316: High Stakes Push-Back and Accountability. W/ Stuart Scheller

0:00:00 - Opening 0:13:32 - Stuart Scheller 3:22:40 - How to stay on THE PATH 3:49:47 - Closing Gratitude Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

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

• 0:00Jocko Willink?

  This is Jocko Podcast number 316 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. Good evening Echo. Good evening.

• 0:08Jocko Willink?

  December 18th, 2018.

• 0:13Jocko Willink?

  General Jim Mattis.

• 0:18Jocko Willink?

  Resigned as a Secretary of Defense for Donald Trump. And he did that, he wrote a letter and in that letter, he said, quote, "Because you have the right to a Secretary of Defense whose views are better aligned with yours. I believe it is right for me to step down from my position."

• 0:36Jocko Willink?

  And clearly, General Mattis did not agree with what Donald Trump was doing or how Donald Trump was doing what he was doing. And so, he stepped down and you can read that letter online, the letter of resignation and it's, he did it in as respectfully as he could, I think. After he did that, things went, got a little bit worse between the two of them. But, the initial statement was certainly meant to be done in a respectful way to, from the Secretary of Defense to the Commander in Chief. But it was certainly a statement by him stepping down.

• 1:18Jocko Willink?

  When that happened, I was definitely disappointed to see General Mattis leaving that position.

• 1:28Jocko Willink?

  And because then it, then it's a situation where he no longer has any influence over what's happening. And General Mattis, a highly respected Marine and leader in the military. But this kind of thing has happened before.

• 1:43Jocko Willink?

  A harder line was taken by Colonel David Hackworth when he spoke out against both military and civilian leadership in his interview toward the end of the Vietnam War interview with a news program called Issues and Answers, Sunday, June 7th, 1971. Here's some things, here's some excerpts from that interview and the whole interview is in the book about Face. But some of the excerpts from that, he was being interviewed by a guy named Mr. Tucker. Mr. Tucker said, "In your view, did poor training lead to higher casualties in Vietnam?" Colonel Hackworth replied, "I am convinced of it. I think that our casualties were at least 30% higher because of, or even higher than

• 2:27Jocko Willink?

  that, but I'd say just safely 30% because of troops that were not properly trained. I participated in a study group in the Pentagon in 67 and 68, which considered US casualties caused by friendly fires, and the group was composed of highly experienced personnel that had served in Vietnam, and it was our conclusion that 15 to 20% of the casualties caused in Vietnam were the result of friendly fire, one man shooting another man, artillery, friendly artillery fire, firing on a friendly element, friendly helicopters firing on a friendly unit, TAC airstrike on a friendly unit. And I could count you, in my own case, countless personal examples.

• 3:08Jocko Willink?

  For example, during the Battle of Dak II, June the 17th, a rocket ship came into my A Company's position by mistake and released its rockets right on top of the company, killing the executive officer and wounding 29 other troopers. I can recall in September of 1965, as my battalion was deployed, artillery was fired in the wrong place, killing seven men in one of my platoons." The interview goes on. Mr. Tuckner says, "Did the upper echelon of the Army really ever become changed on this war? Did they learn from their mistakes?" Colonel Hackworth, "I don't think so.

• 3:49Jocko Willink?

  I don't think that the top level ever developed a realistic strategic plan, nor did they ever have tactics to support that strategic plan. And that is why perhaps we, who have not been vocal, should be charged for criminal neglect, because it is our obligation, it is our responsibility, not only to train our soldiers well, to lead our soldiers well, but to make sure that there are no mistakes made, that they are protected as well as possible from mistakes and error, and once you make mistakes, they must be surfaced, critiqued, identified, and remedial action taken."

• 4:27Jocko Willink?

  The interview goes on. And it closes out with this, Mr. Tuckner asks, Colonel,

• 4:34Jocko Willink?

  "Do you feel it is possible you have become too emotionally involved in Vietnam?"

• 4:41Jocko Willink?

  Colonel Hackworth replies, "I have become emotionally involved in Vietnam. One couldn't have spent the number of years I have spent in Vietnam without becoming emotionally involved. One couldn't see the number of young studs die or be terribly wounded without becoming emotionally involved. I just have seen the American nation spend so much of its wonderful, great young men in this country. I've seen our national wealth being drained away. I see the nation being split apart and almost being split asunder because of this war, and I am wondering to what end it is all going to lead to."

• 5:22Jocko Willink?

  Obviously Hackworth was drummed out of the Army shortly after that interview.

• 5:29Jocko Willink?

  Hackworth and Mattis are not the first people to resign in protest or because they didn't agree with what was happening.

• 5:38Jocko Willink?

  In fact, another guy that Hackworth refers to is General William Billy Mitchell, father of the Air Force, World War I, commanded the first aircraft, our first American aircraft in World War I. And after the war, he started to build the Air Force. And guess what? The Army and the Navy kind of objected to it because they, they thought that their ways were better.

• 6:04Jocko Willink?

  And they, he conducted field tests against Navy ships using aircraft and proved that we needed air power.

• 6:13Jocko Willink?

  And there was a Navy airship, like a blimp,

• 6:17Jocko Willink?

  called the Shenandoah, crashed in 1925, 14 crew were killed. And Mitchell, General Mitchell, protested to the press openly accusing the War Department of, quote, "incompetence and criminal negligence", saying, quote, "Brave airmen are being sent to their deaths by armchair admirals who don't care about their safety." Mitchell was court martialed, convicted of insubordination, and facing a five-year suspension. He resigned his commission, 1949.

• 6:52Jocko Willink?

  The SecNav, the Secretary of the Navy, resigned as the construction of the supercarrier, the USS United States, was cut to pay for the Air Force B-36 long-range bomber program.

• 7:09Jocko Willink?

  If you ever read the book Dereliction of Duty by H.R. McMaster, another highly respected general, and one of the things he refers to during the Vietnam War, that the Joint Chiefs of Staff for Lyndon B. Johnson, he calls them "five silent men," because they didn't push back on some of the things, or a lot of the things, or all of the things that LBJ and McNamara were doing.

• 7:39Jocko Willink?

  The Army Chief Harold Johnson, General Harold Johnson, said after his retirement, after he retired, he said, quote, "I remember the day I was ready to go over to the Oval Office and give my four stars to the President and tell him, quote, 'You have refused to tell the country they cannot fight a war without mobilization. You have required me to send men into battle with little hope of their ultimate victory, and you have forced us into the military, and forced the military to violate almost every one of the principles of war in Vietnam. Therefore, I resign, and I will hold a press conference after I walk out of your door.'"

• 8:16Jocko Willink?

  But of course, he didn't do that. That's something he said later.

• 8:22Jocko Willink?

  General Wallace Green, Marine Corps, Marine Corps Chief, and this is a guy that, in World War II, fought the Japanese with a .45 caliber pistol and a bayonet. And he says, in that same book, in that book by McMaster, he says something along the lines of, "Well, if I resign and protest, okay, I'm in the headlines for 48 hours, then what? Then I'm gone and someone else carries on. I don't have an impact." And that's a decent point. It's a legitimate point made by Green. Same thing I said about Mattis. When you leave, again, it's a decision, but when you leave, you've got to realize that your influence is gone.

• 9:06Jocko Willink?

  1968 Cyrus Vance, who was a WWII Navy gunnery officer. He did resign as LBJ's Deputy Secretary of Defense.

• 9:21Jocko Willink?

  In protest to what was going on in Vietnam, which he initially believed in Vietnam war. But as he saw it unfold, he said, "This is not a good idea," and he eventually resigned.

• 9:31Jocko Willink?

  He also later resigned as a Secretary of State for Carter, for Jimmy Carter, in protest of Desert One. Because he thought that we should negotiate more.

• 9:44Jocko Willink?

  He did that two times. I don't think either one of them had a huge impact. 1997, Air Force Chief of Staff, decorated Vietnam War pilot.

• 9:55Jocko Willink?

  Resigned at the perceived punishment that was to be imposed on the commanders on the ground when the Khobar Towers were attacked in Saudi Arabia.

• 10:04Jocko Willink?

  2006.

• 10:07Jocko Willink?

  A guy named Aaron Watata, Army. Refused to go to Iraq, didn't believe in the war, resigned.

• 10:18Jocko Willink?

  Matthew Ho, a former Marine infantry officer. In 2009, resigned in protest as a senior political civilian representative in Zabul Province in Afghanistan. Wrote a scathing letter. Can read that online.

• 10:37Jocko Willink?

  2021 Lieutenant Colonel Paul Douglas Haig. Resigned in objection to, quote, "traitorous withdrawal from Afghanistan."

• 10:48Jocko Willink?

  And also talked about an ideological Marxist takeover of the military and the United States government at their upper echelons.

• 11:00Jocko Willink?

  Resigned. So, these things happen.

• 11:08Jocko Willink?

  And I talked about this in the book Leadership Strategy and Tactics. I talked about when you should do this, how you make that decision. Because when you resign, or even when you speak out aggressively and ostracize yourself as a leader, you no longer have influence over the situation.

• 11:27Jocko Willink?

  You're gone.

• 11:31Jocko Willink?

  Maybe your statement will, will bring about enough highlight, will bring enough light on the subject that you can help, that, that your resignation can help. That's what you hope for. But it's not guaranteed. And, and, and you may cause excess conflict inside the organization you're trying to help.

• 11:57Jocko Willink?

  But then there are times when things have gone too far, or a line has been crossed in your head and you feel you just simply cannot tolerate

• 12:10Jocko Willink?

  things the way they are.

• 12:13Jocko Willink?

  And you've tried to use internal methods to influence the situation, but it hasn't worked. So you step out and you speak out.

• 12:23Jocko Willink?

  And this has happened recently. A Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel Stuart Scheller spoke out about the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan. And he did this publicly. And without authorization from his chain of command.

• 12:42Jocko Willink?

  And for that, and for other actions that he took, he was relieved of his command. He was imprisoned, court martialed, punished,

• 12:51Jocko Willink?

  required to depart the Marine Corps without retirement or benefits.

• 12:57Jocko Willink?

  Which is a steep price to pay to speak your mind on what you're seeing and that is a hard decision to make and it has consequences that will reverberate for years and lessons, hard lessons will be learned. And tonight, we have a chance to learn some of those lessons directly from the source as Stuart Scheller, former Lieutenant Colonel, former United States Marine is here with us tonight to discuss what happened. Stu, thanks for joining us.

• 13:35Speaker 01

  Jaco, thanks for having me. That intro gave me chills, brother. You laid that out pretty awesome. So I'm excited to be here, Echo. I look forward to the conversation.

• 13:43Jocko Willink?

  Let's, let's start at the beginning, just to get some background on you as a human. So where'd you grow up?

• 13:50Speaker 01

  I grew up across the Midwest. My dad was just an insurance salesman. I worked his way up. So we moved between Missouri, Kansas, Ohio. I ended up going to high school and college at the University of Cincinnati, high school in Cincinnati, too. Then I moved out to Virginia. I got an accounting degree at the University-

• 14:08Jocko Willink?

  When you were in high school, what was, was your mom working?

• 14:11Speaker 01

  Mom was a stay-at-home mom. So I've got two brothers and a sister, so four siblings. She was always there for us, driving us to soccer practice. I was a baseball and soccer player.

• 14:21Jocko Willink?

  Any good?

• 14:22Speaker 01

  Yeah. I was an all-state soccer player. I got a full ride, played a couple of seasons. And yeah, I was always a captain, always a leader, enjoyed competitive sports.

• 14:32Jocko Willink?

  Did you make it to the state championships?

• 14:35Speaker 01

  You know, in Ohio, they had, I don't know if they still got it, but they had a, it was called ODP. It was like Olympic Development Program. So you'd have to try out for these regional ODP teams and I made the team. And I don't think we ever won anything significant.

• 14:49Jocko Willink?

  And what position did you play?

• 14:50Speaker 01

  I played all over. I mean, I played club, high school, college. So usually I was a skinny runner. I was a lot skinnier back in the day. I was probably, you know, 140 through high school. So I was usually outside halfbacks sprinting, but as I got a little more muscle, they put me back in the defense. And then when I got to college, I was again smaller. So then they put me back on the outside midfield.

• 15:09Jocko Willink?

  And were you into school, getting good grades and all that?

• 15:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, school's always come pretty easy for me. So I was always on the honor roll. If I put in the work, I always got three, five to four oh. Yeah.

• 15:21Jocko Willink?

  Did you say if you put in the work?

• 15:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:24Jocko Willink?

  That's a big if.

• 15:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, man. I mean, I like to have fun. I like to play sports. And so school wasn't always my focus, but I knew getting a good education and, you know, wanting to build a good base was important. So if I put in the work of homework, I'd always do well. But there were times where I just wouldn't do it and then you know, you pay the consequences.

• 15:42Jocko Willink?

  Did you have interest in the military growing up?

• 15:44Speaker 01

  I didn't. So my grandfather landed at Normandy. And I looked up to him a lot, but after his army service in World War Two, he got out, was in the federal service. And his brother was in the FBI. So that's why I got my accounting degree. They were telling me, get your accounting degree, you can go in the FBI. So I always loved America, always wanted to serve. But no one in my immediate family, other than my grandfather, was in the military. And so through high school, all I knew was I needed to go to college and get a degree. And then a good job would be on the backside and I was getting an accounting degree and I thought maybe I'd go into federal service. But that was kind of my thought process all the way through school.

• 16:20Jocko Willink?

  What year did you graduate high school?

• 16:22Speaker 01

  Two thousand high school, two thousand four college.

• 16:24Jocko Willink?

  So September eleventh happened when you were in college?

• 16:26Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 16:27Jocko Willink?

  Was it, was, what kind of impact did that have on you?

• 16:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, good question. So I was in my sophomore season of soccer. And we had, I was living in the dorms and it was like a suite where it was like four bedrooms and then a living room. And I remember sitting there with my teammates, watching it and thinking, well, this is significant. Our lives are going to change, but I don't know how this is going to impact me. And then, like I said, I just went back to, I need to graduate college. That's what I'm supposed to do. So even, most of my peers joined after September eleventh and that was like their motivation. It was different for me. Mine came a little bit later. So I saw September eleventh, it impacted me like all Americans. But I continued just going through school, still not even sure that I was going to join the military at that time.

• 17:09Jocko Willink?

  So at what point did you get serious about joining the military?

• 17:14Speaker 01

  So I graduated with an accounting degree, started working as an accountant and did not enjoy working as an accountant. And it was two thousand and four and I was watching the TV and I saw the Marines moving through Fallujah. And I thought, hey, we're going to probably be at war for another five, 10 years. I'd love an opportunity to go represent America, be a leader on the edge of the empire. I've always been competitive being on teams and I just thought, you know, I could go into FBI anytime. But this war may not always be going on and I want the opportunity to serve my country. And so I called the Marine recruiter and started my path. So really it was 2004 for me watching the Marines on TV. I was like, I need to get me some of that.

• 17:54Jocko Willink?

  How long were you an accountant for?

• 17:56Speaker 01

  Not long. I did it part-time as I was going through school and then I did it for probably nine months after I graduated. Didn't take long to realize I hated it.

• 18:06Jocko Willink?

  Being a grunt in Fallujah looked better.

• 18:08Speaker 01

  It did. Yeah.

• 18:10Jocko Willink?

  Looking at spreadsheets.

• 18:11Speaker 01

  Hundred percent.

• 18:12Jocko Willink?

  That's not for everybody. So, so how long did the recruiting process take in 2000? So in 2004, you talked to recruiter for the first time?

• 18:21Speaker 01

  That's right. Yeah, it was quick. I talked to him probably in September. And the hardest part was getting all the recommendations, like unique college professors recommendations. Like University of Cincinnati was like 1v300, like none of my instructors knew me. You know, I had to like call back up and be like, hey, you don't know me bud. Can you fill this out? You know, and I didn't accomplish anything at that point in my life, other than being a soccer captain. So like, what did I have other than a college degree and being on a sports team? And so you're supposed to write all these accolades and accomplishments and extracurricular. And so quite honestly, when I filled out the application, I was like, they're not going to select me. But I submitted it and my strength was athleticism. So I smoked the PFT and that was easy for me.

• 19:03Speaker 01

  And within two months, they selected me and I shipped out in January.

• 19:08Jocko Willink?

  And where's Marine Corps OCS?

• 19:10Speaker 01

  It's in Quantico.

• 19:12Jocko Willink?

  How was that?

• 19:14Speaker 01

  I think for some people.

• 19:14Jocko Willink?

  How'd that compare to accounting?

• 19:16Speaker 01

  I think for some people it's a lot easier. There's a lot of prior enlisted guys that go through. And I didn't know anything about the military. I mean, I didn't know the difference between officers and enlisted. I didn't know the drill instructors were going to scream at us. I quite honestly thought I'd show up and it would be like grown man rules and, you know, here's the challenge. Figure it out. You know, I just, I don't know why that's what I thought it would be and it just, it was not that. And so, you know, the drill instructors all start screaming at you and they have you dump your bags and they kick your stuff all over the parade deck. And I noticed when they were doing that, all my peers had their stuff in Ziploc bags because they expected it. And I'm like the one guy who's just lost. So my pens and my stuff are going everywhere.

• 19:55Speaker 01

  And of course, I'm the last one trying to collect it all up. And so now I've got like five drill instructors circling me and I'm like fighting through their shins to get the rest of my stuff. And so I tell this story just to say, it was illustrated from day one that I was lost and then, you know, they kind of kept coming hard at me. But my strength was, like I said, athleticism and then relationships. So I was able to befriend all the guys around me, learn from them and, you know, I quickly went. We do peer evaluations there too. So like in the first peer evaluation, I was at the bottom because I was lost. But by the third one, I was like in the top third, right? And so that meant a lot to me. So I was able to demonstrate to my peers over the period of instruction that like, hey, there might be more to this guy than the lost little puppy we saw on day one. And so that was kind of the story of my whole entry level training.

• 20:39Jocko Willink?

  Do they, do they get rid of guys that are consistently at the bottom of the peer evaluations?

• 20:43Speaker 01

  They do. So the way it works is they do a board system. And so there's three boards through OCS and if you get essentially counseling's. So if you're at the bottom, they're going to give you a counseling and once you get a collection of them, that you sit in front of the Colonel and have to justify why you're there. He's ultimately the one that decides to cut you or not. And then also at OCS, you can quit, you can drop on request. And so it's actually pretty high attrition. So we started with 65 and I think we got down to like 38. So, I mean, but most of it is people that probably shouldn't be there anyway, quite honestly. There are some, some very talented guys that. I had one guy that made it to the last day, the day before graduation. This guy graduated from the University of Chicago with a mathematics degree.

• 21:27Speaker 01

  And I remember him very clearly because his last name was Sullivan and mine was Scheller. So I'm standing right next to him in the racks the whole time. And the day before, he's just like, I don't want a commission. And I was like, dude, we just went through like 10 weeks of the craziest. And I was like, and he's, and he said, I just wanted to see if I could do it. And so that's like the type of guy that you want, you know? And so I was just blown away by that. And so then this guy made it like he, he had graduated for all extensive purposes and just decided, nah. And so there are some that go through all that and then wave off. But the vast majority that I saw get attrited out probably needed to be attrited out.

• 22:01Jocko Willink?

  And then you go roll from right, right from there to the basic school?

• 22:04Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 22:05Jocko Willink?

  And how, how, how was that?

• 22:07Speaker 01

  Six months. So what they do is they just give you a baseline of infantry leadership skills. They say it's not screening. Technically, they're only supposed to screen at OCS. Yeah, keep in mind, later in my career, I worked as an instructor at OCS and TBS. And so I understand like behind the scenes of these two places intimately now too. But TBS is for all the open ground contracts like myself where they ultimately determine what your MOS is going to be, your military occupational specialty. So it's a very critical spot in terms of if you want to do something specific, you gotta distinguish yourself to be able to get that thing. And you learn a lot. It's more of a college atmosphere unlike OCS, Officer Candidate Core, Infantry Officer Course, which is like all field work. TBS is like a lot of classroom work.

• 22:50Speaker 01

  You do some field exercises just to kind of have a baseline of tactical knowledge, but it's, it's a lot of classroom stuff.

• 22:56Jocko Willink?

  You said open ground. What is that?

• 22:58Speaker 01

  Open ground contract. So when you come in, you either come in as a law, a law contract, an air contract.

• 23:05Jocko Willink?

  Law like JAG?

• 23:06Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 23:06Jocko Willink?

  No kidding?

• 23:07Speaker 01

  Yep. So law, air, or ground. Those are the three. And so

• 23:11Jocko Willink?

  Jack.

• 23:12Speaker 01

  Bottom line is when you're at TBS, they can't manipulate the law or air contracts. Those are already pre-written. But everybody else, they determine their military occupational specialty at TBS.

• 23:24Jocko Willink?

  And how did you perform in, in TBS overall?

• 23:26Speaker 01

  It was the same thing. I showed up. I was lost. Quick story on that. So there's a transition where you go from sleeves down to sleeves up in the Marine Corps. You know, lost Lieutenant Sheller didn't know that. No one explained it to me at OCS. And so we show up and so the transition happened to be just between the 10 days we had between OCS and TBS. So I show up to check in and I'm the only one with my sleeves down, right? And everyone's like, why don't you have your sleeves up? And I'm like, well, so then again, day one, I'm the one that doesn't know anything. And it was the same thing, pure evals. You know, I had to like work my way up and I did. And I was academically probably in the bottom third just because of all the tests. It was just rogue memorization and I tried to memorize it. A lot of guys that had been in

• 24:11Speaker 01

  the Marine Corps before, it was just a little bit easier because they knew the knowledge inherently. But my, what, what got me up was like leadership evaluations are weighted pretty heavily and I always did really good on the leadership evaluations.

• 24:22Jocko Willink?

  How does that work? Was that like in a field problem, somebody watching you and evaluating how you're doing?

• 24:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, so the grade breakdown at TBS is 40% leadership, 30% academic and 30% physical. And the leadership is built upon different exercises where you're evaluated by your instructor. So it's, it's fed by things that you do, but still ultimately it's subjective. And even in the leadership score, what they do is so if a platoon commander has like 50 guys, they have to rank you one through 50. So they can't give everybody hundreds. So to make it fair, there's actually an algorithm where they have to stick it in. And so that's how you get a leadership grade.

• 24:58Jocko Willink?

  What's a, is it just a typical sort of battlefield problem that they're putting you on? Are you running an ambush? Are you running a patrol? Or is it like, what's it like? What are they grading you on?

• 25:08Speaker 01

  Yep. So some of them are leadership reaction courses where it's like a complex, it's not complex, but there's a problem that you have to solve. And typically they're not solvable, but they're determining how you navigate the situation that's not solvable. There's situations where you're the patrol leader. Hey, take your squad and go attack this fire team on this hill and they'll evaluate you based on that, right? There's peer evaluations feed into it. So there's, there's quite a few, probably a five or six different things that you do. Mostly, I think probably the heaviest weight is the, in the tree line, you're a squad leader. So it typically comes down to you're a squad leader, you're doing PEX 2, you're doing PEX 1, which stands for field exercise. So they have all these field

• 25:49Speaker 01

  exercises and they just make you a leader of whatever. You're doing the defense. Build the defense order and brief it and that's going to be a big part of your leadership grade.

• 25:58Jocko Willink?

  Are you guys shooting blanks at each other?

• 25:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, we are.

• 26:01Jocko Willink?

  Are you using Miles gear or some equivalent?

• 26:03Speaker 01

  We have, we have Miles. It's now called ITAS. It's actually ITAS 2 now, same thing. But it doesn't work very well in the tree line. What it does do though is it provides like graphical overlay. So if you're wanting to debrief it, like you can show, hey, there was the LPOP, there was the support by fire. So quite honestly, when we use it, it's more for after action purposes. Doesn't, it just doesn't work very well in the tree line. So blanks is, we found to be better.

• 26:26Jocko Willink?

  And then what did you, what, so where did you graduate in the class when it came time to graduate?

• 26:30Speaker 01

  So the way TBS works is they split it into thirds. And so they do that so that one MOS isn't overloaded with all the talent. So if you're in the top third, you get your first pick. If you're in the top of the second third, you get the second pick. If you're in the top of the third third, you get the third pick. So it became this thing of everyone wanted to be like the top of the third third, right? So you're like, you're playing the numbers game. So like I said, I started in the bottom third and I was like, but yeah, because of my leadership grades, I moved up to I think the top of the second third, I think is where I ended up.

• 27:02Jocko Willink?

  And then you get to pick, so what'd you pick?

• 27:05Speaker 01

  I, I actually, I wanted to be infantry and at OCS, I said to my drill instructor, I want to be an infantry officer. In fact, when I was going through the recruiting pipeline, I, my also even told me that the guy that does my recruiting is like, I got an air contract. And I was like, no, I want to be on the ground with a gun, you know, watching the TV Marines, Fleischer. It's like, I want to be on the ground with a gun leader. So at OCS then I told him, I was like, I want to be an infantry officer. And they just were like infantry officer, shellar, you know?

• 27:32Jocko Willink?

  Why, why were they freaking out about that?

• 27:34Speaker 01

  I think they, it's just all part of the show. It's a song and dance, right? They just want to kind of knock you down. In fact, some of them are still friends with me. But I, at the time, you just don't really fully appreciate it. And so those were kind of still bouncing around in my head. So when I got to TBS, I actually had infantry number three. So I put combat engineer and intel officer above it, one, two, and three. And my, they call him SPC, Staff platoon commander. He's a captain. He was an infantry officer and he just looked at me and he's like, Sheller, you're going to be a fucking infantry officer. And I thought he was joking. I was like, all right.

• 28:08Speaker 01

  And then it came time for selection. I was waiting for him to be like, you know, intel officer, combat engineer. He's like infantry officer. And I was like sizing him up, like you joking? And he's like, no, I told you, you're going to be an infantry officer. And, you know, looking back, there is no way I would have made it as long as I did had I had any MOS other than infantry officer. I just didn't know what I didn't know then. I mean, it's by far probably the best choice. And so in a lot of ways, that guy shaped my life and career and I was really grateful that he did that.

• 28:35Jocko Willink?

  So then you get infantry, then it's off to infantry officer school?

• 28:39Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 28:39Jocko Willink?

  And how long is that school?

• 28:40Speaker 01

  Three months.

• 28:41Jocko Willink?

  And how was that? Where was it?

• 28:43Speaker 01

  So I went through OCS January to March of oh five, TBS April to September oh five, and IOC September to December oh five. So it was rapid fire. There are a lot of times there because based on when schools pick up, people will have two or three month breaks. But for me, it just worked out where in 11 months from showing up to OCS, I was standing in front of my platoon. So by mid-December, I was, I was there.

• 29:06Jocko Willink?

  And you must have been getting guys that were coming fresh back from, actually coming back from Fallujah that you watched on TV that were your instructors.

• 29:14Speaker 01

  It's better than that. When I showed up to 1-8, 1-8 was the center battalion of that attack that I watched on the TV. And the first speech I gave my platoon was like, hey, I'm your new platoon commander. Half of them were in sweats. And so I took my platoon sergeant aside after the fact. I was like, hey, why, why aren't they in the proper uniform? And he goes, sir, they all have doctor's notes because they all have shrapnel still in their body from the push-through Fallujah. And that was like the moment for me where it was like, oh my God, like this is real. And it's just like the weight of the world hits you, the responsibility. So yes, it was very real when I showed up to my units.

• 29:44Jocko Willink?

  How was infantry officer school?

• 29:46Speaker 01

  That is probably one of the best schools bar none. I mean, they really do a good job of preparing you. And I mean, there's just three months of intense, intense infantry training. And I, I really felt prepared showing up for my platoon. I mean, the Marine Corps does a great job of putting a product in for the platoon uh, in terms of officers. Now, are you going to get some that slip through the cracks? Absolutely. There is no perfect system, but I'll say holistically, from a guy that just wanted to learn and wanted to be a leader, they did a really good job of preparing me.

• 30:17Jocko Willink?

  So are they setting up, are you in a platoon and you're basically taking turns as leaders, going out and running operations?

