95: Hardship, Leadership, and Victory. WWII Army Air Forces Pilot, Jim Kunkle. Vietnam Vet/POW, Capt. Charlie Plumb.

0:00:00 - Opening 0:05:09 - Jim Kunkle. WWII Army Air Forces Fighter Pilot. 0:50:19 - Capt. Charlie Plumb. 0:59:03 - Jim Kunkle gets shot down. 1:10:52 - Jim's recovery and aftermath. 1:37:51 - Jim and Charlie Link up. 1:46:05 - Additional Thoughts. Leadership, adversity, and victory. 2:52:001 - Support JockoStore http://www.jockostore.com stuff, Origin Brand Apparel http://www.originmaine.com, 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, The Discipline Equals Freedom Field Manual. http://amzn.to/2szgaEj 3:03:34 - 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 95 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo.

• 0:07Speaker 01

  Good evening.

• 0:10Jocko Willink?

  The President of the United States of America authorized by Act of Congress July 9th, 1918 takes pleasure in presenting the distinguished service cross to Second Lieutenant, Air Corps James K. Kunkle, United States Army Air Forces for extraordinary heroism in connection with military operations against an armed enemy while serving as a pilot of a P-38 fighter airplane in the 401st Fighter Squadron, 370th Fighter Group, 9th Air Force

• 0:50Jocko Willink?

  in aerial combat against enemy forces on 16 September, 1944 during an air mission over Aachen, Germany. On this date, while flying as rear man in a squadron on an armed reconnaissance mission, Lieutenant Kunkle noticed that his squadron was about to be surprised by a vastly superior force of enemy aircraft. Unable to summon his leader on the radio, he alone unhesitatingly pulled away from his formation and vigorously attacked the enemy, immediately destroying one of his aircraft. In doing so, Lieutenant Kunkle placed himself in a position to be attacked from rear and above.

• 1:35Jocko Willink?

  When this attack materialized, many hits were registered on his aircraft, which caught fire, burning his face, neck, and hands. Despite his burning plane and the gunfire from enemy planes, Lieutenant Kunkle continued his attack against the vastly superior enemy force and succeeded in destroying a second enemy aircraft, breaking off combat only when forced to parachute to safety when his left fuel tank exploded. Second Lieutenant Kunkle's unquestionable valor in aerial combat is in keeping with the highest traditions of military service and reflects great credit upon himself, the 9th Air Force, and the United States Army Air Forces.

• 2:26Jocko Willink?

  So that is a military citation for a distinguished service cross and this pilot also flew missions just after D-Day, including armed reconnaissance flights and attacks on German trains and vehicles and airfields and also this pilot flew close air support missions to help push Germany out of France and drive allied troops towards victory.

• 3:02Jocko Willink?

  And it is an absolute honor to have this pilot, this hero, on the podcast with us today, Mr. Jim Kunkle. Sir, thank you very much for joining us. It is great to have you on.

• 3:22Speaker 02

  More than welcome.

• 3:24Jocko Willink?

  And, you know, if that wasn't good enough, I am also honored to welcome back to the podcast, Jim Kunkle's friend, fellow pilot, another American hero, Captain Charlie Plumb, F4 Phantom Pilot, shot down on his 75th mission in Vietnam War and spent six years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. Captain Charlie Plumb, sir, welcome back to the show.

• 3:55Speaker 03

  Thank you, Jocko. Nice to be back.

• 3:57Jocko Willink?

  And for those of you that haven't listened to Captain Plum, the first time he came on the podcast, just stop now, go to podcast number 76, because that is a, that is a whole incredible story of, of his time in captivity. It's detailed in, in the book that Captain Plum wrote, which is called, "I'm No Hero."

• 4:21Jocko Willink?

  But go back and listen to that and then you can return and you can listen to this podcast. But it was interesting because when we got done with that first podcast and I was taking Captain Plum to the, to the train station, which is, which is odd in its own right to have the pilot riding a train. I don't, I don't know if you'd approve of that to, to have the captain on a train, but and, and he said, hey, you know, I got this buddy. You, you, you might want to talk to him. And he said, you know, he's a World War II pilot, fighter pilot, and you know, he's a be, be a great guy to talk to. And of course I said, uh, yeah, absolutely. So it took us a little bit of time, but here we are. And this is also the first time we've had more than one guest at one time on the podcast.

• 5:05Jocko Willink?

  And sitting amongst you two, my plan is to sit back and listen to you two talk about whatever you want to talk about.

• 5:13Jocko Willink?

  I've heard some of the stories and, uh, and actually interestingly, the podcast that just came out last week, was about a book called The Men at Arnhem, which detailed the, the British participation in the, in Operation Market Garden, which started on September 17th, 1944. And as I was reading your citation, if you noticed, that was September 16th, 1944, that you were, that you were shot down. And that's, that's, uh, right at the beginning or right, right before that, that operation took place.

• 5:50Speaker 02

  That's very true. And of course I missed it. Uh, but I heard some very interesting stories later on. Uh, I was picked up in a, uh, a VAC hospital, uh, by the first, well, the first infantry division picked me up. They saw my chute and came out and got me. And uh, uh, thank goodness it was, uh, never leave anyone behind. So they didn't leave me behind and I thanked them profusely. But, um, uh, through the back hospital to, uh, a, uh, a general hospital and then a hospital train to Paris and the train was completely

• 6:35Speaker 02

  full of, uh, casualties from the Arnhem operation. So, uh, I wasn't too good a shape at that time to listen to the stories, but later on in the hospital in Paris, I heard some real horror stories about what went on up there. And being a ninth air force pilot, uh, uh, we were working with the ground troops and we really appreciated what their, their problems were and, and the difficulties that they had. And we tried to help them in every way that we could. So, um, it was a, uh, it was a very trying time.

• 7:19Jocko Willink?

  So I guess before we get into all that at any greater depth, how did you end up a- as a pilot? What, you know, how did, how did you end up there? In terms of where'd you grow up? And I, you grew up here in, in California?

• 7:34Speaker 02

  No, I was born in Pennsylvania, uh, New Kensington, Pennsylvania. My father was, uh, was in the steel business. And, um, in 1932, uh, my dad, uh, passed away from injuries that he had received in the first world war. And so we, at that time, he had retired from his business, uh, yeah, even though he was only 36 years old at that time. But, uh, we were coming to California. And, um, in fact, we were pretty well packed and had closed the house and the whole works. I'm nine years old. And he went to the hospital in New York instead and passed away.

• 8:17Speaker 02

  And my mother, who didn't even drive an automobile at that time, I can remember her asking me, do you want to go to California? And I said, yes. And she took some driving lessons and bought a Chevy. And we came to California on Route 66 when they were building it. And so my mother prayed her way to California.

• 8:47Jocko Willink?

  I bet if she's a new driver, I bet she wasn't the only one that was praying.

• 8:51Speaker 02

  I'm sure of it. But even at nine, I can still remember she was driving in the mud of Texas and I'm out pushing. So my mother was a very courageous woman.

• 9:08Jocko Willink?

  No doubt.

• 9:10Speaker 02

  So he, my dad had been very interested in aviation and I picked that up. In fact, he used to do steel castings for Curtis Wright in Buffalo, New York. And we'd go up there and every, every time we went on a trip and I'm six, seven, eight, eight years old, we'd go flying.

• 9:36Jocko Willink?

  Wow.

• 9:37Speaker 02

  We'd go for a ride someplace. And so I, I picked it up at that time and, and pursued it.

• 9:44Jocko Willink?

  And then you, you get out to California and that's where you go through high school and whatnot?

• 9:49Speaker 02

  I went through high school. I ended up in Beverly Hills High School. And September 1939, as you know, the war started. Well, just prior to that, I mean, it was all the talk of Europe and the possible of a war. And I decided that this is going to be my senior year. And if there's going to be a war, we're going to be in it one way or another. And so I went out and joined the California Air National Guard.

• 10:24Speaker 02

  They had a squadron that was based in Griffith Park, California. And it was a bunch of World War I pilots. We had some old biplanes, Douglas O-38 observation aircraft, open cockpit. Some of the later ones had even had a canopy over them. And I really had been hanging around airports. My mother was very helpful. She, this was before I had a driver's license, she would take me out to the local airports, Grand Central Air Terminal. I'd spend the whole day Saturday out there.

• 11:07Speaker 02

  And sometimes you'd even get a 10-minute ride if anybody had any money to buy gas with. But coming back to the Guard, I spent a year with them. And it was a very, very interesting year. These fellows that were the pilots, they were all mostly combat pilots from World War I. And I sat at their knee and listened to all the stories. From that, of course, my idea was I wanted to be a fighter pilot. I had friends at Lockheed and I knew about the P-38.

• 11:49Speaker 02

  And I decided that I wanted to fly P-38s and I wanted to go to England. And luckily, it worked out that way.

• 11:59Jocko Willink?

  So what year did you transfer from the Air National Guard into? And how did you get a commission? Did you get a commission? Did you have to go to college or you not have to go to college at that time to get a commission and be a pilot?

• 12:10Speaker 02

  Actually, the Guard was federalized and we went on maneuvers to Chahelas, Washington. And we were attacking Fort Lewis. And...

• 12:26Speaker 02

  The guard, we were the attackers and we were up there for three weeks on maneuvers. Well, while we were up there, we got notice that the air guard was going to be federalized and drawn into active duty. And I wasn't eighteen years old yet, so I had to have permission.

• 12:47Jocko Willink?

  Were you already a pilot at this time?

• 12:48Speaker 02

  Oh, no.

• 12:49Jocko Willink?

  Okay, so you were.

• 12:50Speaker 02

  I'm a gunner. I'm a rear gunner in an airplane that would maybe go one hundred and fifty miles an hour. So, but no, I was in the armament section and it was run by a Sergeant White. Sergeant White kind of took me under his wing and I got some pretty nice assignments out of it. I learned a lot. I got to fly in the backseat and I'd go out on weekends. You know, we had duty once a month in the guard, but you could go out on weekends and I'd work at the airport and get an extra flight in.

• 13:33Speaker 02

  And the pilots of the guard were, if they knew you were interested, they would take you under their wing. So I got quite a bit of flying time.

• 13:44Jocko Willink?

  For a seventeen-year-old. If you're seventeen years old.

• 13:49Speaker 02

  So I was just seventeen. In fact, I was sixteen when I joined. And so, but you know, this cut into my school, not the academics, because I wanted to be a Air Force pilot. You had to be twenty-one. You had to have two years of college. And in nineteen forty, forty-one, this is getting pretty tight to when we entered the war. So I didn't really figure I was going to graduate from college, so I wanted to get in the classes that would do me the most good if I could become an aviation cadet.

• 14:34Speaker 02

  And it all, it all worked out. We, um, in, the interesting thing was to me, uh, uh, in April, I took some time off on school and I went down and got a, a job at North American Aviation. And I worked on the first 10 P-51s built. Uh, I can see them once today on the line. In fact, one of the, of the original first 10 is in the museum at Oshkosh. So someplace within that airframe, there's some of my work.

• 15:10Speaker 02

  And, um, uh, that was, uh, uh, that would have been the summer of 1941. September and I was going back to school and I had become accustomed to all that money I'd been making at North American. We, we got 35 cents an hour when I started there.

• 15:33Jocko Willink?

  Nice.

• 15:34Speaker 02

  But you know, 35 cents an hour wasn't too bad because, uh, I worked alongside people that had two or three kids and they're supporting the whole family on that 35 cents an hour. We had a little, uh, labor dispute at North American and they raised it to 50 cents. So we were really rolling in, in cash. But, um, in September, um, I wanted to get back to school, but I enjoyed that income. So I went to Lockheed. They had a graveyard shift. And, um, I worked at 7th and Santa Fe downtown Los Angeles.

• 16:14Speaker 02

  Uh, Lockheed Aircraft had taken over this big warehouse and they were building the wings and the emb- embunage for the P-38. And they were also building the wings for the Hudson bomber, which they'd gotten this very large contract from, from the British. And, um,

• 16:36Speaker 02

  It, uh, I was there when the war started, actually. I could, I was there the night that they attacked Los Angeles and the whole place was blacked out. If you remember the famous story of the air raid on Los Angeles.

• 16:50Jocko Willink?

  I don't remember that story very clearly. Actually, I wasn't even close to being born yet. Neither was my dad. So what happened when they attacked Los Angeles? How did I miss out on those?

• 17:03Speaker 02

  The, probably the most logical story that I ever heard was that a Navy, uh, PVY flew over Los Angeles and somebody hit the panic button and all the, the searchlights came on and, uh, you could hear, uh, anti-aircraft in the background, probably from Fort MacArthur or someplace like that. And the whole Lockheed plant was blacked out. So we sat there in the dark for about three hours while they fought this battle with, uh, with the unseen enemy. And it, of course, made all of the newspapers. It was, it was a big story. So,

• 17:43Speaker 02

  uh, anyway, uh, World War II started as far as the US was concerned, uh, December 7th. Uh, right after that, they, um, um, they dropped the age limit from, uh, 21 to 18 for the Aviation Cadet Program. They dropped the, the two-year con- uh, college, uh, requirement to a high school. And so, um, I went down and signed up with about 300,000 other guys.

• 18:16Jocko Willink?

  All for, are you, there was that many people that wanted to be pilots?

• 18:22Speaker 02

  Oh, they, they were thick.

• 18:24Jocko Willink?

  Wow.

• 18:26Speaker 02

  In fact, uh, I was quite concerned. Um, I, um, I signed up. They, uh, that would have been in June. I waited until September before they called me down to downtown Los Angeles and swore me in as a private, as a duration, as a cadet.

• 18:48Speaker 02

  And thought, well, now I'm on my way. Well, then I went home and waited another four or five months before they called us up. They had so many people that, and there was no place to put them. They were trying to build Santa Ana Army Air Base, which was the induction area for cadets on the West Coast. And they were just overwhelmed with, they didn't even have the barracks to put them in. So eventually I got called up and I went through in a little less than 10 months through Santa Ana, which is pre-flight.

• 19:31Speaker 02

  Went up to Tulare, California for primary in Stearman's, to Tex Rankin School, and Tex had been the aerobatic champion of the US. And so it was a fun school.

• 19:48Jocko Willink?

  So they hired the best civilian pilot and had him come out and train you guys?

• 19:52Speaker 02

  That's correct. In fact, Tex actually owned that operation. They appointed, most of the primary was a private enterprise. They were set up by the Air Force for cadet training in primary bases. And so you went through, got about 60 hours. I flew the Stearman, and we have behind us our competitor, but this aircraft was used mainly on the East Coast. We didn't see many of them out in California. We had Stearman's and Ryans on

• 20:30Speaker 02

  the West Coast. Got through primary, went to basic. Now we're on a military base, and I went to Lemoore, California. And that was one of the largest.

• 20:45Speaker 02

  Air Force bases or Army Air Corps bases.

• 20:51Speaker 02

  And it's just on final, you can still see the hangars and everything. The final at Lemoore Naval Air Station, you can still see all the hangars from our old base.

• 21:05Jocko Willink?

  Wow.

• 21:06Speaker 02

  But got through basic, went down to Williams Field, Arizona. And that brought me closer to the P-38. Most of the P-38s came out of Williams Field, just south of Phoenix. And from there, we were on a fast track. And we weren't quite sure why we were on this big fast track. But all of a sudden, we get 90 days. I got to fire the guns once in the P-38.

• 21:40Speaker 02

  One gun. We had four 50s and a 20 millimeter in the nose. And they let us fire one of the 50s. All of a sudden, we're on a train going to the East Coast and we're heading for England.

• 21:53Jocko Willink?

  Wow. When you, when you said you wanted to fly a P-38 and yet you had worked on the P-51s. What was the deciding factor that made you want to fly a P-38 instead of a P-51?

• 22:07Speaker 02

  The P-38 was a high altitude fighter. It was probably, it was our first real combat aircraft. The P-40 was a stopgap airplane, did very well. P-39 didn't do well at all.

• 22:25Speaker 02

  The 38 was the only high performance airplane we had. The P-51 at the time that I worked on it was a low altitude airplane. You had an Allison engine and anything above 11,000 to 12,000 feet, you're, you're out of power. So the 51 was going to be a low altitude, British used aircraft. And that's what they wanted, extremely fast. And they used it for tactical work. And so that, as far, I wanted to be in aerial combat. I wanted to be a fighter pilot and shoot down a bunch of airplanes.

• 23:09Speaker 02

  So, so I stuck with the thirty eight and of course I didn't realize the British were putting a Merlin engine in the P fifty one about that time and we were gonna get the greatest air-to-air combat airplane of the war, but uh.

• 23:23Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I guess that's what threw me off was because you know, I always thought of the P fifty one as being, as being, you know, the best air-to-air combat uh aircraft of the war, but I didn't realize that it had go, didn't get there immediately and it had to get there in stages, so that, that, that makes sense to me now.

• 23:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, they did come in stages and plus the fact that when they did get the Merlin engine, it went to the Eighth Air Force and the Eighth Air Force had the greatest POR group in the whole world. Uh, they, they, they, uh, they had access to all the newspapers. They got all the publicity. The P fifty one was the greatest airplane in the whole world. The P thirty eight had been soldering from early nineteen forty two in the Pacific on to North Africa and, and doing well all the way and no matter what you asked it to do,

• 24:19Speaker 02

  it could do it. So, um, I was still a P thirty eight uh, uh, fan. I got to England and I had, um, great interest in aerial combat. Uh, there was a fellow by the name of Scruball Burling, who was an RAF pilot, and he was one of the greatest deflection, uh, shooting experts in the, in combat, I guess. And he was the hero of Malta in the RAF.

