338: Uvalde School Shooting Tragedy. Tactical Response Assessment.

Jocko discusses what happened at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, TX. Suggestions and an assessment. 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 338 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. Good evening Echo. Good evening. When I was teaching close quarters combat,

• 0:12Jocko Willink?

  which is, you know, going into rooms, going into buildings and clearing rooms and clearing buildings, clearing hallways, clearing stairwells. There's all kinds of things that a SEAL has to do correctly when they do this. And there are a lot of rules, a lot of standard operating procedures that you have to follow. How you enter the room? Where your feet go, where you aim your weapon and where you don't aim your weapon. How far you stay off the wall? What you say to your shooting buddy when you need to move? What you, how you respond to your shooting buddy when he needs to move?

• 0:51Jocko Willink?

  There's a bunch of verbal and non-verbal signals that you give with your voice, with your weapon, with your posture, with your actions. You gotta know how to give those signals. You gotta know how to receive those signals. And then there's a bunch of calls that you actually make. And again, some of those calls you make and you pass that word via verbal or other types of visual signals. When to move, where to move? What to address? In a, in a particular room or in a hallway or in a building? Cause you gotta prioritize and execute when you go into a room. There's multiple things going on. You gotta figure out which one's the most important one. You gotta support your shooting buddy at all times. That's cover and move.

• 1:37Jocko Willink?

  You gotta do all this with simple, clear, concise communication. You gotta make sure that while you're doing all these things, you're supporting the overall intent of the mission, which is decentralized command. So there's a whole bunch of things going on

• 1:50Jocko Willink?

  when you're doing close quarters combat.

• 1:54Jocko Willink?

  And when I taught this,

• 1:57Jocko Willink?

  there was, you know, we as instructor cadre

• 2:02Jocko Willink?

  would get really critical about the actions that the guys entering the room made because we wanted them to stay tight on the SOPs. Because imagine you enter a room and you go where you're not supposed to go. You can get shot by, by your partner. So, so you gotta get guys to do the right thing. And then they've got to be able to make the decisions. They gotta be able to make decisions quickly. And so us as cadre, you know, we would, we would definitely harp on these guys and, and give them firm critique when they screwed something up. Hey, you're too far off the wall. Or you should have dressed that open door first, or you didn't clear behind that couch over there. So we're getting on these guys. And there's a million points to critique and criticize.

• 2:47Jocko Willink?

  And we did that. We, and again, the reason we did that was to make sure that they follow the SOPs. Because when you get into a platoon or you're in a platoon and you don't follow the SOPs, there's some SOPs, if you don't follow them in CQC,

• 3:03Jocko Willink?

  you can get yourself killed, you can get your buddy killed, you can get the, everybody killed.

• 3:09Jocko Willink?

  So we're hypercritical. Now, as I watched that and it's, you know, as my cadre, as I watched my cadre, you know, I sort of detached and would, would let the cadre sort of run the, those, those finer points of the standard operating procedures. And I got to a point where,

• 3:27Jocko Willink?

  you know, I would talk to guys

• 3:31Jocko Willink?

  when they do something wrong,

• 3:34Jocko Willink?

  where I'd say, hey, you did what you did.

• 3:39Jocko Willink?

  Let's figure out why. So, so in other words, oh, Echo went into the room and he addressed this door instead of that couch first. You know, and I could say, hey, that door was open, it's a bigger. I, I would say, hey, Echo, you, you addressed the, the couch and you turned your back on the door. What were you thinking about? Because I wanted to know why you did it so that I can learn more and it can allow me to teach better. Right? If I know why you did something and you say, well, you know, I thought that the biggest threat was the one that was closest to me. Well, this one might be further away, but if it's a bigger space to hide behind, whatever the case may be. So.

• 4:21Jocko Willink?

  As I learned why people made mistakes, that helped me be able to teach these things better because then I could close some of those loose ends as I'm teaching it. And I took this to other areas of training as well, especially with the leaders, right? Especially with the leaders, the young SEAL leaders, trying to understand not just what they did wrong and point out to them what they did wrong, but why they did it. So that I could adjust the training to address the shortfall and I could address and adjust my own, my own methodology of instruction to make sure that I explained it in a way that they understood why, why we were doing something a certain way. So I need to figure out, I needed to figure out what they were thinking and why they were

• 5:06Jocko Willink?

  thinking it. And I learned a lot from doing that. And of course, we would do this type of thing after missions as well, you know, the, the debrief. We get done with a mission, we immediately are going to go do, do a debrief. What happened? Why it happened? What we could do better? And of course, I, if we had a, a, someone on the team that messed something up, I would talk to him about why they did it, not just ream them out because they screwed up, but hey, what were you thinking when you made that move? What were you thinking? Why did you move into that building? What did you think was going to happen? And, and you know, if you read Extreme Ownership, the first chapter, after the blue on blue,

• 5:47Jocko Willink?

  of course, we obviously debriefed and we created some new standard operating procedures to prevent it from happening again, or at least mitigate the risk as much as we could. And if you read the rest of the book, there were even more situations that we talk about in the book that were close to being catastrophic fracture sides, catastrophic blue on blues. But we were able to stop those from happening, either from our procedures that we had put into place, or our better understanding of what could unfold, or our awareness of what was happening. And when I got home from that deployment, I debriefed that operation, that blue on

• 6:29Jocko Willink?

  blue, I debriefed it over and over again to the, the SEAL teams and the platoons that were going through training and the troops that were going through training to try and pass on the lessons learned to everyone. And then we set up training.

• 6:44Jocko Willink?

  That we, we, we organized the training so that those lessons learned would get embedded into these young SEAL leaders. They would understand how these things happen so they could prevent them from happening. And I was told many times over the years that the training and awareness that we gave people prevented many friendly fire incidences from happening. And I mean, case in point, Jason Gardner's got a few in that he, that happened to him on his deployment to Afghanistan where he straight up said, you know, like, hey, if I wouldn't have been aware, if we wouldn't, wouldn't have had that blue on blue training, that this, we probably would have had a blue on blue for real. So I heard that many times.

• 7:32Jocko Willink?

  Now, a lot of people have been asking me about the horrific scenario that unfolded in Uvalde, Texas.

• 7:47Jocko Willink?

  Psychotic and sociopathic gunman entered a school and killed 19 innocent children and two adults.

• 7:58Jocko Willink?

  And

• 8:00Jocko Willink?

  I can't even fathom the grief and the fam, the, the, just trauma for those families. The horror, the, the hole in their lives that they have now that can never be replaced.

• 8:18Jocko Willink?

  And the

• 8:21Jocko Willink?

  potential of life

• 8:25Jocko Willink?

  that was thrown away before it even had a chance to grow. And it's just a completely heartbreaking situation.

• 8:38Jocko Willink?

  And what has made the situation even harder to process

• 8:45Jocko Willink?

  was the response from law enforcement on the scene. And

• 8:55Jocko Willink?

  Of course, we all like to think about and talk about what I would have done.

• 9:00Jocko Willink?

  What I would have done if I were there. And, and I get that. Everyone is horrified by what took place. And we all like to think that we would have been braver, that we would have been more decisive, that we would have had more situational awareness, that we would have handled the scenario in a way that created a better outcome. Of course, we all like to, we would all give anything to be able to create a better outcome in that situation.

• 9:32Jocko Willink?

  And unfortunately, and the situation has already happened. The outcome is complete.

• 9:41Jocko Willink?

  And we can't change what happened and what the response was any more than I could change the decision a young SEAL made when he walked into a room and moved the wrong way or addressed the wrong threat. I, I couldn't change what he had done. I, I could tell him what he did wrong, but what I really needed to do, as I said, was to understand why, why he made that decision. And learn from it. And then figure out how I could teach other people to not make that mistake. And that is unfortunately

• 10:19Jocko Willink?

  the best I can offer in this situation as well. Now, there are other things to talk about with regards to contributing factors in this situation. And you've got mental health, you've got media violence, you've got dehumanization of people, you've got gun laws and their enforcement or lack of enforcement. And I talked about some of those on the Jocko Unraveling podcast with Daryl Cooper and all those.

• 10:54Jocko Willink?

  The thing is with all those, those are massive subjects. Those are massive subjects, all of them, that are being discussed at the national level.

• 11:04Jocko Willink?

  And will take some unified efforts to solve. It will take some unified efforts, and by that I mean people actually working together, which we don't seem to have any of.

• 11:17Jocko Willink?

  So as that conversation continues to take place, I just wanna look at what happened tactically on the ground and try and figure out why it happened.

• 11:32Jocko Willink?

  And I'm gonna use a timeline, follow a timeline from the Texas Tribune. It was last updated on June 9th and, and just, just to note, we're recording this today on June 13th, 2022. And it's just based on simple open source reporting. And I'm sure that there will be more detailed information available in the future. And, and maybe at some point we'll go over it with more detail. But the thing is, there are lessons to be learned, even from what we know right now, that, that I want to talk a little bit about again, from the tactical perspective, to try and figure out why things happened like this in this event.

• 12:18Jocko Willink?

  So again, from the Texas Tribune,

• 12:23Jocko Willink?

  this is May 24th, 2022, around 11 a.m. The shooter sends Facebook messages. The shooter sends private Facebook messages to a girl in Germany he met online and tells her about his plans to shoot his grandmother. The gunman shoots his grandmother in the face and calls the police.

• 12:43Jocko Willink?

  The shooter steals his grandmother's vehicle and drives from his home

• 12:48Jocko Willink?

  to rob elementary school, which is about two mile, two miles away.

• 12:54Jocko Willink?

  So

• 12:57Jocko Willink?

  there you have a clear declaration that something bad is going to happen, made by the individual himself. And I don't know if there's some kind of a social media 911 call that you can make. It seems like, it seems like there should be some kind of a social media 911 to call where if someone is making threats of violence via social media, that people that see these threats can have someone to contact

• 13:33Jocko Willink?

  where action can be taken.

• 13:36Jocko Willink?

