250: Giving Up VS Holding On Just a Little Longer. Lessons Under Stress. NO F**KING SLACK. "About Face" pt.2

0:00:00 - Opening 0:01:46 - More lessons from "About Face", by Hackworth. 1:59:32 - Making The Path a routine. 2:15:30 - How to stay on THE PATH. 2:34:25 - 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 250 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. Good evening Echo.

• 0:06Speaker 01

  Good evening.

• 0:07Jocko Willink?

  So on the last podcast, number 249, we were reading the newest edition of the book About Face by Colonel David Hackworth, which has a written, a foreword in it, written by me. And if you haven't listened to 249 yet, just go back right now and listen to that one first.

• 0:25Jocko Willink?

  And we ended up reading some of the book, but we just started to scratch the surface. And, and look, I, I was prepping for this podcast and saying, you know what? We should read a little bit more. Read a little bit more from the book, talk about it a little bit more. And just as things start to pick up in the Korean War, we just start to learn these incredible lessons. So we're going to take one more look at About Face today. Picking up, it actually picks up, you know that when you write a book, they, they want you to have like the big action scene in the beginning?

• 1:02Speaker 01

  I did not know that, but I understand.

• 1:05Jocko Willink?

  Right, right. So they want, you know, the, the reader to not, you know, to pick up the book and invest something into the book. So this book starts off with a big time action scene that we actually read last time. So this is a later chapter, but it actually predates the big action scene of February 6th, which is this battle where he gets wounded and he gets shot in the head. David Hackworth gets shot in the head and all this mayhem happens. So this is actually predates that with him kind of showing up in Korea. And so that's what we're going to do. We're going to talk through some of these things. I'm going to try and slow it down and talk about some of the things that I pull out of this book. So here we go, back to the book.

• 1:48Jocko Willink?

  "The course of the Korean War had changed dramatically since its lightning fast beginning. At the start, US forces, hopelessly outnumbered, outgunned and undertrained, had been driven back by the North Koreans into the tiniest corner of South Korea beyond the Naekong River."

• 2:06Jocko Willink?

  There, the Eighth Army dug in its heels, determinedly holding what was known as the Pusan perimeter until September, when MacArthur's daring amphibious invasion at Incheon severed the North Korean Army's lines of communications and chopped its legs out from under it. No longer was the enemy an effective fighting force, and our certain defeat along the lines of Dunkirk in 1940 suddenly appeared to be surefire victory. Units of the Eighth Army smashed out of Naek Tong perimeter, spirits were high as we raced north beyond the 38th parallel, beyond the North Korean capital of Pyongyang, to within spitting distance of the Yalu River, the dividing line between North Korea and Manchuria.

• 2:47Jocko Willink?

  Fighting was sporadic, but as units moved further north, the weather worsened, and enemy resistance increased. It was like compressing a spring. The night the Chinese came, I was in a foxhole in the center of my scout section's defensive position. Now, let's think about that. The night the Chinese came. That's a scary thing. And, you know, every time I read about the Korean War, which we've covered several Korean War memoirs on this podcast, what a savage scenario that was. And it's called "The Forgotten War",

• 3:30Jocko Willink?

  and I did that piece, I did a piece on Memorial Day, and talked about the Forgotten War, and just about how anyone that was there could never forget what those guys went through in any way. And if you pay any attention to it whatsoever, you realize that we should always remember what sacrifices were made in the Korean War. And a lot of it, this sentence right here, "The night the Chinese came." So here we go. The night the Chinese came, I was in a foxhole in the center of my scout section's defensive position. The sector was densely covered with screw pines and scrub oaks. My foxhole buddy and I were sitting on the edges of our hole when we saw, and it was like

• 4:15Jocko Willink?

  right out of a cartoon, a row of small trees moving toward us. We chopped them down along with a little Chinaman creeping along behind each one with hand grenades, but that was just the beginning. The next thing I saw was what I could only describe as a wave, a human wave of Chinese crashing over us. For the next three hours, they came. Wall-to-wall Chinamen, many of whom did not even have rifles, only long lances tipped with bayonets. Others were armed with US Thompson submachine guns or Russian drum-fed assault rifles. For the main,

• 4:58Jocko Willink?

  they were sorry shots with no understanding of basic infantry tactics, but what the Chinese lacked in proficiency, they made up for in numbers, and their presence heralded the start of the largest and most bitter retreat in US Army history. So, that's crazy, right? You've got these Chinese coming, and they've got spears. And can you imagine, imagine people coming at you for 10 minutes, right? Like, can you imagine enough people that they can come at you for 10 minutes? Now imagine 30 minutes, and you, that, imagine how many people that is. Now imagine three hours of people coming at you.

• 5:46Jocko Willink?

  Upon my arrival in Korea, I'd been assigned the 25th Recon Company as Replacement Scout Section Leader. It was an Army mistake. My military occupational specialty was infantry, not armored, recon, and it had upset me to no end because 25th Recon guys were not eligible for the CIB regardless of how much infantry combat they saw. So the CIB is the Combat Infantryman Badge, and that's what you get when you're in direct combat in the Army, and it's a...

• 6:16Jocko Willink?

  Let's say that's like a serious mark of pride in the army because that means you've been in the shit.

• 6:23Jocko Willink?

  So you can see a little bit of ego creeping out from David Hackworth because he's like, what are you kidding me? We're just recon and we're, we are not even eligible for getting the C I B. This is garbage.

• 6:35Jocko Willink?

  Continuing, add to that MacArthur's brilliant stroke at Incheon. The war had seemed over, saved for the victory parade. And I'd been sick that after all I'd gone through to get here, I'd missed the guts of the whole damn show. This is just, once again, this is typical, be careful what you wish for. He's thinking after Incheon, Americans had such a leg up that, ah, I missed it. I missed the war.

• 7:01Jocko Willink?

  I hadn't wanted to show up in another occupation force. So in the army, when he joined the army, he went to Europe. And World War Two was over. And so he showed up there and he was just, you know, get, you know, standing around and starting standing guard duty and stuff like that. They were training, but whatever. He wasn't getting the combat that he wanted. So he's afraid when he shows up in, in Korea, oh, they did this big move at Incheon. We're not going to get any combat.

• 7:29Jocko Willink?

  I hadn't wanted to end up in another occupation force, still Sergeant Combat. And that's the nickname that he earned himself, even when there was no combat when he was in Europe, but he was just so fired up. They called him Sergeant Combat. Only in a new theater, in my heart, I'd secretly wished the war would continue long enough to let me get involved in at least one good fight. My wish came true only too well. My first real firefight. And this is good, it's always good to hear this, right? Because there's such a huge amount of difference between.

• 8:06Jocko Willink?

  Your first firefight and your next one. Just like any, any, anything that we do, anything that you do as a human being, the learning curve, when you see something for the first time, is the steepest learning curve you're gonna get. So it's always good to think about these things. My first real firefight had occurred just before the Chinese came on a dull, overcast day. The scout section had set up near a secondary road. We spotted a squad of North Korean soldiers, weapons at sling arms, coming out of the tree line. They were good-looking troops, but asleep at the switch. They didn't see us. It was an amazing sense of power I felt, ultimate power, I suppose, just watching them come and holding that weapon in my hands. We let them get within about thirty yards before we cut loose.

• 8:49Jocko Willink?

  I dropped four guys point-blank with my M1, each dead with a six o'clock sight picture in the chest, just like the good book said. I felt no guilt, few of us did. I'd been trained too well. And besides, the enemy had been utterly dehumanized throughout my training. They aren't men, they're just gooks, I thought. As the four enemy fell and a fierce firefight began, we knocked off the point element of a much larger enemy force and stirred up a hornet's nest. Okay, note on gooks, the term, and this is, this is in the book.

• 9:28Jocko Willink?

  It's a, it's an asterisk, the term gook is derived from the Korean word han gook, which means Korean person. So I know that it's a insensitive term. It's in the book.

• 9:44Speaker 01

  What does six o'clock sight picture mean?

• 9:46Jocko Willink?

  Just where he's lining up his, his weapon, the sight on his weapon, six o'clock sight picture. Basically, a point of aim, point of impact. So he's just aiming, um, I guess, like, towards the bottom of his, he's, he's lining up the bottom of his sight. On their chest.

• 10:05Speaker 01

  So he's simply saying like, I like made good shots essentially like everything lined up perfect.

• 10:13Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and like the good book says, I'm sure he's referring to, you know, the Army Marksmanship Manual, which says, you know, once you get this, you you set the six o'clock of your sight on to the point of impact you want to hit. And I'm I I could be wrong about this because I'm not, I'm not 100% sure, but it's something meaning, hey, he took the good solid sight picture that he's supposed to get. There's the one that he was taught. Boom, hit him in the chest. But here's what sketchy is, these were just the point element. There are a bunch of people behind him. Following the lead of a lot of the older veterans earlier in the day, I'd placed several clips of ammo ammo on my rifle sling. I liked the look.

• 10:55Jocko Willink?

  It was kind of John Wayne ish, and it seemed to make sense. A new clip only seconds away. But when I'd taken up my prone firing position, the sling had flopped on the rain soaked ground. Now, as the firefight got going, I grabbed for a clip, only to discover that it and the rest of them were clogged with mud. Bullets were flying and my brain stalled out. I vaguely remembered an old tale about how well the M1 worked under any battlefield condition. Quickly knocking off the bigger pieces of muzz, mud, I oozed the clip up into my rifle. I got one round off, the weapon jammed, and for the next few minutes, I sat in the ditch, field stripping, cleaning and reassembling the thing while my first real combat went on without me. Our field, our artillery fire took the starch out of the North Korean advance,

• 11:37Jocko Willink?

  and we were able to scoot ass with no friendly casualties, other that is than Sergeant Combat's bruised pride. My first firefight had been my first screw up. I didn't know until much later that you generally don't walk away from that one.

• 11:54Jocko Willink?

  What does that say? Be prepared. So here he is in his first firefight. He's got the cool guy bandolier scenario going on with his with his weapon and his mags, and it doesn't work out well. That's why you got to rehearse things, how they're gonna actually be. You can't just do something for the first time in combat and be like, oh, this will be fine. No.

• 12:19Jocko Willink?

  A few days later, five of us had been out on a reconnaissance patrol. It was a very black night, save for the US flares that hung eerily over the battlefield. Very quiet, but for the occasional whine of artillery fire and the odd burst of an automatic weapon. We had moved about a mile into enemy territory when we heard motors. Leaving the patrol, I crawled to a mound near the edge of the road for a firsthand look. Look, through the darkness, silhouetted by the artillery flares, I could see four enemy vehicles. A file of infantry was walking on each side of the motor column with more infantry walking in front. They were so close that I was sure the vehicle's engines prevented them from hearing my pounding heart. They passed by. I was about to return to the patrol when I saw a lone North Korean soldier,

• 13:03Jocko Willink?

  his weapon slung, tracing a telephone wire. As he passed my position, I parted his hair with a submachine gun magazine and dragged him back to the patrol. So he knocked this dude out.

• 13:18Jocko Willink?

  Think about that. Like a massive patrol goes by, you find one lone guy, take a magazine out of your gear, hit him on the head with it, knock him out, and then drag him back to your patrol. Daylight wasn't far off when we headed home. Progress was slow. Initially, we had to pack our zonked-out prize. Later, he awoke, stumbled along belligerently, but at least under his own steam. When we thought we had made it, we ran into a large enemy force moving down the road in formation. They were jabbering excitedly and dragging machine guns behind them on squeaky wheels. We were about six yards from the road.

• 13:59Jocko Willink?

  I lay on top of the prisoner, covered his mouth with my hand, and pressed my trench knife hard against his throat. I thought the cold steel would be enough to convince him to be good, but it wasn't. Old habits die hard. He started squirming around. My hand was muffling his cries to his comrades. When he tried to bite it, I had no choice. I slit his throat and lay there on top of him for what seemed like a bloody eternity, until the road was clear and we could hot-foot it back to the US lines.

• 14:34Jocko Willink?

  There you go.

• 14:36Jocko Willink?

  Welcome to combat.

• 14:39Jocko Willink?

  I hadn't wanted to kill him. I would have rather to capture the guy. A live prisoner is worth a thousand dead hombres. But I was probably as scared as he was, and in a millionth of a second, I had to decide, and it was either him or my patrol.

• 14:57Jocko Willink?

  You know when people talk about the split-second decisions you have to make in combat? There you go. What am I gonna do? I'm gonna, I'm gonna kill this guy.

• 15:08Jocko Willink?

  Killing that guy and one other incident probably hammered home most of that Korea was not some training maneuver, that I was really in war, boots and all. The other occurred when we were digging in on a small knob overlooking a main north-south road. Digging in was a task of a frontline trooper performed at least once a day when on the move, usually spent the time cursing your commander for always choosing the hardest ground in the town, and then moving the line just when you'd finished your hole. Some of us thought it was an army plot to keep us in shape. For myself, I'd rather have done a million push-ups. But on this particular occasion, we'd gotten some great dirt. It was soft and loose, a breeze to dig, and I was about two feet down in no time.

• 15:54Jocko Willink?

  Then my shovel hit something mushy. A few quick scrapes revealed an olive drab green material. A few more uncovered a decaying corpse of a man with bright red hair and a 24th Division patch on his moldy, fatigued jacket. The soldier's hands had been tied behind him with communication wire, and he'd been shot in the back of the head.

• 16:18Jocko Willink?

  Three more bodies were found by other troopers on our little knob, all killed and buried the same way.

• 16:28Jocko Willink?

  Company was notified. They said the men had probably been killed at the beginning of the war. That was when the 24th Division had fought along this road. We were instructed to dig out the dog tags and provide eight-digit grid coordinates where each body was found. The atrocity did little for morale, but a lot for fighting spirit. There would be no love lost for an enemy as savage as the North Korean Reds. So much for the Korean police action. I and my friends thought this was all-out war with no quarter given.

• 17:07Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, he talked about dehumanizing the troops and I've talked about dehumanizing the enemy. And that is something that absolutely the military will try and do. And it's a very crazy fine line to walk because as you dehumanize the enemy, you're also possibly dehumanizing the civilians that are in that area. And so you have a very sketchy scenario that can unfold. But they still have to do it to some level because otherwise you've got people, the US military, that in their mind, you know, it's a syndicate or whatever beliefs they have, they don't want to do it. And you're trying to convince them that it's okay because these aren't even people. They're not even humans. That's dehumanizing.

• 17:50Jocko Willink?

  And I've said before, and this is the type of thing that makes it very clear. You know, I've said that the, we didn't really, in Iraq, we didn't really have to dehumanize the enemy because the enemy dehumanized themselves with the things that they did to the local populace. Torture, murder, rape, just complete and utter savagery.

• 18:15Jocko Willink?

  And that's the same thing that's happening right here. You know, you're finding Americans that have been bound, executed in the back of the head and buried in shallow graves.

• 18:30Jocko Willink?

  Continuing on, now that the Chinese were in the conflict, the recon company's mission was to provide a reconnaissance screen in front of the 25th Infantry Division's withdrawal. In other words, to delay, deceive, and disorganize the undeniable Communist advance. So the Chinese are coming now. They've got the numbers, they've got the masses, they've got America on its heels. Get the 25th ID, Tropic Lightning, by the way, stationed in Hawaii. I went out and spoke, had the honor of speaking to the 25th ID, just a historic group of soldiers.

• 19:14Jocko Willink?

  The Chinese had struck the 8th Army like a giant steamroller, crushing many units and mauling most others. 8th Army's Commander Lieutenant General Walton Walker, who had said in July of 1950, as the first real southward began, quote, "There will be no Dunkirk, there will be no baton. A retreat to Pusan would be the greatest butcheries in history. We must fight until the end." End quote. Now found himself directing yet another brave but bloody withdrawal to the south. Only seven years before, General Eisenhower's forces were similarly surprised and smashed,

• 19:56Jocko Willink?

  but that time, we'd had Patton to save the day. In my heart of hearts, I kinda wished someone would get the idea to use our recon company to be the spearhead to Bastogne for the Korean conflict. But it was not to be, and just as well. Unlike the 752nd Recon, which had 17 M24 light tanks, we were a light-skinned force with only six M24s in the whole company. Divide these up amongst three identical platoons, and it wasn't exactly the punch Lieutenant Colonel Creighton Abrams had in 1944. Still, we had plenty to do to keep us occupied. Exchanging ground for time, the drill went, that we would hold a position until the enemy

• 20:41Jocko Willink?

  was breathing hot and heavy down our necks, and we would break contact and run like hell, leapfrogging through another recon platoon or rifle unit that was set up behind us in the same way. So they're doing a cover and move as they're retreating. Trading ground for time. It was a dangerous game with no room for error and we found ourselves playing it day after day after day. They were strange dudes, the Chinese. Seemingly with no sense of personal peril. That's a bold statement. Seemingly with no sense of personal peril. That's a human instinct. Of self-preservation and they didn't seem to have it.

• 21:24Jocko Willink?

  You know, when uh, when Seth Stone went into solder city, you know, that was in 2008, we had fought in Ramadi in 2006. And he, I was talking to him while he was there, you know, after the first couple of operations that they ran. And he said something similar. I don't remember the exact quote of what he said, but what he was trying to explain to me was. The fighters in Ramadi were. Perhaps better fighters, more tactically skilled. He said, but he's like, these guys in solder city, they don't care. They don't care if they die and they are just coming. And it's a different type of threat. It's a different scenario that you're under.

• 22:05Jocko Willink?

  It was not unusual to see them jump on a US tank, holding grenades and then scramble around looking for some opening to toss them in. Of course, if the tank was buttoned up, it was impossible and the tank commander inside would simply call another tank nearby to quote, "scratch my back." Which, at which point the second tank would spray the first tank with 30 caliber coaxial machine gun fire and wash the hitchhikers off.

• 22:31Jocko Willink?

  But there were always other Chinamen to take the dead ones places. It was a grim fact and we were constantly reminded of as we were moving south. Morale dropped with every rearward step of the humiliating retreat. That is the just important to remember that when things aren't going right, when you're in a leadership position and things aren't going right. And you have to retreat or you have to take a tactical withdrawal or you have to undo some of the progress that you've made. Or you have to abandon some of the work that you've done, which this, this, this, I'm not just talking about war, I'm talking about any scenario, business, life. You've got, when you have to retreat, you have to pay attention to the morale of the troops because it sucks.

