89: The Critical Importance of Taking Care of Your People. And They Will Take Care of You. Medal of Honor Recipient Mike Thornton

0:00:00 - Opening 0:12:57 - Mike Thornton 0:19:26 - Why the Military? 0:24:42 - The Teams and Leadership. 0:26:58 - Vietnam. 1:54:58 - Support 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 89 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. Good evening Echo.

• 0:08Speaker 01

  Good evening.

• 0:11Jocko Willink?

  I was sitting in my tactical operations center in Ramadi.

• 0:19Jocko Willink?

  Alone.

• 0:22Jocko Willink?

  I was staring at a document.

• 0:26Jocko Willink?

  On my computer.

• 0:29Jocko Willink?

  And I had to keep wiping tears from my face as I read it.

• 0:36Jocko Willink?

  The document had been submitted to me by the Delta Platoon Commander.

• 0:46Jocko Willink?

  It was an award recommendation.

• 0:51Jocko Willink?

  For Michael Monsour.

• 0:55Jocko Willink?

  And the award was the Medal of Honor.

• 1:00Jocko Willink?

  For Mikey.

• 1:05Jocko Willink?

  He had been sitting on an outcropping of a roof in South Ramadi on an overwatch. And a grenade which had been thrown from an unseen location actually hit him in the chest and fell to the ground in front of him.

• 1:25Jocko Willink?

  And he could have jumped away from the grenade and he could have saved himself.

• 1:33Jocko Willink?

  But if he had done that, his teammates that were positioned next to him.

• 1:41Jocko Willink?

  They would have been exposed to that blast.

• 1:47Jocko Willink?

  So instead of moving away from the grenade, Mikey jumped on the grenade.

• 1:55Jocko Willink?

  He smothered it.

• 1:58Jocko Willink?

  And he absorbed its lethal explosion.

• 2:05Jocko Willink?

  Thereby saving our teammates.

• 2:10Jocko Willink?

  And at the same time. Sacrificing his own life.

• 2:21Jocko Willink?

  The morning that it happened, September 29th, 2006, I got a call from the battalion commander, from the 1st of the 506, an outstanding officer and leader that I respected and admired.

• 2:40Jocko Willink?

  And this element from Delta Platoon had been in the field, receiving fire and returning fire most of the morning, which was nothing new or nothing unusual, but it had escalated.

• 2:54Jocko Willink?

  And I knew that there had been trouble, and when the Colonel called me,

• 3:02Jocko Willink?

  he told me that there had been a bad fight.

• 3:08Jocko Willink?

  And then he went down the list of my men, describing quickly what their wounds were and what their status was, and pretty much telling me that they were gonna be okay.

• 3:24Jocko Willink?

  Until he got to Mikey.

• 3:29Jocko Willink?

  And I could hear a shift in his voice.

• 3:35Jocko Willink?

  It became very grave and very serious, and I could hear the sympathy in it.

• 3:48Jocko Willink?

  And I knew what was coming.

• 3:53Jocko Willink?

  Mikey got hit bad.

• 3:57Jocko Willink?

  He got hit really bad, Jaco.

• 4:02Jocko Willink?

  And I don't think he's gonna make it.

• 4:10Jocko Willink?

  And my heart jumped through my chest, and then it sank back down to my stomach and then erupted into my brain in a maddening rush of anger and horror and gut-wrenching sadness.

• 4:31Jocko Willink?

  And I grabbed all that insanity and all that emotion and I pulled it back into my mind and I held it down there while I uttered the only words that I could muster.

• 4:46Jocko Willink?

  Roger that, sir.

• 4:52Jocko Willink?

  And when the Delta Platoon commander, who's one of my best friends and a very close friend to Mikey's, when he called me, we were mechanical.

• 5:05Jocko Willink?

  We had work to do.

• 5:09Jocko Willink?

  He debriefed me, I listened, we discussed the follow-up and the next steps and the resupply and the operational impact of the casualties.

• 5:20Jocko Willink?

  We held it together.

• 5:26Jocko Willink?

  And the next day, I talked to one of the SEAL officers that Mikey had saved.

• 5:34Jocko Willink?

  I talked to him on the phone because he was in Germany already. With the other SEAL that had been wounded badly on the rooftop, both of whom would have been dead if it hadn't been for Mikey.

• 5:49Jocko Willink?

  They were only wounded and because of that, they were heading home.

• 5:56Jocko Willink?

  And when I talked to this young officer, he explained to me what happened with perfect clarity.

• 6:07Jocko Willink?

  Mikey could have jumped away and saved himself, but he did not.

• 6:14Jocko Willink?

  His only movement was toward the grenade.

• 6:21Jocko Willink?

  Mikey did not hesitate.

• 6:35Jocko Willink?

  What kind of a man does that?

• 6:43Jocko Willink?

  And when I was a brand-new guy at SEAL Team One, I began to learn and understand what kind of man did that.

• 6:55Jocko Willink?

  You see, as a young enlisted SEAL at SEAL Team One, there were two pictures on the quarterdeck.

• 7:07Jocko Willink?

  Just two.

• 7:09Jocko Willink?

  The pictures were of SEAL Team One's Medal of Honor recipients. Lieutenant Bob Carey and Petty Officer Second Class Mike Thornton.

• 7:24Jocko Willink?

  And we young guys, we memorized their names, as well as the name of the SEAL Team Two Medal of Honor recipient, Lieutenant Tom Norris.

• 7:36Jocko Willink?

  And we read their citations over and over again and debriefed them amongst ourselves.

• 7:47Jocko Willink?

  But we young enlisted SEALs,

• 7:54Jocko Willink?

  we focused on Mike Thornton.

• 7:59Jocko Willink?

  He was an enlisted man, like we were.

• 8:07Jocko Willink?

  And we had heard about him.

• 8:13Jocko Willink?

  And he was a legend, not only for his actions, but for his reputation as a SEAL, as an operator, as a leader, as an all-around badass frogman that we all aspired to be.

• 8:29Jocko Willink?

  As a young enlisted SEAL, he was the mark, he was the example.

• 8:36Jocko Willink?

  He was Mike Thornton.

• 8:40Jocko Willink?

  And a few months after checking into SEAL Team One, I was in Virginia Beach. I was going to a school at the Navy Base there on Little Creek and one day after work, we went to a place called Papa's Pub.

• 8:59Jocko Willink?

  Now, mind you, I wasn't even old enough to get in, but the Chief snuck me in there. And as we were sitting there having some food and talking, a handful of other SEALs walked in and they were wearing their full dress choker whites.

• 9:19Jocko Willink?

  And one of them was a big monster of a man and he had a rack of ribbons up to his shoulder and the Medal of Honor around his neck and I knew exactly who it was.

• 9:31Jocko Willink?

  It was Mike Thornton.

• 9:34Jocko Willink?

  Right there in front of me, the ultimate SEAL, the ultimate hero, standing there in the flesh.

• 9:42Jocko Willink?

  And my Chief looked and he saw how awestruck I was and he told me to go over there and say hi.

• 9:49Jocko Willink?

  Which I did.

• 9:52Jocko Willink?

  Now,

• 9:54Jocko Willink?

  again, I was a new guy, I didn't even have my Trident yet. And at SEAL Team One, at the time, as I have accounted over and over again, we new guys pretty much got treated like worthless scum.

• 10:08Jocko Willink?

  But when I introduced myself to Mike Thornton,

• 10:14Jocko Willink?

  he slapped me on the back and said, "Welcome to the Teams", and then he told me, "I'm from Team One too."

• 10:23Jocko Willink?

  I'm from Team 1 too.

• 10:27Jocko Willink?

  And then he bought me beer and treated me like I was his brother, the man himself treating a pathetic new guy like me, like I was one of his long-lost buddies.

• 10:42Jocko Willink?

  And I never forgot that attitude and that humility.

• 10:49Jocko Willink?

  And I would see Mike Thornton occasionally over the years and I swear it always seemed like he remembered me, at least in my mind.

• 11:00Jocko Willink?

  But years later, he actually did get to know me a little bit when Mikey Montsour's parents received the Medal of Honor from President Bush in the White House, I was with Mike Thornton again.

• 11:17Jocko Willink?

  And after that solemn ceremony,

• 11:22Jocko Willink?

  well, we went and we drank and we raised hell and we raised our glasses to Mikey and to the rest of our fallen brothers and Mike Thornton treated me and the rest of our task unit

• 11:37Jocko Willink?

  the same way he treated me when I first met him.

• 11:43Jocko Willink?

  Like we were all brothers.

• 11:48Jocko Willink?

  And that night,

• 11:51Jocko Willink?

  now that I had seen combat myself and seen with my own eyes the bravery and the selflessness and the sacrifice that is the very core of our community.

• 12:07Jocko Willink?

  I finally understood why Mike Thornton treated us all like brothers.

• 12:15Jocko Willink?

  It's because we were.

• 12:19Jocko Willink?

  And we are.

• 12:28Jocko Willink?

  And with that, it is an absolute honor to have here tonight a hero, a legend, a patriot.

• 12:45Jocko Willink?

  And someone I'm so proud to be able to call brother, retired SEAL and Medal of Honor recipient, Mike Thornton.

• 12:58Jocko Willink?

  Sir, welcome aboard.

• 13:00Speaker 02

  Thanks, Chaco. Thanks, Al. And it's my honor to be here, too. You are an unbelievable warrior as Mikey Mansour. I tell you,

• 13:12Speaker 02

  my love goes out to George and Sally and everybody there. But that was an unbelievable day to have Tommy and me there and Colin and Todd Stenoff and all the other teammates there. It was a lot different than when I received my medal. So, but it was an honor that these young men are getting the respect that they deserve so much. And then to bring the whole team on. When I received my medal, it was only Tommy. And Tommy received his medal, it was only me. So, God bless the Navy. They're finally getting it right. And honoring these great young men like Mikey Mansour and Ed Byers.

• 13:57Jocko Willink?

  So, you recently had a book come out, which is awesome. And you wrote it with your fellow teammate and fellow Medal of Honor winner, Tom Norris. And also with another SEAL, Dick Couch. And the book is called By Honor Bound. And, you know, for me, You know, I was talking about this before the podcast, before we started recording.

• 14:24Jocko Willink?

  You, even though you want to know to get to these really good debriefs in the SEAL teams, and you'd think that there was a vault with all these great debriefs and that explained to you everything that happened on certain missions, especially highly important missions. You'd think that that existed, but it actually doesn't exist. And for me, this book was like the detailed debrief that I always wanted to have, you know, not only of the operation that you did with Tommy, but also the one that Tommy conducted by himself. And, and both of them are just so well detailed in here. And it's just a phenomenal book to get that kind of granular detail of what you lived

• 15:05Jocko Willink?

  through that, like I said, even being in the SEAL teams myself for 20 years, I never had as good of an understanding at all as I have of these operations now. So, thank you for writing it. And, you know, I want to dive into it a little bit because that's kind of what I do on this podcast is dive into these books.

• 15:22Speaker 02

  I hear you.

• 15:23Jocko Willink?

  And, and so, it's, you know, I had to jump around a little bit, but just talking about your background and where you came from, growing up in, in South Carolina.

• 15:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, correct. I was born and raised in the hills of South Carolina and my, uh, my father was my hero of all times. He only had a sixth grade education and my dad was in the Philippines from 39 and he got left in the Philippines after MacArthur pulled out and, uh, he was one of the Raiders over there. Uh, they did a movie and, uh, like I say, he only had a sixth grade education, but he was a guy that everybody respected. He had his own company and, um, I used to ask guys, why have you been working for my father for 30 years? You know, he said, because he, and my dad always told me this, and that's what I tried to do when I was in the teams. Take care of your people. Your people will take care of you.

• 16:17Speaker 02

  And my mother gave us love and religion and, and, uh, but daddy was hard as rocks and, uh, but, uh, you had the greatest respect for that man and everybody else that knew my father had the same respect for him.

• 16:30Jocko Willink?

  Now, you mentioned that your dad, you know, had a sixth education. Obviously, he was, he was a hero to you and a successful guy and was able to put things together in his life. And, well, did he ever talk about what he did in the PI?

• 16:44Speaker 02

  Not until I had been wounded several times and during my second tour overseas. And, uh, he said, he said, I think you'll understand this. And I said, Daddy, I understood the first time I was ever wounded. So, uh, you know, wounded in 1939 or wounded in 1969 or wounded in, in today's war. I think it brings a, um, uh, reality that war sucks any way you look at it.

• 17:12Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. There's no doubt about that. I guess your dad wanted you to earn being able to hear good stories from him. But you gotta get wounded before I'm gonna tell you anything.

• 17:22Speaker 02

  More than once.

• 17:23Jocko Willink?

  That's a hard man right there. Now, I, I'm going to the book a little bit. This is you talking. I didn't do that well in school. I couldn't read and I still have problems with it. I'm dyslexic. Back then, they didn't call it that. You were just dumb. For me, it meant that I simply couldn't keep up in school. I did okay in math, but that was probably the only thing. I loved history. Otherwise, I did poorly. I had to repeat my sophomore year in high school and that really hurt my pride. So it's no wonder I got in with the wrong crowd and started getting into trouble. Nothing serious, but we were mischievous. Southern country boys drinking beer and making bad decisions. The sheriff was out to the

• 18:04Jocko Willink?

  house a few times and there were, was a time or two in juvenile court and I cut a lot of classes.

• 18:12Jocko Willink?

  I had seventy-two absences in my senior year in high school. That's a, that's a pretty, pretty, pretty legit record.

• 18:18Speaker 02

  Well, you could only miss thirty and you automatically failed, but I didn't think they wanted to see me coming back. So, uh, uh, you know, to that dyslexia and thank God, uh, we found out what it really is. And, uh, uh, actually I've never even read the book. My wife's read it to me five times and I'd make the changes and stuff like that. But I do have it on tape and if I hear something, I understand it. But what I'm trying to say in that is let young men know, uh, you, you may have it tough, but you can redo this. So I've been a successful businessman. I went all the way through the ranks and I got a commission and I did this.

• 19:01Speaker 02

  And I'm just trying to say, there's only one, and that's what I tell these kids when they're going through training. But you know that, there's only one person that's gonna stop you and that's yourself. There's always to get across that obstacle, under it, around it, on top of it, one way or the other. So don't let something stop you and, uh, and for you to move forward and make a better life for yourself and your family.

• 19:24Jocko Willink?

  Awesome, awesome words right there. Now, speaking of moving forward, it, it's, is you had like the classic case of the judge telling you, "All right, son, you can either, uh, join the Navy or we're gonna find a, a place that you're not gonna like so much as home."

• 19:40Speaker 02

  Well, I didn't know this, uh, twenty years later, my father finally told me, him and the juvenile judge was a, they were friends with each other. And he said, "I'll let you make your first major decision. You go to juvenile, uh, basically six months in, uh, in a juvenile hall, or I could turn around and make the first major decision in my life." And I'd saw that crazy movie, The Five Solomon Brothers during World War II. Then I saw the movie, The Navy Frogman with Richard Whitmore. And I turned around, I said, I've always wanted to be a UDT frogman and I saluted and the guy, the guy that enlisted me was a second-class machinist mate and Ned, his

• 20:25Speaker 02

  name was Ned Johnson, and when he retired, he was back as an E9, he was a senior enlisted for recruiting in the state of South Carolina. And he tells everybody how he made Mike Thornton who he was today.

• 20:38Jocko Willink?

  That's outstanding. So you come in and did you, you just went boot camp and then straight to BUDS? Or you guys didn't have BUDS, you guys called it UDT training replacement?

• 20:48Speaker 02

  Underdow- underwater demolition recruit training. I was supposed to go, I was trying to go straight from there. They said, no, you have to go to outside. Like I said, my dyslexia was pretty bad and I had to get a 10-point waiver just to get into the teams. And they must have needed people pretty damn bad because I finally got my waiver and I was in Hawaii and I came back to Coronado and went through training.

• 21:15Jocko Willink?

  And I was thinking about, you know, going through training. Here's a quote from you coming through training. "We had some instructors who were not only good teachers, but they were real characters. There was Vince Oliveira, who was part American Indian and a plank holder at SEAL Team One. He called us pale faces and we stood in awe and fear of Instructor Oliveira." Then there was Dick Allen, a black SEAL, who was the Navy boxing champion. He once sparred with Muhammad Ali. When Ali was asked once who hit him the hardest, he said it was a chief petty officer in the, in the US Navy named Dick Allen. And then

• 21:55Jocko Willink?

  there was Instructor Terry Moy, who we called Mother Moy. It seemed as if he was always watching us, making sure everything we did was, that we put out 100%. So what I was thinking about during this was, when I went through, I went through in 1991, and there was, clearly there were some rules in place, but also the instructors kind of did what they wanted to and the command wasn't watching them. There's, clearly there's more rules and oversight now. I've seen that with my own eyes. But I can't even imagine what it was like when you were going through them. The instructors must have just been able to do whatever the hell they wanted to do to you guys.

