it was Lemoine, Lemoine comes out to Lena and, alright, I

• 2:21:54Speaker 01

  want this, this, this, and this. Lena knows that sounds kinda familiar. She comes trotting into my office and we try to piece it together and figure out, you know, she had some of the files and I had some of the files, but she was quite a young lady, older lady. But there were some great folks on that staff. And like I said, it's kinda like cheating to have that chance before I went to SEAL Team One.

• 2:22:23Jocko Willink?

  And then your CO of SEAL Team One for a couple of years and this is, what years are you, the CO of SEAL Team One?

• 2:22:29Speaker 01

  Eighty-six to eighty-eight.

• 2:22:30Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 2:22:31Speaker 01

  And during that period of time, I had the chance to deploy to the Persian Gulf.

• 2:22:35Jocko Willink?

  I was gonna say, the, uh, the oil rigs and the counter Iranian.

• 2:22:39Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:22:40Jocko Willink?

  Stuff.

• 2:22:40Speaker 01

  Right, so we had, uh, we had two, uh, uh, two barges, uh, that were really oil rig support barges, uh, and we used those as, uh, floating, uh, uh, floating operations bases for, uh, a couple of elements of, uh, you know, a couple of aviation, uh, elements. I think their participation was later declassified, but we'll just leave it at that. A couple of, uh, you know, aviation elements and of course, we had our, our patrol boats. And our patrol boats were, you know, doing escorts, uh, of, uh, of, uh, US Navy big hulls. They were also doing escorts of, uh, tankers, you know, uh, as you may recall, a number

• 2:23:25Speaker 01

  of those foreign flagged ships were re-flagged to US ships so we could actually, excuse me, we could actually escort them up and down the, uh, up and down the Gulf.

• 2:23:39Jocko Willink?

  Was, was there any highlights to those deployments?

• 2:23:42Speaker 01

  There, there were a number of them, uh, we had, uh, you may, there's a, uh, Paul Evanco led an op on, uh, uh, something, uh, on a boat called the Iran Ajar and the Iran Ajar was caught, uh, trying to, uh, seed a few more mines after, you know, Iran had been, uh, been told, "Stop what you're doing." Anyway, they, they conducted the op, uh, you know, seized the, seized the boat, a bunch of mines and so on. Well, fast forward, you know, several months later, I'm out there as the, uh, the task unit, uh, commander and, uh, we get a report of a, uh, of a craft in restricted waters

• 2:24:27Speaker 01

  and it looks like there might be mine-like objects on the back end of this boat and that this is another group gonna be laying mines in the sea lanes. So we go to GQ. We, uh, we launched some of these aviation assets to try to get some, uh, night shots of the, uh, of the, of the boat in, in question. And, uh, it was, uh, it was coming up, you know, coming up towards dawn. And, uh, you know, obviously, you know, those early hours are the, the good time to, to hit folks. Some folks are getting up, some folks are going off a watch, some folks are eating.

• 2:25:11Speaker 01

  Uh, so, uh, good time to, uh, to make a hit if you're gonna do that. So they came back and they had some, uh, they had some, uh, some pictures, uh, and, uh, sure looked like mine-like objects. But, you know, you got that little, we call it spidey sense. Something's not quite right with this picture. And one of the things that I always say to the guys, if you think that there's something wrong with this picture, you stop what you're doing until you figure out what is wrong with this picture. So we got guys locked and loaded. We got the, uh, we got the slicks, we got the gunships. These guys are ready to go take down these boats, this boat.

• 2:25:54Speaker 01

  And I said, "Hold fast. We're not going anywhere. Give me one more shot at the, uh, at the, uh, early twilight." It turned out to be another oil rig supply boat that had a bunch of 55 gallon drums, not mines on the afterdeck. I won't say what country it was from. They were in waters where they shouldn't have been. They have no idea how close to death they came. So I'm sitting out there, I'm, I'm in the talk, I'm, I'm, I'm monitoring all the, uh, the communications and, and I'm the, I'm the one that, you know, we had these guys

• 2:26:39Speaker 01

  in the air, so you know, and, uh, the, uh, the three-star Navy type, uh, who was in charge of, uh, of, uh, of, uh, you know, Mideast for, you know, Navy Mideast for, uh...

• 2:26:55Speaker 01

  He uh, I didn't realize it, but he was in the talk the whole time, uh, you know, listening, uh, you know, I'm sure the La Salle was, uh, was based in Bahrain, we're out there in the middle of the Persian Gulf. And, uh, the, uh, the Admiral was there, you know, just listening, you know, listening and, uh, you know, uh, when I, when I called it off, when I saw what it was, he just, you know, and, uh, went in. So I, I came, I came ashore, you know, a week, 10 days later in, uh, the oh six, uh, you know, Opsol calls me over and he says, "Good job." But, uh, you know, we had, uh, we had American lives on the line. We had, uh, international lives on the line.

• 2:27:40Speaker 01

  Uh, could have been a mining operation, I just did not know. Uh, and, uh, I was not sure that this was a miner, uh, a mine laying vessel. So I said, "Nope, we're not doing that."

• 2:27:51Jocko Willink?

  What were your major lessons learned or what was like a good takeaway from being the commanding officer at SEAL Team One?

• 2:27:59Speaker 01

  Uh, trying to train the guys who are gonna follow me, prepare them, uh, for their jobs. Uh, there was a, uh, a platoon, uh, with, uh, uh, Dave Piddelkow was the commanding, uh, commander of the platoon and, uh, Gardner Howe was his assistant, uh, that would be Vice Admiral.

• 2:28:24Jocko Willink?

  Howe?

• 2:28:25Speaker 01

  Was his assistant. And they were going over to the Gulf. Uh, and, uh, as they're in my, uh, in my, uh, in my office getting ready to go, uh, one of the things I explained to them, I said, "I feel that you guys are as prepared as you can possibly be to go over there and to conduct the litany of, uh, operations that you would be called upon to do." But I said to them, I said, "My fervent hope is that that doesn't happen." And I got these two confused looks or, uh, inquisitive looks, uh, from these two, you know, gung ho SEAL officers who were, you know, getting ready to go to war because it

• 2:29:10Speaker 01

  wasn't a shooting war at that point in time. And what I explained to them was, if you guys have got to do the things that we've trained you and prepared you to do, that means that somebody has failed big time. And so, that was a learning experience for Dave and Gardner, but it was one of the things that I tried to impart to those guys. You know, there's, well, in case of, in case of glass, excuse me, glass, in case of war, break glass, that's us, absolutely. But if it devolves to that point, that means that White House policy has failed, the State

• 2:29:51Speaker 01

  Department policy has failed, any number of things across the spectrum of the leadership of our country has failed. So, it is truly, in case of war, break glass. One of the, that same platoon, as it turned out, as they're preparing to, preparing to get ready to go overseas, you have any number of training operations and, you know, we're, we, those of us in the teams are familiar with something we call a rubber duck. A rubber duck is a, is a airdrop of a, of a small rubber boat on a, on a, on a platform, as it were, drops out in the ocean and you, you sink the platform and from that point

• 2:30:36Speaker 01

  in the ocean, you go ashore and you do your job. And if everything worked alright, everybody, everybody else in the world doesn't know that the C-130 or 141 might have dropped this, you know, boat and seals off the, off the coast. Well, they, they had a, a rubber duck drop, you know, practice event. And there was a parachute rigging malfunction, and instead of the parachute deploying, the, the rubber duck creamed into the ocean. You know, the, the, the platform breaks into a thousand pieces, the, the boat is shredded, the outboard motor is lost, et cetera, et cetera.

• 2:31:17Speaker 01

  So, I had not stayed up for, stayed at the commander for the, for the event, but I get to the, to the command about seven o'clock in the morning. And I get a, I get a high-speed, you know, five-minute brief that the, the rubber duck died and it was a, it was a rigging malfunction. So before, seven o'clock is before quarters, our day at Team One started with quarters at 7:30. So it's, it's about

• 2:31:57Speaker 01

  7:15. Before I could even get to Lieutenant Piddle Cow or Lieutenant Howe, the parachute rigger from the squad comes in, bangs on my door, "Patty Oster, Second Class Bacchus." Bacchus apologizes to the commanding officer of the team for letting his platoon down, for letting my platoon down, for not meeting the expectations of, of, of everybody that they had for Bacchus and the, the troops to do that job. When Bacchus came into the team,

• 2:32:39Speaker 01

  into my office to do that, that told me that I clearly had some level of communication with the guys, some level of respect from the guys, that before I could go out and try to rip him a new one, he shows up at my office and apologizes. You know, that told me that I must have done something right at SEAL Team One. That was, that was probably one of the greatest experiences in Team One.

• 2:33:10Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, people taking ownership and that, that's an attitude that starts at the top.

• 2:33:16Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 2:33:17Jocko Willink?

  So you wrap up at SEAL Team One.

• 2:33:23Jocko Willink?

  And then you, your, your next big command is taking over BUDS.

• 2:33:28Speaker 01

  That was, uh, that was my, uh, my next, uh, uh, my next opportunity. I spent, uh, I spent three years at, uh, Naval Sea Systems Command, uh, learning a lot about money, purchasing and all that other kind of stuff. And, uh, uh, I followed a guy by him, Tommy Hawkins, uh, uh, who was a legend in the world of our research, development and acquisition. And even though I left that job as a quote certified Navy acquisition professional, I was, I was offered jobs in the acquisition side of the house. I was offered the opportunity to take jobs in acquisition as opposed to, uh, continuing, uh, in, in naval special warfare.

• 2:34:09Speaker 01

  So, yeah, and I could have been a program manager at NAFC or as I went to, uh, you know, the, the job at the, uh, at the center. But, uh, I, I probably never learned as much as Tommy Hawkins, uh, knew about, uh, knew about acquisition, uh, quite a, uh, quite a guy. So, yes, my, uh, my next, uh, my next, uh, my next command was, uh, was at, uh, at the center. And there are a couple of things that are really, really fun about the center. You watch young men come in there and they're not entirely sure what they're getting into. And they're also not entirely sure whether they can do this or not. They're

• 2:34:53Speaker 01

  pretty sure they can. That's why they're there in the first place. They really want to, which is why they're there. But a lot of folks have a, uh, have a little bit of a, uh, a nagging doubt. And, uh, a lot of those guys' success, uh, is, uh, at times a, uh...

• 2:35:14Speaker 01

  Somewhat of a surprise perhaps to their parents, but in many cases, an achievement of great pride on the parents' part. And as a commanding officer of the center, one of the things that I did was I attended every BUDs graduation. Now again, this was when BUDs was the six months before we went on to the follow-on SQT, I believe it's still called these days. So they would complete the six months and then they would go to the various teams for that follow-on training before they received their special warfare designator.

• 2:35:58Speaker 01

  Anyway, I cannot tell you how many parents would come up to me at these graduation events and they would say, "Captain Richards, we really want to thank you and your staff for what you have done for Frank, or Echo, or Gary and their development and their maturation process. You know, he's a changed man after these six, eight months." I said, "No, Mrs. Smith, you really have to understand, we took what you gave us, an individual who had some pretty high aspirations, and you taught him to have those high aspirations.

• 2:36:43Speaker 01

  We taught an individual who thought he had the qualifications, and you helped him develop these qualifications. You might have thought he was a little bit of a misfit here and there, I'm probably speaking from personal experience, but you prepared this young man to get there. We wouldn't have this young petty officer, this young ensign graduating from SEAL training if it hadn't been for you."

