87: How to Act as a Leader. Importance of the Warrior Culture and in Leadership. "The Clay Pigeons of St. Lo"

0:00:00 - Opening 0:09:22 - "The Clay Pigeons of St. Lo" by Glover Johns http://amzn.to/2wsLzds 2:08:50 - Take-aways and final thoughts on the book. Warrior culture. 2:21:36 - Support, Cool Onnit http://www.onnit.com/jocko, JockoStore http://www.jockostore.com stuff, with Jocko White Tea http://www.jockotea.com and Psychological Warfare (on iTunes) https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/psychological-warfare/id1183222322. Extreme Ownership (book) http://amzn.to/2jonHTx, The Discipline Equals Freedom Field Manual. http://amzn.to/2szgaEj Origin Brand http://www.originmaine.com, Origin Jiu Jitsu Immersion Camp. Origin Brand http://www.originmaine.com. Extreme Ownership Muster 004 http://www.extremeownership.com in San Diego. 2:57:39 - 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 87 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. Good evening Echo. Good evening.

• 0:12Jocko Willink?

  I'd been away from infantry and from the army I'd grown up in for far too long. Walking through the gates of Coleman barracks was stepping into the welcome past. The old army had not died after all. The 18th was military perfection. Men stepped smartly across meticulously kept grounds. Starched uniforms, blue infantry scarves, dazzling shined brass and boots, snappy salutes, and cheerful good afternoon sirs marked my journey to the HQ where I'd sign in. The spirit of this fine unit was already infecting me.

• 0:56Jocko Willink?

  The hot stifling windless day, the ragweed pollen that blew in from adjacent fields covering the camp and immediately activating my hay fever. The rundown, boring camp itself, none of it mattered. As inwardly, I was transported to an island oasis untouched by turbulent seas.

• 1:19Jocko Willink?

  And it was all thanks to one man, the battle group commanding officer who would forever be my model, mentor, and friend.

• 1:30Jocko Willink?

  Colonel Glover S. Johns was the finest senior infantry commander I'd ever seen or ever would see again. We shared a mutual, abiding respect almost from the moment we met. He was my kind of soldier and I was his. He was a warrior, Patton's aide before World War II. Then during the war, he'd hit the beaches of Normandy as part of the 29th Division and fought from those bloody shores all the way across Europe until victory was achieved. As a battalion commanding officer, he'd headed the task force that captured the critical French town of Saint Lo.

• 2:12Jocko Willink?

  In Korea, he'd served as executive officer then regimental commander in my own 40th Division. His reputation there was awesome. One story that made its way through the Division was that a wild new XO had come into the 224th, gotten down on his belly in the mud to check the unit's machine guns field of fire, and promptly moved two-thirds of the machine gun bunkers that had sat there for two years. Later, when he took over as commanding officer of the 224th, and the unit moved to a new sector, he'd outposted a spur about 200 yards in front of one of his companies, so the North Koreans couldn't do it first.

• 2:55Jocko Willink?

  But this move was considered seizing ground, and against the no-win rules of the war. And soon, the ex-Kor commanding general flew down to John's position to discuss the matter with him. After examining the situation, General White told him he could keep the spur, but was never to advance again, even his outpost line, without express permission from Kor. His blue eyes sparkled like those of a wise and truly tested man who'd long since realized that humor could be found in just about anything. He had seen his share of horror.

• 3:39Jocko Willink?

  His cheeks were rosy, and the dueling scar that crossed one of them in no way detracted from his rugged-yet-gentle old soldier face. Maybe the scar even enhanced it, I don't know, but it sure gave him more character, and provided a good yarn to boot. In any event, Colonel Glover S. Johns was a 49-year-old stud.

• 4:07Jocko Willink?

  Colonel Johns was a basics man and a total soldier. He taught and insisted that his company commanders teach things like terrain appreciation, the knowledge of which was a basic tool of a soldier's trade to be able to look at a piece of ground and appreciate the slightest differences in the contour, to notice how the ground unfolds and be able to think, "There's cover over there." Cover, the one essential, providing protection from direct enemy fire, to recognize a stream line, a gully, or a treed area as an avenue of approach through which a unit could move unseen, to understand and identify the best ground from which to launch or repel an attack. Shoot, scoot, and communicate.

• 4:54Jocko Willink?

  The morning battle drill began with fire and maneuver, one man firing while his buddy moved, a fire team moving while its counterpart fired. Colonel Johns likened it to a fighter's bobbing, weaving, and jabbing. "We kept the mythical enemy pinned down while we jabbed our way to close on his position." That's cover and move, by the way.

• 5:18Jocko Willink?

  The Colonel was right there with us to set the example, and we did it, until we got it right. We'd end up black and blue, running, hitting the ground, and rolling into firing position with full field equipment on is not without pain. But no one bitched because Johns, again and again, reinforced the simple equation. "The quicker you get to the ground and you get your weapon into position, the sooner you'll be delivering effective fire on the enemy, and the longer you'll stay alive."

• 5:49Jocko Willink?

  Still, this truism was just one part of the overall "strive to better your best" philosophy that characterized the 18th under Colonel Johns and Deputy Commanding Officer Couch. In Couch's words, "It was our policy to encourage excellence among the soldiers, particularly in bayonet training, unarmed combat, shooting, and total physical fitness. This is what really makes a soldier. If he masters these subjects, he'll fight." From my experience in Korea, I could not have agreed more.

• 6:34Jocko Willink?

  So, that's a little opener from a book called About Face. My favorite book by, it's written by Colonel David Hackworth and he's talking about a guy that was his commander in the early 1960s. Hackworth had gotten out of the army and then came back in after a couple of years because he realized civilian life was not fun. And so he came back in and he got stationed in Germany and this guy by the name of Colonel Glover S. Johns, who, by the way, he dedic- Hackworth dedicates, he dedicates the book to infantry men and to some other soldiers that he worked with along the way, but to

• 7:17Jocko Willink?

  Glover Johns, he says, dedicates his book to Glover Johns who showed us how to lead. So Glover Johns, outstanding combat leader and luckily, we can all learn from Glover Johns, not only from what he passes through Hackworth in Hackworth's book, but also from his own book. Glover S. Johns wrote his own book called The Clay Pigeons of Saint Lo, about his push from Normandy and across France that Hackworth just referenced.

• 7:59Jocko Willink?

  Now, it's interesting, when we go into this book, The Clay Pigeons of Saint Lo, he, he writes the book in the third person. And he says that it was just easier for him to write it that way. So in other words, he doesn't say, "I did this and I did that." He says, "Major Johns did this and Major Johns did something else." But what's interesting is he said that one of the reasons he was able to, or one of the reasons that he did that was because the guy that was commanding in combat, was a battalion commander in combat, was different from his normal self.

• 8:30Speaker 01

  Hmm, right.

• 8:31Jocko Willink?

  And so he had this combat Johns, combat Glover Johns that was out there leading things and he had normal Johns that was the way he lived his normal life. But it was easier for him to write and more natural for him to write about this Major Johns guy in the third person. And he also likes it because it can gives him, it gives him the ability to kind of detach from and explain what was going on.

• 8:55Jocko Willink?

  So when you hear it, it's all about Major Johns instead of being about me and about I. But it's, it's him. And even though it's written from the third person, it is absolutely a first-person account from a battalion commander in combat. Close, intense combat.

• 9:21Jocko Willink?

  And let's pick it up. Going to the book, The Clay Pigeons of St. Lo.

• 9:31Jocko Willink?

  Here we go. Sharp ballistic cracks pounded his eardrums so rapidly, they seemed like one impossibly prolonged rifle shot.

• 9:41Jocko Willink?

  He was instantly paralyzed with overwhelming fright. The radio operator, Jimmy, slumped forward at his feet. Another man stumbled past to fall into the ditch ahead, and Newcombe cleared the eight-foot hedgerow, apparently with one jump. But the Major was too shocked to move. His stomach knotted itself into a tight ball. It jammed against his pounding heart while his breath stopped completely for an instant. Then came in jerky gasps. The hair on his head felt as if it were rising like the hair on a cat's back. His skin prickled all over. But the most awful thing was the cold, empty feeling in his guts.

• 10:23Jocko Willink?

  The burst of German machine gun fire lasted only seconds, but it seemed like a lifetime before he could reach up and snatch a grenade from his pistol belt. He'd never heard a bullet crack by inches from his head. He didn't know they sounded like that. He thought there was a German with a burp pistol behind the nearest tree on top of a hedgerow. He grabbed the pin on the grenade, but before he could throw it, something made him stop and yell, "Anybody on the other side?" He got a quick answer, "Hell, yes." Before he could lower his arm, the blast of a rifle right in his lap made him flinch. He squirmed back even closer against the hedgerow as Martin and Grimcel went into action.

• 11:05Jocko Willink?

  They'd been at the front all 11 days since a continuous line.

• 11:11Jocko Willink?

  Had been established in Normandy. The crack of bullets was nothing new to them. Almost side by side, lying flat in the ditch, they fired methodically across him and over Jimmy's head. Mechanically, he checked the pin in the grenade, then, still a little dazed, hooked it back onto his belt harness. He looked at the man who had fallen in the ditch and now was trying to weakly push himself up. It was Lieutenant Sadler. His face already greenish-gray with shock. He had been hit five or six times in the head, chest, and both arms. Major Johns knew instinctively that Sadler was as good as dead. He called to him to lie still and take it easy,

• 11:56Jocko Willink?

  but the Charlie Company commander was already beyond hearing. Johns felt that he ought to do something constructive, something to get their minds off the tragedy that had just struck. But it was without inspiration. Merely numb. "Hey, you guys," yelled Grimsel, "let's scram out of here." That brought the commander out of the daze he'd been in ever since the deafening burst of enemy fire, perhaps two minutes before. He leaned forward and shook Jimmy's shoulder. "Come on, Jim, it's all over now. You can get up." But Jimmy didn't move. Major Johns shook him again.

• 12:35Jocko Willink?

  Then he saw blood oozing slowly, thickly, brightly across his own shoe. Gently, he pulled at Jimmy's far shoulder. A neat, clean little bullet hole in the boy's helmet came into view, so the major knew that Jimmy was dead. Something impelled him to pull Jimmy over until he could look into his face. The eyes were closed, and an odd little half-smile made Jimmy look as if he were asleep, dreaming pleasant dreams. Slowly, the major lowered him back to the ground and, for a fleeting instant, watched Jimmy's lifeblood continue to flow across his shoe.

• 13:30Jocko Willink?

  So

• 13:34Jocko Willink?

  that's his, really his first experience in combat.

• 13:41Jocko Willink?

  And you can see, obviously, it's, it's a hell of a wake-up call. And the whole book, the whole book is like this. It's, it's an incredible book. The, the way he describes the battles and how they're laid out and the way he lays out his own thoughts and what's going on. It's just, it's, it's, it's an outstanding book. And it's one of these books where as I, I had to consciously say to myself, "Okay, Jocko, you cannot read this whole book on the podcast." We need to, you know, people need to read it for themselves. But the book is the, the description of combat like that, that opening is phenomenal.

• 14:27Jocko Willink?

  So, let's go back to the book now where that first battle's over and he's having some thoughts. Here we go back to the book. "As he walked, he couldn't keep his thoughts away from the hot spot he'd been in a few minutes before and the lessons he learned so quickly, but at such a price. In little more than an hour of his first fight, he lost two company commanders, two radio operators and three other men besides just escaping death himself. As he thought about the crack of those machine gun bullets, his stomach began to squirm again until by a conscious effort, he forced it to behave.

• 15:08Jocko Willink?

  He couldn't understand why he hadn't been hit too. Jimmy's head had been not more than two feet from his own. Newcom in the front and Sadler directly behind him had been hit. The whole burst must have missed him by scant inches, he decided, and he very seriously thanked God for his safety."

• 15:30Jocko Willink?

  At the same time, he promised never again to risk the lives of others if he could avoid it. It was a bitter lesson, repeated every time the eyes of his mind focused on Jimmy's bright blood oozing over his shoe, or on Sadler's sudden death. He looked down at the shoe, shuddered at the still red stain, and tried to scuff it off on the grass.

• 15:57Jocko Willink?

  On his way to the regimental command post, the major passed a knocked-out Sherman tank. What distinguished this smoking brown Hulk from others he had seen that day was the single, blackened, claw-like hand and forearm that was thrust out of the turret toward the sky.

• 16:17Jocko Willink?

  The fingers were separate and more than half-c curled like the talon of a striking eagle.

• 16:25Jocko Willink?

  But this hand was not striking. It seemed rather to be calling down an imprecation on the fate that had let it die there in agony.

• 16:40Jocko Willink?

  So now he gets to the regimental commander. "Well, boom, the regimental commander, what's going on?"

• 16:46Jocko Willink?

  "I've just been trying to get to you." John saluted it as he answered. "Sir, we're stuck at the second hedgerow, and I had to use my reserves to protect my flanks. It doesn't look as if we'll get to La Forge today unless we have better luck later."

• 17:01Jocko Willink?

  "Have many casualties? I don't know about the companies yet because I haven't had any reports from them except the yells about their flanks and counterattacks. But Nab was wounded early, Sadler is dead, and I've lost two operators besides three other men out of my own CP group."

• 17:20Jocko Willink?

  He was still too full of his experience not to want to tell about it. The Colonel listened sympathetically. "Well, he said, when the major was through, we've got to keep going regardless.

• 17:32Jocko Willink?

  Division wants to get La Forge tonight."

• 17:37Jocko Willink?

  So yeah, you just had that rough day, first day of combat. Guess what? We're still going. And you know, one of the things that in that opening paragraph that I pointed out was you could see his reaction when that first gunfight broke out. His reaction was sort of overwhelming, overwhelmed by the whole scenario. But his two guys, and what happened is, and you know, he talks about this in the book, but he had gone on to Normandy, but he wasn't in charge of a battalion yet. He was sort of back with the regimental command. And then one of the battalion commanders was out of the fight and I forget if the battalion commander was killed or wounded, but he went and took this battalion commander's job.

• 18:17Jocko Willink?

  So he wasn't on the real front lines until they were starting to push through France a little bit. And it was only a matter of days, but these, well, I guess it was 11 days because these guys, he said that these other guys had been on the front lines for 11 days. So these guys, it's been 11 days, but guess what? They're, they start getting shot at, boom, they're in, they're in the mode, they're returning fire. And you could see their returning fire really close, so close that it scared him.

• 18:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:43Jocko Willink?

  And, and that's one of the things that, you know, a lot of times I talk about simunition and training with simunition and how awesome it is. And that's totally true. And I love training with simunition and it really is very beneficial for your tactical skill level. But you also absolutely have to do live fire. And the reason you have to do live fire, I mean, there's a bunch of reasons you have to do it. You know, you have to learn to shoot real bullets and hit real targets or with your bullets. But also guns are loud and you need to condition yourself to be used to having a, a mark 48 machine gun, four inches, maybe not four inches, but like 16 inches from your head.

• 19:27Jocko Willink?

  And your buddy is dumping rounds downrange and you have to be able to think during that and not be overwhelmed by it.

• 19:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, the, the simunition, that's what I was gonna ask, like how, what's the difference in loudness?

• 19:39Jocko Willink?

  It's not even comparable.

• 19:40Speaker 01

  So is it, so it's not even really like a gunshot?

• 19:42Jocko Willink?

  No, it's not like a gunshot. It's not comparable. It's not, the noise is not comparable. The noise is, is less than a cap gun.

• 19:48Speaker 01

  Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, like a airsoft or something like this.

• 19:51Jocko Willink?

  A gun is loud and a mark forty eight machine gun.

• 19:54Speaker 01

  This is really loud.

• 19:55Jocko Willink?

  Really loud and it's sending little shock waves.

• 19:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:58Jocko Willink?

  Every round is like a little shock wave that you get.

• 20:00Speaker 01

  Little.

• 20:00Jocko Willink?

  And so that's why when that's why it is so important to train live fire and it's also important to be comfortable. Not only yourself shooting in close proximity with other people, but also them shooting near you because you've got to trust the guys that are around you. Now there's standard operating procedures that there's things that you don't do. That keep it safe, but it's still, I mean, when somebody makes a bad, if somebody makes a really bad mistake, they can walk into your field of fire.

• 20:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:29Jocko Willink?

  And so you have to be heads up, but you still have to take shots with people that are really close to you.

• 20:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, in a firefight, by the way.

• 20:37Jocko Willink?

  Well, yeah, in a firefight, but if you haven't done it during training, your first, your first minute in a firefight is going to be just, just overwhelmed. And you're not going to be overwhelmed by enemy fire. You're going to be overwhelmed by your own guy shooting.

• 20:50Speaker 01

  The mirror.

• 20:51Jocko Willink?

  And you're going to be hitting, getting hit by brass and, and just it hurts.

• 20:56Speaker 01

  Hot brass.

• 20:57Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, hot brass and the, the links coming out of a mark forty eight are like little weapons themselves. And when they hit you, they, they, yeah. We had a, one of our machine gunners was a, a lefty and he picked up and started shooting. He, he picked up a machine gun and started shooting left-handed and that dumps the brass basically right into your right bicep. And he had, he had a bruise on his, on his right arm that looked like somebody beat him with a, with a baseball bat in the arm. That's what a mark forty eight ejector port does to you. Doesn't play around. So again, going back to the situation he's in right now, he's, he's had all these casualties and they're like, the major says, hey, yep.

• 21:41Jocko Willink?

  Regardless, we gotta keep going, which is, which is the way war actually is.

• 21:49Jocko Willink?

  So that night, um, he has a little company, little huddle with the company commanders. And you know, just to, just to kind of spell this out, if you're wondering what this is all about. So he's got the, he's a battalion commander. So, and he's actually got this written out in the book, but a battalion, a battalion in 1944 was about 900 guys, 900 men, 28 officers. You got three companies, the three companies are broken down into three platoons. Each one of those platoons has a platoon leader, but each one of the companies has a company commander, usually a captain. And so that's what he's talking about. So he, so those are your kind of your 150 man fighting elements are these companies with three platoons in them of 50 people each about.

• 22:34Jocko Willink?

  And it's weird because people always think the military is everything's perfectly structured, but actually this, this changes all the time, not based on, like based on your mission. You know, sometimes you, you might have a platoon that needs to get plus up or a company that's short of people. So there's no, there's no consistent, just all the time number. Let me see what he says. The actual number that they were supposed to have in a, in a company at this time was each rifle company was made up of six officers and 186 men. That's what they were supposed to have in them. Now you're going to find out real quick that they rarely have even close to a hundred, but that's what they're supposed to have. So at this point, he's bringing in these three company commanders to talk to them about kind

• 23:18Jocko Willink?

  of a plan and also to get a debrief on, on what happened during the day and what they're planning to do ahead. Here we go. Back to the book. He thought a moment, and this is, this is a, one of the company commanders named Lieutenant Ryan, and he's talking and he says, he thought a moment and then added, "We might make it across the road if we pour a lot of smoke and mortars into them and then rush them, but it'll take, but it'll, but it's getting awfully late to be beating around in this kind of country." So they're trying to figure out how to move forward and Lieutenant Ryan, that was kind of Lieutenant Ryan's suggestion. "Let's mortar them, put a bunch of smoke out, and then we can move." But guess what? It's getting late and if we're running around, once it gets dark, it's going to get scary. Ryan stopped and looked at Kenny. It was Kenny's turn. And Kenny, you're going to find out is a legit badass.

• 24:04Jocko Willink?

  Sir, I only had a few minutes to look things over before Weddell came along and invited me back here to see you, but that orchard is a terrible place. No cover anywhere. Machine guns covering every inch of it. We lost a lot of men in there the first time. He paused. But we'll do the best we can. Well, rough or not, we're going ahead, the major stated flatly. By the way, Kenny just took over for, for one of the company commanders that had been wounded or killed. Now, they start pushing and all of a sudden, they're pushing forward and again, I have to skip through this book and I'm trying to highlight the leadership scenarios or the

• 24:48Jocko Willink?

  things that reveal the way human beings react in hard situations. But when you read this book yourself, you can really follow the tactical decision-making process and also how the battles went and what happened. Obviously, I can't go through the whole thing right now, but at this point, they had started pressing and all of a sudden, he sees guys running away, running. So, you know, as the company commander, and he talks about this where he positions himself and obviously doesn't position himself right on the front with the platoons, he's back a little bit. And at this point, guys start, he sees guys are running back towards him. At first, he thinks it might be Germans. No, it's Americans. It's his guys. And here we go, back to the book. The major got to his feet. He started a crouching run to the left. He had nearly

• 25:32Jocko Willink?

  reached the end of the field when four or five men yelling, "Don't shoot, don't shoot", piled over the hedgerow that separated Charlie and Baker companies. He stopped, carbine alert. As he lowered his gun, wondering what this was all about, a figure stepped out from the hedgerow and voiced the same question. What's going on here, anyway? Just what's this all about? It was Lieutenant Iperian, arms spread wide to catch the running men. Carbine slung over his shoulder, the picture of calm. He caught the leading man by his jacket, which piled the others up in a tight little knot. The man panted, "Crouds, paratroopers, they're right behind us, run!"

