67: "Company Commander": Important Lessons Directly from WW2

0:00:00 - Opening 0:09:45 - Lessons from Charles MacDonald, "Company Commander" http://amzn.to/2n8wVFj 2:02:18 - Support, Cool Onnit http://www.onnit.com/jocko, Amazon https://www.amazon.com/?&tag=jocko20-20&camp=216797&creative=498533&linkCode=ur1&adid=1DKYGWXQBV0KNEZ3MZZX&, JockoStore http://www.jockostore.com stuff, with Jocko White Tea http://www.jockotea.com and Psychological Warfare (on iTunes) https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/psychological-warfare/id1183222322. Extreme Ownership (book) http://amzn.to/2jonHTx, (Jocko's Kids' Book) Way of the Warrior Kid http://amzn.to/2n9k6I9, and The Muster002 http://www.extremeownership.com 2:41:31 - 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 67 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink.

• 0:10Jocko Willink?

  We are soldiers, Marines, grunts, ground pounders, infantrymen.

• 0:20Jocko Willink?

  Jarheads, Tommies, doughboys, GIs.

• 0:27Jocko Willink?

  We march.

• 0:30Jocko Willink?

  We walk for miles. Miles that don't stop, miles that don't end, miles that are filled with fear.

• 0:43Jocko Willink?

  Fear of the unknown, fear of the enemy, fear of wounds, fear of death.

• 0:52Jocko Willink?

  But we march on.

• 0:56Jocko Willink?

  Our boots try to stomp that fear into the ground.

• 1:02Jocko Willink?

  People talk of glory on the battlefield, but it is only talk.

• 1:11Jocko Willink?

  On the battlefield, there is only guttural instinct to survive and protect your brother.

• 1:22Jocko Willink?

  Things are done not for glory, but for love.

• 1:31Jocko Willink?

  We march on.

• 1:34Jocko Willink?

  We march in the heat and the cold and the rain and the snow.

• 1:41Jocko Willink?

  We march through deserts and streets and in the valleys and up the hills.

• 1:49Jocko Willink?

  Every step we take is a new step into the unknown.

• 1:57Jocko Willink?

  But at the same time,

• 2:00Jocko Willink?

  it is a step that has been taken thousands of times before by other soldiers in other times.

• 2:09Jocko Willink?

  The names change, the weapons change, the cause is different, but the faces,

• 2:17Jocko Willink?

  the faces are the same.

• 2:22Jocko Willink?

  The man does not change. The fear is the same as is the will.

• 2:32Jocko Willink?

  The hardened will to drive on, to move forward.

• 2:39Jocko Willink?

  To march.

• 2:44Jocko Willink?

  We close with the enemy.

• 2:48Jocko Willink?

  Be it swords or bayonets, rifles or machine guns, spears or grenades, daggers or our bare hands. We bring our weapons to bear and unleash them with fury.

• 3:06Jocko Willink?

  There is no crowd watching.

• 3:10Jocko Willink?

  There are no admirers.

• 3:14Jocko Willink?

  It is only us.

• 3:20Jocko Willink?

  And when one of our brothers is killed, it rips us apart.

• 3:27Jocko Willink?

  Magnificent men.

• 3:32Jocko Willink?

  The best of us, beautiful human beings filled with hopes and dreams and filled with life.

• 3:46Jocko Willink?

  And in death, all those hopes and all those dreams and all that life is drained away.

• 3:57Jocko Willink?

  Taken away.

• 4:00Jocko Willink?

  Thrown away.

• 4:07Jocko Willink?

  And in that moment.

• 4:11Jocko Willink?

  When a warrior falls, the whole world should come to a standstill. The whole world should stand and bow their heads and grieve the loss of that hero.

• 4:28Jocko Willink?

  The whole world should stop and get on their knees and praise what that man has sacrificed and acknowledge the supreme and uncorrupted eminence of that soldier.

• 4:46Jocko Willink?

  Of that warrior.

• 4:55Jocko Willink?

  But the world does not stop.

• 5:00Jocko Willink?

  The world carries on.

• 5:05Jocko Willink?

  It is only we warriors that truly mourn.

• 5:12Jocko Willink?

  It is us alone that bow our heads.

• 5:19Jocko Willink?

  It is us alone that bow our heads and mourn the loss of that fallen saint.

• 5:31Jocko Willink?

  The saint who has given everything

• 5:37Jocko Willink?

  for us.

• 5:43Jocko Willink?

  And then,

• 5:47Jocko Willink?

  we warriors,

• 5:50Jocko Willink?

  we raise our heads.

• 5:54Jocko Willink?

  We raise our heads again and with fire in our hearts, we lock and load our weapons and we march.

• 6:06Jocko Willink?

  We march forward toward fear and toward evil and toward our fate.

• 6:16Jocko Willink?

  We march forward without any question of what is at stake. We march forward not for reward,

• 6:25Jocko Willink?

  but for duty.

• 6:29Jocko Willink?

  Not for ourselves,

• 6:33Jocko Willink?

  but for each other.

• 6:37Jocko Willink?

  We march forward not for glory, but for love.

• 6:44Jocko Willink?

  Forward, forever.

• 6:50Jocko Willink?

  We march on.

• 7:00Jocko Willink?

  Good evening, Echo.

• 7:02Speaker 01

  Good evening.

• 7:05Jocko Willink?

  I was asked the other day by another veteran, how to cope with losing friends and

• 7:17Jocko Willink?

  I answered that question and in that answer,

• 7:24Jocko Willink?

  as I thought about it afterwards, you know, I

• 7:28Jocko Willink?

  I thought of this eternal warrior.

• 7:33Jocko Willink?

  This warrior that's been around since man has existed, hungry, tired, scared,

• 7:44Jocko Willink?

  but heroic.

• 7:48Jocko Willink?

  Heroic in his ability to put those discomforts aside and do

• 7:56Jocko Willink?

  what he must do.

• 8:01Jocko Willink?

  And tonight, we're gonna look

• 8:05Jocko Willink?

  at another book about another band of brothers.

• 8:12Jocko Willink?

  Going back once again to World War II, back on the European continent. A book by a guy by the name of Charles McDonald, who served as a company commander during the war.

• 8:29Jocko Willink?

  And he actually went on to become the deputy chief historian for the US Army and authored a bunch of books about the war. But we're gonna look at his first book today, which is simply called Company Commander.

• 8:48Jocko Willink?

  And he wrote this book just after the war in 1947. And, you know, I, I get a bunch of books. And I've, I've talked about this, like, somebody tells me there's a good book out there. And I don't even try and read the reviews anymore. I just order it. Cause I figure there's a chance it's good. And then when I get it, I kinda, you know, I have to crack it open and see if it's the kinda thing that I'm gonna cover that would really suits the podcast.

• 9:19Jocko Willink?

  And this book, I just cracked it open right to the preface, which normally I, I go in the middle somewhere. I might take a quick look at the preface, but then I, you know, will look throughout the book and this preface, as soon as I got, I got one sentence into this, this preface. Or I said, the first paragraph into this, into this preface. And I was like, okay, we're doing this book.

• 9:42Jocko Willink?

  So with that, let's go to the book and start with the preface.

• 9:52Jocko Willink?

  Once again, this book is called Company Commander by Charles B. McDonald, written in 1947.

• 10:02Jocko Willink?

  Here we go. The characters in this story are not pretty characters. They are not even heroic if lack of fear is requisite for heroism. They are cold, dirty, rough, frightened, miserable characters. GIs, Johnny Doe boys, dog faces, foot sloggers, poor bloody infantry, or as they like to call themselves, combat infantrymen.

• 10:34Jocko Willink?

  But they win wars.

• 10:38Jocko Willink?

  They are men from Companies I and G, 23rd Infantry, but they might as well be men from Companies A and K, 16th Infantry, or they might be men from Companies C and E, 254th Infantry. For their stories are relatively the same. Some may have fought the Germans longer than others, or some may have fought the Germans less. For all, it was an eternity.

• 11:08Jocko Willink?

  The characters in my story are not fictional and any similarity between them and persons living or dead is intentional. And some of them are dead.

• 11:19Jocko Willink?

  This is a personal story, an authentic story, and to make a story of war authentic, you must see a war. Not a hasty taste of war, but the dread gnawing daily diet of war, the horrors and fears that are at first blunt testimony that you are a novice.

• 11:40Jocko Willink?

  And then later become so much a part of you that only another veteran through some sixth sense may know that those same horrors and fears are yet there.

• 11:53Jocko Willink?

  I was an officer in the war, a captain and company commander of companies I and G. And because I was a captain, my lot was easier sometimes than that of Joe Private and Joe First Class and Joe Sergeant and even Joe Lieutenant.

• 12:11Jocko Willink?

  But when my lot was easier physically, it might be harder mentally because I knew Joe Private and Joe Private First Class and Joe Sergeant and Joe Lieutenant and I could not suppress my love and admiration for them.

• 12:27Jocko Willink?

  But physical suffering can be worse sometimes and when the GIs lot was harder than mine, I shall try and tell you that because I am not the hero of my story.

• 12:39Jocko Willink?

  The heroes are the men from companies I and G, the lead scouts, the riflemen, the machine gunners, the messengers and the mortar men. Companies I and G are called rifle companies in the army and when you call a company a rifle company, you are speaking of the men who actually fight wars.

• 13:01Jocko Willink?

  I did not fight the Germans as long as some of the characters in my story. Some of them had been meeting the enemy since D plus one, June 7th, 1944, when I joined them in September as a replacement company commander.

• 13:17Jocko Willink?

  They had completed the capture of a stubborn enemy garrison at Brest, France, the day before I joined them. They rested in an open field on the Brittany Peninsula for five days, and then they took a train ride on a French freight cars across France to meet the Germans again.

• 13:40Jocko Willink?

  So there's the preface. And you can see when he joins this company, these guys have already been fighting for over three months, close to four months, when he shows up, new guy, no combat experience, he shows up and has to jump right into the game. And here's some thoughts that he has coming fresh from the States. Company I, 23rd Infantry, I thought. You fought your way ashore in Normandy on D plus one. You battled to the hot top of Hill 192 to pave the way for the Saint-Lô breakout. You stormed the ring of pillboxes at Brest and had your number reduced to 50 in the explosion as the Germans blew them up in your faces. And now they give you a company commander fresh from the States.

• 14:25Jocko Willink?

  They ask you to put your faith in me.

• 14:29Jocko Willink?

  I felt weak and ineffectual.

• 14:36Jocko Willink?

  My mind began to peruse the duties that were before me. And this is when he's out on patrol, he's kind of on his first patrol now. In one day, and at the most, three, I would be leading these men against a team of trained killers. I wondered how I would react. These men deserve the best leadership. Could I give it to them? They could boast a glorious combat record already, and I knew nothing. Suddenly, all my long hours of training for just such a role as this seemed pitifully inadequate.

• 15:12Jocko Willink?

  If only there were some way I could know just what it was like. It seemed incredible that this group of hardened combat veterans could accept me as an inexperienced youth of 21 to lead them into battle, simply because he happened to come to them wearing a set of flashy bars on his shoulders. If only I could look into their minds and see what they were thinking.

• 15:36Jocko Willink?

  So you can see this guy's definitely feeling what just about everyone moving into a leadership position feels, which is I'm not ready for this and I don't know everything. And as I've said a bunch of times, that's okay. Everybody knows that you don't know everything. Everybody expects that you don't know everything. What you don't want to do is go act like you know everything because they're going to see right through it.

• 16:01Jocko Willink?

  Now they're, they're moving a little bit more and we're starting to get closer to combat. My pulse quickened. So this is it, I said to myself, using a phrase that every replacement uses a thousand times before he ever actually reaches combat. I would soon know if I could take it. I would soon know if I could justify the faith of the men of Company I. We dispersed to our company areas. In the darkness outside the tent, I noticed flashes of artillery to the east and the deep rumbling of the big guns came from the distance. A voice in my brain kept repeating, this is it. This is it. I stumbled blindly through the dark forest in the direction of the company.

• 16:47Jocko Willink?

  So obviously I'm fast forwarding some stuff here and this is just him getting closer and closer to going into combat and you know,

• 17:00Jocko Willink?

  every veteran now has that feeling, you know, since the wars for us started for, for this generation started of this is it. It's so true. Everyone's thinking that this is it. This is it. This is the big one. This is can I take it? And so many guys will say that that's what drives them into the military. For me, for sure. You want that test and there's no, there's no bigger test than, hey, there's other human beings that are trying to kill me and I have to go kill them. That's, that's the biggest test there is. And guys want to know if they can take it.

• 17:34Jocko Willink?

  Here's some of his thoughts. Be calm, be businesslike. This is the same as maneuvers, maneuvers just meaning training maneuvers. Give some orders, start things moving. You're going to have a look at the German army since he's going out on a little reconnaissance.

• 17:56Jocko Willink?

  And he, now they're, they're getting in sort of a defensive position here. And he says this, back to the book, "I decided to dispose, dispose, dispose my company initially as lieutenant had done. We could make changes later. I would have preferred holding one of my rifle platoons in support position, but it seemed unwise for our company frontage was great." So you can see he's already listening to like his lieutenant has his guys set up a certain way. He's going with it. He's not going up there and changing everything right away because he's just gonna, kind of set back and see how things go. Now they're expecting to get attacked, expecting to get attacked with, with small arms fire. But instead it ends up being some mortar fire. And here we go back to the book, "But the sound of bullets did not come.

• 18:39Jocko Willink?

  In its stead came the sharp crack and heavy explosion that I knew must be mortar fire falling behind me. It sounded as if the shells were falling on the crest of the ridge that we had so recently left, but I took no time to look back. I increased my speed and dived behind a clump of bushes. There would be no protection, protection from those bushes against the mortar shells, but I was comforted by their concealment. I lay there panting." So here's even first contact. "This is it, this is it." My brain kept repeatedly, kept repeating madly over and over. "I must not appear afraid. I must give these men confidence in me despite the fact that I, they know I'm inexperienced.

• 19:21Jocko Willink?

  They were playing their parts well. I had been unable to detect any attitude of distrust in their actions, and I had searched their faces for long periods of time. I must keep that confidence. I must, I must." Scared Captain? Sergeant Savage asked. So Sergeant Savage is like his senior enlisted guy and he's looking at him. He goes scared Captain? And he says, "A little, I admitted. I took a long, slow drag on my cigarette." "We are, we all are," Savage said. "We always are."

• 19:56Jocko Willink?

  Pretty good vote of confidence. And you can see the senior enlisted guy trying to make him feel comfortable with it, right? That's a good senior enlisted guy that's not trying to make it, not trying to go ego. Hey, what are you, what's your problem? You look scared, you know, captain? No, he said, hey, don't worry, boss. We're all scared. No big deal. We just got to stay professional. So these guys end up in a, in a, in a hunkered down defensive position that he's got a man. He ends up being there for quite a few days where it's, it's a pillbox, you know, a bunker. And his main control point or command point is inside one of these pillboxes. And they end up with a bunch of guys in this pillbox and then he's got little foxholes dug out

• 20:40Jocko Willink?

  away from the pillbox where there's little platoon guys and squads that are set up in these positions. And so his, his task is to maintain this security positions and that's what he does. Going back to the book, I didn't plan to sleep at all the first night. Now that we were in position and the difficulties of moving, moving in no longer worried me. I was filled with a growing fear that the Germans might hit us with a counterattack. I decided that the enemy must surely know that the troops were moving in and would attempt to dislodge us while, while we might still be disorganized. Eleven men in a pillbox, 11 men who must live from day to day, never thinking of the immediate future, but only of the infinity.

• 21:24Jocko Willink?

  When the war would someday be over.

• 21:28Jocko Willink?

  There was Sparky and First Sergeant Albin Savage Blackburn Crow Two and me. There was Private First Class Willie Hagan, the tobacco chewing 39 year old army regular who kept us laughing with sage tactical wisdom and served as first platoon runner. Then there was Private First Class Angelo Butare of Boston, second platoon runner who had lost two brothers in the war already. Private First Class Hubert Berger of Memphis, Tennessee, third platoon runner who's 18 years old and read his Bible every night. Private First Class Kenneth Lambton of Detroit, Michigan, weapons platoon runner who is also 18 and corresponded with college girls from Michigan.

• 22:14Jocko Willink?

  And Private First Class Erling G. Salberg of Fargo, North Dakota, who is 19 and cleanly good looking and the headquarters bazooka man.

• 22:25Jocko Willink?

  The cooks and jeep drivers, the supply sergeant and the mail orderly had been left behind with the service company to keep us supplied. The changing of the guard at four o'clock revealed that it was raining outside, a slow, cold, miserable drizzle. I thought of the men in the forward platoons in their exposed foxholes, with no protection from the elements except shelter halves stretched across their holes, and nothing between them and the hostile killers in front of us but the muzzles of their own rifles. I had admired the unglamorous infantry soldier before, but as the rain continued to fall and the night grew colder, my pride at being a part of this dirty miserable infantry knew no bounds.

• 23:13Jocko Willink?

  Now, like I said, he was in this main pillbox, which has protection, right? It's got a roof and they're a little bit relaxed in there, a little bit, you know, they're protected. Not just from the enemy, but they're protected from the elements as well, somewhat. So he goes out and he's going out to visit the guys that are in foxholes that are just basically sitting out there bearing the elements, you know, like you said, nothing between them and the enemy but the muzzle of the rifle. Back to the book, "Any idea that I might have entertained that my visit would bolster the morale of these men's was overshadowed by the effect the visit had on my own morale. How they could smile and laugh and joke in their present condition, I could not see. But each man had a cheery word for me as I approached.

