276: DRAGO. Rebelling Against Communist Poland, to Patriotic Navy SEAL

0:00:00 - Opening 0:04:44 - Drago. 3:04:15 - Final thoughts. 3:09:29 - Hot to stay on THE PATH. 3:27:41 - Closing gratitude. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

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

• 0:00Jocko Willink?

  This is Jocko Podcast number 276 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. Good evening Echo. Good evening.

• 0:09Jocko Willink?

  Archival Publications of the Institute of National Remembrance, Poland. Court name, Court of the Pomeranian Military District B.

• 0:24Jocko Willink?

  Judge Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Sobiski.

• 0:30Jocko Willink?

  Court file number, redacted. Prosecutor's Office file number, redacted. Security Service file number, redacted.

• 0:42Jocko Willink?

  Case examination date, 1981 1214. Case conclusion date, 1982 1228.

• 0:54Jocko Willink?

  Case description.

• 0:57Jocko Willink?

  File in the criminal case against redacted name suspected of printing and distributing leaflets containing false information. That is crime based on Article 48, Section 3 of the Decree of December 12th, 1981 on martial law.

• 1:20Jocko Willink?

  Detained temporarily on February 11th, 1982, based on the decision of the Military Prosecutor's Office, February 12th, 1982.

• 1:32Jocko Willink?

  The accused, acting together and in consultation with redacted name, produced brochures for distribution which could cause civil disturbances and which contain false information on activity of authorities of the People's Republic of Poland in the period of martial law and calling upon civilians to oppose the authorities and to organize an illegal underground organization. That is crime based on Article 48, Section 3 of the Decree of December 12th, 1981 on martial law.

• 2:08Jocko Willink?

  Based on the ruling of the Court of the Pomeranian Military District, redacted name is sentenced to three years of imprisonment and three years of loss of civil rights, a charge to be paid on behalf of the state treasury in the amount of 4,200 PLN. Reimbursement of one-third of the costs of court proceedings.

• 2:37Jocko Willink?

  So that is a document from a book. The book is called Camp Posey, and it's written by an individual called Naval, who is a member of the Polish Grom Special Forces.

• 2:57Jocko Willink?

  And the document is from the case against a man, whose name is redacted in the document. His name is Thomas Zoran.

• 3:09Jocko Willink?

  Thomas was born and raised in communist Poland. And he made a stand against the authoritarian communist regime, and was sent to prison for his actions.

• 3:25Jocko Willink?

  Sent to prison for speaking out against the evils of communism, and he ended up in prison.

• 3:34Jocko Willink?

  Communist prison, and I guess I need not talk about the condition of communist prisons, because we've discussed them on this podcast before, but it goes saying, goes without saying that

• 3:47Jocko Willink?

  those prisons are not for the faint of heart.

• 3:51Jocko Willink?

  But luckily, Thomas Zoran possessed an incredibly strong will,

• 3:58Jocko Willink?

  and he survived prison, and he made it out of prison. And eventually, he made it out of Poland. And eventually, he made it to the United States, where he eventually joined the Navy.

• 4:17Jocko Willink?

  And became a SEAL.

• 4:21Jocko Willink?

  And this is also where Thomas Zeron took on a new name, a nickname.

• 4:27Jocko Willink?

  Drago.

• 4:30Jocko Willink?

  And this is where I was lucky enough to serve alongside him on and off the battlefield. And this is where we became brothers.

• 4:42Jocko Willink?

  And it is an honor to have him here tonight to share his story with us. Drago, welcome.

• 4:50Speaker 01

  Thank you. It's awesome to be here on your podcast. I follow it for a long time and eventually I thank you for inviting me and it's an honor to be here.

• 5:00Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, somebody on some, something reached out and said, well, why don't you have Drago on? And I was like, anytime. Drago wants to come on. No, no factor, of course. So this is like one of the craziest stories as far as backstories go. Not just for joining the SEAL teams, but joining the military in general. I mean, it's pretty straightforward what happens to most American kids, right? Oh, I want to be a soldier. They join the army, the Navy, the, the Air Force, the Marine Corps. That's what they do. Man, your story is about as crazy as it gets for backstories.

• 5:35Speaker 01

  I guess it is, but maybe not crazy, but it's different. And just even from, well, let me just back out of it, but when I came to America, I came with a bag of clothes and 10 Finns, the Germans, like less than 10 cents in my pocket. So everything I have, everything I own, I owe it to America, to you, to American people. So I promised myself that I will be the best citizen.

• 6:12Speaker 01

  The America can have, I'll do everything to be the as good citizen as I can be. So, uh, yes, the beginnings were very hard, but like, no, there's not nothing unusual. You can't don't speak English. You, I didn't come here with expectations like, hey, give me a job and make tons of money. And I have, I just wanted to work. I just wanted to live free man, and that was given to me. So that promise I, I, I try to, I, I still keep it deep in my heart that, uh, yes, I, I'm, I'm successful, I've succeeded, but there is so much more to do for America, for our country.

• 6:54Speaker 01

  And that's what I, that was my goal, be the best American citizen America can have.

• 7:01Jocko Willink?

  So let's, let's, let's take it back a little bit before you get over here with less than 10 cents in your pocket. So you're born in Poland, is that right? You're born in Poland?

• 7:10Speaker 01

  Yes, I was born in Poland.

• 7:11Jocko Willink?

  You're born in Poland, what, what did your parents do?

• 7:14Speaker 01

  My father was communist. He was, uh, he was a professor, he was a teacher, then became, uh, became a party member. They joined the Polish, it's not really not communism, more socialism. Uh, they are very the same, we can talk about the differences later, but so my father was a, a party member. My mother was, uh, was a teacher. She was an elementary school teacher. So when I was born, my father was already starting his career with political communist, Polish Communist Party.

• 7:44Jocko Willink?

  Now, is that, is that something that, you know, if you're, if you're living in Poland and you see the Communist Party on the rise, your dad looks around and says, hey, you know what, I kinda gotta, I kinda gotta go with the flow and get with this party if I'm gonna advance my career in life?

• 8:00Speaker 01

  I think that's what it was. Uh, but you know, he came from very poor family too. So the opportunity they gave it to him, say, look, if you just close your eyes on some moral aspect of socialism and just follow that, our doctrine, and you're gonna be successful. And he fell for it. He went, he became very successful. Eventually, he ended up in Warsaw, in the pretty much in the top communist government as a one of the directors of ministry of art and culture. So he was successful, yeah.

• 8:36Jocko Willink?

  But it sounds like your mom wasn't quite as on board with looking away from some of those immoral aspects of communism.

• 8:44Speaker 01

  Neither my mom, neither my father's mom. I remember that that was big rift in our entire family. I remember as a little kid, maybe six, seven years old, visiting my grandmother, and I mean, my father's mother, my grandmother, yeah. And she always was telling me communists are evil. They are devils. Socialists is evil. Socialism is evil system. And I always had the image of socialist or communist as a guy with a big tail, with the big horns breathing fire. I remember I even asked my grandmother, they breathe fire. And my grandma, yeah, they are wars and they murder people quietly on the sides and

• 9:27Speaker 01

  they are just really bad, that's evil. So in my mind, it was always communism, socialism, that's pretty evil system, it is. And I remember my father tried to protest, "Mom, look, I'm not evil. I'm not really, I'm your son." She, look, if you sold your soul to socialism or communism, if you're part of these murders that are quietly happening in Poland, so you are evil and I don't even want to consider you to be my son." She was very adamant about it. So for me, I always remember before going to bed, we were, my grandmother teach me how to pray. So I was praying, I remember we always close the prayer to God,

• 10:10Speaker 01

  "Please help, but they take all the communists, communists and socialists out of Poland." So I've just, just kind of grew up with it and it was never different. And the rift between my mom and my father, I still remember, I think it was, I don't remember what age it was, but We want to go to church. My mother want to go to church on Sunday. And I still remember my father standing in front of the door, say, "We cannot go because I'm going to lose my job. We cannot go. I'm going to lose my job. We are not going to church. The church, the communism and church and socialism and church are not compatible. And we're just not going there." So my grandmother was visiting at the same time. So my mother left. They couldn't, he couldn't stop her.

• 10:53Speaker 01

  My grandmother passed me through the window to my mom down, it was on the first floor. And we still went to the church. But that was pretty much constant. Eventually, that that marriage fell apart. My father went with the communists and socialists. I stayed with mom. Well, my brother, my younger sister stayed with mom. So that's, it was very difficult too for us because at that time in Poland, it changed now, but at that time in Poland, if your parents divorced, you as a child were stigmatized. So you were a divorcee. You know, there's actually the parents would say, "Hey, don't go play with this guy because his parents just got divorced. He's just divorcee."

• 11:36Speaker 01

  There was a kind of derogatory name in Polish that we were called. So they actually kind of toughened me out because I ended up actually beating up some of these guys. And they left me alone. They were not my friends, but they never bothered me again. So that worked.

• 11:50Jocko Willink?

  So what, you're going to school every day? Is this like normal? Is that what's happening in Poland in the, this is in the late seventies, huh? Or the seventies?

• 11:58Speaker 01

  That was nineteen sixty-eight. Remember, I'm sixty years old. So I was born fifteen years after Second World War. So this is, I was born with less, this time distance that we have between our beginning, September eleven and today. And this is still so fresh in our minds, right? September eleven, it's like happened yesterday. So I was born just fifteen years after the Second World War. So I was still playing the ruins, the broken houses. There were some, people were still finding bombs, unexploded bombs and explosives.

• 12:34Speaker 01

  Uh, kind of in- uh, interesting.

• 12:36Jocko Willink?

  So, so are you going to school? Is that, is that normal? Are they state-run schools? Is there communism? Are you being taught communism in the schools?

• 12:42Speaker 01

  Oh, yes, absolutely. I have actually a couple of notes I found from my, uh, from my notebook from school, those elementary school, like later classes, like seventh grade, about communism and socialism. Yes, you were indoctrinated, uh, from the very beginning in socialism and communism. And the, the things are very, uh, funny there because the government, the socialist government, they feel like they need to have a total control and they rush, they, they have to, but otherwise people just, people don't subscribe to slavery. So, so socialism is not really that good system and they don't want it. So, they, they, uh, I remember they forced us in fifth grade, I was in fifth grade, elementary school, and we had to learn Russian. I was not really, I was never the best student.

• 13:27Speaker 01

  And then they throw the Russian on me. I was like, for the fuck we had to learn this shit? I don't want to learn it. And I'll kind of fall open up in my, in the class. I say, "Look, I'm Polish. I don't want to go into learn Russian language. I, I don't want to learn it. I don't feel like, I'd rather learn English or I'd rather learn German." Oh my God, I, I had no idea what was going to happen. But next thing I was pulled out the principal's office. Uh, my mother, she was a teacher in different schools. So, they, they, they called the police, the secret police came in. They picked my mom, they drove her to, uh, to principal. When I was already waiting there, scared shitless. And, uh, they, uh, they say, "So what happened?" So that teacher explained that I am anti-socialist.

• 14:11Speaker 01

  Apparently, I don't like socialism and I am, uh, also objecting to Russian language indoctrination, the Russian indoctrination. So, my mom is all in tears. She's scared, all shaking. Then they dragged my brother into it, dragged my sister. They had no idea what's going on. So we sit up there or there and, and they were very clear. I still remember that if it happens again, these kids will go to orphanage, that government will make them good citizens if you cannot do that. So, this is, this is your last warning. And, uh, so I had to wise up a little bit. I'd never changed my attitude. I was always outspoken. But I remember that fear that my mom lived for the, I think, rest of

• 14:54Speaker 01

  our lives until, and the rest of the, the time when we were still growing up and that state could take, uh, the kids away from her. So that, that's, the other interesting part of it is that, like, today, I have an eleven-years-old, twelve-years-old daughter, eleven-years-old son. I'm looking over them like, "How?" I don't let them go anywhere where I can see them. I, I, they can play, but I have to be always able to go and assist if something happens. What didn't happen in Poland, Poland, I remember, I was seven, eight years, I was eight-years-old, I was driving across the town, taking bus, crossing the streets, going to somewhere else, and it was like, "There's no big deal."

• 15:36Speaker 01

  All the kids, they were just ten miles away from school, where we have to commute, and we would just commute. It was like, "No big deal." My mom just bought me a ticket, so every time I got into the bus, if I could, because they were so crowded, you just have to pull yourself in, and sometimes the doors don't close, and you're just holding yourself in it, your legs are sticking out, but you're just going to school. Um, so that was kind of, um, yeah, there was, uh, like, we, I don't know, it is because we felt, we did feel safe. My mom apparently feels safe about it, and maybe this is because there was no internet at the time, so some of the crime that happened was not very transparent, it was not very readily, the information about it was not readily available. So people didn't know if something bad happened.

• 16:21Speaker 01

  So I remember going to kindergarten, so I was, uh, that was, I think I was five-and-a-half-years-old. So we had to go from, uh, from our home, I took my younger brother, so he was around me, three-and-a-half, and by hand, we are carrying the house shoes, and another hand, the house shoes. What's, what's house shoes? It's like, uh, uh, slippers, because in kindergarten, you cannot wear those shoes that you wear outside. You have to have slippers, it has to be clean, everything. So we had the slippers in our hands, we're going to, around the school, around the street, across the street. Actually, a friend of mine got killed on that street by the motorcycle, so, but it was like, not a big deal. So you, when you go across the street, you look left, you look right, and make sure nothing is there,

• 17:06Speaker 01

  and we just walk across the street. So we just walked to kindergarten by ourselves, being six-and-a-half, six, five-years-old. So today, I think I was going to jail for letting things like that happen to my kids. But at the time, I was just, that was very common in Poland, that's nothing is wrong.

• 17:23Jocko Willink?

  So you're, you're, you get this experience in fifth grade where you basically say you're, you don't want to learn Russian, they, they crack down on your mom, your brother, your sister.

• 17:35Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 17:37Jocko Willink?

  Did you at any point, were you so, were you so, you, you saw what happened between your mom and your dad? You'd been told your whole life that communism was evil. Did, so did you just kind of suppress that a little bit to, to keep from getting taken away from your mom?

• 17:54Speaker 01

  Uh, I did, but maybe not intentionally. Really, at that time, I was not political. I was just like, I was just annoyed that I have to have the language. That my grandmother tells me those people are not really good and they don't do good things in Poland. They, uh, they oppress Poland, so I don't have to learn that language. So there was really not so much political, but the state was very political. The state was very, uh, they were very cautious with citizens. They wanted to control and they did control almost every aspect of social life, that's what socialism is. And, uh, so that didn't really, the, the, the political part came later. When I started learning about the murders, the political murders, the oppression of socialism.

• 18:39Speaker 01

  And then what has became a little bit more aware what's going on. Then reading about the people disappearing from the street and like never heard from them again. Uh, that became a little bit, then I became a bit more aware. And, uh, so then in late seventies, in Poland, they had so much, so enough of these lies. Because what happened is we had the empty shelves, there was nothing to eat. Uh, uh, and you can't buy food, you can't buy clothes, you cannot buy furniture. But all you hear how great is in Poland in socialist system. If you look at America, people are sleeping on the street and they, you know, had no access to any information.

• 19:23Speaker 01

  They show those tents or they show those shacks where poor people sometimes or, or, or stay. Or they show the worst thing about America. So that, that was just, people knew that is lie. So they got so fed up that eventually, no matter what that socialist press said. People didn't believe. If they say that this is brown, people think they're lying. Even if it was brown, this is how they had enough. It had to explode. And that thing was accumulating. First, the people lost their faith in the government. They lost their faith in the truth, the lies that were being told.

• 20:07Speaker 01

  They stopped paying attention to it. So at the end, no matter what they said, people didn't believe. They had enough of it. And it exploded in the solidarity trade union movement where that people just raised up and say enough is enough. We had enough of socialism or communism.

• 20:26Jocko Willink?

  When you're growing up, you talked about fifth grade. You're in eighth grade, you're in ninth grade, you're in 10th grade. And I know we're going to end up talking about this. At some point, you learned how to fight. Like, not just you learned how to street fight and you learned how to fight on some level. What did you train? Did you train taekwondo? Did you train boxing? What did you train?

• 20:50Speaker 01

  I started with boxing, just regular boxing. And I remember being just my mom growing us up. My younger brother and sister. So sometimes I had to fight for my brother, too. It was quite often.

• 21:04Speaker 01

  And so the boxing was important for me to kind of like codify what I already knew to just learn maybe these technical skills now. And it worked great. I mean, I really liked it. But then, again, so my brother got beat up at school. I think because we were divorcees, so there's people just... So I always remember I was sick and I said, "Well, I need to go to school." Then I just packed my stuff. I went to school. I found the big guy. That guy was like huge. So I just knocked him out. And knocked him out so bad that this guy showed up with his mom later in the evening in my apartment. And it's like... His mother like, see this?

• 21:48Speaker 01

  Your son did that to my son. He can lose his eye. I mean, I look at the guy from like behind the corner and I was like, holy shit, the guy has no eye. He's like big swollen eye. Uh, and so my mom just comes coming in. And she's like, look at me, I'm like half of his size. And this guy is huge and he's crying. So uh, it's like, so that guy beat your, beat your son? I was like, yeah, yeah, you see what he did to, to him? So if your son that big let him happen to that? I think he deserves it. Why don't you just guys leave? So um, yeah, they left.

• 22:22Jocko Willink?

  Was there a boxing gym? Was there a boxing coach? Was there like an official program or something?

• 22:27Speaker 01

  There was official program, yes. Actually, there was the police club. I didn't know about that time, but the clubs like this were on, on usually by the police. So, so yeah, I belong to, they call it guvadi. So uh, so yeah, I belong to this club, but when, when I nailed this guy, I broke my hand. I didn't know it. So that put me on, so some of my friends went on their first boxing matches and stuff. I just stay, had to stay home and then we just moved to different towns. So, but there was my, my start was with the boxing and I liked it. Got involved in the, eventually with Taekwondo. And this kind of fun story too, because my attitude was a bit different. And the Taekwondo they practice in Poland at that time, there was, there's two different type of Taekwondo. ITF, WTF.

• 23:10Speaker 01

  I, so we did ITF, there's like no covering or anything, you just go and look it out. Uh, so we went to the first Polish championship. And I didn't know any better. They put this thing on me, I was like, I have a fight with that, but okay. So I just keep knocking these guys out, just keep progressing. So I got, every time I, I finish my fight, they say, yes, you, you have minus points for the being brutal. Your fight is brutal, you can't do that. So, so I, I mean, it was like, it was funny. And the final fight, uh, final fight for the first place. I knocked the guy out and so the guy is laying there. The judge comes to me and says, "You're being disqualified from the program."

• 23:53Speaker 01

  I mean, not quite disqualified, but he's the winner. So then, you know, they announced, "Okay, this is a winner, so right here." The guy is just laying there, passed out. So I was like, "Okay, well..." But anyway, I guess my fight was not very sports-like because I got a lot of whistles and booing after. I went to take my second place. And then it kind of ended up. And then, you know, the president came in and... Actually, they helped me a lot in prison. I'm glad that I was able to help other political prisoners. This friend of mine, who actually I met again when I visited Poland recently. So since I didn't have anything to do up there, just sit.

• 24:37Speaker 01

  We just bring out your solidarity, I'm solidarity, let's go train. So we're training, and he said, "Look, what you did to me helped me later survive the beatings that I got from the guards and all that stuff." So...

• 24:52Jocko Willink?

  So you were going... Before we get to being in prison, so now it's the late 70s. Now, at some point, you must... You made a decision that you're not... You're not going to comply with communism. You're gonna... You're gonna fight against it.

• 25:07Speaker 01

  Yes. The initial... I didn't even know how to, but the first thing, actually, when it started changing my... When it started making me aware what's really going on in Poland, was I started listening to Radio Free Europe and the Voice of America and BBC. This station, you could go to prison for listening to it. So I remember my mom was like in panic. "Oh, my God, I can hear you. Get more pillows over your head. Get more of those big blankets so the neighbors don't hear." She was in fear. She could go to prison for that. So I was listening to BBC.

• 25:50Jocko Willink?

  So how old are you?

• 25:51Speaker 01

  At that time, I think I was 12, 13, 14. So as I was getting older and I was getting more interested in what's going on. This is when I learned that, you know, that the socialists are actually quietly killing people who are inconvenient to them. Or those people disappear, like, "We don't know where this guy is." He was very outspoken about socialism, and he just disappeared. So, so I was learning about it. I was learning also about the murders, the extrajudicial uh, murders uh, committed by judges in Poland who subscribe to socialist ideology. Um, so that's where it started changing uh, in me. They say, this is not wrong, this is wrong what's, what's going on in Poland. How did those murders take place?

• 26:35Speaker 01

  Usually you just, I, I tell you how it could happen because uh, nobody knows, but I tell you what happened to me eventually. So, I was walking from the gym, we're working out, just do some fights and uh, can I get the police pulls in, say hey, just grab you by the hands, pull in the car, just go. That's it. And that's it. And then just they drive me, I say like, I say like, where are we going? I say, well, where we go, once we made that, it won't anymore matter to you anything. I was like, oh fuck. So I'm already thinking like, hey, uh, so if we get out of this guy, I'm going to kick this guy out, I'm going to do this, and they're gonna shoot me, they're gonna kill me most likely, but at least I'm not going to go down quietly. And uh, but I just drove around the town, just dropped me off in the other part of the town, I had to walk back home for a few hours.

• 27:20Speaker 01

  So, so that's just like intimidation, letting you know what they can do? Yes. If they want to? Yes, yes. How old are you when that kind of thing starts happening? Uh, that start happening when uh, that happened after I was released from prison. Okay. But before that, this was, this is how these people disappear. They don't like you, you are outspoken, you cannot, you either comply, or we just destroy you or your family. That's, that's how socialism works. And um, so I experienced that, how they disappear people, after I got out of prison. But before that, I was not aware, I just knew that people were just there and that they were not there any longer. Or this, they committed suicide,

• 28:04Speaker 01

  or they fall off the stairs. So that's some uh, it was...

• 28:11Speaker 01

  Just something that was waking up in me. That this socialist system is very oppressive. And you can't live as a free man when in oppression like this. I remember actually, at that time was also downing on me that there's different countries, they have different systems, they are free. I learned about America. I remember in Warsaw, every time I was in Warsaw, I always liked to go to US Embassy because they have those beautiful cars, those big cities, there's those images, you know, it's like, I can peek through the fence, I can see like, whoa, look at this car. You know, then I was like, the images, they have those like a glass things on the fence where you can read about America.

• 28:56Speaker 01

  I was like, why Poland cannot be like that? You know, why, this is so awesome. I remember every chance I had. So this is like, when I look at American flag, something like, take my heart, it's like, this is so free. This is, this is the, this is the freedom. And I always, from then on, I always cared. So whenever something happened in Poland, I was like, we need to change, we need to be like America. So that's where the start, my views start maturing again.

• 29:28Jocko Willink?

  So how old were you when you started to actually do something about it? That you, you know, what you eventually get arrested for, at what point? And was it, was it other kids? Was there some kind of leadership network of people that were leading Solidarity? Do you join the Solidarity Movement? How did, what did that look like?

• 29:47Speaker 01

  It, when it crystallized, I remember the first strikes happened. People were hungry, I said, I want, we want food and freedom. So they, they organized strikes. This is where Walesa came in picture. He was the, the prominent, eventually became the leader of Solidarity, the trade union movement in Poland. So my mom got involved and I got involved. And I got involved with my friends up there on the different level. My mom was involved and school. And this is how it went. And so then we start, there was really not much to do at the time because the Solidarity was doing everything. There were, there was the first trade union, oh, not trade union. There was the first movement in Eastern Bloc country

• 30:30Speaker 01

  that was independent from socialist regime, from Socialist Communist Party.

