457: Slogging Through Ambushes and Booby Traps. GUNS UP!!! With Vietnam Machine Gunner, Johnnie Clark

>Join Jocko Underground< https://www.jockounderground.com/subscribe Company A, First Battalion, Fifth Marines. Johnnie Clark is an American author and Vietnam Veteran, best known for his 1984 Vietnam War memoir Guns Up!. Many of his works fall into the genre of non-fiction military and contain a tough, no nonsense portrayal of combat, courage, and camaraderie. 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 457 with Echo Charles and me, Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening. The hollow thumping of a mortar round leaving the tube echoed across the hilltop, bringing a wave of quiet over the chattering Marines. Some men looked up while others flattened against the rocky surface of the hill. The first round exploded against the base of the small hill's southern side. The second round hit 15 meters up the slope of the southern side. I stuck my face into the dirt and put my hands over my helmet. I wanted to hide, but there wasn't even tall grass available. The third round hit the crest of the hill. I heard a scream. I clawed into the rocky earth with my fingernails.

• 0:44Jocko Willink?

  I heard another thump, followed by a faint whistle. Then a violent explosion shook the ground I was trying to become a part of.

• 0:53Jocko Willink?

  I peeked from under my helmet just in time to see another explosion 10 meters to my right. Rocks and dirt came down on my back. The mortar rounds walked across the top of the hill like a giant's footsteps, mangling anything in their path. I shoved my face into the dirt and waited for the pain.

• 1:15Jocko Willink?

  Guns up, guns up. The command came from the other side of the hill. Red jumped to his feet with the M60 in one hand and ammo belts in the other. Come on, boot. Guns up.

• 1:31Jocko Willink?

  And that right there is an excerpt from the incredible book Guns Up by Johnny M. Clark, who was a Marine Corps machine gunner in Vietnam. This was a position that not many people wanted.

• 1:49Jocko Willink?

  Because there's no stronger bullet magnet in a gunfight from the enemy than a belt-fed machine gun.

• 1:58Jocko Willink?

  In that situation, the enemy will concentrate their fire on the machine gun, and that means the machine gunner. And they'll keep doing that until they have eliminated it.

• 2:09Jocko Willink?

  That being said, a machine gun is what keeps the squad and the platoon alive in a contact.

• 2:17Jocko Willink?

  And it takes courage and tenacity and skill to stay on that gun. And make it sing. And Johnnie Clark did that over and over and over again. As a member, as a member of Company A, First Battalion, Fifth Marines. He was wounded three times by mortar grenade and gunshot. He was awarded three Purple Hearts, Combat Action Ribbon, the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry, and the Silver Star. And it is an honor to have Johnny M. Clark here with us tonight to share his experiences and lessons learned. Sir? Thank you for joining us.

• 3:03Speaker 01

  Thank you for having me. It's a great honor to be here.

• 3:06Jocko Willink?

  No, the honor is 100% on my side of the table. I can guarantee you that. I, I am a huge fan of machine gunners in general. So, so to have the machine gunner, the iconic machine gunner that you are here to tell your story and talk about it, just reading through the book again and it's, it's just,

• 3:35Jocko Willink?

  it's an incredible book. The way you, the way you explain things, the things that you guys went through. It's just an incredible book and what you experienced is, the way you captured on paper is, is, makes it hard to believe. And yet I know it's true. So, thanks for coming out. I guess before we jump into the book too much, let's talk a little bit about where you came from. So, what year were you born?

• 4:02Speaker 01

  Forty-nine. Forty-nine. Yeah, I came from Charleston, South Charleston, West Virginia. So I was a hillbilly and grew up in. Pretty serious poverty. My dad was blind and he was in a car wreck and lost his eyesight and was crippled. They didn't think he'd live, but he lived seven more years after that. So my mom had me and my sister and she had two other kids, my half brother and sister, Jimmy and Judy, and their dad was killed in the Battle of the Bulge in World War II.

• 4:42Speaker 01

  So my mom has really been, she really went through it. She had six Purple Hearts. So she saw it all. But so, yeah, I grew up in some, we lived in a garage and first it was a log cabin, but I was too little to remember that. And then it was a one-car garage. And it was, as a kid, though, I was, you know, poverty didn't, it didn't faze me. I just didn't think about it. You know, you're a kid. So I was just having fun. In spite of everything, I was always having fun. I would bring people in. My dad was in a full body

• 5:22Speaker 01

  cast for a year. And, you know, this is 1954. I was five years old when it happened. So he's in a full body cast and we didn't have a bedroom in this garage. So we had a curtain around him. And I'd bring other kids in there just to look at, because he looked like the mummy. So I'd bring, and I'd charge them. I'd charge them like a nickel to come in and see my dad, the mummy. Yeah. But, yeah, so I grew up, a lot of our food came from big green government cans, you know, from World War II, which is kind of funny because in Vietnam, I was still eating World War II food. But, yeah, so, yeah, but they were

• 6:05Speaker 01

  bigger cans with my mom. And, yeah, but I, my dad died when I was 10.

• 6:13Speaker 01

  And we moved to Florida. Mom had to give up the other kids because she couldn't feed them. So my sister went to live with my grandpa, grandma out in Lincoln County, West Virginia. That's up the holler from the McCoys and down the holler from the Hatfields. And she ended up marrying a McCoy. So she's married to Kirby McCoy right now. So and my half brother and half sister, they went with grandparents from their dad's side and lived in Kentucky, in Wilmore, Kentucky. So it split the family up. I was a baby, so mom kept me. And, you know, there's always some guilt about that. You get to stay with your mom and everybody, the others don't.

• 6:58Speaker 01

  But, but they got to eat.

• 6:59Jocko Willink?

  And then you moved down. So you moved down to Florida?

• 7:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:02Jocko Willink?

  And so how old were you when you moved down to Florida?

• 7:04Speaker 01

  Almost 11.

• 7:05Jocko Willink?

  Okay. And then when you got down there, you just, what was your mom doing?

• 7:10Speaker 01

  She was working at a Web City. It was a big, famous place in St. Petersburg at the time. Doc Webb's Web City.

• 7:19Jocko Willink?

  What's Web City? I don't know what it is.

• 7:20Speaker 01

  Well, it was the biggest, it was the biggest pharmacy or drugstore in the world. And but they had entertainment. It was gigantic. It covered like a city block. And you got haircuts there, you know, I got cheap haircuts. So I got all my haircuts, buzz cuts, you know. Anyway, yeah, she, she worked there and, and then she ended up eventually, when I was 14, she married Paul Lampy. He was my stepdad for, until he died. And he, he was Golden Gloves boxer, Hell's Kitchen, New York, Navy vet in World War II. And good, good guy, tough guy. I kind of needed, I needed a tough hand.

• 8:05Speaker 01

  I was, I was a fighter quite often. I was getting in trouble here and there. And I needed somebody who could smack me around and, you know, and he taught me how to box early on, you know, some neat old boxing tricks. And so he was good for me. He was good for me.

• 8:22Jocko Willink?

  So now you're 14, 15, in high school. Are you, how's your grades? In the book, you say, you say you were, quote, "No danger of being classified a genius."

• 8:35Speaker 01

  I graduated because I was, we had a great football team and I was, you know, I was no superstar, but we needed bodies. We only had like 20, after a bunch of injuries, we had about 24 guys on the team and we were playing Clearwater High, you know, Tampa, Hillsboro. These guys, they had 120 players. So they needed me. So one of my coaches was my math teacher and I was taking business math and I was gonna fail and that's the easiest math you could take. And I was, I was gonna fail it and he, he was a big old guy. He had played for the Chicago Bears, big old

• 9:16Speaker 01

  horseman. And he grabbed me, you know, he could pick me up with one hand. He goes, you know, if we didn't need you, I'd fail you. And so he gave me a D minus in business math. It got me, you know, I graduated. And then it was the same in English. I didn't know a noun from a verb, but you know, they kept me on the team.

• 9:37Jocko Willink?

  Were you thinking, at what point did you start thinking about the military?

• 9:40Speaker 01

  Oh, well, from the time I was about six years old.

• 9:44Jocko Willink?

  Okay, so you had that plan?

• 9:45Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, I was joining the Marine Corps from day one. I had, I had one uncle who was a Marine. I, like I said, a lot of poverty. There wasn't a lot to look up to, but this one uncle was, this Marine, he looked a lot like you. He was one of those no neck guys, you know, and just, he would-

• 10:02Jocko Willink?

  I'll take that as a compliment.

• 10:03Speaker 01

  Oh, no, it is. He would knock people out with head butts. So I always looked up to Uncle Bobby. And so I always wanted to be a Marine.

• 10:11Jocko Willink?

  So were you just waiting to graduate?

• 10:13Speaker 01

  Yep. Yep. That's all I was waiting on.

• 10:15Jocko Willink?

  What, what year did you graduate?

• 10:17Speaker 01

  67.

• 10:18Jocko Willink?

  So Vietnam's in full, full effect?

• 10:20Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Yeah, it was full, full war.

• 10:23Jocko Willink?

  And you were one of the probably very, very, very few people rolling down to the recruiting office saying, hey, I want to enlist in the Marine Corps?

• 10:30Speaker 01

  Yeah. There were three guys from my football team that were gonna join the Marines with me. I kind of talked them into it. Only one showed up, me.

• 10:40Speaker 01

  So that we're, we're, they had our bus ready and everything. We were going to Jacksonville, you know, and uh, and get inducted and nobody showed up. So they uh, yeah, they went different directions.

• 10:52Jocko Willink?

  And so sixty-seven, the hippies aren't really out yet. Is there, is the anti-war movement happening yet?

• 10:59Speaker 01

  No, it wasn't real bad. Not really bad then. Uh, no, it, it was real bad when I came home and I got a couple of stories about that.

• 11:09Jocko Willink?

  So as you go to the recruiter, the recruiter, was this the most elated recruiter of all time that you walk in and say, hey, I want to be, I want to go to, I want to go to Viet? Did you want to go to Vietnam?

• 11:18Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Uh, he uh, no, I, I did early entry. You're gonna, I joined when I was seventeen. And uh, so it was, they had an early entry program back then. And so I had already, he, they knew I was coming, you know, I was already in. Uh, just needed to get out of school and then take off.

• 11:37Jocko Willink?

  Uh, how was boot camp?

• 11:39Speaker 01

  Well, before I got to boot camp, they, they were gonna four F me in Jacksonville. They weren't gonna let me in.

• 11:44Jocko Willink?

  How come?

• 11:45Speaker 01

  And I'd already said my goodbyes, man, you know, you know, I can't go back and say I didn't make the team, you know? So I, uh, they told me I had a hernia. Well, I'm telling them, and all the, it's all these Navy doctors, you know, and they pulled me in a, a room and they said, look, kid, this is, you're out, you know, you don't have to go to NOM. This is, you're out. Uh, you got a hernia. And I'm, I start doing one-arm push-ups. I was pretty fit, you know, high school football and stuff. And I'm backflips and I'm doing, you know, I'm doing everything. And I'm, there's nothing wrong with me. I'm going in, you gotta let me go. And they all had a little conference and they, they, they said, you're, you're so crazy, you should be in the Marine Corps. So you're, you're in, kid.

• 12:28Jocko Willink?

  And back then, there was no job selection. Did you have any job selection whatsoever?

• 12:34Speaker 01

  Nope. They, they told me, uh, you're gonna get an M-16. Well, no, you're gonna get an M-14. They said, you're gonna get an M-14, you're going straight to NOM. And I said, okay.

• 12:47Jocko Willink?

  Jack. All right. So now you show up to boot camp.

• 12:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, boot camp was an eye opener. I mean, boot camp in 1967 was a lot rougher than boot camps are today in the Marine Corps. I mean, a lot of things were do- I saw him PT a fat body, that's what they'd call guys that were overweight, you know, and they couldn't get the fat body to lose enough weight. And this, I had two DI's screaming at this guy that, "We're gonna drive you out of our Marine Corps. You're gonna go, you're gonna go to NOM and get guys killed. So, uh, we gotta get rid of you." And they, they were just telling him, "We, we gotta, we gotta get rid of you." And they PT'd him, made him do leg lifts, until he ruptured. He had a hernia right there in this, and then they carried him, they carried, we had these old wooden World War I barracks, you know, in Paris

• 13:34Speaker 01

  Island. And, uh, they're cussing him, and carrying him downstairs, and cursing him while the corpsmen are taking him away. "We told you we'd drive you out of our F-ing Marine Corps. We told you and you're out of here." It was, we had a guy, one guy climbed up on the water tower at PI and threatened to commit suicide if they didn't let him off, Paris Island. And so, uh, the DI's lined up the entire battalion around the water tower. They marched us, we didn't know what they were doing. They marched us all out there. And we weren't allowed to look around. If, if they saw you look right or left, they'd hit you. And I mean, really hit you, you know, 1967, they'd hit you. And so, we, we

• 14:17Speaker 01

  were scared, I was scared anyway. Maybe it was some guys tough enough to look around. I was scared to death. So, I'm looking straight ahead. I didn't know where I was going or why I was going there, I was just going. And, uh, pretty soon I realized I'm on grass and we're lying, we're, here's all these Marines all the way around the water tower. And now, the Marine, the DI's yell, "Heads up!" And so, we all look up and, uh, now we see this poor sap up on the water tower. And the, the drill instructors are screaming at the top of their lungs, "All right!" My Marines are ready. If you don't jump off that water tower, we're gonna kick the hell out of you when you come down. He came down. He didn't jump. They beat, they beat

• 14:59Speaker 01

  him up pretty bad. I don't know if they drove him off the island or not, but they would drive guys off the island.

• 15:05Jocko Willink?

  That's a, it's a fine line though, because they still need guys to go over to Vietnam. And they have draftees coming in. If a draftee doesn't want to be there.

• 15:13Speaker 01

  Yeah. In sixty-seven, there weren't very many draftees in the Marine Corps. They were still, you had to join. They were starting because they were taking so many casualties. And so they were starting a draft, but I never, I never saw a draftee. We never had any with us. Everybody, everybody joined.

• 15:32Jocko Willink?

  So the, the, these guys coming back from Vietnam were all the drill instructors? They were all combat veterans coming back?

• 15:39Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 15:40Jocko Willink?

  And they were not playing around?

• 15:41Speaker 01

  No, they were not playing around. My, my, my, my senior drill instructor was the only one who wasn't a NOM vet. And, but the other two, another no neck guy, I mean, just built like a spark plug. And he, he hit me one time. I was trying to, we didn't get to read our mail. We didn't get a second. You know, I mean, I, I, I had letters from girls and I wanted to see, I wanted to read the fricking letters and, and there wasn't any time. And, and so, and I think they knew this, but, so I, I got my flashlight out one time and I'm trying to read under the, under the covers and I'm, I got about two lines and all of a sudden the rack gets knocked over and I'm in the top bunk. And

• 16:25Speaker 01

  now I'm, I'm at attention on the floor, you know, and I'm scared to death. And this, this, this no neck guy hits me with that. We called him spear hands. And he hit me right between the, these, in the neck and grabbed these two bones and, and pulled me to a standing position. I was black and blue until I got off parasailing. I was black and blue. But, uh, yeah, these were, these were tough. They were mean guys, but they, they really wanted us to keep alive. And, you know, when I got the NOM, boy, I saw, I saw the benefits of it. I mean, you know, we were, I was on a three man killer team one time where

• 17:06Speaker 01

  Two hundred NVA walked by us. I mean, we could smell the garlic. These guys were walking by us. I could see their ho Chi Minz, you know, flopping by me and if one of us even sneezed, you know, we were dead. There was no three Marines out there, two hundred NVA, you know, you're dead as a doornail. And we were getting eaten alive by ants and mosquitoes. Well, all it would take is one idiot, you know, slapping and, and boy, it came back to me, Paris Island. You'd stand in the chow hall, chow line, you know, and at Paris Island, you got sand fleas. It's just miserable. And they'd eat you alive. And if you slapped one,

• 17:49Speaker 01

  after you got up from a DI knocking your flat, the whole platoon would suffer. You'd make them all lay down and say, see this? You killed your whole platoon. And then you'd have to dig a grave for the sand flea. And after you finished digging it with an E-tool, then they'd come up and they'd go, okay, we found the, we found the dead sand flea. What sex was it? You're dead. So now you're gonna dig another grave. That means you killed two of them.

• 18:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, they were pretty mean, but they got your attention, you know?

• 18:24Jocko Willink?

  Was there anything that you, that was challenging for you?

• 18:27Speaker 01

  On Paris Island?

• 18:29Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 18:29Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 18:30Jocko Willink?

  Did you fail anything?

• 18:31Speaker 01

  I, I was, you'd think, being from Florida, I mean, you know, you'd think I could swim. And, but we had to stay in the pool, this great big pool, with full combat gear. You know, the boots and the helmet and I don't remember if they had flak jackets or not, but anyway, all the gear and a metal rifle, metal M14. And you had to stay in there for, I forgot how long it was, but I couldn't float. I never learned how to float. So I almost drowned that day. And if you, if you grabbed the side of the pool, well, they'd break your hand. I mean, they come with combat boot, just stomp your hand. So guys were trying to grab,

• 19:14Speaker 01

  just for a second, but usually you're too late because there were DI's all around the pool and they were just waiting to stomp on your hand. But I almost drowned that day. That was, that was scary.

• 19:25Jocko Willink?

  What did you weigh?

• 19:27Speaker 01

  I weighed about 130 when I got to PI and I weighed 160 when I got off.

• 19:34Jocko Willink?

  Dang, got some real food in you, I guess, for the first time.

• 19:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, and if guys needed to lose weight, they lost it. If guys needed to gain weight, they gained it.

• 19:42Jocko Willink?

  Shit.

• 19:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, they, because you didn't have any choice. You went through the chow hall, you know, and they would put the food on your plate and you were gonna eat every bite. Yeah, I mean, you didn't have any choice.

• 19:55Jocko Willink?

  All right, you, you, in this book, you know, a lot of, a lot of times in books, they'll have a whole, they give their whole kind of personal historical background and then they get to, you know, boot camp and boot camp takes another three chapters and so you got, you're already five, six chapters deep in a book before you get to, you know, going to war. Your book is like page three, we're, we're in Vietnam. So, so let's get there.

• 20:24Jocko Willink?

  You say this, and this is, this is now, you're, you're flying in and you fly in on a Braniff Airlines 727, which was an old airline company. I guess they, they chartered it? Was it all Marines on there?

• 20:35Speaker 01

  All Marines, yeah.

• 20:36Jocko Willink?

  Yep, so you, you roll in there and here we go. The one comforting thought I had that was that I wasn't alone. The plane bulged with young Marine Corps faces. Private First Class Richard Chan was the only one I knew very well. We had been together since Paris Island, the Marine Corps boot camp. Chan had been born in Red China. His father and mother smuggled him out as an infant. He wasn't your average Marine. Besides being American Chinese, he had his pre-med degree from the University of Tennessee with a minor in ministry. He could have been playing doctor in New York, but he joined the Corps because he felt that he owed the country a debt for taking him in. Corny as it might sound, he also wanted to be the best, a Marine, a feeling we all shared.

• 21:18Jocko Willink?

  We couldn't get away from each other. Bunkies at Paris Island, bunkies at ITR Infantry Training Regiment School, bunkies at Jungle Warfare School in Camp Pendleton, California. Now we sat beside each other on a plane landing in Da Nang. The blistering sun stung my eyes as I reached the first step of the drab gray departing ramp. I tried to be ready to duck. Scuttlebutt had it that one plane load of Marines had gotten hit on the runway, but I couldn't hear any gunshots, just some moronic sergeant screaming, "Move it, move it, move it." By the time I reached the bottom of the ramp, my eyes adjusted enough to see a hot blue sky without a single cloud. A sleek, impressive camouflage Phantom Jet whined to a stop nearby.

• 22:00Jocko Willink?

  Thundering artillery echoed across the airstrip. The Marine in front of me whistled, "Man, they mean business." "God," I thought, "this is the real thing. I'm in war." I mumbled a quick prayer, something I hadn't done since I was 14. So you're pretty lucky to be going to war with your buddy, Richard Chan, who you'd spent all this time with.

• 22:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, we, from boot camp on, you know, alphabetical, Chan and Clark. We were, we were stuck in everything together. And then at machine gun school, you know, I mean, he was smart enough, he was a smart guy. He could have done anything. He should have been an officer, but, you know, this is what he wanted. And, but at machine gun school, I wanted to go, I wanted to go recon. I, I, we, we fired expert with the M60, you know, so, and they needed machine gunners, but we, yeah, we weren't aware of anything. I just, I was just doing what they told me to do. But I, I wanted those little gold wings. They were chick magnets. I mean, if you had those little gold wings, I knew I was going to pick up women with those little gold wings.

• 23:11Speaker 01

  And so I talked Chan into it. So we were, we were going to go recon. And recon would go by our barracks once in a while, and I was getting all psyched out. They do pull-ups off this, the water tower, off this pole sticking out of the water tower. And, you know, I was just all over that. I just had, this is great. And in the middle of the night, I put in our transfer orders, and I talked Chan into this. And we were going to transfer over to recon. We had an old sergeant, and he was an older guy. He's probably, probably been in World War II. He uh, he, he had his office at the end of the barracks. These are the old wood barracks, the World War I, you know, Camp Lejeune barracks. They've, they've got a few of them

• 23:55Speaker 01

  there, but they're mostly gone. But at the end of the barracks, you know, the, the, the staff sergeant, gunnerie sergeant, whatever, he would have his office there. He, he came out about, oh, oh, two hundred, you know, it's some crazy hour, and he throws a metal garbage can, because we only had the old galvanized cans here back then. He throws this galvanized garbage can down the squad bay and starts screaming, guns up, guns up, guns up. And so, all the guys, you know, hop out of the racks and we're standing at attention in our skivvies and we don't go, what the hell's going on? You know, are we shipping out early? And uh, he, he ma, he's, he grabs, he grabs me and he goes, Clark,

• 24:37Speaker 01

  here's a piece of chalk, draw a line down the squad bay. And I, you know, and I'm now, I'm going, I don't like the looks of this. So I draw this line all the way down the squad bay. And he says, all right, everybody put their, put their toes up on that line. And so, the whole, all the machine gunners lined up on this thing, toes on the line, standing at attention. And he said, he starts in, okay, I thought you men joined my Marine Corps to kill the enemy. I, I thought you came here to fight. But if you didn't, you're not Marines, you're something else. He goes, some of you evidently just want to find the enemy and then tell us to go kill them. So for those men who want to transfer out of machine guns, the most important, dangerous position in every platoon, he goes, I want

• 25:21Speaker 01

  you to step over the line. I tell you, it was like being in the Alamo. Okay, all you guys can leave. Well, that was the end of my golden wings. They out, they out, my check magnet was gone.

• 25:34Jocko Willink?

  Check. Uh, going back to the book here, the Tet Offensive was in full swing and the Battle for Way City had covered the front page of every newspaper back home. On TV, the house-to-house fighting looked like World War II films. Chan stood in front of me in alphabetical order, the line of Marines filing passed a loud dispersing officer. Each man handed him a set of orders, which he grabbed quickly and stamped with a big rubber stamp as he screamed, Fifth Marines. I tapped Chan on the shoulder. Why is everybody going to Fifth Marines? They can't need this many replacements. Chan looked over his shoulder with one of those, boy, have I got news for you looks. Oh, I think they might have accommodations for us. That's the regiment that's taking Way City. So Chan was, how was Chan maybe 22 or 23 or something?

• 26:19Speaker 01

  I think he was 23.

• 26:21Jocko Willink?

  Just a little bit older and

• 26:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:22Jocko Willink?

  A lot smarter.

• 26:23Speaker 01

  Oh, he was a genius, you know, I got stuck with a friggin genius.

• 26:30Jocko Willink?

  Oh, that's classic. But he, but he does know what's going on, a little bit more familiar with what's going on in the world. Probably had read newspapers and stuff like that.

• 26:38Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 26:40Jocko Willink?

  Uh, move it, move it, move it, the sergeant shouted. A moment later, the big rubber stamp came down on my orders like the authority of God, 5th Marines. From there you guys go and hey, listen, I have read a lot of military books. I'm obviously can't read this whole book right now. This is one of the best first person accounts of Vietnam I've ever read. So if you haven't got the book guns up, go and get it right now. It's just outstanding. I, it was so hard for me not to just turn this into just me reading the entire book as an audio book for the podcast. So, so.

• 27:16Speaker 01

  Oh, I wish they'd get you to read the, they're doing a new audio. It'd be great if you did it.

• 27:22Jocko Willink?

  That's awesome. We'll get, get this book. This book is awesome. So I'm going to fast forward a little bit. You guys go to, get on a C-130, you fly to Phu Bai. Phu Bai is the, the base camp for 5th Marines. Um, it's about 15 miles from Way City. Going back here, we were taken to a large tent where an old crusty looking master gunnery sergeant with a giant silver handlebar mustache screamed attention. The chattering tent went silent. I am Master Gunnery Sergeant O'Connell. I will help you in your indoctrination on the 5th Marine Regiment. The old sergeant gave his, gave his great mustache a slow, proud twirl and turned towards a large blackboard behind him. This is the most decorated regiment in the United States Marine Corps.

• 28:05Jocko Willink?

