453: What It Takes to Be A U.S. Navy SEAL. With Eric and Debbie Job

Eric and Debbie Job reflect and honor the life of Navy SEAL, Ryan Job. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

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

• 0:00Jocko Willink?

  This is Jocko Podcast number 453 with me Jocko Willink.

• 0:06Jocko Willink?

  I had a good day, a normal day. I woke up at 0500 and went on a 25 mile bike ride with a friend and then ran five miles. I'm training for the triathlon.

• 0:19Jocko Willink?

  Kelly worked all day, but then we had a steak dinner together. August 2nd is more of everyone else's Memorial Day. For me, August 3rd is the day I live in every day. I don't need a special day of anniversary to remember August 2nd.

• 0:41Jocko Willink?

  Every waking moment of my life reflects August 2nd, 2006.

• 0:47Jocko Willink?

  Let it be known that I do not regret the career decisions that I made that ultimately sentenced me to a life of blindness.

• 0:57Jocko Willink?

  This is the life I chose and I would choose it again.

• 1:04Jocko Willink?

  How could I feel sorry for myself?

• 1:07Jocko Willink?

  God granted me infinite miracles. I am alive. I choose to keep living. Kelly chose life with me.

• 1:18Jocko Willink?

  I am now God's servant. I have been tasked by the Creator to inspire others to shed their own self-pities and to choose life.

• 1:30Jocko Willink?

  There are two options for me. An unmeaningful, unused life of slow death or a life with meaning and purpose. I choose a meaningful life.

• 1:45Jocko Willink?

  And I will serve God and my wife.

• 1:49Jocko Willink?

  I will produce children of my own and they will learn this way of life through me.

• 1:55Jocko Willink?

  All who know me, hear my words. I was born a warrior with a God-given warrior spirit.

• 2:05Jocko Willink?

  I cannot see you all, but I can see battles that need fighting that you cannot see. I am still a warrior and will be always.

• 2:18Jocko Willink?

  My head is bloodied, but unbowed.

• 2:31Jocko Willink?

  No matter how straight the gate, nor charged the punishments with on the scroll. God is the master of my fate. He is the captain of my soul.

• 2:45Jocko Willink?

  Signed, Ryan the Warrior.

• 2:54Jocko Willink?

  And that is an email.

• 2:57Jocko Willink?

  Written by Ryan Jobe. To his parents, Ryan was a SEAL. He was a member of Charlie Platoon, Task Unit Bruiser, from SEAL Team Three. And on August 2nd, 2006, during a clearance operation in South Central Ramadi.

• 3:18Jocko Willink?

  Ryan was on his machine gun.

• 3:22Jocko Willink?

  In a bounding overwatch position on a rooftop. A single shot was fired by an unseen enemy shooter.

• 3:32Jocko Willink?

  And the round hit Ryan's weapon, which was in Ryan's cheekwell.

• 3:40Jocko Willink?

  And the round penetrated his weapon and hit Ryan in the face, along with significant shrapnel.

• 3:47Jocko Willink?

  Creating a devastating wound that would have killed most men.

• 3:54Jocko Willink?

  But not Ryan.

• 3:57Jocko Willink?

  In fact, he walked himself out of the building to the evacuation vehicle. He was medevac to Balad and then Germany and then eventually back to America. But the damage from the bullet was significant.

• 4:10Jocko Willink?

  He was rendered completely blind. From the wound. But that did not stop Ryan. He carried on.

• 4:20Jocko Willink?

  He was, as he said in that email, bloodied but unbowed.

• 4:27Jocko Willink?

  But his fight wasn't over.

• 4:30Jocko Willink?

  For the next three years, he underwent repeated surgeries

• 4:35Jocko Willink?

  to repair the damage that was inflicted on him.

• 4:40Jocko Willink?

  And after his 22nd surgery, there were

• 4:46Jocko Willink?

  some negligent medical errors made

• 4:51Jocko Willink?

  that cost Ryan his life.

• 4:54Jocko Willink?

  And he died on September 24th, 2009. But he left behind an example.

• 5:04Jocko Willink?

  An example of fortitude and of strength and of tenacity

• 5:09Jocko Willink?

  and faith and resilience and humility and courage. An example that we can all look to and use as a guide in our lives.

• 5:21Jocko Willink?

  And Ryan Jobe was one of my heroes. It was an honor to know him, to have fought alongside him and to be able to share his story. And it's an honor to have his mother and father,

• 5:37Jocko Willink?

  Debbie and Eric Jobe, here tonight to share some stories and some lessons from their son, Ryan.

• 5:53Jocko Willink?

  Debbie, Eric,

• 5:56Jocko Willink?

  it's an honor to have you here. Thank you so much for joining me.

• 6:02Jocko Willink?

  I know it's

• 6:05Jocko Willink?

  painful

• 6:07Jocko Willink?

  and

• 6:09Jocko Willink?

  you know, reading some of the old emails.

• 6:13Jocko Willink?

  It just, it brings back so many memories and really shines the light on what an incredible kid you had.

• 6:26Jocko Willink?

  And I thought it'd be awesome to hear some stories about him, where he came from, what it was like dealing with that. I'm sure, let's just say, a high-energy child growing up.

• 6:42Jocko Willink?

  So, thank you for joining us. Um, I guess let's start at the beginning. So, what, what were you all doing? Eric, what did you do? What were you doing for a living? You know, Eric was the, or Ryan was the first of three, right? So, what was the situation going into him being born?

• 7:03Speaker 01

  Go ahead, Debbie. You're the mom.

• 7:07Speaker 02

  He was our first born. We were just

• 7:11Speaker 02

  beyond the moon with excitement for having our first child. Um, and yes, he was somewhat challenging from day one, almost. Actually, he was because we had to go back to the hospital after we went home first and...

• 7:27Jocko Willink?

  What'd you have to go back to the hospital for?

• 7:29Speaker 02

  He wouldn't eat. He was jaundice. Had to go in the incubator under the lights. They sent us home, left him there. I was just devastated. We had to leave our, our brand new little thing there. It was awful. I was just sobbed and sobbed, but you know, we were so excited and here we go.

• 7:53Jocko Willink?

  And where was this? Where, where were you living at the time?

• 7:56Speaker 02

  Mount Vernon, Washington.

• 7:58Jocko Willink?

  And what were you doing for a living?

• 8:00Speaker 02

  Eric worked in a, at a, he managed, he was a manager in a building maintenance company and I was a teller at a bank.

• 8:09Jocko Willink?

  And did you have any, um, military history in the family on either side?

• 8:17Speaker 02

  I have, um, not close relatives, but Eric was in the Navy and his dad was a... Well, he can say that.

• 8:26Speaker 01

  Well, his granddad was a, was a fighter pilot in World War II, back when it was the Army Air Corps.

• 8:32Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 8:33Speaker 01

  Flew P-40s, P-38 Lightnings, P-47 Thunderbolts, then switched over to, to jets at the time and flew F-86s and eventually became an instructor pilot.

• 8:45Jocko Willink?

  And was he around when Ryan was growing up?

• 8:50Speaker 01

  I think Ryan met him one time when he was real small. As a matter of fact, he learned to walk over at my parents' house.

• 8:56Speaker 02

  Took his first steps when we were there visiting at Thanksgiving. He was eight and a half months and he took his first steps. He was determined.

• 9:04Speaker 01

  My folks lived on the east coast, North Carolina. So there wasn't much of a chance to travel and visit with him. And my dad died when he was about 68 years old. So they never really got to know each other.

• 9:19Jocko Willink?

  So you were in the Navy as well?

• 9:21Speaker 01

  Just four years.

• 9:22Jocko Willink?

  What'd you do in the Navy?

• 9:23Speaker 01

  Electrician, ground support electrician. Yeah, for four years. NAS would be.

• 9:28Jocko Willink?

  NAS would be?

• 9:30Speaker 01

  NAS would be.

• 9:31Jocko Willink?

  Okay, got it, got it. And then how long until the next kid started rolling out? You had two more, right?

• 9:40Speaker 02

  Aaron was born two and a half years later and we had moved to Portland then, just before he was born. And then Kelsey was four years after Aaron.

• 9:50Jocko Willink?

  So you got a decent spread on those kids. I had my first three like, kind of very rapidly. A pretty tight grouping, as they say. And so Ryan is, what about, so we talk about Ryan as a baby a little bit, walking at eight months, that's, or eight and a half months, that's, that's ahead of the schedule. How about as a toddler? At what point did you start to see his personality?

• 10:18Speaker 02

  Pretty young. How old was he when you told him? He was barely walking when we had to convince him not to touch the wood stove and shirt because it was hot.

• 10:30Speaker 01

  We warned him repeatedly. And he just wouldn't take my word for it. So eventually I just sat back in my chair and watched. I knew that it wasn't hot enough to destroy his skin, but he learned quickly. And then managed to pick up a tall glass vase that we had, that was sitting right next to it, dropped it. I got over there pretty quickly and lifted him straight up out of the, out of the glass. And he still got cut.

• 11:03Speaker 02

  That was our first trip to the emergency room.

• 11:07Speaker 01

  And eventually through questioning, the pediatrician wanted to know what happened and how he got cut. So we explained, you know, as truthfully as we could what was going on. And all of a sudden, the questioning changed a little bit. Like, you ever feel like knocking him around a little bit?

• 11:29Speaker 01

  And I saw where this was going. And back in those days, I guess they needed to be careful, you know, about parents that that might not be real forthcoming about what happened. So anyway, they accepted that. And on we went to the next accident.

• 11:49Jocko Willink?

  And then he gets into school. What was his, what were his interests like in school? Was he starting to get into, you know, I don't know with my son, it was like stereotypical boy, trucks, like tanks, all that kind of stuff. Were you dealing with a similar thing?

• 12:05Speaker 02

  Well, even from some of his first toy, I think one of his first toys was a Nerf airplane. He loved airplanes from day one. He wanted to be like Grandpa Job. He was going to be a fighter pilot. That's what he always wanted to do. And, but yeah, he liked, he liked trucks, but he liked airplanes more. He had a motorcycle, actually. He was 18 months old. He had this little miniature kid ride on Harley Davidson.

• 12:35Speaker 01

  Dang.

• 12:36Speaker 02

  And we have, in a helmet, we have pictures of him riding up and down the sidewalk. And our, in fact, our pediatrician lived three lots away from, or not lived, his office was three lots away from our house. And the last time we went to Mount Vernon, we'd stopped in and saw the doctor and he still had the picture on his wall of Ryan and he remembered it. He loved to see Ryan going down the sidewalk on his motorcycle. But he liked airplanes the most. He was in fourth grade when he started playing soccer, played all through high school. But he was a very active. When we moved to our house in Issaquah,

• 13:20Speaker 02

  there was a lot of trees behind us before they built the other houses and he and Aaron would climb the trees. Just always wanted to be doing something, very busy.

• 13:31Jocko Willink?

  When, when he got into high school, what sports? So he played soccer? Did he wrestle? Didn't he wrestle?

• 13:37Speaker 02

  He started, he wrestled, started in sixth grade in middle, junior high, middle school. Wrestled all through high school.

• 13:44Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, cuz he was a good wrestler. Like I, when I trained jiu-jitsu with him, he clearly had the wrestling background. And he's had that kind of wrestling strength, you know, when people that wrestled, they're, they got that strong feel to him. And he definitely had that. Uh, what, how were his grades when he was getting into like, like into middle school and high school? Was he into school or into studying? Or not so much? He was passable. Passable.

• 14:13Speaker 02

  He was, he was pretty, um, disciplined to do it and get it done. He got decent grades. Um, but he was a good writer. He was a really good writer, actually. I still have quite a few of his stories, things I just can't let go of yet. And every time I go through one of those boxes to get rid of it all and like when we moved, I just can't. I like looking at our stuff. Um, he was a great artist. We have a lot of pictures that he drew.

• 14:50Speaker 02

  So grades and then into high school, he still had decent grades, decent, not, he wasn't a four point O. But he also did ROTC then, all four years of high school. His senior year, he was the

• 15:07Speaker 02

  XO? Yeah. Their CO's top, right? Yeah, he was the XO with his best friend as a CO. And so his decent enough grades and that earned him a four-year Navy scholarship to the University of Washington.

• 15:22Jocko Willink?

  Dang.

• 15:24Speaker 01

  Well, today we'll reveal to the world that he was also a pretty fair, uh, French horn player.

• 15:29Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 15:30Jocko Willink?

  Oh, really?

• 15:30Speaker 01

  The guy.

• 15:31Jocko Willink?

  Oh, he kept that a big secret.

• 15:33Speaker 01

  We were told to keep it a big secret.

• 15:34Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I'm sure you were.

• 15:35Speaker 01

  He would've got a lot of harassment about that, but.

• 15:37Jocko Willink?

  Oh, definitely.

