123: A Fight Through Darkness with Marine Corporal, Jake Schick

0:00:00 - Opening 0:04:19 - Jake Schick. Early Days. 1:15:20 - Deployment. 1:45:26 - Jake gets wounded. 2:14:36 - Recovery. 3:12:27 - Giving back. 3:44:58 - Final Thoughts and take-aways. 3:52:19 - Support: JockoStore http://www.jockostore.com stuff, Super Krill Oil and Joint Warfare and Discipline Pre-Mission http://originmaine.com/origin-labs/jocko/, THE MUSTER 005 in DC http://www.extremeownership.com/washington-dc-005. Origin Brand Apparel and Jocko Gi http://www.originmaine.com, withJocko White Tea http://www.jockotea.com, Onnit Fitness stuff, http://www.onnit.com/jocko and Psychological Warfare (on iTunes) https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/psychological-warfare/id1183222322. Extreme Ownership (book) http://amzn.to/2jonHTx, Way of The Warrior Kid 2: Marc's Mission http://read.macmillan.com/mcpg/way-of-the-warrior-kid/?utm_source=authorsite&utm_medium=authorsite&utm_term=jockofollowers-jockopreorder&utm_content=na-preorder-buynow&utm_campaign=9781250156792&et=44236-a110035216-n20273057, The Discipline Equals Freedom Field Manual, http://amzn.to/2szgaEj and Jocko Soap. https://irishoaksranch.com/storefront/jocko-soap 4:15:19 - Closing Gratitude. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

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

• 0:00Jocko Willink?

  This is Jocko Podcast number 123 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. Good evening Echo. Good evening.

• 0:11Jocko Willink?

  Now, this podcast is the third in a series of podcasts that I have done and if you haven't listened to podcasts number 121 and 122, then go back and listen to those episodes before you listen to this one. The first of those podcasts, number 121, tells the story of Chesty Puller, the iconic and heroic Marine Corps legend that fought in five wars, was awarded five Navy Crosses, the most of any serviceman ever.

• 0:51Jocko Willink?

  He retired as a three-star general after rising through the ranks from private. Podcast 122 tells a much different story. It tells the story of Chesty Puller's son, Louis Puller Jr., who also joined the Marine Corps, who fought in Vietnam, who was horrifically wounded and continued to fight against pain and against loss and against depression and addiction when he returned home from war.

• 1:33Jocko Willink?

  And in the end, he lost that battle. After falling back into the downward spiral of alcohol and prescription painkillers, he became another statistic of the most dreadful kind. He turned the gun on himself and took his own life.

• 2:03Jocko Willink?

  And as I said at the beginning of this series, I was seriously questioning whether or not I could do this podcast. If I had the wherewithal to gut through the pain of that story. And more important, if it was the right thing to do, if it was the right thing to bring this story to light. Because clearly, the story does not have a happy ending. And I wondered if there was any good at all to be found in it.

• 2:44Jocko Willink?

  But I also know that darkness left unchecked and ignored is darkness that grows. And if we do not learn from the past, then we know we are condemned to repeat it. There was one more compelling thing that allowed me to go forward in producing this series of podcasts about a year ago, I think. I was in Texas and I was speaking at the Chris Kyle Memorial Benefit. And I met someone there. He was a Marine. His uncle was a Marine, his grandfather was a Marine.

• 3:28Jocko Willink?

  And he had been severely wounded in Iraq. And as I learned more about him, I came to understand the hell he had been through was much more than just physical. Like many veterans, the psychological wounds were also severe. But he had fought against the pain, fought against the loss, fought the fight that so many other veterans fight, and he had come out the other side stronger and better and had dedicated his life to helping other veterans win that fight.

• 4:09Jocko Willink?

  His name is Jacob Schick.

• 4:14Jocko Willink?

  And it's an honor to have him on the podcast with us here tonight. Jake, welcome to the show, brother.

• 4:22Speaker 01

  Thanks for having me, bro.

• 4:23Jocko Willink?

  Thanks for coming on, man.

• 4:26Speaker 01

  You bet. I'm here to help.

• 4:28Jocko Willink?

  Well, I know you help a lot of people and I want to hopefully get you out there, reaching even more people.

• 4:34Speaker 01

  Let's do it.

• 4:35Jocko Willink?

  You, you, you, when you, when I first met you, I was just talking to you, I don't know, I probably spent

• 4:41Jocko Willink?

  a couple hours at some random bar in a hotel somewhere in Texas.

• 4:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, over there in the stockyards. Yeah.

• 4:48Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And I was like, man, and I told you then, I said, you gotta come get on my podcast. But when I was, like I said, when I was doing, when I was reading these books, I was saying to myself, I gotta have, I gotta show the other side, man. I gotta show that, that you can get out of this and you can get through it. And there's no better example of that than, than you and, and the fight that you've been through. So let's get into it, man. Let's start, let's start at the beginning. Let's start with young Jake.

• 5:16Speaker 01

  Oh, Lord, dude. I blocked out most of my childhood.

• 5:19Jocko Willink?

  Were we talking about Louisiana Bossier City? Is that how you say it?

• 5:22Speaker 01

  Back in the day, but now.

• 5:24Jocko Willink?

  That was, that was, that was until you were what, 12?

• 5:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:27Jocko Willink?

  Eight, 10?

• 5:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was Bo- Bossier City.

• 5:29Jocko Willink?

  Bossier City.

• 5:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, but you could, depending on what part of Louisiana you're from, pronounce it like that.

• 5:34Jocko Willink?

  The other way? The wrong way?

• 5:36Speaker 01

  No, they're both right and both sides of Louisiana, we'll, we'll tell you that too.

• 5:40Jocko Willink?

  Nice.

• 5:41Speaker 01

  Yeah. But yeah, I went to Texas when I was

• 5:45Speaker 01

  about 12 and um, moved in with my mom. So I went from like a structured, disciplined home to the antithesis of that, which caught up to me pretty quick. Yeah. Yeah.

• 6:00Jocko Willink?

  And so what did you, now your grandfather's Marine, was in the Marine Corps?

• 6:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, grandfather, uh, served World War II, uh, fought on EWO. And, and survived and was, um, you know, obviously the, the driving factor of my interest of being a Marine and because I was really close to my grandmother growing up. And my grandfather passed away fairly young in his 50s and, um,

• 6:28Speaker 01

  You know, there's a lot of questions about how he passed away and um you know, but we'll never know, right? I mean, so but my grandmother would talk about my grandfather and her chest would just swell with pride. You know, I was the baby of the family and so when I would see that, I just thought to myself, when she talks about me, I want her to do that same thing. So it looks like I need to be a Marine for that to happen because every time she would talk about him, something from his time in the service in the Marines would be very close to that sentence. And I knew I want whatever that is. And at eight years old,

• 7:11Speaker 01

  I made my mind up that I'm getting that, no matter what it takes, I'm gonna get that. I mean, the only alternative was death. That was the only thing that was gonna stop me from getting it. And uh, you know, my grandma and my uncle served in uh NOM and was a second generation Marine who's still very much alive. And uh, he's, you know, pretty, he's pretty salty. And it was funny, man, because before I went to boot, I talked to him, said, Uncle Jack, you know, I'm about to go. What do I need to know? And this is all he said. Said, be loud, be fast, and don't volunteer for anything. (laughing)

• 7:56Speaker 01

  That was it. So I'm on the phone and like waiting for the follow up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was like, okay, what, that's it. He loud, be fast, don't volunteer for anything. I gotta go. (laughing) And you know what's funny, man, is he's right. That's really, you know how many young dudes I've told that to? They're like, hey, what do I need to know? I bet you I've said that three dozen times to in front of parents.

• 8:21Jocko Willink?

  This is almost the complete opposite of what the Master Chief of SEAL Team One told me when I got there and he said, keep your, keep your mouth shut, keep your ears open, don't forget anything and don't be late. That's what he told me and, and you've, I volunteered for everything. I was dumb. But fired up. I was a fired up kid.

• 8:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, not a lot, not lots changed.

• 8:42Jocko Willink?

  No, it's, it's actually interesting because in the, in the, in Puller Junior's book, he's talking about us as they're in, they're in the basic school and they're getting ready to select for what they want to do. And they start getting graffiti on the desks and people are like, uh,

• 8:58Jocko Willink?

  Motor T and Out in Three. Who gives a fuck? Drive a truck. And they're just being, they're like, not all of them, a lot of them started looking at the war going, hey, man, you know what? I don't want none of that. And very few of them were saying, hey, I want to be an infantry platoon commander. And that's what a lot of them got whether they wanted it or not.

• 9:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, yeah. I mean, a lot of them got war whether they wanted it or not.

• 9:20Jocko Willink?

  Well, like I was just telling you, he was, he was OCS, the basic school, 20 days leave in Vietnam as a platoon commander.

• 9:28Speaker 01

  Welcome to the Corps.

• 9:30Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 9:31Speaker 01

  And just when you think the green winnie can't get any harder, you know, it, it can. There, there's no limit. I mean, it's just true. It's like, uh, uh, with, man, with me, it was never,

• 9:45Speaker 01

  I never questioned, you know, I became a decent football player when I got to Texas, which was basically how I graduated high school.

• 9:54Speaker 01

  Not basically, that's how I graduated high school.

• 9:58Speaker 01

  I was lucky enough to be selected as a captain in my senior year and, and you know, I played for a 5A Texas football team, which was, it's the real deal in Texas, man. And it's, uh,

• 10:08Jocko Willink?

  Isn't that just, just under the NFL?

• 10:12Speaker 01

  You know how many times our team would get together and we'd be like, We would like list out all the college teams we were totally sure we could beat. Just young and stupid, man. But I mean, and it's just, it's crazy because you see the, the athleticism difference between, especially when you go to your big schools and the, and the NFL, it's the speed. It's crazy. And the strength. I mean, all of it, the agility. It's night and day. It's night and day and it just goes to show you, young kids, you don't know shit. You think you know a lot, you don't know shit. I mean, I was that way and I, I mean, well, really, I still don't know shit. And I'll be thirty-six this month.

• 10:55Speaker 01

  And I, you know, I mean, anyone who comes up to me and they're like, hey, I got it figured out. You know what I said? Perfect. You no longer need to be in my circle because I'll never learn anything from you. But I mean, I, I know I'm gonna die a student of life, but man, I, I was, I loved football. That was, that's what I thought high school was for.

• 11:16Speaker 01

  And so it, it was the old cliche thing. It was semi-small city, um. Where in Texas were you? Coppell. Coppell, C-O-P-B-E-L-L, the Cowboys. And, uh,

• 11:31Speaker 01

  you know, had it not been for the, for like my counselor and the principal and all those people, like I wouldn't have graduated. Because I was pretty spent from the, the political crap by the time, you know, my senior year rolled around and I just didn't know if I wanted it. I didn't know if I wanted to deal with it anymore. You know, I didn't know if I wanted to, to play the game that comes with playing the game. And it just got to where it was like, you know, this is, it's kind of bullshit. Because it's like growing up, right? Small town Louisiana, where you go to church every Wednesday, every Sunday morning, and you put on your Sunday best and you go to church and you act a certain way or you're out in public and you act a certain way.

• 12:15Speaker 01

  You know, but as you get home, the doors close. That's all bullshit.

• 12:21Speaker 01

  I mean, we're being conditioned as little kids. Like, hey, just fake it till you make it. And, you know, I, I'm all right saying that now.

• 12:31Jocko Willink?

  So you got, so when you were in high school, you kind of got tired of playing the game. You were just thinking, now, now, didn't you join the Marine Corps?

• 12:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, beginning of my senior year, because I was already eighteen. I didn't tell anybody, because I thought that was a good idea. And that went over famously with my dad. Because my dad thought I was gonna go play ball at a small school. Because I, because I missed more days my senior year than I actually went to. Well, because when football season was over, I was like, sweet, I'm done.

• 12:59Speaker 01

  That's it. I'm like, I don't need to do this school shit anymore. It's overrated. But I knew it was not, you know, I mean, then they-

• 13:09Jocko Willink?

  Now, were you thinking, did you join, were you planning to go active duty? Were you in the reserves?

• 13:13Speaker 01

  No, so I'd signed up. And my recruiter, who I'll never forget, was, was a- He was legit, man. You hear a lot of like horror stories about recruiters.

• 13:23Jocko Willink?

  I literally, I literally have a question here. It's like, how was your recruiter? Because so many people have good recruiter stories, one way or the other. They either screwed him or totally took care of him.

• 13:32Speaker 01

  So my recruiter, first of all, he got me out of a lot of stuff where I was like, dude, where nowadays, there's no way. It just wouldn't fly. And I was like, how the hell did you do it? He's like, don't worry about it. You just better be at MAFS when I tell you to be at MAFS. I'm like, bro, you can drive me if you want. But he, uh,

• 13:53Speaker 01

  he had, so they, you know, most recruiting stations are like inside a shopping center or whatever. So they were right next to like a big grocery store chain and, uh, one, one day, some, some dude goes and steals some stuff and, and, uh, he chases him down. And like whips his ass in the parking lot. So he was a firefighter in the Corps, right? So, and I volunteered for infantry. I was like, I'm gonna be on a big grunt. He tried to talk me out of it for months. He's like, Jake, you really don't want to do that. I was like, no, that's what I want to do.

• 14:28Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 14:28Speaker 01

  And, uh, but he chased the dude down and I was like, see, that was, for me, that was affirmation from God that I'm doing the right thing, you know?

• 14:38Jocko Willink?

  These are my people.

• 14:39Speaker 01

  This is where I'm supposed to be, you know? But it was, man, I, I, um, my second, I think it was the second week of football season and, uh- I jacked up my right knee, my MCL on my right knee and and when I went and signed the paperwork, I was on crutches and in a brace and I opened the door and like hobble in and he goes, "What are you doing?" And I said, "I'm sure you'll sign up." And he goes, "Not like that, you're not." And I said, "Give me two weeks." We're playing whoever we were playing. I said, "I'll be on the field, give me two weeks." And he was like, "There's no way." I said, "Okay. Be here in two weeks." And he showed up and I played, it hurt like hell.

• 15:21Speaker 01

  But I played through it, lied to my trainers, lied to the coaches. He's like, "No, I'm good, I'm good, I'm good." You know, just the young dumb, like, you know, power before IQ, right? Just power through. If you can just power through, you don't really need the IQ. And that's what- You gotta be stupid, you gotta be tough. That's it, that's it, man. And there's a lot of truth to that, which we can all attest to that, right? Every person, I don't care, I don't care if you have a peck or not, you can attest to that. If you're gonna be stupid, you better be tough. Gotta be tough, for sure. And so we, but I, I ended up playing and I signed up. I didn't tell anybody and then it was actually, uh, I graduated by the grace of God and because of

• 16:07Speaker 01

  high school football in Texas and it was, uh,

• 16:13Speaker 01

  it was amazing, man, because my dad actually met my recruiter at the high school graduation. And he was in his dress blues, which is, you know, the best uniform there is. No one can argue. And, and if you do, you're just stupid. But he, he walks up and I said, "Hey dad, you know, I'd like you to meet my, my recruiter." And he looked at me. And my recruiter held his hand out to shake his hand and my dad looked at me and he said- And your dad, was this your dad finding out? Yeah. Oh dang. And he said, "Why would you do that?" And then he looks at my recruiter, looks back at me, like waiting for me to answer. And I said, "Dad, I would shake his hand. You're, you're a banker." I would shake his hand, pretty sure he could take you.

• 16:58Speaker 01

  And he, he was pissed, man. He was pissed cuz he's. And I didn't understand why at the time, really, you know, but later on.

• 17:09Jocko Willink?

  This is two thousand, right? This is pre.

• 17:11Speaker 01

  Two thousand, uh, yeah, two thousand one, actually. That was my graduation. So this is May, May or June, two thousand one. Okay, so yeah, this is pre nine eleven. I'm already signed up. I'm in, I'm going. And he.

• 17:24Jocko Willink?

  So your dad's thoughts were more around like, hey, you should go to college, you should get a job, you know, I'm a banker, it's a good life, that type of thing. You don't need to go and do this other stuff.

• 17:33Speaker 01

  Exactly. And so, and so my thing was.

• 17:35Jocko Willink?

  There's no war going on, you know, at that time.

• 17:37Speaker 01

  Right, yeah, no, I mean, it was, it was quote unquote peacetime and, uh, which we all know there's no such thing, but whatever. You know, whatever rainbows and roses and lollipops people want to have in their safety bubble, but we, you know, we. I knew that that was, that's what I was destined to do. I knew it, like, I felt it as much as I know. That like my leg's never gonna grow back. Like, I knew that much, that this is what I'm supposed to do. And I was hell bent on it, hell bent. And so when my dad was pissed, I was, I questioned it because maybe I didn't tell him or I kept it from him and, and a myriad of things, right? I mean, it's never just one thing, anything is never just one thing.

• 18:19Speaker 01

  Like, I love people like, well, I know what the problem is. I'm like, well, what do you want to bet there's more than one? Because it's, it's just the way it is, but he, I didn't realize and I didn't think about. You know, at the time, I'm, I'm nineteen at this point and I didn't think about, he had seen. What war does to not only a person. But someone that is his blood, his flesh and blood, he's seen the after effects, you know, he was.

• 18:48Jocko Willink?

  So he saw, was his dad an E O? Was that his dad or was that your mom's dad?

• 18:52Speaker 01

  That was my dad's dad.

• 18:53Jocko Willink?

  And your, and his brother?

• 18:54Speaker 01

  His older brother, yeah. And so he had seen the after effects and seen, you know, my grandfather was a hard man. And, um, you know, the way that, he was a man when it was okay to be a man. And you wouldn't get judged for being a man. Whereas now that's a lot, I mean, don't act like you don't know what the hell I'm talking about either. Because now it's like. But you can use either bathroom. That's okay.

• 19:21Speaker 01

  Like it's.

• 19:22Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 19:23Speaker 01

  I mean it's.

• 19:24Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I I'm looking at you with a blank stare because I'm like detached from all that like all that political, I don't even. It's weird, man. My life is weird that I don't, I just kind of evolve and or revolve in my own little world. So when I, when I hear like. When I do, when that kind of stuff enters my world, I'm just kind of like, is that really happening? And it doesn't really compute and I move on. I don't know. I don't.

• 19:44Speaker 01

  Well, see, but when you, but when you're in my world. It's almost, you have to know. It's on me unfortunately with what we're trying to do.

• 19:51Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 19:51Speaker 01

  It's, well, it's a big ass mountain we're trying to move, man. And it's. But anyway, I I go to, I go to boot and um, actually nine eleven happens.

• 20:02Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 20:03Speaker 01

  I'm in my room the night before and the whole thing behind the reserves was. So I thought about it and I was like, okay.

• 20:10Jocko Willink?

  So what you graduate in May of two thousand and one.

• 20:12Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 20:13Jocko Willink?

  You, you screw around for the summer.

• 20:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:16Jocko Willink?

  Being a Texas kid that graduated from high school that's going in the Marine Corps.

• 20:19Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 20:20Jocko Willink?

  That was a real. Uh, PG rated situation.

• 20:24Speaker 01

  Hundred, hundred percent.

• 20:26Jocko Willink?

  Then, then September eleventh, when's your boot camp? When are you leaving for boot camp?

• 20:29Speaker 01

  Boot camp, I leave for boot camp the month after nine eleven.

• 20:32Jocko Willink?

  Check. So it's on.

• 20:33Speaker 01

  Yeah. And so it was um. Nine eleven happens and. So the way I looked at it was like, okay, you know what? My, my grandfather was Corporal Schick. My uncle was Corporal Schick. I'm gonna raise the bar for whoever the fourth generation is. I mean, because that's what we're supposed to do, right? For those that come after us. And so I was like, okay. I'm gonna join the reserves, still infantry. I'm always gonna stay after you wanted to be a career infantryman. And then um, I'll pick up E5. By that time, I'll already have my degree and then I'll get my, I'll get my commission. Then I'll be a Mustang. So whoever the fourth generation is, like the, the bar set. Check. Like that. So that was my mindset, right? Obviously Johnny Giot had different plans.

• 21:20Speaker 01

  But we, but nine 11 happens. Yeah. And man, it was, I mean, it became very real, very quick. Yep. That, oh, okay. Well, this is, I mean, I was gung ho about it. Yeah. But my, and my buddy, we wake up and uh, my, my mother walks in my room and like opens the door and beer cans like get pushed everywhere. So first she's like, what the hell is, and then she's like, turn on the TV, we're under attack. And I turn on the TV. I looked at my buddy and we went to the, we did the buddy system in the core and um, I looked at him and I was like, bro, we're going to war. Check. And it was when it, you know, for a 19 year old kid, you have that sense of, you know, let's rock and roll.

• 22:04Speaker 01

  But then the smart, little, little smart person that lives in the back of your head was like, this may suck.

• 22:14Speaker 01

  Like this may suck bad. Yeah. But um, it didn't, obviously didn't deter my uh, my motivation in doing that. And so we, yeah, man, I left a month after nine 11, which was, you know, I was right down the street from here, MCRD San Diego. Man, and let me tell you something. As if Marine Corps drill instructors need any more motivation to be Marine Corps drill instructors. Oh yeah. They had it. September 11th, they were ready to get some. They had it. It was gnarly. But no matter from the time that we landed and the time that we got on the bus, which this was something that always cracked me up. Cause you land, you can see the depot.

• 22:55Speaker 01

  From the runway. But for whatever reason, the bus ride takes like an hour and a half.

• 23:02Speaker 01

  You know? Oh, yeah. That's welcome to the military in general. It didn't take long for me to completely understand why that is the way it is. And so it was, um, but from the time, the, the first time I stood on the yellow footprints, even up till now, up to this point right now, today, I wouldn't question, I don't question any of it. I don't, I wouldn't take any of it back. I wouldn't trade any of it. I have no doubt that everything has happened exactly the way it's supposed to happen. I don't believe in coincidences and I, I wouldn't take anything back. I mean, just because something that I've learned at the ripe old age of soon to be

• 23:43Speaker 01

  36 is that you can't have triumph without trials, tribulation, tragedy. Those are kissing cousins. You know, you can't have one without the other and where you go with it is up to you. And, uh, you know, my life was one hell of a roller coaster ride and it started the first time I stood on those yellow footprints. And I mean, and it started way before that, man. Started, you know, I, I definitely had trauma before the trauma. I think, I think majority of us do because we live in a very spoiled first world society and we forget that we're mere mortals. There's nothing special about us. We're all the same. We were all just living, breathing sacks of skin. Jack.

• 24:27Speaker 01

  You know, that's it. And so I, when I, I, I started boot, it was, it was one of those deals where the, the mindset started of, and I already had some leadership skills, thanks to football and team sports. And I had, I'd learned that growing up and then in high school, I really got to hone those, those leadership skills, which really helped me in boot. I mean, I really believe in team athletics because it's, it's like everything. No matter what you're dealing with. The greater good is always gonna be bigger than you. Always. And you have to hang on to that humility in that. I'm just, I'm just a dude. Just a dude. Being a dude. But I'm just a dude playing a dude trying to be another dude. But.

• 25:11Speaker 01

  You know what I'm, you know what I mean? It's you, you. You realize often. If you're really trying to do something that's worth doing. You're reminded often how human you are.

• 25:22Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and, and you know, I used to tell my guys, if you're doing something for the right reasons, you're gonna win in the end. Like, and, and that means if you're doing something that's gonna help the team win, you're gonna win in the end. You're gonna get what you want. The things are gonna go the way you want. If you're doing something for your selfish reasons or for the wrong reasons, you're gonna lose in the end. Now, you might, both those, the, the person that's doing it for the right reasons might lose some battles along the way. The person that's doing it for the wrong reasons might win some battles along the way. But the end game. Person, if you're doing the right things, the right reasons, if you're looking out for the team, if you're doing it for the good of the team, you're gonna win. And if you're doing the opposite, eventually you're gonna lose. That's the way it works.

• 26:01Speaker 01

  That's it. You're a hundred percent right. I mean, and you know what? The history books. They'll get it right.

• 26:06Jocko Willink?

  They, they do. It flushes out every time. Sometimes it takes, sometimes it takes years. Sometimes it takes ten years. Takes decades. But the people that are doing the right things for the right reasons, they win.

• 26:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it's like, it's like I, I tell guys all the time that I still.

• 26:21Speaker 01

  The, the humanality in me still has to, I have to remind, every time I talk to a guy, when I say guy, I mean man or woman, doesn't matter. But every time I talk to him, I usually start the conversation out with, no matter what comes under, out of this hole underneath my nose, I need you to know I'm talking to myself too. Every time.

• 26:39Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, check.

• 26:40Speaker 01

  And I say, it's, I say, you know, it's, it's none of our business. What the hell other people think of us. It is none of my business what anyone else thinks of me. It should have very little impact on any decision I make every day, all day. None. It should have no impact.

• 27:00Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, there's a, there's an interesting dichotomy in that. I've talked about that on this podcast before. Because for me, right, I'm a guy that on the one hand, I, I, the exact same thing, like I don't care what people think. At the, at the other end of the spectrum, I absolutely care what, what everyone thinks and you, I'll draw you into this. When you were doing something, I mean, when I was doing something in the SEAL teams, I'd be thinking always like, hey, is this the right thing? What, what's this gonna do to my reputation? What, what is, what is, you know, my buddy gonna think of me if I cut the corner here? If I don't do the right thing. So my reputation, the way I was looked at, I did feel that pressure all the time.

• 27:42Jocko Willink?

  And at the same time, if someone was like, oh, I don't like your clothes or whatever, I don't care at all. But things that I cared about and from people that I cared about and respected, I always had the attitude that like, yeah, you know what? I, I do care what they think. I do care what my, you know, I'll tell you what, man, one of the hardest things I had to do when I, when I wrote a book. And like, here you are, you're gonna write a book, you know, you're gonna write a book about yourself. It's, it's, it's a arrogant, conceited thing to do, no matter what you say in the book. It doesn't matter. It's you're writing a book about, about you and, and you know, Leif, who wrote the book with me, same thing. The primary concern for me was like, what are my bros in the teams gonna think of me?

• 28:27Jocko Willink?

  Right? So

• 28:30Jocko Willink?

  that's hard. But there's, so there's a balance between those two things.

• 28:33Speaker 01

  You're right. Let me, let me simplify it.

• 28:39Speaker 01

  The people that you're never gonna meet.

• 28:42Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 28:45Speaker 01

  So I'll Barney style it for you.

• 28:48Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, sometimes you need to dumb things down for this guy over here.

• 28:51Speaker 01

  Everyone at this table, let's just be honest. You, you, the people you're never gonna meet, they will have little to no impact on your life and your well-being henceforth. It doesn't matter. They think they matter, and that's okay. Let them think what they want to think. But it doesn't matter.

• 29:10Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, no, that's 100% right, for sure.

• 29:13Speaker 01

  Because it's real easy, especially in the line of work that we do. That, that we do day to day at 22 kill. That it's real easy for people to sit on their self-loathing asses behind their computer screen and pass judgment. When we continue to grind onward in the face of tremendous loss. There's something to be said for that. I mean, that's, that, that, that right there is a test of will and character all its own. In the face of tremendous loss to say, okay. We have to step back, we have to reassess, we'll readdress, we'll reengage, let's adjust our left and right lateral limits, but,

• 29:58Speaker 01

  but there's still ground to take and demons to slay. We have to move forward and burn our pain as fuel. Cause that's what we do. Cause if not us, who? And so that, all that started when I was standing on his yellow footprints because you had this.

• 30:18Speaker 01

  And it's something that you'll agree. People that know their stuff about the military agrees with. One thing that can be said about the Marine Corps, no other branch, regardless of division adheres to tradition as much as the Marines. I mean, you, you asked me about, about Chesty and I'm like, yeah, I mean, we told him goodnight every night for three months.

• 30:38Jocko Willink?

  So the Marine Corps is absolutely, absolutely correct, yeah. The Marine Corps does not play around when it comes to tradition.

• 30:44Speaker 01

  And I think that there's a- The proof's in the pudding, right? I mean, since 1775, we've shown that we adhere to that. That's what makes us who we are. And that's why it's, I, I think that we have the success rate that we have regardless of being the bastard children of the military, not really knowing who our dad is and being poor. It, we make it work. We, we have since day one been able to really define what improvise, adapt and overcome means. We've been able to live that and prove situations where outside looking in, that's gonna, it's a, it's a total loss and come out with a W.

• 31:29Speaker 01

  Come out with a victory because of that very tradition that makes us who we are. Cause when all else fails, all you have is your gut.

• 31:39Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Now, when you were going through boot camp though, there was, was there any combat veterans there?

• 31:48Speaker 01

  I don't think we had one.

• 31:49Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 31:49Speaker 01

  Even the DI's.

• 31:50Jocko Willink?

  That's, that's a testament to what you're talking about, right?

• 31:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:53Jocko Willink?

  Is that even though no one been in combat in, well, there probably been a few guys that went to Gulf War. Maybe there's a couple of guys that went to Somalia, maybe a couple of guys that went to Grenade or something or, or Panama, maybe.