• 24:53Jocko Willink?

  So, so you said the greatest what, deflection?

• 24:56Speaker 02

  Deflection shooting.

• 24:57Jocko Willink?

  Which is, what is that?

• 24:58Speaker 02

  That means that, uh, when you're, when you're coming in on an aircraft, if you're on his tail, you've got zero deflection. If he's in a turn, now you've got to move the note, your, your aim point out in front of that airplane. Got it. And you've got what they called a hundred mil sight. Which was, I've forgotten now, I guess, but it was about so many inches for thousand feet. And on radii, you'd say, if you're, if you're in a, say, a thirty degree turn, you might put one radii or radii and a half in front of him. And it's all eyeball.

• 25:43Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm. Uh, ninety degrees, you're out, maybe seven radii way out here. And so, uh, uh, that's deflection shooting. Now, this is before we got the gyro sight, which we never got in the P-38, but the 51's got the gyro sight that computed that for you. So you'd put the, the size of the airplane would be put into the sight by a little slide, uh, uh, thing. And that adjusted your sight, uh, on your reflector. And so then you'd put the piper right on the aircraft and the sight would compute. Got it.

• 26:26Speaker 02

  The, uh, the leads necessary to hit it. So, uh, anyway, I had studied those angles off, you know, an hour before you go to sleep, after you go to bed, you're, you're doing computations on how many, uh, radii lead from what position, whether you're going up or going down or sideways or whichever way you want to go. But, um, all set for air combat. I get to England and, um, all of a sudden, I'm in the Ninth Air Force.

• 27:02Speaker 02

  Now, this is the mud air force and the support of the ground troops and all operations is usually at fairly low altitude.

• 27:12Jocko Willink?

  So you're calling them the mud air force? Is that what you said?

• 27:16Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 27:16Jocko Willink?

  And that's just a, that's delineating that these guys are working with the ground troops and you're flying low and the dream of aerial combat is not so much there right now?

• 27:24Speaker 02

  That's right. No, the Eighth Air Force is, the Glamour Air Force has got all the...

• 27:30Jocko Willink?

  You guys must have been all ears, though. I mean, you talked about screwball, but, but the RAF pilots that had fought the Battle of Britain. I mean, were you guys getting lessons learned from them? And, and were you, were they actually directly teaching you guys at all?

• 27:45Speaker 02

  They talked to us. We didn't have any formal instruction from them, but conversations and usually at the bar, at the old club, or Officers Club as we called it. I got two, two good points. An old RAF sergeant who had flown in the Battle of Britain told me that if you have a jerry on your tail, do something violent. He said, "Doesn't make any difference what it is, just make sure it's violent." And the second thing was, keep your eye on his exhaust, because that's the first indication you're going to get of what, what he's trying to do. And I thought those were two good points and I used them a couple times.

• 28:30Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, the violent piece, I mean, you could apply that to really many situations in life where, you know, we see people and they're, they're in a bad position in life. They need to do something violent to move out of that situation, not just sit there and wait for something to unfold.

• 28:46Speaker 02

  That was not only air combat. That went to a lot.

• 28:50Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And that's interesting about watching the exhaust, because you'd see a change of like a plume come out of the exhaust, or you'd see the exhaust cut off and you'd know what type of maneuver they were going to do.

• 29:00Speaker 02

  Yep. Whether you're, he's trying to pull a fast one and yank the power off and you overrun him and he shoots you down.

• 29:09Speaker 02

  So, but the MUD Air Force, that came along, we began to realize just how much help we were to the ground forces and it was pretty primitive. I'm covering a lot of area here in a big, relatively short time, but you know, we had, we had no navigational radio. We had four-channel VHF. That meant that usually we could talk amongst the squadron, but the word was, "Don't be an earache squadron, don't talk on the RT, stay off it."

• 29:50Jocko Willink?

  We had that same philosophy in all my SEAL platoons and SEAL task units, stay off the radio.

• 29:58Speaker 02

  Yep. And now you're trying, you know, we're doing ground support, they'd give us coordinates on the chart. Now you gotta go out and find it, and it's all eyeball. So when you're eyeballing the ground and you're looking for ground targets, you're wide open in your six o'clock position, so.

• 30:24Jocko Willink?

  So would you, would you fly with multiple people or multiple aircraft so someone had the duty of watching the rear?

• 30:31Speaker 02

  Yes, we did. In fact, that's, I got the duty several times. What we did, we usually flew as a squadron, sometimes we'd fly as a group with three squadrons. Usually we'd try to put up at least 12 aircraft as a squadron. A max would be maybe four flights of four, 16. And so.

• 31:01Speaker 02

  To answer your question about, you know, being attacked from the rear and so forth in the six o'clock, the Germans developed a tactic against the tactical aircraft, which we were, and they started vectoring their fighters in with ground control radar, and your first indication was all of a sudden you had a swarm of enemy aircraft at your six o'clock. And in early August of forty-four, one of our sister groups, P-38 group, Ninth Air Force, lost a half a squadron.

• 31:46Speaker 02

  Just they got hit, they were surprised, and so we thought, well, boy, we better do something about that. So we started putting a couple of experienced people, instead of putting your first mission fellow in the rear end, Purple Heart Corner, we called it, let him drag along, we thought, well, let's put somebody back there that's gonna have a little experience anyway, and so we did that. And I drew one of the first missions back there, and sure enough, here they came.

• 32:25Speaker 02

  And I spotted them, and called the break, and made the break, and squadron kept on going.

• 32:34Jocko Willink?

  And the break is, you're saying, hey, I'm gonna break off from the squadron right now, or someone needs to come with me, or we need to face this other issue over here, we got a bunch of enemy aircraft coming. That's what calling the break is?

• 32:44Speaker 02

  You call your break. Now, when you call the break, whoever spotted the aircraft leads the break, because you don't want to lose them. You can't take, if you see them, you gotta keep your eyeball on them, or you're gonna lose them. And so you make, you call the break, you make your break into them from whatever position they're coming from, the squadron then will break with you. And so all aircraft are now turning into the enemy. And...

• 33:16Speaker 02

  Probably an experienced air-to-air combat group. That was just a normal procedure. Our Ninth Air Force guys, we didn't do much of this. And so, when I called, I called the break, I made the break, and all of a sudden, I'm by myself. Squadron kept on going. And now, whether they didn't hear me, or whatever, I have no idea. So, all I had was a couple of FW190s, and a round circle sitting on a flat wing, and all lit up, 20 millimeters, and we're doing, we got into a pretty tight turn,

• 33:59Speaker 02

  and all of a sudden, I lost them in the turn. And I'm looking at my six o'clock, and you might as well have been facing backwards. It would have been a lot easier. But I turned around front, and in my gun sight, here's an FW190, I mean, I'm on top of it. And he apparently spotted me about the same time. I think I fired a burst at him, I'm not even sure. But he did a flick roll so quick that I, literally, he just flick rolled out of my, P-30 wouldn't do that, the early ones.

• 34:42Speaker 02

  The later ones had aileron boost, and they would, actually could perform that fast roll, radar roll. So, he got away from me, and I was in a perfectly wonderful shot position to shoot him down.

• 35:01Speaker 02

  So, that was our first encounter. And the second encounter was the one where you'd read the citation. I made the break, nobody came with me, and I had more than I could handle.

• 35:15Jocko Willink?

  When you, before we get to that one, when you were doing close air support for troops on the ground and you had four radio nets that you could be on, would you be talking to the guys on the ground?

• 35:26Speaker 02

  Uh, yes, in some, some, sometimes you could, you'd be under with the controller. Now, the, uh, the ninth air force was mainly P forty sevens. We had one group of P fifty ones, three fifty fourth, and they had been the pioneer group with the Merlin power, uh, fifty one, but they ended up in the ninth air force, but usually they were used with the eighth air force for the escort of the bombers. But, um, so the, the majority, and the ninth air force was a big air force. We had a lot of fighter groups. I've forgotten now how many we actually had, but most of them were P forty sevens.

• 36:07Speaker 02

  Forty seven was a great, um, aircraft for close support. And, um, uh, we had four groups of P thirty eights in, in the thing. So most of the close support work was done by the P forty sevens. In a real max effort, we were used as close support, but, uh, the P forty seven was very short ranged. Uh, thirty eight, we had a lot of range. We could carry a, a larger bomb load than either the forty seven and the fifty one. Actually, the thirty eight could carry two, two thousand pound bombs.

• 36:47Speaker 02

  That's four thousand pounds and that's, you're up in B seventeen country with that. So, um, uh, we couldn't always get them. Usually we could find some thousand pound, but normally we'd carry two five hundreds. Um, I liked the thousand because the bigger the bang is, the less chance you have to go back and do it again. And when you went back to do it again, they're waiting for you.

• 37:16Jocko Willink?

  And so up until that point, that was kind of your primary mission and was going in and hitting railway stations or munitions factories?

• 37:26Speaker 02

  Armed reconnaissance, anything that moved. And if you couldn't find anything you moved, you tried to shoot the insulator, insulators off the high tension lines. So any, anything you could get.

• 37:41Speaker 02

  We, uh, there was, there was no problem finding targets. And different from the Eighth Air Force, uh, we were over the target area in a relatively short time, so, uh, they were shooting at you most of the time.

• 37:59Jocko Willink?

  How long did you, how long did you arrive in England before D-Day actually happened?

• 38:03Speaker 02

  Uh, just a short time before D-Day, and I've forgotten the exact date that we did arrive in England and, uh...

• 38:10Jocko Willink?

  Had you flown missions before D-Day started?

• 38:14Speaker 02

  No, no.

• 38:15Jocko Willink?

  So your first missions were actually, right after D-Day?

• 38:18Speaker 02

  Right, right, in the D-Day area. And the 38th, because they were so easy to recognize in the air, uh, we were assigned the Channel. Uh, we, we flew top cover for the Channel, all the shipping and everything between England and the beachhead. And, uh, it, we, at that time, it became very apparent that the reason we had been rushed into, through training into England was they anticipated, uh, heavy losses. Uh, we expected the Luftwaffe to really show during the invasion. They didn't.

• 38:59Speaker 02

  I think you've read that there were, just, I think they had two sorties over the beachhead on D-Day. And, uh, we anticipated that there would be a, a large effort against the, the Channel with all the shipping. I mean, you could probably walk across the Channel with a number of ships, uh, that were there. Uh, this tremendous target, Luftwaffe didn't show up. So, uh, uh, most of the, like my group, the, um, the D-Day, uh, missions were pretty boring.

• 39:39Jocko Willink?

  When you were, when D-Day was about to go... I mean, it's every single person. You guys must have absolutely known that what you were about to do was, was, you know, gonna be the, one of the most epic undertakings of the modern history.

• 39:57Speaker 02

  Oh, yes.

• 39:58Jocko Willink?

  It was a hundred percent. You guys all knew that and it was.

• 40:01Speaker 02

  Well, every little by-road in England was jammed with equipment. And you know, it's funny, uh, coming back to, uh, some of the things we hear today about our country. Uh, in nineteen forty, forty-one, uh, I, well, nineteen forty, I was up in Chahelas, Washington, and we were flying, uh, those old O thirty-eights. We had two brand-new airplanes from North American, O forty-sevens, had a thousand horsepower, great aircraft, not worth a damn in combat. But, uh, we, uh, we knew that we were, again, working with

• 40:46Speaker 02

  the, uh, with the ground troops, and we would fill little paper sacks with a white, uh, with flour. And that was our bombing. We'd attack them at the bridgehead and throw toilet paper out and these little sacks full of, of flour. And if you draped toilet paper over a bridge on the Squali River, the infantry couldn't use it anymore. So they had to get across the river some other way. And, uh, mortars, uh, cross two-by-fours, served as a mortar. Um, cavalry on horses. We, they got lost, we had to go look for them. Uh,

• 41:31Speaker 02

  now that's in nineteen forty. In June forty-four, as far as you could see is American-made equipment. Everything. Not only what we were carrying, but we supplied the British and everyone else. This magnificent effort by this magnificent country. And you just, it's unbelievable when you think back.

• 41:58Speaker 02

  Just before D-Day, as I say, every, every little road was jammed with stored equipment. Can't imagine, just the wind of the island didn't sink. But.

• 42:11Jocko Willink?

  No, I, I've actually, on a recent podcast, I was talking about the fact that many of American, or, or at least as much of America's victories, in many cases, have to be attributed to our ability to produce and make things and, and America's incredible ability to, like you said, build such incredible equipment in such a short amount of time. It's, it's epic.

• 42:35Speaker 02

  It, it really was. And we switched from isolation. Henry Ford was in isolation, as, as I understand, and he turns around and builds a bomber plant that's turning out six, seven, eight, ten B-24s a day.

• 42:50Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 42:51Speaker 02

  So, this fantastic effort, but we all stood together in those days.

• 42:58Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. When, when, I, I always read that for D-Day, they, they wanted troops, not all, but they were looking for, they, they brought a lot of troops that didn't have any combat experience.

• 43:10Speaker 02

  I don't think five percent of the people that hit the beaches had experience. You know, it's funny, I got in trouble in Paris a few years ago.

• 43:22Speaker 02

  Now, this is a good story. My wife can hear it.

• 43:26Speaker 02

  She was there in fact, but we were at a dinner in Paris and D-Day celebration and I made a mistake. I stood up and said to the people in the room that the ground troops here, the infantry, all you people that landed on D-Day, I said, "D-Day is your day. It's not the Air Force's day." The missions we flew on D-Day were what we'd been doing for two years out of England. And it was, there was no better, no worse. But when you stop

• 44:05Speaker 02

  and think of those kids that hit that beach, no experience, officers, no experience in combat. And so, in my opinion, and I'll stand by it, and I had a few people at the dinner who objected to what I said. But D-Day was the guys that hit the beach. We, we supported them, but we didn't do much more than what we have been doing, day after day. You know, you can talk about the Eighth Air Force and the heavy bombers and the fact that their,

• 44:45Speaker 02

  their losses were heavier than the total Marine loss in World War II. So, we, we've been hurt, but D-Day, it belonged to those youngsters.

• 45:02Jocko Willink?

  What was the, because these, these guys were so, you know, were inexperienced, when you were out at a pub in England, talking to these Army guys that were getting ready to go in, were they just 100% fired up to go?

• 45:18Speaker 02

  Uh, yeah, they were.

• 45:20Jocko Willink?

  That's the only thing, because I can imagine myself, when I was 18 or 19 years old, I first was in the military, if you would have told me I was going to do a giant amphibious landing, an epic amphibious landing, there would have been just nothing but absolute.

• 45:37Jocko Willink?

  Motivation and excitement from me, because I was young and stupid and didn't know any better, you know?

• 45:46Speaker 02

  We were all young and stupid.

• 45:47Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I guess, I guess at some point, young and stupid goes a long way, doesn't it?

• 45:52Speaker 02

  Well, I can tell you a little story about that. I was, I was at Camp Kilmer. We were, in fact, we thought we were gonna fly across to England. We, we expected air transportation for, there were a group of about eighteen pilots. And I think we were set to fly, and all of a sudden, they gave us all this equipment. And leggings and backpacks and helmet and all this stuff.

• 46:26Jocko Willink?

  That kind of stuff makes pilots nervous, doesn't it?

• 46:30Speaker 02

  Well, it not only made us nervous, made damn fools out of us. Nobody knew how to use this stuff. And I know, I got the leggings on, and I know they were from World War I. They gave me this backpack and, and all of this gas underwear and everything, and they didn't tell us how to pack it. And I went out behind the barracks, and there was a clothesline back there, and I got some clothesline, and I tied this damn pack up with clothesline. And they gave me a helmet, and I never tried it on. So, that, that evening, get, get ready.

• 47:13Speaker 02

  And we start marching down some tour, to the gates of the Camp Kilmer. They load us on trucks, and we're over getting on the Queen Elizabeth. And you had to go down a pier, and then up a whole bunch of stairs to get to, into the entrance to the ship. And I had a P4 bag with all of my clothes and everything, and I had a bottle of scotch in there. And I packed very carefully and I had a portable radio and portable radios in those days were like thirty six inches long and full of batteries.

• 47:56Speaker 02

  So I'm carrying this thing and they gave me this damn helmet, but they didn't give me the interior of it. And so this damn without the inside of it, every time I took a step, it was coming down and hitting me on the nose and then bouncing back again. We go up the stairs and someplace along the line, I set that bag down too long and now I got scotch draining out the bottom of my before bag. And we, we come to where they're checking us in and there's a full Colonel, Army Colonel standing there. And he says, my God, we're gonna lose the war.

• 48:40Jocko Willink?

  Oh, that's unbelievable. So there you go. We got people that don't know how to wear their helmets, pack their bags filled with scotch, heading over to war. So, but when you're, when you're talking to guys, they're, they're, they're ready to go and D-Day commences and they, they just don't, you know, they don't know, they don't understand what they're getting into yet. And, and again, maybe to the credit of the planners, they decided it's better to have a bunch of guys that aren't really a hundred percent sure of what to expect than it is to have a bunch of people that know what they're getting into and know how hard this is gonna be.

• 49:24Speaker 02

  Well, that's, that's very, in fact, what I started to say before I got off again, you have to watch me very carefully.

