106: Be Clear In Your Mind What You Intend To Achieve. "We Were Soldiers Once... And Young."

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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 106 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. Good evening Echo. Good evening. Now in Podcast 105, we finished just as the 1-7 Cav flew out of the Idrang Valley. After keeping it together during a vicious three day fight where they suffered some massive casualties. 79 killed in action, 121 wounded and on top of that, the battlefield was littered with enemy dead.

• 0:42Jocko Willink?

  With the estimates of enemy dead to be between 500 and 1,000. And we stopped there where the 1-7 Cav left the battlefield. So if you haven't listened to 105 yet, go back and listen to that before continuing with this Podcast 106. Because even though the 1-7 left the battlefield, the battle wasn't over yet. And one of the, one of the events that I didn't really talk about in the first Idrang Podcast on 105 was the fact that two other battalions had arrived on the ground to reinforce the 1-7.

• 1:24Jocko Willink?

  And it was the 2nd Battalion 5th Cavalry commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Robert Tully and the 2nd Battalion 7th Cavalry led by Lieutenant Colonel Robert McDade.

• 1:40Jocko Willink?

  Now, most of the battalion's men from those two battalions had landed at LZ Victor, which was about two miles away from X-Ray and they had patrolled to X-Ray on foot, arriving for the most part without incident and then things seemed to settle down a lot on X-Ray. 1-7 left and once 1-7 had left the battlefield, 2-7 and 2-5 were still there.

• 2:10Jocko Willink?

  So at that point, that portion of the battle was over and 2-7 and 2-5 could have likely been extracted via helicopter pretty securely just as 1-7 had been.

• 2:26Jocko Willink?

  It seems that General Westmoreland did not like the idea of 27 and 25 pulling out. He thought that that would appear as a retreat. So he ordered that 25 and 27 secure LZ X-ray for the night and then the next day they would move by foot patrol to another LZ called LZ Albany, which was about 2.5 miles to the north. And then B-52 bombers were going to rain down bombs on LZ X-ray and the surrounding areas. They didn't expect a lot of resistance because things had

• 3:07Jocko Willink?

  settled somewhat down so much on LZ X-ray that if you remember even towards the end of the last podcast, there was reporters came in and landed at LZ X-ray and were doing camera shots and interviewing people. So it was pretty settled down. They felt like it was over and they didn't expect much resistance on this movement from LZ X-ray to LZ Albany.

• 3:34Jocko Willink?

  So let's go back to the book. The book is We Were Soldiers Once and Young by General Halmore and Joe Galloway. And like I said, there wasn't much resistance expected. And here's what it says in the book. "The word among Bob McDade's troopers was that it was going to be a walk in the sun. A stroll over to another landing zone where the helicopters would come in and extract them, the first leg of the journey home to Ankae Base. The word was wrong."

• 4:13Jocko Willink?

  And these guys, even though there hadn't been much fighting going on, they were actually a little bit tired because they had been awake on the ground. So here we go. Just before Alpha Company Second Battalion moved out, its commander, Captain Joel Sedini's, put out an unusual order.

• 4:34Jocko Willink?

  His executive officer Lieutenant Larry Gwynne, who we're gonna hear a lot from Lieutenant Larry Gwynne remembers it well, the company had been on 100% alert for over 52 hours. We were in such a state of exhaustion that Captain Sadinas directed that each man take two APC tablets, aspirin with caffeine, a move designed to increase the mental alertness of the troops. So, there you go. Take a little caffeine, little aspirin, get you guys, get your heads in the game because they've been awake for a long time. And again, they're not expecting much, but they still been on the ground in a hot LZ for a while. Back to the book Lieutenant Alley, the battalion's communication officer, was with headquarters

• 5:16Jocko Willink?

  company. We were told that this would be a tactical move. There was a lot of stuff on the battlefield, equipment, supplies, captured stuff that had to be policed up and blown up, all in a hurry up situation. I was personally carrying an RC 292 antenna in addition to my regular combat load. I weighed about 140 pounds. My normal combat load was 40 or 50 pounds. The 292 antenna weighed 60 pounds. The temperature must have been 96 and the humidity was the same. We were moving as fast as we could through the elephant grass and scrub oaks, some high canopy. We were humping. Everyone was as tired as could be.

• 5:58Jocko Willink?

  So we're already in a rough situation. We've been on the ground for 52 hours and we're gonna move 2 and 1/2 miles. Doesn't sound very far, but when you're carrying, so he's already, he's carrying 100 pounds, his 40, 50 pound combat load plus his antenna and everyone else is carrying all kinds of extra stuff that they're pulling off the LZ. It's 96 degrees out, 96% humidity and walking through the jungle is never easy. It's up and down little terrain features, going through various foliage is hard. So this is not easy.

• 6:30Speaker 01

  Not the biggest guy too, by the way.

• 6:32Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, 140, 150 pounds, which guys were smaller back then.

• 6:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, but still.

• 6:36Jocko Willink?

  Than they are now.

• 6:36Speaker 01

  More pounds.

• 6:37Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, no, 100 pounds. That's, that's no joke. That's no joke.

• 6:42Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book Lieutenant Gary Gwynn of Alpha Company says the jungle around us got heavier and heavier.

• 6:49Jocko Willink?

  That's when things got a little scary. There was a sudden absence of any air cover. The guys were silent and I wondered where our helos and our aerial rocket artillery ships were. We had not changed formation tactically, but physically we had to move in much tighter to maintain visual contact because of the undergrowth. The terrain forced our flankers in. So at this point, they had a bunch of air cover. They don't have any air cover right now. And now the terrain is making them get closer and closer together because if you and I are on patrol, I want to keep you in visual range. I want to be able to see you. And so if all of a sudden there's elephant grass, well, the only way to keep visual of you is for you to get close to me and for me to get close to the next guy.

• 7:34Jocko Willink?

  And so everyone starts to compress and he's talking about the flankers being out there. A lot of times when we patrol in formation, you'll put people out on the flanks within visual range, but they'll be stretching the visual range, but they're out there to make sure that there's no one sneaking up on you. And so it's getting dense now to the point where they can't keep their flankers out. So now you're losing some of that flank security.

• 7:58Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book, Gwynn says Alpha Company's column order integrity had been good until two prisoners were captured and everything came to a sudden halt. When I arrived, Sujini's was interrogating the two. They were in mint condition, new weapons, grenades, new gear, but both were feverish, terrified and shaking. None of us in company headquarters had seen a live North Vietnamese up close. These were not the last we would see this day. We gave them water and advised the battalion headquarters. So all of a sudden they got a couple of prisoners. Little scary to me when the prisoners that we take have brand new weapons, new grenades, new gear. I mean, we at least know that they're fresh.

• 8:42Jocko Willink?

  Maybe they're not combat hardened, but we know that they've got some good, well supplied, which is a scary thing in this type of war.

• 8:52Jocko Willink?

  So this is, this is kind of we're looking back hindsight, of course, being 2020. This is, this is an error or a, or a mistake that gets made right now. And of course, mistakes happen all the time and they, they don't get capitalized on by the enemy. Sometimes by luck, sometimes by skill of the enemy. This is one of those mistakes that it gets capitalized again, whether it's by luck or plan. Probably by luck, maybe it's a little bit of both. You wouldn't think much of it if things didn't go the way they did. You know, Leif and I used to have this conversation a lot. I mean, you don't know when things are going to go wrong. And, and seriously, you can be on the battlefield and you can, you can say, hey, everyone go left.

• 9:36Jocko Willink?

  And everyone goes left and everything turns out great. Or you can say, everyone go right and everyone go right and everyone thing turns out great. If you go left and you happen to go to where the enemy was waiting in ambush for you to go. Now you're, you're, you just made a bad tactical call. The, the thing that made it a bad tactical call was that the enemy happened to be there. You couldn't know that. And if you'd have been, if you'd said, go right, you'd great, made the greatest call ever. Cause the enemy was over there waiting for it. Again, you don't know where the enemy is going to be. You don't have that luxury. So sometimes you make the best tactical decision you can make and it turns out bad. Now we can look back at this hindsight being 2020, of course, and, and critique what's about to happen. So we'll, we'll, we'll talk a little bit more about it. Here's what goes down back to the book.

• 10:19Jocko Willink?

  Captain George Forrest, commander of Alpha Company, First Battalion, Fifth Cavalry was more than 500 yards to the rear. So these guys are in a long column of march, group of people. McDade asked all the company commanders to come forward. So McDade is the company, is the battalion commander. And he tells all the company's commanders to come forward. So he's, McDade's up at the front of this column and who knows how big they are. You know, he says he's 500 yards to the rear. This whole thing probably spanned out.

• 10:47Jocko Willink?

  Probably six, 700, maybe even 800 meters. We're getting close to a kilometer in length of people just spread out.

• 10:56Jocko Willink?

  Just so everyone understands, it's hard to control 40 guys in a, in a line of march with any kind of control that's spread out over 200 meters. That's challenging. You get 500, 600 guys spread out over almost a kilometer. We have a serious command and control issue. So now what he's doing to overcome this issue is telling all the, all the company commanders. So there's three companies that are out there. Actually, there's more than that, but there's multiple companies out there. He tells all the company commanders, hey, come to my position at the front of this thing. So we can talk about what's happening. Back to the book. Captain Fezmyer, the Charlie Company Commander was also moving up the column to, toward McDade's position.

• 11:42Jocko Willink?

  With him were his two radio operators, his artillery, his artillery forward observer, Lieutenant Sidney Smith and his radio man, as well as First Sergeant Franklin Hans. So, so I want you to think about that or let me explain this to you a little bit more. Here's the Charlie Company Commander. He's moving forward, so he's leaving his company. And with him, he brings his two radio operators. So who does that leave with the company?

• 12:11Jocko Willink?

  There might be one platoon guy left that's a radio operator, maybe one in each platoon, but there, there's, he's pulling the, the communications node out of the company right there. He brings forward his artillery observer. So this is the guy that's going to be able to place artillery. Other guys can pick up the slack, but not as well as this guy can do it.

• 12:34Jocko Willink?

  He brings Lieutenant Sidney Smith and his radio man. So that means that, so sorry, the artillery observer is Lieutenant Sidney Smith, but that guy brings his radio man as well. So there's another guy out of the loop. And then the first sergeant, the company first sergeant. So now that's the leadership. The company leadership is now from, from Charlie Company is now gone. They're moving up forward to talk about it.

• 12:58Jocko Willink?

  And so here, they give a kind of an overview of what's going on. Here it is. This is what, back to the book, this is what was happening. Sudini's Alpha Company was moving forward toward the Albany clearing. So they've, they've now approached, they're kind of approached this, this LZ Albany. That's what they're talking about, the Albany clearing.

• 13:18Jocko Willink?

  Alpha Company, the Sudini's Alpha Company was moving toward the Albany clearing. Colonel McDade and his battalion command group were with Alpha Company. The other company commanders had left their companies under orders and were moving up to join McDade for a conference. So the other company commanders are not with their companies anymore. The battalion was strung out along the line of march for a distance of at least 550 yards. So half a kilometer.

• 13:46Jocko Willink?

  The men of Delta Company were lolling around on the ground. Charlie Company had flankers off to each side, but were mostly taking a break, sitting or lying down. George Forrest's men at the tail of the column were in a wedge formation and also had flank security posted. The men of battalion were worn out after nearly 60 hours without sleep and four hours of marching through difficult terrain. Visibility in the chest-high elephant grass was very limited.

• 14:17Jocko Willink?

  Bad situation to be in.

• 14:21Jocko Willink?

  Here's Lieutenant Gwynne talking. "We had been there a short time, five minutes, when I heard some rounds fired near our first platoon. I thought they must have caught up with those NVA stragglers. Then everything opened up, opened up. The firing just crescendoed. They hadn't found the stragglers. They had run right into the North Vietnamese. I was out in the grass away from the trees when it started. The rounds were so fast and furious overhead, they were knocking bark off the trees. I ran to them. One round struck the tree I was crouched next to an inch over my head. I said, 'Holy shit,' and ran to join Joel. We all got down. Then I heard this sickening wump of mortar fire landing where I had seen our second platoon disappear."

• 15:06Jocko Willink?

  The most savage one day battle of the Vietnam War had just begun. The 2nd Battalion 7th Cavalry had walked into a hornet's nest. The North Vietnamese Reserve Force, the 550 man 8th Battalion 66th Regiment had been bivouacked in the woods off to the northeast of McDade's column.

• 15:29Jocko Willink?

  So you've got fresh soldiers that had been waiting, they were the reserves. That whole earlier battle in the Hydrang with the 17th Cav. This Vietnamese group, the 66th Regiment, 8th Battalion 66th Regiment had been waiting in reserve. And now they just so happened to be in the line of march where the 25 is coming through.

• 15:53Jocko Willink?

  Or sorry, the 27 is coming through.

• 15:56Jocko Willink?

  Here's what Colonel Ann, who again, this was the Vietnamese commander. Here's what he had to say. "I think this fight of November 17th was the most important of the entire campaign. I gave the order to my battalions. When you meet the Americans, divide yourself into many groups and attack the column from all directions and divide the column into as many pieces. Move inside the column, grab them by the belt and thus avoid casualties from the artillery and air."

• 16:29Jocko Willink?

  We had some advantages. Now, let me just talk about that one real quick. Okay, two things. First of all, get the battalion split up, right? And if you hear, and I always talk about the common theme of keeping things together, keeping people consolidated, keeping your groups where they can mutually support each other. His goal is the opposite of that. Get them split up so they can't support each other. That's number one. So contrary to that, what you should always be doing as a leader is trying to keep your forces as consolidated as possible so that they can maneuver well together and most important, support each other to cover and move. Now, the second part of this is move inside the column, grab them by the belt and thus avoid casualties from artillery and air. That's something that we still see to this day.

• 17:12Jocko Willink?

  We talked about it with the Chechen conflict, that was the Chechens mode of operanda, modus operendi to take, to get inside and be right next to the Russians. They called it hugging. They would get in there and, and get in the same building as the Russians. So you can't call fire on your own building. So that's what the, that's what the Vietnamese were trying to do. Now what's beautiful about these statements? Think about these two statements. This is beautiful commander's intent. Here's all I want you to do. Split them up, get close to them. That's what I want you to do. He's not saying how to do it. He's not telling each individual group where to move and what to do.

• 17:48Jocko Willink?

