148: When Life Laughs At You in Crappy Situations, Stand Up and Don't Let It. "Valleys Of Death", by Bill Richardson

0:00:00 - Opening 0:04:29 - "Valleys Of Death: Memoirs of The Korean War", by Bill Richardson 2:58:49 - Final Thoughts and take-aways. 3:13:32 - How to Stay on THE PATH. 3:42:58 - 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 148 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo.

• 0:08Speaker 01

  Good evening.

• 0:10Jocko Willink?

  20 November 1950. Dear Mr. And Mrs. Richardson. I regret that I must confirm my recent telegram in which you were informed that your son, Master Sergeant William J. Richardson, Infantry, has been reported missing in action in Korea since 2 November 1950.

• 0:36Jocko Willink?

  I know that added distress is caused by failure to receive any more information or details. Therefore, I wish to assure you that at any time additional information is received, it will be transmitted to you without delay.

• 0:55Jocko Willink?

  The term "missing in action" is used only to indicate that the whereabouts or status of an individual is not immediately known.

• 1:06Jocko Willink?

  It is not intended to convey the impression that the case is closed. I wish to emphasize that every effort is exerted continuously to clear up the status of our personnel.

• 1:19Jocko Willink?

  Under battle conditions, this is a difficult task, as you must readily realize. Experience has shown that many persons reported missing in action are subsequently reported as returned to duty or being hospitalized for injuries.

• 1:38Jocko Willink?

  In order to relieve financial worry on the part of the dependence of military personnel being carried in a missing in action status, Congress enacted legislation which continues the pay, allowance, and allotments of such persons until their status is definitely established. Permit me to extend to you my heartfelt sympathy during this period of uncertainty. Sincerely yours, Edward F. Whitcell, Major General, U.S. Army.

• 2:20Jocko Willink?

  So, obviously, that is a letter from the government about a missing soldier. This missing soldier in this case is William Richardson. And William Richardson, or Bill Richardson, who was a part of that whole melee that unfolded in the beginning of the Korean War, when the Eighth Army was cut off from the rest of Coalition Forces. And many of those that got cut off as that retreat took place, many Americans and South Koreans as well were captured, were killed, or otherwise they were somehow lost or missing.

• 3:05Jocko Willink?

  And this guy, Bill Richardson, was one of those men. One of those men that went missing. And clearly, from this letter, his parents were notified about that. And he wrote a book on these experiences that he went through. The book is called Valleys of Death: A Memoir of the Korean War.

• 3:31Jocko Willink?

  And he actually has that letter from the Army to his parents inside the book, which is a pretty shocking thing to see.

• 3:41Jocko Willink?

  And, you know, these days, with the current way they notify, they send people to your house. But I can't even imagine the old days when you just get a telegram or a letter that shows up and says that your son's been missing for three weeks or four weeks, or whatever the case may be.

• 4:00Jocko Willink?

  But this book, I definitely, there's, the combat in this book is out of hand. And you're gonna see that pretty quick. And like every other book that we review on here, obviously, I can't read the whole thing. But definitely, this book is worth getting. Valleys of Death: A Memoir of the Korean War, written by Colonel William or Bill Richardson. And it's a phenomenal book. So with that...

• 4:31Jocko Willink?

  Let's dive right into it. He lays out a little bit of his perspective writing the book here in the in the preface of the book, and here we go. This is not a history of the Korean War. It is a down, dirty look at some of the soldiers who, five years before, had experienced combat in the Second World War. It is the story of the men they would lead, a new generation of courageous young soldiers in what would be the last true infantry war. The heroes of this story are the young men of the Third Battalion, Eighth Cavalry Regiment, and in particular, the men of the Weapons Platoon of L Company. Most of them died.

• 5:16Jocko Willink?

  The story is told through my own eyes. I have made a strong attempt to avoid adding to the story what others have said or what I have learned over the last 57 years. But there are a few truths that are undeniable. Korea was a war that neither the country nor the military was ready for, and we paid a high price for a lack of readiness. The disaster at Yuseon, written about in this book, was caused by a lapse of leadership from the highest echelon down to the battalion level. Mistakes we paid for with the blood of the most heroic men

• 5:59Jocko Willink?

  I have ever known. And, you know, when we covered Chesty Puller, he talked a lot about that, about the lack of readiness. And if you remember, the Marine Corps throwing together battalions to try and get over there. And that was the whole country that was doing this. And in the beginning of this book, you know, he talks about, he kind of introduces the characters that he was with. He talks about some of the training that they had been through. He was part of a squad that fired the 57, they called it, which is a recoilless rifle, the M18.

• 6:37Jocko Willink?

  It's a 57 millimeter recoilless rifle. Basically, it looks like a bazooka, kind of your traditional. If you're in your mind, you picture the bazooka. That's sort of what it looks like. And there's a bunch of different variations of the bazooka. And this is sort of one of them. And in this point, when we pick up the book, he's kind of gone through that. And they actually are now heading on to California on their way to war. So, you know, he covers the kickoff of the war and what that was like and him kind of getting back in the game. And here we go. They're heading to California to get on a ship to go to Korea for the war. Back to the book, there was a gravity to it. We were on the doorstep of war.

• 7:21Jocko Willink?

  We all knew it and wanted to be disciplined because when the bullet started, discipline could be the difference between life and death.

• 7:31Jocko Willink?

  That is indeed true. Continuing, the war in Korea had reached crisis level. American and South Korean units were fighting for their lives. They'd been swept from the 38th parallel and quickly forced out of Seoul. The North Koreans swept south towards Busan, a port on the eastern tip of the Korean peninsula.

• 7:53Jocko Willink?

  Now our troops were making their last stand along the Naktong River in the west and a line north of the Taegu, reaching east to the Sea of Japan. And they were heading on the US troop transport ship called the Pope, which had just been taken out of mothballs. If you don't know this, they take old ships when they're not needed. They put them up, well, they put them in a couple of places around the country, but they put them up and they called it mothballs. And then they just leave these big old ships sitting there. If they, if they ever are needed again, they can pull them out and kind of get them up to speed. So that's what the Pope was. It was a vessel that was pulled out of mothballs and now was getting ready to sail overseas.

• 8:38Jocko Willink?

  And these guys get on and they head overseas. And then back to the book, after eight days onboard the ship, word spread that we were getting close to Japan. We do another month of training before landing in Korea. We crowded along the rail, looking at the shore lights in the distance. The water made the lights from the city look like stars. It's Yokohama and we're headed right for it, I heard a soldier say.

• 9:05Jocko Willink?

  Suddenly, the ship started slowly turning to the starboard and running south, parallel to the shore. I didn't think much of it, but the next morning, we were informed that we were going straight to Korea.

• 9:25Jocko Willink?

  There you go. That's the way the military works sometimes. You think you're gonna go train for an extra month and have a little bit more time to prepare for combat, and all of a sudden that time's gone, and you're going straight in, straight into the combat scenario. So, that's why, everyone out there in the military, don't wait till tomorrow to train. It's not gonna come, or it may not come. So they pull into this port in Pusan, back to the book, the smell was unbearable. The water around the dock, dock at Pusan was black and slick with oil and sewage. Two docks up from where we were, was a cattle holding area, where, and when they cleaned the pens, they just hosed everything into the water. The plunging odor hit us as we approached the pier.

• 10:10Jocko Willink?

  Most of the guys stayed below, out of the smell, but I stayed on the deck, mesmerized by the port.

• 10:17Jocko Willink?

  The Eighth Army had established a perimeter to hold off the Koreans people, the Korean People's Army, until enough troops could arrive and organize a counteroffensive. Set up in August, the perimeter's western bound, boundary was formed mostly by the Naek Tong River.

• 10:36Jocko Willink?

  The North Koreans crossed the Naek Tong River.

• 10:41Jocko Willink?

  And then he says, "I know one thing, if you're defending a river and the enemy is on your side, you're in trouble."

• 10:50Jocko Willink?

  That evening, after another dinner of sea rations, I got the section together. This is his, his little section of troops that he's running, he's in charge of. I will, and here's what he tells him, "I want everyone to check his gear one more time. We're moving to an assembly area north of the Taegu first thing in the morning. And take a moment to write home. You never know when you'll get another chance."

• 11:14Jocko Willink?

  And that's one of those things that...

• 11:19Jocko Willink?

  That can be, that's a pretty heavy statement when he's saying that. And I'll tell you, when you're in that situation, especially if you're young, at least in my situation, if someone would have told me that when I was 19 years old, I would have been fired up. And that's just the way it is.

• 11:36Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I guess some, some people think it's crazy to think that way, but I'm, I'm telling you, there's a whole group of human beings in the world that they have a little genetic makeup that makes them want to go to war. And so when you get told, hey, you know, write, you write your last letter home, you're actually pretty fired up about it. Again, I know that sounds completely crazy. And even, the thing is, he was a little bit older. So I think for him, he had, it had more gravity for him than it did for his boys.

• 12:11Jocko Willink?

  The other thing is, I think it's hard for them to have recognized, even though they read in the news like how bad it was. And we've heard this from other people too. We've heard this from other people. Like, you always think it's not going to be you, right? It's not going to be me that gets, that gets killed. It's not going to be, that's not going to happen to me. So you have that little thing in your brain too, where you just think it won't happen to you.

• 12:33Jocko Willink?

  So you aren't that concerned about it. And the other thing is like, you're, you know, you just got done, what, we just got done with World War II, where all this heavy combat, and guess what? We were back to back World War Champions, right? America was back to back World War Champions. So how are we going to get into a worse situation on this little random little Asian country, little peninsula, like this won't be a factor. So you had to have that in your head a little bit. You had to.

• 13:02Jocko Willink?

  Uh, I don't think they recognized how serious the situation was, even though they were saying it. My point is that even though you're getting told, hey, this is a dire situation, and we're, we're holding up a perimeter to try and wait for more troops to arrive so we can actually do a counter offensive. Even though you hear that, you're like, alright, that's no big deal, we'll handle it. In my mind. Again, I'm trying, I'm trying to transpose a 19-year-old brain on this situation.

• 13:27Jocko Willink?

  Alright, going back to the book, "The trains to Tegu left just afternoon. I heard a few cheers as the train picked up momentum." So there you go. I'm right, right? The train is heading to combat, and what are the boys doing? They're cheering.

• 13:42Jocko Willink?

  The train lumbering down the track for a while and then stopped at a siding. Word came back that we were near the assembly area, but had to make way for a hospital train headed south.

• 13:55Jocko Willink?

  The train carrying the wounded stopped for a few moments and we could see the soldiers inside. IV bags hung next to litters. Men with bandaged arms, legs, and heads lined the cars. The few walking wounded stared out the windows. The wounded Americans had dark, depressing eyes and a vacant stare. A few of our guys tried to pass them cigarettes and candy from the window, but they didn't react. They just stared into space.

• 14:32Jocko Willink?

  So there's your reality check.

• 14:35Jocko Willink?

  That's what we're heading for. And that's a little wake-up call. I doubt that the, there was cheers when the plane, when the train rolled north again. And they go from trains eventually, they get off trains and next up is they're getting into some troop transport trucks and here we go back to the book. As the trucks rumbled forward, we could see American troops moving south down the road. They looked like ghosts, frail with torn and dirty uniforms. Their black eyes didn't even register as we passed. They had the infantrymen's thousand-yard stare. They were lost. Gone. We were operating under Lieutenant General Walton H. Walker's standing order to stand or die.

• 15:20Jocko Willink?

  Walker, the Eighth Army commander, had issued the order in July before we'd arrived.

• 15:27Jocko Willink?

  And here's, here's the quote from, from General Walker. "We are fighting a battle against time. There will be no more retreating, withdrawal, or readjustment of the lines or any other term you choose. There is no line behind us to which we can retreat. There will be no Dunkirk. There will be no Baton.

• 15:49Jocko Willink?

  A retreat to Poussin would be one of the greatest butcheries in history. We must fight until the end. We will fight as a team. If some of us must die, we will die fighting together.

• 16:04Jocko Willink?

  I want everybody to understand, we are going to hold this line."

• 16:10Jocko Willink?

  We are going to win.

• 16:16Jocko Willink?

  Now, that's a, that's a heavy statement. And if you know a little bit of the background about this, Walker, General Walker was in World War I and World War II, and now he's in Korea. And you had MacArthur at the time, who was in Japan, who was basically saying, hey, look, I don't care, you're gonna hold the line. You're gonna hold the line, even though Walker was thinking, hey, I need, you know, massive support, I don't know if we can pull this off. And the order came, and he was like, okay. And you know, I, I mean, I talk about this, if you're getting that command, you know, you can't come down and say, well, MacArthur's telling us that we got it, but I don't think we can do it. No, he's like, okay, that's what we're gonna do our best to do.

• 16:57Jocko Willink?

  Now, as you actually study what unfolded, eventually, he held it as long as he could, and then he started to tactically retreat to the best of his ability. And so he sort of compromised. He didn't just, they just didn't stand to get slaughtered. So he eventually made a more organi-, the best organized retreat that he could. But still, the, the Eighth Army was on the run. If you remember this time, this is when the Marines were tr- trying to hold the line as well, so it was a very hard situation. Going back to the book, thick black smoke rose in a steady stream on the other side of the horizon. I could see only a few of the squat huts, but the valley and ridges had thick scraggly bushes, which made it very difficult to see any movement.

• 17:40Jocko Willink?

  Suddenly artillery shells and mortar rounds crashed down around us. We dove into ditches that lined the road and waited for the barrage to end. I waved to my section and got them together before we moved out toward the outskirts of the village. A smoky haze with a pungent smell of gunpowder hung over us as we started moving forward. I could feel my heart beating, and my breaths came quickly, almost like I was running. But it wasn't nerves, it was adrenaline. My body was on fire, popping with energy. Back on the road, a North Korean machine gun to our right opened fire. I could see tracer rounds in almost slow motion, dashing into the line of men ahead of me. The soldiers ducked and dove out of the way as the rounds bit into the dirt around them.

• 18:26Jocko Willink?

  Time is a strange thing in combat. Sometimes it moves so fast that you cannot believe it and other times it is moving so slowly that you could scream. We dove into the dirt and pressed ourselves flat against the ground. Maccabee, and Maccabee at this time is the company commander, started moving the other platoons toward the guns. While my section, part of the weapons platoon, provided supporting fire. So there you go. They set up a little cover and move. This was real combat. All of my fears seemed so far away now. I didn't have time to worry about how I'd react. I just had to act. Turning back towards Walsh's gun, I yelled for him to get in position and start firing at the machine guns.

• 19:10Jocko Willink?

  Walsh nodded and started calling to his men. Like veterans, they ignored the machine gun fire and got the gun up and got ready. "Put some fire on that hill," I shouted, pointing toward the North Korean gunners with my hand. Walsh pointed out the machine gun position and Gomez, the assistant gunner, loaded a round and haul sighted in the gun and fired. My section fired its first shot of the war. So a couple of key things that I liked about this paragraph of, you know, he talks about time and the weird things that time does during combat. And that happens during any really stressful situation where you become hyper sensitive to what's happening and with the way it appears, the way it feels is that time is actually slowing down.

• 19:53Jocko Willink?

  I think the first time that I ever experienced that was in a car crash. Not a bad car crash, but I was in a car crash. And it seemed like things were moving in slow motion and I wasn't driving. I was just a passenger, but I was, that's the first time I ever felt it.

• 20:08Jocko Willink?

  And then the other thing I'd, so you can, you can be expecting that, be expecting if you're going into combat that you might have that slow motion. It's actually an awesome thing because you can feel like you can. I don't know. To me, it didn't feel like I was moving slow. It always felt like things were moving slow and I could still, it gave me more time to react. It's like if you're doing jujitsu and your opponent was moving in slow motion, but even though you weren't, even though you couldn't move faster than them, you could see it and react to it properly. Does that make sense? Yeah. And then the other thing is, if you notice.

• 20:44Jocko Willink?

  The fear, he's saying that he didn't have time to be afraid, which is definitely something I've felt where like once rounds are being shot, you're not thinking, oh, I'm gonna get shot. You're thinking, okay, we need to, we need to get online. We need to peel right. We need to, we need to make a call. As opposed to, and what is that, that's based on, in my opinion, is training. And if you train properly, then you just react. That just, that's just what happens. And this is why, and you heard me say this at the, at the muster when I was talking about like from a self-defense perspective. For females that are doing jujitsu for the first time, I'm like, hey, if you've never done jujitsu before, you're about to see that this is about as intimate as a sport. Or, or it's about as intimate as an activity you can possibly engage in without actually

• 21:27Jocko Willink?

  taking it to the next level, right? Without actually having like Without being married. Yes, without being married to the other person, right? So, a- and, and that's the thing. If you get used to that, you get used to somebody grinding on you, get used to someone grabbing you. And you, once you get used to it, then you don't have to deal with that in the moment because you already know how to deal with it. You can just react. So it's the same thing here. These guys have trained really hard. And so now, once this situation is unfolding, what they're doing is just reacting to it as they should. They're not sitting there panicking and getting, getting, not that everyone's gonna be like that because you will have some people that will immediately get that, that fight or flight, and they might roll into the flight scenario of getting down and hiding. And so you might have to deal with that a little bit.

• 22:10Jocko Willink?

  Um, but be ready for any of those reactions.

• 22:15Jocko Willink?

  So now the first, once they get through this first big kind of firefight going on, now we're going back to the book. The guys were digging in. I told them to set up the guns, but we'd be covering our section with rifles that night. We were all wired after our first firefight and it was good that we had something to do. I was happy to see that everyone, everybody was digging in with a sense of urgency. I was worried about our open flank to the right. I ordered the section to dig in some positions facing to the right in case we had to occupy them. When we were done, I told my guys to eat and rest while they got with Walsh and Gray.

• 22:50Jocko Willink?

  Word is, the North Koreans were attacking that night.

• 22:55Jocko Willink?

  So, the, uh, most of the, you'll see throughout this book that the North Koreans and then eventually the Chinese, they do their attacks during the night. That's what they do. That's how they roll. They're, they're, and if you remember, even T. Fred Harvey was talking about, when he was doing the island hopping campaign, they was Americans moving in the day and then at night, the Japanese would attack. So, similar situation here. Now, it's actually the opposite against the enemy because we have, you know, we have night vision capabilities. We have a huge advantage at night. So, that's when we normally work in. And, and in the SEAL teams, that's the way, that's the way we always worked. We always worked at night. Now, when we got to Ramadi and it was a lot of daytime fighting, we, we had to fight in the day. But the preferred

• 23:38Jocko Willink?

  thing is to fight at night. And that goes back to the SEALs in Vietnam. And if you remember, Roger Hayden, I think it was Roger Hayden, was saying, when they were going out at night, no one else was going out at night. It was just like SEALs would go out at night. But other than that, it was only the Viet Cong that were going out at night and, and the NVA. But friendly forces, just, just SEALs. And I know there's others, there's other ones, but he was saying, early on, it was them.

• 24:06Jocko Willink?

  So, now the attack comes. Here we go back to the book. The attack started with a guttural scream. The North Koreans came out of the brush in waves. We could see them moving toward us like shadows. Muscle flashes exploded out of the darkness. There was very little aimed fire. Instead, we were firing straight ahead and into their assigned zones. Soon, screams came from our wounded, joined the chorus of battle cries, orders, and machine guns. Illuminating rounds from our mortar section soon lit up the area like a ballpark, making the North Korean soldiers look like silhouettes on a firing range. We dropped several before

• 24:48Jocko Willink?

  the flare burned out. Since the rounds were in short supply, the mortars waited several minutes between rounds. During a lull, I could hear one of the engineers to our left screaming in pain and calling for his mother. His sobs and screams for help landed harder than the North Korean artillery shells.

• 25:11Jocko Willink?

  Finally, Private Jones, one of my young, smart asses, had heard enough. He started to yell and scream. I covered Walsh as he scrambled out to Jones. He was on the bottom of Hall's hole, crying. Walsh tried to get him up, but he wouldn't move. I climbed out and helped Walsh drag Jones's ass out of the foxhole. "You stay with Hall," I told Walsh. Snatching Jones by his shirt collar, I stumbled with him back to my foxhole. He crawled in and huddled against the wall, sobbing. He couldn't talk, even when I asked him a simple question. His body heaved with every sob. The engineer had finally stopped screaming, and now, in an ever-desperate voice, pleaded for someone to come get him.

• 25:57Jocko Willink?

  "Stay in your holes," I barked. I was sure the North Koreans were lying in wait, hoping someone would try and get him.

• 26:07Jocko Willink?

  God, I wished he would just die.

• 26:11Jocko Willink?

  That thought sent a jolt through me. Jesus Christ, I didn't really mean that, that poor son of a bitch.

• 26:20Jocko Willink?

  My only thought now was, "Please, God, bring the daylight soon."

• 26:26Jocko Willink?

  When the sun's rays finally peeked over the horizon, we started getting the wounded off the hill.

• 26:38Jocko Willink?

  So, there you go, like I said. There's some people that are not gonna react well. And, and you got this kid Jones that can't handle this situation. And he's done. He's done. What is this, night two? He's done. And, I mean, obviously, it doesn't help when you've got one of your wounded guys out just ahead of you, and he's screaming for help, and crying for help, and you can't do anything. And the order from Richardson, which is, you know, "Stay in your holes." And again, this is the same exact thing that T. Fred Harvey talked about when they captured one of his guys, and they, the Japanese, sat and tortured him. It sounded like thirty, forty meters away.

• 27:22Jocko Willink?

  They tortured this guy the whole night. And the whole night, T. Fred Harvey's, you know, leaders were saying, "Stay in your hole, stay in your holes, we're staying."

• 27:33Jocko Willink?

  What a, what a, what a nightmare that is.

• 27:42Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book Walsh grabbed me and here's what Walsh says Sarge Black lost it. He's crying and he's hugging a tree and will not respond to me. Black, I didn't know him very well. He was one of the company's problem children. He'd gotten drunk after a unit picnic at Fort Devens and the military police had locked him up for being drunk and disorderly. This incident confirmed that what I thought already. Black was going to be a constant problem. I put him in Walsh's squad and we both kept on his ass, making sure he was doing the right thing. When I got to Black, he was wrapped around a tree like a vine. Every time a shell landed nearby, he began shaking and crying. No talking was going to help.

• 28:25Jocko Willink?

  I just wanted to get him away from the rest of the men. The section had fought well, but after listening to the engineer all night. They had their own nerves to contend contend with.

• 28:39Jocko Willink?

  That made two men within 24 hours. If this continued, I would lose the whole section to fear. Instead of the enemy.

• 28:52Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, so two guys gone, two guys can't any and he ends up sending him to the rear because he just can't, he can't do anything with this guy. And that's a tough call to make. Hey, if I send this guy to the rear, how's that going to affect everyone else on the team? Everyone else on the team is going to be thinking, you know, oh, all I need to do is cry and scream and I'll get, I'll save my ass.

• 29:12Jocko Willink?

  So, you know, in my opinion, there's this, if you're in these situations, I think. If you're scared to die, it's going to be a problem. If you're scared to die, it's going to be a problem. If you basically accept the fact that you you could die and and you're okay with that. That's how you, that's to me, that's the difference between these two guys and everyone else. Everyone else was like, okay, do they want to die? No, I'm not saying they want to die, but they recognize they can die and they're okay with it. You know, maybe okay with is a strong word. They accept it, I should say, they accept it. Whereas these two guys are scared and if you're scared to die.

• 29:55Jocko Willink?

  Then I think this is, this is the kind of thing that happens because obviously if you're, if you're like, okay, you know what? There's a chance I could die. And that's the way it is. And I'm willing to take that chance and I'm gonna do my best. Like, that's one attitude. The other attitude is, I don't wanna die. And here I am in a situation where death is everywhere around me and that just closes in on your brain. Right? That just closes in on your brain. I can't, like, I can't imagine, I can't imagine how that would, how that would affect you psychologically if you were scared of, scared of dying. And again, I don't wanna, I'm not trying to sound like, hey, I wanna die, or troops on the front line are like, "Yeah, we don't care if we die." No, I'm not talking about that.

• 30:37Jocko Willink?

  But to be able to psychologically say, "Hey, look, I could die. That's one of the possible outcomes here." And, okay, I get it. And I'm okay with that. That's different than being, "I don't wanna die." If you don't, if your, if your main goal is to not die and you're in a combat situation, especially a really, really violent hardcore combat situation like this, this isn't gonna work out good for you. At all.

• 31:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, cuz you're-

• 31:05Jocko Willink?

  It's like when I, you know, when I used to work with MMA fighters. If they were scared of getting knocked out.

• 31:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:11Jocko Willink?

  If that's what they were scared of, it's really hard to not be, to go into that cage with any level of confidence. Cuz you're scared of that one thing that might happen. It's the same thing here. If you're so scared of that one thing happening, that's gonna possess your brain.

• 31:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, and even, yeah, MMA, even if like you're, I don't know, if you're new to boxing or something, you know, and you, it's like you haven't accepted the fact that you're gonna get hit yet, you know? So every time like somebody even flit, you know, if they throw a feint, you're reacting to everything, right? So if you're constantly under the kinda-

• 31:46Jocko Willink?

  The stress.

• 31:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, the stress of like bullets and all this stuff. It's like you're, what do you call it? Your self-preservation.

