508: The Mission Continues Beyond Ramadi. With Major Scott Huesing

>Join Jocko Underground< https://www.jockounderground.com/subscribe Retired Marine Major Scott Huesing, author of Echo in Ramadi, to walk through the brutal realities of combat in Iraq’s deadliest city, the cost of leadership, and the transition back home. Scott shares the powerful story of his Marines, the memorials for the fallen, his personal battles after service, and how writing became a new mission to honor and preserve these stories. From Gold Star families to fellow veterans finding their voice, this is a conversation about sacrifice, resilience, and keeping the legacy alive. 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 508 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo.

• 0:04Speaker 01

  Good evening.

• 0:08Jocko Willink?

  I used to think about the medals and ribbons and parades when I was a young Marine and how they were a measure of one's success. Ten deployments and multiple combat tours later, I no longer did. In Ramadi, none of that meant shit to me. I was in command of Echo Company, 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines, deployed to Ramadi, Iraq. It was the third year of Operation Iraqi Freedom and my command was assigned to the US Army's Ready First Brigade Combat Team, which consisted of the largest armor and infantry alignment in modern warfare. I worked directly for Task Force 19 Infantry Battalion, Manchu, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Chuck Ferry, US Army.

• 0:54Jocko Willink?

  During this nearly nine-month deployment, our mission, kill or capture anti-Iraki forces, Echo Company stood in the line of fire daily in Ramadi, the most dangerous and most densely populated area of insurgent activity in 2006. It would test us and would take the best of us.

• 1:17Jocko Willink?

  This story is about and for the warriors of Echo Company, 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines, and their families. It is their voices that tell of the battles we fought, the relationships we shared, and the pain we still bear today.

• 1:33Jocko Willink?

  It is a tribute to them, to those that are gone, those who served, and those who continue to fight today.

• 1:42Jocko Willink?

  During our time in Iraq, we didn't think about war movies, parades, and shiny medals. All I thought about was bringing my Marines home alive.

• 1:57Jocko Willink?

  And that right there is an excerpt from the prologue to a book called Echo in Ramadi. It was written by Scott Huesing. Scott is a retired Marine with 24 years of service who rose through the ranks from enlisted Marine to infantry officer. During his career, he completed 10 deployments around the globe, including the Horn of Africa, Afghanistan, and Iraq. And Iraq is the subject of this book. It's an incredible read. It gives a detailed insight of what it was like to serve in and lead a Marine Corps infantry unit. And it's an honor to have Scott with us here tonight to share his experiences and

• 2:41Jocko Willink?

  lessons learned. Scott, thanks for joining us.

• 2:43Speaker 02

  Thanks for having me. It's an honor.

• 2:44Jocko Willink?

  I, I, I'm sad to report, we already had like about a one hour discussion about all kinds of things before we hit record. So I'm sure we'll get into some of that. Before we jump into the book, you know, how'd you end up in the Marine Corps?

• 2:59Speaker 02

  Well, this is not a true confession. I've said it before, but I was a horrible high school student, you know, just barely got by. You know, I graduated ultimately with a smoking hot 1.24 GPA and no one's ever been able to beat that. But I get a phone call from a friend of mine and I can remember just picking up that receiver off, you know, when phones used to be on a wall and 6623427. I can still remember the number in Waukegan, Illinois. He says, Hey, man, you'll never guess what I did today. This is what I'm thinking, like he crashed his fucking car and it's like he's going through them like socks. And he says, No, I'm down at the Marine recruiter's office. He goes, I'm joining the Marines.

• 3:41Speaker 02

  I go, You're full of shit. So I go down there and you know, when you go into the recruiting office, especially when you're going to list a guy is like, man, especially Marine recruiters, they are the best salesmen in the world and they got the ribbons and their office at that recruiting substation was all camouflage. Like they painted the walls, there's cabinets and man, they talk a good game. And up until that point, I was, like I said, I was horrible student, barely got by just to play sports and

• 4:09Jocko Willink?

  What year, what year is it that you enlist?

• 4:11Speaker 02

  Eighty-eight is when I signed the contract. So, but I, you know, I was, you know, drinking underage, you know, riding my motorcycle, running from the cops, getting caught by the cops, fighting, more fighting and, and, you know, so I led a very high-risk lifestyle as a young teenager. And when I met the Marines, I was like, man, I've never met a bigger group of risk takers than what these guys are trying to sell me. And right there, I, I signed up and, um, you know, it was probably the best decision I ever made in my life because through that, you know, my first four years and, you know, going to Desert Shield and Desert Storm, which I write about a little bit in the book.

• 4:52Jocko Willink?

  You, you, you write about it in literally two pages. It's two pages of Desert Shield.

• 4:57Speaker 02

  Man, I, you know, I've gotten, so I have gotten some shit from guys I served with because, um, but in comparison to other deployments, that's the point people don't, is in comparison to other deployments, like it seemed pale because it was such a short war, um, but it was very important and it shaped me. And then, you know, pushed me into, into college, um, you know, and then, you know,

• 5:16Jocko Willink?

  What was your, what was your job in the Marine Corps? Were you infantry out of the gate?

• 5:19Speaker 02

  No, I was, uh, I must've scored pretty decent on tests. So I was a Hawk Missile Operator in Stinger. And then, um, I transitioned, uh,

• 5:30Jocko Willink?

  Did you go to, did you go to school in Fort Hood for Stinger?

• 5:33Speaker 02

  El Paso.

• 5:35Jocko Willink?

  I went to that school.

• 5:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, El Paso.

• 5:36Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I was a Stinger Missile Qualified Homie over here.

• 5:40Speaker 02

  Yeah. So that was, um, you know, Marines are Marines. Like it doesn't matter what job you have. Uh, it was great. And then when I was in college, I, I still loved and missed the Marines.

• 5:50Jocko Willink?

  Did you, did you get out of the Marine Corps to go to college?

• 5:52Speaker 02

  I did. There was, after Desert Storm, there was a big force reduction, which happens, as you know, after war, they, they whittle us down and they says, well, we got three jobs for you. You can lat move and go do a different job. And I was like, no, no, and hell no. Like I don't want any of those jobs. So I hung up my rifle and I went to college at Illinois State. And I don't say that to brag because then they let us like 50,000 in every year or something. But, uh, I was just happy to get into a college, man. And then I joined the reserves as a machine gunner and because I was also 0331.

• 6:24Jocko Willink?

  Hell, yeah.

• 6:25Speaker 02

  And it was right in my hometown, Waukegan, Illinois. So I was, I was doing that for a couple of years and the drive just became kind of a pain in the butt. And reserve units are, in my opinion, only really, really good, or they're really, really screwed up. Yeah. So it, it, it's just basic leadership function because they rotate guys in and out all the time. So, but that's, that's how I got roped into the Marine Corps, you know, to answer your questions. It's not a short answer, but.

• 6:51Jocko Willink?

  So then, did you have to do ROTC or something to get your commission? How'd you end up getting your commission?

• 6:56Speaker 02

  No. So this, yeah, I'm going to use this show. Hopefully he's listening. I was approached by another recruiter on campus to do the platoon leaders course, which is you do two summers, like your junior and senior year. But I only went to college for three years because I was going to night school, day school, preschool. Like I just went in and out because I was a little older than the average bear. And Sergeant Connor, I've been meaning to go back through my paperwork. He was like, what's this guy's first name? But he's the guy that called me and he says, hey, sir, you know, if you can come down and take a physical fitness test, he goes, I can get you up to Great Lakes and do your physical. He goes, I can get you boat space at OCS in January. And right then I was like, this is this fate. And this young

• 7:38Speaker 02

  sergeant, God bless him, they make stuff happen. And I always want, like, I want to thank that guy.

• 7:44Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's what you.

• 7:45Speaker 02

  He, he really was like the catalyst, like that, that got me back in because I had planned on working for US federal marshals and there were some hiring freezes in the government going on. I was like, man, I cannot wait tables or bartend for another year at age 26 or 27, you know? So Sergeant Connor, man, if you're listening to this show, give me a shout, brother.

• 8:05Jocko Willink?

  That just reminded me, I was, when I was just getting done with a basic SEAL training, my class officer, who was a naval academy guy, well, told, you know, he kind of pulled me aside and he's like, listen, you should go to the naval academy. You can, you know, if you put a package together, you can go to the naval academy, be an officer. And I was just like, I didn't have the same reaction to you. I was like, hell no, I'm not going. I'm going to go to the freaking teams, bro. Like, I don't want to be an officer. I want to be, I want to be a machine gunner in the teams. So I denied his, his request. I ended up doing it later, but yeah, you don't always take advice from people. So you, what years that you could get commissioned then?

• 8:45Speaker 02

  So I got commissioned in, oh, man, I want to say it was ninety seven, ninety eight.

• 8:53Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 8:53Speaker 02

  And because, yeah, and then I was, yeah, my first duty station was at Twenty Nine Palms in ninety nine, so back it up a year, ninety eight.

• 8:59Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, so nineteen ninety eight, that's actually the same year I got commissioned.

• 9:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 9:03Jocko Willink?

  Interesting.

• 9:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, we had kind of similar trajectories.

• 9:05Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, because I did eight years enlisted and then then got picked up for some officer program. I did the weirdest officer program where I didn't even go to college. I went straight from being an E five at SEAL Team One, thirteen weeks of O C S, and then I was a O one at SEAL Team Two. It was, and I had to go to college later.

• 9:23Speaker 02

  My, my program was O, O C C, Officer Candidate Class, like, like I graduated college and then went straight to O C S.

• 9:31Jocko Willink?

  Were you thinking, like, when that guy, when that sergeant said, hey, I can get a slot for you, were you just kind of like, oh, I'm going to be in the Marine Corps for the rest of my life at that point?

• 9:42Speaker 02

  I think so. I don't know the rest of my life, but I thought, you know, when you transition to and you really don't know what it's all about because you see officers through a different lens when you're enlisted and people ask me this question. I've gotten called on, and I might change my opinion, like, did being enlisted make you a better officer? And my answer is usually no. I just tell people from a leadership perspective, it, it gave me an absolute appreciation for how valuable that young Marines time is. And I never, ever wanted it being wasted on ancillary tasks or mundane, you know, stupid wall locker inspections and, you know, just,

• 10:23Speaker 02

  they needed to be training for, for war, studying, chasing girls or P T, man, like, that's the important stuff.

• 10:34Jocko Willink?

  Productive things.

• 10:35Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah, and, you know, I think the culture of the Marine Corps, in the absence of war, they find ways to fill time. And I, I realize that too, is like, I, I never wanted to be that guy because as you write about too, is like, even. Bad leaders are great examples of who you don't want to be and you you drill down on that a lot and how you live right about that to teach them blocking tackling of leadership.

• 11:00Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I get asked sometimes, you know, are the prior enlisted, how are the prior enlisted officers and in the SEAL teams, the prior enlisted officers are some of the best officers and some of the worst officers. It kind of reminds me, I had a kid ask me, you know, I'm I'm trying to become an Eagle Scout. Will that be helpful? And I said, it might be. Because if you take the skills and the things that you learn from becoming an Eagle Scout and you apply those to being a good leader, they might be helpful. But if somewhere in your mind, you think you're better than other people because you're an Eagle Scout, it's the road to disaster. So.

• 11:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's a good, that's a good reminder is, yeah, I I experienced the same thing like I've been there, done that. I don't like, that was just not me. You're right there. And you do get a little bit of street cred from the boys, you know, being a Mustang. But I never, I really kind of downplayed it a lot. I never advertised it, that's for sure.

• 11:57Jocko Willink?

  The SEAL community is so small that almost everyone you would know, like, when I went to the East Coast, I went SEAL Team Two, after there was like a couple people that took them like, three days to figure out that I was a prior enlisted guy. One of them was a senior chief that called me out about something and all the other guys was like, hey dude, that guy's been in the teams longer than you. But it's all good. Like, you know, what are you gonna do? So you, what's your first, what's your job? Are you an infantry or infantry officer?

• 12:24Speaker 02

  Infantry. That was, that was my main goal. We were talking about before the show, you know, is, you know, you gotta have a passion for what you do. And we were, we were discussing about, you know, becoming a pilot and we both know Dave Burke, because he's an F-18 guy and I did, I did time in Yuma. But I, you know, I don't know if you know how this works at, at the basic school, when you, when you get commissioned in Quantico, then you go across the street to the basic schools, you're not guaranteed a job. You go into this profession as a Marine officer with one goal, to lead Marines. No matter what job they do, Marines are all the same flavor. They're all great. They all, you know, talk a good game and they're all a handful, but being.

• 13:07Speaker 02

  In charge of Marines is the best job and you have to be good with that. Now you get your rankings. So you pick your, you know, your, your dream list of job one through 26 Alpha or whatever the fuck it is. And hopefully you get it. And the Marine Corps is interesting because I call it the equal distribution of smartness and dumbness. It's kind of a way they break it up. So if there's like 300 people, the top 100, middle 100 and the bottom 100, based off scoring and the top three guys get their pick. So if there's only 10 infantry jobs available and you're the number four guy at the top, three of those jobs are going to the middle third and then, you know, three, four, the last four are going to the bottom third.

• 13:48Speaker 02

  Or whatever it is for what the needs of the Marine Corps are. So I just happened to fall at the top of the bottom third.

• 13:57Speaker 02

  So now, okay, so let me just, just I save my own ass because it's not like high school anymore. The difference, the difference between the, the top third and bottom third is probably like 95.1 and then a hundred percent. So like it's a, like they're a bunch of smart cats. Yeah. It's a tight, it's a tight group out of those 300 people at TBS. But I got infantry and then you just go right across the street again to the infantry officers course, which is, you know,

• 14:26Speaker 02

  probably one of the last bastions of, of secrecy in the military. They don't advertise it on the Marine Corps training website. I don't know if it's a good thing. Like I think the special force community has gotten better. Because they recruit more guys, but we don't really advertise it. It's still kind of a little secret society. When you go over to infantry officers course.

• 14:49Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. I had James Webb on the podcast and he went from, you know, did the pipeline, the human team academy, whatever, TBS. And then infantry officer course, got on a plane, went to Vietnam, like took, got put in a Jeep. They drove them out there. They put them in a ridge line. Like your platoon is up there. There's no officer to relieve because the officer was wounded and gone. So, and he went up there that night and they like got in a big, big gunfight and he had to call for fire and everything. And he's kind of talking through it. And I said, did you feel like you were ready? Like, that's a lot to handle on your first night? And he goes, oh, absolutely. Which is

• 15:26Jocko Willink?

  pretty damn impressive to be rolling into combined arms combat on your first six hours in command in country. It's pretty impressive. So they do an outstanding job.

• 15:40Speaker 02

  They do. Yeah.

• 15:42Jocko Willink?

  Um, and then your first duty station is what 29 Palms, you said?

• 15:45Speaker 02

  Beautiful 29 Palms, California. Uh, again, uh, you know, be careful what you ask for. You just might get it. Um, you know, you get your dream sheet and I was like, I want West Coast. And all I'm thinking is Pendleton, Camp Pendleton, right here across the street. Uh, and then, uh, the assignments come out 29 Palms. And I was like, ah, that's cool. Or no, I was three, four. They're like, oh, you're going through battalion fourth Marines is like, awesome. Camp Pendleton. And then the company gunny, who's a E7, he, I remember his name is it was Peterson. He goes, hey, sir, uh, I got some bad news for you. Just shitty grin on his face. He goes, three, four just moved to 29 Palms. I'm like, you're kidding me. So it's the high desert. But you know, as a young, well, not so young, second lieutenant, being in the combat center is where you want to

• 16:29Speaker 02

  be as an infantry guy. Cause everything is live fire. I mean, you're just, you know, blowing stuff up and shooting all day long. Cause the whole base is an impact area, basically. But not great for young Marines as Libo, but.

• 16:44Jocko Willink?

  So where are you on September 11th?

• 16:47Speaker 02

  So I checked into three, four, um, in January of 99 and

• 16:59Speaker 02

  two years later, I was a first lieutenant. I was kind of like the senior lieutenant in the battalion at the time. And we were in Okinawa. And I was just telling this, obviously, because it's just a couple of days after, um, nine 11, as we're doing the show. But I remember watching the TV and I was on the phone. Um, and I said, that.

• 17:20Speaker 02

  I said something just hit the World Trade Center and then I look at this is a terrorist attack, second plane hit and I ran down the hall, Camp Schwab in Okinawa and I started banging all the doors, getting all the lieutenants up. I said, you guys got to come see this. And I remember huddling in our dorm room and in the barracks and we're all just watching this little tiny like 14 inch TV that we had and watching these events unfold. And it was the madness that ensued, obviously, you know, knee jerk reaction. They've got Marines on the perimeter with saws and you know, machine guns. I'm like,

• 17:51Jocko Willink?

  Were you guys on deployment in Okinawa at that time?

• 17:53Speaker 02

  We were. Yeah, we were doing a six month, six month rotation on the unit deployment program.

• 18:00Jocko Willink?

  And did you guys get to go anywhere from Okinawa?

• 18:04Speaker 02

  No. Yeah, we were stuck. Some units had it worse, like, like two, seven, I think they were stuck there for, man, like 18 months or something. It was crazy. But

• 18:16Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you pray to the war gods and it doesn't always go your way. We're on deployment. No, we're going to send some guys that are in the freaking states right now over there.

• 18:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, we, any professional war you guys understand is like, everybody wants their war. And I was funny, I was just telling Mike Sager this this morning over coffee is about how that transition, like you come back and then I was the senior lieutenant and then I got selected to go to FAST Company, which is a fleet anti-terrorism security team, which is run by the Navy. The CNO owns all the FAST guys and we go out, we do anti-terrorism ops and you know, my first deployment was in the Med and it was a cool gig because you're always conditioned one. They're hand selected Marines, no disciplinary problems. They've all got something to lose. So they want to be there. They don't screw up. They're varsity.

• 19:07Speaker 02

  I was one of five captains in the entire Marine Corps that got selected to, you know, lead and you're still in command, which is, you know, it's cool.

• 19:16Jocko Willink?

  And so now this is like, what, 2002, 2003?

• 19:19Speaker 02

  2001. It was like right after September 11th. Yeah, it might have just been, oh, two, I just picked up captain and because all the platoon commanders are captains in FAST and we work with the Navy, you know, work with squadrons over there and Rota and Sigonella and that's where I met a lot of the SEALs on that deployment who's still lifelong friends of mine. So, but it was, it was a good gig. But September 11th was It was such a, such a turning point in, in history that lit the fuse for where we are today. You know, it was, um, you know, and today, um, and we're recording this show today, which is, again, I think it's like the day we signed the constitution, among other things, but this is

• 20:03Speaker 02

  the, the battle of antietam. This is the, the bloodiest day in American history. I mean, where we lost 5,000 people. Um, you know, people in modern times, they think nine 11 is the bloodiest day, but it's not. We were killing ourselves on the bloodiest day in America. And we, we don't like to talk about that world a lot, but definitely a turning point for sure.

• 20:25Jocko Willink?

  So then how long are you with FAST Company for?

• 20:28Speaker 02

  It's a three-year gig. Um, I, I, I was with Second FAST Company in Yorktown, Virginia.

• 20:37Speaker 02

  And we did a deployment to Baghdad. Um, that one lasted, or no, the first, the first one was Second FAST was to Rota, Spain. So we're out of Rota for like 10 months, doing straight to Gibraltar transits. You know, we're, we're riding frigates and destroyers and we're cross decking and we're doing, you know, strong transitions with SEALs and they're shuttling us over to boats and we do security on all these ships going over to the Persian Gulf when the war kicked off. And, you know, again, we're like, oh, we're just guarding, you know, these big container ships full of shit paper and, and MREs for the guys doing the real fighting. We all want to get in the fight, you know, we wanted our war. And, uh, so we came back and then we get the call, um, that General Hagie,

• 21:20Speaker 02

  who was the commandant and the CNO, wanted a third FAST Company. So I was a plank owner to help build that, um, in Williamsburg, Virginia. So we had the shitty little Navy base. It was like a Navy supply annex and we didn't have a pot to piss in, but we were doing what we could do until we got all of our gear and stuff and we started fielding Marines. And then we went over to Baghdad to provide security at the embassy there, um, at Saddam's palace. Um, and it, that place, man, I don't know if you're rolled through there.

• 21:49Jocko Willink?

  What year was that?

• 21:51Speaker 02

  That was 2004.

• 21:52Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 21:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:53Jocko Willink?

  I was there in oh, three, oh, four. So, and I was in Baghdad. So, yeah.

• 21:57Speaker 02

  Well. In- interestingly, uh, we were there for, for 10 months and, um, it, it was, uh, prior to that, um, when I was married, uh, I have a buddy who's in the Navy and he's a, this is a cool, I like this story because you probably know the guys too, but, um, he's flying to my wedding and he's sitting next to this guy. He says, hey, what are you doing? He's like, oh, I'm in the Navy. And so he was a team guy. And so, um, Bob White and his nephew, by the way, is the one that called me from the recruiter's office. So the White family is like, they've been, I've known him since high school. Anyway, he says, yeah, you should call this guy. He's also in Virginia Beach

• 22:39Speaker 02

  or he's a damn neck or something. And so it was, uh, Rich Devini. And so, um, Rich and I became like pen pals, um, in Virginia and we're emailing each other, like sharing the gas chamber or range like at Fort Useless or something. But we'd never met face to face. And so I'm in Baghdad in oh, four, and I see these, you know, this convoy rolls in and I'm in the, I'm in the chow hall and I see all these guys with a bunch of Velcro on their camis and pockets and all those like seals. And, uh, so I walk up and I says, hey, man, is, uh, Rich, Rich around, uh, or a carp? And, uh, he says, yeah, they're on the circle drive. And now this is a huge, it's a palace. So I walk out and sure enough, there's Rich face to face.

• 23:24Speaker 02

  And of all the places we meet, they just come back down from doing DA hits up north. And, uh, so we met face to face. Now I gotta finish this story. Fast forward, I'm going over to Ramadi and we're on the USS Boxer and it's like one in the morning. Come to the chow hall and I'm sitting at this table and there's this pilot sitting across from me. And he's, I'm looking at his name tape. I says, Devini. I says, you got any family in the military? He goes, oh yeah, I got a brother, twin brother. I says, you're kidding me. So I tell, I tell Andy, his call sign is Count. I, I tell Count about that story about meeting his brother. He said, you gotta be kidding me. And so you fast forward like another, I don't know, 10 or 15 years and

• 24:09Speaker 02

  counts retiring from the Marine Corps and Yuma. And I go to the retirement ceremony and we took a picture as the first time of me, Rich and Andy in one picture all together, but throughout our whole military careers, you know, and you know, Rich and Andy have both gone on to, you know, do great things. Rich has got a great book that came out called Attributes and so that's, that's how I met those guys. But again, like this right here, man, this power of human connection, you know, I walk in, he sees me in the alley out back. And like, he's like, hey, what's up? And we're trying to piece together how we all met for the first time. And but yeah, the, the, the Vinnie, the Vinnie boys.

• 24:50Jocko Willink?

  Chuck. Yeah. Yeah. Rich has been on this podcast a couple of times. And I know him one more, by the way.

• 24:58Jocko Willink?

  So what are you, you, what's your, what are you guys doing in Baghdad? Was it good deployment? You were there for 10 months?

• 25:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was, uh, right at the, it was a really interesting time because you know how the tactics change. You know, we weren't doing a lot of direct fighting. We were more in a defensive posture because we couldn't have achieved the diplomatic mission over there without some semblance of security. So we did a lot of VIP security convoys to and from the airport. We were actually working with the Blackwater guys when Blackwater got stood up out of LZ Washington in Baghdad. We used to fly around with those guys on their sexy helicopters. You know, those guys are all 160 sore dudes that are flying for Blackwater now. And we can talk about a little bit too, like one of the books that I helped publish is called,

• 25:47Speaker 02

  it used to be called Welcome to Blackwater, but now it's called Guns, Girls and Greed. But I used to, it, that book too is like, I hope they serve beer in hell. Like we'll talk about Morgan's book too, but he was a Blackwater mercenary. And so, but we, we worked with those guys and there were rocket attacks. You know, they would shoot RPGs from across the river, you know, and try and lob them over all the concrete, you know, walls. And it, it was a grind. I will say that. I mean, it was hot.

• 26:19Speaker 02

  Hot, everyone always thinks Iraq's so hot all the time, but that deployment was, when I was in Ramadi though, it was like freezing cold, but in Baghdad in oh four, it was like the Star Wars cantina. That's what the palace was like. I mean, you had everything from business casual. I mean, Dave Petras was running the, running the place, you know, four star generals bouncing around. Civilians, contractors, USAID Marines guarding the place, but we were day on, stay on and all the Blackwater yahoos and, you know, Department of State guys were out in the pool, you know, getting on the piss at night and, uh, you know, creating more problems for, for themselves than need be, but it was,

• 27:01Speaker 02

  it was surreal, man. Uh, it really was like a Star Wars cantina. It was just madness.

• 27:06Jocko Willink?

  The war is very different depending on where you are and what you're doing, man.

• 27:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 27:11Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Going into the green zone and you'd see like people that look like humans. You'd be going, wait a second, what's going on? And I had it pretty good. We were staying out at, in Baghdad, but we'd roll out to some, you know, some outstation somewhere. And there'd be like some SF ODA team living in the shit and like living off one MRE or two MREs a day and buying foods from the locals and half the guys are, you know, got diarrhea and it's freaking gnarly and they live like that for whatever it was, however long they're going to be there. And, and then you go to the, you know, BiAP had a big giant chow hall with Pizza Hut and all that stuff. And then the green zone was just like a freaking luxury.

• 27:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 27:51Jocko Willink?

  Scenario.

• 27:51Speaker 02

  It was, and I think people, I'm not making it out to be more than it was, but like it, green zone, people thought it was safe zone, but it wasn't.

• 28:00Jocko Willink?

  There was, you know, there was. They were taking hits for sure.

• 28:02Speaker 02

  There was a big ID threat. Um, you know, they're blowing up cars all over the place. Um, you know, there's sporadic machine gun fire. They were just, you know, randomly lob rockets and, you know, mortar fire in the city and we used to just try and chase them down. It was a futile attempt, man, you know, in that environment, like the Blackwater guys be flying like, yeah, we're going to go target these guys. Like that's not planning, man. This is not how we lead and this is how the Marines do it. So we ultimately separated ourselves from, uh, team Blackwater, but you know, they had their, they had their purpose.

• 28:31Jocko Willink?

  So then you get done with that deployment. What's next?

• 28:34Speaker 02

  School, school. Um, I had, um,

• 28:39Speaker 02

  Gotten selected to go to the resident course in Quantico at the Expeditionary Warfare School, which is six months. And so I'm, and after that, it's, it's a captain's prep course.

• 28:53Jocko Willink?

  So it's like for company command.

• 28:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, you're, you're, you're a captain going through there. And then you've got a whole slew of majors that are your faculty advisors that guide you along the way because they've already been company commanders. And so they're prepping you for that. But it's a lot of detailed planning, you know, mission prep. There's not, not really a whole lot of PT. You kind of do it on your own. So it's very academic environment, but it's, it's an important stepping stone to, to prepare you for that next level of leadership. And that's when I got the call that I would not, this is interesting too, because the Marine Corps did have a great sense of humor, but they, they called like five of us in, they go, and we go into the office of the director, who's a full colonel at the time.

• 29:39Speaker 02

  Says, you guys aren't graduating with your class. And we're like, what do we do? They said, you got orders to report in early. So we were like, you didn't get to walk across the stage or anything in the formal graduation. So I got orders to second battalion, fourth Marines. And they're like, you need to check in now. It was like, they're getting ready for a big dump of Marines, all the new guys, and then you're gonna start your training cycle. So I literally packed up all my stuff, drove across the country, towed my Jeep out, parked in the parking lot. It was like a, like a Thursday night or something. I roll in with all my stuff and then took command on Friday. And then the next week, we're back in Twin NAMPalm's training. It was, and then I, then I was living out of my office

• 30:24Speaker 02

  and Marines hated it. They hated me for it. Like, oh, man, that guy's crazy.