• 22:34Speaker 02

  I tell you Vince Oliver, the most sadistic son of a bitch I ever met in my life, I tell you. And I was just with Terry Moore the last two days, of course, this is reunion weekend.

• 22:44Jocko Willink?

  Right.

• 22:45Speaker 02

  Terry still looks like a gladiator as he did back then and Dick Allen used to hang us from the pull-up bar and he'd punch us in the stomach, but I tell you, if you didn't keep your hands loose, I mean, if you didn't keep your hands loose, he'd kill you and of course Dick and Vince and Dick both have passed and but their memories and it's a funny thing about life itself, you know, and it's not what you've done, it's the respect you want to gain from the teammates. And Dick and Terry and Vince all gained my respect and my love and though all the longer

• 23:26Speaker 02

  Mike Thornton's alive, the stories will continue going on, so that's what I, that's all I want from my peers to remember who Mike Thornton is and that's what those guys taught me.

• 23:38Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Were those guys, were those guys Vietnam vets or were they Korean War vets? Both? A little bit of everything?

• 23:47Speaker 02

  Vietnam vets, then there was Tommy Hatchett in there too. They used to call Tommy and I after I got in the teams, a salt and pepper guy. He's a great big old black guy and as strong as a damn ox and you know, actually Vince was one of the original SEALs in 1962 and he went over to Nam, but of course, back then, they didn't know what they would do with the SEALs during that period of time.

• 24:11Jocko Willink?

  So you get, you get done with BUDS and I'm going to the book here, there were 22 guys who graduated in my class, 18 from the original 129. I remember how lucky and proud I felt as I was given orders to SEAL Team One. Even back then, it was no small thing being a Navy SEAL, but it's one thing to be a SEAL and yet another to do the work of a SEAL. I thought that was an important little highlight there of... Like when you get done with BUDS, it's just the beginning, really.

• 24:44Speaker 02

  Correct. It's just, you just cracked open the door. Then you gotta go through the damn door, and after you get through the door, you gotta prove yourself. And like, like you were saying, we were nobody back then, you know, if you hadn't had a couple of tours of Vietnam, you were just trash, as far as I was concerned.

• 25:02Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, so, going to the book, my first platoon was Charlie Platoon. We were in country from 1969 through, or from December 1969 through July 1970. We worked out of a place called Dong Island, and it was a great deployment. We had solid platoon officers, and our platoon petty, leading petty officer was Barry Enoch, one of the finest SEAL operators at Team One. When I made my first deployment, he was my C-Daddy. It was the same for all of us on our first combat tour, and it was an active tour. Seems like every other night, we'd be out, and most of the time, we made contact. I remember we took down a few province-level Viet Cong cadre types, and one time, we had a good intelligence, we were able to take down an entire VC grenade factory. It was great.

• 25:46Jocko Willink?

  So, that was your first deployment. When you talk about Barry Enoch, and actually, Hal Kirkendall talks about him as well. He says, "Us, as new guys, even the veterans, we worshipped Barry Enoch. He was a great leader and a great teacher." What was it about him that made him just, that made you guys remember him and revere him so much?

• 26:03Speaker 02

  Well, I think it's like you were talking about me in your great introduction, which I don't deserve that. But Barry was a leader. He took care of everybody. And he's a guy, kinda like I looked up to my father, he was my C-Daddy. And he was always there for all of us. And me and, last night, Tom Boyhan and me, and Wayne Hampton, and Mike LaCraz, and Hal Kirkendall, we're all getting our pictures together, and remembering the great guys. And we're all, we're talking about Barry, of course. Barry felt, passed away a few years ago. And he's another guy, you know, it's like I say, he'll always be in all our conversations, and was somebody we all looked up to, you know.

• 26:49Speaker 02

  So, uh, it's the great leadership. I mean, he showed us and, and not just the leadership as a leader, but the leadership he showed us to try to be a better person.

• 26:59Jocko Willink?

  And, and that deployment, what were you guys doing? You guys were doing, were you guys deploying off of boats? Were you guys going in helicopters? You guys going on foot patrols? A little bit of everything?

• 27:08Speaker 02

  A little bit of everything. Foot patrols, basically sampanes, uh, whalers. By that time, we finally got the LSSCs, which were in the late, and then the, the medium support seal support craft. Of course, we had the Mighty Mo. A lot of our stuff was-

• 27:23Jocko Willink?

  What was the Mighty Mo?

• 27:24Speaker 02

  Oh, it was a, a Mike, Big Mike eight, and it had the, uh, you see it had all the, the, um, rebarb about 20 inches out. So if it got hit by an RPG, it'd explode there instead of going through the hull. Uh, we did a lot of, uh, like I was working down that, uh, down the sea float with Steve Friss with the KCSs, cause back then we didn't have that many seals, so we would help each other. We'd, if they say we need help, we'd converse our people right around and then, uh, Tom would send, uh, the guys that he felt should be going. So we'd like Rich Solano, myself and a bunch of other guys would go out and help other platoons and stuff.

• 28:06Jocko Willink?

  And were you a 60 gunner?

• 28:07Speaker 02

  I was a 60, I had a Stoner 60 and I, and I carried a Car 15, but I always carried a Swedish K with me all the time and a pistol. Always had a backup, as I call-

• 28:19Jocko Willink?

  You had a backup and a backup to your backup, apparently.

• 28:22Speaker 02

  A backup, yeah. So, uh, uh, you know, we have funny things, you know, and you, and you learn from each other. So, um, it's like that, um, that, uh, uh, when we hit that grenade factory, Mikey Sands jumped out and he had a 16. He, he didn't lock down, he didn't lock down his, uh, his hitch and his, as he jumped out of the boat, his barrel fell out in the water in the river and he's down there digging. He's yelling, "Give me one of your guns." And I said, "Hell no. I'm keeping all my guns." So, uh, you know, we all learned and Mike was a great M60 guy. He saved our asses many times and, uh- But, um, everybody did their, did their job. It's just, as you were saying, well, it was a team effort.

• 29:07Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 29:08Speaker 02

  And my life was saved by people like Mike Lacaz and other people in our platoon. And, and we backed each other up all the time.

• 29:15Jocko Willink?

  And, and that was a super active, um, actually Hal, Hal Kirchendall was talking about you here in the book. This is Hal talking. I can remember more than one firefight where we were shooting and ducking, sometimes more ducking than shooting. But Mike would be right there working that 60 with a big grin on his face. There were plenty of times when I was really scared, but I'm not sure Mike ever was. He was reliable and brave, but I'm not sure he ever knew or understood fear like the rest of us. He was a great teammate and my God, he was strong. None of us could believe how much ammo he carried. Sometimes he'd go out with a thousand rounds or more. That's close to 80 pounds of just ammo. And he'd swim canals

• 29:59Jocko Willink?

  with that load. He'd just shrug and say, you don't want your 60 gunner to run out of ammo, do you? We got through a pretty active deployment with no one getting killed. Then, a couple of guys stayed behind to break in the new platoon while the rest of us packed up and left. They were two of our best and one of them was killed in a helo crash with three other SEALs. We took it hard when Rich Solano was killed, but I think Mike took it the hardest. Mike was a guy who really cared for his teammates. So, so even with all that action, you guys, you guys went through the deployment with, you know, what, did you take a few wounded guys?

• 30:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, we had a few, but nobody was killed. And actually, we were, I was down, uh, at Sea Float and Rich Solano was working with a Gulf platoon, I think. And then that was when the helicopter went down. And, uh, of course, when you come off a hot LZ, you're supposed to shut down your aircraft and check the rotor blades. Cause back then, the rotor blades could have a hole and it could last for 30 minutes or 45 or an hour. And, uh, the, uh, the, the, the pilot of the helo wanted to get back for a birthday party or something. And, uh, the helo fell and then actually Rich was killed and, and, uh, um, Derlin was killed and Toby Thomas was killed. Uh, uh, um.

• 31:28Speaker 02

  Oh, hell, who else was there? Gardner was killed. So that was one of our biggest, we lost five guys that day, not four, we lost five. And I went down and identified the bodies. And it was, you know, I only had one bad dream in my whole life, and it was after identifying that, because Rich Oldface was completely gone. And the only way I could identify him, he had a scar on his arm. And, but you know, a loss of any teammate, as you know, as well as I do, like Mikey, and, and every time, you know, every time I lose even a new kid today, which I've been out speaking to their class and stuff like that, you lose a little

• 32:10Speaker 02

  bit more of your heart. I don't know how much more of my heart I got to lose, but it, it takes it out of you. I mean, it is, I don't want to see anybody ever get hurt, or especially a loss of a loved one. And they're all, their, their lives are just as important to me with the new kids today as Rich and all those guys were important to me back then.

• 32:35Jocko Willink?

  You, you come home from that deployment, and you go into SEAL Team One cadre, which we actually have talked about on here with Roger Hayden, because we still, even when I was at SEAL Team One, and I was in training cell, we still called it cadre, and that was, I don't know, 20 something years later. And I never even made the connection. And Roger and I talked about the fact that, you know, some of the training that you guys implemented back there, the, the point man course, where you're walking through, and the trip wires are there and all that, we still did that. A lot of the demo, we still did. And, and so that's what, that's what you did when you got home. You went into that training

• 33:17Jocko Willink?

  cell, being cadre and teaching. And you know, you mentioned here that you learned a lot being an instructor, and I always, I always agree with that. In fact, when, when I was in the SEAL Teams, no one wanted to go to the training department, right? We all wanted to just deploy, just deploy, just deploy. So when I took over the training, I always told guys, look, if you want to be, you know, if you want to master what you do, you got to go and teach it. And you also mentioned Al Huey in here. And when I went through Bud's, when we were at San Clemente Island, every night when the sun goes down, we'd sing the song, "Goodnight Al Huey, goodnight Al Huey, goodnight Al Huey, wherever you may be." And I never knew, and still don't know, who Al Huey is.

• 33:59Speaker 02

  Well, Al Huey-

• 34:00Jocko Willink?

  Other than the camp is called Al Huey, it's called Camp Al Huey out there. And, and honestly, I make my kids sing this song.

• 34:06Speaker 02

  (laughing)

• 34:07Jocko Willink?

  When the sun goes down, uh, my, me and my kids, we, we sing this song.

• 34:12Speaker 02

  Well, I'm sure you've heard of Dave Shibley, uh, Commodore Shibley, and, uh, Al and, uh, and Dave were best of friends, and Al was, uh, another mentor like Barry Enoch to me, and, uh, they went through Class Two of UDT back in the 50s, and they were all in Korea and stuff, and, uh, he led by example again, you know, but, I mean, it's kinda like, uh, when he talks, you better be like E.F. Hutton, you better be listening and keeping your ears wide open and just, as, um, Al told me one day, he says, you know, "Good Lord gave you one mouth, two ears and two eyes, so use 80% of that and keep the other one shut for 20%, you'll be alright."

• 34:53Jocko Willink?

  And then you, you, from cadre, you had a chance, you went back and deployed again, but you went to Thailand. And what were you doing, teaching the Thai SEALs?

• 35:03Speaker 02

  We took, uh, trained the Thai SEALs, I was along with, uh, Dick Flanagan, and one of the finest officers, as Tom Boyhan was, a great officer, great leader, and Al was with us on that, and that's the reason why Al and I were so close.

• 35:17Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 35:18Speaker 02

  And, uh, we trained the, uh, Thai UDT into SEAL Team Texas, and then they went up and they worked off the borders. So that's all I can say about that.

• 35:26Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and, and, understood. And then you got home from that, and now it looked like the war in Vietnam was kinda winding down, and there weren't full SEAL platoons deploying anymore.

• 35:37Speaker 02

  No more SEAL platoons. Basically what we were doing over, uh, we were sending, uh, enlisted LDNN advisors and, uh, like, uh, a bunch of the guys that were over there with me on that tour was, uh, was at the reunion, and, uh, it was kinda funny to get together and, and talk with all of them, you know, and talk about- Uh, but we've lost a lot of those guys which have passed in through age or cancer or something and you know, uh, it's, it's, you know, one good thing about the reunion, you know, none of us are getting any damn younger. So you better get out and see your shipmates anytime you get a chance, so.

• 36:14Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, um, the LDNN you mentioned, and just to everyone knows what that, that those are like Vietnamese, South Vietnamese.

• 36:23Speaker 02

  Seals.

• 36:23Jocko Willink?

  Seals.

• 36:24Speaker 02

  And the LDNN stands for loing and die is what it actually in Vietnamese.

• 36:28Jocko Willink?

  Was that mean like warrior from the sea or something like that?

• 36:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's type, yup.

• 36:33Jocko Willink?

  Uh, so you get a chance to go back again, and this is funny because typical SEAL, you know, it's like, oh, we need you to go back on deployment again. Yes, I'll go. He sent me. Uh, I'm going back to the book. So when I got to Vietnam this time, I spent close to a week at Na Trang, working with the LDNNs there, getting a feel for the, what they were doing in the field. I'd worked with the Vietnamese SEALs on my first tour back in 1969, and I saw a few familiar faces. You have to hand it to those guys. For them, there were no combat rotations. Life was combat. 24/7, year in, year out. They fought

• 37:16Jocko Willink?

  until they were killed. Or, as it worked out in the end, we lost the war. So those are the guys you're working with. And, um, I think it's, I mean, you get into the relationship that you formed with these guys, which was, you know, they were all their brothers.

• 37:33Speaker 02

  Yup. They were, you took care of them, they took care of you. And of course, the reason I feel that Tommy and I are still alive today is because of Dane and Quan, which I explain in the book. They were, I'd worked with them on previous chores and many operations and, uh, they were there, they were just like one of us. I mean, they took care of me. So that's the reason I handpicked those two guys.

• 37:54Jocko Willink?

  That was Deng and Quan.

• 37:55Speaker 02

  Quan.

• 37:56Jocko Willink?

  Those were, those were guys that you had worked with before.

• 37:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 37:58Jocko Willink?

  Uh, Vietnamese SEALs. And so.

• 38:02Jocko Willink?

  You get to, uh, Tu'Inon, am I saying that right?

• 38:04Speaker 02

  Tu'Inon, yes.

• 38:05Jocko Willink?

  Tu'Inon. Okay, so you get to Tu'Inon, this is where you're gonna be working out of, and again, you're not in a SEAL platoon. This is a totally different situation. And what you had there in Tu'Inon, if I gathered it all correctly, you had five enlisted SEALs from SEAL Team One. And then you had two SEAL Team Two officers. And then plus, with those two SEAL Team Two officers who were, it sounded like they were more junior guys, maybe it was their first deployment. But then Tommy Norris showed up as well as the OIC.

• 38:36Speaker 02

  Yeah. Uh, Shively, Captain Shively, Commodore Shively, he had all the SEALs, UDT, EOD, divers, everybody. And then Tommy Nelson was our Lieutenant Commander in O3, and he was the head of all the SEALs. Tommy was the senior SEAL operator in the country. Then we had Ryan McComby and another lieutenant that was there. Then they were all, they were all East Coast guys. Now, we had, actually, I think we had, um, more like, um, eighteen enlisted guys.

• 39:11Jocko Willink?

  Oh, okay.

• 39:12Speaker 02

  And we, and we broke it up. Uh, uh, and, uh, Gary, uh, Gary, uh, Chamberlain and Harry Konakua went with, uh, Lieutenant Hughes down one thing. Then Ryan McComby was our boss, and I stayed up. So, uh, everybody had had many tours that went down south. And I had, uh, the, the most tours, and, and I stayed up north, uh, with, uh, Ryan McComby. Then Tommy would go back and forth, uh, to run operations. Of course, it was hard to get, uh, AOs approved because, uh, you know, it was pretty, at that time, we were fighting in Quantry and Way City and all that stuff, and they were trying to overtake it.

• 39:55Speaker 02

  But, uh, we still were able to get our ops in.

• 39:59Jocko Willink?

  And, um...

• 40:02Jocko Willink?

  You had what, two squads of LDNN? And what made up a squad of LDNN?