• 31:52Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 31:53Speaker 01

  Uh, mechanism in your brain is just firing, firing, firing. And then after a while, that thing is just like gone haywire already.

• 32:01Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 32:02Speaker 01

  It's gone into overdrive.

• 32:03Jocko Willink?

  That's what's happening to these guys, man. It's horrible. It's horrible to see.

• 32:08Jocko Willink?

  Alright, back to the book. The smoke and dust still hung in the air when they attacked again. The first waves came with rifles. Behind them, more soldiers followed and picked up the weapons left by the dead. So tha- tha- that's a, that's a common battle plan where we're gonna hear is, and we've heard it before in, in other books about the Korean War. Hey, we're gonna send the first wave, they're gonna have rifles and magazines. The next wave is just gonna come and pick up the dead guy's gear and use that.

• 32:38Speaker 01

  So part of the plan is the guy's dying.

• 32:40Jocko Willink?

  Part of the plan is, yeah, it's absolutely part of the plan.

• 32:44Jocko Willink?

  And, and not a small amount either. Cause you know, when you, when, when the military, when the US military, when we plan a big operation, you plan for casualties. And I can't say this about the SEAL teams, the SEAL teams isn't like, okay, like we're gonna take this amount of casualties. The SEAL teams doesn't do that. We're not planning to take any casualties. But like you go with a big, a big division going in for airborne drop in World War II, they were like, okay, 10% of these folks are gonna be injured on the drop. Boom, that's it. So, yeah. And these guys are just saying, hey, we got whatever, 300 guys attacking, we need about 70 guns or whatever that number is.

• 33:25Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book, on almost every attack, the North Koreans tried to slip behind our lines and cut off our avenue of retreat. Once they did, they would pound our flanks. This time, the North Korean soldiers charged uphill right into the teeth of our machine guns. After the third attempt, they quit and we settled in for a tense night. We waited all night, but they didn't attack again. North Koreans instead went around us and cut off the road back to Taebu Dong. As the fingers of the pink light shot up over the horizon, we were ordered to withdraw through the Korean line. This was not going to be easy.

• 34:04Jocko Willink?

  So, go- going back, so they're getting called back, hey, there's a Korean line and they're getting told to fall back past that line. They gotta, they basically, they're kinda surrounded even at this point.

• 34:19Jocko Willink?

  And here we go, he kind of expands on what it was like from his perspective and he talks a little bit about this, just General Walton Walker's mobile defense, which was, hey, basically use a thin line of people to sort of, to sort of hold up the enemy and then as like a screen and then the bulk of the force would be ready for a counterattack. And it was, it was kind of considered a theory at this time, but this is what they were trying to do. And then he says, for us ground troops, it was confusing. This game of chess had become maddening. I never had a map and seldom knew the numbered designation of the hills or

• 34:58Jocko Willink?

  objectives. Now that's crazy. That's freaking crazy. And you've heard me say this, the most important piece of information you can have on the battlefield is where you are. If you don't even have a map, and he's a section leader and doesn't have a map, just FYI, like nowadays, when we go out, every single guy has a detailed battle map of the whole area of operations. To think that you have a section leader that doesn't even have a map, that's, that's crazy. And then the numbered designations he talks about when you know, you hear about Hill 348 or whatever, he doesn't even know what those are. Back to the book, we only knew to move, attack and defend unknown hills that would stop the North Koreans from

• 35:42Jocko Willink?

  breaking through and capturing the city of Taegu. This was our world, following orders, fighting for one another, being successful, and somehow surviving.

• 35:57Jocko Willink?

  Now they're, they're sort of in a little lull in the fighting and one of his guys comes over, the guy's name is Gray. "I'm not feeling very good. I need to sit down for a few minutes," Gray said. His head was pounding and he felt dizzy. "Try to come over as soon as you can." "Are you gonna be alright?" "Yeah, just give me a few minutes." "When we got to the other side of the ridge, I turned and looked back at Gray sitting on a tree stump." He had his head in his hands. Now, we know, we know what this is a symbol of, right? This is a symbol of like a little bit of combat stress happening, but he's just trying to get it together. Gray and Walsh had been great squad leaders, and I hoped he was okay. I needed him to, I needed him and his leadership.

• 36:41Jocko Willink?

  I had taken off my helmet to wake, to wipe away some sweat when Gray and the stump suddenly disappeared in a fireball. An artillery round landed right on him. I was stunned and just stood on the ridge looking at the smoking crater.

• 36:59Jocko Willink?

  Something happens to men who see combat. No matter how you try, you cannot make death invisible. It is there with you every moment. That split second would be seared into my mind for the rest of my life. But at that time, we didn't have time to mourn Gray. We had to get dug in, start digging. That round has us zeroed and the barrage will be coming next, I said, grabbing Walsh. Get Hall over and take charge of Gray's squad. Tell him I'll be over there to talk to him later.

• 37:32Jocko Willink?

  For the rest of the day, I kept the men busy. Anything to keep their minds off Gray. So, let's think about that again. You can see, you can see that Richardson, he's, he's legit. And this is your classic situation where this horrible thing, you witness this horrible thing, everyone sees it. And what does he say? Hey, look, and this is horrifying. You say, oh, they have us zeroed in. So where are the rest, next round's gonna hit? They're gonna hit all around us. So what we need to do is dig in and we need to do it now. And then he just immediately says, Hall, go take over Gray's squad. Look, Gray's gone, we need to move on. Tell him I'll be over to talk to him later.

• 38:22Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book. What drove me more than anything was a positive outlook and the fact that my men were watching everything I did. I often wondered when we were moving down the road, what went through their minds. This is something that every leader should be thinking about all the time. Is that everyone's watching you. Your, your, your boys are watching you and they're judging you. As harsh as that sounds, that's what's happening. So you know what? Give them a good example. I'll tell you what, when I see, when I would see leaders in the SEAL teams, that didn't act that way, that didn't act as if they were being watched all the time, they, they, they usually slacked off.

• 39:02Speaker 01

  Like what does that look like where?

• 39:04Jocko Willink?

  Oh, what that looks like is, I mean, yeah, like, hey, oh, no one, I can be a little bit late. No one's watching.

• 39:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 39:10Jocko Willink?

  That, that's a big one. Like, oh, it's okay. Oh, I, I didn't need this piece of gear. Oh, I'll cut the corner on this thing. Just all those little tiny things. And not to mention, when you're in a situation like this, where they're watching you and you say, hey, you know what? They got us dialed in. We need to get dug in now. Hall, you got that gray squad now. Get to it. They're watching that too.

• 39:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:31Jocko Willink?

  And they're seeing and going, okay, they're judging. And what are they judging? They're judging positive. They're judging that Richardson's got his shit together and he's going to take care of them.

• 39:43Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book. It had to be a lot tougher on them than on me. While they had only death to dwell on, I had dozens of other things that I must be thinking about and prepared for. What was ahead? Where would I be if I were a North Korean? How would I react if we got hit from the right or left? How was our ammunition? Water? Was the bore sighting of the gun still all right? Where were the men, were the men taking care of their feet? So he's saying this correctly so, but this is kind of a different twist, is, you know, a lot of times you hear leaders say, well, I was responsible for all these guys and that was a heavy weight. But for him, he's thinking, I was busy with all these other things. All these other guys had to do is think about the fact that they're about to die. And how that's actually harder on them.

• 40:31Jocko Willink?

  So if you go into it with a perspective that everything's for you is harder and for for everything, you know, for me, it's harder because I'm the leader, whereas his attitude is fantastic, which is, look, I'm, I have the luxury of having other things to think about. These poor guys, they're just thinking about, you know, them being overrun. As opposed to if your attitude was flipped and you were, you know, thinking, I have it so hard, but these guys have it so easy. They will sense that.

• 40:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:59Jocko Willink?

  And that's not going to end up net positive for you and your, in your leadership. Back to the book. The next North Korean assault started with screams and machine gunfire, but we beat it back with mortars and our own machine gunfire. Running between holes, I made sure everybody was ready for the next wave. Walsh had his section up and ready to fire. Hall was also ready, which was impressive, impressive, since he had just taken over from Gray. The second attack was worse. The North Koreans were less than 50 yards from us. As I fired at the shadows moving toward us, I heard a frantic voice come over the radio. "Roy Rogers III," the voice said in a deep southern draw. "I needs more firepower. I

• 41:43Jocko Willink?

  needs more firepower. I'm about to get overrun." It was Lieutenant Jim Brown from the platoon that was on our left. I hope to hell he got more fire support. We were all hanging by a thread. Dead North Korean soldiers were stacking up in front of our foxholes, but they kept coming, wave after wave. I could hear Walsh screaming at the men to stay in their holes. I was frantically changing the magazine in my carbine as two of the North Koreans were within 10 feet of me. Walsh and Hall saw them too and opened fire, cutting the North Korean soldiers down. I saw another North Korean to my right and fired. He staggered

• 42:24Jocko Willink?

  back and dropped to the ground. I stayed low in my foxhole and kept firing straight ahead. Hall and Walsh kept firing to the rear, hitting the North Koreans attempting to move through our position. We had them in a crossfire and in minutes, our position was littered with North Korean bodies. Sliding a fresh magazine into my carbine, I poked my head up, waiting for the next wave, but it never came.

• 42:54Jocko Willink?

  Stay alert. Some of them may still be alive. If you, if you see any movement, shoot them.

• 43:01Jocko Willink?

  We waited a few minutes and finally climbed out.

• 43:06Jocko Willink?

  Check around your holes for live Koreans.

• 43:13Jocko Willink?

  And he goes on to say that. "We dragged the rest of the bodies away from our position and piled them to one side. I didn't even look at their faces. I didn't care." And he talks about the fact that his medics would try and take care of the North Korean wounded soldiers. That's pretty impressive.

• 43:30Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book, "As daylight peeked over its head over the hills, a tall, scrubby-looking infantryman carrying a carbine approached me from out of the mist. As he got closer, I saw the small white cross painted on his helmet. He stuck out his hand as he approached. "Chaplain Kapan," he said, giving me a firm handshake. "Where are you from?" "Chaplain Emil Kapan, from Pilsen, Kansas, was a Catholic father who joined the army toward the end of World War II. He served in Burma and India until May 1946. He returned home and was assigned a parish in Kansas.

• 44:07Jocko Willink?

  But he felt his calling was with the troops, so he rejoined the army in 1948. He joined us in Korea after spending a few months in Japan. His uniform was dirty and he, like the rest of us, needed a shave. It was clear he'd spent the night up close to the fighting and not safely in the rear. There was a peacefulness about him, though, that put me at ease, a quiet confidence. He seemed to care where I was from, and I watched him as he spoke to the rest of the section. Each time he asked a soldier where he was from and gave him a firm handshake. It was not long before he had us all smiling. When Kapan finished making his rounds, he sat down near my foxhole and took out his pipe. It was missing most of its stem. "What happened to your pipe?"

• 44:52Jocko Willink?

  I asked as he filled it. "A sniper," he said, "shot it out of my mouth a few days ago." We both had a laugh. I noticed the carbine laying across his lap. I thought chaplains couldn't carry weapons. He smiled and nodded. "If they're going to shoot at me, I'm going to be ready to shoot back."

• 45:15Jocko Willink?

  My section was down to eight men. We received two replacements. They showed up with their gear and clean uniforms. One was named Jackson's, one was named Jackson, but I didn't catch the other's name. Jackson had a lot of questions about the North Koreans and where we were on the line. Stay close to your foxhole partner and listen to him, I said. I didn't see them again until next morning. We'd been attacked again, but this time we were able to keep the North Koreans from our lines, but not without cost. Three men were gone, one missing and two wounded, including both replacements.

• 45:53Jocko Willink?

  We were taking casualties every night and soon could no longer hold our position.

• 46:00Jocko Willink?

  Later that night, we got orders to withdraw. Withdrawing in the daylight wasn't bad enough. Now we are going to attempt it at night.

• 46:09Jocko Willink?

  So, a couple of things you're gonna hear a lot about this, this chaplain Capon and, well, not a lot as you should. Um, there's, he's, he's got his own story that needs to be told and about what he did in his service.

• 46:26Jocko Willink?

  And then, you know, but I, I tried to pull out a few sections about him. And then the fact that these guys, I mean, they're losing guys all the time. You get two replacements and they're, they're gone by the next morning. That's not a positive outlook on the situation. So they finally get the orders to withdraw and it's funny, not funny, but it's interesting that they're actually not looking forward to withdrawing at night. You know, whereas me, my instinct is like, I'd rather go at night, right? I mean, of course, but you know what? If you haven't trained that way, cause you can train even without night vision, you can train to operate at night. You learn the spacing that you need to get. You learn, you know, certain maneuvers that you do at nighttime that are easier at nighttime.

• 47:10Jocko Willink?

  So nighttime is not something to be scared of. But these guys, I mean, unless you haven't trained that way, if you haven't trained that way, man, I can't even imagine what it's like. Cause I've trained so much in the dark. I mean, when I first got in the SEAL teams, we did everything in the dark. We did have night vision, you know, we just did, we just patrolled in the dark. How we do, we had closer spacing. You learn how to use person silhouette in front of you. You're, you learn how to adapt your eyes to the dark. So there's all these things that you can do to make you a more formidable night fighter. But if you don't train that way.

• 47:41Jocko Willink?

  You you you're you're in big trouble.

• 47:45Jocko Willink?

  So these guys are starting up their withdraw back to the book. Let's go, I whispered. I was nervous and wanted to get going before another attack. Walsh, standing by, looked over at me. Sarge, that's Johnson. He's dead. So he was he was kicking a guy on the ground saying, hey, let's go. And he's, you know, Walsh says, Sarge, that's Johnson. He's dead. I felt terrible. It hurt to see another one of my men dead in the mud. I didn't even know Johnson that well. He was another replacement replacement, and I'd only just learned his name. The fact that I had little time to dwell saved me. Plus, I knew that if I showed weakness, my men might finally give in and feel sorry for themselves, and I couldn't have that. We needed to stick together.

• 48:26Jocko Willink?

  I became stoic and would remain that way for a long time. Again, he recognizes that his guys are looking at him. There's two points there. Number one, he recognizes that his guys are looking at him. And if he breaks down, he's going to cause breakdowns. And number two, the fact that he had little time to dwell. So what does that mean? Translate that to your life. If something goes wrong and you decide you're going to take a break to reflect on that thing, it don't do that. It's better. That's like get back on the horse. You know, the old saying, like, you gotta get back on the horse. That's not only does that help you overcome the fear, but it's better than sitting around and dwelling on it. You know, even if it's something not physical that you're physically afraid of,

• 49:09Jocko Willink?

  still, don't sit around and dwell. That's a bad. That's a bad thing.

• 49:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, like you're saying, it gives you. Yeah, like you, something happens, right? Girl breaks up with you. I don't know.

• 49:22Speaker 01

  And you take the day off from work.

• 49:24Jocko Willink?

  Hmm. We get to sit down and look at the pillow that she used to sleep on.

• 49:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's gonna jam you up way more. You go to work. And you know, your mind's occupied with all these tasks and you know, you don't have time to dwell.

• 49:38Jocko Willink?

  And meanwhile, I'll say this, your mind is still processing it. Right? It's not like it's not like you're at work and so you're not thinking about it. It's in the back and it's getting work through. Your mind is doing its job, kind of getting a grip on the situation. And then you get home and like, instead of just going home, go train, go, you know, go directly to the gym. You're actually kind of stoked because you're not have that pressure of your girl waiting on you at home to like hurry up and get home like no. So go train and get some extra rounds in. So go get some extra rounds in. Maybe stop by that little place on the way home, grab a little bite to eat, you know, with one of your buddies.

• 50:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:11Jocko Willink?

  And then go home. And when you get home, clean your room.

• 50:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:14Jocko Willink?

  You know, when you get home, finish putting together the bit, the bookcase or whatever, do something.

• 50:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:20Jocko Willink?

  And now you're tired and now you go to bed. Meanwhile, like I said, in the background, your mind's been processing this and you're starting to realize like, you know what? It's not actually that big of a deal that she left.

• 50:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. You know how, but isn't there the, I mean, I wonder why this, I'm sure you could kind of figure it out, but you know how? Something like bad or traumatic or whatever will happen and then the person essentially ignores it or whatever and focuses on work, focuses on this. And then people close to him or a therapist or whatever would be like, hey, I'm scared, I'm concerned because you haven't like.

• 50:55Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. I think there's a dichotomy here. I'm not talking about burying it, right?

• 50:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 51:00Jocko Willink?

  That's not what I'm talking about. You still got to contend with it. And you know, at some point, I'll write down like the, the, the protocol, the breakup protocol, straight up, and even like the death protocol, like here's what you're supposed to do. Now, in, in these situations, they don't have time to do any protocol, right?

• 51:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:18Jocko Willink?

  And since, so, so this, to your point, this can be a problem because if you're in combat and you lose someone and then you never have the time to set aside and contend with it. Then you get back and now you get back to America and now you're with your family and now you're getting a new job and you're getting out of the military and you're making all this stuff happen. You never contended with what had occurred. So yes, you are correct. If you don't ever contend with it and face it, then it can turn into a problem. Then it turns into what we talked about with Tim Ferriss, which is. They tried, if you tried to bury it, you didn't realize it was a seed.

• 51:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:53Jocko Willink?

  So you gotta, you gotta make sure that it's not a seed that's gonna grow out of control in the darkness over there. You gotta, you gotta put, shed some light on it.

• 52:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, cuz, cuz that's how, right? Like a lot of the time, like, oh, you know, you know, my girl broke up with, I don't know, whatever. Like something traumatic and then they'll be like, hey, I don't wanna think about it. I wanna focus on these other things. I don't wanna think about it. And they kinda bury it. Seems like that could happen sometimes.

• 52:18Jocko Willink?

  And that's what I'm saying. There's a balance that you have to do.

• 52:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:20Jocko Willink?

  There's a balance cuz you can't just bury it.

• 52:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:23Jocko Willink?

  You have to contend with it, but you wanna do it. What you don't wanna do is go overboard and just focus 100% on, I can't believe that this person's gone, whether they died, whether they broke up with you, whether they, what, you know, I get little, you know, it's funny, I get little Warrior Kid questions for the Warrior Kid Podcast of, my friend is moving away. How can I not be sad? And it's like the same thing, like people are gonna come in and out of your life.

• 52:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:47Jocko Willink?

  And you gotta learn to contend with it.

• 52:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:49Jocko Willink?

  And, and what I'm saying is, don't focus on it 100%. Remember it, contend with it, but don't dwell on it cuz we know what that gets you. That gets you just down the darkness, the spiral of darkness, which we don't wanna go down.

• 53:05Speaker 01

  No.

• 53:06Jocko Willink?

  We don't wanna avoid it cuz then it grows.

• 53:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, behind your back.

• 53:10Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 53:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, his situation is kinda different. That's more of a small picture scenario where, where it's like, I don't have time to dwell on my guy who just, this just happened to him because right now is, there's important things going on.

• 53:23Jocko Willink?

  And again, this is where people get jammed up because they never contend with it. They never mourn properly. They never go through that process and then they look up, you know, six months later and they go, oh, you know, I'm, I'm sad. I miss my friend. It's like, yeah, that's okay. You know what? You gotta take, that's why you, you should be able to take the protocol and just enact it when there's, you know, like you get home from deployment, it's like, okay, we're going through the protocol cuz we, we know.

• 53:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:52Jocko Willink?

  Or you lose a friend, car accident, whatever, whatever situation. You, you, once it comes time to enact that protocol, boom, you, you, you press play on the protocol and then you go through the motions and that gets you, gets you through it.

• 54:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:09Jocko Willink?

  Or at least starts to get you through it cuz it's always gonna be there. It's not like you're gonna be like, oh, you're always gonna remember.

• 54:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:16Jocko Willink?

  But.

• 54:18Jocko Willink?

  Don't dwell. Don't dwell.

• 54:24Jocko Willink?

  Alright, going back to the book, it was another attack.

• 54:28Jocko Willink?

  And when I say that, he's actually talking about they're being told that they are going to attack again. And this is coming from his boss, Maccabee. "The entire battalion is going to attack Hills 570. Three ridges go direct to the top of the hill. K Company will be on the left, we will move in the center, and I Company on the right. We will attack at daylight with no artillery or air support."

• 54:55Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I don't like that. You don't like that? No. "The second and third platoons will attack abreast. Second on the right, third on the left. Richardson will follow with the 57s in the center. The first platoon will be in reserve." So there's your plan. Boom, there it is. What is abreast? Means side by side. Okay.

• 55:16Jocko Willink?

  And now, so they're, they're sort of going through and, and starting to enact this plan. And as they're doing this, one of his boys says, "Sarge, we're getting out of here by dark, right?

• 55:29Jocko Willink?

  I knew the other men wouldn't speak up, but I could just look in their eyes and see they were scared. I just hope they couldn't see fear in my eyes. "We're staying here until we get orders," I said finally, answering Walsh and Hall. "I spoke up loud enough for the whole section to hear. Farther down the hill, mortar and artillery fire was heavy. We could see the North Korean positions and they could see us. I was hoping we were out of grenade range and too close for their, to their position for them to put mortar fire on us." Dude, what kind of situation are you in when what you're hoping for? Is that you're too far for grenade range and too close for mortars?

• 56:06Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 56:08Jocko Willink?

  Oh, man. So that just puts you in machine gun range, basically. Unless you got some kind of dead space or cover, but not a good situation. But you know when that's what you're hoping for? Outlook is not good.

• 56:22Speaker 01

  That's your best option.

• 56:23Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Soon, instead of mortars, the North Korean soldiers started sending down taunts. We didn't speak the language, but each word had a charge. Silence. No one talks back, I whispered and put my finger to my lips. Not that we knew what they were saying. As the minutes and then hours ticked off, I realized that slowly but surely we were moving back a foot at a time. A guy would reposition and then the rest of the whole section would go off of him. At this rate, we might be off the hill by the end of the war. I knew one thing. There was no way we were staying overnight.

• 57:01Jocko Willink?

  So.

• 57:03Jocko Willink?

  Situation happens, um, they start, they start actually. There's a fire, firing starts and these guys actually start running down the hill. And then they start receiving small arms fire. And then he rolls into another position and there's a guy in there named Valen Court, who was another experienced guy in charge of one of the other sections or one of the other elements. And he comes in, where's the executive officer? I asked Valen Court when I caught up with him. He was killed along with one of the other platoon leaders. The company has regrouped and tried to come back up the hill, but it was ripped apart by heavy mortar and artillery fire. We lost two lieutenants and two platoons took heavy losses.

• 57:52Jocko Willink?

  So that's, that continues. And again, you gotta get this book so you can get these details and not reading them all, the, the detailed combat. For anyone that's in combat arms of any kind, order this book immediately. Because there's so much good information in it. That I'm not covering. So these guys, they're retreating from that attack. They get to like an orchard situation and there's a colonel that's in charge of the regiment. And this guy, Maccabee, who's the company commander, he comes up and

• 58:30Jocko Willink?

  Here we go. Maccabee's kinda talking with and brings Richardson over. Sergeant Richardson and his men were the last ones off the hill, Maccabee told Colonel Johnson. How are your men doing? The Colonel asked, looking over my shoulder at the men finishing up their letter to Sears. This little joke that they had made earlier. Okay, but very tired. Johnson nodded and shook my hand. Try and get some rest tonight. He started to walk away. Frustrated with the attack, I knew this was my chance to speak my mind and the mind of my men. I wanted to know how many more times we were going to have to climb up a hill only to leave it and fight our way up another. From my point of view, we were just getting our asses kicked. How are we doing?

• 59:15Jocko Willink?

  It seems like we never make any headway. Johnson stopped. Sergeant Richardson, you tell your men they did a great job. Against great odds, we have stopped the North Koreans' main attack. I turned away and slowly walked back toward the men. I thought to myself how great Walsh, Hall, and Higley were. It was their courage and bravery that held us together. As I looked at them, it almost brought tears to my eyes. Johnson's news had an immediate impact on my section. We no longer dragged ass. Instead, we seemed hopeful, even optimistic. So. Again, this is a good point that

• 1:00:00Jocko Willink?

  when you're in a leadership position, your little words have significant impact and you might not realize it. And I experienced that a lot with leaders, not only in combat or in the military, but I see that with leaders in the civilian sector, where they don't realize the weight that they carry. And this will even be like the CEO of a company. Will say something, maybe it's off the cuff, and it's a negative thing and it has a negative impact. But they also don't realize how positive it can be when they say something positive. So if you're in a leadership position, every once in a while, every once in a while, throw out some love to your people, right? I'm not saying, you know, Leif likes to use the word "false cheerleading", which is definitely, yeah, that's a good term.

• 1:00:44Jocko Willink?

  You know, which is, hey, you've done a great job when you didn't do a great job. And cheerleaders cheer pretty much no matter what.

• 1:00:51Speaker 01

  That's just how.

• 1:00:52Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, this is what their job is. They're cheering you. Hey, good job, even though you're down forty-seven to zero. Like, they don't stop, right?

• 1:00:59Speaker 01

  No, I don't think they stop, no.

• 1:01:01Jocko Willink?

  They just keep cheering.

• 1:01:02Speaker 01

  Keep cheering.

• 1:01:03Jocko Willink?