  He is saying, split them up and get close to them and stay close to them. This is, gives the guys on the battlefield incredible flexibility to execute that plan.

• 18:01Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book, we had some advantages, this is on continuing. We had some advantages. We attacked your column from the sides at the moment of attack. We were waiting for you. This was our reserve battalion and they were just waiting for their turn. The eighth battalion had not been used in fighting in this campaign. They were fresh. Spec four, Dick Ackerman was the right flank point man in the recon platoon, which was itself the point of the battalion. Says Ackerman, we were going to the left to a clearing. We had gone about a hundred feet when we heard some shots, then more shots, and finally all hell broke loose. The main brunt of the attack was right where we had been standing just a few minutes before.

• 18:43Jocko Willink?

  We hit the dirt. I was laying in the middle of a clearing and bullets were kicking dirt in my eyes and breaking off the grass.

• 18:53Jocko Willink?

  Ackerman's first sergeant was standing, shouting and giving directions. His shirt was off and he was in a T-shirt. He lifted his left arm to point and I could see where a bullet had ripped him, ripped open the side of his arm and part of the side of his chest. He was still giving orders. We were then ordered to another part of the circle that was weak. It was facing the main area of attack. There were people running everywhere. We couldn't just open fire in that direction because our guys were there. We were on semi-automatic and picking off whoever we could be sure of as a target. So this just turns in immediately into chaos. And again, this is why consolidation of your forces is so important.

• 19:36Jocko Willink?

  Because the minute you have enemy in between you and other friendly forces, your field of fire is completely shut off. And you're likely when you're, when you are pulling the trigger, you have a good chance that you're going to shoot some of your own guys. So that's again, why consolidations of forces is very, very important. Now, I say this all the time, I'll make the caveat again. Are there times where you can get away with, with splitting your forces and are there times that it makes sense? Yes, absolutely. There are times that it makes sense. And we did all kinds of operations overseas where we had different units out on the battlefield that were split up and maneuvering from different areas. We did it all the time, but you have to know and understand the risks. You have to know and understand the risks of splitting forces, of having enemy in between,

• 20:19Jocko Willink?

  of trying to consolidate back together, which is very, very difficult. You just have to really think about what the risks are and how you can mitigate those risks. Sometimes you can do it with a terrain feature. You can put guys in a certain area where, hey, I have free fire because you're down behind a knoll. Or you're in a ravine where I know that I can't shoot you. That, that's the type of thing that you can do to mitigate. But it is something that people think they can get away with. And you know, matter of fact, we were doing FTX. And it was interesting, we had one of the, one of the females during the planning phase. We, we have them plan just a, a couple of operations, just to sort of get used to planning before we start the actual FTX.

• 21:04Jocko Willink?

  This is, for those of you that don't know, we have a company called Echelon Front. And sometimes we do field training exercises with the companies we're working with to get them to, to help instill in them the fundamental.

• 21:18Jocko Willink?

  Principles of combat leadership. So it was funny, this, this one female. She had come up with this plan and they were going to enter this target building from two different directions.

• 21:28Speaker 01

  Talking about the classroom portion.

• 21:29Jocko Willink?

  Yes, the classroom portion, the day before. And she actually, I said, well, you know, we've said, keep it simple and it can be a little bit confusing if you start entering a building from two different sides and you're now, you've got guns pointed at each other. And you know, you've got to be careful that you don't shoot each other. And, and she literally said, I just don't see how it's going to happen that we could go into this building and we're just going to start shooting each other.

• 21:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:57Jocko Willink?

  Of course. I smiled on the inside.

• 22:01Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 22:01Jocko Willink?

  And said, okay. And, and literally the next day during the FTX phase of the training, which we're using airsoft weapons and you're shooting at bad guys. They came up with a plan, entered a building from two sides and she entered the building and literally shot one of her own people. She did exactly what she didn't think could happen.

• 22:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:26Jocko Willink?

  And, and that's what people have to understand. Now you might think, oh, well, it's this girl or this female and she was, she's not a military person and it's, you know, that's why it happened. No, I saw SEALs do it on the regular. You're all hyped up.

• 22:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:40Jocko Willink?

  You go in that room, you see a person move and crack.

• 22:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:43Jocko Willink?

  Crack them. Fire a couple of shots. And then you've realized what happened. So.

• 22:51Jocko Willink?

  So that's what's going on here. Split forces, things are going crazy. Now, here we go. Ackerman's, back to the book, Ackerman's recon platoon leader, Lieutenant Payne. He says, "All hell broke loose up along the north side of the LZ. I turned to my right and observed some American soldiers moving toward the northwest to set up positions and they went down in a hail of bullets. Within minutes, we were all under heavy attack and my radio operator and I were pinned down in the middle of the LZ with the most of the fire, with most of the fire coming from the north and northwest." Lieutenant Payne's radio opera came alive as the Alpha Company platoon leaders reported heavy fighting. Payne says, mortar rounds began falling, which was a new experience

• 23:34Jocko Willink?

  to everyone, since we had never had any kind of mortar fire against us. The noise level was unbelievable. I remember pressing my body flatter against the ground than I have ever been in my life and thinking that certainly the highest things sticking up were my heels.

• 23:51Jocko Willink?

  Mortars continued to fall and small arms and machine gun fire continued at a hectic pace. Finally, my mind seemed to adjust and I once again began to think about the situation we were in and what we were going to do. So you see, there's a leader, he's pinned down, and this is something that the insurgents in Iraq would do as well. They're going to hit you with multiple different weapon systems in a, in a combined coordinated attack. So if you can imagine, if you start hitting people with mortars, well, everyone needs to get down. You need to get down. You need to take cover. While you're taking cover, that's, that's cover, they're going to move. They're going to maneuver in, they're going to maneuver in with, with heavy weapons, or they're going to move, maneuver in with an assault squad, or they're going to maneuver in with a vehicle borne IED. So this is same

• 24:35Jocko Willink?

  thing happening here, as you're getting mortared, which these guys aren't used to, which, not that there's that much you can do to get used to it, because it doesn't matter, it doesn't help you defend it, you can be used to it, you still have to get down, you still have to take cover. These guys are taking cover, and what I found interesting about this was, you can see in his mind for a couple seconds, maybe 30 seconds, he's just going, holy crap, I'm gonna die. And then finally, he says, my mind seemed to adjust, and once again, he began to think about the situation we were in and what we were going to do. Now, this is where combat experience is helpful. If you haven't been in this situation before, it's going to take you a few seconds to adapt and be like, oh dang, I need to do something. If you haven't been in that situation before, you could end up with some, it's going to

• 25:19Jocko Willink?

  take you some time to adjust, and it's like we talk about with self-defense with jujitsu. If you've never been grabbed before, and you've never been ground on before, you've never had someone pull you before, it's, your mindset takes time just to get through that, before you even start thinking about actually defending yourself, you're just getting used, you're just saying, oh crap, why is this happening? However, you train all the time, then you're used to it. You go, oh, okay, someone's got me. Here's what I'm gonna do to get out. Same thing with getting punched in the face. If you've never been punched in the face before, it takes some getting used to. You're gonna get punched three, four, five times before you're like, wait a second, I need to defend myself. If you've been punched before, boom, oh, I just got punched. Here's my reaction. Here's what I'm gonna do.

• 26:00Jocko Willink?

  And you know, speaking of Jiu Jitsu, going back to getting inside, that's the same thing, getting close to someone, what they were trying to do, what the North Vietnamese were trying to do, get close, stay close. That's the same thing that Jiu Jitsu is. You're trying to avoid the big punches. You get in close, you stay close, you keep the person close to you. That's how you avoid getting knocked out. Same thing. So, train, train hard. Back to the book, Alpha Companies, Alpha Company, the Alpha, Alpha Companies Commander, Captain Sujinis, was in the trees headed to where he had seen the battalion command group disappear. Just as I noticed a small clearing up ahead, I heard one or two shots to my rear back where my first and second platoons were.

• 26:41Jocko Willink?

  I looked back. There was a pause of several seconds and then slowly all hell began to break loose. I remember we were reading the book

• 26:53Jocko Willink?

  by Ernie Pyle, and he talked about the expression, "All hell broke loose," because we've, we just heard it like five times. And he's talking about how it gets overused, but it's real. And you can tell with these guys, it's, it's just absolutely real that all hell is breaking loose. And I want to say this too, because I didn't mention this about Dade, McDade, who's the battalion commander. McDade's the battalion commander. He had just taken over the battalion like a few weeks before, and he had moved from some admin position inside the, inside the, the, I don't know if it was inside the battalion or inside the brigade, but he had moved from like a, sort of an administrative position into battalion command.

• 27:37Jocko Willink?

  So in other words, he wasn't charged of, in charge of any troops, and then all of a sudden, he was in charge of troops. And then three weeks later, they're going into combat. Now, that being said, He also said that this guy hadn't been in charge of any troops in like 10 years. So he, he, he had apparently done his platoon commander and his company command in World War II in Korea. So McDate is an experienced combat leader, but he's out of practice. He's out of practice and more probably more important or just as important to, to being out of practice is he just took over. So part of being a battalion commander is that you train and prepare your troops for combat. You get to know all your men, you get to understand their weaknesses.

• 28:19Jocko Willink?

  You just can't jump in and take over and all of a sudden have the knowledge that you would have if you were preparing everyone. That's why training is so important. That's why we train. So if you are, if you are not given the opportunity to train and learn your troops, you're at a huge disadvantage. You're, and you haven't had time to train them up to the, your standards. You know, this guy was in World War II and Korea. He understands combat. And so to think that he wouldn't put his guys through a, you know, a certain level of training to get them up to speed and make sure they do things like, like make sure that there's a, a other people in the chain of command that can step up and lead, having a succession plan.

• 28:58Jocko Willink?

  So, so like him calling people forward, maybe if he had trained the battalion, he knew that there was other guys in there that would be able to take charge. He didn't realize that there was like a little, a little hesitation there that was going to happen, which is what happened. So he doesn't know his, his team well enough for this situation. And that's not good.

• 29:22Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book, Captain Sujini says, Larry Gwynn and I hit the edge of Albany on the northeast side of the clearing. As the column began to receive intense fire, we began to receive sporadic sniper fire. Part of the recon platoon had already reached the island and the island that they're talking about is like an island of, of woods, an island of trees. I yelled across the opening for someone to cover us. We ran to the island. At this point I called my first and second platoons on the radio. Almost immediately I lost communications with first platoon. The platoon sergeant for the second platoon came on the radio. That was Sergeant First Class William A. Farrell, 38, from Stanton, Tennessee. He was a veteran of World War II and Korea, had been a prisoner of war in Korea,

• 30:07Jocko Willink?

  and could have chosen to remain in the States. He did not have to deploy with Vietnam with us. Everyone called him Pappy. Farrell kept asking Captain Sujinis where he was, telling them that they were mixed up with the North Vietnamese and had several wounded and killed. I couldn't pinpoint his location. I knew where he should have been, directly east of our island. Pappy then radioed that he was hit, that there were three or four men with him, all hit. I could hear the firing at his location over the radio. I never heard from Pappy again. He did not survive.

• 30:53Jocko Willink?

  This confusion that happens, this is fog of war stuff. This is this complete fog of war stuff. And by the way, the enemy gets a vote. The enemy gets a vote. The enemy can do things like this that you don't expect. The enemy can hit you from multiple sides. The enemy can have a strategy or a tactic to getting close. That's what the enemy is going to do.

• 31:15Jocko Willink?

  You don't know what the enemy is going to do, actually. You don't know what they're going to do. You don't know that they're going to have mortars this time.

• 31:25Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book. Lieutenant Colonel McDade himself recalls, "When things began happening, I got in with Alpha Company. I know I was trying to figure out what was going on. I moved very fast. Let's get over there in those trees and let's all get together. The enemy seemed to be all over the woods. We had good tight control in the immediate area, and we're trying to figure out where everybody else was. One of the things I was very concerned with was people being trigger happy and just shooting up the grass. I was telling them, make sure you know what you are shooting at because we are scattered." So notice how he says this, "We had good tight control in the immediate area and we're trying

• 32:08Jocko Willink?

  to figure out where everyone else is." This is horrible. It shows you two things. When you have good tight control over people, you're okay. If you know where your people are, you're okay. There's the, one of the worst feelings on the battlefield is not knowing where your guys are. That is one of the worst feelings on the battlefield, not knowing where your guys are.

• 32:31Jocko Willink?

  And sitting there trying to figure out where everyone else is, which I guess those two are the same things. And so the biggest concern that he has right now is like he's so concerned about friendly fire.

• 32:45Jocko Willink?

  Keep control of your people.

• 32:50Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book, "The Battalion Operations Officer Captain Spires believes that the, the fact that the commanders were absent from their companies when the fight started contributed to the confusion. It had the most effect, I think, on Charlie Company. Their commander, Captain Skip Fesmire, was up with us and Don Cornet, the Charlie Company Executive Officer, was killed early on. So they had no commander and they just disintegrated."

• 33:19Jocko Willink?

  So, leadership is the most important thing on the battlefield. Talk about that all the time. This is why. This is why when you see a platoon or a company that doesn't have any leadership, they fall apart. Now, if you are well-trained and if you have a good succession plan and if you've done drills where the company commander gets killed and you take them out, other people have to step up and lead, yes, that is how you prepare for these situations. You have to prepare for those situations. You have to prepare for leaders to go down.

• 33:50Jocko Willink?

  But if you have no one that steps up,

• 33:54Jocko Willink?

  you're going to be in a real hard way, real fast.

• 33:59Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book. The entire area was now alive with North Vietnamese soldiers who had obviously cut through the battalion's line of march, severing the head of the battalion from the body. Gwyn saw three GIs coming through the high grass, running from the area, swarming with enemy. I jumped up and screamed to them, waving my arm. They saw me and headed directly to our position. The first man was a captain, our Air Force Forward Air Controller, who was completely spent. I pointed out the battalion command group, which was huddled to our rear at another anthill, and he crawled toward them. He was followed by the battalion Sergeant Major, Jim Scott, who dropped down next to me.

• 34:40Jocko Willink?

  And Scott was followed by a young, very small PFC, who was delirious and holding his guts in with his hands. He kept asking, "Are the helicopters coming?" I said, "Yes, hang on."

• 34:56Jocko Willink?