• 23:13Jocko Willink?

  It sucks and what it sucks is it sucks the morale right away from the troops. They've put forth this effort, they fought and bled, or they've worked really hard to get to a certain point and now you're leaving.

• 23:25Jocko Willink?

  We kept falling back away from the Yalu beyond Pyongyang until we'd refocused the 38th parallel and we were back in South Korea. The only thing I think running faster than the 8th Armor were the rumors. The Marines were cut off at a place called the Chosin Reservoir in the north and were being zeroed out. The US Army 10th Corps had surrendered. Boats were waiting at Pusan Harbor to take us to Japan. These are all just crazy rumors that are going around, partially true, partially untrue. Maybe meanwhile, while winter had arrived, but winter gear had not. MacArthur had said we'd be home before Christmas.

• 24:07Jocko Willink?

  I guess his supply people believed him because the Chinese had caught us with our pants down and they were summer trousers. Feet and leather boots froze. Gloves and mittens were scarce as good-looking girls. Our field jackets were as thin and protective as page one of the newspaper. We were slowly freezing to death in the bitter below zero weather while the Chinese, like Genghis Khan's mighty hordes, marched on seemingly unstoppable. Logistics wins wars and here you are. It's crazy to think about this compared to either Napoleon's march into Russia, which

• 24:50Jocko Willink?

  we've covered on this podcast, with the memories of a Napoleonic foot soldier and how everyone, "Oh, we don't need winter stuff. We should be done by winter." And then same thing with the Nazis going into Russia and Stalingrad, freezing. How come we don't learn these lessons? How come? You know, this has something to do with, I was talking about the other day. When you come up with a freaking plan, you need to have a negative attitude. You need to have a negative attitude. Your attitude can't be, "We're gonna be home by Christmas." That's just wrong. Your attitude has to be, "This could take five years or more. We need to be ready for the worst-case scenario." Going in there and thinking, "We'll be home by Christmas."

• 25:35Jocko Willink?

  Like, if that, if, if, if MacArthur uttered that one time, which he did...

• 25:43Jocko Willink?

  Think of the effect and impact that has on the rest of the chain of command. Think of the impact that that has on the whole supply logistics chain. When they go, you know, it's gonna be over by Christmas. I guess it's not really that important that we get good boots for the men. I guess it's really not that important that we get good warm jackets for the men. Just a little hint of that.

• 26:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, I feel like I kind of fall into that trap. A lot of times, you know, when you go in somewhere.

• 26:13Jocko Willink?

  And you know what that is? That is a, an extreme form of decentralized command. It's an extreme form of

• 26:23Jocko Willink?

  commander's intent. Right? So, so lately I've been talking about the fact that culture is

• 26:30Jocko Willink?

  culture is like the most premier, highest form of decentralized command and commander's intent. Because if our culture is, for instance, hey, we always take care of the customer. Right? Then you, Echo Charles, as a frontline guy working at a cash register, you can make a decision on what to do with a customer because you know that our customer is the most important thing. If you know that, listen, we always we always treat civilians with the utmost respect. That's our culture. When you get into a situation where there's a wounded, you know, a wounded mom in a house with a building, you make that a priority and you take care of and you get medevac and, and casualty care for that individual, right?

• 27:15Jocko Willink?

  Because that's our culture. So, culture is like the highest form of decentralized command. Well, what happens?

• 27:24Jocko Willink?

  When you give commander's intent, just by saying something as innocent as we'll be home by Christmas, think of how that reverberates throughout the organization. Everybody goes, ah, we're good. Because can you think about the Herculean efforts that it takes to get, you know, 200,000 warm jackets and pairs of boots and specific sizes? That's no joke. You can't just snap your fingers and that happens. It's gonna take effort. It's gonna take effort at every level. People stepping up to make things happen.

• 27:57Jocko Willink?

  You know, like in a communist country, when I remember when the Polish were kind of striking against the against the communist regime there, they would just make little small mistakes in factories, right? You can prevent things from happening by just doing a little bit, just by just dragging your feet just a little bit. Because Echo, if you drag your feet just a little bit, hey, maybe it's not that big of a deal. But if there's a hundred people and you're all dragging your feet, we're not making progress anymore. So you picture an entire supply chain that hears, eh, it'll be over by Christmas. How much effort's being put forth? You know, sure, do you have some really great people

• 28:40Jocko Willink?

  in there somewhere that are gonna get after it? Yeah, you do. Does that overcome the other 94% of the people that are dragging their feet and it's not that big of a deal? And hey, I'm gonna still head home at four o'clock today?

• 28:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, the jacket thing. But you know how like when you go somewhere, I don't know, to the park, carnival, whatever, and you you kind of don't account for the weather? Or you know, like when the sun goes down?

• 29:06Jocko Willink?

  You do account for the weather. But I know where you're going with this.

• 29:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, like to me, the weather is I look outside and boom, there's your weather. Yeah. But meanwhile, my wife is like, oh, bring the jacket, bring the water, just in case they get thirsty and you get there, you know, whatever, all this stuff. She's bringing these bags. I was like, bro, I don't need bags, you know, I don't need all this stuff. I'm going to the park. All I need is meat, really.

• 29:31Jocko Willink?

  And so does she let you learn your lesson each and every time?

• 29:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. You go there. And here's the thing that in, I mean, in my particular case, which, you know, maybe this applies to others as well, where I won't learn the lesson every single time, because sometimes I'm like, fine. You know, sometimes I do make it home.

• 29:47Jocko Willink?

  You reinforce, you reinforce the lesson of being a slacker.

• 29:51Speaker 01

  Yes, exactly right. So.

• 29:53Jocko Willink?

  You're right. This is not an easy lesson to learn. Okay, so you, we live collectively, you and I, at this time, we live in San Diego, California. And what's interesting about San Diego, California, is if you go out to dinner, let's say, right now, what is it, October 2020, if you go out for dinner at?

• 30:17Jocko Willink?

  Six o'clock at night, the sun is still up and it's it's warm outside. It's eighty degrees. There's no need for a jacket isn't even conceivable. But if you're gonna eat outside and the sun's gonna go down. It is going to get chilly. It's gonna get chilly, it's gonna get fifty degrees. That's gonna happen in, you know, three, four hours. So, yes.

• 30:42Speaker 01

  When you're, yeah, when you're used to that scenario being the case, it like gets easier or whatever. But man, yeah, it does kinda take this weird mindset. I had that exact scenario happen, by the way, like the, like a week ago, whatever. My wife's birthday, we go to this ra, it's called like C level, I don't know, one of these, you know.

• 31:01Jocko Willink?

  I've been there.

• 31:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know, actually.

• 31:05Speaker 01

  Yes, some of the guys there said that you've been there before at the restaurant. So I was like, alright, cool.

• 31:11Jocko Willink?

  But one of our people works there.

• 31:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:14Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. One of our jujitsu people.

• 31:17Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, fully. So. Yeah, so I go there, so we go and, you know, it's more, it's kinda hot, it's been hot. So I'm like, alright, same tactics, right, look outside, what's the weather like? Oh, we're sitting outside, cool. I look outside, weather, hot, sunny, whatever, cool. And here's the thing, my wife kinda felt, she didn't fall for it, but she kinda was like, kinda was feeling the same thing. So I was like, whatever, no jackets, didn't bring jackets for the kids, nothing like that. So we go in there and our seats are, yes, outside, but covered. So a little bit of an ocean breeze going through there. And here's the thing, wasn't cold, I wouldn't call it cold, but it was something. Like you had like chicken skin every once in a while.

• 32:00Jocko Willink?

  You wanted that lightweight.

• 32:01Speaker 01

  Lightweight, it would have been perfect, would have been perfect. And here's the thing is, it wasn't about me, it was about the kids, everybody else. You get a four year old and a seven year old that's just slightly uncomfortable and chilly. They might not throw a tantrum, but you're gonna hear about it.

• 32:18Jocko Willink?

  You can learn this lesson. It's a good lesson and you seem to have to learn it over and over again. Some of my kids know it. They think, you know, they're bringing. I was gonna meet my, meet my family, like I, I think we were recording one day. And I was gonna meet my family somewhere, eating outside. Covid, you gotta eat outside and whatnot, right? So, but my son actually just showed up with a sweatshirt for me.

• 32:45Jocko Willink?

  Credit, right? Full credit.

• 32:47Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 32:47Jocko Willink?

  It's full credit on that one.

• 32:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, cuz that's like, and really, the whole reason is like, bro, why do I wanna, why am I gonna wear myself down carrying this jacket when I probably won't need it? Why am I gonna carry this, you know, bag of additional clothing when we're not gonna need all this stuff? Why this big bottle of water, you know? Bro, there's water there, you know, like, bro, why are you bringing all this stuff? Like, stop loading like, you know? Anyway, so, yeah, but, again, like, you have that mindset, you're gonna get jammed up, or potentially get jammed up in the, you know, in the future, you gotta plan for that kind of stuff, which I think my wife is like, that's her whole jam. It's like, what do we need? She'll overdo it, you know?

• 33:31Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 33:32Speaker 01

  But I'll underdo it. I think, like, the answer, the solution's right there in the middle.

• 33:36Jocko Willink?

  I hope you guys can find a balance.

• 33:38Speaker 01

  Responsibly evaluate future scenarios, yes.

• 33:43Jocko Willink?

  They were not only short on cold weather gear, continuing on, back to the book, food was in short supply. All spare time was spent scrounging. One of the most modern armies in the world became an army of days past foraging and living off the land. We kicked in the walls of houses, searching for rice and kimchi. Hidden in false walls and secret caches, we cooked what we found in our steel pots. When nothing else was available, we'd take the sea ration, packets of sugar, powdered coffee, powdered milk, and chocolate we'd store for days like squirrels in the pockets of our fatigues, mash it all together with snow in our helmets and trick ourselves into believing it was ice cream. Trying to beat the elements became a war in itself.

• 34:26Jocko Willink?

  It was so bitterly cold, you couldn't sleep. You had to keep moving, stomping feet and flexing fingers 24 hours a day. Those who didn't were saying goodbye to their hands and feet, and in some cases, their lives. For a while, every day, a couple men were evacuated because of frostbite. Black toes and fingers to be cut off at the hospital. Grenades, knives, and ammo would freeze fast to the foxhole brim. Weapons froze too. You'd have to kick the bolts of the M1 and Browning automatic rifles to get them back. We seldom had rifle patches to clean our weapons. Most of us cut little squares out of our shirts or trousers to do the best we could. Gun oil was a luxury, usually beyond our reach. We lubricated our weapons with motor

• 35:08Jocko Willink?

  oil, or the frozen lard of sea rations, and took to keeping them with us in our fart sacks at night. Staying alive became our only concern, and we did. Man is most adaptable. When we passed through villages, if a house had a lot of wood, doors, window frame, even the most beautiful hand carved furniture, we'd burn it, one piece at a time, finishing off the jibe by throwing a thermite grenade on the thatch roof and standing by until the whole structure was burned to the ground. Our orders were to destroy anything the enemy could use. Gladly, we thought to ourselves, and we could stay warm while we did it. At night, we would carefully, obsessively bundle stack and restack kindling wood, while waiting

• 35:53Jocko Willink?

  for daybreak when we could light our fires. The thought of those friendly flames allowed us to make it through the night. Instantaneously, at first light, thousands of tiny fires would spring up across the front, and around each huddled a cluster of shivering men. It was probably as bad in the Chinese camp, except that at least the chinks were prepared with winter gear. Down trousers and jackets, long overcoats that blended in with the snow, and down mittens that we liberated and wore until our own supply people came through. It was a frigid, brutal, soul destroying time. I knew then how the Wehrmacht, I knew then how the Wehrmacht must have felt during World War II, or how Napoleon's army must

• 36:37Jocko Willink?

  have suffered years and years before that, when each made their horrible winter retreat from Russia. Like I said, this is just savage. Frigid, brutal, soul destroying time. And this is coming from the perspective of a guy that, you know, served multiple combat tours in Vietnam as well.

• 37:02Jocko Willink?

  By the time we reached Seoul, the North Korean capital, once a bustling city of millions, was virtually deserted, an empty gray tomb. Most of its inhabitants and those of the northern villages on its outskirts had left and headed south with the few possessions they could carry, clogging the roads with wall-to-wall human misery. On one occasion, American fighter planes must have concluded that the hordes of desperate civilians were Chinese columns moving south. P-51s had strafed the refugees, and for at least a mile, there were dead littered across the road. Retreating vehicles had to push the bodies out of the way.

• 37:44Jocko Willink?

  It was here that I realized it was only the guys on the ground who saw and understood the real horrors of war. To Air Force pilots, war is a remote thing. They make their kills from hundreds or thousands of feet in the air. Even the guys who fly on the deck do so in a flash, dropping their loads and flying away without seeing the results, the way homes and people are blown to smithereens, or the effects of napalm. At night, they didn't have to listen, as we did in the winter of 1950, to the wail of the gooks, cries of civilian refugees begging to be let through American lines, or see

• 38:25Jocko Willink?

  in the morning, when they were allowed to pass through, the dead they'd left behind, those who'd frozen to death in open rice paddies overnight. The pilot, when he finishes his day's work, flies back to his base, lands, goes to the club, has a big steak, and if he wants to forget the day's combat, he can drink himself into a stupor. The frontline fighter can't do that. He lives with death and the horror of the battlefield every day and every night. It is his cross to bear.

• 39:08Jocko Willink?

  We continued retreating. Gray, rotting bodies, the unforgettable smell of death, rats feasting on the dead and growing bolder by the day.

• 39:21Jocko Willink?

  This, the flotsam and jetsam of war, led us through Seoul. Our unit's mission was to fight a rear-guard action in the center of the city. The scout section rifle squad set up at a downtown intersection. We took over a bank, a drugstore, and two other corner buildings. For my command post, I'd use the bank's manager's plush office, which was a welcome diversion from the cold and snow. The bank vault was locked tight. As the self-appointed new bank manager, I authorized the guys to open it with their 3.5 anti-tank bazooka. Two rounds later, the door swung open as easy as a C ration can in the hands of a hungry trooper. The vault contained thousands of dollars in small Korean notes. All the big stuff was gone.

• 40:06Jocko Willink?

  I told everyone to cash in. "No withdrawal forms needed," I said, and they did. We had to laugh at the propaganda leaflets that the Chinese mortared down upon us from the hills they occupied on the high ground around Seoul. Quote, "American capitalists, running dogs of Wall Street," they accused. How right they are, I thought, as we stuffed our pockets and packs and even made hobo sacks to carry our spoils of war. It was strange watching the Chinese brazenly looking down from those hills about 600 or 800 yards away. Our infantry weapons were out of range, preventing a little selective sniping, but we were able to put some effective fire on them with the M24's main gun and had the great fun of taking

• 40:51Jocko Willink?

  potshots with the turret's 50-cal. The Chinese went to ground, and shy of a cheerless Christmas, we slipped out of the sad, near-deserted Seoul. My section's newfound wealth was the first thing to be tossed on the side of the road. Bulky dollars meant nothing, meant little to worn-out troopers, and it had been just a game anyway. South of Seoul, we found ourselves caught in a friendly battle zone. A railway yard being blasted to kingdom come by demolition toting engineers and air force bombers. Railroad flat cars, complete with brand new vehicles and tanks, which would have been distributed to the front lines had it not collapsed, were being blown sky high to keep them out of enemy lines.

• 41:35Jocko Willink?

  To us in the middle, the challenge of this army obstacle course was not only to avoid our own flying debris, but also the enemy incoming, which was pouring in throughout the operation. Yeah, that's, that's a scary sight. So you've got, and it shows you that, I guess it shows not scary, it's the desperation of the situation that you're in, that you've got however many numbers of vehicles that were going to be shipped up to the front time, and now we're just blowing them in place so that the enemy doesn't capture them. You want to talk about a morale, a morale crusher?

• 42:10Jocko Willink?

  We came upon the number of freight cars with sealed doors. One of the guys pride one open to reveal an entire carload of PX supplies, soap, cigarette, aftershave lotion, obviously goodies needed by our rear echelon comrades.

• 42:26Jocko Willink?

  And we decided to help ourselves. Someone drove a brand new three quarter ton truck off a nearby flat car, so we had a way to get away with, had a way to get, to carry out our loot. It fell about four feet and crashed to the ground, springs breaking, fenders collapsing, but it still ran. That's a comic scene, right? You've got this vehicle on a flat pit, on a flat freight train and just drive it off, Dukes of Hazzard style.

• 42:53Jocko Willink?

  We loaded our spoils onto the truck even as telephone poles and large chunks of steel rained down around us. Then we jumped aboard ourselves and unasked the place. Eight recon men bouncing along in a light, in a, in a truck right out of the grapes of wrath. We motored by a battalion infantry hiking south down the road. "Hey, how you fix for cigarettes?" we called. "An Aqua Velva, anyone?" as we threw all the troopers a little something. We ran out of goodies about the same time our mobile pack PX ran out of gas and we reluctantly turned to the, returned to the backs of our tanks with the rest of our platoon. We were young. Sometimes the war was great fun, like a game of cops and robbers or cowboy and Indians that you played as kids.

• 43:40Jocko Willink?

  You know, it's from a maturity level, right? That's something that's just so...

• 43:48Jocko Willink?

  It's important to remember, man, that you're dealing with people that are nineteen, twenty years old, twenty-one years old. I mean, Hackworth's one of the older guys.

• 43:57Jocko Willink?

  But most of these guys, a lot of these guys, when you go into the military, it's young kids.

• 44:05Jocko Willink?

  When I went in, I was eighteen years old. Like, I'm a, you know, my judgment, you know, when you talk about the, what is it? The development of the prefrontal cortex, right? Which as a, which as a man, doesn't develop until you're something like twenty-five.

• 44:22Speaker 01

  Yes, sir.

• 44:23Jocko Willink?

  So you gotta, you gotta find your way through seven years of military service, where your freaking decision-making process is not fully developed yet.

