322: Sometimes the Mission Chooses You. With Tony Cowden.

0:00:00 - Opening 0:03:28 - Tony Cowden 4:14:38 - How to stay on THE PATH. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

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

• 0:01Jocko Willink?

  This is Jocko Podcast number 322 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. Good evening Echo. Good evening.

• 0:08Jocko Willink?

  Find a new mission.

• 0:11Jocko Willink?

  That right there is some advice that I have given a bunch of guys, a bunch of veterans over the last decade because when you leave the military, that mission that you've been on, this honorable mission, all of a sudden overnight, it's gone. And that's going to leave a hole.

• 0:37Jocko Willink?

  And the longer you serve, the bigger that hole is going to be. And for some of us, if the only thing you ever really want to do was serve and execute that mission, it can be a rough transition. Especially after you spend 20 plus years with the opportunity to do what you always wanted to do, to wear the cloth of the nation, to take the fight to the enemy. And it's an honor to have had the opportunity to do that. To work with a bunch

• 1:17Jocko Willink?

  of other people that are also dedicated to one thing in life, and that is executing the mission.

• 1:26Jocko Willink?

  So, once that's gone, like I said, it can be a rough transition and you have to find a new mission. And some veterans go into business, some of them focus on their families, some of them start nonprofits. Those are the positive things you can do. Some are serving in other ways. And some just seem to keep going and keep getting after it and keep moving forward with new missions. And we're lucky enough to have people like that in our country.

• 2:06Jocko Willink?

  And I know one in particular that served in special forces as Green Beret, fought in Afghanistan and Iraq, served as a contractor, supporting the State Department, supporting the CIA, spent almost nine years, all told, in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria, and in a bunch of places all over the world as well. But that wasn't enough. Needed more missions. This guy is also a businessman, owned a CrossFit gym, a giant CrossFit gym, has a firearms range, and a tactical training company.

• 2:50Jocko Willink?

  And he's competed in CrossFit and weightlifting, in Ironman and ultra running, and he's coached athletes from CrossFit and Strongman and triathlons.

• 3:01Jocko Willink?

  And on top of all that, in December of 2021, just a few months ago,

• 3:08Jocko Willink?

  he volunteered once again with a new mission to represent the people of North Carolina by running as an elected member of Congress. This man's name is Tony Cowden, and it's an honor to have him here with us tonight to share some of his experiences and the lessons that he's learned along the way. Tony, thanks for coming by.

• 3:35Speaker 01

  Thanks for having me.

• 3:36Jocko Willink?

  What's up with that bio? Take it, take it easy, man.

• 3:40Speaker 01

  You know, people always say, like, hey, man, I know you're busy, you know? Yeah, I'm busy. I'm always busy. I don't take naps. I'm freaking, I'm busy. You know, I got stuff to do. And when I don't have things to do, I find things to do. You know, the old thing, like, if you ain't got anything to do, clean something.

• 4:00Speaker 01

  I'm probably not that good at that. If you ever see any of my guns, that's not what I'm known for. But yeah, man, one thing after another, and you hit it on that intro. How many, how many of our brothers in arms got out and that hole consumed them?

• 4:17Speaker 01

  You know, they didn't find purpose. They, everybody wants to know, well, why is suicide so bad amongst veterans and across the United States in general? Purpose. People with purpose don't commit suicide, you know? And when guys get out of the military, like you said, especially after feeling used and abused in the twenty-some years war now, where even the war itself, guys started questioning the purpose. What was the purpose? And at this point, we certainly don't know. But, uh, yeah, man, without purpose, you know, guys start drinking. It's a depressant. It's a poison, you know, and they don't stop training, because, you know, like me, I've

• 5:00Speaker 01

  always liked to train by myself. You know, I've only had one training partner in my entire life. It's my girlfriend, Melissa. You know, she's the only dude I know that can keep up. No, I'm kidding. I actually try to keep up with her. Uh, but I was just that guy that went to the gym by myself. It was my time. I went to run by myself. I went ruck by myself. I swam by myself. Not that that's safe or anything, but whatever. Um, but you know those guys on the teams that go to the gym with their buddies? You know, they got their little clique, little two and three man team that goes to the gym? You know, when those guys get out of the service, they stop working out. You know, they lose their physical fitness. They drink. Maybe they got hurt and the VA put them on

• 5:40Speaker 01

  an opioid. You know the story, you know? And they don't have purpose. And it breaks my heart. Um, so many Americans, not just veterans, right? Because, you know, throughout the gym and everything like that, I've grew so many civilian friends or whatever. And I don't use that term, you know, negatively in any way. Uh, some of my best friends are regular people. Some of my best friends are civilians. Some of my best friends are regular people, right? And a lot of times, you know the deal. We used to, we would use that terminology, like, when on the teams and stuff, like, regular people. Like, it was, we kind of looked at them out of the corner of our eye. Not down at them, but you know, we, we recognized it, you know, we, you know, we got this little team and we really think we're the most awesome ever, you know? Like the old joke, you know,

• 6:25Speaker 01

  you want to know who the best is in special forces or special operations? Ask any unit. They'll tell you, right? Ask a SEAL. SEALs are the best. Ask a Ranger. They're the best, you know? All with very different missions. But yeah, man, Americans in general, especially after this whole pandemic.

• 6:41Jocko Willink?

  It's wild.

• 6:43Speaker 01

  No, people are losing that that purpose and we're losing that pride in our nation. And, you know, now with all the containment and the masks and the mandates and stuff, man, suicide, mental health is, man, it's, it's scary.

• 6:57Jocko Willink?

  Yes, of despair. It's been a nightmare.

• 7:01Jocko Willink?

  Let's get into all that in a little bit, but let's start off just to get to know you a little bit. Let's start at the beginning.

• 7:08Speaker 01

  Little white trash redneck kid from very rural North Carolina. You know, and I, that's definitely in terms of endearment. My, my dad, 82nd Airborne guy.

• 7:19Jocko Willink?

  Oh, damn.

• 7:22Speaker 01

  On a weekend leave from Fayetteville Fort Bragg in Wilmington, met my mom. Zellia Festival weekend, that's a big thing in Wilmington, Zellia Festival. And apparently he was head over heels in love with my mom, right? And, you know, freaking, they got married, he got out of the army, moved back to where he was from up in Indiana. She was from Pamlico County, North Carolina. We always use, we have to use the county as a marker because there's no town in Pamlico County that anyone would even have heard of unless you actually lived or visited there often, right? So nearest town's like New Bern. So it's very rural, one of the biggest counties in North Carolina, smallest populations. So anyway, they went up to Indiana and.

• 8:04Jocko Willink?

  Are you born yet at this point?

• 8:05Speaker 01

  Not yet, not yet. My older sister is about to be on her way. And he took a job with one of the companies who made parts for General Motors, right? All that area up there, Indianapolis, Detroit, everything. It's all General Motors, Ford, so on and so forth. And after three or four years of being up there, he did a couple of other things. He got like his pilot's license and which apparently.

• 8:30Speaker 01

  Back then, you didn't actually have to have. There were dudes flying airplanes. Dudes were just flying airplanes while drinking liquor and stuff. The stories that they used to tell us, right? They were small and flying these little super Cubs and Piper Cubs around and, you know, he was talking about shooting, you know, doing aerial, you know, shooting foxes and stuff. I'm like, these crazy suckers were doing aerial sniper shit with freaking hunting rifles and shotguns. You know, he's like, yeah, you know, those little super Cubs will fly so slow that you could shoot, you know, coyotes and foxes and deal with a shotgun. And I'm like, all while drinking? He's like, you know, I was like, man, you guys were nuts. Um, so I joked that, you know, when we're all out, you know, thinking we're cool shooting out of a helicopter. A bunch of redneck dudes been doing it for a long time.

• 9:14Speaker 01

  Um, but, uh, yeah, so, you know, man, some affirmative action policies. My dad got pushed over for some promotions over those years and like, he should have been a supervisory role. He was like, uh, you know, people are getting promoted that have less time or less qualification. He got disgruntled with the whole manufacturing world. Uh, wouldn't even call it corporate per se manufacturing, you know? And it's like, all right, well, they moved back down to Carolina where my mother was from. And he took a job with a seafood company, that's right, on the Pamlico Sound. So docks, food and seafood would come off the boats there. They'd package, process it, send it to restaurants. A few years later, he bought that company. So at this point, my older sister's born.

• 9:59Speaker 01

  Um, I was born in this little timeframe there and, uh, you know, by like, so I was born in 76, so by 82, the business is doing good, you know? So, and I'm old enough to be aware of it and, you know, I've got an older sister and a younger sister. So when my dad needed help, guess, guess who the laborer was, you know? So, you know, but I'll tell you, you know, my, my dad, you know, my dad wasn't like, you know, by today's parenting standards, my dad was a horrible father. Right? Like, he wasn't that nice to me. Um, he wasn't the lovey dovey, you know, hugs and kisses type. But he wasn't abusive either, right?

• 10:38Speaker 01

  Like, you know, I'd get a spanking if I deserved it and I, looking back, I probably deserved everyone plus a few I didn't get. But, uh, you know, he was, he wasn't a very good teacher. Right? He was the type of guy like by today's standards, like he was just, he did it all wrong. But, you know, my older sister's a world renowned pediatric endocrinologist. Right? Like if you Google her name, you know, pretty amazing woman out of one of the most rural, underfunded school systems in America. My younger sister's a successful, um, uh, social worker in Raleigh. She helps a lot of people, does some amazing things. Of the three of us, she's the most left. Um, I don't know that she would even vote for me.

• 11:25Speaker 01

  My older sister, she's in the moderate, my older sister's that, you know, that, that mother in America that was in the middle and kinda got pushed into the left over the last, you know, four or five years. Um, but she's, she's that person I talk about, we need to win them back. You know, she's conservative. She was raised conservative. Hell, she grew up shooting, hunting and everything I did. But anyway, my, um, my dad was that guy that was like, hey, look, you need to do this and you need to do this and you better have this done before I get home. And I'd be like, dad, I don't know how to do that stuff. Figure it out. And at the time, I thought he was just an asshole. You know, I just thought he wouldn't, didn't like me. I don't know. My dad's mean to me, blah, blah, whatever. Actually, I probably wasn't even aware. It's just how it was.

• 12:10Speaker 01

  Because most of the fathers in my neighborhood were very similar. And I grew up in one of the neighborhoods, like if you were caught misbehaving down the street, you might get a spanking from the neighbor, right? Like they were all family. We all went to church together, you know? And, um, and then you get another one when dad got home. But, you know, looking back, man, he taught me so much. He taught me to figure it out. And come to find out, that was the whole point. He didn't care if I completed it, you know, at a hundred percent, you know, awesomeness or whatever, you know, he just wanted me to try. And it's not like these days, man, someone gives you a task like, I'll just YouTube it. You know, it's right here in here. I'll just watch a video step by step. It'll be easy. You know, and, uh, we didn't have that growing up, right?

• 12:55Speaker 01

  So.

• 12:56Jocko Willink?

  No, you just, you just had an extension cord and a freaking skill saw.

• 13:00Speaker 01

  Right.

• 13:01Jocko Willink?

  Good luck, boy.

• 13:02Speaker 01

  You know, the fact that I still have all my fingers and toes, because he let me handle tools that, I, so I, my, my employees slash interns at the range with the company, man, I. I they have like training programs you have to go through. They can't just pick up one of my chainsaws, right? You chop your leg off with a chainsaw like that, circular saws, right? My dad was like, yeah, man, just get it done. Um, welding, I learned to weld because if I broke something, I better have it fixed before you got home. It'll look like a big pile of chewed bubble gum, but you know, as long as it would hold together. Yeah. So that was kind of my childhood, man. And it was so many lessons learned. I watched my dad build this business from nothing to, you know, took us to comfortable.

• 13:48Speaker 01

  I wouldn't say upper middle class, but you know, slightly above average middle class, you know, especially for rural North Carolina. Cost of living is not huge. And um, he at Balsam Property developed a piece of property into a subdivision on the water down there. One of the, one of the really first subdivisions in that era in Pamlico County, when there was a lot of resistance for change, right? People going, ooh, we don't want them Yankees coming down here buying up our, you know, riverfront property, right? And so he got a lot of pushback and I remember that was my, probably my first exposure. He would come home from a county commissioners meeting and these are all people we know, right?

• 14:29Speaker 01

  There's 12,500 people in Pamlico County and has been for like 80 years, right? The population doesn't change because the exact same amount of people that move there or are born there, die or leave. Yeah. So yeah, man, um, it was really cool. That's when I learned to run like large machinery. At 12, 13 years old, my dad had me running a D6 bulldozer. Like what? When we were putting the culverts in for the road, right? We built the roads in this place. You're laying layers and layers of gravel. So he bought a D3, a D6, an excavator, a backhoe, all this stuff. I can't even reach the pedals on these pieces of equipment. I'm out there running them. Without a lot of instruction, you know, or any instruction, just go.

• 15:14Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 15:14Speaker 01

  And I'll never forget, you know, putting the big concrete tiles into the, the, the ditches for the, the road. I'm on the backhoe steering these things in and he's in that ditch. They're talking thousand pound concrete tiles. If I make a mistake, I would have killed him.

• 15:29Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah.

• 15:30Speaker 01

  Looking back, I would have never trusted me. I wouldn't have gotten that ditch, but he did. And I was like, wow, you know, either A, my dad was a complete psychopath, right? Um, which, you know, he, he's one of those guys like mission, man. We will get it done. I, being in the rain in the military, not a big deal because my dad was like, it would, there was that local little restaurant in town where everybody ate breakfast, all the men, you know? And, uh, it'd be raining and they're like, all right, we gotta go. And they're like, y'all working in the rain today? He's like, I don't get to choose the weather. That was his attitude, man. He was just a tough mofo, man. Just hard, hours upon hours of work, you know, and I like to say I'm a decent balance between him and my mother,

• 16:12Speaker 01

  who was, you know, the, the, the more gentle, the, I mean, she was a, she wasn't a puss by any means, right? Like she didn't put up with none of my BS. I, she, I'd probably got more spankings from her than I ever did him, right? You know, but like, you know, little pops on the, on the ass or whatever.

• 16:27Jocko Willink?

  You got more quality from the old man, but more quantity from mom.

• 16:31Speaker 01

  You know, um, and, and some people will say that, you know, I was, I was mama's baby boy, right? I was the only boy. I was, that was different and, uh, you know? My older sister, man, she's like, she's like a T1000. She's the first version of the Terminator, dude. She is like, when people meet her, they're like, whoa, dude, I thought you were intense. No, my older sister's a machine. I, I say there's probably like five or six people on this planet I'm, I'm afraid of. She's one of them. You know what I mean? Like there's a handful of guys, uh, we're, we're all, you know, pretty tough dudes, right? You know, can hold our own and all that kind of stuff, but there's, all of us have that handful of guys that you're like. Yeah, that guy's kinda scary. One of those guys for me is my sister. And I'm not kidding, right?

• 17:16Speaker 01

  Like, uh, she's just, oh, man, she is what she is and, uh, is successful because of it. But yeah, man, you know, watching my dad build those businesses, develop that piece of property, really set that foundation. And, um, you know, since I was involved in so much of it, cause he didn't have labor, you know, he didn't have help, so I had to be there, you know? I didn't get to play sports in school like I wanted to because he needed help. And looking back in a lot of ways, those lessons just continue to carry over. Whether, you know, like, heck, when we were in Afghanistan or right before we were going into Afghanistan, we were at the FOB. You need equipment moved around. Yeah, I knew how to run forklifts. You know, how do you think we moved pallets around in that seafood house? Uh, forklifts, you know, even that big crazy machine that grabs the Conexes.

• 18:02Speaker 01

  I went and jacked one of those from the Air Force one time and we just went and moving around the entire lot, you know, the entire, all the Conexes, you know? It was like, hey, go get that and bring it over here next to our tent so we can pack out, get ready to infill. Well, I could do all of that. When we got into Afghanistan, you know, I, I knew how to, the, the little local tractor that the fella had, you know, we needed it to move some stuff around with time. I was like, yeah, you know, I can run that. So that foundation was huge. But more than any of the actual stuff that I did or learned, what he taught me was that I can do anything. If you put your mind to it. It's just like selection. I don't remember selection being that difficult. You know, it was just like, I had this mission and it just had to be done.

• 18:43Speaker 01

  I mean, I, you know, he, he couldn't really afford all three of us going to college, you know? He was struggling a little bit. Uh, my mother died when I was 16. I was, after that, I went, I went to misbehaving.

• 18:58Jocko Willink?

  How'd your mother die?

• 18:59Speaker 01

  Cancer. Yeah, uh, four year bout with it, man. And, um, ultimately it wasn't really the cancer that killed her. It was a surgery, complications from a surgery. So it was kinda heartbreaking, like. Yeah, she had been fighting it or whatever. Really, you know, the struggle back then was chemo, which it still is, but you know, you're talking in the early nineties, man, freaking chemo was rough. And um, so I learned a lot from watching her deal with it, man. She, she would get up and walk and exercise and work in the yard and mow the yard, you know, while having to stop and throw up from chemo. Yeah. So one of the toughest people I ever grew up with was my mother. And um, yeah, so after she passed, man, you know, I started being that bad kid, you know, and,

• 19:44Speaker 01

  you know, smoking weed, wound up doing a little blow, whatever, freaking got in trouble, you know?

• 19:51Jocko Willink?

  Who'd you get in trouble with, like, school?

• 19:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, school, the law. Yeah, I got arrested, man, freaking um, luckily, you know, it was all just minor dumb stuff, right? It's not like I was a, you know, you know, dealing anything or stuff like that. I wasn't, you know, making money off of it, just partying, you know, just doing dumb redneck stuff, you know, like, hunting club roads, you know, you don't want to get on the road, you get a DWI, but we can ride around these hunting club dirt roads, redneck stuff, man, you know, drink beer and, you know, and, you know, do all the dumb stuff we were doing.

• 20:25Jocko Willink?

  And that was when you were still in high school?

• 20:26Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, yeah, my senior year in high school, um, you know, just being bad and, but I was still making good enough grades.

• 20:35Speaker 01

  Excuse me. Yeah, I was, you know, just, you know the deal, man, just how like everyone in software, all pretty smart dudes. We can get Bs without really trying in any course we go to, you know? Um, most of us are B students in every course. And of course, there's always that one nerd over there that gets honor grad. You know, and well, yeah, whatever, make fun of that guy. What a nerd. Yeah, I wasn't the nerd. I was a misbehaved kid, just being a jackass.

• 21:02Jocko Willink?

  And you didn't play any sports because you were working too much?

• 21:04Speaker 01

  Well, I did play a little bit, but like I withdrew from, you know, the team in senior year, stuff like that, just, just because, yeah, man, he needed help afterward.

• 21:15Speaker 01

  And um

• 21:15Jocko Willink?

  So what'd you do after high school?

• 21:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, man. So, you know, also our, man, we were the smallest school system and right next door to us was like West Craven. You know, this, this, that's a school that's producing, you know, pro football players, you know, D H Conley over in Greenville, E C U. The, you know, big schools, man. And we were like, uh, they're like, we'll let Pamlico play us and they would just destroy us. You know, they had like defense and offense and special teams. We had eight football teams. You didn't leave the field, man. And there was times we went to football games, we didn't have enough dudes, you know, it was like, we'll play. And, you know, so after, you know, a couple of years of that, man, I wasn't even really interested, you know, it was like, what's the point?

• 21:57Speaker 01

  You know, the average dude on our team, you know, we had that one 220 pound guy where you go to West Craven, their entire lineup's 200 plus pounds. It's like, we would just, they would mop the floor with us. So I lost interest in that and just started working more and partying more. And, uh, yeah, man. So good enough grades to get into N C State. I look back and I'm like, I still don't know how they let me in. Um, you know, not good enough grades to get any kind of scholarship. So, you know, my, after the second year, my, my younger sister's only a year behind me. My older sister is four years ahead of me. She's entering medical school.

• 22:31Jocko Willink?

  Where'd she go to school?

• 22:33Speaker 01

  She went to medical school at E C U.

• 22:35Jocko Willink?

  Where'd you go to undergrad?

• 22:36Speaker 01

  At U N C Chapel Hill. Yeah. So, you know, um, dad's paying out of pocket. Plus he's still very much, you know, dealing with the death of my mom. And he, he had, he had a really hard time, man, freaking, you know, um, I watched him lose a lot of weight, you know, he didn't talk to people. He kept working, you know, and he worked more, which was already darn near impossible. And, you know, being a young dumb punk kid, I couldn't recognize it because I'm selfish like kids are. And, um, looking back, I was like, man, I could have been a better kid. I could have been a better son to him. But, I mean, we were kids, we were young. Looking, looking back, man, my mom taught me the number one best lesson in my entire life. And that is everyone you know is going to die.

• 23:23Speaker 01

  Right, so as we entered that war, I had already lost, and I try not to use that terminology, one of the people that was closest to me in my life. And so that set me up for being able to deal with how many of our brothers got killed, close friends, and so on and so forth, you know, our partner forces, you know. I don't think guys always realize how tight we get with those partner forces, you know. I got, some of my best friends on this planet are, you know, Muslims. People don't always understand that, you know, my, especially in Iraq where I worked with the Kurds for years, the same team of dudes for seven, eight years.

• 24:05Speaker 01

  And so anyway, her passing taught me to appreciate why you have them. And that's why I don't use that terminology, you lost them. I didn't lose my mother. I can go show you right now where she rests. I know exactly where she's at. So I didn't lose them. It was a gain, right? If someone in your life is so tight with you that when they die, it breaks your heart, right? You didn't lose anything. You gained something in life. Cause if, if when we understand that everyone we know and love, they're gonna die. When you start thinking like that, you start appreciating them every day, you know?

• 24:46Speaker 01

  So I can say, man, my mom taught me the best lesson that I've ever had, and it set me up for success in the war. And don't get me wrong, it doesn't mean like I'm somehow callous or, you know, immune to feeling sad and upset, you know? There's still those anniversaries, there's those thoughts, you know, there's memories that pop back up to make us all upset, you know, and tear up and, you know, and so on and so forth. But, yeah, man, freaking, without her death, I don't know that now today I would be as healthy mentally as I am, you know? It just laid that foundation.

• 25:19Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 25:20Speaker 01

  You know? And I tell people that all the time, and I have throughout, you know, once I realized that. And I'll tell you, really probably number one thing that really woke me up. Two thousand and thirteen, in April two thousand and thirteen, my best friend was KIA, a guy named Ben Bittner. Ben was better than everyone else. He was that cocky little, little, uh, that guy, you know, who, everything you do. Back it up. You know, he was just better than everybody else. He wasn't huge or jacked, but he was strong and fast and. Uh, so anyway, man, I, I got that phone call and me and Melissa hadn't been dating very long. We were driving a five forty. Kind of early on a Sunday morning. I got a phone call. I was like, who's this? You know, hey, bro, Ben Bittner, KIA.

• 26:05Speaker 01

  Dude, pulled off the side of the road and threw up because the one dude I thought that was truly immortal, right? Just got suckered by the enemy in a baited ambush, right? And if had not been, I mean, shoot, that's thirteen, man. We're twelve years into the war. And I already got plenty of memorial braces, you know, but for something about when, when Ben died, it was like, holy crap, we're not immortal. You know, I'd been injured, blown up. You know how it is.

• 26:34Speaker 01

  As a, a young little trooper, sometimes, right? Those close calls, they make you more arrogant and cocky, right? You know, you start thinking that you can get away with more and more, and that's probably where I was in thirteen. When I got blown up in two thousand and nine, like after my recovery, I went back meaner, more aggressive, you know.

• 26:56Speaker 01

  Probably taking risks that I shouldn't have, you know, looking back, taking risks with my teams and my, my partner forces lives. Just because I was emotionally wanting some retribution, you know, they had killed some of my teammates and, and damn near killed me and. And then Ben died. I was like, holy shit. But, uh, like I said, without my mom's death, I don't know that I would have dealt with any of it very well. So, yeah, man, um, NC State, uh, I like to say that I was enrolled at NC State.

• 27:28Jocko Willink?

  So your participation level was low?

• 27:32Speaker 01

  Well, you know, there's Pampuko County and there's like, you know, uh, my graduating class was like a hundred and four people. So let's say there was, you know, fifty-five, sixty girls in that class, right? And then I get to NC State, there's girls everywhere. They were everywhere. I was like, holy crap, man. There's like thousands of them. And, uh, yeah, so I was distracted to say the least. And, um, you know, I quickly found out that classrooms where you have to be quiet and pay attention to a professor and it's not the best place to talk to these girls. So why would I waste my time going to those classes? And, uh, so anyway, freaking partying, wasting money, you know, that, that we didn't have. And my sister's in med school now, my younger sister's going to school.

• 28:17Speaker 01

  She went, was going down at UNC Wilmington and, um, you know, it was clear, you know, that I, I was wasting money. I didn't have it. My dad didn't have it. So I withdrew.

• 28:29Speaker 01

  Join the army, you know?

• 28:31Jocko Willink?

  Was your fir-, was that your first time thinking about joining the army?

• 28:34Speaker 01

  Absolutely not. I didn't want to go to college, right? And, you know, our generation, we have to blame our parents for everything. So my dad let me watch Rambo, First Blood when I was nine or 10 years old. Dumb deal. Those green berets, they're real badasses. You know, says it right in that movie. And, you know, so from there on, you know, like, let's face it, right? Like some guys watch, you know, uh, something that's got seals in it and they're like, oh yeah. Or some guys will watch, you know, uh, the recon movie with Clint Eastwood and like, you know, and your impression at a, a young point, well, mine was Rambo, First Blood, man, freaking that, you know, running around above the snow line and the rats in the caves. I was like, yeah, I was already playing in the woods all the time anyway. And I loved to hunt and all that. Just man. So from there on out, yeah, I just, man, I want one of those funny green hats.

• 29:18Speaker 01

  Which looking back, I'm like, damn, that hat sucks. It's made out of wool. It's hot as hell, right? Like you want me to wear this wool hat in Fayetteville, you know, in a hundred plus degrees in the summertime? The sand hills in North Carolina, right? Like this hat's dumb. There's no bill. It doesn't keep the sun out of your face. There's not like a boonie cap. There's no ballistic protection. Why do we even wear this dumb hat, right? Like, anyway, um, but yeah, that's what I wanted. And I, I, it didn't help. I met a fellow named Jason McKenzie at NC State and he was going green to gold. And he started telling me about- And was he a former Green Beret? Yeah, he was a GB at the time. And um, he was getting his commission and he went on to get his commission, go back to the 18th Alpha

• 30:02Speaker 01

  course and he went over to the unit, freaking stud. He was a stud, real smart dude, uh, still is. And um, yeah, man, I was like, started talking to him, he was like, hey, look, bro, I get it, college sucks. Let me tell you about this really cool secret. It's called the National Guard Special Forces Groups. And I was like, what? How is that even possible, right? How can you have a reserve special operations? Well, come to find out, most all of us have that. And uh, he's like, it is the coolest, most least known way to get into the special forces. I'm like, what do you mean? You know, where do I sign up? And he's like, yeah, man, so basically you go in and it's just like a, an active duty group. I mean, they just, you know, less bullshit.

• 30:45Speaker 01

  And that's really what it almost comes down to is like, the guard gets on orders. It's not like they're doing, you know, one week in a month, two weeks a year type of thing. You know, they're doing weeks of training at a time. If, when they deploy, it's, you know, months of workup, PMT, just like the group. They have to check all the same boxes, just in a lot less time. And I'm like, okay, yeah. He's like, so how's it work? He's like, well, you know, he's got me all hooked up with 19th Group, the guys up in West Virginia. Um, I had to get a waiver for my misbehaviors and arrests, right? I remember, uh- What year is this? So this is, uh, 97. And- Was it hard getting waivers? It, it wasn't. Were you a minor when you got arrested? No, uh, yes. Yes and no. Both, okay.

• 31:30Speaker 01

  I had just turned 18, um, uh, with one of the arrests. I was still a senior in high school. And uh, but everything else was before that. And uh, nah, man, freaking, so I go and talk to these guys and Colonel Hoyer was the battalion commander for 2nd Battalion of 19th Special Forces Group. And he moved on to become like the, the general, the tag of West Virginia. A really smart man, really smart guy. And um, not a, not a very imposing figure, um, you know, just an average looking guy, a guy that could throw a suit on and disappear, you know, uh, not, not the Jack tattoo guy. Of course, tattoos on sleeves and all that weren't quite popular at the

• 32:13Speaker 01

  time. And I remember walking in and thinking, this is a special forces Colonel? I was expecting, you know, like John Jay Rambo. The Colonel, Colonel Trotman from Rambo, right? This dude's supposed to scare the shit out of me. Very unassuming, which come to find out later, yeah, those are the dudes that are really the scary guys. Anyway, well, anyway, Colonel Hoyer was like, um, yeah, so you need a waiver?

• 32:35Speaker 01

  You gonna do this anymore? And I'm like, no, sir. Done with that. That was, you know, three years ago. I'm good. Okay. Boom. That easy, you know, and, and had he, in his assessment, I mean, for whatever reason, you know, um, cause I know him to have turned down similar cases, but man, it was, there was no interview, nothing. He just took me on a very first impression basis. And I was just a dumb kid. I didn't know. I'm like scared to death of all these GBs, you know, I'm like, uh, you know, I'm trying to join this very exclusive club and I don't know what to say. I don't know how to act. So nothing I would have done would have been right anyway. But, uh, yeah, he gave me the waivers.

• 33:16Speaker 01

  I withdrew from school on a Tuesday morning, uh, you know, rallied to Pamlico County to the house. It was about two hours. I went home. My dad wasn't home. I was like, eh, changed into some PTs and went for a run. Sure enough, met him on the road. He like hits the brakes. He's like, what the, are you doing? Why are you home? You're supposed to be in college, boy. What's wrong with you? And you, he knew at this point, like, oh, something's up, right? Like this ain't right, you know, great. He's probably in trouble again. That was probably his first impression. I'm like, I'll run to the house. I'll meet you there. He probably would have pulled over to the side of the road and got out and we would have had that discussion on the side of the road, but my stepmother, he luck, Lord, man, luckily for my dad, man, he met an amazing woman after my mom died and who became one

• 34:01Speaker 01

  of my very best friends. Sad story. She died of cancer too. Yeah, my dad, man, God bless his heart. So my stepmom's with him and I remember she kinda like patted him on the shoulder and was like, let him come home and talk to us, you know, cause my dad wasn't a little dude either, right? Like he's, you know, about my size now, right? I was always smaller than him until I finally started lifting some weights. I was actually way more of a runner dude early on. I was like buck seventy, you know, I could run. I had no real weight on me, you know, but he was like two, two-ten, you know, and a strong dude, a worker guy, right? Old man strength, bro. Yeah, he boxed, he boxed on the eighteenth airborne corps, right? Yeah, the few times we did scuff it up a little bit, yeah, he just wiped me off, right? I just covered up.