• 23:57Jocko Willink?

  If I had possessed any misgivings that these men would weaken under the hardships of their cramped position and the adverse weather, they faded away into nothing. Their courage and fortitude made me admiringly envious and brought a lump to my throat." So he's thinking, "I'm gonna go out there and boost their morale." The opposite happens. The opposite happens. He's boosted by seeing them and seeing how intact and motivated they were out there.

• 24:28Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book. As we reached the right flank of the platoon, I noticed a man huddled in his foxhole trembling violently beneath a blanket which covered his head. Lieutenant Anti grasped him by the shoulder. "I thought I told you to get digging this hole out deeper," he said sternly. The blanket came off the soldier's head. "You're putting me way off here by myself so I can be killed," he shouted, half sobbing. "You want me to be killed. There's nobody over here but..." "Shut up," Anti said. "You want the whole goddamn German army to hear you? Get to digging that hole. There's two men right here with you and the next hole's ten feet away. Nobody wants to see you killed." We turned away. I looked back over my shoulder at the soldier.

• 25:11Jocko Willink?

  "He's been like that ever since..." "He's been with the platoon," Anti said. "Uses every excuse he can get to go to the rear. He won't work to get himself warm like I try and get him to. If he doesn't come around tonight, send him back to the CP," I said. "We can keep him there for a night and see how he turns out." So, although some guys are clearly in good spirits out there, you still got guys that are breaking down. And you gotta deal with them. And you can see, he's gonna pull him off the line, get him back to CP, and actually, I don't go into this, but he ends up getting evacuated, and when they get him back, they figure out that he's got appendicitis. So,

• 25:51Jocko Willink?

  he's in, he's in rough shape. But, so some time passes, and, you know, they're dealing with sort of clandestine attacks or come and the Germans will kind of probe them, or sometimes they're, well, they're receiving indirect fire, so mortars and artillery on a fairly regular basis. Back to the book. I awoke at ten for the start of the fourth day in the pillbox. It was a day of K rations, of glorious sunshine, of adjusting artillery fire, of testing telephone lines after enemy shelling, of signing one's names to envelopes of countless letters, of requesting supplies from battalions, of one and a hundred things that were becoming more and more routine.

• 26:33Jocko Willink?

  But always, there was the deep fearful dread of the enemy mortar shell that dropped unheralded from the sky, of the artillery round that screeched a fiendish warning as it approached, and the deep dread too, of the darkness that would come tonight, just as it'd come last night, and just as it would come the night, next night, and the next. And any night, the darkness might release a horde of fanatical German soldiers eager to kill and drive us from our holes and pillboxes, or perhaps a flamethrowing half-track spouting its flaming oily death into the deepest recesses of the pillboxes.

• 27:12Jocko Willink?

  The nervousness was like a malignant disease that ate itself up and down the line and back again. Hear about that stress, hear about that constant, constant stress, and you notice it's the things that you can't control.

• 27:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:31Jocko Willink?

  It's the things that you can't control, it's the horrible things about the, the mortar and the artillery fire, you can't control it, it's just random. And you can't control where that round hits, if it hits in your foxhole, you're dead. If it hits three feet away from your foxhole, you live. And I think the, they had these flamethrowing half-tracks, and I think just the, the, to die by burning to death, everybody knows that's a nightmare, and so that's creeping in their minds as well. Back to book. It seemed that I'd only been asleep a few minutes when I awoke. The pillbox was a mass of moving men with apparently no pattern. A deep dull throbbing filled my head, accentuated by a fierce pounding that pushed relentlessly

• 28:16Jocko Willink?

  against my temples. I jumped from the bunk with a start. The throbbing in my head was a big gun firing. The man seated there by the table was covered with a dull brown dust, blood was streaming from a gash in his forehead. "A tank's firing right at us, Captain," Sparky said excitedly. "They hit the head, they hit the shed with the mortarman in it. Sergeant Patterson got a cut in the head." I tried to shake the cobwebs of sleep from my brain. I had been asleep for hours. It was daylight. It was eight o'clock in the morning. I moved over to the wounded man. He was Sergeant Lee Patterson, a North Carolinian, and one of the squad leaders from the mortar section. The wound is bleeding profusely. Another man held a handkerchief immediately below it to prevent blood from running into the sergeant's eyes.

• 29:00Jocko Willink?

  "It's not bad," the sergeant said. "Just a cut from some loose brick. It was flying all around the cellar when the shells hit. Looks worse than it is, I guess." So now they're, they're under attack and you're gonna notice a pattern. I don't know if I've covered enough, but this poor guy, this poor guy, uh, McDonald, Captain McDonald, it seems like every time they get a major attack, he's getting awoken from being asleep because he's not sleeping very often, but every time he puts his head down, you see, almost every time he gets awoken, or every time they receive a major attack, it's because he's asleep and boom, all of a sudden things start happening. He must have been so paranoid to go to sleep, knowing that this stuff was, was hanging over his head. So, they're getting

• 29:42Jocko Willink?

  this pretty, pretty big coordinated attack and then some aircraft show up, some, some P-47 shows up, uh, like five P-47 shows up, and here's the description of that. "Each plane circled high into the air and came down with the skill and grace of a parawetting dancer upon its target, the bullets from its cannon beating a staccato chant of death as it dived on the Germans below." Someone behind me said, "Oh, them goddamn beautiful birds." We watched in silent admiration as the planes climbed once again. "Well, their work's done for the day," someone said. "Yeah," a mortarman answered, reaching for a shovel. "They'll go home now and have a short scotch and a hot bath and shack up with some mademoiselle or some limey wench.

• 30:27Jocko Willink?

  What a life." "Yeah, and draw double salary for it," a headquarters man put in. "That's the life for me." Willie Hagan said, "Oh, dry up. You never had it so good." So, that's, that's a common thing, you know, and we're gonna get Dave Burke on here, and I'm sure we'll hassle him about being a pilot. I mean, that is, you go, you do your mission, and then you're flying back to base. The bases are in friendly areas and they're protected, so you're gonna get a short scotch and a long, on a hot bath.

• 31:02Jocko Willink?

  And again, fast forwarding a little bit, and also going back to him being asleep and being rudely awakened. Here we go back to the book. I was nodding off. I was nodding off and as the hands of my watch neared three o'clock, awakening each time with the start and shaking my head in an effort to clear it, clear the sleep from my brain. A shot rang out. It seemed to come from the very entrance to the pillbox and was the cue that set off a few a lot of small arms that reverberated back and forth among the hills. I could discern the slow chatter of one of our heavy machine guns, then the intimidated guttural tone of a burp gun. All the sounds seemed to emanate

• 31:44Jocko Willink?

  from the area around the farmhouse, as if every conceivable type of small arms vied to be heard above the accompanying noises. The explosion of a German-type concussion grenade joined the uproar. An American grenade exploded and its fragments whined through the air. A few rounds of mortar fire exploded above the din. I heard the guards scuffle and curse as they tripped on the entrance to the pillbox. I was suddenly afraid, I was suddenly more afraid than I had ever been before. My body seemed weak all over and I wondered if I had the strength to stand up. I opened my mouth to sound the alarm and I wondered if anything would come out. "Wake up, everybody!" I shouted, surprised that the words actually came forth.

• 32:29Jocko Willink?

  "I don't want anybody caught sleeping in this damn pillbox." We had waited long enough. The Germans had come. The sound of small arms continued heightened by the explosions of dozens of light mortar shells. Fear gripped my body and left me trembling. I was not so much afraid of what was happening as I was of the horrible visions my mind had dreamed up of what would happen should we fail to repulse the attack. I visualized the mad dash to reach the entrance to the pillbox to escape entrapment within, only to be met by a hail of enemy fire or a hellish blast of a flamethrower. My imagination ran a gauntlet of evil. So this is a counterattack.

• 33:14Jocko Willink?

  Well, this is what you've been waiting for. Now the company veterans will find out what it has in this youthful inexperienced CO. Quit shaking, goddammit. Stop trembling all over. Get control of yourself. Act like a soldier, goddammit. At least you can impersonate an officer.

• 33:32Jocko Willink?

  Savage tried the battalion phone. The handle which should have produced a ring made an unnatural grating sound. The line's out, he cried. I'll try the other line, Blackburn. I'll try the other line, Blackburn. Get your radio set up outside. So this is, despite the fact that they've been mortared and they've taken some fire and they've had some little probing attack. This is the big one. This is, this is it. The Germans had come. And it's interesting to hear his thoughts as this is going on. He's trying to tell himself, stop shaking, calm down, act like a soldier. Hey, if nothing else, just pretend that you're a soldier right now. Just act like an officer should act right now.

• 34:09Jocko Willink?

  Classic. So they start receiving this pretty intense attack and he gets on the radio. Eventually they get the radio set up. And he says, attack is hitting my left flank and right flank of Love Company. Their lines must be out too. Fire us, concentration 221 over. So what they do is, and they get in these defensive positions, they set up and they have pre-designated firing areas where they can have our friendly artillery or mortars bomb areas. They already know where they are. So they, this one was called a concentration 221. That's wherever, wherever the enemy was attacking from, they have a name for it. They say, put bombs on 221. Boom, you can get it done really quick.

• 34:50Jocko Willink?

  And this, it's, it pretty much, uh, almost immediately holds this attack.

• 34:58Jocko Willink?

  And of course, that attack goes away. They, they kind of get that one under control. And now he's tired because he didn't get much sleep. So he goes back to sleep.

• 35:12Jocko Willink?

  And here we go back to the book. It seemed that I had been asleep for hours when I awoke suddenly with a start. Sparky's voice came to me somewhere from somewhere in the distance. I'm trying to get the artillery. I'm trying to get the artillery. Blackburn's voice was somewhere else beside it. Get me Captain Anderson. Get me Captain Anderson. But what was the noise in the background? What was that pounding? Someone must be beating on the pillbox with a sledgehammer. What was that deafening noise? I jumped from my bunk. My feet stung from the rough contact with the concrete floor. That was artillery and mortars exploding exploding my head. I couldn't think. I shook my head sharply to clear the sleep from my brain. The Germans had come again. And what mortars and artilleries? Good God, they must be firing every

• 35:53Jocko Willink?

  weapon round for miles. There was a wild look in Sparky's eyes. They've hit all three platoons, Captain, he cried. Head on. They're pounding the hell out of them. Worst barrage I ever heard. Worst barrage I ever heard, Captain.

• 36:10Jocko Willink?

  So like I said, whenever whenever Captain McDonald falls asleep, they're getting attacked. And that's what they're receiving really heavy attack again. So they repulsed that first attack and now they're coming back at them again. And this time it's with some serious artillery. For God's sake, get us some artillery, Captain, he cried. They're knocking the hell out of us. Small arms and burp guns and this goddamn mortar and artillery fire. I never saw such a barrage. We got to get some help or we'll never stop them.

• 36:41Jocko Willink?

  For God's sake, Captain, hurry, Middlebrook said. His voice was half frantic. I got two wounded men here in my pillbox now. God knows how many more are out there. I suddenly remembered the 155s. That close in concentration we had zeroed on our front. So 155 is a bigger artillery shell. It's the big, big daddy. And they had, they had got a concentration of fire that was really close to them. So hey, if we're getting like just about to get overrun, we can call this, this particular concentration of fire. That close in concentration we had zeroed on our front. What was it called? Queen 163. Queen 163. Oh, God, let us get the 155s.

• 37:23Jocko Willink?

  Hello, tear one to tear three, Roger, tell Tara to give us the 155's concentration queen 163 and fast, over. So he calls in that concentration, which is, which is really close to them. You're calling in 150, I think 155 millimeter mortar shell, I want to say it has like 25 or 30 pounds of explosive in it and they're calling in a bunch of it.

• 37:50Jocko Willink?

  And here we go, my heart skipped a beat, Savage ran back inside to relay the news to platoons and the big artillery shells whispered their messages of outgoing death. The deafening explosions to our front were followed by the noise of shrapnel spraying the trees around the farmhouse and small pieces of spent shrapnel fell around us. So they're calling those bombs so close that they're getting hit with the shrapnel from the bombs. That's how close the enemy was and that's how close they're calling these bombs in. I called for a repeat on the barrage. And when the battalion said, Roger, I knew we had won. No attacking force could withstand a barrage like that. So that's a command that you use when you're calling in artillery. It's called repeat, which is actually why you never say repeat on the radio.

• 38:33Jocko Willink?

  When you see in the movie, someone says, oh, can you repeat that? You don't actually say that. You don't say repeat unless you're specifically doing this, getting them to call more bombs in.

• 38:40Speaker 01

  What'd he say then?

• 38:42Jocko Willink?

  Say again.

• 38:43Speaker 01

  Oh, say again.

• 38:43Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you say, say again. And so they call these, big bombs come in and another couple days go by, they end up spending a total of nine days in the pillbox and in that position. And then finally they get told, okay, we're going to pull you out of the pillboxes. And we're going back to the book. I tried to keep my voice in a normal pitch through the conversation, but I wanted to jump and kick and scream with joy. Tears came to my eyes and I thought I would choke with happiness. It was almost too wonderful to be true. My battalion runners would arrive around midnight, leading the men of Company B. We were getting out of the pillboxes and tonight, Company I was to be relieved.

• 39:25Jocko Willink?

  So there you go. Nine days in the pillboxes. The other company, Company B, comes out to relieve them and they're doing a turnover with Company B. So he's sending like one platoon back at a time and he's staying there with the new company commander whose name is Captain Cowan. And we're going back to the book. A few minutes later, a call came for Captain Cowan over the platoon phone. A tenseness came over his face as he answered. He handed the phone back to the soldier sitting at the table. "They just killed one of our own men," he said to me. "One of my squad leaders was moving around to the front and was going back to his hole. One of the bar men let him have it. Thought he was a German." "I wondered how it would feel to have one of your own men killed by an accident. Having

• 40:09Jocko Willink?

  a man killed by the enemy would be bad enough, although I had been mercifully speared that thus far." I shuddered. "My men are nervous as hell," Captain Cowan said. "They've heard all sorts of rumors and stories about these positions. Makes them trigger happy." So we got a blue on blue. Guys first night in position. And they're freaked out. They've heard all these rumors. They know that these guys are getting pounded by the enemy and the Germans keep attacking and they get so paranoid that they accidentally shoot one of their own guys. Now, these guys get moved to the rear Company I. Kind of get some, some, they get moved

• 40:51Jocko Willink?

  back a little. So not on the front line anymore. And this was kind of an interesting look on that. It seemed, back to the book, it seemed now we were in a quiet position. "Every officer in the division with rank of major above wanted to inspect the company area. They condemned the men for not having shaved or for wearing knit wool caps without their helmets, evidently an unpardonable misdemeanor, or for untidy areas around the dugouts. These officers did not inspect my first platoon area, however, usually passing it over with the excuse that it was a bit far to walk, but we laughed inwardly, knowing that it was the threat of enemy shelling that kept most of them away."

• 41:32Jocko Willink?

  So, "Oh, you're back in the rear. Now everyone wants to come and meet you. Meet the boys. Because there's no danger there." Well, guess what? The boys know. The boys know what's up.

• 41:48Jocko Willink?

  Now, he's about to get an order to go out on the attack. So he's been in an defensive position. Now he's moving to attack. Get set. It's coming now. The attack order. At last, you're going to attack. There's no chance now for a reprieve. The CO of the 393rd had insisted that we attack immediately to relieve the besieged unit. The Colonel continued, but he had succeeded in putting off the attack until morning. We would jump off slightly before dawn at 7 o'clock, attacking astride the east-west highway. Company, I would attack on the left. Additional ammunition would be available later at battalion. The platoon leaders were assembled

• 42:28Jocko Willink?

  when I returned to the company. I only had one map of the area, and there was no place where we could have a light to examine the map with the lieutenants. Sergeant Albin's slit trench was deeper than the others, but that's, but, but at that, it amounted to little more than, than the snow scraped from the earth and a few inches of frozen earth removed. The men hastily threw dead branches across the makeshift hole, and I wriggled underneath with my map and a book of matches. One, one of the platoon leaders, one by one, the platoon leaders crawled in to receive the order. I would strike a match and give them a brief glance at the map, now wet and sodden from the melting snow. I wondered if I could have drawn any worse conditions under which to

• 43:12Jocko Willink?

  issue my first attack order. So here the, they'd moved forward, but now they're getting ready to attack, and he's giving his first briefing to his platoon leaders. He only has one map, which is completely ridiculous. And I think about, like, every single guy, when we would go out on the battlefield, every single guy would have a battle map, every single guy. If we take 30 guys, they all are going to have a battle map with him. So here we are, the whole company of 150 guys, we've only got one map, and he's got it. And by the way, it's soaking wet. And by the way, for your briefing, nowadays, we go into a big, secure area with a PowerPoint and big projector up, and we go through all these slides that are well-prepared. He's got a match in a hole, and he's giving this brief. That's what I'm talking about.

• 43:58Jocko Willink?

