182: The Terrifying and Claustrophobic Reality of The Vietnam Jungle. w/ John "TILT" Stryker Meyer

0:00:00 – Opening 0:05:48 – John "Tilt" Stryker Meyer 1:08:27 – What it was like Operating in Vietnam 2:11:46 – Final thoughts and take-aways. 2:16:52 – Support: How to stay on THE PATH. 2:46:50 – Closing gratitude. 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 182 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening.

• 0:10Jocko Willink?

  The insertion was flawless. We were in the wood line and on our way for a general area reconnaissance. This time, we played it by the book, moving 10 minutes, then waiting 10 minutes. As we moved, I swore that I'd never run an eight man team again. It's too cumbersome. In this target, the vegetation still made me a tad on edge as it had a second canopy in some areas, but still gave us long lines of sight, something we weren't used to. As darkness approached, we looked for a good spot to RON.

• 0:48Jocko Willink?

  With the flat terrain, finding a good RON became really dicey. Ordinarily, we'd look for high ground, dense vegetation, or an area far from any trail. Finally, we found one and Sal set up a perimeter, set up the watch rotation, and oversaw the placement of extra claymore mines. In one area where the vegetation was thin, Bubba placed a couple of toe poppers in the ground. I couldn't sleep. The flat terrain played on my mind. Before first light, the entire team was awake, alert, retrieving the claymore mines and preparing for our move out of the RON.

• 1:26Jocko Willink?

  After a night on the jungle floor, I wanted an R and R anywhere with firm beds, clean sheets, and cold drinks. Because I insisted on carrying the PRC-25, there was little room in my backpack except for essentials. At night, when I slept on the ground, I did so without an air mattress or hammock. The sole item of comfort was an army-issue pullover sweater that buttoned up to the neck. Whenever I put it on at night, I was always worried about Charlie hitting us when I was pulling the sweater over my head. It was one of the few creature comforts I allowed myself or had room for in my rucksack.

• 2:09Jocko Willink?

  Shortly after first light, the Green Hornets CNC aircraft flew into the edge of our AO for a routine commo check. I gave him a quick team okay and prepared to move the team out of the RON. However, the CNC crew told me to wrap up the mission. There was another problem that he couldn't discuss on an open frequency. We knew the NVA monitored SOG FM radio transmissions and had radio direction finding equipment. The CNC pilot told us to find an LZ and to let him know when we'd be ready for extraction. A few minutes later, the Green Hornets roared into the new LZ, picked us up, and returned us to base. The reason we were yanked from the field this time stemmed from a tragedy in the Prairie Friar area of operations on 30 November.

• 2:56Jocko Willink?

  An aged 34 King B was shot out of the sky during an eldest son operation. Seven Green Berets from FOB 1 and FOB 4 were killed when an anti-aircraft round struck the Sikorsky chopper and ignited the ammunition on the aircraft, killing everyone onboard.

• 3:16Jocko Willink?

  One of the men killed in that ill-fated King B was Staff Sergeant Arthur E. Bader.

• 3:23Jocko Willink?

  I liked Bader. On my last night at FOB 1 before shipping out to FOB 6, I played in a poker game where he won a lot of money.

• 3:34Jocko Willink?

  The longer we played, the more money Bader won. The more money Bader won, the more morose he became. At one point, I asked him what was wrong. He was winning, and he was ahead several hundred dollars, but kept complaining that he'd never spend the money.

• 3:54Jocko Willink?

  His response was that he had a premonition that he was going to die, and that men about to die often win a lot of money, money that they would never spend.

• 4:06Jocko Willink?

  We all tried to josh him out of his dark mood, but failed. Bader was a unique Special Forces Green Beret. He had earned and lost three separate fortunes in between three terms in the service. He was in his 30s but still enjoyed SF, spoke fluent German and a few other languages, and merely wanted to accomplish any mission assigned to him.

• 4:31Jocko Willink?

  On the flight, on the long flight back to Phu Bai, I kept hearing him talk to us at the poker table that last night.

• 4:40Jocko Willink?

  Now, he was gone.

• 4:49Jocko Willink?

  Now he was gone and that

• 4:54Jocko Willink?

  is the reality of war captured in the bestselling book Across the Fence.

• 5:01Jocko Willink?

  And back with us again to talk about war is the author of that book and of another book called On the Ground and of a series of books called The Sog Chronicles, a man who has seen more than most and who has had more close calls than any man should have. John Stryker Meyer. And if you haven't listened to Podcast 180 and 181 yet, go back and listen to them first to hear the background of this hero, this warrior, special forces soldier and leader of RT Idaho.

• 5:39Jocko Willink?

  A recon team from MACV Sog, working missions across the border from Vietnam into Laos and Cambodia. John? Good evening, sir. Good evening. Thanks for coming back again. Glad to be back. Every time you walk out of the studio about 10 minutes later, I said you would text say, hey, can you come back again next week? We just had so much fun, I can't say no. That's happened. That's that happened. That's both. That's how you ended up here again. Every time you walk out of here, I go, I want to hear you talk more. Hear more about what you've done. And yeah, no, it's been awesome. And the response from people have been hitting me up. They've been just just enthralled with what you've been talking about and hearing, hearing you tell these stories

• 6:24Jocko Willink?

  has been, has been interesting. And if you haven't seen this, have you heard of a movie character named Jason Bourne?

• 6:32Jocko Willink?

  Have you heard of this guy? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So I posted a picture of you when you were 21 or 20. I think you were 22. He's my illegitimate son. Yeah. They, you've got some definite comments about that. Interesting. So, yeah, we got the, the real guy back again. So.

• 6:52Jocko Willink?

  I know we, that, that first excerpt that I just read was from Across the Fence. And I wanted to go back to your other book for a little bit. The book On The Ground. And then I just want to, I got a bunch of things I want to just ask you about and talk to you about. But I wanted to cover one more section of this book On The Ground. I was reading through it again yesterday and it's just again, one of these situations where

• 7:19Jocko Willink?

  I don't know how you're here right now, to be honest with you.

• 7:23John Stryker Meyer?

  Only buddy Grace a guy.

• 7:24Jocko Willink?

  Indeed.

• 7:25John Stryker Meyer?

  The recon guys, the smile on our team.

• 7:28Jocko Willink?

  And you know, I, you guys had more than a hundred percent casualty rate.

• 7:32John Stryker Meyer?

  Correct.

• 7:34Jocko Willink?

  You had guys that, you had some guys that had seven, eight, nine, Purple Hearts.

• 7:39John Stryker Meyer?

  Bob Howard was put in for 11. He only received eight. In my case, I've been put in for two more, but it's just shrapnel. You know, you look at guys that get their legs blown off, arms blown off, it's like almost embarrassed to take it. And, and anybody got a Purple Heart in our day, you got really ragged for it. You know, cause like you dumbass, you just couldn't get out of the way fast enough. You got a Purple Heart.

• 8:02Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. I think we had, one of my old Vietnam SEAL buddies, I think he called it the Viet Cong Achievement Medal was the Purple Heart.

• 8:11John Stryker Meyer?

  That's a good one. I like that.

• 8:15Jocko Willink?

  So you were put in for two more? How many did you get already?

• 8:18John Stryker Meyer?

  I was having one.

• 8:19Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 8:20John Stryker Meyer?

  And again, Spider Parks and Pat Watkins, my, you know, my gurus, my recon gurus. Uh, we had, one of them had been put in for just minor shrapnel. The paperwork disappeared. Another one had more shrapnel and this time was a little bit, a lot more serious, bleeding and scratching and stuff. Little blood, nothing serious compared to what guys.

• 8:40Jocko Willink?

  For sure.

• 8:41John Stryker Meyer?

  That really get hammered. Said, no, put in for it someday. You may have to go to the VA.

• 8:46Jocko Willink?

  Right.

• 8:47John Stryker Meyer?

  And there's VA, even though the benefits, it's there.

• 8:50Jocko Willink?

  Mm hmm.

• 8:50John Stryker Meyer?

  You get home loans. Oh, okay. There might be a future. If we get through this, there might be a future something. Had, don't.

• 8:57Jocko Willink?

  Didn't you go home in Vietnam after three Purple Hearts? Was that a rule?

• 9:00John Stryker Meyer?

  No.

• 9:01Jocko Willink?

  That's this.

• 9:02John Stryker Meyer?

  Not in, not in SOG.

• 9:03Jocko Willink?

  That might be just rumor. What about a normal soldier?

• 9:06John Stryker Meyer?

  I wouldn't know.

• 9:07Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 9:07John Stryker Meyer?

  I never spent any time in a regular unit.

• 9:09Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 9:09John Stryker Meyer?

  Yeah, no. I mean, Bob Howard, he took his eight and he should have had 11. All the clusters, I guess they ran out of clusters for those.

• 9:18Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And you talk about in SOG Chronicles, volume one, what was it? Uh, 16 guys went out, 16 special forces soldiers went out and they got 33 Purple Hearts in four days.

• 9:28John Stryker Meyer?

  Oh, yeah.

• 9:29Jocko Willink?

  And probably could have gotten more.

• 9:31John Stryker Meyer?

  Sure.

• 9:32Jocko Willink?

  Ridiculous.

• 9:33John Stryker Meyer?

  Absolutely. This is crazy. Yeah.

• 9:35Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. All right. We're going back to on the ground.

• 9:40Jocko Willink?

  Here we go. The Hueys lifted off, made a gentle, lazy turn and pointed their noses northwest. Once everyone was settled, I allowed my mind to wander as I looked out and marveled at how beautiful the landscape was from several thousand feet up in the air, up where it was open and cool rather than closed in muggy. There was also a sense of inner peace and pride. This is what I had volunteered and trained so hard for. This chance to run top secret missions behind enemy lines, dangerous missions that made a difference. Like most special forces types, I couldn't stomach the monotonous routines of camp life. The ash and trash detail stuff, the petty rules, regulations, formations and egos.

• 10:25Jocko Willink?

  More amazing yet, here I was at the ripe old age of 22, sporting the exalted rank of E4 and the 1-0 of a SOG recon team. 22 years old.

• 10:40John Stryker Meyer?

  Young and dumb.

• 10:42Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, 22 years old and you had been bust, if you hadn't been, you got busted down once or twice?

• 10:48John Stryker Meyer?

  Only once.

• 10:48Jocko Willink?

  Okay, so you would have been an E5, you think, at this point?

• 10:51John Stryker Meyer?

  I would, I would have been most of powerful, yes, at least an E5.

• 10:57Jocko Willink?

  That must have been crazy.

• 10:59John Stryker Meyer?

  Cause usually you got promoted based on, if you're running missions, whenever the appropriate timeframe was to be in one grade before you'd be considered for the next. Sog was really good about getting the promotions, at least our people were.

• 11:11Jocko Willink?

  So as soon as you'd accomplish your time in rank.

• 11:14John Stryker Meyer?

  Don't forget, I went from E2 to E4 really quick.

• 11:20Jocko Willink?

  So, when you, this, this idea of being an SF and just being on camp and on base and having the, the normal kind of routines, you just couldn't stand that?

• 11:33John Stryker Meyer?

  No.

• 11:34Jocko Willink?

  You just would rather be out in the field?

• 11:36John Stryker Meyer?

  Oh yeah, it just drives you nuts.

• 11:41Jocko Willink?

  Check. Alright, here we go, back to the book. I had been with RT Idaho for seven months now. By dint of hard work, lots of mission experience, and simply having survived, I was now a team leader. At a moment's notice, I could have millions and millions of dollars worth of air support assets, some of them manned by majors and lieutenant colonels, all doing my bidding. All giving their courageous best to save my bacon. I'd come a long way since flunking out of college and doing a stint as a garbage collector in Yosemite National Park. My egotistical reveries were cut short when the door gunner on my side of the Huey decided to cut loose with a long burst of M60 machine gun fire right next to my ear. Fortunately, he was simply test firing it.

• 12:25Jocko Willink?

  You're, you know, we would get, I guess, kind of similar is we'd be driving to a target, right? Being in a Humvee. And, you know, sometimes the targets are an hour, sometimes two hours, you know, we did some long, long transits, but you would get time to sit there and think about stuff. Because, well, you're, you're sitting there being transported, there's not too much you can do. Um, you know, you're scanning, you're looking for, but you're in a helicopter. There's nothing to do but think, really.

• 12:53John Stryker Meyer?

  It was always amazing because it's just so beautiful. I mean Southeast Asia from the air. Even when you went over a combat zone, you see the bomb craters and you but the jungle. It was just just beautiful country. And then look, you get under it. You get into the underbelly of the jungle that's like, oh, you know, it's another whole world. The startling contrast, you know?

• 13:14Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 13:15John Stryker Meyer?

  And like you, if you're in the desert, it has its own beauty.

• 13:18Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 13:19John Stryker Meyer?

  And it can be spellbinding. If you just watch it, wow, look at this, that without realizing that somewhere. There's a little hole so a guy could pop out of and hit you with an RPG. Or detonate in your case. Those remote controls.

• 13:31Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 13:32John Stryker Meyer?

  And you're when you roll over.

• 13:35Jocko Willink?

  Did you? It sounds like you recognize this when you were doing these operations. You kind of knew that this was. I don't know, I guess I'm going to use this word. You were lucky to be there.

• 13:50John Stryker Meyer?

  Oh, clearly.

• 13:52Jocko Willink?

  Because I 100%. When I was in Iraq and I only did two deployments to Iraq. I 100% knew every day that I was there. I knew that this was.

• 14:06Jocko Willink?

  Like my time, this is what I'd been, this is what I lived for. And I knew that it wasn't like I look back and say, I really wish I would have appreciated those days. No, when I was in them, I completely knew it and appreciated being there like every single day.

• 14:22John Stryker Meyer?

  Yeah, and I, it was a nice feeling. Personally, to think that here we are with the best of the best. And we're running the missions and that's what we live for. Okay, now we're here. Let's go do this. And just hope to get the mission done. And just wish the damn trackers would leave you alone so you get the mission done. Go do the wiretapper, snatch a POW. Something like that. Oh yeah, it felt good, but you know, it's like quiet professionals, you just don't talk about that much.

• 14:53Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 14:56Jocko Willink?

  Going back to the book, as we approached the LZ, the team crowded the two doors of the helicopter. I was on the right, half standing on the skid. Sal was kneeling behind me, his hand on my shoulder, ready to follow me out the door. Next to him was Hep, my 1-1 John Bubba Shore, along with Fuck, our point man, and Twan, our grenadier, got ready to exit out the left side door. We all kept our eyes riveted on the looming jungle, scanning for any signs of movement in the tree line surrounding our LZ. The top of the triple canopy growth of trees, vines, and other vegetation was at least 100 feet off the jungle floor, and the opening into which we were descending reminded me of the mouth of a long, dark tunnel, at the bottom of which resided things Alice never dreamed of when she tumbled into that rabbit hole of hers.

• 15:42Jocko Willink?

  As we were swallowed up and the darkness increased, a cold chill ran down my spine.

• 15:53Jocko Willink?

  When you're going into these spots, so you had pre-identified this LZ prior to, is that correct?

• 15:59John Stryker Meyer?

  At that point, we were working with Covey during the briefing, we'd give out the officials LZs, you know, the primary, secondary, alternate, and that would go to Saigon. Then we whisper in his ear, "Find something else," because we knew the system was corrupt.

• 16:19Jocko Willink?

  And then, so by "find something else," you're basically just looking for a clearing of some kind?

• 16:23John Stryker Meyer?

  Right, within that target, and usually it'd be somewheres else they'd go, somewheres where Saigon, the leak there, wouldn't get the word back, because we had that one target, we went in with the bomb, the LZ was literally wired, and a top secret already had wire already with a 500-pounder. So, we were beginning to do that much more often then, because we had good, great Coveys. They knew what we did.

• 16:48Jocko Willink?

  Did the Coveys fly the area of operations before you inserted? Like a day before or anything like that?

• 16:54John Stryker Meyer?

  Well, during the day up, they would at least fly over it, sure.

• 16:57Jocko Willink?

  Would they take pictures or anything?

• 16:58John Stryker Meyer?

  No, no. Usually they would just do VR, visual reconnaissance, and they would try to be subtle about it, like... And early sixty eight, we always flew a visual reconnaissance prior to the mission. The NVA is not stupid. If they see a bird dog flying over a target here, they figure, well, pretty soon we're going to get visitors. And sure enough. So that gave them time to get ready. So we basically cut out the VRs. On our part. And then when Cubby go out. You know, a lot of guys have been flying. They're more familiar with the.

• 17:32Jocko Willink?

  Would you do the VR with a helicopter?

• 17:34John Stryker Meyer?

  Oh, no, no. Uh, usually with a South Vietnamese Air Force. They'd have a little. Uh, oh, one, just like from World War Two. The one from the battle from the bulls where Henry Fonda is up there in the right seat. And the pilot's got this little Cub, Piper Cub that's going eighty eight miles an hour, top speed downhill.

• 17:52Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 17:53John Stryker Meyer?

  Yeah. And that's what, and, uh. So that would be most of our VRs, but then. By Christmas, we pretty much cut that out.

• 18:03Jocko Willink?

  And that's just because they were, they, that was given away. You know, we used to ride on logistics air. And kind of move the logistics air a little bit to go over an area that we were going over. So no one would know that we were in there, that we were taking pictures. You know, like just logistics air. Just a, a, an aircraft flying somewhere, they'd go in a straight line, they wouldn't, they'd just veer off a little bit so we could see what we wanted to see.

• 18:27John Stryker Meyer?

  Sure, and then also did the fake, fake inserts. Um, sometimes they didn't have enough fuel to do a lot fake inserts, but they had a device called the Nightingale. Where they would go in. Throw the Nightingale off and pull the detonator on it. And it would sound like a firefight.

• 18:47John Stryker Meyer?

  So that would have a lot of commotion. And then they would jump up, go to a second LZ and then put us in. And down south, when we were with the, uh. The Green Hornets. They, they really had a cold because it was flat, down, up, down, up, and so. If the NVA were trying to guess which of the three or four touchdowns where we were, they were really busy.

• 19:07Jocko Willink?

  Got it. Going back to the book, as the chopper neared the jungle floor, Bubba and I executed our first standard operating procedure, which was checking the LZ for tripwires or booby traps while the rest of the team searched the surrounding jungle for any signs of trouble. After giving the all clear, the team was out the doors and on the ground before the skids firmly touched down. How long would you hover there and look at the LZ for?

• 19:29John Stryker Meyer?

  Oh, not long.

• 19:30Jocko Willink?

  Like a matter of 10 seconds?

• 19:31John Stryker Meyer?

  Just like you guys, it would go in, touchdown, get out. Sure.

• 19:35Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, we used to just jump out, lay down. Like the helicopter would just touch and take off. We would just jump out, lay down right there. We wouldn't move away from it. Just jump out, lay down.

• 19:44John Stryker Meyer?

  A modern day version of touch and go.

• 19:45Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah. We quickly headed into the wood line and set up a provisional perimeter where we could wait and listen. When again, we saw and heard nothing suspicious, we burrowed deeper into the jungle where it was both denser and darker. Like some furtive predatory animal, we were looking to hide ourselves. After 10 minutes of no threatening sounds or movements, I radioed Covey and gave him the message he had been waiting to hear. Team okay. He and others could take up breathing again, at least for the time being. The deeper we moved in, the deeper we moved, the darker and more claustrophobic things became. Moving through the foliage was an excruciatingly slow and painful process, with sweat stinging

• 20:27Jocko Willink?

  one's eyes, bugs crawling and feasting upon exposed skin, and visibility cut to mere feet. It could be also be disorienting, especially when the maps we were given were so useless. And here was RT Idaho, looking for fuel lines some bright eyed Covey rider had spotted and directed airstrikes against. Intelligence reports said there was a second pipeline in this AO as well. Regardless of how many, any pipeline we found, we were going to destroy.

• 20:59Jocko Willink?

  What were the map? Would you have one to 50 maps? Is that what you had?

• 21:02John Stryker Meyer?

  Yeah.

• 21:02Jocko Willink?

  One to 50,000?

• 21:04John Stryker Meyer?

  Right, but they would cut out for the big map. They would cut out like a 10 by 10 or 12 by 12 square. So that if we were killed, they came across the map, there'd be no other intel on it, except for that one target area that we were on the ground.

• 21:18Jocko Willink?

  Now, I've gone into triple canopy jungle before with one, you ever hasn't seen a one to 24 map? They're basically more detailed.

• 21:27John Stryker Meyer?

  Yes.

• 21:28Jocko Willink?

  They're twice as detailed and they're pretty good, but one to fifties are not that accurate.

• 21:33John Stryker Meyer?

  No, and we had that one target where they had forgotten a mountain. You know, we're on a mountain and we're getting ready to go down to go over and we look at it, it's like, hey, they forgot one. That really could stretch your mission out when you're in triple canopy.

• 21:48Jocko Willink?

  Claustrophobic, you use that word claustrophobic quite a bit in this section. Is this jungle just tight?

• 21:56John Stryker Meyer?

  Very. Yeah, because again, sometimes you had to keep sight on the guy in front of you as you moved. Uh, because you just become separated so easily because of the dense vegetation. Of course, a lot of times, um, our Vietnamese were shorter, they get through a cricket. Well, we would be down on our knees and I'd wear out more pants crawling through the jungle.

• 22:19Jocko Willink?

  I know. I saw a picture. I was looking at the pictures in the books. I saw a picture of one of the indigens. Some of those guys were really small.

• 22:24John Stryker Meyer?

  Oh, yeah.

• 22:25Jocko Willink?

  Really small.

• 22:25John Stryker Meyer?

  Ninety-eight pounds soaking wet, but fifty pounds of heart.

• 22:31Jocko Willink?

  That's awesome.

• 22:33Jocko Willink?

  All right, going back to the book, but I had more immediate and pressing concerns. The adrenaline rush that always accompanied an insertion had pretty much worn off. And another characteristic sensation had begun to take its place. It was a feeling of familiarity and comfort combined with an eerie sense of foreboding. Both were a product of experience. I was comfortable because I was surrounded by extraordinary, well-trained and fiercely devoted team that knew what it was doing. Yet we also had stepped in enough accidental shit and had encountered so many hostile enemy units that it was impossible to not feel serious anxiety. In fact, I figured that when I stopped being scared shitless, I would be on my way to buying the farm.