• 40:07Speaker 02

  Uh, approximately, I think we had, uh, we had more LDNNs than we did, but we separated those guys too. Uh, I know when we went on the operation, uh, Woody, uh, was, we always had a SEAL, as you know, on an insertion extraction craft. And Woody had a, uh, we only had three LDNNs on the op with us, but he had another six or eight on, on the boat. The boat if we needed resupply.

• 40:34Jocko Willink?

  So, and, and, and I gotta mention this, cause again, it's half the book of By Honor Bound is we've been throwing Tommy Norris's name around here. And when he showed up to work with you guys, he had been in country for some period of time and he had done this, this multiple pilot rescue operations.

• 40:54Speaker 02

  The BAT-21 mission and Tommy was, uh, uh, say that I knew about his reputation and he knew about my reputation. And, uh, it was kinda funny, Tommy and I only operated one time and that was at Operation, but we were of course still best of friends. And, uh, uh, I know when, uh, we resubmitted, Tommy was put in for a medal and it was resubmitted. Uh, and then he was upgraded to the Medal of Honor later on and, uh, greatest friend any man could ever ask for. And, uh, I look back on the officers, the leadership we had on, like I was saying, Tom Boyhan and Captain Shively and, and Tommy and, and Ryan McCumbey

• 41:39Speaker 02

  and, and Norm Carley and, and, you know, even when we were in six with Marcinco and stuff like that. It was, um, uh, we had some great leaders, you know, and all those guys took care of their people. That's what I really, uh, looked up to them for, for always being there for the troops, you know? They may chew your ass out, but nobody else is going to, so.

• 42:03Jocko Willink?

  Now, once Tommy shows up, they uh, you get the, you start getting the, the mission tasking for this mission that becomes, you know, the mission. And the Paris peace talks were going on, but you know, Tom, Tom was saying that there's no, at the operational level, you guys were like, oh, that's great, but it's not changing anything for us on the ground. Meanwhile, they're, you know, they're, they're attacking Way City and uh, it's just hard. And so, Tom goes down, he gets called down by uh, by the Commodore.

• 42:34Speaker 02

  Shyly.

• 42:35Jocko Willink?

  Shyly to, to get a mission tasking. And this is, this is uh, Tom Norris talking. Uncle Dave had me take a seat in his office. That's what, that's what you guys called the Commodore.

• 42:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, Uncle Dave.

• 42:47Jocko Willink?

  I never called any of my Commodores uncle, at least not to their faces. Uh, Uncle Dave had me take a seat in his office and I could tell he had something on his mind. Tom, he said, the Vietnamese commander of the LDNN wants to run a SEAL reconnaissance mission to the mouth of the.

• 43:04Speaker 02

  Quantri.

• 43:05Jocko Willink?

  Quan Viet River, is that right?

• 43:07Speaker 02

  Quantri River.

• 43:08Jocko Willink?

  Quantri River. Specifically, he and his superiors want to know about the defenses and enemy disposition around Quantri Naval Base. And he wants a Vietnamese LDNN officer to head up the reconnaissance team. I want you to run the operation to ensure the mission gets done properly, but this needs to be seen as a Vietnamese operation. So that was the tasking, doing, doing a reconnaissance.

• 43:33Speaker 02

  Correct.

• 43:34Jocko Willink?

  Pretty normal operation. I mean, it's pretty standard. It sounds like you guys were running those type of operations fairly regularly.

• 43:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, uh, basically the NVA had already moved across the Quan Viet River. So that was the, we knew that and we knew, and they were trying to take over Quantri again and uh, and they attacked on Way City. That was in April and this was in October when this thing was going down. So we knew it was hot and heavy up there, but uh, uh, Tommy said, yes, you know, you never said no to Uncle Dave, so.

• 44:06Jocko Willink?

  And so you guys decide, or Tom lets you know, hey, let's do a small group. You're gonna take five guys.

• 44:13Speaker 02

  Correct.

• 44:13Jocko Willink?

  Two Americans and three Vietnamese SEALs.

• 44:15Speaker 02

  Correct.

• 44:16Jocko Willink?

  Obviously, the two are you and Tom Norris. And then the three guys that you're gonna take with you, the three Vietnamese that you're gonna take with you,

• 44:26Jocko Willink?

  two of them were your hand-selected guys.

• 44:28Speaker 02

  Correct.

• 44:28Jocko Willink?

  Dang and Quan.

• 44:29Speaker 02

  Right.

• 44:30Jocko Willink?

  And then there was another officer, the other guy was an officer, right?

• 44:33Speaker 02

  Correct, correct.

• 44:34Jocko Willink?

  And he was lieutenant. I've heard you tell the story in here. He's called Lieutenant Tuan.

• 44:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, we got a different.

• 44:41Jocko Willink?

  You always call him Tai.

• 44:42Speaker 02

  Well, yeah, but we put a different name in there because he kinda made the operation go south.

• 44:48Jocko Willink?

  Got it, got it.

• 44:52Jocko Willink?

  So, here's the basic concept of operations.

• 44:55Speaker 02

  Well, really, the funny part of it, Tommy said, "I'll do the mission if you let me choose who I wanna take."

• 45:01Jocko Willink?

  Oh, okay.

• 45:02Speaker 02

  Back then, we had a rotation, basically, where everybody get a chance to go in the field. And I always went in the field with the new guys and stuff. And he said, "I'd like to make a choice." And Uncle Dave said, "Well, I bet you I know who it is." And he said, "Well, we've never operated together." And he said, "I bet you it's Mike Thornton." And he said, "Yes, sir, that's who I wanna take with me on that operation." And actually, Woody was supposed to be going in on that operation. And, but we took Woody on the insertion-extraction means of transportation.

• 45:37Jocko Willink?

  And that's Bill Woodruff.

• 45:39Speaker 02

  Woodruff.

• 45:40Jocko Willink?

  Who you talk about.

• 45:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 45:41Jocko Willink?

  And we'll get into what his role was.

• 45:46Jocko Willink?

  Here's the overview of the mission. And this is Tom Norris talking. It was not a particularly difficult mission. And it was certainly something we'd done before, so we knew the drill. In general, it was about a 50-mile transit from Tuinon up the Cuivette River in our boats with a max speed of about eight knots. That was a little more than six hours. So, you're talking about a six-hour transit. The plan was to get well out to sea, so no one on the beach could know which direction we were heading, north or south. Once we turned, in this case, north, we'd make our way up the coast, then turn west, back into shore. Then we hope to be on station off the southern bank of the Couyvet River. Soon as possible after dark. We'd then leave the junks and paddle

• 46:32Jocko Willink?

  in close to shore on rubber boats and then swim the last swim ashore from the rubber boats. We'd insert, do our job and get out before first light. We didn't have to be back at Tuinon before first light, but we sure as heck wanted to be back across the beach and away from the coast before sunup. I was told I'd have offshore Navy support in the way of two destroyers. So if we were running a little late in getting out of there, I'd have some friendly on-call fire support. So that's a real standard mission that, you know, when I first got to Team One, we did that, not, not the exact same thing and not real, but we trained it all the time. You're going to get on, you know, Mark Fives and you're going to have your Zodiacs on there. Then you're going to get a little closer to the beach. And once you get close to the beach, you drop off the Zodiacs.

• 47:17Jocko Willink?

  Then you get a little bit closer to the beach and then the last thing you do is get out the boat, swim in, you go do your operation. So kind of standard stuff. And, you know, he says it's not something you hadn't done before.

• 47:27Speaker 02

  Correct.

• 47:31Jocko Willink?

  Here's what you were talking about with, when you're talking about the LDNNs. Going back to the book, the LDNNs came in all varieties of experience and capability and courage. On this operation, we had three very good ones. Lieutenant Kwan was a first-rate LDNN officer and Deng and Kwan. This other Kwan is an enlisted LDNN, no relation, were two guys I'd worked with on my first tour and was with them again in Tuinon. Deng and Kwan were good to go. But the problem was Kwan, the officer.

• 48:04Speaker 02

  Well, Kwan was hurt and that's the reason the other officer.

• 48:07Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. The problem was that Lieutenant, Lieutenant Kwan, he liked to get after a little bit sometimes.

• 48:13Speaker 02

  Well, it's like all of us. Uh, yeah, maybe he had too much to drink the night before.

• 48:19Jocko Willink?

  And so, what, he getting in some kind of accident? Or what happened?

• 48:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, he was riding it and a whaler ran into the pier. He hit his head and he busted both his eyes and he couldn't see his, they were both completely shut. So, uh, this is how we got the other new officer, which I had never worked with. But, uh, but I'd worked many tours, I mean, uh, not many tours, but many operations with the other two guys. And I'd worked with Quan and he was really good. But of course, he was unable to make the op. So they, uh, we brought in another young officer, which I'd never operated with.

• 48:56Jocko Willink?

  And this other, just so everyone knows as we're going through this, the other officer that you now brought on that you hadn't worked with before, his name was Lieutenant Thuan.

• 49:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 49:05Jocko Willink?

  Is that, am I saying that right?

• 49:06Speaker 02

  No, but I'm not gonna give his real name out.

• 49:08Jocko Willink?

  Got the Vietnamese speaker in here tightening me up. Uh, so you had the, the Navy was out to sea. The two things the Navy was supposed to help you with was helping you guys do navigation because in this time, no GPS. It's so easy now. I'm embarrassed by how easy it is. And obviously fire support if you need it.

• 49:31Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, basically what they were supposed to do is vector us in and that's where each ship takes a radar plunge and they shoot it in and they see where we are in, in the junks, uh, which were, uh, 39 foot concrete junks is what they, uh, and, uh, then they would see where we were, then they'd shoot us at azimuth and then we would take our compass and we'd go in there. Uh, one of the ships shooting is they were trying to overtake Quan Trig in and he left and went down south to help give gunfire support, uh, to, uh, to help the Vietnamese Army and Marine Corps to hold off the NVA. And, uh, when that, the one guy shot the azimuth and he was about three degrees off, but when

• 50:16Speaker 02

  you're 15 miles off the beach, three degrees is a lot.

• 50:20Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 50:21Speaker 02

  And, uh, everybody said, uh, the CO said, that's the river, right? It actually was the Ben Ha River, which was actually in North Vietnam. So when we went and inserted, we were way north of the Quaviet.

• 50:36Jocko Willink?

  Now, you had talked about Bill Woodruff, Woody, you're referring to him as an important point here, and this is something we always tried to hold true to, you always put like a seal with your assets if you can manage it. So, you got a seal out there on the boats that are going to be recovering you, because it's a guy that you know, it's a guy that you trust, and you know he's not going to leave you hanging.

• 50:59Speaker 02

  He ain't gonna leave you hanging, that's right.

• 51:01Jocko Willink?

  And, you know, that's a good lesson learned for anybody doing operations right now. I don't care what unit you're with. If you're in the Marine Corps and you're using an Army asset, try and put a liaison officer with the Army. If you're in the Army and you're using a Marine Corps asset, try and put a liaison officer. Same thing with special operations, because those are the guys that speak your language. They're going to be able to predict what you're going to do if things are going sideways. It's just, it's just a smart move to do. And then, you know, you talked about how these things started going wrong, and you're, you're off the coast, and instead of being where you thought you were, you're at the Ben Hi River, which is basically...

• 51:36Speaker 02

  South of the Ben Hi. So, we, and Tommy and I discussed it, and he said, well, we'll go ahead and go in, we'll do what we call a horseshoe out. We'll go in so many clicks and go north, and then go back to the east, back to the ocean, and, and try to, if we can pick up, you know, if we could do, we were doing a body snatch, too. Of course, of course, by a body snatch, you get your best intelligence that way, so.

• 52:05Jocko Willink?

  Man, we used to do direct action missions to go capture bad guys, but we didn't call them body snatches, and I'm kind of wishing we did. It sounds a lot better to do a body snatch. Maybe I should have named those body snatch in operations. I would have felt a lot better about it. So, and tactically, you're going in, it's pretty normal, you swim in, it's pretty normal, you get on the beach, and here we go back to the book. This is you talking, I was carrying the Starlight Scope, a bulky first-generation night vision device that allowed you to see relatively well at night. It was the size of a loaf of bread and weighed eight pounds. Tommy told me to scout the beach area to see if I could find any of the features we were

• 52:50Jocko Willink?

  looking for or expecting to find like the mouth of the river. I went north about 200 yards from our position and the same distance to the south. And with the starlight scope, I could see a good ways up and down the beach. No river mouth and nothing looked familiar. Tommy moved inland just a short distance to look the area over with his binoculars. Neither of us saw anything that indicated we were supposed to be. So, and then like you said, you, you know, you're in the wrong space, but you might as well do a reconnaissance while you're there and that's kind of the, the decision that's made. Um, and I was thinking about this too. So I was thinking you guys only have five guys and the, the idea behind that must've been, hey, let's travel light and we can maneuver really quick. And then I got to this list of what you were carrying.

• 53:34Jocko Willink?

  Here's what Mike was carrying. Mike talking. I was the mule on a recon patrol. I carried a Car 15, carbine, and just over 800 rounds of 556 ammunition, along with an assortment of a dozen fragmentation CS and smoke grenades. I also had three law rockets and a starlight scope. All of us carried a medical kit and inflatable UDT over the head life vests. I also had our silenced weapon, a 22 caliber automatic pistol with a suppressor attached to the barrel. We called it a hush puppy. So not exactly light for, for reconnaissance and moving. I was thinking you guys would, would try and stay all slick, but that's, that's no joke what you were carrying.

• 54:18Jocko Willink?

  Now, as you're patrolling, you start seeing fires and eventually you see movement, you see bunkers and, and Tommy says, I think it's about time we get the heck out of here. You say, Roger that, sir. It's about 0300, you got about three hours of darkness left and you get into a stream.

• 54:38Speaker 02

  Correct.

• 54:39Jocko Willink?

  And start moving towards the beach.

• 54:41Speaker 02

  Well, for three different reasons. One, the kids show low silhouette. Uh, we knew that we were within a battalion of NVA at that period of time. Then we saw tanks and gun in, gun emplacements. So, uh, we knew that we were way north of where we were supposed to be. So, uh, By getting in the stream, the tide ranges eighteen feet over there, so the current was running out, so we knew it was going out to the ocean. So we got in there. By keeping our low silhouette in there, we could move a lot faster in the water and we didn't, hopefully, we wouldn't bump into any of the enemy out there, which were starting to move around at that time in the morning, so.

• 55:29Jocko Willink?

  Now you start hearing something.

• 55:31Speaker 02

  Correct.

• 55:33Jocko Willink?

  And, you know, you halt the patrol and you see, what you see is NVA soldiers, a bunch of them. It's like an encampment of NVA soldiers. And they, and, and, correct me if I'm wrong, but from their position and where you had moved to in the stream, now you're looking at them and, and as you move to the water, you're going to be exposed. Is that, is that the situation?

• 55:58Speaker 02

  Well, actually, they were in a base camp type deal and it was a quick reaction force. We knew the main force was behind us. Of course, that's, that exposed us, kind of cut off our southern route. So to the north of us, which we knew were going farther north, there was that big lagoon, as, as the map show. And so we would have, to our eastern flank, we had the ocean. To the western flank, we had the, the lagoon. And then to the south, we had the bad guys that we knew of. And to the north, we had some sand dunes

• 56:36Speaker 02

  and, but we could see, after you passed this one big bunker, you could see nothing but flat beach. So we figured that'd be our best objective to move up there. And Tommy got on top of this. We thought it was a big sand dune, but actually it was a, it was a bunker built and it actually had tunnels down inside of it, so.

• 56:57Jocko Willink?

  And that's the one that you did a recon and you found that bunker?

• 57:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, I found the bunker.

• 57:01Jocko Willink?

  And then you brought Tommy there?

• 57:02Speaker 02

  Tommy went up there with the radio, which was dang, and that gave us, you know, of course, back then is the radios for PRC 77's line of sight, which you, uh, so, yeah.

• 57:14Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and he's trying to make comms back to, uh, Woody and/or back to the ship if anything's needed.

• 57:21Speaker 02

  The ship was in Newport and using USS Morgan, that's what those ships were then. We had, we finally got Woody, but Woody was down off the mouth of the Quavette, he thought, you know, after he got their bearings, so they were a long ways off from where we were.

• 57:36Jocko Willink?

  So, at this point, Quan, you guys are, you guys are in that bunker and Quan comes running back and he says, "Die way, Norris.

• 57:46Jocko Willink?

  With the starlight scope, I see two men coming down the beach. They're quite a way off, but they're heading our way."

• 57:51Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 57:52Jocko Willink?

  So, then you, you seem like you come up with a plan right there of what you're gonna do.

• 57:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 57:57Jocko Willink?