  He spoke as he wrote French Forte G at the top of the blackboard. Some of you may remember hearing about Bella Woods in boot camp. The 5th took the woods in 24 hours of hand to hand combat. You will wear the, on your dress uniform, the French Forte G. We are the only Marines in the Corps allowed to wear any item other than Marine Corps issue. The 5th Marines have taken Guadalcanal, New Guinea, New Britain, Peleliu, Okinawa, Tinsan, China, Pusan, Incheon, in Seoul, Korea, and the chosen reservoir. Now it's Way City. He put his hands on his hips, standing with his boots more than shoulder width apart. He beamed with pride as he stuck out his barrel shaped chest.

• 28:48Jocko Willink?

  We have the highest kill ratio in Vietnam. The Colonel does not intend for that to change. Unless we are given permission to invade the North, we shall continue fighting under the rules now in effect. You will not kill people who are not in uniform unless you are being fired upon by them. You will kill anyone in a North Vietnamese government uniform. So, there's your welcome aboard.

• 29:14Jocko Willink?

  How'd that make you feel?

• 29:16Speaker 01

  Nervous, yeah, you know, I was scared, but I was excited too. I mean, no, come on, what's more exciting than that? And, but yeah, I was, I was getting scared. I think I really got scared though, you know, when I, when I started hearing the life expectancy of the machine gunners.

• 29:37Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 29:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, you know, I mean, they, they told us at machine gun school, but you don't believe, you know, they tell you a lot of crap. You know, you believe half of it. And so I didn't, it just didn't make any sense. Seven to 10 seconds, I'm going, you know, how could there be any machine gunners left? It's impossible. But I found out, found out how that works.

• 29:58Jocko Willink?

  When you showed up in country, you didn't know what battalion you were going into?

• 30:02Speaker 01

  No.

• 30:02Jocko Willink?

  So you could have gone to any of the times that were in country.

• 30:04Speaker 01

  And I tell you, the Marine Corps learned from that too. Yeah, that was a terrible mistake. They send the guys in piecemeal. You know, whoever's got the most casualties, they got the replacements that, yeah. Now, after NOM, because of that caused so many problems in so many different ways. That they would send you over as a unit and bring you back as a unit. And it was, that was a terrible mistake that the Marines made in Vietnam.

• 30:30Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, the Army did that too in Vietnam and they changed it as well. So that was the way we've been fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan was your whole unit is going over there.

• 30:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:40Jocko Willink?

  And of course, you're going to get some replacements, guys get wounded and killed, you're going to get replacements. But you get to deploy with your whole unit and you get to come home with your whole unit, which I think is also important.

• 30:50Speaker 01

  And the bonds you built with guys. You know, I mean, when you were a new guy walking into, you know, I'm walking into a bunch of guys have come out of Way City. You know, a lot of these Marines, you know, a lot of them have already been wounded more than once, you know, they're. They're hardcore and they don't want to deal with the new boot, you know, they don't want to see his new boot. He's gonna get in the way, get us killed. And until they found out I was a machine gunner, then they loved me.

• 31:18Speaker 01

  But yeah, so I, I think it was a terrible mistake sending us over piecemeal.

• 31:25Jocko Willink?

  Going back to the book here, a truckload of Marines drove by covering us with a solid layer of dust. The men in the truck howled with laughter at us. Some shouted friendly insults about our stateside utilities. We stuck out like big green thumbs. Every person we'd seen so far was dressed in jungle utilities. The men in the truck looked hard. Their jungle clothes were tattered and torn. The men hadn't shaved in a long time. Their skin was dark from the jungle sun. They looked lean and mean like Marines are supposed to look. We looked like fat, happy kids, clean shaven with sidewalled haircuts and spitshied stateside boots.

• 32:00Jocko Willink?

  You get it put in this, and again, I'm just reading some highlights. You get put in this tent. Um, there's some rows of cots in there and you see this one guy asleep on the tent. He's this giant red haired guy. And you say, he looked like a giant Viking. A big red mustache matched his hair. He was the most handsome redheaded man I'd ever seen, a real billboard Marine. I leaned closer to tap him on the shoulder. As he rolled over, the cock creaked under the strain. I knew one thing for sure. I wanted this monster on my side when the fighting started. He opened one large blue eye, which focused on Chan. What's this gook doing in here? Chan jumped to his feet. He rambled off a series of insults, some of which included the biological background of the big red head's parents,

• 32:45Jocko Willink?

  his speech, his looks, his smell and his intelligence. So, let me just interject right now, an explanation about the offensive slur word, gook. The origin of this term is.

• 33:06Jocko Willink?

  It's not completely known where it comes from, but it may have come from the Marines in the Philippine-American War, which was in 1899. There was a similar term "gugu", which was used to refer to Filipinos. This term was also used by Marines in Nicaragua in 1912 to refer to the locals, and it was used by Marines to describe the native populace in Haiti in 1920. So originally, this term was used to refer to any non-American. And in World War II, it was used on the Pacific Front to describe natives in the Pacific Islands.

• 33:47Jocko Willink?

  And then by the Korean War, it increased usage. One theory tracing it to American servicemen misinterpreting the Koreans' use of their term, which is "maguk", which means "American". Douglas MacArthur actually banned the word because he didn't want to alienate the Koreans, but the word stuck. And by the Vietnam War, it was used, continually used, initially to describe the communist soldiers, but eventually as a general slur used to describe any Vietnamese person. And this was not good for the mindset of the Americans or the relationships with

• 34:31Jocko Willink?

  the Vietnamese people. So the word was again discouraged by American senior leadership in Vietnam, which made use of the word, an act of rebellion against senior leaders, against official policy, and in many ways, against the war itself. So the word was used extensively during the war, and it's used in this book. And I've kept the usage of the word to preserve the context and the atmosphere, which at the time was racially tense, jarringly dehumanizing, and brutally raw, which actually makes the bonds of these

• 35:13Jocko Willink?

  Marines across racial, social, and economic lines even more powerful. With that, let's get back to the book.

• 35:24Jocko Willink?

  The big redhead opened both eyes fully as if he couldn't believe his ears. I wanted to calm things down but couldn't find the words. A friendly smile appeared from behind the large red mustache. He laughed, deep and strong, then stuck out his hand. Chan hesitated for instant, then shook it. My name is Red. They call me Big Red. You look like boots. We are, I said. I just got it. We just got in today. What platoon are you in? He rolled back to a comfortable position. Second platoon, Chan said. First Battalion, Fifth Marines. That means you're with me. What's your MOS? Military occupational specialty is O331, Chan said dryly. We're both O331s, I said. A big smile stretched across his face. Both gunners. Oh, boy, they're sure gonna be glad to see you two.

• 36:09Jocko Willink?

  Why is that? Asked Chan. I'm a gunner too, he said. I got hit on the first day of Operation Way City, and when I left, I was the last gunner with machine gun MOS in the whole company. They were grabbing mortar men and sticking M60s in their hands, and believe me, they don't like humping through the bush with grunts. Do you remember that crap they told you in machine gun school about the life expectancy of a gunner after a firefight begins? We nodded in unison. Well, they meant it. Seven to 10 seconds. Don't get too worried, though, Red said. I heard we might invade. If we do, this war will be over in a couple of weeks. Just don't panic out there. Go at it gung ho. If you're too careful, you'll just make a better target.

• 36:52Jocko Willink?

  He goes into just the full-on, like, welcome aboard. You probably ought to take your dog tags off the chain. They make noise at night. It'll get you killed. If your head gets blown off, they probably won't find your tags and you won't be identified. String them into your bootlaces. The boots usually hold together, and they won't make noise. And color them up with something so they don't shine with the sun or moonlight. If you got anything you want to keep dry, put it in plastic and stick it between your helmet and helmet liner. He pointed at the grenades lying on the cot. Bend the pins on those frags right now. When you hump through the bush, sticks get caught in the ring and pull out the pin, you'll get blown away. Red's advice made me realize for the first time all of the assorted ways I could get myself killed in this place. His information scared me, but I knew it was important, and I was thankful for it. Don't ever take off your boots unless you're in some area like Fubai.

• 37:37Jocko Willink?

  Put your crap paper in plastic if you want any hope of keeping it dry. Writing paper, too. If you don't put halozone tablets in each canteen of water, you'll get dysentery by the first drink. When it's 120 degrees out, you'll drink a lot of water. Take your malaria pills every day or you'll get malaria and it'll stay with you even when you go home. The salt tabs too. Forget your salt tabs and you'll pass out from heat exhaustion. And take your helmet off when you get the chance. I saw one boot get his brain fried because he left that pot on all day when it was about 120 degrees. Ask whoever's writing to send you some care packages with Kool-Aid and stuff like that won't spoil in the heat. Does the M16 rifle malfunction consistently under jungle conditions as projected? Chan asked with a usual overdose of vocabulary. Red looked at me quizzically.

• 38:22Jocko Willink?

  Does he always talk like that? I nodded the affirmative. Red chuckled then answered, "No, not if you keep it clean. Clean it every single day or it'll jam." "The M62, use lots of oil. During the monsoon season, your weapon will start to rust every few hours. If you light up a cigarette at night, you can kiss your butt goodbye. If the gooks don't kill you, another Marine probably will." More important than... More important for you too than anything else is this. When you hear guns up, you gotta get that gun to a firing position and open up.

• 38:55Jocko Willink?

  Welcome aboard. Welcome to Vietnam. Red putting out the word.

• 39:01Speaker 01

  He was a... He was a great Marine.

• 39:04Speaker 01

  He was... That guy was so tough. He was a... He was a bouncer in one of the toughest bars in Cincinnati when he was 15. He had been... He had been raised by a... He'd been raised by an old Marine that served under General Halsey.

• 39:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, tough guy. He had been abandoned and this old Marine kind of raised him. Sort of abandoned. Kind of a sad story, but... Yeah, he was... He was all Marine.

• 39:35Jocko Willink?

  So now you're... I imagine you're getting even more nervous as you're hearing this.

• 39:40Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Start writing letters real quick.

• 39:46Jocko Willink?

  Um, fast forward again, get the book. Fast forward a little bit. The third day, the whole group of boots, you're herded into a big tent. Atmosphere is very serious. A guy walks in. You're getting indoctrination upon indoctrination. This guy comes in, you are members, I think he's a major. Um, yeah, he's a major. You are members of the 5th Marines. The 5th is now completing Operation Way City. The 5th Marines have been given the job of retaking Way, which was occupied by the NVA on 31 January. By February 9th, the enemy dead count had reached 1,053. It is estimated that two enemy battalions had been destroyed. By that point, all we have left can be considered mopping up. That does not mean people won't

• 40:29Jocko Willink?

  be shooting at you. Now, I know you all have a lot of questions, but this is all you have to know. You are United States Marines, the finest fighting men in history of the world. We have never lost a major battle. No other fighting unit on earth can make such a claim. Claim. Now, attention. The full, the tent of full white sidewall haircut snapped to attention. Repeat after me. "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death," the chorus of our youthful voices stuttered out the words like they had never heard them before. "I shall fear no evil." We repeated the second part more clearly. "For I am the meanest mother in the valley." I loved it. I didn't quite feel right about using the Lord's word in vain, but I felt psyched enough to go all the way to Russia

• 41:14Jocko Willink?

  and stop this crap where it started. Saddle up. Saddle up is a term that's used throughout the book. It's like, we're rolling.

• 41:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, yeah, you hear it. I just heard it constantly. It seemed like constantly.

• 41:34Jocko Willink?

  Did you hear that in boot camp? Did you hear that in infantry? Did you hear it when you got with the 5th Marines?

• 41:41Speaker 01

  You know, I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I didn't hear it. I don't think I heard it in boot camp, but I'm not sure. That's a good question.

• 41:49Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's weird because like different units, they kind of develop their own little languages, you know?

• 41:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:55Jocko Willink?

  And you don't, to me, because I really, I've done a lot of reading of military books. And the, that you just saddle up as we're getting ready to go. And you used it a lot. So I figured it maybe at that time with this group, you know, maybe it was a colonel, maybe it was the gunny, you know, someone that has that word that they kind of inculcate into the platoon.

• 42:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, it could be. It could have been. It could have been because we, we had some old salts. You know, we, we had an old sergeant major had been in all three wars. Yeah. So we had some real old salts.

• 42:34Jocko Willink?

  10 minutes later, you're in the back of a deuce and a half. Just driving up highway one towards away. I think no one pictures that. You know, it's funny when, when we were before nine 11, we would do like training missions. And we would get in the back of deuce and halves and drive out to our target. But we would call them helo trucks, meaning this is just simulating a helicopter. Because we would never just drive, doesn't, didn't make sense that we would just drive a vehicle to a target.

• 43:04Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 43:05Jocko Willink?

  And then the actual war started. I was in, I never, I never rode a helicopter to target. I only rode vehicles, whether it was deuce and a half, six buys or Humvees. That's what we, that's what we did. So here you are showing up and in the back of a deuce and a half.

• 43:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:25Speaker 01

  And you'd, and as you go down highway one, you know, there, there'd be other vehicles that had been blown to bits off the side of the road. Yeah. You got a real feel for what's coming.

• 43:36Jocko Willink?

  They have sandbags in the bottom of the vehicle?

• 43:40Speaker 01

  Some of them did. Yeah, some of them did. But not, not very many.

• 43:44Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. We did, we would put steel plating on the sides and we'd line the bed with sandbags just to try and give some survivability. Luckily they're just huge, just big vehicles, but. Hit the wrong kind of IED, it doesn't matter.

• 43:58Speaker 01

  Well, those, you know, those NOM, uh, those guys that rode the guard trucks for the, uh, for the big tankers and stuff, uh, Muslim army, I think, but, uh, they were famous for, as a matter of fact, they helped, uh, I guess, guys in, uh, in Iraq, uh, the, the military. They, they taught them some of the, the lessons they'd learned, but, uh, there's, there's a neat thing on the History Channel of, uh, the truckers of Vietnam, and it shows what they did. I mean, they did things that, of course, with the army, the Marine Corps, we didn't have this. They, they got miniguns and, you know, they got everything on the back of a fricking truck. And it was, it was a bad truck. I mean, they put, they, it was, and it, and they would, they would, uh, you know, like, like you guys did, they

• 44:43Speaker 01

  put metal on the sides and they had sandbags all over the place and, uh, but, you know, I wasn't, I wasn't any part of that. I, you know, I was always out in the bush.

• 44:57Jocko Willink?

  Uh, you end up, you're gonna get bridge duty. Um, meaning watching a bridge and someone says, uh, it's skate duty, slack duty. You don't have to hump through the bush except for a few patrols and sometimes you get beer or coke off the trucks going by. Take advantage of it, man, it won't last long. You'll know what war is when you start humping thirty clicks a day in the bush with two hours sleep a night.

• 45:19Jocko Willink?

  Fast forward a little bit. Twenty questions later, we pulled off the road and the outskirts of the city's sporadic gunfire echoed from somewhere up ahead and old gunny sergeant ran by our truck shouting, "Get off those trucks and spread out. Move it, move it."

• 45:32Jocko Willink?

  The, there's a little bamboo hooch that ends up being your battalion headquarters. And then it's, I'll go to the book here. A tall, lanky character spotted Red first. His pitted face opened into a wide, ugly smile as he ran up with his hand out. He smelled worse than he looked. "You big mother!" He shook Red's hand and slapped him on the back. "Man, you missed some real heavy crap. How was the hospital? Get any Red Cross girls? It's good to see you, Sam." "I, I thought I heard you were out here." A young officer looked as if he were just out of college, stood grinning at the door of the hooch. "How've you been, Lieutenant?" Red gave a casual salute. "A lot better now." The lieutenant came forward with his hand out. They exchanged a quick, firm handshake. "Who do you have with you?" The lieutenant looked at me. "Boots," said Red.

• 46:16Jocko Willink?

  "Oh, three thirty ones. Outstanding, Sam." Take Red and those two down to the chief squad. So we turned to follow the ugly Sam. I noticed something was pinned to his camouflaged helmet cover. Whatever it was, it was covered with flies. I moved closer to get a better look. It was an ear, a human ear. It looked brittle and baked grayish green from the sun. I wanted to ask him about it, but I hesitated trying to remember his name. Sam, I said before I got another word out, the lieutenant started speaking. And Red, send that stupid mortar man back to mortars before he kills himself with a gun. Break in the boots. There are your new gun team. Sam, I said again, is that an ear pinned to your helmet? Yeah, man, I used to have more, but they drew too many flies. I saved this one to suck

• 47:01Jocko Willink?

  on. Wanna lick? I laughed. No, thanks. Well, I do. He took his helmet off and unpin the ear, then stuck it in his mouth and sucked on it like a lollipop. I don't even know what my face looked like, but my mouth had no response. Even Chan was left speechless.

• 47:17Speaker 01

  He was nuts. Yeah, he was nuts. But I tell you, that nutty guy, he was there when you needed him. You know, he wasn't gonna run.

• 47:32Jocko Willink?

  Where was he from?

• 47:32Speaker 01

  I think he was from North Carolina, but I'm not sure, but I think he was, yeah. But I'm not positive. But he was crazy, but he was so brave, you know, just you wanted him on your side, you know, and he could hit anything with that blooper gun. He could hit anything with the M79. I saw him hit an NVA officer one time, square in the forehead, and he shot him, but it was so close, or for some reason, it didn't explode.

• 48:06Jocko Willink?

  Didn't arm?

• 48:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, it just was embedded in his head. Sam thought that was the funniest thing you'd ever seen in his life. And we're all standing around and the lieutenant, you know, goes, you morons, that thing can still go off, because it hadn't exploded. So, yeah, Sam was, he was good. He could hit anything with that silly blooper gun.

• 48:27Jocko Willink?

  Sam, Sam the blooper man is his nickname. Yeah, there used to be this shirt, so you know, one of the... One of the, I guess mascots of the SEAL teams is the, is this thing Freddie the Frog. It's like a little frog man looking thing. And guys would sometimes have little pictures that had Freddie the Frog inside of a glass, like under glass and it says, "In case of war, break glass." And that's a real thing because, you know, a guy like Sam who might not do very well back in regular the world. You know, he's probably going to be getting fights. He's probably going to be drinking gambling, doing what, he's gonna be wild.

• 49:07Speaker 01

  In jail.

• 49:08Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, in jail. But if you're in war, you want and need people like that.

• 49:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's true. It's true.

• 49:16Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 49:16Speaker 01

  And I, I know they seem to gravitate towards the Marine Corps. So, so love them anyway.

• 49:23Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, there's so many great characters that you introduce in the book. Uh, get the book so you can get them all. Um, but Sam's one of them. Uh, back to the book here. Suddenly a machine gun opened up from the city. I hit the ground with a splash. When I opened my eyes, I discovered Chan and I were the only ones ducking. The rest of the squad stood looking over the cement wall and laughing. "Chief," Red shouted. "That's a fifty. I thought the city was cleaned up." "You thought wrong," a deep voice answered. It belonged to a tall, dark-skinned corporal with a nose like a Roman's and a chin that looked like it had been cast from iron. Though the closest I'd ever been to a real Indian was Tonto, even, even I could tell this guy was the real thing. He was the only one not laughing. There's still a couple of fifties left.

• 50:07Jocko Willink?

  They chained them to the walls so they couldn't run. They're too doped up to surrender. The big Indian looked bored. So there's another character that's in this whole story is, is this guy Chief.

• 50:20Speaker 01

  Swift Eagle.

• 50:20Jocko Willink?

  Swift Eagle. Sounds like he's right out of Central Casting.

• 50:24Speaker 01

  It was his real name too. You know, I didn't believe it until he proved it. Yeah, he, I, I would, uh, he gave me crap over my name, Johnny. A little Johnny, you know, what are you doing in the Marines, Johnnie? You know, and, you know, give me, and, uh, so I'd give him grief back and I'd, yeah, nobody, nobody in this world is named Swift Eagle. So you're, you're probably running cat or something, you know? And I would give it, we'd go back, well, we, it would, he had a paycheck and had his name on his paycheck. It was, his real name was Swift Eagle.

• 50:58Jocko Willink?

  Where was he from? Do you remember?

• 51:01Speaker 01

  That, people have asked me that and we tried to track him down, you know, after NOM, guys, everybody to look for him. And the last word, anybody, somebody had looked for him, I think they got a, they got somebody professional looking for him. And the last place he had been documented was in Miami. And, but, but he was from, I always thought he was from one of the western tribes, you know, I thought, I thought he was out west somewhere. But one of the guys, one of my buddies said, they, they thought he was Cherokee. They thought he was from the other, other half of the country. So, I'm not sure. Yeah, that.

• 51:40Jocko Willink?

  Well, hopefully somebody listening to this will.

• 51:43Speaker 01

  All the guys in the outfit have been looking for him for years. Yeah, nobody's been able to find him.

• 51:48Jocko Willink?

  Swift eagle.

• 51:53Jocko Willink?

  Fast forward a little bit. Early next morning, the company's bouncing down Highway 1 away from Way City. He stopped at a large, old steel bridge. The big Indian corporal jumped out of our truck and started shouting, Troy, Troy Bridge, second platoon, get out, move it, move it. Hurry up. You're making a great target. And this is where you end up being for a while.

• 52:18Jocko Willink?

  Oh man, when I was getting ready for this podcast, I was just going, circling whole pages of things to read because there's so much in here. This is, you guys settling for the night. The darkness was shattered by three violent explosions, one right after another. Bullets of fluorescent red light rifled through cracks of the boarded up windows. I was instantly awake. I scrambled for my rifle and got to my feet, waiting for instructions. Another series of explosions shook the building. The door was yanked open, bringing in more red light and filtering through clouds of dust. Confusion filled the room. Someone screamed, mortars. Two men ran out the open door. The slow fluctuating rhythm of an older machine gun opened up with long bursts.

• 53:01Jocko Willink?

  Shouting Vietnamese ran by the door. A loud voice screamed, guns up. I thought I saw Red dart through the door and into the eerie red light. I followed him into a world of chaos. Vietnamese were running in all directions. Panic had overwhelmed the compound and Arvin ran into me entangling the barrel of his rifle in my machine gun ammo belts. As we struggled to free ourselves, our faces came together for one terrifying moment. He stared into my eyes and screamed VC. He pulled his rifle away and sprinted in the opposite direction from the bridge. My instincts said to follow him, but just then another flare popped open above the bridge and I saw Red running into the back door of a cement machine gun bunker 20

• 53:43Jocko Willink?

  meters in front of me. Behind me on top of the three-story sandbag bunker, an old 30 caliber machine gun was going crazy, raking every inch of the surrounding barbed wire. Another machine gun opened up from the sandbag bunker on the cement piling underneath, under the center of the bridge. Arvin's manning positions on the south side of the bridge stopped firing and ran wildly to the other side, dropping their weapons as they went. The only Arvin returning fire was the gunner on the three-story bunker. The rest were in retreat. A blast of M60 fire from the cement bunker blew one off the bridge. I ran to the door of the bunker and screamed in at Red. You're shooting at Arvin's. Shut up and feed the gun. I dropped my M16 and linked a belt of ammo

• 54:25Jocko Willink?

  as fast as my shaking hands would function. Two more red flares popped open over the bridge, revealing shadowy figures crawling through the wire directly to our front on the opposite side of the road. I could see more shadows turning into people on the south end of the bridge. Red started firing 20-round bursts southwards. I tried to fire at the men coming through the wire into our front, but my weapon wouldn't work. A ripping explosion behind us caused Red to cease firing. Another explosion to our right popped my right ear. My ears started ringing. My head felt like I was inside of a bass drum. I felt warm blood trickle out of my ear and down onto my neck. Red, I screamed. Red couldn't hear me through the constant blasts around us. The bunker filled with dust and smoke. Red, I screamed as I shook his arm. My rifle

• 55:09Jocko Willink?

  won't work. Take the safety off, boot. I felt for the safety. It was on. God, what an idiot. Now the M60 on the cement piling opened up on the south end of the bridge. Hundreds of muzzle flashes erupted from the blackness. I put my rifle on full automatic and started filing. No, you idiot, Red screamed. Semi-automatic only. You'll run out of ammo. Link up more ammo, quick. Red started firing as I linked up another belt of ammo. A series of explosions started pounding the north side of the bridge, then explosions walked down the road in 10-yard intervals, slowly zeroing in on the three-story bunker. Red screamed mortars and started firing on the south end of the bridge. Shrapnel slapped against the side of our bunker and the red light died. Red stopped firing. Enemy muzzle flashes illuminated the darkness like

• 55:52Jocko Willink?

  hundreds of deadly lightning bugs. Suddenly, the explosion stopped. Then the night was silent. A green flare popped up above the bridge and swung down slowly under its tiny parachute. Five men sprinted onto the bridge from the south end. I couldn't see any weapons. Another flare burst more light on the battle. Now I could see that each had satchel charges taped to his chest and back. Sappers, Red screamed, and opened fire on the five men now weaving toward the center of the bridge. The M60 on the cement piling and the 30 caliber opened up on the sappers at the same time Red did. Orange tracers ricocheted in a thousand directions as bullets bounced around the five sappers, yet they kept coming. Then the three dropped at the same time.

• 56:36Jocko Willink?