  And I don't know if there is an AI that can screen for things like this. My guess is yes, considering that if I Google search something on my phone or on my laptop, the very next screen that I click, I get advertisements for whatever that thing that I just searched is. So to, so to think that we couldn't come up with, or that the tech companies couldn't come up with something that was combing through messages, combing through posts, looking for threatening content. It seems like that would be a feasible thing.

• 14:15Jocko Willink?

  And, and at a minimum to have something where there's like a universal 911 call to make if someone is posting threatening things. It seems like that would be a move that would be able to help these, when these situations unfold.

• 14:35Jocko Willink?

  Moving to 11:28 AM, the shooter arrives at the school. The shooter crashes the vehicle into a ditch near the school. He fires his gun at two male witnesses who began approaching the crash from a nearby funeral home. The witnesses flee and call 911.

• 14:52Jocko Willink?

  So, so this, this is at 11:28.

• 14:58Jocko Willink?

  When you get a shooter that's in the vicinity of a school, there's gotta be a, a really good lockdown protocol that happens.

• 15:09Jocko Willink?

  And

• 15:12Jocko Willink?

  this is something that when we talk about lockdown protocol, one thing that, that I think needs to be discussed is if you have a shooter that's external to the school, lock the doors.

• 15:28Jocko Willink?

  But when you have a shooter that's in the school,

• 15:32Jocko Willink?

  everyone should get the hell out of the school. You shouldn't keep people in the school anymore. So having a couple different immediate action drills, when it comes to when, when, when, when a shooter is either in a school, we're going to get out of the school. If he's outside the school, we're going to stay in the school, we're going to lock it down. Those, those require two different reactions, not one.

• 15:58Jocko Willink?

  Cause if there's a shooter in the school, you should get the hell out of the school.

• 16:06Jocko Willink?

  11:30 AM, a teacher calls 911. A teacher at the elementary school makes a 911 call reporting the crash and seeing the shooter noting he has a gun. The shooter walks toward the school, climbs the fence into the parking lot, and shoots at the school several times.

• 16:26Jocko Willink?

  Again, if the shooter's outside the school, we should have an instant protocol to keep him outside the school.

• 16:36Jocko Willink?

  11:31 AM, shooter walks through the school parking lot. The shooter reaches the last row of vehicles in the school parking lot, firing his rifle throughout.

• 16:46Jocko Willink?

  Police arrive at the funeral home. So you remember the people that initially reacted to the crash, they ran back to a funeral home, called the police. The police now arrive at the funeral home. A school district police officer speeds in the direction of a person they think is the man with the gun, reported by the teacher, but drives past the gunman and heads to the back of the school, mistaking a teacher for the shooter.

• 17:10Jocko Willink?

  So you have a problem of positive identification now. Where you've got teachers who are the only adults in the schools, except for the shooter. So how are you going to tell them apart?

• 17:24Jocko Willink?

  This is where we look and say, hey, is there an armband that we have? Is there, in an emergency, everyone knows to put on a certain t-shirt or a certain vest? And I know, you know, you might be thinking, oh, that sounds stupid. If you've ever been into a combat situation where there's multiple people running around on the battlefield, positive identification is a real problem. It is really hard to identify who's who.

• 17:50Jocko Willink?

  And you can make it a lot easier if you throw, if you give people some kind of a uniform to put on where, oh, all the teachers are wearing a vest that says "teacher" on it. An orange vest.

• 18:11Jocko Willink?

  11:33 a.m. The shooter enters the school.

• 18:16Jocko Willink?

  Shooter enters the school for the back, through the back door. He shoots at least 100 rounds inside classes, uh, classrooms 111 and 112, which are connected.

• 18:28Jocko Willink?

  Authorities originally said a teacher left the door propped open, but later said a teacher closed the door and the automatic lock failed.

• 18:38Jocko Willink?

  And there's, she said a quote here, she, she remembers pulling the door closed while telling 911 that he was shooting.

• 18:47Jocko Willink?

  She thought the door would lock because the door is always supposed to lock.

• 18:53Jocko Willink?

  I, I've heard some people talk about,

• 18:58Jocko Willink?

  the horrible idea of, or what seems like a horrible idea of turning schools into,

• 19:07Jocko Willink?

  you know, bunkers type thing. Oh, we can have armed guards at every. And look, no one wants to bring their kids to a school where the school feels like it's a reverse prison, right? Or some kind of a prison environment where you've got barbed wire, you've got bars on the window and all this kind of stuff. No one wants to bring their, their kids to school like that. But there is a way to properly secure schools

• 19:31Jocko Willink?

  where it doesn't look like some prison camp.

• 19:39Jocko Willink?

  There's absolutely a way to make that happen. And I think that just about any parent, I think actually any parent would be okay with having some security in place so that the school is a, a, a place where people can't get into unless they're supposed to be there.

• 20:03Jocko Willink?

  So the back doors open. Look, does this mean I'm a little bit paranoid?

• 20:09Jocko Willink?

  Mate, yes.

• 20:12Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, a little bit paranoid. And I think a little bit of paranoia is actually okay.

• 20:19Jocko Willink?

  A little bit of paranoia is actually okay.

• 20:25Jocko Willink?

  So that was at 11:33.

• 20:30Jocko Willink?

  At 11:35,

• 20:35Jocko Willink?

  the Uvalde police enter the school.

• 20:41Jocko Willink?

  Three police officers rush to the same door that the gunman used to enter, which was closed. They enter and receive grazing wounds from the gunman. They retreat.

• 20:53Jocko Willink?

  So response time has been,

• 20:57Jocko Willink?

  well, 11:28 a.m. The shooter arrives at the school. 11:31, he's walking through the parking lot. 11:33, he enters the school. The police arrive pretty quickly. Now, if there was some kind of security guard there, guess what? Response time is zero minutes.

• 21:17Jocko Willink?

  And does this mean that your kid feels like he's going to school in a damn prison? Because there's a plain closed security guard there?

• 21:30Jocko Willink?

  I'm okay with that. Do I love it? No, I don't.

• 21:39Jocko Willink?

  But this is not that big of a price to pay to keep kids safe.

• 21:46Jocko Willink?

  The idea that a guard or an armed guard has to be some overt presence that the kids have to walk by to get to class? Oh, there's, you know, Mr. Fred with the AR-15 guarding us. I feel intimidated because I'm a little kid. I don't like it. It makes me feel uncomfortable. Does it have to be like that? No, it doesn't actually have to be that way at all.

• 22:13Jocko Willink?

  There can be a very low visibility option for that.

• 22:19Jocko Willink?

  And it can be a low visibility option that the children don't know much about, but the public does know about. And therefore, it also, it also causes deterrence for a would be school shooter.

• 22:32Jocko Willink?

  If the would be school shooter knows that there are armed people in the school, they're probably going to figure out a different target.

• 22:45Jocko Willink?

  So the police officers enter the school, they get shot at.

• 22:52Jocko Willink?

  Receive grazing wounds. They retreat.

• 22:59Jocko Willink?

  So.

• 23:04Jocko Willink?

  This is a tough one to, with what I know about, you know, the only words here, they retreat. And that they, that they received fire. This could mean a bunch of different things. This could mean full automatic fire that is at the shooting at the door that they're trying to get through.

• 23:24Jocko Willink?

  And if that's the case, and they proceed in there, they're just all going to die. And now they can't help.

• 23:31Jocko Willink?

  Or is it some rounds came and they immediately retreated? I don't know. I don't know what happened there.

• 23:41Jocko Willink?

  I do know this.

• 23:44Jocko Willink?

  When you're getting shot at.

• 23:47Jocko Willink?

  You now have information.

• 23:50Jocko Willink?

  You have very pertinent information.

• 23:54Jocko Willink?

  You know, the general location. If you're taking rounds, you, you know where they're, you know, at least a little bit where they're coming from.

• 24:03Jocko Willink?

  So now we can start to formulate some kind of a plan. You also know that you've got a high threat scenario and you've got children in there. Now you can't just put down cover fire and shoot back at a person in the school because there's a bunch of kids and you can get a friendly fire scenario happening.

• 24:19Jocko Willink?

  So you can't just lay down cover fire like you would over in a, in a foreign country in a war.

• 24:27Jocko Willink?

  But you know where the bad guy is, generally speaking. You know at least the door that you're at, he has covered, which tells you what? There's other doors that he may not have covered. Meaning other doors where he may not be able to engage.

• 24:45Jocko Willink?

  So we've tried one entry and we have now an information that we can't get in there. So now what are we gonna do? Find another place to go.

• 25:01Jocko Willink?

  At this point, going back to the timeline here.

• 25:05Jocko Willink?

  Pete Aradondo, the chief of the school district's police department, also arrives at the scene around this time. He does not have his radios.

• 25:15Jocko Willink?

  Aradondo wanted both hands on his gun if he encountered the shooter and believed the radios would have slowed him down, his attorney said.

• 25:27Jocko Willink?

  No.

• 25:31Jocko Willink?

  That's...

• 25:34Jocko Willink?

  This is not, this is not even a thing. This is not even a... This is not even a remotely

• 25:45Jocko Willink?

  squared away concept in any way.

• 25:47Speaker 01

  What, the radio slowing you down?

• 25:49Jocko Willink?

  A, the radio slowing you down. B, both hands on your gun. I mean, you don't carry your radio in your hand while you're shooting. You have, you have your radio, you have a, a, a mic to, to talk into if you need to.

• 26:11Jocko Willink?

  You, going into a situation like this, communication during an event like this is beyond critical. It's beyond critical, especially if you're the chief. If you're overall in charge of what's happening. You are the one person that absolutely needs a radio. And you know what? So does everybody else.

• 26:36Jocko Willink?

  Now, you don't always, sometimes you don't always have every single person with a radio, but if you're overall in charge.

• 26:43Jocko Willink?

  You're the one that's gonna be communicating, receiving communications, giving directions. You're the one that's supposed to get an overall concept of what's happening.

• 26:56Jocko Willink?

  Now, this is an insane lack of judgment. And I would love to pull the thread on this. And, and figure out what actually happened.