  Which, to me, I'm like thinking, well, I'll, I'll let you brief what your plan was, but you see two bad guys coming down the beach.

• 58:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 58:04Jocko Willink?

  And your idea is, "Cool, it's time to do our body snatch."

• 58:07Speaker 02

  That's correct. And I figured, uh, uh, the officer, which name is unmentioned, he was, he was a good size, he was like 5'9", he was, and, and, and, strong, I mean, athletic guy.

• 58:22Jocko Willink?

  Right. So this is the other Vietnamese, or the Vietnamese officer?

• 58:26Speaker 02

  Officer that Quan.

• 58:27Jocko Willink?

  He's a big guy.

• 58:28Speaker 02

  Yeah. So I put him down on the beach because the, uh, the high water line, and these guys were walking up and down the high water line. And the other guy was about a hundred, a hundred and fifty, a hundred yards ahead of the guy, cause the other guy was walking up in the sand dunes. And I figured, we gotta make sure we knock him out, but the other guy's just walking by, cause he's just toodling down the, the, uh, the coastline, looking around. And, uh, so I said, I sent Quan down with the hush puppy.

• 59:02Speaker 02

  Not Kwan, but the officer. And I sent him down and I said, I'm on, this guy's go walk by us, but when the other guy, I'll take him out. And then I had Kwan there with me and Kwan, after I knocked him out cold and when Kwan got him, he taped him up and, and secured him.

• 59:22Jocko Willink?

  So the two guys are, the two enemy are walking down the beach at a pretty good distance apart.

• 59:26Speaker 02

  Correct.

• 59:26Jocko Willink?

  You say, okay, I'm gonna, me and Kwan will go get this guy, we'll capture him.

• 59:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 59:32Jocko Willink?

  And then lieutenant, or this Vietnamese lieutenant, you go and get this other guy.

• 59:36Speaker 02

  Correct.

• 59:36Jocko Willink?

  And you said, kill him, right?

• 59:38Speaker 02

  No, I said, if you could take him, take him down.

• 59:41Jocko Willink?

  Okay, got it.

• 59:41Speaker 02

  But he's right on the shoreline, so the waves are breaking, that's making a lot of turbulence and noise. And, and then the other guy's up in the sand dimes, he's at the high water line, walking around looking like that.

• 59:53Jocko Willink?

  Got it.

• 59:54Speaker 02

  I knew he would be the last one there, but we had to make sure we took him out for sure.

• 59:58Jocko Willink?

  Right.

• 59:58Speaker 02

  And then I told the officer, he could go up and take this guy out. Or eliminate him, or just make sure he didn't go back to the village, cause the village is on down the beach. And, uh, he, uh, he stood up and yelled, "Lại đây mà lên" in Vietnamese, I mean, stop, come here. He's got an AK-47, uh, the bad guy does, he's got, uh, you know, a 22 long hush puppy, which is about from here across this room. And, uh, you know, he's out there like that and the guy opened fired on him. He's running back towards Tommy and me, and I'm running past him because I know he's on his way to the village.

• 1:00:39Speaker 02

  And as I say in the book, you know, they have radios like everybody did, so what, sometimes they would, the way they would, uh, uh, send information, they'd shoot so many rounds in the sky and somebody'd answer back, but they changed all the time. But at that period of time, he only shot off two rounds, so I, hopefully that didn't mean something bad or good. And, uh... We got to the opening of the, he went across the creek, the creek bed. And he was heading straight to the entrance to the village and I dropped down to one knee, hit two shots, hit him in, in the back. He fell down and next thing, all hell.

• 1:01:22Speaker 02

  Those fifty to seventy-five bad guys were chasing us down and, and I was heading back to Tommy. And we got back and I went, I moved out on the point as the book explains, so I'll let it go from there.

• 1:01:34Jocko Willink?

  So, so when you, when you grab, or now you're heading back to Tommy and that's in that big sort of bunker doom thing?

• 1:01:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:01:41Jocko Willink?

  And so now all you are co-located in the big dunk bunker?

• 1:01:45Speaker 02

  No, actually I'm out on the very point.

• 1:01:47Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 1:01:47Speaker 02

  And Tommy was up on top of the bunker.

• 1:01:49Jocko Willink?

  Got it.

• 1:01:49Speaker 02

  With Dang. And they had taken, or the guy we did capture up there and he was up there. So I moved the officer to rear security and told him if he sees anything, let Tommy go. And I put Kwan over on my eastern flank, which is the side of the ocean. So I was about fifty feet ahead of him, fifty yards ahead of him. So I could cover, I could see everybody coming in. So I was kind of like the point. But I kept Kwan over to on the ocean side. If they tried to flank me, he would knock them off. Then I could see the lagoon over here. I could see the lagoon. And so I could see everything out in front of me.

• 1:02:30Jocko Willink?

  And now the enemy starts coming for you.

• 1:02:32Speaker 02

  Came for us, yeah.

• 1:02:33Jocko Willink?

  And, and you start, you know, engaging them, taking them down?

• 1:02:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, and engaging them. And what I'd do, I'd come up over here. I'd roll over and come up somewhere else. I'd throw a grenade over here. I'd move back, throw another grenade. I'd, I'd move forward up where the grenade hit because I'd buy that time. And I gave them a frost pre-tenses how many people we had. They didn't know if we had twelve or fifteen or... Well, all they did, and Tommy and them were shooting from up there, but Tommy was on the radio trying to get communications.

• 1:03:04Jocko Willink?

  And what Tommy was trying to get communications from, and just to kind of lay this out a little bit, the, the ships had been told, hey, we might need fire support.

• 1:03:13Speaker 02

  Correct.

• 1:03:14Jocko Willink?

  Well, when you, and whenever you set up fire support for yourself, you always set up what we call pre-designated firing positions. So, hey, we, you know, you name them whatever you're gonna name them, A, B, C, D, 1, 2, 3, 4, you give them girls' names, whatever, car names.

• 1:03:28Speaker 02

  Top of Bravo Charlie.

• 1:03:30Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's real easy to jump on the radio and say, hey, fire at position Bravo now. And the, you know, whatever fire support can start hitting that.

• 1:03:38Speaker 02

  That's, that's great, if you're where you're supposed to be.

• 1:03:41Jocko Willink?

  And, and that's the issue. So Tommy starts doing his best and saying, hey, fire rounds at this pre-designated spot.

• 1:03:49Speaker 02

  Correct.

• 1:03:49Jocko Willink?

  They fire rounds at that pre-designated spot, guess what?

• 1:03:52Speaker 02

  Couldn't see it.

• 1:03:52Jocko Willink?

  Couldn't even see it.

• 1:03:53Speaker 02

  So they started moving north at that period of time, and they were shooting smoke in the air, and, and, uh, the firefight went for almost, almost three hours, actually two hours and 55 minutes, and we had eliminated a lot of these guys, and they started falling back. And, uh...

• 1:04:09Jocko Willink?

  So there's five of you that are making like 30, 40, 50 guys fall back?

• 1:04:14Speaker 02

  Well, just four of us, cause...

• 1:04:15Jocko Willink?

  Got it.

• 1:04:17Speaker 02

  The other guy never shot a round out of this weapon.

• 1:04:19Jocko Willink?

  And that's just, you're taking good fire discipline.

• 1:04:23Speaker 02

  Correct.

• 1:04:24Jocko Willink?

  Uh...

• 1:04:24Speaker 02

  One or two rounds at a time, making good hits, making sure, what I'd do, I'd shoot in the sand about an inch, and I'd see their heads come up, then I'd shoot a, uh, about an inch below the sand, and I'd get a headshot every time, so you could tell that, and then you'd roll over. You know, then with the grenades, you were knowing that we were getting, as you mentioned with our grenade, of course, we have a four-second delay in ours, and, and their, their grenades, we had, uh, pulled those things before, and they'd go, would go anywhere from 14 seconds to 28 seconds.

• 1:04:58Jocko Willink?

  They don't have good quality control in their grenade factories like we do. Uh, let's see, yeah, you, you're talking about that, you're sending guys off. Now...

• 1:05:11Jocko Willink?

  You're you're continuing to shoot, you're continuing to hold your position, you're you're about halfway through your ammo at this point. And then, speaking of these grenades, you're in one of these positions and boom, in comes one of those grenades to your to your spot. What'd you do about that?

• 1:05:28Speaker 02

  Well, I yelled grenade and I grabbed it and threw it back. I was going 1,000, 2,000, 3,000, about the time I hit 8,000, the damn grenade came back over and I'm going 12,000, 13,000, because of course we're using thousands and I gave you a good second, I threw it back. And and the grenade went back and forth five times and I was at 21,000, 22,000, I said this thing's got to go off and it went off and I was hit six times and my back was wrapped in it. And I just yelled out, I didn't say nothing else. And when I yelled out, I just stayed there and I looked up and there was four guys coming across and I eliminated all four of those guys. And that's when we found out they started falling back and Tommy said they're falling back and I said, that's it.

• 1:06:13Speaker 02

  He said, are you okay? I said, you know, I'm wounded, but I'm okay. I'm still very, very mobile and of course the adrenaline's pumping like god knows what and and and you don't worry about yourself, you still just, you know, you need to get out of there, I thought we knew.

• 1:06:34Jocko Willink?

  Now, at this point, it seems like they're falling back a little bit and it looks like from from the way it's described, there's basically another dune that's a little further back from where you are.

• 1:06:48Speaker 02

  Approximately 500 yards.

• 1:06:49Jocko Willink?

  And that's to the north?

• 1:06:51Speaker 02

  To the north.

• 1:06:52Jocko Willink?

  Right.

• 1:06:53Speaker 02

  By itself, I mean, everything else is flat except for that one dune.

• 1:06:55Jocko Willink?

  And so what you what you guys hatch the plan real quick, all right, let's get to that thing, it's further away, create some distance and then from there we can eventually get in the water and get out of here. And, you know, I talk about cover and move all the time and and that's like the fundamental principle of of how we fight. And in in a normal situation, you would just get little terrain features and you'd move back a little piece at a time because because that's how you support each other. In this one, there was nowhere to hide in between those two.

• 1:07:25Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:07:26Jocko Willink?

  So you guys made the call of. Tommy and who who's gonna stay up there?

• 1:07:30Speaker 02

  Tommy and dang the rail, I'm gonna stay up there and Tommy said, you fall back. Cause at that period of time, I was the only one that had any, had been wounded. But what we did, I looked across, I had a pair of binoculars, I looked across and I said, I can understand why, because I counted almost a hundred guys and Tommy said, there's a lot more than that. And it was a NVA battalion, they were trying to encircle us. And, uh, and by the time I got back, uh, as the book says, uh, Dane comes back by himself. Cause Tommy had been shot in the head at that period of time.

• 1:08:03Jocko Willink?

  So, so you guys, they put down cover, they put down cover fire for you.

• 1:08:08Speaker 02

  Correct.

• 1:08:09Jocko Willink?

  And then you fall back, you're doing what you're supposed to do. And you got the Vietnamese lieutenant and you got Kwan with you.

• 1:08:16Speaker 02

  Kwan with me.

• 1:08:17Jocko Willink?

  You get back to that position and that means Lieutenant Norris is still up in the big bunker, getting ready, he's waiting for your fire support and, and while that's happening, I'm gonna go to the book, uh, right here. I was asking for naval gunfire right onto our position.

• 1:08:39Speaker 02

  Hmm, correct.

• 1:08:40Jocko Willink?

  And he says, those rounds could have hit Deng and me just as well as the bad guys, but I had no choice. The guy on the radio came back and said, understand fire for effect. And I said, absolutely, put it on us. And he said, are you sure? And I said, just get it in here.

• 1:08:58Jocko Willink?

  And so they had actually, as they were calling in this naval gunfire, Tommy was like seeing guys coming and like through the grace of God, one big round hit there. They hit them and, and got a lot of bad guys. And then again, going back to the book, I went back to getting the law ready to fire. That's a law rocket. I could hear the ship shooting, but that's the last thing I remember. And then the narrator comes in and says, at that point in the fight, Tom Norris took an AK-47 round to the left side of his forehead. The bullet entered his skull at the orbital socket of his left eye, tore a section of his skull, exposing his brain and cut a shallow furrow along the brain itself.

• 1:09:44Jocko Willink?

  Deng saw his officer go down and the extent of his head wound. His lieutenant had been shot dead. Knowing there was nothing he could do, he made for the others who had just taken a position on the next dune to the north. As he ran, he took a round through the radio he still carried on his back knocking him down. The round destroyed the radio and saved his life, but fragments carried through into his back. Deng picked himself up and kept running. It took him close to 10 minutes to reach Mike. "Where's Tommy?" Mike asked Deng when he reached him. "Where is Dai Wei?" "Dai Wei is dead," Deng replied.

• 1:10:28Jocko Willink?

  "And this is it, so..." "You know, your trusted Vietnamese fellow SEAL says, 'Hey, look, the lieutenant, that's Dai Wei, his lieutenant, he's dead.'"

• 1:10:42Jocko Willink?

  "And this is what you do, I'm going to the book here. I told Kwan and the others to wait here, that I was going back for Tommy. They tried to stop me, saying it was no use, he was dead."

• 1:10:56Jocko Willink?

  "I believed them. I too thought he was dead, but I wasn't going to leave him behind. We never leave anybody behind. So no way was I going to be the first to do that. Had I been wounded or dead, he'd have come back for me. That's who we are.

• 1:11:13Jocko Willink?

  Deng said he was dead and I had no reason not to believe him. It didn't matter.

• 1:11:19Jocko Willink?

  And what if, by chance, he was still alive? I could not have lived with myself if I had left him behind not knowing, or what the NVA might do to him if he were still alive.

• 1:11:32Jocko Willink?

  That whole area south of the bunker was littered with bodies, and they would be looking for revenge."

• 1:11:39Jocko Willink?

  I had close to a quarter of a mile to cover and the last part was uphill, but I ran all the way. The initial salvo from the Morton, that was the ship out at sea, although I didn't know it at the time, that it was the Morton shooting, had made the bad guys think twice about advancing on the dune with the bunker. When I got close, I saw them moving carefully toward the bunker. From where I could see, they were flanking the bunker and moving in from the east or the beachside as well as from the south.

• 1:12:10Jocko Willink?

  I saw Tommy lying on the west side of the bunker. Two guys were climbing over the top as they moved in from the east. They moved cautiously and got within a few feet of him. I shot them both and moved to where Tommy was. He had an unbelievable head wound. The whole side of his forehead was gone. His brain was visible. You could actually see it.

• 1:12:33Jocko Willink?

  The front lobe of his brain was kind of pushing out through his skull. I could see why Deng said he was dead. I sure thought he was. I picked him up, put him over my shoulder, and started running. I also grabbed his AK-47 as I knew I was getting low on ammo. I hadn't taken more than ten steps from the bunker when there was this explosion behind me from naval gunfire round. The concussion picked us both up in the air, lifting Tommy off my shoulder and tossed us forward ten or fifteen feet. I literally saw him move my shoulder, leave my shoulder, and fly through the air. When I landed, I sat there for a moment stunned, trying to orient myself and catch my breath.

• 1:13:18Jocko Willink?

  Once I sorted myself out, I crawled over to where Tommy was lying in the sand.

• 1:13:24Jocko Willink?

  Once I got to Tommy again and started to pick him up, he spoke to me for the first time. He said, "Mike, buddy." And that was when I knew he was alive. I said, "Can you run?" And he says, "I can run, but I can't see." But he really couldn't run. Then he blanked out again. I put him in a fireman's carry and took off for the dune to the north where I had left the others. I heard him talking now and then, and I guessed he was fading in and out. But I knew he was alive. And I put all my energy and focus to covering the ground between where we were and the other dune.

• 1:14:16Speaker 02

  Well, like I said, you and I've talked about the camaraderie and the respect we have for each other. And even though Tommy's much smaller than I am, he would have done the same thing for me, and I know that. So, so, it's like you say, you, you know, if you die, which we're all, we understand what our job is, as being Navy SEALs. But I could have never lived with myself, knowing that if he was dead. And I thought he was dead, but with the grace of God, he's still with us.

• 1:15:00Speaker 02

  So as I was running back with him, I got shot through my left calf and through my, uh, my left calf, and I fell to the ground. And we got back in there, it was Kwan and Dane giving us cover fire.

• 1:15:14Jocko Willink?

  Were you, uh, like when I've done stuff that was maybe not the safest things in the world, I, I never was really thinking like, oh, this is dangerous. Were, were you thinking, uh, oh, this is really dangerous? Or were you just, oh, he's over there and I gotta go get him? Because that's what we do.

