401: Am I as Committed As I Should Be? "SOG Codename, Dynamite", with Dick Thompson.

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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 401 with Echo Charles and me, Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo.

• 0:05Speaker 01

  Good evening.

• 0:08Jocko Willink?

  The Military Advisory Command Vietnam Studies and Observation Group, MACV SOG.

• 0:18Jocko Willink?

  Don't be misled by the name. We are not an academic group studying the war in Vietnam. We are not advising anyone. MACV SOG was a top-secret group of the most elite special operations warriors in the world. Every time I led my team on a mission, it was kill or be killed. Every time, hundreds, sometimes thousands of people would die. It was not about rules of engagement. Was this person an enemy? Does this person have a weapon? Is this person about to kill me? Or the other questions and rules today's special operators may have to deal with. SOG rules were very different and simple.

• 1:03Jocko Willink?

  Everyone was the enemy. The enemy had to be terminated, or you would be. And if the enemy caught you, the United States government would deny any involvement with you or what you were doing. You had no protection under the Geneva Convention. You were a spy. You were on your own.

• 1:27Jocko Willink?

  It has been documented that SOG teams had the highest kill ratio of any unit during the Vietnam era. SOG teams also had the highest casualty rate, over 200%.

• 1:39Jocko Willink?

  This means each SOG member was either killed or wounded multiple times.

• 1:46Jocko Willink?

  For example, Staff Sergeant Robert Howard, later Colonel Howard, was wounded on at least 11 occasions. Was awarded eight Purple Hearts, the Distinguished Service Cross, and the Medal of Honor.

• 2:03Jocko Willink?

  22 men received the Distinguished Service Cross and 13 received the Medal of Honor on SOG operations.

• 2:14Jocko Willink?

  There has never been a war where such small teams of young warriors were set against such overwhelming numbers of enemy forces on every mission.

• 2:27Jocko Willink?

  But the SOG missions were not fought alone. You were always part of a team. Internal battles, however, were and still are being fought alone by what has been burned into each SOG operator's brain. Once seen, you cannot unsee. Once you do, you cannot undo. There are experiences on the battlefield that you can never unsee, unhear, unsmell, unfeel, or untaste.

• 2:58Jocko Willink?

  Once you pull the trigger or detonate an explosive, the lives you've just terminated cannot be un-killed.

• 3:06Jocko Willink?

  The enemies, the enemy soldiers, spouse, kids, grandkids, great-grandkids, future relatives and potential roles they all play in the history of the world are immediately and permanently erased.

• 3:20Jocko Willink?

  You can never forget the look on the person's face when you pull the trigger or penetrate him with your knife.

• 3:27Jocko Willink?

  These are part of you for the rest of your life.

• 3:31Jocko Willink?

  You can never remove the experience from your brain. It is part of you until you die.

• 3:43Jocko Willink?

  And that right there is an excerpt from the intro of a book that is called SOG Codename Dynamite, a MACV SOG 1-0's personal journal, which is written by Henry Dick Thompson.

• 4:02Jocko Willink?

  And on the cover of the book, there's a quote from Major General Eldon Bargewell, a legend from SOG and from United States Special Operations. And the quote from him says, "I thought I was crazy until I saw what Thompson did when he became my SOG team leader in 1969."

• 4:24Jocko Willink?

  Now, Dick Thompson has been on this podcast before. He was on episodes 204, 205, 206, back in late 2019. And on those episodes, we covered some of his experiences and some of his lessons learned from the Vietnam War. We also covered his book, which is a book that he had written called The Stress Effect, which is a book about leadership and decision-making, written about his knowledge from his time as a military officer, as a SOG operator, leadership consultant, and a PhD in psychology, by the way. So go listen to those podcasts for some background. But in this new book, codename Dynamite, he gives us details about some of his

• 5:08Jocko Willink?

  SOG missions in Vietnam. The book is an incredible read, and I've read a lot of military books, and it gives us some insight into the missions and the mindset of these amazing SOG warriors. And it's an absolute honor to have Dick Thompson with us here again to talk through this book, his experiences, and some of his lessons learned. Sir, thank you for joining us again.

• 5:36Speaker 02

  Thank you for having me back.

• 5:38Jocko Willink?

  I'm glad you could make it out.

• 5:41Speaker 02

  Me too.

• 5:42Jocko Willink?

  Um, it's been almost, I guess, three or four years since the last time you were on, it was 2019. So it's been a while. Um, and the last time you were on, you know, we talked through some of your, some of the stuff in the beginning is just about how you grew up, and, and you cover that, you cover that in this book as well, about you growing up in the woods, about you being a general at a young age. You were, you were actually a general in charge of your own Rangers, a group of, a group of Rangers, a regiment of Rangers that was made up of your cousins and your friends. Uh, you played football, you ran track, you had an interest in chemistry,

• 6:23Jocko Willink?

  which included the interest in blowing things up and shooting rockets into the sky. So you graduated high school in 1965, you start college at the University of South Carolina. Again, we covered this on, on podcast 204. Um, and you do cover it, some of that with a little more detail in the book. But in, you know, you're, you, you went to college for a year and the Vietnam War at this time is escalating. And you wanted to get into it. So. You enlisted in the army.

• 6:57Jocko Willink?

  You volunteer for airborne school. You volunteer to become an officer, get selected to become an officer. You volunteer for special forces. You go to the Q course. You actually had orders that were not going to send you to Vietnam. So you volunteered for Vietnam. And you are rewarded with going to Vietnam. And I remembered asking you the last time you were on, you volunteered for all these things. You got selected. And I said, was it hard to get selected?

• 7:26Jocko Willink?

  You said, it was the Vietnam War. Like, oh, you want to be a special forces? Yep. Come on over here. Oh, you want to be airborne? Come on over here. You want to be an officer? Come on over here. The life expectancy of officers was so short at that time, they were filling those gaps up as quick as they could.

• 7:40Jocko Willink?

  But like I said, you cover that in, in the beginning of this book and, and with, with a little more detail, I mean, with a lot more detail than I just said, but. That was the path you were on. From being a little kid until the point you, you get shipped off to Vietnam. You, you're done with the Q course. You've been to Ranger School. Then to special forces training. And it's time to go to Vietnam.

• 8:10Jocko Willink?

  And I was going to skip right ahead, you know, get to some of the missions, but. I, I, I just had to cover this part when you get to Vietnam.

• 8:20Jocko Willink?

  I'm going to go to the book here again. The book is called Codename Dynamite. And we'll get to that as well.

• 8:27Jocko Willink?

  So you arrive in Vietnam. Uh, it says, we went quickly through the customs arrival procedures. Then we were transported to reception center for in processing. A special forces sergeant gathered up those of us who were going to a special forces assignment and took us on a short ride to Nha Trang. There we were temporarily, we were assigned temporary quarters, given instructions for the next day and fed. Bob, and Bob is your buddy who you'd gone through all this training with. You became friends in, in A I T, I think. Bob and I made contact with Captain John Smith, a friend of ours from Fort Bragg. He got to Vietnam a few weeks ahead of us and was already working in a MIKE force. Another good friends of ours, First Lieutenant Ray Stacks from Fort Bragg,

• 9:10Jocko Willink?

  had left four weeks ahead of us, but we had no idea where he had been assigned. John updated us on things that were going on in country, especially with the TED Offensive, Special Forces, and the types of SF assignments we might want to ask for the next day. He said, "Tomorrow, toward the end of the day, one of the last things they are going to do is ask you if you want to volunteer for SOG. Do not do it. Regardless of how cool they make it sound, do not volunteer for SOG. Just tell them no. If you volunteer, you will die. Almost all of them die. The ones who don't die, get the crap shot out of them from several times and they return to the States a nutcase.

• 9:54Jocko Willink?

  Don't do it. Just say no, they'll say thank you, and you'll move on to your Special Forces assignment. We'll meet back tomorrow evening and you can tell me about your assignments. I might know some people where you're going." We spent the evening talking about old times and various aspects of the culture. His parting words were, "Remember what I said. Do not volunteer for SOG." So you weren't a very good listener at this point, I take it? Obviously not. Uh, I'm gonna fast forward a little bit, this is the next day, and you meet a guy with, a guy named Colonel Jones.

• 10:35Jocko Willink?

  And he says, "I see that you volunteered for the Army, OCS, Airborne, Special Forces, Rangers, and Vietnam. And now you have the opportunity to volunteer for the most important job that you will ever have. Based on what I see in your file, you are perfect for the job. This is a job that is so elite that only the people who do it know what it is. If you take this job, no one will ever know that you did it, where you did it, or what you did. It will not be in your records. You cannot tell anyone. And you will have to sign papers agreeing not to tell anyone. It is very rare that I offer this opportunity to anyone, but I'm offering you. What do you think?"

• 11:16Jocko Willink?

  I said it would help, it would help if I knew what the job was. He said, I understand. All I can say is that you will be volunteering to go anywhere and do anything. No questions asked. I asked, are you asking me if I want to join SOG? He said, is that what you want to do? I looked him in the eyes and said, yes. He said, are you sure Lieutenant? I replied, yes.

• 11:49Jocko Willink?

  Fast forward a little bit, I went to the bar that evening to meet John. When he saw me walking up to the bar, he said, you did it. I can see it on your face. You're a freaking dead man walking. I told you not to do it, crap. I thought you were smarter than that bartender, give this stupid son of a bitch a double Jack and Coke. When John saw Bob walking up to the bar, he said, you did it too. I can see it in your face. You are both dead men walking. I told you to not to do it, crap Baba. I thought you were smarter than Thompson bartender, give this stupid son of a bitch a double Jack and Coke. John repeated his remarks about what we had done several times during the evening.

• 12:29Jocko Willink?

  So there you go. You're in SOG.

• 12:33Jocko Willink?

  How much did you know about it?

• 12:35Speaker 02

  Very little.

• 12:38Speaker 02

  You know, I had heard the word, kicked around some at brag. No one really knew what it, what it was or what people did. They would just say things like, you know, these guys are crazy. They do really cool things. And nobody knows what, don't look at that guy. Don't make eye contact with him. He's rumored to have been in SOG. Those guys are nutcases. You make eye contact with him, you may disappear tonight and your body will never be found. They're crazy. Okay.

• 13:12Jocko Willink?

  What's weird about this is.

• 13:16Jocko Willink?

  Look, there's all kinds of room. You know, when I came, when I joined the Navy and I was trying to go to SEAL training, you know, you'd hear these kind of, these kind of same things. With SOG, it's true. Like all this stuff that you're hearing is true. With the SEAL teams and with the regular, you know, special operations guys. This is the only case I can think of where it is just absolutely freaking true. What you guys were doing, what you were getting into, you know, if I would have gotten told that when I was 21 year old, or 20 years old, or 19 years old, when I joined up, of course, yeah, I'll go. But you, you don't think it's going to be what they're, what it's advertised as?

• 14:00Jocko Willink?

  You hope it's going to be what it's advertised as. But boy, did you guys get what it was advertised as? Did you, had you ever talked to somebody that was SOG?

• 14:11Speaker 02

  Beforehand?

• 14:11Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 14:12Speaker 02

  No.

• 14:14Speaker 02

  Not, not that I knew about.

• 14:16Jocko Willink?

  No. So they, they did a legit job of keeping it secret and not letting anybody know what was going on.

• 14:25Jocko Willink?

  All right. And you think, what about a 34 year old Dick Thompson? You think you would have volunteered for it then when you were 34? Or you think this is a young man's game?

• 14:37Speaker 02

  It's mostly a young man's game, but I did some wacky stuff as I got older too. I mean, once, once I had been in SOG, you know, everything else looked relatively tame. You know, whether it was making a halo jump, you know, in the dark, trying to go into a small LZ in the mountains someplace.

• 15:02Speaker 02

  You know, if you just keep getting smaller and smaller LZs to run the adrenaline level up, it just, whatever. The biggest, one of the biggest issues to deal with was trying to show enough restraint. Because, like you mentioned before, in, in SOG, the rules were different.

• 15:27Speaker 02

  And you had so much freedom in terms of what you could do, or had to do, that when, when you came back to the real world, it was a matter of, I don't like what that person said.

• 15:44Speaker 02

  I would really like to rip his face off, but I'm not gonna do that. I'd like to make this person disappear, but I'm not gonna do that. And it was just constantly, I'm not gonna do that. I'm gonna restrain myself. And, you know, I had been taught that to some degree, you know, in martial arts before I went in the military. Know you can do it. Know you have the capability to take the guy down, but back away. You don't have to do it because you can. Show restraint, but this was a much more violent type of restraint.

• 16:25Jocko Willink?

  And just for people listening, how long have you been in the army for at this point? Like maybe approaching two years?

• 16:32Speaker 02

  About two years.

• 16:34Jocko Willink?

  And you're 21 years old?

• 16:35Speaker 02

  Twenty-one.

• 16:36Jocko Willink?

  Twenty-one years old. In case you can't tell, just order the book right now. I'm obviously not gonna read the whole thing, but it's just an epic book, so just order it. Just go order it so you can read this stuff. I'm gonna fast forward a little bit. Now you're heading up to, so now you're in SOG. You volunteered, and now you head up to FOB 4. And it says, "When the FOB 4 CCN commander walked in, we all stood at attention. He said, 'At ease, take your seats. I'm Lieutenant Colonel Warren. Let me tell you what SOG is about and what you have volunteered to do that you can never tell anyone about.

• 17:18Jocko Willink?

  You have volunteered to serve in the Military Advisory Command Vietnam Studies and Observation Group MACV SOG. This is your official assignment. And if you believe you are here to do studies and observations on what happens in Vietnam, then you are dumber than an effing board and you need to leave now. If you stay, you can never leave, not alive anyways. You have just become a member of the most elite fighting force in the world. You have volunteered to go anywhere and do anything. You can never tell anyone about it. If that's not what you're here for, leave now. Once I start the briefing, you are all in. Am I clear?" We responded, "Yes, sir."

• 17:58Jocko Willink?

  Lieutenant Colonel Warren explained that MACV SOG was a top secret multi-service US Special Operations Force unit, established 24 January 1964 to conduct unconventional warfare operations in Southeast Asia associated with the Vietnam War. Operations took place in South Vietnam, North Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and other Southeast Asian areas as required. MACV SOG had participated in the most significant campaigns of the Vietnam War. In short, he said, "We are North Vietnam's worst nightmare." He goes on to tell you about the missions, types of missions.

• 18:41Jocko Willink?

  Recover imprisoned and missing Americans, training agents for insertion into North Vietnam, black psychological operations, raids and ambushes, prisoner snatches, assassinations, doctored ammunition, document retrieval, wiretaps, pipeline destruction, B-52 bomb damage assessment, search and destroy, and other missions as assigned. And you mentioned in the book, like, when you saw those missions, or you heard about those missions, there was nothing that really surprised you? These were kinda all, mostly the type of operations that you'd been prepared for through SF training and Rangers as well?

• 19:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, all of those topics, it's up for maybe the doctored ammunition, you know, we had trained for, but to do in Vietnam, to do against whatever enemy. So, the list didn't shock us. It was just, we're gonna go do it. Because, you know, I had volunteered to go to Vietnam because I thought Vietnam's where it is. I mean, that's where we're fighting the war, that's what's going on. And then when I got into SOG, all of a sudden I realized, my mail is going to be sent to Saigon in Vietnam.

• 20:06Speaker 02

  And everybody, my family, everybody's gonna think I'm in Vietnam and I'm fighting a war in Vietnam. Really, that's just where I store my gear. That's where I go to train, that's where I go to get my mission. But when I go to war, I'm gonna have a combat deployment into other Southeast Asian countries. So, you know, I've been in like six different countries to go fight in. Everybody thought I was fighting in Vietnam. If you look at the tombstones of the guys who were killed in SOG, all of them say Vietnam. Mm-hmm.

• 20:49Speaker 02

  That's not where they were killed. None of them were killed there. You know, you were killed in other countries, your family, everyone was told you were killed in Vietnam. When my family sent mail to me, it went to post office box in Saigon, it was opened, it was read and scanned, and then sent to me, to whatever FOB I was in, you know, and I would get it and read it. When I responded back to my family or anyone that I wrote to, it went to Saigon, it was opened, it was read, to make sure there was nothing in there

• 21:30Speaker 02

  classified. If it was, that letter, you know, was just lost. So Vietnam was just, you know, kinda like a TDY station. I was there to get ready to go fight someplace. Mm-hmm. I mean, we did some operations in Vietnam. Yeah, I was gonna say in North Vietnam. But even in South Vietnam, we did a lot of fighting there, just training. Yeah. Let's go find some guys that were here and... Because what we wanted in the training that I think is missing a lot today, and I won't get on that soapbox, but...

• 22:10Speaker 02

  You just can't imagine the effectiveness of having live fire shoot back targets. You know, you can go out and shoot a silhouette all day and it doesn't shoot back at you. And you can take your time, you can get good sight alignment, you can aim, you can shoot at it. You hit it, it falls over and it pops back up. But when it comes back up, it doesn't shoot at you. And, you know, in the first mission in the book there, I discovered from people, when those targets start shooting back, and there's a whole bunch of them shooting back, um, your stress level goes up. And everything changes. Your vision changed. You can't focus on your sight.

• 22:55Speaker 02

  So you can't aim like you were trained to aim. Uh, you can't load your, you know, your magazine and the weapon. You can't even get it out of your pouch with all those bullets coming at you. Because you've never been like that before.

• 23:11Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 23:12Speaker 02

  So.

• 23:13Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, one thing that we were, I don't know if you ever got to use any of this stuff, but by the

• 23:20Jocko Willink?

  late nineties, we, we had simunition. So, and we were using it, it would go in your real gun, you know, you had an adaptive barrel and you'd put simunition in there. And the, the, you know, my, my thought was, like you said, you go and fight paper targets. Paper targets don't do the two things that the enemy does, which is shoot back and maneuver on you. So as soon as you had simunition, you're getting shot, your guys are getting shot and the enemy is now maneuvering on you. And it becomes a much more realistic, uh, simulation of combat. And it was really good for working with leaders, you know, the, the, the, the

• 24:00Jocko Willink?

  military, the young SEAL leaders that were gonna have to make decisions and make things happen because they had to observe, they had to run that OODA loop in their head and observe what was happening, orient themselves, decide what to do and then act on it and get the platoon to act on it. So that was a huge step up for us when we started being able to, and we ended up with a, we also ended up with a, with a really high-speed laser tag system that we would use in the. In the outdoors. So the, the paintball's good in, in closer terrain, like in a, in a city environment, because you can, you know, you can shoot thirty or forty meters and it'll be okay. But the, the, uh, laser simulators that we had, you know, you could shoot someone at like four

• 24:44Jocko Willink?

  hundred, four hundred meters. So it was pretty good and you had machine guns and, and they had a little speaker on your shoulder when you get shot at, it would make snaps going over your head. If you got wounded, it would tell you you're wounded. If you got killed, it would tell you you're killed. Do you lay down? It was a really good training system. Um, but still falling short of what you guys had over on Marble Mountain where you'd go out and find enemy to go fight for your training operations. So we'll get to some of that, but, um, going back to the book here, you say, "We also got to pick out our official code names. I wanted Ranger, but Bob spoke up before me and asked for Ranger. Then I saw Dynamite, and I thought it was fitting for me, seeing as I always liked to blow things up and I was relatively small. Dynamite would work for

• 25:28Jocko Willink?

  me. I had blown up my neigh, I'd blown my neighbors' windows out when I was a teenager with a rocket that exploded on its launch pad. I didn't intend for that to happen, but I was always blowing things up. I figured I'd probably be blowing things up in Southeast Asia. And I did get to blow up a lot of things. Bridges, helicopters, bad guys, munitions dumps, etc. I always carried a lot of C4 and other explosives with me. It would be my code name to identify myself if I were wounded or something bad happened to me." So that's where Dynamite came. So they just had a list of names up on the, up on the wall? I mean, different code, uh, call, call signs that you could take?

• 26:00Speaker 02

  Yeah. They had a list and, you know, it, it was important that you had a name, uh, that would identify you if you were captured, uh, if you were killed, uh, to have a, a name that if it was used, we, we knew who it was without telling anything else about you. Uh, if you needed to send some kind of message when you were, if you were captured and still alive, then, you know, by working that word into whatever you were sending, then, you know, it was, it was sending a message out. And, and ironically, um, you, you didn't just have the code name, you also had some other questions, uh, about you.

• 26:47Speaker 02

  The name of your dog. You know, what, what was your first car? And when you think about it, that's the same thing you do now. That's like the internet security questions, right? Yes, that's all those questions. That's where they came from was, was back then. You still had to have those. Because the likelihood of, of you being

• 27:08Speaker 02

  captured, you know, was pretty high. You'd probably die most of the time they just kill you. But you, you could be captured and they wanted all these different methods. So you had a code name and then the, the code name

• 27:25Speaker 02

  also allowed you to do other things. You could be cool.

• 27:29Speaker 01

  Hell, yeah.

• 27:29Speaker 02

  Yeah. You know, Echo walks in, it's going dynamite.

• 27:34Speaker 02

  Good man. But, and then

• 27:39Speaker 02

  you would get

• 27:41Speaker 02

  familiar with the Covey pilots

• 27:45Speaker 02

  who were, who were flying and directing airstrikes, all kinds of things for you. But you, you know, you knew who they were. They knew the one zeros, you know, because they're up there talking to you, you know, on a regular basis. And sometimes, you know, the, whatever call sign you had for the mission would just go away. And all of a sudden

• 28:07Speaker 02

  they'd be calling me dynamite. And, you know, we'd just drop the call signs a lot easier. You know, I mean, we, we had so many assets coming in that I used my, my left hand and my right pants leg as my information's control center. I was constantly writing call signs down of the next aircraft, the next set of gunships coming in, the next set of F4s coming in. I'd write it on there so I could remember it. And Covey's talking to all this stuff, I'm talking. I didn't get to talk to the air force guys very much because our radios, you know, didn't match up. Except for our survival radio.

• 28:49Speaker 02

  But I was talking to the gunships and telling them, you know, where I wanted it.

• 28:55Speaker 02

  So, and, and, you know, with pilots, I had names.

• 29:00Speaker 02

  So, and you know, we did too.

• 29:02Jocko Willink?

  They all have cool names too, so you had to get yours.

• 29:07Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 29:08Jocko Willink?

  I haven't, I haven't confirmed where Tilt got his name. And I asked him about it, but he kinda, he kinda snuck around a little bit. I didn't get a solid answer.

• 29:21Speaker 02

  You know, I think some of the names kinda came about like fighter pilot names. You've done something and everybody starts to call you that. Or, you know, it's maybe a name that you had before you got there. And I, I think the best I can determine, Tilt had the name Tilt before he got there.

• 29:43Jocko Willink?

  Yep. And it had something to do, I did get this out of him. It had something to do with pinball. So like when you're playing pinball, you tilt the machine.

• 29:55Jocko Willink?

  So it's usually because you're doing something nefarious as you're trying to win. So that's what we're thinking from Tilt. He was doing something, trying to win, trying to beat the game.

• 30:04Speaker 02

  Yeah. He's gonna win.

• 30:07Jocko Willink?

  Uh, one thing that's really cool about this book is you break out at the end of each section, you break out some of the lessons learned or some of the highlights. And this, this, for this section here, I thought it was really interesting, some of these highlights that you put together. Um, I boarded a plane in a world I had known all my life and got off a plane in a strange, dangerous Wild West world on steroids with a very different set of rules. It was like entering another dimension. All of my senses were confused. Nothing made sense. My circadian rhythm was 12 hours off. Death was in the air. You could smell it. You could feel it.

• 30:47Jocko Willink?

  Bob and I made a decision a lot of people questioned. We volunteered for SOG. We had approached the event horizon of a black hole and were being pulled inside where nothing escapes. We were at the elite of the elite level, the best of the best, or the craziest of the crazy.

• 31:09Speaker 02

  Probably the, the last one there.

• 31:12Jocko Willink?

  Uh, in the new world, I was given a new name, Dynamite, and sent north on a quest to hunt down and terminate the enemy.

• 31:21Jocko Willink?

  So you show up, then it's off to FOB1, right? Right. F O B one. Yes. And I call it F O B now, out of reverence for you and Tilt, because we young guys call them FOBs. Right. And you guys call them F O B, so I'm gonna try and keep it, we're deferring to the experts here. Uh, fast forward a little bit, Sergeant Major McIntosh gave you, gave us a briefing on the F O B1 compound, security, safety rules and general area of operations. Then he said, everyone will be going to 1-0 school. So if you don't know, 1-0 is the people that are gonna lead the teams, that's what they're called. Everyone will be going to 1-0 school, a week-long course to teach us how to lead a SOG team on top secret missions across Southeast Asia. Actually, he said, everyone's going, except me.

• 32:07Jocko Willink?

  When I asked why I wasn't going, the Sergeant Major said, Lieutenant, you are special forces and Ranger qualified, there are a few things they might teach you that you haven't done already, but not much. You can learn those things from your team, which you will be assigned to tomorrow afternoon. We are putting you to work.

• 32:25Jocko Willink?

  Straight off the bat, into the game.

• 32:28Speaker 02

  I know you.

• 32:30Jocko Willink?

  Go ahead.

• 32:30Speaker 02

  If I could just say one, one thing about the book, um, I made it like a journal because what I was trying to do, uh, with the book is to give people an opportunity to kind of see SOG through the eyes of a 1-0.

• 32:50Speaker 02

  Experienced to some degree what I was experiencing, describing it, the screw-ups, the fear, the whatever, you know, that was going on. And what I did with my teams was, we did our own after-action review after every mission. We get together as a team and we're gonna talk about what we did well, what we didn't do so well, what happened, uh, what we need to do some extra training on. So I set up post-mission training for my teams. You know, and, and in one case, um, it was being able to throw a hang grenade from the prong.

• 33:30Speaker 02

  Laying on your belly, throw a hang grenade and get it far enough away from us, you know, that it's not gonna hit us, not hit a tree and have it bounce back at us. Because with that team, I always said, they didn't seem to be good at that. And what they wanted to do was raise up. If you raise up, you're gonna get hit. I want you to stay alive, but you gotta use the grenades. So that I put in there things that I saw, I learned, and we started to practice. And as you go through the book, you can see how it progresses across time. There were things I was doing in the beginning that I discovered that's not the best way to do that. There are better ways, and we're gonna do it differently.

• 34:14Speaker 02

  We're gonna, I changed the loadout. I changed the amount of ammunition that people were carrying. Most SOG teams would have one claymore per individual, and some individuals might not have any claymores. On my teams, I went to an SOP of you carried three claymores per person. That's a lot of extra weight. But if you use those things right, you just shred the bad guys. I used to set them up, I'd like to have seven daisy chains on the most likely avenue of approach coming into us at night.

• 34:59Speaker 02

  I could set them all off simultaneously. And when you set off ten and a half pounds of C4, the concussion from that, the explosion from that, if you're anywhere close to it, it's gonna at least knock you out. But when you put 4,900 steel balls in there coming at you at 4,000 feet a second, if you're anywhere in that zone, it's gonna shred you. So what happens is, the big bang, people shredded, and the NVA would look at that and say, "This is different. This is not what we're used to with the SOG teams. This guy's a nutcase."

• 35:44Speaker 02

  But, you know, they gather the survivors, then they would start again, and I'd have another roll of either five or three claymores the same way. And then they would say, "He is crazy, for sure." And then, you know, like other SOG teams, we would have some individual claymores that would have time fuses on, and they were randomly going off, and you never knew. I changed the loadout of frag grenades from five to 10.