• 30:27Jocko Willink?

  You were just on 24 hours a day?

• 30:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, we just, there was no point in even getting an apartment or a house, because the training cycle was just so intense. Everybody knows, like, that's been in the military, like, you just want to go on deployment because the training is so relentless. Like, the way we prepare our guys is merciless. And the fact that I lived in my office, Marines knew that I was never getting a break. I wasn't a tyrant, you know, but it was just, it was convenient for me. So.

• 30:53Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Work to do. And so you guys finished workup. Do you know where you're going on deployment?

• 30:59Speaker 02

  We didn't. We knew we were going with the with a 15th Mew. Like, we knew we were doing a Mew deployment and there's always three Mews that are that are that are running across the globe is the, you know, the planet's 911 force. It's 2,500 Marines, soldiers and sailors in the amphibious ready group that that carries us out there. But we didn't find out about our deployment until then Colonel Bedrow, now retired Major General Bedrow, got us on the flight deck of the USS Boxer and announced that we were going into country. Because for listeners who remember, that was the surge, the that

• 31:40Speaker 02

  President Bush and General Abizadeh and others, they ordered this surge. And I, you know, I always explain it as up until that point, and you were in it at the time, because we were two ships passing in the night in 06. The insurgency had become what I called the giant game of whack-a-mole, where we were just hammer them down in one city like Fallujah, and we'd crush their asses into fine powder, and they'd go to ground, and then they'd seep away, and they'd pop up somewhere else. And the surge allowed us to flood the battle space with what additional 15, 20,000 troops. And that was a tough decision to commit the theater reserve in the Middle East, and that's what the Mew was. But they did that, and it allowed

• 32:24Speaker 02

  to really for us to put pressure on all those pockets of resistance simultaneously. And as you know, in 06, that's just where all the bad guys chose to fight. They picked Ramadi, and they were going to make a stand. And, you know, like we were saying, it really was a Super Bowl of combat, man. You write about that. It's like, there's to be a company commander, infantry company commander, in charge of over 250 Marines, soldiers and sailors in that environment where you're fighting every single day, four, five, six times a day on some days, against a very well-trained insurgent force. It doesn't get any more intense. And you know, we could talk leadership all day long, man, but you know, the leadership

• 33:09Speaker 02

  at every level was the thing that probably allowed us to survive. And it was survival, as you know, it wasn't winning or losing. We didn't have real metric. It was survival. I mean, if you had to take, you know, the scoreboard, I mean, the amount of people my guys were lighting up and killing was, we were lighting up the scoreboard. I mean, but that, that was never really quantified to us. Like, the administration or the senior level never really told us what winning was. A lot of guys have a problem with that. A lot of guys, you know, you have to know what that end state is. We never did. Killing

• 33:49Speaker 02

  bad guys is one metric. Mine was always bringing as many home alive as I could. Just taking care of my boys and making sure that they knew what their mission was every single day at the lowest level. Tough.

• 34:03Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you mentioned finding out, you know, the Marine Corps birthday. I'm going to go to the book here. You say on, on the 231st birthday of the Marine Corps, the 15th Mew Commander Colonel Brian, how do you say his name?

• 34:14Speaker 02

  Boudreau.

• 34:14Jocko Willink?

  Boudreau stood on the boxers flight deck and announced that to the hundreds of Marines and sailors gathered that we'd be going into Iraq. They responded to the news exuberantly. I sensed an excitement from the new Marines, the ones who had never been in combat before. Many, I suppose, still harbored romantic notions of how combat is going to be, running into the blaze of battle, firing their M16s and annihilating an untrained inferior enemy. If that's what they were thinking, they'd know better soon enough. They were about to experience the intensity of combat and see death on a scale like they'd never imagined. You guys knew, or did you know, as a company commander, are you reading the intel reports every day of what's happening in Ramadi? Because I know I got, I was supposed to deploy to

• 34:57Jocko Willink?

  Baghdad, and then two weeks before we left for deployment, they told us we were going to Ramadi. But I had been following Ramadi the whole time. I knew what was going on there. You see the sit reps. You see how many people are getting killed there. We knew, we knew we were going into the belly of the beast. Did you have that same information?

• 35:11Speaker 02

  We, we do a fly ahead to the, the RCT at the time. It got a really good intel dump. We were getting some. Some indications and warnings on ship, but again, OPSEC on ship, they really didn't want us talking about it. We were in River City, which is complete communication shutdown for about two weeks. So can't call the family, can't hop on the internet, none of that.

• 35:33Jocko Willink?

  Are you guys tracking like when three eights there? Cause I was there when three eight was there. Three eight lost like 17 guys on that deployment. They lost, I think nine before I showed up, but that's a significant amount of guys to lose. Are you guys tracking that? You see another battalion in Ramadi, you know what's happening? You see those casualty reports?

• 35:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, we, we were, we were getting all of that once John Smith and I, John Smith had Fox company. He's still on active duty, he's a Colonel now, but he and I were assigned to Ramadi. That, that was the thing too is so rewind, they commit the theater reserve, which again is the Mew is 2,500 Marines, soldiers and sailors. And we disembark amphibious shipping from the three ships, but they send us out in piecemeal. So Echo and Fox, we got sent to Ramadi to work under 11 BCT. Now, I didn't even see John Smith for a while, um, cause they were farming us out like scab labor. And, um, the other part of the Mew went up to Haditha.

• 36:40Speaker 02

  And then we had the Mew command element over in Camp Korean Village in Rupa.

• 36:45Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 36:45Speaker 02

  Which, um, we ultimately wound up closing our deployment out in Rupa, clearing that, that truck stop of the city out.

• 36:53Jocko Willink?

  Um, you roll in and it's the 11 AD, there's an army unit in charge. You end up with Chuck Ferry, Lieutenant Colonel Chuck Ferry from one, they had taken over from the first of the 506. My guys were really embedded with the first of the 506.

• 37:10Jocko Willink?

  I always try and explain to people at Ramadi, it was like, we're on the same team, bro. And like, let's go do this. Is that the feeling you got from working with the 19 immediately?

• 37:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. Combat Chuck, man. He was, he was a Green Beret too, you know? So having an SF dude, he, he, he didn't. The way he did business was cool and we still keep in touch occasionally. But he had his, he had his finger on the pulse of, of the tribal leaders. He took care of them. I remember one of the first days rolling into the talk at Carrigador, you guys were shark based, but similar setup. We had unmanned aerial vehicles with feeds. We walk in, one of the days they're conducting a QRF raid, one of the local sheiks, there were insurgents crossing the Euphrates and they were attacking his house and we see this real time happening,

• 38:00Speaker 02

  just like a Tom Clancy movie, man. It was intense. And, you know, Lieutenant Colonel Ferry, he, he sends out his QRF and just smashes these guys in the face at the same time, wins over the sheik and allowed him to barter deals. And even later on during that deployment, you know, with the awakening nights and having all of these locals on our side, basically telling the insurgents, look, man, if you keep dropping mortars on these positions, we're just gonna like, they're, they're gonna cut their throats in the middle of the night. And that's was their, you know, Iraqi on Iraqi. This is not US forces doing that.

• 38:38Jocko Willink?

  Yep. Um, you're, you're the rest of you, you know, you show up and again, guys, I'm reading a tiny excerpts of the book. The book has all kinds of awesome detail in there. Great writing, brings you into the situation. I'm gonna hit some highlights of it. So get the book. It's Echo and Ramadi. You say here, this is like a photo op that you guys do. You get done with this photo op and you say, as my Marines fought in Al Anbar province, I want, wanted the physical movement associated with killing to be instinctual. I never wanted them to hesitate when it mattered most, or to have them feel remorse for their duty. To do so, they needed to know that in the end, I would bear the burden, the inescapable burden of command. I spoke in forceful, confident tone and encompasses much of the advice I'd

• 39:21Jocko Willink?

  accumulated over the years from my mentors. Quote, "This is the first time you in combat for most of you. You will have to fire your weapon at the enemy. You will have to kill. I don't expect that this will be easy for anyone. It shouldn't be, but know this. I am ordering you to kill. You will kill and when this is all over, it will be my responsibility. It will be my burden to carry because I am ordering you to do it. We are Marines. We follow orders. You'll kill the enemy, but you will leave this place without regret and we will win. Is that understood?"

• 39:52Jocko Willink?

  Putting out the word to the boys, it's like a little, uh, nice little pre combat, post traumatic stress release, you know, like, hey, guys, you guys do what you gotta do. This is on me.

• 40:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, again, I had a lot of great examples of leaders that prepared me for that. So I, it's not like it's the original thought. I'm probably not the only guy that ever said something like that, but I think it was very important that they hear from the boss. And, you know, people gotta remember, when you're leading a large group of Marines or soldiers like that, that most of them are 18, 19 year old kids. I mean, you rewind like six months before that speech on the side of this hill with all these kids with their heads shaved, they're probably playing high school football, man. And now I'm ordering them to do some of the most unimaginable things that humans have to do and to see and, you know, witness some of the worst things humanity has to offer

• 40:51Speaker 02

  and what we were dealing with in Ramadi, man. It was, it was, it was insane, but I never, ever wanted those guys to hesitate when it came down to taking another human life. Cause that, as you know, that, that is an unnatural event for a human to kill another human. It's just unless you're a psychopath or sociopath or whatever. I never wanted those guys to hesitate when they put the stock of that shoulder, a stock of that rifle on their shoulder and look through the sights and had to make that one life-changing decision to squeeze that trigger and take another human life. I didn't want to hesitate because their survival depended on it. Mine did, everybody around it. And that's a tough thing to do, man. But Marines are great at a lot of things, as you know, like they can run fast, they're,

• 41:34Speaker 02

  you know, smart asses, they talk sharp, but you know what? They also follow orders. They're really good at following orders and we breed that into them. We train that into Marines and, you know, they never let me down, man. I wouldn't be sitting here today if, if that leadership at every level and those young guys who.

• 41:53Speaker 02

  Man, and they took care of each other and me better than anything I'd ever, ever experienced. You, you write about that as the boss, he was like, how you, you built this love, man, for these guys. And, um, you know, when I go talk to big loot groups like you do in, in the corporate and private arenas, I, they want me to talk about leadership and, and I do, and I share that part of the story. As a matter of fact, is an important part, but you know, the Marines are great at, you know, training for all these things and, you know, in our locker rooms and commands. We've got these billboards with, you know, all of our leadership traits and principles, justice, judgment, discipline, and you know, integrity, and like, those are important, man.

• 42:34Speaker 02

  But in a deployment like this with the stakes so high, what I saw and what I've seen really through my career is there's a lot of other words that don't make it into the textbooks that professional warriors attend. And they're important and they're words like love and compassion and understanding and patience. Man, those are tested daily, as you know. And those aren't words, guys like you, me and you, you know, big tough door kickers, you know, they, those are words that are assimilated with weakness. And, and I now through a little bit of age and, and wisdom and experience, you understand those words are very important, especially young leaders.

• 43:17Speaker 02

  And I think that being able to share that with them in any setting and even in, in private sector or universities or whoever it is I'm talking to or first responders, like those are very important words as a leader.

• 43:31Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Um, if you don't care about your people, they will 100% know it and they will not care about you. And that's the way it works. And really, if you think about every, you know, when I look back at my career in the, in the military. The leaders, the best leaders were the ones you knew they cared about you and they you knew that they cared about your guys. And you know, you know, McFarland, of course, and I don't know how much you got to interact with McFarland because you were over on the other side of Camp Ramadi. But like you could see every, every breath that that guy cared about his entire brigade that he had worked. He cared about every single individual and, and you felt it, you felt it when he was in the room with you, you felt it on the street.

• 44:15Jocko Willink?

  You felt it. And so, yeah, a hundred percent. If you don't have that, um, it's, it's not good.

• 44:22Speaker 02

  You can teach people a lot of stuff. You can teach them how to fight better, how to run better, how to shoot straighter. But you're right there. And I say this a lot. There's one thing I never figured out how to teach Marines, how to care. If you don't care about what you're doing, man, I'm telling you, get out of the military, get out of the job you're in. Go sell ice cream or be an Uber driver or like, but you should love it. Like if you don't care about what you're doing. That's what builds great teams is, is having those leaders in those positions that really understand that you have to care.

• 44:54Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And then there's, you know, that's the ultimate dichotomy is you're going to take these guys that you care about more than anything else in the world. And you're going to put them in situations where they're, they are going to be at risk. They are going to be at risk. And you know, you, you rolled it right into the Malab district. And the Malab was like, you could start your stopwatch when you went on patrol in the Lob district and you were going to get contacted in half an hour or whatever it was, 20 minutes, 35 minutes, like you were going to get contacted when you rolled out there and you know that you're putting those, your guys in harms way all every day that they roll out.

• 45:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, I remember you, you wrote about it. You, you called the Malab South Central and like most people equate that to LA and how bad it is rife with crime and gang. That was the Malab. When you went south on Route Michigan, man, like you could just stick your toe over there. It's like rounds would start coming and then you jump back. It's like, and we were in a shitty district too, in Katana and the industrial district and. But we were very lucky. I think we, I don't know how we digress, but about Chuck Ferry is like took us in as a team. We felt very, very included in what we were undertaking with them. And they were great for suppliers.

• 46:01Jocko Willink?

  I can't imagine how happy he was as a commander owning a shitty battle space. And he has 250 Marines showed up. He must have been freaking pumped.

• 46:13Speaker 02

  And you talked about the casualties from three eight and the Marine battalion that were over there. And you know, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the 2004 Ramadi vets from, from two, four that, you know, they lost a lot of guys in April. But when we went into the city again, even my Marines who were veterans of, of the 2004 fight in Ramadi said, it's gotten so much worse. They couldn't believe it. And there was probably five times as many troops owning the city. But when we checked in with Chuck, all those companies in one nine infantry with Manchu, their company strength was only like, in some cases, 75 or 80 soldiers. And they'd been slogging it out already for about 10 months on a 18 month deployment.

• 46:59Speaker 02

  And they were just taking some real heavy losses. So yeah, when we rolled in and I think I was at like two, 239 Marines were pure. Maybe it was like, maybe it was less than, maybe it was like 198 or something pure. Like off the boat, like we had our enablers. But when I got into country, I operated a little differently. I mean, they loved it because we look like rock stars with our numbers and sheer force and aggressiveness. But I would see all these weirdos hanging around these camps, like Het guys, like their former Green Berets, but they're doing these biometric scanning things where they hold the thing up and they're cataloging all the insurgents or good guys, bad guys. I'm like, you got a rifle? You want to go out and fight? Like, yeah, sir.

• 47:43Speaker 02

  And I sent him over to my first sergeant, Tom Foster. He's like, Jesus, you're fucking killing me. It's like, so we built, like I had Het guys, I had CAG guys, like that's, that, I had Ben Sledge, she's going to be on the next episode of this show. We're all Ramadi vets. And I got, I'll tell you the story about Ben. But you know, I had just. A lot of enablers, interpreters, dog handlers, you know, psyops guys. I took whoever wanted to get in the fight and I brought them out there with me and they were happy to do it. But it did give us a lot of freedom of movement and we loved it and working, working for, you know, Lieutenant Colonel Ferry, like he, he did, he did love it.

• 48:27Speaker 02

  It was tough though, man, because the army got into this bad habit too of getting locked into one position. They didn't want to drive around the city because they were getting smacked with subsurface IEDs and I mean, huge bombs buried under the road that were snapping Bradley vehicles into and it was, it was really, it was scary. And I think it paralyzed them a little bit. They were doing what they could, but when we went in and we worked there and then they handed us off to 177 armor. I worked for Bear Johnson and he's a great guy to work for too. And I remember like when, when we checked in, he's like, hey Scotty, uh, so what do you need from me?

• 49:11Speaker 02

  I was like, we're good, sir. He goes, well, how are you going to get around the vehicle without vehicles? He goes, you want some, want some Humvees or Bradleys? I'm like, nope. Well, how are you going to get around the city? I go, we're light infantry, sir. We're going to walk. He goes, you're going to walk? I said, you're damn right. We're going to walk, sir. I said, we're going to send teams of Marines out of all these houses and we're going to clear through this city systematically. And if a bad guy sticks his head around a corner, they're going to run into one of my squads or teams of Marines and they're going to get fucked up. And that's what they did. And it was, those are long days clearing Western Ramadi, but we worked systematically. And then we, we kind of rallied at Cops Steel there in the center, but working for Bear Johnson too was as good as working with, with Chuck Ferry. I mean, they were just good commanders.

• 49:56Speaker 02

  They were good. And we're a little discerning within the service branches, but you know, you, you could smell an imposter a mile away. That's how we get to is like, you know, your bullshit meter gets pretty finely calibrated after years and years of service. And, uh, but they were, they weren't imposters, man. They were switched on soldiers.

• 50:14Jocko Willink?

  Um, you're getting like a going back to being being on the east side, you getting checked in guy named Captain John Tate, he kind of takes you out there, going to check out the the various locations that you're going to be set up, areas that you're going to control. Um, I thought this was good. Tate turned to me, you you out, he's showing you around, he's giving you, what is it called? Like a like a

• 50:36Speaker 02

  Leaders recon.

• 50:37Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, leaders recon. Um, but it reminds me of like, what do they do up in Hollywood? Echo Charles, when you like, drive around looking at the stars of the homes or whatever? What's that called? A tour?

• 50:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, some kind of tour.

• 50:48Jocko Willink?

  Like a tourist. You're on like a tourist run of seeing all the

• 50:52Speaker 02

  We weren't on like an uncovered observation bus.

• 50:55Jocko Willink?

  But you're about to get out of this Humvee and he's like, Tate turned to me and said, okay, so when we get out of the truck, don't fuck around, run fast and get inside. We had a lot of sniper fire in the area. Cool. Cool. It was good advice to you. No sooner had we gotten in the building than we heard small arms fire and the snap of rounds hitting the building and random gunfire in the distance. And then you talk about living in, you know, what these various OPs look like, which just look like the straight up, you know, World War II freaking blown out buildings, uh, filled with sandbags and whatnot. And, and then you guys take over, you guys take over these positions. Um, fast forward a little bit, you say, in Iraq, I faced two pressing responsibilities. The first was to bring all my boys home safely. There were times when I told myself not to give a fuck about anything else but that,

• 51:39Jocko Willink?

  but I couldn't do that because we were sent to Iraq to kill the enemy. It meant I had to put my men into dangerous situations despite the admirable love I had for my Marines. I knew they'd have to fight and possibly die. My only goal was that by killing more insurgents, we'd suffer fewer casualties, like an insurance policy that we'd have to pay for every day. That's what you and I were just talking about. And there is, in my opinion, being more aggressive is the safest thing to do. Like, being more aggressive, taking, if you sit on base, the the enemy will get you. They, especially in Ramadi, like, they will surround you, they will mortar the shit out of you, and you will, you will take casualties. Um, of course, at this time, you still got your wife at home and your Bailey, uh, your, your daughter. So you got that going on in the back of your mind as well. Um,

• 52:26Jocko Willink?

  And you end up taking off, biting off more. Like, once you're there, you establish yourself, you take even more.

• 52:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, the opso Dave Norrell, he was a major and he was 19 infantry guy. And they just assumed like we could only handle so much battle space. And I wrote about it, but you know, there's a big map on the wall, it's plexiglass. And I just grabbed the sharpie, said, man, I got this certain like, oh, you started adding real estate to what we would control because we knew that, you know, like John Tate's company and the other guys, they, you know, Jamie Godori, like their company's strength was so light. We wanted to try and help and take some of the burden off of them. So we own more real estate. Part of that was the Malab, which again was, you know, we got in some, some serious firefights down there.

• 53:17Speaker 02

  I mean, we got, you know, that's where Sergeant Espinoza got shot. He's going to be at our reunion next month for the 24 reunion too. But again, John Espinoza was in Battle Ramadi in 04. And then he came back as a squad leader and took a sniper on across the chest. And man, that's, that's one of those stories too. Like I've shared this before, but you know, when John got shot, we had to go in and we had to pull the platoon out. We had to get tanks, which you know, are like a godsend over there. And so we roll in and, you know, he's already gone. And you know, as a leader, you just have this blind faith in the system. That's why I wrote about, you know, our C130 brothers and, you know, how our wounded get back. But,

• 53:59Speaker 02

  you know, the story of Espinoza is just one that you think only happens in the movies, but it happened in real life. And it doesn't just happen in my unit. It happens a lot. How this kid who's, again, he's a salty seasoned sergeant now with, you know, another comment, but he's 22. He's a 22 year old kid and the responsibility of leading, you know, 14, 15 guys, that's a lot. And then he's shot. He flies out, dies in the helicopter, you know, flatlines, comes back. And then

• 54:30Speaker 02

  I don't know how he does it, but he Shanghai's rides back to his Marines. And when first Sergeant Foster found out and he shows up in the, in the tactical operations center, his jaw about hit the floor because his family thinks Sergeant Espinoza's coming home. And this guy snuck out of the hospital with still in with his bloody camis in a bag and he's wearing like some goofy Air Force sweatsuit and you know, gets a ride in through Ramadi, like from the army guys, like modern day Uber on the battlefield, man, and gets back there. All of that, that whole story, I didn't know it happened.

• 55:10Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 55:11Speaker 02

  I didn't know any of that because I'm in the fight. I have another 250 guys that I gotta take care of every single day. So I didn't know any of this happened, but when I was doing interviews and I did over a hundred interviews when I wrote Echo in Ramadi and I, his wife, Hady, she's like, thank you for like talking to him because he doesn't talk about a lot. And when I finally shut up, you know, I told them, you know, about the book was how I was writing it and the stories that were going to be important, the periods. And when I finally shut up, he talked for about two hours, which is an astronomical feat for Espinoza. And he knows this because I love him. But he was never a real chatty Cathy, you know, Jocko, he was a businessman. Marines feared him. He didn't talk a lot, but he said a lot.

• 55:55Speaker 02

  He's one of those guys, you know, and always took care of business and always took care of the Marines. And it was, it was tough when he, when he got, you know, hit, but he shows back up, man. It was just surreal.

• 56:06Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Yeah. I've gotten asked a lot about, and I'll ask you the same thing. Like people will ask me, did you know you were going to take casualties? And I don't think it's fatalistic to say this, but oh, a hundred percent. Like you are seeing, there's, there's wounded and killed every day and your guys are going out every day and you cannot play that game and roll those dice every day and think that you're not going to take any casualties. Like it's not good, it's impossible. Did you get that sense when you got there? Or when you, you know, after the first three days or after you got to OP Hotel and looked around and went, oh shit.

• 56:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, OP Hotel, again, it's not like Ritz Carlton by any stretch of the means. It was a, I don't know, what was like a six story? Looked like a six story piece of concrete Swiss cheese, man. It was just a shit hole of a building and it sat right on Route Michigan, which is a main artery for supplies and convoys and all that jazz. But we knew from day one and you know, I'd already had a few deployments. I'd already been to combat and you just know guys are going to get wounded and guys are going to die and that's part of our business. I think that's what people subscribe to when they raise their right hand and they make that decision to serve their country and

• 57:30Speaker 02

  we just need to keep inspiring young people to do that. I mean, that's a tough thing too, when you write about stuff like this and you've, you share this. A lot of our authors do who are veterans and when you write about war, it's, that's a dichotomy. It's like you share this, the grisly facts of what it's like to be in combat, but I also write and share the beauty that comes from it and our connection here and all the amazing connections I have in my life to this day are somehow born through my service to my country and what I did. And I'm not saying that can't happen in other vocations. But it's very unique with what we do.

• 58:08Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 58:08Speaker 02

  You know, it's, it's, it's a beautiful thing to, you know, see those things come out of, of war, you know, which is again, some of the worst things humanity has to offer and the conditions are just ungodly. But there's also some beauty that comes from it. And some tragedy, you know, but I think focusing on all the greatness that came out of 20 years of war. Is probably what sustains me. And I know a lot of guys have struggled with it. A lot of guys, you know, in my company have killed themselves. I don't ever sugarcoat it. I mean, they took their own life by suicide and you know, the numbers are just astronomical. I don't know what the

• 58:51Speaker 02

  disconnect is. I never try and do the math. We've tried for years and years to be part of this solution, but when you see things like that at such a young age, that's why it was very important for me to go back and order them to kill. You know, they, they needed to know that just to have that pressure valve released a little bit. And in Ramadi, it was tough.

• 59:15Jocko Willink?

  I'm gonna fast forward in the book here a little bit. Lance Corporal Jonathan Naris, am I saying that right?

• 59:19Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 59:20Jocko Willink?

  A fire team leader in fourth platoon's first squad raced to the rooftop of ECP eight. He could see muzzle flashes of the insurgent weapons coming out of windows as close as 50 meters away. Naris and the other Marines drew down on the insurgents, aiming their sights on the enemy fighters, running back and forth between buildings. As Marines spotted them, they opened up with their weapons. The firing was intense. Deafening bursts rang out from squad on automatic weapons and medium machine guns, making it almost impossible to communicate to each other as they fought. Naris could see the bodies of the insurgents drop to the ground as the Marines tore them apart. Naris caught sight of Libby out of the corner of his eye and then heard him say, I'm reloading my 203. Libby then took a knee to slide open the breach of the grenade

• 1:00:03Jocko Willink?

  launcher mounted under his rifle. Moments later, Naris looked for Libby to come back up. When he didn't, Naris looked down and saw that Libby had fallen. He immediately dropped down to his squad leader's side and saw a bulge in his neck. Libby's eyes stared directly back at him. Naris's heart dropped. The other Marines quickly gathered around illuminating Libby with their flashlights to assess the damage. Naris couldn't believe what was happening. He stood frozen in, frozen in shock. It didn't seem real. All he could say to Libby was, I'm sorry. Still not realizing the full gravity of the situation, Naris instinctually turned back into the fight and resupplied his Marines with ammunition. He had to think about the men who were still alive. They were now his responsibility.

• 1:00:58Jocko Willink?

  So, fast forward a little bit. You say, "My convoy rolled up to the position, 4th Platoon, which held the ECPA, was commanded by 2nd Lieutenant Seth Nicholson and his platoon Sergeant, Staff Sergeant Brent Miller. Nicholson told me that Libby had suffered a gunshot wound to the back of the neck. The bullet struck him just above the protective ballistic plate. We didn't have time to wait. I asked Nicholson, 'Is Libby the only casualty that needs to be evacuated?' He answered, 'Yes.' I went back and told Somerville, 'Get the trucks turned around. We don't have time to wait for a casualty. We are the casualty.' I ordered the Marines to get Libby into my Humvee. 4 Marines carried him to the back of my vehicle. As they did, they yelled at each other. 'Be careful with him. Be careful. Easy. Easy with him.' The convoy roared back home with Somerville's vehicle in lead. We pressed past enemy positions

• 1:01:39Jocko Willink?

  and rushed past OP South House, which was occupied by 1st Platoon. Firefights engulfed the city and our vehicles got caught in the crossfire. I heard Flanagan in the back of the truck yelling, 'Hang on, man. Hang on. Come on, Libby. Hang in there.' Flanagan leaned over the seat and yelled at me. 'Sir, I can't get a fucking pulse. There's no pulse. There's blood everywhere. Keep talking to him,' I said. The Marines got Libby out as carefully as possible. There was no time to put him on a stretcher. Doc had put a cervical collar on him and inserted an emergency tracheotomy tube in his mouth to clear the airway. I stared down at Libby. I thought to myself, "God, he looks so young. He's so fucking young. Please, please hang in there, brother." I couldn't believe this was the first casualty the battalion was suffering. It was happening to Osago Company.

• 1:02:24Jocko Willink?

  I tried to press inside the battalion aid station. 1st Sergeant Foster, who met me as I exited the vehicle, grabbed my shoulder. "Sir, I've got him. We've got it from here. We'll take care of him." Deep down, I wanted to stop everything I was doing and stay with Libby. But the battalion aid station had a top-notch crew of medics and Foster had things under control. He was right. There was nothing more I could do. I had to focus on the other 200 Marines that were still out there in direct contact. The chaos and bloodshed were not over. We had a long night ahead of us. It was just the beginning of the longest night of fighting we would encounter.