• 1:15:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's what we do. So that's what it is. You don't, you know, fear is a good thing, but you gotta focus. I mean, if, you know, I could have sat down and said, hey, we all go die, I'm just gonna lie here and do it. But I said, I'm gonna take as many of those SOBs down as I can. And, uh, you know, and then the thing is, is that, um, uh,

• 1:15:58Speaker 02

  It's like we go back to what we are and the camaraderie and going through training and why we do things and things like that. And I think that brought up was my father. As I go back to, I look about it, because my dad never would have left me behind or anybody else behind, you know. And that's what's instilled in us as we go through training and that's what's instilled us, you know. I know Tom Boyhan was saying last night, he said, you know, I don't think you ever knew what fear was. Well, I knew what it was, but I mean, being afraid, you know, if you worry about being afraid of everything, you should never be in the field because you're not focused on what you're trying to do. So that's the whole thing is, you know. So we're out there to do a job, so let's get the damn job done.

• 1:16:41Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's interesting to me. I think guys would feel more afraid when we were getting ready to go in the field. When even me, you know, when you have time to think, like, oh, we're going down this street, which has had, you know, seventeen IEDs on it the last four days. And there's guaranteed to be another one on there tonight. The question is, is it going to hit you or is it going to hit someone else? And that's, I would see the look on guys' faces while we were getting ready to go out. And you could see a little bit of that. But once you're in the field, everyone's doing what they do. They're just doing their job.

• 1:17:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's like flicking the switch, you know, the light switch. You get your mind into what you're supposed to be doing. So if a guy doesn't have his mind in the game, he's going to stay at home. He ain't going out in the field with Mike Thornton, I promise you that.

• 1:17:32Jocko Willink?

  Now, this is one of my, one of my favorite parts of the book. That is, well, I'll read it. When I got, this is you talking. "When I got back to the dune, Deng and Kwan were waiting for me, providing cover fire. Lieutenant Thuan was nowhere in sight. He'd already made it for the water to escape. But God bless Deng and Kwan. They waited for me and were still in the fight, even though Deng was wounded. They said, Mike, what do we do now? And I said, we swim."

• 1:18:10Jocko Willink?

  Which is the classic SEAL scenario in that the water is our salvation. You know, it's like we, we have that special experience in the water and, and people aren't comfortable in the water. And it's our home and that, that was just the classic answer. These guys were saying, what do we do now?

• 1:18:30Speaker 02

  Remember we're combat swimmers, not combat runners, but the running does help.

• 1:18:37Jocko Willink?

  So now, now talk about when you're getting, now you're moving to the water. You're carrying Tommy. What, what goes on then?

• 1:18:46Speaker 02

  Well, uh, uh, I, I didn't inflate Tommy's life jacket as some of the stories said. I, I, I was using Tommy like a surfboard and every time a wave would break, I'd push him underneath the water and bring him up the other side. Because the worst thing you could do is have a wave and we had six sets of waves coming in. And that's how Kwan ended up getting injured. He got shot. And, uh, so after I got Tommy out, that's when I put, and I could never find Tommy's life jacket. And he had it in a pocket down on his calf. And I said, why? He said, well, I wonder if I get a bullet hole in it. I said, it's good because we can put a piece of tape and then, you know, if you have a, you know, sucking chest wound, I can take.

• 1:19:30Speaker 02

  So I took my life jacket off me, put it on his head and I took the, you know, the O U D T, I took the harness. But I just put a little bit of air and I started, uh, breast stroking out to sea. And that's when I saw Kwan was in, not going anywhere and I could see Dang out in front of me. And so I swam over and grabbed Kwan and I, uh, put Kwan in front of me.

• 1:19:53Jocko Willink?

  Kwan had been shot too.

• 1:19:54Speaker 02

  He had been shot.

• 1:19:54Jocko Willink?

  Pretty bad in the.

• 1:19:55Speaker 02

  Yeah. In the, in the back femur and also his buttocks was completely kind of gone. So he couldn't, so I, um.

• 1:20:02Jocko Willink?

  So you're wounded. You, you got shrapnel in your back. You got shot in the leg.

• 1:20:06Speaker 02

  Like.

• 1:20:07Jocko Willink?

  You got Lieutenant Norris who's basically unconscious, dying.

• 1:20:12Jocko Willink?

  And now you've got Kwan, who he can't move himself, he's immobile as well.

• 1:20:16Speaker 02

  Correct.

• 1:20:17Jocko Willink?

  And Deng is leading point as you guys are paddling out and you're carrying both these other guys through the water.

• 1:20:22Speaker 02

  So what I did, I took Kwan and put his arms, I put my arms underneath Kwan's arms and he held Tommy like this and I started breaststroking. Until we got out past the range of their weapons. And at that period of time, I inflated Kwan's life jacket with a little bit, then I actually tied his life jacket to my waist and I towed Kwan and swam with Tommy on my back.

• 1:20:49Jocko Willink?

  Um, here's, again, a typical, I think this exemplifies the SEAL attitude right here. This is you talking, every time Tommy woke up, it was Mike, you got everyone? I could only count four of us, where's the other guy? I'd say, I got them, I got everyone, and then he'd drift off again. Then when he woke up again, it was Mike, you got everyone? Do you have all of them? And I'd say, damn it Tommy, I got them all, okay? They're accounted for, but I, I just love the fact that, you know, you've got a guy that's clearly close to death. And when he does become conscious, his number one concern is, does he have his guys with him?

• 1:21:31Speaker 02

  That's true, that's it, and that's the way great leadership is. Sometimes people surpass that because they, you know, but it goes back to the thing that you and I were talking about earlier. You take care of your people, your people will take care of you.

• 1:21:47Jocko Willink?

  Now, um, you get out, you know, past, like you said, past the small arms fire. And, and again, Deng and Kwan keep asking, Mike, what do we do? What do we do? And each time, you said, we swim, we just keep swimming. We'll swim south all the way to Tuin-on if we have to.

• 1:22:11Speaker 02

  That's correct.

• 1:22:11Jocko Willink?

  And that's what you did. You you start, you kept swimming and kept swimming and kept swimming. A- and you're out there for three hours swimming. And and just to put that into some perspective, for people that have never swam in the open ocean before, the longest swim that you do in SEAL training is 5.5 nautical miles, which is 6.2 statute regular land miles. And that takes, depending on the current, depending on how good of a swimmer you are, that's the longest swim that they actually make you do. And that takes like three, four, sometimes five hours. That's the longest swim that they make you do. And by the way, they give you a little water break in between.

• 1:22:54Jocko Willink?

  So here you are, swimming this, and you you're wounded, shot in the leg. Like I said, you're dragging these other guys. Now, luckily, Bill Woodruff, and we talked about this earlier, you had-

• 1:23:07Speaker 02

  Unbelievable. He saved our life. I mean, Bill, he wouldn't give up on us. He would not give up. He kept looking for us and they... And actually, the Morgan thought they had killed us all. They thought, and they never knew until several years ago that we were still alive.

• 1:23:21Jocko Willink?

  No, that's that's actually a great, and and again, obviously, I can't cover the whole book on the on the on this show, but get the book because uh uh there's Dick Couch did a great job of actually going out and talking to the people that were that were firing, talking to people on the Morgan. And you're right, they they fired rounds and all of a sudden they didn't hear anything. And they fired danger close rounds, meaning like rounds that we know are going to be very close to our friendly forces. And then they never heard another word. So their thought was, you know, horrible. We we must have hit our own guys. And uh but luckily, and and the other thing that's interesting about Bill Woody Woodruff is

• 1:24:03Jocko Willink?

  the other lieutenant, the Vietnamese lieutenant, had actually gotten out to them and told them, hey, this is what happened. The lieutenant got killed, Mike went to go get him and never came back. That's what he got told.

• 1:24:16Speaker 02

  So the word got back to Woody and he called the Newport News and they went out with the Navy Blue. That Tommy was dead and I was missing in action and they were still looking for Kwan and Dane, so.

• 1:24:33Jocko Willink?

  Okay, so here's actually here we here in the book and again Dick Couch did a great job getting back with all the all the guys that were there or at least a lot of them and he's he's talking to to Woody here, Bill Woodruff, he says it was about 11:30 and I saw the Newport news begin to move off to the south. Then my junk skipper got a call from the other junk that was off to the north and slightly inshore from us. We were about a half a mile apart so as to better search the area. They said they had swimmers in the water and were going to get them. You can't know what that meant.

• 1:25:12Jocko Willink?

  So there it is, uh, because Bill stuck around.

• 1:25:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, and I I have the greatest admiration and respect for Bill. I I'm glad that Bill found us because Bill was gonna do a counterattack and then we had Ryan McComby down in Tuin on getting a bunch of guy, everybody else that was left to come and find us. So that goes back to the uh, things about taking care of your teammates, you know, and and and thank God they did find us because uh, none of those guys would have made it because I mean they had over 600 bad guys up there. So they, you know, and you know, sometimes you you don't want to leave nobody behind, but sometimes you gotta take your losses too, you know?

• 1:25:55Jocko Willink?

  It was the uh, two things and I I've heard this from other SEALs from Vietnam. Two missions, there's no question we're launching on is down pilot and SEALs in trouble. We're going.

• 1:26:06Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 1:26:08Jocko Willink?

  And that's what those guys that were still in Tuin on were doing. They were getting ready to go.

• 1:26:11Speaker 02

  They're going to come, they're coming after us, you know, and uh, I hate to say it, but I figured we'd have lost everybody trying to get in to get us at times. Because like I said, they had the gun in place and they had tanks in there. We we weren't the uh, heavy duty guys, but that that goes back to even what we have today with, you know, like Eric Critson trying to go in and uh, losing the guys that, you know, we go, we're going to go in and get our boys back out and uh,

• 1:26:41Speaker 02

  You know, and, and, and, you know, we passed a baton on back from where I am and these, these young men who service now, I have the greatest admiration. They're a lot smarter than I am because they, uh, you know, I mean, you got, you got these kids going through training now. They're all got a college education, but they're enlisted guys. They just want to be in the teams.

• 1:27:00Jocko Willink?

  And the training they do is awesome.

• 1:27:01Speaker 02

  Oh, yes.

• 1:27:02Jocko Willink?

  Way, way better than, than I had it when I went through. They're, they're, and they're have very high standards. Great guys coming through. Um, so you guys now get back on board, but obviously this isn't over yet because you got severely wounded, especially Tommy Norris. And you, you actually told them, bring the Newport News back because there's a-

• 1:27:22Speaker 02

  Correct. There's a doctor. I knew there was a doctor on board because it was a Navy cruiser and they had a lieutenant commander on board. And I called Woody and I said, we have four WIA and one critical. And, uh, and they, Newport News did turn around and we started steaming and, and our junk, Woody was on the other junk. Our junk got there first and we passed down a, a, a boatson chair. Then we passed down a rig or then we put Tommy inside that and got him up there. And, uh, I actually picked Tommy up out of it and carried him down because the thing was too wide to get through the hatch. So I picked Tommy back up and carried him down and laid him on the gurney in the doctor's

• 1:28:06Speaker 02

  office. And, uh, then I got called to the bridge to debrief the admiral, what was going on.

• 1:28:14Jocko Willink?

  This is, uh, again, a great find by Dick Couch, another, another SEAL that, that wrote the book, another Vietnam SEAL. And he, he found a guy named Chuck Zender. And Chuck Zender was a corpsman on the USS Newport News. And I'm not sure why, why Dick Couch found him or how that worked, but he's the guy that he found. And he's talking about when you guys came on board. And what was interesting was that, uh, a few months before, actually a month earlier, they'd had a turret explosion on the USS Newport News and it killed-

• 1:28:55Speaker 02

  Eleven.

• 1:28:56Jocko Willink?

  Killed Eleven sailors. Eleven and wounded sixty-two. Mm-hmm. And so they, these, the medical staff on that was, they were kind of primed. Luckily, they were used to, they had just been through basically a horrible mass casualty drill, and they were somewhat ready for it, which, you know, again, by the grace of God, they were, they had some recent experience with dealing with wounded. And, and so that's why they were ready for this, and that's according to Chuck Zender, this, this corpsman. And here's, here's Chuck Zender talking. "When they came aboard, they were a pretty scruffy lot. My job in handling casualties was triage. I saw them first, evaluated them, and sent them on to a senior medical person, corpsman or doctor, for treatment.

• 1:29:39Jocko Willink?

  I remember seeing this one American, I couldn't believe his head wound. His forehead was simply blown away. I had two thoughts. One, it was a good thing he was in salt water, or he'd have bled to death. My second thought was, this man will not be alive in the morning." He went straight to Dr. Furchiro, Furchiro, who was waiting for him in surgery. There was this big guy who was with him, and he carried him from the fantail to the sickbay. We had to force him to let go so we could treat him. He wanted to go into surgery with him. So that was you.

• 1:30:24Jocko Willink?

  That was me. Obviously. And, uh, he also said that when, when they came out and said, "Hey, we need to check you out," and you looked and you said, "No, Tommy comes first. The rest of us can wait." This is Chuck Zender talking again. "While we were treating the Vietnamese SEALs, I kept my eye on the big American. I finally got him to sit down so we could look him over. I saw blood on his pant leg and I cut into his trouser. I saw a bullet hole in his leg. My eyes got big and I called another corpsman over to look at it. I said, 'We better treat that,' and the SEAL said something like, 'Yeah, whatever.'" He just didn't seem to care.

• 1:31:09Jocko Willink?

  But he did care about the others and kept asking about them, especially his lieutenant. We knew he was a lieutenant because the other big American SEAL said he was. He had no rank insignia on him.

• 1:31:24Jocko Willink?

  So, again,

• 1:31:28Jocko Willink?

  your number one priority is your teammates.

• 1:31:30Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 1:31:36Jocko Willink?

  Another person, so you guys make it back, the ship gets you back to land. Tommy eventually gets casualty evacuation to the Philippines.

• 1:31:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, I got on the radio and Ryan McCumbey and we medevac Tommy off

• 1:31:55Speaker 02

  by helicopter to Da Nang and Ryan flew down on a helicopter and he was waiting in Da Nang. And Ryan stayed with Tommy then he sent a 141

• 1:32:06Speaker 02

  because we knew we were going to get our POWs Admiral Stockdale, Bud Day, people like that out and so all the top doctors, you know, neurosurgeons, all those guys were over there because they had already pulled everybody out of Vietnam with the exception of just general practitioners. And by the time we got Tommy through the whole operation and got him to the Philippines to Clark's, it was almost 19 hours long, the medevac, then his operation lasted 19 and a half hours, his first operation. And they stayed in touch with us, but I stayed on board of the Newport News to the following day to take care of, the Vietnamese spoke English, but I spoke pretty, I mean, I was

• 1:32:51Speaker 02

  fluent in Vietnamese and so I stayed on there until we got them all patched up.

• 1:32:57Jocko Willink?

  This is the doctor talking, Major Walter Grand. He's the neurosurgeon that they had to get this guy, get Tommy Norris to in the Philippines.

• 1:33:05Speaker 02

  Correct.

• 1:33:06Jocko Willink?

  And he says, "When he arrived, we took him directly into the OR. At the time, general military battlefield protocol held that the patient needed to be, needed to be or should be conscious going into surgery. And I was surprised that someone with this serious of a head wound would be conscious and conversant. Fortunately, he was. He was still dressed in his operational gear, which were blue jeans and a black t-shirt of some kind. As I was conducting my initial examination, I remember that he was conscious, but, but just barely. I could tell he'd been through a lot." Then he seemed to come more alert and ask, "Sir, can you tell me about my men?

• 1:33:49Jocko Willink?

  I know we got them all off the beach, but can you tell me if they're okay?"

• 1:33:57Speaker 02

  Till the end.

• 1:33:58Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Uh, it's, uh, it's the teams.

• 1:34:06Jocko Willink?

  Now, they get done with the surgery that you're talking about, incredibly long surgery. And here's the doctor talking again, "On removing the bandage and inspecting the wound, we talked, and I sensed that he didn't know that he no longer had a left eye.

• 1:34:26Jocko Willink?

  I was reluctant to tell him, as he had endured a great deal, but he was a pretty tough fellow, so I told him that we were unable to save his left eye.

• 1:34:37Jocko Willink?

  He thought about it for a second, and then said, 'Do you think they'll kick me out of the Navy because of that?'

• 1:34:45Jocko Willink?

  I said that I couldn't really answer that, but I took it as a good sign that he still wanted to be a SEAL.