• 30:22Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 30:23Jocko Willink?

  The whole time?

• 30:23Speaker 01

  The whole time. It's in infantry officer course, it's a lot more current TTPs as well. Whereas the basic school is the fundamentals and green side of building the defense, very conventional type stuff, the, the timeless principles. Whereas infantry officer course is like, this is the new RCO. This is the IED that's in Ramadi right now, uh, so on and so forth. This is how we do patrol in five and 25s right now. And so there's still a lot of timeless stuff that goes on in IOC, but it was really nice to get a lot of current TTPs coming through that schoolhouse. And then the instructors too, at IOC, if you're a captain and you're an instructor there, you're hand-selected and most of those guys go on to become generals, quite honestly. So you get the creme de la

• 31:06Speaker 01

  creme in terms of young captains that have just come off their first tour. Like the Marine Corps picks the best to go to TBS, and then from TBS, they pick the best out of TBS to go to IOC. And so you really just get great instructors. Like I had Brian Shantosh, who was Silver Star. I had Marcus Mines, who he got relieved recently as a battalion commander, but in terms of like, deep thinker, warfighter, like there was no better. So I just had, I had a group, it's quite funny when you look at my instructors, a lot of them burnt out, like the Shantoshes and the Mines. But I don't think I've ever ran into a group of officers that maybe were more outside the box thinkers and warfighters than that instructor cadre that I had there.

• 31:47Jocko Willink?

  When you look back at that time, is there any lessons that stand out to you like, oh yeah, that operation left a huge impact on me?

• 31:56Speaker 01

  I, I think just the mental toughness that the instructors have pressed upon me every single day is what I left with. I mean, I walked away with an impression that these infantry officers are the real deal. They're warfighters and they're, and they know their trade. Like, it was very clear to me that I had to step up my game and I couldn't fake the funk because people could see right through it. And so, I think, you know, the TTPs always change, but the, the thirst for going and opening the pub and making sure that you knew more than everyone else, making sure that in those tough situations, you were the guy they were looking to, to have the direction, to have that mental toughness that they might need.

• 32:41Jocko Willink?

  Are you guys doing live fire, blanks, both?

• 32:45Speaker 01

  Mostly live fire. IOC is mostly live fire. Obviously, you're not shooting live fire at each other. So in the situations where we did force on force, it was blanks, but it was a ton of live fire.

• 32:56Jocko Willink?

  Did you learn anything about like the amount of pressure that you were gonna face? Did they do a good job of simulating the the pressure you're gonna face in combat situations?

• 33:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, that was the whole shtick. I mean, it was even a couple of times where it may have even swung too far to the other direction because I remember one time we were getting close to graduating and we had gone from the desert of Mojave up to the mountains of Bridgeport and then we were coming off the mountains of Bridgeport and they stopped at some like rinky dink casino, just let us get drunk. That was like in the middle of nowhere where probably no one would get in trouble because it was literally in the middle of nowhere, right? Well, the director, this guy is still in the Marine Corps Regimental Commander or probably moved on by now, but he got, so he was the major and he just got hammered drunk and started screaming at the lieutenants that they weren't ready for combat, right?

• 33:49Speaker 01

  And that was like one of the few times where like, you know, I'm still young and the curtain had been peeled back, but I remember thinking like, I get it, you got more experiences than me, but I'm about to knock you the fuck out. Like, you know what I mean? Lieutenant to major, like you just don't talk to me like that. Like, and so, yes, they did a very good job of preparing us, but sometimes I felt like almost to the point where it was, it got a little unprofessional at times, you know, there's a line on how you treat a man. I'll rise to the occasion when given the opportunity, but I don't want to be denigrated.

• 34:19Jocko Willink?

  And then from there, it's bad, it's, that's when you went to 1-8?

• 34:24Speaker 01

  That's right. Yep. So in fact, most of the guys, because we graduated right before Christmas, most of my fellow students took Christmas break and then showed up in January. 1-8 was deploying so fast that the battalion XO actually came up to IOC and took me and my six peers that were going to 1-8 and said, I need you now. We're going to AP Hill right after Christmas and I want you checked in with all your gear, meet your platoons and then you can take, you know, a week for Christmas and you're gonna show up and go to AP Hill with us. And so that's what we did.

• 34:51Jocko Willink?

  And you already talked about meeting your platoon for the first time.

• 34:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, so there was that. Then I went into the, you know, I didn't have a house. So my personal life, I was dating my girlfriend at the time and I had gotten engaged. I got engaged that Christmas, that week that I had off. I actually, I take that back. I got engaged before I went to OCS. So when I, she was working in Richmond. When I went down to 1-8, she stayed in Richmond. And so I was living in like this shitty apartment, because I knew I was going to deploy in six months. My plan all along was to just do the first tour and then go up to Richmond, get out and be with my wife. We got married in between TBS and IOC. In fact, Marcus Mines, that guy I was telling you about that was such a good instructor, the IOC, they call it Combat Endurance Test.

• 35:39Speaker 01

  This is like their screening event. It's like a two thirds of a marathon. It's like 16 miles. And they got like little stations, like AT4, do the AT4, radio, do the radio. And then about 10 miles in, one of the stations is ground fighting. And Marcus Mines was a college wrestler. And so, you know, we're just exhausted at this point. And this guy, I guess, just beat up on tired little lieutenants, right? Like, good job, dude. So that's what he does. And I know, I'm trying everything I can to fight him. And I thought I was doing pretty good. And I think because I was doing pretty good, he started getting a little bit more violent. And he elbowed me in the eye and gave me a black eye. And I got married that weekend. So in all my wedding pictures, I have this black eye. It's legendary. So yeah, 1-8, sorry. So AP Hill in January to March.

• 36:24Speaker 01

  And then we actually, we went on deployment in June of 06.

• 36:27Jocko Willink?

  And where was that deployment to?

• 36:29Speaker 01

  So at that time, everyone was going to Iraq. So that's all we trained for. That January to June was like, we're going to Iraq. And there was no question about it. But we're not going to fly there. We're going to get on what we call a MUE, Marine Expeditionary Unit. You get on three Navy ships and you sail over there. Back in that day in 06, it was a much bigger footprint. Back then, the naval group had a submarine. They had destroyers. I mean, it was a whole entourage back then. But over time, it just Navy's degradation. It's now just the three ships. So we got on the ships. We sailed across the Atlantic. We went through the Suez, which, you know, it's like a million a ship. So that, just fiscally, you know, once you cross the Suez and you're in CENTCOM, like game on. But when that happened,

• 37:15Speaker 01

  Israel and Lebanon got into a conflict. This was in like June or July of oh six. And so they actually turned us around, sent us back to the Suez. And then we did a Neo noncombatant evacuation operation and we took American citizens out of Beirut. We sent a platoon in there to secure the embassy and then we took them to Cyprus. And then we sat there and stared at Beirut for like six weeks. Like I just did pushups every morning like there's Beirut. Awesome. You know, and all I wanted to do is go to Iraq. And so then after like two months of just staring at Beirut, we went back across the Suez, got into Kuwait. And they ended up saying, you don't have the legs for the deployment because when you put people on a deployment, there's like EAS cutoffs. And to extend that would have caused more trouble than it was worth.

• 37:58Speaker 01

  They did take our sniper platoon out of that battalion and sent them up north because in oh six, it was such a sniper fight. We actually had unfortunately, a couple of snipers were killed. So we ended up coming back from the deployment and had a memorial for these snipers. And it was, it was so weird because most of us hadn't even gotten into Iraq and then we're at this memorial. Um, but that was, that was the first deployment.

• 38:20Jocko Willink?

  And then you, so then you roll right into another workup?

• 38:22Speaker 01

  That's right. So, I mean, we went, so I got back in December and we deployed to Ramadi by September. So like six, seven months later and I, this is kind of, this is a longer story. So I won't go in all of it. But I ended up having to go to Winter Mountain Leaders Course from January to March. And then I got back and we went to Fort Pickett all of April. So I was, I mean, I was only home and then we ended up going to Mojave Viper was what it was called back then, which was a two month deal. I mean, I was only home probably for about six weeks and I, and I, my wife quit her job to come down and live with me in between that. So we had bought a house and it was like, yeah, I guess I'll see you after the next deployment because I am just not home. Right?

• 39:06Speaker 01

  And so they, I'll skip forward. The reason I didn't get out after the second deployment is just that. She quit her job and had came down, you know, when I was in Iraq and all just worn out and she's like, well, what are you going to do? I was like, I'm going to get out. Like that's the plan. She's like, well, what's the plan after that? I'm like, I don't know. We'll figure that out. She's like, we just bought a house. Please take a non-deployable so we can figure this out. But, um, so yeah, the personal life was, was tough at that time.

• 39:31Jocko Willink?

  So when you came home from that deployment where you went to Lebanon, you get back from that and you immediately go into workup, but on top of the workup, you go to mountain leader's school. You're just gone the whole time. Your wife, who had quit her job, is now sitting in the house filled with boxes that you never unpacked because you're a bad husband.

• 39:49Speaker 01

  I promised I would paint the house. I never painted a single room.

• 39:52Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I've done this drill before. I've definitely done that drill before. I moved to Virginia Beach and I was there for two years and in that time I did two deployments and a workup. So my, my wife, we never even took some stuff out of the boxes in the house that we bought. So yeah, I did that drill. The bathroom never got painted. Neither did anything else until, until when? Until we were getting ready to sell the house. Then, then I got a bunch of stuff done.

• 40:17Speaker 01

  I can beat that. I've done move to move where the stuff was still in the boxes from the last move. And the movers are like, well, we need you to take it out of the boxes because we can't use other people's boxes. I'm like, you want me to take all my stuff out of the boxes for you to put in new boxes? So yeah, I bet that.

• 40:32Jocko Willink?

  Is the mountain leaders course up at Bridgeport?

• 40:33Speaker 01

  It is, yeah.

• 40:34Jocko Willink?

  And how was that?

• 40:35Speaker 01

  It was awesome. I didn't want to go just because my wife had quit her job and came down and I had limited time. And it was this whole thing where I, I put my name in the hat because I didn't know my wife was quitting. So on the first appointment, I put my name in the hat. And when I came back, they're like, you're not going. And then at the last second, like after my wife had quit and I promised to move all her stuff out, they're like, okay, you're going. I'm like, what? You know, I was like flipping tables.

• 40:56Jocko Willink?

  How long is that course?

• 40:58Speaker 01

  It was three months and so it is very challenging because it's so cold. So mentally it really takes a toll, but I'm a good skier. I grew up skiing in ski resorts around the Midwest. And so that was fun. And back then, they probably don't do this anymore. Back then for weekends, they gave us a 16 passenger van and let us as the students have it. So we had a gunny who didn't drink and he just drove us to Tahoe or Reno every weekend. I mean, it was some of the funnest weekends I've ever had. In fact, the last time I came to San Diego was on that Bridgeport trip. So me and my buddy took a flight to San Diego and I had a guy who had an apartment in the Gaslamp District and we had a good time.

• 41:34Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 41:37Jocko Willink?

  And then you, you go on deployment and now you're working up. You, do you know you're going to Iraq this time?

• 41:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, we do.

• 41:41Jocko Willink?

  And you know, you're going straight to Iraq, not taking a ship?

• 41:43Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 41:45Jocko Willink?

  And but this is now two thousand and

• 41:48Speaker 01

  Seven.

• 41:48Jocko Willink?

  Seven, but your workup is in two thousand and six.

• 41:52Speaker 01

  Uh, no, the workup, the workup was January to

• 41:55Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 41:55Speaker 01

  July of oh seven.

• 41:56Jocko Willink?

  Okay, but still, do you know where you're going? Do you know you're going to Ramadi the whole time?

• 42:00Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 42:01Jocko Willink?

  And so at that time, still two thousand and seven, you start your workup, Ramadi is still pretty freaking hot at that point.

• 42:06Speaker 01

  Ramadi was very hot in January oh seven, and then there was a thing called the Al Anbar Awakening. And so it was almost like the sharp pivot, like right as we were getting there. And so the unit that we ripped with two five, I mean, they had just, it was like gunfight, gunfight, gunfight. And then in the last two months of their deployment, it almost like somebody just hit stop. And so it created a lot of weirdness for us because it was like, we were still operating under TTPs where it was like gunfight, gunfight, gunfight. And it just, it really wasn't that by the time we showed up.

• 42:39Jocko Willink?

  So where were you? Where in Ramadi were you?

• 42:41Speaker 01

  So I was a company XO now and we, I was on the southwest corner. I started a place called JSS Iron. And we had like two platoon outposts. So as a company XO, I was consolidating the patrol rosters. Like the name of the game then was always have patrols in the battle space. What are we doing? I just get them out there, right? So just like, just saturate the battle space with presence. And so as XO, a lot of my role was just making sure that we had good perimeter security of our positions, that we had all our gear and that the operational plan, I was like the OPSO, if you will, at the company level.

• 43:22Speaker 01

  And then about three months into the deployment, they moved us because we were at that time trying to move out of the city to further outpost to allow the Iraqi police to have more control. And so we basically built a FOB from the ground up. It was called JSS Sua. And this was all the way in the southwest, out of the city now. And it was called Sua because it was literally, I think, built by a sewer. And there was nothing there. And, you know, even though we had been in Iraq since, what, oh, three? It was like we had never been in Iraq before. So it was like baby wipe showers, no chow hall. I mean, it was awful. It was bad. And so we did that. We finished the deployment there.

• 44:04Jocko Willink?

  And what was the, I know things had settled down a lot when you, when you had patrols out in the city, were they taking any contact? Or was it?

• 44:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, we had one platoon that got in some context. The, the problem then was almost, I don't know, I don't want to say more dangerous, but it was like you'd get lulled into a false sense of stability and then there'd be a suicide vest attack and you'd lose guys. And so my best friend, so I, I did the first deployment in Bravo Company. I was platoon commander. And so when we got back, I was still a platoon commander in Bravo Company. They moved me over to Alpha Company to be the XO. So I still had a lot of good friends that were platoon commanders in Bravo Company. One of them, this guy's name was Dave Borden, he used to, we used to make dinner. He was a Pittsburgh Steelers fan. I was a Bengals fan. So we'd always have like rivalry games together with my wife.

• 44:51Speaker 01

  And he got, he responded to a sniper threat and a suicide vest came up to him, guy wearing a suicide vest and detonated it and killed one of his Marines and, and blew Dave up, lost his leg. And so like, there's just an example of, you know, I'm sitting there for two months with like nothing happening and then I gotta listen on the radio to my buddy being evacuated out, lost a Marine. And then, um, and so, yeah, so we had one platoon, um, that all got combat action ribbons from doing patrols and getting into firefights, but they didn't really kill a lot of people. It was more that, that deployment was more just about like census patrol stability, building shit and trying not to get blown up.

• 45:34Speaker 01

  I mean, there was a, there was the adjacent battalion, I might get the units wrong, I hope I don't, I think it was two eight and one nine, and they were doing the rip towards the end of our deployment. And this is still a story told in the Marine Corps. While they were sitting at the ECP, a huge, so there's like two companies in there because they were doing the rip, a huge dump truck blew through the ECP with a bunch of explosives and all of the Iraqis ran and these two young Marines standing at the ECP from different units, didn't know each other, stood there and killed the driver and got themselves killed. And all the Iraqis were talking about how brave the Marines were and then we, we almost believed that they were probably exaggerating it a little bit. And then after this huge explosion, one of the cameras, even though it looked like it was broken, still had the footage.

• 46:19Speaker 01

  And they went back and pulled the footage and it was exactly like they said, these two young Marines standing at the ECP, knowing they were gonna die, not knowing each other. Like in that instant realized what was happening and saved everybody else on that base. So like that to me, that story almost describes what Ramadi was when I was there, right? Like you can be standing on that ECP for seven months without a single thing. And then all of a sudden in a second, there's a dump truck flying at you and you know you're about to die. So and so for me as the XO, I was always, it was like, I'm not exaggerating. It was like 20 hour workdays constantly. And you know, you go back and you're asking, why were you working 20 hour workdays? Like I can't put my finger on exactly what it was.

• 47:03Speaker 01

  It just seemed like there was always something that required like immediate attention. And the ISO container that I lived in was with my company commander and our one Terp. So it seemed like people were waking us up, like somebody always needed one of the three of us. That was the stupidest move in hindsight, putting us three in the same sleeping facility. Like it was so dumb. And so like when I came home from Ramadi, I mean, I started having chest pains, like real chest, physical chest pains. And it took me a while to kind of figure out that it was anxiety and that I didn't experience anxiety during the deployments. Like when you're working 20 hour days and you're just go, go, going. It hit me like once I tried to chill out.

• 47:41Speaker 01

  Um, but I tell that just to say, I think I kind of was going so fast that it just kind of frayed some of the wires in my brain there for a little bit. It took some while to work through some of that.

• 47:54Jocko Willink?

  So you get home, you get home from that deployment and then what's next?

• 47:58Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I had skipped forward there earlier. So I had planned on getting out. I didn't get along with my battalion commander on that deployment. He was very dictator-ish, almost like verbally, mentally abusive. I just didn't care for him. I didn't, I don't know if I even agreed with the mission of Ramadi. Like I said, I joined because I wanted to be in combat, but I found myself as my company commander would write the contracts. And as the XO, I was what was known as the page. I go to Camp Ramadi and they'd filled my bookbag with like $200,000 cash. And I'd run around and just give it to like these mafia figures. And I'm just thinking like, is this what we're doing? Like this just, I don't know if this counter insurgency thing.

• 48:39Jocko Willink?

  Oh, this is what we're doing.

• 48:41Speaker 01

  I was just like, I don't know if this counter insurgency. Like, cause all the generals are talking about like how great it is. But like even as a young lieutenant, like I had a lot of questions. I was so like, that was, that was influential to me. Cause I'm, I'm thinking like, there's gotta be a more effective way. Like these guys that I'm giving the money to right now, I don't know if anyone else sees this, but this guy is not gonna build stability here in Iraq. This guy's gonna take it and he might even make it worse for the local Iraqi. And so anyway, I left, I thought about getting out, but my wife's very much wanted some stability. I felt like she deserved it. And so instead of getting out, I took School of Infantry as a company commander. It was in North Carolina. I didn't have to move. And the goal was to do three years there and find, get a, get a masters, get an MBA, and then go on to the next thing.

• 49:26Speaker 01

  And when I got to the School of Infantry, I was very busy. I was go, go, go. School of Infantry is funny because right then it was Iraq and all my instructors were Iraq veterans. And all their families are willing to put their problems on the shelf when you're at war. But it's like they had an expectation for their husband when he got home, that they would address some of those problems. And then those poor instructors were working dark to dark. And it was like every single one of them were going through a divorce. Like up to like my senior enlisted, like every single one. Like I was bringing in chaplains, I was bringing in workshops. And so the biggest struggle there was just the personalizing my guys. They all had drinking problems, they all had marriage problems. They were all working through their own demons and then trying to teach 300 privates,

• 50:11Speaker 01

  how to be infantrymen without losing their cool, you know, not flying off the handle. And so that was kind of more emotionally draining than I thought it would be. And I did it for about a year and a half until I right about then it was so I was at SOI from oh eight to ten. If you go back and look at the news around oh eight, oh nine, the commander of the Marine Corps, guy named Conway was saying he wanted to get the Marine Corps out of Iraq and into Afghanistan. So it was right when they were trying to do the pivot. And I thought, hey, you know, my Ramadi deployment, and it wasn't the combat that I thought it was going to be. It was very emotionally draining, but it was, you know, I wasn't shooting a gun all the time. So I was like, I would love to get into Afghanistan and then maybe get out and just have that experience.

• 50:55Speaker 01

  And so I contacted my monitor and I found a deployment through an organization called Joint IED Defeat Organization, JIDO. And they he's like, there's a joint requirement for an infantry captain. He's like, this is perfect. It'll get you there. You'll get every all the combat experience that you want. And all you need is two years at SOI, not three. So after two, I can cut you orders. If you get your commands and endorsement, we can make this happen. So I went and talked to my boss and my boss didn't want me to do it. He was very reluctant. He wanted me to be the OpsO or the HNI Company Commander, which is like the senior boss there. Like, he liked me.

• 51:29Jocko Willink?

  Were you instructing and all when you were at the SOI? Or were you more just like, uh, overall in management position?

• 51:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, so they you get 300 privates. So SOI is in two camps. So there's MCT and ITB. So all Marines enlisted Marines that are not infantry go to MCT and they get it's it's evolving now with the new force, but back then they got like two weeks of infantry training. And ITB, you got one month. So it was essentially like your follow on school. So the guys at MCT, if you're going to go be a motor T driver, you go to MCT for two weeks and then you go to your motor T school. ITB, they just get longer training and they're infantry Marines and then they go on to their following unit. And so again, it's changing now. It's I think it's up to like 10 weeks for ITB, but back then it was only four weeks. And so

• 52:15Jocko Willink?

  That's outstanding.

• 52:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, it is. It really is. And so they got, um, so we would get 300 privates and we would divide them into four platoons. The platoon commanders were either staff sergeants or sergeants. And then each platoon commander had two or three instructors. So you never had more than three to four for, I don't know, do the math, like 75 guys. Um, so it's a lot. The instructor to student ratio was not good and there was no other officers. I had a first sergeant and a gunny and then there's the young captain and that was the staff.

• 52:46Jocko Willink?

  So you're not doing a lot of instruction, you're not seeing a lot of what's going on?

• 52:51Speaker 01

  There were, most of the instruction comes from, they have a separate cadre of instructors at the instructor group. So it's almost like the staff that you have is almost like facilitating and the after hours and the watching and the day-to-day leadership. Now, there's still a lot of classes that we give out in the field or once they get back to the house and sometimes there's even like scheduled platform instruction. But most of the platform instruction comes from general support instructors. So the question was, how much classes did I give? There were probably two or three program, company commander classes and the rest was just impromptu, hey, you're going on Liberty this weekend, I'm your company commander.

• 53:26Jocko Willink?

  Don't get in trouble.

• 53:27Speaker 01

  Don't get in trouble.

• 53:28Jocko Willink?

  I was very lucky in my career. I was an instructor, which is a strong word to use, when, back in the day. Back in the day, we used to, at SEAL Team, there was just, there was, there was training inside each SEAL Team. So like as an E5, I was teaching a bunch of stuff and it really put me in a great position because then you're, you're having to learn it better. And then you're teaching it and you're seeing how it works and seeing the mistakes that people made. So I've always felt like I learned a ton doing that. And then later in my career, when I was running training, which was, our training was just freaking outstanding and, but I got to, again, watch, observe, teach.

• 54:08Jocko Willink?

  And I learned so much when I was in those positions. And that's why I was wondering if you were, you know, kind of actively teaching and what you got out of that.

• 54:16Speaker 01

  You're a hundred percent right. The, the people that learn the most are the teachers. And because you can't fake the funk when you're the teacher and you have to, there's, you know, five, six, seven hours of prep for any one hour of instruction that you get at a minimum. And so I a hundred percent agree. I've worked at a bunch of formal schoolhouses and we, we learned that abundantly. The people that teach are really the ones that learn, in my opinion.

• 54:39Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I think I learned 70% of what I ever learned in my life while I was an E5.

• 54:47Jocko Willink?

  Instructor cadre at SEAL Team One. Cause I taught, that's the other thing. I was like a young, single guy. So it was, what, what trip am I going on? All of them. Going to teach diving, going to teach land warfare, going to teach CQC, mount, we're teaching everything. And spec recon, cool. I'm going on the spec recon trip. So really just got to teach everything and then you get to watch and you're de facto detached from what's happening. So you're watching, we used to teach the, the new guys that came to SEAL Team One, we would put them through their initial course of training. So then I'm watching the young officers and I was just, I was an enlisted guy, but now I'm watching these young officers and seeing like, oh, this guy is getting totally, he's, he's spending all his time shooting his weapon. So no one's making any calls. I never am going to do that. I'm never going to make that mistake.

• 55:30Jocko Willink?

  And this guy over here is imposing his plan on the rest of his squad. So they're all pissed at him. I'm not going to make that mistake. So I, I got to learn, like I said, I might even be more than 70% from just being a young E5 teaching at SEAL Team One. And then also you had these senior guys that were super knowledgeable and they're teaching you. And that's just freaking a good way to learn.

• 55:56Jocko Willink?

  But then you get picked up with this Jaido billet.

• 55:58Speaker 01

  Yep. Yeah. That, so the Jaido billet was awesome. I mean, it was awesome. So I had no training. So I mean, you have heard my story of all my training in terms of IEDs. So an EOD guy goes to school for six to nine months, depending on what branch of service. And what they did was they put me in Crystal City in a Hilton lobby conference room and then like had a fake name for the conference, shut and locked the doors. And they had some like old IED maker and he gave us like a crash course on how to make a circuit essentially. And then how the explosives work. And so we did that for three days and then they shipped me down range and that was that. I mean, it was crazy when you think about it and I ended up.

• 56:40Jocko Willink?

  Then you were the IED expert.

• 56:41Speaker 01

  Then I was the IED expert. I don't think they ever expected me to be the IED expert. They wanted, EOD is obviously the IED expert. But what the billet was supposed to do was be the infantry interface to have enough knowledge of IEDs, but to think like employment of infantry stuff and connect the route clearance platoon and the EOD, and then be able to translate that into whatever's important to the battalion commander.

• 57:10Jocko Willink?

  So you get your three day of school and then you deploy right to Afghanistan.

• 57:15Speaker 01

  That's right. Yep.

• 57:15Jocko Willink?

  How was your, how was your wife on this whole scenario?

• 57:18Speaker 01

  My wife.

• 57:19Jocko Willink?

  Stoked was she?

• 57:20Speaker 01

  So dude, all right, yeah. Uh, so we got.

• 57:26Jocko Willink?

  Cause she's like, oh, you're home.

• 57:27Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 57:28Jocko Willink?

  You kind of have a normal job.

• 57:29Speaker 01

  I'll beat you.

• 57:30Jocko Willink?

  It's almost like a nine.

• 57:31Speaker 01

  And I got her pregnant. So she was three months pregnant and then I went to Afghanistan, right? Um, I'll, I'll tell the story because it just kind of illustrates the stress on a military family. So we were going crib shopping. She knows I'm going to Afghanistan. Which I, again, I was, we knew I was deploying when she was, uh, three months. So we're going crib shopping and we went in like, this is like the third store. Like I hate shopping. So we're in like the third store and I see a crib. I'm like, this one, I want this one. Let's get this one. And she's like, I want to keep looking around. And I'm like, well, I'm just going to stand here by this crib that I like. And you can keep walking around and I'll be right here. And then she just broke down crying and it had nothing.

• 58:07Jocko Willink?

  Was this the first baby?

• 58:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:09Jocko Willink?

  Was this the first kid?

• 58:09Speaker 01

  First kid.

• 58:10Jocko Willink?

  This is a bad tactic.

• 58:11Speaker 01

  I know. Well, that's why I'm telling the story. Like it was my mistake.

• 58:15Jocko Willink?

  People can learn from it.

• 58:16Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 58:16Jocko Willink?

  Better go walk around, look at some freaking cribs, dude.

• 58:19Speaker 01

  I know. And, and so that's what she said. She, as she was crying, she's like.

• 58:23Jocko Willink?

  I'm just gonna stand here by this one. You go look around, come back when you're ready.

• 58:28Speaker 01

  I got it. I got it.

• 58:29Jocko Willink?

  Is it building relationships you were talking about earlier?

• 58:33Speaker 01

  So, uh, bad move on my part. So then we, you know, I had to usher her out. She's crying. I felt bad. We got in the car and we drove home and it was like one of those really awkward, intense situations. We ended up buying the crib online because we couldn't bring ourselves to go look for a crib again. And, um, and then I deployed, right? So I, I tell that story just to say, you know, I really wanted to go to Afghanistan, but it comes, these things come at a cost, right? So I got a pregnant wife who's trying to be very supportive. She was supportive of me staying in. She was even supportive of me going to Afghanistan, but it doesn't mean that it doesn't come with some type of personal cost.

