375: There Will Be Ups and Downs, Wins and Losses. Do Your Best. With Force Recon Marine, Chad Robichaux

Mighty Oaks President & Founder, USMC Force Recon Veteran, Best Selling Author, Pro MMA Champion. 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 375 with Echo Charles and me, Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening.

• 0:09Jocko Willink?

  When Aziz and I reached the hill's peak, kids playing on the ladders and diving platforms scattered. As we neared the pool, the only sound other than our footsteps came from the gusting wind. Amid the eerie quiet, I noticed a cable suspended from one of the middle diving platforms, about seven and a half meters above the pool. The cable, made of steel, barely swayed in the wind. It ended in a slipknot noose.

• 0:40Jocko Willink?

  "I've witnessed many public executions here," Aziz said. "Some were hanged, some were thrown off the towers like garbage and died on the concrete floor, and not always immediately."

• 0:54Jocko Willink?

  After the Soviets left Afghanistan following nine years of war, the difficulty of pumping water up to the top of the hill to fill the pool wasn't worth the effort for a nation with little interest in training athletes for international competition. When the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan, they found a use for the empty pool. Aziz and I descended the ladder into the pool's deep end. The width spanned 25 meters. The wall was riddled with bullet holes the size of 762 bullets. They were head high of a person on their knees. And there had to be thousands of holes. I crossed to the shallow end, stepping around puddles left by the latest rain

• 1:38Jocko Willink?

  and observed the same pattern of bullet holes in that wall. They were the height of the head of a kneeling child.

• 1:48Jocko Willink?

  I pulled my Leatherman tool from my pants pocket. With the pointed pliers, I dug into a few of the holes. I removed two bullet jacket remains and looked down at them in my hand. Two symbols of the Taliban's hatred of innocent people, of unimaginable evil.

• 2:09Jocko Willink?

  I slid the jacket remains into my pocket.

• 2:13Jocko Willink?

  I didn't want to forget the anger I felt standing next to those bullet holes.

• 2:18Jocko Willink?

  Aziz knew this place would show me why his family was so caught up in our presidential election. My home country was the land of the free. Theirs was now becoming one. They needed us to help bring that freedom to completion for them and for future generations of Afghans.

• 2:39Jocko Willink?

  I returned to that pool, the killing pool, I came to call it, numerous times during my deployments. I would sit in the breeze and the quiet and the eeriness and stare at that steel cable. And the bullet holes. I imagined the faces of innocent people, of the women and kids especially, killed there only because they tasted freedom. And discovered a joy so rewarding that they didn't want to go back to their old lives of oppression.

• 3:11Jocko Willink?

  They couldn't go back. No matter the cost.

• 3:21Jocko Willink?

  And that right there is an excerpt from the opening of a book. The book is called Saving Aziz. And it's written by Chad Robisho. And Chad is a former Force Recon Marine, who also served as a military contractor, and in those roles, he deployed to Afghanistan eight times. He was eventually diagnosed with PTSD, which ended his deployments overseas. Until years later, during the American withdrawal from Afghanistan.

• 3:58Jocko Willink?

  His former interpreter, Aziz, who you just heard about, his friend, his brother in arms, needed to be saved from the Taliban. And when that happened Chad had to go again into an unstable environment to do the right thing to save his friend and save many others and it's an honor to have Chad with us here tonight to share his story Chad thanks for coming down man.

• 4:24Speaker 01

  Man thanks so much for having me on I just need to read that I've like felt chills. I mean I I wrote it but just hearing you read it just like I'm picturing myself like with a Leatherman tool digging in that wall.

• 4:35Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I remember it. I know we've been we've been trying to do this podcast for a long time. Um, you know, you're a jujitsu guy, I'm a jujitsu guy. I I know actually you run an organization called the Mighty Oaks and there's been a few times I'm friends with Matt. There's been a couple of times where I've had to utilize you guys. I've called you guys when I got people would reach out to me that were having serious issues and I would I've reached out to Matt a few times to get support. So appreciate that and we'll get into that later.

• 5:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:04Jocko Willink?

  But I'm glad I finally got you down here, man.

• 5:06Speaker 01

  I'm glad to finally be here. It's we were talking earlier, it's always you know, you wait till the right time and I feel like right now is the right time anyway, so I'm super happy to be here today.

• 5:15Jocko Willink?

  Right on, man. Um, let's let's before we jump into the book, let's start at the beginning, how you how you became how you became Chad Robishow. Am I saying that right?

• 5:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, you are. Yeah, you got it.

• 5:27Jocko Willink?

  Cool, cool. Good guess.

• 5:28Speaker 01

  Got to come all the way to San Diego to get somebody to say Robishow right.

• 5:31Jocko Willink?

  So where were you born?

• 5:34Speaker 01

  I was born in Southern Louisiana, uh, good Robishow.

• 5:37Jocko Willink?

  So there's a Robishow name, right?

• 5:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm gonna say Southern Louisiana, I mean like mud between your toes, swamps, bayous, uh, if you've seen swamp people, that's my family. Uh, so yeah.

• 5:46Jocko Willink?

  And is that where you grew up too?

• 5:48Speaker 01

  That's where I grew up. I grew up in a town called Raceland, Louisiana, really small town, uh, and runs on the whole town's built in this one bayou called Bayou La Fouch, which runs down to the to the to the to the Gulf.

• 6:00Jocko Willink?

  And what are people doing there for a living?

• 6:02Speaker 01

  Mostly fishing, uh, farming, farming and fishing, uh, shrimping. So my grandfather on one side baled hay, uh, and just mowed mowed pastures and baled hay. My grandfather on the other side was a commercial cat fisherman since he was a boy. And so all of my family's first jobs were skinning catfish in a catfish market. My first job was skinning catfish. I remember being, you know, going out and trying to me and my cousins, uh, doubling up on a on a bail of bail, a 50 pound bail of hay, um, on one side of the family and and then the other side was a. Was skinning catfish. So, so, uh, what did your mom and dad do for a living?

• 6:40Speaker 01

  So my dad, uh, so my mom was a florist and my dad was a, he was, he was a marine and, but he ended up being in, working in an oil field. So my, uh, my family actually has 84 years of service and right now, um, I guess there's a book out that I hadn't tracked down yet of Fred Robishow, who is my, uh, uncle, my, my grandfather's brother, who served in World War II as infantryman in the army and, uh, and there's this book out that I'm trying to track down. So if anybody knows it, let, let me know. But, uh, but yeah, so my grand, so World War II, Korea. My father was the first Marine in our family, served as infantryman in Vietnam. And then, uh, and then myself and, and both my sons are Marines. So, so long history of military in our family.

• 7:24Speaker 01

  So when you were growing up, was your dad around when you were growing up? Yeah. Uh, well, they got divorced when I was seven, um, and, uh, and then he was in and out of my life. I lived back and forth with my mom and my dad and my grandparents. So I lived a pretty dysfunctional kind of childhood, bouncing back and forth. My, uh, my father never got help after Vietnam. In fact, my, my father, uh, joined the Marine Corps. Um, if, if people look at the Vietnam draft, like you, the Marine Corps didn't draft people. You had to volunteer for the Marine Corps. So, uh, my father was driving to high school, uh, and goofing off with his best friend in the passenger seat and hit the back of a garbage truck on the way to school, kills his best friend. And then, uh, goes to Marine Corps recruiting officer, joins the Marine Corps to go to Vietnam.

• 8:09Speaker 01

  And so that's how my dad went into Marine Corps, probably already a pretty broken person. Had those experiences in Vietnam, never got help. And, uh, so a lot of alcohol, women, a lot of physical violence. Me and my, my brother, um, that were the kind of subjects of that physical abuse. I remember him beating my mom, watching him beat my stepmom eventually, but always, it was always targeted on me and my brother. He was a year older than me. And, uh, so part of joining the military was. It's kind of weird. It's paradox of wanting to follow my dad's footsteps, but also wanting to use that as a way to escape from the childhood that I lived in. And I grew up in Warshaw, so lifelong athlete, started when I was five years old in judo and traditional

• 8:52Speaker 01

  jiu jitsu. So my brother and I were like really close through that. We bonded through that. And I remember we were about 13 and 14 years old and we were always playing in swamps and bayous and playing military. And we were like, we could join the military one day and escape, like get a fresh start, escape this lifestyle. And we were watching, you probably remember this, this was like, so I would have been, this would have been like 19, like late 80s. There was this Navy SEAL video, these guys down in Destrand, and they were like, they like raided Destrand.

• 9:21Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah, the recruiting video. It's a recruiting video called Be Someone Special.

• 9:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's it. Yeah.

• 9:27Jocko Willink?

  Have you seen it in the last 20 years?

• 9:29Speaker 01

  No, but I bet it looks really cheesy now.

• 9:31Jocko Willink?

  It's so absolutely terrible now.

• 9:33Speaker 01

  It captured me.

• 9:34Jocko Willink?

  100%.

• 9:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was like, we seen that video and we were like, and then I remember there was this picture of this Navy SEAL, he's coming out of the water, he's got a booty hat on, seaweed hanging off him, twin 80s on his back and M16. And I'm like, I want to do that, but I don't want to join the Navy. And, you know, it was, the one thing was, I think it was my dad, the one thing, my dad was always just like angry dysfunctional human being, but the one thing that always made him proud and happy was the fact that he's a United States Marine. And I was like, if that can make that guy happy, I want a piece of that. And, and so I started, there was these books, like a Man with Green Faces. I started reading these Vietnam books, and then I found these books from third recon and third force recon in Vietnam. And I was reading those books and just became infatuated to become a recon Marine. So 13, my brother's 14, we start training, and about a year

• 10:18Speaker 01

  into that, my brother was shot and killed. And it was devastating.

• 10:22Jocko Willink?

  How was he shot and killed?

• 10:23Speaker 01

  He was, he had, so we had a broken family. So he had another brother that was 11 from the other side of the family. They got in an argument. My brother had a fire poker and was trying to knock a gun out of his hand. He had, the other kid had, he's 11 years old, had a 20 gauge pointed at him. And when he, either intentionally or... Unintentionally, I don't know, but point blank range with 20 gauge shotgun to the chest and he died instantly. So he was on the phone, so someone heard, oh, heard it all on the phone. He was holding the phone and had a fire poker. And uh,

• 10:54Jocko Willink?

  And this is when you're 13 years old?

• 10:56Speaker 01

  I was 14 when this happened.

• 10:58Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 10:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, so we were, you know, when we were all, you know, that 13 to 14 years old, that's when we started running and we were swimming, uh, watching those videos and, uh, and we, uh, you know, for me, that was like, it was the closest person in my life at that time. So I went into a real deep isolation. My father, my, my stepmother, who was the biological mother of my brother, couldn't handle the loss of her son. She went, moved back with her parents. My father moved to Africa in an oil field job. He didn't want to deal with her. And I had a 20 year old sister and so the two of us, by the time I was right, right about 15 years old, I found myself living alone, uh, with my sister, trying to work. I was working on roofing. Uh, I was doing, putting shingles on houses and, uh, and I was trying to go to high school at the same time. And, uh,

• 11:42Speaker 01

  when I was 17 years old, I, I knew I probably wasn't going to graduate high school and I went to a Marine Corps recruiter named Staff Sergeant Ronald Brown. I still remember his name almost 30 years later. I mean, most people remember their recruiter's name because they hate them. Uh, I, I, I'm just thankful to this dude. I mean, he, he, I told him my situation. I was just remember being real, real transparent with him about what my life was like and how I wanted to go to the Marine Corps. And he helped me get into Marine Corps without even a high school diploma. I wasn't going to graduate high school.

• 12:06Jocko Willink?

  What year was this?

• 12:07Speaker 01

  1993.

• 12:08Jocko Willink?

  And how old are you?

• 12:08Speaker 01

  I'm 17 at the time.

• 12:11Jocko Willink?

  Did you, you said you had, you've been doing judo and traditional? Did you wrestle too?

• 12:16Speaker 01

  Uh, you know, I, I tried to wrestle for two years. We tried to start a club at, at my high school, but there was not enough, never enough people in the team. And so I wrestled, but I never competitively wrestled because we didn't have enough people for our team. Uh, and it was mostly people from our judo club that was trying to put a wrestling team together at a high school. We just couldn't get, Southern Louisiana, couldn't get enough people together.

• 12:35Jocko Willink?

  But this, okay, I just wanted to catch that little, uh, detail because I know, you know, like I said, you're a Jiu Jitsu guy, I'm a Jiu Jitsu guy. You end up fighting all this stuff. So I just wanted to catch where that, where that started. So you go to the Marine Corps recruiter.

• 12:46Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 12:47Jocko Willink?

  God bless the Marine Corps. And for every, you know, like you said, man, for all these guys that get, you know, screwed over by the recruiter. Occasionally that recruiter is a lifesaver for somebody and the Marine Corps is a lifesaver for you.

• 13:01Speaker 01

  Who knows where my life would be right now. I mean, I wasn't heading the right good trajectory. I wasn't like doing drugs or anything like that. I was still like very disciplined in training and martial arts. I was running like fifty, sixty miles a week a week. So I was running a lot and I'd go swim. I was swimming. So still I was doing the right things, but like academically in school, I was like failing. I was, you know, I was, I was not going to graduate high school. So this guy put me on an infantry contract. There wasn't recon contracts back then. And, and I made him promise that I get my GED when I finished infantry school. And I went through boot camp, went through infantry school.

• 13:37Jocko Willink?

  So you show up to boot camp.

• 13:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:40Jocko Willink?

  You're seventeen years old. Are you seventeen when you go to boot camp?

• 13:43Speaker 01

  Seventeen when I go to boot camp.

• 13:44Jocko Willink?

  That's freaking.

• 13:45Speaker 01

  My eighteenth birthday was in, it was right here, right here, down across the street.

• 13:50Jocko Willink?

  So is it a shock to your system or are you just totally pumped for it?

• 13:54Speaker 01

  I was totally pumped for it. I mean, I mean, I mean, it was something I had thought about, obviously, for a long time. And, and I remember just being like, it's weird how you can remember certain things, but I remember like standing, like literally standing on his yellow footprints, thinking that like, everything that's behind me, like this is a chance for me to, to do something. Because I was, I had my, my childhood was so, my, my stepfather, like lots of physical abuse in my life. I felt free. I felt like a sense of freedom that I wasn't held back by like my, my stepfather, my dad, like it was just like, this is for me, I could do what I want to with this. And, and I don't know how at the young naive age of seventeen years old, I made a decision to embrace it. And, and I just put everything I could, you know, graduated squad leader at boot camp, got honor grad out of infantry school.

• 14:41Speaker 01

  I get to Twenty Nine Palms, California, and I'm like, I made this guy a promise. The Marine Corps is not, I have no contractual obligation to get my GED, but I'm like, I made this guy a promise. I went to Copper Mountain College in Twenty Nine Palms, got my GED. All these years later, I have MBA and I always joke when I'm speaking, I'm like, I can't spell MBA, but I got one. But, you know, like. The Marine Corps really gave, and I'll go speak at Marine Corps boot camp for eight years now, I'll go every quarter, right here in San Diego, and now I'm going to Parish Island, I've spoke to, I spoke to about a half a million troops over the last 12 years, all, you know, a lot of them at Marine Corps boot camp, and, and I, I tell them about their experience, like, when you stand on the yellow footprints at Marine Corps boot camp, wherever, you know, young service members, and find themselves, and they raise their

• 15:24Speaker 01

  hand and make that commitment, that's, it doesn't matter, like, what color you are, if you're black, white, Asian, Hispanic, it doesn't matter if your dad was rich or poor, or you lived in a project, or a trailer park, none of that matters, like, it's on you to change the trajectory of your life, for better or for worse, and you had that opportunity when you go there, and, uh, man, none of your past matters anymore, and, and, uh, I like, really had recognized that, I had that, I had that drive to want to take advantage of the opportunity, and also had this, like, like, lingering, like, commitment that me and my brother were going to be recon Marines, and, uh, and, so I went, while I was in infantry school, I tried out for recon, I don't know why they let us try out, because they let us try out, and then the guys who passed it were like, "Yeah, we're not taking anybody that's not NCOs," and they sent us away, and, uh, so, it was just maybe, uh,

• 16:09Speaker 01

  and then I went back again, passed the second time, same thing happened, and, uh, I went, then I went to, uh, and, 20 on poems, I went to what's called Regimental State Platoon, which is a surveillance target acquisition platoon, it's a sniper platoon, and, uh, that was right after I got to 20 on poems, and then I tried out a third time, and got picked up, and so my first year in the Marine Corps, I got a chance to go to become a recon Marine.

• 16:30Jocko Willink?

  So that was your first year in the Marine Corps?

• 16:31Speaker 01

  First year in the Marine Corps, which, back then, it was, you know, really hard to do, you didn't have a contract, usually had to be around a while, and so I got, yeah, I got picked up, and, uh-

• 16:39Jocko Willink?

  How come you got picked up? Were you, like, physically just kicking ass?

• 16:42Speaker 01

  I, I was, I was in really good shape, I mean, I was, like, I'm super, I'm small now, but I was like, 120 pounds, I was running like, I was running like, 16 minute, 3 miles, I was, you know, I was really good in the water, I was, you know, I grew up in bayous and water, I never competitively swam, but I was just really comfortable in the water, and, uh-

• 16:59Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, web feet, man, going up in the bayous.

• 17:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, and, uh, you know, I, I think I was just, I just wanted it so bad, and, uh, and so, myself and a, and a guy who I went to boot camp with named, uh, Mark Terrill, who's actually still in Marine Corps, he's a gunner now, which is not a gunny, a gunner, uh, which is like a combat advisor, he's, you know, recon, MARSOC, and he's, uh, but we went through it together, uh, me, him, and a guy named Foster Harrington, who's, uh, Foster was killed on our, on our first deployment, but, uh- Yeah, so we all went through that together and they were young guys too. So this was, what year is this? 1994. So I went in in 93, 94. And then the recon school, is that the one that's down in Coronado? Yeah, well, it, they're still running it in Coronado, but part of it's in Coronado. It used to be, when I went, it was EWTG PAC.

• 17:46Speaker 01

  And I went right across from Bud's, but now it's headquartered in Camp Penon under the School of Infantry, but you still do the amphib package down in Coronado. And how long is, how long is the recon school? Well, it's a, it's a whole pipeline. It's a year long. So they go, they go to what's called, they'll go to four weeks of infantry school. And then they go to, they go to what's called, Marines are waiting recon training and it's just like a holding platoon that they just weed people out through physical fitness. And then they have, then they do BRPC, which is basic recon prep course, which is three weeks. And then they do a basic recon course, which is 10 weeks. And what are you learning in the basic recon course?

• 18:25Speaker 01

  Shooting, shooting, movement, communication, amphib, all the amphib stuff. It's basically like, you do it. All the core functional, like things of recon Marines, all the different reconnaissance missions, route reps, boarding reps. Helo zones, surf reps, confirmatory beach reports. Gets. All those kinds of, with no equipment, like just the, you know, the 550 core getting tangled up in the surf zone. So all that stuff. And then a lot of fitness. You could, when you walk, when these guys, kids leave recon school, they could communicate as good as any communicator. Probably better because they get more equipment. They should be able to do all their basic, like, you know, call fire stuff and nine lines.

• 19:09Speaker 01

  And then they, they're patrolling, a small unit patrolling and they're going to rotate through, kind of like at Ranger School where they'll go through like being a point man to always being a team leader. So they're going to get fragged during that patrolling phase. And now you're the team leader and they'll do 10 day patrolling phase. Land navigation is extremely difficult, both water and, and land. Where do you do the land nav? In Camp Penon. Yeah. So it's, it's, it's, it's extremely difficult because it doesn't allow you to dead reckon. You have to pick up a map and compass, terrain associate and, and run with gear or you're not going to make the times. Camp Penon's a national treasure. It is. It really is. That place is freaking awesome. It's awesome. I wish it was even bigger. So when you graduate BRC, you go to, then you go, you graduate on Friday and then on Monday,

• 19:51Speaker 01

  you're in pre scuba. You do two weeks of pre scuba and then you go to down to Florida for 10 weeks or nine weeks of combat dive.

• 19:58Jocko Willink?

  Who teaches that? Is it Marine Corps or is that the Navy course?

• 20:01Speaker 01

  It's the Marine Corps one. So you're doing closed and open circuit. So yeah, the Navy course is the, the open circuit course. Back in my day, I did Navy open circuit, then I did a LAR5 transition course, but now they do the whole combat dive course, which is sort of learning the, you know, insertion, uh, really more the insertion, uh, being able to navigate, uh, on a LAR5 is basically what they're doing. And then, uh, and then, uh, you do SER school, then free fall school, and then you go to a unit. So when the guys go to a unit now, they're 19, 20 years old and they're schooled out there, ready to deploy.

• 20:33Jocko Willink?

  And that, is that what you did too? You went through all those schools?

• 20:35Speaker 01

  I did, but I didn't do them all consecutive in a pipeline like that. So I went, I went through and then you wait around.

• 20:41Jocko Willink?

  Wait around, then you go to dive school.

• 20:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, probably like kind of your, in your day.

• 20:45Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 20:45Speaker 01

  Well, now you guys come out diving.

• 20:47Jocko Willink?

  We would come out dive, but we didn't go to jump school until after and we only went to static line down in Fort Benning with the US Army.

• 20:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:54Jocko Willink?

  And then we got done with that. Eventually I didn't get, I didn't get free fall until after my first platoon and now guys get it. They just get it in the pipeline before they even get their, get their bird. They get the free fall school.

• 21:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, same thing with me.

• 21:05Jocko Willink?

  In, in the meantime, what's your, didn't you get married when you were young as well?

• 21:10Speaker 01

  Oh yeah. We, me and Kathy met when I was right before recon school. So we met 17 and 18. Our, our first dates was like the, on Coronado Beach, like, like her coming down to see me on there like, cause you don't get any days off during, you get, you get like, we got like, I think two weekends off and then you gotta write up, you got 80 page patrol that are right on those. So like, so she came down to see me on those weekends and I remember we actually fell asleep together on the beach out there, right? Uh, but, uh, that's, uh, you know, that was.

• 21:40Speaker 01

  That was how we started dating and then a year after we started dating, we got married.

• 21:44Jocko Willink?

  So when she was 18 and you're 19?

• 21:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:46Jocko Willink?

  That's when we all got married.

• 21:47Speaker 01

  That's when we got married, yeah. And so she's been through all of it.

• 21:51Jocko Willink?

  She's been through way worse than recon school.

• 21:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, she's been through all of it, yeah.

• 21:55Jocko Willink?

  That's awesome that you guys are still together. So now you're doing this and then what's, are you going on deployment? What are your deployments like?

• 22:04Speaker 01

  No, it's 93. I mean, I went in 93 and so this is like, you know, finished this training in 94. There's no deployments. Actually.

• 22:11Jocko Willink?

  Did you go on an arg deployment or something?

• 22:13Speaker 01

  No, we do. My unit was doing, was mainly doing the JTF six missions down on the, across border here. You know, right across the border from where we're at in Mexico, we were doing a JTF six counter narcotics missions. That's primarily what my unit was doing when I was on active duty. And then after that first four years, I'm like, man, we're not doing anything right now. I want to go be an officer. So I went to the reserves. I went to third force recon in the reserves.

• 22:39Jocko Willink?

  So you do your first hitch, you get done with all this schooling. Were they pissed when you said you were going to go reserves? Or were they downsizing at this time?

• 22:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't think they really cared. It didn't seem like they really cared. Yeah, they offered me a school and an INI billet at Reno, which was an inspector instructor billet at fourth force recon. It was not really, that wasn't really pushing guys to stay in.

• 23:01Jocko Willink?

  So you make a decision, you're going to get out or go to the reserves?

• 23:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:05Jocko Willink?

  Go to school, become an, and then you can come back in as an officer?

• 23:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was my, that was my plan.

• 23:10Jocko Willink?

  And that way you'll be able to financially take care of your family. Did you have a kid yet?

• 23:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, I had Hunter. Hunter was born, my oldest, he was born in 2000.

• 23:20Speaker 01

  I'm from Louisiana, like we started early in Louisiana.

• 23:22Jocko Willink?

  They thought you were old when you had a kid at 19. They're like, what's wrong with you? What are you waiting for?

• 23:26Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, that was the pressure from my mom saying, me getting married, like, okay, she's pregnant, like.

• 23:35Jocko Willink?

  So when you get out, what are you going to do? So now you're out, you got a kid, you're in the reserves. And this is when you become a police officer, right?

• 23:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. I mean, I was, I was trying to find work, like to go to college. I mean, and this, this may sound stupid, it was. I didn't sign up for the GI Bill. You have to sign up for it.

• 23:56Jocko Willink?

  Oh, that's right.

• 23:57Speaker 01

  So I'm in boot camp.

• 23:58Jocko Willink?

  You said no.

• 23:59Speaker 01

  I'm in boot camp. I'm the one idiot that said no, right? And I'm like, I didn't even graduate high school. Like a hundred bucks a month was like, that's a tenth of your paycheck, like.

• 24:08Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, so what happens is the GI Bill that you pay, well, probably the same as when you went through and I went through. It's different now, I think, but it was a hundred, you pay a hundred bucks a month for a year.

• 24:18Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 24:19Jocko Willink?