• 49:31Jocko Willink?

  Wait, do you have scotch in your bag down there?

• 49:36Speaker 02

  We go down to the officers' club just before we, we're gonna take off for England and there's quite a party going and there was a little spirits flowing. And if you, the World War II barracks buildings where the club was, they had a mezzanine on the second floor and then it's open in the center. And all these damn fools from the airborne are up on the second floor yelling Geronimo and jumping off.

• 50:08Speaker 02

  And this one kid broke his leg. And so I've heard about guys breaking their leg and then going on to combat. That's another story. From my friend Charlie Plumb.

• 50:22Jocko Willink?

  What's that one about?

• 50:24Speaker 03

  Oh, brother.

• 50:27Speaker 03

  We got so many stories to tell you. I was on my way to combat on the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk. We stopped in Hawaii for our last hurrah. And so we went out and found some pubs and whatnot. Well, I had rented a little, um, a motor scooter, you know, like a little Vespa. All right. And

• 50:46Jocko Willink?

  Cause that's gonna work out well.

• 50:49Speaker 03

  So I'm driving around Honolulu and I look back and when I look forward, I'm boar sided on an 18 wheeler. And so I, uh, so, so I laid that motor scooter on its side and slid underneath the axle of this truck. And pinned my right ankle between the, the frame of the motor scooter and the truck. Well, and so I, you know, I, I, I came out and dusted myself off. I'm thinking, okay, then I tried to walk, you know? I'm not walking very well. And so I go up to the closest house and knock on the door and say, you know, I, I guess I need a ride to the hospital. Went over to Tripler Hospital, big hospital in Hawaii.

• 51:30Speaker 03

  And, um, and the doc, uh, there looks at me and he takes an X-ray of my leg. And, and you know, it was really funny when you, when you see an X-ray of a broken part of your body, you know, you, you, you're in disbelief. You know, you're like, wait, how can this happen? You know, you're in denial. And the guy said, uh, okay, report to, uh, uh, wing, uh, Bravo floor three. I said, what's on Bravo three? He said, it's all the other idiots that broke their leg riding motor scooters in Hawaii. And sure enough, all these military guys in this military hospital had broken their leg on motor scooters. And so I said, I can't do that. I'm, I'm a fighter pilot, you know? I just to help start the Top Gun school, I gotta, I gotta get out of here.

• 52:16Speaker 03

  I gotta go win the war, you know? And, and I'll never forget this doctor.

• 52:22Speaker 03

  His name was Jensen. Dr. Jensen said, "Son, take my advice. Um, you can get into war in six months or so after your leg heals." And so, I said, "I can't do that. I gotta go back to the ship." He said, "You can't ride around on a ship with a broken leg." I said, "No, an aircraft carrier. We've got hospitals and x-ray machines and all this good stuff. We got doctors and surgeons and all this stuff." "Oh, no, I can't let you do that." You know, "We report to all the other characters that broke their legs." "No, no, can't do that." And so, I find, I'm arguing with this doctor who outranked me by about three ranks. And I said, "Tell you what, let me call the ship. I'll let you talk to our flight surgeon and

• 53:05Speaker 03

  he can assure you that I'll be okay by going back to the ship because I gotta go to the war." So, I called the ship. Well, of course, the flight surgeon out getting drunk too. So, he wasn't there. In fact, the only one in sick bay on that ship was a corpsman, like a third-class corpsman, okay? And he doesn't know what he's doing. But I say, "Okay," I'm whispering to the guy, "So, okay, now tell this doctor that you're in charge of the hospital and that it's okay for me to come back." So, sure enough, you know, he does what I say. He tells the doctor. So, I get a cab. I got this cast on now from my waist all the way up down to my toe. Got my big toes. I mean, I broke my ankle, you know,

• 53:50Speaker 03

  not the rest of my leg, but I got this 20-pound cast on. And so, I got these crutches and I crutch up the gangway, you know, and request permission to come aboard. And the O D says, "Permission granted." And I hobble my way into the sick bay. Okay, here's the same third-class corpsman sitting there. And he doesn't know what he's doing. And he doesn't sign me in or anything. He says, "You know, go to the officer's quiet room. We got one of those in sick bay." And so, I crutch my way back to the quiet room. And I am exhausted. I'm totally, and this leg is starting to swell inside the cast and I'm in pain. And so, I just flop down in this rack.

• 54:31Speaker 03

  Okay, in the quiet room. Well, the next thing I hear is the engines of the ship starting up. You know, we're about to leave. Now, meanwhile, my squadron buddies, you know, wanting to leave no man behind, says, where's Charlie? They went back on the beach, searching for me, for the last place they saw me was disappearing towards Diamond Head on a Vespa. And so, they look all over for me and come back and report that I'm AWOL. Okay, I missed ship's movement. All right. Okay, so I, so I wake up and I know what's happening. I gotta tell somebody I'm here. Nobody knows I'm here. I mean, you know, the third class

• 55:13Speaker 03

  corpsman, he didn't sign me in. He didn't know who I was. Okay. So, so, you know, you squeeze bottles, you know, in a hospital room and it's supposed to, so I'm squeezing on this bottle trying to attract a nurse or something, you know, at the end there. Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze. I finally looked up and the hose from the bottle was cut. I would just squeeze in air. So I get my crutch out, which is the only thing I can move. I'm paralyzed and I'm banging on the hatch, you know, and I finally attracted attention of this sailor. And I say, you better go up to the ready room and squadron one fourteen, and you better tell them up there that I'm down here. Well, it wasn't probably two minutes

• 55:56Speaker 03

  later, the commandant officer standing in the doorway, all right, and he is not happy. He said, I've got seventeen pilots, he said, and now I got sixteen. He said, he said, first of all, he said, what are they telling you? When are you gonna be ready to fly again? I said, six weeks. Well, you know, weeks, months, I kinda got that confused. And he said, you're going home. I'm gonna get a replacement pilot to you. Oh, no, please, please, please let me stay. I gotta stay with the squadron. You know, I gotta be with the troops, you know, please. And so, now you're going home. Oh, please, please. I said, okay, skipper, what if I,

• 56:36Speaker 03

  you need, you need a pilot from the squadron to run the, the maintenance on QB Point in the Philippines, you know, a pilot stand behind it for battle damage and stuff, you know. I'll take care and I'll run those troops and for you. I can do that on a crutch. And so he said, okay. So. He let me, um, he let me off on, uh, on the Philippines and while the rest of the squadron, you know, went to war, the first line period, uh, they went out there and, and I'm crutching my way around the Philippines, uh, with a, you know, I had, uh, I had probably, uh, six or eight chiefs and, um, a hundred, uh, mechanics, you know, working on these airplanes.

• 57:18Speaker 03

  Well, so they would send these airplanes back to me, but I didn't have any way to test them. Uh, but the, the army at Tripor Hospital had not taken my wings. They, they, they'd not given me a, a downshift. So I, so it told me I couldn't fly. Why, you know, I, so I talked to doctor there at Subic Bay to put on a walking cast. Okay. So I got a little cast. And so, uh, I can, you know, I'm qualified to test these airplanes. I can do this. And so the problem was, first of all, I couldn't get into the airplane because my cast was too big to go into, to the toe hole. And so I'd have my, my crew, um, forklift me up and into the airplane. My second problem was I couldn't use my right

• 58:03Speaker 03

  foot to, to, to push the right rudder. And, and this is a, this is kind of a nose wheel steering airplane, the F4, where you gotta be able to push the rudder to steer. So I would, I, I'd go out and test these airplanes and I'd come back and land at, uh, at QB Point in the Philippines. And instead of making, they, they'd say, okay, you're, you're cleared right-hand turn. Couldn't make a right-hand turn. I made three left-hand turns to get off the runway. So the, the squadron finally came back and, and I got back with them, got my little cast off and I started flying missions. But you, until the day I was shot down, I was still limping on that ankle. And I was really afraid with the diet in

• 58:44Speaker 03

  the prison camp that that was never going to heal. But, uh, you know, as, as, as luck and, and fate would have it, it, it healed up fine. And so, you know, it, uh, But yeah, that's my story of breaking my leg on the way to combat.

• 59:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, thanks for bringing that up, Jim.

• 59:06Jocko Willink?

  You know, we're talking about now we're talking about getting shot down, you know, you ended up in a prison camp. You were about to get to the engagement where you actually did get shot down. You want to talk through that one a little bit further, Jim, and just give us some details on that?

• 59:23Speaker 02

  Well, sure. Some of the details are not original. But back to the Purple Heart corner, you spot them coming in again. And this time there were two different gagles that I could see in. The gaggle is a word that we use for the Germans because they didn't fly a real tight formation. They kind of, they were just there.

• 59:54Jocko Willink?

  Was that intentional?

• 59:55Speaker 02

  Yes, it must have been because they were, you know, the German pilots are sharp pilots.

• 1:00:00Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:01Speaker 02

  But.

• 1:00:02Jocko Willink?

  I would guess, especially in Germans are generally orderly people. So you'd think they'd want to fly tight formations. But I guess if you think about it from a, from like even from a basic camouflage perspective, when you see things in a pattern, it stands out more. So maybe they did that to break up their pattern a little bit.

• 1:00:19Speaker 02

  Well, I would assume that because they were very effective. And, you know, some of these boys we've run into had been at it for a long time. And, but as I saw them coming in and referred to them as I said, as a gaggle, I picked the one closest and broke into it, made the call that I was making the break. And broke and just as I broke, somebody got a shot at me. And I got hit back in the after part of the fuselage. And I thought I had a little fire going and I'm sure I did.

• 1:00:59Speaker 02

  But as I made my first pass through them, I lined up. And if you could get the P-38 nose on a target, those 450s and that 20 millimeter were devastating.

• 1:01:16Jocko Willink?

  How many rounds of 50 cal would you have?

• 1:01:19Speaker 02

  We usually carry 400 rounds per gun and 130 rounds of uh uh 20mm. And we arranged our uh uh our triggers so that you we we wanted to fire them all at the same time. We didn't carry any tracer. We had we put five tracers in at about 25 rounds remaining so that you knew you were you had to have something to go home on that uh start conserving your ammunition. And so I got a a line on a a clear shot. Fired at him, but I don't I didn't know what the results were because all of a sudden I'm in the middle of a of a firestorm.

• 1:02:05Jocko Willink?

  A literal firestorm inside your cabin, inside your cockpit?

• 1:02:09Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:02:10Jocko Willink?

  Or just still outside the plane?

• 1:02:11Speaker 02

  Outside the aircraft. Uh there were there were lots of targets and apparently I went through them.

• 1:02:20Speaker 02

  Really, at this late date, uh in my story, it's how much I really remember about this.

• 1:02:30Speaker 02

  I heard stories later, which I'll get to, but uh uh it seemed like it went on forever. And finally, uh I'm on the tail of a 190. I saw I I saw some I knew I was involved with 190s. But I saw a couple 109s someplace in my peripheral vision, so there there were other aircraft involved and they're all apparently they're all with me. I didn't know it at the time. But um uh we made a number a number of passes. I was very concerned about the amount of ammunition. If you hold the that

• 1:03:12Speaker 02

  fire button down, you're you're going to be out in about 20 seconds. So I was very concerned about using all my ammunition, so I was trying to fire very short bursts. And we go round and round and we're yo-yoing up and down and I got on the tail of a 190, again, I'm right up on top of him. And on the P38, through your gun sight, you could also see your two top 50s.

• 1:03:45Speaker 02

  And it looked like I had those two 50s right around the rudder post of this 190. And out of the corner of my eye, I see these flashes out on my wingtip and they're coming up the wingtip. And they're getting closer and closer, and this is milliseconds. And he hit me right in, in by the, the left engine. And we had an air, uh, uh, air scoop that came in through the leaning edge of the wing and into the cockpit by your left knee, which is our only cold air into the P38.

• 1:04:24Speaker 02

  And again, I see this, in peripheral vision, and I'm concentrating on the guy in front of me. Uh, I see this air vent making like a blowtorch. And so this is not good. And again, uh, my next memory is I'm out falling through a cloud. I don't remember, our emergency release was above us. P38 had, actually had windows and you crank them up on both sides. And the only way you could get them down is to hit the little release and then crank them down.

• 1:05:06Speaker 02

  And so we had a top hatch, which was our escape hatch, which is about this wide. And you have a backpack shued on and all your equipment.

• 1:05:21Speaker 02

  And I um, uh, I don't know, I don't remember releasing anything or pulling the uh, the safety belt or the shoulder harnesses.

• 1:05:32Jocko Willink?

  But this is unlike, you know, Charlie, you're, you know, the modern rigs where you pull the ejection handle and you, this is all stuff, I mean, in a modern aircraft, you pull the ejection handle and you're getting shot out of the aircraft.

• 1:05:47Speaker 03

  It's all automatic.

• 1:05:48Jocko Willink?

  Right.

• 1:05:49Speaker 03

  That's all, that's all you do, yeah. We, we didn't have to think about anything. We weren't smart as, as these guys were.

• 1:05:53Jocko Willink?

  So, so, so this was all stuff you manually had to do. Unbuckle yourself, get and open up the hatch or the window and, and get all that done while the, the plane is burning and, and then you have to get out and that's kind of when you come back into consciousness. So you did that either instinctively or, or at some point while all this mayhem was going on.

• 1:06:17Speaker 02

  That's right. I don't, as I say, I don't remember even reaching up above for the, to pull the, the top hatch. Um, well, I was just out floating down through, I knew the clouds were around 5,000 feet because we'd been yo-yoing up and down during this time.

• 1:06:35Jocko Willink?

  And, and also just one more point, on a ejection seat, a modern ejection seat, you come out, your parachute opens automatically, right?

• 1:06:42Speaker 03

  Oh, yes.

• 1:06:43Jocko Willink?

  So you're, you're still in a ripcord scenario, right? Where you're gonna have to make this parachute open. So when you say, when you say you're floating down, you're actually falling down at 120 miles per hour towards the earth.

• 1:06:54Speaker 02

  Somewhat like that. So anyway, I come out the bottom of a cloud and I'm facing up. And I thought, well, I better turn over. So I, I turned over and I can remember distinctly watching the ground and I thought I was behind German lines because we were at Aachen, Germany. And uh, uh, I just knew that I was, and we were east of Aachen. And I knew where approximately where this fight started and I didn't think it had gotten any better about going west. So I, I figured we were, we were over different territory. And so, uh, we, um...

• 1:07:38Speaker 02

  We had been told to not pull your rip cord at altitude. Get down. You're a lot less of target lower you can get. So I rolled over and fell, actually just fell face down and watched the ground come up. And when it looked like it was pretty close, I pulled a rip cord.

• 1:07:59Jocko Willink?

  This is your first time parachuting? Or did you guys do any parachuting in preparation for this?

• 1:08:05Speaker 02

  Oh, no.

• 1:08:09Jocko Willink?

  Okay. Yeah, that's interesting. Having jumped out of at least a decent number of airplanes, this is not something you want to do for the first time.

• 1:08:19Speaker 02

  You don't want to do it again either.

• 1:08:26Speaker 02

  But anyway, the rip cord worked. And I remember thinking, well, you know, I've got to be ready to move when I get down. So I unbuckled the two lower straps on the chute. And I got them unbuckled. And I had a 45 in the shoulder holster. And I got the 45 out. And I'm trying to cock it to get around in the chamber. And I dropped it. And I didn't realize my hands were burned. And so I'm not sure how I got the chute buckles off. And so I must have been pretty low when I pulled a rip cord.

• 1:09:04Speaker 02

  Because just instantaneously, I came down in a red brick building. And it had a courtyard and a tree in the middle of the courtyard. And I could, if I could find the building, I'd recognize it today. And my chute caught in this little tree. And I jerked to a stomp. And I'm probably six inches off the deck. And I remember doing that. But then I don't remember. For a period, and I kept thinking, it's getting dark. And I thought, God, I'm, you know, where have I been?

• 1:09:47Speaker 02

  And I'm going down what was like a little hedgerow, and I had my .45. And I saw these guys down in this ditch, boy, I thought they were German. And I saw they had a net on their helmet, and our guys had net on the helmet. I threw my hands up and threw the .45 over my shoulder, never saw it again. But it was First Infantry Division. And they had seen my chute, and I came down between the German positions and First Infantry Division. Wow. And what had happened, and I found this all later, they, First Infantry, we were

• 1:10:32Speaker 02

  trying to take Aachen. You know, we started, and this is mid-September, to try to take Aachen. We didn't get Aachen until early November, where we actually took the town. And the First Infantry had pushed up during, on the night of the fifteenth, had pushed up and taken this little area where I came down. It was a little town called Ellendorf, which was a suburb of Aachen. And they were having trouble holding it. And so, they were getting ready to pull back, and they saw my chute, and they, guys came

• 1:11:16Speaker 02

  out and picked me up, took me to a back hospital. But before they did that, they took me in and into an area, and I was in the command post, and I met a full Colonel. And I found out later who he was. He was the commander of the Sixteenth Infantry Regiment. And he, he said, he asked me if you wanted dinner, and I said, I don't know what I said. Anyway, I apparently sat down and had dinner with him or ate with him. And I do remember going outside this area and throwing up. So I knew I had eaten something.

• 1:12:00Speaker 02

  But they put me in a two and a half ton truck. And where they put the stretchers, they put them in between the, what are the side gates? And I, there was some Germans in there and some Americans and me. And they hauled us back and they took me to what I found out later was the 45th of Beck Hospital. And they treated me there. But I, right at that moment, I don't remember too much about all this going on, except I thought it was getting dark. So I thought I'd been on the ground for quite a while.