• 23:18Jocko Willink?

  Cockiness had cost more than one life.

• 23:23Jocko Willink?

  So you still, you get that little mixed feeling of comfort, but fear and anxiety at the same time?

• 23:31John Stryker Meyer?

  Yes. You know, you like the whole adrenaline of, you know how it is, you get inserted, you're just pumped. And at some point you get off, you get on the ground.

• 23:40Jocko Willink?

  Especially because you guys would hit so many times, you would, you would insert and immediately get contacted.

• 23:44John Stryker Meyer?

  A lot of times, yeah.

• 23:45Jocko Willink?

  So once you be amped up going in, and then when there's nothing there, that starts to fade.

• 23:52John Stryker Meyer?

  Yeah. Then you finally get on the ground. It's like, oh, at last we're on the ground now. Let's get on with the mission. Worry about the trackers. Let's get moving, but let's also stay cognizant. Keep our situational awareness tight.

• 24:07Jocko Willink?

  And that, you know, this is a, one of the reasons I highlighted this section is, you know, just, this is something that, you know, we talk about complacency all the time. I know there was a, one of the Marine Corps units we were with, the three, eight and Ramadi, they had a, that a sign, they had signs around their compound complacency kills. Oh, yeah. For sure. But this idea of, and you know, I also talked to young military guys, young SEALs, that, you know, they're, they're scared of this, they're scared of that. It's like, I always tell them the good, you know, you should, you should be afraid. You, because if you're afraid, you're going to prepare more, you're going to train harder, you're going to, you're not going to cut any corners, you're not going to get complacent.

• 24:46Jocko Willink?

  And that's the same thing that you're saying here is you'd seen cockiness cost people their lives because they think, oh, we can just get away with whatever.

• 24:55John Stryker Meyer?

  Yeah. If you're not scared, I'm scared of you.

• 24:59John Stryker Meyer?

  Really?

• 25:00Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah. And then you have to overcome that though, because you can't let that get, get controlling you. We were talking before we started recording and we were talking about a guy that was in a firefight. And there was one guy that didn't fire a shot, stayed curled up in a ball praying.

• 25:14John Stryker Meyer?

  Yeah.

• 25:15Jocko Willink?

  And that's when, that's when fear is not, not your friend.

• 25:20John Stryker Meyer?

  Yeah, our guys wanted to shoot him.

• 25:25Jocko Willink?

  So you gotta balance that. You gotta be, you gotta have the fear, you gotta feel it, but you gotta deal with it.

• 25:30John Stryker Meyer?

  Correct.

• 25:33Jocko Willink?

  We had compasses. So we knew the general direction we were headed, which was to the northwest away from the LZ. We had been working our way slowly through the underbrush for about an hour when suddenly we heard an explosion behind us. It had to have been the claymore Bubba rig to go off if anyone tried to follow us off the LZ. Its detonation signaled signaled a profound change in the situation. The hunters were about to become the hunted. In the jungle, there are almost always animal noises of some kind, and these suddenly fell silent. In the quiet, we could hear some distressing sounds to the west, sounds that were not of a jungle kind, but those of men on the move. We were not alone.

• 26:22John Stryker Meyer?

  Welcome to the jungle, baby.

• 26:25Jocko Willink?

  Yes, indeed. That, uh, how do you know that the claymores that you rigged weren't set off by some kind of monkey or whatever, some kind of animal?

• 26:37Jocko Willink?

  Would you guys rig them a certain way that that was unlikely?

• 26:40John Stryker Meyer?

  The way, the way Bubba and, and the Frenchman later would do it, and Lynn, they would put it in an area where it would be easiest for the trackers to follow. So it's just based on human nature. You're gonna go through the thick part, you're gonna go where it's easier to travel. And, uh, it could have been an animal, but basically, it's an NVA animal.

• 27:02Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 27:02John Stryker Meyer?

  You know?

• 27:03Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. The coincidence would be too much, and the chances are it's just NVA.

• 27:08John Stryker Meyer?

  Yeah, and if it is a monkey, as opposed to an NVA, we're happy, we'll find that out within the next couple of hours. On the other hand, let's get ready.

• 27:16Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and the, so that when there was, when there was enemy moving in the jungle, the animals would stop making noises?

• 27:24John Stryker Meyer?

  It all depends how close they were. But yes, a lot of times, that's why the most important thing in the jungle was listening.

• 27:29Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 27:30John Stryker Meyer?

  I mean, ten and ten sounds pretty extreme, but... It really gives you time to hear what's going on. Cause a lot of time you can't see that much.

• 27:40Jocko Willink?

  The best sense in the jungle and like I said, I've, I've been in triple canopy and we've done patrolling in triple canopy.

• 27:45John Stryker Meyer?

  And you got hit by monkeys too, right?

• 27:47Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, we, we had monkeys freak us out, but um, that the sense, just so people can understand, you can only see in, in that thick jungle, sometimes you can only see five feet.

• 27:59John Stryker Meyer?

  Sure, five or 10 feet at the most.

• 28:01Jocko Willink?

  And so you patrol for 10 minutes and then you just stop. Everyone is quiet and you listen to see if anyone's following you to see if there's any other movement out there. That's what you're doing.

• 28:11John Stryker Meyer?

  Sure. I mean, and it's so thick that if I'm behind a point man or sometimes it would be the point man with Sal and myself. Well, I would never see the point man. I would just keep an eye on Sal and the guy behind me would just be on my backpack. I wouldn't, I couldn't tell you where the point man was. Cause I just followed Sal. The vegetation was that thick a lot of times.

• 28:38John Stryker Meyer?

  Again, I'm depending on the Vietnamese because they know, they know that jungle better than me.

• 28:43Jocko Willink?

  How come the animals would stop making noise? Would the animals stop making noise when you would patrol?

• 28:48John Stryker Meyer?

  I would assume. But once we settled down, then things would come back to normal.

• 28:53Jocko Willink?

  So when you stop moving, then the sounds would escalate.

• 28:56John Stryker Meyer?

  And if it didn't after 10 minutes, you go, the pucker factor tightens up to a little bit more.

• 29:06Jocko Willink?

  I immediately signaled Fok, who is on point to head north.

• 29:13Jocko Willink?

  This would take us up a hill that dominated our right flank. The climb was pretty severe, which was good and bad news. While it made the going rough, it also meant we were gaining some genuine high ground and high ground is the preferred position when it comes to defense. The steepness also meant the enemy would have to work as hard as we were. I couldn't tell how close the NVA trackers were or how many of them were headed our way, but I knew if push came to shove, I wanted to be looking down on them. Always take the high ground.

• 29:42John Stryker Meyer?

  Always.

• 29:43Jocko Willink?

  That's just military maxim. And you know, I, I will actually say you take the moral high ground as well. Take the high ground or the high ground's gonna take you.

• 29:52John Stryker Meyer?

  Amen.

• 29:55Jocko Willink?

  When we reached the hilltop, just as dark clouds unleashed a torrent of rain. While Bubba and Sal began putting, setting out a perimeter of claymores, I contacted Covey and appraised him of the situation, namely that it didn't look good and that we might be calling for an immediate extraction before nightfall. Did you guys speak at all?

• 30:13John Stryker Meyer?

  Only minimal, because most of it would be hand signals.

• 30:15Jocko Willink?

  Just everything hand signals. Occasionally, you'd have to.

• 30:19John Stryker Meyer?

  Whisper in the ear.

• 30:20Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 30:21John Stryker Meyer?

  But if we, if we just avoided it as much as we could.

• 30:24Jocko Willink?

  But something like this, just so people understand, something like this, you're on patrol, you're not saying anything, you head up the hill, you don't say anything, you get to perimeter, you give the perimeter signal, you don't say anything, everyone knows what to do when you're in there, you could go days out in the field without talking.

• 30:39John Stryker Meyer?

  Oh yeah, absolutely. Because what the training is, plus you got the visual with the person that you're signaling. Like in my case, if I'm behind, fuck the point, man. I'm telling him what to do, and I'll turn around, tell the guy behind me, same signals, and then we go.

• 30:57Jocko Willink?

  While I was talking to Covey, Sal, who had moved north to set out his claymores, suddenly opened fire on full automatic, a sure sign we had visitors. This was immediately confirmed when heavy AK-47 fire ripped out of the jungle in response. In less than five seconds, the well-practiced Sal had fired off all 18 rounds in his Kar-15, set off the claymores, and reloaded his weapon while falling back to join the rest of the team. That's legit right there. Sal was making things happen.

• 31:28John Stryker Meyer?

  He was the man.

• 31:30Jocko Willink?

  Would you guys, you guys be training these immediate action drills, mag changes? I mean, everything that we do, right? You guys drill that stuff.

• 31:36John Stryker Meyer?

  Every drill.

• 31:37Jocko Willink?

  Drill it, drill it, drill it.

• 31:37John Stryker Meyer?

  If we're in camp, we go down often, and just particularly in the beginning through June, my first couple of months, every day, hundreds of rounds.

• 31:48Jocko Willink?

  And when this happens, these guys are, the enemy is very close to you, because you can at least know that they're there. They gotta be what, 15, 20, maybe 30 meters away?

• 31:59John Stryker Meyer?

  And in that case here, I forget how close, they weren't that far for Sal to blow his claymore and the Kar-15 and reload and do it one more time.

• 32:11Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book. Covey had heard the background shots and explosions, so he was not overly surprised when I stated the obvious. We had a prairie fire emergency in progress and we wanted out ASAP. The mission was over. The fuel lines would have to wait until another day. The focus now became saving our asses. And to this end, every air sap, air asset within striking distance would immediately be vectored to our target area. The odds would soon turn, if not necessarily in our favor, very decidedly against the enemy. RT Idaho might not make it out alive, but neither would the NVA.

• 32:52Jocko Willink?

  You guys had some serious confidence in that air power?

• 32:56John Stryker Meyer?

  Yeah, that was our lifeline. I mean, a major edge that we had. And whenever we could use it, we'd use it because it was only a matter of time before they would get more bodies there. And we had teams that had been overrun in 67, 68. So we knew the potential for things to go really wrong. And that was one of the things that could neutralize the manpower when they had, the enemy had so many troops.

• 33:25Jocko Willink?

  Did teams ever get overrun while they had air power?

• 33:28John Stryker Meyer?

  Oh, sure.

• 33:30John Stryker Meyer?

  Sadly, yes. Oh, yeah. They would just keep coming. There's several of the Medal of Honors recipients. Fred Zabatowski, Robert Howard SF on missions and they were directing air power. Still just got overrun. That's all part of the horror of being on the ground against a really determined foe.

• 33:53Jocko Willink?

  So even though you have confidence in your air power, you know, there's limitations. And if things really go bad, that air power is not going to be able to save you.

• 34:03John Stryker Meyer?

  Correct. Again, it's time, weather, and where are you in the jungle? And in triple canopy, if you're in triple canopy, all you could do is maybe gun runs and you're not even sure how effective it'll be, but at least you get their attention.

• 34:21Jocko Willink?

  Going back to the book, call King bees, call King bees, Boku VC, Boku VC. It was clear Sal and I shared similar appraisal of our situation and the same thoughts about what needed to be done. The only hitch was how to pull it off, what with darkness approaching, a storm raging, and no helicopters anywhere near us. I didn't want to add to either Sal's or the team's angst, so I didn't share my misgivings. Instead, I gave Covey the direction and probable distance we'd moved from the LZ and told him I was about to throw two yellow smoke grenades to Marco's location. I threw two, hoping some of the smoke would somehow travel up through the thick vegetation and into the clear where Covey could see it.

• 35:04Jocko Willink?

  Covey had good and bad news. He thought he had our location, but he doubted seriously if he could get extraction helicopters to us before nightfall. Not good, not good at all. We now had confirmed enemy north and south of us, and they were closing in. Sal frantically signaled Bubba to set off the south-facing claymores. When Bubba hesitated for a second, I could hear Sal hiss, "Coda, cock-a-daw VC." How do you say that? Cock-a-daw. Cock-a-daw VC. Vietnamese for "kill." Duma, which is Vietnamese for... Mother. Motherfuckers.

• 35:46Jocko Willink?

  As the claymores erupted, Sal pulled the pin on the fragmentation grenade and lobbed it into the boiling dust and smoke even as even more enemy troops came up the slope. With my ears ringing from the blasts, I thought I heard additional movement to the east, but I couldn't be sure. Because the NVA had abandoned any pretense of stealth, I soon verified they were coming from that flank as well. And there were lots of them. As these unseen forces maneuvered in for the kill, the jungle took on its most terrifying and claustrophobic reality. Not a friendly place in the very best of circumstances. It was now about the worst place in the world to be.

• 36:29Jocko Willink?

  Again, that claustrophobic sense. Can you see? Can you see the sky in this triple canopy?

• 36:38John Stryker Meyer?

  Uh, depends. Sometimes you can see it, like glimpses of it, or like there'd be a little opening. So he was able to see the smoke. Sometimes you'd pop a yellow smoke, which is bright, and it wouldn't even be able to get through.

• 36:53Jocko Willink?

  Everyone was cutting loose as fast as he could in an effort to suppress the enemy's fire and drive him back. Tuan had managed to find some narrow openings in the vegetation and was shooting rounds with his M79 grenade launcher. And suddenly the jungle went silent, as if someone had thrown a switch or hit it, hit the mute button. The only sounds were the metallic clicks as both RT Idaho and the NVA locked fresh magazines into their weapons. The fight was far from over. In fact, the party was just getting started, and we were simply changing records for the next dance with death. The jungle again erupted with deafening roar of gunfire.

• 37:36Jocko Willink?

  So that's sketchy. That's gotta be a horrifying feeling. Boom. Goes quiet. Everyone dumps their mags. There's that moment of silence, and in that silence, all you hear is reload happening.

• 37:46John Stryker Meyer?

  Well, and you know too, when, when that happens, how when your adrenaline's pumping, when you're here, your, your timeframe has expanded. So now, instead of like, you've read it, that's how quick it is, bam bam, you're saying, but now, and the adrenaline feels like it's slowed down. You can feel the magazine coming out. You hear the click, click, click. Everybody else is ramming them in. Come on, boys. Let's, let's come down on this first, and our guys won.

• 38:12Jocko Willink?

  With all the noise, I had to shove the radio handset damn near inside my ear to hear what Covey was trying to tell me. The good news, bad news routine continued. The good news was that some of the yellow smoke had finally made its way to where Covey could see it. But the bad news was, we were nowhere near the NLZ. He wanted to know if we could fight our way back to where we had been inserted. Negative, I yelled as Fuck, Bubba, and Hepp all opened up on some NVA who had managed to sneak up from the south. There were green tracers whizzing all around me. Covey would have to wait. And that's another good point, because... In this war, the enemy almost always had green tracers. Always.

• 38:56Jocko Willink?

  Okay, yeah, for us, the enemy didn't always have green, they had red. They, in fact, most of the time, well, a lot of times, they had red. Cause they had. Well, no kidding. Yeah. So it was. They learned a lesson. Yeah. So it was, you know, they just, they got their ammo from all different sources. And so it wasn't just this, it wasn't just, hey, they're green and we're red. It was mostly red, some green occasionally, but. Wow. Yeah, yeah.

• 39:24Jocko Willink?

  After helping repel the attack, I got back on the radio to impress upon Covey the direness of our straits. But of course, he already knew that. So in his calm voice, which could drive a one zero to murder, he said, we don't have a lot of time. No shit. The only chance we have is about a hundred meters north by northeast from your location. There's a small hole in the roof and we might be able to get strings down to you. He inquired if we had much activity to our north. It depended, I thought, on what you meant by much and activity.

• 39:56Jocko Willink?

  I reminded him that north was where the whole shooting match got started. And while the, while I thought we had pretty much taken that group of NVA out of action, I couldn't be sure. When I finished, he said, don't worry, I have a pair of A1Es on station and I'll have the leader make a gun run. And then give, and then have his wingmen follow with 500 pounders. Before I could say Roger that, the first Skyraider roared across our northern perimeter, his 20 millimeter cannons blazing away. As wood chips, dust and debris filled the air, the members of RT Idaho did not need to be told what to do. We kissed mother earth and pressed against her body for all we were worth.

• 40:37Jocko Willink?

  In the brief quiet that followed, I told Bubba to prepare some explosives, just in case we needed to cut down trees at the extraction point. I told Sal we needed to head north as that was our only chance for escape. No one looked happy with this news, particularly not Sal. Who had finished, who had seen firsthand what was waiting in that direction. About this time, the second Skyraider appeared and released its load of 500 pound bombs. They were so close that the concussions bounced us like jumping beans.

• 41:11Jocko Willink?

  And this is all based on the yellow smoke that you had thrown five minutes ago or eight minutes ago.

• 41:17John Stryker Meyer?

  Right.

• 41:18Jocko Willink?

  They're looking at a massive, this is another thing, it's hard to understand. It's hard for me to understand, I was, remember I was a radio man when I was a young new guy and we were out in the desert and we were trying to call in helicopters to come pick us up. And it's me calling them in, it's not we, it's me, I'm sitting there on the radio trying to call in these helicopters. And I got my air panel out and we're in the desert, this isn't trip, this is the desert. And these helicopters can't see me, they're not far, they're not at altitude, they're probably 500 to 500 meters away.

• 41:48John Stryker Meyer?

  Are they doing nappy to earth or are they up high?

• 41:50Jocko Willink?

  They're looking for us, they're kind of, they know we're in the general area and they're looking for us and I'm sitting there with a signal panel. Like trying to get their attention. And what you don't realize is that there's, you know, you're seeing this helicopter, it's so obvious, I mean, you'd think there's no possible way that they can't see you. You'd think there's no possible, you've got a 16 man seal platoon out there, I'm waving around a piece of fluorescent orange, we're the only human beings in this desert. And they can't see us. And now you're, and the reason they can't see us is because they're looking everywhere, they're looking, they're looking at whatever, however many square miles they can see.

• 42:25John Stryker Meyer?

  Looking into an ocean or desert.

• 42:26Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, they can see all this space. And so it takes them a while, you know, finally I get them to see, I think I popped, I think I popped a smoke and they didn't see the smoke and then I popped another smoke. And so I can't imagine these guys are coming in hot, dropping bombs. Based on where the, not even him, but where the Covey saw smoke five minutes ago.

• 42:51John Stryker Meyer?

  Yeah. We may have popped another smoke in there somewhere and also I know that I had talked to Covey, okay. Here's our smoke, north of us. And he knew they had, we had a lot of activity, north and south. And he forgot about maybe what we were getting from the east, but if we're talking about trying to get to the north, that's why he came across the northern. So he knew basically where we were and he came in, of course the 500 pounds were able to get through the jungle and impact on the ground.

• 43:20Jocko Willink?

  And those things rocked you guys.

• 43:22John Stryker Meyer?

  Oh, yeah.

• 43:27John Stryker Meyer?

  That's one of those happy pains.

• 43:32Jocko Willink?

  Good times, I guess, tilt. Alright. With the A1E activity to occupy us, we had momentarily taken our attention away from our southern flank. And now a wave of NVA hit us from that direction. Everyone responded with automatic fire and Bubba and I lobbed some grenades down the slope. I informed Covey of the attack and told him that when I gave the word and the team moved to the north, I wanted more A1E runs to our south. In my heart of hearts, I also wanted more runs to the north, but we didn't have time for that. We had to get out while the getting was good. The next NVA wave could be the one to overrun us.

• 44:20Jocko Willink?

  As Bubba finished preparing explosives, Hep and I continued rolling grenades downhill toward the enemy. Sal and Fook covered Twan with Kar-15 fire as he set up a claymore facing south and covered it with leaves. A little parting gift for our friends.

• 44:38Jocko Willink?

  The race was on. I gave Covey the word and behind us, the A1E's began bombing the shit out of whoever was back there. Fook angled back to the north. We passed bodies of dead NVA soldiers, but we didn't have time to stop and search them for papers or anything of an intelligence value. We had only one thought in mind, get out. It was something of a miracle that Fook and Sal actually located the spot Covey had found for us. When we finally looked up toward the hole itself, however, it appeared a long, long ways away. It was at least 100 feet or more and the green tunnel leading to it was narrow and dangerous. As we were approaching, I'd seen the tops of trees being whipped around by the gusting wind.

• 45:21Jocko Willink?

  And knew this would complicate matters even more. This was not going to be an easy exit. So you guys are moving to this thing, you're looking up at the treetops and you see there's like heavy wind. Cause that's just weather wind, like it's windy out.

• 45:34John Stryker Meyer?

  And we had weather forecast saying there might be some problems with the weather. And so here we are, it's dark and I didn't tell the guys this. I mean, I knew that seeing those trees like that, this is, yeah. And it was getting late, dark. I needed your nogs.

• 45:52Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you did. I wish you could have had them, bro. That would have totally changed this whole scenario.

• 45:57John Stryker Meyer?

  Oh, yeah.

• 45:57Jocko Willink?

  Because the helicopter, because the aircraft too.

• 46:00John Stryker Meyer?

  Sure.

• 46:00Jocko Willink?

  Because the aircraft would be, oh, yeah, we got you. Yeah, we got you locked and we'll just, you guys can just, you know, pitch a tent.

• 46:06John Stryker Meyer?

  Have a pit me first.

• 46:11Jocko Willink?

  And the NVA, this still, you know, the, the big motto of the insurgents, right, is that they only fight when they want to and they don't have to fight if they don't need to. And you don't imagine troops that don't have to fight, just keep coming after you. Just keep, you're, you're laying waste to them, but they keep coming. That must be the value of capturing you all cross border would be so high that they just must have had serious intent to try and capture.

• 46:45John Stryker Meyer?

  Well, yeah, and then, then too, you know, you had that propaganda they've been fed for all those years. They really believed it. They really believed that, like the French, we were there to occupy. What we're just there was combating communism, but they didn't, they never heard any of that stuff. And they were dedicated. That's absolutely, yes, sir.