• 44:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:32Jocko Willink?

  That's how dumb shit happens.

• 44:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, makes sense.

• 44:35Jocko Willink?

  You do dumb shit. That's why leadership is so important in the military. But the thing is, sometimes the military leaders are only twenty-three. They're still not even there yet.

• 44:51Jocko Willink?

  Continuing on, "The politics or purpose of the war was not our concern." "We didn't understand or care about the big picture anymore than we really understood the risks of combat, of being killed or going home without a leg. After a while, you stop worrying if the next minute you were going to get it. Instead, you just prayed for a clean wound so you could get out of there. A million-dollar wound to get you home."

• 45:14Jocko Willink?

  You know what was crazy? When we had Dean Ladd on, and he was going into Tarawa, where the Japanese had a freaking island fortress. And I asked him, I was like, "Were you worried about getting wounded or anything?" And he's like, "No, that would be someone else."

• 45:33Jocko Willink?

  "That's the deal, man. It's not gonna happen to me."

• 45:39Jocko Willink?

  After we retreated across the Han River, my platoon was given the mission to outpost a long lonely stretch of the south bank. It was Christmas Day. And although there were no Chinese in sight, it wasn't a particularly jolly time. General Walker had been killed two days before in a freak jeep truck accident, very similar to the one that had killed his former World War II boss, General Patton. Still, Paratroop General Matt Ridgway had taken over as the new commander of the Eighth Army, and word was we would retreat no further. It was a good word, but my platoon had a more immediate concern. We were starving. A personal recon of the area revealed a village nearby,

• 46:24Jocko Willink?

  whose only occupants were a half a dozen scroungy looking chickens. One long burst from my borrowed M2 carbine gave us Christmas dinner in the form of three decisively dead birds that we plucked and threw on an open fire. We ate them unseasoned and undercooked. They were very, very raw, in fact, but wonderful to us. And we gobbled them down and huddled closer to the fire, thinking how lucky we were.

• 46:49Jocko Willink?

  No sooner had we finished than a recon company jeep and trailer bounced across the field to our positions. Christmas dinner, turkey, cranberry sauce, and all the trimmings had arrived. Only the American Army could do that. Unfortunately, our chicken appetizer had left all of us with roaring gutaches. But we wolfed it down anyways because it was good, because it was there, and because none of us knew if this meal would be the last. The enemy took Seoul just after the New Year. The bridge across the Han had been blown, but a few days later, the chinks got a bridgehead across, and we once again headed south in zero degree weather with our tails between our legs.

• 47:33Jocko Willink?

  So much for no more retreats.

• 47:37Jocko Willink?

  I began to think about all the generals' proclamations concerning this war. That we'd be home before Christmas, that the Chinese would not intervene, that we'd hold here, we'd hold there. All of it was bullshit. And I started to wonder how they could possibly make so many dumb statements when each invariably fell apart when put to the test.

• 48:02Jocko Willink?

  Then I thought, well, maybe they just don't know. We never saw a general on the front. We seldom saw a colonel, a lieutenant colonel, or a major either. And at the squad level, we only on the rarest occasion saw a captain. So how could the brass know how defeated its army was if it wasn't there to see, or if they weren't there to see an exhausted guy lie down on a road and just give up? How could they know how cold and ill-equipped we were if they weren't there to see blue gloveless hands stick to the frozen metal of weapons?

• 48:44Jocko Willink?

  How could they know how steep and rugged the terrain was if they never climbed a hill?

• 48:54Jocko Willink?

  Little leadership lesson there. Massive leadership lesson there. You have to find out what's going on with the frontline troops. And you can't rely on reports. And you know, I was reading some other sections of this book.

• 49:07Jocko Willink?

  And, and the temptation to just listen to the reports of frontline troops in any organization is a, it's a massive temptation and it's the wrong thing to do. Because of course, when you're in charge, of course your subordinates are gonna polish that thing up for you. Make it look all good. Make it look all good. That's what they're gonna do.

• 49:30Jocko Willink?

  You can't rely on that. You have to go down there. And the other thing you have to do is you have to be able to admit when you don't know something.

• 49:41Speaker 01

  So the front, when you say the frontline troops, like they'll polish like their report.

• 49:45Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 49:47Speaker 01

  Why do they do that? Just to to show like, hey, we're doing a good job down here kind of thing? Or or they don't want to get anyone in trouble or like?

• 49:56Jocko Willink?

  To not to go super philosophically deep on you right now, but a lack of moral courage.

• 50:01Speaker 01

  Gotcha.

• 50:02Jocko Willink?

  A lack of moral courage to report to your boss, my men are frozen, starving, and they're ready to give up. Cause what you're doing is you're you look, you're the leader. And so you're putting yourself on report for not being a good leader. Right? Cause you know, there's no bad teams, only bad leaders.

• 50:21Speaker 01

  All right. Oh, like the leader of the frontline guys?

• 50:24Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. So if I'm a leader on the front, if you're General Echo and and my guys haven't eaten and their their their morale is breaking. I don't want to tell you that because then you'll be like, well, what's wrong with you, Jaco? How come? Because guess what? Fred over there, he's like, my men are doing great.

• 50:41Speaker 01

  Right.

• 50:41Jocko Willink?

  Cause he has no moral courage to actually tell the truth about what's happening.

• 50:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 50:45Jocko Willink?

  And and and then that puts pressure on me where now I'm thinking, uh oh, I mean, Fred's doing well. Maybe my guys. Maybe my guys can do better. Okay. You know what, General Echo? Uh, we're fine.

• 50:57Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, that's true.

• 51:00Jocko Willink?

  So it's a lack of moral courage.

• 51:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, it seems natural to now, now that I'm kind of thinking of it like that, especially if you're in charge of the guys over there. You don't want to, you don't be like, yeah, we're uh, we're not doing good.

• 51:15Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 51:15Speaker 01

  Even like, it's kind of seems like even in like social scenarios, you know, we'll do that. Like, we're like, hey, so how's uh, how's married life? Or so I don't know, whatever, whatever the situation is. And you want to be like, I'm struggling through this married life kind of thing. Like, it's like, you don't want to say that. If in fact, you're struggling through married life, I'm just saying. Yeah, it seems like. Yeah, that seems a lot more natural now that I'm thinking of it.

• 51:38Jocko Willink?

  Obviously it happened in the business world too, because you know, the, oh, Echo, how's your sales going with your sales team down there?

• 51:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:45Jocko Willink?

  You know, you don't want to say, well, it's not going very well. Cause you're putting yourself on report for for for failing.

• 51:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:50Jocko Willink?

  Cause you are the leader. But if there's stuff, what you should say, what you should say is, hey, boss, here's what's going on. My troops, they're over fatigued right now. We need food and we need some warm weather gear. Because, look, there's some, there's some motivate, there's some motivated guys that want to make it happen. But when they can't even load their weapon because their skin is freezing to the bullets. That is a problem. A problem that no amount of motivation can cure. We need gloves. Like that kind of thing.

• 52:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 52:24Jocko Willink?

  You have to be able to frame it correctly.

• 52:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:31Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book. Still, we kept retreating, exchanging ground for time. We were always cold, always hungry, always tired. We were all so filthy. It was too cold to even consider washing. So when we got to Suwan and found ourselves with a few days to rest, we decided to take that abandoned city by storm. As in Seoul, everyone had left Suwan in a great hurry. So we could pretty well help us, help ourselves to whatever we needed. My section took over a house. We scrounged around and found an old fashioned Korean bath. One of those stand up jobs about chest high with a wood furnace beneath it. We filled the tub, built a roaring fire, and one by one jumped in, each of us skimming the other guys' dirt off the top of the water.

• 53:12Jocko Willink?

  I was last. The water was almost black by then, with all kinds of crud floating around, but I didn't care. I might not have gotten clean, but for the first time in weeks, I was warm. Just after we left Suwan, my platoon was ordered to establish a night blocking position astride a north-south road that paralleled a railroad track. The scout section and rifle squad were set up on, in a defensive line that ran from the road through a rice paddy and onto a railroad trestle. Our machine gun was set up on the trestle pointing straight down the tracks. A little high ground. Where it could put plunging fire directly in front of deployed troops and flanking fire on the road 50 yards away.

• 53:53Jocko Willink?

  Our platoon leader stayed with the two M24 tanks on the road. Behind him was the 81 millimeter mortar squad. It was late at night. All was quiet. We were locked and cocked. And pros at this deadly delaying game now. I moved between positions, having whispered conversations with the guys. It was a habit I had to keep myself awake and make sure the men stayed awake too. I was the, I was at the machine gun, which was manned by a stud of a Hawaiian trooper named Sheldon, when we saw the enemy coming. There was at least a company and maybe more behind, four abreast, double timing quietly down the railroad track. When they were no more than fifty, thirty yards from the machine gun, Sheldon let loose

• 54:37Jocko Willink?

  a long burst that cut a wide swath into their unsuspecting ranks. A burst of machine gun fire was the signal for the infantry, tanks, and mortars to join the fray. The scout section and rifle squad immediately poured fire into the enemy formation. The enemy panicked. They did not fire one round in return. Instead, they broke ranks and high-tailed it to the rice paddy, running right into the rifle squad's grazing fire. It was great to see. We were cleaning the clock of an enemy force at least ten times our size. Like young Rommel did, I thought, in nineteen fourteen, when he ambushed and destroyed almost a complete British rifle company with a handful of soldiers, simply by using initiative and surprise, two of the key elements in battle.

• 55:20Jocko Willink?

  The mortar was plopping rounds of high explosives right on top of the confused reds. Meanwhile, our tanks' main guns, which were loaded with anti-personnel grape shot, hadn't fired anything at all. A white star cluster flare popped and hovered over our positions. This was our signal to beat feet in retreat, and we didn't need a second invitation. We scrambled to waiting vehicles and quickly moved to and through US lines. We'd taken no casualties, but I still couldn't understand why the tanks' guns hadn't fired. The enemy had been hurt badly, but not destroyed. If those tank guns had been employed, we'd have completely wiped them out.

• 56:05Jocko Willink?

  The sun was coming up as the platoon pulled into the abandoned Chonan School Yard that served as the base for Recon Company. I went over to our platoon sergeant and asked him why the tanks hadn't been used. He looked away and sort of bowed his head as if he was embarrassed, which was very strange behavior for this rugged, highly decorated warrior. Better see the lieutenant, young sergeant. Why didn't the tanks fire? I asked my regular army platoon leader moments later. I didn't want to give our positions away, he replied. I couldn't believe it.

• 56:43Jocko Willink?

  Give your positions away? Bullshit, I cried. Sergeants didn't talk to officers like that, but I didn't care. We had the closest thing to a glorious victory that I'd seen. The chinks stuck their noses into this goddamn war. That I'd seen since the chinks stuck their noses into this goddamn war. And now this pissant, weak lieutenant. You are just too yellow to do your job, I shouted and stormed back into my scout section in a rage. I grabbed my pack and rifle. I'm leaving this outfit right now, I told my platoon sergeant. I'm not waiting for orders, I'm going AWOL. I came here to fight, not play hide and seek.

• 57:23Jocko Willink?

  And where I come from, officers like you've got here would have been drummed right out of the officers corps.

• 57:31Jocko Willink?

  And with that, I headed for the road.

• 57:35Jocko Willink?

  So that's just mayhem, right? They, they, they don't actively assault the enemy with all the firepower that they had. Hackworth gets pissed off. So he goes AWOL. Now normally, absent without leave, what someone's trying to do is they're trying to shirk responsibility. You know, they're a hippie or they're a bum and they're trying to get out of there. They're, they're, for whatever reason, they're trying to leave. They're trying to get away from the army. He's going AWOL because he wants to fight more.

• 58:04Speaker 01

  There was a, uh, expression in there and I've heard it before, uh, their ranks, like he referred to, like we shot bullets into their ranks and then they broke ranks.

• 58:16Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 58:16Speaker 01

  Like what?

• 58:17Jocko Willink?

  Assembled in a formation type thing, like lined up. Which is crazy to think about. It's crazy to think about in modern war, a group of individuals being in ranks. So in ranks is like, you know, four across and whatever, 30 deep. That's in ranks.

• 58:33Speaker 01

  It's a specific formation assemblance? Or is it just sort of just them over there in that whatever assemblance?

• 58:40Jocko Willink?

  I mean, the fact that he's saying in ranks means that they're. In a legitimate formation.

• 58:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:47Jocko Willink?

  You know, they're probably moving down this road. They don't think there's any Americans there to interfere with them. So they're just in ranks, walking because it's an efficient way to walk.

• 58:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:57Jocko Willink?

  But it's not an efficient way to fight.

• 58:58Speaker 01

  Hmm. Yeah, it doesn't seem like you.

• 59:00Jocko Willink?

  It's an efficient way to get mowed down by a machine gun, which is exactly what happened.

• 59:04Speaker 01

  Yes. Yeah, I could see that. Well, yeah, and.

• 59:07Jocko Willink?

  So when they broke ranks, they all ran in different directions.

• 59:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:11Jocko Willink?

  You know?

• 59:11Speaker 01

  So, well, let me ask you this first, just in the spirit of understanding what that means. Because it sounds real cool, in my opinion. Like, I could just be throwing out that expression from time to time. Not in a military sense, but you know, I don't know. I don't know.

• 59:24Jocko Willink?

  Well, they do use it in a non-military sense. Let's say there's 20 people and we're, uh, we come up with a plan and we're going to go forward with this new plan and then Echo decides he's going to do something different. There's an expression. Oh, Echo just broke ranks.

• 59:38Speaker 01

  Okay, yes, exactly right. And that's kind of what I was sort of trying to figure out. Like, could I use it in that way?

• 59:44Jocko Willink?

  Yes, you can.

• 59:44Speaker 01

  Because it sounds really cool when instead of like, oh yeah, I just started shooting at all of them, you know? I shot into their ranks, you know, like that sounds way cooler. But so could it be even loosely used in, in an official, on an official situation? Um, of just a group of people there, you know?

• 1:00:05Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:06Speaker 01

  Right? Like they weren't.

• 1:00:07Jocko Willink?

  Little bit.

• 1:00:07Speaker 01

  Necessarily in a specific formation, but they were over there deliberately.

• 1:00:11Jocko Willink?

  I would say that was a bunch of people.

• 1:00:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:14Jocko Willink?

  I would say that was a crowd of people.

• 1:00:16Speaker 01

  Right, right. That's what I'm saying.

• 1:00:17Jocko Willink?

  Say there's a, a bunch of people in ranks.

• 1:00:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:20Jocko Willink?

  They're organized.

• 1:00:21Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, could they be interpreted as organized? You know, like, uh, you know, the kind where those two guys, let's say not military, maybe like, I don't know, your friends in the neighborhood and you don't like them, you know? A bunch of cousins or whatever, you don't like them. And they're over there on the corner, right? And you have maybe you and your brother, whatever, right? You guys don't like them. They don't like you, whatever. And then you see them over there on the corner, assembled, not for any specific reason, but they're together, you know? Could you, could you in theory refer to them as on the corner in ranks?

• 1:00:52Jocko Willink?

  In theory, yes, you could, but it wouldn't be accurate. Two people is not going to equivalent.

• 1:00:56Speaker 01

  No, the cousins, let's say there's five, five cousins.

• 1:00:59Jocko Willink?

  Even five, you're, it's gonna have a hard time getting, you know, being in ranks.

• 1:01:03Speaker 01

  Nope, to me, they're in ranks.

• 1:01:05Jocko Willink?

  So you're asking me for permission to use this word and then you're just, when I tell you no, you're just doing it anyways?

• 1:01:10Speaker 01

  Yes, sir.

• 1:01:11Jocko Willink?

  Cool, say whatever you want to say. It's your, you're the one that's gonna look.

• 1:01:16Jocko Willink?

  You're the one that's gonna look dumb. And I didn't want to say it, but like, this is where we're at.

• 1:01:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, you sounded like you really did want to say it, but if.

• 1:01:27Jocko Willink?

  The right thing to do, call my friend dumb? Well, I guess it is. My friend wants to act dumb, he's gonna get called dumb. You can't just decide what you're gonna call something.

• 1:01:35Speaker 01

  Look, if there's five cousins on the corner, all together cruising, and me and my brother start running at them aggressively and they scatter, they broke ranks.

• 1:01:46Jocko Willink?

  Okay, I'll give you that.

• 1:01:47Speaker 01

  There you go.

• 1:01:48Jocko Willink?

  So then now I guess I'm dumb, because they would have had to been in some form of ranks.

• 1:01:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I, I just, I, I look at this as like an understanding process.

• 1:01:58Jocko Willink?

  Do you understand?

• 1:01:58Speaker 01

  Yes, sir, I do. Thank you.

• 1:01:59Jocko Willink?

  I'm not even sure I understand anymore.

• 1:02:04Jocko Willink?

  So Hackworth goes AWOL, because he wants to fight more. Back to the book, "Any man who's wild enough to go AWOL to fight is just the kind of man we want in our outfit," said Captain John Paul Van "when I stopped at his eighth Ranger camp, fresh from my breakfast, out of the 25th Recon Company." "The eighth Rangers was a great spirited outfit, recently rebuilt after being decimated the night the Chinese entered the war." "After I'd explained my situation, the whole outfit accepted me with open arms." "The Rangers were elite troops, forerunners of the special forces." "Their mission was raids, long reconnaissance patrols, ambushes, and other special jobs that conventional troops were not trained to handle."

• 1:02:46Jocko Willink?

  Their history went back to Rogers Rangers before the Revolutionary War. During World War II, there'd been six Ranger battalions whose brave and daring feats are unmatched to this day. Historically, such all-volunteers, specially-trained units, had been misused, tasked either with impossible missions for organizations their size, or placed with palace-guard combat duties well beneath their skill and ability. When I arrived at the 8th Ranger camp, the unit was chasing gorillas behind the main lines. Morale was high, and the guys were spoiling for a good fight, but during the time I was there, there was nothing much, to my way of thinking anyway, that seemed to be happening.

• 1:03:31Jocko Willink?