• 1:12:44Speaker 02

  And I found out later that my eyes were, had been pretty flash burns on my face and hands and everything. And I couldn't see for a couple of days. So apparently I was having, my eyes were swelling shut or something. And I'm, I think it's getting dark. But they hauled me into the hospital. And I was very fortunate. They had a doctor there who either had developed or was using a new technique on burns. And they took me in this operating room. And it was colder than hell and I'm vibrating like blazes.

• 1:13:28Speaker 02

  And they start picking like this. And God, this, it would drive me crazy. And what it was, they developed this new technique where they picked the, all the burn areas out to get it off there. So you heal from, from the inside out.

• 1:13:49Speaker 02

  And as I went back through the, the hospital system, uh, they'd use me as a, a demonstration to these kids that had been caught in tanks and badly burned, much worse than I was. And they were telling them that, "Look what we did here. Look how quickly he's healing," meaning me, uh, "using this technique." And, um, so apparently I was one of the very first that they'd ever used this on. But when, um, we, uh, we, we were put on this train, the hospital train, and taken

• 1:14:28Speaker 02

  to the American Hospital in Paris, and they haul me in, in there, and this guy comes up to me and he says, "Hell, I know you." Uh, he says, "We picked you up."

• 1:14:40Jocko Willink?

  Hmm.

• 1:14:41Speaker 02

  And his name was Walter, uh, Leonard Scott. He was a, a, uh, with the First Infantry Division, Comte de C, and he was the second lieutenant. And, um, he became my friend. He stayed with me for quite a while, and he had witnessed almost all of this operation as we yo-yoed around the area while he was seeing a good part. And then he told me a lot about what happened. They, they told me that, um, they estimated there were twenty ene- twenty enemy aircraft. And that somehow or other, that story has stuck with, uh, with my story. I don't, I don't know what they were.

• 1:15:23Speaker 02

  I mean, uh, he, um, uh, he actually, uh, uh, was where I got most of my information about what had gone on. So we, um, we went through the hospital chain and, and, you know.

• 1:15:41Jocko Willink?

  Was, was he in the hospital for something? Had he been injured as well?

• 1:15:44Speaker 02

  Yeah. He, we get to England and he's telling me a little bit about, um, infantry life. And he had landed with the First Infantry Division in North Africa.

• 1:15:59Speaker 02

  They went all through North Africa and went to Sicily. And he had been very badly wounded in Sicily. And they, he and another officer had manned an anti-tank gun in some big operation in Sicily. And the two of them stayed with this anti-tank gun when everybody else had departed. And anyway, he had received a distinguished service cross. And that was the first time I ever heard the term distinguished service cross.

• 1:16:42Speaker 02

  And so now I'm starting, he started in forty-two. And he went through North Africa, he went to Sicily, he went to England, he made D-Day. And I said, well, how come you're still a second lieutenant? Well, we, we hadn't been in, we were sent to England. They, they took us to the Netley Hospital, which was this gigantic hospital right outside of Southampton that had been built in the Boer Wars, something like that big. Looked like a castle.

• 1:17:24Speaker 02

  And so we hadn't been in there two hours and this cute little nurse shows up with a Class A uniform for Leonard Scott and Scott was gone. I mean, we didn't see him for ten days. So I figured that Leonard Scott was probably a first lieutenant four or five times. It sounds like from the cute nurse, it might have been worth it. I'm sure it was. But, you know, we, we were quite close for just a few weeks. And for years and years and years, I tried to find Leonard Scott.

• 1:18:07Speaker 02

  I knew that he made it through the war. I knew that he'd gotten off, separated from active duty and at Fort Lewis, and he was from the Dals, Oregon, and I tried to find him. And about a year ago, my wife sat down at the computer, and in a matter of a couple hours, she finds his two, his two daughters. And he had passed, he had gone through Korea, went back on active duty, went through Korea. He was, he had this distinguished service cross. He had the Purple Heart with seven clusters.

• 1:18:47Jocko Willink?

  Jesus.

• 1:18:48Speaker 02

  And he had been hit, he said he made the D-Day landing, and in 20 minutes, he was on a, a landing craft on his way back to England. He'd gotten hit that quickly.

• 1:19:03Jocko Willink?

  Wow.

• 1:19:04Speaker 02

  And then he, the day after I was shot down, he got hit again. And he went back, after we separated, he went back to the First Infantry Division, Company C. And it's funny, coming up to more recent times, I built a number, I, I, I used to build, we still build airport facilities, but I used to build air cargo buildings and so forth and lease them to the airlines. And I did a lot of work with Flying Tigers. And I knew Bob Prescott

• 1:19:44Speaker 02

  pretty well, who was the president of Tigers, and I knew Wayne Hoffman, who was the chairman of the board of Tigers.

• 1:19:53Jocko Willink?

  So tell us a little bit about the Flying Tigers, if people don't know.

• 1:19:56Speaker 02

  The Flying Tigers is an airline. Cargo airline that was sold to Federal Express and is now part of Federal Express. And Tigers was named because Bob Prescott, who was president of Tigers, had flown with the Flying Tiger organization in China, one of the original Flying Tigers. And right after the war, he started a little airline and called it Flying Tigers. And it became a gigantic air cargo facility. And they were flying all over the world. And so I started building facilities and leasing to them. And so I knew Bob and knew Wayne Hoffmann real well.

• 1:20:41Speaker 02

  And I knew that Wayne Hoffmann had been in the army and been in the infantry, but that's, we never talked about him. And Wayne's wife wrote a book and she took all of Wayne's letters that he had written home from Europe during the war and put them in this book. And so they gave me a book and I read it. And I come to September 16th. Wayne Hoffmann is in Ellendorf, Germany, in the first part of the Siegfried Line.

• 1:21:23Speaker 02

  Five o'clock in the evening, in his letter to his wife, he said, a very short letter, he said, "I'm in Ellendorf and there's an airbiel going on above us." And we get talking and that was me. And here we'd been friends for a number of years and we'd never really talked about it. And he was Company D of the 16th Regiment. Leonard Scott was Company C of the 16th Regiment. And we never put all this together.

• 1:22:00Jocko Willink?

  That's unbelievable.

• 1:22:03Speaker 02

  And it's amazing what comes out. And I found out that two of the people that are on the German side that I've been involved with, a Major Boris, they...

• 1:22:20Speaker 02

  This is a long story. I don't know how far you want to go with this.

• 1:22:23Jocko Willink?

  We go as long as you want to talk.

• 1:22:26Speaker 02

  Well, they, uh, Major Boris, uh, I'll go back a step. I, I heard from a gentleman in Holland and they had some information about my airplane. And this gentleman, uh, had written several big historical books. And he lived in, uh, in that little area where Belgium and Holland and Germany all come together. And he had found like 500 wrecks, aircraft wrecks in this area.

• 1:23:06Speaker 02

  And traced them down in, in history and, and, um, recorded it. And they came up with a P-38 in, uh, Ellendorf, Germany. And so they figured out and found that it was my airplane. And they found it in 1997. And so anyway, in a series of steps, I get in, they get in contact with me. And, um, he had studied, uh, that, that air, air warfare in that area. And was writing another book about that. And he said, well, he wanted to talk to me about it and we did.

• 1:23:49Speaker 02

  But unfortunately, he passed away, but, uh, very early, he was a young man. And so I, I never got a souvenir from the wreck of my airplane. It's there someplace waiting for me if I can find it. But he told me that he had, he came up with two names. That, uh, he had read this book by Caldwell. There's a story called the, the, uh, War Diary of JG26, the yellow-nosed, Abbeyville Boys, yellow-nosed, uh, aircraft. And, um, they, uh, he had written on September 16th.

• 1:24:34Speaker 02

  He had this story about attacking the three, the 370th group. And the, the Germans claimed, um, four P-38s had been shot down.

• 1:24:48Speaker 02

  And that wasn't true. I was the only one that lost. They actually attacked the group after my engagement with them. They finally got their act together, I guess, and attacked the group and didn't do too well. Like twenty minutes, thirty minutes later, whatever the time of them. But he figured out that one of two people had shot me down. One fellow was Major Boris. Major Boris had shot down, his first victory was in 1939, he shot down a Spitfire. He had, if he got me, I was his forty-second victory. Wow.

• 1:25:28Speaker 02

  The other guy was a fellow by the name of Keith Muller, and if he got me, I would have been his eighty-second victory. So, these guys were not beginners. And so, all this information's dribbling in over the last sixty years. So, by the time I find out about Boris and the Luftwaffe, they've died. So, I've never got a chance to talk with them. But through Scott, we found, Scott's daughter is a very famous interior decorator

• 1:26:10Speaker 02

  in San Francisco. And so, we're gonna get together with her, and she said that her father passed away at a very early age. I think he was in his fifties. But, so, all of this keeps coming in. We keep hearing more and more. You find something will accidentally be unearthed or...

• 1:26:34Speaker 03

  Interesting stories there, Jim, but you haven't told us about the nurse. Helping you with your clothes?

• 1:26:43Speaker 02

  Oh, the nurse.

• 1:26:48Jocko Willink?

  This is a G rated podcast most of the time.

• 1:26:53Speaker 03

  Well, Echo can, you know, bleep some of it out, I'm sure.

• 1:26:59Speaker 02

  There were some lovely nurses.

• 1:27:02Jocko Willink?

  Well, I think we all know what that means.

• 1:27:05Speaker 02

  They were, you know, they were so wonderful. I mean, these gals were just unbelievable how they took care of you.

• 1:27:14Jocko Willink?

  No, it's actually, you know, we've read some books on the podcast where there was nurses that were over in France and they were receiving guys right off the front lines.

• 1:27:21Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, they, they had me on this 45th and I wake up and I'm hearing all of this big banging going on. Well, the 45th hospital is here and there's a right behind it here. There's a 105th, 105 artillery

• 1:27:43Speaker 02

  firing over the hospital. And they took me to, from there I went to the hospital, the general hospital in Brussels. No, not Brussels, where the hell, Maastricht. And I left there one day and then the next day after I left, a V1 rocket flew right into the side of the hospital there. And I have pictures of it that I took.

• 1:28:18Speaker 02

  This is later, my second tour through the hospital, which is another story. But, uh, so that, that was a big tragedy. They killed a number of the people and hit one of the wards. So, and those, those were nurses that I knew.

• 1:28:38Jocko Willink?

  How long did it take you to recover? And did, did you fly again? Or was that, was being shot down and wounded was at the end of the war for you?

• 1:28:46Speaker 02

  No, well, it was in combat really. Uh, I went through the hospital chain and I was released in England. Went back, I was going through Paris and, uh, you know.

• 1:29:06Speaker 02

  The hospitals would collect the uniforms. They took all my flying jacket and everything was burned from the wreck. So it's all, they strip you down and throw it all away. And so now I'm in a hospital in England and they're gonna let, release me and I'm going back to my squadron. I'm ready to fly. This is in November. And my burns had healed pretty well. And so they give me a uniform to wear. And I don't know how many guys, or how many times this guy, whoever's uniform it was, had been hit, but there was sure a bunch of holes in it that they matched up. And I found a hat.

• 1:29:51Speaker 02

  And so I had no money. And so I'm, I'm streaking my way back. I went to London and then I got a flight to Paris. And I got to Paris and so I decided, well, I'm in Paris and I'm on my way back to squadron. I'm gonna see something. So I went down to the Lido Club. And I used to like, I still like to dance, but I like swing. And so I'm in the Lido Club and, and they have this pretty little gal singing some French tunes and then they wanna, they ask a few people if they wanted to do a little jitterbug.

• 1:30:34Speaker 02

  So we, we had quite a night. And so I left early and I'm figuring on where I'm gonna sleep. And I'm walking down the avenue and here comes a gaggle again of, of guys with pinks on and the, the green jerseys and everything. Damn, here comes my battle jacket, my pants. These are all friends of mine and they're wearing my clothes. So they were staying at the Claridge Hotel right next to the Lido Club. So all of a sudden I'm better dressed.

• 1:31:18Speaker 02

  I borrowed some money and, and we enjoyed Paris.

• 1:31:25Jocko Willink?

  And then did you get back to the squadron?

• 1:31:26Speaker 02

  Went back to the squadron with them. And? They had transportation, so I went back with them. And I'm there for, God, I walked in and everybody's glad to see me and, and they say, "Gee, we just got a brand-new P-38 in, right from Ireland, just came through, it's yours." And, boy, it was a beauty. So I'm all ready to start flying again and Doc Berg, who was our flight, he comes to me and he says, "Jimmy," he says, "I don't like the way you're walking." And I said, "Well, I'm just a little bit sore, but everything's fine." And he said, "Well, we're going over to," we were at A-78 at that time, Florence, Belgium.

• 1:32:10Speaker 02

  He says, "We'll go over to Chalora and just check you out." And so I go over to the hospital at Chalora with him, and the next thing you knew, I got a cast from here down to my rear end. And they x-rayed me and, and I had a broken back that they hadn't treated. So, back to the hospital. And so we, I went through that, went back to Third Military, uh, uh, well, they had a, what they did is they had a central medical section, and they run all the pilots through there, and then they would determine what happens to you.

• 1:32:54Speaker 02

  And so I kept saying, "Well, I wanna go back to the squadron." And so they said, "Okay, we're gonna, you got your cast." And they took the big cast off and put a small one on. They said, "We're gonna send you to England for at least thirty days, to a flak house." Well, flak houses is where they run by the, uh, uh, Red Cross, and mainly were for bomber crews. If the bomber crew had, were getting a little nervous or something, they'd send them down for a week or so. So they sent me to this flak house, and the first thing I get in trouble with, with the Red Cross,

• 1:33:38Speaker 02

  is fighter pilots like to talk about combat and flying. And these bomber guys didn't wanna have anything to do with that kind of conversation, so the Red Cross gets upset with me and they told me, "I gotta keep my mouth shut." And I said, "Well, fine, I'll keep my mouth shut, but I'm gonna do this." Give me a set of orders and I'll go off to some base, cause I'm, I can walk. So I, I had a little plan. You used to, to get your flying time, your pay, you had to fly four hours a month. So I would, I'd write a set of orders and said that I, I'm just temporary duty.

• 1:34:22Speaker 02

  And I, I want four hours of flying time. So I'd go off to some base. And with, with a small cast on and uh, uh, I'd say, I'd walk in and say, here's my orders. I need four hours flying time. So they'd arrange and I'd fly for four hours and, and go back to the flak house and a couple of days later, I'd write some more orders and go someplace else. So I got to fly a number of aircraft while I was there. And so pretty soon, my thirty days are over. I'd go back to third medical, and they sent me back to the squadron.

• 1:35:05Speaker 02

  You know, Gockberg was not happy to see me at all. And at that time, I got orders to report to General Spott's headquarters in, in Paris. And they said, um, they didn't tell me what I was going down there for. And some Colonel came, uh, came to the squadron. He's also assigned on this same deal, same set of orders. And so we'd go down to Paris together. And uh, his name was Ingleto and he ended up a two or three star general. And he had decorations from his neck down to his waist already. And so, uh, I get down to Paris and I'm gonna get the distinguished service cross.

• 1:35:49Speaker 02

  Well, outside of Leonard Scott, who never really told me what the distinguished service cross was, I wasn't sure what we were about to get. And um, anyway, we, we got that and went back to the squadron again, thinking everything at least is pretty close to right. And Berg says, you're going home. And so that was the end of that, except I'm grounded.

• 1:36:19Speaker 02

  And that's why I'm going home. I'm grounded. So I had, I had all these records with me and, you know, we officers then, I suppose they still do, you carried your own records with you. So I'm going home grounded. I got my records. Well, I still have those records and they're in a foot locker down in my hangar. Nobody else ever got them.

• 1:36:47Speaker 02

  I got home and took a medical and passed it. And so I'm back on flying duty. The war's still on. It looks like we could, might be going to, out to the Pacific to make the invasions of Japan. I'm flying the latest P-51, P-51H. Got married and with my childhood sweetheart, who I met when she was 15. And everything is right in the world and, and Harry Drewman dropped the bomb and ruined a perfectly good war.

• 1:37:34Speaker 02

  That was just about it. I stayed in till 1948 and I got to fly our first jets and, and had a wonderful time, had a wonderful experience, learned a heck of a lot. Got to do things that would have never happened to me and if we hadn't have gotten involved in all of this. So it worked out great.

• 1:37:57Jocko Willink?

  And so how did you two end up meeting?

• 1:38:01Speaker 03

  Well, I had this old antique airplane and I was looking for a hangar for this airplane and Jim was building hangars at the time. And this little, little bitty airport up in the valley above Santa Barbara called Santianez. And he helped me build a hangar. And it, it was kind of interesting, the attraction and...