• 30:36Speaker 01

  So that was, uh, you, you, I was just like, uh, I couldn't read enough what was being published. What really happened in nineteen, when the, when the communism and socialism came to Poland after the Second World War, on Stalin's bayonets, uh, that's when I started learning, you know, about the atrocities, about the murders, uh, about the, the, the, the, the freedom that we didn't know that we are not free sometimes. That, but when we learn about how other countries, how is this being done in America? So that's when I started actually maturing, started growing and when I, nineteen, uh, so that was right before the, it was before the martial law, it was late nineteen seventies,

• 31:20Speaker 01

  when especially with the, uh, Joe, uh, Pope came to Poland. And he like rise people up, he said, "Look, you can't live on your knees. You need to rise up," you know, basically, his message, he didn't say it directly, but his message was like this, or was taken this way, and people raised up and kicked the socialist ass out.

• 31:41Jocko Willink?

  So that, the, they had seen, I mean, the communists had seen this kind of thing happen in other Eastern Bloc country, countries. I mean, Hungary had happened, so they kind of...

• 31:51Speaker 01

  They followed, yes.

• 31:52Jocko Willink?

  So, so they, they were nervous about that, so they end up declaring martial law. They, they do martial law to try and...

• 31:58Speaker 01

  Yes, they lost control.

• 31:59Jocko Willink?

  Try and suppress the, the solidarity movement.

• 32:01Speaker 01

  Yes, they lost control, they knew it, and there is no way to putting this genie back. I think something happened with Trump here, so you can't, you can't put it back, but, uh, uh, unless you're a little violent. So they realized that they cannot go back to what it used to be. People won't trust them, people don't trust them, they know they are liar, they know that they were, that everybody knew they were liars. Uh, and thieves too, so, um, they, uh, decide eventually, it's like, "We had enough, we are losing control, and if it continues, they will hang us." They, they were, they were, these people hate us really for what we have, what the socialism done to these people. They will hang, they will prosecute us.

• 32:41Speaker 01

  So they impose martial law, and I remember, I was on the phone with a friend of mine, he was in Austria, and midnight, click, as we're talking, quiet, I say, "What the, what the fuck?" That, no, uh...

• 32:57Speaker 01

  No connection. So then people are still coming, hey, they just shut down all the TVs, all the radios. There's no communication, the telephone lines didn't work. They shut down the communication, the entire Poland. And I think fifteen after midnight, they start rolling in. So I was at the Solidarity headquarters at the time, at midnight. When they came in, so they, they just broke the door. They rounded up everybody who was there. They hauled us on the, um, on the police station. And then they, they only hold those people who, who hold prominent leadership positions. So that night, they arrested, I have different estimates, they are from twenty-five thousand people on the low side to sixty-five thousand people arrested that night.

• 33:42Speaker 01

  They were not criminal arrests, they were, they, they, basically, the way they explain to us, that those people are not arrested, they're sitting in jail, but they are interned. We intern them for their safety. Because we want them to be safe. And also, they were potentially dangerous to the state. So they were not really dangerous, they were, they, they, it's not like they did something. They were potentially dangerous to the state, so we didn't jail them, we just interned them. They have a good living conditions, we provide them food. It's just, it is so ridiculous now when I'm listening to what I say. And it is so, sounds so weird, but that was the fact then.

• 34:27Speaker 01

  That was the, the, the way we perceive that reality. That was quite normal, oh, well, you know, martial law, they in jail sixty thousand people one night, we need to do something. This is why I get, eventually get, we and a couple of my friends start building them, say we cannot just sit and hide and watch it. We, what we're gonna do is, since they shut down all the communications, we're gonna create our own. So we're gonna create our own network. And we start printing and then just were walking, they were pretty naive the way we did that. But we didn't know that I'm any better, so we just print what happened. We print the names of the, uh, of people arrested.

• 35:13Speaker 01

  So the families know that these people just didn't disappear. Yet they're just sitting in prison now. Eventually, so we start distributing that in, uh, in my city where I was at the time growing up. And that's how it started. So we functioned for a while till we got caught. And then, of course, it was not very difficult for them because they were prepared for that. And, um, and that's how I ended up in, in prison. Eventually, they start publishing the lists of some of the, some of the people they, they in turn basically put them in prisons. So.

• 35:46Jocko Willink?

  So you get, you get arrested, they come to your house, they find you at school, do they find, did they grab you on the street?

• 35:51Speaker 01

  Actually, they got me pretty much off the street. I was working on the point where we were printing it to pick up more of the, uh, our newspapers that we printed out. And as soon as I walked in, uh, knock on the door, uh, the code we had, so naive. And the doors opened, these like three guys ran up from the upstairs, uh, it was on the, like a stairway. Uh, like five guys jump out of that room and just put the, I had like ten guns in my head. It was like a police standoff almost. The gun from every side pointing towards. And, uh, so I got handcuffed and, uh, hollow way and, uh, get in prison. So in, in jail. And here goes another story. They, this is something I had no idea. I didn't know that I can have a lawyer.

• 36:36Speaker 01

  You, you could, but they, they just ignore that. So it didn't really matter. It was, besides, it was martial law, so it was a bit different. So I got to jail, they say, okay, so did you do it? I said, no. Did you do it? No. You did it? No. So, you know, got a little bit beat up and, uh, but just, uh, stuck by my thing and, no, I didn't, I don't know. So what about these papers? What did you find in your house? Because they went to my house later, this, they searched my house. My mom later told me that she, they, they just demolished my house. Uh, my apartment, my home. I mean, I live with my mom there, so they demolished her apartment. I said, I was a, I was a little kid. And, uh. So I said, well, I just found him on the street. It's like, how you found him on the street? It didn't really matter because I got three years prison sentence, right off the bat.

• 37:21Speaker 01

  So I remember the funny thing is like, they, uh, they got me from, uh, we're going to the, uh, from the prison to, to the court. So they took my boots away. I say, take your boots. I say, why you take my boots? So this other cop comes out, so yeah, this guy kicks, so he cannot run away. He cannot kick with the bare feet. I say, well, I do kick with the bare feet. So they beat me up for that. And I went to the court. I said, look, I was beat up. I say, like, we don't care. Basically, I was there with the judge, but I say, we, we don't care. It didn't happen. So what's the, what's the prison conditions? Uh, prison conditions for me at the time, I didn't know any better. I said, like, prison, I thought always has to be bad. But again, you're always hungry, right? You have no rights. You can't sit.

• 38:06Speaker 01

  Now, there's another funny thing because when I went up there, they say you can't, you cannot lay down, you cannot, you have to just sit on those stools all day long and just at the table, like, close, rough table. And from meal to meal, just wait there. When the car comes in, you go to, uh, you will go to, uh, you got to lay down in the bed. So I'm just trying to be, you know, like, I'm still scared. I'm new to this environment. I'm sitting by, it's like, fuck, I ain't going to sit here all the goddamn day long. But I'm going to lay down, see what happens. So I just lay down, just came in, just kick the shit out of me from outside. So I'm coming back to the cell. I say, well, now I'm beat up. I can hardly see in my eyes.

• 38:50Speaker 01

  So I say, fuck it, then I don't think they're gonna beat me up again. Now they know I have a legitimate reason to lay down. I can't sit. So now they can't do it again. So like, you repeat three times, finally like, say, I guess they say like, fuck it, they ain't going to sit. Ain't gonna be laid down, so just let me there. So, so I had no problems, but then there's one of those criminal guys, because we would keep becoming criminals. He say, fuck, ain't that tough? I'm tougher than him, so I think I, I can earn my way to fucking two. I don't want to sit all day at the table, just on the stool, no baggers or anything. So he lay down in bed, in his bed up there across. And it was my friend, it was not my bed, because there was like four beds, but it was like fifteen of us there, so we sleep on the floor. But I say like, fuck it, try to kick me out of there.

• 39:35Speaker 01

  So, so he lay down on the bed, and same story, just you can hear a screaming, the beating out of the... He comes back all black and blue, and he doesn't go to bed, he goes to the table and he sings.

• 39:48Speaker 01

  That was it. He was like, okay, well, I've had enough, I will sit.

• 39:52Jocko Willink?

  So it turns out he wasn't quite as tough as you.

• 39:54Speaker 01

  Well, not that I said that about toughness, I just, he was not prepared for the beating. So it was like, well, I don't know, I'd rather put up with sitting on the stool, at the table, than deal with these guys. So eventually they, and actually I was so naive, I had no idea, I say, they told me, hey, those old prisoners, like, now if we can make the hole in this wall to this other cell, we can have a sugar and some other food, because these guys have a lot of stuff. So I say, oh, fuck it, I'll do it, you know, I'm just gonna climb under the bed and start burning this thing. So I made a hole maybe like this big, but didn't go far, because of course, you know, that's like, there's no tools or nothing.

• 40:34Jocko Willink?

  Wait, what were you trying, what were you trying to?

• 40:35Speaker 01

  I tried to break the hole in the wall to the...

• 40:38Jocko Willink?

  Using what? Using?

• 40:39Speaker 01

  Using the, like, the, from the stool that you see.

• 40:45Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 40:45Speaker 01

  The leg, you take them apart, you take the leg there.

• 40:47Jocko Willink?

  You took the stool apart, and you had the leg, and you tried to get through a concrete wall?

• 40:52Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, it was not, it was not really that hard, actually, it was not maybe that concrete in the beginning, but eventually I got to the concrete. But it went nowhere. So I got pulled out, somebody pulling me by the legs, and, you know, get a good kicks and stuff, put out the cell. So, so here it is then, back in this, this is not the principal, but the ward, warden. Say, we have a lot of problems with you, you know, you're gonna go, you do it again, we're gonna go and put you in isolation. And they call it a tiger cage, so it was a cell, and within the cell was a cage, just like in the zoo. I just put you there. So I say, okay, whatever, I'm not going to be punching the walls and the holes in the wall, okay?

• 41:38Speaker 01

  Because I was so stupid, I didn't know any better. So then I worked every, every day for like fifteen minutes, we were allowed to go outside and walk, there was like a room, maybe half size of this, with the high walls, with the guards working on the top or above you. And the funny thing is that it was made of these concrete posts with the slit inside. We've seen them in Iraq and this reinforced concrete slab would slide in between the posts, one on the top of another. So I was like, take what I remember, I was just for demonstration, I was breaking those in half. So I thought that I heard the voice of the guy who was in the case with me, so I said

• 42:21Speaker 01

  I need to communicate with him, let me take a look. I didn't mean to break that shit, I would just go, just like, a quick jump and just kick that shit. So I thought just maybe move this, some of this mud from in between those cracks, between these slabs. That fucking thing fell off. And just this whole two slabs above just fall down all over, you can see the alarms going on everywhere, I was like, what the fuck do I do now? So, so I end up in the tiger cage. Just sitting there and, no, there was, that was not the one time, that was the final time, but the second, the other time, they put me in the prison with, with the broken windows, it was winter time, and they gave me no blankets, so I was just laying on those woods for, I think it was a week.

• 43:05Speaker 01

  So it was, you know, it was, was okay, I was freezing, but there was nothing that would kill me. And, you know, like, I'm looking, watching some of the TVs here about the prison in the United States. I was like, fuck, now if, at that time, I wouldn't, I would trade my life in Poland for prison here, because I would be fed, I have medical attention, I had a TV, I would have a gym maybe, possible even, and, and how can you live better? I mean, what else can you, do you want from life? You have, you have everything provided to you, you know, you don't have to fight for anything. So that's, that's how.

• 43:46Jocko Willink?

  So how long did you end up staying in prison?

• 43:48Speaker 01

  There was three years prison sentence and they released us, I think, close to a year and a half or after a year and a half when John Paul II was coming to Poland again. So they tried to make a gesture, so okay, we started releasing political prisoners on amnesty. And I noticed they started releasing us and the prisons started shrinking. Because, you know, after the case was done, my case, I was sentenced to, got my sentence, they shipped us to Russian border. We were in prison called Krupješov. Basically, we can through the window, we can see the river, we can see the Russian territory next to it. So it's kind of like unnerving because at that time, there was a reality of invasion.

• 44:33Speaker 01

  I mean, we were afraid that the Russians will come in to take, to put some order there because I think the communism and socialism was falling apart. So they, we knew that if the Russians come in, we're gonna get killed. So we were thinking like, well, we're gonna get killed anyway. If they come in, this is what we need to do. We had like a plan, actually, you know, how to bridge the, not the bridge like we know as the SEALs now, but how to get through the wall, how to get this. We're just making, getting the equipment done. So they maybe kill some, but maybe they don't want to kill everybody. But we cannot just sit here in prison and just wait for it to be slaughtered. So there was that thinking at that time in prison.

• 45:17Speaker 01

  So we, so yeah, so we were in this, that's actually, a couple of other things came to my mind too, I didn't even think about it. So they beat us up, I remember, I had some issues with, oh, okay. So we went on the hunger strike. So, okay, we're on hunger strike. We want status of political prisoner. They were some head of socialism, I don't know if you guys knew, but in socialism, there are no political prisoners. There are, but they are sitting for something else. They are sitting like stealing the milk from the, from, in front of somebody's door, or just insulting the neighbor, or just being mean to somebody. So they put you for something else. So they always claim political prisoners, not in socialism.

• 46:01Speaker 01

  We don't have that. Everybody until the marshal who was locked up for political activities was locked up pretty much for something else, for some criminal offenses they could generate. So yeah, there was something that, when they, so they sent us to Krupje Szow, they kind of isolate the political prisoners there from the general criminal population. So they're pretty much gulag. And they, so we decided to go on the hunger strike. And the way they broke our strike was, in Poland, they say there is a law that after

• 46:44Speaker 01

  two weeks, if you don't eat, we'll forcefully feed you. So what they did is like a vacuum pipe. So they say, "God damn, I ain't gonna come into my stomach." And so they put this thing in your throat and they just put it, whatever the mixture they gave you there. And I remember, I didn't know it was that bad, so I said, "I'll fight these guys." So finally, they overpower me, they handcuff me to the chair. But when they tried to put this pipe again, I just broke the fucking chair. So they broke the different chair this time, I couldn't break out of it and they actually forced it. Later I learned how to, you know, deal with it.

• 47:28Speaker 01

  So yeah, I was like, "No big deal, just go ahead, stick it, put my foot in it." But the way they broke it is typical socialist way, but it's sneaky. So they got to, especially the older guy, say, "Look, you see this big pipe?" And I had to shove it back down your throat, in your stomach again, and put it in. Why don't you just take it yourself? Just drink that shit and go to your cell. So they're like, hmm, that's pretty painful. So I just like, okay. As soon as you just take a one sip, it's like, wham. All right, you just broke your hunger strike. You just ate on your own. So now we're gonna transport you to another prison. The guy never had a chance, most likely, to go to this prison cell. He was just handcuffed, put in the transport and drove, drove away somewhere.

• 48:14Speaker 01

  So there eventually, there was only a few of us left and the car came from the church. That this is pointless. The, the socialist, socialists will never admit they hold political prisoners. And you just waste your health in to stop it. So we did, eventually we stopped that. And I totally forgot about it until I went to Poland, met this guy. He said, hey, do you remember the hunger strike here? I have the calendar here, this, this, this. Into the, I was like, shit, yeah, I remember now.

• 48:46Speaker 01

  So how long were you on the hunger, hunger strike for? I think it was three weeks. We did, before the car came in to stop it because they were going nowhere.

• 48:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, I need to look, I need to look. He gave me that calendar. I don't have it here, but. I need to look into it. This is interesting, actually, because. The, yeah, there, there was things too that we did in prison. I can't sing war the shit. I'm, I'm not a singing person at all. But I was singing like a motherfucker in prison. Those, those political songs that from Polish past, from Polish history. They were very patriotic songs which socialists really hated. So we, in prison, it was at eight o'clock in the, in the evening. I believe it was eight o'clock in the evening. We just opened the windows on the whole side. An entire prison population from the, even the criminals do join in.

• 49:36Speaker 01

  But they get beat up and shut down very quick and there was, they squashed them, but not with us. So we kept singing and they were, they were so loud that, that nearby town, they could hear. And actually that priest was coming and praying in front of the prison. So the guards hated it because, you know, they were, they were up to one cell, they beat up people up, they throw them and close the windows up. As soon as they leave, the windows get open again and people are singing on the cell. So there's not so much they could do. Um, that, that, yeah, that's, that's funny. Actually, the, the, I, I need to send them, I'll send it to you because I have a, they were so bad, I guess, for them, they. I didn't have any family at the time, just my mom.

• 50:17Speaker 01

  So they sent a letter to my mom complaining, say, hey, come here and do something. Your son is not listening. And actually, I was showing to my wife, Rachel, saying, "Look at this here." Because I knew that I had, and then by accident, I found it. So I had this document saying, a letter from prison, to just come out and help. Because I'm not listening to socialist guards.

• 50:42Jocko Willink?

  Was there any guards or any government officials that were sympathetic at all? Or did they just had to toe the party line?

• 50:50Speaker 01

  They had to toe the party line, but there were some of the guards that they were not so vicious. So they were, they, they just not, they listened. Sometimes, there was even, we were able to smuggle the camera into the prison. I'm sure that some of the guards knew about it. And there are some pictures floating. I think I've seen some of the pictures from the prison at the time. And some of them, like, you know, during Christmas time. So we had this nurse say like, "Well, can you send us some alcohol? Oh, we cannot have alcohol, but we have this alcohol to clean the skin." So I said, "Well, let's, you know, why don't we just..." Yeah.

• 51:34Speaker 01

  So we just put the rope down from the first floor. She came out with just a big bottle of this skin-cleaning alcohol. Just put it out. You had a party in the prison. Cannot get any better than that, right? I remember in Communist prison, that was actually, it was really bad if they caught you with this.

• 51:58Jocko Willink?

  So you end up getting released. When the Pope comes back again, they do this gesture. They're going to let you out of prison.

• 52:04Speaker 01

  Right.

• 52:05Jocko Willink?

  And then are you going, once you're out of prison, what are you doing?

• 52:08Speaker 01

  Trying to find a job first. So I said, "I need to do something." I mean, my mom cannot, she's in a hard time. She has a hard time too. And I cannot be on her, sitting and living on her, from her money. So I'm trying to find a job, and you can't. Because everything is controlled. The government owns everything. They own the job, so if you...

• 52:34Speaker 01

  I remember after struggling for a while, I still continued my training. So this is what I described earlier. After the training coming out from, sometimes in the evening, it depends wherever we train, as police pulled in, they pulled me out of the car, dragged me around, threatened me for a while and just threw me on the street. So this is when I said, like, you know what, I can continue like this. This is something that I eventually end up dead. And they did, actually, we find out later that, uh, not later, I found out around the same time that one of my fellow prisoners was suicided. Then another one, I was like, I'm not going to wait maybe longer. Then my images of America came in.

• 53:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, so this is when I went and I say, I need to go get some help. I went to American Embassy, I say, this is what's happening, I need help. And hell yeah, I was like, sure, we need this, this, this. And within three weeks, I had the, uh, I think within three weeks, I had a visa out of Poland to Germany, to the United States, permanent. The funny thing is that I also had to, because I was still in the age that, conscription age, so they, uh, had to go and sign up, like, okay, I'm not going to go to join Polish military, I'm not being sold by the military or anything.

• 53:59Speaker 01

  I remember I walk into this office and, as I say, I'm leaving Poland, I need to sign this here. So this fucking sergeant just looked at me, say, you look pretty strong, but, you know, people like this should serve Poland under this Polish fucking, this Polish symbol, this Polish eagle. I was like, I say, dude, ain't even Polish eagle, that motherfucker, you and your Russians buddies stole the crown from that eagle. It's a bar, that eagle doesn't have a crown on his head, so that's your eagle, but it's not mine. I'm not serving out of this motherfucker right there. And he already signed this, I just left. I remember, I remember after leaving the building, that motherfucker was still screaming and yelling, I tell you how bad we are, how bad those people are.

• 54:44Speaker 01

  So, and I came to Germany first, the little center that the United States created for us, for refugees. I learned about America. We had the people coming, teaching us about America. And eventually, I remember still like, so where would you, do you have any preferences where you come to America? I remember I was always cold, I was in Poland. I was so cold that actually, we couldn't buy the good clothes, so my mom put the newspapers in our, sometimes in our jackets, so just like, just don't tell people, tell anybody because then it'll be bad on me, but just have those newspapers inside, it'll keep you warm. And they did, they would actually did the trick.

• 55:22Speaker 01

  So, I was always cold in Poland, and then, so when they asked me, I was like, well, everywhere where it's not cold, I mean, if it is hot, it's perfect, but just not where it's cold if you can. So, it's like, what do you think about Memphis? Do you not think about Memphis? It's like, no, but I know that Elvis Presley was from Memphis, I knew that. Okay, okay, so we're looking for the place in Memphis for you. And that's where I came in. That's when I landed in the United States with a ten pence in my pocket and a bag of clothes.

• 55:55Jocko Willink?

  So, you, so, how long has it been since you left Poland? How long were you in Germany for?

• 56:00Speaker 01

  I was in Germany maybe three months.

• 56:02Jocko Willink?

  Are they, are they teaching you any English there?

• 56:04Speaker 01

  No, there was no time for that. There's mostly like, you know, the legal stuff, what you need to do, how you go about getting the English classes, how you live, what is the, what the laws are, what, how, how to be good, a member of society and productive. So, there's, that, we tried to learn on our own, I just remember both myself, the English dictionary, and that I lost somewhere on the way too, in the, in the flight. And, but that was really good, because cause like, finally, we came to like a normal world,

• 56:44Speaker 01

  where everything was clean, everything was bright, everything was nice, people were nice. And it's like, that's, that's the world, I think that's what America is going to be too. So, really, I was really excited just to, to, you know, to come to America at the time.

• 57:00Jocko Willink?

  What year is it?

• 57:01Speaker 01

  It's nineteen eighty-four, beginning, I left nineteen eighty-three, like December nineteen eighty-three, and this is like beginning nineteen eighty-four.

• 57:08Jocko Willink?

  So you you get on a plane, are you by yourself, or is there other people with you?

• 57:11Speaker 01

  There were some other people with me. There was there was a group of people, refugees from the communist socialist state. And but we were going to different locations. So some of them, we didn't even know. And once we get on this big jumbo jet, it was like, I didn't even know who these people were or where they went. So I eventually I land in New York. And I remember, I just wanted to see this statue of the party. It was like so great, you know. And yeah.

• 57:43Jocko Willink?

  Is anyone escorting you? Is anyone?

• 57:45Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, there was like, we didn't come on our own. I mean, when we came in, there was part of the people waiting for us. Everything was provided. That's they they help us to our destination, Memphis. I remember this is where I get my first apartment. They helped me get the apartment, my first job. And I was so excited. I remember I I never knew what the air conditioning is, right? So I was watching the movies from America in Poland when I was young. And I see those boxes in the windows. I thought they're just a box you can put the milk inside, you know, food, because in Poland, it's so cold. You just put outside the window, your food, your milk, your stuff. I say, this is so cool. They are so smart, you know, why in Poland don't have this? We could have this

• 58:27Speaker 01

  box behind the window, we could put more stuff in it. And but then, as I was learning, I said, there's not the boxes for food, there's just air conditioning. So this is something that keeps your house cool and and healthy. And but I remember, so when I moved into my first apartment, I couldn't contain myself to tell my mom, say, I call my mom, say, Mom, I'm living in the apartment and with climatization, with air conditioning. She's like, what air conditioning? I say, it blows cold air if on demand, if you want. She say, oh, my God, how much do you pay for it? Can you afford these things? I say, no, yeah, it comes with apartments.