• 47:06Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book, the NVA had not given up. Its troops were hot on our tail, even though we had heard Twan's claymore go off and had listened to the A1Es work them over. You had to hand it to the NVA soldiers. They were very tough and determined. I again contacted Covey and asked for some, asked for some tactical air command, air support to our rear. And in a matter of minutes, bombs were falling and cannons were blasting away. I'm sure I was impressed with the service as the NVA were surprised by how quickly the ordinance had been delivered. They were learning a lesson the hard way. If a recon team wasn't wiped out in the first few minutes of the fight, the NVA would pay dearly for the mistake.

• 47:52Jocko Willink?

  But more than one NVA unit had experienced this firsthand. So that's kind of a critical few minutes as long as, how long did it take for air to get on station usually?

• 48:03John Stryker Meyer?

  Well, it depended. Everywhere it's been several hours to in this case, uh, we were fortunate to make contact really early on. With Covey who fortunately had A1s that were within a few minutes away.

• 48:17Jocko Willink?

  So there was some luck involved.

• 48:18John Stryker Meyer?

  Very much. I mean, we seldom had that kind of response and layoffs.

• 48:22Jocko Willink?

  Did you ever pre-plan to have coverage at certain times?

• 48:27John Stryker Meyer?

  It would be a special mission. Yeah. Like the ones we put in the sensors. You put them in and you know, you're going to be in the ground for two or three hours. You book the times, have the assets set. So when we have to go or something happens in between, bing, you didn't come in.

• 48:42Jocko Willink?

  But most of the time, were these, were these aircraft necessarily briefed on the mission itself? So would they know coming in, hey, this is the AO that they're working or were these guys just coming up? They were just, they were just random pilots?

• 48:56John Stryker Meyer?

  It would be both. They had specific A1 units in the air force, uh, in that timeframe. That were specifically there for SOG missions and SAR, search and rescue up north for any downed pilots. So, um, they were very much attuned to our people working with Contum and with us up north.

• 49:20John Stryker Meyer?

  So they knew everything was in their Prairie Fire AO. Sometimes when you, like when we were in Echo Four, our first contact was with a fighter jet that heard the ERC10 beeper. And responded to that. So, and other missions, uh, another aircraft would hear it. And, um, they would, if they had ordinance, then we had to, you know, get the mirror, get them located, find us. And then bring in the ordinance while he put the call out to get the Covey or the Hillsboro or Moonbeam. Left a note. It had a tactical emergency going on here.

• 49:58Jocko Willink?

  And you're doing all that on the radio while you're still fighting?

• 50:02John Stryker Meyer?

  Yeah, we had to had to spend a few rounds there.

• 50:07John Stryker Meyer?

  Lighten a load.

• 50:10Jocko Willink?

  All right, Bubba, Sal, and Fok had been busy placing explosive charges on trees while Hep and Twan set out claymores facing south. I couldn't help but shake my head.

• 50:21Jocko Willink?

  In wonder at Hep in a dark jungle with night approaching, he still had his ever-present sunglasses. We blew the charges around the trees and they were cut clean, but the dense jungle refused to let them fall. We had not succeeded in making the hole any bigger, so we just have to hope the rescue ships could manage to drop the ropes down to us. And then pray the ropes were long enough. So you're trying to make that hole in the jungle a little bit bigger. Like, what diameter is this hole that you're looking at?

• 50:49John Stryker Meyer?

  Oh.

• 50:49Jocko Willink?

  This is like 10 meters, is it?

• 50:52John Stryker Meyer?

  Not that. Yeah, that's a good question. Maybe 20, 30 meters.

• 50:56Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 50:56John Stryker Meyer?

  At the most, but there's trees in it.

• 50:58Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 50:58John Stryker Meyer?

  No, it's at least it's a little bit more open as opposed to just triple canopy enclosed. Where you're just completely, we could see skylight, you could literally see the sky.

• 51:07Jocko Willink?

  But and then you try and blow some of the trees. But they don't even fall down because there's too much jungle vines.

• 51:13John Stryker Meyer?

  Yeah, too many of the trees. Yes, exactly.

• 51:14Jocko Willink?

  So it doesn't even help.

• 51:15John Stryker Meyer?

  Didn't help.

• 51:16Jocko Willink?

  Good times.

• 51:17John Stryker Meyer?

  Add to the frustration.

• 51:21Jocko Willink?

  We tried to blow up some palm trees, or actually it was Leif, Leif's platoon tried to blow up some palm trees. That were obstructing their view in a overwatch position.

• 51:32John Stryker Meyer?

  Right.

• 51:33Jocko Willink?

  And they blew up. They set, they set so many charges on these palm trees. It was embarrassing.

• 51:41John Stryker Meyer?

  They were launched?

• 51:42Jocko Willink?

  I got, no, they weren't. They didn't budge.

• 51:45John Stryker Meyer?

  No.

• 51:45Jocko Willink?

  I got embarrassed. I'm sitting there telling the battalion commander, he's saying, I'm saying, sir, there's going to be another controlled death. And boom, and then, so there's going to be another controlled death, and then boom, and then, so there's going to be another controlled death, and then boom. He said, what are they doing? I said, they're trying to get rid of some palm trees. Don't worry about it. You know what, sir? We're just going to leave those palm trees.

• 52:03John Stryker Meyer?

  Yeah, the score right now is palm trees, three, seals, zero.

• 52:06Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's what happened.

• 52:08John Stryker Meyer?

  Oh, no.

• 52:09Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, those palm trees are hard.

• 52:11John Stryker Meyer?

  Resilient.

• 52:11Jocko Willink?

  Thick.

• 52:14Jocko Willink?

  All right, back to the book. With the helicopters on their final approach, I threw out another smoke grenade to mark our location and the rest of the team began firing at the NVA who had again pressed in on us. We could barely make out, make out their shadows, but they were definitely out there as evidenced by the green tracer rounds flying towards us. Covey hadn't been able to see my smoke, so he asked for a pen flare. When I tried to fire it up through the trees, it struck a limb and bounced back. Being desperate, I told Covey I was gonna shoot three tracer rounds, red tracer rounds, up through the hole. And before he could scream "no," I had pulled the trigger on my Kar-15. I immediately realized what a dangerous move it was as I saw him pass overhead. In case there was

• 52:56Jocko Willink?

  any doubt in my mind, Covey took the time to let me know in no uncertain terms how stupid I was. I believe the expressions "dumbass" and "shit for brains" came into play. Loudly. So you're in this situation, he still took the time to call you shit for brains? Yeah. You're about to die. Priorities. Oh, man. Yeah. And you know, I was thinking, I never fought in Afghanistan. I don't know what they had. I don't know if they saw a lot of more green tracers over there. I'll have to ask some of my buddies. I never really thought about that. So that's a, was that just like the normal little pencil flare? Yes. The little trigger thing you click? Correct. It's almost like a 22 round that fires up. It's a tracer? Yes.

• 53:38Jocko Willink?

  Got it. It didn't penetrate through, so you decide you're just gonna fire some Kar rounds? But follow my tracers. But they saw him, right? They did. Yeah, so, hey, one for till.

• 53:52Jocko Willink?

  Just before the rescue choppers attempted to hover and drop the ropes, I told Covey I wanted the gunships that accompanied them to work over the area around us, particularly to the south. I wanted the NVA to be either dead, wounded, or with their heads buried in the ground when we tried to make our escape. The muskets, the men from the 176th Assault Helicopter Company immediately went to work with their 2.75 inch rockets and their Gatling-like miniguns, multi-barreled weapons that could pump 6,000 rounds of 762 a minute. As the last rocket hit and exploded behind us, the 101st Airborne Division slick appeared over the hole in the jungle roof and dropped sandbags with ropes attached to them.

• 54:32Jocko Willink?

  The helicopter was so high up it looked like a toy and even its powerful rotor wash couldn't reach us. I could tell he wasn't being buffeted by the wind, but he'd somehow managed to hold steady over the opening. One of the sandbags attached to the rope had a strobe light attached to it and we watched it bounce off the limbs as it fell toward us.

• 54:55Jocko Willink?

  You guys, I guess they hadn't invented the jungle penetrator yet.

• 54:59John Stryker Meyer?

  They had them, but not on UEs.

• 55:01Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 55:02John Stryker Meyer?

  They had them on the HH3s, the Jolly Green Giants.

• 55:05Jocko Willink?

  Yes, for those of you that don't know, it's like a big metal, uh, yeah, jungle penetrator. It's a big metal kind of spear almost.

• 55:13John Stryker Meyer?

  On the end of a steel cable that's hooked to a crane.

• 55:15Jocko Willink?

  And it just drops down and that weight and it's well shaped as opposed to just a random sandbag.

• 55:22John Stryker Meyer?

  It bouncing.

• 55:25Jocko Willink?

  And so this thing was hot. This thing must have been like 150 feet up.

• 55:30John Stryker Meyer?

  Yeah, they had the longest ropes in there. I was surprised they even got down to us.

• 55:38Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book, while we kept an eye on the ropes descending through the trees, the NVA mounted a desperate last charge towards us. Tuan and Hepp trekkered their claymores and the rest of us opened up with all we had. Somehow, in the midst of all the tumultuous activity, the four indige had managed to rig themselves a Swiss seat using the six foot long pieces of rope we carried just for that purpose. Bubba and I now tried to do the same, but it wasn't easy to wrap a rope around my waist, pass it between my legs and then finish tying it off on the right hip while under fire. But we managed to do it while the indige held off the enemy and began to hook up for the lift out.

• 56:17Jocko Willink?

  You guys ever think about using some kind of pre rigged like sit harness or something?

• 56:23John Stryker Meyer?

  They they were developing those at the time. They upgraded, they had like the McGuire rig, which is just basically a thick material that you could sit in to hook in. And then later they came out with the rigs, um, I can't think of the name, but it was a, uh, an outfit where you had your harness built in. So you had your web gear with the harness. So when it, when it came down, you just hook it in, click in, you're ready to go.

• 56:48Jocko Willink?

  I'd be thinking about that invention a lot. When I, when I, if I was you trying to tie a Swiss seat, uh, yeah. That's awesome.

• 57:00Jocko Willink?

  We were getting low on ammunition, grenades and claymores. If we didn't make it out, it was going to be a very long night. In fact, I wasn't sure we, I wasn't sure if we could survive the night, no matter what kind of air support managed to reach us. It was now or never. Sal and Falk located three of the four ropes and it attached themselves to one of them using snap links. When I asked Covey if the chopper could lift us all out at once, he replied, no way. It's going to take two lifts. No way is exactly what I thought in return. There was no way we had enough time for two attempts. There was no way I was going to split the team. Either all six of us were going out together on four ropes. Or we were going to die together trying.

• 57:42Jocko Willink?

  Call it camaraderie or fear, but I was not going to leave anyone, myself included, on the ground for a minute longer than necessary. I had heard all the horror stories I needed to about what could result in, and I didn't want to be the subject of some gruesome tale. Around the bar at F O B one. I suddenly had a bright idea and asked Bubba if he still had the claymore with the white phosphorus grenade taped to its front. When he nodded yes, I told him to strap it as high as he could, as high as he could reach on a nearby tree facing south. He gave me his best, are you out of your fucking mind look? Because he knew at that proximity, the back blast would kill us all when we set it off.

• 58:25Jocko Willink?

  So he hesitated and I had to order him to do it. Once he finished, the remaining two little people paired up and hooked themselves on into one of the ropes. While Bubba and I each took one of the remaining two. I wanted to balance out the weight distribution by having me on one side of the helicopter and Bubba on the other. But it was impossible to tell for sure which ropes went where, so I took a wild guess and hope for the best. Best. Using the barrel of my M79 to shield the flash from the NVA. I used a strobe light to signal the chopper to begin to lift, to begin lifting us out.

• 58:59Jocko Willink?

  Did the chopper have enough power? Would we be dragged through the trees? Would the NVA manage to shoot one or all of us out of our saddles?

• 59:08Jocko Willink?

  We were about to find out.

• 59:11Jocko Willink?

  As the ropes became taut, fire gunfire erupted from the west. Sal, fuck and I returned fire, but our bodies blocked the others line of sight. So they watched in frustration. Because my rope was longer than the other three, I was the last to leave the ground. This also gave me the additional seconds I needed to reload my empty car 15 twice. Things were happening very fast, almost too fast. And my bright idea demanded perfect timing. As we started up, Bubba reached out and ignited the delay flues on the, the delay fuse on the last claymore. The one he'd fastened to the tree. With my feet dangling in the air, I fired around from my M79.

• 59:53Jocko Willink?

  Still gaining altitude, I then pulled the pins on two hand grenades and tossed them down onto the ground at about the same time. The claymore went off. The back blast blew under us, but we could still feel its power and heat. The phosphorus was like a giant flashbulb going off. In that frozen instant of illumination, I could finally see the faces of my enemy. They were hurting. But still advancing.

• 1:00:23Jocko Willink?

  With its engine screaming, the Huey somehow came up with the power it needed. It was agonizingly slow going and we had to push our way through some branches, but we were not being dragged through them. We were being lifted straight up. The NVA continued to fire at us. And I had the unsettling impression that tracer rounds were passing between my legs and a sensation that will give any man pause for thought.

• 1:00:50Jocko Willink?

  The team fired back on full automatic and we threw the last of our grenades. Like two fiercely demented and determined beasts, the NVA and RT Idaho remained locked in battle to the bitter end.

• 1:01:05Jocko Willink?

  As we finally cleared the trees, I immediately called Covey and confessed our little deception. "The team is out. The whole team is out," I screamed into the handset. "We came out together. Do not send in a second helicopter. I repeat, no second chopper." The muskets rolled in and pulverized the ground we had just left. The A1Es were right behind them and as the muffled explosion and light flashes reached me, I found myself feeling a little sorry for the NVA troops down there. They were valiant and dedicated soldiers. They would have been a credit to any army. Those left alive would no doubt have some stories to tell.

• 1:01:47Jocko Willink?

  But I doubted they would ever admit that a six-man team had held them at bay for so long and then escaped their most determined efforts to wipe them out. As for RT Idaho, we were simply happy to be alive. Not something I would have bet on a short while earlier.

• 1:02:13John Stryker Meyer?

  Oh yeah.

• 1:02:15Jocko Willink?

  Oh yeah.

• 1:02:16John Stryker Meyer?

  And we were lucky too because of the

• 1:02:19Jocko Willink?

  You were more lucky than that?

• 1:02:22John Stryker Meyer?

  I mean, we used up a whole lot of luck on that one. But you know, we're lucky because we were still relatively high, not like the big peaks and deeper into layoffs. And so the helicopter was able to pull us out. If that had been in the middle of the day with jungle heat and the heat of the day, he never would have been able to lift six of us out. But we weighed all that and I didn't listen to Covey, just rolled the dice because it was so dark at that point. So, oh yeah, the recon guides smiled on us one more time.

• 1:03:00Jocko Willink?

  So when you, when you, once you got pulled out, would they just look for a clearing somewhere to set down, get you guys in the helicopter for real?

• 1:03:06John Stryker Meyer?

  No, that's the part, that's the part, they just froze your balls off.

• 1:03:12John Stryker Meyer?

  Because with the Swiss seat, you know how it is with the rope, you just, everything goes numb.

• 1:03:16Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:16John Stryker Meyer?

  And so because it was dark particularly, they wanted to make sure they, wherever they put us down, it's gonna be somewhere in South Vietnam. So we were in the air, I just forget how long. And they finally sat us down, but you can't walk, you just, you lie to like a cripple for a few minutes. Yeah. Unclip, you can't flip.

• 1:03:34Jocko Willink?

  So, so they, so they didn't really care about your comfort?

• 1:03:37John Stryker Meyer?

  No, and we, and we didn't complain too much, but you go, you're all sweaty.

• 1:03:42Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:42John Stryker Meyer?

  And you know how it is, when five, five minutes later, you're at 5,000 feet, which is cold. People forget how cold it is at 5,000 feet.

• 1:03:49Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you're freezing.

• 1:03:50John Stryker Meyer?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:50Jocko Willink?

  Especially because you're soaking wet.

• 1:03:52John Stryker Meyer?

  Yeah, and you feel like you got.

• 1:03:53Jocko Willink?

  And you're going 80 miles an hour.

• 1:03:54John Stryker Meyer?

  So you go, yeah.

• 1:03:55Jocko Willink?

  80 mile an hour wind.

• 1:03:57John Stryker Meyer?

  Yeah, all that too.

• 1:04:01Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, this is just, I mean, this is just crazy. It's absolutely crazy.

• 1:04:09Jocko Willink?

  And this was just over and over again. Now,

• 1:04:15Jocko Willink?

  you know, I spent a lot of time on the books, on the last couple podcasts. I wanted to, I wanted to kind of just ask you a couple of questions. Get your thoughts on some stuff.

• 1:04:28Jocko Willink?

  And I also, and I know you might have to come back again, but I got Sog Chronicles here, I read that. Outstanding book, you know, and this is, Sog Chronicles, real quick, talks about a big operation that, that, that took place, that you weren't on, but you got really good descriptions and talked to people, Operation Tailwind. That's another one where helicopters are getting shot down. I mean, it's completely, completely insane.

• 1:04:55John Stryker Meyer?

  Yeah, and there's, and no, no ordinary helicopter, these are the CH-53s, Delta models.

• 1:05:00Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:00John Stryker Meyer?

  The biggest the Marine Corps had, and they took out two of those. And left one really banged up. And when they inserted, they still, they had three WIs on their assertion, but they had to get in for that to take the pressure off of the CIA operation. That was their mission, September 1970.

• 1:05:19Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's, so that's

• 1:05:21John Stryker Meyer?

  Operation Tailwind.

• 1:05:22Jocko Willink?

  Operation Tailwind. And that, that book, Sog Chronicles, Volume One, and I, I hope there's going to be about thirty more volumes of

• 1:05:29John Stryker Meyer?

  We're gonna be working on it. The model that Anna and I came up with is that we're gonna write till we die.

• 1:05:34Jocko Willink?

  I like it.

• 1:05:35John Stryker Meyer?

  Cause there's so many Sog stories that have never been told, because we couldn't tell. And some of our guys, I mean, even when I, a fellow recon guy, talk to them, it's like pulling information. I'm sure you've run into that with your people. They're not, they're not inclined to talk.

• 1:05:51Jocko Willink?

  Well, yeah.

• 1:05:51John Stryker Meyer?

  They're modest.

• 1:05:52Jocko Willink?

  That's an interesting thing, because people

• 1:05:54John Stryker Meyer?

  They're not the wannabes at the bar. Hey, man, I'm a Green Beret, or I'm a SEAL.

• 1:05:58Jocko Willink?

  And, and most of the guys, when, you know, people say, well, you, you should have more guys from TU Bruiser on there, or you have to have more guys, more SEALs on. The SEALs that I know that I would want to have on, a lot of them, they're still in, or they don't want to come on.

• 1:06:10John Stryker Meyer?

  They can't, they won't say a word.

• 1:06:12Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, they're, they're like, hey, no, I'm good, you know? And then, obviously, I got a lot of my friends that, that do come on, and it's, it's great when they come on. But yeah, a lot of guys are still doing it, you know? And so, hey, that's the way it is. Once, once those guys retire, and I do have some friends that are retiring soon, and they'll be coming on, so that's pretty awesome.

• 1:06:32John Stryker Meyer?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:06:33Jocko Willink?

  But, um, yeah, so the Sog Chronicles, uh, you, you've, like I said, hopefully, there's thirty volumes of that. Right now, there's just one.

• 1:06:41John Stryker Meyer?

  We're gonna try to turn Across the Fence and On the Ground into audiobooks.

• 1:06:45Jocko Willink?

  That's awesome.

• 1:06:46John Stryker Meyer?

  That's our project right now. And then, as soon as we're done with that, to commence, uh, with Volume Two. And we, we got a couple of stories there. Uh, well, the one that we talked about in On the Ground, the August 23rd attack. We've had a lot more research. We had this gal who's a, she was in MI, and she has pulled out more information. We're gonna pull the whole thing together for the, hopefully, the most detailed story of that night, because it was such a tragic, yet heroic night for the people that were there on the ground that night, and Larry Tremble up on Marble Mountain.

• 1:07:20Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:21John Stryker Meyer?

  So we'll have that, a couple of other stories, many other stories. But there's, uh, the other one, one of our guys went in for a bright light. And they got shot out. An A, uh, F4 crashed.

• 1:07:35John Stryker Meyer?

  As it was crashing, it hit three separate hilltops coming to rest on the third one. They got to the second hill and got shot out. He went back 25 years later. He became a doctor on his own money, spent $70,000 to go back to Cambodia to try to find that F4 just gnawed at his conscience. They got in, got to the site, and were run off by bandits. He went back, now would be two years ago, with DPAA. And DPAA was working on the second hill where the jet was on the third hill. So he's able to go in and give them direct sighting as to where to dig. So they're still working it.

• 1:08:19John Stryker Meyer?

  And he was on the ground digging things out with these guys. That's gonna be in that book.

• 1:08:23Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:26Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, so check out that book too, SOG Chronicles. Your training, how ready do you think you were when you got to Vietnam? How ready were you for what you were about to encounter?

• 1:08:41John Stryker Meyer?

  Well, a lot better than the guys that went through just basic training and advanced infantry training. And I'm sure that conventional units had in-country training. Our in-country training was was good. He worked, we, you know, we practiced calling in spooky, worked with the helicopters, told about the dangers, and working with the little people, the history, as well as some of the do's and don'ts about working with South Vietnamese. And I thought that was good. But then traditional A camp duty, which is, I think all of that was geared for the A camps, SOG was just at another level. And that's why we always talked. So people like Pat Watkins, Spider Parks, John McGovern, Dick Rose, they were the senior

• 1:09:26John Stryker Meyer?