• 2:37:10Speaker 01

  And you know, these parents would just kind of look at me and look at each other. Hmm, yeah, you know, maybe there's, maybe there's something to that. But that's a, that's a point that I would really like to make, that the individual who is, who graduates after, now it's a year. But that individual came to BUDS with a certain amount of preparation, a significant amount of preparation. And it's preparation that reflects family values, family, you know, family motivation, family support for a, for an individual. And I can remember some, we never thought he was going to be any good, you know, we

• 2:37:53Speaker 01

  kept trying and trying, you know, he always kept getting in trouble and whatever it might have been. And that's my point. You kept trying and trying and trying. And look where he is now. He said, that's your fault. And, you know, they'd stop and they'd think, but it's that, it's that, that preparation, that, that growth, that goal setting that these, these young men have as they, as they start looking around and figuring out what they wanted to do. As we talked earlier in the, in the podcast, I really had, you know, when I was in high school, I didn't have a clue what I wanted to do when I got out of college, if I was going to be fortunate enough to get to college. And in today's environment, it's significantly different.

• 2:38:36Speaker 01

  Our youngsters grow up, seem to grow up a lot faster. But that said, they're not going to make it through BUDS without that, without that background, without that preparation, without those family values. That's, that's so important. They have to have, they have to have that base, whether they realize it or not, they have that, have to have that base to succeed.

• 2:38:55Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and it's so strange to, to look at BUDS. It seems impossible to predict who's going to make it and who's not.

• 2:39:06Jocko Willink?

  The, the, the amount of incredible athletes that show up there and quit, the, you know, I, I know I had a guy that was in my class that was a, you know, NCAA water polo player, had another guy that was a gymnastics alternate on the Olympic gymnastics team. And both those guys quit. And, you know, I was like an average, maybe even a little below average athlete in high school. And, you know, like I just was ready to stick it out. And what I was wanting to ask you, and I don't know how close you were to it to see this, but, you know, in talking, I remember talking to some of my friends that worked as a physical therapist, right, at Bud's. And I had a couple of them that had come from, uh, professional sports. And so in professional sports,

• 2:39:52Jocko Willink?

  he, he was telling me, you know, he worked with a baseball team or a football team, pro, pro level teams. And he'd say, you know, I might see one or two cases of patella femoral syndrome. Or, uh, what is it? ITB swelling or this type of back thing. He goes, I might see one or two of those in a season. He goes, I literally saw 48 cases of patella femoral syndrome in the last three days. It's like this highly, you, you just get this so much repetitive, uh, you know, injuries that happen to all these guys coming in. But then also, what the thing I was gonna ask you about is the,

• 2:40:32Jocko Willink?

  did you start to see any commonalities? I mean, you kind of just mentioned, but in the like the psychological makeup of the people, because you got kids that come from rich families that show up there that were, you know, two parents that went to church on Sundays and the kids do great. You also see those same kids quit. You see some kid from the hood that grew up without parents or, you know, a single mom or a single dad and didn't have any money, didn't have anything, and they make it. And you also see kids like that that quit. What, what, what did it look like to you?

• 2:41:01Speaker 01

  I, I agree with you a hundred and 10%. Uh, you mentioned the, the gymnast. We had a, uh, we had an Olympic swimmer in our, in our class. Uh, Fred was a butterfly guy. Fred made it. There was another NCAA swimmer in the class. I believe his name, well, name is not important. There was a NCAA swimmer in the class.

• 2:41:25Speaker 01

  That means you're like, what, the top six or top eight in your event in the country, one of those. In any event, this guy busted his ass and one day in one of the series of nuisance races in the pool, this kid beat Fred in one of the races. Two days later, kid's gone. His goal was to be able to say that he beat this Olympic swimmer. He was in there for the wrong reasons. I have never really been able to tell you who was gonna make it and who was not. But as I've looked at it, you know, for years and years, and I've worked with a guy by name

• 2:42:08Speaker 01

  of Captain Bisset up in New England as he tries to prepare guys for training. He has somewhere around a 70, better than a 70% success rate for his candidates. The average success rate of any class, as you know, is somewhere around 25 or 30% graduate. In Drew's case, 75% graduate. So as I've looked at things over the years, there was another group when I was a SEAL of the Center who had a 75% graduation rate. That group was the Naval Academy candidates.

• 2:42:53Speaker 01

  Let's stop and think about- Wait, like how many of them were Naval Academy? Seventy, of the Naval Academy people who came in. Oh, I see. So 75% of Naval Academy guys make it? Right. Yep. Let's stop and think about it. In order to get into the Naval Academy, that is one hell of a competitive process. I don't think the American public realizes how competitive it is to get into a military service academy. It's either political appointment or combination of political appointments and exceptional academic capability and physical ability. For years, those academies only gave engineering degrees.

• 2:43:36Speaker 01

  I don't, it might be somewhere back in the 70s where they started with some other degrees, but it's very difficult to get into the academies. So if you get into the academy, you have set a goal, you have worked hard to achieve that goal, and you've attained that goal. Now, in the case of the Naval Academy and the individuals who end up with a quota to BUDS,

• 2:44:01Speaker 01

  I'm not an academy graduate, I'm fairly sure of how it works, but if there's a guy out there who wants to correct it, please do so. They have a warfare specialty selection process. And the number one guy in the class at the Naval Academy can pick what warfare specialty he wants to go to.

• 2:44:23Speaker 01

  The way it works, and that's the way it works, where he decides he wants to be an aviator. Of course, if he wants to be a SEAL, he's got to pass the PFT. But if he's got the PFT and today he's got to go to SOAS, the Special Ops Acquisition and Selection. But you've got to be at the top of your class. So you've not only fought to get into the Naval Academy, you have fought to keep your grades up. You have fought to keep your physical conditioning up. Because out of the top hundred guys in the Naval Academy, they're probably going to eat up those quotas to go to BUDS. And so, now, there's 1,100 guys in the Naval Academy.

• 2:45:09Speaker 01

  Every one of those 1,100 individuals was pretty outstanding to get there in the first place. Now, you've got to work to be in the top 100, 100-plus in that group to get selected to BUDS. So those guys, this is my reasoning, those guys have fought and challenged for everything that they have gotten, every step of the way. And so, they're used to fighting, and they're used to overcoming adversity, and they're used to succeeding. So, I give you that as a, that goal-setting. You attain those goals, figure out where you want to go, set those goals early, and drive towards those goals. To your observation about the, uh, patella syndrome, what?

• 2:45:50Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that was one example. I remember kids in my class got this thing called patella femoral syndrome. Or they got their IT band was this problem, or they got this ankle, what, you know, my ankles rolled. You know, the, the, the medics at BUDS will see, instead of being, you know, at a football practice and in one season, they see whatever. In a whole season, they'll see 10 bad ankle sprains. In BUDS, they see that every week. Every, every week they see that. And they just see these injuries over and over again. And I was just wondering from your perspective, what you saw? You know, what was the reason when someone says, why they quit? It's hard for me to comprehend that you enlist in the Navy, you know?

• 2:46:33Jocko Willink?

  You enlist in the Navy. When I enlisted in the Navy, I enlisted for six years in the Navy. I'm freaking 18 years old. I enlist for six years of my life. That's a what? Is that a third of my life, right? I enlist for a third of my life. I sign the dotted line. I, I run and swim to get ready. I go to boot camp. I put up with all that crap. Say goodbye to my friends and families. You know, tell everyone, hey, I'm gonna go try and be a SEAL. Get through boot camp, then finally show up to BUDS. And like the first day after going through all that stuff, people are quitting. It's, it's, it's hard to comprehend. Did you ever, were you able to put together any kind of understanding of that?

• 2:47:19Speaker 01

  No. Uh, and, and, uh, I have, I've gotten into some, uh, conversations with people who think that they've, uh, come up with the, uh, with the test that's going to show who's going to make it and who's not. And, uh, as far as I'm concerned, they're full of horse manure. Let's go back to my observations about those families of, of those successful kids. They have, they have a sense of values. Uh, they, uh, you know, whether they know, uh, right from wrong, the way we would want it to be, uh, that's, that's, that's hard to say. But they have, they have a sense of values that they have grown up with. And, and like the, uh, the Naval Academy individuals that I've said, these individuals who succeed have set goals.

• 2:48:05Speaker 01

  And they, they are very determined in getting to those goals.

• 2:48:10Speaker 01

  And like I said to the, to the family, we didn't give them something that they didn't have before they got here. And that's the thing that I don't know about. I will tell you out loud that I never thought about quitting in BUDS. Me neither. I puked, you know, I cramped, I used to, you know, I was the worst runner in the class, you know, everybody knows about getting a stitch in your side when you're running. I had a goddamn freight train running through my liver. And I can't tell you how much it hurt. But I would actually say to myself, to my, to my, you know, sniveling body, I would say, is that all you got?

• 2:48:55Speaker 01

  The, as you go through training, it's all between the ears. You've got to have that goal in mind and you've got to be willing to put up with whatever it is. There's a couple of things I'm gonna say here. From the neck down is a life support system for the neck up, for the, for the brain housing group, as we call it. It's all between the ears. And, and I don't know who said it first, but there's an expression that I use about mind over matter. If you don't mind, it don't matter. And, and I, I mean, I can't tell you, again, how, how, how much I hurt on those runs.

• 2:49:37Speaker 01

  As I, as I look at, you know, so there's, there's something either right or wrong with, with a few thousand of our American service members called SEALs, that have this, that have this mindset. There is a, there is definitely a mindset. It's not a killer mindset, it's a success mindset. It's a, you know, wolves and sheep mindset. You are what, you are what you are. And I strongly believe that there are people like that. You know, my wife, my wife knows who I am and, you know, don't, don't mess with me, you know? So, and, and that's the way it is with, with, with, with every SEAL I know.

• 2:50:22Speaker 01

  You, you don't mess with the guy. And it's not just because of my size or Jaco's size, it's because of the attitude. You're gonna lose. You know, Instructor Moy, one day, I'm on the, I'm in the Goon Squad, I've

• 2:50:39Speaker 01

  I've, I maintain, for those of us that are old enough to remember, there used to be a half a dozen pi- or a half a dozen palm trees out in front of the Hotel Dell that go down to the, go down to the rocks where we do our rock portage. I maintain that I, that I have probably caused the death of at least one of those palm trees because I ended up puking at the bottom of those because of what the, what those guys made me do in the, in the goon squad. It didn't matter. I didn't give a good goddamn what they did to me. They could not get that four-letter word out of me quit. It was not gonna happen. I was, I was, we were down there by the rocks and I'd done the, I'd done the roll and the

• 2:51:23Speaker 01

  surf, the roll in the, in the, in the soft dry sand, we used to call them sugar cookies. Cause now here I am, I'm coated in water and, and, and white sparkling sand from the Coronado Silver Strand and I'm doing what's called the duck walk. So you're, you're squatting down and you've got your handful, hands folded behind your head. And I will admit that I was not doing the duck walk without, with any degree of alacrity, shall we say. Was I feeling sorry for myself, you bet your ass. And Instructor Moy comes up to me and he, like I say, I'm squatting down with my hands behind my head, you know, trying to squat, waddle, walk, whatever, towards the, towards the ocean.

• 2:52:06Speaker 01

  And Moy is roaring at me, he says, "What the hell are you giving it there, Ensign Richards?" And I looked up at him and I said, "Would you call, would you believe a sick duck?" And I watched, I watched Chief Moy have to turn around and his shoulders are shaking. But I was not, I was not quitting. And, and, and there's that, there's that something that all these psychiatrists, psychologists, whatever they are, they haven't quite been able to figure out what it is. Again, I keep going back to the goal setting. Go back to today's training. Young men, young men not only have to train in order to be able to pass the, pass the

• 2:52:48Speaker 01

  PFT, you know, if, if they, if they, if they only do the run in 12 and a half minutes, they ain't gonna make it through BUDS. And that's for a couple of reasons. It's not only because of the physical ability.