  I was impatient to get in the thick of it, and as proud as I was to be a Ranger, guerrilla hunting was not my idea of infantry combat. Little did I know, then the starring roles that guerrilla hunting and Ranger CO John Paul Van would have later in my life. Besides, the word was that the 8th Rangers was going to be broken up soon, and something in me said to move on, so I did, until I saw a sign by a road that proclaimed "Wolfhound White Rear." Well, if that's not a guarantee for a good fight, I don't know what is, I thought, and high-tailed it to the battalion CP. The 27th Infantry Wolfhound Regiment was a colorful unit itself.

• 1:04:16Jocko Willink?

  The outfit had gotten its name during a stint in fighting the communists in Siberia during the Russian Revolution. In Korea, the Wolfhounds were known as the Fire Brigade, because whenever there was trouble, they were sent in to save the day. They weren't a special unit, just a group of guys who thought they were good, so they were good. I had to highlight that, because that just teaches you something about leadership, and about morale, and about attitude, and about esprit de corps. You get guys, and you convince them that they're good, and they think they're good, they get good. They become good. I'd seen members of the outfit regularly over the last months, whenever the 25th Recon had sent their portion of the division...

• 1:05:01Jocko Willink?

  Was sent, had been sent their portion of the divisional front and I'd always been knocked out by the, because these guys acted more like pirates on the high seas than as a regular army regiment. To begin with, the Wolfhounds wore their regimental crest on their fatigues like their Medal of Honor. Their spirit was just incredible. They were so totally non-military in terms of what I was accustomed to. They seldom wore steel pots. They modified their gear to make it more functional and simply got rid of things that weighed them down unnecessarily. The long wooden handle of the entrenching tool, for example, was cut off so it wouldn't rub against your leg. The packs were thrown away and you carried a tramp's rule, which

• 1:05:44Jocko Willink?

  was quickly grounded when you got into a fight. BARs were stripped of bipods and carrying handles and scabbards were tossed with the bayonet living permanently at the end of the rifle. Grenades were carried in canteen covers. You could fit five and if you wanted to carry a captured weapon, go for it. So these guys are, got a little, little bit of rebellion in them. Got a little rebellious attitude, which is a good thing. Got to be balanced, but it's a good thing. This renegade kind of soldiering was not only sanctioned, but encouraged by the 27th Regimental

• 1:06:22Jocko Willink?

  Commander and Fire Chief, WWII Paratrooper Colonel John Iron Mike Michaelis. Michaelis, who would go on to four stars, understood what made men fight. He was known for morale boosting slogans like, "You're lean, you're mean, you're rough, you're tough, you're professional killers" and pre-battle pep talks like, "You're not here to die for your country, you're here to make those other so-and-so's die for theirs." The Wolfhounds' proud combat record showed that they believed him and they'd eagerly adopted their commander's no-nonsense brand of soldiering. I was more than ready to do the same.

• 1:07:05Jocko Willink?

  The 2nd Battalion's XO pointed the way up the road to where the rifle companies were deployed. The first unit I came to was Company G, where I reported to 1st Sergeant Edwin Rager.

• 1:07:19Jocko Willink?

  I can always use another sergeant. This giant of a top kick roared. Then and there, he assigned me to third platoon. Finally, with the assurance that I'd be picked up on the morning report. So I wouldn't be considered AWOL or MIA. I joined my new family. At first, it was not the happiest of unions. I should have realized it wouldn't be easy. It's always a bitch to join a unit, particularly one as tight as the wolf hounds as an individual replacement. And for some reason, it's even worse when you're an NCO or an officer. You don't know anyone and no one trusts you until you've proved yourself in battle.

• 1:07:59Jocko Willink?

  You get all the lousy details and only the worst battlefield horror stories. You're just the new guy. You're just fresh meat. And add insult to injury, though I'd been a squad leader and acting platoon sergeant in Italy and a section leader in the 25th recon. Now in the third of the G, I found myself an assistant squad leader. I was damned unhappy with the demotion. I probably had more non comm experience than any of the squad leaders in the platoon. But the fact was that in their eyes, I was untried and all protests to the contrary fell on deaf ears. Doesn't matter who you are. Hackworth checking into a new unit.

• 1:08:44Jocko Willink?

  Got to prove yourself. It didn't help. I didn't help my cause that any that evening soon after my arrival. When just at dusk, I got caught in a rice paddy right smack dab in the middle of a blistering chink mortar attack. I started to run, but slipped and fell in the paddy. When I finally got back to my foxhole, I discovered that my water repellent outer trousers were covered with human shit, which the Koreans used for fertilizer. Unsurprisingly, the guy sharing my hole was unhappy about this as I was. I took off the trousers and made do for the night with two pairs of long johns and two pairs of OD trousers I had on underneath. Then I sacked out until it was my turn to go on guard, leaving my foxhole partner

• 1:09:29Jocko Willink?

  to contend with the lingering aroma of my accident. Guard was a grueling ritual, mainly because everyone was so tired. Each squad had its own sector, normally four foxholes, each about four yards apart.

• 1:09:45Jocko Willink?

  The two guys shared a hole and took turns throughout the night searching into the darkness. You'd look until you got tired, then glance at your buddy sacked out at the bottom of the hole. Then you'd look a little longer until, while you thought, should I wake him now? Has he had enough sleep? Few guys had watches. To own a watch in an infantry squad during the first Korean winter was a luxury beyond imagination. So you spelled each other based on the honor system. And you only asked for relief when it was impossible to keep your eyes open any longer.

• 1:10:20Jocko Willink?

  Then your buddy would ask for a sit rep and that was it. You'd be asleep almost before you'd zipped up your feather down fart sack.

• 1:10:31Jocko Willink?

  That's what they called sleeping bags if you didn't pick that up the last time I used it.

• 1:10:37Jocko Willink?

  Guys didn't even have watches.

• 1:10:40Jocko Willink?

  "What's happening?" I asked when my foxhole partner woke me for my turn. "Not a thing," he replied, and he was out like a light. Still inside my sack, I sat in the darkness in the edge of the hole, got my eyeballs unglued and tried to remember where I was. I was fantasizing about smoking a cigarette, drinking a hot cup of coffee, eating a charcoal black rare steak and getting a squad of my own. When, to my amazement, I saw a man lying prone immediately to my immediate left rear. I woke up my buddy. There's a goddamn chink almost on top of us. We whispered through our options. We could toss a grenade, blast him with a rifle, or crawl out and get him with a knife. We decided on the third alternative because the guy was right in the middle of our squad position

• 1:11:25Jocko Willink?

  and rifle fire or a grenade could easily start a firefight among our own guys.

• 1:11:32Jocko Willink?

  The chink wasn't moving and his back was to us. My buddy covered me while I crawled out of the foxhole with my trusty M1 and 10-inch razor-sharp bayonet attached. I crouched, in a crouched position, I silently slipped up behind the enemy soldier. When I got within sticking distance, I drew my rifle and thrust it with full force.

• 1:11:53Jocko Willink?

  Branches crackled and it was over.

• 1:11:57Jocko Willink?

  I'd bayoneted my own frozen stiff trousers which I had earlier hung over a bush behind our foxhole to dry. The next morning I had to put the shitty things back on again, now with a hole in the ass as well. And for some reason, the fresh meat was the only one in the squad who didn't think this was very funny. So that's how he, that's how, that's the impression he makes. His freaking stabbing his own pants and his own shit covered pants in the middle of the night. Being a new guy is hard.

• 1:12:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, it seems like it.

• 1:12:26Jocko Willink?

  Being a new guy is hard. Being a new guy is very hard. You cannot, you cannot do these kinds of things. It sucks when you do. Everyone's watching you.

• 1:12:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:38Jocko Willink?

  You know, kind of when you're a new guy, kind of, kind of back off a little bit. You know what I'm saying?

• 1:12:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:44Jocko Willink?

  Like just take, take a wrap off.

• 1:12:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, that whole first impression thing, just in general. Yeah. Cause like the new guy, you don't have any evaluation criteria. Like there's no like, you didn't. You're not judged on anything because you don't have anything, you know? And then you start doing these weirdo things, stabbing your, your pants. You're like, okay, well that's how this guy is. He stabs his own pants in the dark sometimes, I guess. So yeah, you're weird, you're weird. And then, so now you gotta kind of make up for all that stuff by doing a bunch of awesome stuff, you know?

• 1:13:14Jocko Willink?

  But I, I guess even beyond that, look, okay, so let's admit that it's hard. But I guess what I'm saying is err on the side of not doing dumb shit.

• 1:13:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:24Jocko Willink?

  You know what I'm saying?

• 1:13:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:25Jocko Willink?

  Like if there's something, I could maybe do this and it might make me look good. But just think about, you know, once again, be negative when you plan.

• 1:13:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:34Jocko Willink?

  Be negative when you plan. Think to yourself, you know, that, that might be look, might make me look cool. But also if this goes sideways, it's going to look real dumb.

• 1:13:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:44Jocko Willink?

  Uh, have you ever seen like fail videos?

• 1:13:48Speaker 01

  Yes, sir. It's, uh, yes, sir.

• 1:13:50Jocko Willink?

  Right?

• 1:13:50Speaker 01

  Yes, very often.

• 1:13:51Jocko Willink?

  I mean, those are a legitimate thing, right?

• 1:13:53Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. It's an addiction, by the way, so.

• 1:13:56Jocko Willink?

  How many of those people in the five seconds before they attempt their, whatever they're attempting?

• 1:14:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:03Jocko Willink?

  How many of those people are actually thinking this is going to look really cool?

• 1:14:07Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. So there's, there's two of them. There's one girl, one guy, and they're the same thing. So it's like, oh yeah, I'm going to jump in this icy pond, you know, with my. The guy obviously has his swimsuit on, the girl has her swimsuit on, whatever. They're two separate videos is what I'm saying, but the same thing. So they go, you know, the girl's like,

• 1:14:25Jocko Willink?

  This is why I come to you for this type of expertise, bro. This is where the whole world wins right now.

• 1:14:32Jocko Willink?

  This is the ultimate fail video.

• 1:14:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, so one of them for sure. They they're endless and I love them. But, you know, great lessons in these videos. So.

• 1:14:41Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, now we're talking about freaking philosophical lessons we get from fail videos. Yes, I brought it up.

• 1:14:47Speaker 01

  They go deep.

• 1:14:48Jocko Willink?

  I brought it up.

• 1:14:48Speaker 01

  Yes, yeah.

• 1:14:49Jocko Willink?

  I'm guilty.

• 1:14:50Speaker 01

  Yep. So.

• 1:14:53Speaker 01

  You know, the girl's like, hey, okay, ready? The guy in the camera, may or may not be in on it, whatever, says, okay, one, two, three, go. The girl jumps off this little pier, which is, you know, maybe two, three, three feet down into the water, the icy water. Right? And the ice is just so thick that it doesn't even break. So she just like slams onto the ice.

• 1:15:12Jocko Willink?

  You could get really badly hurt.

• 1:15:13Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, that's the thing. It's like, that's the genius.

• 1:15:16Jocko Willink?

  You can break your neck.

• 1:15:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, or your back or your tailbone and all. Yeah, oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, you can get jammed up.

• 1:15:21Jocko Willink?

  Break their neck a lot diving into shallow pools. Or shallow, you know, water, pond water.

• 1:15:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, luckily they they weren't trying to dive in. They're just, you know, a regular jump.

• 1:15:33Jocko Willink?

  Oh, okay, cool, cool, cool. Yeah, I feel a little better about it now.

• 1:15:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't think that wouldn't be a good idea, even if it was thin ice to like dive. That's like some next level, like not smart.

• 1:15:43Jocko Willink?

  That's a next level fail.

• 1:15:45Speaker 01

  Yes, sir. Um, but no, you can still get hurt. Imagine jumping off this table onto concrete, slippery concrete. That's essentially what it is, you know? So.

• 1:15:55Jocko Willink?

  You mean ice?

• 1:15:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:15:58Jocko Willink?

  Slippery concrete.

• 1:15:59Speaker 01

  Doesn't break, doesn't crack. And here's the thing, I'm assuming they didn't get injured. I'm sure it hurt for sure on a couple of levels. But when you watch it, it's real funny. Cause you think they're gonna like do like a cannonball or whatever. And it's like, it's real funny. But, yeah, man, it's that thing. If you're the new guy and that's what you do, it's like, man, yeah, you're the guy who jumped on that ice and like jammed yourself up, you know?

• 1:16:21Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, just kind of reassess in those five seconds before you're about to do something. Just think, and look, I'm not saying you don't have to have courage. You gotta try things, you know? But just think, maybe this isn't gonna quite turn out the way I wanted it to.

• 1:16:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:16:36Jocko Willink?

  And a chance that this goes a little bit wrong. And if you're a new guy, you don't have that much leadership capital to spend on recovering from this.

• 1:16:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:16:47Jocko Willink?

  So just you've got to be careful.

• 1:16:48Speaker 01

  Risks and stuff. Sense.

• 1:16:51Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book. The war seemed lost. At best, it was hopelessly confused. I'd thought wars, at least American wars, had happy endings. Like capturing Berlin and Tokyo. All we were doing was yo-yoing back and forth across the Korean Peninsula. Defeat, then victory, then defeat, and defeat. With G Company Two, we were retreating, shuffling along, heading south. Colder. Sometimes the temperatures were twenty degrees below zero. And more tired than we'd ever been in our lives. One day, a snap thaw had us wading through mud on both sides of a mire that had once been a road.

• 1:17:32Jocko Willink?

  Jeeps and trucks sloshed through it too, each vehicle trying in vain to miss the rut of the vehicle in front so it's to not become bogged down. One Jeep stalled and would not restart just as our column was passing by. The driver and lieutenant passenger unasked the thing. The lieutenant called for help to push it over to the side, but before we could slosh through the quagmire and give him a hand, he whipped out his pistol and aimed at one of the tires. I figured his daddy must have been an old horse soldier. And this guy was going to follow through with the cav tradition of shooting his disabled mount. And for sure, pow, pow, pow. But the last shot missed the tire. It glanced off the rim and boomeranged back to strike the lieutenant

• 1:18:16Jocko Willink?

  right between the eyes. We pushed the Jeep and the warm steel body off the road and then returned to our column. Soon the temperature dropped, the road turned to ice, and we just kept heading south. It hadn't meant anything, the lieutenant's death. For openers, what he'd done was dumb. But more than that, we'd become immune. Fighting a war on the ground is like a working in a slaughterhouse. At first, the blood, the gore gets to you. But after a while, you don't see it, you don't smell it, you don't feel it. So what's another dead body? It's almost as if you don't care.

• 1:18:53Jocko Willink?

  In this case, we just leaned forward, kept walking, and tried to ignore the song in our heads, the ones the troops called the bug-out blues.

• 1:19:07Jocko Willink?

  So this is the life of a ground pounder, I'd often think. The risks were higher in the recon company, but life in George was far more harsh. At least in recon, we frequently rode on the backs of our tanks and thus kept warm. In the infantry, it was just a plodding grind, one foot after the other until the column stopped and we'd flop down the sound asleep before our heads touched the ground. In recon, we were seldom hungry because we stashed rations on the tanks. In the infantry, growling bellies were our constant companions. In the infantry, many men lost their will to live. Frequently, guys would just quit, drop out of the moving column and plunk down on the side of the road, sometimes with the Chinese within sight.

• 1:19:53Jocko Willink?

  You'd say, "Come on, buddy, get up, let's go, you're gonna be captured." And he'd say, "I don't care, I can't go another step." A day felt like a week, and the more tired an infantry became, the more tired an infantry man became, the more he wanted to lighten his load. First would go the souvenirs, then his extra ammo, next would be the bulky gear, the field coat, the pile jackets, and the downed sleeping bags. Even though he knew he'd freeze that night, in the infantry, I found, you live for right now. You don't give a damn about tomorrow because you don't even know if there'll be one.

• 1:20:32Jocko Willink?

  Getting, it's weird, I know you like to talk about the

• 1:20:37Jocko Willink?

  the long game versus the short game versus the strategic moves versus the tactical moves, but it's interesting when you think about what's happening right now with a human being and with human beings in general. As we encounter stress, as we encounter pain and suffering, we start to focus on just a short term, just a short term win. And think about that from a life perspective. I mean, here you are, you know it's gonna be freezing tonight. You know it's gonna be freezing, but you don't want to carry this down sleeping bag anymore. So you just leave it. Think about how crazy that is. But we make decisions all the time that are that stupid, but we want that short term gratification.

• 1:21:24Speaker 01

  Well, in a lot of cases, relief, like short term relief.

• 1:21:28Jocko Willink?

  Short term relief.

• 1:21:29Speaker 01

  Which I guess as far as the game goes, same thing. So it's like relief, gratification, you know, whatever. Yeah, like there's a difference. But in the games, for the games concerned, that's what you're going for, you know? And like, like a craving, right?

• 1:21:44Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:44Speaker 01

  Craving, like that's a relief from the craving.

• 1:21:47Jocko Willink?

  That's throwing away your, your down.

• 1:21:52Jocko Willink?

  Sleeping bag.

• 1:21:52Speaker 01

  Sleeping bag.

• 1:21:53Jocko Willink?

  That's what it is. It's gonna feel good right now. Like you just got rid of three pounds.

• 1:21:56Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:21:57Jocko Willink?

  And by the way, back in the day, like these down sleeping bags, you know, like nowadays, things are feather light. You know, this is probably four or five pounds, which is a big difference when you're hauling that thing. But think about what that does. Think about, you're right, man. It's a craving, right? It's when you say, oh, I really want to eat those Cheetos.

• 1:22:15Speaker 01

  Yep, it's just not going away.

• 1:22:17Jocko Willink?

  I just wanna, oh, I just, those Cheetos are gonna be good.

• 1:22:21Speaker 01

  Yep. And then even when, after you eat your, I don't know, chicken salad or whatever. Cheetos still sound kinda good, you know? It's still like a little, little thing that needs relief, you know?

• 1:22:33Jocko Willink?

  Just like dumping this, my, my down parka.

• 1:22:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:22:36Jocko Willink?

  That could keep me warm.

• 1:22:37Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:22:38Jocko Willink?