  One of them struggled back to his feet. His legs were cut from under him again. He began crawling toward the center of the bridge. The remaining two staggered like drunks, jerked spasmodically as the machine guns found their mark and finally collapsed. Suddenly, our position came under murderous small arms fire from directly across the road. Pieces of cement and dirt stung my face as bullets chipped away at our bunker. Whining lead tore through the gun slits. It looked as like the flashes of another hundred rifles were firing straight at us. Red ducked, bumping helmets with me. My stomach pressed against my spine. I mumbled a quick prayer. Lead smacked against the outside wall of the bunker. Bullets flattening with solid thuds ripped away precious inches that was keeping us alive. Then the firing stops. We peeked through the gun slits in time to see another group of five sappers

• 57:20Jocko Willink?

  jog onto the south end of the bridge. This time, single shot. I hit one. I knew I hit him, but he kept coming. I hit that sucker. Go for the legs, Red screamed as he opened up again. They're doped up. You gotta knock them off their feet. They're inside the wire, Red pointed as he yelled over the clamor of the screaming NVAs. Silhouettes moved across the road towards our right. Shoot anything that moves. I knew the positions to our right were being overrun. Self torturing thoughts of hand-to-hand combat darted through my mind. I'd rather get shot than bayoneted, I thought. God, I hate knives. A fleeing Vietnamese ran by our door. Red turned and fired a burst through the opening, dropping two Arvins five feet from the bunker. I couldn't believe what was happening. I stared at the dead Arvin for a couple seconds until Red started firing again.

• 58:05Jocko Willink?

  I only watched the tracers of the M60 ripping to the sappers on the bridge. Only three still stood. The others tried to crawl forward. At the center of the bridge, just over the piling where the M60 team was still firing, the three sappers put their arms around a steel support. Five seconds later, a violent explosion lifted the huge steel superstructure into the air. It surged 10 feet above the cement piling, twisted slightly, and crashed back down on the gun team. For 20 seconds, the firing ceased, as if the climactic destruction had ended the battle. Then an American began screaming in pain from the bridge. Until that moment, I hadn't been sure it was a Marine gun team out there. Chan! Red slapped me across the face. It's not Chan, it's a cap unit. They work with the Arvins.

• 58:51Jocko Willink?

  The voice of the dying Marine drifted through the damp night air. I felt more helpless with each piercing moan. Red, we gotta do something. The firing started again. Red opened up on muzzle flashes across the road. I linked more ammo with each lull in the shooting. The torturous calls for help from the wounded Marine ripped at my sanity. Red slapped me hard on the back, then patted my helmet. Charlie will diddy-mow now, before daybreak. It'd be suicide to go out any sooner. What's diddy-mow mean? He'll run. Charlie has two chances against us in daylight. Slim and none.

• 59:27Jocko Willink?

  And then this puff the magic dragon, the C-130 shows up.

• 59:32Jocko Willink?

  During the next two hours, sporadic exchanges of fire continued, but as daybreak neared, the shooting slackened to an occasional sniper round. The first shafts of sunlight brought a command from the Indian corporal. "Listen up." I couldn't see where the voice was coming from, but it was loud and clear. "This is Swift Eagle. I'm going after him." "The big Indian was on the bridge before I even spotted him." "The wounded Marine had stopped calling for help an hour ago, but I still had hope. The Indian moved quickly and gracefully like a cat." "Then he jumped from the twisted bridge to the piling and out of sight." "A few moments later, he reappeared. I knew the man was dead." "I expected to see hundreds of dead NVA scattered about as the sun grew brighter, "but this is my first lesson on just how good the enemy was at dragging away the dead and wounded."

• 1:00:17Jocko Willink?

  "Every inch of me itched." "A layer of gritty sand mixed with sweat" "that felt more like glue had somehow covered my body." "I wanted to see the dead men. I had to find Chan." "Johnny," a voice that brought joy and relief to my heart, resounded across the compound. "Red, that's Chan." "Chan," I screamed through the door of the arid bunker. I ran out of the bunker and into a bear hug that nearly crushed my ribs. "Well, I'm sure glad you're okay." I escaped the bear hug to see who was talking. "It was the big Indian." "This guy bugged me all night worrying about you," the chief said. "We've been together since boot camp," I said, feeling a bit embarrassed. "He's like my brother." Chan removed the smile from his face and went back to looking sophisticated, "looking too sophisticated for a show of emotion."

• 1:01:00Jocko Willink?

  "Well," he said, as he took one step back and straightened his flak jacket, "I did promise your mother I'd keep you from doing anything foolish." "Let's go," Swift Eagle said. "Where?" I asked. "A body count." We followed the stone-faced Indian to the perimeter wire. There and around the bridge and compound, we counted sixty-four dead NVA. We found one wounded in both legs by machine gun fire. He was taken prisoner. Out of the fifteen Marines killed, twelve were from the Civil Action Patrol Unit. I didn't know any of them, and I was glad I didn't. I never heard how many Arvins died. The official report says that the Troy River Bridge was attacked and overrun by an estimated 300 NVA regulars and 100 sappers.

• 1:01:44Jocko Willink?

  The bridge was destroyed by suicide squads carrying satchel charges. It says nothing about the Arvins falling asleep on the lines and then abandoning fortified positions.

• 1:02:01Speaker 01

  There were two, uh, two guys that got killed that night that, uh, I didn't, I didn't have in the book. Uh, they were, uh, one, one was Rosalie, Corporal Rosalie and Tedesco. And, uh, both of them were corporals and both of them were, uh, they, they were old salts. They, they didn't know me, you know what? But they were, uh, they had finished Way City. As a matter of fact, Rosalie had been put up for a, a battlefield commission, uh, in Way City. But their tour was up and, uh, they're both going home, you know, and they're 13 months. And that was saying something if you lasted 13 months. But they, they were supposed to go home.

• 1:02:43Speaker 01

  They were at Fubin, they were supposed to fly out and, uh, they decided to come out to Troy Bridge and say bye to the platoon. And they got there and were hanging out with the guys. They brought in some beer and, um, then, then the bridge got hit. And Tedesco and Rosalie tried to get out to that machine gunner on the bridge and they were both killed.

• 1:03:10Jocko Willink?

  I, I actually worked with a Colonel Tedesco in the Battle of Ramadi. He was the Colonel in charge of the 137. Outstanding, outstanding. I'll have to review and see if there's any relation, relations there. It's not a very common name, Tedesco.

• 1:03:26Jocko Willink?

  This-

• 1:03:28Jocko Willink?

  Seeing the, seeing the Arvin flee like that, did you have any expectations that they were going to be better soldiers than they showed to be on this occasion?

• 1:03:37Speaker 01

  Well, you know, I, I had no reason to think they wouldn't, but, uh, I, you know, that, I found out pretty quick that, that was pretty common. They were, they were pretty bad about that. I mean, there were some good, uh, Arvin units. There, there was a, the Arvin Marines, I was told were pretty good. Well, I never saw them, but I was told they were pretty good. And, uh, so there were, there was some good ones, but yeah, they, yeah, not, not, not too good, not too good.

• 1:04:06Jocko Willink?

  And, and what was this like your fifth day in Vietnam, your sixth day in Vietnam, something like that?

• 1:04:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. Uh, but this was, you know, this story, this is Big Red. I mean, this is really about Big Red and this is Big Red's story. He, uh, I mean, he's the one who did everything. This guy was, uh, I was just a warder, you know? I mean, other machine gunners would, would have just stopped firing. Uh, you know, guys, I mean, there comes a point where you just stop firing. Red, Red never stops firing. He, he would, he would just go until they killed him. And he did. And he did. Yeah. He, it, that, that story's about Red.

• 1:04:47Jocko Willink?

  Seeing this massive attack, and this is a big attack by any standards, you know, if you have, you know, three or 400 enemy attacking, you must be thinking to yourself, i- is this what is going to be happening on a regular basis? And by the way, you also got told that this is slack duty, watching the bridge, real easy, no, don't worry about anything.

• 1:05:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:09Jocko Willink?

  So like a contradiction here to have this go down.

• 1:05:13Speaker 01

  Well, it was supposed to be, you know, if you, if you have bridge duty, of course, we weren't the only ones that had, they had a bunch of Marines on a place called Liberty Bridge, had bridge duty and, uh, uh, they were, I think almost all of them were killed. It's like 40 guys died or 48, something like that. But a lot of them died because they had, it was early on, uh, it's before I got there and they had the M16s that had just been issued and they all jammed. And when they, uh, they found these guys, they, they had just. Use those M16s as baseball bats. That's they they were were piece of crap. You know, they they changed the bolt in the M16 around 1968. Might have been earlier. I don't know

• 1:05:57Speaker 01

  the exact date, but they had the bolt they had in it in the humidity of Vietnam would warp, you know, and come on, you know, we're in the water all the time. And, you know, it's you can't have a bolt that's going to warp. And so they by the time they fixed it, a lot of guys died because that M16 was a piece of crap. But but they they got better, you know.

• 1:06:20Jocko Willink?

  And you would you carry you'd carry the ammo when you when you were an A gunner?

• 1:06:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:26Jocko Willink?

  You're carrying the ammo and you'd carry your own M16?

• 1:06:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:29Jocko Willink?

  And the 60 gunner?

• 1:06:31Speaker 01

  And usually I as a gunner, I'd carry 45.

• 1:06:34Jocko Willink?

  45. And the gunner himself is carrying just the M60? He's not carrying an M16, is he?

• 1:06:39Speaker 01

  No, just the 60. Yeah.

• 1:06:43Jocko Willink?

  Um, 24 hours later, Troy Bridge was, uh, the Seabees were out there and they're constructing a pontoon bridge. And then 48 hours later, they're starting the permanent bridge. So Seabees getting in the getting in the game. Um, another guy named Stryker, another character you got here. You say he wasn't overly friendly. He he is distinguishing characteristic was a huge black mole positioned right between his eyes. Uh, and at one point, you you he has like a disagreement, kind of an argument. You have a little argument with him. And it's about Chan. And I'm just gonna go to the book. You got something against Chan or God? I don't

• 1:07:26Jocko Willink?

  know about I don't know either one. I ain't sure I trust people who sit around reading bibles. I don't trust people who don't. My tone wasn't friendly, nor was it the look nor was the look that went with it. Don't tell me you believe in that crap, too, he laughed. I felt my face getting flushed. I looked at Stryker's tanned arms and chest. He was lean and mean, like, just like most Marines. It was going to be a good fight, I thought. I stood up slowly. Stryker looked a little nervous as I reached my feet, still not taking my eyes off him. Johnny. I turned away from Stryker to see Red standing behind me, holding a deadly green claymore mine in one hand and a small roll of wire in the other. Come over here a minute.

• 1:08:07Jocko Willink?

  He walked, he walked me a few feet away from Stryker and began speaking quietly. I saw what you were thinking. Don't do it. I started to explain, and don't bother explaining. I overheard some of it. It doesn't matter what a jerk Stryker is. You don't make enemies in the bush. You've heard of fragging? If somebody wants to blow you away out there, all they have to do is drop a frag on you or shoot you in the back and say it was an accident in heat of battle. You hear what I'm saying? I nodded and we walked back to Stryker. I filed Red's warning permanently in my memory bank. I knew he was right.

• 1:08:44Jocko Willink?

  So, it's, um,

• 1:08:50Jocko Willink?

  the Wild West, and also, you gotta, you gotta, basically play political games for lack of a better way of saying it. If you have a, if you make enemies with somebody and you're in a gunfight, the guy can kill you.

• 1:09:04Speaker 01

  It's true. It's true. And I, you know, I want to tell you, right there is one of the things that I think if they sent us over as a unit, where we've really trained together all through boot camp and, you know, and, uh, machine gun school, you know, uh, infantry school, if we did all that together, I think you grow closer. It builds a better bond. But you're a new guy, your new guy's popping in, you know, and, and, it just, I, I think it really hurt relationships, you know? I think you could depend on each other more if you knew each other better. You know, you're gonna, you're gonna back a friend. But if it's some guy you don't really know, you know, things happen.

• 1:09:45Speaker 01

  So I, I, I'm glad the Marine Corps doesn't do that anymore. And the Army too. I mean, because I, I've heard some terrible stories about stuff like that, you know? There, fragging was real. Not, it wasn't wholesale or anything like that, but.

• 1:10:01Jocko Willink?

  Well, we'll get to it in the book. You got a fragging that takes place and, and we'll talk about that.

• 1:10:10Jocko Willink?

  Fast forward a little bit. "How old are you, John?" He handed me my flak jacket and spit out a shot of tobacco. "Eighteen, Gunny. Why?" "Just curious. I got a boy with a baby face like yours. He's eighteen too. He's in his senior year. Didn't you just finish high school?" "Yeah, I graduated last June. I started when I was five." "When did you turn eighteen?" He handed me my cartridge belt and canteens. I wondered what he had on his mind. This was the first time he'd ever talked to me. "October 12th." "Did your parents sign for you to get in the Corps?" "Yeah, it took some fast talking, too." He shot a stream of tobacco juice at a large anthill beside the bunker, then stepped up close to me, put his right hand on my shoulder and stared me right in the eye. Deep wrinkles

• 1:10:51Jocko Willink?

  stretched across his tan forehead and all around his dark blue eyes. He suddenly looked very old and solemn. "You can't be eighteen anymore, John. You have to think older if you want to come out of this hole alive. Do you know what I'm trying to tell you?" "I think so, Gunny." He bent over, picked up my helmet and put it on me. "There ain't many Marines better than Big Red. You do what he says when he says it. Swift Eagle, too. That Indian is all Marine. Watch him and learn." "Is this as tough as World War II, Gunny? They told me you were on Iwo Jima." "I was at Chosen Reservoir II." "This war is the worst yet.

• 1:11:32Jocko Willink?

  We ain't trying to win and we ain't trying to lose. We could stop it in a month if we invaded the North." He took a couple of quick steps as if he were too angry to stand still. "Every war stinks, but I ain't seen this kind of stink before. You stick close to Red, you'll be okay."

• 1:11:52Jocko Willink?

  He slapped me on the back. "Saddle up."

• 1:11:58Speaker 01

  I got a picture of Gunny McDermott in the book. You don't have the book with the pictures, but Big Red, you know, a lot of these characters, I found their photos here and there, but Gunny McDermott was... He, they, he, he'd been, they told me he'd been put up for the Medal of Honor. After the last time I saw him, he was wounded pretty bad. And I want to talk about that story because it's pretty, it's really touching. You know, when he, he got wounded real bad, but another machine gunner lost both his legs. Jesus Quintana. And he ran up to Jesus, he was bleeding really bad.

• 1:12:42Speaker 01

  The gunny was bleeding really bad. And Jesus just wanted one thing. He had his, his helmet had been blown off, of course. And he said, get my helmet. And Gunny gets his helmet and he says, okay, I get my Bible out of the helmet. And he opens his Bible for him. And Jesus goes, I'm gonna make it. And he did. And, and Gunny, Gunny told me that story later because I, I had a, you know, we had a cover. I, you know, I had the other gun, me and Chandler on the other gun. And now this whole gun team just got blown to bits. So I couldn't be there and watch it. But Gunny told me that years later.

• 1:13:22Speaker 01

  And, and I told, I told Jesus that, and I don't even know if he remembered it.

• 1:13:28Jocko Willink?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:13:29Speaker 01

  But yeah, gunnery sergeant McDermott, he, he died not too long ago. And he, he went back to NOM when we thought he was finished. He, he went to the States. They made him a gunnery sergeant and at Paris Island, or never mind, they gave him, I think he may be a, well, I forgot his rank. He, he was up a little bit higher, but that, he was a DI. And they told him he could never go back to NOM. You know, the war was winding down, kind of stuff, you know. He got back to NOM and he was with an ARVIN unit as a, an advisor with an ARVIN unit. And, and some ARVIN, and US soldiers. And he got, he did something.

• 1:14:13Speaker 01

  I mean, he was, he was a maniac. He, he was just totally gung ho, crazy guy. We called him Gunny Magnet because he always drew lead every, and he looked for lead. But he, he did something with that army unit and got put up for the Medal of Honor. And then he got in a fight. And they busted it down to a silver star.

• 1:14:37Speaker 01

  He was, uh, he was just a Marines Marine and if you see the picture of him, I think it's in that book. I mean, he looks like Clint Eastwood. You know, he looks the way you'd expect him to look and he carried a, I got a picture of him in the book with his pump shotgun.

• 1:14:54Speaker 01

  He's the only guy there that carried a pump shotgun. I love that guy, man.

• 1:14:59Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and these comments that he makes about the comparison to World War II in Korea, this is something that reminded me. There's a guy named Colonel David Hackworth who wrote the book about face.

• 1:15:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:15:09Jocko Willink?

  And he, he was in Korea and he was in World War II, but he was in Korea and he was in Vietnam. And, but he came in the army right after World War II and was underneath those, you know, the, the World War II veterans. And he would say that definitely compared to Korea, he said Vietnam was as horrible as Korea was. And it's freezing cold and all the misery. He said Vietnam was worse. It was, I've, I always found that interesting. And again, I'm not here to judge or, or makes any kind of determination. But I've always, I always kind of thought the jungle is a little bit nicer because all the jungle is at least it's warm, you know?

• 1:15:52Jocko Willink?

  Worst case scenario, you know, you sweat, but then I think about the times when I was a young SEAL going out and training in the jungle. And we wouldn't do like you're doing, we'll, we'll get to the book where you're doing 28 day patrols and all this stuff. Jungle's miserable.

• 1:16:06Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:16:07Jocko Willink?

  It's miserable.

• 1:16:08Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. It eats you, it eats you alive. You know, I went from 160 down to about, I don't think I even weighed 120 the first time I got hit. But, uh, but I'm still, I don't, I'm not sure if I would, Korea was, I, you know, when, uh, when I wrote, um, you know, some of my other books, I wrote about some of the, some other guys and I wrote about, uh, a bunch of guys at the Cho's Inn. And, uh, one of them was a guy named, uh, Win Scott. He was a machine gunner with 5th Marines at Cho's Inn. And they would, they built their, they built bunkers out of frozen dead Chinese, you know, because they would freeze almost instantly. And all the guys, most of the guys in his outfit and his, in this one battle, they weren't wounded

• 1:16:53Speaker 01

  by bullets. They were wounded by bone, bone fragments because incoming fire would hit these human bunkers, Chinese soldiers that they stacked into like, like, you know, like sandbags. And the bullets would hit, hit these dead Chinese and splinter off bones. And all these guys were getting, they all had wounds, but they were bones. I didn't go through that. So, I mean, it's, it's hard to compare wars, but I, in my own estimation, in my, I, I can't see anything worse than the Cho Sin. I mean, I just think about the Cho Sin and holy mackerel, what those guys did there.

• 1:17:35Jocko Willink?

  Absolutely unbelievable.

• 1:17:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, it really is. And I, I spent a lot of times with those guys. I was at the christening of the USS Cho Sin. And that's where I met a bunch of these guys. And I want to talk about some of them if we get a chance to. Guys like Francis Hugh Colleen, he was a regimental bagpipes player in the 7th Marine Regiment at Cho Sin. I didn't even know we had bagpipes.

• 1:18:00Jocko Willink?

  I did not know that either. It's news to me.

• 1:18:02Speaker 01

  They, they, some of their stories, I mean, they're just incredible, just incredible. I wrote a comedy of using a lot of his stories. It's called Section Eight. And it's about all these Marines who were Section Eight guys, you know, they're all crazy. And they were in China. And it, it's a nutty comedy, but the, but the stories were true. These guys did this stuff. I mean, they did insane stuff.

• 1:18:24Jocko Willink?

  So he was at Cho Sin as a bagpipe, I mean, at what point he had pick up a rifle like the rest of them?

• 1:18:29Speaker 01

  Well, it, it, his lieutenant got the Medal of Honor. And I think was, his name was Mitchell.

• 1:18:37Speaker 01

  But when the, when the Chinese first entered the war and uh, I can't remember the name of it, you know, where it was, but it's in the book. But when they first entered the war, they, they, the Marines were all online, you know, and so somebody shoots up a flare, you know, they thought they heard something out there and they start shooting up flares and he, and he said, he thought the mountain, the mountains were moving, you know, and the flares, the mountains looked like they were moving. And it took them a while to realize the mountains were moving, that was that many Chinese coming over the mountains. And uh, so they, they start shooting up flares, of course, and this lieutenant, they, the Chinese would signal their troops with horns and whistles.

• 1:19:20Speaker 01

  And so the lieutenant, this lieutenant Mitchell got really pissed off about hearing all these horns and whistles. And he said, get that damn clarinet player up here. And it was, and it was, it was Gundy Colleen. So Colleen comes up there with his bagpipes and starts playing the bagpipes in response to all the, all these horns and whistles. And he promptly got the bagpipes shot through his throat. So, and he, and he had cancer in his throat when I was interviewing him and spending time with the guy, and he, and he had to write everything in letters because he couldn't talk much anymore. So he wrote it all to me and he was the most Irish Marine, his, even in his letters, it

• 1:20:00Speaker 01

  would, he would say stuff like, now Johnny me lad, it, it may have dawned on you, how does a man defecate when it's thirty, seventy below the zero, you know? And he says, well, let me be telling you, because it doesn't come out easy. And he would write all this stuff. He would, he, they did, the things these guys did, yeah, I mean, talk about colorful. I had to write, I had to write section eight and it's all his stories, mostly his stories.

• 1:20:29Jocko Willink?

  So when you write in the book, section eight, is it, is it a, a story kind of fact, is it like, is it fiction based on the facts?

• 1:20:37Speaker 01

  It's fiction, uh, but it's based on facts and it's when the, uh, it's, it's when the Marines were sent to China to help Chiang Kai Shek at the, uh, nineteen forty-six. And the communist, you know, or overpowered Chek, that, that the Marines were there supporting him and they were in Tianjin, China. Well, when the Marines came in, they took over this giant warehouse system. And in the, uh, that was the, became their barracks. And it was their training area, you know, they had tanks, they had everything. The whole First Marine Division was sent there by, by, uh, Truman. Because he was, he was trying to get rid of the Marine Corps. He hated the Marine Corps. And he was, he was trying to disband the Marine Corps.

• 1:21:16Speaker 01

  That, that's, they all told me this too, that some of the things Truman, they, he's not a favorite of the Marine Corps. But, uh, so they, they, they took over Tenshin China, they took over this giant warehouse system. And that was their, their barracks and their training areas. And, but when they moved into Tenshin, these German, uh, these German P O, they had, they had eight German POWs. They were German engineers who ran the city of Tenshin for the Japanese. Yeah, they were the brains behind this, running the city. So, so when the Marines came in and they took prisoners and they had these eight German POWs. So, so this Colleen, Gunny Colleen and a couple of other nutty cases in the Marine Corps,

• 1:22:00Speaker 01

  uh, broke these guys out of their own brig. They, they busted them out of their POW car. They put them in Marine fatigues and they kept them in their big barracks. It was the North Asian Swedish Transfer Company. That was their, and they kept these Germans in this, in their, in their barracks. And they rented them to the city of Tenshin. They, they made a profit off of them. Yeah, so they ran the city and they would drive them to work. And they'd drive in and pick them up and bring them back. You can't make this up. I mean, these, these guys. So, anyway, that was, that's part of Section Eight.

• 1:22:36Jocko Willink?

  Uh, yeah, and then here you are, and you've got these guys, got this gunny that was at Chosen. I mean, that's just, that's incredible.

• 1:22:49Jocko Willink?

  Fast forward a little bit, there's the mortar attack that I actually opened the podcast with. That that takes place, you hear the guns up, guns up. I got to my feet with my M16 and two belts of ammo for the machine gun. Red shouted gung ho at the top of his lungs and darted up the slight incline toward the crest of the hill. His shot went through me like a shot of adrenaline. Suddenly I wasn't terrified anymore. The emotional high that comes with light when life or death is on the line swept all fear to the back of my mind. An odd sense of exhilaration, almost pleasure pounded through my system as we weaved across the top of the hill. More explosions behind me heightened the thrill. I was Superman and John Wayne. I could, nothing could stop this dash. I heard myself screaming yee-haw like a cowboy on a bronco.

• 1:23:32Jocko Willink?

  I could see the lieutenant ahead pointing at another hill 100 meters to the south. Red hit the dirt and opened up on the hill. As quickly as it started to stop, the mortars ceased. We had no target. One man was wounded. Sudsy, the radio man called for a medevac. The wounded man's name was David Blaine. He was from Kentucky. His butt was peppered with shrapnel. He didn't seem to mind a bit. It was a painful ticket out of Vietnam. I felt a bit of envy. I started daydreaming of ticker tape parades and a hero's homecoming. Hey, John, that's a hardcore way to lighten your load. I turned away from the bleeding Marine who was calling me. It was Red. He was holding something up and laughing. What is it? I moved closer to inspect the object of his laughter.

• 1:24:13Jocko Willink?

  I think you need a new pack. Red tried to restrain the laughing when he saw that I didn't think it was all that funny. My pack was in shreds, a direct hit. My riding gear fooded, my little Instamatic camera gone. Red gave me a helmet. I gave my helmet a couple of pats. Don't worry about it. You better thank God you didn't have it on.

• 1:24:33Jocko Willink?

  A sharp burning pain on my right thigh stung me so badly that I bent over. What's wrong with you? Asked Red. I don't know. I felt a warm, slow trickle of blood running down my leg. Two small holes in my trousers near the groin were the only evidence I needed. Red, I'm wounded. I've been hit. What? Where? Red dropped his pack. In a flash, he was kneeling on one knee in front of me. Unbutton your pants, stupid. Let me see how bad it is. I wonder why I didn't feel it sooner. It just happens that way sometimes. Wow, my own little red badge of courage. This could have been real tough on your love life. Are you hit anywhere else? Will I get a Purple Heart, Red? Are you sure you weren't hit anywhere else? What's this? He pointed to a tear in my left chest pocket. What's in that pocket? My Bible, pull it out.

• 1:25:16Jocko Willink?