  The battalion commander initially thought that the incoming rounds were all friendly fire. So, think about that. The battalion commander initially thought that the incoming rounds were all friendly fire. So, what's his reaction? "Take cover, don't shoot back." Which is actually, if you're getting maneuvered on by an enemy, the worst possible thing you can do is take cover and not shoot back, because that means the enemy's going to maneuver faster on you. Back to the book, he had been hollering for all of us to cease fire, and the word went out over the command net, but to no avail, as the troops on the perimeter could see North Vietnamese.

• 35:34Jocko Willink?

  Can you imagine the confusion? You've got the battalion commander on the command net yelling to everyone to cease fire, and meanwhile, you can literally see North Vietnamese and you're shooting and engaging them? This is mayhem.

• 35:45Jocko Willink?

  The Sergeant Major and I were looking to the rear when I heard a loud blast. The Sergeant Major yelled, "I'm hit." He had taken a round in the back under his armpit, and there was a large hole underneath his right arm. I told him he would be okay, to bandage it himself. This he did, ripping off his shirt. Then he picked up his M16 and headed back to one of the anthills. I saw the Sergeant Major a few times after that, and he was fighting like a demon.

• 36:13Jocko Willink?

  Sergeant Major Scott says, "I took a bullet through my chest not more than 15 or 20 minutes into the battle. I could see enemy soldiers to our left, right, and front in the in platoon and company sized elements. They were up in trees, up on top of ant hills and in the high grass. We weren't exactly organized. We didn't have time. Everything happened all at once. I didn't see a hole being dug up prior to 8pm that night. We did use the trees and ant hills for cover. Within a half an hour, there was an attempt to organize groups into defensive position in the company area. Individuals did this. No one in particular. I think that's what saved us."

• 36:54Jocko Willink?

  So this is decentralized command coming at you. The only thing that gets them together is that individuals stepped up and said, "Okay, we need to form a perimeter defense." Now unfortunately, a half an hour, an hour had already passed when they got to this point, where individuals start making the call. The other thing is there's a lack of overall direction. So you get to a point where if everyone knew, "Hey, here's the position we're going to be in the battalion. Here's our formation. If something happens, here's what we're going to do. We're going to bound towards this area." There's all kinds of contingency plans that could have been done here. Now, again, I'm doing hindsight 2020, which I hate doing, but we are trying to learn and we are trying to talk to all the military people that are listening to

• 37:39Jocko Willink?

  this that are out doing operations right now, think about this. And I had this, I probably told this story before, but when we first got to Ramadi, my, one of the junior officers was taking a patrol out and it was a combined patrol with some Iraqi soldiers and some SEALs and he was going over the patrol route with me and he got to this big open field and he said, "Yeah, then we're going to, we have to go across this field because it's the only way to get from here to there." And I said, "Well, what are you going to do when you get to this open field?" He said, "Well, we're just going to get across it." I said, "How are you going to get across it?" And he said, "Well, we're going to walk across it." I said, "What if you get hit?"

• 38:20Jocko Willink?

  And he didn't really have an answer. I said, okay, so here's what you're gonna do. Leave some guys in the tree line over here. Have these guys bound across to this little dike right here. Then those guys can join them. Cover and move, just cover and move across this field. And that's what they did. And sure enough, they actually got hit. They got hit with a pretty significant attack and with mortars and small arms fire and they covered moved out of the situation. But my point is, looking at the terrain beforehand, having a plan and then executing the plan and dictating the situation you're gonna be in, instead of letting the the situation dictate what happens to you. Don't do that. That's not a good answer. Situation dictates. That's not a good, we dictate the situation. Talked about it before.

• 39:03Jocko Willink?

  And then have your, like the Vietnamese command was very broad. Commander's intent, get close, split them up. These guys didn't have a command like that. What could the opposite commander have been? Stick together. Stick together, keep integrity. Well, there you go.

• 39:23Jocko Willink?

  Don't let them in close. Okay, there you go.

• 39:30Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book, Sujinis and Gwyn are, agree that it was not long after this that the Alpha, the commander of Alpha Company's missing second platoon Lieutenant Gordon Grove staggered into the American position from the east. Here's Larry Gwynne talking. I saw Gordon Gordy Grove coming across the field along with two wounded men. They were the only ones left of his platoon who could move. Grove was distraught. We got him and his two men with us and our got our medics working on the wounded. Then Gordy asked for men to go back with him to get his people. Joel Shadines said, Gordy, I can't send anybody else back out there. It was clear that to leave this perimeter was death.

• 40:16Jocko Willink?

  Everywhere you looked, you could see North Vietnamese. Gordy asked permission to go talk to the battalion commander. Sujini said, go ahead. He jogged over, asked McDade for help to get his men, got a negative response. So he came back to our anthill. So this is one of those classic examples you hear about all the time. People will try and get you in the

• 40:39Jocko Willink?

  The catch 22 question, like the gotcha question, well, what would you do if you were in the situation and you, and you, some of you guys were still out there, but you didn't have enough people to go get them, or you were being overwhelmed, what would you do? Well, here's what these guys did right here. They're like, no, you can't go get them. If you send in more people out there, they're gonna die. If they die, if we send 10 guys out there, 15 guys out there, 18 guys out there to go recover this, we're gonna lose 18 more guys. We're gonna stay put, we're gonna fight as best we can from here. We'll get fire superiority back, we'll get our shit together, and then we'll go get these guys.

• 41:13Jocko Willink?

  Gwyn adds, "There was a tremendous battle going on in the vicinity of where we had come into the clearing and beyond there in the jungle. It was Charlie Company caught in the killing zone of the ambush, fighting for its life. The mortar fire had ceased, the enemy tubes apparently had been overrun by Charlie Company because we found them all the next day. But there were still hundreds of North Vietnamese calmly walking around the area we were observing. Now began the sniping phase of our battle. I call it that because for a long period of time, all we did was pick off enemy wandering around our perimeter, and this lasted until we started getting air support. Everything that had happened to this point had probably taken less than 30 minutes."

• 42:01Jocko Willink?

  Gwyn saw Major Frank Henry, the battalion executive officer, lying on his back, using the radio, trying desperately to get some tactical air support and succeeding. The air was on the way, but there was no artillery or aerial rocket artillery yet. Jim Spires, the S3, ran over to us and queried Gordon Grove, Gordy Grove, asked the situation outside the perimeter where he had just come from. Grove told him there were still men out there, tightened into a small perimeter, but they were all wounded and dying, and the radios had all been knocked out. Captain Spires asked a second time if he thought anyone was still alive, and none of us said anything."

• 42:40Jocko Willink?

  Gwyn climbed atop a termite hill and began sniping at the North Vietnamese visible across the clearing in the trees to the south with his M16 rifle. There were plenty of targets and I remember picking off 10 or 15 NVA from my position. My memories revolve around the way in which each enemy soldier fell that I hit. Some would simply slump limply to the ground, some reacted as if they had been hit by a truck. Some that I missed on the first and second shots kept on milling around until I finally hit them. What we did not know at the time was that they were wandering around the elephant grass looking for Americans who were still alive and killing them off one by one.

• 43:26Jocko Willink?

  North Vietnamese soldiers climbed into trees and on top of those brush-covered termite hills and poured fire down on the cavalry troops, troopers trapped in the tall grass below them in the main body of the column. There was serious firing, including mortar fire from both sides. The strike at the head of the column was followed so quickly by the enemy encircling assaults that the whole business seemed to erupt almost simultaneously.

• 43:54Jocko Willink?

  Without doubt, some platoons of McTague's battalion were alert and in as secure a formation as they could achieve in the elephant grass, brush, and thick scrub trees. But the visibility problem made it difficult to maintain formation. And one result was that American troops were close to one another then was tactically sound, providing juicy targets for a grenade, mortar round, or a burst from AK-47 rifle.

• 44:23Jocko Willink?

  All down the column, platoon leaders, sergeants, radio operators, and riflemen by the dozens were killed or wounded in the first 10 minutes, rapidly degrading communication, cohesion, and control.

• 44:41Jocko Willink?

  So this whole thing that we've talked about up until this point was like a half an hour. Just a brutal onslaught that that kicked off with massive violence of action.

• 44:52Jocko Willink?

  Captain Fezmyer adds, "The result was very intense, individual, hand-to-hand combat. In the confusion, I had no idea exactly where the company was located. When Lieutenant Cornet died, it was virtually impossible for me to talk to anyone in my company. The battle had clearly become an individual struggle for life."

• 45:23Jocko Willink?

  Again, that was the goal of the Vietnamese, was to make it an individual struggle, was to get in close, was to separate people from the main battalion, to split it up into as many parts as possible, so they could pick it apart.

• 45:40Jocko Willink?

  Spec 4 Jack Smith, who was in Charlie Company, had been a radio operator until about a week or so before this operation, when he was shifted to a supply clerk's job. The events of November 17 are etched on his mind. Smith's company commander, Captain Fezmyer, had, like the others, been called to the front by Lieutenant Colonel McDade. Subsequently, many people pointed to this as a major error, and in light of what has happened, it was. "The firing began to roll on all around us. The executive officer of my company, a man called Don Cornet, a very fine officer, jumped up and in the best style of the infantry school, yelled, 'Follow me.'

• 46:23Jocko Willink?

  Elements of our first and second platoons ran right towards a series of anthills. Within 10 feet of them, we saw where the machine gunners behind them, firing point-blank at us. Men all around me began to fall like mown grass. I had never seen people killed before. They began to drop like flies and die right in front of me.

• 46:46Jocko Willink?

  These were the only friends I had, and they were dying all around me."

• 46:57Jocko Willink?

  Private First Class James H. Shadden was in Thorpe's Delta Company mortar platoon. The intensity of the fire increased to the point where Shadden couldn't hear anything but weapons firing.

• 47:14Jocko Willink?

  And here's what he says, "Tone Johnson came crawling with me, hitting the cheek and the back of the hand. The trees were full of North Vietnamese, but spotting one was almost impossible. They blended in so well. I kept raising up to try and detect a good target. Matthew Shelton, who was laying next to me, kept jerking me down. As I raised up again, a bullet pierced my helmet straight through, front to back. I went down again and came back, and as I came back up, a bullet struck the tree beside my head from behind.

• 47:47Jocko Willink?

  I don't know if we were surrounded or it was our own men.

• 47:51Jocko Willink?

  They were firing wild. Anything that moved, somebody shot at it. One trooper crawled up next to me, shooting through the grass a few inches off the ground toward where our own people lay, never thinking what he was doing. I told him to be sure he knew what he was shooting at.

• 48:08Jocko Willink?

  The firing eventually began to slack off. Shadden has no idea how much time elapsed. There was no way to keep track of time in a fight like this.

• 48:20Jocko Willink?

  Men were wounded and dead, all in the area. Six were alive that I know of. Sergeant Tyler, PFC Carter, PFC Johnson, PFC Shelton, PFC Coons, and myself.

• 48:34Jocko Willink?

  Tyler gave the only order I heard during the entire fight. "Try to pull back before they finish us off."

• 48:44Jocko Willink?

  Shelton froze to the ground and would not move.

• 48:48Jocko Willink?

  The five of us proceeded to try and pull back, but the snipers were still in the trees. Soon I was hit in the right shoulder, which for a time rendered it useless. Tyler was hit in the neck about the same time. He died an arm's length from me, begging for the medic, Spec 4 William Pleasant, who is already dead.

• 49:10Jocko Willink?

  The last words Tyler ever spoke were, "I'm dying."

• 49:15Jocko Willink?

  Sergeant Tyler, 35, was from Columbia, South Carolina.

• 49:24Jocko Willink?

  The helplessness I felt is beyond description. Within a few minutes, I was hit again in the left knee. The pain was unbearable.

• 49:35Jocko Willink?

  Cones was hit in the feet and ankle. We were wounded and trapped.

• 49:42Jocko Willink?

  I could see we were getting wiped out.

• 49:45Jocko Willink?

  A buddy helped me bandage my leg.

• 49:48Jocko Willink?

  He got the bandage off a dead Vietnamese.

• 49:52Jocko Willink?

  I got behind a log and there was a Vietnamese there busted up and dead.

• 49:58Jocko Willink?

  This was behind us. So I knew we were surrounded.

• 50:12Jocko Willink?

  It's...

• 50:14Jocko Willink?

  For me, it's crazy to think these are Americans. It really is. You know, it's crazy to think, you always think...

• 50:21Jocko Willink?

  Naively so that Americans have the upper hand all the time, but, you know, here you are. You, you, you, you don't. You don't always have the upper hand.

• 50:37Jocko Willink?

  Shadon continues on, "It appears as if the ground was opening up and swallowing the morgue men. They, they fell so fast. A brown wave of death rolled over them and on into Charlie Company. Vietnamese intermixed with them. Then reality set in. The enemy held ground beyond the anthill. The column was cut in half. Incoming fire drew our attention back to the tree line. The firing increased rapidly. We returned fire at muzzle flashes. I heard an explosion behind me. Turning, I saw ChiCom grenades landing. All flash and smoke, no casualties. The volume of fire became almost unendurable.

• 51:19Jocko Willink?

  Bullets peeled bark from trees, vegetation disintegrated. I looked to Lieutenant James Lawrence for help, saw his head violently recoil. He hit the ground."

• 51:38Jocko Willink?

  Here's another description. Back to the book. Here's what the Vietnam War looked like in the afternoon of November 17 through the eyes of two of Captain Forrest's Alpha Company Rifleman, PFC David A. Perp Lavender of Murfreesboro, Illinois, and Spec 4 James Young of Steelville, Missouri. Says Lavender, "My platoon was bringing up the rear. We started to maneuver and work our way up the column to help those ahead. Every time we made a move, we were hit by mortars. It was something you can't describe. People were dropping like flies. The first blast killed

• 52:16Jocko Willink?

  a young soldier named Locatelli. Every time we moved, they dropped mortars on us. I know we must have had 12 or 15 wounded out of our platoon, including our platoon leader. These were my buddies I had been with in the Army for two years. The majority of our whole battalion had been drafted at age 21 and had been in this service for over 18 months. All of us were nearly 23 years old. They became my brothers over time. Hearing these fellows scream, hearing them killed, stuck in my heart and mind ever since. The most critical part of

• 52:56Jocko Willink?

  this fight was the beginning. It was the surprise. They had us in a U-shaped ambush,

• 53:07Jocko Willink?

  and they had us cut off with mortars. Surprise and violence of action. Surprise and violence of action. Two key elements of firefights. And here's what Young said, the other, the other individual introduced a moment ago. "There was a grassy field to my left, 25 or 30 yards, and a sniper off on my right. I couldn't see him, but I saw a tracer bullet go across my hand. I felt the wind of that bullet. The same bullet passed over the back of Smith's neck. He was lucky, he had his head down. Our company commander, Captain Forrest,

• 53:50Jocko Willink?

  came running along our line. He was stopping and telling everybody where to go. He acted as though he was immune to enemy fire. I don't know how he kept from getting hit."