  So, I guess you don't even have to say false cheerleading. You just say straight cheerleading.

• 1:01:08Speaker 01

  Well.

• 1:01:09Jocko Willink?

  Oh, I guess when it is winning, then it's positive, right?

• 1:01:13Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, hey, let me ask you this about false cheerleading. So, because that came up in the muster, by the way. Someone thought that it was just like focusing on the positives and not the negatives. Then they were like, that's false cheerleading. Or they implied that that's what... And life was like, no, false cheerleading is when you're cheering for someone even though they're not doing a good job.

• 1:01:32Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, or making statements that are factually untrue.

• 1:01:35Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:01:36Jocko Willink?

  Hey, Echo, you did a great job putting out a bunch of videos this last year.

• 1:01:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:39Jocko Willink?

  Oh, that's actually factually untrue, and I wouldn't be able to say that to you. Because you put out a limited number of videos.

• 1:01:45Speaker 01

  But if you were to say, hey, those are real quality and not quantity, like, that would be fact.

• 1:01:48Jocko Willink?

  That would be factually true, too. Yeah.

• 1:01:50Speaker 01

  Actually, technically, that's an opinion, but, hey, okay, so what about this? Here's my question. So, if, well, let's say, okay, I'm doing like this, you know, sixty percent of my workload is great. And then there's forty that's like, hey, you gotta change this. And then I sorta, I sorta downplay the forty. You, not me, you, like, my boss, downplay the forty, just to encourage me, whatever reason. And you really upplay the sixty. Is that false cheerleading?

• 1:02:22Jocko Willink?

  It is, but there's a little bit more strategy behind this. Because as your leader, I wouldn't only talk to you one time.

• 1:02:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:31Jocko Willink?

  Right? I'm talking to you over a period of time. So, what my first comment to you might be something like, hey, Echo, that sixty percent that you're over there, you're crushing it out. That you're doing a great job.

• 1:02:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:43Jocko Willink?

  Super. So, you know, some of the other stuff, not quite there yet, but...

• 1:02:48Jocko Willink?

  But actually, the first time I talked to him, I'd be like, hey, you're crushing it. You're doing awesome. I'm not even gonna mention that 40%. Because I'm thinking, hey, if this guy gets encouraged, he's gonna be like, I'm gonna do a little bit more, right? And yet, you just might pick up the slack. Anyways, on your own accord, because you're just encouraged by the whole positivity that I'm giving you. Yeah. So that's cool, right? Mm-hmm. Well, maybe it doesn't work. So now I might have to come just a little bit more direct, right? Yeah. Hey, I noticed that, you know, this 60% over here that you're dominating, and it's awesome. Is there something with this 40% over here that's different? That, you know, that it comes, because it seems to be like a different level. And it's not up to 60%, is there something that's different? Maybe I find, learned something, right? Right. But I give you the opportunity to say, well, yeah, it's because of this, that, whatever, maybe we can correct it.

• 1:03:33Jocko Willink?

  And then, if that doesn't work, then maybe I have to amplify or escalate a little bit more. Mm-mm. Right? Mm-hmm. And then it's, hey, man, the 60% that you're doing, wow, awesome. Yes. There's also that 40% that, when I'm looking at it, I'm actually wondering if it's the same guy. Because for you to be able to do this over here, and still kinda throw this in the mix too, it kinda... Doesn't make sense. Yeah, it doesn't make sense to me. And I'm, again, my whole thing would be trying to figure out why you're slacking in that area. Yeah. Because if you're doing 60%, great, why are you doing 40%? Let's hope there's a reason behind that. Yeah. And so, once we find out what that reason is, it's like, okay.

• 1:04:13Jocko Willink?

  And so, I'm gonna slowly escalate, and start, until I get to the point, you know, if we go to six months, and I've done, and I've pulled out whatever obstacles are in your way, because there was some obstacles on the 40%. It was like, well, we weren't getting that information in time. Okay, well, now I start getting you the information in time. And then you say, well, I didn't have the resources. Okay, well, then I throw you another person to help you. And you're still slacking. So eventually, you know, I'm gonna have to come a little bit more direct, and be, listen, man, the 60% I appreciate, the 40% is actually starting to hurt us. Hmm. And either you need to step it up, which is what I'm hoping, because I see nothing but potential in you, or... I might actually have to bring someone else in that can kind of handle a hundred percent. You see where I'm coming from?

• 1:04:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:54Jocko Willink?

  And it would even escalate from there. So, so yeah, there's, I don't think of things as black and white conversations.

• 1:05:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:00Jocko Willink?

  Like, hey, I just need to go in and drop the hammer today, because I don't, I don't.

• 1:05:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:05Jocko Willink?

  I'd rather, I'd rather have you recognize it, right? I'd rather have you realize that, that there's a problem with that forty percent. Now, I might say something and just omit the forty percent, like when I first talked to you. Man, this, this sixty percent of this stuff will realize that you're doing is awesome.

• 1:05:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:21Jocko Willink?

  And I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt that you're going to straighten out that other forty percent, right?

• 1:05:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:25Jocko Willink?

  Get out your ruler and get it straight.

• 1:05:28Speaker 01

  Sure, of course, the ruler. But, so, okay, so technically, yeah, so your whole campaign, yeah, is not false cheerleading then.

• 1:05:35Jocko Willink?

  No.

• 1:05:35Speaker 01

  So it's like, but, but let's say you just stuck, let's say that, for that first one, that's step one, right? Then you got, let's say, I don't know, five steps. So if you just stuck with step one, I guess it depends on the reason too, right? So if I'm like, hey, great, this sixty percent is awesome, and don't even mention the forty percent, because I don't want any conflict with that guy, or I'm scared to, you know, confront him, or I'm scared for that, that conversation.

• 1:05:59Jocko Willink?

  Well, what you should be realistically scared of is if you're doing, if you're busting your ass to do that sixty percent great, and all I come in to is say like, hey, the sixty percent is good, but the other forty percent sucks, I discourage you. And now you're like, I can't do anything right for Jocko. So now you're, you're not even getting your sixty percent right. There's a good chance that you don't even get the sixty percent. Now you're going down to fifty percent, and then forty percent's good and sixty percent's bad.

• 1:06:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:20Jocko Willink?

  I don't want that. I want you to be on board with the program. I want you to be like, oh, man, I could work a little bit more and work a little bit harder and discipline myself a little bit better, and I could actually get seventy percent. And then let's see what Jocko comes in here and says when he's all fired up that I did sixty percent. Watch this.

• 1:06:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:37Jocko Willink?

  So this is a whole thing.

• 1:06:39Speaker 01

  So dang, you could almost say, almost.

• 1:06:44Speaker 01

  That false cheerleading. I guess, okay, I was gonna say you could almost say false cheerleading cheerleading actually has its little spot in it in a bigger campaign.

• 1:06:53Jocko Willink?

  Can be used in a campaign.

• 1:06:54Speaker 01

  But I guess technically if it is, it's by its very nature, if it's part of a big campaign, it's not. False cheerleading, it's just a maybe strategic cheerleading.

• 1:07:03Jocko Willink?

  Strategic maneuver.

• 1:07:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:04Jocko Willink?

  Strategic maneuver. Like, just think of a little kid. I mean, let's just break it down to to the fundamental realities of life. A little kid. If you take a little kid. That does something. Okay, let's say the kid tries to draw a rabbit.

• 1:07:21Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:07:21Jocko Willink?

  And what does it look like?

• 1:07:22Speaker 01

  A mouse.

• 1:07:23Jocko Willink?

  It looks like, doesn't even look like a mouse, barely even looks like a stick, right? So if you say, if, okay, I'm not gonna use false cheerleading. Hey, kid. You're that doesn't look like a rabbit, it looks like a stick. Fail.

• 1:07:38Jocko Willink?

  Is that kid gonna draw another rabbit?

• 1:07:40Speaker 01

  He's not gonna want to.

• 1:07:40Jocko Willink?

  Not gonna want to.

• 1:07:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:42Jocko Willink?

  If you say, oh, I really like that you tried, I can see where the eyes should go.

• 1:07:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, uh, yeah.

• 1:07:47Jocko Willink?

  You know what I mean?

• 1:07:48Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:07:48Jocko Willink?

  And they get a little bit and they're like, okay, can I hang this up? Oh. I'm gonna hang this up on my refrigerator.

• 1:07:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:53Jocko Willink?

  Huh? What, what does that kid wanna do now? Draw more rabbits.

• 1:07:57Speaker 01

  Do better, yeah, even like, yeah.

• 1:07:58Jocko Willink?

  Does that translate directly to adults? Oh, yes, it does. Oh, yes, it does. Does it always translate a hundred percent? No, of course not, it doesn't translate a hundred percent, but, because there's some people that are, of course, there's some people that are just trying to skate and do the minimum, and if you say like, hey, good job, they're like, okay, cool, thanks. Now I'm just gonna keep doing whatever you told me. But if you're in a, again, for a strategic or in a campaign, we're trying to make things happen, it's like, yeah, you know what? Hmm. Hey, echo, man, that stuff. Picture the first time you ever made a video.

• 1:08:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:27Jocko Willink?

  Imagine if I said.

• 1:08:31Jocko Willink?

  You know, I mean, decent work. You know, not exactly eye grabbing, though.

• 1:08:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:36Jocko Willink?

  Would you have been excited to make more videos?

• 1:08:39Speaker 01

  Probably, mm, yeah, probably not, no.

• 1:08:40Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, I mean, you'd probably be like, oh, okay, well, whatever, I guess maybe this isn't for me, or maybe I won't make videos for this guy.

• 1:08:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, for this guy, that's what I would think.

• 1:08:48Jocko Willink?

  But if I was like, oh, man, I really like the way, that was some good, that was, you know what I mean?

• 1:08:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:53Jocko Willink?

  Then you go, oh, yeah, like, he's in the game with me. All of a sudden, we're a team, we're not against each other.

• 1:08:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:58Jocko Willink?

  So I'm just trying to unify things and bring things together.

• 1:09:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, I might even come back to you to improve myself more. Hey, what do you think about this? Like, hey, I had, yeah, we're a team now. Yeah, that's a good way to do it.

• 1:09:10Jocko Willink?

  My best leaders that I had, all I wanted to do is do better for them. They, and they never, they might give me critique, but it was like the kind of critique that makes you feel guilty about being alive. Where they're like, they're like, hey, really, I really like this, you know? I wish, you know, if we could do this a little bit more, man, that would be really nice. I'd be like, oh, man, I wish I'd done better. And then you have to also remember that people have different levels of sensitivities, right?

• 1:09:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:09:40Jocko Willink?

  Cause for you, like, especially when it's something that they deeply care about.

• 1:09:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:09:45Jocko Willink?

  When you critique them, there's almost no one that takes that critique well, right? Oh, you want to tell me about, oh, you want to tell me about, whatever. I did this drawing, like a little kid, right? The kid tries to do a good drawing.

• 1:09:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:09:56Jocko Willink?

  You tell them that the drawing's no good, that breaks their heart.

• 1:09:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, yes, it does.

• 1:10:01Jocko Willink?

  Evil.

• 1:10:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, man.

• 1:10:03Jocko Willink?

  So, you're right. Is that false cheerleading? No, that's part of a campaign plan. Is it good if the kid draws a stick? And you're like, that's the most amazing drawing I've ever seen. Well, now what's, this is to Leif's point. If you, the kid draws a stick and it's supposed to be a rabbit, and you go, that's the most amazing rabbit I've ever seen drawn. Now, let me ask you this, is that kid gonna try and improve at all?

• 1:10:27Speaker 01

  No, and he'll probably not take criticism because they start used, getting used to like never having to.

• 1:10:33Jocko Willink?

  Everything I do is great. And I think that one applies more to adults.

• 1:10:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:37Jocko Willink?

  Because when you say that to an adult, like, man, that's the best thing I've ever seen. They're like, oh, yeah. They're a little bit more egotistical.

• 1:10:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, can't tell me nothing.

• 1:10:44Jocko Willink?

  They believe it more, yeah. Little kids are like, well, like, kind of surprised if you tell them that. Plus, they wouldn't really believe you. They're like, hey, look, I'm only six, but that stick is part of, I'm concerned, I tried to make a rabbit. Like, I got, I got an ear on there anyways. After that, mm, don't know.

• 1:10:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, I could see that too, yes.

• 1:11:02Jocko Willink?

  So, there you go.

• 1:11:05Jocko Willink?

  Meanwhile, back in Korea. Here's what's going on. They're under another attack. And as you can see, there's a little pattern developing. It's just, "We're getting attacked, we're getting attacked, we're getting attacked, we're getting attacked." That's what's going on. "We could see the North Koreans pouring over the hill. The North Korean artillery fire followed K Company down the hill. The ground shook like an earthquake as the rounds walked towards us. I hugged the bottom of the side of the hole. All I could think about was a round landing straight on top of me. If that happened, I'd never know." "I pulled my helmet and gritted my teeth. I was starting to lose it."

• 1:11:43Jocko Willink?

  Now, again, this is just continuing, they're continuing to get hammered, and Walsh comes over, he's, "Are we going to stay?" "God damn it, just stay in these holes until I tell you differently." "I raced back to my hole. On the way, a young lieutenant ran by me. He was scared. He was so scared, his voice cracked when he screamed at me. 'Get out of here, fall back. Who the hell are you?' I barked. There were men still trying to get back, and if we left, they wouldn't have a chance in hell." So he's, his group is trying to provide cover fire for the groups that are now retreating. "He didn't stop, and I never got his name. He just yelled to fall back. 'You're full of shit,' I yelled at him. 'We can't leave here. We have to help these men.'"

• 1:12:22Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, this is, he's keeping order in this retreat. Several other members of K Company passed me, following the lieutenant. "I saw some of my men getting out of their holes. 'You sons of bitches, get back in your goddamn holes,' I yelled. 'Get back.'" "They scrambled back. Rounds started to crash around us again. I could hear the K Company men scream as shrapnel showered them, slicing into their skin. Larger pieces punched holes in their chests or sheared off their limbs. Their screams filled in the silence between the crashes of artillery shells. I was not going to be able to control this fucking situation much longer." Walsh just stared at me with a vacant look. "Don't lose it now," I thought. Another barrage

• 1:13:02Jocko Willink?

  landed nearby. I put my head down. My ears started ringing. Smoke was down on the bottom of the hole again. The artillery fire finally stopped. The screaming for the medics began."

• 1:13:16Jocko Willink?

  Go check your men, I told Walsh, shaking him out of his stupor. I headed over to Hall's position. He had the same vacant look as Walsh. Men from K Company were moving down the ridge, carrying the wounded. Everybody was bleeding or bandaged. I kept my men focused on the hill, waiting for the North Koreans to counter-attack.

• 1:13:35Jocko Willink?

  But they never came. Neither did the artillery. It wasn't long, and I was told to withdraw off the hill.

• 1:13:48Jocko Willink?

  He talks about the Korean augmentation to the US Army, or KATUSA program, K-A-T-U-S-A. So Korean augmentation to the US Army, and this was like soldiers, he describes it here. "Katusha soldiers were young men picked up in larger cities, given a couple of weeks' training, and assigned to the American units. Despite the language barriers, the Koreans fell right in line with the rest of us. When we marched, they kept up. When we fought, they stood their ground too."

• 1:14:22Jocko Willink?

  "Over the next few days, we continued to attack to the west. It was a knock-down, drag-out slugfest. The North Koreans attacked us with abandon and tried to overwhelm us with numbers. They were fanatical. One regimental commander said after the war that the North Koreans had no consideration for the loss of life. They have no hesitancy in losing 500 lives to gain a small piece of ground."

• 1:14:46Jocko Willink?

  "It took us three more days to take two more North Korean positions. We uncovered large ammunition caches and killed 72 and captured 200.

• 1:14:57Jocko Willink?

  All at a great price. I lost two more men, and the company suffered a total of four killed with 13 wounded. The losses reduced our strength to around 53 men."

• 1:15:11Jocko Willink?

  But the enemy was now on the run and we held the river line. The morale went sky high. So they kind of turned the tables a little bit as they went on the attack and the counteroffensive.

• 1:15:24Jocko Willink?

  And then they're continuing to push. And as they're, as they're heading down the road, all of a sudden, North Korean machine guns started spraying the road. They had us in the open. The North Koreans had us pinned down and unable to push into the village, which is what their, what their objective was. I heard the rumbling first. Peeking over the dike, I saw three Russian-made T-34 tanks. I could tell they were T-34s because of the narrow turret that sat on top of the almost pyramid-shaped body.

• 1:15:59Jocko Willink?

  The tanks had led the charge against Nazi Germany in World War II. The T-34 dominated the German tanks because the Russian tanks could race over the deep mud and snow of the eastern front. After the war, the Soviets sold them to their communist allies. The North Korean invasion was spearheaded by T-34 tanks. The North Korean lead tank was almost on us. It stopped and the main gun started to slowly turn in our direction. I looked at the road and saw a bazooka gunner jump out of the rice paddy, run to the middle of the road, stop, shoulder the tube, aim it at the tank. I thought this guy must have nerves of steel. It was a modern-day David and Goliath. Wham!

• 1:16:44Jocko Willink?

  The rocket smashed into the tank and bounced off. The goddamn thing was a dud, where the gunner was too close and the rockets did not have time to arm. A burst from the tank's machine gun opened up and quickly cut the American gunner down.

• 1:17:00Jocko Willink?

  I scrambled down the muddy dike screaming at Heagley to get his gun up. Machine gun rounds from the tank's gunner sprayed me with mud. "Go for the treads!" I screamed. I watched Healy's assistant gunner slide around into the 57 on his shoulder and tap him on the helmet. I slid to a stop and buried my head in my hands. I felt the concussion before I heard the round race by and hit the tank. The armored Hulk tried to shake off the blast, but when it moved, I watched the tread roll off the wheels. The turret still worked and I could see it move back and forth, searching for targets, staying out of the North Korean sights. I motioned to Walsh to get his gun on the second tank. In minutes, I heard another blast from the 57.

• 1:17:43Jocko Willink?

  Soon, the two tanks unable to get by their crippled mate reversed and headed back to the village.

• 1:17:53Jocko Willink?

  Just taking out tanks with bazookas.

• 1:17:59Jocko Willink?

  Unbelievable. The next morning, we started out toward the hill and the village. A thick early morning fog hung low over the rice paddies. Visibility was zero. We were stiff, wet, and very anxious as we started moving toward the objective. Up ahead, I saw soldiers walk through the North Korean positions and continue toward the village. Climbing like the last dike, we ran up on a road covered in North Korean bodies. They were in a heap, torn apart by shrapnel. Mules and broken equipment sat motionless nearby. Body parts were strewn on both sides of the road. I saw men lying dead and still chained to the machine guns they were pulling. As the fog lifted, the sight became even more gruesome.

• 1:18:43Jocko Willink?

  Our artillery had caught them trying to withdraw. The same scene played over and over again as we moved up the road into the village. We didn't face a fight taking this position.

• 1:19:00Jocko Willink?

  Every mile we moved north, my outlook changed. The whole section looked and acted more self-confident. When we got into a fight, we enjoyed it. The killing was quickly becoming revenge rather than necessity rather than necessity to gain ground and drive the North Koreans out. We were still being killed, only now we were the aggressors and they were dying in their holes. I knew we were better fighters and had held them under tremendous odds. Now the tables were turned and they did not have the will or resolve to accomplish what we had in Pusan during the darkest days of summer. So the momentum's kind of changed and these guys are feeling feeling good about the whole situation.

• 1:19:45Jocko Willink?

  As they and there's something good, there's something that feels good about being on offense, right? Being on offenses is where we want to be. We don't want to be on defense. And this confidence continues as they continue to advance. Early the next morning, we were back on foot, advancing toward the North Koreans behind the three American tanks. We were receiving heavy artillery fire and tried to stay close to the tanks, hoping the army would shield us from the shrapnel flying through the air. One second I was looking back to make sure Walsh's squad was keeping up and the next I was stunned. A shell landed on the tank, sending shrapnel and fire into the air. The explosion was deafening and I stumbled back, dazed.

• 1:20:26Jocko Willink?

  Falling down in the tracks behind the tank, I saw the crew crawling out of the escape hatch. Machine gun fire was kicking up dirt all around me as I hugged the ground. I could see two tankers lying under the tank. They were wounded and couldn't crawl away from the Hulk. Walsh, I screamed, help me get these guys. A couple of artillery rounds landed on the road. I felt a sharp, hot pain in my left shoulder. You all right? Walsh asked as he raced to my side. Yeah, I said, shaking my head, trying to reassure him. I didn't have time to worry about it. The machine gun rounds pinged off the armor as I crawled underneath the tank and grabbed one of the tankers by his collar. Pain shot through my arm and my shoulder felt hot and weak.

• 1:21:12Jocko Willink?

  I let go but hung on with my good hand. Walsh grabbed the other tanker and we dragged the pair into a nearby ditch. Medic, medic, I screamed.

• 1:21:23Jocko Willink?

  So this, again, there's this like heroism after heroism after heroism in this book. And I brought, bring up some of them, but I don't bring up all of them because we just don't have, I'm not going to read the whole book. You gotta buy the book.

• 1:21:39Jocko Willink?

  Continuing, I squatted down and tried to take off my gear and jacket so the medic could get to the wound. Because obviously he got hit in the shoulder. My left hand shook as I peeled off the shirt, now a few shades darker from the blood. The medic arrived with Walsh. He wiped away the blood with a wad of gauze and started to bandage the gash. It was on the backside of my shoulder and I couldn't see the wound.

• 1:22:02Jocko Willink?

  A few pieces of shrapnel, the medic said. You can move it, right? Probably nothing torn or broken.

• 1:22:12Jocko Willink?

  So now he's, you know, he's wounded, not too severe.

• 1:22:17Jocko Willink?

  Not exactly a good deal, though. You know, you think about, you think about you're in an athletic competition, which is what this is. And on top of that, there's a massive amount of mental stress. And on top of that, you gotta make decisions. And on top of that, you get, you get a big gash in your shoulder.

• 1:22:36Jocko Willink?

  A couple of days later, we were, we sat overlooking the thirty eighth parallel. We'd pushed the North Koreans back now and awaited orders to attack. Sitting in my foxhole, I watched as the full moon began to rise. I got the feeling that there was something safe and secure as it washed gently over us. I felt like God was protecting us or surely trying to help. At least he'd kept me alive.

• 1:23:00Jocko Willink?

  Even though my shoulder throbbed. If only we were back home, we could all go to sleep under the moon's calming light.

• 1:23:09Jocko Willink?

  And wake up safe to the warmth of the sun.

• 1:23:17Jocko Willink?

  Now that shoulder wound that he kind of blew off actually isn't, is not all that good. He starts getting a little, uh, starts getting a little infection in it, passes out from it. I woke up this time, they carried me back to the battalion's aid station. The medic set the stretcher on a dirt floor. Doctor comes in, you're lucky. Had you waited any longer, the infection would have spread. Some time goes by, the next day I felt fine. The doctors had me on a Jell-O diet. So when the doctor came on, came on his rounds, I told him I wanted to leave. I need to go back to my unit, I said.

• 1:23:55Jocko Willink?

  Typical fashion. The, uh, of the, uh, American doughboy, the American grunt. They get wounded, what do they want to do? They want to go back. They want to go back with their team, and that's exactly what he, what he does. And a couple of days later, he gets back with his unit. And of course, what are they doing? They're going on attack. And as they're going on attack, back to the book, all of a sudden, there was a thunderous roar as an artillery barrage hit us. I was blown straight up in the air. My feet were over my head. I came down on my shoulder and my head. The mud softened the blow. Grabbing my helmet, I yelled for my section to run forward out of the kill zone.

• 1:24:37Jocko Willink?

  Three guys in front of me and two behind me were wounded. I could hear them moaning as they clutched their stomachs and legs. I checked myself, I had escaped without a scratch. Medics hurried to the downed men. I, I looked back and saw Heegly standing, dazed. "Get moving!" I yelled. He looked at me with a funny expression on his face and then looked down at his waist. He'd been hit by shrapnel in the stomach. I could see the blood soaking through his fatigues. "I'm hit, Rich." "Get down," I said, and I hollered, "Medic!" Heegly fell to his knees and rolled over onto his back.

• 1:25:22Jocko Willink?

  I was torn. I wanted to run to him, but I had to keep the rest of the section moving. It was one of those choices that you never want to make. I saw the medics coming and turned to join the other men. "Good luck, buddy. See you later," I screamed over my shoulder. I couldn't look back, but I knew I'd probably never see Heegly again. A stomach wound, I thought, "Jesus Christ, I hope he makes it." I wanted to sit down and cry, but this was not the time or place for that. I had damn near lost a whole squad.

• 1:26:11Jocko Willink?

  There was only one way to go at the hill, so now they're trying to take the hill. There's only one way to go at the hill and it was straightforward. I looked across the open space we were going to cross. There was little cover. This was going to be tough. There was no time to dwell on Heegly or our dwindling numbers. The longer we sat behind the railroad embankment, the tougher it would be to get started. Bromser was waiting to get artillery support, the same guys I had dinner with. I hope they remembered what I told them and come through. Leaning back against the embankment, I saw Allen and the Korean hustling across the field, each carrying two-pack boards with ammo. "Get ready," Bromser said. I gripped my rifle and closed my eyes.