• 1:03:09Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's one thing that I think that in the 90s, growing up in the 90s, and I think you probably saw some of this in the 90s, but you probably didn't, I don't know if you got this in the Marine Corps, in the 90s in the SEAL teams, we were always kind of planning for one mission. And we would do, you know, in my mind, we would go and execute our mission, and then we would be done. And, you know, Ramadi was not like that. You go out, you do a mission, and when you get back, it doesn't matter what happened on that mission, the enemy will still be fighting, there's still operations that you are going to have to conduct. And in this particular case, you are going right back out immediately.

• 1:03:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, you understand it. And I'd lost guys before this, but Libby was the first casualty we'd taken in the battalion in the whole country. And he was, you know, one of my guys. So it was tough. And, you know, I write a lot about Libby. I'm still very close to his families, just like you and, you know, Mike Mansour, you know, when he got killed. Like, there's a lot of similarities between our careers and what happened and, you know, losing guys on the battlefield. And to this day, you and I are still very connected to the families that supported us while we fought. She's, how do they do it?

• 1:04:34Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:35Speaker 02

  Like Debbie, you know, I always say, like, I don't know where Gold Star families come from, like, they breed these young warriors, then you lose them in combat. I only have one word to describe them, extraordinary. Just extraordinary people to lose so much. But, you know, they continue to love us so much. I don't get it. Like, it's, it's, I don't know where they get people like this, but they're amazing. And that isn't something everybody has the capacity to do, as you know, to maintain that connection, you know, 20 years after we fought there, Jocko, to pick up the phone and call and, you know,

• 1:05:16Speaker 02

  say, how are you? You know, Libby's brother and I are very good friends. You know, we've watched each other grow up, you know, over the last 20 years as well. But I think it is important to

• 1:05:29Speaker 02

  You know, it helps me anyway to sustain me. I feel also that, you know, there's no expiration date on my commission as a, as an officer. I, I think that it's a privilege that we have to be a leader for your entire lifetime. And that doesn't stop when you leave the Marine Corps. It didn't stop when I left Ramadi. I'm still very, very honored to have that capacity. And I also understand that that's something that not everyone has. Not everybody has that capacity. Not everybody has the capacity to write important stories and barf your life into 300 pages and hang it on Amazon and Barnes and Noble and Costco.

• 1:06:11Speaker 02

  But you do it in hopes that it will help somebody. And for those people that don't have that capacity, because they're out there, not everybody has to do it. Not everybody has the capacity to lead. You, you, you understand that the leadership and followership is, is equally as important. And that dichotomy, one of the things that, that story you read from Corporal Libby being killed that night, that will highlight what I was just sharing is you do it because you don't want the stories like Ramadi to fall under the other great battles like Fallujah or Baghdad or Kandahar. Like that's why I wrote the book, not just to honor those, you know, brave warriors and the families and the interpreters that fought alongside me.

• 1:06:57Speaker 02

  It's a very important historical battle. And I didn't want it to fall into the shadows. But it's not really a book about war, you know, it's a book about people. And right after it came out, I get an email. And it's from this guy, his name is, I'll share, his name's Phil Morehouse. And he says, Dear sir,

• 1:07:19Speaker 02

  my name is Staff Sergeant Phil Morehouse and I was with Task Force One and Infantry. And I was there the night that Corporal Libby was killed in this, in the COC. He said, and I remember the call coming across the radio.

• 1:07:36Speaker 02

  And I ran across the street to the cache, the hospital.

• 1:07:42Speaker 02

  And I remember your convoy pulling in through the maze of chem lights. And I remember your Marines carrying Corporal Libby.

• 1:07:53Speaker 02

  I remember the sound, the brakes made on the vehicles and the dust cloud that's around them when they stopped. And I remember you. And I remember the look on your face and I remember every single step you took that night. He says, and I haven't thought about those things in about 12 years until I read your book. And so obviously, you know, he goes on in the email and I, you know, I responded back with, you know, as, as many words as I could of gratitude, you know, for him sharing that to really show me how he viewed my leadership through a different lens.

• 1:08:37Speaker 02

  And, you know, that was, that was a tough email and, you know, I've asked Phil if, you know, I can share that story. And he, he said, absolutely, because it was important to him. But, you know, Phil Morehouse, he was this nameless, faceless sergeant that, you know, that I just probably breezed by every time I went in and out of the talk. And to see that through his eyes, you know, 12 years after the fact, I don't know what the word is I use to describe it other than gratitude. But, you know, as, as a leader, you don't set out to do things for feedback, for appreciation

• 1:09:22Speaker 02

  or thanks. But I think that as a human being and as you move into different spaces, like, most people are liars when they say it doesn't feel good to have recognition or to have somebody tell you something you never saw. So it was interesting, you know, when I got that email from Phil, I, again, like, I was just grateful that he shared it with me. And, you know, when you do share important stories of, of your life and writing is important, that's why I do what I do. I think that. Those just boil to the surface and you know, that's one, it's, it's kind of a heartrending story, but there's also been some really funny stuff that is, is boiled to the surface

• 1:10:07Speaker 02

  as well. Um, you know, you know, thanks to social media to some degree, which I'm not a fan of, but uh, it's a necessary tool. You know, there's a chapter I write in the book about blowing up this huge weapons cache and you throw these mopeds on and you know, I don't know if we're gonna talk about it or not, but we found so much, yeah, the Marines were digging in the yard like dogs, digging up explosives and I mean, it was probably 30 feet long and about, you know, three feet high of shit we needed to blow up. And you know how it was to get an EOD guy out there in Ramadi, like they were busy, day on, stay

• 1:10:44Speaker 02

  on. And so, uh, this convoy calls to request permission to enter friendly lines. And so they show up and they're an EOD unit and they're Marines of all things. I said, where are you guys from? They're like Camp Pendleton, sir. I go, all right. So we're doing the grip and grin and the staff sergeant. Um, I says, hey, man, we got a real problem on our hands. I says, it's like three in the morning. I said, we've got all this explosives we need to get rid of. We need to do a command detonation. I said, do you got any C4 in the trucks? He goes, oh, we got it done. So they lined this thing up and they, like clock's ticking, man. And you know, like when the sun comes up, the insurgents are ready to rise and start, you know, shooting at Americans. So we want to get this job

• 1:11:27Speaker 02

  done before daylight and they pack it full and they says, sir, we don't, uh, we need something to tamp the charge down. So we need to put something heavy on top of it. So everything just doesn't blow up like a big confetti bomb. So the Marines dragged two mini buses over and they push it onto this thing and then the ends are still exposed. And so the Marines go and they get these insurgent mopeds and they throw the mopeds on top as well. They're like, yeah, fuck you insurgents. We stole your mopeds that you're using. And they found them in the house. So that's the title of the chapter, by the way, it's called mopeds. But so the staff sergeant's like, hey, sir, you're gonna want to get your guys down. This is gonna be one hellacious explosion. And it was like, oh my God, like fireworks on the 4th of July. And sure enough, the Marines did

• 1:12:11Speaker 02

  not get down and you can hear them like whooping and hollering like yeehaw in the middle of the night in Ramadi, like their big fireworks show, like a bunch of schoolgirls, you know, cheering at a pep rally and. You know, we get, we get done and you know, carry on, it's, you know, business as usual. Well, fast forward again, like the book had just come out and I get this strange DM from, from, on Facebook and he goes on and says, hey, sir, I'm in Jamaica on vacation right now. He's like, I'm not sure if you remember, but I'm reading your book Echo in Ramadi. I get to the chapter called mopeds. That was me. And so the staff sergeant, who's this name, again, a nameless face of staff sergeant, it's like, he's in Jamaica on vacation or the Bahamas or something. And he just happens to be reading my book.

• 1:12:56Speaker 02

  And so there's a lot of great things that are born out of, you know, sharing important stories. So anyway, it was a good one. I like that one.

• 1:13:04Jocko Willink?

  That was, uh, we were hitting a target, bad guy target. We end up finding like, we start finding little caches or caches around the property. And this was like just, just north of Ramadi and like a little bit more of a rural area. And then the guys, it was a little bit of a farm scenario. And there was a big, like a, like a barn that had a bunch of hay in it. And they start like poking around in the hay and sure enough, start finding shit, start finding more shit, start finding more shit, but it's a massive pile of hay. And same thing, like I'm looking at my watch going, hey, this is not, you know, we cannot stay here for much longer. And, you know, so one of my just brilliant young SEALs came up with a brilliant recommendation of like,

• 1:13:49Jocko Willink?

  hey, why don't we just burn this thing? And I had the brilliant, you know, leadership to say, yeah, sounds like a good call. And they, then I next thing you know, so I give the, yeah, go ahead, let's burn this. You know, and then 15 seconds later, I see guys walking from the Humvees to the barn, carrying the big cans of diesel that we carried for, and they're anyways, big fire. Some secondary explosions, but you know, very similar thing where you're like, okay, well, I guess we don't have to worry about that cash anymore.

• 1:14:18Speaker 02

  It's so funny, like just when you think like you had an original operation or an idea. It's like, I wrote about that too, when we were working for Bear Johnson, except I got you beat, man. I don't like to one up, you know, this isn't like, you know, measuring contests or anything, but no kidding. Same thing when we're in Western Ramadi. One of the Marines, you know, being smart, he's like, hey, sir, I figured it out. Like, who's shooting at us? They were wearing running shoes and he's looking through his observation scope. And I was like, yeah, that makes sense, man. No one wants to get in a fight with the Marines in flip flops. So he targets these guys and they were running into this huge wadi, like it's, it's a ravine that's covered in reeds and, you know, tall grasses. And we knew that they were running in there as a weapons cache, but the thing was huge.

• 1:15:02Speaker 02

  This is like five football fields long separating that part of the city. So I call back to Cop Steel and I requested a tanker truck of fuel and no shit. I, I'd like to find this kid too, because I didn't have his name. This private first class, an E2 in the army, rolls up in daylight in downtown Ramadi.

• 1:15:25Jocko Willink?

  In a freaking fuel truck.

• 1:15:28Speaker 02

  And it's him and like one other jackweed, like, you know, A driver. And he's like, hey, sir, I'm PFC flip flop. Uh, I heard you need to burn something down. I'm like, yeah, man, this is a huge weapons cache and they're drawing their weapons from it. And this is where we're having problems. So he hoses this whole thing down with, I don't know, 250 gallons or five, just ooze. Like he's out there and like, he just checks out, doesn't say goodbye or anything like, all right, sir, I'm out of here. Just leaves. Like, God bless that kid, man. Yeah. Again, find that kid for me, man. Like, I want to give him a medal or a hug or something. But now we have another dilemma. Like, one of the Marines is like, hey, sir, how are you going to light this fucker on fire? I'm like, that's a good idea. Uh, that good problem. So one of the Marines puts the HEDP in his 203, he's like, I got this. And like,

• 1:16:13Speaker 02

  with one thud, thump, whoosh. And we have a picture of it somewhere. I don't know, but it is, yeah. And then like yours, everything starts cracking off. You know, the rocket motors for RPGs are sailing into the air and, but that's, I mean, again,

• 1:16:29Jocko Willink?

  It's another day in Ramadi.

• 1:16:30Speaker 02

  Do they teach us this in school somewhere, man? Like, did we learn this in a class?

• 1:16:37Jocko Willink?

  This was a good, good story here about, about Colonel Fair, Colonel Ferry.

• 1:16:46Jocko Willink?

  Again, I'm fast forwarding. There's so much, so much good information here. Get the book, but you're about to drop some Gimlers, which is guided mean guided multiple lot launcher rocket system. 20 foot telephone pole carries 200 pound warhead. You're, you're making the call from the field. Man, two, three. This is Longhorn six request Gimlers, one rocket each. Sector two, six, five, building six, six and six, seven. Immediate suppression over. The voice from the talk read back distance one side, one, six, five meters from friendlies to target. My company officer, my company executive officer, first lieutenant Bobby Lee was inside the talk. When I called in the Gimler's mission, watching the video feeds from the drones buzzing over our zone.

• 1:17:30Jocko Willink?

  He heard my call for fire support come across the radio as did the air naval gunfire liaison company angle co representative. And the army battle captain who stood watch over the talk staff. Lieutenant Colonel Ferry was standing beside Lee when the battle captain turned to Ferry and said, sir. You do know that each one of those rockets costs like a hundred thousand dollars. Ferry's response affirmed the unwavering loyalty. He had for the Marines he had commanded in his task force. I don't give a fuck if they cost a hundred million dollars. Ferry replied with certainty. They killed the US Marine tonight. Approve the mission.

• 1:18:07Jocko Willink?

  Hell yeah.

• 1:18:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's how he rolled.

• 1:18:10Jocko Willink?

  God bless him. Yeah, I was, uh. The Colonel that was in charge of the first of 506 when I was there, it was like I'd been in Ramadi for like maybe a week. And I was over, it's a guy named Colonel Ronald, Ronald P. Clark, like now he's a general. But he was just so outstanding, but I was in his talk and he had guys calling for fire. And just watching him, the way he was calculating things, the way he, you know, the way he commanded, it was just epic. And I, I felt so comfortable because I ended up leaving a detachment with him for the entire deployment. Guys that lived on regular with him, but I would, I trusted that guy with, with no reservation whatsoever. But just seeing him, the support he'd give to his guys, my guys, one team, just epic.

• 1:18:55Jocko Willink?

  It's very similar to what you're talking about Ferry here.

• 1:18:59Speaker 02

  That Gimler's though was a lifesaver. It was just kind of the outset of technology too. It was GPS guided and you know, it's a lot of explosives to park literally a football field away from your position. And honestly, it was kind of underwhelming when they hit because they go through the top of the roof and just really suck the life out of everything. But what was cool, I didn't write about this, was I had gotten a CD. You remember when we used to have CDs even of some of the footage from that night and that one of the Anglico guys and they're a mix like, you know, there are some army, but it's mostly Marines that were in the cell. And I knew the guy and I says,

• 1:19:42Speaker 02

  hey, could you get this back to the battery? Because those rockets came from Fallujah. It's like they're not sitting at the camp. And I was in the chow hall one day in Ramadi and which was rare because we were at Camp Ramadi, which is the big camp. We lived in the city, but we were back for a brief or something. And this huge superhero looking soldier, big black eye, like just looked like a superhero. And I turn around, I see this guy, he puts his hand on my shoulder. He goes, are you Captain Hughes? I was like, oh shit, what did I do now? I always, you know,

• 1:20:22Speaker 02

  I always think I did something. But he says, I got that footage that you sent back. I'm the battery commander for Gimler's mission. He goes, I want to tell you, he's like, no one's ever done that for me. It was like I sent him a care package. But you know, the guys on the gun line, they never could see where those rounds hit. So I don't know what made me think about that, but because you just don't have a lot of time on your hands over there. But that's, I don't know. I was taught early on in my career too, like it's the little things that matter the most, you know? So that was probably the best care package you got. Those guys were freaking stoked to see that. Yeah, it was pretty cool.

• 1:20:59Jocko Willink?

  Um, fast forward a little bit, Operation Sackets Harbor was the, our last big push while working with Task Force One Nine. And again, I just skipped over, uh, 130 pages of the book. So like, get the book, get the detail. Uh, you're going up in the Sophia District. The first day of the operation was your birthday. So that's, that's always a good sign. Um, around midnight, you're in position, uh, you get Marines and you guys start like finding all these blue plastic 30 gallon water drum. Each one of them is filled with AK-47s. Um, you have a vehicle get rolled over, you know, but luckily guys are all right. And fast forward

• 1:21:41Jocko Willink?

  a little bit, at the end of Operation Sackets Harbor, we were exhausted. We were also elated. Our tactic of applying relentless pressure on the enemy and forcing them to react to us provided measurable results. We detained dozens more, we detained dozens more suspected insurgents and confiscated more weapons and contraband than we could count. Matched with the combined results from Fox Company, the Task Force Commander was more than pleased with how his Marines performed. Echo Company had made a definite impression on the insurgents after only a short time in Ramadi. We had been in direct contact with the enemy two to three times a day ever since we arrived. We could almost set our watches by when we'd get attacked after morning and evening prayers. The mosques called to prayer, broadcast from loudspeakers on the

• 1:22:26Jocko Willink?

  minarets and served as our alert system to stand ready to fight. Throughout the action, the Marines expended over 50,000 rounds of 5.56, 7.62, and 50 caliber ammunition. We devastated the enemy with countless 120 millimeter main gun rounds and shoulder fired rockets and lobbed dozens of M67 high explosive hand grenades into enemy enemy positions. In addition to the multiple Gimmler's rocket strikes we'd called in on enemy positions. The task force had already credited the Marines of Echo Company with over 50 enemy killed and dozens more enemy wounded. The numbers were impressive. We detained countless more that were on the task force most wanted list of HVIs. Echo Company had

• 1:23:09Jocko Willink?

  lost one Marine and we were fortunate that we'd suffered just over a handful of wounded in action. As satisfied as we were with our performance, we knew that more hard fighting was ahead of us and Marines were ready.

• 1:23:23Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's a lot of, that's a lot of combat activity.

• 1:23:27Speaker 02

  We redefined for Colonel Ferry and others how vicious Marines can be if given the opportunity.

• 1:23:37Speaker 02

  They created these, what they called speedball ammo resupplies based off all of the different calibers. And they would pre-stage that at Camp Ramadi at Corregidor. And they would have them on standby because he knew we were going through so much ammo, they couldn't keep up with this. So they'd have these palletized, you know, carrier packages of ammo and they would just ship them out and.

• 1:23:58Jocko Willink?

  God bless them.

• 1:23:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, they were, again, they're, they were getting at it, but that, that was.

• 1:24:07Speaker 02

  I mean, that's what we had to do. Like you said, you have to be aggressive, not reckless, but aggressive and disciplined and focused on what you're doing. And that's why we were there. And it's not a spoiler alert. I, I literally picked up the phone and this is, you know, maybe, I, maybe it was during an interview with the book. I called Jared Norrell. He's like a J R I T C principal now. And I says, hey, can you confirm this, sir? He says, I said, I've heard urban legend that only a few months after we left Ramadi in oh seven,

• 1:24:48Speaker 02

  that they were doing like a 5K fun rundown route mission. And he goes, that's God's honest truth. He goes, what you, and I'm not taking all the credit here, but you only know what you know. What my Marines and soldiers and sailors did in that short amount of time really turned the tide of the war. Everybody did. The guys in, you know, the Marines on our flank, the, the other task forces that were working in zone, the special operators, you know, and I tell a lot of the guys who were, you know, we had a bunch of O D A guys in there. We had SEALs in there. And, um, you know, working with those guys, they're off, you know, doing specialized missions,

• 1:25:29Speaker 02

  but I always tell those guys to their faces too is like it's, uh, you know, if it wasn't for the soldiers and Marines, setting the conditions for special operators to do what they do without impunity, that couldn't happen in, in an environment like that where you're in a city of over 300,000 people who are trying to live their lives to, you know, to grow up and hope for some sense of normalcy. You have to have those massive numbers creating that blanket of pressure. So all the bad guys on the target list, we can send in the Jacos and, you know, the riches and, and all the ODA guys that were going through there. Some

• 1:26:10Speaker 02

  of them, I think, uh, at times caused more friction than I would have liked because, uh, some things would go bump in the night and there'd be a ruckus, uh, on a grander scale than I'm portraying it. But it's basically a targeted hit or a raid and, you know, SEALs or Delta would go in with a wrecking ball and they'd smash it and basically dismantle kind of the hearts and minds campaign, uh, because the neighbors would get their feathers ruffled, you know, and, you know, stuff gets broken up or, you know, but that's how you operate, man. Like there's no nice way to ring the doorbell and say, hey, can I please go abduct your uncle who's a terrorist cell operator? Like that just, you know, it's not protocol.

• 1:26:54Jocko Willink?

  We, we, and because we were working so closely with the army and Marine Corps, like it became a point for us where we'd get like a target package. Cause I had guys that had sources throughout Ramadi and they, they would give us a target. But like these were my guys. So we'd get, I get a target package from my guys and it'd be like, oh, this building, whatever, building 17 in, you know, uh, J block.

• 1:27:19Jocko Willink?

  And he'd be like, cool. And we'd call the Army Company Commander and be like, hey dude, can you go roll up a military age male in building 17 on J block? Be like, yeah, I'll call you in 20 minutes. And they'd go do a clearance, get the guy, bring him back, say like, yeah, we got him. Is this him? Yep. This is him. Cool. We'll set him up here. We'll take him. And like, we did that more than we did our own direct action because we only, we only did probably like 30 or 35 or something like of us doing a direct action mission. Because it was just wasn't like the, the Marine Corps was in that part of town or the Army, the 135, the 137, the 506, like they were just there. They could go, oh yeah, we'll go roll up. We, we were in that house yesterday afternoon. We didn't know that was a bad guy. We'll go get

• 1:28:01Jocko Willink?

  him. You know, it's pretty, pretty, pretty awesome to see. And the other thing that was cool for us is like, because we got to go and work with these other battalions so intimately, like it was cool to, and especially now, like I've had a bunch of them on the podcast and you talk to them and, and what they were doing and how, you know, every, every person was making such a concerted effort to do a good job, you know, for everyone from the privates down to the battalion commanders, everyone is like so focused on doing a good job. And it's just, you know, it's weird too. Uh, when I had Colonel McFarland on here and in preparation for Colonel,

• 1:28:45Jocko Willink?

  Colonel McFarland coming on, I was going through like, you know, how often we were building combat outposts. So, you know, when, before you got there, we were building, there was no combat outpost when we showed up. There was none. There was, the whole city was nothing, but you couldn't, you couldn't go into the city. Like it was gnarly, but we were building those combat outposts, like massive battalion plus sized operations, like every four days, every three days in some cases. And you're like, how did, where did you, you know, sir, like where did you get? 250 12 foot tall jersey barriers into Ramadi and then three days later you had another 250 like that's major religious he's like yeah the team the team took care of it so there's so much going

• 1:29:26Jocko Willink?

  on and everyone like you know you're taking your company sized unit and doing everything you can to take the fight to the enemy and secure your zone and like that's what was happening in every little corner of Ramadi and every you know every squad that was clearing a building was doing their best to make that happen and it's just it's amazing to to look back and and to have played a little bit of a role in that and more important for me is like just to have seen it all taking place and been in those buildings isn't it weird you look at a map of Ramadi like oh I remember that building I remember that building oh we were over there yeah I remember that oh it's

• 1:30:03Speaker 02

  I have some of the maps that I'm probably not supposed to have but they're declassified but that's when I'm being exacting about that building number like I have that map like it was full of my pocket you know and we highlighted stuff and it was very important to me too to like not just write inaccurate stuff because you know Marines especially like they will eat you for breakfast man if you get it wrong and I remember you you know as a writer too like you hit the big red send button to your publisher and you're like ah it's great it's clean like there's no type and then I had sent it to this guy who's a gunner in the Marine Corps a chief warrant officer and he calls me literally the next day he was reading an advanced copy of my book and he goes hey sir

• 1:30:46Speaker 02

  I just wanted to let you know I was reading that chapter about when you're in that firefight and you climbed on top of that tank and you talk about the coax you know 50 caliber machine gun he goes it's 762 sir I'm like holy shit I call my editor I'm like Alex

• 1:31:00Jocko Willink?

  you gotta change this I look like an idiot

• 1:31:02Speaker 02

  they will kill me they will crucify me and they do they they're pretty merciless so I was it took me a you know a long time to write it

• 1:31:12Speaker 02

  Everybody always asks that when you're a veteran, how long did it take you to write a book? Like, well, you know, for this, it was 10 years.

• 1:31:20Speaker 02

  I say that euphemistically, but soup to nuts, it took me about a year of interviews, writing, and then the whole process of finding an agent, you know, finding a publishing house that, you know, the mainstream world is. But it took 10 years before I could get the Espinozas to share. And, you know, they have to, everybody has their sweet spot when they are able to unpack some of that trauma. And that's not an easy thing to do. And, you know, I think, I always, I always used to think about that too, how, how young those guys were, not having experience, you know, like I was a 35 year old captain with a couple of combat tours and a lot of life experience, but I always wondered like, how are they going to unpack this at such a young age?

• 1:32:03Speaker 02

  And, you know, again, sadly, some guys killed themselves, others drunk themselves or overeat or whatever it is, man, everybody has a way to deal with it. We're very lucky though, as we sit here too, is, you know, we've got a pretty dialed in support system of a lot of veteran nonprofit orgs that, you know, we can lean on or send guys to, you know, I worked in that space for, you know, eight years and, you know, I'm just kind of dipping my foot back into, actually with Mike Rittland, I got some, some guys I'm sending his way to, you know, help his team out at Warrior Dog Foundation, because I love what Mike's doing. I love his, like you too, I love as a storyteller, like, you know, we're, we're doing it for each other, you know, in a sense, so.

• 1:32:48Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and just speaking of storytelling and going back to like writing a book, I strongly recommend that if you write a book, you try and make it as accurate as you possibly humanly can.

• 1:32:57Speaker 02

  We're not going to talk about that.

• 1:32:58Jocko Willink?

  Because like, like you said, like, people are going to read the book, and if they were there, and look, I get it that people have different perspectives, you know, people in the same firefight will have a different perspective of something, and it can be a pretty, it can be a pretty dramatic difference, but it won't look like a different movie, that won't look like a different, like a different dream, you know?

• 1:33:19Speaker 02

  It's tough too, because, you know, one of the things I'd ask you, you can answer this question too, I ask it of myself. When you write a book about leadership or combat or baking pies, I don't care what it is, you you build this narrative and I did extensive research and I did ask this question like, hey, do you remember this going down like this? Cause I remember it just like this and 99% of the time the guy's like, yes, or that did this. And then you'd find, you know, you'd pick the scab a little more and you'd find all these little hidden gems. And then I'd get to write about that through their voice. But I find myself asking myself this question as a writer, as a storyteller.

• 1:34:02Speaker 02

  Is this all I know or all I can remember about this? I feel like I've, you know, after hundreds of podcasts and in speaking engagements and telling stories, because this is what people love to talk about. Like, so I love it when, you know, when you're in the studio and the the the guest or the host says, and you you respond like, ah, that's a good question. Like, I love that. That's a good question moment. This is kind of one of those like, I feel like, man, is are there are there stories I'm leaving out? Cause I I thought these were the important ones.

• 1:34:32Jocko Willink?

  I I will answer that now. Yes. And and the reason I can answer that now, yes, you're leaving stuff out is because just like you, you, you gave that perspective of the person that watched you walk into the battalion aid station, that to you, you're you're like in a detached moment. You don't know what that looks like from the outside. And I realized this. So when I was in the later, the end of my career, I was in charge of the training for the West Coast SEAL Teams, right? And when I would go like back to an event at the SEAL Teams, there would be a guy, now this has been, you know, five years or seven years later, and there'd be some guy that was a new guy that I put through training.

• 1:35:14Jocko Willink?

  And they would tell me stories about me that I didn't, you know, I'd be like, oh, yeah, yeah, like there's one guy told me the story, you know, we, I gave him a bunch of down men and one of the guys like took like, I can't feel my face, you know, like these stories that I do not remember because it was just day to day, like that's what I'm doing. And so for you, you know, when you're, you're a company commander, like there is a corporal that was looking at you at a moment. And he was detached from that moment and he was watching what you were doing. Or he was watching, you know, even if it wasn't watching you, he was watching what the enemy was doing. And you thought the enemy was doing this, but he saw something else. And so, yeah, trying to gather as many of those perspectives as you can is going to be awesome.

• 1:35:58Jocko Willink?

  And even I had Colonel Dean on from 135. And on August 2nd, Mark Lee got killed and Ryan Jobe got severely wounded. And on that day, I had actually had a whole nother element of SEALs. That was, that took place in 137's AO where, where Mark and Ryan, Ryan got wounded, Mark got killed. I had totally forgotten that in 135's AO, which was to me, we conducted a huge operation over there. And I had SEALs there in support of that and I had literally forgotten that completely. And it wasn't until I was reading his book and I was like, oh yeah, that's right. And as soon as I remembered it, it's like, oh yeah. But for him, that was what was happening in his world that day.