• 54:04Jocko Willink?

  So Captain Forrest stepping up and leading and what's

• 54:09Jocko Willink?

  Things do not happen without leadership. So unless he gets up and makes these things happen, they are not going to happen. That's what you do as a leader. You have to make things happen. Talk about it all the time. There's an example of it.

• 54:25Jocko Willink?

  Things do not happen unless you make them happen.

• 54:32Jocko Willink?

  Now,

• 54:34Jocko Willink?

  if you remember that oftentimes in Vietnam, there would be a command and control helicopter. And we talked about this on 105 where the brigade commander actually came and landed for a little bit and then left. Well, that was Colonel Tim Brown. And here we have a little section with talking about what what's going on with him. Back to the book. Colonel Tim Brown's helicopter was running low on fuel and the chopper had to return to refuel. Brown says, I knew they were in a contact. I did not know how severe or anything else. While I was talking to McDade, I could hear rifle fire, but he didn't know what was happening. I asked, what happened to your lead unit? He didn't know. Where's your trailing units? He didn't know.

• 55:20Jocko Willink?

  And he didn't know what happened to any of the rest of them. Nobody knew what the hell was going on. We were not in a position to shoot a bunch of artillery or airstrikes in there because we didn't know where to put them.

• 55:33Jocko Willink?

  Only now did Colonel Brown begin rounding up reinforcements to send in to help Bob McDade's second battalion.

• 55:47Jocko Willink?

  You notice what he wants to know is where people are. That's, and you've heard me talk about this before. I used to ask the young junior officers, what's the most important piece of information you can have on the battlefield? And they'd say, where the enemy is and how, how many there are and what kind of weapons there are. And no, the most important piece of information there is on the battlefield is where you are. And I actually tell the same thing to businesses because sometimes businesses don't know where they are because they're not tracking what they're doing. So you ask them, hey, where are you in your, in your P and L and your profit and loss? They don't know. You ask them where they're doing in their, where their sales performance is. They don't know. Well, how are we going to make any changes? You need to know where you are. Most important piece of information there is.

• 56:29Jocko Willink?

  Here's McDade talking. Again, this is the Colonel or the Battalion Commander, Lieutenant Colonel, in charge on the ground. In that first hour or so, the situation was so fluid that I was acting more as a platoon leader than a battalion commander. That's a flag, red flag, right? You're acting, if you're acting as a platoon leader and you're in charge of, so a platoon is 40 guys. A battalion is 500, 600, and he's acting as a platoon leader. Who's running the battalion then?

• 56:58Jocko Willink?

  We were trying to secure a perimeter. I was trying to figure out what the hell was going on myself. I don't think anybody in the battalion could have told you what the situation really was at that time.

• 57:08Jocko Willink?

  I can see where this might have left Tim Brown, the Brigade Commander, in the dark about what was going on. I didn't know myself until things quieted down. The Battalion Commander adds, "I could have yelled and screamed that we were in a death trap and all that crap, but I didn't know it was as bad as it was. I had no way of checking visually or physically by getting out of that perimeter, so all I could do is hope to get back in touch. I wasn't going to scream that the sky was falling, especially in a situation where nobody could do anything about it anyways."

• 57:46Jocko Willink?

  So if you don't know what's going on, that means there's a bad problem. That's my assessment. And also, it's also, if you...

• 57:59Jocko Willink?

  I'm not trying to say that you should cry wolf, because you shouldn't, but when things are going sideways,

• 58:08Jocko Willink?

  you can wait for them to develop if you have a grip of what's happening. If you don't know what's happening, you better spin some people up to come help you. At least get them spinning, at least get them turning. That happens a lot where the guy on the ground might not fully understand what's happening. Make the call and say, "Hey, I need, I'm standby to support. Standby, get QRF spun up." You know, you make those calls. Doesn't mean send anybody, but get them ready. Get them closer. Get them on standby. QRF is quick reaction force. So if I'm on the ground and all of a sudden I'm getting shot at from multiple different directions, I'm not really sure what's happening. I might not say send the QRF, but I'll say, "Hey, have the QRF move to position Alpha, which is very close to where I am in case I do need them in 15 minutes or in a half an hour or an hour or right now.

• 58:52Jocko Willink?

  I've at least made that progression."

• 58:57Speaker 01

  Provide some general awareness.

• 58:59Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 59:00Speaker 01

  For your crazy situation.

• 59:01Jocko Willink?

  So your QRF, Quick Reaction Force, they might be, they might be 30 minutes away and they might need 15 minutes of notification time.

• 59:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:10Jocko Willink?

  So that means if you called them right now, they're gonna be here in 45 minutes.

• 59:14Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 59:15Jocko Willink?

  Forty-five minutes from bad firefight is not gonna help you.

• 59:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 59:19Jocko Willink?

  So your first call, now you might bring them in and you pre-plan this. This is when I talk about pre-planning. We would always pre-plan, hey, if we need QRF, we're gonna call you to this point here. We'll call you to this point here. If we need to bring you on on standby, we'll call you to this point. Let's say this point is 500 meters away from where we actually are.

• 59:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:36Jocko Willink?

  And then we have one that's right where we are. Like you come to this building. If we call QRF, you come to this building. We're gonna try and get into that building. If you don't hear from us and we just call for QRF, come to that building, we'll be inside at the best of our ability.

• 59:48Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 59:49Jocko Willink?

  As they get closer, hopefully you can establish communications with them directly. But if you start losing control of the situation, this is the thing, when you start losing control of the situation, you call up the QRF and say, hey, move to the staging point. So now they're moving. You started that 45-minute clock, right? Now they've all spun up, they're all getting in their vehicles, they woken up the people that need to get out, they get in their vehicles and they drive.

• 1:00:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:13Jocko Willink?

  So now, they might get to the 500 meters away and I had the situation under control and I say, hey, we don't need you to come in, we're okay, hold off on what you got. They're bummed, but they don't care.

• 1:00:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:24Jocko Willink?

  They'd rather have that because maybe in 30 minutes, things have developed to a point where I need them and now they can get there in 15 minutes instead of in 45.

• 1:00:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, okay.

• 1:00:34Jocko Willink?

  So again, we're not trying to spin up and waste assets.

• 1:00:37Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:00:38Jocko Willink?

  But, and actually, you know who did this a very similar in the, in the previous podcast? The guy that called Broken Arrow, which means troops are about to be overrun. He didn't wait for anyone to tell him, he just called it. He's like, hey, Broken Arrow. Now it takes some time for those guys to show up there and by the time they got there, they needed them.

• 1:00:54Jocko Willink?

  Similar thing. Now.

• 1:00:59Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I don't advocate yelling or screaming. Sometimes you might have to, though. You know, you might need to get that information. People aren't paying attention to what you're saying. It can be impactful. If you've ever been sitting in an attack operations center where you hear people yelling, it gets attention. Cause most, most military guys don't yell and scream for no reason. They're yelling and screaming because there's a reason why they're yelling and screaming.

• 1:01:23Jocko Willink?

  Don't recommend it. I don't recommend it, but I've heard it. You know, I prefer the calm guys. If you gotta yell and scream, then calm down and talk about what you actually need. You can't just continue to yell and scream because you'll, you won't get through clear communication. You'll come off as too emotional. And, you know, you just become hard to understand when you're screaming and yelling. Calm down. Get their attention. Give simple, clear, concise direction of what you want. Back to the book. Each and every man still alive on that field, American and North Vietnamese was fighting for his life. In the tall grass, it was nearly impossible for the soldiers of either side to identify friend or foe, except at extremely close range.

• 1:02:07Jocko Willink?

  Americans in olive drab and North Vietnamese in mustard brown were fighting and dying side by side.

• 1:02:15Jocko Willink?

  It may have begun as a meeting engagement, a hasty ambush, a surprise attack, a battle of maneuver. And in fact, it was all those things, but within minutes, the result was a wild melee. A shootout with just gunfighters killing not only enemy, not only the enemy, but sometimes their friends just a few feet away.

• 1:02:37Jocko Willink?

  There would be no cheap victory here this day for either side. There would be no victory at all. Just the horrible certainty of death in the tall grass.

• 1:02:52Jocko Willink?

  Unbelievable. Horrible.

• 1:02:57Jocko Willink?

  Horrible.

• 1:03:00Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book. Just forward of the headquarters section of the column, Charlie Company was beginning to die. Charlie Company, talking about Charlie Company, a whole company of men, 150 guys.

• 1:03:12Jocko Willink?

  Spec four Jack Smith was with the lead elements in the Charlie Company formation. Near Lieutenant Don Cornet, the acting company commander, when the company charged into the teeth of the enemy machine guns in the first seconds. Smith saw one of the radio operators fall dead with a bullet through his chest, his eyes and tongue bulging out. The men of Charlie Company were firing in all directions. Smith recalls, within a span of perhaps 20 minutes, everyone around me was dead or wounded except me.

• 1:03:44Jocko Willink?

  You have to understand that in our area, the elephant grass was chest high. Once you hit the dirt, your world was about as big as a dining room table.

• 1:03:54Jocko Willink?

  Your world's completely confined to that area and the six or seven men around you. At that point, we were isolated. Alpha Company was in the same shape. Then the North Vietnamese swept through. I believe they came between Alpha and our company and began to shoot people. We didn't know if the noise was from five feet away as they began to shoot people was friendly or enemy.

• 1:04:22Jocko Willink?

  Smith saw soldiers take machine guns, lie flat on the ground and begin firing into the grass. Often, they were firing right into the muzzles of other American machine guns. People were screaming to stop the shooting. It began to have all the elements of a massacre. Nobody was in control because all the officers were to the front and our radio operators had fallen dead on their radio sets.

• 1:04:53Jocko Willink?

  No leadership, no communication. You know, I talked to businesses and I explained this to them. There's your point. There it is loud and clear. Tell these businesses, when I go and talk to businesses, they talk about this problem and that problem, the other problem. The problem is leadership. That's what the problem is. The problem is leadership.

• 1:05:11Jocko Willink?

  And this situation like this where the leaders are not there to lead, you've got serious problems on your hands. Especially once again, if you haven't trained people to lead, to step up and lead when the leader's gone. If you haven't trained people to do that, you're going to have problems. No one is going to lead.

• 1:05:36Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book, Payne fought. The North Vietnamese had done a much better job of anticipating and preparing for the attack. But the Americans who survived the initial onslaught began to rally. In one respect, you could think of it as Little Big Horn. We were surrounded with our packs in front of us, shooting it out. During the course of that long afternoon, I never saw a soldier not do his duty. I never saw anyone who cowered in the face of the enemy. Our backs were against the wall and it was a matter of survival. Every person I saw rose to the occasion. So this is, the American troopers are doing what American troopers do, fight.

• 1:06:21Jocko Willink?

  Even in these terrible situations, no one cowers, no one stands down.

• 1:06:27Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book, shortly afterward, the command came over the battalion net, throw smoke. Lieutenant Gwynn moved a little away into the grass and the men in Albany perimeter all began to throw smoke grenades. I saw Skip Fezmeier, Charlie Company Commander, throwing smoke. I had no idea what the hell he was doing up here. Our perimeter was marked with colors, with all colors of smoke delineating our positions and shortly after, the airstrike started.

• 1:06:57Jocko Willink?

  They were the, they were A1E Skyraiders with napalm. The first napalm canisters fell right at the point where SuJinies and I had left the jungle and came into the clearing. We could see masses of North Vietnamese on the other side. I was sure, I was very sure they were going to come across at us. I think they were cleaning up over there, shooting down at the ground, dispatching our wounded. That first strike was right on target with two napalm cans. I saw them hit the tops of the trees and jellied napalm was coming down through the limbs and the NVA were jumping, trying to get away and being engulfed in flames.

• 1:07:36Jocko Willink?

  I saw that time and time again.

• 1:07:40Jocko Willink?

  Lieutenant Gwynn remembers, it cleaned out swath after swath. Those fuckers would jump up and try to run. They didn't make it. By now, the Americans were cheering and laughing at each strike. The cheering stopped when they dropped two canisters directly onto the position where the remnants of the second platoon had been making their stand.

• 1:08:00Jocko Willink?

  It might have been me, but all I could hear was the cracking of unexpended rounds burning in the flames that engulfed our men.

• 1:08:10Jocko Willink?

  None of us know if there were any alive at the time.

• 1:08:15Jocko Willink?

  But none of us wanted to think about it.

• 1:08:30Jocko Willink?

  Spec 4 Dick Ackerman of the Recon Platoon remembers, "Our artillery was supporting us so close that we would occasionally get some shrapnel. There were planes flying close air support. We started digging in everywhere we could. My entrenching tool was attached to my pack, left out in the clearing, so I used my bayonet, my fingers, and someone else's tool when it was available. The comfort of a trench just big enough to hold your body is unbelievable."

• 1:08:58Jocko Willink?

  No more than 200 yards away in that tortured column of desperate Americans, one man prayed for a miracle and the US Air Force delivered it. PFC Jim Shaden, Delta Company, who had booby-trapped his own body with a hand grenade, was badly wounded and unable to move. He was directly in the path of a group of North Vietnamese soldiers methodically sweeping the ground, killing his wounded buddies.

• 1:09:27Jocko Willink?

  And here's what he says, "Before the North Vietnamese got to me, half a dozen of them, a pilot came over at treetop level, turned straight up, and dropped a canister of napalm dead center on them. I never ceased to be amazed at the accuracy of that drop. The heat of the napalm rolled across my face and body like an open door on a furnace. I owe this pilot more than it is possible for a human to pay." May God bless all pilots.

• 1:10:09Jocko Willink?

  Now we hear from Captain Buse Tully's Bravo Company. "First Battalion, 5th Cavalry was assigned the mission of attacking to relieve the pressure and attempt to link up with the beleaguered battalion. Reinforcements were also on the way for the battalion command perimeter at the head of the column. During the afternoon, Captain Myron De Durick's battle-wearyed veterans of the fight at landing zone X-ray Bravo Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Cav, got a warning to prepare for a night air assault into a hot landing zone."