• 1:26:54Jocko Willink?

  My mind knew going forward was crazy, but I willed my legs to move. Soon I was running and leading the rest of the section across the paddies. Mortar and artillery fire crashed around me, but I didn't notice. I only saw the flashes of the North Korean machine guns ahead of me. I stayed close to Mac. I could hear him hollering at his squad to move. To my right, I saw that Walsh was right beside us. He had his squad moving. It all seemed almost normal. It was just another day, another attack. So you're getting mortar and artillery fire crashing all around you, but you're not paying attention to that? Because you're really paying attention to the damn muzzle flashes

• 1:27:37Jocko Willink?

  from the Korean machine guns that are right in front of you. When they end up pulling off that attack, and again, get the book so you can get some of those details. When the attack's complete, he writes, "I was not a religious person, but I felt like one that day. I gave thanks with Walsh for our gift of life. After services that evening, we turned in our basic load of ammunition." Another sure sign that it was over. So, just to rehash that last little statement. They're turning in their ammunition. Because they're getting a positive feeling, like they've been doing this good fighting, they've been on the pursuit, and they were kind of on the defensive in the beginning, and now they go back on the counterattack, and now they're feeling pretty good,

• 1:28:21Jocko Willink?

  and now they get, "Hey, you know what? You can turn in your ammunition." Think about that.

• 1:28:29Jocko Willink?

  But back to the book, that night we got orders to move, but not home. We were headed north to the town of Ussan.

• 1:28:39Jocko Willink?

  I was a corporal when we arrived in Korea. Now, less than sixty-seven days later, I was going to be a master sergeant, the army's highest non-commissioned officers rank.

• 1:28:52Jocko Willink?

  The promotions couldn't have come at a better time. With the war winding down, I was sure this would be the last of the fast promotions. So, he's actually, again, these guys think that they're doing a good job and they kind of think that things are heading in their direction. And, yeah, nineteen fifty, I mean, we know just from history that this war is not even close to over yet. And, yeah, but that's the way they're feeling. And can you imagine, I mean, he's, he's at the highest, he's, he's, he's a master sergeant right now. Sixty-seven days, he got promoted through all the ranks. That's how many guys, that's how many guys were wounded or killed. That they needed him to be promoted, to run these, uh, units.

• 1:29:35Jocko Willink?

  So, they now get sent into a position where they're holding a bridge. And while they're holding this bridge, he sends a couple of guys out on recon to take a look around. And they come back and he says, what the hell is that? I asked him. It's just an old glove and a shovel. It's all wet, it's probably been there for weeks. He said in a defiant tone, and that's one of the guys that were on the recon talking, that was on the recon talking. It didn't look like any glove I had seen before. It was large and padded. What else did you find? I shot back. Just some old positions, nothing to worry about. I was a little concerned now and continued to quiz him on how many holes there were up there. Around five or six, the sergeant said. Was the dirt wet or dry?

• 1:30:20Jocko Willink?

  God damn it, I don't know. It was pitch black. I'm telling you, there's nothing up on that fucking hill. The smug sergeant snapped at me.

• 1:30:29Jocko Willink?

  You can guess what's coming. You find a shovel up there, guess what's going on? They're digging in, that's what's going on. They're digging in. And these gloves, these kind of heavy gloves, um, you know, probably resupplied from the Chinese, because that's why I didn't recognize them. So they hadn't really encountered the Chinese yet, that were about to attack in massive numbers.

• 1:30:52Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book.

• 1:30:55Jocko Willink?

  Around 4 a.m. the hill erupted. Four machine guns from the high hills on the south end of the bridge opened up. Two guns cross firing on each end of the bridge. The tracers from the machine gun were skipping off the concrete like firecrackers. My guys quickly manned the 57 recoilless rifle and got off a few rounds. It did little. Immediately, we started getting hit with mortar fire. My radio was shot up and I tried to get the company on the landline, but it was out too. My mind was on my men. I'd lost two in the opening barrage and I had lost track of the two men on the south side of the bridge. This attack didn't make sense. Too much firepower for a few stragglers. So he's again looking back to the recon report that he got.

• 1:31:40Jocko Willink?

  It looked like the 4th of July fireworks as tracers skipped off the concrete, but I soon realized that some of the fire was coming from our left flank. Jesus Christ, it was our own company firing at us. So we got a little blue on blue going down, which again, for folks that are in the military, blue on blue is a real thing. And if you don't pay attention and you don't plan for it, it can absolutely happen to you. You know, Leif was saying that the other day. If you would have asked him before we went on deployment, what are the chances that you're involved in a blue on blue? Situation before we went on deployment, Leif would have been like, no chance. That would never happen to us and during deployment. You know, there was, there was the, I think we talked about three blue on blue possibilities.

• 1:32:23Jocko Willink?

  Well, one real and then two possibilities in the, in extreme ownership. And you know, one is the opening story of blue on blue. One is Leif with Chris Kyle, who's getting ready to take a shot. And you know, Leif is basically getting asked, hey, take that guy out. And Leif puts the brakes on it and it turns out being friendly US Army soldiers. And then one where I got guys on the rooftop of a building and there's a Bradley fighting vehicle that's wanting to engage it with 25 millimeter chain gun. And they're looking, they're reporting that they're looking at one building, but they're actually look, and I'm, and all indications are yes, you can engage. Those are enemy snipers on that rooftop, take them out.

• 1:33:06Jocko Willink?

  But on the same block, a few buildings down, it was actually considered, it was actually like probably. A couple blocks away was my guys. And that gunner in that Bradley that was reporting it, he just got a little bit, a little bit off on which building was which building.

• 1:33:23Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. So he was actually pointing at one building and just thought he was.

• 1:33:28Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, so he, he's looking through, they have really good imagery on those buildings, especially the thermo. So you can see like white hot. And he's looking at a building down this long street. And he's reporting, I don't, I forget what the buildings were, but the building, he's, you know, reporting building 50, I got enemy, enemy personnel on the rooftop. And my guys were in building 100.

• 1:33:50Jocko Willink?

  So he's asking, does anyone have any true, you know, any friendly troops in building 50? No, no one has any troops in building 50. Oh, there's, there's enemy with, with scoped weapons there. And everyone's thinking, hey, this is the sniper that's been killing our guys, by the way, right?

• 1:34:06Jocko Willink?

  Let's take him out. And then, yeah, and what I actually told him to do, I was like, hey, before, and, and the reason I, I was heads up was because we had blue on blue. I knew that this was a possibility. So I said, count the buildings from your intersection up to the target building. And so that it just went quiet for a little while. And he comes back, he's like, stand by. Because he caught himself, you know, because you can see on the battle map, it's like, okay, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. And that's what, whatever, he gets to 12, and he's like, oh, wait, I'm in the wrong spot. And you realized it. It's just like a, you know, so stood him down.

• 1:34:46Jocko Willink?

  But yeah, you don't want to be on a rooftop getting hit with 50 or 25 millimeter chain gun from a Bradley fighting vehicle. It's not going to be a good situation.

• 1:34:52Speaker 01

  No, sir.

• 1:34:53Jocko Willink?

  At all. And so the same thing's going on here. You got firefight going on at night. You got troops moving around and these guys are getting lit up by their own men.

• 1:35:03Jocko Willink?

  All kinds of ways tactically to de-conflict these things, but you have to pay attention to it. And one of the things you have to do is you have to have the humility to recognize that it can actually happen.

• 1:35:17Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book, the Koreans were all over the place. Mac was hit worse than he thought. I could feel his back, it was drenched in blood. He started to choke, I talked to him, but he didn't answer. I laid him down and at the same time hollered to the rest of the men to pull in tighter around the road.

• 1:35:34Jocko Willink?

  I had four men left. Our two Jeeps were shot up, one was on fire.

• 1:35:40Jocko Willink?

  I knew at this point, we could not hold the bridge. Get the breach, get the breach block from the 57 and throw it in the river, I yelled to my guys.

• 1:35:50Jocko Willink?

  So, so that's sort of like, that's like one of those, when you make that call right there, which is disable our weapon permanently, because we're gonna not make it. We don't want the enemy to be able to use this when they capture it in a matter of minutes. That's what he's saying, is, you know, get the breach block out and throw it in the river.

• 1:36:14Jocko Willink?

  And then, of course, the North Koreans attacked again and got within 20 feet before we stopped them. I rushed to the other side of the road and got slammed to the ground from an explosion. Confused, I stumbled into a nearby ditch. My head was ringing, I checked Mac, he was dead. And so were the other two men on his side of the road. With only two men left, we had to leave the bridge. I shoved a grenade in the breach of the 57. The grenade exploded, destroying the gun.

• 1:36:43Jocko Willink?

  And we started pushing up the ditch away from the bridge. I couldn't see or hear anything.

• 1:36:52Jocko Willink?

  We had not gone very far when the point man told me someone was coming down the ditch toward us. I took a knee and readied my rifle. Hold your fire until they get closer, I whispered. The point man yelled quickly back. Sarge, their own guys, two, two of them from battalion. Come over here, what's going on, I barked at them. The men looked crazed. Both were talking a mile a minute and I tried to settle them down. Look, take it easy, I told them, slowly tell me what you know. The battalion got hit. They were in the headquarters before we knew it. The whole damn place was a mess, one of the soldiers said. They were dead and wounded all over. Everything was shot up.

• 1:37:35Jocko Willink?

  It looked like an artillery barrage made a direct hit. It was total chaos. What are you two trying to do? I asked. They said they were trying to make contact with someone. Sarge, I'm Taylor, one of Walsh's men. The other guy is from First Battalion. In the dark, I didn't recognize him. Where's Walsh? They're all dead, Sarge, Taylor said.

• 1:38:09Jocko Willink?

  So they make movement towards that battalion headquarters area. And there's still some friendlies there. We stumbled into the battalion headquarters area and I introduced myself and asked Jones what the situation was. It was not good. There were thirty or forty wounded or dead. Doc Anderson and the chaplain are in the command post trying to take care of the wounded. Jones thought the battalion commander was dead. They just walked in on them and shot up the whole damn place. So at this point, they kind of ziggy out of there into a tree line.

• 1:38:53Jocko Willink?

  And we got into the wood line and threw ourselves to the ground completely exhausted. And from there, the chaplain moved on to another position. But before he left, he told me we were fighting the Chinese. We'd heard rumors about the Chinese soldiers coming over the border. That pretty much confirmed what I had thought for the last couple of hours. Jones had basically told me when he mentioned that their quilted uniform jackets looked much different than the North Koreans. First Lieutenant Phil Peterson and Walt Mayo had also scrambled into our perimeter. Both officers were artillery forward observers but had lost their radios in the confusion.

• 1:39:36Jocko Willink?

  They'd gotten reports hours before the attack that the Chinese were in the area. The Chinese soldiers had crossed the Yalu to protect electrical generators along the river. That night Peterson had seen a Chinese prisoner in his quilted jacket, but had no idea the danger we were in. They'd been ordered back to the battalion and then tried to escape when artillery unit tried to save their own howitzers. But the Chinese had already cut the road.

• 1:40:08Jocko Willink?

  We were trapped.

• 1:40:11Jocko Willink?

  For the rest of the day, we set up our defenses. We knew the Chinese would come for us that night. So that's it. Right now, they're surrounded. And

• 1:40:24Jocko Willink?

  they set up a perimeter to the best of their ability. And they got a bunch of wounded. They're low on ammunition. They're low on food. They're low on water. And so a perimeter is basically, for those of you that don't know, you set up 360 degree security perimeter. You dig some foxholes. You put machine guns pointing out. It's your last stand situation now. It doesn't always the last stand because when you're on a normal patrol, you set up a perimeter. Anytime you stop, you set up 360 degree security.

• 1:40:53Jocko Willink?

  And in this situation, that's what they're doing. They're set up their perimeter to the best of their ability with what they've got left. And then there's a little command post in the center of the perimeter. And here we go back to the book. Inside the command post, I knew what the officers were talking about.

• 1:41:09Jocko Willink?

  It was a forbidden subject. What were we going to do with the wounded in the terrible final moment that everyone knew was coming? The battalion surgeon, Doc Anderson, and the chaplain were doing what they could for about 40 wounded men. But we couldn't hold out for long without a relief column. Meaning people coming to back them up. And if we had to run, the wounded officers were going to have to decide whether or not to leave themselves and the other wounded men behind to the mercies of the enemy.

• 1:41:47Jocko Willink?

  And, once he kinda hears that, inside the center of the perimeter during the, at the command post there, he goes back out to his edge of the perimeter.

• 1:41:59Jocko Willink?

  And then, here we go back to the book. "I saw a group of twenty men running right at us. They were Americans, and were hollering and waving at us. I prayed they were the lead element of a relief column." Because of course, they're hearing rumors that someone's gonna come, there's friendlies on the way, that's what they're getting, they're kinda, and it, I wasn't clear where they were getting those rumors from, or whether they were just assuming, like, "Hey, we're here, Americans are gonna come to get us, they've gotta be sending a relief battalion, we just need to hang on." So that's what he's saying. "I prayed that they were the lead element of a relief column." "The other guys were cheering them on as they made the short dash to our trench. They slid inside, their chests heaving."

• 1:42:44Jocko Willink?

  "What unit are you guys from?" I asked. "Second of the eighth," an officer said between deep breaths. "The stragglers pushed by us, and collapsed in the center of the perimeter. Everyone's morale sank lower than whale shit. The energy and excitement seemed to deflate from the men in the trench, and all at once their heads hung, and shoulders dipped. These guys weren't a relief column. They were just more stragglers, from the Second Battalion. I couldn't shake the thought...

• 1:43:20Jocko Willink?

  ...that no one was coming for us."

• 1:43:33Jocko Willink?

  There's a soldier that he talks about, a Polish guy, I mean, American guy, but of Polish descent, last name's Wallach.

• 1:43:42Jocko Willink?

  Later that day, so now they're in their perimeter. Later that day, Wallock sent for me. I walked across the west side of the perimeter and saw him standing near a machine gun position. He looked concerned and started pointing out towards what looked like an open field.

• 1:43:56Jocko Willink?

  "Look over there," he said. I watched where he was pointing. I didn't see anything. I looked at him and shrugged my soldiers. "No, keep looking," he said this time staring intently.

• 1:44:08Jocko Willink?

  Then I saw it. A faint shovel full of dirt flying right into the air. The little bastards were digging a trench. There were about a half dozen or so digging a path right for us. Our machine guns had been keeping them at a distance, but when their trench was done, they could move undercover right up to the edge of our trenches.

• 1:44:31Jocko Willink?

  So that's a determined enemy. They're just gonna spend all day digging toward you. As clandestine as they can, but they can only keep it so clandestine and no one, only one soldier noticed.

• 1:44:48Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book. Sunset was a bad time. Night always meant another attack. It started with a probe. A few Chinese soldiers would move up to the perimeter, followed by a short and violent firefight. Shortly after the probe, the artillery and mortar fire would start, followed by the demonic ball of brass bugles and whistles as the Chinese infantry attacked.

• 1:45:12Jocko Willink?

  And now he's talking about his guys. "The men looked at me with weary and tired eyes. All of us had scruffy beards and our skin was caked with mud and blood. None of the soldiers could look at me.

• 1:45:23Jocko Willink?

  They knew that they wouldn't survive unless they got up and fought, but they just sat there.

• 1:45:29Jocko Willink?

  They were not cowards, just frozen by fear. For some, this was their first taste of combat, boys who overnight were forced to become men. I could only imagine the terror they must have been through, must have been going through." "You've got two choices," I yelled. "Get up and get to the line, or I'll shoot you."

• 1:45:51Jocko Willink?

  That shocked them into action. I don't think they thought I would shoot them. I'd no sooner finished prodding the men out of their interior holes than one hell of a fight took place at the battalion command post. I knew there were mostly wounded soldiers there and I feared for Jones, the lone man on the machine gun. But I had my own problems. The bugles and whistles broke the silence and the Chinese rushed the east side of our perimeter. They came in waves straight into our fire. As quickly as they fell, more appeared. They moved into our fire like they were possessed. I raced from trench to trench, moving men where the Chinese concentrated their attack. When their attack on the east side slowed, they launched an attack on the west side.

• 1:46:34Jocko Willink?

  Although we were dug in, our casualties were mounting. I kept moving men to where the most Chinese were concentrated. The attack slowed down, but it was not long before they began an assault on the west side of the perimeter. Now they get this idea, as these attacks were taking place, there's these trucks that were there. Kind of abandoned trucks and they figure it's nighttime if they can set these trucks on fire, then it'll allow them to see the enemy. And so that's what they do. They want, once one of these attacks starts, they, they shot the gas tanks and then shot tracers until all the vehicles were on fire. When the Chinese infantrymen ran past, we could see them silhouetted against the light. It was a shooting gallery.

• 1:47:19Jocko Willink?

  We cut down the first wave only to watch the next ones climb over their comrades and keep coming. We mowed down the next wave, but they still kept coming. For the rest of the night, the Chinese came up at us like waves to the shore. But each time we stopped them, they never reached the perimeter. The next morning, we took stock of our situation. Water and food were a problem, but ammunition and the wounded were our biggest concern. We had eighty-five able-bodied men left out of about two hundred. The rest were dead or wounded. We were also out of morphine and the screams of the wounded were starting to have an impact on the rest of the men.

• 1:48:04Jocko Willink?

  I could see in their eyes a tired, haggard look.

• 1:48:09Jocko Willink?

  A relief column is coming for us. They'll get through today, I told the men as I walked the line. I said it over and over again, hoping to calm them, and, as I realize in hindsight, probably hoping to convince myself. I hope to hell I was right.

• 1:48:29Jocko Willink?

  Now, this is just a little report again about Chaplain Capon, and he gets a report.

• 1:48:41Jocko Willink?

  Richardson gets a report, and it says this: "The doc said that when the Chinese got into the dugout, Chaplain Capon stopped them from killing all the wounded by surrendering himself. The Chinese took him and fifteen of the walking wounded, including my old company commander, Captain Maccabee. What Capon did was heroic, stopping the Chinese."

• 1:49:03Jocko Willink?

  When he left, he was carrying Sergeant Miller. So Chaplain Capon, just, once again, heroic actions, saving the lives of these guys before they were slaughtered by the Chinese by surrendering himself.

• 1:49:21Jocko Willink?

  "When I got back, I organized about a dozen guys to follow me out of the perimeter and gather up some of the Chinese weapons and ammunition. We were out of almost everything, but lying in front of us were weapons and ammunition, including much-needed grenades. Before we left, I told the men to be careful because some of the Chinese might still be alive. It was gruesome business, but the only solution to our most pressing problem. Crawling over piles of dead Chinese, the smell was overpowering. At times, I could hear gas seep out of the decaying corpses. I could hear men behind me gag and throw up."

• 1:50:00Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, so this is like, this is like, you gotta sit around, you gotta, you gotta imagine what this is like, that they are, the Chinese attackers are literally stacked and piled on top of one another, and you're so low that you have to go out and gather weapons and ammunition from them, and as you're doing that, their bloated bodies are giving off gases, and it's, it smells so horrible, and the whole scene is so horrific, that your men are dry-heaving and throwing up as you're trying to do this.

• 1:50:41Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book. For the rest of the morning, we passed out our new trove of ammunition and dug in deeper. As we worked, I heard the faint buzz of an airplane overhead. The spotter plane that had dropped bags of medical supplies was back, so I skipped over this part, but there was a... They got some medical supplies from a little plane. And this time, instead of dropping supplies, it dropped the message. And this time, the pilot dropped it on target. Giroux, Giroux, opened the message. That's one of the other guys, Giroux. I hope I'm pronouncing that right. G-I-R-O-U-X, Giroux. Opened the message. I saw the color leave his face.

• 1:51:21Jocko Willink?

  I knew what the message said before he told me. We were on our own. No relief column was on its way. Our new order was simple. We needed to get back to friendly lines the best way we could. While Giroux got the officers together, I gathered up a few of the sergeants and we had a meeting. "Well, we are on our own." "That message told us to get back the best way we can," I told the sergeants. Wallach was the first one to speak up. "We can't just leave the wounded." "What the hell else are we going to do?" A sergeant I didn't recognize said. The meeting was tense. I realized that what I had been telling them was going to happen wasn't going to. No relief, no rescue.

• 1:52:07Jocko Willink?

  And if we stayed in this hellhole, we would all die. "I don't think we can keep the Chinese out of the perimeter for one... for more than one more night, if we can even do that," I said.

• 1:52:20Jocko Willink?

  There was silence. We were facing death, but bravery is a funny thing. It comes in all shapes and sizes and appears in men you would least expect it from.

• 1:52:34Jocko Willink?

  Most of us didn't know one another, but we fought hard together like we were blood brothers.

• 1:52:41Jocko Willink?

  What do you say about staying one more night? Maybe somehow they'll break through to us tomorrow? I said.

• 1:52:50Jocko Willink?

  Tomorrow? We talk about the wounded.

• 1:52:55Jocko Willink?

  Wallach nodded his head and looked at the others. I'm for staying one more night. Everyone quickly agreed. No one wanted to leave the wounded. I told Guro the way the men felt, and after he met with Bronzer, Mayo, and Peterson, they all agreed. No one was comfortable leaving our wounded or the wounded nearby in the battalion headquarters.

• 1:53:17Jocko Willink?

  The Chinese... That night, the Chinese attacked three times, and three times we held. But not without suffering more casualties.

• 1:53:27Jocko Willink?

  After the last attack, I literally fell into a hole near the center of the perimeter. I was fighting a losing battle against sleep. I could feel myself slipping away. My body felt numb, damp, and heavy.

• 1:53:43Jocko Willink?

  There was no noise, no sound.

• 1:53:47Jocko Willink?

  I was paralyzed, and the harder I tried to move, the more I felt, the more my body felt like stone. I tried to scream. Nothing. I tried harder, I couldn't make a sound.

• 1:53:59Jocko Willink?

  Bugles in the distance cleared my hazy mind. I could hear the burp-burp of Chinese submachine guns, but the co- but not the constant rattle of our own machine gun closest to me. I instantly got a sick feeling. I bolted out of the trench and crawled toward the machine gun position and fell into the hole headfirst. The gunner was wounded, and the assistant gunner was trying to put the gun back into action. There was ammo, but the gun was jammed. I racked it back, nothing. The headspace was screwed up. The Chinese were the, were the, the Chinese were within twenty yards of us, and I was screaming for the men to keep firing. I pulled the gun into the hole and started to take it apart. I adjusted the headspace, put the barrel and chamber in alignment, and reassembled it.

• 1:54:43Jocko Willink?

  The A gunner, the, the assistant gunner, laid the ammo belt in and slapped the cover down. I racked the bolt back and pulled the trigger. The gun jumped back to life. The fire immediately had an impact and drove a wedge into the advancing soldiers. The first book, the first burst took out half a dozen. Some of the wounded and dead Chinese fell into our trenches. Others crumbled in a heap near the edge, close enough that we could reach out and touch them.

• 1:55:11Jocko Willink?

  I looked down and saw that the gunner was dead. The A gunner was hit in the arms and I could see blood staining his fatigue jacket, but he kept firing his rifle and replacing ammo belts when the machine gun went dry.

• 1:55:25Jocko Willink?

  Just as fast as it started, the attack ended. There was some sporadic firing from the other side of the perimeter. A couple of guys close to the gun position came over to me and took over. As I headed back to my hole, I crawled over several dead American and Chinese.

• 1:55:46Jocko Willink?

  Every trench and hole seemed to be filled with wounded men screaming and crying for their mothers.

• 1:55:55Jocko Willink?

  Always their mothers.

• 1:55:59Jocko Willink?

  We had an added problem now, since some of the wounded were Chinese soldiers. The dead were not a problem, we just pushed them out in front of the trench, but the wounded, we had to help if we could.

• 1:56:13Jocko Willink?

  The medics did their best, but we barely had enough for our own men.

• 1:56:18Jocko Willink?

  The Chinese were all scared to death, crying and moaning.

• 1:56:24Jocko Willink?

  They were the enemy, but they were also soldiers just like us. And it was difficult to see them that way.

• 1:56:41Jocko Willink?

  The next morning, Bromser and Gero called me over to them. The two artillery lieutenants Mayo and Peterson were also there, Gero said what we all knew. "We can't stay here any longer. There is no doubt in my mind that the Chinese will overrun us tonight," he said. "We need to find a way out." "Will you lead a patrol?" "Lieutenants Mayo and Peterson have already volunteered to go."

• 1:57:07Jocko Willink?

  I looked at the lieutenants and nodded my head yes.

• 1:57:12Jocko Willink?

  So they're gonna try and find a way out of this perimeter.

• 1:57:19Jocko Willink?

  And they're going to do a little reconnaissance tonight or or now to try and figure out their route. So that then later they can get out of there and come up with a plan to get out of there.

• 1:57:31Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book as we and so they're crawling down a trench to try and look for the for the way out. As we crawled down the trench toward the east side, word got out that we were going on patrol.

• 1:57:42Jocko Willink?

  Peterson crawled by a badly wounded radio operator. Lieutenant Peterson, where are you going? Looking for a way out, he said. Lieutenant Peterson, the radio operator pleaded, please don't leave me here. Please don't leave me. You can't leave me here for them to get me.

