484: It Might Not Go The Way You Want. With Navy SEAL Command Master Chief, Jim Foreman.

>Join Jocko Underground< https://www.jockounderground.com/subscribe Jim Foreman is a retired U. S. Navy SEAL Command Master Chief with 27 years of elite military service, including leadership at Naval Special Warfare Development Group (DEVGRU – SEAL Team 6) — one of the most selective and operationally demanding units in the world. 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 484 with Echo Charles and me, Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening. All day murderous bursts of machine gun fire hammered our position, shattering windows and impacting interior walls, each round with the violence and kinetic energy of a sledgehammer wielded at full force. Some of the incoming rounds were armor piercing and punched through the thick concrete of the low wall surrounding the rooftop. All of our element of SEALs, EOD bomb technicians and Iraqi soldiers could do under such accurate enemy fire was hit the deck and try not to get our heads shot off. Rounds snapped inches above us and shards of glass and concrete fragments rained down everywhere. "Damn, some of those bastards

• 0:43Jocko Willink?

  can shoot," yelled a SEAL operator pressed as close to the floor as humanly possible. We couldn't help but laugh at our predicament. RPG-7 rockets followed in rapid sequence of three or four, exploding with tremendous concussion against the exterior walls. Hunkered down inside the building, we were separated from the bone-jarring explosion and deadly shrapnel by a foot or so of concrete. One errant RPG rocket missed its mark and sailed high over the building, trailing across the hazy, cloudless Iraqi summer sky like a bottle rocket on an American 4th of July. But if just one of those rockets impacted a window, it meant red-hot fragments of jagged metal ripping through just about every man

• 1:25Jocko Willink?

  in the room. Despite the onslaught, we held our position in the large four-story apartment building. When the fury of the attack subsided, our SEAL snipers returned fire with devastating effect. As armed enemy fighters maneuvered through the streets to attack, SEAL snipers squeezed off round after round with deadly accuracy, confirming 10 enemy fighters killed and a handful more probable kills.

• 1:56Jocko Willink?

  And that right there is an excerpt from a book called Extreme Ownership, which was written by Leif Babin and me. And that section, which was written by Leif,

• 2:05Jocko Willink?

  displays and shows and talks about not only the level of violence delivered by the enemy, which was significant, but also the effectiveness of our SEAL snipers. And on that particular operation, it wasn't just SEALs from tasking a bruiser. We had some help on that one. And one of the best things about being in the teams is obviously working with the best guys in the world. It's also very random because you can be in the SEAL teams and you can be on a different cycle from someone else and you might not see that other person for months or years, or sometimes even decades.

• 2:47Jocko Willink?

  But you still know them and you know their reputation and you track what people are doing. You hear stories, you read after actions reports, you see their name pop up on, on the advancement lists. But time goes by and then for whatever reason, you happen to end up on the same battlefield at the same time and you get to work with them for a day or two days or a week or a month.

• 3:10Jocko Willink?

  And get to do what we all joined to do. And you get to confirm that

• 3:16Jocko Willink?

  they are who you thought they were and their reputation is well-earned. And that they're Frogmen. And then they're gone again and you continue to track their progress and their career through the stories and the advancement lists and you continue to see them do great things and you feel proud of them. And that's the teams. And when I was at SEAL Team One, there was a guy who checked in and quickly earned an awesome reputation. He fit in very well with the culture of SEAL Team One at the time, which was... Stalag Team One, very strict, very tough, very hard charging, very operationally focused

• 3:58Jocko Willink?

  and and probably overly professional in many aspects. But he knocked out a few platoons there, became a respected operator and a sniper. And when I went the officer route, he went to the Navy's Special Mission Unit, the maritime component of the Joint Special Operations Command, JSOC, and he made it through selection there and became a, an operator, a combat leader in the global war on terror. And fast forward, almost a decade from after we left SEAL Team One, and that's when we were in Ramadi. And he was able to

• 4:39Jocko Willink?

  join our task unit on some missions to see exactly what we were doing and how we were doing it. And we all got to see his professionalism, his expertise, his humility. I like to think that that was some shared roots from that time that we spent at SEAL Team One with BTF Tony as well. But he continued on his career path. He eventually completed 27 years in the SEAL Teams, conducted 18 combat deployments, served as a team leader, troop chief, squadron master chief, chief of selection and assessment, training chief. And during that time, he was awarded the Silver Star, eight Bronze Stars, Purple Heart, and five

• 5:24Jocko Willink?

  Presidential Unit citations. And this individual's name is Jim Foreman. And it's an honor to have him here with us tonight to share some of his experiences and lessons learned. Jim, good to see you, man. Thanks for coming out. You too, bro. Thank you. Yeah, it's wild how you can just not see someone for years and then you say, oh, hey, what's up, dude? And, and the nature of, I guess it's the nature of the shared suffering and camaraderie of the SEAL Teams that it doesn't really matter if you don't see someone for a long time. It's like, oh, hey, what's up, dude? How you been? Oh, good. Yeah, picks right up.

• 6:01Speaker 01

  Uh, let's get some background. So where, where did you grow up? Uh, Bay Area, Northern California, Fremont. And what, what, what did your parents do? Uh, my mom was a RN, nurse up there. And then, uh, my dad was an accountant. Okay. So a- any veterans in the family? Uh, my dad served in the army. What did he do in the army? Uh, he was an engineer. Was he in, was he in NOM? No, no. He, he stayed back and was, uh, reserves. Uh, I think cause mostly he had a family. Um, and I had a, I have a twin brother. Oh, really? Grew up with a, a twin and a sister, older sister, and had a pretty good upbringing. Nice. Echo Charles, any twin questions? Right now, this, this early on.

• 6:46Speaker 01

  Going early on.

• 6:47Speaker 02

  Identical or what?

• 6:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, we're identical.

• 6:49Speaker 02

  Oh, right on. Okay.

• 6:50Speaker 01

  That's it? Oh, okay. Nice. Guys blown out. Yeah, yeah, big time, big time. That is a weird thing, right? Is this really Echo?

• 6:57Speaker 02

  Yeah. Oh, yeah. No, I'm the echo of him.

• 7:01Speaker 01

  He was born second. Uh, what about school? What were you, what were you into? What sports you play? So I did, uh, football, wrestling, and, uh, some track and field. How much wrestling did you do? Uh, two years. Okay. Yeah. What years? Uh, freshman and sophomore year. And then no, no more? No more. Then I switched to football. Oh, okay. But wrestling was, I got an injury. So, and my gonads that like shut me down pretty hard. That's a significant injury. Yeah. Jack. Yeah. How about, uh, what was your grades like? Were you like studying? Did you care? I was bo- I think I got bad grades because I was bored, you know? Uh, so I had to do some summer school and things like that and.

• 7:43Speaker 01

  Oh, wait, that's, that's a little beyond some bad grades if you had to go to summer school. Isn't that like, uh, isn't that like a serious, uh, shortfall? That you gotta go make something up? Yeah, it was.

• 7:54Jocko Willink?

  Were you getting in trouble or anything?

• 7:56Speaker 01

  Not really, just, I think I was just bored. I had, like, you know, like, history is a big thing for me. I love history. And my history teacher was, even in college, was, you know, just dates and laws, dates and times and things like that. It was not about, like, when I learned about the Alamo in junior college, it was like, okay, on this day, eighteen thirty-six, a bunch of Americans stood, made a fight and they got wiped out and blah, blah, blah. I was like, what? So, you know, I had to read books on my own to find things out. So I, you know, a lot of teachers, there are some good teachers, but I wish they would like elaborate a little bit more, make it more interesting, even in like math, you know?

• 8:31Jocko Willink?

  They should do, it is amazing what a good teacher can do. And I think podcasts, there's some podcasts out there that people do such a good job of telling history. It's like, it's, it's a game changer and people always say, I wish you were my teacher in high school, you know? So, when you were in high school, did you have like a, a life plan of any kind?

• 8:53Speaker 01

  Uh, when I was in high school, I started to see, like, I love football and wrestling.

• 8:59Speaker 01

  I started to look at the military stuff and I was like, yeah, I'd like to be part, because you would see some movies, that was like in the eighties, right? And I'd go like, yeah, I think I want to be a part of a small team. You know, I didn't know anything about the SEALs, that highly skilled, we all have the same skill level, height, same mindset. So when I was a junior, I started to look at the Marine Corps. And when I went to college for a couple of years and didn't do too well. And so I, I actually joined the Marine Corps. And then in the delayed entry, we're playing football and then I wrecked my leg pretty bad and tore my ACL. So I had a year out.

• 9:42Jocko Willink?

  Did you get surgery?

• 9:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:44Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 9:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, I got, my mom, since she was a nurse, she knew some good doctors. And she hooked me up big time, like with a sports.

• 9:51Jocko Willink?

  Did you get a cadaver replacement or did you get a, did they move your patella?

• 9:55Speaker 01

  No, they just, they actually stretched my tendon and put a screw in the side of my knee. Yeah, so it was like, my knee was like that for a long time. He had to stress it back out.

• 10:06Jocko Willink?

  But you were gonna go in the Marine Corps. What did you, what we can do in the Marine Corps?

• 10:09Speaker 01

  I just wanted to do infantry. I was like, I just wanted to go like.

• 10:13Jocko Willink?

  Actually, in those days, I don't think you could pick your MOS at all. Like in the old days, when I was looking, you could just join the Marines.

• 10:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:21Jocko Willink?

  And you were just gonna be whatever they told you were gonna be.

• 10:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:24Jocko Willink?

  And that's the way it was. So you were probably just gonna be a Marine. There's anything wrong with being a Marine, but you could have been a, a lot of, there's a lot of different jobs in the Marine Corps.

• 10:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, that's right.

• 10:34Jocko Willink?

  So you get, you get hurt for a year?

• 10:36Speaker 01

  I was out for a year, then um, I started, so my brother, unlike me, was getting good grades. And so I go, okay, I'm not doing too good in school. I'm going kinda see what he's doing for school. And he was taking like, you know, interesting things like history, geography, anthropology. And okay, I'm gonna just mirror what he does. So I just went to his, I just got the same classes as him.

• 10:59Jocko Willink?

  No kidding.

• 10:59Speaker 01

  And I just like basically copied his class schedule. Uh, so then, you know, I also had somebody to hang out with and ask questions and learn from, cause I was not doing good in college.

• 11:10Jocko Willink?

  What college was it?

• 11:10Speaker 01

  It was uh, Chabot College. It was a two-year college. I actually got kicked out. That's why I joined the Marines. Or I got suspended for bad grades.

• 11:18Jocko Willink?

  For bad grades?

• 11:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, so then, so then, okay, and I got this year off because of the delay entry with the Marine Corps. So I could actually get out of the Marine Corps, cause that, about that time, I heard about the SEALs.

• 11:30Jocko Willink?

  How'd you hear about the SEALs?

• 11:31Speaker 01

  My brother was the first one who brought it up. And then unbeknownst to me, my uncle was a doctor in the Navy and he served with SEALs in Vietnam.

• 11:41Jocko Willink?

  Dang.

• 11:42Speaker 01

  And so then I started to hear about that, those stories. And it was pretty cool. They picked him cause they needed an excuse to go in these villages to take care of the kids and the uh, people. But then they would, you know, set up ambushes nearby. But they needed him to take care of the people, so they had an excuse to get in. So he has some really cool stories. And so that's how I found out about those guys.

• 12:05Jocko Willink?

  And then you went to the recruiter. Was it a tough process? What year, what year is this now?

• 12:10Speaker 01

  This is my junior year. Now I'm at uh, um, it's now called East Bay College. It was um,

• 12:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, so it's East Bay now, it's Cal State Harwood back then. But so I was going to my junior years when I heard about him and I go, okay. So I got two years in, I was struggling with whether I should just join now. And then I kept, my parents were like, hey, just get your two year degree or your four year degree. Just knock it out, uh, cause you're not gonna get it again. And I struggled with that, but I did stay in and get my four year degree in geography. Um, backing with some history, like trying to get the easiest thing, but it was the most interesting. Like I could not sit still if it was not interesting. So I took something that was interesting.

• 12:59Jocko Willink?

  And at what point, you, you said your junior year, you, you enlisted in the Navy or did?

• 13:04Speaker 01

  No, that's when I heard about the SEALs. And then that's when my, uh, my legs start to heal.

• 13:10Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 13:10Speaker 01

  So, cause it happened in my sophomore year. So then I just decided to finish the last year and a half of college.

• 13:17Jocko Willink?

  And then when you got done with college, you, is that when you went to?

• 13:20Speaker 01

  Yep, I just signed up. Yep, right after, before I even got my diploma.

• 13:24Jocko Willink?

  What kind of prep were you doing? So your knee heals up, you're feeling strong, like, did you see the be someone special video?

• 13:31Speaker 01

  I did. Yeah. Which always just like these badass combat dudes, you know, with ribbons from Vietnam, you know? I didn't really talk too much about, you know, what you needed to do.

• 13:43Jocko Willink?

  So did you, did you run? Did you swim? Were you comfortable in the water? How all that go?

• 13:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. Um, I had a pool in my backyard, so that was nice to work on. Then I would go to YMCA and swim there and, um, do some running and pull ups and all that stuff. I had a pull up bar in my backyard, so start to prepare.

• 14:02Jocko Willink?

  That's pretty good, good to go for the, for the, what is this now, like 1991 or something like that?

• 14:07Speaker 01

  In the nineties, yeah, I, I got, I joined the Navy in 91.

• 14:12Jocko Willink?

  Check.

• 14:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:14Jocko Willink?

  Uh, as you, as you get to boot camp, like, did you think about putting in an officer package at all? Because you had been to college or no?

• 14:23Speaker 01

  No, so I was thinking, um,

• 14:27Speaker 01

  Like I heard that officers move around a lot and I go if I'm I want to be a SEAL, I want to be doing a job for a while, you know, and getting the skill and then maybe later, but I wasn't really thinking about officer. So it was just, I'm going to E-Dog. I'm going to E-Dog. All day. Yeah. And also because I heard of, you know, I started to read some books, I forgot which one it was, but uh, uh, most of them were fictional, which is even more interesting, you know, because they, I forgot the name of the book, but it was a good, it was a good book about SEALs in Vietnam. Um, so it was. Maybe UDT SEAL Operations in Vietnam? That was one of them. That was, yeah, that's a good one. That's just like a big, long AAR.

• 15:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. Um, but talk, you know, the point men, the machine gunners, the, uh, the snipers, you know, all that stuff. Yeah. Was super interesting to me. And then back then in Vietnam, the officers had more power to do things, you know, it was more like, uh, you know, they're more enlisted in law ways, like they had skill sets that they could use and not only did they have those skill sets, but then they also were the senior guy on target, the GFC. So it was kind of cool to be an officer back then.

• 15:43Speaker 01

  You know, they had some, you know, I was gonna say it's like in Vietnam, I noticed like, you know, I read books on, uh, Green Brays, because there's a lot of Green Bray stuff going on and those guys are badasses. Uh, a lot of the lieutenants, the officers, captains, and even the SEALs, uh, had a lot of freedom to do a lot of things without a lot of oversight. Yeah. You know, and I thought that was pretty cool. That made me think, wow, these guys could be pretty innovative without a lot of red tape and getting the job done. And then Roy Benavides, you know, that guy's a badass, Jerry Shriver, Mad Dog, both Green Brays, um, really inspired me. I was like, man, they, they got some, um, they got some power to make things happen.

• 16:29Jocko Willink?

  Um, so you head off to boot camp. Well, how was that a pretty good shock to the system?

• 16:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was all right. I just didn't want to get. So I did the die fair program, which was six years because I just didn't want to get derailed.

• 16:41Jocko Willink?

  I did that too. That's why.

• 16:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, I just want to get guaranteed that you get to Bud's and then it's up to you to make it. So I got that.

• 16:49Jocko Willink?

  Where'd you go to boot camp?

• 16:51Speaker 01

  Um, Orlando.

• 16:52Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, me too. Check. Get some die fair hot.

• 16:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:58Jocko Willink?

  Uh, do you get to Bud's? How was Bud's for you?

• 17:03Speaker 01

  It was good. Uh, I mean, I got a good story. I was like, you know, when you're doing the fourth phase thing, right? When you're doing the pre-training, getting ready and all that stuff. We had like 127 guys in that fourth phase and I was looking around. I was like, man, there's some ripped dudes. They already looked like seals, you know? And when we took that PT test to class up for 181, we only classed up with like 66 guys out of 127.

• 17:29Jocko Willink?

  Damn.

• 17:30Speaker 01

  And they had room to take at least 100 maybe, but I was like, wow, what the hell? And then the guy, one of the guys was just ripped, like shredded abs, looked badass. He couldn't do the sit-ups. I was like, oh, he just has show muscles. He's just got show muscles. So.

• 17:48Jocko Willink?

  All show, no go. Bro, I feel like such a, uh, I was doing the class up test.

• 17:54Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 17:55Jocko Willink?

  And my partner, you had to count sit-ups.

• 17:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:58Jocko Willink?

  And my partner, like dude, I mean, I didn't, I didn't really know him too well, but I think you had to do 75 sit-ups to class up and he did like 73 and the instructor came by and was like, how many did he get? I was like 73. I just like didn't cover for him at all. Just a total dick. And the dude made it in the next class and I know him like he's a great guy. And but I, I remember just thinking like, whoa, there's the stand like, hey, bro, sorry. Like 70, 73, don't cut it, dude. You needed to do more. And I don't know if he's still mad at me about that, but it'd be, if he is, I think it's a, I think it's somewhat justified. Echo, do you think that's somewhat justified? You think you should have got his extra two?

• 18:34Speaker 02

  Well, both, but.

• 18:36Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 18:37Speaker 02

  Depends who you.

• 18:39Jocko Willink?

  That's a very politically correct answer.

• 18:41Speaker 02

  True though. It's true. Both same, true at the same time.

• 18:46Jocko Willink?

  But you had to do a PT test to class up. You you did fine.

• 18:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:50Jocko Willink?

  Um, we roll into first phase.

• 18:53Speaker 01

  First phase, uh, good to go. Um, hell week starts November 7th. So that was Sunday and, uh, you know, we're all nervous and stuff like that. We had, I forget how many guys we had by then, like maybe forty five or something. And, uh, that it was a December 7th. So it was like cold. Of course, we do all the stuff all night, Sunday night, and then, uh, the morning.

• 19:18Jocko Willink?

  You said it's December 7th?

• 19:19Speaker 01

  December 7th, yeah.

• 19:21Jocko Willink?

  I think I graduated. I don't really remember. You know, you know, like, you ever seen a fake seal? And they go, what day did you graduate? And the guy's like, uh, uh, I don't know. And then they're like, you're a liar. I I don't know what day I graduated from BUDS.

• 19:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:34Jocko Willink?

  But I know it was in the fall. So and it was the fall of ninety one. So while you, I probably left just before you started Hell Week.