  E7s or E6s in camp, all of whom had run. At night, us green guys would talk to them. Particularly after mission. And then we talked to each other. You know, John Walton came back from a target and where Tom Cunningham's leg was blown off. One of his little people that's got shot four times and Captain Tin, who saved us in October, pulled them out in August. And we talked right away that night. Well, what did you learn? And it always be this back and forth to try to get any sense of what happened or anything you could do to give us anything for another edge in the field. And meanwhile, we're getting the intel reports. We knew about all the teams had been wiped out and the intel reports about

• 1:10:10John Stryker Meyer?

  the sappers. So you all bounced it out and just key thing was comma. So in answer to your question, SOG was so different. A lot of it was innovative. The things we were doing there were the strings. That was all things that you use today really advanced it. You know, no fast ropes. That was another dimension away, another war. So we're working that firepower, working with the air assets and new weapons. But it was all like experimental things. Learn as you go. Try to take what's best. And like Lynn Black, blow yourself up in an ambush just for good luck to make sure it really works.

• 1:10:49Jocko Willink?

  Did you, when you were calling for fire, so I don't know if you know this, but now it's like a school you go to. You go to a joint tactical intercontroller school and that's sort of your specialty is calling for fire, calling for bombs. But you just, you trained in country to learn how to do it?

• 1:11:07John Stryker Meyer?

  Yes. And again, we talked to, that's where we talked to Spider and Pat Walker specifically. And so that was, that was more important than actually going out popping smoke and having the gun run. It was learning how to do it the right way. Now you're in a box and you never have a gun run go across you. It'd be in front, you know, your front to left, southeast, and you direct it that way. And then how many inches, I mean, how many feet of yards from your perimeter, how many meters? And that applied when we got to the field because once we were up at FUBI, we didn't practice airstrikes. Once we were on the ground, we did it.

• 1:11:48John Stryker Meyer?

  But it did it with confidence, thanks to Spider, Watkins, and John McGovern particularly. They sat with us, our green guys at night and made us, you know, understand that. And we had a couple of cases where people made mistakes.

• 1:12:01Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:01John Stryker Meyer?

  And teams got hit and lost people. They had a, they were bringing in some people, we were, our body count was so low that they were bringing in people from other units. And they were coming cocky. And when, once they got on the ground, they were just maybe a little too cocky and hadn't listened to all the lessons. And some of the teams would let the other people carry it, that's why I carried the radio. And we had one team, a young guy came in and called airstrike on his own team. They came with a gun run right across the team's RON. And it's like that, you know.

• 1:12:35Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I, I, I, that does not surprise me at all. I mean, when I, I'm listening to or reading your books. The fact that you guys were doing that, you obviously had a massive amount of skill to not have that happen. Cause like I said, these guys are looking at a jungle canopy. They, they're looking at some random bit of smoke that came out. And yet you're directing fire based on that. It's, it's, it's awesome. But I could see where somebody could easily, you know, make a mistake, you know, you give the wrong direction. You, you know, you look at your compass is spinning the wrong way, you know, it's too close to your weapon. You've got your cardinal directions.

• 1:13:11Jocko Willink?

  I mean, there's so many things that could go wrong that, and yet, and yet you're just doing, I mean, there's times where out there doing gun runs for, for 12 hours straight.

• 1:13:21John Stryker Meyer?

  Long, long time. And, and, and like your case where you had the, um, the unit that you wanted to attack the building. And you challenged it three times and the last time you called it off because it was another unit, another SEAL team. Well, we had that common sense thing on the ground too, where we would direct it. But if there was something that wasn't quite right. You put everything on hold until you got it right.

• 1:13:44Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's, it's weird because Leif and I wrote Extreme Ownership and we didn't really coordinate stories that we were talking about and yet there's multiple stories in there about either blue on blues or potential blue on blues because man, in a city like that with all these different, different units running around, all on different radio frequencies.

• 1:14:06John Stryker Meyer?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:14:07Jocko Willink?

  And a bunch of enemy Mujahideen fighters running around in there too. It was, blue on blue is a very real thing and there would be probably one case of blue on blue a day that would happen and maybe one a week that would get reported, you know, but just, and I'm not talking where someone gets shot, but, but like, you know, just all of a sudden you're taking rounds and you're like, where are those coming from? Oh, that's another unit down there.

• 1:14:32John Stryker Meyer?

  That's an M4, that's an M4 A1 opening up on the, oops.

• 1:14:35Jocko Willink?

  Exactly, exactly. So that, it would happen all the time. And that's one thing that was nice about, well, for you, not nice, but it's less complicated. You're the only friendly guys out there. There was, there was no friendly fire happening. You guys.

• 1:14:49John Stryker Meyer?

  Us versus them.

• 1:14:50Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's all them.

• 1:14:55Jocko Willink?

  When you got mission taskings. Where'd they come from? Were they, were they coming from up above? Were you guys developing targets yourself? Where, where did that, how did that process work?

• 1:15:04John Stryker Meyer?

  It was a happy mix of both. The chain of command for SOG went to SOG headquarters, right to their White House. They had somebody from DOD that was there. Some, I don't know, some general, somebody. But that was their mission was keep an eye on SOG. So they would send missions from there that would come to headquarters to each FOB and then our immediate action reports would all go back. After action reports would go back through the chain of command. So they knew what was going on at the White House. There was somebody at the White House. That's what we were told. And on occasions, if we had a target that we wanted to do B-52 strike, that would go back through the chain of command and then get approval on it.

• 1:15:47Jocko Willink?

  But the, the, from what the public knew, the public knew we were bombing.

• 1:15:53John Stryker Meyer?

  No, they didn't know anything about Laos or Cambodia.

• 1:15:55Jocko Willink?

  They didn't, they didn't even know we were bombing Laos and Cambodia?

• 1:15:57John Stryker Meyer?

  Correct. Nothing, there were no reporters in there. There's no communist news network back then. Um, so, and the communists would not talk about it because they had agreed to the agreement of not having their people there. Cause they always said, hey, layoffs can't, but they're neutral. We respect them, lying dogs. And we said the same thing, but ours, we just went in with our recon teams as opposed to them just going down and enslaving all the people that worked there. Work with us, help us open the roads. And you know, if we saw indigenous people, we would not open fire on them. I mean, it's like, you're not going to go out to the local people. They don't know any better. Just call it in the middle.

• 1:16:38John Stryker Meyer?

  Um, but the NVA, they, they, they tell them, you work with us or you die.

• 1:16:44Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Well, you, you know, in, in one of the books, you're talking about how the, the NVA treated the, the indigenous people there so horribly that the indigenous troops that you worked with, but hated the NVA. They hated them. The, these NVA had raped their women and beat their wives and just done horrible things to them. Absolutely. They were there for, they were there to fight.

• 1:17:07John Stryker Meyer?

  Yep. And they, they, they cut nobody any slack. I mean, America today, particularly our snowflakes, don't know what the soldiers of communism were really like in the field. And they're just nasty people. And, um, that's what we were fighting. And they were dead, they were really dedicated and there, there's a sense of purpose because they've been so thoroughly indoctrinated. They really believe what they're doing, even though they're working off of propaganda.

• 1:17:39Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. When you, so the, so you would come up with some of the missions, some of the missions would come down to you.

• 1:17:46John Stryker Meyer?

  Majority came.

• 1:17:46Jocko Willink?

  Majority came down to you.

• 1:17:48John Stryker Meyer?

  And of course, you know, they would have, sometimes I think there would be, we gotta get a team on the ground. That's why we were going in. Primary, secondary, all to get shot out, eat lunch, go back and try again. Cause they just wanted to get somebody on the ground. And that would just be your, that's an automatic area reconnaissance.

• 1:18:05Jocko Willink?

  And that's because they had something they wanted to see there, some, something like that?

• 1:18:09John Stryker Meyer?

  Sometimes our S3 people would just want to get a team on the ground so they could report to headquarters that night. We have one or two teams on the ground.

• 1:18:17Jocko Willink?

  Wait, do you mean that they're just wanting to, hey, look what we're doing?

• 1:18:21John Stryker Meyer?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:23John Stryker Meyer?

  Now, I'm sure the guys that were in S3 would deny that emphatically, but it felt like that.

• 1:18:27Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:18:28John Stryker Meyer?

  Particularly when you came back and said, here's the new target and they'll pick an LZ for you while you're flying back to the next target.

• 1:18:36Jocko Willink?

  Did you ever, what if you, what if there was a mission that you looked at and you said, hey, this is dumb. This doesn't make sense.

• 1:18:43John Stryker Meyer?

  Well, there's only one that I declined around about Christmas time of 68. I just had a feeling and a team went in. I was worried, but they were on the ground for five days and it was a dry hole. And they came out without any shots fired or anything. So that's the only time I officially turned something down.

• 1:18:59Jocko Willink?

  Maybe that's why you had a bad feeling. You knew nothing was gonna happen. It wasn't your kind of target, dude.

• 1:19:04John Stryker Meyer?

  Yeah. I don't want a boring target.

• 1:19:08Jocko Willink?

  So if, so how did it go when you, when you said no? What'd you say? Hey, look, my guys need rest. Sorry. Not this time.

• 1:19:13John Stryker Meyer?

  We had the right to say no. It was frowned on, but you know, they had, at that time, we had a couple of new teams in camp and Rodney Head came in and he was a good 1-0. So he went out and he came back and said, hey, you know, that target was pretty cool. We slept a lot.

• 1:19:29Jocko Willink?

  Dry hole.

• 1:19:30John Stryker Meyer?

  Dry hole. I said, really? So I had all these feelings, man. I was hyperventilating. I figured we were gonna run into Ho Chi Minh and, you know, a couple of divisions again for good luck. I hadn't seen a division in a month. You know, it's like, okay, but no. See, and that kind of showed me how your mental state of mind too. Cause I was really, that's what I believed. And the system was such that you could turn it down and we took it from there.

• 1:19:57Jocko Willink?

  When you say that's what you believed, you, you believed that it was a bad target?

• 1:20:02John Stryker Meyer?

  I just felt, we, we had been so lucky and going through the Christmas, Thanksgiving and everything else that our, I just felt our number was gonna be, you didn't know how. And I just said, this could be the target. It's an MA target and those are particularly, they were the, uh, the ones that are along the DMZ River, uh, west of Vietnam that went deeper into Laos. And they were nasty. We lost several teams up there. I figured this could be our turn. So, but I was wrong.

• 1:20:31Jocko Willink?

  Now, did you ever get that feeling again?

• 1:20:35John Stryker Meyer?

  Not, not, not enough, strong enough to act on it. I mean, the carrot in the back of my tiny mind, it was like, the last time you thought you were gonna die, you didn't.

• 1:20:45Jocko Willink?

  I had some guys that thought they were gonna die every time we left the wire. You know what I mean? God bless them. But he's no man, this could, I could be the night man. No, I'm not feeling good about this one. And they'd always get their gear on, but I'd, you know, I always looked at as a good sign. If certain people were scared, if they wouldn't, wouldn't have been scared, I would have been nervous because they were so scared all the time. I think, man, this must be really stressful for him.

• 1:21:09John Stryker Meyer?

  Yeah, I never wrote the letter like, dear mom and dad, I'm dead now. If you read this letter, I'm dead.

• 1:21:14Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:14John Stryker Meyer?

  Um, I don't know, I just felt, I hoped that we somehow get through it. And, uh, and you're right about the scare thing. You, you want that emotional edge. A little fear can go along. It's a great motivator. But I wouldn't, I wouldn't go out with a guy if somebody was saying, hey, man, I'm not afraid. I'm afraid of you, dude. You go to somebody else.

• 1:21:36Jocko Willink?

  I also used to get the feeling that

• 1:21:40Jocko Willink?

  if you were scared like that, if you were, if you were scared and you were gonna be hesitant, that was gonna be bad. Sure. Like I, I was more worried about guys that were like hesitant or I felt like if they were hesitant on the battlefield, that would work out bad for them. The guys that I always felt like, okay, if someone's aggressive, not, not, not unafraid and suicidal like that, but just, hey, oh yeah, I'm gonna go do, I'm gonna, we're gonna go kick ass right now. I always felt that was the attitude to have, was to be aggressive, was to be like, okay, yeah, we're, oh, you want, you got an op for us? Cool, we'll go do it. Now, we turned down ops too. There was ops where we looked at and said,

• 1:22:26Jocko Willink?

  man, this is not good. And this is a massive amount of risk. I mean, there was areas where. There was areas where they would take IED strikes on vehicles. And like, you know, when a big IED hits a Humvee, everyone dies. Oh, yeah. Three out of five people die or something like that. I mean, it's it's very catastrophic. And there was one target they were looking at for us. They asked us to do, and there was like one road going in. It had multiple big IED strikes. And then they wanted us to, they were asking if we could take out mortar. It was either a mortar team or an IED emplacer, but we were looking at it and where the mortars had been launched from were all over the place.

• 1:23:09Jocko Willink?

  So it was just, it was one of the, one of the types of missions where we looked at it and said, hey, there's got to be a better way to do this. Because us going up there is not going to be worth it. A lot of your missions were point missions, right? What do you mean by that? They give you a target, get to the point and wipe it out. Uh, I would say my first deployment, it was go capture, kill bad guys. That was my first deployment to Iraq. We were in Baghdad, where that's mostly what we were doing. In the middle of the night, we'd find out where a bad guy was, we'd go get him. And that's what my second deployment in Ramadi, mostly what guys were doing was overwatch sniper overwatch positions set up in buildings so that when the bad guys would either maneuver on friendly forces or they'd be out doing what they shouldn't be doing. Right.

• 1:23:52Jocko Willink?

  The guys would take them out. So that's, that's pretty much the, and then there's all kinds of crap in between that. Everything from, you know, everything from doing just reconnoiscences of areas to counter mortar types. Just, you know, a lot of, a lot of other things would happen. But primarily it was direct action missions, going out to take out a target or these sniper overwatch types. But, you know, we'd be doing big clearances to big conventional clearances, you know, we had our, we called them Jundis, which is, Jundie means, it means soldier in Arabic. Right. And, and so we call them Jundis. That's what they called themselves, Jundis. But, so we had Jundis like you guys had little people, like you had Indig forces. We had Indig forces. They were Jundis. And so we would do

• 1:24:38Jocko Willink?

  very conventional missions with the Jundis of them and us, you know, we'd be overseeing them as they cleared big sections of the city. And we'd be working in conjunction with the army. So, yeah, we did a little bit of everything. But, um.

• 1:24:52John Stryker Meyer?

  See, that brings us back to our side of it, where you can give yourself a mental delusion, which is, our mission is to go look, an area recon, so theoretically, you're gonna get inserted quietly and go about your job. And that's different from you with your point mission, it's a whole different frame of mind. So theoretically, okay, we're hoping to get in, do our mission, to come back and report, or find a fuel line, blow it up, or get the POW, get the wiretaps, give them intel, where you're going out and doing your IED pickups and mortars, that's totally different. So, at least in my mind, I think that's part of my self comfort factor,

• 1:25:34John Stryker Meyer?

  we're gonna get inserted and have a nice quiet mission for five or six days, take some pictures.

• 1:25:40Jocko Willink?

  That sounds great.

• 1:25:41John Stryker Meyer?

  And come on back, it's really cool. Yeah, we're behind enemy lines.

• 1:25:44Jocko Willink?

  What percentage of operations would you guys get contacted on?

• 1:25:48John Stryker Meyer?

  Oh, we left, always left under fire. The only question was how much. Never had, well, one, the one where we got, you opened up our discussion tonight.

• 1:25:58Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:59John Stryker Meyer?

  Where we got pulled out, there's no fire there because they came in and got us, we had a great RON, and we were gonna get some POWs, but they pulled us out right away. So there's no gunfire on that mission. But other than that, every time, we left under gunfire. It's the only question of how much. Sometimes it looks like the whole jungle was lighting up, sometimes it'll only be two or 300.

• 1:26:20Jocko Willink?

  And yet, you still fooled yourself into thinking, hey, this recon's gonna be different.

• 1:26:26Jocko Willink?

  But yeah, so I guess my point was, I looked at it, and I still look at it, if you are nervous about getting hurt, if you're nervous about something going wrong, to me, that's when something goes wrong. Yeah. When you're nervous about it. Now, I'm not saying you should be arrogant about it and think, oh, we're gonna get away with whatever. But I'm saying, Like when you're doing us, even when you're doing like a sport, you know, even when you're doing some physical activity, if you, if you're afraid you might get injured, to me, that's when you get injured. It's when the, it's when you're, when you're afraid. I think fear can hurt you. That being said, the other side of the coin is, if you have no fear, well, then you're definitely, you're definitely at risk.

• 1:27:07John Stryker Meyer?

  He who hesitates is lost.

• 1:27:08Jocko Willink?

  There you go. So there's a dichotomy there that's gotta get balanced.

• 1:27:12John Stryker Meyer?

  Yeah, and that's where we're so lucky. We, you know, Hep and Sal did a great job of vetting our, our indigenous troops and to go from Spider Parks to Wolken to Bubba and then back to Lynn Black. And then when I left the team, it was in Lynn's hands. And I came back, Lynn's the one zero. What more could you ask for? So that was just a, you know, very fortunate.

• 1:27:36Jocko Willink?

  What was your, uh, your mission planning like? So you guys get a tasking. How long does, how long did you guys plan for?

• 1:27:44John Stryker Meyer?

  Uh, if it's just an area mission, uh, area reconnaissance, very little. With the wiretaps, obviously we did hours and hours of training on that. And then as time went on, you know, first it was just Sal who could do it. And then Sal trained Hep and Fook, the guys that were strong to do it all. And, um, as well, every, every aspect of it. And then we cross trained each other. And we even had so that Hep would, was beginning to teach a couple of the young guys, basic English. So if any of us got killed, Hep could take over the radio, or the indigenous could take over. So a couple of guys like Chow and Hung, as it, when Hung came on the team, they picked up English pretty quick. So we worked with

• 1:28:27John Stryker Meyer?

  them. And we practiced calling in, working on the radio, the problems with the batteries and things like that. So we cross trained everything back and forth. And the wiretap was one particular one where we had several guys on the team trained up to do it all. Everything from knowing about the batteries, watching it, keeping the battery indicator, to getting a, uh, put the wire up the tree or a telephone pole. And when you came down, you covered it with mud. That was from that area. So it would look like was part of that area, trying to cover the wire.

• 1:28:58Jocko Willink?

  But as far as the actual mission planning of, okay, here's where we're going in tonight, they didn't take you much because you were running repetitive type missions?

• 1:29:08John Stryker Meyer?

  Right. It's a high degree of similarity. The most important thing was the training. So when you made contact, you could take care of yourself and how to react. Try to continue the mission, but these were like reconnaissance. So once you've been seen or compromised, the mission's compromised.

• 1:29:26Jocko Willink?

  Would you would be flying in?

• 1:29:31Jocko Willink?

  What was your degree of certainty on where you were inserted?

• 1:29:35John Stryker Meyer?

  Oh, we knew very clear where we're going. So like in the case, we would talk to Covey, we'd send the three LZs down to Saigon, then Covey would go pick a site. And then he would tell me on the radio, okay, this is where we're going.

• 1:29:50Jocko Willink?

  And you would be, would you be looking at your map as you inserted?

• 1:29:52John Stryker Meyer?

  And he knew what what the frame was. So it would be in within that map.

• 1:29:56Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:29:58John Stryker Meyer?

  That we or that section of the map that we had cut out.

• 1:29:59Jocko Willink?

  I remember when we first, you know, as a radioman, believe it or not, when GPSs first came out, the radioman kind of got saddled with the GPS because it was a piece of electronic equipment.

• 1:30:11John Stryker Meyer?

  Right.

• 1:30:11Jocko Willink?

  And then no one else could work with electronic equipment. So so I would be usually a lot of times be carrying the GPS as opposed to the point man. And the point man, you know, was still using map and compasses in the early 90s. But the GPS wouldn't always work well in a helicopter. And so sometimes they took me, you know, this was some training operations where I learned, oh, so I'm not where I think I am. And you get out and that GPS finally finds itself and you realize you're three clicks away from where you're supposed to be or whatever, and it's bad. And that's why we'd go, I went back to, hey, when I'm in the helicopter, I'm on a map. So that way, when my boss looks at me and says, hey, where are we supposed to be? Either yes or no, like, don't get out of the bird or, okay, we're good. But but that.

• 1:30:56Jocko Willink?

  So I was thinking about that for you guys, you'd be doing the same thing as you approached. Okay, yep, there's that terrain feature. There's this other terrain feature. Cool. Where where where we're supposed to be.

• 1:31:05John Stryker Meyer?

  Yeah. And then last also, we wanted to know where the water was. Because some of the targets, they had more more streams and things. So we would carry less water. I would literally just carry one canteen with the purification pills. So that we're in for several days, like with that go for by the end of the first day, we had gone through some water and we all took a turn going into this little stream, put the purification pills in, hit the water and let it sit for a couple of hours before you drank it.

• 1:31:32Jocko Willink?

  Did you get acclimated where you needed less water?

• 1:31:35John Stryker Meyer?

  Oh, yeah, absolutely. Less water and

• 1:31:39John Stryker Meyer?

  I can truly say I never defecated in Laos. Somehow the body just tightened up. And they had no shit pills that guys would take, so they literally would not go to the bathroom. I worried about those.

• 1:31:55Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that worries me too.

• 1:31:56John Stryker Meyer?

  Oh, yeah. I was like, anyway, for numerous reasons that the creative mind can think about. But so I didn't, but my body never had, we never did it.

• 1:32:06Jocko Willink?

  And you guys didn't?

• 1:32:08John Stryker Meyer?

  Is that TMI?

• 1:32:11Jocko Willink?

  Did you guys have, you guys, did you guys use imagery at all? Like overhead imagery? Nothing?

• 1:32:17John Stryker Meyer?

  No, some of the gun, the Cobras, no, some of the first Cav helicopters had some,

• 1:32:31John Stryker Meyer?

  I'm trying to think what IR, they would have the ability to see through the clouds and stuff.

• 1:32:37Jocko Willink?

  Oh, okay.

• 1:32:38John Stryker Meyer?

  And it was just very primitive, but it was the beginning. Whereas the Cobra gun just didn't have it. But the first Cav could get low into the jungle and navigate in fog and stuff to get down to our guys.

• 1:32:50Jocko Willink?