  I unbuttoned the flap of my pocket and pulled out the small Gideon Bible. A hole right under the word holy sent a stream of goosebumps down to my toes. The hole went three quarters of the way through the little book. A splinter sharp piece of shrapnel, one quarter inch long, had made it all the way to the book of Hebrews. Could that have killed me? It took us an hour to find out what killed my last A gunner. A tiny sliver of shrapnel went under the back of his helmet and into his brain. It was in his hair, so he couldn't even find any blood, but it killed him. Will they medevac me? No way, not for those two little holes. Go see Doc, tell him to put something on it before it gets infected. I did what Red told me to do. The Doc, our corpsman, tweezed out two splinters of shrapnel while I looked through my little wounded Bible.

• 1:26:01Jocko Willink?

  On the inside cover, someone had written a long passage in red ink. It was Chan's handwriting. I didn't know anyone else who could print that small. I wondered when he'd written it. I started reading it and each line made me feel a little better. Romans 8:35 to 39. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Just as it is written, for thy sake we are being put to death all day long. We were considered as sheep to be slaughtered. But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through him who loved us.

• 1:26:41Jocko Willink?

  For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:28. And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose.

• 1:27:19Jocko Willink?

  So the Bible saved your life.

• 1:27:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:27:22Jocko Willink?

  In more ways than one.

• 1:27:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, in more ways than one. The little Bible, the little Gideon was wrapped in plastic, you know, because it's the only way to keep anything dry. So I had a bunch of plastic around it. It made it fatter.

• 1:27:37Jocko Willink?

  Um, fast forward a little bit. At nineteen hundred hours, the seventeen man column stopped. We dropped one knee and waited to be placed in ambush position. Corporal Swift Eagle swept through the column, taking three men at a time and quickly placing them in position for the night. When he finished, we had a textbook L-shaped ambush. Fast forward a little bit. Red woke me up with a stiff elbow to the shoulder. Do you see movement? Where, I asked. Straight ahead. Keep looking straight ahead. I strained to see what he was now aiming at. Then I saw movement. Shadowy figures, silhouetted by evaporating light, looked to be moving thirty meters away. I felt myself trying to crouch lower as I took aim.

• 1:28:19Jocko Willink?

  I covered my mouth and whispered in the direction of the Marines on our left, "Gooks." I started linking up ammo for the gun. Suddenly, green tracers shot across our position from the left flank. Then another burst of fire came at us from straight ahead. Seven khaki-clad NVA appeared from the shadows in front of us. They were led by an officer who suddenly ran toward us, firing a pistol. The others carried AKs. They looked surprised, maybe as surprised as we were. A couple turned and ran from us, but the others followed their leader. Red opened up first, making us the only real target they had. The officer was lifted off his feet and blown backward with the first twenty rounds. The gun stopped firing. I started firing my M16, but the targets disappeared. All firing ceased. I knew Red was hit.

• 1:29:01Jocko Willink?

  My face was wet with blood, and it wasn't mine. He was slumped forward onto the gun. I rolled him off the gun. Two dime-sized holes sunk into one cheek. His eyes were open, lifeless and blue. I could hear myself calling for a corpsman. My voice sounded dreamlike. For an instant, I thought I was dreaming. I'd wake up and none of this had really happened. Swift Eagle flattened out beside me. He looked at the back of Red's head with no expression. Doc slid in beside us, breathing hard. "He's dead, Doc," Swift Eagle said. "Red?" "Yeah." "Put his poncho over him. I'll get an A-gunner for the boot." "He only had a month ago, Chief." Doc's voice sounded far away.

• 1:29:47Jocko Willink?

  The night crept by sleeplessly, congested with weird, fully-wake dreams of home, friends, and the Marine Corps. I felt numb. It started drizzling. The sound always reminded me of french fries in a pan. By first light, it was still raining. The air smelled fresh and crisp. It was a stateside rain, not a normal pounding of rain of the monsoon that sounds more like war than war itself. Raindrops formed tiny puddles on Red's poncho. His huge Viking boots stuck out of the poncho like a blanket that's too small. I was thankful for the rain. It kept the ants and flies and hid my tears, kept away the ants and flies and hid my tears. How could he be dead?

• 1:30:29Jocko Willink?

  Men like that just don't, just couldn't die. He told me, "If you got past the first two months, you'd make it." I wanted to pray. I needed it now, but I just didn't know God well enough to do it right, I thought. Chan always told me you had to talk to him regularly if you wanted to get to know him. I missed Chan. I felt more alone than I could remember ever feeling. The others weren't crying, maybe they didn't know yet. I remembered the gunny's warning about being eighteen. I looked around again and the lieutenant's was walking my way. His young Annapolis face couldn't hide the loss. No tears, but he was frowning. He pulled back the poncho, grimaced, and covered him again. "You're the gunner now, Marine. Keep it clean.

• 1:31:14Jocko Willink?

  Every man here depends on it. Red said you'd do all right. Don't let him down." How, how long into this deployment was this?

• 1:31:32Speaker 01

  Uh, how long, in his, his deployment?

• 1:31:39Jocko Willink?

  In your deployment.

• 1:31:40Speaker 01

  Oh, let's see, it was May twentieth, nineteen sixty-eight. Uh, I got there, I think, uh, see, April? I got there in April. So, uh, May, April.

• 1:31:54Jocko Willink?

  So it's something like a month? Six weeks, something like that?

• 1:31:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. March, April, no, I got there in March. So, March, April, May, yeah. I got there in March.

• 1:32:09Speaker 01

  I think it was early March.

• 1:32:13Jocko Willink?

  And now you're the gunner.

• 1:32:16Speaker 01

  They gave him the Silver Star, I mean, the Bronze Star, thirty years late.

• 1:32:24Speaker 01

  Fascinating story, once again, this book. And this book's a miracle. I mean, I could, we could talk for hours. I could tell you stories that this book has brought out of other people. I mean, everything, kids in Ireland coming to join the Marine Corps because they read this book, you know, Lithuanian soldiers writing me because they read this book. It's crazy because it got published in Lithuanian now. But one of the stories, I got an envelope, a big old envelope, full of newspaper articles. And I just came out of the blue, you know, and I opened it up and it's all these stories.

• 1:33:06Speaker 01

  It's letters home from Vietnam that the Cincinnati Enquirer had done a series, published. And it's all from this one guy, Richard Weaver. And see, I didn't even know Red's name. You know, we've just, I didn't know people's names. I was the crazy gunner, you know, I doubt if they knew my name.

• 1:33:27Speaker 01

  We just had nicknames and Sam the blooper man, you know. But I'm reading these newspapers, these letters home, and I told Nancy, I said, you know, honey, this is, this is, these are my stories. I'm reading this. This is like the same stuff I was in. This has to be somebody I know. And I, so I finally contacted Cincinnati Enquirer and I said, hey, look, I don't know who sent me this, this envelope of these articles, but I think I know this guy. And they said, yeah, we thought you would. There's some fans of Guns Up on the newspaper

• 1:34:07Speaker 01

  and they've read it and they've read these letters and they thought this has to be the same guy that you write called Big Red. And I said, it is. And so. So anyway, a guy that graduated with Red from Indian Hills High School in Cincinnati. Red was the only guy from that high school that had died in Nam. And they had, this guy, they didn't know what a hero he was. You know, like I said, he was raised by this old man. He didn't really have any family. They, they didn't understand what Red really was. So when they read this book, they found out another man named Lon Decker. He was Navy Vet.

• 1:34:50Speaker 01

  He flew me to Cincinnati. One thing led to another. They built a monument to Red. Lon even bought, he paid for a lot of this, but there's a, there's a big monument in a, in a park now to Red. And they had a monument at his high school and had a copy of guns up in it. And then they, they had a parade that gave him a...

• 1:35:22Jocko Willink?

  Putting those memorials up, you know, we, we do a lot of stuff where one of the things that I do is go to Gettysburg and talking about the, the monuments at Gettysburg and how good it is for veterans to have those. And it doesn't really matter what war you're from.

• 1:35:48Speaker 01

  I agree.

• 1:35:49Jocko Willink?

  You can still put your hands on those monuments and think and pay tribute to the heroes. So I'm sure there's some people that can do that in Cincinnati.

• 1:36:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:36:04Jocko Willink?

  Richard Weaver's monument.

• 1:36:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:36:08Jocko Willink?

  What's the monument? Is it a statue? Is it?

• 1:36:12Speaker 01

  The one in the park, I haven't seen yet. I was just told about it. But the, the one that was at his school was his medals, had all his medals on it. And gee, I've probably got pictures of it, but I forgot what it said. But it, you know, it gave his combat record and had his Purple Hearts on there. He had three.

• 1:36:35Speaker 01

  But they didn't, they didn't, uh, I mean, they, they had the Bronze Star on it then, cause it, you know, but thirty years later, uh, I think it was a congressman, Lon Decker again, his buddy, um, got some.

• 1:36:51Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:52Speaker 01

  He got, he got a congressman to, uh, you know, to look into it.

• 1:36:56Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:58Jocko Willink?

  Well, it's good that he's getting recognized, even if it's late and it's good to be able to, it's, it's so awesome that you've made such a great tribute to him in the book.

• 1:37:11Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:13Jocko Willink?

  And, yeah, to be able to sit here and talk about and more people to be able to hear about, hear about Big Red, machine gunner.

• 1:37:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:37:23Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's a, you know, the first guy I lost was a guy named Mark Lee and he was same, just a total, um, stud that, you know, it was very, it was same, same type of thing. Like you don't think a guy like this can be killed.

• 1:37:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:37:39Jocko Willink?

  And he, Mark Lee was also a machine gunner and it's such, such a, uh, devastating, heartbreaking scenario to lose a guy like that.

• 1:37:54Jocko Willink?

  And what you reflect in the book is the reality of combat.

• 1:38:00Jocko Willink?

  The war doesn't stop when you lose somebody. You, you still have to get your gear back on and you're gonna go back and, and here comes your lieutenant, you know, telling, telling you that you're, all right, you're the gunner now. That's, we're, we're, we're gonna keep moving forward. We're gonna keep doing missions. So that's the, a lot of times people, that doesn't get reflected or people don't think about that fact that just because you lose a guy, doesn't mean the war stops. The war, the enemy's gonna keep coming. And you're gonna, you're gonna have to get your gear back on and you're gonna have to keep going. Um, and there's oftentimes there's not, you know, the, the time to mourn isn't even a

• 1:38:44Jocko Willink?

  thing, you know? Um, and also I don't know that we're the best at it, you know, as Americans, you know, you mentioned the Irish earlier. I, I always bring up the Irish because the Irish seem to have a, like a protocol on what to do when someone dies.

• 1:38:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, I don't follow it. I'm Irish. I don't follow it.

• 1:39:02Jocko Willink?

  But they have like a, a protocol, you know, we're gonna have the wake on this day. We're gonna get drunk on this day. We're gonna bury him this day and, and then we're gonna kind of move on in America because we have so many, such a melting pot of different, different, um, cultures, right? That it's kind of lost. And I, I think that hurts because we don't really know how to properly, you know, mourn, go through the ceremony. And then, okay, we've done what we, we have to do. And now we move on. We don't really have that. The military, we don't, like I said, don't get a chance to do it overseas. Maybe you'll have the, you'll have some kind of a memorial service if you're lucky. And then it's back to the fight.

• 1:39:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:39:43Jocko Willink?

  Um, did you feel like you had the experience now that you'd been there for a month and a half to handle the big gun?

• 1:39:52Speaker 01

  No, no, I didn't. I felt, uh, but I didn't have much choice. You know, it's, uh, there, there was no choice.

• 1:40:03Jocko Willink?

  Uh, fast forward a little bit. John, this is PFC Doyle. He's boot. He's oh, three, thirty-one. So he'll be your A gunner. Teach him what he has to know as fast as you can. The lieutenant turned and walked away before I could speak. I knew my mouth was hanging open as I stared at PFC Doyle in disbelief. Teach him what he has to know kept echoing through my stunned brain. I didn't know any more than he did, I thought. My God, if, if there was ever the blind leading the blind. Hi Doyle, stuck out his hand. I shook it and a nervous but friendly smile pushed up his fat cheeks. He sure didn't look much like a Marine. I'd never seen anyone out of boot camp with that much baby fat. Had to be a Hollywood Marine, I thought. Your MOS is O three thirty-one, I asked. Yep, that's me.

• 1:40:49Jocko Willink?

  He pushed his glasses back on his pug nose and then promptly slid down, slid back down. And they promptly slid back down. I tried to remember some of the things Red told me. Well, the most important thing you have to remember is this. When you hear guns up, make sure you're on my tail, no matter what.

• 1:41:08Jocko Willink?

  What was Doyle? Tell me a little bit about Doyle. Just young kid?

• 1:41:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, just a kid. He was barely any, probably about the same age as me, you know, he was, he was a kid. And he, and he, he was, he was beefier. You know, everybody, you lose so much weight in NOM. I mean, there were no beefy guys. There's, there's nobody was beefy. And, uh, and so him coming right in, you know, he still had that stateside fat on him. And he was, uh, he was, he was from, uh, from Colorado. And, uh, I, he was a great guy, you know, really fun, funny guy. Everybody, everybody really liked him. But he, but he had glasses. And, uh, I, I just, I honestly, I just don't know how, how anybody could get through NOM with, with glasses.

• 1:41:57Speaker 01

  It, it was, uh, it was, you know, it was tough. I mean, you could, I mean, how, I don't know how you could do it. I don't know how you could do it, but he did it. And, and then when he lost him, uh, you know, one time he, he, he lost him. He, he ran into a B fifty-two crater. And he couldn't find his way out. He couldn't, he couldn't find his glasses. And, and of course, the monsoon rains had filled this B fifty-two crater. It was like a giant swimming pool. And, and you know how big B fifty-two craters are? They're huge. I mean, you could put a house in some of those craters. And he was, uh, he was, he was stuck down in there in the middle of a firefight. And he's trying to get out and it's all mud and he doesn't, now he can't find his glasses.

• 1:42:42Speaker 01

  What a nightmare. It wasn't any fun for me either because at the time I, you know, I was taking a lot of fire.

• 1:42:49Jocko Willink?

  You needed ammo.

• 1:42:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, I did. But he was, he was a great guy, a great Marine.

• 1:42:57Jocko Willink?

  Fast forward a little bit. Sam the blooper man. What a character Doyle said. He told me not one machine gunner has rotated out so far. He carefully adjusted his glasses over one ear at a time and looked me, looked me in my eyes for the truth. What? I stalled. He said, since he's been here, not one gunner has done his 13 months and rotated home. Is it true? I guess so. They told me the same thing. Doesn't that bother you? I try not to think about it, but sometimes it sneaks up on me. How can you not think about it? Snapped Doyle. Not all those gunners are dead. Most were probably just wounded. To tell you the truth, that's what scares me more than dying. I don't want to go home without any legs. I'd just as soon die.

• 1:43:42Jocko Willink?

  That's enough of this crap. If God wants you, you're going one way or another. I guess that's true, but being a gunner seems to be a surefire way of rushing the process.

• 1:43:54Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's not the best debate of saying, well, look, most of those gunners aren't dead. Most of them are only really badly wounded. I don't think that gave me any security.

• 1:44:06Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, it's kind of hard to cheer somebody up when you're trying to cheer yourself up at the same time.

• 1:44:13Jocko Willink?

  Fast forward a little bit. We stumbled along a rocky trail as the deepening night replaced any vision left over from the dust. Doyle and I were in the center of a 16 man column, the position from which we could respond to guns up from either end. It was on nights like this that I relished the best part of being a gunner. I never walked point and I never walked tail. I, that was the first time I thought of that too. So at least you would, didn't have to walk point because you had the pig.

• 1:44:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:44:39Jocko Willink?

  Without warning, successive cracks of AK-47 fire reverberated from the front of the column. Quickly, the firing increased until it sounded like we'd made contact with a battalion. Everyone instinctively hit the ground. Doyle had a grasp on my foot. He repeated, oh God, oh God, in a panic. Bullet ricocheted all around, whining as they went overhead and flooding into the earth nearby. Guns up, guns up, guns up. The call sounded more urgent as each man picked up and passed it back. I was already moving, crouching, stumbling and Running into the darkness ahead, I felt an arm under my foot, then a curse. I started up a small knoll. Now I could see muzzle flashes. Get down, lay down some fire. It sounded like the lieutenant's voice. I fell to the ground just on the other side of the small knoll and started firing at flashes directly ahead. Immediately, more flashes opened up from our left.

• 1:45:23Jocko Willink?

  I carried a 50-round belt and the gun at all times. The ammo was gone quickly. I turned and screamed for more. No one was here. Doyle, I need ammo. Enemy fire increased on our flank. I tore a hundred-round belt from around my shoulders and loaded the gun. An enemy machine gun opened up on the left flank and a bit below us. Our high ground was saving us. I started firing at the enemy gun, hitting low first, then walking my tracers up to the target. The green tracers of the enemy arced high into the dark sky, then ceased. You got him, someone shouted. Bullets thudded and flattened all around me. I crawled back over the knoll for cover and then a sudden uncontrollable, unaccountable silence cloaked the battlefield. I wasn't sure which was worse. At least when they were shooting, I knew where they were.

• 1:46:06Jocko Willink?

  We backed up 20 meters, moving like blind men to our new position. There, we sat in a perimeter and waited nervously for the safety of sunlight. I passed word around the perimeter for Doyle. He finally showed up, mumbling something about falling into a hole. I decided to wait until morning to talk about his disappearance. Part of me wanted to punch his lights out, but I knew I should give him a chance to explain. I wanted him to know that men had been shot for less in Vietnam. Morning finally arrived. I woke him up with a solid thump to his helmet. You better have a good reason, you fat little... I fell into a crater, one of those B-52 craters. It knocked my glasses off. By the time I found up, we stopped firing. I pondered his excuse, trying to see a lie in his face. Honest, he said, holding up his right hand as if he was swearing in.

• 1:46:51Jocko Willink?

  I want to believe you, Doyle. I almost got killed last night because I didn't have an A-gunner. Life and death are about a hair apart in this armpit of the world. You have to be dependable. I am, I swear. I fell in a hole. I paused, staring at his dirty chubby face. Okay, I'll drop it. I wanted to believe Doyle. I liked him. He was a little scared of being a gunner, but he was quick to laugh and as jolly as a man could be over here.

• 1:47:18Jocko Willink?

  New guy.

• 1:47:23Jocko Willink?

  Chan, Chan's back. I'm taking over as your A gunner. I'm taking over as A gunner Doyle Chan said. The lieutenant informed me that you're now assigned to the chief squad just temporarily until some replacements arrive, then you're back with us. I couldn't tell if Doyle was glad or sad. So Chan comes back as your A gunner again.

• 1:47:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, he, he got sent away to, uh.

• 1:47:42Jocko Willink?

  Oh, that's right. Language school.

• 1:47:43Speaker 01

  Language school. Yeah. Cause he was smart, you know? He was, he could pick up languages pretty quick because he had a big brain, but he, uh, he, they sent him to China Beach for the language school and, uh, China Beach, you know, I mean, that's like R and R for us. It's, I mean, they'd still get rockets and stuff, but you know, it was R and R for us. And, uh, so of course we rassed him to death. You know, I mean, he's been in a, he came back all healthy. He'd gained some weight, you know? And it was, yeah, but, uh, and he, and he could speak a little bit of Vietnamese now and, and it did, it paid off. You know, a little while later, you know, we, we got a couple of prisoners and Chan was able to actually talk to him a little bit.

• 1:48:26Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:27Speaker 01

  They thought he was one of them. They thought, yeah.

• 1:48:31Speaker 01

  And they, if you called Chan Vietnamese, Arvin's made that mistake a couple of times. If, if one of the Vietnamese called Chan, you're same, same me.

• 1:48:44Speaker 01

  We had to pull him off him. I mean, he, he would kill him. It was like the ultimate insult and, uh, you know, I said, okay, okay.

• 1:48:59Jocko Willink?

  Fast forward a little bit. 20 minutes later, our packs were on our backs, heavy with new food. We got more ammo than we wanted to carry. I felt 10 pounds heavier as we began to walk. It started raining. An odd glow covered the mountains to our front. A yellowish tint like that given by the cheap sunglasses.

• 1:49:16Jocko Willink?

  Then the yellowish tint disappeared as an enormous black and gray clouds rolled sheets of rain across the mountain peaks. The rain lashed against our tiny column so powerfully that for an instant we stopped shielding our faces. The rain changed from lukewarm to ice cold. By nightfall, the pounding storm had beaten against my helmet until all I could feel was concussion sized headache. We crossed a swift chest deep river carrying our weapons above our heads. Once on the other side, word filtered back to set up a perimeter. Chan and I sat down shivering in the mud.

• 1:49:53Jocko Willink?

  That's always, again, you don't really think of that freezing cold. We, I think people in the military can find the discomfort. Like you're in a jungle and you're freezing.

• 1:50:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:50:07Speaker 01

  Well, you're all, you're wet. You're wet all the time, you know?

• 1:50:11Jocko Willink?

  Wet, cold and miserable.

• 1:50:14Jocko Willink?

  Fast forward a little bit. We caught up to the column as it moved back toward the river. A violent thunderclap followed closely behind each brilliant streak of lightning. We started back across the jungle river. This time the water reached my chin. Fast forward a little bit more. I stopped and looked back at you guys on this patrol. I stopped back and looked at Chan's face. You know we're the last ones in the column. What's the matter with you? Chan gave me a little shove. Keep moving. I was beginning to think his normally witty mind was waterlogged. Five yards later, he tapped me again on the shoulder. Chan, I don't pass the word up. We picked up an extra squad. His voice was calm, too calm. I peeked over my shoulder. What'd you say? We picked up

• 1:50:55Jocko Willink?

  an extra squad. I looked back and sure enough, you guys had a NVA.

• 1:51:02Speaker 01

  It was, I mean, this is a one in a million bad thing that could happen, but it really happened. We crossed this river a couple of times because I don't know why, you know, I never knew what was going on.

• 1:51:14Jocko Willink?

  We'll blame the lieutenant.

• 1:51:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, the lieutenant. Well, he knew where we were going, but I never did. So, so we went back and forth across this river and, and, but, but one time we dug in. And I mean, while we were digging, the monsoon was so heavy, our, uh, our holes were, I mean, we were filling with water. You could drown if you fell asleep. I mean, it was, you know, it'd fill up. Monsoon rains are, you know what they're like. I mean, God. Uh, so we got the word, there's, there's an NVA battalion coming this way. Well, we were one platoon. I mean, we were just, so somebody said, pack, pack up, we're going back across the river. And, you know, we're trying to find all our crap in, in the water and the mud. And I got

• 1:51:56Speaker 01

  the machine gun, you know, and all that ammo. And it's a mess. We get our packs. By the time we got up and moving, we were, we were tailing Charlie. So we crossed the river and we, and we came up. What we didn't know is this trail on the other side of the river, evidently their column had gotten split up in this monsoon rain too. And, and so we came up in the middle of their column. And, and no, nobody knew. I mean, we didn't know. I didn't, they didn't, the guys up front didn't see anybody. I didn't see anybody. And then Chan finally says, yeah, there's PITH helmets back there, man. They're not ours. Cause it would lightning every once in a while. And he, he caught flashes of

• 1:52:37Speaker 01

  lightning and saw, those are American helmets. And, uh, yeah. So we literally were walking in the middle of a battalion of, uh, NVA.

• 1:52:47Jocko Willink?

  Fast forward a little bit. Prepare to, prepare to fall off the side of the trail. Hit them as they pass. So you guys are going to set up a ba- basically an ambush on these guys. Just drop off the pail.

• 1:52:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:52:55Jocko Willink?

  Uh, drop off the trail. Let them walk by an ambush. My heart sank into my stomach. I passed the word to Chan. I tried to take the gun off my shoulder without being conspicuous. I only had a 50 round belt linked up. Stryker fell off to the left of the trail. Then Jackson, I dropped to the side of the trail. Chan followed. Chan pulled the pin on a grenade and held the spoon with his hand. I pointed the gun back down the trail and started praying all this mud and rain wouldn't jam it. Then the incredible happened. 15 meters back, the NVA fell off the side of the trail too. I didn't understand it. A shot of lightning hit a tree nearby. Chan jumped, nearly dropping the grenade. We looked at each other in disbelief. Jackson passed the word up. They dropped off too. A few moments later, the word came to move back out.

• 1:53:36Jocko Willink?

  Panic grit my stomach. I think I started to urinate. Either that or the rain was getting warmer. I felt ashamed and tightened my stomach to stop myself. We stood up bowing our heads in an effort to look shorter and hide the shape of our helmets from the flashing thunder. I kept the gun on my hip. This time, they're following. Chan's wish percent visions of hot lead ripping through my back. What are we doing? If the lieutenant was back here, he'd come up with a better plan and move on. Suddenly, some grim possibilities came graphically clear. We might be in the middle of an NVA battalion. I felt a tap on the shoulder. They're staying back about 20 meters. Why don't you walk backward and show off that Chinese face?

• 1:54:14Jocko Willink?

  He didn't laugh. The column veered right off the trail. We started moving faster. The train got steeper with each step. We were going up a hill covered with thick brush and thorn bushes. Jackson's voice came from the darkness head. Run for it. Run Chan.

• 1:54:28Jocko Willink?

