536: Ramadi: Sacrifice, Brotherhood, and The Return. w/ William "Spanky" Gibson

>Join Jocko Underground Full Episodes< https://www.jockounderground.com/subscribe A Marine’s journey through Ramadi, the realities of combat, and the strength required to return after devastating injury. A conversation about duty, brotherhood, and enduring hardship. 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 536 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. Good evening Echo. Good evening. After the Fallujah offensive, the Americans tried to quell the insurgency in Ramadi with a combination of political maneuvers and the cooperation of tribal leaders to root out foreign Islamist fighters. But that plan has spectacularly fallen apart. The men who dared to ally themselves with the Americans quickly learned that the US military couldn't protect them. Insurgents killed 70 of Ramadi's police recruits in January and at least half a dozen high-profile tribal leaders have been assassinated since then. Ramadi has become a town where

• 0:42Jocko Willink?

  anti-American guerrillas operate openly and city bureaucrats are afraid to acknowledge their job titles for fear of being killed. The government center in downtown Ramadi comes under gunfire or mortar attacks daily.

• 0:59Jocko Willink?

  And that right there is an article titled "Fear of Big Battle Panics Iraqi City." It was dated 11 June 2006. It's from the Los Angeles Times, written by Megan K. Stack and Louise Rouge. And we've heard from quite a few people on this podcast that fought in Ramadi in 2005 and 2006 and 2007. And there's one common theme that comes out of those conversations, and that is the relationships that we formed on the battlefield. The incredible mutual support that was shared between the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps units. And this happened at every level, from the brigade commander, working for the Marine Corps Division

• 1:44Jocko Willink?

  Commander, and the good relationships there. And that carried down through the entire chain of command. And at the tactical level, almost every operation that took place was a joint combined operation. And if you're not familiar with military terminology, what that means is joint means it was... Multiple services, so Army and/or Navy and/or Marine Corps, all working together. And then combined means you have different country involved, and in this case, the country was the soldiers from Iraq, the Jundis. And one of the real obvious examples of this was my task unit, Task Unit Bruiser, and the relationship that we had with Marine Corps Anglicos.

• 2:26Jocko Willink?

  And on the west side of Ramadi, Leif's Charlie Platoon worked with Dave Burke's Anglicos crew. Dave's been on this podcast a bunch of times, Lightning Six. And on the east side, where Seth Stone was, there was a detachment from Delta Platoon, and they were working out at Camp Cragador with the first of the 506, and there was another Anglicos there, Lightning Four. And we had a great relationship with them. And a superb example of the camaraderie that existed in Ramadi is from one of their Marines, Gunny Gibson. Gunny Gibson, who I knew at the time, was known more commonly by his nickname, Spanky.

• 3:11Jocko Willink?

  And Gunny Gibson Spanky was exactly what you'd expect from a United States Marine. He was professional, he was mission focused. At the same time, he was funny, approachable, and likeable. And everybody notes that he led from the front. And he helped Seth Stone and Delta Platoon learn the battle space, passed on lessons learned. And Gunny Gibson was eventually wounded in Ramadi, shot in the left knee, was medically evacuated, eventually lost his leg above the knee. But that did not stop Gunny Gibson. He attacked his physical therapy, just like he attacked the enemy. He started off with walking, and then running with his prosthetic, and then swimming, and then biking, and then skiing, and then running races.

• 3:56Jocko Willink?

  And eventually, in January of 2008, he became the first above-the-knee amputee in history to deploy back to a combat theater in the GWAT. And it's an absolute honor to have him with us here tonight, retired Master Sergeant William Spanky. Gibson, good to see you, brother.

• 4:15Speaker 01

  Hey, thank you for having me. I appreciate it. Quite an honor.

• 4:19Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, man, that's a long time coming. I know we've touched bases and we've high-fived at various times in the past 20 years, but to finally get you out here is just, it's awesome. Great to see you. And you're going strong. And we were just saying, you're one of the few people that has actually pulled off being full, you're a retired dude. You don't have any side hustles. You don't have any other things going on. You're a fully retired dude that's spending time with your family and your grandkids. What is it, seven grandkids?

• 4:46Speaker 01

  Yep, seven grandkids. Epic. I love it. It's a totally different life.

• 4:51Jocko Willink?

  So having you out here, man, it's great. I know you just flew out here for the day to come and do this. And, you know, I've had a bunch of guys from Ramadi on and it's, it's so awesome to hear everyone's different perspective of what they saw. And we've had everybody from guys that were, you know, gunners in Humvees, you know, privates, you know, E2s, all the way up to brigade commanders from both the 228 and the 110D. So Gronski and McFarland have both come on. And then a bunch of battalion commanders, just company commanders. We've, we've tried to get a full spectrum of guys that were over there. It's really great to hear everybody's different perspective and it'll be awesome to hear yours as well. I'm looking forward to it.

• 5:28Speaker 01

  It's good to be here.

• 5:28Jocko Willink?

  Uh, let's get in a little bit, give us a little bit of background of growing up. So you were Oklahoma guy.

• 5:33Speaker 01

  Yep, Northeast Oklahoma. I'm an only child. Yeah, no siblings. Part of my life was spent in the country running around the woods, you know, shooting things with 22 until I was old enough to do my hunter safety course and at 12 in Oklahoma and start hunting deer. And my mom, uh, my mom hated living so far out in the country. And we moved back into town, which for me and my dad, both was terrible. But, so then it was just normal. Started wrestling in fifth grade. I was always very, very small. And, you know, you, when you're in fifth and sixth grade, I played football, played basketball, or I'm sorry, baseball, wrestled.

• 6:13Speaker 01

  And that was about it.

• 6:14Jocko Willink?

  Mm hmm.

• 6:14Speaker 01

  You know, and then as I got into junior high and realized that I'm, you know, weighing a haul of about sixty eight pounds and I'm getting hit by a hundred and thirty or a hundred and fifty pound guy, like, I don't like this.

• 6:26Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 6:27Speaker 01

  And here's this, one of my friends missed a fly ball and broke his cheekbone. And I'm like, well, I don't really like this. I love George Brett. I always try to emulate him and the, because that was big in those years, remember? So I stuck with wrestling.

• 6:40Jocko Willink?

  Uh huh.

• 6:40Speaker 01

  And that was pretty much the gist of it. I, I've always been, I was never a great athlete. I was okay. I got better with time, but I was always a follower. I was always a small guy, me and one other guy, Jason Brewer. We're the smallest kids in school in our senior year. And I knew I had this desire. I wanted to go in the Marine Corps. Cause my grandpa, dad being Navy.

• 7:07Speaker 01

  So that was.

• 7:07Jocko Willink?

  What'd your dad do in the Navy?

• 7:08Speaker 01

  He was CB.

• 7:09Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 7:09Speaker 01

  Electrician.

• 7:10Jocko Willink?

  Hell yeah.

• 7:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, I joined fifty eight, got out in seven D, came back to northeast Oklahoma and hence me seventy one.

• 7:18Speaker 01

  So, but the, um.

• 7:20Jocko Willink?

  And what'd you know about your granddad being in the Marine Corps?

• 7:22Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 7:23Jocko Willink?

  World War II?

• 7:25Speaker 01

  Looking back, yeah, he was World War II, got out.

• 7:27Jocko Willink?

  Mm hmm.

• 7:27Speaker 01

  He was from Salinas, California. So my mom was born out here in Redondo Beach.

• 7:33Speaker 01

  He got out in forty six, Korea kicks off in fifty, goes back in as a tech sergeant back then. They didn't call him gunnys.

• 7:41Jocko Willink?

  Mm hmm.

• 7:41Speaker 01

  And then he stayed from fifty till seventy six.

• 7:44Jocko Willink?

  Damn.

• 7:45Speaker 01

  Now, I knew that part of it because I was definitely in his life, you know, a lot, and even in my early career.

• 7:55Speaker 01

  But you know what? Not till after he passed away in two thousand when I was on recruiting duty, did I ever think I should ask more questions? Because then I got all the photos. That's all I asked for when he passed away was I just want everything Marine Corps. And which was weird because he had a picture of a battleship somewhere in the Pacific, because he was in the Pacific. And I had a picture back in nineteen ninety of the Jersey doing, we're doing Liberty float, going to Portland, Oregon. And I just got out of A R C and I've got this picture. Well, when he died, me being on recruiting, we put all the I love me stuffs on the wall. I stacked that picture and it almost, if it wouldn't have been for some of the equipment that was on the boat he was on, we didn't have in those, our days. But I regret not asking more. Same with my dad. My dad's been gone almost 10 years.

• 8:40Speaker 01

  I, you know, I regret not asking more questions. And, you know, I just got married to a promoted staff sergeant. Yeah, I've been selected for it right before my grandpa passed away. And then they promoted me over the phone in Yuma at the BEQ with my mom to staff sergeant over the phone so I could wear it for his ceremony. So I regret that he didn't get to see me go farther. I regret not asking those questions. But then again, my grandpa was a typical war II era Marine.

• 9:11Jocko Willink?

  Turning on with the rest of his life, not worried about what he already did.

• 9:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was all about just enjoy what you got left and not, you know, neither woe is me or hey, I'm the hero. So.

• 9:23Jocko Willink?

  So, so what was it like going to the Marine Corps? Did you just enlist right out of high school?

• 9:28Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. I turned 18 in boot camp. The, uh, I, I, there's a best friend of mine that we wrestled together from seventh grade up until I ended up blowing an ACL in high school, which almost DQ'd me. The, my buddy, his dad was still here at MCRD San Diego as a serious gunnery sergeant, still active duty Marine. My buddy John Ketcher, who looked just like Chesty Puller back in those days, he was guaranteed. And I wanted to emulate my grandpa. You know, no disrespect to my dad. Don't like the whites. I like the blues. And, uh, so, yeah, that, that was going to be the number one thing that I want to do

• 10:09Speaker 01

  is go. Well, what sucked was we graduated around the 22nd of May in Oklahoma. He immediately, the next day came out here to stay with his dad before he would check in. My recruiter, guy named Johnny Matthews, and I'll forget this guy, great guy. He calls me, you know, Lamb Line, my parents' house. I'm just hanging out. He goes, I need you to ship. I end up shipping a week before my buddy John, we were buddy program. We didn't realize, he didn't realize it. I didn't think, tell his mom and get ahold of your dad, blah, blah, We're sitting in church, second week of boot camp. And he's like, dude, what happened? I'm like, sorry, brother. That's our Matthew said, you gotta go, I went. So I went a week after I graduated high school.

• 10:54Speaker 01

  My 18th birthday was shot day, walking through all the electric guns. And yeah, that started it. I, I, I knew that I wasn't going to go college. I'd taken VOTEC, my junior and senior for precision machining. So I like, I like doing anything with my hands.

• 11:12Speaker 01

  But I was going to go in the Marine Corps. I must guarantee, I almost went in the army. Yeah, a year before I, two friends in my German class that me and John were in, they were able to go to boot camp before their senior year. Yeah, that's a cool, that's a cool program. It was, and I almost did, but I was only like 10 months out from that ACL reconstruction. And it was the old school one, patellar transfer where they had big gnarly scar. And, uh, yeah. So I guess that was God's way of telling me, you're not going in the army. And I didn't think I could get in the Marine. I was in house detention, May, May 5th of 1989, in-house detention, because I got in trouble in home ec class. And Johnny Matthews comes in there, well, let's try.

• 11:58Speaker 01

  I'm like, they DQ'd me, I can't. And he goes, let's try. And kiss and ship. Put me in a couple of days later, got me out of in-house detention. And then May 29th, 1989, I was, uh, at the hotel waiting to come to here. I got here in May 30th. My dad's birthday is May 29th. I went to boot camp on my dad's birthday. How'd you like boot camp? All good? I had, so I got the name. What's that? All good, what you expected? It wouldn't have mattered. Like I was kind of saying before, you tell me what to do, because I wasn't a stud. You know, I was a little guy and I was overweight, definitely my senior year, because all I did was drink and eat what I want. And not because of the ACL, woe is me. I was, I didn't start shaving until I was 21.

• 12:44Speaker 01

  So my mindset at that year was I can never get in the military. I don't want to go to college. I don't want to stay at home, but I didn't have enough intestinal fortitude to say, well, you know, pull up your boot, your bootstraps and do something.

• 13:00Speaker 01

  So the best thing ever happened to me was go to boot camp. So when I got here to answer your question was, I was happy as hell. That's how I got the name Spanky. I got thrashed all the time for smiling. I was so happy, and not that I was a tough guy, because that wasn't the case. I'm, it's ironic, when I look at my boot camp pictures, it's been a while, because I graduated second squad leader from boot camp. Everybody else is tall, and here's this just short kid that don't even shave yet. And, but, I guess I've always been very lucky in the factor that you tell me to do it, I'll do it. And I might push back a little bit as I got older, but I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna do what you tell me. I'll be a good Marine, because I don't want to make the Marine Corps look bad, and keep me on

• 13:42Speaker 01

  a leash, because if you don't, that Spanky side comes out. And it never to a much that, you know, I should be hung for it, but I could, I had a rambunctious side, but it was not a bad rambunctious side. It was just, you better put me back on a leash, because if I use my imagination, it's gonna get a little questionable.

• 14:02Speaker 01

  So what'd you end up with for an MOS? Oh, three. And I was open contract. And I remember me and John, after I came back from MEPS, and I said, they let me in. Well, because it was only a few weeks to go to boot camp, I was, you know, I was at good of the Corps. I wanted infantry. Because, come on, I grew up in the country. My dad had me in Sea Cadets when I was in like fifth, sixth, seventh grade. I did National Guard Explorers. You know, I grew up watching all the really good Sanji Wajima, and all the cool movies. And, but I was such a little kid, I didn't think about, you know, everything that comes along with that. I'd say, I just want to be like them. And, you know, you gotta think about it. 1982, First Blood,

• 14:46Speaker 01

  all these things, all the Vietnam stories that were in movies back when we were in that impressionable age group. And, so yeah, I mean, to answer your question, I loved boot camp. I really did. I mean, it sucks. Yeah. But, you just had to, you know, drill instructors liked me because they liked thrashing me, I think. But it was always that fun thrash because they're like, this kid is just like seventeen and happy and always smiling and, you know, not always, but if they would start roaring at somebody with their big boy voice, I would just be over there thinking it's awesome, you know, Full Metal Jacket, Arlie Army stuff. But yeah, so I enjoyed it and I think it came natural as long as I had guidance.

• 15:30Speaker 01

  So then what came next? Um, back then, so I graduated boot camp late August. The Marine Corps was testing out the Marine Combat Training School up at Pendleton. So it didn't matter if you're an O3 or not. Now, I found out the end of boot camp, I was gonna be an O3 XX. They don't give you your individual, but you have to go to four weeks Marine Combat Training before you go on to your eight or 10 weeks of School of Infantry. Well, fortunately, a bunch of my buddies from boot camp that I looked up to were all going infantry. Some were mortars, some machine gunners, some were elevens, a couple of them were 51, 52s. Well, honestly, I didn't care. O3 XX, I'm happy. We set at MC Team Marine Combat Training

• 16:13Speaker 01

  in the old Quonset huts for a month. Well, we get to the end of that and they're like, hey, Spank, we're gonna go over an indoc. They were running the weekend before we're checking in. Staff Sergeant Gertis ended up being my platoon sergeant for Desert Storm. They were running indoc. Now, I could always- So is indoc, is that, is that basically like a tryout? It is. It is. You know, it's a ruck run. It's two days of, you know, Saturday till Sunday evening. You gotta be back at SY by 6:00 PM or 1800. It, you know, PFT, swim qual, ruck run, a basic, do you have the basic capability to go to reconnaissance?

• 16:55Speaker 01

  And I just followed my buddies. They talked me into it and I got lucky. I made it. And because if you told me to do it, I did it. Now, I wasn't a stud, so I'm not gonna be the fastest. I'm not gonna be the slowest. But I grew up on lakes. You know, I wasn't lucky enough to grow up surfing on a coastline somewhere. But I was always in the water as a kid in the summers. Makes a huge difference. So water never, now, we don't have swim teams where I'm from in Oklahoma. So I didn't know side stroke, back stroke, you know, crawl, you know, breast stroke, all the proper strokes that are on the swim call. I didn't know any of that, but they would demonstrate and they would say, do it.

• 17:38Speaker 01

  You know, like the burning oil. Remember when that was all a big deal? You had to do the length of the Olympic pole. Under the pool. You only surface two or three times, whatever it was. Well, you give me the task and you tell me the parameters of that task. I'll do my best to emulate it and achieve it. So I was lucky. Cause I shouldn't have been there. I was a kid. So that was a kicker. So I end doc, go to Skulven Tree. Those same buddies, one of them, Don Maraska, he's full word Colonel. Now.

• 18:12Speaker 01

  They got in line at, you know, basically at Skulven Tree West is what they call it now. They got in line. So I just followed them. Not knowing. What line I was supposed to be in. Well, I'd get up there, there were machine gunner, oh, three, thirty one machine gunner. And I'm like, not cooler than that. Once again, first blood, I'm going to shoot up the sheriff's station. Well. Get up to it. And they're like, no, you need to go down there. You're going to be in oh, three, fifty two. I'm like, I don't know what that is. Tactical, tactically operated wire guided missiles system. So toe on a truck. I don't want to do that. I want to shoot machine guns for my friends. And then they noticed I had thirteen driving violations in high school because I was a pizza delivery guy my junior and senior year.

• 18:57Speaker 01

  So those guys were like, no, you gotta go over here, oh, three, fifty one. Which was the dragon. Dragon and small back in those days. Now javelin. Well, now not even MOS, I think. I don't want to do this. I want to go there. Well, I was a little guy, but I had good test scores. I did pretty good on the ASFAB and all that stuff, took the D lab and the, all that in boot camp. So I've done pretty good on testing. So here I am, oh, three fifty-one. But then by the time you get about the six week SOI, then you find out your duty station watch. I got first recon battalion. You know, eventually it disbanded in ninety-two and then came back because of IFOF.

• 19:38Speaker 01

  With my five other buddies.

• 19:39Jocko Willink?

  Damn dude.

• 19:40Speaker 01

  So we get there.

• 19:41Jocko Willink?

  Was that just luck that that happened?

• 19:43Speaker 01

  I'll always say it is because I should have never been there. My first team leader before I came down to Coronado for school, because remember we used to come to LFTC pack back in those days. Now it's all at Pendleton, the BRC or whatever. I just followed those guys. So we all go to Coronado together, you know, a couple of some of the same training team with my, my, I almost called him an ROI, not my ranger instructor. Staff Sergeant Steinhauer was my, we had, you know, Delauder, we had some real animal recon guys that were instructors as staff sergeants. And we get Steinhauer and, you know,

• 20:23Speaker 01

  never, you know, that time between November and, you know, I had to do a RIP. I had to do a couple of beach weeks. So by the time we got here late, you know, late January to start school, you know, I understood it was like do a three mile fin and drag your ruck when you get on the boats or doing, you know, that all the stuff we had to do back then, you know, especially hydrographic surveys, the fun stuff. Yeah. Just hope I can get out the perimeter because I'm not getting bashed in the surf.

• 20:50Jocko Willink?

  So this is January of ninety, you're going through recon school?

• 20:54Speaker 01

  Yep. And then we graduate in April. And then after that, I was in Charlie Company with Lou Gregory, ended up getting Silver Star and Desert Storm. But when I got back from school, they moved me over to Bravo Company. So I went to Bravo two-two, second team. And, you know, John Benish and who I was talking about before, Corporal Moffett was my ETL. You know, it was, you know, just happy to be there. And then that's when the fun began.

• 21:21Jocko Willink?

  And so, so you're like right prime time for the first Desert Shield, Desert Storm?

• 21:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, we, so Charlie Company, all my buddies I've been in Coronado with that were, they end up going late September.

• 21:36Speaker 01

  Because they're going to support 7th Marines and they're going to be on the ground during, you know, the shield portion and, you know, bombing campaigns on that. We didn't get there on 5th MEB, supporting 5th Marine Regiment, because we had 13 ships on that MEB. And we didn't get into country until first part of February. You know, we floated over, I think we got into Longapo, you know, early December, right before Christmas. And then we started pumping from, you know, we didn't stop from Longapo until we got in the Gulf.

• 22:09Jocko Willink?

  And then you what, did you, did you get into Kuwait? Did you guys, where'd you go into?

• 22:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, that we, we were in a Wafra oil field. So everybody talks about Kofji. You know, Kofji being the big stuff for the Marines, pretty much on the coastline. We were what, five, six miles inland, because there was a, Saddam had blown up a big oil field right there. And the village, if you want to call it that, I'll call it village, small town, was a Wafra. And that was a Wafra oil fields. So we punched through a Wafra. But when they said go, after the bombing campaign, four, four days, we were past Ali Aslam.

• 22:43Jocko Willink?

  What were you, uh, what were you in? What, were you in vehicles? What were you in?

• 22:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, we were just trucks.

• 22:47Jocko Willink?

  Trucks?

• 22:48Speaker 01

  And the whole 25, 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines were all Amtraks.

• 22:52Jocko Willink?

  Uh huh.

• 22:53Speaker 01

  They had like 80 Amtraks. And they kept getting, you know, they had the Miklitz trucks up front. So they were blowing lanes to go through. I mean, it was interesting as a 19 year old kid.

• 23:02Jocko Willink?

  I was gonna say.

• 23:03Speaker 01

  It wasn't Ramadi.

• 23:06Jocko Willink?

  You were, when you were going in there, were you guys thinking, because I remember seeing, you know, the, the big reports were on CNN and stuff, that there's going to be 40,000 American casualties in the first 40. They had all kinds of crazy stuff. Is that what your mindset was going in?

• 23:17Speaker 01

  And it was, and, you know, I, I kind of skipped over it, but we, you know, back then, when you had Yemen, you know, a little different than Yemen and Oman now. You had North Yemen, South Yemen, now North Yemen's Oman. Well, that's where we trained for that big feint. So we were sitting down on those beaches, doing the hydro's. So the boat companies could come in and the, you know, all the LCACs and the LCUs and all that could bring all the grunts in. So we trained for four or five days on the beach there, you know, in North Yemen. And not knowing, as a kid, not knowing that was that feint.

• 23:53Speaker 01

  To storm the beachhead in Kuwait, you know, the traditional Marine Corps mission, which in an ABF Marine Complatoon, our traditional is hydro patrol in, be a little head of the stay guys and head of the infantry and just keep moving. Well, when I remember we're in, you know, on the Tripoli, we're on the comm deck and we're going over the maps. And I was in RTO. I was primary. I carried one oh four KY sixty five. Even though I was a grunt. Yeah. We didn't have many comm guys. KY sixty five was a big. Oh, it was a beast. And my gosh, you jump that stinking thing and it dropped Phil. So you had to carry a kick thirteen, tape reader, everything with it. I remember bad memories on that one.

• 24:36Speaker 01

  But the, uh, we're looking at the, you know, with the old school ten power, you know, like Joel, not Joel Erson's, but the map reading, looking at the sat images. And our team leader is got us in there and we're going to try to plan that route after the hydro. And it was just, you know, trench, trench, berm trench, berm trench. You know, and all those public beaches and we're like, oh, that's gonna suck. Yeah, we got to snooping poop, you know, by platoons, you know, three teams of six guys. We're gonna have to do our eight hundred meter lane and then go in and gather some information. I said, this is gonna be interesting. And then it went away. But, you know, not like we knew that didn't get passed down to the lowest level.

• 25:18Speaker 01

  But it was interesting. And then sitting outside of a wafer with a bunch of Saudi, you know, there were Saudis in like a, look like an old school, little bitty castle right on the border. And we're out there and, you know, first time I ever see anybody pray, you know, Muslims. You know, it was wild. I mean, it was just super cool to have that experience at that age. Oh, yeah, for sure. And so how long were you, how long did you stay over there? We only stayed in country like a month and then they brought, they used the majority, you know, because Tripoli had gotten hit. They were trying to figure out what to do with our platoon, with everybody trying to find divers to work the offshore, you know, the go plats that had been blown up.

• 26:02Speaker 01

  Well, me and one other guy were the only non divers in the platoon. And they take us first of all, rain to the ASU. And then we go into Dubai and they house us in these like little, I would call them Airbnbs now. So everybody else from our platoon could go out and work. Go Plats and figure that out. And the next thing you know, they're like, okay. Yeah, we're, we're heading to Bangladesh.

• 26:26Speaker 01

  And then, you know, we're heading that. And that was Operation Sea Angel.

• 26:30Jocko Willink?

  What was that?

• 26:31Speaker 01

  That's when that tsunami came through. Now, this is in 91, March of 90 or, yeah, early April 91, Operation Sea Angel. Well, we're floating back to head to the Philippines, which we were all excited about that. And we pull up into Bangladesh and that was, you know, the stuff we saw in Desert Storm from the air campaigns. I guess that's morbid to some people, but it wasn't that bad. It wasn't Saving Private Ryan, getting off the Mike boat. You know, getting hammered down. It was just people getting blown up because they didn't put up a fight that well.

• 27:06Speaker 01

  But Bangladesh, when you see a couple of hundred thousand people floating in the Bay of Bengal, and we've got boats and ponchos. So we're going to help this. Well, we only spent three or four days for us. And then we started staying back to the Philippines just before, you know, the volcano went. Cause that volcano went up in June of 91. And then we got back to, you know, off the coast Camp Pendleton. Oh, I guess it was right, almost July 1st. So I didn't, I only didn't spend long in country in Desert Storm.

• 27:36Jocko Willink?

  That's still a hell of a freaking first deployment right there for a 19 year old kid.

• 27:40Speaker 01

  Yes. I mean, but it's exciting.

• 27:43Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah.

• 27:43Speaker 01

  Cause who, who doesn't join not to be tested? I wish we would have been tested, you know, a lot more just to see how you're going to react during that test. And what 19 year old, 18, 19, 20 year old kid that's trained, trained, trained, trained, trained. You want to be evaluated. Now being an RNS or an M Fipplatoon, you know, cause first force had just stood up in 87, 88. So all we had at first recon battalion was we had the Charlie Company was deserts. Habitual relationships have Marines, fifth Marines. We could either go support them with M FID requirements if they're going to do raid. Or.