• 15:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, he enjoyed good music and he was, he was a pretty fair player. French horn. We didn't know that, did you?

• 15:44Jocko Willink?

  No, I didn't. That's ridiculous that I didn't know that.

• 15:46Speaker 02

  He loved music.

• 15:47Jocko Willink?

  If we would've known that, we would've bought him a French horn. I can guarantee we would've gone down to a pawn shop, got a second-hand French horn and he would've been forced to play like theme songs.

• 15:58Speaker 02

  He started on trumpet and then he was something, I don't know, the band director saw and asked him if he wanted to switch over to French horn. So we said he'd try it and by the next year he was playing, by the end of sixth grade, he was playing in the eighth grade advanced band. And they also played in competitions at the high school and he was, he was good. He loved it. He liked classical music too.

• 16:27Jocko Willink?

  That's another secret he kept from us.

• 16:28Speaker 02

  One of his most exciting things about band was, I remember taking him to the Canadian Brass, had a workshop for the middle school kids at, in another district and, um, so we went to that on a Saturday and he was just so excited to talk to those guys and,

• 16:47Speaker 02

  and, but he really liked that and he was pretty good.

• 16:50Jocko Willink?

  And, and you taught him how to shoot, right?

• 16:53Speaker 01

  That's, that's my only claim to fame with you and my other son. I, I taught them both to shoot.

• 16:59Jocko Willink?

  And were you hunting and fishing or was it like target shooting? What were you doing?

• 17:03Speaker 01

  They started off pretty young. Um, Ryan actually passed the hunter safety education course when he was 11 years old. And some adults failed it, but, uh, I, I think, uh,

• 17:16Speaker 01

  I think a lot of dads, they want to get their sons into shooting and they can easily get into bad habits. So the whole idea was to keep him, you know, out of bad habits. Sometimes the first thing dad will do like my dad did was hand you a big caliber rifle. And which

• 17:34Jocko Willink?

  Scared you to

• 17:35Speaker 01

  keeled me over, but no, we started him off right. And he learned the fundamentals of safety like his younger brother did. And was really a pretty fair shot by the time he went in the military. One of my fondest possessions is a letter that I got from my younger son telling me how much he appreciated, you know, the lessons that he got before he went in. It helped him a lot, you know, stay a little bit ahead of the game after he got in.

• 18:03Jocko Willink?

  It helped Brian as well. And we'll get to that. But I mean, you know, in a SEAL platoon, you know, especially the new guys, they're all kind of learning how to shoot. And there's, there's a pretty, there's a bell curve. And there's, you know, there'll be a couple guys that are really good. And usually it's a guy that has two, three, four platoons. And then there's a couple guys that are really bad. And there are a couple new guys that, you know, are just uncoordinated. But most guys are in that middle range and good, solid shots. And Ryan was good. Like, it's hard to make a mark as a shooter as a new guy. And he definitely, he was noticeably a very good shot when he went to close quarters combat training. So it, you did good. That's a good claim to fame.

• 18:45Speaker 02

  Did he always be really safe with them too?

• 18:48Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, no, he was definitely, I mean, you can't not be safe in the SEAL teams or there's

• 18:52Speaker 01

  Or you're gone.

• 18:53Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 18:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, you're gone.

• 18:54Jocko Willink?

  Uh, did you start, did you see any indication? So he did the ROTC thing? And was he still thinking about being a pilot during this time? Like, was he thinking Navy pilot?

• 19:06Speaker 01

  He had talked about flying most of his life. He actually had his pilot license when he was 17.

• 19:12Speaker 02

  He got his pilot license before he got his driver's license. He put himself through pilot school, flying. And I would, he, his job was, he got a job as a janitor at the flight school where he took lessons. So I would drive him down there to

• 19:32Speaker 02

  I forgot what the Boeing Field in Seattle and um and to do his job and then go pick him up when he was done. And so he would take lessons out of there also. And then he could drive himself once he finally got his driver's license, which was scary driving into Seattle.

• 19:52Speaker 02

  But yeah, he and he took us both up at different times.

• 19:57Jocko Willink?

  Oh, really?

• 19:57Speaker 01

  Go up with me, went up with his with his granddad and he he passed his he passed his check ride the first time around in a Cessna one fifty with a a really overweight instructor. They had to pull gas out of the plane in order to get it off the ground. It's a true story.

• 20:14Jocko Willink?

  And so when he when he gets into college, how do you end up playing rugby? Because I know he was a rugby player.

• 20:22Speaker 01

  Just wanted to be a tough guy.

• 20:23Speaker 02

  Friends talked him into it.

• 20:25Jocko Willink?

  But I mean, that's like a lesson, a tough sport to play.

• 20:30Speaker 01

  That's why I wanted it.

• 20:31Speaker 02

  He's Ryan. It was tough and he's Ryan. And that was so that's what he needed to do. It was the toughest toughest thing he probably could do in college.

• 20:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, he got on one afternoon. He said, Guess what? Somebody got their ear ripped off, you know, in in training. He just thought that was splendid.

• 20:48Jocko Willink?

  Oh, so he goes to a few years of college. Um, September eleventh comes. Now, you when did you so your younger son was what? How much younger than Ryan, Aaron?

• 21:00Speaker 02

  Two and a half years.

• 21:01Jocko Willink?

  Two and a half years. So while while Ryan's in college, does does Aaron enlist in the Marine Corps and not while he's still in college?

• 21:10Speaker 02

  Aaron Aaron graduated high school two thousand two and then um, oh, well, he actually signed his papers because we had to go with him. He signed his papers in two thousand one, August two thousand one. And we had to sign for him because his birthday wasn't until September seventh. And that and that's when he turned eighteen. He turned eighteen the beginning of his senior year. So we took him down there. He signed and then two thousand or.

• 21:42Jocko Willink?

  September eleventh.

• 21:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, September 11th happened. And so he was already committed. So he graduated and then within a month left for boot camp with his best friend who signed and they both went together.

• 21:56Jocko Willink?

  How was it for you all seeing September 11th? So now, what is it, 2002?

• 22:01Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 22:02Jocko Willink?

  So Afghanistan's kind of going. Iraq is starting to get a focus on it. And here goes your, your second son in the Marine Corps.

• 22:13Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 22:15Jocko Willink?

  Nerve wracking?

• 22:16Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 22:16Speaker 01

  Tremendously. We stayed glued to the TV set.

• 22:20Speaker 02

  Well, it was bad enough just dropping him off at the, they had to stay at a hotel in Renton the, on, the night before they flew them to, uh, MCRD. And that was bad enough. I just saw some notes about that the other day. An email or a letter to Aaron and told him that. I didn't even cry all the way home.

• 22:44Speaker 01

  Well, the, and the big concern for us was, uh, the chemical weapons.

• 22:48Jocko Willink?

  Mm-hmm.

• 22:48Speaker 01

  And we didn't know a lot about them, you know, what their, what the Iraqis capability was, what was gonna happen? And, you know, we heard differing things that was coming off the TV set. And like I'm sure a lot of other parents did, we're constantly watching TV to see if we can see him. Which, which, uh, of course, there's thousands of guys over there and a few times we went, there he is. I think that's him.

• 23:14Jocko Willink?

  So this is when?

• 23:15Speaker 02

  Once the war started.

• 23:16Jocko Willink?

  This is once the war kicked off.

• 23:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, once the war kicked off.

• 23:18Jocko Willink?

  So, so Aaron was a Marine on the push-up in the initial phases of the war.

• 23:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:26Jocko Willink?

  And you, and you guys are sitting back there watching that on TV?

• 23:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:29Jocko Willink?

  And is, was Ryan in the Navy yet?

• 23:32Speaker 02

  He had, um, he went to boot camp in Chicago, to basic boot in December of 2002. Graduated February 14th, Valentine's Day, and we were there for graduation. Aaron had left on a ship, January 13th, I think it was. He went over on the boxer. And, um, he called us on February 19th, his last phone call to us. They had just arrived at Kuwait. And then they would head over and wait on the border and he was, their unit was one of the first. One of, yeah, one of the very first to cross.

• 24:10Jocko Willink?

  Do you remember who he was with?

• 24:12Speaker 02

  One four.

• 24:13Jocko Willink?

  One four, gets on. Now.

• 24:16Speaker 02

  And he was in Charlie Platoon although.

• 24:18Jocko Willink?

  Outstanding. Did, so going back to Ryan and what did you know, what did you know about the SEAL teams had been the Navy, Eric?

• 24:27Speaker 01

  Oh, he's, he studied up a lot on them and talked about it. We, we talked about it a number of times. After he got into college, his, I think his intention was to become a SEAL officer. And he found out that there were so few billets or that, that he thought he better go ahead and get out of school and go enlisted. Which is what he did and we, we told him, we said, your chances of making it through are pretty tough. And he never hesitated. He never indicated any concern at all that he wasn't going to make it through.

• 24:59Jocko Willink?

  What did he do to prepare for BUDs?

• 25:03Speaker 01

  A lot of exercises. He was in the wrestling.

• 25:07Speaker 02

  Too many of them in some ways.

• 25:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, we were talking earlier today about the fact that he, he was exercising the wrong way. And he had the Charles Atlas like physique, which is not what the Navy was looking for.

• 25:22Jocko Willink?

  So did he, did he pack on a lot of muscle basically?

• 25:24Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Yeah, it was like hitting a side of beef when you saw him. And when he, when he tried to enlist, they, they, they thought that he wasn't height and weight proportionate.

• 25:36Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 25:37Speaker 01

  And the recruiter says, no, you gotta see this kid. So they actually had to send pictures. And, and then they of course accepted him right away. And the Navy decided that they'd give him a swimmer's body instead of what he was parading at the time.

• 25:50Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you know, there's a certain, there's a certain kind of physical shape that BUDs kinda requires and there's some variance in there, but yeah, if you're. For lack of a better word, if you're just too, too big, too muscular, you're gonna lose it. You know, there's, there's like Navy football players that play football in the Navy, at the Naval Academy. And they have to basically starve themselves when they get done their senior year of Navy football. To get ready for BUDs and they usually, they space them out, they give them like as much time as they possibly can. And guys will lose like 50, 60, 70 pounds to get ready to go to BUDs because if you're really big.

• 26:32Jocko Willink?

  I mean, you, you're not gonna be able to run, you're not gonna be able to swim, you're not, might not even be able to do the obstacle course. Sure. So it sounds like Ryan showed up a little too jacked.

• 26:41Speaker 01

  Well, he did. Ryan is basically my height. And I'm not very tall, I'm only about 5'8". And so I think he was close to 200 pounds, something like that.

• 26:54Speaker 02

  I don't think he weighed that much.

• 26:56Speaker 01

  I was, he was up there.

• 26:58Speaker 02

  He was never, once he got like into his teens, he was never a thin person anyway. He, you know, he would have to kinda, he didn't struggle, but.

• 27:08Jocko Willink?

  He would describe himself as husky, solid kinda husky.

• 27:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, not all of it was quite so solid though.

• 27:16Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah. He's, he's a husky, you know, kinda well-marbled individual.

• 27:21Speaker 02

  I mean, even when he wrestled, because he had a few, or maybe sometimes a few more extra pounds. He always was wrestling up a weight class than his, than his height. So it was, it was quite a battle for him, but he went to state and, I mean, so.

• 27:42Jocko Willink?

  Oh, he did go to state. Dang, that's awesome. How'd he do?

• 27:46Speaker 02

  He did, I, I wanna say he came in fourth, maybe. I can't remember for sure, but.

• 27:52Jocko Willink?

  That's legit. So you, so you deliver him to boot camp, he, he graduates from boot camp. Valentine's Day, meanwhile, Aaron's going, he's in war. And then Ryan, did he go to A school?

• 28:09Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 28:10Jocko Willink?

  How long was A school? I was in a few months at Florida.

• 28:14Speaker 02

  Well, he went there soon after he graduated. I want to say within a couple of weeks or so. He went to Florida for aviation ordinance. And that's where he was, um, March seventeenth, we were at home waiting for President Bush to give the orders to cross the border and my, on the seventeenth, my dad passed away unexpectedly. So Ryan came home for that then.

• 28:44Speaker 02

  I think, did he, yes. Yeah, they flew him home. And, um, then he went, I'm not sure how long he was home. Then he went back and I think he finished like in May and then got down here to Coronado. And I can't remember what that's called in between a school and hell week when they actually start buds.

• 29:08Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, well, it's probably there's.

• 29:10Speaker 02

  It's like the pre-school.

• 29:11Jocko Willink?

  Fourth phase or pre buds. They have a bunch. They change the name all the time. Prep. They call it prep. But yeah, there's usually, it's probably between four and six weeks usually that they send you into prep for.

• 29:23Speaker 02

  All summer because then he got buds started. I don't remember exactly when buds started. And then hell week was scheduled to start.

• 29:36Speaker 02

  I think September fourteenth.