• 59:10Jocko Willink?

  So she's three months pregnant when you leave for Afghanistan?

• 59:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:13Jocko Willink?

  How long is the deployment to Afghanistan?

• 59:15Speaker 01

  A year.

• 59:16Jocko Willink?

  Chuck. And did you come home for the birth of your kid?

• 59:18Speaker 01

  I so you get when it's a year you get.

• 59:21Jocko Willink?

  That's too already too long of an answer.

• 59:23Speaker 01

  You get two weeks, but I missed I missed the birth, but I was able to come home like right as she like four days after the birth. So right after she got out of the hospital. So I did get two weeks with them. But I mean, having two weeks with a baby after you've been in just combat every day for six months, knowing you're going back to that same place for another six months. It was real hard to establish any emotional connection because like, I mean, that's just it was I would almost have rather not gone home and be honest with you because it like you're when you're with them, your mind's there. When you're there, your mind's with them. And so, yeah, in some ways it was good, but other ways it was it was very hard.

• 1:00:04Jocko Willink?

  So you go on deployment. Who are you? Who are you with?

• 1:00:08Speaker 01

  So I got to.

• 1:00:09Jocko Willink?

  This is like a solo operation?

• 1:00:10Speaker 01

  That's right. It was just Stu Sheller versus the Taliban. I got to Bagram Air Base, and that's where Jaida's Task Force was at. So they call it Task Force Paladin in Afghanistan. We got to Task Force Paladin Headquarters, and they decided because most Marines are familiar with Southwest, Helmand and Kandahar. But they didn't send me there. They sent me to RC East to support the 101st Army Division. And so I got out, the first unit I got to was a battalion called 3187, and they were in East Pakhtika Province. And the FOB I got to was Orgoon. And their company FOBs were all so dispersed that anytime we had

• 1:00:51Speaker 01

  to take them logistics, it was like a one day road trip throughout Clarence Platoon and EOD. And anytime there was an EOD response, we had to fly out on the fly line. I mean, it was just I say that just to say it was very distributed. And like, most people or Marines picture of Afghanistan is just like desert wasteland. It was like the Rocky Mountains where I was at. I mean, it was not what I was expecting. I got out there and I was like, this is, this is not the desert. And so you could see Pakistan from where we were at. It was just, it was cowboy country.

• 1:01:21Jocko Willink?

  And then what were you doing? Well, I guess, explain a little bit more detail.

• 1:01:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:26Jocko Willink?

  So you get, there's a logistics supply that needs to go to some outstation.

• 1:01:29Speaker 01

  I'll illustrate with, with one war story from that timeframe. So, one of the company fobs hadn't been resupplied in a while. And so they planned this, because in the July, August, it was raining a lot. And so when it rains, the aircraft couldn't fly the logistical supplies. And just because they, with all these jingle trucks, it was easier, easier to move logistics. So we took this huge patrol, so I went with EOD and route clearance patrol and all these logistics trucks out to this company fob and dropped it off. And then when we got there, they said, hey, we've got this platoon outpost over here on the border near Pakistan that just hasn't had whatever in so many days. Like, we really need you guys to push this stuff out here. We, we here at the company fob don't have the assets.

• 1:02:13Speaker 01

  You call back to the battalion and they're like, yeah, if you can, that would be great. So we do. So the next day, then we go from this company fob out to the platoon fob and we left at like 8 a.m.

• 1:02:23Jocko Willink?

  So how many vehicles were you bringing with you?

• 1:02:24Speaker 01

  So you got-

• 1:02:25Jocko Willink?

  Just rough estimate.

• 1:02:26Speaker 01

  Route clearance platoon is probably a dozen. You got the EOD truck in there. You've got-

• 1:02:32Jocko Willink?

  Are you guys in MRAPs? What are you in?

• 1:02:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:34Jocko Willink?

  Everyone's in MRAPs?

• 1:02:35Speaker 01

  Well, it's MRAPs and JLTVs, uh, mix. But they also had, a lot of logistic trucks were jingle trucks. You know what that is? Like a Afghani flatbed. And then you've got the Afghan National Security Force, so they're all in their F-150 pickup trucks. And then you got probably an infantry platoon or company for extra security that may be in just Humvees. And so it's this-

• 1:02:56Jocko Willink?

  So this is a big convoy.

• 1:02:57Speaker 01

  Long collection of different players.

• 1:02:59Jocko Willink?

  Damn.

• 1:03:01Speaker 01

  And so, we drive through, to get to these things on the border, you, there's not roads. You're driving through like the creek beds of the mountain crevices. And we get to there at like, let's call it one or two o'clock in the afternoon.

• 1:03:15Jocko Willink?

  So there's- Fifteen vehicles, twenty vehicles?

• 1:03:19Speaker 01

  I'd say like forty.

• 1:03:20Jocko Willink?

  Forty vehicles to go out and resupply a platoon.

• 1:03:23Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:03:24Jocko Willink?

  Which by the way, has forty guys.

• 1:03:25Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:03:26Jocko Willink?

  So this is like, already you can see what this is like crazy shit going on.

• 1:03:32Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:03:33Jocko Willink?

  Okay, so forty, so a forty vehicle convoy with every type of vehicles, Mad Max. Is driving out to resupply forty dudes that are out on the edge of the world.

• 1:03:45Speaker 01

  They were on, they were on the edge of the world, yes. And so it's maybe like two o'clock when we come out of the creek bed. And this is relevant to the story. When we came out of the creek bed, there was like five Afghans sitting there with like their arms crossed staring at us. And we're like, let's look at these nefarious characters. Like, what are these guys gonna do? And nothing happened. And we were all kind of eyeing them. And that's relevant later. So we go into the fob, we drop all the supplies off. It's like three o'clock and the call is made like, what do we do? It's three o'clock. I mean, it took us like do the math, eight to three to get here. Do we want to go back or do we get to sleep here tonight? Again, forty vehicles, like this little platoon outpost. We're like, so probably a bad call. I mean, the hindsight twenty twenty, obviously it was a bad call. But at the time, it just made sense. We're like, let's just go like, you know, get back late, it'll be all right.

• 1:04:31Speaker 01

  So when we start driving back, now we're going back into that creek bed where those guys.

• 1:04:34Jocko Willink?

  So now it's nighttime?

• 1:04:35Speaker 01

  No, it's like three o'clock.

• 1:04:36Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 1:04:36Speaker 01

  When we leave. It, it, it gets dark soon. And so we're going back in this creek bed and where those guys were standing, they had piled a bunch of rocks up to the, the creek bed. We're like, oh, obviously this is going to be an ambush. Uh, these guys.

• 1:04:51Jocko Willink?

  Piled a bunch of rocks as a marking mechanism or as a blocking mechanism?

• 1:04:56Speaker 01

  Great question.

• 1:04:57Jocko Willink?

  Okay, check.

• 1:04:58Speaker 01

  You know what I mean? So we didn't ask that very intelligent question. We just immediately assumed ambush. Cause that's, that had happened to us before. So we're like, all right, these guys are going to ambush us. So you sit there, you got your eyes open, you're looking around. Nothing happens. And then it's just like, all right, well, let them trigger the ambush. Like, we're gonna go through it. And we went through it and nothing happened. And then we just didn't think through anything else. And we just started going. So we get, now it's dark. It's probably eight o'clock.

• 1:05:26Jocko Willink?

  Are the Afghans, are you on night vision? Cause I know you're on it, but the Afghan too, the Jango trucks are on, on night vision?

• 1:05:35Speaker 01

  I can't remember. They were so far back that if their lights were on, I didn't see it.

• 1:05:42Speaker 01

  I can't remember. It's a good question. I don't remember. So we were, it's now like eight or nine o'clock. It's dark and it started raining and I can't, it's hard to describe. It's almost as if somebody had broken a dam because it wasn't like the creek bed started slowly filling up. It was almost like a wave came down and hit the tires.

• 1:06:01Jocko Willink?

  This is like flash flood scenario out in the desert.

• 1:06:04Speaker 01

  And so, but it's still only at the tires and the M wraps and the JLTVs go through it still pretty easily. But then we get the call on the radio that one of the Jingle trucks had gotten stuck. You know, I can't even see it. It's so far back. So I'm like, all right.

• 1:06:17Jocko Willink?

  And your job in all this is like an observer or you're not in charge of anything, are you?

• 1:06:21Speaker 01

  I'm not in charge of anything, but it's weird because I outrank the platoon. Yeah. You know what I mean?

• 1:06:27Jocko Willink?

  So you kind of are in charge. Let me rephrase that. You're in charge.

• 1:06:30Speaker 01

  In, in a way, yes. And so we stop, we're waiting for the Jingle truck to un-mess itself. And then all of a sudden it was like another dam broke and then the water hit right to our grills, like almost immediately. And now it's a situation where you can't just get out of the car. And so we, a little backstory, we had killed Taliban members and taken their icons. And then we keep.

• 1:06:57Jocko Willink?

  This is on the same operation?

• 1:06:58Speaker 01

  This is on a previous one. So I'm telling the story so that you understand. We kept the icons in the patrol and we put it on scan. And when the Taliban started talking, we'd catch it on the scan, then we'd hand it to the TIRP. The TIRP would interpret it and then we'd pass over the radio, whatever was being said. So when we were in the flash flood, now we're like worrying about the water. It comes across the radio like, hey, the Taliban sees that we're stuck in the water and they're maneuvering to ambush on us.

• 1:07:28Speaker 01

  Okay, yeah, so now you're now you're in a situation where it's like, alright, what's your poison like because the machine guns are all hooked up to the trucks. But at a certain point, you might drown if you stay with the truck. You might drown just trying to get to the shore. Uh, so it's like, what do you do? Well, we all got up on the roofs of our trucks. And the waters kept coming up. And finally, I was like, I I I'm gonna die from drowning before I die getting shot with a with the Taliban. So I'm gonna take my chances. So I slung my weapon. And I I was the first one to jump in. I jumped in. I swam to shore. Current was ripping, but I'm a pretty good swimmer. I got over there and then I started making rope bridges. So I tied some rope up to a tree. I threw it to the truck. And then we started having guys shimmying from the trucks over to the shore.

• 1:08:13Speaker 01

  And so then we passed this down and all the trucks start doing it. Well, what happened was one of the soldiers in the back. Got on a rope bridge and he when he with the weight of him, when he got in the water, he panicked and he let go. And he didn't like clip in or anything. And so he rips down river. So then the call comes on the radio. Hey, we lost a soldier. He's he's done. He's gone.

• 1:08:34Jocko Willink?

  And this is an Afghan soldier, I'm assuming?

• 1:08:36Speaker 01

  No, it's an American soldier.

• 1:08:37Jocko Willink?

  An American soldier.

• 1:08:37Speaker 01

  American soldier. Yep. And the Afghan, so he when he floats down river. One of the ANSF, the ANSF CM2, the Afghan National Security Force. And so they all start talking about how they saw him. And he basically, from our last vehicle, they spot him, float by him. So we know he's still ripping down the river, right? So now you're in a situation where people start getting off the trucks. We know the Taliban's maneuvering. We've just lost this guy down the river. And it's like, oh, this is getting messy real quick.

• 1:09:03Jocko Willink?

  This is a little beyond getting messy.

• 1:09:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, and so we try to call in air support. Um, you know, because we got a guy going down the river, all this stuff. And they deny it because it's raining and it's it's red air. And so they say, no. So I grab a bunch of guys and I'm like, come on, follow me. We're gonna go do a patrol. We're gonna go try and find this guy. And it's it's weird because they're not really my guys. So I gotta like play diplomat and be like, can I have some of your guys to go do this? But I had good relationships, so I was able to do that. And then it gets even weirder. So then the Taliban passed over their radio. That they had captured the American soldier.

• 1:09:42Speaker 01

  So we got, we picked up chatter that the Taliban has the American soldier. And so then we're all like, man, we got, there's a, the acronym was Dust One. So like, we got a Dust One situation. So we called it over the radio and previously they said they wouldn't send aircraft. But this time now that, because we're right there on the border of Pakistan. When Taliban's confirmed that they have one of our men, they're like, we're sending air support. So they send this section of Apaches like immediately. And it was awesome. I mean, it was a female section lead and I was listening to her on the radio and she must've killed like 20 dudes. And she was just like stoic, like killed five, secondary explosion RPG, he's dead. And like, we were just watching her just like sweep this hillside, just laying waste. And um, you know, just fast forward to the end of this story.

• 1:10:26Speaker 01

  What happened was the soldier, we ended up finding him the next morning. He washed down river, he drowned. And we ended up actually having, we thought he had been rigged with explosives. And so my EOD tech put his bomb suit and walked up to him in the river and cut him down. And when he floated down river, I actually caught him and pulled him out. And I don't know if you've ever seen anyone that's drowned, but like their stomach expands and they get all these veins. And what had happened was the Taliban, even though we were listening to them, they were monitoring the ANSF radios. And when the ANSF saw the soldier float by, they got on their radios.

• 1:11:04Speaker 01

  The Taliban heard that and then they pat, knowing that we were listening to them, passed misinformation to get into our loop. But you know, when I, when I reflect back on it, them doing that triggered the Apaches, which ultimately killed all of them. So it's just one of those situations that, I mean, so you asked me like, what did we do? Like there's a story of like, you know, you leave that and it was, we were doing a resupply for a platoon FOB. And you just walk away from like, that was, there's just a lot to unpack right there.

• 1:11:36Jocko Willink?

  So did the water eventually recede and the vehicles were able to drive after that?

• 1:11:41Speaker 01

  The next morning it went down and we were able to get all the vehicles out because we brought uh, from external sources, some wreckers to help us pull stuff out. But they made us go up and down the river looking for the soldier's rifle and NVGs, which we weren't gonna find. But we spent probably until lunchtime the next day, just walking through the water, acting like we were gonna find that. And finally somebody made the decision to stop and then we got back on our trucks and left.

• 1:12:07Jocko Willink?

  And what's the op tempo like for you? So that's one mission that takes two days, three days. What are you doing after that?

• 1:12:15Speaker 01

  So, you know, then you go back to the company FOB, maybe spend a day reset, and then you drive back to the battalion FOB. And then I involve myself in the battalion battle rhythm, the meetings. I continue to offer advice, but every time we're back at the battalion FOB, anywhere in the battalion battle space where an IED is found and my EOD techs fly out there, I would go with them. Um, I mean, I can just keep going for stories all day, but we, here's an example in that same space. There was a helicopter that was flying a ISO container of machine guns out to one of the outposts. And it pickled it, which means it, I don't know what happened, but they decided to drop the ISO container in the middle of the mountains. So like, hey, we need you to go up there, check it out. We want to send EOD because there might be explosives in it.

• 1:12:57Speaker 01

  So we fly up there, we get to the thing, see if we can re-sling load it. We can't. So we're like, we're just gonna blow it up. They're like, no, you can't blow it up. It's got machine gun and stuff. And we're like, well, it's all burnt. So like, it doesn't matter. You gotta carry it out. So I was literally carrying like two 50 cal receivers like through the mountains. And it was all unusable, but they didn't want to leave it there. And we were supposed to fly out that night. Um, so I didn't bring, this is such a stupid move. I didn't bring like warming layers or things for the next day. And of course, because it took us so long to carry all that stuff, then it got dark and then the aircraft didn't want to land in the mountains. So we had to spend the night up there and I, I almost froze to death. I remember the only thing we had was a body bag and I slept in the body bag, spooning another man so that I wouldn't freeze to death.

• 1:13:43Speaker 01

  I mean, that, talk about in your head, when you're like in the body bag, right?

• 1:13:48Jocko Willink?

  As you're doing these operations, what are you, what are your, you know, you, you mentioned that earlier when you're Ramadi and you're handing out hun, you know, thousands and hundreds of thousands of dollars to various people. And you're starting to think from a strategic perspective, this doesn't seem like maybe the greatest idea in the world. When you've got 40 vehicles going out to resupply, 40 soldiers out in an outstation somewhere. And the risks involved, and now you lose a soldier, which is freaking horrible. And now you're going to a mountaintop to recover destroyed weapons because you're not allowed to blow them in place.

• 1:14:27Jocko Willink?

  What is your, what are your thoughts of this now? You're, how long you been in for at this point? You're

• 1:14:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, so that was 11, so seven, six, seven years.

• 1:14:34Jocko Willink?

  So, so you've got a little bit more maturity as a, as a human and as a military officer. Are you starting to wonder what the hell's going on?

• 1:14:43Speaker 01

  Absolutely. I mean, you just outlined really good points right there. I think what ate me the most, when I took that 40 vehicles to that 40 man platoon, I could see Pakistan. I could see their bases. I could see where they shot mortars at us from, and we couldn't do anything. So when you talk about strategic problems, like, does America really want to win this war? Like, I can see the fucking home base right over there. Like, why can't I go over there and kill them? And so, I mean, when I look back at the Afghan war, I can't wrap my brain around that. If I was gonna put service members' lives at risk, I'm gonna do whatever it takes to win the war. Or I'm not gonna be there. But there was just a ton of things that we didn't do from a foreign policy standpoint to allow the service members to win the war.

• 1:15:27Speaker 01

  It's criminal almost. And so, yes, standing there at the border of Pakistan, I remember looking at their home bases and just thinking, this is crazy.

• 1:15:36Jocko Willink?

  And then how long, this deployment is a one-year deployment?

• 1:15:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:15:39Jocko Willink?

  And in the middle of it, you go home, you miss the birth of your

• 1:15:42Speaker 01

  Son, my first son.

• 1:15:43Jocko Willink?

  First son, but you show up, what, two, three days after he's born?

• 1:15:46Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 1:15:48Jocko Willink?

  And now you're going through this transition of, one day, you're sitting there waiting to get blown up by an IED, and the next day, now you're sitting, uh, looking at the new crib, holding your son.

• 1:15:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:15:58Jocko Willink?

  And I, I agree, I know it's horrible to say, but like, the mindset of not wanting to be a part of that, kind of, while you're still trying to work? I never, you know, the, in the, in the Navy, we go on six-month, maybe seven-month, maybe eight-month deployments, and I never went home from one of them. Uh, you know, the Army would send guys home, because they'd be on deployment, God bless them, for 12 months, 14 months, 16 months. They, it was mandatory that they would send guys home. And even even like battalion commanders would go home for two weeks to give guys a break and give guys rest and let them see their families. But you go home, it's it's two weeks at home.

• 1:16:40Jocko Willink?

  I mean, are you able to adapt at all or is it just have I just just send me back?

• 1:16:46Speaker 01

  I think maybe if your home life was consistent, there might be some utility in it. But when my home life had changed so much, like my wife couldn't even stay in her house because she had just had a kid, she was bedridden. She was at her mom's, you know, there I I'm not able to take care of her. She's having to have her mom take care of her. So I've got to put my two weeks go stay at my mother in laws. Got a new kid. I mean, it just it was like I was living somebody else's life when I came home. And again, all you can think about is the constant combat you're going to go back to. And it was just a lot.

• 1:17:22Jocko Willink?

  You roll back over there and you just maintain this op tempo for the year that you're there.

• 1:17:27Speaker 01

  That's right. I mean, I ended up.

• 1:17:30Jocko Willink?

  Random operations, tag along on random operations.

• 1:17:35Speaker 01

  Well, I I moved probably in October, November ish. I moved out of Eastern Paktika and moved into a province called Ghazni. And there was a district called Andar. And so we built the base from the ground up called Andar, Fob Andar. And I moved to support one one eighty seven. So I went from three one eighty seven to one one eighty seven. And back then, so this is in two thousand and ten, the Polish had run that A O for like two or three years and the Polish don't fire unless it's in self defense, don't do anything aggressively. And so that's why they put Americans there. And so again, you know, we've been at war for at eight years at that point. And it was almost like uncharted territory in the middle of Afghanistan. I mean, Ghazni is like the economic center, you know, maybe outside of Kabul.

• 1:18:20Speaker 01

  And so for, you know, it's similar to Ramadi where like I went to Sua and we had been in Ramadi for six years and all of a sudden I'm using baby wipes and we have no infrastructure. And it's like, it's like we've never been there before. I felt this at the same thing happened when I went to Fob Andar, like we're building it from the ground up and it's even the the kinetic threat. It was like no one had done anything. And that that area was different than the first one I described because the first one was much more distributed and was like these long day patrols. That one was very much like day in, day out, day in, day out, like. Foot patrol from the base or route clearance to just that adjacent little block over there. And so.

• 1:19:00Jocko Willink?

  So you were out, you actually moved to that outstation, to that FOB.

• 1:19:03Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:19:04Jocko Willink?

  And how, how big was that FOB? How many people were there? Was it like a company FOB? Was it a battalion?

• 1:19:08Speaker 01

  Battalion headquarters, but all their companies were in company outpost. So I mean, there was only probably 200 people in it.

• 1:19:14Jocko Willink?

  Did they have a company there that they were utilizing for that AO?

• 1:19:19Jocko Willink?

  That was running operations for them?

• 1:19:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, I understand the question. I think, I think potentially one of the companies was in the battalion FOB because obviously somebody owned that battle space. I can't remember.

• 1:19:30Jocko Willink?

  And, and so then you're there and you're doing the same thing. You're going out on patrol. Whoever's going out on patrol, trying to capture the ID information, sending that ID information back up the chain of command.

• 1:19:40Speaker 01

  That's right. Yeah. So a couple more stories just to illustrate like kind of what I did. One time, one of the companies found a house full of, it looked like propane tanks, but it was like aluminum tanks filled with powder, found like a hundred of them, just didn't know what it was. And so they threw them all in a well and then they took a picture of it, put it on a storyboard.

• 1:19:59Jocko Willink?

  Wait a second. So the platoon's out on patrol.

• 1:20:03Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:20:03Jocko Willink?

  They find a hundred aluminum tanks filled with random powder.

• 1:20:06Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:20:07Jocko Willink?

  They don't know what to do with it, so they chuck them in a well.

• 1:20:08Speaker 01

  That's exactly right. I did not misstate that.

• 1:20:11Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 1:20:12Speaker 01

  And, and then, you know, young Captain Scheller is reviewing the storyboards because I felt like that was the right thing to do. Again, I didn't have a boss. So it was like, you know, I was in general support as battalion, but I really could have done nothing had I chose to. But I every day went through all the storyboards, went through all the SIGACs, went through all the stuff, like was really trying to make myself.

• 1:20:29Jocko Willink?

  That story right there, like I could, I could just imagine looking at one of my platoon commanders like, okay, tell me that again.

• 1:20:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:20:35Jocko Willink?

  Wait, so what'd you do? Wait, what was in them? And you hucked them all in the well?

• 1:20:39Speaker 01

  And they were so ignorant, they then took a picture of it and put it in their storyboard. Usually when you do something that like raises an eyebrow and you're like, I don't know if I should have done that. You don't include it on the storyboard, but they put it in the storyboard.

• 1:20:50Jocko Willink?

  It's one of those things where I, I bet a platoon commander can articulate, you know, well, we didn't know what to do. We couldn't carry them out. We didn't want the enemy to use them. The well was deep. Made the call, sir. It's like, okay, Roger that. I'm gonna have a tough time briefing this up the chain of command, but I got your back.

• 1:21:06Jocko Willink?

  Check.

• 1:21:07Speaker 01

  So it turns out it was aluminum powder. So in that AO, so in the first one I was at, it was all potassium chloride. There was a match factory in Pakistan. So all the IEDs were potassium chloride. But in this new AO, they used aluminum powder with ammonium nitrate. So we called that anal, actually. And so what they had in those containers was aluminum powder that they would mix with the fertilizer to make the IEDs. And so I identified it. I pulled the patrol together. We went out. And when we got into the house, like, I'm literally holding this PowerPoint printout of the storyboard. It's got a picture of the house and it's got a well in it. And I'm like, walking around, there's no well. I'm like, are we in the right house? It's kind of dark. What had happened is they, the

• 1:21:48Speaker 01

  Taliban had come behind the soldiers and put like plywood over the well and then covered it in dirt to basically hide the aluminum powder that the soldiers had all thrown in there. And so it took me like 45 minutes, but finally I was like, no, no, this is the house. Like this, it has to be like right here. And then you just start kicking it. You're like, oh, you know. So then we, we ended up disposing of all of that. So there's one example of like, what does a counter IED team leader do? There, you know, just caught that. And then the other thing I usually did was I walked the rails. So as an infantry guy, I would pull probably six or seven soldiers out of the route clearance and on known routes where we found a lot of IEDs. The, the time I got my Bronze Star, we were

• 1:22:30Speaker 01

  walking down a route, I'm on one side, they're on another side. And you could see guys messing with something on the road, like probably, probably an IED, right? So, you know, we tried to close the distance. This guy runs away, circles around, he's getting chased by my other guys on the other side of the street. And so he crosses the street while I'm running up the other side. And it was like one of those things where you like, you both come around a corner and you're like face to face and you both just like try and pick up your guns and somehow you both miss each other from like three feet away. And uh, you know, got behind a corner, killed a couple guys and some machine gunfire went off. And there was one point where like, I just kept chasing people and I found myself like 200 meters away from even like the guys I was with, maybe like, you know, a half kilometer away from the patrol. And then like panic started to set. And like,

• 1:23:14Speaker 01

  oh shit, like I'm kind of separated here. But I was able to, I was able to bring the infantry up and link up and they got some mortars downrange. And the takeaway from the story is we uncovered seven IEDs on the route that day and rendered them all safe. And they were trying to do a complex ambush, right? With all those IEDs and we were able to push, push them off. But like, there's an example of like, Great tactical success. Like, what the fuck did that do in terms of the overall picture? Like, I'm not really sure. Like, on the tactical level, I mean, that was, it was an awesome play that we ran. But I mean, I just got so many examples of that. And then, then I start studying the operational strategic levels. And I'm like, you know, where was the connection to what we're trying to do? Like, why, why are they still coming from Pakistan? You know, what is my political leaders doing?

• 1:23:58Speaker 01

  Like, are we trying to get rid of the Taliban? Or are we going after Al Qaeda? Yeah, so many questions.

• 1:24:08Jocko Willink?

  So you wrap up that deployment.

• 1:24:09Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:24:10Jocko Willink?

  You come home. How's coming home now that you're home home?

• 1:24:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, so when I got home from Afghanistan, again, I was gonna get out. But they offered me formal school. It's called Expedition Warfare School. It's captain of major school. It's a year. And I just thought, man, this deployment has taken a lot out of me emotionally, spiritually. Like, a year in school with a bunch of other warfighters of my peer group, probably really good for me, rather than trying to jump into the corporate world. And so I took the EWS job instead of getting out, which was in Quantico.

• 1:24:43Jocko Willink?

  You owe time after that.

• 1:24:44Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 1:24:45Jocko Willink?

  Right?

• 1:24:45Speaker 01

  Look at you, one step ahead of me. Yeah, so the catch to that is there's a two-year requirement on the backside. So by taking the EWS job, I then was required to go serve two more years as a company commander.

• 1:24:56Jocko Willink?

  And this is gonna get you out to what, how many years?

• 1:24:59Speaker 01

  Really gets me out to a career is what it does. But yeah, it takes me about 10 or 11 years.

• 1:25:03Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, 10 or 11 years. At which point a lot of guys say, hey, I'm, I've only got, you know, what is it? You, you look at, oh, I've only got eight more years. And really, how many tours is that? Plus, one of that last tours, a Twilight tour, so we only have six years. So people start negotiating and rationalizing staying in, even if maybe it's not 100% what they're into at the time.

• 1:25:23Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 1:25:23Jocko Willink?

  Which is, which is interesting, because you're, almost the whole time, you've been saying you were gonna get out, you were gonna get out, you were gonna get out. Which is weird. I never, I actually never thought I was ever gonna get out until I got out. The whole time I thought I was staying in forever. I'm like, oh, I'm gonna do 50 years. So watch this. And then it was very abrupt for me, you know, when I was like, oh, you know what? I'm actually gonna get out. And so I always thought I was gonna stay in, which is, which was, I guess it was very easy for my decision-making process because I was like, hey, what do you guys need me to do?

• 1:25:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:25:58Jocko Willink?