• 34:46Speaker 01

  But, uh, you know, like I said, anyway, man, freaking, uh, yeah, so I go to the house and I tell him and he's just shaking his head, but it's like he understood, you know? He understood. He knew, I mean, of course I'm in, so he knew me. I'm his. He joined the eighty-second airborne for the same reason I wanted to go. So, yeah, man, um, a few weeks later, I was in basic training. That quick, huh? Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was like two and a half months from the time I signed up, I was already in basic training. Cause back then, you know, late nineties recruitment was at a pretty low there, the Clinton administration and they'd routed the military and cut so much funding, but trying to get guys to sign up for combat arms, you know, the recruiter would be like, heck yeah, sign him right

• 35:29Speaker 01

  up, come on in here, you know? So, yeah, I did that. How was boot camp? I was in such good shape that it was like easy. I think I got in worse shape when I got here. I was already getting like a three forty on the army's PT test. Right? And a lot of it was, you know, I could max the pushups and situps, but my runtime was like, I was running like eleven flat two miles, you know, just a little runner, runner dude, right? And, uh, and skinny. God bless my heart, I look back at some of them pictures, man, I'm like, wow, wow, boy, you needed to eat.

• 35:59Jocko Willink?

  Did you, you never ran like competitively?

• 36:02Speaker 01

  No.

• 36:02Jocko Willink?

  In high school or anything?

• 36:03Speaker 01

  No, no, I didn't start running. I, I joined the ROTC at NC State because you know, okay, well, maybe I want to join the army, but you know, maybe I'll be an officer. Yeah, you know, that didn't really play out that way. And, but that was the first time I started doing PT and running. And I think like my first PT test, I must've run like a 15 minute two mile. But like my second one was sub 12. Yeah. So apparently I had some decent predisposition, genetic predisposition to running.

• 36:30Jocko Willink?

  And you're, uh, the shock of boot camp was no factor because you were just stoked to be there.

• 36:35Speaker 01

  Right. Yeah. And, and you know, at this point now I'm 20. So I'm one of the oldest kids in basic training and I'm even back then I'm looking around doing, looking like, dude, these are a bunch of pussies. Where do these kids come from? Right? Like clearly they didn't work like, you know, my dad, you know? In my head, I think every American boy is like me, you know, and now there's these city kids and whatever, man. Yeah. But basically it wasn't hard. I mean, I got like, you know, top PT and you know, was quickly made like the stupid platoon sergeant or whatever. And I was like, great, you know? And you know, there was a little clique, you know, because I did the basic and AIT back to back. So it was like 14 weeks. So you same drill sergeants all the way through. By the end, me and these couple of other boys are a little bit older, a little bit more mature.

• 37:20Speaker 01

  You know, we were running things and we had our own little mafia going. You know, we had, when they let us clean the drill sergeant's, uh, uh, office, we took the key, snuck off post, made a copy, a copy of it. So now I had a drill sergeant's, uh, office key, which had all our personal bags in the, right? Like, so we would go in there and listen to the Walkmans and CDs and, you know, and like hide out. And it was funny because the drill sergeants had no idea we were doing it, much less that we were leaving post. Like, you know, you can't leave post in basic training. There's no cell phone. Like nowadays they can make phone calls and be on the internet. None of that. You're on lockdown, right? We were sticking off post and like, cause we had access to the civilian clothes.

• 38:04Speaker 01

  We was thinking off post going and buying beer and it's stashing it in the drill sergeant's office in the personal, right? And we go in there at night and house a few beers, you know, buy some liquor. No clue. So I always say like, I was already running an underground and auxiliary when I was in basic training. Like SF was just, you know, where I was gestating. But yeah, man, I got out of there and um freaking immediately went to uh the, the little progression course or whatever. PLDC where you had to go from uh, you know, to get your promotion to E4 or whatever. And it was like a couple of days before I finished that little three week course.

• 38:44Jocko Willink?

  So you're already in E4 after like a few months?

• 38:46Speaker 01

  Uh, no, I'm still in E3. I finished, because I did have a little bit of college, I was finished basic as an E3. And uh, so now I'm in this little PLDC course, so I can get promoted to E4. And they're like, hey, you ready to go to selection? I'm like, I guess, uh. When? And they're like, in two weeks. Man, I haven't worn a rucksack.

• 39:09Speaker 01

  Right? And that's all our selection is, is carrying a rucksack for 28 days. I'm like, yeah, okay, okay. Cause I'm like, I'm not gonna say no. I'm not turning down a slot at SFAS. Looking back, I could have been like, hey, I really could stand another month of training and they'd have been like, okay, whatever. And put me in the next course. I didn't know it like that. I thought just an opportunity at selection must have been a godsend. You can't say no. So I had a whopping two weeks to train for selection.

• 39:38Speaker 01

  And went straight there, you know, and even then I look back and I'm like, it wasn't really that hard. But it wasn't hard because quitting wasn't an option, right? I couldn't have withdrawn from college, all to go to special forces and then fail, right? That wouldn't have been a thing. I could not have sold that to family members, my dad, right? Myself, couldn't have happened.

• 40:00Jocko Willink?

  How many people get, how many people make it through the, so that first selection? What is it? 28 days, you said?

• 40:06Speaker 01

  Back then it was 28 days, right? It's, it's changed a lot over the years. Um, I think right now it's 21 days of actual course. So maybe 26 days counting the admin and all that. So it was 28 back then, exactly four weeks. Um, yeah, there was two hundred and fifty or so dudes in my class, fifty-two finished and forty or forty-one were selected. And I think a lot of folks don't know that, right? You can finish that course and not get picked up, you know, twenty-eight day non-select. Yeah, that's gotta hurt. That's gotta hurt. And, uh, so, yeah, I got picked up.

• 40:43Jocko Willink?

  And most of those people are quitters or their performance drops or medical drops.

• 40:47Speaker 01

  You know, they hurt their knees.

• 40:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, the, the number one attrition rate is voluntary withdrawals. You know, that's probably ninety-five percent and then injury. And, you know, it's funny, I've seen some dudes and I'm sure the same at Bud's and everywhere else, you see those guys that like, they've got stress fractures, broken ankle, broken toes, you know, torn patellar tendons and they finish, you know? It's like, whoo. I was just young and stupid, man. Freaking, I didn't, I'm so lucky. I don't get blisters on my feet. I never have. I got some of my first blisters ever last year hunting in the mountains of Idaho. Cause I bought a pair of boots and didn't really break them in. I, you know, warm around in North Carolina, working around the house. And then I throw a backpack on and go hiking

• 41:33Speaker 01

  in the mountains of Idaho. Uh, and I call it hiking. It was armed hiking because we didn't kill anything. Yeah. It's not really hunting if you don't, well, you know, it's just armed hiking. Really well armed hiking. Uh, good training. I guess you could chalk it up as, but yeah, I'd never even gotten a blister like, you know? Um, so I was lucky when it comes to that because that's a big thing in our selection is like just dudes' feet get turned to hamburger. What do you, how are you gonna ruck march if you ain't got, you know, feet? I've seen some, you know, blisters that start at the toes and end at like the back of the heel, you know, like things that like you could lose a leg out over, you know? And the medics were like, whoa, you know? They had horrible, you know, in the little medic station, they had all those pictures.

• 42:18Jocko Willink?

  And you think it's just some genetic thing? You just don't get blisters?

• 42:21Speaker 01

  I just, for whatever reason, my feet, uh, fit jungle boots, which is weird because it's not like they're, you know, I just did. Uh, so yeah, man, that just worked out. Finished election. It was funny because at the time, Reg said to finish, it was before the 18 or the SF baby program, the 18 X-ray, right, it was before that. And, but the guard had the back door. It was like the 18X because I didn't go to any other unit. And um, so it's graduation day. I had to go to the strength and to the board a couple of times because I was in E3 and they were like, you can't, you're not even supposed to be here, much less finish. Like what the, they didn't know what to do with me.

• 43:06Speaker 01

  Again, some dudes looked at it, gave me a waiver. But it was funny because you know, the company commander, company commander in the training, SF training is not really involved in anything. He shows up, you know, he's an admin guy. For the most part, the enlisted boys run selection. So come time, you know, he's handing out, you know, his graduation, not very formal, it's out at Camp McCall, you're just all dirty and nasty and you're walking across this little stage and he's handing it out. He's like, Staff Sergeant such and such, Captain such and such, Sergeant such and such, you know, hey, shaking hands. And I get up there and he goes, Private First, he looks at the first sergeant and the whole class knows. You know, we don't wear rank and stuff there, but you know, right? After four weeks, everyone knows who the cherry lieutenant is.

• 43:49Speaker 01

  And, and you know, there were some guys there probably who were pissed that I was there as an, you know, an E3. But most of the guys were like, wow, this dude's crushing it and he's a baby. But I wasn't a child, you know, I wasn't 18, you know.

• 44:01Jocko Willink?

  So the average age in there, like 24 or something?

• 44:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, very much so. You know, the average age, you know, senior E4 promotables, E5s and E6s made up the bulk of the class. And most of the officers were, you know, first lieutenant and captains. And um, so it was kind of funny because the whole class like laughed and clapped. You know, because the captain or the company commander and major was like, what the? He like talks to the first sergeant and sergeant major and they're like, mm hmm, mm hmm. And he's like, really? And I'm like, standing there on the stage like, am I getting ready to get booted? You know, there's a commander gonna go, nope, right here. And so anyway, freaking shakes my hand and goes, all right,

• 44:45Speaker 01

  private first class, cowl, and welcome to regiment. Right on. So, man, it was kind of screwed up. I, I, I was in a race in motocross.

• 44:56Speaker 01

  One week before I was supposed to report to the Q course. Broke my femur, couple ribs, my arm. Yeah, man. At a race that I shouldn't have been racing. Are you not allowed to race it? Uh, no, it wasn't like that. You know how, you know, that wasn't on the list of things you can't do, you know, like you're not supposed to skydive. No one ever thought, these knuckleheads are out there, like, don't go ride rodeo is on the list of things that you're not supposed to do while, you know, in the Q course. I wasn't in the Q course yet, but motocross wasn't on the list. Until I broke my femur. They added motorcycles to the list because of me. Um, so, yeah, man, I, um, I missed my Q course day and I was supposed to go to the Delta course. I wanted to be a medic.

• 45:41Speaker 01

  Oddly enough, my plan was to go be a medic and either go to PA school or medical school. I wanted to be like my Terminator sister. I was the one that I probably wanted to be a doctor more than she did. And, uh, but I was always in the, you know, I wanted to be like the, you know, the ER doc. I wanted to be the trauma guy. So 18 Delta just made sense. Well, eight months later, I'm still limping, you know, they put a rod in my leg and all that. Um, you know, I got my run times back down pretty good, but man, it hurt. It just hurt because I just destroyed this leg, man. It was like, you know, it was so atrophed afterwards, you know, I could put my hands around my quad. It, it was just a bone in there and it was, it's nasty because when I, basically what happened was I overjumped a, a triple jump. The,

• 46:25Speaker 01

  the jump got walloped up and kicked the bike forward. My buds were standing over there so they could see the drain plug on the bottom of the bike. The bike was pointing at the ground. I was still upright. When it hit the ground, the front tire basically trapped this leg and then.

• 46:41Speaker 01

  Catapulted me, just threw me up in the air.

• 46:43Jocko Willink?

  So when you said it's not a race you should have been in, it's like too advanced of a race.

• 46:46Speaker 01

  No, the exact opposite. It was like a local outlaw race, not an AMA sanctioned race. It was just a fun race, but there's no fun races because you've still got to win, right? And, and I was battling for first. And a funny thing was, I was racing the 250 class and the 125 class. At that time, so I had already raced those two and then there was this, the unlimited class where it didn't matter. You could race anything you wanted in it. And so I was racing six motos that night. Six different races that afternoon night. It was the sixth moto. I was exhausted. And that folks don't realize, man, like I'm in phenomenal shape at this time, right? And motocross is still one of the most physically demanding things I've ever done.

• 47:31Speaker 01

  And, you know, because you just don't realize it, you're, you're strapped to a 230, 40 pound piece of equipment that has 45 horsepower, you know, with the right. You're trying to control that thing, you know, it's not like you're just relaxing on it. You're standing up, you're clenching it, you know, between your legs, all that. And anyway, yeah, man.

• 47:55Speaker 01

  So now my career is like, okay, now what? So through advisement, they're like, hey, look, you lost all this time. Let me sign you up for the Charlie course, the engineer demo course. I'm like, all right, at this point, I just want to get in the course. And, you know, I've been basically doing nothing for eight months except for rehab. And so, okay, cool. So I did the Charlie course. It was kind of funny, man, in the Charlie course, because I'm from North Carolina. So I know people at UNCW, which is a, you know, Wilmington is a college town with a beach problem. Right? NC State, ECU, party, I have friends everywhere. So I was like the tour guide on the weekend, right? Like, yeah, I know people at this school. Let's go to this party, all that kind of stuff. So we're having a good time.

• 48:39Speaker 01

  That's where I met that fellow Ben Bettner, our little clique, man, a bunch of little crazy dudes. And, um, you know, borderline, you know, we were misbehaving in the Q course, you know, because it wasn't that hard. You know, especially in the MOS phase, it wasn't very hard. So we were partying and blah, blah. Yeah, I did all that stuff. Language school wasn't hard back then because no one cared about language. You really didn't have to go to language school. So I went to language school, but did not learn French.

• 49:09Speaker 01

  And then, of course, it didn't really matter because it was like eight years later before I ever went anywhere that spoke French. You know, not a lot of French speakers in Iraq and Afghanistan, you know. But yeah, man, freaking, uh, cool stuff. I, um, I got lucky though, because if I had done the medic course, I would have missed the invasion. I'd have been in language school or serious school during that timeframe. So because I did the shorter Charlie course, I was already done and on a team. And doing some pretty cool stuff, Afghanistan kicks off and I got to go at the beginning. Where were you when September 11th went down? So when I say we're doing cool stuff, um, my warrant, he was the ASO guy, right?

• 49:50Speaker 01

  The, the source operations guy, not the door kicker guy, even though he had done all that, he had just matured into understanding that that's the, that's the hard part, right? The finish is the easy part, right? How long does this take us to execute a target, you know? Thirty to 90 seconds typically, right? We're on target, everyone's zip tied or done. We're done with the target. Now we're doing SSE. It's quick. It's that find fix part, that ASO stuff, right? It's actually difficult. It takes a brain and he was all about that. And because I was that skinny college kid, I didn't look like an SF guy.

• 50:30Speaker 01

  So he got me signed up on this, uh, program that fifth group, 10th group, all the active duty groups were participating. It was 10th group's year to run it. And it was the red cell against the NCCC, the nuclear command and control. So for the four months leading up to nine 11, I'm running around the nation, tracking and, you know, developing patterns of life of this general, he's got a suitcase attached to him.

• 51:00Speaker 01

  He's like number 12 in the chain of command of running our country in a time of nuclear war with Russia. And I had no idea because it was very cellular, right? It was broken down into little cells, which is ironic, right? Cause now we're playing red against the United States nuclear command and control.

• 51:21Speaker 01

  For those six months, I didn't interact. I did not see face to face. It was all old school Cold War tradecraft, dead drops, notes, no text messages, nothing. The only time I got text messages or a call is when I actually called the handler, uh, who was a chief out of 10th group and he was running our cell. So we were in Oklahoma, Nebraska, silos, man, right? And this guy would go from silo facility to silo facility with these tractor trailers that indescript, three tractor trailers or so, um, and that could change, right? And then a security detail that, you know, all plain clothes and stuff, right? Like you're driving down the highway, you would never notice this convoy. Of course,

• 52:04Speaker 01

  they didn't nut the buck convoy either. It was just these three tractor trailer trucks. And, uh, and sometimes more than that. Sometimes a convoy was much larger when they had other pieces of equipment that I had no idea what it was. I only cared about him. Because the ultimate goal was when we were supposed to execute, we were trying to create a four second hiccup in the United States, nuclear reaction to Russia's attack. Four seconds. That was what it was. That's all supposedly Russia needed. Four seconds, man. Well, come to find out, man, it was a worldwide effort. It wasn't just my four goofballs. And I knew there were some others because other teammates of mine were scattered around the country. And I knew they were doing it. I had no idea where they're at. Cause last time I saw him

• 52:46Speaker 01

  was a, a meeting in Northern Virginia where we all came together. They briefed us and sent us on our ways. And it was fun, man. I'm this new little punk kid, little SF dude. Man, there were, you know, unlimited budget, freaking just swiping a government credit card. There was days I had two different rental cars, freaking, you know, hotel, you know? And it was an amazing thing. It was really cool because, you know, I had to get an interim TS, which back then a little baby E6, I didn't have TS clinics. So that, that paved the way to getting my, my clinics set up and all that, uh, much younger than, than I should have probably. Um, or at least was standard at the time. So, yeah, man, on the

• 53:26Speaker 01

  morning of nine 11, I crawled through this drainage little culvert, freaking, I went to Walmart, bought some leafy Gucci flies from Walmart, and I freaking got my little crappy Walmart ghillie suit and I crawled like for four hours to get within, taking a picture of this general that was going to be the shot. And like I said, man, you got teams around the world taking pictures of different types of planes and tell numbers and oh, this plane took off in Interlitt, Turkey, and then it landed in Alaska, like it flew across the North Pole. Yeah. I mean, these are, these are some crazy assets, right? Well, yeah, man. So I get a text and it's like abort,

• 54:10Speaker 01

  move to such and such. And I'm like, I'm not compromised. I'm good. Right now was the text I got back. Abort right now. And I'm watching his security detail change. Hmm. What the fuck is going on? What the, what's happening? And as I'm crawling out, man, freaking like the local sheriff's department freaking starts pulling in dudes that have got shotguns, right? Local redneck dudes. Some Marines showed up. I guess they were like freaking had been hovering this whole time, this marine detail that I was not even aware of. Luckily, they weren't aware of me either. So now I'm crawling

• 54:52Speaker 01

  quickly because it's clear something is going on, right? Because they've got mags in their guns. And I'm like, what the fuck, man? Get out, get my car, freaking call, hey, what's up? Yeah. Meet me at this motel. It's like, you know, side of the road, dirt motel, one story, old school, you know, 1950s built motel. And there's like 40 rental cars in this motel parking lot. I'm like, what the hell is going on? Come to find out, it's not my four man cell. And there was redundancies upon redundancies for all these cells at every location around the world, man. And none of us knew about each other. And a couple of them, you like recognize because this thing's been going on for months. And I'm like, I saw you in Nebraska. I saw you males, females.

• 55:36Speaker 01

  And this is, that's a, that's a good point because. That was the first time in my life I realized how important females are for reconnaissance, surveillance, freaking like wow, they do have a major role. That changed a lot of my career, the way I saw women and how they can be an asset, right? Like me and you, right? How do we walk around? We're not blending in anywhere, right? We don't even blend in an average US freaking city, much less throw on some, a man dress and try to walk around Jalalabad, right? You know, we're busted. But man, these ladies, you know, they can go and do, especially when you recruit the ones that can speak Arabic and you know, can blend in, right? Which we learned that lesson. But this was my first time seeing females. I was like, holy crap.

• 56:22Speaker 01

  Come to find out, one of the people on my team was a female. I didn't know. I'm just dead dropping letters and notes. So anyway, as I walk in the hotel room, man, yeah, there's like 40 people in this little hotel room. It's not, I mean, just cramped in, sitting, looking at a TV of burning towers.

• 56:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, man, I'm just sitting there going, okay, what the fuck? We're under attack. And at this point, you know, it's early in the morning, no one even knows. Pentagon hadn't been hit yet. And so that happened while we were sitting there and we're just like, whoa. Okay, so we pack up. We actually went and linked up with that asset and provided a ring of security for them and escorted them. So we went from playing red cell against them to helping with their security cord on. We were unarmed, so we pulled in outer security and escorted them to a hard location. Yeah, and then got on planes and flew back to wherever we were supposed to. There were

• 57:24Speaker 01

  unit guys, there were guys from Dam Neck involved. Everybody flew back as fast as they could, but planes were grounded. So they're sending C-17s from wherever they could and picking us up. We drove 100 mile an hour all the way to Colorado Springs, you know, the 10th group and got on flights wherever we could get them. It was always funny because, you know, like the tier one guys, you know, the Lear jets, we're waiting for them. We're just waiting on like whatever we could get. Like, oh, can I get on that crop duster? Get a ride back to Bragg, you know? But it was, I always remember, that was my first impression of those guys. Like, how come they get Lear jets? You know? Oh, they're important. We're the scrubs. But yeah, man, so that's how it all got started, you know?

• 58:05Speaker 01

  I had a slot to go to MFF and you know, National Guard, young SF dude to get a slot in Freefall was a big deal back then, you know, because back then we didn't all SF'd and all go to Freefall. And so that chief was like, well, I mean, your orders are good for another year. You're detailed and assigned to us. And what do you want to do? I was like, what do you mean? Well, you can go to Freefall or you can come with us. I'm like, I'm with you. Let's go. Couple of weeks later, man, we were in Afghanistan. You know, young dumb kid.

• 58:39Jocko Willink?

  What'd that look like? So what, I mean, what kind of, what'd they do? Say, all right, here's what we're doing.

• 58:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, a lot of people.

• 58:47Jocko Willink?

  Go figure it out. Like your dad used to say to you.

• 58:49Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it was like, hey, um, you know, call your family members. We're going into isolation Monday. We're doing what? What's that? What's isolation? Like this is how, like, I don't know, the only isolation I knew about was at Robbins Sage. I didn't completely understand, right? And honestly, most of the guys didn't either. It was like, just because I was new, none of the force had been to war either. There was still only a handful of guys NSF because only a handful of fifth group dudes got to play in the Gulf War. Handful of guys from Mogadishu, you know, no combat experience.

• 59:22Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, but I was gonna say, in your actual team, there might have been zero.

• 59:25Speaker 01

  The chief had stuff in South America in the eighties, you know, but all, you know, by with and through advisement stuff. But yeah, man, so we're like, okay, well, here we go. And, um, yeah, man, uh, got to go and be in Tora Bora, you know, so there was basically a lot of, because it's funny for us, like, we all know how it all played out, but I mean, there's an entire generation of Americans that were born either right at or after nine 11, who don't understand, right? There was two parts of Afghanistan. There was the Taliban, right? The horse soldiers and everybody that came down from the, the north and Bagram, you know, triple nickel, you know, all that team did all that. And then there was Tora Bora.

• 1:00:08Speaker 01

  And, um, you know, Al Qaeda. So I got lucky enough to be involved in all of that. Uh, my team settled in Jalalabad. Where'd you fly? How'd you get in there? Uh, helo. Yeah. So you heloed into Jalalabad? Did you guys get out? Um, we heloed in south of Jalalabad, north of Tora Bor. And then what was your, what'd you do? Um, well, just supported, mostly supported the JTAC and the CCT guys dropping bombs. Jack. Right? And tried to mostly coordinate and keep our, you know, there was two main warlords in this region. And one was Hazar Ali and the other was Zaman. And Zaman spoke English and was the agency's pick to be that Nanggar Warlord, that Nanggar leader.

• 1:00:53Speaker 01

  Well, Zaman had lived in Britain for 10 or 12 years. He left Afghanistan. Hazar Ali was Moos, man. He was, he was a farmer, right? You know? A lot of folks don't realize, man, you know, Afghanistan of the 14 most opium producing countries in the world, Afghanistan was number 14 when we invaded. It's number one right now. That's a horrible result of this war. Well, Hazar Ali, who ultimately became the Minister of Defense of Afghanistan, was a farmer, uh, but also a freedom fighter, a Moos against the Taliban. The Taliban very much disallowed opium growth, you know?

• 1:01:33Speaker 01

  They, they were all about, they, you know, that was a sin. So, you know, we changed that by getting rid of the Taliban. All right. Everybody started growing opium, you know, and wow, what beautiful fields. Those pink red flowers, man, they're beautiful, but ooh, it's just death growing out of the ground, you know? So anyway, yeah, man, um. How long were you on the ground for? Uh. How long, how much time did you spend on that first deployment? This is, that question is where my fairy tale of initial entry into Special Forces begins to end. So.

• 1:02:08Speaker 01

  Fifth group wanted out as fast as they could. So January, February, they're already like, yeah, we're going to the Horn of Africa. When'd you get there? November? Mm-hmm. So November, December, January, and Fifth Group is already... Fifth Group is like, they want out. They want to get to the Horn of Africa, right? There's still no talk of Iraq at this point, right? It's like, oh, Horn of Africa, we're going to Somalia. And everybody wanted that. They're like, oh, okay, we're gonna go get some and return that favor, right? That's a 10-year-old favor. We owe those Somalis. Everybody wanted to get there. Well, then the clear the battle plans changed and Iraq became a thing. Well, so 19th Group and 3rd Group start showing up. So they're like, hey, look, we're just gonna, you're gonna be continuity. You're gonna help this next team rip in, right?

• 1:02:52Speaker 01

  I got left and wound up staying like another six months, man. I was like, oh, no. So that's where that fairy tale, everything happening really cool, kinda went, oh, shit. But it wasn't bad because I wound up being on a team with a bunch of dudes that were good friends of mine. I actually got to go be an LNO for a few weeks up in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. So as a, you know, 24, 25-year-old, young, little buck, my first experience in a former Soviet area. It was a nice, nice four weeks of partying. I was supposed to work at the embassy. I think I went to the embassy twice. I was the assistant LNO. The LNO was this former 10th Group dude who had retired, got called back in.

• 1:03:36Speaker 01

  And he had been working like the Miami-Dade organized crime task force. He was a, he, his name, I'm not gonna say his name. He had a very Ukrainian name. He was from the Ukraine. He came to America when he was like 12. So he spoke Russian, Ukrainian. Man, he had all kinds of stuff going on in Ukraine, or not Ukraine, Uzbekistan. And he was connected as the LNO up there. If you needed something out of Uzbekistan, he could get it. I mean, the second night I was up there, the dude took me to a party at the Ukraine, Uzbekistani's president's daughter's house, her mansion. This dude knew everybody. He was the quintessential SF guy, right?

• 1:04:16Speaker 01

  But he's like almost 60, he's kind of overweight, he speaks Russian, and he's fluent. So...

• 1:04:25Speaker 01

  Like four days after I get up there, he's like, oh yeah, I'm going to the States. So now I'm just up there, the assistant LNO, uh, and I'm living in the Sheraton, which that's Russian for Sheraton Hotel. Um, that's all I learned. And, uh, and so I just partied for like four weeks. And, um, you know, I basically, my job was to take, you know, my, my bud, my Uzbeki driver buddy, and go pick up people from the airport, take them to the hotel and then take them back to the airport. So they could fly into the FOB, you know? And, uh, so yeah, man, freaking, pretty cool. But yeah, so back to Afghanistan and finally home and, um,

• 1:05:02Jocko Willink?

  Did you do any good ops? Like what kind of missions were you doing?

• 1:05:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, you did a lot of cool stuff, you know, of course, you know, dropping all the bombs in, in, um, Tora Bor was cool. Of course, we started and there was still a lot of, you know, stuff out there. You know, we went after some, um, um, Daggon Chechens, you know, some of those, as they were, you know, because

• 1:05:24Jocko Willink?

  Were you guys already working with a partner force?

• 1:05:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, we started the initial, what became the Commandos. It was called the MRF, the Murph, Mobile Reaction Force there in Jalalabad. Jalalabad wasn't a base. It was just a crappy airfield. Every time we went to get a resupply, we had to clear the airfield. And clear the runway, make sure they didn't put anything on it, you know? The MC130s would, you know, squeak in the middle of the night, drop our junk off. And, um, so we started building what became Jalalabad's FOB. We built ranges out there and started training this, uh, Hazar Ali's guys. And, uh, you know, I was talking about Zaman and Hazar Ali, they, they're the reason freaking, uh, UBL got away.

• 1:06:07Speaker 01

  They were supposed to be helping us deal with Al Qaeda and they turned on each other, right? So Zaman, the CIA's pick, no one liked him. He had no real pull. He was nobody. Heck, most of these kids had never heard of him. And Ali, who's been there, you know, running the show, he's not having it. So yeah, man, they start fighting with each other and you got like, you know, half the teams over there with them and some of the other teams. And then half of us are over here with Zaman or, uh, Hazar Ali's guys and they're fighting each other. And we're like, wait, wait, wait, wait. We're supposed to be killing those dudes. So it screwed the war up for about three days. As we sorted that mess out. And yeah, man, that's when, that's when he escaped. That's when he got.

• 1:06:48Jocko Willink?

  How'd you guys sort that out?

• 1:06:49Speaker 01

  Ultimately, the agency stepped in. They were running the show there, right? The Juliet teams and we were basically supporting them. And we had two masters, right? We had the FOB and fifth groups, Konamal Holland. And then of course, we had the ground branch guys and they, they were running the show in Torbora. And so we freaking sorted that mess out and basically they told Zuman like, hey, stand down. And once everything was hashed out, settled back, everybody went to Jalabad. Zuman actually went back to Britain. They exiled him. That's what Hazard Ali told everybody that he exiled him. But really the agency was like, hey, man, you just need to leave.

• 1:07:33Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:33Speaker 01

  So it was a bad call and it was, you know, one of those convenient things. He spoke English, Hazard Ali didn't. Bad call on our part on who we decided we thought we could put in power. We didn't really understand how much influence Hazard Ali really had over the Pashto people.

• 1:07:51Jocko Willink?

  Well, at least they had the humility to recognize that and say, all right, cool. We screwed this up. Let's get this guy out of here and move forward. You know, it's interesting that history repeats itself, right? Like talking to the SF guys in Vietnam, they would have those like guys shoot each other on base between the, the, the, the Homs and the whatever other groups, like the regular Vietnamese. They'd get in fights and shoot each other.

• 1:08:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:18Jocko Willink?

  Like, well, then they go on a mission with these guys.

• 1:08:20Speaker 01

  That's one of our biggest problems, right? We, for some reason as Americans, we have this arrogance that we think everyone's like us and likes the things we like. And well, you know, we have this amazing experiment in America, this diversity. That's never been this way anywhere else on the planet ever. So we can walk out on the street, go to McDonald's and see 20 different ethnicities, freaking people from all around the world, right? At least their ancestors are, and in some cases they literally just came from there. Well, in other countries, those people will fight each other, right? They're like from different villages and different tribes and they don't like each other and they're never going to. We think we can impose that, right?

• 1:09:03Speaker 01

  Like, Americans can't grasp why the Shia and the Sunni absolutely hate each other and will fight each other. And the only time they'll come together is to fight someone else they hate more, us or Israel.

• 1:09:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, Americans, and we're bad about it. You know, we really think we can imply, or impose our way of doing things. And it, you know, the deal, man, you got your Colonel or whoever else at the FOB. We're out there living with these boys, you know, living with them. They're our team and we're trying to explain all the dynamics of it. And you got some Colonel who's never done even like FIDS or JSO, much less run an unconventional war with a partner force. It was frustrating, you know? Because to me, it's just simple. You know, it's like, hey, just be nice to all these people, freaking stop treating them like crap. And realize that that tribe and that tribe should not ever be put in the same unit and given loaded weapons. They will shoot each other.

• 1:10:03Speaker 01

  But, I mean, it's us, you know? It's just how we do things. And like you said, we just repeat it time and time again.