• 19:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:43Jocko Willink?

  That's pretty funny. So so, uh, you guys, you guys went into Hell Week with like, what'd you say, forty guys?

• 19:49Speaker 01

  Forty five, something like that. So, um, that first morning, Monday morning, we go into the chow hall all wet, freezing, dripping, you know, sandy. And we, you know, usually we fit three or four tables, the big tables, and we all sat on one table. I was looking around. We're like eighteen guys left. I like, holy crap. And nobody looked like a seal. They're like me, like I'm a hundred and thirty three pounds, you know, five eight. And then, uh, we had a guy that was like six, five, looked like Lurch, you know, with big hands, awkward hitting things. And then, um, fireplug guys that were short and stocky with no neck.

• 20:25Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 20:26Speaker 01

  And we all looked like, just like, you know.

• 20:27Jocko Willink?

  Misfits.

• 20:28Speaker 01

  Not, yeah, misfits for sure. No seal like dudes. And I realized, I go, okay, so this is a mindset thing.

• 20:36Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 20:37Speaker 01

  This is people that don't quit.

• 20:38Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 20:39Speaker 01

  And then over the course of five more months, they make you look like a seal just by amount of pushups and situps and running and all that stuff. But they can't make. The mindset, you can't fix your mind. They only can fix your body. And so they got rid of all those guys. It really hit me hard seeing that.

• 20:57Jocko Willink?

  Was there any, was there anything that was hard for you in, uh, in first phase that was like a challenge where you were good enough runner, good enough swimmer, just pretty much well-rounded?

• 21:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was right there. Oak Course sucked for me because of that dirty name.

• 21:08Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah.

• 21:09Speaker 01

  You know, like I finally realized, okay, you have to train, you have to jump over it to hit your waist. You know, you can't jump at it because you're going to bounce right off and fall at whatever the eight feet. So, um.

• 21:21Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that is, uh, that is definitely eight, an obstacle that is very prejudiced against people that are smaller.

• 21:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:28Jocko Willink?

  So this thing, Echo Charles, it's like you gotta, you, you jump up on a log and then you gotta jump onto another log. That's like right around chest high. So you gotta jump up and hit it with your stomach and kind of pull yourself. And you gotta stand up on that one. Then you gotta jump to another one. So the shorter you are, the harder it's gonna be.

• 21:47Speaker 01

  And it's not, it's not just the height, it's also the distance.

• 21:50Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 21:51Speaker 01

  Like you gotta jump far.

• 21:52Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 21:53Speaker 01

  So like you have to try to jump past it to land on your waist. Otherwise you're gonna hit your chest and fall backwards.

• 22:00Jocko Willink?

  This is, so you had a little bit of a challenge with the dirty name, huh?

• 22:03Speaker 01

  But it was good. It's like, I remember the first time, I mean, they did some good, uh, mental stuff on everybody like how, okay, get your best time. You get your best time. Okay. Now you go get wet and sandy and beat your fucking best time. Or you're gonna do it again. And then you're just doing over, because now you're tired and you're wet and sandy. And like, God, why did I get my best time? I should have like sandbagged that first one.

• 22:26Jocko Willink?

  The, uh, running the Oak Course wet and sandy, I don't think they actually do that anymore.

• 22:29Speaker 01

  Oh, that's too bad.

• 22:30Jocko Willink?

  I don't think they, I'm not a hundred percent sure, but I don't think they do it anymore. Because that made the Oak Course so much harder. The way your just traction was terrible.

• 22:38Speaker 01

  Slippery, yeah.

• 22:39Jocko Willink?

  Freaking, and there's a couple. The stumps, remember the stumps you hop on? Those are now just tires like uh like football.

• 22:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, I like those things because those were tricky like it went sandy you that thing was like it was like it was garnished or something it was like glass.

• 22:56Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 22:59Jocko Willink?

  Did you so you made it through hell week um and through first phase you roll into dive phase? How were you in the water?

• 23:08Speaker 01

  I was good except that was the one thing I failed was that uh pool comp. Holy crap. So I was because then you fail pool comp and what it was was you know you got like the shoulder straps and the chest strap and you got the the one inch or half inch floating around so I pulled um I was trying to pull my show uh chest strap and I pulled the shoulder strap instead. So procedure so I failed. And then um waiting all weekend sucked because if you failed again you're done.

• 23:38Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 23:38Speaker 01

  Right? And then uh Monday came around and we had five guys retake it. And uh they put me through I'm glad they did because it made me feel like I earned it but I was underwater for like eighteen minutes. Like they're like you know fucking around with me punch me in the stomach doing all that stuff till I had nothing you know like even the air bubbles you're trying to breathe through to get the extra because I don't think they they may fail you if you come up too soon. You know so you're trying to do everything you can to uh put that uh rig back together breathe from it and all that. So uh like the whammy knot on the uh the fucking uh inhaling tubes like when they put that whammy knot it's like uh because I've seen some guys you think that they're done they're like okay I'm done they're like nope you gotta get that knot out.

• 24:23Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 24:24Speaker 01

  Which is badass training right with with no mask you know so yeah I came up with black you know rubber marks on my face from them strip running around my head. True you know so that that was cool that I passed I'm glad that they gave me a tough one because the other four guys didn't pass.

• 24:42Jocko Willink?

  Oh.

• 24:42Speaker 01

  So uh that was good for me.

• 24:45Jocko Willink?

  How many so there was like eighteen guys in your uh dive class in your second phase class or did you got some rollbacks?

• 24:51Speaker 01

  We got some rollbacks so when we graduated we had sixteen. I think from Hell Week and then we got some rollbacks from that from the previous class when they got done with Hell Week and then we moved on.

• 25:02Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I think that that regulator, that Aqua Long Aqua Master regulator, the two hose regulator, no, there's no one that use, there's no reason to use that anymore. Although I do think there's like someone in cold water, possibly, but that thing is just archaic. And I think the main reason why they keep it around is literally for pool comp.

• 25:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:22Jocko Willink?

  For just for, for.

• 25:24Speaker 01

  Doing the hard shit.

• 25:25Jocko Willink?

  And the other, like the army or the air force or the regular Navy, no one, no one uses that freaking evil regulator that could get tied in knots on your back, dude. It's freaking chaotic.

• 25:39Speaker 01

  We're not only where you, you had to wait for them to get done with tying the knot and you're holding your breath.

• 25:44Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 25:44Speaker 01

  You know, it's always just like you're breathing through your regulator. Yeah, and they're fucking you around, they're spinning you up on your head, they're taking your rig, they're trying to rip your rig off you and take it to the surface. You're like, wait. You know, it was brutal, but it was badass, you know, when you think about it.

• 25:59Jocko Willink?

  Was it, I was trying to remember this, was it if you, because I remember I failed on Friday and then the weekend, it was like the worst, longest weekend and me and my swim buddy, we put our, we both failed and we, we got in the, I don't know how we did this, we got in the dip tank in second phase and we had like the full setup. We had the regulators, we had charged bottles and everything and we pool comped each other in like whatever the depth of the dip tank. But we did it for like eight hours, just murdering each other and you could, you could pool comp the other guy while you were standing outside the dip tank. So I was like totally dry out of the water and I'm just like wrecking my buddy and what we trashed each other and did it over and

• 26:43Jocko Willink?

  over again. And then on Friday, we both, I mean, I'm sorry, on Monday morning, we both passed. But I, was it just one chance on Friday, one chance on Monday and then?

• 26:52Speaker 01

  It probably was two chances, but I only remember one. I only remember pulling that shoulder strap, but I probably messed up somewhere else.

• 26:59Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 27:00Speaker 01

  Cause, cause one would be kinda, I think it was two chances. I don't remember what the first thing was, but it's probably a procedure too.

• 27:06Jocko Willink?

  Check. Uh, you get through it, then it's third phase, going to the island.

• 27:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:13Jocko Willink?

  Are you now super stoked? Cause you, you end up being a sniper. Was that always sort of a goal of yours?

• 27:17Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah, I was a good shot. So it's like. It revealed itself that how good of a shot I was like at BUDs and also at SEAL Team One when we started going to Niles and stuff like that. I was like, oh, this is cool. I want to definitely want to be a sniper.

• 27:30Jocko Willink?

  But third phase, so like shooting the pistol, you were good to go, shooting the rifle, no factor.

• 27:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:37Jocko Willink?

  Isn't it weird? There's like some people that just suck at it.

• 27:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's it always baffled me like why like to me a SEAL you'd always have expert and I remember seeing like S on one of them. I'm like, what? How did you make it to BUDs?

• 27:51Jocko Willink?

  I don't I think they I think they might roll you now if you don't shoot expert.

• 27:55Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 27:56Jocko Willink?

  Which is which is good, although, you know, if you get you the guy if the guy gets rolled in BUDs, he could get to the team and he's going to be shooting expert in like a month.

• 28:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, it's just a lot of it was giving the proper instruction, which they did. But some instructors, you know, they're they're getting impatient.

• 28:19Speaker 01

  And the students like feeling that hate towards them, they mess up. So, yeah, there's a lot of stress.

• 28:27Jocko Willink?

  And this is back in the day when you'd graduate BUDs, that was kind of the big deal graduation. Now it's you when you graduate SQT, you get your Trident and everything you're you then you go to your team, but you're just like me because I was 177. Did you graduate with 180?

• 28:42Speaker 01

  180. Yeah, I started with 181 and finished with 181.

• 28:45Jocko Willink?

  Okay. Yeah, so that was you. You went to BUDs, graduated from BUDs, no Trident, and did you put in that you wanted West Coast?

• 28:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, I put in I want SEAL Team One just because that was like the Vietnam guys, you know, okay, there's still some guys that hanging out there.

• 29:02Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 29:03Speaker 01

  And so I thought that would be the one.

• 29:05Jocko Willink?

  Yep. And you got those orders. How was it showing up at SEAL Team One as a new guy?

• 29:10Speaker 01

  Good. Neither did the fucked up thing where it's like, hey, go go to engineering and ask for this guy, you know, some guy that died, you know, or whatever it was. But, yeah, they fucked, obviously they fuck with you.

• 29:21Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 29:21Speaker 01

  Big time.

• 29:22Jocko Willink?

  Was was FAC the master chief at the time?

• 29:24Speaker 01

  He was.

• 29:25Jocko Willink?

  How was that check in procedure?

• 29:27Speaker 01

  Um, intense. I mean, he was the old Vietnam guy. He was later. I never even talked to him personally until one time we were out in, I think it was Guam. He showed up and he was actually a regular guy. I'm like, oh, shit, he's just a regular guy.

• 29:41Jocko Willink?

  He mellowed out a lot towards the towards the end of his tour there because he had been at SEAL Team. He spent like. I mean, he did thirty years. He probably did twenty-five years or something like that as SEAL Team One.

• 29:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:52Jocko Willink?

  Like, he was there for a long time.

• 29:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:55Jocko Willink?

  I checked in with three other guys and we were like outside of his office. He's like, get in here. And so we were all, we were like staying at attention on our whites. And he goes, fuck you, fuck you, and fuck you. Get out of my office. I was like, oh my god. Like, what am I doing here? Uh, and then he, once we were all, kind of all new guys together, he assembled us. And we were in the classroom and he came and told us like, keep your mouth shut, keep your ears on. Keep your mouth shut, keep your ears open. Don't be late and don't forget any gear. And that was like Roger. That was the, that's what he said.

• 30:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:33Jocko Willink?

  I was all ears at that point.

• 30:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's good advice.

• 30:37Jocko Willink?

  Did you, so you also, like me, you didn't go through SQT at the group or at the center. You went through STT, SEAL Tactical Training at SEAL Team One.

• 30:47Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 30:48Jocko Willink?

  And did, what'd you guys do land? Did you guys do land?

• 30:50Speaker 01

  Nland.

• 30:51Jocko Willink?

  Nland, just straight into the, straight into the mix.

• 30:54Speaker 01

  Yep, it was, it was good. I think we, we fucked up somewhere and we had to spend two more weeks out there. But it was kind of cool to have the instructors from SEAL Team One.

• 31:04Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 31:04Speaker 01

  You know, because then you, you might get a platoon, they may be your platoon chief later.

• 31:08Jocko Willink?

  Hundred percent.

• 31:08Speaker 01

  So that was kind of cool.

• 31:10Jocko Willink?

  Yep. Yeah, there was definitely some advantages to it. I think that thankfully, they unified everything together. Because those guys are getting, the SQT training is like really good right now.

• 31:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:22Jocko Willink?

  And it's much more uniformed. So no matter what team you're working with, everyone's got a, even more of a baseline, you know, that's like the same.

• 31:33Jocko Willink?

  What was your, did you, what was your job going to be in your first platoon? Did you know?

• 31:37Speaker 01

  Uh, I didn't know. I wanted to be a point man, but I got sixty gunner, which I loved. Like, that was badass.

• 31:45Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 31:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, sixty gunner with a couple other guys. And the E3, you know, eighteen and a half pounds, five hundred rounds, you know, a couple, maybe fifty extra rounds for a little bit more. But that was awesome. And I don't know if they do it that much anymore, but like we used to like practice singing, you know, like

• 32:06Speaker 01

  and that was just nonverbal communication and I thought all and that started us off with a SEAL is like how we use body language and shooting and different techniques like, you know, like you're getting ready. My 60 is going low. So I'm doing like three round birth. And the other guy hears that. So he's like laying on the lead. You switch out and then you just give out like 12 round birth. Now you're back singing.

• 32:31Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, no, they definitely uh hammer that course because when at least when I was running trade at like it was still the the 60 gunners or it became mark 48 gunners. You know, they had, what was it? Four days where it was just them and their pig. And it was awesome. Like, do you see those machine gunners at the end of that? Even like a new guy, machine gunner after four days of that machine gun course and the machine gun course is just freaking awesome.

• 32:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:57Jocko Willink?

  And you know, the deal with like you get some SEALs when a SEAL gets really into something, bro, they just break that thing down and they and so you get those guys that are instructors and they love being an A dub and they're going to make those guys into really awesome A dubs.

• 33:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:13Jocko Willink?

  It's holding strong, man. It's

• 33:15Speaker 01

  That's good to know.

• 33:16Jocko Willink?

  What's crazy is I had Roger Hayden. You remember Roger Hayden?

• 33:19Speaker 01

  I don't know.

• 33:20Jocko Willink?

  So Roger Hayden was a old Vietnam guy, but he like some of the stuff that they started, like he started like walking the point man course with the with the trip wires and the targets popping up. He started that like him and another guy and we we still do that now. You know what I mean? So it's like these these courses that were came from combat and they just got passed down from generation to generation to generation to generation and they're still there now.

• 33:48Speaker 01

  That was one of the coolest things was that point man course. I love that that like a 60 course where you got the, you know, almost a week of solid stuff and you come out of that and you're just like, you understand what your job is like. You're at the door, you're laying down leads or whatever to get through, you know, it's like. That type of training, if you go down, somebody, they don't care about you, they're picking up that sixty. Getting led down first before anybody grabs you, you know. And then that point man course was, I mean, you could tell it was like right from the Vietnam days, you know, the, the little tricks that they had.

• 34:15Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. I was at a, like a SEAL thing and there was, I was talking to some new guy, sixty gunners or mark forty eight gunners. And I saw Roger Hayden, so I, I bring these guys over, I say, hey, Roger, I was talking to these guys, they're, they're pig gunners. And he just looks at me, he goes, the pig is an area fucking weapon. That was the first words out of his mouth. I was like, thank God. His vastness, knowledge on man, the best.

• 34:42Jocko Willink?

  All right. So now you roll into your first platoon.

• 34:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:45Jocko Willink?

  And you're, and you're a pig gunner.

• 34:47Speaker 01

  Yep, pig gunner.

• 34:48Jocko Willink?

  How, how's the, how's the, you know, this is the nineties where it's hard to explain to the, the younger guys, the GWOT guys. How for us, at least for me, it was always like, let's hope we can get one mission. Like, let's hope we can get a mission where we get to lock and load our weapons for real. And go do anything. That was kind of what we would hope for.

• 35:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, we all did that. Like we're in Guam or something, or no, we were in someplace Indonesia and something happened. Um, something small. I went to my house, I say, go, hey, can't you just tell the congressman, like, we're here already? No, you just want to get into everything.

• 35:30Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I remember in my first platoon, we were, we were in Guam, but we went to Thailand. And there was like some kind of a UN thing was going on. There was a UN helicopter. We like took a picture with the UN helicopter. And like, thought it was super cool that we know the UN troops and we were there. That's, man, it was just different. And the, but, but I will say this, and we just kind of talked about it. Dude, we trained freaking hard, like. We trained so hard. It was almost there was in a way, training for the unknown. You would just think about, you know, the fear of not being prepared enough. I think that compelled us to train even harder.

• 36:16Jocko Willink?

  Because we just didn't know what to expect. Like, will I be ready?

• 36:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:20Jocko Willink?

  And I think that had a, I think that had a big impact on me. And how, you know, would we get the call? Are we good enough? Will we know our weapon systems? Will we be, you know, do we know our comms well enough? And like all these things, which the funny thing is, all that stuff is kind of, it's, it's actually not that hard.

• 36:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:42Jocko Willink?

  Uh, and which, that's where you went on your first deployment? You did your Guam?

• 36:46Speaker 01

  So, yeah, we did the Paycom.

• 36:48Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 36:49Speaker 01

  Yes, based out of Guam.

• 36:50Jocko Willink?

  Did you guys do just exercises?

• 36:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, we did Cobra Gold, which was fun.

• 36:55Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 36:55Speaker 01

  Four weeks, five weeks there. Um, but, you know, work, working with the ties, that was, that was great.

• 37:01Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Yeah. Man, there's some SEALs that never left.

• 37:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. They're still there today. Whatever, how much land they got, their own house and probably the third or fourth wife.

• 37:13Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah. Simultaneous wives, I think, for some of those dudes.

• 37:19Jocko Willink?

  You come back from that deployment, what's next?

• 37:21Speaker 01

  I jumped into Gulf Platoon. They need it. It was like, they're already on their, uh, their cycle. So I jumped into Gulf and then I was their, um, rear security point man.

• 37:34Jocko Willink?

  And how was, as you're now a new guy in your first platoon, now you're in your second platoon? What, what are you looking at from a leadership perspective and what are you seeing?

• 37:42Speaker 01

  I'm seeing the difference in leadership, you know, the slightly difference of the chiefs and the LPOs. Which was, uh, they're both good. But I did notice that, that the chief, you know, if you got one that was like, cause my first chief was badass. We talked about him. Um, or he was the LPO.

• 38:00Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 38:01Speaker 01

  So the LPO was badass and the chief was badass. And then my second platoon, um, the chief was okay. He was still good. He just wasn't like, wow, I got spoiled in that last one with the chief and LPO. Um, and then you could see the team, the squad leaders picking up.