  What do you want me to do? Let me go to that, call, go do that, whatever. Let's go. Um, but you were always kinda.

• 1:26:04Speaker 01

  I think it was like we started with the beginning of my story. This, I never had ambitions to go in the military and this was never what I thought I would end up doing. The reason I continued to stay in is because I found a lot of purpose in being a marine officer and I truly enjoyed it. Truly enjoyed being around the service members. So it's one of those things where I guess my self-image was never to be a career military officer, but I continued doing it because I found fulfillment in it.

• 1:26:32Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and there's also something beneficial about someone that's not considering that, oh, I wanna be, you know, I always joke about the SEAL teams because in the SEAL teams, if you ask a SEAL officer, a young SEAL officer, why they came in the SEAL teams, the answer, what's, what, what, what job do you wanna do? I guarantee what they're gonna say is, I wanna be a platoon commander. I wanna be a SEAL platoon commander. That's the, that's, which by the way is like three years into your career.

• 1:26:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:27:00Jocko Willink?

  You ask an army officer what they wanna do, a lot of them will say, oh, I wanna be a battalion commander. I wanna be a brigade commander. I wanna be a division commander. That's actually in their head. SEAL officers do not have that in their head. Most SEAL officers don't have that in their head. And there's something that's kinda nice about someone that's in the army that just says, hey, you know, I wanna be, I, I, hey, I wanna, I don't have this big aspirations of being a general or a colonel. They just wanna go and do the job. There's some benefits to it. There's also some detractions to it because once guys in the SEAL teams get done with that platoon commander tour, a lot of them go, okay, you know, I did that. And we've, in the SEAL teams, tried to extend the operational tour a little bit longer, you know, you can, you can extend it, you can go a little bit longer and still do work, but eventually.

• 1:27:44Jocko Willink?

  It's gonna dry up for you and you don't get to be a battalion commander. You can be a SEAL team commander, but that's not the same as a battalion commander. It's really not the same as a brigade commander. Cool jobs, but it's not what people come in for. So the fact that you were sort of always thinking, maybe I'll get out means to me in a positive way, you weren't trying to maneuver for your career. Cause there's a lot of guys that, oh yeah, here's, oh, I need to do this billet. I'm trying to get this award. I'm trying to get this deployment so I can get promoted. There are some people that that's what's driving their careers and it's, it's never, it's horrible to see. It's horrible to see what they do. And there's guys in the, certainly guys in the SEAL teams that are like that.

• 1:28:26Jocko Willink?

  That's their, that did have the goal of a platoon commander is just a step, just a stepping stone. Cause what they really want to do is they really want to make admiral or whatever. Same thing can happen in the army as well. Same thing can happen in the Marine Corps, but for you, you're kind of like playing it by ear.

• 1:28:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:28:41Jocko Willink?

  Which means you're not making decisions based on, hey, I'm going to look out for my career, which is a good thing in many cases.

• 1:28:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, that, I see that in Marsoc too, what you're, the problem you described with guys doing what they want to do. Cause a lot of Marsoc guys want to be a team leader or you know, want to be a company commander. Company commander is kind of the pinnacle where they then bleed off all the talent because the company commander at Marsoc is a major and then they don't stick around to be the battalion commanders that they need them to do. But I also see the general infantry, a lot of the counter to what you just said. There's a lot of guys that come in that have aspirations for being a battalion commander, have aspirations for being a general. And there, you know, you, you kind of alluded to it. There may be some positives to that in terms of big thinking and, and, you know, speaking good about the system and figuring out how to navigate the system correctly. But I honestly

• 1:29:33Speaker 01

  think the focus should always be on the service member and what's best for them. And I, I understand as a leader, I've been doing this for 17 years, the responsibility to the organization versus the responsibility to the service member. So I'm not saying in all respects, a leader always should just be looking out for the service member. But I think when you get focused on how to navigate your career, it does cloud your perspective on how to strike that balance.

• 1:29:59Jocko Willink?

  So nonetheless, you take the deal. You go, okay, I'm gonna go expeditionary warfare school. And then I'm gonna owe them two more years. So that's gonna put you at 11 years, 12 years. Your wife's probably like, cool, at least this might guy might be gone a lot, but at least he's got a job and it's we're getting a paycheck.

• 1:30:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, I had my, so as soon as I got back from Afghanistan. She got pregnant with the second kid. So my two older boys are 14 and a half months apart. So that's like, you know, before Afghanistan and then like first time getting home from Afghanistan. And then it was like, I so I very quickly within nine months of being home from Afghanistan, went from like no kids to two kids. You know, so this life was changing. Um, and then we we waited another couple of years and had my third son in between my next two deployments. So.

• 1:30:44Jocko Willink?

  How was expeditionary warfare school?

• 1:30:47Speaker 01

  I liked it. Um, you know, the anxiety that I had after Ramadi came back full fledged after Afghanistan, started having different symptoms, started having like, face numbness and my eye, my vision started getting blurred and everyone wanted to lump it into PTSD, which I knew I wasn't struggling with PTSD. I didn't have like bad dreams. I didn't feel bad about anything I did. I just had like, Tony Soprano ish, like real physical symptoms. And it just people then the buzz phrase was PTSD and I just don't think people understood what anxiety was. Um, and I just had to work through that. And so.

• 1:31:18Jocko Willink?

  I don't think I really understand what what you're talking about.

• 1:31:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:31:22Jocko Willink?

  So PTSD would be like, oh, I'm having trouble sleeping. I'm well, uh, the hyper alert and all that.

• 1:31:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:31:30Jocko Willink?

  What what's the anxiety piece? What's what's going on with this?

• 1:31:34Jocko Willink?

  And is it physiological?

• 1:31:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's both. So it's part hereditary, it's part, you know, nurture nature. So also it's part experience. So I I think the simplest way to just say it is once your fight or flight gets burnt enough, your brain starts producing different chemicals that it may not be if you're not under high stress all the time. And for me, it just took a while to recalibrate. I had to get into yoga. I had to get into meditation. I had to, you know, the the best remedy is working out. So if you can work out and stay healthy and stay fit, but the problem is a lot of guys have to. These deployments fall into the false trap of like alcohol. And alcohol is one of those things where, you know, it can suppress some of those anxiety or things for a little bit. But what they don't realize is it comes back twice as worse the next day.

• 1:32:21Speaker 01

  And so EWS was one of those like false hopes for me where I was like coming back. I hadn't been drinking for a year and I was like drinking beer and you know, feel good at night. And the next day I'd be like, oh, why do I feel so horrible? Uh, I was also getting older too, right? I'm in my thirties now and not my twenties anymore. And so I think part of it was just learning my body, learning all the physical reactions that took place in the deployment. And not allowing myself to just be bend in a PTSD category that may not apply to me. Even though that's what I think everyone wants to label someone when they get back from something like what I had gone through. And, uh, you know, it all worked out. I figured it out, but it just took me reading a lot of books and talking to a lot of people, probably more than I needed to, to navigate it.

• 1:33:03Jocko Willink?

  Let me ask you this. So if you get these like anxiety type situation and it's caused from some traumatic situation that you've been through. And now this is post the traumatic situation. Isn't it like what you're talking about? Well, I don't understand the difference between PTSD.

• 1:33:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:33:21Jocko Willink?

  And what you're talking about anxiety.

• 1:33:23Speaker 01

  I think the, the way I distinguish it is PTSD. Um, from what I've learned from the psychologist typically manifests itself into guilt shame.

• 1:33:40Speaker 01

  Emotional struggling with some of the things that you went through that may have a psychological and physical impact on you. Anxiety to me, think of it like you're about to do public speaking and everyone has butterflies. But like a severe case of anxiety is almost like debilitating, right? And that those physical manifestations may not necessarily be tied to a trauma. They may just be tied to the way, like you said, physiologically are built. Or it may just be because you have experienced so many things that your brain is producing chemicals in an imbalanced manner. Now, I'm not a doctor, so somebody needs to check the stats on this, but I can tell you, having talked to many psychologists, there is a, in the, whatever that manual is.

• 1:34:25Speaker 01

  A, a, a major differences between the two.

• 1:34:27Jocko Willink?

  Okay. And then you, as you're working out and you're doing yoga and you start to get through that the deck come after you went through the drinking phase of trying to get through it?

• 1:34:39Speaker 01

  I always worked out. Sometimes I worked out and drank. So I had to just get through the drinking thing and then just focus on working out.

• 1:34:47Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And, and this is all happening while you're at, at EWS?

• 1:34:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, correct.

• 1:34:53Jocko Willink?

  Learn anything good at EWS? What are you learning at EWS?

• 1:34:56Speaker 01

  EWS.

• 1:34:57Jocko Willink?

  A little bit more like operational level stuff?

• 1:34:59Speaker 01

  Yeah. I went to two formal schools. I went to command and staff later as a major. Command and staff is very varsity level, treat you like an adult. Here's all the reading, go read it and we'll talk about it like it was adult. EWS is like somewhere between you're still like in the basic training pipeline and you're like getting close to an adult, but we're not really sure yet. So it's, you're treated as such. And there are a bunch of captains that aren't careerist yet that probably need to be treated like that, but I think it gets generalized too much. So there was a times where I was like, I'm a professional. I've been doing like multiple wars. Like, don't fucking talk to me like that.

• 1:35:31Jocko Willink?

  What's EWS?

• 1:35:32Speaker 01

  It stands for Expeditionary Warfare School. It's like the captain to major PME. So you don't have to go to the resident, but you have to do the school. So there's like box of books where you can get sent the books and get credit for it that way. There's seminars where you can go to like night school for it. So every captain has to go through it to become a major. But they select the top ones to go to the resident one year course.

• 1:35:54Jocko Willink?

  And so that's where you got selected for?

• 1:35:55Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 1:35:55Jocko Willink?

  So your career is going pretty good at this point, actually?

• 1:35:57Speaker 01

  It was an indicator that I was on the right track.

• 1:36:02Jocko Willink?

  And what, what, this is a one year school. Where are you going at the end of that? Where'd you go on the end of that?

• 1:36:09Speaker 01

  I went to third battalion, second Marines as a company commander. So as a headquarters company commander, where we, our deployment was another Mew, it was 10 months, get on ships, sail around the ocean and be ready to respond. And as a headquarters company commander on a Mew, I had, I had like a recon platoon. I had an engineer platoon and then I had like all the supporting establishments in the battalion. It was just kind of an eclectic group of individuals. And then they also used me as like the future operations planner, if you will. So as the ops was on the ship, they'd send me to like Egypt or they'd send me to wherever to do the planning for whatever that bilateral was. And so that was my, my 10 month deployment there.

• 1:36:50Jocko Willink?

  That was a 10 month deployment?

• 1:36:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was long.

• 1:36:52Jocko Willink?

  Shipboard deployment.

• 1:36:54Speaker 01

  It was like right after the The Libya thing, um, and the Benghazi thing and like the, and because of that thing, the Mew deployments had gotten like backed up. Something happened that messed up the deployment cycle because of that operation. And so to like fill the gap, my deployment was 10 months because they always want overlap. And so I don't remember fully understand why it happened, but they told us from the very beginning, like this is gonna be a long one, boys.

• 1:37:20Jocko Willink?

  And that was a shipboard deployment. So you're living on a ship, which is good times.

• 1:37:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, something.

• 1:37:29Jocko Willink?

  But that's weird. That's almost like for me, you know, because I came in before the war. That's like a normal deployment that we did back then. I did two deployments with the Marines on the ARGs out here on the West Coast, but it was like, hey, sail around, go to wherever we're going. Like I went to Egypt. I went to Oman, went to these various random places and did whatever exercises we're doing. People getting spun up about whatever they're getting spun up about. You probably, did you create any PowerPoint brief story on that?

• 1:38:00Speaker 01

  Oh dude, you know I did.

• 1:38:05Jocko Willink?

  Uh, all right. So that's another deployment. And what, what comes after that?

• 1:38:10Speaker 01

  So then I get back and they actually, I was still a captain and they tried to make me the operations officer. And I had to-

• 1:38:18Jocko Willink?

  The battalion operations officer?

• 1:38:20Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I had actually gotten the top company commander fitness report as the headquarters company commander, which is kind of rare. So I think it just speaks to my battalion commander really liked me, thought highly of me. And so he tried to make me the operations officer and I wasn't selected that year. So I was going to be in zone the next year. And regiment's like, brother, we got like five majors sitting on the deck up here that need key billet. Like if you're going to make a captain that's not even selected, like we're going to give you a major. And so he came back to me and was like, hey, like this is what happened. So you're not going to be the op. So what do you want to do? Do you want to stay in the battalion? And you've already done your company commander tour? Or do you want to go somewhere else? And in my community, headquarters company commander is like one of those weird ones where-

• 1:39:04Speaker 01

  You can hide somebody there. And so it's not always the best guy. And so like in terms of street cred in my community, I didn't want people to think I was just a headquarters company commander, right? And so I was like, you know, I gotta, no, I'm gonna stay here and I'm gonna go be the weapons company commander. So they offered me weapons company, which is like the, probably the best company commander usually in battalions. And so that's what I did. So I was a weapons company commander for the next year and a half.

• 1:39:27Jocko Willink?

  Did you do a deployment as a?

• 1:39:28Speaker 01

  I did. So we did a deployment, it's called a unit deployment program. So we went to Okinawa and we're, the purpose of it strategically is to be involved in the war plan. If North Korea were to be, do something, but all we really do is try to prevent our Marines from getting drunk and getting into fights. And then we'll take them into, you know, Japan and go into Tokyo. We went into South Korea.

• 1:39:50Jocko Willink?

  And that's a six month deployment?

• 1:39:51Speaker 01

  Six months.

• 1:39:52Jocko Willink?

  What number deployment was that for you?

• 1:39:54Speaker 01

  Five.

• 1:39:55Jocko Willink?

  Including when one of those was a one year deployment?

• 1:39:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, one was a year, one was 10, Harbord Mahdi was seven. And then the first Mew was six and the UDP was six. So it all comes out to, I mean, about four years. Yeah, all this stuff up.

• 1:40:09Jocko Willink?

  And then after that, what's next?

• 1:40:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, and what's crazy too is with all those deployments, like that was middle of 15. Then I got promoted to major and I never deployed again. So quite honestly, all of that, when it was through my captain time, which is even what made it crazier. And so I got promoted to major and the monitor at the time was actually the company commander of my platoon commander buddy who got blown up in Ramadi. Guy's name was Eric Clark and I knew him real well. And so we had a special relationship and he had selected me for a place called PPNO. It's like plans, policies and orders. And in the Marine Corps, it's a very prestigious bullet. So it's like one of those bullets that if you do well, you can go on to be a general officer. So if you're a guy that is playing the deep game, like you described, like that's the job you want.

• 1:40:55Speaker 01

  And I, at this point, I had decided it was gonna be a career. So after three, two, I was like, this is, I'm gonna go to 20. And I just had no desire to sit in a basement cubicle in the Pentagon and, you know, design a new helmet or whatever I was gonna do, right? I just, I couldn't do it. And like you said earlier, like I loved teaching and I loved idealistic young officers. So I asked them if I could go to the basic school. And he obliged because he had a lot of people that wanted to do P P O. So he cut me orders to the basic school and you just, I tell that story about I knew him because it's not usually that easy to just talk to your mother and say, no, I don't want that. I want this and have it work out, but in that situation it did.

• 1:41:33Speaker 01

  And so he got me orders to the basic school and I got back from the U D P in July of 15 and then I off cycle moved in October 15. And I bring that up just to say my kids and I have three kids at this point. They're, the two older ones are in school and I didn't want to pull them out of school. So I actually geo batched to just again more, more distance, right? So get back from that deployment and then I went and was living in a condo in D C. And driving back to North Carolina on the weekends for nine months, uh, until the following summer when I moved them up.

• 1:42:08Jocko Willink?

  All right. So the basic school this time you're on the other side, watching people go through. Is that a good, to me, that sounds like a good learning experience, seeing people, how they react. From a leadership perspective and from a psychological perspective.

• 1:42:23Speaker 01

  That's right. Yeah. Um, and it's great. The basic school is all taught by officers. So unlike school infantry where the instructors primarily enlisted at the basic school, the primary instructor is the officer. So even as a major, they sent me through a pretty good training regimen and I had to get qualified.

• 1:42:39Jocko Willink?

  Oh.

• 1:42:39Speaker 01

  To train every single thing. So it's like they have a different qualification for each subject that you attempt to teach. And so they do a really good job there. I got to be the operations officer, a company commander and the war fighting director. Operations officer and war fighting director typically lieutenant colonel billets, but I just got the opportunity because at that time they didn't have the lieutenant colonels and they chose me to fill both of those billets at different times than my three year tour there. So, I mean, I really got a, a great run out of that.

• 1:43:07Jocko Willink?

  And uh, not to kind of like focus on this, you haven't really brought it up a little bit, but just to kind of, because where this story ends up, your, your career's like going really well at this point.

• 1:43:20Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, as.

• 1:43:20Jocko Willink?

  You mentioned you were the number one platoon commander.

• 1:43:23Speaker 01

  I didn't mention it as the weapons company commander, I got submitted for the left which award, which is, you know, best company commander in the Marine Corps. I didn't win obviously, but just to have my battalion commander submit me up through the regiment and division for that was an honor. And then, yeah, at the basic school, like the monitor tried to send me to PPNO and gave me exactly what I wanted at the basic school. And then when I got to the basic school, they made me the opso, you know, I said, brand new major, which is normally a lieutenant colonel's billet. And then I did a company commander tour and then it was a new CO and then the new CO hand chose me to be the warfighting director. And so, yeah, I mean, I think I was very competitive. Now.

• 1:43:59Jocko Willink?

  What were your fit reps looking like this whole time?

• 1:44:01Speaker 01

  I'm all top. I mean, if we want to skip forward, the judge in my case was like, I've never seen a record. So exemplary, it also high marked. So there's an impartial guy that looked at my reports and it's like, this is the best I've ever seen. So, but you've got to keep in mind, like I said earlier, at the basic school, the best captains went to TBS or went to IOC. And when I was at TBS, I was a major. The best majors don't always go to TBS, the best captains do. And so I was a little off track. And when I, the reason is, coming out of Ramadi, number one, I didn't have anyone that used to be in the military. There's a lot of people in the military today, I think nepotism is prevalent, like a general's sons, or at least had a regimental father, and they, they don't

• 1:44:42Speaker 01

  get a free pass, but they understand the key billets that they need to go to. And they understand the relationships that need to be harnessed and, and developed. And so these small advantages in the beginning turn into bigger advantages over time. So I guess my point is, when I went to school of infantry as a young captain, that didn't help me at all as a professional. And probably even going to Afghanistan on an IA billet where I didn't get a report from a Marine, didn't help me at all in terms of career progression. So like that whole three years, where it was very important to probably separate yourself, I just didn't do. But going into my three, two company commander time, because all those

• 1:45:24Speaker 01

  experiences I had, did make me a very effective leader. I was able to really shine as a company commander. And those reports are really what stood me, got me starting to separate from the pack. And then as a major at the basic school, again, same thing. So in those six years, it was like, I think that's when people started looking at my record and saying, who's this guy? But I think most of my other peers that, and there's a lot of peers that I have that are, I will admit, much better than me. I mean, smarter than me, more talented. And so I look at some of the, some of my peers and I'm just always impressed and I just always, you know, want to aspire to be like some of these guys, but some of those guys were put on tracks early. Kind of hand selected for things early that I just don't think anyone knew about me until later in my career. Probably similar stories to OCS and TBS, right?

• 1:46:09Speaker 01

  I show up on day one and I'm lost and by the end people are like, well, look at this guy. Maybe he's not as lost as we thought he was. I think my career is almost the same story.

• 1:46:21Jocko Willink?

  So you, you get done with being the basic school instructor and then it's off to. Then it's then is that when you went to command and staff college?

• 1:46:31Speaker 01

  Yep. Yeah.

• 1:46:32Jocko Willink?

  And now, so now you're in it to win it.

• 1:46:34Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Yeah. Once I got to the basic school, I was in it to win it. So, yep, I went to command and staff, got selected for school and it was nice because I was already up in Quantico.

• 1:46:43Jocko Willink?

  Is it hard to get selected for school?

• 1:46:45Speaker 01

  Uh, it's not. It, there's two things. One, you gotta be competitive. So probably in the top 40%, which really isn't that much, but top 40%. And then you have to be, the timing has to make sense, right? So there's a couple of factors at play. It's not always the best. Sometimes it's just about timing.

• 1:47:02Jocko Willink?

  And how, how long is this? How long are you go there for?

• 1:47:05Speaker 01

  Command and staff's a year.

• 1:47:07Jocko Willink?

  A solid year. And as this, again, now you're going to owe time, but you don't care at this point because you're, you're doing a career. Your wife's on board with doing a career. She loves the stability. She's looking at retirement. She's like, we're set for life.

• 1:47:19Speaker 01

  She never said that. I think we're overselling it now, but yeah, she, I mean, our kids are all in school now. So my youngest is now in preschool. Three kids in school. They're still young enough that we want some stability and my goal actually was to go back to Lejeune. So when I was there as a captain, I had bought a 50 acre piece of timberland that I've got four wheelers and stuff that I keep on it. And then we still own my house in Jacksonville. So I had two properties still in North Carolina when we were up in DC. And so my goal after command and staff was to get back to North Carolina and just remain there till retirement. And so that was kind of my play.

• 1:47:53Jocko Willink?

  Now, some of the. Some of the more conflicted thoughts you had when you were in Ramadi, when you were in Afghanistan, are those, are you, are you kind of just dealing with those as in like, hey, that's the way it is sometimes, you know, I can do a good job. I can try and mitigate that stuff in the future. When you're at Command and Staff College and you're talking about now more senior level strategic level things, are you having considerations around those things? Are you having discussions around those things? Do you feel like you've sort of accepted that that's the way the system works? And there's some benefits to it and there's some negatives to it. And you can, as you get more senior, you can focus more on the benefits. Where are you at mentally?

• 1:48:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's a great question. So at Command and Staff, you can do a master's. I think it's part of the curriculum now. When I went through as a student, it was like an option. You didn't have to do it because it required extra classes and a thesis to write on your own time. So some people just wanted the downtime and chose not to do it. But I wanted the master's, I wanted to challenge myself. And most instructors there implore almost like they drive you towards writing something about like the tactical level, small squad, unit level, like insightful, novel idea. I wanted to write about foreign diplomacy and how it was broken. And I had been working on the small tactical level at the basic school for three years.

• 1:49:21Speaker 01

  I was the warfighting director for the year previous. Like there's probably no one more qualified to write some type of thesis, 20-page paper easily on how to do that, but it just, it didn't interest me. And so I was reaching for foreign diplomacy and my, my instructors, my PhDs told me like, every year there's somebody that comes in here and talks about how the Goldwater-Nichols Act needs to be revamped. And it's just the same old stuff. And you know, my counter to that was like, well, it hasn't fucking been fixed yet, has it? And that there's probably nothing more important when we're still losing wars. And so despite all the pushback on it, I wrote, you're only supposed to write 20 pages. And the parameters of the paper were minimum of 20 papers, no more than 80 pages. So I wrote 65 pages, like I just couldn't stop writing.

• 1:50:07Speaker 01

  And I gave it to my instructors and they just handed it back to me like immediately like 65 pages, I'm not gonna read this. It's like, you guys assign 80 pages a night of reading, 80 pages a night. I just spent months writing this and you can't even give me the time to say these parts of your paper don't add value, like you won't even like read it. They're like, make it less. And so that's what I was up against. It was like, I felt like as an officer, I wanted to be challenged academically. And I just, I didn't get it from the PhDs. So I did, I made it 30 pages, got my masters, check on the box. And then nobody ever read the paper again.

• 1:50:46Jocko Willink?

  Did you learn any good information at command and staff college? Was it helpful?

• 1:50:52Speaker 01

  Oh yeah. I, I do think the, you know, like if you're saying command and staff college, is there value in it 100%? The real question is, could it be better? And yeah, it absolutely could be better, but there's, it's always easier to find ways for it to be better. I think from like 30 years ago, what they have now is, you know, worlds better than what we used to have. Like they have small groups, they facilitate good discussions. They really challenged my thinking on the wars. I mean, we went back to like Frederick the Great and Prussia, all the way through Napoleon and civil war and modern day. And I think they did a really good job. They didn't go in too deep onto anything and they challenged me and like Henry Kissinger's book diplomacy, I had never opened it up and they really pulled a lot out of there that challenged me and

• 1:51:37Speaker 01

  I'm a, I believe in realism and I don't think American foreign diplomacy has really gotten to that level. And it's been like explored a little bit, but again, they just exposed me to a lot. I think it's really incumbent upon the student that wants their exposed to something to then really get the education on their own. And it takes independence to be able to do that. If you just go through the motions of what the school asks, you'll get very little out of it.

• 1:52:01Jocko Willink?

  Was there any paradigm shifts in your thought while you were there?

• 1:52:06Speaker 01

  No. My problem in an education system is I always start to get a little frustrated because there's like a system to the education system. And like if you haven't figured out about me, I like to challenge things. And at a certain point, people don't want to hear it and you're just becoming a pain in the ass. And so there's like a line that you, it's different for every person. Every boss I've ever had says, I want honest feedback. What, what does that mean to you? Like, well, I guess I'll find out through trial and error of giving you honest feedback. And there's going to be a certain point where I'm going to either read through your face or through your emotion or what you're saying to me that I've gone too far and now I'm starting to annoy you. And then that's when you know you got to back off. And so I always find myself in the small group discussions. Like I can dominate any conversation with my opinions, but there's a time where you

• 1:52:51Speaker 01

  got to read the room and understand you need to be a passive listener. And so that was probably my struggle with it. I just felt like some of my views went counter to what they were trying to teach. And if I was to get too aggressive with it, it seemed to be counterproductive vice disgust. And so a lot of it has to do with counter insurgency. You know, same thing as the EWS. Like I just, the way you win, the way you fight a counter or the way you fight an insurgency is to not get involved in insurgency. And that requires deeper thought on the operational and strategic levels. And we've just celebrated these generals for the last 20 years that have wrote the small wars manuals or reinvented the small wars manuals and counter insurgency manuals.

• 1:53:33Speaker 01

  And there's a time and place where we as military tacticians need to understand how to do it. Absolutely 100% agree. Read all the books, got it. But to just continue to engage them for multiple decades without like real metrics of effectiveness or exit strategies. Afghanistan withdrawal is just the perfect example. I mean, there couldn't be a better historical example of how that was just terribly executed. And it's just a symptom of a much larger problem. And so a lot of these opinions I had in command and staff solidified through my paper. And, you know, I left there, I told the story about me handing the paper to the PhDs because that's just another example of like, no one really cared. They were there to expose you to the things that they were exposed to, but they didn't

• 1:54:17Speaker 01

  look at like where Stu Scheller was academically and say, how do we get Stu Scheller individually to be more challenged and developed to where we need him to be? And maybe they don't have the bandwidth to do it, but. You know, you look at the great military minds of history like Klosowitz. He had a guy named Scharnhorst that was a military professional that sat there and knew where Klosowitz was, met him there, and then challenged him specifically. And I just, I sometimes wished I had that.

• 1:54:47Jocko Willink?

  So you wrap up at that school?

• 1:54:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:54:49Jocko Willink?

  And then where are you off to?

• 1:54:51Speaker 01

  And then I, so I told the story of I wanted to get back to North Carolina. So I told my monitor, different monitor now, don't have a relationship with this guy. And so I had seen him on two road shows, which is like yearly, the monitors go around and you get an opportunity to shape what your desires are going to be when you're a mover. So I told him two years previous, I want North Carolina. I don't care, I want North Carolina. And no one really wants Camp Lejeune, so usually when you say Camp Lejeune, it's like, all right, you got it. But, you know, I had spent my whole time in Camp Lejeune and Quantico. I'd never been out to the West Coast or anywhere else. And so I knew there was a chance that the Marine Corps was going to start to say, no, brother, you've homesteaded too long. So then I saw him the year before, same thing. And so he said, all right, I'll tell you what to do. If it's not North Carolina, I'll call you.