• 59:06Speaker 01

  So yeah, there was so, I mean, that, that, that, that change was so drastic. I remember going to the store first time, grocery store. In Poland, it was very simple, just grab whatever was left on the shelf and just run with it before somebody grab it from you. It's like, here you walk, you see the cereal. First, I didn't know what the cereal was, like, what's this? Oh, this is like a cereal of this. I don't know what it is, but I take one. But then I look at these boxes, they're also looking cool, so nice. It's like, we'll try this one, maybe I try this one. So I have like fifty boxes of cereal. Then, it was so, the abundance of everything. Something I could not get used to it for a long time. I always end up buying, trying to buy maybe like five, six dollars groceries.

• 59:50Speaker 01

  I end up with like thirty, forty dollars. And I thought, damn, I spent all the money again. Because my first paycheck was, I think it was like forty dollars a week. So I remember, but, of, of course, people, I wouldn't be able to make it without Americans helping me. So, they, I remember this forty dollars, usually by the end of the week. Because I had to save money to pay for apartment, it was like hundred eighty dollars, I think, for apartment, electricity and everything. I had maybe like, I had a lot of money at the end of it, so I just have to wait for my paycheck. As soon as I get a paycheck, more cereal, more food, you know, people were bringing me food too, so. Again, I would not survive without Americans helping me.

• 1:00:33Jocko Willink?

  Who was, who were the Americans that were helping you? Was it a religious group?

• 1:00:36Speaker 01

  It was a religious group, St. Grace Look Church in Memphis. And these people are Christians. And they, they help so many people. And I think I'm, I feel obligated, I need to do something to maybe reciprocate it now. Kind of late, but these are awesome people. And they are, they're still there, they still actively support people coming to America. Help them settle down. I would never succeed if not their help. I was very lucky. The funny thing is too, that I didn't speak English.

• 1:01:20Speaker 01

  So, they bought me a dictionary. And so I'm just trying to learn as much as I can. I remember one of the families, like older couple, older couple, pick me up and say, okay, we're gonna drive you here today, show you this and that and this. So as we drive, actually, this is them, they gave me the dictionary. So, uh, cause they were like, they were helping us. It was just that couple or maybe, I think it was like designated to help us. So they gave me the dictionary. I'm trying to show it. I'm using it and I'm really trying to learn. And I see this black guy walking on the street. So I'm looking dictionary, say, this is black man, right?

• 1:01:59Speaker 01

  So just looking and saying, and then it dictionary, it says, this is N. So I say, hey, this is a N. It was like, someone scratched the card. Oh, my God, no, no. Why do you say that? What did you learn that word? I say, the dictionary you gave me right here. So I have the dictionary here today with this lady still scratched that word and say, black man. You know, I didn't know any better. I mean, for me, I grew up in Poland. There was no, um, there was just only white people there. So I didn't know about animosity, how animosity is. When we, the first black person I've seen, I was maybe like sixteen, seventeen years old. I said, this is so freaking cool.

• 1:02:42Speaker 01

  I never seen guy with that color of the skin. So me and my buddies were like circling around this guy. I'm sure this guy say, what the fucking weirdos? But we were like, holy shit, he's really black. You know, I didn't know it. But there was never any sinister feelings. It was just curiosity. And I said, I want to be friends with them, you know, let's invite these guys to our club, you know? And actually, we did, they show up. So we're giving a Polish names. One was Yashu and one was something else. And we became friends, you know? So that was the first black people I've seen.

• 1:03:13Jocko Willink?

  So you, do you go to any classes to learn to speak English or is it just work?

• 1:03:17Speaker 01

  No, no, at the time, I was working already. So for them, the church providers like short, maybe, I think it was a one month class of English where we attend. You know, it's hard to learn it.

• 1:03:29Jocko Willink?

  Was it hard, was it hard to learn?

• 1:03:31Speaker 01

  It was hard for me, uh, as you can hear it now, thirty years later. But, uh, yes, that was, uh, it gives us some basics maybe, but I remember, you know, like pronunciation, good God, that was killing me. Uh, thank you. There is no T H word in Polish. So thank you for me to say it was like. I couldn't, I couldn't just could not say it. I was spitting. I was just butchering the word. Finally, a friend of mine comes in and say, hey, just, no, fuck it. Just say, thank you very quick. Say F instead of PH. They won't even hear the difference if you say it fast. So sure I did, you know, and I said, I remember some meeting or somewhere where this, um, this, I think there was a priest or somebody who brought the cookies.

• 1:04:13Speaker 01

  So I grabbed the cookie and I was like, I tried to struggle with it. Should I say this guy from behind like, thank you. So it's like, ladies like, fuck you, you know. It's like, and it's like, got quiet. It was like, that's not right. They say something wrong. This guy like whoop disappeared behind. It's like, and finally, one of the older gentlemen comes in. What he is trying to say is, and he looks at me and say, thank you. I say, thank you, you know, I work on it hard. That's so I'm better now. But I'm still like, that's my wife. There are words that I'm not allowed to say in public. So like, sometimes like, hey, take my phone. Can you put the phone in your purse?

• 1:04:55Speaker 01

  It's like, don't ever say that loud in front of anybody. Let's just say, say my, my, my, my bag or something.

• 1:05:02Jocko Willink?

  So it's challenging for you to say purse?

• 1:05:04Speaker 01

  Uh, purse.

• 1:05:05Jocko Willink?

  Okay, yeah.

• 1:05:06Speaker 01

  Or a hamburger. So, so it's things like, don't, I have like a little list of words that I'm not allowed to say, especially around my wife. So, so I'm good. I'm doing that.

• 1:05:20Jocko Willink?

  So what was the first actual job that you got? Once you're on the ground, you're in Memphis, you got a, you got an apartment. It has air conditioning.

• 1:05:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:30Jocko Willink?

  What's the first actual job?

• 1:05:31Speaker 01

  First job was in the dealer, was in church. I was basically mopping the church, cleaning the toilets. And that was something to get me through, getting me familiarized a little bit with, with, with America, with get a bit English behind my belt. And so basically I was working part-time.

• 1:05:52Speaker 01

  As a janitor. And this is where actually I start actually picking up English more. I had a bucket, mop in one hand, and I have a little cartoon cartoon in my back pocket. So, and Joey is going to the store. So like, and Joey is going to the store. Joey is going to the store. It means that he is going to go and buy some groceries. Obviously, like in Polish, so I was translating it. And so I did more cartoons. I was picking up more and more English. And eventually, I think they decided I'm good enough to venture to find like a different job.

• 1:06:31Speaker 01

  So the church helped me to get a job with Oakley Keesy Ford, uh, first time in Memphis. And I was-

• 1:06:39Jocko Willink?

  Oakley Keesy Ford?

• 1:06:40Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:06:41Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 1:06:41Speaker 01

  In Memphis.

• 1:06:41Jocko Willink?

  That sounded like a Polish word, actually.

• 1:06:43Speaker 01

  Ah.

• 1:06:45Jocko Willink?

  I thought you had a relapse on me.

• 1:06:48Speaker 01

  We come back to it later, especially when I had to translate Polish to English and back. So, uh, in Iraq. But, um, so I got the job up there. My job was to pick up the, uh, uh, the phone. And they already knew that there's a guy who doesn't speak English, but he knows the numbers. So they say, okay, five, six, six, seven, eight, nine, 10. So I would just write it down. I say, thank you, click. I run upstairs and I pick the part. There was five, five, six, seven, eight, and brought it up. So the, the, the, the, the cars from different dealerships or whoever needed that part was coming into the door and picking, picking it up. And I was just the guy who just take the phone call, get the number, get the parts. I was working really hard, but god damn those numbers, I just kept mixing up.

• 1:07:31Speaker 01

  So those guys coming up and like two hours later, here, fuck, we just got the wrong part. This, this is not the part we wanted to. The mechanic says that we, we just gave him a wrong part. So they come to me, it's like, hey, no, then we are, you're working so hard. We see it, we don't want to fire you, but you know, you just need to get better. But do you know anything about cars, European cars, maybe? I was like, yeah, you know, I had an idea, but yeah, yeah, you know? Cause there is an opening in another dealership, but they are looking for, um, mechanics for Saab, Porsche, Audi. Maybe, I don't know if you would want to go and try that too, you know? That's, I say, yeah, absolutely. Yes. Well, yeah, I, I know all the, everything about cars.

• 1:08:13Jocko Willink?

  How many people, when you were in Poland, how many people did you actually know that actually owned their own car?

• 1:08:20Speaker 01

  I personally didn't know anybody who owns the car. I know some people who knew some people who owned the car, but uh.

• 1:08:26Jocko Willink?

  And now you're, but okay, so you're a car expert.

• 1:08:28Speaker 01

  My father, because he was a communist, he, he was allowed, he owned the car.

• 1:08:32Jocko Willink?

  There you go.

• 1:08:33Speaker 01

  Uh, so, but that was, that was the expertise that I had. I know somebody who, who knew somebody with the car.

• 1:08:42Speaker 01

  So, so I went for the interview and my English was so broke, I hadn't like, even I didn't know what I was saying. But I remember that, that, that, so they brought, it was like, they, they needed a mechanic for Porsche, Audi and Saab. And uh, so they brought the, the foreman from the Porsche first, he, he looked at me like, and I know there's like blah, blah, blah, and I was just like, that, we can have a guy, guy doesn't even speak English. So the, the, the Audi mechanic came in, he talked to me for a while, I tried to say my best, but he's like, I can see he can't hear, so no. And then the Saab mechanic comes in, this big guy, like motorcycle gangster and walks in, so like,

• 1:09:26Speaker 01

  looks at me, I take him, I need slave, come with me. As I started my career, I became good, I became good. This guy, I owe him so much. He as, he was, he was running with the motorcycle gangs and uh, he uh, I remember he was a very proud guy and, and uh, but I was able to actually talk him into, look, Jimbo, we call him Jimbo, look Jimbo, I can't speak English very well, I need to learn this thing, I have these manuals for Saab. If you can read it aloud to me, uh, I, I can record it, I can listen at home and I can match the words with the recording.

• 1:10:10Speaker 01

  I thought he would kill me first time, say, motherfucker, I, I ain't reading shit, I don't even know how to read well. But then, then I, I, I talked him into it and he says, so we're sitting in his kitchen. He will keep, he kept reading that manuals and there was, I know that was hard for him, I could see it, I could tell it was hard for him. But he did it for me. So uh, we become like really good friends and very often, you know, he came back drunk up there laying under the car. So say, hey Jimbo, you working? I say, ah, he's working right here, I'm just helping him out right there, you know, to the management. So he's like, okay, if somebody comes in, just kick me, I'm going to sleep, I say, okay, so he's sleeping there.

• 1:10:49Speaker 01

  Great guy. Actually, this is the first time that I was exposed to American way, American way of eating too. Because, uh, so I remember say, you know, you need to come over here, uh, we'll have a steaks and I'll just, we'll just have a steaks and say, okay. So I show up and there's a big ass, I think, two steaks, no, three steaks with his girlfriend there. So those big ass three steaks are like, fuck, we're gonna be eating it for a month. I mean, so like, so who, who else is coming here? He said, no, just three of us. I say, what about the steaks? Yeah, you can have one. I mean, the one is for you here. You can pick whatever you want. I was like, I mean, that entire steak? He said, yeah. What's wrong with that?

• 1:11:33Speaker 01

  I said, dude, I'll be slicing it and slicing it just so that thing would last me for a month in Poland. And I, I just didn't know that you can eat just steak like that, just by the slab of meat, you cook it and you eat it. I was like, what the fuck? And I love steaks.

• 1:11:50Speaker 01

  I'm addicted to steaks now, so. So that was, I was exposed first time, it's like, yeah, you eat the steak, you eat the steak, you don't, you don't just paper slice it like this and that. Because in Poland, you know, there was, I didn't mention that, I just come back very quick to it. The, the socialism what did to Poland is that once became me very resilient to hunger because I, I was going hungry to school quite often because my mom, you had to, you cannot buy food for more than two, three, the three, four days, especially bread or something. So if my mom didn't get up early enough around three o'clock, three thirty, four o'clock in the morning and stay in line, which is sometimes around the block, uh, to buy a loaf of bread, I didn't, I, I had no breakfast.

• 1:12:31Speaker 01

  So sometimes she was in line all right for a couple hours, but then they sold out bread before she could get it. I was hungry to school, going, going to school. But my remedy for it was, I just find out there's richer kids from those, especially those parties, party members' sons. They have always food, they have really good food. So I just beat them up and I took their for lunch and I, I had, I ate their lunch and I said like, you wanna eat lunch? You bring two sandwiches next time. So I had so much supply that I, actually I was like a Robin Hood because I was like the poorer guys that I knew up there and I was like, okay, you bring the sandwich to this guy, you bring a sandwich to this guy and you, to me. And if they didn't, we just took their lunch and we just ate their lunch. They usually they brought the lunch, so it worked.

• 1:13:14Jocko Willink?

  So how lo- how long are you working at the, what was it, the sob dealer?

• 1:13:17Speaker 01

  At the sob dealer, I worked for quite a few years and I think it was to the point that the war, then I became US citizen too. So for me, it was, it is still, it is the biggest accomplishment for me. People think you made to the SEAL training, how does it feel about it? Well, I tell you how does it feel to be an American citizen. I tell you how to be American, I'm a free man. That's the biggest accomplishment I made. It's not the SEAL teams, I'm very proud of the trident. I'm very proud what I did in the SEAL teams. But it is not my biggest accomplishment. I always look at this American flag and I'm American. I'm not Polish American, I am not something American. There is no hyphen in front of this American.

• 1:14:02Speaker 01

  I am an American and I'm proud. And so, yeah, that's.

• 1:14:08Jocko Willink?

  So you mentioned, you mentioned the first Gulf War. But then you, at what point, because I know you got into parachuting at some point.

• 1:14:15Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:14:16Jocko Willink?

  How did that happen?

• 1:14:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was, at the time, I said, I met the girl who made the parachute jump. She told me, well, you know, it's like you need to try it at least once. I said, fuck, I tried it once. That was before the war, before anything. So I say, well, I just cut the drops and I say, hey, can I make a parachute jump? She said, sure, come on over. That was in Memphis. So I came and said, how can I make the parachute jump? Well, you have to see through the classes, it'll be tandem jump. I said, tandem jump, okay. So I sit for the class, you know, then he explained to me what to expect, what to look, went up and jumped. Fuck, I was hooked. So I said, like, can I do it again? It was pretty expensive, but you know, being single at the time, so I, yeah, you can do it again.

• 1:15:00Speaker 01

  So I did one more time, so I like, can I jump by myself? Like, not right away, but you have, you have to go through the classes, so tell me about it. So he goes, "Well, so you have a class, most likely like on the weekend, then Monday you come, you do one jump, maybe two jumps, Tuesday, Wednesday." Like within two weeks, you get enough jumps, seven jumps, because AFF, Accelerated Free Fall at the time. And so you made enough jumps, then you can graduate to jump on your own. I say, "Fuck, and when can we start?" I say, "We can start actually this Thursday." I say, "No, Friday." I say, "Okay." So Friday I came, I had all the classes, we made the three jumps. Saturday I made the next four jumps. And I was, I think Saturday evening I was jumping on my own.

• 1:15:43Speaker 01

  So three days, I was hooked. So, yeah, I was skydiving. Actually, this is funny, because in Memphis, we jump from very high altitude, usually 12,000 feet, sometimes from 15,000, 16,000 feet. So I accumulated a lot of free fall at the time. So I decided to go myself for the AFF Jump Master course. I say, "I'll become the jump master, I'll be teaching skydiving." And I did. And actually, I did extremely well. I remember when in Tulsa, Oklahoma at the time, the only issue I had, again with my language, because, you know, you have to do class. You have to do class, you have to be very thorough. If you miss something, the instructors, usually those are USPA Commission people, they're very experienced skydivers, they pick up what you missed in the brief, and they did

• 1:16:28Speaker 01

  that errors in the air, which you didn't breathe, or you said it the wrong way, you told it the wrong way. So we had an agreement, we were always partnered up, so we were one of the guys, and we had an agreement, you know, if I ask you a question, you answer it correctly. So I don't have to, because if you answer them correctly, I have to reteach you, because these people are watching, if I don't catch your error, your wrong answer, then they will go and do it to me in the air. So we are okay. So we were with that agreement. And, you know, there is a point in the skydiving tour, and we teach people eventually, say like, so there is an altitude that you have to make your decision, you either cut away the malfunction parachute, if you have malfunction, and open the reserve, or you ride it to the ground.

• 1:17:10Speaker 01

  So I think at that time it was 2,000 feet, by 2,000 feet, you don't have a good parachute, and you need to make the decision to cut away as a new jumper and open your reserve. If you didn't do it by this time, most likely you just should be riding it to the ground. So we go through it and say, I look at this guy and the commission is listening there. So, okay, now, uh, tell me, what is your hard dick? This guy looks at me, so like, what? I was like, you know, tell me about your hard dick. I say, I can't tell that. So now I'm getting mad, I was like, motherfucker, don't fuck with me. What's your hard dick? And he says, uh, what do you mean? What do you mean? I said, you know, the two thousand foot hard dick. I don't have two thousand foot hard dick.

• 1:17:55Speaker 01

  I was like, I was about to punch this guy, I look up there and this hall, they're laying under the tables, they're laughing so hard. I was so focused that, you know, it's a two thousand foot hard deck.

• 1:18:05Jocko Willink?

  Deck, yes.

• 1:18:06Speaker 01

  Dick for me was kind of like, same, same thing, so. So, so he, he didn't tell, he said nothing about two thousand foot hard dick, but eventually, yeah, but I graduated from this course. Even, uh, even regardless of this hard dick. And, uh, yeah, so, uh, I was skydiving by this time, but.

• 1:18:26Jocko Willink?

  It seems like, it seems like coming from Poland, coming from not having food, from being in prison, from all these things that are going on. It seems like when you get to America, you've just got this, this like drive just to live and make things happen. And you're going to free fall and you get it done in four days and then I'm going to become a jump master and you're working as hard as you can. It's like you have this open freeway in front of you for the first time.

• 1:18:52Speaker 01

  This is America, you can be whatever you are able to be. You know, I can't say whatever you want to be, because I want to be astronaut, I'm sixty years old, I ain't going to be astronaut with me, but. But, but you can be whatever you are able to be, there is nothing to stop you, like different countries, what's your background? Who is your mom? Did you do, are you communist or do you belong to socialist party? So we can help you, but if you know you cannot be in these positions, you cannot go to, to, to college even if you don't have, you are not part of the socialist youth organization. So. So for me, yeah, there was like the entire world open. I could be whatever I was able to be. And there was nothing stopping me. So even more, even more makes me

• 1:19:35Speaker 01

  that stick to my word. I want to be the best citizens. I want to make this country the best can be and contribute to it. So that's where the first Persian war came out and I just became US citizen at the time. So I was like, okay, I can't build the jobs for these people. I'm not rich enough. I don't have resources, but I can fight for them. So this is my country. I'm going to go and sign up. I had no idea how to do it. I remember in post office, I seen those draft cards sometimes that you you fill it up. So I say, I went up there, I fill it up, I send it out. I pack my shit. I was living with other skydivers at the time. So they say, what's going on, Drago? Where are you going? I say, I'm going to war. I just sent out my papers.

• 1:20:19Jocko Willink?

  And this is, this is the first Gulf War, right?

• 1:20:22Speaker 01

  First Gulf War, yes.

• 1:20:22Jocko Willink?

  So it's 1991.

• 1:20:23Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:20:24Jocko Willink?

  The first Gulf War kicks off.

• 1:20:25Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:20:26Jocko Willink?

  You want to go fight.

• 1:20:27Speaker 01

  I want to go fight.

• 1:20:28Jocko Willink?

  So you go down to the post office.

• 1:20:29Speaker 01

  I filled up.

• 1:20:30Jocko Willink?

  Grab the, uh, what's that thing called? The selective service.

• 1:20:33Speaker 01

  Selective service, yeah, yeah.

• 1:20:34Jocko Willink?

  You fill that out.

• 1:20:35Speaker 01

  Send it over.

• 1:20:36Jocko Willink?

  Pack your bags.

• 1:20:38Speaker 01

  Pack your bags. And that's like, anytime now. So, uh, well, nothing happens. The guys like Drago, you know, I don't think this is the right way to do it. But you surely want to go into war, man? There's a war going on up there. I say, yeah, yeah. I mean, you have to help. This is, I came here with nothing. And everything I have, I own to America, to this country, I need to do something. And the best way I can do is go and fight for my country. So, yeah, that's, uh, I'm waiting on the, I'm sorry, but this selective service doesn't apply to you. You are too old. So I was already 31 at the time, going 32. And so I say, I find my, I will find my way into that war.

• 1:21:23Speaker 01

  So somebody said, hey, why don't you go to recruiting, recruiting office? I said, sure. I went to the army, in Poland, army is everything. This is like army, are you talking about army, air forces? For me, at that time, everything was army. So, go to army and say, okay, this is me. I would like to join military, I would like to go to war. It's like, okay, what do you want to do? I say, I fight. It's like, no, no, no, like a jobs or something, you have any skills? I say, no, not really, but I will do whatever you tell me to do. You know, I just want to go to war. I will, when the war is over, I will go back to my normal life.

• 1:22:05Speaker 01

  But I think just for the duration of the war, I would like to join the military. They say, okay, well, let me see, they look at my documents, they tell me what to bring. So I bring all that stuff, they did all the work. Say, so, okay, so we put you as an infantryman, I think it was infantryman and stuff. And I say, absolutely, thank you so much, I'm ready to go anytime. And then, SEALs show up in our drop zone. They were doing demonstration jump, leap frogs in Memphis. So we start talking about it, and we jump few times together. I say, they are such a cool guys, you know? And so they, yeah. It's like, but you know, before they joined the army, why don't you try the Navy? Just go ask recruiters about SEALs.

• 1:22:51Speaker 01

  I was like, SEALs, what's the SEALs? Yeah, but the Navy, they're just cool guys, you know, I'm jumping, they call themselves SEALs? So I'll just go and ask. I went the next door, I said, I'm applying here for army. And they have all my paperwork, but I met some friends who told me to ask about the Navy. And I'm just asking about the Navy. Who those friends are? I said, they're calling themselves SEALs. Oh, yeah, yeah, you know, you can be a SEAL. It's like, but you need to get those paperwork from these guys. We put you in the Navy and... You're okay, then then then we'll just put you in the Navy, you will be a SEAL then. I say, okay, so I went the next door, so I'm going there, so can I have it?

• 1:23:34Speaker 01

  They were pissed, they did not like it, but so anyway, I get my paper, I show up up there, they looked at my papers. And they're like, well, you know what, we can guarantee you the SEAL, there was a DIFER program at the time. We cannot guarantee to you because you are way too old. You are even too old to qualify for the SEALs, but if you sign this paper here, you join, you go to boot camp, that will make you a SEAL, there's no doubt about it.