• 2:53:02Speaker 01

  Per se to do the run, but it's what I look at as the ability to recover. Cause when you get to BUDs, if you haven't been doing this for years and years, uh, you know, if you haven't been running, if you haven't been swimming, you haven't gotten, if you haven't been doing that for years, you are going to break down when you get to BUDs. So you have to really have built up your ability to recover. Okay. I didn't do a lot of swimming and I didn't do a lot of running in preparation for BUDs, but I was lifting weights at that time at pretty close to damn pro level and I was doing it 12 and a half, 13 months a year. Uh, that's what I, that's what I lived to do. I was, when I got to BUDs, I could do PT all day long. If I only had to do pushups

• 2:53:47Speaker 01

  with my own body weight, that was a whole lot of doing repping out with 315 pounds. Ah, well, I gotta do a few pushups. Oh, that's okay. Uh, I, I'm joking about that, but pushups didn't bother me. And to, uh, to, uh, to the, uh, to the Olympic swimmer we had in our class, you know, Fred was probably on vacation during those swims. He probably fell asleep on the six mile swim out at, uh, you know, St. Comette Island, but that gave Fred a chance to recover. When, when I was doing PT, you know, in the PT circle in the morning, okay. I knew that I, unless, unless some instructor got really innovative, I probably wasn't going to have too much trouble with this. And so if you've got something

• 2:54:29Speaker 01

  like to swim or you're an incredible runner and you can keep up with those instructors, uh, you know, through the soft sand runs and not only is it not difficult for you physically, but because it's not difficult for you physically, it's an emotional break. You know, you, there's a certain amount of mental stress or mental strength that you don't have to use during that particular evolution. So if you're in really good shape, that takes a strain, a stress factor out of a particular event, run, swim, uh, you know, whatever, whatever it might be. But even with that ability, you know, we had a, we had a high school or junior college

• 2:55:11Speaker 01

  miler who did a damn mile in something like four minutes and ten or fifteen seconds. You know, you clocked me with a damn calendar. This guy quit, you know? But, you know, you, you take off the cute little nylon running shorts and you put on the, the cami pants and the, the boots and all of a sudden it's a different kind of running. But, all that said, there has to be that mind, that mindset there. In, in addition to that, that physical capability, there's gotta be that mindset. What it is, I, I don't know. Every once in a while, you run into a guy.

• 2:55:51Speaker 01

  I have a, a, a classmate of mine, I'm not gonna mention his name, cause somebody's still on active duty. But, years ago, one of his sons was expressing interest in the, in the teams. And that particular individual did, did not get, get to teams. He didn't get to, to training for whatever reason it was. But we had gone down and we had spent some time with my classmate. And as I'm driving back with, with Jackie, I said to Jackie, I said, sweetheart, Schmuckatelli is gonna be the, the member of that family that makes it through.

• 2:56:36Speaker 01

  It was just that feeling I got from that kid. And, yes, he did. And every once in a while, you, you get that, but, but not often. It was, it was his demeanor, it was his presence, it was his, his confidence. Not cocky, but it, but it, but his confidence. You can't always see that, and, and I was probably lucky in that, in, in that judgment. But, he, he, he made it, you know, proud of him. But, to your point, Jaco, I, I don't know what the it factor is. You know, I look at the, the confidence and the, and the goal setting and the, and the ability to recover to get you through.

• 2:57:19Speaker 01

  As you, as you heard, I like to think if an individual's got a, got a specialty where he can, you know, take a break, that, that that will be very helpful to him. But there's just, there's some missing link there that, that I don't, I don't know exactly what it is, and it's just so hard to put your finger on.

• 2:57:41Jocko Willink?

  Did you notice anything from, from when you went through in 1969, 1970? And, and then you fast forward, what, 20 something years? Was there anything that you said, oh, they got soft over here, they, they got weak over here, this is easier, or this is harder?

• 2:57:57Speaker 01

  I'm gonna say it got harder. And, uh, so I take over as the CO of the, uh, of the center. And, uh, one of the things that I did was I, I looked at, uh, the, the schedules for the, uh, each of the different phases. Uh, and I, I also looked at, you know, the, all the schedules for the advanced training. Cause one of the things I wanted to do is I wanted to go out and, and observe, uh, you know, observe the class, observe the instructors, yada, yada, yada. I went and I spent time out at San Clemente Island when I was the, uh, the commanding officer. Uh, you know, I went to, uh, to wherever there was, uh, wherever there was training. Uh, so I take over as a skipper and I'm looking at the, uh, the training schedules.

• 2:58:42Speaker 01

  Now, when I went through training, I do not recall a training day that started before 0700.

• 2:58:54Jocko Willink?

  Hmm.

• 2:58:55Speaker 01

  We had to be on the line at 0700, and that was after breakfast. So we didn't, you know, form up. Uh, but, uh, training started at, uh, at 0700. And, uh, I, uh, got to training and I'm looking at the, uh, I'm looking at the schedule.

• 2:59:13Jocko Willink?

  The 0400, 0400, 0400, 0400. When I went through it was early.

• 2:59:18Speaker 01

  And this particular thing that, uh, jumped out at me was a 0530 or 0550, or 0515, four mile time run.

• 2:59:31Speaker 01

  And I'm saying, "What the hell is this shit?" You know? I was saying that too. I was doing them. So, uh, whether it was the first phase or the second phase, you know, they came up to me and I said, "You know, what are we doing here?" "Well, that's the, uh, that's the, uh, the only, uh, only low tide."

• 2:59:56Speaker 01

  And that guy is one of the luckiest guys in naval special warfare. Cause my question was, "How fucking stupid do I look?"

• 3:00:08Speaker 01

  One high tide in the morning, one low tide in the morning, one high in the afternoon, one low in the afternoon. And, uh, that, that is not cast in stone because there are a certain number of days in the year, uh, where you only have, uh, you know, combination of three tides, you know? You know, you'll get two highs. I said, "Do not even think about opening your mouth to say anything else about the tides." But to my point, they were, they, they were now doing, uh, four mile time runs and maybe an O course or, uh, another session before breakfast. And, uh, like I say, we, we didn't do that.

• 3:00:50Speaker 01

  Now, when we, uh, when we were out at San Clemente Island, there was no schedule. It was, you know, 24 hours a day. Uh, but, uh, uh, other, otherwise, uh, you know, of course there were, uh, there were night swims. Uh, you know, it was, of course, when you get, uh, it wasn't like, uh, you know, seven to five every day. Uh, you, you might have, uh, you know, night, uh, you know, night navigation. Uh, we'd, uh, we'd go up to different places for, uh, orienteering and so on. And, and again, uh, you, you, you throw the clock out the window just because of, uh, because of what you're doing. But, uh, basically, uh, when, uh, we were at the strand, it was a, uh, it was a seven to five or seven to five thirty. Or again, you talk about night dives and so on.

• 3:01:34Speaker 01

  Of course, you're, you're working till, uh, you know, 10, 11 midnight, whatever it might be. Uh, so, uh, so it, it has changed. They, uh, they are putting, uh, at least, uh, 12 or 15 pounds into a 10 pound bag. Uh, I mean, they are really, uh, they're, they're using every, every, every minute of the day. So if somebody asks me, "Is training hard at the day?" You bet your ass it is.

• 3:01:57Jocko Willink?

  And the guy, the kids are in better shape. They're all, they're all in better shape. So like, if you're running with your boat crew, you're, you're running with guys that are able to run faster. So you better, better be able to run faster. They're just all in better shape. I was over there a couple of years ago and one of my buddies was now a civilian working there. And we were having the same conversation and we were standing out by the first phase office. And he, you know, there's a hundred helmets lined up. And, and he said, you know, he goes, look at these hundred, whatever it was, 122 helmets. He goes, every one of these guys, I'm telling you, was a stud. And they're gone. He's like, this program is hard. I said, yeah, Roger that. It's a hard freaking program.

• 3:02:42Speaker 01

  It is. And, and as he said, every one of those 120 guys was a stud. And, and it goes to that, that, that missing factor in there. What is that, you know? What is it that caused you to put up with all that crap? You know, why did you do that? Some, some of it is, you know, just perseverance, perseverance. You know, bullheadedness and so on, but there's, there's some other factor in there. Yeah, we wanted to, uh, you know, wanted to do something for, uh, for our country. Uh, we wanted to do the best job that we could. We wanted to do, and as a result, we selected what we thought was the, uh, the hardest. I didn't realize that when I did that, you know, you know, 50 years ago, that wasn't that, it, that, it wasn't known that way.

• 3:03:25Speaker 01

  Uh, but I, I, I, I knew that it was going to be hard, uh, and I selected it anyway. Uh, in today's day and environment, uh, every one of these kids knows it's going to be a ballbuster. It's going to be hard. Uh, and, and yet they, yet they select that. There's, there's a missing factor why those young Americans decide to do that. Can't, I can't put my finger on all that. And, and there's that missing factor about what it is that enables these individuals to put up with what is arguably the most difficult training, you know, in, uh, in the military in the world.

• 3:04:03Jocko Willink?

  Did you think you were going to become an Admiral?

• 3:04:08Speaker 01

  Never.

• 3:04:11Jocko Willink?

  At that, what number SEAL Admiral were you? Number five? So there'd been, there'd been four prior to you.

• 3:04:20Jocko Willink?

  How'd that go down? How'd that, how'd that, how'd you hear about that?

• 3:04:25Speaker 01

  About the fact that I?

• 3:04:26Jocko Willink?

  About all the above, I guess.

• 3:04:27Speaker 01

  Well.

• 3:04:28Jocko Willink?

  I mean, you must've been thinking, hey, all right, I'm gonna get done with this tour. I'll be a captain, I'm gonna retire, cuz.

• 3:04:32Speaker 01

  Well, I, uh, Jaco, I, I will not ever claim to have been the sharpest tool in the shed, but I was probably one of the hardest working motherfuckers in the, in the building.

• 3:04:45Speaker 01

  I took one particular job, uh, you know, from a friend of mine. And I remember him saying, yeah, you know, first couple of weeks, three weeks, you know, you might be here till five, five thirty, six o'clock, something like that. But after that, you can get it down, you'll be out of here at four thirty every day. Well,

• 3:05:02Speaker 01

  I never left at four thirty in the entire two years that I had the job. Uh, and, uh, like I said, I worked as, as hard as I could, uh, in whatever job it was.

• 3:05:14Speaker 01

  And the other thing that I will say is, I think you really have to be who you are somewhere around seven twenty-four.

• 3:05:27Speaker 01

  When I was selected to flag officer, Admiral Lemoine, Chuck Lemoine, was the Navy SEAL on the board.

• 3:05:36Speaker 01

  There were a number of guys a year or two senior to me, uh, that I had a high expectation that, you know, Tom Dicker Harry was gonna be, uh, uh, you know, selected during that period of time, but that was my, uh, you know, basically my first time up. Uh, you have to have, uh, completed your, uh, major command tour, uh, you know, to, to be eligible, and then you got, you usually got three looks. But, uh, so anyway, Chuck was on the, on the board. And I had worked for, uh, for Admiral Lemoine, uh, when, uh,

• 3:06:11Speaker 01

  He was a Group One commander. And as I said, you have to be who you are, 724. Well, when I was working for Chuck, I was the, I was the first relatively senior officer in the building in the day. You know, I usually beat the Chief of Staff in, I usually beat the, beat the Commodore in all the time, because, you know, our job was to prepare the, prepare the environment before he showed up. And so, anyway, there was a, there was an individual in the organization who was, who

• 3:06:53Speaker 01

  was up for captain and didn't get selected. And because I was there, and it was out here on the west coast, you remember Margaret? Indeed. Margaret the Detailer, great, great lady. She, she did, she did well by me on more than one occasion, but. Me too. Anyway, Margaret, Margaret called out, asking for the Chief of Staff, he wasn't there, about the Commodore, he's not there, he says, "Well, here's the deal, you know, so-and-so didn't, the, the 06 list is, is coming out and, you know, you know, Schmuckatelli is not on it, and we wanted to give Lemoine the chance to, to prep him before, before

• 3:07:37Speaker 01

  everybody else saw that, and so that he'd be prepared for any bad news." So Admiral Lemoine gets, again, captain at the time, gets in 10 or 15 minutes before the morning, you know, meeting at 8 o'clock, and by, by habit or custom, he didn't like to be interrupted before the, before the meeting, he, he wanted to prepare himself as well. So I banged on the door and barged on in, and I said, "Excuse me, Captain, you need to hear this." And so I shared the, shared the news and left the office.