• 1:10:10Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, sometimes I think it's, it's conceit or whatever arrogance that we think, well, if we tell you guys to work together, we're gonna work together. And sometimes I think it's just arrogance. People just don't realize like, hey, hey, these, these two people that you're talking to right now, they don't, they're not gonna get along ever.

• 1:10:26Speaker 01

  Ever.

• 1:10:27Jocko Willink?

  Ever.

• 1:10:27Speaker 01

  Ever. Nothing you can do.

• 1:10:29Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:29Speaker 01

  Unless for some reason.

• 1:10:31Jocko Willink?

  Well, I guess the ever should be, I was gonna say the ever as well. If there's someone that they hit worse, they'll go against that person. But as soon as that person's gone.

• 1:10:37Speaker 01

  We can be an ally for the next two days. How much money are we gonna get out of this? You know, if it like, and you know, that's funny, I, I've, I've always tried to tell folks, there's a huge difference between allies and friends. And allies are usually pretty predictable because that means we have a, a very common goal, a common enemy, a com- we have a commonality. Whereas friends, a lot of times, friends are, that's a loose relationship based mostly on emotion. Right? And you see it all the time. Who hurts our feelings the most? Our friends. Our allies are predictable. When you go into an alliance, so like business advice, I've always given guys business advice. One of the lessons I learned was, don't start a business with a friend.

• 1:11:19Speaker 01

  If you have to have a partner, and you shouldn't take a partner, but if you have to have a partner and get this endeavor started, do not do it with a friend.

• 1:11:26Jocko Willink?

  I haven't listened to that advice. Like, all my businesses are with all my friends.

• 1:11:31Speaker 01

  I hope you've had better luck than I have.

• 1:11:33Jocko Willink?

  I've had good luck with it, man.

• 1:11:34Speaker 01

  Good, man. It's hard, you know, when you got, especially we tend to like start businesses with guys like us, and we're all so hard-headed and set in our ways and all that, you know, and if there's not some type of clear hierarchy in those operations agreements and that stuff that you can always go back to and be like, hey buddy, this is what the company says. Well, in my case, we didn't even have like an operations agreement. We just started it and then it, you know, luckily it didn't dissolve into where we hated each other and things like that. But, you know, my dad always told me, and he's like, if you don't need a partner, don't have one. You know, and then sure enough, he was right. You know, like, wow, that dude was smart. But yeah, man, the career was awesome. I,

• 1:12:17Jocko Willink?

  So how, so you end up going to, so you end up spending this first, like, what is it? You end up nine months in Afghanistan with a little bit of time in Uzbek?

• 1:12:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, almost seven and a half months.

• 1:12:26Jocko Willink?

  Seven and a half months. And then what happens?

• 1:12:29Speaker 01

  So, went home and...

• 1:12:32Jocko Willink?

  And when you're in the National Guard, are you, so you're in the National Guard?

• 1:12:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, but I'm on, I'm on active duty.

• 1:12:36Jocko Willink?

  Okay, so it's no different?

• 1:12:37Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:12:37Jocko Willink?

  No different.

• 1:12:38Speaker 01

  So, you know, the guard guys would Mobe and Demobe, and there'd be two months on the, you know, if they, let's say they deployed for eight months, and that was pretty typical. It was two months of Mobe and then two months of Demo for a total of a year deployment.

• 1:12:54Jocko Willink?

  Got it. And so eight months deployment, two months on the front end, two months on the back end.

• 1:12:58Speaker 01

  That became the standard for SF, National Guard. Well, mine was kind of like, well, what do I do now? Who do I belong to? Who am I working for? And so... I was lucky, I freaking went and did some, the, the counter-drug, uh, mission for the National Guard. It's advisement to law enforcement. So I did that until.

• 1:13:20Jocko Willink?

  Stateside?

• 1:13:21Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm. Yeah. And, and it's, uh, it's providing surveillance training, um, you know, deal with like, it's kind of, what about Posse Cobra tops?

• 1:13:31Jocko Willink?

  Skirt?

• 1:13:31Speaker 01

  Well, you know, we're unarmed most of the time, you know, sometimes you, you know, we're really gonna go out in the middle of West Virginia and surveil these meth heads with thirty O six rifles? I'm probably gonna carry my personal firearm and deal with the ramifications later. Um, and I've had a couple of times where meth heads, like, we were, we're in snow. We actually didn't think he was home. He must've been sleeping it off, you know? Cause meth heads would, you know, they'd be up for days and then they'll sleep for days. And we thought this meth trailer, there was no, you know, they weren't cooking or whatever. And we're sitting on the side of this mountain in snow, we're wearing woodland camouflage, freaking, we're messing about. We didn't build a high site, sun come up. We're not taking it seriously.

• 1:14:14Speaker 01

  And we're like two hundred and fifty meters from this dude's, uh, it's like a cabin and a trailer up in this hollow in West Virginia.

• 1:14:22Speaker 01

  Dude, he comes out and starts scanning with his hunting rifle and a scope.

• 1:14:27Jocko Willink?

  Dang.

• 1:14:28Speaker 01

  And we're just sitting there trying to like get behind, uh, you know, trees. Dude, we're sticking out like sore thumbs and we're not wearing overwhites or anything, just dumb. Because like I said, we weren't taking it seriously. You know, we'd just been to Afghanistan, figuring we're a bunch of tough guys. What's this dumb redneck gonna do? Well, lucky that redneck didn't see us and shoot us, right? Cause let's face it, redneck boys, you know, they can shoot. It wouldn't have been the first time he shot something with that hunting rifle, you know? And I was like, oh, good God.

• 1:14:54Jocko Willink?

  I was running a recon course one time. This is like before the war. And I had this group up in the mountains. And they're they're like laid up in a hide site, right? And I'm a land grader, right? So I'm I'm out there, but I'm cammed up too, because I'm all fired up. So I would like sneak around and so I'm kind of sneaking up on them to kind of observe what they're doing to make sure that they're being squared away. And as I'm sitting there observing them, and I'm not that far away from them, like 50 meters away. A guy I hear like a dog, right? And I'm like, oh, these guys are gonna get, you know, busted. This is gonna be cool. I'm gonna watch the whole thing. So a guy comes down, he's got two freaking German shepherds with him and they look badass. They look like freaking wolves.

• 1:15:39Jocko Willink?

  And so the guys, you know, I'm watching this whole thing play out. And you know, the guys pick up that they're coming because it was a squared away little crew. They they pick up a guy coming, they like fade in, they're they're hunkered down. Guy comes walking down this path, it wasn't even a road, it was a path. And he doesn't, he's none the wiser. And all of a sudden, the dogs, bro, the dogs are like, they stop, they start growling. And all of a sudden, the guy like starts scanning.

• 1:16:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:16:07Jocko Willink?

  He reaches down and pulls out a 45, bro. And I'm like 50 meters away. And I go, so the guys, I just go, excuse me, sir, you know, because I'm, we're in America. Like this guy doesn't know what the hell's going on, man. I'm like, excuse me, sir, sir, you know, sir, it's okay. I said, we're in the military, we're on a training operation, but it was not a good scenario to have going down.

• 1:16:33Speaker 01

  There was lots of things like that, you know, especially in the urban side. Um, heck, good friend of mine, they called him the SF cowboy. They use his likeness in that video game and all that. I don't know if you remember some of the first pictures that came out of Afghanistan, big dude, sleeves cut off, big old beard. He was my roommate, right? Well, we're sitting in a little minivan, right, watching this house and freaking, I'm like, oh crap. It's like two in the morning, you know? And freaking dude walks up. Oh shit. Revolver pointing at us and we're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Freaking rolls it down. Most of the time we had a law enforcement guy with us, but in this case it was him and I. And the law enforcement dudes were in another car up the road.

• 1:17:17Speaker 01

  And now it's like, hey, bro. Hey, hey, hey, hey. Well, he's just a concerned citizen. Yeah. And we're lucky, you know, that could have gone so bad. Can you imagine the headline? Right? Like, say one of us made a mistake and put him on the dirt. You know, an American civilian. Yeah. And, you know, so since then I've done a couple of things where I'm advising law enforcement in the States. Minneapolis. Right? Couple of year before last, right? When that whole mess kicked off. And it's like, hey, man. I don't care if you're far left. I don't care if you're BLM and rioting. Right? You're an American. I'm not squeezing the trigger on an American. Right? You can't. Wrong answer.

• 1:18:01Speaker 01

  Now, if you're threatening me, that's different, but just, hey, man, if you're robbing and looting a Best Buy. And to me, that's not something I can pull the trigger on somebody for, man. It's just not in my, in my book. And it's weird, you know, it's weird. Like you have to remind guys like, hey, guys, this is not an operation. We are here in advisement only, only if you have done everything you can to get out of that situation. And it's defense of yourself or third party, man. Right? Like it, because of backlash or something like that would be huge. Uh, you know, there was those, um, it was that old, the border. Surveillance thing. Oh, yeah. Marines shot that guy like late nineties. I don't remember that. The name of the, it was, it had an operational name.

• 1:18:44Speaker 01

  It was like, yeah, they'd send all kinds of guys down. Yeah. Yeah. And the Marines shot that one fella. And that was a big deal and they shut that program down. Um, and we were kind of like a part of that same umbrella. But yeah, we always used to, you know, joke and it's not really that funny now that I'm older that, you know, yeah. Post, posse cum totus, you know? Now I look back and I'm like, should the military and the agency be allowed to advise? Because let's face it, right? Like um, in Waco, there were tier one advisors on the ground. You know, that that stuff, that's kind of scary, man, you know, because you know, the rule of law says that our intelligence organizations and our military can't operate

• 1:19:29Speaker 01

  here. Of course, the National Guard gets around it a little bit with that state mission. But it's scary, right? There's a reason posse comas exists. So that military can't turn its weapons towards our population. So looking back, like I, I'm like, man, we were, we were kids, we were joking like, eh, posse comatized. Now I'm like, woo, it's not funny anymore. Right? Like, you know, when you're, when you're young and dumb, you make jokes that are inappropriate because you're young and dumb. And now I look back, I'm like, I don't know that we should be doing that, right? Like, I know law enforcement needs help, but they probably shouldn't be getting it from us.

• 1:20:02Jocko Willink?

  There's definitely a, there's a positive and negative to it too, because obviously, if you have guys that can help law enforcement improve their, what they do, like, that's beneficial. And then there's two, two sides of that coin too, because guys that are in the military have a certain mindset. Part of that mindset is, hey, man, we've been through this before. Somebody gets, starts getting crazy. We're not worried about it. We're not freaking out. Like, we'll deescalate, in many cases, deescalate better than someone that hasn't been in these shitty situations before. But then, not all militaries created equal. So you might get someone from the same unit that goes, if somebody does that shit, you gotta freaking go. And you're like, no, actually, that's not the right answer.

• 1:20:43Jocko Willink?

  So it, that, there's a, there can be a positive, there can be a negative, uh, that, both those situations, you could have somebody from the military perform awesome. You could also have someone from the military do something stupid. I mean, just because you're in the military doesn't mean you're, it doesn't mean, it doesn't, it doesn't mean shit. They're all over the map, you know, all over the map. Some guys tactically, they were in the military for 20 years, they're tactical idiots.

• 1:21:10Speaker 01

  You know, I, I've gotten that a couple of times with the whole campaign, like, well, just because you're a veteran doesn't mean you're, and I'm like, you're absolutely right. Being a veteran doesn't mean that I was even good at being a military guy. Right? Like, just because you were in the service doesn't mean you're even good at whatever your job was in the service. So it definitely doesn't automatically qualify you to be a politician. Uh, in a lot of ways, I feel like my experiences completely make me unqualified to be a typical politician. Right? Like, I'm, so I'm kinda getting at here is that, yeah, I'm not a politician and never have been, and that's what our country needs right now.

• 1:21:49Speaker 01

  And my experiences in the military have set me up to where I could go do good things for our country and never become a politician. I don't have that in my blood. It's just not how I am.

• 1:22:02Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, as I look at everything that's gone on the last six months after downfall of Afghanistan, and then even looking at Afghanistan, Iraq, and then you just compare all that to Vietnam, and you say to yourself, like, like those lessons, every lesson that we, you can look back at Afghanistan and say, wow, you know, we learned this. We already knew this. We already knew this stuff from Vietnam. And so when it comes to people being in the government that are figuring out where we're going to war, I, I used to think, yeah, you know, somebody should, somebody should, uh, be in the military if they're gonna serve in, in the government. You know, if they're gonna be a politician, they should have, they should have served in the military. It'd be helpful, right? I used to think that, like, oh yeah, that makes sense. Like, oh yeah, okay, yeah, that makes sense. You understand what?

• 1:22:47Speaker 01

  Continued service.

• 1:22:48Jocko Willink?

  Continued service. And like, oh yeah, you know what it's like, but now I'm, we absolutely need military people that are, that understand these lessons to the core, that aren't just thinking with the arrogance that, that the, the generation that just sent us to war.

• 1:23:04Speaker 01

  Let's fight. We'll fight for American principles and but, or, or even more so.

• 1:23:10Jocko Willink?

  Who's gonna fight?

• 1:23:10Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:23:11Jocko Willink?

  You say we? Who's the we?

• 1:23:12Speaker 01

  Oh, no, no, not we.

• 1:23:13Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:14Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:23:14Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:14Speaker 01

  Those military folks.

• 1:23:16Jocko Willink?

  Those military guys.

• 1:23:17Speaker 01

  And I mean, isn't it, isn't it funny, right? You'll hear about folks who had these awesome blessed lives, uh, maybe, um, like Tillman, NFL football player. You hear these crazy stories about these people who had these awesome jobs, or maybe they came from this awesome family and they go, and he enlisted. Like it's automatically assumed because he came from a, an amazing family that he should have been an officer, right? Like that prejudice is weird. So the fact that a rich, well-to-do guy enlists and goes to fight for war, that's a story. Why is that a story? That shouldn't be a story, but it is, right? And I just use Tillman because he's such a famous story.

• 1:24:02Speaker 01

  And what an amazing man, you know, freaking pro football player. Life is set for this guy. Quits that and listens to Ranger Regiment, right? Like, whoa, bro, you really asking for it. Like, that's some American stuff. But my point is, who's going to war? Typically, it's just those young, what else did you have to do with your life type of guys, you know? And, and the guys like a lot of us, right? Let's face it, you know, a lot of upper-middle-class dudes and soft, you know, and, you know, but, and feel that calling that I need to do this stuff because their dad lets them watch Rambo when they're a kid. But, um, yeah, man, Congress, right, is the only part of our government, per the

• 1:24:47Speaker 01

  Constitution, that can declare war. How is it? We've been at war for 20 years. What's the point? What was the point, right? Because in, in Jalalabad, which has been considered for 10, 12 years now, a hotspot, right? But in January, February, March of 2002, I was walking around the market without a gun. I'd hop on the ATV, jump in the truck, hop in the car with one of my troopers, one of my Afghans, run down, wearing Afghani garb. The biggest threat to me in that market or anywhere in Jalalabad or all of Nangarhar province.

• 1:25:31Speaker 01

  Was having the people hug me too tightly. That was the biggest threat to me. Or maybe a car accident because traffic is crazy. You know, they loved us. They loved us. So what happened? The conventional military showed up. So all the colonels and generals can get their stars and their awards and get their promotions. Those politicians, because let's face it, right? Once you become a certain level, whether it's enlisted or officer, right? Your career becomes that thing and then looking out for your other, you know, upper senior officers, senior enlisted. We gotta get them Bronze Stars. We got Purple Hearts. Our unit needs medals. Our unit needs combat.

• 1:26:13Speaker 01

  Because, you know, to become a general without a C I B in the army in this timeframe, ooh, you gotta go get some, right? And you're gonna probably need a Silver Star, at least a Bronze Star would be. So how am I gonna do that unless I go to war? So let's take these strikers and these M two Bradleys and destroy roads and run over innocent people. And they weren't doing it on purpose. They're just, that's the conventional military. They have tanks. And, you know, I've never driven a striker before, but I've sat in a hatch. I'm like, how can you drive this thing without running over everything, you know? And they're like, well, you do run over everything because it can. Well, you know what, man? We made those enemies. We made the enemies. Then we're now fighting the second generation.

• 1:26:57Speaker 01

  We're fighting the sons of the men we killed in Tora Bor. We're fighting the sons of the men we killed in the Shahikat and Helmand and everywhere else at the beginning of that war. We created that enemy. And the same thing happened in Iraq. And, you know, let's face it, right? Afghanistan was righteous. You know, Al Qaeda needed to fall. I, looking back, is it a good strategy to topple regimes that are predictable? The Taliban was very predictable. The Taliban has never met the requirement to be listed as a terrorist organization. They were a sovereign nation. And yes, they had horrible, horrible means and human rights abuses, but they were a sovereign nation. Gaddafi, sovereign nation.

• 1:27:45Speaker 01

  Freaking Iraq, sovereign nation with dictators and dictators are predictable. They care about one thing. First and foremost, their main priority is their power. So they're predictable. You know, in the interviews with Saddam, you know, he talks about like, I thought y'all were kidding. He was like, I, I thought y'all were making it up that you thought I had weapons of mass destruction. I haven't had gas in years and I don't have any of that stuff. In his interviews, you know, he's going, I really didn't think y'all were going to invade. So why did we? I have my own theories. My theory is because people say we went to war for oil. I'm like, have you seen the oil prices? We didn't go for war for oil.

• 1:28:28Speaker 01

  We went to war with Iraq to stop its oil production. The prices went up. Cause if we had pumped oil out of Iraq, you wouldn't have made, all the oil companies wouldn't have made money. Right? Cause that's a new source that we didn't, they didn't have rights or access to. You stop the oil, alright? Lower the supply, demand stays at or continues to increase, prices go up. So that's a little bit of my theory on that, but whatever. Either way, at least, and that's only based off of what I have seen since, right? When we first invaded Iraq, I was, woo, let's go, you know? Like every other little young trooper. But really, you know, we're talking hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, thousands of Americans

• 1:29:13Speaker 01

  and, and what did we get? Right? If you tell me, you know, cause war was supposed to be for expansion, um, minerals, riches, right? Throughout human history, war has been to expand your empire. Well, we suck at being an imperial power because we go to these wars and we do nothing with the spoils. So why do we keep sending Americans? Cause let's face it, was it really for our national defense or was it for our national interests? Cause that's two very different things. Most of my work throughout my life has been for interests, less about defense. Because once Al Qaeda was destroyed and eliminated and even ISIS and Al Qaeda in Iraq, were they ever really capable?

• 1:29:57Speaker 01

  Of attacking us here. Yeah, you know, they flew the planes into those towers and they killed 3,000 plus people. But did they ever really threaten our daily lives? Did they threaten America, the United States? Probably not, you know, right? Could they ever brought that war on a large scale to America? And affected the average American's daily life? No, they didn't have that capability. And I mean, clearly, right? Like, none of that's really, we haven't had any big attacks since 9/11. I think they just blew their wad. They were done. They didn't really, I don't think they had any plan after that, right? It was like, oh crap, now what? We pissed these guys off and they're coming for us. Now what? Right?

• 1:30:41Speaker 01

  They never really did anything since. So my point is, right? Like, where has Congress been? Where has our representatives in our senate been these last 20 years? Military industrial complex continues to make big time money. Big time money. When our enlisted soldiers are in barracks that are covered in mold, just nastiness, right? They're living in poverty. Whereas you can go to the general's house on any post and it's a well groomed lawn and it's basically a little mansion, right? So, so what did we get out of these wars? Well, it's arguable, right? It's very arguable.

• 1:31:19Speaker 01

  But the bottom line is, Congress has continued to set aside its authority, its duty, its role, its responsibility to either declare war or cut the funding. They didn't cut the funding. Lot of people got rich off these wars. And I mean, I was a contractor. I guilty, I, I, I got paid for going to war. Now, did I get paid like Glock or, you know, Northrop or Raytheon or? No, of course not, but.

• 1:31:54Jocko Willink?

  Well, you got a positive outlook, believe it or not, from my perspective, because the positive outlook would be that somebody was smart enough to figure out that if they did this stuff, uh, they'd be able to raise the price of oil and these other, I, I, I, that's, to me, that's a positive outlook to think that someone was smart enough to actually craft the things that you're saying.

• 1:32:14Speaker 01

  Right. I don't know if they actually, it was planned, or if it just, we didn't stumble into it.

• 1:32:19Jocko Willink?

  Here's what I.

• 1:32:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, I worry about they, people, you know, these conspiracy theorists, I'm like, half the time, they can't figure out where the bathroom is.

• 1:32:25Jocko Willink?

  That's what makes, that's what, that's what disturbs me more than anything else, is that it's the arrogance combined with the being naive, the naive to think, okay, here's what's going on Iraq. Look, we, we know that Saddam's not a good guy, we can probably create some kind of a good ally there, and we can probably just turn this into a democracy, because we like democracy, and we, you know, we like it, and all those people must want to be free too, and we've got people that came from Iraq, or that are in Iraq, that say, hell yeah, we want to be free, so cool, let, let's invade, and in their minds, it plays out, hey, it's gonna be like the first Gulf War, it'll take us, you know, a couple of weeks, then we'll start to, we'll get rid of the bath

• 1:33:07Jocko Willink?

  party, we'll establish, we'll start building Walmarts, right, that, I think that that's what they thought more than anything else.

• 1:33:14Speaker 01

  Probably.

• 1:33:15Jocko Willink?

  And it's just, it's just an arrogant, it's just arrogance, it's, well, it's not just arrogance, it's arrogance and it's ignorance to think that you can go, and, you know, there's a, when it comes to the economy, right, when you start trying to dictate, when you start having a centralized economy, it's, you cannot pull it off, you can't do it, you can't pull off a centralized economy, that's why communism doesn't work, you have to let the free market kind of do its thing. So if you think, if you, if you, if we know that you can't control an economy, which is a finite thing, and a controllable thing in some, in some feasible way, and we can't control it, but at least you can understand what it is, but now we think we're gonna take a bunch of millions of people and predict how they're gonna respond,

• 1:33:59Jocko Willink?

  and predict what the secondary tertiary effects are gonna be with what they think and how they're gonna behave, like, that's completely insane to think that.

• 1:34:08Jocko Willink?

  We, we think we are gonna control the future with other people. We think we understand what they're doing. We, we can't. So we have to start behaving in a way that we, we utilize our power to make, to attempt to influence, but we can't think to ourselves that the things are gonna play out the way we think they're gonna play out, cuz they don't. They don't. They couldn't even figure out these two freaking guys in Afghanistan. One of them's from England. Hey, everyone's gonna listen to this guy. Meanwhile, this is a local here that's been running shit for years, and we think this other guy's gonna fly in from England. He speaks English. He must be smart. Everyone's gonna listen to him. No! No! And then you just play that out over and over and over again in a bunch of different scenarios.

• 1:34:50Jocko Willink?

  In Iraq, in Afghanistan, and in Iraq, and that's what you end up with. So, that's why I'm so happy that guys like you are stepping up. People that understand that we don't understand.

• 1:35:02Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:35:02Jocko Willink?

  People that understand that we can't control everything. People that understand that the enemy gets a vote. The civilians get to vote. Like, all those things come into play.

• 1:35:10Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:35:10Jocko Willink?

  And we run around like we can figure it all out.

• 1:35:12Speaker 01

  Nothing is two plus two equals four.

• 1:35:14Jocko Willink?

  No.

• 1:35:14Speaker 01

  It's always an equation with hundreds, if not thousands, of variables. And any time you change one variable, to get the continued result, you're gonna have to change every variable, or many of them, right? And Americans, we, a couple are, you know, the arrogance, right? So what is, I always say arrogance is ignorance and cockiness combined.

• 1:35:36Speaker 01

  And, and lord knows, we are a lot of ignorance, and then you've got the cockiness. And, and we think, we really think that people want 5G, or 4G, or 3G, or whatever it was 10 years ago. They, they want that. But you've got this culture that no one wants to bother to understand. Who understands the culture of the Afghans? Who understands the culture of the Azidi in northern Iraq? Or the Kurds in very north Iraq? Or the Shia in southeastern? Who understands this stuff? The guy on the ground.

• 1:36:09Speaker 01

  The guy on the ground. You know, we were talking about, you know, um, are you familiar with Lieutenant Colonel Stuart Scheller?

• 1:36:15Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:15Speaker 01

  The Marine Corps?

• 1:36:16Jocko Willink?

  He was on the podcast, yeah.

• 1:36:17Speaker 01

  He, he was on the podcast, right? Right, yeah. I haven't talked to Stu in a couple of weeks. He and I went down to the border. And I told him, I was like, hey, bro, I got a, so he and I joke about how we met. We talked through it. We were on with Evan and JT with Black Rifle. And we were talking about how we met. It's a pretty funny story. But we went down there and we talked with a border patrol agent who's a very good friend of mine. And of course, unofficial because he would get fired for even entertaining having a conversation with a congressional candidate or House of Representatives candidate. But he talked to us and he showed us some places we could go and what to look for and broke it down for us.

• 1:37:00Speaker 01

  Nothing in the media that I had heard was anything like the border really is. At least in this section, in this section of Texas around Roma and Rio Grande City. And it was just nothing like I thought because we were on the ground. That fellow, that border patrol agent, he's the guy on the ground. I just went and got some info from him and then we went driving around and stuff and looked. And everything he told us was exactly the way it was. I was like, holy crap, man. But the border patrol's on basically a gag order, man. They talked to somebody, their job's over. Done, right? So, yeah, man, Colonel Schiller and I, the funny thing is, man, he, I got word that he might run for house. You know, he wasn't out of the Marine Corps yet.

• 1:37:46Speaker 01

  And I was like, and I hadn't announced yet either. So friends of ours, a mutual friend, a major who had worked for Colonel, I reached out and was like, hey, he's like, hey, Zach gave me your number, says you want to talk to me? Like, yes, sir, you know, our career paths may be about to collide. Be nice if we could just meet face to face and chat. He was like, okay, well, I'm up in Emerald Isle. You willing to come up here? Yep. How's tomorrow morning? Sat down and was like, here, you're thinking about running in the fourth? He was.

• 1:38:24Speaker 01

  Because apparently at that time, he had told two people. The fact that I knew it blew him away. He's like, whoa, who is this dude? You know, luckily, my team, my consulting team are very well connected and super smart guys or whatever. So anyway, we sat and chatted. It was really cool conversation. I'm talking about mature adult conversation. Because he could have easily been like, you know, an arrogant dick and been like, whatever, I'll run against whoever I want. But we said, hmm, we're two very similar types. Do we really need to run against each other? I live in the fourth. He doesn't. And now it's not the fourth anymore, but we can get to that. And it was just a really cool conversation, a little coffee shop there in Emerald Isle, North Carolina. And we left it with, and I just, you know, I gained a lot of respect for the man.

• 1:39:07Speaker 01

  When he was like, okay, I tell you what, I'm gonna think this over. I don't even know if I'm gonna get out of the Marine Corps enough time to even, you know, get in the race, blah, blah. I'm gonna take it over.

• 1:39:18Speaker 01

  He's like, when are you gonna announce it on this day? He's like, okay, well, two days prior, I'll let you know. He's like, at least then, you'll know if we're running against each other. I'm like, Roger that. Thanks. Anyway, the Marine Corps, it didn't work out or whatever, and it didn't work out for him.

• 1:39:34Speaker 01

  I would like to think he'll run in 2024, you know? I know he's considering it. A lot can happen in two years. But, um, yeah, man, what a, what a good guy, man. He's definitely a Marine Corps officer, right? Like, you know, you guys talked with him, right? He is rah, you know? But that, we need some of that, man. We need some of that. I mean, that dude threw his 17, almost 18 year career out the window to just stand up and say something. Which is funny, because like, I hear and see people on the internet, like condemning him for it. And I'm like, enlisted guys, I'm like, fellas, we have been begging, pleading, wishing a Colonel would stand up.

• 1:40:17Speaker 01

  And now y'all are trying to say this, this man is doing it for recognition? Like, just sit down and talk to him for two minutes and you'll find it out, not so much. But yeah, we were, we were in Roma, Texas and we found out, we were looking like the people aren't coming across the border in the middle of the desert. They're coming across like the bridge that goes across, there's the Border Patrol checkpoint at Roma. They're walking under the bridge, coming up, hitting the cul-de-sac and every night they get picked up by the Border Patrol buses and taken to the containment facility. They're not stinking across in the middle of the desert, walking right up into town, sitting down, getting picked up every night. That's been going on for months, right? This whole shipping them around the nation thing, that's not new. It's been going on for months. I had no idea. Those headlines had just broke the day before.

• 1:41:01Speaker 01

  I was like, holy crap, when did this start happening? My buddy was like, bro, we've been shipping illegals around this country for nine months, bro. He's like, the numbers are down. I'm like, yeah? He's like, yeah, it was 2,000 coming across the border in this little section every night. He goes, and then the cartels figured out, and they all figured out, right, that the Border Patrol can only pick up about 200 a night. So now only 200 a night come across. On the other side, on the mic side of the border, they have warehouses or hotels and it costs to stay there. But they only let 200 each night.

• 1:41:40Speaker 01

  So the cartel, the cost to come across the border, not, not being ferried, not the coyote, not transportation, the cartel's tax or fee to walk across the border, to get your armband so you can walk across the border, it's like armband. What, the cartel gives them an armband? Legit? Mm-hmm, an armband. On our side, nothing but trash, armbands. It's like going into a club. You pay, you get your armband, you're clear to go across. Well, and armbands are color-coded from which country you come from, because in those warehouses that you can see from America right over there on the mic side, they're basically hotels or it's just cots and floor mats.

• 1:42:24Speaker 01

  Every night you stay there is a hundred dollars. To walk across that border is $900 to $1,200 according where you, where you come from. Or if you don't want to spend a couple nights in that hotel warehouse, you can pay more. But that's what it costs. In Texas alone, last year, 1.7 million illegal immigrants, illegal crosses of our border, were detained. That's just how many were detained in Texas, just Texas. That's how many were detained. Now, how many people came on across? And this whole evolution of the Border Patrol and Customs facilitating the integration and ferrying throughout the country. It used to be, you know, coyotes would continue and pick up. We destroyed that business and gave it all to the cartels.

• 1:43:08Speaker 01

  So 1.7 million, let's say a thousand bucks, times a thousand dollars. And we can only guess that double that were not detained. So let's just call it an even three mil times a thousand dollars. That's what we gave the cartels just in Mexico. And when I say we gave it to them, we created this marketplace for them. That's what this administration did by opening the borders. They created a marketplace where the cartels now, they don't really even care about drugs. The drugs that are coming across our border now are coming across in a backpack, not truckloads. There's no more marijuana coming across in truckloads. That's very, they're not seizing marijuana anymore.

• 1:43:50Speaker 01

  It's backpacks of fentanyl and heroin. Because 30-pound backpack of fentanyl, that can damn near kill the whole East Coast. Stuff is so potent. 30, 40 pounds of black tar, unprocessed opium hash, bring it to the States, process it into heroin. One backpack turns into freaking half a million dollars worth of heroin. How do we combat that if we don't get serious about true border security? And even beyond that, right? Because the Lord knows that's one of my problems with Americans, but Republicans more so, that everything's a linear solution. Build a wall.