• 1:55:34Speaker 01

  And keep in mind, I didn't do my OPO billet based on that story I told. And as a major, you gotta do what's called key billet. And for an infantry officer, that's OPO or EXO. So coming out of command staff, they're like, you have to be an EXO to remain competitive. And so, I mean, everybody got orders in like January, February, March. I mean, I got to like the end of March, we're talking like you're going to move in June. And I still hadn't even talked to this guy. Like all the school registration is in like January. My wife's asking me every day and I'm like, you know, I don't know what to tell you, babe. I don't, so I finally, because I knew this guy's real busy. But finally I just broke down and I called him and I was like, hey, man, in March, everyone in my command of staff class has orders except for me.

• 1:56:16Speaker 01

  You told me you would call me if it wasn't Camp Lejeune, so I'm assuming I'm still going to Camp Lejeune, can you confirm? And he, he's like, no, Campbell's Inn's filled. He's like, but good news. We have availability in 29 Palms or San Diego and I'll let you pick. So I got off the phone with him. I'm, I know exactly where I was. I was at Panera. And I was still writing my master's thesis at the time. So I was like, I used to go to Panera and just write. And so I'm sitting in Panera, just mad. And I'm thinking about all the property I got in North Carolina and how like, I've been telling my wife it would be North Carolina for two years now. And so I wrote him an email. Email's a little bit easier for me to not be as emotional because I can kind of edit it.

• 1:56:59Speaker 01

  And I wrote, but I wanted to put it in writing. And I was like, hey, man, I'm putting this in and writing for you. I'm going to forego key billet. There's got to be a sexual assault officer or some other thing in North Carolina that you can give me. It's in writing, make it happen. And I hit send and like, you know, you got to understand like how, how scary it is to do something like that because I got, I essentially said my career's over in the Panera. But I wanted North Carolina. And so then he called me back. He's like, and this is what he said. He said, I got your email. I'm going to give you exactly what you want. And then he hung up. Oh my God. I was like, oh man. I was, yeah, I'm going to be the sexual assault officer of second Marine Division like this is,

• 1:57:39Speaker 01

  and I'm going to have to go back and look at all my peers and they're all going to talk about where they're going to be battalion XOs or battalion officers or wherever. And I'm going to have to tell them what crap job I just got because of what I did to myself. And I know what he did then because the monitor has two responsibilities. He's got a responsibility to the Marine Corps. He's got a responsibility to you as a person. And the monitor's job responsibility in the Marine Corps is to keep competitive officers competitive. So then he went, he didn't know me from Adam. So after that, he went through my record. And as he was going through my record, he probably came to the realization like, shit, this guy's pretty good. If I bury him in a staff job in second Marine Division, then I end his career. And he had a responsibility to keep me competitive, but he also knew that I had like dug my heels in.

• 1:58:20Speaker 01

  And I wasn't going to California without like probably, you know, screaming at the top of the mountain. So he was in like a no win situation. And so that's how I ended up at Marsoc. So he wasn't advertising a Marsoc support battalion XO. And he had that kind of hidden on the shelf. And so he called me back and he was like, hey, I've got a Marsoc support battalion XO. They're actually asking for infantry officers. I haven't made a public. It's not really key billet, but maybe it is kinda, because it's still a battalion XO. It's just not on the infantry battalion. He's like, would you be interested in that? I was like, fuck yeah. North Carolina, Marsoc, fucking, this all worked out. Thank you, you know? And so that's how it worked, how it happened. And so I took second Marines, uh, MRSB, Marine Raider Support Battalion is what it was called. And so the way it works is Marsoc's

• 1:59:04Speaker 01

  got three battalions, and then they have three support battalions. The support battalions have their logistics common intel Marines, and they basically just do a six-month workup just in the MRSB, and then they aggregate them to the MRB, uh, unit, and then they do six more months, and then so it's like a full year of training, and then they deploy as that aggregate team. And I was the XO, so all I did was facilitate the teams on their timeline, but I was only there for a year or so. Quite honestly, I only saw like one full cycle, and then other cycles in a state of coming back.

• 1:59:33Jocko Willink?

  Did you go on deployment or no?

• 1:59:35Speaker 01

  So while I was there, because they only have three battalion commanders, and so they actually, the battalion commanders of the support battalions are actually badged Marsoc guys. And so they have, in that sense, they have six battalion commanders. So Marsoc has at any time, six commands selected battalion commanders. And so the SODIF downrange, they have a, a cycle of when those guys go down there and control, command that unit. They actually, while I was the XO, took my battalion commander to be in charge of the SODIF. So he doesn't deploy with the battalion. He only deploys with like maybe five key guys, and then some other people from across the regiment. So I was essentially the battalion commander for majority of the time while I was back there, but I never deployed. So I just sat,

• 2:00:18Speaker 01

  uh, there in courthouse bay with my battalion, uh, his battalion, but I was acting. And, um, it was really, it was a good time. I, I truly enjoyed it.

• 2:00:29Jocko Willink?

  And why was that billet only a year?

• 2:00:32Speaker 01

  Because I got selected lieutenant colonel. Yeah, good question. I would have stayed in Marsoc until they, until I retired, to be quite honest with you. But I got selected to lieutenant colonel, and I actually went to the manpower meetings. It was the acting CO and XO. And in the manpower meetings, like I heard it from the horse's mouth, they're like, we don't have, we're filled up with lieutenant colonels that are badged. Like, we can't accept any non-badged lieutenant colonel. So you gots to go, kid. So.

• 2:00:56Jocko Willink?

  Was your wife during that year, was everything going cool there?

• 2:01:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:01:00Jocko Willink?

  She's kind of stoked, she's in North Carolina, it's all good in the hood.

• 2:01:03Speaker 01

  I thought we hit a, we hit a sweet spot then, you know, once we got back to North Carolina, we were in our house. It was familiar territory. I was happy with my job at Marsoc.

• 2:01:12Jocko Willink?

  Kids are in school now, so she has a little bit of like sanity.

• 2:01:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, it was good. Things were good on the home phone at that point.

• 2:01:18Jocko Willink?

  And so then what happens when you make lieutenant colonel? Where do they send you?

• 2:01:21Speaker 01

  So I mean, I knew, I got, I found out I got selected in like October, so I'd only been at Marsoc for like three months. So like within three months of taking the job, I was looking for the next job. And so I had some buddies that were up in division, second Marine division, which was still local. And so I basically started putting out feelers and I was like, hey, I'm gonna have to move.

• 2:01:42Speaker 01

  I'll take a staff job up there. Got my XO job being the XO at a Marsoc support battalion, so I don't need key billet anymore, I don't think. So if you could, if you guys could take me, I'd appreciate it. And then I finished the year at Marsoc and that, in that spring, the chief of staff of Marsoc, so an O6, talked to the chief of staff of the division, who was an O6, the chief of staff, both of those gentlemen are generals now, actually. And between that conversation, they decided to make me the sixth Marines opso, so I don't know how that shook out.

• 2:02:15Speaker 01

  I don't know if it was because they just thought I was that talented, or because I hadn't done key billet in an infantry battalion, that they wanted to give me the regimental opso to make me more competitive. That's right. But either way, it was, I mean, a pretty important job. There's only two regiments in the division. And so to be the operations officer of one of them was a big deal. So then I did that for the next year before I was selected to battalion command.

• 2:02:35Jocko Willink?

  And then what happened once you got battalion command?

• 2:02:38Speaker 01

  So I got selected to battalion command,

• 2:02:41Speaker 01

  shortly after getting to the regimental opso job, so, but the regimental opso job, just to paint a picture going into the, the story we're about to tell. I mean, it was. The Marshlock job was awesome, fulfilling, manageable hours, good work. The regimental ops job was like 20 hour days. We spent two months at an ITX, which is in the Mojave Desert, where it is just expected that like, I don't eat, I have tobacco, and I just drink energy drinks. Like, it's almost like I'm looked down upon if that's not how I conduct myself. And it just, it took a lot out of me. And my boss was not very appreciative most of the time. And I got into some like, this is kind of at the point in my career

• 2:03:25Speaker 01

  where I started really pushing back. So like, as a, as a first lieutenant, as a XO and Ramadi, when my battalion commander was kind of verbally, and even at times physically abusive, like, I just kind of took it. And in my head was like, this is wrong. But as a regimental ops, as a 40-year-old man, if you start telling me like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, what'd he say? I'm gonna fucking filet you, I'm gonna fucking cut you in half? That's when I'm like, bitch, fucking come bring it. What the fuck are you gonna do? You know, like, these are the conversations we would have. And it's, and it's like, dangerous, right? Because, and I had these with multiple O6s. Like, I don't know what it is about regimental commanders, but they, they just felt like they could talk to me like, like I was a piece of shit.

• 2:04:10Speaker 01

  And I just got to a place in my life, in my career, where I just wouldn't be talked to like that. And so it created this unhealthy tension. And then when I would push back on some of these conversations, you would think that after like a couple days, it would actually be like a steam release. But it almost like, it almost was like seen as a threat. And it would almost increase the pressure, where then they would come back and want to like reassert dominance, which would then want to cause me to like, reassert like, fuck you. And it just became unhealthy. And everyone could see it. And so you just got to understand that, like, that's what I came out of

• 2:04:51Speaker 01

  after a year of just being overworked, like, almost like fist fighting a couple times, and then going into my battalion commander seat.

• 2:05:00Jocko Willink?

  So you, you're, you're having clashes with regimental commanders?

• 2:05:04Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:05:05Jocko Willink?

  And?

• 2:05:07Jocko Willink?

  As this is happening, are you thinking to yourself like, alright, maybe I need to maneuver a little bit here. You know, I spent a bunch of time at expeditionary warfare school, learning about maneuver warfare and not to attack, you know, hardened positions head on. And here I am engaging in verbal battles with my boss.

• 2:05:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:05:27Jocko Willink?

  Do you ever think like, well, maybe I should have taken a different tact?

• 2:05:33Speaker 01

  So

• 2:05:36Speaker 01

  when you have certain people with certain expectations, so you can just not push back and try and do it in a thoughtful way, but that type of person is still going to expect you to work 22 hour days and be unappreciative when you do get to bust your ass to get the product to them. And then the follow up question, once you finally get that product is where's the next product? And so sometimes you get a boss that just, no matter what you do, whether it's soft diplomacy, or whether it's verbal fighting back, you're just not going to probably change that person. So the point you're making is like, pick your battles and be smart. But

• 2:06:18Speaker 01

  the point I'm making is at a certain point in my life, I just refuse to be talked to a certain way. And so was that good for my career? Was that good for my mental health? I don't know. But like, I just, I kind of solidified who I was, what I was capable of, and how I was going to be treated. And that was the bottom line. And I had certain values that I wasn't going to compromise. And I didn't care what it meant for my career. And I've got a couple of stories where like, I basically tried to throw my career away a couple of times, because I was like, this is important to me. Like, this is important to me. And, you know, you can think about what you want, but when I think something is right, like, I just don't back away from it.

• 2:06:53Jocko Willink?

  What kind of thing would you put your, kind of, you know, draw a line in the sand on?

• 2:06:58Speaker 01

  In terms of

• 2:06:59Jocko Willink?

  Like regimental commander where you're like, you know what, I'm done with this.

• 2:07:03Speaker 01

  There was one time, there's one time at ITX and so the culminating event in the service for the Marine Corps at ITX is called MWS, Maneuver Warfare Exercises. And one regiment gets two battalions and then one battalion given hyper-enabled capabilities. It's free force on force. Now, it's supposed to be free, but there's a lot of rules that almost drive the schema maneuver. But I mean, it's the closest thing we get in terms of like I as a regimental opso with two battalions, with LAR, with artillery, and with a whole exercise force that determines who got killed and who doesn't get to build a plan. But it's also like high stress.

• 2:07:48Speaker 01

  And so, most of our COC was back in the rear where I thought the regimental commander should have been. But old generals and colonels think that they need to lead from the front. And in doing so, actually probably put a lot more risk on the system. And they're not comfortable sitting back in a COC that has probably the capabilities that we need. And so what that caused was him coming out with a forward capability that I had. And in signature management, when you're trying to like not turn on certain things or turn them on in a systematic way that disguises your digital footprint.

• 2:08:29Speaker 01

  He and I were sitting in this tiny little COC that I made out of the back of a trailer. It was just one of those situations where I got like six computers. I'm typing on all of them. I'm trying to control battalion ops, different LAR platoons. I'm trying to worry about my signature management and he's yelling at me to do something. And I'm like quickly answering him while trying to do all these different things. And there was just like one situation where he snapped, started screaming in front of everyone. And I looked at him and that was a situation like you were talking about maneuver warfare. I didn't say anything, I just walked out. It was just like, we're gonna fight. So I walked out. I took like 20 minutes and I came back in and then he like, hey opso, like maybe you should just

• 2:09:12Speaker 01

  Chill and get some sleep and that was his way of saying like maybe he went too far like trying to offer me some sleep and of course I'm stubborn. I'm like, no, I don't need any sleep. I'm just fine. And like I talked to some of my guys after because he did it in front of everyone and a couple of my guys were like, I can't believe you didn't hit him. Like, I can't believe you had the balls to just walk away. Like, I wouldn't have done that. So there were times, but I guess I'm just giving those examples because it's like, man, this is just, you're exhausting me. So it is what it is.

• 2:09:41Jocko Willink?

  So you're in that job as a regimental officer, operations officer, when the Afghanistan withdrawal goes down. Is that right?

• 2:09:50Speaker 01

  Yeah. So another relevant piece of the story is Eighth Marines, we used to have three regiments in the division and Eighth Marines dissolved. And so one eighth actually got aggregated into six Marines. So I was the regimental officer that took one eighth, re-aggregated them, and then made sure they had all the supplies that they needed to go out on deployment. So like I was working with their opso and exo like on the daily.

• 2:10:14Speaker 01

  And so I was very familiar with that unit that got on the Mew that ultimately responded to the Kabul incident. And so that's part of it, right? One eight was my first unit, if you remember, where my best friend got hit with the suicide vest. And then one eight was in my regiment that I as the opso kind of man trained and equipped as much as the higher headquarters does to send them out on that deployment. And then I was selected to battalion command. So in June, I went over to School of Infantry and took Advanced Infantry Training Battalion. And that was in like mid-June and you know, August 26th is when the S vest attack occurred.

• 2:10:45Jocko Willink?

  So in June, you were going to school? You went to school?

• 2:10:47Speaker 01

  No, I commanded a battalion that was out of school. So it was called Advanced Infantry Training Battalion. And so that's the place where if you want to go through sniper school, if you want to go through advanced squad leader school, if you want to go through advanced mortar school, all the advanced infantry schools are housed under that instructor cadre of the battalion that I commanded.

• 2:11:07Jocko Willink?

  All right, so just to get into Afghanistan a little bit, just to get, well, not to get into a little bit, but to put some context around it. February 2020, Trump makes a conditional deal with the Taliban that we're going to withdraw. September 2020, the Afghan government and the Taliban hold talks in Doha. The talks break down. They're not making any progress, but America still continues this withdrawal plan. February 2021, US and Afghan government officials warn everyone that the Taliban is not abiding with the agreements. They're,

• 2:11:50Jocko Willink?

  they're doing offensive things. They're making maneuvers. April 14, Biden changes the withdrawal deadline from May 1st to September 11th, which is, let's face it, you don't pick the date, September 11th, out of a hat. There's a, you know, some kind of a symbolic gesture that, that the Biden administration, administration wanted, which is, hey, September 11th, this thing's over. April 15th, the Taliban says, oh, you guys reneged on what you said you were going to do. You said you're going to go out by May. Now you're saying September, we're

• 2:12:29Jocko Willink?

  going to take countermeasures. May, the Taliban starts doing exactly what they said. They start increasing attacks, increasing in scale, their attacks, increasing in frequency, their attacks. June 6, US contractors begin pulling out. And when you pull out contractors, now the Afghan forces, and this is where you really start to see some of the problems that are going to occur, because when you pull out these American contractors that take care of gear and supply, replacement gear, all of a sudden, all that's gone. And this includes, you know, vehicles, planes, aircraft, drones, helicopters, everything that they've got. All of a sudden,

• 2:13:13Jocko Willink?

  they don't have the, the capacity or the know-how to keep it, to keep it running.

• 2:13:21Jocko Willink?

  July 1st, America closes Bagram airfield like in a really kind of weird way of just leaving. Just, just kind of up and left without telling anyone. Didn't even tell the Afghan that that was gonna happen. The Afghan government that was gonna happen, just did it. And by the way, the Bagram, Bagram is a, you know, is a great logistics hub. It's a big massive airfield. It's well supplied, well supported. How long has it been there for? 20 years? Yeah. You know, 19 years, some incredible amount of time. So it's in a relatively secure area, fully functional. And we just kind of leave it.

• 2:14:04Jocko Willink?

  July 8th, Biden says he's confident in the ability of the Afghan military to ward off the Taliban and fight the Taliban and defeat the Taliban.

• 2:14:16Jocko Willink?

  July 23rd, the Taliban starts applying pressure. President Ghani is now not just asking, but almost begging for US assistance.

• 2:14:31Jocko Willink?

  There's a conversation that, that Biden had with Ghani and he's, he says, and I don't know if I'll nail the quote, but he's saying that the perception is in the world that things aren't going well. And Biden says, hey, whether it's going well or not, we need to project a different picture.

• 2:14:49Jocko Willink?

  August 6th, Taliban takes full control of their first province. And now this is in direct violation of what they said they would do in the deal with America. August 15th, Taliban takes control of Bagram. No resistance. They just walk in there. They, there's a prison there. They free a bunch of these high level prisoners from various anti Afghan government and anti American forces. They also enter Kabul that day. President Ghani flees.

• 2:15:25Jocko Willink?

  Bails out apparently with a bunch of money and I will never get over the irony of the fact that President Ghani was this kind of academic individual that had written a book called Fixing Failed States: A Framework for Rebuilding a Fractured World.

• 2:15:41Jocko Willink?

  And in that book, he uses examples like Oregon, the state of Oregon in America, a first world country. And that's how he talks about using examples of how to, how to fix failed states.

• 2:15:59Jocko Willink?

  August 16th, Biden comes on and says, yeah, well, you know, the Afghan military is falling apart because they're cowards. And their political leaders are weak, weak. August 17th, allied governments complaining about the lack of communication and coordination from America. So they start their own rescue missions and we're hearing a lot about that. August 23rd, the director of the CIA, William Burns, meets with the Taliban leader with Baradar to discuss the evacuation. So we're trying to sort of save what we can, piece together some kind

• 2:16:39Jocko Willink?

  of an extraction plan. That's on August 23rd, on August 26th, suicide attack. Eleven Marines, one soldier, one Navy corpsman, killed. The Marines apparently, they, there are reports that they knew that this attack was coming. There's even some sources that say that the Marines were saying, hey, we got to put up a stronger perimeter, we got to push the perimeter out. And they got told no. So that happens, that's on August 26th, and that is when you

• 2:17:23Jocko Willink?

  reached the point where you felt you needed to speak up about that.

• 2:17:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, a couple other events in that timeline, from at least my perspective. So as the service members were watching all that play out, real time, in social media, on the news, everybody was getting very upset, rightfully so. And so one date you didn't mention was 17 or 18 August, the Commandant of the Marine Corps released a white letter that said, hey, I know a lot of you are struggling, but I want you to know your sacrifices were worth it. And if you're struggling, go see the therapist. You can Google it. That's, I just summarized the whole thing. And I read that and thought, this guy doesn't get it. The reason people are upset is not because they think their sacrifices aren't worth it.

• 2:18:11Speaker 01

  The reason they're upset is because the leaders have failed in this withdrawal, and that is undermining all their sacrifices. And he didn't address that at all, and a hand wave of going to the therapist is not good enough. So you gotta understand, like, I read that and it just, it just kinda started eating at me. And then the other thing that you have to know is I've heard from the generals, without naming names, I've heard this story many times. Following Vietnam, there's two commandants, Commandant Wilson and Commandant Barrow. And what they did was, and this is what's told today, fix the service.

• 2:18:53Speaker 01

  They focused on cleaning up the draft class, the drug users, and making sure they could fix the failures from Vietnam. Never does anyone talk about the operational and strategic failures that occurred at the general officer level at Vietnam. That never got addressed. And what's happening right now in at least the Marine Corps, with the shift in the tactical focus, and I understand, I think there's actually a lot of utility in the new force design, but what we didn't do was take a knee and address the operational and strategic failures that happened in our last two decades. And I feel like the narrative is gonna be told again that the generals had to fix the service because this current GWOT generation isn't capable of fighting on the tactical level.

• 2:19:37Speaker 01

  So I'm struggling with these two problems. Like, senior leadership isn't addressing the failures, and I, and I have a couple of examples of that. And then, yes, that takes us to August 26. I'm sitting in my office as a battalion commander, and I, I'm literally, I have people texting me pictures of the Marines that had gotten killed. So like, I'm finding out, like, within minutes. That's the gossip on the inside. The company commander for all the Marines that got killed was one of my SPCs at TBS, meaning he was one of the platoon commanders. Not an SPC, he was a teacher at TBS. I knew Jeff Ball real well. And I knew some of the Marines. And I have this long history with 1-8.

• 2:20:19Speaker 01

  So there was no one where it was more personal to than I felt like myself in that moment. And so I sat there in my chair and thought, "I don't think senior leaders get it. I don't think they understand the failures." All these conversations about how well it's going, I can't think in military history, at least over the last 30 or 40 years, where there has been such a monumental failure. And not one person has acknowledged it. And I just knew with certainty that following this event, no one was going to be held accountable. Like, I had enough experience and education to be able to foresee they're going to wash right past this. And you can't make up for the lives that were lost,

• 2:21:02Speaker 01

  but we can absolutely get ahead and prevent the next stupid decision by starting to hold people accountable. And I felt the way to do that was through what I wanted to be, just the one video. Like, I did not plan it to be anything other than that. I thought, "I'll make one video. I'll explain some of the things that I think they should have done, and I'm going to demand accountability because that's what I think we deserve because we're missing it." And so that was what led to that first video. And even after I made it, like, I articulate in that first video that I knew I was potentially going to lose my job, my retirement, my family's stability. Like, obviously, I had thought through that. I articulated it in the video. And even after I made the video, I didn't post it right away. I went back to my house and was like pacing, deciding whether or not to hit post

• 2:21:48Speaker 01

  because I knew as soon as I hit the button, it was going to change the trajectory of my life. But again, I had spent my whole adult life experiencing, studying, thinking, living this. And I just got to a place where I didn't think anyone else was going to say it, and I felt the need to say it.

• 2:22:09Jocko Willink?

  Videos about, I think it's about four and a half minutes long. That's right. Something like that. You're in your camis, so that's something. So you're, you're, you're definitely not shying away from who you are. You, you know, you stay, but you say in the video, you've been in the Marine Corps for 17 years. And one thing that I reflected when I saw the video for the first time is I thought to myself, oh, you know, your entire career, we'd been at war. You know, I spent more than half my career, we weren't at war. You know, we was in the 90s, the dry years. But I'm thinking, man, this guy's been in the Marine Corps for 17 years.

• 2:22:48Jocko Willink?

  The Marine Corps and America's been at war for that entire time. You, as you mentioned, you said, you know, you got a lot to lose. You know what could happen. You knew you were risking your battalion command, you know, family stability, the whole nine yards. You bring up that letter from the, from the commandant that he wrote and

• 2:23:10Jocko Willink?

  you, you know, you mentioned, did anyone throw their rank on the table and say, we shouldn't give up Bagram?

• 2:23:16Jocko Willink?

  Which again, you know, going back to the, the silent five, which is what McMaster called the, the Joint Chiefs of Staff that worked for LBJ. And you can even hear, you know, that I read in the beginning of guys that reflected back and said, I should have said something. I should have, I should have stood up.

• 2:23:37Jocko Willink?

  You talk about the fact that

• 2:23:40Jocko Willink?

  the people that died, dying in vain, if we don't, you, you say, you said, if we don't own up and say, we did not do this well in the end. And

• 2:23:51Jocko Willink?

  you know, I, I always look at that when someone gets wounded or killed in combat. At a, at a bare minimum, at a bare minimum, at least we go, okay, we can learn from what happened in the situation. We can pass it on. We can make sure it doesn't happen again. And that's what you're talking about.

• 2:24:15Jocko Willink?

  And

• 2:24:18Jocko Willink?

  you kind of close it out by saying, I've been fighting for 17 years. I'm willing to throw it all away to say back to, to say my, to, to my senior leaders. I demand accountability.

• 2:24:28Jocko Willink?

  And that's it. Pretty simple, straightforward message.

• 2:24:36Jocko Willink?

  You hit post.

• 2:24:37Speaker 01

  I hit post.

• 2:24:38Jocko Willink?

  You hit post. How long did it take before, you know, you started getting texts from your friends and your senior leadership?

• 2:24:47Speaker 01

  Good question. No one's asked me this question yet. So I walked in the house, didn't say anything.

• 2:24:54Speaker 01

  Got upstairs and I was sitting in my bedroom on the bed. My wife was getting ready for bed. She got a text. She said, "Did you post a video?" I was like, "Yep, I sure did." She's like, "I won't say that girl's name." She's like, "So-and-so, my friend is texting me saying you're going viral right now."

• 2:25:13Jocko Willink?

  Going what?

• 2:25:14Speaker 01

  Viral right now. I was like, "You should probably watch the video," told my wife. So she watched it and she's like, "You need to take this down. We're gonna get in trouble. Take it down." And I was like, "Babe, it's already up." Like, you can't, you can't put the lid back on the bottle. And even if I could, I don't know if I'd want to. And so this is me saying this in this moment. I was like, "I really believe in what I said in that video. Like, I feel very strongly about it."

• 2:25:42Speaker 01

  And so my wife then started feeling the gravity of what I had just done, started stressing out. And so then I went downstairs and was sitting on the couch and was just kind of thinking. And then all my friends started texting me. One of my friends from Marsoc actually texted me and said, "Stu, everything you said in that video is correct, but it's gonna come at way too high of a personal cost and you're not gonna change anything." He's like, "Take it down." And I told him, I was like, "No, this is the hell I'm willing to die on. I'm not taking it down." And then I had one of my instructors from AITV who texted me. It was Gunny, it was a section leader, awesome dude. He's like, "Hey, sir, I watched your video and I agree with everything in your video, but our adversaries could take this video and use it against us, and I think you need to think about that, and I think you should take it down."

• 2:26:28Speaker 01

  And to him, I said, "You know, there's probably even some truth to that, but if we can't fix internally what we're doing right now with this conversation that I'm trying to start, then it's all for nothing." And so I guess those are all three true stories where it was like, you know, from my loved ones, from my friends, from people that worked for me. Where, oh, I mean, and there's like 10 other examples, right? So my phone blew up that night. No one, none of them in my chain of command contacted me that night. So just people that knew me. And, you know, I've never...

• 2:27:03Speaker 01

  My wife and I never like slept in separate rooms, even when we were angry like early in my marriage. I was like, I'm never, you're never making me sleep on the couch, right? Like this is our house, we sleep together, we're gonna deal with stuff. But like that night I slept on the couch and I bring that up just to illustrate like that's how stressful it was. It was just like.

• 2:27:19Jocko Willink?

  Was she mad just basically because you were torpedoing your own career?

• 2:27:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, like I said, I mean, we had stability like in those three years, probably for the first time in our life. And she thought she was gonna be there. I had just taken a battalion commander's seat, so she knew I was gonna be there for at least another two years. And I only had a year after that till retirement. So she knew she had another three years in North Carolina. She had just started a new job as a teacher. The kids were all in the same school for the first time. She finally had all the stability that she wanted and then this took her by complete surprise. And she knew that I probably wouldn't even have this job much longer. So every, all the stability she thought she had, I took from her.

• 2:27:57Jocko Willink?