• 36:17Speaker 02

  If you have a seven man team, you have 70 frag grenades. And you can chuck those things all night. They can't see where they're coming from and they're just going off all around you. Anyway, that's a few of the things that I started doing and putting together an SOP, you know, for my teams in terms of what I wanted them to carry, where it was going to be, which pocket you had the map in, which, you know, everything. If it's, you know, the middle of the night and it's raining and it's dark and you can't see anything and I need to get ammunition or grenades or whatever off of your body, I know where to reach to get it. If you need to get it off of my body,

• 37:00Speaker 02

  you know where it is. We did a lot of things like that and I wanted to show that, how we learned and eventually you get into where we were learning about the enemy and how they react, what do they do? And there's really interesting things, I'm going to tell you now, but really interesting things in there that I learned about the enemy. You know, I kindly approached it with a scientific mind because that's what I was, you know, training to be before I got there. So I watched, I observed, what if, what if we do this? What if we do that? And why are they reacting that way? What are the chemical reactions

• 37:45Speaker 02

  that's going on that's causing them to do different things? And then we would talk about it and we'd put that into the training. So, anyway.

• 37:55Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, the, the lessons learned, I mean, we could probably do a podcast about each chapter and just cover the lessons learned from each chapter. But then on top of that, like you said, you write this like a journal and you get to, when you're reading it, experience what you're going through, what your thoughts are, how it's impacting you. And I think a great example of that is here. Again, you're just checking in, you've been there at FOB one for a day. You wake up and I'm going to go to the book here, it says, "The next morning I went to the supply room after breakfast. When I got there, Staff Sergeant Jones, the supply sergeant, told me that several SOG team members were killed a few days earlier

• 38:37Jocko Willink?

  and their personal effects had to be inventoried by an officer before they could be sent to their families. He took me to a room with seven duffel bags on the floor." And said, dump the bags out one at a time and go through the contents. Look for anything that might be classified, maps, operational pictures, or anything like that. If there's any correspondence, read it to see if it says anything about any of the missions. If there are pictures, take them out. I was to sterilize their gear. It sounded simple enough. I picked up the first Olive Drab canvas duffel bag and read the names stenciled in big white letters on the outside. First Lieutenant Raymond C. Stacks. I felt like I'd been kicked in the groin. SOG just got real. Ray was Bob's and my friend at Fort Bragg.

• 39:22Jocko Willink?

  He left for Vietnam about a month before we did. Ray had been in SOG for a month. And I was already inventorying his personal effects to send home to his family. Ray was a good guy, totally dedicated to Special Forces in the United States. I had no idea he had volunteered for SOG, and now he was dead. Killed in action on a SOG mission in Southeast Asian country. Actually, it was worse than that. He and his six teammates and four-man aircrew were missing in action. Their remains could not be recovered. Their helicopter was hit with anti-aircraft fire at an altitude of 3,000 feet. And after falling like a rock into the jungle canopy below, it exploded and burned.

• 40:05Jocko Willink?

  I quickly looked at the names on the other duffel bags to see if I knew anyone else. Gary L. Matson, Arthur E. Bader, Gary R. Labon, Michael H. Mine, Klaus D. Schultz, Samuel K. Toomey, and Richard A. Fitz. Before I went, before continuing, I went back to Staff Sergeant Jones and asked him what these men were doing when they were killed. He said no one there knew. It was classified, top secret. Not even the FOB-1 commander knew. Going through the personal effects in each bag became a very personal and emotional task that caused a bond to form between me and each hero and to some degree their

• 40:49Jocko Willink?

  families. As I laid the contents of a bag out on the table, I put together a mosaic of each American hero's personal life. His wife, kids, parents, plans for the future, dogs, family pictures of missed birthday parties, holidays, first steps, first words, pictures and kids, pictures the kids had drawn, how much time he had left before going home and small talk with his wife and parents. All the time hiding the extreme danger of his missions. When I was going through Staff Sergeant Richard Fitz's effects, I was struck by a picture

• 41:29Jocko Willink?

  of his small two-year-old son and the conversations about him and how much Staff Sergeant Fitz missed him.

• 41:45Jocko Willink?

  So that's a welcome to SOG situation. Yep. And, you know, you mentioned in the book, but you end up actually making contact 20-plus years later, or sorry, 50 years later, you end up making contact with Richard Fitz Jr., his son, who was two years old when his dad was killed. How did that connection come about?

• 42:12Speaker 02

  He was, he was trying to find out more about his father, so he had put a post on a Maxog Facebook site, "Does anyone know anything about my father?" So I saw it and responded to it.

• 42:31Speaker 02

  And, you know, so that kind of connected us and we decided we would, we would meet at the next, um, uh, special operations reunion, not knowing that it was going to be canceled because of, uh, COVID. So anyway, we put it off, but you know, this summer we'll meet, uh, or October, we'll meet face to face.

• 42:56Jocko Willink?

  Outstanding.

• 42:57Speaker 02

  So, I mean, we had some phone calls and, you know, a lot of emails and stuff back and forth, but we haven't had a chance to meet face to face yet.

• 43:03Jocko Willink?

  And he made a, a documentary.

• 43:06Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 43:06Jocko Willink?

  It's called 21 Years in a Folded Flag. Um, I tried, I, I did a cursory search for it to see if I could watch it. I haven't found it yet, but I'm sure I just need to get to the right, uh, streaming platform or whatever and I'll be able to find it. But, uh, definitely interested in checking that out. Um, but yeah, I can't, I can't imagine a, a, a more serious introduction to your second day at SOG and you have got to go through all these guys that were killed. I mean, if that doesn't, uh, hit you, I don't know what is.

• 43:41Speaker 02

  It, um, definitely makes it real. I mean, and all of a sudden I'm thinking, what did John say? Don't volunteer for SOG. Maybe there's something to that.

• 43:54Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Uh, you get put into, uh, RT Alabama and so this is, this is now where you're going to start your, your SOG career. Um, and you say here, and again, I'm fast forwarding, I'm only going to read 5% of this book, but there's so much detail in here. The lessons learned, I, we're going to hit some of it, but just get the book. I'm going to fast forward here. You say, "My first mission with RT Alabama was to conduct a wiretap on a communication line running along a road being used as a supply route for North Vietnamese supplies through Laos and Cambodia," or sorry, through Laos into South Vietnam.

• 44:33Jocko Willink?

  And you give your roster here. The 1-0 is a guy named Deck. You're the 1-1, so you're the second in charge. Davis is the 1-2. And then you have your interpreter Cowboy, who is actually on this podcast in the number 258. So he's your interpreter. And then you have Hoa, point man. Do, your M79 gunner. And Quang is the tail gunner, rear security. So this is your team that you're going to be going out with for the first time.

• 45:07Jocko Willink?

  How was it meeting that team for the first time?

• 45:11Speaker 02

  It was interesting. In the beginning of the book, you see when I when I first encountered a SOG team as I was traveling up to FOB4 and it was

• 45:28Speaker 02

  it was kind of a surreal experience. We're on the bus.

• 45:35Speaker 02

  We're on the bus. It's a school bus.

• 45:40Speaker 02

  It was a SOG bus, not just because it was painted black, but because all the windows are shot out. The seats are ripped apart where bullets have hit it. There's probably 200 or more bullet holes in the bus. And Bob and I are looking at each other like, man, are we even going to get there? But and while we're talking, we were also supposed to pick up a team. And these guys, it was like they just materialized and there they are. And they're coming toward us. And then the last guy was looking backwards the whole time. He's walking backwards and constantly looking for what's going on.

• 46:25Speaker 02

  And they came up to the bus. And they had all this stuff on, uh, we'd just never seen before. I mean, they've got grenades hanging all over them, all types of grenades hanging on them. They've got grenades on their, in pouches, you know, on their hip. They've got, uh, magazines on their hip. They've got some kind of weapon that we hadn't seen before. They had what looked like M79 grenade launchers sawed off, so it was just big fat pistols and they had those hanging on them. I mean, it's just amazing. And everything was sterile. There was no name tags, no insignias, no dog

• 47:04Speaker 02

  tags, no vests, no helmets, nothing. Um, and they were scary. I'm telling you, these are some scary dudes coming up there.

• 47:14Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you, you go over that in the book. They, they basically tell you, hey, if we get contacted, because there was some little, uh, ambush choke point that you had to drive through in this school bus to get to the FOB. And so they said, hey, if, if we get hit, you guys just get down and do what we tell you to do.

• 47:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, just go on the floor and do what we tell you to do if you want to live. Yes, sir. But when they got on the bus, once, you know, as they are coming on the bus, they're going to defensive position. Everybody had a position on the bus, windows that they were focused on. Um, anyway, they were scared. They, they made the hair stand up on the back of your neck. And when we, when we got the FOB four, they walked off the bus and we blinked and they were gone. Where did they go? How did they do that? But, so I had, I had seen, you know, Bob and I had seen a team before and we thought, man, a couple of days we're

• 48:07Speaker 02

  gonna be on one of those. So I go, I go meet my new team and, you know, it was, uh, it was interesting. A team is supposed to have nine indigenous members and three Americans. Most teams didn't have quite that many of, of either, uh, type of person, you know, just because they get shot up all the time or killed or whatever. Um, but normally you would go out with two or three Americans on the team and every how many of the, uh, indige that you wanted to carry, you know, based on what the mission was.

• 48:47Jocko Willink?

  So you get linked up with these guys and um just real quick you you explain a Sog mission you say a Sog mission was not just hop on in a helicopter fly 30 minutes with to a site shoot some bad guys and fly back it's very complicated with a lot of moving parts all these assets were totally focused on getting the team inserted to the into the air of operations supporting you all that accomplished this mission and getting the team back out safely as as possible I was quite impressed we were using what I found to be our standard FOB one mission package for insertion and extraction so so what you're pointing out here is is that yeah there's gonna be what seven eight nine guys on the ground with a lot of firepower for a team that big but the package that's supporting

• 49:32Jocko Willink?

  you is huge it's a huge package so you have and you go through it here I'll go through it briefly but you have an airborne battlefield command and control center so that's you know a big electronic host electro uh uh EC 130 basically it's an aircraft with a bunch of electronics and they can communicate well then you have the the covey aircraft which is a forward air controller into covey usually in those the covey riders are saw guys that have now moved up into the aircraft to support from the sky those guys do an incredible amount of work like the they're like that it's the opposite of what the marine corps has the marine corps takes a takes a fighter pilot and puts them on the ground for their

• 50:16Jocko Willink?

  angleco units like dave burke that's what he did good deal this is the opposite yeah good deal dave this is the opposite they take a saw guy and put him in the sky so it's pretty unique um then you have the F4 phantoms then you have the A1 sky raiders then you have the cobras and then you have the lift ships which are which are king bees so you have this massive package that's going out that's going to be able to support you guys from the sky uh pretty incredible it's also pretty incredible that they were able to keep Sog so compartmentalized even though there's all these aircraft that are going out and flying these missions that's pretty impressive I don't know how they did that because these pilots are going back hitting the bar having some beers I mean how could

• 51:00Jocko Willink?

  you not come back if you're a sky raider pilot or a cobra pilot or you know one of these hueys that's going in and distracting guys and now can you not go back and say I just got back from Cambodia and my freaking aircraft's full of bullet holes right now

• 51:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, they, you know, usually they came from the same unit. So they were going back to their little group who were flying these particular missions. They were being pulled out on a regular basis to go out and fly these missions.

• 51:31Jocko Willink?

  Got it.

• 51:31Speaker 02

  So they could talk to each other when they went back.

• 51:34Jocko Willink?

  Got it.

• 51:35Speaker 02

  But they'd get a new door gunner or something every once in a while and he's sitting there. He didn't know where they're going. I just go where the chopper goes and he's sitting there. And then he sees this river and he's saying, hmm, I think that's the border. I think we're headed straight for Laos or Cambodia or whatever. And, you know, their faces kind of light up and they get briefed when they get back. Don't you dare tell anybody we want to cross that river.

• 52:05Jocko Willink?

  Uh, fast forward a little bit here. The flight out. As the UE started to wind up, I could also hear the high pitched wind of the Cobras revving up about 200 meters from us. The launch site became very noisy and the smell of JP4 was strong. This excitement was building, the excitement was building as the noise kept increasing. My heart rate was steadily increasing. My mouth was getting dry. This was exhilarating. We had gone over this part of the mission many times, but it's different when you're sitting in the middle of the multi-dimensional event with all the sights, sounds, smells, tastes, adrenaline, cortisol, butterflies in the stomach, a vibrating aircraft starting to lift off the ground for your first SOG mission. And I was thinking about this yesterday. This wasn't just your first SOG mission.

• 52:49Jocko Willink?

  This was your first mission, mission, right?

• 52:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 52:55Jocko Willink?

  That's ridiculous. That's crazy. Uh, I had the, I had like a very nice gentle glide slope going into combat operations. As a matter of fact, when I got to Iraq, there was one of my buddies who was my, who was going to be my task unit, senior enlisted guy. He'd been there for a while. He'd been there for like a month. And when we got there, he like spun up some little mission. We were going to go outside the wire and we were going to go do some vehicle interdiction. And it was, I'm not saying he made it up, but he kind of made it up. Just to kind of get, just to get me, my platoon, get us outside the wire, drive around, get some of the, you know, get some of the nerves out. So that was sort of our, our intro.

• 53:40Jocko Willink?

  And then, you know, we just started doing a little bit more and a little bit more and a little bit more. But, and you do, you know, you get more used to it. You're like, okay, I'm, you shake off some of those nerves. But you're going on your first mission and it's a freaking SOG mission.

• 53:57Jocko Willink?

  That's kind of crazy.

• 53:59Speaker 02

  It was crazy. It, it would have been even crazier if I'd had any idea about what was gonna happen. I mean, I really thought, you know, we're gonna go out here, get on the ground, we're gonna run around, do this wiretap. We'll probably shoot a couple of guys before we come back. And, you know, we, once we're in contact, we'll get shot at some, but, you know, we'll, we'll come back. Not a big deal.

• 54:30Jocko Willink?

  So it didn't quite go like that?

• 54:31Speaker 02

  No.

• 54:33Jocko Willink?

  I'm gonna go to the book here. We were slowly approaching the insertion hole, flying with the skids dragging across the jungle canopy. The hole looked small. The aircraft vibrated as we literally dropped straight down to the bomb crater. The pilot was trying not to clip the trees as we were setting down. It was just getting dark. Davis and I were on the skid. We rapidly scanned the jungle around the crater, but it was too dark and the vegetation was too thick to see into the jungle. Our descent stopped. We were still about six feet above the crater and we were going to have to jump into the bomb crater. I thought it was a long jump carrying 95 pounds of weight. I knew I just had to suck it up and jump. Davis and I bent our knees to jump and as we did, I saw an NVA soldier pop up on my right about 10 feet off to the side with an AK-47 pointed at me.

• 55:17Jocko Willink?

  Instantly, instead of jumping, I pushed up and back to the edge of the helicopter floor. Just as I jumped up, the soldier opened fire with his AK-47. The bullets came right across where my legs had been half a second before and hit Davis in the legs. He screamed and yelled, "I'm hit, I'm hit, help!" as his legs collapsed and started to fall. The, the fireball coming out of the AK-47 barrel was blinding and the sound was deafening. Simultaneously, the whole jungle lit up around us and made an unbelievably loud roar as 20 to 30 NVA opened fire on automatic at once. I grabbed the back of Davis's LBE harness with my left hand and used my right hand to put a half a magazine on full auto into the NVA soldier who was less than 10 feet away. The impact of the rounds ripped him apart and blood splattered on me as he went down.

• 56:00Jocko Willink?

  Aided by adrenaline and cortisol, I managed to jerk Davis up onto the floor of the helicopter. Blood was going everywhere. Then I saw the muzzle flashes right in front of me. There was nothing but air between me and the NVA who was shooting at me from twenty to thirty feet away. I was totally exposed. I could be seen. I could be hit. I could be killed. Everyone in the aircraft was returning fire, the two door gunners with their M60 machine guns. And the team members, two of whom were using me as cover and one firing on each side of my head. Their Car 15 muzzles were so close, I was getting powder burns from the muzzle flashes. My ears began to go numb. And I knew I was gonna lose my bearing, my hearing. Hot brass was going all over me and the floor of the helicopter. And the floor on my side was covered with blood that was getting deeper. Hundreds of bullets were coming at us, traveling faster than the speed of sound.

• 56:45Jocko Willink?

  I heard them crack as they passed through the cargo compartment or by the helicopter. Some were green tracers. I could actually see them coming out of the dark jungle vegetation and trees. I tried to lean back to present a smaller target. I heard the metallic clangs of bullets hitting the helicopter. Crap, we're going down. Davis was in pain, rolling on the floor and screaming. Blood continued to run on the floor. I put the other half of the magazine into the muzzle flashes coming from the tree line directly in front of me and saw the NVA soldier fall out, hit the ground hard. I heard myself say, "That's two." Now my magazine was empty. We were in a full-fledged ambush now all the way around us. Our two Cobra gunships had opened fire with their miniguns, each firing 4,000 rounds a minute.

• 57:28Jocko Willink?

  It looked like two hoses were being, were spraying red water all around us. Every fifth bullet was a tracer, but when they were coming that fast, all you could see was red. The bullets were ricocheting off trees, rocks, and the ground. Friendly bullets were going in all directions. The helicopter vibrated violently as the pilot tried to lift us out of the bomb crater. He had not planned to lift off with all that, all of us still on board. Some of the bullets were still, were hitting trees and limbs and flying off, and some of the trees were falling. Rocks were being hit, sending fragments flying. Everything was so loud. The second set of Cobras followed right behind the first two, firing miniguns and 40mm grenades. Explosions went off all around us. The air was full of shrapnel, smoke, and the smell of gunpowder and burned JP4.

• 58:10Jocko Willink?

  Door gunners were shooting, the Cobras were shooting, the NVA were shooting, determined to take our helicopter down. I was having trouble getting the magazine out of my pouch. It appeared to be stuck and my fingers were slick with all the blood on them. I finally got out a magazine, then had trouble getting it in the magazine well of my Car 15. I could see hundreds and hundreds of bullets and green NVA tracers coming at the aircraft. I realized the stress level had caused me to lose most of my fine motor skills and bullets were coming at me still. I got the magazine in and re-engaged the enemy. I had a conversation going in the back of my head while I kept shooting. I'm not happy with this first mission. I'm gonna die in the first 15 seconds. I spent two years training for this. What kind of deal is this? I came over here to do something. This is crazy.

• 58:52Jocko Willink?

  I got another magazine out of the pouch and sent it into my Car 15. I shot at the muzzle flashes in front of me. They would go out after I put four or five round burst on them. And I saw NVA fall from trees. My magazines were coming out of the pouch and into my Car 15 much easier now. And I racked up some more kills. I saw tracers and heard screams coming out of the jungle from wounded and dying NVA. Then suddenly a blast wave followed by a loud boom came across and almost knocked the helicopter into the trees. It was followed by several more with less intensity. All of us in the helicopter were temporarily stunned from the concussions and deafened by the loud explosions. The hooches I had seen on the other side of the ridgeline turned out to be tanks, camouflaged

• 59:34Jocko Willink?

  with straw, and the A1 Sky Raiders were dropping 250 pound bombs on them. This added significantly to the noise and chaos. The A1s were also receiving anti-aircraft fire, and they engaged those positions too. Our helicopter started to vibrate violently because the pilot was trying to climb out of that little hole in the canopy jungle, in the jungle canopy. At least we were trying to start up, but the helicopter was taking hits and the Cobras were making more runs. Finally, we actually lifted out of the bomb crater. As we did, the NVA shifted their fire, following us up as we went. I was learning that the NVA were an incredibly determined enemy. They would not quit. I saw a smoke grenade in the crater spewing red smoke. The red smoke meant there were no good guys left on the LZ.

• 1:00:18Jocko Willink?

  All aircraft were cleared hot for the LZ as we pulled away from the opening and into the canopy. The NVA fire stopped because the Cobras blasted the whole ambush site with rockets.

• 1:00:31Jocko Willink?

  The A1s came in with the big stuff and the Cobras finished their last run. It was an amazing fireworks show. They destroyed the whole area to include six tanks. As we started to fly away, I looked across at Staff Sergeant Deck, who was sitting on the other side. He looked across, he looked across at me with a big grin on his face and gave me an enthusiastic thumbs up. I thought to myself, "Look at this guy. He's so excited. He thought this was the coolest thing." But man, they almost got us all. It was my time, it was my first time to experience a level of fear that I didn't know existed. Many times I tried, I tried to imagine what it would be like when people started shooting at me. Of course, I knew it would be a little anxious, but I had no clue.

• 1:01:12Jocko Willink?

  Until I experienced it, there was no way I could even imagine a level of fear like that. Fortunately, I was able to manage the fear, so I could still shoot. I did not let fear stop me from returning fire and doing what I had to do, but it scared me.

• 1:01:31Jocko Willink?

  Welcome to SOG. Yep. Again, I mean, I'm hitting the highlights of that, uh, which that's obviously it's a short mission. I mean, that whole, how that whole thing probably took three minutes or something.

• 1:01:44Jocko Willink?

  You go in here, some firsts. This is your first mission. First time in combat, first time being ambushed, first enemy kills. Unbelievable fear, adrenaline, cortisone so high I couldn't breathe, but I could shoot. In the back of my head, I thought I was gonna die on my first mission, not happy about that. To have so many bullets coming at me from every direction and not get hit. First time saving an American teammate's life. Blood and hot brass everywhere. High frequency hearing loss, a lot temporary and some permanent. Powder burns on my face. Earned my Combat Infantryman's Badge. Discovered firsthand what stress does to my fine motor coordination.

• 1:02:28Jocko Willink?

  Lot going on. You learned a lot even in those three minutes.

• 1:02:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, there was a lot, a lot happening, a lot, you know, to process. But, I mean, it was a good experience because I survived.

• 1:02:42Jocko Willink?

  Lived.

• 1:02:45Speaker 02

  But, you know,

• 1:02:48Speaker 02

  going back and processing that, you know, on my own, you know, to start with,

• 1:02:55Speaker 02

  it was good for me to realize when the targets shoot back, everything changes.

• 1:03:02Speaker 02

  And a lot of what, what I was doing, it doesn't, didn't work in that situation. I couldn't get the magazine out of the pouch because, you know, the, the rule was you take a, a canteen pouch and you cram six 20 round magazines in there. So you had one pouch there with six magazines. The problem is they're in there tight. If your hands are like this, you can reach in there and grab it and pull it out. But when you have blood on your hands, your hands slick, you couldn't get a hold of it. So, the next day, after thinking through that, excuse me, after thinking through that, I'll put a cord on it, a piece of parachute cord,

• 1:03:48Speaker 02

  tape, duct tape it on to the center one with a little loop I can hook my finger in. Because once the first one comes out, the rest of them is easy to get the rest of them out. So just little things, little techniques that make all the difference in the world. That you don't think about when you're out training and rehearsing and practicing because you don't have any blood on you. It's just like when the targets shoot back, it changes everything. Blood changes everything. So I'm writing all this stuff down so that I can make changes, you know, when I get my team, I can say, here's how we're gonna do things.

• 1:04:28Jocko Willink?

  You have here additional lessons learned, and I put a star by a bunch of these. Whatever I plan, I will have to adapt. War is not predictable. The only predictability was that the plan will have to be adapted. And I have to be able to adapt on the fly.

• 1:04:46Jocko Willink?

  The enemy does not normally get a seat at the mission planning table. Thus, they don't know how they're supposed to act during the mission. They tend to mess things up. They do, every time.

• 1:04:57Jocko Willink?

  I must control and manage my fear. Luck always plays a role in combat. Don't stop shooting. A very high volume of return of fire is your best chance of survival. Focus on the immediate situation. Too late to ask who was supposed to drain the swamp when you're up to your armpits and alligators. Must be able to do everything in the dark and under fire.

• 1:05:23Jocko Willink?

  Speed of execution and accuracy are critical. Know your people, their weapons and their actions under fire when you select them, how to distribute them. Know how the enemy will react to your presence and actions. Mindset is critical to success. Timing is everything. You are part of a team. Practice, practice and practice more. I must get better every time I do something.

• 1:05:45Jocko Willink?

  And I need to fix my magazine so they're easy to retrieve even under stress with a bloody hand. Attach a cord loop on the middle one. So, there you go. Uh, then you got a list of leadership lessons. Never underestimate luck, good or bad.

• 1:06:01Jocko Willink?

  That always, that always will send up a warning sign to me when I'd be looking at a mission, a plan for a mission. And you could see that there were some things that were gonna have to go

• 1:06:11Jocko Willink?

  in the way of the platoon. Like, well, you know, we, we're hoping for this and it'll probably be that. And as soon as you stack a couple of those things up, like, it ain't gonna work. It ain't gonna work. Uh, leadership lesson. I'm not as good as I think I am. I can get injured a lot of ways besides getting hit with a bullet. Nothing will go as planned. You can see you learned that lesson pretty hard. Uh, stress changes everything. Never forget that I, that I did it as part of a team. I can always do more than I think I can, which is weird too. You got, I'm not as good as I think I am, but I can always do more than I think I can. Uh, if I'm doing my job as a leader, I am going to get hit.

• 1:06:55Jocko Willink?

  Communication is my lifeline. Know my people, know my enemy. Timing is everything, down to the fraction of a second. Everyone must know the one zeros commander's intent.

• 1:07:07Jocko Willink?

  Sometimes everyone must perform on their own.

• 1:07:12Jocko Willink?

  Combat is very loud.

• 1:07:18Jocko Willink?

  I'm not out of danger until we get back to the FOB. Hence the saying, "Foo-bye is alright."

• 1:07:26Jocko Willink?

  Exposure and experience, prepare me for more complex learning. It's difficult to learn calculus before learning basic math. Knowledge and learning occur in layers.

• 1:07:36Jocko Willink?

  And then you have a, I have to throw this one in here. Never talk to Jack Daniels before giving your boss feedback about how ugly he's been. Cause you went in for a debrief, you had some, you had a few beverages in. You probably didn't do the most politically correct debrief with your boss. You know, honestly, I was thinking about this though. This is your first mission, right? And you got to get in, get out, get to shoot, get to get shot at. And it all happened in three minutes. It's not a bad first SOG mission. Could have been worse.

• 1:08:06Speaker 02

  Yes. And I don't know, Sergeant Deck had a recommendation for me. I, I asked him when we got, got back to Long Sight. I said, you know, while we were in there, how many magazines did you empty? You know, during the couple of minutes or so that we were down in the hole? And, and he said, you know, I, I emptied five. I was almost through with my sixth one. I threw two frag grenades and a smoke grenade.

• 1:08:42Speaker 02

  I'm thinking, wow. And then he said,

• 1:08:47Speaker 02

  I'm going to tell you something, Lieutenant.

• 1:08:51Speaker 02

  If you don't learn to change magazines faster when people are shooting at you, you're gonna die.

• 1:08:59Speaker 02

  And I said, yeah, I think you're right.

• 1:09:02Speaker 02

  I thought I was pretty fast, but obviously I gotta get faster. You can't have those brakes, you know, in, in shooting. Not, not when you're that close and that many of them. You know, what I had seen, what you saw on cowboy movies and you saw on some army movies, police movies is.

• 1:09:25Speaker 02

  You know, you shoot at me, I get down behind the rock. And when you, and then you stop shooting and you get behind the rock and I get up and I shoot. And that's not the way it is. I mean, you know, you might get down to reload or something, but Echo's still shooting at me.

• 1:09:42Jocko Willink?

  That's the way it's supposed to be.

• 1:09:43Speaker 02

  You know, a dozen other guys over here are still shooting. They can't even see me. They just hear, you know, my gun firing, so they know about where I am and they're shooting at me and they can't even see me. So there's no break. I mean, someone's always shooting at you. There's never just one enemy.

• 1:09:59Jocko Willink?

  That's the way it's supposed to be.