• 1:38:23Speaker 03

  In fact, my wife brought this up. She said, you know, you're gonna have three generations of warriors talking on these telephones. I mean, today on this podcast. You got Jim Kunkle, and 30 years later, you got Charlie Pym, and 30 years later, you got Jocko Willink. He said, and there's a certain attraction with warriors. I don't know what it is with our brains, you know, but there's some kind of a, kind of a magnetism or something. You just kind of identify with the guys that have been in combat. And so even though they're, I don't know, there are probably 100 pilots on this airport, Jim and I kind of hit it

• 1:39:03Speaker 03

  off without even knowing our history. And the more we got to know each other, this is like 20 years ago, the more we got to know each other, the more similar philosophies of life, you know, we had. And, and so it's not just our flying, because Jim still flies, of course, I still fly. And of course, I've got an old antique airplane that, from his training days. And, but more than that, the technology has changed, the enemy has changed. From World War II to Vietnam to Iraq, you know, but the camaraderie of military guys,

• 1:39:47Speaker 03

  you know, there's just something. And, and a lot of stuff that you talk about, Jocko, in your podcast and in your books, just the, you know, the fact that we're all accountable, we're responsible, not just for our lives, but for our buddies. And there's something about that, that community of warriors, that, that really connects. So that's how Jim and I got started. He built the hangar for me and, and I moved in. My wife made a man cave out of it. And so, so, I mean, that's where we are, we're sitting here doing this.

• 1:40:24Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that was, we joked about that on the first time you were on the podcast, that, that you had the ultimate man cave. And, you know, I kind of threw that out there, but now that I've been here, Actually factually true that you do have the ultimate man cave and uh I'm gonna take a go up and take a bunch of pictures. Maybe we'll even do a video like a little tour of it and just show everyone kind of what this is all about. And and all the I mean the the history that you have here and the pictures and the photographs and and the you know, pieces of aircraft and everything else is it's it's phenomenal to look at and you know, it was interesting. So when I got here, um, you know, we we were walking around and and Jim's hangar is a few hangars down. And you know, you said, hey, Jim wants to show you something.

• 1:41:09Jocko Willink?

  And and I said, oh, well, you know, okay, you know, I I don't really have any idea what it was. So we we get out and we walk from your hangar and we're walking down towards Jim Jim's hangar. And you know, we shake hands and I meet I meet Jim for the first time. And he says, you know, I want to show you something and I say, oh, okay, you know, neat. And he goes, it's a picture. And I said, oh, awesome. And I I've no idea what to expect. And he says, it's someone you know. And I said, okay, well, that narrows it down, but I don't know, you know, I don't know who I have in in in common. You know, with Jim or I don't know, I have no idea, no idea who this was, who this picture was gonna be.

• 1:41:49Jocko Willink?

  So we go to Jim's man cave, which is an equally impressive and and awesome, you know, hangar with, you know, his personal effects and pictures and models and parts of aircraft and everything else. And he walks into a corner and and he picks up a picture and he hands me this picture. And the picture I immediately I know who it is. And it's it's this second lieutenant from the Marine Corps. It's a picture of a young Chinese American second lieutenant from the Marine Corps. And it it's it's Kurt Lee, who I I talked about in podcast number 53.

• 1:42:29Jocko Willink?

  Colder than hell and I went kind of off about him a little bit. I talked about him a lot because if you remember from this particular podcast and from that particular book, this was at the chosen reservoir and and this second lieutenant Kurt Lee, he was, while these guys are engaged in in just intense continuous combat, in order to lead his men, he fashioned a a fluorescent orange vest out of some signaling material and or out of some parachute material or something. He made this vest for himself so that he would be completely visible to all of his men. Now that also means he's obviously completely visible to the enemy as well.

• 1:43:14Jocko Willink?

  But that was what kind of a leader that this guy was. You look, I'm going to take extra risk, but I'm we're I'm going to make this happen. I'm in charge. You're going to know where where I am and you can follow me through whatever. And it's an incredible story of of heroism. So that's the picture that Jim puts in front of me is this picture of of Kurt Lee. And I'm I kind of look at him and I, you know, and and it turns out that you that you knew Kurt Lee.

• 1:43:43Speaker 02

  Yes, indeed. Kurt was a good friend, a dear friend. And quite a story and I had tremendous respect for him. I I have tremendous respect for his principles to the last day of the before he died and fond memories.

• 1:44:03Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it was. It's an interesting story too, because that's another thing that we talked about was in part of that. What he did at one point in that book, and I don't remember it specifically, but he basically dresses someone down in the middle of a firefight for not giving him, you know, not calling him sir or not calling him lieutenant. And, you know, I'm kind of saying, hey, guys, you know, you need to think about when the right time to do this is. But as you said, he was an extremely principled person and kept those principles at all times.

• 1:44:31Speaker 02

  Well, you know, he he led the the group of Marines through the night to relieve Fox Company, which is quite a well-known story in the Marine Corps. Fox Company was holding a hill that commanded the escape route for the whole chosen reservoir group, Army.

• 1:44:57Speaker 02

  Marine Corps and they were under heavy attack and the idea was to get down and support them and Kurt Lee could speak three or four different dialects of Chinese and so he's leading these he's the scout who is actually leading the whole contingent of Marines through the night through heavy snow terrible terrible conditions and actually as they came across Chinese sentries troops he would talk to them in Chinese and they got the whole the

• 1:45:39Speaker 02

  whole contingent got through and they made it in time they relieved Fox Company tremendous story.

• 1:45:49Jocko Willink?

  Yeah it is unbelievable story and unbelievable that you handed that picture to me and and that you knew him I mean that's just this phenomenal phenomenal situation. Was there anything Charlie that when when you were on last time was there anything that you know I know we we talked for a few hours I think.

• 1:46:09Speaker 03

  Yeah we did.

• 1:46:10Jocko Willink?

  Yeah was there any major things that as you listen to it again that you said to yourself you know what I should I should talk about this as well?

• 1:46:18Speaker 03

  Not nothing which specifically comes to mind but now that you know that the three warriors are here together and I think we should talk a little bit about philosophies of combat and the fears that we faced because I think you know to the general public the vast majority of your listeners and viewers are not in the military and so you know my my thought is well how do they relate oh it's interesting history you know I love the history of the greater generation and I love your history as well and the things that are going on to you know today the guys at the point of the spear but what does that

• 1:46:59Speaker 03

  mean to the you know to the average guy you know who's never been in the military there's some principles I believe that the three of us learned in combat that can that's transferable I think to to all challenges of life you know that. The, the, just, you know, the fact that you face your fears, you know, you step into the, into the box and, and Jim did it and you've done it, where you, you could have run the other way, you know, you, you could have quit, you could have checked out, but, you know, I mean, all, all three of us felt like that we had a duty, a duty to our country, a duty to our brotherhood, and so we, you know, picked up the, you know, picked up the

• 1:47:43Speaker 03

  baton and, and continued on. And so, you know, to me, that's sort of the important part, the part that you can, you can transfer more than just the military history that we all have, the, the philosophy of meeting challenges. Because I'm convinced, you know, you can, you can be in just as much of a, of a challenge in your life. You don't, you don't have to be flying jet airplanes or running around as SEAL teams. You, you can face challenges. When a person is diagnosed with cancer, loses a child, or for that matter, gets cut out of your lane on the freeway, you have a choice. And, and the choice that

• 1:48:25Speaker 03

  you make, it certainly depends on not only your character, but then it also transmit into the outcome of the character that you continue to be in life. And so, while we're, you know, thirty, sixty years apart in our, in our generations here, our philosophies of life and the warrior psyche continues. And so, I, I'm just really, really proud to be a part of this and proud to be with you, Jocko, and of course, with you, Jim. Jim and I see each other probably a couple of times a month. We get together, we have dinner,

• 1:49:07Speaker 03

  our, our wives, you know, cook good meals and we go fly sometimes and, and there's a certain silent language, I think, between us, that we don't even have to talk to each other, and yet we understand what, what's going on, you know, where, where we're coming from, and the, the accountability that, that we share, just because of the experiences that we've had.

• 1:49:34Jocko Willink?

  I got asked a question the other day. I was working with a company. I was actually, no, I wasn't working with a company. I was doing a speech. And I was doing some Q and A at the end and a guy asked me,

• 1:49:47Jocko Willink?

  "How do you define character? And how do you build it?" And I'd actually never been asked this question before. And quite frankly, I hadn't really thought about it very much. And, and this guy had thought about it and I talked to him afterwards and it was something that he, it was why he really wanted to hear me talk because he wanted to get my perspective on this.

• 1:50:10Jocko Willink?

  And I answered the question like this. I, I said, you know, for me, character is not a very complex thing. For me, character is you do what's right. You do what's right. You do the right thing. That's what you do. And if you do the right thing, regardless of what the consequences are, that, that represents character. And so then how do you build character? It's a beautiful thing because it's the same thing. If you want to build character, you do the right thing. You do the right thing for yourself. You do the right thing for your family. You do the right thing for your,

• 1:50:53Jocko Willink?

  the people that you know. You do the right thing for your community. You do the right thing for your country. That's what you do. And now on an individual level, those things are hard things often, right? Those are hard things. You have to make the right decisions. You have to live a disciplined life. Those build character. Those little things that you do on a daily basis to make yourself better, to improve your health, to improve your, your situation in life. You're doing those things. They're hard to do. And when you do those things, they build your character. And ultimately they lead to your, your, your character being a good character as opposed to a bad one. But I'd never been asked that question before and I thought that the simplicity of it

• 1:51:36Jocko Willink?

  is pretty clear when you think about it, you know, when you think about the people that you know, you know, when I think about the, the people that I worked for in the military or that worked for me up or down the chain of command. What, what is it that made them people that, because you know, there's bad character, you know, we, we can't sit here and pretend like everybody that just because you're in the military, you've got great character. That's absolutely not true. But what about those people? And I, you know, I thought through this in, in three seconds as this guy asked me this question. You know, I thought to myself, well, what about the guys that I know that have good character that I look to and say, yeah, this, this person I trust, you know, without question, what kind of person is that? That's the person that you know is going to do the right thing all the time, regardless of the consequences.

• 1:52:16Speaker 03

  And a couple of things about that. First of all, it isn't easy. In fact, usually, the right thing is the toughest thing. You know, it, it's the, it's the hard decision. The second thing is, it doesn't always turn out for the best when you do the right thing. Lots of times, we stumble, you know, and, and your listeners may think that the three of us, you know, have always, you know, been on the top of the heap, but all three of us have fallen short, you know? I mean, I'll tell you this, languishing in prison camp, the first, the first month in that prison camp, I laid there in, in, in blood and sweat and tears and, and, and my mental state was just in the tank because I'd given up.

• 1:53:00Speaker 03

  Fighter pilots are not supposed to give up. Jim and I weren't trained to surrender. And, and my, my mental, the depression that I had just because of that. And I think that largely in life, you know, when you do, do the right thing and it doesn't turn out right, then you have to get up, dust yourself off, get back in the, back in the, in the fray. And that's tough to do. You know, the last thing you want to do when, when, when you're getting beat up every, from every side and you really want to quit, the last thing you want to do is to, is to stand up and, and be forceful again to, to, you know, to, to take control of the situation.

• 1:53:43Speaker 03

  And yet, it's those kinds of challenges in life that build that character, you know, that, that really make the difference between, you know, the, the, the positive life, the life lived well and those guys and gals that, that don't make those kind of decisions.

• 1:54:01Jocko Willink?

  And you're talking about. When you were, when you were depressed, when you were laying there, it's because you felt like you had failed.

• 1:54:11Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:54:11Jocko Willink?

  You felt like you had broken. You felt like you weren't the man that you thought you were. And they'd found your breaking point and you'd found your breaking point and you didn't like that.

• 1:54:23Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:54:24Jocko Willink?

  And what, if I remember correctly, what, what, what got you through that? Was, you know, you, you went broke down and one of your, one of your cellmates and said, well, this is horrible. I'm a, I'm a, I'm a disaster. I'm a failure. I broke. And he kind of said, oh yeah, welcome to the club. We all break. It was like one of those things. And I think to your point, absolutely. Everyone, everyone has a point where they go, ah, you know, I, I, I, I failed to hear. I didn't do what I was supposed to do. I lacked the character that I needed at that time. To, to be a good leader or to even stand up and fight one more time. I failed.

• 1:55:04Jocko Willink?

  And the point is us all sitting around at this table and every single person that's listening to this right now. You can find a spot in your life where you said, you know what? I didn't do it. I didn't hold the line. I, my character broke and I wasn't the person that I should have been at that moment. And that's, that's absolutely true. But what's more important than the fact than that we all get to a point where we break. Is number one, that everybody breaks. And number two, that doesn't mean it's over. That just me, that's just, it's a bump in the road. It's a bump in the road and you gotta rebuild from it. You gotta come back and you can, you can do that.

• 1:55:40Speaker 03

  And not only that, but largely that bump in the road builds your character even further. Because you understand your limitations and you understand that you can overcome these things. And, you know, back to the story of the prisons of war, 591 of us came home. And from that 591 men, we produced 17 generals and six admirals. And most of us retired as senior grade military officers. We went back to flying planes and commanding fleets and, and battalions all over the world. We have a bunch of congressmen, two United States senators, uh, vice presidential candidate, presidential candidate. Uh, all from 591 guys. Uh, and, and so, and, and we all felt like we'd failed.

• 1:56:21Speaker 03

  We all felt like we'd given up. But even because of that adversity, you know, we, we came out stronger than ever before.

• 1:56:30Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I think this really goes also to the fact that. I mean, what you're saying is essentially the fact that you have to know, you have to understand what your weaknesses are. You really do. And, and you have to understand human beings and what human beings weaknesses are. And for me, you know, and I've talked about this a ton on this podcast, you have to understand that there's that human beings are capable of doing very dark and horrible things. And if you can't, and if you can't recognize that you yourself are capable of the dark and horrible things and of the weak things. Well, then you're not really being truthful with yourself and, and with your existence really as a human being.

• 1:57:16Jocko Willink?

  And you ignore those things. And I think when you ignore those things, I think that's when they sneak up on you.

• 1:57:20Speaker 03

  I think you're right. You know, I think that's the crux of our real serious challenge with suicide within the veteran population. And, and I've worked on this and Jim's worked on this and and you've worked on it as well. And one of the advantages we had as prisoners of war is that we that we exposed ourselves, you know, we recognized our weakness and, and to a man we knew that we weren't as strong as we wanted to be. And so, um, just, just that community that we built within the prison camp, tapping on walls and tugging on wires and our secret codes. Very difficult to communicate with everybody else.

• 1:58:00Speaker 03

  But we had leadership there that turned, that, that, that turned that whole thing around and and the leadership said, wait a minute, you're not a victim. Now, I'm a very junior officer there. You know, I'm a Lieutenant JG. And wait a minute. I'm in a communist prison camp. I'm bleeding from four open wounds. I have no medical care. I'm, I'm, I'm starving. I've been tortured. Uh, I'm down to 115 pounds and I'm not on the defensive. I'm, I'm not a victim. Now you pull up your big boy pants. Let's get on with this thing. We got a war to fight. And, and, and, and so the leadership totally re, they, they refocused the whole purpose of, of our being there. And that, and, and gave us a mission.

• 1:58:45Speaker 03

  And I think that's one of the challenges we face when a guy gets out of the military, or a gal, and takes off that uniform. He loses the purpose, he loses that mission. And he loses that community. And he puts on a coat and tie, or, you know, puts on a golf shirt and goes out and tries to reconnect with people. And Jim, it's what you were talking about, you know, being in civilian clothes in Paris, and you were looking for some way to reconnect with your unit. And ironically, here they come marching down the Champs-Elysees to the Lido, and there you were, back in uniform.

• 1:59:28Speaker 03

  And so you had raison d'etre, you know, you had a purpose, a reason to live, just because of the group that you were associated with. And whenever I speak publicly, I, you know, I challenge an audience to, if you've got, if you know a veteran, you know, talk to them, you know, give them a purpose, invite them to enter your house, or your club, or your church, and make a difference. And that way you can serve your country by serving those who served their country.

• 2:00:05Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's interesting, you know, Jim, you kinda, you kinda made that joking comment, you know, "Hey Truman dropped the bomb and ruined a perfectly good war," and we all laughed at it, but we all also kinda understand that there's some level of reality to that. And you think when you're in the military, and I always, you know, I always talk about the fact that when I joined the Navy, it was 1990, and I just missed the first Gulf War. And like, I was completely dismayed by that, because you know, there hadn't been a war since, basically since Vietnam, so it'd been 20 years, and I'm thinking, okay, there was my shot to fight in a war, and I just missed it.

• 2:00:45Jocko Willink?

  And, and so that, that what you're talking about of, hey, you feel like this is your purpose. And, and this is what I'm supposed to be doing with my life. And it's a higher purpose and it's a higher cause. And it's something that is, is bigger than you. And so when you're a part of it, it feels good. And you want to participate and you want to help. And then when it's over, you look around and you go, wait a second. What's my higher purpose now? And, and I think you're right. That's where people get into trouble because they're so tied to their old higher purpose. And they can't transition to the new one. And, you know, I get great feedback from, from vets all the time that they do. They open up, they go, okay, well, what am I going to do now? That's, that's what I'm looking at. What's your next mission going to be? What is, and you know what your next mission might be? Being a good dad, right?

• 2:01:30Jocko Willink?

  That might be your next mission. You know what your next mission might be? It might be building airplane hangars, you know? And you, you don't know what your next mission is going to be, but find out what your next mission is going to be. Make it something productive. Make it something that's going to impact, you know, at least you and your family and get good at it. Even if you pick something that's somewhat selfish and you say, hey, I want to, I want to surf on every continent. Okay, that sounds like a good mission to me. Actually, that sounds like a really good mission. I might have to participate in that one. But you know, you come up with something, you okay, okay, here's my mission. And this is what I'm going to do with it. And this is how I'm going to go forward. But yeah, I think that the lack of purpose and the lack of mission that guys stumble into is problematic.