• 28:23Speaker 01

  Guess you can call it deeper recon. So, most of our time spent was either doing beach weeks or long patrols, seven, 10 day patrols. You know, to cover that two to 50 mile barrier. Cause in the force DR people tunes would cover everything for the meth agenda. So, I love patrolling because I love being in the woods. Did not like carrying a radio, but you gotta do what you gotta do. I mean, I didn't become a point man until we got to Somalia. I carried perk 77 KY 57. Then the 104 with KY 65 and I carried that dude for about a year and a half.

• 28:58Jocko Willink?

  That was my, uh, that was, I was a radio man too in the team. So I was in the same time period. So it was eventually we got the one 17 bravos. But for HF, the HF was the 104 and the 65.

• 29:11Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 29:11Jocko Willink?

  That's a freaking.

• 29:12Speaker 01

  And then the DC, do you remember the, did you guys get the digital communication terminal?

• 29:16Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah.

• 29:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:17Jocko Willink?

  What was that thing called? DMG?

• 29:20Speaker 01

  We called it the DCT.

• 29:22Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 29:22Speaker 01

  But.

• 29:23Jocko Willink?

  That was a brick too.

• 29:25Speaker 01

  It was with that long skinny ass battery and the fact that we would have to do our combo reps, our sit reps, you know, all of our reporting process, you had to do it on there. And so you just had one more, you know, and back then for us.

• 29:38Jocko Willink?

  We called it the DM DG. And it was, they basically echo Charles, it was like a keyboard with a little LCD screen. You're typing stuff into.

• 29:48Speaker 01

  At least you could handle the brightness. Cause that was the problem. You gotta think when you're in a reconnaissance platoon, you know, if you're going to get under the poncho per se, to, to have a red light on or have to turn a light on for whatever reason. Well, now you've got this screen about that big that's red, bright red. And it would just, if you didn't, you know, check the volume control on that thing, it would be loud and bright. But I thought it was cool because I had to go through CW school.

• 30:20Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah, I did too.

• 30:21Speaker 01

  Yeah. And did, did all my ass, I must laid in the rack for.

• 30:25Jocko Willink?

  Were you any good at it?

• 30:25Speaker 01

  Months. I was okay at it, but it went away quick. But I would, I remember two weeks I was laying there, did, did, did, did, did. So I was like, if that'll get me that, that knee key out of, if I can get it out of my rack, we're good.

• 30:43Jocko Willink?

  All right. So what'd you do to get back?

• 30:45Speaker 01

  What do you mean get back in the core?

• 30:46Jocko Willink?

  No, so you got back to, uh, you got back to from your first deployment.

• 30:49Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 30:50Jocko Willink?

  And just get in a workup for another, another cycle.

• 30:52Speaker 01

  You just start going in the training pipelines and now there's a whole different mindset because the mindset prior to Desert Storm was all at Coronado. It was all IRA, Spetsnaz. Everything that we trained for was if it's going to be in an urban environment, it's going to be IRA techniques. And if it's going to be, you know, contiguous linear, it was going to be basically Russia, Cold War ideology. And now that's all changed.

• 31:20Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, no, when I went to, uh, SER school was all like

• 31:22Speaker 01

  Arab.

• 31:23Jocko Willink?

  Eastern Bloc for us, it was Eastern Bloc, like they're speaking like Russians, but like, and then there's like Arabic mixed into it. It was really, you know, they're just trying to cover all the bases, I guess. But yeah, that was the mindset back then.

• 31:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:34Jocko Willink?

  It was like we hadn't quite, the Cold War was allegedly, it was over, right? But they hadn't transitioned out of it yet. So that was still definitely a big focus.

• 31:43Speaker 01

  Yeah. And you're not going to train minus the cage parts or something like that. You're not doing the Vietnam era, you know, portion of it. So we get back, we have our leave package and then it starts going in. Cause you know, I'd already went to jump school in October of 90. And we just start preparing, you know, alert contingency and got our beepers. If you remember that stuff.

• 32:04Jocko Willink?

  Time, huh?

• 32:05Speaker 01

  And well, certain portion of Camp Pendleton. Units have to be on that every month. They rotated every month. Nothing sexy. You just had a beeper.

• 32:14Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Well, I mean, when I got a beeper, I thought it was like very cool.

• 32:17Speaker 01

  Well, it is.

• 32:18Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 32:19Speaker 01

  And a Radio Shack suitcase phone, you know, can't afford to pay. But the, um, so yeah, then it just kind of was one thing after another. And, you know, I got married in 91. We had our, I was actually on a JTF six op doing counter narcotics in New Mexico when my daughter was born, my oldest. So it was just, it's such a blur at this point, 35 years later, because it was just nonstop. If you weren't on the beach or out patrolling or going up Bridgeport or going to a school or whatever, it just. It's crazy. That's just life. Yeah, it was just so fast. Looking back on it now.

• 33:02Speaker 01

  And then, you know, we take off for Somalia. We were actually in, you know, a bunch of us were in RNS school there at SOTG. And, well, yeah, I'll say that. We're in RNS school, LA Rites, 92. And they pulled us, go up to El Toro, stage up, well. Yeah, we're getting ready to go on 15th Mew. So when the guys, the infantry's going up there, were there attached reconnaissance asset. What the hell you gonna do with, you know, 18 of us? You know, we can't get two on a row in a six man snatch team with two guys in the center that we were training at El Toro for. And, you know, I was carrying a saw at that point. I'd just come off the radio and was getting ready to become an ATL, which changed.

• 33:46Speaker 01

  And, you know, I had to turn it in, get a shotgun, can't have a saw up there. Well, then, my gosh, gets El Toro and then the next day they're like, well, we don't need you 18 guys. So I come back down. And then, yeah, I didn't want to miss that. Yeah. Cause that was interesting to line training and. Yeah, that's a little contingency you weren't planning on. But, you know, it was definitely interesting. Well, come back. And then we start getting heavy on the Mew. You know, we, I got in trouble. Do you ever remember a guy named Bob Hassel? No. Yeah, he'd been at Team One.

• 34:26Speaker 01

  Him and a guy named Gaff, I heard he got killed on the Silver Strand 10, 15 years ago. But Bob Hassel and a guy, what was Gaffney's first name? I know Gaffney. They got in trouble. Not a big surprise. They summoned us for, I guess you're, you know, whatever you guys call it. They came to Somalia, they were 15th Mew. They came to be corpsmen for us. Oh, right on. Oh, cause they got in trouble. Yeah. Got it, yeah. And never asked, never cared, you know. Wish I remember Gaffney's first name. But the, cause he was younger, Bob Hassel's bigger muscular guy. And we're down and outside of Phoenix, you remember a base called Williams Air Force Base, right next to the FBI Training Academy?

• 35:10Speaker 01

  It's where they were doing the aircraft. I never went there. Okay. That's where the FBI cadets were doing their aircraft takedowns. Okay. So for our RNS mission, for that Mew, they flew us down so we could gather intelligence on them while they were training. Well, me, Michael Maddenley and Bob Hass will decide to, we're in for a few days. We're going to have SARC duty while the other teams are out doing the RNS mission. We were told not to drink. We go to the Air Force E Club there on Williams Air Force Center and we went straight retarded. Thankfully Bob broke contact. He probably, I think he was second class. He should have mentored me in the other E3 Lance Corporal. In his mind, he was. He probably was.

• 35:55Speaker 01

  Well, we didn't, when Bob left to go back to the hooch, me and Squeak, Squeaky was his nickname. We decided we didn't want this party to stop. We end up linking up with some young ladies and their boyfriends or whatever they were. And we moved on to a house party kind of thing going on on base housing. These were just great decision after great decision. Oh, terrible. Yeah. Like I said, you give me a good leash, I'm pretty decent, but you let me off leash, I'll do stupid stuff. Immature stuff. Well. You are what, 20? Yeah. Just turned 20 that summer. Well.

• 36:35Speaker 01

  Or no, I was 21. I just turned 21. No, I was 20. I was on restriction when I turned 21. Well, when they kicked us out because we're, we were just going mad hatter on the Jack Daniels and their Subway sandwiches for their party, well, they basically kicked me and him Maddenley out. Well, then now you got two drunk young Marines that are still wanting to keep going. And as we're meandering, trying to figure out where we're at on this base to where our hooches are. We just see some blinking lights behind a building and it was golf carts. Well, later on ended up being the med building.

• 37:16Speaker 01

  Well, then we get in the golf carts. We start deciding to play, beat them up. We ended up, as we're bumping golf carts, running one in a big cul-de-sac. So he jumped in and next thing you know, we see some small cactuses in front of a building. We decided to slalom those, which mean we ran over every one of them. Didn't know they were endangered. Didn't know that was General's building.

• 37:37Speaker 01

  We get back at the hooch at 4:30, Air Force MPs are there. Because they know these have to be Marines. Well, my buddy Madden Lee was wearing a mis- he's wearing white Levi's and a misfit shirt. So not like he's not gonna stand all like sore thumb.

• 37:54Speaker 01

  Well, we talk our way out of it when they're searching all our rooms. We're like, no, we just woke up. We've got a, you know, we've got radio watch over at the SARC and, you know, which we did at six. While the drinking, they wasn't smart. We show up right as our staff sergeant's coming over there to say, you guys should have already been here. And lo and behold, they quasi arrested us, if you want to call it that. Not in my record for that. Took us to that same medical building to do blood work.

• 38:28Speaker 01

  They're gonna get us for DUI on golf carts on this base and then all this damage. And then we kind of get stupid in the med thing. They've got us locked to these four chair, you know, the chairs that are four of them together. And we started getting stupid. Next time they caught it, he's dragging one, I'm dragging one, I'm putting IV in his arm in one of the med rooms. That didn't go over very well.

• 38:52Speaker 01

  Five hours later, we're on a chopper back to Pendleton. Monday morning, we were in battalion level off hours so that they can't court martial us. It's like a reduce, both of us did, and kicked us off the Mew, rightly so. Deserve that. And then put me in a different platoon.

• 39:11Speaker 01

  And ended up going to alert and to go to Somalia. So, yeah, I'm not proud of that, but I'm gonna say it because I've heard you talk about decision-making processes. And that's what I, I'm giving that as my bad example of if you don't keep me on a leash. It's not too rowdy, not like I'm being evil, but I'll just be stupid.

• 39:32Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 39:33Speaker 01

  And immature. It's sad.

• 39:34Jocko Willink?

  Golf carts can be real tempting, you know?

• 39:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:37Jocko Willink?

  I know I had guys, uh, we were at a place where they had golf carts and the golf carts, I didn't know about this. And, um, you know, the security contacted me in the morning like, hey, uh, we think one of your guys like took, you know, golf carts. And crashed one of them and we found it in the ditch, you know? And I was like, well, we worked late. I don't think it was one of my guys. He goes, well, is this one of your guys had the guy's wallet and ID? Oh yeah. Yep. That's one of my guys. Yep. I guess it was one of my guys. We didn't work that late. We didn't work late enough.

• 40:09Speaker 01

  Start covering.

• 40:11Jocko Willink?

  And so when you, you went out with a Mew to go, did you guys know you were going straight to Somalia? Was that the deal?

• 40:16Speaker 01

  No, and I ended up not going on that Mew. That was 15. They're the ones that did the initial on the TV swimming.

• 40:22Jocko Willink?

  Oh, so you were hating life.

• 40:24Speaker 01

  Oh, well, but I deserved it.

• 40:25Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 40:25Speaker 01

  You know, I did 45, 45 reduction rank, half months pay for two months, spent my 21st birthday. My wife is pregnant. She's due in October. And my parents come out. I never called them and said, I'm on restriction up at San Mateo. We're fifth Marines because that's who technically we're attached to. And then what happens? First recon battalion disbands. Well, I stay with fifth Marines and they made Bravo Company, Recon Company, fifth Marines when they disband. So now I just stay there after I get off restriction in E P D. And we start going back into another training cycle, but now it's totally different. You know, we don't have the funding pool like we did. We don't have the space. We don't have the, all the support, you know, there is no paraloff, no more jump mission anymore.

• 41:11Speaker 01

  None of that stuff. And

• 41:15Speaker 01

  we're sitting there training and they're like, they come in and they're like, you guys are going, you're flying over. So we flew into Mogadishu, December 29th.

• 41:26Speaker 01

  Of ninety-two.

• 41:27Jocko Willink?

  Mm hmm.

• 41:28Speaker 01

  Uh, to support UN head chairman, support the infantry and basically was going to be to guard UN vehicles that were delivering food and run security. So six man teams easy, we got two Humvees, one Mark nineteen, one fifty cal or back then a sixteen, depending. And three guys in one truck, three guys in the other. And we get to Mogadishu, our platoon after about a week. Uh, after Bush left, Bush forty-one, he came in on New Year's to say, yeah, thank you, guys. I'm going away. Clinton's gonna take over. And, um, went out to Bar, you know, Bardera first, then Baidoa, and then we did a couple of fly-ins in Galahara on the Kenyan border.

• 42:11Speaker 01

  So for that three months, we, we were staying pretty busy, patrolling.

• 42:15Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 42:15Speaker 01

  Cause we were doing a true RNS mission.

• 42:18Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's again, like totally legit for a twenty-one-year-old Marine that's now out there doing real combat operations.

• 42:25Speaker 01

  Well, and it was more action than Desert Storm.

• 42:27Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 42:28Speaker 01

  You know, I'll always compare everything to Ramadi, and I know we're gonna get there. But Desert Storm is a combat action ribbon that don't really know. We hit one anti-personnel mine, blew a tire off our truck. That's not combat. It was so fast and so aggressive and they were so weak. There was, you know, Kofchi, no, Kofchi, they scrapped up, but for our area, clearing Aliyalsalem and, you know, all the, the bases that we were going through after Al-Wafra, it was nothing. And it really wasn't.

• 42:59Jocko Willink?

  And what were these patrols like in Somalia then?

• 43:02Speaker 01

  You know, like North Texas. Scrub brush, you know, mesquite style trees, baboons, that was cool. Um, we, cause you know, we're doing the typical RNS patrol at night, hide site during the day. And where do you, you know, like Desert Storm, we dig and the net, you know, have our painted nets and with sand on them, you know, trying to do a hide site, but hide sites in Somalia, you find scrub and hoping that he's not a bamboo or a pig in there. And that was the problem because if it's gonna be big enough to get all six of you in there and you can hide because there is no real, it's, you know, you still have wadis, but there's not a lot of high ground. It's pretty flat terrain.

• 43:44Speaker 01

  And you find a nasty spot big enough to get the team in, you know, sometimes we do three and three if we had to. And, um, Oh yeah, crawled in a few of those little, because you know it's an animal's cause of this in the briars to get in there. So you know you're going in pistol out, this is gonna suck. Try not to give away, you don't want to shoot. It's not our job to be firing a weapon. It's gathering information. So you don't want to, you know, give away your position because we all know what E and E is like. And that sucks when you're way out somewhere. Well, yeah. What were you guys reconning for? Basically just gathering information because the big problem out in Bardara by Doha, Galahari was

• 44:27Speaker 01

  not only the trucks getting taken over, you know, come February, you know, those fractions, that's what I was calling me. Everybody thinks Black Hawk Down. They think Mohammed Adi, Faradid, you know, everybody knows his name. They don't realize Mogadish had 13 of those same people. He was just strongest. And then you have the same thing in all those other small towns like Bardara, Bar, you know, by Doha, all those. And then those were right on the Juba River that runs down the center. And then, so they would come in, they would snatch leaders in a village and then pull them out and kind of, you know, hold them hostage. Well, they were telling us, you know, we're no longer doing the food convoys.

• 45:12Speaker 01

  Now we're out there gathering information for the infantry to say, okay, we're watching them come down these lanes, these typically they would use waddies.

• 45:21Speaker 01

  And because no high ground. And that's what we were doing. You know, anybody that we got a handle on is because they were coming in the village in early morning when it's still purple. Snatch up village leaders and then just try to make the village give them whatever they wanted. And then, once we started doing that, that started going away. And then by March, they're like, okay, 10th Mountain's coming in, taking your place for, you know, all Marine Forces. You know, Mew, 15th Mew, my original platoon, they just did the initial and then once we got there, they went back on their Mew duties. And didn't really stay in country. But it was, it was, it was traditional D R or deeper.

• 45:59Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, no, that's awesome.

• 46:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, but not super deep because it's not that big of a country, but it was cool.

• 46:05Jocko Willink?

  And, and then did you guys just fly home when the mission was over?

• 46:08Speaker 01

  Hmm. Yeah, I came through Shannon like you always do. And then, uh, we come into Shannon, got back and that was late March of 93. I got out of the Marine Corps in May of 93.

• 46:19Jocko Willink?

  And what was your plan when you got out of the Marine Corps?

• 46:20Speaker 01

  Going to school. The corpsman, that's why I'm like no hassle and gaffney and the guy so well. We didn't have a corpsman on our team. Well, I took natural to all the aid classes. And I loved it. Probably hindsight should have been a corpsman later on in life.

• 46:41Speaker 01

  But I really enjoyed all the classes. And you know, back then, if you remember, it's all MTTs. You know, we always had MTTs. We were like SF demo MTT. You get the 18 Delta guys come out for three weeks and do a class for a corpsman. And they would always let me, a matter of fact, in Bardera, I was wearing second class petty. I'm an E3. But so I can go to the major battalion class. My corpsman gave me his Chevrons and his Caducea and I went to the, the class. Because I was the team medic too. Yeah. Especially once I quit carrying the radio. And you know, it is, we always rotate point man. ATL, TL, they're not leaving their positions. Typically our TOs aren't either.

• 47:24Speaker 01

  But you know, when you're really doing long patrols, you're going to rotate that point man out and he's gonna, you know, be an ammo barrel or not carrying a VHF or HF. But for me, I always had aid and litter. I always had the classes. It came natural. I enjoyed it. So I'm like, I'm gonna go to med school.

• 47:43Jocko Willink?

  And did you, did you feel like you're, you know, like you had enough of the Marine Corps, basically?

• 47:48Speaker 01

  No, I think it was.

• 47:50Jocko Willink?

  Or was your record a little bit jammed up and you're like, well?

• 47:53Speaker 01

  Well, I could, I could reenlist. I was RE1A. They would eliminate me reenlist even though I had been burnt. Because recon, O3s in the reconnaissance side was still not a whole, you know, not a big MOS. A lot of people weren't getting it. But, you know, I think part of it was stuff my grandpa had told me in 91 after I got married was weighing on me. Because my daughter's born on JTF. I see her for one few days at Williams. When my parents and my, my ex and my brand new daughter come in.

• 48:30Speaker 01

  And then I go in restriction, you know, just all that whole timeframe. And then do a couple of classes and bam, you're flying to, you didn't do the Mew, but now you're going to Somalia anyway.

• 48:44Speaker 01

  I just thought I probably didn't have much ahead of me. And I think it's a typical Lance Corporal mentality of FTS. You know, it was cool when we could jump and we could have fun and do a lot of schools. Now we're at the infantry and we can't do nothing. And we're kind of the bastard stepchildren at 5th Marines. And I'm like, yeah, I'll do it. And it didn't take long for me to realize I'd made a bad decision. So you get out, you went back home? Yep. Went back to, back to my hometown, bought the house next door to my mom and dad. Cause I have this young family. I work odd jobs during the summer, worked in a welding shop, dumping slag barrel. I just did whatever temp jobs before I started school in August.

• 49:28Speaker 01

  And then once I started school in August of 93. And my buddy John Ketcher, he's getting out, he's getting ready to go to school.

• 49:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm get a job at the ER as an ERT. Because I had all the EMT training certification. So I'm like, well, I'll get some clinical experience, which I had none. So I got a job working nights in the ER, going to school five days a week during the day. And I thought that was kosher. And then what happens in 94, a lot of my friends went back over. To Somalia. And they come back and they're coming through and they're telling me how much different it was in our first time. I'm not really liking civilian life. I'm doing decent school. I got a 383 GPA in 90 some hours.

• 50:20Speaker 01

  Five semesters, I knocked out 96 hours. I was doing 2022. I was going at it like a Marine would go at it. And, um, but then it was, I quit the hospital because I got rode up at the hospital for slamming a drunk Indian. Cause I live in the middle of Cherokee Nation. Two Indians come in from the bar. One buddy stabs the other buddy. They get him in on a gurney, nurse comes in after I do his vitals. He starts groping the nurse, she's screaming. I run in there, slam him off the gurney and then I get in trouble for it. I'm like, if I hurt him, he's in a hospital. But I'm thinking, save her. I'm not thinking, we get sued. Yeah, my brain doesn't think that away. I reacted.

• 51:02Speaker 01

  And, um, which I was common back in those days. You know, we get rowdy and they bring our buddy in that they just stabbed. But saw the writing on the wall. Between the buddies, work, not really happy, being a civilian. I'm gonna go back in. And that's what I did.

• 51:20Jocko Willink?

  Was it hard to get back in?

• 51:21Speaker 01

  It was because of that, because they changed the rules in 95. Now, do you know what happened April 19th, 1995?

• 51:29Jocko Willink?

  No idea.

• 51:29Speaker 01

  Oklahoma City bombing.

• 51:30Jocko Willink?

  Okay, yeah.

• 51:31Speaker 01

  The day before I was in there getting in. The day before, April 18th is when I went to get back in the Marine Corps. But because of my off hours, I had to get three personal letters. So that they would waiver my infractions. Because you gotta remember what Clinton did. Not talking bad about him, but we all know that we're in that time. He was really chopping up the military.

• 51:52Jocko Willink?

  Downsize and everything.

• 51:54Speaker 01

  And so to piece that prior service entry, I'm gonna have to, you know, I'm gonna get lucky. Well, once again, now an ACL reconstruction is permanently disqualifying. So what do I do? I'm sitting out there, I can't take no for an answer. They gave me my package. You know, and this is the day before Oklahoma City bombing. So I did five months of work, withdrew from school. And I'm gonna, and I was working like security at the industrial part where we have, uh, just to make money at nights while I'm at school. And I just stormed into that, that MEPS doctor's hatch. I saw a kid come out, you know, and it was kinda like a psych office. You know, you come in one door, you leave the other.

• 52:39Speaker 01

  And that's the way it was at MEPS then, at the mural building. Well, so I can't, I was just, I was frothing. I said, I'm just reflecting over all the bad mistakes I made getting out and just being stupid. And I just stormed back in there. And I said, you gotta let me back in. And. After a five minute conversation, another guy standing there in his underwear and me not taking no for an answer, he overturned it. Nice. And I got back in and then I'm laying on the couch next morning.

• 53:15Speaker 01

  See the building blown in half. And then I called a recruiter. This recruiter was Jamie Nunes in Claremore. And he said, we don't know what's going on. But the captain, the marine captain, the marine sergeant that got killed in that bombing. Thank God, every one of the Marines that worked in the staff were at training offsite. And the sergeant that got killed, my packages on his desk. And I'm like, oh, you know, I had to get those letters. This took me months, you know, what do I do? Been very selfish. And Jamie knew he was like avionics guy. He's like, hey, Spank, we have bigger problems here. And I'm like, well, I went to school.

• 53:59Speaker 01

  I'm, I need to be back in. So come June.

• 54:06Speaker 01

  I get approved.

• 54:08Speaker 01

  You know, they, they approved me, get back on active duty, go down there. They swear me in just like a marine enlisted. And Major Geving, I'll never forget this guy's name. I'm like, okay, yeah, what's going to be my job? I'm assuming at no less than oh, three, my oh, three, 51, I'm less, you might not put me back as a recon Marine. He's in oh, three, 21, but you'll at least make me a grunt. He is a motor T driver. I'm like.

• 54:38Speaker 01

  I got pretty decent scores. What's going on, sir? I said, good to go. And I turned into that same Lance Corporal driving a golf cart. And I said, good to go, sir. Whatever it takes. He goes, Marine, what do you mean by that? I said, because it's my naivety. I said, well, when I get to Del Mar for motor T, because when I got out, first force, first angle co. And motor T school was at Del Mar. I said, when I get to Del Mar, I'm just gonna walk over to First Forest and see whatever it takes to get me in. He goes, well, that's all fine and Danny, but the school's in Missouri, at Fort Lernerwood. And I'm like, well, that failed. And he goes, well, just wait, wait,

• 55:20Speaker 01

  wait. And he went back for hours and I'm sitting in the conference room and I'm like, this sucks, but it's more important for me to be a Marine. Stop thinking about the job, quit being selfish. Being a Marine is more important. And that's how I became an 0861. He goes, you already got your gold wings? Do you know what Angleco is? I said, roughly, I never worked with them, but I said, I know who they are. He goes, we're gonna make you an 0861 forward observer and you're gonna be destined for Angleco. I'm like, okay, sounds good. They got jump mission. Hey, this, they still patrol. You know, all the things that I enjoy doing, being, being in the woods. I'm like, I'll take it. And yeah.

• 56:01Jocko Willink?

  Did you have to go to these schools?

• 56:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, I had to go to Fort Sill for, uh, Fort Observer's course, which I, you know, stupid for me going there. Honor grad it. And then I came here for naval gunfire at LFT, LFTC. They didn't give me honor grad there. They gave a reserve, uh, Della Valley, they gave him honor grad because I got the shooter award there. Come on, recon, we still do that kind of stuff. So it was super easy for me. And, uh, and because I was a P Sapper, they're like, we don't want you to have both of them. I'm like, I don't give a crap. You can give me anything. You know, I just want to get back in the fleet. And, uh, but we had a real lucky class naval gunfire with six of us Marines. One was a staff sergeant, two sardines. Me is technically a Lance Corporal and one PFC and three SF staff sardines. That

• 56:47Speaker 01

  was our whole naval gunfire class, nine guys. And, uh, and it was good because it gave me time to get back into shape too. You know, after Fort Sill, I'm, I'm slowly getting back into active duty shape after a couple of years of not being on active duty and not doing anything.

• 57:04Jocko Willink?

  What, you two years you were out?

• 57:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was a little over two years.

• 57:06Jocko Willink?

  A little over two years?

• 57:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:08Jocko Willink?

  And what's your first duty station when you get done with school?

• 57:09Speaker 01

  Okinawa, Japan. Third Battalion, 12th Marines. I don't go to Angleco. Me and JT Lindhart, the other younger kid, because that kid that honor grad, Craig Della Valley's from New York City, he was a reservist. So me and JT.