• 27:08Jocko Willink?

  My guess is, some, uh, the chief didn't look in his car, see his radio and go, you know what? I'm going to leave my radio here.

• 27:18Jocko Willink?

  My guess is that's not what happened. That might be what the lawyer is saying as a rationalization. Well, he thought he might need it, uh, he thought it might slow him down. And thought that he want to have both hands on his guns, on his gun. That might be a, a, a post-operation rationalization excuse. My guess is that in the, in the panic of the situation, he didn't think about it and forgot it.

• 27:50Jocko Willink?

  And, and by the way, this points to a, an equally insane lack of training.

• 27:56Jocko Willink?

  Cause no one ever, in any kind of scenario, ever where more than one person is acting at, in different parts of a team, decides not to bring a radio. That's not a decision that anyone is going to make.

• 28:11Jocko Willink?

  I would grab my radio before, if I was in charge, I'd grab my radio before I grab my weapon. How you like that?

• 28:22Jocko Willink?

  So to be in charge and to decide not to bring your radio is complete and utter failure. And you know, I've seen some things where they ran some scenarios like this. The training, if you train one time doing this,

• 28:40Jocko Willink?

  and you're in charge, you'll say, damn, I better make sure I have good communications with my team. What, if you do this one time?

• 28:47Jocko Willink?

  If you approach a hostile target where there's bad guys in there, one time, no, no hostages, no children, just one bad guy, you put him in a building and you have you and one other person? You'll, you'll make that radio an absolute priority.

• 29:10Jocko Willink?

  One time. Now you take a situation where you've got an active shooter and there's a bunch of kids and you've got different units coming in from different places. You're gonna freaking need a radio and you would know that if you had any training whatsoever.

• 29:30Jocko Willink?

  Here's the thing. It takes practice and I know this sounds crazy because everyone's, look, everyone's an armchair quarterback and everyone can sit there and look, of course I would have brought my radio. I'm telling you, I'm telling you this, it takes practice to know this. As obvious as it seems to everyone right now, it takes practice. You hear kids screaming, you hear gunshots going off, you're the person in charge, you kind of panic and you go. You haven't been trained to the proper level and you go in there without a radio.

• 30:04Jocko Willink?

  So it's, again, reflects bad training.

• 30:10Jocko Willink?

  And at this point, former officers, including a deputy with the county sheriff's office, also entered the school at this time. So now we have seven police there against one. And again, I'm gonna need to see the breakdown detail of the building itself, of where people entered, but you've got more people in the school now.

• 30:30Jocko Willink?

  And by the way, by my numbers, that's seven police against one shooter. And I like those odds.

• 30:39Jocko Willink?

  Seven against one, I like.

• 30:45Jocko Willink?

  11:37, gunman fires 16 more rounds. Again,

• 30:52Jocko Willink?

  you have a school with little kids in it and the gunman is shooting.

• 31:03Jocko Willink?

  What that means is you go. That's what that means. Let me rephrase that. If you didn't already get the signal that there's a freaking gunman in a school

• 31:15Jocko Willink?

  and you haven't done everything you can to get in there and now that gunman is shooting again, that's another blaring signal to get your ass in there.

• 31:30Jocko Willink?

  And by the way, these are not, these are lessons that have been learned. When you look what happened at Columbine, they came up with these same kind of conclusions. There was too much hesitation, there's too much waiting. When you hear this stuff happening, you have to take action.

• 31:48Jocko Willink?

  This is, this is, this is exactly the type of scenario where when I start was teaching the young SEALs, I had to teach them to be default aggressive. This is the exact kind of scenario. The problem's not going to solve itself. You have to go and solve it. That's what you have to do. And the reason that I had to teach them to be aggressive and have that be their default mode is because when things like this happen, people's natural mode isn't to take action. For many people, their natural mode is, "Oh, I don't know what's happening. I'm gonna wait to try and figure out what's happening." That's what their instinct is. And we have to train that instinct out of many people. Not all people. Some people you actually have to train in the other direction.

• 32:31Jocko Willink?

  Some people you have to say, "Hey, hold on a second. You don't know, you have no idea what's happening." Don't go running in there. Most people, you have to train, "Hey, if it's going on and you can't tell what's happening, you need to get aggressive and figure out what's happening. You need to take action."

• 32:50Jocko Willink?

  And in a situation like this where now you have a gunman in a school that's still shooting, it is time without question to do whatever you need to do to get in there.

• 33:06Jocko Willink?

  Now at 1:43 a.m. Robb Elementary and Uvalde Police post on Facebook. They announce it that the school is under lockdown status to do gunshots in the area. By the way, this is like 150 rounds have been fired. The students and staff are safe in the building. The building is secure in a lockdown status. School officials say in an announcement. So there's no emergency communication in the building. And what I mean by that, there's no, there's no pro word. So in the military, you have something called a pro word, which is one word that means something.

• 33:49Jocko Willink?

  That means a whole, a whole scenario is taking place. So if I'm out on an operation and we start taking fire, heavy fire from the target building and we haven't entered the target yet, I have one word that I can say. And when I say that one word, everybody knows what to do. Everyone knows that there's no friendlies in the building, that the target building is shooting heavy fire at us. I can say one word and everybody knows what to do. If we have people in the target building and we start taking fire, I have one word I can say and everybody knows what to do. So there's a breakdown of communication here because no one has put out, hey, there's

• 34:34Jocko Willink?

  a freaking shooter in our school that's gunning people down. No one, no one knows this. So no one knows what's happening. So as you think through these scenarios, you need to come up with some pro words so that everyone understands what's happening. At the same time, the Uvalde Police Department posts on Facebook, large police presence at Robb Elementary. We ask the public to avoid the area. So there's not communication between the school and the police. Do, are there police radios in the school?

• 35:14Jocko Willink?

  That seems like a really obvious question.

• 35:19Jocko Willink?

  But d- does the school have the ability to communicate with the police directly through radios?

• 35:29Jocko Willink?

  Cause this is not a very hard thing to figure out. It's not a very costly thing to figure out.

• 35:40Jocko Willink?

  11:44 AM, the police officers are inside.

• 35:47Jocko Willink?

  Police with, with the city of Uvalde are, and the school district are inside the school. This is 11:44. Uvalde police officers enter the building where the shooter is from the north entrance. They hear gunfire, are shot at, move back and get cover.

• 36:09Jocko Willink?

  Again, if you're getting shot at, you now have a general idea of where the shooter is.

• 36:18Jocko Willink?

  And if you have a general idea with where the shooter is, then it's time to maneuver. It's time to flank.

• 36:25Jocko Willink?

  A, a, a shooter can only cover so many different directions at the same time.

• 36:31Jocko Willink?

  And how, how do I know that?

• 36:34Jocko Willink?

  Because I've been on both sides of those scenarios.

• 36:40Jocko Willink?

  When you, when you train properly, you not only act as the good guys, you spend time as a bad guy.

• 36:49Jocko Willink?

  So you start to realize what works and what doesn't work.

• 36:55Jocko Willink?

  That's the benefit of training.

• 37:02Jocko Willink?

  Back to the document. Around this time, Arredondo and another Uvalde police officer enter the building through the south entrance. Arredondo witnesses the gunfire. He then checks the door to the classroom that the shooter is in, finding it locked. He uses his cellphone to call for SWAT teams, snipers, extrication tools, and keys to the classrooms.

• 37:30Jocko Willink?

  This is at 11:44. So all this has taken place for almost over 20 minutes this has been going on. And only now we're getting a call for SWAT team snipers, breaching tools.

• 37:49Jocko Willink?

  And it's on the cellphone? I mean, how, why are we making calls on a cellphone?

• 37:57Jocko Willink?

  Why is that happening?

• 38:01Jocko Willink?

  We have radios. There's a reason you have radios, direct communication. Instantaneous, immediate, direct communication to a whole net of people.

• 38:12Jocko Willink?

  Oh, that's right. Well, he doesn't have his radio.

• 38:16Jocko Willink?

  So he's making cellphone calls.

• 38:27Jocko Willink?

  It says, there's a quote in here, "Initial officers are there and receive gunfire, therefore do not make entry." "Officers call everyone in the area for additional resources, tactical teams, equipment, specialty equipment, body armor, precision riflemen, and negotiators." They're evacuating students and teachers during this time, and this is from Victor Escalon, a DPS official, during a press conference on May 26.

• 38:59Jocko Willink?

  From the very beginning of this whole thing, you clearly have an active shooter that needs to be hunted down and killed.

• 39:10Jocko Willink?

  That's completely evident from the first moments. As soon as a car crashes and two guys go to help and he gets shot at, or those two guys get shot at by someone who then maneuvers towards a school, this is an active shooter situation and someone needs to hunt this guy down and kill him.

• 39:30Jocko Willink?

  And that's the mode that needs to be gone into instantaneously.

• 39:35Jocko Willink?

  And there's going to be risk.

• 39:42Jocko Willink?

  There's going to be risk when you're going up against someone with a gun. There's a risk that you're going to die. And that's what we in the military and law enforcement sign up for.

• 39:54Jocko Willink?

  And we have to think through that, actually, and you have to train for that. And the first time that you think about getting shot and the probability that you get shot shouldn't be in an actual gunfight. This shouldn't be the first time this is going through your head.

• 40:10Jocko Willink?

  You should do training. And you need to do training where you understand what you're going to be put up against. And you should understand what that feels like. And you should either get over it and accept that as part of your job, or you should get a different job.

• 40:37Jocko Willink?

  11:48.

• 40:40Jocko Willink?

  There's an officer's wife is shot.

• 40:45Jocko Willink?

  So Uvalde C I S D police officer Ruben Ruiz can be heard telling other officers as he arrives inside the school that his wife, Eva Morelos, has been shot.

• 41:06Jocko Willink?

  So you look at this woman, the schoolteacher, just seemed like an amazing human.

• 41:14Jocko Willink?

  She's got pictures, there's pictures of her, she's outdoors, she's enjoying life, she's out running, she's hiking, she's doing Spartan races, she's doing CrossFit, she's just seems like an awesome woman.