• 3:08:20Speaker 01

  So it was, it was my job to, to herd the cats and get everybody into the, to the briefing room in the morning. And there were a few of us standing in the, in the hallway. Smoking and joking as you usually do, getting ready to go in and sit in a meeting that will be 60 minutes of your life that you'll never regain. So, we were smoking and joking and Captain Moyn comes down the passageway and he made an observation and said, "I guess I can imagine what you're talking about." And my take on that was he thought I might have shared the situation with the guy who did not get selected.

• 3:09:04Speaker 01

  And I turned to the cabinet and said, "No Captain, that's not on the agenda. It's not anything that I felt that was in my purview to share with anybody." And it's things like that when you're dealing with junior officers and senior officers that leave an impression. And I think I left that impression on Captain Lemoine. So, when several years later, he's on the flagboard, he had some personal experience with who I was and what my values were. And so, that's kind of how that works, I believe.

• 3:09:47Speaker 01

  You gotta work hard, you gotta do well, you can't do some stupid things. I have to tell you that I just wanted to do as good a job as I could and take care of all the people working for me that I could. And I think it paid off. People like Admiral Worthington and Admiral Lemoine, I'm sure that the two of them had a conversation about who was gonna get selected, so.

• 3:10:16Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and I mean, at that time, there just wasn't that many SEAL admirals.

• 3:10:22Speaker 01

  Oh, no. You had, no, there absolutely weren't. And, or I guess not Worthington, probably Smith. I think Worthington was retired by then, but, you know.

• 3:10:36Speaker 01

  I mean, you've just got to be who you are, 724, and, you know, working harder than everybody else helps. Being there when it counts. I said that, I might have said that there was a shortlist when I raised my hand to go to El Salvador. They only needed one line on the list. There were, you know, there were no other volunteers at that point in time. And, and the leadership of the community, you know, recognizes those things. And the last, the last place Tom Richards wanted to go after being CO SEAL Team One was to Naval Sea Systems Command and sit at a desk and, and do procurement and research and development. I couldn't even spell it. If it hadn't been for Tommy Hawkins, the community would have

• 3:11:21Speaker 01

  been in deep kimchi. Oh, boy.

• 3:11:24Jocko Willink?

  So you end up going and taking over what we call Naval Special Warfare Command, which means you're in charge of all the SEALs. All the special boat units, all in charge of basic SEAL training, advanced SEAL training, you're in charge of everything. And that was, that, that had to be a pretty, a pretty climactic moment for you to take command.

• 3:11:46Speaker 01

  Well, Jaco, that was, that was an incredible opportunity and, and an incredible honor to, to be selected, to, to have that job, to lead a community like Naval Special Warfare. Not everybody who gets selected to fly gets the opportunity for that job. And I, I am thankful to the leadership of our community, you know, again, Admiral Lemoine, for, for giving me, Admiral Lemoine and Admiral Smith, for giving me that, that opportunity. And those were some of my most, most rewarding years. We were still in our, if you will,

• 3:12:30Speaker 01

  early years with Special Operations Command. We were still in our early years.

• 3:12:37Speaker 01

  Of somewhat of a divorce from the Navy, if you will, because you know, my, I had had two people I reported to, you know, one was a joint service commander, Army, Navy, Air Force, or Marine, down there in Tampa, and the other was a code up on the OPNAV staff, you know, ultimately, of course, to the CNO. But the, the money was, you know, there's, there's something called the golden rule. He what's got the gold, rules. And the, the money at that time was from SOCOM. And that's where, you know, the vast majority of my, my attention went.

• 3:13:22Speaker 01

  But going back to the, to the opportunities, there were so many things, so many things going on in the, in the world, and specifically within our community. There was a captain by the name of Todd Veezy, he was not a captain at the time, but Todd was stationed down at Navy Military Personnel Command, after, I believe that was after they had, it was, after they had shifted down to Memphis. And what Todd did was, he carried the water for our efforts to create the SWIC community.

• 3:14:03Speaker 01

  You know, when I, when I took over as CO, Special Boat Unit 13, we had fleet sailors coming to drive these small boats. The engines, the quote, "main propulsion engines" of a 65-foot Mark III patrol boat were a Detroit V, Detroit Diesel. 8V71TI, I think, and it was a long time ago, but that engine was usually, if they saw it on a ship, that might be an auxiliary diesel generator, not the main propulsion

• 3:14:45Speaker 01

  engine. They might not ever have seen it. So you get a, an engine man from the fleet who's never seen your engine. You get a gunner's mate from his fleet who's looking for the five-inch gun. You get a, you get a communications or electronics technician who's looking for, you know, CIC. It ain't there. And oh, by the way, you need to learn about the M60, the Pric77, you know, you, you name it, that they've never seen before in their life. So we'd get these guys for two or three years, they'd learn a lot about naval special warfare, then boom, they're gone. I took over as CO of the center, and we had continuing conversations

• 3:15:30Speaker 01

  with the then-current CEOs of the special boat units, they were called units then, not teams, and they decided that they wanted the center to host a, a training program for their, for their fleet guys coming in. We were still losing them after three years, but they wanted to, instead of having to learn all this on the job, let's, let's put it together and teach them about this special warfare stuff that they're now in the middle of. So we started out the first class with a three-and-a-half-week class, and when we laid it out as a three-and-a-half-week class, they were concerned that that was too much time, you know, to have these guys away from the team. Now, of course, because they were

• 3:16:15Speaker 01

  away from the team, that means that they had a boat or two that was not manned. So, understand that.

• 3:16:23Speaker 01

  Finished up with the class, the skippers were so charged that the next class was a five-week class that they decided, and that all grew. So, I go from CO Special Boat Unit 13 with the problem, trying to solve part of it as the commanding officer of the center. And now, when I get to be the commander of Naval Special Warfare, I was able to convince the Navy to create the SWIC in the sea. And that was just, yeah, that was just, I think, a great accomplishment for the community. And I have to look at folks like Todd Viesy

• 3:17:06Speaker 01

  and congratulate them and thank them for their work. And there was a boat guy, Master Chief Kelly Webb, unfortunately Kelly has since passed, but Kelly was a big prime mover in that as well. And I will also say that at one point in time, when I was looking for the next command or the force Master Chief for Naval Special Warfare, it came down to Kelly and Trident Winter. Those are the last two guys standing. But he was quite a guy. So, establishment of the SWIC community was something that was just outstanding.

• 3:17:49Jocko Willink?

  And now, it's a rate and everything, and guys go in, that's their career. They can go in and have their whole career in the Special Boat Team.

• 3:17:56Speaker 01

  And one of the, you know, it's, I remember having a get-together, I talked to as many folks as I could on each coast, and I remember saying to the folks, I said, "Guys, you know, this is hard for me because so much of my time is going to be directed upward, you know, whether it's, you know, budget personnel matters that I'm going to have to work with SOCOM and the Navy." When I walked in and took command at Naval Special Warfare...

• 3:18:31Speaker 01

  There was a relatively new building that didn't come close to accommodating the staff at Naval Special Warfare Command. When I walked in, six, eight, ten, maybe it was twenty, trailers surrounding the building. You know, and I don't want to offend anybody, but I referred to Naval Special Warfare Command's facility as trailer park trash. And here we are, this, you know, sitting right next to the, to those gorgeous multimillion-dollar condominiums, they're looking down on a trailer park. I'm sure they love that. So the first budget cycle that I went into with the four-star commander down there in

• 3:19:16Speaker 01

  Tampa, and I stood up and I pounded the table and I said, "Look at this building you guys got. You know, look at the addition you're putting on." I said, "I walked in and I've got my people working in trailers, in trailers." And, long story short, because it's the way things work, we got that much, we got an accelerated military construction program that clearly wasn't done by the time I left Command, but that became one of the top priorities for the SOCOM, SOCOM, MilCon budget to get us some buildings. And I'll go one step further.

• 3:19:55Speaker 01

  You know, this afternoon, I'm getting a chance to go down and view the new facilities for SEAL Team One. That whole Naval Special Warfare complex down there is billions of dollars. More importantly, that says that that billion-dollar figure was high enough on the priority list to get funded. That says that SOCOM and the United States Navy and the Department of Defense recognize the commitment required to retain the capability that Naval Special Warfare provides to our military readiness. They understand that and they're funding it. It's not just a bunch of new buildings. It says so much more than that.

• 3:20:40Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that is so impressive, what's down there, what they built for, and it's all the West Coast SEAL Teams down there. It's absolutely phenomenal. It's like, I mean, I remember when I got to SEAL Team One and checked in. It was very underwhelming. I mean, we, we kinda, I guess our building, I don't know what year that building was built where SEAL Team One was, but it was maybe 10 years old, maybe 15 years old.

• 3:21:07Speaker 01

  I'll tell you when it was built because it was, it was turned over to me as a CO of SEAL Team One in 1986.

• 3:21:13Jocko Willink?

  So the building was five or six years old, I guess, when I got there in 1991. And I mean, all it was, was pretty much like a little office building, had some, had some lockers in it. But it was, it was underwhelming. You know, the gym where I've worked out with you was just, you know, it was just a normal gym, looked like somebody threw together whatever random equipment. Um, I think we had, we had two squat racks. I mean, it was just kinda hodgepodge. And you didn't expect that, you know, it was the whole, and the whole thing kinda felt hodgepodge, I guess is what I'm saying. You, you go now, now check out that facility, you're gonna be, it's like a, it's like the James Bond movie. You know the James Bond movie where they're training commandos somewhere and they open up a door and there's people

• 3:21:55Jocko Willink?

  rappelling down, there's pools and all this shooting ranges. That's what it's like. It's, it's, it's phenomenal that, that the nation has made that a priority to, to put these guys in the right spot.

• 3:22:07Speaker 01

  A few years ago, I had the chance to go up to, uh, go up to Alaska and, uh, we've got a, a training facility up there in Alaska. And I was stunned to see the improvements that have been made to that, uh, to that training facility, uh, to include a, God, it must be a 50 or 60 foot climbing wall in there. Just, uh, just absolutely amazing. And, and again, those, those improvements, you know, not only speak to the readiness, but also speak to the recognition of the, uh, of the, of the leadership of our, uh, of our military and the importance of the special operations community.

• 3:22:40Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. It's just such a great way to support those, those guys. You know, the last thing I did before I retired was run the training on the West Coast for guys getting ready to deploy. And just, there's nothing more important than making sure that guys are ready to go do that job.

• 3:22:53Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 3:22:54Jocko Willink?

  Uh, you know, speaking of your trip down to SEAL Team One. You're doing that this afternoon. We're probably a little over three hours right now. What did you do? What'd you do once you retired?

• 3:23:06Speaker 01

  I got the, I got the chance to work for a boat company up in, up in New Hampshire. And I, I worked for a gentleman who's, you know, probably, probably not much shy of, you know, a genius. We, we developed a boat called the, called the Ghost. And, you know, Greg Sankoff is the gentleman's name. And so many innovative things that he put into this. And, you know, Navy's just not, just not ready for that craft perhaps yet.

• 3:23:47Speaker 01

  And of course, there's a few other challenges to get it in to fit and be interoperable with, with the systems that we have available today. But that was, that was a fun experience. I had the chance to take what I had learned as the, as a Naval Special Warfare Program Officer at NAVC. And of course, knowing what I knew about the, the requirements of Naval Special Warfare and, you know, what some of the things that they could do, that was a, that was a, a real fun job. And I, and I also worked for a, for an Alaskan native company.

• 3:24:24Speaker 01

  Alaskan native companies are minority owned and operated by Alaskan natives.