• 57:25Speaker 01

  We go to 3rd Battalion 12th Marines. So we check in there and at that time it was down at Camp Foster. I don't know if you've ever been over there?

• 57:32Jocko Willink?

  Hmm, in Okinawa?

• 57:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:34Jocko Willink?

  I've been there, but I don't remember. It was like in the early 90s or mid 90s when I was in Okinawa.

• 57:40Speaker 01

  That's when this was, 95, 96. We're down at Camp Foster, the big base. And I get there, I'm there a month and the mass Sarden are, you know, we had a, the shore fire control party. Do you remember those?

• 57:54Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 57:54Speaker 01

  So basically he said, you're, you're an E3, but I picked up Corporal right at that six month mark. And while I was there, when I first got there and he had me take shore fire control party to 31st Mew. He said, we're going to go to Camp Hanson, do that. So I spent six months at Hanson. By the time I got back, you know, I had a few months. We went and climbed Fuji, went to, you know, a couple of training ops at Camp Fuji and then it's a one-year rotation. And me and JT, we get to our first Angleco.

• 58:26Jocko Willink?

  That's um.

• 58:27Speaker 01

  So that's when I got to first.

• 58:29Jocko Willink?

  And, and then you check in there, what's your role there when you show up?

• 58:32Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah, I'm going to be on a FIC, Firepower Control Team.

• 58:36Jocko Willink?

  And what year is this?

• 58:37Speaker 01

  This is 96.

• 58:38Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 58:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, September 96. But the odd thing was gunny nails, I'm a platoon sergeant.

• 58:45Speaker 01

  You know, typically Angleco did very similar to recon. When you got there, you're kind of like a roper again. You know, that's how I look at it. And then you go through the Angleco basic course, ABC, because they don't have a formal MOS school. Like recon does or other schools. Excuse me. So I check in, well, I would, a lot of times I didn't wear my wings or my camis. You know, just didn't wear it. So I check in, I'm a Corporal. And fresh meat. All the NCOs and all the people that have been around, they're fresh meat. You know how that goes. And, you know, start checking in, kind of mining my Ps and Qs, getting to know my platoon sergeant or my, uh, my salt.

• 59:28Speaker 01

  Sergeant, my Salto, I see my FICO, I see. And.

• 59:33Speaker 01

  Gunny Nelson, our platoon sergeant, he's looking at my records. Oh damn, you know, you got Desert Storm, Somalia, you already got your gold wings, you know, you, you've already, you've been to A or C, you've been to all these different, smaller schools for when we're younger. He's like, you don't need to go to ABC. He was, we're not going to teach you anything that you don't already know. And I said, well, I appreciate that. So, and it was kind of like, some of the fellow NCOs were, oh, you just think, you're not going to have to earn it. And I'm like, dude, send me through it, I'll do it. I don't give a crap. Well, then, we immediately go and salt out the thick

• 1:00:13Speaker 01

  one. Well, I mean, within six, nine months, they sent me to jump master school as a corporal. You know, they're already just, I mean, we were going straight into Mew supports. So 96, 97,

• 1:00:30Speaker 01

  we fly over for 31st Mew, we're just going over six weeks, do one op with the rocks. You know, we stayed a week on a rock LST. And then, you know, just basically do the old school assault. And when I'm talking the war two ones, the ones that had the anchors that would pull you off the beach edge. And, but the, it doesn't do like the old LSTs, it just opens like this, and they ground that dude and then they jack it back off there. So we do an insert with the, the rock recon guys. And I'm going to tell you, those guys, no joke. When they say, we're going to move from here to there, because they travel light. We've got long rucks on, we're carrying a little bit of weight and a lot of radios and batteries, you know, the deal. And, but it was great. I mean,

• 1:01:15Speaker 01

  we had a great time, six weeks, come back. And then, you know, you just, some guys rotate, you get ready. Well, what happens? 98, I think I just, I was, I was, actually, I came back from Ranger School. I went to Ranger School, May of 98. How was Ranger School for you? Uh, well, it was definitely a good weight control process. Knowledge base. How much weight? Fifty. I went at 200 and came out at 150. Yeah, my, my, my team didn't even recognize me when I, before I went on leave. They thought I was a new guy. I was emaciated. Looked like I did when I was in the hospital after getting wounded. But the,

• 1:01:54Speaker 01

  And that was me as I now I won't say it that way because that'd just be terrible because she's a good woman. I would do anything to just go away for a while.

• 1:02:04Speaker 01

  And

• 1:02:06Speaker 01

  found out my oldest son, she was pregnant with my oldest son, Colton.

• 1:02:11Speaker 01

  And to answer your question, it was knowledge wise, because in Coronado, we I had a Ranger handbook from a PFC. Even you know, even A R C, we use a Ranger handbook. So not like the Ranger handbook. I was I was not naive. I wasn't like a young kid from a battalion somewhere.

• 1:02:32Speaker 01

  I was sergeant, I was 27 years old.

• 1:02:35Speaker 01

  And

• 1:02:37Speaker 01

  yeah, did well. I mean, sleep, no food, socks. Got I don't want to boast.

• 1:02:46Speaker 01

  Got an undergraduate position, got the AUSA Leadership Award. But that's just because I was an older Marine and one, I wasn't going to fail. There's no way we had had a captain in the class before me. Before I even left to go out for rap. That dropped during rap. Cap, an O eight captain. We were getting lots of billets because this is about time they found out they're disbanding first angle co. So first I was at first recom and I went to disbanded. Now I'm in another unit disbanded first angle co. And they're going to spend us summer of 90 or I'm sorry, 99. So summer, you know, I go, you know, two months and some change for Ranger school. Yeah, it was good. It used to be on my left calf.

• 1:03:29Speaker 01

  That's why I put it on my arm, my jack and my dab. It used to be on my left leg. But the constant reminder where I shake a soldier's hand.

• 1:03:40Speaker 01

  You know, I come back, they gave me three weeks of leave because I was bad. Well, in that time, a lot of us team, you know, team chiefs is what they call us in a fic. Team leader's an officer, lieutenant or captain. Team chief is a corporal sergeant, normally sergeant. So I'm a team chief. Well, all of us team chiefs, because companies disbanded, we're all going to do be billets. So when I'm back and I just started leave to heal. You know, because my

• 1:04:10Speaker 01

  Bottom of my feet look like dive booties that we wear in Okinawa. It was like horse hair. You know, I, I had to heal a little bit and put some weight back on because it does, it tests your body. It's a good school. I'm not knocking that. It's a gut check. It's going to teach you intestinal fortitude all day long on what you can accomplish.

• 1:04:31Speaker 01

  You know, good on anybody goes to our school. Well.

• 1:04:38Speaker 01

  They call me up at the house and I'm like, I come in and see my star major, star major Westrop. And I'm like, I don't want to be, I got to rush to drill field. I'm not a drill instructor type guy. I don't look the part. I don't sound the part. I want nothing to do. And because I'm way behind my peers that I joined with in 89 and the troubles I'd had my first enlistment. I was like, I want to go recruiting duty. He's like, Spank, why do you want a recruiting duty? Star major. Ain't no way in hell I'm getting promoted on the drill field.

• 1:05:09Speaker 01

  It ain't happening. I'm not the typical.

• 1:05:11Jocko Willink?

  So is it like if you're, if you're, you know, you're out there on the drill field, you're going to be against these front running people. But recruiting duty is like a little bit.

• 1:05:18Speaker 01

  It's all on performance.

• 1:05:19Jocko Willink?

  Got it.

• 1:05:21Speaker 01

  Drill field and I can't speak for it. I didn't do it. Drill field is all, it's like being in boot camp again.

• 1:05:28Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:29Speaker 01

  And it's all like a promotion board. It's your, your look. I was never that stereotypical looking Marine. I could always PT. Not the typical looking guy. So I'm like, right there. I'm going to fail. Now I might outrun them, out whatever them. Some of, most of them I would imagine back in those days. But ain't no chance. They're going to look at me and I'm just, you know, doesn't matter what's on your chest. I don't look the part and I can't live the facade.

• 1:06:01Speaker 01

  You know, I've heard you talk about decentralized control and that you know, the deal. When you're in small type of units.

• 1:06:11Speaker 01

  Even as a Marine, you always have bearing in professionalism, but it's, you know, I'm not gonna blast my boots, grow my hair a little bit longer. I'm gonna, you're gonna push the Marine Corps standards as the way we do it, you know, recon and DEAT I and now Raider battalions. But, so yeah, I told our major, he goes, well, go down to the bowling alley on main side. All the monitors are down there. And when you get up there, tell them I allowed you to come because I'm just a sergeant. I'm not a staff NCO. So I go down, well, the special duty monitors, you got MSG, you got drone instructor, you got recruiters, they're always together. Then you got all the MOSs that are there. You

• 1:06:52Speaker 01

  gotta remember, I've only been back from Marine School two weeks. I've got my, my Charlies on, you know, those short sleeve shirt and the green pants. I'm not 200 pounds. I'm at best 155. So I, I look like I got cancer and I did. I got in the line, kinda like back in SOI. I get up there and I tell the drone instructor monitors, I'm like, hey, I wanna see if I can switch my orders. When you got orders, uh, summer, you know, next summer. He goes, you wanna be in the drill field or you wanna move forward in drill class? I said, no, I don't wanna be a drill instructor. He goes, well, is your command known? My Sarge major sent me here. Sarge major whispered first thing, I'll go, you can give him a call. And they're like, okay. Well, he just talks to the gunny

• 1:07:36Speaker 01

  and mass sergeant from the recruiting station sitting right there. And they're like, hey, this, well, one of those two, I don't remember if it was a mass sergeant or the gunny from recruiting, they're like, are you okay? Well, I'm thinking, everybody wants to be a drone instructor. Nobody wants to be a recruiter in the Marine Corps. You almost have to force them. So few elect. That's my mindset. So no, I'm fine. You know, I just don't wanna be a drone instructor.

• 1:08:05Speaker 01

  And they're like, no, are you okay? Do you have like cancer or something? I said, no, I just graduated Ranger School a couple of weeks ago. And that's foreign to them too. Yeah, they don't know anything about that. They're all admin people. And I'm like, I've lost 50 pounds in two months. I'll put it back on. And then, uh, so they did. I got right across the street here, right next to drill instructor schools recruiting school. And I, uh, yeah.

• 1:08:32Jocko Willink?

  And then did you go back home? Did you go back to Oklahoma?

• 1:08:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, Claremore.

• 1:08:35Jocko Willink?

  Right back to your basically hometown?

• 1:08:38Speaker 01

  Because, and this is the irony.

• 1:08:42Speaker 01

  When I got my orders, which was a couple of months, I went to, you know, right after that, after a month, I went to Sardines Course. So then they were sending us just school, school, school, school, training, training, leadership training, whatever. Well, I'd been back from Ranger School for a month and they sent me to Sardines Course, my leadership school for six weeks. Which, yeah, blew that out of the water. I mean, that, that was, I should not have had to go, but Marine Corps makes you go to those.

• 1:09:14Speaker 01

  It was way more senior than anybody. It was real easy for me and I was already back in pretty good shape. And then I get out of that, I go to mountain instructor's course. And then I take leave for Christmas. And Gunnery Sergeant Steve Bell was working in that office in Claremore, Oklahoma. And he's a local boy, still friends today, he's retired Sarge Major, lives same town as me. I walk into that office, cocky as come be, and I'm like, hey, I got orders in June to go to recruiting school. I want to know what I need to do to get here to this office. He goes, you don't want to come to this office. Why not? He was where the, I think Oklahoma, RS Oklahoma, recruiting station Oklahoma, was like third from the bottom of the whole country. They were doing terrible.

• 1:09:59Speaker 01

  And I said, no, I want to come here. I'm from Pryor. And he goes, uh, you don't want to come here? I said, no, Gunny, I do. I want to be right here. And since I had switched to become a recruiter voluntarily, and I did pretty good in recruiting school.

• 1:10:18Speaker 01

  They gave me RS. But because I'd greased the skids with Steve. When I checked into RS Oklahoma City in, I think it was July. They let me come to his office. His boss had left. He was taking over. Best decision I ever made, greasing the skids with him. And so, yeah, checking the recruiting, I'm happy, close to my family. You know, my dad, just two years before that, had a quad bypass. And, you know, at this point, I've got two kids. And my son's young. You know, he was born right before I went recruiting school. My daughter was born in 92. So, okay, you know, come out here for three years, do my best.

• 1:11:03Speaker 01

  Well, it worked out great. Yeah, I got recruiter of the year, got mentor staffs during that first year. And then I almost became a career recruiter. They tried to talk me into it, go 8412. And, but what happens? September 11th. You know, I came off recruiting in 02, summer of 02. But when September 11th happened, I had been, this time, we're already getting divorced. Wife moves back out here to California. I jump in my Jeep, take a week and a half's leave, just cruise across country, see my kids. I'm back, I'm on my way back on the 40. And I kind of break off and do small roads on my way back.

• 1:11:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'd carry my Ranger roll, my bivvy sack, and I'd just, you know, pull my Jeep over wherever and heat up some food. But I was pulled into a gas station, getting gas in New Mexico, along the 40. And that's when the second plane, I saw it on the gas station TV. And I just assumed that I'd be lucky enough to be brought back in to the job, Angle Car or something, which didn't happen.

• 1:12:11Jocko Willink?

  So what did happen? Where'd you go?

• 1:12:12Speaker 01

  I stayed. They, they kept me on recruiting until summer of 02.

• 1:12:15Jocko Willink?

  You just finished out your term of that.

• 1:12:18Speaker 01

  Yep. But in that same time, Massar and Dillard, we had an opening at Dev Group. McNeil, Massar McNeil. He was going to retire and stay there because, you know, we have those Marine billets there. And that one's standing up. At here at Pendleton, Holbert Field was having an opening that Master Guns was retiring. Well, John Dillard, I was staff sergeant. All the billets were gunny minimum or mass sergeant. Well, I had Joe Master, I had Ranger School, had, you know, I'd done real well on the job. So Big John Dillard was like, what would you like? And I'm like, well,

• 1:13:00Speaker 01

  I don't know. You tell me what you think. Which do you prefer? And he goes, well, I've got somebody slotted Freddie Fowler, the big guy I was telling you about. He's going to Det One to be the fires rep there in the support element. He goes, you can take Holbert or Dev Group. And I'm like, well, I'm not an East Coast guy. Never did any time on the East Coast, all West Coast. I'm like, but that'd be cool. You know, we're not doing anything sexy, maybe come out a little bit, but we're not doing the team stuff. And I'm like, that'd be cool. Well,

• 1:13:33Speaker 01

  my second wife's a Marine. She got her orders to Okinawa.

• 1:13:38Speaker 01

  Cause at this point, we're dating and uh, I'm on a chaser at Okinawa. So I call him up. I'm like, hey, can you get me orders to Okinawa, Japan? And he's like, Spank, you're going to go out and interview, man. I've already greased skids. You're going out there and I greased skids because you're a staff sergeant and they want a gunny mass sergeant. He goes, I sold you. I was like, no, can you give me a place at SOTG, anywhere in Okinawa? Oh, right then I burnt the bridge. I burn it. And uh, but it's what we do. Some, some of us, I'll say. I won't impose that on either one of y'all.

• 1:14:15Speaker 01

  So they find me a spot, 12th Marine Regiment, Okinawa, Japan. Oh, sorry. Well, I get to Camp Hanson. I don't care. I thought I could get an SOTG spot. Yeah, nothing for me there.

• 1:14:29Jocko Willink?

  They don't care.

• 1:14:30Speaker 01

  Yeah. I'm probably got a bad name at this point in the little community of Angleco, which is gone. And uh, but I'd done real well on recruiting, merit tours promoted, all that good stuff. I was, I don't care. You can put me where you want me. At this point, I'm thanking her and yeah.

• 1:14:50Speaker 01

  To just beat myself with a hammer or something, but you know, still young, even though I'm not that young. Yeah, I'm almost 30. Well, okay, yeah, I'll get into it, but it opened up an amazing opportunity for me. And that's where I'm going to get to where we're going to be going here pretty quick, I assume. I'm there for about a year and a half. They bring me down to 312. Now, I know nothing about the artillery. They fade TIDS and advanced field artillery attack, Datal system, all the computer systems they use for regiment, marine regiment level battalion fires. I know nothing about this. Good at patrolling, good at communicating, good at dropping bombs or sea admittance.

• 1:15:35Speaker 01

  That's all I did at Angleco. That's our bread and butter. So send me down to 312 within the master guns at the MAF goes, hey, we got authority to build a new Angleco. And he goes, you're about the only guy on the island that has Angleco experience. So I got to build fifth Angleco. Nice. When you think Dave Burke, Caesar Janay, all those guys, that was me and Major Krebs, Krebs going once a month from Okinawa to Quantico, talking to all the monitors, asking for them to give us bodies. So you got to think oh four to our platoon deployment, the brigade platoon. We had not even been a unit a year and a half and we deployed with second Angleco.

• 1:16:18Speaker 01

  So I think for me, even though we didn't get the jump mission, which is actually better because jumping in Okinawa is a pain in the butt, you know, tiny island off or go to Guam, you know, at best. So jumping there, I'm glad they didn't bring airborne operations back. Hard enough starting a unit, bringing in Marines to build a unit, especially when you've got one, two, or three year tours. And you're going to rotate at me a year and a half for a full, you know, or two and a half years, the unit has to do a full deployment.

• 1:16:51Speaker 01

  So that was amazing learning curve. You know, I was the staff in COIC until we would and Major Krebs was the CEO until we would get a SAR Major and a Lieutenant Colonel because it's a company, but it's battalion command equivalent. So you're a command. And yeah, I got to build a unit.

• 1:17:10Speaker 01

  You know, got to implement the TONEs, got to, you know, go, me and the major.

• 1:17:14Jocko Willink?

  Did you build the TONEs yourself?

• 1:17:16Speaker 01

  I used the old first angle.

• 1:17:17Jocko Willink?

  Okay, got it.

• 1:17:18Speaker 01

  Now, at this point, second angle CO and first angle CO had stood up about eight months prior. You know, they didn't stand them up until around that oh three moment. Because as we're transitioning from Afghanistan to OIF and they knew that was a pusher, like we need to bring these guys back, it's so purple. Think about it, I mean, just like with all of our guys. So, you know, that's one of those dirt to dirt moments at Headquarters Marine Corps when you save money during the nineties to chop up all the little units. You know, and then find out that the more and more purple we get, the more and more you need some of those units. It is what it is. But it was an opportunity. It was amazing. You know, and at that point, I'd just picked up Gunny.

• 1:18:02Speaker 01

  And I went to T A S P school back here. And I'm going to be running, you know, Ops. I was Ops Chief technically. Once we got all the pertinent people in, I was going to be in charge of the JTACs, the training, you know, what I know about. You know, I won't say I was dumb at that. When it comes to operations, you know, for that type of environment, I'm pretty good at it. It's just the artillery side computerized. I don't know it. I never wanted to know it. Just like having a ruck on and walking around the woods. I mean, you can only do that so long. But it was cool, you know? Bring a bunch of our artillery officers out here, you know? I remember the day Caesar and Dave came in, you know, they were super good dudes, you

• 1:18:47Speaker 01

  know, both being eighteen drivers. Uh, you know, Burke was a major and Caesar was a captain. We're getting chopper pilot, you know, we're getting all types of the pilots because as you know all too well now, angle CO is very aviation heavy on the salts, sporting arms liaison teams. But to. Build it traditionally, but then when it came into play that they gave us the authorization to attach the second Angleco for that deployment, you know, we got to come back in from Okinawa in September of oh five, start to work up, you know, get all the 400 quals for all the, you know, JTACs and, you know, because we had 32 JTACs, so non-aviation guys. Well,

• 1:19:29Speaker 01

  Colonel Campbell, being an old force guy who owned second Angleco, he totally deviated from the traditional Angleco mission where you have salt fix, maybe two fixes if you're lucky under assault, attach into a battalion or a company from a foreign element or the army, you know, that traditional role. He said, I want four man JTAC teams spread all over Anbar. Well, of course I, you know, I talked my Colonel in in Okinawa and let me go on the deployment as the Ops Chief. And I sold him, Colonel Schrader, I was like, let me go over and work in Al Asad in the Ops. I'll left seat, right seat, the second Angleco Ops Chief. And then when we come back over in a year, I can do that five month

• 1:20:13Speaker 01

  training package with our guys in Okinawa and then bring the whole company over. And we're going to have a bunch of new guys that rotated off island. So I sold him on it. Well, what's Colonel Campbell do? You're a gunny, you're a JTAC, you're one of the most seasoned shooters, you know, bomb droppers. He goes, why don't you take a team? So what's he do? He gives me the three junior guys in our brigade platoon, Bravo, Huerta, and Mitchell. You know, they're both Lance Corporals and Mitchell, they're all physical studs. And here I am, 34 at that time. I didn't even tell you, after that deployment, they

• 1:20:58Speaker 01

  were talking about doing a total knee reconstruction on my left knee from that ACL reconstruction in 85, 86. So I'm like, I'm doing everything I can to at least get in theater. Because I hate sitting in Okinawa when these guys have been deploying for three, four years at this point.

• 1:21:15Speaker 01

  Colonel Campbell gives me that luck and I'm like, but I'll, like I said at the beginning, you tell me what to do, I'll do it. You know, or the best my ability. I'm like, sir, if that's where you want me. And not like I don't know Caesar, but he's going to get a, a salt, which wasn't a traditional salt. He was a JT, as you know all too well. He was a FIC team, just like I was. He was my OIC at that level. But, you know, I'm definitely the more seasoned guy in, you know, at that point in my life. But man, I was always concerned those young boys were going to run my, you know what, in the dirt. Cause they, all three of those guys are studs. They just didn't have much time because they hadn't been with us long before we deployed.

• 1:22:00Speaker 01

  So at what point, how far out did you know you were going to Ramadi? Not till we, they never, Colonel Campbell, because of that audible. Now, when we did our workup prior to taking off in January, it wasn't our whole team. It was basically just JTACs. Because we were going down to the proving grounds. You know, we're staying in Tucson and the Colonel treated us like we were SOCOM. I mean, Paraclete, I mean, he spent a buttload of money on equipment, training, all that for that few months. We, when we got to Al Asad, I think it was four days, maybe. But it was all of us at the headquarters in camp. You showed up to Al Asad not knowing exactly where you were going?

• 1:22:43Speaker 01

  No, because he was in, he was in that manipulation of we're breaking all these 30 some teams down. Dave could tell you better than I could. But, you know, when I first got there, I've got personal videos of, you know, me and the staff sergeant that worked for him, for the, technically the platoon, you know, in our troops, you know, our hooch there. I don't know if you ever went over our little compound, that old para Yeah, yeah. building they were in. Well,

• 1:23:13Speaker 01

  We probably weren't in there four days. And they got old Caesar and he called me up and we went into the meeting and he said, hey, we're going to go over. And we're attaching first IA. I said, well, good. That's a traditional angle commission right there.

• 1:23:26Jocko Willink?

  So first IA for those of you who don't know, it's Iraqi Army. So it's like, uh, what is it? First Brigade of the Iraqi Army.

• 1:23:32Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:23:33Jocko Willink?

  Who is stationed over with the first of the 506, uh, just above Camp Cragador and there, I don't know if I, I forget what that was called. The, the place above like north of Route Michigan.

• 1:23:43Speaker 01

  Yeah. You had combat outpost. You had Camp Tiger, Camp Ranger, and then I forget that other one where they were in those three. And the Alpha Company was in Combat Outpost.

• 1:23:51Jocko Willink?

  So.

• 1:23:51Speaker 01

  With the tanks.

• 1:23:52Jocko Willink?

  So you're going to go over there and, and just basically embed with the, with the IA.

• 1:23:58Speaker 01

  Yes. Yeah. Do a traditional angle commission, except not in a traditional T O N E.

• 1:24:07Speaker 01

  But a very robust equipment package. C spot threes were brand new. I mean, Colonel Campbell pulled all his strings in from his background in.

• 1:24:15Jocko Willink?

  So what do you guys, do you guys have two Hummers?

• 1:24:17Speaker 01

  Mm hmm. Yep.

• 1:24:18Jocko Willink?

  Just decked out with the gear that you needed.

• 1:24:20Speaker 01

  Yeah. Caesar had, well, one Hummer for all four guys. So Caesar had one, I had one. And then we had a two 40 on each of our trucks, you know, like most time where it was on the gun.

• 1:24:33Jocko Willink?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:24:34Speaker 01

  But we went on one QRF from Camp Ramadi proper and did one dagger mission. Uh, I pulled, I pulled rotation and day after the dagger missions when we went over to Cragador. I mean, initially not Cragador.

• 1:24:49Jocko Willink?

  Was your first dagger mission, like one of the, just nighttime route clearance?

• 1:24:52Speaker 01

  Yeah. I was just running an aircraft over looking for lollipops. Yeah. I just pulled it. They were kind of, you know, the way they were doing it over there is they just kind of put us in a rotation.

• 1:25:01Jocko Willink?

  Kind of interesting. The first time I went out on a dagger mission, it, it was at night and you're like, they're using white lights and.

• 1:25:08Speaker 01

  Bright white lights.

• 1:25:08Jocko Willink?

  You're all comfortable in the, in the, were you in the Buffalo?

• 1:25:11Speaker 01

  No, I was following in an MRAP behind it.

• 1:25:14Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 1:25:14Speaker 01

  I did one in a, I did one in the Buffalo. That's, that's impressive.

• 1:25:18Jocko Willink?

  Just the, like the fact that you can, that you feel safe. I mean, I, I felt like, cause you never felt safe in a Hummer. You know what I mean? You're like, you're just waiting to get blowed up. But, but in a MRAP, you just like get to look around and it's kind of like the air, the air conditions kicking. You're kind of like, man, this is, this is kind of awesome. And then they're like, stop. They stop and you go, oh, and you start hearing them on the radio like, yeah, we're prosecuting. And you're like, oh, so we're now we might get blown up anyways, but.

• 1:25:45Speaker 01

  Start digging.

• 1:25:45Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, those guys are freaking heroes, man.