  So they end up in a forward position and as this attack goes, they end up now having to switch from attacking to a defensive position and things start to get go sideways really, really quick. And this ends up, this is actually the beginning of the Battle of the Bulge, it's a famous, obviously a famous battle, and this is sort of the beginning of it, although they did not know that at this time. So here we go back to the book. "I took stock of our defensive situation. We were one rifle battalion thrust into a densely wooded area with no terrain features that favored the defender with orders to hold at all costs. We were hastily dug in along a highway facing the direction from

• 44:39Jocko Willink?

  which we hoped the enemy would come if he had to come. No company had been able to withhold a support platoon. There was no support company. Thus, the defense was a thin, single line of riflemen." So there's no backup. That's the situation they're in. "A shallow draw laid at the front of my rifle platoons with a higher ridge rising beyond it over which the enemy would soon be coming. Another draw led up to my left flank protected by two light machine guns and a few riflemen in position which no man in his right mind would place machine guns unless he had no other method of defending the probable enemy approach." These guys are in a horrible situation. "Our right flank lacked, our right flank lacked 50 yards of tying in with K Company along a fire break

• 45:23Jocko Willink?

  which bisected the highway. We had no anti-tank defense except two Sherman tanks and a bazooka with three rounds of ammunition. We were being supported by 99th Division artillery, an outfit about which we knew nothing, except this was their first action except for holding a quiet defensive sector for a month. But there was nothing that could be done now but wait. At 10:30, a jeep loaded with men clipped down the highway toward the rear at breakneck speed. That would be the vanguard of the retreating battalion from the 99th. The Germans would be here soon." Just imagine that. You're there to help out and defend

• 46:05Jocko Willink?

  this position and support this battalion, and the first thing you see coming from ahead of you is a jeep filled with ragtag soldiers going as fast as they can away from the enemy.

• 46:20Jocko Willink?

  craziness craziness and here it continues a ragged column of troops appeared over the wooded ridge to the front of the second and third platoons there were not over 200 men the remnants of 900 who had fought gallantly to our front since they were hit by the german attack the preceding day another group the size of a platoon withdrew along the highway donating a few hand grenades and clips of ammunition which they passed to my first platoon two men stayed to fight with my company it's legit you just got overrun some guys are giving away ammunition giving grenades away and these guys are hey where can I help out

• 47:00Jocko Willink?

  two enlisted men carrying a badly wounded lieutenant stopped exhausted with my third platoon they could carry him no further I called for a litter squad the riflemen could not be sure if the next troops that appeared over the ridge were friendly or enemy I alerted the artillery men to call for fire in the event the approaching troops were german lieutenant Brock's call came a few minutes later scarcely preceding a hail of small arms fire which sounded like the crack of thousands of rifles echoing through the forest there was no doubt now my men could see the build caps of the approaching troops they were germans

• 47:36Jocko Willink?

  and you know we're gonna get to a point as I go through these books and I highlight little sections and I read that little section I'm about to get to a point here shortly where I'm just gonna read the whole damn section cuz it's it's so much it's a company that's about to get overrun right it's a company that's about to get overrun by germans and it's it's really interesting to hear what this looks like from the company commander company commander's perspective but this is I mean this is it this is you're losing the battle I mean he survives but it's it's as bad as it gets it's as bad as it gets back to the book enemy bullets whistled through the trees around us I jumped into the slit trench with savage and blackburn

• 48:20Jocko Willink?

  requests after requests for artillery and mortar support came from the platoon leaders I called for every concentration listed on my overlay and for variations of each so that little thing I was talking about where you're calling for these concentrations you got 223 and this one and that one he's just calling for all of them calling for all of them just bomb everything

• 48:40Jocko Willink?

  The inevitable maddening three rounds fell each time, so they're trying to conserve, in the rear, they're trying to conserve, um, conserve ammunition, so they're likely firing three rounds at a time. And he's, "Do it again, do it again, do it again." The platoon leaders begged frantically for more. "I began on one side of the company area and called for concentrations all across our front and back again." Lieutenant Sawyer called for barrage after barrage of 81mm mortar fire. The crack of small arms reached an ear-splitting crescendo, crescendo like static on a forgotten radio during an electric storm. "I lay flat on my back in the slit trench, the platoon phoned to one ear, the receiver of the battalion radio on the other. The chill from the frozen earth seeped through my clothes and I shivered, but I was surprised at my own calmness. The long nights of shaking terror

• 49:25Jocko Willink?

  in the pillboxes convinced me that I would never be calm in combat. I did not know what had possessed me to keep calm. Surely, this is the most serious situation which I had ever found myself." The small arms fire reached another crackling crescendo, crescendo. The small arms fire reached another crackling crescendo. Long had several men wounded, Long as one of the other commanders. He didn't know how many or how badly. The enemy bullets were too thick to move around, were too thick to move around. "I called again for litter squads. Wave after wave of frantically screaming German infantry stormed the slight tree-covered rise held by three platoons. A continuous hail of fire

• 50:08Jocko Willink?

  exuded from their weapons answered by volley after volley from the defenders. Germans fell left and right. A few rounds of artillery, the few rounds of artillery we did succeed in bringing down caught the attackers in a draw to our front, and we could hear their screams of pain when the small arms fire would slacken. But still they came." Artillery and nebelwerfers, which is like another kind of cannon, a German cannon, with their accompanying terrifying screams played a deep accompaniment in the background. The shells exploded to our rear and around the road junction to our right. We ignored their crushing explosions, thinking how thankful we were that their effects were reserved for others than ourselves.

• 50:50Jocko Willink?

  The small arms fire rose and fell again, and then again, indicating that the attacking troops had withdrawn momentarily to the bottom of the draw to regroup before launching another suicidal assault.

• 51:02Jocko Willink?

  Reinforcements streamed over the ridge behind them to join the assaults. The draw and the highway were littered with their dead and wounded, but there seemed to be no end of their fanatical attacks. Second platoon reported as company soldier killed. It was the first, first death in company I since I had taken command three months before, but the news was not so staggering as I had expected it would be. There was too much other excitement. The dead soldier was technician fifth grade Martin W. Carlson from Pennsylvania. He was an aid man whom the rifleman idolized, who had jumped from his foxhole to aid a wounded soldier nearby. A bullet pierced his helmet and he fell face forward into a hole of the wounded rifleman

• 51:47Jocko Willink?

  he had sought to aid. He was a noncombatant, according to the rules of warfare, and was denied the privilege of wearing the combat infantryman badge and the $10 per month pittance for dangers and hardship endured, but death made no distinction. Message after message came over the platoon phone. Lieutenant Wilson was badly wounded. He could not walk and must have a litter. Ammunition was running lower and lower. The M Company machine gunners with the first platoon were out of ammunition except enough to keep one gun firing a few minutes longer. The 60 millimeter mortars found their ammunition supply so low that they fired only when the enemy was actually assaulting.

• 52:30Jocko Willink?

  Germans were being killed as close as 10 yards forward of the foxholes. Hand grenades were practically all gone.

• 52:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, this is, this is it.

• 52:44Jocko Willink?

  There was no solace from the battalion. Each call for litter bearers or additional ammunition was met with the maddening words, "We're doing all we can." I told them, "We could not hold out much longer unless we got additional ammunition." Captain Montgomery said, "We must hold. Our orders are to hold at all costs," he said. I wondered if he could possibly realize the meaning of those words. "We must hold until every last man was killed or captured. Company I's last stand." And what is to be gained? Nothing but time, time born of the bodies of dead men. Time.

• 53:26Jocko Willink?

  Seven times the enemy infantry assaulted and seven times they were greeted by a hail of small arms fired hand grenades that sent them reeling down the hill, leaving behind a growing pile of dead and wounded. But with all, the attacks seemed poorly organized. There was no supporting artillery or mortar fire on our positions, and I wondered why they had not yet found the open flank on our left. There was only the suicidal wave of fanatical infantrymen whooping and yelling and brandishing their rifles like men possessed. I looked at my watch, it was 3:30 in the afternoon, time was passing amazingly fast. Long, again Long was the, was one of the other platoon commanders, Long said he saw

• 54:07Jocko Willink?

  enemy tanks, there were five of them, giant tigers lunging down the road 300 yards away, surrounded by over a hundred enemy infantrymen. Get those Sherman into action, Sherman was our US tank, get those Shermans into action, it's your only hope, you might, he's talking to himself, you might hold off the infantry even with your ammunition practically exhausted, but rifleman can't fight Tiger tanks. The first platoon has your only three rounds of bazooka ammo. Unless the Shermans can stop them, three rockets are all there is between you and Company I and Kingdom come.

• 54:44Jocko Willink?

  So, small arms, obviously machine guns, they don't do anything to a tank, and they only have, and there's five enemy tanks coming, and they only have three bazooka rounds, which a bazooka round can stop a tank, but you know, you gotta hit, it's gotta be a good hit and all that, so he knows he's in big, big trouble. I called Sergeant Garcia to send a man to contact the tankers and tell them to move immediately to their form positions on the left flank. This business of improved positions was so much bosh, Garcia's answer was stunning. They're gone, Captain. They pulled back to K Company 15 minutes ago.

• 55:23Jocko Willink?

  So he's expecting the Sherman tanks there to be help out? They're gone. I did not take time for the full meaning of his words to sink in. Giving our, giving our call sign over the radio, I asked Colonel Tuttle and told him my plight. Either I get those tanks back to my left flank, or I could not possibly hold the position. While waiting for the Colonel's answer, I tried barrage after barrage to destroy the Tigers with artillery and mortars, but we made not a single hit and the near misses only stopped the infantry temporarily, not phasing the great steel monsters in the least. They waddled effortlessly on toward the hapless riflemen. A round of 88mm snapped from the top, snapped the top from a fir tree above our heads and

• 56:05Jocko Willink?

  fragments sprayed down in all directions. There could be no doubt now, the Tigers had arrived. Round after round crashed into the area. A momentary shrill whistle followed by a deafening explosion and a sharp thud of the round being fired, the latter reaching us after we heard the shell explode. "For God's sake, Captain!" long screamed over the phone, his half voice sobbing. "Get those tanks down here. Do something. For God's sake, these bastards are sitting 75 yards away and pumping 88s into our foxholes like we're sitting ducks. For God's sakes, Captain!" "What about your bazooka?" He said a bullet had gone in one end and bent the tube so the rocket would not pass through. Colonel Tuttle was on the battalion radio. The tankers said it would be suicide for them

• 56:49Jocko Willink?

  to face the Tiger tanks. They would not move unless he gave them a direct order and then he was afraid they would disobey it. And he was inclined to agree that they stood no chance against the more heavily armored Tigers and the 88s. So these American tanks, they can't fight against the Tigers and so they're backing up so that they can survive. "I burned with anger and I must have been insubordinate. If my men could fight the armor-plated monsters with nothing but rifles and die in the attempt, the tankers could afford to try it with medium tanks. If we don't get the tanks, we can't hold another five minutes", I said slowly and finally, "Thank you, sir. Roger. Out." And for those of you that don't know, I've explained this before. "Out" means you don't

• 57:34Jocko Willink?

  need to talk back to me. You don't need to, I'm not requesting a response. "Out" means I'm done. I'm hanging up the radio, which is interesting that... Normally, the, the junior person, the, the, the says, you know, over, and it's the senior person that says, hey, don't talk to me anymore, right? I'm done with you. So he's saying to the, to his leader, he's saying, if we don't get the tanks, we can't hold another five minutes. Thank you, sir. Roger, out.

• 58:05Jocko Willink?

  Shades of General Custer. Company eyes last stand. Hell, what does it matter? You never expected to get out of this war alive, anyway. Not really. I gave Long the news. He was frantic. There was absolutely nothing he and his men could do. A direct hit had landed on one of the heavy machine guns. Another had hit the technical, hit technical sergeant's, Smith's foxhole. Smith was the platoon sergeant. Long didn't know if he was dead or not. The other machine gun crew was out of ammunition and was withdrawing. He was powerless to stop them. He was afraid his left flank and the draw was falling back, but he couldn't see to make sure. Hold, Long, I cried. For God's sakes, hold. We've got to hold.

• 58:48Jocko Willink?

  I wondered how I made my voice so convincing. I wanted to throw away the platoon phone and the battalion radio and everything connected with the war and bury my head in my hands and cry, cry, cry.

• 59:02Jocko Willink?

  The infantry assault upon the other platoons continued. The sound of the battle reached a height which I had never thought possible before. The burst of the 88 millimeter shells in the woods vied with the sound of hundreds of lesser weapons. It couldn't last forever, I thought. It must stop sometime. It must stop, but when and how? I looked toward the draw between me and the highway. About 20 men were walking down the draw toward the rear. I recognized several men from the light machine gun section and a machine gun crew from M Company, the others were riflemen from First Platoon. I did not know where they were going. All I knew is that somehow I must stop them. I jumped from the slit trench and ran toward them, ignoring the crack of bullets through the trees, waving my arms and shouting for them to stop.

• 59:45Jocko Willink?

  They turned to look at me with vague, blank expressions. They seemed to wonder who was this crazy man who wanted them to do this foolish thing. I saw that it was the entire left flank of first platoon. The thin lines of the remainder of the platoons would soon be cut off from the rear. The 60 millimeter mortar men a few yards away, a few yards away were dismantling their weapons. I managed to get my move, to get the men to move to my CP, but I could not step them, stop them there. They walked slowly on towards the rear, half dazed expressions on their faces. So, his guys are leaving. And he's doing what he can to get them to stop and fight, but they're, they're leaving. This is, it's not happening. The guys know. And, and they're out, I mean, they're out of bullets, right?

• 1:00:30Jocko Willink?

  They're out of bullets. They don't have any ammunition left. They're nothing to do. So they're leaving. I jumped into the slit trench and grasped the radio handpiece. I sat on the edge of the trench, ignoring the whistle of bullets and the crash of 88 millimeter shells around us as everyone seemed to be now doing. Get the platoon leaders on the phone, I called the savage. Hello, Roger one, I said in the radio, not waiting for my acknowledgement that they were receiving my message. This is Mac. My left flank has fallen back. I can't stop them. The Germans are overrunning my left platoon. I'll try to build up another line along the fire break. We can't hold here. There, I had said it. This was I Company turning tail and running.

• 1:01:15Jocko Willink?

  This was I Company retreating. This was I Company hauling ass. This was I Company running like a son of a bitch. Strangely, I didn't give a damn. I was utterly void of feeling. Savage held the platoon phone toward me. I can't get long, he said, and Scotty's here with us now. Don't sound afraid. You've got to sound like you mean business. Hello Brock, I said calmly. They've overrun Long's position. Swing your platoon back to the left rear and we'll build up another line along the fire break. Did you get that Garcia? Pull back and we'll tie with K Company. My CP's pulling out now. We've got to hold at the fire break. Do you understand that? We've got to hold the fire break.

• 1:01:58Jocko Willink?

  The men in my CP group were already moving towards the rear. I grabbed my mus- my musette bag and my carbine. Savage took the phone. Blackburn grabbed the radio. We ran toward the rear. We reached the north-south fire break and crossed it. The foxholes which battalion had occupied were far along the far edge of the clearing in a patch of small firs, whose interwoven branches formed a small dense, green barrier. I knew that any fight here would be at close quarters because the Germans would be able to advance unseen to the edge of the fire break fifteen yards from the foxholes we would occupy. But it was the only spot where we had any possibility of holding. I ran up and down the line, shouting, "We've gotta hold 'em here! We've gotta hold 'em here!" The men stared back at me unbelievingly.

• 1:02:44Jocko Willink?

  I was asking headquarters men, armed with carbines and pistols, to hold off hordes of attacking Germans that had already broken through all our rifle platoons could offer. There was only one machine gun, a light gun manned by private first-class Richard Cowan of Wichita, Kansas, set up five feet from the foxhole which I occupied.

• 1:03:06Jocko Willink?

  The Germans were almost upon us before we knew what was happening. We could not see them for the low-hanging branches of the fir trees across the fire break, but we could hear their shouts and shrill whistle signals which evidently came from their leaders. I decided they were a flanking group that was on its way unseen around our left flank even as we left our former CP. The attackers who had dislodged first platoon could not have reached us so quickly.

• 1:03:35Jocko Willink?

  Cowan began to spit machine gun fire across the narrow fire break, and I heard German- I heard a German scream with pain. The headquarters men fired their carbines and pistols into the low-hanging branches. The fir trees to the right were too thick to see the area where the rifle platoons were supposed to be going into position. I wondered if they had been able to build up any semblance of a line. A round came from an enemy tank, broke the top of the small fir tree above Cowan's head, sending him reeling from the gun, but he jumped back and continued to fire. I knew that the big tigers had reached the junction of the fire break and the highway. Hails of enemy bullets thrashed the snow and the fir and the trees around us. The fir trees around us.

• 1:04:20Jocko Willink?

  I ducked beneath the cover of my foxhole trying to get Battalion on the radio but without success. I stood up and looked out of the hole. Great God, there was no one left but Cowan. The others had fallen back. I jumped from the foxhole and yelled to Cowan to withdraw. Savage and Blackburn followed me. I left my musset bag lying on the ground but my carbine was over my shoulder. Absentmindingly, I screamed to get the radios. Savage jumped back into the foxhole and Blackburn and I turned and plunged through the thickly interlaced branches of the little firs. Bullets followed us lashing the firs on all sides and I wondered if maybe I'd been hit. I felt no pain, but I could not see how any human being could endure those hails of bullets

• 1:05:02Jocko Willink?

  and not be wounded. I stumbled blindly through the brush, unheedful of the branches scratching at my face and hands. My overshoes were slick and I tripped and fell face downward in the snow. I rose again and stumbled on blindly. As we plunged through the firs, I was separated from Blackburn and the group that had held briefly at the fire break. I did not worry that Savage or the others were not with me. They were at someplace else in the fir thicket. I came across Sergeant Albin and Sergeant Walter L. Dietrich of Cincinnati, Ohio, machine gun squad leader. We plowed through the firs together until we came unexpectedly upon K's, K Company CP, a series of half-completed

• 1:05:47Jocko Willink?

  foxholes dug in the frozen red earth. Captain Howard C. Wilson of Houston, Texas, the K Company commander, was talking frantically over his 300 radio. He turned as I approached. "Damn, but I'm glad to see you," he said. "Battalion lost contact with you and I haven't heard anything about how your company's coming." He seemed more relieved than perturbed at seeing me and I wondered what he thought brought me to his CP. Perhaps it was the way I stood looking at him blankly. There must have been nothing in my face to tell him that my company was no more and that even now hordes of Germans were rushing toward us unchecked.