• 3:24:34Speaker 01

  We have, we have other, you know, small business set aside, you know.

• 3:24:42Speaker 01

  There's, are there also set asides for the, you know, black Hispanic community? I'm not sure, but in any American Indians. So they had a special contractual advantages, if you will. And what I saw, whether it was for the Alaskan natives, Native Americans.

• 3:25:12Speaker 01

  These folks would take those advantages and do a good job, whatever it was, it was requested or required. And in the contracting world, Defense Department contracting world, there is a requirement for major contractors to have a percentage of minority contracts. One of the neatest things that I saw about this company, and the company's name is Alutik and Fognak is the parent company, but the programs that they had for the development

• 3:25:50Speaker 01

  of their tribal members were absolutely amazing. Carl, who ran the computer side of things, was absolutely amazing. He was a native who went to school on the scholarship programs, college masters and so on, and he just had such an impressive computer system for the entire company. And I say that because I've never worked anywhere else where it's near as good. If you hear this one, Carl, you owe me a beer. And Carl was one.

• 3:26:35Speaker 01

  And there were a couple of young ladies in the company who were just a pleasure to work with when you saw that they were, if you will, a product of the system. And it proved what a good job that they were doing. Whether it was a college or vocational technical training, they had all kinds of programs set up for their folks. It wasn't... Five or 10,000 bucks every, every six months or a year, whatever it was. They had all these great programs set up and, and they, they would take those, take those funds and take profits and build a fund and so on.

• 3:27:19Speaker 01

  I was, I was pretty impressed with, with how they did it. And I only say this much about it because of, you know, some of the bad press that some of, the people have given it and how, how it was non-competitive, et cetera. There was a lot of competition amongst those, those Alaskan native, you know, companies. And, and they, and they, they did a damn good job. So it's quite an impressive program. And again, an opportunity to learn, you know, so much about the Alaskan natives. It's just a great opportunity. Their base is on Kodiak Island where our training facility is.

• 3:28:02Speaker 01

  Their, their corporate headquarters or real business offices are in Anchorage. So I get to start meeting a number of the, you know, the natives, you know. All the board members were, were, were natives and many of them had spent a lot of time on, on Kodiak where we have our training facility. And then they learn that I'm a retired SEAL and they tell me about the time those goddamn SEALs, you know, walked across these, you know, special, you know, sacred, you know, burial grounds or areas that were set aside and they weren't supposed to be. But I believe those fences, fences are mended, not, not doing anything that I did.

• 3:28:46Speaker 01

  But there are a couple of, a couple of folks who have whatever acreage they have on either a Fognak or Kodiak and, and they allow the, the SEALs to, as they're conducting some of their missions up there, to use some of that property to, to touch base and use as staging points and that kind of thing. So it was really fun for me to see that relationship a couple of years ago when I went up to, to Alaska.

• 3:29:15Jocko Willink?

  Where were you when September 11th happened?

• 3:29:18Speaker 01

  I was, uh, I was driving in my truck. I was working for SAIC at the time. And I was coming up from, uh, from Virginia Beach, headed to, uh, headed to DC. And, uh, my wife was, uh, my wife was, uh, up, uh, you know, working, uh, in, uh, in DC, in, uh, Vienna with, uh, with a friend of hers. And, uh, so I'm in my truck and I hear this. And I called Jackie and said, "Get a tank of gas. And, uh, when you can get out of there, get out of there." Uh, when I heard it, and by the time I had a chance to get hold of her, it was too late.

• 3:30:02Speaker 01

  So I was headed on into, uh, to SAIC. And I knew that whatever had been, uh, uh, you know, I forget exactly what I was going up there for, but I knew that that was out the window. Uh, and I said to myself, uh, I was, uh, I think I was about Fredericksburg, uh, when I heard it. I said, "Well, if I keep coming north, I'm not gonna be home for a long time." Uh, and I just, just knew that. And, uh, they took, uh, a few of us with military experience. And we set up a, uh, a talk and we set up, uh, you know, started setting up phone trees,

• 3:30:42Speaker 01

  trying to find, uh, find out who was where and how everybody was. And so it was, uh, it was quite a, uh, quite an interesting experience from that side of things.

• 3:30:52Jocko Willink?

  And then what did it look like to you as you watched the, the SEAL teams start to engage in the, in the, in the war on terror?

• 3:31:01Speaker 01

  So, uh, shortly after that, my wife and I are sitting at home watching a, a news show. And they're showing something about the Northern Alliance doing this, that, and the other thing. And they showed two...

• 3:31:16Speaker 01

  Big, open, back trucks. We'd call them a four by four, or rather a six by, or something like that. And I looked at the, I looked at the video and I said to Jackie, I said, "Sweetheart, that truck is filled with Afghans. That truck is our guys."

• 3:31:36Jocko Willink?

  "Well, how can you tell?"

• 3:31:37Speaker 01

  I say, "I can tell by the way they sit. I can tell by their posture. And I can tell by the way they hold their weapons. Look at the differences."

• 3:31:46Jocko Willink?

  "Oh."

• 3:31:48Speaker 01

  And I knew, I knew right then it was gonna be, you know, quite a, quite a deal.

• 3:31:56Speaker 01

  Because of the work I was doing with SAIC, I had the opportunity to sit in on a briefing that was given by the Chief of Naval Operations at the time. And he had been with the President just a few days before. And as he recounted his experience with the, with the President, you, you could have heard a pin drop in the room, given the, the commitment and the will to fix that.

• 3:32:33Jocko Willink?

  And I guess, what are you up to right now? You retired yet, for real?

• 3:32:40Speaker 01

  Uh, I'm, I'm retired for real. Before I leave, I'll give you a business card that says, "Leadership, Management and Motivation." But I, I work with a few kids every once in a while who've got a desire to go to Bud's. But, you know, Jackie and I are supporting a, a wildlife museum in, in Virginia Beach. And other than that, we're, we're pretty much, pretty much retired. But anybody who wants a, an old fart with an opinion, you know, give me a call.

• 3:33:11Jocko Willink?

  Well, like I said, I know you got another appointment this afternoon, going to check out the teams. Probably a good place to wrap up. Echo, you got any questions?

• 3:33:18Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 3:33:19Jocko Willink?

  All right, here we go.

• 3:33:20Speaker 02

  We still lifting weights, or what?

• 3:33:22Speaker 01

  Well, given the seven plus decades I've been on the face of the earth, the, you know, few and far between, I've actually just in the last five or six weeks, started to go back in the gym. But it's something I'll never stop. And the reason for it is, at 74 years of age, I don't have to hire somebody to cut my lawn. I can still go out there, I can do it. You know, I don't have to, I don't have to hire somebody to move those boxes around the house. I don't have to hire somebody to move that dresser. You know, I can, I can still do that. And that's, that's not only speaking to my physical well-being, it's speaking to my medical well-being, my mental well-being, just to be able to do that.

• 3:34:07Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. You've got a gym at your house?

• 3:34:10Speaker 01

  I've got a few hundred pounds. So, here you go. When I went down to El Salvador, I went unaccompanied for a year. And with that, I was able to send a thousand pounds or 1,100 pounds of personal gear. 700 pounds of weightlifting equipment. I had, I had squat racks, a bench, and at least 500 pounds of, pounds of weights in my own room, in my own, in my own building. When I, there was a, the guy I relieved was assassinated. But

• 3:34:52Speaker 01

  they actually had a Golds in El Salvador. So, I said, well, I'll give that a shot. And so I went to Golds a few times and

• 3:35:02Speaker 01

  I'm deadlifting five and a half or whatever and

• 3:35:05Jocko Willink?

  Not drawing any attention to yourself.

• 3:35:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, you're right. Stupid with a capital S. And I ended up getting, I found out from a certain intelligence agency that my nickname in the gym was El Grua, which stands for the crane. And, and next thing I hear the Colonel I mentioned before calls me into the office and he said, we got a report that there's some folks taking notice of your attendance at Gold's. I said, ah shit. And so that was the last time I went to Gold's.

• 3:35:41Jocko Willink?

  Oh, man. Well, look, we got a bunch of stories out of you today. Like I said, I know you gotta go. You got any closing thoughts you want to say?

• 3:35:52Speaker 01

  I had a great 30 years, a lot of good guys. And I'll tell you, one, one important closing thought.

• 3:36:02Speaker 01

  When I took over in 96, we were still deploying SEAL platoons the same way, same way I walked out the door in 1970. 26 years, a lot of things have changed in those 26 years. Captain Pete Tonys and Stan, damn it. Both guys who'd been group commanders on the East Coast had come in and had pitched a, pitched a recommended change of how to do business. And we were calling it the squadron deployment. So what I did at that point in time is I sat down with Admiral Smith, who was still, still on active duty.

• 3:36:44Speaker 01

  And Admiral Eric Olson, and a couple of other folks, and I said, guys, this is what I think we wanted to do. You may not be aware, but in the 84, 85 timeframe, we had tried something like that with SEAL Team One, and it didn't work. We'll go into those details. But I sat down with Admiral Smith, Admiral Olson, because I knew Eric was going to be followed. Well, maybe it didn't by that point in time, but my goal was to make sure Eric was going to be the next flag officer. Anyhow. Good judgment on my part, by the way. Better work by Eric. But I sat down with those guys and I said, "Guys, this is what I think we should do."

• 3:37:28Speaker 01

  Now, I don't know exactly what it's going to look like. So what I did is I went, after talking to those guys, I went back and we set up a working group on the WarCom staff. And the senior guy in the working group was probably a commander. And I said, "Guys, the last thing I ever want to hear is the Admiral said or the Admiral wants, other than the fact that I want to figure out how to make this work. I think we need to change how we're doing business."

• 3:38:04Speaker 01

  We had O4s down to E6s on that working group to figure out how to make it work. And we didn't get it fielded by the time I left Command, but we had the core of what we were looking at. We were already looking at different team deployments and how we were going to change that all. So we'd have one team with boat guys, intelligence support, logistics support, that kind of thing, deploying forward. And as I stopped and looked today, it looks a whole lot different than what walked out

• 3:38:49Speaker 01

  the door finally under Eric Olson. But I am so proud of Stan and Pete of bringing that to me and us taking that and laying the groundwork because this is now 22, going on 23 years after we started working on that. And here, Naval Special Warfare, with lipstick on the pig in a certain number of places, but it's still the same pig. Or it's probably a boar hog by now. But it's what we started framing at that point in time as a way for Naval Special Warfare to do business.

• 3:39:33Speaker 01

  And again, I'm proud of that working group, proud of Pete and Stan and the other guys agreeing. Because... I didn't, like I said, I didn't want to start going down this road if somebody was gonna, you know, throw out, you know, dozens of man-years of work and planning to toss it out. So, that was, that in combination with the SWCC NEC were the two things that I figured were probably the, you know, best accomplishments that I ever had. Let me add one more thing. You talked earlier about working with the physical therapist and so on. You need to

• 3:40:18Speaker 01

  go back and thank, I believe it was Pete Tonys, who started that, you know, bringing in those physical therapists to work with the team guys. But there's, it's interesting for me to hear your comments on how important those kinds of things are, were to you in your career. And I think, you know, way to go there Pete, you know, those guys were doing some good things. But those are the two biggest things that I'm probably proudest of. That and Petty Officer Bacchus coming up to me at SEAL Team One.

• 3:40:56Jocko Willink?

  That's outstanding. And that transition that you started, that you initiated, that got pushed to you, I guess, up through the chain of command to redo the way we were deploying. I mean, the way the deployments went, eventually, once the war started, we would have been just kind of worthless, you know, being a random platoon out there by yourself. You just don't have the value that you need to bring to the battlefield. And what we were able to do as giant squadrons with all the augmentees, with all the logistical support, that's what we needed. And, and, look, didn't mean we lost our ability to be nimble, because we could still take a platoon from that squadron and kick them out to some random outstation.

• 3:41:40Jocko Willink?