• 29:37Jocko Willink?

  Mm hmm.

• 29:38Speaker 02

  Aaron arrived back from Iraq from his first deployment, the thirteenth, which is, was a huge, huge deal for us. We all went, came down here to see him arrive and, um,

• 29:52Speaker 02

  they let him, they gave Ryan twenty-four hours, um, break from buds to come and see Aaron arrive at Camp Pendleton. And so, um, he had twenty-four hours with us and we brought him back. We almost, he had to be back by midnight that night and we almost had him late because we were on I five. We almost missed that last exit. Um, and then we would have been in Mexico and they, he was specifically told, don't go out of the country. So, but, and we almost missed the exit because of the sign. We took the wrong, I don't know, but we got him back and.

• 30:29Jocko Willink?

  Hmm. So from everything I've heard about Ryan and buds.

• 30:36Jocko Willink?

  He had full benefit, what we call in the SEAL teams, full benefit, meaning He sure did. He got some special attention. And there's, there's, there's a few reasons people get special attentions. You know, someone that might be, you know, anything that stands out, whether you're too tall, too short, too fat, too skinny, any kind of thing that stands out, you're going to get attention. I got attention because I was ugly. I had the instructors. No. Yes. Yeah, no, it was a big shocker. The instructor, you know, this, this one warrant officer, we're standing out there for our first inspection. And the warrant officer calls, starts calling all the instructors over and he's looking at me like super intense. And he says, he says, what do you guys think? And they're all, they're kind of confused. They go, what do you mean warrant?

• 31:20Jocko Willink?

  They go, is this the ugliest guy we've ever had in BUDS? And they say, oh yeah, he definitely is. So, you know, like I said, if you're too, too, too fat, too skinny, too tall, too short, too ugly, too handsome, you're going to get a little special attention. That's why, have you ever heard the term the gray man? Yes. Yeah. People say, hey, when you go to BUDS, it's a good idea. Try and be the gray man, just the guy that kind of fades in. Into the background. No one really notices them. Yeah. And that's definitely the easiest way, if there's an easy way, it's the easiest way to get through BUDS is no one really notices you. Well, from everything I've heard, they definitely noticed Ryan. And, and when that happens,

• 32:01Jocko Willink?

  you're going to get some extra special attention. And from what I understand, he got a lot of special attention. I think he had a hard time running because he was big. And so now you're starting to, there's something called, we used to call it the goon squad. Now they call it something more politically correct, like remediation, but the goon squad is, you know, you go out on what they call a conditioning run. And at a certain point, you know, if you're not up with the pack, you get gooned. And you just do sprints and they, they, but they really, what they do is they break people. They break them mentally, they break them physically in the goon squad. And a lot of people will quit just from the goon squad.

• 32:40Jocko Willink?

  And from what I've heard, you know, Ryan was sort of the, the cutoff for the goon squad. He's where they start the goon squad. And, and like I said, they're going to be, they're, they're tough on everyone. But if you, if you don't pass something or you're in the back of the pack, they're going to go extra hard. And they break people and they get people to quit. And those instructors can make people quit.

• 33:05Jocko Willink?

  Ryan was not one of those people that they could make.

• 33:07Speaker 01

  Ryan had an unorthodox sense of humor, you know, as you know.

• 33:11Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 33:12Speaker 01

  So I'm sure that that that didn't help things, but you know, he got rolled back a couple of times, just mainly for medical.

• 33:18Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. What did he get cellulitis a couple of times?

• 33:20Speaker 01

  Cellulitis, yeah, from swimming in that water.

• 33:23Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, the water is just disgusting and a lot of people get infections and whatnot. And what did he get? He also got like a ruptured eardrum or something, a ruptured eardrum?

• 33:31Speaker 01

  I think it was in the dive tower, got a ruptured eardrum. So that that rolled him back again. So on and on it went.

• 33:41Jocko Willink?

  You also, you know, you, your reputation kind of starts in Bud's. As a matter of fact, it does start in Bud's. So, you know, you get that reputation of someone that's just tougher than nails. And that's kind of the reputation that Ryan ended up with. This guy's gonna keep going no matter what we throw at him.

• 33:56Speaker 01

  He wasn't gonna quit.

• 33:57Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 33:57Speaker 01

  He would never quit. He would have died first. I mean, really, he would have.

• 34:01Jocko Willink?

  I hundred percent believe it.

• 34:06Jocko Willink?

  Do you, so he graduates, goes to SQT. You guys are there for SQT graduation? Or Bud's graduation? Was it Bud's or SQT that you went to the graduation of?

• 34:14Speaker 02

  Bud's.

• 34:15Jocko Willink?

  Bud's, okay. They've changed it now where you go to the graduation of SQT.

• 34:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, I don't think we went to that.

• 34:21Jocko Willink?

  Did he get his trident?

• 34:22Speaker 01

  No.

• 34:23Jocko Willink?

  Okay, then yeah.

• 34:23Speaker 02

  At SQT, got it later.

• 34:25Jocko Willink?

  Yep. Cause that's what they changed it. They used to, they used to graduate Bud's and you'd have the big ceremony. Nowadays, you grad, when you graduate Bud's, you get like a piece of paper and you get wet and sandy. And they say, all right, you graduate now you're going to SQT and then you go to SQT and then they do the big graduation at the end of SQT, which is kind of, kind of squared away because you get your trident and everything.

• 34:49Jocko Willink?

  So you guys were there for that graduation? How pumped was, was Ryan at that thing?

• 34:55Speaker 01

  I think it was the greatest day of his entire life. He had a grin as big as his head.

• 35:01Jocko Willink?

  Was Aaron able to make it to that?

• 35:05Speaker 01

  I don't think Aaron was there.

• 35:07Speaker 02

  I honestly don't remember.

• 35:09Speaker 01

  I don't think he was.

• 35:14Jocko Willink?

  Then he gets what takes him leave and then he shows up, he goes gets orders to SEAL Team Three. Um, this is when I meet him for the first time where we form up. So it's now the spring of 2005, probably like June of 2005. I don't know when he actually grew. Wait, when did he graduate from SQT? Do you know? Or do you know when he

• 35:36Speaker 02

  I think I keep thinking December, but I think maybe he left for that in December.

• 35:45Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. So he could have showed up at any time, but the, but the SEAL team was on deployment. So when he showed up, there probably wasn't a lot going on. So when probably the first true like, hey, I'm now at a SEAL team and I'm having interactions with guys was was when, when, when we formed up task unit bruiser and he's in Charlie Platoon. And this is sort of, you know, his first interactions at the SEAL team, you know, with them. And it was a, well, it's, you know, it's called task unit bruiser and that was a pretty accurate, you know, kind of, kind of name for the task unit. We definitely had some pipe hitters in there and had a very solid

• 36:29Jocko Willink?

  and aggressive attitude, which was awesome. Um, the first trip that we did as a task unit was land warfare. So this is going out to the desert and it's the first trip that we did. And it's very lucky to have that as your first trip because it's where you kind of, you lay down all the baseline and it's really hard training. It's, we went in August or, or July or August. So it's, it's a hundred and 10 degrees. It's totally miserable. The, the heat just comes out of the ground. It's, it's really hard. Ryan was not ready for it. He showed up, he was in, I don't know how much pizza he ate or when he was on leave in between SQT

• 37:11Jocko Willink?

  and, and showing up to SEAL Team Three, but you could see, he probably thought, oh, cool. I made it. And yeah.

• 37:21Speaker 02

  Oops.

• 37:22Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. So he showed up. He wasn't in great shape. And, and the first, I was talking to Leif, talking with Leif about this. So, you know, we do these things, immediate action drills and you're out in the desert and you know, you're, you're basically laying down fire, the other element's moving and then, you know, then they lay down fire and you move and it's, it's, it's, it's freaking hard work. You know, you got your body armor on, you got all your ammo. He was a pig gunner, so he's carrying all kinds of weight. And the first few days, like he was falling back on, on IADS, which means he wasn't in shape. And so he got some, uh, some informal counseling from, from the, the platoon senior chief, a guy nicknamed Z,

• 38:07Jocko Willink?

  and his platoon chief, Tony, and Leif were like, hey, man, you know, like you, you, you gotta get in shape. And he just completely took it to heart. I think he realized like, oh yeah, I didn't expect this. And they assigned Bob Holland, lead Bob Holland to be his, his personal, his personal mentor and what we call a C daddy, right? Hey, this is gonna be your C daddy. And he just, he just started working out like crazy. And this is where, this is also where he got the nickname Biggles out there. Because, uh, I guess, I guess you could say it, when he showed up there, he didn't really have a six pack. Yeah, he didn't share that with us.

• 38:50Speaker 02

  I don't think he ever had a six pack.

• 38:53Jocko Willink?

  So his nickname was Biggles. And then, as you know, our machine guns, if you're shooting the, the seven, six, two caliber machine gun, in the old days, it was an M60 machine gun and that was called a pig and the pig name just transferred right over to, right over to the Mark 48 machine gun. So that's the pig, if you're a pig gunner. And so what we had was we had Biggles and he was carrying a pig and guys named their machine guns. So it made perfect sense that, that Biggles named his machine gun Piggles. So it was Biggles and Piggles. And, um, I believe someone, you know, for a while it was, it was Biggles, the desert hippo. That was the full.

• 39:35Speaker 02

  I knew there was a hippo involved in it. Didn't he have, somebody gave him a purple, a little like a. A beanie baby?

• 39:43Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, beanie babies. Yep.

• 39:48Jocko Willink?

  But like I said, what was awesome was instead of getting defensive, instead of, you know, he just owned it and started working out all the time. Actually, there's another story, you know, he was work, so he's working out and he's wearing like, um, sort of, I guess you'd say eighties or early nineties workout gloves with like the mesh on top. And in the SEAL teams, you don't wear gloves to workout, right? Yeah, you're a man. You get calluses. That's what we do. And, uh, Leif told him, you know, he, he showed up in the gym. He had these, these mesh, these mesh workout gloves on. And Leif said, hey, bro, we don't wear gloves in the teams. We get calluses.

• 40:29Jocko Willink?

  He never wore gloves again, and he didn't wear gloves.

• 40:32Speaker 02

  Even with his weapon.

• 40:33Jocko Willink?

  Even with his weapon. Like, he just got the most calloused, tough hands again, because he took that, he took that to heart. He was changing barrels. Yeah. Hot, changing hot barrels. Just, he's next level. I know. Some people were astonished to watch that. That is, that's crazy. That's crazy to be able to do. Um, so this, we saw this real like transformation and you could see, the other thing that you see is, you know, when someone's, when someone's having a hard time, well, their attitude really gets revealed, right? Well, his attitude, he was having a hard time, his attitude was just awesome. And even though, you know, even some guys that were frustrated that he wasn't in great shape as a new guy, I was like, but look at him,

• 41:16Jocko Willink?

  look at his attitude. And so I think he started winning some hearts and minds, uh, pretty early. And then what's good is we did, we did, uh, Vehicles Next, which is pretty low stress.

• 41:29Jocko Willink?

  But then we went to Mid-South, uh, the, the, the Close Quarters Combat. And this is where...

• 41:36Jocko Willink?

  You know, people are still watching him, make sure he's in shape, but what really helped them start to gain respect was what you did for him, Eric, and that is he was a good shot. And it's hard for an older guy to talk smack to a new guy that just beat him in a, in a, you know, shooting head plates. Sure. And he was a good freaking shot. And so, and not only that, he was good at the actual procedures of clearing the rooms. And those are all really complex things, you know, it's can be very difficult for some guys. There's a lot going on. There's a lot of procedures to follow. There's a lot of decisions to make very rapidly. And some new guys can

• 42:17Jocko Willink?

  really get tripped up in that. And that's where he did that well also. As a matter of fact, one of his, one of the other new guys in that platoon didn't make it through CQC. So this is, and imagine you're, you make it through BUDS, you make it through SQT, and now you get kicked out of the SEAL teams. So it's, so this type of training is really hard. And this is where, you know, again, Ryan was now winning hearts and minds. He was shooting really well. He was doing well with the, uh, just with the tactics and everything. So that was pretty awesome to see. And there is one, his, he did not like cottage cheese.

• 42:57Speaker 02

  I've been waiting to ask you, wasn't it in the desert when somehow somebody found out that he didn't like cottage cheese?

• 43:03Jocko Willink?

  I don't know if that's when they found out, but he was-

• 43:06Speaker 02

  That's where they did something about it.

• 43:07Jocko Willink?

  He was on trial in a, in a kangaroo court. And, you know, usually I wasn't around for much of the, um, much of the kangaroo courts, but apparently this was like the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court was needed for this one. So I showed up and so, yeah, they'd find out that he, not only did he not like cottage cheese, he had like a, a visceral- Yeah.

• 43:34Speaker 02

  A gag reflex.

• 43:36Jocko Willink?