  The thorns tore my through my trousers ripping my soggy skin. Rain smashed against leaves and brush sounding like grease in a frying pan. I stumbled and crawled and crawled and clawed up the dripping hill in near panic, sliding back one step for every two forward. Near the top, Jackson struck out stuck out his big friendly hand and pulled me up to him. Chan was right on my heels, still clutch clutching his grenade. Swift eagle appeared beside Jackson. Hurry up, set up the gun. I fell to the ground and took aim back down the hill. The chief pulled the pin on the grenade and screamed now. On that command, everyone threw grenades down the hill. I opened up with a gun firing into the darkness, probably hitting nothing more than rain. 15 sharp explosions rattled the bottom of the hill, then silence. Only the rain could be heard. The night ended

• 1:55:13Jocko Willink?

  in a previous perimeter in a nervous perimeter around the top of our newfound friend, an unknown hill and in a land of unknown hills. The hot sun was more than welcome. The morning body search brought negative results, except for Jackson, who found a nest of snakes. For no sane reason, the day started by crossing the same river for a third time. We did it just in time, too. Some of us had almost dried out from the night before.

• 1:55:42Jocko Willink?

  After three hours humping, we finally reached the first of the densely forested mountains that I had gazed at and curiously dreaded since my first day on the bridge. The temperature dropped 10 degrees when we entered the cover of the massive sheltering trees. We climbed up conspicuously well-used trail for 2,000 meters when the column stopped.

• 1:56:04Jocko Willink?

  You guys were marching all day, basically.

• 1:56:06Speaker 01

  All the time. Yeah, we'd, we'd, we'd hump all day, set up ambushes all night. You know, that's, that's all we do. And then sometimes in the middle of the night, you know, the word would come in like it did that night. There was an NBA battalion coming towards you. So word would come in and then we'd get up and hump at night. So it, it was nonstop. It was nonstop. And, uh, there's no way you couldn't lose a lot of weight, you know? And you get dysentery, you know? You know, we'd go, I mean, more than once, we'd, we'd find a mountain stream or a stream somewhere to get some water, fill up your canteens, you know? And you're throwing down the halazone and the salt tabs and going upstream and there's, there'd be five or six dead bodies laying in the stream.

• 1:56:50Speaker 01

  And you know, you're going to catch every, and when I, the first time I got wounded, I, I had lost so much weight and they did all these tests. And I, I've just found those old medical records the other day. They, uh, I had every worm you could come up. I mean, I had hook worms and this worm and that worm. I mean, just full of worms. It, yeah, I was a mess.

• 1:57:15Jocko Willink?

  So you keep patrolling.

• 1:57:18Jocko Willink?

  At a point where the trail leveled off, we entered a tiny village of four grass huts. Inside the first, Sam found three half-empty bottles of Vietnamese beer and three bowls of rice. The second hut held two tons of rice, thousands of rounds of AK-47 ammunition and enough C4, plastic explosive, to blow up a major portion of Da Nang. The third was empty, but the fourth was a big surprise of the day.

• 1:57:43Jocko Willink?

  The fourth was a, the fourth hut was a shelter over a dirt stairway that led down the, into the side of the mountain. Candles were burning, providing the only light in the damp underground room, which looked about 30 feet long and 15 feet wide. It was furnished with 10 bloodstained, six-foot-long wooden tables. Chan found a small wooden box filled with medical instruments, morphine, and bandages.

• 1:58:09Jocko Willink?

  Okay, let's get out. Lieutenant Campbell said we're gonna blow it. We continued to search the area while demolitions were set. By fifteen hundred hours, we had crossed the same river for a fourth time and reached an area of rolling, rock-strewn hills with no trees in sight. The temperature zoomed to well over one hundred and ten degrees with not a single cloud to slow its merciless rays. A faraway whistle stuck in my ear. I felt groggy from the heat. At first, I thought I was hearing things, but it quickly grew louder, too loud to be my imagination. It became a shrill, like a dog whistle. Whatever it was, it was coming in fast, bewilderingly fast. The column stopped. We looked up, all eyes gazing in dread, all mouths gawking in disbelief. I pulled my shoulders up, trying to cover my head as my knees started to bend instinctively with the approaching whistle.

• 1:58:52Jocko Willink?

  Then I actually saw them, three small, black objects, blurring by twenty feet overhead, forcing air out of their way like tiny jets. The sight froze us in place. Then, like a rocket burning out, the sound stopped and a ripping explosion followed. Hit the dirt. Shrapnel wished by. I clutched the shuddering earth. Rocks landed all around. More whistles. I could hear someone cursing. Sudsy. We haven't talked about Sudsy yet. Sudsy is your radio man.

• 1:59:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, his real name was Bob Carroll.

• 1:59:22Jocko Willink?

  Okay. Where'd he get Sudsy from? Do we know?

• 1:59:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, I use friends' names.

• 1:59:28Jocko Willink?

  Got it.

• 1:59:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, this was a martial arts friend.

• 1:59:32Jocko Willink?

  Then the lieutenant. Someone tugged on my foot. I pulled the face. I pulled my face out of the dirt and looked back. Chan's face was spotted with bits of loam that were sticking to his sweat. Did you see that? Yeah, I answered. I didn't know you could see artillery rounds. I didn't either, but it's illogical. Presuming your position in proximity, the people who he's always given on these reports. The people who see him don't get to tell anybody, I interrupted. Precisely. You stupid son of a, you're shelling Alpha Company. Lieutenant Campbell's curse could have been heard and through by without the aid of Sudsy's radio, it was over. Someone cursed the Marine Corps, someone else cursed Vietnam. Shots echoed through the steaming heat. I saw flashes on the crest of a barren hill 100 meters

• 2:00:15Jocko Willink?

  to the left. Guns up, guns up, guns up. I grabbed the gun and ran zigzagging toward the voice as little clouds of dust spit out of the ground around me. Then I heard the gun. That's an M60. I dove to the ground, flipped the bipod legs down and took aim at a wavering stream of orange tracers floating my way. Chan slammed to the earth beside me, knocking a solid grunt of air out of him. I opened up. Chan linked up a belt of ammo like a pro, holding it out of the dirt with his left hand and firing his M16 with his right. The enemy tracer stopped. I kept firing in 20 round bursts. "We got him ducking," Chan shouted as he linked up another belt. "Get him Johnny," someone screamed nearby, then

• 2:00:57Jocko Willink?

  yelped like a cowboy. "Blow him off that hill. Cease fire, cease fire, cease fire. It's B Company. They're Marines," Sudsy screamed.

• 2:01:07Jocko Willink?

  I released my sweaty grip on the gun and my insides churned in panic. Did I just kill any Marines? I shouted as I jumped to my feet and ran at Sudsy. He kept talking on the radio. "Are they hit?" I grabbed him by the shoulder. "What's going on Sudsy?" "They thought we were gooks." He turned from me and spoke into the field phone again. "No, that's negative. No one was hit. Alpha Company." He looked back at me, pulling the phone away from its mouth, from his mouth. "They thought we were gooks. They called in Arty and opened up." "That's brilliant, just brilliant." "Saddle up," Lieutenant Campbell shouted, his grimacing face red with anger.

• 2:01:48Jocko Willink?

  Blue on blue.

• 2:01:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, you know, friendly fire, you know, but I, nobody died. Nobody died. I might have wounded somebody in B Company, but, but nobody died.

• 2:02:06Jocko Willink?

  I had a friendly fire incident in Ramadi and we, I had a group, an element of my SEALs were in a overwatch position, actually with some, with some Iraqi soldiers as well and...

• 2:02:23Jocko Willink?

  Basically, there was some confusion on the battlefield and one of my my SEALs engaged Iraqi soldiers, killed one of them, friendly Iraqi soldiers, killed one of them, wounded a couple more. It took a while to get it figured out. Um, you know, obviously huge investigation and all that to figure out what happened. But the um, there was a SEAL officer who had been a Marine in Vietnam. And he was in the tail of Way City. And he he talked to me and you know,

• 2:03:00Jocko Willink?

  uh, friendly fire like that in the SEAL teams, especially in the eighties and nineties when there's no war going on is like unheard of, right? Like that could never happen. And here where here I was out on the battlefield with a company of US Army soldiers, actually a company plus of US Army soldiers, a company plus of Iraqi soldiers, enemy fighters, by the way, because there was all a bunch of insurgents running around. I had four elements out there, myself included, all of us engaging enemy. And

• 2:03:34Jocko Willink?

  there's a, this is this kind of thing that can happen. But what was the the this individual who was a who is a SEAL officer, who is a Marine in Vietnam, an enlisted Marine in Vietnam. And he and he said, hey, I was at the tail in the Way City and there was all kinds of friendly fire incidents. And he wasn't telling me that, oh, it's okay. He was just giving me some understanding that when you are in

• 2:04:04Jocko Willink?

  when you are in very intense combat, these kinds of things can happen and we need to be very careful to avoid them as much as possible. Obviously, but I guess it was more of just he was giving me some understanding, you know, as a as a inexperienced guy. I mean, I'd look, I'd been on deployment to Iraq before, done a bunch of direct action missions, which, you know, you go out, it takes an hour, like you leave base, you you go out, you hit a target, you grab a bad guy, you come to back to base and you eat dinner, right? It's it's you would laugh at those operations. You would laugh at it. Matter of fact, I was just having a one of these conversations. So I was telling one of my SEAL buddies that you were coming on the podcast. And we were joking about, you know, doing missions that take 40 minutes.

• 2:04:48Jocko Willink?

  You know what I mean? They take 40 minutes and we'd, we'd make sure we'd get back for mid rats, right? Like, hey, we better leave at this time to go hit this target. So that way we can come back and get dinner. Like, that's how, that's how easy our operations were. But I did a deployment like that. Fast forward to 2006, the Battle of Ramadi, there was intense sustained urban combat. And there was a lot of fighting, a lot of close fighting, a lot of insurgents, insurgents embedded with civilian populace, Iraqi units, army units, Marine Corps units. It was

• 2:05:19Speaker 01

  That's pretty complicated.

• 2:05:20Jocko Willink?

  A lot more was much more complex. And, and that's why when I took over training, when I got back from that deployment, I amped up the training where I caused that kind of confusion all the time with our SEALs that we were training. And we got, I'm not, uh, we got 100% of the guys that I put through training, 100% of those units had, had friendly fire incidents in training. And that's what I wanted them to do. I mean, I didn't want them to do it, but I put them in situations where if they weren't really paying attention, they would have those friendly fire incidents in training with paintball or with, we had a laser tag system, one of those,

• 2:06:03Jocko Willink?

  and they would learn so much from that. And they would realize how, if they're not totally paying attention, these things happened. And there's also a SEAL platoon in Vietnam that had a bad friendly fire incident, X-ray platoon. And, you know, I had heard that story, but I didn't really hear the story and really understand it until later, much until I got back from Ramadi. And I started saying, hey, we need to pay attention to this stuff. So reading this is a nightmare. Um, I can't imagine getting friendly fire artillery dropped on your position.

• 2:06:42Speaker 01

  I never knew you could actually, you know, I was 18. I didn't know you could see an artillery round. I I really I actually saw these things coming through the air and uh yeah, I didn't know that was possible. I thought I was thinking it was like a bullet, you know, I I wasn't an arty.

• 2:07:00Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:07:00Speaker 01

  But uh, yeah, I I know, and it, I mean artillery, it's a whole lot bigger than, you know, mortar rounds and, you know, it's, that's serious explosions, you know, and these were, I don't know what they were, but one of the guys thought they were one five five rounds and, you know, that that's a, that's a big hole.

• 2:07:19Jocko Willink?

  One five fives are huge.

• 2:07:20Speaker 01

  They're giant. Yeah, they're gigantic.

• 2:07:22Jocko Willink?

  And the shrapnel that comes off of those things is.

• 2:07:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:07:27Speaker 01

  I mean, a one oh five store, it's gonna kill you pretty quick, but one oh fives in uh in NOM, a lot of times, they were kinda, you know, a lot of the guys thought they were kinda useless.

• 2:07:37Jocko Willink?

  Mm hmm.

• 2:07:37Speaker 01

  Uh, they, they weren't big enough to go through jungle sometimes. I mean, they, they just didn't have enough bang. Uh, everybody wanted one five fives and sometimes, uh, you know, the lieutenant would say, you know, you know, what are they firing? He'd, he'd want one five fives. He would, he'd make sure they weren't firing one, you know, a battery of one oh fives.

• 2:07:58Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting. Uh, I wrote, I wrote a book with my buddy Leif Babin, who's one of the platoon commanders with me in the Battle of Ramadi. And as we were writing the book, we kinda wrote, we kinda divided up six chapters each, right? And it turns out of those six, of the 12 chapters total, three of them are about near, well, one of his friendly firings that I just told you about, but another one I had a, a Bradley that was gonna engage what they thought were enemy snipers on a rooftop of a building. And, you know, they were telling me what building, whatever building number they thought they were looking at. And they said, yeah, this building, whatever, tw- building 20, do you have any friendlies on there? We didn't have any friendlies on building 20.

• 2:08:40Jocko Willink?

  And we had building, we had friendlies on building 28 or something. And they said, well, we want to engage these enemy snipers. And I said, hold on, have the Bradley count how many buildings there is between where they are and the target? And they counted them and they said, uh, stand by. Oh, wait a second. No, it's actually building.

• 2:08:58Speaker 01

  Oh, man.

• 2:08:59Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 2:08:59Speaker 01

  At Bradley, I mean, I've never had him far for me. I, I, I never saw him.

• 2:09:03Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. 25 millimeter chain gun is gonna do some damage.

• 2:09:06Speaker 01

  I've seen him on TV.

• 2:09:08Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. The other one was, the other one that, that Leif wrote about was, he was in a position with his sniper and his sniper sees a guy in a building with a scoped weapon. And there was a lot of enemy sniper activity in Ramadi. And so everybody, the army and the Marine Corps, wanted to kill enemy snipers. And so the sniper, which was Chris Kyle, sees a guy with a scoped weapon in the building and says, hey, I see a guy with a scoped weapon in this building, whatever the building number was. You know, can, should we engage? And so they start having the conversation, Leif, the platoon commander starts having the conversation, hey, want to confirm, do, is there anybody in this building? Is there anybody in this building? And the army's saying, what do you see? They say, we see a guy with scoped weapon. The army's saying, shoot him. It's enemy, shoot him, we're not in there.

• 2:09:53Jocko Willink?

  And Chris just didn't feel comfortable taking the shot and Leif pushed back. And you could hear like the frustration with, from the army and we have great relationship with the army, but they were like, shoot him, like we, you know, and, and Leif just said, hey, we don't, we don't feel comfortable with the shot, we're not taking it. And recommended the army hit that building. And the army said, Roger that, cause again, we were all, um, we all were trying to do the same thing, right? And as the army went to hit that building, they actually left the building that Chris was looking at. So it would have been a horrible, you know, it would have been a horrible, uh, friendly fire death.

• 2:10:34Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. And living with that, uh, yeah, that's, yeah, I, I had, I had a buddy, had to live with that and, uh, yeah, that, that was, that was awful. Just, he never got over it. I, I don't think he ever got over it. Uh, I never even knew about it in NOM. He, he called me up like, gee whiz, I don't know. Forty years after the war, in the middle of the night.

• 2:10:56Jocko Willink?

  Jeez.

• 2:10:57Speaker 01

  And, and told me, and, uh, yeah.

• 2:11:02Jocko Willink?

  Oh, man. Well, luckily, in this case, no one died on either platoon or in either company.

• 2:11:13Jocko Willink?

  Fast forward a little bit. We forced march farther and faster than we ever had before. I felt a sense of urgency on our pace. We finally reached an area of flat terrain and small patches of trees that looked like undernursed pines. There I saw the first signs of civilization I'd seen in seventeen days. Four grass huts huddled together. Guys are spending so much time out in the field.

• 2:11:33Jocko Willink?

  Fast forward a little bit. A hundred meters across the field, I smelled the faint whiff of smoke. I wasn't sure if anyone else smelled it or not. Chan, looking straight ahead, moved slowly fifteen feet to my right. I looked quickly to my left. Jackson had come to a stop. He was looking down. He was looking down into a large hole in the ground. Ten feet in front of us was the first of the long mounds of dirt, six feet tall and about thirty feet long. I didn't like the embankment in front of me. I looked at it, then Jackson, then back at the embankment.

• 2:12:05Jocko Willink?

  Jackson turned away from the hole and jumped backwards. Three shots followed in quick succession. I dropped to one knee. Green plastic flew from the hole, followed by a small cloud of smoke. Three men jumped out of the hole, carrying rifles. I opened fire as they scrambled over the embankment. My rifle worked. One last staggered at the top of the embankment, then fell forward to the other side. We ran forward, taking cover against the embankment. I pulled the grenade off my cartridge belt, pulled the pin and tossed it over the embankment. A moment later, Chan did the same.

• 2:12:33Jocko Willink?

  We leaned against the dirt, bracing for the explosions. I put a new clip of, I put in a new clip of ammo. Suddenly, I realized that they could be doing the same thing. My grenade exploded, then Chan's. I ran around to the end of the mound and fired at the entire clip, full automatic, into the prone bodies of the two NVA and dove back behind the mound. I yanked the empty clip out of, out and jammed another full one into the M16. Adrenaline shot through my system. My hands were shaking. I gasped for air like a panting dog. I pulled another grenade off my flak jacket, straightened the pin and pulled and threw it over the mound. Gunpowder and smoke filled the air. My second grenade exploded. I darted around the end of the mound again, unleashing. 18 round burst firing from the hip and jumped back behind the mound. Marines were screaming something 20 yards to my left. I pulled out the clip and reloaded.

• 2:13:18Jocko Willink?

  My fear had been replaced by the sheer thrill that comes with a life and death situation. The thought of getting shot when I stepped around the mound had not even occurred to me until Swift Eagle slid in beside me, breathing hard and looking mad. Don't fire that way again. Some of your rounds almost hit first platoon. They're flanking the gooks. Are you trying to get yourself killed boot? I don't know what happened chief. I just really got into it. You keep playing John Wayne and you're gonna not make it out of here. Cease fire. We're moving in. Lieutenant Campbell ran over Swift to Swift Eagle and me. Okay chief, let's see what we bagged. Swift Eagle turned and shouted, give us cover. We're going in for a count. We ran around the mound and spread out. I could see one body but not two. I wondered if they got away. How could anyone survive all those grenades? Here's one lieutenant.

• 2:14:02Jocko Willink?

  Swift Eagle shouted and pointed out a body I didn't see. This one's been shot. He's yours John. The Indians' expression didn't change. Business as usual. Looks like a kid. I walked over to the chief and stared down at the dead man. He was face up. His single shot Russian SKS rifle lay beside him. It was a grotesque scene, singularly odd. The skull was split in half like a watermelon. The morbidly yellow face yelped, lay fully intact but separate from the rest of the skull and looking up with a ludicrous expression of almost childish shock. I felt riveted to the ground. I wanted to pull my eyes away but couldn't. I could hear voices drifting in and out around me. The gray brains of the dead man slid lazily onto the ground carried by a tiny river of dark red blood.

• 2:14:46Jocko Willink?

  My mouth tasted like bitter cotton. Sweat streamed out of every pore in my body. Quit admiring your work and see if he's got any papers on him. I didn't recognize the voice but it struck a nerve. I turned around slowly. By the time I faced the voice, tears were trying to force their way out of my eyes. I dropped the M16 and started towards a short stocky corporal with a thick brown mustache. Someone grabbed me in a bear hug. Bear hug. Don't. It was Chan. It's not worth it. Chan released me from the bear hug. I walked back over to the dead face. For a moment, I felt sick, but it passed. I leaned down to search the pockets, holding my breath to keep from getting sick. I found a thin brown wallet wrapped in green plastic. I tossed

• 2:15:27Jocko Willink?

  it to Chan. "Check this out." I took a deep breath and searched his shirt pockets. They were caked, quickly with drying blood. From inside his left shirt pocket, I pulled out a scratched up Timex watch. "He was only fourteen," mumbled Chan, still looking at a paper from the dead man's wallet. "Fourteen?" "Yeah." I didn't have time to see who made their next remark. "Well, at least you know there's someone in this war younger than you are, baby son." The coarse laugh that followed identified Sam the blooper man.

• 2:15:58Speaker 01

  They were down in this whole, uh, smoking dope, and they had this green plastic over them. And I guess they were stoned. They didn't even know, you know, because that day, it was rare, but we actually had a tank up on the road, and the tank couldn't get to where we saw, I thought we saw some, some activity out there. So, but they should have heard this tank, you know, and, uh, they were just, they were smoking dope and, uh, you know, shocked when a bunch of Marines walked up on them.

• 2:16:31Jocko Willink?

  So, fast forward a little bit. Someone put his hand on my shoulder. I managed to pull away from the dead face to see who was talking. His name was Jake Ellenwood, a corporal with Third Platoon. He stood a good four inches taller than me. His face looked round, but he wasn't chubby. Just the slow, soothing tone of his voice calmed me. He sounded honestly regretful, as if he knew exactly how I felt. "You probably shouldn't stare at it any longer, John. As it is, I imagine you're going to remember this scene for the rest of your life." "How'd you know my name?" "You took over Red's gun, didn't you?" "Yes." "I've heard you were going to be as good as he was." "No way. Red was a Marine's Marine. I could never be as hardcore as Red."

• 2:17:14Jocko Willink?

  "Are you married?" "No," I said. "That's good. Kamikazes shouldn't get married. Besides, you don't look old enough." "I'm not. Why kamikaze?" "That's what I call the gung ho gunners. All you're missing is the plane," he laughed, a hearty laugh, the kind that makes you feel good just to hear it.

• 2:17:31Jocko Willink?

  So you're getting a reputation at this juncture.

• 2:17:34Speaker 01

  Uh, young and stupid.

• 2:17:38Jocko Willink?

  Hey, that's also included in the break glass and in, in a case of war, right?

• 2:17:44Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 2:17:46Jocko Willink?

  Uh, fast forward a little bit, you actually get in some vehicles, get back to the road and you get back in some vehicles. And you head to, uh, we need a food bar for a bar. You guys have a little break and you go to a bar.

• 2:18:03Speaker 01

  The animal pit.

• 2:18:04Jocko Willink?

  Is that what it's called?

• 2:18:05Speaker 01

  That's what it was called. Yeah. Yeah.

• 2:18:07Jocko Willink?

  Uh, you roll in, you kind of set the scene Hendrix is playing. There's pinball machines. There's people drinking. Um, kinda guys, I kinda gotta read this. I hate going to bars with this little turd. Chan said to Mike, referring to me, I beg your pardon. I said indignantly, why is that Chan? Mike said with his best, with his Boston accent showing, last time I made that mistake, I got thrown in jail. We got thrown in jail in Tijuana. Mike bellowed out a loud laugh and choked out the words. Are you serious? Yes, I'm serious. Chan said, now wait a minute, you guys, I said, there's a reasonable explanation for these accusations. Yes. And the reasonable explanation is that he struck a giant Mexican bouncer with a chair. Chan said, Mike started laughing harder. Now wait a minute, you're only hearing one side of the story.

• 2:18:52Jocko Willink?

  That's right. After that, he managed to involve the entire bar in his brawl, got us arrested by the Tijuana police. The Navy shore patrol took us from them. Then the Marine Corps MPs took us from them. And we'd still be in the red line brig in Camp Pendleton if we hadn't had orders to Vietnam. So you guys left for Vietnam the next day, right? Or something like that?

• 2:19:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's how I got out of jail. They, uh, this, uh, you know, this, that was my last time in, uh, San Diego. I was in the brig. That was the last.

• 2:19:20Jocko Willink?

  It's been a nicer. Before yesterday, when you got out here.

• 2:19:23Speaker 01

  Yes, it's been a much nicer trip.

• 2:19:24Jocko Willink?

  I hope you're having a better time this time around.

• 2:19:26Speaker 01

  I was, I was almost innocent. They, uh, they tried to charge me, uh, for like 20 drinks or something, you know? And, and, uh, I said, no, no, we only ordered, I think it was four of us. Uh, we only ordered four drinks. And now he's not speaking English and, uh, and so I go four drinks and he's, and now they're going to force me to, you know, to pay for 20 rings. So I had to hit him.

• 2:19:52Speaker 01

  And then everybody, when the Tijuana Police showed up, I was trying to crawl out of there. With Chan, we're trying to get out of there because bottles flying, it was turned into a real, it's like one of those TV.

• 2:20:03Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:20:04Speaker 01

  So it had gotten very violent and I wanted out of there. So I tried to get out the front door and the Tijuana Police showed up and then everybody said it was him and away I went.

• 2:20:17Jocko Willink?

  Busted.

• 2:20:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:20:19Jocko Willink?

  Also at this bar, there's some Korean Marines in there, some Rock Marines. You guys get introduced to them. The sergeant bowed again and steps aside to introduce someone else. This is Master Dong Kwon Park. How am I saying?

• 2:20:32Speaker 01

  Dong Koon Park.

• 2:20:33Jocko Willink?

  Dong Koon Park.

• 2:20:34Speaker 01

  That's my grandmaster's name in Taekwondo. I just used his name.

• 2:20:38Jocko Willink?

  Oh, God.

• 2:20:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:20:39Jocko Willink?