  You could have a five or six-man element. I had little elements sitting in tiny spots out on their own. And, but we were able to do that because of that squadron idea came to fruition. And otherwise, we wouldn't have been able to have been functional.

• 3:41:56Speaker 01

  One other thing contributed to the success of that squadron. When you first came in the teams where were platoons still deploying on the amphibes?

• 3:42:05Jocko Willink?

  Yep, I did two amphibib deployments myself. I started one, my first deployment was to Guam, and then I did back-to-back ARG platoons out here in San Diego, six months on the ship.

• 3:42:16Speaker 01

  Well, being able to take the platoons off the ARG was another key part of that. And I can remember going to Cinco de Mayo, four-star admiral, saying, "This is what I want to do, and this is how I want to do it." And that is, when the amphibes try to do advanced force ops, that means you got to get those amphibious ships within a few miles of the coast. You're not doing anything advanced force. And one of the terms that they wanted, that they use is doing in stride amphibious operations, so they can just drive up to the beach and do their thing. But if you have to stop and let the SEALs do their thing,

• 3:43:00Speaker 01

  you're sitting there with a bullseye on you. So I had to be somewhat tactful with Cinco de Mayo.

• 3:43:07Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, because no leaders ever want to give up their assets. They don't want to give them up.

• 3:43:12Speaker 01

  Nope, they did not. And so I explained to them how a submarine, and explained to them, you know, Jim was a, Jim was a commanding officer of a nuclear aircraft carrier. Probably not much I have to explain to him, but as I laid it out to him, I said, you know, we have these theater special operations commands and these forces allocated to them. They're not only Navy special warfare, they're Army and Air Force assets that are available to you there. And you can get there by submarine, you can get there by C-130, you can get rubber ducks.

• 3:43:52Speaker 01

  There are no C-130s on the M5s that I've seen, et cetera, et cetera. And he said, well, who's gonna, who's gonna pay for that? You know, the, I said, we are Naval Special Warfare and US Special Operations Command. He said, sold. And that's, that's how we, that's, that's the third biggest thing that I feel that, that I can, yeah, hang my hat on in, in my career. You know, getting, getting people to finally understand if you want to do something in stride for the M5s, you're probably going to launch that, that reconnaissance from somewhere else.

• 3:44:29Jocko Willink?

  Yep, as it should be.

• 3:44:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:44:31Jocko Willink?

  Well, outstanding, outstanding stuff. I'm, you open invite, anytime you come back, if you listen to this and there's other things you want to talk about that you missed, scratch them down on a piece of paper. This, this place is yours. It's been an honor to sit down and talk with you. You know, obviously, thanks for everything that you did for the country, for the teams, for the Navy. And thanks for putting some faith in a E4 that came to your office wanting to request and you legitimately changed the trajectory of my life and, and that's how I ended up here. So it's been an honor and thank you.

• 3:45:07Speaker 01

  Thank you, Jaco, and I don't know if you knew it, but for the first two or three years that they had that Seaman Admiral Program, and I guess you were in like the second year?

• 3:45:16Jocko Willink?

  I was.

• 3:45:16Speaker 01

  Naval Special Warfare, you and the other boys that went in there, you guys with the top four candidates each year.

• 3:45:27Jocko Willink?

  We're just trying to hold up the line.

• 3:45:29Speaker 01

  Good job.

• 3:45:30Jocko Willink?

  Thanks, sir, appreciate it. All right. The Hulk has departed the area of operations. The, it's just freaking crazy to sit here. Kind of like it was crazy with, with Mike Durant. When I was watching him on TV after he'd been captured in Somalia and I was watching him in 1993 as a young SEAL new guy, and now we're sitting here talking to him. Think of how crazy this is. Here I am, talking to Admiral Richards, who literally wrote the recommendation for me to become a SEAL officer in 19, what was that?

• 3:46:08Jocko Willink?

  30 years ago, 25 years ago, something like this.

• 3:46:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:46:12Jocko Willink?

  And he's legendary SEAL. From SEAL Team One, where I'm from. He was the commanding officer of SEAL Team One. Right before I showed up, he was. He was the commanding officer of BUDS, by the way, when I graduated.

• 3:46:28Jocko Willink?

  And here he is.

• 3:46:29Speaker 02

  Just right there.

• 3:46:30Jocko Willink?

  Debriefing. I'll tell you what's awesome, and I was talking to him about this a little bit. I was telling him that when Mike Thornton came on the podcast, and I had, I forget when Mike Thornton actually retired, but we overlapped in time. You know, I was in for a while while he was in. Not, not very long, because he retired probably somewhere around when I came in. I don't know. But, but there was overlap time. There was time he was in the teams. He was a SEAL Team One guy. He was a Medal of Honor recipient. Legendary. Legendary. Like, you need to put music behind that when I say it on the, like, in post. So, so Mike Thornton.

• 3:47:08Jocko Willink?

  But as much as I knew who Mike Thornton was, I had met him, you know, I had met him multiple times. I had also met him when Mikey Monsour, when, when his parents were giving Mikey's Medal of Honor at the White House. Like, Mike Thornton was there. We, we talked, we hung out, we drank beers. Like, I know him. And

• 3:47:29Jocko Willink?

  I had never gotten any kind of a debrief about the, the operation where he ended up receiving the Medal of Honor, until he came on the podcast and gave us a two-hour, full, detailed debrief on why he received the Medal of Honor. So it's the same thing here. Like, I had known that Admiral Richards was, you know, a badass Vietnam guy. That's, you know, that's just, there's a whole category. When you're a new guy in the teams in the 90s, there's just like a whole, there's a whole group. And it's just like, oh yeah, a NOM guy. And you're not in that group, or even close to it, because now it's 1991 when I'm checking in. Vietnam's been over for a long time.

• 3:48:13Jocko Willink?

  But that, that, that's the, that's the group. And you don't know too much about him. You don't understand, you couldn't debrief, like the debrief that he went through today? How awesome is that? It's, it's just, hey, here's exactly what happened. Here's what was going on. Here's what I said. Here's the words that came out of my mouth. Here's the, here's what the other individual, here's where the helicopter, just hearing these details. And understanding them, it's just, so I'm so lucky to be sitting here.

• 3:48:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, this, the, the whole time, um, these thoughts flash in my head like, okay, imagine if you're like a, you know, a VC guy. Or, you know, NBA guy. And you, for whatever reason, get face to face with this motherfucker.

• 3:49:03Speaker 02

  Let's say, I don't know, you guys lost all your weapons or whatever. Now you gotta go hand to hand.

• 3:49:07Jocko Willink?

  You're surrendering.

• 3:49:08Speaker 02

  Till the death.

• 3:49:09Jocko Willink?

  You're surrendering.

• 3:49:09Speaker 02

  With this freaking guy.

• 3:49:11Jocko Willink?

  Hard, the most hardened, the most hardened NBA, like just warrior. He's surrendering. He's just, hey, I'm done.

• 3:49:19Speaker 02

  Bro, forget the wrestling kid who got body slammed and a concussion. Forget that guy. Bro, this guy is going down.

• 3:49:27Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you're going down. You can tell, and you could see, you know, he threw his numbers out, right? I mean, he's throwing out his numbers.

• 3:49:34Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 3:49:34Jocko Willink?

  But you can just tell too, some people are strong.

• 3:49:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:49:38Jocko Willink?

  Like they're just genetically freaking strong. And by the way, when you're 14 years old after your freshman year and you weigh 140 pounds and the, the 170 pound wrestling coach comes out and can't hold you down. And you're not that good of a wrestler, but you're just doing it on pure power. You're one of those dudes. You are just a strong, jacked dude. It's not even just Jack. It's like the genetic, that, that dense, just strong freaking muscle. And he's just made of that, just made of that a hundred percent. Checking into Bud's at 145, by the way. Oh, sorry, 245. I, I got a little confused there because I checked into Bud's at 174. Like a little baby.

• 3:50:23Jocko Willink?

  Like a little baby and it wasn't like I was a skinny guy, you know, I wasn't skinny. But I damn sure wasn't two hundred and forty-five pounds deadlifting over five, benching over four. I mean, come on.

• 3:50:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:50:37Jocko Willink?

  So if you're a random Viet Cong fighter that you've been raised in the fields and eating rice. And you weigh, he, he was just saying after the podcast, he's like, yeah, you know, the average Vietnamese fighter was, he's, I think he said five, five, one thirty-five.

• 3:50:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:50:56Jocko Willink?

  That's the average fighter.

• 3:50:57Speaker 02

  That's literally the size of my wife.

• 3:50:59Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And so we're talking about just that, what, what the Hulk is like the move, it's like being the actual Hulk. He grabs a hold of you and starts shaking your, your head around.

• 3:51:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:51:12Jocko Willink?

  So.

• 3:51:14Speaker 02

  That's interesting. I remember the stories of you saying like, oh, when you're in the weight room and you know, the, the Hulk comes in. And I knew it would turn it down.

• 3:51:22Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, cause I'm a new guy, man.

• 3:51:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:51:24Jocko Willink?

  You know?

• 3:51:24Speaker 02

  That's interesting.

• 3:51:25Jocko Willink?

  And plus the other thing that's interesting is I thought, you know, who is this old guy, right? And in my mind, he was a hundred years old because he was a mom and, and I'm, you know how old he was? I did the math. He was, he was like forty-three or forty-four.

• 3:51:40Speaker 02

  Oh damn.

• 3:51:41Jocko Willink?

  Six or seven years younger than I am right now. And, and I'm in there thinking, I, like in my mind, I think this guy doesn't know what rock and roll music is, you know? And it's just so ignorant. It's so ignorant. Meanwhile, he's about, he's, he was just telling you, he's like a bouncer at this bar, hucking people on their head. He's the freaking bruiser, dude.

• 3:52:03Speaker 02

  I wanted, I should have talked to him about that, you know, I have a bouncing background, you know, maybe we could have shared.

• 3:52:08Jocko Willink?

  You guys have like that big kinship of being bouncers.

• 3:52:11Speaker 02

  Yeah. I'm sure his, uh, his time as a bouncer might, might've been more robust than mine, probably.

• 3:52:18Jocko Willink?

  Yep. And well, that's, you know, when you, when you asked him about lifting and still lifting, like such a key component of life is just to keep exercising. Cause I mean, what, what did he say? He was seventy-four years old?

• 3:52:30Speaker 02

  Yes, seventy.

• 3:52:31Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I mean, he rolled in here today with no, I mean, you just in total, totally perfect health.

• 3:52:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:52:36Jocko Willink?

  Uh, and you know, shook my hand, you know, you, the, the handshake is kind of a little subliminal warning of just what could happen. You know, he's kind of like, look, you might think you're tough there, young Jaco, but, uh,

• 3:52:49Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:52:50Jocko Willink?

  You know, you want to play?

• 3:52:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, and I didn't and I was doing the math when he told me the year he was born during the break and I I was surprised. I thought I thought maybe like, oh, yeah, maybe sixty something, you know, because just you know, you can just tell a guy's like

• 3:53:05Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you can give an estimate and their energy.

• 3:53:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, so but my estimate was way off. So yeah, man, and that and that was his thing, too. Like, obviously, like, he was saying, like, yeah, running wasn't my jam or whatever. It was just straight uplifting, not literally nothing else, really. I mean, unless I missed something.

• 3:53:22Jocko Willink?

  Just lifting. He was just jacking steel.

• 3:53:25Speaker 02

  Oh, he could swim, too.

• 3:53:26Jocko Willink?

  And plus wrestling.

• 3:53:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, wrestling, for sure.

• 3:53:29Jocko Willink?

  Which is, you know, a good skill to have.

• 3:53:32Speaker 02

  It's kind of the jam.

• 3:53:33Jocko Willink?

  When when the judo Navy all Navy judo champion comes running out of a hooch on a training outfit, you got a double legging.

• 3:53:41Speaker 02

  I know, bro.

• 3:53:44Jocko Willink?