• 1:58:01Jocko Willink?

  Peterson looked shaken and I urged us forward. I heard him say he was sorry as we crawled off.

• 1:58:09Jocko Willink?

  Others reached out to us, patted us on the back.

• 1:58:14Jocko Willink?

  And wished us good luck.

• 1:58:17Jocko Willink?

  As we moved down the riverbed, the Chinese soldiers grabbed at us and held out cups begging for water. I took my canteen and turned it upside down to show them that we had no water. So there's the enemy. They're also wounded, laying in these trenches. It's just a total bloodbath. And the Chinese soldiers are asking these Americans. And you can you can even imagine what these guys look like at this point? They've been fighting for weeks on end. They have no water. They've had no food. They're out of ammunition. They're covered in blood. I mean, Richardson's actually wounded. And a sorry state they're in. You got the Chinese soldiers that are even worse state begging for water.

• 1:59:03Jocko Willink?

  So these guys find a route and I don't want to make it sound like they found some easy escape route. That's gonna work. They found a possible way of getting out of this perimeter.

• 1:59:14Jocko Willink?

  And when they get back.

• 1:59:17Jocko Willink?

  They, they come back and put out the word like, okay, this is what we're gonna try and do. And it's Guro talking. He says, "We move at seventeen hundred before the Chinese move in." Guro said, "Word was passed to all able-bodied men. They were told to make sure that they took what ammunition they had left.

• 1:59:43Jocko Willink?

  I got a burp gun and some ammo."

• 1:59:48Jocko Willink?

  "The wounded men knew what was happening.

• 1:59:52Jocko Willink?

  Some broke down, cried, and begged us not to leave. 'Please, dear God, take us,' one soldier begged me, grabbing at my shirt. 'Don't leave us to the Chinese.'"

• 2:00:06Jocko Willink?

  "Others just watched in silence. They knew they'd slow us down.

• 2:00:14Jocko Willink?

  They also knew that they'd be dead soon.

• 2:00:19Jocko Willink?

  They simply asked that we come back for them.

• 2:00:24Jocko Willink?

  But I knew we were leaving them to die or worse, get captured.

• 2:00:29Jocko Willink?

  I knew my orders and agreed with them.

• 2:00:34Jocko Willink?

  But I couldn't shake the feeling that I was leaving so many good men. Men who'd fought well only to be left behind to die.

• 2:00:43Jocko Willink?

  I wasn't sure I could ever forget this.

• 2:00:49Jocko Willink?

  This was the hardest thing I had done in my short lifetime."

• 2:00:59Jocko Willink?

  This is your classic scenario of, hey, what do we do? We, you know, we leave no man behind. So then what's gonna happen if they do that is everyone is going to die.

• 2:01:12Jocko Willink?

  And they make the decision. Now, we could have a theoretical debate on, well, maybe if they fought it out, maybe if they stuck together, maybe they could defeat the Chinese that are surrounding them. In my estimation, this is wrong. And you can see, these guys already stayed longer. They've already done everything that they can. They're out of ammunition. They're surrounded by Chinese. The Chinese have unlimited number of men that are literally in piles around them. And they know that if they are going to, if anyone is going to survive, then they need to make a break for it. And again, it's theoretical for us that is sitting here. It's hypothetical. We could say, oh, we'd stay and fight. We could say whatever you want to say right now. You're

• 2:01:57Jocko Willink?

  not in that position.

• 2:02:04Jocko Willink?

  So now, they leave at around 5 o'clock. They start making a move. A few hours into the march, the rain turned into a downpour. In minutes, we were soaked to the skin. The temperature was dropping and started, and I started to shiver. Moving was the only way to stay warm. I pushed on, trying to get as many miles as possible between us and the old perimeter. We were well behind Chinese lines. And because of the size of our group, it was likely that we'd be spotted soon. Now, this is interesting. Trying to move with, I think they said they had 80 able-bodied men, maybe it's 60. That's a massive number of people. You can't hide 60 people. It doesn't work. You can, well, I shouldn't say you can't.

• 2:02:45Jocko Willink?

  It's very, very difficult to hide 60 people. Like a platoon of 40 guys, like it, it's hard. You know, in the SEAL teams, we have little tiny elements, little tiny platoons of 16 guys. You can find some terrain that will, that will hide you. We work in squads with eight guys. Like, okay, we can, we can find a place to hide. When you have 60 or 80 guys behind enemy lines, that's going to be a challenge. I mean, just think about where can you hide that many people? A perfect terrain feature, a ravine, you know, something like that. That's a lot of people to put in a ravine and just the noise discipline. Of people, you know, who who's gonna cough? You get sixty people, someone's gonna cough. I mean, just you and me sitting in this room and we notice when one of us coughs because

• 2:03:30Jocko Willink?

  or when one of us grunts or whatever, because we're recording it. But you think about, you know, you and I sitting here for two hours, for three hours. I would say five times during that, one of us will cough. Right? And you gotta go edit it out.

• 2:03:46Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 2:03:47Jocko Willink?

  So if that's happening with two of us, you put eighty people into a ravine where they're trying to hide from the enemy. And there's, how many people are coughing? You know, how many people are are sneezing? Right? And it's not, it's not good odds. And that's where these guys are saying, is Richardson saying, look, we have a massive group and it's not gonna be easy to uh, to hide. Back to the book, we need to get moving to take advantage of the dark. I left the house, they'd been in a little house, speaking of hiding. I left the house frustrated. Sergeant Mayor from the battalion's intelligence section called me over. Let's get out of here, he said. You and I have a better chance to get back. This group is too large.

• 2:04:29Jocko Willink?

  We don't have the firepower to fight and they're slowing us down. So here's a guy saying, look, bro, let's just make a run for it. He was right. I knew that we'd probably make it back to friendly lines together. Breaking down into smaller groups would be better. But I'd helped shepherd these men too far to turn my back on them, even if it cost me my life. Sorry, can't do it. Mayor shrugged and disappeared into the darkness. So, exactly what I just said, this guy made the decision, you know what? Now going alone, that's not a good idea either. You know, cuz now you got no one to support you, you got no one to watch your six. I mean, that's just a bad idea.

• 2:05:11Jocko Willink?

  You can't, you're gonna need to sleep at some point and you're by yourself. What happens when you start snoring? Right?

• 2:05:18Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 2:05:19Jocko Willink?

  But this guy figured I got a better chance of doing this by myself, so I'm gonna break out. Now you could have given an order like, hey, everyone, there's something called escape and evasion, when you just, everyone, it's basically every man for himself. You could do that, but at this point, Richardson is like, hey, we made it this far. We're gonna, we're gonna stick together. Back to the book, my group climbed to the top of a knoll. I could see the rounds hitting a mountain no more than five miles away. We were close, for the first time I felt hope.

• 2:05:51Jocko Willink?

  Then, the hill erupted with machine gun and mortar fire. I was knocked flat on my face, I quickly got up and just as quickly got back down in the prone position. The Chinese were shelling the hill, my lower back felt wet and I could feel what I thought was sweat running down the crack of my ass. It wasn't sweat, it was blood. I was hit but I didn't feel anything, there was so much smoke, dirt and dust that I could barely see, I stumbled off the hill followed by three others. There were about a dozen Chinese soldiers chasing us. I prodded myself to think and move. We started to head for a village on the other side of the road. Behind the village, I could see a massive rice paddy that ran up to a hill. I figured we could escape it if we got over the hill first.

• 2:06:35Jocko Willink?

  The paddy had about three or four inches of water in it. We stayed on the tops of the dikes and got halfway across the paddy before I turned to fire back. The Chinese soldiers dove for cover, when they did, we started running again. As I was running, I saw rounds hitting the water in front of me.

• 2:06:57Jocko Willink?

  It's not good.

• 2:07:01Jocko Willink?

  When we got to the other side, we got down behind the dike and started firing at the Chinese again. I didn't see anyone behind them. If we could take them out, we had a chance. But the others didn't have any ammunition left and I was down to a few rounds myself.

• 2:07:20Jocko Willink?

  "Get going", I said. "I'll hold them off." They looked at me for a second. "Go!", I screamed and turned toward the Chinese soldiers crossing the paddy. I fired a few shots and then dove behind a dike. A few seconds later, I fired two more bursts before I was out of ammunition.

• 2:07:41Jocko Willink?

  Between bursts, my mind was searching for an escape route. I knew that if I ran straight up the hill, I didn't stand a chance. About thirty yards to my right, there was a house. A woman and a baby were crying and wailing in a dugout near the hill. I went into the house. If I went into the house, I was sure the woman would tell them. But I couldn't stay behind the dike with no ammunition. Jumping up, I ran behind the house and started up the hill. I tried to keep the house at my back, hoping to mask my movement. I went as far as I could go without the Chinese seeing me, and then dove into a large bush. Rolling onto my stomach with my Chinese burp gun underneath me, I waited. I had no ammo, but I had a death grip on the weapon.

• 2:08:25Jocko Willink?

  It was like my security blanket. I could hear the Chinese soldiers climbing up the hill. They were yelling at one another.

• 2:08:34Jocko Willink?

  I was trying not to move, not even breathe. A fly hovered around my face, landing on my nose and mouth. I tried to keep my mind closed to everything. I closed my eyes as they passed and took my first breath as I heard their yelling behind me.

• 2:08:54Jocko Willink?

  In a few minutes, I was sure they were gone.

• 2:08:59Jocko Willink?

  But every unit has one. A straggler that can't keep up. The Chinese straggler was so slow that when he got close to the bush, he saw me.

• 2:09:12Jocko Willink?

  I never moved and just shut my eyes. He started to holler and drove his bayonet into my butt. I felt the tip hit the bone.

• 2:09:21Jocko Willink?

  When I opened my eyes, I saw boots all around me. My mind went to the burp gun. If I rolled over, holding it, they'd shoot me for sure.

• 2:09:32Jocko Willink?

  I shot my arms out along the ground and rolled over, leaving the burp gun in the mud.

• 2:09:39Jocko Willink?

  They reached down and jerked me up.

• 2:09:49Jocko Willink?

  The barrel of the pistol looked like the business end of a 105mm howitzer. A Chinese officer with red piping down the side of his pants had the pistol pressed between my eyes. He was screaming at me in Chinese and pointing up the hill. I was numb and couldn't speak. I lifted my shoulders and let them drop. I thought of this moment many times. And I know that if he pulled the trigger, I would never have known it. That would have been the end. I'd been captured now and I had no idea what to do. At least when I was on the run, I knew where I was going. Even fighting for my life was easier than giving up all control.

• 2:10:31Jocko Willink?

  I was now at the mercy of the Chinese.

• 2:10:36Jocko Willink?

  So there you go. Captured. Fought until he's literally out of ammunition and there's nothing else he can do. Nothing else he can do.

• 2:10:52Jocko Willink?

  Ends up, they muster some other guys that got captured, they muster them all together. Now we're going back to the book. There were about 10 Chinese guards. They lined up us, they lined up beside us and moved us down the road a couple hundred yards. Suddenly, the one in the lead started yelling and the whole column stopped. The guards grabbed us and made us kneel down in front of a ditch. I could hear one of the soldiers barking what sounded like orders in Chinese. My mind went on full alert. They were going to execute us.

• 2:11:29Jocko Willink?

  I felt the guy next to me shaking and another started sobbing. My god, this is it. This is one of those situations where you expect to see your life flash before your eyes. I was ready to relive scenes from my childhood. Good times in Austria, anything to take my mind from Korea and this ditch.

• 2:11:53Jocko Willink?

  It didn't happen to me. I just closed my eyes.

• 2:11:59Jocko Willink?

  Instead of shots, I heard laughing.

• 2:12:04Jocko Willink?

  They motioned for us to get up. The guy next to me was so emotionally drained that he couldn't get up. I tried to help him, but my hands were tied behind my back. Get up, I yelled. Don't let them laugh at you. Get up.

• 2:12:26Jocko Willink?

  They get to like a little building and they'd been carrying captured rifles this whole time. So they get to a little building and back to the book, the Chinese dropped the pile of rice on the ground and motioned for us to eat it. The prisoners rushed in and started fighting over the grains. I staggered back from the melee and angrily watched. We'd been turned into animals. After all we'd been through, why were, why were the others not helping one another?

• 2:12:56Jocko Willink?

  Instead, they pushed and fought. I refused to join in. We needed leadership and control more than ever. And I was going to begin leading by example.

• 2:13:13Jocko Willink?

  So

• 2:13:15Jocko Willink?

  they go to, they get some initial interrogation, of course, you know, that mock execution horrible. And then they moves into the next chapter, which is called death march. We started north up the road at a good clip. The guards circled us like sharks, sharks pushing stragglers with their rifles, hitting and kicking anyone who stopped. Many in the group were wounded. One man had a massive chest wound. It was covered by blood stained bandages. He wheezed as he shuffled down the road. My shoulder was a little stiff and the shrapnel in my back was wet and sticky, but I felt lucky. It was nothing in comparison.

• 2:14:01Jocko Willink?

  So yeah, next time you're thinking you have a rough day, how about you're a prisoner of war on a death march and you've got a massive chest wound?

• 2:14:12Jocko Willink?

  So now one of these, some of the Chinese guards could speak English. And here we go, "Pick up the wounded." He kept saying, like a broken record. Guards started pushing us back toward the back of the formation. On the ground were about twenty soldiers on jerry-rigged litters made out of burlap bags attached and stretched between poles. Ten more soldiers stood around them. "Pick up the wounded," the officer barked again. It took four of us to carry one litter. I grabbed the closest litter and hoisted it up. The soldier in the litter had a horribly mangled leg. His calf muscle was long gone and his foot rested on the inner limp, on the litter, limp and lifeless.

• 2:14:55Jocko Willink?

  None of the wounded men had seen a doctor since being captured. I heard someone say they'd been in trucks, but were dumped on the road when the trucks were needed elsewhere. A whistle sounded and we started to shuffle toward the men. None of us were strong enough to carry the stretchers very long. My shoulders burned. I tried to focus on each step, left, right, left, right. Whenever things got tough, my mind wandered back to the guy with the sucking chest wound, or I stole a glance at the guy on the litter with a mangled leg. I vowed to never quit. But soon, my body started to break down. I tried to get another prisoner to relieve me, but everyone I asked looked away or moved ahead.

• 2:15:39Jocko Willink?

  Most hid in the dark, trying to stay as far away from the stretchers as they could. "You son of a bitch," I barked at one soldier who almost jerked away when I asked. I was disgusted. It reminded me of the soldiers that first night fighting over the rice. We'd forgotten that the backbone of any military was the bond of the soldiers.

• 2:15:59Jocko Willink?

  We fought for the guys to our left and right. That is why we fought, to protect our unit buddies. And we expected them to do the same.

• 2:16:09Jocko Willink?

  But on a death march, every man was an island.

• 2:16:14Jocko Willink?

  There seemed to be no place for anything else. I refused to be that way.

• 2:16:26Jocko Willink?

  Heavy burden. Each night, the guards were getting tougher. They were constantly pushing and hitting men with their rifles. If a man fell behind, he was shot and pushed off the mountainside. Everyone was rapidly losing weight. Lack of food, wounds, and dysentery were taking their toll. Carrying the men on stretchers was becoming even more difficult. We looked like skeletons. Our uniforms hung off us like a scarecrow's coat. Each time we got topped, each time we topped one of the mountains, we faced another one. Ears, nose, fingers, and toes were becoming numb. At times, I felt like I was walking on my ankles.

• 2:17:10Jocko Willink?

  I was lucky that my legs had always been the strongest part of my body. Many of the wounded men who were strong enough to walk earlier were now in the need of stretchers. However, there were none, and we found ourselves carrying them along between two of us. In some cases, we were practically dragging them. When I heard a single rifle shot back down the road,

• 2:17:35Jocko Willink?

  I knew another man's struggle was over.

• 2:17:39Jocko Willink?

  My heart was aching for them, but at the same time, my mind kept telling me to move. We had two choices.

• 2:17:47Jocko Willink?

  March or die.

• 2:17:55Jocko Willink?

  My survival mode kicked in, not allowing me to surrender to pain and fatigue.

• 2:18:03Jocko Willink?

  The guards shoved us into a cluster of huts. So after walking a long time, they get to like a little village. We were jammed into the room so tightly that my legs rested on another soldier. The only thing good about sleeping this way was that we were warmer.

• 2:18:18Jocko Willink?

  A cold front from the plains of Manchuria came roaring down and slamming into the very mountains we were struggling through. We were facing the coldest winter in 50 years.

• 2:18:31Jocko Willink?

  As we got ready to move out, the commander of the guards told us to leave the stretchers.

• 2:18:38Jocko Willink?

  The wounded were pleading with us to take them.

• 2:18:43Jocko Willink?

  I started to move toward one and got a rifle butt in the gut. Others tried to grab the stretchers, but the guards pushed them away too.

• 2:18:53Jocko Willink?

  I started to move toward the helpless soldiers again, but couldn't risk another blow.

• 2:18:59Jocko Willink?

  I let my mind drift into a zombie state, hoping to block out the screams of the wounded.

• 2:19:08Jocko Willink?

  Left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot.

• 2:19:14Jocko Willink?

  Over and over again, I repeated it. Until I couldn't hear their screams.

• 2:19:35Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:19:41Jocko Willink?

  Absolutely horrible.

• 2:19:47Jocko Willink?

  Just absolutely horrible.

• 2:19:53Jocko Willink?

  After ten nights, we marched into a fairly good sized town.

• 2:20:01Jocko Willink?

  And this is when he decides that he's gonna try and escape. Pretty early on, and he's got a couple buddies, and there's some confusion. And there's some chaos that that happens as they're trying to round up the prisoners. And he kinda jumps over with a couple of the guys into a little ditch, and they cover up with some branches.

• 2:20:24Jocko Willink?

  And they start talking, these three guys start saying, "Look, what, you know, can we make a move? Well, let's, you know, let's head south." And then finally, one of the guys says, "That would be suicide in our condition. We won't make it over those mountains. We don't have warm clothes, and we will probably die of hypothermia." We knew he was right.

• 2:20:47Jocko Willink?

  It was smarter to wait until springtime. We needed to try and survive and hope our forces liberated us.

• 2:20:58Jocko Willink?

  Now they're starting to get into like a little bit of a routine. My goal is to bring back discipline and start acting like soldiers again. The scene the first night with the rice dropped on the ground was burned into my brain. The only way we could survive until spring was and a possible escape attempt was to start working together.

• 2:21:19Jocko Willink?

  The sick and wounded suffered the most. Our frost-bitten feet had turned to trench foot and open wounds were infected or gangrene had set in. For those guys, it was only a matter of time before they died since we had no medicine to treat them.

• 2:21:37Jocko Willink?

  And finally, from his little group, he loses a guy whose last name is Graves. Graves was the first to die. The valley had turned into one of death and suffering. Soon after Graves' death, Chaplain Capon came to the house. We were all surprised to see him. I had last seen him at Usan, but when he walked in, I barely recognized him. The man I'd met on a ridge in Pusan was gone. He'd lost a lot of weight and his uniform kind of hung on his frame. His tired and worn-out eyes belied his warm smile.

• 2:22:14Jocko Willink?

  Capon told us who is dead or wounded. Before he left, he told us to get organized. "We'll need to take action when the troops show up," he said. "Have a plan. When the troops get close, the North Koreans might try to kill us all."

• 2:22:34Jocko Willink?

  Capon never came back to my house, but he continued to visit troops in the valley. I know he prayed for each one of us when he could, brought food to the starving, until he became so weak that the guards took him to the hospital.

• 2:22:48Jocko Willink?

  And we're gonna hear about what that hospital consisted of. He died of pneumonia in May of 1951 and was buried in a mass grave by the Yalu River.

• 2:23:00Jocko Willink?

  And if you don't know the story about Chaplin Capon, he was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions in the Korean War. And I'm sure we'll cover that in more detail at some point on this podcast, but in the meantime, you can look it up and read about a hero of war and a hero of faith.

• 2:23:23Jocko Willink?

  At one point, Richardson tries to steal some kimchi and again, now I'm, I'm fast forwarding a bit to where

• 2:23:32Jocko Willink?

  to where they're a little bit more settled in and he, he steals like a bowl of kimchi. And they start, the guards go all nuts and they're trying to find out who took the kimchi, who took the kimchi? And they, they threaten them with, hey, no one's going to be able to eat until we know who took the kimchi. And finally he breaks down and says, I did it. Only me.

• 2:23:58Jocko Willink?

  Now was the officer's turn to shake his head. You lie. More do it. No, only me. And the guards, I said.

• 2:24:08Jocko Willink?

  The little son of a bitch looked at me and then nodded to the guards who grabbed me and tied my arms behind my back.

• 2:24:17Jocko Willink?

  You learn lesson now, the officer said. The guards threw a rope over an open truss and pulled me up by my arms until my feet barely touched the dirt floor.

• 2:24:30Jocko Willink?

  The pain was excruciating. I could feel lightning jolts of pain in my left arm and shoulder where I still had shrapnel wounds. The pain quickly crept up my arms, driving straight to the top of my head. I gasped for air. The pressure on my chest allowed me to take only sharp, short breaths.

• 2:24:51Jocko Willink?

  I could hear myself moaning and once I cried out in pain before I passed out.

• 2:25:00Jocko Willink?

  I woke up on the dirt floor. I could barely feel the guards pulling the ropes off my arms. I could hear the son of a bitch rattle off a few orders. He sounded far away, but I could see his boots and knew he was standing over me. The guards dragged me to my feet, throwing open the door. They tossed me on the floor of my room. I could barely move my legs and arms and stayed where I landed the rest of the night. Martin helped me get comfortable and told me that the house had been fed earlier that night. He had no idea how long I'd been strung up. The next morning, I sat up and started making jokes. Some of them laughed with me.

• 2:25:41Jocko Willink?

  Others were just scared. Laughing hurt my ribs, but it was the first time I've done it since Usan. I was determined to keep my sense of humor. I was tied, it was tied to my will to live.

• 2:25:57Jocko Willink?

  From that point on, I remembered to laugh whenever I could.

• 2:26:02Jocko Willink?

  Well, I guess we won't be having kimchi anymore.

• 2:26:10Jocko Willink?

  After two months in the valley, the guards marched us out of the valley and back up to the road in Pyeongchang.

• 2:26:19Jocko Willink?

  So they're in a different location now.

• 2:26:23Jocko Willink?

  And in this location, the Chinese finally fully take over the operation of the camp as opposed to the Koreans, the North Koreans. So now it seems like the Chinese were a little bit nicer to the prisoners. The Chinese issued each of us a small drinking cup along with a bowl for our millet or our maize. No more eating out of a helmet liner. We were also allowed to start a cookhouse for each company and we were occasionally given soybeans.

• 2:26:54Jocko Willink?

  The wells were contaminated from animal and human feces seeping through the ground and into the water well, so we didn't have fresh water. There were about 3,000 men in the camp. Conditions were about as bad as a human being could possibly live with. So again, I pointed out that the Chinese were a little bit nicer because they gave them like a bowl, but it's a, don't get me wrong. This was about as close as you could get to Andersonville in the Civil War, which that was a Confederate prisoner of war camp for Union soldiers. And there was about 45,000 soldiers that were captured and that were in that prison camp.

• 2:27:37Jocko Willink?

  About 13,000 of them died from scurvy and from diarrhea and dysentery. So, you know, it's funny, we think of like diarrhea. First of all, we think of it as like a joke and then we think of it as like an inconvenience. But when you're in these situations, it kills you. Back to the book, "We were full of lice. The farm boys told us we were, they were hog lice growing larger every day on our blood. While the lice got fat, we starved. The guards brought us two bowls of millet a day and one bowl of boiled water, which barely kept us alive.

• 2:28:18Jocko Willink?

  And even when we ate, dysentery kept us weak and dehydrated." Hunger can do some strange, strange things to your mind. "I was at the latrine, a slit trench, and I noticed that many of the soybeans were past whole. I thought, if I picked them out of the feces and washed them off, I could eat them." Then it dawned on me that I must be going crazy or turning into an animal. It would be a few days before I was able to get over the fact that I had let myself sink to a disgusting thought like that.

• 2:29:02Jocko Willink?

  So, next time you're feeling hungry, you're not feeling hungry. You don't even know what that feels like.

• 2:29:14Jocko Willink?

  They ended up, uh, like forming a little group. He just mentions this, this one guy in this group named Vincent Doyle. Doyle became the leader of this little group. An infantryman during World War II. He had a wife and a son in Fall River, Massachusetts. He received a battlefield commission in France and left the army as a lieutenant. He opened up a frozen food store in Fall River. A little ahead of its time, not many families had freezers. He went out of business and re-enlisted as a master sergeant, not an officer. He was an inch too short to be an officer, the army told him. Yeah, that's one of the reasons why I left that in there is like, the guy's just humble, like, "Oh, I can't go as an

• 2:29:55Jocko Willink?

  officer anymore? Even though I got a battlefield commission in World War II? Oh, that's okay, I'll just enlist." That's no factor. That's, that's like, the humility. I don't know if you see that kind of humility anymore. Normally, I don't make a big deal out of the generational differences, but that's a pretty humble guy right there.