• 38:17Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, well, this is what I realized when I, when I worked at Trade at was if you had a platoon, you know, when I, my initial thought was like, all right, the chief's got to be the tactician, the officer's got to be looking ahead, the LPO has got to be driving stuff. And I had this kind of mold of what I thought it should be. And what I realized after a relatively short period of time was, dude, I just want to have like a couple good, if I can get one or two good leaders out of that top four, the platoon's going to do fine. It doesn't really matter. If the officer's great and everyone else sucks, it'll be fine. If the chief is great and everyone else sucks, it'll be okay. LPO is great and everyone else, like you just need a leader that can make things happen and it makes such a huge difference in the whole zone. And I had to open up my mind and be more flexible to where, what roles people were going to play.

• 39:02Jocko Willink?

  Because, look, man, you got, there's some chiefs that they're just going to run everything and it's just going to be, they've been, they, they got eight platoons under their belt. They're smart, they're humble, they make things happen. And it's like, no, look, that, that officer doesn't really have to, he didn't have to show up, to be honest with you. And then sometimes like, oh, that chief came from shore duty and before that he did, you know, uh, worked at some other shore duty and he just doesn't know what he's doing. And then it's like that officer better step up or the LPO better step up or something, but you just need a guy.

• 39:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:35Jocko Willink?

  To make things happen.

• 39:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, you're right. You can't, you rarely get all four badasses.

• 39:40Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's, that's very rare. Um, and sometimes if you get four guys that are really good, they also come with four really big egos. And now you got conflict between, you know, the, the chief and the OIC or the chief and the LPO. And those things are just, it's so, it's such a bummer to watch, you know, it's such a bummer to watch a platoon eat itself.

• 40:09Speaker 01

  Morale drops.

• 40:10Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah. It's a disaster. Um, when did you go to sniper school?

• 40:15Speaker 01

  I went and so I got to CO21 in 92. I went to sniper school in 95.

• 40:21Jocko Willink?

  Okay. So was this after your second platoon then?

• 40:23Speaker 01

  Yes, I think it was, yeah. Or it was at the end of my second platoon, yeah.

• 40:29Jocko Willink?

  And where'd you go? Where'd you go on that deployment?

• 40:32Speaker 01

  Same place. So we just did different things. Like I think we went to India, which was awesome. So we still did PKON, we just, uh, hit different areas, Indonesia, Malaysia,

• 40:44Speaker 01

  Hong Kong. Different, different areas.

• 40:47Jocko Willink?

  Do you start, did you start feeling like you knew how to do your job pretty well?

• 40:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, I got better. Like I was also the intel rep back then, you know, so.

• 40:58Jocko Willink?

  Laminating maps.

• 40:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was just basically the guy that got all the RFIs and, you know, briefed, whatever.

• 41:05Jocko Willink?

  You know what else was crazy was back then was on, on my first deployment, we had one computer.

• 41:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:12Jocko Willink?

  Like one computer and it was the only person that even knew how to turn that thing on was the officer. And everyone else was just like every single brief was on whatever, uh, foot charts and just that's how we rolled. It was like magic, the, the, you know, the mission planning stuff was just paper and magic markers. And that's crazy.

• 41:35Speaker 01

  We didn't have a whiteboard.

• 41:36Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Didn't even have dry erase boards. Dry erase board would have been high tech back then. Check. Uh, so it's pretty standard deployment for back then.

• 41:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, all three of them were, uh, standard.

• 41:50Jocko Willink?

  Did you have anybody ever get in any trouble or anything like that?

• 41:53Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Yeah. We got in trouble. I think it was my third platoon.

• 41:59Jocko Willink?

  Did you make a deployment, man, your third platoon?

• 42:01Speaker 01

  Yeah. That was us. But here's the thing is like, because I was the sixty gunner, like you, you, and you realize the importance of it. That's why it's good to have different jobs, right? So as a point man, I remember at Nai Island, you know, we're doing, uh, IADS, immediate action drills and, uh, live fire and they put our sixty guy down. And then I was able to go, okay, I get sixty and start laying lead, you know? And so, you know, a lot of guys, everybody could shoot a sixty, but like to shoot it like proficiently because you have the experience and all that stuff. That was awesome to still have it, you know?

• 42:35Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah.

• 42:36Speaker 01

  And also later in my career to understand supporting assets, you know, cause I remember a couple of times in my career later on, guys were just all like eighteen, twenty guys show up always just like twenty twos, you know, like the, the M4s. Nobody has a heavy weapon. Nobody has forty mic, mic, you know, like, man, this is not good. We want to have a variety of weapons.

• 42:57Jocko Willink?

  And we honestly want to have as many belt feds as we possibly can.

• 43:01Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 43:02Jocko Willink?

  Cause that's how we're, that's how we're doing this. That's what keeps the freaking enemies heads down.

• 43:08Jocko Willink?

  So you get done with your second platoon, now you go to sniper school. How's sniper school for you?

• 43:11Speaker 01

  It was good. I loved sniper school. It was a, you know, did you go to sniper school?

• 43:16Jocko Willink?

  No.

• 43:16Speaker 01

  Okay, so yeah, laying out in Kalanga, flat ground, there was a couple tumbleweeds trying to do a stalk. You know, that was tough, but it was great training.

• 43:25Jocko Willink?

  It was, there's a lot of people, there's a pretty big attrition rate at sniper school.

• 43:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:32Jocko Willink?

  Guys that would go and wouldn't make it through. It was freaking, I didn't go to it, but like, I knew really good guys that would come back and be like, yo, that sucked.

• 43:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:41Jocko Willink?

  And some guys would be like, oh yeah, I graduated, but barely.

• 43:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:46Jocko Willink?

  And, and like you said, it was especially the stalking piece, uh, which is, you know, you got a guy that's a sniper instructor. That's sitting on an elevated piece of position and you have to crawl to him in a certain amount of time. In a, to a close enough distance and take a shot with a blanks.

• 44:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:07Jocko Willink?

  And not, and have that guy who's on binos.

• 44:10Speaker 01

  Two guys.

• 44:11Jocko Willink?

  Two guys on binos, trying with all their might to find you.

• 44:15Speaker 01

  Right. And it was a challenge, like they made it, they felt like they were shitbags if they couldn't find you. So like, when you take that shot with a blank, you just have to sit there, right? And they have, I don't know, anywhere from five to 10 minutes to scan. Okay, we just heard a shot. And then they got walkers and they go, hey, I see something suspicious. Walk to your right 50 yards, you know, two feet up, a little bit to the right, sniper at your feet. And then if you're, they're wrong, you're like, nope, that's just like a Coke can or something like that. Like fuck. And then they'll keep doing it, you know? And sometimes they're like trying to, like wait till they get one, but they, they try not to do that where there's just like saturating area. But, um.

• 44:56Jocko Willink?

  What's the closest you ever had them call sniper at the feet? Where you were actually laying.

• 45:00Speaker 01

  Oh, they got me once. My final one. And that was um for Honor Man. And this is a good story. I know the guy um. Uh, so one of the guys was failing, right? And he had to get like a ten. And um, so a ten is like, so yeah, you do your blank shot and they can't find you, right? And then they give you a live round and then they put a target where they're sitting and they move off. And you take that shot and you have, you can't just hit the target. If you just get the side, that's not, that's like a seven or something. You have to get like within that kill shot thing. And if you get that and then they come back and they look for you again.

• 45:43Jocko Willink?

  God.

• 45:44Speaker 01

  And if they can't find you, then you get a ten. So I was rocking for, I was very patient, doing the right things. My favorite thing to do was like um, I cut a hole through a bush or a tree, cut a small hole through a tree. And then get behind it 20 feet and then shoot through that hole. Cause then they're looking for you in the tree, right? But you're like 20 feet behind or have multiple bushes. And they're like looking for you uh behind each bush, but you're like way back there. So that was cool. And that was my favorite thing to do is like shoot from distance through a hole in a bush or a tree. And in this situation, I'm like, okay, man, I'm gonna crush Honor Man, you know?

• 46:28Speaker 01

  Um, and then uh, my, he was actually my shooting partner. And uh, I did that scene, this is in Nyland now. And now, so I have a tree, I'm like laying my back, cutting a hole through this. There was tumbleweeds, it was like about four foot long tumbleweed and I click, click, click, come back, click, click. And they also look at your bullet path.

• 46:50Jocko Willink?

  Has to be legit.

• 46:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, even if you hit the target, they want to make sure that you're not hitting any twigs. The guy that's lane grading, the walker will look at your bullet path. Um, and your position and all that. So um, I had this perfect shot. I'm like, alright. And all of a sudden, my shooting partner, who was like six, three, comes, shows up right next to me, like ran. Like across the pool table with two bushes like runs and gets right next to him like what the fuck and he's like gee I have to get you know he I knew he had to get a ten right but I go hey man I'm also going for honor man and uh so he gets right next to me he's like fuck and all of a sudden I hear the comms they're like holy shit run run 20 feet to the right

• 47:34Speaker 01

  run you know you saw him run over to that bush and so they stand right behind both of us right and I didn't know what he had done so I'm just like concentrating on my thing and they go um sniper uh sniper at your feet or oh no they didn't even ask that they go who did that right and I looked at my buddy and he looked at me and I go I did it like that took one for the team and then they go fucking for me get the fuck out of that was the biggest bullshit thing I ever seen I'm like what and so I'm walking away I go hey bro you got a perfect shot through that bush I already cut the hole I was so pissed and he got a ten but he made it you know that's good but like I always like you know it's one of those things I was like what I didn't know you

• 48:19Speaker 01

  did that I didn't know you ran 50 yards on a pool table

• 48:26Speaker 01

  uh and how was that deployment the last your third deployment um that was a good one that's the one we went to India and we were training with uh those Indians they're their seal version um that was good we did a lot of maritime stuff and uh that's when I started getting into the teaching stuff teaching the 60 doing the 50 cal sniper stuff and I could see that okay I like this stuff teaching stuff and then we had the skill to back it the capabilities to back it so um that was cool to see and you come back from that deployment did you go into training cell a team one I did yeah I went to training cell for a little bit and then I became a sniper instructor and did that that was 97 now would you do that sniper instructor uh like T A D you just like they'd

• 49:12Speaker 01

  yeah group you guys together and four months they just said hey we got sniper course going on um you're in training cell you're sniper They want you.

• 49:19Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, like I remember you being in training cell, but I don't remember you being like I taught, kind of did everything. Cause I was like, you know, didn't care about anything else. So I was like, oh, we'll teach you, you see, we'll go teach freaking diving and. But you were out there. The one thing I didn't teach, cause I wasn't a sniper, is I never went to teach any sniper courses, obviously.

• 49:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was short. I was a short time in training cell, cause then I left for the next unit. In ninety seven.

• 49:47Jocko Willink?

  So you head out to the next unit. Um, you get out there, selection's another, uh, very difficult challenge.

• 49:57Speaker 01

  It was, it was good. It was like, it was kind of like buds, but just more advanced, you know, just like big boy stuff and.

• 50:05Speaker 01

  They knew what they're doing. So they had certain ways. It was like the basics. And I won't get too much into it, but it's just like, if you didn't know the basics, like they broke every, like for CQC, if like. Um, most of the guys that failed were RSOs, cause they already had a way of doing things. So you had to like, forget all that stuff. So my advantage was like, I didn't really know a whole lot, you know? So I just listened to them and like did the walking thing, walking, walking. And then two weeks later, things are speeding up, you know, so, and then next thing you know, you're running. And if you didn't have the basics, how they wanted it, and then it was over.

• 50:38Jocko Willink?

  And the good thing is, so out, out there at this time, there was actually work to be done, um, like over in Bosnia.

• 50:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:46Jocko Willink?

  And did you get on some of those operations?

• 50:48Speaker 01

  Uh, two deployments over there, which was good. It was basically, uh, Pifwick stuff. Um, for the first one.

• 50:56Jocko Willink?

  Personnel indicted for war crimes.

• 50:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:58Jocko Willink?

  So these are people that doing war crimes over there in the, in, in that war zone. And once the war kind of ended, they had to go back and capture all these, these war criminals.

• 51:10Speaker 01

  Right.

• 51:10Jocko Willink?

  And, and then, so you did two of those deployments. What was the op tempo like?

• 51:15Speaker 01

  Uh, back home, it was slow, but over there, so you would only get a couple of guys that would go during a certain um

• 51:25Speaker 01

  time in your training. And so they get like maybe four or five guys that go or uh in once the war kicked off. Then we had a whole troop go over there because then it was like not only PIFWICS, it was also like terrorists that were working out there with NGOs. Um, funding money and things like that. And that was cool. So basically when you go there, there's just basically a low vis type thing. You're wearing the clothing that they're wearing, just uh taking photos, documenting, tracking, building up a target portfolio on uh the guys that you're looking at.

• 51:59Jocko Willink?

  And eventually you're gonna nab them or roll them up.

• 52:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:03Jocko Willink?

  And you do those low vis type things?

• 52:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, so we, we never nabbed anybody. We turned it over to um the big dogs FBI.

• 52:12Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 52:13Speaker 01

  And they, actually they grabbed one of the guys that we had uh tracked for them back in Chicago. So they were just, they didn't want to do it over there because they knew that he was tied to all these different uh NGOs where they're funding money. And one of them was uh Chicago and that's when they grabbed him.

• 52:29Jocko Willink?

  Sure, okay. And, and then uh once, so where are you at September 11th?

• 52:35Speaker 01

  I was training uh FBI uh at the command.

• 52:39Jocko Willink?

  No kidding?

• 52:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, so we're doing just GQC and then uh one of the guys came in and goes, hey man, uh planes just hit the towers. And at first I was like, plane hit the tower? Like a small plane? Like I didn't understand. And then uh then they left because they're from DC. They took off and that's when uh, or I think the second plane hit, they took off. And then that's like, okay, that's definitely deliberate and that's two airliners. So when that started, a lot of guys were thinking, oh yeah, there's gonna be a deployment or two and then it's gonna be over. I was like, I don't know. It's a lot, a lot of moving parts on this one.

• 53:16Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, well, I thought the same thing. I was I was actually in college because I did the semen natural program. So then I had to, once I did a couple deployments, I had to go to college. And so I was now in college and I called the detailer who I had worked for and who was a friend of mine, an awesome guy. And I was like, hey, sir, like, just send me back to a team. I'll go to college when I'm older. I'll do online courses or whatever. I don't want to miss this. And he's like, hey, Jocko, this is going to last for a long time. And of course, I didn't really believe him. And the other thing that he told me, he actually told me this a couple of years ago, like, I'd be like, oh, yeah, I called him and told him I wanted to go. Every freaking guy called him, like, every SEAL that wasn't at a SEAL team was

• 53:59Jocko Willink?

  like, hey, sir, please give me orders to SEAL team. That was every guy. So that's the kind of guys, you know, that's of course, of course, you know, that's of course, every guy that's not at a SEAL team is like, get me to a damn SEAL team now. And I think everyone's thinking, otherwise, we're gonna miss it, you know, because if you looked at Grenada, if you looked at Panama, if you looked at the first Gulf War, it was like, if you weren't lucky enough to be in the right time, in the right platoon, at the right place, it was like, you're just gonna watch it. It'll be over in 24 hours, 48 hours, 72 hours, maybe a week at the most. And everyone, I mean, we all just thought, well, it's gonna be over

• 54:39Jocko Willink?

  quick. Yeah, boy, were we wrong, huh? So what, so when did you actually get overseas?

• 54:47Speaker 01

  The first time was right after, like, in early 2002, January. Okay. And that was just an advance, just to check it out. Because we're getting ready to deploy. So I went over with like, four other guys from my, my team, and we checked it out. And then we came back, and then we deployed in 2002.

• 55:10Jocko Willink?

  And what was that? What was the like op tempo like and the mission set?

• 55:14Speaker 01

  It was, um, I think a lot of people thought that was just going to end pretty quick. Uh, a lot of, so I was with a sniper team and I had some awesome leadership. So during peace, we were training really hard. Like if we did cold weather training, we're actually like making snow caves and packing our rucks like you're supposed to, like taping up all the, you know, the one inch and, um, understanding that you don't want to just dump your rock out to find something, you know?

• 55:41Jocko Willink?

  That winter warfare thing on the east coast, like, uh, I know team two, when we were geographically located and team two was Europe and they had some dudes that were freaking all in on the winter warfare activities.

• 55:55Speaker 01

  You're getting the Norwegians.

• 55:56Jocko Willink?

  Hell, yeah.

• 55:57Speaker 01

  Those guys telling it how it is, making sure that you did things right. So that was cool. And also we had guys that were just like recce guys that just understood even in the jungle or, um, woodland that you have to have your ruck packed right, you know? And you could compartmentalize and I mean, we were, we came up with that one with a top pouch you could undo and put it around your waist for, you know, so you could go off for, you know, 12 hours and not have to take your whole ruck, things like that. So it was, it was good. That deployment was good, um, cause we already had those skills. So we weren't walking. We're, we're just, we were walking, uh, but at least we were walking.

• 56:36Jocko Willink?

  As opposed to crawl, walk, run, you mean?

• 56:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:39Jocko Willink?

  That type of?

• 56:40Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

• 56:41Jocko Willink?

  Metaphor?

• 56:41Speaker 01

  Yeah. Cause I saw some other, um, um, units that were out there and they're like crawling and it was like they didn't have the ruck. Cause recce, you're out there for a long time and those mountains are killer. You know, it's like Yosemite, um, but you're not using trails, you know? So, um, they had trails and stuff, but if you get off that goat trail, you're done. I mean, like, um, it's brutal. And those mountains separate, uh, other countries like Pakistan, you know? So you walk and then they don't understand where their line is. So you're in Pakistan and they don't, they don't get it. Um, so we had to abide by the rules and they don't, but it was good. It was good to be up in those mountains, uh,

• 57:23Speaker 01

  up north, uh, northeast and then even interior, interior. Cause that's where those guys were, were up there with their camps and re, uh, regrouping and doing their stuff.

• 57:34Jocko Willink?

  And and we so as part of a recce element where you were doing primarily recce?

• 57:38Speaker 01

  Mm hmm. Yeah.

• 57:40Jocko Willink?

  And then how so how long was that like into two thousand three?

• 57:45Speaker 01

  So, yeah, two thousand that deployment and then we deployed again two thousand three, two thousand four.

• 57:55Jocko Willink?

  When did you go to Iraq for the first time?

• 57:57Speaker 01

  Uh, two thousand three for the invasion.

• 57:59Jocko Willink?

  Oh, so you're there for the push up?

• 58:00Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 58:01Jocko Willink?

  How was that?

• 58:02Speaker 01

  That was good. I mean, we had, I mean, talk about having every single asset you needed. I mean, there was one operation we did where uh it was a deep penetration because, you know, Iraq wasn't secure. We left from um a different country and we flew in our helos and uh we they said that they had uh three aircraft per guy. That's how many aircraft were in there.

• 58:28Jocko Willink?

  Damn, dude.