• 1:10:45Jocko Willink?

  The Bravo Company troopers delighted to have survived the hellish fighting on X-ray and enjoying a well-deserved rest and a lot of cold beer back at Camp Holloway were stunned when they were told they were being thrown back into a desperate situation so suddenly. So if you remember DeDerek from Podcast 105, from 270's Bravo Company 27, they went in and helped turn the situation around at LZ X-ray. They fought hard and then they got extracted. And now they're getting told, uh, there's a bad situation going on again and we need to put you back on, back in, back on the fight. Back to the book. Specialist John Wellinas,

• 1:11:30Jocko Willink?

  Bravo Company mortar observer, was doing some serious celebrating. He had not only survived X-ray without a scratch, but this day, November 18th was his birthday.

• 1:11:42Jocko Willink?

  "I was 22 years old. We were fed and showered and new clothes were available. I spent the afternoon at the men's, at the enlisted men's club, drinking beer with the platoon, exchanging stories and celebrating my birthday. Around 4:00 PM, DeDerek came in and told us to saddle up. We were going to rescue the battalion."

• 1:12:04Jocko Willink?

  At about 1600 hours, Lieutenant Rick Rascorla recalls, Captain DeDerek walked up. "Get the company together. Battalion's catching hell. We may have to go in. You're the only platoon leader left in the company. Help all the platoons get their shit together." Men spilled out of the clubs and double timed their equipment. They worked quickly, throwing on their harnesses. No protests, but their eyes filled with disbelief. Again, DeDerek then issued the shortest frag order in Bravo Company history. "We'll be landing from the southeast. Open fire to anything on your left, run to your right. A hostile

• 1:12:46Jocko Willink?

  landing with one side of the landing zone held by the North Vietnamese. Sit rep from the ground, grim. Expect to be sandwiched between friendly and enemy fires."

• 1:12:59Jocko Willink?

  At about 5:45 PM, Rascorla gathered the platoons. They pressed in close, listening intently for word.

• 1:13:10Jocko Willink?

  Sergeant First Class Olston. Olston. The mortar platoon sergeant. Sergeant, Staff Sergeant Martin. Spec four Vincent. Specialist Wallenas. The towering Sergeant Larry Melton. Eighty or more, young faces, hollow eyes. "You know the battalion and is in the shit," I said. "We have been selected to jump into that shit and pull them out. If you fight like you did at X-Ray, you'll come through it. Stay together. Come out of those choppers ready to get it on." Across the field, the first lift ships were sweeping in. "Head 'em up," Captain De Durick growled.

• 1:13:54Jocko Willink?

  I turned and walked ahead, Fantino trailing with the PRC-25. The road stretched out past the permanent hooches of the rear echelon at Holloway. Word spread that we were on a suicide fight. Tumbling out of cozy bunks, Holloway's finest lined the road to watch us depart.

• 1:14:16Jocko Willink?

  Hawaiian shirts, aviator shades, jeans, beer cans in hands. Cooks and bottle washers, the ship birders, projectionists, club runners. Same army, different species.

• 1:14:32Jocko Willink?

  The company picked up pace, a tight, dirty brown column. A few of the men carried AKs, trophies from X-Ray. "No one had shaved," noted Rascorla. "But our weapons sparkled."

• 1:14:47Jocko Willink?

  "What outfit are you?" one spectator asked. "The hardcore of Bravo Company, second of the seventh." "Where are you headed?" "To kick ass," I yelled back. A deep rumble ran through the ranks, men yelling, cursing.

• 1:15:02Jocko Willink?

  "Not a man among us would swap places with these lard asses." As we passed, I asked Fantino, "How we looking back there?" His reply, "No stragglers, sir. Every swinging dick is with us." As we made a column right to the pick-up point, I looked back at our crew. No outfit in the army had ever rendered a route step any better than these men at this moment.

• 1:15:28Jocko Willink?

  We piled onto the Hueys without the usual loading instructions and skidded away into the fading gray light.

• 1:15:36Jocko Willink?

  At 6:45 PM, the first lift ships roared into the small Albany clearing and Captain De Durex troopers bailed out into the tall grass. The cavalry had ridden to the rescue, but the killing and dying and terror continued unbated in outside the American perimeter as the long night began. Once again, that's the American soldier right there. Barely survive, x-ray, get called to go back in. And they pick up the pace. Back to the book, Captain De Derek wrote of the flight in and the situation on the

• 1:16:21Jocko Willink?

  ground assaulting Albany, we picked up five bullet holes in the helicopter. Things were bad. I found out when I landed that the battalion was shot up pretty bad. So we came in the nick of time to their rescue. The main part of second battalion, seventh cav was on their last ditch stand at Albany. Little Big Horn revisited. And here's Rescorla talking, looking sideways, I saw a trickle of blood down the pilot's sleeve. This is as they're flying in. The choppers dropped a few feet. The pilot yelled at the gunner. The gunner snawed, get out. I hesitated, get the fuck out. Four of us dropped a bone jarring 10 feet. Now inside the battalion command group perimeter, Rescorla took stock.

• 1:17:06Jocko Willink?

  And here's what he says, the battalion sergeant major sat against a tree with a bandit's chest. We got hit bad, sir, real bad. The wounded were gathered 30 yards from the CP. Only half my platoon had arrived. The other ships turned back because of the ground fire and darkness. The perimeter was an oval island of trees. Three platoons could man the perimeter, but with the exception of our people and Pat Payne's recon platoon, there was no unit cohesion. Colonel McDade slumped against a tree. He looked exhausted. He was exceptionally silent. Major Frank Henry, his executive officer was reassuringly active. A short fire plug of a man, Henry waved to welcome working the radios.

• 1:17:49Jocko Willink?

  Captain Joe Price, the fire support coordinated coordinator crouched beside him. Clumps of survivors sprawled inside the perimeter, including several company commanders.

• 1:18:02Jocko Willink?

  Lieutenant Larry Gwynn watched the reinforcements arrive. I saw Rick Rascorla come swaggering into our lines with a smile on his face, an M79 on his shoulder and his M16 in one hand saying, "Good, good, good. I hope they hit us with everything they've got tonight. We'll wipe them up."

• 1:18:22Jocko Willink?

  His spirit was catching. The troops were cheering as each load came in and we really raised a racket. The enemy must have thought that an entire battalion was coming to help because of all our screaming and yelling.

• 1:18:37Jocko Willink?

  Major Henry directed that I round up some men and police all the ammo, resupply which the choppers brought in on the last flight.

• 1:18:46Jocko Willink?

  It was lying in crates on the far side of the LZ. Somehow, we got it all into the perimeter. As I came back with the last load, I passed right over the body of that North Vietnamese I'd killed early in the fight. There wasn't much of them left and I didn't give a damn.

• 1:19:04Jocko Willink?

  So, I mean, there you go. There you see, one leader makes a difference. One leader makes a difference. Here, these guys are completely surrounded, dead and wounded everywhere, and Rick Rascorla comes in and says, "Good, I hope they bring it tonight. We'll wipe them out."

• 1:19:24Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book, Lieutenant Pat Payne of the recon platoon was just as happy about the reinforcements as Gwynn. "We were all very surprised to see those helicopters come in. We were only securing one side of the LZ, so when the guys would jump off the helicopter, we hollered at them which way to come. I had a feeling we'd actually been rescued, that and the fact that the cavalry had arrived, just like in the movies. I admired the courage it took to land in Albany. Lieutenant Rascorla was one of the best combat leaders I ever saw during two tours in Vietnam. He walked around and pepped everyone up by telling them they'd done a good job, that there was support now, that things were under control. He never raised his voice, almost spoke in a whisper.

• 1:20:07Jocko Willink?

  We were awfully glad to see him and the others from Bravo Company."

• 1:20:14Jocko Willink?

  Well, got in there and told everyone, "All right, you did a good job." Didn't get all negative.

• 1:20:20Jocko Willink?

  Although he's actually, and he talks about it, I think, I think I'm gonna cover it, but he talks about what he was actually thinking was like, "This is gonna be really problematic." In his mind, he was thinking, "This is bad, really bad," but he didn't show that. He showed, "Hey, we're good, bring it. You're, you're, you're good now, good job. Get ready to get it on."

• 1:20:43Jocko Willink?

  Talking a little bit about the, the air support that they're getting back to the book, "Chief Warrant Officer Hank Ainsworth had been overhead in the 2nd Battalion Command Chopper all day." And here's what he says, "I was overhead when the fight started and orbited overhead till late that night. I was on a freak talking to Major Frank Henry. Later that evening, he called me. Henry said, 'We have critically wounded down here. If we don't get them out, they're going to die.' I called medevac and they came out, made a pass, drew fire, and refused to land. To land.

• 1:21:18Jocko Willink?

  Frank Henry knew exactly what to do about that situation. He told Hank Ainsworth to call the 229th Huey Slicks, the old reliables. Ainsworth notified the 229th pilots, told them that LZ Albany was hot, but that 2nd Battalion 7th Cavalry had critically wounded men who would die if they were not evacuated. Says Ainsworth, "The whole damn unit volunteered. I told them we only needed two ships." Despite Ainsworth's call for only two ships, four Huey Slicks lifted off from Camp Holloway, Turkey Farm at 9:50 PM for the 40-minute flight to Albany. Captain Bob Stinet was again in the lead, followed by Captain Bruce Thomas,

• 1:22:00Jocko Willink?

  Chief Warrant Officer Ken Faba, and Warrant Officer Robert Mason. And here's what Stinet says, "Normally the Huey pilots throttle back their engines as soon as they touch down to conserve fuel. Fuel, not tonight."

• 1:22:16Jocko Willink?

  Something told me not to do that, to keep the engine turning at a full flight RPMs. They told us the wounded were ambulatory. When we got in there, they were all stretcher cases. My crew chief and gunner had to get out and raise the seats so we could get all the stretchers in. Then all hell broke loose. Fire was coming in from everywhere. I immediately pitched, I immediately pulled pitched and with the RPMs at flight, the ship instantly jumped 30 feet in the air and kept going up. We went so fast that the crew chief and gunner got left behind on the ground and I didn't even know it. We just flat left them. We had the wounded inside. When we got back, we counted 30 holes in my machine. That was enough for me and my Huey.

• 1:22:58Jocko Willink?

  The lift of three that went in after me took in medical stuff and brought back more wounded and my crew. Major Frank Henry was on the flashlight at the time.

• 1:23:11Jocko Willink?

  Joel Sajinis watched it with awe as the brave aviators risked everything for the wounded at Albany. I remember thinking they were the bravest pilots I had ever seen. They were sitting ducks and I fully expected to see them shot down at any moment. They were guided in by Frank Henry. You could see the tracers. The aircraft didn't hesitate a bit. They landed loaded and were gone in seconds. So again, you see, that's the American fighting spirit. Oh, we got a hot LZ where we're probably going to get shot down, but we've got wounded Americans on the ground. We're going to get them. Everyone in the unit volunteers. We only need two aircraft. Guess what? We're bringing four.

• 1:23:59Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book. After midnight, several shots rang out from inside the perimeter. A trooper 20 yards behind Raskoloff inside the perimeter had rattled off a panicky three rounds. Raskoloff walked back and cussed out the group in the middle of the perimeter. If I hear one more round out of you, we will turn our weapons around and open up. No one fires from inside the perimeter. If you want to fire out to the perimeter, if you want to fire, get out to the perimeter line. Whispered communication took place all night between isolated elements outside the perimeter. If there was heroism, it was out there in the tiny groups of wounded and those who had bandaged and protected them through the night. They were just like hunting buddies, said Raskoloff, surviving by instinct, looking out for each other.

• 1:24:44Jocko Willink?

  Lieutenant Larry Gwynn of Alpha Company recalls that late that night, one of Alpha's missing men crawled into the American perimeter. And here's what he says, Sergeant James A. Malardy from our first platoon made it back to our lines. His story, the NVA had been shooting our wounded. One came up to him, stuck a pistol in his mouth and fired. The bullet exited through the back of his throat, knocked him out and they left him for dead. He survived and when he woke up that night, he started crawling to us.

• 1:25:20Jocko Willink?

  The next day was a real nightmare. As we went out to find our dead and missing. I think each of us cracked up a little bit that day as the true picture of the action began to unfold. Then it came across the radio. Bravo Company had found one other survivor from our second platoon. He had been badly wounded in the legs and had propped himself up against a tree. He had been burned by napalm, waiting in the night and some North Vietnamese had put a pistol to his eye and pulled the trigger.

• 1:25:52Jocko Willink?

  Shot him in the eye, blinded him, but he was still alive. I saw him being brought in by stretcher, smoking a cigarette, all fucked up.

• 1:26:04Jocko Willink?

  So at this point, things had backed off. A little bit, they had backed off and they actually did the mad minute, which is something that Hackworth talks about and it's something that they did in the first part of this book, which is, hey, everyone in the perimeter is just going to shoot a bunch of rounds like at 6:30 in the morning, boom, everyone fire a full load out or a full magazine or a couple magazines at likely targets.

• 1:26:34Jocko Willink?

  And they did that and that seemed to calm things down. They kind of did that once things had already calmed down a little bit. And

• 1:26:45Jocko Willink?

  it was, it was, it indicated that maybe things were calming down a little. Here's another thing, back to the book, the NVA came into the ambush area that night to recover their dead and wounded. When they found any of our guys alive, they would beat them to death, bayonet them or machete them to avoid shooting and drawing fire from us.

• 1:27:05Jocko Willink?

  That was during the night. They did that. Like I said, they did the mad minute. And here's what, here's what Lieutenant Rescorla said about the mad minute. He said, "This decision was regrettable. Rifle fire shattered the silence and the perimeter was ringed with reckless firing. Little thought had been given to that the remainder of our survivors were sprawled among the trees and anthills within 500 yards, the effective range of our M16s. What the fuck is happening? Are you shooting at us?" The frantic radio calls started coming in. "How many troops were killed or injured by our wake-up call will never be known. Thank God for the trees, the anthills, and the uneven terrain."

• 1:27:47Jocko Willink?