• 41:28Jocko Willink?

  And had a daughter with Ruben Ruiz. So he gets word that she shot.

• 41:41Jocko Willink?

  11:51 a.m. More police arrive.

• 41:45Jocko Willink?

  More law enforcement officials arrive at the scene. Again, so what are we doing at this point? Who is running things at this point in time? Now you've got 15, 20 law enforcement officers

• 42:02Jocko Willink?

  on scene, and you've got one bad guy.

• 42:07Jocko Willink?

  That's a fight we can win all day long.

• 42:11Jocko Willink?

  All day long. We're gonna win. And we might take some casualties.

• 42:17Jocko Willink?

  But we can win that fight all day long.

• 42:24Jocko Willink?

  11:54 a.m. There's an onlooker starts filming.

• 42:33Jocko Willink?

  21 minutes after the shooter enters the school, an onlooker streams a live video showing parents begging police to enter the school.

• 42:46Jocko Willink?

  Now, this is very difficult to watch. This is actually sickening to watch. There are parents that are going crazy with frustration. They want to help their kids.

• 42:59Jocko Willink?

  And in, and in some of these videos, you can see that the parents are being held back by officers with long guns.

• 43:08Jocko Willink?

  With rifles, with assault rifles.

• 43:13Jocko Willink?

  And, and they're, what they're doing is keeping the parents at bay.

• 43:23Jocko Willink?

  Now, here, now here's what's difficult to understand. Most likely, I can just about guarantee these officers that are doing this have no idea what's going on. They have no idea what's happening.

• 43:35Jocko Willink?

  They, they probably think they're doing the right thing, which is, hey, there's an active shooter in there. My teammates are in there killing this guy, so I need to make sure these civilians stay safe. That's what they're thinking. And why are they thinking that? It's because no one in this, this whole scenario is detached and connecting the pieces. Which is what needs to happen when this kind of thing goes down. Someone has got to take a step back and piece together what's happening and put together a plan.

• 44:08Jocko Willink?

  So these parents, you watch these parents, they, they actually are somewhat detached. The parents are kind of detached. Because they can see that there's, why is this shooting continuing? Why is this happening?

• 44:29Jocko Willink?

  12:03. Police continue to arrive and a student calls 911 from inside. A student calls 911 from room 112 for a minute and 23 seconds and identifies herself in a whisper. Meanwhile, as many as 19 officers are positioned in the school's hallway. 19 officers. And now we know that we got kids in there alive. And you have 19 officers. 12:10, student calls back. Student calls 911 again and says multiple people are dead.

• 45:09Jocko Willink?

  So now you know for sure, the shooter is a psychopath that needs to be stopped. That's what you know.

• 45:25Jocko Willink?

  12:13 PM, student calls 911 again. Student calls a third time. Authorities have not expanded on her comments during this call. 12:15, Border Patrol Tactical Unit arrives. Border Patrol Tactical Unit members carrying shields arrive. And, look, ballistic shields are a great, an awesome tool to have. For sure. They're, they're great. We're not waiting for this. If there's kids that are going to be killed, we're not waiting for shields to show up.

• 46:05Jocko Willink?

  12:16 PM, student calls 911 once again. The student calls 911 again saying eight or nine students are alive. So now we know we got live kids in there.

• 46:16Jocko Willink?

  And we got

• 46:19Jocko Willink?

  more than enough people to make this happen.

• 46:25Jocko Willink?

  12:17, oddly enough, the school announces there's an active shooter on campus.

• 46:31Jocko Willink?

  I mean, what's happening?

• 46:36Jocko Willink?

  In our overall, from an overall leadership perspective between the school and the police, when we have at 12:17, as there's dead children, dead teachers, and now we're announcing that we have an active shooter on campus? The onlookers, the parents are now begging for action.

• 47:00Jocko Willink?

  Here's a little pullout. At some point during the standoff, onlookers begged police to charge the school. According to the Associated Press, "Parents try to break windows and are not allowed to immediately be reunited with their children." Again, there's video of this. It's sickening to watch. There's parents yelling out, "What are you doing? Get inside the building. Go protect the kids."

• 47:27Jocko Willink?

  And there's one mom. One mom, Angelie Rose Gomez, she gets cuffed.

• 47:38Jocko Willink?

  She gets cuffed for, quote, "intervening with an active investigation."

• 47:45Jocko Willink?

  And I can't even give this woman enough props and praise.

• 47:52Jocko Willink?

  She, she like pretended to calm down so that they would release her. Once they released her, she distanced herself from the crowd, got away from like all the hype and all the mania, and then she jumped the fence, went in and got her two kids out.

• 48:11Jocko Willink?

  Meanwhile, she said that other fathers got tackled, pepper sprayed, and tased.

• 48:27Jocko Willink?

  Again, I, I, I, somebody has to take a step back and get control of the situation and no one did that here. And is there a chance that someone in this group of people, one of these police officers, happens to be a really good leader? And happens to understand what to do in dynamic situations and happens to have the authority and the leadership skill to get control of the situation? Is there a chance that someone might have that? There's a chance. There's also a chance that no one has that. And that's why you have to train people so that they can perform in these situations. And you have to, and by the way, the training also is a screening to see what kind of personality people have. And see what kind of shortfalls they have as leaders.

• 49:11Jocko Willink?

  And some people don't have the cognitive capacity to make these decisions. And some people don't have the, the cognitive capacity to take a step back. And some people don't have the wherewithal to press through in tough scenarios. And so as, as leaders, we need to know who those people are.

• 49:38Jocko Willink?

  This mom,

• 49:41Jocko Willink?

  Ms. Gomez, Mrs. Gomez, she is that type of person

• 49:46Jocko Willink?

  to take action, to be default aggressive, get things solved. She was detached enough emotionally to realize she had to get away from the mob, get to a position where she could maneuver in. She, she was able to do this.

• 49:59Jocko Willink?

  Some people have that natural ability. Some people don't. And I'm going to get to this in a little bit. There's also training that has to be overcome. Sometimes people fall into training habits that aren't good.

• 50:15Jocko Willink?

  So we have to train to the point that we recognize when what we've been trained to do isn't working.

• 50:26Jocko Willink?

  12:19 PM. Another student calls 911. From room 111. Hangs up when another student tells her to. 12:21 gunman fires again.

• 50:41Jocko Willink?

  Authorities say he was believed to be at the classroom's door.

• 50:46Jocko Willink?

  On a 911 call from a student, three gunshots can be heard.

• 50:51Jocko Willink?

  This is over and over again.

• 50:56Jocko Willink?

  Things that would mean to me as a tactical leader, we go right now. There's time after time after time after time. There's execute criteria.

• 51:11Jocko Willink?

  A room full of kids. There's a guy in there, he's shooting. You go. There's not a debate, you go. That's what you do, you go. You go through the windows, you breach the doors, you do whatever you gotta do to get in there. That's what you do.

• 51:33Jocko Willink?

  12:36, student in room 111 calls back again, same student calls back for 21 seconds and is told to stay on the line quietly.

• 51:42Jocko Willink?

  12:43 gunman shoots the door.

• 51:45Jocko Willink?

  The student tells 911 that the gunman shot the door. Okay. There's another execute criteria.

• 51:56Jocko Willink?

  And you do what you have to do to get in there. Windows. You put ladders up to the windows, you crash, you crash through those windows. You crash a vehicle into the windows.

• 52:11Jocko Willink?

  You shoot the door off the hinges.

• 52:16Jocko Willink?

  That's what you do.

• 52:21Jocko Willink?

  12:46, I can hear the police next door, student called 911. 12:46, Arredondo gives the approval to enter.

• 52:32Jocko Willink?

  "If y'all are ready to do it, you do it," he says, according to a transcript of police body cam footage.

• 52:42Jocko Willink?

  12:46.

• 52:48Jocko Willink?

  12:46.

• 52:53Jocko Willink?

  Over an hour.

• 53:05Jocko Willink?

  12:47, 911 call from a student, "Please send police now."

• 53:15Jocko Willink?

  12:50, Border Patrol Tactical Unit Officer reaches the room and uses, using a janitor's keys and kills the gunman.

• 53:28Jocko Willink?

  And I, I don't have, I don't have any details on, on how that actually happened yet.

• 53:35Jocko Willink?

  Uh, I've, I know BORTAC people, which is the Border Patrol Tactical Unit, BORTAC, I know them, I've actually worked with them a little bit. I've got some reports that, that they disobeyed orders, where people were telling them not to enter and they did it anyways, good on them.

• 53:54Jocko Willink?

  But, you know, what I've been saying this whole time, go in, go in, go in.

• 54:02Jocko Willink?

  And you think to yourself, well, if you go in, are you going to get shot? If you go in, is this going to happen? You don't know. But look what happens when these guys finally go in. They go in there and they kill the guy.

• 54:14Jocko Willink?

  That's what happens. You gotta go on offense.

• 54:25Jocko Willink?

  12:51, children are moved out of the room.

• 54:33Jocko Willink?

  So, 12:51, 106 police announced the shooter is in custody. Cause the border patrol went in there and killed him.

• 54:46Jocko Willink?

  And then Uvalde police announced on Facebook that the shooter is in custody. Authorities recanted that information later.

• 55:00Jocko Willink?

  So, there you have it.

• 55:07Jocko Willink?

  What can we learn from this?

• 55:11Jocko Willink?

  And again, at this point in time, I'm focused on what can we learn from this tactical situation that unfolded?

• 55:19Jocko Willink?

  What can we learn from it?

• 55:22Jocko Willink?

  I know there's a whole bunch of, a whole slew of other topics to talk about.

• 55:27Jocko Willink?

  And those are happening on a massive level. And those will continue to happen.

• 55:34Jocko Willink?

  But as an area that I actually know a decent amount about is this. So that's what I'm talking about.

• 55:44Jocko Willink?

  And, and first of all, and I've been saying this for years, police need more training.

• 55:52Jocko Willink?