• 26:14Jocko Willink?

  Iperion glanced over the man's shoulder unmoved. Well now, I don't see any Krauts, just look. The men looked back. All they could see were several Charlie Company men standing quietly rifles ready. The leader of the runaways relaxed, then shuddered violently. Iperion went on, I don't think there's any Krauts chasing you at all. Let's just go see about this. The man tried to pull away from him, but there were, he cried, there were, I tell you. They came right over the hedgerow and shot down, right down the whole squad. They got the sergeant and all the rest. We're the only ones left. They nearly got me, look. He poked a finger through a hole in his jacket.

• 26:55Jocko Willink?

  But Iperion, unimpressed, moved in the direction of Baker Company even as the man protested, dragging him along while the others followed meekly. Well, Iperion went on, let's just go see what Captain Weddle has to say about the, all this. He called softly to the men guarding the company flank. See anything? No, sir, the answer came back quickly and calmly. The mortar observer and his little group of panic-stricken men disappeared over the hedgerow.

• 27:23Jocko Willink?

  The major knew he had just seen a wonderful example of leadership at its very finest. Iperion quickly, calmly, and efficiently had stopped what could have been a rout. So, one leader steps out, and really what he's doing? If you think about it, he's detached. Because he wasn't in that situation where some Germans came over and obviously shot at him or at close range, killed a couple of guys, you know, would have, would have wounded this soldier who got shot through his jacket. But he just gets, he kinda gets the guy to detach, hey, look, there's no one there. Calm down, let's go have a look. Let's take a step back.

• 28:05Jocko Willink?

  And that kinda calmness prevented everyone, because, because what can go in the other direction? Right? What can go in the other direction? You see people running? That's what happens, you see people running, you start running. And you know that, that was very interesting in the, in the, I don't know if you remember some of those police shootings where, I remember there was one in New York City where something like fifty-seven rounds were fired at somebody that was unarmed.

• 28:30Jocko Willink?

  And everyone's going, why, why was everyone shooting? And I'll tell you what happens is, you know, for some reason, they think if you think somebody's has a weapon or a suspect or is going to do something bad. And now you've got five or six people that are holding a gun on them. Well, when one's person starts shooting, when people are not detached and when people are caught up in the moment, everyone starts pulling the trigger and it's, it's, it can be really devastating. Can be really devastating.

• 29:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:02Jocko Willink?

  So, but when people are used to that kind of stress and they're calm and they're detached. One person takes a shot, you, you, you actually, instead of just firing yourself, you actually assess and say, okay, what is he shooting at? I need to get cover. So there's, that's why that training is so important to get people at a high stress level. And still think through things and still be detached. The stress is going to be there, put it in a box, monitor it, don't get in it.

• 29:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:29Jocko Willink?

  Cause you're going to make bad decisions. You might not make any decision, you might just go off your reactions, which are, I'm sitting here with a gun, people are shooting, I'm going to shoot too.

• 29:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's not, I mean, it's like I say, when you're not trained, you don't have experience in those types of situations. Like you're the shooting example.

• 29:46Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 29:46Speaker 01

  It's, it's one of those things where you see it in jujitsu when you start, it's exact, literally the exact same thing where, so in a shooting situation, one guy shoots, you hear the gunfire. Basically your brain just says, okay, it's on.

• 29:58Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 29:58Speaker 01

  It's a hundred percent, let's go, a full speed, hundred percent, it's on, you can't like gun, shots are being fired, it's not not on. You gotta go a hundred percent. So in jujitsu, when you first start, you know how like the guy's just going full speed the whole time?

• 30:12Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 30:12Speaker 01

  You know, you're in a spot where it's like you, you can't move here, you can't, you're completely trapped right here. Not submission necessarily, but you're trapped and like it's going crazy, you know?

• 30:20Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 30:20Speaker 01

  Good, just because you don't know, it's on, it's either it's on or it's not on. Yeah. So when you're trained, you just know.

• 30:25Jocko Willink?

  The difference is though, you're, what you're talking about is an individual, individual moment. What I'm talking about is group, it's a group think scenario.

• 30:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:33Jocko Willink?

  Where, you know, just like it, it happens when there's a, a gunshot and everyone starts running. People, but the people in the back of the crowd don't even know what they're running from.

• 30:43Speaker 01

  Gotcha.

• 30:43Jocko Willink?

  They just see people running, so they're running.

• 30:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's true.

• 30:45Jocko Willink?

  Well, you imagine how amped you are, you think there's a bad guy in a dark alley and you're, you're there with four of your police partners or your, or your. Your military partners, you're looking down now, you think there's a insurgent there and all of a sudden a round cracks off. You're lucky and there's a, there's a situation that happened where there, where there was an Iraqi soldier that had an accidental discharge. You know what that is like we, like it was Leif's platoon and Leif's, Leif's platoon was taking down a building. And I was actually outside the building, you know, cause we were taking down multiple buildings, but they were in one building. And all of a sudden, crack, crack, crack, couple of rounds get shot off.

• 31:26Jocko Willink?

  And you know what? It was actually, I'm pretty sure that it was, I'm pretty sure Andrew Paul. This is a whole cast of characters. I'm pretty sure Andrew Paul was at like the head of the train or close to the front of the train. In, inside that they were inside this building, rounds get fired. And Andrew Paul's thinking, okay, I think, I think I remember Andrew Paul telling me this, Andrew Paul's like, okay, well, we're going to grenade these. We're going to throw frag grenades into this next room because people are shooting at us. And it was a guy, another heads up guy, a couple of feet back. That knew where the gunfire came from and where it came from was an Iraqi soldier, friendly Iraqi soldier had cracked off rounds. And Accidentally.

• 32:04Jocko Willink?

  Accidentally. And you know, luckily that, that guy was a great guy, really heads up guy grabbed him, almost killed, almost choked the shit out of him right there. But can you imagine you're clearing a house where there's suspected insurgents? And all of a sudden rounds are fired. Well, now you're, but this is the discipline. Yeah. And, and the guys knew, okay, the guys didn't all just freak out and started shooting. The guys were, you know, somebody said, hey, somebody grabbed the person that shot, hey, that was an AD. Okay. Wrap it back down, wind it down, everyone calm, you know what I mean? So there's the difference between guys that have been trained really well. And when you haven't been through that kind of training and also luckily that was, that didn't happen on the, the second night of deployment.

• 32:46Jocko Willink?

  We were, you know, further into the deployment where guys had been through, it's just like we just talked about. Guys had, guys had been through plenty of firefights at this point, so they weren't freaked out that there was gunshots. They were like, okay, wait a second, where is this gunshots coming from? But that could have gone really, really nasty.

• 33:05Jocko Willink?

  So train, train realistically.

• 33:08Jocko Willink?

  All right, at this point, and also, just like some of the other books we've read about World War II, where we've got, you know, it's basically a movement. It's basically continually moving, trying to take down targets, trying to move forward, trying to get through France, trying to get to Berlin. That's, that's the situation. And it's the same thing here. These guys, this, these battalions and this regiment, and they're basically the whole task force is trying to move from, from city to city or town to town through France. And that's what's going on here. So it's, it's a continual series of attack, dig in, attack, dig in, attack, dig in. And, you know, you can tell from the title of the book, what they're going for is this, this final, you know, city of Saint Lo in France. So

• 33:53Jocko Willink?

  at this point, there's an attack that they were getting ready to go on, and he's trying to figure out why it got canceled. And he's talking to the commander. And he says, I think, I think you got farther from where you started than anyone else. So he's telling, he's telling Major Johns, your battalion went further than anyone else. Back to the book, in fact, I believe that's why division canceled your attack. If you'd made La Forge, you would have been way out on a limb and stood a chance of being cut off. Major Johns, elated at their comparative success, was thankful that he had not renewed the attack and perhaps made another 500 or 1,000 yards. They would have been out front like clay

• 34:36Jocko Willink?

  pigeons for anyone to knock down. It was the first time he had seen a practical application of what was popularly known as the big picture, supposedly concocted for edification of high brass and war correspondents, yet sufficiently vague to cover a certain amount of error on the ground. So the reason I, I wanted to call that out is, he's admitting that, from his perspective, like, why are you stopping my attack? And at this point, they had, they'd gotten bogged down, then they were ready to go again, then they got bogged down, and now they were ready to go. And they get told to stop. And so his first reaction is kind of, what are you, wait, why are we stopping? We've actually got some momentum right now. And then he finds out that, from the big picture, the reason you're not attacking

• 35:21Jocko Willink?

  is because you're too far out ahead, everyone. If you get, go any further, you might get surrounded and cut off. Now- This is a situation where understanding why? Why is so helpful? And especially if you push that all the way down to the frontline troops and to the frontline leadership. That's out there thinking, hey, we finally made some, some offensive progress and we can move and we can really take it to the enemy. And now you're telling us to stop? What is going on? The headquarters is stupid. They don't get it. They don't understand. Actually, they do understand. But they need to do a better job of explaining why so that the people know.

• 36:07Jocko Willink?

  Alright, moving on to this next section. Here, he's checking out kind of his line now that they're, now that they're dug in a little bit. He'd gone to regiment. You know, it's really easy to forget that these guys, and I talk about this a bit, but the, the best type of communications that they have is when they actually run the wires between different, between regiment, between battalions, between the companies. They, they try and run wires because the radios are fairly temperamental on whether they work or not. So they use radios as a backup, but the primary communication is, is running a wire. And he had just gone back to regiment to meet face to face because meeting face to face is very important.

• 36:48Jocko Willink?

  And, you know, he just comes back up and he asks one of the company commander, actually, I think it was his, his ops officer, Newcomb. He says, hey, any news? And Newcomb, his ops officer says, nope, everything's quiet as a church. The S3 looked at the battalion commander in the starlight and grinned as he went on. Now, Major, you don't have to concern yourself with everything up here. You just leave the details to us. We're used to looking after them. So, a little bit of decentralized command. Don't worry about it, boss. We, we, we got this. We're gonna be alright.

• 37:24Jocko Willink?

  Now, next day rolls around, and here we go, back to the book. Around ten hundred, the Germans shelled the battalion heavily, but they didn't follow up, follow this up with an attack. By eleven hundred, the wounded had all been evacuated, and the wire lines had been relayed to the regiment. The major instructed Grimzel to collect all five company commanders and meet him as soon as possible at the crossroads of the edge of the woods from which they had first attacked. It was only a little way from the regimental command post to the edge of the woods. He got there well before the others. When they came up a few minutes later, he missed Newcombe before he caught the meaning of their odd manner.

• 38:06Jocko Willink?

  Grimzel's set face should have given him a hint, as the S2 stepped forward, saluted very stiffly, and said with visible effort to keep his emotions under control, "Sir, I must report that Captain Newcombe is dead."

• 38:21Jocko Willink?

  The others looked silently at the ground, and tears began to stream down the gentle Grimzel's face. The news struck the major with the force of a physical blow. Of all the fine men he had met since taking command of the battalion, Newcombe had been one of the very best. He was quick, willing, and intelligent, wise far beyond his twenty-four, twenty-five years. He also stared at the ground for a moment, and then asked quietly, "How did it happen?" Ryan spoke up. "Same sniper, same place as the dock." So, a dock had been killed earlier by a sniper. "One of my men warned Nuke to stay out of that gap in the hedgerow, but he took the

• 39:06Jocko Willink?

  steel part of his helmet off and sat down on it, right square in the gap itself. The sergeant, who thought the captain must have gone nuts all of a sudden, was coming after him to drag him away, but too late.

• 39:19Jocko Willink?

  The sniper got him right in the temple."

• 39:22Jocko Willink?

  Johns felt numb inside.

• 39:25Jocko Willink?

  But to dwell on his sorrow wouldn't help. Nodding solemnly, he leveled his finger at Captain Weddle. "You are now Lagoon Red Three, but you will retain command of your company until we complete the move into these woods." Weddle, equally grave, replied, "Yes, sir. I have a little news, too. Lieutenant Chadwick got half his helmet knocked off by a burp gun during all that shooting a while ago. He caught either a part of his helmet or some of the slugs in his arm. He's out, but he isn't hurt badly. He'll be back." Major Johns, who had never met Chadwick, merely nodded again. "It didn't hurt so much when you didn't know the man.

• 40:06Jocko Willink?

  Furthermore, a wound, regardless of its severity, lacked the awful finality of death."

• 40:14Jocko Willink?

  Chadwick's temporary loss meant one less officer, whereas Newcomb's death left a hole in his heart.

• 40:22Jocko Willink?

  Although he knew Weddle would probably be a good S32, Newcomb, in the four short days he had known him, had become a friend.

• 40:32Jocko Willink?

  Grimsel had moved a little away from the others. He was leaning against a tree, his head down and the curve of his arms, sobs shaking his body. He and Newcomb had become close friends for years and had worked together daily. The major spoke to Captain Menzer, the headquarters' company commander. "See the Lieutenant Grimsel is pulled off somewhere where it's quiet and give him a chance to lie down and get some rest. If he objects, tell him it's an order. I don't want to see him around anymore today." Menzer, small and dapper, saluted sharply. "Yes, sir. I'll look after George, all right."

• 41:19Jocko Willink?

  These guys are taking casualties at just an incredible amount. And, you know, you see a couple of things in here that we've heard before. You know, you see the major realizing that, that Grimsel, he's done. He needs a break. And, you know, he says, get him off the line. Get him somewhere he can take a break.

• 41:45Jocko Willink?

  And you also see these guys filling billets and just getting promoted. You know, battlefield promoted. The guy was one of the company commanders, Weddle. He becomes the, he becomes the operations officer. Boom, on the spot. It's, it's

• 42:06Jocko Willink?

  really, you can see why this book was one of Hackworth's favorite books.

• 42:14Jocko Willink?

  So now they're, they're holed up for a while. And here we go back to the book. Ten days dragged by while the battalion sat in Boy de Brede. If the days were sometimes dull, they were rarely uneventful. Men were wounded or killed nearly every day by artillery, mortars, or the fire from self-propelled 88s that could move unseen into positions from which they could fire into the tops of trees of the bois and then pull back before the artillerymen could bring fire on them.

• 42:45Jocko Willink?

  Those casualties were bad enough, but they were to be expected. There was one incident that the battalion commander thought they could have got along very nicely without. Regiment had directed that the battalion's erect barbed wire along their whole front, which they did cheerfully. But when a truckload of anti-personnel mines came down, the major looked at them with misgivings. Those things were as dangerous to the people who laid them as those, as they were to the enemy, he thought. So he supervised the, the mine laying carefully, meticulously noting the location of each mine on a large scale sketch of the area being mined.

• 43:24Jocko Willink?

  The day after all the mines were laid, he heard the flat, muffled roar of a landmine. At once, he ran toward the sound. He got there with the aid men to watch with sorrow and anger while they evacuated three men from the middle of their own minefield. One of them was dead. The last litter carried Iperion, who, badly hit in the legs with several fragments, did not know how severely he was hurt.

• 43:54Jocko Willink?

  The other wounded man, unconscious, was being placed on the medical jeep when still another litter came around the corner of the little farmhouse that stood on the edge of the woods. The man on this litter had his eyes closed, his face twisting horribly.

• 44:10Jocko Willink?

  He jerked over, he jerked all over, bringing his legs up so hard the aid men had to hold him down on the litter.

• 44:17Jocko Willink?

  The major, looking at the man in wonder, asked, "What's the matter with him?"

• 44:23Jocko Willink?

  The aid men were contemptuous.

• 44:26Jocko Willink?

  "Ah," said one, "this guy never got hit by nothing. He was in a hole fifty yards from where it happened, but he started screaming and yelling and carrying on something awful. We thought he was hit, but he ain't got a hole in him. He was like this when we got to him."

• 44:42Jocko Willink?

  Johns realized he had just seen his first case of neuropsychosis, commonly called combat exhaustion, or CE.

• 44:53Jocko Willink?

  It wasn't the only one he was to see.

• 45:00Jocko Willink?

  So, you got, I guess that's, is that friendly fire? Is that friendly fire when you hit one of your own landmines?

• 45:11Jocko Willink?

  Nightmare.

• 45:14Jocko Willink?

  Now...

• 45:17Jocko Willink?

  And also, you start seeing some psychological damage to guys on the front line. And, you know, that guy's not gonna be any good. He can't fight, he's literally screaming and jerking around, they have to hold him down.

• 45:37Jocko Willink?

  Alright, now the battalion is gonna move and take over a whole area from the 3rd Armored Division and it's in, moving into this area, it's got 300 replacements coming in. So, so think about that. Battalion's supposed to be 900 people and they're getting 300 replacements. So that tells you, and again, I am breezing, I'm skipping, I'm not even breezing, I'm not breezing through, I'm skipping so much of the fighting and combat in this book, but it's just going on continuously. And at this point, they're going in, they have, they already have 300 replacements. So they've, they've had 300 people, you know, taken out or, or either, either wounded or killed.

• 46:22Jocko Willink?

  So at this point, Lieutenant Ryan's company is on a patrol and they're gonna go set up an outpost into some pretty, pretty rough area.

• 46:37Jocko Willink?

  And as the patrol's out there, here we go, then came the first shots from the patrol. They were going in well and it looked for a few seconds as if Ryan was gonna get to his outpost. But a flare of three Red Star clusters floated up from the German lines and all hell broke loose again.

• 46:55Jocko Willink?

  Every Kraut gun that had been used to help stop the 3rd Armored, plus probably a few that had come in late, opened up on about 150 yards of the Able Company front. It was concentrated thunderous murder such as no one in the battalion had ever seen before. Ryan's line was a mass of seething, leaping flame that looked as if it were fed from below rather than from an inconceivable torrent of shells that came on and on and on.

• 47:30Jocko Willink?

  The barrage switched suddenly from the company to the battalion command post area itself. The battalion commander and his staff, hearing the first whine of the shells, dived for the new command post hole where they huddled while the walls shuddered and dirt rained down from the roof. Concussion blew out the candles, but nobody was hurt. The German gunners switched to C Company for a few rounds, then went right back to their prime target, Able Company.

• 48:01Jocko Willink?

  While they were pounding Kenny's Company, a single short call came in over the 300, which is their radio. Able 6 is clipped. That meant Ryan had been hit, but there were no details. Twenty minutes after that pretty red star cluster went up, all was quiet again, except for some moans and cries for medics that floated back from Able Company. But at least no German infantry had come in under fire. In that 20 minutes, the Company lost 54 men plus its company commander. Almost every man in the patrol had been caught above ground and was killed or wounded, while most of the other casualties came from tree and hedge row bursts that sent fragments down into the holes.

• 48:47Jocko Willink?

  The men of the command post group gathered around the hole, silently watched the parade of walking wounded that filed slowly by on their way to the aid station. Occasionally, a man would stumble or waver, whereupon a messenger or wireman would jump to help him. Every aid man and litter in the battalion was already up at the Able line, and the first litters were not far behind the walking wounded.

• 49:14Jocko Willink?

  Some of the victims moaned and a few cried out, a little now and then, but most were very quiet.

• 49:23Jocko Willink?

  Johns was glad he could not see their faces in the dark.

• 49:28Jocko Willink?

  The last litter went by with no word from Ryan. Johns was beginning to hope he hadn't been hurt badly. When four men loomed out of the darkness, each carrying a corner of a blanket. Ryan was half sitting, half lying in the makeshift litter, gritting his teeth at the pain of the wounds in an arm and a leg. They laid the blanket down gently in front of the major, who stripped off his coat and laid it over the company commander.

• 49:57Jocko Willink?

  Ryan managed to work up a feeble grin.

• 50:01Jocko Willink?

  "It didn't work too good, did it boss?"