  Captain Dudley Tademi, 3rd Brigade Fire Support Coordinator, remembers flying out to Albany at first light the next morning. "Tim Brown, myself, Mickey Parrish. Took a while to get through the smoke hanging over the whole area. Not much had really taken place in terms of policing the area. The image is still vivid in my mind is the carnage. Folks were still sitting around in a daze. They hadn't done much, hadn't even taken ponchos and covered up these bodies." I could handle the conversation. I could handle grown men crying, but we were talking 12 hours later. Sitting there, feeling sorry for themselves, Colonel Brown was very pissed

• 1:28:29Jocko Willink?

  off. Even if you do get caught in a bad situation, you have to do something to recover. It was young kids who paid the price. In later years, I used to stress that to my young battery commanders. It isn't us who die in combat. It's those young kids who die. Those kids, we are responsible for training and leading. It's our job to get the job done and get those kids home safe.

• 1:29:03Jocko Willink?

  And here they're wrapping up this, again, now this, the, the, the battle turned and, and really the Vietnamese left after the massive airstrikes had started. And here's another image of the cleanup. Back to the book. Specialist four, John Wolinas of Bravo Company, Second Battalion, Seventh Cavalry, Mortar Platoon, and most of the rest of De Durex's men were involved in this macabre, depressing duty.

• 1:29:36Jocko Willink?

  It was incredible carnage. We went into areas where lots of artillery had come in during the night and we saw our guys had been blown up in the trees.

• 1:29:46Jocko Willink?

  The bodies were already decomposed and it only happened the night before. We were in shock. It was the first, last, and only time I ever saw anything like it and I pray never again.

• 1:30:01Jocko Willink?

  The stench was unbelievable. We started hauling in the whole bodies first, then we brought in the pieces and parts.

• 1:30:12Jocko Willink?

  Two Chinooks came in and we loaded one with about 20 corpses neatly arranged in litters. The pilot began preparing to take off. One of our officers pointed an M16 at the pilot and told him to keep the bird on the ground. We weren't through.

• 1:30:29Jocko Willink?

  Bodies were loaded floor to ceiling.

• 1:30:33Jocko Willink?

  When the ramp finally closed, blood poured through the hinges.

• 1:30:39Jocko Willink?

  I felt sorry for the poor bastards who would have to unload this chopper back at Holloway.

• 1:30:48Jocko Willink?

  The nightmares born of this battle have never faded.

• 1:31:05Jocko Willink?

  The

• 1:31:07Jocko Willink?

  Final Division Headquarters account

• 1:31:13Jocko Willink?

  Reported that the 27 Alpha and Bravo companies and the 15 battalion suffered 151 men killed in action, 121 wounded and four missing in action.

• 1:31:29Jocko Willink?

  And on April 6th, 1966, so quite some months later, Hal Moore,

• 1:31:38Jocko Willink?

  who was at that time had become the 3rd Brigade Commander, went back to LZ Albany and recovered the bodies of all four members of 27 who were

• 1:31:49Jocko Willink?

  brought back on a helo and began the long journey home to America.

• 1:32:00Jocko Willink?

  Now, this was, as I said, kind of the tipping point in the Vietnam War and this battle had a impact strategically. One thing that came from this battle, and I'll talk about a little bit more in the book, but the body count came back and the body count came back basically as 10 to 1 or maybe 12 to 1. So for every 10 or 12 North Vietnamese soldier that was dead, there was only one American killed. And our generals liked that ratio. They thought, hey, you know, we can win a war of attrition.

• 1:32:47Jocko Willink?

  And

• 1:32:49Jocko Willink?

  one of the comments that comes in the book as they go back and interview General Giapp, who's the Senior General of the North Vietnamese Army, he's got a book actually that we're going to do on the podcast at some point.

• 1:33:04Jocko Willink?

  He's the mastermind of the strategy and he said, "We thought that the Americans must have a strategy. We did. We had the strategy of a people's war." No. Part of what that means is that the, the strategy of a people's war means we're gonna, we're gonna suffer some casualties and we're okay with that.

• 1:33:27Jocko Willink?

  So our strategy of saying, "Well, we'll get them into a war of attrition," they're okay with it. They don't care. Human, life has less human, uh, human life has less value for them at this time. They, they, the commander sure as hell didn't care. You know, we talked about that last time. They're losing guys on the, from malaria on the trail. You're gonna lose five, six guys. They don't care. They've got a war to win.

• 1:33:52Jocko Willink?

  So talking about some of the other sort of strategic things or strategic implications from this.

• 1:34:06Jocko Willink?

  1967, so this is a couple of years later. Back to the book. In mid-December, President Johnson convened a White House meeting of his top advisors. Will Bundy says that McNamara's option number one, "Get the hell out of Vietnam now," while the getting is good, was never seriously considered nor was it pressed by McNamara.

• 1:34:27Jocko Willink?

  Option number two, the huge buildup of American combat and support troops was readily approved by all, including McNamara. Ever the numbers cruncher, McNamara told the gathering, "The military solution to the problem is not certain. The odds of success are one out of three or one out of two."

• 1:34:49Jocko Willink?

  McNamara did push for a bombing pause to prepare US opinion, public opinion for the coming escalation. So

• 1:34:59Jocko Willink?

  again, we'll, I'm sure at some point on this podcast, we will dive deep into the political manipulation, the political decision-making that happened during the Vietnam War, but this is, this is what they're talking about. It's interesting to hear McNamara even back in 1967 is saying, "Hey, we got like a one in three, maybe one in two odds of winning."

• 1:35:23Jocko Willink?

  That's, that's not, that's not, that's not good odds. We don't like those odds.

• 1:35:33Jocko Willink?

  Here's, here's Hal Moore talking again back to the book. In late June 1966, my turn was up as commander of the 3rd Brigade. When my replacement, a Colonel straight out of the Pentagon showed up to take over, my brigade was in the field fighting near Dong Trai. It would have been criminal in those circumstances to relinquish my command to a man who's still, who's still pissing state side water and I flatly refused to do so. The change of command was delayed 10 days until the fight was over. A month later, on August 8th, 1966, my replacement sent, my replacement sent Alpha Company 1st Battalion 7th Cavalry back in the Idrang Valley by itself and 25 men were killed in one terrible day.

• 1:36:17Jocko Willink?

  So not a good turnover situation. And again, this is where, this is where the, people always talk about when I talk with businesses, they go, we have a big bureaucracy here and you don't understand. It's like, no, we understand. The military understands bureaucracy better than anybody. We probably got the biggest and most, most firm in-place bureaucracy in the world.

• 1:36:40Jocko Willink?

  And this is part of it right here. Back to the book. I had hoped that my next assignment would be to the infantry school at Fort Benning, where I could pass along what I had learned in Vietnam to the young officers who were headed for combat. It was not to be. In fact, only one of the hundreds of officers who had gone through air mobile training and a year in the field with the 1st Cavalry Division was assigned to the infantry school. I was sent instead to Washington DC where I was told my next job would be Latin American desk at the US State Department. This is, this is an embarrassment. Right? Here's this guy basically created or helped create or helped test the, the idea of air mobile helicopter assaults.

• 1:37:22Jocko Willink?

  And then he did it for a year in the field, commanded at the battalion and at the brigade level. And instead of putting him in the infantry school where he could teach the stuff that he learned, they sent him to be the, the, the Latin American desk.

• 1:37:38Jocko Willink?

  And I'll tell you what's awesome. This was awesome. And when I was in the SEAL teams, I went to Ramadi. When I came home, guess where I went? I took over the West Coast SEAL training for the, for the guys that were getting ready to deploy right at Arkansas-Kansas. I did what he wanted to do, which is perfect. And luckily, we have the, a little, a little less bureaucracy. And I was able to talk to my boss and say, hey, this is what I should be doing. He said, yeah, you're right. And put me in that position. But it didn't happen. And here's all this knowledge gone. And they said only one officer out of a hundred.

• 1:38:13Jocko Willink?

  That's another thing. Like when you hear, you know, people in the business world, they say, well, the military is this great organization. The military has all kinds of problems. Military is no perfect, no perfect example of the way to run things. Parts of it are, but you can't look at the military at a whole and say that that even remotely makes sense in any way, shape or form. And I could point a thousand things out to you today. The military is the same way, doing dumb stuff. I mean, it's a great organization. There's got great people. There's, there's unbelievable leaders in there, but there's also idiots.

• 1:38:46Jocko Willink?

  The military is made up of people, of human beings.

• 1:38:52Jocko Willink?

  Brilliant ones, dumb ones.

• 1:38:58Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book. For the next year, I watched Bob McNamara and John McNauton, both brilliant men, go through hell as they struggled unsuccessfully to get a handle on the war and the pacification progress in Vietnam.

• 1:39:13Jocko Willink?

  At the end of that year, neither of them was either, neither of them was any closer to finding or creating such a handle.

• 1:39:22Jocko Willink?

  An office wit summed up what was happening in Vietnam sadly and succinctly.

• 1:39:29Jocko Willink?

  Although we have redoubled our efforts, we have lost sight of our objective. So we're pouring all these troops in there, pouring all this money in there, putting all this, all these assets in there. We've, we've redoubled our efforts, but we've lost sight of our objective.

• 1:39:50Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book. What then had we learned with our sacrifices in the Idrang Valley?

• 1:39:56Jocko Willink?

  We had learned something about fighting the North Vietnamese regulars and something important about ourselves. We could stand against the finest light infantry troops in the world and hold our ground.

• 1:40:08Jocko Willink?

  General Westmoreland thought he had found the answer to the question of how to win this war. He would train one American life for 10, or 11, or 12 North Vietnamese lives, day after day until Ho Chi Minh cried "Uncle."

• 1:40:27Jocko Willink?

  Westmoreland would learn too late that he was wrong. That the American people didn't see a kill ratio of 10 to 1, or even 20 to 1 as any kind of bargain.

• 1:40:43Jocko Willink?

  But we had validated both the principle and the practice of air mobile warfare. A million American soldiers would ride to battle in Huey helicopters for the next eight years, and the familiar "whoop, whoop, whoop" of their rotors would be the enduring soundtrack of this war.

• 1:41:04Jocko Willink?

  Finally, even though it took 10 years, cost the lives of 58,000 young Americans, and inflicted humiliating defeat on a nation that had never before lost a war, some of us learned that Clausewitz had it right 150 years earlier when he wrote these words.

• 1:41:26Jocko Willink?

  "No one starts a war." Or rather, "No one in his senses ought to do so, without first being clear in his mind what he intends to achieve by that war, and how he intends to conduct it."

• 1:41:54Jocko Willink?

  Klaus Witz

• 1:41:58Jocko Willink?

  Be clear in your mind In what you intend to achieve

• 1:42:09Jocko Willink?

  Know what you are going to do. That doesn't seem like too much to ask.

• 1:42:17Jocko Willink?

  Certainly in war.

• 1:42:25Jocko Willink?

  And you wouldn't think it would be too much for people to ask in their lives either.

• 1:42:34Jocko Willink?

  Their precious lives, as precious as these 58,000

• 1:42:40Jocko Willink?

  That died in Vietnam.

• 1:42:44Jocko Willink?

  Heroes.

• 1:42:48Jocko Willink?

  But how often do we see people going through their lives without knowing what They are trying to do, without having any intent, without having a clear mission? I'm talking on an individual level. As a person. People go through their lives without knowing what it is they want to do. What they want to accomplish.

• 1:43:21Jocko Willink?

  So, know what your mission is.

• 1:43:28Jocko Willink?

  Know what your intent. As the commander of your life, know what your intent is and then Fight with everything you've got

• 1:43:42Jocko Willink?

  To win.

• 1:43:49Jocko Willink?

  And I think that's all I've got for tonight. So Echo, maybe if you want to

• 1:44:00Jocko Willink?

  shed some light on how people can maybe help themselves win that war.

• 1:44:06Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:44:07Jocko Willink?

  And maybe support the podcast if they want to.

• 1:44:11Speaker 01

  They want to. Yeah. That point though, in my opinion, is a good one.

• 1:44:19Jocko Willink?

  Uh, it's a good one. It's a good one. Think about you. People go through their lives. They don't even know what they're trying to do.

• 1:44:23Speaker 01

  Yeah. And it sounds

• 1:44:25Jocko Willink?

  The same thing as going to war without knowing what the outcome is supposed to be.

• 1:44:28Speaker 01

  Yeah. Your goal, but it sounds kind of like obvious when you say it, you know, like, hey, go through, you know, when you go through life, should you have a goal? Real obvious. Yes. You're not gonna say, no, you shouldn't have a goal kind of thing. So it seems obvious, but you know how you live day to day, you, you know, you might have a goal for the day, maybe two, maybe three, but life is full. Life is a full spectrum of stuff.

• 1:44:58Jocko Willink?

  Well, again, it's so shocking because what you're saying is absolutely true. You wouldn't think that people would be going through life without knowing where they're trying to get to. But you wouldn't think that a nation would go to war without clear intention of where they want to end up and how they're going to get there. At least an idea of how you're going to get there. Now I have a little bit of like when Klaus Fitz says how you're going to conduct the war. That's not necessarily true because you don't know, you can't know how you're going to conduct a war before the war starts. You can have an idea, but you can't know fully, just like if you were to say, hey, my goal is to X in my life. You don't know how you're going to be able to do that.

• 1:45:34Speaker 01

  Yeah. Cause you talking about, because you gotta adjust.

• 1:45:36Jocko Willink?

  Because you're gonna make it adaptations. Things are gonna come up. Things are gonna change. The battlefield changes. Your life changes. Things pop up. I mean, things happen. So I think that, that idea that you're going to know how you're going to execute something is, is far fetched. I think you, well, actually I should use the word idea. You should have an idea of how you're going to do it.

• 1:45:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:45:55Jocko Willink?

  You should have an idea like, okay, well, this is what I need to get done. This is what I want to achieve in my life. I want to make, I want to do this. What's a simple one?

• 1:46:06Jocko Willink?

  I want to own a house. That's a simple one. That's a good place to start.

• 1:46:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:46:09Jocko Willink?

  I want to own a house. Okay, well, let's think about how we're gonna get there. You know, that's, let's, let's think about how we're gonna get there. You have to build your credit. You have to, how do you build your credit? You have to, you have to borrow money. Some people, some people, they go to buy a house. They've never borrowed money before. You can't borrow money if you've never borrowed money. You can't borrow money for a house if you've never borrowed money for a car or a, or a, or some smaller object before. So you gotta establish your credit, then you gotta have two years worth of income, then you gotta have a big fat down payment sitting ready. So there's things you gotta do. There's things that you, now, now that might change across, along the way. The idea is that you gotta move towards that goal. But that's what was so nice about hearing the Vietnamese commander's intent. Get close, split them up.