• 1:36:43Jocko Willink?

  SEALs were there helping out. I had forgotten about those SEALs because it was relatively, it was a great operation, but it was relatively uneventful. But here I am and all my focus was on the day that Mark and, and Ryan got wounded, Mark got killed. So yeah, I think it's always difficult to capture everyone's perspective. And there's going to be things from other people's perspective that were not there to you, you know? So.

• 1:37:08Speaker 02

  So I just, I also feel like, uh, I don't want to be canned, you know? I always strive for authenticity, but you, you bring up something important too, but is that the impact you make as a leader, you rarely see. And, uh, you know, when you're talking to civilians or groups and you're, you're sharing these things that we're fortunate to learn in the militaries. You know, having the capacity to do what we do and make an impact, I think that's really the keynote when I talk about is the impact of leadership is you may not realize you're doing it.

• 1:37:47Speaker 02

  But you, everything you do is leaving an impression and an impact on, on those you lead, good, bad, or otherwise.

• 1:37:53Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:54Speaker 02

  And uh.

• 1:37:54Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And that's one, uh, one thing that you did in this book, which I didn't read it in the opening, but you say it in the opening is like, you, you, you're showing some warts, you know, you're showing like, hey, there, here's mistakes that you made, here's bad things that you did. And for me, anytime you're doing, anytime you're trying to create something, if you're not revealing some stuff, if it doesn't hurt a little bit, the opening chapter, for example, of Extreme Ownership, where I'm talking about, there's a freaking blue on blue, there's an Iraqi soldier killed, one of my guys wounded, like that shit's just awful. I want more than anything to, you know, deny that that ever happened and ignore it and protect, like, no, that happened, here's what happened, it's on me. And if, if you don't feel like a, if your ego doesn't hurt when you're putting your

• 1:38:38Jocko Willink?

  pen to paper, you're, you're, you're not doing the right thing.

• 1:38:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:38:42Jocko Willink?

  So you did a great job in this book of that, of like, hey, this, I'm sure some of these things you were writing, you're like, this hurts to write, cause you're looking back now and you're going, I should have done that, maybe could have done this different.

• 1:38:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was, I was very fortunate to, um, when I found my editor, uh, which, and I interviewed probably a good dozen or so, and Sylvia Mendoza, she's right here in Southern California. And, uh, it was important for me also to find a female. Um, because obviously I want a hundred percent of the population to read this story, not just half. Uh, so she gave us some really great balance and when we got to part of it. You know, she was really laudatory in the fact that she's like, I love how I can feel like, you know, I'm with the Marines and like the way you describe things and the texture and the way you write. And, uh, you know, she would joke too. She's like, how did you get out of high

• 1:39:37Speaker 02

  school again? I was like, yeah, I did better in college. Like, uh, so I, it was important to me, but she said to me one thing, Jocko, is there's not enough you in this book. And I did have to go back into it because I honestly thought as a, again, as a writer, as an artist, as a leader, it was not fair for me to do all those interviews and pull all that pain and pick open the scab and make others bleed if I wasn't willing to do it myself. And you know, towards the end of the book, you know, I, I, I really pick it open and talk about some of the, the, you know, challenges I faced. And that's not easy thing to do. Um, it's, and as you know, when you, when you write about it and you share it, you know, and online, or

• 1:40:19Speaker 02

  when you go to speak in front of a thousand people, it's not easy to pick that scab open in front of, you know, total strangers and bleed. Um, but you do it in the hopes that you, you make an impact and that you can, you maybe change or save some lives along the way. I don't know. It's not too esoteric to say that, or lofty of a goal.

• 1:40:38Jocko Willink?

  That's definitely the hope. I know that the, the chap, chapter one of Extreme Ownership was not in Extreme Ownership. And Leif was, you know, Leif had been through, I, I used to teach that blue on blue over and over and over again to the SEAL teams to make sure that everyone learned the lessons that we learned. So every SEAL team that would, would form up and start going through training, I would give that to them. I'd give it to the junior officers, the junior officer course. I'd give it to the, the, uh, what do they call it? The ground force commanders course. I would give that brief to them. So, hey, here's what we messed up. Here's what you have to watch out for. Because in Vietnam, there was a SEAL, a SEAL platoon, X-ray platoon in Vietnam had a blue on blue and killed, their, their officer got killed. And I never got a debrief on it. I knew it happened, but

• 1:41:20Jocko Willink?

  I never understood why, didn't learn anything from it. And so I didn't want that to happen. Um, but then, you know, as we were getting kind of, kind of close to finishing Extreme Ownership, Leif's like, you should, you should do the blue on blue story. And I said, Yep, you're right. I do. I should do that. And I did. And as soon as I was done with it, you know, we were looking for like, chapter 12. And I got done with it. And I'm like, yep, this is chapter one. Like, this is how we open. So definitely, if you're writing, and it hurts, you're doing a good job.

• 1:41:52Speaker 02

  And admitting the flaws, I think, you know, we, we love to talk about all the, you know, the wins and, you know, kicking doors and killing baggage. It's cool. Like, talking about the failures, man, is really what real leaders do. You talk about it a lot. Even in your sec- in dichotomy, like, you even talk about how you fucked up the title of the first book, I think, at some point. It's like, like, yeah, biggest thing we do, we should have called it this, because people took it out of context. And like, even, like, there's like, so many layers to that. You know, mirrored hallway, you're looking, I was like, yeah, we did this, we're teaching about leadership, and then we screwed up this in writing. And it's humble, you know, I, it wasn't lost to me, is what I'm saying. So.

• 1:42:35Jocko Willink?

  Going back to the book here, you look a little bit, you say, it was not a matter of if a unit would get investigated, but when a unit would get investigated for alleged detainee abuse in Iraq, after the massive scandal in Baghdad, with the Abu Ghraib prison in 2003, handling detainee eastern combat operations became a sensitive subject. So you talk a decent amount of that about that.

• 1:42:56Speaker 02

  So you talked about how much I interacted with Sean McFarland. Outside of our reunion, which is, again, how we got reconnected, luckily, because we're doing our 20th anniversary in El Paso. The first time I met Colonel McFarland was because of detainee abuse. I literally was ambushed. They're like, hey, you got to go to Camp Ramadi. So we jock up a convoy, we roll over there. And it just, there's actually kind of a cool part to this story, too, aside from me getting ambushed about this detainee abuse. My battalion commander's in there, didn't even know he was in town. Like, he drove down, like, am I getting investigated?

• 1:43:37Speaker 02

  Like, yes, I was being investigated for detainee abuse. Not me, my unit. Like, so, some of the guys we let go, they, you know, made allegation against the Marines that they were mistreated, or whatever. But here's the thing. There's no class that teaches you how to be a prison guard as a Marine infantry officer. So these young Marines don't know what they're doing and they weren't taking a wet hose of these guys. Like they were uncomfortable for several hours, but also the task force over there had no way of sending vehicles into the zone and quickly extricating them to turn them over to PSYOPS because there wasn't even a jail. There wasn't a prison, it was a holding cell. So like we're rounding up all these fuckos on the battlefield who are trying to blow us up

• 1:44:19Speaker 02

  and shoot at us and we caught them red handed. It wasn't unfounded, but these young guys didn't know it. So I roll into the 111 BCT headquarters. That's my first meeting with Sean McFarlane. It's like, you're under investigation. I don't know if they read me my rights or whatever, but they were looking into it. They really just wanted to get some answers

• 1:44:38Speaker 02

  to the questions. And I remember that same day, you know, Megan McClung. Yeah. Yeah. So she's this gorgeous redhead, kick ass Marine, public affairs officer, who was right in the bowels of the city with us. And so I'm sitting at this computer in the hallway at 111 BCT. This is a side note, but it's a great story. And I'm getting some pictures sent of my daughter. And she looks over and she says, hey, what are you smiling at? I says, well, I saw I'm looking at your future competition right here because my, my daughter's a gorgeous redhead.

• 1:45:17Speaker 02

  And it looks like, you know, the character brave, like she's crazy, great red hair. She gets it. I don't know where she gets it. But Megan looks at you, she says, oh my God. She goes, where, where is she at? And I said, well, they're still in Virginia. I just came from Fast Company. She goes, really? Which company? I tell her, she goes, oh, my fiance is in Fast Company. I says, what's his name? Because we all know each other. It's Judson Daniel. I said, you're kidding me. I said, I was hunting with that guy four months ago. Damn. It's a small world. But anyway, I loved it. You know, being able to meet Megan that one day, knowing her as a Marine and, you know, what, what she did. And then on December 6th, the same day Corporal Libby was killed.

• 1:46:03Speaker 02

  Megan was killed.

• 1:46:03Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And Travis Patrickin as well. And there was another, uh, this is terrible.

• 1:46:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was tragic, but, uh, you know, her, her memory lives on through, you know, great organizations like carry the load on her one year. You know Clint Bruce, uh, yeah, so.

• 1:46:21Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, she was really a force of nature.

• 1:46:23Speaker 02

  She was.

• 1:46:24Jocko Willink?

  Just super, one of those people that's just super positive, what lit up the room, like ready to take action to make things happen. Yeah, she was.

• 1:46:31Speaker 02

  I feel like I know her more than I did just from, I think that one drop, uh, in brief interaction with her, you know, was enough and knowing who she surrounded herself with too, and who she was gonna marry, you know, was, it's just crazy.

• 1:46:45Jocko Willink?

  Damn, so I guess, I'm guessing, yeah, well, do you keep in touch with her fiance and all? That's freaking terrible.

• 1:46:53Speaker 02

  He went dark for a little bit, or I don't know if he went dark, but he went under the radar. Um, and I just got back in touch with him again, um, when I called to check in with another, another fast guy, Jim Lively, he's a general now. I said, man, Rinco really got it right, Jim, cause I love Jim, like you wanna talk about like Eagle Scouts, like this guy is like, he's the best, man, and, uh, I was like, yeah, I love it when they get it right. And I just called him to check in and he's like, oh man, I'm so glad, it's like, I didn't even know if you kept my number. And I was like, he's a general now, but we were captains together. So, yeah.

• 1:47:26Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that, this is a case for the, you know, the young, young military personnel that get married before they go on deployment, like in secret, they make it happen. And Mark Lee actually did that. Mark Lee actually got married before he went on deployment, didn't really tell anyone. Because just in case something happened to him, you know, wanted to, wanted to have that. And, um, he did it, so it was a little surprise to a bunch of people, but, but I'm glad he did it, you know?

• 1:47:51Speaker 02

  That happens a lot too, more than people think.

• 1:47:53Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:53Speaker 02

  I'm sure.

• 1:47:55Jocko Willink?

  Um, fast forward a little bit, Echo Company was ordered to the west side of Ramadi to support another US Army unit. You talked about this. This is the TF177 Steel Tigers. And they came from Germany. You mentioned, you mentioned, you know, you're checking in with a new boss. You said, I met the task force commander, Lieutenant Colonel Machido, Machado? Bear Johnson in his office.

• 1:48:17Speaker 02

  Mikiato.

• 1:48:18Jocko Willink?

  Mikiato. In his office before the command brief, we chatted formally for a while, but I could tell he wasn't much for standard protocol. Put me at ease right away. He was a thick man, about 5'9". He was 42 and had thinly trimmed mustache that ran neatly to the corners of his mouth. He had a big, bright, toothy smile under it all, clad in traditional army gray digital BDUs. He wore a tan leather pistol holster strapped to his back. His Beretta 9mm service pistol dangled under his left armpit and two ammo mags under the right. At first glance, he reminded me of the famous actor and comedian Cedric Kyles, better known as Cedric the Entertainer. But there was nothing comical about him. He was aggressive and proved to be one of the most skilled commanders I ever supported. So, and this is when you say, hey.

• 1:49:02Speaker 02

  I did call Bear Johnson and say, hey, do you mind if I describe you like this? He goes, no, I've heard it before.

• 1:49:09Speaker 02

  You kind of look like Cedric back in the day. So for those of us that know who Cedric is.

• 1:49:14Jocko Willink?

  And then you guys went out into Tameem and just started going, you know, which to me was, was like the neighborhood on the west side of the, the Habenia Canal and the, the west side of Ramadi. And it was a real fertile ground for the enemy.

• 1:49:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:49:31Jocko Willink?

  And you guys just go, started going house to house, door to door.

• 1:49:36Speaker 02

  We, yeah, and no, no room left unturned. And

• 1:49:42Speaker 02

  it was, it's exhausting. I mean, and filthy, dirty work. Like, I don't know. Like, I should be on Mike Rowe's show, Dirty Jobs or like that. Cause that, we could tell some stories like if we're on Mike, like that is a dirty job. Like grimy, like Marines are finding and digging stuff out of sewers and like, they were just merciless, man. And I don't know how they did it, but God bless them.

• 1:50:06Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:09Jocko Willink?

  Um, go ahead.

• 1:50:10Speaker 02

  No, yeah, just like to describe that to the Tameem.

• 1:50:15Speaker 02

  I mean, it's a well-developed city, you know, Ramadi was, it wasn't like a, you know, shanty town. I mean, there were homes and multi-level homes, just like a urban subdivision. So imagine going into your house and like having to try and find something in every closet, every piece of furniture, sliding the furniture out. Like this is what they did every single night as we're patrolling for like eight to 10 hours under cover of darkness, going house to house and leapfrogging platoons and oh, by the way, like occasionally getting in firefights with the enemy. A lot of the firefights happened during the day, as you know, too, where they were active. Cause you know what about as good as those surge wars and we give them a little bit of credit. They're pretty lazy too. And like when the

• 1:50:57Speaker 02

  big orange ball dipped down and this, you know, the moon came out, they wanted to sleep. So a lot of the guys on the HPI list, we rolled up at night in their sleep.

• 1:51:05Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. They're, they also knew that we owned the night. They had night vision at the time. Um, you know, so they didn't want to go out at night because they couldn't see us. In the daytime, they could see us, they could blend in with the local populace. The local populace hunkered down a lot at night. So, uh, yeah.

• 1:51:20Speaker 02

  And we learned that fast and early on in that deployment is like, we're not going out during the day. We did it once, we responded to a QRF call it Colonel Ferry sent us down. He's like, Scotty, do you got a convoy? I'm like, yeah, let's go, sir. I'm like, like, you know, superhero, like stupid, stupid regret.

• 1:51:35Jocko Willink?

  We would.

• 1:51:37Speaker 02

  Sergeant Israel got shot, took one across the nose and a couple of the guys got banged up, but.

• 1:51:41Jocko Willink?

  We would operate in the day, usually, um, just because we were out in overwatch positions. So that put us out during the day. And if the Iraqis were doing a big clearance and it was our Iraqis that we were training to do these big clearances, we'd go out there with them, you know, because that's part of the, part of the job. And Iraqis doing the clearance at night was kind of a non-starter because they didn't have night vision. They didn't even really have flashlights, you know? So that's how we ended up in the day. Um, that's the way it is. Yeah. Uh, this is an interesting chapter. It's called damage. Uncontrollable variables occur in war. Sometimes innocent people die. It's unfortunate but true. These people and their deaths aren't just statistics to Marines who fight or those

• 1:52:25Jocko Willink?

  that wind up as some sensationalized news story on cable news. They're terrible realities that we have to live with for the rest of our lives. And yeah, you know, it's the you go into a story here about echo companies under heavy attack to ECP eight, um, quick reaction force, small arms fire. It's like all this, all the things are happening and you hit him with a Gimmlers and you end up walking out, uh, walking to see what you guys, what you hit. Like once a, once a Gimmlers hit, um, you, you start moving, moving on those houses, those buildings. We pressed into the houses that not yet engaged. I moved to the living room floor and found an Iraqi family gathered around someone on the floor and wailing uncontrollably. I moved closer and

• 1:53:09Jocko Willink?

  saw they surrounded a man in his mid forties, lying on the floor. It appears he had a single gunshot wound to the head. His face and head were dark purple and grotesquely swollen, but he was still alive. The platoon's corpsman rushed to his aid, began triage. A woman stood next to me, holding a child, half-dressed, loose-fitting shirt that came down past his waist. The baby had long, thick, black hair. I couldn't tell if it was a boy or a girl. Child's legs were covered in someone else's blood, but he wasn't crying. He was in shock, I suppose, but the child's silence lent a surreal air to the situation. My turp Bruce began to question the dying man's wife. The woman told him the insurgents we'd been hunting had burst into their house, demanded the keys to the family car so they could use it to escape. When the man in the house refused to surrender the keys, an insurgent shot him at point-blank range in the head with a pistol.

• 1:53:51Jocko Willink?

  Um, another one, another incident here. Bam Bam was on watch in charge of the company operations center and received information from the TAC at Camp Corregidor that a blue four-door sedan needed to drive through our area in order to transport a woman who had miscarried her baby to Ramadi General Hospital, a thousand meters west of ECP eight. Bam Bam contacted the radar, radio operators at all of our positions and relayed the specifics of this important request to ensure the family's safe passage to the hospital. The call went out to all stations on the radio net. A blue four-door sedan will be passing through our area directly past OP South House and then ECP eight on Sophia Road with four passengers

• 1:54:33Jocko Willink?

  bringing a woman to the hospital for emergency medical attention. Everyone was explicitly advised that the car would be marked with glowing green chemlights taped to the roof and behind the windshield. Bam Bam also expressly instructed each radio operator to pass the word to their respective platoon commanders, platoon sergeants, and Marines on watch and report back when they completed the task. Bam Bam went back to his normal routine and listened to the radio transmissions intently. A few minutes later, he was startled by the distant sound of machine gunfire. A sinking feeling hit the pit of his stomach. Bam Bam called each platoon for an update. They all confirmed they had not opened fire. OP South House and ECP 8 were verified that the sedan had passed by their position safely. But when he checked in with a US Army radio operator that was adjacent to our position,

• 1:55:15Jocko Willink?

  his worst fears were confirmed that sedan had driven past, clear past our positions as slowly as it could in the boundaries of another Marine unit to our northwest. It crept up an unimproved road directly in the line of fire of some Marines on post. The one who had manned the post earlier were aware of the sedan's passage. But when they conducted turnover at the post, the word didn't get passed. Fearing for the safety of their fellow Marines, when the sedan came into view, they opened fire on it. Multiple three to six round bursts of 762 machine gun fire blazed from the muzzle of a weapon, ripped through the car, bringing it to a halt. The driver, who was the husband of the woman who had miscarried her child, survived. She and her sister did not. I talked about the incident with Bam Bam. He knew he'd done everything within his power to ensure the Marines of Echo Company left

• 1:55:59Jocko Willink?

  the sedan through safely, and they had done so. He said, "If I could go back and do it all over again, Scott, I would have checked with the battalion headquarters next door to verify that adjacent units were notified between higher headquarters. I did everything I could." I told him, "You did." Hindsight's always 20/20 in combat. It's often the only way to learn some hard lessons and pass on to other warfighters. Later, the husband received payment for the deaths of his family from civil affairs personnel. It wasn't a disgrace to accept money by Arab standards. The DIA, essentially a non-negotiable payment of blood money is customary, if not downright expected in cases of accidental deaths. Yeah, the, um, as much as Ramadi was a complete war zone filled with insurgents,

• 1:56:44Jocko Willink?

  there was 300,000 or 400,000 civilians there. And...

• 1:56:50Jocko Willink?

  You know, things like this would happen. Civilians would get killed. And when it, when a civilian got killed, you know, I've heard people talk about like, oh, there's civilians like getting killed, wantonly being killed, or just being murdered. And like, that just cannot happen. You know, like, there's, the civilian populace is there, the sheiks are there, the, the sheiks are working with the battalion commanders on a daily basis. There's relationships, like, there's a government center with a government that's trying to be functional. So, um, but this is a good example of how this thing does happen.

• 1:57:30Jocko Willink?

  And then how it gets handled, which is like, there's an investigation, you go out and pay the family. These are the things that happened.

• 1:57:36Speaker 02

  Yeah. And again, like, the, these stories aren't, uh, you know, exclusive. I mean, there, I, I, it's similar to like you and Leif, you know, you're, you're talking to your peer, you know? And Bam Bam was a captain too. He was a pilot. He was the guy, you know, calling in airstrikes for us. And, uh, you know, I used to drag that, that guy around the battlefield like a ragdoll with his radio and, you know, Chris Muscle on the other side, my radio operator and like making decisions. But after that, he, it was hard for him to share that story and go back and revisit it too, you know? But it was important that he knew that as his commander, he did do the right thing. He did everything humanly possible. But in that situation, under the circumstances, like, bad things do happen and you can't hide them.

• 1:58:21Speaker 02

  You know, we, um, I know there's a lot of, you know, mistrust sometimes through the military and what we do, but you can't hide those things. And it was sad, man, you know, that, yeah, I always say, you know, these people that lived in this city, they weren't collateral damage, man. They were people, just like anyone. They wanted to see their kids grow up and drive a car for the first time or go play soccer on the weekend. They wanted a life back, not an American life. They wanted their life back. And that's, again, American hubris, thinking we can impose our pissant 250-year existence and culture on a, on a culture that's been around, you know, almost 4,000 years, you know?

• 1:59:06Speaker 02

  That from an academic standpoint, from an educated standpoint, it's like, always bothered me a little bit that I think we'd have done a lot better. Would you agree from Iraq and Afghanistan and training our young soldiers on the importance of culture than we did in Vietnam, Korea, World War II? I think we've done better.

• 1:59:26Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I think we've done better, but I think the key point that you said was hubris to think that that they're going to change their culture to match ours. And it's like, that is not going to happen. And if we would have understood that from the start, I think we would have been in a much better place. You know, if you go into, if you join a team somewhere and their, their, their culture is different than your team, and you're an individual showing up and you think you're going to convert this team that's been around for longer than you, and you're just going to convert them into your culture, it's not going to happen. Now, they might adopt some small parts of your, the culture that you're bringing in, and you're gonna, but you have to adopt their culture and work within their culture. Otherwise, you're going to have significant problems. You know, work with

• 2:00:06Jocko Willink?

  a lot of companies, they, you know, mergers and acquisitions. It's like, you, you can't just impose your culture onto this company that you acquired. You have to have an open mind. You gotta look, okay, what, what's good about their culture? How can we incorporate? How can we unify their cultures? As opposed to like, you guys are just gonna think the way we think. And actually, that's easier than, it's easier to do that within a company than it is within a country. Like you said, it's been around, a culture of people that's been around for thousands of years, and they're very set in their ways. And so you, they're just not gonna change because you say, hey, I think my way's better. No.

• 2:00:39Speaker 02

  You remember, they were talking about on the news a lot, too. You hear it from political pundits about how they're trying to, you know, breed democracy in Iraq. And like, and again, going back to what you just said, like, these great questions you should ask before you start turning, you know, chairs over. Do you want a democracy? They probably would have said, no, we don't want to. And then we got into the thing, it's like, oh, we're gonna have American democracy. I'm like, I, I talk to guys like, You know, in pithy conversations like I say, what is American democracy? Like, no, it's just democracy. It's not French democracy. It's not British democracy. It's just democracy. And everybody has their own, you know, handles their own rules and protocols and policies differently.

• 2:01:23Speaker 02

  But we went in and tried to, you know, set up a democracy and infuse American culture on how we do business. And that created friction.

• 2:01:32Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And tried to do it quickly, right? Cause if you want to change a culture, it's going to take generations to change culture, generations. It's not going to happen in four years. So.

• 2:01:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, they, I don't think, I think they put too much emphasis on the democracy before they did the freedom and security. But it should be security, then freedom, then democracy. And they were trying to jam, you know, 10 pounds in a five pound bag and that. And for us guys on the ground, you know, I'm sure you get interviewed a lot and they ask you questions about political administration of level of assistance. Like, look, man, again, I was there to survive and I wasn't concerned about those levels. Now I can talk about them, but our only responsibility was taking care of each other and killing bad guys. Like, that's what we were there to do and we did it well.

• 2:02:16Jocko Willink?

  Mm hmm.

• 2:02:17Speaker 02

  So.

• 2:02:20Jocko Willink?

  January 2007, you guys start putting like Iraqi police stations in and you say, I never knew if the Iraqi police occupied that police station. It wasn't my problem either way. That was Echo Company's final mission with Steel Tigers. We had orders west, which is actually a really good sign. If you think about it, like the fact that you guys were getting ordered out of Ramadi in, and I know you, you know, you didn't get to see like the, the 5K fun runs down the street or anything, but.

• 2:02:47Speaker 02

  It felt weird.

• 2:02:48Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. But we were seeing, we were seeing, cause I was back here, you know, I left, you got there in November. I had left in October and we were reading the reports and like the enemy attacks were absolutely going down. And there was definitely stability, at least was visible. Like you could see it was changing. It was changing, it was getting better. Uh, and that had to be the case in order for them to send you out to Ruuba.

• 2:03:14Jocko Willink?

  You say Echo Company departed task force 177 headed to Camp Korean Village 40 miles west of our ultimate destination, destination, Ruuba, Iraq. And so that was your, that was your next location was heading out to Ruuba. How'd you feel about going out there?

• 2:03:30Speaker 02

  You're conflicted.

• 2:03:34Speaker 02

  Because Ramadi was where the real action was, but you know, there's again, we were part of the surge. So we went where they needed us and it was a significant emotional event to move that whole company out of zone, do the relief in place with army units. Luckily, again, you know, working for that task force and everything under Colonel McFarlane at the time, like they're pros, like there's some of the most switched on soldiers I've ever encountered in my 24 years in service. And I just loved working with them. They got us rides out to Rupa. We tried to fly. It was funny, like the only helicopter ride was into Camp Corrigador

• 2:04:14Speaker 02

  and it was on army CH47s. I love those dudes too. And we were Hilo Boeing company, like all we did during the pre-workup was like Hilo Ops.

• 2:04:23Jocko Willink?

  And You did around Ramadi.

• 2:04:24Speaker 02

  Driving, driving and walking around. Yeah, that's all we did. Like it was interesting.

• 2:04:30Jocko Willink?

  I always joked here, cause like I never did a real mission in a helicopter. You know, I was in trucks on foot, my every in Iraq, I never went in helicopter for a real mission, which is kind of a bummer. But you know, it also shows you that that's what the war was at the time for me, you know? I talked to some, I was talking to some guy the other day and like he did almost all helicopter. Because when he was in Iraq, he was with a, with a strike force and they were just flying everywhere. And then when he was in Afghanistan, all helicopters. So like we, he had the, the absolute opposite experience as me. I was like all vehicles and foot. He was all helicopters, no vehicles, no feet. Pretty crazy.

• 2:05:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:05:09Jocko Willink?

  Other than foot patrol.

• 2:05:11Speaker 02

  We know too, like it looks sexy on recruiting as like fast roping and jumping out of airplanes. I was like, but the fastest way to get there is actually drive or like walk or like land the helicopter and just walk out of the helicopter. Like that's the fastest way. Just doesn't recruit as many young studs.

• 2:05:28Jocko Willink?

  You, you say this, uh, when you get there, you say our mission in Rupa was focused more on support and stability operations rather than daily raids and constant firefights in Ramadi. So what did that mean to you guys? Support and stability operations?