• 50:16Jocko Willink?

  That's...

• 50:21Jocko Willink?

  You know, when you're the company, when you're the battalion commander and you come up with a plan with the company commander and you think you've got everything right and...

• 50:30Jocko Willink?

  You lose fifty-four guys in a company in twenty minutes.

• 50:36Jocko Willink?

  And your company commander comes back and says it didn't go too good, did it boss? It's a heavy weight.

• 50:47Jocko Willink?

  Now, they do end up pushing forward, they get some ground, and...

• 50:54Jocko Willink?

  He's out checking and you're gonna, you're gonna find this out and he talks about it, but... He, he goes forward to find out what's going on and make sure the guys see him. And at one point, he's checking an outpost. A little outpost where they're guarding this certain area. And all the guys in the group are focused on a tank, an old burned out tank that's out there in front of them. And he comes up to them and here we go back to the book. Johns pointed to the corner. "Does it take all three of you to watch that tank while the whole German army could crawl up to within ten feet of you without knowing it?"

• 51:30Jocko Willink?

  The sergeant's mouth dropped open. "God, Major, I never even thought about it after they shot at us from the tank last time." Well, you better damn straight start thinking about your flanks if you want it. If you want to end up being able to think at all. I wouldn't give a damn if they knocked all three you stupid bastards out. But if they got you, they'd have a good chance of getting into the middle of your company. And I wouldn't like that. Now damn you, start thinking. Again, you know what? He's detached. Those guys just got shot at from those ta- that tank. They're not worried about their flank.

• 52:13Jocko Willink?

  They're worried about that tank, another sniper being in there, another machine gunner sneaking up into it. So he's detached, he rolls up and sees, "Hey, I see that you're focused on the tank, but you can't, you gotta keep thinking." Going back to the book, orders came down during the night directing Lagoon Red, Major John's 1st Battalion of the 115th Infantry Regiment, would relieve Lemon Red by midnight of the following day. Lemon was codenamed for the 116th, whose Red 1st Battalion was holding the line to the left of where Lagoon Red had hopped off nearly three weeks before. So they're going up to relieve and, and hold the line.

• 52:55Jocko Willink?

  They're going up to, to, to take positions and hold them. Meeting the commander of this, of this group that they're taking the place of, back to the book, the big commander introducing himself shook hands all around. Then he took a deep breath and started in on a careful, detailed briefing. "Fellows," he said, "this is a hot spot. I know you've all been in hot, lots of them before, but please take my word for it. This one is really hot." He paused and looked at the officers as if to make sure they were going to take his word for it. Then he went on, "We've got Nazi paratroopers on the other side of the hedgerows. They're the best that Hitler has and they know it. They don't give us much rest. We don't give them any."

• 53:43Jocko Willink?

  We have casualties every day, so please do your best not to cause any more than we have to take anyway. My boys have been here for two weeks now and they're getting right touchy, so if any of you get snapped at, don't pay attention to it, just go on and they'll get over it. So this guy's guys are pretty burnt out at this point. And they do this, they do this turnover. And he goes out and again, the turnover happens, there's more combat, there's more casualties. And then he's going out, but they had things settled down and he's going out to check the line. And here we go back to the book.

• 54:28Jocko Willink?

  As usual, Major Johns asked a number of men how they were getting along. He got one answer that surprised him. A sergeant said, "Well, sir, everything's okay. It's a tough spot, but I figure we're as good as any other outfit to hold it down and somebody's got to do it. But I sure wish the major would get around and see us more often." Does the man a world of good to see you down here in the lines? The major, who had thought he was getting around about as often as any battalion commander should, was seriously concerned because this sergeant didn't seem to think so. Instead of being annoyed, he was pleased that the man had the uncommon guts to say what he thought, whether or not he was right. So, there you go, battalion commander. Instead of getting all mad that this sergeant says something, he's actually thankful.

• 55:13Jocko Willink?

  He answered, "Okay, Sarge, you'll see me around a lot more in the future." The sergeant saluted sharply. Whereupon Stone, this is the new company commander, Stone and the major went on, Stone trying to stammer out an apology for the brash sergeant. Johns cut him off, but not before Stone had volunteered the statement that he himself thought the major got around more than any other battalion commander he'd ever seen. The fact that Stone had not seen many battalion commanders did not escape Johns, who smiled to himself as the company commander lapsed into an embarrassed silence.

• 55:48Jocko Willink?

  On the way back to battalion, he reviewed his own approach to the problem of leadership. He knew that he must prove himself, especially his courage, to every man in the outfit if he expected to get the maximum from them.

• 56:03Jocko Willink?

  He felt that he had done so fairly effectively as far as C Company was concerned because he stayed with them that night for the counterattack that had threatened their left flank. Also, his personal intelligence service told him that A Company had approved the little battle he and Grimsal and Martin had had with the machine gun that had killed Jimmy and Sadler. So he's got his own, like, notice that his personal intelligence service? That means he's got, I've talked about this before, where you got your own guys that are telling you what's going on. So his own little guys had told him that A Company, they respected him, they knew he was gonna get after it.

• 56:42Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book, but it was apparent that this was going to be a company by company proposition. Baker Company didn't seem to be impressed. He'd have to do something about that.

• 56:56Jocko Willink?

  Now, this is just another thing about leadership. There, he's on a field phone, and again, I talked about how they put these wires in, and he's on a field phone, and he gets done making something happen on the field phone, and puts down the phone on the table. The phone rang before anyone could say anything. Johns picked it up, barking, "Red Six." That's his call sign. The operator's voice came through clearly, "Are you finished?" "Yes, I am," he slammed it back on the table. Weddell shook his head. "You forgot to ring off, Major. Sergeant Wilson gives the operators hell if they don't make sure the lines are clear." Sergeant Wilson was the acting communications officer. The original man had been killed, and Wilson was doing a fine job. He'd been in for a commission for quite a while. Johns picked up the phone and twisted the crank on the leather case.

• 57:42Jocko Willink?

  The operator answered instantly, "Yes, sir." What's your name, operator? Private Henderson, sir. The voice was a little uncertain. Okay, Private Henderson, you keep doing your job the way you're supposed to. Don't mind me if I snap at you once in a while. I'm sorry. He finished. He started to lay the phone down, smiled, picked it up and added, finished. So again, you can see he's a guy that doesn't get all crazy when, when, you know, when people come to him and say, hey, you're supposed to sign off the line. I gotta keep these lines open. You're not signing off the line. Are you done?

• 58:20Jocko Willink?

  You see egomaniac leaders do that. Get crazy on stupid stuff. They're not following their own rules.

• 58:31Jocko Willink?

  Now, talking about this network, talking about these communications, here we go back to the book. This, this network of communications enabled three men to keep accurate minute by minute track of all that was going over on the entire front, covered by nearly 600 men. From this one spot, they could direct the lives of all those men, actors in the most thrilling and awful drama of all time. So the way that they're doing this, and I should have explained this earlier, is you have the battalion commander, and he has a small staff of people that stay with him most of the time. His operations officer, his communications officer, his intelligence officer. And what they do is when they get to certain positions, they find a command post, a CP.

• 59:13Jocko Willink?

  And when they're in the field, what they do is they dig a big giant foxhole and they make it as good as they can. They put logs over the top of it. They put dirt on top of that or sandbags or something. So they're pretty, they, they're trying to get pretty secure in there from overhead artillery attacks. And then they run wires out to set up communications with all these, all the company commanders, who have their own little command posts. And obviously this thing isn't permanent because it has to be mobile because tomorrow night, the next night, we might move another thousand yards or 500 yards and then that, that foxhole that we'd dug isn't doing us any good anymore.

• 59:53Jocko Willink?

  But from this little command post that they set up, they're, they're running this whole show.

• 59:59Jocko Willink?

  Now, he talks about his decision making here. Back to the book. If he made a wrong decision, he could cause men to lose their lives needlessly. Or, if he was clever or lucky, he might, by moving a single squad or platoon, or calling for fire support, defeat the enemy and gain additional glory for the unit. All without moving from his communications when in a defensive position such as this. Then he's talking here about like some of that drama that happens. Back to the book. A single rifle shot could mean the death of a company commander, or it could mean nothing. A mortar round might wipe out an outpost and lay a company open to a surprise attack, or it might only kick up a little dust and scar a few trees.

• 1:00:44Jocko Willink?

  A volley of artillery fire could come through the roof, over their heads, or it could burst harmlessly in the fields outside. A burst of fire from the orchard could mean another pig, because they had killed some pigs that they thought were enemy, or a full-scale German attack. Each sound built up a certain amount of suspense to greater or lesser degree. The ring of the phone itself built the tension higher and higher until the first words that came in would perhaps screw it even tighter or dispel it entirely. So, that's the life that they're living. And, just high pressure all the time. But, you know, you hear a massive explosion,

• 1:01:29Jocko Willink?

  and this is the same thing I think Leif was talking about on the podcast. You know, you'd hear an explosion, you have no idea what it is. You don't know if it's friendly, you don't know if it's a tank round being fired, you don't know if it's an IED going off, you don't know if it's a mortar round impacting, you can't... Maybe, maybe these guys got to a point where they could tell the difference, but I'll tell you what, you get into urban combat and there's, the sound is refracting off all the buildings, it's hard to tell where it came from, and it's definitely hard to tell what it is. And by the way, the artillery rounds that hit are what are being used as IEDs. So, you don't know what it is. Yeah. It's really hard to tell. But, it was weird too, in Ramadi, there was constant gunfire.

• 1:02:13Jocko Willink?

  Like, when you went outside, you'd just hear...

• 1:02:18Jocko Willink?

  It was always out there, you know, even if it was, even if it was on the other side of the city, I mean, you, you can maybe not the other side of the city, but if it was in downtown Ramadi and we were back at our base, you know, we'd go up on the rooftop of my building and sit there and you could just trace us all night, you know, the Marines down in the government center were getting attacked for the 14th night in a row. You know, the outpost, the, the army soldiers or Camp Craig or was getting mortared. I mean, it was just constantly happening.

• 1:02:47Speaker 01

  So what was it? Were you, if it's closer, that's when it's the concern or I guess it's just context in general, right?

• 1:02:53Jocko Willink?

  No, just the, this, the overall context. For us, for me, it was like, okay, you know, well, you just, you just knew that there was constant fighting going on. Constant fighting was going on. And yeah, I mean, obviously if it was closer than the louder it is and the closer it is, the more of a concern it becomes.

• 1:03:15Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, he talks about, again, this is a subject we hear about all the time. Uh, the German mortars and gunners must have registered to because they had the exact range of every foot of hedgerow held by the battalion. On the 10th of July, they covered almost every foot of the hedgerow. That sort of gunnery was rough on the men. They never knew when the first round would fall, but once it had splattered with its flat crash, they all knew that six or maybe a dozen more were coming, each one a little further up or down the hedgerow. When you heard that first one, you pulled the bottom of your foxhole right up to your belly and prayed. When you heard the second one, you knew whether or not they were coming your way.

• 1:04:00Jocko Willink?

  If they were coming towards you, it got right rough. Each round was a little closer and they were so damn deliberate about it that the waiting was worse than the crash of the shell itself. You lay there and counted the seconds between the shells until you knew that the next one was yours. The 20 seconds or so was the longest one in the world. Because you never knew if you were safe until the shell hit. It could hit anywhere outside your hole, even a matter of inches, and you were okay. If it hit in the hole with you, you'd never know it, of course.

• 1:04:38Jocko Willink?

  Actually, only a few shells ever made direct hits on foxholes, but some did, and nearly every man had seen a foxhole that had been hit. There was always the little tail fin section left on the surface. And after the litter bearers had come and gone, there was only a pool of dark muck to show that somebody had been in the hole. It happened twice that day. So, this one, you can, I don't know if you quite followed what's happening. These guys are in a hedgerow, so they're in a linear position, right? And the way you work mortars is you make small adjustments on them.

• 1:05:19Jocko Willink?

  And, and the way that you fire at targets when you don't know what the distance is, you, you put the first one's gonna be long. And then you, you adjust a lot shorter, so then you come back and it's called bracketing. So you, you know, you might come back five clicks. And then that was, now you're, now you're hit in front of the target. Now you go back, now you go forward again four clicks, it hits a little behind the target, now you come back three, two, one, and then boom, you hit your target.

• 1:05:44Speaker 01

  So on the mortar thing, there's like the actual tool that kinda adjusts it?

• 1:05:49Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you're adjusting the elevation.

• 1:05:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, so it's like, there's like a little dial.

• 1:05:53Jocko Willink?

  Up and down, a little dial. It's going up and down to, to fire at what angle you wanna fire at. So what you do is when you shoot a mortar, you, you, the first one you go long, the second one you estimate short, and then you basically can split the difference between those two. And you're gonna be pretty close. And like, you work with a, a legit mortar team, and the third round is gonna be pretty damn spot on. But what he's saying here is the Germans, they already knew the exact settings. For where to put, like, oh, we see movement at this part of the hedgerow. They don't need to take, they, they just go to their pre-designated settings. They can put a round right on that.

• 1:06:31Speaker 01

  So they kind of figured it out beforehand?

• 1:06:33Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, they figured it out beforehand. They know the exact, because what you, what you have to, you know the distance.

• 1:06:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:37Jocko Willink?

  You know the distance that the mortar shoots at a certain elevation, but what they don't know is, if you're trying to shoot at something that you don't know exactly where it is, well, then you have to estimate the distance, which is a little bit challenging to do. Now, a good sniper or a good mortar man are gonna be pretty close. You know, snipers know that, hey, this thing, they get it down to really, you know, how many meters it is. And same thing with a good mortar man. But even that, you know, when you're talking about a far distance of 800,000 meters, you might be off by 50 meters. And that's, you know, being off by 50 meters with a mortar is a big distance, not gonna kill the target that you're trying to hit. But with these Germans at this point, they already have everything measured and dialed. They have a range card is what we call it. A range card means like, I know, when you set up in a position, you get out your range finder and you find out

• 1:07:22Jocko Willink?

  what the range and distance of everything that you're looking at. So you know exactly how far it is. You can dial in your scope. Boom, oh, I see somebody over at that corner of that building. That's 832 meters. Boom, crack.

• 1:07:31Speaker 01

  Remember that game Battleship? Remember that?

• 1:07:34Jocko Willink?

  I do remember that game Battleship, yeah.

• 1:07:36Speaker 01

  It's like you can't see it, but you're kinda like that a little bit.

• 1:07:39Jocko Willink?

  It is. You're, you're basically, your first round's gonna be a little bit, if you hit something, then you gotta adjust. Yeah.

• 1:07:47Jocko Willink?

  So what the Germans, like I said, the Germans had

• 1:07:51Jocko Willink?

  these things pre-registered. And then what they would do is they would just drop, they would just hit the whole hedgerow. They'd go right down the line. And these guys knew that once the first round goes, it's either gonna be moving away from me on the hedgerow, or toward me.

• 1:08:06Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 1:08:06Jocko Willink?

  And so can you imagine the, the damn pressure? When you're sitting there, that first round goes, and now the next round, where's it gonna be further away from me? Meaning the Germans are gonna, are dialing away from me?

• 1:08:16Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:08:17Jocko Willink?

  Or are they dialing towards me? And then how many rounds are they gonna go?

• 1:08:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:21Jocko Willink?

  Because if they do enough rounds, you're, you're gonna be alright.

• 1:08:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's Battleship. They're there. The game, that's exactly what the.

• 1:08:28Jocko Willink?

  And what's interesting is those, like you said, if the, if the mortar hits outside of your foxhole by an inch, you're probably gonna be okay, because the mortar blast goes up and out when it hits the ground.

• 1:08:42Jocko Willink?

  If it hits in your foxhole, you're dead. And so there's this, this kind of randomness that you're dealing with.

• 1:08:51Jocko Willink?

  All right. Going back to the book, a little after this, after 1700, General Gerhardt came striding through the trees behind the company post hole. He came on serious business. That of giving orders for an attack. If he carried them by himself, they were important. "Gentlemen," he said with the edge to his voice that was impressive, "the division attacks tomorrow at 0600, all along the line." This is the drive for St. Lo. There were few details. The battalions would attack, as the general had said, at 0600. The 1st Battalion would advance in a southwesterly direction with the village of Bellefontaine as its initial objective.

• 1:09:36Jocko Willink?

  That was about all there was to it, except for the usual information concerning artillery support, supplies, location of regimental command post, and that sort of thing. So, pretty, pretty broad orders, like, hey, this is what we're gonna do. We're gonna attack tomorrow at 0600. The mission is to get St. Lo.

• 1:09:57Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book, by the time the order got down to the platoon leaders and their part, their part was pretty simple. All they in turn had to say was, "All right, gang, let's take the next hedgerow." When the company commanders had gone, the staff discussed the plan of attack. The question bothering Johns most of all was where to put the advanced command post group. He wanted to hold casualties to the barest minimum, yet he wanted to be as far forward as possible. So he's talking about where should he actually position himself and his small team of battalion staff? Where should they position themselves? It's funny too, because when we talk about battalion staffing, you know, you talk about, I don't know, a battalion staff can be pretty big when you're in a big battalion, but this is not a big group. This is a small group.

• 1:10:42Jocko Willink?

  Especially because they've taken so many casualties. Back to the book, there were a number of good reasons for this. In the first place, keeping the command group close to the companies made a lot of difference in communications, particularly in this close wooded country. A clump of heavy trees or a high hedgerow could spell the margin between having contact and not having it. That was of supreme importance. Second, if he had, and this is why I always talk about keeping a plan simple. Because when you start getting split up from people and you can't maintain communications with them, the difference between not having communications and having communications is is night and day, it's disaster and success, it's victory and defeat.

• 1:11:25Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book, second, if he had to move a bog, if he had to move to a bogged down company or to any trouble spot, he wanted to have the shortest possible distance to go. So he wants to be close enough to have good communications. He also wants to be close enough that if something's going wrong, he can get there and make things happen. Third, the group couldn't afford to stay far behind in any event because they fully expected the German paratroopers to close in around them as soon as they started to advance. If the command post group were too far from the rifle companies, it would have a good chance of getting cut off and destroyed or captured. Then there was always the consideration that the men liked to know that the old man was not far behind. And to see him once in a while when the stuff was flying around.

• 1:12:09Jocko Willink?

  So these are things he's considering. They're getting ready, you know, it's now getting closer to the attack. Back to the book, the staff was uneasy. They didn't want to turn in. They couldn't say why. There had been other nights like this. They all sensed that everyone shared their own nameless fears.

• 1:12:30Jocko Willink?

  Now they start their movement. Suddenly a terrific firing broke out. Every German cannon, mortar, rifle and machine gun that had fired around that day cut loose simultaneously. The sound of mortars coughing on the German side blended with the scream of incoming shells. Grimsel and Hoffman slid down the steps of the hole before the first rounds hit. The phone rang. Major Johns grabbed it. Red Six. Charlie Sixer, we're catching hell down here with mortars and artillery. I think they, I think there's enemy infantry coming in under the fire. So the idea is cover and move. You, you do this as an infantry platoon or company or battalion. You put suppressive fire.

• 1:13:13Jocko Willink?

  So you start launching mortars at your enemy and then while they're all taking cover, you advance. And so that's what he's talking about. He says, I think there's enemy infantry coming in under the fire. Stone broke in. The operator having wisely sensed a crisis and cut him into the circuit. So the other company commander now tunes in. Same here, Major. Only I know there's infantry coming in. They're already in the road with us. So there's about to get some. His voice and manner were normally extremely quiet and easygoing. Now his tone was strident with urgency.

• 1:13:50Jocko Willink?

  Had it been anyone but Julian Stone, the Major might have thought it showed near panic. Okay, the both of you, he answered as calmly as he could. Stuff's coming in here, too. Fight him and keep me informed.

• 1:14:06Jocko Willink?

  Major Johns doesn't get excited about stuff very often. He says, oh, you're getting attacked? Cool. Fight him. Keep me informed. That, that's,

• 1:14:17Jocko Willink?

  that's how you eat.

• 1:14:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:21Jocko Willink?

  Now,

• 1:14:24Jocko Willink?

  at some point, all the wires that I talked about that were so important for communication. The kraut back at the aid station, they had a cat, they captured a guy, cried Weddell suddenly. He must have been part of the patrol that came through and cut all our wires. Hell, there haven't been enough shells to failing, falling to cut them all. The smart bastards. They even knew when we checked radios as well. So these guys set a small group of Germans went through the lines, probably right after a radio check, called all the wires.