  But no, you guys wouldn't see photographs of the areas where you were going into at all?

• 1:32:56John Stryker Meyer?

  No, the only time was down in Cambodia for that missionary. Where that was, now that base was really close to Saigon, close to Mac V headquarters. And we may have had overviews, I just forget for up north. That one down there, it stuck, it stuck in my mind.

• 1:33:15Jocko Willink?

  And then what was your, what was your op tempo like? In other words, how often were you going in the field?

• 1:33:20John Stryker Meyer?

  Well, through November, December, we, if we weren't on the, if we weren't on the ground, we were getting ready to go back the next day. That's why it was such a push, push, push. And I rotated our little people out because they were just getting beat. And we had trained them up. So by November, December, all the cross-training we had done all those months, you know, Sal could take a day off.

• 1:33:44John Stryker Meyer?

  Even Hepp could take a day off. We had a couple of guys that could speak enough English. If anything happened to me or Bubba. They could take care of the radio, do the comms. And so we rotated them through. But it was every day. And then if the weather came, we'd get a break. And so there was no. And the rule of thumb was if you ran a mission for five days, you came back, you got five days off. So you could clean up and get back in shape, get the team ready. But for that period of time, we had minimal teams. The teams at FOB one had become so between disease, health, guys getting wiped out, teams getting blown away.

• 1:34:27John Stryker Meyer?

  We were one of the few teams in camp that was fully operational. So that's why that was the other pressure we had. I remember the S3 just saying, hey, you're the only guys we got. You're going this afternoon. Here's your target. Go eat. Okay. So we did it. And then we got shot out and come back the next day. And so there was no, the op temple was supposed to be running a mission five to 10 days if you're lucky. Well, it never happened. Some guys did. So don't get me wrong. We had some guys that were able to stay on the ground. Amazing. But in our case, we didn't. So it would be very flexible.

• 1:35:05Jocko Willink?

  Did anybody take less than, less than six guys?

• 1:35:09John Stryker Meyer?

  A few guys ran with four. And at the end of my tour duty, second tour, I tried a four man team. But we had this whole issue with the radio stuff. Just so we could move faster. Just wanted to try anything, something different. Because when we had moved fast, we had success getting away from the LZ. And that caused them confusion. So if we broke what our SOPs were, it worked.

• 1:35:32Jocko Willink?

  But the eight man was too much.

• 1:35:34John Stryker Meyer?

  Too much. I felt more comfortable with six. It was a lot of firepower. We had the M79 there. And then all the Americas had the M79s too.

• 1:35:42Jocko Willink?

  And then how often would you get legitimate R and R?

• 1:35:48John Stryker Meyer?

  Uh, you had one a year, one for tour duty. You get five days anywhere you want it. So I went to Hong Kong, bought my stereo. By that time I had some poker money set up.

• 1:35:58John Stryker Meyer?

  Bought a nice stereo, stay at the art, sent it home to mom and dad. They, they, my little brother put it together. He was good at that stuff.

• 1:36:05Jocko Willink?

  Uh huh.

• 1:36:06John Stryker Meyer?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:07Jocko Willink?

  And that's it. Other than that, there's no, no.

• 1:36:09John Stryker Meyer?

  One R and R. If we had gotten that P O W.

• 1:36:12Jocko Willink?

  Ah. Then you would have gotten more.

• 1:36:14John Stryker Meyer?

  Yeah, we would have.

• 1:36:16Jocko Willink?

  What was the offer for Catching a Bad Guy?

• 1:36:18John Stryker Meyer?

  Uh, an R and R anywhere in the world and you got a hundred dollar bonus.

• 1:36:21Jocko Willink?

  How many days?

• 1:36:22John Stryker Meyer?

  Five. Like a regular R and R.

• 1:36:24Jocko Willink?

  Dang.

• 1:36:25John Stryker Meyer?

  Oh yeah, it was, oh yeah. That's why we lusted for that man. I cried when Spider said, no.

• 1:36:31Jocko Willink?

  A hundred bucks. How much was a hundred bucks? How about, how much was your normal paycheck? How much you make a month back then?

• 1:36:36John Stryker Meyer?

  Oh, I don't know. Um, when, when we went through jump school, now I'm only a private E1, right? I got a hundred percent pay raise with my jump pay. I was getting paid fifty dollars a month. The jump pay was fifty five.

• 1:36:48Jocko Willink?

  There you go.

• 1:36:49John Stryker Meyer?

  So fifty five was a constant. Then later maybe E2 was like seventy five. Never paid, it wasn't never enough.

• 1:36:56Jocko Willink?

  So a hundred bucks was like, a hundred bucks was like a, a month of pay, basically.

• 1:37:00John Stryker Meyer?

  Yeah, that was a lot of money even then. A C note was a big deal. Absolutely.

• 1:37:07Jocko Willink?

  And then when you guys would come back, you were talking about this, how you would sit there and debrief. Would you debrief your, your team? Would you guys sit down and debrief what happened? What went wrong? What went right?

• 1:37:16John Stryker Meyer?

  We always talked to little people. Uh, maybe not right away because, uh, S2 would want to know what happened. So we would go in for an immediate debrief, go back to the team, make sure they had food for the night and stuff. And then go back for a final, uh, after action report, which would go through talking about everything from the vegetation, the type of hills, animals you encountered, all that kind of just crazy stuff, the fauna. Oh my God, the questions to answer was just, after a while, it's like, always the same. It was layoffs. Yeah, triple canopy, it's pretty dangerous. The NVA are pretty dedicated.

• 1:37:53John Stryker Meyer?

  And then anything specifics off the target from that that they could learn from.

• 1:37:58Jocko Willink?

  How long did it take you to become the one zero?

• 1:38:02John Stryker Meyer?

  Well, in my case, I got in country in May, Spider put me on a team at the end of May, we trained June and July. Had a couple in country, like little ambushes locally. And then we had a practice mission in August. And then we did a first wiretap, not a wiretap, but the air force sensors, we did two of those missions in September. Cause you had the monsoons too. It's a lot of between the rain. We had like weeks where we just rained, seemed like it rained every day. You ever see horizontal rain?

• 1:38:38Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I don't think I've seen as much. So you guys would not run missions during the monsoon season?

• 1:38:42John Stryker Meyer?

  No.

• 1:38:43Jocko Willink?

  Just too much?

• 1:38:44John Stryker Meyer?

  Too much.

• 1:38:44Jocko Willink?

  Weather was gonna be too bad?

• 1:38:46John Stryker Meyer?

  You're socked, you're socked and you couldn't get out of the base. The King bees couldn't get to the base.

• 1:38:51Jocko Willink?

  So how long, so how long was that? Like four months before you were?

• 1:38:54John Stryker Meyer?

  Yeah. Four months and, and.

• 1:38:57Jocko Willink?

  And how many missions did you run before you were one, a one zero?

• 1:39:01John Stryker Meyer?

  I had five missions under my belt. We had the two practice, the two wiretaps, and then Don Wolken, Echo Four. And by that time, when they came to me, he said, you know, Wolken got promoted to a cubby rider. And, um, cause Pat Watkins was leaving, there's an opening. So he went there and they gave me the option, are you ready? Well, we had seen what happened with Alabama with Lynn Black in October when they put a guy on a team that didn't have no experience. So I talked it over with Happy Sal. I said, look, this is a situation. I don't know who they're gonna give us.

• 1:39:41John Stryker Meyer?

  So what about, I'll, I'll be the one zero. And Spider had thought that was okay to do it, talked to Watkins. And they all said, well, you're ready if you want to try it. And we didn't know who, because they had new people coming into camp. And some of these guys were the older ones who had no experience on layoffs, but didn't want anything to do with them. And it has some of the younger guys who are coming in, like, um, like Jim Robinson, who was on the team. For one mission. And, um, we didn't know how they would stand up, so. Our guys were happy and then Bubba came in, Bubba and the guy named the Frenchman, Doug. Leterno, the Frenchman came in together and the Frenchman got picked for Virginia. And I got Bubba.

• 1:40:27John Stryker Meyer?

  They were buddies, they got up to be training group together.

• 1:40:29Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's. You, so you'd been in the army for like a couple of years and you were in charge of a, of a recon team.

• 1:40:38John Stryker Meyer?

  Yeah, got in the army, December sixty six, became a one zero in October sixty eight. So you figure.

• 1:40:44Jocko Willink?

  Two years.

• 1:40:45John Stryker Meyer?

  Almost two years, yeah.

• 1:40:48John Stryker Meyer?

  Cause the whole SF training between that and going through basic jump school. And then we had that, uh, training before Vietnam, the RTT training, which was different. But that's just because we're combo geeks.

• 1:41:02Jocko Willink?

  Oh, the RTT training was just radio.

• 1:41:04John Stryker Meyer?

  Radiotele type.

• 1:41:05Jocko Willink?

  Got it.

• 1:41:05John Stryker Meyer?

  They wanted top secret clearance men on those machines.

• 1:41:11Jocko Willink?

  How much did you see the tactics that you guys were using? Change over time?

• 1:41:19John Stryker Meyer?

  Um, I think by the time, like when you read We Few by Nick Brockhausen, some of those guys were all carrying either RPDs. Or an M sixty. So they were just going in heavier and, um. They would go into bigger team. And, um, they were just anticipating the contact more. Whereas we thought we would try to go in and try to. Escape and evade to the point where hopefully you can get at least some of the mission done. Or get some intel reports about troop movements, trucks, stuff like that. Or get a good wiretap.

• 1:41:55Jocko Willink?

  So the biggest thing that changed was the guys started going in heavier and actually bringing automatic weapons or belt fed machine guns.

• 1:42:03John Stryker Meyer?

  Sure.

• 1:42:04Jocko Willink?

  That makes sense. Every single time I read any of your operations, I want nothing more than a belt fed machine gun.

• 1:42:11John Stryker Meyer?

  So do we. If we didn't know who was gonna carry the damn thing.

• 1:42:13Jocko Willink?

  The SEALs had the Stoner.

• 1:42:15John Stryker Meyer?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:42:16Jocko Willink?

  Did you guys ever think about using that?

• 1:42:18John Stryker Meyer?

  We thought about it a lot, but and it was a great system. We heard many great reports about it. But again, the Stoner system, you needed all the ammo. You had to get the supply system set up. And we just weren't sure if we were going to be able to get the guarantee. If we converted, who would it be? Just the Americans? We want everybody with common weapons. So that if somebody gets blown up, their weapon gets blown. They know how to use the other guy's weapon.

• 1:42:43Jocko Willink?

  Got it. And you have the same magazines, same rounds, all that.

• 1:42:47John Stryker Meyer?

  Sure.

• 1:42:49Jocko Willink?

  And what about the mission set itself? Did you guys, did you notice that change over time while you were there?

• 1:42:59John Stryker Meyer?

  Later, we began to get more point targets, like in on the ground. One of my favorite stories was the Frenchman. He goes into a, it's a SEAL type mission. The CIA comes and says, we know about the NVA. They're floating 55 gallon drums down the river into a storage area, deep in Laos. So we want you guys to go in, but we don't trust you with the device. They had a device that they screwed into a 55 gallon drum. So what we're gonna do is.

• 1:43:31Jocko Willink?

  And that would be like a tracking device?

• 1:43:32John Stryker Meyer?

  No, no. Explosive in nature.

• 1:43:34Jocko Willink?

  Oh, that's right. That's right.

• 1:43:35John Stryker Meyer?

  Yeah, that's okay. So here's what, so we're gonna meet you on this hilltop in Laos. So Doug was the 1-1 on RT Virginia. Guthur Walde was the 1-0. They go in, hump for three days, get to the mountaintop. There's the CIA. With a couple of guys. Okay, here's your device. Go install it. Now, Comte de Waal was a Marine, so you'd think that he'd be the guy doing the swimming, right? He goes, "I'm an E6, Frenchman, you're an E4, hit the water, kid." So, the CIA gave the explosive device, humped down the mountain, get to the river, and then now they're on a river with all the stuff going by, the drums.

• 1:44:17John Stryker Meyer?

  And some have NBA troops riding the drums, or being present with a boat or something. So in between all this, Doug strips down, goes in, gets a drum, brings it back, puts in the explosive device, swims it back out, and then comes back soaking wet, and not happy. I mean, and he's from Southern California, so he's, he's really not happy. But, two days later, they're getting extracted now, the king bees come, extracted, and they're getting extracted, there's this huge explosion, and it had sonic boom, that Lily moved the aircraft, and the guys were on a string, swinging from the sonic boom, look back, there goes the fuel dump.

• 1:45:00Jocko Willink?

  Wow.

• 1:45:00John Stryker Meyer?

  Beautiful mission.

• 1:45:02Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's...

• 1:45:02John Stryker Meyer?

  So those are kind, so the point mission, the wiretaps, the pipelines, we have more reports of pipelines, and then also they were doing some trail work, trying to figure out how they were, uh, looked like it'd be a stream, but they had things, that's one of our missions, like the Orca mission, to get in there and see, well, how they're going through this water, and can we just go in, and while you're there, blow it up, maybe with a truck on it?

• 1:45:26Jocko Willink?

  Check. Uh, let's talk a little bit about gear. And you put, you actually have a section in, in Sog Chronicles, and it's in Across the Fence too, where you talk about stuff you carry, and stuff that you didn't carry. And, uh, some of the stuff that you didn't carry.

• 1:45:43Jocko Willink?

  No underwear.

• 1:45:44John Stryker Meyer?

  Never.

• 1:45:45Jocko Willink?

  No socks.

• 1:45:46John Stryker Meyer?

  Never.

• 1:45:47Jocko Willink?

  And that's because you're, you just want to stay dry as much as possible.

• 1:45:51John Stryker Meyer?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:52Jocko Willink?

  And both those things just hold water and keep moisture in.

• 1:45:55John Stryker Meyer?

  Yeah, and Lynn Black, uh, when he came...

• 1:46:00John Stryker Meyer?

  Well, I had a maid that was stealing all my underwear. Cause I went over with eight or 10 pair of the jockey shorts, right? And so I was down on my last pair. And the maid was literally stealing them because they sell them on the black market. They're relatively clean, relatively new. Mom bought me a whole bunch of stuff, socks and everything. So we had army socks, but so anyways. I talked to Lynn, I said, I can't believe my maid's been stealing my underwear. Cause we pulled down his little eye down. There's my underwear. So I said, here, take the last one. Have a good day. And Lynn goes, don't wear that stuff because you get jungle rock, crotch rock. And he says, same thing. Put away your socks. Well, you know, the first couple of weeks, the jungle boots were really tough on my feet, but he was right.

• 1:46:44Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Once you get them, once you get your feet broken in and the jungle boots broken in.

• 1:46:48John Stryker Meyer?

  And then so you go through the water. We, we did some marine country stuff. We were into rice paddies. Oh my God. But they would dry out quicker. You didn't have to worry about the socks. So.

• 1:46:59Jocko Willink?

  No helmet?

• 1:47:00John Stryker Meyer?

  Never.

• 1:47:01Jocko Willink?

  No body armor?

• 1:47:02John Stryker Meyer?

  Nope.

• 1:47:02Jocko Willink?

  And your body armor sucked back then.

• 1:47:04John Stryker Meyer?

  It sucked back then. It was big, clunky.

• 1:47:05Jocko Willink?

  It was just heavy. It didn't work well.

• 1:47:07John Stryker Meyer?

  It didn't work well.

• 1:47:11Jocko Willink?

  No entrenching tool?

• 1:47:12John Stryker Meyer?

  Never.

• 1:47:14Jocko Willink?

  No bayonet?

• 1:47:16Jocko Willink?

  No sleeping bag, no hammock, no poncho, no poncho liner, no ground pad?

• 1:47:21John Stryker Meyer?

  Correct.

• 1:47:21Jocko Willink?

  You are not traveling for comfort?

• 1:47:23John Stryker Meyer?

  Never. We had to carry it, as you know. You know that feeling?

• 1:47:28Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:29John Stryker Meyer?

  Well, you're taking to the field, you're carrying. You don't have your maid with you.

• 1:47:32Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. That, that rucksack gets heavy too.

• 1:47:36John Stryker Meyer?

  So quick.

• 1:47:37Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:38John Stryker Meyer?

  And ours was like small. We had the indigenous rucksacks. And, and so you want to put the radio and put the sweater underneath the radio. So it'll protect your back. And then you throw some rations, some extra, a couple of extra ammo magazines in there. And then extra hand grenades, M79 rounds. And a battery for good luck. Man.

• 1:48:00Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. You guys, uh, no dog tags, no military ID or ID of any kind, no rank, no name tags, no jump wings, no C I B, no patches, no unit identified or nothing.

• 1:48:11John Stryker Meyer?

  No pictures of mama.

• 1:48:12Jocko Willink?

  No pictures of mama.

• 1:48:14John Stryker Meyer?

  Right.

• 1:48:14Jocko Willink?

  Totally slick. So those are the things you didn't carry. Things you did carry, car 15.

• 1:48:19John Stryker Meyer?

  Oh, love it.

• 1:48:20Jocko Willink?

  You love the car 15.

• 1:48:22John Stryker Meyer?

  Oh, yeah. So when I back my second tour, uh, Rock Myers was an S four. He's he he'd been wounded. I came back, he says, you're back. So I got a present for you. He gave me a brand new car 15. It was still in the box. Take it out, stone it, all the tin foil and all the oils and greases and stuff. And you take it out, took it down to the range. It was perfectly zero. Never touched that weapon.

• 1:48:43Jocko Willink?

  That's crazy.

• 1:48:44John Stryker Meyer?

  Just put a little, uh, cloth strap on it and went to work.

• 1:48:47Jocko Willink?

  And and you never had problems with that weapon?

• 1:48:50John Stryker Meyer?

  Never.

• 1:48:52John Stryker Meyer?

  Yeah, they, um.

• 1:48:53Jocko Willink?

  Did yours have a forward assist on it? Did you?

• 1:48:56John Stryker Meyer?

  Yep, had a forward assist, yeah.

• 1:48:58Jocko Willink?

  So that was a, that was a car 15. Wow.

• 1:49:02John Stryker Meyer?

  So the M 16 with it with a classable stock?

• 1:49:04Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:04John Stryker Meyer?

  And a shortened barrel?

• 1:49:05Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. So it's weird. So many people and myself being one of them complain about the car, the car 15 or the M four frame. And now the M fours are a lot nicer. I mean, them four.

• 1:49:16John Stryker Meyer?

  A lot heavier too. You got the rails and everything.

• 1:49:18Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah, yeah. We.

• 1:49:19John Stryker Meyer?

  Put the lights.

• 1:49:19Jocko Willink?

  Things those are, they look like.

• 1:49:21John Stryker Meyer?

  You got everything but a cigarette lighter on here.

• 1:49:24Jocko Willink?

  Some guys, I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't have that on there too. So that's awesome. You used a cravat for your sling?

• 1:49:31John Stryker Meyer?

  Yes. So I thought, well, yeah, I did that, uh, during my second tour. They had the cravats quiet. And then, uh, God forbid, if you ever needed a cravat. Cause I always carried it. I always wore it around my neck, had one on my head. And then one on the car 15. Of course, you carried bandages.

• 1:49:47Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:47John Stryker Meyer?

  We had cravats in case, as at the very bottom of the rucksack.

• 1:49:51Jocko Willink?

  We would get a sort of, uh, one of those things that never wear a sling. Some guys would say that get caught up and that's just, man, especially when you're in a leadership position, you need a sling because you got to look at your map. You got to pull out, you know?

• 1:50:05John Stryker Meyer?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:50:06Jocko Willink?

  You got to do stuff, you know? And the other thing is you don't have a sling and you get blown up.

• 1:50:11John Stryker Meyer?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:11Jocko Willink?

  Get, where's your weapon? You have no idea when you wake up. So, yeah, um, but then there's some, you know, some people just, they wouldn't carry a sling. Mark Lee was one of my machine gunners. He just no sling. Nope. That was like the man thing to do was no sling. On an M60, or these days a Mark 48.

• 1:50:29John Stryker Meyer?

  Really?

• 1:50:30Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:32John Stryker Meyer?

  How strong was this guy?

• 1:50:33Jocko Willink?

  Strong.

• 1:50:33John Stryker Meyer?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:34Jocko Willink?

  Strong. M79 you carried sawed off.

• 1:50:39John Stryker Meyer?

  Oh, yes.

• 1:50:40Jocko Willink?

  I cannot believe that me and my guys did not think of sawing off our M79s. Cause I guarantee guys would have sawed off the M79s.

• 1:50:46John Stryker Meyer?

  Oh, yeah. My first self inflicted wound was from a sawed off M79.

• 1:50:50Jocko Willink?

  What'd you do?

• 1:50:52John Stryker Meyer?

  Well, we were in a process of cutting them down.

• 1:50:53Jocko Willink?

  Uh huh.

• 1:50:54John Stryker Meyer?

  So the question was, how far can you cut the barrel down? So we finally cut it right down to that last hinge.

• 1:50:59Jocko Willink?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:51:00John Stryker Meyer?

  Where, um, it's the last one that's.

• 1:51:03Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:04John Stryker Meyer?

  That's to the, to the bottom of the frame.

• 1:51:06Jocko Willink?

  Got it.

• 1:51:06John Stryker Meyer?

  So you crack, put the round in. So we, we kept bringing it back. So we're down to range, we're there. And the question was, because you cut the barrel off, it needs a number of rotations. Now, our weapons guys knew that. But I was, me and Rick Howard were comma guys and I didn't really ask. It just, the question was fire at sea. So on this day, I fire it fairly close. It goes bing, he's popping that noise M79 makes. And then it went off like pop, bing, like that. And I go, oh damn. So I go to Rick Howard, I said, I think a bee just hit me. He pulled my strips, you dumbass, you just shot yourself. My first self inflicted wound. But the good news was that M79 worked. And of course we cut the handle down.

• 1:51:50Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:51John Stryker Meyer?

  To just have enough that you could hold on to. Because that way it's less, less weapon. But you still had a lot of firepower.

• 1:51:58Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah. That cut that weapon down by half.