• 1:34:55Speaker 02

  And the funny part, it wasn't the eye as much as it was the loss of the front lobal part of his brain, that was, uh...

• 1:35:01Jocko Willink?

  I actually don't think that's funny, sir.

• 1:35:03Speaker 02

  I don't think it is either.

• 1:35:06Jocko Willink?

  So when you say that, what do you, what do you mean? That what was the, uh, you're saying, "Hey, they're not gonna kick you out of there even though you've lost part of your brain?"

• 1:35:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, I, I think that was, uh, one of the, uh, we talked about it, 'cause he wanted to stay in. He, he was, uh, already, uh, chose to be a lieutenant commander at that period of time, and, uh, of course, you own medical hold, that does, that goes to stop, and, uh, but Tommy would have been a great, he would have been a great admiral. I mean, he really would have, uh, done us proud, as have Ryan McCombi too, and a few other guys that didn't go up through the ranks of, uh... To the top, but we've had some great leadership up there and Eric Olson, Bill McRaven, Joe Kernan, McGuire, Bert Callen, I mean, the way you look at, I watched the teams grow from there.

• 1:35:58Speaker 02

  Oh, oh, four was as high as you could go and still be in the teams and now look at it, I look at their thing and the guys are, they just amaze me every time I look and read something or something, how much I'm so proud of each one of these young men who serve this great nation of ours.

• 1:36:14Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, uh, it's amazing again that the attitude is just constant and you know, I had this with my guys that got wounded that none of them wanted to go home. They wanted to just stay.

• 1:36:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:36:26Jocko Willink?

  They didn't care if they just had to sit and stay and watch, they wanted to stay with us in Iraq.

• 1:36:30Speaker 02

  Uh, you know, I mean, how proud all you guys were when we were there with Admiral Olson and you guys receiving your awards in the Pentagon, you know, after Mikey Mansour and, and you know, you look at the guys or Job and those guys that, you know, of course, he lost his life in a very basic operation and, uh, but you know, even though when they, they had the diversity against them, they continued to strive to make their life better.

• 1:37:01Jocko Willink?

  Well, Ryan Job is the classic example. He was blind in both eyes. He was telling me, he wanted, he was already back in America and he's on the phone telling me, can I please come back to Iraq? I want to be with the platoon.

• 1:37:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. And goes and gets his college education and has a beautiful family and he's, I remember there when I was able to put the Purple Heart on him and Tommy and I were there with Admiral Olson, of course.

• 1:37:25Jocko Willink?

  Was that at Bethesda? Where was that? Was that in the hospital?

• 1:37:30Speaker 02

  No, no, no, he was at the Pentagon.

• 1:37:31Jocko Willink?

  Oh, okay. Oh, at the awards ceremony, the big awards ceremony.

• 1:37:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, we had for you guys, the big ones and then we went down and he gave other from the team three, we gave, Colin Green was there, Admiral Green was there.

• 1:37:43Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it was awesome. It was the Task Unit Bruiser, uh, awards ceremony at the Pentagon.

• 1:37:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:37:49Jocko Willink?

  We were all pretty surprised to be there doing that.

• 1:37:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:37:54Jocko Willink?

  But yeah, Ryan Job, so you guys put the Purple Heart on him there.

• 1:37:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:37:57Jocko Willink?

  Got it. Yeah, he's had the same attitude that you hear from Tommy Norris. Hey, can I stay in?

• 1:38:03Speaker 02

  Can I be there? Be with the guys.

• 1:38:07Jocko Willink?

  How much longer were you in Vietnam after that operation?

• 1:38:12Speaker 02

  That was October 31st and I came home on a break in November and I came home for good in January. So then everybody left in March of 73 and Woody and the rest of the guys, they stayed there and they came back. That's the final thing. Brooksie and Woody and Chamberlain and Harry Kana Kula and all those guys, Brad, Bill Bradford and stuff. So, and that was the last sales. Of course, then we got involved with Delta Platoon, you know, with the Cambodia issue and all that kind of stuff and the Philippines and stuff like that.

• 1:38:56Jocko Willink?

  You, you talk about coming home here. I'm going to the book. Coming back to the team this time was different from my first Vietnam tour when you were labeled a one tour wonder, which is by the way, still what you get called in this day and age when you come home from your first deployment. Or even from my Thailand tour. At SEAL Team One, you were not a made man until after your second combat rotation. It was not so much respect from the team veterans as many of them had been on four or five combat rotations. It had more to do with acceptance. I was now one of them. When guys like Gary Gallagher and Walt Gustavos and Doc Selle came up to you and said, "Nice job over there" or "Good

• 1:39:39Jocko Willink?

  work getting your lieutenant back off that beach," it really meant something. There was also getting to know my kid, who thought I was some stranger, which I was, and getting reacquainted with my wife. I'd been gone more than I was at home since we were married. And there was the absence of combat. Both the worrying of having to go in the field and in some ways, missing the anticipation of getting ready to go on an operation and the rush that comes from combat. I looked at all this as normal for any SEAL coming home, but it was still an adjustment.

• 1:40:25Jocko Willink?

  So you guys, same stuff the guys go through now.

• 1:40:28Speaker 02

  Oh, correct, correct.

• 1:40:29Jocko Willink?

  Same exact stuff guys go through now.

• 1:40:31Speaker 02

  And then, and our spouses don't get enough credit for what they do. I mean, they raise our kids. They, families, they take on, you know, stuff that we should be there to try to help them with. But, you know, we have amazing spouses, uh, you know, in the teams too. And we have a lot better, you know, the first thing I mentioned, my wife, they said, well, was she, did the Navy issue her? No, they, now we have a whole different outlook, thank God. And, uh, you know, they're, they're are part of our lives and they should make it better for all of us.

• 1:41:02Jocko Willink?

  No, the, uh, the military wi- all the military wives.

• 1:41:05Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:41:06Jocko Willink?

  The, the, what they do, yeah, they're raising the kids, but they're also fixing water heaters and, you know, repair and plumbing and they're just doing everything in the house. Like you said, stuff that, that we're supposed to be doing if we're home.

• 1:41:19Speaker 02

  If we're home, so they have to put up with all the BS with a man's taking a car in there trying to, no, hell, I know how to change oil, they say, you know, don't try to pull that one over my eyes.

• 1:41:33Jocko Willink?

  Now, going back to the book, this is you talking, I was notified in September that I would receive the Medal of Honor. A lot goes through your mind when something like that is going to happen to you. You try and play it down in your mind like it's no big deal, but it really is a big deal. Everyone in uniform knows it's a big deal. I felt humbled and undeserving. And I swore that I was not going to change me.

• 1:42:06Speaker 02

  Well, you know, Mike Thornton's always been a renegade and probably always will be a renegade. And I wouldn't go let it change me and, uh, so, uh... You know, when I went back to get the medal, they wouldn't let Tommy out of the hospital. So I kidnapped him and kept him for four days.

• 1:42:23Jocko Willink?

  So Tommy was still recovering from the head wound?

• 1:42:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, he was still going.

• 1:42:26Jocko Willink?

  And this is, this is what, a year later?

• 1:42:27Speaker 02

  A year later.

• 1:42:28Jocko Willink?

  And Tommy's still, I mean, he's just going through all these, all these surgeries and everything else.

• 1:42:34Speaker 02

  I mean, Tommy went through surgeries for six and a half years and still goes even now. So, uh, you know, it's unbelievable. I mean, uh, so, uh, it's, it's.

• 1:42:43Jocko Willink?

  But they wouldn't let him out of the hospital, go to your ceremony?

• 1:42:45Speaker 02

  No. So I said, hey, this is not, I said, I'll bring him back, you know? And they said, no. I said, well, I'm gonna get in trouble when I take him out. So I kept him for four days, put in my hotel in there for his name. And, uh, everybody in the world's looking for it. And the surgeon general of the Navy, which is a three-star, put me on report. And, uh, I had to go to Admiral's Mast, but that's okay. It's not my first one.

• 1:43:09Jocko Willink?

  You know, uh, Tony Fraddy, who is the Charlie Platoon Chief, we used to, we used to talk about Mike Thornton. And, and we'd say, you know, just on random days, we'd say, hey, you know what Mike Thornton's doing today? Whatever Mike Thornton wants to do today.

• 1:43:25Jocko Willink?

  So you just smuggled him out of the hospital against orders, went to, went to Admiral's Mast.

• 1:43:34Jocko Willink?

  You talk a little bit about the ceremony here, going back to the book. We showed up at the White House for the ceremony. Then we were all taken to the Oval Office and I was presented with the medal. I'll never forget President Nixon saying, Mike, what can I do for you? And I said, well, Mr. President, you could break this medal in half and give the other half to this young man, which was Tom Norris you were pointing to, standing behind me, because he saved my life too.

• 1:44:06Jocko Willink?

  So again, even, even in the end there, you are, uh, you're looking out for your teammate.

• 1:44:15Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:44:16Jocko Willink?

  All the way through.

• 1:44:19Speaker 02

  We still look, look out for each other even today after forty-six years. So, I mean, it's a, it's a, it's a job that you never give up.

• 1:44:30Jocko Willink?

  Well, the book, like I said, I mean, we've covered a fraction of the book and it gives so much more detail. It goes on to talk about the rest of your Navy career. It goes on to talk about, and, and obviously it talks about Tommy Norris's career.

• 1:44:48Speaker 02

  As FBI.

• 1:44:48Jocko Willink?

  As the FBI agent, by the way. Went into the FBI and was an undercover operative. I mean, just.

• 1:44:55Speaker 02

  Unbelievable.

• 1:44:56Jocko Willink?

  Unbelievable.

• 1:44:57Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 1:44:59Jocko Willink?

  You gotta get this book so that you can get the full, uh, details of what I'm talking about. And, you know, the last thing I wanted to read from the book is, um,

• 1:45:12Jocko Willink?

  the citation from your Medal of Honor.

• 1:45:16Speaker 02

  Please don't.

• 1:45:20Speaker 02

  They can go online and read it. But the book's called My Honor Bound, ladies and gentlemen, and I tell you, uh, uh, I, uh, I never felt I deserved the medal, never feel I would deserve the medal, but you know, that, I wear that with the honor of the men and women who served before me, served with me, and served after me. But a lot of people don't know, we've lost two million eight hundred and fifty-three thousand people. This great nation does enjoy our freedoms today. And that's who we can never forget. And freedom is not free. And, uh, we must honor each and every one of them, and they all deserve the medal. It's given

• 1:46:00Speaker 02

  their lives for this great nation. And, of course, Mikey Mansour, uh, like I said before, what a great young man. I knew Mikey. And, uh, uh, I feel for all our Gold Star families and, uh, cause I've never, knock on wood, I've never lost a child. But I've lost a lot, a lot of close, great friends. And, uh, I know what, what part of, that they're going through, but you know, until you lose to a, a child of your own, that you, God's blessed you to give, uh, it's hard for people to understand, but freedom is not free. It's written in blood, as you know, Chuck.

• 1:46:42Jocko Willink?

  Well.

• 1:46:45Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and you know, I can't even fathom what it's like to lose a child. I know, uh, you know, it's, um,

• 1:46:58Jocko Willink?

  I can't, I can't even fathom.

• 1:47:03Jocko Willink?

  And, you know, when I hear people, uh, throwing the word hero around, you know, I, I always, I always say,

• 1:47:14Jocko Willink?

  what I hear a lot of veterans say, and that is the real heroes didn't come home.

• 1:47:20Speaker 02

  Well, I agree with you. But at least we did get them home. And we still continue to try to get the ones, the remains of the ones home.

• 1:47:31Jocko Willink?

  Um.

• 1:47:34Jocko Willink?

  Well.

• 1:47:37Jocko Willink?

  You know, the, uh, like I said, if you go and get this book, you can, you can read it. You can learn a lot about th- these operations. You can learn a lot about people. And what people are capable of.

• 1:47:57Jocko Willink?

  And what real sacrifice looks like. And, you know, Mike, again, um,

• 1:48:09Jocko Willink?

  like, everyone's gonna wanna tell you, and it tells you all the time, "Thank you for the service that you made for our country." But as a SEAL, I wanna say, "Thank you for setting the example

• 1:48:23Jocko Willink?

  that we followed." And as a person, and as a human being,

• 1:48:29Jocko Willink?

  thank you for showing us

• 1:48:33Jocko Willink?

  that we're all capable of more than we thought.

• 1:48:38Jocko Willink?

  And no matter how dire the circumstances, no matter how many enemy forces are advancing, no matter how many rounds they're firing at you, no how many grenades they throw at you, no matter how big the problems that you face in life.

• 1:49:00Jocko Willink?

  Never quit on yourself and never quit on each other.

• 1:49:07Speaker 02

  Very well put there, Echo.

• 1:49:10Jocko Willink?

  Sir, I think we've kept you here long enough.

• 1:49:15Speaker 02

  Well, Echo, I'm sure you didn't get a whole lot of speaking time there, buddy.

• 1:49:18Jocko Willink?

  No, I was enjoying the listening. That's what Echo does. He gets the lucky job. He can just sit back and listen to awesome stories. But, um, thanks for coming on.

• 1:49:29Speaker 02

  It's my honor. Thank you for what you're doing and getting the word out to the public. And, uh, because, uh, it's like I say, freedom is not free, ladies and gentlemen. Freedom is written in blood and please don't take advantage of this, you know? Give back to the ones who have given so much. And that goes back to what you and I were talking about too. I mean, the, uh, the wives, the children, the sacrifices they make for their, for their spouses to go overseas and keep this nation free.

• 1:50:00Jocko Willink?

  And what's the organization that you have now?

• 1:50:02Speaker 02

  It's called the Michael Lee Thornton Foundation. It's a Met fund. Uh, we give out money, uh, and I don't give out, you know, 50,000 or 100,000. I give out, uh, 10,000 here, 5,000 there. And, and our, our Met Foundation, basically, or I'll give out 20,000, you know? And, uh, just a couple of examples. One was a young Marine, came back, he was a corporal, they retired him. Uh, but of course it now, it takes anywhere from 19 months to two years to get into the VEA. He had these bad headaches, but he'd have enough money to pay for his co-payment. So I write a check to the MRI, to the hospital.

• 1:50:45Speaker 02

  I wrote, write the check, they do an MRI, find, find out he had a brain aneurysm and was able to save the young man's life. Another one, we had a guy in special ops. He was an air force major intel officer at JSOC. He was overseas. His wife got diagnosed with stage four cancer. We put her into Duke University. They tried to save her life. A friend of mine goes back to the day when we started SEAL Team Six and along with, started JSOC in 1980. He was our chaplain. He was a Catholic chaplain and he calls me and says, Mike, I hear you got a great foundation. I have a problem. And I said, what is your problem? I do, I do diligence.

• 1:51:25Speaker 02

  We were able to get their kids into the, back to in this Christian school, which all the kids, they're raised from the age of seven to 10 or 11. I can't remember. And there's three of them, but they had spent their whole school time there. But the father causes the coal payments. We say it already built up to like a hundred something thousand dollars with the coal payments. I paid for the kids tuition, wrote a check, which was a little bit over eighteen thousand dollars, you know, for all, put them back in there. But at least they had a, a stable platform and everybody knew what was going on with the mother.

• 1:52:02Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:03Speaker 02

  All the teachers knew the kids and stuff like that. And then at that period of time, I go back and I make some phone calls to some good friends of mine in New York City. And they took care of the, over the hundred and something thousand dollar coal payments. So I put a Band-Aid on the problem and then I try to go other, but I mean.

• 1:52:21Jocko Willink?

  You call for fire support.

• 1:52:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, fire, so yeah. But I mean, I work with the Navy SEAL Foundation, Navy SEAL Family Foundation. The, we work with, keeping our history of the museum, which John Lee does a great job that we do up at Pebble Beach. The Marine Corps Law Enforcement Foundation, which is the number one foundation in the nation. They give or ninety-nine cents of every dollar raised. And I give ninety-seven cents of every dollar raised. I do have one administrator. I, I pay for, so my wife and I can travel around and, and take care of that, but. But there's some great foundations out there. I just tell them, make sure you do your due diligence on their foundations. You just go online and check them out for a four star

• 1:53:07Speaker 02

  or five star and find out. But all the foundations I work with, it's got to give at least ninety four cents of every dollar raised out to, out for the calls.

• 1:53:17Jocko Willink?

  Where can they find your foundation?

• 1:53:19Speaker 02

  Just pull up the MET Fund.

• 1:53:21Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 1:53:21Speaker 02

  Online.

• 1:53:23Jocko Willink?

  M E T?

• 1:53:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:53:24Jocko Willink?

  Fund?