  And then after that year, when you get out, whenever that is, they give you something like forty grand for school. If you're in college.

• 24:28Speaker 01

  And Chad looked at that and says, no deal, bro, I want my hundred bucks. That's exactly right. Yeah, I'm the idiot that did it.

• 24:36Jocko Willink?

  Dang.

• 24:37Speaker 01

  And you couldn't get it, it couldn't get back. I tried.

• 24:39Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, the other thing is even if you don't use it, you can give it to your kids.

• 24:43Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 24:43Jocko Willink?

  So who, you are a stubborn bastard for you to be like, no, I'm not doing it.

• 24:47Speaker 01

  Actually, I had a drill instructor tell me it like, like, had talked, told me and like two other, two or three other guys not to do it.

• 24:54Jocko Willink?

  Dang.

• 24:55Speaker 01

  I don't, I don't know why. I can't remember why, but I didn't and, and now I'm like, that is the stupidest. Especially for me, because I ended up getting, getting MBA, which was expensive.

• 25:05Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Okay, so you get out, now you don't have, you gotta go to college, but you also need a job, you got a kid, you got a wife. So how hard is it to become a cop? Is it, is it a, because right now, there's recruiting for cops. It's a lot easier to become a cop than it used to be because the cops are having a hard time recruiting people to be cops. Cause there's so much negative press. What was it like when you tried to become a cop?

• 25:30Speaker 01

  It was pretty easy. I mean, I'm, you know, I'm going back to, you know, backwoods Louisiana and, and I come out of military. So I'm coming off of active duty, special operations. So like not a lot of competition in the recruiting pool. And I was, I mean, I was, I thought I was gonna be able to pull it off doing this. I was teaching swimming lessons and water survival for the oil field. At YMCA. So using some of the skills I have to teaching little kids swimming lessons and, which my kids were the, were the best.

• 25:58Speaker 01

  And then, and then there was like this water survival, everybody goes in the oil over, they have the underwater egress for like when helicopter rollovers and stuff like that. So I got a, I got a position at the YMCA to teach that for the guys traveling in the oil field. But I just wasn't making enough money. So I was like, man, I gotta do something else. So I went to the jail and I was working at the jail. And, and in corrections facility, like four days a week, four nights a week, trying to do all this. And then, and then they offered me a position to go to the police academy.

• 26:26Jocko Willink?

  How long was the police academy?

• 26:27Speaker 01

  Like three months, something like that, wasn't long.

• 26:29Jocko Willink?

  How was it?

• 26:30Speaker 01

  It was pretty, I mean, I was in such good shape at the time, it was pretty easy. But actually, I do remember studying a lot, though, and you had to take what's called the post, uh, which is the state exam. And, uh, so I remember studying a lot. I remember Kathy like helping me study. She was already like tuned to that because you know, the military schools and doing flashcards with me.

• 26:47Jocko Willink?

  She's helping a rock Hudson get through this stuff for sure. When, uh, is this, are you back in your hometown where you grew up when you're doing this?

• 26:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, I went back, went back to my hometown and, uh, so I graduated the police academy and, uh, in this department, which is called St. Charles Parish, which is where the New Orleans Airport is, just like New Orleans is like this kind of mesh of, of, uh, you have Jefferson, Jefferson Parish and they don't have counties that parishes, so they have Jefferson Parish, St. Charles Parish, Orleans Parish, it's like kind of New Orleans area. And so they, I graduated like, I got the like physical fitness and the high student award at the academy and, and, uh, so I had, so the sheriff there offered me a job to come, I was, looked really young still. And, uh, so they offered me a job to come to St. Charles Parish and work undercover in the high school there.

• 27:37Jocko Willink?

  Damn.

• 27:38Speaker 01

  So I'm like fresh, fresh out of, fresh out of the Marine Corps and, and go back to high school. And, uh, and, uh,

• 27:45Jocko Willink?

  So you did it?

• 27:46Speaker 01

  I did it, yeah.

• 27:47Jocko Willink?

  And so what did you do? What did you roll in there? You were carrying a freaking book bag and a algebra book?

• 27:52Speaker 01

  I remember walking through the hall and, uh, and, and a teacher like put his hand out and I'm like, and I had gum in my mouth and I'm like,

• 28:01Speaker 01

  you know, like last year I was doing counter drug missions in Mexico as a force recon, as a force recon team leader. And now I'm having to spit my gum out for this teacher that's, you know, but I, I was, I went, the whole plan was for me to go to school for like two weeks and then leave the school and have those relationships. And, uh, I wasn't trying to, I wasn't, my job wasn't to go bust kids. It was to, this adults that were selling to kids. And so get in that network and, and I did that for like four months and we, at the end of it, we had like, like, uh, over 40, like, uh, felony warrants that we were able to pull off. So it was pretty. Pretty uh, yeah, it was pretty uh, cool op- cool opportunity to do that.

• 28:37Jocko Willink?

  So was that, where, where, did you, was that like an undercover gig? Do you have a fake name and all that stuff?

• 28:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, I did. I had a, I had a fake name and a fake driver's license in Louisiana that you get, you know, through the governor's office.

• 28:47Jocko Willink?

  And how old were you supposed to be?

• 28:49Speaker 01

  Uh, I was, uh, high school age. I can't remember exactly, but I was like,

• 28:52Jocko Willink?

  Like seventeen?

• 28:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. Yep, seventeen. And I, I wish I would have, like, that, so they had another kid on our task force that played in a, in a, in a, uh, they went to a high school called, uh, Bell Chase High School. And he played for the, and he was like, he played in college baseball and then he went, played, uh, baseball at the high school.

• 29:10Jocko Willink?

  Bro.

• 29:10Speaker 01

  And like, he was like, he had this story, like, my parents died and, and so the team came together and bought him a glove and, he's like, he's like ripping leather off of balls.

• 29:20Jocko Willink?

  What do you do like on a?

• 29:21Speaker 01

  I was hoping there was a wrestling team, like I could have like been smashing kids in their face.

• 29:25Jocko Willink?

  State champ. So like on a Friday night, when the kids are having a party and you're like, you'd go?

• 29:31Speaker 01

  Yep. And, uh, I don't know, what book did I write it in? I think I wrote it in, in my book, Inunfair Advantage. We, uh, we, we were at this party and, uh, uh, I think I passed the, uh, the period where I get in trouble for this. But, but we had this party and, and these guys, it was, these, you know, all these high school girls were like, I'm like new, the new guy, right? So there's high school girls, so it wasn't anything to do with drugs or anything like that. These guys wanted to beat me up because their girlfriends were like after me.

• 29:59Jocko Willink?

  Right.

• 29:59Speaker 01

  Right? So I'm at this high school party and I got these guys wanting to beat me up. They were, they were not kids, they were adults. And, uh, and so I, I'm trying to leave and this guy takes a swing at me and, and I pushed the car door and he hits this girl. And, uh, and when that happens, I like grab the guy and then someone shoots the back of the truck. Cause these are all, you know, pretty bad people. Somebody shoots the back of our truck and our, and our, uh, the guy I was with, who was not an undercover guy, he was just like, kind of like my cover officer from another town. He, he like stands up out of the top of a, uh, of a, we were in a forerunner, there's a sunroof. He stands up and starts laying like a base of cover fire at a high school party, like with a Glock, just empties a magazine. Everybody's running and then he pees out of there and we. Like

• 30:47Jocko Willink?

  Dude, how was your rep as a high school kid after that? They were like, dude, don't mess with, what was your fake name? Do you remember your fake name?

• 30:53Speaker 01

  Well, my first name, I kept my first name.

• 30:55Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 30:55Speaker 01

  And I changed my last name to my son's name Hunter. So Chad.

• 30:58Jocko Willink?

  So Chad Hunter. Yeah. Like dude, don't mess with Chad Hunter. His buddies, his buddies crazy.

• 31:03Speaker 01

  So this guy, the guy who uh, uh, his last name was McKinney, what was his first name? But he, so he comes, they come after me and they have like, they come after me. They had, between a group of them, they had AK-47 and they were coming after me. So I'm picking up this girl from school, from high school. And these guys come, I didn't have my gun with me because it was in a car. So these guys tried to jump me and I go to my car and we, and they, and I grab my gun and they come over top and we're getting this like little altercation for my gun. And, and after that, the whole thing was over. We end up doing a massive arrest. So this guy, uh,

• 31:38Jocko Willink?

  Thank God, bro. freaking AK-47s in high school. You were, you were in freaking recon for four years and you didn't see an AK-47.

• 31:46Speaker 01

  No, I get to high school. So this, this guy, this guy comes, uh, is they're looking for me now. Uh, so they pulled me out of being undercover. We do this thing. So Benjamin McKinney is his name. And so last year I'm teaching a jujitsu seminar and this guy comes up to me and he goes, you know who I am? And, and it's this, it's this guy Benjamin McKinney. He's like, uh, he's like, I hope you don't hate me. And he like makes this big apology to me and he's like, his life's like in a good place right now. He's like, he went to jail for this and, uh, you know, spent some time in jail. And he's like, been following me for years now. And he, and he like, now he's like, man, I really look up to what you're doing. What you're doing is amazing.

• 32:21Jocko Willink?

  He's like, yeah, when I got my ass beat, don't worry. It was a four recon Marine and I was only 14.

• 32:29Jocko Willink?

  Did you, when you were, so this is like, uh,

• 32:32Speaker 01

  He was, he was adult though.

• 32:33Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, okay.

• 32:34Speaker 01

  He was like 18, 19 or something like that.

• 32:36Jocko Willink?

  When, how did you like being undercover? Did you like that?

• 32:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, I did. It, it like right away, like I gravitated to that.

• 32:47Jocko Willink?

  I don't like that stuff.

• 32:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:48Jocko Willink?

  I don't like it. I don't like, I don't like, I don't like pretend.

• 32:52Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 32:53Jocko Willink?

  And

• 32:55Jocko Willink?

  I just don't like that kind of thing and and I always wanted to have like an American flag on my chest like this is me I'm American that's what we're doing I was never suited for the other side of things you know I just just not part of my personality and even as I think about like under even I guess the at least in high school it doesn't seem like there'd be a huge threat level although apparently there was but it doesn't seem like you'd have to get too kind of complicated with your stories and your web of lies that you're telling

• 33:23Speaker 01

  it's not it's not super deep right it's pretty shallow I had apartment my dad like was this old guy that worked at the sheriff's office and he came in and would pretend to be my dad every now and then but another thing you know Lou Verre so he's a he he lived like he went to the same high school and we found this out later he went to the same high school and he knew about it and he like lived in the street that he used to buy crack off of so I'm like dude I think I've watched I've watched some crack from you before I I don't know why like I never thought about doing that I never aspired to do that when I did it I kind of liked it because I felt I felt like I could always adapt to any environment I was in like blend in with any group of people like I could go you know rich people poor people like I I just blend everywhere I

• 34:04Speaker 01

  go and it's just kind of my personality so I felt like it really worked in in that in that world like really I felt super comfortable doing that

• 34:11Jocko Willink?

  so you got a good taste for for that type of thing you know which is cool now you you had a officer involved shooting too

• 34:21Speaker 01

  I did

• 34:21Jocko Willink?

  when you were a cop what happened with that

• 34:23Speaker 01

  so I had just got off of the undercover thing they put me on patrol and and I went through the I still had to go through the whole like FTO field training offshore thing and this guy this marine named Steve Stephen Cantelli trained me and a guy named him and a guy named Paul trained me and then so I'm I'm done with field FTO and I'm working my beat which is like they have this in the East Bank of New Orleans side they had like these four beats and so I was like the center one and the guy like one over from me was the guy that trained me Steve Cantelli and I was just eating and I remember hearing a call come over radio and Steve was like a really composed like kind of very like solid guy and heard his voice like something was

• 35:04Speaker 01

  Wrong in the radio system cut off. We just got a brand new radio system for the whole department. You know, kind of Murphy's Law. It shuts off and so I'm like, man, something just inside me was like, he needs help. So I like, I remember speeding there and got my lights in my car and people were like stopping in the road instead of like pulling over and it was like having to like, I remember just being panicked to get to him because I just felt this imminence to get to him. And when I got to where he was, it was just like a, it wasn't like a trailer park, but he's like modular homes and and it was elevated and there was about 30 people outside the front like looking at this, the porch. And Steve was on the porch, elevated porch with this woman. And he's yelling with her. She, I could see her trying to get in the house and he's trying to hold her back, but he's still looking inside.

• 35:48Speaker 01

  And I come up on the porch and Steve's like-

• 35:50Jocko Willink?

  Is this nighttime?

• 35:51Speaker 01

  It's nighttime. Yeah, about, I think about 30 people out front. And, and Steve's like, hey, her husband-

• 35:58Jocko Willink?

  You're alone in your car?

• 35:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:59Jocko Willink?

  So you're, where you guys are, you're going single person?

• 36:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, single person units. Yeah. So it's just me and him there. And so Steve says, hey, this, this, her husband just barricaded himself in the back. His name was Russell Stebbins that we had been there before. He's barricaded himself in the back. He's got a gun. Get her off of the porch. So I, I tried to talk to her. She was arguing. I just grabbed her and and a bunch of men down at the bottom, I just pushed over the rail and a bunch of men grabbed her and pulled her off. Her kids were down there, like, I wouldn't say toddler, but like, you know, maybe six, seven year old kids down on the ground, looking up and you could tell they were like scared, trying to figure out what's going on. And, and so I came back and when I, when I turned back around, Steve put me in the doorway. He's like, hey, stand right here.

• 36:44Speaker 01

  I'm going to cover the window. And, and so he went to the window where, which is the back room of this modular home. So he couldn't shoot out the window and I stood in the doorway of this, of the main, of the, like right in front of me is living room. To the right is a kitchen and the cat a corner across from me is a hallway. And in the cat a corner, at the end of the hallway is a mirror. And so I can kind of see down the hallway. And I'm standing in there and I have a- I have my Glock, I have a Glock forty caliber pistol. And I have it out and when I seen him come into the window, that mirror, he had his rifle kind of against him and he was like barricading himself. And I could see him manipulating the like press checking.

• 37:26Speaker 01

  And I'm like, I just start yelling, I'm like, hey, put the gun down. Come out, let's talk about it. He's like, I want to see my wife and you guys need to leave. And I'm like, we're not leaving. You need to put the gun down. I was kind of talking like a cop would, like you train to do. And then he, and what provoked him to do this, but he came around the corner and he had the gun over his shoulder, not like, not like shoulder, like to fire, but he had it over his shoulder. With the barrel pointed towards me, but I could see his hand was by the trigger, but not on the trigger, which is kind of weird that he would do it like that and he was pointing it to me. But you know, in a lethal force continuum, like you could, I could have shot him right there. But for some reason, I felt like I still had control of the situation and like this guy that's arguing with his wife.

• 38:11Speaker 01

  He obviously been drinking. There's still dinner on the table. There's his kids' toys are on the floor, there's family pictures like. You know, you don't want to kill someone unless you have to like, I mean, in that morning, if somebody would ask me like somebody points a gun at you, I'm like, yeah, freaking go light him up. But now in that moment, like the reality of it, like, man, I don't have to kill this guy right now. I could still control the situation. So I, but I start yelling and I'm like, not like a cop anymore. I'm like, I'm gonna fucking kill you. Like, put your gun down, I'm gonna kill you. And he's like, you put down your gun. And he gets in this like verbal altercation back and forth with me and he's, he was six, three, two hundred thirty pounds. I know his height and weight, so he's, I'm like one hundred twenty-five pounds. And, and I had been training a lot. I was training a lot of the time in Muay Thai and Jiu-Jitsu.

• 38:56Speaker 01

  So my confidence level was probably like, you know, I'm getting in fights all the time as a cop. And, and so I decided to try to disarm him. So I walked, I kind of closed the distance on him with my gun retained in tight and I grabbed the barrel of his gun and pushed it away from me. And I kicked him in the nuts, like not like a football, like kick, but like a push kick. They'd like try to pull the gun out of his hand. And man, like nothing. And the second time I kicked him, I must have like pulled my arm away from me and he grabbed my wrist. So now we're like fighting over.

• 39:24Jocko Willink?

  So you have his rifle in your hand, but he has your pistol in his hand.

• 39:28Speaker 01

  My wrist.

• 39:29Jocko Willink?

  Your wrist in his hand. So neither one of you has control, full control over your firearms.

• 39:34Speaker 01

  That's right. And, uh, and so at that point I, I knew like he was not giving up. And so I just, uh, I turned my wrist over like to break the grip and I'm like, I seen like center mass and I shot once. And then I, then I pulled my gun in, I shot five more times. So I shot like six rounds, like pretty quickly. Uh, and then I didn't even realize Steve was behind me, but he was right over my shoulder. He shot six times. We hit him 11 times. I didn't drop the round, by the way. Always a good point to make.

• 39:58Jocko Willink?

  Shark.

• 40:00Speaker 01

  But yeah, but it was, it was so close, so center mass, like, and he, he turned, hit his knees and, uh, he looked back at me like conversationally, like he's like, you killed me. And, uh, and then he like fell over. I pushed him down and pulled the rifle underneath, from underneath him and, um, and I was trying to get his arms to handcuff him. And one of his wrists, I think when, when I, when I shot him, one of his wrists went, probably when I broke the wrist grip, it went in front of his body. And, uh, so it blew out his wrist. So when I went to grab his wrist to handcuff him, it was just like jello. Like, uh, I remember just like getting, I had like short sleeves on and I had, I had like blood all over me. And he like, I heard him breathe out and, uh, you know, he kind of like exhaled and breathed his last breath and, uh, and I handcuffed him and, uh, we searched the house and I heard all kinds of police, you know, sirens and everything that was coming like right then.

• 40:45Speaker 01

  And I remember looking back like, like right after, when I was handcuffing him, I looked right back out. For some reason my eyes went, I want to like look back and I, I don't know what happened first, if I heard her scream or, or, or if I seen her first, but I just remember his wife like screaming like the loudest, like blood curling scream. And then I seen the kids just like, just like, just stoic, like just quiet. And then, um, and then everybody got there, separated me and Steve. And, uh, we ended up getting our rights read to us, got the polygraph, the whole interview thing. And then the next day, uh, police chief called me up and was like, hey, don't read the newspaper. Of course I did. It said cold blooded murder. And then underneath it said, it was really small, police say justified.

• 41:26Speaker 01

  And I went through a long process of, I waited before grand jury for second degree murder indictment. Got cleared by the grand jury. We got an award from the Governor Medal of Valor Award.

• 41:40Speaker 01

  We went through a lawsuit, all the stuff that goes along with something like that. And then I was just like super bitter after that. And you know, because of the way the department handled it. I mean, it's, you know, it was super political. No one wants to make a decision. The District Attorney's Office could have like not put us before grand jury. It was very clear what happened. But uh, we uh, that was, I had no interest in law enforcement after that. I was like pretty, pretty jaded.

• 42:07Jocko Willink?

  And so then was it back in the Marine Corps?

• 42:10Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, I hung out. I actually went from patrol in that incident because of that award. The chief had promoted me to detective. And so I'm like 23 years old. I've been, I've been on, you know, did my four years in Marine Corps. Did one, uh, seven, eight months undercover, did a year on patrol, and now I'm putting in detective bureau because I just got this big award. And uh, and so I did that for a little bit until nine 11 happened. And then uh, when nine 11 happened, you know, it was, I think everyone was rushing back. Everybody in reserves rushing back to their unit. I thought I was gonna deploy right away. Uh, and uh, and uh, we, we didn't. And so uh, that, I don't know if you remember that it's time the air marshals went around recruiting at all the reserve units because

• 42:51Speaker 01

  you had special operations guys with top secret clearances. And so I was on that first, I was in that first wave of guys that went to air marshals and I

• 42:57Jocko Willink?

  Got it.

• 42:57Speaker 01

  Did a little bit of time there and then, and then

• 42:59Jocko Willink?

  How long? How long did you do at the air marshals?

• 43:01Speaker 01

  Just under two years. It was, it was super cool at first, then it became really lame, really fast.

• 43:06Jocko Willink?

  What was the number of air marshals there were before nine 11? And what was the number of air marshals there were after?

• 43:12Speaker 01

  Around 45 before. Um, I think the number after, uh, number now, uh, I, I wouldn't know. But at the time, they spun up from about 40, uh, a little bit over 40 and about 2,000 pretty quick. And uh, and you know, I gotta give it to them, the training, like I went through, the first training was It was freaking good.

• 43:35Jocko Willink?

  Legit.

• 43:36Speaker 01

  It was legit. Like, uh, you know, we had to do the Flexi stuff, the federal law enforcement academy stuff went down to Ortesia, Mexico, but the shooting package was the most competitive shooting package I'd ever pistol shooting package.

• 43:47Jocko Willink?

  We used to shoot that, whatever their qual is.

• 43:49Speaker 01

  TPC, Tactical Pistol Course.

• 43:51Jocko Willink?

  I just remember some call that, that we called the air marshal and I don't know, who knows if some team guy just saw it and whatever, talked to somebody about it, but we had some, and I forget what it was, but it was a, it was a good, tough, you know, if you weren't on your game, you, you could blow some of the shots, which makes sense. Obviously you're in an aircraft with a bunch of people and you only have a pistol, you want to be a freaking good pistol shot.

• 44:13Speaker 01

  Yep. It was, it was good.

• 44:15Jocko Willink?

  How long was that training for air marshal?

• 44:17Speaker 01

  Uh, I think it was like three months, three months and then, uh, and I started flying and I became the, uh, uh, the training officer for the Denver field office, um, because of my jujitsu background and, uh,

• 44:28Jocko Willink?

  So that's right. This whole time, when, when did you start training jujitsu hardcore?

• 44:33Speaker 01

  I, I, so I started, when I was five years old, I went to a taekwondo school, which, and I didn't, obviously I don't remember why, but somehow I gravitated to the traditional jujitsu school and judo, did that my whole life. And when I, when I was on 20 and poems in 1995, I was a, I seen a sign for jujitsu on base and I went to take it and it ended up being these two blue belts out of torrent.

• 44:54Jocko Willink?

  Hell, yeah.

• 44:55Speaker 01

  And I got, and I, I thought it was good. I got, I got mauled and I'm like, I want to learn that. Two people, do you have two different reactions when you get experienced jujitsu? You're either like, I never want anything of that to do with that again, or I have to do this. And, uh, and that was my reaction. So 95, I started Brazilian jiu-jitsu.

• 45:09Jocko Willink?

  That's where black belts come from. The black belts go, dude, I want to, whatever that person knows, I need to learn.

• 45:14Speaker 01

  I have to learn that, right?

• 45:15Jocko Willink?

  So that was a nice, so you started training pretty regularly back then. And then when you got out, where were you training in Louisiana?

• 45:20Speaker 01

  Uh, in, in Metairie, Louisiana, there was a, a guy named Hani Salas, who was a black belt, but we found out he wasn't really a black belt, but he was from Brazil and he was really good at jujitsu, way better than us. So he put on a black belt and we, he was probably, I think it was like a purple belt and we were like, and so that,

• 45:35Jocko Willink?

  We'll take it.

• 45:36Speaker 01

  Yeah. I learned a lot from him and a guy named Alfredo Ramirez, who was a Japanese jujitsu black belt, but he was really good at Brazilian jiu-jitsu. Uh, he wasn't belting Brazilian jiu-jitsu at all, but he was really good. He had fought in like the IFC and, uh, and then we had a guy named Josh Stewart that fought in the early day UFC. Uh, so we had some really, uh, really good like MMA fighters and, uh, And then we, you know, but back then, I know you've been training that long. Back then it was, it was, it was tough mat, a tough mat room.

• 46:04Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah. And, and even, you know, back then, if you had a blue belt, some, someone was a teacher, you could, you could run a school as a blue belt, 100%. Like, there were schools all over the place that, not all over the place, but there was a lot of schools that just had a blue belt, some blue belt was teaching, and that was that.

• 46:19Speaker 01

  I remember going to purple belt seminars, like.

• 46:21Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, for sure. For sure. When you, but you, and you had your first amateur fight in 1999?

• 46:28Speaker 01

  My first pro fight in 99. My first amateur fight was in 97.

• 46:32Jocko Willink?

  Oh dang, okay.

• 46:33Speaker 01

  Actually fought Dean Thomas.

• 46:34Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 46:35Speaker 01

  We fought, we fought.

• 46:36Jocko Willink?

  How'd you do against Dean Thomas?

• 46:37Speaker 01

  I lost.

• 46:38Jocko Willink?

  He's a good freaking guy.

• 46:40Speaker 01

  They told, they told me that it was his debut. He had just came back from Japan fighting Shudo. Monty Cox was a, was a matchmaker back then. And, uh, yeah, so, uh, but, but yeah, me and Dan, me and Dan became friends over the years, but he's, uh, and then in 99, he turned pro. And I did a couple of those fights where it was like the, the four man brackets.

• 46:58Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 46:59Speaker 01

  Like back then, and, and the rules were so like different back then. You could like stomp each other in the head. I did a few fights where there were like these, like, uh, little, like, pads with, with elastic under their fingers. Not much for gloves.

• 47:12Jocko Willink?

  Not much for gloves at all.

• 47:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:14Jocko Willink?