  A gag reflex, a gag reflex for cottage cheese. So during his trial-

• 43:43Jocko Willink?

  To see.

• 43:44Speaker 01

  The sentence.

• 43:45Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, he was, he was, was being, you know, like, all right, eat this. And it was the funniest, it was one of the funniest things I've ever seen. So he's, he's trying, like, as if I had asked him to pull me back into a helicopter. Like, he's got that kind of determination on his face. But what he's trying to do is just get one spoonful of cottage cheese down his mouth. And he's gagging and he's basically throwing it back up and then trying again. It was hysterical. And again, what made, you know, what made it so endearing is he's, like I said, he's trying so hard as if he's trying to save one of his buddies.

• 44:28Jocko Willink?

  And he's just tried so hard and he's just, he gets it in there, he starts to swallow and it all comes back out. It was, um, it was ridiculous.

• 44:37Speaker 02

  Was everybody sitting around watching or was it just a few people?

• 44:41Jocko Willink?

  Oh, no, it was everyone. Yeah.

• 44:42Speaker 01

  Was that before or after that they made him show you his war face?

• 44:47Jocko Willink?

  So war face was next. Yeah. So we get done with CQC and now we go, the next thing is, is urban training. And yeah, this was, so, so Ryan had this thing that he would do where he would basically walk up to someone and get three centimeters from their face and like put these crazy eyes on. And it'd like look right at you. And he would do it, they, you know, they, he'd do it to the other guys in the platoon, et cetera, et cetera. And so they told, so his older guys, Chris, Kyle, Bobby, Holland, they're like, all right, you gotta go do that to Jaco now. And he's like, well, that doesn't seem like a great idea.

• 45:33Jocko Willink?

  And, and then Leif was telling me the other day, they, they all were telling him, hey dude, don't worry. Like, we got your back. Don't worry, we got your back. If Jaco does anything, we got your back. So sure enough, I'm sitting there and quite frankly, it kind of startled me a little bit. Um, you know, cause I'm standing there and all of a sudden he comes and he had this really funny way of doing it. He'd be, you know, probably like six feet away and he would close that last five feet, 10 inches in like a millisecond. Yeah. Like boom. And he's just right there in your face. Well, when he did that to me, I immediately I spun him around and put the chokehold on him. And then I put him to sleep. And I kinda laid him down gently and it was, it was, it was a good laugh.

• 46:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, he, he said one time, he said, Jaco's the only man I've ever been terrified of, ever. And that, that was quite an admission coming from him because he wouldn't admit something like that. But he freely admitted that one.

• 46:31Jocko Willink?

  Oh, that was classic. Um, so that is, that is when he got in my, got in my face and, and got choked. Yeah, those, I always, I started it when I was in a platoon where guys would try and, like, look, if you wanted to do jujitsu with me, cool. You retrain, I get you in a choke, you tap, let you go. But then I, when it started getting more people try and sneak up on me and catch me. And then I told guys, I was like, hey, if you sneak up on me, you're going to sleep. And you're probably getting locked in a locker or something like that when you wake up, but yeah, so, so that was, that was a classic ride. Freaking classic ride.

• 47:05Speaker 02

  It startled you when, when he came up to you.

• 47:09Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 47:09Speaker 02

  So you just reacted.

• 47:10Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, re, yeah, my reaction.

• 47:12Speaker 02

  Not that you wouldn't have done it anyway, even if you knew he was doing it.

• 47:16Jocko Willink?

  No, he was definitely gonna get choked. Yeah. Whether I knew about it or not, whether I was.

• 47:19Speaker 02

  Was that when it started that he had to wrestle with you occasionally?

• 47:26Speaker 02

  Wasn't there times that they?

• 47:28Jocko Willink?

  He probably got.

• 47:29Speaker 02

  You made him do that?

• 47:29Jocko Willink?

  He probably got queued up as a, as a opponent a few times, you know? Because he wrestled and he's a good, strong wrestler. He didn't really know jujitsu. And unfortunately, if you know jujitsu, you're gonna, you're gonna beat the person that just knows wrestling. Actually, I mean, I, I trained jujitsu with him after he got, after he was blind. And I thought that was amazing. And I had known that, I had, I had seen guys competing in jujitsu and wrestling that were blind. And so I was like, dude, we gotta try this. And sure enough, um, you know, he was, it's a great sport to do. Don't need to see, it's all feel. And so that was awesome. So the, those are our times. But yeah, there was.

• 48:11Jocko Willink?

  I would train a lot with the guys, a lot of jujitsu with guys. So, did he get volunteered a few times? I'm sure he did.

• 48:19Speaker 02

  I think that's what, kind of what I remember.

• 48:21Speaker 01

  Well, Chris Kyle choked him out half a dozen times.

• 48:24Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 48:25Speaker 01

  At least.

• 48:26Jocko Willink?

  There's a whole, look, we have jujitsu, we have wrestling, those are cool sports, but in the SEAL teams, you also have something called van fights, which is, you know, you're in a van, you got 12 guys from the platoon in a van, and, you know, there's gonna, it's, it's kind of like, you know, I've, I've kids, you have kids, you take a road trip with your kids, you can only make it, you know, four miles before the kids are fighting in the back. So that's what the SEAL teams are, a bunch of freaking kids. And you put them in a van together and they're gonna fight, and so you have van fighting. So there's a lot of people that have been unconscious in vans before.

• 49:02Jocko Willink?

  In SEAL teams. But, you know, as we, as we progress, the good thing is, you know, he was, he was doing a good job. And these kind of things, these kind of interactions are, this is like, this is the, this is how, how you, this is the, this is the bonding, right?

• 49:19Speaker 01

  It was critical.

• 49:19Jocko Willink?

  This is the, this is the friendship, this is the hassling each other, this is what we're doing. So, none of this was abnormal. In fact, if you're not in that van fight, if you're not getting choked by the, the task unit commander, if those things aren't happening, it's like, hmm, I would be worried if I'm not that guy. So, this was just kind of normal, rough house bonding going on. And, and, and the thing is, is that Ryan was, especially once we made it through CQC, and he performed well in CQC, and was a good shot in CQC, and cleared the houses properly in CQC, and he kept training during CQC too. He was, you know, working all day, and then he'd go and drag the tire at

• 50:04Jocko Willink?

  night. And the other thing that happened was, this is where he got a lot of extracurricular training was, he, if someone was working out and they needed someone to work, work out with, they would grab him. Be like, hey, Biggles, we're going to run, I'm going to run tires, come with me. Hey, Biggles, I'm going to do a pull-up workout, come with me. And so he was just, look, when you're a new guy, you're, you're doing what you're told. And since he was out of shape in desert, it was like, okay, we're gonna make sure he's in shape. And he got to be in outstanding shape.

• 50:38Jocko Willink?

  We also, by the time we, now we're in like, we get done with that kind of training. And one of the big trips that we did was we went up to Nellis Air Force Base, which is outside of, which is outside of Vegas. We had a

• 50:54Jocko Willink?

  ridiculously awesome time, training, and then you're in Vegas. So we're training and gambling and partying and everything else. But one of the things that was really memorable was I would always want the younger guys to be put in charge of operations so that they could see what it's like to be the assault force commander, to be the mobility commander, to be the ground force commander, where instead of like as a new guy, Ryan's in charge of his weapon and whatever he's holding security on. And so one of the times up in, up at Nellis, big giant clearance problem.

• 51:35Jocko Willink?

  To go assault a target that was in the middle of this urban training site. And we're like, all right, Ryan, you're, you're in charge, you're the ground force commander for this thing. And his eyes got really, really big. And he was, you know, he, he said, you know, like, well, who knows what I'm doing. It's any, and the thing is, he did. He, he knew and he's smart and he stepped up. And what's awesome is once you, I mean, imagine going from just being in charge of your weapon and your area of responsibility, your field of fire, and then all of a sudden you're in charge of 40 guys that are assaulting a target through a city. It opens up your eyes so much. And, you know, he, he did that run and you could see

• 52:21Jocko Willink?

  that he could do it and he did it. And so that was a huge, um, a huge step up. And by the way, that's nothing new. That's like, that happened to me when I was a new guy. When you have a good leader, you know, they're going to put you in charge of what's happening. So you open up your aperture. And so that's, this just shows that by the time we were getting ready to go on deployment, like he was freaking squared away. And awesome guy that the boys, the, the boys loved him at this point. I know before deployment, he met Kelly and even the, some of the guys met her. And we're impressed like damn, okay. Good job.

• 53:05Jocko Willink?

  So that was kind of the workup. And then it was time for us to go on deployment. So now when. What did you guys, what did you guys know about like the deployment cycle of the SEAL teams? Did you, did you know it was a six month deployment, sort of a standard Navy deployment?

• 53:23Speaker 01

  We knew, we knew that much, but at the time we didn't know exactly where we was going and he was only allowed to, to share just so much with us, but. Uh, we, we knew he was going for sure. And when he eventually got to Ramadi, we knew what that was and where that was and what was going on.

• 53:41Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it was interesting. We weren't supposed to go to Ramadi. If, so Ryan must've come home on, did he go home on pre-deployment leave? This would have been like.

• 53:50Speaker 02

  No, I don't think he did because I came down here in April.

• 53:55Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 53:56Speaker 02

  To spend, I maybe a week. I was, I don't know, a few days I was here to see him.

• 54:00Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 54:00Speaker 02

  Eric couldn't come. But I was here to see him for a little bit before they left.

• 54:06Jocko Willink?

  So as at that time. We were going to Baghdad and the plan was, and I briefed the boys before we left, like, hey, we're going to Baghdad. I actually went on a pre-deployment. Uh, site survey to Baghdad and met the unit we're going to be working with and started to turn over with the SEALs. We were going to take their place. And then while everyone was on pre-deployment leave. We, that's when we got the, the change in deployment that we were going into Ramadi and. We knew what Ramadi was. We knew the situation on the ground there. We knew what was happening. And so when we, yeah, when we deployed, we.

• 54:46Jocko Willink?

  I wouldn't go so far as to say we truly understood what it was going to be like on the ground. But we had an idea that it was definitely going to be a target-rich environment and a lot of heavy fighting. I don't think anyone would have suspected that it would have been the amount of fighting that it was, but.

• 55:07Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's what we went into. And so at what point did you realize that Ryan was in Ramadi?

• 55:13Speaker 01

  Well, we got a phone call. And I still remember him, him calling, you know, guess what me and Chris did last night? You know, that kind of thing. Because when Chris would take a combat nap, he'd let Ryan get on the gun. And sometimes he'd start off some stories, not realizing that his mother was listening in the other line. And some of those got pretty tough. But I knew it was him calling because we recognized it was an odd number coming up on a sat phone.

• 55:45Speaker 02

  Oh, we were constantly waiting for calls when both of the boys were deployed. We had our home phone forwarded to our cell phones and so we didn't miss it. Yeah.

• 55:56Jocko Willink?

  Where was Aaron when we were in Ramadi in oh six? Where was, where was Aaron?

• 56:02Speaker 02

  Six, he got out, see, he was active duty from, he graduated boot camp in October oh two.

• 56:11Jocko Willink?

  Oh, so if he did four years, he was probably out.

• 56:12Speaker 02

  And he did four years. So he was already out and he was working for, in Orange County. And, yeah, so he was in, yeah, he was still in Orange County.

• 56:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, he did two tours.

• 56:25Jocko Willink?

  So at this point, you're really just tracking Ryan?

• 56:29Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 56:29Jocko Willink?

  How often did you hear from him when he was on deployment?

• 56:34Speaker 01

  Well, it was probably three or four times at least.

• 56:39Speaker 01

  And generally, it was always in the middle of the night, you know, that we'd get a call. He wasn't able to say a lot.

• 56:45Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 56:45Speaker 01

  But.

• 56:46Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, the lines were monitored. And so you could only say, you know, so much about what was happening.

• 56:55Speaker 01

  Well, he was so excited, you know, to be, to be around guys like you, like Chris and everybody else. That's why he always started his stories, guess what happened? Guess what we did last night? And

• 57:12Speaker 01

  He cherished, he cherished those times, you know, with the guys. He wanted so hard to be accepted, you know, for, for what he was. And to be right up there with the rest of them in terms of skill, determination and everything else. He was always a determined guy, but he realized he was, it was a completely different league that he was joining.