  Police, 20% of time, 20% of working hours for police should be spent training. That's what should happen. That's what needs to happen. And listen, you think, oh, that, that there's now going to be less people out on patrol, less police out on patrol. Their effectiveness will more than make up for the fact that there's less police on patrol. Who would you rather, if you were in a hostage situation with some crazy person in your house? Who would you rather have show up 10 untrained people or eight highly trained people?

• 56:29Jocko Willink?

  And if you're not sure about that, let me tell you, because I guarantee you all day long, I'll take eight highly trained people over 10 untrained people all day.

• 56:40Jocko Willink?

  All day.

• 56:46Jocko Willink?

  And I'll tell you, I am now, I've started to talk to some organizations to see how Echelon from my company can help do this on a national level. What should this training consist of? What are we training policing? Well, combatives for one thing, shooting, breaching, first aid, trauma, de-escalation. And anybody that's listening that doesn't know much about the police, you might think they do all this stuff all the time. They don't. They don't do this all the time. They

• 57:26Jocko Willink?

  barely get to shoot. I bet you 99% of police have very limited training, if any, in breaching, in how to breach a door with a shotgun. Combatives, barely any, barely any training. Close quarters combat, room clearing. Urban combat clearance. How do you handle an active shooter? How do you handle a barricaded shooter? And then you've got to run scenarios. You've got to put people into these situations. You've

• 58:07Jocko Willink?

  got to get sim munition or some kind of round that can be fired at other people during training. You need assets, you need role players. So that people get used to it. And you will absolutely get better. This is exactly what I did for a living, was train young SEALs so that they understand what to do in these types of situations. And you can watch and see them learn and get better. And over time, they eventually get to a point where they know exactly what to do.

• 58:57Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, they learn about the basic fundamental principles, cover and move, simple prioritize, and execute decentralized command. They're gonna learn about those things. They're gonna learn about decentralized command, which means when I show up and there's something going on, and I'm the junior guy, but I'm the first person there, I can make things happen. I can make decisions. I know what the priorities are.

• 59:17Jocko Willink?

  That's what they learn.

• 59:20Jocko Willink?

  They learn how to detach. You've heard me say someone's got to take a step back and figure out what's happening broadly. Well, that's what people learn when you run them through the appropriate training. They learn how to communicate. They learn the importance of communications. They learn not to go into dynamic scenarios without a radio so they can communicate with the rest of their troops.

• 59:41Jocko Willink?

  This, so much of this whole thing was people not seeing the big picture. No one assembled the entire scene to understand what was happening.

• 59:53Jocko Willink?

  And therefore, no one made the broad call that needed to be made, which is get in there.

• 1:00:00Jocko Willink?

  Get in there. We're going.

• 1:00:06Jocko Willink?

  And this does take training.

• 1:00:10Jocko Willink?

  It does take training. Now, it doesn't take training if you're a parent and your kids in there. That doesn't take any training. That's instinct.

• 1:00:17Jocko Willink?

  And I'll talk a little bit about that. But it takes training. I had experienced SEALs. I would have experienced SEALs that would fail to take action when they needed to. And we'd have to have them do that training again, and maybe again, and maybe again, until they realize that when they don't take action, everything's gonna fall apart.

• 1:00:37Jocko Willink?

  So even SEALs would have a hard time, in some cases, figuring these things out.

• 1:00:46Jocko Willink?

  Now, like I said, the parents that were there, they were, they were detached. And maybe not emotionally, because they're, they're, they're obviously horrified by what's going on. But some of the parents, you can go watch the videos, they're making matter-of-fact statements about what was going on. They're saying, "There's kids in there. There's shooting going on."

• 1:01:16Jocko Willink?

  Now to this idea of instinct, which I mentioned, instinct versus methodology versus instinct. Okay, you have an instinct of what to do.

• 1:01:27Jocko Willink?

  And in some cases, you need to get trained against that instinct.

• 1:01:33Jocko Willink?

  It's just like in Jiu-Jitsu, there's certain things where your instinct is wrong. And so it takes some training to teach you to overcome your instinct.

• 1:01:48Jocko Willink?

  To learn a methodology that's superior to the instinct. And there are times when the methodology is wrong and the instinct is correct. What do I mean by that? I got a story about JP Denell. JP Denell, one of my guys in my last deployment to Iraq.

• 1:02:10Jocko Willink?

  And outstanding guy, SEAL, sniper, point man, outstanding guy. And when we first started working together, we were out in the desert. And we're doing a patrol out in the desert.

• 1:02:24Jocko Willink?

  And the patrol stopped and I'm looking at JP. And JP's standing out in the open. He's just standing out in the open. Now, we're out in the desert, but it's not a barren desert. There's rocks and shrubs and micro terrain features. And we stop our patrol and JP's standing out in the open.

• 1:02:44Jocko Willink?

  And I walk over to him. And I said, "Hey JP, if you were 10 years old right now and we were playing war, where would you be standing?"

• 1:02:54Jocko Willink?

  And he pointed over to a little bush with some rocks around it with a little terrain to hide behind. And he said, "Right over there." And I said, "Let your 10-year-old instinct,

• 1:03:06Jocko Willink?

  let it come to life, let it do its job. That's where you should be. I know the standard operating procedure is when the patrol stops, you set down in your position in your field of fire, you halt and you stay there. But if you can move six yards and have good cover and concealment, that's what you should do."

• 1:03:25Jocko Willink?

  So sometimes people train to a point like these police officers probably and I've heard some, some talk about this, hey, it's a barricaded shooter, which means we, he's going to be staying there and we should negotiate. So they got in this mode of well barricaded shooter, he's not, he, we should just negotiate with him.

• 1:03:48Jocko Willink?

  The reality of the situation, it wasn't barricaded shooters. He was moving around. He was still shooting the entire time. That's not a barricaded shooter that's decided to hole up and negotiate for some kind of ransom. Not at all. They got stuck in that mode.

• 1:04:06Jocko Willink?

  What needed to happen was action. A methodical entry, a perfect entry into the building. If you were to plot out the perfect close quarters combat operation for this school and how many people you would need and what methodology you would move for the building and what type of breaches you would use on the doors and which would be most efficient. All that stuff goes out the window when there's an active shooter in a room with a bunch of kids. Your instinct needs to be to get in there. And some of those parents had that instinct yelling, get into the building.

• 1:04:43Jocko Willink?

  But the training methodology had boxed these guys in mentally where they thought, oh, well, we don't have shields. And, and this is a, I'm speculating at this point, but oh, if we don't have ballistic shields, we shouldn't go in there. Hey, we were taught not to go into a shooter situation, an active shooter situation without ballistic shields. We're waiting for the ballistic shields. No, that's the methodology been talked. It's not working right now.

• 1:05:10Jocko Willink?

  What about the windows? Walking up to the windows, smashing a window,

• 1:05:16Jocko Willink?

  shooting through the window. You can do that.

• 1:05:20Jocko Willink?

  Throwing crash grenades through the windows.

• 1:05:25Jocko Willink?

  Put 10 crash grenades through the windows on this guy.

• 1:05:30Jocko Willink?

  There's a bunch of different things that if

• 1:05:35Jocko Willink?

  if you do what you would naturally do in a situation, you're probably right.

• 1:05:42Jocko Willink?

  So what you have to do is you're going to have instinct, you're going to have a natural instinct. The instinct could be wrong, the instinct could be right.

• 1:05:51Jocko Willink?

  I mean, here's an instinct where somebody's shooting at me, I'm going to run away. I'm not going to go back. So, so police officers have to overcome that instinct to go and stay and maneuver towards fire. That's overcoming their natural instinct.

• 1:06:05Jocko Willink?

  But there's some times where the methodology is wrong. And so you have to be good enough to overcome your methodology and go with your instincts sometimes.

• 1:06:18Jocko Willink?

  It's another thing I used to say to these young SEALs.

• 1:06:23Jocko Willink?

  If you, I'd say, hey, if you were going to go in that room right now, and I was in there, and you were 10 years old, and I was 10 years old, and I had a squirt gun, and you had a squirt gun, and you were going to enter this room, how would you do it?

• 1:06:36Jocko Willink?

  And they'd show me. And I'd say, doesn't that make more sense than what you just did? And they'd say, yeah, it does.

• 1:06:44Jocko Willink?

  But they would follow some standard operating procedure that didn't make sense in a particular room. But they would do what they were taught to do, even though it didn't make sense.

• 1:06:56Jocko Willink?

  And the ability to decide whether your instinct is right or wrong, you get that ability by being able to take a step back and assess. And the way you get that ability to take a step back and assess is through training.

• 1:07:13Jocko Willink?

  And it takes time.

• 1:07:17Jocko Willink?

  And that's why I use that term, that, that, that idea of 20% of time for police officers should be spent training. And you're going to end up with infinitely more qualified and prepared police.

• 1:07:34Jocko Willink?

  There was a fighting methodology, a combatives methodology, a system that was being used in the SEAL Teams. And it was ineffective. It was an ineffective system. But one of the reasons that it was argued to be a good system was because there was a one-week course of instruction of this fighting methodology, that if you took this one-week course of instruction, then you were qualified and allegedly prepared for combat. Well, you can't learn to fight in one week. This is not gonna happen. You can't learn good combative skills in one week.

• 1:08:18Jocko Willink?

  And so I was bringing up to my chain of command, "Hey, this combative system is ineffective. We should use some kind of a more mixed martial arts combination of jiu-jitsu, wrestling, boxing, Muay Thai, using our weapons in those scenarios."

• 1:08:37Jocko Willink?

  And one of the arguments that I got against that idea was that, "Oh, that stuff takes years to learn." "It takes years to learn this stuff. This stuff we can teach people in a week."

• 1:08:50Jocko Willink?

  Well, you know what I said to that? I said, "Well, we're in the damn teams for 20 years. Let people get good." You shouldn't tell someone that after a week of training, they're gonna be good to go. They're not.

• 1:09:00Jocko Willink?

  Training has to happen all the time.

• 1:09:04Jocko Willink?