• 1:23:56Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:23:57Speaker 01

  So I say, sure, you know, that's okay. I say, okay, but they say, but now, before you become a SEAL, you need to get a job, you have to select the job in the Navy. At that time, there was no SEAL rating, you remember that, there was a, you you go to boot camp, you get a aid, uh, go to A school, get a job in the Navy, and then you go to, if you're lucky, you you are assigned to go to SEAL training. So I said, well, I don't know much what I want to do, I'm parachuting something with, how about being parachuter again? I said, sounds good to me. I had no idea what it was, it stuck me in this field for like, as a E5 for years later, but I said, like, okay. So, yeah, absolutely, yeah, make me a SEAL, make me a, at that time, I was dating a girl too.

• 1:24:38Speaker 01

  So they say, okay, but if you want to go to that school, to PR school, uh, you will have to leave this week, you will have to leave on a Thursday, we'll put you in the, uh, delay entry program. And I think you'll be sworn on Thursday, you will leave on Friday, boy, that's, I think that was like, short notice. So I call my girlfriend, hey, we need to get married right now because I'm going to the Navy. I'm like, what? I said, I'm leaving to the Navy, I'm leaving this for this weekend. So we went to the judge, we got like, the stamp, we got married very quick, and then I show up on the, in that, got the, uh, sworn in, and on Thursday, I left to boot camp. And didn't become, there there there was like, no intention to make me a SEAL. But you know, for that time, I didn't really care.

• 1:25:23Speaker 01

  I just wanted to join military. I want to contribute to the effort. I am American. I want to fight for my country. So whether being the parachute regger or whatever, I just made the best out of it. But as the opponent shows up, I say, why not to be a seal? I will, I try it. And I did, I passed all the tests.

• 1:25:40Jocko Willink?

  So that was in boot camp?

• 1:25:42Speaker 01

  In boot camp.

• 1:25:42Jocko Willink?

  They do that, they do that day where they go, okay, if you want to try for SEALs, you need to go take the test right now.

• 1:25:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, there is, there is like a day that actually there are different jobs. There's people that are coming and telling about their jobs. So there are SEALs, EOD motivators show up and he talk about, I just couldn't sit in this fucking chat, just get out and just, hey, yeah, yeah, I want to go. So.

• 1:26:06Jocko Willink?

  And now you're, are you thirty two years old at this point?

• 1:26:10Speaker 01

  At this point, thirty two years old, I think.

• 1:26:11Jocko Willink?

  What the, what the hell kind of physical conditioning did you do throughout your life to get, to get there and be in like good enough shape? Cause they don't even let guys go to BUDs when they're twenty seven or twenty eight or something like that now?

• 1:26:23Speaker 01

  I guess I got beat up a lot. I just got conditioned by that.

• 1:26:27Jocko Willink?

  Did you work, were you working out this whole time?

• 1:26:30Speaker 01

  Not really. I didn't know how, I didn't know that the, the physical demands of the SEAL teams at the time. I was just like.

• 1:26:37Jocko Willink?

  What about just, what about just in life though? What about just in life? Like in, like when you were, when you were working at freaking SOB?

• 1:26:44Speaker 01

  Cake boxing, tech one though. Yeah, that's, that's, that was just basically what.

• 1:26:47Jocko Willink?

  Dude, you're a mutant. You're a freaking mutant.

• 1:26:52Speaker 01

  Well, I just kind of consider myself lucky that, you know, I was able to, and you know, the test is really not that difficult to pass.

• 1:26:58Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's true.

• 1:26:59Speaker 01

  It's still, it's still something, but you know, prepare and fail, but.

• 1:27:03Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. So, so, so just so people know what you're talking about. You say the test isn't that hard to pass. The bait, the SEAL test that we used to get to get a chance to go to SEAL training.

• 1:27:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:27:13Jocko Willink?

  Was like. I think it was you had to do it's some miniscule it's like fifty pushups in two minutes fifty situps in two minutes

• 1:27:23Speaker 01

  Yeah eleven

• 1:27:24Jocko Willink?

  Eight pullups ten pullups eleven eleven pullups and then a mile and a half run in eleven thirty and a mile and a five hundred yard swim

• 1:27:33Speaker 01

  Yeah yeah

• 1:27:34Jocko Willink?

  So it was something like that

• 1:27:35Speaker 01

  My struggle was with the swim because I couldn't swim for a while so uh uh but I took it I got it you know I passed it So I'm so happy I'm like oh yeah this is so cool and then fuck I got a kidney stone

• 1:27:48Jocko Willink?

  A kidney stone?

• 1:27:49Speaker 01

  Yeah

• 1:27:49Jocko Willink?

  Oh that's right because you're freaking old man

• 1:27:51Speaker 01

  Yeah yeah yeah so they get a kidney stone and uh and uh I remember they That was so freaking painful I mean I never had wasn't I was never beat up so hard that was so painful like like this but uh that was so painful that I remember they gave me that medicine I think it was Demerol it's like didn't work at all I say that I need something stronger because Uh I I just I'm I'm I'm about to go crazy I'm okay that pain is so so hard so they give me a morphine and just like went away But I remember this funny thing because the first time with this show I had no idea what to do was I was laying in the bunk In the boot camp and this as this pain came in I just fell off the bed And so they turned the lights on and within like three minutes I had this

• 1:28:35Speaker 01

  Pool of sweat right under my nose all dripping I'm on my fours This medic comes in say hey are you okay it's like fuck do I look okay to you I can't move I say so They got me to hospital I passed it but that was not the worst thing the worst thing is they told me Well you know you're going to this medical thing we're about to give you the medical examination for seals but you had just had a kidney stone you have to wait a year It's like fuck but you know my mindset was I want to fight the war in any capacity you know I'm I'm I'm honored that I have that privilege To go and fight for America so uh for me this doesn't really matter so I say yeah that's that's okay

• 1:29:16Speaker 01

  And so then I went to A school and the A school I met, uh, resident piece, uh, Les Barrios. I don't know if you knew him, but so Les Barrios, uh, he was a motivator in Millington. When I was going to the, my parachute training school, I said, look, I passed the test. Uh, I think I can easy pass it again, but I had this kidney stone and I cannot, I, I just want to be a SEAL. So it's anyway, maybe there's some, maybe paperwork can be done. He just looks at paperwork. Yeah, I think you can just go get your medical record from your, uh, from your medical office. Bring it here, we'll take a look at it. So I ran up there and I said, what magic you will come up with?

• 1:29:58Speaker 01

  I'm sure there's some paragraph or some regulation that will allow to bypass this stupid kidney stone. So I brought this record and I was like, that's right, that, that, right there, right there. And it's like, yeah, I just, I want you to leave the room here. I'll be, I'll just call you in a second. And I could hear rip.

• 1:30:19Speaker 01

  So he calls you back. So the kidney stone, uh, where is that? I was like, right. Oh, so he, he likes, I don't see any. I said, I don't see any either. You sure you had a kidney stone? It's like, you know, maybe not. Uh, maybe I didn't. Okay. Well, you didn't. So. And I graduate, uh, from A school in Millington. I think one of the second top. Uh, uh, you know, everything that from boot camp, I graduated top recruit in this whole batch. I was there. I got military excellence award. I was like a first, very first recruit, actually, uh, that who, the top recruit from that batch graduating. A school I graduated, I believe the second, uh, with the second highest score.

• 1:31:03Speaker 01

  So I, I, I had things going on for me and then I was waiting for my orders. He said, okay, I send it out for it. Hopefully it gets approved. And sure, three months later, got my orders to bat. So. That's the rest of this, the rest of it is a history.

• 1:31:22Jocko Willink?

  You show up at BUDs. What was, uh, was there any major challenges for you? Was, like you said, you were not, not a great swimmer? How were you on the rest of the water stuff?

• 1:31:32Speaker 01

  Well, the, the, the, the problem was that I could swim only on one side. I never swim with the mask on. So, you know, they dump in the pool and say, okay, I want you to swim here. This is side stroke, side stroke. This is how you do it. And, but you'll be swimming all the styles that we'll tell you to do. And I was kind of okay with it, but when they put them, put the mask on after the first couple of laps, I thought I would pass out. I mean, I was like hyperventilating. I was blacking out. I see the black spots in front of my eyes. I'm about to die here. But I said, like, if I stop, they kick me out. So I ain't stopping. I say, I know that if I pass out, they will rescue me. Those guys everywhere, they tell us that we are safe, so we are safe. So, you know, I was blacking out, like, felt about to black out, having these black spots, but it became easier and easier.

• 1:32:17Speaker 01

  But I think by the time, like the next hour, I was like, shit, that ain't that bad. I can do it.

• 1:32:22Jocko Willink?

  So what is it? Just like some weird, like claustrophobic thing on your face or something like that?

• 1:32:26Speaker 01

  No, I couldn't breathe through my nose and I couldn't breathe now how to breathe through my, every time I took a breath, I sucked the water with it. So I think I, I, I was breathing water and air at the time and I was coughing. I was suffocating. I was, I was basically drowning. I felt like I'm drowning and, uh, it's just, I say, I'm not going to quit. I, I, I'll just, I'll pass out and see what will happen if I have to. But, um, I didn't pass out. And, um, I got better. Actually, by the time there was a fourth phase, there was a pre-phase when, before you class up for the, uh, for the SEAL training. So by the time I, we graduate from the fourth phase, move into our SEAL class, the instructors asked me to demonstrate the new guys how to swim the side stroke. So I, I became really good.

• 1:33:11Speaker 01

  I was never a fast swimmer, but I was a strong swimmer. I could swim forever.

• 1:33:14Jocko Willink?

  And you didn't, you didn't come up with any injuries or anything, being a 33-year-old guy going through BUDs?

• 1:33:19Speaker 01

  Uh, not at that time. Uh, the, the worst thing I was always tired. I was looking at these young guys like, hey, let's go to the bar. I was like, dude, I can hardly move. I can't go to the bar. I was, I was, I was still making out to the bar here and there, but there, there was just like really painful for me because, uh, again, I was not, the intensity of it. It's not just the one time. It was like one time, like SEAL training, I think most of the people that one day can, again. He may survive, but it over and over and over, it just wears your body, wears you down, and eventually some people quit. So that was the most difficult for me, because I did not recover as fast being thirty-two years old as other guys.

• 1:34:02Jocko Willink?

  So what was your first, what were your first orders? What team did you get?

• 1:34:06Speaker 01

  I get to SEAL Team Two, and actually, they, I wanted to go to SEAL Team Four because I don't want to be called. I know SEAL Team Two at the time operated the north part of Europe, and in Europe in general. So I say, I just want to go to like Team Four, but a friend of mine said, like, no, no, no, dude, you with your language, with your Polish, Russian, and I speak Japanese too, so with your languages, you be good asset in this European team and stuff. So I kind of like put the, so I switched it from the Team Four to Team Two, I put Team Four second, and just like, God, please don't put me in SDVs. I just, for some reason, I don't know, I was, I was not maybe that technical person

• 1:34:50Speaker 01

  at the time, and the challenges to be a SDV operator is twice, it is twice. You just have to be a SEAL, but you have to have that expertise with this mini subs and with the operation of it, that for me, I felt was overwhelmed by that, what you need to know to be good operator in the SDV teams. So I chose Two, and I got my orders to SEAL Team Two, went to boot, went to jump school.

• 1:35:19Jocko Willink?

  Did you go to Fort Benning?

• 1:35:21Speaker 01

  Yes. For me, it was kind of fun time, because, you know, like when I was growing up, I was poor, I would never had a chance to go to like a Disneyland or this type of thing. I could watch over the fence how children were playing around it, but I couldn't afford it. So when I got into this tower, I was like, holy shit, this is like a Disneyland, you know? So I didn't care what the position they want me to jump, I was just like running out of it, and woo! And yeah, that's um, they kind of didn't like it, but they uh, but they are very rigid. So I remember too, I had a lot of fun too, because I think you went through the same thing.

• 1:35:58Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:58Speaker 01

  So there is a, for training, so you stand next to each other, shoulder to shoulder, so close, that basically you cannot even move. And then you just go to your line, you grab the line, they drag you, you just do the PLF. I could never do the PLF right, I was always scared of PLFs. So, but anyway, I found out that if you like tip one of them from one end, it's like a domino effect. Those army guys, they would just totally fall down, they would save them after they fall down. And that was actually, I thought it was, it was amusing. It's like, that's pretty cool, you know, you tip one a little bit and the last guy just plubs down. Um, but my issue was that I don't like PLFs. So I made the-

• 1:36:38Jocko Willink?

  So just so everyone knows, a PLF is a parachute landing fall, and it's a technique that you get taught for static line jumping, where it's supposed to minimize your injuries, because you keep your feet and knees together, and you hit like, you kind of like roll, you sort of roll when you hit, and you keep your arms kind of tucked in, and it's supposed to prevent you from getting injured, because when you're on a, when you're on one of those parachutes, you're still coming down really fast. It's not like what you see in the movies when guys can kind of come down on a free fall parachute, and they flare, and they just kind of, kind of tiptoe away from it. You hit pretty hard, especially if you're a heavier guy. The heavier you are, the harder you're gonna hit.

• 1:37:20Jocko Willink?

  So they try and teach, and plus the army's working with hundreds and hundreds of people getting thrown out of that thing, getting thrown out of an aircraft every day. So they try and teach the most simple way that they can teach hundreds and hundreds of people how to fall without getting hurt. Now, I also was not good at the PLF.

• 1:37:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, it scared the shit out of me, so I just, I tried one time and just put my shoulder in, I'm like, fuck, I'm gonna get them all. So every time I jump, I just stood up, I just, I, I, I, it was not a big deal, because I had hundreds of jumps at the time, so I just jump out, just landed, just stood up, and I was like, so it's like, they had those, those black, black hats, they had those cubes. PLF, private, PLF, PLF, I want to see PLF, I was like, Roger that, and just grab it, throw my parachute and just roll on the ground. I can those PLs, you know, they they don't hurt. They don't wanna cover. So so that they they knew from me from not listening too good. Uh, yeah, those PLs, they were killing me, so I didn't do them. I avoided them.

• 1:38:24Jocko Willink?

  So you get to team two and what what uh did you get put in a platoon right away or did you go through SQT first?

• 1:38:30Speaker 01

  No, I had to wait for SQT. I had to wait for STT. At that time, it was STT. Uh, serial tactical training. But when I show up in the teams, you know, like you you are the new new sailor. I was a new sailor. Everyone I went to boot camp, to A school or, you know, the the bars. Everyone was so formal, so uh, so, you know, I buy the book and everything. So I show up and buy that. I don't even know. But like five minutes later, I'm hanging on the pull up bar in my blues and fucking doing pull ups. Running three miles, fucking I do my PRT in my thing. And it's like, what the fuck? By the time I even, you know, realized what's going on, I had completed the whole PRT in my blues and stuff.

• 1:39:13Speaker 01

  They were just like with the new guys, you know, just show up.

• 1:39:16Jocko Willink?

  So what he's talking about there is he shows up at in his dress uniform. When you check into a new command, you're in your dress uniform. It's the nicest uniform you've got. And you don't, you know, normally you'd wear it for like a ceremony. So he shows up with that uniform on and they're like, cool, we're gonna do a a physical uh, physical, what is it?

• 1:39:37Speaker 01

  PRT or whatever.

• 1:39:38Jocko Willink?

  What's the R stand for? Physical um, something test? Physical readiness test. Yeah. So they gotta take a physical readiness test.

• 1:39:47Speaker 01

  They even tell me that, hey, they say, get on the pull up. You do the pull ups. Okay, go for the run now. Push ups, go sit ups. So now I'm sitting up, doing sit ups in my dress blues. Everything was so shiny. You know, I spent all night just making sure that there's no no wrinkles, no nothing. And here I am, this all is wrapped up. So anyway, I finished that.

• 1:40:05Jocko Willink?

  That's the welcome to the welcome to the teams, new guy. That's what you're getting.

• 1:40:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, but you know, I just, I said, that's okay. I guess this is the the way it goes.

• 1:40:14Speaker 01

  I roll with it. And the the bit, another surprise for me was, um, so we come in, there's a couple of other new guys at the same time. So when we show up in the team.

• 1:40:26Speaker 01

  And they say, hey, hey, guys. At that time in the in the teams, on every Friday, we had a kegger in the high bay. So it's a keg of beer and the guys were drinking beer. So, hey, new guys, we just invite you for the kegger, you know, just.

• 1:40:40Speaker 01

  I'm sorry, you need to come and join us. For the, for the, so I remember I was so taken, I was like, these old guys, these old Navy SEALs. They are so cool, you know, like these new guys, they invite for the beer and stuff and. Well, I didn't know that we were there just for the amusement of these old new guys. Then as soon as, not sooner than we just crossed the door of this bay, we just get beat up, taped up, hang up in there on those fucking chains up, hanging like a bus. While these guys are drinking beer and just throwing the insults on us and stuff. Say, you know, I have to be fair, once every while they lower us down, they stick this tube in our mouth from the dragger, just pull the dragger into the, uh, beer in the dragger bag and just squeeze it as fast as you can.

• 1:41:22Speaker 01

  So by the time, you know, you're drinking so much beer that you didn't care if you're hanging upside down or not. As long as they didn't leave you overnight hanging, it didn't happen. So, so now I realized that this is, we are not there to just, uh, fraternize, fraternize, how to say it, to. Fraternize with the old SEALs, we are just there for the amusement, as the new guys, the call us meat, you know, fucking new guy. So that's, uh, yeah, that was the, the welcome to the teams. But you know what, that's, I, I look at it, I figure out that's the way it goes. So I, I don't have a problem with that. And I was waiting for my STT, getting beat up here and there and then, and then that was fine. Uh, then we got to STT.

• 1:42:03Jocko Willink?

  And STT, pretty much, pretty straightforward?

• 1:42:06Speaker 01

  Pretty straightforward, but with me, it was like, actually, it was me and another guy, Scotty Lenton, a great guy, I love this guy. Um, he led the teams, uh, later, but, uh, so those two of us, they were a bit different. I remember, so we went to STT, everything went, and I had a little bit of problem with my English because I still had to translate everything, all the commands. You, you, you, you shouldn't move and you, you know, you communicate. So I had to just go and translate in my head in Polish then and be fast enough to do it and, and react to it. So it was okay. So when they, eventually we came to the crypto and the, the, the radio communication equipment, you know, the communication class.

• 1:42:48Speaker 01

  And went to crypto and we are sitting there, by the time we were about to take a test from this, I was like, last two more days. So that, so today was the last class, you know, how to use the cryptographic equipment, how to use, all, all that stuff. And so the the next day is supposed to be, I think, a final exam and then there's so so like then then move to the next section of STT. So this guy comes in and one of the instructors comes in and is like, hey, uh, do you have a clearance? It's like, I don't know what it is. So most likely you don't have it. Do you have a clearance? And Scott like, well, I'm not even US citizen. Wow. Come on with me, you know?

• 1:43:30Speaker 01

  So we went up there and said like, don't so like, look at us like, don't ever say anybody that you went through this class. You just don't say nothing. Don't say anything. You you you never sit in that class. It's like, okay, you guys get your clarances, then go, we we redo it. And so so, yeah, we just see that. So next day, we see that our guys watching running through the field, you know, with the equipment, setting it up, you know, doing the crypto stuff and and I was watching it. I was like, shit, I mean, that's not the difficult. Like, with pass the test now, so I already I already went through all this class. I don't know what's the big deal, but I guess they don't want us, they don't want anybody to know that we sat through that class, not getting the secret clearance. And and so, you know, I eventually got my clearance, so I went to the radio shack upstairs

• 1:44:15Speaker 01

  in the SEAL Team Two and passed the test. And Scott Alinton eventually got his citizenship, so we all went, whole platoon went up there and I guess he was in the platoon by this time, and he got his crypto stuff too, and we moved on. So then my first platoon, as I was a member, my chief Bixler, good God, I think, if this guy didn't have a heart attack yet, I think he might, he will have it because of me, because, you know, my English skills, so it was, were not really that good, so they did reflect on everything. I mean, we, you know, whatever you do, you know, you have to communicate, you have to communicate fast and very effectively. And I just was lacking that English skills at the time. The funny thing is, finally, I made it to this platoon, so I was not anymore fucking new guy, I was not anymore this meat.

• 1:44:58Speaker 01

  Uh, and we, I remember, so when you come back from first platoon or get back from the platoon, from deployment, you're always like, hey, I got this school, I'm going to sniper school, I'm going to this school, I'm going to this school. So I say, hey, Drago, so what school did you get? You know, just where where are you going? It's like, ah, dude, I'm going to English one oh one, I think they're next door up there, this fucking, the the regular Navy thing. And so I spent the next three months doing actually English classes. That was not bad, because actually... It helped me in my career in the future. So basically.

• 1:45:32Jocko Willink?

  So they legit sent you to English school?

• 1:45:34Speaker 01

  Yes, yes. And it saved my career. You know, these guys were apparently they seen something in me. They say, well, you know, he butchered English language.

• 1:45:45Jocko Willink?

  Were you having a hard time like communicate like in that going through the house?

• 1:45:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:45:51Jocko Willink?

  Trying to communicate with the rest of the guys?

• 1:45:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, especially the communication, going through the house and trying to communicate.

• 1:45:56Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:56Speaker 01

  So at that time, I was still had to, I still had to try. I didn't tell them that, but I had to translate from what I hear to my Polish thing. Then I had to think of the solution, translate back to English and say it. So I

• 1:46:12Speaker 01

  I managed that, but it is so much easier later on when actually I get my English good. So that is just flow, you know? But instead I had to be very fast, be very fast.

• 1:46:21Jocko Willink?

  What was your, what was your position in that? Were you a gunner, a sixty gunner?

• 1:46:24Speaker 01

  I was a sixty gunner. Yeah, I was sixty gunner for the next three platoons.

• 1:46:29Speaker 01

  It's just, I liked it, you know? I think it's a big, carry big stick, you easy to load because you don't have to worry about just jamming this little pea shooter magazines. You just put the tape in it and say, I'm good to go.

• 1:46:42Jocko Willink?

  Where was your first deployment? Was it Europe?

• 1:46:44Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah, it was in Europe. That was at the time, actually we deployed to San Vito in Italy. And that was when the O'Grady got shut down. Actually, we were looking at him and you know, this actually becomes, brings to my mind too. In SEAL teams, you do every day, you do something that can kill you. I didn't think about it, but it does. I remember flying over the Adriatic Sea where we're actually on the lookout for this, for, for this pilot. Uh, Scotty Linton, he was sitting in the, in the, he was a sniper. So he's sitting up there and fucking with his gun. And we look at it and I think it was Bill White, look at say, fuck, say nothing.

• 1:47:27Speaker 01

  His whole belt just dropped off. So he was sitting on the ledge of, uh, I think it was.

• 1:47:32Jocko Willink?

  Who's Scotty?

• 1:47:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, Scotty, yeah. So the ramp is open, he's sitting on the ramp, finning with his gun, his whole belt is gone. So he just like, I think it was, I think it was Bill White, he just like, sneak up on him, just grab his ass and just fucking pull him inside. It's like, what the fuck? It's like, dude, you almost fell out of that shit.

• 1:47:50Jocko Willink?

  Damn.

• 1:47:51Speaker 01

  Because you know those clips, they were like easy to come undone. I mean, it's, it's not really something I would say, safe that, that will stay close on you. So yeah, so that, so that was the thing and, yeah, this comes to my mind, there's always there's something, there's some situation that you can get killed. And if you look over the statistics, I think from the, before the war, I think we were killing like two guys in training every year. The average, I think it was like, when I'm looking out, this guy died, this guy was killed in training. This was like one or two guys every year.