• 2:30:19Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book. "Our biggest problem was our physical condition brought on by the march. Men with open wounds, many with gangrene, didn't survive long. Some were saved from gangrene by maggots eating their dead flesh, which only meant they suffered longer." I mean, we've been through that before with the Forgotten Islander, who they would actually put maggots to get rid of dead flesh to try and save themselves.

• 2:30:45Jocko Willink?

  "Some of the soldiers had black feet from frostbite and trench foot. I watched while one man pulled rotted flesh off his toe bones." "The soldiers from the 2nd Infantry Division had it worst. They'd been issued shoe packs, rubber boots with felt liners and insoles. Their feet would sweat and they were continuously wet while marching, and they would freeze when they stopped marching. Since they never took off the shoe packs, the soldiers got trench foot." It's easily understood when men die of wounds or pneumonia. It is more difficult to understand when men just lie down and quit. I've seen strong men seemingly just give up and die. First, they would stop eating and stare with blank eyes at the mud walls of the hut.

• 2:31:31Jocko Willink?

  Their minds were gone and life just slipped away.

• 2:31:36Jocko Willink?

  Then, after a few days, you heard an all-too-familiar death rattle.

• 2:31:44Jocko Willink?

  We were dying at a rate of about thirty a day. Each morning, we took out the dead, stripped them of their clothes, and stacked them like cordwood in a pile. At first, we tried to take the uniforms and coats and give them to other prisoners, but the Chinese guards wouldn't allow it.

• 2:32:00Jocko Willink?

  What they did with the uniforms is still a mystery.

• 2:32:04Jocko Willink?

  I hated being part of the burial detail. The physical part was bad enough, but the mental part was much worse. Thoughts about the families of the dead men and if they left children behind, who might never know what happened to them. I knew from listening to men talk that what bothered most of them was the thought that they might be next. That's one thing I never let my mind think about.

• 2:32:38Jocko Willink?

  And again, he moves around a bit to various places and various camps and gets various jobs. And again, you have to read this book to really comprehend this, the level of suffering that was endured by these prisoners. Back to the book, "In early spring 1951, the Chinese were building small docks on the river, and I was unlucky enough to be put to work on the crew. A group of us were carrying one of these timbers up a hill when someone in the center stumbled and the timber fell, pinning me to the ground."

• 2:33:10Jocko Willink?

  And when that happens, his back gets jammed up. And even though he makes it through that day, it starts getting worse and worse throughout the day. Now...

• 2:33:23Jocko Willink?

  There's a hospital, right? It's a hospital, but they actually called this hospital. It's just like every other prisoner camp that we've heard about. When you go to the hospital, you're dead. That's just the place they put you to die. It's the same thing here. So his guys are trying to prevent him from being taken to the hospital. So they're carrying him back and forth to their formations. And finally, the Chinese realized that he can't walk. So the Chinese come to the door and back to the book. They were taking me to the hospital. We called it the morgue. We had never seen anyone return from there. I wanted to fight back, but I couldn't. The guards closed the door to one of the rooms in the cluster of houses that served as the hospital and threw me in. It was dark and I could not see anyone.

• 2:34:08Jocko Willink?

  I landed on top of a wounded and sick lying on the dirt floor. They immediately started kicking and cursing me. The stench from the wounds and the human feces was unimaginable. I started to gag. So this is, I mean, this is just, I don't even, I can't even imagine anything. It's gonna be worse than the situation he's in now. He's put in this giant room filled with shit and wounded people that are going to die. And by the way, it's like they've got dysentery and they've got diarrhea. So it's just a total nightmare. And he's trying to maintain a little bit of dignity. And he asks one of the guys in the room, where's the, where's the latrine? He had to use the restroom.

• 2:34:51Jocko Willink?

  And the guy tells him, out the door, go left to the end of the building. Left again in 25 yards on a no, you'll find the latrine.

• 2:35:00Jocko Willink?

  The temperature was freezing, but I welcomed the fresh air. I dragged myself out on my buttocks, pushing myself along with my hands. I reached the latrine, a trench a foot and a half wide and 10 feet long. The trench sat just outside a strand of wire that separated our camp from the black prisoners. The human waste was like pudding and almost reached to the top of the trench. I managed to get my pants down and had worked my way to the edge. When the side caved in, I fell into the trench, finally catching my shoulders on the edge. The waist was at my chin as I clawed at the dirt, trying to pull myself free. My legs paralyzed like an anchor pulled me toward the bottom.

• 2:35:45Jocko Willink?

  I yelled out and kept clawing, but every second I slipped deeper and deeper into the trench.

• 2:35:53Jocko Willink?

  Two black prisoners on the other side heard me. They crawled through the barbed wire, grabbed me by my arms and pulled me out. A second later, and I would have slipped under the surface.

• 2:36:05Jocko Willink?

  The guards heard all the commotion and were closing in. My saviors scrambled back through the fence just as the guards arrived. To this day, I have no idea who saved me. Fearing I was trying to escape, they started to beat me with their rifle butts. I covered my head to try and protect myself. As I lay there, covered in shit, I lost control of my bowels.

• 2:36:31Jocko Willink?

  That was it. I was done.

• 2:36:38Jocko Willink?

  But giving up meant death.

• 2:36:42Jocko Willink?

  I had lived with death every day since coming to Korea. The battlefield was like a movie and fast forward. There was so much going on and I couldn't dwell on death very long. Call for the medic, possibly hold the wounded man in my arms or say a word or two as he passed from life to death.

• 2:37:00Jocko Willink?

  It was different as a prisoner.

• 2:37:03Jocko Willink?

  I had no way of defending myself, other than using my mind and what physical capabilities I could muster.

• 2:37:13Jocko Willink?

  I realized my mind had to be my strength.

• 2:37:20Jocko Willink?

  For a split second,

• 2:37:23Jocko Willink?

  all of the pain and suffering could have ended.

• 2:37:30Jocko Willink?

  "No!" my mind screamed. I could not give up. I'd come this far and in that second I set my mind to doing something no one had done.

• 2:37:42Jocko Willink?

  I was going to come back from the morgue.

• 2:37:46Jocko Willink?

  As the Chinese soldiers landed blow after blow on my back and legs, I banished death from my mind. Never again

• 2:37:57Jocko Willink?

  did it enter into it.

• 2:38:07Jocko Willink?

  Many lost control of their minds and did things they would never have done under normal circumstances. I didn't know what to say. When I heard stories or saw things where men were mistreating one another, I thought of the first night of captivity when the Chinese dumped the rice on the ground. What happens to men when they become prisoners? Why do they change from helping one another? And becoming and become totally engrossed in themselves with totally selfish outlook on life? Understand, I'm not talking about all men. But many never come to grips with losing their freedom. They feel abandoned by their country and are no longer with men they trust.

• 2:38:49Jocko Willink?

  In their minds, their personal survival becomes paramount and group survival no longer matters.

• 2:38:56Jocko Willink?

  So, again, I mean, going back to that part of the latrine.

• 2:39:02Jocko Willink?

  That's a little, that's a little footnote you can put in your brain for the rest of your life. Because we're all gonna have bad situations. I get it. I mean, there's gonna be horrible things that are gonna happen. I don't know if there's much, I don't know if it can get much worse than the situation that he was in right there. And, and realizing

• 2:39:25Jocko Willink?

  that his mind was his strength, realizing that he had no other way to defend, but his mind had to be strong. And, he had that little split second thought that he could give up and just let it all go. Just let it all go. Let that pain and suffering stop.

• 2:39:51Jocko Willink?

  But then he realized, no. Not gonna do that.

• 2:39:57Jocko Willink?

  Not going to surrender. Not happening.

• 2:40:13Jocko Willink?

  So eventually, I mean, he goes through more hell and eventually gets on a two crutches and then one crutch and eventually he makes it, he makes it out of the morgue and he gets sent back with the rest of the rest of the team and he gets back and they're like completely amazed that this is a guy that they they probably mourned his death because they thought when you go to the morgue you're dead. And when he gets back, he's with Doyle and Smoke. These are his boys Doyle and Smoke S M O A K. Welcome back Doyle said. Since no one had ever come back from the morgue, the guys peppered me with questions about his treatment. What treatment? I said. And they all laughed.

• 2:40:54Jocko Willink?

  I told them we never received any medicine, got less food and the rooms smelled like a cesspool. I told them how I'd almost drowned in the trench and that two guys from the black compound saved my life.

• 2:41:09Jocko Willink?

  It was a shitty situation, I said. And again, they all laughed. So this guy does a great job of trying to keep, keep track of that humor.

• 2:41:21Jocko Willink?

  Continuing, since I'd been in the morgue, the Chinese had started putting a lot of pressure on us. We were required to spend hours in lectures and discussion groups supervised by Chinese political officers. This is when their indoctrination is taking place. Doyle explained that the political officers began by breaking you down physically. So you started to agree with them and then just, just to get them off your back. When this happened, they would be on you full force pushing you to make a statement against the United States government or to make a statement as to the next wonderful treatment that you're receiving. Next you'd be one of the turncoats, standing up on stage, giving a lecture.

• 2:41:56Jocko Willink?

  So they're going through this, even though they're getting, trying to get propaganda statements out of them. They're still getting treated horribly. We were still dying in great numbers. It had just been removed from our site. They also tried to improve our diet. Prisoners even started to make steam bread by taking balls of dough and placing them on a bamboo rack over a pot of steaming water.

• 2:42:17Jocko Willink?

  And one of the, one of the leaders, I just had to note this one, one of the interrogation propaganda communist leaders said, I will leave a hundred men to die to save one progressive.

• 2:42:33Jocko Willink?

  Meaning communist.

• 2:42:36Jocko Willink?

  And they spoke English. Those are the words that they used. The Chinese interrogators propaganda people spoke English. And he says, "We outwardly challenged the loss of individual freedom under their system. The Chinese became quite agitated."

• 2:42:53Jocko Willink?

  And I like this part. So there, again, I mean, I don't want to say that they're getting the treatments good by any stretch, but it's at least a little bit better. And it's part of it is them trying to convince them to, you know, be communist so they can make statements against America and do that whole thing.

• 2:43:09Jocko Willink?

  So they, here's, here's this one part. "Despite working many hours, building the long houses, we were still required to attend lectures. And once a Chinese acting troupe came to town, it was their version of a USO show called The White Haired Girl. The storyline was simple.

• 2:43:28Jocko Willink?

  A peasant family could not pay the taxes demanded by the dastardly landowner, so he takes the peasant's beautiful, young, black-haired daughter as his concubine. She suffers terribly under his demented demands, but eventually escapes to the mountains. Years later, as the People's Liberation Army frees the people, the girl returns to the village, but now her hair has turned completely white. The play was well done, and the Chinese officers and soldiers hung on every word. They saw the girl's story as their own. They clapped when the People's Liberation Army arrived. The play, of course, omitted the fact that Mao had killed thousands, and I'll correct him there, millions of people

• 2:44:12Jocko Willink?

  in his drive to take control of China.

• 2:44:16Jocko Willink?

  And this is why I read this part, because he says, "We laughed and cheered when the landlord dragged the young girl away. The Chinese guards were not amused, and for days there was an awkward silence."

• 2:44:29Jocko Willink?

  Kind of got a kick out of that. Bunch of rambunctious prisoners of war ruining your little play.

• 2:44:39Jocko Willink?

  When it got warm enough, the Chinese let us stake out a baseball field near the river. We didn't have any balls or bats, but we went through the motions. We made teams and selected umpires. We called balls and strikes. It sounded weird, but we had a lot of fun. We spent hours out there. And then he goes on to tell this story. Late one afternoon, I kind of, when I read that, I was like, that's kind of interesting. I mean, I could see where you'd do something to entertain yourself, but they had a little bit of a bigger plan. Late one afternoon, a lone American fighter jet came screaming down the river. We were out on the ball field. At first, it scared the hell out of us. It went by us in a flash, but doubled back and flew straight down the river. We could see the pilot looking down, and as he passed, the pilot waved and wiggled his wings at us. There were no words to describe how that incident made us feel.

• 2:45:24Jocko Willink?

  God bless him. He probably never knew that's what that simple act did for us. It was a very long time before we stopped talking about it. And we'd achieved our goal with the ball field. The Chinese refused to identify POW camps, but the ball field did the trick. Yeah.

• 2:45:45Jocko Willink?

  Soon after winter, winter set in, so now they're going, another winter. I got sick, started running a high fever and was coughing up green and yellow mucus. Doyle and Smoke moved me near the stove and kept me hydrated with hot water. A medic told me I had pneumonia. I thought of graves and was grateful that I wasn't still in the morgue. After a couple of days, the fever, the fever broke and I got better. Doyle and Smoke both said they were sure I'd make it. Yeah. Yeah, Rich, some of us thought we might need to dip you in the shithouse again to make you better is what Smoke told them.

• 2:46:21Jocko Willink?

  In early spring, my legs were finally in shape to begin thinking about escape again. Dude, when I read that, I just wrote the words long game next to it. I mean, bro, can you imagine? You're three years deep in prison camp and the whole time you're thinking, well, if I can just take the next year to get my legs healed up enough where I can walk, then I can try and escape again. Even when he first got captured, he's like, okay, if I can just make the springtime, be a little bit stronger, let the weather, just talk about playing the long game.

• 2:46:56Jocko Willink?

  As they were planning this escape, they were gonna take Doyle and Smoke. And they were talking about it, and soon Smoke was doubled over. Doyle tried to get the Chinese to do something, but they ignored his pleas. Soon Smoke couldn't talk. He just lay in bed and moan. When it got really bad, he screamed. Finally, he passed out. His face was locked into tortured grimace, and his skin turned ashen. At noon, the medic that was helping him turned to us and shook his head.

• 2:47:30Jocko Willink?

  He's dead.

• 2:47:32Jocko Willink?

  The words landed on us like mortar rounds. I just stood there staring at his face in shock. Dead? How could this have happened in such a short time? Only seven months ago, men were dying all around us. It was normal. Since we'd moved, prisoners didn't die anymore. We were the survivors. This wasn't supposed to happen to anyone anymore.

• 2:47:53Jocko Willink?

  The shock quickly boiled up into a rage.

• 2:47:58Jocko Willink?

  And these guys kind of, you know, kind of yell at the Chinese and make a little... They kind of caused some problems. Nothing too drastic, but, you know, they weren't just cowering anymore.

• 2:48:15Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book, the winter of 1952 to 53 was livable compared to the past two winters. We were allowed to select our own leaders and organize committees to work on different facets of our daily life. A sanitation committee, athletic committee, a daily action committee, all brought some semblance of order to our lives. Food had improved, too. We got steamed bread, vegetables, and rice. Once in a while, some fish and meat. But it was usually just a scrap. The change in diet was enough to let us gain some weight.

• 2:48:52Jocko Willink?

  July 27th, 1953, the Chinese had us all in a formation when they announced that a peace agreement had been reached. We stood silently looking at one another. No one said anything. This news had been a long time coming. I just stood there, a smile plastered across my face. I looked down at my rail thin frame, like a map, it showed my journey. Scars on my back from shrapnel, a missing tooth, night blindness from lack of vitamins, which luckily only lasted for a couple of weeks.

• 2:49:30Jocko Willink?

  I was one of the fortunate ones.

• 2:49:33Jocko Willink?

  I'd survived.

• 2:49:37Jocko Willink?

  And that's it, I mean, that's like, it like, it just changes immediately. Now they still have to get out of there. To this day, when I think of our movement south, I still get butterflies in my stomach.

• 2:49:50Jocko Willink?

  They were moving us to the railhead at Mampo. The Chinese gave one of the prisoners a lock and told him to close the gates after the trucks pulled out. After we passed, he snapped the lock shut, closing some of the darkest chapters in my life.

• 2:50:09Jocko Willink?

  And, um, they continue this, trains, planes, and automobiles to try and get to freedom. We boarded, then finally we get to, we boarded the trucks and proceeded across Freedom Bridge to Freedom Village. When we arrived, I didn't wait for the tailgate to drop. I jumped right out onto the ground. There were two American escorts for each of us. They grabbed me and I thought, holy shit, these guys were big and muscular. I quickly realized they were average guys. I was just a little skinny. And at one point, he gets on a scale and he weighed 108 pounds.

• 2:50:46Jocko Willink?

  Our first stop was Tent City in a thousand yard neutral circle in the rice paddies. We stripped, showered and deloused. Having put on slippers and pajamas, we were checked by good-looking nurses. We stayed less than an hour before we moving to another building to get uniforms and our first meal. After our meal, we were flown by helicopter to a replacement depot in Incheon. It was my first helicopter flight and I sat near the door and watched Korea pass in a blur below me. I felt like screaming, singing and dancing. But instead I remained subdued, quiet and happy inside. Fifty-seven years have passed and I can still remember how great it felt.

• 2:51:31Jocko Willink?

  Like being born again. And he gets on the phone and he says, "I reached my dad. I could hear the excitement in his voice. He bombarded me with questions. Are you alright? When are you coming home? Don't worry about me. I'll be okay." There was some kind of calmness inside of me that was difficult to describe. I'd been through so much that just being free and headed home was enough. After worrying about living day in and day out, I wondered if anything would ever bother me in the future.

• 2:52:07Jocko Willink?

  The voyage back to California on the Brewster, which was the ship they were on, was great. They served three meals a day. The small things mattered more now than before. We were subjected to daily debriefings, which were more like interrogations by intelligence officers.

• 2:52:24Jocko Willink?

  He goes through answering a bunch of questions about what he saw and what he went through. And they were actually trying to figure out if there were more, like how many other prisoners? Were there other prisoners that were left behind?

• 2:52:37Jocko Willink?

  He finishes those and those interrogations or those questioning or intel gathering situations and then "For the rest of the voyage, I stayed on the deck. I sucked in the fresh sea air and basked in the warm breeze. Everything I could hear, smell, and see was so full of life. As I looked over the rail of the ship, I remembered three years ago, looking down at the sea and praying that I would have the strength to lead my men in combat. Now I was returning by myself. I'd been born again, a chance to live for tomorrow. To make the most of every day and never look back.

• 2:53:16Jocko Willink?

  I had survived the greatest laboratory of human behavior, one that no education could ever equal.

• 2:53:26Jocko Willink?

  Weeks later, the Golden Gate Bridge jutted out of the fog as the ship pulled into port.

• 2:53:33Jocko Willink?

  We had a few hours before our flight, so I left and walked around the post. My path took me to the post cemetery. It was very quiet. And my thoughts were on all of the men and friends that were no longer with me. Walsh. Gero. Smoke. I could feel them standing above me. I hoped they were smiling and happy for me. Because it was my men, my section, that had kept me motivated and alive.

• 2:54:06Jocko Willink?

  I owed my freedom and survival to them.

• 2:54:12Jocko Willink?

  A number of us flew to Chicago, where we changed planes. When the plane left Chicago, I was the only returning prisoner of war aboard. Although the plane was full of people, I felt very lonely. I was free and on my way home with mixed emotions. I realized that I had just left men that I had lived with 24 hours a day for 34 months.

• 2:54:33Jocko Willink?

  It was sad that with all the freedom surrounding me, that there was an empty feeling.

• 2:54:40Jocko Willink?

  There were also thoughts of the ones who would never return.

• 2:54:46Jocko Willink?

  The ones whose lives had been lost almost before they began.

• 2:54:54Jocko Willink?

  When we landed in Philadelphia, the stewardess asked if we would remain seated for just a minute while a special passenger exited the plane.

• 2:55:03Jocko Willink?

  To my surprise, that special passenger was me. I walked down the stairs and onto the tarmac.

• 2:55:11Jocko Willink?

  Waiting, there were my mother and father.

• 2:55:15Jocko Willink?

  They hugged and kissed me. This time, unlike on the street before the war, I realized the act of affection between father and son was a wonderful thing.

• 2:55:26Jocko Willink?

  And I will never forget the emotion on my father's face as tears welled up in his eyes.

• 2:55:40Jocko Willink?

  And he goes on, and there is a whole story within a story within a story in this about a woman that was an unassociate, a friend and several others, and there was a whole other realm to this, but he gets, you know, he starts to get back on with his life a little bit, back to the book. "While I was absorbing the sounds and sights of freedom, I was beginning to think about my future. I had been given a second chance and was determined that I was not going to blow it. Claire and I had become inseparable and I was falling in love with her. My only fear was that the feeling might not be mutual. We had a wonderful Christmas holiday and both realized that we were definitely meant to be together.

• 2:56:23Jocko Willink?

  During a New Year's Eve party, I gave Claire an engagement ring. She said yes. We announced to everyone that we were going to be married.

• 2:56:34Jocko Willink?

  There were happy people, sad people, and mad people. To tell the story behind this statement would take another book, but five children and fifty-six years later, we're still happily married."

• 2:56:49Jocko Willink?

  And from there, and this is, this is like, as I was, you know, researching this whole situation. This is, so he gets done with this, and he ends up going to officer candidate school in the army.

• 2:57:05Jocko Willink?

  Gets assigned to the 505th Airborne Infantry Regiment. That's fine. Awesome. Just outstanding. And then he, then he goes to Special Forces at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. And so he's, you know, becomes a Green Beret, Special Forces guy. And then he goes to Vietnam.

• 2:57:26Jocko Willink?

  And he is the two-time commander of Project Delta in Vietnam, which is like the, the, the deep reconnaissance, like the, the, the, the, uh, the format, like this is how we do deep reconnaissance is based on Project Delta. And Project Delta has also had Beckwith in it, Charlie Beckwith, who is the, the founder of Delta Force.

• 2:57:52Jocko Willink?

  So, you know, Richardson just drives on and does deployments to Vietnam, going into enemy territory, deep in enemy territory. And ends up doing 39 years in the army.

• 2:58:09Jocko Willink?

  And, and, you know, like you said, has, uh, you know, the wife and the kids and the incredible career. And, and after that, you know, had a civil, has a civilian career. He's still alive, by the way. Yeah.

• 2:58:26Jocko Willink?

  And here's what he closes out with. He says, "Every day on this journey, I believed the men of the weapons platoon and my close buddies in prison were watching me to see how I looked after my men and prepared them for whatever they may have had to face.

• 2:58:46Jocko Willink?

  I tried my best to make them proud of me."

• 2:58:58Jocko Willink?

  So, well, I think that Colonel Richardson, I think we can absolutely answer in the affirmative that yes, I think anyone would be proud of how you handled yourself, how you led, and then on top of that, how you lived your life. I mean, I think that's just self-evident in every page of this book, which once again, Valleys of Death is an unbelievable book, should be handed out to people, should be issued in the military, as far as I'm concerned.

• 2:59:41Jocko Willink?

  And I mean, I think in reading the book, I mean, it's like your actions, Colonel Richardson's actions, his behavior, I mean, how can you not be, how can you not think to yourself that you can do a little bit better with the situation that you're in? And realize how much people are, how much human beings are capable of. I don't, I just don't, I don't see how you could read this and not walk away and say, you know what, I'm gonna do better. And whatever situation you're in, look, and I know people end up in horrible situations, but no matter what that situation is, no matter what it

• 3:00:24Jocko Willink?

  is, you can, you can move forward. You can move forward. You can keep your mind positive, you can use your mind as your weapon. And also, you can, you know, one of the parts that's encompassing that is like, oh, you can actually have, have fun and keep your sense of humor when you're going through these terrible situations, which people ask me that all the time, like, don't you, do you think it's important to have a sense of humor? Of like, of course I do. You know, of course I do. But again, Colonel Richardson, if you ever hear this, obviously, there is a wide open invite

• 3:01:06Jocko Willink?

  for you to come and debrief us and teach us life lessons here and tell us about, tell us more detail and the parts that I know I missed and things that I messed up, I apologize, but thanks, thanks for your service, thanks for your sacrifice and thanks for showing us, showing us how to live properly. Even in the most dire of circumstances.

• 3:01:40Jocko Willink?

  With that.

• 3:01:42Jocko Willink?

  I was, yeah, I was reading this book and it was just, I couldn't, I couldn't stop. I couldn't stop. I couldn't stop. It's one of those books. You just don't, you just don't see, it's, it's, it's so hard to understand. Like some of that combat in the beginning is crazy. It's crazy. Just the situation that they were in. I mean, you're surrounded by the Chinese for three days and they're just hammering your perimeter all night with waves, human waves.

• 3:02:14Jocko Willink?

  And then you get the note dropped from a, from a damn plane that says, no relief is coming. Find your way out. I appreciate it. Yeah. And then you gotta leave your wounded. That's, that's what happens. It's like, okay, we either all die, we're gonna, this is just like, it's incredible. It's incredible. And you, you should read this so you get some sort of semblance of maybe what your thoughts are gonna be when you, if you get into a situation like that, whatever it is.

• 3:02:47Jocko Willink?

  So, yeah, always learning, always, and for me, again, I get done with this and I can't even sleep. Because I think to myself, I've got so much opportunity. Yeah. As, guess what? Oh, I wake up and I'm, I can walk around. I don't have shrapnel in my back. Yeah. I get to eat food. Whatever you like. Yeah, whatever you want. Whatever you want. There is an app now. Like we, like people complain about working out. People complain like, oh, I don't feel like working. What are you talking about? I got a good idea. Why don't you just be quiet? Just stop. People complain that they gotta go to work. Guess what? You're blessed. You're lucky you get to go to work.

• 3:03:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:03:27Jocko Willink?