• 1:52:00John Stryker Meyer?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:52:01Jocko Willink?

  I was looking at the pictures you have of it in your book. It's, that thing is tiny.

• 1:52:04John Stryker Meyer?

  Tiny, but effective. Charlie hated those things.

• 1:52:08Jocko Willink?

  And, and at one point you had a, you had a holster for that thing?

• 1:52:12John Stryker Meyer?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:12Jocko Willink?

  Talk about John Wayne.

• 1:52:14John Stryker Meyer?

  That's still, that's still in layoffs with my, uh, sog knife.

• 1:52:17Jocko Willink?

  Damn.

• 1:52:17John Stryker Meyer?

  I had it cra- somebody had crafted it and I put it on. So, yeah, that, that was perfect. But, uh, never had another one. From that point, I just liked everybody else. We just carried it on the D ring. We taped it so it'd be quiet though.

• 1:52:33Jocko Willink?

  You carried 34 20 round mags. Each pack, each with 18 rounds each. So that's 612 rounds.

• 1:52:41John Stryker Meyer?

  For good luck, yeah.

• 1:52:43John Stryker Meyer?

  So I thought we carried extra like a pouch with a couple of extra clips in in case we needed to reload the uh.

• 1:52:49Jocko Willink?

  Thirty-four magazines and you went on, you mentioned you had few missions where you were down to your last one or two.

• 1:52:56John Stryker Meyer?

  At least twice that I remember. Echo four was the first time.

• 1:53:00Jocko Willink?

  Did you always hang on to your magazines when you were out?

• 1:53:05John Stryker Meyer?

  It depended on the degree of intensity of the firefight. If I had time, we keep us four happy. I'll bring back my damn magazines.

• 1:53:13Jocko Willink?

  Did you stuff them in your shirt?

• 1:53:14John Stryker Meyer?

  Yeah. Because the web gear would be tight, so uh and our jungle fatigues were out.

• 1:53:22Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:23John Stryker Meyer?

  So you had the pants, but then the harness from the uh from the web gear would hold everything in.

• 1:53:29Jocko Willink?

  When I came in, we'd stuff mags in our shirt and then, but with body armor, you can't do that. So now guys carry like pouches or just drop in their leg cargo pockets or whatever.

• 1:53:39John Stryker Meyer?

  Yeah, our preferred thing with the B A R belts because you could put four magazines in and one across the top. It was a nice pouch, the B A R belts that they have from World War Two. Perfect for the uh twenty round magazines.

• 1:53:53Jocko Willink?

  That's a lot of just, you know, we would normally carry seven to ten, thirty round mags. So we carried like, I mean, sometimes I guess more than that, but not no six hundred rounds.

• 1:54:06John Stryker Meyer?

  But you weren't anticipating being alone for a while.

• 1:54:08Jocko Willink?

  No, we weren't fighting divisions worth of people either, so.

• 1:54:13Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you know, and I guess we did, what we did have is we always had heavy machine guns, you know. So that makes a big difference too. I guess, you know, you, we would have Mark forty-eight, which is seven six two. And then the Mark forty-six, which is five five six, you know, that's basically like a little stoner and uh and uh M sixty. The modern versions of those two things, but yeah, you know, so.

• 1:54:34John Stryker Meyer?

  You had a saw too, right?

• 1:54:35Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, well, that's the, the Mark forty-six is a saw.

• 1:54:38John Stryker Meyer?

  Okay.

• 1:54:38Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:41Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, so we had those and those guys would carry a lot of rounds, a lot of rounds, like eight hundred to a thousand, sometimes more on the.

• 1:54:47John Stryker Meyer?

  Yeah, my stuffs on carried, carried like that, over a thousand.

• 1:54:50Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And I had guys go Winchester, go run out of bullets.

• 1:54:56John Stryker Meyer?

  Really?

• 1:54:56Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, with that many. So, yeah, I guess maybe that was the, the differentiator. You carried ten to twelve frag grenades.

• 1:55:07Jocko Willink?

  That's a lot of frag grenades. I guess when you're going picking fights with divisions, you gotta carry a lot of frag grenades.

• 1:55:13John Stryker Meyer?

  Oh, yeah. And always kept the last one. That was the one up here.

• 1:55:18Jocko Willink?

  Just in case.

• 1:55:19John Stryker Meyer?

  I'm not gonna be a POW. Oh, yeah. Absolutely.

• 1:55:24Jocko Willink?

  We would carry, I don't know, well, I would carry like one or two.

• 1:55:30John Stryker Meyer?

  Well, how often would you be?

• 1:55:31Jocko Willink?

  I just got laughed at. It's official. Straight up laughed at.

• 1:55:34John Stryker Meyer?

  How often would you, how often would you need more than two though?

• 1:55:38Jocko Willink?

  Hopefully never.

• 1:55:39John Stryker Meyer?

  Yeah.

• 1:55:39Jocko Willink?

  You know, and especially I'm in a leadership position. I'm hopefully not hucking grenades. But, uh, yeah, no, you know, the big difference, especially in Ramadi, I mean, in Ramadi, I remember explaining to the guys that relieved us. You know, we had a big overhead imagery.

• 1:55:56John Stryker Meyer?

  Yeah.

• 1:55:56Jocko Willink?

  And I put my hand on the map and I said, no matter where you put your hand on this map, you'll be touching a friendly unit. So like, and you know, this is, you know, probably within three to 500 meters of you, anywhere you were in Ramadi, there was a friendly unit.

• 1:56:08John Stryker Meyer?

  Really?

• 1:56:09Jocko Willink?

  So that's why, you know, you were gonna get reinforcements, you were gonna get tanks. You were gonna get Bradley Fighting Vehicles. So, yeah.

• 1:56:15John Stryker Meyer?

  Yeah, but in between that time, you earned your pay.

• 1:56:18Jocko Willink?

  Have to earn your pay.

• 1:56:19John Stryker Meyer?

  Yeah.

• 1:56:22Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I was talking to Leif, well, Leif, that's another thing. So Leif, Leif's got a chapter in Dichotomy of Leadership, where he's talking about preparing, over, over preparing for too many contingencies. And he talks about, it was his first patrol out on, out going out with the Marine Corps in a daytime patrol. And he's talking about how much stuff he carried. He carried all this stuff, but one of the things he carried is, you know, eight grenades or something like that. And, you know, he reflects on how that was just way too many. I was like, hey, man, you know, Tilted go out in the field with less than 10.

• 1:56:58Jocko Willink?

  So.

• 1:56:58John Stryker Meyer?

  A different AO. We probably would have adjusted our grenades.

• 1:57:02Jocko Willink?

  I wonder how much you would have changed if you had to wear body armor? Or if you would have decided not to or whatever, you know, it's interesting. That's an interesting development.

• 1:57:10John Stryker Meyer?

  I'll tell you, if we even had today's state of the art, I never would have worn it.

• 1:57:15Jocko Willink?

  Too much, too much weight.

• 1:57:16John Stryker Meyer?

  And you have to be able to move. I mean, you know.

• 1:57:20Jocko Willink?

  Not to mention, you're so damn lucky, no bullets are gonna hit you.

• 1:57:22John Stryker Meyer?

  Yeah.

• 1:57:25John Stryker Meyer?

  That's why I crawled a lot, tried to keep a low profile. But, uh, no, I, I probably would have declined it because of the weight as it was. Uh, in our AO, maybe another AO with different situations, more flexibility with assets.

• 1:57:42Jocko Willink?

  The, the thing that's interesting is one of the reasons why you wear a helmet now isn't just to protect your head. It's because that's where your nods mount on to your night vision.

• 1:57:51John Stryker Meyer?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:57:51Jocko Willink?

  Night vision mount on your, so you, they do have a contraption that's like a headband looking thing. I don't even think they make it anymore.

• 1:57:58John Stryker Meyer?

  Right.

• 1:57:59Jocko Willink?

  But where you could wear that, but you know, your nods mount on your, your night vision mounts on your helmet. You're, that's just the way it is.

• 1:58:05John Stryker Meyer?

  I've seen those Celia's with a guy fits down the nods. It's really cool. I want one.

• 1:58:08Jocko Willink?

  That's it. Yeah.

• 1:58:09John Stryker Meyer?

  Yeah.

• 1:58:09Jocko Willink?

  That's go time when those nods flip down. All right. But instead of wearing a helmet, you wore a cravat.

• 1:58:15John Stryker Meyer?

  A green cravat.

• 1:58:16Jocko Willink?

  A green cravat on your head, one around your neck. You had, you wore regular army fatigues.

• 1:58:23John Stryker Meyer?

  Yeah, there is sterile fatigues that had, um, had two pockets up top with an angle.

• 1:58:28Jocko Willink?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:58:29John Stryker Meyer?

  And two pockets down here that hung out. And then we customized and we had, um, the, the tailor put in pockets here.

• 1:58:37Jocko Willink?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:58:38John Stryker Meyer?

  So for mirrors, maps, morphine, cigarettes, it's all close right here. And then we had, uh, pockets on each arm to put other things up. There were pin flares, other things.

• 1:58:50Jocko Willink?

  And that's something that we did too. So we did even before, even in the nineties before the everyone, because now the fatigues come issued with pockets on the arms and everything. But we used to take them off and sew them on. And that's where you'd keep your, your pens and your notebooks and your pen flares and your, and your signal mirror.

• 1:59:09John Stryker Meyer?

  Yeah.

• 1:59:10Jocko Willink?

  And then on the ones on your chest, you had maps and morphine, your extra notebook, your U R C ten, emergency radio. And then you had a, you wore a watch, a Seiko.

• 1:59:20John Stryker Meyer?

  Yeah.

• 1:59:21Jocko Willink?

  A luminous watch.

• 1:59:24Jocko Willink?

  You wore gloves.

• 1:59:25John Stryker Meyer?

  Always.

• 1:59:27John Stryker Meyer?

  Just cut out the thumb, index finger, then the middle finger, just cut it to the tip. So you grabbed the tape on the magazine for the firefights.

• 1:59:35Jocko Willink?

  Same thing, same thing we would do. But you always wore gloves, otherwise your hands are just getting destroyed out in the jungle.

• 1:59:41John Stryker Meyer?

  Forget about it, yeah. Cause a lot of times we wind up, get to get a new pair of gloves. We just get torn up so much in the jungle and fatigues. Man, those wait a minute, wait a minute vines and the thorns. Cause you know, there are wait a minute, you get caught into it, you walk into it, your leg goes into the pins that's come together. So you had to stop and then get the pin to get your leg out, otherwise it goes deeper into your, into your leg.

• 2:00:08Jocko Willink?

  What about, did you carry any kind of mosquito net for your head?

• 2:00:10John Stryker Meyer?

  No.

• 2:00:11Jocko Willink?

  How come?

• 2:00:13John Stryker Meyer?

  Never thought about it, mosquito net for the head?

• 2:00:16Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Well, I used to, this was like the most brilliant thing, I think it was an Australian guy told me this. You, I would have like a little square of mosquito netting. And when we would stop patrolling. I would take out that little square, put it over my head, right over my, right over my floppy hat. And tuck it in and all of a sudden you not getting chewed apart by mosquitoes.

• 2:00:38John Stryker Meyer?

  Oh yeah, one night, we, the one time we did a, a practice mission east of the ashaw. In the morning, I couldn't, I couldn't open my eyes. I had been bitten so much by mosquitoes, my face was so puffed out.

• 2:00:50Jocko Willink?

  You need that mosquito netting?

• 2:00:51John Stryker Meyer?

  I needed it. Had I only known, I should have thought about, I should have thought about that one.

• 2:00:56Jocko Willink?

  I had a guy, we were doing some training and none of us had mosquito netting except for the officer. And so the officer was sleeping heartily, like just fully. And one of the other young enlisted guys was catching mosquitoes. And putting them inside this guy's, while he was asleep.

• 2:01:16Jocko Willink?

  He woke up covered. Not only those mosquitoes were trapped in there with him. They were trapped in there. They couldn't get out. They were just having a feast.

• 2:01:24John Stryker Meyer?

  Trapped, hungry mosquitoes.

• 2:01:26Jocko Willink?

  Trapped, hungry mosquitoes. Yeah. So, but no, not for you. No mosquito net.

• 2:01:30John Stryker Meyer?

  No. I hadn't thought about that one.

• 2:01:34Jocko Willink?

  Leeches.

• 2:01:35John Stryker Meyer?

  Oh.

• 2:01:37Jocko Willink?

  You guys ran into a lot of leeches.

• 2:01:39John Stryker Meyer?

  Always. Yeah, we, we had the bug repellent for that.

• 2:01:43Jocko Willink?

  And so you just spray the bug repellent on them. Once you got sucked on by a leech.

• 2:01:46John Stryker Meyer?

  Yeah, they would instantly fall off, but you always tried to wait, try to just see if you could jig them off. Because you knew the bug repellent could be smelled.

• 2:01:55Jocko Willink?

  Mm hmm.

• 2:01:56John Stryker Meyer?

  By the bear guys. So.

• 2:01:59Jocko Willink?

  Then you had your, on your web gear, which was the old World War II web gear, you had on your left harness, you had your K bar. Handle down.

• 2:02:07John Stryker Meyer?

  Or a sog knife.

• 2:02:08Jocko Willink?

  Or a sog knife until you lost it.

• 2:02:10John Stryker Meyer?

  Till I lost it.

• 2:02:13Jocko Willink?

  That's what we need to do a recovery mission for. Get that sog knife back.

• 2:02:17John Stryker Meyer?

  Yes.

• 2:02:20Jocko Willink?

  Uh, handle down.

• 2:02:21John Stryker Meyer?

  Sure.

• 2:02:22Jocko Willink?

  That's how you rolled.

• 2:02:23John Stryker Meyer?

  Yeah, because this way you pull it out and you're ready. Whereas up here, you have to pull it out in the jungle. You might get caught up in the vines.

• 2:02:29Jocko Willink?

  Got it. Got it. Uh, you had hand grenades there because you were basically covered in hand grenades.

• 2:02:35John Stryker Meyer?

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:02:37Jocko Willink?

  Uh, smoke you had there. You had some, some, you know, bandages there on your right harness. You had your strobe light. You had more hand grenades. You had your D ring.

• 2:02:50Jocko Willink?

  And you had more smoke grenades.

• 2:02:53Jocko Willink?

  Then on your belt, you had one canteen usually.

• 2:02:57John Stryker Meyer?

  It depended on the target. Sometimes it'd be maybe two, but usually one and then one. I had the second one in my, in my backpack. Rucksack.

• 2:03:06Jocko Willink?

  You normally wouldn't get, would you get thirsty? Was there normally enough water?

• 2:03:10John Stryker Meyer?

  Uh, in the jungle, it wasn't as bad as Cambodia. So, but yeah, you get thirsty because you're hopping up and down. Um, there's a couple of times we, particularly in that day, we went straight up with the orchids. That was the day we got, we were all out of water.

• 2:03:25Jocko Willink?

  Not fun.

• 2:03:26John Stryker Meyer?

  No.

• 2:03:27Jocko Willink?

  So you had one canteen, you had a Willie Pete grenade, you had your survival axe, which was the Frank and Warren Survival Axe Type II.

• 2:03:36John Stryker Meyer?

  Indeed.

• 2:03:36Jocko Willink?

  That's what you.

• 2:03:37John Stryker Meyer?

  Type one wasn't my, I wanted the type two.

• 2:03:40Jocko Willink?

  I looked him up and had like a hook at the top.

• 2:03:44John Stryker Meyer?

  Yeah, so when you went through and when you came back on the, on the back pool, you could try to make it effective to cut, particularly when cutting vines.

• 2:03:53Jocko Willink?

  That thing came with you all the time.

• 2:03:55John Stryker Meyer?

  Every mission. I got it home under my desk right now in case an intruder comes in. I'm ready.

• 2:04:00Jocko Willink?

  I like it.

• 2:04:04Jocko Willink?

  Intruders feeling lucky. Good luck. Meet Mr. Tilt. Compass around your neck. You used a cravat for your belt.

• 2:04:14John Stryker Meyer?

  Yes.

• 2:04:15Jocko Willink?

  So the belt I was talking about before is the belt of your web gear, but just the belt of your pants was just a, was a cravat. You carried a Swiss Army knife. You carried a gas mask.

• 2:04:24John Stryker Meyer?

  Always.

• 2:04:25Jocko Willink?

  You always carried a gas mask.

• 2:04:26John Stryker Meyer?

  Have we had teams that got hit? And aid camps that have been hit by.

• 2:04:31Jocko Willink?

  The enemy used tear gas?

• 2:04:32John Stryker Meyer?

  Sure. And they use, I, I forget what the, the incidents were, but there were a couple of times that the enemy had used gas on our people in layoffs. As well as with the CIA operation. Now, we weren't told that, but we had cold evidence that they had done it and that they could hit one of our recon teams. So we had to carry that bulky ass thing at all times.

• 2:04:55Jocko Willink?

  I was gonna say, but, and this is, this was the, the concern was tear gas.

• 2:05:00John Stryker Meyer?

  Well, tear gas or who else knows what they had? I mean, these are communists. They're not gonna play by rules of engagement. I mean, they're not in layoffs.

• 2:05:08Jocko Willink?

  Cause yeah, that's what I, I was thinking with all this crap that you're carrying and a gas mask are just huge and bulky.

• 2:05:15John Stryker Meyer?

  Yeah. Left hip.

• 2:05:17Jocko Willink?

  You carried that all the time.

• 2:05:18John Stryker Meyer?

  Had to. And we used them twice. And, um, um, we, in fact, we had designed a mission. One of our missions was to. When we got distracted from a target, an MA target, we saw a road that had

• 2:05:36John Stryker Meyer?

  little guard station, a guard station, but it was north of the DMZ River. So the quest for getting

• 2:05:46John Stryker Meyer?

  a live POW, we found out that we had one of our guys that did a VR and flew a couple of roads. They saw these little away stations along the way. So our thought was we'll get gas, gas them. And they said they had a knockout gas at the time, right? So we practiced for a couple of days with tear gas. And we had to get the helicopter pilots and the gun crews, everybody with their masks and then have masks that they could talk to each other and then talk to us. And so we practiced for several days, training with the helicopters coming in. And the mission plan was go up in the middle of the day, go to one of those camps, hit it, gas it, go in and scarf them up and go home. Get a five day pass.

• 2:06:29Jocko Willink?

  And a hundred bucks.

• 2:06:30John Stryker Meyer?

  Yeah, but they, and they had a special knockout gas that we're supposed to use. At the end, they, they, they wouldn't let us, they wouldn't give us the gas. I don't know if they had it, but they wouldn't give us the knockout gas. So then another mission came up that we had a bright light to run and we never got back to the concept of doing it.

• 2:06:47Jocko Willink?

  And you carried, you usually carried one grenade for your 40 mic mic that was tear gas?

• 2:06:53John Stryker Meyer?

  Always. Sure. In case we needed it.

• 2:06:56Jocko Willink?

  And that was, what would your, what would your tactic be on using that?

• 2:07:00John Stryker Meyer?

  Usually it would be to, um, you know, to create disorder. Because you hit somebody with tear gas, even if it's far away, that would distract them for a second, take their mind off of business, or at least make them have a harder time to kill us. And we also carried a grass, a gas grenade local.

• 2:07:20Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 2:07:20John Stryker Meyer?

  So we had in our SOP, uh, procedure that the word, or I forget what the heck it was, but we had a signal or a sign for CS gas. So if we're getting so overrun that we had to pop a CS to break the, break the charge, which some of our teams did. Um, they used it in, in the Operation Tailwind, quite effectively, saved their bacon.

• 2:07:42Jocko Willink?

  So the idea would be, hey, this is gonna linger. Whereas a frag grenade, it goes off, you either wound guys or you don't, you either kill guys or you don't, but that's it, it's over.

• 2:07:51John Stryker Meyer?

  Yeah.

• 2:07:52Jocko Willink?

  Whereas gas, you, you can really disrupt them, cause now you got guys coughing and

• 2:07:56John Stryker Meyer?

  Yeah.

• 2:07:56Jocko Willink?

  puking or whatever.

• 2:07:57John Stryker Meyer?

  And it's, and it hangs to the ground and then it hangs around as long as the wind's gonna let it hang around.

• 2:08:04Jocko Willink?

  Got it. Left pant pocket, you had a marking panel, large and small. Right pant pocket, pen flares. De- dehydrated LERP ration. Bug repellent for leeches, an extra cravat, and extra bandage. Did anybody carry IV?

• 2:08:22John Stryker Meyer?

  Uh, several guys did.

• 2:08:23Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 2:08:24John Stryker Meyer?

  Uh, Lynn Black did and, um, we had, I think Sal carried one, one of our indig carried one. We had an IV and the, um, saline solution that came in a canister. So we always had one in case we needed it.

• 2:08:40Jocko Willink?

  In your rucksack. You got your, you got your PRC 25, which you guys called the Prick 25?

• 2:08:46John Stryker Meyer?

  Yeah.

• 2:08:47Jocko Willink?

  I think I was, I think I was outlawed from calling it a prick. Cause that, that PRC 25, so, the PRC 25 was replaced by the PR 77, the Prick 77. And I wanna say it was 1969 or something like that. When I got to SEAL Team One, that's what I used, was a P, was one of the radios that we had.

• 2:09:05John Stryker Meyer?

  Oh, good.

• 2:09:05Jocko Willink?

  In our inventory, it was a PRC 77, yeah. Which came directly from the PRC 25. So you'd carry that, you had the big whip antenna, but you wouldn't, you'd have the little tape antenna on there, so you don't get identified as the radio guy, cause otherwise you're gonna

• 2:09:18John Stryker Meyer?

  Yeah, cause you just pulled it over your, in our case, the antenna, we just get it and bend it down, come underneath your arm and stick it into the fatigues.

• 2:09:26Jocko Willink?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:09:27John Stryker Meyer?

  So it'd be low profile on it.

• 2:09:29Jocko Willink?

  Then you had, uh, your, your one sea rat of fruit.

• 2:09:35Jocko Willink?

  That was like your, that was, that was your, your go-to.

• 2:09:37John Stryker Meyer?