• 32:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 32:04Jocko Willink?

  But those are like onesies and twosies.

• 32:06Speaker 01

  You're right.

• 32:06Jocko Willink?

  And there's a chance that like none of your DI's had any combat experience.

• 32:12Speaker 01

  It's a great point, man.

• 32:13Jocko Willink?

  And yet, the lessons get passed on. You had old, old Vietnam SEAL on here. And he was talking about when he came back from Vietnam and he instituted this certain type of training at, out in the desert. And I was like, I went through that training. And he's like, yeah, well, I put that together like the same. It's a point man course where they put booby traps and they put targets to chew down and all this stuff. I was like, yeah. He was like, yeah, I made that up. And I was like, oh, we still do it. We still do it. And so that tradition in the Marine Corps is like 200 years.

• 32:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:43Jocko Willink?

  Of things being passed down.

• 32:45Speaker 01

  Right.

• 32:45Jocko Willink?

  Solid.

• 32:46Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, it's something that, I mean, listen, even now it makes me swell of pride, you know? Like I understand why my grandmother reacted the way she did truly now. You know, and I've, I've been able to live that. I've been blessed enough to, to live this journey that, I mean, yeah, it comes with a lot of pain and a lot. Of hard lessons, you know, I mean, pain's inevitable, suffering is optional. It's something I've learned too, you know, I mean, it's, no one's gonna be harder on you than you. Every day you wake up, you should just be thinking to yourself, alright, today it's me versus me.

• 33:24Speaker 01

  You know, and no one wakes up and goes, I'm gonna go out of my way to be average today. Like, if you wake up and do that, you need to have a gut check.

• 33:35Jocko Willink?

  So, so you get, you get done with boot camp and then you go to Pendleton for infantry training?

• 33:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I went up to Pendleton and, um, you know, which was fun, man. You know what sucks is in boot, I was, um, I was first squad squad leader up until like a week before graduation. I think it's just because the senior drill instructor didn't like me. Uh, I didn't like him either though, so it was mutual. But, um, and there's one DI I had that I swear if I saw him on the street today, like I'd go find him right now. I'm not kidding at all. There was one dude that, like, I had PTSD from that guy.

• 34:13Speaker 01

  Cause he was going out of his way to try and mentally break me and it just never happened and, uh,

• 34:17Jocko Willink?

  What do you, what do you think, what do you, why was that?

• 34:20Speaker 01

  I think it was just, it became this personal thing to him because he saw how other recruits would gravitate.

• 34:27Jocko Willink?

  So he might have been like jealous of your, of your natural leadership?

• 34:30Speaker 01

  I don't doubt it at all. I don't, I mean, cause he was ugly, he was...

• 34:34Jocko Willink?

  Not handsome like yourself.

• 34:35Speaker 01

  No, and obviously, I mean, moneymaker, bro. You know, but he, he was, um, but he was, you could tell though underneath it all, like he was, he was a great Marine.

• 34:47Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 34:48Speaker 01

  And, um, he, he, yeah, we lied a lot for that guy and a few other DI's, but, you know, it was just, I was thankful for our boot camp with the last name like Schick. You know, our guide's last name was? Schmitter.

• 35:04Jocko Willink?

  That's nice.

• 35:05Speaker 01

  So for three months, hey, shitter, go get your brother shit.

• 35:10Speaker 01

  Three months, man. The only time I ever got emotional in boot camp was on the parade deck on graduation day. When, uh, Hammers, one of the DIs we had, he looked at me and he, he said, "I gotta tell you, Schick." And I heard the "cuh," and like I got emotional, like dude, I got my name back. I earned it back. But, um, he told me what he told me and then my dad was there actually and, and walks by me on the parade deck and tosses me a can of Copenhagen Longa. Didn't even look at me and he said, "Good job. Let's go eat." Like keeps walking. So I was like, "Okay, still pissed. I get it."

• 35:45Jocko Willink?

  Dang, cold-blooded.

• 35:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, dude, but it was, you know, and like I said, there, for years, I didn't get it.

• 35:52Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 35:53Speaker 01

  And then, you know, go up to SOI, to Pendleton and, um, I loved every minute of that too. Here's what made it awesome for me, and this is something that a lot of the listeners will relate to is that no matter how gnarly it got in boot or how gnarly it got in SOI, or how tired or hungry or just beat down, you were mentally, physically, emotionally.

• 36:20Speaker 01

  There were, all you had to do was look to your left or right. Cause guess what? So are they.

• 36:25Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 36:26Speaker 01

  But you go to fall down, they're right there to pick you up. No matter how tired you are. Who doesn't want that?

• 36:34Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, no.

• 36:34Speaker 01

  You can't buy it. You can't buy, you have to pay for that with sweat, blood and tears, period. And I learned also early on, you're gonna find your great leaders by following the blood trail. Literally and figuratively. It's not hard to find. Take off your first war blinders, you'll find them. Follow the blood trail, you'll find them. And I knew the ones that were, and I knew the ones that weren't. And now so does everyone else.

• 37:06Speaker 01

  Comes out in the wash, right? But we, you know, SOI was awesome. I mean, I remember the first, the first weekend that we had Libbo.

• 37:16Speaker 01

  What's the first thing you think that they tell us, young stupid Marines? In, in, uh, at SOI at Pendleton?

• 37:24Jocko Willink?

  Oh, you're getting your first liberty?

• 37:25Speaker 01

  The one place not to go.

• 37:27Jocko Willink?

  TJ?

• 37:28Speaker 01

  The one place.

• 37:31Speaker 01

  I mean, where do you think, like, a van full of us go?

• 37:34Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah. Did you take a Marine Corps van?

• 37:36Speaker 01

  No, but we should have.

• 37:37Jocko Willink?

  That would have been impressive.

• 37:38Speaker 01

  We should have. I can't, I still, to this day, you know, we left Friday evening. I, to this day, I can't believe they let me back in the United States. Like, I was,

• 37:49Speaker 01

  I was throwed, hard. And, uh, at the time, my brother, I don't know if it was his girlfriend at the time, or he was his ex, but she was, for some reason, here in, uh, in Southern Cal, and she was like, "Hey, come, you know, see me." And I saw her somewhere by the border or whatever. I'm sure I smelt amazing.

• 38:08Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 38:09Speaker 01

  And like, the look on her face was like, "How are you breathing right now?" Because, you know, my idea was, when they said turn two on liberty,

• 38:17Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah.

• 38:18Speaker 01

  Like, that's exactly, I was, I was seeking liberty.

• 38:21Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 38:21Speaker 01

  No matter, and I wanted to find what liberty looked like.

• 38:24Jocko Willink?

  I've told this story before. I was, we pulled into port one time, I was on a ship, I was in a SEAL platoon, we pull into port, and what we used to do, there'd be a line to get off the ship, like, checking liberty cars. So when the, when the ship pulled into port, we'd work out. That'd take an hour, then we'd take a shower, and then the line'd be gone, we'd go out. So we'd do that. We're, we'd been in port for like, an hour and fifteen minutes. We'd go up to leave, and they're carrying a Marine back on the ship. He's completely covered in puke, passed out drunk. He did that in like, forty-eight minutes, bro. That's impressive. That's getting after it.

• 38:57Speaker 01

  Chesty would have loved that a little bit.

• 39:01Speaker 01

  I, listen, how do you not respect that?

• 39:04Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, no.

• 39:05Speaker 01

  Cause back in the day, I would have been like, "I wanna hang out with that dude." But, but it's, I mean, that's just what, you know, that's just what we do.

• 39:15Jocko Willink?

  That's, that's what that is. What that is, is an eighteen-year-old human being that's been in boot camp, SOI, hasn't, hasn't let loose at all, and has become a man, by the way, or at least... Has been told in some way that he's become a man.

• 39:31Speaker 01

  And his head.

• 39:32Jocko Willink?

  And that's where.

• 39:33Speaker 01

  Still has the boot stripe. You know, it's like, bro, you're not fooling anybody.

• 39:38Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 39:39Speaker 01

  I get it, though. I get it, man, because it's, you get there and it's like, okay, did boot, did that, that was, you know, way more mental than physical. And it's, they're good at what they do.

• 39:52Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, for sure.

• 39:53Speaker 01

  They're good at what they do. I remember my grandmother telling me, just remember, they have a job to do. They're doing their job. Not one thing you go through is gonna be personal. She was wrong, however, with that one DI.

• 40:06Jocko Willink?

  Grandma was wrong on that guy.

• 40:07Speaker 01

  Yeah. This is the same one, and she's, she was a hard woman, man. She was, um, you know, she was one of those, she used to always say, I suffer from what comes up comes out syndrome. Because there was no filter. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I, and I love that about her because it was, it was true. Like, if she didn't like it, you knew.

• 40:26Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 40:26Speaker 01

  You know, and she would always say, as far as I'm concerned, I have one grandbaby, talking about me right in front of my siblings. Her giving F tank was bone dry.

• 40:35Jocko Willink?

  Dead.

• 40:36Speaker 01

  Give none. This is the same woman, the first time she sees me in the hospital and I'm all banged up and she says, well, baby, I guess God didn't want you and the devil won't have you. And I was like, you know what, I'll take it, Mimi. Yeah, I mean, and I had the old World War II Marine, I was flying to Vegas for some event or something, maybe I was at a speak at or whatever, and he said, just remember, young man, bad breath better than no breath.

• 41:05Speaker 01

  I said, Roger that, sir. Right on. But, um, man, it was, you know, boot was, was one of those things where you're part of the club, but not like,

• 41:15Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 41:16Speaker 01

  You know, you're.

• 41:17Jocko Willink?

  So when you're at SOI, how do they figure out what position you're gonna be in a platoon?

• 41:21Speaker 01

  So SOI, it's, um, it's more of a numbers thing. So I, I school trained as an 0311 rifleman, right? And then, so I go through all the 0311 rifleman training and. You know, you get to, you get to finger most of weapons throughout the infantry and then it was, um, I never understood the humps, man. I never liked them, always hated them. Cause it was like, hey, let's go put on a stupid amount of weight.

• 41:52Speaker 01

  Let's go warm up walking around motor T three or four times and look at all the, all the vehicles that we're never gonna use. Like I always felt like we were screwing the taxpayer.

• 42:00Jocko Willink?

  You know, actually I can, I can honestly say I have never, ever in my life done what you just said, which is warm up for a hump. I've never done that. I was always just like, hey, I'll warm up for the first eight hours of this deal.

• 42:12Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, you know.

• 42:14Jocko Willink?

  Marine Corps, you're gonna warm up, walk around motor T. I like that. Taking it to the next level.

• 42:19Speaker 01

  It's just, you know, more mind games than Milton Bradley, bro. But it was, it was the, the humps that were like, I was just thinking to myself, like, why don't we utilize all the stuff with motors and rotors?

• 42:33Jocko Willink?

  I like that you're walking around the motor transport, where all the vehicles are that could carry you.

• 42:38Speaker 01

  Knowing you're not gonna use them. No, no. But that was the, you know, that, you know, we finished SOI and we did, you know, a lot of the training was, um,

• 42:51Speaker 01

  there were so many times where you would hear the guys, God, we did this 10,000 times yesterday. And we're doing it another 10,000 times today. Because as you well know, we're all really good. No matter the caliber of warrior and the amount of training you have, we are all class A bitchers.

• 43:10Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 43:11Speaker 01

  A hundred percent.

• 43:13Jocko Willink?

  You guys complain about everything?

• 43:14Speaker 01

  Everything, everything. You know, then we go off to these foreign places and these gnarly situations and we get home and we're like, I wanna go back to that, I miss it.

• 43:24Speaker 01

  I know why that is the way it is now. I know now. And that's just because as crazy as it is, it's easier.

• 43:34Jocko Willink?

  Oh yeah, well, you gotta have some fun with it.

• 43:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, you come back here and it's like.

• 43:39Speaker 01

  It's just frickin Jerry Springer and the Kardashians, like just. And it's like, when can we just utilize an ounce of common sense? You know, just please, for the love of God and all that's holy.

• 43:55Speaker 01

  Could we just call a dog a dog and a cat a cat? And a man be a man and a woman be a woman and not worry about everything in between? And all the judgment that's gonna follow being what God made you? Like, could we just focus on toughening up? And teaching our children, who will one day lead this country? That, believe it or not, the planet doesn't give a shit about your feelings. You're not always gonna win. And mommy and daddy are not always gonna be there deafening you with the rotor wash from the helicopter parenting.

• 44:33Speaker 01

  Like, that's gonna go away. Yeah, Jack. Cause this world, it'll punch you in the mouth and then laugh. What are we teaching our kids? One of the, my son knows, cause I tell him, it is my job as your parent to make sure you are prepared to take said punch and punch back. Because at some point, it's gonna happen. And I would rather you lose, whether you're in an MMA competition, or baseball, or whatever it is, I would rather you lose doing everything properly at a hundred percent than win not doing the fundamentals the way you're supposed to and going fifty percent.

• 45:18Speaker 01

  And he looked at me like, well dad, isn't it? No, believe it or not, it's not always about winning, because you're gonna lose a lot. Yeah, it's life. Yeah, yeah, and I mean, it's, it's something that's just, start young. Start young, letting them know that it's not all rainbows, roses, and lollipops. That there's no such thing as waking up on your unicorn ranch and picking which unicorn you're gonna ride on what rainbow to wherever you go. It doesn't exist.

• 45:45Jocko Willink?

  Can you do me a favor? Can you just the last part about no unicorns? Can you not tell my daughter that? My eight year old daughter? Cause she like she's waiting kinda. Setting traps and stuff.

• 45:57Speaker 01

  Imagine that.

• 45:58Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 46:00Jocko Willink?

  Hey, so. You get done with SOI?

• 46:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:03Jocko Willink?

  And now, and now where do you go? Cause are you, are you in the reserves at this point?

• 46:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, so at the, I get done with SOI and I go check in and uh, I was late.

• 46:12Jocko Willink?

  Oh, that's a good call.

• 46:13Speaker 01

  Checking in, yeah, so I didn't. It was a communication breakdown, right? So I didn't, it wasn't my fault. Nothing's, you know, this recruit just don't know, sir. But it was a, a situation the guy I checked in with was

• 46:28Jocko Willink?

  Where were you checking in? What, what, what were you checking into?

• 46:30Speaker 01

  To my unit and it was in Basie.

• 46:32Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 46:33Speaker 01

  Also known as Bojor. So I was supposed to check in with the dude that I, I was in a boot or, or SOI with. I can't remember if we went to boot together or not, but uh.

• 46:44Speaker 01

  He goes and checks in, I believe it was a Friday. And so he goes, checks in Friday with first sergeant and then. And he calls me, he's like, Jake. First sergeant wanted to know where the hell you are. And I was like, dude, I thought. You, you're. He's like, no, bro. He, he won't see you like now.

• 47:04Speaker 01

  So I'm, I'm there Monday morning, first thing. And he looks at me and he was like. Where the hell were you, Double Dog? And I was like, uh, sorry first sergeant, um, you know. So, so didn't tell me that and he was like. Is he a keeper?

• 47:22Speaker 01

  And I was like, there's no easy way out of this. You know, I look around his, his office and all of his awards and the accolades and I'm just like.

• 47:31Speaker 01

  I just asked him like, do you? Can we just go to the gym and you beat the shit out of me and just get, let's get this over with? And that's one of the things where. Where when your dad asks you like. Now, do you want to be grounded for a month or do you want the belt? Ten times out of ten, I'm like. You want me to go get the belt for you? That's easier, right? Yeah. Let's just, let's just get through the, the temporary pain and then move forward. Mm-hmm. And with, I was the same with first sergeant, which I think in the beginning he liked. Yeah. You know? In the beginning. Yeah, yeah, because it was, I developed a bit of repetition over time, but it was, um, again, liberty. Liberty.

• 48:12Speaker 01

  But he was, um, little did I know that I was checking in with now Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps. Oh, damn. And I didn't, I had, of course, you know, you can't. Yeah. You can't push out of that, and so it was, but he was the one, one of the guys, he was, he's just a Marines Marine, man. He's, he's like, you, you know, it's like he, he fell off a poster and there he was. You know, like three red stripe, big map, black belt and, I mean, drill master, all, you name it, he did it. And so he, uh, we, we got pretty tight and, you know, he, he disappointed me when he had to, but it was

• 48:56Speaker 01

  one of those things where at the time, my unit, when I checked in, was actually in Gitmo. And they were doing base security and, and all that stuff and then they, uh, he tells me, hey, stay close to your phone. You're gonna go meet up with your unit in Gitmo. I'm like, yeah, Roger that, first sergeant, I gotta go. So are we, are we in two thousand and two yet? This is, yeah, so this is, uh, because I was in boot during Marine Corps birthday and Christmas. Yeah, and so this was, uh, there's that flashback to being in boot camp for Marine Corps birthday and Christmas. Marine Corps birthday, I don't know if they still do it. I'm sure they do. Oh, yeah.

• 49:38Speaker 01

  But they give you steak and shrimp and like cake in the chow hall. And so we got back to the barracks and that one D I was telling you about. Who I pray to God hears this, because he's, he'll know exactly who I am. Come find me, bro. And, uh, but we line up, we get online in the squad bay and he makes us, we, we just finished this epic meal. We, we had more than like a minute and a half to eat, got to sit there for a good five or six minutes, which is an eternity at the time. Get back online, start pounding canteens, hold them up over our head, run back to the hood, refill them, get back online, pound the canteens.

• 50:20Speaker 01

  Hold them over your head empty, do it again and again and again. And he said, "We're doing this until every one of you pukes up that meal that you don't deserve."

• 50:32Speaker 01

  And so, um, and we did. And then the first of course, yeah, cha- chain reaction, the first few pukes and then it just starts. Like with me, I would rather seriously be,

• 50:47Speaker 01

  have like cruel and unusual punishment done to me than puke. So I'm fighting it like, like a mo- like I'm fighting it hard. And then the company CO walks in the back door and it was hilarious because the, said DI like goes white, like uh-oh. Yeah, cause he's hazing, you know, and that's when daddy walks in and sees it. Just walked by all of us and he's like, he had to go back behind the racks. Cause he didn't wanna get puke on his.

• 51:20Jocko Willink?

  Ugh, so you guys were just puking on the deck?

• 51:22Speaker 01

  Right in the middle of the squad, yeah. It was all, oh yeah, cause we were just gonna deck tile it after the fact anyway.

• 51:29Speaker 01

  But then that was, that was Marine Corps boot, that was, um, I'm sorry, uh, Marine Corps birthday.

• 51:34Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 51:35Speaker 01

  So then Christmas rolls around, same DI. And, uh, it's Christmas Eve, you know, we do our lights out, night chesty wherever you are. He opens the door, we'll just say it was like Rudolph the red nosed reindeer. Everyone knows the song, right? So he opens the door to the duty hut and all you hear is, Rudolph the red, bam! And the door slam. And you just hear him go, "That's all you get, bitches." So you hear a lot of these one-liners that if, I got, I stayed in trouble in the Marine Corps for laughing. When you're not supposed to laugh. Like if I have to laugh, it's coming. I can't hold it.

• 52:11Speaker 01

  I immediately lose it, but one of the guys who was already in the targets of the DI started laughing. And it was, I think he was gone like a day and a half later. Like it was, yeah. But it's just some of these one-liners, man. It's like, you hear them. It's like, where do these dudes come up with this stuff? But then you see him yelling at trees on the, on the base and you're like, oh. Like they're graded on yelling at a tree.

• 52:32Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 52:33Speaker 01

  Who wakes up like, I wanna do that? Wasn't, wasn't me. But I, I checked in, the dudes were in Gitmo and, um, I stayed by my phone. Phone never rang. So I got, I was, I lucked out.

• 52:46Jocko Willink?

  So what were you doing in the civilian? So were you living as a civilian?

• 52:48Speaker 01

  So I started school.

• 52:49Jocko Willink?

  Doing drill one weekend a month or whatever?

• 52:50Speaker 01

  I started school, I, yeah, I mean, and I, I was training, you know, getting ready, cause I knew we were gonna go. Iraq, Afghanistan, just didn't know which one, you know, it was, being in a line unit, you knew we were gonna go. And so it was, um, the guys got home and we started training and, uh, I'm in school, which went about like high school went, minus the football.

• 53:16Speaker 01

  And then, uh.

• 53:17Jocko Willink?

  So honor student.

• 53:19Speaker 01

  So here, here's, it was funny because I realized early on, like, I can do this. I can do the school thing. The only downfall to that was, is it was like, okay, I've, I've, I've been after this for a year, like, I've already proved myself, I can do this. I don't need to see it through, but it's, now I'm just wasting my time. You know, there's a lot of beer to drink and, you know, typical mindset, but the, but my unit gets home and, and I go and meet the guys, which is like every other, you show up to the first time, it's like going to jail the first time.

• 54:00Speaker 01

  Like you're immediately being sized up and it's like, but I was one of those guys who, like, I was not, I just wasn't gonna take a shit. And so it went well for me because I was able to use dumb strength and humor to kinda get in with the, with the guys who outrank me and, uh, but they also knew that I, I loved it. I love what I did. And so the guys get back and this one guy who's a frickin' mortarman, go figure. And he's like, hey, Shik, you're a big dude. You should be a gunner. You're gonna be a gunner. What do you think about being a gunner? Well, it doesn't matter, you're gonna be a gunner. So I was like, alright, whatever, sorry, like, thirty-one, okay?

• 54:42Speaker 01

  Go be a gunner. And, uh, then we did our first hump with that system.

• 54:46Jocko Willink?

  How you like that?

• 54:47Speaker 01

  And I was like, I'm gonna beat that dude within an inch of his life, cause I knew I could. And I was like, that son of a bitch should not tell me that this, that came with like a tripod and, and it was like, oh, it sucked. But it was, you know, I mean, you're earning your stripes, you know? But it was one of those things where we, we were just waiting, but we were a tight unit, like, we were a tight knit group. And I think. I think that probably had a lot to do with us knowing that it's a matter of time.

• 55:17Jocko Willink?

  Right.

• 55:18Speaker 01

  Right? And, and most of us weren't prior combat guys. We were a young unit. And, um, it was interesting, man, because it was, it was, it was an eclectic group. You had a group, a group from all walks of life, which is something that I always really admired about the military. Regardless of what branch or special, whatever, is that you are forced to communicate and to adapt with other people. Because if you don't, you're, you're screwed.

• 55:49Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 55:50Speaker 01

  And that's something that I always appreciated. And at the same time, it wore me the hell out because there were some guys, you know, there's just some guys that you're just like, you know, if I never saw that guy again, it'd be too soon. And it's usually just because, you know, it's.

• 56:08Jocko Willink?

  Well, I always have to explain to civilians that I'm working with, because a lot of people have the impression of civilians that, uh, you know, the civilians have the impression that everyone in the military is just like a machine that just is going to do what they're told. And if you're the sergeant, the corporal is going to listen to you. And it's like, hmm, that really doesn't work like that. Like, it'll work like that for a little while. It'll work for, you know, a little while, but over time, those, those, those young guys or the junior people, if you're not leading them correctly, you're not going to be able to get things done.

• 56:34Speaker 01

  Oh, you can turn into a shit show real quick.

• 56:37Jocko Willink?

  Real quick.

• 56:38Speaker 01

  Real quick. Because you're also dealing with a bunch of dudes that feel like that, that are of the mindset. I can take on this world with one hand tied behind my back by myself. You're dealing with that, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Those.

• 56:53Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 56:53Speaker 01

  Alpha personalities are abundant.

• 56:55Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 56:56Speaker 01

  And then you, you mix in a lot of testosterone and stupidity and you have a very dangerous situation.

• 57:03Jocko Willink?

  Low IQ, high T count. We like it. That's basically what it is.

• 57:08Speaker 01

  It is. It is. But, um.

• 57:10Jocko Willink?

  Now, did you guys, did you guys do like the, so you're doing one weekend a month of drill and then you do two weeks in the summertime? But then in what, 2003, you guys get called up or 2004?

• 57:23Speaker 01

  I think we got, we got the call in 03, I believe, if I'm not mistaken. I've been blown up since then and hitting the head a lot. So I don't know. I think we got the call in 03 saying that we were going to be called at a certain time.

• 57:37Jocko Willink?

  They gave you like a warning order like, okay, it's coming.

• 57:39Speaker 01

  Pretty much. And then they said, okay, you're gonna go do your work up in 29 Palms, California. And so we, you know, we get to 29 Palms and I was like, I remember, man,

• 57:52Speaker 01

  getting off that burden. I was just like, this place sucks.

• 57:58Jocko Willink?

  I thought you were gonna have something really profound to say and you said it. For 29 Palms, this place sucks.

• 58:06Speaker 01

  It was, I was like, why? Why do, of course the Marines would have this base. Of course. It made total sense. You know, it was just like, let the bitching begin. And it was abundant, bro. It was abundant. Because unless you had money to go to Palm Springs, I'll see you at 29 Stumps, right out the gate. And you, we're inevitably gonna be fighting.

• 58:32Jocko Willink?

  This is the amazing thing. This is the amazing thing is, I get asked, or I got asked on the podcast, you know, how do you, how do I, you know, my, I, I checked into a battalion or I think a guy was a company commander and the morale's not good. How do we get the morale good? Like, do hard things. You wanna improve morale, do hard things. And one of the things like, what are you gonna do at 29 Stumps? What are you gonna do there? Well, you're gonna hang out with each other. That's what you're gonna do. It's gonna suck. You're gonna go on the field. You're gonna sweat. It's gonna be hot. And you're gonna do hard things and you're gonna become tighter as a unit. That's what happens.

• 59:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, imagine that.

• 59:02Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, imagine that.

• 59:03Speaker 01

  Weird. Weird. It's just weird how that works.

• 59:07Jocko Willink?

  Now, who is running the training? Do they have a training cadre out there?

• 59:11Speaker 01

  So we, uh...

• 59:15Speaker 01

  Remember it was um.

• 59:18Jocko Willink?

  Or you guys training yourselves, is your, is your officer leading the training?

• 59:22Speaker 01

  We had.

• 59:23Jocko Willink?

  Sergeant.

• 59:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, we, we had gunny, there was kind of both, right? We had, it's like, we would go to mountain town or wherever, we would have some mountain truckers out there. But it wasn't, because I mean, a lot of guys were forward deployed.

• 59:38Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 59:38Speaker 01

  I mean, we're gone and.

• 59:41Speaker 01

  But we, we literally, we trained, we trained hard. I mean, it was.

• 59:48Speaker 01

  You talk about training for the sake of muscle memory.

• 59:52Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 59:53Speaker 01

  We, it was gnarly what we did and it was, uh. Like you said, we did a lot of hard things too, and then we only got tighter and tighter and tighter as a unit and. But we, it was, uh, I mean, I remember the first time we went out to do our, our first. Training evolution out at American Minds and we, we humped out there, of course, because, you know, don't want to use the vehicles. And, uh.

• 1:00:22Speaker 01

  I remember we staged, we staged our gear and my platoon sergeant dropped his pack and there's like, uh. Like a little rattlesnake den by where he dropped his pack. And so we had to go move and then he goes to put his pack on the move and there's a black scoreboard on his pack and I was like.

• 1:00:38Speaker 01

  This is awesome. Like this is, and then we had a ton of bees that were go after the, the, the water buffalo. The trailer, the big water trailers. And it was like, we can't.

• 1:00:52Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:52Speaker 01

  It's just.

• 1:00:53Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:54Speaker 01

  It's inevitable Marine Corps shit. Like it's. The, the suck factor is gonna be pegged the entire time.

• 1:01:03Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:04Speaker 01

  And it was, it's, it's like this guy was just looking down on us, man, like, hey, you're gonna earn it.

• 1:01:09Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:11Jocko Willink?

  One day I'm gonna have this uh team guy buddy on mine on, he's got a lot of rattlesnakes noise from the desert. Because rattlesnakes are very amusing, you know? Once you start catching them and putting them in people's vehicles and putting them in their their backpack.

• 1:01:25Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:01:25Jocko Willink?

  Just stuff like that, like yeah, that's cool.

• 1:01:28Speaker 01

  I'm telling you right now.

• 1:01:29Jocko Willink?

  That's good stuff.

• 1:01:30Speaker 01

  Someone would've got stabbed. I'm not kidding.

• 1:01:32Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, no, it's.

• 1:01:34Speaker 01

  And here's the.

• 1:01:34Jocko Willink?

  You wanna see someone jump though?

• 1:01:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:36Jocko Willink?

  It does, but hey, you know, they don't know that the fangs have been removed. Rip the fangs out with a leatherman.

• 1:01:42Speaker 01

  Ask me how much I care.

• 1:01:46Speaker 01

  You're completely missing the point.

• 1:01:49Speaker 01

  It's the principle.

• 1:01:50Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Snake season, get some.

• 1:01:54Speaker 01

  Dude, it was the some of the best.

• 1:01:59Speaker 01

  The dark greens did do not like the the the little creatures and the creepy crawlies. And seeing some of the reactions of some of the dark greens was.