  You're lucky.

• 3:03:28Speaker 01

  I was thinking about that yesterday, the working out thing. How like people complain only because my arm, you know, you have your situations that keep you from working out or training.

• 3:03:38Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 3:03:39Speaker 01

  And on the up like.

• 3:03:40Jocko Willink?

  Did you check yourself?

• 3:03:41Speaker 01

  When you get it. Well, it was a moment of appreciation is what it was. So you know, when you get, you know, you get injured. Or sick and you feel yourself getting better like, oh shoot, like a mark, you know, like today I felt better than I've felt this whole time kind of thing. That's when the waves of appreciation come back. Get back. I think I'm back.

• 3:04:03Jocko Willink?

  You know what? The thing is also for those people that, you know, when you get an injury, you think it's gonna last forever.

• 3:04:08Speaker 01

  That's what it feels like.

• 3:04:09Jocko Willink?

  It always feels like it's gonna last forever. And then you realize when you get back, you kind of forget that it even happened.

• 3:04:14Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 3:04:15Jocko Willink?

  So.

• 3:04:16Speaker 01

  Yeah. So the eating and that's a big part. Every time he mentions um eating or starving or all the weight that he lost and we were skinny.

• 3:04:24Jocko Willink?

  A hundred and eight pounds.

• 3:04:26Speaker 01

  Yeah. So that for whatever reason, those that affects me a lot when I hear it. It's like, oh, man.

• 3:04:32Jocko Willink?

  Cause you picture your biceps wouldn't be so big. It makes you crushes your soul. Crushes your soul.

• 3:04:37Speaker 01

  Well, you know, just being hungry the whole time, you know?

• 3:04:41Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 3:04:42Speaker 01

  Like, yeah.

• 3:04:43Jocko Willink?

  What's the longest you fasted for?

• 3:04:45Speaker 01

  Uh, like 24 hours, like a whole day.

• 3:04:47Jocko Willink?

  You need to get your 70 too long.

• 3:04:49Speaker 01

  Hmm. I don't know. I don't know.

• 3:04:51Jocko Willink?

  Cause you're saying, cause, cause being hungry goes away after a little while. Now, again, I haven't done, I haven't done hunger for 34 months.

• 3:05:00Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, it goes away like after like seven hours, I think, or subsides. Like to me, in my experience, it depends on you, who you are, I'm sure, but at about four, five hours, that's when that's peak hunger right there in my experience. But either way. So you know, when he gets back, like he gets, you know.

• 3:05:17Jocko Willink?

  I can't even believe, wait, just so everyone knows, we are in no stretch of the, any sort of imagination trying to compare a fast for 24 hours with 34 months, 34 months. And I mean, look at, look at Captain Plum, six years in the Hanoi Hilton, eating a rice ball in the morning and a rice ball in the evening with, filled with wood chips.

• 3:05:41Jocko Willink?

  What's up wood chips? You know what? You go to a restaurant right now? If your rice is like slightly overcooked, you're complaining like, can you bring this back?

• 3:05:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:05:51Jocko Willink?

  Never mind bugs and wood chips in there.

• 3:05:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, not wood chips typically, no. Yeah, it's um, yeah, that's, that's rough to say the least. But now, you know, and I, look, I'm living, you know, we're living kind of this journey with him in a small way, right? And he, the peace, you know, they come to, you know, peace agreement. So he's back on the boat, feeling the warm air, eating three times a day. Man, it makes you think like, now, okay, 2018, right? But there's like, there's more than one too. There's many, many apps on your phone.

• 3:06:28Speaker 01

  That you can be like, hey, I want a triple burger, double cheese, uh.

• 3:06:33Jocko Willink?

  Bacon.

• 3:06:34Speaker 01

  Bacon, avocado, and you know what?

• 3:06:36Jocko Willink?

  Grilled onions.

• 3:06:36Speaker 01

  Grilled onions, and I'm gonna need that grass fed.

• 3:06:39Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, oh yeah.

• 3:06:40Speaker 01

  I'm just saying.

• 3:06:40Jocko Willink?

  This kind of steak isn't quite good enough for me over here.

• 3:06:43Speaker 01

  Right.

• 3:06:44Jocko Willink?

  And by the way, can I get the, what's that special kind of mayonnaise that has like something else in it?

• 3:06:48Speaker 01

  Well, there's a few, so it's called the aioli.

• 3:06:50Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, the aioli. You want some of that aioli, right? You want the aioli mayonnaise, because that other normal mayonnaise isn't quite in your, you know, you need to step it up.

• 3:06:59Speaker 01

  We just don't want that one.

• 3:07:00Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, we don't want that one.

• 3:07:01Speaker 01

  We want the good one, so, and so let me go ahead and click this button.

• 3:07:04Jocko Willink?

  So spoiled.

• 3:07:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, and then it comes to your door.

• 3:07:07Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 3:07:07Speaker 01

  In about 15 minutes.

• 3:07:08Jocko Willink?

  Somebody brings it there in 15 minutes.

• 3:07:10Speaker 01

  Screw driving.

• 3:07:10Jocko Willink?

  Seven, if it's, if it's, if it's 22 minutes, you're kind of mad, because that, that's like, you know, I was hungry.

• 3:07:16Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 3:07:16Jocko Willink?

  Don't you know that?

• 3:07:17Speaker 01

  And it'll say 10 to 22 minutes on the app.

• 3:07:21Jocko Willink?

  Like people, people, they get separated from their phone and they freak out, right? I mean, you imagine this, like, you would even know.

• 3:07:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:07:31Jocko Willink?

  What, what's happening, anything in the world, you know nothing. You know nothing of what's happening in the world with your family.

• 3:07:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:07:40Jocko Willink?

  Nothing.

• 3:07:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 3:07:43Jocko Willink?

  So with this, since other people have suffered through that, maybe in, in our world?

• 3:07:53Jocko Willink?

  You can, you can try and get yourself on a little bit better of a path with a little bit more discipline in the world is what I'm saying. I know I need to step it up harder, do more, try and make more stuff happen.

• 3:08:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:08:05Jocko Willink?

  Cause the opportunities are, think about, you know, and the crazy thing is,

• 3:08:10Jocko Willink?

  Richardson's one of the people that survived. Because there's thousands upon thousands that didn't, that died of diarrhea. That died of dysentery, that died of gangrene and infections.

• 3:08:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:08:26Jocko Willink?

  So, man, we got it made. So you know what? We got it made, so make something. How's that sound? We got it made, so make something of what you got.

• 3:08:36Speaker 01

  Which is everything.

• 3:08:36Jocko Willink?

  Which is everything, by the way, unless you're in a, next to, unless you're drowning in a trench full of shit. A hundred and eight pounds with no, with your legs not working, with scars in your back. Unless you're in that situation, how about you step up and like just start moving in the right direction?

• 3:08:56Speaker 01

  Do a little.

• 3:08:56Jocko Willink?

  We're doing alright.

• 3:08:58Speaker 01

  Yeah. And, and the helpful, or what makes it helpful is like perspective, right? When you put it into perspective, let's say you live in your life every day, you're all used to it, we're all used to it, and you don't feel like doing something. That's really what it, what it comes down to. And of course, there's different levels of not feeling like doing something. It's like kinda not feeling like doing something, or hey, that this is straight, I'm not gonna happen today, kinda feel not feel like doing something. So when you put it into perspective, I don't know if you can, like right after this book?

• 3:09:28Jocko Willink?

  No, it's a non, it's a non-argument.

• 3:09:30Speaker 01

  Exactly right.

• 3:09:31Jocko Willink?

  It doesn't even, it doesn't hold zero water whatsoever.

• 3:09:33Speaker 01

  Exactly right. You can't get to a place that you don't feel like doing.

• 3:09:37Jocko Willink?

  You can't convince me ever that whatever you're saying is, is even remotely weighs in on the situation at all, ever.

• 3:09:44Speaker 01

  Exactly right.

• 3:09:45Jocko Willink?

  That's where I don't want to, you know, whatever.

• 3:09:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, when you know it needs to get done, and you don't feel, let's say, man, I haven't slept in two days. Let's say that. That's legitimate in everyday life. Like, man, get your rest, bro. But if it needs to be done after you read this book, let's say you didn't sleep because you read that book and you were just up for two days. You really don't feel like going to the gym. I'll tell you that.

• 3:10:10Speaker 01

  Physically, but mentally.

• 3:10:12Jocko Willink?

  I like the way you bring it back to just going and doing a bicep workout.

• 3:10:17Speaker 01

  Or whatever, you know.

• 3:10:19Jocko Willink?

  Bro, I hope people, I, I hope people, as a bare minimum, I hope people use the, the mindset you can pull from the, from the perspective you get from this. I hope at a bare minimum, you get your workouts. At the maximum, I hope you step up and just take over the world.

• 3:10:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:10:35Jocko Willink?

  Cause it's sitting there right in front of you.

• 3:10:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:10:37Jocko Willink?

  You're not locked behind barbed wire.

• 3:10:39Speaker 01

  Nope.

• 3:10:39Jocko Willink?

  You don't have your arms strung up behind your back and hung from the ceiling.

• 3:10:44Speaker 01

  So painful that you pass out.

• 3:10:45Jocko Willink?

  So painful that you pass out, which that's just, what does that even mean?

• 3:10:50Speaker 01

  It means you can kind of do anything really, when you, when you kind of put it into perspective. So, so what are we doing?

• 3:10:57Jocko Willink?

  Me and Dave Burke.

• 3:10:58Speaker 01

  Good deal, Dave?

• 3:10:59Jocko Willink?

  Yes. But, you know, we'll, we'll, we'll, he does, reads a lot of books too, and he just like, man, we didn't, we just suck. Compared to these guys, we're just pathetic.

• 3:11:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, I could hear you saying that.

• 3:11:10Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I'm like, yeah, it's just, you can't even.

• 3:11:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:11:13Jocko Willink?

  Like, I sent him a note, I was wanting to know, I was like, you did, hey, you had combat, um, you did combat flights in Afghanistan and Iraq, and he's like, he's like, bro, come on, you know, that's just, come on. And I'm like, well, he's like, yeah, did I technically, did I drop bombs in those countries? Yes. Were, were they considered combat operations? I'm like, yeah. And he's like, but, come on. He's like, he's like, I got two words for you, Iwo Jima. And I was like, alright, I get it, man.

• 3:11:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 3:11:42Jocko Willink?

  But yeah, that's, that's how you feel when you get done with something like this. And then, by the way, he's got a, a, a one, one half of a paragraph where he's like, oh, by the way, I did thirty nine years in the army, and by the way, I was in Vietnam, and by the way, I was in charge of Project Delta for two times, twice.

• 3:11:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:11:58Jocko Willink?

  It's not like. It's like a little sub, that's like a little, a little something, like just a little sub note.

• 3:12:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:12:04Jocko Willink?

  A little PS, a little postscript.

• 3:12:06Speaker 01

  Yeah. Geez. Talk about getting.

• 3:12:08Jocko Willink?

  That should be its own book. Each one of those command tours is its own book about doing deep reconnaissance into Vietnam. Are you kidding me?

• 3:12:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:12:19Jocko Willink?

  That didn't even make the cut, didn't even make the cut for the Colonel. He said, no, I'm just gonna, oh yeah, whatever. He's like, oh yeah, no, I, I talked about it, I put a paragraph in there, half a paragraph.

• 3:12:29Speaker 01

  Yep. Yeah, so he not only did he power through it, he went back.

• 3:12:34Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 3:12:35Speaker 01

  Jeez.

• 3:12:38Speaker 01

  That's that's that's heavy. And he did power through it, by the way.

• 3:12:41Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 3:12:42Speaker 01

  He didn't like.

• 3:12:43Jocko Willink?

  No, he held the line.

• 3:12:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, he powered through. He didn't, yeah.

• 3:12:47Jocko Willink?

  That part where he's talking about, don't let them laugh at you.

• 3:12:50Speaker 01

  Don't let them laugh at you.

• 3:12:51Jocko Willink?

  I like, I underlined that and highlighted it and then I put stars by it, because that's the kind of thing that you think about, like, like, you know, the world sometimes seems like it's having a joke with you.

• 3:13:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 3:13:02Jocko Willink?

  You know, like, it's like the joke is on you. You ever wake up, you're like, the joke is on, the joke's on me. And the world's laughing at me.

• 3:13:08Speaker 01

  Yes, every day.

• 3:13:09Jocko Willink?

  Like, that's not a good feeling, right? Don't let that happen.

• 3:13:13Speaker 01

  No, you don't. And, yeah, and he's, man, see, even keeping a sense of humor, all this stuff.

• 3:13:18Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah.

• 3:13:19Speaker 01

  Man.

• 3:13:21Jocko Willink?

  Sense of humor, laughing. It was a shitty situation.

• 3:13:24Speaker 01

  Situation, yes, sir, it was.

• 3:13:26Jocko Willink?

  Never, next time you think about something being shitty, now you know what a true shitty situation is. We all knew, now we all now have a new definition of what a shitty situation is. That's it. That's the standard.

• 3:13:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:13:38Jocko Willink?

  And that's it. That's the standard.

• 3:13:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:13:40Jocko Willink?

  That's where you're at.

• 3:13:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:13:42Jocko Willink?

  So.

• 3:13:43Speaker 01

  Well.

• 3:13:44Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 3:13:45Speaker 01

  So, we're on the path, like, there's, no one's off the path anymore.

• 3:13:49Jocko Willink?

  No, I think.

• 3:13:49Speaker 01

  We can't, you're not allowed to be.

• 3:13:51Jocko Willink?

  It's not even allowed.

• 3:13:51Speaker 01

  You're not allowed to be.

• 3:13:52Jocko Willink?

  You're just on the path.

• 3:13:53Speaker 01

  All right, so when you, when you start jujitsu, if you haven't already, which most of us have.

• 3:13:57Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 3:13:58Speaker 01

  Holy cow, most of us have.

• 3:14:00Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah, like, everyone that's thinking that's still on the fence, right? Just, just get over the fence, because every single person, no, I won't say every single person, there is a, uh, what percentage? I've heard feedback, I think, from a total feedback of three people, and it might only be two, that actually just didn't like jujitsu. Actually, it's three. One female, two males. The one, the one male I went back and forth with for a while, you know, he was like hitting me up on Twitter, this was pretty early on, he's just like, I just don't like it, I don't like the person grinding on me. And, and finally with that guy, he just didn't want to do it, man.

• 3:14:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:14:38Jocko Willink?

  And I was like, look, you know, hey, cool, you don't want to ruin your life, don't make this into a living hell, because you do something you, you fully hate. It wasn't until the next guy that bitterly complained. That I was like, listen, okay, here's the plan. Keep doing it until you submit someone. Once you submit someone, you can stop.

• 3:14:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:14:55Jocko Willink?

  I didn't think of that plan yet until the guy number two. And the other one was a female that it was two things. Uh, didn't really like it, but more important, didn't have anywhere to train and kind of just got off the path, but so. Uh, but tha- that's three out of many, many, many, me- I mean. Most people are like.

• 3:15:17Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 3:15:18Jocko Willink?

  I'm obsessed now.

• 3:15:19Speaker 01

  I'm obsessed. Yeah, win or lose. Like sometimes people will be like, hey, I I got beat up for for hour and a half.

• 3:15:25Jocko Willink?

  Well, everyone says, just went to my first jujitsu class, got choked twenty eight times by a fourteen year old kid. I love it.

• 3:15:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, yep.

• 3:15:32Jocko Willink?

  If you got your ego in check, you say, I love it. If you don't got your ego in check, you're like, you know, I don't know if this is for me. I couldn't punch him. Go try and punch him. Try and punch that fourteen year old. See what that triangle feels like then. Cause it doesn't feel good.

• 3:15:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:15:45Jocko Willink?

  Some people go hard. Have you ever had Dean go hard on a triangle on you? Like actually offensively? He did a triangle me to me. He was just showing me something. He locked that triangle up so tight. I felt it in my lower back. That doesn't even make sense. It moved my spinal cord.

• 3:16:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I don't doubt it for sure.

• 3:16:04Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 3:16:05Speaker 01

  But.

• 3:16:05Jocko Willink?

  Alright, so we are doing jujitsu. That's kind of, that's kind of the deal.

• 3:16:09Speaker 01

  Yeah. So what gi do you get? What rash guard do you get? Hey, look, there's plenty geese, plenty rash guards.

• 3:16:14Jocko Willink?

  Uh, not really.

• 3:16:15Speaker 01

  All from origin.

• 3:16:16Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, there's only one.

• 3:16:17Speaker 01

  Well, the good news is, and I was talking to some folks at the muster about this few times, actually, you know, hey, what gi should I get?

• 3:16:25Jocko Willink?

  They're still asking that question.

• 3:16:26Speaker 01

  Well, that's the thing. They already know the origin gi.

• 3:16:28Jocko Willink?

  Oh, now it's what gi should I get?

• 3:16:31Speaker 01

  I say, hey, get whatever one you want.

• 3:16:33Jocko Willink?

  More advanced than our questions.

• 3:16:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, because it's not the kind, even if you get the, you know how there's like levels, if you even want to call them that, we'll say price point, if you will. Like the more, some more expensive one. It's not the kind where you get that and then you come in as a new white pelican was like, oh, you're kind of flossing hard with that. That, you know, like if you get.

• 3:16:50Jocko Willink?

  It's not like in wrestling, if you wear gold shoes in wrestling.

• 3:16:52Speaker 01

  Yes, exactly. It's not like that. It's not like that.

• 3:16:55Jocko Willink?

  Or you dye your hair.

• 3:16:56Speaker 01

  Or yes.

• 3:16:57Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's a little statement, right? That's a statement.

• 3:17:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:17:00Jocko Willink?

  I got, I got bright orange hair. I'm I'm really good.

• 3:17:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:17:04Jocko Willink?

  Gee's not like that, no.

• 3:17:05Speaker 01

  No, sure.

• 3:17:06Jocko Willink?

  Gee's just a gee, functional.

• 3:17:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, man, you know, maybe, you know, I I don't, obviously, I don't go with Pete and be like, hey, why are we doing this, this is partic- so I don't know, but I'm assuming maybe it took more to make certain ones or whatever, but get get the point is get whichever one you want.

• 3:17:20Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 3:17:20Speaker 01

  Straight up.

• 3:17:22Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 3:17:22Speaker 01

  Lightweight, heavyweight, whatever.

• 3:17:24Jocko Willink?

  Mm hmm.

• 3:17:25Speaker 01

  From originmaine.com.

• 3:17:26Jocko Willink?

  True, true. Also, you got, um, rash guards, if if you want a rash guard, then you can get a legit rash guard. You got, um, T-shirts as well at from origin. So basically, like clothing. Guess what we're we're making right now at this time?

• 3:17:46Speaker 01

  Denim.

• 3:17:46Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 3:17:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, good guess.

• 3:17:48Jocko Willink?

  Did you send you a pair yet?

• 3:17:49Speaker 01

  No, no.

• 3:17:50Jocko Willink?

  Oh, I'm getting my, I haven't gotten my pair yet, but yeah, we're making jeans, so just be on standby. It's gonna take a little while to get the that ramped up, but.

• 3:17:59Speaker 01

  You look good, though. I saw pictures.

• 3:18:00Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Oh, yeah, that's right. He posted them.

• 3:18:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:18:03Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, so we will be, we'll be making, because you know why? Because everyone needs, every human wears jeans.

• 3:18:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:18:10Jocko Willink?

  Because they're functional.

• 3:18:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:18:12Jocko Willink?

  So every human needs jeans.

• 3:18:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:18:15Jocko Willink?

  And if everyone does, then why not get jeans that are made here, made with the highest quality? All that stuff, anyways. So, yeah, jeans are coming. We also got some supplements.

• 3:18:27Speaker 01

  Yep, Jaco's supplements. So what? Joint warfare, krill oil, discipline, milk, and worry kid milk. So what do these cover? The most important elements, I think, of sup- supplementation. So joints, those are gonna go out on you. That's if if you're into lifting heavy, into jitsu hard, you into, you work hard if you have like a manual labor type job.

• 3:18:51Jocko Willink?

  Yep, moving company.

• 3:18:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:18:53Jocko Willink?

  I know, I know you were a mover.

• 3:18:54Speaker 01

  I was, American mover.

• 3:18:55Jocko Willink?

  A bouncer?

• 3:18:56Speaker 01

  Bouncer. That that wasn't very hard.

• 3:18:58Jocko Willink?

  Could be physical sometimes.

• 3:18:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, you'd have to work.

• 3:19:00Jocko Willink?

  Standing around all night.

• 3:19:01Speaker 01

  Yes, on your like feet and knees, maybe, depending, but I would say, you know, just when you're, I would say the workouts. The workouts get your joints, I think, especially overtime, especially if you're going very often. And here's one of the things about the joint stuff.

• 3:19:16Speaker 01

  A big part of it is you don't realize how much the, how much benefit there is to taking krill oil and joint warfare on a regular basis until you do it.

• 3:19:25Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, until, well, until, or until you stop.

• 3:19:27Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, big time.

• 3:19:28Jocko Willink?

  Which I haven't stopped. I can't even answer that question, but you've told me.

• 3:19:31Speaker 01

  Yes, I have stopped, yes.

• 3:19:32Jocko Willink?

  So you had joint warfare, krill oil, discipline, which discipline, like during the muster, I drink a lot of discipline. Cause like, you know, it's like go time the whole time.

• 3:19:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:19:42Jocko Willink?

  So that's what, now I'll tell you, we got something else coming out. We got discipline in little pills, go pills. And I'll tell you why. I can't always pound.

• 3:19:52Speaker 01

  Right.

• 3:19:53Jocko Willink?

  A bunch of discipline drink before, let's say I'm going out to speak.

• 3:19:58Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 3:19:58Jocko Willink?

  I don't want to have to like hit the head in the middle of the speech because I drank like a bottle of water right before I went out there. So anyways, I was like, hey, can we make these things in little pills that I can take that can kind of get me?

• 3:20:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:20:09Jocko Willink?

  In the rock and roll mode real quick. So, yeah, got those coming out.

• 3:20:12Speaker 01

  And it's not to mention you gotta mix it up and stuff, which isn't a big deal, but if you're on the goo goo go.

• 3:20:18Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 3:20:18Speaker 01

  Then, you know.

• 3:20:19Jocko Willink?

  So, yeah, discipline, go, go pills coming. And they got a little bit of nootropic in them. They got a little bit of caffeine in them. They've got a little bit of go in them.

• 3:20:27Speaker 01

  A little bit of go.

• 3:20:27Jocko Willink?

  That's the main ingredient, the main ingredient is go.

• 3:20:30Speaker 01

  Dig it. I dig it.

• 3:20:31Jocko Willink?

  Hey, also, okay, so as we know, the Warrior Kid Molk is live. And as we also know, is tasty.

• 3:20:40Speaker 01

  Well, it's live already.

• 3:20:40Jocko Willink?

  It's live. It was, this morning, I was, I was making some strawberry milk for the kids, for, for me, but it's the kids' milk. And everyone in my house is freaking going nuts. Everyone in my house is just drinking strawberry milk, like. Except for my youngest daughter, she's all about the chocolate. But somebody took the milk scoop from the war and like it was gone. And this is where I realized there's something going on because I, I said to my wife, I said, hey, where's, I said, hey, where's the scoop for the, for the strawberry quick? I actually called it strawberry quick.

• 3:21:18Speaker 01

  Right.

• 3:21:19Jocko Willink?

  Because it tastes.

• 3:21:20Speaker 01

  The, the.

• 3:21:21Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and now, now I was talking to Brian and Brian's got, people are like notifying him that they're getting like the nostalgic.

• 3:21:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:21:29Jocko Willink?

  The nostalgic memories of drinking Nestle's quick.

• 3:21:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:21:33Jocko Willink?

  Cause that's where we're at, the strawberry one. The chocolate one doesn't taste as much like, it tastes delicious, but it doesn't taste the same like whatever.

• 3:21:40Speaker 01

  Like the quick.

• 3:21:41Jocko Willink?

  Like, like exactly like quick does, because that quick, let's face it, isn't really that great, but the strawberry quick is great. Our chocolate is probably better than the Nestle's chocolate. The strawberry quick is almost a replica. And this is, is it illegal for me to say, this is like comparing the.

• 3:21:58Speaker 01

  No.

• 3:21:58Jocko Willink?

  Brands or something like.

• 3:21:59Speaker 01

  No, man.

• 3:22:00Jocko Willink?

  Okay, well.

• 3:22:00Speaker 01

  Illegal, yeah, no, no, no, all good. And the nostalgia part, that is, that is something, and I felt that you.

• 3:22:06Jocko Willink?

  The what part?

• 3:22:07Speaker 01

  The nostalgia.

• 3:22:08Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 3:22:08Speaker 01

  Like, I remember this.

• 3:22:10Jocko Willink?

  You know, we used to get them from the 7-Eleven.

• 3:22:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:22:12Jocko Willink?

  The strawberry quick from the 7-Eleven.

• 3:22:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, we got it from a store called Big Save on Kawai.

• 3:22:18Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah, no, I remember that. Yeah, you got it down to Big Save.

• 3:22:21Speaker 01

  Of course you do. But yeah, that's for you, for the protein and the regular milk. That's for the protein too.

• 3:22:26Jocko Willink?