• 1:46:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:46:47Jocko Willink?

  Boom, you go make that happen. Hey, guess what? You want to buy a house one day? Save money, have good credit.

• 1:46:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:46:53Jocko Willink?

  Okay, well, you gotta make money. How are you gonna make money? You might make it, drive an Uber. You might make it delivering pizza. You might make, cause you got your real job with that supporting your family, but then you need a little extra to throw in there. Well, that's why you end up driving Uber. You end up with whatever it is you're gonna do. You might even make your, some money on the side that you can start stashing away.

• 1:47:09Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. And at the end of the day, you do have that goal, you know?

• 1:47:16Speaker 01

  So it is, yeah, how you conduct yourself is not gonna be cut and dry for sure. But, you know, in these examples, like, uh, you know, you want to buy a house. That's a goal. That's a specific goal. But that's just one teeny tiny goal in life. If you're, of course, you're not gonna run into somebody who their only goal in life is to buy a house.

• 1:47:33Jocko Willink?

  No, no, no. I said a simple one.

• 1:47:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:47:35Jocko Willink?

  And some people are like, hey, don't buy a house. It's stupid. You should rent instead. That's fine.

• 1:47:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:47:39Jocko Willink?

  I'm not telling everyone what their goal should be, and if you want to keep renting, keep renting. Maybe that's for you.

• 1:47:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, fully.

• 1:47:44Jocko Willink?

  Not for me.

• 1:47:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:47:46Jocko Willink?

  But maybe it's for you. There's other things you want to put your money. That's cool. You're doing some other, something else smart with your money. That's fine.

• 1:47:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, like, like buying rims or something like that. Either way, though, if you, uh, consider like just what, what, um, Clausewitz, how you say his name? What, what he's saying in compared to life, right? Where buying a house, sure, that's one of many goals you're gonna have in life, cause life is full, like I said. But, so it kinda, when you really think about it, bruh, it's hard. It's hard to like. Designate some specific goals and then that's all you're gonna do.

• 1:48:19Jocko Willink?

  Okay, let's say you're gonna, you're gonna say you're gonna be financially secure and independent.

• 1:48:24Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:48:25Jocko Willink?

  That would be a much bigger goal, right?

• 1:48:26Speaker 01

  Awesome, yeah.

• 1:48:27Jocko Willink?

  That's an awesome goal to have.

• 1:48:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:48:28Jocko Willink?

  And the younger you make that goal, the better chance you have of achieving it.

• 1:48:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:48:31Jocko Willink?

  Cause now you're not wasting your money, you're actually saving for a house so you can get that house paid off. So now you don't have a mortgage anywhere, you know, it's like, yeah, that's a bigger goal, that's a broader goal. Just like when you, when you go to a war, you need to know what it is you're going to war for. What are you gonna do and when are you gonna stop and what's your intended result?

• 1:48:45Speaker 01

  Yeah. So you gotta, in a way, you gotta fill your life with a bunch of goals. So you don't get jammed.

• 1:48:53Jocko Willink?

  Cause like, yes, you have small goals that lead to the big goal, right? So for instance, you wanna be financially secure and stable. What are you gonna do? You're gonna save some of your money. Okay, that's one thing. You're gonna buy a house, that's another thing. You're gonna pay off your car and you're not gonna buy expensive dumb cars. You're gonna buy cheap cars until you have the money to buy them with cash. You know, you're gonna make all these little things, you're gonna work extra, you're gonna, you know, you're gonna do these things. So you're right, you have, you have your broad goal, yes. You have your long-term goal, yes. And then you got your short-term goals that lead and are strategically aligned with that long-term goal. It's the same thing in war, you have to have those, both those things going on.

• 1:49:28Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, and then on top of that, you should have.

• 1:49:34Jocko Willink?

  You wanna have the last word today, don't you?

• 1:49:35Speaker 01

  No, no, no, I'm, no, no, no, no, I'm making this.

• 1:49:39Jocko Willink?

  Every time I concisely close out what you're trying to say, you, you add.

• 1:49:43Speaker 01

  Because it's not that, I mean, it is that. But then you're talking about life now. And here, here's kind of the point where you say, okay, you say, one example is financial, um, like you wanna buy a house. You wanna be financially secure. That's one goal. But in life, there's more to life than just financial. So you want your health, you want your, you know, relationships, you want your, like, there's all these things that you, you kinda hope or want to be solid.

• 1:50:11Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:11Speaker 01

  We'll say. So, but most people don't really put it in perspective that clearly, like, okay, I want this, you know, I'm gonna write this down, I want this.

• 1:50:20Jocko Willink?

  So what you're saying is you need goals.

• 1:50:21Speaker 01

  If you have goals, yes, if you have goals in those areas, then you can, you know, you can.

• 1:50:27Jocko Willink?

  You can maneuver towards them.

• 1:50:28Speaker 01

  Maneuver towards them, exactly right. Avoid distractions, all this stuff, right? And fight and fight towards those goals. Sounds obvious, but that's what I'm saying. It's like hard to like designate each goal.

• 1:50:42Speaker 01

  In life.

• 1:50:42Jocko Willink?

  Oh, I didn't say this was gonna be easy.

• 1:50:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's.

• 1:50:45Jocko Willink?

  But it's not that hard. If you sat down for 20 minutes, I bet you could come up with some solid life goals.

• 1:50:49Speaker 01

  That's kind of the, that's kind of the point I was making.

• 1:50:52Jocko Willink?

  You're too busy cruising to come up with life goals.

• 1:50:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, and being, really, it's about this, this being distracted. I think that's what it is. You know, and if the clearer your goal, the more I think control you can have over being distracted or not. Cause like if your goal isn't that clear, it's almost like it's not gonna be clear, or it is. You won't really be clear when you're being distracted or not, kind of thing. People don't, and I'm saying people, I mean myself. We don't live our lives like just in constant pursuit of all our specific goals. We, it's like a lot of life is minute to minute, man.

• 1:51:29Jocko Willink?

  No.

• 1:51:30Speaker 01

  No, it is, I'm telling you, a lot of life is.

• 1:51:33Jocko Willink?

  You can, you can have some sections that you can carve out so you can live like that, but that's not where you want to be.

• 1:51:37Speaker 01

  I'm not saying it should be.

• 1:51:38Jocko Willink?

  How you're rolling.

• 1:51:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, no, it's not how it should be. So I'm saying, so if, and you'll notice in life, I think like any, any solid goal that you've achieved, you'll notice that, that it took that clear goal and you just didn't get distracted and you just fought for it. So it's like you've done it for yourself.

• 1:51:53Jocko Willink?

  And there's also just like being on the path.

• 1:51:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's what I mean.

• 1:51:56Jocko Willink?

  Thinking about jujitsu, right? My goal in jujitsu was never to get a black belt. I never said like, I wanna be a black belt in jujitsu. Never, I never even fought that.

• 1:52:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:52:06Jocko Willink?

  I just wanted to get better at this thing.

• 1:52:08Speaker 01

  Right. Oh, okay. So your goal was not to get a.

• 1:52:11Jocko Willink?

  No, it wasn't. No, yeah.

• 1:52:11Speaker 01

  It just never, your goal was never to get it.

• 1:52:13Jocko Willink?

  Was not to get a black belt. My goal was to train jujitsu and get better at jujitsu.

• 1:52:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:52:20Jocko Willink?

  And therefore comes. My goal was like even finances. I wasn't like, hey, I want to make X amount of money. I was like, I want to be able to do whatever I want to do.

• 1:52:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:52:31Jocko Willink?

  So let's move in that direction.

• 1:52:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:52:34Jocko Willink?

  That that might not even have a financial value like there's some people that do whatever they want to do, but they have a very low income, but they've set themselves up in such a way that they're allowed to do what they pretty much want to do. Chuck, all right, are you done? Last word?

• 1:52:47Speaker 01

  No, no, no, that was the last word, bro. Anyway, oh yeah, support, right? That's what we were, we were talking about. All right. Yeah, you can support.

• 1:52:54Jocko Willink?

  That's what I wanted to hear you talk about.

• 1:52:55Speaker 01

  When you pursue goals,

• 1:52:57Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:57Speaker 01

  you may or may not need support. I recommend support. Supporting yourself, support of others, from others, for others, two-way street kind. Anyway, if one of your goals is to maintain physical shape and capability is important. I work out, right? You work out, bro?

• 1:53:19Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 1:53:19Speaker 01

  All right, yeah, good. So I work out, right? And you know how, so my wife will give me grief sometimes, because I'll just like work out at the wrong time, you know, because in my mind, like working out is important, right? So I can like

• 1:53:33Jocko Willink?

  Tell about you.

• 1:53:34Speaker 01

  Yes, so I can loosely justify it. Oh, yeah, you know. Yeah, it's dinner time, but hey, my health, right? And sometimes she'll frame it like, oh, yeah, you choose to like work on your, uh, work on your body or something like that. And I say, no, it's health. It's capability. It's true.

• 1:53:54Speaker 01

  But the point there is

• 1:53:57Speaker 01

  it's important. No matter how you frame it or your wife frames it, it's important.

• 1:54:02Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:02Speaker 01

  You want to do it strategically. Anyway, while doing that, you take krill oil. You take stuff that helps maintain the structural integrity of your body. And the good news is Jocko has supplements for that. Krill oil, Jocko Super Krill and Joint Warfare. I've been taking these consistently and solid, legit. Thank you, Jocko. Also Jocko has a new one called Discipline. It's a pre-mission. If your, if your mission is a workout, it's a pre-workout. If your mission is a studying, it's a pre-study. Studying, pre-study supplement, you know, pre-mission. Little cognitive enhancers in there, little bit of caffeine. Microdose, right?

• 1:54:46Jocko Willink?

  That's what we call it.

• 1:54:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, you don't want to get all strung out on caffeine. It's just the perfect amount essentially. Also, if you are, oh wait, let me tell you where to get these things.

• 1:54:58Jocko Willink?

  Good point.

• 1:54:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, because they're not just floating out there. Anyway, go to originmaine.com. That's where you get them. Also in originmaine.com, you can get cool gis. A lot of people still now, still asking me. Maybe not every day. Maybe not every other, every other day, but they still ask me, what gis should I get? I started to do jujitsu, what gis should I get?

• 1:55:19Speaker 01

  Here's ones, origin gis, hundred percent. Not even ninety-nine percent, hundred percent. Origin gis, a, a big range to choose from. Um, they also got rash guards in there, compression gear for any other activity you like. Some fashion stuff on there too.

• 1:55:37Speaker 01

  Are you into fashion?

• 1:55:38Jocko Willink?

  No.

• 1:55:38Speaker 01

  Come on, but a little bit?

• 1:55:39Jocko Willink?

  No.

• 1:55:40Speaker 01

  Little bit.

• 1:55:40Jocko Willink?

  Not at all.

• 1:55:41Speaker 01

  A little bit. Also.

• 1:55:43Jocko Willink?

  Oh, you mean they have a plain black victory MMA t-shirt?

• 1:55:47Speaker 01

  No, we have.

• 1:55:48Jocko Willink?

  Oh, okay. Because that's my level of fashion.

• 1:55:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, it happens to be on Jocko's store.com, but I'll get to that. First things first.

• 1:55:55Jocko Willink?

  Just check.

• 1:55:57Speaker 01

  If you're doing.

• 1:55:58Jocko Willink?

  Did you say that origin stuff is made in here in America? No big deal. To you, it's no big deal, just made in America.

• 1:56:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think it's a big deal, but I don't like.

• 1:56:06Jocko Willink?

  Oh, you're not going to focus on it.

• 1:56:11Speaker 01

  Because, you know, the quality kind of leads with this one. Or they could go hand in hand. Is, is it good quality because it's made in America? Or is it made in America because it's good quality?

• 1:56:25Jocko Willink?

  Well, both. It's good quality because it's made in America by qualified craftsmen.

• 1:56:32Speaker 01

  Yes, I think that's really the case.

• 1:56:34Jocko Willink?

  Check.

• 1:56:35Speaker 01

  And some of it is.

• 1:56:36Jocko Willink?

  No, one of my buddies just, uh, he's, he was on deployment and had an origin gi shipped over on deployment. And I, he came home from deployment and he'd been training while he was on deployment. And he's like, bro, that origin gi is the best thing ever. I was like, I know.

• 1:56:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, it is. Yeah, for sure.

• 1:56:53Jocko Willink?

  So anyways, and it's made in America.

• 1:56:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, from the cotton. The cotton that's grown here in America, what do you call it?

• 1:57:04Speaker 01

  Processed here in America, woven in America, made into a gi in America. You can wear it wherever you want, but.

• 1:57:13Jocko Willink?

  Well, you can't wear your gi wherever you want, actually.

• 1:57:15Speaker 01

  More or less.

• 1:57:16Jocko Willink?

  No.

• 1:57:17Speaker 01

  With.

• 1:57:17Jocko Willink?

  No, there's certain things you're not allowed to do with your gi.

• 1:57:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, I agree, I agree.

• 1:57:21Jocko Willink?

  Club, no gi.

• 1:57:23Jocko Willink?

  Grocery store, no gi.

• 1:57:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:57:26Jocko Willink?

  Have you ever worn a gi to a grocery store?

• 1:57:28Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:57:29Jocko Willink?

  Me neither.

• 1:57:29Speaker 01

  I've.

• 1:57:31Jocko Willink?

  I've never worn my gi outside of a jujitsu academy.

• 1:57:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:57:36Jocko Willink?

  I'm confirming that in my brain right now.

• 1:57:37Speaker 01

  What about the kind you're either going to jujitsu or leaving jujitsu?

• 1:57:40Jocko Willink?

  I don't, I changed there.

• 1:57:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, you changed it.

• 1:57:43Jocko Willink?

  What if I just started rolling in the gi all the time?

• 1:57:46Speaker 01

  Like everywhere.

• 1:57:46Jocko Willink?

  Like outside.

• 1:57:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's how.

• 1:57:48Jocko Willink?

  Awkward.

• 1:57:48Speaker 01

  That's how everyone's.

• 1:57:49Jocko Willink?

  You know what, little kids do it.

• 1:57:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's what I was gonna say.

• 1:57:52Jocko Willink?

  She, she throws the gi on.

• 1:57:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:57:54Jocko Willink?

  She's no problem with that.