• 58:29Speaker 01

  Overseas because there was a big deal. They're shooting like those uh damn missiles at us, you know. I remember we're refueling because there's a long insert and we see seeing like a telephone pole go past it. You know, so they definitely had their defenses up and it was good to have all those aircraft because they're taking out targets as we're moving in.

• 58:48Jocko Willink?

  Three aircraft per man. That's freaking crazy.

• 58:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:53Jocko Willink?

  And that was that was on the push up that that

• 58:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:56Jocko Willink?

  all that going on?

• 58:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. Then we ended up uh flying into Baghdad once it got semi-secure and then we start working out of Baghdad.

• 59:04Jocko Willink?

  And out of Baghdad, we guys doing like kind of hits? Does DA type hits?

• 59:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, we're just knocking out like whatever. We had like a list of guys that we need to find and capture and then we're just knocking them out just along with other units.

• 59:17Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 59:18Speaker 01

  Just bringing them down, finding out where they're at.

• 59:20Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I got there in in oh three and that's exactly what it was. It was like, you know, one of our one of our jokes was saying Baghdad SWAT.

• 59:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:28Jocko Willink?

  Like load up the trucks and we'll go freaking hit that target and we'll do it the next night. We'll do it the next night. It was just like pretty straightforward and at the same time. Super cool because is like the the ops would take like an hour.

• 59:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:44Jocko Willink?

  You know, and we had good intel coming in, relatively good intel. And so you we we didn't hit a lot of dry holes like most of the time we'd kind of get who you're going after. So you it was like, you know, pretty good percentage of success.

• 1:00:00Speaker 01

  There is a plethora of targets.

• 1:00:02Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:04Jocko Willink?

  And the enemy was they weren't like organized, you know, they were still doing kind of dumb things.

• 1:00:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:11Jocko Willink?

  That would, you know, in an environment like that, they're not, if they're not adapting, they're just getting rolled up.

• 1:00:18Speaker 01

  And yeah.

• 1:00:19Jocko Willink?

  So you're getting rid of the the the easy targets, basically.

• 1:00:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, here's something for you, because I I saw, I thought, my opinion was they made a huge mistake. So when we took over that country, they had a standing army.

• 1:00:34Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:00:34Speaker 01

  And they took the generals and the top leadership and they put them in jail or whatever they did with them. And then they just had, and then they disbanded the army pretty much.

• 1:00:45Jocko Willink?

  The the ba- the whole bath is party. Yeah, that was a huge, huge.

• 1:00:48Speaker 01

  And it's like, hey, you had a standing army, just like, you know, get them on your side, pay them. Because now they had no jobs, no nothing. And there's like, fuck these Americans.

• 1:00:57Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 1:00:57Speaker 01

  You know?

• 1:00:58Jocko Willink?

  No, that's a probably one of the biggest blunders and and lessons learned.

• 1:01:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:03Jocko Willink?

  You know, these are so, I mean, even a normal soldier, they're like, okay, cool. Like, am I getting paid?

• 1:01:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:12Jocko Willink?

  Cool. Well, you want me to face this direction? I'll face that direction. Or you want me to face the other direction? Okay, I'll face that direction. Like, give me my money, let me take care of my family. And it's not like they're gonna be able to be gainfully employed if you fire a hundred thousand or two hundred thousand people. Like, what are they gonna do? I'll tell you what they're gonna do. They're gonna get paid by some insurgent to put an ID in the street or shoot a mortar or shoot an RPG. Yeah, that was, that was not good. And I think that's pretty universal, that that that that was a mistake.

• 1:01:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:46Jocko Willink?

  But I did, you know. Did you get to see like the people welcoming you with American?

• 1:01:51Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, dude, they loved us. Yeah. And I felt bad because there's sometimes we had to bust in their house to look for something or somebody. And they're just like, have a tray of fruit, you know, to give to us. Hey, we understand, you know, we understand you have to do this. Well, you know, I felt bad for them.

• 1:02:06Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:06Speaker 01

  But they're super friendly because they wanted, you know, that regime out. And they saw us as the saviors and they want their country back.

• 1:02:14Jocko Willink?

  Yep. Yeah, boy. Um, it's one of those reasons, it's one of those things where I, I think that as Americans, and especially as our senior leadership in America, and by senior, I mean like the senior leadership at the time, looking at the situation and thinking that everything is going to go the way we want it to go. And that's the thing with war is, it is one thing I can guarantee you about wars, things are not going to go the way you think they're going to go. And if you think you're going to roll in there and because they're waving American flags when you get there, they're going to keep waving those American flags. It's like, well, not if you do, not if you fire 200,000 people in the army. I don't even know what the number is. Hundreds of thousands of people. And then, look, we can kick

• 1:02:57Jocko Willink?

  in your door tonight and you'll give us fruit. But if another unit kicks in our door two nights later, and then another unit kicks in our door four nights later, eventually we're not giving you fruit anymore. Eventually, we're just pissed. And, and then, not to mention, what if you hurt somebody? You know, what if someone gets injured by a breach? What if you destroy their car? And then what happens is Al Jazeera shows up with cameras and they start record, or they record, oh, look what happened to this family. Look what happened to it. And it's just little by little that, that mob mentality, the tide turns.

• 1:03:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:33Jocko Willink?

  So you're, you're there in the push up. And then is it, do you go to a cycle of going to Iraq? Or do you start bouncing back and forth between Iraq and Afghanistan?

• 1:03:42Speaker 01

  We did both, um, for a while. And so we got back from Iraq and then it was like only a couple of months where we went back to Afghanistan.

• 1:03:51Jocko Willink?

  And what are you, like a team leader at this point? Or are you still just a shooter?

• 1:03:53Speaker 01

  I was a sniper team leader.

• 1:03:54Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 1:03:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, so and then the recce guys had a lot of experience up in the mountains was paid off because we were also the point men for the troops and the teams and stuff like that. So back to Afghanistan, I think it was like third time now, you know, by then, or maybe second, going on my third. And the cool thing was that we were just, the cycle was quick. So we got a lot of experience over there. Like we'd come back, train, go back over, and we see the same people, same interpreters, same personalities. We pick up where we left off. So that was good for us to have that experience.

• 1:04:35Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that that quick timeline, I think is has some advantages to it because, you know, I think the ideal way to fight a war is the way they fought World War Two.

• 1:04:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, you're there for the duration.

• 1:04:46Jocko Willink?

  You're there until we win. I think that that cycle of, hey, you're going to be gone for like, you're going to be there for three, four months, come home for a short period of time, go back for three, four months. And it's sort of is, I think that's better than, all right, you're going to go for a year, but then you're not going to go back for three years, four years. And that I think is, I think the way we did that, the way the military at large did that, was not the best, not the best way to do it. I think either shorter, where you're, even though, even though you're going home sometimes, you still feel and you still have continuity.

• 1:05:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:24Jocko Willink?

  Because I think that when you start going six months, when you start going home for a year, year and a half, the continuity isn't gone.

• 1:05:31Speaker 01

  You're relearning. And then you have to relearn new tactics, new procedures that the enemy's using.

• 1:05:36Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 1:05:37Speaker 01

  Everything changes, you know, so you're just back to, it's like your first deployment again.

• 1:05:42Jocko Willink?

  Right. And, and so I think you got to make the home timeframe short enough that when you go back again, it's not like you're having to relearn and you're on, you're on a totally different deployment.

• 1:05:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:56Jocko Willink?

  And obviously, guys are going to get burned out of doing that. And then you go, cool, you're done for, you send them to shore duty or whatever, send them to three years, let them take some real legit downtime to decompress. But man, when you're switched on, stay on. And keep it, keep it rocking.

• 1:06:12Speaker 01

  It's true. You can see even the leadership, the senior generals and admirals out there, they switch out. And then the next guy comes in, he's doing his own twist on something, you know, but if you had the same guy out there and if he fucks up, you, you know, whatever, you get a new guy in there that could get the job done. But the whole thing is to end the war, not just to have it prolonged. And then learning new lessons and somebody else, oh, I think I know how to do it. And then they try it and it fails, you know, and then they got another guy come out, well, I'm going to do this thing. But if you had the same guy out, there's like, yeah, I tried these two things and it failed. Now I'm going to do this one. And I'm seeing my mistakes. I'm getting experience from dealing with these people out here, you know, and I think we could do this efficiently.

• 1:06:53Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I think that when you look at the fall of Afghanistan, I think one of the, one of the many contributing factors is like, if Echo's out there and he's training up some local forces, he says he trained him up to a level four.

• 1:07:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:08Jocko Willink?

  And then you get him. And look, those guys aren't getting any better. But what do you say? You go, oh, I'm Jim and I trained my, I trained him up. Now they're level five. And by the time it gets to me, I'm like, well, I'm going to do better than Jim. I got to prove that I did a great job too. So now I'm trained him to a level six. And you do that for, and by the way, they're still level three. Cause Echo was lying, you were lying, and I lied all to get our promotion, all to look good. So we all lied and the Afghans weren't any better. And that basically happened for 20 years.

• 1:07:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:36Jocko Willink?

  And look what happened at the end of it. Oh, oh, the Afghans are good. You remember, what was it? Two or three weeks before the pullout, they're like, oh, they're up and they're ready to, that was just based on lies and lies and lies instead of somebody just saying, wait a second. And, and everybody on the ground was like, no, no, this isn't good. This is not good. I mean, I said that one in Iraq, when we left Iraq, it's like, hold on, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, hold on. The Iraqis have gotten better, but they're not ready to hold down the fort. They might hold it down for a little while, but they're not ready. And the politics took over.

• 1:08:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:09Jocko Willink?

  Freaking ridiculous.

• 1:08:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's horrible.

• 1:08:11Jocko Willink?

  Um, so you're doing now just back to back to back cycles, coming home, training, and, and then going back on deployment. Now, are you in a sniper element this whole time?

• 1:08:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, I switched over, um, took basically a platoon size group. And that was cool because then I was like a, an assault type group where I also had a sniper team and assault teams and stuff like that. That was great.

• 1:08:38Jocko Willink?

  And you're, you're getting experienced. Um, how's it, how's the casualty rate at this point for you?

• 1:08:46Speaker 01

  Um, I would say there was mostly wounds, you know, and that's, and I say that mostly wounds because we did have some deaths, but like, at the same time, we were quick to learn from, uh, the feedback was good. And that's one thing I didn't like about, like when I was, uh, in the SEAL team is like finding out what happened, you know, getting the AARs, you know, from like team three or team two. It was hard to get, you know? So, uh, where I was at, there was like a little, it was still hard to get from different, um, teams that were out there, but like, uh, with the snipers, it was easy because we had huge,

• 1:09:30Speaker 01

  we had our, the same building and we just talked about it and we could get back, we could email them and stuff like that and find out. So we could prep training for, okay, this is what they're doing out there now. So we could get there a little bit of, uh, higher speed. But, um, yeah, so there was some casualties and then, uh, um, I won't get into too much, but like, yeah, we took some heavies in Iraq and then, uh, uh, but, you know, we were going after some heavy hitters too.

• 1:09:57Jocko Willink?

  When you, um, when you came out to Ramadi in 2006 and, uh,

• 1:10:04Jocko Willink?

  What was it that, I mean, obviously you guys knew that we were killing a lot of bad guys. What was it that, how did you end up coming out? I forget.

• 1:10:11Speaker 01

  Good question. So I was the operations guy. So I wasn't really, didn't need to deploy, but I liked deploying. So I knew your platoon chief.

• 1:10:22Jocko Willink?

  Tony.

• 1:10:23Speaker 01

  Big Tony. So I did a platoon with him at one and learned a lot from him. Big land warfare guy. So, and I love.

• 1:10:32Jocko Willink?

  The Nylander.

• 1:10:32Speaker 01

  Yeah. So we came and did a visit for you guys. And I brought my sniper rifle because I was like.

• 1:10:41Jocko Willink?

  Good call.

• 1:10:42Speaker 01

  I was like, hey, I know I'm not chief, but like, you know, so I told my leadership. I said, hey, so we as a unit do not have urban sniping. We got rural and but we don't have any urban. You know, can I stay here and just learn from these guys because they're doing urban? You know, why wouldn't I? And if as long as they allow me, can we do that? And so that's what my pitch was. And they're like, yeah, I just talked to Jocko and Tony. You know, so that's how I got in. I was like, cool.

• 1:11:12Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And I was, I always had a relatively open door policy for team guys, especially, I mean, if I know them, then that's a lot different. But I always tried to in Ramadi, it wasn't quite as much in Baghdad, when I was in Baghdad. It was like, if you showed up and you were a SEAL, we'd get you on, you know, we'd get you doing external security or something like that. I did have that bite me in the ass one time where we took out a guy and he ended up like opening. He was trying to shoot out a light, but he didn't tell anyone. So we're like taking out a target and all of a sudden there's shots fired and he didn't tell anyone that he's going to shoot. And then when, you know, we're all going, hey, who's shooting? Didn't say anything. It wasn't until afterwards in the debrief, it's like, hey, because we're now, you know, we're spinning up. We got the AC 130. We're trying to figure out what the hell is going on.

• 1:11:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:11:57Jocko Willink?

  And it was this dude trying to shoot out a light. So we tightened up our policies after that. And like, okay, here's the rules. Got to do a walkthrough. Got to get with the chief, like all that stuff.

• 1:12:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:08Jocko Willink?

  But Ramadi, we were tighter because it was just way more dangerous to do it. But you, you know, coming from your command and just knowing me and Tony was like, oh, go get some.

• 1:12:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was good. It was a good experience for me.

• 1:12:21Jocko Willink?

  Did you? Like, was it surprising to you how target-rich that environment was?

• 1:12:29Speaker 01

  Um, a little bit. I think I knew it was target-rich, but it was, it was cool that you guys put yourself right in the center of, um, or on that corner, like where you guys, uh, drove out and hung out. That was cool to be there, you know, that, uh, platoon. Just, and then you just walk out the door, you know, patrol down the street or take a, go at night and take a building, you know? And it was good to see like old map studies of finding, okay, which, which building's the highest in this town, you know, and what, what could we get to and what are we actually trying to do? If we take this building, can we even see the other building that we're trying to observe or the, the structure? So I liked that. That was cool to see like the old school, uh, planning, not just walking

• 1:13:14Speaker 01

  out there and just taking a building.

• 1:13:15Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah. Well, you know, Tony was totally fired up for that, you know, like, let's get out the map. And then Chris, Chris Kyle, obviously was like, full on committed to where can we position ourselves? Where we're gonna have the most impact and kill the most enemy. And it was interesting, I had the, the brigade commander on here, General McFarland, and he would like the same, you know, here his brigade is, they're killing all these enemy fighters and like the MEF is going, hey, what, how are you killing all these people? General McFarland's like, come out here, come and see. And that was my answer same time, every time people like, how are you killing so many people? It's like, come on out, come and, come and, come and have a look.

• 1:13:55Speaker 01

  You gotta stick your neck out a little bit. You gotta be in there.

• 1:13:58Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:58Speaker 01

  Um, I, my regret was like, I brought my 300 Win Mag.

• 1:14:04Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you wanted that SR.

• 1:14:05Speaker 01

  No, no, I wanted my 556.

• 1:14:07Jocko Willink?

  Oh, okay.

• 1:14:08Speaker 01

  Um, and only because like I had, uh, the round that could drop people, but like the, the kickback. So the 300 Win Mag, when, when I shot, like it took so long to get my scope back on the target, like I would miss the second one.

• 1:14:21Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:22Speaker 01

  But like the 556, it could be like tink, tink, you know? So that was my only regret, but it was good experience. I was just, uh, rocking with, uh...

• 1:14:31Jocko Willink?

  Well, like you said, that's a good lesson learned for like, oh, if you're in an urban environment, there's gonna be more targets, it's gonna be, you're gonna need to take quicker shots.

• 1:14:38Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, of course, the 300 wind mag, you got the distance, which, you know, Kyle definitely shown on that one, you know. For me, I think my shots were only like 80 to 120, I think I had a 220 yard shot, but they're pretty close.

• 1:14:54Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, I was talking to Leif, you know, that you were coming on and he was like, oh, yeah, he's like, he was telling me about that chapter that I read in the opening of this, he's like, I think, he's like, I think Jim got four of those. He was all fired up.

• 1:15:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:15:08Jocko Willink?

  Uh, and it was, it was definitely, you know, we were doing things that made a lot of sense to us, but, you know, I found out afterwards, people would be like, why are you going out in the daytime? I was like, hey, wait, what do you mean, why are we going out in the daytime? It's like, number one, we have Iraqi soldiers with us, they don't have night vision goggles. Number two, we're gonna go out in the nighttime and we're gonna get in a position where we're gonna stay, and that's when the enemy's gonna come out, because the enemy didn't come out very much. I think we probably killed less than five guys in the daytime. Or sorry, in the nighttime. Almost everybody was, that's when the enemy would come out and fight, they knew we owned the night and they didn't want to come out.

• 1:15:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, I like what you guys did, you guys went out in the night to take the building, and then you're there first light, you know, and then you're, and then that one was the mosque right next door was like yelling, screaming out like, hey, Americans are here, get your guns, we got them, you know, and then they came, you know.

• 1:16:06Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, they, they would definitely come. And I remember one op that you guys did, you guys went out because an army tank got blown up.

• 1:16:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:16:14Jocko Willink?

  And when an army, a Brad, or sorry, an M1 got blown up, and so then it takes, you have to send an M88 wrecker out there to drag the thing back to base, but for, and I think on that particular operation, when that tank got blown up, the, I think it was the driver got out, stepped down off the tank as they exited the tank, and he was killed by another ID.

• 1:16:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:16:36Jocko Willink?

  And then the army requested, hey, can you guys like, watch this thing? And I think that's when you were like, I'll go too, like, so, you did the, so you got down there and just to see. How the enemy was effective, like they figured out how to burn, they figured out how to set fire to those tanks.

• 1:16:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:16:53Jocko Willink?

  Which was, which was impressive.

• 1:16:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:16:56Jocko Willink?

  Um, I think you also did a, you also did like a daytime patrol with the boys, didn't you?

• 1:17:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:17:03Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Uh, big IAD, big gunfight.

• 1:17:06Speaker 01

  Big gunfight, yeah. Well, that would, they, they, I think they hit us with PKs on that one. And, uh, um, the funniest thing was like, you know, I was, you know, with you guys on the, we were doing like a, um, uh, center peel and, uh, I was running back and then the rackies were behind us, right? And I running back and I was like, man, we only got like all seals up here. And I came back thinking I was going to go down the long line and all the rackies were on a corner, like huddling up in the corner. I'm like, oh my God, okay. It's just us.

• 1:17:40Jocko Willink?