• 2:02:11Jocko Willink?

  And, and it is problematic too, because in the military, it's, I don't want to make this sound the wrong way. Because I always talk about the fact that for us, we didn't get tasked missions. Like when, when, when I was in Iraq, we, there was no higher up telling me, you guys are going to take this target. Or you guys are going to take that, that happened occasionally, probably less than 5% of the time. Most of the time we developed our own missions. But overall, when you're in the military, You have a broad mission that you're trying to accomplish, which again is for societal good. And so when that disappears, guess what? You have some autonomy now. Now, what are you going to choose as your next mission? What are you going to do? How are you going to improve yourself? How are you going to improve your life, your families, your communities, or your countries, or the world? What are you going to do to make it better?

• 2:02:56Jocko Willink?

  And you see, the vets that are out there that are doing that, man, they go.

• 2:03:01Speaker 03

  They excel. Absolutely. You know, when I was in the hospital at Great Lakes after the war, I was in a hospital up there, I mean, I didn't have any serious problems, but I was in a debriefing thing. But I had figured out in that hospital, and even on the way home, that my next stage of life is I'm going to try to forget all that six years of, in that prison camp, that six years of pain. And I even had it figured out, I'm going to go to some little town in the middle of nowhere, where they've never heard of Charlie Plumb. And if they have, I'll change my name, because I don't want anybody knowing my history. I want, you know, I want to slide back into the shadows of life. And I was serious about that.

• 2:03:43Speaker 03

  You know, my high school sweetheart had just filed for divorce, three months before I came home. And so I was, you know, I mean, I felt free and I felt energized, but I really didn't want to have anything to do with the Vietnam War, or any of the pain that I had faced there. I saw no value in it. And I was, and so I was the first guy back from the war in the Midwest. And so the news media, you know, really wanted to talk to me. And so I found myself surrounded by about 150 photographers and reporters in the basement of that hospital. And I told my story. And on the way back up to my hospital room, just as the elevator doors closed, this young

• 2:04:24Speaker 03

  reporter came up to me, and I'm nose to nose with this young guy, but he's got lines of anguish in his brow and tears in his eyes. And he said, "Mr. Plum, you really got to me in there." He said, "I've had a miserable year, my family's falling apart, my job is terrible." He said, "I even wondered if I wanted to go on living." He said, "You've given me hope." Well, I hadn't intended to give anybody any hope. I'm just telling my story here, you know, and it surprised me that there was some value in the experience. And so, and so I said, well, if in fact, that, you know, the pain of that experience can help

• 2:05:06Speaker 03

  one person, you know, in life, then maybe there is a purpose to it. And so, so I wrote a book, my autobiography, and I started to promote that book and I found that, yes, there's a lot of connection with people with challenges. And you don't have to be in the military to have a challenge. And while my experience might have been a little more dramatic, you know, than most, and it's an interesting story to tell.

• 2:05:33Jocko Willink?

  Just a little.

• 2:05:34Speaker 03

  It's still, you know, the challenges I faced were the challenges that, you know, that a single mother trying to make ends meet makes, you know, the frustration and the loneliness and the, and the, and the lack of confidence and the feeling that you're not measuring up and, you know, all of these things, these are, these are common human feelings. You don't have to be in a prison camp to be in prison, you know?

• 2:06:01Jocko Willink?

  No, that's a, that's a great point. Actually, I was, I was curious because I'd never heard before about the flak houses and that the bombers, the bomber crews were being sent to when they'd, when they'd basically said, all right, we're done right now. I mean, what was the casualty rate of the bomber crews? It was something completely insane, wasn't it?

• 2:06:23Speaker 02

  Well, it was. They, they had a 25 mission requirement and the percentages said they couldn't make it. Now, we're talking in late, early 43, the start of the heavy bombing thing was late 42.

• 2:06:38Jocko Willink?

  So, so let me just, let me just focus in on that for one second, just to explain to everyone what that means, because I did know about the 25. So if you were a bomber crew... You were flying in a, in a, what, a B-17?

• 2:06:50Speaker 02

  B-17, B-24.

• 2:06:52Jocko Willink?

  A B-17 or B-24, big giant flying fortresses. And they would get attacked, ruthlessly attacked, and they'd fly deep into France and on into Germany, and they would get swarmed and attacked by, you know, by German fighter pilots. And, and also anti-aircraft guns from the ground.

• 2:07:12Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 2:07:12Jocko Willink?

  And so it was, it was hellish to get through. And it was so bad that they said, okay, well, all you have to do is this many missions. And the number was 25, which I did know that number. You had to make it through 25 of these bomber runs, and you were done. You, you, that was it. You didn't have to do anymore. But you're saying the chances of actually making it through those 25 was minimal?

• 2:07:36Speaker 02

  The percentages were against you. Now, sure, some people are going to get through, some people are going to be shot down on their first mission. They don't get a second mission. But, and this was the problem with the heavy bomber forces, and we almost lost that one. I mean, we came close. Well, we were at the ragged edge. And all I, and I'm repeating what I learned as a, as a youngster at that time, trying to be an aviation cadet. Guys, we're hanging on by our fingertips.

• 2:08:09Jocko Willink?

  When you say we almost lost that one, you mean we almost had to stop the bombing campaign?

• 2:08:13Speaker 02

  Well, the British were after us. They had switched to night bombing for this very same reason. Stay away from the fighters. And so our philosophy of heavy bombardment goes back to General Mitchell in the, in the early, in the 30s and late 20s, in fact, the early 20s, that the bombers will fight their way through. And that was the theory of the B-17. And gosh knows, they were heavily armed. But they're off, they were up against a determined enemy. And they're 500 miles from home, and the German fighters, all they gotta do is step out.

• 2:08:58Speaker 02

  They don't like what's going on, bail out. They're going to come down and we'll go get another airplane. But uh, uh, those were dark days and they were dark days until the first uh, uh fighters. The P forty sevens could only go so deep.

• 2:09:17Jocko Willink?

  Right. What could they go, like two hundred miles deep?

• 2:09:19Speaker 02

  Two hundred, two hundred miles, yes, and have enough fuel to get home on.

• 2:09:24Jocko Willink?

  And the rest of the times, the other three hundred mile round trip or four hundred extra miles were all the bombers by themselves?

• 2:09:30Speaker 02

  If it was fifty miles, it was hell. Once the fighters turned back. Uh, so they sent four, uh, they ended up with a, with four groups of P thirty eights. The thirty eight was not ready to go to war over uh, Germany at that time at the altitude. We were having trouble with the airplane and we didn't have the latest modifications to the airplane. So, uh, the part of our problem was engine problems with the Allison engines. But they went anyway. And so then the fifty one came along. The fifty one had a British engine who had, which had been developed in that very same uh, uh,

• 2:10:17Speaker 02

  uh, area and they, you know, they weren't having the cold. Their, their engine had been designed to operate sixty degrees below zero. And so they, they matched the two up and so in late forty three, they get the first group over there and now there's a little hope. The airplane could go the whole way. The thirty eights had been going to go the whole way. But thirty eight had been modified for the Pacific and there was no heat in the cockpit. And you're sitting up there at sixty degrees below zero, freezing your tail off. With the oxygen, the oxygen and mass is actually frozen to your face. Uh, heat came in, you had one warm spot in the whole cockpit and that was your right foot.

• 2:11:02Speaker 02

  That's where the heat came in. So everything else is freezing your fanny off and so, and they had, so we had problems. Uh, luckily, the, the British engine and the fifty one and North Americans tremendous design, put together the airplane that could do the job.

• 2:11:26Speaker 02

  The um.

• 2:11:28Jocko Willink?

  And then they could, could the P-51s escort them the whole, the whole bombing mission?

• 2:11:31Speaker 02

  They'd go the whole way and then cruise around and go someplace else.

• 2:11:34Jocko Willink?

  Wow.

• 2:11:34Speaker 02

  Uh, the 38 could do that. It had the fuel to do it. But uh, again, you know, there's an old story about the 38 that kind of broke our heart. Uh, there was two great modifications to the P-38. The 38 at altitude up with the bombers and they're hit with fighters. You can get into a scrap and the German rolls over and they had, I explained the flick roll that, that I encountered. They'd do a flick roll and split S, make a dive to the deck. If a 38 did that and tried to follow them, the airplane would accelerate into what we call a compressibility.

• 2:12:18Speaker 02

  And compressibility was nothing more than a shock wave off of the, the uh, the wing that killed all the control in your empennade. So you couldn't pull out. So all you could do is ride it down until you got into what we called thick air. You got your, your uh, uh, then your trim tab, if you set it properly, would gradually bring you out of that dive before you hit the ground. Some of them hit the ground. So uh, and we didn't have, we had a very slow rate of roll in the 38. So they developed uh, aileron boost. Uh, so we could actually, we could roll with anybody.

• 2:13:03Speaker 02

  They had the dive flap. So if you went in, you could actually hit the dive flap button, put that airplane straight down and dive with anybody, any German fighter. So what uh, Lockheed did, they got 400 sets, shift sets.

• 2:13:22Speaker 02

  Of dive flaps and aileron boost, they put it on an air force's transport plane and they send it to England. It got intercepted off the English coast by the RAF who didn't know anything about it. They thought it was a German Condor four engine and everything, they shot it down.

• 2:13:41Jocko Willink?

  Oh boy.

• 2:13:42Speaker 02

  There goes all of our improvements. And so, what do you do now? It took quite a while to pull all those 400 units together and get them over there. So for the next couple of months, the 38s are doing the same old thing. We don't have the improvement. P-51 comes along, thank God, and it can do the job. So it's all history.

• 2:14:08Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:14:09Speaker 02

  51's had trouble. We, I know of one that pulled out of a dive and the whole damn engine fell out of the airplane and the guy got killed. But they had engines quit. Single engine fighter was, that's the problem. If somebody throws a rock at you and it hits the radiator, you're all done. So, but those were trying times.

• 2:14:33Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I guess I was, with all that, you know, thinking about these, these guys that were in those bomber crews that would need a break and they say, okay, you need to go over here and not think about this. And it reminds me of, you know, talking about, you know, Dick Winters from the first of the 506 Band of Brothers and what he would say when he would see guys were getting stressed out, you know, he'd get them off the line, get them out of it and, and give them the rest that they need. And, and then I think, I think there's a certain part of you that goes, okay, like I need to not think about this right now. And then I think you gotta say, okay, now I'm gonna talk about this. And, and the fact that you get around your, your friend, and that's what a lot of people that listen to the podcast, a lot of veterans that listen to the podcast, they go, you

• 2:15:16Jocko Willink?

  know, now, you know, I've, I've had my break, but now you're talking about this stuff and I appreciate it and I bring, it lets me know that I'm not the only guy that thinks this way or had those thoughts or, you know, went through this and I think that's, that's good. So I think it's, I think you do need a break. And actually that, now that I think about it, when I was in Ramadi, I had, I, the book that I read every night was About Face by Colonel David Hackworth and I read it every single night, every single night, every single night. And then about three months into deployment. I I wanted to, I didn't want to think about, you know, I didn't want to go to bed thinking about, you know, the war and war and and so I there was a random book sitting around and I picked up. It was actually a book called The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, which is about the hippies in.

• 2:16:02Jocko Willink?

  It's written by Tom Wolfe, who wrote The Right Stuff.

• 2:16:04Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 2:16:05Jocko Willink?

  But it's a great book and it was so completely outside of what I was doing. That it gave me, you know, like a mental break and I read that book and it was, you know, it took me. Four days to read that book. And I got done and I put it away, I pulled about face back out and I continued on, but I just needed a little bit of a breather. Right? Just a little bit of a mental breather. And I guess hippies and LSD provided me with that. Reading about those hippies and LSD provided me with this mental break. And it was actually, it's a very, it's a very interesting book, book, and it shows the mentality that those people had. You know, which was the way he summed it up was was was me, me, me, me.

• 2:16:51Jocko Willink?

  Everything's about me and and that was what was good for me to read this book. I'm like, okay. That's not how I want to be with with my life. It's not about me. It's about, you know, what we're trying to do here. So, yeah, I think sometimes people need a mental break. I I can't even imagine what the, you know, what was going on in one of those flak houses with those guys.

• 2:17:09Speaker 02

  Was that like an R and R for you? It was an R and R and it's, uh, they were run by the Red Cross and I was at Molter Manor, which was right on the Thames River. Uh, of course, I was there, uh. When we had the ice storms and in fact, when I left the the flak house. Uh, to go back to Paris, I couldn't get a ride across the channel and guess what? Our friend Glenn Miller got a ride and disappeared. And so I'm trying to get across the channel. Uh, to Paris and it's, uh. Between Christmas and New Year's and, um.

• 2:17:53Speaker 02

  Uh, I wait, I went out to, uh, several of the bases around London to get an ATC aircraft to go to Paris. And they're all grounded. And so I, I went down to Southampton and uh, uh, two ships had just come into Southampton that were going on to La Harve and so I got on board and they were hospital ships uh, with uh, complete complement of uh, general hospitals, like two or three different general hospitals and are full of nurses. Uh oh.

• 2:18:31Speaker 02

  And so, New Year's Eve, we're, we're on this ship with all these nurses and uh, we're on uh, I guess you'd call it battle stations because the e-boats, uh, the German e-boats were operating in the channel and we're going across from Southampton to uh, uh, La Harve and all these nervous nurses from the US needed comforting. Did you get a medal for that? Yeah. So, um, anyway, that was, that was the story.

• 2:19:14Speaker 02

  Now, just how I got to the end of this story, I've forgotten. I don't even care anymore. How did I get there? But, I, I picked up a couple of things when we were talking and um, uh, when I got shot down, you read this citation. Well, I didn't know anything about that citation. Uh, I had gotten my fanny shot off. I was not happy. I said, I kept thinking, what could I have done different that I could have stayed in that fight longer? Uh, and I, I never came up with an answer. What could I have done?

• 2:19:58Speaker 02

  So, for about, from September till I get this, orders to go to Paris, to Spots's headquarters, I was not the highest. I didn't think much of myself. Is, why did it, uh, didn't, why couldn't I have done a better job? But, uh...

• 2:20:22Speaker 02

  Reading that citation and then belonging to a group called the Legion of Valor, which there are not too many Air Force guys left in it. And I read what these people have done. These ground crews, in fact, one of my very close friends had the Distinguished Service Cross and they just upgraded it to Congressional Medal of Honor and he's gotten quite a bit of publicity. And he was in Vietnam. And my comment when I saw that he had gotten the Congressional Medal of Honor at this late date, I thought was, God, somebody finally read his citation.

• 2:21:07Speaker 02

  And when you, when you think that, that what all of these guys did, a lot of the fellows in the Legion of Valor are medics. What they did in combat conditions and got the Distinguished Curves Cross, the Navy Cross and so forth, it's, you know, I read my citation, it took six minutes. That's all. And then I read a book called, I'm No Hero.

• 2:21:40Speaker 03

  Oh, come on.

• 2:21:41Speaker 02

  And I think, God, Charlie Plumb, six years of that? Six minutes for me. That's, I mean, what he went through is just unbelievable to me. And so, don't give me the bunk about, I'm no hero, he's my hero. But it's, it's, it's, it's deep thought.

• 2:22:08Speaker 03

  Well, thanks for that, Jim. I appreciate you saying that. But let me toss one more question at you, Jocko, because Jim and I have both talked about getting shot down and feeling miserable. After your, your fight where you accidentally killed one of the Iraqi soldiers, I bet you felt pretty low about that.

• 2:22:26Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's about as, that's about as bad as it gets. And, um, you know, it was a, it was a horrible situation. It was the fog of war. It was multiple units out on the battlefield. It was, it was actually not, not me that was that, that shot an Iraqi soldier. It was one of my small teams that was in a position where, you know, amongst the confusion, they were assaulted by a friendly group of Iraqi soldiers with one. They had one marine with them. And yeah, you know, it's, it's, it's something that you can,

• 2:23:05Jocko Willink?

  it's hard to make, um, you know, definite statements or, or, or say, I know this for a fact, but there's pretty much not anything worse in war than friendly forces killing friendly forces. That just, that's just as bad as it gets. And it's a real taboo in, in special operations for sure. It's a taboo in any. And I'll tell you during the, during the, I guess we'll say the dry years in between Vietnam and, and the current wars we're in, there was, we actually lost the understanding of how these things could happen.

• 2:23:45Jocko Willink?

  And, and no one really understood the fog of war anymore. And therefore we didn't train to it properly. And so when it happened, it was, it, it was like an unbelievable thing. It was so bad. It was the absolute worst thing that could happen. Actually, I would say there'd be one more thing. You know, the, the person that was killed, the soldier that was killed was an Iraqi soldier. You know, if it had been a SEAL or an American, I guess that would make it one level higher for me because I would have known the person. You know, in this case, it was an Iraqi soldier. Again, a tragic loss nonetheless. But, you know, how, how did I feel? It felt, it felt absolutely horrible. And the thing that, you know, the thing that changed the mindset for me

• 2:24:30Jocko Willink?

  was when I realized that as I sat there and, and reviewed, because you know, my commanding officer was coming to inspect and, and review what had happened along with the investigating officer and, You know, the thing that changed my mindset was as I sat there and said, okay, whose fault is this? Whose fault is this? Whose fault is this? Whose fault is this? And I'm looking at all the different mistakes that were made by all the different units and all the different people. And as I'm looking to blame this on someone, it would became very clear to me in like a bolt of lightning that there is only one person in charge of this and therefore there's only one person responsible for what happens out there. And that's me. And honestly, when I had that transition in thought and

• 2:25:13Jocko Willink?

  it was, it was the first moment that I felt actually okay. There's a horrible sinking feeling that you get in, in, in wartime situations. I guess you can get it in other times too. And I've talked about it with, with some of my friends. It's like when something is just really horrible is happening. You get this knot in your stomach and this, it's, I've never felt it any other times, but when I was overseas of like this is, I, I have, it's, it's the most horrible feeling.

