Jocko Underground: An Interesting Factor In The Russia/Ukraine Conflict. Chasing Your Dreams. Do The Right Thing

Interesting factor in Russia / Ukraine conflict. Chasing Your Dreams. Dealing with a loved one and alcoholism. "Just do the right thing." How to think about video gaming. 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 the Jocko Underground Podcast number 45 with Echo Charles sitting across the table from me and just to give a little bit of just some perspective that we were talking about to everyone. Right now, the date is the 18th of March and looking at the war as it unfolds in Ukraine and one of the things that I just wanted to bring a sort of very ground level

• 0:37Jocko Willink?

  tactical view to is the way I think there's some things that are going to have a big impact on that on that war. One of them is snipers and the reason I bring this up is because snipers which in Task Unit Bruiser, we used very effectively against the enemy in Iraq. The psychological impact of snipers cannot be overstated. It is a massive psychological impact. We certainly got reports from the enemy. You know, we would intercept reports

• 1:22Jocko Willink?

  or we'd get gather human intelligence that would say that the the enemy, the insurgents in Ramadi were horrified of snipers. And what makes it so horrifying is that you it's kind of I guess it's it's almost the there's an equivalency between a sniper and a roadside bomb in that you're just minding your own business. You're doing you know, you're doing your bad guy stuff. You're out there doing your bad guy stuff and you think you're going to get away with doing your bad guy stuff and you're not scared of anyone because you kind of operate without without any fear because you don't even see you don't see

• 2:03Jocko Willink?

  any any American forces around. You're just out there being a bad guy. Maybe you're with your buddy and you're out there doing bad guy stuff. You're digging a hole in the road or you're maneuvering to a fighting position or whatever and all of a sudden your friend's head just disappears.

• 2:20Jocko Willink?

  And you don't know how it happened. You didn't know where you didn't hear a boom, right?

• 2:25Speaker 01

  So you don't hear the gunshot.

• 2:26Jocko Willink?

  You may or may not.

• 2:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:28Jocko Willink?

  Depending on how far you are, or maybe you hear it a second later, two seconds later.

• 2:34Jocko Willink?

  And, and then you look to respond and you don't see anything. You, you know what you see is you see windows. So imagine you're walking down the street. Imagine you're walking down the street in San Diego.

• 2:46Jocko Willink?

  In downtown San Diego. You've been to downtown San Diego. You worked at the, at the bar, right? So imagine you're standing out in front of your bar in San Diego. You're beating your bouncer. Right?

• 2:56Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 2:56Jocko Willink?

  And, and imagine how many, how many windows and doorways can you see?

• 3:02Speaker 01

  Thousands.

• 3:02Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. It might be thousands, right?

• 3:06Speaker 01

  It's more than thousands, probably like maybe 10, given, yeah, like 10,000.

• 3:11Jocko Willink?

  Because the angles, it may not be. It's not infinite, but there is a really hard, a very large number. Cause, cause it's not just the building across the street or the next building down or the next, it's like six buildings down.

• 3:24Speaker 01

  More than that. It's every building you can see.

• 3:26Jocko Willink?

  Every building you can see. And the rooftop and the windows. So we now imagine that the previous day when you were doing your bouncing job. You were standing out there with your friend Fred and all of a sudden Fred's head just disappeared. And now it's, now it's the next day and you're going to work. How do you feel? You're not going to feel good about that.

• 3:49Speaker 01

  No.

• 3:50Jocko Willink?

  So we would hear those reports when we were in Ramadi of, of fear. Psychological fear. Also there were some what we called enemy sharpshooters. So we didn't call them snipers because they weren't, they weren't like full on fully capable snipers, but there were some damn good shots and they, they, they, they made some shots and we would hear about. Those in the whole area of operations like for instance, here's one report that started coming down was that there was a enemy sharpshooter that was shooting and aiming for the groin. That's what he was aiming for.

• 4:35Jocko Willink?

  And, and so this was like, you know, just to give that psychological fear, there was these weird stories about uh like Chechen snipers. So now you're thinking, oh, this is a person that's been trained for this kind of thing. So I think that, well, the, the Ukrainians have very good actual snipers. And it is taking a toll on the Russians. And here's the thing from a, you know, I started, I started off by saying like, hey, I want to bring this down to a tactical perspective. But now I want to think, think about this from a strategic perspective. If you've got a hundred snipers.

• 5:18Jocko Willink?

  You got a hundred snipers. And each one of your snipers is killing three a day, three enemy a day. Now you've got a, a friendly force or whatever, whatever force is losing 300 people a day. Just from sniper shots that they can't react to, they don't know how to defend against. So 300 people a day. That turns into a real problem for any military. So as I've been watching this thing unfold in Ukraine, and I think it's gonna, I think that's gonna leave a mark. And then on top of that, we have these anti-tank weapons, they have these anti-tank weapons.

• 6:04Jocko Willink?

  The anti-tank weapons, this is another psychological thing because as a tanker, a young tanker.

• 6:14Jocko Willink?

  What are you thinking? When you get into a tank, you think you're getting into a, uh, you know, a, a, a place that no one can touch you. No one can bother you. You're good to go. Now, I never had this feeling. When I was in the back of tanks, when I was in the back of, well, really, I was in the back of Bradley's, but getting into a Bradley, you, I definitely didn't feel like, oh, I'm untouchable because Bradley's were getting blown up and destroyed and it was vicious to die inside of a Bradley. So I never felt any level of comfort when I was getting into a Bradley fighting vehicle to transit somewhere in Ramadi. Why is that? Well, it's because I had seen Bradley's get blown up

• 6:56Jocko Willink?

  and seen the damage that it caused and seen the people get killed in those. So let's say you're a young Russian tanker and, you know, you've trained and you literally go out and you drive over vehicles and it's cool and you can't hear anything in there because it's such a big, giant metal, awesome machine. And you're thinking, hey, the Ukrainians don't even have, you know, they've, they've got limited tanks, so we're just gonna kind of dominate. So now the first day goes by and all of a sudden you hear rumors, right? Hey, wait, they have some kind of anti-tank weapons. They're shooting our tanks and it's destroying our tanks, killing the guys inside. And they, well, how many, how many tanks got knocked out?

• 7:38Jocko Willink?

  And all of a sudden it's like seven, 12, 14 tanks. And now all of a sudden, instead of you feeling indestructible, you feel absolutely vulnerable. And between just those two things, just between the snipers and the anti-tank weapons that are being used, both of those are being used very effectively, I think that Russia. So that is a little excerpt of what we are doing on the Jocko Underground Podcast. So if you want to continue to listen,

• 8:12Jocko Willink?

  Go to JacoUnderground.com and subscribe and we're doing this, we're doing this to mitigate our reliance on external platforms. So we are not subject to their control and we are doing this so that we can support the Jocko Podcast, which will remain as is free for all, as long as we can keep it that way. But we, but we are doing this so we don't have to be under the control of sponsors. And we're doing it so we can give you more control, more interaction, more direct connections, better communications with us. And to do that, we are, we're building a website right now where we'll be able to utilize to strengthen

• 8:57Jocko Willink?

  this legion of troopers that are in the game with us. So thank you. It's JacoUnderground.com. It costs $8.18 a month. And if you can't afford to support us, we can still support you. Just email [email protected] and we'll get you taken care of. Until then, we will see you mobilized underground.