• 1:14:59Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:02Jocko Willink?

  That's, that's how you kick off a, an attack, right? You screw up their communications.

• 1:15:10Jocko Willink?

  Now, at this point, they are, this is turning bad, real bad. And, and this is, again, there's so much great information in here and so, such good documentation of the way this combat takes place. But suffice it to say, at this point, I'm skipping forward, they are getting really crushed. They got mass casualties. They are, they're, when they advance, so imagine this, remember I talked about the Germans know exactly where their mortars are gonna hit? Well, the Americans will storm forward and fight hard and get to another hedgerow.

• 1:15:52Jocko Willink?

  When they get to this new hedgerow, where the Germans were, where they just beat the Germans out of there, the Germans have that hedgerow dialed as well. So, so now, as soon as they get positioned, they start getting immediate effective fire from mortar. So this is a total nightmare and that's what's happening. And at this point, they're completely bogged down. And this might be, you don't get to hear a story like this very often. So, the regimental executive Colonel Smith, Lieutenant Colonel Smith shows up. So, above the chain of command of the battalion is the regiment.

• 1:16:31Jocko Willink?

  And the, the senior person in the regiment is the Colonel, the regimental commander, and this is his executive, the person, the one down from the regimental commander, is this guy Lieutenant, Lieutenant Colonel Smith. And he shows up, and here's what he says, "What's the matter, Johns? Why aren't you getting anywhere?" Smith gasped. And this, he's gasped because he's running into this position. "The Major pointed to the bloody trail, to the dead men, to the shells that were savaging the trees, and finally in the direction of the nearby front, from which came the plodding sound of mortar fire. His eyes were lacking their usual snap, and he answered dully, 'They're too tough.'"

• 1:17:14Jocko Willink?

  Smith blinked several times. He was obviously trying to think of something to say, something that would inspire this listless battalion commander to new effort. Well, he finally brought out, "You gotta get going right away. Regiment has gotta move. You just gotta get going."

• 1:17:31Jocko Willink?

  Johns shook his head. He wasn't having any. "Not today," was all he would say.

• 1:17:38Jocko Willink?

  So, we're talking mentally defeated at this point. And even the regimental commander coming in, or the regimental executive commander coming in, telling him, "Hey, you gotta move. You just gotta go." Which, that encouragement, this reminds me of, in jujitsu tournaments, you ever seen a coach saying like, "You gotta get on top."

• 1:18:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:18:00Jocko Willink?

  "You gotta do something."

• 1:18:02Speaker 01

  Gotta get out of there.

• 1:18:03Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. That doesn't help me.

• 1:18:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:18:04Jocko Willink?

  So that's what he's saying. "Hey, you just gotta go." "I'm getting mordored. My guys are getting mowed down. I'm not, I can't do it." So back to the book. Then for some reason, both men looked up the hedgerow toward the rear. Colonel McDaniel, the new division chief of staff, was striding toward them, oblivious of the fire. Just as he reached the command post, a volley of four rounds screamed in the field just beyond the hedgerow. The concussion tumbled him into the hole with the major and Smith. But McDaniel did not lose his natural dignity, and he was smiling as he said, "Hello Johns, Smith, how are we doing?" Now we got a leader coming in that's very calm and very cool and just got blasted into their hole, by the way.

• 1:18:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:18:49Jocko Willink?

  And he looks up, smiles, and says, "How are we doing?" Johns made an effort to perk up a bit, but his voice lacked conviction or force as he told McDaniel all about the situation. The chief of staff surveyed the scene, weighing it all very carefully before he answered. When he did, his tone was serious, and he was not smiling.

• 1:19:11Jocko Willink?

  Johns, when you were on maneuvers in Louisiana, or at VMI, and while you were studying at Leavenworth, you saw situations where units had to be sacrificed knowingly in order to get a job done, didn't you?

• 1:19:25Jocko Willink?

  The battalion commander nodded. When you saw those things, you probably never thought very much about them, just accepted them as a matter of course in war, didn't you?

• 1:19:35Jocko Willink?

  The major nodded again.

• 1:19:38Jocko Willink?

  You never stopped to think, probably, that there might come a time when you and your unit would be the one that had to be sacrificed to enable the parent unit to accomplish its mission.

• 1:19:50Jocko Willink?

  The major's eyes were opening wider as he shook his head.

• 1:19:54Jocko Willink?

  Well, I don't know for sure, but maybe this is that time. I do know that this is the highest ground on the corps front, and the key to the entire defense of St. Lo. Corps expects us to break it, and we think you are the man to do the job, at whatever cost. Now, don't let us down.

• 1:20:16Jocko Willink?

  Without another word, he got to his feet and walked back the way he had come. The regimental executive tagged after him. Johns watched them go. Suddenly, he remembered that the general, what the general had said to him the day before. "I'm counting on you." He turned to Weddle, who had watched this little drama with detached interest. "Leroy," the major said as he squared his shoulders and pointed to the sinking sun. "Take a damn good look at that sun, old boy, because it's probably the last time any of us will ever see it. Let's go."

• 1:20:53Jocko Willink?

  Johns never knew later just what he did the rest of that afternoon and early evening. He remembered moving around the command post, forward, again, and he knew that he had needled the company commanders unmercifully, threatening them with relief of their commands, begging, pleading, anything he could think of that would work with that individual at that moment.

• 1:21:17Jocko Willink?

  He found that there was a comparatively weak spot in the German lines opposite Baker again. He badgered Martin into persuading the artillery to give him all the fire that he could hit that spot at one time. That meant a lot of guns. When they all fired three rounds as fast as the gunners could load them, a hundred yards of German-held hedgerow went up in flame and smoke and dust. Again, most of Baker Company streamed across the field and into the gap blasted by the artillery. That took the heart out of the paratroopers, and the paratroopers you're talking about are German paratroopers, who began to fall back all along the line. It was no route. The Germans retired from their flanking threat Baker posed, having gained a place in their main line.

• 1:22:01Jocko Willink?

  But they fell back slowly, fighting every foot of the way. The tenacious paratroopers slowed the weakened battalion again, but they could not stop it entirely. The company commanders and the platoon leaders, together with battalion CO, had thrown off their apathy, taken a second wind, and were not to be denied. At dark, thanks to the inspired leadership that had been provided in a few short minutes by Colonel McDaniel, the German line was broken beyond repair. The battered American battalion had made 500 bloody yards.

• 1:22:39Jocko Willink?

  As dusk faded into darkness, the firing began to diminish, only to flare briefly again on the left. Then it died away into silence. Kenny called in to say there had been a light counterattack on the left flank. He had easily kicked it off. The major did not ask for permission to halt the advance. He gave orders to dig in for the night after he was sure the companies had close contact on their flanks.

• 1:23:08Jocko Willink?

  So, there you go.

• 1:23:12Jocko Willink?

  That, that's...

• 1:23:17Jocko Willink?

  That's just an amazing account of not only of leadership, but of what leadership is capable of. I mean Johns was pretty much done. He's literally saying, "Not today. They're too tough."

• 1:23:32Jocko Willink?

  And the way that McDaniel convinces him and explains to him, "You know those times? Those times when you were doing exercises and they'd sacrifice a unit so that they can accomplish the mission? I'm not sure, but I think you're that unit right now. And we're counting on you to get it done."

• 1:23:55Jocko Willink?

  Unbelievable.

• 1:24:06Jocko Willink?

  You know, that's, uh, that's one of those things too where

• 1:24:12Jocko Willink?

  that's where you're, that's where you know from a leadership perspective, you're now,

• 1:24:20Jocko Willink?

  you know, entering a situation where duty is going to be the most important thing to you. And you also know that

• 1:24:29Jocko Willink?

  the mission is the most important thing. You've got to, you've got to put that at the top of your priorities. And you know, you're going to sacrifice guys and it's going to be a nightmare. But the alternative, the alternative is you're not going to win. You're going, you're not going to win. That's the alternative is that your team is not going to be able to achieve this. And, and you know, at this point in the war, this war was not settled yet by any stretch. This war was not settled. And so to give up ground and start to, to let the Germans reorganize and let them start to gain high ground, which is what they were fighting for here.

• 1:25:13Jocko Willink?

  That's not just going to affect your men. It's going to affect everybody. And so I've said this on the podcast before, the definition of a team is when the members of the team think the team is more important than themselves. And that's what you see right here. They realize, Johns realize, realizes that, look, we're gonna be, and the title of the book is Clay Pigeons, you know what a clay pigeon is, right? Yes, sir.

• 1:25:39Jocko Willink?

  It's what you throw up in the air and shoot out, and it's just, it's a sacrificial piece of clay. And that's why the name of the book is The Clay Pigeons, is saying, no, because that's, in many cases, the situation that they're in.

• 1:25:58Jocko Willink?

  So this is, this is different than when Napoleon says, hey, if you get told to do something, and it's not smart, and you do it anyways, you're culpable. Johns, he can't say, look, no, this isn't smart. He knows it's the right thing to do. He, that's, that's the big difference that I'm trying to get at here. This isn't a guy who's saying, look, hey, we're gonna charge this machine gun nest, and I'm gonna lose, you know, half my platoon, but it's not gonna make any big deal, and I'm, I'm a bad leader because I sacrificed my platoon for a meaningless machine gun nest.

• 1:26:34Jocko Willink?

  This is a guy that knows that this objective is important, knows that this high ground is needed, knows that the, the success of this, not just this mission, but the success of this whole, this whole assault on France and thereby Germany, is riding on what they're doing.

• 1:26:55Jocko Willink?

  Now, you could break it down and say, well, you know, that maybe they could hold back and they could wait. Well, what happens when you hold back and wait? Do the Germans have more reinforcements that they're sending their way? You know, what's, what does that actually mean? And so he is calculated in his mind, you know what? We need to do this. For the good of everyone, we need to do this.

• 1:27:22Jocko Willink?

  At one point now, fast forwarding past some more of that fighting, they, they do a good job of kind of, of, they've, they've knocked out some of the, through, through some fierce fighting, they've knocked out, they've moved forward and they've holed up and now they start advancing again. And here we go, back to the book, one, one well-placed stubborn hostile machine gun stopped that flank attack cold. So they're attacking and they get stopped by one well-placed machine gun. The German gunner got off, got half of the small squad that tried to rush him through the smoke. And the attackers had to withdraw, dragging their wounded with them. Mortars and artillery left the German undamaged.

• 1:28:03Jocko Willink?

  Rifle grenades couldn't quite hit the narrow slit through which he was firing. Two grenadiers trying to take extra careful aim had also been hit by concealed German snipers. When the major arrived, it looked as though progress had stopped. Using the battalion radio to the rear command post and the artillery phone from there, he adjusted eighteen successive rounds from one gun of the 110th Field Artillery Battalion in a vain attempt to sharpshoot the machine gun out of existence. But he couldn't hit it. And after each round burst on or near the hedgerow, the enemy would reply with a derisive burst. There was only

• 1:28:45Jocko Willink?

  one answer, a tank. And miraculously, a tank appeared. So, that's what I'm talking about. He's, he tries with, there's one machine gun that's holding up this situation. He gets on the radio and cars artillery, artillery, which is similar to mortars, they're, they're bigger and more powerful. But it's the same thing, it's indirect fire, you're putting rounds far up in the air and then they're through a big arc that's going thousands and thousands of feet in some cases into the air and then coming basically straight down on a target. And it's, when I say it's hard to hit a target, he's fires eighteen rounds to try and hit this machine gun, bunkered in machine gun, can't stop it, can't help it.

• 1:29:30Jocko Willink?

  So he needs a tank and miraculously and and if you don't know anything about my incredible affection for tanks and for tankers because of what they were able to

• 1:29:44Jocko Willink?

  do in the Battle of Ramadi to not only for themselves but to support and save my guys time and time again. I'm a big fan of tanks. In fact, I love tanks and tankers. That's straight up. That's the way it is. And this is why. This is why, right here. Back to the book, one steel monster lumbered up behind Johns who yelled instructions to the tank commander. The gunner watched carefully while an infantry squad leader fired a clip of tracer bullets at the slit that hid the machine gun and then swung his short-barreled little 75 into line. It crashed once and almost simultaneously with the muzzle blast came the crack of white phosphorus shell as it hit the slit.

• 1:30:28Jocko Willink?

  The smoke blossomed up from behind a hedgerow indicating a direct hit.

• 1:30:34Jocko Willink?

  With that, a single paratrooper came running toward them. A few moments later, everything on the front cut loose. The enemy and the company charged and another hundred yards of French real estate had changed hands.

• 1:30:50Jocko Willink?

  And then the major, the major wished every machine gunner in his outfit could have seen that position as an illustration of what skill, tenacity and guts could do to build and defend one machine gun position. So

• 1:31:06Jocko Willink?

  machine gunners, tanks.

• 1:31:11Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. It's incredible what a machine gun. I mean, you know what a machine gun is, right? I mean, machine guns, I mean, a normal, like a Mark 48 machine gun or the old M60. Roger Hayden talk about carrying the 60, right? And and our boys, last deployment, my last deployment to Ramadi, guys are carrying Mark 48s or Mark 46s, which is a smaller round, a 556 round.

• 1:31:31Speaker 01

  M60, that's what Rambo had, right?

• 1:31:34Jocko Willink?

  That is, in fact, yes, yes.

• 1:31:36Speaker 01

  And Commando, by the way.

• 1:31:38Jocko Willink?

  Okay, I'll take your word.

• 1:31:40Speaker 01

  John Matrix, to be exact. That was his name.

• 1:31:43Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 1:31:45Jocko Willink?

  The M60?

• 1:31:46Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:31:47Jocko Willink?

  The belt fed machine gun?

• 1:31:48Speaker 01

  Hell yeah.

• 1:31:49Jocko Willink?

  They're they're not that big of a weapon. I mean, it's big and believe me when you're carrying eight hundred, two thousand rounds, it's big enough.

• 1:31:55Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:31:56Jocko Willink?

  But if you think about a whole, you know, a battalion worth of guys are getting stopped by a guy in a machine gun.

• 1:32:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:32:02Jocko Willink?

  In a good position. Now, he had snipers, snipers covering him. Two snipers apparently were covering him, but that's that's that's not many people. That's why when you're on the offense, you need more people.

• 1:32:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:32:15Jocko Willink?

  Than being in a defensive position. You know, a defense, when you're in a defend defensive position and you're allowed to, you have time to set up. That's why when you go back to, well, when you look at Normandy, when you look at this whole, if you look at World War Two as a whole, that both the the Allies and what we did in in Normandy, taking the beaches. And what you did every time in the Pacific, taking the beaches, you're going against bunkered positions like this.

• 1:32:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, fully.

• 1:32:42Jocko Willink?

  And it's just incredible, the tenacity that it takes to make this happen.

• 1:32:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, isn't isn't that the whole, in a way, the whole idea behind guerrilla warfare? Where it's like, we're just, we're kind of, we're not fighting, we're not fighting, and then all of a sudden, we're fighting, and then we're not fighting.

• 1:32:57Jocko Willink?

  That is the, that is behind guerrilla warfare. But this isn't guerrilla warfare.

• 1:33:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:33:02Jocko Willink?

  Even without, even without sneaking around.

• 1:33:05Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 1:33:05Jocko Willink?

  You're you're in a uniformed soldier, German, and you go, okay, I'm going to set up a bunkered position on this high ground. It where I have the enemy channelized in this area, and I have good spread on them, and the only weak spots I've got, I'm going to cover them with snipers.

• 1:33:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:33:21Jocko Willink?

  Three people holding up a battalion.

• 1:33:24Jocko Willink?

  And just think, you know, if you if then, once you get that position, we have mortars already dialed in when you get there, that are going to start hitting you. And then, the next thing you do is you've got to move again. Well, guess what? We got another three, four, or five guys in machine gun positions, mutually supporting each other.

• 1:33:40Jocko Willink?

  That's why this this, these American allied fighting forces, and the Americans here and the Americans in the Pacific going against hardened bunkered positions is incredible.

• 1:33:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:33:52Jocko Willink?

  It's incredible.

• 1:33:58Jocko Willink?

  Now, he's given kind of an overview of war, and, and here we go. Thus goes battle. A rush, a pause, some creeping, a few isolated shots here and there, some artillery fire, some mortars, some smoke, more creeping, another pause, dead silence, more firing, a great concentration of fire, followed by a concerted rush, then the whole process starts all over again. The defender, this is, this is good information. The defender will almost always hold out some reserve, even though his front line is being torn to bits. At least he should. He may inflict all the damage on the attacker that he can, while giving ground slowly.

• 1:34:41Jocko Willink?

  Then, when he thinks the attacker is weakening, or when the defense has reached a certain piece of ground that the defender has chosen for the purpose, he launches a counterattack with his reserves. The attacker has used much of his strength, his men are tired, probably short of ammunition, and are almost inevitably somewhat disorganized. Then the defender throws fresh troops into a counterattack over ground his men know. Unless the attackers are very strong, they must inevitably suffer. Often then they are defeated, and thrown back or destroyed. So, there, there you go. I mean, this happens in mixed martial arts, it happens in sports, it happens on the battlefield.

• 1:35:25Jocko Willink?

  These guys are pushing forward on the attack, and you take away, you, you chip away at them a little bit, you give them ground, you give them ground, and then when they, when they get spread out, they're low on ammunition, boom, then you hit them on a counterattack on the ground that you already know.

• 1:35:38Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book, such counterattack tactics have been standard almost as long as there have been organized armies. The Germans employed them so regularly, that they were never a surprise. But the enemy could never muster, seemed to muster the strength necessary to make their counterattacks stick. Their efforts often halted in advance, as they had the night before, but they rarely gained back any ground and were almost always costly to the counterattackers. Even the best and most proven tactics still require judgment and the force to do the job. The Germans rarely had enough of either.

• 1:36:15Jocko Willink?

  So there's a little breakdown on what's happening with the Germans. First of all, they're not using good judgment. They're just like standard operating procedure. We're going to counter attack every single time. And when you counter attack, you're taking losses, especially if you're not gaining ground. So they're standard operating procedure. We're going to counter attack and they're not gaining ground. And so what are they doing? They're losing guys.

• 1:36:34Jocko Willink?

  And the more guys you lose, the less guys you have to counter attack with the next time.

• 1:36:41Jocko Willink?

  Now,

• 1:36:43Jocko Willink?

  they had a, they had a group here that was working in the battalion. They were called the commandos. It was just like a little elite group that they were using. They would guard the command post, but then they would also, when something was going down, they'd get out there and get after it. Super aggressive. But they were running so low on people that they needed to put the commandos team back out into the companies, the regular companies. So there'd been a little commando, you know, little special unit within the battalion. And then they had to take those guys and put them back out with the, with the regular companies. Now, here we go back to the book. In the middle of the afternoon, the CO moved up close behind A Company to watch their

• 1:37:25Jocko Willink?

  contingent of former battalion commandos go into the line. Sergeant Turner, who had made it, who had been in charge of the platoon, of the commando platoon, was with them. Seeing the major, he fell behind long enough to say, sir, we're going in there to help our buddies from old A Company lick the hell out of those bastards. But when we get through this, I'd sure like to come back and get another bunch of commandos for the battalion. His cool voice ended on a rising note. All right, Sergeant, you get us into St. Lo, and I'll promise you, you get another platoon of your Hellraisers just as soon as we can spare them from the companies. Johns returned to the sergeants. Johns returned to sergeant salutes and watched the man as he ran to catch up with the others.

• 1:38:11Jocko Willink?

  An hour later, a weasel, which is a small purpose tracked vehicle, flying a red cross flag, clattered out of the woods, carrying a load of wounded on litters. The battalion commander, who was passing the spot, stopped when he saw the wounded.

• 1:38:29Jocko Willink?

  The little commando sergeant lay on the litter on the near side. Seeing the major, he yelled for the driver to stop. Johns went over to him and the boy, both his legs wrapped in dirty bloody bandages, grabbed his commander's shirt and pulled himself up on the litter. He was crying openly and unashamedly as he burst out with a flood of invective.

• 1:38:55Jocko Willink?

  "They got all my boys, Major. We didn't get off the LD", which is the line of departure. "I let you down, Major. I let you down." He stopped and sobbed bitterly before he could go on. Major Johns could feel his own throat constricting as he held the tightly gripping hands that shook him again and again as the sergeant poured out his grief and rage and disappointment. "We had to get that gun. Damn the dirty bastards. Goddamn, goddamn. I let them get me with a fucking machine gun and they got all my boys too. Goddamn."