• 1:06:29Jocko Willink?

  Through my mind raised only one thought, I had failed and failed miserably. My orders had been to hold at all costs and I personally had failed and because of my failure, the entire battalion would be routed or annihilated. And all from a local German counterattack. I Company had fallen back, but I could not blame the men. They had given in because I had some way not led them correctly. It was I who was responsible. I would turn in my captain's bars if I ever reached the rear, or perhaps they would court martial me. I did not care.

• 1:07:06Jocko Willink?

  "There's nobody on your left flank," I told Captain Wilson in a matter of fact voice that I hardly recognized as my own. "They just knocked the hell out of us and the whole company's fallen back. I couldn't tell you where any of I Company is right now, except these two sergeants and myself."

• 1:07:23Jocko Willink?

  "Good God, what can I do, Mac?" "I don't know," I said. "You can't hold here. There's nothing on your left."

• 1:07:34Jocko Willink?

  And then it continues. "My platoon has fallen back," he cried. "It's those goddamn tanks." "Yeah," I said. "I had three rounds of bazooka ammo and they knocked the bazooka out. I've got six rounds." "Six rounds," Captain Wilson said. "Two men grabbed a bazooka and disappeared into the underbrush in the direction of the enemy. I thought how foolish it was to think of stopping ten Tiger tanks with one bazooka." The two soldiers returned a moment later, panting for breath. "Good God," Captain, one of them said. "The woods just a few yards away from here are full of the bastards. We better get the hell out." "That settles it. Tell your other platoons to withdraw into Creek Elk and Rocker Shell. Notify battalion. Tell them we're getting the hell out." We plunged again through the thick fir trees towards the rear.

• 1:08:18Jocko Willink?

  I heard battalion on Captain Wilson's radio telling L Company to withdraw into Roscharath before the full force of the enemy's flanking drive could hit them.

• 1:08:30Jocko Willink?

  We reached the edge of the patch of small firs. To our left, lay the exposed highway, leading up the hill into Rocherath. To our right, the corner of the fir thicket joined the corner of a patch of larger trees, which extended out 200 yards up the hill. We chose the louder route without hesitation. We ran halfway through the patch of woods before we came upon a group of abandoned foxholes. Captain Wilson yelled the group to the halt. "We'll hold up here," he shouted. "We may be able to hold them up for a while, while some of the others get out." I could not see what good we could do from this position, but I was taking commands now, and I took cover alone in a foxhole on the edge of the woods facing the highway.

• 1:09:14Jocko Willink?

  It was good to let someone else do the thinking for a while, even if I disagreed with the decision. I was not afraid. Instead, I was strangely apathetic to the whole affair. The Germans were hot on our tails, so what? They'd been hot on my tail for almost as long as I can remember now, and they had cut my company to ribbons. They might as well get me too. German infantry men emerged from the thicket we had left such a short time before and milled around two US, abandoned US tanks parked in the open beside the forest. A company M machine gunner, private first-class Jose M Lopez of Brownsville, Texas, set up his gun beside a hole five feet to my rear.

• 1:09:58Jocko Willink?

  He opened up on the German infantry with a blast of muzzle, the blast of muzzle forcing me to sink to the bottom of my hole for cover. The Germans wasted no time in returning fire, riddling the area around the machine gun in my foxhole with a burp gun and rifle fire. A Tiger tank appeared at the road junction where the battalion had been shelled the night before and fired point-blank at Lopez's exposed position. The long barrel of the 88 on the tank seemed to reach half the distance from the hole to my foxhole. Lopez continued to fire. An American Jeep with two aid men, their red Geneva crosses painted on their helmets, tore down the highway from the direction of Rocherath toward the road junction. I held my breath.

• 1:10:43Jocko Willink?

  The Tiger tank would surely blast them from the road. Couldn't they see the Germans were here now? They did. With the Jeep spinning on two wheels, they turned around and tore back up the road. The tank did not fire. Over the noise of Lopez's machine gun, I could hear Captain Wilson shouting to withdraw into Rocherath. I wanted to obey, but I was caught in the crossfire of the heavy machine gun and the attackers. I gritted my teeth and waited for a lull in the firing. None came. I jumped from the hole and ran blindly towards the rear. Bullets snipped at my heels. The tanks saw that we were running again and opened with renewed vigor. The big shells snapping the tops from the trees around us as if they were matchsticks,

• 1:11:26Jocko Willink?

  but I saw no one fall. Dusk was approaching and it was difficult to see for any great distance. I could not make out the town of Rocherath that I knew was high on the hill to our left front, but we plunged blindly up the hill following a thin hedgerow that would be scant protection against the Germans should the Germans elect to follow us with fire. I slipped and fell down the, fell face down in the snow. I cursed my slick overshoes. I rose and fell again. I found myself not caring if the Germans did fire. Snow had gotten inside my shoes and my feet were soaked. My clothes were drenched. Perspiration covered my body and my mouth was dry. I wanted a cigarette.

• 1:12:08Jocko Willink?

  I felt like we were helpless little bugs scurrying blindly about now that some man monster had lifted the log under which we had been hiding. I wondered if it would not be better to be killed and perhaps that would be an end to everything. And that's the, that's the section right there that like I said, I mean, you just can't, I couldn't skip anything in there. Just too much stuff going on and to hear what it's like from his perspective of being overrun. And they continue to fall back as fast as they can and they're, they're basically in an every man for himself situation at this point. They finally do get back and he ends up in sort of a compound.

• 1:12:56Jocko Willink?

  And he tries to find his battalion commander. And so he does. Going back to the book. We walked across the courtyard and down the dark steps of the house into the basement. A group of enlisted men were eating K rations. Colonel Tuttle was quietly talking to a group of officers. A dim candle lit the room. "Nice work, Mac," Colonel Tuttle said. "I couldn't control myself. I could control myself no longer." "The choking sensation in my throat became racking sobs that I could not hold back." "The Colonel tried to comfort me, and I felt foolish and childish, but I could not stop." "Someone gave me a cigarette. I held it with trembling fingers."

• 1:13:38Jocko Willink?

  "I was suddenly conscious that Colonel Tuttle was saying something to me, "but at first I could not make any sense of what he was saying." "This had been no local German attack." "The enemy had already broken through and taken Bulligan, "catching the division quartermaster and the engineering troops unaware in the undefended town." "The main supply route from Kringkelt to the rear through Burglungen had thus been severed." "The two other battalions of our regiment had been thrown into the battle, "and the division was abandoning all its gains "in the offensive to hold this critical area." "Our battalion had held long enough for the Ninth and Thirty-Eighth Regiments "to withdraw past the vital crossroads guarded by two stone farmhouses

• 1:14:24Jocko Willink?

  "that I remembered from the trip forward." "The Ninth was setting up a line along our present location, "and the Thirty-Eighth had taken over the defense of Kringkelt." "There were unconfirmed rumors that this was a big German push all along the First Army front." "The news stunned me." "I stammered, "You mean, you mean, I mean you did a good job, Mac," the Colonel said. "The Germans are throwing everything they've got." "You held out much longer than I expected after I learned the true situation." "So I had not failed, and I Company had not failed." "I was almost happy that the German offensive was a large-scale one." "My men had done an excellent job against heavy odds,

• 1:15:07Jocko Willink?

  "and those who had died were not dead because of some personal failing of mine." "The realization made me want to cry again."

• 1:15:16Jocko Willink?

  I still did not know what had happened to my company.

• 1:15:21Jocko Willink?

  So, like I said, this was the, this was the massive, massive German counterattack that he happened to bear the brunt of in the beginning of the Battle of Bulge. And

• 1:15:33Jocko Willink?

  you know, you can hear clearly, he just thought, I just, we just, it was a local little German attack and we folded, but it was a massive German attack and they put up an incredible resistance. So now he starts, he links up with Savage, Sergeant Savage, his, his senior enlisted guy. He sees him, back to the book, Savage and I ran for each other like two college girls suddenly reunited. Smiles wreathed our faces. We both tried to talk at once. He had heard that I'd been killed. I had not known what had become of him. I jumped back into the foxhole after you said, "Get the radios," he explained at length. First thing I knew, there were Germans all over the place. They made me come out and took my watch and, and moved me over to the highway where they had two other GIs. Then

• 1:16:15Jocko Willink?

  one of our artillery barrages started falling. The krauts hit the dirt. I grabbed one of their burp guns and started spraying and we ran like hell. All three of us got away.

• 1:16:26Jocko Willink?

  So that's, that's how Savage got out of there.

• 1:16:29Jocko Willink?

  And a little more time passes. I began to evaluate our losses in the fierce opening day fight in the Kring, in the Kringkelterwald. Initially, approximately 80 men were listed as missing, but each day brought a new list of names from the rear hospitals of men who had been wounded and evacuated or were victims of trench foot. The list, the list of missing in action finally narrowed down to 24 men. So even though, you know, they lost control and he didn't know who, he didn't know where, where everyone was. I mean, they were just gone. He was the only guy that, he was alone when he came back. Or, or he was with one or two other guys. So that's out of 150 guys. So eventually they realize, or he comes to, there's only 24 guys that they don't know

• 1:17:13Jocko Willink?

  what happened to and the rest of them, the rest of them got out of there. And this is what it looked like overall. Back to the book, our battalion was awarded the distinguished unit citation for its defense in the Kringkelterwald.

• 1:17:26Jocko Willink?

  And a number of men in the company were awarded bronze and silver stars for gallantry, including silver stars for Lieutenant Goffingun and me. Others were posthumous awards. Private First Class Cowan, the light machine gunner who had performed his duty so faithfully and fearlessly at the fire break, was killed in action the next day, but he received the Distinguished Service Cross that was later changed to the Medal of Honor. And Private First Class Lopez, the M Company machine gunner attached to K Company, also received the nation's highest soldier honor, the Medal of Honor. So in that one defense, these guys, you know, two Medal of Honors given out, unbelievably.

• 1:18:09Jocko Willink?

  Now, this is also kinda crazy. So you go through that, right? You go through that, you lose a bunch of guys, you barely make it out, your company is overrun. Well, guess what? It's not over. It's not over. These guys are right back at it again, and the next thing they're at is they are, they get tasked with doing another attack. So they do recover a little bit, but they're getting told, okay, you good? Got you, got you, got assembled again? Okay, we got more work for you. One of the men awoke me at six o'clock. I blinked my eyes several times and tried to realize where I was. The realization came, and with it, a feeling of revulsion that the war still went on and

• 1:18:53Jocko Willink?

  today we would attack. I wanted to turn my face back toward the wall and sleep on. And they're planning this attack. I was too busy with the various details of the movement to think much about fear. I tried to recall the various phases of an attack that I had learned in training, but I was fully conscious of my lack of experience. So even after all this, he still doesn't feel like he's experienced enough. I looked at my watch. It was 15 minutes until four o'clock. The artillery barrage would begin in five minutes. L Company was moving into position now. The time was drawing near. Oh God, be with us on this attack. So the nerves don't go away.

• 1:19:34Jocko Willink?

  When we reached the railroad track, the first and second platoons jockeyed into a position in the open field. They moved quickly into an approach march formation. Small explosions that sent the snow cascading in all directions and little black puffs of powder and noise appeared unpatterned over the field. The men fell face downward into the snow and rose again when the barrage lifted. The Germans were firing light mortars. One man from the second platoon lay in a crumpled heap and did not rise. His face was buried impassively in the snow. I looked at him as I passed. He was a new man, a replacement received the week before. He was the first man from the company whom I'd seen killed.

• 1:20:17Jocko Willink?

  And a mixed feeling of honor and pity swept over me. And a mixed feeling of horror and pity swept over me. But there was no time to stop and think. I didn't even know the man's name. How strange is war? Some of us can go for days and weeks and months in war and never be killed or wounded, but another man is killed in his first taste of war.

• 1:20:47Jocko Willink?

  So as they are doing this attack, this is a little tactical advice here from Sergeant Savage. "God damn it, Captain Savage said, you gotta stay further back. At least get some scouts out in front." His admonition reminded me that it was foolish for me to lead the column. The foolish days of leading one troops into battle were past, even though correspondents persisted in telling of daring generals who preceded their troops firing from the hip or brandishing a bayonet. I had no feeling of bravado, but it seemed obvious that the woods were undefended. I dropped back to the rear of first platoon. So, leadership position tactically, if you're too far forward, number one, you might get killed. Number two, you might just end up in a firefight where now you can't move and you can't make

• 1:21:29Jocko Willink?

  direction, you can't even talk on the radio because you're in the firefight.

• 1:21:35Jocko Willink?

  Fast forward a little bit.

• 1:21:38Jocko Willink?

  And they're in a, in a big firefight. A burp gun stuttered. A flood of fiery tracer bullets blazed along the trees. We fell face downward into the snow. The bullets traced a fiery path two feet above the ground. My men did not return fire and I was glad. The confusion would be terrific if they opened up. The night was quiet again. I rose and motioned for Savage, Solberg, and Charles to follow. We had taken only a few steps when the burp gun opened up again. "I'm hit, Captain," I heard Charles scream, and he dropped into the snow. "I'm hit." I was conscious of a sudden pain in the calf of my right leg, as if someone had hit me with a giant club swung by powerful arms. I realized that I too was hit, and a sudden

• 1:22:23Jocko Willink?

  flood of fear engulfed me. We were 200 yards forward of any friendly troops and 800 yards inside the woods. A momentary vision of a night spent bleeding in the frozen forest swept through my mind. A warm liquid flowed over my leg and into my boat. "That would be blood," I thought. "I'm hit too, Charles," I said. My leg felt numb, and I dropped to the ground. The firing ceased. Charles said he was hit through the right hip and could not walk. Savage took the battalion radio and I designated two men to carry Charles. We would have to get back to 3rd Platoon now. I believed I could walk. I stood and put weight on my wounded leg. A nauseating pain swept over me, and I thought I was going to faint. But I tried keeping the legs stiff

• 1:23:08Jocko Willink?

  and found that I could walk.

• 1:23:11Jocko Willink?

  The men around us lay flat on the snow in little bunches, as if gained some solace through sharing their fears with each other. My brain was whirling. Should we continue the attack? How badly was I hurt? Had we hit a German patrol, or an outpost, outpost, or stumbled upon a main line of defense? I hastily decided to continue to the rear, out of the line of fire of the direct attack upon the German position from a less restricted spot. We moved toward the rear, two men supporting Charles with his arms about his, with his arms about their shoulders. A sudden burst of small arms fire came from our right rear. And the woods echoed to the crack of machine gun rifles.

• 1:23:54Jocko Willink?

  The fire was coming from the direction of the defensive position at the junction of the fire breaks which we had left. Bullets whined low over our heads and buried themselves into the trees and snow around us. My first thought that was, was that K Company had contacted our rear elements and thinking they were Germans had opened fire. We heard battalion talking on the radio, asking K Company what they, what time they wanted to pick up their bed rolls for the night. "We've got no use for bedding rolls," K Company answered. It was Lieutenant Flame. "We're in a firefight." Savage turned the butterfly switch on the radio and broke the conversation with a distressed voice. "Lieutenant Flame," he cried. "Lieutenant Flame, this is I Company. You're firing at us. This is Item Company. This is Item Company."

• 1:24:38Jocko Willink?

  "God damn it, I said we're in a firefight. We can't use any bedding rolls now." "Lieutenant Flame," Savage continued, "this is Savage. You're firing at I Company. Make your men quit firing. You're firing at I Company. You're shooting the hell out of Item Company." The radio was silent for a moment. "The hell we are. If we're firing at I Company, then why in the hell don't you quit firing back?" I was frightened with the realization of what he had said. We were receiving fire from K Company, but they were not firing at us. The enemy had slipped behind us. For un, for some unexplainable reason, my men had not opened fire in either of the directions from which the bullets came. I thank God that they had not started shooting.

• 1:25:20Jocko Willink?

  The confusion would have been trebled and I could visualize GIs firing at one another in the darkness. Whew. That's the worst case scenario. You got bad guys in between you and other good guys. It's, it's just a horrible situation. And I maybe, maybe it's hard for civilians to understand this, when you're in a firefight, you're not hitting all your targets. You're shooting suppressive fire. And so if I'm shooting in one direction, the bullets are not stopping where the enemy is, they're going to keep going indefinitely, you know? So if there's friendlies behind the enemy, you can't, you basically can't shoot. You basically can't shoot.

• 1:26:02Jocko Willink?

  So he McDonald gets they continue on he he continues on for a while trying to get them in a secure situation but eventually he has to get extracted because of because of his wound. And he gets back. When he gets he's now like under warm blankets and stuff and they're these in the the aid station. I shuddered at the thought of the company. Where were they now? Did Brock's platoon get out? Had I done the right thing in withdrawing? Or should I have stayed and fought it out?

• 1:26:33Jocko Willink?

  It seemed that I was always running. Perhaps it was all my fault.

• 1:26:38Jocko Willink?

  There'd been a brief moment of exultation in the aid station when someone had reminded me that now I could get a nice rest in the hospital. But now a nausea of fear for the welfare of the company enveloped me.