• 1:48:24Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, for sure. No, there's definitely you're doing stuff every day, whether it's parachuting, diving, shooting, you're always doing something that, that can give you a bad day or make you fall out of a helicopter because your belt came off.

• 1:48:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:48:36Jocko Willink?

  So did you guys, did you ever do any of that work down in, uh, in Bosnia?

• 1:48:41Speaker 01

  Yes, we went, that was another platoon. We went to Bosnia, to Yugoslavia, we spent time. It was pretty good time. Actually, we like it, we just get, there was really not much to do at the time, but just work out and get big. So that was a really good platoon, actually. This is where I met the strongest guy, I think in the teams. I, I, I think I can think of Chris S. I, I don't know if I can bring his name. I don't have the permission, I didn't ask him, so just to be on the safe side, but he knows who he is. When we went to France, France, I mean, this guy was lifting like what, five plates, the bench, bench press? So when we went to France, we just got the French equipment, he just bent the shit out of the. Hell out of their their their their pri bars.

• 1:49:25Speaker 01

  When he pick it up, this pri pri bar, I mean, the the bar bent and those weights start falling off. So all these French guys, they stopped working with us. They're just like, whenever we rolled into their gym, they just sit down like a bunch of the weird dudes. So then they uh that was actually funny. But yeah, there was big platoon, I remember. So there was entire platoon, I think, over two hundred twenty pounds. I I think there was one guy, maybe he was not, but all of us was over two hundred twenty pounds. Of course, Chris was way much more.

• 1:49:54Jocko Willink?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:49:55Speaker 01

  And yeah, that's I remember for me, I I wanted to say, I need to join this two hundred twenty pounds. So I'm working so hard and I'm just like, I have a pound below, have a pound below, like two nineteen, two eighteen. I say, fuck, give me that loaf of bread right there. So I was just like, I weigh myself, maybe I I have these few grams to get to this two hundred twenty pounds. I just chowed down, pushed myself into that bread myself, like get on the scale. Two twenty and a half, it's like, fucking I I'm to two hundred twenty pounds club. Now I wish I could get to the two twenty pounds from the other side from the top.

• 1:50:30Jocko Willink?

  So then, what was it, when when I showed up at team two, what was, was that your fourth platoon?

• 1:50:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't remember that, I think so.

• 1:50:37Jocko Willink?

  Or your third?

• 1:50:38Speaker 01

  Fourth or third platoon, maybe.

• 1:50:39Jocko Willink?

  I think it was your fourth.

• 1:50:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, I remember you showed up, it's like, I remember I had to swim with you, this is before even we platoon up. So we just did dive that that swim. And I said, well, you are a kind of big guy, so I don't think you'd be swimming that fast. So I think I'm safe with you, I'll be all right. And he's like, okay, you look, you look at me, say, okay, that's your buoy, you you swim with the buoy. And I was like, okay. And so we get in the water, fuck, you drag that buoy, you drag and drag me and that buoy with you. I just could not keep up. I mean, that was like, where this fucking guy is taking that strength from? I mean, you shouldn't be, you're so big, you shouldn't be swimming that fast.

• 1:51:17Jocko Willink?

  What were you doing, like a recoil dive or something?

• 1:51:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think it was a recoil dive, yeah. There was just like swimming from one place to another, just a couple of legs here and there. I think it was a recoil dive. So I remember you dragged me and that buoy to the fucking water so bad, I was like, I think I would just overbreathe that goddamn rake.

• 1:51:33Speaker 01

  We made it, so I said, I'm good.

• 1:51:38Jocko Willink?

  And so then we get put in the platoon and um we had a freaking really good workup out there.

• 1:51:45Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, that was good work. That was a really good platoon, good deployment too. I mean, I really enjoyed. At the start, we went to Spain. We hijacked the Russian tanker too. That's that was, you know, now when I look at the back at it after my experience in combat, I'm sure you too, it's like, it's not really that big deal.

• 1:52:07Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:07Speaker 01

  But at that time, there was like, holy shit, we not only hijacked the Russian tanker, Volga left, it was Volga left. We fast roped on that thing. I remember the funny thing still is, you remember we were doing shifts later because there was a Russian tanker. So there was regular.

• 1:52:24Jocko Willink?

  And just to clarify everyone for for the English translation, when when Drago says, we hijacked a Russian tanker. We actually didn't hijack a Russian tanker. There was a there was a tanker, a Russian tanker that was smuggling oil out of the Gulf. And one of the missions that we had while we were over there was stop people from smuggling stuff out of the Gulf. Most of the time we were taking down little, little dowels, little tiny boats, and we would take those things down. We took down a bunch of them too. But then this was the biggest catch that we got was this big oil tanker that we that we.

• 1:52:56Speaker 01

  On the Russian flag, yeah.

• 1:52:57Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, with a Russian flagged tanker that we took down, we got control of, we turned it over to the the authorities, but um so, you know, we didn't hijack it, but we did.

• 1:53:06Speaker 01

  Well, it's called visits and search. There's a name for it. But you know, bottom line, we hijacked the tanker. So we got it. And um and I remember the funny thing is, you remember, we did the shifts later, right? Because Navy was not comfortable. So let's keep seals on it. So just bobbing on this boat. You're bobbing on this boat. And but I remember, so when we took it down, we came back and that then the next shift came back next day, the other squad. When they came back, say, dude, you just left a bunch of weapons with them. There is so much. Fuck, we took all this, the weapons that you guys left. I was like, what weapons did we leave up there? I mean, we searched the boat.

• 1:53:47Speaker 01

  What turned out to be, when they went up there, they see those little butter patties, the butter knives and forks, they just fucking took it away from these guys. So when we went back, these guys are coming in, I spoke Russian, you remember that? So they say, hey, mister, please help us, we have no teeth and we can't eat because these guys stole our forks and our knives. So we can, I cannot chew and, and they, they put up like really maybe two or three teeth sticking out of the mouth and that's all they had. So I remember, yeah, we take care. So we actually bring those butter knives or butter, what do you call it, spatulas and forks back to them so they can actually eat.

• 1:54:29Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I also remember those guys, they were telling us that we didn't do a good job clearing or whatever they were saying, because they still, because we were like, oh yeah, they have, they have butter knives and stuff like that. And then they're like, don't worry, we secured it.

• 1:54:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:54:41Jocko Willink?

  And we were sailing, we were on a navy ship, looking at the ship that we took down. And I'm looking, I was like, yeah, you did a good job. And I looked over and there's like a fire axe.

• 1:54:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, there was axe on every door.

• 1:54:51Jocko Willink?

  And we're like, good job, you idiot.

• 1:54:54Speaker 01

  So they stole their fucking butter knives and forks, but leave the big axes and say, hey, you guys left this, all this weapon here, look at this, look at this butter knife.

• 1:55:03Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that, that was crazy too, because just by sheer luck, our platoon commander went to the naval academy and studied Russian, and so he spoke Russian.

• 1:55:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:55:14Jocko Willink?

  We had another guy that was like, went to Berkeley and, and he studied Russian and then you. So in a platoon, we had three Russian speakers when we took down a Russian vessel.

• 1:55:25Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:55:25Jocko Willink?

  That's freaking lucky right there.

• 1:55:26Speaker 01

  Ah, that was awesome. I remember, just at the very beginning, we busted the bridge and I remember this captain say, hey, don't cooperate with Americans, he's in Russian, don't, don't say nothing, don't operate, resist as much as you can. Mr. Phil, I can understand it. Hey, I see, I said, Drago, take care of it. I said, just grab the guy by the scrub. Working up, open the, I also got a big chimney with the door. I said, open the door. It's like a little tiny space. So I told him, Russian, like, you motherfucker, you just say another word, I'm going to squash you right here and lock you up for the rest of the journey. He just look at this little tiny space, you know, fuck it, better don't fuck with these guys. Okay, so no problem. And we never had a problem with this guy again. So, yeah, that was, that was a good time.

• 1:56:06Speaker 01

  But I tell you, I have to say one more thing here. I don't know, you remember Rob O'Neil, he was in my, in our platoon, my fairly good buddy. And at that time, we're like best friends. And I remember he was a sniper on this op. And he said, Drago, I ain't going to happen nothing to you. I'm, I'm, I'm looking over you. And I remember as we moved through the ship, as we searched, I said, I know Rob is up there. Ain't nothing shit is going to happen to me. I know he'd take down that anybody who's on our way. So it makes me like very comfortable.

• 1:56:33Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that was, um, we had a bunch of, we had a tight group. We had a good platoon.

• 1:56:39Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:56:39Jocko Willink?

  And also you were talking about being big. We were also, we also, we, we tried to get a platoon average of 200 pounds. And we had to make up for some slack because we had some guys that were like 150.

• 1:56:49Speaker 01

  We did, we did.

• 1:56:50Jocko Willink?

  And we, I remember we got to, uh, we, the first place we went was Spain.

• 1:56:58Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:56:58Jocko Willink?

  And I was trying to get to 250.

• 1:57:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:57:02Jocko Willink?

  And I could, I'm the same thing. I was like trying, I'm eating, I'm lifting, I'm squatting, I'm eating. And I was, I couldn't get above like two, I don't know, 245 or something like that. And then where we stayed in Spain was they had an all you can eat buffet for all three meals of the day.

• 1:57:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:57:21Jocko Willink?

  And I was like, oh, I got this. And like three days later, I was 250, I weighed in and I was like, yeah, 250. And then I went on a four mile run. And I was like, okay, I need to lose weight. This sucks.

• 1:57:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, no shit. But you remember we're living like our doors were opening right on the beach. So we just opened the door, you just walk on the sidewalk. It's like, I'm on the beach right there. So that was awesome. I mean, that that was awesome deployment. I really liked that. And then the Bahrain and Uh, there was the, the Christmas party. I mean, the Christmas time came, the New Year came and kind of got us tighter and close together too. There was the 2000 year. So that was really, really good time and I have very fond memories of it. It's almost like in very nostalgic to me right now. It's just, uh, so.

• 1:58:13Jocko Willink?

  Um, so we get done with that platoon. I know I got back. I, I went to college. You carried on. Um, where did you stay at team two or did you go to a different team?

• 1:58:27Speaker 01

  Uh, no, because I think you remember when we came, we came out as a, uh, in 2000, uh, as a, as a platoon from SEAL Team Two. We came back as a SEAL Team Four, at least some of us. So they remember there's a vision 2000 that went.

• 1:58:42Jocko Willink?

  Oh, that's right. Right. They made some adjustments to the way they were structuring the teams.

• 1:58:47Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:58:48Jocko Willink?

  And so when we got back, you.

• 1:58:49Speaker 01

  I was team four.

• 1:58:50Jocko Willink?

  You went to team four. Okay. Got it.

• 1:58:52Speaker 01

  So all the, all these, uh, uh, upheavals and all that stuff eventually. I end up in one of the platoons that were the, uh, we deployed to South America, we were in Puerto Rico and we're like three months into deployment. When they, they call me, my chief calls me and say, hey, um, Drago, we, uh, you got to back that. Just want you to pack your shed. We need to help facilitate the Polish Chrome with our guys.

• 1:59:19Jocko Willink?

  Where were you, where were you when September 11th happened?

• 1:59:22Speaker 01

  I was, I was SEAL Team Two, SEAL Team Two quarters. Like I was actually watching it as it happens. And I remember I was working out, I was in the gym. And they see the airplane hit the tower. So I was like, what the fucking idiot? Some just flew into the thing. But then I was, as, as, as the, you know, the news progressed and they said like, there was a not, there was a jetliner. It was not the small airplane. I just put my attention. I say, that's, that's something, that's something wrong here. And then the second plane hit the tower.

• 1:59:48Speaker 01

  I remember and I still have a hard time thinking about it. It just brings me all these memories and that I was watching the towers collapse. So it just brings tears to my eyes. I can't think about it. I just at that time, I just wanna go and kill the savages.

• 2:00:04Jocko Willink?

  So, so as you're now, now fast forward a little bit because you're back on deployment. You're at team four, you're in Puerto Rico, you're probably going completely insane because you're in Puerto Rico instead of being either in Afghanistan or Iraq.

• 2:00:20Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 2:00:20Jocko Willink?

  And then you get a call.

• 2:00:22Speaker 01

  Yes. And I tell you, Mike, jealous everybody in the platoons. How the fuck Drago got this? You know, seals, we are aggressive. There is a war, we want to be in the war. And yeah. So I was like, fucking A, this is just incredible. I am, I'm so damn lucky. I can pass it like, chief, I can pack my shit right now. I can, no, no, no, no, just go, go pack your shit. Just take your things, stuff. There's orders here, blah, blah, blah. So they say what will happen is we are like, I think half of deployment at the time. So we'll just go for another half, another three months, just help settle down the things that land the Grom, come back and join another platoon and do your work. So I say, yes, I was so excited. I was freaking out. Land in Baghdad.

• 2:01:03Jocko Willink?

  So, so just so everyone understands, so there's a, there's a Polish special forces unit. They're called Grom. What does Grom mean? Thunder? Or is that just the call sign?

• 2:01:13Speaker 01

  It is a call sign, but you know, you can translate Grom actually as a thunder. It is thunder. It's thunder. This acronym for actually Groupa Reaktina.

• 2:01:24Speaker 01

  I don't, I can't say this.

• 2:01:26Jocko Willink?

  So it does, it does stand for something in Polish, but it also means thunder.

• 2:01:30Speaker 01

  Means thunder, yes. It's something with seal. Seal means like animal, animal seal, but it's not really what it is.

• 2:01:35Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. So, so the Grom, the Polish Grom had deployed to Baghdad. They were actually co-located with the SEALs that were also in Baghdad. And they needed someone to be liaison between the Polish Grom and the SEALs that were there. And of course, everybody kind of knows or had run into or someone knew that there was a Polish guy or a

• 2:02:01Speaker 01

  America.

• 2:02:02Jocko Willink?

  An American guy that could speak Polish, that grew up in Poland, that was in the SEAL teams. They track you down. They give, they, they contact through your chain of command and boom, you get the call. How long did it take from the call to they, you, you fly over there?

• 2:02:17Speaker 01

  I think a week or a few days because I had to pack my stuff, I had to process my orders. And yeah, I packed my stuff, it was a civilian aircraft to... It was fun because I have all the guns, everything, and I'm flying civilian aircraft to Middle East. And eventually, I landed in Baghdad, yeah, it was 2003. Oh wow, the heat was incredible, right? When I unpacked my stuff, I just stood up, it was like that wind blew, I was like, fuck. Where is that aircraft here? I thought I'm like in the jet blast of some, you know...

• 2:02:54Jocko Willink?

  What month did you arrive?

• 2:02:55Speaker 01

  I think it was May, maybe. So yeah, that was hot.

• 2:03:00Jocko Willink?

  It's not even hot yet.

• 2:03:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:03:01Jocko Willink?

  It's not even hot yet. I mean, like, June, it's gonna come.

• 2:03:04Speaker 01

  Oh yeah.

• 2:03:06Jocko Willink?

  And then July and August, it's on. So, but even May, you're like getting there like, oh, why is it so hot here? Where's the jet engine blasting on me?

• 2:03:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, I thought I was in the blast of the jet engine, I look around and it's like, there is no, it's just the wind.

• 2:03:19Jocko Willink?

  So you show up, you get to camp, Jenny Posey?

• 2:03:23Speaker 01

  Yes, so they get me to Jenny Posey and I show up and so, you know, I'm getting briefed. And there's like, okay, so this is what we expect from you, this is what needs to happen. So this is where I raised my first alarm, I say, I'm going to sit in the fucking Humvee and watch shit happens. I'm here, I'm going with these guys if they go. So, you know, for the command, our safety is priority. So they were like, you know, well, we don't know these guys, really. We know they are good, but you know, we don't train with them, we didn't train with them that much. So if we set you loose with these guys, I mean, you're taking a... We are taking a chances that you can get hurt.

• 2:04:10Speaker 01

  But I said I had no other way. I said I'm I'm going with these guys. I mean, I I won't get any respect even from I wouldn't respect myself just sitting in the house and doing nothing. So after a little debates, they say, okay, you can go with these guys. So for me, it was good because I was double dipping. I was going with the Grom guys and then just switch my gear and just go back with our guys.

• 2:04:27Jocko Willink?

  By switch your gear, you mean change your clothes? Did you wear the Grom uniform?

• 2:04:30Speaker 01

  No, no, no, no, no. I wore our uniform, but the change my like if we use the magazines or

• 2:04:34Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Reload, refit.

• 2:04:37Speaker 01

  And go with our guys. Sometimes on the fly, we were on the fly because like we're we're at the time was within five. So the Grom hit the target and we moved to another target, just switch the cars and go with the power guys. So I I got some of those missions. I think it's pretty good. I think.

• 2:04:51Jocko Willink?

  Freaking living the dream.

• 2:04:52Speaker 01

  No kidding. I mean, this is like, so that's why, you know, like three months came in where I supposed to return. It's like I hear nothing from my commands. I'm like, fuck, I ain't saying shit either. So I keep going. Actually, they ask, say, who wants to stay longer here? Because they we have this change, but we could appreciate any change. I guess I'm I'm here.

• 2:05:15Speaker 01

  So, yeah, I I stayed. And like four months passed, like nobody says anything, five months, not nobody says anything. I was like fucking happy as I can be. I say, I ain't saying shit to these guys. And so like in the eight months, so this was like eleven months deployment almost a year.

• 2:05:34Speaker 01

  My NVG is broke and I said, like, guys, I need some help. Can you guys loan me your NVGs? They say, well, yeah, we can, and you know, as a platoon, when we deploy, our little gear is limited and we have the something that can support the platoon, us, but not to loan some other guys. So, you know, it went for a while when I was trying to call my team. I say, hey, guys. So finally I get call my team. I say, I need NVGs in Baghdad. So these guys like listen to it. It's like, what? I say, can you send me NVGs to Baghdad? Who is this? I said, Drago.

• 2:06:10Speaker 01

  So you want me to send equipment to you somewhere in Baghdad? I said to Camp Posey, yeah, Camp Posey, so. And who you are, say, who the Drago you are, who? I was like, I'm just Drago, you know, I'm SEAL Team guy, I'm team guy. It's like, dude, you don't even speak English. Do you want me to send the suicidal bomb vessel with it too? You know, just like, basically, they thought I'm just Iraqi trying to solicit fucking gear to send to somewhere, to Baghdad. So I got really pissed, like, dude, motherfucker, I fucking kill you when I get, when I come back. And, but anyway, get me Master Chief on the line. So they put Master Chief on the line, say, Master Chief, I just need to get some NVGs, I'm here, my broke. And say, wait, wait, wait, Drago, where are you at?

• 2:06:55Speaker 01

  I say, I'm in Baghdad, Master Chief. It's like, quiet for a second, and how long you have been there? I say, I'm like almost a year on deployment. And, dude, you need to come back here, because, you know, SEAL Team such and such, I don't want to bring the numbers here, is about to deploy, and we are next. You need to come back. So, there was no way to go around it. I mean, I could, when I go, maybe so much, but that time, yeah, I had to come back. So they, they sent me, I came back to Little Creek. And, funny story. So then the next team is coming out, so I say, hey, guys, I can go. At that time, you get addicted to that stuff. I mean, you just, you can't live in normal society, just like, dude, I just left there,

• 2:07:38Speaker 01

  I don't like this place here, so to live like this, I want to be there. And, so I say, well, I go with you guys. Yeah, we can use you, you know, just help us settle down with this, you have been there for so long time, and you are with Grom, so we have us, you will help us settle down with that staff, with Grom. And so I went, so, yeah, we'll take you for a couple of weeks. And for me, it's like, yeah, that's awesome, it's a couple of weeks, as much as I can get. So we flew up there, and it's like, four months later, it's like, hey, Drago, you need to come back, dude, we are deploying two months, or something like this, and you need to be back to join your platoon. So I say, oh shit, okay, so I'm, as Master Chief, I'm on the way.

• 2:08:18Speaker 01

  So I came back and turned around and came back again with, with my SEAL Team Four. The funny thing is that on my, on my, on this last tour, when I was there, this army guy comes up to me, like, I don't know him from Adam, I was like, I'd never registered him in the guy, he comes up, say, hey, dude? Have you been here in two thousand three? I say, yeah. Have you been here in two thousand four? Yeah. When did, did you ever go home even? It's like, well, for a little time, but dude, I remember seeing you for all three fucking years. And I said, well, if you see me that long, you have been here quite some time too, you know? These guys are doing awesome jobs, so the army guys, you know, it's a pleasure to work with them.

• 2:09:02Speaker 01

  But, um, yeah, it was like, yeah, and, um, that was, uh, that was my, my Iraq time.

• 2:09:13Jocko Willink?

  It was interesting, like, when we were there together and just to give everyone an idea of what was going on. So the Grom, there would, there would be, uh, intelligence from various sources coming down and we would kind of go out and capture, kill bad guys. And sometimes, sometimes we were basically rotating back and forth between Grom and the SEAL platoon, Grom SEAL platoon, and sometimes it would be two targets and we'd just go out together and, or if it was a really big target, we'd go out together and maybe Grom would be external security and the SEALs would do the assault, or maybe SEALs would be external security and Grom would do the assault.

• 2:09:51Jocko Willink?

  And I, I, I don't remember, you're gonna have to correct me, but I don't remember many of them speaking English.

• 2:10:01Speaker 01

  Uh, not many at the time. Now everybody, everyone speaks and speaks very well, but at that time, yeah, there was only me and, uh, who, uh, this is why I was, for me it was great because I was going on the missions with them. I was doing assaults and the, uh, uh, and the storm, the, the hideouts with them and with our guys. So just a lot of the thing, but yeah, they, they did not speak English at the time.

• 2:10:23Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, so, so what I remember is like, we would give our brief and you would stand there and translate the brief for them. And then they would explain what they were doing on their target and you would explain what they were doing to us. And then anytime that we were, you know, if we were, if we were kind of doing something together, you, you were really critical for making the, the connection between what the two elements were doing. It was frigging a pretty big job.

• 2:10:49Speaker 01

  You know, there was, it was, I think it was important at the time, but eventually we meshed so well that I remember sometimes it was called, "Hey Drago, is that guy, is the Grom guy, or is our guy?" It's like I said, "That's our guy." You know, it was hard to tell who is who because we were working so well together. Um, yeah, but you know, talking about this English thing, uh, translation and stuff. I am also, I think the, besides being breacher and breaching in Iraq, known for my English skills, actually, uh, for my, uh, actually, I'm going to patent it. I'm thinking about patenting it.

• 2:11:28Speaker 01

  I became known for being the fastest English language, uh, instructor, teacher to terrorists. Actually, because I developed that course. I call it Drago's Accelerated English Language Course for Terrorists. Basically, you give me five minutes with a terrorist, because they always say, remember, "I don't speak no English, no English Mr. and no English Mr.." So I said, "I teach you." Five minutes later, the guy actually could speak with a better accent than I could ever say things. So that's, uh, that's, I think that I'm very proud of my skills. And so that's, that, that, that, I'm thinking about patenting it eventually because that's, you know, it worked so well.