  So you, you're doing these fights, you have that officer involved shooting, um, you, you end up with the air marshals. And then how long are you doing, how long are you actually active working as an air marshal?

• 47:26Speaker 01

  Uh, just under two years, like.

• 47:27Jocko Willink?

  And that whole time you're a reservist?

• 47:29Speaker 01

  I'm a reservist, yeah. Yep, I'm a reservist. And, uh, and that's why, you know, the job they ended up having in that JSOC task force, I feel super privileged to have because guys had like a lot more time, uh, more qualified than me. But I think what got me, I think what got me selected when I tried out for that task force eventually was that combination of experience, mainly my undercover experience.

• 47:51Jocko Willink?

  They needed somebody to impersonate a teenager.

• 47:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 47:56Speaker 01

  I was starting, I was starting.

• 47:57Jocko Willink?

  That's wild, man.

• 47:57Speaker 01

  I was starting to grow my beard a little bit by then, so.

• 48:01Jocko Willink?

  So, so then at what point you get, you get, um, again, you're fighting, you had a fight that was October 20th, 2001, like right after September 11th.

• 48:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:11Jocko Willink?

  What, what fight was that?

• 48:13Speaker 01

  Oh gosh, I don't even remember. I think it was like reality, uh.

• 48:15Jocko Willink?

  What was the, what was the atmosphere? The atmosphere must have been freaking heavy dude.

• 48:21Speaker 01

  You know, um, that yeah, cause the, the atmosphere of the country was different, right? You had flags and all over the streets and stuff like that. You know, for me, like, so fighting back then, and you probably remember this, it wasn't as big of a deal as, as it is now. Like when I remember some of my first fights, like, we didn't even like have a fight card. We show up at a place and they like match you up like, okay, you're gonna go, that guy looks the same height as you. He's like 30 pounds heavier. Like that was kind of the real.

• 48:47Jocko Willink?

  There's still fights like that, dude. I hate to tell you. There's still fights like that. You go out on the rez here in California, you can see some scraps going down like, hey, well, how tall are you? What weight do you, uh, how tall are you? What weight do you, what do you think? You guys want a deal? Let's make it happen.

• 49:02Speaker 01

  So, but that was probably around the time that I was starting to do some, you know, there were shows, you know, and, uh, but it wasn't as big of a deal. I don't remember like, like towards the end of my fighting, but fighting these bigger fights like Bellator and Strike Force. Like you had a camp, you know, like, obviously like some of your guys here, but, um, in those early days, like it wasn't a, hey, you want to have a fight this weekend? I'm gonna go fight and make extra, make extra 500 bucks.

• 49:23Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I get it from that perspective for sure. Nowadays, like people have camps and all that stuff. Back then it was like, hey, you want to fight this day? Who am I gonna fight? Well, I don't know. Whoever shows up, let's roll.

• 49:35Jocko Willink?

  And then at some point you have an opportunity, or you see, you're in the Marine Corps reservist and the Marine Corps had, you have an opportunity to go to a, a joint special operations command selection. Cause they need a certain skillset that kind of ties into the skillsets that you have. You know, you have done undercover work. You've been in law enforcement. You, uh, you have experience, you know, obviously with fighting. So it's kind of like a good, you have a good combination for this type of work that they're looking for.

• 50:03Speaker 01

  And it had a really good, uh, connection. So if you've seen the movie Black Hawk Down, this guy named, uh, the guy that was undercover, like an AFO, uh, guy, he was riding a mountain bike, pretending to be a journalist. They got, they called the guy Hoot in the movie, which after Norm Houghton, um, uh, but Norm Houghton was actually a squadron, like. Senior listed guy, Rich Kachochi, Q was the guy that was actually AFO. So he and I were very good friends and he had kind of taken me in his wing to teach surveillance detection at the, at their marshals as a, when I was running the.

• 50:32Jocko Willink?

  Oh, so you had that experience as well?

• 50:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, so yeah, I was, I was teaching surveillance detection, I was teaching SD, SDR. I was even teaching at the state department, for the state department aside, like going out and teaching SD. So I had that background as well in that training and so Rich Kachochi.

• 50:47Jocko Willink?

  And on top of all that, you were in the Marine Corps. So you had the infantry experience, you had the recon experience. So you're a really good candidate. That's a really good candidate for someone that's going to be doing sort of undercover, intel gathering, kind of clandestine logistics, which is what, which is what they needed.

• 51:03Speaker 01

  That's exactly right. And so I, I really didn't even know what I was trying out for. You know, I just know Q, I trust him. I knew he was AFO at, at, at CAG, at Delta. And really looked up to him and he's like, I think you'd be a really good fit for this. I think you should try out. I'll put in a good word for you. And so I went and did this assessment and selection and got, and got picked up and, and got the opportunity to do, you know, what I believe is probably one of the, you know, biggest privileges of my life to serve in that capacity.

• 51:30Jocko Willink?

  So how long is that, how long is that school that you go to that's that assessment, selection and training?

• 51:35Speaker 01

  So the, the assessment and selection was like, it was like a week long of, of, you know, interviews and, and different skill, like different skill sets, proven different skill sets. And then after that, the training, I probably did, I probably did about eight months of training, just different school. It wasn't like one school. It was like different schools. A lot of them are, you've probably seen this before. A lot of them are like contractor, government contractors that run specific. And some of the schools I went to were like specifically for like me, like me and one other guy. Like, hey, these two guys are coming to this school. And so now we have like six instructors that are all former CAG and they're running a whole school for us. So it's very like high level of training, you know, extremely privileged to get that kind of like mentorship from guys that had

• 52:20Speaker 01

  done this job for a long time before. And they were really preparing us, they were preparing us not just for, like a lot of times you go to military school and they're preparing you for service. They were preparing us for a specific mission and uh and so that really like when you do that it really elevates the level of training you know because you're training for something specifically they know what you're gonna be doing they know who you're gonna be doing with they know what your resources

• 52:40Jocko Willink?

  They know what your area of operations is gonna be

• 52:42Speaker 01

  Everything yeah

• 52:42Jocko Willink?

  So you're getting totally detailed training customized for you and this at this time you're you are back to active duty Marine Corps?

• 52:51Speaker 01

  Yeah I went so I went to I went to active reserve which in the Marine Corps I'm sure the same in the Navy you have an active duty you have active reserve so I went on an active reserve contract so it put me back on active duty fastest way possible

• 53:02Jocko Willink?

  Got it

• 53:02Speaker 01

  And that's that was the fastest way possible

• 53:04Jocko Willink?

  But your paycheck was coming from the Marine Corps for this for this time period?

• 53:08Speaker 01

  For this time period now there was a point to where uh I switched to have a direct contract with my command uh you know at the JSOC command that I was at

• 53:18Jocko Willink?

  Yeah

• 53:19Speaker 01

  Which they do a lot they do that a lot in this particular command they're just like hey we want you to stay here we like you uh you're gonna do the same job but we're gonna contract you directly and that's that's how I ended up staying at the unit that was at

• 53:29Jocko Willink?

  Got it um so 2003 you you do your first deployment here to Afghanistan um I'm actually gonna do the book here this is the book once again and look this we're gonna read a small portion of this book today there's all kinds of details in here that I'm not gonna go into there's all kinds of stories that I'm not gonna read cuz well get the book and and you can read it but um this is one part I think ties this in pretty good you say I was conducting logistical support operations for my assaultor teams tasked with capturing or killing the highest value targets of Taliban leaders in the Afghanistan region getting my guys out safely and everything else in between Aziz was my interpreter from start to finish he had

• 54:12Jocko Willink?

  been teaching English in that apartment building when my teammate Andy recruited him to our task force Aziz spoke English extremely well and as crazy as it sounds teaching English under Taliban rule was a risky way to make a living Aziz was 25 years old married and knew his country inside and out he was also street smart and capable a necessity for an interpreter in our task force's assignments as with all the Afghans hired as interpreters we brought Aziz in at entry level to allow him to allow us time to see him at work and discern how much we could trust him Interpreter's job description varied depending on the units which they were attached. An interpreter assigned to administrative unit, for example, would be asked only to interpret.

• 54:56Jocko Willink?

  But in an infantry unit, an interpreter would also fight alongside our troops. By signing up for special operations, Aziz knew he was taking on a dangerous assignment, but that fit his personality, courageous and passionate. Of the local nationals working with us, Aziz quickly worked his way into becoming our most capable and trusted. Although Aziz came to us with no former military background, his father had been part of the Afghan Army in the late 1980s that the, or sorry, in the 1980s that the Soviet Union helped build up in support of its fight against insurgent groups. Aziz had grown up around fighting from childhood and understood the military mindset. We fast-tracked Aziz's trainings.

• 55:38Jocko Willink?

  Our command's job was to hunt down the most wanted bad guys on the battlefield, and we made sure Aziz could shoot, communicate as needed, and facilitate everything necessary. At times, I worked alongside other task force team members, but mostly I was alone except for having Aziz with me. Aziz and I traveled into what we called non-conventional or non-permissive areas where combat support and support forces were not operating. In addition to working in Afghanistan, we worked in the federally administered tribal area that blurred the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Our purpose was to go into these areas to establish a presence and build SOF missions

• 56:23Jocko Willink?

  support for kinetic action contingencies and escape. And by the way, it's funny, I'm looking at the book right now, there's a bunch of stuff that when you sent this book to the Pentagon, they redacted a bunch of, a bunch of things. And you know, with my background, I know what's redacted. I'm trying to read it in a way that we don't have, don't have to keep saying redacted. But there's a bunch of stuff in here that they've blacked out and that's fine. It doesn't, it doesn't impact understanding of what's going on. But you just gave sort of the background of what you guys were doing. You know, going in there, you've got, you know, assault teams or tactical teams that are gonna go and do missions, hit targets. Well, there's, those guys need...

• 57:06Jocko Willink?

  Certain support and that's what you guys were doing.

• 57:10Speaker 01

  I mean, a lot of people look, you know, you look at like, how does, how does a, you know, assault force get on, get to a target in a non-permissive area and get off target safely like where there's no support like, and usually, you know, people don't realize is there's guys that go there before them and set it all up. And then all the contingencies, right? You, you think of safe house, like what goes in a safe house, you know? Ammo, guns, blood, a safe room, money, clothes, vehicles with permits on those vehicles about to get through certain checkpoints and know, know what, know what, know what those checkpoints can be looking for. So those vehicles have to have all those things like, somebody goes ahead, figures all that out and puts it all in place. That way when, you know, it's go time, everything's done flawlessly.

• 57:51Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's like when you, when you go and watch like a documentary about a rock and roll band.

• 57:56Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 57:56Jocko Willink?

  Right? The rock and roll band, they show up in Chicago. Bro, there's, there's a hotel room for them. Their drinks are where they want them. There's like security set. Everything's ready. All they do is gotta do is get there, get on stage and rock and roll, right? But all the other stuff, like even their flights coming in, the people picked them up at the airport. All that stuff is taken care of. There's, you know, depending on what, who the rock band is, maybe there's some substances there that they request that had to be acquired. There's all this stuff going on, has to be done in a clandestine way.

• 58:28Speaker 01

  Sounds like, yeah, it sounds like team, I like team guys.

• 58:31Jocko Willink?

  They get no, they get no freaking, uh, they get no, uh, glory, right?

• 58:36Speaker 01

  Right.

• 58:36Jocko Willink?

  Those, it's like even not, not even the roadies, not even the roadies. We're not talking, we're talking before the roadies show up.

• 58:42Speaker 01

  Right.

• 58:42Jocko Willink?

  So all those logistics have to take place before the band can rock and roll. And it's hard to do that in a non-permissive, in a combat environment. And, uh, that's kind of, kind of what you have going on with your job. And it takes an incredible amount of effort to make that happen.

• 58:57Speaker 01

  Yeah. One of the things you said earlier is, you know, a lot of guys in, in, in special operations community, like that sounds like super sexy and everybody want to do that, but a lot of guys, special operations community not want to do that job.

• 59:08Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 59:08Speaker 01

  When they learn about it and, uh, and there's certain guys that like. That like are built to do it and love doing that thing for me that was like I didn't even know this job existed. And then once I learned, I'm like, this is right up my alley. This is exactly like what I'm supposed to be doing and I enjoyed it and I liked it.

• 59:24Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, no, it's a it's like I said, I'm not suited for that job. I mean, even just, I mean, look, I was doing work with a with an OGA one time and the guy's like, dude, you you have no, you have no, you have no reason to be here. Like you you stand out as a special operations guy from any angle like.

• 59:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:44Jocko Willink?

  He's like, you could not get this. He said, you could not get the special operations stink off you if you tried. And I was like, yeah, Roger that. Um, so that's the way it is. And it's funny, too. It's not like I, you know, not like I ever thought about that. That's just my whole life. I just grew up. You know, that in the teams, like, you're gonna end up being that way. And I guess I I guess I ended up being that way a lot. So anyways.

• 1:00:06Speaker 01

  We had we had a team guy that was like, put in with us one time. I'll say his name off off air if you want to do later, but I don't say it here. But he was that way. They tried to put him in with us because he had this like specific skill set for this one, like, like a feasibility study we're doing for a future operation. And he was like, check like Raj. I'm like, I'm like, dude, like, he gets freaking skinned alive like.

• 1:00:27Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's me all day long.

• 1:00:29Speaker 01

  He was just, you know, he just looked at too. And and and you probably know him, but I was, so we ended up having him like really just train me up. And I come out like he just really spun me up on something that I had no experience doing, but he really, he really trained me up.

• 1:00:42Jocko Willink?

  I'm not going undercover anywhere is basically what I'm getting at. Um.

• 1:00:47Speaker 01

  We we were one time, uh, we were in Jalalabad, Jalalabad. It was me and Aziz in a in in Dave Lamone. And the three of us are in this in this where like warehouse, we had set it up. We had like vehicle stage and so the team guys, so. So the team guys that came there, they they want to. Free fall in, I don't think they really needed to free fall, but they wanted to free fall jump in Afghanistan. So they, so they, they, they actually did a, I, we were supposed, I was, I wanted to know that too. So we thought we were get to going and we ended up not getting to go in on it. But they jumped in and, and then patrolled over to where we're at and, and there's medicine in this warehouse. And they get in there and they're like coming in and they like, you know, got their quads on and they're like, you know, do it, doing a, you know, the perimeter, like doing their, their sales, like stop, look, listen, smell. They're like doing all this. And, and we're just like, hey, what's up guys? Like coming out with our

• 1:01:32Speaker 01

  tea. Like, like you guys are freaking stupid. They're like, you guys are nuts. We live here.

• 1:01:42Jocko Willink?

  Right on. You go on to say here, I was assigned well over a hundred missions. Uh, no one was beside me or more instrumental in the success of, in the success of these message, missions as much as Aziz. His skills, expertise, knowledge and connections made our work successful. Aziz and I continuously operated in environments dangerous to us, not only because we were embedded in Afghanistan, but by the nature of our assignments, because we were in areas where our command wanted to target operating Taliban. We went by ourselves to where the Taliban were without military support immediately available to us. So that's what you're doing. Um, and,

• 1:02:27Jocko Willink?

  and again, some people are going to have to use your imaginations a little bit because obviously a lot of what you're doing was, was and still is classified, but that's, that's the type of missions that you're doing. You're in areas where you're not going to get support. Your, your best methodology for survival is being able to blend in and, and keep that stuff, uh, as tight as you possibly can. So you, you're going, you're, you're doing these missions. How often are you going on deployment? How, how long are you coming home for? What are they? These are shorter deployments, right?

• 1:02:58Speaker 01

  Shorter deployments. Yeah. I think a lot, a lot of people like eight deployments. And in fairness, my deployments were like, like four months long. I think the longest one was six and, and then I come, but I come home for like three months. We back out again. Sometimes even 60 days I'd be home just enough to go to some, and it's not really like going home and relaxing. I'm going home and.

• 1:03:16Jocko Willink?

  Going to school.

• 1:03:17Speaker 01

  Going to school, getting trained up for the next. We do every, every time out, we do a, we do a pre-deployment called, it was called loan operator course. We'd go to Las Vegas, a guy named Jay, it's called JTM, Jim, Jim Mitchell, train, or JMT, Jim Mitchell Training, where he's a former PJ guy, has a bunch of CAD guys on his staff. They would do all the pre-deployment stuff. And so I get, so yeah, there's always training between and you back out again.

• 1:03:39Jocko Willink?

  How's your wife like all this?

• 1:03:41Speaker 01

  Uh, actually at the time, uh, our kids are small. So she's just like so busy and, and she's a, I say that's not insulting to her at all. It's actually probably was a blessing for us. She was like extremely naive to what I was doing and she didn't care. Like I could have been out there as, as a Halliburton cook. Like, and she didn't know the difference or care. Like, you're going, you're going to work.

• 1:04:04Jocko Willink?

  A lot like my wife.

• 1:04:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:05Jocko Willink?

  She's just like, going to work, whatever. When you get me home, I'm pretty sure I'll be home in six months. Okay. Bye.

• 1:04:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. You're gonna pack your lunch. Like, like she, I mean, if I went home and said, I want to be a bank robber tomorrow, she'd die if I wanted a lunch, but you know, like she just, there's none of that matters to her. She's never been impressed by the recon bang or all this thing. She just did not fazed by it at all. So she was just really, she's a mom and she's a housewife and that's what she loves to do. And that's not, you know, that's just who she is. And so she just really thrived and just taking care of her kids and making sure. She always felt like her part was to make sure that I didn't have a heavy burden of, of what was going on back home.

• 1:04:39Jocko Willink?

  That's also very similar to my wife. My wife was like, she got, you know, she was taking care of the home front. So I could go and do my job. In the meantime, you're also coming, you're still fighting. You know, I was like looking at your record, um, on Sure Dog or whatever, one of those, and you, you, 2004, February 7th, you had a fight. A pro fight. You won. Um, April 19th, you had a pro fight. You won. November 16th, you had a pro fight. You won. This is like, you, you're an active, those are normal, those are normal intervals for a professional fighter in this day and age.

• 1:05:13Speaker 01

  I was, I was fighting, I, I was fighting guys that were training full time too, while I was doing, so like I'd be over, I, I always carried a jump rope with me and bands, because you can't go out jogging in, uh, in Jalalabad. So I, I always had a jump rope. I always had bands with me everywhere I went, uh, and, and, uh, And I ran into some, I had this guy, I ended up hiring him. He was a wrestler from Afghanistan and we carried mats with us and wrestled with him. And he was actually pretty good. And, uh, and so I was teaching him jiu jitsu. He was a really good wrestler and, and I trained with him out there, but I mean, I come back and, and as part of,

• 1:05:49Speaker 01

  you'll probably relate to this. It was part of my, you could get really out of shape really quick in this, in this job. Cause I'm not, I'm like, I'm at, I don't have the gym. I don't have, you know, go, I'm, I'm not on base. I'm going out and I'm like three months out in the mountains. And so you get really out of shape really fast. So when I come home, like I would crush myself. Like I, I have to get myself back in. And so putting a fight on the calendar for me, was like a mental like target to push myself. And I've always kind of been that way. I always want something on the calendar. Cause I'm, I'm like, when you talk about discipline a lot, like I'm, I'm probably the, the hardest working lazy person I know. Like, cause like I'll, I'll finish a fight and then the next morning I'm like, I'm too lazy to take vitamins. Like so,

• 1:06:29Speaker 01

  like having it. So having like a something on the calendar always pushes me to, to be prepared. I never, I never liked doing something and not prepared for. So if I had that date on the calendar. So it's doing these fights where there's something that would like force me back into, I come home and like, can I compete? A jiu jitsu tournament, MMA fight, like can I compete while I'm home? And that would push, push me to get back in shape.

• 1:06:51Jocko Willink?

  Now it seemed like there was a chunk of time, a few years where, you know, you, you didn't fight. You were probably just absorbed in work. That's what my assumption is. You're just working, going on deployment and you, you, you don't feel like you're, um, ready to fight.

• 1:07:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:06Jocko Willink?

  And, and these deployments just continue. Um, that being said, 2009, you know, January 31st, you fight. Um, you win. April 17th, 2009, you fight, you win. November 7th, 2009, you fight, you win. You got a freaking good record at this point. Like you were undefeated actually.

• 1:07:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:28Jocko Willink?

  That's, that's freaking outstanding.

• 1:07:30Speaker 01

  I think Sure Dog's missing like, like five fights too.

• 1:07:33Jocko Willink?

  Oh, are they?

• 1:07:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:35Jocko Willink?

  I, I think your record ended up being like 13.

• 1:07:37Speaker 01

  Sure Dog has 13, it makes martial arts.com has 18 and two.

• 1:07:40Jocko Willink?

  Okay. Well, there you go. Uh, a bunch of fights. You're, you're living this life. Um, and it sounds cool when we're talking about it right now, but. It started to take its toll.

• 1:07:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:54Jocko Willink?

  And I'm gonna go to the book here for a chunk. You say this. During my eighth and last deployment, I was conducting a feasibility study for an operation targeting a high level Taliban leader in the mountains. Aziz flew in to help. While we were there, we got caught up in the middle of a tribal rivalry. We were inside a building when we heard shooting break out from both sides of the street. I looked out to see cars blocking the road, wagons flipped over and tires on fire for hasty cover as the tribal members fired each other. It was rather typical, it was a rather typical day for such a hostile area, but Aziz and I wanted no part of the action. We scrambled through the back of the building and escaped the area. We completed the study and one of our special operations teams came in and killed the Taliban leader.

• 1:08:36Jocko Willink?

  I was called back to the Persian Gulf to meet with our leadership and they informed me the Taliban had captured and killed a group of 10 Afghan team members who had worked for me. This was a special group to me. I'd eaten in their homes with their families and played with their kids. These guys knew my location and possessed the ability to compromise me. The Taliban held them for a week and then hanged them, except for two who flipped to the Taliban's side and then turned the others over, causing their deaths. I loved these men. They were my friends. I would have died for them and they would have died for me. In fact, I believe they did die for me.

• 1:09:17Jocko Willink?

  Despite being compromised, I returned and continued to on with our operation because I believed its importance was worth the personal risk. A few days after arrive, I arrived, I was abducted by Taliban sympathizers.

• 1:09:33Jocko Willink?

  At 5:00 AM, I heard a knock on the door and through the window, I could see Jack, a guy who I'd spent time with in his home and, and an older man. Jack claimed to be Canadian, but he was clearly Pakistani. Both were dressed in suits and ties. When I opened the door, two more guys came out of hiding. The four men forced me out of my doorway and into the back of a car. They drove me to the hills outside of town. I thought for certain they were going to kill me, but I was going to put up a hell of a fight when the first gun came out. The heavily, the men heavily interrogated me for an hour or two, but I held up and for some reason they chose to release me. I attempted one more operation after that, but my mind was not in a good place. I was experiencing severe physiological reactions, panic attacks and mental disassociation,

• 1:10:16Jocko Willink?

  sometimes feeling as if I had awakened from a dream state.

• 1:10:22Jocko Willink?

  That's sketchy.

• 1:10:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, um, I know they, some of that was redacted and I changed the wording, but you know, I won't say which one, but it was a foreign intelligence agency that, that grabbed me and I knew, I knew it was when they grabbed me. And, uh, you know, I, you know, once fear sets in, if you don't deal with it, it becomes, just erodes you. And, uh, I remember flying back in after we found, learned that our guys were killed and, and making a decision. Cause it was like, hey, you guys still in? And I was like, and these two, we were like, yeah, we're, we have to. We've been putting three years into this, into this, this operation.

• 1:11:02Speaker 01

  And, uh, and, uh, that flight over, I, I remember I landed in Beijing and on that layover in Beijing was the first time I ever had a panic attack in my life. I didn't know what it was. I thought they sprayed like for the bird flu thing. And I was like, man, like I had a allergic reaction. I tried to get off the plane. They wouldn't let me off the plane and I was having a panic attack. And then, and then when I landed, uh, in the country I went to, that, when I landed there, I was, I was in bad shape and I was by myself. And so I started dealing with these panic attacks and I knew that, that intelligence agency was out to get me. And I pushed, you know, I think it was just too much to push forward, uh, through. And, uh, and then I don't know if I mentioned it in there, but in another spot, we had a house in Afghanistan. They drove a V-bid, a vehicle bomb into our house, leveled our house.

• 1:11:46Speaker 01

  It was, it was, it was bad, bad time and, uh, I was in, I was in bad shape.

• 1:11:51Jocko Willink?

  You say this here, um, fast forward a little bit, and again, there's a lot of details in here that I'm skipping over, but that's why people get the book. You say, "The execution of our Afghan teammates, the interrogation and the attempt to kill me and my teammates shook me up pretty good. My panic attacks and physiological symptoms were progressing rapidly." Or sorry, yeah, physiological symptoms were progressing rapidly. "In a moment of clarity, I concluded my declining mental condition had placed me and others in danger. I needed medical help. I communicated to my leadership over an open phone line that I wasn't feeling well. And instead of visiting a local doctor, I needed to see one in the Gulf. That was a signal that something serious was wrong with me. I booked a round trip flight to."

• 1:12:31Jocko Willink?