• 1:26:52Jocko Willink?

  I felt somehow like a deserter.

• 1:26:59Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:03Jocko Willink?

  You hear you. We've heard plenty of stories about guys looking for the million dollar wound. That's going to get him back to the States and the million dollar wound is good for about three minutes and then then then McDonald says, hey,

• 1:27:14Jocko Willink?

  I feel I feel horrible.

• 1:27:17Jocko Willink?

  He eventually recovers from the wound. Now you think, hey, you know, the guy's done a bunch of fighting. He recovered from his wound, but he got wounded, but now he's in the rear. And so, you know, he's probably going to get whatever extracted, maybe moved to the States, maybe, you know, give him a nice cushy job. No, not happening. They don't give him I Company back because I Company now has a new company commander. They give him a company G.

• 1:27:42Jocko Willink?

  So now he's in company G. And what are they doing? Are they in the rear somewhere relaxing? No, it's attack time. They're going forward.

• 1:27:52Jocko Willink?

  So here we go. We were back to the book. We would attack the next morning at 4:45. Someone awakened me at 3:30 the next morning. It was cold in the room and I shivered as I climbed from my sleeping bag. My mind was dulled with sleep and I wanted to climb back into the warm sleeping bag and sleep on and on. I wanted to scream to hell with the war and go back to sleep. The sudden jolt of awakening was like emerging, emerging from a wonderful peaceful world into a world of forbidding reality. There would be men hurt today, perhaps killed, men from my own company.

• 1:28:28Jocko Willink?

  It could be me. That seemed remote and impossible, but it did not remove my fear for the others. There were many responsibilities. Had I given the platoon leaders all the information they would need? How was my attack plan? Was there some important detail I had forgotten? Would Heimback be defended? Would our attack be discovered as we crossed the flat, open field towards the town? Oh God, if we could but rush from the house into the attack without thinking again.

• 1:28:58Jocko Willink?

  It was the waiting and the thinking and the wondering that got you. Talked about that before. That fear that you're feeling, it's the waiting, it's the hesitation. And he's saying, hey, if we could just go from this house that I'm sitting in right now, right into the attack, that's what he'd prefer to do.

• 1:29:20Jocko Willink?

  But he can't.

• 1:29:24Jocko Willink?

  And now they're moving to the attack is, is, is full on now. The last men in the forward positions crossed the crest of the small hill. They should be almost inside the first houses of Bendorf now, I thought. I halted the CP group in a sunken trail, running across the crest of the hill and told Junior to ask for reports from the assault platoon. Suddenly a tank fired from somewhere to our front and a big shell, a shell whirred over, low over our heads. A machine gun chattered. A round of tank fire ripped from the limb from a tree above our head. A burp gun said, "Burb, burp." There was no question now. We had hit their defenses. The Germans too, had tanks.

• 1:30:06Jocko Willink?

  I was trembling slightly from the excitement, but I was not as deathly afraid as I had once been in the pillbox positions. The opinion often expressed amongst some GIs that after any man was wounded, once, he was never any good in combat again, did not hold true in my case. I was more calm than ever before, but I was also more cautious.

• 1:30:35Jocko Willink?

  Now they proceed with that attack and again, obviously,

• 1:30:40Jocko Willink?

  there's, this book is just filled with tactical situation after tactical situation after lesson learned after lesson learned after tactical situation. And I'm not reading the entire book right now, but that is why you get the book. So that you can get all this information from it. I can't give it all to you on a podcast. You have to read it. But fast forwarding through that assault, back to the book, I stopped longer at the house where the men from the squad of the sergeant who had been killed were preparing for the night. I had not known the sergeant personally, but to these men, he was an important character in the little war that revolved around themselves.

• 1:31:23Jocko Willink?

  There was an undertone of sadness as they talked, but there was no bitterness. The sergeant had died like any one of them might die at any time. There was a war on, you know? And what I like about that is he points out that,

• 1:31:38Jocko Willink?

  you know, from his perspective, all this stuff is going on. He realizes that these guys, that's the whole world to them, right? That sergeant that was killed, that's their guy. And their war is everything to them. And it's just like when you meet people, you know, if you're in a business and you go and meet someone on the front lines, like they don't care. I'm not saying they don't care, but they've got their whole world in what they're doing. So you gotta be cognizant of that. You gotta understand that. And you gotta keep that perspective when you go out and talk to people. You can't be like, oh, you know, hey, there's a lot of people that got killed today. No, it doesn't matter to these guys. There's only one guy that matters to these guys.

• 1:32:23Jocko Willink?

  Now, like I said, this book is, covers a ton of different combat. And they go, while he's in charge of G Company, they go through all these different towns. I mean, they go through the town of Hambresen and across the Vesser River and they go through Ellerhausen and they go through Varlausen and they go through Varmensen and they go through Mengerhausen and Geismar. And they're going just from, from city to city, they're going very quickly and the fighting, it's becoming a little easier as they're going. The defenses, you know, the Germans are running out of, out of people, they're running out of, um, you know, supplies as well.

• 1:33:04Jocko Willink?

  So the fighting's gonna be easier, but they're still meeting some hardcore, some hardcore defenders. And one of the things that's happened that's really horrible is they, the, the Germans now are using anti-aircraft weapons against the ground troops. So anti-aircraft weapons make flak, they go up in the air and they explode. And they're now using those against the ground troops. And there's a, it just, the way that these rounds are coming in, exploding above them, it's, it's a nightmare and it's really hard for them to fight. So they've got some good efforts going on to go and take out these, these anti-aircraft weapons. And one of the, one of the anti, or one of the groups of anti-aircraft weapons that they

• 1:33:47Jocko Willink?

  take out, they finally get, they finally take out these anti-aircraft weapons through an assault. And when they get done with the assault, McDonnell comes up on the position. And here we go back to the book. Sergeant Patton said the Germans manning the position in the field which held them up were bastards. "They had two AA guns," he said. "Some of them wanted to surrender, but every time a Kraut would jump out of his hole to surrender, some other Kraut SOB would shoot him right in the back. Counting the ones they killed and the ones we got too, there's 19 dead." Patton had one man slightly wounded in the arm, but he'd already walked back to Geismar, to, to the aid station.

• 1:34:28Jocko Willink?

  "My weapons platoon and platoon of heavy machine guns from H Company arrived from their supporting position outside Geismar. Sergeant Mark Mitchell was killed," one of the sergeants from the heavy machine gun told me.

• 1:34:43Jocko Willink?

  I could not think of for a moment who Sergeant Mitchell was. Then I remembered he was the pleasant perennial cheerful tech sergeant in command of the platoon, who was to receive his commission as a second lieutenant in a few days.

• 1:34:57Jocko Willink?

  An anti-aircraft gun fired from the woods to the south, the sergeant continued, and Sergeant Mitchell got hit. He was unconscious and the aid man took him back to one of the TDs to give him first aid. TD is a tank destroyer. It's like another tank. But they're specifically meant to fight other tanks. The aircraft gun fired again and the goddamn TD backed up, ran right over Sergeant Mitchell.

• 1:35:25Jocko Willink?

  So that's a, another thing that you have to train for is when you're working with armor, when you're working with tanks, they don't know what's going on around them. They don't have like rear view backup cameras. And so if you get in the way of a tank, it's going to run you over. And so that's something that we, we, we were lucky when we, before we went on deployment, we'd go work with tanks a little bit and that's where we'd learn that lesson. Cause you might think, I'll take cover behind this tank. That tank could move at any moment. So you gotta be very careful of that young troopers out there. If you don't work with tanks often, stay out of their way.

• 1:36:02Jocko Willink?

  Here's, uh, as they're continuing to press through and press through and press through from village to village, from town to town. And again, they're moving pretty rapidly now.

• 1:36:12Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book, Colonel Smith rolled up beside me, beside my tank in his Jeep. "Nice going, Mack," he said. "You're doing a really swell job. Just keep them moving. The faster the better." "Don't thank me, Colonel," I said, meaning it and disgusted that it sounded melodramatic. "Thank Lieutenant Bagby and the first platoon." I'm just tagging along.

• 1:36:37Jocko Willink?

  So you got a leader there that's not looking to grab all the credit himself, but give it to his troops. Now, like I said, the, the fighting. Continues to get easier and easier and they're starting to see, you know, people surrender. They're also starting to see like young kids because you're starting to see the Hitler Youth that are being recruited. They're 13 years old, 14 years old kids that are surrendering. They fight through Corbetta and Lopitz and Kreigsdorf. And I apologize for my lack of German speaking capability. But they get, they get into one town.

• 1:37:23Jocko Willink?

  And one of the lieutenants, Lieutenant Whitman, kind of pushes into the town with a small team. And he's in there, he's in one of the buildings and all of a sudden like a massive group of, of German soldiers comes in and they're kind of stuck there. So here we go back to the book. Lieutenant Whitman called suddenly over the radio and I knew by the excitement in his voice that something had either happened or was about to happen. You better get somebody else up here to help us out. Sounds like a whole regiment of Krauts coming, coming this way up the highway. So this, he's trying to figure out what's happening. And then the radio sputtered, hello, G, G6. This is Wit. So G6 is the call sign for, for McDonald's. Hello, G6, this is Wit.

• 1:38:07Jocko Willink?

  For God's sake, get someone up here to help. There's Germans all over the goddamn place. I grasped the speaker from Wes Miller's outstretched hand. Wit, this is Mac, I said. They caught us halfway across the open field. The men have taken off. I'll have to go back and get them to come up over. For God's sake, get us some help quick. We're completely surrounded. Roger, out.

• 1:38:29Jocko Willink?

  So now Whitman's in one of these buildings completely surrounded.

• 1:38:34Jocko Willink?

  This continues on, the battalion radio is silent. I called for Lieutenant Whitman and his voice came through weakly as though he were speaking in a stage whisper. I'm back on the left side of the highway, he said, in a house. I've got nine men with me. Germans are running all around, all over the place. I lost track of all the other men, heard some of them surrendering. Get us some help quick or they'll find out where we are when they start searching the houses. So. McDonald tries to, okay, calls battalion, "Hey, we need some help, we need some help here." No, you don't get any help. And so, he tells Whitman, or Whitman hears it on the radio, that he's not gonna get any help, he's not gonna get any support. And this is what Whitman says, "There's only one thing to do then," he continued, "if we have to wait that long, they're sure to

• 1:39:19Jocko Willink?

  find us. We'll go down to the cellar and you start plastering us with artillery fire. We're inside and the Krauts are out in the open. We'll help you direct fire from here." I knew his decision called for a generous amount of fortitude, even though he would be partially protected in the cellar. Lieutenant Reed set up his artillery radio and artillery gave us a priority mission. Sergeant Barnes arrived with his platoon and the machine gun section. I sent them into position along with a heavy, a platoon of heavy machine guns from each company. "To hell with the ammunition," I said, "we'll get more from somewhere. Spray the hell out of the whole area." The machine guns opened up and artillery whistled overhead, thundering into the open field dangerously close to the paling fence at the end of the garden. "Three hundred short,"

• 1:40:03Jocko Willink?

  Lieutenant Reed yelled into his radio, "three hundred short." The artillery whistled overhead again and plummeted into the houses beyond us with a terrific roar. Orange flames lit the darkness like flashes of lightning. "That's right on top of us," Whitman cried delighted. "Let her go again. We can hear Germans running all over the place outside." Lieutenant Reed called for barrage after barrage and the big shells roared into the objective. The Germans made feeble efforts at retaliation with their machine guns, but the shots died away in the explosion of the big artillery shells. A direct hit transformed a house into a mass of roaring flames. "Is that your house?" I asked Whitman, half fearfully. "No, seems to be on our left," he answered. "Give us another volley in the same place. Sounds like a tank or some kind of armored car pulled up."

• 1:40:48Jocko Willink?

  Lieutenant Reed called for a repeat volley. "That hit just right," Whitman said, his voice scarcely audible over the radio. I wondered what had happened to his radio and was afraid that perhaps the batteries were going dead and we would lose our only means of communication. "I can't talk loud," he said, "I've got fifteen Kraut prisoners down here in the cellar with me and some Germans have come in upstairs. We can hear them walking around. If one of these prisoners so much as opens his mouth, I'll plug him."

• 1:41:17Jocko Willink?

  So there's another situation where you're calling in artillery to your position. You just happen to be in the cellar of a house.

• 1:41:28Jocko Willink?

  Crazy.

• 1:41:31Jocko Willink?

  Here, they're, they're doing a little assault. And it's set up like a frontal assault, but he wants to make a little adjustment here. The obvious solution to being unable to advance frontally against the unseen enemy was to send a flanking platoon around to the right, having them enter the woods and come out, come in on the defenders from the flank and rear. But I balked at the thought of sending one platoon such a great distance when for all I knew, the woods beyond the canals might be thick with enemy. I decided to cover our front with artillery and have two platoons try to advance frontally and notified second and third platoons to be ready to move forward under cover of artillery barrage.

• 1:42:14Jocko Willink?

  But the enemy came suddenly to life when the rifleman rose to go forward and repulsed three efforts to advance. So he wants to flank. But he's weighing it in his head. The, the flanking positions through the woods, in order to flank, he needs to put his guys through the woods, through an area he doesn't know, doesn't know how well it's defended. So he says, you know what, instead of doing a flank, which is what I want to do, I'm just going to put down some artillery fire and we're going to do a frontal assault. They get shut down and eventually he does make the decision, you know what, the bet, the, the decision now becomes, okay, frontal assault is not going to work. Now I'm going to have to flank. He goes back to that flank. I sent Whitman with a spare 300 radio and ordered him across the canal. He moved out quickly and far to the right. I could see his men emerge from the woods and wade across the first canal, the water

• 1:42:59Jocko Willink?

  coming to the necks of the shorter men. My fear of a larger enemy force in the woods overcame my fear for safety of our left flank and I ordered Lieutenant Bagby's platoon to follow the flanking force. We could see the little dots that were Whitman's men emerge from the wood line and double timed towards the garden. Lieutenant Reed stopped the artillery fire. The third platoon to my front began to advance and I knew it was only a matter of minutes until the objective would be ours. I signaled the CP group and we moved to the railroad tracks on the. And on toward the bridge, past three wounded Germans lying helplessly in the gully beside the tracks where Barnes' men had evidently shot them earlier in the day. The automatic, the enemy automatic weapon suddenly opened up again at the third platoon,

• 1:43:44Jocko Willink?

  but the men were close enough now to pick up the bush from which it was firing. They fired round after round into the clump of bushes and the weapon was silent. So, eventually, he gets his flank on, and that's what, that's what wins the day. Now, again, a lot is covered as they do this, city by city, some of the villages, some of the towns that they enter, there's no resistance. Some of them, there is massive resistance, they push through it, they fight through it, lots of lessons learned, lots of incredible heroics. And eventually, they push through and they make it all the way into Czechoslovakia.

• 1:44:26Jocko Willink?

  And we're now approaching the end, not only for McDonald, but the end for the war. As they go in to liberate Czechoslovakia, going back to the book. Our column continued forward. And my company shifted to the lead position on the tanks. I rode behind the lead tank in the artillery jeep. The little country towns changed into industrial, small industrial towns, and we began to notice a scattering of red, white, and blue Czechoslovakian flags in towns in place of the usual white flags of surrender. Civilians waved at us guardedly from behind closed windows.

• 1:45:11Jocko Willink?

  The scattering of Czech flags should have warned us, but we were totally unprepared for the mad celebration which greeted us in the next town. We had suddenly crossed from the Sudetenland into Czechoslovakia proper.

• 1:45:28Jocko Willink?

  The houses were a riot of color with red, white, and blue Czechoslovakian flags. Civilians lined the streets ten-deep cheering and waving their flags as if their lives depended on it. Our column was forced to slow down and the happy civilians pushed into the street and showered us with flowers and cakes and cookies. One old woman thrust a baked chicken into our jeep. Another old woman stood behind the road, beside the road waving both hands in the air, tears streaming down her wrinkled cheeks. Little children were wild with joy, some of them had never known anything but six years of Nazi occupation. The young men wore red, white, and blue armbands and carried German weapons, a part of the underground movement that was now,

• 1:46:12Jocko Willink?

  that was even now struggling against superior German forces in the capital city of Prague. Everyone was screaming the Czech words, "Nazdar, Nazdar", and we wondered what they meant.

• 1:46:26Jocko Willink?

  I looked up and down the column at the soldiers in the company, brilliant smiles read their faces. And they waved cheerfully at the shouting crowds as if they had just won an election campaign and this was a personal triumph. Hardened, stubble-faced veterans had unshamed tears in their eyes. The unleashed joy of these oppressed people knew no bounds and it was too much for us. Suddenly, I began to realize what no one thus far had been able in the war to put into words. What we were fighting for.

• 1:47:05Jocko Willink?

  And I found a lump in my throat, which I could not swallow.

• 1:47:16Jocko Willink?

  Freedom.

• 1:47:20Jocko Willink?

  Freedom.

• 1:47:23Jocko Willink?

  Something we take for granted.

• 1:47:27Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book. The news came by radio. That the war was over.

• 1:47:34Jocko Willink?

  There was no defining our joy.

• 1:47:38Jocko Willink?

  Sergeant Quinn brought out a treasured keg of cognac. The next day, May 8th, would be VE Day. The townspeople held a dance for us. The next night. In the town guesthouse, one of the artillerymen. Was escorting a young girl whom he had met the night before, and she told him. That her friend Lieb.

• 1:48:05Jocko Willink?

  Would like very much to attend with the captain.