• 1:25:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, that first, he only did two dagger missions total. Yeah, one at the beginning and one was a follow on when they brought them to Full Metal Jacket. We got a lot of good pictures out there about time your guys got there, I think. And um.

• 1:26:03Speaker 01

  That one I got to ride in a Buffalo, so I only did one in a Buffalo, one in an Emirate behind the Buffalo. But yes, you're right. When they turn all that Christmas tree of lights on and they start digging, I'm like, this is retarded. And you know, the one, the, the second one I went on out of Criggador, it blew the bucket off. You know, it detonated and you know, it was manual. But, but yeah, so it wasn't long at Camp Ramadi before me and Caesar came over. You know, we initially checked in with the MIT team that was attached to them. And we were, we had a couple of rooms set up. That was going to be in the headquarters for the IA. Caesar didn't like that idea. And he said, I'm not comfortable with this. And I said, well, whatever you want to do, sir, you know?

• 1:26:46Speaker 01

  So we drove across the road to Criggador, check in with first five oh six. And that's when they gave us, you know, a couple of rooms in Full Metal Jacket. And you know, so that's, yeah, that's February. Well, we drive across there. You know, we drive around for their, their COC. If you remember, it was just kind of that bigger building facing all the runoff. We drive around that little spot there where we had our shower tent at one point. And we come around on the backside where the palm grove was. And the generators are sitting right there. And that's where that little courtyard was kind of in the middle of, you know? And as soon as we get out of the vehicle.

• 1:27:25Speaker 01

  Right next to the generator. And that was the best wake up call any of those guys could get. And so right out the gate. Everybody was like, okay, this is realistic because we would hear the alarms a few days wearing Ramadi, at Camp Ramadi. But you know, wasn't cricketers tiny as you know.

• 1:27:46Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I was gonna say Ramadi is such a bit, much bigger camp. You can get hit and you wouldn't even know it.

• 1:27:50Speaker 01

  Laundry service and all kinds of crazy stuff there.

• 1:27:53Jocko Willink?

  But at Cragador, you'd know it.

• 1:27:55Speaker 01

  Small arms fire go all the way across the camp. Especially when we'd be sunbathing up on top of a metal jacket up there. Ding ding ding.

• 1:28:03Jocko Willink?

  So what were your first missions? Were you, were you going out with, were you, did you go out with just like, uh, whoever was going out? And you said you started out like in northeast, up in the more rural areas?

• 1:28:15Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:28:16Jocko Willink?

  That's where you guys started kicking it off?

• 1:28:17Speaker 01

  Yeah. So we started out, if I remember correctly, it was either Jolabe or Sophia, whichever the most eastern was, right on the Euphrates, which I thought, that's super cool. Yeah, I'm walking around the Euphrates River. This is neat. And it traditional supporting, you know, sometimes you get a company of, first I was, I don't think it was first off, yeah, I guess it was, you know, a couple of the Army guys. Well, then we're just doing their typical clearing palm grows, going through. It wasn't like your knock and talks and all that. You're just kinda moved to contacting is the best way I can put it. And draw them out. And which most of the time I do a chauffeur, chauffeurs fly by, you know, maybe pop a gun

• 1:28:59Speaker 01

  round, maybe dump, dump something small, but to me that always seems pretty wasteful in those more rural environments because you, three guys with a gun, why am I gonna spend all that money with a five hundred pounder? You know, let's just go up there and do the traditional infantry, locate close, destroy the enemy by fire maneuver. To me, that saves more money. But of course that would change.

• 1:29:20Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:20Speaker 01

  As you know all too well.

• 1:29:21Jocko Willink?

  So then, at what point did you start moving back more into the Malab?

• 1:29:27Speaker 01

  That was probably March.

• 1:29:28Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 1:29:29Speaker 01

  I would guess March. Not long. We probably spent three or four weeks, kinda working our way back because we did have some patrols by that amusement park. And then, matter of fact, later on, as we'll get to with your guys too, up there.

• 1:29:42Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:46Speaker 01

  Be out maybe a month and then so we're at this point it's gotta be March and then late March the focus of effort was gonna be start clearing you know those different parts.

• 1:29:58Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:58Speaker 01

  And your guys had to come in about that same time.

• 1:30:00Jocko Willink?

  We came in in April.

• 1:30:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:30:02Jocko Willink?

  Came in in April. That's when and we got over to Corregidor pretty quickly. I don't remember the exact dates, but we've when we initially went to Corregidor, we spent a little bit of time in Corregidor and then we went back and then we kind of formulated the guys that were gonna go over to Corregidor permanently, you know, in a permanent way. It was ended up being maybe maybe eight guys total of Seth's guys.

• 1:30:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, cuz you guys changed it up after the 13th of April.

• 1:30:33Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:30:35Speaker 01

  I'll never forget that day.

• 1:30:36Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, so that I'm trying to think. No, you know what? So we when we went over for for that mission that we were all gonna do that big giant clearance of the M'LoP, right? So this is when the blue on blue happened.

• 1:30:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:30:48Jocko Willink?

  And when we went over there, I took a big bunch of guys. So we had we had a pretty good group of guys. It wasn't until after that happened, then we all went back to Camp Ramadi and then we assembled a smaller group of guys that were gonna go over and and basically be embedded with the first of 506 and the 118 IA. So yeah, we went when we went over for that big clearance in the blob where we ended up having the blue on blue, that was a pretty we had a pretty big chunk of guys.

• 1:31:18Speaker 01

  Yes, I remember you had more people then cuz that's when Tony was downstairs. And after the 13th, that next day when I went down and talked to him and then talk, you know, the guys, that's when it was like, whoa, okay, not seeing these guys around. And then Seth comes back and it's like, hey, let's work together.

• 1:31:34Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:31:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, if we know we're gonna be in the area together, let's kinda.

• 1:31:37Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:37Speaker 01

  Which good call.

• 1:31:38Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, of course, of course. And I don't, did you listen when I had Joe Clayburn on?

• 1:31:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:31:44Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:44Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, I had to watch that, see him again.

• 1:31:46Jocko Willink?

  Of course.

• 1:31:47Speaker 01

  It's awesome.

• 1:31:47Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you're the you're the gunny that I talk about. So when, you know, we just real quick, brief, I had I had four little elements out in the field. I had an element with C2. I had an element with the Iraqi soldiers that were doing the clearance, which is I think where you started off your day cuz you're doing frontline trace the whole nine yards. I had then I had two sniper overwatch elements out there. Uh, real quick, just giving people the lay of land. We start, everyone's pretty much in a gunfight, uh, pretty early in the morning. And my guys, one of my sniper elements had moved across the road. Just on the other side of the, of the limit of advance. And a group of Iraqis.

• 1:32:30Jocko Willink?

  That no one really knows why they did this, but they had the idea that they were going to go set their own perimeter. On the area that was being cleared. They started running down and from what I understand, you were like, where are they going? But you gotta, you gotta follow frontline trace. So you just follow them.

• 1:32:44Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, ran down there with them. Held my guys up, said, hey, you just stop where they stomped on that last building for that open court. If you remember that open thing. And I'm just running with them because it's dark. You know, it's just now getting purple.

• 1:32:55Jocko Willink?

  Just getting purple.

• 1:32:56Speaker 01

  And by the time I got to that metal gate, the driveway gate, not the personal gate is when he took it.

• 1:33:04Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, right there at the door. And yeah.

• 1:33:09Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:09Speaker 01

  That's when I changed.

• 1:33:10Jocko Willink?

  So your Iraqis went in to. Get control of this building or set up an overwatch position. My guys were already in there. And when my guys saw a, a guy sneaking through the courtyard of a bill, of a door that they had zip tied shut. One of my guys saw a guy with an AK-47. He looked, looked at his Iraqis because we, uh, my guys had Iraqis with them too.

• 1:33:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:33:35Jocko Willink?

  Oh, this is enemy, shot him.

• 1:33:38Jocko Willink?

  Then now you gotta doubt, you got a down guy in the courtyard. You don't know who's in the building. You're assuming it's bad guys. Uh, you guys start engaging that building. What did my guys do? Return fire. This is just a classic horrible blue on blue.

• 1:33:53Speaker 01

  Insane.

• 1:33:53Jocko Willink?

  Yep. Um, you, your guys or you called the QRF. The light QRF shows up, it's Humvees. The Humvees start dumping rounds into the building.

• 1:34:07Jocko Willink?

  My guys are inside receiving those rounds. And again, I mentioned some of these details, like the fact that Matt Hasby, who is who like 11 hours earlier had been shot out of a of a sniper tower with a dishka. So now he's on the rooftop getting shot out with a 50, but he's knows a 50, he thinks it's the dishka. He's literally going, I can't believe these bastards found me again with their dishka. Because if you're thinking, if you get started, start getting shot at with a 50 cal, you're gonna like, no, you go, oh, this is Americans. But he's thinking it's the dishka. Again, one of these, one of these horrible situations. So now my guys call the heavy QRF. When I hear the heavy QRF call, I say to Joe Claiborne, hey, those are my guys, let, let, let's go. So when we round the corner, the tanks are in front of us.

• 1:34:54Jocko Willink?

  The tank stops, starts like, I see red smoke. That was one of my indicators. I was like, wait, why are we seeing red smoke right now? Me and him both pop smokes in that courtyard at the same time. So I get out. I, I'm, I think I said to you, I was like, hey, what's going on? And you go, there's moose in that building right there. Yeah. And I go. That's the first time we ever met. Yep. That was the first time we ever met, maybe in a briefing, we might've like glanced, exchanged, but I go, hey, what's going on? Gunny and you go, hey, there's, there's moose in that building right now and they're bringing it. And I was like, and something didn't add up in my head. And I looked at Z, my SE, I was like on me and he followed me over, kicked open the door and I see Tony inside. And he goes, and I said, what happened?

• 1:35:37Jocko Willink?

  And he said, uh, I killed a guy in the courtyard and then they brought it. And I, I was like, hey, it was a blue on blue. And he gave me the look of, you know, what the hell? And then I came back out. I was like, hey, where's, where's Claiborne? He was up on the roof and I got to him and I said, hey, man, it was a blue on blue. He's like, what? And I said, yep. So that's, you know, the, the quick dump from my perspective, I don't know, whatever other detail you want to add. Well, that was, uh, you know, when he, when I got up, it was right when I got to the gate.

• 1:36:11Speaker 01

  When I heard the round go off and then that the guy that was right behind him, he just started screaming.

• 1:36:18Speaker 01

  And I tried to stop him at the gate and then I run back because remember the bill they were going to go firm in that last building. And then there was that empty lot that had that big dipsy dumpster. And then you had that road, long axis. And then your guys were in that house and I, you know, inside that big old place there. So I kind of run back and forth. I'm trying to call one of the guys to give me some more men. And then my guy, my, you know, Mitchell, where it and Bravo. They come up and gun anywhere you want us. So you get up on the roof, get calm, get me an aircraft.

• 1:36:54Speaker 01

  Call the battalion command, tell them what we got. I want to run back down here. So I grabbed two of the Junedies. We come back over, we go just inside that gate. They had a toilet out that outdoor toilet right there. So we pop into there. Now I might add this whole time I'm suppressing. Every time I get close to the building, I'm.

• 1:37:13Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:14Speaker 01

  So I got the Junedies shooting. I'm waiting for the army to come up and it wasn't the gun trap. I didn't call the QRF until my air was denied. And that's when I called QRF and requested a tank.

• 1:37:27Jocko Willink?

  Yep, and I'm pretty sure you got your air denied.

• 1:37:31Speaker 01

  Thank God.

• 1:37:31Jocko Willink?

  Because I, my SEA and me were like, hey, we don't, we don't know exactly where our guys are. Like do not drop right now.

• 1:37:38Speaker 01

  No, thank God.

• 1:37:39Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, thank God.

• 1:37:39Speaker 01

  I'm glad you guys were there like you and Joe talked about. So glad because being them, being on the ground and running it all. All my focus of effort, and this is bad on me, but my focus of effort, because you remember Caesar's independent. I'm talking, my guys are straight to battalion, you know, battalion command. I'm thinking get air. They killed, and I don't care if it's.

• 1:38:01Jocko Willink?

  Of course.

• 1:38:01Speaker 01

  Who it is that gets killed when I'm working with them. I'm going to treat them no different than anybody else. So in that mindset, I'm gonna treat whoever killed him the same way. And that's the hardest part of that day. You know, when it came to, when I saw him coming out of the building. When you were there. That, that's the worst. You know, I know for you guys, it's big. Marine Corps has always been huge. Oh, yeah, it's the worst. Because it was such a big thing throughout our warfare of it happening. But, so, come back in, I'm suppressed and I'm waiting to get the truck come up. I'm, you know, I'm on my embitter and I'm calling back over to Mitchell and I'm like, hey, where's my air? Where's my air? Where's my air? And he denies. I come back over and I'm like, okay, I'm kind of running back and forth.

• 1:38:46Speaker 01

  Well, me and those two, we saw we're not gonna go grab the body yet. And we start running back and next thing I know, I see a grenade roll. Right by that DC dumpster. So, not that they're gonna understand, they're June Ds. Most of them, they didn't speak English, most of those guys. I just grenade drop, wounds guy in front, kills guy behind. And then, you know, that's where in that one video that Stephen knows. I remember they gave it to me when I was in hospital. You see the one guy run up and he throws the belt, you know, for the, you know, his belt, uh, whatever it was. Throws that belt down and you hear him going off and then you hear me go bang on that. Cause at this point, I'm Winch, I'm Winchester. I fired 13 magazines.

• 1:39:32Speaker 01

  So, once that gun truck, that first gun truck waiting for the tank to get up there, you see it in the video. I, right as I'm banging on it and I do that, Perri will follow me. Cause I want that 50. I want to walk that 50 right where I want them until that tank gets there. But right before he started that video, that Lu, that Army Lieutenant was in the front seat. I'm like, give me all your mags. Now, thinking back, I should never do that. Give me two. But I'm like, give me every, well, they had just gotten the 35 rounders. So I was excited. Several standard 30s.

• 1:40:07Speaker 01

  And yeah, so once I got the truck up there, I started suppressing and that's when I saw the movement on the rooftop by that big satellite dish. When I, you know, the old school six foot satellite dishes. When I saw, cause now it's, you know, right before that tank came up, before I popped the smoke, it was just getting good enough light.

• 1:40:26Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's another thing that was, there's so many, uh, little holes in the Swiss cheese.

• 1:40:30Speaker 01

  Bad.

• 1:40:31Jocko Willink?

  Crypto changed at two o'clock in the morning. I don't know if you remember that, like it was, there was just thing upon thing upon thing. It sucked.

• 1:40:38Speaker 01

  It's, it was terrible. Yeah. Worse. That is probably my worst experience ever. I mean, honest to God, true. That's way worse than what happened to me. Because if, you know, when I saw the movement on the rooftop through the mouse holes, I, cause you know, I carried M4, two oh three. Now I carried a couple of smokes. I always had a tube for a helo. But, you know, I carried 10 hand grenades and 10 HE rounds in my Nalgene. I put Nalgene bottles in those. It was for that timeframe, hand grenades and, uh, 40 mic HEs. So I remember I took my smoke out, loading HE and I'm like, that dish where those holes were, I did, I sent, I sent one over that dish. Hope that didn't kill nobody.

• 1:41:21Speaker 01

  And then I hit that dish and my intent was hit that dish and that frag pattern would get the two guys. So glad it didn't work out that way.

• 1:41:29Jocko Willink?

  It didn't, yeah.

• 1:41:30Speaker 01

  So glad.

• 1:41:31Jocko Willink?

  And by the way, Matt Hasby, he was like, cause he, there was, he was the guy that was stuck on the roof.

• 1:41:36Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:41:37Jocko Willink?

  Another guy was, I think one more guy was with him who just like, was able to very quickly like get down the stairs, but Matt couldn't move. And he, he, you know, when he tells the story now, you know, of course, you know, 20 years later, but he's like, oh yeah, I was just like waiting to die. He got his pistol out. And he was like, hey, when these guys come up here, I'm going to get a couple of them, but like, I'm going to die now. And, uh, Yeah, freaking absolutely horrible. And you know, it's one of the, it's one of the biggest focuses that I had when I came back and I took over training was to cause enough chaos and confusion that the SEALs that were getting ready to go on deployment to Iraq and Afghanistan. Every single troop that I put through for three years of training all had blue on blues.

• 1:42:20Jocko Willink?

  Because, because we put them in situations that was going to be really, really challenging. Because it wasn't emphasized as much as it should have been. And the, the way it was emphasized during training for us was like, oh, it, you know, this would never happen. Number one, you have all SEALs. I'll tell you what, the percentage of it happening, if you only have SEALs goes down a lot, just like if you only have Marines, just like if you only have Iraqi Army. You put all those elements together, you, you throw the language barrier, like there's so many things that roll into it. And um, those, those, you know, the, the Pat Tillman case is another one. Oh, yeah. But yeah, is a bad one. And one, one of the things that bothers me is there was a, there was a case of blue on blue in Vietnam with SEALs.

• 1:43:02Jocko Willink?

  Uh, it was X-ray platoon and I knew it had happened.

• 1:43:08Jocko Willink?

  But they never debriefed it to where like, to explain it to young leaders like, hey, this is way more, this is, this, this happens a lot easier than you think it does. And I think that's one of the, one of the biggest things that I tried to emphasize afterwards when I, when I got home and started running training was like, you need to understand how, what a guy, when a guy is getting shot at, what their, what their viewpoint is, the chaos, the fog of war, like all these things really come into play. And you know, Joe Claiborne, highly experienced at that time, you, highly experienced at that time. By the way, with the SEALs, we had, we had Iraqi soldiers with them.

• 1:43:51Jocko Willink?

  With the sole purpose of like, making sure that they can de-conflict. They had, you know, you know, they, they carried like the little ICOM radios, like we wanted to make sure that our interpreter could talk to the Iraqis on their ICOM radios, you know, just given the communication. So even with all those uh, protocols put in place, like that, that was like an absolutely freaking awful day. Yeah.

• 1:44:14Jocko Willink?

  And you know, to the, you know, the battalion commander, I went back, um, and you know, he, I went with Joe Glaburn, I don't know if you were with us, but we walked right up to his office and he was like, what happened? And I like, just, I was like, hey, I pointed out, went through it on the map. Like this is what happened. He was, and he was such a great guy and he understood, you know, he understood the chaos and the confusion that had occurred. And he was like, okay, guys,

• 1:44:41Jocko Willink?

  make sure it doesn't happen again. Get your gear back on because we have whatever it was. I think we had four more operations to do that day. Uh, but

• 1:44:49Speaker 01

  Work carries on.

• 1:44:50Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah. Work carries on. And I guess you had to go reload your mags.

• 1:44:54Speaker 01

  Yeah. And that wasn't, um, that's the honest, God truth. When you told me that, that did, it floored me, you know, because one, at this point in my life, I'm going to thank God for that, not get any worse than it did. But that mindset to me at that point was, you know, initial instinct, I'm going to kill everybody in that building. Yeah. I'm going to drop a bomb on it. I'm gonna, they're shooting at me now and throwing grenades. There's all this other stuff going on. Yeah, I'm gonna lay waste to it. And I think the whole effect, you all, you and Joe being in the positions that you were in, maintain, that's an important thing that I think most people don't even realize when it

• 1:45:38Speaker 01

  comes to what you just described is having that command and control ability from the outside, visual, no visual, being able to determine common sense, the fifth principle of patrolling. Something ain't right. Okay. My guys are there. His guys are there. You guys went too far. This hat, you know, it was just a bad situation. And, but thank God you guys saw enough to deny the error. Yeah, I was pissed at the point, but I went right to my training and said, okay, no air, get a tank. Okay. Got to wait for the tank to get here, get a gun truck. Cause we were walking. We had no vehicles that day. We're doing walking patrols like we had been doing for a while at that

• 1:46:21Speaker 01

  point. But yeah, April 13th, right? If I remember correctly.

• 1:46:28Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I don't remember the exact day, um, but. Yeah, just a few days from now. Yeah. Yeah. So after that, so we got put like stand down investigation, the whole nine yards. Change uniforms. Yep. I remember that. Uh, well, yeah, that's right. Like even that afternoon, guys were, the Iraqis were putting like armbands on. Like with like just some kind of armband that indicate, I think it had like a blue sticker on or something. It was like trying to make the PID easier for everybody. Yeah, they were worried that, I imagine you guys were worried. Oh, yeah. Retribution might happen.

• 1:47:05Jocko Willink?

  I think, you know, one thing I will say is it seemed like everyone understood that like, that was, that was.

• 1:47:13Jocko Willink?

  There was.

• 1:47:15Jocko Willink?

  There wasn't like hostility between, um, you know, like all my, my, my, not all my guys, but guys went to the dude's funeral. Because by the way, an Iraqi soldier got killed and a couple more got wounded and, you know, um, you know, we paid money to the family. We did our best, you know, like they understood. And that's, that's one thing, you know, there was a, there was a, a SEAL. Um, captain who had been, who'd, who'd been in the Marine Corps and he'd been the tail end of Way City. So when he showed up to like the tail end of Way City, yeah. And he's a guy that said to me, he goes, and I knew him beforehand and he said, Hey, John, go, um, Way City.

• 1:47:56Jocko Willink?

  He goes, and I forget the percentage, a big percentage of casualties in Way City were friendly fire. And again, I wish I would have studied that more and known that more and been more aware of how easily it can happen. Um, but you know, he's a guy that said, Hey, man, and, and pretty much. All the conventional commanders in Ramadi were like, oh yeah, you, you had a blue on blue. Kind of like, no one ever said like, that's acceptable. But everyone understands. Yeah, bound to happen. Yeah, it can happen. Um, and I always, one of the, one of the points that I always like to make is like, there was blue on blues with Humvees versus Humvees. And if you think about that, there's no vehicle in the world that looks like a Humvee and there's only one,

• 1:48:41Jocko Willink?

  you know, we drive them, you know, friendlies drive Humvees. So if you're in a Humvee and you shoot at another Humvee, think of the mindset that someone has to have. That shows you how easily and how foggy things get. If you're in a Humvee and you shoot at another Humvee, like that's wild. Yeah. Uh, but that happens. And so, hey, that's another good, uh, Leif wrote about an extreme ownership where same thing like, we had army guys, Chris Kyle sees a guy with a scoped weapon in a building. And Chris is like, hey, is there friendlies in that building? Leif starts asking the company commander, hey, are there, you guys got friendlies in building, whatever it is, 28? Army guy's like, no, we don't have any friendlies in there. He's like, well, we, we got, got a guy with a scope weapon. Army's like, hey, kill them. Cause we'd lost guys from snipers, you know?

• 1:49:25Jocko Willink?

  Um, I mean, Chris Leon, you know, it's like, hey, we got, we got a guy with a scope weapon, kill him. And Chris is, Chris is kinda like, like, and I see him, he's kinda behind this curtain and, uh, Leif's like, hey, confirm you don't have any guys in bill, again, building 28 or whatever it was. And the guy's like, no, we don't. And you know, Leif's like, hey, they, they say they don't have any guys in there. Between Chris and Leif, they just didn't feel comfortable taking the shot. And again, part of the reason they didn't feel comfortable is because of this blue on blue had happened. Yeah. So Leif finally goes, eh, eh, we're not taking the shot. And the army guy who we know is like, bro, okay. And he goes, we're gonna have to assault the building then. And Leif is like, hey, we, we, we're covering your movement, you know, like best we can do to support.

• 1:50:10Jocko Willink?

  And here goes the army to go assault the building and guess what arm, guess what building they leave? The building that Chris is looking at. And it's like, you know, one tiny decision of, you know, Chris.

• 1:50:24Jocko Willink?

  Putting a sniper round into an American soldier, you know that, but again, because we had had that blue on blue, everyone was so much more aware of the possibility of it happening. So,

• 1:50:35Speaker 01

  That's a bad situation leads to good SOP and TTP changes.

• 1:50:39Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 1:50:40Speaker 01

  As bad as it.

• 1:50:42Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, well, you hope so. If it gets debriefed properly, and we definitely debriefed it properly. Like, we went through every part, and I continue, by the way, when I was running training, I briefed that mission to every SEAL team and platoon that I put through training. I like exactly what happened. Here's the mistakes I made. Here's what I should have done better. Like, we'll just write down the list. Uh, when we got done with that, though, we got done with the investigation now is when I put together a crew of guys to go back out to Corregidor, and this is, this is when you kind of built your relationship with the, with the boys.

• 1:51:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, with Seth and J P and the guys.

• 1:51:15Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And then, how, so you guys now are out there starting to run missions. Um, what was your op tempo like with those guys?

• 1:51:24Speaker 01

  Well, it, the way I would talk with Seth, it'd be me, Caesar, because sometimes it'd be Caesar and Seth, sometimes it'd be me and Seth, and it would be sometimes start off together, sometimes, and let's just link up at this point to kind of overlap because we know it's going to get heavy. And that was the biggest part of it. And I know it stemmed off of that previous blue and blue. And I always joked with Seth, and so you, you just, you don't want to get in a scrap with me again, do you? And, you know, just good fun.

• 1:51:52Jocko Willink?

  Of course.

• 1:51:52Speaker 01

  Yeah. True respect. But the, uh, yeah, it depended because there was days we did three foot patrols, and I'm glad we were doing it that way because after Kai, uh, Cowie?

• 1:52:05Jocko Willink?

  Cowie.

• 1:52:06Speaker 01

  Cowie. Um, didn't know him super well, had met him a number of times, but when he got shot that day, I was doing Overwatch. And...

• 1:52:16Speaker 01

  That's one of the Caesar would normally go to the meetings. I don't care to be in those stinking command meetings. Cause a few that I went like the day after he got shot when they were doing that extract. Cause I think it's what they were doing. They were extracting your guys had went up with some steak or snipers from the army and wanted to hide the extract by bringing those 1113s up. I got, I got pretty angry. I went to that meeting with Caesar and you know, Caesar did give me the, hey, spank you just mind your pissing cues. Cause I was frothing because the other problem I had was, you know, some of the senior staff and CEOs, cause the, the admin sergeant major, not the command sergeant major, the admin sergeant major. We didn't see eye to eye in a lot of things. Cause he didn't like

• 1:53:00Speaker 01

  the fact that I shared the hooch with my guys. Me being an E7, they'll be in two E3s and an E4. And he always came after me about that. And I'm like, this is my team. This is our equipment. We got a ton of equipment. I'm like, I, with all due respect, Sergeant Major, I don't work for you. And, and then I went told, I went downstairs because Caesar hooched up with all the air force, Major Francis and those guys that were supporting first 56. We were, we had two different rooms upstairs.