  Avoid raising suspicions and left behind all my personal belongings, other than what I stuffed into an overnight backpack. At the airport, leaving, I was paranoid about everyone around me. I noticed more police inside the airport than normal. I believed they were looking for me. I passed through customs with the feeling that I was rolling the dice for my life in a game of roulette, only to make it through and then learn my flight was delayed. I was convinced they were holding up the flight until they caught me. I remember staring at the hands on the clock and feeling like time was frozen. Finally, we were called to board the plane. To this day, I can clearly, I can clearly remember every moment of going through the gate and jetway to walk onto the plane.

• 1:13:11Jocko Willink?

  I don't know if I ever felt more relieved than when the wheels lifted from the runway and we cleared the mountains. My leadership held me in the Gulf for four days, I guess to ensure no one was following me. They prohibited me from calling anyone, but I called my grandmother Granny, who was like a mother to me. My panic attacks had convinced me I was dying and I wanted to tell her goodbye. Then I called my wife Kathy. For the first time since we met, she heard weakness and fear in my voice. Kathy arranged to fly there to be with me, but my command sent some of our team members to our home and shut down her plans of coming over for her safety and to prevent further compromise. I spent four days in the Persian Gulf alone. I ventured out to a pharmacy and purchased Valium to calm me down and get me through the flight to the States. Even at home, I wasn't mentally right.

• 1:13:57Jocko Willink?

  I was nonstop anxious. My hands and arms would go numb, then my face, my throat would feel like it was swelling shut, and I struggled to breathe. I would feel like I had a thousand pound weight on my chest. I met with a psychologist and was diagnosed with severe chronic post-traumatic stress disorder. Subsequently, I was removed from the task force, along with the operations I was participating in. By that point in my career, I had direct contract with my command, meaning I was no longer on active duty. I essentially was out of a job and home for good. I brought all the anxiety, guilt, frustration, anger, and shame home with me. Being pulled out of the game without finishing the business of stopping the Taliban and making Afghanistan safer, which I had come to dedicate my life to, made things worse.

• 1:14:41Jocko Willink?

  Nobody understood me, I believed. Everyone was against me. And the toxic mix of thoughts and fears raging inside me was their fault, not mine. I closed myself off to others. All I knew to do was what I had trained to do: fight. But now I was fighting for myself and by myself, and I was losing.

• 1:15:03Jocko Willink?

  I trained in martial arts since age five and in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu since age 19. I'd also competed as an amateur and professional mixed martial arts fighter with an unbeaten record. Kathy suggested we open a Jiu-Jitsu school, and I went full bore into training and running the school. I also returned to fighting professionally in MMA. Within three years, our school grew to two locations and a thousand students, and I still had not lost a fight, had won a world title, and climbed to number six in the world rankings in the flyweight division. I looked like I was winning at everything, but my life was a complete failure.

• 1:15:40Jocko Willink?

  Kathy and I separated and filed for divorce. I convinced myself the best thing I could do for our three children was commit suicide.

• 1:15:50Jocko Willink?

  In September 2010, while pressing a pistol to my head, I heard someone outside my apartment door. I hid the gun. When I opened the door, Kathy was standing there. We engaged in a heated argument that led her to ask me a life-altering question. "Chad, how can you do all the things you've done in the military, Afghanistan, be willing to die for your buddies, train so hard for your MMA fights, and show such discipline to cut weight for competitions, but when it comes to your family, you quit?"

• 1:16:21Jocko Willink?

  There's no more soul-cutting word to me than being called a quitter, but she was absolutely correct. I had found professional success, but when it came to the most important things like being a husband and a father, and having the will to get well, I had quit.

• 1:16:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:16:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was a very, uh, looking back, it's, uh, it was, that, that spiral happened like,

• 1:16:53Speaker 01

  like so quickly. I mean, it was three years, that spiral was three years, but it was, it was, it would just, it happened so quickly and it was so out of control and I, I just kept trying to find ways to get control of my life and, man, I just couldn't. Um, and I was, I think more than anything at like the panic attacks and the, the level of panic attacks were like debilitating. Like I felt like literally like the best description. I felt like I was gonna die. But on top of all that, what was worse for me is I was embarrassed. I, I was, I was just, that's the simplest word I could give for it. I was, I was just embarrassed. So what were you embarrassed about? Cause you know, you, I worked my whole life to get, you know, my whole, like, you know, we talked about my story, like everything I worked to get to a place like that,

• 1:17:34Speaker 01

  that I didn't even feel like I was qualified to be at because there's so many people that had so much more military experience than me to be able to be at a unit like that, to be on that mission. And I was like, when I was doing across border stuff, like I was given like the keys to the kingdom to do this operation, uh, like, so I felt so privileged to be there. And then I was entrusted with all of this and then I felt like I failed. You know, I felt like I failed at it. And I felt like I was like, like if I played NFL, you know, made it little league, all the, the D1 college and then NFL and the Super Bowl, and then you, you fumbled the ball. That's what I, I felt like I did. I was entrusted with this and I, and I failed and I was embarrassed. And you know, you've been in that environment. Some people kind of alluded, alluded to that and, and, uh, you know, there's people that I, that I

• 1:18:13Speaker 01

  trusted and looked up to and would have, would have died for them. And, and they were like, you know, looked at me that way, uh, and, and even said things to, you know, hey, man, you like let us down. Like, you know, you were, you were fine last, you were fine last month. Like, and, uh, man, it, you know, it's things like. You you don't you don't like brush those things off when there are people you respect. And uh and it hurt and I was just like embarrassed and uh and so I just wanted to hide from it like like I talk like right now. Everything about my life's like military, you know, my Instagram, but in that time when I came back, I didn't want any, I didn't want to mention anything about the military to anyone. That three years was like jujitsu, people asked me about the military, I just like pretty much ignore them, I didn't want to talk about.

• 1:18:54Jocko Willink?

  What years was this?

• 1:18:56Speaker 01

  Uh two thou- I came home in April of oh seven. And uh so from April of oh seven to pretty much uh two thousand ten.

• 1:19:03Jocko Willink?

  Where was your jujitsu schools?

• 1:19:05Speaker 01

  In the Woodlands, Texas.

• 1:19:06Jocko Willink?

  Oh, okay.

• 1:19:07Speaker 01

  So if you uh if you follow a guy named Alex Morano, he's UFC fighter right now, he's a, he was one of my students back then, he runs the same school now.

• 1:19:14Jocko Willink?

  What's the name of the school?

• 1:19:15Speaker 01

  Now now it's Gracie Bahad, the Woodlands.

• 1:19:16Jocko Willink?

  Got it.

• 1:19:17Speaker 01

  So.

• 1:19:18Jocko Willink?

  And that school's still there?

• 1:19:19Speaker 01

  That school's still there, yeah, it's a, it's a pretty thriving school, they got, they just put out, put out the last ultimate fighter Ricky Tercios came out, he was, he was a kid. In my school back then, so he just, but they put out some good guys.

• 1:19:30Jocko Willink?

  That's all, that's awesome. It's just so bizarre, right? Like to read this and you got your school, I mean a thousand students at a jujitsu school or even two jujitsu schools. But that means you're financially doing.

• 1:19:43Speaker 01

  I was doing well.

• 1:19:43Jocko Willink?

  Totally comfortable, I mean, that's a great job, you're impacting people. You're around people all the time, right? Like, so it's not like you're isolated from an external perspective, right? You've got students, you've got other instructors.

• 1:19:59Speaker 01

  But you know what I was just isolated from was accountability. I had systematically uh pushed everybody out of my life that would say anything uh hard to me. And and I had made my life to where everybody just lifted me up and no one told me the things I needed to hear, people just told me what I wanted to hear. I I did that like uh and I and I was, I felt like I was probably, I was pretty, pretty good at that, like I could just manipulate relationships to to have people around me that just like lifted me up and enabled me. And no fault to any of them, I was, I was, I was doing that. And and like you said, the the jujitsu school, like the success of it, we opened the doors, like I came home in April, by the, by summer, like, I'm like, I'm gonna be out of money, like, I need to figure out how to take care of my family, so I like just. Got back in and and just started grinding to make this work and I opened the doors with like

• 1:20:42Speaker 01

  a hundred and eighty students which you know back then

• 1:20:45Jocko Willink?

  So day one you were making good money?

• 1:20:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was able to to take care of my family right away. So coming out, so anybody on the outside looking at this would have thought, you know, I'm I'm I was being successful, but I mean, I was still dealing with panic, like debilitating panic attacks. I was a tyrant to my family like I'm not a I'm like a pretty like, like kind person, like especially I like love my love my family tremendously. And but at that time, I was like yelling at my wife like a Marine Corps drill instructor punching holes in the wall slamming doors, breaking things. Uh, it was one time I came home like from my my little girl's birthday and she's having her birthday party and she didn't like the icing on her cake like something soup, something super simple and I picked up my little girl's cake and threw it against the wall and destroyed my little girl's birthday. And I remember like what kind of person, what kind of dad behaves that way. And I was just so out of control that I just started

• 1:21:32Speaker 01

  isolate isolate myself more because I I just felt like it was a behavior that I couldn't get get a hold of.

• 1:21:37Jocko Willink?

  So really, this manifested, all this bad behavior from you manifested in your wife filing for divorce?

• 1:21:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, because

• 1:21:46Jocko Willink?

  I'm done with this shit.

• 1:21:48Speaker 01

  Well, it really, I think she was in she was she was trying so hard, like, uh, she's like a really strong one of faith. She was like, she was like trying so hard and, uh, but our marriage just kind of me isolating myself and marriage just like drifted apart. So I'd sleep in friend's house at the gym. I had like a place to sleep at the gym. I would sleep in my kid room. My wife and I talk now a lot about it, like the loneliest place we've ever ever been is not me away in deployment, but in our own beds, like our backs turned to each other and just like a dead marriage. And then so we were just like really separating our own home, staying together for the kids. And you know, there's a lot of girls around jujitsu's and jujitsu gyms. And so it didn't take long for me to end up in relationships with other women. So I ended up in a full blown affair and didn't really give me care like I was so like callous. And I had like so little empathy that I didn't

• 1:22:32Speaker 01

  even care. So when my wife found out, the solution was, let's just get divorced. Uh, this isn't working anyway. And so we filed for divorce, moved into two separate apartments, signed twelve month leases. And we're pretty committed and you know, sold our home that we worked so hard to buy and, uh, And uh, my wife and I had two really different reactions. Uh, she went into a church. She changed churches. She went to a church to be around people that she thought would be like, really supportive, like a, like a good positive group, not people that would be like, oh, your husband's a, you know, jerk anyway. Like it was people that would like, give her good support. And uh, and she said, you know, she would go in there, not just on Sundays, but like, like a couple of days a week and just pray for me. And you know, she's, people would wonder, you know, what could a woman pray for you?

• 1:23:14Speaker 01

  And when you're being, behaving that way. And she said she would pray like, God, let me see Chad the way you see Chad. Let me love Chad the way you love Chad. Let me forgive Chad the way you forgave Chad. Like that's what she was like, doing this for me while I'm like, running around with women and I'm, I'm like, my reaction was, I got this apartment, bachelor pad, set up in like two days, no family pictures outside. I had all my family pictures. It's kind of grotesque for me to say, but had all my family pictures on a, on a shelf in my closet. So like when girls come over, they wouldn't see that stuff. And, and uh, it's like totally being a degenerate. I signed up for a fight on Strikeforce. Uh, that's like one of the last big Strikeforce cards. UFC had owned Strikeforce at the time. And uh, and so I just like, dove into that. I'm like, I can stay busy. I don't have to deal with this woman anymore.

• 1:23:57Speaker 01

  And I fought a kid named Roberto De Leon and we were like, it was like a highly touted fight because he was like, we're both in the area and he was like, I, I forget what his professional record was, but he was like really known for amateur because he went like 18 and O as an amateur. And uh, he's like a really good striker and they were talking, smack about me being a ground guy, had submitted all my opponents, but I wouldn't strike. So, ego got the best of me. I was feeling pretty good in my boxing. I stood in the middle of that cage with him. And we, it was like my Rocky fight, like back and forth. I had submitted everyone before, but now I go to a disengagement and every round like he punched me and knocked me down and I kicked him in the face and knocked him down, even knocked his mouthpiece out. Like a, with a good, good T kick to the face. It was like a pretty good fight. And at the end, I remember they're like, they're like,

• 1:24:39Speaker 01

  gonna announce a decision and I'm like, oh my gosh, like what happened? I don't even remember what happened and my corner is like, it's gonna be close, man. And I'm like, and they had called, the one judge calls for Humberto, the others for me. And I'm like, oh my gosh, I just lost my first fight. And then the third judge calls for me. My hands raised, and you know, 10,000 people screaming. And I remember like, having this moment, you know, you've been in that cage, like people were screaming and it's like loud and like deafening, but like, everything got quiet. And I remember thinking like, man, all these people here, Kathy's not here. And I just fought so hard for this stupid, like, which I love jujitsu, right? But was in context, right? I fought so hard for this stupid win on my record. But meanwhile, my family's like devastated. And that's when I went home that night with my head held. I just went, me and Tim Kennedy, because he fought in that card. We had after fight party, Ranger up through it for us at

• 1:25:22Speaker 01

  Buffalo Wild Wings. I stopped in, checked in, went home to my apartment. And I was laying in bed, just realizing like, man, I'm like, what do I have? Like, my life, like, everything that I'm good at is over. My life's like, I don't have any purpose moving forward. My family's the only thing I have, and I destroyed them. And I'm in a stall came over me, like, maybe my family would be sad without me, but they'd be better off. And, you know, that, you know, you know, that same hopeless life finds a home in the hearts of 20 something veterans every single day. And I didn't want to take my life to escape my situation. I thought it was the betterment, for the betterment of my family. And, and I really had believed that. And I made the decision to do that.

• 1:25:58Jocko Willink?

  So you made the decision you're gonna kill yourself?

• 1:26:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:26:01Jocko Willink?

  That night after you freaking won Strikeforce?

• 1:26:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. I was laying in my bed that night. That's when I decided. And I wasn't gonna tell anybody. I didn't want anyone to intervene. The one thing that would, so I would sit in that closet, I put my, I literally put my family pictures on the floor around me. And like, and I had the Glock 22 pistol. And when I put the gun to my head, I would have this vision of like, how it would play out. Like, somebody's gonna find you. Somebody's gonna hear the gunshot, you're not gonna show up somewhere. It's an apartment, you're gonna start smelling, like, someone's, someone's gonna find you. And the only other person that had a key to my apartment at the time was my oldest son, Hunter, who's 13 at the time. So, and I had heard a statistic that one in three children from a parent that commits suicide would do it as well. And, and so that thought would come in my mind. I'm like, man, my son's gonna find me. So that was enough to pump the brakes. But I'd be in such a dark place, I'd be back

• 1:26:45Speaker 01

  at it. Like, I was convinced that that was the right thing to do. I convinced myself of that. And then, that's when Kathy came, I was in that closet.

• 1:26:53Jocko Willink?

  How long were you in that mindset for?

• 1:26:54Speaker 01

  About two weeks. And I'd snap out of it, but I was just like this looming, it was almost like this feeling like, Like I'm driving, like there's a pole, I could just turn my wheel or, you know, stand on the edge of your building. I just, I just have to jump, like I have a bottle of pills next to me, like I just have to, then it's done. Like I just had this like, it was just like, almost like this, like a, almost like a spiritual like influence, like just like, and uh, you know, I'm saying that's what it was, but it was just like, it was like something just looming that was just like there for like, and I had thought about it a lot before, but in that two weeks, I was like committed to do it and uh, and uh, but I just could not get past that, how to, how to get past not leaving that for my kids.

• 1:27:35Speaker 01

  And uh, and, and then that's when Kathy came to my apartment, I was literally uh, I had that pistol and she knocked on the door. I wasn't gonna answer it, cause I didn't know who it was, but when I heard her voice, uh, this is my apartment, my closet, she would never came in there, but I panicked and I hid that gun under her blanket, which was probably because of shame. And I went to the door and I was so, it sounds twisted to say, but I was so mad that she was there interrupting me killing myself, that I just started screaming at her and she's not a very calm arguer, but, but in that moment, she was like, she was like totally calm and she asked me that question, you know, how could you do all this stuff? She like laid out all this stuff and weight cutting was always a big thing to her. Cause she's like the amount of discipline, like I could like have an, I love Doritos, like I don't eat them now, but I had, but like just to lick,

• 1:28:16Speaker 01

  I wouldn't even lick the nacho cheese off in a, in a, in a, in a house by myself, like that kind of discipline. She's like, how could you do all of that? Cause she had to see all of that, you know, and how could you do all of that? But when it comes to your family, you'll quit.

• 1:28:27Jocko Willink?

  What was it that brought her over that specific night? Did she, like, how does she explain that? What?

• 1:28:32Speaker 01

  She, she had talked to me that morning, I don't recall the conversation, but she had a, a intuition that I was gonna hurt myself. And she had, she just, she just said she just knew uh, something was wrong, something was off and she felt like I was gonna hurt myself. And uh, I didn't say anything to allude to that, but she just had that, that woman's intuition.

• 1:28:55Jocko Willink?

  You say this in the book, Kathy was attending church and praying for me, my recovery and our family. I asked if she could find a man at her church to counsel me and provide accountability. That led to Steve Toth entering my life and leading me to become a Christian. Before then, I would say I was a Christian. I wore military dog tag that claimed I was one, but for the first time in my life, I surrendered my life to Jesus. After my recovery, I created a ministry called the Mighty Oaks Foundation to help combat veterans and those from the military communities suffering from PTSD and life issues to move beyond life's hardships and into the life God created us all to live. Over 20 veterans a day were committing suicide and I felt compelled

• 1:29:39Jocko Willink?

  to tell every struggling veteran I could, the lesson I had learned during my journey in life, just like in combat, we aren't meant to fight alone. With Mighty Oaks, they wouldn't have to. So that's when you started the Mighty Oaks Foundation.

• 1:29:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, I tried everything. I had been on the medication. I'd been through all the counseling at the VA and civilian counseling programs and financial success, like you said, jujitsu, professional success, I had accolades. Like, some of those things are good, some of those things are bad, but none of those things really changed my situation. And, you know, with Steve, you know, I had literally like wrote a five paragraph order, op order of how I was gonna fix my life. I met with him at Starbucks. I wanted him to show it to my wife, so I like proudly and smugly slid it over to him and he didn't even look at it and he slid it back over to me and told me I was gonna fail. I remember being like super offended, but then he tapped in a paper and he said, if this plan doesn't have anything to do with your relationship with God, I'm not gonna waste your time, I'm not gonna let you waste mine. And like I said, I tried everything. And so it was the one thing that I had never really been intentional about. And so I made a decision

• 1:30:39Speaker 01

  to surrender my life to Christ, become a Christian. But beyond that, Steve mentored me the entire year in what would be called discipleship, you know, biblical living and teaching me how to, how to make better choices. And that's what I really discovered, like... As bad as like some things I've been in my life, like, you know, like the loss of friends, and you know the pain that comes with that, and my childhood, and all these bad things that happened to me, as bad as those things were, those things didn't lead me to be in a closet with a pistol in my hand. What had led me there were the choices that I made in response to those things. And so I had really inventory in my life through this mentorship that Steve was giving me, like, the reason I was going down the trajectory I was going was I was just making bad choices. And so as Steve started mentoring me in his biblical living, I still had anxiety, I still had depression, I still dealt with anger and frustration,

• 1:31:23Speaker 01

  but now I had better, a blueprint for making better choices. And I was super intentional about that. I'm kind of that way. If I'm all in on something, I'm gonna be all in. So I was very intentional, very disciplined about it. And, and by being intentional about it, I started seeing restoration in my own brokenness and my own anxiety, depression. I started feeling like finding healing in it, and I started finding restoration in my family. Our family, now we've been married 27 years, and, you know, three amazing kids, they're all married. Two of them went to Bible college, two of them went to Marine Corps. I've got two granddaughters, one in the way. Like, we have this amazing family. And I found hope again, and ultimately I found purpose through that. And that purpose manifested in like a real deep burden. I believe God put on my heart to share that lesson with others, and that manifested in the founding of Mighty Oaks Foundation, you know, and

• 1:32:07Speaker 01

  that was 12 years ago. And over the last 12 years, I've spoken to half a million active duty troops, have run the, we run our recovery program. We do about five to six million dollars a year in programming, free for active duty veterans, first responders, or spouses at five ranches we have around the country, do this recovery. But we're doing like 35 camps a year, and about 1,000 people per year we put through it. It's a week long camp, and then we have a program with policy to fight and advocate for veterans, faith-based veterans care in DC. I was on the chair, I was the chairman of White House's Faith-Based Coalition in 2018 and 19. And then we have our international program. We go around the world to allied partners and give those same principles of Mighty Oaks that will help US service members. We help people and partners around the world. And

• 1:32:49Speaker 01

  I've been to Ukraine like 10 times since February, helping the Ukrainian troops out there. So that's kind of what this all manifested into. It's just paying it forward. Honestly, that's all it is for me. Mighty Oaks is just an opportunity to pay forward with, you know, the second chance that Kathy gave me, the second chance that God gave me, the mentorship that Steve gave me. It's just, it's been to pay it forward. And we, we don't just help veterans, we teach them to do the same, and really empower them to be able to do the same for others. And that's why it's become like, it's grown so fast, because, you know, the discipleship process is just replicating and replicating. Not just helping people with equipping them to be part of the solution.

• 1:33:23Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I know. We were talking about our mutual friend Matt, who is a SEAL, who he's on the board, I guess of.

• 1:33:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:33:30Jocko Willink?

  But he was, he was, early on, he was even more engaged and involved with Mighty Oaks, and he was the guy that I would call if someone reached out to me that was really having issues. And I remember one time, you know, we were talking and, and like, just to the, and I don't want to say the specifics, because I don't know, you don't want to break any privacy of anyone, but a guy had checked in who was like severely wounded from self-inflicted

• 1:33:59Jocko Willink?

  from a self-inflicted situation. And, you know, he was able to take this guy who had tried very hard to kill himself. And were able to get this guy kind of back on track, and that to me was a real testament to what you guys are doing. And, you know, we already talked about Lou, like my buddy Lou, who I was at Team Three with, just an awesome guy, and I know he had some significant struggles, and, you know, just to see his life turn around is just awesome to see. So, yeah, the, the things that you guys are doing with Mighty Oaks is, is just outstanding. How long was it before your wife and you got back together? Like, when did you guys get back in this, under the same roof?

• 1:34:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, so, so I'm like, yeah, I'm a pretty radical personality, so, so I'm like, when I made this decision, I'm like, hey, I'll like, you don't have to trust me, like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna fix this, the same, that character, that work ethic, the discipline you're talking about, like, I'm gonna fix this, like, I caused the problems, I'm gonna fix this, so I'll, I'll sleep on your back porch, but, uh, but I'm coming home. And, uh, not, I mean, I had an apartment, she had an apartment, but I'm going to where you are, and, uh, and she's like, you're not coming back, and I'm like, I'll sleep outside, like, um, I, I caused the damage to do this. She didn't make me sleep outside, but she let me in on the couch and, and, uh, eventually I worked my way back into our bedroom, but, uh, but, uh, it was, it was probably a year of really, like,

• 1:35:21Speaker 01

  deliberate like work to put our put my marriage back together uh that that first phase and then and then it probably took like five or six years to really heal from from what I'd done but but that that first year was like me making decision because I'm pretty prideful like so when I think like hey things are fixed now like like we should do put this behind us that's kind of my mentality I think most men's mentality but for me it was like realizing like I heard her like she's gonna be entitled to being hurt lashing out throwing things back in my face like I had to make the decision I was allow that to happen because otherwise we would have never been able to get through it because that was I I'd go I'd come home sometimes she was happy I was home sometimes she was like you disgust me like I don't want you in the same house as me like she

• 1:36:05Speaker 01

  was hurt and I hurt her I did you know betrayed her in a worse way a husband could betray a wife so I had to I had to really work through that and luckily that mentorship with Steve was like like man like why she's throwing this stuff in my face again that she want to sabotage us and he's like man like did you not betray her did you not break her trust did you not like a you know does she not have a reason to not trust you like all those things were like yeah I gotta so I'm gonna have to be the one that just bites the bullet on this and and let her hurt let her bent let her uh you know throw things back in my face until we so she gets it out of her system and and earn that trust back and so that's what I did

• 1:36:40Jocko Willink?

  uh by the way you got another book called Fight For Us which I didn't read the whole thing normally I didn't realize about this book until a little late but uh but there's a bunch of really good sections in there so check that book out as well um and that's basically about well it says win back the marriage God intends for you so this is about you know relationships but you've also got a bunch of cool stories in there actually you cover your time in the police force is really good book as well meantime while you got this going on 2011 April 16th you you lose your I think this is your first fight uh that you lose in Bellator

• 1:37:15Speaker 01

  fought Bellator champ Zach Makovsky was the champ at the time And uh, so you know, went right into Bellator, fighting the champ. Uh, no one wanted to fight Zack at that time. And I was like, heck yeah, you know.

• 1:37:27Jocko Willink?

  Let's go.

• 1:37:28Speaker 01

  Let's go. Yeah, man, he's, he's an awesome guy. One of, at the time, I thought he was one of the best fighters in the world and, and that opportunity to compete, you know, you always, if you're a real fighter, you're like, you want to compete against the very best. And, uh, and I had the chance to.

• 1:37:39Jocko Willink?