• 2:05:44Speaker 02

  Well, that was the brief that we got before we rolled out. And again, the Mew commander was over there. There was a reconnaissance company, the maritime special purpose magtav was over there. So we kind of knew what they're doing in Rupa itself. So again, if most people aren't familiar with it, this is like the truck stop of Iraq. It's on the western border in Allenbar Province. It really is like a truck stop. There's a Buc-E's in Texas is probably bigger than Rupa. I mean, it's where they would come in through a porous border on Syria and they'd, you know,

• 2:06:24Speaker 02

  drive over to Ramadi and fight. And so they had taken some resistance over there. And when they, when I, we finally arrived after us, another series of significant emotional events and friction, like Bam Bam's truck broke down on the road out, like he didn't fly us over. Like, we didn't even get a ride over there. Like, I flew over, not out of privilege, but like, it was available. So I took some dudes with me and we did the recon. But they had gotten some sporadic, you know, gunfire and it seemed like their tactics were off. But they hadn't been in the city to clear it out. So when we got over there, luckily for me, the Mew OPSO was one of my faculty advisors

• 2:07:05Speaker 02

  at EWS when I was a captain, Paul Nugent, love that guy. He gave me great autonomy and understood what we were doing in Ramadi and how desperate the situation was over there. And again, they were relieved. Now, before I get into the planning and talking about what Paul let me do is like, you probably understand this is leaders and what we do is, you know,

• 2:07:34Speaker 02

  Guys that kick doors in for a living is it's pretty easy and it's not much of a leadership challenge to give a young guy, you know, Sergeant Echo, a machine gun and a box of ammo and a little training and have him go from zero to 60 and engage the target and kill them with pretty, pretty good efficiency. The real leadership challenge is take that same guy, move him to a different spot and get him to go from 60 to zero. That is a real leadership challenge for a 19 year old kid. It's a real leadership challenge for a 35 year old commander in charge of 200 plus people. So as we transitioned to Rupa, the rules of engagement also changed. So now you're in this mindset where the ROEs in Ramadi, you know, at the time is like if

• 2:08:18Speaker 02

  they're digging a hole in the street, shoot them. If they're driving a car at night, shoot them. If they've got a phone, shoot them. If they're doing this, shoot them. Like it was very permissive. That changed when we went to Rupa, but it wasn't because that the city was at peace. They just hadn't been in and cleared it out. There had been units going in and out, but they never had a presence. So when they brought us in, I was very fortunate to look over the map and get the after actions from, you know, Paul. And so, you know, Newt says, what do you want to do? We're going to do this. I says, no, sir. I said, I would prefer to do this. And honestly, I was a little paranoid because coming out of Ramadi is like, you know, we're not doing it during the daytime. Like first and foremost, like we're doing

• 2:09:03Speaker 02

  this at night. I said, I want to do this. And I came up with a detailed plan. I says, we're going to go in at night. We're going to have insertion points along the southern border and we're going to clear the city from south to north. And if you give me, you know, 72 hours, we'll have Marines occupying different positions throughout. And then I had my good friend Stan Hawk, who was a recon company commander on my flank and a couple of other subordinate units. And it took us a little longer. It took us like 96 hours, but then we stamped that city clear. And when we went through, you know, it took a great amount of shit, I think, from some of the leadership. And, you know, I think it was a misunderstanding of really what the standing.

• 2:09:47Speaker 02

  Minister of Defense in Iraq allowed weapons in homes like, no, they're allowed to have weapons. Like, they're not allowed to have weapons. I'm like, I used, like, I lived in Baghdad for a year, like, in the palace. Like, I know all these clowns who wrote the laws and the new constitution or whatever is, uh, I said, they're not. So it was like, I, I told the boys and they fucking hated me for it, too. It was like crazy Hughings going out of business sale. Like, every weapon must go. And, oh, by the way, we figured out the more weapons we'd pull out on raids and patrols every single night doing clearance ops, we got shot at less during the day. Go figure, man. Again, I don't like to do math in public, but those stats speak for themselves. And, but I did get some pushback. Like, no, they're allowed to have a, I go, no, they're not allowed. I go,

• 2:10:30Speaker 02

  and I had to literally show it to some of the senior commanders, like, look, this is, this is not. But now you got Marines clearing, and sometimes we would do patrols during the day. We're doing like eight, 12 patrols. It was, it was a grind for the boys. And then if they're clearing, they're slinging AKs on the back. You know, that's another eight pounds. There's another 16 pounds. And now they get in a firefight, they gotta run and save their lives. And they got all these, you know, this extra gear. Like, we're not carrying enough shit on our backs already.

• 2:10:56Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, because most people did have AKs in their house. So like, if you hit 10 houses, you got 10 AKs, most likely that you're now lugging around.

• 2:11:05Speaker 02

  Yeah. And if they came by those weapons legitimately, that's fine. None of it was registered. But one of the things the insurgents were really smart at, because they, they, they didn't wear a uniform, we didn't know who they were, is, you know, they would intimidate, uh, the locals. And they say, look, we're gonna store our weapons in your house, Jocko. If you tell anybody, if you tell the Americans you got these weapons, we're gonna come back and we're gonna slit your throat. That's how ruthless they were. It's smart tactics. Just staged weapons all around. Then they would be out at the market, bebopping around, doing what insurgents do, having a little insurgent chit chat. And they're like, oh, here comes a patrol. And they duck in a house.

• 2:11:41Jocko Willink?

  Boom.

• 2:11:42Speaker 02

  Grab a weapon. They just intimidate the people, like, where are the weapons? And they grab and take some shots. And then they blend back into the landscape. That's the enemy we fought.

• 2:11:50Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:11:50Speaker 02

  It was tough. So we had, we had to clear everything out, man. I didn't want to give them an opportunity to kill any more of my Marines, man. That's just, so we, I got some photos, like some of the nights we raid and hundreds of weapons, thousands.

• 2:12:06Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:12:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:12:07Jocko Willink?

  There was a, an army captain, Mike Byma, who was a freaking awesome guy. And he had that too. And he, he, he, in his little, in his combat outpost, he kind of put, he hung all those weapons up. Well, not all, but a bunch of weapons up. It looked very, like, like a, like a hunting cabin with a bunch of, you know, buckheads up there. A bunch of trophy room. He had just had freaking AKs everywhere. It was pretty good to go, but it made you feel a lot safer rolling out.

• 2:12:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:12:36Jocko Willink?

  You know, it's like, yeah, we'll get these, get these people. They don't have a second amendment. Like, don't talk to me about their gun rights.

• 2:12:43Speaker 02

  That, that's how, that's how screwed up we are too, is you know, and we say is like, you know, Marines are really great at breaking shit up. You know what we're really bad at? Building stuff up. So don't act like you know governance or you know this. Like that, that rubbed me the wrong way. Um, I know what I'm good at and I know what we're not good at. And, um, to think that in the middle of a war, like they're allowed to have an AK-47. Like, no, man, I'm going to call bullshit on that one. So.

• 2:13:13Jocko Willink?

  I'm gonna fast forward a little bit here. Uh, 21, January 2007, we formed up and stepped off sweeping north, knowing there was plenty of work ahead of us that first night. Six hours later, I dropped down on the cold marble floor of building, which we had just gone firm. I was exhausted. I stared up at the plastered ceiling, dizzy yet feeling relieved and excited that we had pushed so far in one night. I was still in my gear and, and lay there stretched out. Trying to get my second wind. I was pretty sure I could have fallen asleep if I wanted to, then. I heard a call across the net that we had a casualty. An adrenaline rush instantly flooded my body and a gut dropping feeling, a combination of anxiety and rage hit me hard.

• 2:13:52Jocko Willink?

  The Marines came in and gave me the news Lance Corporal Sanchez was down, shot by a sniper. McKibben was, and then fast forwarding a little bit, McKibben was off post at building 500, and this is one of the buildings that you guys had taken, on the first floor of a three-story house when he started hearing shots fired outside around 0700. McKibben immediately pressed to the roof, not knowing one of his Marines lay wounded. Concerned there might be a sniper about, he did a turkey peek around the corner of the doorway that led onto the roof. He saw Marines racing around yelling, "Corman, Doc, Doc, get the fuck up here, Doc." The top of building 500 was a large, flat, concrete slab with massive gray cinder block ledge around it that stood nearly six feet high.

• 2:14:36Jocko Willink?

  It provided excellent protection and concealment, for the most part, for the Marines on post. He raced over to the back wall where four or five Marines and Docs Lee and Leva, Leva? Yeva. Yeva. Were already performing first aid on Lance Corporal Sanchez. McKibben stepped in and helped take off Sanchez's gear. As he did, he spoke to Sanchez. Sanchez, hang on, man, we're here, we've got you, just blink or squeeze my hand if you understand. Nothing from Sanchez. McKibben heard the other Marines on the roof shouting, "What the fuck, where's the shooter?" No one had located the sniper. It was not the first time McKibben had been in a firefight or seen his brothers get shot, but he still felt scared and helpless at the moment.

• 2:15:20Jocko Willink?

  The sight of it all took his breath away. The Marines moved Sanchez off the roof to a convoy that would carry him to TCP-3, would be transferred to a helicopter that would fly him to a medical station. As he watched the vehicles leave, he felt a sense of responsibility, and his heart felt broken. Not knowing if Sanchez was alive or dead weighed heavily on him that morning. Foster rode in the convoy with Sanchez as they rushed to TCP-3. The Marines gently moved him from the Humvee to the landing zone as a radio operator made Contact with the inbound CH-53 helicopter that was providing the casavac. Foster sat beside Sanchez and could clearly see the hole from the bullet that had pierced the right side of his Kevlar helmet. Sanchez was silent, but Foster could see agony in his face.

• 2:16:05Jocko Willink?

  As Foster listened to the radio transmissions, he knew it was only minutes until the casavac would arrive. The corpsman and the other Marines tried to stabilize Sanchez. His breathing was labored. As they inserted the intubation tube to free his airway, Foster held his hand. Sanchez gripped Foster's hand and rubbed it feverishly as he fought through the pain of his wound. His hand was warm and dry. Foster rubbed it gently, trying to soothe off, smooth off the cake dirt. But as he looked down, Sanchez's hand lay soft in his own, covered in dried blood. The smacking of the helicopter's rotors was loud as it approached the LZ. The casavac team moved Sanchez so they wouldn't get pelted with loose gravel kicked up by the helicopter's downwash. Foster instinctively knew Sanchez would not let go of his hand when they moved into the helicopter.

• 2:16:50Jocko Willink?

  Foster held on and moved with him. The Hawking CH-53 Super Stallion was on final approach to the LZ. Thirty seconds out, Sanchez stopped rubbing Foster's hand. Foster felt it go still. It slipped out of his grasp as the aircraft landed.

• 2:17:18Jocko Willink?

  And as I mentioned earlier, the fight doesn't stop. Continuing on as we geared up for another fight, a second gut-wrenching call came across the net. Another Marine was shot and being casavacked to TCP-3 to the south. Again, my heart sank. I could not believe that in less than 24 hours in zone, we'd suffered two casualties. After McKibben had watched Sanchez carried out of Building 500, he went to his squad on the first floor. "Hey, I need someone to volunteer to get up on the roof now to take over Sanchez's post." Without delay, Lance Corporal Andrew Mattis chimed up. "I got it, Corporal." Who does that? What kind of person unhesitatingly jumps to the task and challenge of assuming a post where another Marine had been shot?

• 2:18:03Jocko Willink?

  What kind of character do young men have that drives them to go into harm's way without a second thought?

• 2:18:12Jocko Willink?

  McKibben walked with Mattis over to the wall on the backside of Building 500, almost exactly where Sanchez had been shot. Mattis was armed with his M16A4 with a 203 grenade launcher fixed to the bottom. The wall was too high for Mattis to see over. He found an ammo can and slid it close to the wall for a step. So he could view his sector of fire that McKibben had laid out for him. He placed a hand on the ledge of the cinder block wall and pulled himself up for a peek. McKibben said to Mattis, "Keep your eyes open. There's a lot of windows and doors out there, brother." McKibben took five or six steps away when he heard a strange noise like the sound of a hammer cracking the bottom of a frying pan. McKibben turned back toward Mattis. And as he did, he saw Mattis standing facing the wall, almost floating.

• 2:18:56Jocko Willink?

  He fell backward slowly, as if someone was behind him waiting to catch, catch him in a game of trust. "Doc, Doc, get over here," McKibben shouted in panic. Mattis lay on the roof motionless. His eyes were bloodshot and he wasn't breathing. His face began to swell. And he was limp as the other Marines quickly moved him onto a blanket to get him off the roof as fast as they could.

• 2:19:33Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's a, that's a Marine right there. You know, guy gets shot, we need someone to take his place, I'm on it.

• 2:19:42Speaker 02

  When, again, I wasn't, we were at three different positions that, that was the morning or day three or day two of the clearance op in Rupa and, you know, again.

• 2:19:55Speaker 02

  My paranoia was, I guess justified because there were some bad guys there and, you know, McKibben told me that story, you know, when I was interviewing him for the book. He, he sent me a bunch of tapes, like a cassette recorder. He had a really hard time sharing that story with him. He's a corporal at the time and he's still on active duty.

• 2:20:17Speaker 02

  But I think, and again, you know, I, I, I never professed to say like, I, I knew my Marines, but I didn't know like Matuse or Sanchez well. They were kind of quiet kids, you know?

• 2:20:30Speaker 02

  You know, Matuse was from, you know, like Eau Claire, Wisconsin, and I, I didn't even know Sanchez was Native American. And then probably one of my favorite chapters in the book is Pueblo, where Sanchez's family invites me out to their annual ceremony that they do at, at their reservation in, in the Pueblo. And it's like, it's very emotional for me. And very impactful as well. And I'm really, really good friends with Sanchez's older brother Joey, who's like, I don't know, he's like 15 years older than Sanchez. Like, yeah, he used to get accused of being his, his dad, which rubbed in the wrong. It's like, nah, man, we're brothers,

• 2:21:10Speaker 02

  you know? And this huge, cool tribe of Caris Indians that, you know, live in New Mexico. And to be welcomed in, you know, again, from the family members of, you know, Marines you've lost, that's, that's tough, man, for some guys. And it's tough for me. So, you know,

• 2:21:31Speaker 02

  you kind of sometimes like, what do I say or do? But again, I think if anyone's listening, because there'll be another generation that has to go through stuff that we went through. It's just inevitable. You've just got to be yourself, man, be authentic and be there for them if, if you can. Not everybody can. I get that. It's tough. But we have a lot of fun together, too. And Joey, his older brother, makes a habit of doing surprise appearances when he catches wind of something of me speaking at an event on social media. Like, he pops up and literally surprises me. I'm like, what are you doing here? And like, you know, bear hugs ensue. And it's, again, you know, these, these people who lose, you know, Marines and

• 2:22:15Speaker 02

  soldiers, you know, like the Libby's, they may have lost, you know, Dustin, but, you know, they inherited another 200 Marines, whether they like it or not. And we still keep in, still keep in touch, you know? It's, I think it's important. But that was, that was tough, too, because.

• 2:22:32Speaker 02

  Fighting in Rupa, you know, we did kind of make some assumption, I think the Marines did, that it would be a more permissive environment and it just wasn't, even though the ROEs were more restrictive, I think they had their own set of challenges there too. But again, they're doing a lot of stuff too that Marines just aren't trained to do. And, you know, we tried to, we tried to operate as best we could. And after the book came out too, like you see how the Marines will reach out. And it's funny too, like, you know, when you write about someone, like you think like, hey, thanks for writing about my book. Or like, hey, that was, that was cool. That, like, some, some I never even hear from, you know,

• 2:23:11Speaker 02

  like, they, it's not that I need the acknowledgement or anything, but they see things from my perspective too. Now, like, some of the bullshit we had to do, like, I was just like any Marine, I, we do take orders, myself included. And some of the things we were ordered to do were very hard for me to stomach. And it wasn't until I was able to share those in the, in this story that, you know, the Marines are like, God, sir, like, I never knew you had to do all of that bullshit. And I was like, yeah, well, it wasn't my place to bitch down. So leaders don't do that. I was very lucky, though, that I had Bam Bam. And we're still very close friends to this day. He's, he's an airline pilot now for Major Airline. And he's coming

• 2:23:52Speaker 02

  out to my ranch in Texas next month as well. So I could see him and his new baby. And yeah, it's, it's cool. But Outstanding. He was able to be my sounding board, you know, even first arm foster, like Tom and I What was Bam Bam's position? He was my FAC. Okay. He's a forward air controller. So he was a CH-53 pilot in the Marine Corps and just completely unflappable. I mean, I, you probably have come to terms with this too, because you, I'm an emotional person. Like, I don't get overly emotional, like, to influence my decision or anything. But like, I sometimes think, like, should I be feeling this way about this? Or like, express or get, let anger boil over in some cases? And like, I

• 2:24:35Speaker 02

  just can't come to terms with it. Bam Bam was a pilot through and through, you know, very procedural, like, there could be, you know, stuff blowing up and, yeah.

• 2:24:47Speaker 02

  I remember, you know, it's like, did you see that, Ben? He's like, yeah, I saw that. Like, Roger, you ready to go? We're gonna head out here in about five minutes. Like, just really unflappable. Like, we give me in the middle of firefight and like, Roger, Echo Six request, blah, blah, just like he's, it's, it's, pilots are built a certain way, as you know, because we know a bunch of them. It's just very unflappable, but from a friendship standpoint, too, to have another guy who's captain that you can kind of release the valve on in that situation, too, was important. And, uh, thanks, Ben, Ben.

• 2:25:26Jocko Willink?

  Uh, fast forward a little bit. After the shocking loss of Sanchez and Matous, I think I mispronounced that earlier. Sanchez and Matous, the sniper file on 21 January 2007. My boys weren't too keen on the new rules of engagement. It frustrated them when I told them to use more restraint. As an infantry commander is not a significant challenge to train a 16-year-old or 19-year-old how to fire a machine gun. That's what you were just using with Echo, like, getting them to, and you're, you, you, you have to, that's like the worst case scenario, right? You gotta train these guys that are gonna have to go into, face a determined enemy in a gunfight. Like, that's what you gotta get them ready for.

• 2:26:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:26:04Jocko Willink?

  Everything else, okay, well, we'll, we'll figure that out when we get there. And when you get there, it's not so easy to, to pull the leash on these dogs.

• 2:26:15Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, we did one op where, uh, and you mentioned, you know, you talked about the uniform of the insurgents, like a tracksuit with, uh, an AK-47. And we did an op over by the, um, what, the University of Al Anbar Province, right? The university, which is on the east, west side of Teme, right? That whole complex over there. And they had government sanctioned. So we get told, we're getting intel, there's like, there's a security element there, a government security element. Okay, how do we, what uniform are they wearing? They're wearing tracksuits, tracksuits and carrying AK-47s. I'm like, all right, we must have, I briefed, you know, Leif, it was Leif's platoon, like, Leif briefed them up and down, like, we cannot shoot these guys with AK-47s with tracksuits.

• 2:26:58Jocko Willink?

  They are, they're a friendly security element. I told them that 10 times. And sure enough, we rolled up, the first thing we rolled up, there's a gate and it's like, there's a guy with an AK-47 and a tracksuit. And I'm like, nope. And he did, you know, he like, you know, all right, good, so. Yeah.

• 2:27:13Speaker 02

  It's like cats sleeping with dogs, man. It's just you can't half the time in that environment make sense of it. And God, those stories are funny, man.

• 2:27:22Jocko Willink?

  You are. Another thing you you talk about is you get permission to hit like one mosque. And you get, you have good intelligence that there's store enemy or weapons being stored in this mosque. So you're gonna hit one. But then you get like you look around, you're like, well, there's three actual mosques that could be used. Let's hit them all. And that's kind of a big deal because you have to have, for me, it was the first oh six in the chain of command. Would have to give you permission to hit a mosque. But you didn't have time to get that permission and you hit three mosques.

• 2:27:53Speaker 02

  Colonel Boudreau gave permission for the one because we had verifiable information and that they were storing weapons there. And then, you know, I made an audible as a guy on the ground. I mean, these guys are 40 miles away, you know, so they can't really make a call, but the, you know, I had I had patrols in zone. I'm like, fuck it, hit them all. And paid off. It also sucked too, because we we had a civilian get injured. She got shot in the elbow and it turned into a whole episode of, you know, added friction in the middle of the night after we raided. But we did. We did discover a shit ton of weapons in those mosques. Like they were using the mosque because it saved havens. We all knew that.

• 2:28:38Speaker 02

  But again, you know, at the end of the story, after we, you know, are wandering the streets of Ruipa zero three and trying to find medical care for this Iraqi civilian, her brother steps in and we pay him some cash and come to find out he doesn't even take her to the hospital in Ramadi and drive back. It's like three hour drive. There's no hospital in Ruipa. It's again, it's a truck stop. They didn't have a first aid kit. And then we shot someone accidentally. She charged one of the Marines in a dark room and luckily it just went through her her elbow. But, you know, we find, we found out later and she might have lost her arm. It wasn't verified, but you know, the next day too, after that whole episode, I get a call.

• 2:29:20Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:29:21Speaker 02

  Career warning light is flashing quickly and I'm summoned back to go talk to Colonel Boudreau. And

• 2:29:30Speaker 02

  first office I go into is

• 2:29:33Speaker 02

  Major Nugent, so Paul Nugent, he's like, yeah, I just think the boss wants to talk to you about it. And I was like, I'm gonna get fired. I'm like, this is twice now, like, I've gotten called in these rooms with full colonels, you know? And I'm like, I'm getting fired.

• 2:29:48Speaker 02

  But thankfully, you know, Colonel Bedrow was, he's pragmatist, I think. He's an interesting guy, too. He's coming to my reunion. I invited him because he was a mere commander.

• 2:30:03Speaker 02

  Really big dude, you know, just looks like a, you know, football player, is great shape, has salt and pepper, you know, flat top. And he's a very soft talker. He talks very soft, even in briefs. Like, he's like, all right, I'm up to it. We got that. I always, I always liked it. It was hard to hear and like, I was like, does he do that so people listen to him more? Like, when you're that big, like, you really don't have to, like, but it was effective. And I was thankful for it that, that morning when I walked in and

• 2:30:34Speaker 02

  it was, it was funny, though, before I stepped through the door, you know, I go to Paul, Paul Nugent's office and I walk through the operation center. And you remember that scene in Saving Private Ryan when Hanks is at the, I don't know, it's a little forward staging post and all the soldiers have sandwiches and they're like, you know, grab ass in and drinking hot coffee and like,

• 2:30:57Jocko Willink?

  Nice uniforms.

• 2:30:58Speaker 02

  So here I am, like, I'm, I walk out of zone back to CKV. Yeah, like, and my nose was cut. I had, like, just gash across my nose because, like, we were in a firefight and I took a header and, you know, busted my nose open and they're all just, like, you hear a pin drop, like, they're looking at me like, yeah, like a savage. So then I go talk to the boss and

• 2:31:25Speaker 02

  He says, uh, it was my call. He says, don't worry about it, Scotty. He says, it's my call. You do the right thing. I was like, holy crap. Saved my ass. And, and trust me, like, uh, you know, there was a couple of other meetings I think I had with, with Colonel Boudreau too. It's like, um, you know, he rolled out. We took over the bank. It was literally a bank, the Bank of Rupa, but it afforded the best position. And he'd come out one day. I was out on another patrol and, um, I don't, this is non-attributional, like he's just being the Colonel, you know, he's a new commander, but he didn't like what he saw. Like there was, by the way, there was like two platoons of Marines living in a bank and that when he walks into the bank, so they're safe. It's a bank.

• 2:32:07Speaker 02

  Thick walls and they're in flip flops and PT shorts and, you know, so he didn't like that for some reason. It kind of rubbed them the wrong way. He thought it was a sign of maybe being loose or undisciplined and, um, and then, so he's got me in the office and, uh, I, I've, I've told him this story, I think. I might not, if not, I'll tell him someday or next month. He, he questions Tom Foster. He goes, and what's up with your first sergeant?

• 2:32:34Speaker 02

  I says, what do you mean, sir? He goes, well, he just doesn't strike me as a typical infantry guy. I go, he's not. And in the Marine Corps, you don't have to be in the infantry your whole time to become a first sergeant. Cause that's an administrative role to a large degree. So I said, he's not, sir. I said, Tom Foster was a legal clerk and a legal chief. He's been in the legal field his entire time until he got into the Marine Corps. Or, or in the Marine Corps, and then he got first sergeant and he was assigned to an infantry unit. And I tell you, I wouldn't replace him with some 20 year burnout grunt. I said, I would, I would take him every day of the week and twice on Sunday. Cause he, Tom loved it. Like everything was new and exciting. Like everything he had sold as a recruiter,

• 2:33:16Speaker 02

  he was getting to live to the point where I'm like, hey, Tom, like you need to get the fuck off that tank and do some admin shit. And so I kind of would put him in there and we're, we're still great friends to this day. He lives in Colorado. But I told that to Colonel Boudreaux and I says, you know, sir, we're running eight to 12, you know, combat patrols a day and, um, you know, the Marines need a place to let their hair down and decompress a little bit and he, it was a light switch for him. And so he, you know, again, he cut me off the leash again. He's like, so he was a, he was a really, really good guy to work for, you know? Um, but it was also a little different than Ramadi because, you know, we had a little more top cover. Like, I don't know. He was, he wasn't a

• 2:33:58Speaker 02

  micromanager. It's not what I'm saying. It's like, but there was just another layer that we kind of had to deal with.

• 2:34:03Jocko Willink?

  Check.

• 2:34:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:34:05Jocko Willink?

  Uh, you guys are, you know, posting these clearances and then, uh, I gotta cover this, this section right here. You say this, "We approached a group of young Iraqi males. They were posturing like tough guys as we advanced. One had his hands tucked in the back of his pants underneath a lightweight jacket he wore. He was young, maybe 16 years old. I forcefully told him in Arabic, 'Erni Yadaik, show me your hands.' He stood there with his gaze fixed on my Marines and me. We had our rifles at alert, but were not pointing them directly at the boys. I repeated the command. The boys still didn't comply, defiant. Then he bolted. To me, it confirmed he had a weapon. I shouted, 'Keef, keef, stop, stop.' I instinctively took off after him. I had a habit of doing this much to my Marines'

• 2:34:47Jocko Willink?

  frustration. Lance Corporal Zach Shores followed close behind me for cover. Another veteran of the battalion's 2004 deployment to Ramadi, Shores was big, 6'2" and more than 200 pounds. He was scruffy and surly and exuded a 'I don't give a shit about nothing' attitude most of the time. In a firefight, however, he was dependable and as dangerous as they come, a killer. I pursued the boy as he made it around a corner, yelling at him again to stop. This time, he did. And then he turned to face me, hands still in his coat. I trained my M4 on him, ready to shoot if he drew a weapon. I could see him looking around for an escape route, sensing he was about to dart into the, an alley. He made a move. I fired two shots, not aimed at the boy. I drilled two rounds into an air conditioner unit that

• 2:35:32Jocko Willink?

  was on the ground 10 meters away from him in a vain effort to get him to comply. I had just violated our own policy of never firing warning shots. The boy took off. Shores grabbed me and said, 'Sir, he's gone. Fuck him. Let him go. It was nothing. Let's get back to the squad.' As we moved, I could still feel the effects of the adrenaline rush. I was out of breath and sweating. The men in the street looked at me cold, coldly, scornfully. And this was all for you guys to set up a, a meeting at a secure, at a government center and they were doing a meeting with like the, the key leaders of the, of the, uh, city out there and the meeting ends and then a guy, UC Staff Sergeant Slaughter, sitting on an elevated concrete sidewalk dangling his feet over the side. I walked over to him and I sat down. I took off my helmet and stared at the ground.

• 2:36:17Jocko Willink?

  Slaughter was 29 years old from Santa Fe, Texas, married with two kids. He's, he stood five, six. He was rough and built like a fireplug and constantly had a big, thick dip of Copenhagen snuff in his lower lip. He took, he always had an air of seriousness about him, maybe because he was on his second combat tour in Iraq. A sense of vulnerability and uncertainty hit me as I sat there. Slaughter sensed it. So sir, how'd the meeting go? I said, same shit. He dug deeper. What's going on, sir? You all right? I didn't normally divest my emotions with Marines, but when Slaughter asked me if I, I felt I had an overwhelming need to share with him. Staff Sergeant, what the fuck would have happened if I'd have shot that kid?

• 2:36:58Jocko Willink?

  I don't know what I was thinking. I just can't get it out of my head. Why did I even shoot my rifle if I wasn't going to shoot him? Slaughter didn't hesitate to respond. Sure, you did the right thing. It wasn't worth it either way. It's this place. It's a fuck story and it gets to everyone. That includes you. You're good, sir. I felt that Slaughter was right. At least that's what I wanted to believe at the time. He was though. I thanked him for listening. He gave me a quick head nod. I told him to get the boys together and get ready to go. That moment weighed on me for days. That young kid, cocky as he may have been, would never know how close he was to his death. Either way, Slaughter and Shores were right.