• 1:10:04Jocko Willink?

  All right, fast forward. And again, you just get the book. There's so much in here. I'm gonna fast forward a little bit. This is mission number two, RT Alabama, mission number two. RT Alabama's next mission was to find and destroy a battalion-sized NVA element moving through northern Laos to South Vietnam. Our eight-man RT would be looking for a, for 500 NVA soldiers. So, this is, you know, this is SOG, right? You're gonna go look. You're gonna take eight guys and you're gonna go find a battalion of 500-plus guys.

• 1:10:37Speaker 02

  And I, you know, I figured, I mean, it should be pretty easy to find them. I mean, if there's 500 of them, it can't be that hard to do. Now, surviving, you know, is a different story, but I was pretty excited because I thought, I'm gonna learn how to do this. I mean, this is what SOG does. And this is a relatively small group that we've been tasked to go out and find and destroy, so.

• 1:11:05Jocko Willink?

  Are you getting mission guidance or debriefs from the other SOG teams that are with you guys at this FOB?

• 1:11:15Speaker 02

  We get some. Most, most of it takes place in the club.

• 1:11:19Jocko Willink?

  In the bar?

• 1:11:20Speaker 02

  Yeah. And, you know, it was, it was like a training center. You go in there and you, that's, that's when you get a chance to talk to some of the other 1-0, some of the other operators. You know, because we're just passing each other in the dark. I mean, Tilt, Tilt and I, we're at FOB1 together. We'd wave every once in a while as we passed each other in the dark. We both went to Da Nang together and ran missions out of there together. We knew each other, and we'd see each other in the club every once in a while. But we didn't have time for a relationship because, you know, we were always on the move, going out to the field, practicing, whatever.

• 1:12:02Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you'd think that just being able to communicate with the guys, I mean, this is now going to be your second mission, the lesson that they could pass on to you. But of course, you've got Deck and he's more experienced.

• 1:12:14Speaker 02

  And I had, there was an NCO in the club that I met. And he kind of took me under his wing and, you know, he would tell me things like, "All right, you listen to what I'm gonna tell you, Lieutenant. Never, ever shoot an NVA one time. Always three or four times. And if he twitches, three or four more times. Because you can't believe how many SOG guys have been killed by dead NVA. You have to take them out.

• 1:12:59Speaker 02

  The person that shoots first has got the highest chance of survival." I mean, he had a list of things like that, you know, that he would share to me with me when we would see each other in there and just, you know, I could ask him, you know, about different techniques, different things.

• 1:13:16Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's the kind of feedback you want. And that's obviously some good information for you to have. So for this mission, you know, again, in the book, you cover the plan, you cover the preparation, you know, your thought process, and then you get to the, you talk through the insertion. And then, of course, we get to the point where... You all are contacted and and now it's on. I'm gonna fast forward here to the book. The fighting was fierce and we were carrying Quang, so Quang had already been wounded. I also got to see Cowboy in action. He was a real warrior, no fear. He worked with me fighting a delaying action at the rear of the team slowing down the NVA.

• 1:13:59Jocko Willink?

  He had experience using claymores with time fuses and a great instinct for the way the NVA moved against us. Cowboy's experience and courage made our claymores and C4 charges more effective. When we, you guys are trying to get out of here. I fast forward past that part, but when we got about 100 meters from the LZ, all hell broke loose from our front. There were 30 to 40 NVA waiting on us. Now we were between two groups. So you're getting chased by a group and now you got a group in front of us. The group from from the LZ opened fire with a heavy barrage from AK-47s, machine guns and RPGs. They assaulted and began trying to maneuver around our flanks.

• 1:14:41Jocko Willink?

  There were several loud booms, one of them hitting me with concussion, mud and other debris, some of which went in my eyes. I was having trouble seeing. My ruck and radio were hit with shrapnel from one of the B-40 rockets. The radio looked bad but still worked. The small wooden box of blasting caps was hit but not penetrated. Some of the C4 was hit, but that was not a big deal. Deck called me to his position. He wanted the A1s to put their 20mm fire on the NVA to our front. We were about to be crushed. The first A1 gun run got the NVA's attention and stopped their assault. They did not expect the devastation of the 20mm. The second A1 gun run made them start to scatter.

• 1:15:22Jocko Willink?

  The Cobras arrived on site and worked above and below us with rockets, miniguns and 40mm. We continued to fight our way to the edge of the LZ and saw 20 to 30 NVA bodies scattered around. Some of them were still alive and had to be terminated. We were not in a position to take prisoners. Covey said the extraction ship was a U.E. and wanted smoke. Jones threw a purple smoke grenade on the edge of the LZ. The Huey identified purple. Deck got everyone ready to dash to the chopper on his command. We also turned our bush hats inside out so the bright orange VS-17 panel sewn to the inside would make us identifiable to the door gunners. We didn't want to be mistaken for an NVA trying to get to the chopper, which the NVA sometimes tried.

• 1:16:07Jocko Willink?

  Deck went to the left side of the chopper with Hoa, Dew and the wounded Quang. Jones, Cowboy and I took the wounded Kwan to the right side. I climbed on just before Deck as the chopper was lifting off. The door gunners and all team members not wounded returned fire from the chopper. As we got to 20 feet in the air, Deck and I both threw a red smoke grenade to signal that the LZ and surrounding areas were cleared hot, meaning anyone on the ground was a bad guy. Covey was free to destroy everything there. We continued to receive fire as we climbed out. I heard a few metallic clangs as the chopper took hits. I looked over at Deck. He gave me his characteristic big smile and a thumbs up.

• 1:16:47Jocko Willink?

  As I began to give medical attention to Quang and Kwan, I thought, wow, what an adrenaline rush. I now had a better understanding of the emotions Deck was experiencing when he would give me a big smile and thumbs up. As we flew away, I saw and heard our air assets pounding the crap out of the bad guys. We had found the NVA battalion and rained death and destruction down on them. Our team had also taken out a large number of them on the ground. I continued to be amazed at how tough and deadly our little guys were in a firefight. After a short prayer, I settled back down for the ride.

• 1:17:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, you mentioned earlier that you had Cowboy on one of the podcasts. And I was watching that and he said, y'all were talking about a contact. And he said, yeah, I catch bullet. And I could see your face and his and you were kind of looking at him like, what? And he said, I catch bullet.

• 1:18:00Speaker 02

  Right here. And then you could see, you know, his hand was just a big scar on the inside. And then he said, and I catch one here, and I catch one here. He was, he was a hard dude.

• 1:18:13Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Yeah. And, and again, like, so that's your second mission. And it's total mayhem. I mean, I read a small portion of it. You, you, you, it's total mayhem. How did you feel as far as your pro, your, your internal processor on that one compared to the first one?

• 1:18:33Speaker 02

  I had, I felt that I, I knew a lot more about what was going on. I knew what to expect, you know, fear wise, I knew it was gonna mess some things up. But I was also learning, watching what they were doing, watching what Cowboy was doing. There were some conversations with Deck. You know, where Portman told Deck, no go, too, too many VC. And Deck said, go. No VC. And, you know, I'm, I'm hearing this conversation, you know. The Portman might know what he's talking about. So Deck said, no. You know, so we stood up and we started to go.

• 1:19:17Speaker 02

  And, you know, it's kind of like one of those horror movies where you expect the Leatherface to jump out from behind a tree with a chainsaw and start sawing arms off and stuff because the Portman was right, but Deck said, no, we're, we're gonna go. And it made me wonder, what, I mean, what did, what does Deck know that no one else knew? We all heard the same sounds. Why did Deck decide it wasn't VC? They call them VC, the NVA.

• 1:19:49Speaker 02

  And, and then later in that mission, it happened again. And Deck said, okay.

• 1:19:57Speaker 02

  Not this, um, yeah, that's NVA this time. But, you know, so spending some time with him when I got back and said, help me understand. What, what did you hear that was different? You know, how did you know? That it wasn't right, or it was right, or whatever. So trying to learn, trying to pick his brain. Every time we went out, see what I could learn. And, you know, one thing I was getting to do is I was carrying a radio. So I was having most of the conversations with Cubby and starting to have conversations with the gunships and you can see how it progresses in the book to somebody who, you

• 1:20:40Speaker 02

  know, I knew I had to call artillery, I'd done all of that stuff, you know, in training. But I'd never talked to a Cubby before. I didn't know about working gunships. I didn't know all this stuff. But I was starting to learn. Each mission we went out, I would, you know, doing that more and more and learning what the NVA were doing, what they expected from us and how they reacted. So I'm starting to lay this stuff out, put it together. And in the first time, well, this, this, well, first time, part of the intel debriefing as soon as we got back, you know, that wasn't all that pleasant either.

• 1:21:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, you put, you put that in the book and they're asking you questions. How many weapons did you see? You're like, I've freaking lot of them. And, but, you know, so how many times did they shoot at you? There's 30 of them firing on automatic. I don't know. You know, I was too busy shooting back at them. And, you know, anyway, I was told that I needed to change my attitude. But, but that was part of the learning experience for me because I discovered later that if I listen, I might

• 1:22:04Speaker 02

  not know how many bullets were coming, but I could easily distinguish the difference between an AK-47 and an RPD. And if I hear that RPD, that's telling me if they've got a machine gun with them. That's a bigger group. This is not four or five guys just out there stumbling through the woods. Now we got a larger group. Were there two of them? Do they have RPGs? You know, so as I start to hear these other sounds and listen to how they move, it tells me what size force we're up against, what we need to do. And, and you'll, you can see how all that stuff worked into, you know, strategy, you know, adapt.

• 1:22:47Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:47Speaker 02

  Like we're talking before. I got to the point where I knew when my foot stepped off the skid, I would have to start adapting whatever plan we had. You know, because it wasn't gonna be exactly like we had planned. So.

• 1:23:03Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Um, there's a couple of things I was thinking is, I, I think free fall, parachuting is such a good example because everyone that you talk to experiences this. Your first free fall, like my first free fall, what do you, what did you see on your first free fall? You see like the sky, the altimeter, sky, altimeter, sky, altimeter, and put parachute worked. Like that's all you see. You, you don't know, you know, and then even the next jump, you see a little bit more. And then 10 jumps in, you're like, oh, I can see the ocean. I can see the mountains. You're kind of, you, you adapt to it and you're, you feel the vision opens up so much more. And that's what you can see in the book. This, this idea that you're talking about with the air assets. Um, by the end

• 1:23:48Jocko Willink?

  of the book, you're like a conductor of a, or of a symphony of destruction. And you're calling in the aircraft, they're coming in from different places. You're setting them up, this one first, this one second, this one third, come back and hit them again, little further over there. Like you, you're, you can tell you've gotten really good at it, which is, you can see it. Again, you know, this is just experience. And then, um, yeah, what you say about the being adaptable. I got asked a little while ago, you know, if we were, if you were the commander, you were going into the war in, uh, they were saying, oh, China divided Taiwan, what would you do? What would your attitude be if you were going on the ground? And I said, my, my, the most important thing to me would be keeping an open mind. And everyone kind of looked at me like, what kind of answer is that? I said, because.

• 1:24:34Jocko Willink?

  I don't know what the enemy is gonna do. I don't know. We sure we've we're gonna predict some things, but I don't know what they're gonna do. I don't actually know what all my guys are gonna do. I have a pretty good idea. I'm gonna land. Maybe I can guess 80, 90% what my guys are gonna do. Maybe I can guess 50% of what the enemy is gonna do. But that means there's a whole lot of margin for things are gonna change. So my attitude was always keep an open mind. What's going on? Don't get stuck in the plan. Don't get stuck on believing anything that you see right in front of you right now, because things are gonna change. And that's clearly clearly what you had to do as soon as you stepped off that helicopter skid every time. All right, where are we at? How's this gonna go? Very good lessons learned for anybody in any in anything.

• 1:25:18Jocko Willink?

  Fast forward a little bit. RT Alabama Mission 3. And this is an operation. After a day of rest, we were assigned another mission with a short prep time. Our mission was to locate and contaminate an NVA ammunition cache near a major supply route in the eastern part of the demilitarized zone between South and North Vietnam using eldest sun, also called exploding ammunition, Italian green and bowl peen, pole bean. So this is not this is a sort of a psyops operation that was happening where the US military would take mortar rounds. And they

• 1:26:00Jocko Willink?

  would rig those mortar rounds so that when you dropped it into the mortar tube, they'd blow up. And they do it with bullets. They do it with everything. And it's just a little psychological operation that actually also interferes with whatever operations happened at the time. And so they would take these manipulated ammunition, this exploding ammunition, and go and plant it. So that was your tasking on this mission.

• 1:26:28Jocko Willink?

  And then you say this. I'm gonna go to the book. Unfortunately, two weeks prior, on 30 November 1968, an eldest son team's helicopter was hit with 37mm anti-aircraft fire and fell like a rock to the jungle canopy 3,000 feet below, exploded and burned. The aircrew and seven SOG team members died that day. A bright light mission, mission to recover a missing team or missing members, was not attempted because of the location and the number of NVA in the area. I was shocked when he shared this information. I realized that I had inventoried the personal effects of these SOG heroes, including my friend Ray Stacks, on my second day at FOB1.

• 1:27:10Jocko Willink?

  This small piece of SOG had come full circle. In a week, I would be inserted as part of a team to complete their mission.

• 1:27:24Jocko Willink?

  That can't feel real comfortable.

• 1:27:28Jocko Willink?

  Right? I mean, that just, that can't feel real comfortable. The last group that went in to do this mission that you're going on, they all died. You happen to be, and this was only three weeks prior, four weeks prior, something like that? Maybe a little over a month?

• 1:27:50Jocko Willink?

  Fast forward a little bit, I'm gonna take you into the mission here. Basically, going through the insert real quick, you guys, as you insert, you guys get gassed. With CS gas. And you guys didn't have your masks with you. And the NVA opens fire on you.

• 1:28:09Jocko Willink?

  You know, you bring in the Cobras, they go in, they they put down, they kill a bunch of them. You decide to continue mission. And that's what you do. You continue the mission, you head to the storage area. You find the cash that you're supposed to mix in these rounds, and that's what you do.

• 1:28:36Jocko Willink?

  You make it to the LZ and you say, I gave, uh, gave Covey a Roger that chopper comes in, the team boarded quickly and we were off. No shots fired. I saw Deck turn his head to the side, quickly gave him a thumbs up and a smile and he laughed. So it was a pretty smooth operation. Probably the rare smooth operation.

• 1:28:55Speaker 02

  But what really upsets people in general about that mission was there was a dog at the cache.

• 1:29:08Jocko Willink?

  And you killed the dog, yeah.

• 1:29:09Speaker 02

  I had to shoot the dog. People don't like that.

• 1:29:13Jocko Willink?

  You killed several hundred.

• 1:29:15Speaker 02

  They don't, they don't.

• 1:29:15Jocko Willink?

  NVA.

• 1:29:17Speaker 02

  They don't care about the NVA, but when you shoot a dog, you know.

• 1:29:22Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. It's, it's not easy shooting dogs.

• 1:29:26Speaker 02

  Yeah. They can, they can take more hits than you think they can.

• 1:29:30Jocko Willink?

  And then they make a bunch of noise. So this big clandestine idea that you have, oh, we're just going to shoot this dog with the suppressed MP5. Then the thing's, and then what happens? All the other dogs, they, they want to know what's going on. Yeah. Uh, the, the dogs, dogs are great for defense, you know? They, they just, any kind of dog that bark, they're gonna bark, they're gonna go crazy. It's hard to silence them. Yeah. So I didn't realize that we hit a touchy subject there on the killing of the dog.

• 1:30:04Jocko Willink?

  You got some cool lessons learned though. Uh, the first group of NVA that ran from us, we were very aggressive, hunted them down and terminated them. They were guards, they were not normal NVA warriors we fought. So you hit some like rear echelon.

• 1:30:18Speaker 02

  Yeah. Their, their mission was, um, to help with the transportation, kind of place a little security around the caches, help rebuild the roads, do things. They were not the hardcore North Vietnamese SOG hunter killer teams. So, yeah, it was like chasing rabbits, you know? They just chase them down and terminate them. And, and that's when, you know, when Deck and I talked to us, we got time. I mean, it didn't matter if they knew the plan or not, or what they were supposed to do, they're gone. We still have time to get down there and plant the stuff and do a night extraction.

• 1:30:59Jocko Willink?

  Post mission train, you detail so much stuff in the book and one of the things that you, I'm going to mention here, which you mentioned on the other ones too, but this one, post mission training, continue fitness training, for the most part, the team did not like or want to do it. I began to camouflage it into the mission pre-training by having the team carry their loadout weight for most of our training. I found it to be very, I found them to be very strong for their size. They'd been carrying a similar weight for a long time. We continued to work. So that was interesting. Like just realizing, because you were what? You weighed a buck forty?

• 1:31:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:31:32Jocko Willink?

  And sometimes your gear was approaching a hundred pounds?

• 1:31:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, even, I mean, the first, the first time I actually started doing something, carrying the full loadout, I mean, it was cutting my shoulders. I mean, I, I had to, I was very strong coming in because I, you know, I'd done all kinds of stuff before I got there. But my shoulders were not prepared to have all that weight pulling down on them.

• 1:32:01Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:01Speaker 02

  You know, but I watched them and I thought, you know, I'm going to up the claymores, fried grenades and things like that. So they're going to have to carry more weight than what they've been carrying. We need to build some strength up. But the, the concept and idea of we're going to exercise, that did not go over. That did not go over all.

• 1:32:30Jocko Willink?

  Well, you did a good job camouflaging it, right? Hey, just wear your gear, wear your full loadout, that type of thing. We continued working on IADS and standard operating procedures. The team members were not happy about the eating and hydration procedures, but did it anyways. What was that about?

• 1:32:48Speaker 02

  They wanted to make sure that they didn't get dehydrated out on the mission. So we would start like three days before. They had to drink a lot more water.

• 1:32:58Jocko Willink?

  Like super hydrating.

• 1:32:59Speaker 02

  Do more electrolytes, things like that before we went out. I gradually, no, excuse me, across time, started changing what they were allowed to eat.

• 1:33:12Speaker 02

  Because even though North Vietnamese and South Vietnamese were similar, ate similar kinds of things, the spices were a little different. And how they ate it was a little different. So I could smell the North Vietnamese. I could smell the South ones too, but I could tell the difference. Because they had different spices. But that meant they could do the same thing to us. If the wind was coming from behind us, they would get a whiff of spices that they didn't normally eat. And eventually it's like, where did that come from? There's somebody out there, probably South Vietnamese. So we started doing things like that.

• 1:33:57Speaker 02

  Eventually, we got to the point where no one was allowed to use soap when they took a shower the last three days. So no shaving cream, no soap, no anything that was gonna create an odor. But I mean, it even got to the point where I just told them, I said, "I want your poop to smell like North Vietnamese poop." You know, so we're gonna change what we eat. You know, we wanna smell like them. We wanna do, there's a lot of things we wanna do. Over in the book more, we get into where I started teaching them how to be invisible. And invisibility, I won't go into it here,

• 1:34:41Speaker 02

  but invisibility is a lot more than I camouflage or I be careful how I move. Invisibility takes in all the senses. You have to hide all of the, you know, smell, taste, sound, everything. How you move. Got into, you know, people tended to wanna take their weapon and turn the weapon and sweep back and forth like that. When you go deer hunting. How do you see that buck when he's coming? And the hardest direction to see someone coming at you is when they're coming directly at you.

• 1:35:23Speaker 02

  But even though the buck might be walking directly at you, what they tend to do is turn their head and look. And when they do, you know, with the coloration and everything, it makes it easier to see them coming at you. The same with you. You start turning your head, I'll see the movement, even if you're coming straight at me. And particularly if you're moving the weapon. And we started training with point shooting.

• 1:35:51Speaker 02

  I mean, and I was on a podcast with a guy, a tier one operator from Canada, a few days ago. And I was talking about this, and I said, I don't aim.

• 1:36:07Speaker 02

  You know, if I'm looking at it, that's where the bullet's gonna go. And he just, oh geez, that's exactly it. He said, I don't even think about the gun. I'm looking right where I want that bullet to hit, and I pull the trigger, and that's where it goes. Because I've done it so much, you know, in training, and just shoot, and shoot, and shoot. It's gonna be where I'm looking, and I'm not swerving the gun around except at the last second.

• 1:36:35Speaker 02

  So I'm teaching the point man, look straight ahead with his head, move your eyes. They're not gonna see your eyes, they'll see your face or head if you start turning.

• 1:36:48Speaker 02

  So it's just a lot of things like that, that we started to put in with the teams.

• 1:36:53Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you also say you spent time talking about and training to be more aggressive. And is that based on the fact that these NVA ran from you? And you felt like if you get more aggressive, you might be able to get the upper hand?

• 1:37:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, and I heard some other teams talking about that they were in contact, and they didn't realize how many they were up against, and they went after them. And I heard them say, they started to run from us.

• 1:37:23Speaker 02

  And then they realized, you know, it's just a handful of us. And they stopped and came back at us and they had their buddies that came with them. So I was, you know, okay, they're, they're human. They don't want to die. But if we generate fire superiority, you know, you always talk fire superiority and you gain fire superiority and you're coming after them in an aggressive manner. And if I use the, the other thing that we talked about, about listening, what, what am I hearing over there? How many people are returning fire and what kind of weapons are they using? Is this a small enough group that we can go after and terminate? And create a lot of damage?

• 1:38:05Speaker 02

  Or do we need to stop and, you know, start thinking about getting away? You know, plus I'm going to do that anyway. I taught all the guys, if you're hit, I want to hear you say in English, hit, hit, hit, to let me know you're still alive and you're hit. And I have some idea of where you are. And we're gonna, we're gonna stop going backwards now. We're gonna come forward to the degree that we can and get you. You know, so, um, you know, doing that kind of training and, and they would back off from us.

• 1:38:44Speaker 02

  And there is a place where we actually crawled up and listened to an NVA training class where they were teaching, this is how you go after SOG teams. When you encounter a SOG team, they're immediately going to return fire and break contact. They're going to run, you know, so you can assault and go after them because they're running, trying to get away from you. And, yeah, you, you come after us, watch what happens.

• 1:39:17Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you've got whole sections in here too about, you know, as you started to. Adapt to the jungle and, and you know, you, you go through a whole section and I forget where it is, but you go through a whole section where you're talking about what you're actually doing, the protocol that you had when you would sit down after you got off the helicopter, how you would lit, the protocol you used to listen. And you know, some nights it's pitch black. The only thing you have, the only sense that, that, that matters is your hearing. And you break the world around you into quadrants and you'd pay attention to the sounds coming out of each particular.

• 1:39:57Jocko Willink?

  I mean, it's pretty fascinating and it shows me, and it shows anyone how completely focused you guys were on taking every advantage of everything you could, even making a, a sense that we all kind of take for granted, but we don't really hone in on when that's your only sense and it's all you got. You're going to figure out how to use it even better.

• 1:40:22Jocko Willink?

  Fast forward a little bit here, I'm going to go to mission four, Christmas road interdiction. This one, you, you were set to launch on the 23rd of December, plan to stay at least through the 27th. This meant we would be deep inside Laos and near large concentrations of enemy on Christmas day. I learned that the ceasefire did not cover countries outside the two Vietnams. No Christmas turkey dinner this year. Our mission was to make sure that the NVA in our area of operation did not get a free day. We were to move to an observation point where we could observe and interdict supply traffic on a major shipping route from Laos into South Vietnam.

• 1:41:07Jocko Willink?

  So that's what you're going to do for Christmas. Merry Christmas.

• 1:41:12Jocko Willink?

  And you know, for each one of these, you would go through and you go through it in the book. You know, you go through the training cycle that you're going to do, how you prep for it. You do a visual reconnaissance, which means you're going to get in an aircraft, like a small little observation aircraft, like an OV10. You're going to go and you're going to fly around in that area. Obviously you're not going to burn it, but you'll go fly around seven different areas. One of them is going to be the target area. You'll, you'll observe it from there, take a look at it, kind of get eyes on.

• 1:41:43Jocko Willink?

  And then you roll out, you roll out on this operations.

• 1:41:48Jocko Willink?

  You have a good, a good section here. This is where you get, get out on a, there's a snake out there that one of your, one of your little people rolled up on and gave the signal for a snake. So this got everyone a little bit paranoid. Um, I'm going to fast forward a little bit to the day two of this operation. As daylight dawned on Christmas Eve, all team members were alert and listening for the enemy. We'd fast forward, we'd been moving about 20 minutes and we heard the clack of two bamboo sticks hit together approximately 200 meters down the ridge and off to the east. Forty seconds later, we heard a response clack that seemed to be the same distance, but on the west side of the ridge. We had two trackers leading an NVA group up the

• 1:42:32Jocko Willink?

  ridge looking for us and attempting to flush us out of hiding so they could find us. This was not a good sign. To make it worse, we heard a couple of dog barks. I scattered some CS powder around the path we took as we moved toward the new observation point. This would definitely slow the dog down once it got CS powder up its nose. So this is a nightmare. Like you, you hear these, that's the way they signal to each other. They have these bamboo things that are clacking together and you know what it is. It means there's trackers. How horrifying is that?

• 1:43:03Speaker 02

  It gets your attention when you hear it because you know, they're back there. They have a good idea of where we are and they've got trackers who can follow, you know, the trail. And if you hear a dog bark, um, now you know they've got dogs coming with them. Um, so yeah, that, that kind of runs the stress level up a little bit because you know they're going to find you. It's just a matter of time.

• 1:43:29Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you can't cover the tracks of a seven man patrol. I mean,

• 1:43:34Speaker 02

  And the dog's gonna smell it. Even, even if you, you cover, the dog's gonna smell it because you were there covering it.

• 1:43:43Jocko Willink?

  Fast forward a little bit. It did not take due for very, very long to start sending back information that we relayed to Covey. By 11:30, the first airstrike started hitting the air. And this, I'm, I'm fast forwarded, but you guys get into a location. You can now see what the NVA is doing and you start dropping bombs on them. This increased the NVA effort to find our location. The clackers were coming closer.

• 1:44:08Jocko Willink?

  Fast forward, soon we heard the trackers handler and a small group of NVA go by us and continue up the ridge. That was close. We decided to stay where we were for our remain overnight. So

• 1:44:23Jocko Willink?

  this is horrifying to me. These guys, these guys out there looking for us, tracking us, that's just like a nightmare. Like you said, you know, they're going to find you. It's just a matter of time. Because they don't care. They can move as fast as they want. They can pull out machetes and hack their way through there and

• 1:44:40Jocko Willink?

  fast forward to day three, the section's called, we're busted.

• 1:44:46Jocko Willink?

  It was day three, 25 December, 1968, Christmas Day. We moved from our RON site back to the third and most distant cliff to set up our observation. It had rained during the night and the terrain was slippery. We had to be careful. We observed a lot of traffic just after we got in position and reported to Covey. In less than 20 minutes, we had F4s pounding them. We were able to provide targeting data for about two hours before everything appeared to have been destroyed.

• 1:45:13Jocko Willink?

  Fast forward, two minutes later, we heard a tow popper explode, a loud scream and almost simultaneously, a second tow popper explosion, followed immediately by a barrage of AK-47s. Fire. So this is because you would, when you guys would get in a, your, your static positions, you would set up your claymores, which you talked about, but you'd also set up these little tow popper landmines as indicators that someone was coming and also an immediate defensive scenario.