  And by the way, eventually, we do have a great jiu-jitsu, wrestling, boxing, Muay Thai-based combative system in the SEAL Teams, which is, you also utilize your weapons, you utilize your gear, but it's based in these things that work. And it takes time to get good at. No one says, "Oh, you've been through a one-week course. You can handle yourself now." Because we know that that's not true.

• 1:09:34Jocko Willink?

  So it comes down to training. And there's a look. Are there a bunch of other factors, a bunch of other things that we can address? Yes, there absolutely are.

• 1:09:45Jocko Willink?

  There are a bunch of other things to talk about.

• 1:09:49Jocko Willink?

  But like I said, this is something that I know and something that I understand. Training people for stressful, dynamic, dangerous situations. And that's what we need to do with our law enforcement. We need to train them properly.

• 1:10:06Jocko Willink?

  Because we owe it, we owe it to them. We owe it to our police and law enforcement to train them properly. We owe it to the law abiding citizens of this country.

• 1:10:19Jocko Willink?

  And of course. We owe it to the innocent children.

• 1:10:27Jocko Willink?

  That are just trying to get their freaking education in school.

• 1:10:41Jocko Willink?

  So that's my initial take on this scenario.

• 1:10:48Jocko Willink?

  Again, I, I, I talked about some of the other factors with Daryl Cooper.

• 1:10:54Jocko Willink?

  On our unraveling podcast.

• 1:11:00Jocko Willink?

  But I wanted to address this here. And try and get this word out.

• 1:11:09Jocko Willink?

  With that, Echo Charles.

• 1:11:12Speaker 01

  Yes. You, uh, you know, like a lot of times we're sometimes when these things happen. You hear of like all these solutions, right? Whether it be armed guards in schools, gun control laws, like, you know, everyone has their, their take. What do you think are some of the solutions that?

• 1:11:33Speaker 01

  Off the top of your head that are not practical or doable, or probably wouldn't be effective. That you've heard.

• 1:11:41Jocko Willink?

  There's, there's, there's a whole slew of things going on and there's many facets that lead to this. Situation as far as I don't really think too much about. Hey, what wouldn't work? And, and one of the reasons why I wanted to talk about this is this is, this is what I know will help in a situation like this. If you train people properly, they'll be able to handle these situations. If you could snap your fingers and have all the schools, you know, be totally safe, of course. Of course, we'll take that all day long. We don't get to operate in fantasy world. There's crazy mentally disturbed people out there. And if you haven't listened to that podcast I did with Daryl, one of the most shocking statistics that come out, came out.

• 1:12:26Jocko Willink?

  From it was in 1955, there were 340.

• 1:12:33Jocko Willink?

  Inpatient beds for every hundred thousand people in America that needed mental health help. 340 beds forever, every hundred thousand citizens.

• 1:12:47Jocko Willink?

  Those beds were dedicated for mental health.

• 1:12:50Speaker 01

  Wait, they had that many available for them? Just not necessarily taken up, just available for them?

• 1:12:56Jocko Willink?

  So out of every hundred thousand people, there's 370 inpatient, mental health. Beds available in mental health facilities, right?

• 1:13:07Jocko Willink?

  In 2007. There was 17. Yeah, 17. So that's a 95% reduction in the amount of available mental health facilities for people that need help.

• 1:13:27Jocko Willink?

  And by the way, during this time, we've added all kinds of other crazy things into the mix. With. Drugs. Legal drugs, illegal drugs, prescription drugs. All kinds of media violence. Whether it's social media, whether it's violent movies, whether it's violent video games, all that's added into the mix.

• 1:13:53Jocko Willink?

  The SSRIs, the isolation of, of being on social media in the first place, the breakdown of the family structure, like all these things are happening. You throw those, all those things into the mix, and then you have less mental health available.

• 1:14:13Jocko Willink?

  That's, that's where you end up. It's one of the things that you end up. So I don't know if that necessarily answered your question about what would not help. I try and look at what can we actually do immediately to try and start getting people in a better situation, getting, getting these things freaking moving in the right direction.

• 1:14:33Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, I was thinking, um, because I remember you said something about, uh, like you're an advocate of like having an armed guard at the school, right? Where they're retired military, or this was a while ago. Um, and then I remember hearing the option of training teachers or arming the teachers. That's what it was.

• 1:14:53Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 1:14:54Speaker 01

  So how do you feel about arming teachers?

• 1:15:01Jocko Willink?

  It's, it's the same thing. You need to train the teachers.

• 1:15:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:15:04Jocko Willink?

  Are you going to train the teachers? Because you gotta train the teachers, which can you train the teachers? Yes, you can. You can train some of them. Some of them that want to get trained. You know, the armed guard thing, my mom was a school principal and, and then she was a superintendent of schools. And I remember when these school shootings started happening, I was immediately like, hey, you should put, there should be two dudes sitting in a closet, you know, with video cameras, closed circuit television cameras. They're watching what's going on. And if anything ever happens, they come out and they kill bad guy. I wish I would have been super vocal about it. Because some of these things would have been stopped a lot quicker.

• 1:15:47Jocko Willink?

  And then, like I said, there's some people that say, well, you know, what kind of world are we living into when we need to? Let me rephrase that because I'm using a horrible voice. Some people say, hey, what kind of world are we living in where we have to put armed guards in a school? I'll tell you, the world that we created. The world that we created, you need to have armed guards in school because we've got some serious issues, some serious cultural and societal issues that makes an 18-year-old kid want to get a machine gun and go into a freaking school and start killing kids. That's what's, that's why.

• 1:16:26Jocko Willink?

  So if you say to me, what kind of a world are we living in where we need to put armed guards in schools? I will say, the United States of America. Do I like it? Do I like the fact that we have to do that? No. Do I like the fact that I gotta, you know, wear a seatbelt when I drive a car because I might crash? I don't really like it, but I'm gonna do it.

• 1:16:54Speaker 01

  I remember I was in high school and there was security there. They didn't have, they weren't armed that I knew of, but I feel like granted, this is high school, so elementary school is a little bit different. And I'm thinking back, if they were armed, I don't think that would have made that much of a difference. If they were, I mean, if they were like prison guards, like, you know, ordering, actually, these security guards are pretty mean too to everybody. And we're like hosts, you know, I envision it where they should be nice host, like, almost like nice teachers almost, kind of a thing, like chaperones, you know? Sometimes teachers get like yard duty, that's what they call it in my school, where they go out and monitor the kids.

• 1:17:33Jocko Willink?

  Folsom?

• 1:17:34Speaker 01

  No, it was like, well, I'm, okay, so elementary school teachers have yard duty, right? Certain ones. And basically, they just go outside and recess and just make sure no one acts up or whatever. And no one really acted up.

• 1:17:47Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, so what you're talking about is people that are, people that are employed at the school to keep the students in check.

• 1:17:53Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:17:53Jocko Willink?

  There's a difference between someone that's at school to keep the students in check and someone that's at school to prevent someone from coming harming the students.

• 1:17:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, so.

• 1:18:00Jocko Willink?

  Those are two different people you'd be looking for.

• 1:18:01Speaker 01

  Yes, but in, in high school, when I'm thinking about the security, that's what these, and actually, there were ladies, two of them. And they were there, yes, for, to keep people in check in. All capacities, but what I'm saying is maybe one or two levels more advanced, we'll say, is instead of two ladies with just radios, they were retired military or guys with,

• 1:18:25Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:25Speaker 01

  you know, with guns, not necessarily overt, you know, with badges and, you know, but their presence is kind of known or whatever. It's not intimidating. It's more of like a host kind of scenario.

• 1:18:36Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:37Speaker 01

  Um, you know, like a, like a, uh, someone who's on the kid's side, kind of a thing, more so than someone, you know, with their eagle eyes open for any trouble, you know, that kind of thing, even though that is what they're doing. That's not their presence. That's not like what it's, what it feels like.

• 1:18:49Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. You need to be careful with that. You, if you're going to have someone that's going to be doing security, they should be doing security. Uh, look, can someone be dual rolled? Sure. But if you're going to put someone on security, like their purpose is security, you don't want them breaking up fights over potato chips in the schoolyard. You know what I'm saying?

• 1:19:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:19:06Jocko Willink?

  You want them to be focused on what they're supposed to be focused on. The, is it smart to have people that are dual trained? Sure. But someone has to be, if you put someone on security for the purpose of being on security, they should be on security. Um, now, like you said, and like I said, this doesn't mean they need to be walking around with body armor, visible body armor and a, and a, and a weapon, an assault rifle, like posted up. They don't need to be like that.

• 1:19:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:19:32Jocko Willink?

  But they, I mean, they could literally be sitting in a central location in a closet with, with closed circuit TVs. And when something like this happens, they know what to do.

• 1:19:43Speaker 01

  Hmm. I remember the, the arming the teachers, um, option. And I remember, uh, kind of talking to some of our friends that are actual, actual teachers and it kind of put things into perspective. Cause at first I was like, yeah, that makes sense. You know, it's not like, you know, give them just a little bit of training or whatever, but at least it's one more good guy on the field, you know, with. You know, who's armed and can protect, but then I thought about it after talking to some of the teachers. You think about it like, who wants to become a teacher? And then now becoming a teacher becomes a whole different thing. Like right now, it's like, I'm gonna teach, I want to teach these young minds, you know, to, to get to the next level in life and all this, like basically all the, the things that people pursue being teachers.

• 1:20:26Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:26Speaker 01

  Over, um, it shifts to something completely different.

• 1:20:30Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that, that being said, I bet if there was an option where if you're a school teacher, you can go to a four week summer course.

• 1:20:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:20:38Jocko Willink?

  On, you know, active shooter response. And then inside of a school with thirty teachers, there's three people that have been to this course. I, I think we're, I think I'm feeling good about that.

• 1:20:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:20:50Jocko Willink?

  And they do a refresher course every summer and you know what I'm saying? Like you got, you gotta train people. You have to train people properly.

• 1:20:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:20:58Jocko Willink?

  But people are willing to train because it's beneficial in a multitude of different ways.