  But I think what it has to do with, see, there's a, there is a difference. What it has to do with is like one is caused by suffering. And you just get into this mode of just basically surrender. Maybe that is what happens in life. Maybe you get to a point where you just kinda surrender to where you're at. Just kind of accept like, hey, this is just me.

• 1:22:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:22:57Jocko Willink?

  And now, you know, Cheetos, no Cheetos, whatever, donut, no donut, ah, the donut.

• 1:23:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's a good way of putting it, accepting where you're at.

• 1:23:05Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:06Speaker 01

  And it's like, cause where you're at can, is, it's a place in your mind too. You know how like, even if you're, you're making progress, but you're used to not making progress, you know? When you're really used to it, it can happen like with my, like, if you have like a certain amount of money in your bank account when you're a kid or young man, whatever. If you're used to having like. You know, twenty dollars in there, like just constantly, that's sort of the baseline or whatever. And then you're like.

• 1:23:33Jocko Willink?

  Then you get a hundred.

• 1:23:34Speaker 01

  A hundred or five hundred, nine hundred, ooh, but you're used to having twenty. It's like, yeah, like I'm making progress, I'm saving money, I'm saving, but you're used to having twenty, so you'll.

• 1:23:43Jocko Willink?

  Then you go out and buy that big screen TV.

• 1:23:45Speaker 01

  There's a, there's a chance that that'll happen.

• 1:23:47Jocko Willink?

  Get yourself that back down to twenty.

• 1:23:48Speaker 01

  Exactly right.

• 1:23:49Jocko Willink?

  Cause you accept where you're, you accept your place.

• 1:23:51Speaker 01

  Accept it, you know.

• 1:23:52Jocko Willink?

  You can't do that, basically. It's a bad idea.

• 1:23:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, like you have to like actively maybe like raise your, for real, raise your standard. Now, when you get the nine hundred in there, now the new standard is, I don't know, make it realistic, I guess, but.

• 1:24:06Jocko Willink?

  A thousand.

• 1:24:06Speaker 01

  Eight, eight hundred should be the standard, like the baseline now, you know, so sure. You got some wiggle room, maybe you're not perfect, maybe it's new to you, okay, but the standard is eight. Like you start going below eight, that's the same thing as having negative kind of attitude. But you gotta really establish it in your head, you know?

• 1:24:22Jocko Willink?

  It's hard though.

• 1:24:23Speaker 01

  Very, very.

• 1:24:24Jocko Willink?

  Because people are where they are and they kind of get used to it.

• 1:24:27Speaker 01

  That's why they, that's why they are where they are, cause they're literally used to it, you know? Not like, like pretending to used to it.

• 1:24:34Jocko Willink?

  Is it good to get, well, never mind, is it? It's good to get that new standard and actually stay there long enough that you feel it.

• 1:24:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:24:43Jocko Willink?

  That you get used to the new standard, that's the tricky part.

• 1:24:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:24:46Jocko Willink?

  You feel good, but then you're like, ah, and then you go back to your normal ways.

• 1:24:50Speaker 01

  Yep, first craving that comes about, satisfying the craving, relief from the craving, however you wanna put it. Like even like when you say suffering, it's kinda like, well, what does that really mean, you know? I mean, there's certain levels of suffering for sure, like you can go deep into human suffering for sure, but. Really, to some people, like, not having a drink, it's suffering, you know? When they're like, or have a craving for ice cream or something like this, it's like, it's kinda like, it's suffering, you know?

• 1:25:18Jocko Willink?

  That's a really horrible stretch, isn't it? I mean, really, to think like, I can't have ice cream, I'm suffering.

• 1:25:24Speaker 01

  Well, any kind of addiction, I, I'm assuming, you know, like, I, I've, the only addiction I've really dealt with as far as like seeing people is like a cigarette scenario. Where they're like craving a cigarette so much and it's like, man, it kinda seems like you're kinda suffering right now, I guess.

• 1:25:40Jocko Willink?

  My, my contention here is that not having ice cream, we cannot equivocate that.

• 1:25:48Speaker 01

  You can't do it, huh?

• 1:25:49Jocko Willink?

  To suffer.

• 1:25:51Speaker 01

  I, I understand, yes.

• 1:25:54Jocko Willink?

  Bottom line is, let's be careful that we aren't thinking short term. Let's hang on to our sleeping bag. Let's carry the extra weight because in the long run, it's going to pay off.

• 1:26:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's what I'm getting at. That seems like obvious suffering where you're like, hey, I'm gonna need that tonight. You know, I'm gonna literally need that.

• 1:26:13Jocko Willink?

  To stay alive, possibly.

• 1:26:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, not the kind where, oh, that'll be, that'll serve nice tonight. That'd be cool tonight. It's not that. I'm gonna need that tonight. Or I risk death and yet right now my suffering is so bad, I gotta get rid of it to not have it tonight. Oh yeah, man, that is.

• 1:26:32Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book. Now and then, if we were really lucky, we'd stop in a village and command, commandeer an abandoned house for 10 or 20 weeks. A Korean home had hard adobe mud floors under which lay an oven, the purpose of which was to provide central heating for the entire house. Of course, American soldiers had no idea how these things worked. And the first time around, we built the biggest fire we could and went to sleep shivering and bitching that the gooks didn't know how to do anything right. It turned out though, that the previous occupants of the of our temporary abode had the last laugh. Throughout the night, the floors got hotter and hotter until some of the guys jackets spontaneously combusted. And the ammo we made on the floor blew up.

• 1:27:17Jocko Willink?

  Snow never looked so good. So you're going one extreme to the other. On most nights, though, to save off the cold, we'd employed the old soldiers tricks from the bleak frozen days of Valley Forge. One was to stuff hay in a poncho and wrap it so tightly around two guys to keep in the body heat. Another was to fill your steel pot with coals and embrace it all night long, a practice that continued despite a number of tired soldiers who died this way from asphyxiation. Another was to put a slug through your foot.

• 1:27:49Jocko Willink?

  In other words, shoot yourself in the foot. I'd thought about that one. Most of us did. But it always seemed too risky. You might blow your foot off. You might get caught and court martialed. But one bitterly cold night, when I would have done anything to get out of that place, I came up with a perfect solution. If I emptied most of the powder out of a grenade, I could toss it into my foxhole and blame it on a sneaky Chinaman. Better yet, if I chipped the trench on the side of the foxhole with my bayonet, I could contain the damage to my leg only. All I'd have to do would be lay my body in the trench and stick my leg in the hole, toss in a frag grenade and bang, million dollar wound. It was a wonderful idea.

• 1:28:31Jocko Willink?

  Somehow, a lot better than the one I'd often saw during a firefight when a guy would stay in his hole and wave his arms or kick his legs like a chorus dancer, hoping to catch a slug and the first boat back to the States. And I spent all night digging away, working on the trench and thinking how warm I'd be back in Santa Monica. The war vet who got it in the leg. I chipped and chipped away on the frozen ground, completely forgetting about the cold, the time, the fact that I needed some sleep or that my buddy who was sleeping behind the hole may have had enough. Finally, it was ready. I hoisted myself into the trench, prepared the grenade and dangled my leg in the hole. And I was just about to pull that pin when I saw the most beautiful sight, a sight that

• 1:29:14Jocko Willink?

  every infantryman in Korea dreamed of seeing. It was the sun slowly rising. It meant the terrible night was over. It meant I could light my fire and be warm again. So I forgot my little trench. And for a moment, forgot the other thing the sun meant. The beginning of yet another long day, another step south, the never ender ending bitter taste of defeat in all our mouths.

• 1:29:43Jocko Willink?

  So this is Hack. This is freaking Hackworth, who just went AWOL to go because he didn't think his troops were fighting hard enough. He gets to the front lines. He's, he's, is where he wants to be. And even Hack is thinking about either shooting himself in the foot. And then beyond thinking about, he comes up with a scheme with a grenade and he actually executes the entire plan, other than the actual event itself. And the only thing that stops him is that the sun's coming up.

• 1:30:14Jocko Willink?

  That's that's freaking insane.

• 1:30:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:30:17Jocko Willink?

  And I'll tell you, you know what I take away from that? Hold on a little bit longer, the sun's gonna come up. Hold on a little bit longer, the sun's gonna come up. I posted something about that the other day. Because I was watching the sun go down and going through SEAL training. When the sun's going down. And you know, the instructors will be, they line you up and they say, good night, say good night to the sun, gents. It's gonna be a long, cold, wet night. And they're just making, trying to make people think, hey, you got whatever, however many hours it's gonna be dark for. Twelve, eight, nine, it's gonna suck. It's gonna suck. And that's what they want you to think about. How much it's gonna suck.

• 1:31:01Jocko Willink?

  But if in the back of your mind, you go, eh, sun will come up in the morning. They can't stop that from happening.

• 1:31:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:31:09Jocko Willink?

  To get in that tough situation, remember. The sun's gonna come up.

• 1:31:14Speaker 01

  I don't know, man.

• 1:31:15Jocko Willink?

  You can get through it, man.

• 1:31:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, you gotta admit though, man, I kinda felt him for a little bit when he's like digging the thing and and thinking about how warm he's gonna be.

• 1:31:24Jocko Willink?

  In Santa Maria, he had his full fantasy outstretched in front of him.

• 1:31:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:31:29Jocko Willink?

  You know what I'm saying?

• 1:31:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. And then, I mean, and then it, then the standard starts to get shifted, kinda like, oh, yeah, you're almost kinda used to like the warmth that you can imagine, you know? And to have that warmth kinda just taken away, meaning you gotta shift your plan back to like the reality or whatever. And I can see how that could be hard.

• 1:31:46Jocko Willink?

  He's even got the fantasy of like, hey, the war vet.

• 1:31:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:31:50Jocko Willink?

  You know, hap- yeah, yeah, got got hit in the leg. He's got his whole fantasy planned out. He's ready to execute on this thing. And this guy is like. Born for combat. And that's how shitty this situation gets.

• 1:32:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, and that's like another thing, it says like how, like.

• 1:32:08Jocko Willink?

  Imagine what the other people are thinking. Imagine what somebody that doesn't really wanna be there. Imagine what going through their freaking minds.

• 1:32:22Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book, and then as if overnight, everything changed. It turned out that despite the fact that I never saw a general on the battlefield, apparently one lieutenant general, Matthew Ridgway, had been all over the Eighth Army front, assessing the situation and making his plans. "I rode in an open jeep," he would later write in his memoirs, "and would permit no jeep with the top up to operate in the combat zone. Riding in a closed vehicle in a battle area puts a man in the wrong frame of mind. It gives him an erroneous sense of warmth, of safety. His mental attitude is that of an ostrich poking his head in the sand."

• 1:33:04Jocko Willink?

  Also, "I held the old fashioned idea that it helped spirits of the men to see the old man up there, in the snow and sleet and the mud, sharing the same cold, miserable existence that they had to endure. As a consequence, I damn near froze." End quote. Nevertheless, Ridgway persevered. With no quarter given, he banned the word "retreat" from the English language, at least insofar as correspondents could describe our miserable truck to the south. Quote, "I'm more interested in your plans for attack," he told a staff officer when the latter offered up those for another withdraw.

• 1:33:47Jocko Willink?

  He even, he recognized even before we did that the Chinese offensive was running out of steam, and sought to take advantage of it with deep patrols to the north to find out exactly how stretched the enemy was. Operation Wolfhound was the first of these, and the fire brigade, under the command of Colonel Mike Ellis, or Mike Ellis, one of General Ridgway's World War II airborne proteges, was on the attack once more. So now you have a totally different situation. The guy goes to the front line and he actually sees what's happening. And not only does he see what his troops are going through, but he also sees what's happening with the Chinese. He sees them start to get thinned out. He sees maybe there's not as much pressure as he originally saw. So he can say, look, all right, we're done retreating. Here we go.

• 1:34:33Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book, two platoons of G company and elements of the 89th tank battalion made up one of the task forces named for and commanded by our own company commander, Jack Michaely. Task force Michaely was given the mission of taking Suan and on the 16th of January, it did just that. The enemy was totally unprepared for the daring daylight assault. George was outside of artillery range. Captain Michaely, an old horse calf man approached Suan and the only way possible frontally down a road, never probed for mines and fast. My platoon, the third was not involved in the blitzkrieg operation at all, but when the other guys came back, having killed 150 enemy without a casualty of their own in high spirits and with

• 1:35:17Jocko Willink?

  stories of Captain Michaely sauntering across the streets of Suan while enemy machine gun slugs thudded all around him, our morale went sky high. We were ready to take on the world.

• 1:35:30Jocko Willink?

  Meanwhile, I got my squad and immediately set about instilling it with the trust standards and beliefs about the way things should be done. So, so he is now given a squad because he just showed up there and even though he's a new guy and even though he stabbed his own pair of shit covered pants with a bayonet in the middle of the night, he is still given a squad. So I have to back up a little bit. So he talks about this trust, capital, capital T, capital R, capital U, capital S, capital T. When he first got in the army, as I mentioned, he went to Europe. When he went to Europe, he was not in combat because the war was over, but there was these

• 1:36:14Jocko Willink?

  old timers there and he explains, I'm going to abbreviate a little bit, but he kind of talks about what it was like and where he developed his.

• 1:36:28Jocko Willink?

  I want to say his personality, really. And, and you know, like I was, I always tell people when you, when you go in the SEAL teams, your first platoon leaves a big mark on you, and definitely your first two platoons. And the teams have become a lot more similar than they used to be, all the different SEAL teams. They're a lot more similar than they used to be. They used to be, they used to have much more of their own personalities. Team one, the nickname for team one, which is where I was, was stalag team one. Because it was, you know, you had uniforms, inspections, and you had, you, everyone had short hair and they inspected your haircuts and all this stuff.

• 1:37:09Jocko Willink?

  Team five was kind of, you know, they were kind of wild, kind of just do, you know, they had no inspections and they were just kind of, they had the, they had the image of being more wild. Then team three was sort of a little bit in between, but they were also sort of, they seemed like shy, for lack of a better word, like team three was just kind of, like they were just doing, over there doing their thing. They were also disconnected because they were deploying to southwest Asia back then. And team one and team two were deploying to southeast Asia, so they were a little bit disconnected, which made them seem a little bit more shy. I guess, I don't know if that's the right word, but they were just a little bit more, they were all kind of on their own program.

• 1:37:53Jocko Willink?

  Team one on one end of the spectrum, stalag team one, team five kind of wild, team three somewhere in the middle. Everyone had their own personalities and the east coast had their own personalities too. And they kind of lined up a little bit, except for the fact that team two and team one were sort of the traditional old school ones. That's why when I went from team one to the east coast, I, I tried to go to team two and I did. Team four was more like the wild one, team eight was kind of in the middle. That's back in the day. Now the teams are very similar because they all kind of are on the same rotation. You're going the same types of deployments, so they're much more similar. But wherever you spend your early days leaves an impression on you. And that's kind of what happened to Hack. He shows up into this environment and I'm going

• 1:38:37Jocko Willink?

  to go into it here. Back to the book gradually. So now we're going back in time. It's the end of World War II. The fighting's over, but he's, he's deployed and he's in Europe. Back to the book gradually, most of the World War II warriors went back to the States and the post-war Wild West feeling of lawlessness went too. It had been great fun for a kid to be part of the hell for leather spirit that made up the 752nd, the 752nd deuce. But like the tightening of a screw, one turn at a time, each day, the unit became more military. The who gives a damn attitude of the remaining 752nd combat leaders and troopers replaced by the exacting discipline

• 1:39:17Jocko Willink?

  of the peacetime army. For the next four years, I learned my trade. One year with the recon company of the tank battalion in the Po Valley and three more months with treest United States troops. And this is where the acronym TRUST comes from. Treest United States troops, the illustrious unit, whose 5,000 handpicked members, Walter Winchell called, quote, "The chrome plated soldiers of Europe." We worked hard during those years. Long merciless days of training, repeating, training, repeating, repeating until we got it right. Our transformation into soldiers inspired

• 1:39:59Jocko Willink?

  and monitored by those battle savvy NCOs who well knew that discipline and tactical proficiency on the battlefield were the direct results of discipline and combat skills instilled on the parade and training grounds. At night, it was down on our hands and knees, all of us, hand waxing the barracks floors until we had enough money to chip in and buy a buffer. You could eat off those floors, just as you could, just as you could almost be blinded by the brass belt buckles and brown boots that each of us wore, polished every night to a dazzling finish. The only way out of these activities was sick call, but rarely was it used as an excuse. It

• 1:40:41Jocko Willink?

  took as much effort to see the doc. You had to strip your bed, cram all your perfectly pressed clothes into a duffel bag, see the supply sergeant, and then the first sergeant, not to mention the lion's share of a month's pay you'd spend having your clothes repressed when you came back, as it did to continue with the normal routine. Punishment was meted out by a process known as NCO justice.

• 1:41:05Jocko Willink?

  I love saying that. For crimes such as a uniform of less than starched perfection, a bed that didn't bounce a quarter, or even a mildly insubordinate smirk. The sentence could range from 50 pushups to double timing around the parade field, holding a 9.5 pound M1 rifle over your head yelling, "I'm a shithead, I'm a shithead", until you collapsed. We rarely saw an officer above our platoon leader, and he was seldom with the troops because of administrative duties, but no one seemed too concerned about it. Above and below the chain of command, it was well-recognized that as fathers, teachers, older brothers, and chief tormentors in tryst, the NCO corps had no equal.

• 1:41:53Jocko Willink?

  So that's what he's talking about, when he's talking about this trust attitude of discipline and training hard. That's where it comes from.

• 1:42:03Jocko Willink?

  So, so now we're back to Korea. We're back to him getting a squad, and here's what he does. Meanwhile, I got my squad and immediately set about instilling it with my trust standards and beliefs about the way things should be done. I got out a notebook and wrote down each man's name, rank and serial number, his blood type, weapon number, next of kin, and whatever training and combat experience he had. I started demanding that rifles be cleaned and that shoulders shape up. If I saw a soldier walking around without his weapon, the next thing he knew, he'd be on the deck crawling to it. While I stood by kicking him and telling him that with each kick was that he was being hit with a slug. Brutal stuff. I'd learned it in basic training with Lieutenant Kramer

• 1:42:46Jocko Willink?

  at the Fort Knox rifle range, kicked my arm until I positioned it correctly under my weapon. But that's how a guy learns. Besides, better my foot and a mythical slug than an enemy slug and goodbye friendly foot arm or life.