  You stepped up.

• 1:37:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:37:41Jocko Willink?

  You fought again, July 22nd. You lost in a guillotine. First round. Quick. What happened, bro?

• 1:37:47Speaker 01

  I know, man.

• 1:37:50Jocko Willink?

  Did you listen when I had Tim Kennedy on the podcast? Did you listen to that? Like, it's funny. I like, people pointed out to me, I was, I'd be like, bro, you lost. I was so hurt that he lost. Cause I'd be rooting for Tim so hard, like when he was fighting. So when he'd lose, I'd be like, bro, what happened, Brad? What happened?

• 1:38:06Speaker 01

  You know, with Zack Makovsky, it was like, but people was like, that's your first loss? Like, how'd that hurt? I'm like, man, I was my best. I wasn't injured. Like, that was the, that was the best me and Zack was better. Like, that first loss, it didn't bother me. I was like, I mean, I'm a competitor, so I don't want to lose, but I was like, it, it made, it's gonna make me step up, right? The next one, the guillotine, that eats me still.

• 1:38:27Jocko Willink?

  Wasn't it quick?

• 1:38:28Speaker 01

  It was quick. So I, I went out kind of lax. I usually like come out pretty aggressive and I went out kind of laxed and he, he rushed me. Uh, and he's like 15 and two. He has a good record, but I, I felt like I should have beat him like 10 out of 10. And, uh, he rushed me and I, I went back against the fence and I fell and, uh, and I like, thought that I couldn't get kneed or anything. So I reached for his legs. And he kneed me, but not with a knee, with a quad. So it was legal. And, uh, and it, and I woke up in a guillotine. I got, I guess I got up and I did two, I did two singles, put him down with two singles. And on the second single, the first one, he came back up. The second single I did, I didn't remember doing it. I was like, out. But it's muscle memory, man. You just.

• 1:39:05Jocko Willink?

  Oh, so you were on the ground and he kneed you, but he luckily for him, hit you with his thigh and not his knee. And so they declared it legal?

• 1:39:12Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I, he probably meant to, meant to do it that way. I don't know. I don't know. But, uh, But I woke up in a gilly, I remember waking up dreaming I was drowning and uh, and that's, that's uh, and I was like, what happened, man? I couldn't believe I lost that fight. And I had like, all the Brooke Army Medical Center brought like the whole wounded warrior unit there. They had all these guys there, like in wheelchairs and from the burn unit, they were all there. And I like, ah, it hurt, it stung.

• 1:39:36Jocko Willink?

  Um, you did win again, May 2012, you win Legacy FC, um, North-South choke, round one.

• 1:39:44Speaker 01

  That was a UFC vet, Joe Sandoval.

• 1:39:45Jocko Willink?

  No, it's a good win. Uh, what I think was your last pro fight was 2013, October 26th, World Series of Fighting, and you won again with the North-South choke.

• 1:39:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's my choke.

• 1:39:58Jocko Willink?

  That's your choke. We need to do a private and you can give me your details.

• 1:40:01Speaker 01

  I tried to get Jeff with it, uh, Jeff Rial.

• 1:40:05Jocko Willink?

  Oh, Jeff Rial.

• 1:40:06Speaker 01

  You were coaching against that. I couldn't get it on him. That's my choke. And I was trying to get it on him and I couldn't get it on him. I get everyone with it and he, I get everyone with it and I was in a position for it and he escaped.

• 1:40:17Jocko Willink?

  Oh, Jeff's a, Jeff's a freaking scrappy kid, man. Yeah. Who won that?

• 1:40:22Speaker 01

  I, I did.

• 1:40:23Jocko Willink?

  Did you, did you win by points or judge's decision or whatever?

• 1:40:25Speaker 01

  Judge's decision, yeah.

• 1:40:26Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's the, that's one of those ones where they hold up the flags at the end. Yeah, yeah, I remember that.

• 1:40:30Speaker 02

  Was that fight to win?

• 1:40:31Jocko Willink?

  Uh, something like that. What year was that?

• 1:40:35Speaker 01

  Oh gosh, I don't know, like five, six years ago, seven years ago.

• 1:40:39Jocko Willink?

  Um, now during this time, you're, you're doing Mighty Oaks, you're, uh, you know, you're obviously still fighting. You, and, and with Aziz, you're kind of keeping intermittent comms with him because you know, all the stuff's classified and you're just not wide open talking to him. Your son's going to Marine Corps.

• 1:41:01Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:41:01Jocko Willink?

  Um, which is awesome. How'd you feel about that?

• 1:41:04Speaker 01

  Man, I was, I was super pumped, uh, because you know, my oldest son Hunter always wanted to be Marine and then like family footsteps, you know, he wants to work at Mighty Oaks one day. So he's going to Bible college and then he's like, I want to go to Marine Corps. He, he wanted to be a recon Marine and I talked to him because he's like, also want to be a husband and a dad. I'm like, you probably shouldn't pick being a recon Marine. And so I, I, I kind of like sat down with him and figured out what he liked the most. And he was super interested in aircraft. So I showed him about Anglico, which is like a J-TAC little small.

• 1:41:32Jocko Willink?

  That's legit.

• 1:41:32Speaker 01

  Four man teams that go in bed with foreign nationals and he loves. Working with other countries, so I thought, man, you could get to work with all the different foreign militaries, get to call for fire, uh, call in air support. So that's what he did. And he ended up uh, deploying to Afghanistan with the, with the Georgians, with the Georgian, he was embedded with the Georgian infantry.

• 1:41:48Jocko Willink?

  Check.

• 1:41:48Speaker 01

  And so he got to actually, even in two thousand eighteen, he got to actually go in and do kinetic, kinetic operations, call in fire support.

• 1:41:55Jocko Willink?

  And then what about your other son?

• 1:41:56Speaker 01

  He went in to be a, uh, he went in to be crash fire rescue. So he had always wanted to be a firefighter, my wife's family's firefighters.

• 1:42:04Jocko Willink?

  There you go.

• 1:42:05Speaker 01

  And, uh, so he did a little merger of both and he actually got out with the VAX. He did not want to get the VAX. And, uh, and I, and I supported him. He was, he was kind of worried that our family would end eighty-four years of service with that, you know? And I'm like, hey, man, like, uh, if you're doing it for the right reasons and that's your convictions, like, I'm gonna, I got your back and.

• 1:42:23Jocko Willink?

  And what about now? Are they gonna let him back in or whatever?

• 1:42:26Speaker 01

  They're asking him to come back in now. So his, his was called a other than honorable discharge.

• 1:42:30Jocko Willink?

  Oh, come on, man.

• 1:42:31Speaker 01

  For a commission of a serious offense. And, uh, but he, he, we, we had like some serious like consultation.

• 1:42:37Jocko Willink?

  You're down in Houston?

• 1:42:38Speaker 01

  We're in Houston, yeah.

• 1:42:39Jocko Willink?

  Is that Dan Crenshaw's freaking district?

• 1:42:40Speaker 01

  It is, yeah.

• 1:42:41Jocko Willink?

  You give, give Dan a call, man. That's totally ridiculous.

• 1:42:44Speaker 01

  It is.

• 1:42:45Jocko Willink?

  Other than honorable?

• 1:42:46Speaker 01

  Other than honorable, yeah. Yeah. And he, he was like honor grad at a boot camp, like, I mean, uh, I mean, squad leader at boot camp, honor grad at his middle school, like he, he, uh, he, he did, he, he's like, he was, you know, and he was about to get meritorious promoted corporal and, and they were like, then the VAX came up. So, so he did, uh, he did, uh, religious exemption and then they did the appeal and then the appeal to the commandant and then when he went to do the appeal to the sec, second Navy, uh, Secretary of Navy, they wouldn't send it up. And, uh, so he filed like the whistleblower thing and, and, uh, and reported a commission, uh, reported unlawful order because of some of the, the details about the VAX was, you know, a lot of people would agree is unlawful order. And so that was the kind of end of it for him and they discharged him.

• 1:43:33Speaker 01

  But he'll probably go back in. I think he's gonna go back into reserves.

• 1:43:36Jocko Willink?

  Good for him. Um, so you're doing all this stuff. And like I said, your, your communications with Aziz relatively, you know, intermittent at the time. Um, and again, you got a bunch of details about all this lessons that you learned along the way, you know, in both these books. And you have another book too, which I got the Kindle version of. I don't have, and that one's called Never Unfair Advantage. That's really, really cool. Kind of focused on your, on your work in, in, uh, special operations. Um, but I'm gonna fast forward now. It's summer of 2021. Um, Biden has already announced that, uh, you know, America's gonna leave on this date. Regardless of what the circumstances are, that's

• 1:44:18Jocko Willink?

  when we're leaving. Things are going, things are going south. They're going south quick. Um, I'm gonna go here to, this is chapter five of the book. And, and it's, it's, the name of the chapter is, is who surrendered to the Taliban?

• 1:44:34Jocko Willink?

  So here we go. Based on reports I heard from contacts in Afghanistan, the Taliban seemed emboldened following the United States not, the date, not terms announcement. The Taliban was starting to sweep its way across the country with Kabul, its winner take all target. Although we were still committed to the SIV process, and that's, that's a special immigrant visa for Aziz's family. And again, I fast forward through a bunch of stuff. You've had stuff you've already done. You're working to get him out. You're, you're making connections. You're trying to make it happen. I'm fast forwarding past that stuff. Uh, the situation on the ground was more severe than we were hearing back in the States. I called Congresswoman Vitsi, Vicky Hartzler, a member of the US House of Representatives from Missouri and a wonderful woman and leader. We had worked

• 1:45:17Jocko Willink?

  together through Mighty Oaks Foundation on policy related to faith-based solutions for veteran care. I informed Representative Hartzler of the incredible service Aziz had provided for our country and that although he had reapplied for the SIV status on July 1st, 2021, he could not get into the US Embassy in Kabul because of the COVID-19 restrictions. We have to help this guy, she told me. Representative Hartzler committed to doing what she could to push along his application. Although I trusted her, I had no faith in the actual SIV process. I knew I needed to go into Afghanistan and bring Aziz and his family out. My teammate Andy and I had already been discussing possible options for saving Aziz.

• 1:46:00Jocko Willink?

  At the end of our, one of our phone calls, I said I wanted to move forward. Andy immediately said he was on board. And fast forward a little bit here, I pitched to the propose, I pitched the proposal to Richie McGinnis, a journalist with the Daily Caller who had interviewed me for many stories about Mighty Oaks and veteran issues. I'd enjoyed working with McGinnis. I respected him and liked me. He loves a little adventure. I described for McGinnis how his organization would be our cover by saying they were working on a story out of Afghanistan regarding the withdrawal. They would hire me as their consultant, Andy as head of security and Aziz as a local culture expert. After getting what we needed in Afghanistan for our piece, we would fly by private jet to Dubai for completion of the production work, but we would need Aziz

• 1:46:45Jocko Willink?

  and his family to accompany us to be interviewed for their story. Then Aziz and his family would remain in Dubai and of course, never return to Afghanistan. McGinnis was all in for both the story and to get Aziz out and his bosses at the Daily Caller granted our plan an enthusiastic green light. I crunched the numbers and estimated our operation would cost $65,000. I believe God has an impeccable timing on how he orchestrates events. That same day, I received a call from Wayne Hughes Jr., a dependable friend, advisor and longtime generous supporter of Mighty Oaks. Wayne had read an article about a special Army Special Forces guy who wanted to get his interpreter out of Afghanistan. "Do you know this guy?" Wayne asked. "I want to help with this Afghanistan thing and I'm thinking about giving to this. I don't know him," I told Wayne, "but I'm actually wanting

• 1:47:30Jocko Willink?

  to do the same thing for my interpreter. I was literally planning as you called. Why didn't you tell me?" he asked. I explained how I appreciated everything he had done for our foundation over the years and didn't want to ask for anything more. "How much do you need?" he asked. "About $65,000," I replied. Wayne responded without hesitating. "Done."

• 1:47:49Jocko Willink?

  So that's like your initial plan.

• 1:47:52Speaker 01

  That's the initial plan, yeah.

• 1:47:54Jocko Willink?

  Pretty good plan.

• 1:47:55Speaker 01

  It was, yeah. I thought it was good. And, uh, man, Richard McGuinness was, uh, he was on, all that stuff you seen on Fox, like undercover with Antifa and BLM that he was under. He was, he was, uh, embedded with them and he's like, you know, pretty cool guy. And I was like, man, he'd be down for this. And they talked to, they talked to Tucker and everybody was like, yeah, that sounds like great for, for us to get a story. Whatever they do, they do, like whatever we did, you know, but they're like, it's a great way for them to get a story.

• 1:48:21Jocko Willink?

  Then, I mean, things just start moving fast.

• 1:48:24Speaker 01

  Moved too fast to pull that.

• 1:48:25Jocko Willink?

  On August 11th, the media reported that one US official, uh, admitted Afghanistan could fall to the Taliban within 90 days. I'm gonna fast forward a little bit. On August 12th, so that's August 11th. Then on August 12th, and I mean, obviously, we all remember this happening, but it's interesting when you hear the dates. On August 12th, the Taliban was taking over so quickly. They now faced no resistance. The Pentagon announced the deployment of 3,000 US troops immediately to evacuate diplomatic personnel from the US Embassy in Kabul. Not that a defeat would have been admitted, but sending troops in after declaring the withdrawal of our military had to be the last thing the White House wanted to do. The withdrawal wasn't transpiring as planned. Unfortunately, the mounting problems were so predictable.

• 1:49:02Jocko Willink?

  The following day, Kandahar fell. Next, Mar- uh, Marie Zasharif, the capture of Afghanistan's second and third largest cities on consecutive days revealed the Taliban's military strength because the ANA still maintained an operating base in Kandahar. The Taliban had to go into those places with a militant force intimidating enough to compel resistance. Fighters to surrender. So this was just a freaking disaster across the board. Fast forward a little bit more. Again, you, you give great detail. You have, you have very cool perspective that you put in the book because Aziz is there, you're talking to him. So you're getting his perspective. It's a great way you did that in the book.

• 1:49:40Jocko Willink?

  Uh, you say the results of the White House not having a plan unfortunately manifested on the events of Sunday, August 15th, a sad day in the histories, both of Afghanistan and the United States. The Taliban took over the capital city of Kabul that day with no resistance. President Ashraf Ghani, I want to do like an entire series of podcasts about this, this.

• 1:50:02Jocko Willink?

  miserable human being fled the country hauling possibly close to 170 million dollars with him we later learned and the Afghan government collapsed Afghan and what's funny about you know Gani was like a professor at Berkeley I think where he taught like how to save failing countries he taught this course and and you know he just ridiculous

• 1:50:24Speaker 01

  where's he at now with all that money

• 1:50:26Jocko Willink?

  yeah Afghan government collapsed Afghans flocked in the thousands to Kabul Airport looking to escape also that day the American flag flying over the US Embassy in Kabul was lowered and the embassy evacuated

• 1:50:42Jocko Willink?

  you go on to say in 1975 the US military pulled out of the Vietnam War but the diplomats contractors CIA employees and marine guards remained behind when the North Vietnamese took over South Vietnamese capital of Saigon a hurried mass evacuation of Americans began the final Americans Saigon were first forced to evacuate via helicopters landing in the embassy's parking lot and on the roof the word humiliating is often used to describe that moment in US history five weeks before we evacuated our Kabul in embassy President Biden had assured Americans there would be no such repeat of history there's going to be no circumstance will you see people being lifted off the roof of the embassy of the United States from Afghanistan he said

• 1:51:28Jocko Willink?

  obviously we all saw those pictures Kabul was Saigon all over again contacts on the ground were telling me that the Taliban had surrounded our embassy and weren't allowing personnel out embassy workers could not get into a car and drive four miles to the airport they had to be flown out via helicopter how we left the embassy proved the Taliban was calling the shots and they knew it we did not hand over the embassy to the Taliban no diplomacy was involved helicopters flying off the roof is not a peaceful transition that's a retreat the Taliban took our embassy from us August 15th was a day of defeat the Afghans lost their country to the Taliban for Americans our military did not suffer defeat but the US government with blood on its hands lost to the Taliban

• 1:52:16Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, freaking ridiculous.

• 1:52:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think one of the biggest lies the American people were given with Afghanistan was that we were in this 20-year war, this endless war, that we had to leave. And I think one of the things President Trump could have did in 2018 was declared the war over and shifted to and announced to support an abadjar rule, because that's what actually happened. So in 2018, and most Americans don't understand this, but we were, we moved to support an abadjar rule of the Afghan National Army, Afghan National Police, and the international community all participated. And we did it at Bagram Air Force Base, which is the most strategic place on the globe right now between Iraq, Iran, Russia, and China. And it was working. We were supporting and lifting up the Afghan National Army to keep the Taliban at bay and keep terrorism where it belongs in the mountains of Afghanistan and not here and

• 1:53:02Speaker 01

  out, and not become a global threat or a national security threat. So like, this push to withdraw from Afghanistan was just a lie. I mean, it's not even consistent with our traditional, like, military strategy. We have 80,000 troops still in Japan since World War II, and 40,000 in Germany, 35,000 in South Korea. We had 2,500 troops at one point in Afghanistan. Why would we want to give up that base? And in doing so, we didn't even talk to NATO, we didn't talk to the Afghan government we put in place, we talked to the Taliban, our enemy of 20 years, that we did this Doha Agreement, which the Doha Agreement basically says that they won't allow terrorism. They are terrorists. And we seen right away, they're, you know, they're starting to execute people day one

• 1:53:46Speaker 01

  as they're coming out of Pakistan there. I mean, it was, it's just insane to me.

• 1:53:51Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:54Jocko Willink?

  When you're gonna, when you're gonna support a country that's trying to change the way that they've lived, it takes generations to do that.

• 1:54:02Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:54:02Jocko Willink?

  And you pointed out two, three examples, right? Korea, Germany, Japan. It takes generations to get them to be stable on their own, and that's what it takes. But we weren't fighting a war anymore in Afghanistan. The war that we had been fighting... Was over.

• 1:54:21Speaker 01

  Was over.

• 1:54:22Jocko Willink?

  You know, we hadn't taken casualties. I think we hadn't taken a casualty in 18 months, something like that. So the war was over.

• 1:54:29Speaker 01

  And 2,500 troops, we have that, I can name 10 places right now, Djibouti, Africa, Syria, Iraq, they're all over the world. That's not a lot of troops. And you know, so the idea that we don't want to stay in sustained wars, that these contingent forces prevent wars. It brings stability in regions. And so for us to give up, I mean, now we're looking at potential war with China without even a strategic location like Bagram there. China, China actually is who's occupying the base now, not the Taliban.

• 1:54:55Jocko Willink?

  Ridiculous.

• 1:54:58Jocko Willink?

  Fast forward a little bit in the book, as rapidly as the situation in Afghanistan was spiraling out of control, an effort to save Aziz was coming together in equally stunning fashion, so quickly that it could be only described as a god thing, orchestrated in a divine way that I could not explain. Andy, give us a brief on who Andy is.

• 1:55:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, Andy is like a longtime friend. He was, he was on that first JSOC task force with me and he has a lot of experience. And he's the one who actually recruited Aziz in the first place to bring him on with us.

• 1:55:25Jocko Willink?

  Got it. So you're working with him again. And you say, Andy and I started connecting with our network of operators who might be interested in going into Afghanistan with us. We specifically wanted guys who had deployed to Afghanistan, were from the special operations community, had real world SOF experience, and most importantly, had a heart to rescue vulnerable people instead of look to get in a fight with the Taliban to sow their war lust oats. We ended up quickly assembling a core group of operators who were highly experienced, trusted, and rightly motivated.

• 1:55:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think it was a big thing that we were looking for. So I didn't want anyone to go there like to go get some, right? That's like, this isn't the place for that. You had 20 years to do that. Like right now, we're going not to be combatants. And that was very important to pick mature guys. And so we had some, we had a, you know, a couple of SF guys, recon guys, some guys from, from ground branch that were, that were able to be part of our team. And a very experienced group of guys all had that same kind of passion and motivation that we had just to go do the right thing. And that's why I call it, we all like. Pretty strong people of faith, I think. Everybody, we called the Task Force Six Eight from diverse, Isaiah Six Eight here, my, send me. And that's what we called it. And, uh, and, you know, it was originally all just to go get his yeast and his wife and kids, but that changed, obviously.

• 1:56:38Jocko Willink?

  You, uh, talk about a key person and not just the operators, but you say God started bringing groups of like-minded people together and we began consolidating our efforts. One such person was Sarah Verardo, Sarah Verardo, whom I met through the Mighty Oaks. Sarah's husband, Michael, was catastrophically wounded by two separate IED attacks in Afghanistan in 2010. The blasts took Michael's left leg and much of his left arm. He has endured more than a hundred surgeries, plus years of speech, visual, physical, and occupational therapies for his body and traumatic brain injury. Sarah became a champion for wounded veterans and their caregivers through volunteering with the Independence Fund. She eventually became the fund's first CEO. In addition to the direct help, the Independence Fund

• 1:57:23Jocko Willink?

  provides wounded veterans and their families. Sarah has become an effective influencer in Washington DC of national policies related to military and veteran causes. As I worked parallel efforts in DC through Mighty Oaks, Sarah and I joined forces over the past four years to impact veterans' healthcare policy. And, uh, you know, so she plays a huge role in this.

• 1:57:44Speaker 01

  Huge. I mean, she's, she's very sharp. She's very connected. And obviously she has a, a very personal vested interest in, in Afghanistan. I mean, her, you know, she, you know, pretty much lost her husband, uh, you know, or lost, you know, who he was when they got married. And she's like his caretaker now. Like, and, uh, so she was very, uh, you know, was very passionate about this. And so she was one of the first people that I, that I connected with in this because I knew she had the ability to move the needle on making things happen. Access is important, especially when you're in a DoD controlled evacuation. So access is important. So I knew she could help with that. Other guys, you know, Tim Kennedy, Nick Pomashano, uh, guys, I can't mention their names. I mentioned Joe Roberts' name, uh, but some really, uh, incredible group of guys and.

• 1:58:30Speaker 01

  You know, as we're putting this together, uh, one of the guys picks up his phone and puts it down and is like, uh, hey, this, uh, there's these 3500 orphans and they just got left. Cause people are surviving, right? They're the 35 provinces fall, people are surviving. So like these kids just got left, like, uh, you know, Andy and this guy Sean were like, we need to go get these orphans. And that's kind of shifted from, let's get as easy as wife and kids, but let's get as many Americans, interpreters, their families, women, children, that'd be persecuted, Christians that'd be persecuted. Let's get as many people as we can. We have like this incredible group of people. We're all willing to do it. Let's just go all in. And, uh, and that's what I said. We've got a lot of credit. Like we had recognized on the house floor. We got, I got that Bonhoeffer achievement award. Like we get all these things, but the truthfully, like, the only thing I feel like I could

• 1:59:13Speaker 01

  take credit for is that we were just, we had that burden that we've got put in our heart and we said yes. And beyond that, like, I'm not smart enough or capable enough to pull off what happened. Cause it was like, it was literally like some things happened and like, that's why I said, the only way to describe it is like a divine miracle. Cause if any one of those things didn't happen, the way they happened in a sequence of events, it would have, the whole thing would have been fall apart. And the first was Sarah calling, uh, the joint chiefs and getting permission for us to be able to go in a DOD controlled HKA airport, how many cars that international airport, as civilians to possibly land like commercial aircraft or foreign military aircraft and go outside the wire to rescue people. Like, that's like a, I mean, you're an offshore, that's like a no.

• 1:59:53Jocko Willink?

  That's like, that's a no, exactly.

• 1:59:56Speaker 01

  And, uh, but, but in a miraculous turn of events, they said yes. And then we had to figure out how to get people, these are visa applicants now. Like, so they said yes, but we have to be able to give our manifest to the joint chiefs. They have to approve. So we have to be very diligent in who we're getting, how we're getting them, have a bona fides process to prove rapidly who they are. And then we have to be able to move people that are visa applicants across the border of another country. We can't bring them to the United States because we're not the state department. So we have to find somewhere to take them because that's too many trafficking. And the only place you could do that is like Laredo, Texas, I think, but. Outside of that, in the real world, you have to follow rules. And so we called the royal family. We had some people that need a royal family of the United Arab Emirates, and we asked for permission. We were on this phone call for like an hour, and I thought, man,

• 2:00:39Speaker 01

  he's, no one's saying anything. I'm like, they're just rolling their eyes like these idiots. But at the end of that phone call, they were like, we'll roll out the red carpet. We bring them here. We have a humanitarian center. We have doctors, food, facilities. We're going to take care of, just get them here. And he said, if you need an aircraft, we'll give you a C-17 plane, the large military aircraft with pilots. And if you fill that one up, we'll give you a second one. And then the third thing that happened was Glenn Beck, radio show host, a friend of mine, Glenn Beck called and he said, Chad, I just got into radio to raise money. I thought I could raise a few thousand dollars because I just wanted to do something. So he got behind his microphone. He said, in three days, I raised 21 million dollars. Overall, he raised 46 million. He's like, what do I, I don't have an operation. So I said, start chartering planes. And so Mercury One's his nonprofit.