  Some people asked me about this when it was happening and it was like on social media or something like that. And I got asked about, actually no, I think I was getting interviewed on a news channel. But you know, my response was, I guess I drew subconsciously from what Hackworth says when they say, "Oh, do you think you've become emotional?" And he's like, "Yes, I have become emotional because I've watched so many good men die." And I am emotional and that's sort of what I said. I said, "Listen, here's a, here's a guy that's been at war for 17 years, who I guarantee is lost Marines."

• 2:28:40Jocko Willink?

  And he's sitting here looking at this situation saying, "This is, I'm not, I'm not taking this anymore."

• 2:28:48Jocko Willink?

  When did you hear from your chain of command? The next day?

• 2:28:53Speaker 01

  So as a battalion commander, I was always the first one in the office. And it just so happened that that day my wife had a medical appointment and I had agreed to drop the kids off at like.

• 2:29:07Speaker 01

  At school at like, let's call it eight o'clock. And so it was like an abnormal occurrence. So that's like the one day I didn't show up early. And so, um, I take the kids. And so now I don't get into work until like eight fifteen. And as a battalion commander, you don't tell people when you're coming in. You just show up at a normal time. But I had texted my OpsO next to me, like, hey, I'm running late. And so I tell you that just to say my CO had stopped by my office and called like three times. And, and my OpsO called me and was like, hey, sir. CO was really looking for you. You should probably call him. And so when I drove in, I got in, I think at like eight thirty that morning.

• 2:29:49Speaker 01

  CO was actually walking, because his building's, well, let's say a two minute walk from my building. He was actually walking between the buildings and I saw him. And so I stuck my head out the window and was like, you wanna, you want me to come back to your place? He's like, no, just meet me in your office. So by the time I went and parked my truck and went in my office, like he was already sitting in my office waiting for me.

• 2:30:09Jocko Willink?

  And what did he say?

• 2:30:12Speaker 01

  The first conversation between Colonel Emble and I, I mean, he, he came off as actually very caring. And keep in mind, this is a career Colonel, Command Selected, that doesn't know me very well. I've never met him before my battalion command, so he's had about six weeks of meetings, maybe like seven meetings with me. So just imagine, I mean, he's another professional, I'm a professional, he doesn't know me very well. It's not like a guy I've been working for for a couple of years. Or even a guy that knows a guy that I know real well, like I don't know anyone that really knows me either. Like, we just don't know each other. We hadn't developed much of a relationship. So he's like, so he posted a video. Yes, sir. And he didn't really, there wasn't much small talk. He's like, I wish you would have talked to me first. If you would have talked to me first, we could have worked through some of this.

• 2:30:57Speaker 01

  And that's, and he's right, and that's the appropriate way. And I said, yes, sir, I understand. And he's like, I think that this video might be used to run messages that may not have been your intent. I wish you would have thought of that. And again, he was right. And then he just stated, look, there's gonna be an investigation that's gonna take place. And then based on the investigation, we're gonna determine what to do. I'd like you to go home, take the rest of the day, and I will text you on Monday with where we stand. And like, all of that was very reasonable, right? Very reasonable stuff.

• 2:31:31Jocko Willink?

  Was this already like on Fox News and hitting the news outlets and all that at this point?

• 2:31:37Speaker 01

  No.

• 2:31:37Jocko Willink?

  So this was still sort of, you know, your Facebook friends, you know, and then like, or was it, how big was it?

• 2:31:46Speaker 01

  I mean, I think it probably had received like 10,000 shares. So, I mean, by the end of the night, it was picked up by all the major news stations. So in the morning, like, the commandant's office knew about it. I mean, everyone knew about it, but you know, it hadn't been picked up by mainstream media yet. But it does by the end of the day. But like, it wasn't like everybody knew.

• 2:32:07Jocko Willink?

  Hey, when your friend, your gunny and your wife were all like, hey dude, take, take it down.

• 2:32:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, what was the question? I mean, they, everyone knew. Yeah. And so my CO left. My XO came in and I turned over the battalion to him and then I went home.

• 2:32:31Jocko Willink?

  And then?

• 2:32:32Speaker 01

  And then when I got home, my CO called me an hour later and said, hey, I need you to come back in. I'm sorry to jerk you around. Oh, that was weird. I was like, all right. Meet me at my office? He's like, no, meet me at my office. Okay. So I meet him in his office and he just looks at me and says, and hands me a piece of paper and says, you've been relieved for cause based on a lack in trust and confidence. Do you have any questions? Yes. What do I do now? He's like, I need you to come in tomorrow. He's like, what'll probably happen is there will be an investigation and I don't think they're gonna keep you here. He's like, they'll probably move you up to Quantico.

• 2:33:13Speaker 01

  And General Alfred asked to maintain the investigation so that he can take care of you. That's what he said. I was like, okay. I'm trying to, trying to like reconcile that in my mind. And, but at the end of the day, like, I kinda knew I'd be relieved over it and I just said, okay, sir. And so I signed the piece of paper that said I'd been relieved. I walked out and I actually made a post like immediately after it's still up on my pages, my, my Facebook and LinkedIn and just, and I was very appreciative. I said, I think effective of fourteen hundred today, I've been relieved and then my command is doing exactly what I would have done. I'd like to thank them for the opportunity of getting to serve as the AITB Battalion Commander and I look forward to the next chapter, right? So very appreciative post.

• 2:34:00Jocko Willink?

  Obviously something changed for your regimental commander or somebody talked to him and said, all right, this is what we're doing.

• 2:34:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:34:05Jocko Willink?

  Uh, and by, just so everyone, just so civilians know what you're talking about, relieved of command means you just got fired.

• 2:34:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:34:10Jocko Willink?

  So you got fired and battalion command is a huge stepping stone and it's a huge responsibility.

• 2:34:16Speaker 01

  So the ramifications were I would never get promoted again. And, you know, as you work through it in your mind, I had been relieved, I'd been fired, so I knew I would never be promoted again, but I knew that there was still a potential for legal action. Right? So like best case, I am just like a disgraced lieutenant colonel or cubicle somewhere limping towards retirement. But, you know, worst case was I could be separated out via legal action. Um, and so I didn't know, it was just unknown at that time.

• 2:34:47Jocko Willink?

  How many days was it until you posted your next video?

• 2:34:50Speaker 01

  So that occurred on a Friday and then I went into, I haven't gotten into all this in the story, so this is new stuff. I went home and, you know, my wife now had kinda wrapped her head around, life was changing and she was still down for the cause at that point. So she was thinking like, maybe we go down to Florida, my parents have vacation rentals and like manage the vacation rentals. And I had had, I tried to do like a father, son days with my kids and I already had a pre-planned one with my oldest kid down on the Outer Banks. She was like, do you wanna cancel the thing with Paul, my oldest son?

• 2:35:31Speaker 01

  And I was like, no, I think I could probably use like a day away with just one of my kids. She's like, we need to talk to the boys. And I was like, alright, I was like, I don't know if I can do it tonight. I've just been fired. Why don't we, you know, give me the night? And so, went to bed. I was the, last night I actually slept with my wife, that night. Slept with my, slept in the same bed with my wife. Got up the next morning, got the three boys on the couch, and I told them, "Hey guys, your dad was fired, but I was fired for doing something that I thought was right. I wasn't fired for doing something, you know, bad or nefarious. So I want you guys to hear it from me, because your friends at school are probably gonna tell you. And, nothing is gonna change for you.

• 2:36:16Speaker 01

  You're gonna get to keep living here, and I may have to go to Quantico to work for the next three years, but you'll get to remain in school." That's what I believed at the time. So I told them that. Then I took my oldest son, and while we were out spending the day on the boat, all I was thinking about was, what do I do? And, I kinda skipped over this, to go back, when I made that post that just thanked my command, when I was on my social media, I read a public comment from one of my previous bosses. So when I was at SOI as a captain, the lieutenant colonel was my battalion commander, that he did a lot for me. He retired as an O6.

• 2:36:57Speaker 01

  He had gotten on my social media and said if Stuart Shutter was honorable, he would resign. And he didn't state that he was my previous boss, or that he was like a mentor to me. He didn't email me, he didn't text me, and I felt like, I mean, that really was like a stab in the back to me. Because a lot of general officers that are on LinkedIn, they prefer LinkedIn, not Facebook. So that's why I had a LinkedIn too. A lot of the senior officers knew who he was, and so for him to call me out like that. And so, I'm struggling with, when I'm with my kid on the boat, I'm struggling with... They relieved me without even an investigation. Like, I knew my job was at risk when I posted that video. But like, I feel like a tolerant organization would have been like, hey, we're gonna let an investigation play out.

• 2:37:39Speaker 01

  We're gonna let you sit and calm down. Obviously, this was personal, but you've broken some rules. And let's let the investigation play out and we'll see where the chips fall. Like, that's the reasonable. But they, they obviously fired me within like 12 hours.

• 2:37:52Jocko Willink?

  Were you surprised when you got relieved?

• 2:37:54Speaker 01

  I was surprised they didn't let an investigation take place. I really was. It did not, I didn't expect that. Like, when I was calculating what would happen, I thought I might be benched while an investigation took place, but I didn't think I'd be relieved immediately. But even that probably wasn't enough to push me. It was that next comment from my old boss, where then I, like, while I was sitting there with my son, it planted the seeds of, I don't know if this organization cares about me as much as I care about it. And so I just was struggling with this. And so then it came back to like, what do I want to do? Like, if, if none of them care about me, do I want to limp towards retirement for the next three years? Because that's best case. And I just came to the decision, like, no, I can't live my life like that.

• 2:38:38Speaker 01

  Like, this was never supposed to be a career. This was always supposed to be something that was fulfilling. I don't care about the money as much as other people might. Like, I really don't. Like, I'll be fine. And I thought, I need to get ahead of this. And I'm not gonna let them just dictate the terms. I'm gonna resign and I'm gonna tell them that, because I still believe in what I said. And they haven't addressed any of that. And so after I spent the whole day with my kid on Saturday, I kind of came to that conclusion Saturday night. And so then on, we slept in, out there on the beach. We had a hotel. And then on Sunday morning, I took him back to the house and I dropped him off with my wife. And I was, you know, I had been fired on Friday. So I said, hey, can I go out to the farm? I, I went out there every once in a while, just kind of like me time.

• 2:39:23Speaker 01

  And she was like, absolutely, I get it. And I went out there. So on my 50 acres, I've got two abandoned school buses that I put out there. It's kind of like trailers. And we actually, I, I leased it to a nonprofit called A Hero. And we do suicide prevention for, like, outdoor treatment for veterans. And so that's why I have it. I, I've had it. I've had retreats out there for the veterans. But when I went out there that Sunday, I essentially, on one of the school buses, set up a video. And the message of the second video was, You fired me. I don't think you care about me. I'm resigning effective immediately. I don't want any money. I don't want any benefits. And then I and I posted it and that's where, you know, it really quickly became an escalating series of events between the Marine Corps and myself.

• 2:40:10Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and you know, all this, even your original message, you were talking about what you wanted was accountability. I mean, obviously, I wrote a book called Extreme Ownership and this is the the very that's what it is, right? And that's what you're that's what you're saying. Even after this video comes out, there's still no one responding to anything in the video. And and they also did some things where they're like they put they put some uh they made some PR maneuvers on you on you saying, hey, we're gonna make sure that he gets the help that he needs, something along those lines.

• 2:40:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, so after the second video came out, that was again, this was Sunday. I was fired on Friday, so I haven't been at work yet. So it's Sunday night. Well, after I made a second video, I mean, it's 45 minute drive. I posted from my farm. It's a 45 minute drive back to my house. By the time I got back, my wife had already seen it and was very upset.

• 2:41:10Jocko Willink?

  And you hadn't pre-briefed your wife on any of this?

• 2:41:13Speaker 01

  No, that's why she was justifiably very angry. And, you know, I won't go into all the details of that, but that's where the that's where the paths started to diverge between my wife and I. And so I ended up going and staying in a motel. So I was in a Days Inn for the rest of the week and my, yes, the question you asked was they started making statements. The Marine Corps P A O office, Public Affairs Office, released a statement that was all over the media because now these videos were getting picked up. That second video that I did was the banner of Fox News. Like if you went to Foxnews.com that day, like that was the first thing was my my face on a school bus, right?

• 2:41:55Speaker 01

  And so the Marine Corps was trying to get out in front of it and they released a statement that said, we are trying to locate Lieutenant Colonel Scheller to protect himself, to protect him against himself and his family. And I was like, what? And I had my phone on me the entire time and I had even talked to my battalion XO for like 20 minutes. Like I was texting my friends and I was like, if the Marine Corps was really trying to find me, like they didn't think to text me, they didn't think to call me. And so like potentially, potentially the Public Affairs Office arm just wasn't talking to like whoever should have been calling me and just got out ahead of it first. But like the other part of it is maybe like they really just didn't care about me at all and they just put that out.

• 2:42:38Speaker 01

  But like again, I'm having all these indicators of this, like this escalating thing of like me feeling like what I said is right. All right, you should show some sympathy and they're like, no, I'm going to poke you in the chest because what you did was broke the rules. And then I'm like, well, no, come back and listen to what I'm saying like, no, you're still breaking the rules. I'm going to make it worse for you. And so like each one of these is just an example of I'm like, if they cared about me, they would have called.

• 2:43:05Jocko Willink?

  One thing that I noticed and I heard you talking about it, you know, at the end of that second video, you're getting emotional and you're like, um,

• 2:43:17Jocko Willink?

  asking for accountability and then kind of ranting against everything a little bit.

• 2:43:22Speaker 01

  No, I,

• 2:43:23Jocko Willink?

  and you say, you know, follow me and we'll bring the whole fucking system down. So you're, you know, going hard. And I heard you, I heard you later say like, yeah, I didn't choose the best words.

• 2:43:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, I appreciate asking that. So people have asked me a lot, do you regret it? Cause my life is dramatically changed, lost a lot, gained a lot. The one, the thing I've come through this with the understanding is I wouldn't change my original position or the events at all. Like I don't apologize, but there are certain ways that I delivered the message that I would absolutely go back and tweak. And the one shining example is the, we're going to bring the whole fucking system down in that second video. And even in the third video, I say a couple of things that like could have, were stripped out of context. And so, yeah, you got to understand. I mean, in that second video, like that emotion wasn't fake.

• 2:44:19Speaker 01

  Like I knew I was giving up everything, like I, I, I was terrified and I was emotional and I didn't take multiple takes. I was like one take Jay-Z, get on the mic, drop it, post it, right? Like there was no editing of that video. And so,

• 2:44:37Speaker 01

  I wish I could go back because it allowed the media to just paint me as this violent extremist. And I don't think I ever came anywhere close to that. Like, obviously, in my, I can't say obviously, in my head, I was trying to communicate that the system has centralized power, it was corrupt, and it needs to be fundamentally changed. But in the emotional outpouring of the moment, I said, I want to bring the whole fucking system down, you know, like, I was just mad. And I went back and clarified, like, in my, like, three days later in a post I put in a constitutional manner with one loud voice. But like, no one reads the follow-up, you know what I mean?

• 2:45:12Jocko Willink?

  You get that one shot.

• 2:45:14Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 2:45:14Jocko Willink?

  Especially when it comes to, like, viral type videos that are gonna get out there. No one's fault, no one's following up with that.

• 2:45:24Jocko Willink?

  You get home from that video and your wife is like, you didn't pre-brief your wife, now your wife is just like, no, this isn't, this isn't gonna happen.

• 2:45:34Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 2:45:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, and it's so, I'm probably not gonna develop much more of the story with my wife and I, but I will say, you know, I still, like, this past Christmas, after all this was done, you know, I got out on Christmas Eve. We spent, as a family, all of Christmas together. We went to a water park together. Like, I still very much love her. We are still going through a divorce. This situation was very challenging, and there's things that we both would have done differently. And there's reasons, the reasons I didn't say anything is because I knew what she would say, and again, this was very important to me. But I think, more than anything, the reason we're going through a divorce and we didn't decide to reconcile is because what this situation did was illustrate the trajectory of my life and how I'm always gonna be on the move.

• 2:46:20Speaker 01

  And I think in one comment, she summarized it with, "I just, in retirement, want to learn how to play golf, and you want to fundamentally change the government," right? Those are two very different things. And the story that I just painted you for the last 17 years, I mean, this woman has stuck by me and suffered through a lot, and like, she deserves a little bit of stability. She hasn't had it her whole adult life, and... She justifiably deserves that. And you know, she's still the mother of my children. So I will never have anything bad to say about her. There's talking about the verbiage that I would have changed. There's absolutely things I would have changed with how I handled my situation with her. You know, there's, you know, things that I still look back on and it makes me sad. But at the end of the day, you can't look back. You just gotta look forward.

• 2:47:02Speaker 01

  I've tried to do the right thing. I obviously hit some mines while moving forward, but I kept moving forward. And you know, she's still a big part of my life and so that is what it is.

• 2:47:13Jocko Willink?

  You know, I was a rebellious kid and I like was a rebellious kid. I listened to hardcore music. I didn't listen to my parents. I didn't like school. I didn't do good in school. I didn't, I was like a rebellious kid. You can just trace that streak all the way back to my birth.

• 2:47:35Jocko Willink?

  So when I look at your, your, from you, what we talked about today, from your birth on up, it's like, I don't see that streak. And then all of a sudden, it just kind of manifests itself. I get, and look, you're talking about when you're in Ramadi, you're giving away money to these locals and you're thinking, this doesn't seem like the, I'm thinking that too. Doing the same thing. I'm in Ramadi in 2006. We're forming a relationship with people. I'm thinking, okay, well, I guess this will move us in one direction, but I'm not sitting there as a obedient, you know, slave as to what I'm being told. This is what you're being told to do, do it. I always pushed back on my leadership throughout my career. Always had that rebellious streak.

• 2:48:14Jocko Willink?

  And this just kind of like, do you, do you, when you look back at your life, do you notice things along the way that are indicators that you had sort of a limit to what you would take? I mean, what's movie, movie reference? What's the movie reference where the guy is like an accountant or something? And then he just kind of loses it.

• 2:48:31Speaker 01

  Falling down.

• 2:48:32Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:48:34Jocko Willink?

  Am I right? Cause I never even saw that movie, but I remember it.

• 2:48:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, Michael Douglas.

• 2:48:37Jocko Willink?

  That's what happens, right? He's a normal guy.

• 2:48:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:48:39Jocko Willink?

  Something happens. He's not gonna take it anymore.

• 2:48:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, nothing really happened. He just reached his point in general. At the beginning, like there wasn't like.

• 2:48:47Jocko Willink?

  Any, any indicators?

• 2:48:50Speaker 02

  That was the beginning of the movie. No, not really. Yeah, everything, life, like traffic.

• 2:48:54Jocko Willink?

  So what do you think, Stu? Are you, do you see indicators in the past where you're, you're thinking like, man, I always had this in me.

• 2:49:01Speaker 01

  No, Michael Douglas basically going on a suicidal rampage. I don't think the comparison's fair.

• 2:49:07Jocko Willink?

  Again, I've seen the movie.

• 2:49:13Speaker 01

  I think. Yes, to your point, I didn't always push back. I mean, I, I started to give some examples there. With my regimental commander to kind of paint a picture of. You know, at a certain point, I started to just solidify who I was, what my values were. And it's funny. A lot of people have asked me this, which I'm surprised by the question. I've actually been surprised by a lot of the questions people give me, but one of the questions was, why now? You've been in, you were in Ramadi in oh seven, you did all this your whole life. Why now? And they were asking that question, almost implying as if there's a Democrat and that's a president. And like, I use my platform to exploit now to become popular.

• 2:49:53Speaker 01

  The truth is, I think people grow, develop an appreciation, right? As a young first lieutenant, I wanted to go serve my country. You know, when I look back on George Bush's philosophy to export democracy, that was obviously stupid. But if you ask 23 year old Stuart Scheller, or, you know, I'm watching the Marines in Fallujah, all I could see were the Marines running through Fallujah. I used to love the movie Black Hawk Down. When you watch that movie, it's, it's like it glorifies it. If you look at the operational failures in Somalia that led to that event, but like, I didn't have a deeper appreciation for that. So. I mean, the question you're asking me is like, why did I get to that moment? I had just at that point had enough education and experiences and I was in

• 2:50:36Speaker 01

  enough of a position of authority that there just wasn't many other people like me at that moment in time, willing to say what needed to be said.

• 2:50:46Jocko Willink?

  So as time goes on after this, when do they actually like arrest you? Do you get arrested, right?

• 2:50:52Speaker 01

  I do. Yeah, so I posted that second video, like a week goes by now.

• 2:50:58Jocko Willink?

  You did, you did a September 11th video too, right?

• 2:51:01Speaker 01

  Yep, I did a third video.

• 2:51:02Jocko Willink?

  And you're still not arrested yet?

• 2:51:03Speaker 01

  Nope. And I even did a fourth video in my Charlie's where I basically, after my, my second and third video was like just kind of an outpouring of emotion where my second video was very angry or sad. My third video, I was really just talking about violence and I was trying to like, take the sharp edge off the second video, but I still don't really go back to accountability. But after my third video now, all my friends are texting me and being like, dude, you're looking a little crazy, you're looking a little erratic, right?

• 2:51:30Jocko Willink?

  Damn, yeah.

• 2:51:30Speaker 01

  And so, and keep in mind, like after my second video, even though the PAO office put that message out that they were trying to find me, then when I went into work, they command directed a mental health evaluation. So my mental health was being attacked from all these different angles. And it's so hard to defend mental health because if you really are crazy, anything you say is marginalized because you're crazy, right? So it's like, you're crazy. And I'm like, no, I'm not. Well, that's what a crazy person would say, you know?

• 2:51:55Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's, that's catch 22, right? That's the book catch 22. If you're crazy, you don't think you're crazy.

• 2:52:00Speaker 01

  That's right. So, so how do you defend it? So anyway?

• 2:52:02Jocko Willink?

  So did you start wondering?

• 2:52:04Speaker 01

  You know what? You're laughing, but like when everyone tells you it, you do start to question like, you know, if everyone in this room is crazy, like what does that make me? Either I'm the only sane one, or maybe I am the crazy one. So after the third video, they actually offered me a deal, a legal deal. I could have just taken it and that would have been that, but I was like, man, there's a lot of talk of me being crazy and I didn't help myself with these two videos. I was like, I need to end and bring the message back. And so that's when I made that fourth video in my Charlie's like, General McKenzie is like, I can't think in military history where someone is so obviously culpable, like it's just clear. Like the emperor has no clothes. You have to see it.

• 2:52:47Speaker 01

  And I could go through all the details as to why I think that, but that was the fourth video. I was trying to bring the message back to accountability. And so after the fourth video is when they gave me a gag order. And just said, I mean, the gag word was crazy. I don't think I've actually released the verbiage of it, but it was like, if you talk to him and he talks to him and they say that you said that, you're going to jail. Like anything, like online chat rooms, like any email, if you communicate.

• 2:53:12Jocko Willink?

  This was because they offered you a deal, but then you made another video.

• 2:53:16Speaker 01

  That's right. And so now they didn't know what to do. Now I'm now I'm moving faster than their legal deals. I'm moving faster than the investigation and they haven't actually charged me with anything. So they're they're starting to get scared. And I don't know if scared is the right word, but they they don't know how to handle it. They don't know how to address it. There's a guy that's not taking the deals and he's still making statements and they and everything they've done up to this point hasn't been effective in stopping it.

• 2:53:39Jocko Willink?

  So they hit you with the, is this when they arrest you?

• 2:53:42Speaker 01

  No, this is after the fourth video is when they gave me a gag order. So I'm still not in jail.

• 2:53:47Jocko Willink?

  So now you're not allowed to talk to anybody?

• 2:53:48Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 2:53:49Jocko Willink?

  You're not allowed to post on social media?

• 2:53:51Speaker 01

  That's right. Not to communicate in any form.

• 2:53:54Jocko Willink?

  You're just on lockdown.

• 2:53:55Speaker 01

  I'm on lockdown.

• 2:54:00Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, a couple of points. Number one, I'm I constantly say to clients and people and friends, we don't make good decisions when we're emotional. Like, don't try. This started as a joke when I was a young enlisted guy, like, we would go out drinking and make decisions, you know? And the joke was, hey, don't make decisions. Don't make life-changing decisions. I would volunteer for platoons and do stuff like that. So this is a good example, right? You take a step back and and say, okay, where am I going to be strategically? And this is another thing I talk about all the time is taking a step back and saying, okay, how where does it? How does this play out strategic from a strategic perspective? Where am I going to end up?

• 2:54:42Jocko Willink?

  Just just things to think about, which you're clearly like, hey, here's some wording I could have changed. Here's a thing that would have helped out my relationship. So there's always things that if you can try and take a step back, they're going to be beneficial to you, almost guaranteed.

• 2:54:57Speaker 01

  The risk to that is time.

• 2:54:59Jocko Willink?

  The risk to that is time. Also, the risk to that is you can rationalize to not do anything.

• 2:55:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's right.

• 2:55:06Jocko Willink?

  You can rationalize to get to a point where you say, you know what? It's not worth it.

• 2:55:11Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 2:55:12Jocko Willink?

  And and again, is it smart to do that calculus? It probably is because my my feeling, I don't I don't know you, but my feeling is if you were to run the calculus. You would have still came to the same conclusion. You might have executed your plan a little bit differently. But it's important to, if you can, take a step back, run the calculus. So that way, the course that you plot will be the most effective course in what you're trying to do. And this is just general. You know, I've got some friends and they know who they are, who call me from time to time, super emotional, and I gotta talk them through like what the strategic perspective is, what it looks like over the long term, and, and, and how to make the next step forward. So, good, good lesson learned. And

• 2:55:59Jocko Willink?

  again, from my, from just talking to you today, I think you still would have made the same, you would come to the same conclusion, that this is something that,

• 2:56:09Jocko Willink?

  I don't want to use the word passionate, not that you're just that you are passionate about it, but you were, you were convicted. You had conviction about what you were saying. And you know, something else from my perspective in a, in an ownership and an accountability perspective, that I think people don't understand as leaders, is if you make a mistake, and you take ownership of the mistake that you've made, then what you can do is you can fix the mistake. And you can actually change things. And just because you say, hey, this was my fault, doesn't mean you necessarily

• 2:56:50Jocko Willink?

  get fired or have to resign. You know, any of these senior leaders could say, hey, this is what we thought. We're not perfect. I'm not perfect. I made a mistake. I, you know, I did that. I did that with, I, I made a, a speech coming from President Biden. If I was in President Biden's shoes, what I would have said. And it was like, hey, I made this mistake. We underma, we underestimated, that means I underestimated. That means I thought that the Afghan forces were stronger. That means I thought that the Taliban was weaker. I miss, miss assessed and miscalculated how this unfolded. Here's what we're doing to fix it. And, and this is the thing that I think a lot of leaders don't understand. When a person does that, when a leader does that,

• 2:57:35Jocko Willink?

  The, the team doesn't think, oh, you see, that's right, you were messed up. No, they think, oh, okay. Yep, he messed up, but he's humble enough to take ownership and we're gonna get it fixed and we, and we'll support him now. This is my whole freaking career was taking ownership when things went wrong. And, and so I, I, I think just again to some of these senior leaders. When you take ownership of something, it's not.

• 2:58:00Jocko Willink?

  It's a step forward. It's not a step backward. It is a true step forward. And by the way, when you blame other people or you deny, or you act like it didn't happen, that is a step backward. That's what people don't understand. That's what leaders don't understand. They don't understand that saying, well, it wasn't, it was the Afghan people's fault. It was the Afghan military's fault. That's not a step forward. It feels like one, but it's not. It's a step backward because every single other person knows. People know the truth about what's going on. They can sense it. And I think that's one of the reasons why your videos were widely shared because people thought. This guy, he, he knows what he's, he believes what he's saying and he.

• 2:58:41Jocko Willink?

  He's speaking from a perspective of truth. Like people, people saw that.

• 2:58:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:58:45Jocko Willink?

  People weren't like, oh, he's trying to blame the leadership. What's wrong with that guy? No, people are like, yeah, he's trying to blame the leadership because the leadership is wrong. And they should admit that and they should take ownership of it.