• 2:12:10Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Uh, it was, it was awesome too, like when I, when I said that, uh, translating between us and the Grom, you're right, like we'd be out on the target and we wouldn't, there would be very little that you would have to translate because we all knew what the mission is, knew what we were doing, we would interact very well together. And just like, just like SEALs, I mean, when you're out on a SEAL operation, you're not talking a bunch. You're, but you're basically, especially on those types of missions, you're barely saying anything. So it was, it was not like you were all the time having to translate. But there was a couple of times, or there would be times where it's like, "Oh, we need to know what they're doing. What are they doing right now? Hey Drago, where are they going right now?" It's like, "Oh, they saw a guy, they saw a squatter, they're going to get him." I'm like, "Cool, Roger that." Yep, yep.

• 2:12:53Jocko Willink?

  Just, just taking care and, and bringing those two units together. And man, it was an awesome working relationship that we had with the Grom. It was freaking awesome. They were great guys.

• 2:13:02Speaker 01

  I really enjoyed that work because especially there, you know, we have all the same ROEs. But the interpretation of those ROEs were maybe a little bit more loose or not so strict. So they were strict. They were, they apply everything that needs to be applied to ROEs. But they were also realistic about that stuff. So there was pleasure to work with them. The funny thing was that if I mix it up, you know, I had that switch where I had the earphones, the pelters with one connected to the Polish gron one to us. So if I switch the wrong, wrong way and it's like, Drago, god damn, speak English, motherfucker. And then switch the other one, Drago, we don't understand shit you just say, speak Polish.

• 2:13:44Speaker 01

  So I had to be very careful, you know, you, you, you can do things very fast in combat. And then you have to just switch this thing the right way because if you switch it the wrong way, it's like, we don't understand you, we don't speak Polish, Drago.

• 2:13:58Jocko Willink?

  So you were there for oh three, you got there in May, you were there oh four, you were there my whole deployment, which was from oh three, like, like October oh three or something like that, fall of oh three to, to spring of oh four.

• 2:14:14Speaker 01

  And then oh five.

• 2:14:14Jocko Willink?

  And then you, you went back for a little bit? Did you go back?

• 2:14:17Speaker 01

  I went back with my platoon then. I came back to SEAL Team Four and we were, the SEAL Team Four was deploying.

• 2:14:22Jocko Willink?

  And then came back again.

• 2:14:24Speaker 01

  I came back again for another six months. So that was pretty cool. The, the thing is, you know, what, what it does to, is I remember it becomes almost unreal, this work here. I remember I was talking to my girlfriend at the time and say, hey, I, I need to go, I need to go home. I'm tired now. So it's like, that's just so stupid. You're not home. Your home is not there. Your home is here and blah, blah, blah. It's like, oh shit. Okay. Well, whatever, you know. But the, the reality is that. That place becomes your home.

• 2:15:04Speaker 01

  When you think about this world, about people working on the streets, making groceries, it become a dream, almost like a state. That's just like, yeah, it is there, you know, but like now you hear the, when you think about the fairy tales, some, you know, Snow White or something, it sounds really great, but it's just like a fairy tale. So for me, this world become a fairy tale. It was just like a, you know, it's there, it's awesome, but I'm here and this is my reality and that one, almost like a dream, you know, sometimes I was slept, I was dreaming of being in normal world and, uh, yeah, so that's, that become, that world here become

• 2:15:46Speaker 01

  very distant to me, become almost unreal, because there, my reality was the war. And I liked it, I mean, that was, at that time, I thought I liked it, but I have to tell you, because, you know, my job, I was, I'm preacher, so I remember after, at the end of deployment, the first deployment, I started having a problems reading, I couldn't read. So I remember trying to read the sentence and my eyes were jumping, so I had to read it over and over, and then when I finished reading it, I don't remember what I started sentence with. So it took me sometimes five, six minutes to get through a paragraph. And I think this is because of the concussion, I mean, we are exposed to these, to this

• 2:16:30Speaker 01

  stuff and I did, it was couple times that I, you know, like we, we supposed, we are going explosive breach to the door, that we look at intel pictures and there was like, yeah, okay, so this is how we plan, you know, we, we prepare all the briefs, this is where we hide, this is where the assault element is going to be, there's a breach charge, this is where we're going to go blow the door, this is how we go. Well, some of those pictures were not very accurate and I remember around the situation that we had, I had the assaulting stash there, I went, sent the bridge charge, the guy came back and I had no place to hide. I was like, fuck. And you remember, most of these, most

• 2:17:11Speaker 01

  of these buildings or these hideouts were fenced off, there are the fences and stuff. So, once we climb inside, there's really no place to hide. And I had to blow that shit with myself. I was like, oh fuck, I can't hide. I'm not going to make Gerukas running for, looking for some place to hide. So I just took a knee, put the gun in front of my face and fucking blow this shit out. I remember, I didn't remember much after that. I mean, I got my force, on my four, my legs and I was bleeding from my nose and ear. Then, but what kind of like, always puzzled me is like, what the fuck is my side? I mean, I have like, the bruise like fucking broke my ribs. What that fucking came from? Through

• 2:17:54Speaker 01

  the ground, it's like, dude, you are on your fours, we just have to kick you out of the way because there's no way to hide, you know? You were just, you were just there on your fours and we, so basically they kicked me out of the way. The kick was so strong that almost broke my ribs. But, you know, this is, as, as nor, it's not, that's something that you accept because that's.

• 2:18:13Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Yeah, as, as a breacher, man, those, those operations, like those breaches that you guys were doing, and I would usually position myself where I would be kinda, would there be a wall, I would sort of put myself on top of the wall, on top of the ladder, so I could see the breach, I could see the building, I could see if there's any enemy movement. And then, right as you guys would say, turning steel, I would duck down.

• 2:18:36Speaker 01

  We tried that too.

• 2:18:40Jocko Willink?

  I'm actually ducking, I'm actually ducking down behind the wall because there, there could be frag and stuff like that.

• 2:18:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, oh yeah, absolutely.

• 2:18:45Jocko Willink?

  But, but you guys were inside those compound walls and you're probably, whatever, eight feet, 10 feet, 12 feet away from the blast. And so, I, like I said, I get a little, little bit of protection and I don't feel as much concussion, the concussion's going up. And then as soon as the breach goes, I jump over the wall and we go do our thing. But. You know, you guys are just taking that breach on a nightly basis, taking that hammer to the brain. And, and look, I know there's some of them where, you know, it would be really bad and it might knock you out. But even the ones that don't knock you out, even the ones that you just, oh, you just, you just suck up that thing and it doesn't knock you out. And then you go, that thing is not good for you. Like those breaches are not good for you. And who knows

• 2:19:30Jocko Willink?

  how many hundred, hundreds of times you just took that, took that concu- took that minor concussion. And over time, it's definitely gonna, it's gonna freaking leave a mark.

• 2:19:42Speaker 01

  Cumulates, yes. Uh, but we were, but as, as you know, we're not aware so accurately of the issue than as we know now what it does to you. And you, you, you're right, you learn, you, you get no, you, you get, uh, sure, sure, sure, shake.

• 2:20:01Jocko Willink?

  Shaken, shaken.

• 2:20:02Speaker 01

  Shaken, yeah. You get, you get thrown off of the, sometimes of the ground, just your, your feet go up in the air, sort of the blast. But then you just go in, you move on, you, you are out, out to autopilot, basically. You know what to do. You trained for years to do it. So this is what I like. I say, I was so effective. I, I, I enjoyed that skills I could apply as an NBC also. That's, uh, that was, uh, that was great feeling. But yeah, it does. And why not that great feeling, you know, when you get knocked out or bleed from your ears and nose. But, uh, but they're just the, the, the, the, the, the, the tactics and techniques of how effective they are and how well they work.

• 2:20:40Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Well, when you said good feeling, I, I was just thinking about like, when I got to Baghdad, so you'd already been there for a long, for, I don't know, uh, yeah, eight months. But I remember just being so freaking happy to see you. And I was like,

• 2:20:56Jocko Willink?

  cause we already did a platoon together. We already had awesome times together.

• 2:20:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:21:00Jocko Willink?

  And I just was like,

• 2:21:02Speaker 01

  And you know, another thing to going with your platoon, I, I, I think this is for some reason, this, I talked to other guys, we feel fucking safe. It's like, dude, shit is not going to happen to us. Nothing is going to happen to us. I think, I, I think because that, that the way. Your platoon was fired up, the way you were fired up, the way it was uh. I mean, I think the leadership has a lot to do with it, how you feel about this, that they've given up and. Uh, for us, it was just like, fucking, I can operate like this forever.

• 2:21:36Jocko Willink?

  Alright, so let's talk about when you, when you get back home after you spend all these months and months over there. And you were talking about how the, the concussion, like you're, you're trying to read. And you see the, the freaking words are moving around and you get done with a sentence, you can't remember it. What did you? When, when that, when that first started happening to you, what were you thinking?

• 2:21:59Speaker 01

  I was thinking, keep it quiet because they will move me out of the platoons, they, they will, they won't let, they won't let me go to war. So I just. Keep my mouth shut and say nothing.

• 2:22:07Jocko Willink?

  So, did you go back into another platoon at this point?

• 2:22:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, there was, it was after the first, the first deployment, sorry. So I did two more combat tours with that. Uh, but coming back, talking about the returning, uh, from the, it was like almost a year, uh, being deployed. I remember I landed in Norfolk and the guy said like, okay, hey, go ahead and uh. You want me to help you something? I had all my gear and all the stuff from Puerto Rico, yeah, because I just came back from. I went to, from, basically from Puerto Rico to Iraq. So I had to have my old gear. So I stuck my gear in the curb. It was, it was cold and I was so tired. I remember. But again, I say, no, don't worry, these guys are coming to pick me up, so I'm good.

• 2:22:51Speaker 01

  So he left, he shut the door. There was like nobody there. You know, the Norfolk, uh, military airport. And I fucking fell asleep, just like fucking. Getting dark, I'm freezing my ass off. I say, what the fuck? I don't know for a second, where, where am I? I said, I'm in Norfolk. What, what motherfuckers didn't show up? So like my phone is dead. So I was like, fuck, I can't even call them. It's getting fucking night and cold. There's nobody there. So I was like, hey, I tried to knock on the door. Hey, hey, uh, can, I need a phone. So, uh.

• 2:23:25Speaker 01

  Nobody shows up, I was like, I'm so fucking cold at the time, I'm just gonna say, I need to get inside because I'll get hypothermia. I grabbed this fucking big concrete garbage thing, I was about to swing it into the window. And this guy goes up, "No, no!" Opens the door, I say, "Dude, I might get cold." These guys didn't show up, so... So I...

• 2:23:45Speaker 01

  My phone is dead, I don't even have a phone, I don't remember, because my brain is already so messed up. Don't remember the number to group. So I called the team, there was a weekend, so that team is not there. Called the group, so I say, "Hey, somebody's supposed to pick me up today, a few hours ago, and I'm still in the parking lot." "And you are who?" I say, "I'm Drago." "Where are you coming from?" "I'm from Baghdad." "Fuck off, we don't have anybody in Baghdad yet, we are not even there, you fucking idiot." And just fucking hang up, they thought they are just... I don't know what they think. So, you know, Group 2, there's not necessarily SEALs in the Corps of Deck, there's like anybody who are the logistic people.

• 2:24:28Speaker 01

  So I called back again, I say, "Hey, motherfucker, give me OD, the Officer of the Deck, because I need to... I just came back from Baghdad, I need to get back to the teams." So they call OD, and I say, "Hey, this is Drago, I'm just came here a few hours ago, he's a guy supposed to pick me up." He said, "You don't have to pick anybody up today." He just looked, "Oh, hey, Drago, we are so sorry, I'll just send the truck right now, so we are on the way." So yeah, they sent the guy, the tech came in, and a great guy, I really liked him. So he came in, they loaded my gear, we got to Team 4, they took my guns away, so they put it away, all my gear, I just unloaded in my cage.

• 2:25:10Speaker 01

  And something just take me, something came to my mind, like fucking, I haven't... By this time, the girlfriend left me, she just said, "You are done," she called me on Christmas, say that she needs to move on, and she don't have a time for this shit. So, like, she had my car and my stuff, but I had, so I have no car, the car is parked somewhere in her place. My clothes are there, everything I had was practically a Christmas word of things, but it was in her place. So I said, "I'll just get, can I take this key, I stole the key from one of those pickup trucks outside, I just like borrowed it." And I'm glad I did, because the guy walked out, we walked out outside, he shuts the door, and I say, "Hey, what's the code, I need to get inside."

• 2:25:55Speaker 01

  He said, "You guys are still sleeping in the fucking teams, in the cages. You can't do that anymore. There's new regulations. You are not allowed to go sleep in the teams." I said, "I have no place to go." He said, "Well, tough shit, man." He left, he just jumped the car and left. I was like, "What the fuck?" So I tried to remember the code. I don't remember. I can't remember it. So we had those little punching things. Because they stopped the quarter, like, duties some time ago. So I can remember it. I said, "Fuck, but I am so hungry now. I just need to do something. I just need to go grab something to eat." So I had no money. But I pulled my credit card, not credit card, but I don't have a credit card, but my ATM card. It's like maybe fifteen dollars.

• 2:26:41Speaker 01

  So I was like, "Fuck, I just need to eat something." So I cut the ten dollars out of it. So what can I do? I said, "IHOP." So I drove to, in Virginia Beach, to IHOP. That's by the, I think it was at the time Borders bookstore. And I came up to this thing and I started, got me those cheese blends. I love cheese blends. So that's from the IHOP. So I got me cheese blends, got me a coffee. I said, "Now I need to go find..." And I got so sleepy, so tired, I just fucking fell asleep up there. And then next thing is the guy, the security officer comes up. "Hey, what are you doing here? I mean, you are sleeping here. I'm watching you. You are here for like over five hours or so." And this is like, I think, two o'clock in the morning.

• 2:27:26Speaker 01

  So I was like, "Hey, I mean, what's the problem?" I said, "I'm looking at him. I'm still trying to get that, my wits together." He looks at me and says, "Yeah, the bitch kicked you out, didn't she?" I was like, "Yeah, the bitch kicked me out. Yeah, yeah." So I said, "Do you mind if I just go relax tomorrow morning?" And today morning, I said, "I'll just go and, you know, I'll just buy some more food if I need to." He said, "No, no, no. You're fine. Just go relax and, you know, just don't cause any problems." I said, "No, no problem." So in the morning, I woke up. I slept in the IHOP. So I woke up and went to Group Two, got some phone calls. And most of the guys were, I think, Team Four at that time. They were doing something.

• 2:28:09Speaker 01

  Because they were ready to deploy. We were ready to deploy again. So eventually I got hold of somebody and... Then I got the coat back to the team. And then I was like, it's not only me, it's a bunch of team guys. There's always some team guy sleeping in the cage because he gets kicked out from the house. His girlfriend kicks him out or has this problem or has, there's no place to leave. For sure. So, so, you know, I moved into the, in the cage. And that was pretty cool because the platoon had, you have all the cable TVs. You have a shower, you have a gym, 24 hours, 7. And so it was only me, but it was a bunch of guys. Hey Drago, you should just bang on the door. Somebody would come out and just open the doors for you. I didn't know anybody was here. We were told that we can't, that there's nobody in the teams anymore. That thing is gone. Nah, fuck this.

• 2:28:53Speaker 01

  So just playing cards and doing all kinds of, it was cool. It was really cool. And then, you know, we just, we deploy again. But then I deploy again. But that was the first, my first comeback was not only that, but then I find out that my checks start bouncing. I look at the bank and they say, no money at all. I said, what the fuck? So I go to them and I say, Drago, you didn't fill your travel claims. So travel claims? I was in Iraq. We told them that's possible. I was not moving anywhere. I was there for like eight months, nine months. And you, we were told not to worry about the travel claims. Well, we just garnish your money. So you're getting in the paycheck. You're just getting maybe like 300, whatever the proportion was that they allowed to leave.

• 2:29:36Speaker 01

  So I said, dude, I'm so fucking sick and pissed about it. And I'm, I tell you this, I'm just going to make me a sign. Iraqi veteran, I work for food. And I'll go in front of that fucking gate up there and start to get some money because I need to eat. So I said, no, you didn't go that far, you know? It's just, we loaned you the money. And actually the chief mess, he actually loaned me the money so I can buy some food and pay some bills. Of course, I paid it back. But I was so mad I called this, those civilians that worked the travel claims in group two and just laid it to them and they show up a year and then I say, so next thing the chief calls me. Hey Drago.

• 2:30:18Speaker 01

  You're not allowed to group two, you they call provosts and I think we have a problem. So we just told them that if you show up in group two, you'll be always chief assisting you and you go with chief up there. So because you really scare these people up there. I was like, okay, chief, that's no problem. And, um, and you know, just work my way, work my way out of this, pay my some pay those travel claims, you know, fill the travel claims, they did return some of the money. And, um, it was all good, you know, that's, um, that's, then I deploy again and again. And, uh, the, this with the eyes first, I was, I was coming with all kinds of theories, like maybe my eyes are bad, maybe the tent

• 2:30:59Speaker 01

  is dark. So I use the flashlight, I use this and I can't fucking read. So I just, I just give up. I say, maybe I'm just not smart enough. And I just like move on. I was busy with other stuff. So it came back later that.

• 2:31:13Jocko Willink?

  How many more deployments did you do?

• 2:31:15Speaker 01

  Uh, three, two, two more to Iraq. So.

• 2:31:18Jocko Willink?

  When, what year was your last one?

• 2:31:20Speaker 01

  Two thousand five, two thousand three, two thousand four and two thousand five.

• 2:31:23Jocko Willink?

  And then what'd you do when you got home from, from that deployment?

• 2:31:27Speaker 01

  From that deployment, uh, you know, at that time I also.

• 2:31:30Jocko Willink?

  You know, before you even jump into that, I, I just like, there's a certain transition period. And there's a, there's like a, you know, when you're overseas, especially for you, you have one, basically one purpose in life when you're over there. Like you get it, you get your mission tasking, you, you figure out what the, what the plan is, you get your gear together, you brief the guys, you go out, you do your hit, you come back. It's the simplest life.

• 2:31:58Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's like, it's like a customer service, the government customer service. I will look at it. But my customers were always bad and I got to kill them. So.

• 2:32:06Jocko Willink?

  And then you, but you come home and all of a sudden there's all these other things, right? There's the freaking travel claims and there's like apartments and there's all these other things that you gotta try and like deal with again. And, and sometimes just that is, you're just not, it takes a little bit of time to get used to what you were saying. You were saying that the normal world. Doesn't really exist anymore. And then when you come back and you get injected back into it, sometimes it takes a little time to get used to, okay, there's this, this is what, this is what I've got to deal with. I gotta go stand in line at the DMV like a normal freaking human being, which I have, you know, let's face it, if you,

• 2:32:50Jocko Willink?

  if there was someone in the way when you're, you know, it's like when we were, when we were doing operations, when we were driving, if there was a vehicle in the way, you freaking just knocked the vehicle off the road. Like you go plowed out of the way and then you drive on. If there's a person that's in the way as you're moving towards a target, you just freaking clear them out of the way. It's just no factor. And so you, you get in that mindset of, okay, I'm going to make happen, whatever I need to make happen to get the mission done. That's the mindset that you get in. And you get back and, and you realize, okay, it takes a little time to realize that you can't just go, you can't stay in that mode because that mode is not, that mode is actually considered to be criminal.

• 2:33:28Speaker 01

  And destructive.

• 2:33:29Jocko Willink?

  And destructive in America. In the normal civilian populace.

• 2:33:33Speaker 01

  Yeah. I remember, but my first feeling was even when I was sleeping in the IHOP when I came back, it's kind of a relief too. When I, I'm, I'm just looking around, I see these people eating or walking around. So I said, that's, that's, that's the normal life. But I was, I forgot about it almost because it was so immersed into that combat, into that, um, the time that, that again, this became like a dream. Then you come back and it's like, well, that's actually real, you know, that's, uh, but also big relief. I never realized that, that, that thing over your head always, well, I can get shot. We don't think about it. It never bothered me. But then when I came back, I was like, I'm not going to get shot. It's just like, well, first thing you say, I'm, I'm good.

• 2:34:17Speaker 01

  I'm okay, you know? But then come the reflection, the thing about the guys that did not come back and that's, it still bothers me and, um,

• 2:34:28Speaker 01

  That's, uh, I think they will always stay with us forever. That, uh, I don't know, you call it like the survival, survival guilt. That's what they call it. Why me, why him, not me? And, um, um, this is why I'm trying to cherish the memories of the guys that I knew. They are not here anymore because, you know, it fades. And I think, uh, they are alive in, they still live in our minds. So what we can do for them is just remember them because if we forget, who we remember? So they, they're still alive.

• 2:35:11Speaker 01

  They are alive in our minds that we see them, we remember them and we need to cherish this. So it is so important to write the books about these guys who are not here anymore. Because who write, they can write their own book. We need to engage parents. And I always tell parents of our guys, look, um, that might not seem like a lot, but they are, you wake up and, uh, you know, the, the pain doesn't go away, just live to learn with it. As a parent, as a spouse, but what you can do is just write little things that you remember. Uh, you, you, as you wake up, it's like, yeah, I remember he was doing this and that when he was a little kid. Write this down because those memories are fleeting.

• 2:35:53Speaker 01

  You might not remember it 10 years down the road, but eventually if you keep doing this, you will write the full picture, the image of your child, of your spouse, who is no longer with us, but it helps all of us remember it. So it is important that you do that and, uh, hopefully people are doing it because, uh, you know, that eventually become a book and maybe you want to share, the parent or the spouse want to share with us the other person that we don't know. Because most of us know the guy, the guy like fucking warrior, you know, he goes up there, he kills the bad guys, he does what needs to be done. But there's also another side to each of us and we don't know that side of these people who didn't come back.

• 2:36:36Speaker 01

  So it is, it is important that we help maintain that memory of these guys.

• 2:36:43Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, there's no doubt about that and even, you know, with with the opportunity I have here, talking to guys, talking to veterans from other wars as well. And just just hearing their stories and they still carry on the memories, guys that guys from the Korean War, guys from Vietnam, that what you're saying is absolutely true and there's, like, I read a lot of books that guys have written and that's that's the memory, that's what they left behind and they they remember and they account for the friends and brothers that they lost in combat and it's it's priceless, it's priceless for us.

• 2:37:21Speaker 01

  And this is how we keep them alive, you know, that's how we keep their memory, by keeping their memory alive, because they live in our minds.

• 2:37:30Jocko Willink?

  So, so you end up doing another, did your next two deployments, were those back to Iraq again?

• 2:37:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, and then when I came back, I realized that, you know, I'm forty five, I haven't, at that time, my girlfriend dumped me because my career was not really good, I wasn't making enough money, she actually said in the email that that really not, there's not the place she wants to be in. So I say, fuck, I mean, I'm like getting forty five, I'm getting old guy and I don't have, don't know even girls, you know, I don't know, I don't have anybody. So I'm going to go and find somebody, how do I find somebody? I think the easiest way, just go online and look for somebody. So I remember there was this, there's a site, American Singles. And I say, fuck, yeah, I'm American, I'm going to go and get me a wife, so.

• 2:38:22Jocko Willink?

  I'm American and I'm single, this site's for me.

• 2:38:28Speaker 01

  So, so I can't write very well, right? So I remember, so we are going, trying to, finally I find the girl, I was like, she's so beautiful, I'm going to go into. Let me see if I can wink to her, but I just need to tweak my age a little bit because she's so young. So she's like maybe she's thirteen years younger, so I just tweak my age a little bit. So I wink to her just to write something. She got a look at it and she winked back, she wrote back and she wrote so nicely. So I say, fuck, if I write to her, she just, she would just fire me right from the get, because she won't even talk to me.