• 1:39:30Jocko Willink?

  He sobbed uncontrollably. While the weasel driver began to let his clutch take hold. "But I'll be back, Major. Sir, I'll be back. I'll be back." "Sure, boy. And I'll have your old job for you anytime. You just take it easy and get those legs fixed." The major was walking slowly beside the litter, trying to gently disengage the grip on his shirt. The sergeant let go and fell back on the litter, exhausted. Johns looked up at the aidman, who slowly shook his head.

• 1:40:04Jocko Willink?

  The sergeant would not be back.

• 1:40:18Jocko Willink?

  Now, they are finally pushing into Saint Lo. And, and they have to go down this, or the, the direction of attack that they're taking is down this,

• 1:40:32Jocko Willink?

  down this, single road that heads into Saint Lo. And, the Germans have it dialed. They have it dialed with range, you know, with artillery ready to hit it. And here we go. They have hit it. They're starting to hit it with big rounds. Back to the book, Johns noted that the German fire was coming in slowly. There couldn't have been more than two or three guns firing, as they were all big ones, they didn't fire rapidly. That was a break. But just one of those big shells in the wrong place. As the next one began to howl, the men began to look for deeper spots in the ditches. Johns yelled, "Keep going, dammit. It's not here yet."

• 1:41:14Jocko Willink?

  The men kept going forward for several more seconds, running hard now. The shell was nearly on the ground before the major yelled again, "Down!"

• 1:41:24Jocko Willink?

  Although the men hit the ditches, John was too excited to remember he was in the middle of the road. He went down on one knee. The shell burst a hundred yards ahead. Again, nobody was hit. The instant it burst, the major was up yelling, "Let's go!", running as he yelled. His men got up and ran too. Hoffman and Grismell, or Grimsell, catching the idea, moved further back down the line of men to relay commands and call signals on the shells. When the next one hit, all three officers did the same. None of them got off the road. Here and there, non-coms without orders began to fill in the gaps, staying on the road themselves.

• 1:42:06Jocko Willink?

  By the time the third shell hit, the whole column was working as smoothly as if it had been on a parade ground drill. And they were losing no time. They kept going. A few men were hit, but not many. Oddly, oddly enough, not an officer or non-com was knocked out of the middle of the road, though each leader only went down on one knee. One shell burst not twenty five yards ahead of the major, but it hit just around a small bend in the road and he was sheltered by the bank. He ran forward through the smoke and dust, nearly falling over a man who was rolling crazily half in and half out of the ditch. Johns grabbed him by the arm to help him to his feet, crying, "Come on, boy, let's go." The man tried to get up but stumbled awkwardly forward.

• 1:42:51Jocko Willink?

  Only then did Johns look down and see that the soldier had no feet. He was trying valiantly to stand on the stumps of his two legs where his feet had been sliced cleanly off just at the ankles. Johns laid him back gently into the ditch and changed his tone, "Maybe you better take it easy awhile, son. You stay here until one of your buddies gets here, they'll be along in a minute." The man himself was an aid man and not another was in sight, but the battalion commander had no time for one man. So after a quick look to see that the stumps were not bleeding profusely, he patted the man on the back, saying, "See you later, bud." Then he ran to catch up to his place in the column.

• 1:43:35Jocko Willink?

  A little further down the road after another burst, he saw another man lying in the ditch, not making any move to get up and go, although he didn't seem to be hurt. Johns stopped, grabbed him by the arm and yelled again, "Come on, let's get going." Looking blankly up at him, the soldier pushed a camera forward, saying plaintively, "I'm a cameraman." This rocked the major for a moment. Then he said, "Well, you can't take any pictures in that ditch. Get going." So again, you see leadership in action.

• 1:44:16Jocko Willink?

  You see him having to actually lead and set the example and his other, the company commanders and eventually the, the senior enlisted guys all follow his lead of what he's doing. "We got time to run. We got a minute, or whatever it is, thirty seconds. We're gonna get up, we're gonna run as hard as we can. When we, when we know we're gonna get hit with a shell, we're gonna get down and take cover." Pure leadership.

• 1:44:44Jocko Willink?

  Now, once they get kind of into St. Lo, there's a Colonel shows up, starts getting told what to do. Back to the book, the Colonel is giving orders again. "I want you to clear this town as quickly as you can. There aren't many Germans in it, but there are a few and I want it all clear. Your battalion is the only infantry we have with the task force. As you are the ranking officer, you will be in command of all the troops in town." He looked closely at the Major, who nodded, trying to contain the elation he felt, knowing that he would have command on the ground of what would undoubtedly be a historical action. The Colonel thrust a map at him. "Here's a large-scale map of the town itself. Now get going." Major Johns turned to look for Wendell, Weddle, and Gremsel.

• 1:45:27Jocko Willink?

  His two staff officers turned company commanders. Both were almost at his elbow. He drew them to one side and divided the town between them. So, now they're kind of on the outskirts of St. Lo and they're starting to clear the town. And we have, so the companies go out and start clearing the town. And they've set up a little makeshift command post for, for Major Johns. And, and he's standing there with, he's got, he's got a bunch of new guys with him too.

• 1:45:55Jocko Willink?

  He's got all these replacements, because remember, an hour and a half ago, when I said, "Hey, these guys have already had 300 replacements." Well, that has kept up the whole time. They're getting all these replacements. So at this point, this is an interesting leadership story here. He's got some new guys that show up. And

• 1:46:13Jocko Willink?

  there's, he's standing in his new command post and these new guys, he sees like a position that needs to be taken to make sure that, you know, we, we have some security around the command post. And so here we go. He motioned to the PFC and three other men standing nearby. They came forward rifles ready. So these are three new guys. Just replacements, just showed up.

• 1:46:35Jocko Willink?

  And again, probably the most fire they've seen was running into the town with St. Lo, avoiding big giant howitzer shells that are hitting them. Back to the book. See that alley there, said Johns pointing. I want you to take these three men and go down to the end of it. Looks like about a hundred yards where you will set up an outpost. Lieutenant Licory

• 1:46:52Jocko Willink?

  will come around later to see how you're doing. The PFC squinted down the alley, nodded a trifle uncertainly, and started toward it. The others followed, but the major was too preoccupied to note that there had been no briefing and no assignment of positions or duties. They just trooped off down the alley together like a bunch of men going to the post exchange.

• 1:47:14Jocko Willink?

  Two minutes after they left, the sound of German machine gun fire came from the direction of the narrow passageway. Johns turned to look. Out of the alley pelted the four men, straight toward him. The private first class panted, "Sir, there's a machine gun down there."

• 1:47:30Jocko Willink?

  The battalion commander didn't know whether to be amused or angry. There was no telling what the new men were apt to do if they didn't have leadership of an experienced or well-trained noncom or officer. He decided to be gentle. "Yes, I heard it. Now, tell you what to do. You take these three men again. Assign one to take a place where he can shoot at the gun, or where you think the gun is. Then take the other two and see if you can't come around behind it and get it for me." So, little cover and move. Real simple. Little cover and move. You get where you can shoot the gun, have that guy get where you can shoot the gun, and then you guys maneuver behind it. Cover and move. Beautiful.

• 1:48:11Jocko Willink?

  The PFC took that in, nodded somewhat less uncertainly, motioned to the men to follow him, and started purposefully back down the alley. In not more than five minutes, there came in rapid succession, the sound of the machine gun, a few rifle shots, two grenades, and running feet. Johns had moved across the street looking for the best place for a temporary command post. He turned toward the mouth of the alley, wondering what would come out this time. Two Germans showed first, running toward him at full speed. Before the major could bring his submachine gun up, he saw the PFC and one other man prodding the Germans from behind with bayonets. They spotted him and poked the prisoner in his

• 1:48:52Jocko Willink?

  direction. They stopped in front of him before he noticed the MG-34 the PFC was dragging behind him. So, they actually had the German machine gun.

• 1:49:03Jocko Willink?

  The man dropped the gun in front of him, saying, "Here's the gun you wanted, Major. But this is all that's left of the crew. We had to kill two of them, sir." Major Johns gulped, nodded, and motioned to Gay, who was another one of the guys, to come to get the prisoners. The private first class and his helpers jogged back toward their new outpost. The Major looked after them, wondering just what sort of training or indoctrination they must have had, first to run away from an enemy without trying to fight back, and then to apologize for having killed two. He looked down at the German, at the battered German machine gun, kicked it idly, and reminded himself to be more careful in issuing orders to new men.

• 1:49:45Jocko Willink?

  They were apt to take things a bit on the literal side. He was sure that the PFC had actually thought that the SEAL himself had a personal desire for the machine gun they had knocked out, and that he would have gone to any ends to retrieve the gun itself in order to bring it back, just because the Major had added "for me" when he ordered them to get the gun.

• 1:50:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's like a common thing to kind of add, right? Like, you know how, back when I used to work at the nightclub, you'd hear that all the time, like, especially when you're managing big crowds. So you say, "Hey, can you, you know, can you slide over on the side here for me?" And they'd always add the "for me."

• 1:50:26Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:50:27Speaker 01

  I always thought, like, that's kind of a strange thing to add. I mean, it's so common, so, but when you really think about it, it's like, kind of a strange thing to add, but I think it like adds like this personal touch.

• 1:50:37Jocko Willink?

  Well, it does. A little too personal.

• 1:50:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:50:43Jocko Willink?

  All right. Now, he's in the command post. Weddle, who's one of the company commanders, these guys are out clearing the city, and he hears some commotion, comes back into one of the rooms, and Weddle's in there with one of the other officers, or one of the other, uh, yeah, officers there working on him. Back to the book. Brooks, sobbing, was carefully cutting away the officer's field jacket and shirt, exposing a wide, deep gash just below the shoulder. John's stomach turned over quickly when he saw the wound. The bone was shattered with sharp, splintered ends sticking through the bloody, pulpy mass of torn flesh. That's, this is Weddle he's talking about. Weddle was damn near right. They'd almost blowed his arm plumb off.

• 1:51:25Jocko Willink?

  The S3 moaned, closed his eyes, as he leaned back to let Brooks do what he could with the nasty wound.

• 1:51:33Jocko Willink?

  But he pulled himself together in a moment or two and opened his eyes to look at the CO. So here he is, Weddell's just in agony, but he gets, gets a grip. Then he looks at the CO, squeezes his eyes together hard, then looks at the CO and says, "I was just coming back to tell you," he ground out between clenched teeth, "that we have our side of the town all clear with the men out on the edge when the artillery caught me in the middle of the street." He flinched, his face twisted in pain when the aid man who had taken over from Brooks inadvertently twisted his arm as he sprinkled soulful powder into the wound. Then he went on, "Chadwick is back. Didn't know it until I saw him. Came up just, came just before we pulled out, out of the little road, back up the hill.

• 1:52:18Jocko Willink?

  You can put him in command. He's good." He was gasping at the words now. "Major, can you get me out of here? I don't want to lose this arm." "Sure, boy. We'll get you out. Just try to relax now. Don't worry about it. Take it easy and we'll have you back to where they can fix it up in no time."

• 1:52:42Jocko Willink?

  Weddell leaned heavily on Brooks, who was still sobbing from the shock of seeing his captain so badly wounded. Weddell and Brooks had been together a long time and Major knew the sergeant would be no good around the command post for a while, so he motioned him to go along and look after the wounded S3.

• 1:52:59Jocko Willink?

  So again, you know, Major Jones realizes that somebody's at their capacity for handling the horrors of war and says, "Hey, you take this guy back to the aid station."

• 1:53:12Jocko Willink?

  Now there's a German counterattack. So they're in St. Lo, they got things decently handled, but all of a sudden they start seeing, and there's a guy in the field named Barnes, and he's starting to report back, "Hey, they're, they're forming up a big counterattack." And- Also, their field phones have been, they've lost wires, so they don't have good communications. They see this thing forming up. They're gonna be overwhelmed. They're really under manned. St. Louis is a pretty big city. It's all kinda destroyed, but it's still too big for the amount of people that they have. And so they're really scared that there's gonna be a big counterattack and the Germans are gonna take the city back. So, they finally get through. They don't even know who they're talking to. They're just trying to get through to somebody that can pass word

• 1:53:53Jocko Willink?

  to get the artillery to start dropping bombs. And Henderson is one of the guys on the, on the radio. And he says, "Damn it, man. This is the goon red in St. Lo and we've need artillery's worsen to ever needed anything in all our lives and we need it right now. All our lines are rear, all our lines to the rear are out and our wire people spliced one and got you. Now quit asking damn fool questions and tell me if you can shoot for us in St. Lo." So this is going back and forth. They start dropping bombs and all of a sudden they start adjusting the bombing closer and closer to them, to their own lines. Back to the book, Angel Fire Direction Center was questioning the adjustment. The correction would bring the shells inside the no-fire line maybe on friendly troops.

• 1:54:38Jocko Willink?

  "Hell, yes. We got dozed on the edge of town. Who do you think wants this stuff anyways?" The artillery man was frantic, afraid of the safety rules. The big guns would make them, stop them just when they needed them most. "Please, sir," he pleaded, "just put it out there. The infantry battalion commander is standing right beside me praying for more of it. The last volley was right in there, but the Germans are still coming." They stand, they get him to drop more bombs and Barnes, the guys out in the field, calls back in again, "That was marvelous. Do it again, some more." And then the guys transferring that, "Repeat range. Fire for effect. Give us all you have and give it quick. You're breaking up the attack and you're all we have."

• 1:55:23Jocko Willink?

  And that's enough. That's that they they bombed the bejesus out of the Germans. And that pretty much breaks the attack. And again, I'm summing up like seven pages of extended combat.

• 1:55:43Jocko Willink?

  And finally, though, the the battle is for the most part over. And they've got stabilized. They kind of set some security. And here we go back to the book. Major Johns, his face in his hands as he sat down for the first time in hours. He couldn't help thinking of the death and agony to so many men so needlessly. It hurt damnably, deep inside.

• 1:56:11Jocko Willink?

  And then a liaison officer from regiment came in with a lieutenant colonel, his staff, and all of his company commanders. They were from the 134th Regiment of the 35th Division, which was to relieve the first battalion at once. Johns could hardly believe it. Even when he saw his replacement standing there looking fresh and confident, he was beginning to think the clay pigeons were supposed to go on forever, fighting all alone, except for the artillery.

• 1:56:41Jocko Willink?

  The new battalion commander wondered about Major Staff, Major John's staff. So he's got a guy coming in to take over. They're getting relieved.

• 1:56:52Jocko Willink?

  And the guy says, you know, hey, what's up? Where's your battalion staff? Back to the book. Johns explained.

• 1:56:58Jocko Willink?

  And as he did, he reviewed in his mind all that had happened in the short 30 days since the first attack in the Boy de Bretelle.

• 1:57:07Jocko Willink?

  His whole forward staff was gone.

• 1:57:11Jocko Willink?

  Newcombe, Sadler, Carter, and McCarthy, dead. Weddle and Hoffman wounded. Grimcel, out commanding a company. Nab, Ryan, Todd, Stowen, Cordiac, Kenny, and Detman, all wounded. Besides, God knew how many other officers he had never even known by name. The company commanders from four companies killed or wounded, mostly in the space of seven short, action-packed days.

• 1:57:43Jocko Willink?

  He stopped talking awhile. He thought for a moment of all those fine people. When he glanced up catching himself, he thought he was looking at a ghost. There stood Kenny. The shadow on his face wavering as the candle flickered in the faint breeze of his entry. So Kenny had been wounded and now he's back. In an instant, his troubles, his preoccupation with the relieving officers were forgotten. "Kenny," he cried, "what in God's name are you doing here?" "Well, Major, I heard you got into town alright, but we're sort of short of company commanders. I saw Todd, Detman, and Cordiac back there, so I thought I'd better get on up here and see if I could do anything.

• 1:58:23Jocko Willink?

  The docs will let you go these days if you can stand up straight for two minutes without falling down." The Major saw that Kenny was exhausted in spite of his cheerful attitude. He found out later that he had walked alone in the dark all the way from the division clearing station several miles to the rear in order to get back to the battalion. His legs and back were covered with bandages under his new shirt and pants. He said, "Well, old man, there isn't anything you can do right now. These nice people have just come in, so we're gonna be out of this rat trap in a little while. You just go back behind Mrs. Blanchett here and lie down and get some rest.

• 1:59:07Jocko Willink?

  You need it." Kenny did as he was told. The strain had begun to bend even his indomitable will. At 0440, the Major reported to regiment that the 134th Infantry had taken over. The wiremen took out the phone, the Major shook hands and said goodbye and good luck to the new arrivals. Then, he and Kenny followed the companies down the hill. Just seven days ago, they had numbered 800. They were now only 450 proud tired men.

• 1:59:51Jocko Willink?

  The clay pigeons who had taken the core objective.

• 2:00:04Jocko Willink?

  Clay pigeons. And from

• 2:00:12Jocko Willink?

  Omaha Beach

• 2:00:15Jocko Willink?

  to the Elbe.

• 2:00:18Jocko Willink?

  The first battalion, one hundred and fifteenth infantry, twenty ninth division had two thousand, three hundred and eighty four casualties. Including four hundred and fifty four men killed in action.

• 2:00:35Jocko Willink?

  So that that's that's hard to even fathom. Again, think about the fact that at this time, a battalion was about, it's supposed to be about nine hundred men. And they'd taken two thousand, three hundred and eighty four casualties. So all the replacements that came in kept getting wounded.

• 2:00:57Jocko Willink?

  Unbelievable and

• 2:01:00Jocko Willink?

  what's, I mean, you you gotta read this book. And get the lessons learned. And and also you get lessons learned from that book, but you can also get some of Major John's lesson learned from Colonel David Hackworth in his book about face and what's you want to talk about some layers? Some some historical layers? Check this out. So in about face.

• 2:01:33Jocko Willink?

  You know, Hackworth talks about what happens in August thirteenth nineteen sixty one.

• 2:01:41Jocko Willink?

  The communist in Berlin started stringing barbed wire and they were now going to build a wall between east and west Berlin. And they, you know, Kennedy, who was president, wanted to do something like, you can't just, you know, we need to, we need to make some kind of a statement here. So he sent fifteen hundred soldiers from the first battle group of the eighth infantry division. And they were selected apparently by Kennedy by name.

• 2:02:14Jocko Willink?

  So Kennedy said, "I want these guys," and the reason is because their commander was a guy named Glover S. Johns. And he wanted them to go and reinforce the British, French, and American troops who were on the ground in Berlin. And then, layers. Colonel Johns, in his position, appointed D Company. In his battle group, he pointed D Company to be the battle group's reaction force.

• 2:02:47Jocko Willink?

  And who was the commander of D Company? It was a young Korean War veteran who had come back into the Army, named Captain, at the time, David Hackworth.

• 2:03:04Jocko Willink?

  And, as I said, Hackworth points to Glover Johns as his primary source for leadership lessons learned.

• 2:03:14Jocko Willink?

  And he captured them coming succinctly from Glover Johns himself, in About Face. So let's take it back to that book for a minute here.

• 2:03:32Jocko Willink?

  From About Face. "All too soon, Colonel Johns received orders back to Berlin as chief of intelligence." So now, this whole thing that they'd gone through with sending this, this force to reinforce the French, British, and, and American troops on the ground in Berlin, this is pretty much done. "All too soon, Colonel Johns received orders back to Berlin as chief of intelligence. Most of us had known the magic couldn't last forever, but it didn't change the fact that we were incredibly sad to see him go. On 15 January 1962, the battle group fell out smartly for its final review before our favorite soldier. The weather was bitterly cold, but no one noticed.

• 2:04:15Jocko Willink?

  We were all too busy standing tall and greedily soaking in the Colonel's farewell address."

• 2:04:23Jocko Willink?

  Johns was a leader who taught by example, so most of the points he made weren't exactly new to us. But to hear it in a single speech, this great man's basic philosophy of soldiering was like being led on, letting in on the secret ingredients of some magical formula.

• 2:04:43Jocko Willink?

  To wit. Strive to do small things well.

• 2:04:51Jocko Willink?

  Be a doer and a self-starter. Aggressiveness and initiative are two most admired qualities in a leader. But you also must put your feet up and think.

• 2:05:05Jocko Willink?