• 1:44:32Speaker 01

  And then what? No one's asking, "And then what?" So we build this wall. What are we gonna do? Put guns on it? People are like, "Yeah!" Okay, so we're gonna shoot our southern neighbors who want to come to America. Okay? I don't blame them for wanting to come here, but there's a line. Get in the back of it. There's a line to come here. So yes, it's gotta be multifaceted, right? It can't be, "Just build a wall." That's not solving the problem. That's just a measure to slow part of the result of the problem, the illegal immigration. Why are our neighbors wanting to come here so badly? Because all our southern neighbors, their countries are crap. Had we adhered to the Monroe Doctrine?

• 1:45:16Speaker 01

  And quit worried about Europe, quit worrying about the Middle East? I mean, we spent billions and millions. What if we'd invested that in our southern neighbors? Instead of letting, say, I don't know, one of the richest, wealthiest countries in the world, Venezuela, fall to communism right underneath our noses? Why? Why did we do that? Why are we not

• 1:45:37Speaker 01

  actually helping Mexico?

• 1:45:40Speaker 01

  "Oh, we wanna take these hard lines and look like a bunch of tough guys." It's not solving the problem. And it kills me that that's all these solutions, right? When you, like, all my opponents across the nation, if you talk to Republican candidates for any office from city council, probably to the next president, they're gonna have one lineal solution for any problem that you talk to them about. Because what? Talking points. But no one's actually discussing root causes of problems. So the border security, a wall, is a measure, not a solution. It's not, it's not going to solve the problem. You build a wall, well, there's these two bodies of water on each side of it, right? You know the deal?

• 1:46:24Speaker 01

  There's not a single security measure put on this planet. Whatever you build, whether a security protocol you build, there's guys like us that can get around it, right? It's just like lawyers, right? Lawyers can write a bunch of legal documents and then some other lawyers can figure out how to screw that. It's the same thing. Isn't that warfare? It's like, your enemy does this, they set up these obstacles, you figure out how to get around them. Well, here's an idea. Let's address it at its root cause.

• 1:46:56Speaker 01

  I don't know, maybe the demand to come here. Well, let's say 20 years from now, oh my God, and that's not an American thing, right? 20 years from now.

• 1:47:07Jocko Willink?

  Next election cycle only.

• 1:47:08Speaker 01

  Four years only, right? Americans think in four-year blocks, if we're lucky. What if 20 years from now, Mexico is a thriving ally? And there's no cartels. We help them get rid of it. We give them incentives to stop teaming up with the cartels. Same goes for Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, El Salvador. We help them with the game problems. We help them. And I don't mean just toss money at it and waste money. When I say invest, right? Invest means there's a implied return on that investment, right? Americans, when our Congress just allocates funds, they just throw money at things.

• 1:47:53Speaker 01

  They don't actually follow up or have measures in place to ensure our return on investment. So my point here is, man, that's part of why I'm running is I'm so tired of these very linear Band-Aids to hemorrhaging wounds, you know? And the wall is just one great example of that, you know? I mean, and name any other hot topic right now. Abortion, ban it. The same people that say banning abortion will solve that problem, and the same people that will tell you that banning guns won't get rid of guns. Where's the logic and reason here, folks? So like with abortion, yeah, man, it's horrible, right?

• 1:48:36Speaker 01

  I mean, even people who are pro-choice will go, yeah, it's bad. There's very, only the craziest of the crazy are like for abortion, right? That's, that's, human beings are not for killing unborn children, generally speaking.

• 1:48:51Speaker 01

  So, why are we having abortions? Right? Let's make them illegal. Okay, cool. Let's make them illegal. We're done. But we're not done. Because we haven't addressed, why are we, why are women wanting or feeling the need to abort their unborn child? First of all, the three of us will never, ever be able to understand, sympathize with a woman that is so desperate that she wants to abort her child. Right? It's just, first of all, we have to say that out loud, right? So, let's bring in the experts. Let's talk to some ladies. I know, that sounds crazy, right?

• 1:49:35Speaker 01

  Let's go find the subject matter experts and figure out why this is happening. Well, I ask people all the time, what's the number one demographic in America having abortions?

• 1:49:47Speaker 01

  Do you guys know? Put you on the spot, right? Yeah, I was a little surprised too. Seventeen to twenty-two-year-old, upper-middle-class, white women.

• 1:49:58Speaker 01

  Why? Well, because their fathers have told them they need to go to college, because modern feminism had told them that they need to go to college. They need to get careers. And a child inhibits that.

• 1:50:12Speaker 01

  Right? And, and this is a very summarized version of this very, very complex problem. So, what if we, as a community, as a government, right? It's okay for the government to do things for the community, right? Like, we can, we can have some good social welfare problems, right? Things that support the wellness of our communities and our culture and our nation. So, when I use welfare, I don't mean just throwing money at stuff and not expecting some type of return. So, if we start saying, okay, what if we create a robust and efficient adoption program? What if there's assistance for these women?

• 1:50:56Speaker 01

  To carry their children to term instead of terminating them. What if? And I say what if because I don't know the answer, right? And that's weird for a political candidate to tell you he doesn't know for sure what he's talking about, right? But we know that, right? We come up with courses of actions and then say, okay, we're gonna do this. And then we try to anticipate what our adversary is gonna do. If we do X, they'll do Y. And then this is how, well, that's how we have to war game all these things, right? So if we sit down and say, okay? Because here's a really bad thing about the adoption process in America today. Me and Melissa are not married, right? We see marriage as an agreement between she and I and God, not the state of North Carolina.

• 1:51:41Speaker 01

  Also, she's a very pragmatic, practical person. And she wants to hold the whole thing that if she gets tired of me, she can just boot me or walk away. How long have y'all been together? Ten and a half years. We're married. In my eyes, my heart, my soul, I am married to that woman. And she's the most precious thing on this planet to me, right? Like precious, she's the only one. That's how precious she is. So if she and I wanted to adopt, it could take three to five years. If me and you want to adopt, right? We could have a kid in a year or less. That's how our culture's evolved now, right? A gay couple can adopt very quickly. It doesn't make any sense. It doesn't make any sense.

• 1:52:26Speaker 01

  Or me and Melissa could go out of the country and buy a child. We could adopt from Africa or China. Let's face it, you're buying a child when you do that because it costs a lot of money. But you can do it and you can do it in a matter of weeks. Typically speaking, when someone adopts out of Africa, different countries, different way, right? But you go over, you visit, come back, go back for the next trip and you have your child. It's efficient and it's a good thing, right? Like, these are, these are parents who want children, who can't have them for whatever reason. And then there are these children that need parents. We have so many in America, but so why are Americans leaving America, the United States, who go adopt children from other countries?

• 1:53:09Speaker 01

  When we have kids right here, we have an abortion problem. Why? Because it's easier. You know, like, let's face it, right? I mean, let's say, let's say Melissa couldn't have kids. That's not why we don't have kids. We don't have kids because it's just kind of a choice. We've been busy. She's been busy with her career and I've been busy with mine. And, um, so if we wanted to, it takes time, right? But we could go get a kid. It doesn't, it doesn't make any sense. So my point to all that is, whether it's the border or abortion or name it.

• 1:53:50Speaker 01

  You've got all these candidates and these politicians, right? Because right now, a lot of politicians, sitting, already elected politicians, they're now candidates. Again, midterms are coming. They have these one-liners, these talking points. And then they go back to DC and they don't really do anything. It's so frustrating to me, man, because let's face it, right? We're problem solvers. You know, we're given problems every single day. Whether it's how to fit that much equipment on that one truck, because that other truck is deadlined. Right? Or supply won't give us another truck, you know, because some sort major needs that truck. Um, for his ride to the chow hall or whatever, you know?

• 1:54:30Speaker 01

  We solve problems with very little. And then at this point in our nation's history and future, present and future. You know, we, we need those type of people. We need guys from our community and, and gals from the global war on terrorism. Those type of veterans who are problem solvers. Who have seen, you know, the neglect and the abuse and the fraud, waste and abuse. That's what these wars have been, you know, Afghanistan highlights it. But people don't realize how many billions of dollars of equipment we left in Iraq, too. That we had to destroy in Syria because they, ISIS took it, drove it across the border and then fought us with it. But there's still billions upon billions of dollars of equipment in Iraq.

• 1:55:16Speaker 01

  Now, we haven't abandoned Iraq.

• 1:55:19Speaker 01

  We abandoned Iraq too. It was just less publicized, less emotional. For a lot of the servicemen and women because of just the way Afghanistan happened so quickly. It was really easy for the media to cover, so on and so forth. And then all the debacle in Kabul at the airfield, that was definitely the media loved. Yeah, it was a disastrous, you know, show. Iraq happened over a course of numerous years and they're not interested in coming down.

• 1:55:50Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, anyway. The uh, one thing I talk about a lot when I talk about leadership, I wrote about in one of my books, iterative decision-making process, which means you don't know necessarily what's going to happen and you don't necessarily have all the information. So what do you do? You sit there and just do nothing? No, you go, okay, well, here's a step that I think this might have an impact, a positive impact. Let me try this one step. You try that one step. Then you get what the feedback is. If the feedback is good, you say, okay, well, that was good. Let's do a little bit more in that direction. Okay, great. Oh, it's still working. That's super. Oh, let's try a little bit more in that direction. Oh, wait a second. Now we're getting negative feedback. What we thought was going to happen, isn't happening.

• 1:56:32Jocko Willink?

  Do we double down? No, we actually say, oh, let's make some adjustments to what our plan, what our strategy is. And that's what was, as you look at Afghanistan and Iraq and Vietnam, you can see inflection points along the way where the, the direction we were going was not clearly giving good feedback. Now, do you immediately abandon it? No, maybe press, okay, let's try a little more. Let's make some adjustments. Oh, wait a second. Oh, wait, it's definitely not working. Okay, so what should we do? We should try a different plan. We should try a different strategy and we shouldn't be afraid to say, you know what? We were wrong about this and we are going to back out. And we are going to provide a different type of effort to try and solve this problem.

• 1:57:16Jocko Willink?

  So like you said, a lot of politicians, a lot of, that's just politicians, people, human beings, don't want to say, hey, I messed up here. I was wrong about this. Here's my adjustments. Here's what we're going to do. I'm open to ideas.

• 1:57:32Speaker 01

  When it first happened, all of us were like, whoa, okay. Um, yeah, man, I started carrying some hand sanitizer. I, you know, I put Melissa go bag together for the first time, right? I'm not a, I'm not really a prepper. I'm more of a, well, shit hits fan. I've got enough that I'll be able to make it, right? You've been prepping. I'm good, right? I'm mentally prepped, you know? Um, she drives back and forth to Wilmington, you know, an hour. So I was like, hmm, you know what? You know, she, she competes in three gun and she's doing some of the tactical games and all that kind of stuff. And I mean, she can shoot, right? She goes to range by herself and all that, you know, she's got her own M4 and all that kind of stuff. So we actually packed it up through a little 72 hour go bag in her trunk, right?

• 1:58:12Speaker 01

  We were all like, this pandemic might be something. Within about six weeks, we were like, hmm. And we all knew like these cloth masks, right? Like we, we've all done C burn, right? We've all done some counter proliferation of biological nuclear and those, those suits and the gas masks and all that stuff, right? It's like, that might stop a virus. That might. And now you're telling me this mask is what? We all knew it was just horse shit. I got a handkerchief on, I'm good. Right. And, and I think maybe like you said, like with Iraq, we, you know, I don't think it really, like it didn't, it started out good intentions.

• 1:58:46Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And like you said about Afghanistan, when we, when we got to Iraq, there was, there was Iraqis waving American flags and welcoming us there. And they wanted us to be there. And even I was there in 2003, 2004, 2006, all the way that through that time, there was the, the local Iraqi populace wanted us there. And by the way, in 2012, 13, and when ISIS started to, to flex, there was, there was plenty of Iraqi government officials and people on the ground saying, please, America, please come help us. Hey, we need some help over here. We weren't thinking that these guys would come back, but here they are and we need some help. Please come help us. So. We can't ignore the part of the population that wants that.

• 1:59:29Speaker 01

  Right. When you cause a problem, you are kind of obligated to deal with it. Right. We caused that problem in Iraq. I was all for with the withdrawal and the Obama administration, the withdrawal. But once they decided they were going to withdraw, there came a point when ISIS rose up that we needed to halt the withdrawal, deal with ISIS, and then pick back up with the withdrawal. But since they started the withdrawal, they couldn't say they made a mistake. Americans will never, we just don't like to say we're wrong. I told somebody the other day, I was like, I will kiss your white ass live on whatever social media platform you want to go live on. If you can find me a politician, an elected official that has said, you know what, I realize now I was wrong. And find me one politician who has said that.

• 2:00:14Jocko Willink?

  And the crazy thing is, from an ego perspective, people think if I say, hey, guys, I was wrong about this, you think everyone's going to think you're a loser now. No, they actually go, yeah, well, cool. I'm glad you admitted that and we didn't know either. Like you were bringing up the example of COVID. Hey, okay, it looks like a bunch of people in Italy are dying. They're showing these pictures of people dying in the hospitals. They're all overcrowded. This looks like it's going to suck. Cool. Oh, you want us to stand down for a few weeks here? Cool. We're going to flatten the curve. What does that mean? Oh, we don't want our hospitals overwhelmed? Okay, got it.

• 2:00:43Speaker 01

  We need time to prepare.

• 2:00:44Jocko Willink?

  Sure, sounds good. Okay.

• 2:00:47Jocko Willink?

  Now you need another two weeks. Okay. Hey, you know what? I'm American. I support America. I don't want to have people get hurt. Okay, cool. Got it. Well, now you want another two weeks. Now you want another two months. Now you want another six months. Now you want another year.

• 2:00:58Speaker 01

  And then after a year, we find out that the death rates, you know, most of the people aren't dying from COVID. They're dying from something else. And COVID accelerated it. And that's fine. I get it, you know. But we now have information and data, right, that says all the measures that we did, they didn't help. We've got a vaccine that really isn't, right? By, you know, they had to change the definition of vaccine, right? Like, could you imagine getting three polio vaccines and then getting polio?

• 2:01:31Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's not.

• 2:01:32Speaker 01

  Right. We got rid of that. That vaccine got rid of that disease, right? This vaccine supposedly makes your symptoms less, but it could kill you.

• 2:01:44Speaker 01

  That's one, that's this one, um, one drug we haven't seen commercials for, right? Cause all those drug commercials on TV is like, when they, when they get into the fine print, they start speaking really fast about all the, the side effects is like, and it could kill, you know, you could have crazy diarrhea and you could bleed from your nose and maybe your anus, and then you might very well die from this kidney failure, you know? And people are like, oh, okay, but ask your doctor.

• 2:02:07Jocko Willink?

  But your skin will be clearer after two weeks.

• 2:02:10Speaker 01

  Right. Could you imagine what the, you know, Johnson and Johnson vaccine got pulled, right? Why? Shh, let's not talk about that. Let's just talk about another vaccine, cause the J J's vaccine killed some people. American people don't even know, so many people don't even know that Johnson and Johnson vaccine was pulled and that it had killed people with strokes and, you know, fancier medical terms than I know. Huh, right? Like, we won't just step back and say, hey, we now have different information. We're gonna adjust this plan.

• 2:02:40Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And by the way, on that, you can say, hey, there are, here's the fine print on the vaccine. Here's what it can do to you. Here are the side effects you can have and make a choice, you know? As a human being, if you have some compromised immune system, or you're living in some situation where this COVID, according to all the statistics, could be really bad for you. Maybe that vaccine is a godsend. That's awesome.

• 2:03:05Speaker 01

  Maybe a mask is great for you.

• 2:03:06Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. But if you're a person that's young and healthy and you feel like you could, oh, and you know, a bunch of people that have had it and it didn't impact them at all, and you say, hey, I don't think I'm gonna need that vaccine. It doesn't seem like it's worth the risk. So that's my decision. Right? So you let people make a decision about what they're gonna do with their health. That seems like a much smarter move than trying to impose things on people, which I've gone off on this a bunch. When you try and impose things on human beings, we fight, especially Americans, they don't like it. We don't like it. But all human beings don't like it. All human beings don't like to have things imposed on them. And the only way you can impose things effectively is to do it through force, through violence.

• 2:03:47Jocko Willink?

  Or now we're recently finding out that you can also do it by, by taking their money and seizing their assets before they can even know what's happening.

• 2:03:54Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:03:55Jocko Willink?

  Which I never, I never really thought of that before. It didn't even occur to me that, like, what's going on in Canada right now? Oh, you're gonna protest? Cool. We're not just gonna arrest you. We're gonna seize your assets. That to me is like when you come to my property and you say you're gonna take my house from me.

• 2:04:13Speaker 01

  It's the same, exact same.

• 2:04:14Jocko Willink?

  It's the same thing.

• 2:04:14Speaker 01

  Damn right.

• 2:04:15Jocko Willink?

  So that is a problem.

• 2:04:17Speaker 01

  Man, Canada, it's just so hard to watch. You know, you got law enforcement guys who just a few years ago, or not even two years ago, they were being defunded and demonized, you know, during the whole Black Lives Matter thing. And now these same police officers are ones that are literally trampling on, on people. And I was like,

• 2:04:38Speaker 01

  you know, please God, don't let it come to that here because I have a lot of law enforcement brothers. And we all know that good men follow orders. And good men that need to take care of their children will follow orders. Good men that have to take care of their family, rely on that paycheck, they're gonna follow orders. That is scary to me because it will be at that point where I'm like, hey, law dogs, I love you and I've always supported you, but we are now on two different sides. Right? Like when you, like what's happening in Canada, man, they're siding with Trudeau. That little turd, and I usually don't, I try not to talk about presidents,

• 2:05:20Speaker 01

  elected, especially elected presidents of sovereign nations in that kind of derogatory term. But wow, you wanna talk about somebody that won't admit that he's wrong?

• 2:05:30Jocko Willink?

  And double down on it.

• 2:05:31Speaker 01

  Every, every step. It's like, I just won't lose. And he's got an arsenal. He's got a military. He's got a national police force, man. The national police force scares the shit out of me, dude. I don't like it when I see feds wearing multicam and military stuff, right? Like it makes me uneasy. I don't like seeing local PDs wearing BDUs. Right? I wanna, I like some shine shoes. Like North Carolina Highway Patrol still wears a police uniform. They look like police officers, not military members. I still don't like it, man. Even though I want my law dog friends to have every tool available to them to do law enforcement. But there's some things that I definitely am not cool with, like no knock warrants and stuff like that.

• 2:06:12Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:06:12Speaker 01

  They're not necessary. I mean, we learned that. CQB is dangerous. Let's just not cordon, come out.

• 2:06:18Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 2:06:19Speaker 01

  Oh, you don't want to come out? Okay, cool. Just turn your power off.

• 2:06:22Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:06:22Speaker 01

  We'll play some loud music, maybe send a robot in with some gas. You'll come out. You'll get tired of this, right?

• 2:06:29Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, the no knock warrant thing is definitely something that needs to stop.

• 2:06:33Speaker 01

  Yeah. Our law enforcement needs some help, right?

• 2:06:35Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:06:35Speaker 01

  It really does. Across America, law enforcement in general needs help. The average law dog is a good, good American.

• 2:06:41Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And even up in Canada, I don't think that, I don't think it's going to continue in this direction. The direction it's going right now, I don't think it's going to continue this direction. I think it's gonna.

• 2:06:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:06:52Jocko Willink?

  I think it's gonna stop pretty soon.

• 2:06:53Speaker 01

  I think the only reason that that's, is what's gonna happen, is that the people that are pressing like Trudeau, they're actually just a bunch of pussies. They think they want to fight. But, you know, do they really want to fight? Once the bullets start flying and stuff, you know, and things get pressed, I, I think ultimately we're gonna see Trudeau step down.

• 2:07:15Jocko Willink?

  I just looked at my, uh, watch to recognize the date. So it's the 20, it's the 21st of February when we're recording this right now. So it'll be interesting. Be interesting to see how it all washes out.

• 2:07:26Speaker 01

  I, you know, I hope that's what happened. I do not want to see Canadians shooting Canadians, no more than I want to see Americans shooting Americans. You know, do you even like, you know, Americans are still mad about the whole riots and the Black Lives Matter stuff, and rightfully so, because it was all perpetuated and funded. You know, Black Lives Matters, that, those folks on the streets rioting, they were pawns of rich people. And that's, that's sad, right? Because sometimes I feel like we've been a little bit appalled out in the war, so I can kind of relate.

• 2:07:58Speaker 01

  I'm not mad at young black or young Hispanic or whatever group, or even, even young Antifa, you know, white kids who are rioting and breaking stuff. They're pissed. Are they going too far? Absolutely, right? We have the right to protest peacefully, but not break shit and set it on fire. That's wrong. That's rioting, not protesting. Again, root cause. That whole mess was perpetuated. It was funded. I mean, there were pallets of bricks that just poof showed up and, you know, what's the root cause? What's the root cause, man? What's really going on?

• 2:08:37Speaker 01

  How do we reach out to even more so, you know, like our poor communities, poor inner-city communities, which oftentimes are predominantly black, but also Latino. Your, your poor white communities tend to be rural, right? Well, why are these things happening? What, what is the perpetual process that, that, that keeps these communities in their situation? Well, the modern welfare system, and I don't mean the good kind of welfare, like wellness of society. I'm talking about our, the EBT and, and all these things. There's no, there's no, it, it, it doesn't help people get out of those situations. It perpetuates it.

• 2:09:19Speaker 01

  It, it, it destroys the nuclear family and it was, you know, we can go back to LBJ, you know, with the modern welfare programs. And there's plenty of quotes out there that they did it on purpose. They knew what, they actually planned that stuff, right? Like, I think back in the 50s and 60s, the intelligence agency in our government, they were pretty sinister and they were thoughtful. They weren't just meandering, right? And you can go back and look at what they did and how they approached it. And Lyndon Baines Johnson, Nixon, that whole bunch that were raised out of World War II in a fear of socialism and communism. You know, that FBI, Hoover's FBI, that CIA, you know, I mean, man, it was, they were proficient.

• 2:10:03Speaker 01

  I feel like they knew what they were doing. And so they created that welfare problem. And here we are today, no one's ever really came up with any decent solutions. The only real welfare reform our nation has ever seen actually came from Clinton. He actually proposed some things that would help the inner city become more productive, involved citizens. And then all that expired and no one's done anything since. And I think it's funny, you know, you got the Democrats who manipulate and coerce those communities for votes. And you got Republicans who are just like, hmm, it's not even worth it to talk to them. They're just going to vote Democrat. And I'm like.

• 2:10:49Speaker 01

  Recruitment 101, folks. You've got young, angry people that the system's not working for. Let's go talk to them. Let's come up with a real welfare reform. I had a, you know, root problems, right? That's another one, right? Just cut off welfare, tell them to get jobs. That's the average white man in America's freaking answer to welfare and poor inner-city problems. Just cut it off, tell them to get jobs. Yeah, okay, but now we're talking about decades and generations, cultural change. We have cultures that are based around this problem. You think you can just turn off welfare and just tell them to get jobs? There's your answer. That's it.

• 2:11:32Speaker 01

  Okay, and then what? Okay, and then what? I had an awesome, I met a fellow who's running for Fayetteville's mayor. Fayetteville Fort, Fayetteville Fort Bragg, North Carolina. And I had never thought about it this like this, and I've only had a few days to even think about it. But his proposal was this, and this guy's an immigrant. He's Puerto Rican, which, you know, part of the states, but not a state, so still an immigrant. Raised poor, nine brothers and sisters, right? Poor family. Anyway, he said, hey, man, what if? Let's say you've got a mother, a single mother with four children.

• 2:12:17Speaker 01

  Right? And some people say, well, she just keeps having more children to get more welfare. Okay, maybe that's true in some situations. I don't think that's true across the board. I think in a lot of cases, these mothers have more and more children. Maybe they don't have access to birth control, maybe they're not super educated on, on, just on sex education in general, right? Whatever that problem is, we have this person, they're a reality, right? They exist. This family of the single mother with these four children, it exists. They exist. How do we help them? How do we fix them? How do we get those four children to grow up to become productive, involved US citizens? That's the question. Well, his answer was this.

• 2:13:00Speaker 01

  And let's say she's getting $1,400 a month. From all the different programs, total, that's about what she's getting, $1,400. It's poverty, bro.

• 2:13:13Speaker 01

  But if she gets a job, she loses all of it. If she gets a job that only pays her a thousand dollars. Now she would be at twenty four hundred dollars a month. Now she's just barely getting by still. She's still in the poverty. But the second she takes a legal dollar or something that's not under the table, she loses every cent of her welfare funding. How does that incentivize her or her children to go do something? So here was his plan and I was like, huh. Huh. He said, let's lower it. Take some welfare away. I'm like, hmm, I wasn't expecting you to say that. But here's how he said it. He said, okay, let's knock it down. Let's cut that fourteen hundred to six hundred. She doesn't get a job, she gets six hundred.

• 2:13:59Speaker 01

  She gets a job and maybe she makes five hundred a week. She gets an additional hundred dollars a week from welfare. So as she makes more, she actually starts getting more. So let's say she goes from that fourteen hundred. Now she's making two thousand. Uh, in addition to her own, like she's making two thousand dollars a month at her job. She's, um, she's gone from that five hundred or whatever initial instead of the fourteen hundred. Now she's at a thousand.

• 2:14:29Speaker 01

  Well, there's a certain point in which she makes enough money to actually pay for her own welfare on tax dollars. It now pays for itself. The incentive is for that lady, that young woman to go work harder to make money. And now she will actually pay for her own welfare. It's a zero sum game for American taxpayers. And I was like, holy shit, I've never heard that before. Never thought about it like that before. I always thought about it like the more you make, the less you get from welfare, right? Like if you're making fourteen hundred on welfare and now you're making two grand, you're only going to get seven. He's like, no, no, it's capped, right? It's not like she just keeps making now she's making two hundred thousand dollars a year. She gets fifty thousand in welfare, right? No, it's capped.

• 2:15:13Speaker 01

  There's a point in which it all goes away. And he even said, he goes, now maybe there's actually a pyramid where it goes up to a certain amount. And as she continues to make more, it goes down a little bit and then it's ended. But it's all based off of, and he's like, it would take a lot of work.

• 2:15:30Speaker 01

  Because everywhere in the nation, the cost of living is different. So you would have to build it around all of that. He's like, but it would work. And it would fix the whole problem. He's like, you would be addressing the animosity and the resentment the tax paying, hardworking Americans have against welfare recipients. That stigma, right? That whole, uh, just cancel welfare type. Well, now the welfare recipient is paying for its own welfare, for their own welfare, not its, right? That's dehumanizing. I didn't mean to do that. But that person is now paying for their own welfare. I was like, wow, bro. I'm like, you can't be the only person, you're, you know, this, you know, Puerto Rican American that's running for mayor in Fayetteville.

• 2:16:15Speaker 01

  You mean to tell me you're the only person that's ever thought of this? And probably not. He's just the only person that ever told me about it. And I was like, I've just never thought about it, right? It's never been, in my entire life, have I ever, I've never had to sit down and start thinking about viable ways to end the welfare state in America. It's not been a problem that I had to address in my military career or my small business, right? You know, not a problem. So now that I'm running for House of Representatives, it is something that I gotta start looking at. And I was blown away. So again, back to my point of problems are never two plus two equals four.

• 2:16:53Jocko Willink?

  Nope, it ain't that easy.

• 2:16:54Speaker 01

  No, it's never that easy. And when we, when we have that conversation and we sit back and say, hey, man, yeah, this isn't working. We need to adjust. Just like, man, if we're in route to a target, you briefed your platoon or I briefed my, you know, troop.

• 2:17:11Speaker 01

  And ISR reports back, ooh, no, there's not 15 MOFOs on this target. Man, they're having some type of get together. There's 40 Maldunes on this target. You know, and trucks and what appears to be some PKMs in those trucks. We thought it was gonna be an easy target on and off, right? Nice little fun Tuesday night. ISR is reporting something different. Do we go? Yeah, Roger that. Click and hang up. We're not talking about anymore. I'm not even gonna brief my, my troopers. No, we've probably come to a little tactical halt. Huddle up and let's discuss this. The key leaders are gonna sit down and chat, right? Is this assault force even able to take that target? Well, probably not. Okay, well, let's head back to the house. We made a mistake, right?

• 2:17:55Speaker 01

  Based off of information. Now, we didn't make a mistake. Based off of information, as it changed, let's just hit pause, you know? Or maybe we request more air and we go on up and we don't hit the target. We let the Air Force do it for us, or, or the Navy, or the Marines, or whoever's flying for us that night, you know? It's so frustrating, man, because it's like, you know, there's, there's eight SF guys running for, for a US House of Representatives. There's seven SEALs. And like I said, 25, 30 global war on terrorism veterans. You know, somebody asked me the other day, "Well, what sets you apart from these other candidates?"

• 2:18:39Speaker 01

  We're all conservatives. We all pretty much agree on how to, you know, the, we all have the same stances on everything. The difference between, the first difference between me and some of my opponents is spine and shoulders. Right? And I don't mean that in a bad way. Like, I mean it in like, because they're good people, right? The, the folks I'm running against, Sam's probably one of them, are, are good people. Good people who really want to go change. And if you ask them, they're going to Capitol Hill and they're gonna save the planet. Here's reality. Reality is a freshman, brand-new representative in Congress has zero influence and no friends. Lobbyists don't even knock on their office door. They got a little cubby hole in office

• 2:19:23Speaker 01

  over in that other building. They're nobodies.

• 2:19:27Speaker 01

  So they look for friends. They make friends with lobbyists and other little groups and caucuses, right? And the incumbents, the three, four, five, 20 term representatives, they recruit them. They do them favors. Now, we got clicks and this is politics and it's the grossness of it. Here's what, aside from me not being willing to compromise, right? I've said straight up, four terms, if Amer- if America or North Carolina, District 13th or whatever, whichever district I want it, run it in, four terms is all I will do. Period. We need term limits, whether or not we can get that pushed through or not, if, when I'm up there, different story, I'm still not going to, I'm gonna self-impose my own

• 2:20:12Speaker 01

  term limits. I don't want to work in DC. And I was, one of my opponents recently told me I was a ignorant wannabe. And I was like, yep. Except for the difference is, I was like, you're absolutely right, I am pretty ignorant to exactly the kind of bullshit you guys are doing in politics. But you're wrong about the wannabe part. I'm not a wannabe. I don't want to run for Connors, but because of people like him, America needs us to run. Well, I'm not willing to compromise. That's the biggest thing. I'm not, you know, I say this all the time, right? I'm not even mad at Democrats.

• 2:20:55Speaker 01

  I'm pissed off at Republicans who have compromised our rights away. They keep thinking somehow that they can negotiate, or not even negotiate, because I'll clarify the difference between negotiate and compromise. They keep compromising with the, with the left and the Democrats, thinking they're all gonna get along and come to some type of agreement. Democrats just take, just keep taking that shit, putting it out back, powering it up. Yep, we got some more from them, we got some more from them. And Republicans go, well, if we, we keep playing nice with them, maybe one day they'll be our friends. No, man, the Democrats are hell bent on creating a communist regime in this country. They don't care what you think. They don't want to be your friend, they want to get rid of you.