  It's just us, man. Yeah, their reactive contact was not exactly up to, uh,

• 1:17:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:17:45Jocko Willink?

  the standard. Um, one, one thing that was so, so you got done there and you kind of reported up your chain of command. Um, and like, uh, basically, correct me if I'm wrong, you said like, I don't think that we, that your unit should be doing that operation and, or something along those lines. Because like maybe a week later, my skipper calls me up and he's like, hey, like what's, what, what's, what's this all about? And I was like, what's what? He goes, well, you, you had Jim Foreman out there. He went on some ops with you guys and, and like, he said, you guys don't have any air support. I was like, sir, we don't have any air support. Like there's, helicopters can't fly here

• 1:18:27Jocko Willink?

  because they'll get shot down and AC 130 isn't going to fly during the day. So no, we don't have any air support. He's like, we, you know, you got, there's this massive ID threat. And I was like, well, sir, yes, there is a massive ID threat. That's why we do mostly foot patrols. Like we, the foot patrols do get hit with a lot less IDs. That's why we're doing it. He's like, oh, he's like, he's, these aren't strategic targets that you guys are killing out there. And I was like, no, sir, these aren't strategic. We're not shooting Osama bin Laden or Zarqawi out here. We're, but we are having a strategic impact with helping the, the conventional units.

• 1:19:05Jocko Willink?

  Win this, this is a very strategic battle and we're certainly implementing it or assisting in it.

• 1:19:14Jocko Willink?

  And then there's always this thing about supporting conventional units and Echo Charles for your information.

• 1:19:23Jocko Willink?

  There's two different types when you go out in the field, you can either be the supported element, which means you're the one that's like, for lack of a better word, you're the senior one, or you can be the supporting element, which means you're the junior one. And sometimes people get really concerned about that, like, because if I'm supporting you Echo, and you decide to do something I don't like, well, that's kind of like, oh, well, that's what we're doing. And so it is, and actually, if you look at the history of NSW, if you look at the history of special operations, there has been times where that has been terrible. So I'm a special operations unit, I'm working for you Echo, and you go, oh, you were working for me? Cool, go charge that machine gun nest. And we end up losing a bunch of guys and it doesn't work out well, and that can be really bad. So people are very hesitant

• 1:20:09Jocko Willink?

  for, to sign up to be the supporting unit. And so, you know, my boss was kind of like, well, you guys are the supporting unit. And I was like, well, sir, yeah, we are. And I said, and guess who's supporting us? The conventionals. They are absolutely like, all of our close air, all of our fire support is coming from them with their tanks and Bradleys, all of our QRF is coming from them, and all of our CASVAC is coming from them. So even though we're quote, the supporting unit, it's fine, like, it's not, and by the way, they completely listened to what we had to say. It wasn't like they were like, no, shut up and go do this. No, they're like, oh, you don't think that's a good idea? Cool. What do you think is a good idea? So they had a totally open mind.

• 1:20:53Jocko Willink?

  And, and the final thing was just like, it was like, uh, this is like, is this the most dangerous thing that NSW has done? And I was like, well, I don't know if it's the most dangerous thing that NSW has done. But I said, sir, this is freaking dangerous. I'd like to go look at the casualty reports. There's an American wounded or killed every single day here and we're out there. So is this dangerous? Yes, it absolutely is, but the, the conventionals are out there every single day and we're going to support them. And so that's, that's what it was. And thankfully I had a great relationship with my skipper and I talked him through it. And by the way, my skipper had to approve all of our operations. And just about every operation that we did had to get run through the Siege of Sotaf as well.

• 1:21:38Jocko Willink?

  And the Siege of Sotaf was great. They supported everything that we were doing. Uh, and, and so ultimately it was, you know, this, there was like a little bit of a firestorm for a little bit. And, but you know, once, once we talked through it, it was all good.

• 1:21:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think the biggest thing was like, we did things different and we have a lot of assets and we try to take out the key players and you guys were doing things differently. I did not, what I didn't want to do was like, we just always say, hey, this rooster environment over there, let's just take our squadron and take over, you know, cause then you guys would be under us and this is your, uh, playpen. So I, I appreciate being out there and seeing what was going on. That was awesome. And then also I was like, uh, free agent. And the last thing I want to do is like pull, you know, cause I had a relationship with you guys. To pull 30 dudes or 40, whatever over to you guys. And then what the fuck? I had that happen to me.

• 1:22:39Speaker 01

  Where another unit person from a different unit came over to observe. And then next thing you know, they got like 20 guys. This is, uh, during the, um, invasion. And then they're like, hey, we like what you got. We want your, not only do we want, they want our AO, but they also want our sleeping quarters. You know, and we're like, what?

• 1:22:59Jocko Willink?

  Now we got problems.

• 1:23:01Speaker 01

  I was like an E5. I was like, wait, what? And I was like, looking back to my senior chief, I'm like, is he serious? You know, it's like, so, um, not that that would happen like that, but I'm just saying, uh, we had a different mission. Our, our stuff was at night.

• 1:23:14Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:14Speaker 01

  We go in at night, we take care of it at night and we come back before the day. Um, in Afghanistan, sometimes we go out in the day and do the right thing, but like you guys had a totally different mission set. And mixing the two might not have been the best thing.

• 1:23:28Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And, um, we were really lucky to like, we happen to have 13 snipers in our task unit, which was not normal. You know, normally maybe you have, maybe you have two platoon, maybe three platoon.

• 1:23:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:23:41Jocko Willink?

  So you're up to like six, maybe, but we had 13, like we could really lock some stuff down. But, uh, it was weird too, because like there's like, there was some kind of, uh, like there was like people that just said that you said that we were like operating outside the ROE, that we were killing women and children, that we were going crazy, taking it like unnecessary risk. It was, it was, uh, there was, there was like, uh, a rumor that the SEALs, the Ramadi snipers got shut down because of, you know, all this rule breaking. And it's just like, no, actually none of that is even remotely true.

• 1:24:25Jocko Willink?

  We did operations from the day we got there until the day we left sniper operations. And we, and we turned over to sniper operations to the guys from team five that took our place and they rolled right into it.

• 1:24:35Speaker 01

  Yeah. You have a hater and that person used me, uh, to accuse you of things. He said, um, that I was sent there to report on you. I'm like, dude, I would never do that. I want to get experience. I want to roll with you guys. I wouldn't be there observing, critiquing. And I told the guy, I go, hey, I got three shots off that, three or four shots off that. And we were surrounded. I got wounded with those guys. You know, which was like, how could you say that I was there to report war crimes? So my point is that somebody does not like you. I never said those things and I was in the mix with you guys, my brothers. Like I said, I got wounded on that trip with you guys. I was only there for like maybe less than a week.

• 1:25:21Speaker 01

  You know, we did two, three ops, which were awesome. And I got some experience finally on the urban stuff and I took it back to the command. With the, I won't mention the technique, but the techniques that you guys used were good to go. And it bugged me that somebody was using me and they also didn't, they used my name, but they didn't use their name.

• 1:25:45Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Yeah. And you know, I remember I first heard that and I just like sent you an email. I was like, hey, bro. You know about any of this? And you're like, oh no, I didn't say any of that. I was like, I was like, okay, cool. I'm just making sure that we're all good. Like, because this is kind of crazy. And you're like, yeah, dude, some, you're like, you got some haters. I'm like, okay, man.

• 1:26:04Speaker 01

  Yeah. The biggest thing I had was that we just do things differently.

• 1:26:07Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:07Speaker 01

  And it's not, there's a thousand ways to do something right and it doesn't mean that they're wrong. We just were like very strategic target assets, nighttime, in and out. Not the daytime remain over day stuff for that deployment.

• 1:26:25Jocko Willink?

  In the daytime, completely embedded with like conventional units in a staying within like a little tiny city. You know, it's just, it's just a different, a different gig. But yeah, and that's the other thing is like, how tightly controlled the city was and how we have Iraqi soldiers with us. There's Iraqi police out in the city. There's sheiks out in the city. The battalion commanders and brigade commanders are meeting with the sheiks. Like you can't just go out there and kill people. You will, it just, you, you literally cannot do it.

• 1:26:56Speaker 01

  You will get reported. I mean, they had a working hospital, right?

• 1:27:00Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:00Speaker 01

  They had a working hospital in Ramadi. So it's not like it was the wild, wild, it was the wild west, but it wasn't as the wild west where you could just do whatever and nobody reports you.

• 1:27:09Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. The, the amount of. Oversight that we had, like I said, this my commanding officer, the Siege Sotof commander, not to mention the entire conventional side. Like you can't roll into some battalion commander's battle space and just do what you want to do. Like it, there's, there's just no possible way that that could happen. So that's why I've never really worried too much like these, uh, this craziness is all just like, okay. Um, it's, we know the truth and, and that, that is what it is. Uh, but it was awesome seeing out there and is awesome. Just, just anytime you link up with like some of your people you know from back in the day and now you can make things happen.

• 1:27:50Jocko Willink?

  It's very cool. Um, and we could, so we kept operating and of course, uh, you kept operating too. You kept getting after it. Um, you went back and, and now you're, what, what happens after that deployment? What's, what's next on this, on the agenda?

• 1:28:07Speaker 01

  Next was back to Afghanistan, um, running, uh, my platoon size guys. And I did Afghanistan, then I went back to Iraq for my second platoon size, uh, leadership role.

• 1:28:21Jocko Willink?

  And that, when you went back in 2008, that was like a, that was sort of the hard deployment for you.

• 1:28:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was a rough one. Yeah.

• 1:28:29Jocko Willink?

  And, and that altempo was up and you're going against some pretty hardened targets. By this time, you know, the, the enemy, like we were joking about earlier, you know, the enemy in 2003, 2004, there was a lot of low hanging fruit. And just like we were learning, but they were learning too. And, and they were getting smarter. They were getting better. They started doing the vehicle born IEDs. The IED threat just got out of control in 2006, 2005, 2006, by 2007, 2008. Now they're, now they're countering our TTPs. This is when, um, a lot of the house born IEDs, like it got gnarly for you guys on that deployment.

• 1:29:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, it was, it was a good deployment because we were, um, the guys were all on board with what we're doing, which is hitting hard dudes, not just guys that were just mid-level management. We're going after the top dogs. Making a difference. Those guys were a suicide network, blowing up, you know, handicap, putting bombs on handicapped kids and sending them into a store and blowing it up, killing ninety, eighty people.

• 1:29:37Speaker 01

  So those are the targets we're going after, those guys, and they were well protected. So it wasn't just like, hey, they had one bodyguard. It was like they had ten, fifteen bodyguards. Throughout into multiple buildings and stuff like that. So, um, we planned pretty good and we were taking them out and they were like, hey, we're getting tired of these guys. They only have so many. Let's just whittle them down, um, and then they'll probably go home. Um, and they tried to do that. Luckily we stayed with it and got the job done, but it was, it was a bloody one.

• 1:30:12Jocko Willink?

  And you, you lost guys on that deployment?

• 1:30:14Speaker 01

  Uh, three guys, yeah, three guys, two dogs. Um, I think I had seventeen Purple Hearts total. But I called, I had to get some reinforcements back from home to make up, um, for some guys and I had, you know, the whole command, uh, volunteering. I grabbed, uh, I think I grabbed five guys that I knew. I go, okay, I just want to, I know, I want to know them. I want to know who they are. I want to have fought with them before. Uh, cause I'd rather have five than ten or twenty that I'm not sure about, even though they're all good guys. I just want to be very selective on this one, like you were. Um, and, uh, Ramadi.

• 1:30:55Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's such an awesome statement about what SEALs are like when you've got a unit that has taken heavy casualties. And you need replacements and you have every guy putting their name on the list. That's like, just, that's, that's what it's all about right there. You know, they want to go and they want to get in the fight. They want to avenge their brothers and they want to do the job and they want to help each other out. And that's just, it's just freaking awesome to hear.

• 1:31:23Jocko Willink?

  How did, how are you doing? Like now you're just? I don't know, ten deployments deep or something like that. What, what's your, uh, how's your like personal life going at this point? Are you married at this point?

• 1:31:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:31:36Jocko Willink?

  You got kids?

• 1:31:37Speaker 01

  Married, uh, three kids. I had, yeah.

• 1:31:40Jocko Willink?

  That's what happens. We've been talking for an hour and a half and we didn't mention any of that.

• 1:31:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:31:44Jocko Willink?

  Freaking team guys are married to the teams.

• 1:31:46Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. Uh, three kids and, uh, married and, uh, we're doing good. And things start getting a little bit heavier after more and more deployments. Um, and then I end up retiring in 2018 and then shortly after divorce. Um, and then managing the kid stuff.

• 1:32:09Jocko Willink?

  Uh, but, but during this time period, like 2009, 2008, 2009, your, your wife at the time is just

• 1:32:17Speaker 01

  Solid.

• 1:32:17Jocko Willink?

  gotten through it.

• 1:32:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, solid.

• 1:32:20Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, there's something, um, you know, I know my, my wife, like when I was losing guys and, and my wife is going to the funerals, you know, and that is, and she's going to visit my wounded guys in the hospital. And I think, I think that's a huge reality check on the home front. Like it's one thing to see, oh, there's, there's people getting hurt or killed overseas and, but it's never, you know, it's not my, not my husband. It's not happening to my husband or his team.

• 1:32:51Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:32:52Jocko Willink?

  It's like now all of a sudden, oh, it is, it is happening to my husband's unit. And I think that was, uh, a huge reality check for my wife and my wife, God bless her, like she never asked me about anything. She's like, she didn't, I bet she didn't ask me three questions in my time that I was married with her about work. And probably two of them were like, are you going to be home this weekend or do you have to work? And I was like, I will, I'll be home or not home. But you know what I mean? Like my wife was never wanting to know about anything. She was like, you go, you know, like, I get it. You do your thing.

• 1:33:32Jocko Willink?

  But man, um, going to, going to guys' funerals was a definite reality check.

• 1:33:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, for sure.

• 1:33:42Jocko Willink?

  Are you, so are you staying, you're, you're at this command now five, seven, 10, 11, 12 straight years at this point?

• 1:33:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:33:54Jocko Willink?

  How, do you get any downtime?

• 1:33:57Speaker 01

  Not really. That was one of my, um, not complaints, but like, like, uh, it's a good thing you're at war and you're being used, right? But, um, after a while, it would be good to have like, hey, this month, just stay home. You know, just take care of your family and take care of yourself and show back up 30 days from now. Uh, but we couldn't, we didn't afford to do that. So we just had to keep going. But I think it burnt some guys.

• 1:34:24Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And are you, now you're getting, you're, obviously you're promoting and at some point you take over selection? Is that right? Is that after you made Master Chief?

• 1:34:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:34:36Jocko Willink?

  And how was it, I, I know that for me, I had a, I always feel like one of the luckiest things that I got was,

• 1:34:44Jocko Willink?

  as an E5, that SEAL Team One, I went into training cell. And like I said earlier, like I taught everything I could, you know, every trip I could go on, I go on. Whether it was CQB at the time, CQB, CQC now, but, uh, mount, land warfare, comms. I taught, I did ran the dive course, like everything that I could do was like, I'm in. And even teaching, we taught STT to the young officers. And so it was like, oh, now you're like sitting and you're watching and, and you teach it. And then you watch it and then you teach it and you watch it and you do it. You're like, oh, let me show you how it's done. And I learned so much by being an instructor. Is that the same thing that you felt?

• 1:35:27Speaker 01

  It was good because you're getting guys from different, you know, platoons, basically. And everything's based off the basics, but there's also some idiosyncrasies that they do differently. Right? So now you're seeing, uh, multiple ways to just do something right. And so you're like, okay, that's cool. I never saw it like that. As long as, uh, you're getting the job done, it doesn't matter. You're not just going, hey, this is my playbook and this is why I do every. Time and that sucks. You want to have like a couple of plays in your playbook. So that was good. And then, like you said, like you're seeing it done over and over and over again. And you just become that much better. You're more reactive. You could see where an issue is about to happen. And be there or stop it before it happens.

• 1:36:10Speaker 01

  Um, and then you're just like in tune. You're like in flow state for some really like the toughest thing we do is, um, for all of us seals is, uh, CQC live fire, right? Even with multiple entries, you know, where you're trying not to enter on other people, but it happens all the time. So you had to be on your toes as a cadre.

• 1:36:30Jocko Willink?

  Mm hmm. Uh, and then you end up, you know, being, being the CMC of, of some elements.

• 1:36:38Speaker 01

  Yep. Yeah.

• 1:36:40Jocko Willink?

  And how's that leadership?

• 1:36:41Speaker 01

  It was good.

• 1:36:42Jocko Willink?

  From a leadership perspective, talk to us about leadership now that you're in charge of hundreds of people.

• 1:36:48Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I liked that my understanding of, uh, like a master chief CO is like, they're going to be probably like top five or top 10 shots, you know, that they're still bringing it, not like they're sitting behind their desk. You know, with a gut and they're not doing anymore, you know? So I always thought, okay, that's how you should be. You should be like, you should be.

• 1:37:10Jocko Willink?

  I saw a T-shirt the other guy, a guy had at the teams and said, no fat team guys.

• 1:37:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:37:15Jocko Willink?

  I've just, when you start talking about a team guy with a gut, I'm like, all right, I gotta break this up. So yes, that is not what you're supposed to be. No fat team guys.

• 1:37:23Speaker 01

  Exactly. So.

• 1:37:24Jocko Willink?

  And definitely no fat master chiefs. Come on.

• 1:37:25Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, you gotta like lead by example, right? Especially if you're pushing, pushing the, uh, you know, the mental toughness, the mental mindset, and then you're sitting back there, you know, not doing the training. So the other thing is like, you gotta be out there doing the training. Like, so, um, I can't be at a two week breaching course or two week sniper course or two week shooting course. But I could be there for two days, you know? And part of it is to see the new technology, like the snipers. Cause you know, like they're going to come some, uh, requests to get gear, you know? It's going to be like thousands of dollars and it's going to, it could just be something, hey, we want everybody with new boots. And then, you know, usually it's the XO that, and we're running past the Master Chief, what do you think about this? I'm like, dude, this has got new boost last week, whatever it is.

• 1:38:10Speaker 01

  But, um, just like technology is like, hey, we already have GPSs, but what, tell me why we want these ones. It's like, okay, we want these ones because it does this, that and this. Okay. Well, that sounds like for our lead jumpers and Iraqi guys. So get 10 of them instead of like 40 or 50 or whatever it is. So then you could make those calls, but if you don't know, and the other worst thing is that you just deny it because you don't understand it. Cause you're a dinosaur and you're like, hey, why do we need GPSs? I just use my, my compass, you know? Uh, that's how we did it, you know? So you have to be in the game. You have to be present. You have to, just a little bit, just even just walking around your team room, just to see,

• 1:38:50Speaker 01

  knowing the guys' names is a huge difference. So, um, like building those relationships, even a small bit is worth it. And you also went to Trade At for a while, right? I did, I did, uh, Trade At twice. Yeah. And how'd you like going to Trade At? I loved it. Yeah, it was good. Um, it was good to see, uh, well, the first time I went down there, I, I noticed like, you know, in selection, we're seeing like some of the bases was getting dropped. And then when I went to Trade At, I go, okay, this is where it's at. It was like the one, the shift break punch thing. The, you know, instead of just saying flank left. Because the whole idea is like, if I, uh, if you tell me, hey, Jim flank left, there's a lot

• 1:39:35Speaker 01

  of freedom for me. You can figure it out. Yeah. And, um, the shift break punch was created, I understand why it was created. It was for safety, you know, some more control. So nobody would get shot or there's less leadership in it, you know? Like you're telling me to do something, but I had to shift along this line. And then when I cross the line, it's, um, break. And then everybody shifts fire, but it's way too soon. Like I'm not even, I want you still firing at that target until I get to this area. And then it was always choreographed to, I'd always punch or assault through. But what if I get, what if I get there, there's a river or, you know, I got some high ground. I got the perfect ground. I want you to assault through. So there's no decision making in that call, shift break punch.