• 1:53:35Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. I don't work for you usually doesn't land.

• 1:53:37Speaker 01

  No, it does. But I was getting FYI, but we had a sign in our door that said lightning 42 and all four of our name and rings on it. That one of the guys had printed up. So not like you don't know that's our room, but you know, we're upstairs Caesar and his guys are downstairs with all the ETACs and Major Francis and those guys. Well, we're kind of the, you know, I kind of wanted to be away because nobody was on the second deck at that time. They had a blow over for some CBs that came in to build a helipad or something. And the other problem was those were technically all their overflow when they would bring people in. You know, especially right before your guys got there and you know, at that point there was two soldiers in that whole building. And then, you know,

• 1:54:20Speaker 01

  we come in, Marine EOD comes in and you guys come in. Well, total caveat. And our first room was around that whole corner, kind of back towards the generators, a little bit bigger, but we came back off patrol one day and.

• 1:54:37Speaker 01

  Damn, our Nerf mortar came right through the ceiling, went, made it through the rebar, was laying on Bravo's rack. And, you know, we had the, you know, the way we'd built those racks, we kind of had your sin pit with the poncho, you know, poncho up to give you some privacy and gear on the top. And just four of us in the hooch in a pretty good sized room. So, and, uh, yeah.

• 1:54:59Speaker 01

  Bravo pulls back his poncho to get in the rack, take his boots off. And here's this Nerf mortar had made it through that roof reinforced, went through that top plywood and landed and sat on this pillow. And he, he's like, Gundy, I'm over there setting my tough book back up, you know, plugging in the printer to print everything out from the patrol. And, and I'm like, you guys get out of here. So get out of here, go downstairs, go on the other side of the courtyard. I'm gonna go down. Well, thank God, we had the two E D. Right there, down on the bottom. Actually, they were right next to where Tony had hooched up there for a little bit. So I grabbed them, they're like, okay, yeah, I just failed.

• 1:55:39Speaker 01

  One, we were on patrol, thankfully. So we move around the corner and they give us a building. So that made that's our major bad. But then the fact I was hooching, he goes, no, you need to be. And I'm like, that's my team. We go out together, we come back together. I don't need to be separated from them. That'll just slow down the process. We're living together. I can sit there and we, I brought a proxima so I can pull up intel stuff and, you know, the stuff that gives us, yeah. And we could go over any planning we need to do as a team. But, yeah.

• 1:56:11Jocko Willink?

  So, uh, let's get to 16 May, 2006.

• 1:56:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, let's get away from 13 April.

• 1:56:17Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah. Um, so you guys are out. I actually, I, I, I got a, I talked to Wes, Wes Baldwin, and, uh, he gave me, he gave me his, I'll, I'll start off with his little, um, his perspective. He says, that was an interesting day, which is a very Wes way of kicking this thing off. He says, the decision was made that we were to leave our courtyard and foot patrol assault towards a shooter on a nearby rooftop. We very quickly got engaged by a talented shooter, all single shots. Four of us were shot in the firefight. An IA was hit in the hip, but fortunately was just superficial. Gunny took a round to the knee. Looked like he was stabbed in the kneecap with a pencil, very small entrance wound,

• 1:57:02Jocko Willink?

  but the entire back of his knee was hamburger, venous and arterial bleeding. I told Huerta to hold pressure on Gunny's femoral artery to slow the bleeding, which he did very effectively. I tried to get a cat tourniquet on as quickly as possible, but the blood on my mechanic's gloves was very slick. I used my teeth to remove my gloves so I could grip the tourniquet better. Spanky's legs were huge and the stitching on the tourniquet was breaking with the force I was putting into it, trying to stop his bleeding. I had to put a second tourniquet on just above the first to completely stop the arterial bleeding. Then I put two dressings over the wound on the knee to try and keep everything clean and protected. Huerta was shot in the bottom edge of his chest plate.

• 1:57:47Jocko Willink?

  I saw JP puke after the exertion of dragging Gunny and then run up to our overhead rooftop and engage the shooter while we were working on Gunny. Later that night, I was replenishing my med gear when I realized that I had a round had passed through my med gear and Camelback. "An exciting daytime patrol in the Malab" was his final statement again. That's Wes. And so Wes was the SEAL medic out there with Stoner and with you guys. And that was kind of his take on it. But I don't think he's ever debriefed you on that, so I figured I'd give you a little debrief from his perspective.

• 1:58:25Speaker 01

  No, I appreciate that. It is good because I have very glimpses of the memory.

• 1:58:31Jocko Willink?

  You know, there's pictures of that courtyard?

• 1:58:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, they sent them to me. So the only thing that those two Navy, the videographer and the still photographer, they cut out. So when I pulled back over and crossed the street, because I want to say JP, it was Huerta JP and I don't know who was behind JP, when we kind of broke across to do that road and we came up to that team where I think that's where I ended up getting hit, right there in the middle of that intersection.

• 1:59:03Speaker 01

  You know, I never let the guys walk in front of me. Never. You know, I was like... If it, if something back, I don't know how you thought about it, but for me, life, death, everything, may meant wound. You never, you know, it was never, everything in the middle was never a concern, I guess. And the guys will tell you that about me. I was, I'm not saying I'll have fear. I have fear because I'll go back to what I initially tell them. I'm not Billy badass. I'm not anybody like that, but I guess mission always overtakes the, the fear aspect to me.

• 1:59:45Speaker 01

  But I definitely didn't want, early on, didn't want the guys up front. I'll, I'll take point. I'll walk up there and look. So in that retrospect, when you see photos or videos of me, except technically shooting, I, on my coat strap, I, yeah, I'd be using my hands. I'd be talking to people or I'd, I'd leave it down. You see where it's in the background. He's got the saw up and the other guys are all up and I'm just nonchalantly walking around there. Um, but it was almost like when it gets ready to happen. That's why that day, because I think it was our third patrol that day. It was like right around six o'clock in the evening, if I remember correctly. I'm surprised he didn't tell you about the laughter we were having while I was trying to give myself my

• 2:00:30Speaker 01

  morphine. I'll get to that. I like telling that story about myself. But the, um, yeah, it's like we're, we're gearing up. That Iraqi got shot first. I'm pulling the guys across. We're going to cross over and we're going to kind of bound, do our immediate action to get to that, that house. It was on the corner where we believed, not realizing, I think Seth later on told me, you know, we had the guys that were shooting up in the building and then the sniper and the overwatch, I think is what it was, what they were telling me. Well, I'm, I'm doing what I always do. I'm just focusing on gunfire. Let's get to that. Get up here, you know, not to enter the house, just to try to contain that until enough of the people come up or, you know, we

• 2:01:12Speaker 01

  make a decision on what we're going to do. And, um, yeah, one minute I'm moving, next minute.

• 2:01:20Speaker 01

  Yeah. Earth kinda goes dirty. Yeah, I don't know. I'm confused. Why? You know, what the hell just happened? Because it didn't hurt at all. It was not painful at all. It's like my waist down went numb. Like you're, when you sit on your feet and they start tingling, they go to sleep. So there was no pain, but you know, all the gunfire is going on, you know, everything is getting passed back and forth.

• 2:01:44Speaker 01

  But I was more confused. So, because as they didn't say, when I fell forward because of all the gear. When I came forward, you know, it pushed my boot on top of my magazines. So that first time when I fi- and then I was trying to push myself up confused, gunfights going on. I'm hearing movement yelling, you know, just all the sights and sounds of that. I go to push myself up and I can't lift up and I'm, I'm just confused. That's the best way to put it, from what I can remember. And I finally realized that my paraclete, or not my, on my paraclete vest, but my Cody strap, I disconnected the quick clip on it.

• 2:02:28Speaker 01

  And I was pulling my rifle because my only instinct at this point is get, get your weapon in front of you. You know, get back to business because you know, you're definitely not moving at this point. Uh, cause my whole lower body is just numb and tingling. And it wasn't until and this is what I didn't get. It was JP and Huerta because they were the closest two to me. And this is them telling me after the fact.

• 2:02:52Speaker 01

  You know, grabbed my toe handle on my paraclete.

• 2:02:56Speaker 01

  And those two cock strong kids, because I was, you know, 200 body weight. In those days and you know, all the gear we carry. So good 270 to 300 pounds, somewhere in that ballpark.

• 2:03:09Speaker 01

  They grabbed that and they ass ended me all the way over because I was, at that point I'd got the weapon in front and I was just gonna shoot whatever. I don't give a crap what's in front. I'm kind of berserker mode, I guess. Not professional, but I, I say, I'm just gonna kill everything in front of me. If it flags, I, I'm gonna aim at it. And then, um, when they flipped me over, I almost shot myself in the right foot. But back then I shot both eyes open. And, uh, so I'd look ACOG in the one, but you know, I'd aim over it, you know, especially in those situations. But they flipped me back over and that's when I got, you know, after I took my finger off the, you know, trigger, when I saw my, my foot with my left eye, but then I immediately

• 2:03:53Speaker 01

  noticed that my left leg was just bouncing. You know, it's, you know, kind of like keep a sandwich hamburger on the whole back. I don't know how bad it is. I'm just, it's just bouncing back and forth. And then there's a lull. So I take that opportunity to reload and still kind of confused, you know, but not fearful, just surprised, I'm more surprised, not confused, surprised. And especially when I'm watching my leg just bounces or direct and then it stops and then it goes again. That's when where I got shot. Didn't know that till after that. And that's why I think, is it Tom?

• 2:04:32Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:04:33Speaker 01

  When Tom came out to help JP?

• 2:04:34Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:04:35Speaker 01

  And, um, but then when they got me to the courtyard and in those pictures, you know, it's a pig trail. Mitchell's got blood all over it. It's just a pig. I'm, I'm, it was, thank God, Wes and those guys.

• 2:04:47Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:04:48Speaker 01

  Um, but that metal framing on the gate, they were bringing me through the personal gate. My gear was stuck on it. So him and JP are just jerking. And I remember, and I'm like, they gave me a chance to clear the two or three round out of my tube. I just, at that building, I'm like, I'm going to aim at the window and I'm sending in that building because that's, we had thought that's where all the fire was coming from. But yeah, and then, uh, yeah, Wes moves over to me and they start to give me that courtyard and, and Bravo, Steve, Bravo Stevens, or Stevens Bravo. He's, you know, he's really gunning

• 2:05:29Speaker 01

  down hard, helping Wes. Wes is straddling me, my leg. He's trying to cut everything free. I remember Bravo is really pushing down on my femoral bridge on my hip, trying to help slow the bleeding because I was, I'm lucky.

• 2:05:44Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. You don't have much time with the femoral.

• 2:05:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:05:47Jocko Willink?

  It's like three, four minutes.

• 2:05:49Speaker 01

  Total papillotile, bridge, all that was gone. Well, he's doing that. Well, then I started getting shocky. At this point, I start recognizing signs of shock and, um, and I asked Wes, you know, because we had those big auto injectors of morphine. I'm like, if I'm going down, I'm going down high. You know, kind of get it. No, Gunny, you're not ready yet. Gunny, you're not ready. I can't. You're not stable, Gunny. And you know, you kind of feel that.

• 2:06:17Speaker 01

  You know, I never, I never lost lucidity, but you could just tell your body's revolting at that point. You see where it's kind of cutting stuff off and you know, your mind starts getting a little cloudy. And because it's doing what a body's meant to do in a traumatic situation, it's trying to shut down systems to keep you alive. I get why it was doing. But then one of those memories I've got is Wes got me, got both of them. He's kind of wrapping me together. We're waiting for that truck to get up there to throw me in there. And I'm like, can I, you know, can I go ahead and give him on morphine now? He goes, you're good, Gunny, you're good. And this is, I know this is after six o'clock. Cause sun's not directly up. You know, I'm looking at that blue sky. We're laying in that courtyard in the

• 2:07:02Speaker 01

  middle of those people's driveway. And he's done a bang up job on me for however long it took. And of all the times I've practiced this over and over and over, I pull it out because you know, I kept it on my embiter case on my chest. I kept it on the outside. And I don't know how I did it, but when I pulled it out, you know, you can pull it out, pop the cap. And then just slam in the, you know, in a thigh or something like that for someone. You practice it over and over. You pop that cap off and then you just come around. Sometimes you've got to reinforce the back with your pinky so that it gets a good push into the meat.

• 2:07:39Speaker 01

  Don't know how I did it. Boom. That needle went right through my pinky and just squirted against that brick wall. And I'm like, what the hell? We started laughing and I just rip it out of my pinky. And I just started jabbing at Wes, Wes and Werth. Cause at this point Werth had came up, Gunny, I got shot. And not knowing, dragging me, not dragging me, that good stuff. And I just, he's, you ain't gonna get nothing. I was just going off. I was so angry with myself. Not only am I laying here, got him working on me to keep me alive. And you know, I'm looking at this blue sky thinking, I can tell my body's going into revolt. And I want to do it high if it's going to happen. And I can't even be high.

• 2:08:22Speaker 01

  And then they, about that time, that gun truck come up. Cause I remember Major Francis, Mitchell and all those guys were there. They got me stabilized and they threw me across the lap of those soldiers in that gun truck. They just opened that door, both back doors.

• 2:08:39Speaker 01

  Get me in there, Wes had strapped my legs together, basically. And, you know, I'm holding my helmet. I don't even know where my rifle is. One of those guys kept my rifle. So, and I quit carrying a pistol at that point. It took up space. And so my pistol was under my pillow. But I've got my helmet in my hand. They throw me in that gun truck to take me to the end of Malab and Camel Hump. If you remember that, to have 1113 pick me up. They didn't want to bring it all the way down. So they, you know, they want to take me all the way down. Meet at the intersection. I'm listening to them, but I remember that gunner, that's one of those memories I have. They get me across the lap of these two soldiers.

• 2:09:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, I got blood all over the place. Stop the bleeding thing going.

• 2:09:29Speaker 01

  And that gunner, so fun. That gunner looks down out of the turret. I'm laying in the lap of these two young soldiers and he goes, "Aren't you that gunny we're always getting in firefights with?" And I'm like, "Yeah, I'm that gunny." Crap, finally bit me in the ass. Get me to the end of the block. Well, now I'm stuck. You got the gunner, you got the guys, you know, you got the other four soldiers inside. But I'm laying across their lap. They can't get out from under me to, you know, get me out of the, and get me an 1113. But I remember that medic that was in the back of that 1113 comes over. Opens that door and asks if I can walk. I throw my helmet at him, because I was already holding it. And I'm like, you know, it just started to be retarded.

• 2:10:15Speaker 01

  But that was the most sickening feeling. That and the chopper ride, once they got the IVs in me to take me to, because, you know, they cut my leg off in TQ, or wherever that hospital was, over by TQ. But the back of the 11th, because I've never liked being in those things, any, any armor vehicle. I don't, I don't prefer it. And, uh, but then in that chopper ride out of cop, you know, the combat outpost. That, that, that's probably the most uncomfortable feelings I've ever had. The, the most bare. Don't have a weapon, don't know way of protecting myself, don't have any control whatsoever. And that whole time, my lower body is still numb. It's, I never had any pain up to the point.

• 2:11:01Speaker 01

  You know, when they put me under and cut it off. So.

• 2:11:06Speaker 01

  But yeah, I remember just asking that command sergeant major over at the combat outpost. I'm watching them write my name on the board when they're putting two IVs in me and I was just, can I have a cigarette? He's like, no, you can't. Give me a cigarette. Who cares? Give me a cigarette. Give me a cigarette. Cause I always smoked the falling rain Iraqi smokes with them back then. But, but yeah, that was, that was that day. Yeah. I think they cut it off before eight o'clock at night.

• 2:11:32Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And it's, it, you know, just sitting here thinking about this story as, as you're talking through it. You know, here it is. I, I talked about in the beginning of the podcast, like the, the teamwork between all these different. And here, here sure enough, you have SEALs, Marines, you know, SEALs are doing medical on you, but they're getting help from the Marines. Marines and SEALs dragging you out of the street, a Marine, and then who comes to pick you up, Army? Like that's, you just can't, it's really hard for people to understand the, the bonds that was formed there. And then of course, you know, I always want to mention this too, you know, the, the guys that are out there training as medics.

• 2:12:11Jocko Willink?

  It's really hard training. The, the medic school for the SEALs is extremely hard, the special for, we used to go to this. I don't know if, I'm pretty sure that. Wes went to the army.

• 2:12:22Speaker 01

  The eighteen Delta.

• 2:12:23Jocko Willink?

  The eighteen Delta school.

• 2:12:24Speaker 01

  Short package for you guys.

• 2:12:25Jocko Willink?

  But we have, but now we do our own, but they're all, they're all just outstanding schools. And, and the fact that, you know, I, I tell people all the time, like if I needed to get shot, I would rather have a special operations medic there instead of some like doctor, you know, whatever, normal physician, because that's, they're just trained so well. And, you know, same thing, like when, when Cowie got shot, guys were on him immediately. And, and even the, even the package that we put guys through for T triple C, right? Where, hey, I don't know how to, I don't know how to operate on anything, but I can definitely stop the bleeding. Like that's what, and guys had to do that and did that. So props to those guys. And then again, you know, just the, the teamwork of the guys being

• 2:13:10Jocko Willink?

  out there, working together to, to get you out of there. And that's another amazing thing they, you know, an advantage that we have these days is like, you know, you are off the battlefield in a matter of minutes, you know? And in a chopper in a matter of minutes and just to have all that coordination, that golden hour of time, you know, just to get guys off the battlefield and is, is the modern military, you know, we just kind of witnessed that over in, uh, over in Iran with the guys that got shot down and getting those guys out, you know, from the giant country of Iran shot down and the, the efforts that went into getting those guys back is like incredible, but that's, that's the way America rolls. So.

• 2:13:49Speaker 01

  Especially at Wizzo.

• 2:13:51Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, no doubt, no doubt. I can't wait to, uh, hear the stories and get the debrief on what happened over there. You know, it's going to be, it's going to be epic. Um, so you were conscious the whole way until?

• 2:14:04Speaker 01

  I never lost consciousness until just for, um, the last memory I have. When I say I've got mixed time drugs from in the hospital, kind of clouded some of the in-between stuff. I never lost consciousness. And when they did the, when they got me that combat surgical or wherever it was over by TQ, I don't know, chopper lands, they put me on a big wheeled gurney thingy and rolled me in. It's like a male and a female. The female was wearing Scooby Doo scrub tops. And I'm looking down there doing capillary refill on my left big toe and one or the other, don't really remember clearly, one or the other looked at each other and just shook their head.

• 2:14:40Jocko Willink?

  Mm hmm.

• 2:14:40Speaker 01

  But I remember she had Scooby Doo scrubs. Don't know who was senior, who was who, don't know. That's the last memory I have. The next memory I have on my NSC 17 on my way to Lawnstool and I woke up in excruciating pain. And um, I have no clue on, I have no memory of Lawnstool. Now, I was shot the night of the 16th, cut my leg off. I was in Bethesda the morning of the 19th. So we're looking at less than 72 hours from the moment of wound, initial amputation to checking

• 2:15:16Speaker 01

  into Bethesda. So very quick process. So much so that my mom and my ex and my soon to be second ex at that point are all getting notified that the Marine Corps is flying you to Germany because he is not looking good. And I think that's that spell I had somewhere in between there that I vaguely remember the pain. But I was VSI, you know, I do know that at this point, I was able in oh eight to look at my own, you know, being working at the MAF, I was able to look at my own call where they were doing the notifications and from commands. So I was VSI. So I guess I got

• 2:15:54Jocko Willink?

  Wait, what's VSI?

• 2:15:55Speaker 01

  Very seriously injured.

• 2:15:56Jocko Willink?

  Okay, got it.

• 2:15:57Speaker 01

  And I think it was the blood loss. I think that's why they said they want to get him to Germany. It wasn't the injury, it was the blood loss by far. And looking at the pictures later on on this hospital, yeah, I get that was a big drill. But I'm lucky.

• 2:16:10Jocko Willink?

  And that when you remember being in TQ and the, you see the Scooby nurse, do they even, do they even consult you at all about your leg?

• 2:16:18Speaker 01

  No, that's, that's the only memory I have. They might have, and I don't know.

• 2:16:21Jocko Willink?

  You just don't know.

• 2:16:21Speaker 01

  All I remember is getting me off the chopper and those gurneys have those big O huge skinny wheels and they roll me into that, whatever it was. And I remember, don't even remember their faces. I just remember one was a female, one was a male and Scooby Doo scrub top. And I remember the capillary refill and beyond that. And honestly, I didn't care. You know, at this point, I mean, next thing I know, I'm, you know. Got part of a leg gone.

• 2:16:54Jocko Willink?

  And so you

• 2:16:54Speaker 01

  No big deal.

• 2:16:55Jocko Willink?

  You you woke up or your first memory is pain on the flight?

• 2:16:59Speaker 01

  The C seventeen.

• 2:17:00Jocko Willink?

  C seventeen.

• 2:17:00Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:17:01Jocko Willink?

  Did they immediately put you back under?

• 2:17:03Speaker 01

  Yes, I that so I just recently talked to a guy about. So I was. You know, somewhere in the middle of it, but I remember I was about midway up on the center gurney racks. And the jump seats are there, you know, familiar C seventeens, obviously, we've all been on them. Well. I woke up and I was in really, really bad pain. I can't even tell you the level of pain at this point. I just know I was in bad pain and I was smelling Fritos. And. What's weird is I have this, I know I was in pain. I know I was hungry and I smell Fritos. And I'm assuming it's one of those air force box.

• 2:17:45Jocko Willink?

  Box lunches or whatever.

• 2:17:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, somebody's eating one on there.

• 2:17:49Speaker 01

  So that's the only emotion and the feeling I have in that point, pain, hunger, help. And it seemed like within whatever timeframe, I don't know. As soon as I motioned that I'm hungry, I'm hurting, I was out. And I don't, I don't remember from there. And. Yeah, I don't really remember very well that first two weeks in the hospital. Because I went through ten surgeries in two weeks, you know, debridements and revisions and all that stuff they did to me. It was surgery every other day. And so you're so medicated that. You know, I had glimpses. I don't remember getting my Purple Heart from General Hagy.

• 2:18:31Speaker 01

  That guy I talked about earlier, Steve Bell, he's S R major one twelve in Hawaii at Conioli. That I'd worked with on recruiting duty. He flew in from Hawaii with his wife and spent the first week and a half, almost two weeks with me, gave me my haircut the day I got my Purple Heart. I look at pictures, I look at videos.

• 2:18:51Jocko Willink?

  Don't remember.

• 2:18:51Speaker 01

  I don't remember.

• 2:18:52Jocko Willink?

  That's wild.

• 2:18:53Speaker 01

  We went to the evening parade. I was in a wheelchair. We're all there together, him and them, commonants, you know, everybody's there. And. I see the videos, I'm lucid, I'm communicating just like I normally would communicate, but I have no memory.

• 2:19:06Jocko Willink?

  Dang.

• 2:19:07Speaker 01

  About that third week, I. You know, started getting memory back.

• 2:19:12Jocko Willink?

  What was the, what was kind of the emotional state when you realized you got no leg?

• 2:19:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't.

• 2:19:22Speaker 01

  This guy, Jack Sheelord, I met like a month ago, he finally hunted me down after all these years to give me a coin from Lawn Stool. Met me in a Wausau, we had dinner. He's been doing this on his own thing. Including him, and this is, you know, fresh after 20 years at a time, just a month and a half ago. Everybody said during that time that all I cared about was getting back to work. Now, cognitive ability on my part, third week at best, it never once bothered me. I don't, I think it goes back to my initial instinct of death,

• 2:20:05Speaker 01

  life. Anything in the middle is just react to it. You know, get past it, find a new norm, do whatever you gotta do. It never bothered me. Does it suck? Of course it sucks. You know, I wouldn't wish it on anybody. You know, I tell that to kids all the time that want to play with my cool robot leg. I'm like, you know, I normally tell them, you know, don't ride sharks. You know, and, you know, I got all these scars from all the other upper body surgery. I'll be like, don't ride bulls, don't ride sharks. They like to bite and they like to break your arm off. And kids get a kick out. I don't want to say I got shot. That's boring to them. They just think the robot leg's cool. But, yeah, I don't,

• 2:20:45Speaker 01

  I don't, it never once was affecting me in that way. Never. Yeah, I'm happy to have life. Life is way more important than a leg. And I take it as luck. I had a lot of really close calls in that timeframe. So, now as a different type of person, I look back on that was God's way of telling me to grow up. You know, you're, you're older, you're higher rank, you should be out playing with the boys. You know, time to get back to real work, big boy. It's kind of the way I look at it. But it never once, the only fear I had was that I would have to get out. That is on Scott's truth. You know, when I was

• 2:21:27Speaker 01

  waiting on the med board to come back, that gave me that, that feeling of 1995 again. You know, and so when I came back on permanent limited due orders, I could stay, I'm like, well, that's the first step. So, but yeah, it never bothered me.

• 2:21:43Jocko Willink?

  And then it goes into the recovery. It sounds like relatively...

• 2:21:51Jocko Willink?

  Clean situation. In other words, like above the knee, it's horrible, you know, it's terrible, but above the knee, it sounds like there wasn't any major infections.

• 2:22:03Jocko Willink?

  Moved pretty quick as far as, and, and by the way, it's one leg instead of two. That's a huge difference. You know, that's

• 2:22:11Speaker 01

  gunshot wound and lieu of explosive.

• 2:22:13Jocko Willink?

  Oh yeah, that's another, that's what.

• 2:22:15Speaker 01

  A surgical above the knee amputation based off the damage to the lower femur from the gunshot. So it's a, it's all, there's no blast injury. The elective to go above the fracture of the femur, not to cut you off, Chalk.

• 2:22:27Jocko Willink?

  No, no, no, you're, that's, that's the part I was missing.

• 2:22:29Speaker 01

  That's the kicker. The healing process is much better.

• 2:22:32Jocko Willink?

  Yep. Cause Dan Kinnawson, who I know.