  Uh, good stuff. Well, hey, thanks, everybody for listening, and we appreciate you hanging out. If you if there's look, you will probably want to jack steel after you listen to the whole. I know I'm kind of feeling like I want to go deadlift something right now.

• 3:53:56Speaker 02

  Yes, me, too.

• 3:53:57Jocko Willink?

  Probably gonna need some supplementation. You might as well get some.

• 3:54:00Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 3:54:01Jocko Willink?

  Get get a little bit of that Jaco fuel, Jacofuel.com.

• 3:54:04Speaker 02

  Yep. That's the clean one.

• 3:54:06Jocko Willink?

  It's a big deal.

• 3:54:07Speaker 02

  It is a big deal. So we got energy drinks.

• 3:54:10Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 3:54:10Speaker 02

  Let's go. Jaco, go. We got some protein, tastes good and clean and it's clean protein, no sugar. That's called milk.

• 3:54:18Jocko Willink?

  Yep. All that stuff you can get at Jacofuel.com. The the if you want to get the drinks, you can get them at Wawa. You can also get all the stuff at Vitamin Shop. We're in the process of going into so many more stores right now. It's awesome. I'll keep you posted on that, on where you can go to your local neighborhood and get your get your Jaco fuel together. So that's good. And you might have seen recently, we started talking about the hunting.

• 3:54:43Speaker 02

  I did.

• 3:54:43Jocko Willink?

  Hunting apparel.

• 3:54:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:54:45Jocko Willink?

  We did a little live last night, little live, was it live Instagram stream?

• 3:54:49Speaker 02

  Instagram live.

• 3:54:50Jocko Willink?

  Live. Yeah, so we did that yesterday.

• 3:54:52Speaker 02

  What was the what was the takeaway on that? Sorry to say I didn't catch it, you know, but what was it?

• 3:55:00Jocko Willink?

  I guess you're gonna have to go back and review the tapes, bro.

• 3:55:02Speaker 02

  All right, all right.

• 3:55:03Jocko Willink?

  That's why that's why I shared it or whatever.

• 3:55:06Speaker 02

  I understand fully.

• 3:55:07Jocko Willink?

  That's why I shared it.

• 3:55:09Speaker 02

  Obviously, the players on their campaigns.

• 3:55:12Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 3:55:12Speaker 02

  Who else?

• 3:55:13Jocko Willink?

  Pete Roberts, Kip Fokes. So, we started a company, Origin Hunt. And we're gonna be making American-made hunting gear. Kip Fokes has a massive amount of experience. He was one of the original guys at Under Armour.

• 3:55:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:55:32Jocko Willink?

  And so he has done all kinds of product development. And one of the main guys that they sponsored, well, actually, the longest guy sponsored at Under Armour was Cam Haynes. And Cam Haynes is obviously a legendary bow hunter. So, they had a relationship and, yeah, things, there was an opportunity. Cam was going through whatever he was going through at Under Armour. So, we had an opportunity to form a company together, all of us. And it's funny, I saw somebody wrote like, "Oh, I'm glad to see Cam's whatever the first ambassador for Origin Hunt." And the fact is, no, he's not an ambassador of Origin Hunt. He's a founding, a founding owner of Origin Hunt.

• 3:56:17Jocko Willink?

  So, it's a totally cool thing for, for us to be a part of. And, and, and listen. I know it seems a little bit crazy. I, I, I know you might think I'm a little bit like, "Oh, you're going a little whatever." Right? When I, when I say to you that, "Hey, we're in an economic war." And people go, "Oh, yeah, yeah." They get it. But here's the thing. It's like,

• 3:56:44Jocko Willink?

  it's like one of those things that's not in front of your face, so you don't worry about it.

• 3:56:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:56:47Jocko Willink?

  Right? It's like, "Oh, there's something wrong with our, with our sewer pipe under the house."

• 3:56:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:56:52Jocko Willink?

  And you're like, "Okay." But as long as it doesn't stink, you're not, you're not calling the plumber.

• 3:56:57Speaker 02

  Right. It's like the check engine light.

• 3:56:58Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's like the check engine light, but it kind of flickers on and it goes off.

• 3:57:02Speaker 02

  Goes off.

• 3:57:03Jocko Willink?

  And it flickers on, it goes off, and it flickers on, it goes off. I'm telling you, I'm the check engine light right now for the world. And I'm telling you right now, the check engine light is on. It should be on. And you need to get in the game because that's what's going, that's what's happening. We're in an economic war with China. And the more we blow it off and act like it's no big deal and keep driving the car, keep flushing the toilet down the sewer pipe, we're gonna look up and that thing's gonna burst. And it's gonna be shit everywhere. So, and your car's gonna break down. So, let's not do that. This is American made stuff. OriginUSA.com. This is American made stuff. It's the, everything about it is American made.

• 3:57:44Jocko Willink?

  So, get in the game. That's what we're doing. We're making work wear. We're making jujitsu gear. We're making hunting gear. Guess what? Guess what I need in my life? Jujitsu gear, hunting gear, work wear.

• 3:57:56Speaker 02

  If, um, and I'm not joking by the way with this, uh, so I saw us, I don't know if it was a sample or just one of the pants, right? For hunting. So, that looks like something I would wear. I don't go hunting as of yet.

• 3:58:09Jocko Willink?

  Okay, yeah.

• 3:58:10Speaker 02

  And I don't know if I am or not, but as of right now, I am.

• 3:58:13Jocko Willink?

  Desire to hunt?

• 3:58:14Speaker 02

  I am currently not hunting. How about that?

• 3:58:16Jocko Willink?

  Do you want to hunt?

• 3:58:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's one of those things, for sure. But when I say it's one of those things, it's one of those things, you know? Yes. So, I don't know. Am I gonna get there? Yes, maybe, maybe not. Anyway. Question is, what if I just wear them anyway? Is that posing? I mean, tech, I'm not, I'm not doing it. I wouldn't be wearing these hunting pants to make like I'm a hunter.

• 3:58:35Jocko Willink?

  One of the things, one of my philosophies of life is, you, you wanna have multiple purposes for everything that you have. So, even like, Delta jeans, they're, they're cool to wear if you wanna go to a restaurant with your wife. They're also cool if you have to just go do squats in, or you do yard work in, right? These, that, that's the kinda flexibility you have. You wanna make things that have multi-purpose capabilities. So, the, the clothing that we're making for Origin Hunt will be multi-purpose. And if you're in an urban scenario where things are unfolding and you just happen to be rolling deep Echo Charles style with a pair of camis.

• 3:59:12Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 3:59:13Jocko Willink?

  No one's gonna give you a second look, other than to go, man, those things look legit.

• 3:59:17Speaker 02

  Okay, good.

• 3:59:17Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, so I think you're good. I'm clearing you hot.

• 3:59:19Speaker 02

  Okay, so even if there's no scenario unfolding?

• 3:59:21Jocko Willink?

  The only thing that you would have to use caution in, in my opinion, with OriginUSA.com, is if you didn't train jujitsu at all, but you thought that geese look cool and you just went out and got one and you were wearing it down to the club.

• 3:59:33Speaker 02

  That makes sense to me, yeah.

• 3:59:34Jocko Willink?

  I wouldn't do that. That would be posing.

• 3:59:37Speaker 02

  Okay, yes.

• 3:59:37Jocko Willink?

  But if you happen to, if you happen to reach in the freaking cupboard and you pulled out a pair of. Freaking camo origin pants.

• 3:59:45Speaker 02

  Right.

• 3:59:45Jocko Willink?

  Then you were like, hey, this is what I'm wearing? I think we're good.

• 3:59:48Speaker 02

  Wait, but the camo, cause hunting camo is different than regu- like right now, I'm literally wearing camo pants.

• 3:59:55Jocko Willink?

  As am I, while I'm wearing camo shorts.

• 3:59:56Speaker 02

  Right, and we're not fighting in the jungle right now.

• 3:59:58Jocko Willink?

  We're not.

• 3:59:59Speaker 02

  We're not.

• 4:00:00Jocko Willink?

  Could be, we're ready if we need to be.

• 4:00:02Speaker 02

  Maybe later.

• 4:00:02Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 4:00:03Speaker 02

  Either way, you know, no one's gonna be like, oh, err, like thinking that I'm actually trying to act like I'm actually doing XYZ in the jungle.

• 4:00:11Jocko Willink?

  No one is mistaking you for a commando.

• 4:00:13Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 4:00:16Jocko Willink?

  No one's mistaking you for a jungle warrior, right?

• 4:00:20Speaker 02

  Correct, yes, so do I, am I extended that same sort of courtesy or latitude with?

• 4:00:26Jocko Willink?

  I'm telling you, you're good, and because of the materials that we're using to make this stuff, you're gonna want, you're gonna be, this will become the standard kinda, I think there's gonna be people all over America just going to the grocery store in origin hunt camo.

• 4:00:38Speaker 02

  That's what I was.

• 4:00:39Jocko Willink?

  It's gonna be a thing.

• 4:00:39Speaker 02

  That's what I was planning on, yeah, because, and I'm only, I didn't even feel them, I saw a picture of them, and I know, I know good pants when I see them. So you're saying like with a cut.

• 4:00:47Jocko Willink?

  You got that, you got that gut instinct, that's always been good, you know?

• 4:00:51Speaker 02

  Well, you know, some people got it.

• 4:00:53Jocko Willink?

  Some people got that special talent, so yeah, originusa.com, if you wanna get some cool of the, what would you say, like the things we, you and I have said on the podcast? We could get some jocko store.com stuff, a t-shirt.

• 4:01:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, okay, well, you know, of course, I always say how to represent on the path, and the reason why I always say it like that,

• 4:01:14Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 4:01:14Speaker 02

  is cause that's the best way to say it.

• 4:01:17Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 4:01:18Speaker 02

  It's not the best way to say it?

• 4:01:19Jocko Willink?

  No, no.

• 4:01:20Speaker 02

  Tell me one way. No, no, no, no, no, apparently it's not.

• 4:01:23Jocko Willink?

  I don't know, apparently it is, cause you say so.

• 4:01:25Speaker 02

  Okay, alright, well, in my opinion.

• 4:01:28Jocko Willink?

  Should I leave now? Current. You want me to go?

• 4:01:30Speaker 02

  Current.

• 4:01:31Jocko Willink?

  Cause I don't wanna, I don't wanna get in the way of your freaking awesomeness.

• 4:01:34Speaker 02

  It feels the most accurate, how about that?

• 4:01:36Jocko Willink?

  Okay, okay.

• 4:01:39Speaker 02

  Jocko in one of his moods today. Okay, alright, no, no, no, that's good, that's good. Either way, if you want to represent while you're on the path, when I'm on the path and I wear this shirt, I am currently representing. I'm in the, in, in the middle of representing while on the path.

• 4:01:55Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 4:01:56Speaker 02

  You see what I'm saying?

• 4:01:56Jocko Willink?

  Right now, you're in the middle of over explaining something.

• 4:01:59Speaker 02

  Nope, nope, nope, nope. In the spirit of accuracy and consistency and thoroughness. Thoroughness, yeah, I'm explaining, that's all. So it's better, it's better. Either way, jocko store.com, that's where you can get this stuff. Good apparel. Good apparel, fits good, looks good.

• 4:02:14Jocko Willink?

  Yep. Subscribe to the podcast, check out jocko underground.com. That's where we're, we got an alternative site in case we need it. You know the deal. If you want to support us there, we're putting out an extra broadcast for you, some extra information. It's eight dollars and eighteen cents a month. If you can't afford it. Look, if you can't afford it, you can email assistance at underground dot, at, at jocko underground.com. Also, check your situation. Check your situation, because if you, if eight dollars and eighteen cents a month, if that's putting a negative impact on your zone, then check it out. You need to do some assessment of where you're at. Because that's not where you want to be. So go back and start listening to the podcast at one.

• 4:02:57Jocko Willink?