• 2:25:49Jocko Willink?

  And that was, that was the most severe I ever felt it was leading up to my own recognition that you know what, and, and where that was coming from was the unknown and I didn't know how to react to it. And here I was, you know, Mr. Experienced SEAL, Mr. You know, in charge of the task unit, whatever. And yet here I was going, how do I deal with this? And I didn't understand how to deal with it. And what I had to do is go to what I actually did know, which is if you're in a leadership position, you take responsibility for what happens. That's what you do. So, hey, that's what you do. And if, if they're going to fire you, you get fired. If they're going to reprimand you, you get reprimanded.

• 2:26:33Jocko Willink?

  If they're going to replace you with someone else, you get replaced, you salute, you do the best turnover you can. You try and do the, you know, give all the information you can. That's what you do. And as soon as I accepted that and looked at it and said, okay, well then that knot started to go away. And I realized that, okay, the real problem here is, is the way that you're looking at this. But, and then the other big thing is once you admit what those or, and you take ownership of those problems and you actually not just take ownership of the problems, but you say, here's the problems and here's how we're going to get them solved. Here's the standard operating procedures that we're now going to follow to make sure that this never happens again. Well, then people look at you and they go, okay, he's got a plan.

• 2:27:18Jocko Willink?

  He's not sitting here dodging the blame for this. He's actually taking ownership of the problems and he's going to get them solved. And I think, you know, I've never had this conversation with my commanding officer about his reaction, but I could see it, you know, I could see it. And the fact that I, the fact that he said, okay, you know, let's make sure it doesn't happen again. I like the procedures that you're putting in place. Use caution, proceed, you know, where is, I believe that if I would have said, well, it wasn't my fault, it was his fault and their fault and the other guy's fault, he would have said, okay, you need, you're not going to have this job anymore. And I think that's the same thing with life, you know, the minute that you're, you're looking around you and you're saying, hey, it's someone else's fault that this, that I'm in this bad situation. And again, you know what? Okay.

• 2:28:03Jocko Willink?

  There's things that happen. I, I get that there's things that happen to, to people. You mentioned one of them. You can get a disease that you can't control. You, you know, you can get, uh, you can have, you know, a child get hit by a car. I mean, there's awful things that can happen that you can't have control over. But what you can have control over is how you proceed and how you go forward. And that's the part that you need to focus on because the, the opportunity to fix what happened in the past, it's gone. I, I'm sorry. There's no time machine. There's no way of going back. It's happened, it's gone. Okay. How are you going to move forward? Where are you going to go now? That's what you need to focus on. And I've said that about regret too. People say, oh, you know, I, I live with no regrets. I'm like, oh, I, I, there's all kinds of things.

• 2:28:47Jocko Willink?

  I'll tell you a regret, but I don't walk around with them because I can't do anything about them. Like, you know, maybe you would have maneuvered your aircraft a little bit different on September 16th, 1944. You've looked at it, maybe you couldn't, but maybe you could have, but you don't walk around carrying that because it doesn't matter anymore. And it's the same thing with the things I've been through. It's like, okay, look, I made mistakes. You've made mistakes. We've all made mistakes. Okay. What are we going to do? Are we going to dwell on those and let them, you know, bear down on us and even things that we can't control? Maybe the mistake wasn't ours or something that we couldn't control. Not going to carry that. I'm gonna, I'm gonna, not going to carry that regret. I'm going to say, what, what can I do to move forward? And actually there's a great guy I just had on the podcast named Rob Jones. He's a Marine.

• 2:29:29Jocko Willink?

  He, he fought in Iraq and in Afghanistan and he ended up, he was a, he was a.

• 2:29:36Jocko Willink?

  Bomb disposal, digging for mines, a combat engineer, and he ended up finding a mine. And he, he found that mine, you know, with his own feet and he, he lost both of his legs. And he said something that was, was awesome. He says, you know, you've got this weight that's bearing down on you. And he was sitting in a hospital bed and then he had this weight that was bearing down on him of he's going to live now the rest of his life with, you know, both legs amputated, amputated above the knee. And he, you know, he said, what am I going to do with this weight? Am I going to let it, am I going to let it push me down and, and bury me under the ground? Or am I going to use that weight to make myself stronger? And I think that's a incredible attitude to have.

• 2:30:20Jocko Willink?

  And, and by the way, he's about to run 31 marathons in 31 days. He's going to run 31 marathons in 31 days.

• 2:30:28Speaker 03

  Good career.

• 2:30:28Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, unbelievable.

• 2:30:31Speaker 03

  Sure is. You know, the toughest flying that I ever did was in combat in support of the ground troops. And they'd bring us in with rockets or bombs or napalm. We didn't have any guns on that airplane. And, but we knew that we had to get close, but not too close to the, to the friendlies. Uh, to be effective, you know, we couldn't put our weapons, uh, you know, 40 clicks away and, and do any good at all. Uh, but we get in too close to start singeing the mustaches of those soldiers and marines down there. And, and, and.

• 2:31:07Jocko Willink?

  By the way, if you get too close, actually it goes way beyond singeing mustaches. If you go too close, you can kill friendly troops. And again, we're back to what we just talked about. So that's, that's a nightmare.

• 2:31:16Speaker 03

  And it was done, you know, I mean, it again, the fog of war, and that's what happened. And it's really, really unfortunate. So, so I would get that not in my stomach whenever I was called in to support the ground troops. And in fact, would, you know, torch off the, the smoke signal. And I'd look at the wind and trying to figure out exactly how I can get in there close. And lots of times I would go below the frag pattern of the bomb I was dropping, just so I could get more accuracy. And, and we all did that, you know, we, we weren't supposed to, but uh, you know, an, an average bomb, you know, 500 pound bomb would have a frag pattern of 2,400 feet above the ground. That's what you were flying through after you dropped the bomb.

• 2:31:58Speaker 03

  And we'd go below that just to get more accuracy, um, so because we knew that those guys were depending on us. And boy, they were, there were some happy facts, you know, after we, after we would, uh, it's support those ground troops. But it was, um, you know, it was, uh, pretty scary stuff. Um, but back to your point about blaming other people, I had a coach early on, uh, the very losing team. Sorry to say, but, but he, but he would, he, he, he told us this because we'd start, you know, blaming other things for the problem, you know, yeah, we were away and we didn't, you know, the, the, the, the, things weren't right and somebody's, we blamed somebody for this or somebody that, you know, the refs were calling,

• 2:32:43Speaker 03

  uh, bad calls and all this stuff. And he said, you know, he said, um, uh, the difference in success and failure in life is not the things around you. It's the choices you make about things around you and you can blame everybody else for your problems. But in doing so, you give away control of your life. And I think that's the, the accountability issue that you're talking about, you know, is that there's, there's certainly freedom in discipline. There's also freedom in accountability, I think, because when you, like you say, you know, when you say, okay, yeah, lots of people made a lot of mistakes, but oh, by the way, I was in charge. And, and so, you know, the onus is really on me.

• 2:33:23Speaker 03

  And, and I find that when I, when I practiced taking, um, when I, I, I practiced, uh, taking responsibility for some of the bad things that really weren't my fault. Uh, and, and I practiced doing that, it, it frees me up, I think, to lit, you know, to live a, um, a freer life.

• 2:33:44Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's actually an interesting point because. Sometimes people, they, they, they hear like they'll read the book Extreme Ownership that we wrote and they go, okay, cool. All I need to do is take ownership of the problems and then I'm, then I'm a good guy. Right? They go, oh, you know, hey, these mistakes happened. It's my fault, you know, so let's get them fixed. And it actually doesn't work. Actually, and, and when I say, hey, there was all these mistakes that were made on the battlefield and different people made actual mistakes. They made mistakes the, the day we had that blue on blue. There was other people that made mistakes. What I'm saying isn't like, oh, those were my mistakes. Hey, it's my fault. No, no, what I'm saying is actually, truthfully, those mistakes were things that I should have foreseen, that I

• 2:34:27Jocko Willink?

  should have understood better, that I should have planned better, that I should have trained guys better for. That they, they're, they, they made the mistake, but the root problem of that mistake is my fault. It's not just saying, hey, my boss, it's, it's, you know, oh yeah, that was my fault. No, no, no. It actually is my fault. And I have this conversation too, where people say, well, what if I do, what do I do if I tell my employees, oh guys, it was my fault. And then my employees say, yeah, that's right. It was your fault. And the people don't know what to do. And I said, well, it is your fault. That's what I'm saying. I'm not saying this so that it makes people not look at you and blame them. No, no. And someone says, if I say, Charlie, we screwed up this mission. It was my fault. And you

• 2:35:12Jocko Willink?

  go, that's right. It was your fault. I don't go, no, no, no. Well, I was, no, it was your fault. No, no, no. That's not how it works. I say, Charlie, I was the commander of this mission. I didn't give you enough information. I didn't, I didn't review your plan well enough. I didn't give you the training that you needed. I didn't give you the support that you needed. That was my fault. That is what, and here is what I'm going to do to fix it. So when I look at you and say, hey, this is my fault that this happened. And you say, you're right, it was. I go, exactly. These are the things I'm going to do to fix it. Here's where the way we're going to do this from now on. Here's some procedures we're going to put in place so that this doesn't happen. So yes, Extreme Ownership is not by any stretch, an escape hatch. It's not. In fact, when you take ownership, you shut the hatch and you walk it and you're not getting out. The only way to get out is to find solutions for the problems and move

• 2:35:56Jocko Willink?

  forward. So it's an interesting, uh, it's interesting.

• 2:36:00Speaker 02

  Well, that brings me up to civilian life. Now you've talked about a mission and having something out in front of you. Well, I, I got off active duty in 1948, June, exactly two years before Korea started.

• 2:36:17Speaker 02

  And my father-in-law, who actually became almost like a father to me, by that time, we'd been married for three years. And he was deeply involved in the paper industry. He was president of wax, Western Wax Paper here in Los Angeles. And he had sold the company to Crown Zellerback. And his best friend was Richard McDonald, who was executive vice president of Crown Zellerback. And between the two of them, they found this little paper company. And they're gonna take care of their son-in-laws and son.

• 2:37:01Speaker 02

  And so Dick McDonald got off active duty as an engineer in the army before, before I did. So he arrived at the paper company, maybe almost a year before I did. And I had put my, all the money I had into this company before, while I was still on active duty. So I come home in June forty-eight, and it's Fourth of July coming up. And my father-in-law takes me down, and we buy three civilian suits. And all of a sudden, I'm a civilian, and I'm gonna go work for this little company.

• 2:37:45Speaker 02

  And Dick McDonald was running the company because he was there a year before. But we had a partner in this company. And so I go down and I go to work. And boy, I'm, because I'm mechanically minded, they put me in charge of the operation, the plant operation. So now I'm a civilian, and I'm working hard. And it goes for about three months, and then I begin to notice that we'd get an order in, and we, by that time, we had maybe fifty employees. And we were making paper napkins and shelf paper and all these little items. We were what was called a paper converter.

• 2:38:29Speaker 02

  And so I noticed in running the plant that we'd get an order in, and I'd look at the inventory, and we'd had so much paper back in the inventory, and I'd go back and check it, and we ain't got it.

• 2:38:43Speaker 02

  And so now what's wrong? And so we had a little meeting and we decide, well, maybe we'd better take an inventory and see what's in the back of the plant there. And it turns out that our partner, who actually had control of the company, was deathly afraid to admit that he had been losing money. And he wasn't dishonest or anything, he just didn't want to admit it. And so to cover the losses, he inflated the inventory. So now we have this big meeting. I'm ninety days into being a civilian. And we take the inventory and we add all this up.

• 2:39:26Speaker 02

  And Dick McDonald and I owe Crown Zellerback Corporation about twenty thousand dollars. It's nineteen forty-eight, and let me tell you, twenty thousand dollars is one hell of a lot, a lot of money. Wow. I mean, this is when a house would cost, what, five hundred to a thousand dollars? Oh, yeah. Yeah, wow. So, so now what do we do? Well, the first thing we do is... Welcome, welcome to the business world. Welcome to the business world. We, we decide that we better do something.

• 2:40:07Speaker 02

  And our father, my father-in-law and Richard McDonald's father said, "Well, what are you gonna do?" Well, the first thing we had to do is we had to go up and talk to Crown Zellerback in San Francisco. And so in order to do that, I had to buy a topcoat and a hat. Because you didn't go to San Francisco on a business meeting without having a hat and a topcoat. And so we get on, get on the train and we go to San Francisco and we're plotting the whole way up there, what are we gonna tell them? I had no idea.

• 2:40:48Speaker 02

  And got off the, the train at the station up there, got a taxi and we get down to Sanson Street to this big, beautiful building, this Crown Zellerback. And I'm wearing my hat and my new topcoat. And I'm going to see Mr. Zellerback himself.

• 2:41:07Speaker 02

  And just as I walk in the front door, some goddamn pigeon up above, let's go. Right down across my brain, brand new top. Now, the world, the world can't be any worse than this. Now, what do I do? Well, we had our meeting with Mr. Zellerback and he was very, very gracious. He's, all he said was, "When are you gonna pay us the $20,000?" So he said, "Well, we're gonna work on it." And we did, and we worked very hard for about two years. Then we finally began to make some money, getting ahead.

• 2:41:51Speaker 02

  And Korea started, 25th of June. And about a week later, this fellow walks into our office and he said, "We have a problem." From the US government. And he said, "You know, we have, we have to build up our supplies. And one thing that we just can't seem to solve is toilet tissue for K rations." A little pack of toilet tissue with a little piece of paper around it, too.

• 2:42:33Speaker 02

  And so he said, "We got one machine that belongs to one of the paper companies." And he said, "We've got that machine working 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and we're not getting enough toilet tissue into these K rations. What can you do?" I don't know how in the heck he found us, but anyway, he did. So we thought, well, we took a look at it. And we figured that we could go to Crown Zellerback and get interfold tissue paper. And you could sit down and you could flip 20 sheets of interfold, make two folds in it, and then we had to have a tube.

• 2:43:14Speaker 02

  And so our superintendent and I went out and we bought a nickel, a little machine that made a nickel pack for a dollar's worth of nickels, a tube, 20 nickel. We made the tube and we cut it in half. Now we got a tube to put the twenty sheets in. And so I sit down for about an hour and I folded paper and they timed me and they figured that as rough as I am, if I can do it that much in an hour, then a young lady could do it. So we hired about fifty gals and we put them to work making these little toilet tissue

• 2:43:58Speaker 02

  wraps and putting the tube on it and throw it in a little box and we put them on piece work. And they were doing very well. In fact, we were out producing Scott tissue's machine almost immediately. And these little gals down in East Los Angeles were making more money than anybody else in East Los Angeles on piece work. And so everything's going great. We're making money. We're paying off the balance of the twenty thousand dollars we owe two years later. And a guy walks into the office, he came into my office and he says, you know, he said, we got a situation here. And he had some of my, these packs.

• 2:44:41Speaker 02

  And he said, I'd like to see your operation. So we took him out and he picked up some of these tubes and he looked at it, took them apart, counted the tissues in front of me and they were all perfect. And he said, I got something to show you. And he pulls his little notes out and he said, just read them. And here's his little note written in handwriting in this tube. And these young ladies had been writing these little notes and putting them inside the tissue and they left nothing to your imagination. Oh.

• 2:45:26Speaker 02

  And he says, can you imagine some GI in a foxhole in the rain, taking this apart and reading this note? How's he gonna feel?

• 2:45:42Speaker 02

  Oh, he said, well, what are we gonna do? What are we? He says, why don't we just leave it alone? Let's not talk to the gals, just let them keep on doing it. It has to be a royal builder. Anyway, that's how we paid off the $20,000. So, believe me, that two years of trying to pay that off, that military training that I had really was very helpful.

• 2:46:15Speaker 03

  There must be a museum somewhere that's looking for those tubes.

• 2:46:19Speaker 02

  You know, I have one. I'm down in this. It's not, it's not an original. Somebody picked it up after, it must have been for Vietnam. They, they were, they picked it up and were producing it. So I just, I have one on my desk. This is a reminder. But, but it's, you know, having a mission, I, I got a mission real quick. And it's, it was a very discouraging one to think of owing $20,000. And that was well over twice what I paid for my house.

• 2:46:57Jocko Willink?

  I just looked at my watch. We've been going for about two hours and 45 minutes.

• 2:47:04Jocko Willink?

  I say we wrap up this run. Echo, you got anything else? Have you said anything today?

• 2:47:10Speaker 01

  No.

• 2:47:11Jocko Willink?

  Okay. Do you have anything to add?

• 2:47:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, I do. When I lived in Honolulu, I had a motor scooter as well.

• 2:47:18Speaker 03

  Really?