• 2:22:34Speaker 01

  I know Dan very well. Yeah.

• 2:22:35Jocko Willink?

  Like that's.

• 2:22:36Speaker 01

  I mentored, I met him initially.

• 2:22:37Jocko Willink?

  Rob Jones, blast.

• 2:22:39Speaker 01

  Don't know him that well, but I know.

• 2:22:40Jocko Willink?

  Blast. Like all those guys, those blast amputations are brutal. And then you have all the secondary damage from the explosives in the rest of their body.

• 2:22:50Speaker 01

  Soft tissue, organ damage, all that stuff they have.

• 2:22:53Jocko Willink?

  So yeah, this is, um, that's what I didn't make that connection of why this, cause you know, you're like, you know, I wasn't hurt too bad. And even the fact that you're conscious, cause these guys get blown up. It's like, you know.

• 2:23:04Speaker 01

  So much more trauma.

• 2:23:04Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. It's traumatic in, in so many other parts of their body as well. Uh, I mean, Dan Kinnawson was like, you know, just, just devastated.

• 2:23:15Speaker 01

  Dan came to my retirement.

• 2:23:16Jocko Willink?

  That's amazing.

• 2:23:17Speaker 01

  I mean, I spent a lot of time with him when he got there in 10. You know, I was still out there then. We, I won't say we became friends. We were very good acquaintances. We traveled a number of times together on trips before he started doing the, you know, biathlon stuff.

• 2:23:31Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:23:32Speaker 01

  Good dude.

• 2:23:33Jocko Willink?

  Uh, so, but, so you're, you're recovery. You don't have to worry about these other blast injuries and all this stuff.

• 2:23:38Speaker 01

  It's a quick, you know, I, from May 16th till mid-December. In a nutshell, I started my med board in mid-December, ran my first 5K in November. You know, I initial eight weeks, get out of the hospital, moved me over to Walter Reed on my 35th birthday. Was that day?

• 2:23:59Speaker 01

  Then got a weekend patient.

• 2:24:04Speaker 01

  Then release me for therapy, but I still have, you know, I still have a number of weeks, about a month before they'll take the staples out. You know, so I can't do, I can do physical, not patient therapy, but it's on crutches or wheelchair. You know, initially it's a wheelchair. That didn't last long because I, in order to not go to the Malone house and get in the Fisher house at Walter Reed, the old Walter Reed, I had to be on crutches. Well, in order to be cleared to do that, I had to be able to go up downstairs because there was no elevator in the Fisher house and all they had was upstairs rooms. So I proved that I can go up and down, you know, stairs on crutches. You know, you, I'll keep saying it, give me a task, tell me what the requirements of the task are, I'm gonna do it.

• 2:24:47Speaker 01

  And because I don't want to be in the Malone house, and for people who don't know, the Malone house is the old Walter Reed. It was basically a 10, 12 story hotel and it was wild, wild west for wounded warriors and their families. I mean, you, there was constant stuff I won't even talk about, sad, sad things. Uh, people doing there. I'm like, I've got a young daughter.

• 2:25:15Speaker 01

  You know, my second.

• 2:25:19Speaker 01

  I do not want to be in a Malone house. I didn't really want to be in DC, not like I had any choice in the matter. But fortunately proved very quickly before I even got my first leg, my temp socket, and we got in the Malone house. Much more family orientated, you only got like eight or 10 families in there. Oh, you mean the Fisher? Fisher houses. Yeah, Walter Reed had three of them. And, um, so you're in a family environment, you can have your own space and store food, you know, Malone house is basically a hotel with a restaurant at the bottom. You know, you don't have that opportunity to cook in the rooms or any of that stuff. And I didn't want no part of that, plus all that other extracurricular crap I didn't be around.

• 2:26:01Speaker 01

  My focus of effort was get back to work. That, that was my number one focus. So now get away to staples are out. Okay, when you take my staples out. Oh, let's prove you can go up and down the stairs on your crutches. Okay, I'll prove it. You know, because I'm thinking I'm 35, I've been in the Marine Corps for 17 plus years.

• 2:26:23Speaker 01

  I'm, you know, I'm on a timeline here.

• 2:26:27Speaker 01

  You know, not fully knowing if they're going to kick me out medically. Cause I don't know yet what's going to happen with that. But my thing was get back as quickly as possible. And I don't care what I get back to. First task, get back on active duty from patient status. Next task. Where's the Marine Corps need me? You know, and then so on.

• 2:26:49Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 2:26:50Speaker 01

  So that was the beginning.

• 2:26:51Jocko Willink?

  And so then when, when, how long did the process take? Is nine months until your med board?

• 2:26:57Speaker 01

  No, my med board was in less than six months and I was back on active duty in 11 months.

• 2:27:01Jocko Willink?

  Bang.

• 2:27:02Speaker 01

  That, that's the problem. It took five men, five months for the Marine Corps. To accept the med process.

• 2:27:11Speaker 01

  My rehab wasn't even five months.

• 2:27:15Speaker 01

  I mean, that's the weird thing. It took longer for them to figure out, yeah, you can stay on active duty. So at the 11 month mark. I was released from patient status and able to stay on active duty.

• 2:27:27Jocko Willink?

  And then where'd they put you?

• 2:27:28Speaker 01

  Fort Sill, Oklahoma.

• 2:27:30Jocko Willink?

  Oh, this is you did some instructor time or something there?

• 2:27:32Speaker 01

  They, because at this point I only got almost two years left. I'm going to hit 20. So I don't knock them for it. I've got the MOS. You know, I'd been through piss off and all those training for, you know, and built fifth angle. Co understood, you know, I didn't realize how bad I would hate it. You know, I mean, I didn't stay there very long. You know.

• 2:27:55Jocko Willink?

  How long, how long did you stay there for?

• 2:27:57Speaker 01

  Well, I got there technically checked in mid May. And checked into one math for the O eight deployment in September. Long enough to teach one class, go through curriculum development course and be checked off.

• 2:28:09Jocko Willink?

  And you just didn't want to be in a classroom teaching. This was not your scene.

• 2:28:12Speaker 01

  No. But I thought, get out of the hospital. He goes back to everything I've told you before. Okay, you just let me back. I'll manipulate where I go from there. So that's, that still is, even at that time is still my mindset.

• 2:28:27Jocko Willink?

  And your goal, did you have it, at what point did you decide your goal was to go back on deployment?

• 2:28:32Speaker 01

  Okay, so we were doing Alcatraz challenge in San Francisco.

• 2:28:38Speaker 01

  And Colonel Clark Lathen is there as he ate the General Mattis. General Mattis is getting ready to leave because he's getting close to picking up four stars. So that oh eight deployment, General Kelly takes over. We're doing the Alcatraz challenge. Did pretty good, you know, swimming. I've always been pretty decent at swimming. And then, once I learned the strokes and learned the proper and did it enough. I've always been a decent swimmer, you know, I've just gotten better and better. But the, um, yeah, I came out of the water pretty fast. I mean, there's only five, six of us amputees there out of what six to 900 people, whatever it was, 600 and something. When you have you ever been up there for it?

• 2:29:18Jocko Willink?

  I have not been up there for it.

• 2:29:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, you ferry. Yeah, you ferry over right off the island. You jump off the platform and then you swim back. Me, Miami point was the golden dome at Chrissy Field. You know, depending on the current.

• 2:29:29Jocko Willink?

  How far of a swim is it?

• 2:29:30Speaker 01

  A mile and a half.

• 2:29:31Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 2:29:32Speaker 01

  Nothing, nothing stupid. I did it in 40 some minutes. It's current, as you know, up there. The current is depending on what you're getting that day, which is a morning swim.

• 2:29:40Jocko Willink?

  Do they plan it around a good current?

• 2:29:42Speaker 01

  No, I think.

• 2:29:43Jocko Willink?

  Beneficial current?

• 2:29:44Speaker 01

  No, I don't know that I can't answer, but they have safety kayaks in the water to kind of keep you from going. There was only one time I had to get nudged by a kayak because I went hundreds of strokes before I really looked up. And I'm aimed right at Golden Gate Bridge. And they nudged me and I'm like, yeah, there's golden domes, my main point. I'm heading out to Pacific Ocean. We don't want that. So they can say, because that that current, when it's got that, you know, lateral currents, you know all about that. That current, when it comes in across where the old Presidio was, it's two. It's got to be a two knot lateral. I mean, it's fast. And, um, so, yeah, a little bit of this.

• 2:30:26Jocko Willink?

  You know, going back a little bit, um, because I know this, this must have landed on you, but, um, Corporal Chris Leon.

• 2:30:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:30:33Jocko Willink?

  Gets killed. There you go.

• 2:30:35Speaker 01

  June 20th.

• 2:30:35Jocko Willink?

  June 20th. So you've been, you've been back in the States for like a month. And now one of your, the first Anglico guy killed since Vietnam.

• 2:30:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, Sergeant Major called me.

• 2:30:46Jocko Willink?

  Gets killed in Ramadi and Sergeant Major called you.

• 2:30:49Speaker 01

  Yep. Yeah, our Sergeant Major called me that was from second angle kill and let me know. And, uh, Yeah, cuz then we had him and then we had Pate, Captain Pate was one of the second Eagle from there. He was our intel officer. They got killed, I think in August. And he was out of TQ, I believe. But, yeah, when I heard about Chris, you know, which, and that sucks, you know, I'm sure Dave's talked to you a lot about it, Major Burke.

• 2:31:15Speaker 01

  Theo and Chris were best friends, Huerta.

• 2:31:19Speaker 01

  Both from the same area in California. You know, when they got to the unit, both communicators during that initial buildup, when me and Major Krebs are getting the unit built up. And

• 2:31:32Speaker 01

  it sucked. And then to hear the way it happened. You know, I'm glad it was. This sounds bad, but I don't mean it this way, quick death. That's all I wish for anybody if you're gonna be put in that position. Not bleeding out on the road. Um, I know the guys told me, Sir Major told me that Huerta took it super hard. Because that was a month after me. And that probably bothered me more was what was gonna be the, you know, obviously family. You know, Leon was a great kid. Cockstrong kid, just like Huerta. Funny. Those two together back in Okinawa. Just studs. Oh, yeah. Just good, good guys. That's the hardest thing for me was that.

• 2:32:18Speaker 01

  And I'm not saying what ifs, cuz I don't think what ifs matter.

• 2:32:23Speaker 01

  You know, should I have pushed so hard? To get, get us over there as a platoon. But then I also gotta think. You know. I don't know. It sucks. What, but what death doesn't suck, you know that all too well. And

• 2:32:42Speaker 01

  but, you know, they've named the, when my son was in Okinawa with Fifth Marines on UDP. You know, he went by the Fifth Eagle Headquarters there in Camp Hanson. You know, they've got, it's named after Chris. You know, and then they've got a little memorial for the three of us in there.

• 2:33:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, what do you, I don't know. What do you say?

• 2:33:04Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, but that had to, um, well, not had to, but I would imagine like going when you're, when you have the goal. What made me think of that was having the goal of going back over on deployment again, you know, knowing, knowing the cost better than anybody, you know, not only with losing Chris and yourself being wounded. And now you're like, cool. You know what I'm gonna do? Go back over.

• 2:33:25Speaker 01

  Oh, sure. I mean, but that's, okay. So my thing, just like the initial part of it and the whole career, every time, all the stories I've told up to this point. One thing has always resonated for as long as I can and the best way I can, I'm going to serve. I already know what it feels like to have it taken away. So the leg portion of it. I just wanted to be able to get back to a new normal for myself and, but more importantly, to prove to everybody. It was never an agenda to go back to Iraq or Afghanistan. It was, it was never a personal aspiration. It was, I want to shut everybody up and let them know I'm normal.

• 2:34:06Speaker 01

  Limited. You know, there's limitations now that are blatant and obvious, but I will not do anything. I, I promise that to, you know. I promised that to General Mattis back then. I promised General Kelly when I got over there. I said, I will never put a Marine in harm's way. That will not happen. I'm not, I won't say I'll never put myself in harm's way, but I can only handle my, you know, I can take care of myself. I know what I will and won't do. And I'll never do that. But then there was that, you know, that, the hospital, you know, I left Walter Reed in September of oh six and went down to Center for Intrepid in San Antonio. I just left. You know, they kept telling me 18 minimum, 18 months minimum. That's what Walter Reed kept telling me.

• 2:34:49Speaker 01

  And I'm like, give me my task. Tell me what I need to accomplish to get out of here. To get my med board signed off on and see if I can stay on active duty. And they kept, don't worry about that. Just get healthy. Don't worry about that. Get healthy.

• 2:35:03Speaker 01

  And I was just like, no, I want to know what I can do to get out of here as fast as possible. Because I've got that ticking timeline. I only have so many years left in me in the Marine Corps. And if I'm going to waste them here just to make 20. Yeah, I'll hate myself for it. I will. I'll hate myself because you know, I want to go on my terms. And that was my whole principle. My whole principle, I don't want to go early. I want to go out on my terms. I want to do as much as I possibly can to prove who can do it and who can't do it. Because that's the tertiary agenda for me. Let's push the boundaries. Let's get, you know, six months after me, we got that single above the knee corporal back over at Okinawa.

• 2:35:45Speaker 01

  Two years after I was in DC, we got Corporal Bradford bilateral above the NEAMT, Coley Blaine, got him to stay on active duty and work through the winter warrior regiment. You know, that became my goal after that deployment, but I'll get back to the hospital stay. I did. I told, you know, Staff Sergeant John Sepinowski, who worked at the Walter Reed liaison. I went into him and I said, listen, I'm leaving. Want to hate DC? We just had a triple amputee get mugged at the, at the little mall area there in Maryland. Oh, my gosh, I can't remember the name of it. Pretty close to Walter Reed. And they had a big courtyard where you watch movies. They rolled this kid and, you know, in the parking garage. You know, no respect in that factor. That kid can't defend himself. I'm

• 2:36:30Speaker 01

  like, and plus, I hate, I hated DC at that point. I said, I want out of here. And finally, I just told my, my ex's dad was there visiting. And I said, you guys go down and get a rental car where I'm in therapy. Because they kept telling me 18 months, and then they would tell me, I miss this factor is pretty important. One hour. You can do one hour of physical therapy, one hour of occupational therapy. I'm like, I have nothing else to do in the day. I'm going to go back over to the Fisher house. I'm going to twiddle my thumbs and sit there and look at this thing I've got missing. You know, I don't have a leg on. You won't let me get it. So it's just one thing after another. It just pissed me off. And so finally, I had enough. I really did. I said, go get a rental

• 2:37:12Speaker 01

  car. And I told Staff Sergeant Ski at the Marine liaison, he goes, dude, you can't do that. You got no orders. And I don't give a crap. What are you going to do? Kick me out? And I wasn't trying to be the old guy, you know, the old spanky, but I was pissed. I didn't, I didn't, I didn't agree with anything I was hearing. Because I kept saying, I'm, that's how I could give you that answer while I go so quickly. I'm a gunshot wound. I have no other ancillary problems here. And that they, I think they built the task based off of blast injury. And I think their natural conditioned instinct for us as a patient was

• 2:37:55Speaker 01

  the highest probability of these blast injuries will injure themselves throughout the physical theory, you know, the, the therapy process this many times if they do too much. And I, and I think they just, they, they bought into that based off experience, I get it. But didn't plan for outliers.

• 2:38:13Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Yeah. And what, like 70% of the casualties in Iraq were IEDs. So that means they're looking at 70%, 70% of them, they're going, oh yeah, this guy has a bunch of ancillary issues.

• 2:38:24Speaker 01

  And the ones coming in from Afghanistan.

• 2:38:25Jocko Willink?

  Yep. Yep. Both. Yep.

• 2:38:26Speaker 01

  So that, that was the biggest kicker. They, you know, I, I, I'm sure you guys both understand this. I've never liked, I get cookie cutter when you need cookie cutter. I don't like cookie cutter when it's individually based. Okay. Yes. I know the times for that, you know, depending. But for me looking at it from a training perspective, I'm like, don't put me inside the cookie cutter that I don't form in.

• 2:38:52Speaker 01

  And that was my problem. And so I just, we got that rental car, we left. Went to Oklahoma, picked up our truck, dropped in the rental car at Tulsa airport and showed up a couple of days later at Brooke Army Medical Center of San Antonio. I put my camis on, walked in there because at this point I got a leg, you know, and I was still limping pretty good using a cane. Walk in and they don't know what to do with me, but John Sepinowski called. The little corporal went, got the lieutenant colonel and they came out and I'm standing in the front desk. They don't know I'm coming. And they're like, um,

• 2:39:28Speaker 01

  you know, Gunny, what can we do for you? I said, well, I'm here checking his patient. What are you talking about? We don't have you on the roster to be checking in with us. I was like, well, I was at Walter Reed and I left. I'm here.

• 2:39:42Speaker 01

  And yeah, long story short, they made it happen. Ski had called the other staff and CO and told them, can I ask you a little bit about that officer for not being a good gunny at this point? But at that point, I really didn't think I had anything to lose. I didn't. And I didn't mean it to be bad. But if I didn't get out of that environment, I'd go back to the golf cart incident. I'm serious, but probably in a very bad way.

• 2:40:06Jocko Willink?

  Worst way.

• 2:40:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:40:08Jocko Willink?

  So you do the swim at Alcatraz and how does that lead to you going on deployment again?

• 2:40:12Speaker 01

  Well, because of Colonel Clark Lathene being the aide to General Mattis, his wife Wendy Lathene being on Semper Fi Fund, we had started that triathlon team, Team Semper Fi, in oh six, John Sepinowski. At that point, we missed all that. We'd been doing all kinds of races, adventure races, sprints, you know, all these different triathlons and endurance runs, endurance.

• 2:40:35Jocko Willink?

  And you were doing this for the Semper Fi Fund?

• 2:40:37Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:40:37Jocko Willink?

  And you were doing this, was it all wounded athletes?

• 2:40:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, we, John Sepinowski was in, he was liaison. He built the team. There was about six of us. Dan Lasko, it's, you know, Eric Santiana, me. We did it to raise money for Semper Fi Fund with the secondary approach of getting us a hospital. Cause this is still during my med board process, during my, you know, it started in late oh six. And it fit perfectly because that, that early January of oh seven, up till May, when I got back, I continued to compete with them. You know, it was a one way to get me out, cause I'm not in physical therapy. I'm not in occupational therapy. I've got a rental house in San Antonio. I'm like, I need something to do. And Ski got ahold of me from Walter Reed and said, hey, I'm thinking about this. Know you guys got these guys down there. I'm going to come down.

• 2:41:25Speaker 01

  And so it raised money for Injermoon Semper Fi Fund, what they were called then. Won shore appreciation for everything they were doing for all of us to raise that money and awareness. And it was awesome because like the Alcatraz Challenge, that time in oh seven.

• 2:41:43Speaker 01

  You got 600 plus people and you've got seven of us, I think, that were amputees. One hand amputee and the rest of us are lower limb amputees. I was the only above the knee amputee on the team. Most of them BK, below the knees. And, uh, but you know, what better way to figure out your, if you want to call it new personal best, whatever you want to call it, your limitation. Sure. Where's the boundary of my limitation? It's that. I didn't do trithons for, I could swim because of the job.

• 2:42:10Speaker 01

  You know, I could run pretty decent back in the day, but you know, I'd gotten to the point before the amputation that it's kind of doing me a favor. I might run a 19, 1930 fight, you know, three mile run on the PFT, but definitely not 17, 18s anymore. The knee was just done.

• 2:42:29Speaker 01

  But it could teach me and that led General Mattis, General Gray, you had all these big heavy hitters down,

• 2:42:39Speaker 01

  down there for that. Mike Thornton's there. You know, um, for the dinner, the fundraiser. Well, my ex is not ex yet, but she was a corporal in the Marine Corps. She's down there talking to Colonel Clark Lathene, General Mattis' aide, and smoking a cigarette and going, because I got passed over. I'm a patient. He ain't getting promoted as a patient. So I got passed over for Mass Sorden. She's venting about that. She's venting about just everything. And that's my fault.

• 2:43:12Speaker 01

  And I come out there and because I knew Colonel Lathene from his wife for the fund. I was like, babe, stop it. Leave him alone. And he did the proverbial, if I can do anything for you, what would it, you know, what would you want?

• 2:43:28Speaker 01

  And I, I know I'm on the back end of, you know, I'm already at Fort Sill at this point. I'm still doing this competing on that I've checked in and I hate. I've done that one class. I've done that stupid curriculum development class and that, that's like, that's like business when you're doing LIFO, FIFO and all that crap. Just wants to beat your head against a wall. I'm like, yeah, I'm not writing curriculum and I'm not teaching classes. And it was like for staff level. So definitely could do it and I'd be a good proof source for it. I just hated it. So that was my, sir, I'll take advantage of that. Can I go with General Mattis to Iraq in January? He goes, well, you know, he's not going to be going to General Kelly. I said, aye aye, sir. Can I?

• 2:44:14Speaker 01

  If you can make it happen, I'm going to go back to Fort Sill and I'm going to ask to do an individual augmentation request or an administrative action form. Because Colonel Campbell and Sarmajer Booker at the schoolhouse, he's an old force guy, Silver Star from, you know, I mean, he's a very well decorated force recon marine. Colonel Campbell had been my CO on the 12th Marines trip when I went off recruiting duty. So I knew them both from Okinawa and other things. And I got back and, you know, they were more wanting to see the medal and hear how the race went. And I was like, well, you know, what would you think about this? They both supported, they said, hey, you, you get it in. So I mean, I fast track, you know, through the command, fast track the administrative action form. They supported it.

• 2:45:00Speaker 01

  And Sarmajer Booker got it to headquarters from Marine Corps pretty quickly. And then it just set. It was just setting and I don't know what, you know, I was getting angry because now I'm building my mind up.

• 2:45:12Speaker 01

  I don't care what I'm doing, but I'm going to, I'm going back, I'm going back. It's one of those hurdles I wanted to accomplish.

• 2:45:18Speaker 01

  Definitely not teaching a class. And finally, I asked Sarmajer Booker, I'm like, hey, can you find out what the hell's going on with my package? It's been like two months now and they're going to start, you know, I gotta be there by September and, you know, if I don't get that, then this is out. And then I'll have to be an instructor.

• 2:45:38Speaker 01

  So he calls out, well, there was this Sarmajer that was in manpower there at Quantico, who had set on it. He was setting on the package because he didn't, he didn't give a crap what people wrote. He didn't think it was appropriate that I would put the Marine Corps in that, that position to go back over and possibly get injured. So I did what I've done a few times in the past. I called Star Major Marine Corps Star Major Carlton Kent. The 95 Okinawa trip, he was, he's an old rigger, parachute rigger, but he was our brand new Star Major, working for a Colonel named Colonel Ben Saylor. Saunders Saylor is on Engineering Center for Fifeon.

• 2:46:20Speaker 01

  So I emailed Star Major Kent and I'm like, um, yeah. This sucks. You know, you know, Star Major want to go back. It's like two days later, Star Major called me and said, you're approved.

• 2:46:31Jocko Willink?

  Check.

• 2:46:32Speaker 01

  And I'm like, okay, I gotta, you know, and that's supposed to be a 15 month, a 12 month in theater, three month work up. And, you know, I wanted to make sure I wasn't going to take away, but the master sergeant that I was going to replace, he still had a good, solid year and some change. So they were cool with it. And then that's how I get on the 08 deployment. You know, get out, you know, late September, early October to, you know, up here and stay in a hotel and do the workup. Not much of a workup for G3.

• 2:47:00Jocko Willink?

  Mm hmm.

• 2:47:01Speaker 01

  I'm, I'm kind of just the token gimp. Like I was saying earlier, I really am. They, they, there's no reason in the world it should have been me. To have that, that, those kinds of opportunities. It really isn't. That's why I say I'm token gimp. I mean, thank them. I, I do, I appreciate.

• 2:47:20Jocko Willink?

  It was pretty awesome and pretty inspiring though. And you know what I mean? I mean, that's definitely for a lot of people looking at that going, man, here's a guy that, you know, have been through so much and he's going out on deployment. That's, it's pretty awesome.

• 2:47:33Speaker 01

  Well, I, I get that part and I've heard it before. Um, and what about that?

• 2:47:38Jocko Willink?

  Mm hmm.

• 2:47:40Speaker 01

  Personal, you know, personal agenda I talked about already. More importantly, let's push the boundaries for these, these Marines.

• 2:47:47Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:47:48Speaker 01

  I can't speak for Navy Safe Harbor. I can't speak for Army Wounded Warrior Program. I can't speak for the other branches, but I can speak for Marine Corps Wounded Warrior Battalion. It was brand new then.

• 2:48:00Jocko Willink?

  And I guess that's what I mean, like, like token gimp. I know you're saying it humorously, but it is a huge step.

• 2:48:07Speaker 01

  Oh, sure. Yeah, I don't want to take away from that. Thank you.

• 2:48:09Jocko Willink?

  Sets the pathway for, you know, other people to be able to do it. And like you said, push the envelope, which is awesome. So. And you were you working in ops on that deployment?

• 2:48:18Speaker 01

  Yes, G3 Force Fires Chief.

• 2:48:20Jocko Willink?

  This is what, 2008?

• 2:48:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was January of 08 until I left early November of 08.

• 2:48:27Jocko Willink?

  So things are still going. Did you see Seth? Did you run into Seth over there?

• 2:48:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's what I was kind of telling you ahead of time, sitting in the chow hall in Fallujah, me and Freddie Fowler. And we were 12 on 12 off. Yeah, he would be my opposite because that's seven days a week, 12 on 12 off, nothing sexy. And I see the look on his face and he just gets out, look like, what the hell is this guy walking up or something? I can tell. And I just nonchalantly turned around and kind of like you and Joe were talking about the bar in Europe when he's over there. And I just seen big old cheesy grin on his face. I don't know how he knew it was me. I really don't. Cause that was that initial interaction even before Mikey's stuff. And I just turned around, we're hugging like a couple of, you know, boyfriends or something. And right in the middle of the chow hall in Fallujah, which is a big chow hall.