  Indeed.

• 2:09:39Jocko Willink?

  And you'd carry one of those, two of those, something like that?

• 2:09:42John Stryker Meyer?

  Uh, use just one, cause after a while, you know, we kept getting shot out so often. It's like, okay, I'm not too much weight.

• 2:09:49Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah. Uh, you had, you had your extra mags in there. You got your extra M79 rounds. You had your army long sleeve sweater. You had a plastic rain jacket, toilet paper, even though you apparently never used it.

• 2:10:04John Stryker Meyer?

  Correct. But you could also use it to pack wounds.

• 2:10:07Jocko Willink?

  There you go. Uh, extra battery for the, for the PRRC 25 and the URC 10. Extra smoke grenades, uh, extra canteen of water, extra ration. And then you had your claymore or claymores with five and 10 second fuses. And on top of that, the 22 caliber hush puppy on some operations.

• 2:10:32John Stryker Meyer?

  Sometimes, yeah.

• 2:10:34Jocko Willink?

  And all this, when you'd weigh yourself, you'd be about 90 pounds heavy.

• 2:10:37John Stryker Meyer?

  Right around there. Yeah. And it was, it was an old rickety ass scale. So I just jumped on carrying everything just to see what it was.

• 2:10:44Jocko Willink?

  Well, that's a heavy loadout. I'll tell you right now, that's a heavy loadout. That is absolutely all of 90 pounds. Where you start talking about 600 rounds of ammunition, we start talking about 10, 10 to 12 hand grenades, smoke, smoke grenades are heavy as hell. They got all that material in them that smokes. Yeah. They're big giant beasts.

• 2:11:04John Stryker Meyer?

  And the Willie Peter was.

• 2:11:05Jocko Willink?

  The Willie Peter's heavy too.

• 2:11:10Jocko Willink?

  Crazy amount. Um, and I guess, like I said, and like you said, you're carrying all that firepower. Because the operations, you're carrying a crazy amount of firepower because you're doing crazy operations.

• 2:11:23John Stryker Meyer?

  Yeah. And again, from talking to the other one zeros, Pat Watkins and McGovern. Cause initially, I don't know what the loads were, but they kept increasing it because there were several times and they ran out of ammo. Already got close to running out. And that's the last thing in the world you want, you know?

• 2:11:40Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:11:43Jocko Willink?

  Awesome. Well, you know, that's a little over two hours right now and uh

• 2:11:49John Stryker Meyer?

  It's been a quick night.

• 2:11:50Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, indeed, indeed. But um you got any, you got any closing thoughts?

• 2:11:58John Stryker Meyer?

  No, uh, just to thank you for having me in three times and we've gained some extra attention. Like I said before, uh, we were just chatting and say these stories I always felt were significant in terms of uh, the stories about what Sog did and the men, more importantly, the men. And also, like I said to you earlier, my stuff is hairy. But if you had a hairy scale on one to 10, I mean, I feel I put myself at a five or six compared to the guys that got the Medal of Honor, the guys that didn't come home, that went down fighting, getting overrun by the NVA. And we, we could just talk about Medal of Honor missions of guys standing there

• 2:12:39John Stryker Meyer?

  just fighting off and dying on the LZ, putting their people on the helicopter first. John Keddenberg, Johnny Galhoun, time and again, our SF guys would take care of the little people, even get them on the chopper, get them out. And uh, so those stories I felt with great valor. And um, so I thank you for the little extra exposure to your audience. I appreciate that.

• 2:13:03Jocko Willink?

  We'll, we'll, we'll bring you back on and we'll get, and I know you and I are talking about other guys that we're gonna get to come on and uh, all those stories of those heroes, we'll, we'll get them out there because people want to know. I want to hear them. I want to know as much as I can about them and, and, and, you know, we'll, we'll get you back.

• 2:13:24John Stryker Meyer?

  Well, I'm ready to roll. So thank you and I thank you for the time and

• 2:13:27Jocko Willink?

  Also, you're on a, you're like Mr. Social Media now.

• 2:13:31John Stryker Meyer?

  I didn't realize that. You got to give me a full briefing when we're done here.

• 2:13:33Jocko Willink?

  So you're on Twitter.

• 2:13:35John Stryker Meyer?

  You and Echo Charles, give me squared away.

• 2:13:36Jocko Willink?

  You're on Twitter. We haven't quite figured out Twitter yet, apparently. You're

• 2:13:41John Stryker Meyer?

  That makes two of us.

• 2:13:42Jocko Willink?

  Your old, your old Twitter handle was at Sog Chronicles. Your new Twitter handle is at John Stryker Meyer. That's, that's where it's at right now.

• 2:13:54John Stryker Meyer?

  Yes, sir.

• 2:13:55Jocko Willink?

  That's right. Alright, so people will start trying to communicate with you on that. Good luck.

• 2:14:02John Stryker Meyer?

  I'm gonna call it a prez and say, hey, President Trump, could you help me out of my Twitter?

• 2:14:05Jocko Willink?

  President Trump tweets all the time.

• 2:14:07John Stryker Meyer?

  The king of Twitter.

• 2:14:08Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, he is, he is.

• 2:14:10John Stryker Meyer?

  I'm sorry.

• 2:14:12Jocko Willink?

  You know, you'll be able to, you'll be able to, you'll, when you, that's the incredible thing about Twitter. Is everybody has a platform. It's incredibly good. Sometimes it's incredibly bad, but everybody has a platform. So, no, the cool thing about it is people have been, you know, talking to me and hitting me up and just thanking you for your service. Thanking you for coming on. Thank you for sharing the story. So it'll be cool that they'll be able to actually thank you instead of just telling me to tell you thank you.

• 2:14:38John Stryker Meyer?

  And just go to our website. They got the link in there for email for the old fashioned route. SogChronicles.com.

• 2:14:43Jocko Willink?

  SogChronicles.com.

• 2:14:44John Stryker Meyer?

  Airborne.

• 2:14:45Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, people, people on there. I wanted to close out reading one last thing, and this is your, your dedication for the book Sog Chronicles 1. And it said, it says, "This book is dedicated to the SOG men and their courageous indigenous team members who went across the fence into Laos, Cambodia, and North Vietnam during the eight-year secret war and to the, and to the brave aviators and crew members of the Army, Air Force, Marine Corps, and our fearless allies from the 219th South Vietnamese Air Force's Special Operations Squadron, the legendary King Bs who supported, who supported SOG teams on the ground. This book is also for every man in SOG and the aviators who made the ultimate sacrifice

• 2:15:30Jocko Willink?

  far outside the boundaries of conventional Vietnam War that America saw reported on the nightly news."

• 2:15:38John Stryker Meyer?

  I'll give the closing note.

• 2:15:40Jocko Willink?

  Absolutely.

• 2:15:41John Stryker Meyer?

  Today, 1,598 Americans that are MIA in Southeast Asia from the Vietnam War, 50 Green Berets alone in Laos are still MIA, including 140-plus aviators that died strictly supporting our mission. And this week, the National League of P W MIA Foundation is having its 50th annual meeting. In Arlington, on this topic, they've been diligent and Ann Mills Griffiths is the CEO. She's putting it all together. They work with the Pentagon. She had been on this mission from day one. And our prayers are with them to continue because they're pushing to bring our people home.

• 2:16:23Jocko Willink?

  Absolutely. And if you want to put that out, either on Sog Chronicles, put a link to how people can support that cause. People will absolutely support that cause.

• 2:16:32John Stryker Meyer?

  Oh, okay. We'll do that. Absolutely. They deserve it.

• 2:16:35Jocko Willink?

  Yes, absolutely. We can make that happen.

• 2:16:37John Stryker Meyer?

  Wow. Thank you. Airborne.

• 2:16:39Jocko Willink?

  All right. Well, like I said, you have an open invite on here. Anytime you want, you let us know. We're here. Uh, and we'll get some of your friends on and thanks for coming on yourself. Thanks for sharing your stories and most of all, more than anything else, thanks for your service and sacrifice.

• 2:16:55John Stryker Meyer?

  Likewise, brother. You've been there. You've seen the elephant.

• 2:16:58Jocko Willink?

  Appreciate it.

• 2:17:01Jocko Willink?

  And once again, John Stryker Meyer has left the building. Tilt.

• 2:17:08John Stryker Meyer?

  Tilt.

• 2:17:08Jocko Willink?

  Has left the building.

• 2:17:12Jocko Willink?

  Finishing up three podcasts with John Stryker Meyer.

• 2:17:18Speaker 02

  Yeah. Sappers.

• 2:17:20Jocko Willink?

  Sappers.

• 2:17:21Speaker 02

  I asked him what sappers was, were, because there was various references, first, second, and this past one to sappers. And more notably, one, if you remember the movie Predator, the first one. He says sappers. So sapper's been on us since blah, blah, blah, whatever this is. And I always wondered, what's a sapper?

• 2:17:44Speaker 02

  Special group, Vietnam, North Vietnamese group of anti-American fighters, trained specifically, right?

• 2:17:55Speaker 02

  Right? I got that right? Right? Did I remember that correctly?

• 2:17:57Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's, that's the definition that John Stryker Meyer just gave you.

• 2:18:01Speaker 02

  Dang. Anyway, all right, cool. What else, Jaco?

• 2:18:07Jocko Willink?

  Well.

• 2:18:09Jocko Willink?

  I would say, no, awesome, awesome to have John Stryker Meyer on here. And just to hear him talk about what human beings can do. Right? What people, human beings can do. And it's interesting because you ever look at dogs and you think, oh, there's a little tiny chihuahua? And then there's like a, a German shepherd.

• 2:18:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:18:35Jocko Willink?

  And you think those are the same animal?

• 2:18:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:18:38Jocko Willink?

  Right?

• 2:18:38Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 2:18:39Jocko Willink?

  They are, technically.

• 2:18:41Speaker 02

  Technically, yeah.

• 2:18:42Jocko Willink?

  Human beings.

• 2:18:43Speaker 02

  Same deal.

• 2:18:44Jocko Willink?

  Like you look at John Stryker Meyer. He's like a German shepherd.

• 2:18:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:18:49Jocko Willink?

  And then you got people running around, they're chihuahuas. No offense against the chihuahuas, but your chihuahua is not gonna.

• 2:18:54Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 2:18:55Jocko Willink?

  Fend off hordes.

• 2:18:56Speaker 02

  No, no.

• 2:18:57Jocko Willink?

  Chihuahua's not calling in airstrikes, danger close.

• 2:19:00Speaker 02

  No.

• 2:19:01Jocko Willink?

  So I guess my point is that human beings do have capabilities and I think that when you listen to tilt, you realize that I can probably do better. I know that's what I realize. I think.

• 2:19:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:19:17Jocko Willink?

  I can do better than I'm doing right now.

• 2:19:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:19:20Jocko Willink?

  I think I can, I can push the envelope a little bit.

• 2:19:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:19:26Jocko Willink?

  Move further toward the potential.

• 2:19:31Speaker 02

  The part that kind of, well, it probably will stick with me is how he didn't carry poncho, like the sleeping stuff.

• 2:19:40Jocko Willink?

  No comfort.

• 2:19:40Speaker 02

  No, it was just like, oh, if we have to go sleep, I'm just gonna sleep right here in the ant, on the anthill. Just whatever. See, that part, when I was a kid.

• 2:19:54Speaker 02

  When I was a kid, that was viable, but.

• 2:19:57Jocko Willink?

  Now you need comfort.

• 2:19:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm weak. Yeah. So that part, maybe I have to mentally maybe work on that, you know?

• 2:20:04Jocko Willink?

  All right.

• 2:20:05Speaker 02

  Let's face it.

• 2:20:07Jocko Willink?

  There are ways to get better.

• 2:20:09Speaker 02

  Yes, sir, there is.

• 2:20:10Jocko Willink?

  Maybe sleeping without a ground pad is one of them.

• 2:20:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:20:13Jocko Willink?

  Maybe another one is training jujitsu.

• 2:20:16Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. Big time. That's a, I mean, so I was training the other day with Noah Oliver, right? And Noah's been training and he, he's kind of sorting out, you know how you go in phases of training partners? You know, like, man, I've been training with Andy for like the last like three months, you know, more than, so. Man, but he's been like.

• 2:20:36Speaker 02

  Beat me down the other day, yesterday, yesterday, day before, whatever. And yeah, he beat me down. But at the same time, I didn't leave thinking like, oh my gosh, you know? When you get beat down, you think of, okay, what do I need to do to?

• 2:20:52Jocko Willink?

  That's the correct attitude.

• 2:20:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, especially when you have training partners that you like and you trust and you, you know, you enjoy what you get from the training or whatever, regardless, you got beat down or not. I think your mind will sort of automatically go to that, I think, most of the time. It's usually when, I don't know, other circumstances, then you'd be all salty and be like, make excuses or something like that. Either way, so I'm thinking, you know, of all the things. And then I arrive at the concept of, man, in any other situation, you take that kind of like just physical turmoil. Not only did he get beat, but it was like kind of hard, you know? Usually I don't feel this good about it. I'm not looking forward to the next time, you know? Like, come on, let's face it, you do a hard met con, you're like, boom, I'm glad that's over with.

• 2:21:38Jocko Willink?

  But in this case, you are looking forward to the next one.

• 2:21:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, you're looking forward to the next one, you look forward to just training more in general. There's a short term and long term payoff for this jujitsu thing.

• 2:21:51Jocko Willink?

  Interesting.

• 2:21:51Speaker 02

  Well, yeah.

• 2:21:53Jocko Willink?

  Very true.

• 2:21:53Speaker 02

  Not to mention the capability that you wind up with.

• 2:21:56Jocko Willink?

  So we're pro jujitsu is what we're getting at.

• 2:21:59Speaker 02

  We're a hundred thousand percent.

• 2:22:00Jocko Willink?

  Short term and long term, there's no, there's no dichotomy. There's just short term gain, long term gain.

• 2:22:06Speaker 02

  Yes, in my opinion. But it could be argued that, oh, it's hard.

• 2:22:10Jocko Willink?

  What about the days, what about sometimes when people don't want to train? They let the jujitsu window close, which we confirmed is a thing.

• 2:22:18Speaker 02

  It is a thing, but that's, you know what I kind of arrived at as well? The days that you actually don't want to train are way more rare than you might think. Like, have you ever said, man, I really don't feel like training? And then you make the drive to the gym, you get to the gym, your training partner show up, you, right when you go to shake hands and you still feel like, oh, I really don't want to train right now. Do you have those?

• 2:22:39Jocko Willink?

  Never happens.

• 2:22:40Speaker 02

  Never, right? Hardly ever. I can't think of one single time. I thought, I came to the gym one time and I got there and I was like.

• 2:22:48Speaker 02

  I still don't want to train, but it was because there was only like three people there and they were like really brand new at the time and then I was like, and I just went home. One time in my whole, in my whole life. But I did, I legitimately did not feel like training. Anyway.

• 2:23:01Jocko Willink?

  Legitimately.

• 2:23:02Speaker 02

  Usually if you don't feel like training, it's not that you don't feel like.

• 2:23:06Jocko Willink?

  That's never happened to me.

• 2:23:08Speaker 02

  It's not that you don't feel like training. It's you don't feel like getting off the couch, getting into your car, getting your gear, getting, you know, doing that. That's what you don't feel like doing. Oh, you feel like training because when it's time to train, it's good fun. Every single time. That's what I think.

• 2:23:25Jocko Willink?

  It's a weird aspect that Jiu Jitsu is fun.

• 2:23:28Speaker 02

  It's very fun.

• 2:23:29Jocko Willink?

  It's fun.

• 2:23:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:23:30Jocko Willink?

  I have a feeling sometimes when I train Jiu Jitsu where I'm literally. Like kind of beside myself with how fun that just was.

• 2:23:38Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. Yeah.

• 2:23:39Jocko Willink?

  You know, and that's sometimes I'm getting beat down and I'm thinking that sometimes I'm winning and I'm thinking, but either way I'm like, God, that was.

• 2:23:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:23:47Jocko Willink?

  It's, it's kind of like. Uh. A feeling that's very hard to, to. Describe even.

• 2:23:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, I would, I would agree with that. Yeah. Cause you have that, obviously the physical part of it, right?

• 2:24:01Jocko Willink?

  Yes, there's some endorphins.

• 2:24:03Speaker 02

  Yes, that's always good. You know that. But this is like, it's like, especially if you roll with like guys who are like good, then they're not good because they're so athletic, even though they might be athletic. They're good because they know what to do, like a Dean Lister, like Greg McIntyre, these guys who like.

• 2:24:17Jocko Willink?

  Greg Train.

• 2:24:18Speaker 02

  If Greg Train, if you don't think your way into or out of your, the situation you want. Man, you're, you're just not going to do it, you know? So it's that problem solving task. That's just intertwined in the whole thing. I think that's what makes it fun. That's what I think.

• 2:24:34Jocko Willink?

  Agree.

• 2:24:35Speaker 02

  Anyway, gi, no gi, streets, whatever. If you want to do gi, you're going to need a gi, you get a gi from Origin. Originmain.com, that's where you can get very selections on there. The best, made in America, by the way.

• 2:24:50Jocko Willink?

  Made in America. Yeah. And just got a massive shipment of cotton. And I'm not, I'm talking, not talking woven, I'm talking unwoven little strands of cotton. Check out, check out, check out the Instagram. There's pallets and pallets that are there and it's just, you think, okay, this cotton is gonna get woven. And then turned into geese that I'm gonna wear.

• 2:25:13Speaker 02

  What does cotton look like when it comes from pallets? Because we went out-

• 2:25:16Jocko Willink?

  Oh, they're just little spools of, and it's not even, it's not just cotton, by the way, it's, it's a blended material, it's a modern-

• 2:25:23Speaker 02

  Oh, so it's like a string?

• 2:25:25Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, like a spool, but it's thick, a little bit thicker.

• 2:25:27Speaker 02

  Gotcha.

• 2:25:28Jocko Willink?

  And that all gets woven together.

• 2:25:30Speaker 02

  We used to grow cotton when I was young, in a yard, in Kuwait.

• 2:25:34Jocko Willink?

  Really?

• 2:25:34Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:25:35Jocko Willink?

  For what purpose?

• 2:25:36Speaker 02

  Just, that's just how I guess, I don't know, I was little.

• 2:25:39Jocko Willink?

  To do something with?

• 2:25:40Speaker 02

  I don't know.

• 2:25:42Jocko Willink?

  Random.

• 2:25:43Speaker 02

  It was, it was a row of cotton trees. So, cotton is like a, it's like a, almost like a pod that turns inside out like a popcorn almost.

• 2:25:52Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:25:52Speaker 02

  If I remember correctly. And, so that cotton would be balls of cotton, you know, like you get, you know, when you buy cotton balls, right?

• 2:25:59Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:25:59Speaker 02

  Or, I'm sure you always buy cotton balls, but when you buy cotton balls, they're in balls, they're kinda like that, but more like a, there's not, they're not in a ball, they're in a big clump.

• 2:26:08Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 2:26:08Speaker 02

  But there's seeds all in there, you gotta pick out the seeds and the seeds are all stuck to the cotton. I, I thought that's how they came. But they're, they're twined or, or-

• 2:26:17Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 2:26:17Speaker 02

  Spawned-

• 2:26:18Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:26:18Speaker 02

  Into string, alright, here you go.

• 2:26:20Jocko Willink?

  So, we got cotton, we got geese, we got jeans also.

• 2:26:24Speaker 02

  I got jeans, by the way.

• 2:26:25Jocko Willink?

  Oh, so you're in the game now?

• 2:26:26Speaker 02

  I am totally in the game, and I'm surprised how, how good, okay, good, American denim, sure, the buttons, brass, origin buttons, I was impressed with that when I saw the pictures. When I see them, sure, I'm impressed. But I'm, maybe I'm more surprised on top of the impress of how they fit.

• 2:26:42Jocko Willink?

  Next level.

• 2:26:43Speaker 02

  I thought they were gonna be like the kind, oh, they're just generic fitting worker jeans, which is fine, I, I get it. But, that's not really what I was like, deep down hoping for, I was hoping for the kind that, you know, I can put on, I can wear to, you know, if I go somewhere special with my wife or something like that.

• 2:27:00Jocko Willink?

  You used to put on those origin jeans?

• 2:27:02Speaker 02

  Bro, you can, they're good. Yes, they're very good, they fit good, hand it to Pete.

• 2:27:07Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:27:07Speaker 02

  That stylish, fashion dude, infused a little bit.

• 2:27:12Jocko Willink?

  They even fit skinny knees?

• 2:27:15Jocko Willink?

  Alright, t-shirts, jeans, geese, rash guards, joggers, supplements.

• 2:27:21Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 2:27:21Jocko Willink?

  Supplements, get your joint warfare.

• 2:27:25Jocko Willink?

  Get your krill oil. Get your discipline. Get your discipline, go. Get these things, they will. They will, they will make your life better.

• 2:27:36Speaker 02

  Oh yeah.

• 2:27:37Jocko Willink?

  As crazy as that sounds.

• 2:27:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:27:38Jocko Willink?

  They will might make your life better, as will. Molk.

• 2:27:43Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 2:27:43Jocko Willink?

  And some people say, what is molk? And the answer is very clear, molk is.

• 2:27:48Speaker 02

  Molk.

• 2:27:49Jocko Willink?

  Molk is molk, that's right, molk is molk, you can't just call it some, you can't call. You can't call a knife by some other name.

• 2:27:57Speaker 02

  Right.

• 2:27:57Jocko Willink?

  Right? It's a knife.

• 2:27:58Speaker 02

  It's a knife, yeah.

• 2:27:59Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, so you can't call molk, you can't say molk is. Something else, no, molk is molk.

• 2:28:04Speaker 02

  Then again, I mean, hey, man, devil's advocate, you can't call a knife a shank.

• 2:28:09Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 2:28:10Speaker 02

  A blade.

• 2:28:10Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you're right.

• 2:28:11Speaker 02

  Cold steel, you know, there's a lot of words for a knife.

• 2:28:14Jocko Willink?

  Good point. So there's other words for, for molk then, is what you're saying?