• 1:45:40Speaker 02

  So you're moving up, we use what we call the fish technique a lot. You're moving along and this is where you want your RON. So we move past it, go up, turn and come back to it. So if you're tracking us, you're going to go by us. And when you get up there, ways to, to where we turn, I'm going to leave a little surprise for you. So I'll put, I, you know, I learned when I was a little kid, how people, animals and things walk through the wood. When they come to this log, you just instinctly step over or right on the other side of that log, where the tow popper is going to be. And it just for fun, I'd put two of them over there. So sometimes you'd step over,

• 1:46:25Speaker 02

  I'd take that leg off and you'd start to fall, you'd land on the other one, I'd get that one too. You step on one of those out in the jungle, you're gonna die. Cause you can't get you back to the hospital or anything like that, but that lets us know. You know, that you're tracking us. We know where you are. And most of the time when they would step on one, they assume we're out in front of them. And that's where they initially fire. They open fire out that way. We're back over here a little ways. So we know you're there. We got some idea of how many people are there. And you know, from there, we've got our claymores out on the avenues of approach that you might use to come down. To get us, we've got an evacuation plan on how we're gonna go.

• 1:47:12Speaker 02

  So then we take whatever action, you know, seems to be right at that time.

• 1:47:17Jocko Willink?

  Well, we learned the fish hook method for patrolling and when we're gonna set up our perimeters, we also learned when you're, when you get to a log, they're gonna put a booby trap on the other side. Those lessons got passed down direct.

• 1:47:32Jocko Willink?

  So they, so they hit a tow popper. And then another tow popper. And now they start shooting machine gun fire. And I'm gonna go back to the book. Some of it was in our direction. Some of it was in other directions. They didn't know exactly where we were. But in that first barrage, three AK rounds came through the root on my left side and tore my shirt as they went across my chest. And through the root on my right side. You were sitting in between these. Trees that look like big rockets and like the fins of the rockets is what you're sitting between. I had just exhaled. If I had just inhaled, the bullets would have taken the top of my chest off. When they came across me. They grazed just enough to draw blood.

• 1:48:12Jocko Willink?

  It was obvious that the roots were providing just concealment, not cover. I had to get behind the tree. I jumped behind the tree with my ruck, which was 75 pounds in my left hand. I heard another tow popper go off, followed by a loud scream, then the grenade I had left in the area with the tripwire. All the AK fire shifted toward our position now. They were trying to flank us with a group of about 20 NVA maneuvering around to our right to push our backs against the cliff. The grenade I had put on my side exploded and showed their flanking movement. We had a full-fledged firefight going on with more NVA coming down the ridge. Deck gave me the command to detonate the first layer of claymores. It was a tremendous

• 1:48:54Jocko Willink?

  explosion as seven claymores exploded simultaneously. It was raining debris, dirt, pieces of trees, rocks, and body parts. A bloody arm landed right in front of where I'd been lying between the roots. A thick smoke and smell covered the jungle. It temporarily stopped their assault, but the automatic weapons fire picked up again. It was easy to tell that the group was a lot smaller because of the lower volume of fire, but more NVA were coming. As soon as the team got near my position and below me, I was getting ready to set off the other layer of claymores when a B-40 rocket hit the tree in front of the one I was behind. Fortunately, my ruck was still setting on the edge of the bank and provided some protection.

• 1:49:36Jocko Willink?

  It was riddled with small shrapnel. I ducked behind the tree and set off the first, the last layer of claymores. This group had only five claymores, but it ripped a hole in the NVA assault. They were stunned physically and psychologically. I don't think the NVA believed we had more claymores to set off. I also got another taste of the impact of adrenaline. When I came out from behind the tree, I had to grab my rucksack with my left hand. It weighed probably 75 pounds and I'm not a big guy, but I tossed that rucksack around like it was a pillow. I took it right, I took it with me as we fought our way down the ridge and toward the LZ. I paid for it later on. After we got extracted, I realized I'd pulled muscles in my shoulder because they just weren't designed to handle that

• 1:50:19Jocko Willink?

  much weight, but I had so much adrenaline pumping through my system, I didn't notice it at the time. Cowboy had dropped off with me and was providing overwatch fires. I scampered down to him. Deck and Jones were leading the team down the ridge towards the LZ. The rocky terrain was providing some cover, but the NVA were able to take advantage of it too. As soon as the first tow popper exploded, I had notified Covey that we had a heavy contact and a prairie fire. Usually Covey could assess.

• 1:50:49Jocko Willink?

  Could have assets on site in 30 to 45 minutes, but it was Christmas Day, a holiday, and not a lot of assets were just hanging out nearby. It was a good thing that we had notified Covey right away. We needed close air support, gunships immediately. We knew it would be a while before things would calm down enough to get extraction ship in. The NVA were not stopping. Cowboy and I went into a delaying technique with claymores on time fuses that were becoming pretty effective at using. The NVA appeared to have run right up on the first delayed claymore based on the screams and yelling we heard. Cowboy said, "VC angry." My response was, "Good, that means we're really hurting them." We left another one as we ran up to catch up with the rest of the team.

• 1:51:32Jocko Willink?

  We were shooting a lot of them, but it seemed like it was taking two to three hits to put them down. Cowboy said, "VC, take drugs." He must have been correct because they were hard to stop. I noticed that three hits on automatic had a lot more knockdown power than three fast individual shots. When I hit them on auto, they dropped immediately. I made a mental note to remember this for later. Covey told me that he had a couple of spads with 20mm and napalm 20 minutes out. I updated our situation. We were still receiving a lot of fire into our area as we caught up with Deck. I updated Deck on what Covey said and about the problem putting NVA down. We had a steep grade to go down to the LZ and got

• 1:52:14Jocko Willink?

  no protection once we got there. We decided to stay where we were in the rocks. Suddenly things got quiet, too quiet. They were up to something. We decided to put our four claymores on the most likely avenues of attack. We redistributed ammunition and moved our extra frag and Willie Pete grenades out of our rucks. We were expecting a heavy assault to begin any minute. You could hear a pin drop. Then, at a very low volume, I heard, "Bravo 6, this is Covey, 6, go. Spads A1s are here. Mark your position with smoke and tell me where you want the 20 mic mic." I threw a smoke grenade and said, "Roger, smoke

• 1:52:52Jocko Willink?

  out. Sandy, lead identifies yellow. 6, Roger, make the first run north to southeast, northwest to southeast 100 meters, northwest of the smoke. Danger close. Roger, keep your heads down."

• 1:53:08Jocko Willink?

  The gun runs effectively triggered the NVA assault on our position. We thought there were 20 to 30 of them left. It was closer to 200. One thing I had learned is that if you are not moving, you are dying because the NVA are maneuvering into position to cut off your escape. The NVA had managed to move so that they had flanked us on three sides. The only way we could escape was to run into the open LZ. They were assaulting. We set off our four remaining, we set off four of our remaining seven claymores to slow their assault. Covey, this is Six, have one spad put napalm where it is. First gun run and the second to drop his napalm flying northeast to southwest 100 meters north of smoke. This is danger close.

• 1:53:52Jocko Willink?

  Do it now and come back around with guns in the same place. Covey, Roger, you take, you guys take cover and take a deep breath. It's gonna get very hot. The gates of hell are about to open. Six, copy that. Meanwhile, we were being hit with a hail of AK-47 and RPD fire and B-40 rockets. We returned to fire and lob frag grenades from behind rocks. It was so smoky, you could barely see. When we heard the planes getting close, we each threw a grenade, took cover and took a deep breath. The air was about to be so hot, it would fry the inside of your lungs. The fireball, heat and smoke were tremendous and the napalm sucked all the oxygen out of the air. Air was available, but it was hot, smoky and choking and had no oxygen.

• 1:54:33Jocko Willink?

  We could see the NVA running around like human torches covered in fire and screaming. We were still receiving a lot of fire from the south. Covey, this is Six, that was fantastic. We are still receiving fire from the south. Make one more napalm run, run 100 meters south of the smoke, flying northwest to southwest. Danger close. This is Covey, Roger, we have four gunships, five mics out. This is Covey, napalm, 30 seconds out, take cover. The napalm was once again surreal. The screams, the choking, the superheated air, the smoke, the smell of burning and charred flesh. We took out the human torches we could see. A couple of our guys could not take the smell and could not hold back the vomit.

• 1:55:16Jocko Willink?

  Once we had suppressed most of the enemy fire, we were able to bring in an extraction ship. As we were lifting off, still under fire, Deck and I both threw a red smoke grenade, meaning the LZ was cleared hot. Take out all living creatures. Covey worked the area over and pulled away. As we pulled away, Covey, this is dynamite. Really appreciate your help. We could not have made it without you. Thank you. Thank all of your assets for us. See you back at the ranch. Roger that dynamite. You guys did a great job today. As soon as we got far enough away from the LZ and most of the NVA fire shifted away from us, I looked over at Deck to see his big smile and thumbs up. He wasn't smiling and there was no thumbs up.

• 1:55:59Jocko Willink?

  I thought crap. He must have been hit. I crawled across the guys to get to him, grabbed him by the shoulder and asked, Deck, you okay? He slowly looked up at me and said, Lieutenant, I'm done. This was my last mission. Then he looked away. I went back to my position in the helicopter. A lot of questions popped into my mind. I would talk to him more about this when we got to the launch site. When we got to the launch site, I immediately went to him. What's going on? I asked. He said, I've completed my mission requirement and I'm going to move to a different job when we get to C N. I would appreciate it if you wouldn't say anything about it. I'll tell the team when the time is right. We did a quick debrief and flew back to what was left of FOB 1.

• 1:56:42Jocko Willink?

  We got there after dark to find the mess sergeant that saved our Christmas meal for us. Steak, if I remember correctly. It tasted really good, but the best part of was that FOB 1, even almost totally closed, did not forget about us. FUBI was alright. But this was the end of FUBI, FOB 1. It was being closed as an FOB and the teams distributed it around the other FOBs. We would be the last team out. RT Idaho with John Stryker Meyer, Tilt and Lynn Black Blackjack had barely managed to escape from Laos that day too and had already been transported to C N. RT Alabama would rest that night and fly to C N the following morning.

• 1:57:33Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:57:39Jocko Willink?

  This is insane, right? I mean, the, this, these, these stories are insane. They're totally insane.

• 1:57:49Jocko Willink?

  Getting pressed that hard, blasting these claymores. You know, we used to set up claymore ambushes in training.

• 1:57:57Jocko Willink?

  And, you know, when you clack off seven, seven claymores in the jungle, that is a serious, serious blast. That must have rocked those NVA, that rocked their world. I mean, it rocked your world.

• 1:58:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, you have to make sure you're far enough back, or, yeah, because it'll stun you. You know, in, in those days,

• 1:58:24Speaker 02

  we didn't have a term for it and talk about TBI.

• 1:58:32Speaker 02

  You know, I look at you and you're dazed and you can't tell me your name and I, I'd say, Jack, rub a little dirt on your chest. Just rub a little dirt on you. You'll be all right. You know, let's keep going. You know, we, we got things to do. You can't fumble around like this. Just rub a little dirt on you. You'll be all right. And, you know, we didn't, we didn't realize what the concussion was doing to us.

• 1:58:54Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:58:55Speaker 02

  But, I mean, you were getting hit with it, you know, regular basis. Then you had Lynn Black, you were getting ready to go on a mission. He goes out and trying to figure out, how big of a piece of C4 do we need to use to knock somebody out? Well, I'm gonna chop up these different sizes that I'm out here on the ground, back up a little ways and set it off and see if it knocks me down. So he kept doing it until, you know, he didn't know who he was. And he said, okay, that's, that's how much we need right there. Oh my God. But anyway.

• 1:59:28Jocko Willink?

  We used to do claymores also, and I know they don't do this anymore, but I detonated claymores that were like on the other side of my rucksack and I was maybe in a little depression. Like you can, you can be so close to them. I mean, you get rattled. But we used to do that just to kind of explore the, the,

• 1:59:53Jocko Willink?

  Parameters because the you know, the bearings are going in the other direction. But you get a little dazed from that.

• 2:00:00Speaker 02

  We we tried whenever we could to put them in front of trees. So you got a big tree and on the other side is at the claymore and then you're you're back here a ways. But you still got if you're going to do seven at one time, you you still got to get back a ways. Holy cow.

• 2:00:19Speaker 02

  But yeah, and one of the things that was happening was, you know, we were closing FOB one. And

• 2:00:28Speaker 02

  most of the teams. And I don't know all the answers here, but most of the teams left there and went to C C N or or Central or or South as the intact team. But for some reason, Alabama got split up.

• 2:00:49Speaker 02

  So when when we moved down there, you know, the team for a while wasn't a team anymore. So Deck went to a different type of job, a nonoperator job down there. C C N was a it was a big place, a lot going on.

• 2:01:10Jocko Willink?

  Did you talk to Deck about?

• 2:01:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, I talked to him and he got back.

• 2:01:14Jocko Willink?

  I'm done.

• 2:01:15Speaker 02

  He he said, you know, I I finished my mission requirements. I've been on all these things. They're going to split the team up. And they're going to move me to an admin job. They're going to take me to C C N, but they're going to put me in a

• 2:01:30Speaker 02

  a nonoperator job down there. And I'm OK with that.

• 2:01:36Speaker 02

  And and the team was split up. And he told me he had already given me the clearance to be a one zero. He had vetted me and I was good. So I would get my own team when I got down there.

• 2:01:52Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, because I don't know if you've mentioned this on the podcast. It's in the book, but the the what they wanted out of you guys was six months or six missions.

• 2:02:03Speaker 02

  Right.

• 2:02:03Jocko Willink?

  That's what they wanted out of you guys. Six months or six missions. So if you got to six months and you were didn't want to do it anymore, you could move on. Or if you did six missions, you could move on.

• 2:02:12Speaker 02

  Or if the one zero said.

• 2:02:16Speaker 02

  Jocko can't do this.

• 2:02:18Jocko Willink?

  Got it.

• 2:02:18Speaker 02

  He's gonna get somebody killed. Maybe after your first mission, second mission. If the one to zero said, no.

• 2:02:26Jocko Willink?

  Comes down.

• 2:02:27Speaker 02

  He's not an operator, take him out. Then, you know, you could be moved somewhere else. But normally, if you got six missions and you want it. And the part of the thought was that that's a lot of missions. And if we keep you longer than that, then, you know, you might not be okay upstairs. You know, we need to, we're gonna try to protect you by getting you out after six, or at least giving you an out if you want it. But in reality, you know, it could be the first mission that did you in. I mean, there are people who went on one mission and came back and said, that ain't happening again. I can't do this.

• 2:03:13Speaker 02

  Because it was so different when you went across the border. You were just against so many people every time. You, you all, and it reminds me of jujitsu. I mean, it seems like every time I see you guys on Instagram or something, you're doing some, some stuff. One person gets down on the mat.

• 2:03:42Speaker 02

  The other person gets on top and gets some kind of hold on him or something. And then that's when you start.

• 2:03:50Speaker 02

  And that's kind of what SOG was like.

• 2:03:53Speaker 02

  We're, we're gonna put the team out there. We're gonna surround you with all these NBA and then we're gonna say, go.

• 2:04:02Speaker 02

  Because you always started out surrounded. Every mission.

• 2:04:08Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's like we, you know, people talk about different, the different selection courses that there are for, for Rangers and for SEALs and for Special Forces. I don't think there's a harder selection than SOG. You're gonna go out on a mission over the fence and we'll see if we, if you hack it or not.

• 2:04:29Speaker 02

  See if we can find you again.

• 2:04:31Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:04:34Speaker 02

  I mean, it's, it's not funny, but it's amazing how many teams went out.

• 2:04:41Speaker 02

  They got off the helicopter, they moved into the jungle and that was it? You didn't hear from them again.

• 2:04:48Speaker 02

  Or maybe you find one or two of them at some point, but.

• 2:04:52Jocko Willink?

  You had some lessons learned from this one. If you can be heard, you can be found. If you can be found, you can be killed.

• 2:05:01Jocko Willink?

  If you're not moving, you are losing the battle. You are in the process of dying.

• 2:05:10Speaker 02

  When you stop. And you get distracted, you get sucked in by, here's a group of rocks. They're coming after, here's a group of rocks, you know, rocks are conceal, are not just concealment, but cover. So if we get down in these rocks, you know, now we can stand our ground or we can get some. All that does is, is fixate you in one little spot in NVA. It's just like a big amoeba coming down and, and they just go around you. Now you're not going anywhere.

• 2:05:42Jocko Willink?

  I used to have the young seals out in the field doing land warfare and they'd be in enemy contact. So this, you know, it's like lasers are getting shot at and all of a sudden, you know, the, the lasers would kind of slow down, then they'd come to a stop. And you'd see the young leader would be like, oh, you know, they're not shooting at us anymore. Form a perimeter and, you know, start doing counts and ammo redistribution. And I'd say, hey, man, what's going on? And he'd be like, well, they stopped shooting at us. That's because they're maneuvering. Like they're, they're moving on you right now. And now you don't know, you knew where they were, at least when they were shooting at you. Now, now you don't know. So you need to, now's not the time to stop. Now's not the time to get stationary. Now's not the time to get static.

• 2:06:25Jocko Willink?

  Unless you have some prominent high ground or something like that, a piece of terrain feature, okay. But if you're still, if you're, if you'd maneuvered down a ravine and now you're in some low ground and you think it's going to be a good time to stop and redistribute ammo? No, now's not the time.

• 2:06:43Jocko Willink?

  So I definitely related to that one. Claymores on time fuses stunned the assaulting NVA. Made the survivors stop and think they are human. They don't want to get shredded. And napalm was a very scary and powerful weapon. The NVA hated it.

• 2:07:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, so that was, that was a big insight for me. Using napalm and just seeing, you know, the awesome power of that stuff. And, and what it did. And realizing they don't want it. I mean, if you get in real trouble, you bring some napalm out there. And, you know, they'll change how they react to you. Because once you see your buddy is a human torch, or people just charred all over the place. You don't want any of it. And it, you know, I've had it on me. You, you, it won't go out.

• 2:07:48Speaker 02

  You know, and it doesn't just rub off. It just sets your other hand on fire when you start trying to put it out. I mean, it, it's gonna get you. And it's, it's just really, really brutal. The other thing that you run into, or we ran into, I ran into.

• 2:08:08Speaker 02

  Was I worked mostly north. And as you went north, the jungle got a lot thicker. So all of a sudden, you had double and triple canopy jungle. When you see all of these YouTube videos and things of napalm being dropped. It's out in the open. And man, it, it forms this beautiful pattern on the ground and everything, and that's cool. When you drop it into a double canopy jungle or triple canopy. It goes off up there and it goes everywhere. It starts raining down. And it used to just scare me, but I knew I had to have it. But I said, you know, I hope I'm picking the right distance.

• 2:08:53Speaker 02

  I hope that pilot that's coming in is gonna put it in the right spot. And I hope I didn't make a mistake, or he didn't make a mistake in our calculations, or it's gonna be on us. And you just kinda hold your breath and say, oh geez, I'll see what happens, you know, when it comes down. But the NVA, what they started trying to do in 69 was try to get

• 2:09:17Jocko Willink?

  Get close.

• 2:09:18Speaker 02

  Get close. Try to get close enough to us that we couldn't call it in. So you couldn't wait too late before you, you used it. But it was a horrible weapon.

• 2:09:29Jocko Willink?

  Um, I'm gonna fast forward here to Command and Control North, FOB4. And now you're with, uh, RT Michigan. RT Michigan had a reputation as a solid team and had lost its last two 1-0s. Unlike RT Alabama, RT Michigan was a Montanyard team. So this always gotta be a little bit, um, dis- discomforting when you're going to take a job that the last two guys have been killed.

• 2:10:02Speaker 02

  You know, it, it almost didn't matter which team you went to. Probably the reason you were going to that team is because of 1-0. Yeah. I mean, if, when you made contact, if you could survive the first 90 seconds, you might have a chance. It was just amazing how many 1-0s and Americans were killed in the first 90 seconds. Because everybody, you all stand, you're standing up. So, I mean, your whole body now is exposed. Now, when that many people open up with that many AKs on automatic, there's such a barrage coming at you.

• 2:10:46Speaker 02

  If you're standing up, you're gonna get hit. If you can get below waist level, you know, by the time the shooting starts, you, you've got a chance. I mean, that was one reason I didn't want any more than I had to on the front. I wanted, to the degree I could, to look like an empty pair of fatigues laying out there on the ground. That I was so close to the ground, you know, that I, I wasn't going to get, my rucksack used to get shot all to pieces, you know, because it was, it was sticking up.

• 2:11:21Speaker 02

  But, you know, my rucksack saved me on a lot of occasions. Radio saved me. I got hit so many times in that radio. But you gotta get close. You gotta get down. And I still harass Tilt, you know, and I think Tilt said on the podcast, the first thing his team said to him when he went to this new team, the interpreter said, you're gonna die.

• 2:11:48Jocko Willink?

  Too tall?

• 2:11:49Speaker 02

  Yeah. It wasn't just too tall. You're too tall and you're too ugly. You're gonna die. And I harassed him. I used to look at you and say, how can a guy six-two survive out here? I mean, I can just cite time after time where if I had been a quarter of an inch taller, I'd have died, you know? And I'm nowhere near sixty. So, I don't know. I mean, I've had my head creased with a chunk of shrapnel and stuff like that. It just,

• 2:12:31Speaker 02

  you know, I used to want to be tall, you know, because my little brother's six-four.

• 2:12:36Jocko Willink?

  How tall are you?

• 2:12:37Speaker 02

  Five-seven.

• 2:12:39Jocko Willink?

  So, five-eight, you wouldn't be here?

• 2:12:42Speaker 02

  No, I wouldn't be here. No, not at all.

• 2:12:44Jocko Willink?

  So, Michigan, you say, in my experience with, so this is a mountain yard, a mountain yard team. And you say, in my experience with them, the yards did not like the Vietnamese. I would need to adapt from the Vietnamese culture and superstitions to that of the mountain yards. So, you got a different crew now, and you gotta get used to these guys. What was different about the mountain yards?

• 2:13:06Speaker 02

  Most of them had lived in the jungle, and they came from the jungle.

• 2:13:13Speaker 02

  So they had a lot of experience and knowledge about the jungle.

• 2:13:20Speaker 02

  The creatures, the terrain, everything out there. So, you know, when, when they moved through the jungle, they could, they'd point out a lot of times, snake. You know, they knew where to look to find the snakes, where they were gonna be, things like that. Just, they were really good at moving through the woods or the jungle and, and not making noise. Different, just a different mindset than the Vietnamese.

• 2:13:48Jocko Willink?

  What kind of superstitions did they have?

• 2:13:50Speaker 02

  Don't step over one of them. Somebody, if you were to step over me, I was gonna die.

• 2:13:58Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 2:13:59Speaker 02

  So, you know, don't step over them. They, they get hostile. You start to do that. And then, like it says in the book, I mean, that first day, Barge Well and, and I, and one of the, the yards are walking across the, the company area, you know, we're kind of three abreast and we're walking along. And, and the yard just reaches over and he takes me by the hand. And he's holding my hand. And we're kind of walking along and we're swinging our hands and, you know, I'm looking down and thinking, what, what are we doing here?

• 2:14:32Jocko Willink?

  We don't do this in South Carolina.

• 2:14:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, we don't do this in South Carolina. And, and Barge Well looks and he says, don't turn it loose. He said, it's not what you think. He's showing you respect and honor. If you turn his hand loose, you're gonna insult him. And you don't wanna do that.

• 2:14:54Speaker 02

  But, you know, it's just different things. It's different culture.

• 2:15:00Speaker 02

  The food was a little different that they ate. They really didn't like the Vietnamese. They didn't care if they were north or south. They didn't care. They just, you know.

• 2:15:10Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I mean, they killed each other sometimes in the compounds.

• 2:15:12Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, in the compound, yeah. I mean, you couldn't let them eat at the same time. We had, you know, Cambodians and the mountain yards and the Vietnamese. They all ate in the same mess hall, but they had to have a different feeding schedule. You couldn't put them in there together because somebody would get shot because it was, it was like living in the old west. Unlike the US compounds, in the SOG compounds, you know, you walked around fully armed. I mean, you could carry grenades around your pocket. You could carry your CAR-15 around in the compound, you know, fully loaded, ready to go. And you said that you get shot.

• 2:15:54Speaker 02

  And one, one thing you didn't want to do, I mean, I didn't want to walk up, you know, to Echo and say something that appeared to be aggressive or derogatory to him when his team was with him. I mean, I'd be looking down the barrel of his CAR-15s all of a sudden. And nobody's going to mess with the, you know, with the one zero on a team. You know, so you, you had to be careful, even Americans, you know, we all carried weapons too, so you had to be careful with them. Some of them will whack off.

• 2:16:28Jocko Willink?

  You mentioned Bargewell. You say this about Bargewell, "I was impressed with Bargewell right from the beginning. He was very knowledgeable and a great operator. He'd been at Kason with a team during the siege of Kason. They were hammered for 77 days by a massive NVA force. Bargewell had recruited some of the RT Michigan team members. This was a yard team and they all liked him and had a lot of respect for him. He was a smart guy. Everything about him said warrior. I figured if he didn't get killed, he was going to be a legend in special ops at some point. Sure enough, Bargewell remained in special operations, SOG, Rangers, Delta, and SOCOM throughout his career and retired as a major general and special ops legend.

• 2:17:13Jocko Willink?

  We remain friends until his death, April 29, 2019."

• 2:17:19Jocko Willink?

  And yeah, I mean, uh, Bargewell was in charge of SOC Europe, Special Operations Command Europe.

• 2:17:28Jocko Willink?

  When I was over there and you know, it was pretty awesome. My boss had a really good relationship with him and you know, it was pretty, pretty awesome to be working with a legend like that, but that's when he was a general. You were working with him when he was what a spec four?

• 2:17:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, he's a hard dude.

• 2:17:45Speaker 02

  You know, but even, I mean,

• 2:17:48Speaker 02

  there was not a, another general

• 2:17:52Speaker 02

  who as a general, instead of walking around with his little pistol, walked around with an AK-47 slung over his shoulder. And, and telling, you know, his security team, if anything happens, guys, you take care of yourself. I'll take care of me. I'll be all right. You know, don't get yourself killed trying to take care of me.

• 2:18:13Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:18:14Speaker 02

  And holy cow. But I mean, he was, he was hard. I just, uh, unbelievable warrior, um, smart. And you know, he was a spec four. And we come back to the States and, and I see him and, uh, he was a lieutenant and I thought, how did you do that? Well, you know, I came back, I went to OCS. Okay. Then I see him again. He's a captain. And I'm, you know, I'm just a, a major and he's already a captain. I thought, man, you're doing good. And then the next time I see him, uh, you know, he was a major.

• 2:18:58Speaker 02

  And I was about to get promoted to lieutenant colonel. I mean, he's already caught me and just, you know, he just kept going. And you know, that was cool. And you know, I'd see him in different places and we'd talk and you know, when he was in Delta, we were talking and, and stuff and it was, um, you know, it was pretty cool just to watch him. He was fascinating, but on these teams, I mean, he was, he was a hard dude. You didn't want to irritate him. I mean, and I think, I think that's part of what, how he got a DSC

• 2:19:36Speaker 02

  was.

• 2:19:38Speaker 02

  His team, after I left, the team was hit on B forty, came right into the middle of them. Everybody was wounded. Bargewell took a big piece of shrapnel through the, through the side of his face and lodged behind the eye on the other side. And it really irritated him. And then they, they, they had to gall about twenty of them to stand up and try to assault the team, you know, and they're wounded and all this stuff. And Bargewell's got a big piece of shrapnel in his head.

• 2:20:07Jocko Willink?

  And he's pissed.

• 2:20:08Speaker 02

  And he was. And he had, he had, he was carrying the, the RPD by then. He holds the whole group down. I mean, he just took out their whole assault by himself.

• 2:20:20Jocko Willink?

  And he modified an RPD, right? Like, cut it down or something like that?