• 1:40:19Speaker 01

  Whereas flank, that's all you decide when you get there. So that's when I came back to the West Coast and talked to Tony, who was also a trade at one. And I talked to him about changing that call back. And he, he agreed.

• 1:40:37Speaker 01

  Uh, so that was, and the cool thing about Tony here is like tons of influence. He's like the legend, right? So, and that's, I went right for the juggler. I didn't try to tell like a SEAL or a Master Chief to get this thing changed. I went to Tony.

• 1:40:50Jocko Willink?

  Ground level.

• 1:40:51Speaker 01

  Yeah. Tony, do you agree? And we had a couple of beers and at his house and he's like, yeah, man, you're right. Just do it. And then I just left. I didn't have to do anything else. He made it happen on his end and it happened. So, you know, talk, having a guy like that with his, uh, respect he had. Um, and his status was, was great.

• 1:41:13Jocko Willink?

  Tony.

• 1:41:17Jocko Willink?

  That's, so I was saying this earlier, like, I feel so lucky that I happened to go to training cell at SEAL Team One. And then my last tour was at Trade at. And so like, I got to do the same thing again, which is like, watch a platoon, go through a training scenario and win, lose or draw. But you can watch what the leaders do. And then the next night, a different platoon's going through the same thing. And it's all, the success and failures based on what the leaders do.

• 1:41:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:41:44Jocko Willink?

  And so that, just watching that, being from a detached position and being able to see what works and what doesn't work. Such a blessing and I feel super lucky that I was able to, to, uh, wrap up my career there.

• 1:41:59Jocko Willink?

  At some point, obviously 27 years, you decide you're gonna, you're gonna call it.

• 1:42:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:42:05Jocko Willink?

  What was the deciding factor? Was there a straw that broke the camel's back?

• 1:42:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, a little bit. There's a lot of personal stuff in it and just time to hang up the, the old boots. And then I did my final tour at Trader again. And that was cool to run the training department. And then I finally, before I retired, I came up with a SOP book, just to talk about the basics. Leadership, like everybody at every level, you're a leader, you know, but what are you responsible for? You know, and it was really tied into the platoon chief and the CO. OIC, like that relationship, you know, because if that relationship is messed up, it's like, you know,

• 1:42:52Speaker 01

  it's a marriage, right? It's like your parents fighting all the time. They have to, you had to have some common ground. And then also understand that, hey, the OIC does delve into the list of stuff. And the NCO does dive into the higher end stuff. And there's like a mix of that. And you need to understand that you don't just draw a line, hey, sir, you don't go into this tactical stuff. No, he does. And same vice versa. So it was good to have that book out. So people could understand what their roles and responsibilities were. And it wasn't like a strict thing. It was just like, hey, this is a guideline, but we need to have something put out, especially for the junior guys.

• 1:43:31Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Yeah. It's so often like, how can you hold somebody accountable for, for doing a certain task? If they don't know what that task is?

• 1:43:40Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:43:40Jocko Willink?

  And how can you expect for a leader to step up and lead a certain portion of an operation? If they don't even know that they're supposed to step up and lead that thing? Or how do you expect them to know that, hey, they shouldn't actually go and do this other thing? They should focus on that when you didn't tell them to do it. So roles and responsibility is, is a huge way to mitigate a lot of problems. And like you said, this isn't roles and responsibilities written in stone with no leeway or flexibility at all. No, actually, it's the opposite. And I used to tell guys, you gotta know. Your job, your lanes, but you also got to know one above you and one below you. So like, like you said earlier, when you were a point man, if your machine gunner doesn't, it goes down, you need to be able to step up and take his role. And by the way, if your OIC is going to, you know,

• 1:44:23Jocko Willink?

  doesn't know which, uh, doesn't make a call on which, which way you're supposed to move away from this contact. If he's not making a call, you, you're gonna have to make it. Uh, that's, that's what being able to step up and do it. And your OIC, if your chief gets hit, needs to be able to step down and like get that out of that immediate firefight. So, uh, definitely.

• 1:44:42Speaker 01

  There's some.

• 1:44:43Jocko Willink?

  Good to clarify.

• 1:44:43Speaker 01

  You mentioned on one of your podcasts and it was right on the money. Like if you're waiting to move up and but you're not training the guy below you, you ain't moving up.

• 1:44:53Jocko Willink?

  Nope.

• 1:44:53Speaker 01

  And you're gonna be stuck in that position, you know, like there, uh, SEALs naturally mentor, you know, it's just like that big brother thing. They bring you in and they want you to learn. And there's a passion behind it. And guys, I think that's what makes the teams great is like there's huge mentorship stuff. And guys want to give back, even retired guys like from Vietnam or whatever. They're always, to hear a story from them, you know, I remember in, uh, BUDS, they brought an old crusty guy back. You, you might've known him. I forget, I don't know his name, but he was living on a sailboat.

• 1:45:28Jocko Willink?

  Uh, yep.

• 1:45:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:45:30Jocko Willink?

  Butch McIntyre.

• 1:45:31Speaker 01

  Yes. So he came to the island during third phase and he told us some stories about Vietnam. And like how he made a mistake once, like on an ambush, uh, on his first one, he was a young guy. And it was like a hasty ambush where he cut backwards, you know, and he went way so deep that the enemy couldn't see him, but then he couldn't see that. So the firefight happened. He's just like, I don't know what happened. You know, so on his next one, he, he learned from that, you know, and it was like kind of powerful to understand that, like, hey, you can't just hide ways because you're scared, right? Cause it's your first thing you're doing, right? And you should be scared, but you also have to hanging out there a little bit. You have to see the target area, you know?

• 1:46:16Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:16Speaker 01

  And so he explained the next one way better, but like for us to hear that, it was like, okay, so he's made mistakes and he's learning, he's telling us this, you know, so in training, we make sure we can see the trail when we tuck it in, you know, for a hasty ambush.

• 1:46:32Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, those, those, uh, lessons getting passed down and, and like you said, the, the best lessons. And even you take that Butch telling you a, a story, he didn't tell you about when he was great. He didn't tell you about when he was awesome. He didn't tell you about when he kicked ass. He tells you the main story that he wants to know is when he screwed up.

• 1:46:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:46:50Jocko Willink?

  And that's where so many lessons get learned and it's also sticks in your memory.

• 1:46:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:46:56Jocko Willink?

  Um, so you make the decision to retire.

• 1:46:59Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:46:59Jocko Willink?

  And, uh, you're wrapping up. Well, did you have a plan for what you're gonna do when you retire?

• 1:47:04Speaker 01

  No, it came quick, like, and that kinda shocked me. So retirement happened. Uh, I didn't really have a plan. And then the biggest thing for guys, I think for me at least, was like, my purpose was like, the teams and the mission, and then that goes away. And then you're like, kinda like, what the hell? You know, you don't have a purpose. And I didn't really understand at the time and I started picking, I still have like a bunch of jobs I'm doing. But you're trying to like recreate that purpose you had and you can't. There's no way. So, uh, understanding that, that like, okay, so take some time, take care of yourself and, um, do things that you like. Cause I was always ragering up for everything. Now, hey, can you do this? Can you do that? I was like, yeah, I'll do, I'll do.

• 1:47:47Jocko Willink?

  Wait, this was on the civilian side? People asking you to do stuff?

• 1:47:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. So like whether it's like running a shooting course or talking about something or, um, anything, you know, hey, can you come out this weekend to teach this shooting course? You know, saying yes to everything, just to have some semblance of a purpose.

• 1:48:08Jocko Willink?

  Did you take any downtime at all?

• 1:48:11Speaker 01

  No. Yeah, that was, and I was, uh, going through a divorce at that time too. So it was like hard to, you know, financially to do anything other than keep working.

• 1:48:23Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I retired on a Friday and like Monday I was talking to a client about leadership like literally I took the weekend off kind of because I had prep, so.

• 1:48:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, you're still working.

• 1:48:34Jocko Willink?

  Just like nonstop, probably not the best move in the world. Was there anything that like really helped you go through the transition?

• 1:48:46Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, I'll tell you like I got tied in with a therapist right before I retired and it was art therapy. And I got to show you some paintings. So now that helped to actually process things even I even painted an op, you know, that was significant. And being able to do every brush stroke and it took four years to do this painting. And I'll show it to you later, but it was significant because like the op I kept going, why did they do this? Why did they fucking do this? You know? And then as I was painting, okay, this is the uniform we were. Oh, I remember they said this. I remember that guy said that. I remember I told him to do this.

• 1:49:29Speaker 01

  And then by the time I was done with the painting, I was like, oh shit, I had some accountability on this thing. You know, I can't just blame everybody because they didn't do what I said. Why didn't they do what I said? Because of these other situations that, you know, and they're holding back from me or something like that. But anyways, it made me realize that I had a huge amount of accountability for what happened. And you know, can we compartmentalize super well, like almost too well? And we have to because if you think about stuff too long, you melt.

• 1:50:04Jocko Willink?

  Well, that's the the war doesn't stop.

• 1:50:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:50:07Jocko Willink?

  You you have someone wounded, you have someone killed. You still have to go and do your missions.

• 1:50:14Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:50:14Jocko Willink?

  And that's just the way it is. And so what you do is like you said, you compartmentalize right now. Well, at some point, at some point, you have to uncompartmentalize and process that. It sounds like a painting was really helpful for you.

• 1:50:27Speaker 01

  That was one way, yeah. And also just giving time, like forgiveness of yourself. You know, that's one thing that I think we are hard on ourselves, all of us. Um, cause we want to do the best, be the best and all that stuff. And you gotta like recognize like, okay, I made a mistake for sure.

• 1:50:45Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And I always look at it. I've, I've been talking this about this because sometimes, you know, the book, the, the book title is Extreme Ownership. And so that means, you know, oh, it's my fault. And sometimes people, they take that to the point of it's my fault and therefore I need to be punished over and over and over again and, and never forgiven. Well, just like if, you know, if I work for you and I screw something up. Look, if it's, obviously if it's some egregious thing and you get rid of me, okay. But if it's something that I screw up and it was bad and you can't forgive me, we shouldn't, I should just leave anyways. If you can't be like, dude, I, I get it. Like I know what you were thinking. I know you know, made a, made a mistake.

• 1:51:29Jocko Willink?

  I know it's not going to happen again. I'm not going to hold this against you. Because if you hold it against me, we're gonna, I, I just, it's not going to work, you know? If you, if, if your wife does something or if you do something to your wife and she can't forgive you, it ain't gonna work.

• 1:51:44Speaker 01

  It's over.

• 1:51:45Jocko Willink?

  And it's the same thing with ourselves. If you can't say, oh yeah, here's what I did. This was my intent. I didn't intend for this bad thing to happen, but it certainly is something that I did. I'm gonna learn from it and I'm gonna forgive myself and move on. At some point you have to do that. If you don't do that, I don't, if you don't take ownership of it and then say, yep, this was on me. My intent was not that, but this is what happened. It's my fault. And now I have to forgive myself so I can carry on and make this relationship that I have with my own brain function properly. So it sounds like that's kind of the process that you went through.

• 1:52:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. And it's tough because like you don't want some things you your mind can recreate a story. And have a new story that didn't happen. You know, I mean, if you think about if you say it enough and say enough, it never happened, but it did. You know, so you have to like that painting and doing every brush stroke. I realized, oh, I did say that and I said this and. And then it's like, okay, and then there's like forgiveness of what happened to yourself and it wasn't just like.

• 1:52:52Speaker 01

  You know, all one person, all me or whatever. There's a multitude of reasons, but to have to recognize that there was also you involved, like myself involved. Was key for me.

• 1:53:03Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I I believe that that's a. I think that's actually one of the biggest remedies, right? And I I think that, you know, when I. When that whole situation happened with me with the blue on blue, I was sitting in my office.

• 1:53:20Jocko Willink?

  In the talk and my skipper is he's on the ground like he had flown out to do like a debrief and. Really find out like, okay, who's gonna go down for this? And, you know, so I'm sitting there and I'm thinking that too, like who's gonna go down for this? And there was something that was, I just, it was bothering me like there was some, I couldn't point my finger at that guy and say, yep, it was his fault or yep, it was his fault. Yep, it was his fault. I just couldn't do it and I'm trying to believe me, my ego and my freaking, you know, personal. Uh, wanting to to not be wrong. Uh, all those guys were in my head like, well, yeah, you could blame this guy. That guy shouldn't have maneuvered over there. That guy should have sent the report on the radio. That guy, like, there was a bunch of that.

• 1:54:04Jocko Willink?

  But at the same time, there was a whole part of my soul that was like, no, no, not his fault, not his fault. And it wasn't, I was like, I was like, why can't I blame anybody else? What is wrong? I was like, oh, you idiot. Cause you're the freaking guy in charge. This is your fault. This is your fault. And that that was like, okay, cool. Now I'm okay with it and. You know, by okay, I mean like, okay, I felt okay finally blaming someone because everything else was just an excuse.

• 1:54:33Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:54:33Jocko Willink?

  It really was just an excuse. And I think that if you go through life and you're continuing to look to other people to blame, that little excuse part of your mind will overpower and it will just rot you. And, but I think if you can go, okay, here's where I am culpable. Here's the mistakes that I made. Here's how I'll prevent them from happening again. And I think that's the way out of it. I think that's the way to move forward in life.

• 1:54:59Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:54:59Jocko Willink?

  And it sounds like that's exactly what you did.

• 1:55:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, the painting thing was key. Um, now you guys probably heard of C4 Foundation.

• 1:55:06Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:55:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I have recently like painted them something, a scene or whatever that's relative to seals. And then they auction it and do that's like, whoo, it's just like, cause I don't paint unless somebody say, hey, I need this because I'm so busy. And hey, you need a painting, I'll paint something, you know? And it's good. It's, I'm getting better and all that stuff. And I'll show you the last one I did, it's, it's pretty cool. It's just like a, a knight, uh, sitting in the water, like reflecting, like after a battle. Like he's like, fuck, you know? But it's, it's what we do. And it's part of that thing about, you said, have I ever had a break? It's like, I don't think any of us had a break. And, um, even if you're doing training, you're still not taking a break. You're not fighting the war anymore, but you're not taking a break.

• 1:55:50Speaker 01

  And even operationally, like, uh, that painting really talks about like, hey, after you just did something like an op, that you still, you have to take like at least five minutes and you just shut your door to your room and just go, huh, okay. And that's maybe all you get is three to four minutes, but you need that. You know, just to process what just happened. And then put it in the compartmentalized, um, and then move on. But that little bit, you need it. And I didn't realize how much we needed those little tiny things.

• 1:56:23Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, uh, you know Gardner, right? Jason Gardner?

• 1:56:25Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:56:25Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, so Ja- Jason, when he retired at his, um, At his retirement speech, he talked about the NSW pain train. Yeah. And it was like, I'd never, you know, he just was describing his career. And it's just the, and it, which is Naval Special Warfare, the NSW pain train, it's gonna keep going. And like, you're on it and you're part of it. And you, you can't get the, he would like describe some part of his career and be like, and the NSW pain train kept moving. And it's like, he described some other part of the NSW pain train and he's on that freaking train and you can't get off. And you just like are, I mean, I guess you can get off, but it's a weird thing.

• 1:57:08Jocko Willink?

  It's like a, you know, you could go to, there's jobs that you can go that you can kind of get off of it. But most guys aren't, most guys, there's, there's on that NSW pain train. You're lucky if you get three, four minutes. And that's the way I always felt like, okay, you got done with this operation, we're doing another one. And you know, for me, it was like, oh, I got these guys coming out of the field. Cool. There's still, there's still eight guys in the field over here and you're, and they're in a gunfight, by the way. And it's like, there was constant, constant, constant. And so, and then coming home, when I took over Trade Ed, I remember going, I remember at Trade Ed, watching guys like when I right got home, watching like a new guy stand in the middle of the street at Salk. And I would get like an actual knot in my stomach and, and go over and be like, what the fuck are you doing?

• 1:57:52Jocko Willink?

  Like, what the fuck are you doing out here? Like you're gonna get fucking killed. And because I really felt like he was gonna get killed. And you're just carrying that and the NSW pain train just keeps rolling. Yep. Until you get out that paint brush, Echo Charles. Yes, sir. So you're still painting? Yeah. And, and by the way, shout out to the C4 Foundation, awesome organization, Charles Keating, C4. Charles Keating, the fourth, his dad put together this organization after Chuck was killed. Uh, actually, speaking of which, supposed to have Big Dave on the podcast at some point, I'll need to get that re- re- uh, resumed. But what they have is they have an awesome facility in Southern California.

• 1:58:35Jocko Willink?

  And it's like a ranch, it's the C4 Ranch and it has just a beautiful place where guys can go with their families and they can go and just freaking decompress the thing that you just said of like.

• 1:58:51Jocko Willink?

  Reflect.

• 1:58:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:58:53Jocko Willink?

  And get off that NSW pain train for three, four days with their family.

• 1:58:59Speaker 01

  The cool thing about C4 is like, they take care of the family when it's needed most at the beginning. Like when you're in E5, your wife, your kids, you not, because a lot of foundations, they take, they try to take care of you after, you know, at the end of your career. And you're already like, I hate to say broken, but you're kind of like broken, right? You're already going through a divorce, things are not good. And then they try to help you out there. But C4, they take care of you at the beginning. They don't go, oh, you have to be at least a chief or a E5, E6 to get out there. No, anybody could go out there. And then they, they run classes and seminars and stuff like that. We are actually starting art classes with them.

• 1:59:41Jocko Willink?

  Sweet.

• 1:59:41Speaker 01

  Yeah. So out there. So we're going to be doing one coming up here pretty soon.

• 1:59:47Jocko Willink?

  Were you doing art in high school? You didn't mention it.

• 1:59:49Speaker 01

  My parents were artists.

• 1:59:51Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 1:59:51Speaker 01

  And I didn't do formal classes. I think I did one. And I liked to paint, you know, and I did some before I joined the Navy. But that, you know, art therapy, you do a painting. And my first one was like this ocean, it was like this, like a tidal wave coming down, you know, in like a storm.