  We're going to go through all kinds of things that are going to help get you to a point where you're like eight dollars and eighteen cents a month. To provide freedom to the world, we're in. That's my recommendation there.

• 4:03:08Jocko Willink?

  YouTube channel. We got a YouTube channel. Subscribe to that. Subscribe to the US, uh, Origin USA YouTube channel. Flipside Canvas Dakota Meyer. I was gonna bring up something about Dakota today. Oh, you know what I was gonna bring up Dakota, but I just didn't? Was when Admiral Richards was talking about first responders. Dude, Dakota's a first responder right now.

• 4:03:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:03:31Jocko Willink?

  Like, not, not like, oh, he does like, uh, training for them. No, no, I'm saying, right now, he's a first responder. Dakota Meyer is currently, right now, probably out fighting a fire, helping somebody medically in a car accident. But he, man, he, it's, it's a freaking insane hard job. And I'll give you an example. And I, I don't want to, I'll give you a, I'll paraphrase a conversation I had with Dakota the other day. They pull up to, they pull up to a site that they, they pull up to a call. It's a suicide.

• 4:04:09Jocko Willink?

  It's a young, it's a teenage child who has committed suicide by hanging themselves. And I think Dakota said something like, you know, like as we're pulling up and I'm starting to get out of the vehicle. Like the person I'm with, whoever he's with is more experienced person. And they're like, hey, grab the bolt cutters. And he was like, okay, and he grabs the bolt cutters because that person knew that they were going to have to cut them down. And that was like the easiest way. So, yeah, all the first responders out there, man, um, we appreciate what you're doing.

• 4:04:49Jocko Willink?

  And the, the, that's Dakota Meyer and that's Dakota Meyer, who is not only a US Marine, not only a Medal of Honor recipient, not only a freaking awesome guy, but he's also currently at this time, a firefighter, EMT, paramedic dude, that sends me pictures at one o'clock in the morning of him responding to a car accident, a house fire, a freaking medical emergency. So God bless that guy and go check out flipsidecanvas.com. Buy some cool stuff to hang on your wall, which is what it is. I forgot to tell you that. That's what, you know what? It doesn't really matter if, if I was like, hey, he's selling cottage cheese and, and, and freaking uh,

• 4:05:31Jocko Willink?

  clay bowls. I'd be like, cool. Go buy some cottage. I want some cottage cheese now and some clay bowls. That's what we're doing. Dakota, flipsidecanvas.com. Hey, I read a bunch of books. Check those out.

• 4:05:42Jocko Willink?

  Echelon Front Leadership Consultancy. If you need help inside your organization, go to echelonfront.com. We got some live events coming up. You know what we got coming up? We got the battlefield.

• 4:05:55Jocko Willink?

  EF Battlefield and we take and we go and walk historical battlefields. We do Gettysburg. We do Little Big Horn. So go and check that out. We just go site by site. We walk where the, where the leaders walked, where the troops walked. We, we discuss their decisions, the good decisions, the bad decisions.

• 4:06:18Speaker 02

  That's, that's a smaller group, right?

• 4:06:20Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's like 25, 30 people.

• 4:06:24Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 4:06:24Jocko Willink?

  So, and it's two days and you know, we like have dinner and hang out, have lunch, all those things. So, hey, look, if you want to go there and you also want to ask about, hey, here's a leadership challenge I'm facing. Here's what I'm doing with my company. That, that's cool too. And those answers that we give will many times be given with the overlay of, hey, here's a historical battle. Here's what this general did in this particular case. Here's what this Colonel did over here. Here's what this, this freaking war chief did over here. So if you want to come and check any of that stuff out, go to echelonfront.com, look for events. We also have an online

• 4:07:02Jocko Willink?

  training academy called the academy, extremeownership.com. Look, you gotta go to the gym if you want to stay in shape.

• 4:07:14Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 4:07:15Jocko Willink?

  If you want to improve, if you want to learn guitar, you gotta practice. If you want to learn a language like Spanish because you're going to El Salvador because the person that you're replacing just got assassinated there and you're the only person that rogers up to go do it and you gotta learn Spanish, you gotta go practice it. You gotta get taught it. Leadership's the same way and it doesn't happen overnight. You gotta learn it. You gotta study it. So we have the academy, extremeownership.com and listen, guess what leadership is? Leadership is life. Whatever you're doing in your life, you have to set goals. You have to figure out what tasks you need to complete. You need to prioritize and execute how you're going to make something happen, how you're going to get that house bought. How are you gonna pick up a new job?

• 4:08:00Jocko Willink?

  How are you gonna go rebuild this relationship with someone that you hurt? Like, those are all things that we do. Those are all leadership things. They might not sound like it. Leadership is life. So, extremeownership.com, yeah, it's about leadership, but don't think to yourself, "Well, you know, I'm not really in a leadership position, so I guess it's not for me." You're in a leadership position. You are in a leadership position. If you're the, if you're the most junior person working at Wendy's, if you're the, the grill guy at Wendy's, which was my job, by the way, when I was younger, if you're the, that guy, you're, you're, you're flipping burgers at Wendy's, which I did, you're in a leadership position.

• 4:08:38Jocko Willink?

  And you can build relationships with the people there, and you can start to figure out how things work, and you can get promoted, you can move up, you can buy your own store. That's what happens, by the way. When you're the most junior person, if you become a leader, if you think like a leader, that's what you can do with your life. And it just doesn't apply to work. You wanna build a relationship with another person. That you're in a leadership position. I, this might sound, uh, cold, but guess what? You have a wife, or you have a husband, you're in a leadership position. The way you interact with them, the techniques that I use when I'm talking to you, Echo Charles, as my work compadre, are the same techniques that I use when I'm talking to my wife, when I'm talking to my kids.

• 4:09:21Jocko Willink?

  They're, they're, it's human interaction. So, if you need help with that, which, by the way, we all do, because you're not born with it. You're not born. Look, can you be a born leader? In, yeah, yes, you can. Can you be kinda charismatic? Yes, you can. The best leaders still make mistakes. They still have room to improve. And people that maybe don't, aren't blessed with that natural leadership gift. Guess what? You got room to improve too.

• 4:09:46Speaker 02

  There was a, there was a guy that's totally slipping in my mind right now, where, um,

• 4:09:52Speaker 02

  Adam Tom Richards was saying, he didn't ever raise his voice, like, he never heard him raise his voice, but everyone listened to him.

• 4:09:58Jocko Willink?

  Al Huey.

• 4:09:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, so, okay. So, it's like, okay, so, consider that phenomenon, like, in life, where, where essentially, you're, you have this crazy, and when you think about it, it's crazy, this ability to navigate through all kinds of different personalities, and they all

• 4:10:14Jocko Willink?

  Get on board with the program.

• 4:10:15Speaker 02

  Get on board. Like, basically, you know how to make everyone do what they wanna do for themselves, or the group, or whatever. Even, and a lot of times, that's the part that I think maybe kinda... Goes over my head even where it's like it's not just what I'm trying to make the whole group do. Sometimes it's just one person. In fact, most of the time, it's just one other person in many different situations, whatever. But it's like, yeah, it's your brother, your wife, your friend, or whatever. And you can navigate, no matter the personality, you can navigate and control the scenario for everyone, you know, for everyone's interests. That's like a superpower.

• 4:10:49Jocko Willink?

  And you know what else is interesting is as you go through life, the more you understand these concepts, you see them everywhere. You see, and the reason I, what made me think of that is when you said, you know, wife, this, you, you mentioned wife, you mentioned like peers, you're mentioning all people that you're close to, that, that you interact with. When you go and walk into a restaurant that you've never been in before, and you interact with the hostess.

• 4:11:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:11:15Jocko Willink?

  That person that's gonna get you a table, there's a leadership situation happening.

• 4:11:20Speaker 02

  Directly, not hidden, not the kind of like, oh, if you really left, it's literally happening.

• 4:11:25Jocko Willink?

  And you might get, you might get like put, oh, yeah, yes, come have a seat over here, sir. And you get put by the kitchen, and there's noise coming out, there may be some background smells that you're not particularly fond of. That can happen right there. And you can also get point, put in the window seat overlooking the ocean. That is a leadership scenario. And if you know how to interact with other human beings, you're gonna end up by the window, you're gonna end up overlooking the ocean, not with the racket from the kitchen coming out. Is you know what I'm saying?

• 4:11:58Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 4:11:59Jocko Willink?

  So go to extremeownership.com. Let's get you over at with the ocean view at the restaurant. Let's get you in that situation where you're not having to raise your voice like Al Huey. And people are doing what you want them to do because they want to do it because they understand what it is we're trying to do as a team. Go to extremeownership.com.

• 4:12:21Jocko Willink?

  And also, if you want to help service members, active and retired, if you want to help people that have served in the military that need help, Mark Lee's mom, Mama Lee, she's got an incredible charity organization. She helps people so much, so much. If you want to help her help people, you want to help her help veterans, you want to help her help Gold Star families, go to Americas Mighty Warriors.org. So you can either volunteer, donate, or help out somehow. Also, check out Heroes and Horses.com. What's up with, what's up with Micah, Micah Fink? Just, I don't know what he's doing right now, at this moment, but he's probably wrestling

• 4:13:03Jocko Willink?

  a grizzly bear, shoeing a horse, or like capturing, or maybe he's sitting in a sweat lodge, hallucinating about, like, what does he hallucinate about? About calves?

• 4:13:16Speaker 02

  Traffic light?

• 4:13:17Jocko Willink?

  Traffic light. No, that was me. So there you go. Just an awesome program. Check that out. And if you need more of us, well, you know where we are. Again, do, I want you to go and just sign up for the algorithm and put a, put a freaking carabiner around your, your heart, and hook it into the algorithm and have it ripped out. No, I don't want you to do that. I don't want you to do that. But if you want to be, if you want to know what we're doing, check it out. But don't let the check it out turn into carabiner around your heart. That's what I'm saying. Watch out for that. That's the social media platforms that are out there. They got carabiners. They're giving them away. They, they want you to take that carabiner. They want you to put, they're like, and for some reason,

• 4:14:00Jocko Willink?

  you think it's cool. You're like, oh, look at this shiny carrier. You give a little, yeah, like, give a little kid a mousetrap that's rigged to blow. They're gonna pick it up and get whacked by it. They think they were doing the right thing. Curiosity. So watch out for that, man. The Gram, the Facebook, the Twitter. Echoes that, Echo Charles. I am at John Willink. And thanks once again.

• 4:14:23Jocko Willink?

  To Admiral Thomas Richards for coming by for sharing his experiences. We, by the way, unfortunately, as soon as we hit stop and we started talking, he's like, told me 14 more freaking awesome stories about his experiences, about NOM, about what they were doing, what they were wearing. So we'll get him back on again. But thanks for coming on. Thanks for your service Admiral. And, and once again, thanks for, for taking care of me as a, a young, a young SEAL trying to do better. And thanks for setting a great example for the young SEALs on how to be badass frogmen. And to the rest of the military

• 4:15:03Jocko Willink?

  folks out there, thank you for your service. In protecting freedom and our way of life around the world, what did Admiral Richards keep saying? 724. 365 days a year. You're out there. You're out there. So, thank you. And thanks to our police and law enforcement, all the firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, border patrol, secret service, all the first responders. You guys are just out there putting it on the line every day. So we appreciate what you do as well. And everyone else out there, listen,

• 4:15:48Jocko Willink?

  I'm a little at risk for saying this, because I talk about things like the indirect approach. And I say you should think through your situations. And I say you should make iterative decisions about what you're doing. So you're taking small steps to move in the right direction. I say those things all the time because that's what I want you to do. 99.9% of the times, that's what I want you to do. But occasionally, on the rare occasion, when things get bad, you have to do what Admiral Tom Richards told his wounded machine gunner to do in a rice paddy in Vietnam. And that is shut up and return fire. That's all I've got. Until next time, Zeko and Jaco, out.