• 2:21:38Speaker 01

  They want to replace you and we see this playing out in this whole politics right now, right? All of a sudden, you keep seeing everything like, what's the, what's the cure for COVID? Midterm elections.

• 2:21:48Speaker 01

  All of a sudden the mandates, yeah, the science says, no bullshit, man, freaking, it ain't no, there's no, there was no, the COVID numbers haven't changed at all. The science hasn't changed at all. Midterms are coming and Democrats know they're about to lose and they, across the country through boards of elections and every different means they can, they're trying to protect their, what they have left. And we see it in North Carolina with the redistricting and all this nastiness. But anyway, the number two thing that sets me apart is that group of veterans, those Green Berets, those SEALs, when we show up, let's say half of us, right? Let's say there's, there's 30, it's just over 30 Global War on Terrorism veterans, young, vibrant, not old gray hair, crippled old men.

• 2:22:32Speaker 01

  Easy on the gray hair, bro.

• 2:22:36Speaker 01

  You're not old, you're still vibrant, you know? There's a, I keep looking at it like this, right? We're still young if most of the 20-year-old troopers, the 20 to 30-year-old troopers in the teams or on the ODAs don't want to fistfight. The second they know that we're, we're not able to, you know, hold our own, then we're that old line that gets pushed out of the ride, you know? But I would say right now, the average 20 to 30-year-old SOF trooper doesn't really want to throw down with either one of us, right? I mean, some of them would and they'd probably whoop our old asses. We're gonna be sore the next day no matter what. But the difference is, they know we got this old, knowing we're either

• 2:23:18Speaker 01

  highly aggressive, violent, and smart, right? Like, you don't get through 20-some years of war just being lucky, you know? And I always tell them that, you know, I'm still in 20th group, man, I teach down at our SOF out course and I'll pick on the young'uns and I'll be like, okay, whatever, man, you know, that, that fun, you know, shooting the shit, shit talking, whatever you want to call it. And I'm like, okay, whatever, man, you want to fistfight? On the outside, I look like I'm ready, you know? Ready to get after it. On the inside, I'm like, please Lord God, don't let this dude fistfight. Don't let this kid, this kid actually want to take me up on this offer because it's gonna hurt so bad. But yeah, man, could you imagine?

• 2:23:59Speaker 01

  Twenty global war on terrorism veterans, right? Twelve of them, special operations guys. Swearing an oath for a second time on Capitol Hill. The Democrats shaking in their boots because they know they just lost and the Republicans going, uh-oh, we're gonna have to ask those guys, those newbies, these freshmen. We're gonna have to really team up with these guys and work with them. That's some stuff that could change America's trajectory. And that's the difference between me and some of my really good opponents, good people, right? I got, I mean, I got a guy that's running a district against me, man, he's a good old

• 2:24:44Speaker 01

  boy, good old country boy. We talk after a meeting, we hit it off and I was like, man, in any other time you and I met, we'd just be hunting, fishing buddies. He's a good Carolina boy. And I told him, I was like, hey, man, I'll tell you what, why don't you just let me and my buddies go up there for a couple of years? I told you, I'm out. This is not a career for me. I'll do everything in the world to, to help you run after I'm done. You know, of course, he didn't take me up on that offer. He's still convinced he can beat me. And, and maybe he can, but that's the cool thing about democracy, right? I have to show the people in this district that I'm, I'm the best candidate. I can't just say I am, I have to go show them. And so anyway, man, it's, uh, some interesting stuff, not so much.

• 2:25:28Speaker 01

  It's like so simple, but it's not easy.

• 2:25:31Jocko Willink?

  So, little sidetrack right there. You get, you get done with Afghanistan, you go do some stuff, working with law enforcement and whatnot, and then, when, when do you end up going to Iraq?

• 2:25:53Speaker 01

  Just before the invasion. And...

• 2:25:58Speaker 01

  So Iraq happens, all that goes down, I'm up north and made more friends, more Kurd friends, more friends over at the, uh, at the agency and, cause we were basically doing that, uh, advanced prep, uh, for Northern Iraq with the Kurds and everything. So you got there before the invasion and you're up with the Kurds? Yeah. And you're prepping for what's gonna come? The war's coming, right? Yeah, so you know, invasion goes down, freaking, I was running around like Mosul, Kirkuk, Krit, all that stuff.

• 2:26:30Speaker 01

  Are you with the ODA team? Uh, I'm actually with one of the, um, with one of the SAD teams. Okay. Cause I'm that young kid that doesn't like an SF guy, right? So, really cool. Um, yeah, Iraq happens and then in my next trip to Afghanistan, I got bumped off a cliff and I broke my back. How'd you get bumped off a cliff? One of our partners tripped. We were walking down, he was above me and he tripped. Eighty, ninety pound backpack, you know, nice, you know, freaking offset info.

• 2:27:12Speaker 01

  Yeah. How far, how high was the cliff? Probably fell fifteen feet, you know, enough to, you know, and basically when, when he hit me, you know, I kinda like feet went out and landed basically on my ass, like my feet were kinda out in front of me, little outcropping and it, that rucksack just buckled me, right? It just split my, uh, L5. How much did you weigh at this point? Were you jacked yet? Yeah, I'm starting to, I'm starting to put on some pounds at this point. You keep talking about being the skinny freaking college kid. Now we're, you know, three years into the, into the war, four years into the war, man, I've been hitting the weight pile like everybody else. I'm, I'm probably like a buck eighty-five and, um, yeah, man, it just bent me over, split my vertebrae, part of the vertebrae, hit my spinal cord.

• 2:27:56Speaker 01

  Uh, the prognosis was you might walk with crutches one day. So were you like paralyzed on sight? Bro, that whole, I can't feel my legs, yeah, I didn't experience that, cause I could feel it and it hurt like hell, right? If, if you took this dude, put it in a fire, got it nice and orange and stuck it in the side of my spine back here, that's what it felt like, all the way to my toes.

• 2:28:21Speaker 01

  It was, it was like I was on fire.

• 2:28:23Jocko Willink?

  Did they CAS evacuate you?

• 2:28:24Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:28:26Speaker 01

  Spent three or four months in a brace, doing the wheelchair thing, freaking, uh, got better. Really fast. So within a year, I'm running again. Well, my ETS date came up and I had a flight packet in.

• 2:28:41Jocko Willink?

  What, to be a pilot?

• 2:28:44Speaker 01

  I thought, you know, my ground pounding days was, I'd already done everything we could, right? How many more countries are we invading? I thought my ground pounding days was over and these Apache gunships keep flying in and just doing all our work. I'm like, I mean, I grew up.

• 2:28:58Jocko Willink?

  In air condition.

• 2:28:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, they got like, they could only work a few hours a day. I'm like, man, these, these warrant officers, they can fly for the rest of their lives, you know, because the army has a warrant officer program. And, uh, huh, so I put in a packet. All I had to do was get home and go to flight school. It's gonna be awesome. Well, that clearly changed. I thought my career was over. So luckily those friends that I made at the agency, I got out and I initially.

• 2:29:23Jocko Willink?

  Did you get medically retired or?

• 2:29:27Speaker 01

  Young and dumb, man. My intent, I thought I was gonna go contract for a little while, get better, and then I would come back in the army and fly. Uh, just take some time off and there's all these awesome contracting jobs out here. They're paying awesome.

• 2:29:40Jocko Willink?

  Oh, and this is because you're in the National Guard, so you could say, hey, I'm, I'm non-deployable for a while.

• 2:29:45Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:29:45Jocko Willink?

  I'm gonna heal up.

• 2:29:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:29:47Jocko Willink?

  But you'd still be in the National Guard.

• 2:29:48Speaker 01

  But I got out.

• 2:29:49Jocko Willink?

  Do some contracting.

• 2:29:50Speaker 01

  I got out completely.

• 2:29:50Jocko Willink?

  Oh, you got out completely.

• 2:29:51Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 2:29:52Jocko Willink?

  You called it.

• 2:29:52Speaker 01

  Because at this point, the guard has figured out that they're just hemorrhaging dudes to contracting. So you got all these, uh, battalion commanders.

• 2:30:01Jocko Willink?

  What year was this?

• 2:30:02Speaker 01

  So oh, four, oh, five.

• 2:30:03Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah. This is like fifteen hundred bucks a day for contractors and stuff.

• 2:30:07Speaker 01

  Shutting it down and they're like, nope, you know, you still gotta be at your drills. You still gotta meet your commitments. Whereas in like oh, two, oh, three, you had company commanders jumping in and they were like, yeah, I don't care if y'all show up or not. And if you think about it, right, like you've got your troopers overseas doing, you know, at least combat ish type stuff, you know? It was a good thing for the guard. You you had guard guys that were getting exponentially more combat experience through contracting than the active duty groups were doing because they were just rotating, you know. So it was a good thing for the guard, but it wasn't good for their numbers, right? It didn't look good. They had guys that weren't getting their online training done, you know, right? Like, you gotta do your EO, your Sharps training,

• 2:30:50Speaker 01

  right? It was killing those numbers for these commanders. So they shut it down. So I was like, screw it, I'm out. I'll just come back in, you know, I'll go make some money, whatever, buy a house or something, which is, you know, was exactly what I did. But as I got better, you know, I went, became operational again and started doing cool stuff, way cooler than the army ever was gonna let me do. This is as a contractor? Yeah. So I never went back in, or I didn't go back in to fly. And at one point, it was kind of funny because I did go back in and join 20th Group in like 2012, which I'm I'm still in. How long? But that's a pretty big gap, though. You got like Seven, almost eight years. Seven, eight years. And were you contracting that whole time?

• 2:31:34Speaker 01

  Whole time, nonstop. I stayed really busy with that. Of course, I started the gym. I would come home. I got lucky, man. You know, teamwork, right? Teamwork makes a dream work. When I started my gym, which I opened it in January of 2008. That's when this gym opened. Yeah? Yeah. Yeah. Very cool. You know, 2008, I was gone nine months. I opened a gym. Luckily, the the team that I put in place ran it like it was their own. Yeah, they did an amazing job, amazing job. Good friend of mine, Darren Cansler, man, he just did it. The young lady I was dating at the time, Julie, they they ran the damn thing. And and so I could come home and be the war hero that showed up to run the gym and take over for a minute and

• 2:32:17Speaker 01

  ruin their lives. You know, they had a plan, the way they did things. Nope, I'm gonna do it my way. You know, like, no, hopefully I wouldn't like that. But, you know, intrinsically, that'll happen. But they just did an awesome job with my gym. And I could, I could, I could stay deployed, and I did. And um, the gym grew, so that was cool. It was kind of a parallel there. And um, the gym was great, you know, it was supposed to be just a little CrossFit gym that, you know, guys like us, marine recon boys and Marsoc dudes, because we're just south of Lejeune, come in there, take their shirts off, spit on the floor, throw up if they want to, and we'll just thrash ourselves. And then regular people started showing up, right? Like soccer moms and stuff. And you know, hell, I'm still at this point in my life, I'm like,

• 2:33:00Speaker 01

  "Hey, you, you know, you, you know, stop being a puss and, and, you know, maybe stop eating so many donuts, fatso, and, and you could dag on be a PT stud too." Well, when thirty-three-year-old, thirty-six-year-old mother of two or three that drives a Suburban pulls up, you can't talk to her like that, because she won't come back. And those are also the people that have the money to pay their gym memberships. Those college kids that are studs that you want to train, they ain't got no money. You know, you gotta at least pay the light bill. Um, so I quickly figured out how to talk to regular people, you know, you can't be like, "Hey Sally, maybe cut out that bottle of wine and that box of donuts every night, you might be able to do a pull-up."

• 2:33:45Speaker 01

  Not the kind of encouragement she was looking for. So you, now you have, you know, I had, I had to, I was real adamant about not being that creepy gym owner, and you know, who was like, you know, um, having any type of fraternization with clients and stuff like that. It was a big deal. And I did start that gym with a partner, and it quickly figured out it wasn't gonna work. Um, not a bad separation, they were just like, he couldn't move to Wilmington. And um, but yeah, man, it was, that gym taught me a lot about teaching. You know, just how to talk to people. You couldn't, "Hey Ranger," you know, "Hey Sally, come here, what's going on?" You know, you, um, "Hey, when you're ready, if you'd like, um, let's sit down and, you know, maybe line out some nutrition or diets and stuff."

• 2:34:28Speaker 01

  You know, nutrition, not diet, right? Those words mean something, because if you say something to a lady who needs to drop twenty pounds, You know, if you say, hey, let's talk about getting you on a diet. Oh, my God, bro, you just, she's gone. She hates your guts. But if you're like, hey, look, let's tune this up, man. Oh, man, your shoulders are starting to get really defined. You're looking great. And that was a cool thing about CrossFit, right, is that women's upper body started to develop. And, you know, you clearly can't be that creep and talk to her about her legs or any other, you know, lady parts or whatever, you know. You can't be like, hey, Sally, you know, your bum's looking great. That's inappropriate, right? It's not professional. And so I really learned how to talk to people and then motivate them and bring them into the fold.

• 2:35:13Speaker 01

  And, you know, before we know it, that was one thing my gym was so well known for, I'm so proud of it, is that our women monsters. And people would come to me, like other gym owners and stuff, like, what are you doing to motivate and turn these women into these monsters, right? We sent like, I don't know, 18 different athletes to the CrossFit Games. Out of a town of only 150,000 people.

• 2:35:42Jocko Willink?

  Damn.

• 2:35:42Speaker 01

  And it was just, I didn't even have to recruit once it started. We had one of the original, super strong females. She just showed up. She was a volleyball player, powerful, right? She could, very coordinated, I'd talk to her, and only lift them, before you know it, she was like throwing weight over her head that most of the dudes in the gym couldn't touch. And so people started hearing about her and then it grew and then her and then a handful of others. And next thing you know, I've got these, I'm looking for dudes. Our thing was the team events. I love the team events. I don't know, the individuals is cool, right? And a whole different level, but the team was fun and I'm all about building a team. So our teams did really well. But there were years where, you know, a couple of years where we didn't, the team didn't go to the games.

• 2:36:27Speaker 01

  Because the guys on my team weren't strong enough to get us on the podium at regionals. It was never the girls, man. I trained one young lady. She came in the gym of phenom, right? Like just this diamond in the rough, fast twitch, powerful. She'd been a soccer player, a swimmer at ECU.

• 2:36:48Speaker 01

  God bless her heart. She's just a, imagine the most hard-headed ranger, young seal pup you ever dealt with. This was her, man. But like the first time she ever deadlifted, she picked up over 300 pounds. I walked in, was like, stop, stop, stop. What are you doing? Who is she? Why is she picking up that kind of weight? She's clearly new. Right? Horrible form, but just powerful. So anyway.

• 2:37:08Jocko Willink?

  That's impressive.

• 2:37:09Speaker 01

  She quite, she, she could have been a, an individual athlete. She had that type of genetics. Um, she went a different route. That year, I couldn't put her on my team. She just wasn't ready yet. She couldn't work with the team. She came in a little late. She had everything going for her. I was like, hey, in the interim, um, let's play with strong man. Right? We just started getting strong man equipment. It was getting more and more worked into the CrossFit stuff. And we kind of did a pure thing. And some of the gym members, you know, I was that guy who was, I was like the most anti-CrossFit, CrossFit gym owner on the planet. I was like, CrossFit was supposed to be to get you in shape so you can go do cool stuff. You want to try a triathlon? You want to try, you want to, you, whatever, you know? Um, I never really saw CrossFit as like becoming a sport, but I can't help it. I like to compete, you know, let's get in it.

• 2:37:54Speaker 01

  Um, so anyway, this young lady, Kimberly Lawrence, she, I said, hey, let's try strong man. So she did like a local event, crushed it. This chick was, and still is super strong. Well, that event qualified her for the Worlds at the Arnold's. Damn. She weighed 165 pounds naturally. She never touched any drugs. And strong man is not a tested sport, right? So the middle weight class in the females are the, is the most competitive and it's 140, 180 pounds. And most of the girls cut from 200. They're, you know, five 11, six foot tall, 200 pound females. And like I said, not tested. Kimberly goes to the Arnold, bro, and wins world.

• 2:38:37Speaker 01

  Her second strong man competition wins it. And she didn't cut. She walked on, walked into the competition 165 pounds. That's just what she weighed at the time, right? I mean, she's, you know, probably five eight or nine, five eight or nine. Just naturally a muscle. Well, not naturally. She had been an athlete in college, right? But just explosive.

• 2:38:54Jocko Willink?

  And you said she swam and played volleyball? Is that the one?

• 2:38:56Speaker 01

  And, and soccer.

• 2:38:57Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 2:38:58Speaker 01

  Just aggressive too, man. Just like hostile.

• 2:39:03Speaker 01

  She should, at the time, there wasn't a good MMA presence in Wilmington. That's where she should have gone. That's where she should have gone. As one of the gyms, Salter and those guys stood up MMA gym there. And had that been stood up out of center over there. I mean, with a little bit of training, this chick would have been scary, right? She was, and she would go over there and train and play. And she went through a little phase where she was doing some striking and stuff. And I was just like, God, man. Anyway, long story short with her, she kinda got involved in the wrong people and stuff. And I didn't coach her anymore, freaking, but what an amazing chica. And like I said, man, it was just so cool that our females were so well-known.

• 2:39:47Speaker 01

  When like every lady on the team is snatching 200 pounds. Deadlifting 3+, like Kimberly was deadlifting 500 pounds at a buck 70 and had abs. You know what I mean? She did not look like a powerlifter. And this is just the ladies we had. They were just badass. And Melissa went to the Games. She was just the small one. She was the bodyweight one. And as CrossFit matured, now the average CrossFit female's like a buck 65, man. Those girls are big, so Melissa, she can't compete with them. She can't move the weight that they do. But yeah, man, the ladies, and Melissa was instrumental in helping. Once Melissa realized she wasn't big enough, because our last time we went to the Games,

• 2:40:30Speaker 01

  you know, Dawn was, you know, probably at the time, 160, 165. My girl Amanda, 150 pounds, another volleyball player. And Jordan, probably 150 pounds. And every single one of them were instead lifting 400 pounds, clean and jerking over 2. I mean, these chicks, and running sub-six-minute miles. Like, what the? And I mean, you know, luckily, that last year, the boys were all big boys and studs. But Melissa was, you know, an amazing, amazing coach to those ladies. You know the deal. Once you realize you ain't, you ain't ever gonna be in the ring again, right? Like, you can either, you know, what is it? Those who can't do, teach? And that's just reality. Same for me, right?

• 2:41:15Speaker 01

  Like, as I got older, I was like, I don't stand a chance of being, you know, involved in this sport, but I can damn sure coach some people to it. But yeah, the gym was amazing, man, freaking. It was lucky that I could run it in a parallel. Once me and Melissa started dating, I started, I went through a phase where I didn't deploy a whole lot.

• 2:41:32Jocko Willink?

  What were you doing, like, teaching stuff stateside?

• 2:41:34Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm. And a highway patrol friend of mine asked me to start helping him, like, teach some firearms. His father had a nice range and stuff. I'm like, "Yeah, man, why not?" You know? He was going through a divorce and needed some money. So I was like, "Yeah," you know? He's like, "Yeah, I think, you know, with your background, you know, we can, we can bring in some people." And that's how the whole shooting part of my business kind of started, was just trying to help a buddy that needed some, you know, money because he was going through a divorce. And, um, so that turned out, man, I, I just don't know how to do anything half-assed, right? If I'm gonna do something, I'm doing it, you know? Um, that's why I like all the physical stuff, the triathlons, the ultra marathons.

• 2:42:16Speaker 01

  Hell, I put myself in the hospital after the Bigfoot 200, not after, huh, because I didn't quite finish. Mile 177, I'm pissing blood, rhabdomyolysis, freaking, I was in bad, bad shape.

• 2:42:28Jocko Willink?

  How many hours into it was that?

• 2:42:32Speaker 01

  Probably seventy-some, day three. Yeah, um, you, you, uh, familiar with the company, uh, Softle?

• 2:42:38Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:42:39Speaker 01

  Those guys? So Brent-

• 2:42:40Jocko Willink?

  I don't know them, but I know, I know who they are.

• 2:42:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, so, uh, Brent, one of the, the founders and owners, uh, Marsock dude, good friend of mine, he joined me at mile 112 of that race. And I was already in bad shape, uh, from like a section of the race, it was a lot of downhill. First, we don't have mountains where I live in North Carolina, so I was trained uphill on a stair mill. Dude, I would go to the gym and spend four and five hours walking on a stair mill. Miserable, miserable, stupid. But I set a goal. I don't like running. At this, now, at this point in my life, I don't like running anymore, right? I decided, "Oh, I'm gonna go run a 200-mile race." Why? To say I did. Well, yeah, man, that race, one of the sections, about 11 miles, all downhill, and I ran the shit out of it.

• 2:43:26Jocko Willink?

  And your muscles weren't used to that?

• 2:43:28Speaker 01

  Quads, destroyed them, destroyed them. At mile 112, I was already pissing blood and-

• 2:43:34Jocko Willink?

  And that's from rhabdomyolysis?

• 2:43:35Speaker 01

  Yeah. My kidneys were hurting. I could feel it. It felt like somebody just worked on my freaking back, man. And, um, by mile 150-something, at that age station, that was the last time I could even keep water down. I was, um, my TBI was definitely flared up. I had a lot of, uh, damage to my brain stem and stuff when I got blown up in 2009. And, yeah, man, I, um-

• 2:44:00Speaker 01

  I was in bad shape and I wanted to sleep. He wouldn't let me sleep. Come to find out later, he was like, yeah, I was worried you were going to die because I was having a seizure and I was laughing about it, you know, I had convinced myself, you know, you know, the deal, man, you know how we we can be. And I just took it too far at by mile one seventy seven, man, I'd gone, you know, on almost an entire night, twenty some miles without any food or water, no sleep, just, you know, Brett was just trying to get me to the next aid station because it's in the mountains of Washington State around Mount St. Helens. They have no evac plan. There's no way. That's running on the course, right? I'm doing these two hundred mile race at like two hundred

• 2:44:44Speaker 01

  and fifteen pounds, you know, and I had lost weight to do it, you know, I think I usually walk around at about, you know, two twenty five, two thirtyish or whatever, and I cut some weight to go run this race. And How many months did you prepare for it? Like a year, year and a half. So we trained for about a half a year for the two thousand and seven Bigfoot. Melissa tore her meniscus at like mile one twenty. And so we we stopped at mile one thirty three. We were doing it together. And I had time, but during during that last trek, I didn't want to leave her. It was cold, way colder than it was supposed to be. So we didn't, I mean, teeth chattering. We were both hypothermic and she's busted her knee, can't move fast. And

• 2:45:28Speaker 01

  so at like mile one thirty two or three at aid station, we got there in time and I could have taken off with no rest or whatever and got to the next one, but I probably wouldn't have finished the race, right? I was just now I was behind. And I would have never left her on that mountain, right? Like, especially hypothermia, you know, she's she's never had hypothermia to where she was, you know,

• 2:45:53Speaker 01

  Freaking disoriented or something like that and and you know just clearly I wouldn't have left a runner I didn't know in her shape much less I'm not leaving the most precious thing on this planet to me. So we got to that aid station, I'm like, you know what? Screw it, honey. We started it together. Let's go get some breakfast together. You know, someone's coming up. So we drove back to Portland and had some breakfast. The next year, she decided to do it, but we made a deal that we wouldn't do it together. No, no preconceived notions. Her knee was still not healthy. She's like, I'll try it. I mean, that says a lot about her, man. She's like, I got this energy. I'm gonna give it a whirl. She did like 77 miles and dropped. Only 77 with a busted knee. She's, she's probably

• 2:46:36Speaker 01

  worse than us. But um, yeah, man, at mile 176, 177, whatever it was, Brent was like, hey, man, I'm gonna run ahead and uh, make sure the crew's ready. Nah, he was running ahead to make sure the medics and the doctors were there so they could drop my ass. 205 miles, man, you know, still had, you know, whatever it was, 29 miles or something left. And I get there and they're like, yeah, here's the drop paperwork. I'm like, I'm not signing that. I'm twitching, having seizures, my trachea is freaking like not working correctly, you know, my, so some of my damage and stuff, I used to be left-handed. I'm right-handed

• 2:47:18Speaker 01

  now because this didn't work for a while, right? Like I couldn't hold on to things. I definitely, but worse, I would have a seizure. If you're holding the Glock and your hand seizes, probably not a good thing. So I switched to being a right-handed. All that was happening. I'm like seizing and it's a, it's not a muscular seizure, it's a CNS seizure. And it's just weird. Doesn't hurt, but when it happens, it looks weird. I was gonna say, you ain't looking good at this point. And bro, the pictures of me, I'm gray, right? That whole dehydrated. My body temperature was 96.4 degrees and my heart, resting heart rate was like a buck 60. Ooh. Laying down on a cot. You know, when you lay down, your heart rate should drop. Mine

• 2:47:59Speaker 01

  didn't. My body's freaking out. And I'm convinced, I got it. It's only 29 miles. I got this. And luckily, luckily, one of those five people I told you I'm kind of scared of was helping me. And he was like, hey, bubba. You can either get your ass in that truck or I'm gonna put your ass in that truck. Either way, you are done with this race. The next thing I remember, I woke up in the, in the hospital in Portland, Oregon.

• 2:48:27Jocko Willink?

  How long was the recovery from that?

• 2:48:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's a, that's a more fun story. Three weeks after that, on the last day to register for the Moab 240 miler, I went and got my blood work done. Eighty-eight percent kidney function. I'm like, alright, I'm good. And I signed up for the Moab 240.

• 2:48:46Jocko Willink?

  And how far away was that at the time?

• 2:48:48Speaker 01

  As far as?

• 2:48:49Jocko Willink?

  Like, how much time did you have before that?

• 2:48:51Speaker 01

  Two weeks.

• 2:48:52Jocko Willink?

  Oh, it was only two weeks away?

• 2:48:54Speaker 01

  Last day to register for the Moab. And here's my thought process.

• 2:48:58Jocko Willink?

  Oh, I gotta hear this.

• 2:49:03Speaker 01

  Cause it hurt, man. Rabdo hurt a lot more. I'd heard of Rabdo, right? You know, CrossFit made it famous. Everybody, you knew what Rabdo was. And, you know, but we all give ourselves micro cases of it and then we take days off. The reason, there's no days off in a four day 200 mile race. You don't get to recover. It only gets worse. Well, three weeks after it, I go in, I'm like, okay, I'm trying to figure out, do I train another year? Cause this is the first thing in my life I've DNF'd. First thing I've ever did not finish. You know, man, I've been like, first time goes and every hard course they ever sent me to, you know? And like, this isn't, this isn't making sense to me. Voluntarily withdrawing the year before because Melissa was hurt, I was okay with that. Like, it didn't hurt my feelings, you know?

• 2:49:45Speaker 01

  It didn't feel like I had somehow compromised, you know, my soul.

• 2:49:49Jocko Willink?

  Your integrity is a man.

• 2:49:50Speaker 01

  Now, but now the Bigfoot, this thing almost tried to kill me. And I'm like, mm, okay, there's this Moab 240. It's all ran by the same people. I'm like, this is my 240 mile race. It's actually 243 miles. Just like the Bigfoot 200 is 205. I'm like, y'all need to fix your t-shirts, cause last time I checked, a five miler, that's like a race in another. So, give me credit. I want credit. So, the, the Moab 240, 243 miles, in my head was, okay, do I train a whole nother year? And when you train for a 200 mile, you're talking about going out at midnight and training until six in the morning? Just to get training under your headlamps and stuff like that. It's miserable, dude. At this point in my life, I'm not a runner anymore and I don't enjoy training it.

• 2:50:32Speaker 01

  Shit, since then, I think I've ran about six miles. And that was 2018, right? And it's all been like the three different army PT tests I had to take, you know? Yeah, I ride my bicycle now, my mountain bike and stuff. But anyway, yeah, man, I'm like, okay, I can train a whole nother year. And maybe I can knock out this 240 and just check this box and say I did a 200, right? It's 240, it should be good. Make up for this disaster silliness of the Bigfoot.

• 2:50:57Speaker 01

  Last day of registration, I was down in Alabama teaching 20th groups of FAWCORS. I drove to one of those local blood workplaces, had my labs pulled, interpreted them myself. Pretty much qualified for that.

• 2:51:09Jocko Willink?

  Cause you were gonna be an 18 Delta at one point, so you're good to go.

• 2:51:12Speaker 01

  Close, man, I've done some nutrition counseling for people at the gym, right? I can, yeah, creatine, kinase levels are almost back to normal, almost. Right, I'm like, meh, alright. Walked out of the parking lot, signed up for the 240.

• 2:51:28Speaker 01

  Clearly, I know it's not a good idea because I didn't tell anyone until a couple of days before. I already had an 18 Delta mine that was gonna, you know, crew me at the race. And that just basically means drive the truck from one aid station to the next. And the truck is a place to sleep. And so, yeah, man, I got the Moab 240. So I always say that, you know, dumb dumb Ranger Tony did Bigfoot where I was like, I'll sleep an hour a night and I'll just keep moving and I'll keep banking extra hours. Well, the Moab 240, I just approached completely different. I'm like, I'm gonna sleep two hours to three hours every night and I'm gonna use every second of time to make it from here to here. I was trying to bank time and go fast. Now you build up this extra time.

• 2:52:13Speaker 01

  Would you know how many people remember my finish time of that Moab 240?

• 2:52:18Jocko Willink?

  Zero.

• 2:52:20Speaker 01

  I don't even remember what it was. All I know is I finished it and I got a picture of me walking underneath the finish line, right? And I do know, I did have about six hours of spare, six to eight hours of spare, whatever it was. But the point here is, unlike the Bigfoot where I was trying to go so hard and not sleep, I walked every step of the way at the last, except for the last 13 miles of 243 miles. I rocked it. You know, and you're just wearing one of them silly little vests, you know, it might maybe ten pounds. Enough to get you, you know, in between eight stations, which, you know, they're pretty considerable. I mean, you're talking about an eight station, eight station, twenty, twenty-five miles. You know, like marathons. It's not like a marathon where there's a station every mile. This is middle of nowhere, nowhere, Moab, you know?

• 2:53:04Speaker 01

  So, yeah, man, I knocked that crazy shit out and freaking, um, we, heck, I was so fresh and okay that hopped in the truck and said, I'm staying in Moab, drove back to Denver. You know, and so, yeah, man, freaking good experience. Don't necessarily recommend it to anyone. Uh, but if you do get a wild hair and wanna run at one of those races, give me a ring or a DM and I'll, I'll tell you my strategy. My strategy was rock march the whole way. The only reason I even ran the last thirteen-ish, and we didn't run the whole way, is that I linked up with a dude that I had met at the, the Bigfoot and we trekked it in. Um, and, uh, but I wouldn't say that we ran that whole thirteen. We just, I picked up the pace, did some jogging, blah, blah.

• 2:53:48Speaker 01

  But, yeah, man, um, you know, like I said, just gotta get after it, you know, and purpose, you know, like, like we talked about that whole having something. I don't know if you get dramatic and say having something to live for, but that's ultimately what it is. And, um, yeah, I stayed busy. These days, I'm over the craziness. These days, my PT is all about just staying healthy so I can go hunting, you know? That's it. I just, that's my only real hobby I have left. Um, as long as I'm fit enough to throw a sixty-pound backpack on and go hike around the mountains and, you know? Um, that, that's where I'm at in life. I'm, I'm done. You know, Melissa's still getting after it, just crushing herself in the gym. I'm in there like, I think I'll do back and buys.