  He's a very famous master. He's here to train the South Vietnamese troops. A short Korean in the center, even stockier than Kim, bowed politely. I found myself bowing back. Taekwondo is a Korean version of karate. "American Marines are very good fighters," Master Park said. Then he stuck out his hand. This time everyone reacted. He shook each hand. His chunky paw felt like a club covered in calluses. Master Park spoke in Korean. I couldn't understand what he said, but it was forceful. Kim bowed again. Master Park says the Koreans are honored to fight beside American Marines. He bowed again, then all four Koreans bowed. Now meanwhile, while this is happening, get the books, you can get the full story, but Sam had left the bar and he had now kind of snuck back

• 2:21:20Jocko Willink?

  in and you, he has a smile on his face that you recognize he's probably up to no good. Then this big army guy comes in. "Who stole my M79 ammo?" A giant in army fatigues blocked the doorway. I leaned away from the bar to get a better view. I thought he was standing on top of something. He wasn't. "I know it was one of you thieving Marines. Who was it? Who has my ammo bag?" Now I knew that Sam, now I knew what Sam was up to. The giant looked impatient. The soldiers in the bar stood up their chairs squeaking against wood floors as they pushed them aside. "This is the last time I go to a bar with you," Chan said in a muffled tone. "I knew this would happen." "Me? I don't have anything to do with this," I said. The giant walked over to us like he just got off a horse. I quickly debated in my mind the pros and cons of turning Sam

• 2:22:01Jocko Willink?

  in. Couldn't do it, not to the army. "He's even larger than the Mexican," Chan whispered. "We'll need a bigger chair."

• 2:22:10Jocko Willink?

  Uh, so that all happens. Actually, the, the Korean guy throws some kicks and drops the big guy. So.

• 2:22:18Speaker 01

  The, uh, you know, the, we didn't, we didn't have the, uh, the M79 that the army had. They had all the really cool rounds. You know, they had the, uh, shotgun rounds.

• 2:22:28Jocko Willink?

  Shot round, shotgun rounds.

• 2:22:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, they had, they, they even could shoot flares and, you know, they had everything. Marine, you know, Marines didn't have anything. Uh, all we got were army.

• 2:22:37Jocko Willink?

  Just HE?

• 2:22:38Speaker 01

  Hammy downs. That's all we got, you know, it's, we, we just got the hammy downs from the army. So that's the only way we could get stuff is to steal it from the army and, and the guys were doing it all the time.

• 2:22:49Jocko Willink?

  Check. Uh, as all this is about, you know, wrapping up, saddle up. We got chopper, choppers waiting on us right now. What? And you guys are off. Um, there's some green brays having some kinds of issues. You guys get called into a hot LZ. Put out there, you're on patrol. Five hours and two mountains later, Sudsy got word over the PRC 25 that the green brays were safe and no casualties. So you guys went out. Just, uh, fast forward a little bit. The fifth Marines had moved to Anhoa Valley on April 1st, 1968. We'd been there for two weeks now. It was like getting used to a new neighborhood. After being around the DMZ, I thought we would catch some slack, but every day was the same.

• 2:23:30Jocko Willink?

  Humping all day in 100 or more degrees heat and setting up ambushes at night. The valley was a maze of booby traps. My paranoia of going home without legs grew more intense each day. Dying seemed almost easier. Rarely did 48 hours go by without someone tripping your grenade. Even worse were the booby trapped artillery rounds. Every artillery barrage has some rounds that don't detonate. The Viet Cong would find them and make them into booby traps. We changed the point man regularly so no one would have to play human minesweeper too often. The best point man was Jackson. A keener sense of direction did not exist. So you guys were, this, this reminded me of, you know, the Iraq and Afghanistan war and it really got bad in Afghanistan.

• 2:24:15Jocko Willink?

  Which I didn't fight in, but the guys that were over in Afghanistan, like they would get in a contact and couldn't like dive for cover because there were so many IEDs.

• 2:24:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:24:26Jocko Willink?

  Uh, just a total nightmare. And it sounds like, you know, for us, well, this is in Iraq in 2006. Certainly IED was the biggest threat, you know, roadside bomb was the biggest threat, especially towards vehicles. They really like to hit vehicles. So every time you're in a vehicle, it's basically, you know, is today the day?

• 2:24:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, I can, I mean, I can imagine, but there's nothing scarier than, you know, than booby traps. I mean, uh, that the tripwire is out in the jungle. There's no way to see it, but, uh, the NVA and the Vietcong had a, they had a way of marking so they'd know where their mines were and, and, uh, Swift Eagle tried to teach it to me. He, he caught on to it right away. I don't know how he caught on to it, but, uh, they, they would have, you'd be, you'd be humping along a trail or something and, uh, and if you saw three objects that were the same shape and different sizes, like, like a big round rock, a little middle sized round rock and

• 2:25:27Speaker 01

  a little round rock, it, it, or, or branches, uh, he'd know that, that was there. He'd know there was a booby trap and he, he, he taught it to me, you know, and I, but I still, you know, half the time you're so tired, you're not looking, you know, it's hard to see that kind of stuff, but, uh, Swift Eagle could spot it. He could spot a lot of that. Jackson too, cause he, he got, he walked point a lot.

• 2:25:51Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. You mentioned that Jackson was good.

• 2:25:52Speaker 01

  He was.

• 2:25:53Jocko Willink?

  Um, speaking of Jackson, fast forward a little bit. Saddle up, take point, Jackson. Lieutenant's command was echoed around the perimeter by Corporal Swift Eagle.

• 2:26:04Jocko Willink?

  Uh, my back hurt. My feet were rotting away. I had dysentery. In other words, it was a normal morning with the US Marines in the armpit of the world, Vietnam. We headed in the direction of base camp in, in Hua. A thousand meters later, the sharp explosion of a grenade at the head of the column brought us to a halt. I knew it was Jackson, but I hoped it wasn't. I always liked him. He smiled so much. He'd been accused of being my black twin. We named him, we'd, he, we'd been nicknamed the white teeth brothers.

• 2:26:32Jocko Willink?

  We waited ten minutes past, still no sounds. Hold your fire, we're coming in with wounded. Friendly helmets poke through the tangled brush. Two men carrying one wounded marine by his feet and arms struggled through knee-deep mud. It started raining more heavily. I couldn't see Jackson yet. Then more helmets came through the brush. Three men carried another wounded marine. His face streaked blood and what? Red and white with blood and rain. Then Swift Eagle burst through the brush with Jackson over his shoulder. Corman! Doc rushed over to the chief and helped him lay Jackson down gently. How are the others, Doc? Cooter looked bad. Swift Eagle's expression never changed, but his tone was serious. Cooter's dead. The corman answered without looking away from bandaging Jackson. I shouted at the chief. How's Jackson?

• 2:27:16Jocko Willink?

  Sudsy tossed a green smoke grenade at the center of the perimeter and started spitting coordinates into his radio faster than any mouth in the corps. Hey Doc, I shouted. How's Jackson? He's okay. Jackson was the seventh casualty in ten days and we hadn't fired a shot. It was hard to smile. Out of the other six casualties, two were probably crippled for life and Cooter was dead. My skin felt like cellophane holding in anger. I wanted revenge. I was beginning to hate. I forced any thoughts of God out of my mind. I didn't want my hatred softened. The rest of the day drifted into obscurity like the day before and the day after. Each hour went by one step at a time.

• 2:27:58Jocko Willink?

  Watching for tripwires with every moment, trying to put your foot exactly where the man in front of you put his. It felt like the kid's game of avoiding the cracks in the sidewalk, the only difference being the penalty. Hitting the crack in this game might cost you a portion of your body. Someone in Alpha took the fatal step every day or so. Sudsy picked up medevac calls over his radio and kept us posted on the bad news. The news never came easy. We all had friends in other platoons. I felt helpless, agonizingly helpless. The feeling was becoming too common. Morale bottomed out. We had started as individuals. We looked at things in a different ways. Some feelings weren't different. They were contagious.

• 2:28:42Jocko Willink?

  Feeling the wet, sticky debris of what was a friend a second earlier hit you in the face after he steps on a hundred and fifty-five round sends hatred through a man like very few things can. That hatred builds when there's no fighting back.

• 2:28:57Jocko Willink?

  After weeks of this, we no longer looked at anything differently. We became a unit, an angry unit with no exceptions. We had one intention, find the little slimes and take names. I hadn't heard that phrase so much since boot camp. It meant find the enemy, in this case, the 308th NVA regiment, and kill so many of them that they would no longer be considered a combat unit. Craving for revenge infected us like a virus and built steadily with each new casualty. I wanted to kill as many as possible. I looked forward to it with lust. I felt older each day. Eighteen, going on forty.

• 2:29:44Jocko Willink?

  When I was in high school, the movie Platoon came out. And one of my, uh, one of my teachers was in Vietnam. And one of the things that he told me was, he said that they didn't show in the movie to the extent that it needed to be shown, was day after day after day after day, having guys get wounded and killed and wounded and killed, and seeing the local populace walk down the same trails and not get blown up. And yet, you walk down those trails and your buddy gets blown up, your buddy gets killed. And I thought that that little section right there in your writing, you start to feel what that feels like.

• 2:30:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's, it's war. And, uh, fighting a war with weird rules of engagement. Yeah, it's, it's, it's rough.

• 2:30:42Jocko Willink?

  Meanwhile, fast forward a little bit, saddle up. The eternal order sifted through the column. The march to Anhoa felt like an angry funeral procession. The only thing missing was a casket.

• 2:30:58Jocko Willink?

  I tried not to even think about the lost friends, but it was no use. Even my eyes felt violent. The faces near me looked about as unfriendly as I felt. It should have been a routine resupply march. It wasn't, except for the constant marching. Nothing felt routine. The timing was all wrong for 24-hour trip into civilization, where typewriter pushers, rare echelon pogs, and base camp artillerymen were having an interesting trip to the Far East. They drank cold beer, ate hot meals, slept out of the rain, smoked dope, played with village harlots, and wrote the folks back home more war stories than Ernie Pyle. I was jealous and bitter, and I knew it.

• 2:31:42Jocko Willink?

  As we entered the village of An Hoa, we looked as if a giant rock ape had dragged the platoon through the swamp by its heels. Vietnam had its own unique way of ripping, rotting, and eating away your clothes, your body, your sanity. There was the, there was constant rain, mud, blistering heat, and hungry insect life. There was the stink of the Vietnamese jungle, and the sickening sweet smell of rotting dead. A touch of malaria was burning my body. The bottom of my left foot looked like raw hamburger from a rotting fungus infection. And of course, there was the fatigue. Marching all day and fear of death at night induced utter weariness always.

• 2:32:24Jocko Willink?

  Some of the men were half naked. I was one of them. I had torn the seat crotch, the seat and crotch, out of my trousers because of dysentery. No stopping for head calls. I drained as we marched. More than clothes got tattered. I was walking on my morale. The men's faces looked drawn with fatigue. Each had the same menacing stare like drunks about to get nasty. Some had full beards, others just looked hard. We hadn't used soap and water for a couple months. Toothbrushes cleaned and oiled your weapon. Your weapon was your life. As the old gunny so aptly put it, "Our breath could knock a buzzard off a crap wagon from twenty yards."

• 2:33:08Jocko Willink?

  Our appearance and odor were nothing new, but the tight murderous faces had just been unwrapped. It went beyond the gung ho marine look. Revenge became personal. Each brow pinched as though straining under a heavy invisible burden. Anger clearly stamped into each face. Not one man smiling.

• 2:33:29Jocko Willink?

  It was visible to the children of Anhoah.

• 2:33:33Jocko Willink?

  I'd never once seen them miss a chance to beg sea rations off of returning Marines, not this time. They ran at us as usual, yelling, "You okay, G.I.?" Others just yelling like any other kids in the schoolyard. They stopped cold on the edge of the dirt road as if sensing danger, staring silently at our faces filing by. One of the Arvins pointed at us and cackled with laughter, like we were clowns in a parade. His uniform was tailored and starched. That lit an already short fuse, I hit the laughter with the butt of my M60. For a second, I felt good. I watched as the rest of the Arvin got clobbered by the men around me.

• 2:34:13Jocko Willink?

  By the time the lieutenant reached the scene, seven Arvins lay in various positions of semi-unconsciousness. I was sorry for what I'd started. The lieutenant stomped out his cigarette. He looked mad. He turned away from the battered Arvins and scanned across the silent faces of the Marines. "Swift eagle, are any of them dead?" "No, sir." "What happened, Corporal?" "They wondered what it was like to defend their own country, sir." "Are you saying, Corporal, that they requested a demonstration of Marine Corps hand-to-hand combat techniques in order to better defend themselves and their country?" "Yes, sir." "Very well. Move out."

• 2:34:57Jocko Willink?

  Twenty minutes later, the company stood at attention in front of the top sergeant for full inspection. Beside the top stood the frail office pogue supporting another new set of starched camouflage utilities. A fine pair they made, camouflage from head to toe, and with the Marine Corps shine glistening off their new jungle boots. Corporal Boxer Shorts now had eyes as black as his boots. I bit my lip to keep from laughing. The top sergeant breathed in heavily and stuck out his lower lip. No man will enter the chow line without a Marine Corps cover on his Marine Corps head. There will be another inspection before chow. Any man with unshined boots and improper Marine dress will not enter the chow line.

• 2:35:42Jocko Willink?

  The top rambled on with this insanity. Men began shuffling their feet, others started spitting and kicking in the dirt like angry children being scolded. It felt like any positive gains we may have acquired by getting a day's rest had just been negated. Chan looked at me with a blank stare. Gasly timing, he's obviously uninformed. Chan sounded almost sad. He turned his stare back to the top sergeant who was beginning to shout through his list of commands. Every man will have a haircut and shave. By the end of the inspection, the mood was complete. Completely hostile. We got one good piece of news, we'd be staying in Anhoa overnight.

• 2:36:21Jocko Willink?

  At midnight, I was awakened by the explosion of two grenades. Did that sound close, Swift Eagle asked the question for me? No one answered. Outgoing artillery serenaded us the rest of the night. The next morning, in formation, the lieutenant informed us that the top sergeant had been fragged. He wasn't dead, but he'd lost both legs. I knew there would be an investigation, but even Sherlock Holmes couldn't find fingerprints on a grenade.

• 2:36:48Jocko Willink?

  It sure wasn't the first time a Marine got murdered by another Marine, but in this case, it left a bad taste in my mouth. It would have been better if he had died. The whole incident had the smell of pettiness. Talking was at a minimum on the way out of Anhoa. If anyone knew who fragged the top, they were keeping it to themselves. Whoever it was had to be worried. Justice would be swift and cruel in Vietnam. If they, if, if the identity of the person or persons was discovered, their next firefight would probably be their last. The top sergeant wasn't exactly popular, but he was still a Marine. He had been through World War II in Korea.

• 2:37:29Jocko Willink?

  So we mentioned fragging a little earlier, and there's an incident that certainly appears to be.

• 2:37:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was. That one, that one really bugged me. It, I really, it really bugged me. I, I never saw that kind of stuff very often. I never, that's probably the only time I actually saw it, or knew much about it. And, uh, yeah, yeah, I, I mean, I, that, that person would have been, somebody would have shot him if they knew who it was. Somebody would have shot him.

• 2:38:04Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and there's a, such a disconnect between these guys in the rear with the living in comfort while you guys are out in the bush.

• 2:38:14Speaker 01

  Well, it, it certainly, it made things worse. You know, you'd come in and especially, it sounds silly, but you know, you've been in combat, something as silly as a uniform. Okay, these, now the Marines, you, you've got to be spit shined all the time. And Marines are used to that. I, I, I mean, I didn't have any problem with that. That's Marine Corps. But, uh, but seeing the pokes with camouflage, we didn't have any camouflage. You know, the camouflage was new. See, we just had.

• 2:38:46Jocko Willink?

  Just greens.

• 2:38:47Speaker 01

  Just green. Yeah, just, just greens. And all the guys, they really wanted that camouflage. And we'd see the Army, and of course, the Army had all camouflage. Everybody had camouflage but us. And so when you'd see some typewriter pusher wearing camouflage, it did not go over well. The guys got a little heated about that kind of stuff. So it, it sounds silly now, and, uh, but, and Nam, and, and another thing.

• 2:39:13Speaker 01

  Grunts in Nam, this is in Vietnam, and I don't know what it's like now, but in Vietnam, the grunts were doing most of the fighting and dying. And so you took, you had to take pride in something, you know, you had to take pride in being a grunt. And we did, we took real pride in being a grunt. It's almost like you took pride in looking filthy and, you know, walking around with your pants cut off. You had to, you had to find some pride in something. Because if you thought too much about these guys that are wearing starched camouflage utilities, you know, back in the rear, yeah, we had to look down on them. They were Marines, but we looked down on them and we enjoyed it.

• 2:39:58Jocko Willink?

  It's also such a good reminder that the war is so much, all wars are so much different, depending on just where you are. You know, my first deployment to Iraq, we were in Baghdad, and Baghdad was pretty nice. And we had our own little base. And you could go to the big chow hall, and they would have, I mean, like a pasta bar and like a burger bar. And we didn't have that on our little base. But then you go out a little further, like we went to some, some outpost, like there'd be some, some SF, some special forces group just out in the middle of nowhere. And they're living on just one MRE a day, just a totally

• 2:40:39Jocko Willink?

  different living environment. And then you could go to the green zone in Baghdad, where they have like, restaurants, where you could go and take a girl out on a date type thing.

• 2:40:52Speaker 01

  Good grief.

• 2:40:53Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. So it really, this, this was such a good reminder of, of how different it is for different people in different wars. And even, you know, you know, I was telling Echo before, before you showed up here, just that, you know, we, we lived in relative luxury. And usually in special operations, we do a pretty good job of figuring out how to live in relative luxury. You know, we, we, we set that up pretty well. But, you know, you go down and into Wherever, you know, whatever outstation, it's a totally different war.

• 2:41:32Speaker 01

  Well, you know, a lot of people also, when I, I know this day and age, they, they may not know that Harry Truman, you know, he, he really tried to get rid of the Marine Corps. And Red Mike Edson, Edson's Raiders, he actually left the Corps, he resigned just so he could fight Harry Truman in Congress because he couldn't do it as an officer, you know, and, but Harry Truman had, he had bankrupted the Marine Corps. He was cutting off appropriations to him and all those old Marines, I told you, the old China hands that I interviewed and spent time with, the chow halls didn't even have food. He was, he was starving these guys out. They didn't have any, any new uniforms.

• 2:42:17Speaker 01

  They have, there was no uniform allotment.

• 2:42:20Jocko Willink?

  What did Truman have against the Marine Corps? Well, did you think it should be folded in the Army or something?

• 2:42:24Speaker 01

  It's a fascinating story. He was an old doughboy from World War I. And the story goes that he was bitter about all the PR the Marines got after the Battle of Belleau Wood. And the French government praised the Marines for saving Paris. And, and that the French four year, that, that I, you know, that Fifth Marines wore, all that stuff. And he thought they got too much publicity. He hated the Marine Corps. And during, he tried to get, he said that the Army could do anything the Marines were doing, we didn't need a Marine Corps. And he was, he was winning that battle in Congress. And, and in the meantime, he was cutting off appropriations to the Marine Corps. And then there was only one division of Marines left.

• 2:43:07Speaker 01

  He sent them to China to get them out of the country. And, and that's, that's where my Section Eight story comes from. But then the Korean War kicked off and the only combat ready troops we had were the Marines. And we only had the Fifth Marine Regiment, basically, and they called it the Fifth Marine Brigade, I think, during the Korean War. But we only had this group of combat ready guys because the Army guys at the end of World War II, and they were falsifying their combat readiness reports and all this stuff. And they were occupation Army in Japan. And on a private's pay, you can have a geisha girl. I mean, you, you know, they were living it up, man. They were having a. They weren't doing, they weren't doing combat. They didn't even know how to fire their weapons.

• 2:43:50Speaker 01

  And when the, when the first army soldiers were thrown into the, into the mess in Korea, many of them, when the Russian tanks came at them, they didn't know how to use their 2.5 rocket launchers. And one whole battalion of soldiers was just murdered. I mean, they just got totally killed. I don't know how many survived, but not very many. And, and we were losing the Korean War until MacArthur said, "Give me, give me the 5th Marines. Give me..." And that's when he, they sent them into Pusun. They stopped the North Koreans for the first time, got beat. It's the first defeat they, they had during that war. And it was at Pusun.

• 2:44:31Speaker 01

  Then he pulled them out of Pusun and did the Incheon landing. And, and you know, the rest is history. But, and that saved the Marine Corps. If the Korean War had not started, there wouldn't be a Marine Corps. And, uh, and, but because of that, when Red Mike Edson and these guys went to Congress and fought for the Marine Corps, one of the things they convinced Congress of is, "If you'll keep the Marine Corps, we promise that we can put a better fighting man in the field for a third the cost." And that's when Congress said, "Okay." So the Marines got one-third the, the budget that Army got. And so from that day on, the Marines have been stealing from the Army. But it was all through Vietnam. It, it didn't stop, you know?

• 2:45:15Speaker 01

  Until recently, of course, the inter-service rivalry, of course, it's not like it was when I was in the service. You know, it was, it was a little more bitter.

• 2:45:24Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's one thing I was, when, when people tried to draw me into the inter-service rivalry, I don't, I don't enter into it because the, the Army and the Marine Corps on the battlefield in the Battle of Amati was just, we relied on them and they saved us so many times. And we did everything we could to help them. And it was just a real, true... Uh, comrade, comrade ship that we had going on there. And so I, I have nothing negative to say about the army or the Marine Corps. Cause man, they were, they were just outstanding over there and made such incredible sacrifices in that battle.

• 2:45:59Speaker 01

  That was, well, I, I, I know it's that way now, but, and it was that way even then, you know, it wasn't like you, you were really anti-army, but you know, like the first time I got wounded, uh, they said that the hospital was full, maybe the second time, but the hospital was full at, at Da Nang. Uh, it was during Tet and so there were so many wounded guys that they just, they were laying us on the floor and they didn't have any medicine. It was, it gave me two Darvon, I started cutting out Tramal. And so, uh, then they, they threw a bunch of us, a bunch of Marines on, uh, C130s and flew us down to Cameron Bay, the Air Force Hospital. And the, the bitterness, you go, you're coming out of the bush and you've, you've lost, you know, you're full of worms, you've lost all this weight, you

• 2:46:44Speaker 01

  had, you, you fly into Cameron Bay and it was like flying back to the States. They had a white sand beach, guys were surfing. They had, they had a, they had a chow hall, they had air conditioning. They, they had a movie theater. I mean, it was like, so, so you couldn't, you could not get angry about it. We had, we had, I woke up from the, from the morphine and stuff, you know, you wait, everybody's waking up and, uh, uh, looking around and everybody's, hey, who are you with Ben? Seventh Marines. Who are you with? Twenty-six Marines. Who are you with? Ninth Marines, Fifth Marines. It was all Marines. That, all the wards were filled with wounded Marines. And this one kid, a few beds away from me, wouldn't answer. And we kept saying, hey, who are you with Ben?

• 2:47:28Speaker 01

  And, and he, and he wouldn't answer. Finally, we got it out of him. He goes, well, I'm in the Air Force. Well, the Marines, wounded or not, sit up and started laughing. I go, what'd you do? Step on a nail? And so we got to like this kid though, because eventually he goes, well, it's my mom's fault. My brother's a Marine and my mom kept, kept sending me letters telling me, you gotta go see your brother and make sure he's okay. Gotta go see your brother and make sure he's okay. So he said, so I finally did. I, I hopped a flight up to Da Nang and they threw me on a truck and took me out to Anh Wah. And as soon as I got off this truck, it got hit and I got wounded and I got a Purple Heart.

• 2:48:12Speaker 01

  So yeah, inter-service rivalry, but you know, yeah, they had it so much better than us. How could you not get ticked off, man?

• 2:48:20Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's that whole story about the saving of the Marines from being disbanded. There's a friend of mine wrote a book about the SEAL teams and where the SEAL teams came from. It's a guy named Ben Milligan, he wrote this book called By Water Beneath the Walls, which I always harassed him about being the worst title ever, but it's amazing how it's amazing that the SEAL teams even exist because why would the, why would this commando force for, you know, kind of hinterland and maritime operations, why would it not come from number one, the Marine Corps? And number two, why would it not, if it wasn't going to be Marine Corps, why not just make it the Army? Because it's more of a ground thing than it is a water thing. And he goes through the whole thing, but a lot of it is that political aspect of, you

• 2:49:04Jocko Willink?

  know, the Marine Corps saying, well, every Marine is elite, we don't need them. And the Army saying, well, we just, we don't want to have special operations. We want everyone to be a good soldier. And they had the Rangers and the Rangers got used improperly and they looked at like, well, what's the point in investing all this money in these Rangers if they're just going to get killed anyways? Well, when you lose them, use them in that manner, they're going to get killed. So yeah, there's a lot of fascinating stuff around the politics of this, but I'm thankful that for the most part, in my opinion, it's, it's, it's not as bad as it used to be, that's for sure.

• 2:49:36Speaker 01

  No, absolutely not. I, you know, I talked to young Marines and young, you know, no, I, everything's, it's different now. It's different now. Yeah, there was some, there was some old history there that the Marines held on to it because that's, that's what the Marines do, you know?

• 2:49:53Jocko Willink?

  Oh, fast forward a little bit, back on patrol, by the time Sanchez reached the opening in the hedgerow, Chan and I had gone 20 meters in the opposite direction, a popping explosion threw me to my stomach. I blinked my eyes. Clear and quickly looked behind me. Chan lay motionless, flattened to the ground. Blood trickled out of the top of his camouflaged helmet dripping over the greens and browns. I couldn't speak. He looked dead. The helmet moved. He pulled his face out of the dirt, spitting a healthy portion of it at me. "You jerk, I thought you were dead." "You don't have to sound so disappointed. I thought so too." "Are you okay?" I asked. "Yes, how about you?" "I'm fine." "But it, but somebody ain't." I motioned toward the hedgerow. Part of it was now a large crater. Chan turned to look. Pieces of bloody flesh hung from the back of his flak jacket.