• 1:53:25Speaker 02

  The, the MET Fund, or the Michael Lee Thornton. I put my name on it. The buck stops with me. If somebody's pointing fingers, they only got one finger to point, I'll take full responsibility of what I do. So I always have, you know, don't do, and I have people like Bob Carey, Congressman, there used to be a Medal of Honors on my board. I have an Admiral on my board. I have two really great businessmen on my board. And I have supports of people all over the United States, which help support their cause. They said they used to give money to other foundations, but they didn't like the way the money was being supported. So they give me the, and I, and like I say, we make sure we take care.

• 1:54:06Speaker 02

  I mean, if like somebody blows up the engine, having a bad month, they got laid off, and we pay for their rent, but we write the check to, we don't give it to the person, we give it to the complex, or we give it to the hospital, or we give it to the doctor. So that way, I know the money's going where it's supposed to be going, so they can get, take care of their problems.

• 1:54:31Jocko Willink?

  Well, obviously, your service isn't quite over yet. You're still serving and still helping veterans and SEALs across the board. And once again, sir, thank you for coming on. It's been an honor knowing you. It's been an honor talking to you. And I look forward to talking to you again sometime.

• 1:54:48Speaker 02

  Well, we will, Jaco. Just keep doing what you're doing, and Jaco, keep them out of trouble.

• 1:54:52Jocko Willink?

  Yes, sir.

• 1:54:53Speaker 02

  Thank you very much for having me on.

• 1:54:55Jocko Willink?

  Thank you.

• 1:54:58Jocko Willink?

  Alright, we just took a technical break and Mike Thornton has left the building.

• 1:55:04Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:55:04Jocko Willink?

  And went to go do what Mike Thornton does.

• 1:55:07Speaker 01

  Whatever he wants.

• 1:55:08Jocko Willink?

  Which is pretty much whatever he wants.

• 1:55:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:55:10Jocko Willink?

  And it was awesome, obviously, having him on.

• 1:55:13Speaker 01

  Agree.

• 1:55:14Jocko Willink?

  And when Mike Thornton tells you, "Don't read my citation", you don't read the citation? Simple as that.

• 1:55:21Speaker 01

  That was awesome.

• 1:55:22Jocko Willink?

  No factor.

• 1:55:22Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:55:23Jocko Willink?

  No factor at all?

• 1:55:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. Go online and read it.

• 1:55:27Jocko Willink?

  But awesome having him on, obviously, and now we want to keep having people like Mike Thornton on the podcast. If somebody wanted to help us, have people on this podcast.

• 1:55:41Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:55:42Jocko Willink?

  Do you have any suggestions on how they could maybe lend to that effort? Echo Charles?

• 1:55:48Speaker 01

  The support, sure.

• 1:55:49Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah, like, basically, that's what I'm saying, a way to support you.

• 1:55:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. Of course. Here's a way. And support yourself. That's kind of the thing, you know? What's good for the goose is good, you know what I'm saying?

• 1:56:04Jocko Willink?

  Maybe.

• 1:56:05Speaker 01

  Origin. We're in league with Origin, as you put it.

• 1:56:09Jocko Willink?

  Yes, I do put it that way.

• 1:56:10Speaker 01

  Sure, yeah. So, Origin Maine, so Origin Maine State, just so to be clear.

• 1:56:17Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 1:56:17Speaker 01

  Origin, M A I N E.

• 1:56:18Jocko Willink?

  Oh, you mean it like, you might be like Maine.

• 1:56:20Speaker 01

  M A I N.

• 1:56:21Jocko Willink?

  Okay, no, it's the state.

• 1:56:22Speaker 01

  The Maine one, kind of, kind of, which makes sense, by the way.

• 1:56:25Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:56:26Speaker 01

  Because it is the Maine one, totally. And so, you know, a lot of times, like, okay, we'll take the geese, that's how I first heard of Origin, by the way. The geese, like, oh, these geese are dope, check this, you know? And, of course, you know, but that technically is kind of a matter of opinion, as far as like, okay, I'm gonna look at this geese. And be like, okay, no, I'm gonna look at this one.

• 1:56:45Jocko Willink?

  Because someone might like Ford more than Chevy, more than whatever.

• 1:56:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, or the look, especially with geese, like, you know, the subtle differences, kind of, you know, it's to each their own kind of thing.

• 1:56:56Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I guess you're going like full on fashion realm here, which I don't go into.

• 1:57:01Speaker 01

  Potentially, yeah.

• 1:57:02Jocko Willink?

  I'm looking for functionality, you probably could have guessed that.

• 1:57:04Speaker 01

  Yes, so, yeah, and you look into it, so the functionality part, yes, all that, of course. But when you say made in America, this is like the epitome, this is the, basically, the defining.

• 1:57:19Speaker 01

  Situation.

• 1:57:20Jocko Willink?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:57:22Speaker 01

  So you know, you know how they'll be like, hey, made in America, but then, you know, it's clothes or whatever. We'll say in this case clothes, but then you say, oh, hey dang, those are good shirts. You know, where do you get your blanks from or whatever? Oh, we get them from, you know, somewhere other than America kind of thing? No, the cotton. Get the cotton from America. That's what Origin did. That actual cotton.

• 1:57:42Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Well, when you talk about functionality, just kind of FYI.

• 1:57:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:57:47Jocko Willink?

  When you have a guy that's making the gees and therefore is going to weave the material to make the gees with. He's gonna make material that is specifically the best to have for a gi.

• 1:58:00Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:58:00Jocko Willink?

  That's the situation with Origin. That type of commitment.

• 1:58:05Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:58:06Jocko Willink?

  That's why we're in league with Origin.

• 1:58:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, totally makes sense.

• 1:58:10Jocko Willink?

  Cause we're kind of, we have that mindset over on this side.

• 1:58:13Speaker 01

  Makes sense. So, so yeah, Origin, that's the one, um, I'm looking forward to my gi. And I'm down for gees, by the way.

• 1:58:22Jocko Willink?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:58:23Speaker 01

  But, um, yeah, so I'm looking forward to that one. Origin Maine. O-R-I-G-I-N-M-A-I-N-E.

• 1:58:30Jocko Willink?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:58:30Speaker 01

  Just to be clear, just in case.

• 1:58:32Jocko Willink?

  And it's not just gees.

• 1:58:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:58:34Jocko Willink?

  You can get the hash guards.

• 1:58:35Speaker 01

  The hash guard. Yeah.

• 1:58:36Jocko Willink?

  And we're gonna be making everything there.

• 1:58:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:58:40Jocko Willink?

  We're gonna be making everything there. Everything that I utilize in my life.

• 1:58:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:58:44Jocko Willink?

  I'm gonna make.

• 1:58:45Speaker 01

  Dang. It's like the, so you're gonna kind of come out with almost like a life kit is really what it is. It's a kit.

• 1:58:51Jocko Willink?

  Oh, don't use the Reebok terminology, bro.

• 1:58:54Speaker 01

  That's Reebok terminology?

• 1:58:55Jocko Willink?

  Cause the Reebok calls it like the UFC fight kit.

• 1:58:58Speaker 01

  Ah, okay.

• 1:58:59Jocko Willink?

  But.

• 1:59:00Speaker 01

  I didn't know that.

• 1:59:00Jocko Willink?

  Man.

• 1:59:01Speaker 01

  Nah, nah, kit, like, the word kit is a universal word.

• 1:59:04Jocko Willink?

  No, the word kit is a universal word, which I do concur with.

• 1:59:06Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:59:06Jocko Willink?

  But what did you call it?

• 1:59:07Speaker 01

  The kit? That's what I called it.

• 1:59:09Jocko Willink?

  Ah, I guess so.

• 1:59:11Speaker 01

  So you could call it.

• 1:59:12Jocko Willink?

  The Brits call it kit. They call their op gear, like their web gear.

• 1:59:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:59:16Jocko Willink?

  They call it kit.

• 1:59:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:59:17Jocko Willink?

  Which means that we also, cause we have interoperability with the Brits and with the Aussies.

• 1:59:22Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:59:23Jocko Willink?

  So we also tend to call our gear kit.

• 1:59:26Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:59:27Jocko Willink?

  So yes, in fact, you are correct. If you were to say, I'm gonna make all my kit there.

• 1:59:32Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:59:33Jocko Willink?

  The answer is yes. But.

• 1:59:37Jocko Willink?

  There's a fine line where people might think of the UFC Fight Kit, which didn't go over real well when they first came out.

• 1:59:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, hey, and you know, we're gonna let that be their thing, for sure. Um, as far as it going well or not going well. This one, what would it be? Kinda like the unofficial Discipline Equals Freedom Kit.

• 1:59:58Jocko Willink?

  How about we just call it Gear?

• 2:00:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, we could just call it Gear, I guess.

• 2:00:02Jocko Willink?

  That's my vote.

• 2:00:03Speaker 01

  Alright.

• 2:00:04Jocko Willink?

  I don't rule the world, so if you wanna call it Kit on your side, and I'll call it Gear over here.

• 2:00:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:00:09Jocko Willink?

  Let's do that. You know, that way you're comfortable. I'm all about everyone being comfortable with what they're saying.

• 2:00:14Speaker 01

  Technically, it'll be a kit with gear in it.

• 2:00:16Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 2:00:17Speaker 01

  You know what I'm saying?

• 2:00:17Jocko Willink?

  Oh, well, that's a traditional. That's a traditional use of the word kit.

• 2:00:21Speaker 01

  Right, right, that's what I meant.

• 2:00:22Jocko Willink?

  Like, hey, okay, you got like-

• 2:00:23Speaker 01

  Like a survival kit.

• 2:00:24Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I got a survival kit when I was six years old, and it's got a compass and a whistle and a pair of matches in it. What happens if you use both matches? You're in trouble. So that's a survival kit.

• 2:00:34Speaker 01

  Bro, why do you have a whistle? You just said whistle, by the way.

• 2:00:37Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah. Cause you know when you're a little kid, you get lost in the whiz? What'd you supposed to blow on the whistle for a while?

• 2:00:41Speaker 01

  No, bruh.

• 2:00:42Jocko Willink?

  Till they find you.

• 2:00:42Speaker 01

  No, sorry, bruh, not on Kauai.

• 2:00:44Jocko Willink?

  That didn't happen in Kauai.

• 2:00:45Speaker 01

  No, not that I know of.

• 2:00:46Jocko Willink?

  What'd you do in Kauai when you got lost?

• 2:00:48Speaker 01

  You'd just keep heading in one direction, and it'll bring you to the ocean, yeah. Or up in the mountains. So it's kinda, they call it Maoka and Makai. Maoka is mountain, Makai is ocean. So that's kinda the directions.

• 2:00:58Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:00:59Speaker 01

  So, otherwise, you just keep walking.

• 2:01:00Jocko Willink?

  Oh. That's a good lesson for life, too.

• 2:01:04Speaker 01

  Bro, we got lost in the mountains one time. Long story, maybe some other time. Back to Origin.

• 2:01:08Jocko Willink?

  Please, another time.

• 2:01:10Speaker 01

  So, boom. Origin Maine. All made in America. Rash Guards. Geez, all that stuff. This is like, yeah.

• 2:01:20Jocko Willink?

  And by the way, supplements there, too.

• 2:01:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:01:24Jocko Willink?

  Supplements.

• 2:01:24Speaker 01

  Origin Labs.

• 2:01:25Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:01:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:01:26Jocko Willink?

  So you can find it all there.

• 2:01:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's dope.

• 2:01:28Jocko Willink?

  And... And we are going to make, basically what we're talking about here, Jaco Supplements. Cause again, what do I specifically want? I'm pretty particular, let's make that thing.

• 2:01:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, and-

• 2:01:41Jocko Willink?

  And then we go forward.

• 2:01:42Speaker 01

  The good part about that is too, is you're kinda one of these guys, you can rest assured, you're not gonna have like, this, these weird extra things, like, I don't know, you know, hair dye, or something like that.

• 2:01:52Jocko Willink?

  We will not be selling hair dye.

• 2:01:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, or something like this. So yeah, that'd be the good stuff, for sure. OriginMaine.com.

• 2:01:59Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 2:01:59Speaker 01

  Also. Support yourself. So on it. I I'm not gonna go into my kettlebell situation again this time. Actually, yesterday I worked at I didn't do kettlebells. I did.

• 2:02:10Jocko Willink?

  I saw somebody tweeted you that was it was like an article that said that those little goblet squats were not building.

• 2:02:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, and and that was a funny article for sure.

• 2:02:21Jocko Willink?

  I kinda laughed.

• 2:02:22Speaker 01

  You know what the title was called? Something along the lines of, I'm trying to make remember it exact. It's it was called.

• 2:02:28Jocko Willink?

  Fourteen ways to avoid being big or.

• 2:02:30Speaker 01

  No, to to remain a puny little weakling. Actually, puny, I think. No, dweeb, dweeb.

• 2:02:37Jocko Willink?

  Puni little dweeb.

• 2:02:38Speaker 01

  Yeah. So apparently, given number, whatever number that was, I'm gonna remain a puny little dweeb, apparently. Here's the thing. Are those really goblet squats though? Cause goblet squats.

• 2:02:49Jocko Willink?

  No, I know what you do. You do the you basically do a front squat.

• 2:02:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:02:52Jocko Willink?

  Double rack.

• 2:02:53Speaker 01

  Double rack, yeah, cause goblet is like, cause this is the form, the shape of a goblet right here, and that's how you hold it.

• 2:02:57Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:02:58Speaker 01

  It is kinda, I mean, but what if you use like a huge ass kettlebell?

• 2:03:01Jocko Willink?

  Well, then maybe.

• 2:03:02Speaker 01

  Part of a Metcon.

• 2:03:03Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that could work.

• 2:03:04Speaker 01

  In fact, I mean, respect to the author there. I forget who wrote it or whatever, but it was a real subjective, really, you know.

• 2:03:10Jocko Willink?

  I think it was more of like a shock article, kind of.

• 2:03:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, it was like, it was a laugh. It was for a good laugh, you know, but if you take that seriously.

• 2:03:17Jocko Willink?

  It was like a serious directive out there trying to help people that have skinny knees.

• 2:03:26Speaker 01

  Proud of them?

• 2:03:26Jocko Willink?

  Maybe.

• 2:03:27Speaker 01

  You seem real proud of that one. Look at you. Anyway.

• 2:03:32Speaker 01

  I didn't really like the article on that level, but for a laugh, it was good.

• 2:03:36Jocko Willink?

  And and factually, here's the deal. Kettlebells are legit.

• 2:03:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:03:40Jocko Willink?

  And they are.

• 2:03:40Speaker 01

  And goblet squats are legit.

• 2:03:41Jocko Willink?

  Squats are legit.

• 2:03:42Speaker 01

  But here's the thing, there was a good point.

• 2:03:44Jocko Willink?

  Hey, yeah, I'll tell you what. You know, we were talking about what you what you uh used to, you're good at.

• 2:03:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, what you're used to. Yeah, yeah.

• 2:03:51Jocko Willink?

  For some reason, I hurt like my wrist or something.

• 2:03:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:03:54Jocko Willink?

  Or I hurt something and I couldn't do. Back squats or front squats.

• 2:03:59Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:03:59Jocko Willink?

  So I was do- yeah, it was maybe it was my shoulder. Anyways, I was doing goblet squats with the, uh, with my big kettlebell.

• 2:04:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:04:07Jocko Willink?

  Which is forty kilograms. And I, I, I had put on the schedule of what I was gonna do, like twenty-five. It was a bunch of, it was a metcon scenario, so, but the first number was twenty-five. It was twenty-five, twenty, fifteen.

• 2:04:21Speaker 01

  Oh, the reps, yeah.

• 2:04:22Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, those were the reps. Twenty-five hurt.

• 2:04:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:04:25Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I was like, dang, cuz it's only, it's only eighty-eight pounds, right? That should be in, that should be pretty insignificant.

• 2:04:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:04:31Jocko Willink?

  But you really do, when you do those goblet squats.

• 2:04:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:04:35Jocko Willink?

  You're using your whole body to keep that thing aligned.

• 2:04:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's good. Let me think, my, yeah.

• 2:04:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think I'm used to it now, I think that.

• 2:04:45Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and I got used to it in a pretty short period of time.

• 2:04:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:04:47Jocko Willink?

  That's what was cool.

• 2:04:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:04:50Jocko Willink?

  So, onit.com, you can get that kinda stuff there.

• 2:04:53Speaker 01

  If you want the cool ones.

• 2:04:54Jocko Willink?

  Hmm.