• 2:00:11Jocko Willink?

  The freaking psychologist was like, okay, bro.

• 2:00:14Speaker 01

  She's like, are you gonna put any, you gonna put any bright colors in there? You know, I'll show it to you later. But that, I was like, wow, that's pretty damn good, you know? And then it's, then it was the scene, you know, that scene was like a big one for me. Because it was basically me painting something I didn't do. Like I never said goodbye to those guys. So in the painting is me saying goodbye to them. You know, because we had to go deal with a threat, you know? So it was good to paint something like, I didn't have the opportunity to do, but it was like closure for that. So those things, so I kind of had that, I almost like made, created something that although I didn't do, I did in the painting, you know?

• 2:00:55Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's awesome.

• 2:00:56Speaker 01

  Helped me process all that stuff.

• 2:00:58Jocko Willink?

  Has that painting already been auctioned?

• 2:01:00Speaker 01

  No, that one's not, because, no, just because it has the faces and stuff like that, it wouldn't be respectful for the, the families, I don't think.

• 2:01:11Jocko Willink?

  So what's your, what's your, let's get to your current activities. What do you got going on right now?

• 2:01:15Speaker 01

  So my primary job is a tactical gear company called Pharaoh Concepts. So they are good to go. They very innovative. And you, you wonder like, oh, how many times can you reinvent a plate carrier, you know, backpack, but they do. They got some, the good stuff out there.

• 2:01:33Jocko Willink?

  Every team guy can reinvent that thing every single time.

• 2:01:36Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's like sewing into the, the Paraloft, you know. But they got some awesome gear. So I love, you know, showing that gear to team guys, operators, Marines, Army. So we're starting to break out pretty good, just because we got good stuff and they, they take input very well. Meaning like if I go to them, I go, hey, we're looking at making some AW gunner kit that we need.

• 2:02:03Speaker 01

  As long as there's enough people that are into it, and I think it's like something that we need to create, they'll create it. And sometimes they hand me back a prototype within a week. So it's a pretty good process they got going on.

• 2:02:15Jocko Willink?

  And what's your role there?

• 2:02:16Speaker 01

  I'm like the government sales guy.

• 2:02:20Jocko Willink?

  Got it.

• 2:02:20Speaker 01

  So then they were just doing really good just by having, you know, people clicking the stuff online. And they had government sales, but they didn't really have a big process for it. So I came in to help them out with that.

• 2:02:32Jocko Willink?

  Okay, that's check one. What else?

• 2:02:33Speaker 01

  One, I got my own company, Actions on Consulting, which is like leadership and also shooting and things like that. And then I work for another company, Active Crisis, which is a bigger company and they do everything. So I'm a part owner of that company. And anything from training, vehicle, tactical driving, tactical shooting, CQC, to red teaming certain things, to testing security, making suggestions for security solutions, all that stuff. So that's the bigger company.

• 2:03:09Jocko Willink?

  And I saw that you had Colin Kilrain as part of that.

• 2:03:12Speaker 01

  He, Colin is part of us. Yeah. He's a great, great add on.

• 2:03:16Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, he's a freaking just awesome.

• 2:03:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:03:19Jocko Willink?

  There's another guy I was supposed to have on, I gotta hit him up. Yeah, he was, he was, uh, he's just like, when I tell, I've, I talk about jujitsu a lot. Echo Charles sometimes, but one time, uh, back in the day, I was talking to Hicks and Gracie. And Hicks and Gracie was like, yeah, uh, you know, when I, when I was training in the late eighties here in Torrance, California, in the garage, the, the legendary Gracie garage. He was like, yeah, there was this one big, uh, Navy SEAL wrestler and, and he said, we would have wars.

• 2:03:59Jocko Willink?

  And Hicks and Gracie is like the, the, the, the best fighter in the Gracie family, kind of universally accepted. And that big wrestler, that big Navy SEAL wrestler was Colin Kilring. Who wrestled at Lehigh and like, he started wrestling his sophomore year in high school and became, you know, like a champion wrestler. Uh, he's just a stud and he's an awesome guy. I mean, look, do we give a lot of credit just for being a good wrestler? We do. But he's also just a freaking great guy. So that's, that's a active crisis consulting. And then yours is actions on consulting.

• 2:04:38Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:04:38Jocko Willink?

  And so what's the difference between those two?

• 2:04:40Speaker 01

  Mine's just smaller, just me, you know, and I had started that when I got out just to have, um, something to do and teach, you know, shooting skills and stuff like that. Now active crisis is just a big, bigger company that I'm part owner of. And we're starting to break out with bigger contracts and things like that. And it's like funner because like, I don't have to do all the legwork to finding, you know, a facility to host 20 guys that want to do breaching, shooting, you know, all that stuff. Um, we have people to do that.

• 2:05:09Jocko Willink?

  Nice. What have you noticed on like the, they're getting so much into CTE right now with like breaching and now they're saying like, every time you did a breach, every time you shot a Carl Gustaf, every time you hooked a flash or a crash grenade, like that has an impact.

• 2:05:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:05:25Jocko Willink?

  Are you feeling any of that?

• 2:05:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think, I think the, the thing is that's like that shockwave, right? So like we could, it was like, hey, if it doesn't see you, or if I don't see it, don't see me. And I'm just like six feet away cracking, or you know, breach off. You still get that shockwave and then that shockwave is what's fucking guys up. So like when they said they didn't, they don't know if you have it, but if you die and they look, you'll have it. You know, so a lot of it, they say, hey, every team guy has it.

• 2:05:56Jocko Willink?

  Did Timmy Farrell put you through a STT?

• 2:06:00Speaker 01

  He was there, but he did not.

• 2:06:01Jocko Willink?

  Okay, so he died unfortunately, but Timmy Farrell, we were doing claymores. And I am not kidding, we were like a backpack and a small depression in the earth. Away from claymores clacking them off.

• 2:06:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:06:21Jocko Willink?

  Like it was nuts. Like if, I was a new guy, I was, didn't even have my bird yet. But looking back, I'm like, what the fuck are we doing? Like that is crazy. And I guess he was trying to prove to us that, you know, like there's a safe distance and you can probably close in on that a little bit. But yeah, the, they're seeing what everyone's saying about the CTE right now and how those shockwaves. I remember watch, I'm like up on the wall when Baghdad and I'm looking at my breacher, you know, so I'm the assault force commander. So I'm like on the wall, looking on the ladder, looking in, letting, you know, like observing and making sure. And I see my breacher, you know, it's going over and it gets the breacher on the wall. And I see him like trying to back away and he gets, there's like something in the way and I'm watching him.

• 2:07:05Jocko Willink?

  And all of a sudden a light comes on in the house and I'm like, oh, this sucks. And he just, my breacher, he sees it too. And so he just lays down and I'm like, oh, this is gonna suck. And I hear him turning steel, boom, I, I duck down behind the wall, freaking shit goes everywhere. I jump over, I start running, I just like, like walk by him and I look at him and he is freaking rocked.

• 2:07:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:07:33Jocko Willink?

  But like, that's not that uncommon to have, to concuss the shit out of yourself. And guess what he was doing two days later? Another breach on another door. So.

• 2:07:46Jocko Willink?

  Ah scary stuff, but you're still out there just teaching breaching. Let's go.

• 2:07:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:07:52Speaker 01

  Well, they didn't do a baseline until we had a HBID go off, you know, and it killed a guy, buried a bunch of other guys. And then they start, that was like in 2008. And so then they started to do like baseline. Like, okay, we should probably do something like that in case. So at least we have something to go off of. Like if something happens, we could say, okay, this is you two years ago. Now you're down here. But they didn't, they didn't do a baseline until some major stuff was happening, which I'm glad they did.

• 2:08:20Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, no, I think they're definitely taking better care of the guys now and, and the families as well. Like dude, I mentioned my wife not asking me about anything. Not only that, but she didn't meet any other like she wasn't. She had a couple team guy wives that she was friends with, but there was no, there were no potluck supper. She was going to nothing like that back in the day. It was, you're kind of on your own and they're super supportive now. Way more supportive, which is, which is good to see. Uh, so we got Feral Concepts and they're making all kinds of tactical gear. We got Active Crisis Consulting and, and that's activecrisis.com and Feral Concepts. What does Feral mean?

• 2:09:02Speaker 01

  Feral. So that's just the name that they came up with. So this is interesting. So they, this came up. They started making gear in their garage for like paintballers and the airsofters. And then it became popular and then they just took off from there and then it went to the tactical side. But I don't, it was just, I don't.

• 2:09:22Jocko Willink?

  Just, this is the name.

• 2:09:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, just the name.

• 2:09:24Jocko Willink?

  So feralconcepts.com, activecrisis.com. And then yours is, is actually jimforemanleadership.com.

• 2:09:32Speaker 01

  Yeah. So that's, that's new. I just got that website going. So it was, it is, uh, actions on consulting. And then Jim Foreman Leadership ties into that.

• 2:09:41Jocko Willink?

  Check. Um, you're writing a book.

• 2:09:44Speaker 01

  I am.

• 2:09:44Jocko Willink?

  We talking about that?

• 2:09:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:09:46Jocko Willink?

  So, uh, I seen the draft. It's great. Um, you're, you know, gonna continue to pound on that thing and, and get it dialed in. What, what made you decide that that was something you wanted to do?

• 2:09:57Speaker 01

  So I do leadership talks and, um,

• 2:10:01Speaker 01

  Somebody came to me and goes, hey, you know, we would love to have a book. And if you're going to be teaching leadership, you probably should have something, you know. They said that last year. I'm like, yeah, that makes sense. So I started doing a book and the book is not like a whole lot of war stories. It's more like, I could talk about a couple of them, just for mental stuff. The mental drive that you need to have for certain things, right? And how we think. So there's, and there's a lot of lessons learned, like, hey, I missed this in one of my leadership roles. And this is what happened, or I couldn't get this passed. And this, as you know, applies big time in civilian corporations.

• 2:10:45Speaker 01

  Like, I couldn't get this thing going. And then, and I went to all my department heads and they agreed with me. But then a week later, they disagreed with me. So somebody's influencing them, you know? And so I'd have to do some homework and I find out who that is. And it's probably some junior guy that's super influential and very well respected. And okay, that's just like with Tony. Instead of going to the top dogs, I gotta go to Tony. Tony's actually the top dog. Right? So, but I don't go to the, the, you know, the structure top dog. I go to the guy that's the most influential that could get things done. And that was Tony for that. For this other thing, it was, ended up being this guy at Trade that was E5.

• 2:11:26Speaker 01

  That was a big into fighting, you know, like MMA. And once I talked to him and he agreed, that was done. Makes you know, the department heads agreed. Two weeks later, I got that. That was for the SOP book. Got it. And then I could get that because I was like, man, I'm retiring pretty quick. I gotta get this thing going. I can't, you know, just agree with everybody. I gotta have some standard. And I need this guy on board. So a lot of things like that, like corporations don't understand sometimes. Like, hey, it's not just your department heads. You need to find your key influencers. And sometimes they may be a counter influencer that's against you.

• 2:12:06Speaker 01

  And if you can, if you, you don't need to fire that guy. If you could turn him to be on your side.

• 2:12:12Jocko Willink?

  Be your best move.

• 2:12:13Speaker 01

  You are done. It's like you gotta play chess, you know, and you want to um, understand people and also help them understand you and what you're trying to do. And if they agree with it, then you're, they're on board and you're moving forward.

• 2:12:24Jocko Willink?

  Check. Well, the draft that I looked at, I'm, I'm sure once that thing's done, we'll have you back on here and go through all these leadership principles and some of those stories in a little bit more detail, cause even the draft that I read is freaking, it's great, but I don't wanna spoiler. Is that what we're doing over here?

• 2:12:42Jocko Willink?

  But we'll, we'll move that thing along. I think it's gonna be, gonna be epic. Um, so does that kinda get us up to speed?

• 2:12:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's it.

• 2:12:49Jocko Willink?

  We're, we're getting there. Uh, people can find you. Uh, where can people find you? So you got jimformanleadership.com.

• 2:12:54Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 2:12:55Jocko Willink?

  Uh, you're on Facebook at J F Foreman. Um, and then you're on Instagram at Actions on Consulting.

• 2:13:05Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 2:13:05Jocko Willink?

  So if people are looking for you, they wanna find you. That's where you're at these days.

• 2:13:09Speaker 01

  That's it.

• 2:13:10Jocko Willink?

  Getting after it. Uh, Echo Charles, you got any questions?

• 2:13:13Speaker 02

  Yes, I do. Well, rewind a little bit. We're talking about sniper school. You said something about a pool table. Somebody running across a pool table? What does that mean?

• 2:13:22Speaker 01

  So um, out in Nileland, especially Colinga, uh, is flat. So it's like flat like a pool table.

• 2:13:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:13:29Speaker 01

  So when you got people looking for you and you got like a couple of bushes, you're like hiding behind like weeds, you know, and you got a ghillie suit, of course, and you're trying to like not move too quickly, cause movement, people pick up. So you're like inching around like an inchworm, trying to find some, something to hide behind. And so when that one guy stood up and ran across that pool table.

• 2:13:51Speaker 02

  Six, three, by the way.

• 2:13:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, six, three. That was super noticeable. And it was like so egregious that they didn't even say sniper at your feet. Cause I, okay, he's not gonna get, he must have just, maybe I'll get a, if I take the hit for him, I'll get a seven. I want a 10. But I get a seven, I still get uh, honor, honor man for sniper school. And no, it was like a zero. Like I ate it for him.

• 2:14:16Speaker 02

  Pool table is essentially like a known feature or what like a slang term.

• 2:14:21Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, just meaning completely flat.

• 2:14:22Speaker 02

  Flat, no cover, no concealment.

• 2:14:25Jocko Willink?

  No cover or concealment. Look at Echo Tactical Echo Charles.

• 2:14:30Speaker 02

  So his running across the pool table is yet a compounding violation of what's the sniper ways.

• 2:14:40Speaker 01

  You never stand up ever unless you get busted or you're done and you never run. Cause like number one movement they pick up and if everything is flat and somebody stands up, it's like, oh, what's that guy doing?

• 2:14:52Speaker 02

  Okay. So for them, sure. Don't run across the pool.

• 2:14:54Speaker 01

  And then you're running, you're just doing everything wrong.

• 2:14:56Speaker 02

  Okay. So the pool table is just a big flat in the clear scenario.

• 2:14:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's just an analogy.

• 2:15:03Speaker 01

  Exposed terrain.

• 2:15:04Speaker 02

  Real quick, back to the art therapy. What's the pro like? What's the prompt? What does the therapist ask you to do?

• 2:15:12Speaker 01

  Uh, so it's kind of cool. Sometimes you don't have to paint. Like sometimes I go with them. You just talk, you know? And they may run you through a couple of things. They may be like an anger thing where they just got like this eight by eight. Canvas and you just like throw throwing paint on there.

• 2:15:30Jocko Willink?

  I might be able to pull that one off.

• 2:15:32Speaker 01

  I think you could. That would be pretty interesting. It'd probably be black and red, right? Two colors.

• 2:15:41Speaker 01

  So, uh, and it's just like, you know, getting things out, you know, like things that you've been holding.

• 2:15:48Speaker 02

  Like what will the, um, but what will the therapist like say? Will they be like, oh, here's your eight by eight painting? Do something or like what?

• 2:15:56Speaker 01

  Like most likely that therapist was talking to the person about something and they're like, okay, let's get it out there. And or for for me, it's like, um, you know, I was talking about this one thing and she goes, okay, well, uh, why don't you paint that? You know? And then it's like, it's almost what you're doing is you're just releasing things, you know? And there's so many things that we do that you can't do all like talking to somebody. Here's the thing, like talking to somebody is really tough because you don't know if you trust them. You don't know, like if you could say everything, but painting something. It's like you don't have to say anything. You're just painting and you don't have to have an explanation for anything. And it could be even abstract or just like, like I was saying, just drawing paint on there.

• 2:16:41Speaker 01

  But it means something to you, you know, it's like, okay, yeah, I know what that means. All that splatters and stuff means something to me. But you don't have to say it, you know, because some things you may not want to say ever, you know. But the, through the art stuff, you get it out.

• 2:16:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, that always felt like a mystery to me. Why? Stuff that can go on in your head, like can turn and morph and mutate into like something toxic. Versus if you get it out in whatever way.

• 2:17:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:17:11Speaker 02

  Where it can act like make it better. Like why it like, why is, do we fill in gaps in there or something like? And then when it comes out, it's kind of like you can't really fill in the gaps because there it is. It's more, I don't know, tangibles.

• 2:17:22Jocko Willink?

  I think it gets organized somehow.

• 2:17:24Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. I think, yeah, I think you're constantly filling in the gaps, whether it's accurate or not. You know, because you're struggling with trying to identify it or process it. And then, you know, if you could actually talk about it. Or if a therapist, a good trained therapist could actually pull it out of you, because you may not even, it may be all subconscious. And you may not understand why you're not sleeping or whatever. And if they could get that out, that's one thing. But if sometimes you may know a little bit about it. Um, and then paint, like for me, that painting took four years to do. You know, I even had it in my bed. I took it home because like, okay, I can't come in that much. So I'm just going to take it home. And I had it in my bedroom and it was not a good thing to do because every night I looked at it.

• 2:18:09Speaker 01

  And stared at like the faces. And then when I woke up, I stared at the face. It's always depressing, you know, so I had to eventually. Move it into another room where I just paint it. Then I would just go there to directly paint. Instead of just staring at it because that was like rough to stare at like, you know, death, basically.

• 2:18:28Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, your friends.

• 2:18:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:18:31Speaker 02

  But useful, useful.

• 2:18:33Speaker 01

  Very.

• 2:18:34Speaker 02

  The process.

• 2:18:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, and everybody, some people do it in woodworking, you know, like, just like doing a project.

• 2:18:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:18:40Speaker 01

  Like, it's like meditating, you know, like, you're going through, you could actually think, even like, I, I can't run now because I got bad knee, but like, just even just when I used to run, I just like, okay, I could think about things.

• 2:18:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:18:53Speaker 01

  It was just like meditating.

• 2:18:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:18:56Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I've always, like, what I kind of assembled in my head was, like, when I lost guys, I would,

• 2:19:05Jocko Willink?

  I would always end up seeming to do like the eulogy.

• 2:19:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:19:09Jocko Willink?

  And so that means, and it got to the point where I would just, like, when someone died, I would start writing the eulogy because I would, I know that I was going to get asked to do it, but, man, like, all of a sudden, you have to process everything. You have to process their life, your feelings, the impact, the sadness, the anger, you had to, like, put it all on paper. And I found that, o- over time, I was like, well, it helps, like, I think that, and then you have to get up and, like, say words. And so I thought that that, this reminds me of, like, the same thing, like, you're going through this, you're writing down, like, this, this is, you're thinking through everything, and you're putting it on paper, and as you pointed out, Echo, it's like a release,

• 2:19:49Jocko Willink?

  but for me, it also, like, organizes, like, the feelings that you have, and the emotions that you have, and you're like, okay, now I'm, now I can see them, and kind of like when you're painting, you can see what those emotions are.