• 57:37Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, he, first of all, he worked out on deployment. If he wasn't in the field, he was working out. And we had all kinds of, you know, we had workouts that we were doing over there. Like one thing was, um, we had this thing where we'd pick up a, we had a dummy, like a, you know, we'd pick up this dummy and sprint. It was like a probably, you know, 80 meters down and 80 meters back and then drag a tire 80 meters down and 80 meters back. And that was because we realized like, oh, we're going to be carrying. We've got to be able to buddy carry each other. Um, and he was in, he was in really good shape there because, you know, what are we doing? We're just working,

• 58:20Jocko Willink?

  working out. The food wasn't, you know, food wasn't great, but you know, he was just focused on doing an awesome job. And, and the other thing is the importance of those machine gunners during a gunfight and having those guys and, and the machine gunners in the SEAL teams, um, are, they, they work freaking hard and they have a, a course that they go through. And the course that they go through to be a machine gunner in the SEAL teams is awesome. And they become

• 59:04Jocko Willink?

  just kind of like one with their, with their weapon. And so when you're, you know, in Ramadi, those, those machine gunners were so important because you can't maneuver on the battlefield if someone's not putting down heavy volumes of cover fire. And

• 59:26Jocko Willink?

  That's what, that's what Ryan was doing and he was doing it like, you know, a champ and, and you know, I think it was, it was strange, I think for the new guys. Because the new guys, like to have, to be, to be a SEAL machine gunner.

• 59:49Jocko Willink?

  The amount of going into that time period, the number of times that, you know, a machine gunner would use, you know, half their ammo or three quarters of their ammo or all of their ammunition on an operation wasn't very often. But for a guy in task unit bruiser, a machine gunner to go out and come back with, you know, having spent 400, 500, 600 rounds in a gunfight was common. We had countless times where machine gunners were out of ammo. So, and, and the older guys knew that that's not very common.

• 1:00:31Jocko Willink?

  But for someone like Ryan, it was like, this must just be what deployments are like. And yeah, so it was kind of, it was kind of crazy. And even as I talked to, you know, some of the, some of the guys that were new guys in that task unit.

• 1:00:52Jocko Willink?

  You know, they didn't ever have a deployment like that again.

• 1:00:54Speaker 01

  I had some alone time with Chris, you know, after, after Ryan passed away. And I remember him telling me several times that Ryan would step out in the street and was just absolutely laying it down. You know, so that his element could move and trying to stay away from the walls and so forth. But they said, it looked like something out of a bad movie.

• 1:01:17Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. There was times, I remember one time it's, I was, the, the platoon got contacted or one of the, one of the elements got contacted and there, we, we sent the QRF and fire support tanks to go and support them and I'm watching them come back.

• 1:01:40Jocko Willink?

  And it's, it looked like World War II. There was a tank in the front of the column. There was the, the SEAL platoon in staggered formation, you know, scanning windows, walking down the street, and then another tank at the aft end of them. It was, it looked like World War II. And, and I mean, Ramadi at the time, there was, you know, tank shooting, main gun rounds into buildings. There was tanks pushing, you know, driving over vehicles in the street, driving through walls. It was, it was, it was not normal. It was not a normal deployment.

• 1:02:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:14Jocko Willink?

  For, certainly for, for SEALs at that time.

• 1:02:18Speaker 01

  Chris said he was absolutely fearless. And he would stand out there, you know, just whipping against the walls and, you know, kicking up dust all around. But he cared about, he cared about those guys. He did not want to fail.

• 1:02:33Speaker 02

  I think that's why, when you were talking about how hard he worked out, I'm positive, he just, he wanted to be the best he could be and support his team.

• 1:02:43Speaker 01

  That brotherhood meant everything to him.

• 1:02:45Speaker 02

  Not leave him behind and just do everything he could to help him.

• 1:02:50Jocko Willink?

  And it was, that what you just said was completely obvious to everyone. Everyone saw that that's, that that's what he would do and wanted to do. And he would do anything for the rest of us. That was, it was blatantly obvious. It was blatantly obvious. The way he carried himself, whether it was going out on patrol, whether it was working out in between operations, the way he cared for his weapon, the way, just everything that he did was with that. It was blatantly obvious. There was not one doubt in anyone's mind about what his attitude was. It was a hundred percent what a frogman should be through and through.

• 1:03:35Speaker 01

  He wanted to be somebody you could rely on.

• 1:03:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, he didn't want to let you down.

• 1:03:38Speaker 01

  Ever. It's the way, it's the way he was built. He started off that way. He was always a determined kid.

• 1:03:45Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and a tough bastard. Yeah. And just like a tough.

• 1:03:51Jocko Willink?

  So as we're on deployment,

• 1:03:55Jocko Willink?

  you're watching the news. Are you, I mean, are you glued to the news every night? Because I remember like this timeframe, even before we left, watching the news at night, Alombar Province, two soldiers killed, Alombar Province, two Marines killed, Alombar Province. And most of that, the vast majority of those casualties in Alombar Province were in the city of Ramadi. How much of that were you seeing and thinking about when we were over there?

• 1:04:24Speaker 01

  I read the news more than Debbie does. And I think we went through so much of it watching for Aaron, you know, during the war. And I thought, and we got Aaron back in one piece. And in Ryan's case, I think that we had gotten a little bit more accustomed to it. I thought he was indestructible. I did. He just seemed to have that aura about him that everything's going to be all right. So that's, you know, why it was such a shock, you know, when he was hit so bad. But yeah, I thought he was indestructible. I thought he's going to come back and he's going to be fine.

• 1:05:04Speaker 02

  I didn't always feel that way.

• 1:05:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know.

• 1:05:07Speaker 02

  I remember when Aaron was deployed, even the first time, I just always had a peace that he would return. We would not get that visit. Or a phone call. I never thought about a phone call as much as the visit. I mean, there was times when I'd be gone from home and I knew something had happened. This is with Aaron. And I would drive up to the house and slowly and look like up there to see if there was a car in front of our house. But I remember realizing when Ryan was gone, I didn't have that same complete peace. I

• 1:05:52Speaker 02

  I knew God would protect him. And I fully trusted that.

• 1:05:59Speaker 02

  But I just wasn't sure that he really was gonna come home without something happening. I didn't, I don't know what, but.

• 1:06:07Speaker 01

  And then the phone call came. So.

• 1:06:11Jocko Willink?

  When, uh, what, when, what time of day was the phone call?

• 1:06:15Speaker 01

  It was about one thirty in the morning.

• 1:06:18Speaker 02

  One sixteen AM, April or August second.

• 1:06:21Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:06:22Jocko Willink?

  Wakes you up in the middle of the night?

• 1:06:25Speaker 01

  Middle of the night. The phone rang. Obviously, it's never anything good when the phone rings then. And I could immediately tell that it was

• 1:06:36Speaker 01

  just based on the, the background noise and everything else, that it was a call from, from his command and it was Colin Green?

• 1:06:44Speaker 02

  Well, I, the phone was on my side of the bed and I answered the phone. And he said, may I please speak to Mr. Eric Jobe? And I said, this is Debbie. Can I help you? No. May I speak to Mr. Eric Jobe? I said, I'm his wife. Can you tell me? And I mean, it was pretty obvious that it was, had to do with Ryan. And so I gave the phone to him and,

• 1:07:11Speaker 02

  you know.

• 1:07:17Jocko Willink?

  I remember Leif, Leif

• 1:07:22Jocko Willink?

  thought he was gonna die. Leif thought that, Leif, you know, when, when I talked to him on the radio, he said, he, he was horrified.

• 1:07:35Jocko Willink?

  And he thought that Ryan was gonna die.

• 1:07:40Jocko Willink?

  You know, just,

• 1:07:42Jocko Willink?

  and, and what we talked about earlier and his attitude, he was doing his job. Ryan Biggles was doing his job to the utmost. That's what he was doing. And these bounding overwatches, there's uh, army unit, Iraqi infantry, US Army infantry on the ground below. There, there's such a high probability of them being attacked. So we as SEALs would, in these cases, do what we called bounding overwatches and that's go from one building, hold security there for a while, look for enemy while another group was in another building and then just bound from building to building. And so, so it's a hundred and ten degrees out.

• 1:08:26Jocko Willink?

  Um, this was several hours into the mission. So, and by the way, before the mission, guess what you do? You plan, you do the brief, you do the insertion in the back of the Humvees. It's 100 degrees in the back of the Humvees. You, you get down there. Now you're on patrol to get to infill. Now you're running up and downstairs. It's 110 degrees, as I said, you got

• 1:08:53Jocko Willink?

  80 pounds of gear on. You know, Ryan's got his pig, which is 20 pounds or whatever, 18 pounds, 600 rounds of ammunition. That's, that's seven pounds each. This is, you know, body armor, helmet, pistol, water, grenades. Radio, you end up very, very heavy. So he's got 80, 90 pounds of gear on. And people get tired.

• 1:09:21Jocko Willink?

  And they start to kind of, you know, get complacent. Ryan did not. He was, you know, doing his job to the utmost. And, you know, that's why it's, you know, when, whenever we talk about this, we always talk about the fact that Ryan had his weapon up. Right? It's so easy to say, oh, you know, I don't see anything right now. I'm just going to go ahead and put my weapon down at the low ready or set it down on this wall or put it on the ground. And to have your weapon up after two, three, four hours of this.

• 1:09:57Jocko Willink?

  That's discipline and that's someone that's not going to let their friends down.

• 1:10:03Speaker 01

  We were told that if he had not had his weapon up, he'd have been killed instantly.

• 1:10:06Jocko Willink?

  There's no doubt in my mind. Yeah. There's no doubt in my mind.

• 1:10:10Speaker 01

  And we were told on the phone. When we got the call, I could, I could tell it was serious, but at the same time, um. They were, they were trying to give us the facts and I felt it was being minimized a little bit. He said that Ryan's lost his right eye. He's been badly injured. We think that we've saved his left eye. And I'm, my mind is going a million miles a minute. And I said, well, you know, what does that mean? Well, we think, you know, with proper care that, you know, they'll be able to save the eyesight in his left eye. And I thought, I remember thinking to myself, well, he loves the team so much. Do they have SEALs with one eye? I think they do.

• 1:10:55Speaker 01

  So I thought, you know, that that was, that was gonna be alright, but.

• 1:10:58Speaker 02

  Well, they first told us too, that I think the first details where Ryan has been shot in the head, it's not life threatening. He's lost his right eye and we're working to save the left. For hours, we just, of course, we got up and go back. How, I couldn't understand, how could he have been shot in the head? And he didn't die? It made no sense to me, but it was much later, we found out that because he had his weapon up, it was nothing but a miracle because the bullet put a hole in his weapon.

• 1:11:42Speaker 02

  And from what we were told and saw, we saw the weapon. It made a 90 degree turn and went out the back. But the blast from it hitting there, it hit his head so hard, the blast of it and his sunglasses, it shattered his, and that's what went, he had so much shrapnel in his head and the damage to his eye, but.

• 1:12:05Speaker 01

  I held his weapon in my, in my hands, you know, we got a chance to, to visit his cage in the Bat Cave. And it was remarkable because when I first looked at it, there was one small hole through the receiver on the side. And then of course, you know, everything else was shattered coming out the other side. But yeah, that's what we were told initially, lost his right eye, but we think that we might have saved his left eye. And things are gonna be alright. Later on, I find out that.

• 1:12:35Speaker 01

  He was hit so hard that, as you said, they thought he was gonna die, but he had the composure to ask him, um, uh, who was the, who's the medic, the SEAL medic?

• 1:12:47Jocko Willink?

  Johnny Kim.

• 1:12:48Speaker 01

  Johnny Kim.

• 1:12:48Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 1:12:49Speaker 01

  Uh, sit me up.

• 1:12:51Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 1:12:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, sit me up, so I can breathe, because he was choking on his own blood. And Johnny said, he had the composure to stand up and walk unassisted.

• 1:13:01Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 1:13:02Speaker 01

  Down the stairs, Johnny said that he had his hand on his shoulder, but that he could see at the time, because he was walking unassisted down, down the, down the stairs. But Johnny said it was one of the greatest feats of endurance that he had ever seen in his life.

• 1:13:19Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:19Speaker 01

  For him to, for him to do that. It's astounding.

• 1:13:22Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I, I was, uh, talking to Leif and Leif, you know, was, was like, and Johnny Kim said this too, like Leif grabbed his hand, cause he sees, you know, pool of blood, headshot, you think the worst. Heads opened up. Yep, and Leif is holding his hand, telling him, hang in there, hang in there. And Ryan, um, you know, sit me up, they sit him up, and he goes, I'm okay. And Leif just was kind of beside himself, like, this is the toughest guy ever.

• 1:13:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, put me in, coach, I'm okay.

• 1:13:59Jocko Willink?

  Um, and then, you know, Johnny, God, they, they got the casualty, casualty evacuation together and, um, and you know, that's another thing, you know, we, we, Leif, you know, talks about Chris, who was with him on, was with Ryan on the rooftop. He just said, when, when he came up on the radio and said, Biggles is down, we need a corpsman now, like, in the voice that Leif knew something was really wrong. Um.

• 1:14:35Jocko Willink?

  So you get, how much longer after that call? When was the next update that you guys got?