  Oh, so this is the other thing I wanted to say is, as soon as I had the Warrior Kid Strawberry Milk, I texted Brian 14 seconds later and said, make adult, you know, milk strawberry. So it's in the works.

• 3:22:41Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 3:22:42Jocko Willink?

  Um, there's a couple, there, there's, you can't just say, well, I'll just double up because there's a little bit more protein in it. In the, you want, you want to get a little bit more protein in the adult milk.

• 3:22:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:22:53Jocko Willink?

  So.

• 3:22:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, especially if you're.

• 3:22:55Jocko Willink?

  That's, for those of you that are freaking out, in the meantime, take two scoops of, two scoops of Warrior Kid Milk and you're still doing all right.

• 3:23:03Speaker 01

  Yes, you are. Also, if you want to represent.

• 3:23:09Speaker 01

  The discipline equals freedom way. Cause discipline does equal freedom. I think the more you grow up in life and embrace the discipline, you understand that more. Cause there are, there are levels of understanding.

• 3:23:23Jocko Willink?

  To the core.

• 3:23:24Speaker 01

  To the core. Anyway, if you want to represent, go to Jaco store.com because Jaco has a store. Shirts on there, hoodies.

• 3:23:33Speaker 01

  Any, any second now, hoodies, more hoodies.

• 3:23:36Jocko Willink?

  Winter hoodies?

• 3:23:37Speaker 01

  Winter hoodies, well.

• 3:23:39Jocko Willink?

  Michigan hoodies?

• 3:23:40Speaker 01

  If you're.

• 3:23:41Jocko Willink?

  Iowa winter hoodies, Minnesota?

• 3:23:44Speaker 01

  Potentially.

• 3:23:45Jocko Willink?

  Or Kauai.

• 3:23:47Speaker 01

  They're not Kauai hoodies, they're, they're mainland.

• 3:23:50Jocko Willink?

  Mainland or at least we're in the mainland.

• 3:23:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, we are in the mainland on these hoodies for sure.

• 3:23:54Jocko Willink?

  Maine, what about my people?

• 3:23:55Speaker 01

  Probably, yeah. Anyway, the point is, is a lot of cool stuff on there. I think it's cool.

• 3:24:01Jocko Willink?

  Def core?

• 3:24:01Speaker 01

  Def core stuff to the core. All things technically are def core. Technically.

• 3:24:08Jocko Willink?

  True.

• 3:24:09Speaker 01

  I'm gonna leave it at that. Also. Hats on there and women's stuff. Also rash guards too.

• 3:24:16Jocko Willink?

  And the, the hats are legit.

• 3:24:18Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 3:24:18Jocko Willink?

  Trucker's hats, by the way.

• 3:24:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, some new stuff.

• 3:24:20Jocko Willink?

  For those of you that are more, more old school, in my opinion, truckers hats are more old school. That's what I wore when I was a kid, truckers hats.

• 3:24:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, they come in and out though. You know how they go out and they come back in?

• 3:24:31Jocko Willink?

  No, that's just the, I've been wearing.

• 3:24:32Speaker 01

  Oh, you didn't know about style. Oh, yeah, yeah, I forgot, I forgot. Anyway, flexi hats on there as well. A lot of good stuff. If you want something, get something. Good way to represent while staying on the path. There's some tea on the, the Jaco teas on there. And various other things. Anyway, talk about Jaco store.com.

• 3:24:52Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And if you want to, you can subscribe to this podcast. Why do we even say this?

• 3:24:57Speaker 01

  Well.

• 3:24:58Jocko Willink?

  I guess, okay, if you're listening right now and you've been listening for three freaking, uh, four, I don't know, three and a half hours. If you're, if you've done that, go ahead and subscribe because you're, you're, you definitely are part of the team.

• 3:25:12Jocko Willink?

  If you, if you haven't heard, if you haven't listened to this point, well then guess what? You're not going to subscribe because you don't want to subscribe. So if you haven't subscribed and you hear the sounds coming out of my mouth right now, go ahead and subscribe. iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, and then leave a little review action so we can have a good time with it. Also, don't forget about their, the Warrior Kid Podcast. The Warrior Kid Podcast, you can ask kids, ask questions to Uncle Jake. And Uncle Jake tells stories about when he was a kid and where he got his way from, where he uncovered the way. Also, you got the Warrior Kid Soap from IrishOaksRanch.com. Aiden's up there, he's taking advantage of life.

• 3:25:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:25:55Jocko Willink?

  Guess what? You got goats, you're in California, you can't sell goat milk. Guess what you can do? Make soap.

• 3:26:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:26:00Jocko Willink?

  That's what Aiden's doing, young Aiden.

• 3:26:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was watching Shark Tank, you know that show, the entrepreneur show?

• 3:26:06Jocko Willink?

  Mm-hmm.

• 3:26:06Speaker 01

  And, you know, there's a kid on there doing his thing.

• 3:26:08Jocko Willink?

  What was he making?

• 3:26:09Speaker 01

  Respect, ah, what was it? Some glue.

• 3:26:12Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 3:26:12Speaker 01

  Some washable glue, he was using it for Legos, which was kinda odd, but I guess if you're, you know, anyway, long. But I thought, I thought about Aiden.

• 3:26:20Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 3:26:20Speaker 01

  And the Jaco soap.

• 3:26:21Jocko Willink?

  There you go.

• 3:26:22Speaker 01

  I could see Aiden up there with Jaco next to him, or whatever you say all the time, you seem to say. Anyway, yes.

• 3:26:28Jocko Willink?

  Good. And while you're in the subscribe mode, then also subscribe to the YouTube channel, the Jocko Podcast YouTube channel. If you want to see Echo's videos, which he puts all kinds of time and effort into, he's real super, he gets super

• 3:26:46Speaker 01

  Thanks.

• 3:26:46Jocko Willink?

  Crazy about it, and makes everything explode and, and, and

• 3:26:50Speaker 01

  Sometimes, sometimes, yeah.

• 3:26:51Jocko Willink?

  Reflecting off of things and music, cello music.

• 3:26:57Jocko Willink?

  So that's on the YouTube channel. And we got some other things planned for the YouTube channel. Coming shortly, coming quickly, we'll see. I don't know if quickly is really a word that we used a lot back in Hawaii, but you know, we'll do our best.

• 3:27:11Speaker 01

  And we're gonna, we're making it happen.

• 3:27:12Jocko Willink?

  And then you got Psychological Warfare, little, little album with some tracks to kinda help you push through some of those moments of weakness where you're thinking you just wanna eat that donut, you don't need to.

• 3:27:22Speaker 01

  No.

• 3:27:22Jocko Willink?

  You just don't need to. So that'll help you out. And we're also making a second Psychological Warfare album. And if you want that, then you can, if you wanna, if you want, if you have a special request for that. Should I do some, stop smoking cigarettes? I've never smoked cigarettes.

• 3:27:39Speaker 01

  I I think you should at least, yeah, do it. And then if it's like, yeah, cuz I I would think but as far as potential problems, you might run into like, you know how like on the other ones? Like you can, I get, you can relate. So you you know kinda what to say about it, you know, like, hey, you're thinking this or whatever. Um, yeah, with the smoking, maybe you could compare it to something maybe you felt that you might be addicted to in the past, but I don't, I think that's a whole. No, but that's a whole different game.

• 3:28:04Jocko Willink?

  No, no, I like croutons, like it's, you know.

• 3:28:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, but I th- again, I think it's a different game to really like croutons and to be addicted to smoking. I I don't know, I've never smoked.

• 3:28:14Jocko Willink?

  Well, that, yeah, that's, that one's available wherever you get MP3s, iTunes, Google Play, whatever.

• 3:28:20Speaker 01

  Yeah. Also, if you're on the path, working out, that's part of it, right? My my four things, working out was one of them. And you wanna vary every workout, so this is where you get your kettlebells on it, on it dot com, com, it's called on it dot com slash Jaco, slash Jaco, by the way. Get some rings, kettlebells, a mace, I'm I'm, you gotta, the mace is dangerous if you don't know what you're doing, so.

• 3:28:46Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, cuz the maces seem like they're not heavy.

• 3:28:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, and you pick that thing up and you're like, yeah.

• 3:28:50Jocko Willink?

  What's the big, what's the big, long thing with the ball in the end called?

• 3:28:52Speaker 01

  Oh, that's the mace. No, I'm thinking about the club.

• 3:28:54Jocko Willink?

  The club bells, yeah. The club bells are way more dangerous than the mace.

• 3:28:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, and that's what I'm saying where.

• 3:28:59Jocko Willink?

  The club bells, if you drop a club bell on your toe, you will lose your toe.

• 3:29:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, and the workout is swinging.

• 3:29:03Jocko Willink?

  That should be called a toe remover. If you were in a hospital and you were like, oh, you got a bad toe, we're gonna have to remove it. Okay, cool, come over here, whack, that thing's gone.

• 3:29:12Speaker 01

  Bust up the club.

• 3:29:13Jocko Willink?

  I like to work out barefoot sometimes, and like you, that's a dangerous proposition, so be careful.

• 3:29:18Speaker 01

  Just be, yeah, and really, I mean, I'm saying it, it makes it sound like, oh, like almost more dangerous than it really, uh, my point is, go on there and look at the workouts first and know.

• 3:29:29Jocko Willink?

  Just cuz I've never done it, and I still have all my toes. And well, I've never, I've worked out with it a bunch and I still have all my toes, so it's not that big of a deal.

• 3:29:36Speaker 01

  Right, but when you picked it up, you were like, dang, this is kinda heavy. And then when you swing it, you're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, let me get the smaller one. Well, that's how I was anyway. But anyway, you can get that stuff there. Rings are a big deal, in my opinion, rings.

• 3:29:47Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, definitely you should have rings. If you don't have rings, get them.

• 3:29:49Speaker 01

  You see, I said that in my opinion, like, I just know about that, even though you were preaching rings from day one. Now I'm signed on to the ring.

• 3:29:56Jocko Willink?

  How's the big stability muscles coming?

• 3:30:00Speaker 01

  They're stable, bruh.

• 3:30:01Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, super stable.

• 3:30:03Speaker 01

  Anyway, yeah, I posted a picture of my son. I don't really post that many pictures of like my kids all the time or nothing, every once in a while, sure. But he was lifting, you know, when you lift and it's like he just jumps in and says, my turn. He does a deadlift, does it pretty good. Kids have good form, by the way.

• 3:30:19Jocko Willink?

  Yes, they do.

• 3:30:19Speaker 01

  So he does a deadlift on one of the little on it kettlebells, a smaller one.

• 3:30:24Jocko Willink?

  Well, is he two?

• 3:30:24Speaker 01

  Two, yeah. And he's like, yeah, watch me. He did.

• 3:30:28Jocko Willink?

  What was the weight?

• 3:30:29Speaker 01

  Eighteen pounds.

• 3:30:30Jocko Willink?

  How much does he weigh?

• 3:30:31Speaker 01

  I don't know.

• 3:30:33Jocko Willink?

  Eighteen pounds seems a little light.

• 3:30:34Speaker 01

  It was like, he did it easy. Well, anyway, I took, I took a picture.

• 3:30:38Jocko Willink?

  Why don't you, why don't you get him a bigger kettlebell? He can start pushing the envelope a little bit.

• 3:30:41Speaker 01

  Look, we're not talking.

• 3:30:42Jocko Willink?

  You want to raise your kid to be weak?

• 3:30:43Speaker 01

  No, we're not talking. I'm just saying that's what he did at that time and I took a picture of it. I'm not saying we were maxing out, me and my two year old were maxing out deadlift and he only could do eighteen. That's not what I'm saying. See what I'm saying? Anyway, I took a picture of it.

• 3:30:57Speaker 01

  So you can see it.

• 3:30:58Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 3:30:58Speaker 01

  And it's, and it has, I looked at the picture and I kind of evaluated. I was like, this is a good picture because it has like all the kettlebells. You know, the set, it kind of scattered about.

• 3:31:05Jocko Willink?

  You framed it up.

• 3:31:06Speaker 01

  Well, I was technically, I mean, truth be told, I was, I'm making a video.

• 3:31:10Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 3:31:11Speaker 01

  Which may or may not have Warrior Kid themes.

• 3:31:14Jocko Willink?

  Oh.

• 3:31:15Speaker 01

  To it. And so while I was doing, I took that picture. Anyway, it looks good. Uh, on it was highly represented in that picture. I liked it.

• 3:31:24Jocko Willink?

  Let me tell you this, uh, maybe if you would give your kid some Jocka White Tea, he would be able to deadlift more than eighteen pounds. He would might be able to deadlift eight thousand pounds. In fact, there's an actual guarantee, because there's no age minimum requirement. If you get that kid on the Jocka White Tea, there's the eight thousand pound deadlift.

• 3:31:44Speaker 01

  Actually, my girl drank two drinks, legitimate drinks of my wife's Jocka White Tea and she deadlifted eight thousand pounds.

• 3:31:51Jocko Willink?

  There you go.

• 3:31:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, one hour later, yes. Yep.

• 3:31:53Jocko Willink?

  Proven.

• 3:31:53Speaker 01

  Hundred percent, kids, everything.

• 3:31:54Jocko Willink?

  Jocka White Tea, you can get the cans which are ready to drink. Or you can get the tea bags that you have to boil water to. Big, oh God, I don't want to boil water.

• 3:32:07Jocko Willink?

  Then you have to seep. You have to seep it. But I'll tell you what, in the morning, I don't drink Jaco White Tea Warm in the morning, every morning. But there's certain situations, like at the muster, oh, I'm all about it. And, you know.

• 3:32:23Speaker 01

  What does seep mean?

• 3:32:24Jocko Willink?

  Seep means you put the tea bag in there and you let it sit for a little while. And for some people, they pull it out. I just leave it in there the whole time. You know Alan? Alan stages.

• 3:32:35Speaker 01

  Oh, Alan from muster.

• 3:32:36Jocko Willink?

  Muster Alan. He stages. He stages. Like, when I get up to the podium, it's staged. And I'm just like, oh. So, what's good about that is it's, I don't know, in the morning time, we just have a little warm. Well, I guess it's hot. Technically, it's hot, but I drink it warm.

• 3:32:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm with you.

• 3:32:55Jocko Willink?

  I don't know that there's a better beverage for that little morning, little morning scenario.

• 3:33:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:33:02Jocko Willink?

  This is a little morning scenario, just a little cup of Jaco White Tea. So you can get that. Also, I got some books. I got The Way of the Warrior Kid.

• 3:33:12Speaker 01

  One and two.

• 3:33:13Jocko Willink?

  And Mark's Mission. It's one and two. It's the same series. And those books, I get more

• 3:33:22Jocko Willink?

  incredible, heartfelt feedback on those two books than I could have ever imagined. And it's awesome because kids can relate to the books and it is great for the kids and it's great for the parents too. And I get parents that just say, this is making me a better parent. Because it's all just a big, it's all just a cover and move, right? I'm giving you this information. You get to flank your kid because your kids aren't going to listen to you. Not 100%. They'll listen to you a little bit, but they'll listen to someone that they, some, some other person that seems like kind of tough, that they want to listen to Uncle Jake. Uncle Jake starts telling them what to do and they're down.

• 3:34:03Speaker 01

  Totally down.

• 3:34:04Jocko Willink?

  And, yeah, so The Warrior Kid books, one and two, obviously get one first because it's a, it's a story and it kind of continues and you need to grow and it's going to continue to grow. We're going to see this, we're going to see young Mark all the way through. Through high school.

• 3:34:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:34:21Jocko Willink?

  Right? And yeah, so those books will help kids get on the path. Teach them about discipline, teach them about hard work, teach them about eating right, teach them about study habits, teach them about taking responsibility. It's like everything that a kid needs to know, to be quite honest with you.

• 3:34:33Speaker 01

  Brad, this is, and this is kind of mean, I guess, in a way. So I have Warrior Kid Two, Mark's Mission on repeat in the household. Helps that for my daughter's kindergarten, they suggest like all these things that you should do every day and you can kind of choose one and one is reading.

• 3:34:52Jocko Willink?

  Hmm, there you go.

• 3:34:54Speaker 01

  For a certain amount of time. So I just read one chapter every single night, every single night. As punishment, I won't though.

• 3:35:00Jocko Willink?

  Dang.

• 3:35:00Speaker 01

  Which is very, pretty rare.

• 3:35:02Jocko Willink?

  That's pretty awesome, though.

• 3:35:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, like if I all threaten, hey, no chapter tonight, you know, she scrambles to, you know,

• 3:35:10Speaker 01

  fall in line. Anyway, um, so the good thing about having it on repeat, because obviously we finished or whatever, I'm on round two, like towards the end of the book and she just knows, she knows the, the answers now.

• 3:35:22Jocko Willink?

  And she's still excited about it.

• 3:35:23Speaker 01

  But yeah, because well, now she knows, so it's all familiar, you know, so she kind of know, it's almost like now she's sort of Uncle Jake. Five, yes.

• 3:35:30Jocko Willink?

  I think she's, yeah, that's amazing.

• 3:35:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:35:32Jocko Willink?

  It's amazing. So that's the way the Warrior Kid and Mark's Mission, get it for your kids, get it for your neighbor's kids, get it for your kids across the streets, kids.

• 3:35:41Speaker 01

  Oh, I'm sorry.

• 3:35:42Jocko Willink?

  Because why not just help kids out?

• 3:35:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it does help. What I, what I was about to say about, I feel bad because one night, this was like two nights ago, um, she got this new unicorn book, kids book. I don't know where she got it from school or something like this. Oh yeah, from their library or whatever. You know, borrow the book. Excited new unicorn book, probably read that thing. The thing is so lame. It's a kindergarten level book, by the way. And so I'm reading it and I'm thinking this thing is lame. I'm looking at her, she's over there playing with Legos while I'm reading it. She disengaged so quick from that. Yeah, just, she was just off that.

• 3:36:14Jocko Willink?

  Get the Warrior Kid books back out.

• 3:36:15Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 3:36:16Jocko Willink?

  All day long. Uh, Discipline Equals Freedom Field Manual. This was cool at the muster. A lot of people, this, this book. Definitely, definitely hit people hard.

• 3:36:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:36:27Jocko Willink?

  Discipline equals freedom field manual. So that book is a good, you know what this book's gonna be good for? Christmas. I know it's only what Thanksgiving, uh Halloween.

• 3:36:36Speaker 01

  Halloween, yeah.

• 3:36:37Jocko Willink?

  But this book, Christmas time, this is the book you get for the, the person.

• 3:36:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:36:43Jocko Willink?

  You know who you need it for. Person that needs to get a little, little help getting on the path. People read page a day, two pages a day. I read it.

• 3:36:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:36:51Jocko Willink?

  I, I wrote it and I read it. Cause it keeps you on the path. So this one equals freedom field manual. Then you got of course, extreme ownership. Which I wrote with my brother Leif Babin, which is just universally kind of becoming accepted as a, as a, as a book that you need to read as a leader. And that's followed up by the dichotomy of leadership, which just came out. Both those books, New York Times, both sellers, both those books, number one, Wall Street Journal bestsellers. Both those books continuing to be on those lists. Why? It's not, that's not through the big advertising campaign. That's just through word of mouth. People get it for themselves and they get it for their teammate, then they get it up the chain of command, down the chain of command.

• 3:37:33Jocko Willink?

  Get your, get your, uh, get your team in the game with the dichotomy of leadership and, and extreme ownership. And then we got Mikey and the Dragons, which comes out in November. So here's what it's about. Mikey. Young kid scared, scared of everything, finds a book. The book that he finds, it's called the Dragon Prince. And he's scared to read it because there's pictures of scary dragons in it, but then he gets the courage to read it because he sees a little boy in there too. That kind of looks like he knows what's going on. So he sees that little boy, he goes, I'm gonna read it. So he reads the book and in the book, the Dragon Prince, there's the king is dead.

• 3:38:14Jocko Willink?

  And the boy is now the only one that will defend the kingdom from the dragons that are over the hill in the dragon cave. And the boy is scared because he's only seven years old and doesn't know what he's gonna do. Goes and finds his father's war chest. Pulls out the shield, pulls out the sword. They're too big for him. And now he's even more scared, but then he sees a note in the bottom of the war chest. And he picks up the note and here's what it says after he finds this note. It says, to my son. If you are reading this now, it means I am gone and you are the one that must carry on. Our kingdom is now what you must save and to do that, you have to be brave.

• 3:39:00Jocko Willink?

  I know that you think you don't know what to do, but remember that I was once a little boy too. I was also small and had fear in my heart and I didn't even know where to start. I couldn't imagine going over the hill to face the dragons that wanted to kill. But don't worry, son, you will be just fine if you can just keep these things in your mind. And then he goes on to explain to him how he can overcome his fear of the dragons. And that's what the prince does. The prince stands up to his fears and faces the dragons. And then the boy Mikey learns from the lesson.

• 3:39:42Jocko Willink?

  And, you know, we have to remember that we all have dragons to fight. So, and also remember that this book is coming out on Jocko Publishing. Why is that? The big publishers couldn't get it out in time for kids to have it for Christmas. That's what I, once I had the book in my mind, I wanted kids to have it by Christmas. And the big publishers couldn't make it happen because they're big, they're big, you know, they got a lot of moving pieces. We're nimble over here, you know, we're nimble. So, since they couldn't get it out in time, I had to kind of, like, they're a big dragon, that's what they are. And so I had to kind of like stand up to the dragons. And we can stand up to the dragons in our own right with this, with this book.

• 3:40:26Jocko Willink?

  So if you want to help fight the dragons, then grab a sword or at least grab a copy. And together we'll slay the dragons. Also, we got Echelon Front, Leadership Consultancy. That's what we do. We solve problems through leadership. It's me, it's Leif, it's JP, Dave Flynn, Mike Sorelli, and Mike Baima.

• 3:40:48Jocko Willink?

  Don't call a speaking agency to get us. We won't do it. Email Echelon Front or check the website echelonfront.com or you can email [email protected]. The muster, we just got done with the muster.

• 3:41:01Speaker 01

  Good show.

• 3:41:01Jocko Willink?

  Good show. It's awesome. Awesome to be up there. Awesome to meet all these people coming from all over the world. South Africa, New Zealand, right?

• 3:41:14Speaker 01

  It's interesting to-

• 3:41:16Jocko Willink?

  This one woman came from New Zealand and like didn't get a shout out. Leif was kinda naming some of the countries where people from, were from. And I don't think, well, we didn't have it on the list or whatever. We should have done a better job of screening it, but she came up. She's like, I'm from New Zealand. And I was like, I was like, oh, that's awesome. She goes, you guys didn't say it. I was like, oh. So I'm saying it now. New Zealand was represented strongly. And I signed a book. She had to go, uh, she had to do a little like, I think she did a coin flip to figure out who gets to go to the muster. Her or her husband. She won. So I signed books for him. So yeah, come to the muster. The next one, there's gonna be one in Chicago in the spring and one in Denver in the fall. So, and it's looking like Australia in the winter. So keep that on the down low.

• 3:42:01Speaker 01

  Sure, yeah, the down low.

• 3:42:03Jocko Willink?

  But every, every muster we've done has sold out and these are gonna sell out too. So check extremeownership.com if you wanna get into that game. Of course, now we also have EF Overwatch, uh, big subject. Lots of people. It's, it's the war on, it's a war for talent. That's what it is. Everyone needs good, well, if you have a problem in your world, what's gonna solve that problem? Good leadership. Where do you get good leaders from? Well, what we figured out is we get good leadership from the military. So we got special operations and combat aviators that are ready to go out and do work and we're putting them into companies that need leaders.

• 3:42:41Jocko Willink?

  So if you've got a company or if you're a vet spec ops or, or combat aviation, go to EF Overwatch and you can get in the game there.

• 3:42:53Jocko Willink?

  And if you wanna continue this conversation that we're kinda having right now, even though it's been kind of a long conversation, but if you wanna keep it going, you can find us on the interwebs, on Twitter, on Instagram and on Facebook.

• 3:43:07Jocko Willink?

  Echo is at Echo Charles and I am at Jocko Willink and thanks to all of you for making this podcast possible. By all of you, I mean, first of all, the military who protects our way of life and who sacrifice so much for our freedom and our security and here at home, police, law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, correctional officers, border patrols, first responders, you know who you are, those of you in uniform, thank you for your service in protecting us here at home and everyone that listens. Wherever you are and whatever

• 3:43:49Jocko Willink?

  it is that you do, teachers, investment bankers, plumbers, engineers, electricians, doctors and nurses and builders and bricklayers and everyone else that is out there making their way. Like I said earlier, it can get hard sometimes. That's the way life is and sometimes you can actually hear life laughing at you sometimes. But I say, don't let it. It's like when the Chinese guards conducted a mock execution on Colonel Richardson and the other prisoners that he was there with and then the guards, they stood there and they were laughing.

• 3:44:34Jocko Willink?

  They were laughing at these terrified prisoners and the Colonel, he didn't like that at the time. The Master Sergeant, he didn't like that. So he yelled, he yelled, "Get up."

• 3:44:46Jocko Willink?

  Don't let them laugh at you. Get up.

• 3:44:53Jocko Willink?

  And I recommend that if you feel like the world is laughing at you, you do the same. You get up and get after it. And until next time, this is Echo and Jaco. Out.