• 1:21:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's interesting. I never thought about that where it's like the kind of the optional training or whatever. Because I was just thinking of it in terms of like, hey, this is how they, they'd say it. I don't, you know, they don't go into depth or nothing. They're just like, yeah, I'm the teacher. Like all the teachers, they got guns.

• 1:21:17Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. So, so to your earlier question is like, what's a solution that won't work? The problem with that is, the, the problem with that is the details of any solution. You take any one of these solutions and there's certain details that would make it better. And some details, if you don't include them, are going to make it a disaster. Like you just throw weapons into every classroom with random people that haven't been trained. You, you, you, that's, that's going to be a problem.

• 1:21:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:21:41Jocko Willink?

  Right? Cause you've got teachers that are, that are, that might go crazy, right? There's all kinds of things going on. So you take any of these solutions and you take it to a certain extent. I mean, some of the, some of the ways of looking at things can be so different depending on who you are. That, like, what's the term they use? Reasonable gun control. Reasonable gun control means completely different things to different people, depending on who you are and what your background is.

• 1:22:07Speaker 01

  So true.

• 1:22:08Jocko Willink?

  And so to just say, hey, we should have reasonable gun control. Like I said, that means completely different things depending on who you're talking to.

• 1:22:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:22:17Jocko Willink?

  So.

• 1:22:19Jocko Willink?

  That's why for this, for this, I just want to talk about, hey, here's something I do know about. And here's a pragmatic solution that will help. And it should be, it should, it should be implemented.

• 1:22:31Speaker 01

  Brother, it's so true, huh? Cause there, there's guys and this is gonna come as no surprise, but when you put it into perspective, where there are people who at six years old, they got their first gun, six.

• 1:22:43Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:44Speaker 01

  Yeah. Then same country, same state, a lot of time, maybe even same neighborhood. There are people who've never shot a gun ever in their life and they're like 60 years old.

• 1:22:54Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:55Speaker 01

  So you figure someone who's never shot a gun, never handled the gun or whatever. The idea of a gun potentially can be like, that is just a death tool. That is just a, of, object of death. So they, they just don't know, you know? And then versus the guy who got their gun at six and guns are all around the house and cases and the truck and you know, all this stuff. Where it's like, no, it's not a thing of death. It's just a tool, just like a saw or a hammer or something like that. Where you know how, you know, obviously people say this all the time where it's like, hey, you know, if someone kills someone with a hammer, you don't outlaw hammers. It's like they literally feel guns are the same, in the same exact category. See what I'm saying? But then the guy, the person who's never shot a gun, how he's gonna feel is like, no, a hammer is to hit nails.

• 1:23:39Speaker 01

  If someone gets all crazy and starts hitting heads with it, that's different. Guns are made to shoot people, kind of a thing. That's their, their attitude, you know, or their, how they feel about it. So it's like, yeah, then okay, now, okay, now we need laws now, right? For the guns. But these laws apply to everybody. The six year old guy or the guy who's got his gun at six. And also the guy who's never shot a gun ever in his life. These laws have to apply to both people. So it's hard to land those laws, you know, effectively where everyone's gonna like them.

• 1:24:06Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's very hard. And what makes it even harder is that the two sides don't talk to each other in a reasonable way to try and figure out what would be a reasonable solution.

• 1:24:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, man.

• 1:24:18Jocko Willink?

  And so there I am using the reasonable gun laws myself, using that term.

• 1:24:22Speaker 01

  That ambiguous term. Yeah, it's true. Well, and then, yeah, cause you kind of, it makes sense on a certain level, even though it's still not effective, right? Where let's say I got a gun, my first gun at six, you know, 22 rifle, freaking awesome. I grow up, all kinds of guns, right? I have all kinds of guns. I've shot, my kids shoot guns, all this stuff. And then you have someone, a whole family of people who live next door or whatever, across the street. And they've never shot a gun ever in their life and they're scared of them. So now they're like, hey, you know, they're, we'll just say highly intimidated or something like that. So they come about and they're like, oh my gosh, like a gun or whatever. And then the, the person who's used to guns are like, how you're kind of being dumb. You're kind of being unreasonable right now.

• 1:25:06Speaker 01

  Like this gun, you have to pull the trigger, shoot, you know, point at something, pull the trigger for it to shoot or whatever. It doesn't just automatically kill people, right? So you're dumb for being scared about that kind of stuff. The, it's reasonable that that would, that feeling would, would kind of take place. You see what I'm saying? And then you have the opposite feeling where it's like, oh, you guys are gun nuts. Like you have like, you have 50 guns, 50. I've never shot a gun in my life. I'm scared of guns and you have 50 of them. Is it unreasonable for me to be uncomfortable if I'm like that? Seems pretty normal is what I'm saying. So I'm saying like, that conflict makes sense to me.

• 1:25:46Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, there's just a total disconnect.

• 1:25:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, ineffective, ineffective for solving problems, but it's, you can kind of see how.

• 1:25:52Jocko Willink?

  No, you can, you can see how the disconnect occurs, but it's a disconnect. And the problem with the disconnect occurs when you don't make any attempts to connect.

• 1:26:02Speaker 01

  Yes, sir.

• 1:26:03Jocko Willink?

  And I just look at you and say, oh, you are a gun nut and you're crazy.

• 1:26:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:26:08Jocko Willink?

  And, you know, I, it just, it just falls apart. And you look at me thinking, oh, you're a, a person that wants to take all my guns away.

• 1:26:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:26:17Jocko Willink?

  And so I'm just not talking to you.

• 1:26:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, some chicken, some, you know, incapable chicken trying to take away all, you know, my guns. Yeah.

• 1:26:29Jocko Willink?

  Disconnect.

• 1:26:30Speaker 01

  Disconnect.

• 1:26:32Jocko Willink?

  Uh, with that, if you want to support this podcast, you can go to jockofuel.com and get yourself some, get yourself some stuff to make yourself prepared from a physical sense.

• 1:26:43Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:26:44Jocko Willink?

  Cause we gotta be prepared mentally. How do you do that? You do that through good training. You gotta be prepared physically. How do you do that? Do good workouts, train jujitsu and eat some good food. Take some good supplementation.

• 1:26:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, the, the training thing, the more you think about it, and this might be obvious to you, but the more you think about it, you understand how deep training and how valuable training in every single way. Like you get someone untrained in a situation, it doesn't even matter the situation. I don't care if it's swimming in the pool.

• 1:27:17Speaker 01

  Okay, so if someone jumps in the pool, falls in the pool, they can't swim, or they can't swim very well at all. Now, they're, it's dangerous for them. Now you get a normal person who just knows how to swim, try to go jump in there and save them.

• 1:27:29Jocko Willink?

  They could get drowned.

• 1:27:30Speaker 01

  They could both die now. Now you get one, one person trained.

• 1:27:36Jocko Willink?

  Probably gonna save them both.

• 1:27:36Speaker 01

  Save everybody. Yeah, exactly right. So man, you can take the most arbitrary thing seemingly, and you train someone, you're better off.

• 1:27:45Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's weird how people, um, like, the, the funny thing is start with leadership. Because, you know, I teach leadership, and people think that they should already know how to lead. And so then you start breaking it down for me like, oh damn, I don't know what I'm doing. Fighting, people think they just know how to fight. Oh, I'll punch him. When I start seeing red, better look out. No, it's like, oh, you roll with someone that's, you know, a jiu-jitsu player?

• 1:28:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:28:08Jocko Willink?

  Or a real boxer?

• 1:28:09Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:28:10Jocko Willink?

  Like you go square off with someone, if you've never boxed before and you square off with a boxer.

• 1:28:14Speaker 01

  He's not panicking at all, bro.

• 1:28:16Jocko Willink?

  You're done. You're done. Muay Thai? You get one kick, one kick. If you don't train Muay Thai, you get kicked in the leg one time.

• 1:28:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:28:24Jocko Willink?

  There's a decent chance you're done fighting.

• 1:28:25Speaker 01

  Yes, sir.

• 1:28:26Jocko Willink?

  Well, from a leg kick.

• 1:28:27Speaker 01

  Yes, sir.

• 1:28:27Jocko Willink?

  There's a decent chance you call it right there. You're like, alright, this ain't happening.

• 1:28:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:28:32Jocko Willink?

  So, anything that you do, you, if you want to be good at something, you know, the, the, the thing I always use is guitar.

• 1:28:42Jocko Willink?

  There's no more reason that you would be able to fight or lead without training than you would be able to play a guitar without training. He, it doesn't, you, you just can't, you can't win. You know, like, someone that played basketball will beat someone that didn't play basketball 100% of the time.

• 1:28:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, the basketball one I think is really good because when you see someone playing basketball, you'd be like, yeah, you just take that ball. You can't hold it, you gotta dribble it or whatever, bounce it, and you put in that hoop. Like, I know what to do. Now, when you go try to do it, you're like, bruh, you can't even do it.

• 1:29:14Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:14Speaker 01

  Again, like if someone's trying to do it too with you or against you or whatever, bruh, you can't even do it.

• 1:29:18Jocko Willink?

  Yep. So, so imagine getting a gun and you don't know what to do with it, but you think you know what to do with it.

• 1:29:22Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:29:22Jocko Willink?

  You think you're just gonna shoot, or you think that there's gonna be a dynamic situation and an active shooter, and you think you're gonna know what to do. Or you think the people are gonna be panicking and you think you're not gonna be panicking.

• 1:29:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:29:34Jocko Willink?

  You have to train in everything that you do.

• 1:29:36Speaker 01

  Think about even you. Who's kind of trained in a lot of things. Think about how many things like the a normal person is trained in pretty much nothing.

• 1:29:47Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, not much.

• 1:29:48Speaker 01

  It's like if you have highly like if you're highly trained in two things, you're like a jack of all trades almost kind of a thing. Think about it. Bro, we're not trained in anything, huh?

• 1:29:59Jocko Willink?

  Well, I am.

• 1:30:00Speaker 01

  Well, you are.

• 1:30:02Speaker 01

  Shoot, you gotta think about like of all the things to be trained in and I'm not saying expert. I'm just saying trained. You have like good usable training. What? Four things? Five, maybe?