• 1:02:10Jocko Willink?

  What's the dark greens?

• 1:02:12Speaker 01

  They're they're, to be politically correct, they're African American Marines.

• 1:02:17Jocko Willink?

  Dark green Marines.

• 1:02:19Speaker 01

  Gotcha. Call them dark greens and and they know and they and they call them so it's accepted.

• 1:02:23Jocko Willink?

  Right.

• 1:02:23Speaker 01

  It doesn't bother them.

• 1:02:25Jocko Willink?

  Dark green.

• 1:02:25Speaker 01

  They don't write their congressman. It's it's unbelievable the way that works, so they're they're it's. You know, I got to see one, I just spoke to this uh deal couple days ago, that was yesterday. And one of the Marines I served was there, he was dark green. And uh, man, it was all, it was probably hadn't seen him in a decade. Didn't miss a beat. It was, it was like seriously didn't miss a beat and I'm like, man, that was God, just imagine, imagine if mankind could have a taste of that, just a taste.

• 1:03:02Speaker 01

  It would be, imagine how much better the spinning ball of chaos would be. But it's, it was awesome. It was just good to see him and, and to see the way that he changed. You just see the maturity over time, you know, of, of how life can, it alters your course and alters your mindset. Because of the things you experience and you go through and, and the, how many times you're taught how human you are. You know, it was, it was cool. It was good for the soul, you know, and uh, yeah, it was just cool to see him and be able to embrace that dude and, I mean, that's my family. That is, I don't give a shit what color his skin is. That dude's my blood.

• 1:03:45Speaker 01

  And that's just the way it is. It's the way it always will be. But we, um, and he used to, he used to annoy the shit out of me. Like I used to thought, think like his, his mouth is never gonna shut. Like one of these days, man. One of these days. And uh, but it was so epic cause it was like, that's my bro. You know, and it was, it was just awesome, man. It just goes to show you like, we get these little reminders in life. If, if you just shut your mouth and listen, you get these little reminders of how worth it. Everything's been and what purpose everything has served.

• 1:04:27Speaker 01

  And it was cool to see that I got one of those, you know, and it gives me, it was a little fuel for the soul to, to keep going. But um, I remember this, our, our first loss was in uh, March Air Force Base. We were doing house to house fighting in abandoned housing unit in March Air Force Base. And it was um, it was a training loss because of a guy that, they were practicing J turns in a Humvee and uh, there's a young kid, he, he wasn't our company, he was a different company, um, same battalion and the, the Humvee flipped. And he was, just the inertia of the Humvee flipping, he couldn't get out of the turret.

• 1:05:13Speaker 01

  And uh, it was up armored and so when it flips, it obviously kills the gunner. There's no way he's gonna get out. And so mandatory 24 hour safety stand down. To take our phones and all that stuff and you know, hey, don't ride home, don't call anyone. This is, you know, it's, we gotta abide by the SOPs.

• 1:05:35Speaker 01

  That was a Yeah, that was one of like an eye-opening deal, man. That was like, okay, this is the real deal. Like this, we're not. This is a life and death game we're playing. And I'll never forget when we got back to Twenty Nine Palms, which I don't remember if it was a couple of days later, three days later, a day later, or whatever. But we wake up and we go to formation. And we walk out to go to formation and um Man, everywhere you looked, you saw a piece of computer paper. Just a regular piece of paper. Turn horizontally and they were taped all over the place. Everywhere you looked. And all he said on them was complacency kills. Everywhere you looked, you saw that complacency kills.

• 1:06:20Speaker 01

  And Gunny had just printed out all these papers. And that, to this day, that sticks with me. And I think about it. Not Every, all the time, because we all get complacent.

• 1:06:35Speaker 01

  But it could not be more true. Whether it's literal. You know, or figuratively speaking, I mean, you, and of course, in most of our lives nowadays. You get complacent, yeah, you're, you might not die. But something can be Irreversibly damaged.

• 1:06:51Jocko Willink?

  Well, yeah, I mean, I talk about that all the time, that just, just the complacent, even the complacency on the little things in life. That's just putting you down the wrong path, but that's just the way it is, that's the reality.

• 1:07:00Speaker 01

  Hey, man, and let me tell you that

• 1:07:04Speaker 01

  I mean, I could be referred to as Captain Complacent when it comes to that. I'll be the first to tell you that I'm much more sinner than saint. I, I always say

• 1:07:16Speaker 01

  You know, that God gave his only son to suffer and die on a cross because he knew there was gonna be guys like me.

• 1:07:23Speaker 01

  The only difference is, is I'm willing to admit it. You know, I'm willing to own my flawedness. And I say all the time that I've stood with everything from leaders of mankind, the presidents, to the most savage individuals you'll ever meet and everything in between. The one common denominator Is every one of them is equally fundamentally flawed. Every single one.

• 1:07:43Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, no doubt about that.

• 1:07:44Speaker 01

  They just have different clothes on. That's it. That's what I'm saying, man, if we could stop, if we could just Stop with this political correctness and this False manufactured protection.

• 1:08:00Speaker 01

  We could get, I always say, if you took out self-interest and self-gain in the fight for the greater good, imagine where we would be right now. Imagine where we would be, because we would be leaps and bounds ahead of where we are. We'd be light years ahead of where we are. If there was nothing to be gained to help someone that you've never met and that can never repay you, you just do it. Because we've been so conditioned to be selfish. And it's unfortunate, because it's what I love about this guy who's, for all intents and purposes, the godfather of the Marine Corps.

• 1:08:41Speaker 01

  And people can say how he may have been arrogant or pompous or whatever, but I guarantee you he was the last one to eat.

• 1:08:49Jocko Willink?

  Oh yeah, he was definitely the last one to eat. Actually, that book's a great book, and there's a, there's a, there's a big difference between his reputation of what people thought about him that never worked with him. People that worked with him, the Marines that worked with him, that served with him, that he would go around their foxholes at night in negative 25-degree weather, and, and ask guys if they're okay, and give him, give him a shot of whiskey. I mean, they, they loved him because he cared about those, he cared about him. That's the, the image, as a matter of fact, like, he had this driver that was with him for a long time, Jones was his last name, and Jones, people would come up and say, "How did you stay with Jesse Puller for so long? Didn't he chew you out and demote you?"

• 1:09:32Jocko Willink?

  And he's like, "No, the guy never yelled at me, ever." That's, that's the difference. That's the difference between, that's the dichotomy between what his image was and what he was really like. The people who he would, the reason he had a reputation for being, you know, super, uh...

• 1:09:50Jocko Willink?

  I guess, I guess, direct with people was the way he went up the chain of command. When he would tell an admiral out on a ship, like, "You better put those bombs where we need them right now." Or, you know, he'd up the chain of command, or he'd come back to America and say, "Hey, the binoculars that you're building suck." "And they, and they steam up and we can't see anything. What's wrong with you?" So, that's where he got the reputation. But down the chain of command, he, he was not like that. There's another great story in there that I cover on the podcast where he catches a guy sleeping on a watch that are in training. And he wakes the guy, guy up, and he's the battalion commander. He wakes the guy up and says, "Hey, what are you doing sleeping? What if your captain would have caught you?" "He would have, he would have had me come to court martial you. It'd been a disaster. You gotta stay awake, old man." That's his nickname for everyone who's old man.

• 1:10:33Jocko Willink?

  But that's the difference, is he cared, he cared so much about his men, and, and you know, that's the, that's the incredibly hard part that we were talking about earlier, is like, when he's, when his son comes home from Vietnam.

• 1:10:46Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:10:47Jocko Willink?

  And, you know, he's like, his heart is broken. It's broken. And he can't even speak, and he can't, he's just convulsing with tears. And it's because, you know, he, he loved his son, but his son was representative of every Marine, and he said that. You know, he said that, it was like the, that the closing of that book, you know, he tells his wife, his wife says, "W-what do you want to do now that it's all over?" And he's like, "I want to see the face of every Marine I ever served with."

• 1:11:14Speaker 01

  Dude.

• 1:11:15Jocko Willink?

  You know?

• 1:11:15Speaker 01

  I mean, that, that right there. Any, for anyone who's listening to this and questioning, "What is my purpose? Why am I on, why am I alive? Why am I here? What's the point?"

• 1:11:30Speaker 01

  Two things. And it's the same for every individual, no matter what country, no matter what little village, doesn't matter. We all have, are here to do two things. Love and be loved.

• 1:11:46Speaker 01

  That's it. Everything else is filler.

• 1:11:50Speaker 01

  Love and be loved. That's it. It's hard as shit because we make it hard as shit. That's it. When he saw his son, that all came crashing down on him.

• 1:12:06Speaker 01

  That's it, and it was reality. Yeah. It was one of those,

• 1:12:12Speaker 01

  like in, whether it was in Louis's situation where, when you're severely wounded or you lose someone that you love tremendously. I mean, with reckless abandonment, you, you love all the way.

• 1:12:28Speaker 01

  And if you're of the right warrior mindset or first responder or law enforcement, and you've been around that and you're, you're the real deal. You're probably just like me, or you're, you're incapable of loving halfway.

• 1:12:43Speaker 01

  You're incapable of it. Because if we did that, we're taking away from that in which we are supposed to be true to and to honor.

• 1:12:56Speaker 01

  And that's, that's the point. It's you get, you don't get a piece of humble pie, you inhale the factory all at once.

• 1:13:05Speaker 01

  And that's just what it is. And some guys don't come out of that.

• 1:13:11Speaker 01

  You know, and if I'm, if I wasn't surrounded by people that were better than me and that refused to love me to death, I would be Louis.

• 1:13:23Speaker 01

  And far be it from me to sit here and look at you and say, not an option.

• 1:13:29Speaker 01

  It's not an option. Because one thing I've learned in this fight, this fight of mental health and of this floating noodle in between our ears, is that no one gets a pass. Nobody gets a pass. I don't care who you are, what you've been through, what you know, who you know. You don't get a pass. And I've learned that the hard way. From having to bury friends over and over and over and over.

• 1:14:01Speaker 01

  And to talk myself out of.

• 1:14:05Speaker 01

  You're not worth it. It would be easier for them if you weren't here. And letting the demons get the better of me. Like it's a constant dance. Like when people say, oh, well, you know, Jake, it probably take a lot of pressure off you. Just work on your, your, your work and, and life balance. Like, because it's, you just gotta find your balance. Uh, well, okay, here's some news. There is no balance. It's a constant dance. You're constantly trying to figure it out. It's just like our enemies in Iraq, Afghanistan, like it's, we change our tactics, they change theirs. We change ours, they change theirs. We change ours. It's a constant dance.

• 1:14:50Speaker 01

  It's never finite. Right? Nothing is. That's one of the, the things that makes life worth living. I don't want to wake up tomorrow and know what tomorrow has in store for me. What's the point? I just want to wake up and love and be loved. All the way. Not halfway. Be hot or be cold. If you're lukewarm, get the hell out of my foxhole. I don't want to fight with you.

• 1:15:22Jocko Willink?

  Let's talk about when you went on deployment now.

• 1:15:25Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:15:26Jocko Willink?

  So it's 2004 is when you deploy? Like the summer of 2004?

• 1:15:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:15:34Jocko Willink?

  And where do you guys deploy to?

• 1:15:35Speaker 01

  So we, our primary AO was the Sunni triangle of Iraq. Beautiful, beautiful place. We landed in Kuwait. We were only in Kuwait. I think they called it Camp Victory, maybe? I can't remember the name of it. It was before the Pizza Huts and Subways and all that. I know that for a fact.

• 1:15:56Speaker 01

  But we go, we, we landed Kuwait, we're only there for a couple of days and um we get on the bird and I'll never forget this, we were on the, on the tarmac in Kuwait getting ready to fly over Al Asad. And um, I think, I, I believe, if I'm not mistaken, it was, I think we, we were on the first three C-130s we got on, we had to get off of. Cause they weren't mechanically sound or, or whatever. Or just Gunny just felt like screwing with us. I, who knows? But we had to get off of them, but it wasn't Gunny, cause I remember the fourth one and we're all sweating. Our asses off.

• 1:16:37Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's August.

• 1:16:38Speaker 01

  It's miserable.

• 1:16:39Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:40Speaker 01

  Mi- miserable. And I remember the fourth one, I don't know if it was the, the crew chief, the loadmaster, whoever, but Gunny took some, someone, somewhere, and I'm pretty sure it was a conversation pretty much like if this bird doesn't take off, you're not gonna go home. Alive, anyway. Because it sucked. I mean, we were all, I mean, we have everything on.

• 1:17:05Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:06Speaker 01

  You know, and we're frontline Marines, so we, we're geared out. And it's with stuff we'll never use, ever. But it was on the gear list.

• 1:17:16Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, gotta have it.

• 1:17:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, and so we, but we ended up landing in Al Asad, and I remember when we got off the bird in Al Asad, and I thought to myself,

• 1:17:28Speaker 01

  man, 29 pounds wasn't that bad.

• 1:17:32Speaker 01

  Wasn't that bad?

• 1:17:33Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Al Asad'll do that to you.

• 1:17:36Speaker 01

  I miss it already, you know, and um

• 1:17:41Speaker 01

  so we, we get off and we go to our, our tent where we're sleeping with our bunk beds and um

• 1:17:51Speaker 01

  we start the, the brief the next day and I remember we were-

• 1:17:55Jocko Willink?

  So is that where you guys were gonna be working out of? Were you guys actually gonna be camp at, stationed at Al Asad primarily?

• 1:18:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, but I mean, rarely got to stay on-

• 1:18:05Jocko Willink?

  That's where your headquarters were?

• 1:18:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, where battalion was.

• 1:18:09Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 1:18:09Speaker 01

  And so we start the, the 48 hour brief.

• 1:18:15Speaker 01

  And we're in the middle of that and um captain walks in, we're in one of the hangars. And you had a look on his face that, you know, something wasn't good, obviously. And it was because during the left seat, right seat of the unit we were replacing got hit. And they lost, I don't want to misquote it, but um, one of the guys I was just with uh this past weekend was there um in that unit, we replaced two seven. And it was uh, they had lost like a, like an XO, a first sergeant, like it was bad. That's from one, like was it an IED strike? I, yeah, it was, it was um, IED with after action.

• 1:18:57Speaker 01

  And so they, they, it was just a bad situation. What's after action? So they took fire and it was not like, it wasn't an isolated event. Like IED goes and then? And then they fight someone? Then they're hit with RPGs and something like that. There's, it was, it was a gnarly situation they shouldn't have been in because it happened in a place that was, you know, friendly. And um, and at the time, actually, when we were over there, I don't even, I think we still call them roadside bombs, I don't even think we called them IEDs yet, I don't think we utilized that terminology yet, if I'm not mistaken. And again, I could be wrong, it's happened before. But we, so we hear this and it, I mean, it hits us like, we're like, oh shit, that's

• 1:19:41Speaker 01

  not good, that stuff's not supposed to happen. And um, so that was another big awakening moment, right? And but we get ready to, to leave and um, at this time, I'm, I'm a machine gun team leader, little did I know I'd become leader of the react team, same as QRF, Quick Reaction Force. And so we, you know, we have like the 16th vehicle convoy or something, you know, which would be a huge no-no nowadays. And I remember the sir walked by and he was like, hey, Shik, we need, we need someone to man that pig on the lead vehicle. And get, get behind the 240 on the lead vehicle.

• 1:20:24Speaker 01

  And I was like, who, who's gonna jump on that pig? And we were just in briefs, hearing about guide wires, they'd put guide wires across the road, trying to decapitate gunners. I had left my first deployment in uh, I want to say.

• 1:20:43Jocko Willink?

  April or May of two thousand four, so.

• 1:20:46Speaker 01

  This is running right before.

• 1:20:48Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, so, and I was just trying to think if we were using the term IED and I'm almost positive we were because I remember, I remember.

• 1:20:55Speaker 01

  No, but you guys are special.

• 1:20:56Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, no, I know, but I was trying to think, I remember like, I'm actually envisioning a slide. We caught an IED maker and, and we had all this, like, he had wires and he had, uh, like, clocks, like multiple clocks from a, from like, uh, uh, uh, timers, like kitchen timers. And so we had wires, kitchen timers, all this stuff. And they're like, hey, this guy you caught, he's an innocent guy. And I was like, well, no. And they say, well, no, he's innocent. What evidence do you have? And I, I brought these pictures and I'm like, look at the stuff that we took off this target. It's all IED stuff. And they were like, oh, okay. Uh, but it was the first, it was kind of first starting to assemble the idea that people were building

• 1:21:37Jocko Willink?

  these improvised explosive devices. So I think we were using it, but you're right, might not have spread to the Marine Corps yet at this point.

• 1:21:43Speaker 01

  We're kind of slow, but it's, but we're deadly. It's, I mean, I don't, we might have, you know, this is a long time ago, it's irrelevant, but, um, you know, because roadside bombs, that wasn't good enough. So it's called an IED.

• 1:21:56Jocko Willink?

  Well, if it's not, if you don't have a, a.

• 1:21:57Speaker 01

  Don't, don't, don't church it up. Don't church it up. But we, so, but we, but we're, we're out there. We have our convoy and, um, so I asked the guys, like, hey, who's gonna go man that pig? It's crickets. I was like, oh, very well. I got it. I looked at them, I was like, hey, sir, I got it. I'm gonna do it. Then of course, like, no, no, no. Okay, no, I'm like, no. A few, a few, a few, a few. When I die.

• 1:22:28Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:28Speaker 01

  Just remember what your letter needs to say.

• 1:22:32Speaker 01

  It's because you were of the JJ. And, uh, it was, you know, a lot, a lot more colorful language, but, but I jumped up there, man, and it was, look, Pucker Factor pegged, you know, pegged. Because I'm like, how do you see a guide wire? Like, can you see the guide wire? Does the sun have to be hidden in a certain way? Like, what is, what am I looking for? You know?

• 1:22:54Jocko Willink?

  And you had, do you have armored Humvees?

• 1:22:57Speaker 01

  No, most of them weren't.

• 1:22:58Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and did the.

• 1:22:59Speaker 01

  Most of them were two-door soft tops.

• 1:23:01Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, get some, that's what we had. The turret, was the turret?

• 1:23:04Speaker 01

  So we were in a six-ton, and the lead vehicle's a six-ton.

• 1:23:07Jocko Willink?

  Oh, that's better. That's more comfortable. I mean, I'd rather be in that than a Humvee if I'm in the lead vehicle.

• 1:23:12Speaker 01

  I would rather be in a Harrier.

• 1:23:16Speaker 01

  But it was, but we.

• 1:23:18Jocko Willink?

  That's why you signed up for infantry, get some.

• 1:23:20Speaker 01

  That's right, yeah. And we hated, and you know, the pilots, it was like they're a bunch of prima donnas. And we would see them come in and land, and go to their air-conditioned cans, and they were like, you know, they're eating steak and shrimp and, you know, they're, they're all comfortable and they're, and they're, on their Sleep Number bed. It's like, you know, you make all this stuff up in your head.

• 1:23:46Jocko Willink?

  Dude, I'll tell you what, you made that up in your head. We had a, we had a World War II pilot on here, Jim Kunkel, and he was literally saying like, "Hey, the, the war in Europe for me," he was a P-38 pilot, he's like, "My missions are like, like forty-five minutes." He's like, "Then I was back and I was back at base." Now, of course, those forty-five minutes were pretty sketchy, he ended up getting shot down, but, uh, you know, a lot of missions that he did is exactly what you said. That, that's the reality of being a pilot, that's the reality of it.

• 1:24:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's, you know, and then, but until you need them.

• 1:24:18Jocko Willink?

  Oh, God, yeah. Well, yeah, of course.

• 1:24:20Speaker 01

  And then the first time that happens, you're like, "Oh, I get it. Yeah, we need those guys."

• 1:24:25Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, for sure.

• 1:24:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, but it's interesting because as a, as a line guy, you know, as a grunt, I mean, you're trained from day one. Every other job in the United States military is to support you.

• 1:24:36Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's true.

• 1:24:37Speaker 01

  You know, you're trained that, which, I'm not, I, I mean, I won't say if I agree or disagree with it now, because I, I, it's like I tell civilians, like, think of them, of the military as a giant will with a lot of spokes.

• 1:24:51Speaker 01

  Combat guys are like.

• 1:24:54Speaker 01

  A su- super small portion of one spoke.

• 1:24:57Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:57Speaker 01

  It takes a lot of moving parts to make this machine turn.

• 1:25:01Jocko Willink?

  That's true.

• 1:25:02Speaker 01

  And so it's, it's, whether it's in support, like, listen, I'm over that. I don't need, I don't need that anymore. Like, I understand why guys think that, I understand the mindset.

• 1:25:12Jocko Willink?

  There's a, there's a great, I was, uh, listening to some Hackworth talking, Colonel David Hackworth, and, and one of the things that he said, he was trying to explain how many people were in combat in Vietnam, in combat. And it was like 10% of the troops. So at the peak of Vietnam, there was 560,000 people in country in Vietnam, and like 50,000 of them were actually engaged in combat.

• 1:25:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:25:33Jocko Willink?

  At that, at, at any one time. And that's, you know, probably a pretty good figure. Uh, a lot of the World War I, World Two, World War Two statistics are the same. It's like 10 to 1. There's 10 support people for every one person that's gonna like close, close with and destroy the enemy, you know? That's the way it is.

• 1:25:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I mean, it's,

• 1:25:51Speaker 01

  I would never look at, at a supply guy, or of course, when I was in, I did it all the time. I'm like, hey, Pog, don't you have some Poggy bait? Or whatever. The stupid shit is that you say. But like, I, I see him now, and it's like, hey, man, I appreciate you. It's like, oh, well, I could, I, I didn't do anything like, and I'm like, hey, first of all, there is no rigor skill on pain and suffering. You know, what makes it unique is that it's unique to the individual. You can't grade it. So like, your,

• 1:26:25Speaker 01

  you know, your sprained ankle when you were, you roll your ankle playing basketball during your lunch hour? How do you know that didn't hurt as bad as my fibian tibia coming out of my left leg? It might have.

• 1:26:40Jocko Willink?

  I'm gonna question you a little bit on that one, but.

• 1:26:44Speaker 01

  The point of the

• 1:26:45Jocko Willink?

  How the hell do we get talking about this? Hey, support people in the military, they do a great job, then we wouldn't, the frontline troops wouldn't be able to do anything without them. So

• 1:26:53Speaker 01

  That's what I'm saying.

• 1:26:54Jocko Willink?

  And vice versa. If the frontline troops weren't there, the, the support people would have no job. That's the attitude I always had. And we were a team that had to cover and move together.

• 1:27:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:27:02Jocko Willink?

  And if the intel people didn't supply the intel, and if the, if the CBs didn't build the bases and keep the generators running, and the combat engineers weren't out clearing, I mean, it's like

• 1:27:11Speaker 01

  It takes a try.

• 1:27:12Jocko Willink?

  Exactly.

• 1:27:13Speaker 01

  And so that's my point. You know, it's like, listen, if, if you're still in and you're in a, a non-combat role, be proud of what you're doing.

• 1:27:21Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, no doubt. You know, I have guys that I meet now and they say, well, I was in from, you know, eighty-four to ninety, and I never did anything. I was like, hey, you did what your country asked you to do.

• 1:27:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:27:31Jocko Willink?

  You know?

• 1:27:32Speaker 01

  Like, stop with that mindset, man. You've been conditioned,

• 1:27:37Speaker 01

  just to call it what it is, by guys like I used to be, to believe you didn't do anything. Okay, well, the more mature me, still pretty dumb, but the more mature me, is here to tell you, thank you for carrying the flag before I did.

• 1:27:53Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah. That's another point, is like, who is gonna train you? Who, who's the DI's that put you through boot camp? And who's the guys that trained them in nineteen eighty-four? Right? You know what I mean? It's like, yeah, it's a long chain.

• 1:28:05Speaker 01

  It's a gift that keeps on giving, you know, and it's, but, you served. You're doing more than most.

• 1:28:12Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:12Speaker 01

  You know, you're doing more than most. Be proud of that fact.

• 1:28:15Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:15Speaker 01

  And, and so, but, but I remember being, we, we leave the wire for the first time in Al Asad and, um,

• 1:28:24Speaker 01

  so we had guys driving the six-ton, that, that were motor T guys that weren't our guys.

• 1:28:29Jocko Willink?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:28:30Speaker 01

  So I didn't know them. And we, it was like a, I don't know, if he's like a Lance Cooley, and then there was like a, a staff sergeant in the A driver's seat, and I'm up on the turret, right? And so I'm just like, alright, well, you know, whatever. And so we're coming, we come out of the gate, and we bang a left, and we're headed to our first checkpoint. Which, by the way, the Iraqi National Guard and Iraqi police knew what our checkpoints were, when we were leaving, when we were gonna get there.

• 1:28:58Jocko Willink?

  So that's awesome.

• 1:28:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, because, you know, there's some really, really smart people in DC that thought that was a good idea.

• 1:29:03Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:04Speaker 01

  And, um,

• 1:29:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, so that, obviously, that, that standard operating procedure didn't last real long because we, we knew it was a bad idea and, but, you know, word had to get back to them like, hey, bombs and stuff, like, just follow us everywhere we go. It's weird. It's almost like they know we're gonna be there. Imagine that, you know? And so I remember, um, like, it took some type of contact, right, and I'm lead vehicle, and the dude and the dri- the driver stops on a, in the middle of a bridge. And I distinctly

• 1:29:47Speaker 01

  remember in training, do not stop on a bridge. And so I'm telling this dude, like, get off the bridge. And he's like, looking at the staff sergeant, German salute, and like, what are you, what are you doing? He's yelling at me. And so I start kick, I start kicking him in his helmet, like, get off the bridge. And the staff sergeant, the staff sergeant's like, dude, just get off the bridge.

• 1:30:10Jocko Willink?

  Sounds like a good idea.

• 1:30:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. And so it was, um,

• 1:30:14Jocko Willink?

  I I cap chick, corporal chick, I I.

• 1:30:17Speaker 01

  We got off the bridge and I'm like, hey, genius, how do you know that that thing wasn't gonna blow? Don't stop on a bridge, ever. You're motor T. I'm just shocked that someone didn't tell you, don't stop on a bridge. Cause you're, you're sitting duck. And it's like, that was my, like, welcome to Iraq moment when it was, um, and man, we just started, everything after that, pretty, pretty much just blurs together. And until the day that we got told that we were gonna go to Dulup, which was, for all intents and

• 1:30:57Speaker 01

  purposes, a, an ammo dump, was pretty much what Dulup was. And that's where we were, you know, insurgents were going to get unexploded ordnance and, I mean, thousands and thousands and thousands of RPGs, you know, AKs, 7.62 rounds, mortars, I mean, thousands. And we had the combat engineers out there. All day, every day, blowing stuff. I mean, they just couldn't blow it quick enough. Cause we would find so many of these weapon caches everywhere. It was insane. And so, but we go through, we get to up to the point of, I guess it's a little after a month that we're there and we get

• 1:31:38Speaker 01

  the order that we're gonna go to Dulob, which for most of us was like, okay, we can breathe some kickback time, relax. I had a bad feeling about it. Right in my gut, as soon as they told us, I heard Dulob and I knew it was our turn to go and secure the perimeter Dulob. I had, I got a bad feeling in my gut. Didn't know what it was. And so, my role was when I left, when I left

• 1:32:03Speaker 01

  the States and I told my family, hey, listen, here's the deal.

• 1:32:09Speaker 01

  Don't send me anything. Don't write me. I'm not gonna write you. Don't watch the news and no news is good news. I'll see you in seven months. Cause in my mind, I had a job to do and I didn't need them in my head with their first world bullshit. And because my family puts the Jerry and Springer, and so definitely didn't need that. And so that was my mindset. But I, we get, we were told we're going to Dulob and so I get this weird feeling in my gut and I'm like, damn it, I don't know what that is.

• 1:32:40Speaker 01

  It's the night before we head out and, you know, I get a shower and a hot shower and I'm walking back to our tent from the shower trailer and I walk by Gunny and Gunny, he's a salty gunny, man. He, I mean, he was like a, like a 23 year gunny. He earned it and, and I loved him. Everybody loved him, you know, and he was one of the guys where if you tell him good morning and he doesn't tell you, like if he said, if he don't, if you don't hear something back like, go F your mom. If you hear like Good Morning Back, Gunny, he's pissed about something and it's gonna be a long day. But like if you like go after him, you're like, sweets, Gunny's in a good mood.

• 1:33:24Speaker 01

  He's just, he was that guy, you know, and um, everybody loved him. Everybody respected him because he demanded it and he commanded it. Because he would be the first guy, if it pops off, he's gonna be right there. He's not, he's not ducking behind anything. He's the dude walking up and down the line, smoking a cigar. That's that Gunny. He's that guy and it was just an abundant amount of respect he had and

• 1:33:55Speaker 01

  even if you, even if you hated him, you love to hate him. You know, but I, I love the dude because it was, for me, he was what the Marine Corps meant.