• 2:01:22Speaker 01

  They partnered with us at Mighty Oaks, and they started chartering a guy named Rudy Atala, who's a veteran, amazing dude, started chartering planes for us. And so all that came together in like, three days to launch this operation.

• 2:01:33Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's freaking, it's crazy. I mean, like, it's a crazy amount of stuff. And you got great, you got stuff about the team in here. You know, you got Andy, you got Tim Kennedy, you know, what did you say about Tim? A member of US Army Special Forces, Green Beret Sniper, top 10 UFC fighter, well-known TV personality from History Channel's Hunting History, History, uh, series, and Discovery's Hard to Kill, and a guy just crazy enough to try anything once. And then you say the main reason I reached out to him because he's a trust, quote, friend and a legit operator. Beyond Tim's celebrity profile, he has extensive training and real-world experience in soft operations. He's not a has-been. He is still that guy, currently serves as Special Forces, uh, Operations Sergeant.

• 2:02:18Jocko Willink?

  With the 20th Special Force Group. Tim's like, I don't know, I don't know how Tim does what Tim does.

• 2:02:23Speaker 01

  He gets a lot of heat for like being like, people go after him, but man, and people don't realize he's like, he's legit.

• 2:02:28Jocko Willink?

  Oh, absolutely, absolutely. Uh, you know, like you said, you got Nick Palmichano, uh, Palmichano. Uh, he's another guy that's a stud, you know, he's a Ranger, West Point guy.

• 2:02:40Speaker 01

  Super smart.

• 2:02:41Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. I mean, you just put together this guy, C Spray.

• 2:02:45Speaker 01

  C Spray was the kingpin of a lot of this, and what would, some of the stuff in Ukraine, highly intelligent guy, Green Beret. You know, you served with, you know, the premier like special operations, uh, in, in, in the intel side. He's, he, he lost 37 pounds in the 10 days we were on the ground doing everything. He did not stop like he didn't eat, didn't stop. He just like kept going out and getting people. It was, he's a, he's an incredible human being.

• 2:03:11Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And then your son, Hunter.

• 2:03:13Speaker 01

  Yeah. You know, so he's like, well, he's like, he's like, Dad, I'm, I'm gone. I'm getting ready. And he's like, what are you talking about? Go to your room. Like, he's like, he's like, uh, you know, I'm, I'm a, I'm a man now. I have a beard. Like I've been in Afghanistan. Like I had interpreted too, like I want to be part of this. And I'm like, and so I just kind of thought for a second, like, man, like how horrible would it be for me to like, take that away from him? You know, and, uh, I mean, obviously I don't want him involved in this because of his dad, I want to protect him, but how horrible would that be to take that away from him? And me have to face that, know I took that away from him for the rest of his life. So, so, you know, he ended up in Abu Dhabi, really just doing, he's a, he's a super smart, you know, kid. And he's, he's like, he just really organizes things really well. So he was like, and he kind of earned his place there in Abu Dhabi. And then, and then ultimately he wanted to come on the, the river operation with me, but we didn't let him do that.

• 2:03:58Speaker 01

  But, but now he's like in Ukraine, like he's leading operations in Ukraine. He's, he's pretty smart.

• 2:04:03Jocko Willink?

  He's got it going on.

• 2:04:04Speaker 01

  Yeah. Uh, he's a black belt too.

• 2:04:08Jocko Willink?

  He's definitely got it going on. Um, fast forward a little bit, again, get the book, but I'm going to fast forward a little bit here. After Kabul fell, the first part of our task force, six eight, which you already talked about, that's from Isaiah six eight. Uh, here I am, send me, um, team headed overseas to set up a jock in the UAE. And again, the UAE been, you know, the, they're, they're, they're fighting terrorists in the UAE. The UAE is staunch allies of America. Um, so it doesn't actually surprise me that they were ready to support. I remain in the United States for a few more days to continue working on operations logistics for when the team arrived in Afghanistan and to work with Sarah setting up a system for the flood of requests coming at us because that's another thing that's going on and you talk about in the book like now all of a sudden, everybody knows that you're gonna get people out. Everyone's

• 2:04:53Jocko Willink?

  putting in requests to you. Sarah worked the DC angles, taking responsibility for coordinating with government officials to ensure we did everything legally. We were carrying out a moral cause, rescuing our fellow man, and we knew we had to precisely follow the law.

• 2:05:10Jocko Willink?

  You go on here. As of Friday, August 20th, we estimated 100,000 Americans and allies needed to be brought out of Afghanistan. The next day, Sean, Seaspray and Dave flew from Abu Dhabi into Kabul as our first boots on the ground. Tim and Nick would fly later into the UAE with Hunter and me, and then Tim and Nick would travel on to Afghanistan. Once we had everyone in place, Andy, Joe, Hunter and I, along with others, would work operations and coordinate rescues from the jock in Abu Dhabi. Sean, Seaspray and Tim would be our three-man rescue team, working outside the airport while Dave remained inside Ajkaya to coordinate with the military. Nick would spend one day helping Dave and then return to UAE to work with us. So dude,

• 2:05:53Jocko Willink?

  this is like an incredible logistic freaking effort. It's like insane.

• 2:05:59Speaker 01

  It was like so fast and it was like, yeah, like I said, if any one of those things.

• 2:06:05Jocko Willink?

  If you were to say, hey, listen, I want you to evacuate 50,000 people from a country, how long do you need to plan and execute this? You'd be like, I need six months. Adam, that's if you are good. You're like, look, I need six months. So the fact that you're doing this shit in three, whatever it is, four days, something like this, six days, is absolutely freaking awesome.

• 2:06:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's just everybody just coming together. Uh, it was one of those moments. There's always a little bit of ego everywhere. It was one of those moments that everybody put all that aside. And just work together to do the right thing. And everyone knew there's no time for that. There was no time to like for posturing and positioning. Everyone was just like, let's just lock arms and do it.

• 2:06:45Jocko Willink?

  That was rad when we had Tim on talking about this, like, you know, Tim is just such a good, such a good dude, but he's like, yeah, I'm glad this happened when he, you know, he's glad it happened when he was whatever, however old he is now, thirty seven or forty one or whatever he is. He's like, cause he just was like, okay, what do we need to get done? Whereas if he, you know, if he was young, if he was being young Tim.

• 2:07:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:07:05Jocko Willink?

  Which young Tim had to be a handful. We laughed a bunch about what a handful Tim, young Tim was. Um, but yeah, just the, the fact that it wasn't just him, but everyone on the team. Have all these badass experienced people and they're all like, what do we need to get done? No egos. Let's rock and roll.

• 2:07:18Speaker 01

  That's, that's, that's what made it happen. That's what made it happen. It was, it was cool to see Tim that way. You know, I've been knowing Tim for a long time and Tim was just like, like, what do you need carried? Like, what do you need? Like, he, he was like, where do you need me? And, uh, and, and honestly, it was like, we need you on a ground team. And he was like, he wasn't going like seeking and everybody was giving him a hard time for that. Like, he was just like, where do you need me? And, and he was just there to help. And, uh, and by the way, like, he didn't need to do any of that. He's like, he's a pretty successful dude right now. He didn't need to prove anything. He's got, he's got the profile. He's got the bio. Like, he's got a successful, he didn't need to do any of that. He just want, he just wanted to help.

• 2:07:51Jocko Willink?

  Just trying to help out.

• 2:07:52Speaker 01

  Yeah. Um, and, and for me, like, one of the other benefits for me is that I know when I was putting this together, like, this is going to cost a lot of money and I have to raise it fast. And, uh, you know, I already have like Mighty Oaks. I have to raise six million dollars a year, like, um, to, for Mighty Oaks, like, I need somebody else that can help be in the PR side. And so Tim wore that hat too.

• 2:08:12Jocko Willink?

  And damn, Glenn Beck raised what? Twenty six million?

• 2:08:15Speaker 01

  Forty six total, uh, twenty one in like three days. And those, but those flights, like a lot of people don't realize those flights were like eight hundred thousand dollars a piece.

• 2:08:23Jocko Willink?

  You know, props to, uh, obviously to Glenn Beck. That's awesome. Also to the American people that are like, oh, I can afford to give a little bit to help these citizens out, help these allies out.

• 2:08:33Speaker 01

  That's why, like, I keep saying as I talk about this, like, there, so there was a time where we're in Abu Dhabi. And uh, it was, I was really perplexed by this because they had helped us rescue, uh, get some Americans out, right? And so I, I was in this room and we were, a couple of us were in there. There was the Minister of Interior, there was uh, five generals, there was uh, twenty something lawyers and uh, and a couple of royal family members. And I had to thank them, uh, rightfully for helping us get these American, Americans out when our government wouldn't. And then I also had to apologize for our government, which I'm a pretty proud patriotic dude. So for me to apologize for our government was like something hard. But uh, but as I walked out, I remember walking out just feeling ashamed and uh, and then I thought for a second like,

• 2:09:18Speaker 01

  you know what, I'm ashamed of our, of our government, but I probably never have been more proud of, of being an American. Because when the government, when our government did not do the right thing, good people stood up and just did it. And I don't mean just the twelve of us that went to do the rescues, I mean like, the thousands of people who donated. Uh, the, the people who just, there was people that, that don't like me, that follow me on social media, because they don't like me, my conservative patriotic views and they, so there were people that, that were following me that were writing me like, hey, I don't like you, but what you're doing is awesome, where can I support? Like, like, you know, people like that. And there was a Jewish organization that went to donate, uh, right about in the book, they went, went to donate, uh, one point five million dollars for two flights, so seven hundred thousand dollar flight, eight hundred thousand dollar flight.

• 2:10:00Speaker 01

  And they were going to donate, and mighty Oaks, you know, we're a Christian organization, so they went to make the donation and they called me up and they said, hey, we can't make the donation. I was like, did I give you the routing number wrong? Like, like, no, you're a Christian organization, we're a Jewish organization, we can't make that transaction. And I said, man, you, okay, but you realize we're rescuing Muslims, right? And here like, the guy like laughed and he was like, okay, let's do it. And then made the donation. It was like, really cool moment to see just people from all walks of life just come together, do the right thing for the fellow human. And it was, it was, it was pretty cool. And, you know, and again, the government, our government didn't do the right thing, but, but people did. Yeah. It was, it was cool.

• 2:10:33Jocko Willink?

  Get a little picture on the ground here. I'm gonna fast forward a little bit. You got the, at this point where I'm fast forwarding to, the Taliban basically has external perimeter of H Kaya. So they're, they're around the airport.

• 2:10:51Speaker 01

  They definitely control the outer perimeter.

• 2:10:52Jocko Willink?

  They control the outer perimeter. We barely control the inner perimeter. And you say, "I've flown in and out of H Kaya many times. The International Airport is on the northeast edge of Kabul, and densely populated residential areas are to its southwest and northwest, but there are also a bit of a buffer of open terrain around much of the airport. The Taliban could not stand shoulder to shoulder to secure the airport perimeter because it was far too large of a landmass. Imagine the, a major airport where you live, you could cover access points and observe open areas, but the perimeter would be porous. The best way to locate the checkpoints was good old fashioned, walking and looking with the Taliban executing people trying to escape. The worst scenario would be for our rescue team to start smuggling people through an airport gate believed to be secure,

• 2:11:37Jocko Willink?

  and then have the group compromised by the Taliban. So you got people trying to recon, trying to figure out what's going on.

• 2:11:45Jocko Willink?

  I gotta fast forward again, but here we go. I had to do, so you're, you're communicating with Aziz, and you say, "I had to do a lot of convincing for Aziz to make his eighth, and he said, "final attempt to reach the airport." So he's tried a bunch of times to get through. There's checkpoints everywhere.

• 2:12:01Speaker 01

  He's getting shot at. He's got a, Maschkor seven years old, or six years old at the time. His wife has a wound, infected appendix wound from surgery. Like it's...

• 2:12:13Jocko Willink?

  So he's got all that going on. You say, "Because of the Taliban checkpoints, the 00s presence, massive crowds, the first seven attempts had failed. Aziz had lost hope on the 7th. At night, I coordinated with Sean, who was waiting for the family at a gate, when Aziz called and said they were turning around. He was covering seven-year-old Maschkarala's ears while talking to me, and I heard shooting in the background. I'd heard shooting on the previous call too. I just need you to go for it. I please..." with Aziz with Bashir and his Taliban thugs looking for Aziz and his family and again the backstory on a lot of this stuff is in the book um a Bashir obviously a bad guy um I believed it was more dangerous for them to turn back but Aziz also knew the accounts

• 2:12:57Jocko Willink?

  of what the Taliban were doing around the airport they were beating people they were shooting them to death they were cutting off heads and arms they were tying a rope around people's necks and dragging them behind cars through the streets I can't brother he said Maskaral is scared I've gotta go back Aziz didn't believe his children especially the youngest ones could take hearing more of the gunshots the Taliban were firing into the air to scare people or worse they'd witnessed the Taliban strike people to ground with the stocks of their guns they'd been pushed and shoved within thousands of people outside the airport Afghans had heard on the news as he said that the United States said it would accept anyone who worked for its government and also anyone who'd not worked for them as Aziz put it the people thought the door to

• 2:13:42Jocko Willink?

  paradise was open and being the closest to the airport gates was the only chance to get in man what a disaster Aziz made attempts during the night and day by different routes and entrances but nothing had he had tried worked after the seventh attempt he said the airport was too dangerous to try again so he would try and come up with a way to leave by foot into a bordering country I didn't think Aziz could make it out of Kabul alive he had already been turned back at two Taliban checkpoints and I didn't like his chances of avoiding being recognized a third time or being found by Bashir I asked him to go to H Kaya one

• 2:14:22Jocko Willink?

  more time I trust you brother he said I'll try one more time so you're just like begging him to try and get there

• 2:14:31Speaker 01

  I remember telling him like bro you've done I've seen I've seen you do harder stuff than this uh you you could do it you like even if not for you for your for your family like you have to get them out I was like pulling that like do it for your family like like muster it up man like like you gotta keep going and he was like he said his like legs were so weak that he could barely even stand up he was a you know he talks about a lot it's like if it was just him you know he he would throw guns in the back of his truck went to the mountains and resisted but he's got he's got his kids he's got his wife and I mean as one moment I that some of the stuff's not in the book but he was like at his house like Putting guns and grenades in places and saying, okay, if they come from this way, he's got his wife here. He's got his daughter here. He's got his son here, like covering all their acts. His family left, everyone left him.

• 2:15:16Speaker 01

  So like his family like wanted to disassociate with him. So he's like by himself and, and, um, you know, so he's like pretty desperate body. He's just draining every day, you know, that the energy is draining out of him. He just, uh, just kept having to, you know, to try to keep him motivated, try one more time.

• 2:15:33Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And it's one thing to risk your own life, which you can do pretty easily. But when you're risking not just your life, but your white life of your wife and children.

• 2:15:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:15:41Jocko Willink?

  That's a different.

• 2:15:42Speaker 01

  And he's, he's got this stuff playing through his head. He knows what's gonna happen. They're gonna like rape his daughters and, you know, and he's gonna, you know, torture his family in front of him like he's, you know, he knows what he's facing. It's not just like being killed. That's that, that kinda, that's that weight I felt back, you know, back in 2007 with, when I was dealing with the stuff I was dealing with. I wasn't worried about getting killed. I was worried about being in the bottom of the basement and have my feet smashed in with sledgehammers. Like those are the kind of things that really, you know, get you. And that's what he was worried about.

• 2:16:08Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And it's real easy to sit here and, um, you know, be distant from this stuff. Look, you, oh, you saw it on the TV. You saw someone getting, you know, they're getting shot, getting executed.

• 2:16:21Jocko Willink?

  You're on, you're watching it on TV, you know, or you read about it. Like they, this is a real thing that they are watching. They've seen it. They know what's happening.

• 2:16:32Speaker 01

  Well, they're seeing, there's bodies everywhere. People trampled, people shot. Uh, they're taking babies like, and what, what the level of desperation wasn't just people climbing on airplanes and like, imagine a mom like taking their baby and knowing that this baby is going to either become a sexual slave because it's a girl or it's going to become pushing the madrassas and become a Taliban. You know, evil, evil terrorist because of the Taliban takeover. So now your baby's only chance is to get it over that wall of the airport. So these moms are kissing their baby goodbye, putting it on top of a crowd of thousands of people to be crowd served to that wall. And whoever at the end of that, they got to, somebody would grab that baby and throw it as hard and high as they could to get over that wall. And a chance for survival. That's like the level of desperation. What they didn't know was another side of that wall was

• 2:17:15Speaker 01

  six feet high and 20 feet deep of Constantino wire. My buddy Joe counted six babies that had bled out in that, in that wire. Uh, cause you know, when Constantino wire is cramped, you can't really uncrimp it. So babies are. And there is just that's the level of desperation. So he's trying to get his family through that. And, you know, people Taliban shooting. He got shot at by the Taliban. He got shot at by the double zero units. The Marines shot at him because he's like, you know, Chad Roby Show like he's look him up on Google and you're like, get the hell out of here, man. Like, we don't know Chad Roby Show like, and the Marines are shooting.

• 2:17:47Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, going back to the book here, you say, I messaged Sean and got on a call with him to tell him Aziz was in a different location and that Aziz would not be able to stay there long enough for Sean to get him. Sean called inside H Kaya to the senior enlisted leader of a US Special Operations Team Master Sergeant HY, who had been helping us. Sean briefed him on Aziz and HY agreed to go to the North Gate and meet Aziz and bring him inside. We linked everyone up through WhatsApp and HY told Aziz that he and his team were on their way to meet them outside the airport. The area was relatively calm, allowing Aziz to wait there. He spotted a small pair of rescue team exit the North Gate across the road from

• 2:18:29Jocko Willink?

  where he was standing about 50 yards away, but they were wearing body armor and helmets and Aziz couldn't recognize if it was HY's group. Aziz climbed onto a large shaky rock and while trying not to shift his weight too much and flipped the rock over, he yelled, HY, HY, this is Aziz. But HY didn't hear Aziz. Then Aziz saw a teammate next to HY get his attention and point toward Aziz. By now, Aziz had raised the awareness of zero zeros and Marines securing the gate. The zero zeros pushed Aziz to trying to get him to back away from the area. A few Marines came over and shoot Aziz away. Aziz tried to show them his documents. I'm your ally, he told me. I worked for you guys. I put my life on the line. I worked for Chad. Do you know Chad Roby Show? I don't know, one

• 2:19:09Jocko Willink?

  of the Marines said, get away. Someone from one of the groups fired a warning shot in Aziz's direction. Then HY yelled across the street, that's my guy. Don't shoot him. Come over here, HY shouted to Aziz. Aziz sprinted across the road and embraced HY. My family's over here, over there, Aziz said, pointing to the open area in the distance. I was not able to bring them. It's very difficult to get here. I need your help. Please tell the Marines and the other guys to let me bring my family. The warning shot had brought attention to that area. More zero zeros came rushing in and zero zeros are security force from the Afghan government. And they're and both them and the Marines are trying to like keep things secured.

• 2:19:51Jocko Willink?

  Which you'd think, well, won't they trying to help them? No, they're actually trying to keep people away from the airport because there's so many people flooding the airport because of this was such a disaster.

• 2:20:00Jocko Willink?

  Some were firing into the air, that spread out the crowd that had been stirred up by the first shot. Some were striking people with their guns to try and control them. Amid the growing commotion, H Y got the attention of a zero zero commander. H Y and his team had already gone against orders by coming outside the airport gate. "Look, this is my guy," H Y told him. "He needs to bring his family here, walk with him and escort him all the way through through your guys. He and his family are very important." "Okay," their commander responded. "I'll walk with him to that area where our guys are, but I'm not going to walk him over to where the Taliban are." The commander and Aziz started walking toward his friend's car. "Please don't leave," Aziz told the commander. "These other guys do not know me. They won't let, they won't let me come back."

• 2:20:42Jocko Willink?

  The commander accompanied Aziz as far as he said he would, which was about 20 yards from where Aziz's family waited. Aziz feared that if he walked away to get his family, the commander would leave. Aziz called his friend and asked him to drive the car to a spot across from the street from Aziz and the commander. The friend allowed Aziz's instructions, the friend followed Aziz's instructions and Aziz was able to walk to the car while nervously keeping an eye on the commander to make sure he didn't leave. Aziz realized that bringing his family together across the street could get, would get the Taliban's attention. A family moving together obviously would be trying to get to the airport. Instead, one by one, attempting to blend in with the surroundings so he could not be recognized, Aziz slowly walked all seven members of his family from the car to the commander.

• 2:21:26Jocko Willink?

  The commander then returned with Aziz and his family to where Aziz had met up with H Y. H Y and the team came back outside the gate in an armored Hilux pickup truck and they hurriedly loaded the family and the two bags they carried with them, containing all the possessions they were hoping to leave their home country with, inside the pickup and sped inside the gate. When the Hilux had cleared, the last of the various checkpoints maintained by allied militaries, H Y snapped the selfie with Aziz and sent the photo up to us. That's when I learned that my brother and his family had finally, finally made it safely into H Kaya.

• 2:22:12Speaker 01

  There's a part that is not in the book that we could say now about two hours after Aziz got in there, got his family situated. We got word that a 16-year-old American university student was trapped just outside in a house just outside of Taliban was trying to find her. She was hiding. She tried to climb the wall and fell, so she was injured, couldn't move. And we asked Aziz to go back out. I didn't ask him, but some of our guys asked Aziz to go back out and go get her, and he did.

• 2:22:41Jocko Willink?

  Dang, dude.

• 2:22:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. I was actually upset when I found that he did.

• 2:22:46Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I'd be pissed too.

• 2:22:47Speaker 01

  But that's just who he is. You know, he was like, his wife's like, "You're going back out?" He's like, "No, no, I'm going back out." And he went back out and got this girl.

• 2:22:56Jocko Willink?

  It's wild, too, like the modern technology that you get a freaking selfie, like, as soon as it happens.

• 2:23:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was like, I remember seeing that, I was like, "Oh, my gosh." Like, it was just such a relief. Because, you know, as optimistic as I was, I was like, it was really hard to keep hope. Like, it was crazy. I mean, the whole situation was just so crazy.

• 2:23:16Jocko Willink?

  Fast forward a little bit. Coordinating rescues from home in real time made me want to be part of the rescues on the ground. From 150 rescues the first day, we jumped to 800 the second day, and set a daily goal of 1,000. On the third day, Monday, August 23rd, Tim, Nick, Hunter, and I departed for the UAE. So you guys, you'd done that, all that from the ground in America.

• 2:23:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was putting, I was just burning the keyboard, man, like getting everything together, orchestrating everything.

• 2:23:48Jocko Willink?

  You know what's weird? What I remember, like, this stuff happens so fast. So I like go on social media, but I don't like go on it. You know, I like post my stuff or whatever. By the time I realized what you guys were doing, it was actually over. It was like literally over. By the time I was like, "Hey, you know, I saw, you know, Save Our Allies", like somebody tagged me in something or whatever, and it was, I'm pretty sure it was actually over by the time I caught wind of what was going on. That's how quickly it happened.

• 2:24:16Speaker 01

  The 10 days.

• 2:24:17Jocko Willink?

  It just like happened so quick.

• 2:24:18Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, I did, you know, so I was, the first, like, few days was you're doing it from my house, and then I flew over to Abu Dhabi, and then ran everything from Abu Dhabi, and then, and then... You know, that whole 10 day period at airport and then two, two months of Majar Sharif and then the Tajikistan River Operation in Afghanistan, Tajikistan. So it's like, that whole thing was about three months.

• 2:24:44Jocko Willink?

  I don't know if you tagged me in social media or Tim did, or somebody did. And I like reposted it or something, but you guys were already like working and at least I can't, I can't remember it all, but I just remember going, damn, this is, because I also remember sorting through, there was a bunch of people that were kind of like your buddy that said, hey, this special forces guy is trying to get some of his friends out like.

• 2:25:06Speaker 01

  So many people.

• 2:25:07Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, so many people were asking for money. And I, I, I was like trying to figure it all out. And then when I, when I found it was you guys, when I found it was you and Tim, I was like, okay, cool. That's at least a known good group of freaking humans. Um, but yeah, this shit happened quick. Um, fast forward a little bit more, we traveled to Abu Dhabi and by the way, your job was done too, you know, like you got your friend out. Your job was done, but you were just getting warmed up. We traveled to Abu Dhabi where we were able to grab about an hour of sleep. We woke up and met with Tim, Nick and Joe to plan out our initial integration into operations there. A flight was bound to, uh, about, about to return to H K in about an hour or two. And since Joe and Andy needed me and the jock, uh, it was just going to be Tim and Nick on that flight to join

• 2:25:50Jocko Willink?

  Sean, C spray and Dave saying goodbye to Tim and Nick as they departed, brought back an old feeling I had experienced in years. The last look you give someone before they go and you know, there's a real chance you'll never see them again. I couldn't help but consider they were getting on that plane because I'd asked them to, and they trusted me. Yet I had no control of the environment they were stepping into. Tim usually loud joking and always having fun, but his tone was serious. This was real and our lives would all be in danger along with those we were about to save Aziz and many others whom we didn't even know. I looked at Tim and Nick one more time as we walked in opposite directions and prayed to myself, God be with them, blind the enemy miraculously protect them and give the, give us success to save these people.

• 2:26:36Jocko Willink?