• 1:57:55Speaker 01

  At least the pants.

• 1:57:55Jocko Willink?

  She's walking around the supermarket, no, she's walking around the supermarket, she's ready.

• 1:57:59Speaker 01

  Representing.

• 1:57:59Jocko Willink?

  She'll gi choke somebody.

• 1:58:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:58:01Jocko Willink?

  Ezekiel.

• 1:58:04Jocko Willink?

  Wearing a gi in the store.

• 1:58:05Speaker 01

  Can be tactically sound, you know, achieving your goals. Every once in a while.

• 1:58:10Jocko Willink?

  She focused.

• 1:58:10Speaker 01

  You gotta demonstrate every once in a while, not being destructive, it's good. Nonetheless, if you're gonna get a gi, again, I'll say it now, I'll say it again, all made in Amer- in America, originmaine.com, boom. Select whatever gi you want, get two. I have two, three actually, wait, no, the new discipline equals freedom gi, I got that one, so, three, yeah, all together, boom, origin. I'm gonna get a black one too, by the way, that's, you know. Also, working out, you're doing jujitsu, maybe, you're doing weightlifting, maybe, you're running, whatever. I say do kettlebells, and when you do kettlebells, get the cool one from Onnit, Onnit, Onnit.com slash Jocko. Look for the primal bells, my opinion, actually the zombie ones are pretty dope too, but get those, that's what I think.

• 1:58:56Speaker 01

  Makes a workout more interesting, I did one yesterday, it was interesting, kinda hard too. But nonetheless, yeah, get, get them from there, they, they got a lot of cool stuff on there for interesting workouts, you wanna switch it up. If you wanna do the same, like, i- if your workout is boring or something like that, get like a, get some battle ropes. Go through one of those workouts, you ever did one like that before, or a battle ropes workout before?

• 1:59:21Jocko Willink?

  I have, yeah.

• 1:59:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, it kind of makes your like, sirats, kind of sore. You know what that is?

• 1:59:28Jocko Willink?

  Your intercostal muscles?

• 1:59:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, kind of down there. Nonetheless, anyway, on it.com slash Joffrey, that's where you get them. Solid site. Also, when you are getting this book,

• 1:59:41Speaker 01

  We Were Soldiers Once and Young. Actually, I thought it was We Were Soldiers Once and Young, and I was like, wait, no, it's We Were Soldiers Once.

• 1:59:50Jocko Willink?

  And young.

• 1:59:50Speaker 01

  And young. And by the way, we were young, kind of thing. Anyway, when you get that book, good book. Outstanding book.

• 1:59:57Jocko Willink?

  It's a great title. When you see, like, my wife will, will, will do something that there'll be, like, young SEALs at.

• 2:00:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:00:05Jocko Willink?

  And my wife's always like, oh, they look so young. They look so young. You know, and that's what you always think. You always think that these kids are so young. And then I, I was one of those kids.

• 2:00:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:00:15Jocko Willink?

  And, yeah, they are young. And that's who fights wars. Young kids.

• 2:00:19Speaker 01

  Well, that's.

• 2:00:20Jocko Willink?

  Eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty-two years old, twenty-three years old. That's who fights wars.

• 2:00:24Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. And it's crazy. And JP kind of talks about this, where your maturity kind of gets on this, like, fast track when you jump into the military.

• 2:00:34Jocko Willink?

  It doesn't, it doesn't.

• 2:00:35Speaker 01

  In some ways.

• 2:00:35Jocko Willink?

  It doesn't, it doesn't, because you're also institutionalized.

• 2:00:38Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, that's true.

• 2:00:39Jocko Willink?

  So you don't, like, when you're in the mil-, that's what hurts some guys when they get out of the military. They're like, wait a second, I don't, wait, where's my paycheck? It's supposed to come every two weeks. Now it's not there anymore.

• 2:00:47Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:00:47Jocko Willink?

  You just get used to it.

• 2:00:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:00:48Jocko Willink?

  Oh, you have a mission. Here's what you're gonna do. And that, you, when you're in the military, you just, here's your clothes that you're gonna wear.

• 2:00:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:00:55Jocko Willink?

  You know what I mean?

• 2:00:56Speaker 01

  Makes sense.

• 2:00:56Jocko Willink?

  Here's the haircut that you're gonna have. And you get out of the military, else and you're like, you don't have this direction anymore.

• 2:01:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:01:01Jocko Willink?

  So you do get, it matures you in some ways, but in other ways, you get stunted growth. That's why you get some guys doing dumb shit when they're thirty years old, thirty-eight years old, forty-two years old.

• 2:01:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:01:11Jocko Willink?

  They're doing the midlife crisis thing.

• 2:01:14Speaker 01

  But when you think, when you.

• 2:01:16Jocko Willink?

  Or maybe it's not even a midlife, they're just trying to figure it out. Cause they just haven't had.

• 2:01:19Speaker 01

  Right. They didn't do that, like, at the time as everyone else. But you know how you talk about your wife looks at, um, at the younger guys or the SEALs and say, oh, they look so young. That's, I think that's like an indicator that she doesn't feel old, you know? Cause you know how, like, when you're, when you kind of, like, I, I do the same thing when I look at college football, when I watch college football, cause I remember when I was, when I was playing football, it's, oh, yeah. There was a guy twenty-six years old on my team, twenty-six.

• 2:01:47Jocko Willink?

  You thought he was old?

• 2:01:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:01:51Speaker 01

  It didn't help he was kind of going bald and stuff like that, but nonetheless, he's twenty six. Twenty six is young, by the way. And

• 2:01:57Jocko Willink?

  Depending on how old you are. Because when you're sixteen.

• 2:02:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:02:01Jocko Willink?

  You don't think you, if I tried to ask my son, who's fifteen, like what? What? How far away twenty five years or how, how long was it until he was twenty five? Like he would understand ten years. He has no, he would not be able to like

• 2:02:18Jocko Willink?

  cognitively assess what a twenty five year old human being is thinking about. He's fifty, bro. He's not got it going on.

• 2:02:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, but I feel like you'd still be able to figure out, okay, twenty five, you know, people, when do people die of old age? Quote unquote would be what eighties, ninety, right? Typically, just, you know, whenever. So you figure twenty five. So what? Less than a third of your life? Twenty six, less than a third, that wouldn't be considered old technically. If, if they were to think about, I think a fifty, fifteen year old would grasp that.

• 2:02:51Jocko Willink?

  So you thought the twenty six year old was old?

• 2:02:53Speaker 01

  He was old, yeah, I thought so. So when I look back and then I don't feel old as old as I am. I don't feel like old, old, I think back when I was in like college or whatever. And I think about the, the number of my current age and I think dang, that's, that's old, that's older person. Being that older person now. I don't feel like how I thought that older person would have felt, right? And I really think that now it really comes and gets put into perspective when I watch college football and I see him take off their helmet. I'm like dang, that is a child right there playing college football. Performing, outperforming like super good, but they just look so young. I'm just like your wife, they look so young. But it's because I don't feel like an old person. So that's good.

• 2:03:36Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I guess so.

• 2:03:37Speaker 01

  But because you know, if you feel like old person, you're like, yeah, they look young because they're young. They're young people. I'm an old person, they're young.

• 2:03:43Jocko Willink?

  You feel like you, you could be in there too and you're like, oh, that guy's pretty young.

• 2:03:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, and then you see, okay, he's, he's young and I'm old. You know, it's one of those things. Nonetheless, back to support.

• 2:03:54Speaker 01

  When you buy this book, we were soldiers once and young. Go to JacoPodcast.com. We got a section, we got all the books. Got this book listed by episode, all the books listed by episode, plus a few other ones. Boom, click through there. We got you. Takes you direct link, Amazon Prime. You have Prime, right?

• 2:04:15Jocko Willink?

  I do.

• 2:04:16Speaker 01

  One day shipping, same day shipping sometimes. Yeah. Anyway, get it there. Good way to support. And if you're gonna do other shopping, carry on. Good way to support. Also, Jocko has a store.

• 2:04:36Speaker 01

  And I'm gonna talk about it, but before I do that, I think if you subscribe to the podcast, that's a good way to support. That's what I was gonna say. Subscribe. If you haven't already, seems obvious, but subscribe. Leave a review on iTunes if you subscribe to iTunes, if you wanna leave a review. If you're feeling reluctant, just get over it. Leave the review. Also, YouTube, subscribe to YouTube. Video version of this podcast, also excerpts, various types of excerpts. Um, you know, so you can share. So you don't, if you don't wanna share the whole two and a half hour podcast with people, there are excerpts, if you wanted to share an individual, uh, concept with people, they can, boom, they can get that concept and, you know, share it.

• 2:05:21Speaker 01

  Internalize it, you know what I mean? Also, Jocko has a store. It's called Jocko's Store. jockostore.com. Shirts, t-shirts, rash guards, hoodies, some patches on there, hats on there, just, it's the stuff. I'll say it's cool stuff. I wouldn't be pushing stuff that I didn't think was cool. And it's Jocko approved, kind of. The pink shirts aren't Jocko approved. But nonetheless, if you wanna get shirts and stuff, that's where it is, jockostore.com. Uh, they are good stu-, they are good. They're not like the cheap ones, is what I'm saying. So, boom, you can rest assured. But yeah, tell them what you think. If you have one, hey,

• 2:06:05Speaker 01

  people take pictures of themselves with the shirt on, and they say, this is a good shirt. And that's good. I encourage that. And if you don't like the shirt, let me know too.

• 2:06:19Speaker 01

  There it is. Also, good way to support yourself. One of the better ways, in my opinion, depends on what kind of person you are, is psychological warfare. If you don't know what that is, it's an album with tracks, with Jocko on each track telling you that in your, on your campaign against weakness, when you, when you hit those roadblocks, that's what it is. That's what they are, roadblocks. Mental fatigue, distractions, all this stuff. These tracks will help you through it. It's Jocko telling you pragmatically, giving you practical information and advice how to get over those roadblocks or around those roadblocks or through those roadblocks.

• 2:07:01Jocko Willink?

  I'm gonna make a psychological warfare track that's gonna be directed towards you to make you talk about this stuff faster.

• 2:07:09Speaker 01

  Okay, well, here's the thing, when I, you know, I come across this part, right?

• 2:07:16Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, see?

• 2:07:17Speaker 01

  And I feel compelled to share the valuable points that I think are valuable, that I've used or that I've felt with each thing. But then I'm like, oh wait, that'll take a long time to explain. So sometimes I go for it. Sometimes I go with it.

• 2:07:34Jocko Willink?

  You don't seem to care.

• 2:07:35Speaker 01

  Sometimes I don't, but...

• 2:07:38Jocko Willink?

  Today? Yeah, I'm giving you a down check.

• 2:07:41Speaker 01

  No, no, no. I think it's valuable.

• 2:07:44Jocko Willink?

  Okay, we'll go with that. Now, watch how fast I do this.

• 2:07:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, but you're not gonna give them the whole thing, you know? Like the Jocko White Tea, you don't, you didn't demonstrate, not demonstrate, explain.

• 2:07:56Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I did. Jocko White Tea, guaranteed to get your deadlift to 8,000 pounds. Boom, that's it, done. Next, books. There's three books you can get. Way of the Warrior Kid gets kids on the path. Boom, done.

• 2:08:07Speaker 01

  I would've said a lot more about Warrior Kid.

• 2:08:10Jocko Willink?

  That's cool. No need.

• 2:08:11Speaker 01

  I don't know, man, but I think if, like, I read Way of the Warrior Kid to my daughter every single night. One or two chapters, not too long, just one or two chapters. So she wants to read the next chapter. She wanted, she wants me to read the next chapter that night. I say, no, tomorrow. She's looking forward to it every single night. It's just the mantra. The whole Way of the Warrior Kid is just a background theme for life. Yes.

• 2:08:35Jocko Willink?

  It's a good thing to know.

• 2:08:36Speaker 01

  Don't be weak, like, work hard, all this stuff. I would explain that whole thing.

• 2:08:42Speaker 01

  Only because that's the value that I got.

• 2:08:45Jocko Willink?

  Way of the Warrior Kid. If you want a longer explanation, you can email Echo and he'll give it to you. Extreme Ownership, same thing. Combat Leadership for Business and Life. That's new version just came out, has a little Q and A from you all from the podcast that's in there. So you can get that. Also, for an individual perspective, Discipline Equals Freedom, Field Manual. It's available everywhere. There's no better gift than discipline. The audio version of that, which people ask me about a lot, is not on audible.com. It is on, it's, it's an album with tracks, actually. You can get it from iTunes, Amazon Music, Google Play, other MP3 platforms for leadership. Also, beyond the podcast, beyond the books,

• 2:09:28Jocko Willink?

  we have a leadership consulting company. It's me, Leif Babin, JP Danelle, Dave Burke. You can email [email protected]. If you want to book a speaker, don't call a Speaker's Bureau or a Speaker's Agent. Don't. Just go to echelonfront.com, fill out the form, and one of us will come talk to you, your company. On top of that, we've got something called The Muster, also known as The Muster. We're doing two of them this year only. Why? We don't have enough room in the schedule to do three again. Washington DC, May 17th and 18th. San Francisco, California, October 17th and 18th. Come and get it. Extremeownership.com,

• 2:10:10Jocko Willink?

  that's where you register. There's some video stuff about it. Yeah, that's that. Also, if you want to ask us more questions, or you have answers to questions, or points to make outside of the podcast, and you want to get in touch with us, you can do it on the interwebs. Twitter, Instagram.

• 2:10:35Jocko Willink?

  And that is where you can find us. Echo is at Echo Charles and I am at Jocko Willink. And to those people out there, the soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines around the world right now, standing watch.

• 2:10:54Jocko Willink?

  Thank you for protecting our nation and our freedoms and the police and law enforcement. Thanks for watching our backs here at home and protecting us from evil in our own backyard.

• 2:11:08Jocko Willink?

  To the firefighters that walk into fire to keep us safe.

• 2:11:15Jocko Willink?

  And the paramedics that keep us alive. First responders, thanks to all of you for what you do and to everyone out there.

• 2:11:25Jocko Willink?

  Make sure you have a plan.

• 2:11:28Jocko Willink?

  Make sure you have a goal. Make sure you have intent. Make sure you have a mission.

• 2:11:38Jocko Willink?

  And then get out there.

• 2:11:41Jocko Willink?

  And get after it.

• 2:11:44Jocko Willink?

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