• 1:48:09Jocko Willink?

  The small guesthouse was crowded with dancers, and the older men and women sat with the young children at tables around the sides of the room.

• 1:48:19Jocko Willink?

  Male dancers, the male dancers were permanently GIs, but a few Czech young men. Were present. The orchestra reminded me of the circus bands in the US as they played the waltzes, the polkas. The Czechs would. Join in often to sing the songs enthusiastically even as they danced.

• 1:48:43Jocko Willink?

  At the insistence of the bandleader, Lieb agreed to sing. And the notes came forth in a clear sparkling soprano.

• 1:48:54Jocko Willink?

  When she had finished, she made a brief speech. Which the Slavic speaking soldier told me, said that the people would now sing their national anthem. It would be the first time they had sung it in public in six years.

• 1:49:12Jocko Willink?

  The people rose as one, and every boy, girl, man, and woman joined in the singing. With clear lusty voices that made goose pimples rise on my arms.

• 1:49:27Jocko Willink?

  Some of the older people cried, and it was all I could do to keep the tears from my eyes.

• 1:49:34Jocko Willink?

  When it was over, the soldiers began to cry. Speech, speech! And the civilians caught on and applauded. I stood up on a chair in the center of the room, trying to think of something to say. I mumbled a few words of sincere gratitude for the wonderful reception these wonderful people had given us. And the soldier translated for Lieb, and she told the people what I had said. They applauded warmly. Lieb and I walked outside into the cool night air. In the distance, we could see fireworks exploding in the air above Pilsen, and we knew that they too were celebrating VE Day. I looked around me and saw lights streaming from the windows, and army vehicles driving

• 1:50:19Jocko Willink?

  on the highway with their headlights on, and I heard the gay music and laughter from the dance in the background. I suddenly realized that I could light a cigarette once again in the open and not be afraid of drawing enemy fire. And I did. It was a simple thing, but it gave me a wonderful feeling that life was worth living again. I put my arm about Lieb's waist, and she pointed to the multicolored fireworks display and laughed. Dobry, dobry! I had learned that dobry was good.

• 1:50:58Jocko Willink?

  And I said, dobry, dobry. I looked away in the distance, and I seemed to see the faces of the men from Companies I and G who could not see this great day because they had died to obtain it. And then their faces were gone. And I saw the mud and ice and snow of the Siegfried Line, then the exploding fireworks became bursting artillery shells in the Ardennes and bursting flak at Liepads. But then, the terror was gone.

• 1:51:39Jocko Willink?

  And I saw two companies of men marching by, and there was I Company and G Company, tired, dirty, weary, but with smiling faces. And somehow, the faces of the men who had been killed were in the background, smiling and waving bravely to those who marched on.

• 1:52:03Jocko Willink?

  And Lieb looked up at me as if to ask what I was thinking, and I said, "Dobry, dobry."

• 1:52:12Jocko Willink?

  And Lieb squeezed my hand and laughed.

• 1:52:16Jocko Willink?

  "Yes, dobry."

• 1:52:21Jocko Willink?

  "And that is the end of my story." "But perhaps you would like to know that my company moved on five miles north of Pilsen to Tremontza." "And there we met another group of dirty, tired infantrymen who called themselves Russians."

• 1:52:43Jocko Willink?

  "A month later, we were loaded on a big boat at La Harve." "And on July 20th, 1945, we sailed into New York Harbor." "And received the cheers of a grateful America." "And saw a tall lady with a torch that brought tears to our eyes."

• 1:53:06Jocko Willink?

  "The characters in my story were destined to be sent to help to finish another war in another part of the world" "where another group of American infantrymen were fighting a dirty, miserable war."

• 1:53:20Jocko Willink?

  "But a miracle happened, and the other war came to an end."

• 1:53:29Jocko Willink?

  "Most of my characters are wearing civilian clothes again now." "But I know that wherever they are, they will have a hollow place in their hearts" "for those who will not be changing into civilian clothes again, ever."

• 1:53:50Jocko Willink?

  "Those GIs who, that others may live, were cut down in a harvest for the devil."

• 1:54:14Jocko Willink?

  And that

• 1:54:18Jocko Willink?

  is

• 1:54:20Jocko Willink?

  how this book wraps up. Incredible book. Again, it's called Company Commander

• 1:54:27Jocko Willink?

  by

• 1:54:29Jocko Willink?

  Charles B. McDonald. And

• 1:54:37Jocko Willink?

  although that is the end of this book,

• 1:54:43Jocko Willink?

  let it not be the end of our memory.

• 1:54:51Jocko Willink?

  And let us not forget these lessons and let us not forget the tyranny

• 1:54:59Jocko Willink?

  and the oppression that was forced onto millions and millions of people.

• 1:55:09Jocko Willink?

  And let us not forget the millions and millions and millions of innocent people murdered, butchered, frozen, starved,

• 1:55:24Jocko Willink?

  wasted.

• 1:55:28Jocko Willink?

  Wasted human lives

• 1:55:32Jocko Willink?

  to satisfy the twisted ego of a few.

• 1:55:42Jocko Willink?

  And let us never forget these men

• 1:55:50Jocko Willink?

  that fought hunger and fatigue and fear

• 1:55:59Jocko Willink?

  to face and to fight evil.

• 1:56:06Jocko Willink?

  And let us not

• 1:56:10Jocko Willink?

  forget those that sacrificed their youth and their health

• 1:56:17Jocko Willink?

  for the youth and the health of others.

• 1:56:27Jocko Willink?

  And finally, let us never, ever forget those men and women who were cut down in this harvest for the devil to give other human beings the most precious gift in the world.

• 1:56:51Jocko Willink?

  Freedom.

• 1:56:57Jocko Willink?

  Let us never forget them.

• 1:57:01Jocko Willink?

  Or this gift.

• 1:57:09Jocko Willink?

  Freedom.

• 1:57:16Jocko Willink?

  And I think that's

• 1:57:21Jocko Willink?

  all I've got for tonight. Echo Charles, if you want to, uh, maybe take a minute here and explain,

• 1:57:31Jocko Willink?

  give me a chance to decompress over here and maybe you can explain in the meantime, if somebody wants to support this particular podcast.

• 1:57:40Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:57:41Jocko Willink?

  How they could do that.

• 1:57:42Speaker 01

  It's crazy. These books don't, like the effect of, and obviously you didn't read the whole book, but

• 1:57:51Speaker 01

  just what you read, like the way it affects you, you know, it takes you there and just even like at the end when it's like the war was over, you feel all you're like, oh my gosh, thank God that's over kind of thing. You have that feeling and it just never wears off. It's crazy.

• 1:58:05Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Well, I've said before, you know, when we, when we started and I wasn't sure if I would have enough books, right?

• 1:58:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:58:15Jocko Willink?

  But we're going to have enough books.

• 1:58:17Speaker 01

  I know, man.

• 1:58:18Jocko Willink?

  And every single one of these stories is, is its own incredible story and, and, and because what I, what we just talked about, how you get this. This war, World War II, for this guy was this here, but you know, you get someone that's in the Pacific and you take one, if you were to take one of his platoon commanders, it would be that war. It's these little tiny human experiences that are so incredible. And each one of them is, is just as incredible as the next one, is just as incredible as the previous one. And that's why you just, I, I just don't know if we'll ever get to them all. And the other thing is that we have to remember is, a tiny, tiny, tiny, miniscule percentage of these people actually wrote a book.

• 1:59:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:59:03Jocko Willink?

  Most of these stories, they just, they just happened.

• 1:59:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:59:08Jocko Willink?

  And, and we don't know about them.

• 1:59:09Speaker 01

  Yeah. So crazy. And each one is like, is so unique in their little perspective, but at the same time, it has so many similarities, you know? And it all sort of like, as you gather, you know, one story, two stories, all these different, it starts to tell this overall tale, you know?

• 1:59:26Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And it's the tale of, of humans. It's the tale of human nature. It's the tale of, and it's the tale of overcoming, right?

• 1:59:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:59:36Jocko Willink?

  I mean, just the things that these guys overcome, you, you take all these things. You know, I've been, I've been in some miserable places, right? In my time, right? I mean, every, basically everybody has. You've been in some hard places in your life. And then these guys, they do that. And they live that way. And then they get attacked. And then they lose guys and they get wounded. And then they just go right back out, right back onto the front. The limits of human nature are the limits of human, the capacity of human beings to overcome obstacles is, is, is unbelievable. And if there's nothing else, like I, I know not everyone goes to war and not everyone should go to war. And I don't want anyone to go to war if they can help it.

• 2:00:18Jocko Willink?

  But if at least we learn that whatever we're coming up against, man, we can deal with it. We can do so much more and be so much more uncomfortable and push yourself so much harder. You know, that was one thing and I didn't, I, I didn't do a good job today of portraying it, but. He's getting pushed in a lot of these situations. I mean, you can kind of hear it when he's getting woken up. Every time he wakes up, his initial reaction isn't, isn't cool. I get to go fight now. No, his initial reaction every single time is like, I want to go back to bed. I want the war to be over. I want to hide. I want to, that's his reaction every single time. And yet, every single time, he gets up and he does his job. He does his duty and he does what he has to do. That's, that's the human spirit, right?

• 2:00:59Jocko Willink?

  That's the thing that we should all capture. I mean, we have a hard time getting out of bed because it's going to be a tough workout. Or because we're going to have a hard day at the, you know, it's like we, we're pathetic. We're pathetic. Compared to these guys that are, oh, it's, you know, what's waking you up? Mortar fire, machine gun fire. People screaming that they're being overrun. That's your wake up call. I think we can get out of bed in the morning because we, you know, because we got, we're facing a tough workout or a hard day. We got to get up early for travel or whatever situation you're in. You can do it. I can do it. We can do it. Look at what these guys went up against. Day after day after day after day after day after day after day. Just doesn't stop. It just doesn't stop.

• 2:01:44Jocko Willink?

  And the whole time, by the way, there's the threat of death, by the way, the whole time.

• 2:01:49Speaker 01

  Freezing.

• 2:01:49Jocko Willink?

  You know, I just thought about this, like this is a book where he doesn't even talk about like his family.

• 2:01:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:01:54Jocko Willink?

  He doesn't talk about his loved ones. No, he's there. He's just like detached from everything else. He's got a war, he's got a war to fight.

• 2:02:03Jocko Willink?

  So thankfully, we get these incredible memoirs. This one here, if you're looking at it on YouTube, uh, holding up the cover. I got the old school version. It has illustrations in it. Got some cool ink drawings of, it's all of weapons. Just to kind of let you know what these things look like, but incredible stuff.

• 2:02:24Speaker 01

  So yeah, support, right? If you're in the mood.

• 2:02:28Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:02:30Jocko Willink?

  Like, for instance, how much effort does it take to click through Amazon? It does take a lot of effort. You can do it if you want to support.

• 2:02:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. If you want to support in that way. Actually, let me go ahead and explain that. The Amazon thing is cool.

• 2:02:45Speaker 01

  So you do your Amazon shopping like we always do daily for some of us.

• 2:02:54Speaker 01

  Instead of going straight to Amazon, just go to jockpodcast.com little Amazon banner on the side. You kind of got to scroll down if you want to hit the banner sometimes, but I put it up in the top menu as well. Boom. Click on the Amazon banner, then do your shopping. Good way to support. Like Jocko said, just a little action. If you want, if that's what you're doing, if you're supporting the podcast, boom, that's a good way.

• 2:03:18Jocko Willink?

  Are we asking them to assault a target? Are we asking them to flank an enemy? Are we, are we asking them to come up against pans or tanks or Tiger tanks with one bazooka and 10 tanks? No, no. Just asking for a little support.

• 2:03:33Speaker 01

  Right. Yeah. And that's a good way to, really good way. It's, well, I was gonna make the comparison to the plane that comes in and then leaves, you know, but meanwhile, it's huge support, but

• 2:03:45Jocko Willink?

  That's true.

• 2:03:46Speaker 01

  let's face it though, those pilots, that's, that's, that's a lot of work, you know?

• 2:03:50Jocko Willink?

  For sure.

• 2:03:50Speaker 01

  So let's, I mean, I don't know if that's a fair comparison, but nonetheless.

• 2:03:54Jocko Willink?

  Let's stick with sodium on that one.

• 2:03:57Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's like sodium, you know, little piece sodium, throw it in the fish tank.

• 2:04:01Jocko Willink?

  You know what? We should actually do that.

• 2:04:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:04:05Jocko Willink?

  We need to do it. Actually, we need to do Facebook Live. We need to get some sodium and put it in a bucket of water so we can give visuals

• 2:04:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, good.

• 2:04:14Jocko Willink?

  behind the situation that you're talking about.

• 2:04:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, we'll do it at your house.

• 2:04:16Jocko Willink?

  Okay, bring it.

• 2:04:19Speaker 01

  Where do you get sodium?

• 2:04:20Jocko Willink?

  I don't know.

• 2:04:22Speaker 01

  Like CVS?

• 2:04:22Jocko Willink?

  You're the logistics guy. Go get some sodium.

• 2:04:26Speaker 01

  Look into that one. Anyway, that is a fair, more fair analogy. You're the sodium, big reinforcement effects with the Amazon click through situation. Also, if you're into supplementation, which I'm gonna go ahead and recommend it now. Catch me three years ago. You're not gonna hear me recommending any supplements. Maybe a pre-workout, maybe. And even then, it's like caffeinated. I was thinking, you know, okay, so on it, right? That's the supplements we're talking about if you didn't know.

• 2:04:59Speaker 01

  If you did know, this is all familiar to you, but the pre-workout that we talk about is called total strength and performance. You know, weightlifting and whatnot, it's pre-workout. It's not, it's stimulant free, right? So you know what I was thinking? I was like, hey, stimulant free pre-workout is kind of different than what I'm used to be. You know what it's like?

• 2:05:18Jocko Willink?

  I don't, but I've got a feeling I'm gonna learn.

• 2:05:21Speaker 01

  It's like, it's like, you ever watch movies and the good guy, like, I don't know, Clint Eastwood?

• 2:05:27Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:05:27Speaker 01

  Bruce Willis, like, he's all calm. He's like, he's not wired and he's all calm. But when it goes down, bro, he kills, you know, kicks ass. That's what this pre-workout is kind of like. Like, when you take it, you're like, oh, I'm calm, but on the inside, so much potential. And then when you get the work going, it's like, boom. So they, they do studies on it. That's actually the good, one of the good parts about it. It's like they do real, like placebo tested, like, it's studies.

• 2:05:55Jocko Willink?

  Double-blind placebo-tested and stuff like that?

• 2:05:57Speaker 01

  Yeah. Sounds cool, but it is cool.

• 2:06:01Speaker 01

  So with this pre-workout one, it's like, over, I think it was like a four-week period, it's like, I want to say 6% improvement. Like on average, about there, you know, and I'm thinking, oh yeah, 6%, I was like, okay, cool, single-digit percent. Sometimes that can mean a lot. So I'm like thinking, okay, what's 6%? What does that look like? You know?

• 2:06:22Jocko Willink?

  I don't know. Add that to your bench press number or whatever.

• 2:06:24Speaker 01

  How about this?

• 2:06:25Jocko Willink?

  Your deadlift number.

• 2:06:26Speaker 01

  How about this? Subtract it. So this is, this is how it really hit me.

• 2:06:30Jocko Willink?

  Why you gotta be negative?

• 2:06:30Speaker 01

  I know, Brad, because I'm trying to prove a legitimate point. Okay, so let's say I'm doing some dumbbells, right? And I'm like, okay, I'm gonna do a set of 10. I don't know, I'm not saying me, I'm just saying anyone. And I'm gonna use the 100-pound dumbbells, I'm gonna do 10 of them.

• 2:06:48Jocko Willink?

  Curls?

• 2:06:50Speaker 01

  We'll do, how about this? We'll do a bench press dumbbells, I'm gonna do hundreds. And one week I do, you know, a set of 10, boom, solid, right? And then, whatever, I finish my workout. The next week, if I can do 6% less, like, that's my limit, you know, I'm feeling 6% weaker.

• 2:07:09Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:07:10Speaker 01

  I can't do those hundreds 10 times.

• 2:07:12Jocko Willink?

  No.

• 2:07:13Speaker 01

  I gotta go to the 95s. Bro, you know how whack that is?

• 2:07:16Jocko Willink?

  It's real whack.

• 2:07:19Speaker 01

  So I'm saying, if you don't take this pre-workout over a month period of time, this is just on average, if you don't take this pre-workout, you're the guy who did the ninety fives. If you do, you're the guy who did the hundreds. Actually, it's less than ninety fives, really, it's like ninety fours, really. On average, dang, see, so that's what, if you're not taking the pre-workout, which I do now, by the way, if you're not taking it, you're that guy. No, I mean, that's cool, but I'm just saying you're missing out on gains galore, you know? You see what I'm saying?

• 2:07:49Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:07:50Speaker 01

  Anyway, and this is all proven stuff, this is just me making it up, this is like, they did it, Florida State University.

• 2:07:56Jocko Willink?

  And you prove it yourself.

• 2:07:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, that part is up to you, I mean, it's, it's up to you to go get after it.

• 2:08:02Jocko Willink?

  No, what about you personally?

• 2:08:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm all upon it. I didn't measure my results or nothing like that. I didn't do a double-blind. Yeah, the pop, remember?

• 2:08:13Jocko Willink?

  Oh, that's right.

• 2:08:13Speaker 01

  Pop is real. How they did it is, you know, you know, even the word double-blind placebo situation, whatever, a lot of people, they don't know what that is. What it is, is they get a bunch, a group of people who are gonna work out hard, going for gains, straight up.