  When Tim and Neck arrived, Sean and Seaspray were on their way outside the wire. Within 15 minutes of stepping off the plane, Tim had changed clothes and our three man team was leaving the airport for the first time together. That night, they set up eight rat lines, including ones that passed through the sewage ditches that received attention on the news reports. The gate the UN accessed had been sealed shut when the UN left the country. Tim cut off a couple of locks and bent and cut some rebar so the gate could be pried open just enough to move people through. The team also made cutouts and fences to pass people through. So there you go, man. The boys on the ground making happen 15 minutes after they get on the ground, they're rolling out.

• 2:27:19Speaker 01

  Everything was so fast the whole time.

• 2:27:22Jocko Willink?

  I remember I was on my first deployment to Iraq, there was a, there was like a QRF was needed, it was far away. And one of my buddies, who is my senior enlisted advisor, who is for our task unit, who's just like one of my freaking awesome bros. And this, we were launching this QRF, there was a bad situation. And we like, I, what I told my guys was like, hey, load out, full load out, everything, just ammo. There was like a CPA was getting overrun down south. So when you're, when a position's being overrun and you're going as a QRF, like, you know it's on. But I remember my buddy, my buddy had that like look like, I'm like, all right, bro, I'm out of here. And he like hugged me and I was like, oh shit.

• 2:28:06Jocko Willink?

  It was like, this is worse than I thought.

• 2:28:08Speaker 01

  That's the one, when you were reading that, I was like, you probably know what I'm talking about. Like when you just get a look, you're like, man, you might, this might be the last goodbye.

• 2:28:18Jocko Willink?

  Fast forward a little, again, you go through such good detail in the book. Most of our operations occurred undercover darkness, although we were able to move larger groups during the day by bringing them to the airport on buses. As with everyone we brought into the airport, we made triple certain anyone we allowed onto a bus was properly vetted. The US government has been accused of evacuating lucky souls who were in HICA regardless of status. While that may ring true, our efforts were handled with military precision. Our government was adamant that we weren't sticking just anyone on a plane and flying them out of the country. Most NGOs working alongside us did due diligence in vetting people as well. We knew exactly who we were getting out because of the triage process that Sarah oversaw in the States. So you guys ran this.

• 2:29:03Jocko Willink?

  You know, like a, like a military operation.

• 2:29:05Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, those, I mean, as you, you could suspect on the ground, you know, is of course the near four recognition symbols and then with the bona fides process to make sure they're, they are who they are before we move them. And then of course they're going to bring, they're going to have 10, if you have 10 people, you have another 10 people that, that shouldn't be there. And so you got to sort through, sort through that.

• 2:29:26Jocko Willink?

  Fast forward a little bit more. Late afternoon on Thursday, August 26th at 1750 local time, a V-Bid suicide bombing outside Abbey Gate killed 13 US service members and approximately 170 Afghans hoping to be allowed inside the airport. 18 other US military members, along with well over another 200 Afghan civilians were severely wounded. When I received word in Abu Dhabi, the attack, my first thought was, are our guys okay? We immediately got in touch with Tim. At the time of the explosion, our ground team had just completed loading evacuees onto a C-17 about a mile away. They had been at Abbey

• 2:30:10Jocko Willink?

  Gate minutes earlier. The cargo ramp was still down on the plane when they heard the blast and a dust plume rose from that area. They could not tell what had happened, but they knew it was bad. They closed the ramp right away and sent off the flight. As the reports came in detailing the number of US service members killed, I got angry.

• 2:30:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:30:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, anybody that made it in and out of the airport was because Taliban allowed them to. And for the, the White House to immediately say, oh, it's ISIS, not the Taliban. It's like, how could you defend the enemy that way to the American public? You know, it's a, you know, we, we allowed that to happen. And we know, you know, the biggest, and I talk about it in the book, the biggest thing is that neo-operation, you take, the White House took the non-combatant evacuation operation away from the DOD and gave it to the State Department who has no business in doing that. They don't know how to do it. It's not their job to do it. That's what's the difference between military force and diplomacy. And they treated that airport like an embassy. And then they allowed the military to do their job. They were just made them embassy guards. And that's, that allowed this to happen.

• 2:31:25Jocko Willink?

  A Lance Corporal in the Marine Corps would have been able to plan this better than the way it went down. And it's just, it's horrible to see. And then, I mean no offense to Lance Corporals in the Marine Corps at this time. Because you guys are squared away and you would have done a better job, 100%. Fast forward a little bit more. The bombings aftermath created more challenges for us with a week remaining until the United States self-imposed deadline. Two more gates were welded shut, further restricting entry points. We also received word from inside the airport that military leadership had started pulling back troops from security responsibilities, which was one way we were able to bring people

• 2:32:10Jocko Willink?

  inside. The new challenges meant a mix of overt and covert operations was no longer an option for us at H KIA. The additional security threat forced us to work covertly and avoid all major gates. For whatever motivation the State Department had, I think it figured out that the only way to shut down NGO evacuations was to allow the lily pad countries to max out on refugees they could handle. The vetting processes to move refugees out of those countries came to a virtual halt. Our last flight of evacuees left three days before the deadline. For that time, the rescues were over.

• 2:32:54Jocko Willink?

  Tim, Sean, C-Spray and Dave returned to Abu Dhabi and we reunited to share a meal, hold a debrief, and address what was next for us. I had badly wanted to fly back into Afghanistan one more time, even if just to help load evacuees onto one more plane. I had wanted to put my feet on Afghanistan dirt one more time. But over 10 days, when the dust settled, we had rescued more than 12,000 people out of Afghanistan with the best I can estimate, over 50 recovery operations. Only the Department of Defense evacuated more people. And we saved disease.

• 2:33:42Jocko Willink?

  So.

• 2:33:45Speaker 01

  So when that, when that piece happened, we knew like the military had to leave, but we, we kind of remember us talking. We're like, well, we don't have to, you know, the, we knew the, everybody that moved to Mazza Sharif. Also, the White House was saying there's a hundred Americans left, which, you know, the state secretary of blank and had said there were 16,000. And then he said they moved that 6,000, but now there's a hundred and I'm not that great at math, but I'm better than that. Right. And, but it, you know, we knew for a fact that there were thousands of Americans still there. And, uh, but the truth is, you know, it doesn't matter if there's a hundred or a thousand, like you don't leave one American behind. That was even a promise that President Biden had said himself, you know, and we're, you know, from where we came from, you know, you were squashed to earth to go get an American.

• 2:34:28Speaker 01

  Like, that's just what we do, even in some idiot like Bo Merdahl, a traitor, like they knew they were going to lose people to go get him, but he was an American. They were going to go get him. And so we chose to stay and, uh, because of that. And, um, you know, we worked a coalition in Mazza Sharif and got another, we got another 5,000 people out through that. And then when that was over, um, after two months of that, basically all the, the ability about to fly people out. Like you said, the state department pretty much closed those doors. So we knew there still had to be something we could do. Um, everyone had moved to the Panjshir Valley and Ahmad Masood, if anybody's followed the, the history of Afghanistan, nine 11.

• 2:35:09Speaker 01

  Ahmad Masood was the leader of the North Alliance and bin Laden brilliantly assassinated him the day before nine 11. Because he knew he would be our ally. So they cut off our allies before he did not, did execute nine 11, which was, you know, pretty, pretty smart strategy. And then also there was kind of this race, uh, that, that movie 12 strong, that was this race to get control of, uh, of the ally for, like build ally forces. Um, against the Taliban, taking them because of the assassination of Ahmad Masood. Well, his son. Uh, his son started the resistance in Pan- the Panjshir Valley. So all the commandos that we trained moved women and children to Panjshir Valley and they were, they, we had heard they were planning to cross them

• 2:35:47Speaker 01

  into Tajikistan for, for refuge. And so when I heard this, I'm like, this is what we could do because I knew I've been in the area plenty of times before. The mountains there are like 25,000 foot peaks. They're uh, the, even if you make it to the border, there's like a hot, a lot of places like a thousand foot cliff off the border. Cause uh, the, the border of Tajikistan and Afghanistan is the, the Panjshir River. So there's like a lot of cliffs there. And in addition to that, the Panjshir River is category five rapids. It's ice melt water. If it stops anywhere, it's freezing even in the summertime. So it's like this really treacherous terrain. In addition to that, the Taliban was protecting that border. The Tajik uh, border guard was protecting there. The Russian military moved in and had like mechanized convoys up to like 45 BMPs

• 2:36:32Speaker 01

  on the border to keep people from going into Tajikistan. And then the Chinese military had deployed their like Chinese infantry, they had special operations units to make sure that no one crossed. So they were going, they were gonna try to move women and children through all of that with no kind of visual on other, of, of how to do it. And so that's kind of bread and butter for, you know, for recon guys. And um, like we need to go across and do route recons and do some forwarding reps and provide that information. We had some contacts in our government agencies, government intelligence agencies that couldn't collect that information, but they wanted it. And so uh, so we decided to launch a two man operation and uh, and that's what, another miracle happened. I, I called uh,

• 2:37:10Speaker 01

  there was a marine named Sta- Staff Sergeant Dennis Price and he is a, he had just came from JSOC, Fort Recon Team Leader Year, Scout Sniper, younger than me, so could carry my stuff. Like, like uh, you know, he's just like a really good dude and he really wants to participate. And so, but he, the problem was he was in the reserves and you wouldn't, they weren't allowed to participate in anything like this. So I called his commander, Lieutenant Colonel Tommy Waller, who I knew. And I said, hey, you got this marine there, Staff Sergeant Price, what are the chances you could cut him loose to allow me to come on this humanitarian mission? That's what I called it. And he said, uh, I put it in writing, I don't know. And so we put it in writing and another miracle, he got approved and uh, he, he got cut loose to come with me and uh, so he and I went and, and did this, you know, operation, spent 10 days.

• 2:37:53Speaker 01

  We'd traveled, you know, we landed, did 12 hours drive through mountains, spent 10 days on that border.

• 2:37:58Jocko Willink?

  No, it's uh, again, I, all this is in the book. Um, you know, you, you, you, you have.

• 2:38:06Jocko Willink?

  Updates in there from Afghanistan that you talk about, which are very powerful to read. Like the one that I remember was, you know, like 11 year old girl that's being forced to marry a 55 year old man. This is what's now they're they're suffering under there. And then like you, you know, you go into the details around this, this, you know, this Tajikistan mission where you got like Nikita, this tour guide, like it's wild border security encounters. You've got all that stuff, the assessments that you guys do. So there's a whole nother story like the, you know, I stopped when, when, when you save the Z's, but that's not the end of the book. You got discussions about the meaning of the war in Afghanistan. You got Aziz back in America

• 2:38:49Jocko Willink?

  with his family. So there's so much more that I covered now or that we covered today. But you know, you close the book by explaining that there's still 40 million people in Afghanistan living under this oppressive tyrannical regime, the Taliban. And then what you say is that despite the people that we were able to get out, because there's millions of these people still there, what you say in the book, you say, we cannot claim victory. There is no victory in all of this. There's only doing the best we can as the mission continues.

• 2:39:30Jocko Willink?

  And that's for sure. I mean, the reason I want to bring that up is not only is it true in this situation, but it's, it's true in so many situations that we all face in life.

• 2:39:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:39:41Jocko Willink?

  Which is you face dire situations, you face incredible odds, and sometimes the best you can do is the best you can do. You're never going to be able to raise your hand in victory and say, I'm the champ. But the best you can do is the best you can do. It applies to war, applies to health, implies to business, and it applies to life.

• 2:40:01Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 2:40:02Jocko Willink?

  So I thought that was a really pertinent part of the book to, to bring up because it's not just about this, it's about everything.

• 2:40:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, like. Yeah, a lot of people have given us a lot of credit, you know, 17,000 people out. That sounds like a lot, but that's a speck of sand on the beach compared to the 40 million there. The 20 million women and little girls are sexually enslaved the rest of their life. They don't even have women's rights, they don't have human rights now because of this. And so like 17,000 sounds like a lot, but to me it's like, man, what if we could have done more? Uh, you know, and I vividly remember like pulling, as we're in that operations center, like we do it, we're planning operations, pulling white papers off of the board and like this white paper we're pulling off and throwing away because that mission didn't happen because we couldn't get another, we couldn't get our guys another, another 500 yards closer to these people. And now there's 300 kids that we're just tossing that and moving it on.

• 2:40:57Speaker 01

  Like there was so much more we could have done. And, and I mean, in the river operations, you know, Dennis and I are swimming across that river every night into Afghanistan. And, uh, and then there was one night where we were trying to rescue this family, this pregnant woman and a commando and their, their kids. And it's like, that didn't happen. There was so many like parts of that book, the book that I wrote about in the book and plenty of that aren't in the book that were just like not victories, but it was just the best we could. We were just trying to do the best we could. And, and, uh, we keep that, we keep getting asked a lot, like we've done a lot of media stuff and me and Seespray were on an interview recently and this lady was asking us like why, you know, why we do it? I mean, obviously why we get Aziz is, you know, that's, I think most people could conclude why would it go get Aziz, but why do we stay? Why are we in Ukraine right now? Helping in Ukraine, you know, we don't know these people. And, you know, I think the

• 2:41:41Speaker 01

  simple answer is because it's the right thing to do and there's never a wrong time to do the right thing. Uh, if you can help someone, if you have the ability to help someone and you, you should. But Seespray was asked another question and it kind of took me back when he was asked, luckily it asked him because he answered it perfectly. She's, that lady said, was it worth it? And he said, it doesn't have to be. It doesn't always have to be worth it to do the right thing. And I think oftentimes in our life, we look at everything like with the ROI, like I'll invest my time, my energy, my money, my resources. What am I getting out of it? What's the risk? You know, what's the risk analysis? You know, it, it doesn't always have to be worth it to do the right thing. We think a risk, me and Tim specifically, we're getting insulted a lot like on social media. I tried not to read a lot of stuff, but people were like, you got like basically like champ, like.

• 2:42:25Speaker 01

  Hoping for us to die so we'd learn our lesson because we shouldn't have been out there getting in the way of the military. First of all, like for us, if we didn't think we got in the way of the military, like who is stupid enough to believe that we had a bunch of veterans have the ability to land on a DOD control and do that on our own like cowboy thing is that's impossible, right? We clearly had coordination and secondly, like you don't think we know the risk. We've all been around a long time. We knew exactly the risk we were taking. I mean, I mean, I remember like me and Dennis flying over to Tajikistan, like we're about to swim across this river in Afghanistan. Like my wife, when we're underway to airport, she's like, why are you doing this? Like, and I mean, she was, you know, she was worried, obviously scared and she's like, why are you doing this? I'm like, what if it was us? What if this was our daughter that was going to be sexually enslaved the rest of her life?

• 2:43:09Speaker 01

  What was it? Our sons that would be put in this position? We'd be praying someone would come help us. And, uh, you know, I know I would. And, uh, so, you know, sometimes I think in life, outside of combat, outside of stuff like this, Afghan, just everyday life, this, you know, we have the right, the opportunity to do the right thing we should. You know, I think really this was a lesson that I learned in that and doesn't always have to be worth it. The ROI didn't have to always be there. We measure that a lot, you know, what we do. But sometimes, you know, like Seespear said, it doesn't have to be worth it to do the right thing.

• 2:43:37Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, well, I would say that the ROI on doing the right thing is the most valuable thing that there is.

• 2:43:44Speaker 01

  It's just, just that.

• 2:43:45Jocko Willink?

  Compared to have a look at yourself in the mirror when you know you didn't do the right thing. That's to me, that the ROI on doing the right thing is the most valuable possible ROI there is.

• 2:43:56Speaker 01

  That's true.

• 2:43:57Jocko Willink?

  You might not be able to measure it out in, you know, some kind of monetary value or whatever.

• 2:44:03Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:44:03Jocko Willink?

  But, I mean, if, if, if everyone was just driven by what their ROI was in terms of material things. I mean, life would be totally different and it wouldn't be good.

• 2:44:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:44:14Jocko Willink?

  Um, so.

• 2:44:16Jocko Willink?

  Let's talk about like, okay, what do you got going on right now? What's so Save Our Allies? That's up and running. How's that going? Is that what's is that who you're in Ukraine with right now?

• 2:44:27Speaker 01

  No, so um, so Mighty Oaks Foundation, my foundation, we stood up Save Our Allies as the effort for Afghanistan. Um, I, I was when, when I was over, we uh, I stepped off of the, the board with Save Our Allies because I'm, I'm too focused on Mighty Oaks, I have to be. Uh, so it's still up and running. Sarah, Nick, uh, Tim, still, still doing Save Our Allies.

• 2:44:49Jocko Willink?

  And that's save our, saveourallies.org. That's where they're at. Okay.

• 2:44:54Speaker 01

  And so for me, Mighty Oaks is, is a, is in, we have international vision. We're in Ukraine, uh, doing, um, what we call our medical mission. Uh, so we go out and bring the troops like IFACS and go, we'll teach them like T-triple-C, um, you know, combat, combat casualty care. And then, and use that as a rapport builder with them to build, to be there for them, uh, in a mental, spiritual program side that Mighty Oaks does. And so we, we take our Mighty Oaks instructors, US combat veterans, who have been trained to do Mighty Oaks and push them forward in small teams to do that. We've also been involved in a lot of, uh, rescue operations. Some with Save Our Allies and, and, uh, and then others without, uh, we've just, um, rescued Benjamin Hall. If you remember the Fox News reporter,

• 2:45:36Speaker 01

  he was catastrophically wounded. It was myself, C-Spray and a couple of other guys, uh, went and, and took Benjamin Hall out. Then the following days, uh, after that, we went back and, uh, I actually drove the Hurst out to get, uh, Pierre, the 25-year cameraman, um, out of, out of Kiev when it was under attack and went out to the front lines, Kharkiv, all those areas, Izum. Um, when, we, we, I've been like two hours past the Russian line, uh, doing some of the programs we've been doing. So we've been, we've been out there doing some pretty incredible work in Ukraine.

• 2:46:06Jocko Willink?

  When's the last time you were out there?

• 2:46:08Speaker 01

  Uh, two months, two and a half months ago.

• 2:46:10Jocko Willink?

  How's the morale for the Ukrainian troops?

• 2:46:12Speaker 01

  Man, you know, it's pretty crazy because, uh, they're, they're like so optimistically motivated. And, uh, they're, they feel like they're in such a righteous position to defend their homes. You gotta take the politics out of it because everything we see here in America is like Zelensky and, and billions of dollars and all that corruption and stuff like that. I don't care about any of that stuff. I care about helping people. And the most of these, the troops in Ukraine. They're not tied to the Ukrainian government. They're there like to protect their homes and their families and yeah, and their wives and kids. So when you look at it from that perspective, these people are like, they're righteously feel like they're defending their, their way of life.

• 2:46:46Jocko Willink?

  What's the, were you able to get a feel for the morale of the Russian troops?

• 2:46:52Speaker 01

  The only Russian troops I've seen firsthand and uh, was dead or dying. We were in a zoom. We were in a zoom uh, uh, and they pushed, the zoom had been taken for six months. So they, the Ukrainian unit that we were with pushed forwards, myself and C spray, just two of us. And uh, we, we were with them when they pushed forward and the Russian line collapsed behind us. Uh, so that's the first time I ever seen air over us. Like I, they were like two, like and I was like, were those MiGs? And I was like, I've never seen that before. And C spray is like, yeah, me neither. And uh, and they came back and did a gun run in front of us. Uh, and then uh, they were IDF hitting, well, I think within a hundred yards of us. We were stuck there, but as they pushed forward, I probably counted like 60 Russian troops that were dead or dying.

• 2:47:31Jocko Willink?

  So how'd you get out of the envelopment?

• 2:47:33Speaker 01

  Well, which, once it settled, we were able to move out. We were, you know, single vehicle. We, we're just us in a single vehicle. So we just had to wait for it to, to calm down. We stayed with the, the main unit as they moved forward. We were with, uh, we had, we, with us was the, uh, the chief of all the Ukrainian police. So, uh, so he had his detail with him. That's who we were with, but uh, had to wait till, I mean, cause like I said, the line closed behind us and there was, it was probably, probably the most kinetic fighting I've ever seen. Um, you know, um, you know, especially considering the type of work I did in Afghanistan. I've never seen that level of kinetic fighting firsthand before, but you know, I mean, like we were walking by like, and they were like a Russian kid, like probably 17 years old,

• 2:48:17Speaker 01

  dying and they still had a AK-47 on them. And I took it from him and, and cleared, cleared it because there are Ukrainian troops already passing. I didn't pick it up, you know, I'm trying not to be a combatant there, but, but like that close to kinetic combat, I'd never seen anything like, like, I could show you some videos on my phone, like, like this crazy. I mean, and this is uniform, a uniform. We haven't seen much of that before. Um, and so, uh, Obviously, we're not there trying to get involved in those kind of environments, but the nature of the work that we're doing puts us in those places sometimes. We just, uh, I don't want to say the name, but, um, but we just moved out. Uh, we were, we had a SEAL that was fighting there and, uh, he was, he was wounded. We were moving him. We went into, we were called to go in and get him.

• 2:49:00Speaker 01

  We went in and went in to get him and, uh, and then went to hospital.

• 2:49:04Jocko Willink?

  This is not an active duty SEAL.

• 2:49:06Speaker 01

  No.

• 2:49:06Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, just to make that clear.

• 2:49:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, sorry. Yeah. He was, uh, joined the, uh, Ukrainian Legion and, uh, to fight there. And, uh, but he was wounded. We were, and, and we stopped at a hospital and, uh, he was, he was being treated at the hospital and the State Department gave some problems with moving him. And so he had, he would have, we, we tried to get him to pull in for help, but he ended up passing. And, uh, we got his body out. So we're doing things like that as well. And so we were able to get his body home to where his family was. And so he could have a proper burial and, and be back with his mom. So.

• 2:49:36Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, the, um, outlook for the war in the Ukraine, in Ukraine. You know, it's a test of wills and as you mentioned, it's very difficult to break the will of people who are defending their home and their families.

• 2:49:54Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 2:49:55Jocko Willink?

  And their soil. So, you know, you, you don't know who's going to, and I'm, I'm surprised. Well, I guess I'm not surprised. We don't learn this lesson. We, meaning human beings, don't learn this lesson.

• 2:50:08Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:50:08Jocko Willink?

  Cause we think we can go to some other country and by we, again, it could be.

• 2:50:12Speaker 01

  Anybody.

• 2:50:13Jocko Willink?

  Could be anybody. Could be America, like we did in Vietnam, like we did in Afghanistan, like, like the Russians did in Afghanistan, like we, like big giant countries have done all over the world. Go in and think we can beat someone because they're small and because, uh, we're bigger and we have better technology. And the fact of the matter is you're going to come up against people that are willing to die. For their cause. And this is what happened in Vietnam, you know, we, we looked at them and said, oh, we can kill. After the battle of the Idrang Valley, we said, oh, we killed 150 of them for every one of us. We can win. And what we didn't realize is they didn't care if they lost a million, which they did, two million.

• 2:50:57Jocko Willink?

  We lost 58,000. And we lost. Cause our will was not in that fight.

• 2:51:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I think that's what, what you're getting to with the Russian was their, their motivation. I mean, most of them don't even realize their conscripts, they don't realize why they're there. Some of them think they're going to eradicate neo Nazism from Ukraine. Some of them think they're going there for training exercise. And so they don't even, I, I went into, I was in a, went into a jail cell with about 10 of them. And they were just, uh, they had just been recently captured and they were just like, what do you want to know? Like, we didn't want to be here. And, uh, but I was, I was in this, I was in a safe house. With, uh, with this Ukrainian pastor. We were, uh, we were, when we first went there, one of the things we did, we set up a communicate, uh, kind of clandestine communication infrastructure for some of our assets. And, and we were sitting there just talking and, and, uh, and I was like, asked him the same question. What do you think's gonna happen? And he said, uh, we're gonna win.

• 2:51:48Speaker 01

  And he was just said it with such confidence, I'm like, and he's like, they would, they will have to kill every single Ukrainian to take this country.

• 2:51:54Jocko Willink?

  And he was, It, it ends up, I mean, right now it's like you said, it's uniform on uniform. But if Ukraine uniform forces, let's say they lose, which is by no means going to happen. But even if they did, they're gonna have to fight against an insurgency that's gonna be there. That's gonna, you, you, which is gonna be very difficult to defeat.

• 2:52:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, we drive, we drive like, we usually move at night. And, uh, and we had the, usually both the roads are closed, but we have the ability, we have permission to drive at night. But sometimes you run into, like, we have permission to drive at night, but it's if you're hitting official military checkpoints. But like I'm driving through, we do, we'll do like 18 hour drives, like, like across, across Ukraine. And we're driving and then there's like another checkpoint, there's a militia. And, uh, you know, they're not connected to the military. They're protecting their homes and towns like, like you're saying, and, and I mean, that's a scary, that's one of the most dangerous moments for us because they think we're, they're, they're told like, hey, Russians will come through here, they'll have blue American passports and they'll say they're NGOs, and they're gonna kill you. So now we're in the middle of the back country by some

• 2:52:56Speaker 01

  country boy with a, by, on a 55 gallon drum next to a fire and he's got his, he's got his hunting rifle and a machete. And they got us, you know, there's the whole crew around us and they pulling everything out of our car and they, they think we're gonna kill them. So they're scared, which makes it a very dangerous environment, but I mean, these, these people are just, they're just wanting to protect their homes.