• 2:39:08Speaker 01

  So, so I talk to the team guys, say, hey, can you help me write the letters, love letters? So, so we're going on, we had a guy, had guys writing the love letters to my present wife, but uh, just helping me out, you know, because when I write, you know, if I, when I write is like, I is what I is, you know, I be what I be.

• 2:39:29Jocko Willink?

  Your love letter was, I like you, do you like me?

• 2:39:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, me love you very much. And so that wouldn't go well. And so the guys kept doing it and so I'm, I'm looking at this, I'm reading her letters. And this is so fucking awesome. She writes so well. She, she's so polished. She's so educated. Then I find out, you know, she's Air Force Academy graduate. Uh, so I was like, oh damn, this is like make it, uh.

• 2:39:58Jocko Willink?

  How many, how many years did you chop off your age when you initiated this relationship?

• 2:40:03Speaker 01

  I think five. Because, and I'm glad I did because we're not talking to her later, she said she had like a cut of limit. If somebody contacted her, we're about that limit.

• 2:40:12Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:40:13Speaker 01

  Uh, she just like disappears.

• 2:40:15Jocko Willink?

  So you were forty-five, she was, how old was she?

• 2:40:18Speaker 01

  Thirty-seven.

• 2:40:18Jocko Willink?

  She was thirty-seven.

• 2:40:21Speaker 01

  Thirty-six, I think.

• 2:40:22Jocko Willink?

  Thirty-six. So you, you brought yourself down to a clean forty?

• 2:40:25Speaker 01

  Yes, uh, like maybe thirty-nine, forty. Maybe thirty-nine. So I was strong, I was, I was still, I still look young and I was like, she can tell, but when she sees me, she will like me, so.

• 2:40:39Speaker 01

  So, uh, I, I, uh, so the guys keep writing me, but eventually. Say, look, Drago, we wrote you like, I think hundreds of these letters.

• 2:40:49Speaker 01

  I think you can, what you can do right now is kind of paste and paste. You can just make any letter you want, just, you know, the copy and paste.

• 2:40:58Speaker 01

  So I'm like, fucking a bit worried about it, but say, okay, yeah, I have like every letter. So she wrote me an email and I'm trying to like make some things out. I guess it didn't go well because I sent her a letter and just clicks, she disappeared from that.

• 2:41:16Speaker 01

  What I found out later is that she read the letter and she, her friends and her came to conclusion that I'm either on drugs or drunk. So that didn't work very well. So better safe than sorry. So she left. I was like, fuck, I think I fucked up. So that like the guys look and say, yeah, Drago, you did fuck that. You just put the shit, totally backwards. So I like, damn, okay, I need to start over again. And then she shows up again. Well, she shows up because I found out later that they offer her thirty more free days, like a freebie. So she'll get somebody else. So she say, ah, sure, okay.

• 2:41:51Jocko Willink?

  They said, we're sorry about that last Drago guy. We apologize. Here's your money back and you get thirty more days to find a normal human being.

• 2:42:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, I guess, you know, something. And when she shows up, I was pretty desperate at the time. I really like her. I really, I loved her. You know, we talked for a while, we wrote a lot of letters. I mean, my team guys wrote a lot of letters and she wrote a lot of me. So, so then, and she didn't respond. So I was like, just call me. Just, just call me.

• 2:42:25Jocko Willink?

  Wait, had you never, had you talked before?

• 2:42:28Speaker 01

  No, just she was, she's very proper. She was like, I'm not going to talk to you. I don't know you even. I don't want to give you my phone number or anything. But eventually I coerced her into.

• 2:42:36Jocko Willink?

  Had you told her your life story? Had you told her that you had come from Poland? Or were you telling her that you were a freaking hedge fund manager in New York or something?

• 2:42:46Speaker 01

  No, no, I just told him that I'm in the Navy, I'm doing well. And, you know, just try to just be very, very vague about it. I think that's maybe she didn't like it either. But I just tried not to talk because if I say, yeah, I'm SEAL, just came back from Iraq. So that guy might be crazy or something. So I tried to stay out of it. But anyway, the guys did a really good job. You know, if they stay with me, they could continue. I think I would have no problems whatsoever. But anyway, I created a letter. It came out as a druggie or some drunk person. And she's just like, I don't want to mess with that. So, but finally I got her to call me. And I say, look, this is me, this blah, blah. So I told her about myself and she's like, quiet for a second, say, oh, you just don't speak English very well.

• 2:43:31Speaker 01

  It's not you are drunk on drugs, right? It's like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't do any drugs, you know? I don't drink on occasions and maybe wine sometimes. So we start talking about and finally she agreed to come and visit me. I was totally in love and, yep, we are married now.

• 2:43:52Speaker 01

  But yeah, that was, that was a big thing that, that, yeah, she thought that maybe I'm not, not quite right in my head. I was not.

• 2:44:03Speaker 01

  But yeah, we got married, we have two children now and together, a little girl, 12 years old, and a 10 years, 11 years old boy.

• 2:44:12Jocko Willink?

  So how'd you wrap up your Navy career?

• 2:44:15Speaker 01

  I wrapped my Navy career. So when I met her, I went to Master Chief and I was SEAL instructor at the time. I was in BUDS. I say, look, I don't have any family. I have this girl right here. If I go to war, I deploy, I'm just really scared to lose her. I've been there so many times, so long time. Maybe you can find me some post that I can just get married? I just wanted to get married, so I said, I'm just secure this girl. And so first, they say, okay, we'll try to help you, Drago. But the letter from command came in, well, for that position, when somebody who is really polished and who speaks English very well, and Drago is neither one.

• 2:45:00Speaker 01

  I seen this email, they were shown to me. So I say, fuck.

• 2:45:06Speaker 01

  I'm marrying this girl anyway. But eventually, I was able to, when they go that, they send me to Ohio NRD and we got married, of course. And I retired from there and it was kind of, I'm glad it happened this way because that transition kind of brought me back to reality, you know. There's not about just killing people and beating them up. It is more also about the living in society, being a productive member of society. So that was a good transition period for me that I could actually relax and join the society back again and not be a villain, but be a good person.

• 2:45:48Speaker 01

  And yeah, I got domesticated now, so I'm the nice Drago. And the life is good. My wife, she has a master's degree in bioengineering. She's about to do her PhD. And I'm here to support her, so we're doing well. And I just miss the teams, definitely.

• 2:46:14Jocko Willink?

  Well, you're always gonna miss the teams. And by the way, you were, you may have felt like a villain in some way, but I can tell you, bro, you were never a villain to me. You were always, always freaking there, always there, every single time, on the good guys' side. So when you retired, what did you do? What did you do once you retired? What year did you retire?

• 2:46:37Speaker 01

  2011.

• 2:46:38Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 2:46:39Speaker 01

  So before retirement, I was told I need to do this, I need to do this, I need to do that. You know, when you come back from war, I think there's some issues linger with you. And it's like, well, I didn't really care about doing the tab meetings about that. I just wanted to go retire and move on with my life. I didn't really want, didn't really know what I'm going to do. But I was good in the programming and the software development. And my wife said, like, what you need to do is put your resume. Here and start looking for the job. So finally I said, okay, I don't have the formal education, I'm a seal.

• 2:47:24Speaker 01

  I don't write software, I kill people. So I need to do something. So I say, no, no, no, no, you do have experience, you did a lot. And she wrote, she helped me write the resume at the time. So I put the resume and I say, my good luck, yeah, somebody will need to call me. Then five days later, I say, hey, we have a position here, would you like to come and talk to us? So I was like, sure, absolutely, yes. So I ran up there and I got the job. Before even I retired, I already have a job. Like, I think in two weeks before retirement, I got the job. So I didn't start it yet until my, but on my leave, I was working. So my retirement leave. And that's rolled in.

• 2:48:08Speaker 01

  And now they're just, I'm getting more and more experience and learn more and more from the guys, from the software engineers working with me. So my life is what it is right now. I'm actually, I end up developing quite few programs. One of them is Connecting. This is, as you know, my views, my, I'm very open about the socialism and how dangerous the socialism is. That when, anytime I posted on Facebook something about socialism, they banned me. They would just basically stop my account. People were calling me names and I couldn't even respond to it because Facebook was blocking it.

• 2:48:50Speaker 01

  So I say, fuck these guys, fucking communists, I'm going to go and create my own Facebook. So I create Connecting. And we have thousands of people right now on the site posting it. There's no censorship. Everybody is welcome. It's not the right, left side. Just, you know, if you have, if you like to say something and not to be worried about being banned or ostracized by Zuck and Fucker, whatever his name is, or this other twerp from Twitter, come to Connecting and you are welcome to say whatever you like to say, you know, just please keep the violence down and not, nothing violent, but just you're welcome to speak, be open.

• 2:49:28Jocko Willink?

  So it's Connect Zing, Z-I-N-G, Connect Zing. And what, I'm now a member of Connect Zing, I'm on there. One thing that I was thinking about as you were telling, talking about everything today. I mean, it couldn't, there couldn't be any better parallel between what you experienced in life and, and starting this. So at one point in your life, the communist government shut down all communications inside of your country and completely suppressed the populace. And what you did back then as a freaking whatever 19, 18, 20 year old was you said,

• 2:50:12Jocko Willink?

  "Okay, they're trying to stop us from communicating. So what we're gonna do is we're gonna start a freaking newspaper and we're gonna go and we're gonna run around in the background, we're gonna print it and we're gonna distribute it out there to people." So even as a kid, you realized the importance of free speech.

• 2:50:32Speaker 01

  Free speech, yes.

• 2:50:33Jocko Willink?

  And so now you're in a situation where you, you got banned from the, the, the social media platforms. And so you did, you're doing the same thing. Okay. Look, you don't want me to, you don't want me to speak? You don't want me to have free speech? Okay. Here I go. And so you created this website and this platform that people can now communicate and they don't have to have any fear of being

• 2:50:59Speaker 01

  Suppressed.

• 2:51:00Jocko Willink?

  Being suppressed.

• 2:51:01Speaker 01

  Yes. And it is important for me. I, I, I see that I think we are going the wrong direction. That suppression of free voice eventually will destroy, can destroy our country. Um, you see, the socialism has seven things in common. Whether this is Adolf Hitler socialism, Adolf Hitler, uh, national socialism, whether it's Bernie Sanders socialism or Pelosi socialism. They all have one thing in common. It's intimidation, violence, poverty, having a villain. Like Stalin, Joseph Stalin had a kulaks, those wealthy passions. They were villains. They were always vilified. Adolf Hitler had Jewish people. He vilified this

• 2:51:44Speaker 01

  entire group. And Pelosi have, it seems to me like veterans and middle class. So, um, that's so that the villain is very important element of socialism, but also political prisoners and political murderers. And the biggest hallmark of, of totalitarian socialist state is

• 2:52:04Speaker 01

  Where state entities are attacking and intimidating political opponents. We had IRS, you remember, I'm sure you remember that, attacking and vilifying the opponents and other state entities. So this is where I think we are in a very dangerous spot and we need to act on it. Political prisoners, you know, and socialism, they always say, "We don't have political prisoners because nobody sees for political reasons." He sees for stealing a meal, this guy sees for just maybe driving on the curb with his car, this guy sees for something else, but there is no political prisoners, but they all see for political reasons. And, you know, we have here General Flynn, I mean, what happened to him?

• 2:52:44Speaker 01

  You always find something that you can, "Show me a man, I will stick the paragraph to him." So they will find something to intimidate political opponents. And I think it's time to turn around our country. We can have, the things that are happening right now are very disturbing to me, they're too much like that socialism that I experienced. And I, just like I said earlier, if people only took time to ask refugees from the former socialist countries in Eastern Europe and stood against evil, we wouldn't have any democrats left in office, I'll tell you that. It is so, it is so bad. I mean, I'm really concerned.

• 2:53:28Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, we had some, we had some Vietnamese Vietnam War veterans on, and they certainly expressed very similar concerns. They lived through communism, they escaped communist countries, and they hate seeing and they're, they're, they're sickened when they see similar, similar things occurring here and they, you know, it's a warning, it's a warning.

• 2:53:57Speaker 01

  It is a warning, but I hate it before it's too late, if not too late already, because, um, yeah, that's, we, we already have, we already had socialist elections and seems like the rules are being implemented. I was, when I was talking to people about it in 2008, there was laughter of, it's like, that's not going to happen here. We have, we have been, we are having now, right now, implemented, the rules are being implemented, allowing for socialist elections.

• 2:54:27Speaker 01

  Socialist elections, I mean, elections where communists, Marxists and socialists always win.

• 2:54:37Jocko Willink?

  Now, on top of that, and I know that you got that going on, you also have a, you also have a foundation to help guys that were in the SEAL teams, guys that are in the SEAL teams, if they, if they run into hard times for whatever reason, you have a, a fund that people can donate to. What's, what's that all about?

• 2:54:57Speaker 01

  It is Navy SEALs Fund, it's 501(c)(3), NavySEALsfund.org, not foundation, it's Navy SEALs Fund, F-U-N-D. And this is to help our guys, because there is a lot of team guys that leave the teams before their time, before their retirement, and they have pretty much no, have no support, or very little support. So, and I've seen so many guys going with broken lives because they missed the payment here, they missed the payment there, they, they, they, their war, they lost the job. Uh, uh, some of them, their, their whole life was collapsing in front of them. So what we create is like no red tape, uh, uh, charity that,

• 2:55:41Speaker 01

  look, if you were at any time, at any time, 5326, we will help you, we don't let you fall down. And it's, uh, just, no, nobody gets paid. So if you can look at our website, there's a bunch of team guys with the same attitude, with the same ideals, that we, we need to help each other. And again, they don't want to get paid, they don't want the money. It is not about the money, this is something that we can give back to those less fortunate. Because there's a big problem, look, I was lucky, I, I came back, I met my wife, she was able to domesticate me and, and, and create a human being out of me again.

• 2:56:25Speaker 01

  But there's a lot of guys that come back, or, or do they. They got caught up in this uh uh in this violent cycle that you know the the skills from the Navy SEAL teams don't translate well on civilian uh in civilian life. Not many things, not many. Some people have a hard time in the transition. So what is happening with these guys is, well, you know what, I I can't get the job, but what I'm going to do, I'm going to go keep contracting. I'm going to go overseas again. You know, shoot shoot some, you know, do the pretty much the same job. But when I come back with a lot of money, I can get a regular job. I can get with my back with my family. The guy comes back after six months with tons of money, is trying to find a job.

• 2:57:09Speaker 01

  Six months later, he has no job and has no money. What do you do? Well, fucking, I'm tired. They're they're tired. They they they they just have no choice. I say, I need to get back. I need to go back into that world again. So and that cycle repeats itself. We have a guys caught up in this cycle. You know, not everybody. There are some people that like this lifestyle and they can continue on. But there's many guys that can't get out of it. So this is where we step in. We want to go and help those guys. If you want to get out of this, we are here to help you and we we stay watch over you.

• 2:57:42Jocko Willink?

  Awesome. Awesome, man. Look, we've been going for a while now. Uh, probably a good place to um probably a good place to wrap up. I know uh you know, you know what we missed? You know, we didn't talk about was one of my funnest things in life was was introducing you to jujitsu. Oh, that was a great thing. And how excited you were. You were so excited when you learned that you could choke people and you could arm lock people. And I remember you got into a scrap somewhere. We were, you know, out somewhere and you got into a scrap and and you I I wasn't there.

• 2:58:23Jocko Willink?

  You came back to me the next day and you you you you had the you had a look of just joy on your face. And you said, choco, choco. And I was like, what's going on, man? You said, I got in a fight last night. And I was like, okay, did you get in trouble? He's like, no, no, no, no, no, no. I choked the guy. I You were so happy and so proud and I and I was quite proud as well.

• 2:58:42Speaker 01

  Actually, I have to do something too, because this is what gets sometimes get odd and misunderstand. Even within our community, within our guys. So, you know, when I used to fight, when I was, the way I grew up is you you you fight until you destroy the guy. That that you the fight is over, not when the guy tells you, okay, well, I I got it, you know, that that is over, you know, you you are better. And then he, as soon as he turn around, he he launch, he launch at you. So you just beat the guy until he doesn't move. And then, but just what you need to be careful with is, and it actually happened to me before, that he'll choke on his own tongue if you roll the wrong way. Now, you need to go because the police about to come in, so just if you leave him there, he dies or not. So the the technique that

• 2:59:26Speaker 01

  I learned Poland is a pin up type. So you just pin up, they make a pin up out of the guy. You you you you put the pin through his lip and through his tongue and pin his tongue to his lip. So that way, whatever he rolls in, once you leave, he's not going to suffocate on his own tongue. And people are like, oh, so so what's what's what's, is it real? Yeah, it is real, because then you can leave a safely guy in the in in in that position. And when he wakes up, he just feels that he has a safety pin in it, so just pin his tongue from his lip and go home. Versus being dead, you know, and then you get in trouble. So, so, yeah, that's that's actually good technique that a lot of people, I think, I think adopted, I think, because I taught that to quite a few guys.

• 3:00:09Jocko Willink?

  There was also a good one where we were going through some kind of combatives training. And the instructors, they had like these boxes, like taped on the floor. And the purpose of these boxes was that if you had to handle a situation, you know, in a hand to hand situation, those boxes represented the area that you needed to stay in because if you got out of that area, you're actually interfering with other guys' field of fire. So it was almost a way for them to prove that, look. You just need to stay still and whatever if you can't do it inside of this little box here, then it's probably not gonna work. And so they, they did some things with me with, with grappling

• 3:00:54Jocko Willink?

  and it was kinda funny, but then they take you and they go, alright, you know, you stand in this box and they put another, like one of the instructors in the box. And they said, you know, if you're in this little space like this, you know, these kick, these kicks that you're talking about, they wouldn't work because you're, you're too close.

• 3:01:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, they were demonstrated.

• 3:01:12Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And then, so then they go, uh, they go, uh, okay, Drago, you know, you're standing in this box, you're not allowed to leave the box, but try and kick him, try and kick him in the head. And, uh,

• 3:01:22Speaker 01

  I did.

• 3:01:22Jocko Willink?

  Apparently they didn't know that you had very flexible legs and

• 3:01:31Jocko Willink?

  He was definitely out of the box. It was freaking awesome.

• 3:01:35Speaker 01

  But you know, I remember too, I'm so glad that you mentioned about this because when you show up in the platoon, I remember just going, I say, guys, I'm going to check out the entire platoon in five minutes. Okay. So you started it and as the progress, like within a, a 30 seconds, you, people are tapping out or pass out. Next, next. So I seen like a couple of guys quietly just inching their way out of the room. So, you know, you check out whoever was left up there, including myself, but, uh, that was actually good experience and, uh, we, there we start learning. And I remember, I remember that's, I was not that technically, I was pretty strong, but not technically very well. And I was wrestling with one of the officers and I

• 3:02:17Speaker 01

  remember I was trying almost everything. I was pin, I had to pin him down. I was, but I almost ripped his hand off and, and didn't work and didn't work. He was laying there and, and I was trying everything. I found like 30 minutes later, he finally tapped out and gave up. Then you woke up and say like, well, you know what, I didn't want to go interfere with this, but you are doing. Okay, but if you take his hand just way to just push a little bit down, he'll be tapping out right away. So I just like tried this guy like

• 3:02:44Speaker 01

  I say, fuck, I wish I knew that I would spend thirty minutes trying to get his arm off. And he has a simple technique to do it. So, so yeah, that's, that was pretty funny. Poor Scotty, when he was, that's actually scurrying a bit because I didn't know it. We're wrestling, you were overwatching us and then that's like, I'm doing pretty good, you know, it's but he's not tapping out. So I'm just wrapping him up. And then I see you and other team guy, other, other guys from the platoon just prying me out of Scott. It's like, yeah, yeah, stop, stop, stop. I say, stop for fucking what? I see he's tapping out. I say, no, he's not. He's tapping out. No, he's not. And then he say, wait, uh, do you hear, did you hear this?

• 3:03:26Speaker 01

  I say, yeah, but what does that mean? He said, well, he couldn't breathe and he couldn't tap. There is no way to tap out. And Scott said, dude, so damn. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't tap out. So I could say was I couldn't have a breath to even say stop. All I could do is

• 3:03:44Speaker 01

  and then, uh, then, then he stopped. So it's like, that's pretty cool. Actually, that's like, wow. That's fucking jujitsu. That works, man.

• 3:03:52Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that particular individual was kind of claustrophobic and I remember I would train with him and when, when someone's super claustrophobic like that, sometimes I like to sort of give them some exposure therapy and try and make them more used to it. But I remember him just, he's going, he's just like, get off, I mean, get off me. And he was so mad. Get off me, man. I'm not, I'm not down with this. And he was walking off and that is so bad. He was freaking hilarious.

• 3:04:17Speaker 01

  There was nothing unusual to see, you know, that's having guys shaking their hand, their legs. Yeah. Okay. I'll shake his legs. He'll be okay. You know, it's like what happened? It's like, what happened? I like, well, you guys got chucked out. Is he okay?

• 3:04:32Speaker 01

  Good times.

• 3:04:32Jocko Willink?

  Good times. Awesome. Uh, right on. Echo Charles.

• 3:04:37Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 3:04:37Jocko Willink?

  Speaking of getting after it, speaking of jujitsu, speaking of, you know, maintaining the good physical condition, which I'm, I'm really, when you're telling me that you didn't like work out or anything, bro, you're a freaking mutant. Cause you're strong as, you're like, I was pretty strong. Like you're strong as shit to wrestle with, man.

• 3:05:01Speaker 02

  That's just how, uh, when I was nineteen.

• 3:05:04Jocko Willink?

  Speaking of being strong.

• 3:05:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:05:06Jocko Willink?

  Now that, now that I'm speaking of that, so when we were lifting, we were all trying to get jacked. So, so whatever, if, I guess there's nothing, I, I don't know if you necessarily brought this from the Eastern Bloc, but, but Drago taught us this thing, or would do this thing where we would lift. When you're getting, when you're getting your lift on, he had this, uh, primal, this primal noise.

• 3:05:33Jocko Willink?

  So, so whenever like the platoon was in a gym somewhere overseas, you'd just hear guys going.

• 3:05:41Speaker 01

  Actually, no, in Iragas, every platoon came in, uh, who came through, cause I was staying there, but the platoon's roles to, to buy that. So everybody was leaving with.

• 3:05:53Speaker 01

  And, um, so, but every, every single platoon was kind of, I said, okay, Drago, we are screaming that ads for the, for the fucking mask here. What does the fuck means ads? It's like, I don't know. It's like, it means everything, you know? Is it good? Ads is good, you know? Does it suck? Ads sucked. So it like means everything.

• 3:06:13Jocko Willink?

  I was talking to my, my, uh, kids and I was like, oh yeah, my, my friends coming on the podcast today and they're like, oh, whatever. They don't care. But then I was like, this is the guy that originally said ads. Cause when my kids were to work out, I'd be like, hey, look, when you're gonna go for that big clean, you gotta get fired up. What you gotta do is give yourself a little.

• 3:06:34Jocko Willink?

  So, speaking of.

• 3:06:36Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, that there's in powerlifting, there, there's that or some version of that. And there's always that at the end. Uh, maybe there's like a physiological technique for that.

• 3:06:48Jocko Willink?

  Tightens up when you, if you're gonna do it, it tightens up kind of your, your, uh, your posterior chain, right? Like you gotta make your whole, your whole like rib cage kinda. Yeah. Like if you do it hard, everything's gonna get tight, straighten up that spinal area.