• 2:08:31Speaker 01

  They're gonna give them all the supplements, all of them, all the people they're gonna give the supplement, but half of those people, it's actually not the supplement, it's like, nothing. But, they don't know that. Everyone thinks they're taking the supplement, so they're all getting after it, they're all, you know what I mean?

• 2:08:45Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:08:45Speaker 01

  And then they say, okay, who's gonna, who's gains are better, and they monitor, and all the people with the supplements, their gains were, you know, on average, and it's all these different let's spend squad, all this stuff. So boom, proven, boom. Anyway.

• 2:08:57Jocko Willink?

  It tastes good, that much I can actually attest to.

• 2:09:00Speaker 01

  It does, I was thinking about that.

• 2:09:01Jocko Willink?

  I can attest that it makes, now, I can't, I haven't done a double-blind placebo on myself.

• 2:09:07Speaker 01

  Me neither.

• 2:09:08Jocko Willink?

  Because I'd have to like, mix it up and fake myself out, and I'm pretty hard to trick.

• 2:09:14Jocko Willink?

  So, but, like I said, I, when I, when I feel the need.

• 2:09:20Jocko Willink?

  I take not only Shroom Tech Sport, but also the pre.

• 2:09:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:09:25Jocko Willink?

  And get after it.

• 2:09:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:09:26Jocko Willink?

  If I know that the boys are waiting for me for the Jiu Jitsu training.

• 2:09:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:09:30Jocko Willink?

  And I know it's going down. I, I will. If I'm not, if I'm feeling any sort of hesitation, I'll get after that.

• 2:09:38Speaker 01

  Default aggressive, when in doubt, yeah, do that. And it makes sense too, because obviously Jiu Jitsu, especially when you're going hard, that's a workout. That you need to recover from and you'll be, you know, so you'll get better results from recovering from even a Jiu Jitsu workout.

• 2:09:54Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:09:55Speaker 01

  You know?

• 2:09:55Jocko Willink?

  I just worry about performance.

• 2:09:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, performance.

• 2:09:58Jocko Willink?

  I'm not doing it for recovery, to be honest with you.

• 2:10:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:10:00Jocko Willink?

  With the Jiu Jitsu workout.

• 2:10:01Speaker 01

  But like it or not, that's what you're getting. You're getting the recovery too, yeah, fully, fully is. But yeah, so good. Yeah. And you say it tastes good. It does taste good. It was weird because um, as far as pre workouts go, like if you get a regular quote unquote, regular pre workout, they try to make it taste like candy and Kool-Aid and lemonade and all this stuff. And I'm not mad at it. It tastes good or whatever.

• 2:10:22Jocko Willink?

  I'm mad at it.

• 2:10:23Speaker 01

  But yeah, man, let's face it. And it's not that good. So when I took this one, it was kind of, it had more of like a, um, you know, like if you take like natural greens or something, it kind of has earthy, it's earthy. There's an earthy flavor to it, which I was like, oh, this is different. It's not like candy. And I was like, okay. And then after a while, you kind of get used to it. And then you have that, you know, you have that association, a certain taste from like, then you go work out, you get the pop and it's like kind of part of the routine. And so it's like, tastes all good now. You know what I mean? It's like through association. Yeah, yeah, it's good. Anyway, it doesn't taste like krill oil. Like if you're chopping, chomping krill oil tablets. Yeah, you gotta just swallow those. Don't chomp those.

• 2:11:03Jocko Willink?

  Those do not taste good.

• 2:11:04Speaker 01

  Yeah. And cool. So krill oil, speaking of which, is

• 2:11:09Speaker 01

  the go to, in my opinion.

• 2:11:11Jocko Willink?

  It's the go to.

• 2:11:12Speaker 01

  I was talking to Greg Train about this. What's today? It was yesterday I was talking to him.

• 2:11:18Speaker 01

  And of course, like, okay, if you're working out and you're like, hey, my joints are less sore. That's good, of course. But you know, when you do notice it, and in my experience even more, if you pay attention is like, for example, like a few days ago, I'm sitting down in the living room with like the kids, you know? We're sitting, we're sitting there for a long time, same positions, like for forty five minutes. Usually after forty five minutes and then it's okay, it's time to get up, whatever. Gotta do something. You get up and you're like, ah, you know, you get up, you know? You make that noise? Me? No, but if I didn't take krill oil, I probably would have that. And I have had that, especially if you've worked out that day or something like that, you know? You just stiffen up, I'm just saying.

• 2:12:01Speaker 01

  And you feel it with the krill oil, it's almost like you're always warm, you know? Not warm physically, but you know, like you've already warmed up. That's kind of what you feel like.

• 2:12:10Jocko Willink?

  It's good. I'm a supporter.

• 2:12:12Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I'm saying get on the krill oil.

• 2:12:15Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Like I said, I, I had injuries and krill oil, that was a long time ago that I started taking krill oil. And I haven't stopped and I'm not going to.

• 2:12:23Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, cuz even like, like you say injuries, which yeah, of course legitimate, but I never, I mean, I've had injuries, but

• 2:12:33Speaker 01

  it more helps like the pre-injury, you know, like it's something that's not an injury. Yeah, something that's just kind of just nagging you, you know? Stuff you gotta like battle through or something like that. You don't have to battle through that anymore. You just, you got omega threes.

• 2:12:49Speaker 01

  Next, next time I'll go into the whole why fish oil or krill oil is better than fish oil. Cuz we talked about it, it'll take too long, it's kind of technical. I'll put it into like, let this term some other time. Anyway, krill oil is dope. Pre-workout's dope. Everything on Onnit is good, actually. Just depends on what kind of workout program, what kind of lifestyle, you know? But they have something for everybody, like regardless of what you do, even the krill oil, even if you're not that active, it's just good for your joints, you know? It's like, cuz over time you degenerate, you know? Whatever. Krill oil, regenerate.

• 2:13:23Speaker 01

  Also, another way to support is subscribe on iTunes or the various podcast platforms, Stitcher, Google Play, all these things. If you subscribe, if you haven't already, you know, that's a good support, you know? Get updates when, um, new episodes come out. Also on YouTube, we have a YouTube channel, excerpts on there along with the video version of this podcast, which helps.

• 2:13:49Jocko Willink?

  If you need to know what Echo looks like, because apparently Echo does not look like what he sounds like.

• 2:13:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:13:55Jocko Willink?

  I've been told.

• 2:13:56Speaker 01

  Actually, how's this? It, so Paul,

• 2:14:02Speaker 01

  my new friend Paul, came in from Arizona, visited, came to the V, Victory, looked into some jujitsu, all that.

• 2:14:09Jocko Willink?

  I was out of town.

• 2:14:10Speaker 01

  You're out of town, yes, too bad. So he goes, he says, when I walked in, he's like, hey Echo. I was like, cool. I was like, hey, you know, what's up? And he goes, oh, you're, for some reason, I thought you'd be bigger, he said. I was like, oh, interesting. I was like, cause typically, people, if they haven't seen me or whatever, they think I'm smaller and you think I'm bigger. So it's kind of, it was just different.

• 2:14:35Jocko Willink?

  I got that impression from reading on social media that Echo's jacked.

• 2:14:43Speaker 01

  Maybe.

• 2:14:43Jocko Willink?

  People go, Echo's jacked.

• 2:14:45Speaker 01

  Or, yeah, or maybe, you know, maybe he thought I was just tall, like, super tall or something.

• 2:14:51Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah. Well, maybe. But you, what are you, 5'11"?

• 2:14:55Speaker 01

  6'11".

• 2:14:58Jocko Willink?

  Super tall.

• 2:15:00Speaker 01

  A normal height. I don't know. I don't know. Either way, um, what was the point there? Oh yeah, if you want to watch YouTube videos of, of Jocko. Yeah, it's less about me, I think.

• 2:15:11Jocko Willink?

  No, it's about you.

• 2:15:12Speaker 01

  It's about me, yeah, a little bit. Yeah. So either of us. Um, and you want to watch the video version, go ahead, watch that, man. It's good. It's on YouTube. And also, uh, I'll put some excerpts on there, just in case you want to watch the whole, cause to sit in front of the computer and watch, like, for two hours, three hours, sometimes, I mean, that's kind of unrealistic. Unless you're playing it.

• 2:15:31Jocko Willink?

  A lot of people do it.

• 2:15:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, no, what, what? And I've done this before too. You just put it on like your TV, your smart TV.

• 2:15:38Jocko Willink?

  But sometimes I wanna see what is going on.

• 2:15:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:15:42Jocko Willink?

  In the podcast. I wanna see the look on my own face or on your face when I say something. I kinda wanna see what that looks like.

• 2:15:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, and that makes sense because when you figure, I mean, I feel like a lot of people watch less TV, but that could be just my little bubble, but.

• 2:15:56Jocko Willink?

  No one watches TV.

• 2:15:58Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, no one at all. No, but think about this.

• 2:16:01Jocko Willink?

  Hawaii Five-O.

• 2:16:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's a good one for sure. But let's say you watch, I don't know, Dr. Phil. Not that I watch Dr. Phil, but if you watched, that's all they're doing. They're sitting, this guy's talking to this person and you're just watching it, you know?

• 2:16:17Jocko Willink?

  You could listen to that, you're saying.

• 2:16:19Speaker 01

  I'm just saying if you're into Dr. Phil, the difference between looking and watching it and just listening to it, like, you understand that people actually do watch two people talk about stuff. Makes sense. You kinda feel like you'd be more in the conversation in a way, I don't know. Either way, YouTube, that's the, that's the point there if you, if you wanna watch this podcast or just the excerpts and you don't wanna watch the whole podcast, there's little excerpts, little lessons that I kinda separate from the podcast, put them on there. Shareable little nuggets. Also, we have a store, jockostore.com. If you like shirts and whatnot, new designs, I don't know, a week, next week, we'll have them, I think.

• 2:17:03Jocko Willink?

  New designs.

• 2:17:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:17:05Jocko Willink?

  That's cool.

• 2:17:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, kinda listen to the crowd a little bit, you know, people throw out suggestions all the time, which, you know, we listen to for sure. And kind of the ones that, what do you, I hate using the word.

• 2:17:18Jocko Willink?

  That percolate to the top.

• 2:17:19Speaker 01

  I like the word percolate better than resonate. The ones that resonate with my soul, you know, that feeling, that's what the feeling I get when

• 2:17:28Jocko Willink?

  Okay, so you need

• 2:17:28Speaker 01

  When I say it, when other people say it, it sounds cool.

• 2:17:31Jocko Willink?

  I just say the ones that are good.

• 2:17:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, that makes more sense, for sure. Alright, yeah, the ones that we thought are good, we're starting to develop more and more designs and have them. So yeah, jocko store.com and, and you know, women's stuff is on there, some patches, some shirts, of course, rash guards.

• 2:17:50Jocko Willink?

  See, this is what, this is the thing. See, I'm not good at recognizing like, hey, we should make more stuff. Because I, it's hard for me to recognize what's good and what's bad because my mind is different than some people's.

• 2:18:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:18:06Jocko Willink?

  So, but what's cool is when I do see something and I do think it's good, it's pretty good.

• 2:18:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:18:15Jocko Willink?

  It's pretty good. And by the way, I'm almost done with the Echo Charles t-shirt design, by the way.

• 2:18:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:18:21Jocko Willink?

  Which I think people are gonna like. And you know why they're gonna like it?

• 2:18:26Speaker 01

  Cause you designed it.

• 2:18:27Jocko Willink?

  Well, yeah, but, but that's not why. They're gonna like it because it's not just straightforward.

• 2:18:33Speaker 01

  Let me guess.

• 2:18:34Jocko Willink?

  You can guess it.

• 2:18:34Speaker 01

  Some layers on that.

• 2:18:36Jocko Willink?

  There's there, about one.

• 2:18:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, I believe, bro, you're the, you're the original layer creator, really, when it comes down to it. And no, I think that is

• 2:18:45Jocko Willink?

  It was funny. So speaking of layers, the day that Echo asked me what font it was that I used to write Jocko Podcast? And I was like, yeah, it's OCR standard. And, and then he kind of looked at me and I said, it's because it's a machine can read it. And you know, this is like part machine here. And he was all excited with the layers right there.

• 2:19:07Speaker 01

  Telling you, the layers are real and I respect them.

• 2:19:11Jocko Willink?

  Good.

• 2:19:12Speaker 01

  So yeah, there it is, Jocko Store. Um, also, oh yeah, sorry, this rash guards on there. Alleged 19%, straight up 19%. Increase, improvement, performance, um, results, all that stuff. Hootie's on there too. And you know, like I said, more stuff, we have a travel mug coming out, that one's gonna be good. We'll let you know when that's up. Uh, psychological warfare.

• 2:19:39Speaker 01

  I feel like I should talk about that right now.

• 2:19:41Jocko Willink?

  I feel like we can't stop you, so I guess you as well go for it.

• 2:19:44Speaker 01

  You can't stop me. So Psychological Warfare on iTunes is an album with tracks.

• 2:19:54Speaker 01

  And this is what it's for. It's not music.

• 2:19:57Jocko Willink?

  No.

• 2:19:58Speaker 01

  This is what it's for.

• 2:20:00Speaker 01

  Technically, it's considered spoken word is what it is. If you're feeling a moment of weakness in your discourse. Did I use that word right? Your discourse.

• 2:20:11Jocko Willink?

  Not really.

• 2:20:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, so in your course, I don't know.

• 2:20:15Jocko Willink?

  Better, closer.

• 2:20:17Speaker 01

  In your journey, in your ambitious goals to stay on the program in whatever capacity.

• 2:20:24Jocko Willink?

  Right.

• 2:20:24Speaker 01

  Wake up early, get the workout in, hard workout in. You know, create, you know, write your book, your blog, your, anything you're doing, right? More or less. And you're feeling moments of weakness, you're slipping from the path. Taking a break when you shouldn't be taking a break. Scheduling unscheduled rest days. Yeah, when you're feeling like that.

• 2:20:48Jocko Willink?

  Straying from the warpath.

• 2:20:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:20:51Speaker 01

  You listen to one of these designated tracks. And it'll help you get past that weakness in that moment.

• 2:21:00Speaker 01

  I would say, and I've said this before, it is. This is my guess, 100% chance that it'll get you through your weakness, 100% chance. And this is why I say that, and I've said this before, but I think it's worth saying again. Because if you, let's say, you know, let's do the, the wake, the workout one, that's the most common one to me. And I'm like, okay, I'm gonna work, I don't feel like working out. And I'm saying, okay, well, I'm gonna put in workout track, whatever, the one. I listen to it, and after I'm done listening to it, it's like two minutes long. And I still skip the workout. That's like a shame. That's an unbearable shame and it's all personal.

• 2:21:40Jocko Willink?

  So that means it's not a hundred percent if you still skip the workout.

• 2:21:43Speaker 01

  I'm just trying to imagine if that were to happen. I've never done it and the shame, the unbearable shame is so unbearable that it just simply wouldn't happen, you know? So that, that's why I say a hundred percent Jeff. I don't think, I can't imagine a person that would actually let that happen nonetheless. So whatever you would think your weakness is waking up early, all this stuff. If you do the wake up early one and you set it as your alarm, which is a good idea by the way.

• 2:22:07Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:22:08Speaker 01

  It's actually the perfect idea.

• 2:22:09Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:22:10Speaker 01

  Just clear it with your, your spouse.

• 2:22:13Jocko Willink?

  Significant other.

• 2:22:14Speaker 01

  Significant other, yeah. If they're sleeping in the same bed or whatever and they have the potential to hear it.

• 2:22:18Jocko Willink?

  There's some dude in the bedroom.

• 2:22:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. Just like all of a sudden starts talking. And it's Jocko, it's like a spot, you know? It's good. Psychological Warfare, iTunes, Jocko Willink. It's also on Amazon Music and all these other things. So, yeah, it's there. It's a good way to support and support yourself. That one's a support yourself situation, for sure.

• 2:22:38Jocko Willink?

  And actually what's cool now, right now, we're getting requests for Psychological Warfare 2. What topics need to be covered?

• 2:22:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:22:47Jocko Willink?

  That I didn't cover on the first one.

• 2:22:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:22:49Jocko Willink?

  There's more weaknesses out there in the world. Weaknesses that are creeping around and they're, they're trying to get people, but yeah.

• 2:22:57Speaker 01

  Drinking.

• 2:22:58Jocko Willink?

  We're gonna find some of them weaknesses and we're gonna smash them. So yeah, if you got any more suggestions, just hit it up, you know?

• 2:23:04Speaker 01

  Quitting smoking. How about that one?

• 2:23:06Jocko Willink?

  That's a good one. Do people still smoke?

• 2:23:09Speaker 01

  Bro, I, you know what's, bro, I was thinking about that.

• 2:23:11Jocko Willink?

  You know, we live in California. That's one of the things.

• 2:23:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, we live in a bubble.

• 2:23:14Jocko Willink?

  In California, a lot of people don't smoke anymore.

• 2:23:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:23:17Jocko Willink?

  It's not real popular out here anymore.

• 2:23:18Speaker 01

  Yeah. So just like, um, bro, I'm telling, we live in a bubble, not only being in California, but just think about the people you hang around with, you know?

• 2:23:25Jocko Willink?

  Everyone says you should.

• 2:23:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, Navy SEALs, JUJ, guys who at the very least have like.

• 2:23:30Jocko Willink?

  Some level of health consciousness.