• 2:37:38Jocko Willink?

  That's, that's some, that's some combat fatigue mentality going on there, huh?

• 2:37:42Speaker 02

  Forgot about that story, man. It's funny like having someone read your book to you, by the way, like, and you, yeah. Yeah, I forgot about that. That was, uh, he, he like have, just listening to have you read that is, uh, and knowing Jeremy Slaughter too is, uh, what a cool name, like Sergeant Slaughter.

• 2:37:58Jocko Willink?

  For sure.

• 2:37:59Speaker 02

  He was a good dude, you know, and like to.

• 2:38:03Speaker 02

  I don't know. He's a great leader too, you know, and he, he was able to balance me out that day. And you gotta have that. That's why, you know, everything, I remind people of this all the time. Everything I know about officer and I learned and was taught by

• 2:38:17Jocko Willink?

  The E-Dogs.

• 2:38:18Speaker 02

  enlisted guys, staff NCOs. So I, they are the balance. When you, when you talk about the important things of, you know, leadership and, you know, listening is one of them. And it's not also not lost to me is, I'm sure you get this, this guy that runs his mouth on, you know, podcasts, he's speaking public and you're right, I was like, listening is probably one of the greatest attributes the leader can have. It's a learned attribute in some cases. I'm one of those guys. But his ability to listen is what creates that great balance of leadership in a team. And, you know, we weren't some hand-selected super company of Marines. Like, we, we took what we got. But we had this remarkable chemistry,

• 2:39:00Speaker 02

  I think, that we all had a hand in as, as leaders at every level to, to really, you know, be able to listen like that. That, that's, I think that's tough. I always love the guys, you know, like, I write about Pete Somerville and like, he was like a ninja. Like, he'd always been on the forensics, those guys, and you know, they're in meetings or parties, and they're kind of just like a ninja. They're just sitting there taking it all in. And I'll spot them now, because I've been trained. Like, God, I wish I could be like that guy. Like, I can't be like Echo. Like, he's sitting here, his whole podcast, and like, hasn't said a peep. I mean, you know, like, how does he do that?

• 2:39:37Jocko Willink?

  As Steve Alvan said, he sure don't say a lot for a guy named Echo.

• 2:39:40Speaker 02

  He's a savant. I don't know how he does that. How does he do that? I don't know what he's doing down there.

• 2:39:50Jocko Willink?

  You know, I'm gonna fast forward. You cover a couple more. You have another couple civilian, another civilian casualty. Again, this is just, it's so good that you put this stuff in the book so people understand what it's like. And then we get to this. Our departure date from Iraq was finally announced. We would be turning over our battle space and route, but with First Battalion, Second Marines. For the most part, the Marines were ready to go, but they also had to become accustomed to living so close together, under such austere conditions for so long, that the reality took a while to sink in. After being extended on deployment twice already, they braced for the impact of another letdown. This time, however, there would be no letdown. We were headed home.

• 2:40:31Jocko Willink?

  Had to feel pretty good to be getting the hell out of there.

• 2:40:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, I've been cursed with having extensions on deployments. Normally a marine deployment is like six months, but they all knew too I had a track record of like getting extended. It was good, but this.

• 2:40:45Jocko Willink?

  The boss bringing the bad luck with them.

• 2:40:47Speaker 02

  They psyched us like a couple of times like, yeah, not going home, psych. And that just happened. Marines bounced back, but yeah, I was, I liked it that we were on amphibious shipping too. And I'll give it, I have multiple times given a lot of credit and thanks to our Navy brethren. From that Argus, they stayed on station. They could have gone back home. They waited for us to get back on those ships. They, you know, not kicking indoors or anything, but they knew how important it was for the Marines to return to their own stuff that we just left, you know, and in our case, it was garbage bags of moldy green cammies that were stained in red soil

• 2:41:27Speaker 02

  from training in India as the first US force to ever train with the 21st Punjab. And, but they had to store it. They didn't have, when we got the order to launch, like they didn't even have time to do the laundry on the ship. So like bag it all up and like they were destroyed, but the Navy waited for us, man. And that cruise home and stop in Australia, I think was, that was important.

• 2:41:50Jocko Willink?

  Were guys like, no, I don't want to go to Australia. Just take me the hell home. Or were guys like, hell yeah, take me to Australia.

• 2:41:56Speaker 02

  Oh, they want to go Australia.

• 2:41:57Jocko Willink?

  I'm sure the young single boys were ready to rock Australia.

• 2:42:01Speaker 02

  They were, they were pretty jazzed about that.

• 2:42:02Jocko Willink?

  I've always talked about the fact that, you know, in, in World War II, when the war was over, you got in a boat with, you know, whatever, 3,000 of your brothers and you debriefed on the way home and you discussed things. And you talk about what you did right, what you did wrong, and you had a chance to get stuff off your chest and what have you. Whereas for a lot of people in the GWAT or even Vietnam for that matter, it was like, hey, I'm here in a totally horrible place. I'm going to get on this freaking airplane and 24 hours later, or 36 hours later, I'm back at home. I'm walking down the street and there's my kids and there's a, you know, some bum, uh, you know, wanting money from me and some, you know, uh, 18 year

• 2:42:46Jocko Willink?

  old high school girl in a freaking Mercedes. That's like telling you, honking her horn at you or whatever the case may be. Like that can be a little bit of a rough transition. Did you feel like it was helpful that, that you and your guys got put on a ship and you guys got kind of quarantined from the world for a little while?

• 2:43:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think it was smart. I agree with you. Uh, you know, like World War II, like that decompression time, I think is important. It, it's just, it doesn't feel natural like to hop on a plane, even being on the plane and getting like, would you like a Diet Coke or something like that? It feels weird. Like no one's offering you Diet Ripits in Iraq. You know, it's like, it's just no service. Like you're, you know, it's just, it's a, it's, it was very, um, beneficial, I think. Um, and I wrote about it too. It was like, interestingly enough, after going through all that, we didn't have a single liberty incident. Like no bad behavior from the boys, not one. It was nuts. I don't know if the whole muted, but I know Echo Company, like we were good boys and, uh, they took care of each other out there. But yeah, it was, and it was tough for me to like, um,

• 2:43:48Speaker 02

  adjusting on ship. Like I didn't, my roommates were, you know, other company commanders like, are you ever going to sleep? I'm like, I can't sleep. But like I'd have the TV on in the stateroom and, uh, or I'd be up and I'd be wondering the ship and like, I, I still don't, my sleep has gotten a little bit better, but, um, you know, back then it was, you're working so much, you're operating around the clock and you're, you're, it's not good to operate on little sleep. I mean, we're the worst at advocating like, oh, we can do this. Like, but it's not effective to be sleep deprived as a leader, um, in any environment. So a lot of people brag about like, I haven't slept in three days. I'm like, well, you're a walking idiot right now. So.

• 2:44:26Jocko Willink?

  Do you feel like you might have some genetics that are, that you need less sleep?

• 2:44:32Speaker 02

  Um, yeah, I.

• 2:44:35Speaker 02

  Maybe. I don't, I don't know. I'm no geneticist. Illinois State doesn't.

• 2:44:40Jocko Willink?

  I kinda get that from my, so I don't, I don't need a lot of sleep. My oldest daughter, like when she was in high school, she'd be up at 11 o'clock at night studying and like I'd go to bed and I'd wake up at 4:30 in the morning and she'd be up studying or she'd be like up studying like she was, she needed very little sleep. My middle daughter, if you want her to get out of bed, you better be ready to scrap, which is also what my wife is like, like my wife, she likes to sleep. My son's kinda like in the middle and then my daughter's a sleeper, but I've always, and, and I would not need much sleep and be like, you know, I would, you know, people like, oh, if you haven't slept eight hours, that's like three beers or whatever that thing is. I'm like, bro, I've been operating on like a 12 pack forever then.

• 2:45:25Jocko Willink?

  But did you feel, do you feel like that might be the case a little bit?

• 2:45:28Speaker 02

  Um, I function pretty well in limited sleep. I will say that. Um, but I, I never have really slept eight hours. So I don't know, but I know this and I'm, we are completely opposite on this. Like I do not like getting up early. Like I know, do you do that naturally? Like you're just like, bing, it's 4:30.

• 2:45:46Jocko Willink?

  Actually I told my wife this morning, I was in the deepest sleep this morning when I woke up, like the, the alarm clock went off. And I was like, where am I right now? What is going on? And it was like, my whole sleep took place in like 30 seconds, you know? But, uh, so, uh, sometimes it's the alarm clock. Sometimes it's not. It's a little bit of both.

• 2:46:03Speaker 02

  I don't like getting up early. I don't like being cold. I don't like being wet. Pretty much a really horrible career choice for 24 years. But you know, seriously, like even the reason I was like, sir, like you don't like getting out of the bag in the morning. I'm like, no, it's cold outside. Like, but I do it, you know, I wasn't tardy or anything, but.

• 2:46:20Jocko Willink?

  How was it?

• 2:46:21Speaker 02

  Bragging rights though, right?

• 2:46:22Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Yeah. How was it when you got home? Like, so now you're in San Diego. How was that?

• 2:46:28Speaker 02

  I, for me personally, it was a pretty easy adjustment because of my experience, I think. And then, you know, we had, you know, welcome home ceremony and the city of San Clemente, California up here, like just the Chamber of Commerce adopts a battalion, each city does, some do, some don't. But we were very fortunate that the city of San Clemente adopted us and they did this huge welcome home. And then, you know, it was a few weeks later, but they invited all the Gold Star families out. And yeah, I don't know if I wrote about it or not, but it was beautiful. And the Sanchez's showed up, there was like the whole tribe. It was like 40 people.

• 2:47:13Jocko Willink?

  And they had the T-shirts on.

• 2:47:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. With them on it. Yeah, I can't, I can never remember, but it was so heartwarming, you know, to see them. And, you know, but, you know, the transition back, I think for most guys was relatively easy. I think it's like, and you know, it's the Tyler writes about this in his book, Forge and Chaos, like it's that lack of traumatic stress disorder. Like I use it differently. Everybody shares it like mine is the friction. I was like, you have all this friction in your life and especially in combat is like when you remove that it's for me, it was like the absence of that friction. Like, how do you replace that type of adrenaline? It's, it's hard to replace, but you got to find ways to do it. You know, maybe it's working out,

• 2:47:57Speaker 02

  maybe it's doing this, maybe it's baking cupcakes. I don't care, but you got to find something. I don't know if there's a big adrenaline rush baking cupcakes, but who knows, man? Mecca might like, you know, some skills.

• 2:48:08Jocko Willink?

  Well, I want to close out the book with the memorial service that happens. And this is 15 June 2007. It was a warm sunny day when the magnificent bastards of Second Battalion, Fourth Marines honored their fallen brothers. We held the last memorial at Camp San Mateo, a smaller camp aboard Camp Pendleton on elaborately decorated parade ground behind our battalion command post. It was lined with all 50 state flags that ruffled slightly in the wind as it blew through the base of the Mountains surrounding the camp. Aluminum bleachers were set up to accommodate the hundreds of attendees. We had the customary memorials displays. Eight dressed wooden pedestals with eight upside down M16A4 rifles. Their bayonets thrust into a sandbag at the bottom, holding them tight.

• 2:48:53Jocko Willink?

  Combat boots at the base of each pedestal with a camouflage covered Kevlar helmet on the top of the buttstock of each rifle. Dog tags of each Marine dangled over the rifle's pistol grips. Every pedestal had a hand drawn charcoal portrait of the eight Marines that died on our deployment in 2006 and 2007. Three were from Echo Company. The tribute we paid to our fellow Marines that day was a fitting ceremony. After the oral homages, music played softly over the speaker system as the crowd filtered slowly out from the bleachers. Marines were the first to gravitate to the eight battlefield crosses on display. Individually or in groups of three or four, they stood before the memorials, placed their palms on the tops of the helmets that rested on the rifles.

• 2:49:35Jocko Willink?

  Some reached down and gently rubbed the aluminum dog tags between their thumbs and forefingers, pressing the tags into their palms. Some wept. Other Marines swarmed around their broken comrades, wrapping their arms around their backs, supporting each other, and trying to fight off their own tears. Some of the Marines stood paralyzed by emotion in front of the pedestals, unable to leave. I watched from afar at first, then I felt compelled to rush to the men and hug them myself. Heat and emotion welled up inside of me, and I blinked hard to fight back the tears. I sniffed sharply and swallowed against the tightening muscles in my throat. I was heartbroken too. Watching my Marines in pain was hard. I'd always tried to safeguard them from danger and during our time in Iraq, but there was

• 2:50:17Jocko Willink?

  nothing I could do now to protect them from this. The Marines lingered at the memorials for a while and were given respect from the families and friends that watched this immense display of affection and loyalty. As they had while they were in Iraq, the families supported us that day, even though our job was to be there for them. I am sure seeing us so vulnerable hit them hard in contrast to the hard charging warriors they watched go off to war. The families descended upon us with hugs and support as we stood there, weakened by our grief. They put their arms around us, still saying, "It's alright."

• 2:51:06Jocko Willink?

  So.

• 2:51:11Jocko Willink?

  Great book. Um, then again, I read some of the, the highlights of the book, but there's so much detail and it's, it's just a great incredible, um, history of what you guys went through. And you know what I didn't do? Uh, one of the best things that you do in the book is you give a great, basically a biography of everyone that's in the book. And I was throwing out names today, like just one off. You just hear a name like randomly, but you give where that person's from, what they were like, you know, whatever they went through in high school, what, you know, how they ended up in the Marine Corps. And so you, you realize that these people that were, that these Marines that you're talking in the book about in the book are people. And I didn't do a good job of reading that today.

• 2:51:51Jocko Willink?

  But when you get the book, you really get to learn about these men. Uh, so that, that's just awesome. So. Pick up this book. The book is called Echo in Ramadi. Firsthand story of US Marines in Iraq's deadliest city.

• 2:52:09Jocko Willink?

  What was your job after, after that? Like, what was your job in the Marine Corps?

• 2:52:14Speaker 02

  Um, yeah, I, I like the Marines too. I will say this, cause um, when you're doing, when you're writing and you're doing like character development, I, I would have written about all 250 of those guys if I could have, but that would have been a big, fat, thick book and no one would have read it. And when I, when I share those details, I thought it was important and I have kind of a formula, you know, there's kind of a rhythm on how different writers are in their style, but I, I wanted it to be emblematic of all the Marines, you know, I, I wanted people to know there's like this such an awesome cross-section of young patriotic Americans, men and women who raise their hand and volunteer to serve their country. And you know, I'd like to share a little bit about them and you know, not just the physical brown hair, tall, fat, short, fat, a little bit of that, but

• 2:52:59Speaker 02

  like the lengths it takes for this kid in, you know, North Dakota to even drive to recruiter station, you know, it's like, you know, that's dedication, man. When you get in your, your pickup truck and you drive three hours just so you can sign your life away and go fight and, you know, die for your country, you know, it's, um, it is impressive. So. Um, but after, after that transition, uh, with, I stayed in the battalion. Um, ultimately I became the operations officer. Um, worked for one of the best Marines and boss they had, Chris Wirtman. Uh, he's a general now. And went on another deployment to Okinawa and did another Mew.

• 2:53:37Speaker 02

  Then I went to Yuma, Arizona, as again, the token grunt at the Marine Corps' version of Top Gun, which is a premier aviation school. It's a Marine Aviation Weapons and Tactics Squadron One, and they are the best pilots, rotary wing and fixed wing. I was a department head out there for three years and again, it was a cool job. I went kicking and screaming like I told you, you know, I called my boss, I monitored CJ Williams. My XO at the time of the battalion, I was the ops, so he goes, hey, man, you're going to Yuma. It's Scott Garrus. He's a full Colonel, not to say he's about to retire. This guy goes, you're going to Yuma. I says, you're full of shit, man. I said, I'm not going to Yuma. So I called CJ and I says, hey, sir, what's up with these orders to Yuma?

• 2:54:20Speaker 02

  He goes, well, MOTS gets what MOTS wants. He says, hey, Scotty, by the way, isn't it like three in the morning in Okinawa right now? I go, yeah, sir, this is the shit that keeps me up at night. I go, getting orders to Yuma, but it was, again,

• 2:54:35Speaker 02

  you know, you gotta make the best out of a bad situation. Like I wasn't, you know, loving the commute back and forth to San Diego, Camp Pendleton, and, you know, to Yuma every week and living in the dorms, like a, you know, college dorm puke and sharing a bathroom with another major, but you learn so much and the talent is so impressive at MOTS one and that community too is, it's a little mafia, MOTS is. Like if you get the, they call it the chicken patch, it's an eagle. And if you're a weapons tactic instructor, that's like being a Top Gun. Like you're that guy. Like you don't become a student or an instructor at MOTS unless you've been hand-selected by your peers or by the schoolhouse. So it was, it was cool.

• 2:55:20Speaker 02

  But again, like the community, it took its toll on me, you know, running that, running the program twice a year and then I kinda did a little hookup deal with the monitor, who again, was one of the guys who's like five guys standing at EWS is like, you guys aren't graduating. And Brian, Brian Mulville was like, he did like screw up or he got in trouble or something, but now he's a full Colonel, he's regimental commander and.

• 2:55:47Speaker 02

  So he was my monitor. I says, hey, Brian, like, I need a, I need a cool job. And Sean Carroll, who I was in fast company with, again, this is like nepotism, but it happens, you know? Sean says, hey, I'm the 15th Mew Cissonopso. Uh, you want my job? Like, he was finding his own replacement. So Sean called me and I called Brian and says, hey, man, I want Sean's job. He goes, well, they're gonna have to let you out of Yuma a little bit early. So I had this kind of plead my case to the boss at Mots One. And luckily, you know, Colonel Heckle, he was a good dude. And like, he had respected how much I'd done for the institution and kind

• 2:56:26Speaker 02

  of gave me an early out or parole or something. But, you know, there's, there's one book I don't brag about too much or never get credit for writing, but I wrote this book. It's called, uh, it's, it's the new helicopter borne operations book, but it's called Air Assault. And it's Marine Corps doctrine. I don't talk about a whole lot because there's nothing sexy about it. But for a Marine in that schoolhouse, we used to do this, you know, run out the publications, the infantry guys, it was called, you know, how to plan a Hilo operation or, you know, helicopter one operations. Well, we bought this plane called the Osprey, not a helicopter. And those pilots were like, it's not a helicopter. So I took a thousand monkeys and a thousand typewriters to an offsite in Fort Worth, all pilots, aviators from the schoolhouse. And

• 2:57:11Speaker 02

  we wrote that book from scrap. I mean, and it took like eight years to get published through the Marine Corps doctrine project. Like, we suck at that, by the way. So that was one of the good things that came out of that. And then, you know, I went to the 15th Mew, did another deployment. Um, and as I had a Australian counterpart that came with me. Um, and so we had kind of overlapping jobs, but I was in Bahrain as the CENTCOM LNO. So, uh, you know, after 10 deployments, this is, you know, shitty duty assignments, uh, the sun shines on the dog's ass for once in a while. So I was staying at the diplomat in Bahrain. Nice. Getting all the radisson points and, you know,

• 2:57:56Speaker 02

  Sushi in the club. And so I'd go into the office, you know, during that whole deployment. It was just, you know, they're doing training exercises afloat and stuff and they did some real world stuff in the Middle East and it was a cool job though. I go in and brief the admiral and I wish I remember that guy's name, but he was funny, man. The, the captain was the, of the arg. He was a country boy from like West Virginia or something, man. As redneck as they come, but he's a full car, like he's a smart guy, obviously. But he, he used to love it and you know, he, all the sailors are hated too. You know, they were all like swo dudes and whatnot and they, I'd roll in, he's like, Scotty, like unless you have to brief me or the admirals on some, I think it was like

• 2:58:39Speaker 02

  Admiral Scott was on the show over there at the time. He goes, I don't expect you to be in this office. And so I'd just roll in and flip flops and civvies and, you know, it was, I'm sure you're familiar with that. Very. Yeah. It's like, it was, it was a cool gig, you know, and you know, you're, but again, that deployment got extended. So like I didn't, I needed to go early, but that, that too was where I kind of made the decision where I was going to retire. Because after getting blown up in Iraq and having a lot of spinal surgeries, my neck, my lower back, you know, thanks to the guys right in your backyard, you know, Balboa Naval Hospital, they took

• 2:59:20Speaker 02

  good care of me, but I was having a lot of problems and you know this, after the daily grind we put on our bodies, like it's a young man's game. And I honestly knew, and my boss knew, you know, I wasn't even allowed to run a PFT. The last two years I was with the 15th Mew and I was coming up on, on my 20 as an officer. So I could, you know, retire. And, you know, my boss was cool about it. Scott Campbell, he was an operator dude. He was an orange guy and Anglican guy. He's like, look, I don't, I've never needed you for your body. He's like, you're in great shape, you know, because I was swimming and I'm always hyper conscious of that. But I couldn't run a PFT. He goes, I need you for

• 3:00:02Speaker 02

  your mind. He's like, you're one of the best planners I've ever had on my team. He goes, He goes, that's what you're gonna do and you're gonna keep doing that. And I want you in Bahrain. Like, I want you to be my mouth to these Navy guys of how we're fighting the Mew in their AO. So it was cool. It was a good deployment, but you know, on that same deployment, I made the decision like I, I'm going to retire. And I always told myself, when it stops being fun, like, I'm gonna hang up my rifle and, and try something else. And never thought it would be, never thought it would be writing. Honestly, I've, you know, I've shared enough of that background, but you know, I like talking about that. Like the guy I'm staying with here, Mike Sager, like, I love talking about writing and I love telling other veterans

• 3:00:47Speaker 02

  about the importance of writing and sharing great stories. I'm not saying everything has to be a bestseller. I'm just saying it's like you, there are ways to, you know, tell your story and do it the right way. And that, that's kind of one of the cool things too, that, you know, I, I created for myself after I retired and worked in the private sector for a little bit. I just didn't love it. You know, money is great, but I just didn't love it. And that's when I-

• 3:01:11Jocko Willink?

  What'd you do in the private sector?

• 3:01:12Speaker 02

  Uh, I worked for a private security firm in Hollywood and basically wrote their training plan and, um, you know, there's a lot, and there was a lot of veterans in the, in the company as well. Um, but the, uh, I, I just found that there, there was a lack of culture that didn't, that I didn't like. And so, you know, I transitioned again. I said, hey, I'm gonna lock myself, my student, I'm gonna start writing. And that's when I started working on Echo and Ramadi.

• 3:01:40Speaker 02

  And then-

• 3:01:40Jocko Willink?

  So at that point, in the book, you talk about, you had like the neck surgeries. Now you're on painkillers, you're drinking, uh, you end up in a drunk driving crash.

• 3:01:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, I almost killed myself.

• 3:01:56Jocko Willink?

  And you're-

• 3:01:57Speaker 02

  Or someone else. That would have been worse. I mean, luckily-

• 3:02:01Jocko Willink?

  Were you in the Marine Corps when that happened?

• 3:02:03Speaker 02

  No.

• 3:02:03Jocko Willink?

  Or so this is after you retired.

• 3:02:05Speaker 02

  So I'm writing the book-

• 3:02:06Jocko Willink?

  So when you, when you were, cause it sounded like you, you were in a pretty rough spot, like you were drinking a lot, you know, painkillers, you were having panic attacks. All that stuff is after you retired.

• 3:02:16Speaker 02

  I had, I had, uh, panic attacks started while I was on active duty, um, with the 15th Mew.

• 3:02:24Speaker 02

  Just a couple of them. And then-

• 3:02:28Speaker 02

  I would continue to have those occasionally, but I think I got them under control. It wasn't frequent. I mean, I could count on both hands, like the number of times I've had it. But it's a weird feeling if you've ever had one. Yeah, the physical, it's just overwhelming that you have no control over it. But it's, you know, as explained to me, it's like, you know, your body's way of releasing its own pressure valve. But it feels like a heart attack. So, yeah, then, you know, as I'm, as I'm writing the book, you know, and I'm, I'm in, I'm still in a lot of pain. Then, you know, again, this, this is kind of like where I was talking about Sylvie's, like, there's none of you in the book. And I had to share this part of my life. It's like, it wasn't easy.

• 3:03:11Speaker 02

  But, you know, it makes you feel a little bit more human when you share that part of yourself. It's like, look, I know I'm not the only guy that's dealing with this. And again, I was, you know, just trying to replicate that friction, man, that, that adrenaline. So, you know, I'm drinking, I'm self-medicating, I'm taking pain pills. And then, you know, I'm going to my buddy's house. He's like a pro, he's not a biker biker, like, you know, Hell's Angels. Like, he's one of the lead pro motocross, Jimmy Fitzpatrick, who's my neighbor, like, you know, Fitz Army and Metal Militia, like, you know, all those guys. Anyway, that's Jimmy's, like, he threw some ragers. It's like Playboy Mansion, you know, the grottos, you know, big house. Like, there weren't Playboy mansions. It's just like a bunch of, you know, party animals over there.

• 3:03:55Speaker 02

  We go over and we're hanging out, like, I'm fighting Jimmy and like, he's like, you know, I'm like, he's a young kid. Like, he's in good shape, too. He was like, and I was wasted and, you know. I drove home that night. I don't even remember getting in my Jeep. And then I was only, literally, less than a mile is how close you were. But I made the stupid decision to think that I could drive and I woke up.

• 3:04:23Speaker 02

  Surrounded by yellow dust and that was the airbags that had gone off in my Jeep and I had crashed into a culvert full of, you know, eight inch rock and Stewart, Stewart drain and someone from the party drove by, but you know, again, you know, I wrote, I was like, that, that was humbling experience for me.

• 3:04:45Jocko Willink?

  Was that like a rock bottom scenario for you?

• 3:04:48Speaker 02

  Pretty much.

• 3:04:48Jocko Willink?

  Or not quite?

• 3:04:49Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:04:49Jocko Willink?

  Did you stop drinking?

• 3:04:51Speaker 02

  I did. Yeah.

• 3:04:52Jocko Willink?

  So, cause that's what a lot of times you hear people talk about.

• 3:04:56Speaker 02

  I mean, I stopped cold drinking for a year. Like I just couldn't physically go by it and like, that was kind of a switch too is like, I, I never want to be out in public where I can lose control. Like I still drink if I want to, um, but you know, I don't, I don't feel like I did then, like I was using alcohol to do this and I was using it as a tool, but yeah, that was, it was kind of a rock bottom thing and to share that too is pretty tough. You know, it's like, you know, especially when we have family and you know, it was kind of swept under the rug, you know, it's nothing you'd really like to brag about, uh, to be quite honest with you, but again,

• 3:05:37Speaker 02

  I'm human. Um, you're a human. Um, I think the people we lead and surround ourselves by are people that see us on social media or from afar, they think you can become infallible, but when you share that about yourself, um, it was a real, real lesson for me. Um, that I had to find a new way to replicate what I was missing in my life. Maybe, uh, I don't, I don't even know if writing about it was, yeah, I don't know if you ever get this too. Your story is so much different though, even though you share a lot of those. People ask you, when you finished the book, was it this big cathartic moment for you?

• 3:06:16Speaker 02

  No, it wasn't. I did. It wasn't like, oh man, it feels so great. Like I should, like I can sleep well at night. It wasn't any of that for me. Writing is a job. It's work. It's a lot of work. It's a kick in the balls most days. But sharing that story was important, but it didn't provide that relief. But I also liked having something to focus on. Like when I'm writing this book, man, or when I'm writing anything, like I am in it. Like I'm doing the work.

• 3:06:45Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you have a mission.

• 3:06:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, when I'm helping other authors with what we've created, like I'm in it. Like they are getting everything I have for them. And it's a lot of work. And it's a very, very long discouraging process. You know.

• 3:07:02Jocko Willink?

  It is indeed.