• 1:14:42Speaker 01

  Well, during the conversation, the next thing turned to, I remember asking, well, what's been done to the, what's been done to the savage that hit him? Somebody laughed in the background. They said, that's what I'm talking about. And

• 1:15:00Speaker 02

  Were you in the room with him?

• 1:15:01Jocko Willink?

  No. That call was coming from, uh, from the, the task group, which was in Fallujah. And so, yeah, I, yeah, that was, that was not, we didn't call until, we had, we had to get told that you were told officially before we could start making calls.

• 1:15:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was my second reaction was anger, you know? This, my son was indestructible, but somebody, you know, hit him, hit him a bad blow and I wanted something done about it. And they did. They went out and did something about it.

• 1:15:38Jocko Willink?

  How long did it take for Ryan to get home?

• 1:15:41Speaker 01

  Oh gosh. At first we thought we were going to Germany.

• 1:15:44Speaker 02

  We didn't know. They took him to Balad first.

• 1:15:50Speaker 02

  And worked on him there. Did some type of surgery, I think stabilized. I don't, they had, you know, this, this was, the right side was completely opened up. From what I understand. They were doing whatever they needed to, to relieve the pressure on the left.

• 1:16:08Speaker 02

  And I think he was there 24 hours.

• 1:16:11Jocko Willink?

  He was there a pretty short period of time.

• 1:16:13Speaker 02

  12 hours maybe, and then they took him to Germany.

• 1:16:16Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And we got updates. So Bobby Holland had been wounded and he was in Germany.

• 1:16:22Speaker 02

  He was already in Germany.

• 1:16:23Jocko Willink?

  And so, and he passed us updates, you know, that he saw bagels and

• 1:16:27Speaker 02

  He called us, we got a call from him. That was one of the,

• 1:16:34Speaker 02

  the best things of the whole couple of days was, um, yeah, Bobby called and said he was there with them and Bob was, you know, joking with him and Ryan squeezed his hand and had a little smile and just to know that.

• 1:16:52Speaker 02

  We knew, you know, at least that confirmed that he was alive, his brain was okay. Still didn't understand how he could be shot in the head, which is what they told us first.

• 1:17:06Speaker 02

  But not have complete brain injury or, you know, I don't know. But to hear that he had smiled and was reacting to jokes was just the best thing that could have ever happened right then.

• 1:17:21Speaker 01

  We were waiting at the doors of Bethesda.

• 1:17:23Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:24Speaker 01

  And we see the ambulance as an entourage, like, like a real entourage and people lining on both sides and people standing inside the doors, waiting for the ambulance to get there. And they brought his stretcher right through and I'll, I'll never forget seeing the tuft of hair.

• 1:17:46Speaker 01

  His whole head was completely bandaged, but there was that tuft of hair that I remembered from him as a baby, you know.

• 1:17:52Speaker 02

  That's about all we could see.

• 1:17:55Speaker 01

  And they said, you know, he's, he's not going to be able to, to talk to you or respond. He was in a, almost like an induced coma.

• 1:18:05Jocko Willink?

  Medically induced coma is what they were telling us.

• 1:18:07Speaker 01

  And they said it was going to be a while, yeah.

• 1:18:09Jocko Willink?

  The, the, the thing for us was, you know, like, like you said, it, it seemed like he could see on his way out when he was conscious. So, none of us had the medical foresight to understand how things are still

• 1:18:32Jocko Willink?

  degrading as time goes on. And so, you know, I, I was kind of leaning towards, yeah, he's going to lose one eye and we'll freaking get him back over here, you know, like, let's go. That was sort of, you know, once we got over the, the initial was, he's not going to live. But, you know, that, that was my first call with Leif was, Leif was not optimistic. And then, you know, it was like, oh, he could see leaving, he was standing up, he walked out of there. Then it was like, okay. And my attitude was, he's going to be good to go. You know, that was sort of the initial. My initial feeling and hope was, we're gonna be good to go.

• 1:19:16Speaker 01

  Well, we were told later on that the aircraft that he was on, that they evacuated, that they needed to fly at a certain altitude because of the pressure difference. And we were told later on that because of the pressure difference, that it affected the optic nerve on his, on his left eye. And ultimately, that's what caused it.

• 1:19:40Speaker 02

  It was the pressure that damaged the nerve.

• 1:19:43Speaker 01

  The additional pressure on the left side.

• 1:19:44Speaker 02

  And there's nothing they can do for the optic nerve to repair it.

• 1:19:48Speaker 01

  So, that's the way he came into the hospital. And it was several days before we were able to speak to him.

• 1:19:55Speaker 02

  Well, he, it was early Wednesday morning, we got the call. And then they flew us by Friday to San Diego, no, to Bethesda. So, we were there, I think we got there Friday night. But because he, yeah, we did. Because then he was scheduled to arrive, I think at whatever time it was on Saturday. And he actually, he was scheduled, I just saw, he was scheduled to arrive at 5:30 Saturday evening. And he arrived, we got a call, we were in the cafeteria, got a call that he was coming

• 1:20:38Speaker 02

  in about a half an hour early. So, we rushed down there to the ER entrance, or to that entrance where they were gonna bring him. And yeah, there comes the, you know, he had a police escort in the front on a motorcycle. And we were standing outside the doors. And that's one of the hardest things at that point then. I mean, obviously, it was great, he was alive. But just to see that, how they brought him in and the support.

• 1:21:06Speaker 01

  I thought, I thought there were multiple people coming in because of the police escort, the whole thing, from coming to the airport.

• 1:21:12Speaker 02

  Well, we didn't, I think we didn't even know at first that that was him that, that was coming in. Yeah, there was probably more people.

• 1:21:20Speaker 01

  Well, I saw the hair sticking out of the top of the bandages.

• 1:21:23Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, before they even parked and pulled him out. But yeah, then he had so much stuff on him, machines and, I mean, laying on the.

• 1:21:34Speaker 02

  There was like, everything was like this high, laying on the gurney, whatever they call it. And you could hardly see him at all, just barely. And they told us it would probably be a couple hours. They needed to get him settled and. But that was, was hard.

• 1:21:58Jocko Willink?

  He was in that medically induced coma for a pretty good amount of time.

• 1:22:09Jocko Willink?

  I know we were getting updates from Aaron was given, was passing updates on how he was doing.

• 1:22:19Jocko Willink?

  I know when, when he did eventually, when he got out of that medically induced coma. I remember the first call I had with him. And he was just telling me, asking me, sir, let me come back. Let me come back. I, I might not be able to see the enemy right now, but I can smell them. I remember he said that. That was his. He was fired up. I also, you know, they were saying that there was like, oh, he had some damage to some part of his brain, which now. Cut out his filter.

• 1:22:59Speaker 02

  Oh, yes.

• 1:22:59Jocko Willink?

  Which I'm not sure if that's the medical factor, if he just, if he just decided he was cleared hot to say whatever he wanted.

• 1:23:07Speaker 02

  No, it was, it was different than it used to be. I mean, we used to joke and he could be sarcastic at times and. But no, this, this was definitely more so.

• 1:23:16Jocko Willink?

  Going hard.

• 1:23:18Speaker 02

  I remember General Brown visited. He was the top.

• 1:23:22Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:23Speaker 02

  Special ops guy at that time. And General Brown was just laughing his head off.

• 1:23:29Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah. What's crazy now that I think about it, General Brown was in Ramadi.

• 1:23:37Jocko Willink?

  When that happened.

• 1:23:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think, I think you're right. I forgot that.

• 1:23:41Jocko Willink?

  So he was the four star general in charge of SOCOM. And Ryan got hit in the morning. Mark got killed a little while after. And we had a visit from General Brown. That early afternoon, like, like just after lunch. And I actually had known General Brown from when I was the Admiral's aide. And he, you know, he was completely, um, you know, sympathetic and, and just very understanding of the whole situation. As a matter of fact, he came out that night. We put Mark on the, the angel flight, the hero flight going home and he was standing there with,

• 1:24:25Jocko Willink?

  with the rest of the platoon and the rest of the Marines, the three Marines had also lost a guy that day. Uh, Corporal Joe Thompson and, and so he was getting, it was all of us out there. Um, the Marines, the three Marines and, and us all out there on the line saying goodbye to our guys. And General Brown was right there with him.

• 1:24:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, Ryan did, Ryan did not know that Mark was gone for days.

• 1:24:50Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:51Speaker 01

  You know, after he got to Bethesda. And I was in the room when he got the news.

• 1:24:58Jocko Willink?

  Who told him? You remember?

• 1:25:01Speaker 01

  He said it was Chris. Uh, this is a guy that was there to help us a bit.

• 1:25:07Speaker 02

  He was assigned to us while we were at Bethesda.

• 1:25:10Speaker 01

  And

• 1:25:10Speaker 02

  Help with everything.

• 1:25:12Speaker 01

  Just the way it happened, uh, Chris was in the room and he was awake. And Chris mentioned to me, he says, I think we need to let Ryan know what's, what's happened.

• 1:25:26Speaker 01

  And just the agonized reaction that he had. He just said, Mark's gone. He couldn't believe it. Couldn't believe it. He thought, you know, at that time, he was on, he was highly medicated and everything else. I don't think he believed it, you know, at first. And Chris had to reemphasize it, but it was a side of Ryan I'd never seen before. I mean, that kind of agony over it because he thought a great deal of Mark. Losing anybody, you know, was, was really tough, but um, just the, the shock of where he was, I don't think he even understood where he was for a while.

• 1:26:11Speaker 01

  I think for a while he thought he was in a hospital, you know, back in, uh, back in Iraq or something, but God, that was, that was one of the hardest things I ever saw in my whole life.

• 1:26:25Speaker 01

  Never seen that side of him before. It's like,

• 1:26:30Speaker 01

  almost watching a terrified little boy, you know, at, at the time. That's, that's kind of how it, how it struck you. It wasn't the case, but that was my first reaction. It was, it was, uh, one of the hardest things I ever saw, ever.

• 1:26:47Jocko Willink?

  What you said about, um, Ryan seeming indestructible, that was definitely, Mark was the same way. And, and, and I, and this is, talking to guys from the army,

• 1:27:05Jocko Willink?

  they kind of thought the same thing. It, it was a, it was a huge, it was a devastating, uh, hit to morale.

• 1:27:15Jocko Willink?

  Because for months we'd been going out and, you know, been really, uh,

• 1:27:23Jocko Willink?

  doing an outstanding job of killing the enemy and doing it, you know, from places and from, you know, uh, without the enemy even understanding what was happening. And it was, it was so, the, the army and the Marine Corps were so happy.

• 1:27:43Jocko Willink?

  You know, they, you, you know, again, just, just imagine you've got like, um,

• 1:27:51Jocko Willink?

  An army, a couple, an army Humvee gets blown up by an IED, kills two, three guys. A day later, SEAL snipers kill two IED emplacers in that spot. And we did that kind of thing, like, oh, people shop RPG, killed a, killed a Marine. Oh, a day later, SEALs kill, SEAL snipers kill a, a RPG gunner in that area. So our relationship with the, with the Army and the Marine Corps was awesome. And we were kind of, we, we felt indestructible. And they viewed us as indestructible.

• 1:28:33Jocko Willink?

  And this is like, this is coming from, you know, some of their leadership that told me this is, this hurts us. And so I'm sure, you know, when, when Mark got killed, it was devastating for Army guys, for Marines. So for Ryan to wake up and hear that, I, yeah, I can't imagine how that made him feel.

• 1:28:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, intellectually, you know, I, I knew that he could have been injured or killed, but that was my shield. You know, he's indestructible. He's around other indestructible people and there hadn't been a loss. You know, up to that point. And he was the new guy. So my feeling at the time, he's going to be put a bit more in the background. You know, he's not going to be as, as exposed as the more experienced guys on the team. And Ryan, Ryan wouldn't have liked that to begin with. He wouldn't have tolerated that. But that's, that's the picture that was in my mind's eye at the time. So.

• 1:29:39Jocko Willink?

  So you, you're with him when the word came that the hope for his vision was gone?

• 1:29:52Speaker 01

  I was sitting at the end of his bed.

• 1:29:54Jocko Willink?

  So this is just to back up. This is like three weeks, right? It's about three weeks of.

• 1:30:01Jocko Willink?

  Of they're trying to they're they're testing, they're they're shining lights, they're doing all this thing, they're doing x-rays and all this stuff, because that's the word we're getting, is that they're, you know, they're oh, they're gonna try this, they're looking at this, and they think he sees some light. So our attitude was very positive, you know, maybe naively positive, but we all wanted to believe he's gonna be okay.