• 2:54:33Speaker 01

  Maybe, maybe, maybe just, you know, chest and tries a day, you know, and then a nice little light leg day. Like my deadlift, man, uh, so I just turned forty-six and I was like, all right, you know, for fun, let's put some weight on there. Five hundred for three on a deadlift. I'm like, mm, still not old yet. You know what I mean? I'm still kinda young. But typically speaking, man, four hundred on the deadlift is all I do and just do some reps. I'm not trying to hurt me anymore. Because through a lot of the stuff that I did, man, my back hurt, my, you know, TBI hurt. Always on that edge and where'd you get blown up? In Iraq. Yeah, um, freaking armored sedan, IED meant for a striker.

• 2:55:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, sucks, man. I was the only one of four in the vehicle to walk away and I didn't walk away. Um, yeah, um, suck, man, freaking, we just happened. We were, we were the marked car for the Ranger regiment. They were, they were going to action a big target for us. Where was it in Iraq? Uh, Mosul. And so we, basically, we were going to identify, we were going to identify the gate that they were going to drive the strikers through just by simply pulling just past it and parking it. At that point, by the time they got there, I would already be out of the vehicle. Last thing I remember is buckling my helmet, putting the buckle on it. I just put my helmet on. And, uh, so, yeah, it was in a, um, you know, it was a level seven BMW, but it's, you know,

• 2:56:00Speaker 01

  they're bulletproof, not blast proof, not definitely not EFP proof. Ooh. EFP hit, um, right behind the rear seat. So the two boys in the backseat, man, they were DNA'd and, uh, driver, I guess he, he died, you know, eight or 10 hours afterwards. The, um, a funny story, man, like, you know, talk about small world stuff. A few years later, I'm running one of the, um, training courses for the NSA for them, for their security guys, participating in that. And, uh, it was end of the class, everybody got picked and this one young Ranger or whatever, you know, throughout the class, we had talked about, yeah, I worked for those people. I was in Mosul, blah, blah, blah. And, you know, cause he's a student, he didn't ask until afterwards,

• 2:56:44Speaker 01

  you know, everybody graduated, let's go get, you know, a steak and some beer. And he's like, hey, uh, hey, Tony, um, did you know that, that team of guys, that, that agency team of guys or whatever, um, up in, in Mosul that, you know, they got blown up, the whole team died? I was like,

• 2:57:02Speaker 01

  Hmm, you mean 2009? And he's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, we were up there, man, we were, I was in the Ranger Regiment, we helped recover that. We were on target for that, we were gonna do that.

• 2:57:16Speaker 01

  And they threw me in their stractors, they thought I was dead.

• 2:57:20Speaker 01

  Because the reality is, right, man, it blew that car across three lanes, it was a main Highway One, we called it Broadway. We were in the right lane, about to make a right turn into the neighborhood where the target was, hence why I just buckled my helmet. And that EFP blew that car all the way across three lanes, big medians, you know, the medians are there and stuff, right, across that, across three lanes and down the alleyway.

• 2:57:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, hitting other cars, right, it wasn't a small ID. And how I lived, man, I can only chalk that one up to God, you know? And, um, man, it hurt, blast injuries, hurt. I came to in Germany and it hurt, everything hurt, man, like, I'd say like my fingernails hurt, my gut, splashed gut, my lungs, I had edema in my lungs. And, you know, that armored car probably, you know, clearly saved me, blah, blah, blah, but, yeah, man, my whole left side was screwed up, freaking just from damage to that, brainstem and all that stuff, and, yeah.

• 2:58:26Jocko Willink?

  And that was why you were a contractor? Cause you ended up going back in, right?

• 2:58:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, um, I, what, 2012, I was like, you know what, you know, freaking, I did these, you know, this eight years, maybe I should go back into guard, I could help the next generation, right, you know, what's that thing about good intentions? I say that if you get out of the military and then go back in the military, it's like taking your car, driving it into a parking deck, putting it in reverse and then backing over the spikes and blowing your tires on purpose. That's what going back in the military is like. And I joke, I do joke, right, so, the, uh...

• 2:59:07Jocko Willink?

  I'll try and keep that in mind because you know all the time I you know those mornings when I wake up like you know I can probably you know call some people you know take me back

• 2:59:16Jocko Willink?

  ready rock and roll

• 2:59:17Speaker 01

  No, I um I I went and so I work for ASD advanced skills detachment the group level ASD so I I get to teach the courses like our CQB course

• 2:59:29Speaker 01

  and it is worth it but the guard is its own beast right there's like all the BS that you would put up with with the active duty military and then there's the guard it has its own personality its own type of crap and because it is a part time thing for so many people and the few full times that they full timers that they have they're trying to manage you know on half staff all these guys who all have problems who are all the most important people in their own lives blah blah blah luckily I have an amazing admin staff where I work and stuff and they keep us squared away but you know it's still the military and because we're not full time we have to jump out of our asses to do stuff you know the budget blah blah hell

• 3:00:13Speaker 01

  Alabama National Guard sent a bunch of people to DC after the January 16th the federal government has still not paid Alabama back

• 3:00:24Speaker 01

  for that right and that's across the board there are national goes across our country that don't have funding to pay people so like some of our full time guys in October when the fiscal year rolled around last fall lost their jobs for like three weeks it's like what um and these are people with mortgages and families and stuff you know it's their job like oh no we don't have money because you know Joe Biden don't want to you know send us money

• 3:00:51Speaker 01

  right of course you don't actually who signs the budgets Congress so is it Joe Biden's fault

• 3:01:00Speaker 01

  Or is it our representatives fault? Hmm, I don't know. I mean, I always go back to this, right? First page. Ranger handbook. The leader is responsible for everything that does and does not happen on a mission or patrol. So anyway, um, I digress. But yeah, the guard, man, it's good. I get to interact with the young guys, the up and comers. Share some, um, lessons learned. And, uh, it's worth it, but you know, if I go teach stuff out for four weeks, I'm back to making army money. So you know, you, you lose money doing it. And sometimes you ask, is it worth it?

• 3:01:42Speaker 01

  I gotta go put up with this BS and, you know, whatever. Um, but then I remember like, hey, man, we now have a service full of, all the combat vets got out. There is no combat veterans left in special forces for the most part, right? Same with the SEALs, man. I got some guys from up in Virginia Beach that come down and, and use my long range. All young, young pups and they're snipers. I'm like, I thought snipers were supposed to be like the most experienced dudes are like, we are. Like, aren't you like 22? They're like 26. Like, so you mean to tell me you're one of the most experienced dudes in your platoon? When you're in the team?

• 3:02:23Speaker 01

  You're like 30 yet. Like, yeah, man, everyone with any experience left. I'm like, well, crap, it's the same in the army, same in Marine Corps.

• 3:02:32Speaker 01

  So I look at it like this, man, I feel a little obligated to give back, you know? For whatever reason, I am still here with all my fingers and toes. I still can shoot. I still can teach and, um, man, I get down there and I can't help it. I'm not the dude on the catwalk. That's not how I teach. I put my kit on and go in and do CQB with the teams. And I'm like, all right, check it out, guys.

• 3:02:51Jocko Willink?

  And you're doing that as an act, as a guard?

• 3:02:54Speaker 01

  Guard, yeah.

• 3:02:55Jocko Willink?

  And you, when did you go back in the guard?

• 3:02:56Speaker 01

  2012.

• 3:02:57Jocko Willink?

  2012?

• 3:02:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:02:58Jocko Willink?

  Did you go on any deployments once you hit 2012?

• 3:03:01Speaker 01

  I haven't, not with them.

• 3:03:02Jocko Willink?

  Got it.

• 3:03:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's, that doesn't pay good enough.

• 3:03:07Speaker 01

  I mean, you know, if you, so I weigh it out like this. Um, since I belong to ASD, we're not a deploying unit anyway, we're a training detachment. To go do an eight month deployment with SF, the return on investment just isn't there for me. A, it doesn't pay well enough, it's too long, whereas I can do stuff, you know, with the agency and projects and stuff like that, that are shorter, and we actually get to do.

• 3:03:36Jocko Willink?

  So you're still in contract the whole time?

• 3:03:37Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 3:03:38Jocko Willink?

  Did you go to Syria?

• 3:03:39Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 3:03:40Jocko Willink?

  Who are you with over there? Were you a contractor?

• 3:03:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:03:43Jocko Willink?

  What was that like?

• 3:03:44Speaker 01

  Hmm, I mean, it's cool, because, like I said, we're, uh, that would be the wrong, I was gonna say ROEs are different. The ROEs aren't different. We have a much more efficient chain of command. Um, I don't have to ask for permission to, you know, take a potty break, whereas, you know, teams typically to move from here to here have to ask permission. We are given a mission, we're allowed to go execute. We send up sit reps, we don't have to ask for permission, most of the time. You know, we always have our market managers too, right?

• 3:04:19Jocko Willink?

  There's some parameters of some kind.

• 3:04:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, it's not a free for all, but we get a mission, we go do it. Um, a lot of our stuff is, you know, um, you know, the ASO type stuff, the source operations, and then AFO, you know, doing the reconnaissance and, and, um, especially with, with the, the lay of the, the ground as far as the local population and a lot of PROMISE type stuff. Um, and you, you told me not to do that. Here I am with an acronym, right? Freaking, um, PROMISE is like that, that area study of, of all the equations that make up a, an area, whether it's, you know, population, resources, and all that sort of thing. Not, not just like combatives, right? The entire area, what's going on in this area. So we

• 3:05:03Speaker 01

  do a lot of that. Um, and of course, we can, we can action targets if we need to, typically like in Syria, since we were working in such small elements, that, you know, it was like, hey, any Rangers not doing anything tonight? You know? You know, we got, is there an ODA around here that can come do this? You know, where the SEALs at? You know? But, um, yeah, man, that, that, that type of work is really cool. I've, I've done stuff in, in Haiti and, you know, we've got a lot of things going on that are... I said more, more US interest than national defense.

• 3:05:40Speaker 01

  And one definitely leads to the other, right? Like it's important. If you talk to a lot of people like, oh, we need to withdraw from around the world. Well, if we want to continue to be a superpower, we have to continue to influence in a positive way around the world. This is why Ukraine is so hard to figure out right now. My take on the Ukraine is, hey, man. Europe is full of a bunch of really well-powered. Modern nations. It is their AO. Right? Yeah, with modern militaries. Very modern militaries, right? We, we help with that.

• 3:06:18Speaker 01

  Russia wants Russian land back. The, the parts of the Ukraine it really wants. I don't, and maybe, maybe Putin, I don't know what Putin's thinking, right? Like.

• 3:06:29Speaker 01

  Maybe he wants the whole nation. But they've shown us since, you know, even fourteen, since fourteen, when they took, or they didn't take Crimea, right? Crimea allowed themselves to be annexed. There's a big difference.

• 3:06:44Speaker 01

  The Ukraine, you know, the south and east, I mean, they're native Russians. Right? And that's again, Americans, we're too stupid to know that there is a difference between Russians and Ukrainians. They speak two different languages. Right? And do these, a lot of them speak both? Of course.

• 3:07:03Speaker 01

  You know, it'd be no different in like the border of Texas. Lots of people spoke, speak both, but there is a clear difference between Americans and Mexicans, right? And that's what's happening here. In, in Ukraine, they, Russia wants it lands back. Does Russia also want a warm water port? Well, yeah, Russia's wanted a warm water port for decades, a century or more now. Probably longer than that, since navies have been navies, they've wanted warm water. Well, okay, I get it. Are we at a point in our, so we have two things, right? Like this president, who is weak clearly. Could stand up to Russia, to all line in the sand and be the heroes and Russia doesn't get to invade. Or we can act tough. Russia invades, we look like a bunch of pussies.

• 3:07:48Speaker 01

  And now we're obligated to fight. That's the wrong answer, man. American, boys and girls don't need to go fucking die in the Ukraine. The Ukraine is one of the most corrupt nations on this planet. Now, that is partly due to Russia keeping them that way. A corrupt Ukraine can't get into NATO.

• 3:08:10Speaker 01

  NATO is not letting them in, in their current state. It's just not happening. So that's part of it is like, oh, we want them in NATO. If we really wanted them in NATO, we'd let them join NATO three, five, 10 years ago. They're not eligible.

• 3:08:24Speaker 01

  So, I mean, come on, man, we gotta, you know, like, there's a difference in messing and meddling and getting ourselves into it. And you gotta, you know, again, not a conspiracy theorist, but with everything that's going wrong for this administration, one can't help but to at least entertain the idea that it's a distraction from all the other crappy mistakes. Now all of a sudden Biden wants to look strong.

• 3:08:52Speaker 01

  Well, there's Biden and there's Putin. And I don't think Putin is ready to step back from Biden. I think he's calling his bluff, man. You know? And I don't think that Biden has that, hey, let's sit down and hash this out type of freaking mentality, you know?

• 3:09:09Jocko Willink?

  Well, unfortunately, in that case, like, I, unfortunately, truthfully, I have a hard time thinking that, that Biden could carry on a logical conversation and negotiation with Putin. Like, it just doesn't seem like that's a feasible thing. I mean, he has a hard time. He has a hard time, unfortunately, as we watch him, he has a hard time putting together sentences, right? I mean, putting together legitimate sentences that are prepped for him.

• 3:09:35Speaker 01

  Right. That's reading.

• 3:09:37Jocko Willink?

  Really, really disturbing, really, really horrible to see. And you think he's gonna go in with a freaking KGB agent and, and be able to carry on a conversation and not get manipulated and take, taken advantage of. It's very disturbing.

• 3:09:49Speaker 01

  A KGB agent that for the last 20 years has not been destroyed. Tracted by some wars in the Middle East and we have been, he's been preparing and preparing for whatever he wants to do. While we've been messing about in the Middle East.

• 3:10:02Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and that's, you know, talking earlier about iterative decision making. Here's another bad move when you're in a leadership position is painting yourself into a corner.

• 3:10:11Speaker 01

  Right.

• 3:10:12Jocko Willink?

  You know, don't paint yourself into a corner. The world changes, things change, things happen. And you don't put yourself in a situation where you can't say, hey, this is the direction we're going now. It's a little bit different than where we were heading, but it's okay. Cause I, the whole time was saying, I might go in a different direction. That's okay.

• 3:10:28Speaker 01

  And you know what? Let's say we have this amazing charismatic badass leader, which we don't. That allows us to look like we're letting Russia paint us into a corner and then poof, he's got a whole nother plan. That would be cool, but that's not what's happening. That's not what's happening, right? Like that's that old. What's the, uh, everybody likes to quote the whole, um, you know, um, what's the Chinese book?

• 3:10:48Jocko Willink?

  Sun Tzu?

• 3:10:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, right. Um, I always laugh, I'm like, whenever somebody wants to, uh, you know, sound like they understand war, they're going to quote that guy. You know, futile Chinese battle and, and you know, war theory. Uh, yeah, okay, cool, but. Great. Some of us have actually participated in war. Thanks for quoting that. Um, but there is a good, the whole thing of, you know, the ruse. Appear weak when you're strong, you know, appear strong when you're weak, right? Like always give missignals to your, um. To your enemy and adversaries. Yeah, that's not what we're doing. Our adversaries clearly understand that we have. A very broken leader. I don't even want to say leak, uh, weak.

• 3:11:30Speaker 01

  Um, cause I would say that probably, uh, Biden, as goofball as he has been throughout his career. You know, Biden in the eighties and nineties was a, uh, definitely a, an intelligent person, right?

• 3:11:43Speaker 01

  That guy as a president probably could have been decisive, but this Biden we have today is just an, you know, an old. Broken person. Um, and any of that, you know, I talk about term limits. How about a retirement age?

• 3:11:59Jocko Willink?

  That would be nice at this point.

• 3:12:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, we have eighty plus year olds running our country. And I always ask people, yeah, would you trust your eighty five year old grandma to walk your dog? Right? Like, put that into perspective. What would you trust your eighty five year old, your eighty year old grandparents with? And I'm sure there are plenty of outliers, right? There are a hundred years old out there that are brilliant. Outliers never prove a rule. Military's retirement has a retirement age. Every industry has a retirement age. Our government sixty five. Why are our justices, why are our representatives, why is our president allowed? What? I mean, it's socially acceptable to have a retirement age on these things. You know?

• 3:12:47Speaker 01

  And of course, there are moments, but it scares me that we are literally at a point right now where this, this president and this administration could lead us into a world war and we're not ready for it. I mean, I'm sure, don't get me wrong. How many, how many weeks would it take for American soldiers and sailors to get ready?

• 3:13:03Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, the military is ready for it. The military is ready technically to fight, of course.

• 3:13:07Speaker 01

  Right.

• 3:13:08Jocko Willink?

  But are we ready to start losing people in Ukraine, which a lot of people couldn't even figure out where it is on a map? That we don't understand, we don't care about that much.

• 3:13:19Jocko Willink?

  Against Russia, who's Russia? So who's ready for that? When you say who's ready, I'd say we're ready to fight, of course. But are we ready to go and die and kill a bunch of people that we don't know? And civilians that are gonna die as well? It's like, hmm, we may want to think through that a little bit.

• 3:13:35Speaker 01

  I'm all for helping our allies. Right? That's a good thing. We need a strong bunch of allies. But the Ukraine has known for well over a decade, right? That Putin wanted that land back. So my question is, what has the Ukraine, what has Ukraine? I've been told that you're not supposed to call it the Ukraine.

• 3:13:55Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, do you know why? Cause Ukraine, I guess it means frontier. And if you say the frontier, which is the Ukraine, that's the frontier of Russia. So calling it the frontier, that's, that's where that little, that's where that little thing comes from.

• 3:14:13Speaker 01

  Somebody told me like in a comment on social media that.

• 3:14:16Jocko Willink?

  It's not the Ukraine. It's just Ukraine.

• 3:14:19Speaker 01

  Okay, sorry. I don't know that I'm not purposely trying to diminish that nation. Uh, no intent implied. Um.

• 3:14:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't know, Jacko, man. It's, it's, it's so frustrating. It's like, we have all these problems and I, again, I'm not the, I'm not the guy that says, hey, we have to completely withdraw from the rest of the world. And we, we have to be involved.

• 3:14:40Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's not a good point.

• 3:14:40Speaker 01

  To maintain our status, but like, to just to go metal with the Ukraine, when they've done very little to prepare themselves for this date, which they knew were, was coming. They've done nothing to get their allies in Europe to help them. They've, you know, like, hey.

• 3:14:58Jocko Willink?

  And again, any of these situations, any of these situations around the world, just to say, oh, we're not going to get involved with anyone anymore. That's not a good move. That's not a good move. It's a good move to say, well, okay, what's happening? What would make sense? Let's try this approach. Let's see what happens with this approach. If this approach works, cool, we'll continue to invest in that approach. If that approach isn't working, we'll say, you know what? We didn't realize that there's a bunch of different, cause Ukraine's got all kinds of different factions in there. Oh, we didn't realize that. We, we, we, we looked at it a little bit too broad and we thought Ukraine was Ukraine. It was Ukraine against Russia. Doesn't really look like it's that anymore. Uh, or we're going to stand down, right? Or we're going to back away.

• 3:15:36Jocko Willink?

  Or we're going to really support this group that we know is now come to the surface as being the, the prominent power there. Okay. Instead of saying what we're saying right now, like, we don't understand what's happening fully and we can't predict the future. So don't, don't over index on things that you can't predict. Don't do that in anything.

• 3:15:57Speaker 01

  Right. Well, and also let's influence. Clearly we are still.

• 3:16:04Speaker 01

  A superpower with tons of influence. Even if our European allies don't respect our current leader, he still brings to the table an immense amount of tools that he can use to sway them. Hey, look, oh, hey, Britain, you guys don't want to back us up with whatever we want to do? We're going to cut such and such off. Oh, hey, Germany. Right? All those things because those Eastern Bloc, man, they all love us, right? They're, you know, there are, there are two allies now. You've got, you know, the Brits, the French and Germans who are kind of, they've been flipping their middle finger up to us quite a bit for the last 10 years. Okay, guys, that's your stance? Cool.

• 3:16:46Speaker 01

  We're going to continue to be friends with Romania and Hungary and Lithuania, Estonia. Yeah, we're going to back them up because they're, they're on the line with Russia. You guys, screw you guys. Take care of yourselves for a little while, right? Just like Trump wanted to pull funding from NATO. Like you guys are going to start funding this, right? He took a little bit hard line with our allies. Like, hey, we're going to treat you guys like adults now. We're going to cut some of your funding. You guys are going to start contributing. That's not a horrible approach, right? Accountability. Own it, right? You guys want NATO? You like NATO, don't you? All right, you guys like that security of having us backing you up from across the pond? Just like we did in World War II. Yeah, y'all know.

• 3:17:28Speaker 01

  So check it out. Here's some new rules we're going to play by. You know, we've been funding this thing. We're going to take a step back. We're going to let you guys take the lead for a little while. See how you do with it, right? There's nothing wrong with that. And I think Trump was trying to do that. I don't, you know. And, you know, let's face it. Those leaders in those countries, man, they, they, they led the way. They're, they are the Bidens ahead of Biden. Europe, America likes to think we lead the way with everything. Like we led the way with this. Crazy goofy leftist presidency and all this stuff. No, man, Europe was way ahead of us on that stuff. Their leaders, right, have been crazy liberals for freaking, you know, five, 10 years now.

• 3:18:11Speaker 01

  They, they definitely got to jump on that for us, you know? Not that that's a good thing. So until we just take a step back and say, hey, guys, deal with it. I do think, you know, clearly in this case, war with Russia, war with China, man, you're talking something that would affect the entire world and be so expensive for all parties, right? Putin, here's the reality, Putin doesn't want war with us. It would destroy his country. They don't have the money for it. Exactly. So choke them out. Oh, that means cutting off that pipeline we told them they could have. Shit, that's gonna mean we have to freaking admit we were wrong. Sanctions Russia can't afford and even more so, right?

• 3:18:54Speaker 01

  Like if the rest of the world distanced themselves from Russia stops and then Russia's standing there with a China that's kind of their ally, but also trying to shove them out of the way at the same time. And Iran, that's your friends Putin? The rest of the world's kind of tired of y'all's crap. And they go back to behaving, right? And ultimately, again, root cause, why does Russia want this? Why does Russia want it? We just identify that, we can cut them off at the knees. It's just so frustrating, man. And again, you know, I always step back and say, you know what? I don't know everything. I don't, I don't, I don't get to peek behind that curtain, right?

• 3:19:38Speaker 01

  Like clearly Biden or whoever's running our country, Vice President Harris, they know way more than I do. So I'm always gonna give any administration a little bit of benefit of the doubt, right? Like, you know, I always, I hated growing up in military where some key leader would be like, well, you just don't understand the big picture. And then as I got older, I realized that I don't understand the big picture. They didn't understand it either, dude. Yeah, of course, they didn't either, right? Like that was their way of saying like, yeah, we don't really know what the hell's going on either. But now that I'm older, I do have an acceptance that I don't have the big picture and I never will, right? None of us will ever know what the President of the United States knows, right?

• 3:20:20Speaker 01

  Like there's no security clearance out there that touches what that guy gets to know or that gal presumably one day. Um, no. So you as us, as the guys who work for that commander in chief always has to kind of sit back and go, okay, they know more than us. So I always try to keep that in reserve, you know, like that to keep me from creating assumptions and assertions that is realizing that my assumptions and my assertions are always going to be less informed.

• 3:20:50Jocko Willink?

  Right. Yeah, they've got massive intel networks briefing every day, sources all over the world. Like they got some, they got some information.

• 3:20:59Speaker 01

  Right.

• 3:21:01Jocko Willink?

  Still, I like to think that they do some good stuff with it.

• 3:21:04Speaker 01

  Me too. I'm like, please God. Um, because right now, man, what we've gotten ourselves into is scary. And again,

• 3:21:11Jocko Willink?

  And yeah, China, like you're talking about China. What if China makes a move on Taiwan now? Like they're not sitting over there going, oh, well, if America gets back to Ukraine.

• 3:21:21Speaker 01

  That the withdrawal from Afghanistan is what set this stage, right? Like, I don't know anybody except for like some staunch left supporters of, I don't even know if there's any Biden supporters left, but there are the Democrats, right? Who are just never going to say that they were wrong for voting for him or that he, anything they've done is wrong, right? This is how our system works. But the reality is any objective synthetic thinker knows that this all started with our withdrawal from Afghanistan and the weakness that was just, you know, sent out across the world.

• 3:21:58Jocko Willink?

  Worldwide.

• 3:22:01Jocko Willink?

  So what was the, or was there a straw that broke the camel's back that made you say, I'm, I'm gonna go and run? Cause I mean, let's face it, here you are. How old do you say you are?

• 3:22:13Speaker 01

  Just turned 46.

• 3:22:14Jocko Willink?

  Just turned 46. You got businesses. You got a cool woman in your life. You got a nice place to live or whatever. Seems like you could be going into actual literal retirement mode.

• 3:22:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, like.

• 3:22:30Jocko Willink?

  Instead of.

• 3:22:31Speaker 01

  Enjoying your life mode, right? And that's where I was at and I'd been working towards it pretty hard. You know, even living in Wilmington drove me insane. Stoplights and traffic and you know, heck, just I flew in yesterday.

• 3:22:47Speaker 01

  Because, you know, Melissa and I bought sixty two acres about an hour outside of Wilmington. You know, it came with three donkeys and chickens and fenced in pastures and we turn our dogs loose and. I mean, if I want to walk around my yard naked, you know what I mean? It's that type of country, you know, it's the same way I grew up. And I, I think, you know, whether that's genetic or not, I've always craved it. I like to be in places where it's just quiet. You know, growing up on the coast. You know, the water and then because of a dare. Um, or someone talking smack, I went to dive school, wound up on a dive team. I wanted to be on the mountain team. I went to Afghanistan and fell in love with the mountains because before Afghanistan,

• 3:23:32Speaker 01

  I had done some training in Colorado, but not really enough to fall in love with the mountains and the thin air and all that. Well, we went to Afghanistan, man, and I was just, man, you know, I remember looking around like in Tora Bora and stuff and, and. You know, um, like, wow, this would be some amazing snowboarding. What are they doing here, you know? And at the time I didn't even realize that it actually was a destination back in the sixties. My stepmother and her friends all went to Kabul in the late sixties to smoke weed. Yeah, my stepmother is, she was, uh, it's so funny, my mom, you know, a North Carolina girl, a country girl, farm girl. My grandfather was a farmer, um, and then my stepmother is from. Out here. Oh.

• 3:24:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, she was from like, uh. Uh oh, I should say, uh oh. Where was she? Uh, I forget her hometown, but um, um, between here and LA. And, uh. So she was like a hippie? Little bit in the sixties, turned into like. She was traveling to Afghanistan, smoking pop in the sixties. But not like, uh, not like, um, an anti-government hippie, just like a California young girl, you know, whatever. So cool stories, you know, and, and I had no idea there was that part of Afghanistan, that it was actually very western and modern during the sixties, you know, Kabul, you look at pictures, there's, you know, the roads are nice, it's clean, people are smiling, you know?

• 3:24:56Speaker 01

  So anyway, yeah, man, I'm just not into the city, you know, the, I would, these days, you put me behind a tractor or a combine and I gotta go six mile an hour for ten miles. No stress. I'm not even gonna, whatever, you know, I don't care. Cause living out there, I'm rarely in a hurry. I have days that I have work to do and clients and guys to shoot with and classes, but on my days off, man, I'm my boss, you know, and don't get me wrong, I can be my own kind of a pain in my ass, but I'm flexible with my time. So no stress, you know, um, got out of the city, everything's awesome. It sucks for Melissa, cause she drives almost an hour every day one way to her practice.

• 3:25:37Speaker 01

  But, you know, she's, she's chill, um, you know, she loves to listen to her podcast and all that kind of stuff and, you know, she's a dentist, so she works four days a week. And, um, so Friday she gets to go and do whatever she wants or whatever. So, you know, before we did it, you know, I was like, hey, are you sure? Cause our, our place is cute, man. And I found it by accident. I just happened to be driving down that road, took a different route home one day. And, uh, saw the for sale sign, pulled off the side of the road, pulled up Google Maps, you could kind of see the property lines. I was like, oh, called the Realtor, man, we closed on it.

• 3:26:09Speaker 01

  So yeah, you know, there are days where like my most intelligent conversation is with a couple of donkeys and some dogs. I don't even see people, you know, my nearest neighbor, well, my nearest nearest neighbor is like some meth heads that live like, I don't know, half a mile through the woods. Um, we basically have an agreement that, um, they sat at my business and, you know, I sat at their business and their trailer doesn't burn down. Um, you know how meth cook houses sometimes, you know, catch on fire. So we're good. You know, we're good. Every now and then I'll wake up and like, you know, I can hear their music playing at like four in the morning or something, but other than that, they don't mess with me. I don't mess with them. They're just redneck meth heads. And then the other neighbor, man, it's kind of

• 3:26:52Speaker 01

  cool. She lives like 1.2 miles away and she's completely deaf. So she can't hear the range. Other than that, no one lives within two miles of us, you know? So we get out there and shoot and shoot and shoot. No one cares. So it's real cool, man. Yeah. So we were planning on moving to Idaho. Hmm. As the costs were going up, we're starting to look at Montana as well. Cause a couple of years ago, Montana being really expensive, Idaho was still like, all right. And the cool thing about Idaho for me is while the Rockies aren't as high there, then they'll have the same elevation as say Colorado or wherever. Idaho is like 60% public land. Lots of hunting access. And, um, I, I like hunting, but I like being on those mountains, man. You

• 3:27:36Speaker 01

  know, just it's quiet. Most time it's just me and Melissa. But, um, yeah, man, we, we'd found a couple of different places. We were looking at one place very seriously in Idaho City, just north Idaho City. And, uh, and then everything in America started happening. Cause man, that's where I was at. You know, my business is doing great. I mean, Melissa's a dentist. So

• 3:27:59Jocko Willink?

  Was she ready to pull chocks too?

• 3:28:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, and for her to do that's kind of a big deal.

• 3:28:05Speaker 01

  You know, clearly, like I said, I can, I can pack a backpack and a duffel bag and move. Grab some guns out of the safe, let's go. She clearly, you know, I mean, she, you know, she's got eighteen or nineteen employees. All females.

• 3:28:22Speaker 01

  They, it's always fun because they've always got something going on, you know.

• 3:28:27Speaker 01

  I don't want to call it drama because that would be dismissing it, but the dynamics in that office are always fun to listen to, you know, because I have team dynamic stuff. And then I get to listen to Melissa about her team dynamics and it's like. A lot of the same stuff that we would deal with, only with a hint of, you know, the lady stuff. And I'm like, wow, I don't envy her at all. Because at least like on a team end, in theory, you could always go out back and sort it out, you know. At least go in there and put the gloves on and sort that shit out, right? She doesn't have that option. So, yeah, man. We were really close to pulling the trigger on moving and we had talked about it for years, like our first date.