• 1:34:08Speaker 01

  As one individual and, and I dug that about him. And I was like, cats, I need to be around him all the time. I want more of what's in his head in mine. I can learn a tremendous amount from this guy. And so um, I'm walking back into the tent. He's in front of the tent and I said, good evening Gunny. And I walked by and he didn't say anything and he grabs like the back of my Skibby shirt and pulls me back towards him and he hugged me and he said, I love you, Shik. And I was like, I don't know dude, my hands.

• 1:34:42Speaker 01

  Like I'm, like what do I do? Do I say it back? Is this a trap? What do I do? And so I was like, screw it, man. I mean, I've been dirty before. I love you too, Guns.

• 1:34:56Speaker 01

  I mean, I'll never forget, he just looked at me right in my face and just said, you're gonna be alright.

• 1:35:02Speaker 01

  So rather that. So then I was like, okay, something's not right. At this point, I'm a hundred percent convinced something's not right. I didn't know what it was, but I knew it wasn't right. So I broke my cardinal rule and went to the phone tent. Called my family. The last person I called was my dad. And you know, you have the two, three second delay. And I knew it was about ten thirty at night in Shreveport, Louisiana. And I knew he was home alone because my stepmom and my little brother were at the ranch in San Antonio. And he answers the phone. And I said, hey, Pop. And he knew it was me because I'm the only kid that calls him Pop. First words out of his mouth were, why am I talking to you?

• 1:35:47Speaker 01

  It's almost like he knew that I knew something wasn't right. And I said, I just wanted to tell you how much I love you. And what you being my father means to me as your son. Because at this point in our life, in our journey as father and son, was that's pretty much where it ended. He was my dad, I was his son. That was it. Because my older brother, he was born and God just touched his forehead and said, athlete. And my dad was a baseball player, my brother's a baseball player. I always hated it. I was like, that is the slowest sport known to mankind. It's like watching paint dry. And, and, and so I, I always, growing up, felt like I was always chasing my brother.

• 1:36:32Speaker 01

  I was chasing this, this unbelievable athlete that I was never gonna be better than. When it came to athleticism, no matter what sport. But I was chasing that. And then I was like, okay, well, I'm gonna go play baseball to try and appease my dad to show him like, hey, I can do this too. I can do, and I sucked. I was never, I was never any good at it. You know, football, knowing now, baseball's an art, almost. It's a calculated art, whereas with football, if you can run into another human with a hundred percent focus and a hundred percent will of breaking that man's will by making your body collide with his as hard as you can, you can play football.

• 1:37:18Speaker 01

  To a certain extent. Right. You can play football. Well, I did, I loved it. Because for me, it was an outlet of the aggression that I had as a kid growing up and the the antithesis of the cookie cutter childhood. And so at this point that I'm leaving, you know, my father and I was, we weren't where I felt like we should be as father and son. You know, it was just, this is a conversation that I've had with my dad. Since, obviously, and so he, when I told him, like, I just want you to know, it's important that you know how much I love and respect you.

• 1:37:57Speaker 01

  And how much I owe you for being there when you were dealt a shitty hand and you had us kids on your own.

• 1:38:08Speaker 01

  And you leaned in. You leaned in and you bowed up. And I owe you. Till I die, I'll owe you. And I needed you to know that. And so he said, how long is this mission? I said, nine days. And he knew not to ask, where are you going? What are you doing? Because the people that listen to your every phone call would, your call would be over. And he said, I bet, I want to hear from you in nine days. He said, I better hear from you in nine days. And I said, you will, Pop. I love you, man. And he just said, I love you too, and ended with, you better be okay. And I hung up. And it was one of those moments where I was like,

• 1:38:53Speaker 01

  as a, at the time, I'm

• 1:38:56Speaker 01

  twenty-one, twenty-one years old, and I realize

• 1:39:02Speaker 01

  I have, I have no control over anything.

• 1:39:07Speaker 01

  Nothing.

• 1:39:09Speaker 01

  I feel like I think I can, like I think I have control and protecting my team and making sure my team's okay. I have no control over anything. It was one of those human moments where I realized I'm just as vulnerable as everyone else. There's nothing special about me. I can be the biggest, strongest, toughest. It doesn't matter. It does not matter. Because when it's your time, it's your time. That's it. Doesn't matter what you know, doesn't matter how well trained you are. If God pulls your card, you're done. And so it was a very,

• 1:39:50Speaker 01

  very sobering and humbling moment for me. And we left out the next morning to go to Alastair, go to Dulob. We get out to Dulob and, you know, we start patrolling the perimeter and if a react was called, of course, me and the react team, which me and nine Marines would go to wherever the react is and... But I always had that heavy feeling in my gut that it didn't affect my job, it didn't affect our day-to-day operations and what we were doing, but I knew it was, something was coming. And then one night, we had a, we had two guys

• 1:40:33Speaker 01

  come in the main gate and they were in like a white Opel, pulled in the main gate and pretty much just laid down on both sides of the car. Obviously not normal behavior. Well, these guys were high-profile targets that, once we find out who they are in Radio Battalion, they're like, hey, don't let them out of your sight. And so we ended up having, and for the react team, we had two, two-door sawtop Humvees. That's what we had to operate in. And the guy, we had one guy in the back of one vehicle, another guy in the back of the second vehicle, and they both had empty MRE boxes duct taped on their head because

• 1:41:13Speaker 01

  we were out of hoods. And so it provides adapt and overcome. And, you know, had them hog, just had them, they weren't going anywhere. Well, so the Iraqi National Guard also got to be on the same net frequency as us, radio frequency. So they're hearing all the transmissions. Next thing you know, they show up. And there's a lot of them. And they pull in and circle us. Obviously show of force. And say, you know, these guys, same thing you went through. About the IED maker, the bomb maker, you know, these guys, they're no threat. These guys are good, you need to let them go. We're like, no, no.

• 1:41:57Speaker 01

  And I remember one of the guys that was like the Colonel of Iraqi National Guard and he said, well, you need, the TURP, the TURP is there and I remember him saying something along the lines of, we need to take a direct order from a superior officer and we were like, hey, bro, I don't know if you've been working with the army or whatever, well, we don't give a shit who you are. Cause we know that you're probably a bad guy. So, no. They're not leaving. And that situation got super gnarly, super quick. And I was thinking to myself like,

• 1:42:36Speaker 01

  I remember telling one of the guys that had a nine to one of the dudes head and I told him, if he so much as sneezes, it'll push his brains to the side of his head. And I could hear that Beretta nine mil, I could hear it rattling. Cause it was, I'm sure it was from pre Vietnam, Marines, you know, and I could hear, but I could hear the slide rattling against the barrel. And I was like, dude, that dude is shaking hard. But I knew if that dude so much as sneezed, I knew it would happen.

• 1:43:16Speaker 01

  And so we were, by the grace of God, we had, uh, cause we were part of Weapons Platoon, but Weapons Company. It just got done doing according to knock or whatever they were doing and they're listening to this transmission over the net. And so we're talking with battalion saying like, hey, this is escalating. And there's about 65 of them and 10 of us, so they were heavily outnumbered, obviously. When, but we need.

• 1:43:45Speaker 01

  Some serious shit is gonna go down. Yeah. And so Weapons Company pulls in. I don't even remember if it's an hour later, three hours, it seemed like a frickin eternity. But they pull in and make a circle around the ING. Good times. Bro. And of course Weapons Company are the ones with, you know, the Mark 19s, 50 cows, AT4. We had AT4s too, but I mean, they had all, all the big. You know, when they pull in, you, you know, like, okay, those guys have big stuff that obviously goes bang a lot. And so these guys pulled in and it was almost in unison. I, the Iraq National Guard guys dropping their AKs, hands in the air, no mista, no mista.

• 1:44:29Speaker 01

  And I was like, yep, those are our homies. You know, like, so let's, and so those guys, they take them and take them back to Al Asad and, you know, and then they, they popcorn fart disappear. There's gone. I mean, I'm sure some super secret scroll agency came in and got them or whatever. We finally go to bed down and, um, I go up to the command post and Doc was up at the command post. It was his turn to sit in the vehicle that, that powers the command post. And it was his turn to count the flares, long you freeze and when was it shot? What color was it? And then we turn it into intel and then they try and crack code, decipher code.

• 1:45:12Speaker 01

  And so we were talking to Doc and telling him like, you know, like, hey, man, this was, no, he's like, I know, I was listening to it on that, that was crazy.

• 1:45:22Speaker 01

  And so I, I can barely keep my eyes open at this point. Drums worn off and as you know, series of high highs, series of low lows, no gray area. That's what being a grunt is and being a warfighter is. And so I told Doc, I gotta bed down smoked. He said, go bed down, no worries, man. And, uh, so I go and take my boots off and I'm, I'm so tired. I take my boots off and lay on my cot.

• 1:45:54Speaker 01

  In Iraq being Iraq, especially in oh four, not even twenty minutes later, I mean, my dogs didn't even start to breathe. React. And I'm like, hey, Murphy, you're dick. You know, it was like if.

• 1:46:08Jocko Willink?

  That's the way Murphy works.

• 1:46:09Speaker 01

  Dude, not a fan, not a fan of of that Murphy. And so, you know, wake up and I'm like, all right, gotta wake up team, so I rub rub their backs and whisper sweet nothings in their ear. Because that's how we do it. And we, these guys, they're all pissed. Like, you know, this is a bunch of bullshit. Like, hey, man, it's because it's it's the paycheck. That's why we do it.

• 1:46:36Jocko Willink?

  What was the call that came in? What they, what was going down?

• 1:46:39Speaker 01

  It was, um.

• 1:46:43Speaker 01

  I think it was someone in our, someone had gotten in the AO, wasn't supposed to be in the AO and, you know, neutralized threat type thing. And I, so I get up and I'm.

• 1:46:54Speaker 01

  I'm carrying, I think, I slide my my boots on any time yet. And I walk out of the tent.

• 1:47:01Speaker 01

  Soon as I walk out of the tent, that feeling I had in my gut went right in my throat. Rose right into my throat and I knew we're about to get hit.

• 1:47:10Speaker 01

  I knew, as sure as I was that the sun was gonna come up, I knew we were gonna get it. I didn't know how bad it was gonna be. I didn't know by what. I didn't know to the extent, but I knew it was gonna happen.

• 1:47:23Speaker 01

  And so I, by the, I took it. Measures and did things that I otherwise wouldn't have done. And you mean, you can call it my grandfather, talk to me from beyond the grave. You can call it God and call it whatever you want. And good news is, is that I can have my beliefs and you can have yours. And odds are we're not gonna get our heads cut off because we live in a free society. And so I, my commanding officer was out there.

• 1:47:49Speaker 01

  To do a report on what had went down the night before, he was sleeping. And, but I knew he had a bomb blanket. And so I took the bomb blanket out of the passenger seat of the, one of the only up armored Humvees we had at the time. And I went to the lead vehicle and I told the driver, scoot over to the lead vehicles, to this day, a great friend of mine. Put the bomb blanket down. I told the guys button up. If they gave it to us for protection, but put it on now. Which I usually wasn't real hardcore about, just because when it's a hundred and twenty something degrees and you, you have all that gear on. More gear is not optimal to the whole being comfortable thing. And, um, I mean, I'm sure the guys knew something was up.

• 1:48:35Speaker 01

  And then I take the radio from the RO and, uh,

• 1:48:41Speaker 01

  everything's buttoned up, you know, flak jacket, Kevlar, Wiley X's, shatterproof. That, that they should've said kind of shatterproof. And then, um, it's, you know, the groin protector, if they gave it, we had it on. And so I, I get on the, the horn with my right arm. I'm driving with my left. I gassed it and, um,

• 1:49:05Jocko Willink?

  So you're driving?

• 1:49:06Speaker 01

  I'm driving. I'm driving and, uh,

• 1:49:12Speaker 01

  just because I,

• 1:49:12Jocko Willink?

  And you would put the bomb blanket under the,

• 1:49:14Speaker 01

  Under the driver's seat. And so, I don't know, it was just reaction. I mean, it was something was guiding me to do all these things. You know, I'm not, I can't tell you what the Lotto numbers are. Like I can't tell, I'm, I don't have ESP. ESP, I'm not a fortune teller. Like something was guiding me to do these things.

• 1:49:34Speaker 02

  And you just put that bomb blanket under there just cause you, it did,

• 1:49:37Speaker 01

  Just cause something told me, put it in the driver's seat and get in the driver's seat. Take the radio. I did all these things. I punch it. Three minutes later, we had a triple stack. Pressure plate ignited.

• 1:49:51Speaker 01

  So, three, three one five five, Mike Mikes. In layman's terms, what that means is the big ass bomb.

• 1:49:57Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's about, what, seventy-five pounds of explosives?

• 1:50:00Speaker 01

  It's a lot.

• 1:50:01Jocko Willink?

  Freaking big.

• 1:50:02Speaker 01

  Blew up directly beneath me. Blew me about thirty feet to the top of the Humvee. Stuck the landing with my head. Cause again, Marines, believe in good form. And, um, I like to say, cause God's a comedian, I never lost consciousness, I never went into shock. I remember the whole thing. Took the Black Hawk forty-two minutes to come get me. So, I love to look at people when they're like, "It's such a long day at work today." Like, really?

• 1:50:29Speaker 01

  Hold on, let me throw some perspective your way. But that's, um, only when I'm in a bad mood. But I, it was, uh, I knew midair. It was bad. I knew it was bad. I knew this was not good at all. And when I hit the deck, I couldn't breathe, cause the, um, as you know, this, this series of events and explosion, a million things happen in a nanosecond. Especially when it's that big of an explosion. And so it was, when the dashboard disengaged and steering wheel hit me in my chest, it exploded all my mags, hit me in my chest, and it's a temporary collapse of both my lungs before I was blown out.

• 1:51:12Speaker 01

  A whole series of things happened before, during this process, causing injuries and, and, um, I hit the deck and I knew I'm hurt bad, I can't breathe, can't hear anything, it was just raining. And first thing I do is talk to God. I mean, the first thing I did, before I even did self-assessment, is to talk to guys I can't see out of my right eye, thanks to the shatterproof. Well, yeah, but, I, because they shattered, both of them, by the way.

• 1:51:46Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, there's.

• 1:51:48Jocko Willink?

  There's something called a triple stacked IED. I don't know what glasses are gonna hang with that.

• 1:51:52Speaker 01

  Well, I'm saying, hey, listen, man, false advertisement, right?

• 1:51:55Jocko Willink?

  Got it, got it.

• 1:51:57Speaker 01

  But we, um, they're a great company. I'm just, you know, gotta find light in every situation. But we, but I talked to God right away. This is exactly what I said. Hey, big man, I know this is bad. All I'm asking is that you don't take me in front of my family.

• 1:52:18Speaker 01

  That's all I'm asking. Don't let my brothers watch me die. Soon as these kids leave the deck, I'm all yours. Just please don't let my brothers watch me die. That's all I cared about.

• 1:52:30Speaker 01

  And I started the self-assessment, which starts with checking your junk. The only thing that worked was my right arm. Everything else was shattered or broken. Come to find out, all my ribs are broken. So that didn't help anything. And, um, so I go, I move my groin flap and check my junk and I was like, okay, that's there. Everything else is band-able, like we're

• 1:52:56Jocko Willink?

  We'll work through.

• 1:52:57Speaker 01

  We will survive. And, um, but then I looked at my, uh, my right leg looked normal. But my right, but my right foot and ankle hurt really bad. So I was like, okay, it's probably broken. Well, I didn't know it was crushed. It was the firewall in the home V folded up, crushed my right foot before I was blown out. My left, I looked at my left arm and I remember seeing like daylight through my left arm. Part of my left hand was hanging down by my elbow.

• 1:53:29Speaker 01

  So I was like, okay, that's, might not, might not keep the left arm. And I looked down at my left leg, which was turned outward. Like if you're sitting down with both legs, like you're gonna touch your toes, my left leg was turned outward to the left. And my foot was inverted, like with my toes pointing at me. And my boot was blown off. But my, but everything was there. It was all over the place, but it was there. So I saw my fibia, my tibia, saw all the damage that was done to my left leg and cause my, my canopies were shredded. And I, I thought two things when I saw that. First thing I thought was that's not supposed to be like that. Second thing I thought was

• 1:54:12Speaker 01

  That that was confirmation that that was a very big explosion. To be able to blow a laced up combat boot off your leg and not take your leg with it is a massive explosion. It's crazy. And so at this point, I'm thinking. How was the guy in the guy in the passenger? Blown eardrums was the other worst injury. Oh, man. So it literally blew up. Straight up. Directly beneath me. Straight and straight up. They must have had it buried a little bit enough that it just projected right up into you. Yeah, and it was so that standoff we had the night before.

• 1:54:50Speaker 01

  It's when they buried it.

• 1:54:53Speaker 01

  So all that was was a diversion. Cause everyone was glued to the radios.

• 1:54:59Speaker 01

  You know, so it was and it was in a perfect spot. It was the one spot around that entire area of operation that you couldn't have eyes directly on, the one spot.

• 1:55:12Speaker 01

  And so at this point, the guys finally make it up to me.

• 1:55:18Speaker 01

  And they're

• 1:55:20Speaker 01

  really, there's a lot of freaking out. Cause I mean, I. Did the Humvee move? Oh, yeah, it was blown. So did it get blown up? Yeah, but it was, I'll tell you this, if we were in an up armored Humvee, everyone of us would be dead. From overpressure? Yeah, absolutely. There'd have been nowhere for it to go. Everyone would have died. It would have been, but it was blown up and over to the right. And um, second vehicle wasn't affected.

• 1:55:51Speaker 01

  But the guys run up to me.

• 1:55:55Speaker 01

  At this point, I'm back to telling God like, hey, man, just remember our deal. Just remember our deal.

• 1:56:05Speaker 01

  And um, the guys are like, hey, Shick, we got you, bro. We got you. You know, we got you. Hey, tough and out of nowhere, I was able to take a breath. And the first thing I said was develop three sixty. They're like, oh shit, yeah. It's like, yeah. No shit.

• 1:56:24Jocko Willink?

  What's coming next?

• 1:56:25Speaker 01

  Yeah. How do we know we're not about to start taking fire? Which probably was unlikely because there was no cover in that. I mean, there would have been nowhere for him to hide. And it would have been a suicide mission on their part.

• 1:56:39Speaker 01

  Because we had one still very functional two forty. And we knew how to employ that weapon. But they get me back on the second vehicle, which was, like I said, still operational. And get me back up to the command post and

• 1:56:55Speaker 01

  man, and little did I know that that's

• 1:56:59Speaker 01

  that at that moment, that's when my battle, my personal war started right then, that day. And I get up there and Doc, same Doc that I was talking to, that was in the, on the counting the flares, was working on me.

• 1:57:18Speaker 01

  And I was, I was, I was pissed. I was not happy. And I was yelling at Doc and I was like, Doc, you gotta hit me, you gotta hit me. And he was like, I already did. And so I'm like, you're, I was like, you're, you're a stingy bastard. Because he only would hit me with two sticks of morphine and I knew he had more. And all I knew was I was in a lot of pain. He had the remedy and he wasn't giving it to me. And I was like, that's, that's kind of bullshit. You know, I didn't understand that the muscles around my lungs could relax so much I suffocate. I didn't know, didn't care. Just knew I was in a lot of pain. He had drugs and he was not giving them to me.

• 1:58:00Speaker 01

  Little did I know, the guy was, you know, the, the tip of the spear and saving my life. And while this whole situation was really gnarly and very painful and very, very humbling, I wouldn't trade it at all because I got to tell every one of those guys, every single one of them. How, it's just like talking to my dad. But I was talking to my brothers, just got to tell every one of them how much I love them, how much they meant to me, how much I respected them. And that this is real. What we're doing is real. Look at me. Look at me and remember this. And go fight your balls off. Because this is what they want to do to every one of us.

• 1:58:44Speaker 01

  Don't let it happen again. Just, just learn from this. You have to fight for me now. And that was, you know, it was a situation where, and they kept telling me, and they kept telling me, uh,

• 1:59:01Speaker 01

  you know, "Hey, Shick, this is your bird home. It's your bird home." And it would piss me off every time they said it. It was like, "I don't wanna go home. Shut up. I don't wanna go home." "Shick, you get to go see your family. You are my family." "I'll see them when it's time to see them." You know, it was that. So there was this whole series of thoughts and emotions and, uh, you know, I mean, it was everything from laughing and crying to everything in between. Laughing again and...

• 1:59:33Speaker 01

  They were scrambling to get the, uh, medevac there and the problem was that we didn't have any fighter escorts and it took forever because they were all dispatched, so for... I mean, they're, they were all scrambled and so it was... Finally, it was a, uh, Texas Army National, Air National Guard pilot that heard the transmission that, you know, "This Marine out of Texas, Category Four, rapidly approaching Category Five." So Category Four's urgent surgery, Category Five being expectant. And, um, he finally got his crew and said, "I, screw the rules. We're going to get this Marine." And he, he loaded, he came and got me. And, um,

• 2:00:16Speaker 01

  I, I remember the guys were loading me on the Blackhawk and my platoon sergeant was the last one on and, um, and that was, that was a... That was an emotional experience, dude, because it was... Anyway, platoon sergeant's on and he kisses me on my forehead and he says, "We'll see you soon, Jack London." Because he always called me Jack London because my first generation Marine is Jack London Shick, second generation is Jack London Shick Jr. So he always called me Jack London because I guess Jake wasn't good enough.

• 2:00:48Speaker 01

  But he, but when he said it, he was trying not to cry and I could tell in his eyes he was lying.

• 2:00:54Speaker 01

  Which kinda motivated me. And I was like, well, I'll show you. I'm gonna prove you wrong and you are gonna see me again.

• 2:01:04Speaker 01

  Even though it wasn't my choice, right? And so the, the bird takes off, man, and um, out of everything I've been through, from

• 2:01:17Speaker 01

  day one to now, that was the hardest moment. Hands down, no questions asked, was leaving those guys. Hands down, that was the hardest moment. Because that's when

• 2:01:34Speaker 01

  I was taught just how human I am and just how irrelevant I am.

• 2:01:41Speaker 01

  And it was um, a very, very hard experience to leave my family in harm's way and there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it. You talk about being humbled. That will humble you. And we get up in the, in the air and I'm able, I'm able to get the attention of one of the litter crews, a young dude. I mean, again, I'm 21, he was probably 18, 19, but middle of their years, that's eons.

• 2:02:11Speaker 01

  And he comes up and he gets right, he puts his left ear right in front of my face. And I yelled as loud as I could, because as you know, on the back of one of those birds, you don't have a headset on, you can't hear shit. And I yelled as hard as I could, "How long?" And I remember when I did it, I felt life leave my body. I knew I was dying.

• 2:02:28Jocko Willink?

  Did they tourniquet you already? The doc tourniquet you?

• 2:02:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, over and over, yeah. I mean, I was bleeding everywhere.

• 2:02:34Jocko Willink?

  Did you have, did you have shrapnel wounds?

• 2:02:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:02:37Jocko Willink?

  So it was not just your leg and your arm?

• 2:02:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, I had shrapnel on my, my chin, side of my face, my, my neck. Um, every, my right arm, left arm, left leg. It was, it was bad. And um, Had I not had that sap you played in my flak, I'd have been dead. There was a big, a piece of, there was a piece sticking out that was bigger than this K-bar, sticking out right out of the center. And my gunny took pictures of my gear, showing guys like, hey, no matter how uncomfortable you are, this is why you don't cut corners. Yeah. And, um, but this dude on the litter crew radios up front to the captain and he comes back and he yells in my right ear,

• 2:03:24Speaker 01

  12 mics, as loud as he can, for 12 minutes. And so I was, I immediately talked to God again, right away. My, hey, big man, I'm gonna have to renege on that original verbal agreement, because I'm pretty sure I can do 12 more minutes.

• 2:03:42Speaker 01

  And, um, the, obviously, you know, he gave me that because I'm talking to you. But, um, we go, we landed in Bilad, which is just a makeshift field hospital at the time. I'm sure you remember from seeing it in '04, but it was, and they pulled me off the bird and immediately, immediately started working on me. I mean, and it was, I was not happy about the situation, because they kept saying, name rank social, name rank social, name rank social. Because they wanted me alert and aware, you know? And I knew what they were doing. And I was like, but it's like if you slam your finger in the door, right? And your buddy's right there and he's like, hey, are you okay? Are you okay? Are you okay? And every time they say it, the pain goes up.

• 2:04:27Speaker 01

  Like, I would be golden if you would just shut your yapper, you know? And so I just yelled finally and pointed with my right arm. It was the only thing that worked was that, hey, it's tattooed right there on my ribs. I'm done talking. Like, I'm gonna show them, right? And I didn't, and so I didn't talk again until they get me in the tent and, um, They loaded me up with some of the good shit because I felt it definitely helped the pain, but I was still a massive amounts of pain. And I'll never forget, one of the surgeons was throwing up my face and he said, "Oops." And I looked at him, I was like, "Hey, what do you mean, oops, doc?" And he's like, "Hey, sorry, Marine, I'm dicked up on your stitches, I'm gonna have to start again." And I said, "Hey, doc, at this point, I have the sheet up to my neck."

• 2:05:12Speaker 01

  I said, "Hey, doc, I don't know if you've seen my body from the neck down, but I'm fairly certain the scratches on my face are the least of my worries." And I think he had the anesthetist knock me out at that moment because that's the last thing I remember. Until I was woken up by Nurse Jax, who, she had told me. She woke me up and, you know, I'm coming out of the OR and, um...

• 2:05:37Jocko Willink?

  And that's still in the lab?

• 2:05:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, and she says, "Hey, Marine, I'm sorry to tell you this, we had to take your right foot. It was dead when you got here. There was no blood flow. It was crushed." And I remember thinking to myself like, "Shit, they took the wrong foot." Because it was my left one that was really messed up. And so then I think like, you know, "Well, that's good enough for government work, right? Whatever." And I'm just, it's, I'm just like, you know, and a long day just got longer.

• 2:06:08Jocko Willink?

  So you're completely contorted and twisted and backwards, left foot was the one that made it?

• 2:06:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:06:16Jocko Willink?

  And the one that looked pretty normal to you?

• 2:06:19Speaker 01

  Looked completely normal, with my boot on, looked everything normal. But then she described it to me, she said, "When we, when you got here, imagine, like a surgical glove, but in the shape of a foot as opposed to a hand, being filled with sand. That was your right foot." She said, "Everything, it was, everything in it was completely crushed." It was to the point to where there was, it cut off the blood supply. And so somehow, none of my major arteries in my left arm or left leg got hit. And so there was still hope for my left leg and my left arm. But um, she ended up.

• 2:07:02Speaker 01

  We ended up loading up um, on the bird to go to Germany and she flew with me to Germany because I was.

• 2:07:11Speaker 01

  I I was not out of the woods by any stretch. It was gonna be a. This was gonna be a long and arduous recovery process. And I remember getting to um, Germany.

• 2:07:24Speaker 01

  Oh no, I'm sorry. Before we left, this was four days after I talked to my my dad. So I called my dad from the sat phone. And he had given me, my dad answered the phone and um.

• 2:07:39Speaker 01

  I said, hey, Pop. And he said, why am I talking to you? I said, they got me. He said, what do you mean they got me? I said, they got me, Dad, and I'm hurt. He said, how bad are you hurt? I said, they had taken my right foot. There was a pause and then he said. Are you gonna make it?

• 2:07:58Speaker 01

  And I said, I don't know.

• 2:08:01Speaker 01

  He said, we're waiting for Sergeant Green and you know, we'll meet you in Germany. And at this point, man, I'm. I'm that four-year-old kid again that just needs his dad. And I I'm the. Last thing I told him was I'm was I love him, but right then I said, please hurry. And he said. You're gonna be all right. I love you. I love you too. That was the hardest phone call I've ever made in my life. Because I just see him at my high school graduation saying, why would you do that? And I'm like, damn it. You know, damn it. He may have had something there, like. And I'm still thinking like a young immature kid. But I knew one thing, I wanted my dad.

• 2:08:47Speaker 01

  And so I get to Germany and um.

• 2:08:51Speaker 01

  One of my best friends from high school, his little brother, who was like my little brother growing up, was in the army and um, he was a scout. And he was there in Germany and was able to get word that I was on my way. And he was right there when the ambulance doors opened.

• 2:09:09Speaker 01

  And he put his head on my chest and he lost it. Started bawling. And I remember telling him, "It's alright Josh, it's alright man." And um, you know, he just kept saying, "Not you, not you, not you." And he wouldn't leave my side, you know, but he had a cellphone and I got to call other people and even when they were trying to take me to the OR to wash me out and reset my left leg, left arm, redo the uh, the external fixators, he was like, he's walking right next to the bed like he's going into the OR with me. And I remember them saying like, "So, you can't..." and he was like, "The hell I can't." "What are you..." and I was like, "Josh, you can't dude, like just come on man." "They don't have enough drugs for both of us."