• 2:58:58Jocko Willink?

  So you get gagged. A gag order comes, then what do you, at what point do you get arrested?

• 2:59:03Speaker 01

  Right. So.

• 2:59:06Speaker 01

  I got gagged on, let's call it a Friday. I went through a Saturday, Sunday. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. So now it's going into the next weekend. And that following week on the Tuesday, Wednesday, I knew that. The Secretary of Defense, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and General McKenzie were going to be testifying to the House and the Senate.

• 2:59:29Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 2:59:30Speaker 01

  And so. I calculated if I violated the gag order, they might have a disproportional response. And that that would bring attention to the whole message that I was trying to illustrate. So I made another post that was. This one was probably my most insightful, you know, it was, it had some like insightful language in terms of, not like revolutionary insightful, but I mean, like personal attacks on people, like I attacked all the, like the last four presidents, you know, I attacked general officers. And I didn't say anything that was untrue, but like, I said some like hard stuff to hear. It wasn't very, it wasn't like a uniting message. It was just like a, a fuck you to everyone. And again, I even put in the post, I'm ready to go to jail.

• 3:00:15Speaker 01

  But before I made the post, I read the entire UCMJ manual for courts martial. And so I knew what the requirements were to send me to jail. And quite honestly, I didn't think that they had the criteria to send me to jail. I was kind of prepared to go to jail, but I didn't think that they had the legal ability to do so for violating a gag order that I thought was illegal. And so that was the only time I violated the gag order, was that one time. And then I showed up at zero eight on Monday and they had PMO waiting for me and they sent me to jail. And the way they did it was they wrote on the document that I was a flight risk, which was like just an outward lie. I showed up at zero eight on Monday, right? I'd been to work every day, on time, the full time, answering

• 3:00:59Speaker 01

  every phone call. So like, it's just a lie. And no one will be held accountable for that. But that was what it was. And got to jail that Monday morning. And, but my calculation was correct. All the generals had to answer questions, to include the secretary of defense about why I was in jail, because I went to jail on that Monday. And they started their testimony on Tuesday and Wednesday. And then I was out, you know, six days out. I was a total of nine days.

• 3:01:21Jocko Willink?

  So you end up getting charged with Article 88 contempt toward officials, Article 89 disrespect towards superior commissioned officers, Article 90 willfully disobeying superior commissioned officers, Article 92 dereliction in the performance of duties, Article 92 failure to obey order or regulation, Article 133 conduct unbecoming on officer and a gentleman.

• 3:01:50Jocko Willink?

  How long did it take for that trial process to come about?

• 3:01:54Speaker 01

  Usually it takes months. They did mine five days after I got out of jail.

• 3:02:01Jocko Willink?

  So you spent six, nine days in jail?

• 3:02:03Speaker 01

  Nine days in jail.

• 3:02:04Jocko Willink?

  And what were you doing in jail? Just sitting there?

• 3:02:06Speaker 01

  Yeah. I was in a solitary cell. I honestly, all I did was write. So the first two days I didn't have any, any writing gear or books. And then by like day three, my lawyer was able to drop off like all these legal pads, pens, books, and he gave me my command investigation that just had, I mean, we can get into that if we want, but I mean, all these statements from these other officers that just like, were just lies, straight up personal attacks. And so I was like writing on the legal.

• 3:02:38Jocko Willink?

  Just example of like, oh, he showed up late to work, that kind of thing?

• 3:02:41Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. So he was smiling in his, in his command photo. We don't smile in command photos. I knew I didn't like him when he, when I saw that photo.

• 3:02:52Speaker 01

  Another one, another one. This one guy.

• 3:02:55Jocko Willink?

  They use that in a court of law against you?

• 3:02:57Speaker 01

  These, these aren't like.

• 3:02:59Jocko Willink?

  I don't like people that smile either. I agree with that guy.

• 3:03:01Speaker 01

  These aren't just like, you know, side of the mouth comments. These are on statements that they sign, right? I mean, these are formal statements. This one guy, I was at the beach with his family a week previous and I went to his house for dinner two weeks previous with our families to hang out. And like when I was in that motel where like, you know, I had Miller Lite cans scattered, my life's falling apart, like I probably really could have used a friend. And he was texting me. He's like, hey Stu, how you doing, man? Just want to make sure you're all right. Is there anything we can talk about? Like, why are you doing this? He then screenshotted those and brought them to the investigating officer unsolicited to say, look, I was trying to figure out what his motives are. Like this Stu Scheller is just a fucking nefarious character. Should have never been a battalion commander. And I'm like. Who does that? Like, what man does that?

• 3:03:47Jocko Willink?

  Blood in the water. There's blood in the water, man. Sharks are gonna pounce.

• 3:03:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, but they didn't realize that I wasn't, you know, yeah.

• 3:03:56Jocko Willink?

  So you end up going to trial and this trial, the judge you said, looked at your record and was like, hey, well, where'd this come from?

• 3:04:02Speaker 01

  The judge, I don't think wanted me to plead guilty. So it wasn't, you know, all those charges you read off and there's like all these findings of facts. The only choice, there was only one choice. Accept guilty for all of them at special court martial or plead not guilty to all of them in general. Like, so to get in the weeds about what any of them said, it was almost irrelevant.

• 3:04:24Speaker 01

  And so.

• 3:04:24Jocko Willink?

  So if you'd have done not, not guilty, what would have happened?

• 3:04:26Speaker 01

  I'd have gone to general court martial and I'd have remained in jail for another four or five months while they prepared, on pre-trial, while they prepared the general court martial procedure. And then I would have gone and tried to plead not guilty to all of them at general.

• 3:04:38Jocko Willink?

  Check. And then you, you pled guilty to all of them?

• 3:04:42Speaker 01

  Again, there's no like, I want to plead guilty to these two and not these three. Is it, is it, there's no point even looking at the details of them. It was, do you plead guilty to all of this? You maybe need to read it, Stu. Do you plead guilty to all of this at special misdemeanor? Yeah, you get a, the lowest characterization, characterization of discharge is general under honorable, which they'll determine later. Or you go to general, plead not guilty. And if you get found guilty of one of any of these, it's a felony and you'll get dishonorable. And you'll sit in here for another four months. And I'll tell you what, even with that choice, I thought very strongly about doing the general.

• 3:05:19Jocko Willink?

  I was gonna say, bro, you're at this point.

• 3:05:22Speaker 01

  I know.

• 3:05:22Jocko Willink?

  God, I'm kind of surprised.

• 3:05:24Speaker 01

  I know, I almost did. And I think, and to the judge's, you know, sentiment, I really think I could have won. But you gotta, what I asked myself was, what's the most important thing? The most important thing, the reason I gave all of this up was not to beat them. It was to preserve the message of accountability. And if I felt deep inside that I had broken some of the rules for me to beat them based on undue command influence and legal loophole, I felt like would have marginalized my message of accountability. And for me to plead guilty for breaking the rules and then look at them and say, look, I'm not apologizing, but I'm accepting accountability. I felt it strengthened my message and it also expedited my exit so that I could come on, you know, Jocko's podcast and talk about how General McKenzie needs to be fired. Right?

• 3:06:09Speaker 01

  So for all those reasons, again, I it made more sense to plead guilty.

• 3:06:13Jocko Willink?

  And that so that was kind of almost anticlimactic.

• 3:06:17Speaker 01

  A little bit. You I'll tell you, though, there was some drama. And so, like I said, the fastest court martial from exit of jail and agreement in the history of the Marine Corps. Also, one of those charges, like 88, I think I was the first officer charged since Vietnam. Like they were just like throwing stuff on the wall. Right? But they released the command investigation with all those like, it's just crazy things that those officers said to the media with my medical investigation so that selective articles could be written about like how I was a violent extremist. I mean, it was just blatantly false stuff. Like I'm still on the fence of whether I should sue for libel or just like move forward. But so once they leaked that investigation, to your point, the judge, the judge was like, if that's true, like this is criminal, like those people should be brought to the court,

• 3:07:02Speaker 01

  not Lieutenant Colonel Scheller. And so the Marine Corps was like forced to do another command investigation on the leaked command investigation. So they did another command investigation. And so then I asked for that other command investigation because it had to do with me. And they're like, no, you got to go through Freedom of Information Act. I was like, let me get this straight. So you had an investigation that was about me that you leaked through the improper channels. You were scolded by the judge. You created a new investigation still about me about your improper handling. And the only way for me to get that is to go through the problem, the proper Freedom of Information Act, like that's correct. And I was like, ah, you know, this is like.

• 3:07:37Jocko Willink?

  Have you done that?

• 3:07:38Speaker 01

  No, I haven't.

• 3:07:39Jocko Willink?

  Have you requested it?

• 3:07:39Speaker 01

  I haven't ever requested it.

• 3:07:40Jocko Willink?

  Come on, man.

• 3:07:41Speaker 01

  I know. It's probably already burned to the ground, I'll be honest with you. But I probably will. So going back, I probably will sue for libel, this one publication. And I'll probably Freedom of Information Act add to that libel suit. But like right now, the most important thing again is the message and making sure that people understand. I mean, there was fundamental breakdowns that are not being addressed apolitically. That's what I want to change. So like, do I have grievances that I can legally pursue? Sure. But that's, like I said earlier, like money is really not that important to me. So we'll figure it out.

• 3:08:11Jocko Willink?

  And so you, part of your, part of the deal was you resigned and you were done. You're done in the Marine Corps.

• 3:08:17Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 3:08:18Jocko Willink?

  At seventeen years, maybe eighteen years now?

• 3:08:20Speaker 01

  Seventeen.

• 3:08:21Jocko Willink?

  Seventeen years.

• 3:08:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:08:22Jocko Willink?

  And then you got out, what, just before Christmas?

• 3:08:26Speaker 01

  Christmas Eve.

• 3:08:27Jocko Willink?

  Christmas Eve.

• 3:08:27Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 3:08:28Jocko Willink?

  That was it.

• 3:08:28Speaker 01

  That was it.

• 3:08:30Jocko Willink?

  Where were you when you were out? What was that night like?

• 3:08:35Speaker 01

  Uh, my family came down, actually. Yeah. So I hung out with my family, just acted like it wasn't happening. Honestly, I don't even think it's hit me because right now, you know, someone that's listening to the show, we're taping this in early January. But after Christmas with my family, then I've started doing all these media shows because I've been on a gag order for the last four months. So I don't think the reality of it has actually hit me yet.

• 3:08:56Jocko Willink?

  Mm-hmm.

• 3:08:56Speaker 01

  It's gonna come when I'm done doing all this media and I'm sitting in my place by myself with nothing to do. That's probably when it's gonna be like, oh shit. But I've, I've, I've stayed too busy for it to be real yet.

• 3:09:10Jocko Willink?

  So what's, so here you are.

• 3:09:11Speaker 01

  Here I am.

• 3:09:12Jocko Willink?

  I mean, this is only freaking three weeks ago.

• 3:09:15Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 3:09:16Jocko Willink?

  What's next? What are you doing?

• 3:09:18Speaker 01

  So I just wanna...

• 3:09:20Jocko Willink?

  What's the new mission?

• 3:09:21Speaker 01

  So I want to illustrate like why I'm so upset with General McKenzie. And so I'm gonna just take a second and talk about that and then I'll, then I'll answer your question through that. So the reason I, in that fourth video, tried to prefer charges against General McKenzie, which is my legal right to do.

• 3:09:35Jocko Willink?

  Explain, I didn't touch on that. Explain what you did. You, explain what you did there.

• 3:09:39Speaker 01

  In the manual for court marshals, Rule 137 clearly states that any member of the UCMJ can prefer charges against another member in the UCMJ. Now, that when you prefer, that means that charge sheet has to be routed up to the first general officer with general court martial authority. Sometimes it's at the colonel level. And so the strategy there was, I knew General Alfred was trying to hold me accountable. I knew he would never have the courage to refer charges from my preferal, but then he would have to publicly declare that he wasn't going to seek accountability against the general and he was seeking accountability against me. So I was using that tactic to illustrate the hypocrisy of the system. But they denied me the ability to even route it, which is my legal right to do.

• 3:10:24Speaker 01

  I mean, it was just, I mean, illegal in my opinion, but it doesn't matter. So they don't allow me to do that. The reason I was trying to prefer those charges is because General McKenzie is the CENTCOM Combatant Commander. He works directly for the Secretary of Defense, who works directly for the President. What happened was, in, you know, the, the story you gave in the withdrawal from Afghanistan, General McKenzie, and I know the operational planners that developed the plan for the withdrawal, they submitted to the National Security Council four or five plans. Most of them included keeping Bagram Air Base. But they needed 2,500 troops. If you go and watch General McKenzie's testimony on the backside, he says, "I tried to say that we needed 2,500 troops." Why that's relevant is because they determined that that number was what was capable of

• 3:11:08Speaker 01

  maintaining Bagram Air Base. When President Biden and the National Security Council said, "No, you gotta go below 2,500", then General McKenzie was at a critical moment, right? So as a, as the senior military advisor, you have a responsibility to convince your boss why you should execute your plan. Now, you can't force your boss to do that, but every staff officer knows how to get, I mean, as an operations officer, there's an art to making sure that my boss does the plan that I think is best, because I know better than he does in a lot of ways. So it's, it's artful, but he failed to do that. So once he failed to do that, then he looked at the restraints that were imposed upon his plan. If he didn't feel like he could execute the plan effectively without undue loss of life, he had a moral obligation to resign. He did not do that.

• 3:11:52Speaker 01

  Once he didn't resign, at that point... He is accountable. He doesn't get to go back after the fact and say, no, I told the President of the National Security Council 2500 and they didn't listen to me. It doesn't matter. You didn't convince him and you didn't resign. You're the senior military advisor. So for all those reasons, I think General McKenzie should be held accountable. Right now, just as I've started this media tour, 72 hours ago, the White House released that General McKenzie was being replaced in the spring by a new CENTCOM combatant commander. And I don't think it's a coincidence, to be completely honest with you, because I've been hitting the media pretty hard. That guy, he's going to undermine his whole career if he doesn't raise his hand and say he should be accountable before he exits. So that's one thing. I think the operational level of war, which is at the combatant commander

• 3:12:35Speaker 01

  level, linked to the political policy strategic level of war, which is the National Security Council executive branch, is where we're failing wars. It's where we failed Vietnam. It's where we failed the GWOT generation. And how you do that is you hold leaders accountable at that level. And right now, Congress and the executive branch aren't holding up their end of the bargain. I'll give an example of what I think is wrong with Congress. When I went to, I placed myself in jail in a lot of ways to illustrate something. And I underestimated, I guess I overestimated Congress's ability to do anything. Because bipartisan took turns with their sound bites of anger about the failed Afghanistan withdrawal. And then guess

• 3:13:15Speaker 01

  what? Nothing. Congress's, given by the founding fathers, leverage over the DOD is the budget. And what was not in the news is six days previous, they unanimously approved a $740 billion 22 fiscal year budget. And not one of those vocally outraged congressional representatives said, hey, you're asking for $740 billion? Who's accountable for the Afghanistan withdrawal? Show me metrics of effectiveness for the 21 budget. Because to do that would require courage. To do that would get spun as potentially anti-military and that would go against self-preservation. So what do I want going forward? I want the operational level of war, combatant commanders to start being held accountable in the same

• 3:13:57Speaker 01

  manner that they were in World War II. And look at how many generals Lincoln fired before he got to Grant. And Grant wasn't a good tactician, but he had operational foresight. He knew how to stick with it.

• 3:14:10Speaker 01

  The second thing I think is we need leaders, not politicians. So I've got a website, AuthenticAmericans.com, where you can see some of my political views, but ultimately, it's where you can support me. And I've also got a second website, VotesForVets.org. Because I think we need leaders, not politicians, I've, in the four months that I've been on a gag war, gone out and organized a bunch of people running in the 22 race. So I've got five senators and 20 congressional representatives that all, I think, embody the leadership and courage that we need in politics. And some of them, I think, have a real good shot at winning. Some of them are more of a long shot. But it's, I have the ability right now at the platform I've built to raise money, bring in media to some of these races, bring in different organizations to support some of these leaders that I think

• 3:14:53Speaker 01

  need to be up in DC.

• 3:14:56Jocko Willink?

  And is that also linked through AuthenticAmericans.com for the, for the people that are running, for the vets that are running?

• 3:15:03Speaker 01

  Votes for Vets.

• 3:15:04Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 3:15:05Speaker 01

  Number four. So VotesForVets.org is really where you can see most of those candidates. My website, AuthenticAmericans, really, you can donate to the Disabled Veterans PAC through AuthenticAmericans, and that money ultimately will go to support the coalition that I've built. But I, they're, they're separate. AuthenticAmericans is really my brand and my thinking. And I don't, I'm not going to run, most likely, in the 22 race. I plan to just support these other veterans. I've been through a lot. Like I said, I, I think I need to stabilize a little bit and reassess the landscape before just continuing to sprint. But I do think, you know, my whole life has been America. I love America, and I love foreign diplomacy. And I think the federal politics game is where you really

• 3:15:47Speaker 01

  make that, those changes. And so I, I see myself running for something, but it probably won't be till 24-ish.

• 3:15:52Jocko Willink?

  So that's what you're going to do? You're planning to go into politics right now? In, in the future?

• 3:15:57Speaker 01

  In the future. I mean, right now, I'm probably going to write a book. Probably going to, you know, figure out where my house is going to be at. So, you know, I'm going to spend the next couple of years getting my foundation stable until I see something that I think makes sense.

• 3:16:17Jocko Willink?

  It's a lot going on, man.

• 3:16:18Speaker 01

  There's a lot going on, man.

• 3:16:19Jocko Willink?

  I can't believe you only got out a month ago.

• 3:16:23Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 3:16:23Jocko Willink?

  That's kinda crazy. It seemed like a longer time had passed.

• 3:16:31Jocko Willink?

  You're on social media.

• 3:16:34Jocko Willink?

  You're on Facebook, on Instagram, on Twitter.

• 3:16:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, if you go to my website, all my social media is linked at the bottom. So if you just go to AuthenticAmericans.com, you can find all my pages.

• 3:16:42Jocko Willink?

  It's all at Stuart Scheller, S-C-H-E-L-L-E-R.

• 3:16:49Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, seems like we're at a decent place to close it out. It's been over three hours. Echo Charles?

• 3:16:55Speaker 02

  Yes, sir.

• 3:16:56Jocko Willink?

  Any questions?

• 3:16:57Speaker 02

  I don't. Actually, I was gonna say, dude, why don't you like write a book or something? You are gonna, so.

• 3:17:03Speaker 01

  There you go. Yeah, I've been writing all these social media posts and this one guy commented to me the other day, he's like, I think he was trying to be nice. He was like, hey, Stu, have you ever thought about writing a book instead of slowly writing a book over Facebook?

• 3:17:16Jocko Willink?

  Facebook seems to be like your primary.

• 3:17:19Speaker 01

  Well, the reason, I mean Instagram and like TikTok are really the new generation, but Facebook allows long written posts. And so really, now that if you look at it, LinkedIn has a smaller character limit. And so what I've done now is it's the same post on Facebook and LinkedIn. So really, the LinkedIn character limit is like the exact character limit of all of my posts. Cause I usually write like two pages and then I try to pare them down for the character limit. But it just goes to, I think the attention span of our current generation. Like it has to be in digestible chunks. You know, you get one of your books and it's a lot harder to get them to digest. But if you hit them with like five posts separated by three days, you got, I think, a much higher chance of getting them to digest some of that.

• 3:17:59Jocko Willink?

  What are you hearing from the Marine Corps right now?

• 3:18:02Speaker 01

  They've gone calm silent, right? They have, a lot of articles have been written on me since I got out and started doing this media. And the same statement is, we're not gonna comment on a civilian that used to serve in the Marine Corps, right? So they've got like one comment that's, we're not gonna comment about it. And so we'll see though. I'm hitting them with a lot of media, so that might change. But like you said, it's only been like one week since post-Christmas they've been back, so who knows?

• 3:18:25Jocko Willink?

  What do you, what about your friends in the Marine Corps? What are they saying?

• 3:18:28Speaker 01

  Nothing. I mean, the, the lieutenant colonels that were closest to me in the investigation that I've made, I've gone on a couple of interviews and just illustrated what they said. They've obviously gone calm silent. All these other guys that I know have come online and been like, that's bullshit that they did that. And so I think they're probably having a hard time kind of reconciling what they did. At least I would if I were them. I mean, I can't speak for them. But I can say I've had a lot of guys speak up and say, I can't believe they did that. Like, that's so snake in the grass-ish.

• 3:18:55Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I mean, um, you said you've listened to this podcast a little bit. I, I am a huge fan of the Marine Corps. In fact, my, my family says that whenever I talk about the Marine Corps, I have a quote. And they'll joke about it. I say, the Marine Corps is freaking squared away. That's what I tell. You know, for whatever reason, I'm with my family and the Marine Corps comes up, I'll be like, the Marine Corps is freaking squared away. And it's the truth. I, I love the Marine Corps, uh, worked alongside the Marine Corps. Pretty much my whole career and just, I think the Marine Corps is outstanding and. This is, um, this is rough. It's rough to watch this unfold.

• 3:19:30Speaker 01

  Well, to be clear, I love the Marine Corps and I think the Marine Corps is pretty squared away, but that comes from. You know, the individual is such a high caliber and, uh, person holistically in the Marine Corps. The problem is the centralization of power over time and it kind of puts the blinders on. So there's some fundamental things that need to be addressed, but everything that I'm doing is not from contempt or, or hate. It's from a place of love. I have, I hold high regard for the Marines and, and I still think highly of them.

• 3:19:59Speaker 02

  Hold on. Tell you what you do. You take that, that 65-page draft that you had that got rejected. And then what'd you, what'd you cut it down to 30?

• 3:20:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:20:07Speaker 02

  So that other 35 pages, that's what you put in your book.

• 3:20:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, there you go.

• 3:20:11Speaker 02

  We all kind of want to hear about that.

• 3:20:13Speaker 01

  There you go. Yeah.

• 3:20:15Jocko Willink?

  Right on. Stu, you got any closing thoughts before we, uh, shut it down?

• 3:20:19Speaker 01

  Now, I'll just echo to your audience, as I watched my saga unfold in the media, the mainstream media is so polarized right now, it was very hard to get a true assessment of like how people even felt watching the news because it almost felt like people were taking my statements and trying to fit them into whatever their narrative was. And shows like yours, podcasts like yours, YouTube channels, I was actually getting much more accurate feedback from what people thought than mainstream media. So I really believe going forward, if the mainstream media can't figure out how to reconcile kind of their own polarized views, that platforms like yours are even more important. So I just encourage you to continue the good work, brother.

• 3:21:01Jocko Willink?

  Well, I will. And there's recently, uh, some information that came out about Joe Rogan, and he's just annihilating the mainstream media, which is awesome. It's just total destruction. I mean, maybe two, three, four times what the mainstream media has for listeners, Rogan has. So, and, and he's one of, you know, he's the leader, he's the, the head of the pack, but there's a lot of other, another, a lot of other people out there that are doing the same thing, trying to get the word out and trying to talk in a nuanced way about things. And, you know, you're a perfect example of a guy that's going to get interviewed and have, they're, they're going to interview with questions for soundbites that they can

• 3:21:45Jocko Willink?

  make headlines that the people will click. That's their goal. And so, you know, having you on here to actually give your perspective, your full perspective, say whatever you want, like that's the goal. So people can actually hear and understand where you're coming from. And I think that's important.

• 3:22:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:22:03Jocko Willink?

  Well, uh, thanks for coming on, man. Appreciate it. Thanks for traveling all the way out here. I know you, uh, never made it to Camp Pendleton or 29 Palms for it to be stationed, but you finally got to visit San Diego at least for a little bit. Thanks for sharing your story. Thanks for sharing your concerns. Thanks for sharing your lessons learned.

• 3:22:24Jocko Willink?

  And I know what you did and what you're doing is not the easiest path. But you're standing by what you believe to be right and what I believe to be right. Which is people need to take ownership when things happen. And that is commendable.

• 3:22:42Jocko Willink?

  And I hope that despite the negative impacts that this has had on you, on your life, I hope it eventually has a positive impact for the Marine Corps, for the military at large, and of course, for America. And on top of all that, man, thanks for your service.

• 3:23:00Speaker 01

  Absolutely. Yeah, hey, a year down the road, bring me back on the show. We'll see where I'm at.

• 3:23:05Jocko Willink?

  Awesome, man. Thank you.

• 3:23:09Jocko Willink?

  And with that, Stuart Scheller has left the building. Definitely appreciate him coming on. An interesting

• 3:23:20Jocko Willink?

  journey that he's been on.

• 3:23:23Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, just thinking about some of the stuff that he talked about. Especially from, you know, at the end, start talking about the the political ramifications of things that happen. And again, these are all things that I talked about these things in Leadership Strategy and Tactics, right? You give up your influence. But at the same time, like David Hackworth, just get to that point where you're not going to take it anymore. You know, when he, when he was talking about Mackenzie, one thing that's interesting is he

• 3:23:56Jocko Willink?

  and I just thought of this as right, right as Stu left, but you know, he mentioned that

• 3:24:04Jocko Willink?

  you're in that position, the president says no to your plan, then it's your duty to turn in your rank. And that is one way of looking at it for sure. But also, you know, the other way, and I talk about this in Leadership Strategy and Tactics. That's one thing to do, or is it your duty to mitigate the risk of the plan that's being utilized? That's another way to look at it as well. And, but here's where Either of those two options, here's the, the point that I think is important. And this is, Stu would agree with this.

• 3:24:43Jocko Willink?

  The outcome you own, that, that's the difference. This is something that, you know, when Napoleon said, if you, if you follow orders, even if you know they're wrong, and you follow orders, you're culpable. So that's the point. So where I might disagree with Stu that it's the duty of someone to turn in their rank. If they can't convince their boss, or turn in their, resign from their job if they can't convince their boss. That, that is one way of looking at it. I would say that it's your duty to execute the plan to the best of your ability. And then take ownership of the fact that you didn't, weren't able to convince your boss.

• 3:25:24Jocko Willink?

  Take ownership of the fact that the plan that executed was one that you agreed to execute, and you did, and it failed, and it's your fault.

• 3:25:33Jocko Willink?

  So just to, again, I'm sure, you know, we'll be able to talk about this some more in the future, but I, I wanted to, as I was walking back upstairs after, after walking out, Stu, just thinking about that fact of, look, it, again, one way to say it is it's your duty to turn in your rank. In my opinion, it's your duty to either turn in your rank, or take ownership of the plan, and take ownership of the outcome of the plan. That's what you do. So, a little nuance on that. But, uh, appreciate him coming on. And again, trying to, trying to be able to allow someone to share their entire perspective. So,

• 3:26:19Jocko Willink?

  he's trying to do the right thing. We're all trying to do the right thing. Yep. We should be trying to do the right thing. I think so too, yeah. And I think that starts with, you know, improving ourselves. Yes. Trying to do the right things in our own world. It's true. Yeah. Seems like something we all should be doing. Yes. Echo Charles, any recommendations on how we might do that?

• 3:26:39Speaker 02

  Yes, I, I will say, well, okay, so my recommendations are,

• 3:26:45Speaker 02

  But there's these four, there's four things. There's actually eight, but these four things and they're divided into two each one. Right. This is as far as recommendations to do to improve yourself. So you have your relationships, these two kinds of relationships, in my opinion.

• 3:27:00Speaker 02

  Or that can be categorized, I think. Uh, there's your health and capability. Two things. Um, your money and what you do with your time and your worldview and spirituality. The four things, essentially.

• 3:27:19Speaker 02

  So you want to improve that. If you feel like you're lacking in any one of those,

• 3:27:25Speaker 02

  pay attention to it. Try to improve it. Good news about the, about that, about this whole thing. Good news. We have things that'll help you improve all these things.

• 3:27:35Jocko Willink?

  That's a good, that's a good thing.

• 3:27:36Speaker 02

  Let's start with the physical. Actually, the physical part of it, I think is, is a big one, you know, and so.

• 3:27:41Jocko Willink?