• 1:30:16Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:16Speaker 01

  At the most even.

• 1:30:19Jocko Willink?

  Pick out some good stuff to train in.

• 1:30:21Speaker 01

  Training.

• 1:30:21Jocko Willink?

  Yep. Gets yourself some Jocko Fuel, Jocko Fuel dot com. Check it out. We've got, oh, by the way, new flavors.

• 1:30:30Speaker 01

  Yep, updated.

• 1:30:31Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, this is on me. On me.

• 1:30:34Speaker 01

  Oh, right. Yes.

• 1:30:35Jocko Willink?

  You know, I wrote a book called Extreme Ownership.

• 1:30:38Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:30:38Jocko Willink?

  Well, guess what? The early flavors. My fault.

• 1:30:43Speaker 01

  Well, here, this is what you did. I understand. I thought about this. This is what you did. This is all you did.

• 1:30:46Jocko Willink?

  Tastes good to me.

• 1:30:47Speaker 01

  So you know, when you're when you're young, right?

• 1:30:50Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:51Speaker 01

  Did you ever have those, you know, like orange juice or whatever the concentrate? You know, the one where it's like.

• 1:30:56Jocko Willink?

  Oh, it's like a frozen like sleeve?

• 1:30:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly right. And you put it and you mix water, right? So if you look at the, okay, so my mom, my mom and guys would get that for us, right? The orange juice concentrate.

• 1:31:07Jocko Willink?

  Supposed to be like four to one or something.

• 1:31:09Speaker 01

  Yes. So that's what they did. They did four. They fill it up four times and put it in in the pitcher, right? The jug or whatever. So I'm like, oh, yeah, cool. Sweet. Later on, when I grew up in high school, I look at it. I look at the directions. It's three to one.

• 1:31:24Speaker 01

  See what I'm saying?

• 1:31:24Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:25Speaker 01

  So it's like they were giving us the more watered down version of it. We liked it, loved it because that's what we're used to. See what I'm saying? Bro, I tasted the three to one. I was like, brother, this is a little bit too concentrated, a little bit too sweet for me. A little bit.

• 1:31:36Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:36Speaker 01

  That's what you did.

• 1:31:37Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:37Speaker 01

  Because they're all used to water.

• 1:31:39Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:40Speaker 01

  It's your main drink of choice. So you're like, ooh, you put some monk fruit in this new energy drink, all this stuff. And you're like, oh, sweet, sweet. To me, you got the four to one going.

• 1:31:49Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:50Speaker 01

  But the three to one is more our speed, I think, a lot of us.

• 1:31:53Jocko Willink?

  You know, it's really like a two to it's almost like it's almost I was like nine to one. So anyways, we got all all new flavors, all new flavors. They're hitting stores right now.

• 1:32:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:32:03Jocko Willink?

  So. Go check them out. They all taste so freaking good. We're gonna win on taste now. Like, we were kinda crushing everyone because we're making it healthy. It's pasteurized, it's, you know, sweet with monk. That's how we're winning.

• 1:32:19Speaker 01

  Which is still the case, by the way.

• 1:32:20Jocko Willink?

  Still the case. We're still winning. We just made adjustments. And now we're gonna win on taste. So now, now you have, now you have awesome,

• 1:32:31Jocko Willink?

  awesome upside and awesome flavor and no downside. So there you go. So check that out. Also, you can get them at the, you get the stuff at the vitamin shop. You get it, you get the drinks at Wawa. You get stuff at HEB.

• 1:32:44Speaker 01

  What is HEB?

• 1:32:45Jocko Willink?

  Down in Texas. It's like the big grocery store. And it's iconic. Everyone loves it. It's like when you're in Texas, people are kinda hyped on HEB.

• 1:32:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, hell yeah.

• 1:32:55Jocko Willink?

  I rolled into HEB, people were hyped. Yeah. So, check out HEB, we got you covered there too. Cause people have been screaming. Let's face it, down in Texas, people have been, people are in the game in Texas. And, and they were, I was getting all the time. For years, I've been getting, hey, HEB, HEB, HEB. Took us a while. We're in HEB. If you're in Texas, you know the deal. Go get some.

• 1:33:20Jocko Willink?

  Uh, if you wanna get some clothing that's made in America, go to originusa.com. We got awesome clothing. We got hump line coming. We got jujitsu gees. We got jeans. We got boots. All of it's made in America. It's made in America, right here. So go check out originusa.com. Help America. Help your community. Help the economy. Help shut down slave labor. Just, just get on board with the program. That's what we're doing at originusa.com. And don't forget, we have a store. Echo made up the name. What'd you call it?

• 1:33:54Speaker 01

  First off, you made up the name. It's called, actually, I did make it.

• 1:33:56Jocko Willink?

  No, you did make up the name, 100%.

• 1:33:58Speaker 01

  Alright, it's called Jocko's Store. So if you want to represent, trained or untrained, but we prefer trained, but you want to represent on this path, well, that's where you're getting it. Discipline equals freedom, which is true. The more you think about it, the more true it becomes.

• 1:34:12Jocko Willink?

  I see you got your Shirt Locker shirt on today.

• 1:34:14Speaker 01

  Yes, sir. One of the favorites, the fan favorites.

• 1:34:17Jocko Willink?

  What's the deal with Shirt Locker?

• 1:34:18Speaker 01

  Shirt Locker.

• 1:34:19Jocko Willink?

  Every month, you're gonna get a T-shirt.

• 1:34:21Speaker 01

  Yep. New, creative design. Some designs have controversy behind them. I'm just gonna say it. As it turns out, some there was a design that a guy emailed in, seemingly nice guy. I don't know, obviously, but emailed in, said, hey, his wife was offended by the shirt.

• 1:34:38Jocko Willink?

  Oh dang.

• 1:34:39Speaker 01

  He needs to return it.

• 1:34:41Jocko Willink?

  Which one is it? Everyone must get stoned?

• 1:34:42Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:34:43Jocko Willink?

  Which one was it?

• 1:34:44Speaker 01

  The anarchy rip.

• 1:34:46Jocko Willink?

  Oh, okay. Cause she thought it was anarchistic?

• 1:34:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, she was like, it looks too much like the anarchy symbol. And I was like, thinking in my head, uh, good. Okay. But I'm just saying.

• 1:34:56Jocko Willink?

  So you made one, just so everyone knows, you made like an anarchy sign, but it was a D for discipline, kinda turned sideways. It was, there was a resemblance.

• 1:35:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:35:05Jocko Willink?

  But it was just kind of a merely a resemblance.

• 1:35:07Speaker 01

  It was a straight up shit. I'm gonna be honest, it was an homage to the anarchy symbol.

• 1:35:11Jocko Willink?

  There you go.

• 1:35:12Speaker 01

  It was, straight up. It, it served its purpose. I'm just saying, it was controversial apparently.

• 1:35:17Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, so there you go. Okay.

• 1:35:18Speaker 01

  You get those from time to time, but anyway, they're creative, you know, good, good design. A new one every month. Subscription scenario on Jocko's store. It's called the Shirt Locker.

• 1:35:28Jocko Willink?

  Right on. Subscribe to this podcast. Subscribe to Jocko Underground. We're about to record some of those Jocko Underground, answering a bunch of your questions, talking about life, talking about other aspects of life. Go to jockunderground.com if you wanna, if you wanna get into the game on that. It's also how we're gonna survive getting banned.

• 1:35:45Jocko Willink?

  We don't own this platform that you're listening to unless you're listening on jockunderground.com. We don't own the platform. So we could get banned, we get shut down. People don't wanna hear what we have to say. So, support us that way. We appreciate it. YouTube, you can check that out. Psychological Warfare, Dakota, Dakota Meyer just got a medal for life-saving. And he also, so he's out just saving lives as a firefighter. So, support Dakota. You can support Dakota by going to flipsidecanvas.com and buying something cool to hang on your wall. Check that out. I've written a bunch of books. You know what the books are. Can check some of those out. Also have Echelon Front where we teach leadership to solve all the problems that you have, which are leadership problems. Echelonfront.com.

• 1:36:28Jocko Willink?

  Also, we have online training at the Extreme Ownership Academy, ExtremeOwnership.com. All the little lessons that will help you in every aspect of your life. Is it about leadership? Sure, but it's about life. Go to ExtremeOwnership.com and enroll. And you'll see me on there. You want to ask me a question? You'll see me on a Zoom call. I'll be sitting right here saying, "Oh, explain the details. Give me some context." So come and check that out as well. And also, if you want to help service members, active and retired, their families, the Gold Star families, check out Mark Lee's mom's charity organization. It's called AmericasMightyWarriors.org. And also check out HeroesAndHorses.org. Those guys are out in the field right now, Micah and the crew.

• 1:37:13Jocko Willink?

  And you can find us on the social media stuff. Don't get isolated on there. Don't get all freaking spun up about the comments. Don't worry about some jackass, you know, 729Alpha3 who insulted you. Don't worry about that. But if you want to say hi, you want to say what's up? Echo is at EchoCharles. I'm at Jocko Willink. Watch out for the damn algorithm. And to the rest of our troops in uniform out there right now, standing watch 24/7/365. Thank you for what you do. And also, thanks for the service of our police and law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, Border Patrol.

• 1:37:58Jocko Willink?

  Shout out, getting it done, Secret Service, all first responders. Listen, you have a complex, grinding job that requires you to be a family counselor one minute and a tactical assaulter the next. And it's a hard job. And we thank you for what you do. And we want to get you the training that you need to make it happen. And everyone else out there, there's evil in the world. Evil that we cannot understand. Evil that will attack a schoolhouse filled with children. Evil that will kill innocent children and kill schoolteachers.

• 1:38:46Jocko Willink?

  And we certainly need to mourn that loss. But we also need to remember that evil is still out there.

• 1:38:57Jocko Willink?

  And we need to do what we can to be prepared for the next time it rears its ugly head.

• 1:39:06Jocko Willink?

  And until next time, this is Zeko and Jocko, out.