  So there's a little dichotomy he's hitting on. Yeah, you gotta be aggressive, but you gotta think.

• 2:05:10Jocko Willink?

  Strive for self-improvement through constant self-evaluation. You gotta be humble.

• 2:05:20Jocko Willink?

  Never be satisfied. Ask of any project, how can it be done better?

• 2:05:28Jocko Willink?

  Don't over-inspect or over-supervise. Allow your leaders to make mistakes in training so they can profit from the errors and not make them in combat. Decentralized command.

• 2:05:43Jocko Willink?

  Keep the troops informed. Telling them what, how, and why builds their confidence.

• 2:05:53Jocko Willink?

  The harder the training, the more the troops will brag. Boom. Remember that guy that asked last podcast, how do I improve the morale of a group? Get them, get them to have pride? Train hard.

• 2:06:07Jocko Willink?

  Next, enthusiasm, fairness, and moral and physical courage. Four of the most important aspects of leadership.

• 2:06:18Jocko Willink?

  Enthusiasm, fairness, and moral and physical courage. Next, showmanship. A vital technique of leadership. That's interesting. And there's a bunch of. In About Face, Hackworth. He, he specifies some of these things that he would, that, that. Glover Johns would do, showmanship wise. He'd walk down the range and he was a really good shot with a rifle. And apparently he would have a guy throw a quarter. Like a coin up in the air and he'd shoot it. Because he was such a good shot. That and another thing he did, he's about to give a speech somewhere.

• 2:07:00Jocko Willink?

  And in sort of a mixed audience, but a bunch of German, um, sort of political people. Glover Johns gets up and just gives the speech in German.

• 2:07:15Jocko Willink?

  Alright, next. "The ability to speak and write well.

• 2:07:22Jocko Willink?

  Two essential tools of leadership." Boom.

• 2:07:28Jocko Willink?

  "Next, there is a salient difference between profanity and obscenity. While a leader employs profanity tempered with discretion, he never uses obscenities."

• 2:07:44Jocko Willink?

  "Next, have consideration for others."

• 2:07:49Jocko Willink?

  "Next, yelling detracts from your dignity. Take your men aside and counsel them."

• 2:07:56Jocko Willink?

  "Next, understand and use judgment. Know when to stop fighting for something you believe is right. Discuss and argue your point of view until a decision is made and then support the decision wholeheartedly."

• 2:08:14Jocko Willink?

  "Last, stay ahead of your boss."

• 2:08:19Jocko Willink?

  "When Johns had finished, Colonel Couch gave the order to pass in review and company by company we marched by with just that little extra precision. Our shoes, uniforms and brass earlier attended to, to provide just that little extra sparkle." "As was the custom, the company commanders peeled off after their units passed in the review stand and congregated for a final goodbye."

• 2:08:47Jocko Willink?

  Johns had watched the parade with tears in his eyes. The tears remained as he stood at attention.

• 2:09:05Jocko Willink?

  So

• 2:09:08Jocko Willink?

  Tears in his eyes. That is Major Glover Johns, that is the Clay Pigeons. That is the 1st Battalion, 115th Infantry, 29th Division. And Obviously, he is an example of Leadership.

• 2:09:31Jocko Willink?

  And The men Of his battalion.

• 2:09:37Jocko Willink?

  The Clay Pigeons, they are yet another example of the Indomitable

• 2:09:46Jocko Willink?

  Warrior, spirit and culture. That is the very core of this nation.

• 2:09:59Jocko Willink?

  Don't forget that.

• 2:10:03Jocko Willink?

  Don't forget That culture. Don't ever forget it. And for those of you

• 2:10:14Jocko Willink?

  Out there, right now, defending our nation. That Spirit and that culture.

• 2:10:25Jocko Willink?

  It can Work to Hold you up.

• 2:10:31Jocko Willink?

  And having it in your brain.

• 2:10:36Jocko Willink?

  Can keep you strong In trying times, but there's also a dichotomy there because not only does that Warrior, spirit and warrior, culture, hold you up, you also have to hold it up.

• 2:10:57Jocko Willink?

  You have to maintain that warrior culture

• 2:11:04Jocko Willink?

  in the way you think

• 2:11:09Jocko Willink?

  and in the way you act.

• 2:11:14Jocko Willink?

  And if you ever start to forget how you're supposed to think and how you're supposed to act,

• 2:11:24Jocko Willink?

  then remember Colonel Glover Johns

• 2:11:29Jocko Willink?

  and the clay pigeons

• 2:11:32Jocko Willink?

  of St. Lo.

• 2:11:42Jocko Willink?

  And I think that's all I've got for tonight, Echo Charles.

• 2:11:46Speaker 01

  Yes, sir.

• 2:11:48Jocko Willink?

  So,

• 2:11:51Jocko Willink?

  I guess, speaking of

• 2:11:57Jocko Willink?

  maintaining.

• 2:11:59Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:12:00Jocko Willink?

  Maybe you could tell us how we could maintain support of this podcast if you, if you want.

• 2:12:09Speaker 01

  If they want. And for ourselves. Hey, what does "fire for effect" mean?

• 2:12:16Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah. Fire for effect. This is awesome. So, you're on a radio.

• 2:12:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:12:21Jocko Willink?

  And you're watching, you're calling artillery, or you're calling naval gunfire, or you're calling air support, and you're trying to get them to hit this target, whatever that target might be. That's trying to get them to hit a building where there's moosh.

• 2:12:36Jocko Willink?

  And they get a direct hit.

• 2:12:39Jocko Willink?

  And now you say "fire for effect."

• 2:12:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:12:41Jocko Willink?

  That means you don't need to make any more adjustments. You can just start hammering that thing. Boom, boom, boom, boom. Fire for effect.

• 2:12:46Speaker 01

  Gotcha.

• 2:12:47Jocko Willink?

  So when somebody does something that's on target, you're like, "Yeah, fire for effect."

• 2:12:50Speaker 01

  Gotcha. Oh dang, okay.

• 2:12:51Jocko Willink?

  That's what it is.

• 2:12:52Speaker 01

  That's one of those ones that, you know, I, I'd hear you in life always say it, and you know, certain

• 2:12:58Jocko Willink?

  Do we say it that much?

• 2:12:59Speaker 01

  Not, no, not that much, but I, that's where I would hear it, hear it kind of come out.

• 2:13:05Speaker 01

  And you know how certain terms, if you're not familiar with them, you can kind of gather what it means.

• 2:13:09Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:13:09Speaker 01

  You know, in a context.

• 2:13:10Jocko Willink?

  In the context, right.

• 2:13:11Speaker 01

  And the words and stuff like that. But that one, I never could really figure out exactly what that means. As opposed to, you know, I don't know, fire at will, or you know, all the, all these other things that you hear.

• 2:13:21Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:13:21Speaker 01

  Fire for effect.

• 2:13:22Jocko Willink?

  Fire for effect, a good one.

• 2:13:23Speaker 01

  It kind of sounds like it could mean like to distract them or something, to have some effect.

• 2:13:28Jocko Willink?

  Oh.

• 2:13:28Speaker 01

  Other than hitting the target or something like that. Yeah, apparently not.

• 2:13:31Jocko Willink?

  Get after it.

• 2:13:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, apparently it's the opposite and you know, it's all good.

• 2:13:36Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. It's just amazing to come up with these, these guys, man.

• 2:13:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:13:41Jocko Willink?

  And, and I'm telling you, like, and I've said this before, that thread of, and I, I actually don't like using the word warrior culture.

• 2:13:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:13:53Jocko Willink?

  Because, because it's so overused.

• 2:13:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, man.

• 2:13:57Jocko Willink?

  It's so overused and it's, it's just, it's, it's been so degraded.

• 2:14:03Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:14:03Jocko Willink?

  By this horrible meaningless things, that guy's a warrior. You know what I mean? Because he, you know, did whatever.

• 2:14:11Speaker 01

  Committed a crime and actually survived his prison term.

• 2:14:14Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that guy's real warrior. Warrior. No, no, actually you're not.

• 2:14:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:14:17Jocko Willink?

  You know.

• 2:14:18Speaker 01

  It's different.

• 2:14:18Jocko Willink?

  But, but there's no other word that I can put on it, at least that I could think of right now. When you talk about the American culture. And it's so easy because America's a big place.

• 2:14:31Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 2:14:32Jocko Willink?

  And America's got a lot of good things going for it. And a lot, like, you know, the culture of art, of art in America's massive.

• 2:14:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:14:40Jocko Willink?

  The culture of music is, is unbelievably powerful here. The culture of education and academia. All these things are massive in America, right? And, and it's really easy to forget the culture, this, the most, in my mind, the most powerful culture that we have. Now, I could be wrong. Oh, I mean, what about our entrepreneurial spirit and culture, right? That's huge here.

• 2:15:12Speaker 01

  Very strong, yes.

• 2:15:13Jocko Willink?

  Our capitalist culture, we want to make money, we want to grow, we want to do things, right? Those are all really, really powerful. And I think. We tend to forget. We tend to forget. We wanna, we wanna say that, you know, the Japanese Bushido culture is this thing we should look up to. Guess what? Guess what? That Bushido culture versus the US Marines. You know, storming beaches? In heavily defended beaches, and that, that, guess what?

• 2:15:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:15:45Jocko Willink?

  The, the American warrior culture? That's the, that's the real deal.

• 2:15:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:15:49Jocko Willink?

  That's the real deal. The Nazis, oh, the stormtroopers, oh, yeah, those were such a warrior culture. Guess what? Compare them to these guys.

• 2:15:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:16:00Jocko Willink?

  No, not happening. Sorry.

• 2:16:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:16:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, these, and you hear this a lot, like that, there was a little part in the book where the guy got his legs blown off. Something like that. And he was like, I'll be back.

• 2:16:13Jocko Willink?

  Yep, I'll be back.

• 2:16:14Speaker 01

  He's like, and it, it really seemed like he was, he wasn't pissed about his legs. He was pissed that he's out of the game. And he was like, I'm letting guys down, I'm, you know? Yeah. I think a lot of times, and, you know, America is kinda one, an example where, you know, when all things are going real good, it's easy to point out the things that are not going good. You know, like you're, uh, whatever the case may be, like, when, if everything's perfect, the little imperfections show themselves more. You know how like, if your life is like, everything's together? Where,

• 2:16:46Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:16:46Speaker 01

  You know, your job is good, and your family's good or whatever, but meanwhile, like, your, I don't know, your front lawn is going brown. You're like, my front lawn's going brown, you know, it's like that kinda thing. Um, I think that's what we have in the US. It's kinda like we, things are really good.

• 2:17:02Jocko Willink?

  I think it's more just a matter of percentage. I mean, I, I think in America right now, it's like, oh, 1% of the population is actually in the military. I mean, all these World War II veterans, not many of them left. Vietnam veterans are getting older. Korean veterans are very, very rare at this point. So, and what are our movies about? You know, instead of making movies about Saint Lo, they make movies about the aliens attacking, or whatever.

• 2:17:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:17:29Jocko Willink?

  You know, so we just, it's pretty easy to forget that the reason we're here, and the reason we're not speaking German, is, or the reason we're not speaking Japanese, is because of this warrior culture here, which-

• 2:17:45Jocko Willink?

  Kind of, it's right up there. It's right up. You show me any warrior culture that has the same that, you know, I know there's equivalents. I know that there's other, I know there's other military units in the world and other countries that have a proud military tradition as well. But, you know, obviously I'm biased towards mine.

• 2:18:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:18:02Jocko Willink?

  But, uh, we're, you tell me any historical unit that you say, oh, that these guys were the Spartans and they were the real warriors.

• 2:18:11Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 2:18:11Jocko Willink?

  You know, you haven't really spent much time with a 19-year-old Marine.

• 2:18:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:18:16Jocko Willink?

  You, you haven't spent much time with a, with a, with, with a soldier from an airborne division. You just, you just, you gotta meet those guys.

• 2:18:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:18:25Jocko Willink?

  I'm telling you.

• 2:18:27Jocko Willink?

  They're the real deal.

• 2:18:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:18:29Jocko Willink?

  And no matter what kind of, you know, historical warrior you wanna, you wanna throw out there, I'll put my Americans against the head-to-head, it just in terms of just straight up warrior culture and spirit.

• 2:18:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:18:46Jocko Willink?

  I'll go, I'll go toe-to-toe. I'll go toe-toe, for sure. I'm not, I'm not trying to say we're better.

• 2:18:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:18:52Jocko Willink?

  But I'll go toe-toe with the Spartans.

• 2:18:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:18:54Jocko Willink?

  I'll go toe-toe with them. And I'm just talking, you know, my warrior culture against your warrior culture and the way you lived your life. Go, go meet some of these young soldiers and Marines out there.

• 2:19:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:19:06Jocko Willink?

  You can come and talk to me and, and special operations guys, you know what I mean, obviously?

• 2:19:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:19:11Jocko Willink?

  Come and get some.

• 2:19:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, man. Dig it.

• 2:19:17Speaker 01

  Come in, fire for effect. Sorry, bro.

• 2:19:19Jocko Willink?

  Do it.

• 2:19:20Speaker 01

  It's, I just learned the word. I'm trying to fit it in.

• 2:19:22Jocko Willink?

  Warrior culture doesn't get through all of America.

• 2:19:27Speaker 01

  You know, nonetheless, we are down to support ourselves.

• 2:19:33Jocko Willink?

  I was gonna make some, a wisecrack about Hawaii, but you know.

• 2:19:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, you might, you might get dealt with.

• 2:19:38Jocko Willink?

  No, not gonna do that because, no, because, uh, massive, there's a, there's a great book that somebody sent me. And.

• 2:19:48Jocko Willink?

  It's about Japanese Americans that formed up, you know, we sent, Americans sent many Japanese to internment camps in America in World War II. They also took a bunch of them and turned them into a fighting unit.

• 2:20:02Speaker 01

  For the 442nd.

• 2:20:03Jocko Willink?

  Yes, and they were, they might be the most highly decorated unit of their, of that size. Because, but a lot of them came from Hawaii.

• 2:20:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. Yeah, huge Japanese community in Hawaii.

• 2:20:18Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:20:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, and speaking of Hawaiian, like, you know how like the old school-

• 2:20:24Jocko Willink?

  And warrior culture, Hawaii, for sure.

• 2:20:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, so you-

• 2:20:27Jocko Willink?

  Am I allowed to just straight up say BJ Penner right now?

• 2:20:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:20:31Jocko Willink?

  And my boy Max Holloway, by the way.

• 2:20:33Speaker 01

  By the way, current champ, yeah.

• 2:20:35Jocko Willink?

  I remember Max came and trained with us.

• 2:20:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:20:37Jocko Willink?

  I've told this story before, but man, what a, what a beast.

• 2:20:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:20:40Jocko Willink?

  He, you know what? He was training hard.

• 2:20:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:20:44Jocko Willink?

  He was training hard. He wasn't even close to the UFC yet. This was years ago. He wasn't close to the UFC yet. He had some warrior culture in him.

• 2:20:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:20:51Jocko Willink?

  Get some.

• 2:20:51Speaker 01

  Super nice guy, too. When you, when you consider, like even let's say the Spartans and you consider all their battles and stuff, this is like hand to hand, sword to neck battles, it's like dang, that's savage. But back in those days, look at all kinds of cultures. So consider Hawaiian culture. If you look at the weapons, like you can look like in museums, just go online, whatever, look at the weapons that they used in battle and then consider like that's what you gotta use. It's like savage, man. It's like, so yeah, there, there are a lot of legitimate warrior cultures, which is different.

• 2:21:25Jocko Willink?

  There's no doubt. And what I'm saying, to encapsulate what I'm saying is, America has one and it's toe to toe with any other-

• 2:21:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, don't slip, don't sleep on that.

• 2:21:39Speaker 01

  So.

• 2:21:41Speaker 01

  Support, support wise. I'm gonna shift gears here. So, you know, I'm talking about kettlebells all the time. I feel like I'm talking about kettlebells, not just now. I feel like I talk about kettlebells a lot. It's one of those things, you know how like you go from thing to thing and you're like, hey.

• 2:21:57Jocko Willink?

  I go to one thing only.

• 2:21:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:22:00Jocko Willink?

  You go from thing to thing.

• 2:22:01Speaker 01

  Well, you know, I try to acquire knowledge and what do you call it, skills, capabilities, we'll say capabilities, that's important. Participation is required. Kettlebells is kind of like a thing that I recently got into. And I'm gonna be honest with you, I'm getting kinda good at them.

• 2:22:19Jocko Willink?

  Jack.

• 2:22:20Speaker 01

  Bro, you know, because, consider, okay, here's, I'm gonna go into numbers, whatever. So, my MetCon was, is, was, um, I'll do 135.

• 2:22:31Jocko Willink?

  Clean and jerk?

• 2:22:32Speaker 01

  Clean and press, jerk, whatever. Press is like just pressing, right? Jerk is kinda like, you jerk your whole body kinda thing. Okay, so it's clean and jerk.

• 2:22:42Speaker 01

  With 135, you know, the wheels, uh, five, and then to burpees, five. Walk for 30 to 35 seconds, walk. Boom, do it again. So, anywhere from, I don't know.

• 2:22:57Speaker 01

  I'd say about eight sets would be like a solid one. Usually it's six.

• 2:23:01Jocko Willink?

  Why are you doing the 30 second walk, by the way?

• 2:23:03Speaker 01

  It's like the recovery. It's like, it's like you're breathing, that's why. So it helps. Wait, why should I not do that?

• 2:23:10Jocko Willink?

  I don't do that. I'd be going 5, 5, 5, 5, 5.

• 2:23:12Speaker 01

  Oh, you wouldn't. Alright, I challenge you right now. We're gonna do it together and you just go 5, 5, so you can go longer. Well, I don't wanna do that.

• 2:23:19Jocko Willink?

  Well, the contest wouldn't be to go longer.

• 2:23:22Speaker 01

  Well, whoever, whoever stops the rhythm. I'm saying that the rest is, is part recovery. Here, here's the goal, that's why.

• 2:23:31Jocko Willink?

  Well, let me ask you this. How long does it take you? Like 30 seconds to do? Does it take 30 seconds to do the five and five?

• 2:23:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, no, no, more. No, no, no, more than 30. So you do five clean and press.

• 2:23:40Jocko Willink?

  Right.

• 2:23:41Speaker 01

  Boom, five burpees. Yeah, it's more than 30 seconds.

• 2:23:43Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, maybe 45 at the most.

• 2:23:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, maybe 45, yeah. I don't know. That's a good question. It's more than 30, though, for sure.

• 2:23:50Jocko Willink?

  Okay, well, then I guess it might be all right. You should put that on a timer, though. You shouldn't be saying like a minute 30, I rest for 30 to 35. You should be like, okay, I'm doing it.

• 2:23:57Speaker 01

  Oh, because you're saying like the taba.

• 2:23:59Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, well, you should do, you should do a minute 30 seconds. And every, no, and every minute and 30 seconds, you do the five and five.

• 2:24:07Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 2:24:07Jocko Willink?

  And so that way you get, because by the, by the sixth set, you'll be like tired when you're starting it.

• 2:24:12Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:24:12Jocko Willink?

  But you don't want to rest more, because you want to push yourself.

• 2:24:14Speaker 01

  This is kind of my thought, my thought process on it is I'm going to do a certain kind of work capacity. You know, like, you know, five reps of this and five reps of this, and then I'm going to have a, have a kind of an active recovery period, walking.

• 2:24:29Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 2:24:29Speaker 01

  And here's the thing, and here's kind of the goal.

• 2:24:32Jocko Willink?

  This is good. I actually, I actually am going back on what I said. I think this is actually not a bad idea because, but you need to put, it's like when I do, sometimes I'll do stuff on the minute.

• 2:24:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:24:42Jocko Willink?

  What makes me nervous about what you're saying is like, I like rest for about 30 to 35 seconds. I don't know what that means.

• 2:24:46Speaker 01

  Okay, okay.

• 2:24:47Jocko Willink?

  Because, because that could be 40 seconds.

• 2:24:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:24:49Jocko Willink?

  That could also be.

• 2:24:51Speaker 01

  It's not.

• 2:24:51Jocko Willink?

  You got a clock on.

• 2:24:52Speaker 01

  Yes, sir. Hundred percent, yeah. So the, here's the weird thing about having a clock. Ever since I started lifting, rest between sets has been a critical part of my lifting routine. It's from the beginning, rest between, because it's just what I learned and stuff like that. So I don't think the clock and actual clock has not been a part of a workout ever.