• 2:20:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, we, there's, there's a mission where he got so excited. I mean, the bad guys were using it against us. And he just kept talking about, man, that thing's awesome. It fires so fast. It's got that big hundred round belt on it and he does all this stuff. And he kept talking and so I said, well, we're going over on a training mission over to Monkey Mountain. Carry one over there and just see what you think about it, you know, going through the jungle. And he came back and said, no, you know, it hangs on everything. It's heavy. It's, you know, that bipod hangs on all this stuff.

• 2:21:03Speaker 02

  Then the next thing I know, he tells me this guy's down at CCC sawed the barrel off of one of these things and he did some modifications to it. It's a lot shorter and he got one of them and he started carrying it.

• 2:21:19Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Yeah. The SEALs were, you know, they used M sixties and the Stoner, Stoner sixty threes. And they love, like you talk to any of the Vietnam SEALs and they were just all about that automatic weapon, all, all about that belt fed machine gun, a hundred percent.

• 2:21:37Speaker 02

  Yeah. I carried an M sixty one time. Holy cow. I got back, I will never do that again. It hangs on everything. It's heavy and, and when the bad guys hear that machine, it sounds so different, just like an RPD. It sounds so different than everything else. They know what it is and everybody just, you know, all the, the rounds start coming at, at that weapon. But they know they've got to take it out.

• 2:22:05Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:22:07Jocko Willink?

  You didn't like that done too much, huh?

• 2:22:08Speaker 02

  No.

• 2:22:11Jocko Willink?

  So now you're with this team and you're, you know, practice, practice, practice. This is your mantra now. You're practicing everything. Where to put a tourniquet on. You start enforcing the meals thing. And you know, this was a detail I wanted to bring up just because it's an example of what you guys were, how focused you were. The snaps on a canteen, the canteen cover, the little snaps, you replace those with wooden buttons. So if you're getting a drink, no one's going to hear you snapping any snaps. That's, that's where you guys were at. You're practicing with the claymores. This is where you get into the point where you had an eight man team. You got approximately 24 claymores. You were a big fan of the claymores and the grenades, same thing. You know, eight man team, you got guys carrying 10 frag grenades,

• 2:22:56Jocko Willink?

  which is pretty epic.

• 2:22:59Speaker 02

  Well, you know, and I told them, I said, the good thing, one of the good things about carrying all that ammunition is the bad, the bad news is it's heavy. The good news is that when we make contact, it gets lighter and lighter. You know? But then it turns into the bad news after a while because it's gone. But, but yeah. So I tried to pump them up a little bit about the stuff, but they saw. I mean, they were, they were shocked when they, they realized the power that we had with those claymores and all those frag grenades, particularly when you made contact at night. Because at night you can lob that grenade out there and they don't know where it came from.

• 2:23:45Jocko Willink?

  I can't imagine the horror of you're walking, you think you're assaulting this little sock and as you're on assault, all of a sudden seven claymores get clacked off. Half your guys are dead or wounded. So you go, well, that must be all they have. You charge again and they'll see you hit four. Like, that's devastating. Uh, fast forward a little bit here to your first mission. You say, my first mission as one zero. So now you're the guy in charge of RT Michigan was to provide assistance to a hatchet force platoon led by my friend, Captain Glenn Jordan, that would be interdicting a resupply route. And this is a pretty cool mission because it actually is similar to what, uh, my guys would

• 2:24:27Jocko Willink?

  do over in Ramadi, which is you dressed up like members of the 101st and went down to, with them, made it look like you were replacements for some of their soldiers. And then when their water supply team went down to the river to resupply their water, you guys took off your 101st uniforms, got on your, your Put our Batman suit on. Put on your Sog, your Sog outfits and then boom, rolled out. That's, you know, my guys would do stuff like that, roll out with the army, you know, in their convoys and they'd pull up, they'd stop for whatever reason out. Guys would slip out the back and go start occupying buildings or foot patrol in or whatever. Any, we did a bunch of different, that type of thing.

• 2:25:12Jocko Willink?

  So, I'm gonna fast forward a little bit. You're on this mission now and someone has, you're day three of this mission. Someone has a genius idea. At 1410, we heard bad news from Covey. X-ray five, this is Covey. The launch site is sending a helicopter to resupply your water, food and batteries. Your mission has been extended. The chopper is 10 minutes out. You will need to identify your location, over. This is X-ray five, not going to happen. I say again, no way. We have bad guys all over us. We cannot mark our location to receive supplies. Send it away.

• 2:25:49Jocko Willink?

  This is Covey. I sent your response to Quebec Tango six. He said it's coming. Get ready to receive it. Sorry about that. This is five, I'm not marking my location. This is Covey, the chopper's been ordered to drop the supplies at your last known location. This is five, you know, this is going to create a prairie fire. You better start lining up assets. This is gonna be, they're gonna be on us like chicken on a June bug.

• 2:26:14Jocko Willink?

  I got Barshwell, Nash, and Cantua together and told them what was about to happen. It was not a pleasant conversation and probably too loud. In the end, I told them we would not stop. In the end, I told them we could not stop our position from being compromised and we needed to at least try and hide the supplies from the NVA so they would not find them when they came looking for us. We would not have much time.

• 2:26:39Jocko Willink?

  So of course this happens. I mean, this is just a nightmare. Freaking tell these idiots not to send these resupplies. They send them, you're hidden. You're totally clandestine at this point. They drop supplies, fast forward, enemy contact. Covey, this is five, moving south fast. We can hear them coming. We need air support here now, calling artillery. And this is something you went into. You had laid out an awesome pre-fires plan, all the locations. You named all the locations, all the pre-fire locations and dialed those in with a hundred because this was your first time where you're going to be close enough to Yeah. American forces to actually use artillery. So you were pumped. Yeah.

• 2:27:19Jocko Willink?

  Covey, this is five, moving south fast. We can hear them coming in. We need air support here now, calling artillery. Covey, Roger, gunships, 20 mikes out, working on spads. Are you calling a prairie fire? This is five, soon. X-ray 26, X-ray 5, fire mission over. So here you are, calling in the artillery.

• 2:27:42Jocko Willink?

  Eagle 26, shot over. Eagle 26, splash over. This is five, outstanding, more to come. We were moving fast toward an area that we could use for an extraction LZ. Suddenly, Camba signaled halt, enemy. Just as we stopped, a barrage of AK fire came at us, hitting Camba. He went down in the vegetation. Cantua yelled, "Camba hit." I yelled, "Assault, front." We needed to get online and assault beyond where Camba went down so we could get him. As we got near Camba, we found RPGs were coming at us. We had to get Camba and start moving backwards. There are at least 20 more NVA. As we were fighting and trying to withdraw, I worked my way over to Camba. He was bleeding badly. Barshwell was trying to stop the bleeding.

• 2:28:26Jocko Willink?

  Barshwell personally recruited Camba when he was at K-Son. He knew Camba's family. Covey, this is five, we're in heavy contact with 20 more NVA. Need help? We have at least one redhead. Code word for wounded. I'm declaring prairie fire emergency. Over. I shouted over the background heavy volume of gunfire and yelling. Roger that, can you send up a flare? We don't know exactly where you are. Roger, stand by. This is five, flare up, identify. This is Covey, identify blue. This is five, negative, negative, that's not us. Hammer it. Sending up another one. This is Covey, identify red. Roger that, standing by. Artillery coming in. Eagle 26, X-ray five, fire mission over. Roger, send it from target Friday, direction 270, add 250. Adjust fire, over. Eagle 26, Roger, shot, over.

• 2:29:11Jocko Willink?

  So this is, you know, for people that don't know what's going on here. This mark, I mark you identify thing is something that you do when you're trying to mark your position. So you try and mark your position for the aircraft that are overhead. And you throw out a, you know, what'd you throw out? You threw out a smoke or a flare. A flare. A flare. And you say identify and they are supposed to say what color flare you sent up. So they say, yep, you sent up a blue flare. Well, you didn't send up a blue flare. So you're saying, hey, wherever that flare came from, they're not friendly. So hammer that thing.

• 2:29:52Jocko Willink?

  But that's how good the enemy was. Like they would know if they would send up just random signaling devices, they might be able to get confusion going on. Uh, fast forward a little bit. The NVA had cut off our route to the possible LZ and their numbers were increasing. We made it into some rocks. They were trying to flow around us. Barzwell had Cambo's bleeding under control and gave him Ringer's solution to get some of the volume back in his blood. Covey, this is five, this is as far as we can go. Run the guns again, same place. We need a string extraction if you can get here fast enough. These jokers look like a giant amoeba flowing around their dinner. I want to give them indigestion. Really, I really appreciate Quebec Tango's resupply of food. He should be with us here to enjoy it, over.

• 2:30:38Jocko Willink?

  And you, you listen.

• 2:30:41Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I was sure Quebec Tango Six could hear what I was saying even with the heavy volume of gunfire explosions and men yelling in the background.

• 2:30:50Jocko Willink?

  Covey, Roger, guns coming back around. Working on strings. Spads here in five mics. Roger, getting ready. This is thick canopy, not sure they can get the things, the strings through. Roger, I'll notify Casper 5. Extraction on strings through double canopy jungle was rough. We would be dragged through the limbs of trees and treetops. The aircraft would always start to go forward before we were above the canopy and then we would be being dragged through it. This is Casper 5, we are doing, we are here to do some fishing. Ready to put four lines in the water. The Maguire rig's been removed. Watch for sandbags.

• 2:31:26Jocko Willink?

  X-Ray 5, Roger, move 12 o'clock, 40 meters and 3 o'clock, 20 meters. So this is chaos going on.

• 2:31:34Jocko Willink?

  We're over your fish bed, you're over our fish bed, drop the lines. We were receiving heavy fire and the extraction aircraft did not want to stay over us long. The strings would be 120 foot nylon ropes with a sandbag on the end of each to get them through the canopy. If they left the Maguire rigs on, the ropes, they would hang up in the canopy. This meant we had to use our nylon utility ropes measuring 12 feet to make Swiss seats while laying down and getting shot at and then hook onto the ropes while we were lying on the ground. While this was going on, four people would not be returning the NVA, fire at the NVA. Barzwell's first group to be extracted were tossing some of their loaded magazines in a pile for my group to use. We were quickly running out of survival time.

• 2:32:19Jocko Willink?

  The hourglass had only, had almost run out of sound of sand. I really didn't think there was much of a chance that my group would get out. So you're freaking surrounded. You got eight guys on the ground that need to get out. They're gonna be dropping sandbags on the end of ropes from a helicopter through the double canopy jungle that are gonna hopefully land close enough to you guys where while you're freaking laying down, you can put a piece of rope around your waist in a Swiss seat and then carabiner yourselves into these ropes. That's the plan. And you're gonna have to do that twice, by the way. And you're running out of ammunition.

• 2:33:02Speaker 02

  Yeah. It was a, it was a stressful day.

• 2:33:08Jocko Willink?

  Oh yeah, that's right. You got wounded as well. Uh.

• 2:33:14Jocko Willink?

  Here we go. I put Barshwell, Nash, Kamba, and Acat on the first aircraft strings. I wanted the two Americans, Kamba and Acat, out. I couldn't help the group get hooked up because the NVA were starting to charge our position. I was shooting some of them within 10 feet or less of our perimeter and some even inside our perimeter. My magazine ran out just before one of them jumped over my rock and landed on me. I terminated him with my K-bar to his neck, hitting his carotid artery as he landed on me. We were receiving a heavy volume of fire. The NVA realized what we were trying to do and were really trying hard to kill us and shoot our helicopter down. It wasn't every day they got a chance to shoot down a helicopter 100 feet in the air and not moving.

• 2:34:00Jocko Willink?

  We had to be careful not to use our grenades up too quickly. We were going to be fighting for a while. Casper 5, you have our fish. Go, go, straight up, fast. Have your door gunners flood the Willie Pete you are about to see, I shouted over the gunfire explosions. And yelling, Roger. I threw a white phosphorus grenade as far as I could toward the main body of the NVA.

• 2:34:23Jocko Willink?

  Willie Pete grenades were big and heavy and had a large bursting radius. I had to get it far enough away before it exploded, which was not easy while receiving a heavy volume of fire and idiots diving on me. The Willie Pete grenade created a dense white smoke with small chunks of Willie Pete landing on and burning through the NVA. The dense white smoke provided some concealment for Barshwell's group and acted as a choking point, as a choking agent in the NVA's lungs. Casper 5, this is X-Ray 5, take them straight up, over. This is Casper 5, we're taking hits. We have to get out of here. This is X-Ray 5, have your door gunners move their, their fire 25 meters north of where they're currently firing, over. Casper, Roger. The door gunners returned, continued to return fire.

• 2:35:07Jocko Willink?

  I could see the red tracers coming down to the ground and I was on the radio trying to adjust the door gunners' fire because I could see where the NVA were on the ground. I was trying to get Katuna and Hang, or Heing? How do I say his name?

• 2:35:18Speaker 02

  Hang.

• 2:35:19Jocko Willink?

  Ready to hook on the next set of ropes if there was a next set. I returned fire at the NVA as I talked to Covey to tell him where I needed the gunships to make their gun runs while I was dodging bullets. I saw that Kamba, Nash, Acat and Bargewell were getting beat up through the tree limbs. I couldn't help them now. They would have to survive the ride to firebase. Two of the fun things that SOG 1-0's got to do would be the first person off the aircraft into the firefight and the last one off the ground during extraction. But that's what SOG 1-0's did. First in, last out. I had only a couple frag grenades left and the NVA were getting ready to assault again.

• 2:35:59Jocko Willink?

  I got out my two-pound blocks of C4 and inserted the blasting caps that had been crimped on the time fuses with fuse igniters. I had only one claymore left. I set up the claymore facing the direction of the most NVA, unrolled the wire and put the clacker under the rope on my hip so it would be fastened to me and I could reach it to detonate the claymore. My plan was to set it off just before I got to the end of the wire 100 feet as I was lifted up.

• 2:36:27Jocko Willink?

  The gunships were keeping most of the NVA back from us, but a few were moving closer to us. They wanted to literally hit us and maybe the helicopter as we were being lifted up. I had always told my guys, if you were not moving, you're dying. And here we were. We couldn't move because we had to wait to be lifted up on strings through the canopy. Our death sentence seemed to be rapidly approaching. We had only three courses of action at this point. One, try to survive getting lifted out on strings if the pilot was willing to try and receive so much fire. Two, try to break contact and disappear into the jungle and hope to be found alive in a few days. Or three, make a stand here until we ran out of ammo, then throw a red smoke grenade indicating that the gunships and A1 Skyraiders were cleared hot to totally destroy our current location and take out as many NVA as they could.

• 2:37:11Jocko Willink?

  I didn't like the third option.

• 2:37:15Jocko Willink?

  I decided to have the gunships make two more passes, but much closer to our position and have the extraction ship follow right behind them. We would fasten the ropes as fast as possible and give us clearance to lift out. I would provide covering fire while assisting Katuna and Hang in hooking up. If I had time and was able, I would fasten on. If I couldn't for some reason, wounded, dead, or too much fire, I would send Katuna and Hang out and stay behind and implement course of action two or three.

• 2:37:49Jocko Willink?

  So that's what your decision is. You're gonna try and at least get these other two guys out of here. If you get the chance, you're gonna hook onto that rope.

• 2:37:57Jocko Willink?

  And if you can't, you're just gonna send them off and you're just gonna go down fighting. And call in fire on your own position. X-Ray 5, Casper 4, we are dropping ropes now. Roger, one is hung up in the canopy. Fortunately, we only needed three. Katoona and Hang hooked onto their ropes while lying on the ground behind the rocks. The gun runs were just about on top of us and they took out a few of the guys who crept in on us. I didn't have to help Katoona and Hang very much, so I just provided cover fire. Casper 4, X-Ray, take us up now, straight up. We were taking a lot of fire. I felt two really hard hits in the back, one in the radio and one in the upper left chest. It knocked the breath out of me. It literally hurt. It really hurt, but I did not think the bullets

• 2:38:38Jocko Willink?

  penetrated me. I was still alive and that was good. As I neared the end of the claymore cord, I detonated it. I was almost directly above it. It was very loud and actually took out some of the NVA and stunned me a little. So that's just freaking ridiculous. Let me explain that to people. So, you're, all this shit is going on, and as all this shit is going on, you rig up a claymore, pointed in the direction of where the biggest concentration of NVA was. And then you detonate the claymore with something called a clacker. It's just a little, it's a big button actually that you squeeze and it sends the piezoelectric

• 2:39:19Jocko Willink?

  shockwave down this wire, which is 100 feet long. And then when it gets there, it detonates the electric blasting cap and blows up. So what you did was take that clacker, stuck it in your rope, and then as you're being hoisted up out of this hole, in through the canopy, when you got to the end of that wire, you clacked off the claymore. That's some serious freaking presence of mind.

• 2:39:51Jocko Willink?

  You say I was having difficulty shooting accurately accurately or even in the right place because I was being twisted and turning and hitting limbs. I dropped two blocks of C4 with 15 second time fuse. They made a lot of noise. Now the NVA were behind me and it was difficult to shoot in that direction. I could tell both Katoona and Hang were hit because blood was dripping down on me. I had no idea how bad they were wounded. Both seemed to be alive. I tried to radio Casper and Covey, but the Pric 25 radio which had been hit by two AK-47 rounds would not work. I tried to use my URC-10 Survival Radio, but it had been hit with a large piece of shrapnel and was not working. It was covering my heart. I was very fortunate that it stopped the shrapnel. At least that part worked. But

• 2:40:36Jocko Willink?

  this left me with no way to communicate with the helicopter or Covey. It was a long ride back to the first safe place to land the helicopter. And to add to the fun, we flew over several anti-aircraft positions, but it felt good to be off the ground. And there's actually a photograph in the book, which is freaking ridiculous. And you tell the story about how you got this, but it's a picture of you and who's Hang and Cantoon and you guys are getting lowered into a different firebase after you've been in this gunfight. Look at this. Echo Charles, look at this. So a guy happened to snap the picture on an old type of Polaroid camera. I didn't

• 2:41:21Jocko Willink?

  know they had Polaroid cameras in 1969, but this guy had one. And he snapped a picture of you guys as you were getting dragged back into this firebase. And then before you took off, once you were loaded back in the helicopter, you ran over to him and gave it to him.

• 2:41:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, he saw, you know, he saw Bargewell's group come in. I mean, everybody there was just, they were in shock. I mean, you don't see, they didn't see people hanging under helicopters on ropes.

• 2:41:49Speaker 02

  And they never saw anybody coming from that direction on the other side of the border. So this was a, this was a big deal. So this guy ran back and got his little camera and he came back out. You know, cause he, they could tell another helicopter was coming. So as I came in, he, he took the picture of us as they were lowering us down. And, you know, it takes about 60 seconds for it to process and everything. And they put me in the helicopter and the other two in the helicopter. And we were just starting to lift off and he came running with his hand stuck out. And I thought, what is he doing? And, and you know, he got there just in time and I took what he had in his hand out.

• 2:42:32Speaker 02

  And I looked at it and I said, oh, look at this little picture. And I had no clue who this guy was or anything. But, you know, he gave me an actual photo of us coming in. And in, in the book, book, it talks about the ropes were not, excuse me, even. And it ended up, the rope that I had was about 10 feet longer than what the other two had. And then in the picture, you can see it, I'm hanging down below. And I mean, it was a, it was total chaos. And, you know, they were lifting up and then it pulled me off balance and I fell and bounced and went into

• 2:43:17Speaker 02

  you know, the, the thick edge and all that stuff and drug up through it. And then, you know, I'm hanging it, we're at 7,000 feet above ground level.

• 2:43:29Speaker 02

  Freezing. You know, 100 miles an hour, all this stuff.

• 2:43:33Jocko Willink?

  Soaking wet from the sweat and the heat that you just left.

• 2:43:36Speaker 02

  And oscillating back and forth. And I'm looking up and I can see my rope rubbing on the edge of the helicopter floor and it's starting to fray.

• 2:43:47Speaker 02

  You know, I'm, I'm at seven, 7,000 feet. So I'm thinking, um.

• 2:43:55Speaker 02

  That's a thirty second delay or a little more before I hit the ground. I mean, if I'm gonna go down, I mean, you know, I can do some back loops, some turns and, you know, little things before I split. Holy cow, you know, just trying to distract myself a little bit.

• 2:44:15Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it would be, it would be interesting to try and recreate that scene. Somehow like in, in a computer graphics or like a movie or something. Cause it would look totally insane. Like you can't, what you did, what your guys did is not, it's, I mean, the fact that you're alive is, is crazy. Uh, I mean, the helicopters up there, how that thing's not getting shot down, I have no idea.

• 2:44:49Jocko Willink?

  I mean, only takes one bullet to dock down a helicopter if it hits the right spot.

• 2:44:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:44:55Speaker 02

  One thing that, that helps the helicopter is if you're under double or triple canopy jungle. I mean, they were not standing, you know, right under it, shooting up at it. They're shooting at an angle, so they're going through the trees and the tree limbs and, you know, canopies and, and they can't see it unless they're really close to it. Cause it, you know, we didn't blow a hole or anything, they just drop it right down through the vegetation. So they can hear it up there, they just can't see it. And, you know, one, one thing that trees do is they deflect and in some cases stop bullets.

• 2:45:37Speaker 02

  And I, I've had conversations with gunship pilots and stuff and then one guy, Barry Pincheck, he's got a book out, he and I did a little video and it was, it was a video kinda like.

• 2:45:53Speaker 02

  Let me, let me share with you, you know, from his part. I'll, I'll tell you what it looked like to me when I was placing all that fire support down there for you. And I get to say, well, let me tell you what it looked like when it came through, or what came through. Most of the stuff you were shooting down, it, it never hit the ground. You know, because it's hitting trees and ricocheting, it's all kinds of things. It's a very different perspective from the air versus, you know, being on the ground. So that, I mean, that was fun, just kind of going back and forth about, you know, what it looked like.

• 2:46:28Jocko Willink?

  The other thing that's crazy to try and imagine is how they could find you in all that. I mean, sure, you throw out smoke, but the smoke gets dissipated.

• 2:46:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, when you're under canopy like that, you gotta use the flares. They can see, you might have to shoot two or three, but eventually wanna penetrate the canopy and come out, and they'll see it. You know, so here's a bright, bright blue, you know, flare up there.

• 2:46:55Jocko Willink?

  And for then them to come over and be able to get on that spot.

• 2:47:00Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, I'm, I'm giving them a little guidance. I mean, they, they got.

• 2:47:04Jocko Willink?

  So you're talking them on a bit.

• 2:47:06Speaker 02

  Yeah. So I'm, I'm guiding right, left, whatever.

• 2:47:09Jocko Willink?

  And meanwhile, you're rigging a claymore, rigging up 15 second time views on C4 blocks, hooking up your Swiss seat.

• 2:47:17Speaker 02

  The Swiss, yeah. The Swiss seat was, that was a pain to, because you had to lay down, had to lie on, on the ground, keep from getting shot, try to put that, you got a rucksack on, you got all this stuff on, and you're trying to fit that thing around you, and people are shooting at you. And, and the longer you don't shoot back, you know, the more they're assaulting and coming at you. And when it got down to just the three of us, you know, you didn't have a lot of firepower to start with. And then I, I knew what, I knew what Cantua and Hang were thinking, because they had

• 2:48:02Speaker 02

  asked me one day, and I'm not sure whose idea it was to ask, if it was the interpreter, Cantua or Hang, the M79 guy. And Cantua says, it says, Hang wants to know.

• 2:48:18Speaker 02

  Why we have to always come out last with you?

• 2:48:24Speaker 02

  And I said, well, because I need you guys. You're important. You're the interpreter. You and I can talk. He's the M79 guy. We need the firepower. And that's just the way we're gonna do it. You two come out last with me every time. Because we're a team and we can work together. They didn't like it.

• 2:48:44Jocko Willink?

  I was gonna say, they love that, didn't they?

• 2:48:51Jocko Willink?

  Fast forward a little bit here. So you get out of this, this is a miracle that you guys get out of here. You say, I was not happy about the resupply. Captain Welch, the recon company commander, had flown to the launch site to be part of getting our team Michigan out, to talk to me before I talked to Major Sims, and to attend the debriefing to make sure things, me, did not get out of hand. He told me before we went inside to take, to stay calm, remember I would be talking to a major, and not to hit or shoot anyone. And I had to make sure that the team did not do that either. So that's your pre-brief for the debrief. Hey, don't hit or shoot anybody.

• 2:49:33Speaker 02

  I was not happy.

• 2:49:37Jocko Willink?

  Did he have any reason at all? Like, what was his freaking thinking?

• 2:49:43Speaker 02

  They, they needed us to stay longer. And that was fine. We could stay longer. And they were determined. They were doing us a favor. If they gave us more, you know, water and batteries and stuff like that, we could stay there. Because we were, we were across the highway. And providing protection and support for the hatchet force that was down there. So we were kind of covering this whole area over here. And the NVA were coming down from up above. And they would stop and fire mortars over the platoon. Well, we could hear them. And, you know, I would call the artillery.

• 2:50:26Speaker 02

  Because I had marked targets all around there and tell them, you know, where to, where to shoot. And we were close enough to them. I mean, we'd hear them every time they'd drop around. So, they needed us over there to keep the bad guys away from them.

• 2:50:46Speaker 02

  But we could have done it differently. And at a different time. That was not, that was not a good time to do that.

• 2:50:55Jocko Willink?

  So lucky to get out of there, for sure.

• 2:50:58Speaker 02

  Definitely. Learned a lot. A lot of things you're gonna do different the next time. I was just gonna say that one of the things that, that happens is all of this stuff starts to collapse down into SOG imperatives. That when we get into book two, it kinda comes together and here it is. Do these things. You know, if you wanna go out on a SOG mission and have a successful mission, here's some things you need to do. But, you know, if you wanna run a company, if you wanna run your life, if you wanna do things, these apply.

• 2:51:43Speaker 02

  Every day, when you get up, you think you know what you're gonna do that day. But, you know, there are people out there who didn't sit in on the planning session and they're gonna mess you up. And you've gotta be able to adapt, adapt, adapt as you go along. You gotta practice. You gotta do these things that we're talking about here to be successful in everyday life, or in your business, or military, or whatever it is that you're gonna do.

• 2:52:10Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:52:10Speaker 02

  So, all of this stuff coming.

• 2:52:12Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. You know, as I was saying, oh, you were lucky to get out of there. It's a miracle you got out of there. Which, look, you already gave luck. It's fair share, right? We all understand that luck matters. At the same time, you guys planned. You guys prepared. You guys rehearsed. You knew, like, how to put that Swiss seat on. You knew how to do it in the dark. You knew how to do it in the light. You knew how to do it late. Like, you practiced those things. You knew how to rig that claymore. You knew how to get those 15-second time fuse. You know where that, where that C4 was on your gear. You could do it with your eyes closed, with your eyes open, with the bloody hands, with whatever. You and your team knew that.

• 2:52:56Jocko Willink?

  And so, even though, look, we say miracle, we say luck, which certainly you're gonna have some. But if you didn't have the rehearsals, the practice, the mindset, the attention to detail...

• 2:53:09Jocko Willink?

  The planning, you wouldn't have been able to do anything. You would have died in 15 minutes into this operation. So, yes, we give luck and miracles, they're due, for sure. But, the planning, the fact that you had all those pre-scheduled fire positions for the artillery, you were able to just call them up immediately. The interaction that you had with the aircraft overhead, like, everything that was going on was because you had planned and prepared for it. So, you practice what you preach, and in the book you preach, "Practice, practice, practice." And that's exactly what you did, and that's how you were able to survive this situation, which

• 2:53:53Jocko Willink?

  is practically unsurvivable. I mean, it's practically unsurvivable. If you wouldn't be sitting here talking to me right now, I wouldn't think that anyone would survive that. How can you survive that? Practice, preparation, skill, honing, getting better every time you do it. Like, that's what you guys did, and that's what kept you alive.