• 2:28:18Speaker 02

  No, I'm not saying that, I was, you know, just saying.

• 2:28:20Jocko Willink?

  Well, molk is molk.

• 2:28:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, there is, it is a dessert in the shape of a. Protein powder that's healthy.

• 2:28:28Jocko Willink?

  Okay, so you can either call it that, or you can call it molk. It tastes like dessert. And yet it's good for you and gives you protein. Strawberry is delicious, mint chocolate chip, I had a, I'm, I had so much strawberry, I had to go back to mint and I was like, good lord.

• 2:28:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:28:45Jocko Willink?

  Mint is crazy.

• 2:28:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:28:46Jocko Willink?

  Mint is delicious.

• 2:28:47Speaker 02

  I did that.

• 2:28:48Jocko Willink?

  What do you want, mint chocolate chip, ice cream, milkshake, or do you want a mint molk? Oh, I'll take the mint molk all day long.

• 2:28:52Speaker 02

  Oh yeah, short and long term payoff.

• 2:28:54Jocko Willink?

  Short and long term payoff. Peanut butter, Reese's cup. I don't know if you're allowed to say Reese's cup, but that's basically what it is.

• 2:29:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:29:02Jocko Willink?

  Peanut butter, Reese's cup, but it's peanut butter and chocolate, molk, tasty. What am I missing? Vanilla, I'm not a vanilla guy. I don't like the vanilla yogurt, I don't like. The vanilla, the vanilla molk is. It's, if you like vanilla, you're good.

• 2:29:17Speaker 02

  Right.

• 2:29:17Jocko Willink?

  If you don't really like vanilla, you know, don't get it.

• 2:29:20Speaker 02

  There's a whole horde of vanilla likers.

• 2:29:23Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, for sure, and the thing that's cool about vanilla, I guess, is that you can do other things with it.

• 2:29:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:29:28Jocko Willink?

  Jason Gardner, put it in your morning coffee.

• 2:29:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:29:31Jocko Willink?

  Hit it with the, he likes to say, hit it with the blender stick.

• 2:29:35Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 2:29:35Jocko Willink?

  Right? You know how people, some people like to say things?

• 2:29:39Speaker 02

  Yes, I do.

• 2:29:40Jocko Willink?

  He's like, I hit it, he gets all fired up too, I hit it with that blender stick. He calls it a blender stick.

• 2:29:47Jocko Willink?

  So they're Jason Gardner. So and and Jason Gardner's in great shape getting after it. So maybe it uh maybe it's a positive thing. And don't forget that there's warrior kid milk. Cause do you wanna feed your child poison?

• 2:30:04Speaker 02

  No.

• 2:30:05Jocko Willink?

  Do you?

• 2:30:06Speaker 02

  I do not.

• 2:30:06Jocko Willink?

  Okay, cool. Then you get a milk. Do you want your kid to to be miserable when they eat because what you're feeding them tastes disgusting?

• 2:30:14Speaker 02

  Let me think. No.

• 2:30:15Jocko Willink?

  Okay, cool. So you can give them milk and you're being healthy and you're taking care of your kid and you're actually being a good parent.

• 2:30:21Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. Yeah.

• 2:30:23Jocko Willink?

  Otherwise, you're neglecting your child's welfare. Don't do it. Get a milk, strawberry milk, chocolate milk, get some.

• 2:30:31Speaker 02

  It's true. My daughter's in this phase, hopefully short, where like she's comparing her body with like other people's body.

• 2:30:38Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah, that'll be a short phase. It'll only last like five hundred years.

• 2:30:44Speaker 02

  So, man, it kinda makes you think like, oh, shoot, she's paying attention now.

• 2:30:47Jocko Willink?

  Is she looking at your gums like, oh, yeah, whatever?

• 2:30:53Speaker 02

  Anyway, uh, so.

• 2:30:55Jocko Willink?

  Or is she over in the corner doing curls?

• 2:30:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, pushups and actually she does burp. Like, you know what I tell her? It's it's kind of a trick. Tell me if you think this is a lie. So she'll be like, hey, I don't really feel like doing the workout today.

• 2:31:09Speaker 02

  So I say, okay, you don't have to do the workout if and only if you do burpees and pushups. Kinda like burpees and pushups are not the workout, even though that is the workout. Oh, yeah, it's like seventy burpees and like forty pushups or something like that. That's the whole workout. I'm gonna make a six year old do a, you know, full on metcon or nothing like that. But I say, you don't have to do the workout. You only have to do the pushups and burpees. She's like, okay. You know, kinda like she escaped the workout, even though that is where is that lying? That's flanking, right?

• 2:31:38Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's a flank.

• 2:31:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, hell, yeah.

• 2:31:41Jocko Willink?

  You're good. It's authorized.

• 2:31:42Speaker 02

  Good, yes. Anyway, my point is that, yeah, once you know, when when, you know, and she's a little girl being conscious of how her body looks and all this stuff and being like, hey, why is it six, man? And. I kind of feel this overwhelming responsibility like hey if she starts like putting on weight that she doesn't like or something like that it's kind of my fault you know at this point it is

• 2:32:04Jocko Willink?

  For sure.

• 2:32:05Speaker 02

  So the milk I can I feel real good about it especially that she likes it you know and that strawberry one is I don't know how they did that but keep doing it that's what I know anyway also Jaco White Tea yes can you get addicted to Jaco White Tea?

• 2:32:21Jocko Willink?

  The answer is yes.

• 2:32:23Speaker 02

  Yeah it's psychological.

• 2:32:25Jocko Willink?

  JP Denell.

• 2:32:29Jocko Willink?

  JP Denell is my brother.

• 2:32:30Speaker 02

  Currently addicted.

• 2:32:31Jocko Willink?

  I'm not talking about about him I'm saying the boy's got a little bit of an addiction problem with the Jaco White Tea.

• 2:32:35Speaker 02

  Alright well there you go and I I mean I'm sure I haven't thought about it that much but I'm sure there is some drawbacks to being addicted to Jaco White Tea I don't know but from here I mean intuitive thought is that man that's all upside addicted to good stuff you know.

• 2:32:50Jocko Willink?

  Hi I'm addicted to Jaco White Tea and I have an 8,000 pound deadlift how's it going?

• 2:32:54Speaker 02

  Yeah probably way more now probably like 1200 or something. Anyway Jaco White Tea is available cans as well tea bags as well on the store it's on the store it's on Amazon it's everywhere get it but it's out there for sure get your addiction on something good also we have our own store speaking of the stores called Jaco Store this is where you can get Discipline Equals Freedom shirts like I said Jaco White Tea is on the store it's on the store tins refills all that stuff hoodies lightweight and heavyweight hats.

• 2:33:27Jocko Willink?

  Rash cards?

• 2:33:27Speaker 02

  Rash cards oh big time oh yeah if you want to represent the path while you're on the path.

• 2:33:33Jocko Willink?

  I was sporting a rash card today when I was doing a ring workout rings I was using the rings and if you don't wear a rash card when you're doing rings if you do high reps you'll start to chafe your arms a bunch which is no big deal but then you get like you know you're if you're doing jiu jitsu then you're starting to get little infection exposures going on so just wear the rash card.

• 2:33:52Speaker 02

  Yeah also you know if you work at the bank or somewhere where people sort of have to have have at least a little bit of trust in you if you're rolling around with chafed hands and arms and stuff they're like ah bro what's up with this guy you know they don't know that you're doing rings.

• 2:34:07Jocko Willink?

  Like that more.

• 2:34:08Speaker 02

  Well, yeah, you, but you're like, you're like one, two levels like beyond, you know, like in Fight Club. When, you know, well, this movie Fight Club where like.

• 2:34:15Jocko Willink?

  No, I've seen that movie.

• 2:34:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, you know, when he's at the restaurant, he sees the guy, the two black guys with a broken nose and he trusts him more. He's like, he gives him the nod, but in a normal person, it's like, bro, who is this guy with two black eyes, broken nose, chafed arms, all this stuff. Who's this guy? He's a weirdo. He's doing weirdo stuff. He's doing deviant stuff, that's for sure. So you don't want that. You don't want that on the surface is what I'm saying. Even though you like it.

• 2:34:37Jocko Willink?

  So basically what you're saying is get a, get a rash guard from the Jocko store so that you're not weird to other people. That's what I just heard.

• 2:34:44Speaker 02

  Correct.

• 2:34:45Jocko Willink?

  Just to break it down, simplify what you're saying. Also, subscribe to the podcast. Uh, as I was, uh, my kids, my children.

• 2:34:55Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 2:34:56Jocko Willink?

  They were, they were going off about some social media thing and they were like, smash the like button.

• 2:35:05Speaker 02

  I laugh because my daughter says the same thing.

• 2:35:07Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, so I'm gonna tell you right now, if you're a little younger profile, what I'm trying to say is smash the subscribe button.

• 2:35:15Speaker 02

  Brad, don't, don't say that. Don't try to say that. Don't.

• 2:35:19Jocko Willink?

  I just said it.

• 2:35:19Speaker 02

  I don't think you should go into that. Well, no, wait.

• 2:35:24Jocko Willink?

  It falls right in, it falls right into the, uh, share, like and subscribe.

• 2:35:31Speaker 02

  Yeah. If you want, it's, it's more, you know what? I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna embrace that. I'm gonna embrace that right now. Share, like and subscribe. Share, like and subscribe. Share, like and subscribe. So.

• 2:35:40Jocko Willink?

  Wouldn't it be, but shouldn't it be acceptable that I'm like, smash the like button?

• 2:35:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, it should. I guess. No, no. Cause it's like, why, wait, why? I'm not gonna do it just because you said, it's, it should be more of like a reminder, right?

• 2:35:54Jocko Willink?

  What if I was all motivational? Like, you know what? You see that like button? You gotta smash that thing.

• 2:36:00Jocko Willink?

  All right, don't worry about it. We're just kidding. Whatever. If you want to subscribe to it, subscribe.

• 2:36:04Speaker 02

  Subscription is available. We'll say that. Just by clicking the button.

• 2:36:08Jocko Willink?

  Don't worry about smashing. If you're gonna smash something, smash your next workout. Don't worry about the like button. Don't worry about the subscribe button. Smash a Metcon. How's that?

• 2:36:18Speaker 02

  Dang, that was good. That was actually really good. Anyway, also, yes, Warrior Kid Podcast 2. Let's not forget.

• 2:36:27Jocko Willink?

  Let's never forget it.

• 2:36:28Speaker 02

  Never forget.

• 2:36:30Jocko Willink?

  It's hibernating a little bit.

• 2:36:31Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 2:36:32Jocko Willink?

  Some people have been commenting now. Somebody posted a picture of like someone that was like undead.

• 2:36:39Speaker 02

  Sure. Yeah, that's good.

• 2:36:40Jocko Willink?

  The Warrior Kid Podcast is by no means dead. It lives on.

• 2:36:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:36:44Jocko Willink?

  And since I have just wrapped up a major project, I will have some time, hopefully before certain people are not available to record to record.

• 2:36:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, you know.

• 2:36:55Jocko Willink?

  There'll be some more coming.

• 2:36:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, good.

• 2:36:57Jocko Willink?

  Warrior Kid Podcast.

• 2:36:58Speaker 02

  And actually, that kind of is important to note because you know, if they're like, hey, yeah, it's done, then they won't even, it won't be on their mind. No one's even on the lookout for it. And it could go unnoticed when it does come back. Nonetheless, it's gonna come back.

• 2:37:09Jocko Willink?

  It doesn't have to come back. It's there right now. You can go listen to an episode. It's not, that's there.

• 2:37:14Speaker 02

  Alright, cool.

• 2:37:15Jocko Willink?

  Some people are just discovering that Warrior Kid Podcast.

• 2:37:18Speaker 02

  I dig it. Anyway, speaking of Warrior Kids, Aiden is making soap. That's right. Goat milk, various other ingredients. In America, by the way. Irishoaksranch.com is where you can get it. Trooper Soap and Jaco Soap. Wait, does he still have the Trooper Soap? Or was that just a special dish?

• 2:37:35Jocko Willink?

  I think he has it.

• 2:37:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, man. And that's legit. That one's on a roll. But yeah. And what's the slogan? I'd say the slogan, but you say it way better than me. Go ahead.

• 2:37:42Jocko Willink?

  This slogan is simply, stay clean.

• 2:37:46Speaker 02

  There you go. Outstanding.

• 2:37:49Jocko Willink?

  We have a YouTube channel. And what we would like is for you to smash the...

• 2:37:56Jocko Willink?

  Hey, we got a YouTube channel. If you want to watch YouTube videos. If you're not getting inundated with enough YouTube videos, wasting your time watching videos of...

• 2:38:06Jocko Willink?

  Street fights. Watching videos of car crashes. Watching videos of acrobatic people climbing around in the city.

• 2:38:18Speaker 02

  Oh, the parkour?

• 2:38:19Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:38:20Speaker 02

  You know what's funny? It's like you're just totally putting yourself on a report about all the videos.

• 2:38:25Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, for sure. These are the things like, oh, you like to watch street fight videos. The thing is YouTube knows what you like to watch.

• 2:38:31Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:38:31Jocko Willink?

  So it just puts up, you know, uh, three on one jujitsu involved. I'm like, oh, somebody, somebody made that video for me.

• 2:38:39Speaker 02

  Just for you.

• 2:38:40Jocko Willink?

  So what I'm saying is subscribe to the YouTube channel if you want to see the videos that we put out. Otherwise, go watch some more.

• 2:38:50Speaker 02

  Drunk Girl Fails?

• 2:38:51Jocko Willink?

  I don't really watch that one, but I will watch like fast tactical reloads.

• 2:38:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:38:59Jocko Willink?

  So anyways, there you go.

• 2:39:01Speaker 02

  Boom. There it is. Yeah.

• 2:39:02Jocko Willink?

  YouTube.

• 2:39:03Speaker 02

  Also, Psychological Warfare. If you don't know what that is, it's an album with tracks of Jaco telling you how to get past moments of weakness if they may arise, if they may arise.

• 2:39:13Speaker 02

  I went to a, I didn't go to the donut shop. I passed it. There's a bank and there's a donut shop right by where I live.

• 2:39:19Jocko Willink?

  Isn't it weird that donut shops exist?

• 2:39:21Speaker 02

  Bro, they don't anymore. That was gonna be my point. There was zero people in there. The lady in there, the worker, you know what?

• 2:39:27Jocko Willink?

  We're winning. We're gonna win.

• 2:39:28Speaker 02

  I even heard, uh, what do you call it? Krispy Kremes is like either out of business or going out of business like

• 2:39:34Jocko Willink?

  I don't know.

• 2:39:34Speaker 02

  Record rate or something like this. But man, the lady in the donut shop was, um, on her laptop in one of the customer, like tables on the seat. You know, it was, she wasn't behind the counter on it. She was like, no one's coming in here. Yeah, no one's coming in here at all. I was like, dang. Anyway.

• 2:39:52Jocko Willink?

  What should they replace all donut shops with? Steak houses.

• 2:39:57Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, yeah, I guess.

• 2:39:59Jocko Willink?

  Gyms? Jiu Jitsu Studios?

• 2:40:02Speaker 02

  Yeah. Just like a vacant, you know what they should do? A vacant building to clear out all the donut, uh, material and machines. I don't know how you make donuts, but clear out all that stuff and you just put one like mat space, one mat space. That's it. And a, and a paper and a pencil. You just sign your name. Boom. I came in, use this mat, me and my partner. Boom. Come in, leave. I didn't really get through, but nonetheless, psychological warfare, what I was saying, it's album tracks about Jaco, can you through your moments?

• 2:40:33Jocko Willink?

  So what I've, what the report says that that psychological warfare, the album has done massive damage to the donut industry, apparently is what's going on. That's what I'm hearing. Yeah. Big time.

• 2:40:44Speaker 02

  Evidently, yes.

• 2:40:45Jocko Willink?

  If you don't want the audio version of that, but you want a visual version, you can check out flipsidecanvas.com. Run by my brother Dakota Meyer and he makes things for you to hang on your wall. High quality things for you to hang on your wall to remind you of what it is that you're doing here. So check it out. If you have any suggestions, you can hit up Dakota on social media and tell them what you want to see. So there you go. Flipsidecanvas.com.

• 2:41:17Speaker 02

  Yep. That's a good one. Also on it is a good one. On it.com slash Jaco. It's where you can get your kettlebells. Your battle ropes, various fitness equipment is good. You can also get socks. Doesn't seem like it. I know. And I've said it before, you get socks.

• 2:41:29Jocko Willink?

  Socks, socks are a thing, I guess.

• 2:41:32Speaker 02

  Well, I, you know, I'm one of those guys who I kind of like cool socks. I don't buy them all the time, but I don't know.

• 2:41:38Jocko Willink?

  What kind of a guy likes cool socks?

• 2:41:40Speaker 02

  I don't know.

• 2:41:40Jocko Willink?

  It's just, but there's a whole industry out there. Used to be, and for me, it still is. Socks means one thing. What? Pair of white socks. That's what socks mean.

• 2:41:50Speaker 02

  Well, yeah, uh, we're, well, you're you and I dig it.

• 2:41:53Jocko Willink?

  Darth Vader socks like you do or whatever.

• 2:41:55Speaker 02

  No, I have Darth Vader kettlebells.

• 2:41:56Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 2:41:57Speaker 02

  But no, not, no.

• 2:41:58Jocko Willink?

  And where'd you get the Darth Vader kettlebells?

• 2:42:00Speaker 02

  From on it, of course, because they got Darth Vader, they got Iron Man, they got some good ones on there. Also, they have like the things called that elk bars. Same thing as a warrior bar, but it's made out of elk, high in protein, really good, like a, um, almost like a big beef jerky sticks. Good. You might get that. A lot of good stuff on there. Uh, on it.com slash Jaco. If you like something, get something.

• 2:42:21Jocko Willink?

  Also, we got some books, the, the books that were written by John Stryker Meyer, the books by written by Tilt. You can get those on Amazon. Across the fence, the secret war in Vietnam. On the ground, the secret war in Vietnam and Sog Chronicles, volume one. Check those books out. They're, they're really amazing to read, especially, and they're the kind of books that when you read them.

• 2:42:47Jocko Willink?

  You have to actually slow down and think about what the hell is actually going on. Because when you think about what's actually going on, you'll realize that what these guys were doing was just absolutely completely insane. So, check out those books. Also, check out Way the Warrior Kid 3, Where There's a Will. That book is live and ready for you to read or for ready for your kids to read. Also, we've got Way the Warrior Kid 1 and Way the Warrior Kid 2, Mark's Mission. These are good books to get kids on the path. All those little things that you want kids to know, but they don't really listen to you because you're their parent. This is the ultimate flank. And if you listen to JP Denell, he says that these Warrior Kid books are a flank on the parent, too.

• 2:43:31Speaker 02

  Dang, yeah, it is. They are 100%.

• 2:43:33Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, as is Mikey and the Dragons, which is a book for kids to learn how to overcome fear. So, check those out. Then we've got the Discipline = Freedom Field Manual, which will tell you how to get after it. You don't need to ask. You can just get the manual. Wouldn't that be nice?

• 2:43:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:43:53Jocko Willink?

  Oh, it's true.

• 2:43:54Speaker 02

  It is nice.

• 2:43:54Jocko Willink?

  Yes, you get that field manual and you're good to go. If you want the audio version of that, it's on iTunes, Amazon Music, Google Play and other MP3 platforms. And then, of course, you've got Extreme Ownership and The Dichotomy of Leadership, the two books that I wrote with my brother Leif Babbin, talking about everything that we learned in combat and how you can take those lessons and you can utilize them with your business, with your team, with your life. So, check those out. Also, we've got Ashle on Front. That's my leadership consultancy and what we do is solve problems through leadership. Every problem that exists in your organization is a leadership problem.

• 2:44:36Jocko Willink?

  So, if you need help fixing that leadership problem and thereby fixing the problems that you have inside your organization, go to ashleonfront.com. If you...

• 2:44:50Jocko Willink?

  Need further instruction. If you want something beyond this podcast, if you want to come to the muster. The muster is a leadership training seminar, I guess I'd call it. It's a leadership convention. And what we do is go deep dive, get granular on leadership. The next one is September 19th and 20th in Denver. And then after that, it's December 4th and 5th in Sydney, Australia. Every single, we've done seven. They've all sold out. These are going to sell out too. So if you want to come, go to extremeownership.com and sign up. And if you can't come to that,

• 2:45:28Jocko Willink?

  you can go to efonline.com. And that's our leadership training, interactive, online platform where you can get the skills, you can reinforce the skills, the skills that I talk about on this podcast, the skills that we wrote about in the books. Those skills need further training all the time. You never master these things. So go to efonline.com and check that out. And then there's of course EF Overwatch, where we've been taking proven leaders, tested leaders from special operations and from combat aviation and putting them

• 2:46:08Jocko Willink?

  into companies in the civilian sector that need leadership. So if you're looking to hire, don't always hire just because someone has experience. Hire for character, hire for leadership capability. And then you teach them the industry specifics because that's easier than trying to teach someone character or trying to teach someone leadership. EFOverwatch.com if you need leadership. And if you want to converse with us further, then we are on the interwebs, on Twitter, on Instagram, and on that fishy boash. Echo is at Echo Charles. I am at Jaco

• 2:46:52Jocko Willink?

  Willink and John Stryker Meyer is at John Stryker Meyer. And once again, thanks to John Stryker Meyer.

• 2:47:05Jocko Willink?

  22 years old, putting his life on the line over and over and over again for our freedom and to those of you in uniform right now, putting your lives on the line for our freedom. Thank you for being there for us. And the same thing goes for our police and law enforcement and firefighters and paramedics and EMTs and dispatchers and correctional officers and border patrol and secret service and all first responders out there. You put your lives on the line to keep us safe and we thank you for it. And to everyone else out

• 2:47:43Jocko Willink?

  there, you might be scared and you might be tired and you might be surrounded by the enemy who is preparing to attack, but you know what? You're still alive. So get the high ground, set up your perimeter, lock and load your weapons and go get after it. And until next time, this is Echo and Jaco, out.