• 2:50:38Jocko Willink?

  I stood up nudging Chan with my foot. "You got blood all over you," I said. "I do?" Chan retorted. "You should see your back. You look like you've been sprayed with red paint." I felt something on the back of my neck. I reached to slap it off, thinking it was a bug. It stuck to my hand. I held it out to see what it was. An unrecognizable fragment of a man dangled from my fingertips. A vomit came into my mouth. I spit it out quickly, hoping no one would see. No one did. Chan stood up. We slow, started slowly toward the hedgerow, and I saw Sanchez lying ten feet from the crater. The crater was exactly where I had stepped to ar, stopped to argue with the lieutenant. I felt cold. Goosebumps swarmed over me. Chan looked down and shook his head. "Had to be a 155." I walked over to Sanchez. He lay face down. I rolled him over.

• 2:51:23Jocko Willink?

  His eyes opened. He looked fully conscious. I turned to Chan. "He's alive." "Praise God," Chan said quietly, then shouted, "Corman up." Doc reached us quickly with the lieutenant close behind. Sanchez looked up alertly. "I'm okay, Doc. Help the others." "I'm okay, I'm okay. Simmons, go check Simmons." Doc began sobbing uncontrollably. He tried to remove bandages from his pack. Chan look, took the pack from the shaking corpsman and removed bandages and morphine. As he leaned over Sanchez to administer the morphine, my heart fell into my stomach. His legs were gone, severed six inches below the waist. I hadn't even noticed, strangely enough, the bleeding didn't look too bad. Sanchez kept insisting he was okay. No one told him he wasn't.

• 2:52:09Jocko Willink?

  He grabbed Chan's arm with more strength than I thought possible from a man in his condition. "Find Simmons." I couldn't hold back the tears. I turned and headed for the crater to find Simmons. Arms and legs lay about the crater. "Four men missing," a voice behind me said. I found a hand hanging from the branch of a small tree by the threads of what was a forearm. A flak jacket held the upper torso of one man together, but the legs, head, and dog tags were gone. No one could be identified. We gathered the pieces together and placed them in a poncho. By the time the medevac chopper arrived, Sanchez was numb with morphine. The rest of us were numb with hate.

• 2:52:49Speaker 01

  His real name was Jesus Quintana.

• 2:52:55Jocko Willink?

  Oh, so that's the story you were telling earlier?

• 2:52:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, he uh.

• 2:52:59Jocko Willink?

  And he did survive?

• 2:53:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, he survived. There's pictures of him in the, in the new version of Guns Up. He, I got pictures of him three hours before that happened. I don't know who took it, but I, and then I have pictures of him after he was sent home and he's playing drumsticks on his fake legs. And he, that, that guy, he's the one that, yeah, that he asked for his Bible and looked up at the gunny and said, I'm gonna make it. Jesus was gun team leader. He was my gun team leader. And he, when he went back to the States, no legs, could have been bitter. I mean, I, I don't know how I, I don't know how I'd respond.

• 2:53:45Speaker 01

  I really don't. I, I can't even imagine. He goes back to the States and he took in fifty-two foster kids. He's got two of his own, I think it was two, two of his own. And he shows up at, at reunion and stuff and he, and he, he became a gunsmith and he made an M60 machine gun. Yeah, they, they just bought him a, a vehicle that he could go hunting and it, it looks like a little tractor. And, and it's, it's really cool. I don't know where they found this thing, but it's like, like a little personal tractor and he can go in and out of the woods and go hunting.

• 2:54:30Speaker 01

  So, yeah, what a guy.

• 2:54:33Jocko Willink?

  That's awesome.

• 2:54:34Speaker 01

  Lives in Indianapolis.

• 2:54:35Jocko Willink?

  Outstanding.

• 2:54:42Jocko Willink?

  Fast forward a little bit. Corporal Swift walked by with harder steps than usual. He looked more Indian, more intense. His face was darker red than normal. He halted a few feet from us and shouted, "Saddle up." Wonderful, just wonderful. Let's go see how many booby traps we can find today. I spent the next four hours enjoying the scenic beauty of the armpit of the world. No one talked. Every ounce of energy became as vital, became vital as the day grew hotter. Just before I decided to faint, the column stopped. The man in front of me turned and said, "Five minutes," then collapsed the ground with the rest of his platoon. Sudsy sat next to Doc. Roger, Alpha One, single medevac over. Who got hit, Suds, I asked. He looked up with a frown.

• 2:55:26Jocko Willink?

  Lieutenant Hawthorne, Third Platoon. He got ticked at the point, man, when he refused to go into an area that looked booby trapped, sounded like he took it, took point himself. Trip to 155, cut him clean in half. At dusk, we set up an ambush. The next day started like before. Saddle up. We got 15 clicks to go today. Swift Eagles Command started my feet talking to me. Obscenity after obscenity. Yeah, so as you guys were out there, you got Suds, who's the radio guy, and you guys were all in some kind of command net where you can hear the whole company, each platoon. You can hear what's going on with the other companies and the other platoons. And so if you don't happen to take a casualty one day, you're hearing that your brothers in another company are taking casualties.

• 2:56:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, uh, yeah, we, he kept us, kept us up on what was going on. And, uh, yeah, he, his, his real name was Bob Carroll and Sudsy was, you know, the nickname I gave him. But, uh, cause I, I wasn't sure these guys would want their real name in the book, you know, when I wrote them. And a lot of the guys, like I said, I didn't even know their names. I knew them, but I didn't know their names, you know? It just didn't happen. We didn't go through training together. We just went through that war together. And, uh, I only knew the guys in my machine gun team, you know? It's You didn't really get to know everybody else. You're always on an ambush, you're always

• 2:56:52Speaker 01

  humping, you know. But, uh, so I didn't know a lot of their names, but Bob Carroll was, he was a machine gunner in Way City, and he had gotten hit in Way. And when they gave him a chance to get out of guns, he became the radio man. He was, he was a great guy, but he came home and he wasn't, he wasn't, he was still a sweetheart. He, he, he showed up when they gave me the Silver Star thirty years after the fact. The first time I'd seen him since Vietnam, and he showed up in Cincinnati where they had the, the thing, and, uh, just looked exactly the same. You know, he had this real young face and, and,

• 2:57:33Speaker 01

  but he spent most of his life as a, as a ranger, a park ranger, because he wanted to be alone. And he, he was out in, I think it was Yellowstone, but anyway, some, some park out west, and he was just like disappeared for thirty years. Then, uh, when he, when he came out of that, you know, he came out, he kept trying to get married and it kept not working. Yeah, we, we think he, we think he was murdered. They found his body on a back road in, uh, in Vegas, somewhere in Vegas. And, uh, this bizarre set of circumstances, he had sent

• 2:58:13Speaker 01

  me an email not too long before that, and he had gone to Russia with this, this new wife. He was in Russia. Bizarre story. He had told me that, uh, he had, he'd caused some trouble in Russia. I don't know what he had done, but there was some kind of issues and he had to get out right away. And, and I, I was gonna send him some money. Next thing I heard, he was back in Vegas, and then, and then he was, uh, he was found dead on this back road somewhere, and he, uh, they read parts of guns up at his funeral. And I, I wasn't there, I was, uh, at another funeral, so I couldn't make it.

• 2:58:57Jocko Willink?

  We marched all day, stopping for one meal. I spent that time burning off leeches. I hadn't mentioned leeches yet. You mentioned them in the book, but there's leeches. You're always just, "leeches, leeches, leeches." The pace quickened in the afternoon. No one talked. The sun felt closer. My helmet made an excellent frying pan and my brain was reaching over easy. With dusk, the mountains came closer and closer. An arm up ahead motioned us forward into a circle. It would be a textbook L-shaped ambush, just like we practiced in North Carolina. Looked great on paper. The night grew black. I couldn't see my hand in front of my face. The air felt thick. I hated not being able to see.

• 2:59:40Jocko Willink?

  "I'm ready," I thought. Chan started linking up ammunition and stacking it on my pack to keep it out of the dirt. He gave his M16 the once-over. Put his magazines within arm's reach and began straightening grenade pins. It reminded me to do the same.

• 2:59:59Jocko Willink?

  Chan stiffened like a dog, ready to bite. His eyes opened wide. Tension sliced through the boredom like a silent alarm. I was strained to see what Chan was now aiming at in the direction of the mountains. A barely discernible piece of darkness began to move. Another shape appeared from the trees just behind the first. They looked to be 120 meters to our left and 20 meters to our front. A third shadowy figure emerged, then a fourth. My stomach churned. The four shadows turned into four men 50 meters away and closing. I followed the lead man with my gun sights, making sure my finger stayed off the trigger. One early finger could get us all killed. From the corner of my eye movement, more shadows.

• 3:00:41Jocko Willink?

  Stinging sweat penetrated my eyes. The line of shadows grew longer. My bladder felt like exploding. The column of shadows grew longer and closer. Shadows kept multiplying from the foot of the mountain. Every other man in the column was bent over to the waist, lumbering weight, lumbering under the weight of huge packs. The men in between the carriers walked more upright with smaller packs and carried rifles. A human supply train in front of me. This would be payback, long awaited payback. My stomach still churned. In a few seconds, I'd kill a lot of people. Doubt strangled me. Fifteen of us were about to ambush a column of gooks I couldn't see the end of. A quick violent shiver shot from my neck to the base of my spine. Bloop.

• 3:01:26Jocko Willink?

  Sam's blooper gun. I pulled the trigger. Orange tracers spiraled away from me. My first target exploded backward, arms and legs flailing. I laid on the trigger for what seemed like an eternity. Frantic screams screeched from the rice paddy, piercing even the explosions. I could feel the screams more than I could hear them. The NVA scrambled for cover that wasn't there. Some ran from the machine gun firing directly into the row of M16s, while those at the front of the column retreated into a shower of lead from the M60. The crossfire was a human lawnmower. I swept the machine gun from one end of the column to the bottom of the mountains. The phosphorus ends of the tracer rounds broke off bullets and sizzled like miniature sparklers as they found their mark. Chan changed clips in his rifle as fast as he could. The barrel of the M60 glowed red, then white.

• 3:02:12Jocko Willink?

  Adrenaline and fear pushed me while my whole body vibrated to the rhythm of the gum. I became one with my weapon, and we were killing. The barrel became transparent from the heat of continuous fire as I poured another hundred rounds into the rice paddy. A fluorescent lamp couldn't have pinpointed my position any better than that glowing barrel. I knew the barrel might melt and jam, but I couldn't stop. I felt like I did in my first fistfight, scared to stop swinging for fear of getting hit. Chan dropped his rifle and started frantically feeding ammo into the gun with both hands. Sam's M79 blooper explosions sounded consistent, almost automatic. His loading speed was phenomenal. Louder, more powerful explosions of grenades and chai comms sporadically thundered above the blooper rounds.

• 3:02:54Jocko Willink?

  The speedy bursts of M16 fire mingled with the slower, more powerful cracking of the AK fire in a chorus of insane chaos. Total confusion engulfed the rice paddy. A few NVA fired back. Others dragged dead and wounded toward the safety of the mountains. A flare sizzled into the dark sky, arcing over the paddy, then popping into a tiny sun and drifting. Down, the lights were on, the miniature red sun added a 3D effect to an already bloody picture. Chan screamed and reached for his rifle, three gooks were running at us, bobbing and weaving in a suicidal charge to knock out the gun. They fired full automatic, spraying bullets all around us, they were screaming. I swept the stream of tracers left to right, bearing down on them like a sputtering laser beam.

• 3:03:36Jocko Willink?

  A ChaiCom blew up 10 feet in front of us, stealing my night vision with a white explosion. Incoming bullets kicked dirt into my eyes and mouth. The barrel melted, the gun jammed, the sweeping laser stopped along with my breathing. I fumbled for my pistol like a drunk in a shootout, my vision turned spotty. I heard Chan firing. The grunts on my left opened up full automatic. Blurred images of two men 10 meters away came through spots in my eyes. Their heads jerked back like poorly manned puppets, legs crumbling fast, not knowing the upper half was lifeless. Silence. The loudest silence of my life. My heart pounded the breath out of me faster than I could bring it in. The bloodlust evaporated into the gunpowder air. Payback.

• 3:04:20Jocko Willink?

  The frustration turned into fatigue. Chan, are you hit? No, are you? No, I'll probably be okay when I see the sun. Praise the Lord, whispered Chan. The night became deathly still. Dawn finally came, lifting pressure from me with each inch of yellow sun peeking up behind us. The first movement came from the chief. He moved smoothly from position to position until he made his way to us. He looked to be always in perfect balance. We're going for a body count, keep us covered. He turned to the tree line and gave a wave. As the chief started into the paddy, Doyle and Stryker came out of the tree line with their rifles on their hips. Swift Eagle stops. He looked over his shoulder at Chan and me.

• 3:05:05Jocko Willink?

  He gave the nod and a thumbs up. You did good. His stoic face, the same expression it always did. None. But his piercing black eyes left no doubt. We had just gotten the seal of approval. We were salts. Old salts.

• 3:05:31Speaker 01

  I've had, I've had people talk about that, the barrel glowing white hot.

• 3:05:38Jocko Willink?

  Oh yeah.

• 3:05:39Speaker 01

  And I, I mean, I know you know that, but a lot of people don't realize.

• 3:05:42Jocko Willink?

  The real thing.

• 3:05:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. When you fire that many rounds, it, it glows, it glows white hot. And, and of course you don't want to fire that many rounds unless you really got to, you never would.

• 3:05:54Jocko Willink?

  Did your A gunner carry an extra barrel or no?

• 3:05:57Speaker 01

  We didn't have any extra barrels.

• 3:05:59Jocko Willink?

  Oh, there you go.

• 3:06:00Speaker 01

  So, yeah, it was, it was, yeah, that's, that's later in this.

• 3:06:04Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I'll get there.

• 3:06:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, but no, we didn't have any extra barrels, you know, and, and it was more weight to carry. Maybe we were just lazy, but really we didn't have, my whole time, I don't remember ever having an extra barrel. That's why, another reason we wanted 20, 20 round burst, you know, a short burst. So you don't burn the barrel out because you burn the barrel out, gun's gone, you're done. But guys, you know, on moments like that, guys, if, if there was no other way to cool that barrel down, guys would stand up and pee on it, you know, so.

• 3:06:36Jocko Willink?

  You had to, you had to report that to the boss too. You go here, my barrel melted last night. I said, the lieutenant looked at me angrily. His lower lip disappeared as if he wanted to bite it. I thought that was the longest 20 round burst I'd ever seen. He looked away, shaking his head in disgust. That's the kind of discipline in the army. That's the kind of fire discipline the army employs, John. Yes, sir. I should send you over to the seventh. He smiled and looked at the chief. Old Bill's gunner don't like firing in the dark. He looked back at me. Tough night. And then this helicopter comes down. Hey, I screamed over the noise of the rotors. I need an M60 barrel real bad. You got a spare? The door gunner ignored me and yelled at Sam, hurry up dude, get that stuff on here. We're not wait, we're not staying for tea.

• 3:07:21Jocko Willink?

  Feeling a bit insulted, I tried again. I need an M60 barrel. The gunner leaned out of the door and replied with the nasal New Jersey accent. This ain't no supply train, Jireen. Sam and Doyle picked up the stiff, sidestepped to the open hatch, coordinated the toss with a three count and heaved the body in. The door gunner struggled to drag the dead weight away from the hatchway, grabbing the end of the poncho and pulling. I turned to cover it with a large green canvas. I seized upon this moment to remove the barrel from his door gun. He turned, realized immediately what I'd done and started to curse. His voice sank mid-sentence when he noticed the barrel of Sam's bloopers gun pointing at his nose. Sam smiled through

• 3:08:01Jocko Willink?

  his rotted teeth like only Sam could. "Don't speak jerk face, just take off. We need a barrel a little bit more than you do." I guess the door gunner could sense that Sam was a bit strange. He said nothing and motioned thumbs up to the pilot. The helicopter got away without being fired on.

• 3:08:20Jocko Willink?

  That's kind of an epic move right there. Just taking their, uh, taking their barrel.

• 3:08:26Speaker 01

  Well, they, they were gonna fly back to relative safety.

• 3:08:29Jocko Willink?

  Did you guys not have boxes? Did you, could you not mount boxes of ammo onto your 60?

• 3:08:35Speaker 01

  Oh, oh, no. I mean, maybe you could.

• 3:08:38Jocko Willink?

  Okay, so like our boxes, our, our 60s had boxes.

• 3:08:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:08:44Jocko Willink?

  That you could, you could basically, they were 100 round boxes too. So you could just put that right on the gun and that way it's.

• 3:08:50Speaker 01

  Now we didn't have that. No.

• 3:08:51Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 3:08:52Speaker 01

  No, you had to feed it by hand.

• 3:08:53Jocko Willink?

  Gosh.

• 3:08:54Speaker 01

  And when you're, you know, when you're, your A gunner was killed, uh, or you know, you're by yourself, you had to, uh, guys would take C ration cans and you could, you could, you could rig a C ration can into the, uh, where the, where the ammo's going in and we'd keep it out of the mud. And so you could, you know, you could feed the gun without an A gunner. Uh, it, it.

• 3:09:18Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 3:09:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:09:19Jocko Willink?

  So that became a real thing. And they, so they ended up making ammo boxes that carry 100 rounds. Like in the SEAL teams, the M60 is a, is one person weapon. Like one person carries it by himself.

• 3:09:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:09:33Jocko Willink?

  And, but they couldn't do that if they had to have, if they didn't, didn't have that ability of just putting on an ammo box, like hangs on the side. There's a little thing that it fits onto. So it's a really nice little system.

• 3:09:44Speaker 01

  That would be nice.

• 3:09:45Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 3:09:47Speaker 01

  That would have been nice. Plus, you always had to worry about the ammo, you know, because we're always in the jungle or in the water or something. So you had to keep your ammo out of the mud. So guys rigged up all kinds of ways, you know, the sea ration can is kind of a famous one where you could, you could rig it up so that sea ration can, a little round can is hanging off of it, just so the ammo will go in and not lay in the mud.

• 3:10:13Jocko Willink?

  Well, they made that for real, like a real deal. And yeah, the other thing is sometimes guys would rig backpacks so that they would have like 500 rounds in a backpack all length. Now that you kind of had to help feed in because it's for to pull that, all that ammo was a little bit hard. But if you were, where guys would do is setting up an ambush or like a target assault and just put the backpack right next to the gun, you got 500 rounds.

• 3:10:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, that'd be great. That'd be great. I think though, if you're going to be carrying that much ammo on that gun, all the gunners would have had to be your size. They'd have to, you know.

• 3:10:51Jocko Willink?

  How many rounds did you carry?

• 3:10:53Speaker 01

  I'd carry 400, sometimes 500 rounds when, depending on how bad things were. But at least 400 rounds and then the 60, you know, on the pack, flak jacket, helmet. I mean, it was a lot of weight. It was a lot of weight. And then you see, you were supposed to have, I think it was a four or five man machine gun team. So you had two ammo humpers who were also riflemen to cover your flank and, and then an A gunner. And so all these guys were supposed to be carrying ammo for you, you know, everybody would carry four or 500 rounds of ammo. In reality, my machine gun team was either just me or me and Chad. There

• 3:11:38Speaker 01

  was, there was, I never saw a four man or five man machine gun team outside of Camp Lejeune.

• 3:11:47Jocko Willink?

  Uh, fast forward a little bit.

• 3:11:51Jocko Willink?

  I have to split you guys up. Chan, you're taking over Sanchez's gun. He turned to walk away like he was too busy to talk about it. I couldn't believe my ears. Wait a minute, Lieutenant. Why can't somebody else take that gun? My insubordination surprised me as much as it did him. We've been together since boot camp. Somebody has to take the other gun and you two are the only ones left with a machine gun MOS. I can't put some dumb boot on that gun. Most of these guys can't even take it apart, let alone clean it. Has the Marine Corps ever anticipated the theoretical need for replacements in this war? Chan shouted.

• 3:12:23Jocko Willink?

  Another guy, Rogers. Rogers had become dangerously cautious. Red had once warned me about him since I'd seen for my, and since then I'd seen him for myself. I'm your new A gunner. His dejected tone told me he wasn't jumping up and down over the idea either. Let's get something straight right away, John. I've got 73 days left in this armpit and I don't buy the idea of being, of me being by this gun. I'm short, man. I mean, I'm the shortest salt in the platoon. Next to Jack Allen Wood, I'm the shortest man in Alpha Company. 73 days and I'm getting on that freedom burden, going back to the world in one piece. And I'm not getting killed because of this gun. What makes you think you're the only sucker who wants to go home? I asked. Look, just take it easy on the John Wayne crap, okay?

• 3:13:09Jocko Willink?

  What do you plan on doing when some, when some fool screams guns up? Should I say, sorry, that looks a little dangerous for me? I seem to remember you screaming guns up a couple of weeks back. Just what did you have planned if I didn't open up? He paused and dropped his pack. You and Chan go overboard sometimes. Even the Lieutenant said you guys were crazy. He thought you needed a section eight. That one stumped me. I knew the Lieutenant thought we were gung ho, but I didn't think he thought we were nuts. I'm still here, ain't I? I've lasted longer than any gunner in the regiment. If I'd been running around like a fag on ice, I'd have been dead in the first week in country. Maybe you're dumb lucky. You're dumb lucky and you know it. Maybe, but let's get one thing clear, Rogers.

• 3:13:52Jocko Willink?

  When you hear guns up, you better be right on my butt.

• 3:13:58Jocko Willink?

  Um.

• 3:14:01Jocko Willink?

  That's Rogers, a little nervous, getting short. That's another thing.

• 3:14:04Speaker 01

  And he had a, he had a girlfriend. He was gonna get married, I think. And, uh, yeah, he, he, yeah, he was a short timer. And nobody, no short timer wanted to be around the gun. You know, it was, it was well known. Yeah.

• 3:14:22Jocko Willink?

  He continues on a little bit. Do you know what's going back? Do you know what's going on back in the world right now, he said? Fags and hippies are becoming Canadians. Jane Fonda is telling the world, we kill women and children and kids. Do you think for one second that rich witch reminded the thousands of civilians the NVA butchered in way? Our own countrymen are sending money and medical supplies to the gooks.

• 3:14:47Jocko Willink?

  I don't know what you're arguing about. I agree with you, but you joined the crotch, man. You weren't drafted. I don't know about you, but I've seen enough to know this much. The NVA ain't the good guys. They're bloody butchers. I know that, he said. And Jane Fonda is talking out her rear end. She's a traitor. I know that too. I've been here longer than you, John. What I'm trying to say is, just whose side are, just, just who's on our side if our own people aren't? The South Vietnamese aren't worth defending. I hated to admit it, but he was right. I looked east towards the ominous gray mountains. I remembered Red calling them mountains, the mountains outside Phu Bai, a gook R and R center. I turned back to Rogers. Maybe I'm getting a little crazy. I don't know anymore, but I want to shoot these

• 3:15:29Jocko Willink?

  scumbags. If I ain't killing them for America or South Vietnam, I'll just kill them for Red or Ponchi or Simmons, or just because they tick me off. What's this place done to you, John? I knew you when you first got here, man. You never wanted to kill anybody. You were just a kid. You were not even nineteen. You're not even nineteen yet, are you? I will be on October 12th. Maybe I don't really want to kill. I don't want any of this. I want to go home in one piece, and I don't think I'll make it if I get cautious.

• 3:15:59Jocko Willink?

  So, it sounds like he had a little more information of what was going on back with the, you know, back in America. Were you, were you hearing about that too?

• 3:16:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, I, you know, I was writing letters home to, to, to girls, you know, high school girlfriends and stuff. And they, they, there was one girl, her name was Polly, gone to St. Pete High with me. She, she was writing me for a while, you know, and, you know, letters were really important. You didn't get this, you didn't get mail very often, but when you did, you'd have a stack of letters, you know, from, for the last month and a half or something. And she wrote me a letter, this is just one example, and asked me to mail all my letters from now on to, to her parents, so they could forward it to her. And she was

• 3:16:50Speaker 01

  in a college in Missouri. Because she didn't want her friends seeing a Vietnam address on this, that, that she was writing a Marine in Vietnam, because they were, they were so against the war, and she'd be an outcast. And so, that's the kind of stuff that started happening. What they, Cal Berkeley students, I don't know who they were, but a group of them sent, you know, we'd get care packages, a group from Cal Berkeley one time sent a thing of dog food. And, yeah, this, this was, and, and then, you know, when I came home, I, I mean, I wasn't even home, I, I wasn't even home 24 hours. And maybe I was,

• 3:17:35Speaker 01

  maybe, yeah, a little over 24 hours. And they gave us, they gave us leave. I landed in El Toro, they were throwing, they were throwing stuff at us. Yeah, I don't know if you want me to go into that, but honestly, I was pushing a kid off the, the plane. And I was coming out of Okinawa, and I was strong and healthy now. And I was trained in martial arts. And I was, you know, I'd, I'd beef back up and look normal. And, but this kid I was pushing, lost his legs, probably wasn't going to make it. And I'm pushing him off the, the plane, and it's a plane load of wounded guys. And there were protesters outside this chain link fence, throwing tomatoes and eggs and stuff at us, and holding up signs, mooning us, you know, and holding up baby killer signs and the whole schmear.