• 2:54:21Jocko Willink?

  I'm gonna fast-forward a little bit here. Mission 2, with RT Michigan, and this is, you guys are out looking for a prisoner. Prisoner snatch.

• 2:54:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, this is gonna be a good one. This is our specialty.

• 2:54:36Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:54:37Speaker 02

  My specialty, not the team. You know, I can't put it on them. There are things that happen.

• 2:54:45Jocko Willink?

  Our new mission was to conduct a prisoner snatch from Area Oscar 8. We had an insertion date of 12/11/1969. That would not give us much time to prepare. And, again, in the book, get the book. You get to read all these preparation that you do. You get to see the training that you're doing, the specialized training that you're doing. You can hear about the visual reconnaissance. I'll tell you a little bit about it. So, the visual reconnaissance, once again, this is when you're flying over the area of operations to get a look at it. Barzwell and I left out of Da Nang Airfield at daylight in an Air Force O2 Sky Master

• 2:55:24Jocko Willink?

  Observation Aircraft to fly a visual reconnaissance of the Oscar VIII area of operations. We planned to make one pass over the target area, taking photos as we flew over en route to a fake area that we would pretend to check out. It was a somewhat cloudy day and the air was very rough. As we approached the AO, the NVA welcomed us with fire from a couple 51 caliber machine guns. A round hit the right wing flap and another came through the floor, hitting the pilot in the leg. The pilot was bleeding badly, in a great deal of pain and struggling to control the plane. We were all over the sky, which actually made us more difficult to hit. Meanwhile, the rounds were still coming up at us. Another round came through the cargo compartment just behind Barzwell and out through the

• 2:56:09Jocko Willink?

  top of the plane, causing the rear engine to shut down. I said to Barzwell, "I think I've seen enough for today."

• 2:56:15Speaker 02

  He agreed.

• 2:56:17Jocko Willink?

  So you had to go and tourniquet the pilot's leg? I mean, this is freaking chaos. Just on the VR.

• 2:56:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, I hated those things.

• 2:56:27Jocko Willink?

  You didn't like going on the visual reconnaissance?

• 2:56:29Speaker 02

  No. I knew it could provide me a lot of intelligence, but it just seemed like every time I went out there, something like this happened. And I just think, "Oh geez, what are they gonna do today to screw my plan up? We're gonna shoot the pilot." "Oh, that's great."

• 2:56:48Jocko Willink?

  And Oscar VIII was a bad AO, right? Oh, yeah. Bad place. Reputation as a really bad AO. Now, in the book, you start talking about, now you've got the visual reconnaissance done, you start planning, you start the preparation, and the idea is, and it's what you talked about earlier, with being able to disable someone, an enemy, in an ambush. And basically, you make a hole in the kill zone of an ambush. So you set up an ambush on 50 yards of road, or 30 yards of road, or whatever. You put a bunch of claymores out, and you're gonna set up this ambush in such a way so

• 2:57:30Jocko Willink?

  that when an enemy patrol, four, five, six guys, comes walking through this thing, you know that at the right moment, you can initiate this ambush, cause an explosion, and it's gonna kill... Most of the people, but there's a little area, a little safe zone in the middle of the ambush where someone's gonna get a concussion, knocked out. But they're gonna survive and then you can go grab them and bring them home. That's the plan.

• 2:58:00Jocko Willink?

  Uh, you, you go on the insert, fast forward, you go on the insert, you, you conduct the, uh, on day two, you get into a good ambush position. You've been on a couple ambush positions. And I'm gonna go to the book here. Suddenly I heard a group of NVA open fire at ambush site one. Something scared them and they had opened fire randomly spraying bullets to both sides of the trail. Some bullets were coming our way. The sounds were all AK-47 except one light machine gun. They had a machine gun. The sound of the NVA ambush in, the sound of the NVA in ambush site one firing spooked the NVA in our ambush site.

• 2:58:42Jocko Willink?

  It was decision time. I had no way to warn our team to close their eyes because they were about to get hit with a blast wave and debris. It was too late. I simultaneously detonated the claymores in site one and the main ambush site. The detonation was massive. Seven claymores, five frag grenades, four pounds of C4 and automatic weapons fire from the team. I was stunned by the blast wave from the explosives. Debris, branches, rocks, dirt, smoke, a blast wave and sound hit me in the face and blinded me. The smell of gunpowder and smoke was choking. I couldn't hear. I jerked a leech

• 2:59:23Jocko Willink?

  off my face because you had leeches crawling all over you. So that's what happens. Boom. Seven claymores, five frag grenades, four pounds of C4. How far back off the ambush trail were you? How far do you think you were from the?

• 2:59:42Speaker 02

  Maybe 15 meters.

• 2:59:45Jocko Willink?

  That's gonna, that's gonna ring your bell.

• 2:59:49Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. But we had, you know, we had trees, so we had the claymores in front of the trees, so that, that helped some, but some of the blast is still gonna come around it.

• 3:00:02Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book. Wait, the team wasn't firing. Why weren't they firing? Were they knocked out, temporarily stunned? The six to 10 NVA, look, I'm skipping ahead. You gotta read the book to get the, if some of this sounds like, oh, what's that? Just because there was different ambush sites, you had them all set up at the same time. The details are in the book, get the book. The six to 10 NVA not in the kill zone were firing in random directions. Then some of the team began firing. Now the surviving NVA knew where we were and directed their fire on us. They were gaining fire superiority and we couldn't let that happen. I emptied two 20 round magazines and tossed a frag grenade. I had to get everyone

• 3:00:42Jocko Willink?

  out and returning fire quickly. I yelled, Nash, take them out. Nash, Pua, and Rapun focused their fire on the NVA and threw two frag grenades and a Willie Pete grenade at them. Bullets were flying in all directions. The Willie Pete grenade produced a shower of white phosphorus chunks that fell on the live NVA, burning them severely and creating a very dense, white choking smoke. It looked like some of the chunks were going to hit us, but they didn't. The smoke provided temporary concealment of the kill zone and in some incapacitation of the NVA. Nash, Pua, and Rapun fired into the dense smoke and into the kill zone. Most of the team dashed onto the trail to make sure all the NVA except

• 3:01:25Jocko Willink?

  the prisoners were dead and searched. Two of the three NVA that had been in the near, been in or near the hole were on their hands and knees. The third was trying to stand up. Barzwell got there first and quickly body slammed the one trying to get up, then pounced on the other. I took the third. Chung and Cantua jumped on the prisoner as soon as they hit the ground, got the cuffs on them, drugged, gagged, and headbagged them while the other guys were finishing off the NVA in the kill zone and searching them.

• 3:02:01Jocko Willink?

  Aeta, is that right? Aeta? Aeta was standing in the kill zone, providing security. So, the explosion goes off. There's a little hesitation while you guys are getting your bearings back. Now you start shooting. Sure enough, the plan worked, because in the middle of this kill zone, there was an area where there was three prisoners that were dazed, but alive. And it sounds like they weren't wounded either, which is good. The clock was ticking. We had to get out of the kill zone. Suddenly, the first group of NVA that had gone through the ambush came running back down the trail and opened fire on us. Now we were the ones, now we were the ones in the kill zone.

• 3:02:43Jocko Willink?

  Aeta was hit immediately in the abdomen and went down. I was on the ground wrestling with the prisoner and was splattered with Aeta's blood. He began yelling, "Hit, hit." I turned and shot one of the three, one of the three with a four-round burst. Cantua quickly terminated the other two, then sat on the prisoner, on prisoner three, while I dragged Aeta out of the kill zone. He was bleeding badly and his intestines were hanging out. He was in tremendous pain and screaming. I slowed Aeta's bleeding and got his intestines contained in his abdomen. I injected him with morphine, got on the radio. Cantua maintained control of prisoner three. Covey, Charlie 5, Alpha India, which meant ambush initiated.

• 3:03:28Jocko Willink?

  One brunette, which is wounded. Three popa whiskeys prisoners. Heavy contact, moving to Lima Zulu, which is the LZ, over. Roger, Charlie 5, Charlie 5, two Cobras, five mics out. Echo Hotel, extraction helicopters, standing by. So at this point, you've got these guys. Some of the NVA ran up from the trail. The heavy, they put out a heavy volume of fire. You have another guy get wounded. Chung gets wounded, he gets hit.

• 3:04:03Jocko Willink?

  This is freaking getting gnarly quick.

• 3:04:11Speaker 02

  Well, it was, you know, we wouldn't have ambushed that group.

• 3:04:16Speaker 02

  If the ones coming behind them hadn't reacted on that first ambush site and spooked these guys.

• 3:04:23Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 3:04:23Speaker 02

  So we had to set it off. So everybody, everybody wasn't in the kill zone.

• 3:04:27Jocko Willink?

  Right.

• 3:04:28Speaker 02

  You know, and there were more people than we had planned to do, but sometimes you don't have that option to not do something. So we had to go ahead and set it off and, and do the best that we could. And then that first little group that went through, went up a butt, they turned and came running back down. And, you know, by that time we were out in the kill zone, searching, bagging, all that stuff. So, yeah, it got a little gnarly there.

• 3:05:00Jocko Willink?

  Fast forward a little bit. We had three prisoners handcuffed behind their backs, gagged, head bagged, drugged, and secured with ankle ropes.

• 3:05:09Jocko Willink?

  This was an eight foot rope we tied to one ankle so we could jerk their foot and cause them to face plan if they tried to run. A fourth group of approximately 25 to 30 NVA came up the trail and engaged Nash and Pua. Pua was rapidly firing 40 millimeter high explosive rounds at the NVA, causing them to take cover. This fourth group seemed to be increasing in number. We tried to escape down the slope toward the LZ, but they were gaining on us. We couldn't move fast with the prisoners fighting us every step of the way to slow us down. They kept throwing themselves on the ground and fighting to prevent us from getting them up and moving. Bargewell carried Atiya, or Ada. Nash assisted Chung and returned fire. I yelled to Nash to help Pua and put

• 3:05:51Jocko Willink?

  out some claymores with time fuses to slow down our pursuers. I took control of prisoner three from Pua. He put out a claymore with a time fuse. A group of NVA ran in front of the claymore kill zone just as it detonated. It ripped a hole through their assault line and shredded them. While we were trying to regroup, another claymore detonated, hitting a few more of them. The second blast really increased their fear of chasing us, but they did it anyways. They moved slower, however, and were hesitant to get too close to us. Pua put several 40 millimeter rounds in and around them in rapid succession and slowed them down. Covey, Charlie five, where are the snakes? We need them now. They're just coming on station and the snakes is the cobras.

• 3:06:31Jocko Willink?

  Roger Covey, 30 seconds out. Get your heads down. I yelled to my team, "Cobra's coming in. Everyone get down. Protect your head." Some of the bullets were stopped in the high up in the trees with some of the 40mm, but most were getting through and hitting some of the NVA. It was difficult for the bullets to get through the triple canopy. This is five. "Good run, good run. Do it again." There was a loud boom and a flash that Covey saw from the air. Nash made his way to Rapun and Prisoner 2 to see how badly they were injured. He yelled, "Prisoner 2 is dead." Rapun has shrapnel in his leg and arm, bleeding, can't walk. "I've got him." "Nash, make sure Prisoner 2 is dead and leave him. We gotta go." I yelled back, "This is five. Crap." "They just took out Prisoner 2 with an RPG and we've got another brunette that can't walk." "Wait, out."

• 3:07:15Jocko Willink?

  "This is five. Marking position again. ID color. I've got a white flare." "Roger that. Make it, make the run 50 meters south of my position, flying east to west." "Danger close. Do it now."

• 3:07:26Jocko Willink?

  And again, this is the kind of stuff that you're doing right now because you're a lot better at it than you were when you were on your first mission.

• 3:07:37Jocko Willink?

  The NVA had massed about 20 meters out from us and were assaulting. "Take cover. They are assaulting us. Throw some grenades. Switch to auto." "Pua, put some 40mm on them," I shouted. They were dropping like flies, but more were coming. I was firing from behind a tree and just as I finished a magazine, I saw an NVA five feet from Cantua, whose weapon was empty. And Prisoner 3. I drew my Colt 45 and shot at the NVA soldier twice. The impact of the bullets literally picked him up off the ground and threw him backwards. Wow, 45 hits hard. "Don't let them get away. Keep firing." I reloaded and got a couple more of them as they were retreating. So did Cantua. "Cantua, lead us to the LZ."

• 3:08:19Jocko Willink?

  "I'm a, I'm a little busy, Covey," I yelled back over the heavy volume of gunfire explosions and me yelling something about NVA's ancestors in the background. This is five, a group of NVA just made the final assault of their lives. Put the first napalm 150 meters south of my position, flying east to west. Danger close, don't miss. We are moving towards the LZ. I shouted, "Michigan, get down, napalm, 20 seconds out." The napalm hit the trees, but a lot of it came to the ground, right on the NVA. If it gets on you, it won't come off, it just sticks and burns. The smoke was so thick under the canopy, our eyes were burning and we couldn't see, and we're having trouble breathing. The smell was sickening. Pua and prisoner one were both throwing up.

• 3:09:01Jocko Willink?

  I accidentally pressed the push to talk button before I finished talking to the team. Check ammo and redistribute.

• 3:09:09Jocko Willink?

  Sorry, Covey, it's a little chaotic down here. Put the second napalm 100 east of my position, flying north, south to north. Roger, second napalm, 30 seconds out. Get on the ground with something between you and the napalm ASAP. I yelled, "Michigan, on the ground, napalm, 20 seconds out, cover your head." Most of this one came to the ground. It was on the NVA, but almost hit us. This stuff scared me. "Take out the torches," I shouted. The napalm had burned away a lot of the vegetation, making it easier to see the NVA and shoot them. I kept saying to myself, "This is the humane thing to do."

• 3:09:44Jocko Willink?

  Five, get down. Third napalm, 30 seconds out. Roger that, it's barbecue time.

• 3:09:51Jocko Willink?

  Michigan, get down, napalm, 20 seconds out. Another good drop right on the NVA. The smell of overcooked human flesh, smoke and low oxygen air makes you want to vomit. I watched as Cantua and Chung began throwing up.

• 3:10:08Jocko Willink?

  The napalm stopped the NVA advancement toward us. We grabbed the prisoners, Barshwell picked up Ada, Nash picked up Rapun, and made a run for the LZ before the NVA regrouped and came after us. We were only about 200 meters from the LZ. I had put the last napalm between us and the LZ to clear a path. It definitely did that. Quite a few of the charred bodies were still burning as we moved through the area. The smell was gross. There was little oxygen in the air, making it difficult to breathe, and it was very smoky and burned our eyes. We were sweating so much, it was running into our eyes and making it even more difficult to see. We moved as fast as we could with the two prisoners, fighting every step, and three wounded team members, two of whom were being carried. We were all soaking wet from the heat, humidity, running, fighting, and dragging prisoners.

• 3:10:52Jocko Willink?

  We were dehydrated, thirsty, exhausted, running on pure adrenaline, but getting closer to the extraction LZ.

• 3:11:03Jocko Willink?

  Two prisoners, three wounded.

• 3:11:09Speaker 02

  And they, you know, the prisoners, they had rather die than be a prisoner. They'd been indoctrinated so much and told what all horrible things we were gonna do to them if we caught them. So they would do anything to prevent us from getting them, you know, to the helicopter. They'd throw themselves on the ground. I mean, they would take your weapon, they would do anything that they could to try to stop it.

• 3:11:38Speaker 02

  And at the same time, their guys are trying to shoot them. Cause they didn't want them to go out either. So, I mean, they were trying to rock in a hard place. They think we're gonna, you know, carve them up, mutilate them. Their guys are trying to shoot them.

• 3:11:51Jocko Willink?

  They're the only people in the world in a worse spot than you guys were.

• 3:11:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:11:56Jocko Willink?

  What drugs did you put in them?

• 3:11:58Speaker 02

  Morphine.

• 3:11:59Jocko Willink?

  Just morphine them up?

• 3:12:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:12:05Jocko Willink?

  Going back to the book, when we were about 100 meters from the LZ, we hit a wall of withering AK RPG and RPD fire. Boom, boom. The heat and blast wave from the RPGs temporarily blinded us.

• 3:12:20Jocko Willink?

  Michigan, get down. Use single shots. Covey, we are in heavy contact on the south side of the LZ. Got any more napalm? This is Covey. Yes, where you want it? I want this, I want the center mass of the, of, I want the center mass to be 30 meters north of the tree line on the south edge of the LZ. Fly east to west. Danger close. Actually, very close. Don't miss. Roger that. Stand by. This is Covey. The gates of hell will open in 30 seconds. Get down. Roger. Michigan, get down. Napalm, 20 seconds out. Danger close.

• 3:12:52Jocko Willink?

  During those 20 seconds, the NVA fired an RPG close to prisoner three and hit him with shrapnel and peppered me with shrapnel. I could feel the heat and blast from the RPG. Cantua was with prisoner three. Prisoner three was bleeding badly. I couldn't do anything for him until after the napalm strike. The napalm hit very close, resulting in most of the team receiving small burns. This stuff was really scary to use. One miscalculation and the entire team would be crispy critters. I scrambled to prisoner three and began trying to stop some of the bleeding. I looked up and saw a torch coming toward me. Cantua, take over. But not just any torch. This one was dragging an RPG by the barrel. I hit him in the chest with a three round burst from my Kar-15 and the torch and machine

• 3:13:37Jocko Willink?

  gun were gone. All future generations that could come from him were instantly erased. My pant leg was on fire. I tried to pat that out, but it would just spread and got on my glove. Now my glove was burning too, and it was hot. I grabbed a handful of mud and my glove went out. I rubbed the mud on my pant legs and put the flame out. It lit up again. I put more mud on and realized my shirt sleeve was burning. Again, I rubbed mud on it to put it out. Napalm was hard to extinguish.

• 3:14:02Speaker 02

  It's like, like that old Jody call about napalm. Napalm sticks like glue. I mean, you can't get it off of you.

• 3:14:21Jocko Willink?

  This is five. That was a little closer than I expected. It fried the bad guys, but we have gotten some burns and suntan through our clothes. We might even, we are ready to go home. Can you get us out of here? Roger that. We have two birds on final approach escorted by Cobra. Standby for extraction. Roger. We'll be wearing orange hats. Expect a lot of ground fire. Standing by. Michigan, turn your hats orange. I yelled to my team. The first load will be Bargewell, Nash, prisoner one, Aeta and Pua. There'll be a lot of ground fire. We have to load fast or they'll leave it, or, or they will leave us. Keep the prisoner secured. Prisoner one resisted getting on the helicopter until Barshwell punched him in the jaw. He staggered and dropped to his knees. Barshwell grabbed him and threw him in the helicopter. It seemed like it took a long time to load the wounded.

• 3:15:06Jocko Willink?

  My job was to provide supporting fire. Barshwell and Nash were doing a great job loading the wounded without injuring them. They finally, they find, they were finally in and lifting off. I could hear the metallic clangs of bullets hitting their chopper. The second aircraft was on short final. I had the wounded prisoner three, Cantua Chung and Rapun with me. We were receiving a lot of fire, but our prisoner three was not resisting. Cantua and I helped the others get aboard what, and we lifted off about two minutes after Barshwell's aircraft. The ground fire was still coming at us and the helicopter received several hits as we were leaving. I dropped the red smoke grenade. The Cobras were ripping the area around the LZ apart with mini guns, 40 millimeters and rockets. Spads were working more napalm, 250 pound bombs and 20, 20 millimeter machine guns higher and lower on the ridge,

• 3:15:51Jocko Willink?

  trying to interdict the flow of troops on the ridgeline to suppress the ground fire. As I watched the fireworks show around us, I took a deep breath, let it out slowly and thought we just might make it out of here. Cubby, this is five. Thanks. We really appreciate you, what you guys did for us today. Outstanding job. We'll take you, carry you back at the ranch. I sat back to relax. A few minutes later, I was looking at Barshwell's helicopter in front of us and thinking that although the team was banged up pretty badly, it was, it was, it was a successful mission. We got out with two prisoners. Then it happened. I saw a body fall from Barshwell's helicopter.

• 3:16:32Jocko Willink?

  I had on a headset, so I was able to ask our pilot how high we were and would he ask the lead aircraft for what happened? He told me we were at 2,300 feet AGL and apparently the prisoner had got loose and dove out of the helicopter, still handcuffed and head bagged. He was last seen as he disappeared headfirst into the jungle canopy, 2,300 feet below, traveling somewhere between 160 and 180 miles per hour.

• 3:17:06Jocko Willink?

  So, um, you get back with your prisoner and he dies as well.

• 3:17:13Speaker 02

  Died on the table. Just, you know, if you get hit in the legs or the, the arms, you know, you can use tourniquets, there's things you can do, you can stop the bleeding, but you know, if you're hit, you know, in your torso, I mean, you just can't get there easily to stop the bleeding and eventually you're gonna bleed out, so.

• 3:17:41Jocko Willink?

  You guys were not good with your, uh, prisoner?

• 3:17:45Speaker 02

  No, no.

• 3:17:49Jocko Willink?

  That's a tough freaking mission. I mean, it's hard enough to go and kill them, but to go not kill them and try and bring them back as they're resisting.

• 3:17:59Speaker 02

  There, I mean, there are ways to do it. Um, I mean, a lot of teams brought prisoners back.

• 3:18:04Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, they did it. I mean, you were close. You got two on the birds.

• 3:18:09Speaker 02

  Yeah. And, um, yeah, I'm sure some of it's me because I had opportunities you'll see in book two that, um, it just didn't work out. But, uh, yeah.

• 3:18:29Jocko Willink?

  Is that where you got your second nickname Terminator?

• 3:18:32Speaker 02

  It was beginning to build out. The, the name really didn't come about until, you know, several years later.

• 3:18:40Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 3:18:41Speaker 02

  With another group, but people had known me or knew about me and some things happened and, you know, I got a different code name.

• 3:18:53Jocko Willink?

  And this is before, this is before the movie Terminator, just so you know, Echo Charles.

• 3:18:57Speaker 01

  Impressive.

• 3:18:58Jocko Willink?

  This is, this is where the Terminator got their name for their movie, right?

• 3:19:04Jocko Willink?

  Some of the lessons you got here, needed more practice securing a violently resisting prisoner loaded with adrenaline. Uh, another one, trying to communicate during a firefight, especially if we are trying to escape is very difficult. Need to have Americans in the right places to relay commands. Need more medical trailing, especially, uh, medical training, especially controlling bleeding.

• 3:19:26Jocko Willink?

  You have a psychological lessons learned on this one. We need to stay busy between missions. Inactivity allows fear to creep in. What was that all about?

• 3:19:40Speaker 02

  When you have, you know, a really tough mission, like a couple of these here. It spooks the team as they think about it. If you just give them time off and let them go drink and party, do whatever they want to do. Then, you know, those fears can start to come in. So I started trying to keep them busy. And then later on, in book two, Lynn Black, you know, had the same thoughts. So he and I got together and found some interesting things to do. Interesting things to do between missions. Just to, you know.

• 3:20:25Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you say, what's one of your other lessons related to it? There's a deck, there's a direct relation between time between missions and level of fear. And then at the same, also you say, we need time to heal physically and psychologically between missions. So you need to be, you need time, but you need to stay busy during that time.

• 3:20:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:20:46Jocko Willink?

  We need time between missions to correct problems and train for the next one. The physical and psychological effects of wearing a headset was stunning. In addition to providing, so I didn't mention this part, but you, this is one of the missions where you first wore a headset inside the helicopter, which means you could hear communications in the helicopter and you weren't getting your ears. People have no idea how loud it is in a freaking helicopter. Like if you watch a movie, people, you see people like talking in a helicopter. No, there's not, you can't, you have, you have to get in someone's ear and yell. So you say, in addition to providing real time battlefield information, also gave me the ability to adapt the insertion plan while we were still in the air, have more control of the insertion, manage fear, focus and relax,

• 3:21:29Jocko Willink?

  be fully in the game before arrival at LZ and preserve hearing now and in the future.

• 3:21:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, so, you know, one of the things, like, preserve hearing, like you were just talking about, it's so loud in the aircraft, that when you get off and run into the jungle, and you go do your security halt, your eyes adjust, your smell adjust, all of those things adjust, your ears can take several hours before you get all of your hearing back.

• 3:22:02Jocko Willink?

  Now, did you guys even have, like, you know, the little foamy things to stick in your ears, or anything like that?

• 3:22:08Speaker 02

  Yes. But, we had been programmed, those were for the range. Protect your hearing on the range. Now, after I left, some smart guys said, "Why don't we wear those things on the helicopter? We can take them out when we go off the helicopter, we take them out and put them in our pocket." So, you know, General Bo Ray, I mean, his group did it all the time. You know, he came about three months after I left, and, you know, some smart guys had said, "Put them in your ears. Take them out when you get there."

• 3:22:48Jocko Willink?

  You refer a lot in the book to the blinding flash of the obvious.

• 3:22:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:22:53Jocko Willink?

  That's one of them right there.

• 3:22:54Speaker 02

  So, I mean, I was so, I was so impressed by what I could do with that headset before I got on the ground, how much adaptation I could do, how much it helped me just to remain focused, um, yeah, I mean, that was great. And then, if you look around now, I mean, all the operators have headsets that go with them when they get on the ground. You know, so you can hear each other talk and everything, and you have enhanced hearing because it can amplify the sound, there's all kinds of things, and it cuts off, you know, at 85 decibel if a gun fires. So, I mean, just, super.

• 3:23:39Speaker 02

  But, before that, you got off the helicopter, and you were deaf.

• 3:23:45Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I can't, I can't imagine what your hearing sounded like.

• 3:23:48Speaker 02

  But yeah, we, we'd go in that security hall and sit there for 15 minutes and think, we got it. Now we can hear.

• 3:23:57Jocko Willink?

  Uh, you mentioned this before, but I, here it is again, napalm. Napalm puts the fear of God, or maybe the devil, in the NVA. It is the most horrible, cruel, terrifying, physically and psychologically damaging weapon in our arsenal. It creates a lot of human torches. Enemy soldiers covered with burning napalm blindly stumbling around as they are being consumed by fire. The enemy survivors, if there are any, never get over the screams, smells, pain, lack of oxygen in the air, choking air, smoke and visual images they see. The experience is literally burned into their brains and minds.

• 3:24:42Jocko Willink?

  The, the team that delivers the napalm never gets over the experience. Calling it in scares me because I know the slightest miscalculation by anyone in the process can cause it to hit the good guys. All of the team received some burns this time, but sometimes you have to choose to save the team at all costs.

• 3:25:03Jocko Willink?

  What's up with the, uh, the lack of oxygen in the air? So the, the napalm burns and it burns all the oxygen.

• 3:25:12Speaker 02

  It has to have the oxygen in the air to, to burn.

• 3:25:15Jocko Willink?

  And so it, it literally makes it hard to breathe?

• 3:25:17Speaker 02

  It just takes, takes it out. So, I mean, you're, you're sucking in nitrogen, but you're not getting the oxygen that you need to breathe. So, you know, choking. You're taking a breath, but you don't feel like you, you've got any air. You're suffocating.

• 3:25:37Speaker 02

  You know, if you're right there in the middle of it, those guys don't get any.

• 3:25:40Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 3:25:41Speaker 02

  It's all gone. But just around it, you know, it's, the air has a lot less oxygen in it.

• 3:25:48Jocko Willink?

  This one that burned you guys, like the one that's on your sleeve, it hits your sleeve and pant leg. How far were you from that impact?