• 2:25:16Jocko Willink?

  Oh, that's good.

• 2:25:16Speaker 01

  It's part of the, it's like weights. There's weights, just like you're lifting those weights, that's what the weights are for. You're going to rest in between sets, that's what the clock is for. You can't just go willy-nilly and be like, yeah, I'll just throw in whatever weight.

• 2:25:26Jocko Willink?

  That's good.

• 2:25:27Speaker 01

  And that's just my philosophy.

• 2:25:28Jocko Willink?

  If I'm not on the clock. A one hour workout for me would take like two hours.

• 2:25:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:25:34Jocko Willink?

  Cause I'll just, I'll just be thinking about something or I'll just take more rest than I should have taken or whatever.

• 2:25:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, and consider this, if you're doing, let's say you're doing five sets of squats. Five sets, I don't know, eight we'll say, and when you're pushing. On your second set, you can do more weight than, or less weight than on your first set. If you rest for less time.

• 2:25:55Jocko Willink?

  You're right.

• 2:25:56Speaker 01

  So if you rest for five minutes, you can do way more.

• 2:25:59Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:25:59Speaker 01

  So that's putting your body through something different than if you would have just rested less. So it just depends on what you're trying to put your body through, what you can recover from and what kind of results.

• 2:26:07Jocko Willink?

  One of the hardest, one of the hardest workouts is, and this is in, this is in Dysmikos Freedom Field Manual. I used to do the 20 rep squat workout.

• 2:26:20Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 2:26:20Jocko Willink?

  Which is you take a weight that you can do 10 times and you do it 20 times.

• 2:26:24Speaker 01

  Okay, oh yeah, okay, sorry.

• 2:26:25Jocko Willink?

  And, and it's, it's devastatingly hard. And I would rest for 20 minutes. And then I would do it again, and then I would rest for 20 minutes and then I would do it again. So three sets of that.

• 2:26:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:26:38Jocko Willink?

  That is.

• 2:26:40Speaker 01

  Okay, so, so techni, and I, I believe you, I'm not saying it's easy, I'm not saying that. But, that being said, technically that's impossible. Technically.

• 2:26:49Jocko Willink?

  Yes, you're right, it is impossible to do something that you only do 10 times to 20 times.

• 2:26:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, if you can do the weight that you do 10 frames or 20 times, that's the weight you can do for 20 minutes.

• 2:26:58Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you're right.

• 2:26:59Speaker 01

  Straight, that's not 10. So, I get it, I get it.

• 2:27:02Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:27:02Speaker 01

  But.

• 2:27:03Jocko Willink?

  I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna, you're right. But you also understand what I'm talking about.

• 2:27:08Speaker 01

  I know exactly what you're talking about, you're like a normal, like you're not maxing out at 10 reps on the, with this weight. It's like, this is my normal, maybe if I'm gonna do a set of 10 or so.

• 2:27:17Jocko Willink?

  Be surprised that the weight you can get, like, let's say. You know, you you you pick the right weight that you can like I can do this 10 times.

• 2:27:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:27:26Jocko Willink?

  Legitimately. And then you're like, you know what, I'm gonna do it 20 times.

• 2:27:31Speaker 01

  I know, but.

• 2:27:31Jocko Willink?

  It's freaking sucks.

• 2:27:33Speaker 01

  I dig it. You're right. And but I think that's like a curse analogy kind of situation. Like when you say, I'm gonna do a weight 20 times, what I can, you know, let's say for lack of a better term, normally do 10.

• 2:27:43Jocko Willink?

  But it's not normal. Also, you're like, you're basically you're resting as much as a human being can rest with a bunch of weight on their back.

• 2:27:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:27:50Jocko Willink?

  In between reps. When you get to rep 12, you're taking like time, but it's it's it's a really, it's a losing proposition. Cause while you're waiting there, resting, you're actually suffering and your back started to get all.

• 2:28:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, yeah, I get it.

• 2:28:05Jocko Willink?

  Overhead squats are brutal because you're not resting in an overhead squat position.

• 2:28:09Speaker 01

  And it's like awkward and yeah, that that's hard, the overhead squat situation, but and not to beat a dead horse here. So like, consider if you said, hey, uh, someone who's pretty new, more or less to working out, say, hey, get a weight you can do for 10 and do it 20. They're gonna mess up in one way, probably. They're gonna be like, okay, I can do this 10 times. I know that. And I'm gonna try to do 20. They can't even get to get 20 because you said the weight that they could do for 10. They try for 20, they fail at 10. That's how much they can do for 10. Or they'll go the other way. They'll be like, you'll be like, oh, get a, and they'll be like, wait, I gotta do this 20 times. Yeah, I can do this. I can do the bar 10 times. So I'll just use the bar kind of thing. So you have that knowledge where you you're like, hey, I know the weight that I can do for 10 and it'll be hard.

• 2:28:54Speaker 01

  But you know what? I'm gonna get nuts. And if I really push myself, I can get 20. Guess what? I'm using that weight. So you kind of have that because you've been training all the time. So I get it. Yeah, you're right. And I don't think I'll ever do that, even though I kind of considered it last time you mentioned it. But then when I got in the in the workout room, I was like, yeah, I don't, I don't think I'll ever do that. Maybe I will. I don't know. Actually, I'll tell you what I will do is someone online, maybe it was you, someone was saying 100 burpees in

• 2:29:21Jocko Willink?

  10 minutes.

• 2:29:22Speaker 01

  10 minutes. Was that you saying?

• 2:29:23Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:29:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:29:24Jocko Willink?

  And Brandon just texted me yesterday. It's Brandon. Brandon Heyward. He said he's gonna do it.

• 2:29:29Speaker 01

  I I was considering I'm gonna do it in the first time I did.

• 2:29:32Jocko Willink?

  That hard. I'm so surprised that branding, Brandon's a good shape. Did you ever see? He he posted like pictures of himself doing these crazy push up workouts? I can't believe he can't do it. That's why I'm so surprised.

• 2:29:42Speaker 01

  This is what I'll.

• 2:29:43Jocko Willink?

  He does weird. He does good, creative. Push up drills, does weird creative push up drills.

• 2:29:49Speaker 01

  Like what?

• 2:29:49Jocko Willink?

  I don't know, he doing some weird stuff, he puts his hands up here, over there.

• 2:29:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's good.

• 2:29:53Jocko Willink?

  Awkward, but yeah, totally good.

• 2:29:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, cuz you ever try like, I got good at push ups when I was thinking, actually, I'm still pretty solid at push ups. But you try to do a push up with, you know, like adjusted, you're like, oh, this is way off. It's kinda like goes back to what we were saying, it's like what you're used to, your neuromuscular.

• 2:30:08Jocko Willink?

  Speaking of what we were saying.

• 2:30:11Jocko Willink?

  Weren't you saying something about kettlebells?

• 2:30:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm into that now.

• 2:30:14Jocko Willink?

  Concisely kinda wrap up right now.

• 2:30:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, then you started talking about other, the other crazy squats and whatnot.

• 2:30:20Jocko Willink?

  That's, you know what, is my fault.

• 2:30:23Jocko Willink?

  Next time I won't say anything.

• 2:30:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, see, that's what, that's what, I see what you did there, look, you took blame. You, and you told me what you're gonna do to fix it. Dang, extreme ownership, in effect, um, also, okay, wait, well, what were we talking about? Oh yeah, I'm into kettlebells now.

• 2:30:38Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and you wanna say where you should get your kettlebells?

• 2:30:41Speaker 01

  I'm not saying necessarily where you should, I'm saying where I got them, and if you want, you can get kettlebells anywhere. Where, really?

• 2:30:48Jocko Willink?

  What about cool kettlebells?

• 2:30:49Speaker 01

  Cool kettle, whoa, that's a different story, my friend. Anyway, I got mine from Onnit. I'm not even saying get the cool kettlebells, I'm saying go to Onnit.com.

• 2:31:01Speaker 01

  Slash Jocko, look at the kettlebells, you like those kettlebells? If you're gonna get into kettlebells, or if you're already currently into kettlebells. Get some of those if you like them. I like them, I got one, uh, the small one, it's called Howler, a little howler monkey.

• 2:31:18Speaker 01

  I think it's a monkey, anyway, Howler Monkey kettlebell, it's like, uh, I wanna say 18 pounds, what's .5 pood?

• 2:31:25Jocko Willink?

  Eight pounds? A pood is 16 pounds?

• 2:31:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, no, no, 16 kilos, I think.

• 2:31:31Jocko Willink?

  Oh, sorry, 16 kilos, yeah.

• 2:31:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, so, yeah, so eight kilos, 16 pounds, give or take 17, 18 pounds. Um, anyway, I got one of those for my daughter, so my nephew comes, visits, he's 11, not into working out, we'll just say that.

• 2:31:45Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, is now.

• 2:31:47Speaker 01

  Is now, yeah, so I'm like, you know, he's one of these kids, he's like, you know, he's into, uh, math and whatnot. So I'm working out all the time, and I never really thought, until someone maybe kinda suggested it, to say, hey, come work out with me, you know? So I tell him, come work out and he I kind of caught him at the end where it was Metcon time. And he was and I was like, hey, come work out because I saw him, you know? And he's like, yeah, he's like, cool, immediately too, by the way, probably be surprised.

• 2:32:14Jocko Willink?

  I'm not surprised.

• 2:32:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, man.

• 2:32:15Jocko Willink?

  I'm not surprised.

• 2:32:16Speaker 01

  Kids, they see you working out, they're like, man, I want to be like that.

• 2:32:19Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:32:19Speaker 01

  You know, in their head.

• 2:32:20Jocko Willink?

  Imagine when you were a kid. Remember you saw somebody that was all yoked, you're like, how do I do that?

• 2:32:25Speaker 01

  It's the whole reason I work out, to be honest with you, like, remember the show American Gladiators? Remember that show?

• 2:32:30Jocko Willink?

  But it was not from when I was a kid.

• 2:32:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, no, you're.

• 2:32:33Jocko Willink?

  I didn't watch it the way you were apparently watching.

• 2:32:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, bro, I was watching that. I was like, bro, I want to be an American Gladiator because they were there. It was like, because there was the mix between these big, kind of almost like bullies, not bullies, like bully people, but they were like, you know, when you play a video game, you come against the boss who you look at him, you're like, I can't beat this guy. I can't beat him. But you and you're a normal character or whatever. And then they end up with, that's what American Gladiators was in real life. And I was like, dang, those American Gladiators are money because they're athletic too. So I was like, man, I'd watch it. I'd do a bunch of pushups. I was in like sixth grade or something like that. Yeah, that's the whole reason. Anyway, I think a lot of kids have that in their mind, especially the boys.

• 2:33:09Jocko Willink?

  For sure.

• 2:33:09Speaker 01

  In one way or another. So I was like, hey, come work out with me. And he's like, he's like, okay, puts down his phone. Yeah, he was on the phone. Not anymore. Boom, out there.

• 2:33:17Jocko Willink?

  Little Uncle Jake scenario.

• 2:33:18Speaker 01

  Uncle Jake, hundred percent. I was Uncle Jake at that time.

• 2:33:21Jocko Willink?

  Legit.

• 2:33:22Speaker 01

  Nephew is there. Actually, he was visiting me. I wasn't visiting, but nonetheless. He comes, I teach him the form and kids kind of have good form. Well, he did.

• 2:33:31Jocko Willink?

  Because they're flexible.

• 2:33:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, they're flexible. They they they haven't fallen into like improper patterns.

• 2:33:36Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:33:36Speaker 01

  Maybe like like adults have or something, maybe. I don't know. That's just a guess. But anyway, so I'm like, you know, just the basic kettlebell swing.

• 2:33:43Jocko Willink?

  Mm hmm.

• 2:33:43Speaker 01

  I say, I say, this is what you're gonna do. Do it. I'll do it. I'll show you how. Give him little little tips or whatever, you know? It wasn't perfect for him. At first you'd adjust and and he could do it. Not the kind all the way up or nothing, just a basic. I was like, alright. And my daughter happened to be there and so she knows about burpees. So I was like, okay, what we're gonna do is you're gonna do kettlebell swings, five. And then you're gonna do burpees. And then we're gonna walk for thirty seconds, basically.

• 2:34:07Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:34:08Speaker 01

  But he's doing the kettlebell swings rather than the clean and press. So then you're gonna do burpees. Burpees is just jump down, do a push up, and then jump up in the air. That's a burpee. So he does it. I was like, mm, well, I'm like, you know, when you transition from standing to push up, there's a, there's some wiggle room there for air. So I go, oh, I tell my daughter, hey, demonstrate. She does. She's four. She can do it pretty good, too, by the way. So she does it. And um, so of course, he can do it. She's a little girl, dude. So he does it. Makes the adjustment. Boom. He's good to go. He's ready. So I'm getting fired up because mine's about to be super hard like it normally is. And he's like, you could tell he's getting fired up, too, you know? So I set the clock and we go. And his was kinda easy, to be honest with you, because the kettlebell swings compared to the, yeah. And boom, that kid did, did the whole thing. And he's all sweating afterwards, you know?

• 2:34:51Speaker 01

  And he's the kind where he doesn't do that kind of stuff, you know? But you could tell he was super fired up. And you know what he said next, what he said afterwards? He's like, hey, next time you work out, can you let me know?

• 2:35:02Jocko Willink?

  There you go.

• 2:35:03Speaker 01

  Straight up. I was like, dang.

• 2:35:05Jocko Willink?

  Uncle Echo's in the house.

• 2:35:06Speaker 01

  In the house, man, in the house. Yeah, so.

• 2:35:08Jocko Willink?

  He wrote a book about that.

• 2:35:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, maybe I will. It'll be the best book ever.

• 2:35:14Jocko Willink?

  Alright, next, next.

• 2:35:16Speaker 01

  Anyway. Kettlebell's on it. They have a lot of good stuff. You ever done battle ropes before?

• 2:35:22Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 2:35:22Speaker 01

  You have?

• 2:35:23Jocko Willink?

  But not, not.

• 2:35:23Speaker 01

  I never have.

• 2:35:24Jocko Willink?

  Like, they were in some random gym I was at one time. I was like, I've seen people doing this. I'm gonna do some of them.

• 2:35:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, they're like big, yeah, big ropes and they, I guess that's a good exercise. I'd never done them before, but I was considering that. I saw some on there. Anyway, a lot of good stuff on it.com slash Jocko. Check out all the stuff. Really good stuff. Stuff for everything, basically. Everything getting after it. Also, good way to support is when you get your copy of About Face, of course. That's already on it, on our website. JacoPodcast.com is, that's the website, if you didn't know. The Clay Pigeons.

• 2:36:01Speaker 01

  Of Saint Lo, that's the current book we just went over. That one is on the website as well. It's in the little section, menu item on the top of the website, jockpodcast.com. Click Books from Episodes. Boom, the list of books by episode. Click through there.

• 2:36:15Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and before you tweet me and tell me a good book that I should do on the podcast, check and see if I've already done it.

• 2:36:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's like, what, like sixty books or so?

• 2:36:26Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and a lot of really good books that everyone knows, but if you haven't listened to the podcast and then you're telling me to cover With the Old Breed by Eugene Sledge or uh, whatever, just so a lot of times people tell me to cover books that have already been on there.

• 2:36:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:36:41Jocko Willink?

  So then I gotta go and figure out which podcast it was so I can tell you to go and listen to Podcast, you know, ten.

• 2:36:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:36:47Jocko Willink?

  Which is With the Old Breed by Eugene Sledge.

• 2:36:49Speaker 01

  There you go.

• 2:36:50Jocko Willink?

  I think.

• 2:36:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, something like that. But if, hey, you wanna check that out? Like I said, it's all there by episode.

• 2:36:55Jocko Willink?

  And if you wanna book a reading list for me, that's my reading list.

• 2:36:58Speaker 01

  That's it, yeah.

• 2:36:59Jocko Willink?

  There's no other books. If a book is good and I read it, it's been on the podcast.

• 2:37:04Speaker 01

  And I'll do you one better, cuz I have a small reading list that I added to that list.

• 2:37:09Jocko Willink?

  Oh.

• 2:37:10Speaker 01

  It's only one book, but I'm just saying.

• 2:37:12Jocko Willink?

  Was it Mind Games?

• 2:37:13Speaker 01

  Mind Games, yes. Powell, Michael Powell. Um, you know, that's an easy read. It's kinda like the Field Manual, a small little version, different subject, but nonetheless.

• 2:37:22Jocko Willink?

  It's not like the Field Manual, dude.

• 2:37:25Jocko Willink?

  I haven't even read it, but I know it's not.

• 2:37:27Speaker 01

  No, no, no, probably not. Anyway, um, back to the, as far as supporting, get your books through there. Click through it. Goes to Amazon. You shop Amazon like we all do anyway, right? So when you get these books, like I said, listed by episode, click through there. And if you're doing other shopping, hey, feel free, you know? When you click through there, that's a small little action.

• 2:37:50Speaker 01

  Big reaction. As far as support, you know, kinda like, you know, when you throw sodium metal in water, you know?

• 2:37:57Jocko Willink?

  Oh, I know.

• 2:37:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, I haven't said it for a long time, so I'm gonna say it now just to remind everybody, when you throw sodium metal in water, it explodes big, huge. I learned that in chemistry class. My chemistry teacher's name is Mr. Bigelow, by the way. Kauai High School. Bark in the day. Anyway, also, good way to support, subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, and Google Play, and other places that they do podcasts.

• 2:38:22Jocko Willink?

  And leave a review.

• 2:38:24Speaker 01

  Leave a review. Here's the

• 2:38:26Jocko Willink?

  If you feel like it.

• 2:38:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's really what it is.

• 2:38:29Jocko Willink?

  I like reading the reviews. But yeah, if you feel like leaving one, apparently it's like, it helps, but whatever and stuff. I don't know.

• 2:38:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, good. Yeah, good. And that's great. For sure. That's great.

• 2:38:40Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, no, helpful. It spreads. What does it do?

• 2:38:42Speaker 01

  Spread the word. I think ultimately that's the benefit. So, you know, when I see our Jocko podcast on, you know, number, whatever, where it appears like between one and 10 in the business section. That is good. That's cool. But really, the tangible benefit for the message is is spreading the word. People, if they get turned on to it, it improves everybody's life, really, because if you improve your life in in all these ways, it improves like your improvement is a direct effect on my improvement because I hang around with you. So that's kind of how it is. So that's really the benefit. So.

• 2:39:19Jocko Willink?

  If you want to help spread the word.

• 2:39:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:39:22Jocko Willink?

  You can write a review.

• 2:39:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:39:23Jocko Willink?

  And if you want to give feedback about the podcast, that's a good place to do it.

• 2:39:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think that's and let's face it, when you leave a review, especially the ones that everyone leaves.

• 2:39:31Jocko Willink?

  Because people are.

• 2:39:32Speaker 01

  It's kind of fun. That part is fun.

• 2:39:33Jocko Willink?

  And people aren't, people, people like take time in the reviews. They're like, good podcast.

• 2:39:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:39:39Jocko Willink?

  Well, actually, sometimes they do say that because they're saying good. Emphasis on capital G O O D.

• 2:39:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's how. Layers.

• 2:39:49Jocko Willink?

  Mm hmm.

• 2:39:49Speaker 01

  Layers in the reviews. Dang, they're everywhere, but I'm telling you. But anyway, yeah, look, if you're in the mood, leave a review. You know, as long as you're honest, that's the main thing. And, you know, get colorful with it if you want. Those are actually the fun ones. Like I said, anyway, leave a review. Yeah, sure. If you if you feel like it. Subscribe. Subscribe to YouTube. We have YouTube. If you didn't know, everyone knows, I think.

• 2:40:10Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:40:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, because we say it all the time. But in the event of this being the first time.

• 2:40:15Jocko Willink?

  Subscribe to it then.

• 2:40:16Speaker 01

  Why wouldn't you?

• 2:40:16Jocko Willink?

  Why wouldn't someone subscribe to it?

• 2:40:20Speaker 01

  If I were a person who, oh, wait, if you're listening to the podcast, it makes sense. Yeah, I don't know how many reasons there would ever be to not subscribe. Yes, here, this is why.

• 2:40:29Jocko Willink?

  What's the reason?