• 2:09:51Speaker 01

  So that's, but he was, it was just, it goes to show you man, like it's, there were so many experiences throughout this process that just reassured me of how very real that something bigger than us out there is. You know, that there, you know, I was a believer growing up man, but this was, there were things that happened that no one could explain, that had to be from a higher power. And that was just one of them, one of those moments where I was,

• 2:10:24Speaker 01

  that was a part of me living, was Josh being there. And me not having to be alone in that situation. So I ended up leaving Germany and I was only, I was only there for, you know, I wasn't even there a full day before they sent me to Bethesda.

• 2:10:40Speaker 01

  And um, I, I, because my family was supposed to meet me in Germany, but the turnaround was so fast that the, you know, the Marines were like, "No, we're just gonna send you to Bethesda." And I got to Bethesda and um, man, those flights, both flights, from Iraq to Germany, Germany to Bethesda.

• 2:11:00Speaker 01

  Every little like bit of turbulence, every little bump, every little movement was like being blown up all over again. It was gnarly, because your, your body was under, was in so much pain, it was just, I'd never puked so much because of pain in my life. And it was one of those things where I was, again, every little jar, every movement was just like, you're as human as they come. Like, there's nothing special about ya. This is not gonna get easier. And I remember the getting there and they're waiting over by the emergency entrance and

• 2:11:39Speaker 01

  the doors open and of course, you know, the liaison, I told my family, like, hey, Jake's on the runway, he just touched down. And my dad is there, and I'm sure I looked amazing. My head was probably the size of a watermelon and I was black and blue and purple and I'm sure I smelled amazing, too. And my dad put his hand on my chest and he said, "Bubba, is that you?" And all I could get out was, "Get your damn hand off my chest." Cause all my ribs were broken and it hurt like hell. And he looks at my family and goes, "Yep, that's Jake. It's Jake." And so they load, they're, they're rolling me on the gurney and this, this young sailor's pushing me and I remember every little, like, in the grout that separates tiles. Like, every little bump. It was like getting blown up again.

• 2:12:24Speaker 01

  And it would just make, it would take my pain from six to as much as you could think. In the snap of, I mean, it was gnarly. And so I remember, he's going to push me on the elevator to take me down to the ICU. And you know, the big gap that separates, separates the floor and the elevator. Well, he goes across that and we're in the big elevator where they take the gurneys, take the patients on gurneys and so my family's in there with us and he goes across that bump. And this dude is

• 2:12:56Speaker 01

  so young and just he was the epitome of a boot. And so he goes across that gap and I knife, I knife hand him with my right hand and I look up and I say, "If you do that again, I'm gonna take you out."

• 2:13:12Speaker 01

  And my dad laughs and looks at the family like he's gonna be okay, you know, and um like the dude's meaning to hit gaps, right? It's just you know, the, the problem was is I was never trained to be a severely wounded Marine. It wasn't in the handbook and so I didn't know what the hell to do and um let's just get this out of the way, I was never a good patient. Ever, not one time. It was something that I just didn't have in me. All I knew to do was to be a dick and fight like hell. And when I fight like hell, it's, I'm usually a dick. That was my survival mechanism.

• 2:13:52Jocko Willink?

  Now, were you just like angry, were you angry that you were hurt? And pissed off that you were, your leg was gone and you're like just pissed? And so every nurse is, you're pissed at?

• 2:14:03Speaker 01

  I'm not mad, listen, I'm, I'm not angry that my leg's gone, I'm not angry, I'm angry-

• 2:14:07Jocko Willink?

  I'm talking about at that time.

• 2:14:09Speaker 01

  At that time, I'm not angry that my leg's gone. I'm not angry I never did the why me? I never not, to this day, not, don't have, I don't believe in that. I'm angry because my family is back in a godforsaken land, fighting. And they're, and here I am sucking up oxygen in a, in a hospital bed. That's why I'm angry. I'm pissed off at God. Cause it's like, hey, you had a perfectly good chance. Perfectly good chance. Then you, what the hell? You know, what the hell? That's, I mean, what am I supposed to do right from here? Right now, what am I doing? I'm, I'm doing no good. None. That's why I was angry.

• 2:14:55Speaker 01

  And I was angry because I could not contribute to what I was trained to contribute to with, with my brothers, like that's, they were there and I was back home in an air-conditioned room with a bunch of people waiting on me hand and foot. Pun totally intended. Like that, you know, that's why I was pissed. No, they couldn't understand that.

• 2:15:19Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:15:20Speaker 01

  And I, and I don't blame them for that to this day, I don't blame them for that. But it was, um, you know, before we had a lot of guys getting hurt, a lot of guys getting wounded and I mean, the hospital was full of guys. I wasn't no different. I wasn't special. I wasn't any better or worse, or I was just a guy who had a bad day at work.

• 2:15:43Jocko Willink?

  So what are they doing? What are you going through at this point? You know, obviously you're going through surgery upon surgery.

• 2:15:50Speaker 01

  Dude, it was gnarly. Yeah. I mean, it was every, for the first two and a half, I guess, months I was home, I was in the OR every forty to seventy-two hours. And some of those operations were like eighteen, nineteen, twenty hour operations.

• 2:16:05Jocko Willink?

  And they're piecing you back together.

• 2:16:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, man. Robin for Peter, give to Paul to try and save my left leg and my left arm.

• 2:16:11Jocko Willink?

  Set and stuff.

• 2:16:12Speaker 01

  It was crazy, crazy, crazy.

• 2:16:14Jocko Willink?

  How many surgeries did you have?

• 2:16:16Speaker 01

  Stateside, I had forty-six. And I had twenty-three blood transfusions.

• 2:16:20Jocko Willink?

  I've had a couple surgeries. I had a neck surgery. And I had a hernia surgery. So when you get, when I got those surgeries, right? Like, you just feel like complete crap. So you're just going through that every, just like almost on a permanent level.

• 2:16:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:16:36Jocko Willink?

  The anesthesia, the blood loss, all that stuff. It's just a

• 2:16:40Speaker 01

  Just it's

• 2:16:43Speaker 01

  wake up, suck, go to bed, repeat. It was nothing, there was nothing fun about any of it. And, um,

• 2:16:55Speaker 01

  I mean, it was so bad that

• 2:16:58Speaker 01

  it was like the nurses at the nurse station, the night nurses, I'll never forget. And it happened every night. They, they would do paper, rocks, scissors. You had to take my chart.

• 2:17:11Speaker 01

  It was that bad. And that, it, God forbid a psychologist walk in my room.

• 2:17:18Speaker 01

  God forbid. It was because I was, I had nothing to say to those.

• 2:17:23Jocko Willink?

  So I'm, I'm kind of, I'm, I just realized, I laughed at this, right? And we're, and you're telling it in a funny way. Because you're like, hey, I was a bad patient. But the point I was getting at before, like why you were angry. But you, like, we're, we're laughing about it right now, but you're not kidding. Like this, like you were fucking pissed, right?

• 2:17:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:17:42Jocko Willink?

  And when someone come in, you'd be like, ah, you know, get that off me. I don't want to, you know, what you that? Like just aggro with people?

• 2:17:48Speaker 01

  So I, I had, this, this is the rule that I had as a patient. You're not allowed in my room unless we share DNA or you're a United States Marine. And that goes for the President on down.

• 2:18:03Speaker 01

  I don't give a shit what your title is or who you are. Those are the rules. If you don't have the same DNA as me and you're not a United States Marine, don't come in my room. Cause I'm gonna let you know you're not allowed.

• 2:18:14Speaker 01

  And that was because I'm in survival mode.

• 2:18:18Speaker 01

  In survival mode and I didn't know what that looked like. I was making it up as I got, as I went and I mean, it was. Didn't matter what surgeon was talking to me, what professional with a bunch of letters after his or her name. I didn't care. I did not care. Cause my mindset was, is like, I'm trying to figure out how to get to the next breath.

• 2:18:40Speaker 01

  In the least painful ways possible. And it was something that it was, um, like I said. I went from being one of the most, a part of one of the most elite fighting forces known to mankind. To not being able to use the bathroom on my own. And I was in a hospital bed for months. Overnight, I mean, it, it, the drop of a hat.

• 2:19:05Speaker 01

  That's not humble pie. That's an hell in the factory. Knowing that my guys, I knew Fallujah, we were already drawing the war plan, war plan for Fallujah. And so it's like, here I am.

• 2:19:19Speaker 01

  And not broken, I hate that terminology, but here I am completely fractured. And

• 2:19:28Speaker 01

  these guys are hooking and jabbing. And they're asking me what kinda, what color Jell-O I want.

• 2:19:36Speaker 01

  And it's like,

• 2:19:39Speaker 01

  I don't need to, I don't need to eat. I need to get through the next minute. And then the minute after that. I get, and nothing else matters. Nothing.

• 2:19:51Speaker 01

  I just need to survive. Second by second, minute by minute, breath by breath.

• 2:19:58Speaker 01

  And continue to believe I'm worth this thing called life. I need to keep fighting.

• 2:20:06Speaker 01

  And a byproduct of that is that I was a giant dick.

• 2:20:10Speaker 01

  But I kept fighting. It wasn't pretty. But I kept fighting. And how long were you in Bethesda for? So I'm only in Bethesda a few months. And then they uh moved me. Matter of fact, my my dad goes to Walter Reed.

• 2:20:28Speaker 01

  And then he comes back and he says, yo Jake, this is your deal. And let me back up a bit. My dad and my brother are both pretty squeamish, like when it comes to blood and stuff like that, they just don't do well with it. My dad, who's was an executive banker, just retired last year, an executive banker. Started as a window teller at a bank, he worked his way up.

• 2:20:53Speaker 01

  Did not leave my bedside for sixty two days.

• 2:20:58Speaker 01

  Didn't leave my side. No matter how hard I was on him, or it did not leave my side.

• 2:21:08Speaker 01

  And I like to say that if, had it not been for this explosion, I would not be nearly as close to my, you can't. I don't think I could possibly be closer to my dad as I am now, or my brother. Same thing. Same relationship that before just didn't. We just didn't have it, and I think it was because there was always that alpha struggle. Whereas it had to take one of the alphas. Having a thumb or the grim reaper. For everyone to say, what the hell are we doing?

• 2:21:41Speaker 01

  And why are we doing it?

• 2:21:44Speaker 01

  And that's why, just one of the reasons I wouldn't trade it. Cause that, that's beautiful, man, and I got to experience something that a lot of people don't get to experience. That they die wondering. Did I say everything I needed to say? Did I love as hard as I needed to love? I don't have to wonder about that now, and neither do they. Love and be loved, everything else is filler.

• 2:22:10Speaker 01

  So that's why I would not trade it. But I remember my dad telling me with my left arm one night, they they were telling me, okay Jake, you know, we have this, we have to reconstruct your left arm and the bottom graft took the first time, but the top graft didn't take. And the second time they tried doing it, I remember they, I woke up while they were cutting the graft off. And um, that was a gnarly experience. But I was awake for like literally point five seconds before they knocked me back out. And uh,

• 2:22:41Jocko Willink?

  Did you hit anybody in that point five seconds?

• 2:22:43Speaker 01

  I tried to hit people all the time. I think it was stupid. I mean, I messed up stitches and staples and stuff all the time. And I took, I took my own out all the time.

• 2:22:53Jocko Willink?

  How drugged up are you during this time?

• 2:22:56Speaker 01

  Dude, I was on enough drugs to like kill a herd of elephants. Because everybody's body reacts differently to drugs, right? Either you're accept them and you doesn't take a lot. Well, mine fights everything. You know what I mean? Which is not surprising. But my, it takes, if it takes you or you one pill, it's gonna take me five. And so every operation I had, because these were major, I mean, these were intrusive operations. These weren't like, hey, we're gonna go and take the staples out of it. No, these were, we're going in, cutting you back open, and we're gonna power wash this part of your body out. I mean, they were intrusive operations.

• 2:23:39Speaker 01

  We're gonna go and take skin from this part of your body and put it on this other part of your body. And so, or we're gonna take this bone out here and we're gonna try and graft it over there. And so, it was one of those things where I knew, like, okay, these are some serious things where for six months to a year, like, I didn't know if I was gonna keep my left leg or my left arm. Because they, they were, I was going through all these operations to save these two appendages that were and for all intents and purposes, I was a guinea pig for a lot of stuff. Which I'm okay with. It was better me than my brothers. I'm all right with that. Small price to pay. Be one of the world's finest. Right? And so they, I remember the night before.

• 2:24:25Speaker 01

  Um, I had this major operation on my left arm. And this was when the graft didn't take the second one and they were doing a bone graft and uh. They amputated my right leg again to take some of the tibia from my right leg to try and graft it in my left arm because five inches of my ulna on my left arm was blown out.

• 2:24:45Speaker 01

  And uh, my dad asked the doc, I'll never forget it. He said, hey doc, how'd you sleep the next morning? And he said, I didn't. My dad said, well, why didn't you sleep? So it's because I did Jake's operation about a thousand times in my head. And my dad was like, okay, I think I'm okay with that. And then um. He, I remember him asking me, hey, hey, Shik, do you, do you mind if we amputate your fourth digit on your left hand? Because I don't think it's going to be of any use to you. And because my metacarpal was blown out from my ring finger, I said, if I wake up and there's anything else cut off my body. Don't be on the right side of my bed because I will choke you out in front of God and everybody.

• 2:25:27Speaker 01

  And he, he being, knowing me all too well at the time said, all right, I'm gonna take that as a no. And uh, everybody got a good laugh and then they knocked me out again. But um.

• 2:25:41Speaker 01

  So that graft didn't take. And they knocked me back out, then they call in a specialist. And so what they had to do was.

• 2:25:51Speaker 01

  Put me in an induced coma and cut my abdomen open and then put my left arm in my abdomen and then sewed my abdomen shut. To grow skin over my left arm. So my.

• 2:26:04Jocko Willink?

  Interestingly, same uh, Lou, Lou Pollard Jr. Had the same because he had severely uh, got his hands jacked up and they did the same thing multiple times to him.

• 2:26:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it's, you know, who, who would have thought that's a thing? You know, and then they, so my dad and I had this thing where I would wake up every morning because he was always there. During the day, then someone else come at night. And so I would say, you know, hey dad, it's, you know.

• 2:26:31Speaker 01

  Monday, April 16th, whatever. And just to make sure I still had somewhat reliable cognitive function, functions going on, you know, and I'm trying to exercise my frontal lobes as much as I can, making sure these executive functions are still working the way they are, because I was already told, "You've got post match stress, track brain injury," which I was like, "Whatever." You know, that's made up stuff by people in white coats with too much time on their hands. That will not affect me. I'm a Marine. No.

• 2:27:05Speaker 01

  And, um, so I'm coming out of this, uh, this coma. Um, that was the first time that I, my brother came in for the first time. And I remember he, he came in and, uh, I could see, cause what sucked was, was early on in the induced coma, like I could be alert, but I couldn't, obviously couldn't say anything because I was intubated. So I had a machine breathing for me. I was completely paralyzed from the neck down, couldn't move anything. And it only lasted for, they only did it for a day or so, because it was so gnarly that my, my BP and everything would freak out. My blood pressure would go up and I

• 2:27:48Speaker 01

  would see someone in my family, because I felt like I was trapped. I'm a prisoner of my body. Somebody get me the hell out of here.

• 2:27:54Jocko Willink?

  So you're in an induced coma, you can't move, you can't talk?

• 2:27:57Speaker 01

  Nothing.

• 2:27:58Jocko Willink?

  And yet you're conscious?

• 2:27:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:28:00Jocko Willink?

  Isn't the purpose of being in an induced coma to be unconscious?

• 2:28:04Speaker 01

  Right. So they, they, this is just prior to them inducing the coma.

• 2:28:08Jocko Willink?

  Oh, okay.

• 2:28:09Speaker 01

  And so it was just before it, but then my brother came in and it was the first time that my brother had been able to see me. He was in college at the time and playing ball. And my brother came in and sat down in the chair. So, well, first when he goes to walk in and I see him come in the door in the ICU and he leaves. He, he like took a half step in, he turned around and he bolted.

• 2:28:32Jocko Willink?

  And this is the queasiness factor?

• 2:28:34Speaker 01

  No, I think this is, no, I think it, for him, it was an emotion. He didn't want to be emotional and me know he was emotional, which I knew exactly why I had to leave the room. It's just like, it's obsolete. Might as well just come all the way in. I know what you're doing.

• 2:28:50Speaker 01

  And so, but then he comes back in. He sits down in the chair. On the right side of my bed and he grabs my right hand. And he puts his, his forehead on my hand and he just starts crying and he just starts repeating over and over again. Thank you for not dying. Thank you for not dying. And I was like, dude, anytime you wanna shut up about that, like, it would be awesome. Cause it was getting, I mean, it was getting to me, right? So my BP started going up and they're like, hey, you gotta leave. Like, you can't stay in here. So then they realized, like, okay, we gotta, we gotta knock him out. And because they tried taping the window so I couldn't see, but then it just was too much. And so they, that's when they completely put me in the coma and.

• 2:29:35Speaker 01

  That was for, it was like thirty days or something. And I remember coming out of it. And telling my dad.

• 2:29:42Jocko Willink?

  Induced coma was for thirty days?

• 2:29:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:29:44Jocko Willink?

  Holy shit.

• 2:29:45Speaker 01

  To grill that around my arm and. So they cut it out and then. It took, thankfully, that was the last resort for my left arm. Cause if that didn't take, they're gonna have to amputate below my hollow. Within my dad weeks, or a week, I'm coming out, I'm gonna look at my dad, my dad, it's Monday, April sixteenth. He was like, well, no, it's, uh. What had happened was, and then I'm like, did no one? Wanna run this by me? He was like, no, they figured you'd be against it. So it's like, whatever, shit. Just, uh, put it on my tab. You know, it's like. But I remember my dad going over to Walter Reed's. It was time. My dad told them, like, hey, listen.

• 2:30:27Speaker 01

  I can afford to fly up here and see my son every week. Most of his family, cause I'm still not out of the woods. Most of his family can't afford to come to Maryland from Louisiana or Texas to come, you know, see him often. And so he goes to Walter Reed and came back and he told me, he said, bub, this is your deal. This is, but no son of mine's gonna go to that hospital. Well, I mean, obviously I'm gonna have to take your word for it. It's not like I can skip over there and go check it out. And they said, okay, well, we had a friend that worked at the Pentagon. Who was a one star and my dad, my stepmom contacted him and just said, hey, listen.

• 2:31:06Speaker 01

  We gotta get Jay closer to home. And so I actually went to, they sent me to Bemc and San Antonio and, um. I like to say that's accounts for 50% of my posthumonic stress because I was the only Marine at Army facility and sorry, I'm not sorry about that, but it was a great hospital that, you know, they did just as good work as Bethesda and um, you know, but when they, when they shipped me, they moved me way too soon, you know, just my body wasn't ready for it and we had to stop and I believe it was called Scott Air Force Base in Illinois.

• 2:31:41Jocko Willink?

  Were you flying?

• 2:31:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm a bird. So we stopped in Scott and um, I guess we didn't know that we were stopping. And I'd only had enough, enough medications in my nerve blockers for said amount of time to get to San Antonio. Well, that stuff was-

• 2:32:05Jocko Willink?

  They wanted to do a little layover?

• 2:32:06Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, I'm pissed. I wake up when we're there and this gunny walks up to me and he's like, "Hey, hey Corporal Shrek, welcome to Scott Air Force Base. I'm Gunny Schmuckatelli." And I was, I'm like, "Where the hell is Scott Air Force Base and who the hell are you?" And because my, my tact at this point has gone way out the window. Did not matter your rank. Like, did not matter. And because I'm at the point where I'm like, "What are they gonna do? Shave my head and send me to Iraq? Like, please, you'd be doing me a favor." But so I'm pissed and I call my dad and I'm like, "I don't know who fucked this up,

• 2:32:52Speaker 01

  but I need you to unfuck it right now." And he got pissed that I was pissed and him, something was out of his control, you know, and he was like, "Jake, fine, go back to, go back to Bethesda. I don't care." But, you know, and it was, you know, I, I, I was owed that and a lot more. And so they get me in the hospital and my body just starts to shut down. So next thing-

• 2:33:15Jocko Willink?

  Wait, this is in the hospital in Scott?

• 2:33:16Speaker 01

  It's Scott. And this is not like a major hospital.

• 2:33:18Jocko Willink?

  So they did like a legit, they stopped?

• 2:33:20Speaker 01

  Stopped. Like, so then it's a delay for me to even go to San Antonio because-

• 2:33:26Jocko Willink?

  They gotta get you to recover kinda?

• 2:33:27Speaker 01

  Yeah. And so that series of events happens there, which was crazy. So I go into this-

• 2:33:36Speaker 01

  Shock effect where I'm unconscious and uh this is another one of those moments where the higher power thing I'm coming out of it and uh my left head my turns my head's turned to my left and the door to my room opens. I knew whoever was about to walk in the door like I just felt like a a spiritual presence like I just felt I knew whoever that was was a person of faith like person that got knew it knew no doubt about it felt it when the door opened. The dude comes around the corner introduce himself and it's the base chaplain.

• 2:34:17Speaker 01

  And I was like, okay, well, that's that's that and uh and he said, hey, I'm I'm chaplain. So and I said, I knew I knew before you even before I saw you as soon as the door opened like I felt I felt the presence of higher being like I felt it. I knew it. And like this really like he you could tell he was moved by it. You know, I wasn't saying to blow smoke up his ass. I just knew the dude was a man of God. And I mean, it was again, can't explain it. So the whole thing, the whole word faith comes in. Look it up sometime. Yeah, utilize it.

• 2:34:57Speaker 01

  But the um so then he walks in and starts talking to me. So we have this long conversation of which I can't remember most of. And that's the next day is when I'm leaving. And he brings his whole family. He had like like four or five kids and he brought his wife and all the nurses and I mean the airmen and the reserve Marines and Army guys like made this line on either side of the back door to the bird and it was like

• 2:35:31Speaker 01

  Like I don't rate what you guys are doing, but appreciate it. Like I can dig it, right? But I didn't, I was just thinking like,

• 2:35:40Speaker 01

  it's a little much, but thank you, you know? And it was, but it was like, you know, who the hell am I to take away from their right to honor their brother? And like, you know, who am I to do that? They're just showing love all the way, not halfway. And so of course, me being me at the time, I didn't look at it that way. I was just like, I'm naked in front of everyone type feeling. I'm just uncomfortable right now. And so they, they load me up and we fly from Scott to,

• 2:36:15Speaker 01

  we're going to Bamsy and we stop over and, oh, it was El Paso. And on the way, I can see the, the loadmaster mouth to one of the other, one of the other crewmen, we're about to fly around a tornado. I read his lips and I'm like,

• 2:36:35Speaker 01

  hey God, like, come on, man. Throw a dude a bone. Like we're about, I'm gonna survive all the stuff I've survived. And if you let me get taken out by a tornado,

• 2:36:46Speaker 01

  like we're, we're gonna be fighting. This is bullshit. But I'm just thinking like, Murphy, back off, bro. Just back off. But it's just these little moments where you find light in these heavy situations. And I didn't know that we were stopping in El Paso. We stopped in El Paso and I'm pissed. Why are we stopping? And why aren't we in San Antonio? Well, because we had to drop off someone who was KIA and they're just returning the body.

• 2:37:16Speaker 01

  And I was like, okay, I'm a major dick. I get it. You know, it was like, well shit, could you have told me that? And they probably did tell me, but I'm on so many drugs. I'm gonna remember about point two seconds of an hour conversation I had with you. So we get to San Antonio again, my body, it was bad. I mean, my body does the same thing it did at Scott. And then next thing I know, I'm in the ICU again and now the OR. And I end up doing,

• 2:37:46Speaker 01

  Fifteen months in in Bamsy. And um, man, every operation, it was just more drugs, more drugs, more drugs, more drugs. A series of events happens at Bamsy. I'm the only Marine there, which I stated and it was bad because I mean, you can only call a Marine a soldier so many times before I'm gonna let you know that that bothers me. And if I wanted to be a soldier, I would have joined the frickin' Army. Stop calling me a soldier. It's just a Marine thing. It's a pride thing. Absolutely a frickin' pride thing. If you don't like it, would you, would you call Chesty Puller a soldier? Cause if you would, you're ignorant. And my thing was is like, just utilize some tact.

• 2:38:32Speaker 01

  And so they ended up putting the the EGA, the Marine Corps seal on my door. And let, just to let people know. Little heads up. Yeah. Same rules though.

• 2:38:44Speaker 01

  You don't share my DNA. And you're a United States Marine, don't come in my room.

• 2:38:49Speaker 01

  Still, so I didn't meet, I missed, I missed out on meeting a lot of quote unquote famous people and and politicians that I'm sure they're because they care and a bunch of other people and it was because of that rule. And then the Secretary of the Army, or the the Surgeon General, I'm sorry, Surgeon General's coming. And they were like, Corporal Schick, we really, you know, we need you to wake up and shave. And you're gonna come see the Surgeon General. And I was like, okay, yeah. Yeah, I'm gonna do that. Obviously, I didn't. And so I have people coming up to my room and they're like, Corporal Schick, the Surgeon General's downstairs.

• 2:39:32Speaker 01

  You were supposed to be in your electric wheelchair down there meeting him. And I'm like, what part of my face says I give a shit? That they're here. I don't even know if it's a man or a woman and I don't care. If they wanna see me, you know where my room is. Do I go to his or her office and say, hey, I'm gonna need you downstairs, cause I'm coming? No. No, I don't. They're a person just like me. Except they prob, something tells me their pain level's probably not where mine is right now. And no, I'm not gonna shave either. So you can just, just eat a whole bag of dicks, cuz I don't care. And so, again, great patient. Really, really good patient.

• 2:40:17Jocko Willink?

  So you're, the drugs at this point that they're putting you on, all kind of painkillers? And

• 2:40:25Jocko Willink?

  do you even, is there any point where you start realizing like, oh, I'm not gonna be okay without these things? I want them all the time?

• 2:40:32Speaker 01

  Nope, not once. So, at this point, no.

• 2:40:35Jocko Willink?

  So you're just thinking that's just the way it is?

• 2:40:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:40:38Jocko Willink?

  Hey, look, I'm badly wounded, I need painkillers.

• 2:40:41Speaker 01

  Part of the game, right? Part of the game. And so, at this point, I'm think, I have, this is probably operation like thirty-five, thirty-six, and it's so bad that they have me, now I'm having to recover in ICU after every operation because they're having to monitor my breathing and my heart rate because I'm on so many drugs. And so, at this point, they've given me what they feel like, okay, we cannot just give them more of any, we can't give them more Dilaudid, Dimoral, or Fentanyl, or et cetera, et cetera. And so, they give me, um, this was the first time that I had experienced, after one of these operations, ketamine. And

• 2:41:25Speaker 01

  I was such a, uh, it was just bad because the guy comes in and started administering the ketamine. And, uh,

• 2:41:33Speaker 01

  I'll never forget this, and he goes, he starts to administer it through my, one of my IV that comes into my pick line. And he says, hey, you fill it yet? I'm like, nope. Keep pushing. Fill it yet? Nope. I started to fill it the second time he asked, but I was like, nope. It's like, oh, alright. Fill it yet? Nope. Hmm, nothing. This time, I definitely fill it. But I'm lying because, again, if one pill's good, I bet you ten's awesome. My mindset, right? And so, the fourth time he asked me, I'm like, oh, yeah, alright, I'll fill it. And he was like, okay, cuz I just, I don't think I've ever given anyone that much. But they say your tolerance is really, really high, so, you know, it is what it is.

• 2:42:17Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, I started, I mean, the door didn't even shut all the way, and I started hallucinating my balls off. I'm, I am on so much ketamine. And on the street, apparently, the street terminology for special K. And I didn't even know, like, that was a thing. And it was, it was gnarly. I mean, I was seeing things that weren't there. I was, it was bad. And I, and I came out of that. And I told my lead physician that came, I said, don't ever, I don't want that stuff anymore. Like, that was not, like, that was not a cool high. Like, it was bad. I don't like it. And they're like, well, we're gonna have to put you back in the ICU. I was like, I do not care. I'll live in the ICU.

• 2:43:01Speaker 01

  It's not like I'm in the RITs, okay? If I'm in the ICU, or I'm in this room with four other dudes, like, it doesn't matter. Whatever, right? And, um, obviously, I developed, I developed a bit of a reputation at BAMF C. And, um, I'm, I'm attached to 4th Recon that was there at the time. And it's right out, right by BAMF C. And there's one Marine there that, the day I got there, he was right there. He was, um, a staff sergeant at the time. He told me when I got there, he was like, hey, brother, I'm gonna come see you every day.