• 3:25:56Speaker 02

  Hmm. It was supposed to be like a hundred, hundred and fifty meters or so. But when it hit the canopy, it scatters and it goes all over. And, you know, it was just a little too close to us.

• 3:26:15Speaker 02

  But it's, I mean, if you, if you've ever watched them drop those things, it's,

• 3:26:22Speaker 02

  you know, it's in a canister. It's not like a bomb. It's just in a long canister. And when they release it and they turn it loose.

• 3:26:32Jocko Willink?

  Tumbles.

• 3:26:33Speaker 02

  It just tumbles. And how they get as accurate weather as they do, I don't know, because it's just tumbling. And then, you know, when it goes into the trees, first real hard limb, big limb, it hits, it breaks the canister and that sets it off. If you're dropping it out in a relatively open area, you know, it tumbles and it hits pretty close to where it's supposed to be. It has a nice burn pattern when it comes out. But, you know, I, in fact, I saw a, um, a discussion on Facebook, I think it was last week, and people were saying, that anybody up north use napalm

• 3:27:19Speaker 02

  because of the canopy. And most people were saying, I don't, I don't know how you could. And I said, I did all the time.

• 3:27:27Speaker 02

  But you, you know, you, you take a real chance, you have to put it farther away, it's going to scatter, you have to know that.

• 3:27:37Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I mean, for something to be, to smell so bad that guys are puking while they're in combat.

• 3:27:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, it's just the charred flesh, the burning flesh, it just puts out such a smell that it just invokes that vomit response and, you know, people start to vomit.

• 3:27:59Jocko Willink?

  Another lesson learned you got here, the prisoners fought us the whole time and really slowed our movement, especially under fire. They made, they also made loading the aircraft difficult. Bardswell had to knock out his prisoner to get him on the helicopter and he still managed to jump out. This is a very mentally and physically fatiguing operation start to finish. We needed more physical training.

• 3:28:24Jocko Willink?

  You also talked about Bardswell, which you mentioned already today, that he, he had seen that RPD and really wanted to start using that, that belt fed machine gun. And First Lieutenant Ken Bowra.

• 3:28:37Speaker 02

  Bowra.

• 3:28:37Jocko Willink?

  Bowra.

• 3:28:38Speaker 02

  Bowra.

• 3:28:39Jocko Willink?

  Bowra, another guy that became a major general.

• 3:28:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:28:43Jocko Willink?

  Who also carried that.

• 3:28:45Speaker 02

  He carried, actually, Bardswell gave him his RPD.

• 3:28:50Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 3:28:51Speaker 02

  So, you know, I look back at that and I'd say, well, gee, Bardswell carried that thing and he became a major general. The lieutenant he gave it to became a major general. I should have said, give it to me. You know, let me try it.

• 3:29:04Jocko Willink?

  Give me the lucky gun.

• 3:29:05Speaker 02

  But then I go back and look, nah, you know, those two guys are good. Yeah, I caused too much trouble.

• 3:29:15Jocko Willink?

  Now, at this juncture in, in the deployment for you, I don't know if this is considered a break or not, but you guys get put on Marble Mountain security for 10 days. This is, is this considered downtime for you guys?

• 3:29:28Speaker 02

  Supposed to be a break.

• 3:29:29Jocko Willink?

  Supposed to be a break.

• 3:29:33Jocko Willink?

  There's two, basically, there's a big outside CCN, there's a, there's a mountain range, Marble Mountain, and you guys put two different combat outposts on top of those so that the enemy couldn't get them and fire down into you. And so you guys will rotate up there. And this is the compound, this is the compound that got overrun or nearly overrun. Twenty-three August, nineteen sixty-eight, seventeen SF guys were killed. And one of the reasons it got nearly overrun was because they gave, they gave up the high ground or the enemy took the high ground. So you guys put combat outposts up there to prevent that from happening again. And you guys get this tasking to go up there. So um.

• 3:30:16Jocko Willink?

  You get up there and I mean, it's, here's a, here's, here's what we're dealing with. The sunset was beautiful from the combat outpost, but it was the lull before the storm. Around twenty thirty, we came under heavy fire from the small plateau between us and combat outpost two. This gave me an opportunity to play with my M sixty machine gun. I engaged the enemy with a heavy barrage of seven six two and was joined by the M sixty on cop two. It was nice not to have to carry the heavy M sixty or the ammo. Um, you guys start doing uh ARs after each day. During the AR, we noticed that the sandbags around our position had not fared well during the attack. Barge well put in a request for fifty full sandbags along with more ammunition to be delivered by lunch.

• 3:31:01Jocko Willink?

  We also discussed the following and you got a bunch of things that we

• 3:31:06Jocko Willink?

  that you put in here that you dealt with. And one of them is this kind of claustrophobic feeling that you got. I had become so used to shooting and moving that my position felt almost claustrophobic on the peak. We could not maneuver. So this is a new feeling for you.

• 3:31:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:31:23Jocko Willink?

  And you don't like it.

• 3:31:24Speaker 02

  No.

• 3:31:25Jocko Willink?

  Uh, nowhere to go.

• 3:31:29Jocko Willink?

  Uh, you say in hindsight, I find it difficult to believe we did not wear helmets and flak jackets in this static position, which is definitely you get up there and you don't have to carry them anywhere, but you're not, don't have.

• 3:31:42Jocko Willink?

  Fast forward a couple of days, day three, around 11 o'clock on day three, the TAC called and said, I needed to report to recon company TAC. A visitor was waiting for me. That was all they would say. I took Cantona and hang and we made our way down the mountain. I was in total shock when I saw who was waiting for me. It was my cousin Carl from the Thompson's Rangers. This is when you were a kid. I knew he was in country on his third tour in Vietnam, but did not expect to see him out while I was out at CCN. I especially did not to expect to see him inside a top secret SOG compound that few people outside of SOG knew existed. How did he know I was there and how did he talk his way into a restricted compound? He'd always amazed me with that, with what he could do. He said he had a few

• 3:32:26Jocko Willink?

  days leave from golf company 75th Rangers and came up to see me. I explained that my team was securing the cop and I had to go back up there, but if he didn't mind getting shot at while he was on leave, I could show him a good time. He was all in. We ate in the mess hall and then we went to the supply room where he signed for a CAR 15, some tactical gear, rucks, lerps, ammo, and an IV of Ringer Solution, poncho and a liner. He declined the helmet and flak jacket and we headed up the mountain. It was great to see him and serve in the combat for a few days together like we did when we were kids. I would have felt better if he had taken the helmet and flak jacket because this time the bad guys could be shooting back with AK-47s and RPGs. The enemy did not disappoint us. They attacked several times during the night. I think they knew we had a new person with us on the mountain

• 3:33:10Jocko Willink?

  and wanted to welcome cousin Carl.

• 3:33:14Jocko Willink?

  So he takes leave and his leave is to go. Did he tell you how he found you? How'd he find you?

• 3:33:20Speaker 02

  He never really divulged his sources. But I mean, he, you know, once he was out of the service, he became a car salesman. If you stopped by his car lot to ask him for directions somewhere, he'd tell you a car.

• 3:33:37Jocko Willink?

  You were leaving with a car.

• 3:33:37Speaker 02

  Yeah. He could talk anybody into anything. Then somehow he talked his way into a top secret compound. I mean, it was unreal.

• 3:33:51Jocko Willink?

  Um, day four, you guys are up there, you start getting a little bored. So what do you do when you're bored? You go out and start clearing caves. There's caves on these, on this mountain.

• 3:34:03Jocko Willink?

  This was interesting. You're clearing one of these caves. We did not find anyone in the cave across from us, but we did see a lot of dried blood. We went into the, one of the lower caves. We surprised two NVA. Carl put one of them down right away. Then we started dodging our own bullets because you're shooting around in a rock cave. We were educated on what happens when you start shooting in a stone cave. Ricochets, each bullet was bouncing off two or three walls before it stopped. After a few minutes, we got the hang of it and took out the other bad guy. We searched them and left their bodies outside the cave and returned to COP1. Campbell thought we should put the two NVA's heads on stakes as a warning to the other NVA. I told him to resheat this knife. We're not going to do that. He and Pua were not happy. They, they want to do some psychological operations.

• 3:34:44Speaker 02

  Put them on a stake.

• 3:34:50Jocko Willink?

  Fast forward a couple more days, um, about 1300, this is day six, 1300. Hank and Kambo asked if they could make a quick run down to the village. No trouble, they said. Hank said they would be back in an hour. Barshwell agreed and said they could go, but they needed, they had to take Cantua, Pua, and the radio with them. 20 minutes later, 20 minutes after they left, we heard two car 15 gunshots, followed immediately by Cantua on the radio saying, no problem, we come home.

• 3:35:16Jocko Willink?

  Barshwell said, they've done something. I can hear it in Cantua's voice. Uh, turns out they went to, uh, some kind of, I guess some kind of monastery?

• 3:35:23Speaker 02

  About halfway up, there was a monastery.

• 3:35:26Jocko Willink?

  And they shot a monk dog. The monks had a dog. They shot him and came back into camp and says, monk dog, they eat. Barshwell almost lost it. He had, he shared some very heated words with Hank and Kanua, Cantua to interpret them. Barshwell was not happy with them. They'd killed the monk's dog and they were going to eat it. The evening meal was dog and rice. Barshwell, Carl, and I had larks. Actual Carl did have a small portion of dog with rice, just to maintain the team bond. Day seven, AAR. We spent time on no heads on sticks and no eating monks' dogs. Those were the debrief points.

• 3:36:13Speaker 02

  Well, you know, mountain yards, and some Vietnamese, you know, they love the dog. But if you saw a mountain yard squeezing a dog, kind of feeling of it.

• 3:36:27Jocko Willink?

  That thing's done.

• 3:36:28Speaker 02

  It was gonna disappear.

• 3:36:32Speaker 02

  They were gonna eat it.

• 3:36:36Jocko Willink?

  All right, but we briefed them. We can't put any heads on stakes and we can't eat the monks' dogs. Couple of days later, just after 2100, a large group of NVA opened fire on both cops with AK-47s and RPGs from the backside of the plateau. Couple of B-40 rockets went over the cop and down towards CCN compound, but hit short of the defensive wire. Called for flares from the mortar crews. At the same time this was happening, a marine compound on the other side of the village was attacked. We could see a heavy exchange of fire. Marines called 155mm artillery to help defend their position. With our cops lit up five flares, the snipers decided to join the party. Then a second group of NVA

• 3:37:15Jocko Willink?

  opened fire from positions much closer to us. They had the dark night to slip in closer than normal. We were definitely slugging it out with them. After about 20 minutes while communicating back and forth with the SSG, with Staff Sergeant Saunders on Cop 2 over the radio, I slipped in a comment that if we had a case of beer, we'd be having a real party up here.

• 3:37:37Jocko Willink?

  So then fast forward to the end of that gunfight. While observing the absence of bodies in the TAC, the TAC called for an update to let me know the CCN commander wanted me to report to his office at 0800.

• 3:37:50Jocko Willink?

  When I got to Lieutenant Colonel Isler's office, he confronted me about the drinking and partying going on at my cop. I assured him that was not the case. He said he heard me say if I had another case of beer. I told him that a case of beer was just banter while I was pinned down in fighting position, not able to return fire.

• 3:38:08Jocko Willink?

  His final words were, "No partying on the mountain." I said, "Yes, sir."

• 3:38:15Jocko Willink?

  Did a quick AAR. Even though we were going back to CCN, I discussed being careful about what was said on the radio. Cantua inserted, "Colonel, like NVA, always listen."

• 3:38:29Jocko Willink?

  Oh, that was, uh, that was classic. I, I actually always had a rule, no joking on the radio. That was a, a rule that I had. I had seen a couple. I had one of my officers. He was, we were on a ship, Navy ship, and on a Navy ship, there's something called Navy Red, which is like what every ship, you know, every Navy ship is listening to. And for some reason, we were in the bridge of the ship and we were talking to my lieutenant, junior grade was talking to like our commander on another, on the mothership. And he was, my young lieutenant

• 3:39:10Jocko Willink?

  was pissed about something that we were getting told to do. And so over this, he says, whiskey, tango, foxtrot, over. And he got in a, he got in trouble for that one. Um, and so I, from that time on, I made a rule. It's like, no, never joke around on the radio. So, uh, can't be asking for that extra case of beer. Uh, lessons learned. You say being in a static defensive fighting position is different. They know exactly where you are than a team fighting and maneuvering. Sandbags got shredded very quickly. Snipers, get your attention. Be careful what you say on the radio. Eating the monks' dogs did not make the monks happy. Good lesson learned.

• 3:39:57Jocko Willink?

  Uh, mission three, search and destroy.

• 3:40:05Jocko Willink?

  RT Michigan's mission was to search, find and destroy an NVA regimental unit. So now we're going after 2,000 men operating near the Laos, north of Vietnam border.

• 3:40:22Jocko Willink?

  You insert by the king bees. You say this, I could smell decomp in the air. Soon, Kamba signaled that he smelled it too. We found a day old, partially eaten deer. Cantua said, tigers. That got everyone's attention. This, this was a yard team. They grew up in the jungle and were very familiar with what tigers could do to a human. Kamba became even more vigilant. Within two hours after our insertion, we heard bamboo clackers being used by trackers and a muffled dog bark. We were not expecting dogs, dogs or tigers. A few minutes later, Pua found tiger scat.

• 3:41:07Jocko Willink?

  Around 20, fast forward, you're, you're in your layup position for the night. Around 2200, we heard a muffled dog bark and yelp about a hundred meters from us. Cantua whispered, tiger eat dog. This number 10, not good. I knew no one would sleep that night. This is, this is a little, uh, I picked that up from tilt, from tilt, like the one through 10. This is number 10, not good. This is as bad as it's gonna get. Freaking tigers out there. And you got a picture of a tiger in the book and it is, look at this, Echo Charles.

• 3:41:46Speaker 02

  And that's actually a small one.

• 3:41:47Jocko Willink?

  You can tell it's small, but I'll tell you what, his teeth aren't small. That thing looks horrifying. That thing looks horrifying.

• 3:41:55Speaker 02

  A tiger, a full grown tiger can take your head off with one swipe. Just decapitates you. They can reach into a fighting position and, and there were documented cases where a lot of Marines were in a fighting positions at night and a tiger came by, reached in, grabbed a hold of him, drug him out and ran off in the jungle.

• 3:42:22Jocko Willink?

  I was in Sri Lanka when there was a civil war going on over in Sri Lanka and we were working with their special operations group, but they said that the tigers would swim into the, like close coastal waters and grab fishermen out of their boats.

• 3:42:47Jocko Willink?

  So that's what we're dealing with here.

• 3:42:52Jocko Willink?

  You, you, you eventually you start putting in airstrikes. Once you guys, once you guys start putting in airstrikes, because the accuracy of the airstrikes, the NVA know that you're there. And so now they start stepping up their patrols. They really start looking for you.

• 3:43:08Jocko Willink?

  Fast forward a little bit, you guys are trying to get away.

• 3:43:13Jocko Willink?

  And then you're, you're holed up and going to the book around 3:30. We heard a tiger get a dog and its handler. The handler's scream was scary as the NVA continued to get closer to finding us. We got lucky. Covey brought in an A C 130 Spectre gunship that could link to our Spectre transponder and shoot all around us without having to mark our position with flares or strobe lights. The NVA could see. Technology was continuing to enhance SOG's SOG RT's mission abilities.

• 3:43:47Jocko Willink?

  So you heard a tiger then freaking kill a dog and its handler.

• 3:43:52Jocko Willink?

  Does the, does the tiger make noise or no? Just hear the dog whimpering and screaming and then you hear a man screaming and whimpering?

• 3:44:00Speaker 02

  They're very, you know, they're nocturnal hunters. They're very quiet. It's amazing. As big as they are, they don't make any noise. And, and I deal with this on a regular basis because a feral cat has decided I'm his new BFF. But, but anyway, they hunt at night.

• 3:44:27Speaker 02

  But they have excellent night vision because the, there's a membrane in their eyes. It causes the light to reflect around and it gives them this enhanced night vision. And that's why if you shine a light on a animal that has that great night vision, their eyes show up. I mean, they just light up like a deer, a raccoon, a cat. Their eyes, you know, just like spotlights almost. And they can see and, and they have much higher frequency hearing than a dog.

• 3:45:08Speaker 02

  So like a, a house cat, feral cat, I mean, they can hear those little squeaks, little tiny sounds that mice and other animals that they eat make, they can track those things down. I came home from work the other day and walked into the garage and my cat's all laying back in the garage like he owns the place and laying in front of him is a half of a rat. So he honored me by giving me half of his rat and they do that.

• 3:45:43Jocko Willink?

  Showing their respect.

• 3:45:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:45:46Jocko Willink?

  Why was this area a different AO where these tigers were?

• 3:45:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, they, they, they hunted a pretty good sized area, but, um, I mean, rarely did my teams ever, you know, encounter them. We would see there was a, another place, I don't remember exactly where it was now, but a place where you could see that, um, they had cut down big, um, pieces of bamboo and really sharpened the ends of them and put them in the ground so they were pointed out like that, just kind of made a, like a, a fence around the area to try to keep the tigers from coming in because they'd walk into the bamboo.

• 3:46:35Speaker 02

  But, you know, but we didn't, didn't see any actual tigers or any evidence besides that, that fence and how they're, but this one we did, we saw the scat, we saw the, the carcass, we heard the dog, you know, being eaten, the, the handler, but it's quick. You know, their, their preference is to grab you by the back of the neck and just, and run off with it. They, they can drag a huge animal off.

• 3:47:06Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I've seen some video of them. The light work of anything.

• 3:47:13Jocko Willink?

  Fast forward a little bit, by 0400, we were in heavy contact and had to declare Prairie Fire Emergency and bring in close air support to help us try and get out to our extraction LZ. It soon became evident, we could not survive to get to the LZ. We adapted our plan to be extracted by strings. We had to put on Swiss seats while we were in our remain overnight, just in case we could not get to the LZ. At first light, we were extracted by strings, while the whole area was pounded by napalm and cluster bomb units from F4s and rockets, miniguns, and 40mm grenades from Cobras.

• 3:47:49Speaker 02

  So we had learned from that other experience.

• 3:47:53Jocko Willink?

  Put your Swiss seat on first.

• 3:47:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, if you think you might have to use it, put that thing on. Now, you know, later, later on, the Stabo rig was created. So, I mean, that was your harness, the war of things. So you had one on all the time. You didn't have to start tying a rope around you.

• 3:48:15Jocko Willink?

  Next mission, pipeline destruction and monkey business. RT Michigan was assigned the mission of finding a high-volume fuel pipeline coming out of North Vietnam and running to fuel points along the Ho Chi Minh Trail Highway and destroying a section of it. We made an early evening insertion, security halt, then moved quickly to a predetermined RON position. Two venomous snakes were discovered during our movement to RON. We also heard trackers with clackers who picked up our trail. All conditions were right for this to be a long night. Our plan was to find the pipeline before going after the trackers. At approximately

• 3:48:58Jocko Willink?

  2,300, a 10-man NVA search team walked within eight feet of our perimeter.

• 3:49:05Jocko Willink?

  There were several close calls of the NVA who got closer to the pipeline. Around 1600 on day two, we found the pipeline. Everything went great until 0130. Then we heard movement between us and the cliffs. As they got closer, the size of the group seemed to grow to squad size, then platoon, and finally company size, between 120 and 130. I called Moonbeam and requested support. Moonbeam found a Spectre gunship in the range of our position and diverted it to us. Spectre flew several passes between us and the cliffs. We could hear the screams as over 120mm HE rounds hit the ground beside us and the side of the cliffs.

• 3:49:48Jocko Willink?

  You had to see the impact of those rounds to comprehend the firepower. In less than 10 seconds, a Spectre gunship could put one 20mm HE round in every square yard of a football field sized area. There were a few moans and groans for a while, then silence. Spectre had done its job. We got a big surprise as we moved out at daylight. The jungle around us was littered with bodies and body parts of big apes.

• 3:50:15Jocko Willink?

  There had been no definitive proof of rock apes. People like creatures standing six feet tall, but these were really big apes. When asked for an estimated body count, I replied 40.

• 3:50:25Jocko Willink?

  So it was just a big herd of monkeys.

• 3:50:28Speaker 02

  Big monkeys, apes. And they will attack. We'd had SOG teams overrun by them before. And they come through, they beat you up. They beat you up as they come through and they take your stuff.

• 3:50:44Speaker 02

  They rob you.

• 3:50:47Jocko Willink?

  Well, these aren't going to get away with it.

• 3:50:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, I thought they were NVA. And it was dark, we couldn't see. I could hear them coming. You know, I've got to get them out of here. So I put Spectre on them and the next day I saw what was out there and I thought, holy cow, I am not telling them. They shot a bunch of monkeys that night.

• 3:51:12Jocko Willink?

  When we arrived at the pipeline, I noticed, I notified Covey, we were on target, waiting on the security patrol. And the patrol arrived at Barge Well and I quickly terminated the NVA using our 22 caliber pistols with integrated silencers. Our designated security team moved into place while the rest set up the charges. We then activated the time fuse with 20 minutes burning time and quickly moved 100 meters to a second spot on the pipeline, placed our second charge and ignited a five minute time fuse. We then began moving quickly toward the extraction LZ. I left tow poppers along our path as we moved. The two 20 pound C4 charges made tremendous explosions, letting the fuel run out on the ground. The Willie Pete grenades made sure the fuel ignited. It was an awesome fireworks display. We heard

• 3:51:56Jocko Willink?

  one set of tow poppers explode and knew the NVA were close to us. Then we ran into a group of 20 who seemed to be unhappy. Fortunately, by this time Covey had F4s on station following our targeting directions, hit the pipeline and more places with a mixture of HE and napalm. Their strikes produced secondary explosions at the refueling stations. A1s provided close air support for the, for RT Michigan, which was now in a prairie fire emergency. After about two hours of difficult fighting, we were extracted under heavy fire. The mission was a success. We did not lose anyone.

• 3:52:34Jocko Willink?

  There you go. RT Michigan, Mission 5, BDA, Bomb Damage Assessment. RT Michigan's mission was to follow closely behind a B-52 strike in Laos and assess the bomb damage, collect intelligence from bodies and take a prisoner if possible.

• 3:52:54Jocko Willink?

  So you guys launch on this mission. With the exception of the smoke, rough air fires across the target area and what looked like the aftermath of a level five hurricane, we were able to get into our insertion LZ. It took a little longer than normal to acclimate our senses. As we neared the target box, trees were scattered all around and there were lots of bomb craters throughout the area. Over 300 bombs, 75 tons of explosives and shrapnel had been dropped in the target box.

• 3:53:25Jocko Willink?

  We took pictures of the damage, body parts and bodies. Everything was surreal as we cautiously moved toward the center of the target box. Fast forward to day two, we made heavy contact with an NVA company sized force. As the NVA initially drew, withdrew, they left a concussed NVA soldier behind. We were all over him. He was quickly put in a flak jacket and helmet, gagged, headbagged, handcuffed and lightly sedated with morphine. The NVA realized we were a small group and it captured one of their people. They regrouped and assaulted us. I called Covey and told them we had a prisoner and we were in heavy contact. We're declaring a prairie fire emergency and moving toward the extraction LZ. It seemed strange, but we could already hear the extraction helicopter

• 3:54:08Jocko Willink?

  approaching. I told Covey we were approximately 100 meters from the LZ but moving very slowly. He might want to have a helicopter circle around and come back. Covey said our helicopter was still 45 minutes out from the LZ. That did not make sense. It began to rain harder as we continued to fight our way toward the LZ. Then we saw a group of NVA running to the LZ in front of us with a tall soldier dressed in a different type of uniform running with them. I could not get a good camera shot. I told Covey there was another team with us.

• 3:54:39Jocko Willink?

  The tall guy looked Chinese, a strange looking helicopter.

• 3:54:44Jocko Willink?

  Not US, not Vietnamese, popped out of the clouds, down to the LZ, and a few seconds later was back up into the clouds with people on it. The pictures I took of the men running toward the LZ and the aircraft lifting off were blurred and cloudy. When reviewed later, we weren't able to determine the nationality of the man or origin of the aircraft. We remained in contact with the A1s to pound attackers for an hour before we were extracted. The team was tired and hungry and eager to get back to CCN. We boarded the King B and bounced all over the sky in a bad weather on the way home. Our prisoner bled out on the way back, two AK-47 rounds went through the flak jacket and penetrated his lungs.

• 3:55:26Speaker 02

  They want, they would not stop bullets, not an AK.

• 3:55:30Jocko Willink?

  And it sounds like the enemy was most certainly aiming to kill those guys, almost as a priority over killing you guys.

• 3:55:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:55:43Jocko Willink?

  And I'll close out the book with this section here.

• 3:55:48Jocko Willink?

  It says, "It was a relief to get back to CCN. We had been promised a two-day R and R starting the next day. No new missions for two days, and we needed it. At this point, I had completed nine across-the-fence SOG missions as well as some in-country missions. We were looking forward to cleaning up, eating, and starting recovery. I knew that within a couple of hours I would have a full stomach and be sleeping like a baby. Bargewell and I would do a quick AAR and lessons learned with the team right after breakfast, then the next morning, and then let them go for a couple of days. When we landed, Bargewell and I cleaned up and met at the mess hall to eat and do our quick AAR. We finished eating around 19:30 and went back to our rooms.

• 3:56:28Jocko Willink?

  I did a quick clean and reload of my Car 15 and web gear and laid down across my bed. Then I heard a loud knock at my door, followed by Lieutenant Thompson, "Are you in there?" "Yes, what do you want?" When he told me, I said, "You gotta be kidding me." "No, sir, 200 hours. That's eight minutes from now." "Careful what you say, sir. He's just on the other side of your plywood wall." Crap. Just another day in SOG. To be continued.

• 3:57:01Jocko Willink?

  Well, give us an indication. What would you be an ass for? You get back from a mission, what are they saying to you?

• 3:57:08Speaker 02

  They're saying...

• 3:57:11Speaker 02

  We have a new company recon company commander.

• 3:57:16Speaker 02

  A guy named Captain Meadows. And he wants to meet with you at 2000. And the way the hooches are set up, they were divided in the center. So, you know, you had people living on each side. So on the other end of my hooch,

• 3:57:36Speaker 02

  it turned out to be now, you know, the new recon company commander. And I was living on this side and there's a little plywood wall between us. So, you know, my room, maybe the size, about the size of this room. Normally there would be two guys here, two guys over on that side. But right now I didn't, I didn't have anybody in there with me. I hadn't had it to myself. And I forgot who was over there, but they went away. And now the new company commander is over there.

• 3:58:10Speaker 02

  And he wanted to see me. Everybody knew the name and, and the reputation of this guy.

• 3:58:19Speaker 02

  So I thought, holy cow, you know, what does he want? I really wanted to go to bed.

• 3:58:28Speaker 02

  And now I've got a new boss and he wants to see me.

• 3:58:32Jocko Willink?

  Well, um, and like I said, the book ends with to be continued. I, I know a little bit about what happens because, you know, the first time you were on the podcast. But again, the details that you put inside these books is next level. But I know you're about to get promoted, right? That's what's about to happen?

• 3:58:53Speaker 02

  My job's about to change.

• 3:58:59Jocko Willink?

  So the next book, is the next book ready already? Is it coming out? When's it coming out?

• 3:59:04Speaker 02

  Should be out around October.

• 3:59:07Jocko Willink?

  October. And, uh, what, are you done with the writing of it? Are you just doing the editing now?

• 3:59:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, we're just doing the editing.

• 3:59:16Jocko Willink?

  How has the, how has the book writing been for you? Look, you wrote, I know you've written what? Five or six books, but these were the first ones that were dedicated to your combat experience.

• 3:59:31Speaker 02

  This one, The Stress Effect. Yep.