• 3:29:08Speaker 01

  That we claim is our first date, right? We were, when she and I met, she and her boyfriend had just broke up, me and the girl I was dating had just broke up. And we were real skeptical of each other. We'd known each other from the gym and kind of looked at each other like, I don't know, who's that punk? Who's that punk? You know, both very strong personalities. She's her own boss, same with me, I've been a boss for a while now, I don't really. And that dynamic was just so interesting as we came together, we kind of kept it quiet that we were seeing each other. So our, kind of our announcement to all of our friends, and you know how a gym can be, everyone's friends from the gym. And we did a hike across the Bob Marshall Wilderness out in Montana. But it wasn't supposed to be a hike across.

• 3:29:54Speaker 01

  It was supposed to be a loop back to the car, two days, twenty some miles. Well, that night, we hit our turnaround point, we woke up in the morning and there was smoke everywhere. Largest forest fire ever in the Flathead National Forest. And the Bob Marshall was inside the Flathead.

• 3:30:16Speaker 01

  Uh oh, now what? So now we are running from a forest fire all the way across the Bob Marshall. So it was like 70 or so miles and we didn't even have the food for it. And right now in the console of my truck are protein bars. They're not mine. They're for her. Her favorite protein bars because the last thing anyone wants is for Melissa to get hungry.

• 3:30:40Jocko Willink?

  Hangry, is she a hangry woman?

• 3:30:42Speaker 01

  So Melissa is, uh, Melissa is half German and half Japanese. I live with the Axis Powers.

• 3:30:51Speaker 01

  Keeping her fed is a priority. I'm telling you, man. And, and it's not like a gradual descent. It's, everything's cool and now she just wants to tear your throat out. And you don't know it. Yeah. And you don't even know it's coming. I'm like, I'm blissfully, you know, like, you know, I'm not real crazy or anything about my diet anymore. Right? Like my thing is like, I just, you know, I started getting a little older, started not having abs as much. So I just quit eating breakfast and lunch. Simple. Some people call that intermittent fasting. I call it, screw it, less calories.

• 3:31:23Speaker 01

  No fancy diet names here. And, uh, no dude, she needs to eat. So we have to keep her fed. But yeah, uh, we run out of food, running across the Bob Marshall.

• 3:31:33Jocko Willink?

  So you're one day in when the forest fire hits? And how many, what's the total day?

• 3:31:38Speaker 01

  Uh, we wound up doing it in, uh, all in, in two and a half, two and three quarters days. And 70 some miles, man, we had to go across the continental divide. It's like, you gotta climb like 9,000 feet in, in like a mile and a half. It's like zig, zig, zig. I remember we were going up the, the, um, the zigzags, right? The switchbacks. And I remember looking up, the trail would go here to here. And on the trail right there were three or four mule deer. And I was looking up at their bellies like right there, but I could still almost touch them. It was like this. Anyway, I bless her heart, man. On that trip across the Bob Marshall, she learned how to read a top of a map. Freaking was running the GPS. She'd never done that stuff before. She doesn't, I mean, she'd been ice climb, mountain climb, hiked in all kinds of national forests. Her and her

• 3:32:23Speaker 01

  buddy from dental school were like adventurous young ladies out. In some cases, they tell me stories, I'm like, that was dumb and dangerous. You could have been one of those missing person stories. And they were like, yeah, probably. Well, anyway, just that type of person, man. And um, we had to cross the White River and it's in August, so it's snowmell, you know? And man, I made a huge mistake freaking so because she's so physically fit, but dude, she's, she's 120, maybe 125 pounds at this time. And I'm like, oh, this is a good place to cross this river. Man, it's rolling. It's like knee deep to me. That's halfway her quads. I got across, dropped my pack and I could see she was struggling,

• 3:33:06Speaker 01

  right? And I'm pretty sure footed. I've been in the woods, backpacks, walking stick. She's got a walking stick, but it's got her where it's starting to leverage her off. And man, I got back out there and you know, the rocks under that water are slick. And I'm like, get out there, man. And I put my hand on her backpack and she slipped. We went and drank. And I was lucky, I got underneath her and man, it was like that whole push her up, get me some air, go back under. And man, I got scuffed up. My whole backside, my knees, this whole side just beat up. She's got her pack on, so she's pretty protected or whatever. And luckily, there's a curve in the river because a couple hundred meters

• 3:33:49Speaker 01

  on down this way is the Salmon River. If we had gone in that, go through those little bit of falls and into that river, we would have died. Right? Luckily, a little curve, man, it washed us up on the shore and we kind of crawled out, laid there. It's warm in the afternoon, but man, the water was cold, real cold. And like cold enough to where I'm bleeding and scuffed up, but I can't feel it. And I'm like, oh, I'm going to be sore. This is gonna suck. She rolls over and looks at me, she's like, you saved my life. And I was like, Yeah, we're gonna go with that. Still. Cause I'd take that river crossing, man. I almost killed her. Almost killed that girl, man. And I will never. Yeah, it spooks me even talking about it, right?

• 3:34:31Speaker 01

  Freaking and, cause who would have believed afterwards? That I chose that river crossing, right? They'd be like, oh, he did that on purpose. He drowned that girl. But no, we were new and I was like, oh, I'm in love with this chick and stuff. And it horrified me that I had made such a stupid decision. Just stupid. But we were running from a forest fire, whatever, freaking haste, all that. I did learn that she's not one of us, you know? I still have to be careful. She's smaller, so on and so forth. Anyway, man, we get across there, whatever, freaking. That was like our first date coming out of the closet as far as us dating and stuff. And, and man, it was ever since then, every vacation we took was to the mountains. She, she wants to climb Everest.

• 3:35:18Speaker 01

  Clearly puts me in an interesting position because I don't give a damn about climbing Everest. But I can't just let my girlfriend.

• 3:35:24Jocko Willink?

  You do now.

• 3:35:25Speaker 01

  Right? Like, I guess I'm gonna have to go up there too. Or I just suck it up and say, hey, honey, I'm gonna wait for you in the base camp. Freaking hang out with these potheads and freaking I'll talk to you on the radio. Are you dead? No, you're good. Keep going, right? Summit that thing. But no, so we start climbing the 14ers in Colorado. So we're doing that stuff, man, just falling in love with the mountains. Point being is we wanna move to the mountains. Her best friend from dental schools in Colorado or originally talking about going to Colorado. And then it got a little California on us. Lots of public hunting land there. One of two states left that you can get over the counter tags for elk. No big deal. And if you leave Denver, Boulder, right? Go up anywhere freaking.

• 3:36:07Speaker 01

  It's still Dodge trucks with bumpers, you know? It's still diesel pickups and good old Ranch boys, you know? So I would do Colorado if she wanted, but we kind of figured on Idaho. A bunch of my friends moved to Idaho and probably a bunch of your friends have moved to Idaho. It's like the, where everybody's going. It's the last conservative holdout, I guess. Well. We were that close, man. We were getting ready to pull the trigger on moving. And like I said, a big deal for her with her practice. And then everything started happening. The pandemic, the weirdness. It got to the point where like, I was like, wow. One year ago, if you'd asked me how long it was going to take for us to get right here? I would've said 20 years.

• 3:36:49Speaker 01

  But somehow the US got put on fast forward to its, you know, progressive decline. And every nation has it. Right? History tells us every culture fails. And we have some very distinct parallels to the last greatest culture, right? The last greatest city-state, Rome. Right? The Roman Empire. You know, huge debt. A nation and culture founded on slavery, on the backs of slaves. Right? There are many parallels. A nation who cared more about entertaining themselves than protecting their borders. Right? It's some spooky parallels. And I'm like, ooh.

• 3:37:30Speaker 01

  And then I'm talking to my very good friend, Alario Pontano. Alario, if you Google him, he was the Marine in Fallujah that shot and killed two terrorist dirtbags. And then was charged with their murders. Lieutenant-type, you know. He, um, his platoon, he had lost some boys the day before. So he was an enlisted guy, scout sniper, was working on Wall Street. 9/11 happened, doing great for himself and his family, smart guy. Um, real smart dude. And 9/11 happened and he got back in. And then in Fallujah, man, you know, for killing two very clearly terrorists, right? Remember Fallujah?

• 3:38:16Speaker 01

  Get out or fight us. Anybody that stays, you're a bad guy. And they were bad guys. They had weapons in their trunks, so on and so forth. What got weird, you can look his story up, but bottom line, they charged him with murder. Two counts of it. And for how many months of his life? He was having to defend himself against a nation that he's so much loved and went to war for. Well, Alario ran for Congress in 2010 and 2012. I bet it right before then, 2008 timeframe when I opened my gym. So I watched and, and as he was running, I was still very apolitical. Wasn't really interested, so on and so forth.

• 3:38:57Speaker 01

  The primaries didn't work out for him. They were fighting him and another fellow who is now the incumbent, a guy named David Rousher. They were fighting for that area. And what they were really fighting was a thirty some year Democrat incumbent. Well, between the two of them, they did finally oust him. And but David Rousher bested Alario in the primaries. He just had more pool in one highly populated segment of that district. And, you know, David came out the winner. Since then, you know, Alario, he became the Director of Veterans Affairs and stuff for North Carolina. Long story short, man, just, you know, has dedicated his life to trying to take care of service members. And just, just a great guy. But

• 3:39:40Speaker 01

  last Easter Day, we're sitting on the tailgate in my truck out at the range, and we're just chatting. He took a job at Syracuse University and was living up in Syracuse, down visited. And we were just chatting about things, the nation, the state of it, and so on and so forth. And I was like, hey, man. So I was thinking about potentially, maybe, dude, he hops off the tailgate, and he's like, he can get excited, you know, like, when he gets excited, he's really excited. He's like, yes, if there's ever a time, it's 2022, the nation's ready for it, the climate needs you, it's this, this, he just got, he didn't even let me finish. He knew what I was gonna say, and which I thought was pretty cool,

• 3:40:22Speaker 01

  because I don't necessarily think I, you know, broadcast something like that, especially something so out of left field for me. But he just had a feeling. And it was funny, because it's Easter Day, and he's like, you know what? I was like, well, I'm just kicking around, I'm not sure. He's like, it's Easter Day, and there's, it's clearly, God sent me here today to tell you that you must absolutely do this. And I'm sitting there going.

• 3:40:46Speaker 01

  Okay, not really where I thought this was gonna go, but now I'm like, alright, alright. So if he feels this strongly about it, and he's the first person that I've even mentioned it to, maybe this is something I should look at. And at the time, I'm still like, I just wanna move to Idaho. I just wanna go hunting. I just wanna be left alone. Mind my own business. Then I realized that the reason we're where we're at is because dudes like me have been minding our own damn business while the left has rallied, protested, organized, and executed a subversion campaign that the world, like the world's never seen before, right? A very successful subversion campaign.

• 3:41:29Speaker 01

  And so fast forward a little bit, so that was Easter Day. Lario puts me in contact with the folks who are now my consultant team and all that. We start kind of exploring, alright? Let's come up with some courses of action, see if they're viable. Let's see if this works. Well, North Carolina, and the census picks up an extra, an additional, not an extra, an additional seat. So we had 13, now we're gonna have 14 representatives, US House of Representatives. Yeah, man, um, so we're like, okay, let's just, we're gonna have to wait and see. Cause right now, I live in that same district with the incumbent David Rousher. And by all means, a pretty squared away dude. He hasn't, he hasn't done anything to really upset anybody.

• 3:42:11Speaker 01

  He's not a rhino. I wouldn't say he's like, you know, the champion of all things patriotic America either. But what he has then is take care of his district, which is agriculture. I think he's probably gonna become the, uh, the lead on the Agriculture Committee. At least, that's what I've heard. Well, so we decided, hey, look, if I'm gonna run, I'm gonna have to wait to see the new districts because challenging Rousher is probably a losing thing. I'm not doing America any good challenging an opponent that can't be beat. That's not a good strategy, right? And, you know-

• 3:42:48Jocko Willink?

  Especially a guy that's doing what he's supposed to do, representing his district.

• 3:42:52Speaker 01

  That's right. I am all for challenging Republican incumbents that suck. They need to go, alright? And I've said numerous times, reelect no one. Reelect no one. But the reality is, there are still some good dudes up there who need some backup. They need a QRF, alright?

• 3:43:10Speaker 01

  So the new districts come out and the county I live in and a couple of others to include Cumberland County, Fayetteville, Fort Bragg, Harnett County, this little block, this almost a square right in the middle of North Carolina, mostly rural, and I live in it and it's got Fayetteville Fort Bragg. I'm like, oh, okay. Now we're making sense and no incumbent. Damn. Right. Like it's ready made. It's just sitting there ready for me to go, woo, I'm gonna run for Congress.

• 3:43:41Speaker 01

  So we announced, man, and we had already put it together. We were ready, right? We were just waiting on those districts and it was like, okay, this, this makes sense, right? I can do this and, and hopefully go do some, be part of positive change, help correct this trajectory. I joked that it's like a 308 trajectory and we're trying to make it like a, like a, you know, a 375 enabler, trajectory, you know, let's, let's, let's flatten this curve a little bit, not the pandemic curve. Let's like flatten this trajectory curve that America has been placed on by crazy socialists.

• 3:44:14Speaker 01

  So yeah, man, that happened and we said, okay, cool. This makes sense. But you ask like the straw that broke the camel's back, man. I'm not usually a super sentimental type person or whatever, but my, my father passed last summer. We held his memorial service over July the 4th weekend. My niece, my older sister's daughter, like I said, my older sister is a very successful pediatric, pediatric endocrinologist. My niece has never known what it's like to miss a meal.

• 3:44:47Speaker 01

  She doesn't know suffering. And in a lot of ways, I'm kind of that guy that's like, this next generation sucks and these boys need to learn how to change the oil in their car. All right. I mean, we all get into that. Sometimes we're like, man, this next gen is just weak. But I'm looking at my niece, who is this beautiful young lady, lacrosse player, she's almost six foot tall, stud, freaking a gear ahead in school, super intelligent, right? Not only is my sister, you know, more aggressive than me, she's a brilliant mind. So her son and her daughter got some of this. Well, anyway, they come to the house, my niece is playing, you know, my sister's in biotech. So she lives in Boston. So my niece is a city kid.

• 3:45:32Speaker 01

  So she's out on my, you know, property, riding the four wheeler, playing with the dogs, freaking, throwing, you know, the dummies into the pond for the retriever. And I'm just looking at her. And like, she's never known what it's like to not have Wi-Fi.

• 3:45:48Speaker 01

  That level of luxury, right? Like, that's America. I mean, even the poorest people in America today have it pretty good. Like homeless people in America, you know, have it pretty good. You know, we take care of even our poorest. But I'm looking at her, I'm just like, huh, she's never known what it's like. Like, since she's been able to use a smartphone, they've had Wi-Fi on airplanes.

• 3:46:12Speaker 01

  And I was like, I don't want to, I don't want her to ever know what it's like not to live in that type of luxury. I don't want her to live in what Western Moles will look like in 2005, 2006, and then for the whole entire Nunavut to be burned to the ground and crushed, and the indigenous folks of Nunavut city to be murdered by ISIS, right? Like, I don't want her to know an America at war with itself. And if we keep on this trajectory, that is a potential course. And that scares the shit out of me. And I don't know that any of us will be alive to see that type of demise of our culture, but she might be. All right, she's 16 years old. And that was the day that I was like, all right, let's do it.

• 3:46:58Speaker 01

  July the 4th weekend last year. And it wasn't because it was July the 4th weekend, it just happened, right? It's just kind of a, I guess, a cool story, and I'm not a very sentimental type person or whatever. But it was about my niece. It was the weekend that we memorialized my father's life. And I was like, okay.

• 3:47:16Speaker 01

  Eight years is all I'll do. That that will put me at fifty five years old. And then I'll retire. And I was hopefully if I can continue the path that I'm on, I would maintain physical fitness. And at fifty five, I'll still be fit enough to go hunt whatever crazy animal I want to chase around the mountain. But I was like, you know what? If not me, then who? I'm at a place where I can, like I said, me and Melissa don't have children. And you know as well as I do, right? Like overseas, I I had different times in my life where I wouldn't take a married guy with kids on my team. I would take that young ranger. Because I know he wasn't distracting.

• 3:47:58Speaker 01

  I built a team there for a while that was just. They were some scary young men. They had no distractions. I have sent men home for being on the phone too often, too late, arguing with their spouses. Hey, go go home, sort it out. I'll see you in a few weeks. Or, bro, hey, man, I understand if you don't want to come back. Go take care of your family. But you don't get to be here running operations with us while you got that distraction on your on your mind. So I don't have kids, man. I can go and go to DC and be fully vested, right? While another person like me, who might be considering a run, that has has two kids.

• 3:48:39Speaker 01

  They need to go to a ballet concert or ballet recital, a concert, or a band concert, or a soccer game, or a lacrosse game, or a football game, or whatever. You'll be sitting at your desk. I can get to work. Yeah. You'll be making shit happen. The whole desk image just ruined it, probably. Can we not put me behind a desk? Yeah, you know, I was joking, I was like, um, I want to make C-SPAN the most watched news network. Oh, I like that. Let's see what this crazy bastard's gonna be doing. Be tuning in to see it like, OK, what in the world has Tony and so? This is kind of cool, right?

• 3:49:23Speaker 01

  AOC and that weird bunch, they call them the squad, right? Clearly not an infantry squad. So myself, Jay Collins is a seventh grouper who's running in Florida. He's an amputee. He's a stud, man. Stud of studs. And so he's running down in Florida. He's doing really well as well. We were joking that, hey, man, if they can have the squad, we'll be the JTF. The Joint Task Force, right? And that's the thing, man. We were trying really hard to get all- JTF America, dude. Yeah. JTF America. That's a caucus, right? The JTF Caucus, the Veterans Caucus, whatever you want to call us, right? But yeah, man, that is how I made that decision. It's like, you know, hey, man, there is an entire generation of Americans that

• 3:50:05Speaker 01

  that needs to be taken care of, that needs to be set up for success. And I feel like it's my generation, the, you know, the forty, the sixty year olds right now who have failed this last generation and allowed all this to happen because we were just hardworking conservatives that minded our own damn business. And by minding our own damn business, we elected these spineless cowards that went to DC and sold us out time after time again. Compromised our rights away, right? Everybody's heard the saying conservatives haven't conserved a damn thing. Because conservatives are good people and they think dealing with the left is a rational thing. The problem is the left are not rational people. They only want what they want and they're not going to compromise.

• 3:50:50Speaker 01

  The right just keeps compromising bit by bit by bit. Every single right that we hold dear, they let it go. Piece by piece by piece. And that's how this nation can fall, right? There's clearly no nation on this planet that's going to invade us, right? And get anywhere, you know, the old, there's a gun behind every blade of grass, right? The Japanese knew they weren't hitting this mainland, right? China knows they can't. Same with Russia. The only way we can fall is if we allow it. And we have allowed this country to get where it's at. And when I say we, I mean us, all of us good people. It's our fault. I made a post on social a couple of weeks ago, a week ago, whenever it was. And I titled it, you know, "The Biggest Problem in America?", question mark.

• 3:51:37Speaker 01

  It's us, right? It's us not being involved. I ask people, who's your representative? What district do you live in? Who's your county commissioners? Are you involved in the local GOP? Are you? We're not, man. We're not. And all the while, the Democrats are organized, super organized. We're not. And that's how we lose. We don't even vote. The average voter in a primary on the Republican conservative side is 57 years and older. Young conservatives are not involved. And, and part of that problem is, is a lot of young people in this next generation,

• 3:52:20Speaker 01

  they, they don't realize that posting comments and, and things on social media, it's not real action. Right? And I'm not even being funny about it. It used to be, it used to be kind of a joke that, that, you know, like, okay, you think fighting on the internet, it's not like a real fight. No, man. It's like they really, they have begun equating saying things on the internet as if it's a real thing that somehow influences, right? Because we use the term influencers. You're not influencing a damn thing. You know, even with the little bit of followers I have on Instagram, I ask people, I beg, I say, I am pleading with you. Please go join your local GOP. How do we get involved, Tony? Go join your local GMP.

• 3:53:04Speaker 01

  How do I do that? Okay. I want you to get on your phone and I want you to pull up Google or whatever searches you're using these days. I want you to type in your county's name and the letters GOP or Republican Party. And you will find their website and you will find out that they have monthly meetings. And you'll go there and you'll find out that on average, there's only 30 people there. No one. And they are the conservative, like, rahs, they want to be involved. But they're the ones that will tell you, like in North Carolina, they want 15,000 volunteers to watch the polls, to sit at the polls. 15,000 people. And it's not enough.

• 3:53:49Speaker 01

  That's a very, very low number. They probably need double that because early voting.

• 3:53:55Speaker 01

  Two and a half weeks long.

• 3:53:57Jocko Willink?

  Oh.

• 3:53:57Speaker 01

  Right? You gotta have people watch the polls for four hour shifts, two shifts per day. Need two people per shift, at least, right?

• 3:54:08Speaker 01

  The, the need is there and, you know, I always, I always joke, this generation, if they want something, just like our generation too, if we want something and we want to get and participate in something and it becomes our hobby, man, we know everything about it. Cause we YouTube it and we Google it and we, and we, it's all right here. Everything you want to know, everything known to mankind, except for classified information and some of that is all right here. It's in the phone, right? So if you want to know how to get involved, man, it's right here. And when you go and you talk to those people at those meetings, yeah, man, they're the fanatics. They're the really passionate conservative Republicans who really do want to change that Republican Party and the image of the old GOP, the rhinos and all that.

• 3:54:52Speaker 01

  If you go to these GOP meetings, man, they're mad at the Republican Party. They're the Republican Party and they're mad at the Republican Party. They want to get rid of the rhinos. They're, they're the people who want to renovate that party. Cause you know, I hear people say, um, you know, maybe we need a third party. Okay. That's not a viable course of action. America's not ready for it. It would take the Democrats and the Republicans getting together and deciding that a third party was a good thing.

• 3:55:22Jocko Willink?

  Getting together and deciding to surrender whatever power they have, which they're not gonna do.

• 3:55:26Speaker 01

  Power is like a matter. It never goes away. It can be transferred, right? And we have transferred willingly, power throughout our nation's history, right? A good example is when we gave minorities the right to vote, right? So we are capable of doing it. We gave women the right to vote, right? So we have transferred power willingly, typically speaking throughout, uh, not American, human history, power's transferred because it's taken. It's rarely given. But that's what makes America special is that we have given power willingly in an effort to create this amazing country, you know?

• 3:56:11Speaker 01

  But yeah, man, freaking, you know,

• 3:56:15Speaker 01

  it's gonna take us getting involved. The biggest problem on this planet is today is that, or in America today, that's going to continue to lead us down this path and not change this trajectory is us minding our own business. And I get it, man. You got a job. You got a couple of kids and if you don't get involved, right? Because what happens when you go to the GOP and you're eight, 10, and 14 year old, see you getting involved, what are they gonna grow up to do? It's setting the example, right? Set the example, exceed the standards. All that military leadership talk. It's not bullshit. You know, I know you know it's not bullshit. We're an entire book about it. A couple of them, right?

• 3:56:59Speaker 01

  You know, setting the example for your children is not just making sure they're taken care of, right? We have got to get involved. And if we don't, man,

• 3:57:11Speaker 01

  like I said, our adversary, they're very involved. They're organized and they're scary. I ask people, I'm like, name one thing the left has wanted in the last six years they haven't gotten.

• 3:57:25Speaker 01

  One is complete reversal of the Second Amendment. Why? Because there's a bunch of people out there with guns that ain't gonna let it happen. Other than that, every niche, special interest they've ever wanted, they've gotten it. And now it's like they're just bored looking for shit. You know what I mean? Like, the transgender is freaking in college sports, like, alright, we're just gonna make up some stuff. That actually goes against our whole feminist movement. Like, it's like they're bored. Like, we got everything we want. Hmm, what else can we take from them? But they're gonna continue to take because whether or not most lefts

• 3:58:04Speaker 01

  truly want communism, there are enough folks out there that do, that believe that communism is the right path.

• 3:58:11Speaker 01

  Well, the rest of them will follow him. Because they actually have leaders. Right? You mean to tell me Hillary Clinton is not an effective leader? I'm not saying she's a good leader. I'm saying she's an effective leader, right? Like Putin is an effective leader. He's not a good person. She's definitely not a good person. She's effective. Name one thing Hillary Clinton hadn't gotten that she wanted. Presidency. And I don't know that she's done yet. Scary shit, man.

• 3:58:40Jocko Willink?

  Well, we fired that one out soon. Uh, I'm hopefully. I got a, I got a factory down in Ashboro, North Carolina. I think it's the sixth district. Hopefully at some point when I get down there in the next several months, we can link up.

• 3:58:55Speaker 01

  Definitely.

• 3:58:55Jocko Willink?

  And hang out. You gotta come check out the factory.

• 3:58:57Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 3:58:57Jocko Willink?

  I haven't been there yet, but um, actually we have two factories. We're consolidating in the process of consolidating right now, but uh, hundreds of jobs. Hardworking people.

• 3:59:07Speaker 01

  Funny thing, man, that district. I think, because we've had so many changes. That is probably the district that Christian Castanelli is going to run in. He's one of those eight GBs.

• 3:59:18Jocko Willink?

  Oh, really?

• 3:59:19Speaker 01

  Lieutenant Colonel type, seventh grouper. Uh, you know, I've chatted quite a bit and um, it's gonna be a real tough race for him as well. He had more counting. And now they redistrict again. And, and like I said, it could redistrict another time. It's going to the courts this week. It's frustrating. Uh, and it's, you know, it is.

• 3:59:37Jocko Willink?

  Do you know right now which you, where you're running?

• 3:59:41Speaker 01

  For right now.

• 3:59:42Jocko Willink?

  Okay, but it could change.

• 3:59:43Speaker 01

  So, yeah, it was that new fourth, which was Sampson County, uh, Johnston County, Little Bit of Wayne County, Harnett County and Cumberland County. And now it's the new, new thirteenth. And that's Duplin County, Sampson County, Johnston County, Little Bit of Wayne County and Southern Wake County. And it's so weird because these new districts, they don't hold communities together. It was like, again, it was a, um, the Republicans were trying to make the Dems happy. Get some stuff pushed through that would actually work. Meet all the numbers because the districts have to have equal numbers. Right? And to do that, it, you know, you've got to get a city in here and a part of a city over there. And it's not like it's like, okay, just pick this region.

• 4:00:26Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 4:00:26Speaker 01

  You know, it's more complex than that. So this new district again, ah, man. And like I said, this goes back to Republicans trying to make the Democrats happy. The Democrats suckered them again. They, so we have an activist, very left-leaning Supreme Court in North Carolina. And so when these new districts, they, the Democrats challenged them, it went to Supreme Court. They booted them. They had to rewrite them. So they rebuilt them. The House did a set, and I like that map pretty good. This new one, I don't dislike it. It's just not my favorite because I lost Cumberland County. I want to represent Fayetteville for rag. Yeah. It's, it's kind of personal.

• 4:01:09Speaker 01

  So the, um, this week, they have to go to a three-panel, uh, court, three-judge panel in the court. And that's two conservatives, one liberal. It will get the thumbs up there. Most likely, the Democrats will challenge it again. But the, the shysty, like sinister part is when they were building these maps, it was bipartisan. In the Senate and in the House, both parties working together, they created this map. Dems gave them a thumb up. It went into vote. Dems all voted against it. Suckers. Mm-hmm. Now what? Because it's divided half and half. And one Republican voted with the Democrats.

• 4:01:51Speaker 01

  That sets the precedence for it to go to the court and then toss it out. They can be like, look, y'all don't even agree on it. It's clearly bipartisan. This is supposed to be, or it's clearly partisan. They set them up again. It's like, you guys are bending over backwards. When are you just going to draw the line in the sand? They could draw the line in the sand and take it to, you know, US House or US Supreme Court. That's expensive and it takes a fight. And time. Lots of time. And they're worried about the time because we've already pushed our primaries back from March to May. They're probably going to get pushed back to June now. That's getting closer and closer to the general election in November. They could, in theory, move that, right? That, you know, that November election date is not a hard set date.

• 4:02:34Speaker 01

  The state can choose a different date. They could push it to January, but that cuts off the whole next cycle. That pushes into the next cycle. What do you do now? And, and we're in such uncharted territory, and I just don't have faith that the Republicans right now know how to deal with this fight. Um, and the Democrats, almost like I said, it's almost like they're just trying to see what they can get away with. But they're panicking. The Democrats know, right? What's coming in this midterms. So these new, our new districts, they are so close to any other year. They, they would, most of them would be 50/50 splits. They could go either way. They'd all be swing districts.

• 4:03:17Speaker 01

  But because of this anticipated red wave, they're, they set them up. It looks more like they set them up on purpose to be Republican, very much favor the Republicans. And of, they, well, certainly. But the North Carolina Constitution says it is the role, duty, responsibility of the General Assembly to set the districts. So of course it's going to be partisan, right? Cause rarely, if ever, is your House and Senate 50/50, right? It just doesn't happen. So there's a whole constitutional battle here and, um, state constitution. And, and I think people really understand how important your state constitution is, right? Like when our government was set up, it was supposed to be, you know, all these states,

• 4:04:02Speaker 01

  these nations of the United States. And we've gotten away from that. The federal government's gotten too big, and that's one of my big things, man. Like, hey, let's return that federal government, let's put it back in its constitutionally limited box and put the lid back on it. Cause that monster has climbed out of that box and gone all over the place. And I would say like, heck, man, if you could simply attempt, if, let's say we got a 70% solution on getting our federal government back to its constitutional limitations, we would solve over half of America's problems with the federal government. Just return it to what that constitution says. I don't know, man. They, I, I just feel like too often folks up in DC, they use the constitution as toilet

• 4:04:47Speaker 01

  paper instead of reading it for exactly what it's stated. It's, it's heartbreaking, man.

• 4:04:57Jocko Willink?

  Well, like you said, it's gonna be a battle. Um, it is a battle.

• 4:05:03Jocko Willink?

  I know you mentioned about how, what to do for people to get, to help out, you know, locally where they're at. How can people? I think this is probably a pretty good place to wrap up because we've been going for over four hours, but if people want to support you, we got tonykowden.com, right? That's the main.

• 4:05:21Speaker 01

  That is the campaign website.

• 4:05:23Jocko Willink?

  Campaign website. Um, you're on Instagram, you just said.

• 4:05:26Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm. Tony underscore Cowden underscore four, the letter four, or excuse me, the number four. Is there a letter four? No. The number four, NC. And then I have two Facebook pages, my personal, Tony Cowden, and then, um, the campaign, Tony Cowden. They're both me.

• 4:05:44Jocko Willink?

  All right. And then

• 4:05:47Jocko Willink?

  you've got a YouTube channel, which I saw.

• 4:05:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't do much with it.

• 4:05:51Jocko Willink?

  I was gonna say you have one video. But you know, I had, I wanna, you never know.

• 4:05:55Speaker 01

  I think I've got like three.

• 4:05:56Jocko Willink?

  Tony Cowden gets after us. I don't know. Maybe tonight you're gonna post eighty-seven videos. I don't know.