• 2:43:39Speaker 01

  I'm, I'm in this with you. Well, so did the, I don't remember if he was the first Army Sergeant Major at the time. Said the same thing. Well, there was a lot of cameras there. You know, CNN and Fox and crap, because I'm, you know, the only Marine in our facility, got some attention. And so that guy says the same thing. Well, I didn't see him again, but the, the first guy, the staff sergeant. Every day, man. Every day. And he, he started messing, like, he would walk in and, like, tickle where my right foot should be. And it would tickle, it was crazy, because it would tickle, and it would, I'd be like, Vic, come on, bro. And he would, he would just laugh and laugh. He thought it was the best thing ever.

• 2:44:20Speaker 01

  And it was just those little moments, though, those little nuances of time that would lighten, make me forget that I was who I was. And I was in the situation I was in. That would make me realize,

• 2:44:37Speaker 01

  you know, if, if I think it's that bad.

• 2:44:41Speaker 01

  I would get, when I was able to get mobile, I remember actually I was in isolation when Ty showed up. Who was the second Marine at Bancy. And um, they told me, hey, there's another Marine on deck. Just, he's getting, he just got here, but they don't think he's gonna make it. And I said, I, I need to see, I need to go see him right now. Like, well, you're in isolation. I do not give a shit. I'm gonna go see him right now, or you're gonna have to kill me. It's the only way I'm not seeing him. So they were like, huh, okay. And they get the little human crane and crane me up and put me in my black electric wheelchair. Called it my black Cadillac thing was legit.

• 2:45:25Speaker 01

  They took it from me though, because I put one too many holes in the, in the walls of the, don't drive your electric wheelchair, heavily, heavily medicated folks, it's not safe. But I go see Ty. DUI. Right? I have one of those too. Yeah. Believe it or not, I got one of those. And uh, but I go see Ty. Mind you, this time, at this point, I still haven't gotten like emotional one time. Like it's, since I left Dulob, like I haven't gotten emotional from my family or otherwise. Still pretty squared away with the whole emotion thing.

• 2:46:08Speaker 01

  I go see Ty and I go into his room and he's completely wrapped up. I mean, the, front half of his cranium was blown off. I mean, it was, he was blind in one eye, severely burned. I mean, bad. He looked like a mummy when I saw him. No, ears were burned off, eyelids, nose, lips. And uh, I remember I had to yell at his nurse, who was this giant black dude, this giant black Army guy. And I had to yell at him, who had to then lean down and yell into the side of Ty's head.

• 2:46:47Speaker 01

  So he could know what was going on and I just told him, I told the nurse, like, hey brother, I just wanted to come see my family. Because I, I heard another Marine was on deck and I was like, right on. And now we can take over this hospital. And uh,

• 2:47:06Speaker 01

  So he leaned down, he said, hey, another Marine here, and Ty, like, put up his knob like, hell yeah, Marines and... And Ty whispered to the nurse and he said, he wants to know, like, what are your injuries? And I told him, you know, told him my injuries and, uh, started, of course, with, you know, I lost my right leg, didn't lose it, I mean, obviously I know where it went, but... Told, started with that. And he was whisper, he was telling Ty as I'm telling the injuries. And as soon as I said, lost my right leg, like, Ty holds up his right leg, like, still got mine. Was it down? The left leg got banged up, boom, Ty holds up his left leg, and it was like, dude, this typical...

• 2:47:49Speaker 01

  Typical Marine banter right there. Considering the conditions we're in. Yet, we're just gonna smoke and joke.

• 2:48:01Speaker 01

  Because that's what family does, to get through the hard times. You gotta find light. And regardless of how dark the situation is. Cause if you don't, it will kill you. But I remember having this interaction with Ty. And I left the room.

• 2:48:18Speaker 01

  And I'm facing the nurse's station when I come out and the door shuts. And I just completely and utterly broke down. To the point of anger. Like, I was... I was sobbing and angry. I was so angry. Seeing him that way. And think, and I just... I just yelled, like, those, those bastards. Like, what? You know, what? Why? What are we doing? What are we doing? What are we gonna do about that? And it pissed me off, not only because here I see my brother that is never, ever, ever gonna be remotely the same as he ever was before. But then it reminded me...

• 2:49:05Speaker 01

  In a very abrupt manner, who the hell are you? To be acting the way you're acting? Because they're telling his family, you better call anyone who wants to tell him goodbye because he's probably not going to make it through the next 48 hours. And here I was, acting like a complete asshat. Very much alive. Not having, they weren't having to call anyone in my family or any of my friends. Because I was gonna make it. At this point, I'm gonna make it. And that reminded me of, it's not about you.

• 2:49:46Speaker 01

  You just thought it was about you. It's not about you. And then that, that one interaction taught me right then, okay, I need to go see every wounded person in this hospital as often as I can. Because that's where I found healing. So that's what I did. I saw every wounded person, talked to all their families. And that is when I realized that God, there is really something of the service above self. Because not only does it feed my soul, it feeds theirs. It's mutually beneficial.

• 2:50:28Speaker 01

  And I learned, if you're not willing to use whatever platform you find yourself in, and to make yourself 100% vulnerable for whatever may come, you will never make a difference. You're waking up and choosing to be status quo. And choosing to be average. And I learned right then, the great, the great ones, the ones that the history books are gonna rave about and that do rave about, were consistently uncomfortable. And consistently vulnerable.

• 2:51:17Speaker 01

  And that was a great lesson for me to learn.

• 2:51:21Speaker 01

  It didn't make me any better than anyone else. It just made me more susceptible to judgment.

• 2:51:29Speaker 01

  Which I already had a ton of. So I didn't care. And I remember being and thinking about this pride of being a United States Marine and representing what that means. And thinking about Gunny. You know, the salty Gunny. Back in Iraq and thinking. How would he behave? How would he react? How would, what would he do? Same thing about First Order. And I'm actually, let's back up, back to, um, I'm gonna give an example of what being tribal truly means. That you can't buy. So I'm back in Bethesda and my dad tells me, "Hey Jake, First Order Green's gonna come see you." And I just remember thinking, "Shit."

• 2:52:14Speaker 01

  He's, he's, I'm sure he's pissed because I got hit. And like, he's probably just gonna finish the job. And so I was terrified, right? I'm terrified. Because I, I, not only do I respect this man to the nth degree, but I love this man. And I was like, "Ah, damn, fuck, I don't want to experience what I'm about to have to experience. I'd rather take the coward's way out." So I was like, "I'm just gonna act like I'm, I'm passed out when he walks in. I'm on a lot of drugs." That'll work. I saw your knock on the door. And I'm like, "Oh," hear the door open. My dad say, "Good evening, First Order. How are you?" First Order walks in. So I'm like, "All right, I'm passed out."

• 2:52:57Speaker 01

  Soon as he busts the hatch and walks in. My freaking heart monitor dimes me out.

• 2:53:05Speaker 01

  Because it goes from like the slow, steady beep to the "booo, boo," to the rapid beep. And I'm like, "Son of a bitch." Obviously, this isn't gonna work and there is no plan B. I'm awake. And he looks at my family. Man, my dad's in there, my, my mom, my stepmom, my aunt, my cousins, my brother, my sister. I'm like, "Yeah." And he says, "Uh, hey, Mr. Schick, how you doing?" He's got that raspy voice. I mean, I'd imagine being on the drill field as long as he was didn't help. And he said, um, we're doing all right. We're hanging in there first arm. He said, good to go, good to go. Hey, you want to have a minute with my brother? And my dad was like, sure. You know, go ahead, first order.

• 2:53:47Speaker 01

  Like, he was gonna turn around, come talk to me there by in the room. And he looks right at my father and says, yeah, I'm gonna need y'all get the hell out.

• 2:53:56Speaker 01

  And I was just thinking, he's about to kill me right now. So.

• 2:54:01Speaker 01

  And he comes up to the side of my bed and remember, the only thing that works, my right arm. First arm leans down. He puts his right arm out as if to like pick me up. And so I grab like I. I claps. Hands with him as if he's gonna pick me up, right?

• 2:54:20Speaker 01

  And he puts the back of his hand on my heart and the back. Of my hand on his. And he leans down further and puts his forehead on my forehead. And he sits there for about three minutes.

• 2:54:35Speaker 01

  He stands up. He pats me on my face and he walks out.

• 2:54:41Speaker 01

  To this day. It is one of the most powerful conversations I've ever had in my life and not one word was spoken.

• 2:54:49Speaker 01

  That's being tribal. That's tribal. That goes much deeper than team. You can't train that.

• 2:54:58Speaker 01

  And he walks out of the room and. Obviously gets emotional. He walks out because my dad walks in and I get emotional as soon as he walks out because God forbid we crying for one another. Can't do that. And my dad walks in and sees me emotional and he went, hey, first order. And he looks at me and. Like with a puzzled look on his face and he just goes.

• 2:55:18Speaker 01

  You Marines are fricking weird. And I was like. Get out banker. You're a banker. And it was one of those moments, man, that.

• 2:55:33Speaker 01

  Only people who have bear the burden of a purpose much greater than themselves willingly and openly knowing what the odds could be, what the odds are, what the outcomes could be. Only the people that are willing to love all the way regardless of the amount of pain could understand and appreciate that moment. I mean, and I'm proud to say that that man's now the Sergeant Major of the United States Marine Corps. There's not a more deserving individual I can think of.

• 2:56:14Speaker 01

  Cause that guy, that guy's one of the guys I found following the blood trail. That taught me, if you're gonna love, do it all the way. Don't waste anyone's time doing the halfway thing. That was an amazing moment that I will take to my grave cherishing, knowing that that guy just told me without telling me, it's okay to not be okay. It's okay.

• 2:56:48Jocko Willink?

  At what point did you realize that the drugs were a legit problem?

• 2:57:03Speaker 01

  The day I was leaving San Antonio, the um, the commanding general of the hospital who's, I ended up getting pretty close to at my time, during my time there said, came out and uh, he's, we're walking out, or well, he's walking, I'm rolling, I'm still not walking well at this point, and he says, uh, I'm going to check out over at 4th Recon and he says, you know, you know Jake, I feel like we should name a hall or something after you, after all the shit you put us through. I was like, hey sir, let me do the infamy thing, all I can, just let me handle, I got it, all my lonesome, I don't need your help, you know? And uh...

• 2:57:49Speaker 01

  He was like, you know, you're it's

• 2:57:52Speaker 01

  sad to see you go. Um, it's. And I said, well, I'm I'm scared to death to leave.

• 2:58:02Speaker 01

  And I remember I I basically got a giant bag of drugs. Before I went over to fourth recon, the last thing I did with them was sign a page 11 and um.

• 2:58:15Speaker 01

  Because I the the higher up that told me, you know, I'm gonna be here every day. I told him when I thought about that, when what I thought about him and so. And he showed me by making me sign a page 11 and I was like, put it on my tab, bro.

• 2:58:28Speaker 02

  What's a page 11?

• 2:58:30Speaker 01

  Slap on the wrist, pretty much, but you can't be promoted for, I think it's 12 months with page 11.

• 2:58:37Speaker 01

  And so I was just like, he was in DC at the time when I checked out. And the gunny there was like, you know, hey, he said he wanted to talk to you. I was like, get him on speakerphone, let's talk. And I said, I told him what I thought about him. It was inappropriate and I'm not sorry. Um. But he's like, give him a page 11 and gunny was like, you know, do you want to contest this? It's like, hell, no, put it on my tab, bro. On my way out.

• 2:59:05Speaker 01

  And um. Man, I had this bag of drugs and my brother met up there with me. My brother was gonna drive me to Florida where I was going to uh, check in with Masick 21. And I knew right then. Because I was like, okay, at this point, I'd already started, like if I was eating one, if I had a family member or friend give me a fentanyl pop out of my bag of goodies, like I would chew it, I'd bite it off the stick, chew it up and swallow it and just lay on the stick and I'd be like, hey. So who's gonna grab me a fentanyl pop? Like, Jake, we just gave you. No, you didn't. You thought you did, but you didn't.

• 2:59:44Speaker 01

  I knew like, because I was like, hey, listen, if I just can't fill. Nothing matters.

• 2:59:52Speaker 01

  If I'm completely numb, nothing matters.

• 2:59:56Speaker 01

  And then when they gave me that giant bag, I was like, oh shit. I knew how it was gonna end. I was like, yeah, well.

• 3:00:05Speaker 01

  This should like, this is a, I don't remember what they told me, like a three month supply. And I was like, no, this is like a three week supply.

• 3:00:12Speaker 01

  And um. Man, I started. That's how I integrated. Back into civilian society. Was high as a kite, knowing that if I don't have to fill. And I can do, go through this thing numb, nothing matters. Because if you can't fill it, who cares? You know, I mean, who cares? And it was something that really was um.

• 3:00:40Speaker 01

  It just got worse and worse. I mean, essentially what I did for a year and a half was chase my first high.

• 3:00:47Speaker 01

  So I did. And I was finally.

• 3:00:52Speaker 01

  For about a year there.

• 3:00:55Speaker 01

  I slept with a, an over and under twelve gauge shotgun, it was condition one, next to my bed every night. And every day, I talked myself. Out of. Utilizing it. To end my own life. To. To where I.

• 3:01:15Speaker 01

  I was almost to the point where I had decided. Why it was okay.

• 3:01:22Speaker 01

  To do it, and I had justified it in my head. And why it would be better.

• 3:01:29Speaker 01

  For everyone in my life.

• 3:01:34Speaker 01

  And around my circle if I was gone.

• 3:01:38Speaker 01

  And so I, but then I was told. By family that.

• 3:01:45Speaker 01

  You know Jake, the difference between, at this point, I'm taking about fifty-five pills three times a day and I was eating between eight and twelve, four hundred milligram fentanyl pops a day. I was on enough medication to kill a village in Africa. It was gnarly. And the fact that I never OD'd, I mean, there's no medical explanation for that. And so I-

• 3:02:05Jocko Willink?

  Where were all the drugs coming from?

• 3:02:07Speaker 01

  It's easy, you get them. Make a phone call and get them.

• 3:02:10Jocko Willink?

  Boom.

• 3:02:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. And so it was, that was the least of my worries on how to get the drugs. I mean, cause, but, and to be fair, cause I was on so much as I came out of the hospital, it took a lot to keep me where I was. I mean, if I, if I'm even ten minutes late, was, ten minutes late on one dose, I'm starting to withdraw. I mean, it was bad. And so finally, I pretty, I get told, you know, the difference between you living the way you're living and eating a bullet is, is time, but the outcome's the same. You're just slowly killing yourself.

• 3:02:51Speaker 01

  You owe it to your brothers that didn't come home and those that did and still love and respect you to not only live, but live well. Cause that's the only way you can truly honor them, is by living well. I mean, that hit me hard and I realized I'm being a selfish bastard. So what I'm, what I'm doing. I'm, I'm carrying out every day like a victim. And I'm not a victim, I'm a victor. I need to start acting like it. And so I called my lead physician the next morning. I said, "Hey, good news, doc. I'm getting off all the drugs." She said, "How you gonna do that? So I'm just not taking the first dose. I'm just stopping." She said,

• 3:03:32Speaker 01

  "I'd highly advise against that." So, "Why's that?" I said, "'Cause you'll probably have a massive heart attack and die." I said, "Roger that. Plan A's a no-go. What's Plan B look like?" And she was like, "Well, you're gonna have to come back to MFC and we're gonna have to wean you off the drugs." Which is not what I wanted to hear. Cause it was like when I left MCRD San Diego. I was like, "No need to ever come back here. I'm done. D-U-N, done." And I was like, "Ah shit, alright." And I went back there and started that process, man. And let me tell you something. I can sit here and tell you with conviction, I know why addicts stay addicts.

• 3:04:12Speaker 01

  Because that slow withdrawal process of getting clean,

• 3:04:19Speaker 01

  I mean this wholeheartedly. I don't know what was harder, being blown up or getting clean.

• 3:04:30Speaker 01

  I honestly don't know what was harder.

• 3:04:34Speaker 01

  Because I mean, hell, coming off the drugs, they gave you drugs to help you come off the drugs. And it's like, well, I just, you know, what the frick? Isn't there a shot or something you can give me and I can get the hell out of here? And, but there's not.

• 3:04:49Jocko Willink?

  How long was the process?

• 3:04:50Speaker 01

  Supposed to be six months.

• 3:04:54Speaker 01

  So I did two and a half hours clean.

• 3:04:58Speaker 01

  Because I was like, I'm not, I can't continue to be this sick.

• 3:05:01Jocko Willink?

  You had that hardcore about face, though. I mean, that, that comment about, look, which I've said on this podcast many times, like, look, we gotta live to honor our brothers that didn't come home. That's the way it is.

• 3:05:14Speaker 01

  Live well.

• 3:05:15Jocko Willink?

  And you, yeah, you gotta live the best possible life you can. They don't have that opportunity. That thought right there is what did it?

• 3:05:30Speaker 01

  No, because again, it was a myriad of things, man. Because again, you, that was the, the tipping point. But again, it's like the people that come over, they say, hey, you know what the problem is?

• 3:05:41Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 3:05:42Speaker 01

  It's like, hey, I bet you there's more than one.

• 3:05:44Jocko Willink?

  So that tipping point, what are some other contributing factors? And the reason I'm asking you this, because people are listening to this right now.

• 3:05:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:05:51Jocko Willink?

  And they're feeling the way you were feeling.

• 3:05:53Speaker 01

  Yep. I got a phone call about the, our, our first loss from our unit. By his own hand.

• 3:06:02Speaker 01

  And I was like,

• 3:06:06Speaker 01

  that stung more than I thought that would sting.

• 3:06:10Speaker 01

  And I can't do that to the tribe. On top of that, there's, I can't.

• 3:06:17Speaker 01

  I need to get my shit together. And it's gonna be ugly and it's gonna be sloppy. And it's not gonna be,

• 3:06:26Speaker 01

  it's gonna be the antithesis of what it should look like. But I owe that to them.

• 3:06:35Speaker 01

  I owe that to him.

• 3:06:40Speaker 01

  That is when I decided that you know what I'm gonna I'm going to to try really hard to do this life thing

• 3:06:55Speaker 01

  the way that it I'm supposed to do it.

• 3:06:59Speaker 01

  I mean, I'm gonna go out of my way

• 3:07:04Speaker 01

  to be to where when my brothers hear my name

• 3:07:10Speaker 01

  they can smile and their chest can swell with pride and they can say, yeah, that's my brother.

• 3:07:19Jocko Willink?

  That right there is that thing that I was talking about earlier. Like, I don't care what anybody thinks when it comes to my brothers and what they think. Yeah, that means a lot, man.

• 3:07:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, that carries a shit ton of weight. Yeah, that's, that's the stuff. It's the stuff that'll change the world.

• 3:07:38Jocko Willink?

  So you so you go through the two and a half months and you get clean. What's the temptation like once you're clean? Are you, are you feeling like, I mean, is it always there? What is it?

• 3:07:53Speaker 01

  For a while, bro. For a while, it's all day, every day. Every time I leave my room or I have to talk to someone or whether I'm related to them or not, or God forbid, I have to go to like the mall or some shit. All I thought about for a while was, man, this would be so much easier if I was I right now.

• 3:08:16Speaker 01

  All the time. That's all I thought about for a while.

• 3:08:19Jocko Willink?

  What about booze?

• 3:08:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, right. So that's the easy, that's a

• 3:08:25Speaker 01

  that's a pretty, that's a pretty

• 3:08:30Speaker 01

  pretty good safety net, isn't it? Go from one bad habit to another and you know, my family doesn't need help in that arena either. And so, yeah, I was like, hey, listen, you know, I mean, I'm not on enough drugs to kill or hurt elephants anymore. So I can, I could probably just start drinking now.

• 3:08:53Speaker 01

  Yeah. So little did I realize how awesome food was when I got off all the drugs and I was like, oh my god, food is amazing. And I love it, cuz I was emaciated. And but when I went to Iraq, I easily weighed, I was probably like two hundred and twenty pounds solid, I was in some of the best shape I was ever in in my life.

• 3:09:13Speaker 01

  When I left Bamsi, I think I weighed a hundred and sixty-two.

• 3:09:18Speaker 01

  And then, cuz all I did was no shit, was drink Gatorade and cappuccinos, I didn't eat ever. Because you would feel like you're starving, like you're really hungry. That's why you, the saying goes, you'll never meet a fat drug addict. It's true. Because you, your mind's gonna tell you like, oh my god, I'm starving. Then you eat one bite of something and it's like you ate an entire cow by yourself. And it's just full, and then so I, I immediately, cuz we need to remember too, there are a myriad of forms of self-medicating. Not just drugs and alcohol. I mean, it can go on and on and on.

• 3:10:03Speaker 01

  Well, that's something we need to remember. Because you, there's gonna be some people out there that hear this and they're like, oh, well, you know, I don't drink excessively or I'm not on drugs.

• 3:10:15Speaker 01

  Well, there's a lot of other avenues. What else?

• 3:10:20Speaker 01

  Food? Oh, god.

• 3:10:25Speaker 01

  I mean, porn.

• 3:10:29Speaker 01

  I mean, exercise, I mean, there's a million things that you could do in excess

• 3:10:36Speaker 01

  that you think is gonna save you from your own head.

• 3:10:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, like an escape, right, like an escape and it brings like that pleasure.

• 3:10:46Speaker 01

  Exactly, yeah, you get the same, you get the same endorphins release, the same, that same dopamine and get that same feeling of, oh, this, okay, this, right, so because, and all it is, all it is is a protection mechanism to keep you from having

• 3:11:09Speaker 01

  to look inward and go deep into the thing underneath the thing underneath the thing. It's all it is. It's all it is. And it's it's very, very easy to do. I mean, because just being humans alone, we're all addictive by nature. I mean, we're all to whatever it could be. And so we have to be cognizant of the fact that.

• 3:11:35Speaker 01

  You know, there's. We have to consistently remember that.

• 3:11:44Speaker 01

  We are all.

• 3:11:47Speaker 01

  Always gonna be human, always gonna be uncomfortable with change. Most, most people like regimented schedules. They like to get up a certain time, like to drink certain thing, eat a certain thing, work out a certain time, go to lunch a certain time. By nature, all of us hate change.

• 3:12:06Speaker 01

  Anyone who's in a, in a company that goes through a big transition or a big change, you know what I'm talking about.

• 3:12:14Speaker 01

  But we always have to remember that.

• 3:12:17Speaker 01

  Just like in the Marines, we always say Semper Gummie.

• 3:12:23Speaker 01

  The more comfortable you get being uncomfortable. The happier you're gonna be.

• 3:12:31Jocko Willink?

  So at what point in this, uh. You get clean, what point do you decide?

• 3:12:40Jocko Willink?

  You're gonna do something significant to try and help other people and you start.

• 3:12:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:12:45Jocko Willink?

  Twenty two kill.

• 3:12:46Speaker 01

  Great question. Well, I didn't decide it. It was my grandmother told me, hey, I want you to come speak to my Rotary Club.

• 3:12:54Speaker 01

  And. You know. Being a man. From the south, you don't tell your grandmother no. So I was like, okay, I'm gonna reluctantly do this and hate it the entire time. And I did. And I showed up and I was easily forty years by at least forty years of junior in the room.

• 3:13:15Speaker 01

  So I start telling my story and I'm sweating grenades. So uncomfortable. All I could think about was like, I would love to just crush like ten fentanyl pops right now.

• 3:13:27Speaker 01

  And uh, it was, it was horrific. I mean, it was a freight train screwing an abortion. It was bad. But so it was one of those things like, but you can't look away type thing. It was one of those. But I remember walking out of there and I walked out of the building. I'll never forget the side of the building and I took a deep breath like, okay, you know, I mean, you made it.

• 3:13:54Speaker 01

  And then when I took that deep breath, I was like, huh. I feel lighter. Not physically. Like my soul felt lighter. And I was like, oh, then it clicked. That's what she was doing.

• 3:14:12Speaker 01

  It's tactical therapy. I get it. That fricking broad, she got me. Cause I was, I was, I refused to talk to, I talked to psychiatrists once when I got to the hospital and then when I left. And then when I was getting out of the Marine Corps for the VA process and that was it. So two or three times. Because I had nothing to say to them. Cause that PTS and TBI thing. It's not whatever. It's not a real thing. When I got clean.

• 3:14:47Speaker 01

  And started to drink and.

• 3:14:50Speaker 01

  I was like, oh shit. This PTS and TBI thing are very, very real. Like very real.

• 3:14:58Speaker 01

  And um.

• 3:15:01Speaker 01

  I moved, came back, went back to Texas and I was introduced to um.

• 3:15:07Speaker 01

  A couple of guys who started a foundation down there.

• 3:15:12Speaker 01

  And they're a couple of Sills. They're to this day, great friends of mine, mentors of mine. They're brothers for sure. And I call them Flipper one and Flipper two. And

• 3:15:26Speaker 01

  that's when I was kind of introduced to the nonprofit world and working with warriors and their families and first responders and law enforcement officers and their families.

• 3:15:40Speaker 01

  You know, it was like, it clicked with me like, oh, like I, I like this. I'm never gonna get rich or wealthy doing this. That's not the point. It was, that gave me more,

• 3:15:56Speaker 01

  that put more in my soul tank than any pill or any bottle ever did. And it made me realize like, oh, alright. This is the same reason I went and visited all the wounded. Every time I could, even when we lost guys. In the hospital, like this is why I'm doing this. This, it's greater than me. It reminds me daily how insignificant I am. That I'm ju- I'm just another guy.

• 3:16:29Speaker 01

  That's just choosing to do stuff that's out of, out of the norm.

• 3:16:35Speaker 01

  It's hard stuff. If anything worth doing should be, should be hard. It's not worth doing alone. And when I was working with this organization, I was surrounded by people better than me.

• 3:16:48Speaker 01

  By default, I was better.

• 3:16:51Speaker 01

  And consistently pushed harder and harder because

• 3:16:56Speaker 01

  I wanted to be held to a different standard.

• 3:17:00Speaker 01

  Again, because even then I wasn't waking up like I'm gonna go out of my way to be average today. No, because I had two frickin Navy Sills that, you know, were worried, they had to have really good tans and their hair had to be great. And they had to have this one type of really cool sunglasses. And I was like, hey, what I'm gonna do is just, I'm just gonna outwork these dudes.

• 3:17:27Speaker 01

  You know, I can't use a weapon anymore. I'm not gonna outrun them. God knows I'm not gonna outswim them.

• 3:17:34Speaker 01

  I probably can't outshoot them. My body's completely dicked up, but I could probably, um, I could probably work with the most important tool we all have. Most important weapon we all have. I could probably get to where I could outthink them.

• 3:17:56Speaker 01

  And so I started to, to this day, it's, it's a toss up, but, well, with one of them. One of them, I passed them a long time ago, but, uh, they know who they are too. That's what makes it even, even more beautiful. But that's when I realized like, all right, I need to be, this is what I gotta do. This is, this is what I'm gonna be called to do. Is to talk to other members of society who've been dealt whatever hand or been dealt a blow. To let them know like, hey, yeah, right now it sucks, but you can come out the other side.

• 3:18:39Speaker 01

  Cause don't get in that deep, dark rabbit hole. Don't do that. Cause very few people come out of that. I know because I tried it over and over again and I never got out of it on my own. Always took help. And so at the time, in 2012, that's when the, the study came out from the VA.

• 3:19:02Speaker 01

  On average, 22 veterans a day die by suicide. And so another Marine and, um, couple Marines, a business guy, got together in Dallas and they're like, hey, man, we, we gotta do something. This is, you know, this is, this is our family. No one even knows this is a thing. What the hell are we doing? And, um, at the time I'm, I'm working at a, at a place that focuses completely on the brain. I mean, I'm surrounded by.

• 3:19:40Speaker 01

  Neuroscientists, PhDs, MDs, and I'm learning a lot of things that just reiterated the fact that post-traumatic stress, traumatic brain injury, these are very, very rural things. And I worked there for three years while 22KILL started, and it basically started as an awareness movement. And that's where the Push Up Challenge was born, the 22 Push Up Challenge. That was started by 22KILL in 2012. Just for those listening, that went viral in 2016. So, you know, overnight success is not a real thing.

• 3:20:20Speaker 01

  And so I'm working at this center the whole time, and then there's some change up in leadership at 22KILL, and I kind of found myself drifting away from the work I was doing at the center. Because it just wasn't...

• 3:20:37Speaker 01

  It wasn't getting to the part of the soul that I wanted to be in, and it wasn't getting to that. Like, people have been asking, "How long are you gonna speak? Because the travel schedule, you know, is brutal, right?" And I thought about it for an nanosecond, and I thought, "Okay, well..." When I walk off a stage, the first time I walk off a stage and I feel like I didn't leave a piece of my soul there, that's the last time I'll do it.

• 3:21:06Speaker 01

  Because, again, it's mutually beneficial. And if it's not, then, and you're a presenter, you're only gonna fake it for so long. People don't... I feel like I ran a marathon when I'm done presenting for an hour. I'm mentally, physically, and emotionally exhausted.