• 2:23:32Speaker 01

  Yes, exactly. So, yeah, it's weird. I saw a guy smoking in his car and I was like, asked the same thing. I was like, dang, I didn't know really people smoked anymore, really.

• 2:23:40Jocko Willink?

  Well, I realize that when I go to another state.

• 2:23:43Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:23:43Jocko Willink?

  And you go into a restaurant or something because it's illegal here. You can't smoke in a restaurant. You can't smoke in a bar here. You can't do it. It's illegal. It's literally illegal.

• 2:23:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:23:51Jocko Willink?

  So, yeah, you go to another state and you, and you smell cigarettes. You go, oh yeah, I remember that.

• 2:23:58Speaker 01

  But yeah, that'd be a good one, I think.

• 2:24:00Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, okay, well, we'll, we'll think about that one.

• 2:24:04Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I don't know if I could legally do it, though, because I didn't smoke and I don't know what it takes. I don't know if it's proper for me to do that. I mean, I could, I guess I could just get nuts off smoking. Cause I mean, it's a horrible thing that kills you. You shouldn't be doing it. There's actually no benefit from it, right? There's no, I mean, if you're doing steroids, there's some benefit to it, right? You're gonna get stronger. If you're doing caffeine, you're gonna be more awake. So there's certain benefits. Is there any benefits to smoking?

• 2:24:34Speaker 01

  It depends on what you mean by benefits. I've never even tried a puff of a cigarette before.

• 2:24:39Jocko Willink?

  Because you're from Hawaii.

• 2:24:40Speaker 01

  Well, that's not the reason.

• 2:24:42Jocko Willink?

  You're an athlete.

• 2:24:43Speaker 01

  No, it was the thing, it's thing with my dad. He, he, he'd literally refer to it as the devil. Like, he'd be like, smoking's the devil. And it was, it was a shame thing, too. So the way he would talk about smoking, not necessarily the people that smoke, but just smoking, yeah, it's just so, it, it just, to me, in my mind, according to his little message.

• 2:25:05Jocko Willink?

  So your dad's done a good job there.

• 2:25:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, I never tried. Yeah, anyway.

• 2:25:09Jocko Willink?

  He should've told you sleep was the devil, too. Get you out of the bed in the morning.

• 2:25:13Speaker 01

  But sleep's not the devil, that's a thing.

• 2:25:14Jocko Willink?

  I know, I know.

• 2:25:16Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, that's my, it's, I think it's, um, there is benefits, though. Depends on what you mean by benefit. Depends on what you mean by benefits, though.

• 2:25:23Jocko Willink?

  Health benefits of any kind?

• 2:25:25Speaker 01

  It gives you like this, this like buzz and alert. But here's the thing about, it's weird, cause if you say smoking, smoking cigarettes, there's nicotine in it, and there's benefits in nicotine. But smoking also has all the carbon monoxide, like tar, all these like carcinogens and stuff like that. Yeah, so smoking?

• 2:25:47Speaker 01

  Maybe not so much benefits. Nicotine, there are benefits.

• 2:25:51Jocko Willink?

  Okay, well, let's just say no.

• 2:25:53Speaker 01

  I say no, there are no benefits. Net benefit, no.

• 2:25:57Jocko Willink?

  Negative. All right.

• 2:26:00Jocko Willink?

  And, um, let's see, also, speaking of net benefit, you can get some net benefit if you want to try something called Jocka White Tea. If you're worried, if you're not a tea drinker, don't worry, cause it doesn't taste like tea, it tastes like victory here. And you know what, don't take my word for it. I, I got some reviews, we got some, we got a bunch of reviews on Amazon, and you know what, they're all awesome. They're all 12 star, right?

• 2:26:24Jocko Willink?

  So here's one. After drinking one cup of this balanced and delicious tea, I was able to execute a flying triangle on my black belt jujitsu instructor while discovering the mystery behind dark matter in the universe. It actually isn't dark matter. It's a combination of Jocko's chin and Echo Charles's biceps altering the gravitational field from random celestial bodies.

• 2:26:48Jocko Willink?

  So you know, there's some good stuff here. I can't speak to deadlift performance, but what I can comment is a significant increase in production while performing farm work. Most noticeably, I can dig post holes in hard southern clay in half the normal time while under the influence of Jocko White Tea. Tastes great and I highly recommend it for farmers, landscapers, construction workers, workers, or anyone who wants to get after it. So I didn't, you know, I wasn't familiar with that. But you do notice right now, like the economy is improving a lot. We're like, you know, everything's getting better. I think it's a lot of people are drinking Jocko White Tea, they're working harder.

• 2:27:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, you have this. So that you're saying correctly, you're not necessarily saying.

• 2:27:25Jocko Willink?

  I'm not saying it's a fact. I'm just saying it's factual.

• 2:27:29Jocko Willink?

  And you know, this guy here bought this for my wife. She's five two, 120 pounds. She was deadlifting 250 pounds. By the way, that's double body weight. Already impressive. After a week of imbibing this fine product, her deadlift suddenly increased to 1,250 pounds. Now, that might seem like a lot.

• 2:27:54Jocko Willink?

  But it's, it happened, right? It's right there. I mean, this has been documented on Amazon reviews. You can't lie on those things.

• 2:28:03Jocko Willink?

  We started throwing Jocko White Tea bags in 500 gallon water tank on the fire truck. Little known fact, Jocko White Tea is three times wetter than water. We're now extinguishing fires three times faster and in the process, anyone on scene who gets sprayed immediately starts getting after it. So there's a little side effect, but it's a positive side effect. It's not negative. Like you're putting out the fire, someone hits hit with some water by accident. They're not going to complain. They're going to start doing burpees.

• 2:28:33Jocko Willink?

  We got a warning here, too aggressive, do not drink at work. Literally ripped the door trim off the wall after consuming this victory in a glass. Luckily, since getting after it is my new default mode, I was able to repair the damage before the boss noticed. Replaced pathetic, this is my best part, or the best part of this one, replaced pathetic screws with lag bolts. You know what lag bolts are? They're like, instead of a screw, which is like a little tiny pencil thing, a lag bolt is a big bolt that you like.

• 2:29:02Speaker 01

  The real deal.

• 2:29:02Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. That's your mindset.

• 2:29:05Speaker 01

  Default, yep.

• 2:29:06Jocko Willink?

  Now, I mentioned this before, and I don't know if I should necessarily do this, but I kinda think I should.

• 2:29:14Speaker 01

  Gotta.

• 2:29:14Jocko Willink?

  There's a poem that someone wrote about Jocko White Tea, and it's based on the poem Infantry Columns by Kipling. This one is talking about Jocko White Tea, probably worth talking about here.

• 2:29:28Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:29:29Jocko Willink?

  So we'll go. Here we go. Jocko White Tea. I'm hot, brew, brew, brew, brew, brewing up some Jocko Tea. Hot, hot, hot, hot, brewing up some Jocko Tea. Drink, drink, drink, drink, drink it down and brew again. There's no tea leaves in the pour. Three, two, four, five, tasty cup of tea a day. Seven, three, five, nine, cups the day before. Drink, drink, drink, drink, drink it down and brew again. There's no tea leaves in the pour. Do, do, do, do, crush what is in front of you.

• 2:30:14Jocko Willink?

  Drink, drink, drink, drink, drink it down and brew again. Good, good, good, good, will answer everything. There's no tea leaves in the pour. I've drank whole box and getting after it. Press, lift, squat, roll, then right back to it again. Drink, drink, drink, drink, drink it down and brew again. And there's no tea leaves in the pour.

• 2:30:44Jocko Willink?

  So just when someone writes a review like that, I think that might be the best, as a matter of fact, let's just face it, that's the best review that's ever been written on Amazon. So, good on you. That's the best review ever.

• 2:30:58Speaker 01

  It was very impressive.

• 2:30:59Jocko Willink?

  It was very impressive. And so that's that. Also, if you want to preorder, a little book coming out called The Way of the Warrior Kid. And you can order it, and I'll tell you why. This book, you might be wondering what this book is about.

• 2:31:17Jocko Willink?

  This book is about everything.

• 2:31:20Jocko Willink?

  So, I want to read a little excerpt to you. Young Mark, remember at the beginning of the book, he could do zero pull-ups. Doesn't know how to do any pull-ups, wasn't strong enough. Now, he works through the summer, his Uncle Jake has shown him some good workout programs. And finally, he's built up over the summer, goes through some plateaus, gets through them, getting after it, training hard. Finally, towards the end of summer, he gets his first day of doing 10 pull-ups, right? And so here's what happens. We're going back to the book. And that was it. I was now officially a kid who can do 10 pull-ups. No more hiding from the pull-up bar in school. No more being embarrassed about being weak. This was real. As I thought about this, I looked at Uncle Jake and said, "Thanks."

• 2:32:05Jocko Willink?

  "No problem, Mark. And I want you to remember something. This isn't just about pull-ups. You know what else this is about, right?"

• 2:32:14Jocko Willink?

  "I wasn't quite sure. I don't know." "Uncle Jake grabbed me by both shoulders and looked me straight in the eyes and said gravely, 'This is about everything.'" "Everything. Just think, two months ago, you couldn't do any pull-ups at all, zero. Now you can do 10. All it took was a good plan and the discipline to execute that plan, to do it. That's what it takes. And you can apply that to just about anything. If you are willing to do the work, you can make things happen. And like I told you, no one else is going to do the work for you. Sure, you might get some help along the way, but you might not. Who knows?

• 2:32:54Jocko Willink?

  What we do know is this: Hard work and discipline are how you achieve things. You have to make things happen. And that is exactly what you did here, and you can do that with almost anything in life." Remember that.

• 2:33:12Jocko Willink?

  Uncle Jake's putting out some word to young Mark. So there's all kinds of good lessons for, you know, I'd love to say it's a kid's book. It's a kid's book, basically. I'm gonna tell you what, you might want to order it for yourself. Yeah, it's everybody book. It's a everybody book. It just, it's an everybody book. So that's that. Check out that book. Also, just released, Discipline Equals Freedom Field Manual. Sometimes we need to refer to the manual on how to do things right. We need the manual if we're gonna refer to it. The manual's coming. You can preorder that one too. It's about everything, you know? That one's more aimed at an adult audience. Yeah. It is adult. Yeah, dig it.

• 2:33:57Jocko Willink?

  Not that there's like bad words in it. Right. Anything like that. There's no obscene topics. Yeah. Unless you think donuts are a bad word. Cause they're in there. We talk about them a little bit and their evilness. So yeah, you can, you can get that one too. Of course, you can get Extreme Ownership. It's about leadership in combat and business and it's about life. And you know, from what we learned in combat, the lessons that we learned in combat, they will help you in your business and they will help you in life. So get a copy. Get a copy for your team and you know, up and down the chain of command. Up and down the chain of command. They need it.

• 2:34:40Jocko Willink?

  Also, I wanted to mention this. Echelon Front, right? This is the company, Leif Babin and I, who wrote the book Extreme Ownership with me. This is our company, Leadership and Management Consulting. It's what we do. We've also got JP Deneau on board. We got Dave Burke on board. And we work with companies, help them align their leadership around the principles from the book Extreme Ownership, the things we learned in combat. If you need this, and this is the reason I'm saying this right now, normally I don't talk about, or I haven't talked about this much, but people sometimes have a hard time figuring out how to get information. Echelonfront.com. That's the business website. If you want to bring us on board.

• 2:35:21Jocko Willink?

  [email protected] you can email that address and then people can get there you don't need to go to a speakers bureau if you want to hear me speak or if you want to hear life speak or if you want to hear what is that a speakers bureau is they're companies that that facilitate speakers like an agent yeah they're like an agent so if you don't know how to contact if you want to hear Jocko talk you want to have Jocko come and talk at your company you type speaker Jocko Willink there's a good chance Echelon front will come up and say oh yeah you can call this number you can email here and that'll hook it up or there'll be someone else that says you

• 2:36:00Jocko Willink?

  know Bills speakers and they're advertising me they're advertising everybody people and they say hey if you want to then they contact us but you got him you got yourself a middleman in that scenario so yeah actually that's good because like people still email me yeah like hey you know Echo can you come and talk at our company no can you tell us about on it yeah yeah no I think yeah yeah you forward those those things to me too yeah and I didn't know the info I'd all send them to like Jamie or something oh yeah yeah yeah that's a that's but yeah so that's what

• 2:36:39Jocko Willink?

  you do [email protected] and you know between me between life JP Dave Burke and we do we do programs like full programs at your company to get everybody aligned and on the same page so that's what we do if you want to get some of that and also you can come to the muster in New York City New York City right can't be mad at New York City that's the place where we're going to be May 4th and May 5th doing at the Marriott Grand Marquis now a couple things about the muster okay this is this is different okay this isn't a feel-good seminar to like pump you up that is not what's happened to it at the muster if you want that don't come yeah I'm not

• 2:37:24Jocko Willink?

  saying you won't be pumped up I'm not saying you won't be motivated but don't come if that's what you're looking for there's not going to be any chanting okay there's not going to be any like communal promises and that kind of stuff that's not happening there you're not going to fill out um a dream board okay that's not happening don't come to the muster if that's what you want that's not what the muster is

• 2:37:51Jocko Willink?

  This is practical tactics, tactics and strategies. Practical things that will help you lead your team and will help you lead yourself. So if that's what you want, then come to the muster. If you want to chant and promise and stuff like this, don't come. Because that's not what it is. If you want to learn how to lead, come.

• 2:38:22Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, they're, I mean, I'm just obviously going on the last one, but like you learn like scenarios, you know, like the Q and A part is straight up golden because everyone comes like, hey, I had this scenario that's been basically plaguing me for a year. And it's just causing problems here and you know, and everyone has their own one. And while they're all unique, they all kind of overlap with each other and and you guys are like, okay, this is what you do. This is what you do. This is the answer. And it's like, dang, we now we have an answer. We go back to the work and it like a lot of times it'll just solve like this one problem that affects all this other stuff. Man, it's so effective.

• 2:38:58Jocko Willink?

  It is. And when people come and they hear those questions get asked and, and again, there are, there's always an overlap on the questions, right? And, and there's overlap on the principles as well, you know? Cover and move, simple, prioritize and execute decentralized command. Those, the explanations can stand alone on themselves, but you start getting into real world application. There's going to be other, they're, they're going to overlap. You, you need all four of them, right? You need all four of them to solve your problem. You can't just solve a problem with decentralized command. Because if you try and do that, you'll make something too complex. You've got to keep it simple. And by the way, there's going to be multiple problems that you're going to be trying to solve with your decentralized command.

• 2:39:39Jocko Willink?

  So you've got to prioritize and execute. So that's the way it is for every, every problem that you're, you're suffering. And then there's, you know, there's obviously other, other principles that we build upon that aren't just the four laws of combat. So you gotta get, you gotta, that's what's good is when people hear the way that you utilize these tools. They learn to utilize them themselves, right? That's, that's what you're trying to do. It's like trying to teach someone to take pictures, right? You don't just, and I'm saying this because you know, I've been talking about cameras. You don't just say, okay, here, point this and point this, set the setting to this, set the light over here, set this up, press this button and there's your picture. That's cool. It works that one time. What, what happens when I step outside? And there's different lighting? What happens when the subject is moving?

• 2:40:23Jocko Willink?

  You gotta teach me how to do the job. You gotta teach me the intricacies, intricacies of it. You gotta show me all those things. I gotta learn how to use that tool. And that's what we do at the muster. You get these various tools. You don't just read about them and see what they are and say, okay, I understand what this tool is here. I'm holding this tool in my hand. It's sharp. I can cut with it. Well, guess what else you can do with this? There's a lot of things you can do with these tools that we put out at the muster. We take it to the next level. So if that's what you're looking for, come to the muster, come to muster. And we've got great feedback across the board. So yeah, come and get that. In the meantime, also, if there's something that you want to ask, or you have a question, or you want to give some feedback or a comment about what we're doing here, or if you just

• 2:41:08Jocko Willink?

  want to cruise with, you know, with Echo Charles primarily, he's kind of a primary cruiser here. We're on the interwebs right now, today, yesterday, we'll be there tomorrow. Twitter, Instagram, and you know that we also, we gotta be on that Facebook. And you can get us there. Echo is at Echo Charles. And I am at Jocko Willink. And to close this out for the day.

• 2:41:41Jocko Willink?

  Thanks, first of all, to all the people in uniform that are out there, holding the line against terror, against extremism, against criminals, against fire and disaster, against accidents and against the unexpected.

• 2:41:58Jocko Willink?

  All of you, thank you for keeping us safe and everyone else out there, thank you for listening.

• 2:42:07Jocko Willink?

  And I would also ask that you be thankful. You be thankful for your freedom.

• 2:42:20Jocko Willink?

  Your precious and costly freedom.

• 2:42:28Jocko Willink?

  Because sometimes when something is given to us, just given to us,

• 2:42:35Jocko Willink?

  we forget what the cost was, we forget the price that was paid. And there was a price paid for our freedom, a massive price.

• 2:42:52Jocko Willink?

  There are those that paid everything they had for our freedom.

• 2:43:00Jocko Willink?

  So, don't waste it, don't abuse it, don't squander it.

• 2:43:10Jocko Willink?

  Our time here is limited, your time here is limited. And you have this freedom, you have this gift, so what are you going to do with it?

• 2:43:28Jocko Willink?

  What are you going to do with it today, right now?

• 2:43:36Jocko Willink?

  Ask yourself that question, ask.

• 2:43:42Jocko Willink?

  And then go out.

• 2:43:46Jocko Willink?

  And get after it.

• 2:43:51Jocko Willink?

  So, until next time, this is Echo and Jocko, out.