• 1:43:08Jocko Willink?

  That's how a guy learned.

• 1:43:11Jocko Willink?

  You wanna talk about a politically incorrect unpopular thing to say?

• 1:43:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:43:18Jocko Willink?

  I remember when I was a new guy. I remember some of the older guys. Saying to me, you know? Sometimes people need to get beaten so that they learn. And you know what I said? That's correct. It's actually accurate. I hate to say it, cuz everyone hate, alright, I don't hate to say it. It's the truth. Like, sometimes. You need to learn a lesson the hard way. And if you don't think it's a big deal, oh, whatever.

• 1:43:52Jocko Willink?

  It's a big deal.

• 1:43:53Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:43:54Jocko Willink?

  So.

• 1:43:57Jocko Willink?

  That's what he's saying. That's how a guy learns. Once again, what do we have? We have eighteen, nineteen, seventeen, twenty-one-year-old men. Who's, what is it, the frontal cortex, what is it, the frontal lobes? They're not free, they're not fully developed yet.

• 1:44:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:44:16Jocko Willink?

  They understand physicalness, physicality.

• 1:44:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's one of those things that is kinda universally. Like, understood, you know, pain is not good, you know?

• 1:44:31Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:32Speaker 01

  Some people can take more pain than others for sure, but after a while, it's like, we all kinda don't like pain. Of course, of course, there's weirdos or whatever, but. For the most part, there are like these things that if you start to threaten, it's like, you know, it's valuable to people.

• 1:44:48Jocko Willink?

  Here's the other thing. This is a, this is a fucking harsh environment, right? This is war. You're getting people ready for war. You're getting people ready to kill. You're getting people ready to freeze. You're getting people ready to suffer. You're getting people ready to have to march for miles and miles and miles. With no food, with no sleep, like. This is what the job entails. And if you think you can pamper someone, and that's gonna effectively prepare them for those type of situations? I don't think that's accurate.

• 1:45:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think you're right about that.

• 1:45:23Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book. My guys thought I was crazy and a prick to boot. They still didn't believe I paid my battlefield dues. Little did they know that they were doing the paying in spades for making me get that Sergeant Combat feeling all over again.

• 1:45:43Jocko Willink?

  Then came 6th February, which we talked about on the last podcast. Part of another reconnaissance and force mission, code named Operation Thunderbolt, which turned into a full-scale attack, and I never got a complaint again. So after his performance, which we talked about on 249, what he did to lead that day. Back to the book. In fact, the reaction was the direct opposite. No longer was I the hard-ass Sergeant, who arrived out of the blue with strange ideas of discipline and training. Now I was just Hack. Hack, the great fighter, who'd gotten shot in the head, courageously saving lives and inflicting punishment on the enemy. It was a great relief, knowing I would not have to prove myself to anyone anymore.

• 1:46:27Jocko Willink?

  But what I didn't know at the time was that the name I made for myself on 6th February 1951 was one I'd have to live up to for the next 20 years.

• 1:46:42Jocko Willink?

  So, and this is a story that gets repeated throughout his life. He kind of shows up somewhere. He has the hardcore mentality. People kind of question it, but then they see how it enables them and protects them in combat, and then they're down for the cause.

• 1:47:01Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book. It seemed ironic that the thing that saved my life on that day was the very thing I hated most in Korea, the cold. The blood kept pumping, and this is when he's referring back to when he got shot in the head. "The blood kept pumping, but it froze almost as soon as it came out of my head. After the doc patched me up with the Carlisle Bandage, I radioed Captain Michaely and gave him a sit rep." I'd already appointed another NCO to skipper the platoon. Michaely told me that to head for the road. Behind which Gilcrest Platoon was fighting. He would send a litter jeep there to pick me up. The platoon doc, always worried about his flock, wanted to tag along. I told him I'd make it, policed up one of our dead's M1s and headed off. I kept low, using the rice paddy walls and irrigation ditches for cover.

• 1:47:45Jocko Willink?

  I probably wouldn't have felt it if I'd gotten hit again anyways, because during my run back down the drainage ditch, I'd fallen through the ice and been soaked from the waist down. The water and zero degree weather had turned my lower torso into a block of ice. My head was spinning and my balls were frozen, and I wasn't sure which one worried me more. Then I came upon PFC Charles, the guy I'd earlier tasked to take the two North Korean POWs we'd captured during that morning to the old man for interrogation. Charles was sitting in a drainage ditch by the road, eating a can of sea rations. At his feet were the prisoners stretched out in the ditch, dead, each from a single bullet in the back of the head. I was outraged.

• 1:48:30Jocko Willink?

  "Why'd you kill them?" "They tried to escape," he said simply. But I didn't believe him. "Besides," he continued, "I wasn't going to risk my ass to get two gooks out of here." There wasn't much I could do. I told him to report back to the platoon. Gilcrest later told me that Charles had received word only days before that his brother had been killed in action over in the 2nd Division. "Not too good a choice for an escort," Hack, he'd remark, drawing on his pipe. I continued on. Small arms and machine gun fire was skipping down the road. I gave it all a big miss and kept to my little ditch. I headed south until I met Lieutenant Colonel Gordon Murch, our old battalion CO,

• 1:49:14Jocko Willink?

  who was controlling the battle from his tactical CP behind a roadside knoll a few hundred yards from the front. There I was placed on a litter in a medical jeep, and as we bumped down the road, all I could think was hallelu- hallelujah, got it made, I'm leaving this goddamn place.

• 1:49:32Jocko Willink?

  Or so I thought, because just then the Jeep's radio crackled on. First platoon, George Company, got a serious wound, real bad. Get there fast. He'll be on the side of the road. I couldn't believe it. Let me out, I'll wait here. So there's, he's getting out of it or on this Jeep. And all of a sudden over the radio says, hey, we need that Jeep back here. And Hack was thinking, let me out, bro. Let me out. I'll wait here, I thought, but I was too weak, too tired, too cold to get the words out. The Jeep spun around and headed back up that fire swept road. Past Colonel Murch, right into the jaws of the whole goddamn communist army. We stopped. The medics calmly sauntered out to pick up the other casualty.

• 1:50:11Jocko Willink?

  They took all the time in the world, or so it seemed, while the enemy used the large red cross markings on the Jeep for target practice. The Jeep's canvas sides were being ventilated. The slugs were passing above and below my litter. I felt totally helpless and swore that whoever the wounded guy was, I would hate him for life. Which, from the way things were going, was not going to be long. It turned out, he was a buddy through the Hawaiian mafia connection. A handsome six footer named Ray Mendez. I almost kept to my word, though, when I found out his critical wound to be a slug in the thigh. When he'd been hit, he'd rolled up in a ball. Blood had squirted out of his leg, all over the front of his jacket, and someone had concluded that he had taken it in the gut.

• 1:50:56Jocko Willink?

  Oblivious to the fight raging on all signs of our thin skinned ambulance Jeep. Mendez became chirpier and chirpier as we headed out of the battle area. He sang praises of his million dollar wound and spun dreams about his imminent return to the islands. Me one big war hero bra, he said. The regimental collection, collecting station was jammed with casualties. The surgeon who bent over my litter was covered with blood like a butcher. We're going to bypass division clearing and send you straight to MASH at Suan, he said. You're on your way home. The next stop was quick. MASH was near the emergency runway at Suan.

• 1:51:35Jocko Willink?

  The doc there wrote on my wounded leg, on my wounded tag, "Emergency Air Evac", which somehow scared me. And before I knew it, I was strapped down to the deck of a C-47. We took off just at dark. "Why don't they close the goddamn door?", I thought. It had to be open because I'd never been colder. I was shaking like a jackhammer. I couldn't feel my hands or feet. A flight nurse stayed right with me. Another ominous sign. Ominous sign, so he's getting like, they put "Air Evac" immediately. He's like, "Oh God, that means I must be really wounded bad." He's got this flight nurse staying right with him. She piled on blanket after blanket with no effect.

• 1:52:18Jocko Willink?

  Just as I was reaching the point where I didn't know if I could take it anymore, we landed in Pusan and it was another world. Paradise, in fact. A heated ambulance was waiting. As they loaded me in, I felt like that old bull weevil who lived in the red hot fire. Mighty warm, but nice. I'd found a home. I fell asleep and didn't wake up again until I was being winched aboard the hospital ship, USS Haven in Pusan Harbor.

• 1:52:47Jocko Willink?

  I opened my eyes and everything I saw was white, clean and oh so warm. Medics were starched. The nurses all looked like Doris Day. I was stripped, placed in crisp white sheets with soft blue blankets. I was safe and suddenly starving. A medic came down to the immediate rescue with a delicious hot meal. I wolfed it down just in time for the next wonder of wonders, a beautiful young nurse in a tight little white outfit who came to clean me up. "Why didn't I join the Navy?", I thought. Except for my bath in the Korean tub, I hadn't washed in more than two months. I was caked with dry blood, Korean mud, and God only knew what else.

• 1:53:31Jocko Willink?

  Each time the nurse scraped off one filthy layer, she'd have to change the sheets and start again. It took four sheet changes with no help from me because as a head wound, I wasn't allowed to move at all. Next, the poor girl had to shave off my ratty beard. Bad hygiene and ingrown hairs had covered my face with boil-like pimples. It was too terrible to be funny, watching the nurse bobbing and weaving all over the place to avoid flying debris every time that razor hit one of the anti-personnel mines buried in my cheeks. The next few days were a haze. Sleep, really hard sleep, people standing over me, having whispered consultations. Blood, IV, x-ray after x-ray, doctors probing, asking questions, "How many fingers do you see?"

• 1:54:15Jocko Willink?

  I slowly regained my strength. Someone, somebody commandeered my Walfam watch. I never saw it again. The sleep was good, I caught up on months of it lost. But then I started getting restless.

• 1:54:29Jocko Willink?

  The ward, though spotlessly clean and staffed with talented, dedicated pros, was an extremely depressing place. We were all head wounds, most either terminal or vegetable cases. It was amazing that many, it was amazing that many young boys, all of them, were still sucking in air. One guy had tubes running out of everywhere. He'd caught a slug right between the eyes. I wanted out.

• 1:54:59Jocko Willink?

  I'd had my little vacation. I told the docs, "I'm ready to return to my platoon. There's nothing wrong with me."

• 1:55:06Jocko Willink?

  The doctors probably thought that the bullet had done some pretty serious damage to my brain. Nobody wanted to go back to the front.

• 1:55:16Jocko Willink?

  They didn't realize that the guys in 3rd platoon were my brothers, my family, and I loved them.

• 1:55:24Jocko Willink?

  I'd only been with them three weeks, it was true, but in combat, that's a lifetime, and I didn't want to leave them out there alone. If by being there, I could help keep them alive, keep them out of a head wound ward.

• 1:55:40Jocko Willink?

  "I want to go back," I kept telling them.

• 1:55:49Jocko Willink?

  Well.

• 1:55:52Jocko Willink?

  He did go back. He healed up. He healed up pretty quickly and went back to his platoon by mid-March. So he was out for maybe a month and a half. And.

• 1:56:11Jocko Willink?

  You know, this book is just incredibly good. By the way, that's page 69 of an 800-page book. That's where we're at. Page 69 of an 800-page book. Just in Korea, he's gonna get two more Purple Hearts. He's gonna get battlefield commissioned. He's gonna take command of a new Raider unit. He's gonna go on offense against the enemy. He's gonna get awarded three Silver Stars.

• 1:56:38Jocko Willink?

  Then he's gonna go back to America. He's gonna volunteer for another tour.

• 1:56:44Jocko Willink?

  With the 40th Infantry Division.

• 1:56:47Jocko Willink?

  And then that war's gonna end, and he's gonna stay in the Army, and he's gonna go through all the political things that you have to go through to move up the chain of command. And then he's gonna eventually deploy to Vietnam as a Battalion Operations Officer, as a Battalion Commander. He's gonna go there with SLA Marshal. And then he's gonna go and he's gonna be a Battalion Commander for the 439th Infantry.

• 1:57:10Jocko Willink?

  And eventually, he conducts his.

• 1:57:16Jocko Willink?

  His famous, or his infamous interview, depending on how you look at it, with the issues and answers where he disparages a lot of the senior Army and a lot of the civilian leadership.

• 1:57:34Jocko Willink?

  After which, he is drummed out of the Army rapidly. And all the, I mean, these events that take place, they're all documented with such detail.

• 1:57:48Jocko Willink?

  And it just gives so much information about leadership, about human nature, about the way people act, about why people do what they do.

• 1:58:02Jocko Willink?

  There's so much to learn from this book. So we're almost at two hours right now.

• 1:58:09Jocko Willink?

  What an honor it was for me to have written the foreword to this thing, this book that had such a huge impact on me. Check it out. Check out the book. Well, one thing that's cool about it is you don't have to, look, it's 800 pages long. You can, you don't have to read the whole book in one sitting. You know the story. I just told you the story. The story is about a guy that's, that's, that freaking loves his troops throughout his career. And you pick it up anywhere and you read what he's going through for two or three pages. I guarantee you'll get a lesson out of it. It's, it's that good and you don't have, you don't have to read the whole thing at once. You will, you'll want to, because you'll want to know what's going to happen. Like I said, we, we're on page 69 right now. And by the way, we skipped a bunch. I skipped a whole section.

• 1:58:52Jocko Willink?

  Because he, he kind of talks about the, the opening action scene that I talked about. Then he kind of goes into how he ended up in the army and he goes through the World War II and he goes through the trust troops and all that. Then he picks back up with Korea. So we didn't even cover, we probably covered 40 pages out of a 800 page book.

• 1:59:14Jocko Willink?

  So, check out the book.

• 1:59:19Jocko Willink?

  It will teach you valuable leadership lessons and it will teach you how to become smarter as leader. And it will teach you how to become a better person. About face Colonel David Hackworth.

• 1:59:36Jocko Willink?

  Speaking of being better, Echo Charles.

• 1:59:38Speaker 01

  Yes, sir.

• 1:59:40Jocko Willink?

  Do you have any, let's say, hack commendations?

• 1:59:43Speaker 01

  Sure, hack commendations. Well, actually back to the Hawaiian guy. Me one big war hero bra.

• 1:59:48Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:59:49Speaker 01

  It's not me. He didn't say me.

• 1:59:51Jocko Willink?

  What did he say?

• 1:59:52Speaker 01

  I. Cause in Pigeon, no, well, I'm sure Hackworth, I'm sure Hackworth maybe remembered it incorrectly.

• 1:59:59Jocko Willink?

  Hackworth was wrong, is what I'm hearing. Okay.

• 2:00:03Speaker 01

  I'm just saying, in Pigeon, you don't say me.

• 2:00:07Jocko Willink?

  I might've read it wrong. No, that's what he says. Yeah. He says, me one big war, war hero bra.

• 2:00:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:00:12Jocko Willink?

  So he used incorrect Pigeon.

• 2:00:14Speaker 01

  I one big war hero bra.

• 2:00:16Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 2:00:18Speaker 01

  Also it kind of reminded me like this just totally never thought about this, but when I when I'm realizing in pigeon you say one instead of eh like uh like hey toss me a beer whatever.

• 2:00:31Jocko Willink?

  Toss me one beer.

• 2:00:32Speaker 01

  One beer, yeah. It's weird. It's like a subtle difference right there.

• 2:00:35Jocko Willink?

  Toss I one beer?

• 2:00:36Speaker 01

  No, not, no, no, no. I, you say I, like for I, but one is like, you know, like in non-pigeon will say, for lack of a better term, y- y- you say one as it only when the option of more than one is considered in the scenario, you know? But in pigeon, you just say one just means eh whether two or more or whatever is considered or not.

• 2:01:01Jocko Willink?

  Got it.

• 2:01:01Speaker 01

  See what I'm saying? Toss me one beer, bro.

• 2:01:05Jocko Willink?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:01:06Speaker 01

  I one big war hero as opposed to I'm two big war heroes. You see what I'm saying? I want to be, I'm a big war. You see, you see the translation, right?

• 2:01:15Jocko Willink?

  I'm, that's why you're here, man.

• 2:01:17Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 2:01:17Jocko Willink?

  Breaking down that pigeon.

• 2:01:19Speaker 01

  If need be, yes.

• 2:01:21Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 2:01:21Speaker 01

  Alright, so okay, becoming better. So I was thinking about this the other day, you know, my neighbors are over and they asked, hey, do you work out every day? I was like, yeah, well, I try to, you know, the whole deal. You work out every day, right, Jaco?

• 2:01:37Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 2:01:37Speaker 01

  Every day, like seven days a week. I mean, that's kind of the, the, the plan, the deal.

• 2:01:42Jocko Willink?

  I will try and work out every single day. Sometimes you have a travel day, you know, the flight's at six fifteen. I got to bed at eleven. Do I, am I gonna get up at three fifteen or, or no, even earlier than that, three? No, my body could probably use the extra sleep more than it could use the workout.

• 2:02:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 2:02:02Jocko Willink?

  But I know that there are days like that out there, so therefore I don't voluntarily take days off.

• 2:02:08Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, so.

• 2:02:12Speaker 01

  And kind, yeah, I dig it. Same deal, more or less, you know. Uh, but why, like, why do you work out every day? I'm not saying you shouldn't. I'm just saying you ever think about like, why do you work out every day? You know, and then like, how do you work out every day? Like what, like, why, why?

• 2:02:31Jocko Willink?

  I work out every day so I can stay in shape, bro.

• 2:02:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, but you don't have to work out every day to stay in shape. That's the thing. There has to be more to it than that.

• 2:02:38Jocko Willink?

  I think it's good for you mentally and physically.

• 2:02:41Speaker 01

  There you go mentally, right? Mentally, that's so, that's such a broad thing to say though, too. And I mean that in a good way. I don't mean it like, whoa, that's a cop. I'm not saying that. I'm saying like, that's, yeah, mentally, man, that's a big deal mentally. Where that's part of like, essentially like your life, you know, it's part of like who you are, you know, like.