• 3:21:28Speaker 01

  And if you're not, you're faking it. And so that's when I... I left there, and you know what I learned after three years of working at that place? It's completely centered around the brain and the mind. And it's unfortunate, but essentially, I learned after three years at that place that we don't know shit about the brain.

• 3:21:50Speaker 01

  I mean, again, I mean, I'm not gonna candy coat it. It just is what it is. Why do you think we're still spending billions and billions of dollars on all this research and all these studies and trying to figure it out? Because we just don't understand it. That's why we, you know, we talk about Alzheimer's and CTE. We don't even have the technology and the imaging to recognize these things in a living human. We put a man on the moon in 1969. Can't tell you if you have CTE while you're alive. For me, it's like, hey, let's step back and look at our priorities.

• 3:22:35Speaker 01

  Because one thing everyone's got is a brain. Everyone. And the problem with the brain is there's no prosthetic for that. You get the one you got and that's it. Why are we not hyper focused on honing this weapon? That makes us who we are. And so the 22 kill approached me and said, hey, we would love for you to come run 22 kill. We can keep the lights on for about another month and a half. And you don't get health insurance. And you're gonna have to take pay cut. And I was like, let me think about it. Absa frickin' lootly, yes.

• 3:23:20Speaker 01

  Because I want to be able to talk. And share what I've been through. With warriors and first responders and law enforcement officers and their families and say, hey, listen. You see that scar? Like that one's worth it. This one over here? Don't do that. That one's not worth it. You're gonna have to fight these demons. There's no way around it. But you can win. You just have to keep fighting. Because no matter what, no matter where you find yourself in life, you're gonna have to fight. Because none of us are getting up and picking out our unicorn. We're just not.

• 3:24:05Speaker 01

  You wake up every day and it's you versus you.

• 3:24:09Speaker 01

  And so that's why I was drawn to that and we had a really big first couple of years I was there.

• 3:24:21Speaker 01

  And not all cuz of me, it had to do with a myriad of people, the people that support us, the people that say, "One of my biggest regrets was never serving." And I'm like, "Hey, who told you? Who lied to you and said that you have to wear a uniform to be of service to your nation?

• 3:24:38Speaker 01

  Because you don't.

• 3:24:41Speaker 01

  You don't. That's a, that's a misnomer. I don't wear a uniform anymore. Neither do you, neither do you. Doesn't mean we're not serving. I don't do what I do because it's easy.

• 3:24:58Speaker 01

  I do it because it's hard.

• 3:25:01Speaker 01

  And the employees that work for 22 Guild do it because it's hard.

• 3:25:07Speaker 01

  And in the face of tremendous loss, they fight on.

• 3:25:13Speaker 01

  That's character.

• 3:25:16Speaker 01

  They're doing their dash justice.

• 3:25:20Speaker 01

  Because they're moving a mountain that our own government looks at and says, "Hey, pick up the corner of that rug and start sweeping and look the other way, and maybe it'll go away."

• 3:25:31Speaker 01

  It's not going away.

• 3:25:36Jocko Willink?

  What can people that are listening do to help the cause?

• 3:25:44Speaker 01

  You know, I got this from a buddy of mine who was actually an officer in the Army,

• 3:25:52Speaker 01

  who was severely wounded, um, years ago and, and he's, he...

• 3:26:01Speaker 01

  I'm gonna echo it just because he's right. It's...

• 3:26:05Speaker 01

  You hear all the time, like, "I wanna help. I wanna help." Right? I mean, you hear it a lot. From whether it's, "Yo, I wanna, I wanna help save the puppies that don't have a home." I tell people all the time, "If we were trying to raise money for dogs that died by suicide, we'd be sitting on a billion dollars." It's true. I mean, it's just true. I mean, how many dogs have screwed over a person?

• 3:26:34Speaker 01

  Very few, right? But it is what it is.

• 3:26:39Speaker 01

  But if you want to wake up and you want to serve, or you want to help, we all have three things of value. Every human on this entire spinning ball of shit has three things of value. Time, talent, and treasure. And if you're not willing to sacrifice some of one of those three things, you're just talking.

• 3:27:07Speaker 01

  That's it, you're talking. If you want to help, start sacrificing one of those three things.

• 3:27:14Speaker 01

  I don't care if it's a 22 kill, I don't care if it's to the humane society, I don't care. Sacrifice.

• 3:27:24Speaker 01

  Because every time we put on that uniform, and our firefighters, and our paramedics, and our EMTs, and our law enforcement officers, I mean, tell me if you would feel as confident as you did going to a foreign country, going to hook and jab, find the bad guys and kill them? Tell me if you would have felt as confident doing that, knowing

• 3:27:50Speaker 01

  that there are people back here whom you've never met, willing to kick in the door to your house while it is ablaze and save your family.

• 3:28:03Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I mean, I thank all those people every single time I do this podcast, and that's exactly what I say, for taking care of our home while we were gone.

• 3:28:12Speaker 01

  That's it.

• 3:28:12Jocko Willink?

  That's, that's absolutely.

• 3:28:15Speaker 01

  And so, for, that's, that's why it's, for me, if you're not willing to sacrifice, just like these men and women do on a daily basis, you're talking. You're talking. If there's people out there that can write a check and that's enough, and that's okay. That's okay. You're doing your part. You're doing your part. That's alright. There are people that want to share talents. There are people that say, "Hey, I want to volunteer, I'm a body, use me, I'm here."

• 3:28:48Speaker 01

  That's service, that's sacrificing. And we have a myriad of ways to do it. And it's a beautiful thing because we're getting better and better at what we're doing. Because we're not doing research and studies. We're implementing the things that work. And we're able to tell these men and women. Because it's notorious in, in the warrior community. And you're gonna know right when I say it. When you see a brother, you know, "Hey, bro, you good?

• 3:29:20Speaker 01

  How are you? I'm good."

• 3:29:24Speaker 01

  "Okay. How do we get you great?

• 3:29:29Speaker 01

  Because I want you great."

• 3:29:34Speaker 01

  Because greatness begets greatness.

• 3:29:38Speaker 01

  That's, that's the living well piece.

• 3:29:42Speaker 01

  And we have to do it as a tribe, together. I don't give a shit if you ever put a uniform on a day in your life. If you're willing to stand shoulder to shoulder with people that experienced trauma before the trauma. And they know they've got a thing underneath a thing underneath a thing. And you're willing to say, "Hey, let's go start picking up pebbles and moving them. Because we'll move this mountain and it's gonna be long and arduous and a painstaking process. But look to your left and right."

• 3:30:14Speaker 01

  That's what makes it worth it.

• 3:30:17Speaker 01

  And we're doing that. And we're just getting better at it. And yeah, it's stressful. And yeah, I hate fundraising. And yeah, I hate it. But it all comes with it. It comes with the territory.

• 3:30:31Jocko Willink?

  So some people are gonna want to, so what, 22kill.com? Is that the best place to go look?

• 3:30:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, go to 22kill.com, read about, learn about what we're doing. Learn about the things that we've decided to really engage our focus on and why we're...

• 3:30:50Speaker 01

  And we're not just helping and treating the warrior, the first responder, the law enforcement officer. It's the, we want the entire family. Cause when you have, when you pull up to the tire shop and you have four bad tires, you can't, you're not gonna change just one tire. Right? You gotta change all four. We gotta treat the family as a unit.

• 3:31:19Speaker 01

  Because I'm speaking from experience when I say we leave a big wake in our path.

• 3:31:25Speaker 01

  And I would not be surprised if my family has post traumatic stress just from dealing with me.

• 3:31:36Speaker 01

  And the sad thing is, is I'm not joking.

• 3:31:39Speaker 01

  You know?

• 3:31:39Jocko Willink?

  I was thinking about the nurses and doctors you left in the hospital as well, as you mentioned earlier.

• 3:31:44Speaker 01

  They are better people because of dealing with me. So it's, but I mean, listen, man, we're, and just so people know, 22kill.com, they're like, whoa, don't you have to be dot org to, no, no. That's you listening to the media. God forbid, do your own homework, figure it out. It's, you can have dot org, dot com, dot net, doesn't matter. That does not denote if you're a 501(c)(3) or not, just for the record. And we have our saying at 22kill, when I came on, I changed it to one tribe, one fight. Because you hear all the time, in the military especially, one team, one fight, one team, one fight.

• 3:32:29Speaker 01

  And I was around some guys who use the word tribe and I thought about it and the more and more I thought about it. I was speaking one time, I don't remember where I was, but I went to say one team, one fight. But I said, one tribe, one fight. And I said, because it's too easy to be a team. And if you, if you have the same letterhead on your business cards, or you have the same insignia on your shirt, that makes you a team.

• 3:33:04Speaker 01

  A tribe goes way deeper than that. A tribe is when my first sergeant's putting his forehead against mine and doesn't say a word. Yet, I learn a life lesson. And I get the acceptance that I was longing for. Without even speaking, that's a tribe. A tribe is driven by the same ideals, the same conviction, the same passion. I get asked all the time, like, "Why are we still at war in Iraq and Afghanistan and Syria?" Because you can't kill your way out of an idea. That's why. That's what it is.

• 3:33:49Speaker 01

  God forbid we call it that. But just with us, we... So we have programs like Camp Valhalla, which is a program where we can, we take up warriors, first responders, law enforcement officers. The most gnarly side of it is to take them up in a helicopter and take them to go kill hogs out of a helicopter. Because if you don't like that, then you don't like freedom. But we, you know, we also, you, we can take them fishing, we can take them to the range, we can... But it's always followed up by fireside chat. That's where the money's made. That's where you gotta be vulnerable.

• 3:34:31Speaker 01

  You'll get your adrenaline kick, and then be willing to lower your wall and talk about the real shit. You know? Then we have Stay the Course, which is, that's a traditional therapy. That's the, this is the, you know, Camp Valhalla would be non-traditional. Stay the Course is very traditional. It's the one-on-one therapy with the warrior, first responder, his or her family.

• 3:34:55Speaker 01

  And listen, the reason that that was an attractive approach was because if you look back on what is the most successful outcome measures as far as therapy goes and as far as treating matters of the mind, that has the best track record. The one on one. I think everyone on the spinning ball of chaos should talk to a professional at least once a month. Every single person. And I'm saying that as the guy that I would launch my piss bottle in the hospital at one if they came in my room. I'm telling you right now, I wish I'd have started that a long time ago because it would have saved me from a lot of shit I've had to deal with.

• 3:35:38Speaker 01

  Because I let my pride win.

• 3:35:41Speaker 01

  That's it. I mean, don't be afraid to say what it is. We started a thing called the brave program, which is women's specific. Because believe it or not, neither sex knows everything.

• 3:35:57Speaker 01

  They just don't. There's power in numbers, but women, when you break it down, you break the numbers down to the bare bones, they're leading the charge in everything. In a negative light and that's, I think has a lot to do with they're a much smaller population when it comes to the service community. So they're more apt to be ice to do in self-medication, isolation. You know, and that and they don't have nearly as big as of an immediate tribe to depend on as we do. Because there's just way less of them. And so that's, that's our brave program and they can go do all the things that all the guys do. But it's women's specific. Because they need to be empowered too.

• 3:36:41Speaker 01

  And it's our job to help them do that without judgment. We also have the white star families program that we're building out, which is basically you have the gold star families which started by the DOD. Well, unfortunately, the white star families don't have a seat at that table. White star families. They are family, family members who fall and victim to suicide.

• 3:37:02Speaker 01

  And we want to give them a table. They deserve a damn table. As you talk to those kids, they don't give a crap how their mom or dad died. They just know they don't have a mom or dad. That's enough for me.

• 3:37:16Speaker 01

  Far be it from us to not honor someone like Louis Puller.

• 3:37:21Speaker 01

  Who the hell are we? I don't give a crap what society says, the, the, how I should feel about that.

• 3:37:30Speaker 01

  Because let me tell you something. This is something everyone needs to know. Unfortunately, I bet a lot of your listeners do know already. Suicide is just a word until it affects you personally.

• 3:37:41Speaker 01

  It's just a word.

• 3:37:44Speaker 01

  And I hear a lot where there's some corporations or owners of a mom and pop shop, well Jake, you know, we would love to support you, but 22 kills is a pretty strong name.

• 3:37:55Speaker 01

  So is cancer and AIDS. Supposed to get your attention. That's the point. Start the conversation.

• 3:38:03Speaker 01

  Because you, you, we hear all the time, knowledge is power. No, it's not. Knowledge is power when it's shared. Then it becomes powerful. And I tell people, just like, I'll tell you, if you can't support us because of a name, if you can't look past, past a name to get to the root cause of an issue, consider yourself part of the problem.

• 3:38:27Speaker 01

  Said, all you're doing is feeding a stigma that's killing the best men and women this nation's got to offer.

• 3:38:37Jocko Willink?

  Well, I'll tell you what, I think that's probably a pretty good place to wrap. We've been going for a while and, and especially

• 3:38:46Jocko Willink?

  because you just

• 3:38:49Jocko Willink?

  made very clear the reason why I wanted to have you come on this podcast now because, you know, again, this ties everything together that I've been talking about for the past three podcasts.

• 3:39:04Jocko Willink?

  You know, you got a guy like Louis Puller Jr.

• 3:39:10Jocko Willink?

  And.

• 3:39:17Jocko Willink?

  We gotta do something.

• 3:39:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:39:20Jocko Willink?

  Cause it's still going on. And you're out there and your, your people are on the front lines fighting it and you know, I was watching a video that you had on your YouTube channel.

• 3:39:32Jocko Willink?

  And it's just pictures. Pictures of soldiers, pictures of Marines, pictures of servicemen and women. And they're just coming up on the screen. And it's all them, you know, in their uniforms and overseas and back home and.

• 3:39:49Jocko Willink?

  And I know what each one of those pictures is.

• 3:39:57Jocko Willink?

  And so I thank you for coming on. Obviously, um.

• 3:40:03Jocko Willink?

  Thanks for your service and thanks for everything you've done and.

• 3:40:07Jocko Willink?

  Thanks for your sacrifice and thanks for what you're doing right now.

• 3:40:13Speaker 01

  Well, let me tell you. I learned a long time ago, um.

• 3:40:20Speaker 01

  You hear guys like us.

• 3:40:24Speaker 01

  The, you know, the meatheads and the knuckle draggers that, oh, I'm, I'm sick of hearing, thank you for your service. You know, it was impossible for me for a long time to go in a public place. Cause if I'm wearing shorts and a T-shirt, it's abundantly apparent. I had a shitty day at the office somewhere along the line. It was impossible for me to get anything done, go buy bread and go home without someone stopping me. I hate, did that happen over there? Yeah. Thank you for your service. I was like, man. Oh, it's so annoying. I don't know. I just want to get bread and go home.

• 3:41:00Speaker 01

  It never dawned on me until a few years ago, maybe they're doing that for them.

• 3:41:07Speaker 01

  Maybe that's as much for them as it is for me.

• 3:41:11Speaker 01

  And then I thought about why I signed up. It's cause I, it's cause I thought they were worth it. Thought their families were worth it. So I was told one time, hey, thank you. And I said, you're worth it.

• 3:41:26Speaker 01

  Two things happened. The conversation ended there. And secondly.

• 3:41:33Speaker 01

  They probably walked out of there a little taller than they walked in.

• 3:41:38Speaker 01

  And I was like, oh, thanks God, I get it now. It's not about me. And I'll tell you, just like I tell all of them. You're worth it. Your family's worth it.

• 3:41:50Speaker 01

  All your listeners, I feel the same way. Even though I guarantee you, I'm gonna have a million differences with a million different of them.

• 3:41:58Speaker 01

  You're worth it. I'm gonna do it all again tomorrow. Just had a bad day at the office. And, you know, it's... I just wanna leave your listeners with this, is that there's power.

• 3:42:11Speaker 01

  Just trust me when I tell you, there's so much power.

• 3:42:15Speaker 01

  We're about to start this thing called the Tribal Council, which I think is gonna... It's a peer-to-peer support group, and I think...

• 3:42:25Speaker 01

  I'm praying to God that it has the power behind it, that I think it does.

• 3:42:31Speaker 01

  Where... And I'm gonna lead the charge. I'll be the first one to stand up on the soapbox. I'm just gonna open up my chest cavity, pour my soul out in front of a group of people I've never met, and say, "Here's the shit I dealt with. Here's what I've been through. This is what I'm doing to address it. And this is how you can hold me accountable."

• 3:42:53Speaker 01

  Who's next?

• 3:42:55Speaker 01

  There's a lot of power in that. Because we have to remember, in our community, you hear it all the time. Be accountable to yourself, be accountable to your brothers, be accountable to your sisters.

• 3:43:09Speaker 01

  Well, unless you have brutal honesty first,

• 3:43:13Speaker 01

  you have manufactured accountability.

• 3:43:17Speaker 01

  So when I ask you, "How you doing?",

• 3:43:22Speaker 01

  don't tell me good to appease me, because I'm gonna call you on your shit.

• 3:43:28Speaker 01

  Be great.

• 3:43:30Speaker 01

  You know, so thank you. I'm gonna turn it back on you. Thank you for doing what you're doing. Cause dude, you're, you're, you're tip of the spear just like anyone. Like you are leading the charge. This wasn't easy for you to do. Well, what you had me come here do and do, when you talked about Jesse, when you talked about Louis Jr., when you had me, this is not the popular thing to do.

• 3:43:58Speaker 01

  But you said, "I've never been okay with the status quo. Why start now?" So, thank you for everything you've done and continue to do.

• 3:44:06Jocko Willink?

  Well, I'll tell you, this is a, it, it's literally an honor to be able to do this. People throw that word around all the time. It is an honor for me to sit here. It's an honor for me to sit here with you, all the guests I've had on here, to be able to tell these stories that I, I'm sick sometimes that they're, they're not carried on. And it's an honor for me to be able to pass on these stories so that people know and people can learn. And it's, it's a humbling experience to do it as well because being in the shadow of people like these guys, people like yourself,

• 3:44:47Jocko Willink?

  it's, it's a humbling experience to be around warriors like that from all phases of history.

• 3:44:56Jocko Willink?

  And we're gonna keep doing it. And when you get that program rolling, get your ass back on here. We'll talk about it. We'll talk about how it's going and we'll get the word out on that thing too.

• 3:45:07Speaker 01

  Right on. Awesome. Don't threaten me with a good time.

• 3:45:12Jocko Willink?

  Echo Charles. Yes. You gotta quickly, quickly.

• 3:45:18Jocko Willink?

  If anybody wants to support themselves.

• 3:45:20Speaker 02

  I have a question first.

• 3:45:21Jocko Willink?

  Oh, man, I knew that was coming.

• 3:45:23Speaker 02

  Hey, is that, is that a common stereotype about Navy SEALs? They gotta go tanning, they need the cool sunglasses, they need, uh, nice hair. Not really Jocko, though. You don't go tan, you go tanning?

• 3:45:35Jocko Willink?

  No, no. The stereotypical SEAL thing was, uh, something that I didn't like. You know, I didn't like it. And the older I got, the more I disliked it. And it's, you know, but it's a reality of, you know, especially during the, during the eighties and nineties, bro. During the eighties and nineties, which is where that reputation, but, you know, the guys in Vietnam too, man. Those guys like, like in Vietnam, they wore blue jeans in the field. They, you know, because they kept off leeches and they were tougher. But then, you know, guess what? That turns into like something where guys, some guy in nineteen ninety-two is wearing blue jeans with his camis. And it's like, oh, no way, you have no reason to do that, bro.

• 3:46:17Jocko Willink?

  Now, when I showed up at the teams, it was like, hey, we, you know, I, I wanted to have long hair and be like a cool guy.

• 3:46:24Speaker 02

  Wait, you did?

• 3:46:24Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah, yeah, for sure. There's, somebody just put a picture out on the interwebs of me with long hair. Like circa nineteen ninety, whatever, long sideburns and everything, because I wanted to be Joe Cool. And, but what happened was, well, number one, the war started. Number two, I, I started working really closely with conventional forces on my first deployment. A little bit on my second deployment in Ton. Also, I did multiple shipboard deployments where I worked with Marines very closely, even when I was young. And, yeah, so I just, it was one of those things that, like, when I would hear it at first, I would be like, oh, that's no big deal. But then what I realized was it was a real thing.

• 3:47:06Speaker 02

  When you, like, when you heard the stereotype.

• 3:47:08Jocko Willink?

  As I moved into leadership positions and I would hear that stereotype, I realized it was a real thing. And that that real thing wasn't, it wasn't funny. It wasn't funny. Because when you, when you meet a, a Marine Corps battalion commander, and you have long hair, your uniform doesn't look right, or you meet an, uh, an army battalion commander, or an army brigade commander, or, or a senior, or a gunny sergeant, or a, a company first sergeant, when you meet one of them. Somebody that's been in the Marine Corps for 23 years and you can't put on and blouse your, your, your pants and your boots. It doesn't matter how good you are in the field. They're looking at you and thinking, oh, this guy can't even blouse the boots. I don't want him around me.

• 3:47:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, okay, I get it.

• 3:47:52Jocko Willink?

  That's, so that stereotype, even though it, it had definitely was rooted in truth. Like, hey, man, when we got to Ramadi, everyone had shaved heads, everyone had squared away uniforms, didn't allow patches. We've talked about that before. You know, we, we had guys, like, if we could, we'd put our whole element in army camouflage uniforms. So ACUs, they just look like army soldiers.

• 3:48:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, I remember you said that.

• 3:48:11Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, so I was against it, uh, but I, I get the humor of it and I, I, you know, I don't take anything that personally.

• 3:48:18Speaker 02

  Thanks. So, okay, so it's a stereotype, like, in, at work, kind. I thought he meant maybe like out at the club or whatever, like, you know, Navy SEALs tend to be more into it.

• 3:48:28Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you know what's funny is, you know who made a joke about this? Tim Kennedy, we were here, we were recording the podcast. Tim Kennedy was literally doing a photo shoot.

• 3:48:37Speaker 02

  Ah, yeah, yeah.

• 3:48:38Jocko Willink?

  And he was like, and he's got long hair and he was like, oh, you know, I'm not like a Hollywood SEAL. And I was like, dang dude, I don't even have hair.

• 3:48:47Speaker 01

  I'll, I'll tell you why. Let me give it, give you the, the Barney version of everything he just said. This is one of the things I dig about Jocko and it has nothing to do with his following or what he did. It's because,

• 3:49:02Speaker 01

  cause he, he's authentic and he's intentional in everything that he does. And we should long to be around that a lot more.

• 3:49:15Speaker 02

  Yep, I'm gonna have to go ahead and agree with you on that one. So that's when you sort of learned, hey, hair's just to look good. This is after you shaved your head, by the way.

• 3:49:26Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.

• 3:49:27Speaker 02

  Good.

• 3:49:28Jocko Willink?

  For sure.

• 3:49:28Speaker 02

  Doesn't mean anything else. I'm here to win.

• 3:49:30Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, but that, but that's, that was, that was me growing up in the teams.

• 3:49:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 3:49:35Jocko Willink?

  You know, that's why Tim, Tim Kennedy, he's gonna hear this.

• 3:49:38Speaker 02

  I was watching.

• 3:49:40Jocko Willink?

  Making fun of my, well, he was making fun of my, uh, People.

• 3:49:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, your people.

• 3:49:45Jocko Willink?

  About my people having long hair, but he had long hair.

• 3:49:48Speaker 01

  And doing a photo shoot. You know who said that? You know Matt Best, right? Matt Best?

• 3:49:53Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 3:49:53Speaker 01

  On one of his videos, he he eluded to that.

• 3:49:56Jocko Willink?

  Oh, it's no, it's real.

• 3:49:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's a thing.

• 3:49:58Jocko Willink?

  No, and it's a real thing, and Tim Kennedy's a hundred percent right, too. Because, because, yeah, there's there's some seals where you're like, oh, come on.

• 3:50:06Speaker 01

  I know.

• 3:50:07Jocko Willink?

  Bro.

• 3:50:07Speaker 01

  Hundred percent.

• 3:50:08Jocko Willink?

  Let me tell you, let me tell you one thing, I I I just object to. In in a in a real strong way.

• 3:50:18Jocko Willink?

  Somebody using some kind of hair product. Right? Like, that's no, that's a no.

• 3:50:22Speaker 01

  More than tanning?

• 3:50:23Jocko Willink?

  That's a no. Oh, no one actually tans. Oh, that's not a real thing. Oh, my God. Hey, I was on, oh, bro, I was on, I was on a arg in the nineties, and there was the, there was the Marine recon guys, and they straight up had the foil, like, reflectors.

• 3:50:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 3:50:41Jocko Willink?

  Under their chins out when they were sun tanning. I got a kick out of that. But it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if they, that there was a dozen recon Marines out in in speedos, straight up tanning with baby oil. It doesn't matter. The reality was, the SEALs were the Hollywood tanning guys. That's the way it is.

• 3:50:59Speaker 01

  Oh, okay.

• 3:51:00Jocko Willink?

  That's what you gotta do.

• 3:51:00Speaker 01

  At the same time, bro, too, though, let's be very clear that it's me saying it, or Tim Kennedy, or Matt, or, oh, that's one thing, okay? But if, like,

• 3:51:17Speaker 01

  i- if Joe Public civilian says something, it's like, hey, bro.

• 3:51:22Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know that, I don't know that Joe Public would actually know that.

• 3:51:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's, that's why. They watch movies.

• 3:51:28Jocko Willink?

  If we rolled out, oh, oh, if we rolled out all the stereotypes for the services, like Marines dumb, jarhead, uh, you know, crayon, oh, the crayon thing. That's the big Marine Corps one.

• 3:51:39Speaker 01

  What? Crayon? Crayon eater.

• 3:51:41Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, they eat crayons. That's like legit thing. The, the Army's got their, you know, who are things and, you know.

• 3:51:49Speaker 01

  We don't have that kind of time.

• 3:51:50Jocko Willink?

  All that kind of thing going on. Uh, green berets, you know, smoking cigarettes, you know, that's what the SEALs would say, like, oh, yeah, they're they're over there smoking cigarettes and eating donuts, you know, so it it it's just little stereotypes that have some some basis of reality, but, you know, you can't put a stereotype. That's why stereotypes are stereotypes. There's some level of reality to it, but they're. The realities that you can't blanket a whole organization with any of those.

• 3:52:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:52:18Jocko Willink?

  So, that's the way it goes.

• 3:52:20Speaker 02

  Alright, bro. Next time you go tanning, let me know.

• 3:52:23Jocko Willink?

  Come on, man.

• 3:52:24Speaker 01

  You're solid there.

• 3:52:28Speaker 02

  Alright, well, there it is. We cleared that up. Thank you for that, of course.

• 3:52:32Speaker 01

  Here to help.

• 3:52:33Speaker 02

  And, uh, you know, I, yeah, I can talk about some ways to support the, the podcast as well.

• 3:52:38Jocko Willink?

  Do you know, do you know what this is? I'm gonna teach you something right now.

• 3:52:41Speaker 02

  Uh, yeah, yeah, when the train.

• 3:52:43Jocko Willink?

  No.

• 3:52:43Speaker 02

  Right. No, no, the, the big, the big, great boom, boom, double time.

• 3:52:46Jocko Willink?

  In the field means hurry.

• 3:52:48Speaker 02

  Pick it up. Pick up the pace. Gotcha. Alright, let's do it. Alright, cool. Well, if you want to support this podcast and yourself, of course, we're doing a double thing. Go to originmaine.com, okay? Originmaine.com. This is where you can get Jocko supplements for your joints, first of all. That's, that's a big one.

• 3:53:06Jocko Willink?

  You know, you, you know what you're starting to sound like?

• 3:53:07Speaker 02

  What?

• 3:53:08Jocko Willink?

  Just so you know.

• 3:53:09Speaker 02

  What? Not the radio guy?

• 3:53:10Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 3:53:10Speaker 02

  No, not the radio guy.

• 3:53:11Jocko Willink?

  That was a hundred percent.

• 3:53:12Speaker 02

  Brad, do I sound like a radio guy?

• 3:53:13Jocko Willink?

  That was a hundred percent.

• 3:53:13Speaker 02

  No, no, thanks. Thanks, Jake.

• 3:53:15Jocko Willink?

  Redo it, dude. That, you were like, you were like, uh,

• 3:53:19Speaker 02

  No, no, no, no, I wasn't. Alright, alright, I, I believe you. Okay. Originmaine.com. Maine, the state Maine. Originmaine.com. This is where you can get Jocko supplements, super krill oil for your joints. Important. Super important.

• 3:53:36Jocko Willink?

  Yep, that was good.

• 3:53:37Speaker 02

  Solid.

• 3:53:38Jocko Willink?

  Approved.

• 3:53:38Speaker 02

  Yeah. And it's true, by the way. Also, another supplement called discipline. That's what this one, this one is right here. It's like a cognitive enhancer and, you know, some caffeine in there. Some good stuff. Some, is there, there's some vitamins in here? This is a good one. This is a really good one. I mean, take before you do some, something that you gotta use your brain and your body, which is cool. Also,

• 3:54:00Speaker 02

  Molk.