• 2:40:30Speaker 01

  I listen to the podcast audio. I look, I go to YouTube and I only watch people playing first person shooter video games. You know how that, I don't know if you know this, but this, that's a thing. Like, people will watch other people

• 2:40:44Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:40:45Speaker 01

  on YouTube videos playing shooter games.

• 2:40:47Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 2:40:48Speaker 01

  Let's say I'm only into that.

• 2:40:52Speaker 01

  I'm probably not gonna subscribe. Or, actually, this one's actually a legitimate one that I can kinda dig and relate to. Is if my YouTube subscribing situation is only to kids' stuff. Only to kids' stuff because every once in a while, I give my phone to my kid.

• 2:41:12Jocko Willink?

  Hmm, okay.

• 2:41:13Speaker 01

  And they watch like, you know, they watch like Peppa Pig or I don't know, something.

• 2:41:17Jocko Willink?

  Well.

• 2:41:17Speaker 01

  And then boom, they click on.

• 2:41:19Jocko Willink?

  The reason I say this is because a lot of times the podcast is just what the podcast is on YouTube. But like the other day, you released a deleted scene. It wasn't even deleted, it was pre-recording, we were just talking.

• 2:41:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, before.

• 2:41:31Jocko Willink?

  And people seem to think it was pretty funny.

• 2:41:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:41:34Jocko Willink?

  Even I thought it was quite funny.

• 2:41:35Speaker 01

  I thought it was funny, yeah, cuz when you detached it is really funny.

• 2:41:39Jocko Willink?

  But the thing is, if someone wasn't listening, if someone's not on Subscribe to YouTube, they would never know that that existed.

• 2:41:45Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:41:45Jocko Willink?

  And then you miss it. And it's pretty funny.

• 2:41:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, I thought it was funny too.

• 2:41:50Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:41:51Speaker 01

  Even though it was kinda, kinda harsh, you know, what do you call me, getaway sticks? Or something like that? Messed up. Anyway, yeah, see, now you're, you just went into the reasons to subscribe. Oh, there's a whole reason.

• 2:42:03Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:42:03Speaker 01

  Good, cuz you know, the excerpts that we make, put out, just cut tiny segments, three minutes nowadays.

• 2:42:11Jocko Willink?

  Even though the, even though the deleted scene was sixteen minutes.

• 2:42:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, that's different, but.

• 2:42:15Jocko Willink?

  But it was pretty funny.

• 2:42:17Speaker 01

  Yeah. Uh, but the excerpts, you know, they're just like individual ideas that you talk about. Boom, shareable, all good. That's a good reason to subscribe to YouTube, one of the many, in my opinion. Also, Jocko has a store. It's called Jocko Store. jockostore.com, that's the URL. On there, what do we have? Shirts, rash guards. Rash guards, uh, we started for jujitsu. But here's the thing, rash guards are for surfing and bodyboarding.

• 2:42:44Jocko Willink?

  And. Jacking steel.

• 2:42:46Speaker 01

  Jacking steel, yes, cycling. These are all, that's what really, like it's a spandex shirt, there's little things.

• 2:42:54Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I guess the term rash guards only applies to surfing and because it doesn't, you're not worried about getting a rash when you're lifting weights. You're not worried about getting a rash, I guess.

• 2:43:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, I guess in Jiu Jitsu.

• 2:43:05Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I guess so.

• 2:43:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:43:07Jocko Willink?

  Guard you against rash or, or ringworm or whatever.

• 2:43:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 2:43:13Jocko Willink?

  So.

• 2:43:14Speaker 01

  Nonetheless, I mean, the point there is that it's for everything, just because you hear Jocko talking about Jiu Jitsu all the time.

• 2:43:19Jocko Willink?

  You know what, it's not for everything, because I don't want to see you at the club in a, in a get after at rash guard.

• 2:43:26Speaker 01

  Well, that's, you can speak for yourself, because if I saw someone at the club with a get after at rash guard, I would, I would say good evening to that person.

• 2:43:35Jocko Willink?

  That's a good point.

• 2:43:36Speaker 01

  And I can respect. You can't be mad at him.

• 2:43:39Jocko Willink?

  No, actually, I can't be, no, no rash guards when you're out, not doing activities, I'm not a supporter of that.

• 2:43:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know what, to be, to be completely honest, I don't know that I would support it or recommend it.

• 2:43:52Jocko Willink?

  I mean, just like, hey, I'm going out, I'm going to the supermarket, put on my get after at rash guard.

• 2:43:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:43:58Jocko Willink?

  I guess if you're just like, you never know what's gonna happen.

• 2:44:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:44:01Jocko Willink?

  You might want to be ready.

• 2:44:02Speaker 01

  Right, it's true.

• 2:44:03Jocko Willink?

  I know you get some good workouts in the grocery store yourself, you know, you're carrying the six pack and extra for, you know, long line.

• 2:44:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, true.

• 2:44:11Jocko Willink?

  If you're in the rash guard, you're compression, you're ready.

• 2:44:14Speaker 01

  It's absolutely true, and you know, you want to look into that, go to jocko store dot com, so.

• 2:44:20Speaker 01

  The shirts on there, you know, I try to add like a new one every, what, like month or so.

• 2:44:26Jocko Willink?

  I don't know what your goal is.

• 2:44:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't know if I actually have a goal.

• 2:44:30Jocko Willink?

  I've been wearing Bronson's children t-shirt.

• 2:44:32Speaker 01

  Me too, yeah, that's the one.

• 2:44:34Jocko Willink?

  Because that's, that's.

• 2:44:35Speaker 01

  Yeah. The, the shirt that you made.

• 2:44:41Speaker 01

  The one that you made with my face on it, whatever, dang, so. I'd always get caught up on the front like haha, that's funny. The front and all the layers on the front, but on the back it says good evening. So when you wear that one, that's when people are gonna talk to you the most. You know how like, you don't wear the one with your face on it ever, do you?

• 2:45:00Jocko Willink?

  No.

• 2:45:01Speaker 01

  There's no reason for you to.

• 2:45:02Jocko Willink?

  That'd be weird.

• 2:45:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, it would be weird.

• 2:45:04Jocko Willink?

  I already have my face.

• 2:45:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, you do too.

• 2:45:07Jocko Willink?

  You're wearing my face right now.

• 2:45:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. Yep, look at that. But if you wear that one, it says good evening on the back. So I, I never really thought of this. I haven't worn it. I don't even have one. But that's the, when I'd wear this one, the one with good, people will say something. They were like, good, or be like, oh, you're good. It's backwards. Your shirt's backwards. I don't know. Or who's that guy in your shirt? Whatever. People will, will say something to you. The good evening one, they'll talk to you even more, but they'll do it from behind and they'll tell you good evening. Every single time.

• 2:45:38Jocko Willink?

  Interesting. You haven't worn it yet. How do you know this?

• 2:45:40Speaker 01

  No, cuz I know. I know the compulsion, like I know the feeling. That's my hypothesis anyway, and from what I hear from the field. Anyway, go on there. If you like something, get something. That's a good way to support. There's some hats.

• 2:45:55Jocko Willink?

  Oh, really? Released?

• 2:45:57Speaker 01

  Coming out. Within one week. How about that? Cool?

• 2:46:01Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 2:46:02Speaker 01

  Alright, there it is.

• 2:46:03Jocko Willink?

  I better have like nine of them lined up at my doorstep. Cuz I need some of them hats.

• 2:46:08Speaker 01

  You got it, bro. I promise. So yeah, some patches on there as well. Anyway, check it out. If you like something, get something. Also, Psychological Warfare. If you don't know what that is, it's an album with tracks. Jocko tracks. It's Jocko talking, getting you through various points of weakness in your...

• 2:46:28Speaker 01

  I've been, I've been really trying to think of a word to say other than journey. I haven't yet, so we're gonna stick with journey. So when you're on your journey, you're trying to wake up. You're trying to wake up early. Maybe I will.

• 2:46:40Jocko Willink?

  Do it.

• 2:46:41Speaker 01

  You're trying to work out.

• 2:46:44Speaker 01

  You're trying to work out every day. Every day now. Even on rest days, you're doing a mobility walk, something like this. Yeah. Man, sometimes you wanna turn those, those workout days into rest days, so don't do that. And if you need a little spot with that, you listen to Psychological Warfare. There's a track for that. For any, any point of weakness, like I said. Get after it. Psychological warfare. Amazon Music, iTunes, various other MP3 outlets. Jocko willing.

• 2:47:16Jocko Willink?

  Now, uh, first, if you haven't heard yet, we are now in league. With Origin USA. Little company that we are now a part of. It's been months in the making. We've been going back and forth with my boy Pete Roberts. And who actually, this is, you want to talk about layers? The reason that we are linked up in the beginning was because of Sarah Armstrong.

• 2:47:47Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 2:47:47Jocko Willink?

  Who, who heard me talking about how cool Origin was.

• 2:47:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:47:52Jocko Willink?

  That they make everything in America. She sent Pete an email and said, hey, I know you run this company and this guy was talking about you. You guys should talk to each other. Guess what? We talked and now we're getting after it. And we joined forces. So we're planning all kinds of things. And, uh, gear, geez, rash guards. Planning some supplements and believe it or not.

• 2:48:15Speaker 01

  Is the rash guard back in stock?

• 2:48:17Jocko Willink?

  Not yet. We were doing a little, we're doing a lot of building right now.

• 2:48:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:48:23Jocko Willink?

  Uh, but we got all kinds of things coming. Basically, you know, basically I want to make everything that I use to get after it.

• 2:48:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:48:30Jocko Willink?

  I want to make. So, so, so everything and I'm, and when I say everything is not a long list. I don't use that much stuff to get after it.

• 2:48:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:48:39Jocko Willink?

  I, I use a pretty small list, but I want to make it and I want to make it in America. So if you want to check it out, check out originmaine.com because it's in New England, which is where I'm from.

• 2:48:53Speaker 01

  Dig it.

• 2:48:53Jocko Willink?

  No big deal.

• 2:48:54Speaker 01

  Layers.

• 2:48:55Jocko Willink?

  Layers indeed. And also if you want to get into it like now. You want to find out really what's going on? There's an Origin Immersion Jiu-Jitsu Camp in Maine. I realized I hadn't even explained what this is. You ever see, see, I'm from New England, so I know what this is. I know what a camp is. You, you may or may not know. People in other parts of the country may or may not know. A camp in this form is, in this situation, it's a big lake. And on the lake, there's a property. And on the property, they have a bunch of little cabins. A bunch of them, like multiple cabins. And when you go to a camp, you stay in the cabins. And then they have a kind of a central area. Well, we are renting out the entire camp.

• 2:49:38Jocko Willink?

  I don't know how many cabins, it's like dozens and dozens of cabins, right? All these things on a lake. And then there's a main kind of gathering area. Well, guess what we're putting in the main, guess what we're putting in the main gathering area?

• 2:49:51Speaker 01

  Let them in.

• 2:49:52Jocko Willink?

  Max. So, we're gonna go, you, you, you know, if you want to come, you come up, you come to Maine. It's three hours from Boston, it's a half an hour from Augusta, Maine. We're gonna be there. Echo and I are gonna be there Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. There's two sessions that are going on. The first one is the twenty, the twentieth through the twenty-third, I think. Yeah, the twentieth through the twenty-third. So Echo and I are gonna be there Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. So we're gonna be a part of both sessions.

• 2:50:22Jocko Willink?

  And so come to that. And what we're gonna do is we're gonna train Jiu-Jitsu. But you can only train Jiu-Jitsu so many hours a day. So what else are we gonna do? We're gonna hang out, we're gonna cruise.

• 2:50:32Speaker 01

  Cruise big time.

• 2:50:33Jocko Willink?

  We're gonna do some kind, there's a big lake there. So you can't surf in the lake, but we'll figure something water activity out, right?

• 2:50:39Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 2:50:40Jocko Willink?

  And they're making lobster, and I don't like lobster, but I'm gonna have steak. And you can have lobster and, and, uh, yeah, so we're gonna be hanging out.

• 2:50:49Speaker 01

  Wait, so the lake, is the lake cold? Can we swim in the lake?

• 2:50:52Jocko Willink?

  You can swim in the lake regardless of how cold it is.

• 2:50:55Speaker 01

  I don't know about.

• 2:50:56Jocko Willink?

  I don't know the temperature of the lake, but Maine, summertime, it'll be, it's not gonna be freezing.

• 2:51:00Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 2:51:01Jocko Willink?

  I don't think. And if it is, good, it's good for your muscles.

• 2:51:03Speaker 01

  Right, right, recovery.

• 2:51:05Jocko Willink?

  And also during this, so during this thing too, if you come up, or if you can't make that and you want to come up for this anyways, we're having the grand opening of our new Origin Factory in Farmington, Maine. So, big factory, twenty thousand square feet. I think it's bigger than twenty thousand square feet. Everyone's invited to that. Come hang out. You know, I was thinking we do like, we'll do like a Q and A or something. We'll hang out, we'll bring books. We'll just, we'll just kick it. So come up to that. That is the 23rd of August in Maine. Come and hang out, like I said.

• 2:51:38Speaker 01

  What is the jujitsu part of it? How does that work? Like the, you know, there's two weeks.

• 2:51:44Jocko Willink?

  You can go for the whole thing? No, it's not two weeks. It's one week long. It's from the 20th to the 27th, but it's broken into two sessions.

• 2:51:50Speaker 01

  So, so what do you mean sessions? Like what? We all just roll? You have different teachers?

• 2:51:55Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, there's different teachers. Yeah, but, but you know, I think we're doing, I think it's three sessions a day of jujitsu. I mean, how, how many sessions can you roll hard at? So some of them's gonna be like, hey, you know, I'll drill some technique with you. Hey, maybe you can go over some footlock stuff with me or what? You know what I mean? I think there's gonna be some of that. And but then there's also a bunch of different black belts gonna be there to hang out, show moves. Yeah. So, yeah, immersion. That's how you learn. So I know Nako Nolan's coming to that from the West Coast.

• 2:52:23Speaker 01

  Respect.

• 2:52:24Jocko Willink?

  He's coming out. He just hit me up. So yeah, come on up to that. We're gonna have a good time. Also, when we're there, we're gonna have some Jocko White Tea.

• 2:52:34Jocko Willink?

  So if there's anyone that wants to instantly deadlift 8,000 pounds, you can get the Jocko White Tea. If you need to crush an academic test, get Jocko White Tea. If you need some right now, you can get some on Amazon. Books, we've got some books.

• 2:52:51Jocko Willink?

  For your kid or whatever kids you know, we've got The Way of the Warrior Kid. There's lessons in there for everybody. Check it out. If you want the first edition of Discipline Equals Freedom Field Manual, order it soon. Or go to your bookstore and tell them you want to get it, preorder it, whatever you gotta do, Amazon, Barnes and Nobles, your local bookstore, get it. Now, I'm gonna tell you, don't get this book for your wine sipping book club.

• 2:53:22Jocko Willink?

  Not a book for them. They won't like it. You're part of that club, don't get it for them. You can still get it, but don't bring it to the book club.

• 2:53:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:53:28Jocko Willink?

  They're, they're, they're sipping wine. They're not in the game.

• 2:53:33Jocko Willink?

  But if you want to get stronger, tougher, smarter, healthier, and more prepared, all around, better person, get the book, Discipline Equals Freedom Field Manual, comes out October 17th, which means they're printing it almost now. So that means if you don't order it, isn't there going to be backed up? You're not going to have it. Everyone else is going to have it. They're going to have an edge on you. Maybe you never recover. Like that battle I was talking about earlier, if someone else gets the edge on you, you just can't make it. Also, Extreme Ownership, own it, refer to it, highlight it, implement it, spread the word, get it for your team, your company, your organization. Wrote that with my brother Leif Babbin. So if you

• 2:54:17Jocko Willink?

  don't have that, and you don't have copies for every single person that you've ever known, get it for them. Also, Echelon Front Leadership Consulting, Assessments, Instruction, me, Leif Babbin, JP Denell, Dave Burke. Get the team organized and coordinated for action and for victory. That's my recommendation. If you want to get that process going, email [email protected]. Finally, the muster is September 14th and 15th in San Diego. All the other musters have sold out. More than half the tickets for San Diego have already

• 2:54:57Jocko Willink?

  sold out. So this is going to sell out. Don't get left out in the cold. You can register at extremeownership.com. And if you need to talk to us before you see us at the immersion camp in Maine, and before you go to the muster in San Diego, you can find us on the interwebs, the Twitter, the Instagram, that Facebooky boha, and also...

• 2:55:29Jocko Willink?

  Snapchat.

• 2:55:31Speaker 01

  You're on Snapchat?

• 2:55:32Jocko Willink?

  I'm on it. I'm I'm learning from my children.

• 2:55:36Speaker 01

  Okay, good.

• 2:55:37Jocko Willink?

  That's the way people communicate now, the Snapchat. And I looked at the pages, guess what? Wall Street Journal's on there. The Economist is on there. It's not it's not this thing for your teenage fourteen year old kid anymore.

• 2:55:50Speaker 01

  Well, it is, but yeah, it kind of got out of the basement as well, so it kind of grew.

• 2:55:55Jocko Willink?

  I don't know. There must be something to it.

• 2:55:57Speaker 01

  I don't know. I'm talking rubbish, but I I have a Snapchat. I don't use it and I haven't like, you know, I think you gotta like confirm your account. I was doing it because my daughter likes to make the faces, you know, those crazy faces.

• 2:56:08Jocko Willink?

  My youngest daughter likes to do that, too.

• 2:56:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, so she did it on my wife's phone all the time and then she hit me up for it like, hey, let me do she calls it Snapchaps. So she's like, let me Snapchat. She doesn't know what it is. She thinks it's just a face thing. So I'm like, all right. So I tried to do it then said, now I gotta confirm. I was like, no. So I didn't, but I'm, yeah, I guess I'm like one foot in, one foot out kind of thing.

• 2:56:28Jocko Willink?

  Well, I'm not. I haven't posted anything yet.

• 2:56:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:56:32Jocko Willink?

  But I'm going, I almost did. I was like trying to figure it out.

• 2:56:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. Dang, that's good, man.

• 2:56:37Jocko Willink?

  But Jade told me, this is what Jade told me, which was smart.

• 2:56:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:56:40Jocko Willink?

  This is what Jade told me, your brother Jade. I said, you know, it's just I don't really understand it. And he goes, that's why you need to do it.

• 2:56:47Speaker 01

  I know, bro.

• 2:56:48Jocko Willink?

  Oh, and I was like, wow. I said to myself, okay, you're right. Don't like, oh, oh, I'm afraid of something. Why am I afraid of it? Don't understand it. How do you overcome that?

• 2:56:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:56:57Jocko Willink?

  Because apparently it's a good method of communication.

• 2:57:01Speaker 01

  And then Jade, and not to say Jade said so, so it's right. I'm not saying that, but he's real smart with that kind of stuff like he knows he see he knows the trends. So he can like predict shit, those stuff like how, you know, like how it'll work and who's gonna, he's in fact, he what he does now is AI, artificial intelligence with applications and stuff like that. So he he knows that stuff. So it's like when he kind of says he can't help but be like, ah, you're right. You know, even if you don't know, you're like, well, consider the source kind of thing. In fact, he got me into cryptocurrency investment. So I invest me and I'm up thirty percent. That's all I'm gonna say about it. So I'm like, all right. Yeah, I hate to give him the credit for that, but you kind of can't help it. Yeah.

• 2:57:42Jocko Willink?

  Good. Well, you can find us on the interwebs. Echo is at Echo Charles and I am at Jocko Willink. And finally, thanks to everyone that makes this podcast possible.

• 2:57:56Jocko Willink?

  First, our military.

• 2:57:59Jocko Willink?

  Whose strength and true warrior culture allows us the freedom to do what we want to do. And thanks to the police, law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, first responders, who are ever vigilant and always ready. I was just driving back from Yosemite and there were big forest fires up there and all kinds of people had signs out saying thanks to the firefighters. So, thanks for you guys up there in the mountains fighting the fires.

• 2:58:35Jocko Willink?

  And to the rest of you that are out there working, building, making, and squeezing every ounce of life that you can, crushing every minute of every day, out there leading in the face of adversity and doing everything you can to be everything you can.

• 2:59:03Jocko Willink?

  To all you, thanks for being in the game with us.

• 2:59:08Jocko Willink?

  And thanks for getting after it.

• 2:59:11Jocko Willink?

  So, until next time, this is Echo and Jocko. Out.