• 2:04:54Speaker 01

  I think, and I don't know, cuz you know, I haven't ventured out, and I, I don't think I ever will. Venture out to go see where I can get other kettlebells from? No need, really. Cuz you can buy the regular ones or the, the dope ones. And let's face it, man, you take enough pictures of the dope ones for your Instagram, wherever you take pictures for, and you kinda can't go back, you can't.

• 2:05:17Jocko Willink?

  Hmm.

• 2:05:17Speaker 01

  So, keep that in mind.

• 2:05:18Jocko Willink?

  You painted yourself into a kettlebell corner.

• 2:05:20Speaker 01

  Exactly right.

• 2:05:22Jocko Willink?

  And you, and you and your social media.

• 2:05:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:05:25Jocko Willink?

  Have painted yourself into this.

• 2:05:26Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:05:27Jocko Willink?

  Corner.

• 2:05:27Speaker 01

  Which is not a bad thing necessarily. Onit.com slash Jaco, that's where you get these things.

• 2:05:33Jocko Willink?

  I painted myself into a corner with my social media. I'm gonna wake up every day at four-thirty.

• 2:05:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, you gotta post it.

• 2:05:37Jocko Willink?

  Guess what? The other day I got home at three o'clock in the morn- or I got, I didn't get to sleep until like one-thirty.

• 2:05:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:05:42Jocko Willink?

  And when I woke up in the morning, I was really tired.

• 2:05:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:05:45Jocko Willink?

  And, uh,

• 2:05:47Jocko Willink?

  I was, you know, what am I gonna do? I'm, I'm painted in the corner, I had to say, hey, guys.

• 2:05:51Speaker 01

  Trying to do it.

• 2:05:51Jocko Willink?

  I'm, I'm, I'm going back to sleep, and I actually went back to sleep. I told everyone.

• 2:05:56Speaker 01

  Dang.

• 2:05:56Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:05:57Speaker 01

  See, that's good, though, you took accountability, though.

• 2:05:59Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, well, I, that's just lying, which I don't support.

• 2:06:03Speaker 01

  Oh, if you didn't do that.

• 2:06:04Jocko Willink?

  If I said, if I woke up, took a picture of my watch, which I've had people say like, I bet you just wake up.

• 2:06:08Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 2:06:09Jocko Willink?

  Hey, do you ever sometimes just wake up in the morning, take a picture of your watch, and you go back to sleep? No, actually, I don't do that.

• 2:06:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, it, it doesn't seem like you could ever bring yourself to do that.

• 2:06:17Jocko Willink?

  No.

• 2:06:17Speaker 01

  Why would you even want it? You wouldn't wanna do that.

• 2:06:19Jocko Willink?

  It's a horrible scenario.

• 2:06:21Speaker 01

  It kinda defeats the purpose, really. The whole purpose.

• 2:06:23Jocko Willink?

  So, the other day, woke up. Took a picture of my watch and I was like, I gotta go back to bed. I'm too freaking tired. So I went back to bed.

• 2:06:33Speaker 01

  But you didn't post it.

• 2:06:34Jocko Willink?

  No.

• 2:06:34Speaker 01

  No, no, you posted it, but you said I'm going back to bed.

• 2:06:36Jocko Willink?

  I'm going back to bed.

• 2:06:37Speaker 01

  Got it.

• 2:06:38Jocko Willink?

  I'm sorry. Hold the line for me.

• 2:06:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, I dig your.

• 2:06:42Jocko Willink?

  Cover for me.

• 2:06:43Speaker 01

  Actually, that one time we got home.

• 2:06:44Jocko Willink?

  Cover and snooze.

• 2:06:47Jocko Willink?

  You guys cover and get after it. I'm gonna be over here snoozing.

• 2:06:49Speaker 01

  Well, hey, that's the freedom part, though. What we always say, discipline. You have the freedom to, hey, man, you gotta sometimes. But you can't like, especially if you're working out and you don't, you straight up don't get enough sleep. I'm not saying you don't. You don't, but that's not what I'm saying right now. But if you, the proverbial you, us, when we don't get enough recovery. Which sleep is recovery. Right. That's not a good thing, man. So every once in a while, you gotta exercise that restraint.

• 2:07:23Speaker 01

  In the form of the freedom to sleep in.

• 2:07:25Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, well, I did.

• 2:07:27Speaker 01

  Hey, man, that's part of life. Anyway, on it, also the whole painting yourself in the corner. Okay, so I got this jump rope. And it's like, you know, the, I don't know how up to date you are on the new jump rope technology.

• 2:07:38Jocko Willink?

  I know they're getting better.

• 2:07:38Speaker 01

  They're, yeah, they're dope. And here's the thing, if you just buy a regular jump rope, like you'll see the difference. And I mentioned that because I got an on it jump rope. I told you about the time that my neighbor taught me how to do the crossover thing. And that's when it really hit me like this is a dope jump rope. So if you want to upgrade your jump rope, boom on it. That's the one. In fact, just go on there, see what, what up, see what they have. They have a lot of good stuff. A lot of good stuff. Also, good way to support when we get this book, By Honor Bound.

• 2:08:15Speaker 01

  Tom Norris, Mike Thornton, and Dick Couch. When you get this book, go on our website, jockelpodcast.com. There's a book section, top menu, boom. Click on their books from podcasts by episode, by the way. This is episode 89. Click through there, it'll take you to Amazon, you get your books there. Or even if you can do some other shopping. If you're gonna buy a lawnmower, duct tape, whatever, click through there. Good way to support, you know, small little actions, one little click through, big reaction by way of support. Also, subscribe to the podcast if you haven't already. iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, all these podcasting providing platforms. And YouTube for the video version of this podcast and excerpts and some other various little video things. That's a good way to support.

• 2:09:01Speaker 01

  Also, Jaco has a store, it's called Jaco Store, jacostore.com. There are hats there. Good hats, trucker hats, flex fit, three colors.

• 2:09:10Jocko Willink?

  Wait, flex fit?

• 2:09:11Speaker 01

  They're flex fit.

• 2:09:12Jocko Willink?

  Wait, they don't have the little like thing in the back where you?

• 2:09:16Speaker 01

  The snap back?

• 2:09:16Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, the snap back?

• 2:09:18Speaker 01

  No, I think they're flex fit.

• 2:09:20Jocko Willink?

  They don't make trucker hats that are flex fit, I don't think.

• 2:09:22Speaker 01

  They do now.

• 2:09:23Jocko Willink?

  Oh, okay.

• 2:09:24Speaker 01

  I'm pretty sure, I'm fairly positive.

• 2:09:26Jocko Willink?

  Well, they're hats, basically.

• 2:09:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, and they're dope.

• 2:09:29Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I thought you were gonna bring me nine of them.

• 2:09:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:09:31Jocko Willink?

  But you didn't.

• 2:09:32Speaker 01

  I didn't do that, that was.

• 2:09:33Jocko Willink?

  That's a bummer. Jaco has a store, but Jaco has no hats.

• 2:09:39Speaker 01

  There is a, you know what, there's this other kind of hat, I think it's called like, like an operator hat. It's like real simple. Anyway, I'm thinking about, you know, doing that one too.

• 2:09:49Jocko Willink?

  Interesting.

• 2:09:50Speaker 01

  In the event of you not being as into the trucker hat as maybe something else, we'll see. Flex fit as well, that's my thing. And is flex fit cool? Is that good?

• 2:09:59Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, flex fit has a purpose. I just have never seen a trucker's hat flex fit.

• 2:10:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:10:04Jocko Willink?

  And I doubt I'm gonna see one now.

• 2:10:05Speaker 01

  No, man, it's the new stuff, apparently. But yeah, some other stuff on there, some shirts on there, cool stuff. Jaco even has a shirt that he designed, which is cool, layers, if you will.

• 2:10:16Jocko Willink?

  I like the way you promote the shirt that has your picture on it. You're proud of that, aren't you?

• 2:10:20Speaker 01

  No, I'm not, actually, because I didn't want, no, I didn't want, I didn't want my picture on there.

• 2:10:24Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, actually, that's true. I gotta give you that. Echo did not want to have an Echo shirt.

• 2:10:28Speaker 01

  Cause it doesn't, to me, it didn't make sense. Yeah, vetoed it. It is called Jaco Store.

• 2:10:36Jocko Willink?

  I got some pull.

• 2:10:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:10:37Jocko Willink?

  At Jaco Store.

• 2:10:38Speaker 01

  And I'm not saying to buy the shirt, I'm not saying to buy a hat, I'm saying go on the store. Jacostore.com, again.

• 2:10:46Speaker 01

  If you like something, get something. Good support.

• 2:10:50Speaker 01

  Also, Psychological Warfare. If you don't know what that is, it's an album with tracks, Jaco tracks, and these tracks help you get through moments of weakness in your campaign against weakness. Every once in a while, when you wage these hard campaigns against weakness, against your, you know, waking up early, sticking to the diet, workout, all this stuff, sometimes you get moments of fatigue. Sometimes. Even the strongest have their moments of fatigue.

• 2:11:23Jocko Willink?

  That's affirmative.

• 2:11:24Speaker 01

  So this, Psychological Warfare, these tracks, they're like little spots for those moments of fatigue, get you through it. No problem psychologically. Then you act. Boom. So yeah, that's a good one. So if you're, you know, waking up early, like I said, you're waking up early, you feel like hitting the snooze, listen to Psychological Warfare, one of those tracks on there. I think it's called Get Up and Get After It. You will not hit the snooze.

• 2:11:45Jocko Willink?

  It's a good one.

• 2:11:46Speaker 01

  Yep, that's it. Psychological Warfare, Jocko Willink, anywhere, iTunes, uh, where else? Amazon Music, all these places where they sell MP3s.

• 2:11:55Jocko Willink?

  You can get them there.

• 2:11:56Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 2:11:57Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, this book that, that we covered today, by Mike Thornton, by Tommy Norris, and by Dick Couch. You can get, you gotta get this book. Um, it's a great book. It's a great read. And that's a good place to start. So much more detail than I went over today. When we just, as I was walking out, Mike and, and his wife, and I was telling her that I was explaining to him that it's like the debrief I wanted since I was an E4 in the Navy.

• 2:12:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:12:25Jocko Willink?

  That wanted to know what happened. Wanted the details. Well, now we got them.

• 2:12:29Speaker 01

  And those are some crazy details, by the way.

• 2:12:31Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:12:33Speaker 01

  It's crazy, he's, he's, he's talking about how, yeah, you know, my friend gets his like forehead blown off or whatever, you can see his brain, all this stuff.

• 2:12:45Speaker 01

  Even in a movie that that'd be pretty graphic scene.

• 2:12:47Jocko Willink?

  Even in a movie that'd be unbelievable, right? Like you beg, oh, that movie wasn't really realistic because the guy had his head blown off and then he lived.

• 2:12:54Speaker 01

  But that was the crazy part though, right? On that movie, you know, but yeah, oh, it really happened. Oh, so he's, you know, he has him, his other guy, he shot, by the way. And it's like, and he's going, you know, through the ocean, all this stuff.

• 2:13:04Jocko Willink?

  And shrapnel in his back from the grenade that he threw back five times.

• 2:13:08Speaker 01

  Yeah. I know, man, it's so crazy. And then we're sitting here and he's, he's sitting right there. That's the guy who really did that, you know? He's not, I mean, of course, acting is cool and dope for real, but that's not an actor. That's the guy who really did it. Heavy, but that's heavy.

• 2:13:26Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's crazy. So get the book, read about it, read the rest of the details that we barely even scratched the surface on. Also, some other books you can get, you can get a book called Extreme Ownership. It's about leadership.

• 2:13:42Jocko Willink?

  It teaches you how to lead.

• 2:13:44Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 2:13:45Jocko Willink?

  It's a book that I wish I had when I was a young leader. But I didn't have it. I wasn't old enough to have written it and given it back to myself yet.

• 2:13:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, it doesn't work like that.

• 2:13:56Jocko Willink?

  Also, we're speaking of being young, you can get another book called The Way of the Warrior Kid. Which is awesome because kids all over the place, like parents now, when I'm speaking somewhere, they bring their kids. So I get to meet these kids, kids that are getting after it. Which is pretty awesome. So, Way of the Warrior Kid.

• 2:14:16Jocko Willink?

  So many kids are like doing pull-ups now.

• 2:14:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I was just gonna say, my, my daughter would be like bothering me dad that I wanna do pull-ups.

• 2:14:26Speaker 01

  She doesn't wanna go, you know.

• 2:14:27Jocko Willink?

  She didn't get that from reading Cinderella.

• 2:14:30Jocko Willink?

  Cinderella did not make her wanna, wanna do that, right?

• 2:14:33Speaker 01

  I did, I did tell her the story Cinderella last night, coincidentally. She really liked it.

• 2:14:38Jocko Willink?

  She wouldn't wanna do any pull-ups about it though.

• 2:14:39Speaker 01

  No, I didn't compel her to go do any, no.

• 2:14:41Jocko Willink?

  Did it compel her to eat better?

• 2:14:43Speaker 01

  No.

• 2:14:43Jocko Willink?

  Did it compel her to study hard?

• 2:14:45Speaker 01

  No, she just said it was beautiful.

• 2:14:47Jocko Willink?

  Okay, so it compelled some thoughts of beauty.

• 2:14:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:14:50Jocko Willink?

  But it didn't compel any change of direction in life.

• 2:14:53Speaker 01

  No, no action taken.

• 2:14:54Jocko Willink?

  I'm going with Way of the Warrior Kid.

• 2:14:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, me too.

• 2:14:58Jocko Willink?

  Also, Discipline Equals Freedom Field Manual is coming out. That could compel you to get after it.

• 2:15:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:15:07Jocko Willink?

  It, it, it could. I'd check it out, there's no books like it.

• 2:15:12Speaker 01

  And it's like, it's a manual. That's the good part. You know how like when you listen, you're like, okay, I can, you know, you kind of get a feel, but I like the manual part of it.

• 2:15:22Jocko Willink?

  There's nothing vague about the manual. It tells you what to do.

• 2:15:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:15:25Jocko Willink?

  And it also talks about some thoughts that are in my head. So it is interesting. You can get it.

• 2:15:34Jocko Willink?

  Appreciate it. Also. Origin Maine, you already covered that, which is good. That is now us, by the way. We're partnered. So when you start your jujitsu journey, or if you're on your jujitsu journey. Check it out. Come and get it. If you're on the path of getting after it.

• 2:15:55Jocko Willink?

  Do it with us at Origin. And also, if you want to partner with us. From a leadership perspective in your business. Our business, Echelon Front Leadership Consulting. That's what we do. Me, Leif Babbin, JP Donnell, Dave Burke. [email protected]. Don't Google. And look for Jaco speaking. Cause that's going to give you a speaker's agent. That's going to charge you more money.

• 2:16:25Speaker 01

  Is there something going like a, like a bureau or something?

• 2:16:27Jocko Willink?

  Bureau, speaker's agent, that's what they do.

• 2:16:29Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 2:16:30Jocko Willink?

  And, and they're trying to provide a service. They're trying to get, they're trying to connect speakers with people that need speakers. But we don't need anyone to connect us with people that need speakers. You can go straight to echelonfront.com. So that's that. Also.

• 2:16:48Jocko Willink?

  The muster, September 14th and 15th in San Diego. Just to clarify. The first three musters were based on the same material. Because we did it on the west, on the east, and then in the center of the country. Just to clarify, now that, now this muster, muster four, is new material. So it's different. New approaches, new stories. It's not sold out yet, but it will be. So if you want to come, register now, extremeownership.com.

• 2:17:20Jocko Willink?

  And while you're waiting for the muster. If you have a quest.

• 2:17:27Jocko Willink?

  For us, you can ask that question on the interwebs. We're there. On the Twitter, the Instagram. And that's Faceybo. Echo is at Echo Charles and I am at Jocko Willink. Also Snapchat.

• 2:17:48Speaker 01

  Are you on there?

• 2:17:49Jocko Willink?

  I am on there and I posted, "Ah, snap!" so far. One snap. And it disappears after 24 hours.

• 2:17:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, so you can't go.

• 2:17:57Jocko Willink?

  And I'm still working to figure out like how I'm supposed to utilize this thing.

• 2:18:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:18:02Jocko Willink?

  So, we'll continue working on that one.

• 2:18:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:18:07Jocko Willink?

  And that's it. That's how you can get in touch with us. And finally, to anybody else that's out there who thinks maybe you're being overwhelmed, or you think the deck is stacked against you, or you think you can't go on anymore, think about Mike Thornton. And remember that you are capable of so much more. As long as you never give up and keep getting after it.

• 2:18:52Jocko Willink?

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