• 3:07:03Speaker 02

  Man, I don't know if you do, like I go into libraries or bookstore, Barnes and Noble, whatever. I look around like I, it's hard for me to read. Like I'm disciplined in, in how I read. Like I make it part of my daily routine as a discipline, but um, I wouldn't want to read most of the stuff that's on the shelves, but I can totally respect the process that it took to get that one little book sitting on that shelf. Because the ones that aren't sitting there, I know where those are too. Sitting on someone's computer because they didn't do the work.

• 3:07:34Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, so when, when people come to me and they want to write a book, I'm always like, well, it's, it's a big undertaking and selling books is really hard. Cause not only you're asking for someone to give you 20 bucks and like 10 hours of their time. Cause that's what it takes to read a book, you know, it takes like 10 hours to read a book. So, hey, Scott, give me 20 bucks and then give me 20 or 10 hours of your time. That's what you want. So that book better give them something back, you know? Otherwise, they're probably not going to read it.

• 3:08:06Speaker 02

  It has to be entertaining too. I, I, I, when I coach people, so Ben Sledge is going to be on the show next week.

• 3:08:16Speaker 02

  This is another great story. I love telling the story about Ben too. It's like, and I haven't shared it a lot. It's usually just not in public, but um, so there, there's, there's a couple of pieces of this story and I brought some props in there. Sitting here on the desk, but that are these linkages, which is cool. So this, this guy, Ivan Ingram, just wrote this book, Once We Pledged Forever, published by Mike Sager, who I'm staying with here as I came down to hang out with you guys. I get a phone call from Ben Sledge. Hey, sir, uh, this is Ben Sledge. Uh, I'm not sure if you remember me or not, but, uh, I want to let you know that I wrote about you in my book. I said, really? I said, what's your book called? He goes, it's called Where Cowards Go to Die.

• 3:09:01Speaker 02

  I go, man, that's a cool title. Great title. Um, I said, who's your publisher? He says, Regnery. I go, hold on a second. I said, we have the same publisher. And they didn't call me and ask me for a blurb or like endorse it or help. Like, he's like, I don't know, sir. He's like, I don't get it. Um, you know, I told them about you and this, it's like, and they suck. I'm like, you know, that's not indictment, I'll hold call me. I'm just saying it's like that. They missed a beat. And so he says, and I'm not sure, sir, if you remember me. He goes, I actually fought under your command. I said, that's why I wrote about you. I says, well, man, I'm honored. I says, uh, who were you with? He goes, I was one of your CAD guys, like civil affairs. I said, I don't remember you, man. I said, uh, but there were a lot of guys on my command and they were in and out. And, uh, this is when we were in Western Ramadi.

• 3:09:47Speaker 02

  And he goes, you actually gave, uh, you actually gave us some awards too. Like before you rolled out and gave them a guy some mail. Says, I don't remember that either. I said, but, uh, I'm glad we were taking care of the boys. And so he goes on and on and, uh, you know, it was just kind of a cool little reunion. Um, and he asked me what I was doing and, you know, he was very congratulatory about echoing Ramadi. And, uh, I says, well, honestly, man, I said, you really just started helping this other guy, Ivan, who's a Marsoc Marine Raider, Special Forces dude. Uh, Ivan calls me and he's like, hey, Scotty, uh,

• 3:10:24Speaker 02

  I really would like your help. Uh, I'm, I want to be a writer and, uh, I know you can't teach me everything you know in a one hour phone call. It'd be a waste of everyone's time. I says, you're right. I said, and I don't do that. I said, uh, and we went, we were lieutenants together. We went to the base school there, like I've known him my whole life. Smart guy. And so he says, how about you think about it? And, uh, and I want to pay you. He goes, I insist on paying you. And so he would just Venmo me some cash.

• 3:10:54Speaker 02

  And so I created a syllabus from like soup to nuts, like creating a story arc, character development, um, how to find an agent, how to, you know, deal with publishing houses, uh, everything, you know, in the whole process I went through. So he didn't have to do a million Google searches, but I wrote it all down. And so I said, all right, man, you're going to call me on these days and we're going to, I'm going to talk for one hour. You're going to shut up, take notes and this is going to be reduced. So I told Ben about this. He goes, hey, sir, he's like, ah, you should make a company out of this. You should create a website. I'm like, no, no, no. It's like, I got enough websites. I had like three already, like a speaking website, the book website. And he goes, no, I'll do it for you. I said, what do you mean? So he's also a web designer, Ben is, among other talents this kid has, um, which is why I threw him

• 3:11:39Speaker 02

  under the bus when we were planning the Ramadi reunion in El Paso. I was like, Ben's going to do that, sir. I told General McFarland. It was like, he's perfect. And, um, so he creates this website and we started this company in Texas, Solid Copy Media LLC. And so I started teaching guys. Um, and really it was cool too, because then I realized, well, I need to bring in other people who supported me and are smart and other bestselling authors. So I brought, you know, I said, told Ben, I was like, hey, congratulations, man. You're now the managing partner. And he goes, really? I go, yeah. I go, it doesn't pay much. It's what we get. It's like right now. But so we launched this and just through word of mouth, we've started helping

• 3:12:21Speaker 02

  coach and mentor aspiring writers because they, I, I brought like Michelle Black in who, you know, wrote, you know, Sacrifice. Um, and then word of mouth just started, started spreading. So, you know, here's a guy I went to TBS with and now through my connection with Mike Sager, who again, I met from my neurologist here in San Diego when I was getting treatments. Um, you know, he's an award winning, you know, journalist with Esquire and Rolling Stone is, I says, hey, I think you should work with Ivan and we should publish his book. So he did. And it just came out last month. It's called Once We Pledged Forever and it's a novel. But it's loosely based off of, as you can guess, a Marsoc special board's operator.

• 3:13:04Jocko Willink?

  Fancy that.

• 3:13:05Speaker 02

  Yeah. And so that's how that kind of, you know, just came full circle, but.

• 3:13:11Jocko Willink?

  So what's the name of the company?

• 3:13:12Speaker 02

  Solid Copy Media LLC.

• 3:13:15Jocko Willink?

  And is it, is it solidcopymedia.com?

• 3:13:19Speaker 02

  Uh, yes. Solidcopymedia.com.

• 3:13:21Jocko Willink?

  So if people are interested in this, they can, that's where they can find it.

• 3:13:25Speaker 02

  Yeah. You know, you know what this company is, has become? I created the world's best bullshit filter that I've ever created because here's the thing. I used to get and still do, me and Vinnie Vargas were talking about this when I was doing this pot up in Salt Lake. He's like, how many people hit you? I'm like, hey, can you help me write my book? Or hey, will you read my book? It's like, like a lot. And again, I don't have 10 hours of my life to just waste. And then they want advice and then they want this. I'm like, man, I just got to the point where I'm just like, delete, delete, delete. And then when I started helping Ivan and Ben came in and we kind of formalized it and I created a syllabus. And the website is awesome. By the way, he did it asleep. It's really amazing.

• 3:14:06Speaker 02

  And I tell people it's like, hey, if you want to do this course, it's going to cost you money. You have to invest in yourself. And I never hear from him again. I'm like, self correcting problem. I'm like, perfect. I like, obviously they're not a pro. They don't want to do the work and I never hear from them again. They never keep passing me like, read my book, read my book, read my book. Cause it's an investment. And sometimes when I hit the delete key, it might've been the next, you know, New York Times bestseller. But they, they don't want to do the work. Like I doubt that's the case. It was probably, you know, a couple of hundred pages of garbage. So we built this company and again, we just, I really enjoy it.

• 3:14:45Speaker 02

  When you're in training command, like teaching and instructing people is like, I really enjoy that. I really, and I really love. You know, sharing that with people and sometimes people, you have your own disciplines. And like, I, I do four things every day. I try to do four things every day. Like, I try to do something physical, maybe just on my chainsaw. I try to educate myself. I try to read or do something that will inform myself.

• 3:15:12Speaker 02

  I try to put myself in a difficult position. Maybe it's, you know, flying to California again and, you know, doing a podcast. Maybe it's speaking in front of a group of high school students. That's an uncomfortable position, by the way, but I do it. I force myself out. And then the last thing is like, I always try and help someone besides myself. And if I was able to do that for one hour a day, every single day, like, there's still 20 hours left in a day. And I don't beat myself up if I don't do that every day. I give myself a break. But being able to help people share their stories and bringing other bestselling authors in. We have former presidents of publishing houses. We have freelance editors. We have publicists. We have podcasters. We have screenwriters.

• 3:15:56Speaker 02

  All people who are successful in this business. So I brought them all under the umbrella. I says, hey, you want to be part of this company? And they're like, we do a percentage and do this. I said, but what we've created is access. Now you have access to a screenwriter. You have access to a podcaster. You have access, like, how do you do this? And you can get a consultation from them and learn from a pro. So you're not doing a thousand Google searches like how I had to learn. And so, you know, that's how we started the company. But even, even before that, that's like, you know, when we were talking about like, what do you do in transition? What did, how was your transition? Like, I never thought I'd be doing this. I don't know if I'm going to do it for another five years or 10 years or not.

• 3:16:37Speaker 02

  But, uh, you know, how did I become, people, Tyler likes this too, because he loves calling me his agent. You know, I'm like, hey, man, don't call me literary agent, but I am a literary agent. I have sold all these books to mainstream publishing houses. That's something that is, you know, just come into my life. And, uh, you know, again, it, I'll tell you a story how it started. It started with this, with Andy Begeo's book, The Rifle. This is literally how, like, all of these books have, I became an agent. Even though, again, I kind of shun the title because I don't want to be lumped in with, you know, scummy ambulance chasing lawyers or whatever. Agents, like, you take it over the head, you know, what's fun to do is.

• 3:17:22Speaker 02

  Before I share the stories, like, you know, the veteran community is tight and the reason I do it is because I like sharing those stories. We were talking about that, but the minute things go sideways, like I stopped being a fellow Marine or veteran, like now I'm just the agent. Like, why did you this? You know, get an all caps text. I'm like, hey, man, remember like when everyone else said no to you, like Scotty said yes, because I did the work, but.

• 3:17:45Jocko Willink?

  Why won't my, why isn't my book selling the way you would said it would?

• 3:17:48Speaker 02

  So this, this story written by Andrew Baggio is called The Rifle and it's combat stories from World War II. He is a huge following. He's a lovable guy, a Marine reservist and Boston cop. And so I get this message on LinkedIn, Jocko, and it's from this kid, Andy Baggio. Hey, sir, I bought 20, like, I don't know, he bought like 25 or 50 copies of my book. He goes, I'd love it if you came to Boston and signed him at the VFW and blah, blah, blah. And we do this motorcycle rally and I really love your work. And I said, yes, I kind of e-stocked him a little bit, you know, did a scouting report and like, he was legit and, you know, we had spoken

• 3:18:33Speaker 02

  on the phone and like, I kind of gaffed him off and like, he calls me again. It's like a couple of weeks before the event, man. And he says, don't worry about it, sir. He goes, I understand you're busy. You know, you got a lot on your plate all the time. I said, no, man, I make time. I said, I'm going to fly out. I said, I'm getting my ticket today. I see you can pay me back for it or not. I don't care, but I promise you, Marine, I'm coming out. And because he was a young sergeant, Iraq, Afghanistan vet, he was a reservist, like I said, and so I fly out and I have no great expectations, you know? And he also asked me, he's like, you know, they do this motorcycle rally. He's like, you know, would you say a few words at the rally? I was like, yeah, cool. Not a problem. So I land, Boston Logan.

• 3:19:18Speaker 02

  Doors open up. I grabbed my bag off the luggage thing. There's these three burly Boston cops. Are you Major Scott Huesing?

• 3:19:25Jocko Willink?

  Hell, yeah.

• 3:19:26Speaker 02

  I said, uh, yep. He go, get in the car. You coming with us? I was like, all right, cool. Like they drive me to this embassy suites in Winthrop, Mass. And, and there's this huge event going on. Like all these disabled vets are there. Herschel Woody Williams, one of my personal heroes and friends who we lost last year is there. Um, you know, great group of Bostonians and we're all hanging out. And so, um, I'm like, uh, this is cool, you know? And then the, the next day we get up for this little motorcycle rally. No. 2,500 Harleys around the whole city of Boston. And then it ends at Suffolk Downs, which is this like state fairgrounds, man, if you can imagine it's huge.

• 3:20:11Speaker 02

  And so Andy wants me to be the closing speaker in front of 8,000 people at Suffolk Downs. And I'm not just a closing speaker. I'd prepared some notes, you know, and here I am out from California. And, uh, I'm actually standing there, um, as a closing speaker behind, um, you know, some pretty well-known people. Herschel was there as well. And I'm kind of on Woody watch, you know, making sure no one bumps into him. And we, it was funny because like that year, like me and Woody had been to the Nixon museum, speaking together, like, he must've thought I was like stalking him, but we've known each other for a long, long time. So I get on stage and I'd prepared some notes. I wad them up and throw them into the crowd. I said, Andy, in his true humble nature, did not mention that I'd be flying out here to the great state of Massachusetts.

• 3:20:56Speaker 02

  And speaking after the governor of the state of Massachusetts, Olympic gold medalists, all these heroes, Herschel Woody Williams. I said, so I'm not going to say what I planned on saying like, so I kind of winged it. The crowd loved it. And so we go back to Andy's house and, um, it's a family home. Like it's, you know, this whole family's always lived there since like, you know, 1900s, like this old Boston home.

• 3:21:19Jocko Willink?

  Since Plymouth Rock.

• 3:21:20Speaker 02

  And so as we were talking about, uh, during our break, grabbing some Jocko fuel, um, he says, hey, sir, uh, I'm writing a book. And I go, oh, here we go. Everybody's writing a book like, and I'm like, he's going to drop the hammer on us. He was such a nice guy, like Andy. He can be talking with these World War II veterans and with this air of reverence and yet busting their balls at the same time like a good soldier would do and they love him for it. Like it's just remarkable talent that he has. It's just him. So he tells me about this book and I says, yeah, man, why don't you send it to me? So he sends me this manuscript and I start reading it. I start reading. I was like, man, this kid can write. He says, Andy might play

• 3:22:03Speaker 02

  a caveman on TV, but he's got a master's degree in history. Uh, he's a resident smart ass, uh, even to this day. Um, so I read this thing. It says, hey, man, um, I really think that this book should be published. I said, are you, are you ready for that? And, uh, so we gave him the, the highs and lows. And so I reached out to my editor, Alex Novak, um, at Regnery and Alex is the son of Bob Novak from CNN Crossfire. Alex Sharp dude. Um, he's become a great friend and a great publisher at, at, at Post Hill Press. But when we were at Regnery, um, he was my editor. And so I called Alex. I says, uh, hey, man, I really think you should take a look at this in

• 3:22:44Speaker 02

  the history imprint. Probably gonna love this. And this kid's got a big, big following too already. He's like, they love this video content of this, this rifle that he's got. And so he reads it and

• 3:22:59Speaker 02

  it sits for a while and I'm not sure if they're gonna buy it, you know? And I'm just another author who's done pretty well recommending a book of a friend. But Alex knows like if I'm reading it, Scotty's probably giving it a sniff test. It's gonna be good. So this, I, a couple months goes by and I'm in San Antonio and I pick up the phone and I says, hey, Andy, uh, I got some news for you. I says, uh, congratulations. You're gonna be a published author. And I think he started crying on the phone. I'm not ashamed to admit that, but he was very taken aback. So he, he writes this book, you know, this, this amazing book called The Rifle about this M1 Grand. And so it's Andy and people always ask me like, well, how did he like, why did we run and write this

• 3:23:44Speaker 02

  book? I said, well, like any Marine, um, you know, he's curious. So he goes into his, his grandma's basement or something. The, the, the family tree I'll screw up at some point when I tell the story, but she went through these, he, he went through her letters from his great uncle, Andrew, and the street named after him right by the house too. And he wrote how in World War II and he was killed in Anzio. But he loved this rifle, this M1 Garand. He loved it in training. He loved carrying it in war. And also, you know, Andy, after reading all these letters, like any Marine would do, you know, and he's a cop too. He goes out and he buys a rifle. And so he says to himself, self, what the shit am I going to do with this rifle now?

• 3:24:29Speaker 02

  So he goes down three doors and starts talking to PFC Joe Drago. This 90 year old infirm World War II Pacific Campaign Marine. And he hands him this rifle and his eyes light up. And he starts waving this rifle around the room. He's like, eh, telling these stories and he can't get enough of it. And he won't shut up. He's like, go to that dresser and get that bag out. And like, there's a bag of gold teeth from like Japanese soldiers. And like, he's sharing all this stuff that he'd hidden away his whole life. And right there, Andy says, I'm going to take this rifle and put it in the hands of as many World War II veterans it can

• 3:25:13Speaker 02

  and capture their stories and they're going to sign the rifle. So over 400 signatures later, we have this amazing story. And there's also The Rifle too, which talks about the journey of Andy. Cause again, when I'm teaching people how to write and I'm like, you know, being the Sherpa on this, this grueling ass kicking journey of being a writer is there's, there's great parts and there's low parts. I said, you have to be in the story. You're the hero of the story that all the travels and the journeys. And if you follow The Rifle and Andy on, on Instagram, like, man, there are some of the most heartwarming stories with these old geezers. And like, he's a geezer magnet. Like he just, there's just something about him, man. I love watching him and hearing these guys, someone like over a hundred years old.

• 3:25:59Speaker 02

  But Andy has all the stats and they signed it. And in the second book, he talks about some of the bullshit stories. Like he found out like one guy's like, like. He was, he was found out. He's like, I was, you know, storming the beaches on Omaha Beach. I'm like, no, tuba player, US Army Band, never deployed. And so Andy, he's got this rifle, which you can see is like hundreds of signatures in, in paint. And now he's here with a Q-tips, like stolen valor, war war two, man. Yeah.

• 3:26:29Jocko Willink?

  You know, when you go to Gettysburg in the Pennsylvania monument? And if you go look at the names of the Pennsylvania monument, it's got the names of the guys that served, but some of them are scraped off.

• 3:26:38Speaker 02

  Really?

• 3:26:38Jocko Willink?

  Because same exact things. People like bullshit. You weren't there. Whoa, Scott Houston, you put your name on this monument? You weren't there. They go, they scraped that thing off. So that shit's been around for a while, apparently.

• 3:26:50Speaker 02

  I know, man. It's, uh, yeah. So, you know, they existed back then, but that, that's, you know, technically how it, you know, became a, an agent.

• 3:26:59Jocko Willink?

  So now what do you got for books? Read them out. What do you got? The rifle?

• 3:27:02Speaker 02

  We got, yeah.

• 3:27:03Jocko Willink?

  What's the one underneath that?

• 3:27:04Speaker 02

  So, and again, like through word of mouth, this is, uh, Fred Galvin in Salmona. It's called A Few Bad Men. Um, and, uh, so.

• 3:27:12Jocko Willink?

  What's that one about?

• 3:27:13Speaker 02

  The Marsoc seven. Um, so he was, uh, a marine, uh, you know, Marsoc guy. One of the first guys in Afghanistan and, uh, you know, they're sent, ordered out, um, into the hinterland. Uh, ambush goes sideways. Uh, they return fire. And then, you know, the essence of the story is, you know, now you've got the seven, you know, especially trained operators that are, you know, accused, charged, tried, convicted, and then later, uh, exonerated of this ambush gone wrong where civilians were killed. There was crossfire, but never exonerated. So it really is, you know, indicative of the title and even Fred to this day.

• 3:27:57Speaker 02

  Um, you know, and it's funny too, like when I get pitched these stories and you were talking about it's like, you get a lot of them too. It's like, uh, so I don't know. Fred and I were both in FASCO. I mean, we know a lot of same dudes and, uh, when he sends me this book, I read it and it's. It's in a career new pitch 12 dot single space. I said, man, I said, I gotta tell you for it. I said, this book is really good. Like this is a story I said, but it reads like an investigative journalist fucked a marine officer and had this is the baby. He goes, well, you know, I was a marine officer and Sal is an investigative journalist. I was like, I said, yeah, man, I said, I'm gonna put you in touch with my editor. I said, and she's gonna take this from good to great. And that's what great editors do. Stephen King wrote some books. You might have heard of this guy.

• 3:28:42Speaker 02

  But he always said to air is human to edit divine. I was like, yeah, Steve knows a couple of things about writing. So when I handed this off, that's what happened. And then again, you know, I, I, I called Alex was one of the first guys I can't always get, he's kind of my default. Like I give him first right of refusal, but he loved it and the book's done really well. I think this again is,

• 3:29:06Speaker 02

  this is another story of great importance that, you know, it is a lot of the injustices too within the military. And you know what I loved most about this book? Is that he names names. He does not mince around it.

• 3:29:20Jocko Willink?

  So then you got this book forged in chaos.

• 3:29:23Speaker 02

  Yeah. Um, this is, this is the latest one that, uh, again, the connection came through Ben Sledge.

• 3:29:33Speaker 02

  Is he says, hey, you should meet this guy Tyler. I have no idea who Tyler Gray is. I have no idea who's in, you know, Delta Force operator, you know, tier one dude, actor, writer, producer on the CBS Paramount plus TV show Steel Team. And, uh, so my phone rings. I'm in, I'm building out my horse arena and I'm on my chains are some kind of phone rings. I'm like, it's Tyler. You know, so I'm like, hey, what's up, man? And like, he's telling me a little about it and he can kind of be a little all over the map sometimes, you know, and his, he tells me about this story. I don't hear from him for a long time. And then He introduced me to his co-writer Lauren Geldy. She's amazing, talented woman. Again,

• 3:30:13Speaker 02

  like she's written 12 books. She wrote Daryl Ut's book, Grit to Glory. He's a former Green Beret. She's, she's just phenomenal. I don't know how she puts herself like an alien in a human suit and can speak special operator and she does an amazing job. But I don't hear from him. And then she, so he finally makes a decision like he goes, yeah, I want to work with you because although, yes, I'm an agent, I'm more of a hybrid because I do way, way more than any typical agent does. Like every, every blurb on this book, I think maybe might as well, Jack Carr included.

• 3:30:54Speaker 02

  Like I solicit these guys, like, and I would say that slimy, like they're friends. I'm like, like Scott Mann. I'm like, who, you know, is the author of Pineapple Express. I met Scott Mann through my Terp, who I wrote about in my book, when I promoted him to lieutenant in the US Navy Cyber Warfare. He goes, you got to meet this guy, Scott Mann. So he's like, good guy, you'd meet him. And so we go over, hanging out at Scott's place on the, on the lake. And that's how me and Scott became buds. And so when it comes time to like sharing great stories, I'm like, Scott, you got to read this book. Jack, you got to read this book. And you know, that's, some people say like blurbs don't really mean anything. It's not really why I do it is, you

• 3:31:35Speaker 02

  know, this, this story that he has written is, the reviews that I see too, is what's cool about this is, you know, we're talking about making an impact. Civilians are posting comments on Amazon. It's like, I needed this book. I really needed this book because he talks about the, his theory of lack of traumatic stress disorder that he dealt with and his, man, you want to talk about rock bottom moment. Like again, like it is, it gets pretty, pretty gritty down there with Tyler, but.

• 3:32:06Jocko Willink?

  Makes me want to read it.

• 3:32:07Speaker 02

  I read it in two days, man. I'm, I'm not kidding you. This was one of those books. And again, for a kid who has short attention span theater, like I, I kept going like, I got to get back and I got to read some more of that book. I wanted to know how this book was unfolding and how it would ultimately end. And Lauren, and he did an amazing job. And. You know, what's cool too is because of what I do and the like my hybrid nature like I'm helping promote it. I'm help doing, you know, whatever I can. I'm editing like agents don't edit like right now. Lauren calls me like after this, like before the book even launches last month. She's like, I want to work with you again. And she goes, I have been sitting on this story, but I have not found the right person.

• 3:32:51Speaker 02

  And it is just one of the most, I'm very excited about this project and I can talk about it publicly because it's already been out there. Lauren has written the story of B B Aisha and most don't know the name, but will remember her photograph on the cover of Time Magazine. As a young Afghan girl that had her nose and ears cut off. And we just finished the final edits. We're, you know, on the cusp of, you know, introducing it to major publishing houses. But it is one of the most important stories for people to read, not men, not women, people.

• 3:33:31Speaker 02

  What this young woman went through is for a battle hardened warrior like, you know, me or you to read this, you think, just when I thought I had it rough. You read about one of the victims of the brutality of the Taliban and that culture. And I couldn't be more proud to be part of the project. And it's one of those things where like helping veterans and even, you know, civilians now have, you know, asked for me to help them out. Because of my love of sharing great stories, not just military ones, but man, that this is going to be a good one. I'm excited about it. And then Guns Girls and Greed, we were talking a little bit about that.

• 3:34:17Speaker 02

  I get a phone call from, I was with the Writers Guild in LA and I was in a course and

• 3:34:26Speaker 02

  One of the mentors, he goes, hey, man, uh, he goes, I think you should take a look at this book. And this is a couple of years back and it, uh, he kinda got hosed over by some indie press and they, they, I took a bunch of his money and they didn't do anything for him. So I, I read the manuscript and no ki- no kidding. I'm reading this book on the shitter and like, uh, it reads so fast. Like I think I was through the first four chapters. I'm like, I gotta get off the toilet, man. Like my legs are gonna fall asleep. It was like, I was sucked in. I'm like, and I'm reading it on my phone.

• 3:35:00Speaker 02

  And so I, I called the guy. I said, you gotta introduce me to this guy, Morgan Lorette. I said, I, I wanna read this book and it, man, it is like rapid fire and, uh, it was, he makes no bones about him being a mercenary. And he's a air force veteran, army veteran. He was all over the map. Um, lives in Arizona now, but, um, and I, I told him, I said, hey man, I think we should, you know, get this book published. Um, and he, I told him this to his face. He, he thought he was doing me some favor. And I was like, no, it's kinda the other way around. Uh, but I'll just wait to hear back from you. So he goes to this other place and he gets screwed over. And well, sure enough, phone rings.

• 3:35:42Speaker 02

  Hey Scott, uh, how's it going? Uh, I'd really like to, like you to be my agent and, uh, help me with this book. I go, I can't help you. I said, uh, it's too late. It's down range. Uh, cause it was hung on Amazon. I was like, shit show, you know? We had to go through all this and I said, I can't talk to you legally, like until you get the rights back. Like you just, it's not how the business works. Like I gotta, you know, protect everybody involved. So he calls me like months later, he's get the rights back. His court case, there's all this and like, so we gotta find a way to kinda relaunch this amazing story. Cause I wouldn't have even picked up the phone. Cause, uh, he, Borg is a friend of mine too. Like all these guys are friends of mine. They're all veterans, you know? I, but man, he's handful sometimes, you know? So I kinda had to lay it out loud. I was like, look, man, this is the way it's gonna work.

• 3:36:26Speaker 02

  I don't hear anything about what your wife wants. I want this. I said, you're gonna do this, what I say, when I say and how I say. He's like, you got it, man. Roger that. So we added some other crazy, crazy stories in this book called Guns, Girls and Greed. We came up with a new title and kinda like rebirthed it and it's done great. Uh, I mean, I, I think that, uh, it's, it's man, it's, it's crazy what.

• 3:36:54Speaker 02

  Mercenaries do and you know, when you're talking about Blackwater especially like, and we all know that the guy that found those Navy SEAL prints like, but there's a lot of scandal going in that community. There's a lot of turmoil with so many multiple agencies and we worked with all of them. I mean, especially when we're in Baghdad and it was like ages, triple cannibie, Blackwater, like mom and pop gun clubs going over there doing private security. Man is like,

• 3:37:20Speaker 02

  some of the stuff that went down, Morgan shares that. And again, he's another one of those guys, like, I respect it. If you're gonna name names or or barf 300 pages and hanging on Amazon, like, you better pony up, man. Give, give the reader some entertainment and some information at the same time. That's tough to do. So, but it's, it's been a journey, man. Um, you know,

• 3:37:43Speaker 02

  again, I didn't read growing up. My mom didn't read to me.

• 3:37:48Jocko Willink?

  My mama didn't read to me.

• 3:37:49Speaker 02

  No, a single mom, you know, worked, worked, worked two jobs and you know, I'm grateful for that. But, uh, you know, I didn't read even in high school.