• 3:59:37Speaker 02

  Went fast, enjoyable.

• 3:59:42Speaker 02

  This is the hardest thing I've ever written. You know, we were talking about it when I was here three years ago. Yep. And, you know, it's about me personally, whereas The Stress Effect has a lot of examples and things in it. But this is about what I saw, what I experienced, the people I knew.

• 4:00:09Speaker 02

  And I had to go back fifty-plus years to get the information. A lot of the guys were gone, so I couldn't ask them in some cases.

• 4:00:24Speaker 02

  Some people said, "Could you give me a different name?" I don't want to go back there. I left it way back then. I want it to stay back then. I don't want people contacting me and saying, "You know, I saw your name in the book."

• 4:00:45Speaker 02

  So there are a lot of different things like that, emotional things with the book, so it just took a lot longer. And then, you know, SOG was a top-secret organization. And when it ended in seventy-two, for the most part, all the records and things are destroyed. So it's difficult to go back and find information. And I realized I had kept some, you know, timelines and stuff. But when I started to do this and went and started looking for things... You know, like I mentioned before, everybody's tombstone says Vietnam. That's not where they died.

• 4:01:31Speaker 02

  But some of the dates are wrong. I mean, I got awards for things. But the date on the award doesn't match up with the date these guys supposedly died. You know, during, during this, you know, particular battle and stuff. So trying to get a timeline that's relatively accurate, you know, was difficult. That took a long time. And I finally got to the point where I'm gonna get it as close as I can get it. And if somebody wants to argue over a week or two, or something like that on when a particular event happened. You know, that's fine. You know, I'm telling the story. This is what I saw. And even if the dates are a little off.

• 4:02:17Speaker 02

  So it was, it was difficult. And then, you know, I, I wrote the, the whole year.

• 4:02:26Speaker 02

  About it and realized then, you know, I had a book twice that size. And was, was telling him, it, it doesn't fit in the, you know, the twenty dollar range. So you gotta do something. So they recommended I'd, I'd make two books out of it. You know, so I, the whole thing was written, but because I put this one out separately in first. I just have to adjust some things in, in the second one. You know, rewrite some things like the preface. This is a nice preface for the book.

• 4:03:06Speaker 02

  But since that one's already done and now we're doing something else in the other, I need a different preface to lead into. You know, where did this come from? Why, why are we doing it like this?

• 4:03:18Speaker 02

  But, yeah, it'll be out. I, I think it will get people's attention.

• 4:03:26Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 4:03:27Speaker 02

  I mean, there's some, there are some pretty hairy missions coming up. There's some missions that were just one of a kind in terms of things that happened that, you know, shocked people when we talked about it on the podcast.

• 4:03:43Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 4:03:44Speaker 02

  And in the greater detail.

• 4:03:46Jocko Willink?

  Right.

• 4:03:47Speaker 02

  It's gonna shock them, you know, a little bit more.

• 4:03:50Jocko Willink?

  No, I'm, I'm definitely looking forward to getting the rest of the detail in here. Some of those, I mean, some of those are just, you know, they're, they're, they're, they're truly unbelievable in about seven different aspects.

• 4:04:09Jocko Willink?

  You know, the decision-making process, the chances, the luck, the skill, the bravery, the, the outcomes. It, I mean, you can say this about, you know, just about every mission you went on, you know, eh, one, one of the, when you were on the podcast, and I didn't read it today, but you're in that, you're in that helicopter and there's green tracer fire cutting through that thing, and somehow you're not getting shot. Like, that's one, that's, you know, one minute of your time in Vietnam that you shouldn't have survived, one minute.

• 4:04:49Jocko Willink?

  Um, so yeah, some of the, and I know some of the missions in the follow-on book are gonna be, they're even, they're even more insane than the ones in this one.

• 4:05:02Jocko Willink?

  When you, would you, uh, sit down and write for like an hour at a time, two hours at a time? Would you spend eight hours writing? How would you, how, what was your methodology?

• 4:05:12Speaker 02

  It, it would kind of depend.

• 4:05:16Speaker 02

  And, and, you know, to be honest with you, um, when I would go back to edit, you know, the different missions and things. I would find myself there, you know, reading it and realize, holy cow. My heart, you know, is pounding. And even though I had read it ten times, you know, working on it, reading it again, and all of a sudden I'm thinking about, you know, what, what was happening and, you know, really get my attention. So, um, take a break, wait a few days, you know, do it again. And, uh, so, yeah, I, I remember those things.

• 4:05:59Speaker 02

  So, um, but anyway, I, I think it's, you know, if you look at it as, if you wanna know, get some taste of what war is like and what happens on the special ops battlefield, I think anybody from at least SOG forward can read through here and relate to, wow, yeah, you know, these things happen and that's what bullets sound like and this, all the stuff is going on and the chaos of the battlefield and everything. I think they can relate to it.

• 4:06:37Speaker 02

  I spent, um, some time just, uh, recently with, with the fifth group operators. Um, I went and spent some time with them and, uh, you know, they all had questions about things and, and they look at SOG guys as, this is kinda where our legacy began. Things we're doing now started back with, with the SOG guys. And, you know, some of them would, would ask questions like, so you didn't have night vision, you didn't have thermal imaging, and they'd go through all this list of stuff

• 4:07:18Speaker 02

  that they have now and they would, and they'd ask the question, so when you went to a building or to a camp and you had to go in and, and, you know, accomplish a mission there, how did you do that if you didn't know where they were? If you couldn't see them? And I said, well, you can.

• 4:07:39Speaker 02

  You just don't do it with night vision goggles. There are other senses that you have and you learn how to use those because on today's battlefield, when that EMP pulse goes out, you're not going to have night vision goggles. You're not going to have any of the electronics that you have now. All that stuff is gone. Your headsets are coming off because they're not going to work. And you've got to be able to do it the way we do it. You know, I can, if you're in the, in the dark and I'm coming up looking for you, I will smell you, I will hear you. You will eventually move, you will get scared, your sweat smell changes,

• 4:08:22Speaker 02

  your heart rate's going to start to pound. I will hear it and you will move a little bit. I'll know where you are. You won't know where I am until you feel that K-bar go in. And it's too late then. I'll find you, I'll take you out very quietly and then I'll move to your buddy.

• 4:08:45Speaker 02

  And you guys will be doing the same thing without your gear.

• 4:08:51Speaker 02

  You're just not used to having to do that now. And, you know, so we talked a lot about different techniques of how to do things. There's a lot in here, there's a lot more in book two about being invisible.

• 4:09:09Speaker 02

  How do you become invisible so that the enemy can't see you? And walking up on him, how do you walk up on that joker? And find him without him seeing you? So some of the techniques are put in there, things that, that I thought was, should be classified, I didn't put in there. Things that I'd rather not publish and, you know, give to the bad guys and say, here's how you do some of this stuff. But when I meet with those guys, you know, then we can talk about, you know, some of the real techniques and how to build the skill sets to do some of that.

• 4:09:54Jocko Willink?

  Well, I'm definitely looking forward to getting book two and talking through that one when it comes out. Yeah, that, that, the, what you guys, the legacy that you guys left and the, the work that you guys did is just, it's, it's, it's hard to believe. And if I wouldn't have sat down and talked to so many of you guys at this point, and it would be, I'm, I'm glad, I'm, I'm honored to be able to have had these conversations and shake your guys' hands and, and hear the detailed stories, you know, this is, this is, you know, what I spent my adult life trying to, uh, hold up the, the reputation that you guys set for special operations.

• 4:10:40Jocko Willink?

  And it's an honor to be able to talk to you guys about it and, and share these stories and I'm, I'm, uh, so happy that you guys are putting this stuff down and documenting with the detail, you know, like, hey, part of me, when I started preparing for this podcast, it's, I'll just read this whole damn book on the, you know, just let's spend, spend nine hours doing it. Um, but get the book if you're out there. It's just phenomenal. And again, it's really broken down. There's lessons learned, the experiences, the planning, the training, it's all in there over and over again. And you, you hear it for each different mission.

• 4:11:18Jocko Willink?

  So just phenomenal stuff. Um, and looking forward to book two coming out and I certainly always, you know, anybody from Sog has an open invite to come on here and talk about whatever you want to talk about. I'll, I'm gonna listen.

• 4:11:36Jocko Willink?

  And, and what else you got going on? You still got, um, the high performing systems going on?

• 4:11:39Speaker 02

  Still got high performing systems going on. So we're still doing a lot of work with executive teams and, you know, uh, consulting, training, a lot of leadership training. We do, um, decision making under high stress. We do a lot of that. We still have the, um, Suicide prevention going on using the arsenal assessment that we've created. The Navy's picked that up now, they're starting to use it. Army's still looking at it. So there's a lot of things like that going on. Working with vets, working with veteran organizations to try to, you know, help get

• 4:12:23Speaker 02

  these guys back. I mean, it's like, I tell all of them when I work with them. The military spent a lot of time, effort and money to train you in a skill set that we as veterans, once we leave the active duty, we think, well, that was all good for the military, but now I'm out here in the civilian world and I have to find my way around and what to do. Those skills still work. Everything they taught you, planning, organization, all those things that they taught you, they still work out here in the civilian world, in real life.

• 4:13:08Speaker 02

  You can apply them. You just have to change that mindset, you know, to, but they still work. And you can have a good life, you can manage the stress. And, you know, it's just like, you know, you'll hear it in book two, but like fear. I mean, we all have things that we fear. But if you, if you realize that one of the things that fear does to you is it energizes you, it creates a big source of energy. It can cause you to freeze up, not do well, not be able to think.

• 4:13:46Speaker 02

  But if you realize that's energy, why don't I take that energy and turn it toward being positive and helping me accomplish what I'm trying to do? You know, when I'm riding in on the scale of the helicopter, being on that insertion, you know, and the, all the adrenaline, cortisol and everything's building up, rather than, than being afraid and now not being able to think about what I have to do when I get on the ground. If I take that and turn it into energy, now I can focus better. I can run faster, jump higher, see better. I can do things much better. Or I can let the fear, let me be distracted

• 4:14:31Speaker 02

  so much by the bullets and being afraid that I'm gonna be hit and focusing on that rather than what I need to do. So I, you know, turn it to positive, using some of the things that we talked about before, stress reduction techniques, just on the skid, doing the breathing, doing the box breathing, going in, you know, and helps calm you down, helps you focus, helps you decide where you're gonna go. Using techniques like, you know, the headset, wow, I mean, that made such a difference. All of a sudden, I could hear what was going on, and I didn't have to wait until I stepped off the skid to start adapting and trying to figure out what was happening. I could get it

• 4:15:16Speaker 02

  on the way in. You can do that in your everyday life. You don't have to wait till the last second to get information, to find out things. You can do it, and it works. So, you know, we still do a lot of that, so.

• 4:15:31Jocko Willink?

  And, uh, does that get us up to speed for right now? Where we're at, I think we're a little over four hours right now, so I don't know.

• 4:15:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'll stop talking.

• 4:15:42Jocko Willink?

  Well, no, I'll listen. I'll listen to you guys as long as I possibly can. But are we up to speed? So you got, you got a HPSYS.com is where your, your High Performance Systems is located. You're actually on, on Instagram, um, @HPS underscore CEO.

• 4:16:06Speaker 02

  Right.

• 4:16:07Jocko Willink?

  You're also on Twitter. Do you ever go on Twitter much?

• 4:16:09Speaker 02

  Uh, I've started back recently.

• 4:16:12Jocko Willink?

  Okay, and it's the same thing, @HPS underscore CEO. You're on Facebook, @DickTompson.

• 4:16:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:16:19Jocko Willink?

  Um, and I think that gets us up to speed. Echo Charles?

• 4:16:23Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 4:16:24Jocko Willink?

  Any questions?

• 4:16:25Speaker 01

  Yes. Couple of questions here. I've been wondering this whole time. So RPD and RPG, RPG rocket propelled grenade?

• 4:16:34Speaker 01

  RPG is what like a machine gun of some sort?

• 4:16:36Speaker 02

  A light machine gun.

• 4:16:38Jocko Willink?

  And and just RPG doesn't actually stand for rocket propelled grenade. It stands for some Russian words that mean something like that, but it doesn't actually stand for that.

• 4:16:48Speaker 01

  Oh, for real?

• 4:16:49Speaker 02

  But it sounds good.

• 4:16:50Jocko Willink?

  It does sound good.

• 4:16:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, right. Now I'm trying to wonder or remember why I didn't think that then. Maybe someone told me that.

• 4:16:56Jocko Willink?

  No, no, it's very common. I'll say that, you know, I'll say, oh, we got hit with a rocket propelled grenade, but it's actually some Russian words.

• 4:17:03Speaker 01

  Oh, so where did that come from?

• 4:17:06Jocko Willink?

  Cause it is a rocket propelled grenade. That's what it is. But it actually stands for these Russian words that I don't know.

• 4:17:12Speaker 01

  Is that kind of like, um, you know, when you say, when they say, uh, AR fifteen assault rifle fifteen? Kind of like that sounds, but it doesn't really mean that.

• 4:17:20Jocko Willink?

  It doesn't really mean that, yeah.

• 4:17:21Speaker 01

  Okay, alright, alright, cool. Uh, uh, learn something new every day. What about a Willie Pete grenade?

• 4:17:26Speaker 02

  White phosphorus.

• 4:17:28Speaker 01

  Okay, so.

• 4:17:29Speaker 02

  So that's just a slang name.

• 4:17:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 4:17:33Speaker 02

  You know, cause you you'll hear it as, you know, Willie Pete, Wilson Pickett. Uh, I mean, there must be about five different names that that the GIs came up with to kind of talk about it. And it's stuck out there.

• 4:17:48Jocko Willink?

  But it's it's so it's a grenade and it it's it's white phosphorus. So it's like a metal that burns at a really high temperature.

• 4:17:57Speaker 01

  What is it like shards of metal? Or what is it like liquid?

• 4:18:02Speaker 02

  Uh, it's it's actually white phosphorus. Uh, it's sealed up inside the grenade container. And when it's exposed to air, you know, it starts to burn. So it's got a little detonating device in it and it it explodes. And it just throws these little pieces of white phosphorus out in all directions. And kind of like napalm, it lands on your arm. It that it'll burn all the way through or till it burns itself out inside you. So it's.

• 4:18:34Jocko Willink?

  And what's interesting is the blast radius is big.

• 4:18:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, huge.

• 4:18:39Jocko Willink?

  So like, if you don't throw it really well, you you could have a problem.

• 4:18:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, and it's heavy. It's a lot heavier than a regular grenade. And it has a much larger bursting radius. So if you don't get it out there, you'll you'll get hit with it. And then the, um.

• 4:19:00Speaker 02

  That dense white smoke that's produced with it. It really meets the specifications for a chemical agent. If you inhale that stuff, it'll burn the inside of your lungs.

• 4:19:14Speaker 01

  Oh damn.

• 4:19:15Speaker 02

  So, you know, it's not something you wanna

• 4:19:17Speaker 01

  Not cool.

• 4:19:18Speaker 02

  be in.

• 4:19:19Speaker 01

  That Willie P. grenade. Okay, so the white phosphorus versus napalm.

• 4:19:23Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 4:19:24Speaker 01

  Napalm is more of what, like a liquidy plasma type thing?

• 4:19:27Speaker 02

  It's a jellied gasoline.

• 4:19:28Speaker 01

  Yeah. Damn. What's worse, in your opinion?

• 4:19:34Speaker 02

  Well,

• 4:19:37Speaker 02

  I wouldn't want the napalm on me.

• 4:19:40Speaker 02

  I mean, it'll just burn you all up. The white phosphorus is gonna burn some holes in you. It may, you know, burn your arm off or something, but napalm can cook you fairly quickly.

• 4:19:53Speaker 01

  Raw deal. Good to see you again.

• 4:19:55Speaker 02

  Good to see you again.

• 4:19:58Speaker 02

  That it, Echo Charles.

• 4:19:59Speaker 01

  That's it. That's my deep.

• 4:20:01Speaker 02

  All right, sir. Any final thoughts? I appreciate the opportunity to come back and share some of what's in there. I think,

• 4:20:11Speaker 02

  if, if people want to, like I said before, get a taste of, of what the special ops battlefield is like, I, I tried to do that with this. There'll be people, and I say in front of it, if you don't wanna know what happens out there, then stop reading. Don't read this book. Or you're gonna get upset. This is about war. This is about killing. It's about special operations. And I tried to

• 4:20:39Speaker 02

  make it realistic to some degree. I mean, you've been there. You know what it's like. It's actually worse than what you see in here. But it, it'll give you a taste of what SOG people, special operators everywhere, you know, go through out there, so.

• 4:21:03Jocko Willink?

  Well, sir, thanks once again for joining us. Like I said earlier, it's an honor to talk to you. It's an honor to hear the stories, share the stories from you and from the rest of the SOG warriors. And, you know, like I said, the example that you all set, you guys, you guys are my heroes. You guys are the people that laid down the path for all special operations and set an example. I don't think honestly, anyone will ever be able to, to match what you guys did. I just don't think it's, I just don't think it's possible. I, I just really don't.

• 4:21:44Jocko Willink?

  You guys set a bar that we can aspire to. We will try and uphold, but we, we won't ever be able to overcome the, the efforts and the sacrifices that you guys made. And so, um, the honor for me to be here, we'll never forget you guys and, um, never forget the, the men of SOG and, and especially the SOG warriors that didn't come home. Thanks, sir. Okay, thank you.

• 4:22:14Jocko Willink?

  And with that, Dick Dynamite Thompson has left the building.

• 4:22:21Jocko Willink?

  I don't really, I'm not, I don't have a big follow-up, like, you know what I mean? This is SOG. Nothing else really comes close and that's the way it is.

• 4:22:35Speaker 01

  Agree. I was gonna ask him about Rambo, because remember you told me recently that Rambo's based on SOG, he's supposed to be a SOG guy.

• 4:22:42Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 4:22:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, I didn't even catch that.

• 4:22:45Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, but if you watch Rambo again now, you'll see that there's...

• 4:22:52Jocko Willink?

  I, I actually, can we talk about something else? Because I like literally do not want to talk about Rambo right now.

• 4:22:57Speaker 01

  Come on, I was gonna ask him about Rambo.

• 4:22:58Jocko Willink?

  I'm glad you didn't.

• 4:22:59Speaker 01

  Was Rambo representing?

• 4:23:01Jocko Willink?

  That would be right up there with you asking Admiral McQuaid if you have to be an admiral to be in the Navy. It'd be, it wouldn't be the same, because that's, let's face it. But it would be in the ballpark.

• 4:23:12Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, from your perspective, I understand how that could be for sure. Nonetheless, I didn't. And you know, I thought Rambo kind of represented, but I don't know how accurate my thoughts would be because.

• 4:23:22Jocko Willink?

  No, Rambo's in a movie.

• 4:23:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's what I'm saying. But you know how like.

• 4:23:25Jocko Willink?

  These guys are not in a movie.

• 4:23:26Speaker 01

  Yes, I know that, but.

• 4:23:28Jocko Willink?

  They didn't even do anything. If you put what they did in a movie, it would seem unrealistic, but it's true.

• 4:23:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:23:35Jocko Willink?

  So, um, yeah, and you just, it's good to remember and understand how brave and how tough and how loyal and how smart and how capable and how dedicated human beings can be. And maybe if we could try and be, just learn a little bit from that, it'll help us.

• 4:23:58Jocko Willink?

  So, um, code name Dynamite, get the book, Stress Effect. I went and re-listened to the Stress Effect podcast that we did. I think it was two oh. Six, maybe.

• 4:24:11Speaker 01

  There's a few of them, right?

• 4:24:12Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, well, we did two oh four, two oh five, two oh six. So two oh six, I listened to all of them again. They're epic. But, um.

• 4:24:21Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Check out, get his books. Support Sog. Sog, support. It's what we're doing over here. Also, you probably gotta support yourself. He talked about physical fitness. You want to be a good physical fitness. Get yourself some Jaco Fuel, JacoFuel.com. Get yourself some of these energy drinks. Some protein. I just had a malt cookie, by the way. Do you know that?

• 4:24:43Speaker 01

  I understand. Well, I can sense it.

• 4:24:45Jocko Willink?

  Did you sense it? Can you smell it?

• 4:24:47Speaker 01

  No, but you know how you know, like when someone just finishes eating something and they sort of have these little things going on.

• 4:24:55Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 4:24:56Speaker 01

  You're sensitive in that way.

• 4:24:58Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, JacoFuel.com. Get what you need there from the supplement perspective. And it will help you. You can get this stuff either at JacoFuel.com. You go to Wawa. You can go to Vitamin Shoppe. You go to GNC. Military Commissaries, Afees, Hannafords, Dash Stores, Wake Fern, ShopRite, HEB down in Tejas. Meyer out in the Midwest, Harris Teeter. Lifetime Fitness, Shields, small gyms everywhere. If you've got a small gym, jujitsu gym, CrossFit gym. Email [email protected]. Help your clients be stronger, faster, and better. JacoFuel.com. Check that out. OriginUSA.com.

• 4:25:40Jocko Willink?

  We're making American-made stuff. These guys were fighting the Chinese and the communists in the jungles. We're fighting them on the economic battlefield. That's what we're doing. If you go to originusa.com, you can invest in the national security of this country. You can invest in freedom by buying a pair of jeans or a gi or a rash guard or a pair of boots or a t-shirt or a beanie. At some point, beanies became the word. Like, you know, you stopped calling it a hat, right?

• 4:26:14Speaker 01

  I guess.

• 4:26:15Jocko Willink?

  Did you, did you even know what a beanie was when you lived in Hawaii?

• 4:26:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:26:19Jocko Willink?

  How come?

• 4:26:20Speaker 01

  It's just like style. It's not, I, yeah, style, you know, and I watch TV.

• 4:26:25Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 4:26:25Speaker 01

  Whatever. I mean, it is, it is America still, but yes, no, beanie is widely unnecessary in Hawaii for the most part. Yes, but I understand where the question came from.

• 4:26:34Jocko Willink?

  But if you were to need one,

• 4:26:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:26:35Jocko Willink?

  you get one from originusa.com, made in America.

• 4:26:38Speaker 01

  Right on.

• 4:26:39Jocko Willink?

  Best in the world. That's what we're doing.

• 4:26:40Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 4:26:41Jocko Willink?

  Go to originusa.com, get yourself some. What else?

• 4:26:45Speaker 01

  It's true. Also, Jocko's store called Jocko Store. So Jocko Store, this is where you can get Discipline Equals Freedom, whether it be a shirt, hat, hoodie. Beanie's on there as well. If you want a Discipline Equals Freedom beanie, they're on there as well. Um, also, so yeah, a lot of good stuff. If you like something, get something. Also on there is what we call now the Shirt Locker, which is your subscription shirt scenario, different design every month. It's good. People seem to like that one, but yeah, check that one out as well.

• 4:27:13Jocko Willink?

  That's where this stoner 63 made its appearance.

• 4:27:16Speaker 01

  Yep, it's true.

• 4:27:17Jocko Willink?

  You got in some trouble over that one.

• 4:27:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, I did.

• 4:27:20Jocko Willink?

  Good.

• 4:27:20Speaker 01

  All good.

• 4:27:21Jocko Willink?

  JacoStore.com, check that out. Also subscribe to the podcast. Also check out Jocko Underground, jockounderground.com. We got our own platform just in case, well, let's say the communists take over here and we lose control of the platform. We'll still be there on the underground, keeping it real. If you can't afford it because it costs eighteen, eight dollars and eighteen cents a month. If that's a little bit steep right now, economy's rough, just email, what is it? [email protected] will get you taken care of. That way you can be in the game with us. Also, we got YouTube channels. Subscribe to those, Jocko Podcast, Origin USA, Jocko Fuel.

• 4:27:58Jocko Willink?

  We all got our own little YouTube channels, we're putting out different pieces of information there. We've got Psychological Warfare, we've got Flipside Canvas, we've got a bunch of books. Look, primarily today, Sog: Codename Dynamite by Henry L. Dick Thompson. He also wrote The Stress Effect. Go and get these books. They're freaking epic. Also, I've written a bunch of books. You know what they are. Final Spin, Leadership Strategy and Tactics Field Manual, Code Evaluation Protocol, all those things. Discriminators Freedom Field Manual, The Way the Warrior Kid Books.

• 4:28:32Jocko Willink?

  Just get those books for the kids you know. Just go get them. Let them have a better life. We have Mike and the Dragons, Boutface, Extreme Ownership, Dichotomy Leadership. Just go, just get those kids books for the kids. Get the books for the adults too, but that's in your hands. The kid can't do this for himself, possibly. He's seven years old. He doesn't have a freaking Amazon account like you do. He doesn't know. He's not listening to this podcast right now, this kid. He doesn't know that his life can get better, or her life can get better. They don't know that. You do. What are you waiting for? Like, just be generous.

• 4:29:13Jocko Willink?

  Also, we have Echelon Front. It's a leadership consultancy. We solve problems through leadership. Go to echelonfront.com for details.

• 4:29:23Jocko Willink?

  We have live events that you can go to. We also have a consulting agency where you can come into your company and help you square away everything inside your organization through leadership. We also have an online training platform at extremeownership.com where you can learn the skills of leadership for your business and for your entire life on a daily basis. Check that out, extremeownership.com. Also, if you want to help service members, active and retired, you want to help their families, Gold Star Families, check out Mark Lee's mom, Mama Lee. She's got a charity organization. And if you want to donate, or you want to get involved, go to AmericasMightyWarriors.org. Also, don't forget about Micah Fink. He's

• 4:30:05Jocko Willink?

  taken veterans up into the wilderness so they can learn and reconnect with their soul. So check out heroesandhorses.org. And if you want to connect with us on the interweb, on Instagram and Twitter, Dick Thompson. He's on Instagram, he's on Twitter, @hps_CEO.

• 4:30:28Jocko Willink?

  He's also got a Facebook. He's at Dick Thompson and of course Echo is on social media. He's at Echo Charles. I'm on social media. I'm at Jocko Willink. But listen, just watch out because the, the damn algorithm will sneak up on you like a freaking tiger. That swat your head off. So just be careful of that. Thanks once again to Dick Thompson for coming out here. Share his experiences, share his lessons learned. More important, thanks to Dick Thompson for his incredible service to our great nation and obviously salute to all the SOG warriors.

• 4:31:13Jocko Willink?

  That fought a secret war and sacrificed so much. We'll never forget what you did and the example that you set for us. And thanks to the military people around the world that are listening right now, who are currently on the front lines of freedom. We thank you for what you do and to our police, law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, Border Patrol, Secret Service, all first responders. Thanks to all of you for the sacrifices you make to keep us safe on the home front and to everyone else out there.

• 4:31:49Jocko Willink?

  Let's do a little assessment.

• 4:31:52Jocko Willink?

  Do a little assessment of ourselves.

• 4:31:57Jocko Willink?

  I'm going to take a look in the mirror. I will take a look in the mirror. I do take a look in the mirror. I compare myself to these men.

• 4:32:06Jocko Willink?

  The bravest, the boldest, the most committed. Think of the commitment these guys had.

• 4:32:15Jocko Willink?

  What am I doing?

• 4:32:19Jocko Willink?

  Am I as committed as I should be? Am I as focused as I should be?

• 4:32:25Jocko Willink?

  Am I testing myself the way I should be?

• 4:32:31Jocko Willink?

  I don't know. But I'll tell you what. I think about these men of Sog, and I can tell you this, based on their levels of drive and commitment and focus, I know factually that I can do better.

• 4:32:48Jocko Willink?

  I know I can do better.

• 4:32:51Jocko Willink?

  And I can do that every day by going out there and getting after it.

• 4:33:00Jocko Willink?

  And until next time, this is Echo and Jocko out.