• 1:30:23Speaker 01

  Well, Ryan had been telling me that, he said, I think I can see some light, I think I can see some dark, this had been going on, that's why I'm backing up a little bit, that I'm thinking to myself, maybe there's some hope here. Well, I was I was in his room when the ophthalmic surgeon came in, and Ryan started right in on it, I think I can see some shadows, I think I can see some light, and just right to the point, about as blunt as you could possibly be, but it's what he needed to hear. He said, Ryan, you're blind, in both eyes, you are never gonna see again, ever. And I don't think two seconds

• 1:31:03Speaker 01

  went by. And Ryan said, well, I guess I'll just be the best blind Navy SEAL ever. And I was just absolutely floored. I, I, it was really hard to process. It's just hard to explain. I mean, I'm, I'm hearing at the same time that there's a life-changing situation that's happening, right there on the spot, right in front of me. And that's his first reaction. And I was just, I was stunned, I was speechless. I didn't know what

• 1:31:46Speaker 01

  to say. Well, the surgeon went into a little bit more detail, and Ryan sat there stoic, just, just listening. And it was all like, it was difficult for me to maintain my composure. Because my hope was gone then, too. But I think I took it, I took it worse than he did. He was so determined, you know, that he was gonna make the best of it somehow. But that's the kind of attitude that he always had. He just never quit. And he was stubborn. He was stubborn. We were talking the other day when, I don't know, what was he, seven years old in Portland?

• 1:32:30Speaker 02

  Three. He was three. Table incident.

• 1:32:35Speaker 01

  We're, we're having a big family gathering. Christmas dinner. And we had been trying to get the children to say, may I please be excused from the table? And there was one of these, every, you hear all the chatter, all the family chatter, a lot of people there in the house. And all of a sudden, for some reason, there was one of those long awkward pauses where it's quiet. He goes, "I'm not gonna do that. I'm not, I'm not gonna do it." And I remember looking around at everybody else and I thought, this is gonna be a real problem. He is gonna be out of control unless we get this under control.

• 1:33:17Speaker 01

  The dreaded test of wills between father and son. Yeah, and I thought, if I don't win this battle, it's all over. And I said, "Well, you're gonna sit in the other room in the dark with the door shut until you do." "Okay." Just like that. So he was marched in there.

• 1:33:37Speaker 02

  Well, he was still at the table. He just stayed at the table because he wouldn't ask to be excused, so.

• 1:33:43Speaker 01

  Well, so he's in the other room with the door shut, the lights off, and he hears everybody in there having a great time. So about every half hour, I'd get up, I'd go poke my head in the door. "Are you ready to say that?" And he was like, "No." He just shook his head. "I'm not gonna do it." I don't know who was more relieved. But three hours later, this is a young kid. Here's the big party going on. He's not a part of it. He's all by himself. "I'm not gonna do it."

• 1:34:14Speaker 02

  He wasn't upset.

• 1:34:16Speaker 01

  No. Finally, after three hours, I poked my head in. "All right, can I please be excused?" And I thought, like I said, I don't know who was more relieved. I think I probably was. So.

• 1:34:31Speaker 01

  I'm really glad that he did because he could have sat there all night long. I mean, all night long. And he would have done it, too.

• 1:34:39Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:40Speaker 01

  But, and I knew then, I, I, I remember telling Debbie. I said, if we can channel that kind of stubbornness.

• 1:34:50Jocko Willink?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:34:50Speaker 01

  In the right direction, he's gonna be somebody. And, uh, and he did. He did. We were.

• 1:35:00Speaker 01

  We were privileged to be. The parents of the man that wrote those words that you started off, that you started off with. Privileged to be his parents. In so many ways, and then, you know, of course, after he was wounded. He, uh.

• 1:35:20Speaker 01

  He went on to accomplish things that I, I didn't really think were possible. But, um.

• 1:35:27Speaker 01

  Climbing a mountain, a fourteen thousand foot mountain, when you're completely stone cold blind is, is difficult.

• 1:35:35Speaker 01

  And of course, everybody knows about the hunting.

• 1:35:37Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:38Speaker 01

  Incident, you know, later on down the road, but it's the way, it's the way that he was, he wouldn't quit.

• 1:35:43Jocko Willink?

  That was the same, the same, um, attitude that, you know, when I talked to him. After we all got the news and then we started making calls to him. And, you know, he told me again, I can still come on deployment, I can come back. I can smell them, bring me back and, uh, told me I'm gonna be the best blind guy ever. Um, and actually, you know, he told, he told Leif. Um, the best news I've, I could have gotten, because I don't have to worry about it anymore. It's the best news, now I know what I'm gonna do. Now I know what I'm gonna do. And, and, and, you know.

• 1:36:25Jocko Willink?

  I know Leif was, Leif kept it together on the call, but I mean, you know, like you said, it goes from being a kind of a minor inconvenience in life to have only one eye to totally different life that you're living with no eyes. And you know, Leif, Leif went outside and just cried for probably half an hour. But when we would think about his attitude,

• 1:36:58Jocko Willink?

  who are we? Who are we?

• 1:37:02Speaker 01

  Well, he, he told me on the phone that there was some, some discussion about the Navy keeping him as a BUDS instructor as long as he was with a sighted instructor. And he told me on the phone, he said, Dad, I've been an operator. I can't, I can't do that. I can't go back.

• 1:37:19Jocko Willink?

  Well, I, so I, Admiral McGuire, who was in charge of the SEALs at the time, um, cause there was, you know, the first reaction was like, okay, if he wants to stay in, and I heard there's like, oh, well, what could he do? And I, I talked to Admiral McGuire and I said, sir, Ryan Job wants to stay in the teams. And Admiral McGuire said, as long as Ryan Job wants to.

• 1:37:57Jocko Willink?

  As long as Ryan Job wants to be in the SEAL teams, then we'll have a job for him.

• 1:38:03Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:38:06Speaker 01

  He just said, Dad, I've been an operator and I can't go back. So.

• 1:38:14Speaker 01

  He wanted to contribute more.

• 1:38:15Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:16Speaker 01

  He, he knew what things, you know, would have been like, you know, after that.

• 1:38:20Jocko Willink?

  Well, he would have been a freaking awesome instructor. I can tell you that. He would have been, he would have been an awesome instructor. Cause what an example. But, but you know, that's,

• 1:38:36Jocko Willink?

  it is like a thing in the SEAL teams, you know, you want to be in a platoon. That's where you want to be. You don't want to be anywhere else. And, um, yeah, that was his attitude.

• 1:38:55Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, we, you know, we, we came home from that deployment.

• 1:39:02Jocko Willink?

  And, you know, ultimately, he was, was gonna carry on with his life, which was, which was awesome. Um, and like you said, it was, it was just, uh, triumph after triumph, you know? Whether it was getting married to Kelly, um, moved out to Arizona, ends up going to college. And, and, um, you know, studying, we hadn't, we ended up having a, um, we went out, Task Unit Bruiser went out in two thousand and eight, April of two thousand and eight to DC.

• 1:39:44Jocko Willink?

  And, you know, they were giving out, basically it was, it was a ceremony for Mikey Monsour Medal of Honor. And then they did a bunch of awards for the guys in Task Unit Bruiser, including, including Ryan. And he had his dog out, they had Trey out there. Yeah. And it was just awesome, awesome, um, to see him and, and see how he was doing, just driving on. Just, uh,

• 1:40:16Jocko Willink?

  and totally inspirational to, to watch that happen. And, um, and then, like you said, climbs Mount Rainier, fourteen thousand feet. Yeah. Uh, Camp Patriot, camppatriot.org, still, still a group that's out there. But they took him and a couple of the veterans to climb Mount, Mount Rainier, fourteen thousand feet. And it's not a, it's, it's a freaking tough climb.

• 1:40:46Jocko Willink?

  Challenge.

• 1:40:50Speaker 01

  For someone that's blind, trying to place your feet, you know, he was roped up, you know, to a couple of experienced climbers, but they, even they were in awe because it was difficult, difficult to do because it was more strenuous, I think constantly searching for your footing and everything else and um, he just, and not only that, he had a pack on. They said it was just awesome to watch him, you know.

• 1:41:18Speaker 02

  Well, and then even the next year, he climbed it in 2008, summited 2009, he went back and packed up to base camp for the next group that was gonna summit. So he carried gear up to Camp Mirror.

• 1:41:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, he was really strong, strong.

• 1:41:35Speaker 02

  So he could help the next group.

• 1:41:40Jocko Willink?

  We saw, we all linked up again to, well, not everyone, but October of 2008. So the um, the Navy SEAL Foundation flew everyone out to New York because they were gonna announce the, the, the beginning of the ship, the USS Michael Monsour. And um, I guess Ryan was gonna be, you know, was gonna speak at this event. And, you know, of course, we're all, we're all working and doing our thing. And I, I think Ryan told Leif, you know, if you, if you don't come to this thing, I'm never gonna talk to you again. Because he wanted

• 1:42:20Jocko Willink?

  us to go see him, uh, doing his thing. And um, they, they like, what they did is they, they had some of the other wounded warriors on like a video explaining, hey, you know, I've been wounded, but this is, you know, my job. This is what I would do. I'd do it again. Just very moving.

• 1:42:39Jocko Willink?

  Video and um, and then when the video was done with these other wounded seals that were talking about their job and doing their job, um, the lights came up and, and Ryan walked out and, and uh, he said, uh, I'm Ryan Job and I approved this message. He explained the same thing. Yeah. But it was also funny because you know, he, he kinda I guess asked the Navy SEAL Foundation, what do you want me to talk about? And they gave him a speech. He goes, I can't read a speech. I'm blind. So this is not a good, this is not good protocol for y'all. And that's actually where Leif, because, because Ryan did guilt trip

• 1:43:20Jocko Willink?

  Leif into going out there. That's, that's how Leif met his, yup, that's how he met his bride, Jenna Lee. So, uh, yeah. And then you were mentioning the elk. So again, Cape, camppatriot.org. Uh, uh, Ryan called Leif and said, Hey, I'm doing a hunt. I'm gonna hunt an elk. I got it all set up. And Leif said, oh, awesome. He's, you know, Ryan, do you want to go? And Leif's like, a hundred percent. Give me the dates. Gave him the dates and Leif's like, cool, got it. Leif just had to cancel his, his 10 year reunion for the Naval Academy and uh, at his hotel and travel and all that.

• 1:44:02Speaker 02

  I didn't know about that part.

• 1:44:04Jocko Willink?

  But Leif doesn't care about any of that. He wanted to take care of his brother. Um, and man, what a beast of a bull. So what they did, for people that are wondering, they had like a video monitor or a video camera set up to the scope. The weapon was dialed in. And He had a voice mic. Yup. And, and so Leif's watching the crosshairs and where they are. And they actually had to go out, took them a couple hours to get in a position. Cause you, you know, you gotta get a good shot. And it took them a couple hours and then just, just got an awesome shot, put the bull down. And uh, Leif was telling me, Ryan, Ryan wanted to

• 1:44:49Jocko Willink?

  shoot it again. And Leif's like, no, it's down. He's like, let me just put another one in it.

• 1:44:56Jocko Willink?

  So Leif was able to, to, uh, to restrain him from doing that.

• 1:45:03Speaker 02

  From ruining the whole thing.

• 1:45:05Speaker 01

  I think he kind of felt like he was freed up to say whatever he wanted. He had a, he had kind of a canned speech that he would give when they were down in Arizona, uh, because I think he was asked to speak at several different organizations. And he was down there one time. I, I remember him calling me up and telling me he did this. Remember he was giving his speech down there and for some reason it ended up a little early and they made the mistake of opening it up to questions.

• 1:45:36Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's.

• 1:45:37Speaker 01

  And the question was along the lines of, what do you think about the new administration, uh, serving under the new administration? And I probably shouldn't use that kind of language, but he said, well, you wouldn't catch me serving under this piece of crap. And he called, he called me up and told me that. I said, you can't say that. You can't do that. And he goes, what are they gonna do? What are they gonna do?

• 1:46:03Speaker 02

  Fire me?

• 1:46:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, fire me. Like I said, what came up, came out.

• 1:46:07Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, no.

• 1:46:08Speaker 01

  But he knew what he was doing and he did it on purpose.

• 1:46:10Jocko Willink?

  He was, um, completely unfiltered. It was, it was wild.

• 1:46:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:46:17Jocko Willink?

  It was, it was freaking hilarious to be around.

• 1:46:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:46:20Jocko Willink?

  And you had to be on your toes and there's going to be some collateral damage, but you know, he was going to speak his mind and I don't think anyone was going to say, no, no, except for I guess maybe his old man.

• 1:46:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:46:38Jocko Willink?

  He ends up, um, Kelly gets pregnant. Um, and, and I guess Kelly had said, hey, don't tell anyone. And he told everybody.

• 1:46:47Speaker 01

  Again, he's gonna just.

• 1:46:49Jocko Willink?

  Shoot, I won't.

• 1:46:52Jocko Willink?

  He ends up telling everyone and then you know, the thing is, oh, what do you, you know, what are you going to name it if it's a girl? What do you name it to the boy? Oh, doesn't matter. Ryan Job.

• 1:47:09Jocko Willink?