• 2:53:18Jocko Willink?

  All right, man. Um, does that get us up to date, kind of?

• 2:53:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, uh, you know, obviously Mighty Oaks, uh, always, and though especially with your platform, if there's any veterans out there, first responders, active duty servicemen, spouses, that need help, like, no, you're, you're not alone. You don't have to do it alone. You're meant to do it alone. Like so many amazing organizations out there, Mighty Oaks is one of them. Everything we do is free. We'll fly you out. We have an amazing program.

• 2:53:45Jocko Willink?

  Where are they located? Cause it used to be in California. Is there still one in California?

• 2:53:48Speaker 01

  California, central California. We have 25,000 acre ranch up in Paso Robles area. Uh, we have two in Texas, Virginia, Ohio. Um, and so, uh, but

• 2:53:58Jocko Willink?

  How many, how many programs are you running a year there?

• 2:54:00Speaker 01

  We do 35, uh, camps this year.

• 2:54:03Jocko Willink?

  How many people in a camp?

• 2:54:05Speaker 01

  Uh, all the locations are different, but average of 40 people, but 20 first time students who go through, because we, we have guys coming back through that leadership development because we training guys to be part of it. So, uh, be 40 beds, but about 20 first time, um, people coming through. And if, if the faith-based thing is like a turn off for people, like, I could tell you that half the people that come to our programs not, not, that share our Christian faith, but they come and, you know, take what you could take from it. It's a, it's a, you know, we're not, it's not an evangelical, like pushing Jesus down your throat program. It's like, we use the, we use our, our faith-based side is like biblical living. So we kind of like contrast making good decisions based off these biblical principles, but you know, don't let that turn you off and, uh, and keep you from getting help. We have, we have amazing group of people. It's all peer-based.

• 2:54:48Speaker 01

  Uh, there's no counselors there, not that, anything against clinical counselors, but that's just not what we do. It's period pyramid during and people that have been through the same things that you may be struggling with and could help you move forward.

• 2:54:59Jocko Willink?

  What's uh, this is mightyoaksprograms.org is the website. What's uh, what's the course look like? How long am I going there for if I'm, if I, if I reach out? First of all, how do I reach out? Go to the website?

• 2:55:09Speaker 01

  Yep. Go to the website. Uh, application's on there. Super simple application. We made it, make it that way because we'll get more information later, but uh, we want to be easy application process. Someone from our team will contact you back, uh, within like, within a few days, three or four days. And then we could, uh, we have the 35 camps, uh, this year. So we'll schedule you a location and, and date that works for you. And uh, by the way, we don't care about your discharge. If people, you know, sometimes people, I know, I know guys are, you know, Navy Crosser, CFPs that got a bad conduct discharge, DUI, right? That doesn't mean we don't help them. So like, it doesn't matter. We don't care about any of that stuff. And uh, so you, you go, you'll come, it's five days long. You'll spend five days on our ranch. Uh, uh, well, five nights. So six, five nights, six days. And you'll usually get there Sunday night and leave, leave Saturday morning. And uh, and you're

• 2:55:54Speaker 01

  going to be put in a six man team. There'll be a better, uh, you don't have to be a combat veteran to go, but all of our team leaders are combat veterans. And uh, so a combat veteran who's been through our program, trained by us will lead that team. And you'll go through a 14, uh, 14 like core principle courses. And I didn't leave each class, like their classes are in different kind of life, like life principles that you would, uh, and, and we go, you break out in that six man team and you just kind of work through that together. What's it look like in your life? What's some, how did that challenge you in your life? What's some better decisions you can make? We help people make a plan, uh, to be able to navigate the hardships and difficulties of life and make better decisions. And then part of that plan is using our after, after care system to have someone as they connect it to and have support all the way through.

• 2:56:36Jocko Willink?

  So when I leave, I'm still connected?

• 2:56:39Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 2:56:40Jocko Willink?

  If I have, if I need help, I got a buddy that we linked up with, maybe somebody that's further along in the program, that type of thing?

• 2:56:46Speaker 01

  That's right. Yeah. That's one, that's our after care program. I think it's one of the most important things that we do. And it's one of the areas, I think, a lot of organizations and, and programs fail at. They had this, you bring people to this program. You have this kind of mountain top high. And you go back and life hits you right back in the face, you know, and you don't have the resources. So one of the things I thought early on, you know, that that made me successfully in the successes I've had personally was the having that support network moving forward. So I knew that if we have a program like this, we have to have it integrated. We should not, we should not outgrow our ability to have that system of aftercare. And so if we can't have that system of aftercare, we need to, and we need to grow it. Our organization have always made sure it grew at the pace that where we have to maintain that system of aftercare. So now people have to choose to be part of it, you know, and obviously

• 2:57:29Speaker 01

  like anything else, people could sign up for jitsu and choose not to come. But which is happening, happens a lot and probably a big, big part of your revenue stream here to school. So, so, I mean, you know, people sign up for things and they'll stick to it. But, but even, even so, you know, a joke, a joke about that, but the truth is like, sometimes people leave the program and it'll stay connected and they think they fell off and then they'll struggle again. They'll come back. They know what to come back to. And, and having that lifeline, knowing where it's at is, is important as well.

• 2:57:57Jocko Willink?

  So you do both that program and the stuff that you're doing overseas, for instance, in the Ukraine right now. Is that, are those all under the same nonprofit?

• 2:58:06Speaker 01

  Yeah. So Mighty Oaks Foundation has four, four areas. We do our resiliency program. That's usually me or Jeremy Stolnack who go on the bases around the world and speaking on resiliency to the troops. So like I go to Marine Corps boot camp, I do pre-deployment briefs. I've done NSW, resiliency programs. I've done a lot, a lot with Army SF. So we do those. I've spoken about a half a million troops in the last 12 years doing that, really in about the past six years. And then in that we give, we've written a lot of resources. I could send you some of them. We have these little books that are about 40, 45 minute reads. We have one on PTSD. We have one on, on spiritual resiliency. You know, those four pillars of resiliency, mind, body, social, spirit, the spiritual pillar. And then we have one on suicide. So we have these resources. We've given away about 350,000 copies of

• 2:58:49Speaker 01

  our books doing that. And then our recovery programs, the legacy program, that's the camps we're talking about. And then the third thing we do is a public policy. I'll go, I've spent a lot of time in DC, like testified before Congress and Senate, working with the, the VA to get faith-based programs, make sure that veterans, whether people agree that with faith-based programs or not, I think we could all agree that veterans should have the freedom to choose that if they want it. So really fighting for that in DC. And then the fourth thing we do is our international. And so we take those same programs that we do successfully in the States and bring them to our ally partners around the world. So Ukraine's a little bit different because it's an active war right now, but we were in Ukraine before this. We, we had done three trips there. Helping them recover from 2014. We, Peru, uh, um, different other allied countries around

• 2:59:33Speaker 01

  the world, we take those programs and we're kind of like a train to trainer model, like, hey, we're gonna take my, this is what we do in the States for Mighty Oaks, uh, for our US service members, let us, uh, do one, we'll go there and do a residency program, and then they can identify, uh, some staff members and we'll train them how to do what we do and hand it off. So that's what, that's our international effort, what is typically, what typically is, like I said, Ukraine's a little bit different right now.

• 2:59:56Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, no, it's friggin' awesome work. And like I said, I've, I've seen what you've done, uh, with guys, so I really appreciate what you're doing there. SaveOurAllies.org. You also got Chad, ChadRoboShow.com. That's where if people want to, if you want, if you're looking for Chad, you want him to come speak, uh, you know, that's where you reach out. Um, obviously you got your books on there as well. What else? What else is on that?

• 3:00:22Speaker 01

  I mean, say the other thing is MightyOakPrograms.org, you know, those, those three locations and, uh, and my, yeah, my books, speaking, I do a lot of speaking. This is primarily one of the ways that we raise money to do, you know, get, well, even when I go out and speak, I'm, I'm doing two things. And one, raising money to be able to pay for these programs and make them free, uh, for people. And then, uh, cause we, we do about half, you know, about 500, I mean, $5 million a year in programming. And then the others, the other side is I go speak and it helps me broadcast, just like right now, I'm getting to broadcast what we do. So people that need help could find help. You know, when I go, I speak at a lot of churches on the weekends, I do a lot of corporate events. And those corporate events, they have a lot of veteran employees there and we always get applications after I speak. When I go to church on a Sunday and speak, we'll get swarmed with applications because of people in the community are struggling. And so it's bringing them a resource.

• 3:01:07Jocko Willink?

  So that's through, uh, ChadRoboShow.com. Uh, you're on social media?

• 3:01:12Speaker 01

  Yep. Instagram is both most active.

• 3:01:14Jocko Willink?

  Most active on Instagram. That your Instagram is ChadRobo, R-O-B-O underscore official. Uh, you are also on Twitter, just ChadRobo. And you're on Facebook, ChadRoboShow, C-H-A-U-X. For those of you that aren't from, from Louisiana. And you got a YouTube channel too Chad robo three six three five one what's six three five one

• 3:01:40Speaker 01

  Uh I don't know that was me that one's

• 3:01:43Jocko Willink?

  Yeah I looked at it there's videos of you out there

• 3:01:45Speaker 01

  Oh man I gotta check that out

• 3:01:46Jocko Willink?

  Alright well I wanna blow that one up

• 3:01:50Jocko Willink?

  Awesome

• 3:01:50Speaker 01

  Six three five one

• 3:01:52Jocko Willink?

  Six three five one I don't know I figured it was some MOS or something I don't know just Random numbers alright well we'll figure it out you're not born in 1963 I don't know Six three five one uh does that get us up to speed

• 3:02:04Speaker 01

  Yeah

• 3:02:04Jocko Willink?

  We pretty much there

• 3:02:05Speaker 01

  Yeah man I appreciate that

• 3:02:06Jocko Willink?

  Probably a good place to wrap up Echo Charles Questions from Echo

• 3:02:10Speaker 02

  I got nothing today

• 3:02:11Jocko Willink?

  No jujitsu question no fighting question

• 3:02:13Speaker 02

  I mean we're still doing jujitsu right

• 3:02:15Speaker 01

  Yeah

• 3:02:16Speaker 02

  Of course well there you go yeah all good uh really impactful story though I thought yeah the Anytime when like you kind of fall out with you know members of the of your family and then You can reflect back of you know with with the stuff that you did or didn't do and you can Come back together I think there's always like some kind of lesson in there and even on like Sometimes you go deep like you know like yours was like detrimental yours was like near the end Kind of a thing like it doesn't even have to get there to learn these lessons you know like You can just be the smallest little thing and be like hey wait a second I learned from you Know that story or whatever can implement that way of looking at it and boom bring it back and And get everything together I think there's always something to learn with that

• 3:02:56Jocko Willink?

  You know what I was thinking of when you when you were talking about your wife like after you Guys split up and you were like not being a good husband at all and then you guys are trying To get back together and then sometimes she's like hey you know what you come home and she's Like I don't want you you know you disgust me and all that stuff and you know you're going to Your friend that's kind of mentoring you and I what I was thinking I was like if I was mentoring I'd be like hey bro this is a test

• 3:03:20Speaker 01

  Yeah

• 3:03:20Jocko Willink?

  Like this is you you you this is a test that you have to go you know we talk about gamifying Things and how you turn something into a game if your game is like okay I'm getting oh this is A test I'm getting hit with right now because my wife who I was an idiot too is now testing Me out and testing out my faith and testing out my temper and testing out my ego And am I going to pass this test or not? That's the question.

• 3:03:44Speaker 01

  I remember like literally pulling in the driveway and be like, like I always talk about making a pre-decision, like you decide in advance, you know, decide in a moment of chaos, right? And so I make it, I thought about that and I'd like pull in the driveway and I'd be like, okay, I don't know what I'm walking into. A woman that wants me in the house and loves me or a woman that's gonna like be crazy and try to stab me with a kitchen knife. I don't know what I'm walking into, but whoever's gonna be in that house, I'm gonna have that compassion and grace and, and making that pre-decision in advance.

• 3:04:10Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I actually talked about that when I'm working with leaders. You know, I say, hey, before, you know, look, it's hard to detach. It's hard to not let your ego get involved. So before you go into a meeting with your boss that you know has a bad temper or a meeting with your employee that you know has a big ego, before you go in there, decide how you're gonna act before you get in there. Say, okay, these are the things I'm gonna work on. I'm not gonna let my ego, I'm not gonna get emotional. I'm not gonna speak when I shouldn't be speaking. I'm gonna listen, like whatever those things are that you're gonna do, make that decision before you get into this scenario.

• 3:04:45Speaker 01

  Right.

• 3:04:45Jocko Willink?

  You're gonna have a much better chance of success. So it's a good plan. You park your car outside the house.

• 3:04:50Speaker 01

  It's immediate action drill, right?

• 3:04:51Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 3:04:52Speaker 01

  You don't decide, you don't decide in that moment of chaos. You don't decide like, hey, call a combat timeout, rally up, figure out what to do. You know exactly what you could do because you thought about it in advance. You practiced it, you rehearsed it a thousand times.

• 3:05:02Jocko Willink?

  When my parachute fails, I'm not, I'm not having to think about what I'm gonna do. I know what I'm gonna do. I don't have to think about it. Awesome. Chad, you got any, any closing thoughts, man?

• 3:05:13Speaker 01

  No, man, I'm just, I'm super grateful for you had me on. Uh, it's been, you know, something I've looked forward to for a very long time and, uh, thankful you had me on. You got an awesome show. You're doing, you're crushing it, man. You're doing, inspiring people, doing great things. It's an honor to be on with you.

• 3:05:25Jocko Willink?

  Well, thanks, and I'm sorry it took so long to get you down here and I'm sorry you got a, a bad teeth or whatever you said. You can't train right now.

• 3:05:32Speaker 01

  I got good teeth now.

• 3:05:35Jocko Willink?

  We want to keep them good. Really appreciate you coming down. Thanks for, thanks for sharing your lessons learned. Thanks for your service. You know, obviously in the Marine Corps, you know, what you did as in Marine Corps, what you did as a contractor, but really especially for everything that you did for our allies in Afghanistan and for what you continue to do today for our allies overseas and especially what you're doing for our veterans here at home. Thanks for everything, brother.

• 3:06:02Speaker 01

  I appreciate it, man. Appreciate it.

• 3:06:06Jocko Willink?

  And with that, Chad Robeshow has left the building.

• 3:06:11Jocko Willink?

  Lot going on there, Echo Charles.

• 3:06:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:06:13Jocko Willink?

  A lot of ups and downs.

• 3:06:17Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 3:06:18Jocko Willink?

  Lot of losing oneself and finding oneself.

• 3:06:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, fully.

• 3:06:23Jocko Willink?

  So, a lot of it, coming back to Jiu Jitsu, you know, it's interesting, you know, no one knows what happens when we, when, when, when someone leaves the building.

• 3:06:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:06:32Jocko Willink?

  But we actually just went out and reviewed some Jiu Jitsu moves.

• 3:06:36Speaker 02

  Little lesson.

• 3:06:36Jocko Willink?

  Still in the game, you know?

• 3:06:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:06:38Jocko Willink?

  Chad's still in the game, still training, still getting after it, teaches sometimes when he can. And what a good grounding, right?

• 3:06:48Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 3:06:49Jocko Willink?

  You know, it's a good thing to come back to, the Jiu Jitsu.

• 3:06:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, fully. It's weird, like, one of the many things that dawned on me yet again, with, like, the story, like, okay, you had the, the, the shooting incident, right? But the Afghanistan stuff, like, he's going through it, right, saying this is how everything, like, got laid out. I live in a bubble, I understand. And this stuff is like, this is really, really, really happening. It's not like, it's not just a novel, it's not a novel, it's not a movie, whatever, this is like, really happening. Yeah, that always, uh, kinda, kinda blows my mind a little bit.

• 3:07:23Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Uh, and I try to point that out, too, like, you're reading the book and you're hearing about people getting shot, and people getting drugged through the streets, and you're kinda like, oh, well, that's, you know, that's like, you know, you, you, you might say, oh, well, that's like, this movie that I saw. So you're taking a book and relating it to a movie, you know the movie's not real, so basically you're just distancing yourself from what's really happening.

• 3:07:43Speaker 02

  Right.

• 3:07:43Jocko Willink?

  And it is, when you think about the fact that this stuff is happening, that, you know, guys are going into harms way, and what does that do? Well, it's not, you don't know what's gonna happen, man. You do not know what's gonna happen.

• 3:07:57Speaker 02

  No.

• 3:07:58Jocko Willink?

  So, uh, yeah, man.

• 3:07:59Speaker 02

  Also, to the, um, it's, it's a, it's an interesting, right, cause I don't know, you know, I watch TV sometimes, and, you know, you see stuff on the news and like, all this stuff, and you have this, this kinda picture laid out, but he kinda... It dawned on me that like sometimes when like things aren't being done the correct way, even though that's normally how they go like you know where whether there's a lot of red tape or it's just some a big bureaucracy or whatever, but sometimes you can just freaking grab a friend, two friends, 10 friends, ask some people for some support on the tail end on the front end and freaking just do it yourself.

• 3:08:37Jocko Willink?

  I am, I was gonna go into this whole comparison. This is like free market opportunities, right? It was like the, the big bureaucratic thing, which is the military and the state department was all, you know, they got planners and they're doing all this stuff. Free market was like, okay, we need money, we need people, put them together, who wants to rock and roll, let's go do it. And they went and did it. So yes, uh, sometimes you just gotta get after it. And that's what's gonna work. So while you're getting after it, you need some fuel. Get yourself some Jaco fuel. Go to Jacofuel.com. Look, we got all kinds of good stuff. Drinking some, just right now drinking some go energy drink. Hard to call it an energy drink when it's not really comparable to normal energy drinks

• 3:09:21Jocko Willink?

  that are poison and will give you diseases. Over time, they're, they're absolutely horrible for you. Factually. We got something that's good for you. So go there, Jacofuel.com. You can get, you know what, joint warfare. You can get kerr oil, super cool, you can get mulk, ready to drink mulk.

• 3:09:40Speaker 02

  Okay. So here's the thing about mulk. Here's a new development in my workflow, my mulk workflow. So you know how like sometime, uh, Dakota Meyer said he froze, froze it.

• 3:09:53Jocko Willink?

  He makes the mulk mud.

• 3:09:55Speaker 02

  Good move. So here's the thing. Incidentally, this is what I found. So the RTD mulk, you don't freeze it, but you get it really, really, really cold, like right below freezing.

• 3:10:06Speaker 02

  Then drink it. For real. And you'd think like, okay, it's just cold or whatever, but it adds another like, um, layer of something, whether it be flavor, texture, whatever, like how cold it is. It's lit. It's like, you know, you're, you guys are saying like, oh yeah, the vanilla one tastes like melted ice cream. It is. It's like actual ice cream. Yeah. So it's like. You know, you have this impression, you know, when you drink stuff like water, you drink under certain circumstances, it's gonna be more appealing than like juice or soda or milk or milkshake or ice, you know, all this stuff. When you drink the fro- the, what do you call? Just below frozen one, it's like, it takes you to a different context. Bro, I'm telling you, try.

• 3:10:45Jocko Willink?

  I'm gonna try it. I'm gonna try it. JockoFuel.com, go check that out. You can also get it while while you can get a vitamin shop, military commissary. I have a bunch of friends sending me stuff from military commissaries, pictures of it. They're like, yo, you got it in here. So, Hanaford, Dash Stores, HEBs, HEB, sorry, HEB, down in, well, I guess it's HEBs plural, down in Tejas, Meyer, out in the Midwest, Weiss, just rolled into Weiss, so much places. If your store doesn't have it, ask for it. Jocko Fuel, there you go. Also, Origin USA. If you need a pair of jeans, which you do, if you need a pair of boots, if you need a pair of shorts, if you need a belt, if you need a wallet, if you need a beanie, if you

• 3:11:30Jocko Willink?

  need a sweatshirt, you need a hoodie, hey, whatever you need, if you need hunt gear, whatever you need, we got it for you. We got it for you and it's made in America. We got factories where we're taking American raw material and turning it into American clothing. Go to OriginUSA.com and get yourself something that is made in America that you can wear and not feel overriding guilt because you haven't enslaved poor third world nationals that are living in a sweatshop, being worked to death. Don't do that. Let your conscience

• 3:12:14Jocko Willink?

  be clear. OriginUSA.com.

• 3:12:18Speaker 02

  Let your conscience be clear. It's true. Also, we're representing, right? Discipline equals freedom. Good.

• 3:12:25Speaker 02

  If you want to represent, go to jocko store.com. That's where you can get your shirts and hats and all these that kind of cool stuff. Some new stuff, I think, coming down the pipes. So be on the lookout.

• 3:12:34Jocko Willink?

  Getting creative a little.

• 3:12:36Speaker 02

  They come down the... But just be on the lookout for that one. Also, there's short locker, which is one shirt, new shirt every month, different design. Every month. Creative, I guess. If you want to call it that. You can call it that. Anyway, a lot of people, uh, good, some good feedback on that one. Shirt locker is what it's called. It's on jocko store.com. It's a good one.

• 3:12:53Jocko Willink?

  Don't forget about subscribing to the podcast, jocko underground.com, YouTube, subscribe to those, psychological warfare. Flipside Canvas, speaking of Dakota Meyer, Flipside Canvas, making cool stuff to hang on your wall. All the books that Chad wrote, Saving Aziz. Pick up that book. He also wrote a book called Unfair Advantage and a book called Fight For Us. Really good insights in these books. Check them out. Also, you got your Jaco books, Jaco Publishing books, Only Cry For The Living. We also have the Warrior Kid books. Warrior Kid Five, Letters From Uncle Jake. It's out. I should tell more people that. I did like an Instagram post the other day. Telling thirteen, fifteen, seventeen year old

• 3:13:38Jocko Willink?

  young men what to do with their lives. And I, you know, some of the comments, I was reading the comments, like, oh, uh, you know, you're just saying this right now. I was like, bro, I wrote for my first kid, kids book like seven years ago, which had the same concepts in it. There's no bandwagon I'm jumping into. We're here to turn kids into warrior kids. Get the Warrior Kid books, Mikey and the Dragons, uh, Extreme Ownership, Dichotomy Leadership, Leadership Strategy and Tactics. Go get that book. Echelon Front, we have a leadership consultancy. We solve problems through leadership. Go to echelonfront.com. Live events are coming up. They're selling out. We kind of oversold some of them.

• 3:14:24Jocko Willink?

  Moving some furniture. Squeezing people in, but everything we do sells out. So if you want to come, go to echelonfront.com. If you need help inside of your company or organization with leadership. By the way, if you're having problems, then you have leadership problems. If you have problems with your supply chain, it's a leadership problem. If you have problems with your process that you have in place, it's a leadership problem. If you have people doing the wrong things, it's a leadership problem. All these problems are leadership problem. Go to echelonfront.com. We also have online training. At the Extreme Ownership Academy, ExtremeOwnership.com, there's courses to take. You're not going to be a great leader if you read one book or you sit through one seminar. You actually have to train, just like going to the gym, ExtremeOwnership.com, check that out.

• 3:15:07Jocko Willink?

  And if you want to help service members, active and retired, you want to help their families, you want to help Gold Star families, check out Mark Lee's mom, Mama Lee, she's got a charity organization, does incredible things for veterans and active duty, actually, sometimes. So if you want to donate or get involved, go to AmericasMightyWarriors.org. Also, check out HeroesAndHorses.org. We just got a report from the field. It seems like, at this time, Micah Fink is ice climbing with a mountain lion that he just killed after it attacked him, but he survived. And now he's ice climbing to the top of a peak to save a horse.

• 3:15:50Jocko Willink?

  Hey, also, you got Save Our Allies at Saveroallys.org. Great organization, you heard some of the work that they did today. They're continuing to do work around the world. Support Mighty Oaks, TheMightyOaksPrograms.org, sorry, MightyOaksPrograms.org. Check that one out. Just doing incredible stuff, like I said, these are organizations that have helped people that I know. So, please, help them in return. And if you want to connect with Chad, go to ChadRoboShow.com. Also, he's on social media. ChadRoboShow, or ChadRobo, ChadRoboofficial on his Instagram. And of course, Echo and I are on there as well.

• 3:16:34Jocko Willink?

  We're not, we're not there to draw you into the algorithm, though. So, be careful if you go in there. But if you want to find us, Echo's at EchoCharles, and I am at JacoWillink. And thanks to Chad, once again. Chad, thanks for everything you've done and everything that you are doing. We are certainly grateful for your sacrifice and your service. And thanks to all the men and women out there in uniform who take risks every day to protect our way of life. And also, thanks to our police and law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, Border Patrol, Secret Service, all first responders. You also risk your lives for us, and we are thankful for that.

• 3:17:19Jocko Willink?

  And to everyone else out there... There's gonna be ups and downs. There's gonna be wins and there's gonna be losses. And at certain points, you're going to come up against powerful forces or circumstances that can overwhelm you. And what do you do when that happens? Got a quick rule for you. Do your best. Simply do your best. And you do that by going out there and getting after it. And until next time, this is Echo and Jaco out.