• 2:03:03Jocko Willink?

  That's the discipline.

• 2:03:05Speaker 01

  Yeah. And there's a lot of things like that, but they seem like real small because so many people do it. You know how like, you know, some people, they, they make their bed every single day, right? There's that. And then there's like, okay, then you get all the way down the spectrum, like obvious things like, oh, I brush my teeth every day or whatever. You know? But man, you're essentially, if you want to call it the path, like working out every day. Beyond the physical benefits and, you know, whatever, being stronger, whatever. Working out every day is like,

• 2:03:42Speaker 01

  it's one of those things where if you can adjust your standard to that,

• 2:03:47Speaker 01

  in that way.

• 2:03:48Jocko Willink?

  That's a good thing.

• 2:03:49Speaker 01

  That it, that'll, yeah, that'll keep you, that'll keep you in a place that's like,

• 2:03:55Speaker 01

  I guess that's why we call it the path.

• 2:04:00Speaker 01

  It'll keep you on the path.

• 2:04:01Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I think that developing a pattern is very positive.

• 2:04:05Speaker 01

  Right, so.

• 2:04:05Jocko Willink?

  And sticking to the pattern.

• 2:04:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:04:07Jocko Willink?

  Once you deviate, let's face it, you lose momentum.

• 2:04:12Speaker 01

  And that's a good way. To develop a pattern as far as staying in shape, working out, because let's face it, like working out, a lot of times, like, we can consider that as like, kind of low on the priority list for a lot of reasons, and I understand. But if your whole thing is like, no, I work out every day, the same way I freaking like brush my teeth every day, you know, it's like part of the day.

• 2:04:34Jocko Willink?

  I floss my teeth every day.

• 2:04:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. So it's like one of those things.

• 2:04:38Jocko Willink?

  That started when I joined the Navy.

• 2:04:40Speaker 01

  What, flossing?

• 2:04:41Jocko Willink?

  They said floss your teeth every day. I was like, okay. And I started doing it every day.

• 2:04:46Speaker 01

  Cool, man. Yeah, see, and that's good. It's the reason I laugh is because it's funny how it's like that simple for you.

• 2:04:52Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, like.

• 2:04:53Speaker 01

  It's like the dentist tells you to floss every day.

• 2:04:56Jocko Willink?

  You get told that your whole life, but then they're like, okay. They say, hey, floss your teeth every day. Okay, Roger that.

• 2:05:01Speaker 01

  So, yeah, hey, how about this? Work out every day, every single day.

• 2:05:04Jocko Willink?

  Good move.

• 2:05:05Speaker 01

  Well, but it is a good way to get on the path.

• 2:05:07Jocko Willink?

  I feel like there's some place where you're going with this. I feel like this is a building up to some statement.

• 2:05:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, and here's the, it's not building up to the statement. It's kind of revealing.

• 2:05:15Jocko Willink?

  A big letdown.

• 2:05:18Jocko Willink?

  Because I was thinking you had some kind of philosophical eureka moment.

• 2:05:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean.

• 2:05:24Jocko Willink?

  But basically, what you're saying is work out every day.

• 2:05:26Speaker 01

  I have, I had a philosophical moment.

• 2:05:28Jocko Willink?

  Say it, it's kind of making me wonder.

• 2:05:29Speaker 01

  I'm telling you why you should work out every day, because let's face it, like, if you just say, hey, work out every day, there's a lot of pushback you can get. Like, no, you need rest days, no, you need, you know, like, there's a, there's, you know, there's a big philosophy to it. But working out every day, just like how you said, which I'm glad you did, by the way, it's, it's, it's a mental thing.

• 2:05:48Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 2:05:49Speaker 01

  And of course, physical, but that's obvious. Yeah, it's a mental thing. So, and then you additionally, you said, to, you know, make it a, what, a routine or whatever, like, it's just part of your day.

• 2:05:59Jocko Willink?

  Develop a pattern.

• 2:06:00Speaker 01

  Develop a pattern. Yes, exactly right. That's a good way to develop the pattern, is you just automatically assume and do it every day. Just automatically, as part of the day, you know, not like, oh, I want to try to get a workout in today. You know, it's not that. It's like, that's, it's more of a given, you know, kind of thing.

• 2:06:16Jocko Willink?

  It's a weird thing that I'll say to people. They're like, how do you do that?

• 2:06:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, sure. Yeah, that.

• 2:06:23Jocko Willink?

  Or they're like, what do you say to yourself? I don't say anything.

• 2:06:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:06:25Jocko Willink?

  I don't even, it's a weird thing to say, I don't even think about it.

• 2:06:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:06:29Jocko Willink?

  I don't sit there and be like, well, you know, I have worked out for five days straight, so I really probably don't actually need to work out today. How could you, you know, it's like, you know, I actually read once four years ago in a muscle and fitness magazine that, you know, five days in a row is a bit too much to work out and you should take that whatever day off. You always can find eighty million ways to rationalize. Did you know the Bulgarians actually, on their periodization cycle, they only, you know, like, there's a million different. I was reading about Michael Phelps and even though he trained hard, there was always one day a week that he would just rest. Like, everyone's got a million different rationalizing things that you can put in your head.

• 2:07:05Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, even though they're not.

• 2:07:07Jocko Willink?

  You should get, that's, that's the rationalizing thing. There's a, there's a TV show that, uh, it's called Alone. And it's a TV show called Alone. They put people out in the wilderness. I heard about it on Joe Rogan, cause he had one of the winners on the show. And I didn't even hear that. I just heard Joe Rogan mention it. He was like, yeah, this show is crazy. They put them out. And so I was with my wife and my youngest daughter and they were looking for something to watch. And I go, I go, well, hey, there's a show called Alone. It's about being alone in the wilderness. Long story short, everyone quits. And you, you, the show goes on until only one person is left. Everyone else quits. So.

• 2:07:52Speaker 01

  They're in different places, obviously.

• 2:07:53Jocko Willink?

  They're alone in the wilderness.

• 2:07:55Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 2:07:56Jocko Willink?

  They're alone in the wilderness.

• 2:07:57Speaker 01

  Or with each other, though.

• 2:07:58Jocko Willink?

  No, they're alone.

• 2:07:59Speaker 01

  Isolated. Yeah, yeah, I got you.

• 2:08:01Jocko Willink?

  So as you watch this, you see people and they're, they have cameras with them, so they're talking to themselves. And it's been funny to watch because you can see people when they're gonna quit. And you're like, oh, they're rational. So now, now I've got my youngest daughter, who's eleven. When someone starts rationalizing, she says, oh, he's rationalizing. Cause you know, someone will say, you know, I could stay out here for a long time, but you know, I really miss my family.

• 2:08:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:08:31Jocko Willink?

  And you're like, oh, he's rationalizing. Or, or I just don't know if it's worth, you know, what this is doing to my body. I've done some stuff to, some hard stuff to my body and I'm starting to think about, even though the money would be nice, but.

• 2:08:45Jocko Willink?

  So we start rationalizing and the reason I mean you'd see that in SEAL training. In SEAL training, you'd see someone say, you know, I don't know if you know, I'm actually probably going to get married and I don't know if it's the right thing to do to put my girlfriend through this. And you're like, okay. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Definitely don't want to put your wife through this. Go quit.

• 2:09:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:09:07Jocko Willink?

  Go quit.

• 2:09:08Speaker 01

  That's so true.

• 2:09:09Jocko Willink?

  So it's so easy to rationalize things. Rationalization is the enemy and that brings me back to where I started this, which was, I'm not thinking about it because I know that my, I know that my rationalization, my powers of rationalization can, can win.

• 2:09:27Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:09:27Jocko Willink?

  I can convince myself 48 times. I just quoted a muscle and fitness magazine from 1987. That said that the Bulgarians ensure that they get at least one complete day of rest for every five days of working out. You can support any crap that you want to support. If you just, if you just want to rationalize with yourself, be irrational. Be irrational.

• 2:09:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:09:50Jocko Willink?

  Shut up. Do what you're supposed to do.

• 2:09:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, that rationalizing is, I'm very successful person in regards to rationalizing stuff.

• 2:10:05Jocko Willink?

  Everyone is. Everyone is.

• 2:10:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:10:06Jocko Willink?

  You also know your own, you know what to say. You know how to, like you're into being healthy, right? And you're like, yeah, you know, I did see that, I did watch, just watched that YouTube video and they talked about the value of rest. It actually is more important. It's actually more important.

• 2:10:25Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 2:10:26Jocko Willink?

  Than diet and lifting. The most important thing is rest and I think I've been really, I don't, I think, I think I actually, in order to truly have discipline, I need to have the discipline just to not work out today. That's going to take discipline. These are all lies. They're all just lies. They're all just rationalization.

• 2:10:47Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 2:10:47Jocko Willink?

  I, I like today, I was lifting today.

• 2:10:50Speaker 01

  Hell, yeah.

• 2:10:51Jocko Willink?

  But. I was rationalizing prior to lifting. I was rationalizing. I've been sitting there like observing myself rationalizing. And what I had to do was actually, I, I was feeling a little tweak in my leg, in my knee. No, very minor. But I was like, well, you know, maybe a day, you know, just let that thing heal up. Don't want it. And it's like, no, actually shut up. And I, I lifted lighter. But I didn't rationalize.

• 2:11:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:11:19Jocko Willink?

  I was like, okay, cool. But hurt leg? Good.

• 2:11:22Speaker 01

  You know, it's a good

• 2:11:23Jocko Willink?

  Let's stretch it out.

• 2:11:24Speaker 01

  Com- thing to combat rationalizing and I, well, I'll just

• 2:11:29Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, shut up and do what you're supposed to do. That's one thing.

• 2:11:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. Well, um, yeah, for sure. But what I do, or sometimes if I have the strength, uh, is all imagine like, you know how like all come with you with an issue, like a, an excuse or something? And you always have some workaround for the excuse every single time, like somewhere. And it's like, man,

• 2:11:52Speaker 01

  if you can just imagine kind of what Jaco would say right now, you know, cause you could legitimately have a tweak in your knee. You, you could. And in varying levels, it could be like, almost like, hey, if you start doing this squat routine that you have planned, like you will make it worse.

• 2:12:06Jocko Willink?

  For sure.

• 2:12:07Speaker 01

  You know, but.

• 2:12:08Jocko Willink?

  You can also just use your other leg.

• 2:12:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, do some other stuff.

• 2:12:11Jocko Willink?

  Use pistols.

• 2:12:11Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:12:12Jocko Willink?

  You know, how about that? How's that sound?

• 2:12:14Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. And a lot of times like that other stuff's like, man, I'd, I'd rather battle through the pain to be honest.

• 2:12:19Jocko Willink?

  Okay. So when you go surfing, sometimes it's like cold miserable. Maybe the waves aren't that great, but you know, you should go. So Stoner and I, we had this rule for a little while. When we got to our surf spot, we could either go surfing, or if you don't want to go surfing, that's fine. But now you have to swim around the pier.

• 2:12:42Jocko Willink?

  So it's like, that's the deal. So guess what you do? You go surfing and you know, you should go surfing anyways. Even if you get two good waves, it's worth it. And you got to work out, you know, you got to paddle, but you're either going to. So you should have an alternative. Like, hey, you can either work out today.

• 2:12:59Jocko Willink?

  Or you can, whatever, whatever some miserable thing is that sucks worse than working out.

• 2:13:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:13:05Jocko Willink?

  Right?

• 2:13:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:13:07Jocko Willink?

  I'm gonna come up with that thing.

• 2:13:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, so and actually I actually do that, but it's still working out. So it's like a version of that. It's it's a perfect, uh, uh, it's analogous to your surfing thing. It's either do the workout plan.

• 2:13:20Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:13:21Speaker 01

  Or do this metcon. It's a specific metcon. There's two of them. If I did this one, the the last time I did metcon, I'd do this other one. That's it. They're just two. So it's like either do the full workout or do the metcon. So if it's like, man, if you're, if you think your knee is tweaked or whatever, you can do the metcon.

• 2:13:37Jocko Willink?

  That's cool.

• 2:13:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:13:38Jocko Willink?

  I like it. There you go.

• 2:13:39Speaker 01

  And it's like, it's right on the borderline of the workout and the metcon suck the same.

• 2:13:44Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:13:44Speaker 01

  Equally.

• 2:13:45Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:13:45Speaker 01

  But you know how sometimes you're just not in the mood to to do that workout?

• 2:13:49Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:13:50Speaker 01

  And then sometimes you're really not in the mood to do the metcon.

• 2:13:53Jocko Willink?

  It's weird how sometimes you wanna do, sometimes you would prefer to do a a metcon. And sometimes you would prefer to lift heavy.

• 2:13:59Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 2:14:00Jocko Willink?

  Right?

• 2:14:00Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 2:14:01Jocko Willink?

  It's okay. It's okay. What's not okay is I don't feel like lifting heavy, so I'm just not gonna do anything. Or I don't feel like doing a metcon, so I'm just not gonna do anything.

• 2:14:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 2:14:09Jocko Willink?

  What you wanna do, I like, I like that option. You can either do this or that. And I I do that to a certain level. Uh, you know, if I if I just, whatever, I don't feel like doing anything that's gonna be a metcon scenario. I bet, cool. I'm gonna lift heavy, you know, and I'm gonna grind it out, too. It's not like I'm gonna say, oh, well, I'm just gonna, you know.

• 2:14:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:14:27Jocko Willink?

  No, I'm gonna get some.

• 2:14:28Speaker 01

  That's why I like the metcon, because the metcon is very specific. Like, you either did it, or you just didn't do it correctly, you know, kind of thing. Like, it has the the rest in between each rep. It's basically circuit training.

• 2:14:38Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:14:39Speaker 01

  Essentially. And I gotta do a certain weight, a certain amount of reps per thing. And so it's there. It's not like, oh, I'm gonna go light, or I'm gonna slack. It's kind of hard to slack, because it's like, it's real glaring if you do. So, yeah, you're choosing one or the other. I don't care what you're in the mood for or not in the mood for. Like, you gotta do one, you know? But if you, so I always have that in play, always.

• 2:14:59Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 2:15:00Speaker 01

  And it works.

• 2:15:01Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's good to give yourself a shitty alternative.

• 2:15:06Speaker 01

  Yes, yes, sir, it is. In these cases, for sure. Yeah. Well, anyway, hopefully, we are on the path. Whether you're working out every day or not, I'd say, I recommend workout every day. Here's the thing, if you're hurting yourself or something like that, don't do that workout.

• 2:15:23Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, for sure. Don't do something that's gonna injure you.

• 2:15:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:15:27Jocko Willink?

  But don't do nothing.

• 2:15:29Speaker 01

  Don't do nothing. Do a very deliberate.

• 2:15:31Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:15:31Speaker 01

  Workout every day. And the point is there too, is like that, after a while, it does just become normal.

• 2:15:37Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:15:37Speaker 01

  Like, just like making coffee, or, you know, like, every day, it's just, oh, that's sort of just what you do every single day. It's like, right, it becomes that, you know? And boom, you're a new person.

• 2:15:47Jocko Willink?

  Boom.

• 2:15:48Speaker 01

  Just like that. Just like that. Anyway, we're all on the path. We're working out every day. Hey, look, your joints get sore. I get it.

• 2:15:54Jocko Willink?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:15:54Speaker 01

  Right?

• 2:15:55Jocko Willink?

  My knee's actually sore.

• 2:15:56Speaker 01

  Actually sore. But I did squat super hard the other day. You know the kind where mentally, you go into like, getting

• 2:16:09Speaker 01

  or whatever, in squats too. And so mentally, you kind of, it's almost like you turn off a certain part of your mind, you know? So, and you're just, your body just has to like, basically facilitate their ass. But then when you're done, when your mind switches back on, you're like, just in pain. You know how you gotta basically pay the price mentally afterwards? You're on the road to recovery, which is cool, but anyway, it was one of those scenarios. And, yeah, my knees were weird, strangely sore on the inside. I don't know, oddly. It's fully healed now, too. By the way, that was two days ago. Nonetheless, point is, sometimes your joints get sore, mine too, Jaco's too. When you get older, we're all getting older, I know, no matter how old you are.

• 2:16:51Jocko Willink?

  Nah.

• 2:16:52Speaker 01

  We're not getting older.

• 2:16:53Jocko Willink?

  No, but like, everyone goes, oh, it's because you're getting older. No.

• 2:16:57Speaker 01

  Because you're not taking care. You're taking care less.

• 2:16:59Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and also, like, when I was younger, you have sore.

• 2:17:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:17:04Jocko Willink?

  It's not worse.

• 2:17:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, mine's not really worse. I feel like my capacity, maybe my enthusiasm sometimes is less, but that might be just because I got more stuff going on as an adult, you see what I'm saying? I don't know. Nonetheless, if your joints are sore, don't worry.

• 2:17:19Jocko Willink?

  When did you become an adult? How old were you? I want to say like, mid 30s.

• 2:17:26Speaker 01

  I think it was mid never to be honest with you, but I don't know. I think it's a slowly, slow gradual.

• 2:17:33Jocko Willink?

  We're still heading there.

• 2:17:34Speaker 01

  We're working hard.

• 2:17:35Jocko Willink?

  Kids, kids, kids move that forward. When you have kids, you start to become an adult pretty quickly.

• 2:17:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. Well, certain elements switch.

• 2:17:45Jocko Willink?

  I mean, you've got humans that now rely on you for your food, for their food. So.

• 2:17:50Speaker 01

  Kind of for everything.

• 2:17:51Jocko Willink?

  And everything else. And roof. Yeah. And health.

• 2:17:55Speaker 01

  Health, fucking development, life, their whole freaking existence.

• 2:18:00Jocko Willink?

  Bunch of things we're talking about.

• 2:18:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, so that can, that can switch on the adult circuits for sure, for sure.

• 2:18:05Jocko Willink?

  How old's your, how old's your oldest?

• 2:18:06Speaker 01

  Seven.

• 2:18:07Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. So I was probably right. Probably mid 30s. You started kind of moving in the direction of.

• 2:18:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think so too. Nonetheless, I don't have sore joints at the moment. And that is because what I was trying to tell our, everyone, the people, our people. Jaco has supplementation called Jaco Fuel. The joint stuff is joint warfare. There is also super krill oil, which has other health benefits, by the way. But anyway, in combination, this will keep your joints in the game, working out seven days a week, working out five days a week, whatever.