• 3:07:03Speaker 02

  Yeah. It's kinda like, you know, okay. So there's a method that's, that has a name for it. When you basically.

• 3:07:10Speaker 01

  But also when you are beating somebody up and you add this adds to it, it scares them even more.

• 3:07:16Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah.

• 3:07:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, fully. But that there is a technique, that technique has a name, like to tighten up everything. It's almost like there's a breath hold scenario in there.

• 3:07:25Jocko Willink?

  I think call it brace for it or something.

• 3:07:26Speaker 02

  No, it's like a theory. It's an odd word. I forget what it is. But when you say that's, that's like a, it's like you're not totally holding your breath. You're giving a little air. It's kind of like, you know, when you get, you know, those, what do you call the blood pressure? Things, you know, you pump it, pump it, but and then you let out a little bit. It's kind of like that kind of thing. Anyway, I think it's a furrow technique.

• 3:07:47Speaker 01

  Doesn't block completely your breathing. It's just, yeah, it's, it's kind of gives you that extra pressure that you need. But you still have that like pressure valve.

• 3:07:55Speaker 02

  Yes, it's true. Yeah. So maybe, maybe just that's just how you kind of grew up, you know, in your mind, you just, it came very natural. It's probably what happened.

• 3:08:04Speaker 01

  It, it worked, worked for me, for, I think for all of us, because all the guys in the, the, whether team five, seven, or whatever team showed up up there, they all end up with adds.

• 3:08:13Jocko Willink?

  Adds, there you go. Makes you a little bit stronger.

• 3:08:16Speaker 01

  Actually, I got the call in too long time ago. I said, Drago, what the fuck did adds mean? So people are always asking me and I have, I don't know what to tell them. I said, it means everything, dude.

• 3:08:23Speaker 02

  Just miss. Oh, hell, yeah.

• 3:08:25Jocko Willink?

  It means nothing, but it means everything.

• 3:08:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 3:08:30Jocko Willink?

  You got to dig a little deeper.

• 3:08:31Speaker 02

  When I was in college, I got knee surgery because it blew my ACL. And before I got surgery, I was like, okay, what's the recovery time and all this? And they're like, you know, it's, it depends. And they asked me, are you Polish? Are you, do you have any Polish blood? And I said, no, why? I said, because Polish people tend to heal faster. So they, for real, this is what the, literally what the doctor told me, Polish and Samoan. So.

• 3:08:55Jocko Willink?

  How come they didn't ask you if you were Samoan?

• 3:08:57Speaker 02

  They did.

• 3:08:58Jocko Willink?

  Oh, okay. They asked you both.

• 3:08:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, but Drago doesn't have Samoan blood.

• 3:09:01Jocko Willink?

  You didn't bring this up.

• 3:09:02Speaker 02

  Less relevant, we'll just say, I'm just saying his durability may be attributed to his genetic. You know, scenario.

• 3:09:10Jocko Willink?

  Blood.

• 3:09:10Speaker 01

  I'll look at the bars time and maybe hopefully that will help me get got through. But also the I think attitude. I was never like, I remember we see before the Halloween or during the Halloween, they say, so why you are here? What did you, why would you come to bars and stuff? Well, I want to try to be a best seal, the best guy. I tried to be a seal. I tried this, I tried that. So they came to me, I say, I'm not fucking trying anything. I'm here to be a seal. I just, I will be a seal unless I get injured or kick me out. So I'm not trying, I'm just on my way to be a seal. They kind of liked it, but I got beat up for that.

• 3:09:42Jocko Willink?

  Definitely they got to beat down for that one.

• 3:09:45Speaker 02

  Makes sense.

• 3:09:46Jocko Willink?

  What do we got, man?

• 3:09:47Speaker 02

  Oh, either way, we, yes, we are on the path. Um, so on this path, not all of us are quite as durable. Or maybe we are, I don't know, but we got supplementation, Jaco fuel. So we got stuff for your joints, joint warfare.

• 3:10:03Jocko Willink?

  We have a review. We have an automatic review. Drago has been drinking the Dax Savage drink. And what, what, what do you think?

• 3:10:13Speaker 01

  I'm addicted to it. I, I, I, for many reasons. One is that the taste of it, because I, I was telling you earlier about those candies in Poland. They say this, the specific taste of candies that were so rare that you can actually trade this candy for, between the kids. And there was like a caramel white candy within the, so this is it. This is the, this is that candy which I was always addicted. It's like Dr. Pepper. When I had the first Dr. Pepper, I say, holy shit, this is America. You know, it's like, we were struggling to have one candy like this. And here you can just go to the machine and get yourself one.

• 3:10:50Jocko Willink?

  There you go.

• 3:10:50Speaker 01

  So that I love the taste.

• 3:10:52Jocko Willink?

  So, so it tastes like America. What?

• 3:10:55Speaker 01

  Tastes like America.

• 3:10:56Speaker 02

  There you go. It's odd because on the way down here, I was thinking about it, you know, like a regular, we'll call it, for lack of a better term, a traditional energy drink.

• 3:11:04Jocko Willink?

  Oh, an old poisonous?

• 3:11:06Speaker 02

  Old poisonous, so exactly right. So poisonous, right? And here's the weird thing, everyone knows that. It's so weird how everyone knows that. Like if they say, okay, so let's say you just did some jujitsu, you just worked out or something. You're like, man, I'm thirsty or whatever, you know, let me go whatever.

• 3:11:20Jocko Willink?

  Now I need drinks.

• 3:11:22Speaker 02

  You were like, you're not going to the soda machine. You're not getting some soda pop. You're not getting an energy, like an energy drink, traditional one. Brad, that sounds like the last thing you want to drink.

• 3:11:34Speaker 02

  Yeah. But meanwhile.

• 3:11:36Jocko Willink?

  Meanwhile, you can get America.

• 3:11:41Speaker 02

  Not only are you kind of in the mood for it sometimes. Um, like right after like a hard workout, it's actually good for you. See what I'm saying? But isn't it weird how everyone just knows that, that an energy drink is bad for you?

• 3:11:53Jocko Willink?

  It's a known, like, it's a known thing.

• 3:11:55Speaker 02

  It's mainstream already.

• 3:11:56Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 3:11:56Speaker 02

  It's crazy.

• 3:11:57Jocko Willink?

  Check. Well, if you want to get those, if you want to get some joint warfare for your joints, if you want to get krill oil for your joints, if you want to get some, what, vitamin D three?

• 3:12:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, which is.

• 3:12:09Jocko Willink?

  All kinds of other.

• 3:12:10Speaker 02

  Also very good for you for many reasons.

• 3:12:12Jocko Willink?

  Molk, which is protein disguised as dessert.

• 3:12:16Speaker 02

  It's true.

• 3:12:18Jocko Willink?

  Anyways, you can get all this stuff at Jaco Fuel dot com. Or you can get, you can get the drinks at Wawa out on the east coast. Or you can get the stuff at the vitamin shop.

• 3:12:28Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 3:12:28Jocko Willink?

  All available there.

• 3:12:29Speaker 02

  And consider getting the subscription. So originusa.com, you want a subscription to this stuff, you can save some money, free shipping, by the way.

• 3:12:38Jocko Willink?

  Well, that's kind of a big deal. It's not even a by the way, that's almost the primary reason. Okay, maybe the primary reason is we don't want to not have what we want when we need it.

• 3:12:48Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 3:12:48Jocko Willink?

  But another good reason is it's expensive to ship stuff.

• 3:12:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:12:53Jocko Willink?

  But if you subscribe, shipping's free and that's cool.

• 3:12:56Speaker 02

  Boom, and you get it every month or when you need, you don't run out. It's a big thing. Doesn't seem like a big thing, but try to run out. You're gonna know it's gonna be a big thing. Anyway, originusa.com, that's where you can sign up, right? That's pretty much the main spot.

• 3:13:08Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 3:13:09Speaker 02

  For the subscription.

• 3:13:10Jocko Willink?

  What is it?

• 3:13:10Speaker 02

  Origin.

• 3:13:11Jocko Willink?

  Origin.

• 3:13:11Speaker 02

  USA.

• 3:13:12Jocko Willink?

  USA dot com.

• 3:13:13Speaker 02

  Yep, that's the spot right there. Also at originusa.com is jujitsu stuff. So we talked about jujitsu briefly. We could have talked more.

• 3:13:20Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah.

• 3:13:21Speaker 02

  But, you know.

• 3:13:22Jocko Willink?

  But effective.

• 3:13:23Speaker 02

  Yes, very effective. But yeah, you want some gis, uh, American made gis, rash guards, other jujitsu stuff, other athletic stuff too.

• 3:13:31Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 3:13:31Speaker 02

  Originusa.

• 3:13:32Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, made in America, by the way, so Drago, I haven't really dove into this with you, but we, we. Or we now have a company where we are making products in America. We're making jiu-jitsu gees, we're making rash guards, we're making boots, we're making jeans. We're making everything in America.

• 3:13:49Speaker 01

  I know that because I was following you.

• 3:13:52Jocko Willink?

  Oh, right on. Yeah. Well, the freaking crazy thing is like, like for instance, jeans, everyone gets a pair of whatever name brand jeans and they think that they're getting an iconic American jean. But they're not. They're actually getting jeans that are made in communist countries. That's where they're made. So we don't like that. We like our jeans to come from America. By hard, made by hardworking people. So origin USA.com.

• 3:14:27Speaker 02

  Also on that same sort of tip, let me direct your attention to Jaco store.com. This is where you can get, you know, more apparel, more representative directly of the path. So discipline equals freedom. Good. All these things. That's where you can get it. We have a subscription situation going on as well. It's a good one.

• 3:14:48Speaker 02

  Little bit different designs, but still applicable.

• 3:14:51Jocko Willink?

  It's just FYI. So you can get this thing. It's called the shirt locker. If you want to get one of these cool T-shirts. Here's the thing, because this is the reason I'm bringing this up is someone went online and was like, that you posted something? And they're like, hey, none of these T-shirts are on the store, on Jaco store.com and.

• 3:15:07Speaker 02

  Yes and no, but.

• 3:15:08Jocko Willink?

  Right. Well, explain. So people do understand.

• 3:15:11Speaker 02

  Yes, they are on Jaco store, but they're only through the subscription scenario, the shirt locker. So that's the only place you can get them. Again, like if you do, I mean, if you even care about like the difference or whatever, it's just they're, the designs are a little bit. We'll just say they're a little bit more creative from time to time. Nonetheless, you know, they're a little bit different. They're cool. They're fun. Uh, you will get a new one every month. There it is.

• 3:15:38Jocko Willink?

  There you go. Uh, you can subscribe to this podcast. You can subscribe to some other podcasts. We got the, the unraveling podcast with Darryl Cooper. We got the grounded podcast. We got the warrior kid podcast. There's new episodes out by the way.

• 3:15:49Speaker 02

  Yes, sir.

• 3:15:51Jocko Willink?

  I was really slow in getting those out, but they're out. You can get your warrior kids, listen to those. You can also, you can also join the underground, jocko underground.com. Where we go into a little bit more detail, a little bit of behind the scenes research.

• 3:16:04Speaker 02

  Yep. Also some good, a lot, cause some people ask like, hey, uh, do you guys do Q and A?

• 3:16:10Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 3:16:10Speaker 02

  Still, you know, I'm wondering about this and this. Oh, good questions, but yes, the answer is yes. We do do the Q and A, but it's on the underground exclusively to the underground, maybe, maybe not, but currently.

• 3:16:21Jocko Willink?

  We don't know yet. Well, here's the deal. We had people that signed up to be on the underground that subscribed to the underground, that asked questions. So we answered their questions on one of the first underground Q and As. So anyways, go to jocko underground.com. If you want to subscribe to that, if you can't afford it, it costs eight dollars and 18 cents a month. By the way, if you can't afford that, look, we still want you to get the information. You can email assistance at jocko underground.com. We'll take care of you. We got a YouTube channel where Echo puts videos up that he creates.

• 3:16:56Speaker 02

  That he put more to, by the way.

• 3:16:57Jocko Willink?

  Oh, are we?

• 3:16:57Speaker 02

  Got some new conceptual ideas.

• 3:17:00Jocko Willink?

  Okay. So if you're waiting for Echo's conceptual ideas, they should be produced within the next 24 months. Because his work ethic is, well, it's solid, dude.

• 3:17:10Speaker 02

  It's not.

• 3:17:11Jocko Willink?

  It's not. He doesn't create videos and say.

• 3:17:14Speaker 02

  Varying levels of.

• 3:17:18Jocko Willink?

  Maybe you should, maybe you should go home, get in front of your editing suite and just go, and maybe we'll get some more freaking videos.

• 3:17:25Speaker 02

  I'm gonna get so.

• 3:17:27Jocko Willink?

  That's what, that's what he's doing.

• 3:17:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:17:30Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. If you got the legit.

• 3:17:32Speaker 01

  You know that odds actually is part of my, uh, uh, the, the Drago's accelerated English.

• 3:17:40Jocko Willink?

  That's the main, that's the main motivator. People hear that one time and they're telling you where their first born child is. This is good advice. Thank you.

• 3:17:48Speaker 01

  They speak really good English after that.

• 3:17:51Jocko Willink?

  Uh, psychological warfare, you can get that on any MP3 platform. We got flip side canvas, flip side canvas.com. My brother Dakota Meyer, Marine Corps. He's got a company where he's making things to hang on your wall. We got a bunch of books. Okay. The first book that I want to talk to you about is the book that I started off this podcast today. I took one little section. Uh, the, the book is called, and you're going to have to help me with all this, uh, Drago. So the book is called Camp Posey, The Rider. His name is, how do I say it?

• 3:18:23Speaker 01

  Naval.

• 3:18:24Jocko Willink?

  Naval. So Naval was a guy in the Grom, in the Polish Grom, special operations guy. I don't know too much about him because I can't read Polish, but the book is available and I ordered it, but I haven't gotten it yet. It's available on Amazon. So if you want to get this book, look up Camp Posey and it, it's, I, I did look through it. There's pictures of, um,

• 3:18:47Speaker 01

  Well, us too. I mean, it's because he was deployed with us. He was when you were there and I was there.

• 3:18:52Jocko Willink?

  Yep. Yep.

• 3:18:53Speaker 01

  It's our pictures.

• 3:18:54Jocko Willink?

  Yep. There's pictures of where we were. There's pictures of Camp Jenny Posey, which is freaking, brings back all kinds of memories for us because we were doing so much good work out of there. A bunch of pictures in it and, and you can get an English version. So check that out. Camp Posey. Have you read it?

• 3:19:12Speaker 01

  Oh, I have read it. Yes. I've read in both and I read in Polish and English and it's very accurate. I say, I think it's, it, it, it gives you the, the, the, the perspective from the other, other guys who are not part of the SEALs, but they are really good. They, they, they, they, and how they perceive SEAL teams.

• 3:19:31Jocko Willink?

  Right.

• 3:19:32Speaker 01

  How they see us, how, what do we do in Iraq and how they work. So it's pretty good insight and the perspective on SEALs from the different vantage point.

• 3:19:40Jocko Willink?

  And then what about this other book that you brought today, which I haven't seen? Um, so what's this called?

• 3:19:45Speaker 01

  This is, uh, the title of the translation is My 13 Years in the, uh, Grom.

• 3:19:52Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 3:19:52Speaker 01

  So this is, this is not my 13 years. This is this guy.

• 3:19:55Jocko Willink?

  Does that say 13 right there?

• 3:19:56Speaker 01

  Yes, 13. That's exactly, that's 13 in Polish. So it's 13, uh, my 13 years in the Polish Grom. So that's what he said.

• 3:20:04Jocko Willink?

  I used to hear that over the radio sometimes. When he would switch that dial, he'd be like, Drago, Drago, please, bro. It's us.

• 3:20:15Speaker 01

  You are on the English channel, Drago. Switch mode. So this guy was with us too. Actually, Haim and Naval, Naval, they were together in, I think, the same time there. So this is, he wrote this book much earlier and same thing. He just, his view on the Iraq war, on the, our working together with SEALs and that, how this thing,

• 3:20:41Speaker 01

  you know, I think it's, it's very interesting, especially if you want to look about us, about SEALs, and how others perceive us, other forces.

• 3:20:51Jocko Willink?

  Do you know if this, is this book available on Amazon? Is it available in English?

• 3:20:54Speaker 01

  It is also available on Amazon. It is also, I will send you the links. It is also available in English on Amazon, so.

• 3:21:00Jocko Willink?

  And the, and the English title is also Thirteen Years?

• 3:21:04Speaker 01

  My Thirteen Years.

• 3:21:05Jocko Willink?

  My Thirteen Years.

• 3:21:06Speaker 01

  In Grom, yeah.

• 3:21:08Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. I'm just flipping through this one. This one's got a bunch of pictures very, that look very familiar as well.

• 3:21:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, there was a picture was taken when we were there.

• 3:21:17Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's freaking awesome. Alright, so we got these books. Check these books out. We, and Drago and I already talked about, hopefully getting one of those guys, or both those guys, on the podcast at some point, if they can come over here from Poland, or maybe, you know, might we make an exception and do a not live, like not face to face? We have never done that before. We've never done a, a virtual podcast. Maybe we would do it for Po, for Poland?

• 3:21:43Speaker 01

  Like Skype, or something.

• 3:21:44Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 3:21:45Speaker 01

  Actually, one of them, I think, will be traveling here too, so.

• 3:21:48Jocko Willink?

  That's all we need to know.

• 3:21:49Speaker 01

  Just, it'll be awesome if, actually, he could travel and tell his perspective on Iraq war, why Poland got involved in it, and why Poland was standing by our side

• 3:22:01Speaker 01

  in that war, and why is Poland standing by our side? So it'd be good to hear from them.

• 3:22:05Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that'd be awesome. A bunch of other books too. I got a new book coming out called Final Spin. You can preorder it right now. If you want the first edition, I don't think we've talked about that yet on Final Spin. If you want the first, have we? If you want that first edition.

• 3:22:19Speaker 02

  I think he mentioned it last time, I think, but yeah, you didn't go.

• 3:22:22Jocko Willink?

  Look, don't be coming up to me in whatever, when the book comes out, two months after it comes out and you roll up to me, "Hey, Jaco, I got your book." And I look at it, I'm gonna know. You're gonna know, we're all gonna know.

• 3:22:34Speaker 02

  We're all gonna know.

• 3:22:34Jocko Willink?

  You got the second edition. Pre-order that one right now. Leadership Strategy and Tactics Field Manual, The Code, The Evaluation of Protocol, Discipline vs. Freedom Field Manual, Way of the Warrior Kid, one, two, three, and four.

• 3:22:46Jocko Willink?

  Check those out. Mikey and the Dragons, which is, which is apparently the best kid's book ever. That's what I've heard. And then About Face by David Hackworth. I wrote a foreword on a new version. Honored to do that. Extreme Ownership, The Dichotomy of Leadership. That's the OG of Jaco books that I wrote with my brother Leif Babin. We got a consulting company, Echelon Front. Go to echelonfront.com. We got EF Online. If you want online virtual training, go to efonline.com. If you want to come see us live, go to extremeownership.com. We got three events this year.

• 3:23:21Jocko Willink?

  Cause we're having three events this year. So if you want to come, go to extremeownership.com. It's a leadership, a leadership seminar, live, in person. We also have an event coming up called EF Battlefield, where we walk the Battle of Gettysburg. We walk the battlefield there and talk about the lessons that were learned. This is an unbelievable event. We sold, we were only gonna do one. We sold it out. We're doing two now, hopefully. So if we can get things scheduled, we're gonna make that happen. Go to echelonfront.com/events if you want to come to that. And if you want to help service members, active and retired, if you want to help their families, if you want to help Gold Star families, check out

• 3:24:03Jocko Willink?

  Mark Lee's mom. She has her own organization. And if you want to help, you want to donate, you want to get involved, go to AmericasMightyWarriors.org.

• 3:24:17Jocko Willink?

  And if you want to hear more from us, which is highly unlikely at this point, but if you want to, you can find us on the interwebs, on Twitter, on Instagram, on Facebook. Echo is at Echo Charles. I am at Jocko Willink. Now, if you want to talk to Drago, he's not on those platforms.

• 3:24:36Speaker 01

  I'm bound for that.

• 3:24:37Jocko Willink?

  His, his free speech has been suppressed, but don't worry. He's on the underground. He's making things happen. You can check him out at connectzing.com. I'm also on there now too, because, well, if Drago's there and he's hanging out, I'm there and I'm gonna be hanging out too. Echo, you got any final thoughts?

• 3:24:57Speaker 02

  No, that's it. And good to see you again. We met briefly downtown in my nightclub days with my good friend Jeremy and he, uh, he introduced me to you back a long time ago. It was like almost 20 years, like a long time ago.

• 3:25:10Speaker 01

  Jeremy first can say hi to him. He's a great guy.

• 3:25:12Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. And, uh, yeah, I remember Drago. I was like, ooh, okay. All right.

• 3:25:18Speaker 02

  He seems very nice, but he could probably get nuts. So, all good. Good to see you again.

• 3:25:23Speaker 01

  Thank you. This was nice to see you again and it was great to be here.

• 3:25:26Jocko Willink?

  Drago, any, any other closing thoughts, man?

• 3:25:32Speaker 01

  I say maybe make a small prayer in our mind for those guys who are no longer with us. And, uh, maybe a few seconds of silence to honor them.

• 3:25:56Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and, um, I don't know when this podcast is, is actually coming out, but, um, today is, is March 20th. Today is, is Mark Lee's birthday and

• 3:26:12Jocko Willink?

  I mean, just an incredible, incredible man, incredible seal, incredible husband, incredible son.

• 3:26:21Jocko Willink?

  And, uh, miss him and the rest of the boys every day. So.

• 3:26:31Jocko Willink?

  Happy birthday to Mark and Drago, man. Thanks for your service. Thanks for your service to the teams. Thanks for your service to the Navy. Thanks for having my back countless times. And thank you for your service to America. And beyond that, thanks for your service to the ultimate cause of freedom in the world.

• 3:26:57Speaker 01

  You can't repay freedom. There's people who ask me, "Thank you." This is the other way around, Jacko, actually. There's me who's supposed to say, "Thank you to you, to you, to every American for my freedom." What I did in the teams, in the Navy, is just a token for, for, for, you cannot repay freedom. You could, the, the freedom is not for sale. It's, it's not, there is nothing you can do to reciprocate that freedom that that, that we, that I got from America. I'm a free man and that's awesome feeling. It's, it's something that I will never be able to repay, repay. And I just, I believe that just keep serving in any capacity I can

• 3:27:40Speaker 01

  to our great America is important. So I'm not done yet. I've, I've finished my military career, but I'm still serving. I'm still want to make America a better, a safer place.

• 3:27:52Jocko Willink?

  Well, I'll end to that. And I, I know I will always be proud to call you brother. And to all the other people out there, especially those that are out there wearing the cloth of the nation, thank you for protecting the most precious thing that we have, and that is our freedom. And the same goes for our police and law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, Border Patrol, Secret Service, and all the other first responders out there. Thank you for protecting us here at home. And everyone else.

• 3:28:29Jocko Willink?

  Just remember that freedom is not free and we cannot take it for granted. There is evil in the world, there is oppression in the world. And we must be on guard for authoritarian and tyrannical leaders and like Drago. We must be willing to stand up and fight for our freedom.

• 3:28:57Jocko Willink?

  And until next time, this is Drago and Echo and Jaco.

• 3:29:03Jocko Willink?

  Out.