• 2:47:19Speaker 01

  Crashed it. Didn't break my leg. I was relating to you. But yeah, they can get you. You, yeah. You feel so like free with it and you want to do stunts and yeah.

• 2:47:32Jocko Willink?

  Be careful on the scooters.

• 2:47:34Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, for sure. Especially in Honolulu. Oh yeah. Go everywhere. Yeah. But yeah. And that, that's it. Thank you both very, very much.

• 2:47:42Speaker 03

  Oh, hey. Proud to be with you.

• 2:47:44Jocko Willink?

  Charlie Plumb, sir, anything else you want to, you want to say?

• 2:47:47Speaker 03

  I think we've covered it all. Really great being with you guys. You know, I think that the, the, the transfer of our, not necessarily our knowledge, but our, on our war stories, but just the philosophy, you know, that we're coming up with because it, it, it spans the test of time, I think. And will continue to span the test of time. You know, the accountability issue. The face your fears issue, the making choices issue, the refusal to blame other people for your problems, you know, take control of your life. And it's not just a military thing.

• 2:48:26Speaker 03

  I think it's true with our kids, it's true with students and politicians and all manners of our society, just I think needs a little shot, you know, of accountability. Agree.

• 2:48:42Speaker 02

  Well, I'd agree with that, and I think that, you know, meeting Charlie and what a wonderful spokesperson he is, he's actually gotten me into a position that I had to talk in front of a crowd a few times. And I always try to get in first because I don't want to follow him, that's for sure. People will be walking out. So while they're captive, I want to talk to them. But I would love to be able to reach some of the, as you are doing, reach some of these young people who, not that they're, just because they're not thinking the way I think,

• 2:49:26Speaker 02

  but I think they're losing something. They're losing something that this great country has given to an awful lot of people. And I feel that I'd like to reach them, and I can't, and I think you're reaching them. I think Charlie's reaching them.

• 2:49:48Speaker 03

  You're reaching them, Jim.

• 2:49:49Speaker 02

  You're reaching them. But there's so much we could say. My granddaughter just graduated from the University of Michigan, four years, and it's a pretty liberal school. And we pay a lot of money and send our kids to school, and sometimes they get some wrong thoughts, and at least I think they're wrong. Maybe they're not. Maybe they're right, but I don't think so. And so I think the work you're doing, and Charlie's doing, and the three of you are doing, is so, so important for the future.

• 2:50:33Jocko Willink?

  Well, obviously, thank you for coming, for coming on the show, both of you. It's, it's such an honor to be sitting here with you guys and, and also, we wouldn't be sitting here if it wasn't, you know, for, for men like you that stood up and, and fought. And that's why we're here. And that's why we have the freedom to be here, to do this, and the freedom to try and pass that information on, so people understand what kind of sacrifices were made, so that we can live in this amazing country with this incredible amount of opportunity to do just about anything you want. And whether that's take care of your family, or go out

• 2:51:17Jocko Willink?

  and build some kind of a corporate empire, you can do it here, and you can be happy in any one of those categories. And it's amazing. So, thank you for coming on. And again, I think if it wasn't for generations of men like you answering the call to fight, then our great nation would have perished long ago, and it would have perished to tyranny, and it would have perished to darkness. But because of you and men like you, we do

• 2:51:58Jocko Willink?

  live in freedom, and we provide hope and light to the world. So, thank you both for giving that to us.

• 2:52:11Jocko Willink?

  So, we wrapped up with Charlie Plumb and with Jim Kunkle in, in the hangars. I got a little off track at the end there. I know that we were going to mention at least some social media and Charlie Plumb's information. I failed to do that. We're now back in the studio to do that right now. So, if anybody wants to link up with...

• 2:52:46Jocko Willink?

  Captain Charlie Plumb. You can find him on Twitter. He is at Captain. Capt Plumb. Plum. So C A P T. P L U M B. That's on Twitter. He's also Charlie Plumb on Facebook, or you can go to CharliePlum.com if you want to get in touch with him. Also, if you do want to find either myself or Echo Charles, you can find us also on Twitter, on Instagram, and also on the Facebook. You can find us there. Echo is at Echo Charles, and I am at Jocko Willink.

• 2:53:30Jocko Willink?

  And if you want to support this podcast in any way, Echo, how can we do that?

• 2:53:34Speaker 01

  Anyways, I'll keep this brief. Try to. Origin. OriginMaine.com. Maine, the state. So OriginMaine.com. Good stuff, gear, all made in America, from the cotton. The actual raw cotton to the material to make it. All the way into, what? Shirts. Pants. Geez. Is geez their flagship kind of?

• 2:54:03Jocko Willink?

  Flagship, yes.

• 2:54:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:54:05Jocko Willink?

  That's the origin of origin, is to make Jiu-Jitsu Geez in America.

• 2:54:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:54:09Jocko Willink?

  But now we're making all kinds of stuff.

• 2:54:10Speaker 01

  All kinds of cool stuff. Anyway, yeah. Go to the website, check those ones out.

• 2:54:13Jocko Willink?

  Compression gear also.

• 2:54:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:54:17Jocko Willink?

  Not just rash guards.

• 2:54:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, compression.

• 2:54:19Jocko Willink?

  Compression gear.

• 2:54:21Speaker 01

  Are we calling the rash guards compression gear?

• 2:54:23Jocko Willink?

  I don't know. You're gonna have to figure that one out.

• 2:54:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:54:26Jocko Willink?

  Compression gear sort of sounds all technical. Rash guards sort of the reality, the scenario in the surfing situation.

• 2:54:32Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, so both, whatever you like.

• 2:54:35Jocko Willink?

  You know what we mean.

• 2:54:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:54:36Jocko Willink?

  You know where we're coming from on that one.

• 2:54:38Speaker 01

  Ultimately, yeah. Yeah. Uh, also. Super Krill. That's Jocko's Super Krill. Krill oil. That's out.

• 2:54:48Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 2:54:49Speaker 01

  Origin Maine. And then you click on Labs, right? There's like a Labs tab.

• 2:54:55Jocko Willink?

  And they got a little bar, you'll see it.

• 2:54:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:54:57Jocko Willink?

  Go there, go to originmaine.com.

• 2:54:59Speaker 01

  And then a bunch of people pre-ordered it, ordered it, so what? They should start seeing it in the mail then.

• 2:55:04Jocko Willink?

  They're getting it, people have it now.

• 2:55:05Speaker 01

  Oh dang, okay, yeah, there you go.

• 2:55:07Jocko Willink?

  And yeah, if you want more, you can get it there.

• 2:55:10Speaker 01

  Yeah. And Joint Warfare.

• 2:55:14Speaker 01

  That's a good one too. So if you got this blend, you got the buy, the double, you know, situation. That's ultimately the kit, right? The Joint Maintenance Excellence Kit.

• 2:55:26Jocko Willink?

  That's it.

• 2:55:27Speaker 01

  Yeah. Boom. And then, yeah, like I said, Gee's Rash Guards, all kinds of cool stuff, just go on there and that's a, that's a good way to support. Also, fitness gear, kettlebells. You know how like you mentioned this and I posted a little Instagram video of me, you know, you said.

• 2:55:44Jocko Willink?

  A random.

• 2:55:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, right, I'm walking through the house.

• 2:55:46Jocko Willink?

  Instagram, that was a, I'll give you credit. That was a very good Instagram video. I liked it a lot.

• 2:55:53Speaker 01

  That actually, that is exactly what that was. It was when you said, "Yeah, I keep my, uh..."

• 2:55:59Jocko Willink?

  Sometimes just do a snatch.

• 2:56:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, I just feel like.

• 2:56:01Jocko Willink?

  Do a cleaning jerk.

• 2:56:02Speaker 01

  Cleaning jerk, yeah, so that's what it was. You know, you walk by it, you notice it, boom, hit it.

• 2:56:06Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that thing was calling you out.

• 2:56:07Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 2:56:08Jocko Willink?

  Who's, who called out who now?

• 2:56:10Speaker 01

  But I will admit, now that I have like the whole set, pretty much. Chimp, Werewolf, Gorilla, 72 pounds, Bigfoot, 90 pounds. They're all out there, right, you know, right where I made that video. I feel the same way as you. When I walk by, you just, you kinda want to.

• 2:56:27Jocko Willink?

  And that's good for you.

• 2:56:28Speaker 01

  Yeah. Unless you're all super cold and stiff and then you wanna grab the 90 pound one, that's not good for you.

• 2:56:34Jocko Willink?

  A little lighter.

• 2:56:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:56:35Jocko Willink?

  If you're stiff, cold.

• 2:56:36Speaker 01

  Anyway, point there being, I digress. Anyway.

• 2:56:42Speaker 01

  I get my kettlebells from Onnit. So kettlebells are cool, of course. I'm not gonna go into a whole kettlebell thing. No, I'm not gonna. But if you want the cooler kettlebells, the kettlebells, the artistic ones. I like the Onnit ones.

• 2:56:58Jocko Willink?

  Approved.

• 2:56:58Speaker 01

  Werewolf one, I think, is my favorite one. It's dope. You can get the regular ones, too. Anyway, also, a bunch of other stuff, maces, battle ropes, like any kinda... Kind of the functional train...

• 2:57:10Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's functional. Functional.

• 2:57:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:57:13Jocko Willink?

  It's functional, and it's, I guess the word is fitness, even though I don't like that word.

• 2:57:16Speaker 01

  That's, that's why I was kinda asking.

• 2:57:18Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, so just say functional training, I guess.

• 2:57:20Speaker 01

  Hardcore functional training. Yeah, there is some cool stuff on there, and all the info behind it, too. Anyway, Onnit.com slash Jocko, that's a good way to support. Also, when you buy books, including but not limited to...

• 2:57:36Speaker 01

  Charlie Plumb's book, Jocko's book, go to the website. Charlie Plumb's book is called, "I'm No Hero."

• 2:57:44Speaker 01

  Right?

• 2:57:44Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's what it's called.

• 2:57:45Speaker 01

  "I'm Not A Hero," "I'm No Hero." Anyway, go to JacoPodcast.com.

• 2:57:50Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, for that book, actually, get it from Charlie Plum.com.

• 2:57:54Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 2:57:54Jocko Willink?

  That's the best place to get that book.

• 2:57:55Speaker 01

  Okay, actually, you know what? I'm gonna link it to Charlie Plumb.

• 2:57:58Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, cool.

• 2:57:59Speaker 01

  On the website.

• 2:58:00Jocko Willink?

  Do it, that's a good idea.

• 2:58:01Speaker 01

  So nonetheless, go to JacoPodcast.com, go to the book section, boom, click through there when you get your books. It's a good way to support, brings you to Amazon and...

• 2:58:10Jocko Willink?

  Could you do other shopping?

• 2:58:12Speaker 01

  You sure could.

• 2:58:13Jocko Willink?

  Like it.

• 2:58:13Speaker 01

  As in duct tape, ear, earphones.

• 2:58:18Jocko Willink?

  Sarah Armstrong bought something big, I forget what.

• 2:58:21Speaker 01

  Lawnmower.

• 2:58:22Jocko Willink?

  Lawnmowers.

• 2:58:23Speaker 01

  I don't know.

• 2:58:23Jocko Willink?

  If you need a lawnmower, definitely.

• 2:58:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:58:26Jocko Willink?

  Amazon, click through.

• 2:58:27Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 2:58:27Jocko Willink?

  Good way to support.

• 2:58:28Speaker 01

  Very good way. Also, subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, and all other podcast providing platforms. Seems obvious, but hey, that's a good way. Also, on YouTube, put some excerpts on there, put one out the other day.

• 2:58:42Jocko Willink?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:58:45Speaker 01

  Good one.

• 2:58:47Speaker 01

  Very shareable, but nonetheless, nonetheless. Subscribe to the YouTube, that's a good way to support. You get other stuff on top of the video version of this podcast excerpts and how should I say?

• 2:59:00Jocko Willink?

  Other creative short films by one Echo Charles.

• 2:59:04Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 2:59:05Jocko Willink?

  With people that we know acting in them.

• 2:59:08Speaker 01

  Yes, sometimes. But yeah, some value there. Anyway, yeah, YouTube, subscribe to YouTube, that's a good way. Also, Jocko has a store, it's called Jocko Store, jockostore.com. There are some good shirts on there, literally.

• 2:59:22Jocko Willink?

  Literally.

• 2:59:24Speaker 01

  Sure, this is good backwards, anyway. I'm not saying to buy something, just go on there, check out stuff. If you like the stuff on there, get something. There's stuff for women, shirts, patches, rash guards, hoodies.

• 2:59:39Speaker 01

  Any day now, the hoodies are, the more, they're heavier.

• 2:59:43Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yes.

• 2:59:44Speaker 01

  And I'm gonna put some new rash-

• 2:59:45Jocko Willink?

  The heaviest?

• 2:59:46Speaker 01

  They're, well, here's the thing, about the heaviest. So, I'm going through the options, you know. There's one that's like too heavy and it's like super expensive.

• 2:59:59Jocko Willink?

  You've never been to Michigan.

• 3:00:00Speaker 01

  They're like-

• 3:00:01Jocko Willink?

  You've never been to Maine.

• 3:00:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, I-

• 3:00:03Jocko Willink?

  Oh, I guess you have been to Maine. You've never been to one.

• 3:00:06Speaker 01

  It wasn't that cold, it wasn't that cold. Yeah, no, I get it.

• 3:00:10Speaker 01

  Put it this way, I'm convinced, for whatever that's worth, I'm convinced this is the appropriate one.

• 3:00:16Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 3:00:17Speaker 01

  That's what I think.

• 3:00:17Jocko Willink?

  Well, we, meaning everyone that listens to this and myself, we will be the judge of that. Especially people that are from the north of America.

• 3:00:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:00:30Jocko Willink?

  Or Canada.

• 3:00:31Speaker 01

  Sure, the northern region, I, hey, I got you and I'm confident, for sure. Yeah, just give me the feedback, all good.

• 3:00:37Jocko Willink?

  We will.

• 3:00:38Speaker 01

  Also, psychological warfare, on your journey-

• 3:00:43Speaker 01

  Slash campaign against weakness. If you run into those days where you're not feeling like it and that's affecting you, where you're led to make or potentially make the decision to slack, hit the snooze, skip the workout, cheat on the diet, procrastinate more, or other forms of weakness. You listen to this album with tracks, Jocko tracks, telling you pragmatically why you shouldn't give in to those weaknesses. Results do not vary. Hundred percent success rate on that one, in my experience.

• 3:01:28Speaker 01

  Psychological Warfar on iTunes, Amazon Music, anywhere where they sell MP3s. It's a good one, very effective, good way to support as well.

• 3:01:37Jocko Willink?

  Also, on Amazon, Jocko White Tea. You can get that through Amazon. You just search Jocko White Tea, then you order it, and then you drink it, and then you start throwing things around and smashing everything around you. That's what it does, no big deal, be prepared. Do have some books there, too. You can get them. Way of the Warrior Kid, that's a kid's book. Extreme Ownership, that's a book about leadership. Discipline Equals Freedom Field Manual, that comes out October 17th. It's a book about getting after it, for lack of a better word. Now, what's interesting about this is, the book is not going to be

• 3:02:21Jocko Willink?

  available through Audible itself. It's going to be available through MP3 platforms such as iTunes, Google Play, what other platforms are there?

• 3:02:36Speaker 01

  Amazon.

• 3:02:37Jocko Willink?

  Amazon Prime, music listening.

• 3:02:40Speaker 01

  Amazon.

• 3:02:41Jocko Willink?

  So that's where it's going to be available. The reason we did that is that the beats that we could, instead of just make it a big, long... Multi-hour drone of talking, it's cut up as an album with tracks. Which seems to be the way, that way you can utilize it for just quick listening, for almost like you'd use psychological warfare album.

• 3:03:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it's a manual, that's why, right?

• 3:03:09Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 3:03:09Speaker 01

  It's not like this.

• 3:03:10Jocko Willink?

  No, it's not a story. It's not a story. No, it's not a story. Discipline goes warfare, I mean, discipline goes freedom, field manual is not a story.

• 3:03:20Jocko Willink?

  It's a field manual.

• 3:03:21Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 3:03:22Jocko Willink?

  It's instructions. So you can get that there for your business. Echelon Front Leadership. Me, Leif Babin, JP Denell, Dave Burke, if you want to get tied into that, if you want us to come out and work with your company, [email protected]. So, that is that. Those are all great ways to support this podcast. We appreciate it. And thanks to everyone for your support and mostly for listening to the podcast, especially those that are out there in uniform that provide the freedom and protection that we will never take for granted.

• 3:04:03Jocko Willink?

  Freedom that men like Charlie Plumb and Jim Kunkle fought and sacrificed to uphold for us.

• 3:04:14Jocko Willink?

  And I would simply ask everyone to make something out of the freedom that you have. Don't waste it.

• 3:04:23Jocko Willink?

  And the way that you get the most out of your freedom, I'll tell you about what way that is. The way you get the most out of your freedom is discipline. That's how you get the most out of your freedom. Push yourself hard, get things done, create and build and make yourself the best you that you can.

• 3:04:47Jocko Willink?

  In everything that you do.

• 3:04:51Jocko Willink?

  By getting out there.

• 3:04:54Jocko Willink?

  And getting after it.

• 3:04:58Jocko Willink?

  So, until next time.

• 3:05:02Jocko Willink?

  This was Mr. Jim Kunkle, Captain Charlie Plumb.

• 3:05:08Jocko Willink?

  And Echo and Jocko. Out.