• 2:18:42Jocko Willink?

  Working out nine days a week.

• 2:18:44Speaker 01

  All of that stuff. These will keep them together the whole time. You're gonna be worried about your gains, not your joints.

• 2:18:51Jocko Willink?

  Dang, check him out.

• 2:18:54Speaker 01

  I'm just saying that these are.

• 2:18:55Jocko Willink?

  Hey, also vitamin D. Uh, now, we're in the midst of the pandemic. And everybody is saying, take vitamin D. Thankfully, we make vitamin D. Vitamin D3, get some of that. You can also get Cold War, which is immune health. Which again, these are products that we've had, and it's pretty cool that a lot of people are recommending them right now. So you can stay healthy. And then on top of all this working out that you're doing, you're probably gonna need some. What Echo likes to call additional protein.

• 2:19:31Speaker 01

  Yes, additional. Well, because you know, there's a debate, if you will, depending on your lifestyle of how much protein you should have. See what I'm saying? So if you want to supplement protein, I recommend.

• 2:19:45Jocko Willink?

  How many people are listening to this right now?

• 2:19:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, about six.

• 2:19:48Jocko Willink?

  Zero.

• 2:19:49Speaker 01

  There's four.

• 2:19:52Speaker 01

  Nonetheless, it doesn't even matter. It doesn't matter because for those six people.

• 2:19:55Jocko Willink?

  They're gonna hear this.

• 2:19:56Speaker 01

  They're gonna hear fire. Yes, exactly.

• 2:19:57Jocko Willink?

  They're gonna hear fire.

• 2:19:58Speaker 01

  As far as fire goes, yes. Nonetheless, if you're gonna supplement protein, you might as well have it in the form of dessert.

• 2:20:04Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 2:20:04Speaker 01

  That's what milk is. I know, strange name. I get it. Nonetheless, supplement your protein like a dessert. Do it that way.

• 2:20:12Jocko Willink?

  We've got some kids protein too, Warrior Kid Protein, because why would you feed your kids something that's actual poison? You wouldn't do it. You'd get them Warrior Kid Milk. They will love it. You will love that they're having it. They will be healthier, stronger, smarter, better. They're gonna have a massive deadlift, for sure. Just a hundred percent. Uh, white tea, we got that. And we also got these cans of what we call Discipline Go.

• 2:20:37Speaker 01

  Isn't it an energy drink?

• 2:20:39Jocko Willink?

  You know what? It is because it gives you energy, but it gives you real energy. Not a, not a lie. Not just a, not just a massive hit of caffeine, 300 milligrams of caffeine. Look, you, you inject 300 milligrams of caffeine into a piece of wood and it starts to get excited. But after a little while, it's like very quickly, it's back to just being wood. You put a bunch of sugar into, um, into a rat and it gets all excited. That's fake energy.

• 2:21:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, man.

• 2:21:09Jocko Willink?

  This is real energy. It's got, it's not, got no sugar in it, but it still tastes good. It's sweet with monk fruit.

• 2:21:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, here's the thing, the blah blah. And I get it. I, I understand why you said blah blah blah, because it's like, yeah, these are all these numbers and all this stuff, but man, I kind of looked into it. I did look into it, by the way. And so, so preservatives, sweeteners, like these things that.

• 2:21:32Jocko Willink?

  These are the things that make normal. Energy drinks.

• 2:21:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:21:35Jocko Willink?

  Bad for you.

• 2:21:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, the ones that are bad for you. And you know, there's a bunch of energy drinks, so I can't use. So it's hard to for me in the spirit of accuracy to say, oh, all energy drinks are all this or all that. But the preservatives and artificial sweeteners are are straight up poison, straight up. But they do sweeten or they do preserve or do, you know, and there's this these list of very specific things that they put in.

• 2:22:00Jocko Willink?

  The only reason they're in there is not to help you.

• 2:22:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:22:04Jocko Willink?

  It's to help the drink. It helps.

• 2:22:06Speaker 01

  Stay on the thing or help it.

• 2:22:08Jocko Willink?

  So what I was trying to say is, we don't have any of those things in here.

• 2:22:11Speaker 01

  There's not that.

• 2:22:11Jocko Willink?

  In order to not put chemicals in there to preserve it, we pasteurize it like what you do with milk.

• 2:22:18Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:22:19Jocko Willink?

  So, and in order to sweeten it, we've only got monk fruit, which is good for you. Monk fruit is good for you. So anyways, all these different items, you can get it, you can get originmaine.com. You can also get them at the Vitamin Shoppe and we're a little, we're about to enter a new market in the world. You know, when people say, oh, I really wish this stuff was available here or there. We're moving in that direction. It's starting, started with Vitamin Shoppe. Next thing we're going into is a place called Wawa, which is a convenience store, mostly East Coast. We're starting in Florida and Virginia.

• 2:23:00Jocko Willink?

  If you live in those areas, be on the lookout because you'll be able to walk into a Wawa and clean out the shelf.

• 2:23:08Jocko Willink?

  Clean out the shelf, get yourself some discipline, go try the different flavors. And yeah, you'll get that little, you'll get that little mid morning hitter.

• 2:23:20Jocko Willink?

  And you won't get a post drink crash where you're like.

• 2:23:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, no. Yeah. And and being in the in the store is like, especially like a convenience store scenario, whatever. It's it makes it, it does. This is a big deal in this sense where right now, and I get it, like you you you order your shipment. You know, you get it whether it be online or whatever, or find a Vitamin Shoppe for sure. But when it's when it's at the store, you can just sort of stop in and get one kind of thing on the way here, on the way there or whatever. It makes it a whole. Different process.

• 2:23:53Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:23:53Speaker 01

  Way more convenient, if you were probably why they call it convenience stores, by the way.

• 2:23:58Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:23:58Speaker 01

  Unless that's a good, that's good news right there. Uh, yeah, so Discipling Go is what it's called in the can. I don't know if you mentioned that for those who may not have known that.

• 2:24:07Jocko Willink?

  Got it. Thank you.

• 2:24:08Speaker 01

  So anyway, yes, uh, or originmaine.com.

• 2:24:12Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 2:24:12Speaker 01

  You can get it there. Also, other stuff at Origin Main is Jujitsu Gis. If you don't have one, get one from there. American made, all good.

• 2:24:18Jocko Willink?

  What are we doing without a Jujitsu Gi at this point?

• 2:24:20Speaker 01

  I have no idea.

• 2:24:21Jocko Willink?

  We should definitely be having a Jujitsu Gi.

• 2:24:23Speaker 01

  Yes, sir.

• 2:24:23Jocko Willink?

  That's for sure.

• 2:24:24Speaker 01

  Also jeans, American denim. Also some hoodies, some other clothing items on there. American made boots. Works of art. I've heard them be referred to as works of art made in America.

• 2:24:37Jocko Willink?

  Just made Pete Roberts so happy.

• 2:24:40Speaker 01

  Well, it's accurate. I agree with this statement.

• 2:24:42Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, they are. This is works of art and also the preservation of a culture of creation and manufacturing. That's what's happening. This is a lost, this is a dying art. A dying capability that is now being preserved. Whether it's the, the manufacturing of the cloth to make the gis, whether it's the manufacturing of the boots, whether it's the, the sewing and fabrication of the jeans, all of it is a preservation of a manufacturing,

• 2:25:23Jocko Willink?

  a manufacturing thread that ties America together. So we're not going to let it die, by the way, and we appreciate you all helping us keep it alive.

• 2:25:37Speaker 01

  So yes, originmaine.com is where you can get this stuff. Also, Jaco's store, jacostory.com.

• 2:25:42Jocko Willink?

  I just made like kind of a, of a statement and then you go, yeah, so you know, that's where you can get this stuff.

• 2:25:47Speaker 01

  But it's true.

• 2:25:48Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 2:25:48Speaker 01

  There you go. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

• 2:25:51Jocko Willink?

  You can get these pieces of art. You started it.

• 2:25:53Speaker 01

  Man, that was so freaking deep, bro. It was deep and man, thank you so much for, for, for saying that.

• 2:26:00Jocko Willink?

  You're welcome. You're welcome.

• 2:26:01Speaker 01

  Anyway, Jaco's.

• 2:26:02Jocko Willink?

  I'm glad that my services have been fully appreciated.

• 2:26:05Speaker 01

  Lord.com.

• 2:26:05Jocko Willink?

  Epic my speech was.

• 2:26:07Speaker 01

  Yes, sir. It was. Jacostory.com. We, we can get.

• 2:26:12Speaker 01

  Our shirts, this one equals freedom, death core to the core, by the way.

• 2:26:16Jocko Willink?

  Good.

• 2:26:17Speaker 01

  Good, get out, all these shirts, if you want to represent while you're on the path, jocko store.

• 2:26:21Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book.

• 2:26:22Speaker 01

  Back to the book all day.

• 2:26:23Jocko Willink?

  That's a shirt.

• 2:26:24Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Also hoodies on there, some tank tops, other items. So we're adding, we got hardcore recondos on there. Back in stock, by the way.

• 2:26:35Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, speaking of David, and we didn't even get to this part about face.

• 2:26:40Speaker 01

  But I think we all know that the, what do you call the legend, or the, what do you call it, one sort of, the canon? Is that what it's called?

• 2:26:47Jocko Willink?

  The canon is like a big book, or a big work of art, I mean, a big work of writing.

• 2:26:51Speaker 01

  The, the part of the story that's like, you know, they became the.

• 2:26:56Jocko Willink?

  The crux of the story, perhaps?

• 2:26:58Speaker 01

  No, it's like legendary, a legendary.

• 2:27:00Jocko Willink?

  Iconic part of the story?

• 2:27:02Speaker 01

  One of them, yeah. Anyway, why they're called, called the hardcore rather than the hopeless?

• 2:27:08Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Hardcore recondos.

• 2:27:10Speaker 01

  Yes, sir.

• 2:27:13Speaker 01

  Yes, so we've got that shirt, we got, we got some cool stuff, continuously adding items on there, maybe like once a month, month, once every two months, maybe. So anyway, check in there if you like. We do have an email list if you want to get emailed for new stuff. Basically just new stuff, that's it, pretty much.

• 2:27:31Jocko Willink?

  Warrior kid soaps on there too?

• 2:27:32Speaker 01

  Yes, sir.

• 2:27:33Jocko Willink?

  Which is legit.

• 2:27:34Speaker 01

  Yes, that's all we use now. And here's, here, you know what's weird? The, um, the compliments that I hear personally and online is that it smells real good.

• 2:27:44Jocko Willink?

  There you go.

• 2:27:45Speaker 01

  It, it doesn't seem like that was like one of the things that we're, or that Aiden and them were like trying to like push.

• 2:27:51Jocko Willink?

  Just a byproduct of excellence.

• 2:27:53Speaker 01

  Just, it's a good way to put it. Yeah, yeah. And that is the case for sure. Yes.

• 2:27:58Jocko Willink?

  And even though it smells good, which I agree with, but even more important, it can help you, it can help your family.

• 2:28:06Jocko Willink?

  Stay clean. Stay clean. Subscribe to the podcast. Don't just subscribe to this podcast. We got some other podcasts. We got the Jaco Unraveling Podcast. We got the Grounded Podcast. We got the Warrior Kid Podcast. We got a YouTube channel. If you want to see Echo's YouTube videos that he makes where he makes everything explode and blow up and catch on fire. Sometimes. Except if it's a long video, in which case he'll just let you be bored with that, which he's fine with. We got an album called Psychological Warfare, which is me talking about moments of weakness that that we may need to overcome. You might need a little help overcoming that. When you're trying to rationalize. You might be trying to rationalize. We can fight through that together. Press play. You press play. You have it on there. You have a little MP3 on there. You press play on your phone.

• 2:28:51Jocko Willink?

  And then all of a sudden you stop rationalizing and you start doing.

• 2:28:56Jocko Willink?

  Flip side canvas. If you want to not rationalize visually, get yourself some, get yourself some things to represent. I know that Leif just told me that he hooked up the Echelon Front HQ building in Texas with some flip side canvas works for the walls.

• 2:29:18Jocko Willink?

  We also have some books. Hey, first of all, this book right here, About Face, written by Colonel David Hackworth. I wrote the foreword. One in honor. Check it out. This is a book you can refer back to forever. I'm still reading it. I have been reading this book for approximately,

• 2:29:37Jocko Willink?

  I would say approximately 20 years, approximately 20 years, and I'm still reading it. We also have the code, the evaluation, the protocol, written by myself, Dave Burke, Sarah Armstrong in the mix on that one. Leadership Strategy and Tactics Field Manual. All the answers are in there.

• 2:29:57Jocko Willink?

  All the answers are in there. They really are. Get that book. You can look up, oh, you got a problem with your employees acting a certain way? Cool. Go to leadership strategy. Oh, your boss, you're having a hard time leading up the chain. Oh, good. Cool. Go in there. Check it out. Oh, your morale is down for your troops. Okay, go in there. Check it out. All the answers are in there. Leadership Strategy and Tactics Field Manual. We got Way of the Warrior Kid one, two, three. We got four on the way. Be checking out for it. We'll have it to preorder as ASAP. It's a, it's, it's, the final version is with the printers at this time.

• 2:30:31Speaker 01

  Oh, okay.

• 2:30:32Jocko Willink?

  Yep. So we're there.

• 2:30:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:30:34Jocko Willink?

  We also want to know, you know, sometimes we collectively cause shortages of certain books. So if you want to get Way of the Warrior Kid four, please preorder it so that you don't get caught at Christmas time with no book for your little warrior kid.

• 2:30:53Jocko Willink?

  Don't forget about Mikey and the Dragons. Speaking of warrior kids, don't forget about the Discipline Equals Freedom Field Manual. There is a new addition out. The new addition.

• 2:31:04Jocko Willink?

  I wrote a bunch more for it. We added it in there. It's got a new cover. It's got a photograph by Echo Charles on the cover. The photograph is of my head.

• 2:31:18Jocko Willink?

  Which we, which you took of me.

• 2:31:20Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:31:21Jocko Willink?

  You'd think that there, was there a big like setting up or the lighting and all this stuff? No. I was standing in Echo Charles's hallway. We just got done recording the podcast in his living room and he goes, hold on a second. Turn around. And he's holding a camera and he goes, click, click. And one of those two shots is Echo's iconic picture that is on the cover. It's bigger. Have I shown you the new one yet?

• 2:31:46Speaker 01

  I have one. I have the, it's not a completed one. It's actually blank.

• 2:31:51Jocko Willink?

  Oh, you have a fake one.

• 2:31:52Speaker 01

  On the inside.

• 2:31:52Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 2:31:53Speaker 01

  I have the cover.

• 2:31:54Jocko Willink?

  I'll bring you the real one.

• 2:31:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:31:55Jocko Willink?

  I'll bring you the real one. So they made it look a little bit more and you know, I'm, I'm an old school hardcore kid from

• 2:32:03Jocko Willink?

  and so things had a certain look to them and this one kind of moved in that direction a little bit, being a little bit like my old school hardcore days. DIY, make things happen.

• 2:32:14Speaker 01

  You've got a good track record with covers, I guess, say.

• 2:32:16Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:32:17Speaker 01

  Like, yeah, they look solid.

• 2:32:18Jocko Willink?

  Well, thank you. I appreciate it.

• 2:32:21Jocko Willink?

  So there's all those books, plus there's Extreme Ownership, plus there's the Decotomy of Leadership, which I wrote with my brother Leif Babin. We have Echelon Front, which is a leadership consultancy. We solve problems through leadership. That's what we do. Go to echelonfront.com if you need help in your business. We have EF Online, where we are providing leadership instruction through an online platform, answering questions. There's all kinds of things to do on there. There's courses to take. There is EF Overwatch, where we are taking people from the military and putting them into civilian companies in leadership positions, people that understand the principles that we talk about here. And finally, if you

• 2:33:06Jocko Willink?

  want to help, if you want to help out our military members, active members, retired members, their families, Gold Star families, if you want to support, then check out Mark Lee's Mom. That's Mark Lee from Task Unit Bruiser, his mom, Mama Lee. She has a charity organization. If you want to donate, or you want to get involved, go to AmericasMightyWarriors.org. And if you, if you feel the need, if you just feel the need to hear more of my unbearable

• 2:33:44Jocko Willink?

  bellowing, or you maybe you just need a little hitter, a little dose of Echo's muddled meanderings, which we certainly got plenty of today. You can find us on the interwebs, on Twitter, on Instagram, which Echo, just so he knows what I'm talking about, he refers to Instagram as The Gram. Facebook, Echo is at Echo Charles, and I am at Jocko Willink. And thanks once again to my mentor, Colonel David Hackworth, for everything he did for me, for his soldiers, for the Army, and for America. And thanks to all the military personnel out there right now.

• 2:34:30Jocko Willink?

  Right now, right at this moment, while you're sitting there, listening to this podcast, while we're sitting here making this podcast, there are military personnel out there right now, holding the line against evil and protecting our way of life. And the same thing to police and law enforcement and firefighters and paramedics and EMTs and dispatchers and correctional officers, Border Patrol, Secret Service, all other first responders, thank you for holding the line and protecting us here at home.

• 2:35:04Jocko Willink?

  And everyone else out there.

• 2:35:09Jocko Willink?

  You know, we have to remember that

• 2:35:13Jocko Willink?

  in life, most of the time, we don't have the luxury. We don't have the luxury of a Colonel, or a Captain, or a Lieutenant, or a Sergeant Hackworth in our lives.

• 2:35:29Jocko Willink?

  We don't have someone there to keep us in line, to make us do pushups and give us a good swift kick in the ass when we slack off. What we have to do is we have to be our own Sergeant Hackworth. We have to be our own Mr. Infantry. We have to be our own hardcore Ricondo to hold the highest standards and allow no fucking slack.

• 2:36:05Jocko Willink?

  That is our charge as leaders, as people, as human beings. So go out there

• 2:36:16Jocko Willink?

  and get after it.

• 2:36:20Jocko Willink?

  Until next time, this is Echo and Jaco. Out.