  Well, you once said early on this particular podcast.

• 3:27:44Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 3:27:45Jocko Willink?

  That

• 3:27:47Jocko Willink?

  the physical one will positively influence all of them.

• 3:27:50Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 3:27:50Jocko Willink?

  And factually.

• 3:27:51Speaker 02

  Factually. And what I didn't say, which is equally is true, the physical one will negatively impact all of them.

• 3:27:58Jocko Willink?

  Oh, look at that.

• 3:27:59Speaker 02

  Let it slide. I'm telling you.

• 3:28:01Jocko Willink?

  I actually wrote about both those things in leadership. Oh, no, in the Discipline equals Freedom field manual.

• 3:28:06Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. And, you know, we, we all heard the, hey, if you don't have your health, you don't have anything like, you know, like that whole thing. I mean, yeah, think about it. Like if you're like, okay, let's say you have the best, you just landed the best job. And it pays a lot and you love doing it.

• 3:28:19Jocko Willink?

  But you can't walk up a flight of stairs.

• 3:28:20Speaker 02

  Can't walk the, up the, or you now are gonna, are at risk of XYZ terminal diseases. Yeah.

• 3:28:30Jocko Willink?

  No one takes that.

• 3:28:31Speaker 02

  Yeah. That's not a good situation regardless of how much money you're making. Or what if you have great, great relationships? Intimate family, friends, great. But you neglected your health. Now you're on the path to demise. Does that help your relationships?

• 3:28:47Jocko Willink?

  No.

• 3:28:47Speaker 02

  Does it hurt your relationship? Oh, yeah. Everybody's sad, including you, by the way. Either way, you see where I'm going with this. All right. So let's take care of our physical health. Let's improve our physical health.

• 3:28:55Jocko Willink?

  I like it.

• 3:28:56Speaker 02

  Never too late to start, in my opinion. Well. After you're dead, a little bit too late, but as long as we're listening to this, we're alive and we're doing it. Uh, good news, we have some supplementation to help you on this path. Physical and mental, boom, here we go. Okay, so a big one that I actually.

• 3:29:17Speaker 02

  I don't want to say I didn't pay attention to it because I do take it every day, but it just sort of just you just take it as a vitamin D3. That's immunity. That's all. It's a lot of things.

• 3:29:26Jocko Willink?

  That's a big one.

• 3:29:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:29:27Jocko Willink?

  I feel like when I got misrona.

• 3:29:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:29:30Jocko Willink?

  No factor, really, partially because of vitamin D. I mean, I'm thinking.

• 3:29:34Speaker 02

  So I'm going to give you, um, I have the exact same story. So yeah, the first time we caught it, that was last 2020, right? I here's, I'll tell you, I don't know. I didn't test positive technically, but here, look, we went. End of 2020, right? That's when we got it. Yeah. No symptoms at all.

• 3:29:55Speaker 02

  Not even like the, actually, I don't want to say no, I lost my sense of smell.

• 3:29:59Jocko Willink?

  Right.

• 3:30:00Speaker 02

  That's it. No fever, no cough, no cough.

• 3:30:04Jocko Willink?

  No fever, no cough, no temperature, no factor.

• 3:30:07Speaker 02

  Didn't miss a workout, nothing.

• 3:30:10Jocko Willink?

  My workouts, as I reviewed, I was noticed that my workouts were a little bit weaker than normal, but I just thought I was overtraining or something like this.

• 3:30:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, you have a bad day.

• 3:30:19Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, no factor.

• 3:30:20Speaker 02

  And then, uh, yeah, boom, right? Well, they say if you have a fever, you shouldn't work out. You can have a cold, but if you don't have a fever, you still work out.

• 3:30:28Jocko Willink?

  Check.

• 3:30:28Speaker 02

  Your body will still like respond correctly. That's what I hear. I don't know. So, so this. Kind of recently, we'll say an undisclosed time, um, members of my family. Took a coronavirus test, tested positive. So took the test, no quarantine. There's very many good reasons to believe that I, whatever they had, that my family member had, I got it too. Good reasons, believe I'm not going to go into how or why, all this stuff. The next day after that, the results come back positive, right? For my family members.

• 3:31:05Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 3:31:05Speaker 02

  Test positive. Same deal. Of course, I got it. I had to have got it. Technically, I didn't go take a test and test positive. So I don't know. Full disclosure. So again, no symptoms.

• 3:31:14Jocko Willink?

  No symptoms, no fever, no cough.

• 3:31:16Speaker 02

  Fever.

• 3:31:16Jocko Willink?

  No factor.

• 3:31:17Speaker 02

  No cough, no factor. In fact, so technically I got coronavirus on paper. This is what I got. Not in real life, not in the field. There was no coronavirus to be seen or heard or felt. Anything. It was only on paper. I attribute that to, I think, anyway, the care that I took of my immunity. Vitamin D3.

• 3:31:39Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 3:31:39Speaker 02

  Cold war, by the way. Cold war isn't every day. Cold war is like if you see something on the horizon.

• 3:31:44Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 3:31:44Speaker 02

  Boom, cold war all day. Oh, yeah.

• 3:31:46Jocko Willink?

  Preemptive strike on that.

• 3:31:48Speaker 02

  Yes, sir.

• 3:31:49Jocko Willink?

  Savagery.

• 3:31:49Speaker 02

  Yep. So we got all that. Jaco Fuel, Cold War, Vitamin D3. We've got stuff for your joints, joint warfare. You know, it's a theme. Everything is war against this bad stuff.

• 3:31:59Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's right.

• 3:32:00Speaker 02

  Cause that's kind of what it is.

• 3:32:01Jocko Willink?

  Theme there, isn't there? Surprisingly enough, our theme is war. War against weakness, war against disease.

• 3:32:08Speaker 02

  Or robots.

• 3:32:09Jocko Willink?

  War against robots, by the way.

• 3:32:10Speaker 02

  Just in case. Actually, we like robots from time to time. Nonetheless, okay, also, if you like energy drinks, or if you would like energy drinks, but you don't want the health, the ramifications that some traditional energy drinks provide, for lack of a better term, we got something for you too. Discipline go. Energy drink, all healthy.

• 3:32:30Jocko Willink?

  So good.

• 3:32:31Speaker 02

  No preservatives, all natural, no sugar.

• 3:32:35Jocko Willink?

  All natural.

• 3:32:36Speaker 02

  All natural.

• 3:32:36Jocko Willink?

  Monk fruit.

• 3:32:37Speaker 02

  All natural.

• 3:32:38Jocko Willink?

  Vitamin, vitamin B12, vitamin B6.

• 3:32:42Speaker 02

  Electrolytes.

• 3:32:43Jocko Willink?

  So good for you.

• 3:32:44Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 3:32:44Jocko Willink?

  Only 95 milligrams of caffeine, enough to get a little.

• 3:32:47Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 3:32:48Jocko Willink?

  But not enough to give you the.

• 3:32:51Speaker 02

  Exactly right. So if you're on this path and you're down for an energy drink scenario, this is 100% the one. It'll keep you on the path, not off. You drink a bad energy drinks, you're kind of off the path, let's face it. Not this one. Boom, on the path.

• 3:33:05Jocko Willink?

  Don't forget about Molk. And look, you're gonna get situations where you're like in your life where you have you're on the path. You're feeling good, you're feeling disciplined and you've just ate a freaking salad with a chicken breast. Super healthy.

• 3:33:22Speaker 02

  Oh yeah, hell yeah.

• 3:33:23Jocko Willink?

  Then you want a little something afterwards.

• 3:33:25Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 3:33:25Jocko Willink?

  We got you covered. Get a milk.

• 3:33:27Speaker 02

  Oh yeah.

• 3:33:27Jocko Willink?

  And you're you can have dessert.

• 3:33:29Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 3:33:29Jocko Willink?

  That's a hundred percent good for you.

• 3:33:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, so you so we had a scenario.

• 3:33:34Jocko Willink?

  Mm hmm.

• 3:33:35Speaker 02

  Actually, I shouldn't even say it because I kind of fell off the path a little bit. We had a scenario, a friend of a friend. Daughter birthday scenario.

• 3:33:42Jocko Willink?

  Oh, cake was involved.

• 3:33:45Speaker 02

  Big chuck and he was what he was like a cupcake, but it was like way bigger.

• 3:33:49Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 3:33:49Speaker 02

  But it wasn't as big as like a a regular sized cake.

• 3:33:53Jocko Willink?

  I don't cakes not that tempting to me because I only like the frosting.

• 3:33:57Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 3:33:58Jocko Willink?

  I'm one of those guys.

• 3:33:59Speaker 02

  Bro, the this one was a chocolate.

• 3:34:01Jocko Willink?

  What is frosting? Do you know what it actually is? What is it?

• 3:34:03Speaker 02

  It's well, it depends on what kind, but.

• 3:34:05Jocko Willink?

  Like normal, I don't know.

• 3:34:06Speaker 02

  Butter. There's a lot of butter in it. Butter, sugar, flavoring.

• 3:34:11Jocko Willink?

  Oh.

• 3:34:11Speaker 02

  There's like a flavoring of some sort. Um.

• 3:34:14Jocko Willink?

  Like chocolate frosting is just butter, sugar and chocolate.

• 3:34:17Speaker 02

  And like cream. I think that's pretty much it.

• 3:34:19Jocko Willink?

  That's the part I like.

• 3:34:21Speaker 02

  There's a lot of.

• 3:34:21Jocko Willink?

  Cake part I don't like. That's why cupcakes not really my thing.

• 3:34:24Speaker 02

  Bro, I'm like exact opposite and there were six of them and they're huge.

• 3:34:29Jocko Willink?

  Mm hmm.

• 3:34:29Speaker 02

  So, you know, the kids eat some. It's a birthday. I get it and let it slide. Um, but bro, those big cupcakes, there's a lot of leftovers. I'm just saying, there's a lot of.

• 3:34:37Jocko Willink?

  You in ham?

• 3:34:38Speaker 02

  Bro, you know, but here's the thing that I only ate one meal that day. So technically, you know.

• 3:34:45Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 3:34:46Speaker 02

  But it was it was weakness.

• 3:34:47Jocko Willink?

  What does that do with milk, bro? So you should have had a milk.

• 3:34:51Speaker 02

  I should have had a milk. I should have had a milk. Would have fulfilled the whole.

• 3:34:54Jocko Willink?

  Totally.

• 3:34:54Speaker 02

  Thing. Here's the thing. It was an opportunity. It was like, what do you call it? When like the bad guys come in at a.

• 3:34:59Jocko Willink?

  Target of opportunity. That's what you had.

• 3:35:01Speaker 02

  Exactly right.

• 3:35:02Jocko Willink?

  Snuck up on you.

• 3:35:02Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 3:35:03Jocko Willink?

  Look at that. You got beat by a freaking cupcake.

• 3:35:04Speaker 02

  I was gonna say, bro, I totally did. I totally did. I was doing something in the kitchen and there was like a container of the leftovers.

• 3:35:11Jocko Willink?

  You know how people when you're younger, you're like gonna go out with your friends drinking? And you do like, oh, we're gonna pregame. You ever heard of that?

• 3:35:19Speaker 02

  Yes, sir.

• 3:35:20Jocko Willink?

  Hey, we're gonna pregame. Here's a little hint, a little hint for everybody. Let's say you're going to, uh, watch the UFC at your friend's house, or you're going to, you know, your wife's got a friend that has some part, you know, whatever. You're going to some unknown realm where you're not sure what's gonna be eaten. Pregame with a milk. Pregame with a milk. That way they show up. Look, they show up with, you know, pizza. And instead of eating nine pieces of pizza, you just had a milk. You're good.

• 3:35:50Speaker 02

  You're so correct.

• 3:35:51Jocko Willink?

  You're so good. Maybe have a piece, you know, we're gonna be social, eat a piece of pizza, tastes good, whatever.

• 3:35:57Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. So I'd get before, back in the day, a long time ago, I'd get, I'd order sushi, right? And, you know, sure, some people in the room don't really, aren't really into sushi. I am very much so. And I get it when I'm like, super hungry.

• 3:36:12Speaker 02

  Um, next to sushi spot is a, is a place you can get milkshake. So every once in a while, I'd get a milkshake too. If you drink some of the milkshake before the sushi, it's like you're not even that hungry for the sushi anymore.

• 3:36:22Jocko Willink?

  Counterproductive.

• 3:36:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, because it's, not only is there calories for sure, but it's like sweet.

• 3:36:28Jocko Willink?

  And you know what it does to your brain, right? You accidentally pregame.

• 3:36:31Speaker 02

  I pregamed with the wrong thing, by the way.

• 3:36:35Speaker 02

  But what I'm saying is, it's, it's absolutely true. You pregame with the milk. Or if you're gonna go out to dinner where it's like, hey, we're going to this place, it's not necessarily that healthy.

• 3:36:43Jocko Willink?

  Italian food.

• 3:36:44Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 3:36:45Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, look, you're gonna get the chicken parm, which is kind of, you know, we're borderline, we're brushing up against, but you're still gonna have some pasta with it, which, so, no, pregame.

• 3:36:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:36:55Jocko Willink?

  Pregame. That's what I'm saying. Little hint for the world.

• 3:36:59Speaker 02

  Bro, that's a good, actually really good advice.

• 3:37:01Jocko Willink?

  Man, I do that all the time. The other thing you gotta watch out for is you, you, you go, this is another situation. Hey, we're going to a dinner party. You ever go to it, like, one of those? The people aren't on, on top of things, right? So you show up at five. You tell me we're going to a dinner party, that means we're gonna be eating dinner. We show up at five. Next thing I know, it's seven o'clock that we haven't eaten. Now I'm not happy about the scenario, right?

• 3:37:26Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 3:37:27Jocko Willink?

  Cause guess what? It's not that you're not eating, cause they're putting out freaking chips and whatever. Yeah, it's a pregame.

• 3:37:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:37:36Jocko Willink?

  Pregame. That's what I'm saying. Pregame with the milk.

• 3:37:39Speaker 02

  Hey, I don't want to get too technical, though, now that I just realized it does. It's actually kind of the opposite. It is a pregame technically, but does the opposite of a drinking pregame. I've always heard of pregame as the drinking.

• 3:37:50Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Oh, yeah, that's not the only way.

• 3:37:53Speaker 02

  In the drinking pregame, you drink to get more.

• 3:37:57Jocko Willink?

  Liquored up.

• 3:37:57Speaker 02

  Liquored up. You don't drink the milk to get more. Full, I guess. I guess, kind of.

• 3:38:04Jocko Willink?

  It's a positive pregame. That's what we're talking about.

• 3:38:07Speaker 02

  So pregame nonetheless, very constructive.

• 3:38:08Jocko Willink?

  Pregame, if you want any of this stuff, go to jockofuel.com. If you subscribe to it, shipping is free. If you want to pick up some of the energy drinks, that's actually good for you. Go to Wawa. If you want to pick up any of this stuff, go to Vitamin Shoppe. And you can get better.

• 3:38:25Speaker 02

  It's true.

• 3:38:25Jocko Willink?

  Better at life.

• 3:38:26Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. Better, healthier.

• 3:38:28Jocko Willink?

  jockofuel.com.

• 3:38:29Speaker 02

  It's a big deal. Also, Origin. Origin USA, American-made stuff. No, I'm not. This isn't just any kind of stuff. It's like American-made denim, jeans, boots, leather stuff.

• 3:38:40Jocko Willink?

  I would say, if you want to clarify it a little bit more without going through a list of stuff, you could say, American-made stuff that you actually need. Right?

• 3:38:48Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 3:38:48Jocko Willink?

  This is stuff that you actually need. This is the, what do you, what do you need? Well, you need, you need jeans. You need shorts. You need a sweatshirt. You need a T-shirt. You need a beanie. You need, there's just stuff you need. You need boots. You need a gi. You need jiu-jitsu gi. What are you going to train? Nogi? Oh, wait, you're training Nogi. That's fine, too, but you need a rash guard. So there you go. Go to originusa.com. You can get all this stuff that you actually need. Which is a good idea.

• 3:39:18Speaker 02

  And it's all made in America, too, by the way. Even the, the, the materials.

• 3:39:22Jocko Willink?

  Everything.

• 3:39:23Speaker 02

  All made in America.

• 3:39:24Jocko Willink?

  Hundred percent made in America. Down to the thread, down to the rivets on the jeans, the zippers on the jeans.

• 3:39:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, the buttons even.

• 3:39:32Jocko Willink?

  Even the buttons.

• 3:39:33Speaker 02

  It's true, bro. It's true. Also, Jocko's Store, if you want to represent on the path, discipline equals freedom. The idea, good. If something happens, it's not that great, there's going to be some good. Anyway, if you want to represent, jocko's store.com. That's where you can go. We also have a subscription situation called the Shirt Locker, and these are additional designs that you can only get once. Well, I guess now, if you're a member, you can log back into the store and get other designs from before. So we do have that feature. It's a big deal. We didn't have that before. I'm just saying it's a new feature.

• 3:40:05Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah. Put this guy in for a Nobel Peace Prize over here on that one.

• 3:40:09Speaker 02

  It's a good one.

• 3:40:10Jocko Willink?

  It's a big deal, man. It's a big deal. Did you put, release a, you know, a, a, a news article about that? That's what's available. Look at this.

• 3:40:18Speaker 02

  Let's just say it's a big deal. You see what I'm saying. But yes, jocko store.com. You want to represent? You want to check it out? If you like something, get something.

• 3:40:26Jocko Willink?

  Also subscribe to this podcast. We also have the unraveling podcast. We have the ground up podcast, the warrior kid podcast. We can also join us at the underground, jocko underground.com. There's weird things happening out there. There's people being banned, shadow banned. There's videos being censored, which is crazy.

• 3:40:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:40:49Jocko Willink?

  Like, we talk about China and the fact that they ban parts of the internet and social media. They, you are not allowed. And here it is happening here in America, oddly enough.

• 3:41:00Speaker 02

  What is the, what do you think is like the above board? Not even above board. What, what is the motive, you think? And banning someone?

• 3:41:11Jocko Willink?

  Driving a narrative?

• 3:41:12Speaker 02

  I feel.

• 3:41:13Jocko Willink?

  I'm sorry, man.

• 3:41:14Speaker 02

  I feel like someone who's responsi-, I mean, I'm sure there's a group of people who are responsible for that and they're kind of running the banning. But what is it? Like, what is the conclusion that they come to be like, you know what? We should really just ban this person?

• 3:41:26Jocko Willink?

  They're driving a narrative. They're driving a narrative. And here's, here's what sucks is the worst thing you can do to try and drive a narrative is not let people talk. Because if someone has a dumb idea, the best thing you could do is let them talk about their dumb idea. So we can say, hey, here's your, why your idea is dumb. What's scary is when we let ego get involved. And instead of me saying, you know what? Echo's got an opinion. I'm not sure if he's right or not, but I think he's wrong. So therefore I'm going to ban him. I should be like, well, Echo's got an idea. If that idea actually has merit, we should bring it out in the open. We should talk about it and see if it's right or wrong. Or maybe not necessarily right or wrong. This is where it's, this is what, this is what's scary. Not necessarily right or wrong. Everyone wants everything to be black or white. Science. Science isn't black and white. Science changes.

• 3:42:14Jocko Willink?

  So when you say something is wrong, what, how many things are actually wrong? Not too many, especially when you have evolving situations, whether they're political situations, medical situations, these things evolve. And so to just say, you know what, we're not gonna let you talk about your idea is really crazy. And it's happening. That's why we made the Jaco Underground, JacoUnderground.com. It's a place that we control. We don't control this platform that you're listening to right now, unless you're on the Underground. So if you want to help us out in the Underground, have a little sanctuary of freedom.

• 3:42:56Jocko Willink?

  You can go to JacoUnderground.com, you can subscribe, it costs $8.18 a month. We do an additional podcast to say thank you, answer your questions, talk about some, some correlating subjects. So check that out. If you can't afford it, we still want you in the game. We still want you to be free. So you can email [email protected] if you want some of that. We have a YouTube channel, by the way, where we are making really good videos and...

• 3:43:31Jocko Willink?

  Straight up. Look, man. This is really, really, really good. The video that you just made with the robots? Oh, yeah. Yes. That was insanely impressive. Did you even put it, did you put it on the YouTube channel? Uh, yes. Put it on the YouTube channel. Yeah. Because that is really good. Like, I was very impressed. Look, I know you're good. I'm not trying to say that I have low expectations. I have the highest of expectations. Sure, sure. Cause you made some really good stuff in the past, some of it. But this one, and you know what, to be honest with you, I wasn't even the assistant director on this one. Kind of bummed me out. Made it a little bit better. Alright. There's a couple little pointers I could have added, you know? Couple little plot line, could have been a little bit, you know, tightened up.

• 3:44:15Jocko Willink?

  But from a graphics perspective, it was amazing. So if you want to check out some of those videos that Echo Charles makes in his head and then makes them in actuality, subscribe to that. Origin USA has a cool channel too. Subscribe to that.

• 3:44:30Jocko Willink?

  I made, you know what I made? I made a MP3 album.

• 3:44:36Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 3:44:37Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 3:44:37Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. Psychological Warfare, of course.

• 3:44:39Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. That's the one.

• 3:44:40Speaker 02

  This album you talk about, it does have tracks on it. Each track is literally the solution for any moment of weakness you might have. The common ones.

• 3:44:50Jocko Willink?

  Apparently, I need to make one for cupcakes.

• 3:44:54Jocko Willink?

  Cause you got ambushed by a cupcake, bro.

• 3:44:56Speaker 02

  It was, that was like, it was like too fast for me to be like, oh, let me pop in freaking Psychological Warfare. I don't even think I have my phone.

• 3:45:05Jocko Willink?

  You got ambushed.

• 3:45:05Speaker 02

  I got, hey, hey, look.

• 3:45:07Jocko Willink?

  What used to be a hundred percent effective is now no longer.

• 3:45:10Speaker 02

  Well, I didn't put it in. If I put it in and I still chose to eat the oversized cupcake, which had a very large front end benefit, by the way. Um, then it would not have been a hundred percent, but you know, I chose not to, to, you know, to put it in. But nonetheless, you put it in a hundred percent effectiveness. It'll get you past these moments, these common moments of weakness. Skipping the workout. Nope. You won't skip the workout. But today, I didn't, I wasn't about to skip the workout at all. But you know, every time when you, you talk about like, oh yeah, when you wake up and it's cold, but it's so warm in the bed.

• 3:45:46Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 3:45:46Speaker 02

  Today was literally like that this morning.

• 3:45:48Jocko Willink?

  It was a little chilly out there.

• 3:45:49Speaker 02

  Didn't need it though.

• 3:45:50Jocko Willink?

  A little chilly out there.

• 3:45:51Speaker 02

  Actually even took, took a cold shower to kind of prove to yourself.

• 3:45:55Jocko Willink?

  I got the cold tub.

• 3:45:57Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. Bro, the, the cold shower, you know how they say, one of the benefits is like it, it exercises your mind to do something you really don't want to do. So that way like mentally, everything, everything else seems like, I don't know, easier or whatever. Um, I, I guess, even though you really don't, that's not the first thing you want to do. Go in a cold shower or cold dump when you wake up, usually. But when you get out, you do feel like dang, some other stuff got awakened in your body or whatever.

• 3:46:29Jocko Willink?

  It's a good way to wake up.

• 3:46:30Speaker 02

  Yep, it's true.

• 3:46:31Jocko Willink?

  Um, flipsidecanvas.com Dakota Meyer making cool stuff to hang on your wall. Check that out. Got a bunch of books. Final Spin. Somebody just posted the last page of Final Spin, which we gotta admit is kinda cool.

• 3:46:46Jocko Willink?

  So I was like, it looks so cool to see that last page posted, cuz the way it's laid out and stuff. Final Spin, check that out. Leadership Strategy and Tactics Field Manual, the code, the evaluation, the protocol, Discipline and Freedom Field Manual. Way the Warrior Kid, one, two, three, four. Get your kids on the path. Get the neighbors on the path.

• 3:47:08Jocko Willink?

  Mikey and the Dragons, About Face by Hackworth, quoted from it today. Extreme Ownership and the Dichotomy of Leadership that I wrote with my brother Leif Babin.

• 3:47:17Jocko Willink?

  Also, we have a leadership consultancy, Echelon Front. Leadership is the solution to your problems. I don't know what your problems are, but I know leadership is the solution inside your organization. Go to echelonfront.com for details on that. You can also check out some of the live events that we have. We have the muster, two-day conference. We have field training exercises, which are two days. You spend out in the field, learn how to maneuver and then lead in simulated combat missions. You will feel your leadership improve. Battlefield, where we go out and walk historical battlefields. And talk about the lessons learned from the good and bad calls made by leaders.

• 3:48:01Jocko Willink?

  So check all of that stuff out at echelonfront.com. We also have an online training academy for you, to assist you in taking ownership of your life. The various skills in life that will, that will make you better, that will put you in a better position.

• 3:48:24Jocko Willink?

  That will help you overcome scenarios that we all face. So if you wanna take ownership of your life, go to extremeownership.com. I'm on there two, three times a week, live. You wanna ask me a question, go on there and ask me a question. You want to, you want to dive a little bit deeper into extreme ownership? Go on there. We have courses that you can go through. Will you want to put your team through extreme ownership training? Go on there. Get your team unified behind the same principles. Extremeownership.com. If you want to help service members, active retired, their families, Gold Star families, check out Mark Lee's mom, Mama Lee. She's got a charity organization that does incredible things for veterans and their families.

• 3:49:10Jocko Willink?

  If you want to donate or you want to get involved, go to AmericasMightyWarriors.org. And if you want to hear more from me,

• 3:49:20Jocko Willink?

  talking a little too much, or you want to hear from Echo, who's barely talking and still talking a little bit too much. You can find us on the interweb, on the gram, on Facebook,

• 3:49:38Jocko Willink?

  on Twitter. Echo's @EchoCharles. I'm at Jaco Wilk. I'm also on,

• 3:49:45Jocko Willink?

  what's it called? Getter. Getter. G E T T R. I'm on there now too. I'm on there. So also, check out Stuart Scheller, @stuartscheller on all those different categories. And he's also got that website, AuthenticAmericans.com. And thanks once again to Stuart Scheller for coming on, sharing his view on things. Thanks to him for trying to make a difference. And thanks again, Stuart Scheller, for your service in the Marine Corps, to our country. And thanks to all the military personnel out there right now, trying to make a difference in the world. Trying to keep it safe for freedom by doing what few people will do. And the same goes for our police and law enforcement,

• 3:50:29Jocko Willink?

  firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, Border Patrol, Secret Service, all first responders. Thank you for keeping us safe and protecting freedom here at home.

• 3:50:44Jocko Willink?

  And everyone else out there, there are a lot of forces at work in the world. A lot of strings being pulled, a lot of decisions being made. There are agendas and personalities and people sometimes look out for their own self-interests.

• 3:51:00Jocko Willink?

  And that's okay sometimes. In most cases, that's good.

• 3:51:05Jocko Willink?

  Because when we're all looking out for our own self-interest, then collectively, we're moving forward. But sometimes people's self-interest starts to hurt others. Especially from a strategic perspective. When people start to look at their own self-interests and it helps them, but it hurts us as a whole. From a strategic perspective.

• 3:51:30Jocko Willink?

  That's when you may have to step up and try and do it tactfully. And try and do it through influence and by building relationships and by guiding others in the right direction. And if none of that works.

• 3:51:44Jocko Willink?

  Then think strategically about how to handle your next steps. Do the calculus.

• 3:51:53Jocko Willink?

  Don't let your emotions drive your decisions. Think about that indirect approach from B. H. Liddell Hart. Think about the effectiveness or the ineffectiveness of being direct.

• 3:52:07Jocko Willink?

  And then make sure you are staying true to your principles and what you believe in. After all, in the end.

• 3:52:16Jocko Willink?

  You have to look yourself in the mirror. And you have to be able to look yourself in the mirror and know that you did the right things for the right reasons.

• 3:52:29Jocko Willink?

  So move with caution. But also with conviction.

• 3:52:36Jocko Willink?

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