• 2:20:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:20:06Jocko Willink?

  Very, I think you gotta have some kind of release, I really do.

• 2:20:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:20:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:20:11Speaker 02

  It feels, okay, so, this might be an oddball analogy, so when I was like, I don't know, 12 years old, I, before I knew the gun safety rules, I had a BB gun, and I shot my hand, so the BB gun got stuck between all the tendons in my hand. And then for days, they're trying to get it out, right? With surgery or whatever, but just, you know, the kind of, what do you call? It's a certain kind of surgery that they don't like put you under nothing. They just kind of dig in there. They couldn't.

• 2:20:36Speaker 01

  Localized.

• 2:20:37Speaker 02

  Yeah. So for days, I was like, man, this BB is in here basically haunting me. Right? My hand, like, I don't know what it. It's almost like it had a personality of its own at this point because it didn't want to come out. You know, it's hiding somewhere in there. Meanwhile, the X-ray, you see it, but you're like, how can we find this dang thing? You know? So finally they put me on under like, I don't know, a week or two later and they take it out. And when I wake up, they're like, oh yeah, you want to see the BB? And I'm like, yeah. So I see the BB and I'm like, oh, that's that motherfucker that was in my hand the whole time. But it kind of like things started to kind of make sense a little bit, you know? It's kind of like you can identify that mysterious monster that was inside just tormenting you from the darkness, you know? And then now it's kind of out and you're like, oh, that's what it was.

• 2:21:22Speaker 02

  Still, I'm still injured, keep in mind, but I see it now and I it's so it starts to make sense in that way, you know? It's almost like that kind of happens.

• 2:21:30Speaker 01

  Echo, you are one deep motherfucker. That was good.

• 2:21:35Jocko Willink?

  And then you can heal.

• 2:21:36Speaker 02

  And then you can heal, man. Look, healed up, good to go.

• 2:21:39Speaker 01

  That was a good analogy.

• 2:21:40Jocko Willink?

  There we go, man. Uh, anything else Echo Charles?

• 2:21:43Speaker 02

  No, good to meet you, sir.

• 2:21:44Speaker 01

  You too.

• 2:21:45Jocko Willink?

  Jim, any, any closing thoughts?

• 2:21:47Speaker 01

  No, man, I appreciate getting on here.

• 2:21:49Jocko Willink?

  Right on, right on. Well, uh, thanks for coming out. Thanks for, uh, sharing your lessons learned, your experiences. I'm looking forward to the book. It's going to be awesome and, and most important, thanks for 27 years. Always at the front, always training for or fighting the war. 27 years of service and sacrifice, carrying the weight of the nation, carrying the weight of the teams. Much appreciated, bro. It's an honor to serve with you.

• 2:22:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, you too, bro. Thanks.

• 2:22:22Jocko Willink?

  And with that, Jim Foreman has left the building.

• 2:22:27Jocko Willink?

  And clearly.

• 2:22:31Jocko Willink?

  Got a lot of work to do. We all do.

• 2:22:33Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 2:22:33Jocko Willink?

  You know what I'm saying?

• 2:22:34Speaker 02

  I know.

• 2:22:35Jocko Willink?

  The the NSW pain train rolls on and you gotta get you either on the train or you're off the train.

• 2:22:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:22:41Jocko Willink?

  That's but even when you get off the NSW pain train.

• 2:22:44Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 2:22:45Jocko Willink?

  Life is rolling on and you gotta stay in the game. You gotta stay on the train.

• 2:22:49Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 2:22:49Jocko Willink?

  You gotta keep getting after it. You gotta keep pushing to get better.

• 2:22:56Jocko Willink?

  Leadership, knowledge, mental, physical, psychological fitness. Maybe you gotta break out a paintbrush.

• 2:23:03Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 2:23:03Jocko Willink?

  You know what I'm saying? And by the way, he showed us some paintings afterwards. Dude.

• 2:23:07Speaker 02

  Good, yeah.

• 2:23:08Jocko Willink?

  Those things are not just good. Those those paintings are sick.

• 2:23:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, and you gotta.

• 2:23:12Jocko Willink?

  As soon as he showed the wave, I was like, oh, this is gonna, this is go, this is moving in the right direction.

• 2:23:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, a hundred.

• 2:23:18Jocko Willink?

  Cause let's face it. You know, we could be having, we could be not talking about this right now.

• 2:23:24Speaker 02

  You're absolutely.

• 2:23:24Jocko Willink?

  Painting it's good. Uh, it's good. Uh, good outlet. Yeah. But no, he's painting some legit.

• 2:23:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:23:30Jocko Willink?

  I actually kind of want that wave hanging on my wall.

• 2:23:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, and it's, um.

• 2:23:35Jocko Willink?

  Make him an offer on that bad boy.

• 2:23:37Speaker 02

  All right. Yeah, for legitimately.

• 2:23:39Jocko Willink?

  Kind of looks like, you know, the the the Japanese tsunami type thing.

• 2:23:42Speaker 02

  Right.

• 2:23:42Jocko Willink?

  It looks kind of like that, but like way more badass.

• 2:23:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:23:47Jocko Willink?

  And cool and realistic.

• 2:23:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly. More realistic. It's a different style. You know, the like the Japanese style that like that's a style or whatever. His is more like, yeah. Is it? Cause you gotta admit, like, most times, and I'm not saying I was thinking this, not saying I wasn't thinking this, but.

• 2:24:01Jocko Willink?

  You have low expectations.

• 2:24:02Speaker 02

  Nah, well, I didn't have any at all under really, um, as far as expectation.

• 2:24:08Jocko Willink?

  I can see where you're going. Just say, but carry on. What were you thinking?

• 2:24:12Speaker 02

  But I think under most circumstances, when someone talks about, oh, yeah, like I'm into drawing or painting or something that you know.

• 2:24:19Jocko Willink?

  What I make.

• 2:24:19Speaker 02

  Yeah. You know, you have that feeling like, okay, cause there's levels to to it, just factually, like, you know? And so you, you know, it's really good outlet for me. People say that. That's the thing that people say. And then sometimes, not all the time, sometimes when you see it, you're like, just like how you implied, or it's like. Yeah, man, I'm good that it works for you, you know, but it's like it's there's not much skill involved, you know, sometimes.

• 2:24:43Jocko Willink?

  It's an outlet for you.

• 2:24:44Speaker 02

  For you.

• 2:24:44Jocko Willink?

  Not for the rest of us.

• 2:24:46Speaker 02

  But this is not, this one is not like that.

• 2:24:48Jocko Willink?

  No, for sure.

• 2:24:49Speaker 02

  Jim is freaking obviously very skilled, even that first, oh, the wave was the first one.

• 2:24:53Jocko Willink?

  The wave was the first one.

• 2:24:54Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:24:55Jocko Willink?

  And I was expecting, I mean, I had low expectations. I'm not afraid to say it. Cause painting is hard, right?

• 2:25:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:25:02Jocko Willink?

  And you don't expect someone that's never painted before, just to be able to paint something that's very cool looking.

• 2:25:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:25:07Jocko Willink?

  Well, we saw something that was first one. I was like, oh, and then you think, well, how's the, you know, how's like a person gonna look? Then you see the paintings of people and you're like, oh, okay.

• 2:25:17Speaker 02

  So I know art, like actual artists that have been doing it for decades that have painted waves, by the way. Not as good as Jim Foreman.

• 2:25:27Jocko Willink?

  Damn.

• 2:25:28Speaker 02

  And I'm not joking. Obviously that's my opinion because art is very subjective, but still.

• 2:25:32Jocko Willink?

  Well, once we look, we'll, we'll get some art out there.

• 2:25:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:25:34Jocko Willink?

  And I think, I mean, honestly, I think people will be willing, I'm willing to pay for that art. So I think people are gonna wanna pay for some of that art. He's gonna need to get a freaking art website up.

• 2:25:45Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 2:25:46Jocko Willink?

  For some of his stuff. Well, whether you're painting, whether you're lifting, whether you're training, you need to fuel yourself. You need to fuel your body, fuel your mind. Go to jockofuel.com. We got everything that you need. We got milk, protein, ready to drink protein, powder protein, hydrate greens, supplements for your joints, so they don't break down. We've got, we've got everything that you need. Got an energy drink and we got a hydration drink. Hydration is so good. I went through about a hundred of them the other day.

• 2:26:19Speaker 02

  That makes sense.

• 2:26:19Jocko Willink?

  When you, if you're going in the sauna, yeah, stock up.

• 2:26:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:26:23Jocko Willink?

  Stock up. So any of that, any of that stuff that you need, jockofuel.com, or you can also get it at Walmart, Wawa, Vitamin Shop GNC, Military Commissaries, AFEES, Hannaford, Dash Stores, Wake Fern, Shoprite, HEB, Meyer, Wegmans, Harris Teeter, Publix, Lifetime Fitness, Shields, and a bunch of small gyms all over the place. Whether you got a jujitsu gym, whether you got a powerlifting gym, we got you covered. If you don't have it in your gym, email [email protected]. We'll get it taken care of. Also text Jocko Fuel to 24672 and then we can send you messages, voicemails. I send voicemails sometimes on that.

• 2:27:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, hell yeah.

• 2:27:02Jocko Willink?

  They're, they're short. They're, they're like seven seconds long.

• 2:27:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:27:07Jocko Willink?

  Brief.

• 2:27:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:27:09Jocko Willink?

  Very brief. Check it out, jockofuel.com. Also, you're gonna need some clothing. You need some American-made clothing. You're gonna need originusa.com. Hunt gear, jujitsu gear, jeans, boots, hoodies, t-shirts, belts, wallets, hats, beanies, training shirts, training shirts, lightweight training shirts, court t-shirts. We got everything that you need and it's made in America. A lot of people are talking about made in America right now. Some tariffs going around.

• 2:27:40Speaker 02

  Sure, tariffs.

• 2:27:41Jocko Willink?

  Like, oh, what? No, it's not affecting us because we're made in America. That's what we're doing over here.

• 2:27:47Speaker 02

  Yes, sir.

• 2:27:47Jocko Willink?

  Where's our cotton from? Or our cotton?

• 2:27:50Speaker 02

  Cotton, yes.

• 2:27:51Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, where's that from? America. Where's the zipper from? America. Where's the thread from? America.

• 2:27:56Speaker 02

  The buttons.

• 2:27:57Jocko Willink?

  Where's the buttons from?

• 2:27:58Speaker 02

  America.

• 2:27:59Jocko Willink?

  America. Get your made in American goods. Support America. Make America make again. That's what we're doing. Who's in? Go to originusa.com and get it.

• 2:28:11Speaker 02

  It's true. Yeah, man, life is, life is kind of crazy sometimes, but it is up to you what you put in your body, on your body and in your head.

• 2:28:21Jocko Willink?

  So keep that in mind. Covered on all fronts.

• 2:28:23Speaker 02

  All fronts.

• 2:28:23Jocko Willink?

  In your body, Jocko Fuel, on your body, Origin USA. In your head, Jocko Podcast.

• 2:28:29Speaker 02

  You're listening.

• 2:28:29Jocko Willink?

  Jocko Publishing.

• 2:28:30Speaker 02

  You're getting it. Yep, it's true. Speaking of, speaking of on your body, representing, really, as you, we walk or run

• 2:28:39Speaker 02

  or do burpees through life.

• 2:28:40Jocko Willink?

  Sometimes we just crawl through the path.

• 2:28:42Speaker 02

  Crawling through life, whatever. If we were representing, Discipline Equals Freedom, is where you can get this stuff. JockoStore.com. Um, yeah, so we got some shirts on there, some hoodies on there, some hats on there, shorts on there, socks on there too. If you want to represent in the airport, when they make you take off your shoes, you want to flex on them a little bit, boom, Discipline Equals Freedom, you're welcome. Oh, yeah. All day. Yes, jockostore.com. Also, the Shirt Locker, subscription scenario, new design every, every month. That's a good one. You're gonna like this, uh, this next month's one.

• 2:29:14Jocko Willink?

  What is it?

• 2:29:17Jocko Willink?

  You don't even know.

• 2:29:18Speaker 02

  I know I do, but I remember I know what the design is because I made it, but it's a skull.

• 2:29:23Jocko Willink?

  Okay, I like it.

• 2:29:24Speaker 02

  Skull with, but it's like a hand drawn skull, kind of, kind of like sketched. And it says, comfort is a curse.

• 2:29:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's a good one. Looks good. Came out good, I think, but go to jocko store.com, check it out. Won't be on there till the first, which is, yeah.

• 2:29:43Jocko Willink?

  What if you like something there?

• 2:29:44Speaker 02

  So, yeah, if you like something, get something.

• 2:29:47Jocko Willink?

  Fair enough. Check out primalbeef.com, coloradocraftbeef.com. This is American steak, American companies. And it's awesome people, awesome companies, awesome steak, awesome burgers, awesome hot dogs, awesome beef jerky, awesome beef sticks. We got you covered.

• 2:30:07Speaker 02

  Bro, did you?

• 2:30:08Jocko Willink?

  Coloradocraftbeef.com, primalbeef.com. Did I get what?

• 2:30:12Speaker 02

  The sausage, you know, the

• 2:30:14Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 2:30:14Speaker 02

  What's it called? It's called some kind of sausage.

• 2:30:16Jocko Willink?

  Summer sausage.

• 2:30:16Speaker 02

  Summer sausage, yeah.

• 2:30:18Jocko Willink?

  Got into that.

• 2:30:22Jocko Willink?

  Check. Also subscribe to this podcast. Check out jocko underground.com. If you can't afford jocko underground.com, it's eight dollars and 18 cents a month. It's fine. Email [email protected] and we'll get you taken care of. But we just want you to have access to more information, answering questions, covering subjects that we don't necessarily cover on this podcast. Jocko underground.com. Check out our YouTube channels. Check out Psychological Warfare. Check out a bunch of books that I've written. We got a book coming sometime in the future from Jim Foreman. But in the meantime, we got, what do we got? A re-release of the, of the Leadership Strategy and Tactics Field Manual.

• 2:31:03Jocko Willink?

  We got the, we were just looking through the Discipline Equals Freedom Field Manual. It's not a normal book. No, the publisher, I asked him, I said, have you ever taken this much risk on a book? Cause let's face it, this one goes free of banal. You'd never seen a book like that.

• 2:31:20Speaker 02

  It's risky.

• 2:31:20Jocko Willink?

  Very risky. He said it was not even close.

• 2:31:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:31:23Jocko Willink?

  He was like, it's not even, there's no other book that even comes close to taking this much of a risk.

• 2:31:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, makes sense.

• 2:31:29Jocko Willink?

  And you know, they model out like sales.

• 2:31:32Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 2:31:33Jocko Willink?

  He's like, once it came out, he said, we had no models that predicted this many sales.

• 2:31:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:31:41Jocko Willink?

  Like they didn't anticipate anything close.

• 2:31:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:31:45Jocko Willink?

  So that's the discipline equals freedom field manual. I've written a bunch of other books, written a bunch of kids books. Mike and the Dragons about face. I didn't write about face, but I wrote the foreword to it. Extreme ownership, you heard a little excerpt from that today, little section that Leif Babin wrote. Check that out. Also the dichotomy of leadership. There's another, Leif was saying, oh, either use this one or this one. There's a dichotomy of leadership. There's a story in there that's also got a little Jim Foreman centric. So check those out. Also Echelon Front, we have a leadership consultancy. We solve problems through leadership. Go to echelonfront.com. We've got the battlefield coming up. We're going to tour Gettysburg. We're going to learn the lessons that they learned or should have learned.

• 2:32:30Jocko Willink?

  We've got the muster in San Antonio, Texas, April 29th to May 1st. Go and check that out. If you need us inside your organization, go to echelonfront.com, contact us. We will come and do leadership training inside your company. We will get you aligned. Also, we have an online training program. Extreme Ownership Academy, teaching you to take, teaching you to take ownership of your life.

• 2:32:56Jocko Willink?

  Not just your business, not just your, hey, I need to figure out how to deal with my boss or my peers or my subordinates. What about how to deal with your spouse? What about how to deal with your family? What about how to deal with your neighbors? What about how to deal with your own head?

• 2:33:10Jocko Willink?

  You need help and we got you covered. Extreme ownership.com. Also, if you want to help service members, active and retired, you want to help their families, want to help the Gold Star families out there. Check out Mark Lee's mom, Mama Lee. She's got an incredible charity organization. If you want to donate or you want to get involved, go to Americas Mighty Warriors.org. Also, don't forget to check out Heroes and Horses.org. Micah Fink, teaching people how to get back to their soul through nature. And then Jimmy May's organization, BeyondTheBrotherhood.org, helping SEALs get into the civilian sector.

• 2:33:46Jocko Willink?

  And finally, if you want to connect with us, Jim Foreman, on the web, JimForemanLeadership.com. He's on Facebook, JF Foreman, and he's on Instagram, ActionsOnConsulting. For me, I'm at Jaco.com. And then on social media, @JacoWlink, Echoes@EchoCharles. Just be careful, because you could be learning how to paint. You could be getting stronger. You could be getting faster. You could be getting smarter. You could be learning to play guitar. You could be learning to play the clarinet.

• 2:34:14Jocko Willink?

  Could be practicing ping pong. And any of those things would be a lot better than scrolling. Doom scrolling. Doom scrolling. How's those reels? That's what's happening in my house right now. You know, for a while, my house was dopamine, dopamine, dopamine. When you picked up your phone for any reason, everyone in the house was going, dopamine, dopamine, dopamine. Right now, if you pick up your phone, it doesn't matter if you get a call from the hospital.

• 2:34:38Jocko Willink?

  The people in my family are going to start saying, oh, how's those reels? Reels? How's those reels? Oh, it's, oh, what reel are you looking at? So you can't do it. It works. Yeah, it's peer pressure. Yeah, it's good. Don't let it happen to you. Don't get caught up in the reel. It'll take you down. Thanks once again to Jim Foreman. 27 years of unrelenting service. Thank you for holding the line and being a true frogman. Thank you, brother. And to all our military across the globe who, right now, right now, at this moment, picked up their weapons and are standing the watch. Thank you for your service. Also, thanks to our police, law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, Border Patrol, Secret Service, as well as all other first responders.

• 2:35:22Jocko Willink?

  Thank you for standing the watch here at home and to everyone else out there. Things are not going to go the way you expect them to go.

• 2:35:31Jocko Willink?

  They're just not. You got to expect that. That's the reality. But here's what you can do, like Jim Foreman. Prepare as much as you can. Train hard. Study hard, have contingency plans. And then be decisive. Take action. And do not quit.

• 2:35:52Jocko Willink?

  And that's all I've got for tonight. And until next time, this is Echo and Jocko. Out.