• 2:49:15Speaker 01

  And, uh, yeah, we're sitting there and yeah. Wish I could have took him up in the octo that I was talking about before when, you know, I tell him, he was like, dude, here's the code. You gotta come over. Oh, man, so good to see you. So awesome and all this stuff. And we're going to go back to Armani. I'm going to drive you down the street. You got shot on and then. Which I say that, that wasn't even the only cool thing. Some of my recon buddies from back in the day who are now senior. We were, I was going to do a jump at Al Asad. First above the NEAMT to jump, sandstorm washing it out. Then they found my name, but they saw my name on the manifest, W E Gibson. See, nobody knows me as William E Gibson. Everybody knows Spanky. So put my W Gibson in my last four, I'll get on the jump.

• 2:49:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, that sand, sandstormed out and then they caught, caught it. Don't know how, somebody threw me under the bus something. But yeah, the same with Seth. Just sitting there hugging at each other, so cool to see him. He gave me a coin. He was like, I meant to give you this. I'm like, that's the first time I seen him since.

• 2:50:14Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:50:15Speaker 01

  Those days. And then.

• 2:50:19Speaker 01

  You know, have that surface warfare officer, the commander on the watch floor, come over and say, you know, go and talk to Gerald Kelly. They're asking for you to come over and Mikey stuff. Mike Soralee and then, yeah. See, that stuff's so cool.

• 2:50:34Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:50:35Speaker 01

  I just, I think just all of it falling into place the way it does naturally. Sitting in that jaw, hugging him. The last time I seen him was me laid up. You know, bleeding in the middle of the street.

• 2:50:48Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's wild. You know, we were talking a little bit about the 118D reunion that took place down in Texas and like Cowie, you know, you were talking about Cowie when he got shot. He linked up with the army soldier that picked him, that he was a driver, he was a Humvee driver who pulled up to like, you know, you know, the chaos is going on and they need a cas back and who shows up, an army Humvee shows up. There's no one, there's no like dismount troops to get Cowie loaded. So this guy jumps out of the driver's seat and throws Cowie in the back and brings him back to base. And like, that was the only time they ever met. And that was the last time they ever met. And here they were at, at the reunion, you know, like you said, hugging it out, you know, one of the, uh, I think it was Joe, yeah, Joe Claiborne comes over, he's like, hey, I, he goes, is, is Cowie here?

• 2:51:33Jocko Willink?

  And I go, yeah. And he goes, I got the guy that put him in the vehicle on cas back. And I was like, yeah, I'll go get him. So, yeah, it's pretty, pretty amazing.

• 2:51:42Speaker 01

  Well, on that note, did he ever say if a guy named, uh, uh, Chad, is it Chad Ramsey? Yeah, Chad Ramsey, that was in Joe's unit. He got hit the week before me. And, uh, good kid. I mean, not a kid, same ages, you know, we are. You know, back then, he was just one of those troops that stepped up. I'm sitting in Center for Intrepid. And there, you wanna, you wanna be in there four hours a day, be in there four hours a day. You know, we see something, we're gonna tell you to stop, you just stop. But other than that, we'll let you go. Well, or no, I'm, I'm sorry, it was Walter Reed. I stand corrected because the same time I ran into Joe. After he had his injury.

• 2:52:28Speaker 01

  He's got the, you know, screaming chickens. This kid, well, he's got the shorts on, got this shirt on. And I'm like, hey, where are you at in theater? And we're in physical therapy. Yeah, it was Walter Reed.

• 2:52:41Speaker 01

  He's like, uh, yeah, I was in Ramadi. I was like,

• 2:52:47Speaker 01

  Did you get hit in a vehicle down off the main road in Malab? He goes, yeah. It's like, man, I was QRF for a year. He was in the vehicle that the tank got flipped over on its top in late March, early April. But the ID was so big, it flipped the tank on top of its turret. He was QRF when they came out in their vehicles, had EMPs or yeah, EFPs, sorry. And coordinated ambush for them and hammered them. Then they called all of us out to coordinate off and till they could get the tank retriever to drag out that tank. And so we sit there for a couple. He was in that incident in one of the vehicles. And then, you know, run into him in therapy.

• 2:53:31Speaker 01

  And then find out he's in their unit. That's cool.

• 2:53:36Speaker 01

  So then what came after that deployment? So after that deployment, I got, I put in, I remember I got a whole Star Ranger Ken again while in theater. We were moving, we were closing Fallujah down. So me and the British major, Major McDonald, we went advanced party from the G3 to Al Assad to build the new command. And then, so it was just me and the British major down there doing all the G3 portions of it. So I put in, and we got to swim every day because they had that big pool at Al Assad. I put in for a congressional fellowship. And it's the first time that the military allowed enlisted congressional fellows. It's typically 90 to 92 officers a year.

• 2:54:19Speaker 01

  About 80 from the branches and about 10 to 12 from other, you know, non-government or other government agencies.

• 2:54:28Speaker 01

  Well, the infinite wisdom of somewhere up in DC, they said, we're going to allow the Marine Corps to have the first two enlisted fellows, one for the House, one for the Senate. So I put in for the program, thought, you know, because I'd been in Iraq for nine months or so at that time. Where me and Major McDonald are up at Al Assad getting everything squared away. Yeah, I know my role. I don't need to be here. I'm sexy for camera or what, you know, not sexy, but the, you know, I'm a good news story for Jennifer Griffin or Ned Colt or all the other goofy people that interviewed me over there. So it's good news for the Marine Corps, but I'm better served probably using this time and my experience to help out, you know, Marines stay on active

• 2:55:13Speaker 01

  duty if they want to. Give them the same opportunity at that point I had. If I'm gonna leave, I'll leave on my own sword or shield, not on someone else's. So where else better do that than go work on Capitol Hill? So I put in token Gimp. They approved me. Brad Simmons gets Senate, I get House. Got to be at Georgetown Government Affairs Institute in December, first week of December. So I had to leave in mid-November, get out of Iraq early, and then check into the G.I. Corps, which is first two weeks of December, and then you get your, your placement for Capitol Hill. You know, which office you're

• 2:55:52Speaker 01

  gonna work in, whatever. So everybody, and it's predominantly, there was about forty Air Force officers. Dang. Ten Marine, I think total, there was ten Marine officers and me and Brad, so twelve Marines total. Navy had about twenty, and the Army had about the equivalent, somewhere in that ballpark. Yeah, maybe a little less than twenty on theirs. Biggest chunk of it was Air Force. They break you down into two classes. So you got about half and half, because it's a pretty detailed class, and basically it's, you know, I'm not a Bill, I'm just a Bill, you know. Go back to the old cartoons from back in the day. Tell us about Congress. Not like any of us, especially me and Brad. Him better than me. I'm like, if I don't sing the Mr. Bill song, I'm, yeah, there might be three understandings of co-equal

• 2:56:37Speaker 01

  branches of government. Back then, I didn't give a crap. But the, yeah, they all interview.

• 2:56:47Speaker 01

  I keep talking Colonel Furness, who is Office of Legislative Affairs at the House liaison. I'm like, when do I get my interviews? Because if you don't interview by Christmas, they're going on Christmas break. You're starting first January, third or fourth. I don't know where I'm going. Well, little did I know, I didn't have to interview. Marine Corps already worked it out. Yeah, they put me in the House Veteran Affairs Committee. Check. Which was a great opportunity, because I got to work all four subcommittees for three months each. I got to do the amendment to the Affordable Care Act on the priority one through eight status for the Department of Veteran Affairs. Because the first Affordable Care Act, as we only do well, was terrible for veterans. It's either zero to hero. You're either a hundred percent, or you're zero percent. Anything in between doesn't matter.

• 2:57:32Speaker 01

  And that was my problem with that. So we start working priority statuses, get that amendment to the legislation. And not just me, it was the whole team between Senate and the House. I learned a lot with that, but I also learned how bad legislation can be when it's rushed through. And that was Affordable Care Act the first time, you know, first session, 111. Well, after, you know, basically, in the middle of that year, I was training to do the Marine Corps Marathon, you know, come about August, July, August timeframe. Blew off my quadriceps, my O D system, what's left of my femur. So in oh nine, I have, during that, I have another couple inches removed of my femur. Go through, I spent a week in

• 2:58:16Speaker 01

  the new Walter, or the old Walter Reed, and then basically kind of starting over. And thank God Congressman Bowyer, who was a ranking member of the House Veteran Affairs Committee, he, he was a Colonel JAG. I spent about six weeks away on the back end of my fellowship. And, uh, yeah, came back last couple of months, worked on one of the committees, and then, you know, then they had to figure out what to do with me. Brad Simmons got selected First Sergeant, he's got to go back to fleet. I'm a Mass Sergeant. Kelly, General Kelly promoted me in Iraq in oh eight. So I'm like, Now, I had a bachelor's degree. But I don't, you know, it's has only ever been officers. Brad was easy. You get first sergeant, you've got to go back to the fleet.

• 2:58:59Speaker 01

  You're you're leading Marines out in the fleet, but a Marine mass sergeant one-legged it. You know, what do we do with him? So, yeah, it took him a little while and they figured it out, put me in Secretary Garcia, who was Assistant Secretary of Manpower Reserve Fares. Reserve, F-18 driver down in Corpus. And I got to be a special assistant to the Assistant Secretary.

• 2:59:21Jocko Willink?

  Special assistant to the assistant.

• 2:59:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. Well, he had Veronica Valdez, the political appointment, because, you know, he's political pointy. He had a political pointy assistant. Once again, I'm the token dip.

• 2:59:35Speaker 01

  I'm a floater. He can do anything he wants with me. I work directly for him. That's weird when you got a Navy three-star, Marine three-star reporting to you, a bunch of SESs. Kind of wild when you got a Marine mass sergeant at the table, a bunch of people. Marine side, they like Nadler, the Marine side knew knew me pretty well at that point. Navy side, not necessarily. So, because, you know, Navy Yard fault, fell under my boss, you know, all the. But it was a good position because I was a proof source for Navy Safe Harbor Windu Warrior Regiment.

• 3:00:10Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's solid.

• 3:00:12Speaker 01

  And a proof source that redeployed. So I can, you know, better recommend yes or no on whatever injuries, you know, a Marine has if they want to stay or if they want to redeploy.

• 3:00:24Jocko Willink?

  And is that the job you retired out of?

• 3:00:26Speaker 01

  Yes, my payback tour. That was my two, you know, you got to do that utilization tour. I came in zone for master guns in 2010. And I did a letter, do not promote. I just said, you know, because my contract's good till 13. You know, I'd.

• 3:00:43Jocko Willink?

  But you just decided going to call it?

• 3:00:47Speaker 01

  Everything came to fruition. Everything did. I wanted to go to grad school. I knew I was getting my sons. They were still, you know, up around slow Templeton area. I knew they were going to be moving in with me. I was finishing up my second divorce. You know, living in Springfield, Virginia, renting a house. Dad's health was bad. Mom's freaking out about dad's health being bad. And it just aligned. Everything aligned and I'm like, why? And in the 0861 MOSers, basically five, six master gun bullets in the whole Marine Corps. Now, if I keep pulling the token GIMP card, if I think that's going to be influential,

• 3:01:29Speaker 01

  like obviously it'd been to redeploy, obviously it'd been for my initial promotion over there, obviously it had been for me to get on the Capitol Hill. I did not want that. I did not want that effect to take away an operational seat. Cause you gotta think it's one MAF, two MAF, three MAF. First div, second div, third Marine division doesn't have master guns. Then you have that floater that might stay in it like Holbert Field or Dev Group or, you know, after they get promoted. So, and I'm like, no, it's stars aligned. I mean, it's made common sense to me. I've achieved every, at that point, achieved everything I wanted and I achieved a couple of things I didn't expect. The fellowship.

• 3:02:07Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's wild.

• 3:02:08Speaker 01

  And the connections. So I'm like, yeah, it's time.

• 3:02:13Jocko Willink?

  So, put on your uniform for the last time, retirement ceremony?

• 3:02:18Speaker 01

  Well, technically my dress, my dress blues, it was little until I squeezed myself into my deltas for my son's graduation.

• 3:02:27Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah.

• 3:02:27Speaker 01

  That was lucky. I've lost about 40 pounds since then. But no, it was because we did the Marine, you know, when you work for an assistant SACNAV and you have a full bird colonel that is planning your retirement ceremony.

• 3:02:39Jocko Willink?

  You have a solid retirement ceremony.

• 3:02:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was cool. Is at the Marine Corps Museum there in Quantico.

• 3:02:45Jocko Willink?

  Nice.

• 3:02:45Speaker 01

  You know, all kinds of cool people there. And so, yeah, it was pretty neat. Way more, all I cared about was going upstairs and drinking beer afterwards. Get back my Hawaiian shirt and my shorts. But it was bitter. It was bittersweet. My parents couldn't be there. They couldn't travel. Yeah, my

• 3:03:05Speaker 01

  my kids are in two different directions at that point. Because now I'm on the back end of the second and divorce. That kind of sucked. That sucked. I wish I would have been more proactive on at least have my sons. More importantly, it should be all. It sounds bad not to say all, but definitely my sons.

• 3:03:25Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Yeah. So then what was the plan? What you, when you retired? Because I know you're, like I said, like I kicked this thing off. You're actually fully retired now, but you did a couple of gigs after you got done?

• 3:03:36Speaker 01

  Yes. So intent grad school. That was the number one is I actually intended to get my PhD in clinical psychology. Work for the VA psychologist. I've got street credit. You know, when I'd been pre-med before I got my degree in psych and business law, when I was still active, makes sense. You know, who should the VA want working with, you know, PTS and other veterans than somebody that's got street credit they can trust? Because that's the biggest common denominator I saw in the VA and from friends I was mentoring was I get some 27 year old girl that knows nothing about my life. So I'm like, okay, makes sense. So I do go to school.

• 3:04:21Speaker 01

  Plus, I'm getting used to having two sons. My transition was pretty quick and pretty, you know, it was my personal transition was pretty tough, you know, where to bark orders, where not to bark orders. Now I've got, I'm feeding myself to now I'm feeding to a 10, 11 year old that are just straight turds. And I'm being a turd at the same time. So, you know, pulling my boat paddle off the walls, you know, giving one of them wax in the living room floor where the other one watches. And, you know, I just, it was such a difficult transition because I went from a single newly single man in DC that was just worried about education and helping people to now I've got two little turds that don't know how to eat at the dinner table.

• 3:05:06Speaker 01

  And I might add that second check, it's going out every month to another ex-wife. And, you know, it was just such a tough point and, you know, and it's four hours from where I grew up, where I live now. And so I take, I start school. Colonel Ben Saylor, Sonder Saylor's wife, Semper Fi, found Ben my Colonel in Okinawa in the 90s with Sir Major Kent is our Sir Major. That story. He's working for a company called Tandis and Diva, Tandis at the time. He gets ahold of me because he knows that I'm pretty, I think he was just looking out for me. Because I hadn't seen him in years, but his wife sees me all the time with teams in Profi.

• 3:05:46Speaker 01

  He brings me on to be a consultant for that company to work in between VA new build facilities or like West Point when they were adding on, doing flooring advisement. And like in the hospitals, rollability, something so far out of my norm. But I took to it. I understood the law. I understood the VA regulations for purchasing. So it's kind of boring, but he hooked me up and it was actually pretty, pretty good money. But then it started on my second year when I renewed the contract. It went from one to two jobs a month to two to three jobs a month to, okay, just an overnighter to, two overnighter, you know, two nights on this one. My dad's driving four hours in that first year before I moved back to Pryor. Dad's driving down.

• 3:06:31Speaker 01

  His health was terrible. Mom can't, she worked.

• 3:06:36Speaker 01

  Why did I get out? I got out not to burden any of my family and to pay them back. Now I'm just back to burden them. Because I got a little greed on some money, you know, nothing on Colonel Saylor. Colonel Saylor's amazing. He's hooking me up. And so did some public speaking with PP and I. You know, that worked into a thing in Dearborn where they asked me to keep coming back and speaking once a month up there for a leadership and training seminar.

• 3:07:07Speaker 01

  It just all weighed on me that second year combined. It's like dad's health's getting bad, which I'm super glad I did because this is 1213. My dad dies in 16. You know, my sons are now in junior high. They require a lot more guidance on my part, but I got to learn that guidance in that first year.

• 3:07:27Jocko Willink?

  No go karts or golf carts.

• 3:07:29Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, no, exactly. Or not just, you know, get down 12 count bodybuilders, you know, beat them with a paddle. You just, all that raw emotion that I couldn't control. And that's, that's on me. But once that all planned out, got the job with the VA, did that for 14 months. That went haywire. And I was doing claims and benefits. Yeah, I mean, perfect role for me. I know the law or I knew the law more than. So it was easy for me to write up claims. I had five offices. I work in each office once a week. I did 1,400 claims in less than 12 months. And no one in Oklahoma, out of the 16 of

• 3:08:10Speaker 01

  us that did it there for ODVA, Oklahoma Department of Veterans Affairs, maybe 1620, maybe 800, 700. But I didn't give a crap. I'm still on the same philosophy I had back in DC. I want to help, I want to help veterans. Problem was when I would pick up on the BS portion of their story, I would call them out. And then when I call them out, I'd spin my leg around, bang my knee on the table. And I'd be like, dude, don't wind to me. I'm 90%. See, I wasn't 100% on the ring core. I was 90% after 20 plus years of service and above an amputation. But it was, I understood why. I don't have PTS. I have no mental health problems. At least that's achievable through a combat litmus test. The other factory might

• 3:08:54Speaker 01

  be a little goofy, bipolar, but, and I would spin my leg around banging on the table and I'd be like, hey, don't bitch me. You didn't get 100%, man. I'm 90.

• 3:09:07Speaker 01

  And part of me just want to shut up and get out because you got mad, somebody said, you know, pecker in boot camp or something and now you're 67 years old and you're trying to claim that some micro problem you had back then has affected your whole life, but you sat in front of me clean shaven. That's the other problem. They, it's like ever, everybody wanted to jump on the PTS bandwagon. And you can tell who really has it and who doesn't have it. And then there's levels of having it, as we all know too well, anniversary dates, you know, sights and smells and sounds can affect some, but the biggest ones was anniversary dates. Those emotions are, and that's our brain being natural. If we didn't have that emotion, I think that we were insane

• 3:09:50Speaker 01

  or pathological. But when you get somebody coming in complaining about 1978 and boot camp, that started weighing on me too. And then it was the deputy director position when they were putting me in. You got PTSD from treating PTS? Pretty much. Yeah. Treating people that were faking it. Yeah. Not all of them. I don't mean it that way, but everybody then 2013, 14, everybody was claiming PTS. Combat, no combat, it didn't matter. I mean, I'm looking at their DD214s or their discharge papers before Vietnam, and I'm pretty good at feeling it out. I've had a lot of friends have serious problems. And, you know, friends that have went all the way with that problem, as we all have, I'm sure.

• 3:10:33Speaker 01

  And then the ones that just self-medicate to the point of incapability. It's sad. But man, because of that sadness, don't fake it. Don't come in and lie because you want a stinking paycheck. Because I'm not doing it for, it took three shoulder surgeries and elbow reconstruction, finally bumped me over a hundred percent. You know, well after I'd left the VA. So it's kind of like, that just, that part really got to me. And I know I gotta not judge and take each their own and that's their own problem. And, you know, lay it God's hands and, you know, I'm not to judge, but it did weigh on me. And what came after the VA?

• 3:11:14Speaker 01

  MC Petroleum, Mays County Patrol. And buddy of mine said, come in and start training, be the general manager. How'd you like that?

• 3:11:24Speaker 01

  Job was great.

• 3:11:24Jocko Willink?

  Mm hmm.

• 3:11:25Speaker 01

  I was technically a marketing manager in training, learned a lot about fuel, a lot about mobile products because we were a mobile distributor.

• 3:11:33Jocko Willink?

  Mm hmm.

• 3:11:33Speaker 01

  All of Oklahoma, part of Arkansas, Texas and Kansas. So we had, we did about 18 million a year, you know, as a small petroleum company. You know, at one point, I think it got closer to 2030, maybe a little bit more before the price started going down during Obama when I came on board, but it was a learning curve. It was interesting, but it was just a job, you know, because I wasn't a hundred percent. And because of my, I don't know if you understand how it works is the, since I have a, I took a disability retirement, Marine Corps put me on a 60%, more than 55 for 22. But because I'm a disability retirement, PDRL, and I'm whatever level of VA compensation,

• 3:12:18Speaker 01

  I have to have an offset because they're both non-taxable incomes. So I have to subtract from the, you know, from my retirement to equal the VA. So it's just kind of long-winded, but, but it's a quagmire. So I was still working, you know, because I'm still paying child support on one daughter at this point, got the boys. You know how teenagers are, that gets expensive real quick.

• 3:12:41Jocko Willink?

  Just the food bill is freaking out of control with two teenage boys, come on.

• 3:12:45Speaker 01

  And two totally different directions on sports. So that was always fun being a single parent. But then, but yeah, it, it pretty much, yeah, made it through it, got pretty easy on dad died in December 16 and, you know, that caused some, you know, Gunner went in the Marine Corps the next year and then Colt, you know, now they're just getting married, having kids and, you know, like we're talking about, it's beautiful. I, I'm, to go from, I know you guys have a different look at it because of the fighting experience, the, the jujitsu, the discipline and all the stuff that, because you love it.

• 3:13:25Speaker 01

  And I guess with me, when I decided that I was no longer going to work for anybody,

• 3:13:34Speaker 01

  you know, nine, 10 years, nine, eight, nine years ago, something switched, something switched in me that went.

• 3:13:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'll still do a little traveling, but I want to be a grandparent. I had grandkids at that point because my oldest granddaughter is 14. And then her little sister's 11 and then my grandson, my oldest grandson is nine.

• 3:13:59Speaker 01

  All of it came into fruition of the fact that I wanted to be kind of like a stay at home person.

• 3:14:07Speaker 01

  And just enjoy something that I had not gotten to enjoy. But what I will say with my wife, Nadine, most wonderful one in the world, she was wrestling me down. She's amazing, domesticated me pretty well.

• 3:14:24Speaker 01

  I never don't have anything to do. I'm constantly working, my house is almost 120 years old. I'm constantly working projects, I'm using my planer, I'm using my jointer. I'm working with Cool Woods, I'm building cabin, I mean, I've constantly got something to do. And so I'm not bored. But it amazes me now, how did I ever get through back in those days? Because I have all the time in the world between grandkids and projects. How in the world did I ever get anything done when I was focusing only on the military? Marine Corps alive. I don't know how I got anything done, even mowing the lawn, I don't get it.

• 3:15:03Speaker 01

  But that, so retirement's not, I don't look at it as retirement, I look at it as I'm paying back my family.

• 3:15:08Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's awesome. No, it's a, it's a, it's outstanding. And when, you know, when I was talking to you about the fact that you're just like completely, fully retired. I know that that doesn't mean you're sitting around watching freaking TV all day. Especially when you got what, seven grandkids?

• 3:15:23Speaker 01

  Yeah. No, there's always something to do. And now we're into softball, T-ball. We're all kind, it's.

• 3:15:29Jocko Willink?

  You might be the chauffeur service, you end up chauffeuring a lot?

• 3:15:33Speaker 01

  No, it's normally meeting it, but the biggest part is which ones we're going to go to. When we separate her, go to one, me, you know? Because everything just never works in alignment. If I was showing my calendar, I filled it out yesterday. Updated all the way through the end of May and I'm like. Ay caramba.

• 3:15:51Jocko Willink?

  You know, when you have to create a calendar for your kids' sporting events, you know, it's getting crazy.

• 3:15:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, where I could look back a few months ago, my calendar might have, you know, watch grandkids, watch grandkids, nading massage, nading massage, you know, maybe something to remind me, but nothing. Except what I want to make up doing. And now it's like, I actually have to do something. So it's kind of wild.

• 3:16:12Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's awesome. It's awesome. So does that get us up to speed? That's where we're at now?

• 3:16:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, pretty much.

• 3:16:17Jocko Willink?

  Uh, so people can find you on, you're on Twitter, Twitter X, uh, Spanky Gibson 71.

• 3:16:24Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 3:16:25Jocko Willink?

  You're on Instagram?

• 3:16:26Speaker 01

  Nope, not on Instagram. Yeah, I quit Facebook. Well, I guess I'm still on there, but I quit it five years ago.

• 3:16:31Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 3:16:31Speaker 01

  Almost six.

• 3:16:32Jocko Willink?

  We'll leave that one off. So your primary is, because you're pretty fairly active on Twitter.

• 3:16:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, I kind of jumped in there. I've been on there a little over a year and I don't know why.

• 3:16:43Speaker 01

  But I am.

• 3:16:43Jocko Willink?

  It's an interesting platform, uh, because it's just like one liners, you know, it's just like, you're just writing one liners all day. It can be a little bit addictive, you know, you start chiming in on stuff. Uh, and then I noticed you have a YouTube channel, at Spanky Gibson produces.

• 3:17:03Speaker 01

  I just.

• 3:17:04Jocko Willink?

  You just started it, right?

• 3:17:05Speaker 01

  Two weeks ago, I've done two videos and three shorts off the second video. I

• 3:17:12Speaker 01

  much like saying yes to come here. I don't know what's going on. But I don't know if it's discernment. I the anniversary, it's got, it's gotta be this window of time. My brain is doing something where it just said, yeah, I bought a, yeah, I didn't get none sexy like these, but I bought like a little Osmo Action 6 camera. You know, decent deal, bought some extra lenses, but some, and I'm like,

• 3:17:41Speaker 01

  Because I know like you or so many people that really have the leadership marketer so amazing at it. I don't know. I just feel this call to communicate.

• 3:17:51Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and share your lessons, man.

• 3:17:53Speaker 01

  Well, and that's, I don't know. I don't know. Something was calling me in my, in my noodle. Really was. And I told, I told my wife, Nadine, I was like, yeah, think about doing this. And it's been going on for like six months. It's been going on for a while. And I've, you know, it's kind of writing a book, you know, a guy, teacher of mine wanted to write a book when I first retired. And I always said, no, no, you know, I don't, I don't need to do things like this. I don't. But all of a sudden, this 20 year anniversary thought process, I think is changing. I don't know. It's hard to explain. My brain is wanting to do something. And I know I'm gonna suck. You know, I have a, I have a hockey smile.