• 3:37:57Jocko Willink?

  I didn't read either.

• 3:37:58Speaker 02

  I didn't read a book cover to cover, Cliff Notes, like I barely squeaked by. And I said, when we came in, I go, I wanted to talk about, we know a lot of the same people and a lot of your guests on the show, but Johnny M. Clark is one of them, who you had on, I think it was last year.

• 3:38:13Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 3:38:14Speaker 02

  Cause it was, cause it was funny. I get a, I get a phone call. Hey, man, I'm supposed to be doing this podcast. This Jocko Willink guy, he goes, Scotty, do you know him? I go, yeah, he's a good guy. So like, he's, he's in Florida. And, um, well, any event, let's rewind, rewind. It's the first part of the book. I'm in Desert Storm, young Lance Corporal, sitting on a 50 caliber machine gun in Bahrain outside Shaikiz Air Base. And, uh, you know, we used to get these care packages, you know, in the, say, any service member. And so I am opening this up and I go through it and then, you know, it's corn nuts and there's letters from kids and crayon and, and there's magazines or comic books. And in mine, there's a book.

• 3:38:57Speaker 02

  And it's called Guns Up by Johnny M. Clark. And I'm like, out of sheer boredom, I start thumbing through this paperback. And man, it's about a machine gunner. And oh, one of the characters is named Big Red, this big redhead from, I think, the Midwest. And so I get into this, like, I read it. And I finished the book. The very first book I read, cover to cover, is Guns Up by Johnny M. Clark. And so, fast forward, I've published my book. And just out of curiosity, like, I must have been telling this story to someone. The story gets better, because I e-stock him and see where he's at in the world. And he's a black belt instructor, down in Tampa. I was like, you gotta be kidding me. Like, this guy's still kicking around. Like,

• 3:39:41Speaker 02

  he's 70 something. And so I email him. And we kind of go back and forth. I says, hey, I'd be really honored to send you a copy of my book. And I told him, like, Guns Up was the very first book I ever read. I tell him the whole story. Weeks go by, and I pull a Manila envelope out of the mail. And guess what's in it? A signed copy of a paperback edition of Guns Up. So Johnny and I have been friends, and pen pals for years. I mean, because this is 2018 is when my book came out. So I met, last year, I met a 2-4 reunion in Miami, or close nearby. But I called

• 3:40:23Speaker 02

  Johnny, I says, hey, man, I'm doing this reunion. I said, but I'm planning my trip. If you're gonna be home, I'm gonna do a layover in Tampa. I said, I would love to get together with you. So sure enough, last year, I can't remember what month it was, but Johnny picked me up at the airport, drove me to his house, and we cruised on his pontoon boat, and we're drinking beers and having snacks. That's the first time we ever met face to face. But it all started during Desert Storm, when I opened that care package. So. When you talk about things coming full circle, all of these stories I've shared is not to gratuitously promote books of clients of mine or anything, but it's like, because guys sit in a room that are like,

• 3:41:03Speaker 02

  we're lovers of education, we're readers, it's a struggle for us to read. And then, you know, this power of human connection, man, from, from everybody we've served with over, you know, the better part of our adult life to what we're doing now is like, I remember when Marlese has sent that questionnaire, I was like, man, I just can't cover it. Like I, I'm a writer, but like, I felt like I did a disservice to her because I know she's got a tough job.

• 3:41:26Jocko Willink?

  I know.

• 3:41:27Speaker 02

  I know, but I felt like, and that was like having that epiphany on my tractor. I'm like, man, that's what I want to talk about with Jocko is this, this power of human connection and really what we share and, you know, I get it, like how hard it is to do a show like this. Like I was telling a story about Mike early in the hours that go into it, but there's also a lot of cool stuff that comes out of it, you know, and I appreciate that too.

• 3:41:51Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, no, like that's such a great connection. I've got a bunch of things like that have happened with me with the SOG guys, you know, I started getting in with John Shrek and I went through all these different SOG guys. Sometimes they didn't even know each other. They didn't want, didn't know about each other's operations. Then I had, you know, end up with the, their Vietnamese counterparts, then the Vietnamese pilots. I had, you know, when I was a young SEAL, when I was putting in for that, uh, to become an officer, the admiral in charge of all the SEALs was this guy named Admiral Richards, then his nickname was Hulk. And he had been, when I was a brand new guy, I was in the gym working out at SEAL Team One, and I've got the Metallica cranked up and the captain walks in at the time, he's the captain over at the center and he comes walking in. So I like run over and turn down the radio and he goes, hey,

• 3:42:36Jocko Willink?

  and I'm like, yes, sir. And he goes, turn that shit back up. And I was like, okay. And he starts throwing weights around and stuff. And then later he wrote the recommendation, wrote a recommendation for me to become an officer, you know, so I went, when he, he became the admiral. So years later, I'm not a new guy anymore, but I'm still a young enlisted guy and he writes a recommendation for me to become an admiral. Well, then I had him on the podcast and he was, he is famous within the SEAL teams because they got in a big gunfight in Vietnam and he ended up, he was a big, strong guy, hence the name Hulk. And he ended up dragging a bunch of his wounded guys out, throwing his guys onto helicopters and on the Navy Sea Wolf helicopters, throwing guys on and like hanging on by the skid to get out of this terrible situation.

• 3:43:21Jocko Willink?

  And then a few months later, I had the guys on that were the Sea Wolf helicopter pilots that pulled him out. So yeah, you get these great, uh, great things to go through and capture these stories. And you know, I've unfortunately had a lot of guys on here, World War II and Vietnam that, that died. And so, you know, to capture the oral history of Dean Ladd, you know, who was a Marine that was gut shot going into Tarawa. It's like just epic to be able to do that. So I think you and I are definitely, uh, have a lot in common from that perspective. And yeah, um, getting Johnny Clark on here was just, just awesome. That book is absolutely freaking epic. It's absolutely.

• 3:44:02Speaker 02

  If you haven't read it, and I don't know how spiritual you are, but he wrote a book, Walk a Little Further with Me. And, um, man, it is, uh, it's something you wouldn't think from this, you know, Vietnam vet, you know, battle hardened dude like Johnny. But like, man, it is just remarkable story. Uh, cause he's written several books.

• 3:44:21Jocko Willink?

  He's written a whole bunch of them.

• 3:44:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, obviously one of the most popular, but, um, it's this, uh,

• 3:44:27Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 3:44:27Speaker 02

  metaphysical thing that, Alex, great, man. Johnny, you're amazing.

• 3:44:32Jocko Willink?

  Even like from the book side, uh, you know, About Face, which is what was my favorite book, right? My favorite book of all time was About Face.

• 3:44:40Speaker 02

  Hackworth.

• 3:44:41Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And I started, I started talking about About Face, covered on the podcast, referred back to it a bunch. And it started selling really well again, and they took what they call, I think they call it an archived book where it doesn't get printed anymore. It's just out there, but they still own the rights to it. It started selling so much like on the Ebays that they reprinted it. When they reprinted it, they asked me if I wanted to write a blurb. I was like, blurb, I'll write a new foreword for that thing. So I was like the biggest honor to take this book and I stole so much leadership stuff from Hackworth and for, I never met him, but I stole so much leadership guidance from him.

• 3:45:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:45:13Jocko Willink?

  And here I was, the, having the honor to write the foreword to that book. So.

• 3:45:16Speaker 02

  That's, I didn't know that. That's, that's awesome. I got shunned one time by a nameless commander, even though I just said I like naming names with this guy. Um, I had, I was a lieutenant. I'm reading About Face.

• 3:45:28Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah.

• 3:45:29Speaker 02

  He's like, that's a fine example of Reed. He's like, he's, uh, that's an example of how not to lead. I was like, you, did you read this book?

• 3:45:36Jocko Willink?

  This book?

• 3:45:36Speaker 02

  I'm like, you're crazy, man. That's like. Thumb in your nose at once an eagle by Anton Meyer is like.

• 3:45:41Jocko Willink?

  They they've reaccepted like Hackworth is accepted in the army and and the Navy as well because you know, he wrote an article, speaking of stolen valor, he wrote a stolen valor article about the chief of naval operations, having a V on his Navy commendation.

• 3:45:58Speaker 02

  I remember this story.

• 3:46:00Jocko Willink?

  And Hackworth wrote that article and the chief of naval operations Admiral Borda, who created the program that I eventually used to become an officer Admiral Borda killed himself.

• 3:46:12Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 3:46:13Jocko Willink?

  And so this this

• 3:46:18Jocko Willink?

  stolen valor is a thing, but man, you're gonna get busted.

• 3:46:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:46:21Jocko Willink?

  So don't do it.

• 3:46:23Speaker 02

  I think I'll let Ben talk about it like when he does a show, but like one of the things too, like we've thought about is we're, you know, we continue to develop what we do with solid copy media is, you know, advise guys on like, you know, make sure it's accurate, um, you know, before you hang it out there like, it's great. You got a deal. You got this, but like, it's gotta be sniff checked, man.

• 3:46:42Jocko Willink?

  And err on the side of maybe what you did, you know, err on the side of like, hey, I I jumped onto a five foot wall. Make it three feet. You know what I mean? Like, you know, it's okay. No one really cares. It's like, and part of it, I think people get sucked into is if I'm telling you a story, you and I are sitting here face to face and I'm telling you a story. And especially if you're a civilian and I wanna, I want you to feel how I felt, right? I want you to feel how I, because I'm telling you a story. So when I tell you that the I got mortared, I tell you that mortar landed right at my feet. Now, what do I mean by that? Because it scared the shit out of me. I mean, like 40 yards away.

• 3:47:26Jocko Willink?

  Because we get more like, hey, that might as well be right at my feet because it scared the shit. But you're, you know, you're civilian, you go, damn, you know, okay. And I made you feel it like, damn, a mortar right at your feet. That's scary. But then when people go from the, hey, you and I are sitting here having a conversation to, hey, we're gonna put this, the words that you said, we're gonna write them down and we're gonna publish them to the world. And when you make that transition, you gotta make the transition from storytelling. And trying to make the small group of people that you're with feel emotional like you felt, which is good. That's good storytelling. It's good if I make you feel like, oh damn, that must have been scary. Yes, I just did a good job telling you a story. But when you're writing a book, you can't make those kind of, you can't make those kind of exaggerations. You just can't do it.

• 3:48:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think there's several guys have gotten their asses in a sling over that. But I think what Ben is, Ben had a good idea. He's like, hey, you know, should we, you know, like start asking guys? I'm like, yeah. The thing too is like, what we're doing is like, we, we don't advertise. I don't know if it's by design.

• 3:48:29Speaker 02

  Or not, but you know, through word of mouth, like even I work with a pole assist in DC and he's like, how is it that your name comes up? Like when we're at this thing, Scott and like, but you don't ever advertise. I go, I don't know, man. I'm like, maybe because I'm honest and like, you know, it's an anomaly in this industry or something. Like actually, you know, give a shit about people like I do care. Um, you know, uh, I think it's, you know, normally most agents are, you know, their only job is really just to sell the book and then send you your royalty check. Like they don't do all the stuff I do. Like I do, I enjoy it though, you know, I work with some cool dudes.

• 3:49:05Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Well, it's cool that you're so directly, uh, you know, passionate about, and it's part of you, you know, you're not, if you were publishing cooking manuals or whatever, you might not be quite as, quite as dedicated as you are to, you know, these are stories from people that have been out there, you know, hanging out there. So.

• 3:49:22Speaker 02

  Yeah. And I've had a couple of civilian clients as well. Um, yeah, I work with some ghost writers, um, you know, co-writers and then, you know, one of my clients is, uh, you know, the CEO of, uh, Johnsonville Foods. He, he wrote his story and, um, found out about me and, uh, you know, Ralph's first book sold, uh, you know, Flight of the Buffalo sold like 450,000 copies. And then, uh, you know, a giant, obviously, you know, Johnsonville Foods, like the area Johnsonville brought.

• 3:49:49Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 3:49:50Speaker 02

  Like that's Ralph. Like, uh, just, you know, I like, again, here's this dumb kid from, you know, Waukegan, Illinois, barely graduated high school. It's like, how do I know the guy that owns, you know, Johnsonville Foods or like, how do you know anybody? But I think, one of the things and you'll probably be the victim of this, uh, you know, is like, we'll exchange numbers. Like I check in on people. I'm like, just, I cultivate relationships and. You know, it's a little trick I've done is like when I fly, like I'll kind of go through my, you've got thousands of them. Well, type up a message and you know, I'll text it out to a few people like, you know, a couple from A's, B's, C's. And then when I land, kind of who responds back? And like, just checking in, Jocko, like, want to see what's new in your world? Like, having heard from,

• 3:50:32Speaker 02

  you know, it seems kind of canned, but it's something like I'm trying to maintain a friendship or something like maybe like, oh, because we have thousands of contacts and thousands of people in the network. I'm not saying you have to talk to everybody all the time, but it's cool to check in. And normally when I call people, I'm not asking them for something. It's just like, hey, man, how you doing? Like, you know, it'd be like me calling, you know, like, hey, how's Helen doing? It's like, shit. And they're like, oh, yeah, yeah. So I got this going on, you know, like Mike, you know, I have termites today. But it's hard to make time, though, you know, I think especially with what we do. But you got to make time.

• 3:51:08Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it gets, um.

• 3:51:09Speaker 02

  In organizations, training, education, like, are you making time to do that? Like, reading every day, like, you have to, I have to force myself to do it.

• 3:51:20Speaker 02

  Especially when I want to read something, you know, that I is new.

• 3:51:23Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah. Well, right on, man. Does that get us up to speed?

• 3:51:27Speaker 02

  I think so, man. I, uh, it's been good. I'm, it's good to be back in California for a nice visit. I'm excited to get back to Texas. It's a great veteran friendly state, man. I, uh, I love it down there. So, but Gates always opened for you guys for down that neck of the woods. Let me know.

• 3:51:44Jocko Willink?

  That's awesome. Um, Ramadi reunion 20.com. So the reason you and I got reconnected was because there is a reunion for people that were in the Ready First Brigade or served with the Ready First Brigade or were in Ramadi and Gold Star families. Ramadi reunion 20.com is January 16th through the 17th 2026. It's going to be an awesome event, putting together so many cool things. If you were there with us, we want, we want you there.

• 3:52:18Speaker 02

  Yep. So just like think, uh, what did the last word over 400?

• 3:52:23Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, like registered.

• 3:52:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, just registered. Yeah.

• 3:52:26Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. So we, you know, like, let's get representation from all, you know, whoever you are. You guys know the deal. You guys heard all the freaking stories we were talking about today. If you were there, come down, we're going to have a good, I think there's golf. I won't be playing golf, but I think they're doing golf, but then we're going to hang out. We're going to meet each other, going to see each other. It's going to be cool to, you know, all those different lost perspectives, you know, the, the person that slapped you on the back as you got into a Bradley. The person that pulled you out of a Bradley, the person that, you know, stood overwatch while you were walking down the streets. People that were walking down the streets while you were standing overwatch, like all those people, their perspectives, their stories. And it's going to be awesome. We've got some gold star families that are going to be there. So

• 3:53:07Jocko Willink?

  Ramadi reunion 20.com and register if you can register for it. So that way they can, we can put you in the headcount. Um, but this is going to be an epic deal. Uh, our, our fearless leader, General McFarland is the guy running the show. Uh, they don't get any better than, than McFarland and General McFarland. Uh, he's, he's the guy that when we started talking about this, he's the guy that stepped up and made it happen just like he did in Ramadi. So please, if you, if you can, if you were there, then come here, Ramadi reunion 20.com. Uh, people can find you, Scott Husing.com. I know you don't like so, social media, but you are on Twitter X, but you haven't posted in a while. You're on Instagram. It's a, it's at Echo in Ramadi.

• 3:53:52Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 3:53:53Jocko Willink?

  Now we also have, which I didn't know about the solid copy media.com.

• 3:53:57Speaker 02

  Correct.

• 3:53:58Jocko Willink?

  And do they have any social media presence or no?

• 3:54:00Speaker 02

  Uh, no, not really. Again, we, we, we, we've just been word of mouth right now and, uh, it's been good. So we, we work with the right people for the right reasons and it's, uh, it's really cool.

• 3:54:12Jocko Willink?

  That's awesome.

• 3:54:13Speaker 02

  Uh, you could, you go to solid copy media.com and see what we do for people. And then also you can see what Ben does, like with his web design and that guy's a, he's a triple threat.

• 3:54:22Jocko Willink?

  Right on. And Ben's got a cool book, um, which I'm looking forward to chatting with him on here. Uh, Echo Charles, any questions? Oh yeah. Quick question. Do you journal?

• 3:54:33Speaker 02

  I don't. I write a lot of notes down, but I don't, I don't journal every day.

• 3:54:37Speaker 01

  Have you ever like thought about it and like not wondered, but like, like, do you have a reason why you don't? Because obviously you're not, that's not a foreign concept.

• 3:54:45Speaker 02

  I, I, I don't, I don't journal, um, but I do, I am pretty disciplined about writing, uh, something. Uh, like it, and it's again, it's not every day, but I used to do this thing where, uh, I would do, I, I call it 500 words. And it's like a folder, just a folder on my desktop and I would sit down and anything I could think of, I'd write 500 words and not more, not less. 500 words. And that's like wordsmithing, it's, it's staying, you know, finely honed in your craft. Um, uh, there was a time where I, I never used to remember my dreams and my psychology first like, well, you're dreaming. I go, well, if I don't remember it, am I dreaming? So then I started remembering my dreams at some point in my life. And I would wake up in the middle of the night and I would type and I would put my fingers on a keyboard because we all know that's how books get written.

• 3:55:29Speaker 02

  And I would go through this drill and then I'd have to edit it because I'm half asleep and I'm writing these things down, which are foggy. It's interesting, but I don't have a reason why I don't journal. That's a good question though.

• 3:55:41Speaker 01

  But it's kind of like journaling though, what you're talking about.

• 3:55:44Speaker 02

  Yeah. I, I, I try and stay sharp, you know, writing and then I, I also again, like, I love to read, you know, current events and, and fun stuff and do this. But like, I also like learning more about writing and the business and what's going on and trying to stay current. And so I get feeds for articles. So when I'm coaching people and, um, they're giving me their time and money, I'm current, you know? And I'm not teaching them how I did it, you know? Well, this is how it was done eight years ago. Like I know now, you know, through trends in social media and talking to advisors that like have educated me is like what they should be doing, best practices. Um, and I, I do that with, I mean, we have discussions with presidents of publishing houses as, uh, you know, some of the concerns with writing and

• 3:56:24Speaker 02

  what they're taking in or what authors are expecting and what's new. It's, uh, again, never thought I'd be sitting here doing this stuff. That's a good question.

• 3:56:32Jocko Willink?

  Here we are. Anything else Echo Charles?

• 3:56:35Speaker 01

  That's it. Good to meet you, sir.

• 3:56:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:56:36Jocko Willink?

  Right on. Scott, any closing thoughts, man?

• 3:56:40Speaker 02

  Closing thoughts. Um, man, this is a good time. That's what I'm thinking. Glad I, glad I came back to California, man. Thanks again for having me on and uh, I uh, looking forward to seeing you in gorgeous El Paso. In January, January 2026, by the way, is when the reunion is.

• 3:56:58Jocko Willink?

  Yep. January 2026. It's uh, 16th and 17th. And yeah, you're right. It's in El Paso. I didn't mention that. It's down in Texas. So.

• 3:57:05Speaker 02

  It, it, I will say this, like, uh, seriously, it's important to reunite. Uh, you know, we talked about a lot of things, a lot of different stories, how you navigate, you know, post military service and dealing with stress and unpacking drama. Reuniting is cool. Like it, you have to make time to do that. And um, you know, so if you were in the oh five, taco seven, Ramadi deployment, like get out there. We'll, we'll be there. We're making the drive. We're making time. So you got no excuses. So thanks again, man. Thanks, brother.

• 3:57:33Jocko Willink?

  Thank you, brother. Yeah, man. Uh, thanks. Thanks for joining us, man. Thanks for sharing your lessons learned and uh, thanks for your service and sacrifice. Thanks for what you and your Marines did in Ramadi. It was a hell of a fight, as you know, and uh, we won't forget those heroes that didn't come home. And thanks for what you're doing today, getting these veterans' stories captured and out there to the world, man. Appreciate everything you're doing, brother.

• 3:57:55Speaker 02

  Bruh.

• 3:57:58Jocko Willink?

  And with that, Scott Huesing has left the building. Great to sit down and talk with him. Definitely brought back some memories. And awesome to see what he's doing right now with our veterans and the books he's got, all that stuff. So. Check those out. Also, if you want to support this podcast, while simultaneously supporting yourself. One of the ways you need to support yourself is by working out, training, getting after it. You need some fuel. Check out jockofuel.com. Get some protein. I ate some, uh, some, it was like a high.

• 3:58:39Jocko Willink?

  Low nutrient, high calorie, low nutrient food the other day. Yeah, sure. And I did not feel full at all, like at all. Yeah, correct. If you drink a milk, whether you get the protein powder or the protein ready to drink shake, either one, you will be satiated. It's incredible. So don't eat some nutrient less food. Get some protein in you. Jocko Fuel. We also have a bunch of awesome supplements. We're talking about eyesight. Dude, my eyes are solid. Knock on wood. And also take time war. Cause my time, my, my vision got better. We did like a, we did a muster. We do muster every six months or something like that.

• 3:59:23Jocko Willink?

  And I showed up to one muster, showed up to the next muster six months later. And I looked down at the downstage monitor and I'm like, oh, did we, do we, are we using a bigger font? And they're like, no, oh, because I can see this more clearly now. Only difference was taking time war. Anyways, we got a bunch of stuff that's really good for you. Check out Jocko Fuel.com or go to your local store. We're really getting around. So check it out. Jocko Fuel.com. The clean, the good. Get some. Also, OriginUSA.com. I was wearing Origin pants the other day. Pants, not jeans. But pants, actually at CJI. CJI was wearing Origin pants.

• 4:00:06Jocko Willink?

  And someone was like, oh dude, I thought you'd be representing. And I was like, I am representing. No, no, Origin pants. And I was like, no, Origin jeans. And I go, these are Origin pants.

• 4:00:18Jocko Willink?

  And why was I wearing pants instead of jeans? Cause Vegas is hot. Jeans are hot. So I was wearing Origin pants, the GTFO series. Anyways, we got every, and they're a hundred percent made in America, made in American, uh, materials. Not communist materials, not sweatshop.

• 4:00:42Jocko Willink?

  Factories, but real American factories. So check out originusa.com. Get yourself some cool, nice, comfortable pants or shirts or hoodies or boots or whatever. So there you go. Get some.

• 4:00:57Speaker 01

  I had some jeans on too the other day. No big deal. It was nighttime though. So the hotness. So it was the jeans. I was good to go.

• 4:01:03Jocko Willink?

  In, in CJI?

• 4:01:04Speaker 01

  No, not CJI. This was not last night, but the night before.

• 4:01:08Jocko Willink?

  Where were you?

• 4:01:08Speaker 01

  Downtown sushi with a bunch of family members.

• 4:01:12Jocko Willink?

  Things happened.

• 4:01:13Speaker 01

  Got some family in town, you know, but that part didn't matter as much as the fact that I was wearing the jeans. I'm saying I'm gonna wear them anyway. That's my whole point. Anyway, also, speaking of apparel and representing, Jocko store.com is where you can get your discipline equals freedom and good standby to get some good after all these expressions that we kind of say to ourselves, you know, it's where you can represent apparel wise. Also, new stuff on the way. Give it maybe 30 to 60 days. Somewhere in between.

• 4:01:44Jocko Willink?

  Make sure the heads up, bro. Everyone's gonna sit around and freaking mark that on their calendar. They're gonna mark, they're gonna mark a 30 day period on their calendar. 30 to 60, 90 days. 30, 60 days. Mark your calendar. Check the website each day to see if Echo got his shit together and got something up on the website. What are you doing?

• 4:02:01Speaker 01

  How about this? How about this? Don't mark your calendar. Just go sign up on the, put your email in the freaking form on the front of the page. Jocko store.com. Put your email in there. I'll email you the day this stuff comes up. So you don't, you don't gotta miss out. Anyway, also.

• 4:02:16Jocko Willink?

  But you're not gonna spam them. You're not gonna say 59 more days. 58 more days. Cause you just tried to freaking basically span my mind right now with your dumb ass.

• 4:02:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, you've been spamming my mind for a long time.

• 4:02:27Jocko Willink?

  30 to 60 days. There's gonna be new stuff. What is wrong with you?

• 4:02:29Speaker 01

  It's more of a disclaimer to you.

• 4:02:30Jocko Willink?

  Have another go. Get in the game.

• 4:02:33Speaker 01

  Anyway, like I was trying to say, also, we have what we call the shirt locker. The subscriptions scenario. New design every month. I'm telling you. That one you can get right now. Just go on there. Boom. You get this month's shirt. Boom. On the way.

• 4:02:49Jocko Willink?

  Right on. Also, check out these books. Echo and Ramadi. By Scott Huesing, check that book out. It's a great book. You know, and you heard him rattle off a bunch of other authors that he has helped out. Some solid books, which I haven't read yet, but we, when we, when we got done recording, we were talking about getting some of these individuals on the podcast. Also, Dave Burke has a new book. It's coming out. You heard Scott mention Dave Burke. Dave Burke has a book coming out called Need the Lead. It's a fantastic book. Preorder that right now. Get that first edition. And then of course, Ashlan Front, we have a leadership consulting company. We talk about these principles that we learned in combat. We can teach them to you and your organization. We have events that you can go to. They sell out. So if

• 4:03:33Jocko Willink?

  you want to come interact with us live, go to ashlanfront.com. And if you want to interact with us virtually, if you want to learn these lessons virtually, go to extremeownership.com, where we have a online training platform. You can learn all this. So there you go. Also, if you want to help service members, active and retired, you want to help their families, want to help Gold Star families, check out Mark Lee's mom, Mama Lee. She's got an amazing charity organization. You heard Scott talk about Mark's mom today. Debbie Lee, incredible woman. She's got an incredible organization. If you want to donate or you want to get involved, go to Americas Mighty Warriors.org. Also, check out Heroes and Horses.org. And finally,

• 4:04:14Jocko Willink?

  Jimmy May's organization, BeyondTheBrotherhood.org. If you want to connect with us, Scott Huesing, on the interwebs is ScottHusing.com. He's also on Twitter, X, and Instagram, @EchoInRamadi. And then they also have SolidCopyMedia.com. I think he's going to get a little inundated with people that want to write books, which is awesome. That's what we're doing. And if you want to connect with us and you happen to be in Ramadi,

• 4:04:46Jocko Willink?

  Then come and connect with us live in person, Ramadi reunion 20.com, January 16th through the 17th, 2026. We're going to be there. We want to see you all again. Also, check out jocko.com and then on social media, I'm at jocko willing echoes at echo charles. Just be careful because there's a freaking algorithm that is curated to your brain to keep you highly emotional and insane. So watch out for it. Once again, thanks to Scott Huesing for joining us. Thanks for traveling out here to talk to us. Thanks for sharing the story of your Marines. And thanks to all our military out there on the front lines,

• 4:05:27Jocko Willink?

  protecting our way of life with a bold semper Fi to the magnificent bastards of 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines. Thank you for carrying on the proud tradition of the Marine Corps.

• 4:05:44Jocko Willink?

  Also, thanks to our police, law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, Border Patrol, Secret Service, as well as all of the first responders. Thank you for your service protecting us here at home. And for everyone else out there, listen, once again, we heard about these sacrifices made by our US military, in this case, some of our United States Marines in the city of Ramadi, in the city of Rutba. And they lived in dirt and dust and grime, and they fought, and they bled, and they died.

• 4:06:18Jocko Willink?

  And we, we get the benefits of their sacrifices. We benefit from it every day. Do not squander their gift. Relish it and honor their sacrifices by the way you live your life. And that should be to the fullest. And that's all I've got for tonight. Until next time, this is Echo and Jocko out.