  He ends up, you know, graduates with a, a degree in business administration, gets a 4.0, 4.0 GPA, which is amazing.

• 1:47:16Speaker 02

  Submitting his final paper the night before he went into the hospital for surgery.

• 1:47:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:47:24Speaker 01

  His diploma passed in the mail after he passed away.

• 1:47:33Jocko Willink?

  So the amazing thing.

• 1:47:37Jocko Willink?

  So September 24th, 2009.

• 1:47:41Jocko Willink?

  And, and at this point, there'd been, there were, the surgeries had kind of, at least on the surface, I know it's not a reality, but on the surface, they'd become kind of routine because he was getting so many surgeries.

• 1:47:58Jocko Willink?

  And this was, this was his 20 second surgery. Again, like there were so many surgeries. And it just didn't seem like there was a threat. Didn't seem like anything seemed like he was, didn't seem like anything could happen.

• 1:48:11Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:48:11Speaker 02

  Surgery went well. They were pleased with how it turned out and they expected

• 1:48:17Speaker 02

  good results.

• 1:48:20Speaker 02

  He needed live blood flow to that orbit, to that eye area that he had lost because it kept getting infected. And so they grafted an artery through his temple somehow. I don't remember the details. And it went well.

• 1:48:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, I spoke with him, uh, right after the surgery and, uh,

• 1:48:49Speaker 01

  He had survived the surgery. I happened to be over having lunch with pastor of the church that we'd been going to a few times. And my phone rings and it's him. And I said, "How are you feeling? I mean, how's it going?" And when he spoke, I could tell he sounded congested, you know, on the phone. And I said, "Well, you sound good, but you sound a little congested." He goes, "Yeah, but I'm not out of the woods yet." And I remember thinking, just offhandedly, that was a little odd, you know, for him to say something like that. "But I'm not out of the woods yet."

• 1:49:34Speaker 01

  Just wasn't characteristic of him. And there was some more just mundane conversation about this or that. And we had to go. And the last words he ever said to me was, "I love you, Dad." I said, "I love you, love you, Ryan. Love you, Dad." And the next morning, he was gone. Well, that night, he was gone. Debbie was down there. I wasn't. So... But I'm grateful for that. I'm grateful that I had that. I'm still grateful to this day that I had that. Yeah. Yeah, I love you, Dad. Yeah.

• 1:50:17Speaker 01

  So you really never know. You just don't know. Every minute, every hour that we have is a gift. And he was a gift. He was a gift to us. He really, truly was.

• 1:50:34Jocko Willink?

  We had the funeral. It was out in Scottsdale and obviously every guy that could get out there from the teams, we posted up out there.

• 1:50:51Jocko Willink?

  Leif, Leif spoke. I got some words that Leif spoke there.

• 1:50:58Jocko Willink?

  Part of what he said was, "While Ryan wouldn't have chosen to be blind, he bore his burden with unmatched dignity. With pristine honesty in his voice, he told me, "I am glad that I was the one this happened to and not one of you guys." Yep. "A testament to what Ryan was willing to sacrifice for his brothers in arms and a statement of his strength and will." "Two of the things that drove him not only to survive but thrive in his new environment for the next three years."

• 1:51:30Jocko Willink?

  "We thank God for these past three years that were given to him. In those three years, he accomplished more than most do in a lifetime. People would call Ryan a hero. He wasn't comfortable with that."

• 1:51:43Jocko Willink?

  "I'm not a hero, Ryan would say. Just because I got shot doesn't make me a hero."

• 1:51:49Jocko Willink?

  "Ryan, it wasn't just getting shot that made you a hero. It was going out on operations day after day,

• 1:51:58Jocko Willink?

  night after night, which you could have been killed or gravely wounded at any moment that made you a hero. It was your courage and determination in the most intense combat situations that made you a hero. It was your will to overcome the loss of your sight. It was a tremendous inspiration to others through your indomitable spirit that made you a hero. It was being a friend, brother, son, husband, and now father, with unending love in your heart that made you a hero.

• 1:52:30Jocko Willink?

  Ryan, as humble as you are, I am here to tell you, you are a hero.

• 1:52:35Jocko Willink?

  Your spirit and sacrifice will never be forgotten. It will live on with us, and we are comforted to know

• 1:52:45Jocko Willink?

  that we will see you again."

• 1:52:49Speaker 01

  I wanted to add to that, that he always kept his sense of humor.

• 1:52:52Jocko Willink?

  He did.

• 1:52:53Speaker 01

  He was, he was in a store.

• 1:52:57Speaker 01

  I think it might have been a grocery store at the checkout line. And there was a, you know, he had a bad, real bad scar, you know, on his face. And a mother and her young daughter were right behind him and she says, "Look at that man. What happened to his face?" Real loud and didn't skip a beat. Ryan turned around and said, "This should teach you never to run with scissors."

• 1:53:26Speaker 01

  I couldn't believe that he did. How did he come up with that that fast? "This will teach you never to run with scissors."

• 1:53:31Jocko Willink?

  You know, even that line that Leif quoted, you know, "I'm not a hero," Ryan would say. And you could read it like this, "Just because I got shot doesn't make me a hero." That's not how he would say it. He'd say it like, "Hey, just because I got shot doesn't make me a hero." You know, he, he was, yeah, he was freaking hilarious. And that's one of the many reasons why everybody loved him.

• 1:53:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:53:52Jocko Willink?

  Because it's not, you know, it's not just a tough guy. It's not just a warrior. It's a guy that's always gonna make people laugh. And that's what, that's what endeared him so much to everybody in the task unit was he's gonna put a smile on his face. And he doesn't mind. He doesn't, he's gonna, he's gonna take it. He could dish it out, but he could take it. It didn't matter. He's gonna have a good time doing it. And it was just, he was just epic to be around.

• 1:54:18Speaker 01

  Yeah. He was a force of nature, that's for sure.

• 1:54:21Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 1:54:23Jocko Willink?

  How did you, what was it like now? And as far as when people are dealing with loss, what did you learn from losing Ryan?

• 1:54:38Speaker 01

  For me, it's just how short life can be and it can be taken so quickly. And I think we really need to appreciate each and every hour that we have. And to try, to try to be a blessing to other people. Whoever you contact with, that's one of the lessons that I learned. I try to do that, to try to be a blessing to other people that I come in contact with. And Ryan could have a pretty strong temper, you know, when he wanted to. He and I, he and I shared that. He had a temper about injustice, you know, to other people.

• 1:55:22Speaker 01

  And he was, he and his brother both were taught, "Don't ever put up with a bully. Don't, don't ever do that." And that was probably one of the few things in our home that would lead to severe discipline is, first of all, never be one, and secondly, don't ever tolerate it for other people. My younger son, I came home one afternoon, and there he is, sitting on the couch from high school, because he had taken up for someone that was weaker, and apparently beat the tar out of him, and they suspended him. So they sent him home, and there he is with the,

• 1:56:07Speaker 01

  wait till your dad gets home, look on his face. So I walked in the door and Debbie, Debbie was there. "Tell your dad what you did." So he did. I said, "Terrific, you did just what I said. Let's go to the movies." So there was that. But, yeah, they, they wouldn't tolerate a bully. So you have to stand up for people that are weaker than you are, and, and do what's right, no matter, no matter what the cost is. And both of them, both of them did. So I'm grateful. I'm really grateful for that.

• 1:56:50Jocko Willink?

  And Ryan's daughter was born, um, Leah Ryan Jobe. Born on April Fool's Day. April 1st, 2010.

• 1:56:59Speaker 02

  Made me laugh, because I'm sure he was laughing.

• 1:57:01Jocko Willink?

  He plotted that one somehow.

• 1:57:06Jocko Willink?

  Um. Carried on with your lives, obviously. What do you, what do you? What are you, what are you all up to now?

• 1:57:15Jocko Willink?

  I know you moved to the country.

• 1:57:17Speaker 01

  First, first the book came out. And that prompted some phone calls. Then the movie came out.

• 1:57:24Jocko Willink?

  Oh, so this is now American Sniper, the book, and then American Sniper, the movie.

• 1:57:27Speaker 01

  So. I went looking for another place for sanctuary. And.

• 1:57:36Speaker 01

  Um.

• 1:57:38Speaker 01

  There was just so much going on. On the one hand, we felt like we needed to go see the movie. On the other hand, we didn't. Um. I'm glad we did. But. That's one of the reasons that we ended up, you know, living. Living in the country just for sanctuary. I have a spot that I go to, you know, with. Some things to remember him by down there, a quiet stream. Out in the country and it's my quiet place that I get to go to. So.

• 1:58:16Speaker 01

  That's, that's what I have, but.

• 1:58:20Speaker 01

  I'm. I'm one of those. Rare fathers. That gets to look up to his own son. That's an amazing thing, you know? When you think about it, so. It's a very rare thing. Like I said, we were privileged to have him for as long as we did. And, uh. To this day, I think he.

• 1:58:47Speaker 01

  Inspires people that still might look into the story about who he was and what he did. And, uh. He was a man's man in every respect, in every respect. And. I like that. I like that a lot.

• 1:59:09Speaker 01

  Your turn.

• 1:59:10Speaker 02

  All are retired now. Moved to the country.

• 1:59:15Speaker 01

  We're just farmers now.

• 1:59:16Speaker 02

  Built a garden this year.

• 1:59:18Speaker 01

  Beautiful. We're glad to have indoor plumbing and stuff like that.

• 1:59:23Speaker 02

  Yep, it's a whole new life up there. But I miss Aaron and his family for sure. Like to try to see them more. But it's a quieter pace. It's what we needed.

• 1:59:42Speaker 01

  I miss them every day. Every day. I think about them.

• 1:59:50Jocko Willink?

  Well, I want to close by, um. I got another email from Ryan. That he sent Leif and asked Leif to circulate it around the teams. And I know we're recording this podcast today. On August 2nd, 2024. Eighteen years after the day that Ryan was wounded. Then eighteen years to the day after Mark Lee was killed in action. And this email is an email that Ryan sent out on Sunday, August 3rd, 2008.

• 2:00:34Jocko Willink?

  From Ryan Jobe. Subject: I live. Let all who know me and call me my friend and call me friend hear my words. I am alive and well. The events of O2, August 2006 injured my warrior flesh. But I am still a warrior. My warrior spirit remains strong and intact. My head is bloodied, but unbowed. I am alive. Few men have the privilege of listing by name those whose actions provided me my life. I can. Leif Babin,

• 2:01:21Jocko Willink?

  Mike H., Nick H., Tony Affrati, Jeremy Beal, Chris Kyle, Bob Holland, Jake K., Ben T., Matt Hasby, Adam S., Kevin Lace,

• 2:01:40Jocko Willink?

  Jason Hogan, Johnny Kim, Nick Kush,

• 2:01:47Jocko Willink?

  and Mark Allen Lee.

• 2:01:52Jocko Willink?

  I owe my life to SEAL Team 3 Task Unit Bruiser Charlie Platoon.

• 2:01:59Jocko Willink?

  I am alive and well,

• 2:02:02Jocko Willink?

  and Mark Allen Lee is home and will never be forgotten.

• 2:02:09Jocko Willink?

  In memory of Mark Allen Lee, killed in action, 02 August 2006, Ramadi, Iraq. To old Charlie,

• 2:02:21Jocko Willink?

  Bagels.

• 2:02:34Jocko Willink?

  You raised an amazing kid, an amazing man, amazing frogman.

• 2:02:41Jocko Willink?

  And, um, thank you so much for,

• 2:02:46Jocko Willink?

  for joining me here today and sharing your stories and sharing your experiences and, and most important, thank you for the gift that you all gave us.

• 2:02:58Jocko Willink?

  True warrior, a true inspiration and an example for all of us. And,

• 2:03:09Jocko Willink?

  we'll never forget him.

• 2:03:11Speaker 01

  Thank you for honoring Ryan in this way.

• 2:03:18Jocko Willink?

  We won't forget him. Thank you.

• 2:03:22Jocko Willink?

  And with that,

• 2:03:25Jocko Willink?

  Eric and Debbie Jobe

• 2:03:28Jocko Willink?

  have left the building. Thanks for listening. And please,

• 2:03:36Jocko Willink?

  please remember our fallen heroes. And if you run into some challenges in your life,

• 2:03:46Jocko Willink?

  try and

• 2:03:48Jocko Willink?

  try and think of Ryan Jobe,

• 2:03:51Jocko Willink?

  Bagels.

• 2:03:53Jocko Willink?

  And keep going forward.

• 2:03:58Jocko Willink?

  Maintain

• 2:04:01Jocko Willink?

  your progress, bloodied, but unbowed.

• 2:04:08Jocko Willink?

  And go out into the world

• 2:04:11Jocko Willink?

  and live.

• 2:04:14Jocko Willink?

  And until next time, this is Jaco. Out.