• 3:54:01Jocko Willink?

  Molk.

• 3:54:02Speaker 02

  Molk is out. It's protein powder. Jocko, what, the oomla?

• 3:54:05Speaker 01

  Believe it or not, I did two and two. I, I did two and two. I got it.

• 3:54:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, I put it together.

• 3:54:11Speaker 01

  Wasn't that crafty.

• 3:54:14Speaker 02

  Well, there it is. Boom.

• 3:54:17Speaker 02

  And?

• 3:54:18Jocko Willink?

  Molk, tasty.

• 3:54:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, mint chocolate chip. Hey, wait, wait, you're coming out with a new, uh...

• 3:54:23Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, but we're working, those won't be out for a little bit.

• 3:54:25Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 3:54:26Jocko Willink?

  So there's new discipline coming out. It's new flavor.

• 3:54:28Speaker 02

  True.

• 3:54:29Jocko Willink?

  One of the flavors.

• 3:54:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 3:54:31Jocko Willink?

  One of the flavors is... It's, I don't know if this is okay, right? We might have to rebrand it something else, because it can't be Jocko. If it is coconut pineapple.

• 3:54:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:54:44Jocko Willink?

  It's tasty.

• 3:54:45Speaker 02

  Okay, so here's one of those things.

• 3:54:47Jocko Willink?

  I can't believe it. So anyways.

• 3:54:49Speaker 02

  So Jocko's hardcore, right? Authentic, authentic hardcore, right? Okay, so one of the main important issues with developing these supplements, which are good supplements, by the way,

• 3:55:04Speaker 02

  is taste. Is that hardcore? Does that seem hardcore to you?

• 3:55:07Jocko Willink?

  He thinks that I would like, when I originally was making supplements, he thought that my, I would have no priority on taste. Like, if it tastes bad, doesn't matter.

• 3:55:16Speaker 02

  Right, doesn't matter.

• 3:55:17Jocko Willink?

  It's actually better if it tastes worse.

• 3:55:18Speaker 02

  That's false dichotomy.

• 3:55:20Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 3:55:20Speaker 02

  I wasn't thinking...

• 3:55:21Jocko Willink?

  But you could think that.

• 3:55:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, you're right.

• 3:55:24Jocko Willink?

  You know what? In order to drink this, you just gotta get, like, you just gotta grit your teeth and get some.

• 3:55:28Speaker 02

  Potentially. Like, hey, if that happens, it happens. Kind of like if it's cold, whatever.

• 3:55:32Jocko Willink?

  Because the reality is, when supplements taste like crap, you don't eat them. So then what's the point?

• 3:55:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:55:38Jocko Willink?

  So there you go.

• 3:55:38Speaker 02

  A flank. That's what he did. That's what that is. The flank with the taste. Nonetheless, tastes good. And I think pina colada, pineapple, coconut, whatever, I think that's a good idea. Pay homage to, uh, our Hawaii roots.

• 3:55:52Jocko Willink?

  Yes. All my people in Hawaii.

• 3:55:55Speaker 02

  Yes. And Molk, by the way, is, uh, mint chocolate chip.

• 3:55:58Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 3:55:59Speaker 02

  Mint chocolate. There's no chips.

• 3:56:01Jocko Willink?

  There's no chips. Good point.

• 3:56:02Speaker 02

  Same, same kind of feel. I've never heard it without the chips. It's kind of... It's kind of my gerbil for a loop.

• 3:56:08Jocko Willink?

  It's gonna be a little bit tough to deal with.

• 3:56:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. It will taste good, though. We can, we can count on that.

• 3:56:13Jocko Willink?

  Good.

• 3:56:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:56:14Jocko Willink?

  Reports are in.

• 3:56:16Speaker 02

  Good. Very good. Also, oh, I hear good things about the mixability, too.

• 3:56:20Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, oh, just all good.

• 3:56:21Speaker 02

  That's a big deal, by the way.

• 3:56:22Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 3:56:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's a pain in the ass. Also, ghee's and rash guards. We're still on Origin Main, by the way, dot com, originmaine.com. Ghee's and rash guards, if you're into jiu-jitsu. When you get into jiu-jitsu, you can have the question, and I still, we still get that question, "What ghee should I get?" Get Origin Ghee. Boom, there you go. Also, rash guards, compression gear, and... Sweat suits and whatnot, most comfortable sweat suits in the world, proven 100%. Also, the immersion camp, Jiu Jitsu immersion camp.

• 3:56:51Jocko Willink?

  Boom.

• 3:56:52Speaker 02

  In Maine, Lake Echo, there's.

• 3:56:59Speaker 02

  One week, two sessions, starts August 26th and September 2nd. Leif will be there, Dave Burke will be there, I will be there, JP, is JP gonna be there?

• 3:57:09Jocko Willink?

  JP's scheduling, trying to schedule it at this time.

• 3:57:12Speaker 02

  Wait, so Leif is going?

• 3:57:13Jocko Willink?

  Leif is going.

• 3:57:15Speaker 02

  And of course.

• 3:57:15Jocko Willink?

  I can't say like full confirmed, because flights aren't booked yet or whatever, but when I talked to Leif the other day, he was, let's just call it, real.

• 3:57:24Speaker 02

  Fired up, yeah, that's, so that's the plan, boom, Leif in the game, um, Dave, of course, me, yeah, and, and Jocko's going, no injured rib.

• 3:57:32Jocko Willink?

  No injured rib this time.

• 3:57:33Speaker 02

  Boom, you're on a roll, Jocko, you're on a roll, Jocko. It'll be good, um, go to originmaine.com to see all of these things and, uh, you know, you see something you like, get something. Also, onnit.com slash Jocko, you can get fitness gear, kettlebells, steel bells, jump ropes, a lot of good stuff on there. I got some soap from them.

• 3:57:56Jocko Willink?

  Interesting.

• 3:57:57Speaker 02

  Interesting, yeah, just to see what it was, you know, they have some good stuff.

• 3:58:01Jocko Willink?

  Approve or disapprove?

• 3:58:02Speaker 02

  I didn't use it yet, just came in, I'll report back, I promise.

• 3:58:06Jocko Willink?

  Remain silent.

• 3:58:06Speaker 02

  Good, good spot, onnit.com slash Jocko. Also, when you buy these books, Fortunate Son, Marine, Life of a Chesty Puller, or any of the books that Jocko reviews on this podcast, what he did. Went to, uh, Jocko Podcast, or jacopodcast.com, little section called Books From The Episodes. Got them all listed there by episode, click through there, boom, take it to Amazon shop, buy those books, or a leaf blower. Or whatever he isn't gonna buy, just carry on shopping, that's, you know, do your thing.

• 3:58:37Jocko Willink?

  Good way to support you.

• 3:58:38Speaker 02

  Very good, very good. Also?

• 3:58:42Jocko Willink?

  The alternative is we do like forty minutes of advertisements.

• 3:58:46Speaker 02

  I don't have a problem with that.

• 3:58:48Jocko Willink?

  That's not happening.

• 3:58:49Speaker 02

  Well, yeah, you're kinda anti advertisements as far as advertisements go.

• 3:58:54Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 3:58:55Speaker 02

  Even like on you, you know how when you watch YouTube video and the ads in the, in the beginning of the video?

• 3:58:58Jocko Willink?

  I have YouTube Red.

• 3:59:00Speaker 02

  Do you have YouTube Red too? Is that what's going on?

• 3:59:02Speaker 01

  I don't.

• 3:59:02Jocko Willink?

  YouTube Red is the best nine dollars and ninety-nine cents a month you can spend. You press click and it just starts playing the video, no advertisement.

• 3:59:10Speaker 02

  Here's the thing, I don't mind the advertisements. That's how I find out about like a bunch of the new movies that come out, a lot of like, um, like, you know, intermittent fasting.

• 3:59:19Jocko Willink?

  Weird. I had a guy the other day, he was like, I was watching, he was watching one of the podcasts. And it was one of the heavy podcasts, which I guess doesn't really narrow it down too much, but he's, he goes, he goes, walk in the podcast and all of a sudden there's a big advertisement on that.

• 3:59:32Speaker 02

  You know what? This is what YouTube will do sometimes with longer videos, they'll just put that in wherever.

• 3:59:37Jocko Willink?

  This guy was angry.

• 3:59:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:59:39Jocko Willink?

  And you know what?

• 3:59:40Speaker 02

  I can dig it.

• 3:59:40Jocko Willink?

  It was in the YouTube comments, which we know we don't respond to, but we do read. But I almost responded, "Bro, nine ninety-nine, nine ninety-nine a month, that thing's gone."

• 3:59:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:59:51Jocko Willink?

  I, I was watching videos with-

• 3:59:53Speaker 01

  That's some serious first world shit right there.

• 3:59:55Jocko Willink?

  It is, bro. It is. It is. It is.

• 4:00:00Speaker 01

  My day was going great and then the commercial popped up.

• 4:00:03Jocko Willink?

  That was thirty seconds of my life, I'll never get back.

• 4:00:09Speaker 02

  Again, man, I dig, I dig the ads, I, I get it though, you know, cause sometimes you're, you're listening to his deal, his thing, whatever it is he's talking about, it takes you mentally and kinda emotionally, let's face it. Emotionally into a certain spot and then it fades out into some, "Hey, do you wanna, I don't know, whatever the ad is, you know, you wanna get more, it kinda puts the brakes on that."

• 4:00:29Jocko Willink?

  There's been some emotional moments in the podcast. Especially for Echo. I will say Echo's been very, and, and we didn't talk about it because it was actually not the right time to talk about it. But on the last podcast, one twenty-two, there was an emotional moment for Echo and uh,

• 4:00:47Speaker 02

  Hey man.

• 4:00:47Jocko Willink?

  He got through it.

• 4:00:48Speaker 02

  I know, I know, I'm like super hardcore and everyone knows that, you know, but hey man, you know, even the strongest moments of fatigue.

• 4:00:55Jocko Willink?

  No one.

• 4:00:56Speaker 02

  And I was maybe just fatigued that time. Anyway.

• 4:00:59Jocko Willink?

  Looking him change in the subject.

• 4:01:00Speaker 02

  Good ways to sup- uh, uh, support is subscribe to the podcast if you haven't already on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play. And any other place, wherever you listen to your podcasts, new podcast apps all over now. So boom, subscribe. No shame.

• 4:01:15Jocko Willink?

  Can't keep up with them.

• 4:01:16Speaker 02

  Yeah. And when I say no shame, that's not a, in Hawaii, actually here's something, little interesting thing. It's not super interesting, it's kinda interesting. You know the expression, no shame?

• 4:01:24Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 4:01:25Speaker 02

  Right? It usually means like, ah, this guy has no shame. Like, he's kinda low, like he, he has, his moral standards may be kinda low, something like that, right? In Hawaii, no shame means don't be shy.

• 4:01:37Jocko Willink?

  I like in South Africa, when I was in South Africa, they say shame.

• 4:01:41Speaker 02

  Shame.

• 4:01:41Jocko Willink?

  It's just a word that they use for all kinds of different things. And then, oh, shame.

• 4:01:45Speaker 02

  No kidding.

• 4:01:46Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's, it's, I like the way they used it.

• 4:01:48Speaker 02

  Interesting.

• 4:01:49Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and I'll try and bring it back.

• 4:01:51Speaker 01

  I'm, I'm telling you right now, with those two pieces of information.

• 4:01:54Speaker 02

  Right?

• 4:01:55Speaker 01

  I'm prepared to change the world.

• 4:01:57Speaker 02

  It'll help, it'll help communication. You get a guy from Hawaii and he says no shame, he will, he doesn't mean it in a bad way, because it's, there are very subtle differences. But one is kinda on the bad side, like, oh, this guy, no shame, you know, this guy, no shame. If a hu- a guy from Hawaii says no shame, is he's just saying, don't be shy. Or if he's telling the story, say, hey, this person wasn't shy at that point. Like, like if he says, and here it is, here's the example. Okay, I'm telling the story about a guy who went and talked to a girl and said, man, this guy, no shame, he just went and talked to her. On the mainland, or, you know, outside of Hawaii, whatever, they'd be like, wait, what was wrong with it? Was that his friend's girlfriend or something? Or was that his cousin or something? You know what I mean? So it sounds like a whole different story.

• 4:02:36Speaker 01

  So you can't do that on, in text message there, then?

• 4:02:40Speaker 02

  If it's a Hawaii guy, you can.

• 4:02:42Jocko Willink?

  More, more first world problems.

• 4:02:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, well.

• 4:02:45Jocko Willink?

  Well, what you may not know is the, the, if, he could probably do it because he is very, uh, proactive and aggressive in his use of emojis. This guy.

• 4:02:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 4:02:56Jocko Willink?

  Rainbows, shakas, lightning bolts. He brings it.

• 4:03:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, I incorporated the palm tree too very recently, so watch out for that one.

• 4:03:05Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 4:03:06Speaker 02

  Nonetheless, back to support. Youtube channel also, along with the podcast platforms and apps. Youtube, we do have a Youtube channel. Warrior Kid Podcast has Youtube channel too now. Boom, just released.

• 4:03:18Jocko Willink?

  Warrior Kid Youtube channel.

• 4:03:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:03:21Jocko Willink?

  Podcast.

• 4:03:22Speaker 02

  For the podcast, yeah, same kind of deal, but just Warrior Kids.

• 4:03:24Jocko Willink?

  Posted yet?

• 4:03:25Speaker 02

  It's up and running live. So be on the lookout for that one. But yeah, Youtube, we have the video version of this podcast. Want to see what Jake looks like? And some good looking guy.

• 4:03:34Jocko Willink?

  He talked about that moneymaker during the podcast. You might want to come check it out.

• 4:03:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, guys got curious, people got curious, yeah.

• 4:03:41Speaker 01

  You don't deny it. One of the first things I did was ask somebody in my family, I was like, I need a mirror. I hadn't seen my face. And I was like, how bad is that? I saw it, I was like, ah.

• 4:03:52Jocko Willink?

  Right, we're good.

• 4:03:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, it can still work, boom.

• 4:03:54Speaker 01

  Right on.

• 4:03:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, so if you guys curious, curious about that, boom, we got the Youtube channel, perfect. Also got excerpts on there and enhanced excerpts. I take a little excerpt and put music on it, it's nice. I think it's nice. Jocko thinks it's nice, yeah?

• 4:04:09Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, pretty good, some of them.

• 4:04:11Speaker 02

  Hell, yeah. Also, Jocko has a store, it's called Jocko Store. Creatively enough. jockostore.com is where you can get t-shirts and whatnot. Whatnot meaning rash guards as well. Hoodies, hats. All kinds of cool stuff. I think they're cool.

• 4:04:28Speaker 01

  I love it.

• 4:04:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's good, jockostore.com, I'm telling you. It's Jocko Gear on Jocko Store. Yeah, yeah, fully. Nonetheless. Look, with this one, I'm not saying, hey, go to Jocko Store, buy something, I'm not saying that. I'm saying just go there, look at, check it out, you like something, get something. That's a good way to support, that's all I'm saying. About Jocko Store, also.

• 4:04:50Speaker 01

  I love it.

• 4:04:51Speaker 02

  It's good, yeah. Also Psychological Warfare, okay, if you're gonna know what that is, is what it is. It's an album. With tracks, Jocko tracks, not a song, they're not songs, not Jocko singing.

• 4:05:01Jocko Willink?

  You don't want none of that.

• 4:05:03Speaker 02

  No, no, we don't. Playing guitar, maybe, that's kind of a cool thing, you play guitar. Nonetheless, it's not that, it's Jocko talking, and here's what he's saying. Okay, we call it our campaign against weakness, right? You know, you're on the program, you're on the path, you're getting in shape, you're staying in shape, you're, whatever you're doing, right? You're reading more, I don't know. Waking up early, right? Impose the discipline first thing in the morning, whatever, whatever you're doing. You can do that every day. Those days where you're feeling weak, you might skip the workout, sleep in, whatever. Whatever the weakness is, there's a track for it. And it's Jocko telling you why you shouldn't give in to that weakness, just for that time. It's not him yelling, nothing like that. Just kind of explaining to you why you shouldn't, shouldn't give in. It's real effective, too, by the way, 100% effective.

• 4:05:46Speaker 02

  If I'm not mistaken, that was the last numerical report, percentage wise.

• 4:05:49Jocko Willink?

  Check. Well, you know, you just mentioned very quickly, the Warrior Kid Podcast.

• 4:05:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:05:56Jocko Willink?

  And that it has a YouTube channel.

• 4:05:58Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 4:05:58Jocko Willink?

  And in order to have a YouTube channel for the Warrior Kid Podcast, there has to be a Warrior Kid Podcast, which there is now. Warrior Kid Podcast is out. And in it, it is questions for Uncle Jake, by the way. Not this Uncle Jake, but a different Uncle Jake. Similar. And it's on a separate channel. The reason I put it on a separate channel is so that your kids aren't sitting there streaming podcasts, Warrior Kid Podcast, and all of a sudden they jump into Machete Season.

• 4:06:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:06:31Jocko Willink?

  Or the Mila Masquerade. So it's a totally separate channel. Uncle Jake's got some lessons learned. For kids, yes, definitely. For parents, very true. 100% coming from Echo Charles. For teachers, yes, coaches, yes, human beings, I'm gonna go ahead and say yes.

• 4:06:48Speaker 02

  Real quick about the, what I was saying to you while I was listening to it. Where it's, okay, this is why it's for like a parent, because the, these kids, like, that ask you the questions, their questions, they probably ask their parents. You see what I'm saying? Maybe the parents will be like, oh.

• 4:07:03Jocko Willink?

  I'm not sure.

• 4:07:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, maybe, or, okay, I'll just kind of spontaneously answer the question. Meanwhile, it's like, kind of, you're, it's good, man, it's good.

• 4:07:10Jocko Willink?

  It's getting, it's number one. Did you know that?

• 4:07:13Speaker 02

  Happens to be, yeah.

• 4:07:14Jocko Willink?

  Number one, number one, uh, kids podcast, kids and family podcast, so that's cool. All right, uh, speaking of way of the warrior kid. There's the book Way of the Warrior Kid and there's also the new book boom there it is hardcover. Way of the Warrior Kid 2 Mark's Mission. Uncle Jake continues to help Mark with some of his problems, losing his temper. How to handle being made fun of. Don't you wish somebody told you how to handle being made fun of?

• 4:07:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:07:43Jocko Willink?

  When you were a kid? I know I would have liked that. Fear of failure, how do you overcome that? Also learns about the value of money. A lot of people don't know that these days. A lot of kids don't know that for sure.

• 4:07:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:07:54Jocko Willink?

  Mark in the book actually gets a job. Makes money, refurbishes a bike, basically gets after it. So, give the children that you know. The ultimate gift and that is the gift of discipline. Show them the way of the warrior kid and you will be stoked. Speaking of warrior kids and soap which you mentioned earlier.

• 4:08:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:08:16Jocko Willink?

  That you could get from on it. You could also get soap from Aiden. He's a warrior kid.

• 4:08:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, very, very good on that.

• 4:08:21Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, Irish Oaks Ranch dot com. Stay clean, that's the motto.

• 4:08:27Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 4:08:28Jocko Willink?

  Don't forget about Discipline Equals Freedom Field Manual. And you know, I'm actually glad I wrote this book.

• 4:08:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:08:34Jocko Willink?

  You want to know why? Because I actually have to refer to it.

• 4:08:38Speaker 02

  Oh dang, okay.

• 4:08:39Jocko Willink?

  Okay, that's kind of the reaction I thought you were gonna say like dang, like you didn't think I had to refer to it. Did you think I didn't have to refer to it?

• 4:08:44Speaker 02

  I think I never thought about whether or not you had to think, refer to it, but now that you mention it's kind of like, oh, I get it. It's like, you know how you gotta write your to-do list, like, why you couldn't remember that? It's kind of like that.

• 4:08:54Jocko Willink?

  I, I have to refer to the manual.

• 4:08:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:08:57Jocko Willink?

  It's a good book, man. It's good. You open it up, read a page.

• 4:09:00Speaker 02

  It's good.

• 4:09:01Jocko Willink?

  Read two pages. That's the way I wrote it. I wasn't even thinking about like the effectiveness of it.

• 4:09:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:09:06Jocko Willink?

  It's pretty cool. If you want the audio version, Discipline Equals Freedom Field Manual. It's not on Audible. Cause Audible wouldn't work for a book like this. It needs to be an album with tracks. So it's available on iTunes, Amazon Music, Google Play, other MP3 platforms. Then there's Extreme Ownership, of course, combat leadership. Applied to the battlefield, applied to business, applied to life. Do you know that over one million copies sold?

• 4:09:36Speaker 02

  Dang.

• 4:09:37Jocko Willink?

  That's pretty cool.

• 4:09:38Speaker 02

  Impressive.

• 4:09:39Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, we're stoked on that. And it's been, it's the best selling, I forget, there's some kind of a cool. Best selling leadership book since its release or something like that. I forget the actual thing, but it sounded pretty cool.

• 4:09:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, man.

• 4:09:52Jocko Willink?

  They sent me a stat thing today. That's why I know this stuff.

• 4:09:56Jocko Willink?

  Get it for your business and life. And also you can right now order the follow on book to extreme ownership that I wrote with my brother Leif Babin. It's called the dichotomy of leadership. It is finding the balance as a leader. And I talk about this all the time on the podcast. I actually said, I actually talked about this in the first public interview I ever did with Tim Ferriss. He asked me about the qualities of leaders. I said, balance. Well, that's what I'm talking about.

• 4:10:22Jocko Willink?

  As we continue to work with companies and businesses, people like the hardest thing people have, hardest challenge people have is balance. I talked a ton about that with the, talking about chesty puller. So much balance. He balanced perfectly between being hard and being gentle. He found that perfect balance because you know, if you're gentle, too gentle as a leader, you're a pushover. No one respects you. If you're too hard as a leader, you drive people too hard. You're a slave driver. No one likes you. No one respects you. You've got to find that balance. That's what this book is about. And if you need QRF at your company, quick reaction force, right? If you need some support, some help with your leadership, well, contact the quick reaction force for your team. It's called Echelon Front. It's my leadership consulting company. It's me.

• 4:11:07Jocko Willink?

  It's Leif Babin, JP Denell, Dave Burke. Website is echelonfront.com. We solve problems through leadership. Boom.

• 4:11:16Jocko Willink?

  If you've got a problem, it's leadership. Of course, the muster leadership seminar, 005 is in Washington DC, May 17th and 18th. And 006 is in San Francisco, October 17th and 18th. DC is close to being sold out right now. It might be sold out. There might be a few tickets left, but if you want to register. Extreme ownership.com get in the game with us. I will not be in the presidential suite eating chocolate covered strawberries and drinking fizzy water. I will not be doing that. I will be with you. If you come to the monster, I'll be with you hanging out,

• 4:11:54Jocko Willink?

  eating lunch, working out, talking, answering questions the whole time. No green room. Leif, same way. JP, same way. Dave, same way. Echo Charles?

• 4:12:06Speaker 01

  Same.

• 4:12:07Jocko Willink?

  Same way. You can come to any one of those if you want to. They're fun.

• 4:12:11Speaker 01

  They're fun.

• 4:12:12Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. We got something in Dallas, too. If you want to come to that. It's called the roll call. It's for police, law enforcement, military. You want to come, hang out, do whatever you want to do. You can just come BTF around, get after it. That's cool with us. And that one is September 21st in Dallas, Texas. That's also register on extreme ownership dot com. And until

• 4:12:35Speaker 01

  Dude, it's perfect. It's perfect.

• 4:12:39Jocko Willink?

  You got something going on?

• 4:12:40Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I got hit September 20th.

• 4:12:43Jocko Willink?

  Oh.

• 4:12:44Speaker 01

  Our gala is September 22nd in Dallas.

• 4:12:49Jocko Willink?

  We're good. We'll see you there.

• 4:12:51Speaker 01

  Right on.

• 4:12:51Jocko Willink?

  You're locked.

• 4:12:52Speaker 01

  You're all coming.

• 4:12:53Jocko Willink?

  Oh dang.

• 4:12:55Speaker 01

  We'll come do your thing. You come do ours.

• 4:12:56Jocko Willink?

  Oh nice. We'll crash your party. You crash mine.

• 4:12:59Speaker 01

  Hey, again, what a good time.

• 4:13:02Jocko Willink?

  That'd be awesome. And until we see you at the monster or the roll call, call or at the immersion camp in Maine, if you want to cruise with us kind of hard, you can find us on the interwebs, on Twitter, on Instagram, and on that Facebook. Jake, listen to this one. Jake is at Jacob underscore Schick, which is spelled like S chick.

• 4:13:35Speaker 01

  Always say, always say, Schick, like the razor, no relation. I got screwed on that deal.

• 4:13:41Jocko Willink?

  Oh yeah, you got left out in the cold on that one?

• 4:13:44Speaker 01

  Yeah. The dude that started it's named Jacob Schick.

• 4:13:47Jocko Willink?

  I Googled your name like a couple of weeks ago.

• 4:13:50Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 4:13:51Jocko Willink?

  And I was reading about Jacob Schick.

• 4:13:53Speaker 01

  Hmm. One of these days, I'm gonna overtake him.

• 4:13:55Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. Echo is at Echo Charles and I am at Jocko Willink. Echo, you got anything else?

• 4:14:03Speaker 02

  No, man. Fuck, my man. Thank you. So cool to meet you too, man.

• 4:14:06Speaker 01

  Bro.

• 4:14:07Speaker 02

  Right on.

• 4:14:07Speaker 01

  Feelings mutual, brother.

• 4:14:09Speaker 02

  Right on.

• 4:14:09Jocko Willink?

  Jake, any closing thoughts?

• 4:14:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, I forgot to say, by the way, and I will get scolded if I don't, that if you buy our merch, I need you to know that that's how we pay our overhead, our merchandise sales.

• 4:14:26Jocko Willink?

  And the merch is available at?

• 4:14:28Speaker 01

  Twenty-two-kill.com.

• 4:14:29Jocko Willink?

  Twenty-two-kill.com.

• 4:14:31Speaker 01

  And we're starting a wind therapy program through a partnership with J and P Cycles.

• 4:14:35Jocko Willink?

  Did you say what kind of therapy?

• 4:14:36Speaker 01

  Wind.

• 4:14:38Jocko Willink?

  What is that all about?

• 4:14:38Speaker 01

  The breeze between the knees, bro.

• 4:14:40Jocko Willink?

  Oh.

• 4:14:40Speaker 01

  Motorcycles.

• 4:14:42Jocko Willink?

  Oh, okay, got it.

• 4:14:43Speaker 01

  See, you took it, you were gonna take it to a weird place.

• 4:14:45Jocko Willink?

  No, I was taking it free fall.

• 4:14:47Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, no.

• 4:14:48Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I was taking it free fall.

• 4:14:49Speaker 01

  I always had a problem with-

• 4:14:50Jocko Willink?

  You always used to say knees in the breeze.

• 4:14:52Speaker 01

  With jumping out of things that didn't need jumping out of. I was just like, I don't know. Cause you know, gravity.

• 4:14:59Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 4:14:59Speaker 01

  No, man, listen, no, I don't, I would just leave people with this, like, hey, listen, it, just keep grinding. That's what it's all about. You know, you, I've learned, I've learned this in my well-versed and experienced thirty-six years of life. Three things. This life's absolutely worth living. What makes it beautiful is you get to share it with people that you love all the way. Your successes and your failures. And three, it's not about you.

• 4:15:31Speaker 01

  Live well.

• 4:15:33Jocko Willink?

  Check.

• 4:15:35Jocko Willink?

  Well Jake, as I said before, thank you for coming on the show, but more importantly, thanks for your service in the Marine Corps.

• 4:15:43Speaker 01

  Ra.

• 4:15:45Jocko Willink?

  Thanks for your sacrifice, thanks for fighting so hard, and thanks for what you are doing now to help veterans continue to live the lives they deserve to live. And to everyone out there, whether you're a veteran or not, I said at the beginning of this series, that this was a story of war, and love, and pain, and death. Life is hard, it is tragic, and merciless.

• 4:16:23Jocko Willink?

  And when you are caught in that storm, you might not see anything else beyond the darkness.

• 4:16:35Jocko Willink?

  But there is light beyond the darkness. But you have to hang on, you have to hang on, and you have to move forward, and you have to fight.

• 4:16:52Jocko Willink?

  You have to fight, fight through all that pain, and fear, and darkness, and get to the other side.

• 4:17:05Jocko Willink?

  Where the darkness subsides.

• 4:17:11Jocko Willink?

  And where you can once again, live.

• 4:17:20Jocko Willink?

  Thanks for listening.

• 4:17:23Jocko Willink?

  Thanks for living.

• 4:17:26Jocko Willink?

  And thanks for getting out there, and getting after it.

• 4:17:33Jocko Willink?

  So until next time, this is Jake Schick, and Echo, and Jocko.

• 4:17:41Jocko Willink?

  Out.