• 3:18:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I'm, I don't, and if nobody listens, I'm gonna do it no matter what. You know, I, I was actually wanting to shoot a video yesterday, but we got surprised with Sutton again. And I'm like, well, I'll go in the garage and shoot it out there. And just because I was so angry about all the rhetoric on the ceasefire the other night, just, just the blatant lying from different directions. And I, so I was kind of feeling that pull to talk about it. You know, just get in front of the camera, like everybody always says, just get in front of the camera and let it go. You'll get better. Yeah, downloaded all these different programming apps and one of 10 for thumbnails and downloaded that.

• 3:19:19Speaker 01

  Oh, that, that ages me too. The Da Vinci, you know, everybody was talking about that on entry level. Yeah, I got that down and I'm like, started like, oh yeah, I'm out of my wheelhouse on this one. I'm gonna do some, but yeah.

• 3:19:34Jocko Willink?

  Well, the cool thing is like, you know, like people are gonna wanna, number one, hear your lessons learned. Number two, like your family, you know, like their, your kids, you're gonna be able to talk about things that your kids, your grandkids, your great can't get, grandkids will be able to listen to. Wouldn't you love it if you had some, you know, you talked, you mentioned the fact that you wish you would have asked your dad more questions. You wish you had, would have asked your granddad more questions. You had your dad serving Vietnam, you had your granddad serving three wars. The other one served in one war, like imagine if you could have those, those testimonials, you know, that's the same thing I always say, you know, with this podcast, like

• 3:20:13Jocko Willink?

  this perspective that you're given is like someone's gonna listen to this, some Anglican guy is gonna listen to this in 10 years or 12 years or three years and learn something from it and be able to take away from it. And also, you know, like, wouldn't it be awesome to have, you know, John Basilone talk for three hours about his experiences in the, in the Pacific campaign? But, you know, we did, we didn't get it. So I think there's a lot of guys that are doing this now, and I think it's, it's awesome that people are doing this, capturing these stories. Because it's, it's historical content and it's perspectives that people aren't gonna have. I mean, the, you know, the Battle of Ramadi was, you know, and look, does it compare to the big campaigns

• 3:20:56Jocko Willink?

  in World War II? Of course it doesn't. We, I've never heard anyone make that, you know, claim. But for our generation, it was, you know, it was pretty important. And for us guys that were there, man, it left a mark. And so to be able to pass on those lessons is just awesome. And I'm sure the, the Spanky Gibson produces YouTube channel will, uh, will, will capture some of those lessons as well, man. It's awesome.

• 3:21:19Speaker 01

  I hope so.

• 3:21:20Jocko Willink?

  Echo Charles, you got any questions?

• 3:21:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, a quick question. You mentioned something kind of real quick. I think when you were patrolling or something like this, you said looking for lollipops.

• 3:21:29Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 3:21:30Speaker 02

  What's a lollipop?

• 3:21:31Speaker 01

  So a lollipop, basically, when you get the lightning pod or a pod off an aircraft, that's looking down the road. So say you've got a dagger mission, or you've got a mobile patrol or foot patrols, you want to use your aircraft pods to scan the road to look for IEDs.

• 3:21:47Speaker 02

  Wait, what's an aircraft pod?

• 3:21:48Speaker 01

  Okay, so a lightning pod is basically a camera system at 15,000, 10,000 feet on that airplane that they can lock on. And then when you give them guidance for a bomb, they just. Put the tangent grid and the altitude and they can send it. So that lightning pod is like a zoom in camera than go down to Dave Burkino better.

• 3:22:07Speaker 02

  Hell yeah.

• 3:22:08Speaker 01

  Couple meters.

• 3:22:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:22:09Speaker 01

  You can be at 15,000 feet and looking at one, two meter spread. So they can, we'll ask them slew the pod and look down the road. And the lollipop is when you put an IED, when they would dig it in and then they would take the hot concrete to fill in the hole above the IED. It's round. And then it cracks the surface. So you get this lollipop signature that you can see. And, um, yeah, it's just one of those techniques you learn going on and.

• 3:22:38Speaker 02

  Yeah. So it looks like a lollipop down there, straight up.

• 3:22:41Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's like a stick in a circle on the end and meaning. Yeah. So it's lollipop.

• 3:22:46Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 3:22:48Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 3:22:48Speaker 02

  Cool, man.

• 3:22:49Jocko Willink?

  Cause they were, they were hardcore, you know, they'd burn tires, melt the tar.

• 3:22:54Jocko Willink?

  Uh, dig the tar away, dig the dirt, bury the IED, put the dirt back in, put the tar back on, put dust on it, sweep it, broom it, then throw, throw dirt on it. And I mean, hard to see.

• 3:23:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:23:08Jocko Willink?

  Hard to see.

• 3:23:08Speaker 01

  Or like when they would do them in the curbs on the main roads. Cut a curb out and then just replace the curb with the IED. You never know.

• 3:23:15Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 3:23:16Speaker 01

  I mean, that, gotta give it up. They were reactive.

• 3:23:22Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 3:23:22Speaker 01

  Innovative.

• 3:23:22Jocko Willink?

  Yep. They were, they were working.

• 3:23:25Speaker 01

  But hey, gotta give it up. I mean, I never, I never had any lack of respect for them. Even when we'd enter some of the buildings sometime, the houses, take my boots off. I'd be in full battle rattle and I had my boots set at the door with the guy setting out, bringing one of the terps and take notes and, uh, but I, you know, I've, I often wonder that, you know, if the respect level is given naturally somehow on the battlefield. And cause I always want, that was one thing I wondered. I never struggled with the amputation, but it was why through the knee?

• 3:23:56Speaker 01

  You know, why not Leon? Why not in the forehead? You know, why? Yeah. That's about the only thing I ever struggle with. You know, why didn't just, you know? Cause if I'd have got put out of my misery, I would have accept, you know, had no choice. It'd have been accepted for me. But I would have went back to the life or death. I, doesn't matter, I'm dead.

• 3:24:17Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 3:24:18Speaker 01

  So. Yeah.

• 3:24:20Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. That's, that's the eternal question, I guess. Echo Charles, any more questions from you?

• 3:24:25Speaker 02

  Well, nope, I've, I've heard the story many times from JP. It's really good to meet you in person.

• 3:24:30Speaker 01

  Tell him, tell him, hey, I haven't talked to him in a while.

• 3:24:32Speaker 02

  I know.

• 3:24:33Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. It's always good, man, JP, you know? Cause he was, you know? He was 22, I think.

• 3:24:40Speaker 01

  All those guys, I mean, including Seth, what was Seth?

• 3:24:44Jocko Willink?

  Maybe 20.

• 3:24:45Speaker 01

  Mid twenties?

• 3:24:45Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, maybe 20.

• 3:24:48Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, maybe 25, 26, something like that.

• 3:24:50Speaker 01

  Somewhere in that ballpark. You know, you had to think of me being the old guy in the whole group in Full Metal Jacket at 34. Yeah, that's what's wild. And, um, still running and gunning down the street, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. But went traded for nothing, was an awesome opportunity to know those guys, you know?

• 3:25:11Speaker 01

  You know, life situations suck about it, like with Seth and then, but.

• 3:25:17Speaker 01

  Yeah. You know, like my boys meeting Wes in Bozeman, Montana. You know, just.

• 3:25:23Jocko Willink?

  It's amazing.

• 3:25:23Speaker 01

  Seth in the middle of a chow hall in Fallujan, LA.

• 3:25:25Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 3:25:27Speaker 01

  These funny little ironies that, and I truly believe that, that God puts it in front of me. And.

• 3:25:34Speaker 01

  You know, to catch your attention, bring you in, cause that's my life now. Other than grandkids, it's faith. You know, that's, uh. My wife is the one, Nadine, is the one that set the example for me to accept Christ. Because up, up to four and a half years ago, almost five years ago. You know, I was a heathen center. And you just happened to come out to that event within months of me, you know, coming down this new life.

• 3:26:06Jocko Willink?

  That's wild, isn't it?

• 3:26:07Speaker 01

  It is. That's what I mean. I, I, I don't know. Yeah, I'll never say karma because I don't believe in karma. Yeah, I don't, I don't go down that. But I do believe God pulls us at some reason, some direction, whether we want it or not. Because I've looked at those videos from oh eight when I went back over and I see the videos of me saying stuff like, well, if God wants me, he'll take me.

• 3:26:31Speaker 01

  When they would ask me, are you not afraid to come back over here after getting one, did no sex? I'm like, no, God wants me, he'll take me. Well, I wasn't a Christian. I didn't read the Bible then. I didn't look at life that way. I was just going with the flow and doing what people told me to do and reacting to life. Now it all comes into this different mindset. You know, I, I realize it more, you know, based off of her, just by her sitting there, reading the Bible next to me in bed at night. And it just finally pulled me in. And then I start seeing these things that I must have been naturally releasing, but not recognizing way back then.

• 3:27:06Jocko Willink?

  So that happened after you guys got married?

• 3:27:08Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 3:27:09Jocko Willink?

  So she married to heathen?

• 3:27:10Speaker 01

  Yes. Center, straight center. Knowing that I had been, because she'd been married nineteen years to her kids' dad. And then, you know, she called me in the hospital bed in oh six. Just friends, because we know each other forever. Yeah, I don't remember it, but I had them keep a notepad for me. Everybody that called to write down their number so I could call them back. So this little green sheet notepad.

• 3:27:37Speaker 01

  She was in there. She says, remember talking to you? I don't remember talking to you, but it's in my notepad.

• 3:27:45Speaker 01

  And that's what I mean. It's funny how that goes. Because I'm a completely different man. I'm a completely different person when it comes to kids.

• 3:27:56Speaker 01

  My kids see it in me on how I'm with the grandkids compared to how I was with them.

• 3:28:02Jocko Willink?

  Less taking paddles off the wall.

• 3:28:04Speaker 01

  Bingo. You know, a little less anger.

• 3:28:08Speaker 01

  But my friends see the difference because I don't, you know, I already quit drinking before that. You know, I mean, it just this natural progression in my body. Cause I was on a lot of meds. Forty, four, three and a half years ago, four years ago, I was, you know, four, eight, fifty metformin, twenty units, Lantus injection, Jardiance.

• 3:28:28Jocko Willink?

  What was it for?

• 3:28:30Speaker 01

  I was type two diabetic. You know, when you saw me that time, I was two hundred and thirty two pounds. So now I'm one eighty five. And

• 3:28:40Jocko Willink?

  Were you drinking back then?

• 3:28:41Speaker 01

  I was, I was starting to stop drinking and ironic, I was still working out and swimming and eating the diet the VA told me to. And so I could get off all these meds that are gonna kill me. Well, two and a half years ago, I started eating animal base only. I'd already well quit drinking because I knew as a diabetic, that's terrible. But, you know, I was eating the fruits and the vegetables and the turkey bacon and the lean proteins and all that good stuff. And, you know, I'm still blowing an eight, eight point one A one C. I'm still severe diabetic. Then all of a sudden, I just started eating nothing at stake and drinking water and a little bit of coffee in the day and dropped forty

• 3:29:22Speaker 01

  some pounds and go back to a five A one C. Do exactly opposite what the VA tells me. And, but that's me. I know that's not everybody. It works for me and I enjoy it.

• 3:29:32Jocko Willink?

  So you're just on the, are you still on the strict like carnivore type diet?

• 3:29:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, cheat a little bit when the grandbaby brings a gummy bear to me. Or a little kitty gummy bear or something. I can't help myself. Happened yesterday. Little Sutton coming over.

• 3:29:44Jocko Willink?

  Did you go cold turkey? Did you just say, all right, I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna go carnivore right now?

• 3:29:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, two and a half years ago was, um, yeah, two and a half year, over two and a half years, August, two plus years ago. I quit the meds. Didn't tell my doctor at the VA. I just straight up said, I'm not doing the meds. I'm gonna, I tracked all my food intake for twelve months. I tracked protein, fats, obviously no carbs, I'm not eating carbs. So it was mainly my protein to fat ratio and my overall, at that beginning, chloric intake. Then I realized at a point that I wanted to have a two to one ratio fat to protein ratio. So two fat per one protein.

• 3:30:28Jocko Willink?

  Is that in grams or in calories?

• 3:30:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, basically you can do it in grams, in grams. I quit count, I quit even messing with the calorie portion of it because I realized that it really doesn't. The biggest part was the two gram to one grams, if you want to call it that, two gram to one gram fat to protein ratio, which goes against everything we're told at the VA. Low fat, lean proteins, all that stuff. I ate a ribeye yesterday. You know, haven't ate since then. And I don't, you know, my, my satiety is always pretty strong. My energy level is crazy. Now I quit working out about a year ago. I got back in the gym to, you know, that first six months. You know, the certain things that come to us when our body starts going back to normal, you know, the pup tent.

• 3:31:12Speaker 01

  And then hadn't had one of those in years, you know, because of diabetes and the meds, you know, trazodone. I was on just like 18 pills a day. My body was revolting. Get on this and within six months, I dropped like 30 some pounds. My body, I had an energy level I didn't understand. I hadn't, I hadn't felt it since my 30s. And then, you know, the first year strict, first year, my doctor was like, yeah, I don't agree with this. You're not eating any fruits, any vegetables. I said, no, I'm not eating any fruits or, I mean, animal based only. And matter of fact, it's gotten down to hamburger, bacon, steak, eggs, cheese. One meal a day within the first, you know, six, seven months.

• 3:31:57Speaker 01

  But when my A1C went from an eight point something to a five even in the first year, he was like, you just keep doing what you're doing.

• 3:32:05Speaker 01

  Don't agree with you.

• 3:32:06Jocko Willink?

  Isn't that crazy that they can't say like, well, maybe we should spread the word on this? You know, it's kind of wild.

• 3:32:13Speaker 01

  Well, it's out there. I think it's just all the, the, you know, up until probably the last six, seven months on the new food triangle. You're a pyramid.

• 3:32:21Jocko Willink?

  They flipped it?

• 3:32:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's back in our kiddy days when they came out with the, you know, crazy food pyramid that, but I'd done it in pre-med. I'd taken the nutrition in school. I'd lived through the classes with the VA and everything was telling me, even being on the triathlon team. The coach going, you know, I want you 60, 30, 10, 60, 30, 10.

• 3:32:40Jocko Willink?

  What was the 10, fat?

• 3:32:41Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah. So it was protein, carbohydrates, fat.

• 3:32:45Jocko Willink?

  Uh huh.

• 3:32:45Speaker 01

  And I'm like, okay, I remember something about this. But then I go completely against the norm for me, it works tremendously.

• 3:32:53Jocko Willink?

  Mm hmm. And here you are feeling awesome.

• 3:32:56Speaker 01

  Yeah. Oh, no, it's amazing. And I haven't, I, I quit working out and swimming over a year ago because I was so busy doing other things. That I wasn't going, I should go, you know? Not having the discipline to go because I'm putting a new roof on my garage. Or I'm totally redoing my garage, or rewiring this, or building these cabinets, or doing stuff for other people. Finally got to the point where I'm like, why am I paying forty six bucks a month for something I'm not even using?

• 3:33:21Jocko Willink?

  Well, we strongly recommend the home gym around these parts.

• 3:33:24Speaker 01

  I've heard you guys talk about it.

• 3:33:26Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, man, that's a good, people don't realize what a game changer it is, especially forty six bucks a month. Like, that thing pays for itself in a year, for sure. Get a squat rack and some, some barbells and like, you're kind of good to go, you know?

• 3:33:39Speaker 01

  Well, it kind of goes back to that too, because I remember back in the mid, early mid nineties, I'd bought one of those kind of all in ones to put in the garage. You know, and then, but it was always get back to the, because I was never a big weightlifter. In my early years.

• 3:33:54Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and there's the reality that, I, I don't know what the percentage is, but there's a lot of exercise equipment that ends up with, you know, hangers on it and

• 3:34:01Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 3:34:02Jocko Willink?

  You know, whatever, like

• 3:34:03Speaker 01

  Selling as a garage sale for a hundred bucks.

• 3:34:05Jocko Willink?

  Uh, people, people sell that stuff on OfferUp and Facebook Marketplace, like, because they just don't use it. But if you get like the goods, like, just a solid thing and you have like a simple, that's a good thing now is like, you can come up with just a simple workout, you know, just. And all of a sudden you look up, you know? Feel good every, feel even better every day. Because going to the gym, especially you got the grandkids, like, yeah, all these things get in the way, you know? Removes a lot of excuses, the home gym does.

• 3:34:32Speaker 01

  Well, and, yeah, because I've heard you guys talk about that and that same one of some out when I was mowing the other day. I really only want to go for the pull. I just stacked it and added the wife to it because I'll just lift light. Because I, you know, when I blew my elbow out. You know, and then the shoulders, I was like, yeah, I'll just lift light. I'm not going to get sued. And crunch or the Smith machine or the squat rack for me is hilarious because I'll just take my leg off and lean it on the bar. Because I don't want a chance hurting my hip. You know, and then, and I can center up that one leg. I'm not going to do much weight. I used to have a lot of fun in the gym. And then, but mainly was the pull when my shoulders healed up and I was able to get back in there and swim two or 3,000 meters.

• 3:35:17Speaker 01

  I just, that to me is running because I quit running a long time ago. And the pull was that way. But yeah, I probably should because I've got lots of energy.

• 3:35:27Jocko Willink?

  You either get some kind of erg, you know, like the rowing machine, but like you could get a ski erg. Where you're, you're basically using your upper body to pull down and it's, but it's a cardio. It's more cardio. It's not strength based.

• 3:35:39Speaker 01

  That's more important, you know, for me. It's having the cardio or having a natural get away from, you know, trying to stack up weight and get big or, you know, because I'm just retired. I ain't rolling around on the mat or getting hooked up with somebody in the.

• 3:35:58Jocko Willink?

  We still over here getting after it, man.

• 3:36:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's awesome. I, you guys impressed me.

• 3:36:03Jocko Willink?

  Any other, any other closing thoughts, bro?

• 3:36:05Speaker 01

  No, sir.

• 3:36:06Jocko Willink?

  Well, man, it's such, such an absolute honor to have you out here, have you on this thing. Thank you for coming out. Thank you for sharing the lessons learned. I think there's a lot of people that are going to take some more precaution around golf carts and alcohol. Those are known, those are known bad mixing. Also, thank you for, you know, JP, Seth definitely told me this. Wes pointed it out as well, you know, the, the. Mentorship that you gave them on how to do combat in Ramadi like that stuff kept my guys alive. So I never got a chance to thank you for that. So, thank you for that. And I know, you know, thankfully, you trained them up enough that when you needed them, they were there for you as well.

• 3:36:51Jocko Willink?

  And, you know, again, like I said, it was, you guys, your Marines, you know, our relationship with Anglico was just awesome. And it was an honor to serve alongside you guys. And thanks for coming out and your service and sacrifice and your example for the next generation. We won't forget it, brother. Yeah, thank you. I appreciate it.

• 3:37:13Jocko Willink?

  And with that, William Spanky Gibson has left the building.

• 3:37:22Jocko Willink?

  Just kinda chatted on the way out. So awesome to see him. So many memories come back. And it's just great to see that he's here and he's getting after it, obviously.

• 3:37:39Jocko Willink?

  Before, during, and after. What was your mental state when you lost your leg? Oh, I just had to

• 3:37:46Jocko Willink?

  new normal. Let's go.

• 3:37:49Jocko Willink?

  And the last part, when he was talking about just the shift in his life in the last five years, just on the path, as we like to say, on the path. So it's never too late, you know? You can make adjustments to your life right now, and you can be in a completely different area of operations, different area, a different level of capability in a matter of months. Are you gonna see a change tomorrow? Most likely not. But you look up in a matter of months, and then a matter of years, you're in a totally different spot. What'd he say? Lost 50 pounds? Yeah. Legit. So that's what we're doing. We're getting after it. We recommend getting after it.

• 3:38:33Jocko Willink?

  I say jiu-jitsu?

• 3:38:37Jocko Willink?

  I say lift, sprint, run,

• 3:38:41Jocko Willink?

  swim.

• 3:38:43Jocko Willink?

  Just get after it, man. And when you do that, you need some fuel. We strongly recommend Jocko Fuel Protein. You need protein to maintain your strength, to build strength. That's what we're doing. Jocko Fuel dot com. You can get ready to drink protein. You can get powdered protein. You can get muscle drive. Maintain your muscles even in periods of suboptimal nutrition.

• 3:39:10Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 3:39:11Jocko Willink?

  Uh, we have energy drinks. I've had one today. I don't think I'm having another one today because my energy is up, as they say. Solid. You have hydration. We have joint warfare. We have creatine. How's your creatine intake right now?

• 3:39:25Speaker 02

  Solid.

• 3:39:26Jocko Willink?

  Where are you at?

• 3:39:27Speaker 02

  Good to go.

• 3:39:27Jocko Willink?

  Where are you at?

• 3:39:28Speaker 02

  Two scoops.

• 3:39:29Jocko Willink?

  Two scoops?

• 3:39:29Speaker 02

  Big scoops a day.

• 3:39:31Jocko Willink?

  How many grams per scoop?

• 3:39:33Speaker 02

  Well, you figure it's like five, so it's probably like eight or nine.

• 3:39:35Jocko Willink?

  Oh, you mean big scoop, meaning you're heaping scoop.

• 3:39:37Speaker 02

  That heaping scoop is what they call that one.

• 3:39:39Jocko Willink?

  Two of those a day?

• 3:39:40Speaker 02

  A day?

• 3:39:41Jocko Willink?

  So you're probably taking at least eight, you think, per eight grams per? So you're sixteen?

• 3:39:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:39:47Jocko Willink?

  Okay. All right. I'm up there, solid twenty.

• 3:39:51Speaker 02

  Solid twenty.

• 3:39:51Jocko Willink?

  Uh, like topped off.

• 3:39:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 3:39:54Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, five and five. Morning dry scoop?

• 3:39:57Speaker 02

  No, no, no.

• 3:39:57Jocko Willink?

  What are you doing?

• 3:39:58Speaker 02

  I don't do, put it in the water with hydrate.

• 3:40:00Jocko Willink?

  Hmm, oh, that's a good.

• 3:40:01Speaker 02

  The mix, have morning mix, bro.

• 3:40:03Jocko Willink?

  It's a tactical move. Uh, Jocko Fuel dot com. Go get some. You can also get it in a bunch of retail stores around the country. I think we're in like forty thousand different, um, retail locations right now.

• 3:40:15Speaker 02

  All right on.

• 3:40:16Jocko Willink?

  So go get some. It's clean and it tastes good. Also, check out OriginUSA dot com. We have American made goods, jeans, boots, jujitsu gees. I was just talking to Pete yesterday. We got some sneakers on the way. Yes, finally, it's been a while.

• 3:40:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 3:40:34Jocko Willink?

  But we got them. We got t-shirts, hoodies, jujitsu gees. We got everything that you need. And it's all made a hundred percent in America, not made by Chinese communists, not made by slave labor, but made a hundred percent in America with American made materials. Check out OriginUSA dot com.

• 3:40:50Speaker 02

  It's true. Also, don't forget about Jocko Store. Discipline equals freedom. If we have this mindset, we will be. Representing on the path.

• 3:40:59Jocko Willink?

  Yes, that's what we're doing.

• 3:41:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, this really gives freedom, good, get after it, you know, a lot of cool merch on there. Um, also the shirt locker, which is the new design every month.

• 3:41:09Jocko Willink?

  Is that a subscription scenario?

• 3:41:10Speaker 02

  It is in fact a subscription scenario. So yeah, you can check that out. It's all on there. Um, yeah. So yeah, some cool stuff on there if you like something.

• 3:41:17Jocko Willink?

  Right on. We got a bunch of books. We got, well, we got Put Your Legs On by Rob Jones. Speaking of blast injuries, losing both your legs above the knee. That's Rob Jones. Very interesting, the fact that when, when Spanky brought up the fact that he was a gunshot wound as opposed to a blast injury and just how much cleaner that injury, of course, I mean, like they're all horrible. But the gunshot injury, like he's in there like pretty quick. That stuff is on track. Remember what Rob Jones had to go through?

• 3:41:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:41:48Jocko Willink?

  It's awful infections, blast injuries, you know, everything is messed up. But he wrote a book about it. Rob Jones. It's called Put Your Legs On. Also, Dave Burke, you heard his name get mentioned a few times today. He was the, uh, part of that Anglico team, one of the Anglico leaders, as a matter of fact. In fact, he was the leader, never mind part of, he was the leader of that crew. And he wrote a book called Need to Lead. So you might want to check that one out. And you can learn to lead. Speaking of learning to lead, you can go to extremeownership.com and take online leadership classes. And if you need leadership inside your organization, which you likely do, you can go to echelonfront.com.

• 3:42:30Jocko Willink?

  And you can, well, you can bring Echelon Front into your organization. Or your organization can visit with Echelon Front. And we can help you with your leadership, which will help you square away all aspects of your business and your life. Also, if you want to help service members, active and retired, you want to help their families, want to help Gold Star families, check out Mark Lee's mom. The amazing Mama Lee. She's got a charity organization. If you want to donate or you want to get involved, go to AmericasMightyWarriors.org. Also check out heroesandhorses.org. And finally, Jimmy May's organization, BeyondTheBrotherhood.org.

• 3:43:10Jocko Willink?

  If you want to connect with Spanky Gibson, he's on Twitter X. It's at Spanky Gibson 71 and he also has his own YouTube channel. Putting out knowledge at Spanky Gibson produces. And then for us, check out Jaco.com and then on social media, I'm at Jocko Willink.

• 3:43:31Jocko Willink?

  Just don't spend too much time on there. Thanks once again to retired Master Sergeant. William Spanky Gibson. Awesome to see you, brother. So glad you made it home. So glad you carried on. Thanks for what you did for my guys. Thanks for what you did for the Marine Corps. Thanks for what you did for our great nation. And thanks to all of the personnel from the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines that are currently on watch around the world. Holding the line for freedom. Also, thanks to our police, law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, border patrol, Secret Service, as well as all other first responders.

• 3:44:15Jocko Willink?

  Thank you for holding the line here at home and keeping us safe. And everyone else out there. This what you got right now? It's a gift. Every day is a gift. Every day is an opportunity. And we are blessed every day with the sunrise. But we only get so many of them. So don't waste them. And instead, go out there every day. Like William Spanky Gibson. And get after it. And that's all I've got for tonight. And until next time, this is Echo and Jocko out.