• 4:06:01Speaker 01

  Yeah. I, uh, YouTube's just never been my favorite for whatever reason. Um, and I've had numerous YouTube channels, right? I've got the one right now, like you said, it's got like a couple of videos maybe on it. And then like, but you know, YouTube was a big thing when I had the gym. Had lots of videos on it. And just something happened where with the whole shooting gun thing, Instagram became my main platform. And, and as much as I, I don't really like social. I don't like the whole idea of it. I mean, I'd much rather go back to just, you know, but the, it seemed that, at least the evolution of it all, I don't know if it was even by design, that yeah, the Instagram page was what grew and funneled me business.

• 4:06:39Speaker 01

  Whereas when I had the gym, Facebook, because Facebook's so local. So now I'm having to get back after Facebook because the campaign is very local.

• 4:06:47Jocko Willink?

  Got it.

• 4:06:48Speaker 01

  But yeah, man, the reality is, and this sucks, man, because I've spent my entire life being pretty independent. Uh, I've never had to ask anybody for money. And it's weird. The reality of this whole mess, and it is a mess because there needs to be campaign finance reform. The reality is, if the campaign's not funded, I don't get to advertise and there's no face, or there's no recognition, there's no name, face recognition, and I won't get the votes. And strategically speaking, you know, we're addressing, you know, fundraising, talking to donors, and then there are voters, and they're not always the same people. Um, we've done really well so far, the soft bro net, just like you having me on here.

• 4:07:29Speaker 01

  Um, been on with a bunch of different other guys, and when I launched that soft network, man, just started sharing it, and we raised a hundred and thirty-two grand in like thirteen days over Christmas. And that's what got people going, whoa, wait, who's this dude? Where, where's this guy coming from? And you know, there's always this, there's some contention that, oh, you're not getting your funds from the district. Well, I don't even know where the district is. You know how hard it is to get someone to donate to your campaign when they don't even know if you live in their district or not? Yeah. You think the Democrats don't know that? Of course they do, right? What they're doing is creating voter apathy, where it's like, whatever. So they won't donate, and

• 4:08:14Speaker 01

  they're not gonna go vote. It's, it's a strategy. It's not new. Done it before. So yeah, man, this is where I, you know, that's, that's, that asking for money thing is hard. But here's the cool part. That hundred and thirty-two thousand dollars, the number one, the number one donated amount was fifty dollars. We had sixteen hundred or fifteen hundred individual donors from across the nation, all fifty states, over Christmas, when people don't have extra income because they're spending on their Christmas presents, donated this campaign. That's a clear signal, or it should be a clear signal to the folks up in DC and

• 4:08:54Speaker 01

  everywhere else, that the American public is tired of their shit. Excuse my language, but that's what it is. And they, they want normal people. I don't know if I fall in that category that well or not. They want real people who have never saw out politics. You know, before we got on, I was joking, telling you about the, um, my opponent who's a, a state house rep, and

• 4:09:21Speaker 01

  They call him the Al Gore of North Carolina politics because he sold out and those kind of taxpayers and sent tax dollars all around the nation to invest in green energy and so on and so forth. Long story short, he didn't like it. I think it might have been with Andy Stump when I referred to him as the Al Gore of North Carolina politics. Well, the reality is that's what they call him, right? Like, he's a North Carolina member of the North Carolina House and all of his contemporaries, they all call him that, right? He didn't like it. Well, the other day, he charged up to me and he's rah rah rah, you know, he's like,

• 4:09:56Speaker 01

  and ultimately, I was like, hey, look, man, you know, you can say whatever you want, but you sent that money out. And he told me, he told me I was an ignorant wannabe. And I was like, like I said, I might be ignorant to how and why y'all do things as dirty ass politicians.

• 4:10:19Speaker 01

  I was like, but I'm not a wannabe. Like, you created me. Men like you are the reason why men like me are coming for your jobs.

• 4:10:30Speaker 01

  We hired you, you suck, so now we're gonna fire you. And that's what America wants right now, right? Let's clear, America wants, and like I said, man, we get that JTF up there. Yeah. So, yeah, 10 bucks. Right on. 100 bucks. I mean, if you got 2,900, that is the max contribution. I could stand some of those. Because that, that new district's more expensive. With Southern Wake County, Raleigh, that advertising is, it's way more expensive. That market, right? A TV ad in Raleigh is expensive. But that's what I need. I need funding. People ask, what can I do? 10 bucks, right? Don't get your Starbucks coffee today. Give me 5 bucks.

• 4:11:17Speaker 01

  And it's weird, man, asking for people for money. And then I came to the conclusion, I'm not asking people to give me money. This is an investment in America's future. Because I promise people, I will not become a politician. I would rather die than sell this nation and its people out. And I put myself in that position before, that I would have died and almost did a couple of times. I feel like I have that proven track record. And people are like, but there's this guy and there's this guy, he's this veteran and that veteran, they went up there and they sold us out. I'm like, I'm not those guys.

• 4:11:51Speaker 01

  I'm not those guys. What do you want? Here I am stepping up. Help me get there. And if I turn out to be some spineless dirtbag politician, fire me. Right? Get involved and fire me. But I promise, I'm not capable of being a dirtbag politician. It's not in my genetics. You know, it's not even close to something I could ever be. You know, corporations don't have things that I want. I'm not a gear guy, right? I'm not a, if you look at my whole shooting things, right? It's like, I'm not a gear guy. Corporations don't have things. I don't want a boat. I don't want a boat. I don't want, I don't desire money.

• 4:12:32Speaker 01

  I desire experiences. That's why I like hunting and, you know, with my girlfriend. You can't sell me that. I'm not, I'm not for sale. So, yeah, man, if you got a few bucks, tonycounting.com. Oh, I will tell you this, man. One of the cool things is when you go to the website, when it pops up, there is a pop-up that, that has a video and stuff. You can watch it. It's cool videos. Me telling you how cool I am or some shit. Just move past that. Right underneath it says dirt bike prize. I'm not a something for nothing type of guy. So last year I got this hair up my ass that I was gonna get back into racing motocross. So I went and bought a brand new KX4F50. Rockin' ship.

• 4:13:16Speaker 01

  I got an excavator and a And 63 acres. And I built a motocross track in my backyard. All at my girlfriend going, what is wrong with you? And that dirt bike, it's been, I got it last November. So it's been whatever, a year and a few months. It still has the second take of gas in it. Haven't had time to ride it. So she going up for auction? I donated it to the campaign. So it's a raffle, not an auction. It's, you know, a $10,000 dirt bike. It's never been laid over. I was cautious getting back into riding, so I took it easy. Boots, helmet, nice stuff, man. I didn't bullshit. I bought some nice stuff. Four or five sets of riding gear, Oakley goggles, all that stuff.

• 4:14:00Speaker 01

  You can buy chances at it. I'm not a something for nothing type of guy. I got an AR coming onboard and a precision rifle, a custom precision rifle that my buddy who makes my precision guns freaking building for us. So point being is, right, I'm not a something for nothing type of guy. So if you donate to the campaign, at least you're getting a chance to win some cool stuff. So.

• 4:14:21Jocko Willink?

  Hell, yeah.

• 4:14:23Jocko Willink?

  All right. So, uh, Echo, you got anything?

• 4:14:27Speaker 02

  No, we covered it.

• 4:14:29Jocko Willink?

  Awesome, man.

• 4:14:31Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 4:14:32Jocko Willink?

  Thanks for coming on, bro.

• 4:14:33Speaker 01

  No, thank you for having me.

• 4:14:34Jocko Willink?

  Thanks for sharing your experiences. Thanks for what you've done for America in the past.

• 4:14:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:14:40Jocko Willink?

  And thanks for what you are about to do for America. Awesome to meet you, man.

• 4:14:45Speaker 01

  Thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me. This is, this is how we win.

• 4:14:49Jocko Willink?

  Absolutely.

• 4:14:50Speaker 01

  Hell, yeah.

• 4:14:51Jocko Willink?

  Thanks, brother.

• 4:14:51Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 4:14:54Jocko Willink?

  And with that, Tony Cowden has left the building heading back to North Cackalacky. And I failed to mention, I failed to mention North Cackalacky. I failed to mention, look, I mentioned the fact that we at Origin USA have a factory in Ashboro, North Carolina, which is awesome, but I failed to mention. And it just like these conversations, you don't know where they're going. I failed to mention the fact that when I went through BUDS and STT SEAL Tackle Training and then got to SEAL Team One, and then I did three deployments. And then I was in training cell with a, with my running mate at the time,

• 4:15:38Jocko Willink?

  who I also, he was my roommate that whole time. And he was from North Cackalacky.

• 4:15:46Jocko Willink?

  And he's the freaking best guy. Awesome guy and a total stud. Um, across the board, but he's a super good athlete, like a ridiculously good athlete. Like we had, he played, this is the guy that played basketball in North Carolina as a kid. And then he got drafted, he was 5'11". He lost, he, he missed a foul shot.

• 4:16:14Jocko Willink?

  And lost like the state championship. He did that, you know? So he had, he had that, but you know, he was still, he was in the state championship and he's obviously a key player. Right. And he got, he got some, he got drafted or whatever recruited to some D two, D three schools. Cause he was such a good basketball player. And he ended up, he's like, listen, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna be a pro, obviously. So I'm gonna focus on my education. So he ended up going to University of North Carolina. And while he was there, he grew five inches. So he graduated at six, four. And this is a guy, you know, you go out and shoot basketball with him and he would just sit there and hit three pointers all day. So then, then.

• 4:16:58Jocko Willink?

  We had Alton Lee Grizzard, who was the Navy quarterback and who's himself a stud. That's the guy who is a great friend of mine. And he ended up getting murdered in, in Coronado, which was awful. But just a stud, just a stud across the board. I mean, he played, he broke all kinds of records at the naval academy, just a beast.

• 4:17:20Jocko Willink?

  And those two guys got in a little throwing contest of who could throw a football further. And my buddy from North Cackalacky also played football. So I'm sitting there watching, cause I, I'm not even gonna participate in this competition against these two freaking studs. And.

• 4:17:39Jocko Willink?

  So they started throwing it back and forth, just backing up each time. Right. And, uh, yeah, the kid from North Carolina, he threw it further. It was like 65 yards, bro. I'm talking a wing. Yeah. And just a beast, man. But so whenever I hear North Carolina, I always think North Cackalacky, cause that's how he, and you know, he had this funny look he'd give people. Me, everybody. But when you said North Carolina, or if you said North Cackalacky, he'd give you a look like of the most affirming of looks, you know, like, like that's everything. You know, like, you know, as if you just said, uh, you know, chocolate peanut butter milk, like, oh, that's so good. You know, it is one of those things. So. I dig it.

• 4:18:24Jocko Willink?

  Very cool to talk to Tony. And you know, it's a scrap, man. Yeah. It's a scrap. He's gotta go, he's going hard in the paint, you know, going hard in the paint.

• 4:18:38Speaker 02

  He uh, he said something that was, that was interesting and maybe, uh, I don't know. I don't follow public politics as much as maybe others do. But he did mention something that I thought, hmm, that's, that's, that's, that's good. This is a good thing to be talking about and to be thinking about is the, the lack of effectiveness of a linear solution.

• 4:18:59Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 4:18:59Speaker 02

  Because man, that linear solution like, and that just in everyday club, bruh. I don't know how to run a country. Everyone knows that. You know that about me. I don't know. But I do think that it's gonna be difficult to make decisions for what 300 million people or whatever, you know, what's in the best interest for 300. It's, that's hard. I understand. But if you kind of simple it down or whatever, let's say, I don't know, for example, your kids, right? If you start implementing linear solutions with your kids, so the kids, no, no, no, crying. They want a soda. Soda pop.

• 4:19:34Jocko Willink?

  Give them the soda.

• 4:19:35Speaker 02

  That's the linear solution, right? Yeah, they're crying. They're unhappy, obviously, because they're crying and whatever. What's the linear solution exactly, right? Give them the soda. But that causes all kinds of other problems. A lot of them too, by the way. Not just one other problem. It's like a bunch of other problems. So I'd imagine it'd be that same formula, except times a million with running the country in whatever way. So it's like, yeah, to focus on that concept where it's like, okay, sure, this will be a linear solution or understanding, okay, that's a solution. That's a linear solution. Understand what, what would happen then? And he kept saying, and then what, right? Just to be paying attention to that stuff. I think that's a good thing.

• 4:20:14Jocko Willink?

  It's a good move.

• 4:20:15Speaker 02

  And I'm not saying no one else pays attention to that, but that's not like any kind of front running concept that people are kind of pushing, you know? Doesn't seem like it is. Yeah, I don't know, but I liked it.

• 4:20:26Jocko Willink?

  Well, if you can lend some support to Tony, just look, you might not agree with him on every, every topic that there is. Uh, maybe he sees some things a little bit differently than you, but you, you, the guy's character and just the fact that he's gonna go up there and live in his room and make things happen.

• 4:20:51Jocko Willink?

  Help him out if you can. Um, if you want to help out yourself a little bit too. Speaking of origin USA, we have a factory in North Carolina. Kind of two factories right now, which we're consolidating. We have factories up in Maine. We're building stuff in America. Look, here's something else you can do to support America. You want to help America? Buy American. Buy American. You need a pair of boots? Buy an American pair of boots. You need a pair of jeans? Buy an American pair of jeans.

• 4:21:18Speaker 02

  But have you ever heard of Jake Tran? Okay, so maybe I maybe I he what he does is he he kind of breaks down things that have to do with like money and power and he makes these cool YouTube videos.

• 4:21:29Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 4:21:29Speaker 02

  Jake Tran. So, um, one of them, one of his recent one ones were fashion, like the evil fashion industry. And that's what he would talk to be talk about like how basically fashion is built by slavery. In other countries.

• 4:21:45Jocko Willink?

  Oh, for sure.

• 4:21:45Speaker 02

  So.

• 4:21:46Jocko Willink?

  Have you not been listening to me for the past freaking years?

• 4:21:48Speaker 02

  I I have and and mainly just you.

• 4:21:51Jocko Willink?

  But you had to hear it from Jake Tran.

• 4:21:53Speaker 02

  Bro, Jake Tran, the way he breaks stuff down.

• 4:21:55Jocko Willink?

  He did it better than me. I got it. I got it.

• 4:21:57Speaker 02

  I love you. You are the man. But in this one, he did a really, really good job. Well.

• 4:22:03Jocko Willink?

  Maybe if I had someone that I worked with that could put together videos that kind of extended the things that I were saying. Maybe that would have worked out better. I don't know. You you know what?

• 4:22:11Speaker 02

  You make a good point. You make a good point.

• 4:22:13Jocko Willink?

  It's my fault for not finding someone that was more effective in me in social media and media and media arts and film.

• 4:22:18Speaker 02

  Again, great point. But the way he does it is he does it in terms of like, like you're the evil one. And he's talking and he goes, all you have to do is this, just get some slaves and like he'll talk to it. That's how he'll make it. It's his style.

• 4:22:32Jocko Willink?

  Does he do that all the time? That's his thing?

• 4:22:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, kind of. It's kind of sarcastic, but kind of like. Like when he'll.

• 4:22:38Jocko Willink?

  He's kind of coming at you.

• 4:22:40Speaker 02

  Little bit, yeah. He's coming at your sinister side almost. Like in certain ones, it's more heavy than others, but then he'll be like.

• 4:22:46Jocko Willink?

  What's the heaviest one?

• 4:22:50Speaker 02

  This one was so heavy, it made me considered actually doing it, but at the end of the day, when you stop the YouTube video, you're like, bro, I'm not gonna do that, you know, anyway. Uh, one about charities, like how charities can defraud the government or something like that. And we're like, oh, he'll say, you can do this, this and this with no strings attached, of course. And then he'll keep talking and you're like, see what he did there, right?

• 4:23:11Jocko Willink?

  So you're gonna start a, a charity to defraud the government? Is that what you were saying? You almost did?

• 4:23:17Speaker 02

  That's not what it's about, but I'm saying when you watch the video, you're like, that's actually not a bad idea. You know, it's like that kind of thoughts, but it's the way he says it though.

• 4:23:26Jocko Willink?

  I'm glad you're one YouTube video away from being sinister and ripping people off.

• 4:23:30Speaker 02

  There's more to it than that, yeah. Anyway, watch that one about the freaking fashion industry. You're gonna be like, bro, yeah, that's it. And I, I get what you're saying when you're like, that's what you've been saying.

• 4:23:42Jocko Willink?

  That's what I've been saying. I haven't been saying it effectively enough for you to understand, apparently.

• 4:23:45Speaker 02

  No, no, no, I understand it, but he, he like, uh.

• 4:23:48Jocko Willink?

  He did a better job. Okay, I'm gonna watch him. We'll, we'll get the message right. I'll get the message right. So people that will understand that when you buy some fashion crap that's made overseas, it was made by slaves. That's what's happening.

• 4:24:04Speaker 02

  You remember that one building in, I forget where it was, but where it collapsed on all of, all the workers. So he starts off like with that and like just all these, yeah, it's crazy. And then a lot of it, it's all essentially like borderline free stuff, like as far as how it was made.

• 4:24:20Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 4:24:20Speaker 02

  So, so much of it just goes to the trash. So much of it. So they're just, just, yeah, who cares? Kids, whatever.

• 4:24:27Jocko Willink?

  That's why you see sometimes those, those high fashion companies will take their surplus and just burn it. Cause they wanna keep the, the supply low, so the demand's high. But they misread the next fall season or whatever, you know?

• 4:24:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:24:42Jocko Willink?

  And so they gotta burn it. So let's not support that. Let's support freedom. Let's support America. Let's support Origin USA. OriginUSA.com. Uh, also get yourself some Jaco fuel. I mean.

• 4:24:59Jocko Willink?

  Let's face it, you're gonna have some, you know, whatever. Injuries, soreness.

• 4:25:06Speaker 02

  Soreness, yeah.

• 4:25:07Jocko Willink?

  Uh, what's the difference between muscle soreness and like when you have a joint soreness? Or what do you call it when you're, if you did, let's say you did weighted dips yesterday?

• 4:25:16Speaker 02

  Sure, hypothetically.

• 4:25:17Jocko Willink?

  See, weighted dips, every time I do weighted dips, I ha- I feel like a little bit of not just soreness in my triceps and chest, but I have a little bit of, what is that called, in my shoulders themselves?

• 4:25:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, like joint pain.

• 4:25:31Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, like a little bit, but it's minor.

• 4:25:33Speaker 02

  Right, right, right, joint aggravation.

• 4:25:34Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 4:25:35Speaker 02

  It's like, I think a lot of the times it'll come obviously from like certain nutritional elements and

• 4:25:42Speaker 02

  could be past injuries as well, but a lot of times it's imbalances in certain places, you know, so you kind of overstretch or understretch certain things and whatever, but.

• 4:25:53Jocko Willink?

  Well, when you have joint aggravation.

• 4:25:55Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 4:25:55Jocko Willink?

  You can take like joint orphir. If you have muscle soreness, you can take milk.

• 4:26:00Speaker 02

  Yep, and these are nutritional elements that can improve.

• 4:26:02Jocko Willink?

  That are gonna improve these unfortunate scenarios and kind of fortunate because at least you were able to do them.

• 4:26:08Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 4:26:08Jocko Willink?

  You know, you were able to get after it.

• 4:26:09Speaker 02

  And it's part of the game. So I learned early on and I was okay, so I make my daughter do little workouts. Sometimes it's punishment, sometimes it's hey, this is just what we're doing. And she's eight, so DOMS delayed onset muscle soreness is new to her. So when you, when you're new to DOMS, you're like, I don't like this feeling, like why would I do pushups? Or why would I do a bunch of squats when my legs are gonna feel like this the next day? It's like, it's like, you feel like your body's kind of being destroyed, destroyed or whatever. But when you really understand what DOMS is, you kind of invite it. So I understood the value of DOMS early on. I think I was like 10 or 11 years old.

• 4:26:45Jocko Willink?

  From reading about it or just understanding that, like, I worked out yesterday, I'm sore because I'm getting stronger?

• 4:26:50Speaker 02

  Yes, so I found out, I forget how I found out, this is, you know, whatever, 1988 or whatever, however old it, or whatever year. But I knew that your muscles were sore because they were triggered into like growing back big or whatever. So I'm like, oh shoot. So if I do a bunch of pushups. And I'm not sore. I'm like dang, I didn't do enough pushups. Or if I ran a bunch, like when I started, when you, you know, the first two days of football practice, you get sore, like you're sore, your legs are sore, your abs are sore from doing situps, your necks are all this stuff. But I knew that, no, that's because they're about to grow back bigger. You kind of invite it. So now as an adult, I understand, hey man, that Dom's life is part of the, part of the game, man.

• 4:27:29Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 4:27:30Speaker 02

  You see what I'm saying?

• 4:27:30Jocko Willink?

  But you can mitigate it.

• 4:27:31Speaker 02

  You can mitigate it, yeah.

• 4:27:32Jocko Willink?

  Not by working out less or working out weaker.

• 4:27:35Speaker 02

  Oh, no, no, no.

• 4:27:36Jocko Willink?

  By eating the correct foods.

• 4:27:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, you're facilitating the whole Dom's process right there.

• 4:27:41Jocko Willink?

  So all that stuff, jockofuel.com, plus you can get the drinks at Wawa, which by the way, we were kind of dominating at Wawa. If you go out and you buy stuff from Wawa, I am personally thanking you at this time for making us dominate in Wawa. Don't let up. Clear shelves, go in there, get after it. We're working with a bunch of other companies. We are, I gotta put together a list of where you can buy Jaco Fuel. But right now, I can tell you, you can get it at Wawa, the drinks, and you can get it at the Vitamin Shop. So, or you can get it at jockofuel.com.

• 4:28:15Speaker 02

  You ever drink kombucha?

• 4:28:17Jocko Willink?

  I don't like it.

• 4:28:18Speaker 02

  Me neither. And that's kind of the thing where, you know, like.

• 4:28:22Jocko Willink?

  You know who drinks kombucha? All the females in my family.

• 4:28:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:28:25Jocko Willink?

  They're drinking that stuff like it's methamphetamine or something.

• 4:28:30Speaker 02

  To each their own.

• 4:28:30Jocko Willink?

  Not that they're into methamphetamine, but like it's a very addictive, like something that they're enjoying.

• 4:28:34Speaker 02

  You hear good things. Okay.

• 4:28:36Jocko Willink?

  I haven't heard good things about methamphetamine. Anyways, let me retract that. My wife and daughters like kombucha for whatever reason.

• 4:28:45Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 4:28:45Jocko Willink?

  I think it tastes like crap.

• 4:28:47Speaker 02

  Like crap. Yes, sir. And I'm not even, again, my father-in-law, he makes his own kombucha.

• 4:28:52Jocko Willink?

  Oh damn.

• 4:28:52Speaker 02

  So I was like, dang, okay, obviously great for you. Good enough for you.

• 4:28:55Jocko Willink?

  There was a dude that made kombucha with Jocka White Tea, by the way. He was selling it, Combat Kombucha. I don't know what happened to it. He went out there, he's making Combat, Kombu- Kombucha, Kombucha, Kombucha. Kombucha?

• 4:29:07Speaker 02

  It's all the deal. However you want to say it. Either way, the point, okay, do you have any vegetables? That you just, like, you know, okay, they're good for you, but perhaps I'm not gonna eat that because I'm just not into it. Into the taste or whatever. Just not in, like, um, asparagus. You know, people like asparagus, you salt it up, man. I think it tastes kind of junk. So I'm not gonna be excited for asparagus.

• 4:29:27Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 4:29:28Speaker 02

  So the good thing, and this is why I think a lot, most people. Like this energy drink because when you drink it and you have no guilt, you know that it's actually good for you. It's not like asparagus. See what I'm saying?

• 4:29:40Jocko Willink?

  Well, asparagus is good for you, but it tastes bad.

• 4:29:42Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 4:29:43Jocko Willink?

  Discipline go is good for you.

• 4:29:45Speaker 02

  And it tastes good.

• 4:29:46Jocko Willink?

  And it tastes good. Double bonus.

• 4:29:47Speaker 02

  Exactly right. And that's why I think people like it, especially the mango one, by the way. I heard great things about the mango.

• 4:29:52Jocko Willink?

  Hmm. Check. Uh, if you want to get some stuff from this podcast and represent, you can do that too. Echo made a store.

• 4:30:00Speaker 02

  It's called Jaco's store. Yeah. Hundred percent.

• 4:30:03Jocko Willink?

  Uh, get some of that stuff. Shirt locker. So there is a shirt coming out that I created.

• 4:30:09Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 4:30:10Jocko Willink?

  Mentally, and then you have brought to fruition. I think it's going to be a classic.

• 4:30:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:30:15Jocko Willink?

  I think it's going to be a classic.

• 4:30:17Speaker 02

  It's a good one. And that one is the March, March shirt.

• 4:30:20Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 4:30:22Speaker 02

  And it's pretty squared away. The shirt locker is the membership.

• 4:30:24Jocko Willink?

  Did you make the adjustments you needed to make to that shirt as directed?

• 4:30:27Speaker 02

  No time.

• 4:30:28Jocko Willink?

  No time?

• 4:30:29Speaker 02

  Didn't have time. It was already, hey, what do you call?

• 4:30:33Speaker 02

  The ship has sailed.

• 4:30:34Jocko Willink?

  OBE, overcome by events.

• 4:30:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:30:37Jocko Willink?

  Well, look, we're good. The spelling is good.

• 4:30:40Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 4:30:40Jocko Willink?

  And that shirt is legit.

• 4:30:42Speaker 02

  It looks good. That's the March shirt and the whole shirt locker is squared away anyway. So it's like, if you order it on March 1st, 2nd or what, it's all like up to date.

• 4:30:50Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 4:30:51Speaker 02

  See what I'm saying?

• 4:30:51Jocko Willink?

  You're good.

• 4:30:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, you'd be good to go.

• 4:30:53Jocko Willink?

  Check. Uh, so check out Jaco's store.com, subscribe to the podcast, Jaco Underground, Jaco Underground.com, who knows? I know we mentioned COVID during this particular podcast. That's the kind of thing that apparently gets people banned, gets people, uh, in trouble. That's why we have Jaco Underground.com. It's eight dollars and 18 cents a month. It allows us to have a separate platform that we actually have control over. We can say whatever we want. We won't be censored. So if you want to help out there, you can do that. If you can't afford it, we still want you in the game. Just email Jaco Underground. [email protected]. Check out the YouTube channels.

• 4:31:35Jocko Willink?

  Check out the, the Jocko Podcast YouTube channel. If you want to see what Tony looks like. Also, Origin USA has, if you want to find out what's going on, I talk about these factories and all this stuff going on. Check out the Origin USA YouTube channel. That's got a bunch of good information on it too.

• 4:31:51Speaker 02

  It's true. Psychological warfare.

• 4:31:54Jocko Willink?

  Yep. Get that if you need a little little hitter.

• 4:31:57Speaker 02

  Yeah. And I would say motivation. It's not motivate. Basically, you want Jaco to help you pass your moment of weakness. So I've always said it, that's what I'm gonna keep saying it because it's absolutely true.

• 4:32:07Jocko Willink?

  And if you want Dakota Meyer to help you pass your moment of weakness, he's making cool stuff. Flipsidecanvas.com.

• 4:32:14Jocko Willink?

  Written a bunch of books. If you want to check them out, check them out. Just go to checkout books by Jocko Willink. You'll find them. Some of them are pretty popular. Some of them you might like. You might be able to learn something from them. Might be able to contact me and tell me I got something wrong. I'm standing by for adjustment. Echelon Front Leadership Consultancy. We've got live events that we do. The next big one we've got is in Dallas, Texas, March 24th and 25th. So if you want to come to a live event, you can go to that. We also have the battlefield events coming up in Gettysburg in May 10th and 12th.

• 4:32:52Jocko Willink?

  And then Gettysburg, May 13th and 14th, and we're doing Little Big Horn as well. Anyways, go for any of this stuff, or you want us to come and help your company. Go to echelonfront.com and check that out. We also have an online training, an online training platform. It's at extremeownership.com. If you have questions for me, you can just go there and ask me a question. I'll be on there. I'll be on there on a Zoom meeting. Remember what Zoom is? COVID brought us Zoom. One of the good things about COVID, right? COVID brought us Zoom. Now we can, everyone uses Zoom now. I used to try and do Zoom meetings back in the day or Skype.

• 4:33:33Speaker 02

  Right, Skype.

• 4:33:34Jocko Willink?

  And people just weren't ready for it. Now everyone's like, oh, Zoom call. Yep, we're ready.

• 4:33:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:33:39Jocko Willink?

  And people understand the benefits of it. So if you want to talk to me on a Zoom call, I will literally be right there. Go to extremeownership.com. You can take a bunch of courses we made. We make fresh courses coming out once a week. Leadership, leadership for you, not just for like, oh, you're the CEO of a company, or you're the manager of this. But if you're leading a family, if you're leading your friends, if you're leading yourself, go to extremeownership.com. Also, if you want to help service members.

• 4:34:13Jocko Willink?

  You can go to Mark Lee's mom. She's got an awesome charity that she put together helps out veterans so much. Go to Americas Mighty Warriors.org for that and also check out Heroes and Horses, which is a outstanding charity run by Micah Fink up there in Montana getting it. And if you want to support Tony Cowden, go to like, like he said earlier, go to Tony Cowden.com and he's also on Instagram, which is, sounds like that's his primary mode of communication with the crew. It's Tony underscore Cowden underscore four, the number four, and

• 4:34:54Jocko Willink?

  then NC for North Carolina. He's also on Twitter, Tony Cowden NC and Facebook, YouTube, Tony Cowden. As far as Echo and I go, we're both on Twitter. We're, we're both on the gram. We're both on the Facebook. Echo's at Echo Charles. I'm at Jocka Willink. Of course, be advised. Come to check it out real quick. All of a sudden you get sucked in by the algorithm. Don't let that happen. That's the devil's play thing right there. The algorithm. Watch out for that one. Thanks once again for Tony, to Tony for coming on tonight. Thanks for everything that he's done. You know, we barely even, you, you can't spend, what is

• 4:35:36Jocko Willink?

  it? Eight or nine years in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. The amount of stuff that, that he's been through, that he's done, the amount of risk he's taken to serve our country, you're not going to cover it in a four hour podcast or a 20 hour podcast or a hundred hour podcast. But that's the kind of person that's been out there laying his life on the line for the country. Now he's stepping up again. So support him if you can. And thanks for coming, Tony. And the rest of our American military out there and the veterans, thank you all for what you've done and continue to do to serve our great nation and to our police and law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional

• 4:36:17Jocko Willink?

  officers, border patrol, secret service, all first responders. Thank you for keeping us safe on the home front. And to everyone else, how much can you do?

• 4:36:32Jocko Willink?

  I actually know the answer to that question. More. That's how much you can do. You can do more. And a guy like Tony makes that obvious, but

• 4:36:45Jocko Willink?

  it isn't gonna knock on your door. You have to kick that door in. You have to make things happen.

• 4:36:54Jocko Willink?

  You have to initiate action. And you do that by going out there every day. And getting after it.

• 4:37:03Jocko Willink?

  Until next time, this is Echo and Jaco. Out.