• 3:18:20Speaker 01

  And one of the tomatoes hit this, this wheelchair, this guy I'm pushing. I blanked and so sort of a bunch of the other guys and we went for him and there was a whole squad of marine MPs that were there just for one purpose and that was to protect them because they knew we were gonna wanna kill them and we did but we could you know they're behind a chain link fence but then I then I went into this I went into LA with another marine and there's a sign on the bar first place we want to hit a bar first place we go to it's got no Marines or dogs allowed in the bar and you know the anger just it just kept getting worse and worse but I'd already heard a lot of this and letters

• 3:19:00Speaker 01

  from other people but then I then I was home I wasn't even I was home less than 24 hours and I was thrown in the brig again because we're in the this marine this marine I went into town with into LA he says you know he goes hey let's go to my hometown he goes it's not like LA they'll they'll treat us decent it'll be different let's let's go see Americans you know let's get to let's get to out of LA and said okay yeah let's do it and so we went to the Greyhound bus terminal we're standing there to buy tickets for a Greyhound bus to his hometown and these two guys wearing army fatigues long hair hippies

• 3:19:43Speaker 01

  you know and there weren't that many of those when I left I I when I joined the Corps I mean but they came up and they they made a couple of comments one of them spit on my uniform so I decked this guy there were two LA cops were arresting an old wino there in the bus terminal they dropped the wino came over grabbed me handcuffed me threw me in the cruiser drove me down the street and they're looking in the rearview mirror and go fifth Marines huh and I knew right away okay and they they only a marine would know what that was and sure enough they were both fifth Marines and they'd become cops and so they they drove me to a bus stop I unhandcuffed me gave me my C-bag said go

• 3:20:27Speaker 01

  this bus will take you back to El Toro get out of here and and we don't mind you hitting these guys but not in front of cops so so that was my welcome home but we heard and we were getting yeah a lot of the guys knew This anti-war stuff back home, yeah, we were being painted as the bad guys. Yeah, a lot of the guys knew that. And, and you talk about morale and what we were going through and then for our own guys to, yeah, morale went down.

• 3:20:57Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and then, and you still gotta do your job.

• 3:20:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:21:00Jocko Willink?

  And they still gotta like do this heinous patrolling through the jungle, the whole nine yards. And, you know, you mentioned it earlier and I think we'll cover more in the book, but this idea that America wasn't actually trying to win, they were just trying to not lose. And so you have that working against you.

• 3:21:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:21:17Jocko Willink?

  Your morale.

• 3:21:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, it really did. Not, not, not trying to win was a big deal. When, when, I got a picture in the book of the flag that was raised over Way City. Sergeant Stacy Watson, a great Marine, he, he had the flag. And when they put that flag up over Way, over the Citadel, they, they, they made them take it down and put up the South Vietnamese flag. So that kind of stuff, it's like, I, I understood it a little bit, but you know.

• 3:21:49Jocko Willink?

  There's a better way to do it.

• 3:21:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:21:54Jocko Willink?

  Fast forward a little bit. I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye. Someone yelled, Sam fired, fired the blooper. Three uniformed NVA were running away from us 40 yards ahead. The sharp white explosion of a blooper round hit the trailing man square. He flipped forward and landed on his back. Guns up, guns up. I ran forward firing from the hip. The, the other two NVA ducked down and disappeared into the elephant grass. I stopped, stood still and fired the M60 from the shoulder at the area where I'd last seen them. I ceased fire. There they are, Roger shouted. They pumped up from the tall grass 30 yards, 30 yards close to the tree line. I let loose another 20 round burst and as they just, just as they disappeared, the entire platoon ran forward. Guns up, guns up. Lieutenant Campbell screamed as he ran forward. The two NVA were, were half carrying, half dragging the third.

• 3:22:38Jocko Willink?

  His arms draped over the shoulders of his comrades. They dove behind a tree line. Lieutenant screamed, halt, guns up. I ran forward with Rogers close behind. A second later, Chan and his A gunner, the pig farmer, ran up beside us. On that tree line, the lieutenant's voice sounded unusually high pitched. We both opened up, firing from the hip. Pieces of the trees spit in all directions as we raked that area. And we, where we had last seen the NVA. Cease fire, move out, Lieutenant Campbell shouted. We reached the tree line. The NVA, NVA were gone. Just on the other side of the grass was a graveyard. Chan opened up. I followed his tracers with my eyes. The NVA were struggling to drag their limp comrade behind a grass hooch fifty yards away at the edge of a thick, dark jungle.

• 3:23:22Jocko Willink?

  Fire on that hooch, Lieutenant Campbell shouted. I ran forward ten yards to the first round grave mound of dirt and opened up. Orange tracers ripped through the woods and grass hooch, streaming into the dark jungle behind it. Cease fire, Lieutenant Campbell shouted from the trees behind me.

• 3:23:41Jocko Willink?

  Without warning, the darkening graveyard lit up with green tracers of enemy fire guns crisscrossing Swift Eagle squad. One fired from a position twenty meters to the right of the hooch and nearly straight across from me. The other fired from twenty meters on the other side of the hooch. Then a third gun opened up from just to the right of the hooch, raking back and forth and sending tracer rounds whining in every direction. The dark jungle behind the hooch erupted with muzzle flashes. The lead Marine lifted up and flew backward from the blast of two streams of machine gun tracers hitting him from the right and left. Fifty yards away, a helmeted NVA stood up behind, beside the hooch and side armed a canvas satchel charge into the graveyard. The squad dove behind the oval Vietnamese grave mounds.

• 3:24:27Jocko Willink?

  Brilliant flashes of light were followed by clouds of smoke and mud. A CHI comm exploded, then another satchel charger to overwhelm the smallest CHI comm explosion. Then three more CHI comms, one after another. Our riflemen couldn't fire for fear of hitting the pinned down squad between us and the enemy. I jumped to my feet, ran twenty meters into the open graveyard and stood on top of one of the round grave mounds. Now I could fire without hitting the squad. Before I pulled the trigger, Chan opened up from the other end of the tree line. His orange tracers pinpointed him. Immediately, all three enemy guns shifted their fire from the squad to Chan. Firing from the hip, I opened up on the closest stream of green tracers.

• 3:25:09Jocko Willink?

  The constant recoil of the long burst of fire supported the barrel of the M60 with little help from me. The incredible weapon was perfectly balanced. I guided my tracers into the nearest enemy machine gun. His tracers shot up high into the dark rainy sky, then ceased. A hit. I knew it. I saw tracers sweeping toward me. My gun stopped. Ammo! I screamed and looked around for Rogers. He was still behind the trees. Suddenly, my feet, suddenly my feet kicked out from under me. I was lying on my face. I felt stunned, but I wasn't hit. A moment later, someone pulled my feet, pulled me by my feet back behind the mound. Rogers! I started to thank him, but didn't. It was his fault I was out of ammo.

• 3:25:52Jocko Willink?

  Bullets thudded into the small mound. More bullets churned up mud on both sides. We huddled against the grave and each other, trying to pull in arms and legs behind the precious dirt. The graves were made in the shape of a woman's womb because the Vietnamese figured that's where you start, so that's where you finish. I wanted to crack back, I wanted to crawl back in right now. The firing stopped. We waited a few seconds. I peeked over the mound. Small clouds of sulfurous gunpowder hovered above, but no flashes. Let's go! I grabbed the gun and darted for cover of the tree line. Rogers ran past me like I was standing still. My foot felt an odd, my foot felt odd, but I didn't dare look down. We dove behind the end tree. I checked my right boot. Look at that, I said. I pointed at the sole.

• 3:26:35Jocko Willink?

  The keel had a bullet hole clean through. Are you hit? No. Man, you're lucky you still have a foot. Ammo! I shouted at Rogers, angry they hadn't already started loading the gun and wishing for Chan. Pull back, pull back. Did you hear that? Rogers tugged on my shoulder. The monsoon rain started pelting us like drops of cement. The Marines firing at the blooper vanished in the deluge. Pull back! Someone was pulling at my back. I looked up. Corporal James shouted down, "Pull back! Pull back to the lieutenant!" The rain pounded loudly into the ground, nearly smothering his shouts. We got three men over there, I shouted back. Pull back! I'll go get them! He ran toward the three Marines. A few seconds later, he reappeared with the Marines following. Halfway back to Lieutenant, the rain eased up enough for me to hear someone shouting,

• 3:27:20Jocko Willink?

  "Hold it." "Do you hear that?" I said. We stopped and stood still. I heard someone screaming, "Help us. We got Marines out here. Help. Barnes is hit." Now the screen echoed from the dark graveyard with frightening clarity. The rain picked up again. I ran to the edge of the tree line with Corporal James. "I can't see a thing," James said. "We've got to help them," I said. "We have to tell the Lieutenant. Come on." He pulled on my arm. I followed him. We ran through the mud as fast as we could. I kept thinking of Barnes, so eager to see war. A vision of the Marine being blown backward by the machine gun fire flashed through my mind. It had been him, Barnes. "Lieutenant," James shouted, "here, over here." The voice came from the darkness ahead. Now I could see him. The rain was so thick he looked gray.

• 3:28:05Jocko Willink?

  "Lieutenant, we still have men out there," James shouted. "I know, at least three. The rest are all right. Is that everyone from that end?" "Yes." "Is Chan okay?" I asked. "Yes, follow me. The company's about seventy-five meters this way." Twenty meters later, Swift Eagle emerged from the rain like a ghost. We huddled around him as the Lieutenant spoke. "Did you find who's missing?" "Barnes, Stryker, and Unersstut." Is that what I'm saying that right? Yeah. His real name was Undum Stock. Unersstut. Yeah. "I can't call in arty with them out there. Let's get back to the rest of the company and see what the CO says. We better hurry. That captain, the captain has already set up mortars." Lieutenant Campbell started running toward the company with the rest of us. "Where are you?" "Barnes is hit bad," Stryker screamed angrily from the graveyard.

• 3:28:50Jocko Willink?

  I couldn't believe he was screaming. He had to know the gooks could hear him as well. "Help. Barnes is hit. He can't move." His voice sounded panicky. I couldn't stand it. His screams pierced through the driving storm. "We had to help. Help." The shout sounded shrill. I could see men up ahead. Lieutenant Campbell turned his back to Swift Eagle. Show them where the platoon is. I have to, I have to see the captain. I'll be there in a minute. We turned right and followed the chief along a line of Marines lying behind a rice paddy dike that flanked the graveyard. Their helmets were sticking above the dike. Their bodies were half underwater. Another forlorn call echoed from the darkness ahead. We finally reached the second platoon all the way at the end of the line of Marines.

• 3:29:34Jocko Willink?

  Set up the gun here, Swift Eagle pointed to a spot between the two, between two Marines. I hung the M60 over the dike and sank into the muck behind it. Where are we? I asked. The hooch is straight ahead, Swift Eagle said. He turned to lead the other men to their position. A loud metallic thump echoed through the crashing rains. A rain, a bright flash from an enemy mortar tube lit up their positions right behind the grass hooch, seventy-five meters straight ahead. I took aim at the flash and waited for another one. Hold fire, hold your fire. Lieutenant Campbell ran behind the long row of prone Marines whispering loud enough to be heard by us, but not the enemy. Another thump and flash. For an instant, the enemy mortar men were easy targets for the gun.

• 3:30:16Jocko Willink?

  A mortar round exploded a hundred meters to our rear, quickly followed by a second. What are we waiting for, chief? I whispered. I got these suckers. They're dead meat. Let me open up. Don't fire, Lieutenant Campbell ran up behind me. Three more quick flashes and thumps in succession strobe lighted the enemy mortar men. I could hit him blindfolded. Shut up. We got Marines between us and them. What are we going to do? I asked. He didn't answer. He turned to repeat the order. Don't anyone fire. I turned back to the front. Another series of mortar flashes lit up three separate enemy mortar crews. I could see the mortar men turn away from the tube, covering their ears from the blast. I'm gonna open up, I said aloud. Don't, Rogers grabbed my shoulders. You can't.

• 3:30:58Jocko Willink?

  This is chicken, Rogers. We got guys out there blown away and sitting ducks right in front. A series of mortar blasts behind us drowned me out. They think we're back there. If you open up, they'll know right where we are. Not if I blow them away. Another series of flashes and the twanging hollow thumps of mortar rounds leaving the tubes reverberated through the air around us. This sucks of chicken, man. Look, Rogers pointed toward the other series of flashes from the enemy mortars. Then I saw what he was pointing at. A man silhouetted against the flash, bent over, carrying a rifle and coming our way 20 meters ahead and to our left. I took aim, waiting for another flashing mortar barrage to show me the target. Rogers aimed his M16. I turned to the marine on my left and passed the word. He

• 3:31:39Jocko Willink?

  was already aiming. A nightmarish version of a screaming human wave assault went through my mind. I shivered. I shook my head to clear the fear and resumed aiming. Another flashing mortar barrage. I tense put my finger on the trigger. There 15 meters ahead, the silhouetted man. Suddenly, a mortar round exploded close behind us. The light of the explosion revealed the silhouette for a fraction of a second. An American helmet, Rogers whispered excitedly. Don't fire, marine coming in, a voice from the silhouette shouted. Get over here, get in here, someone shouted back. Hold your fire, it's a marine. The silhouette ran forward, sloshing water as he came. Then he was upon me, stumbling over the rice, over the paddy dyke, kicking my helmet off and falling face first with a loud splash behind me. He turned and crawled beside,

• 3:32:23Jocko Willink?

  back beside me, bracing himself against the dyke. John, Stryker, are you okay? Yeah, he gasped for air and spit out mud. Barnes, he gasped. Barnes is hit bad. He couldn't move. I had to leave him. We have to go get him. He spoke quickly, running his words together. How about Buford, I asked, before he could answer. Lieutenant and Swift Eagle slid in beside us, covering us with mud and water. Stryker, who's still out there? Swift Eagle rattled off the question. Barnes, he's hit real bad, but he's still alive. We have to go get him. The gooks are right on top of him, maybe 10 yards away. Where's Unersstute? I don't know, I couldn't see Buford. As soon as, as soon as that rain hit, I couldn't see a thing. Swift Eagle, Lieutenant Campbell said. Go get some volunteers. Stryker, can you lead us to them? I think so, but we gotta be real quiet. The gooks are real close. I could hear him talking. I'll go, chief, I said, my stomach

• 3:33:08Jocko Willink?

  churned. For a moment, I wasn't sure I'd actually said that. You have to stay with the gun, Lieutenant Campbell. Rogers can stay with the gun. Okay, follow me. Let's see who else wants to go. Swift Eagle answered without looking at the lieutenant. Give me your rifle, I said to Rogers. No, Swift Eagle said. Just take your 45 so you can help carry Barnes. I knew I couldn't hit the ground with that lousy forty-five beside it was probably full of rust. The chief didn't wait for my excuses. He turned and called down the line for volunteers. Ten or more got men got up and rushed forward. You four, the rest of you go back to your positions. You ready, Stryker? Let's go, Stryker said. Lieutenant Swift Eagle said, as we swept over the dike, make sure these guys know we're out there. Thirty yards through the flooded paddy, we reached the more solid ground of the graveyard. Stryker seemed to know exactly where he was going.

• 3:33:53Jocko Willink?

  The pounding rain covered the noisy sloshing of our feet, but each step sounded like thunder to me. The faces of the enemy mortar men were clearer with each barrage. Stryker stopped ahead. Barnes, he whispered lightly. He dropped down and crawled around on his hands and knees. Barnes, Swift Eagle turned to me and whispered, you guys go around in a small circle. We searched for ten minutes. It was obvious that Stryker had gotten lost or Barnes had crawled away. We gave up the search and headed back. I thought of Buford. I couldn't imagine what terror he must feel. I knew we were nearing nearing the lines of Marines, but couldn't see anything ahead. A mortar round exploded seventy meters in front of us, silhouetting a long row of friendly American helmets ten meters away. Marines coming in, hold your fire, Swift Eagle gave the warning. Friendly's coming in, a voice ahead repeated the warning.

• 3:34:38Jocko Willink?

  The dike was only a foot tall, just tall enough to lie behind, and it wasn't about to stop any lead, but the first step over it filled my soul with relief. I found Rogers and splashed down beside him. He slapped me on the shoulder. You deserve a medal. He turned his eyes toward the enemy. I agree, I said jokingly. I mean it, he said, still staring at the mortar flashes. I told the gun, you knocked out that gun and took all the fire so the squad could get out of the graveyard. What'd he say? He said he's putting you and Channing for the Silver Star. Are you feeding me? Honest, Chance Ten did the same thing you did on the other end of the tree line. We're sweeping across the daybreak, a voice whispered from our right. Pass it on. Two hours before daybreak, the rain and mortar stopped. I started into the black. I stared in the blackness until my eyes hurt. The first streaks of morning light brought little comfort.

• 3:35:23Jocko Willink?

  My hands looked like wrinkled paper from being wet for so long. We're moving in, the word sifted by me on down the line. We were on our feet, moving forward. I felt like I was in an old war film. Online, fixed bayonets. The sky turned pink and blue. The hooch was now clear in the morning light. I couldn't believe it. We were actually going to storm right over these suckers. Fifty-nine days, Rogers mumbled, more to himself than me.

• 3:35:50Jocko Willink?

  Our first steps were slow, cautious, forty yards away the pace suddenly quickened. No one spoke. Someone to my right began jogging forward. I started jogging to keep up. Now the whole line was running. Someone let loose a howl. Now everyone was screaming like banshees. A cracking burst of AK fire wrung out across the graveyard, then another. The second burst was a mistake. I could see the muzzle flash from the roof of the hooch. I opened up with a fifty round burst. At the same time, twenty others fired upon the hooch. The sniper's body exploded from the roof, pieces of flesh and cloth flying in all directions. Cease fire, cease fire, swift eagle was finally heard. And the firing stopped. The hooch was burning. Black smoke tunneled one way, then the other in the swirling wind.

• 3:36:34Jocko Willink?

  "There's a marine over here," someone shouted from my right. I glanced over quickly. It looked like Buford lying face down. I looked back at the hooch, nothing. No firing at all. We swept by the burning hooch and ten yards deep into the thick jungle. "They pulled out lieutenant," someone shouted. "We got another body over here. It's a marine." Another voice called from the left. I ran over to see who it was. Stryker stood over a bloody body lying face down. The chief stood next to him, looking down. "Who is it?" "Barnes," Stryker said. "I don't know how he got over here in front of this bunker. Not until then did I notice he was lying in front of a foxhole with dirt and wood built up around it. Hundreds of empty thirty caliber cartridges were scattered about in

• 3:37:16Jocko Willink?

  the mud. His pack was ripped apart. His E-tool had a bullet hole through the shovel end." Stryker bent down. He grabbed one shoulder and rolled the body over. Bullets had torn deep creases under each cheekbone, giving him a huge dark bruises around each eye. It looked eerie. Dried blood covered another bullet crease under his jaw. Most of the right ear was shot away. I stared at the huge bruises.

• 3:37:42Jocko Willink?

  Suddenly his eyes sprang open. I couldn't speak. I tried to point like a mute with the mouth hanging open. Then a smile spread across his face. He's alive, Stryker screamed in disbelief. Corman, Swift Eagle shouted. How did you get over here, Stryker said. Can you talk? The gooks drug me over here. They thought I was dead. They crawled out after me, right after you left. One of them pulled a knife and came down on me. Calm down, save your strength, Dry Eagle said drily. Swift Eagle said drily. I thought it was over for sure, but he just cut my bandoliers off. Then they dragged me in front of their gun. God, I thought for sure you guys were gonna walk right into it. I almost drowned lying there. He was still perky. I couldn't believe it. I turned to Chan. He had to see this.

• 3:38:26Jocko Willink?

  I saw him standing near the burning hooch. I ran over to him. John, come here. He raised his hand and waved me over. Look at this. I looked at the burning hooch, a sun-faded tan pith helmet filled with dried blood and gray gray human brains lay on the dirt floor of the hooch. I bent down and darted inside, grabbed the helmet and brought it out. Something in Vietnamese was written on the front. I dumped the brains and blood into a puddle and handed the pith helmet to Chan. What does it say, I asked. He studied the writing for a few seconds and handed the helmet back to me. It says, "We're here to stay." One thing's for sure, this sucker is staying. Understood's dead, Chan said. He shouldn't have been here. I really liked that guy.

• 3:39:11Jocko Willink?

  I found no wounds, nothing. No blood. I suspect heart failure. Barnes is still alive. You have to see him. I led Chan to Barnes. Doc had just finished with a bandage on his leg and it looked like he was losing a lot of blood. How's he doing, Doc, I asked. He'll make it. Doc stood up and led us away a few feet. He probably won't walk again. I don't even know why he's still alive. I counted eleven bullet holes from head to toe and some shrapnel holes besides. Doc spoke with his usual boring Boston attitude as if the wounded were keeping him from something more important. That's amazing, I said. What about Buford? All I could find was one tiny little shrapnel wound to the side, but it was so small, it was like a pin prick. It couldn't have been what killed him.

• 3:39:53Jocko Willink?

  He died from fright. He had a heart attack out there. Correct, I concur. Doc's face flushed, half with anger, half with embarrassment. He hated being put in his arrogant place. He removed his glasses for cleaning and then turned away without a word. Twenty minutes later, a medevac chopper chopper settled down in the muddy paddy. The sun was fully up now like a blazing ball in the copper sky. I watched his barn and Buford were loaded into the chopper. I wanted Buford alive. I wanted him to go home and spit in his family's face. He could have gone home, but he didn't. I thought of the cowards in Canada.

• 3:40:37Speaker 01

  That kid, um.

• 3:40:40Speaker 01

  He, uh, he could have gone home. He, he was so scared. I, I guess you read it.

• 3:40:45Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. We, as I said, I can't read the whole.

• 3:40:49Speaker 01

  Oh, I know, I know. If you don't want me to.

• 3:40:51Jocko Willink?

  No, no, no, it's, it's, it's good to talk about. The kid was like horribly petrified.

• 3:40:56Speaker 01

  It just, I never saw another Marine like that. And we didn't know how he even got through boot camp because he was so scared. And he was so nervous, you know, and you couldn't go on ambushes with him. He would just shake and he, he was going to get somebody killed. And, uh, uh, he was just terrified all the time. And so it became clear that, and that lieutenant was going to give him a, an early out. It's going to send him home. And he refused. He wouldn't, he said, I'm not going home till.

• 3:41:29Jocko Willink?

  Till my time is up. And, yeah, that, that, that line really struck me when you talk about thinking about the cowards that had gone to Canada. And here's this kid that's so scared. And, and he didn't, you know, he had told his family, and again, this is in the book, but he told his family he wanted to serve. And his family's all said, oh, you know, you're not going to make it. You're not good enough.

• 3:41:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:41:55Jocko Willink?

  And he went and did it anyways.

• 3:41:56Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 3:41:57Jocko Willink?

  And, and, and that's why you were saying, hey, I, I wish he could have made it home. And proved to his family that he could do it. And he did have what it took.

• 3:42:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, he sure did.

• 3:42:09Jocko Willink?

  And this, this whole event, um, I mean, it's,

• 3:42:15Jocko Willink?

  it's, it's chaos. And, you know, I, I tried to see, like, I pulled a little bit out of it to not read the whole thing, but in the end, I was just, the whole, this whole sequence is so crazy to read about and to follow what had gone on.

• 3:42:35Jocko Willink?

  I mean, from the way that you and Chan set up your machine guns and he started taking the fire and you saw that he was taking the fire, so then you lit up the machine guns that were going after him.

• 3:42:45Speaker 01

  I tell you though, uh, the, uh,

• 3:42:49Speaker 01

  well, you know, I had to stand on top of the grave mound, but when, uh, that, when we went out to get that, uh, uh, get, to try to get Unam Stock and his, his real name wasn't Barnes, it was Sonny. And, uh, and that guy went home and, and he lived, the guy with eleven holes in him. He lived while Unam Stock dies of har- of fright, you know, basically, but, um, he went home and became a Virginia state representative or something. Yeah, he, he, he went on in life and did great. Uh, but that night, it was, it wasn't the guys, I, I, I screwed up there. It was a guy named Corporal Hootson, went out, crawled out in that graveyard,

• 3:43:34Speaker 01

  uh, to get, cause it was his squad that had been, uh, he crawled out in that graveyard and it was, uh, the gunny. So it was us that went out into the graveyard and I, I, I would, you know, trying to remember this stuff, I mean, you know, you do the best you can, uh, names, I could, I, you know, I screwed up a lot of the names, but, uh, a lot of them I did on purpose, but, uh, but yeah, that, that was, that was Corporal Hootson. And to this day, Corporal Hootson, uh, he still has that helmet that we're here to stay.

• 3:44:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, I kinda wanted that helmet.

• 3:44:13Jocko Willink?

  Well, it's interesting. One of my friends that's been on the podcast a few times, John Stryker Meyer, he's a Green Beret, saw a guy in Vietnam, but there was one report when one of their firebases was getting overrun and the sappers had headbands on and when they eventually retook the firebase and recovered the bodies of the sappers that they'd killed, they had headbands on that said, "We came to die." And that was a very, you know, familiar, or at least close, "We're here to stay."

• 3:44:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 3:44:41Jocko Willink?

  The other thing that I found shockingly horrifying in this was I've only been in one situation where we could hear and see the mortars getting launched. You know, most of the time in Iraq for me, it was, you know, you get hit from mortars from unseen location.

• 3:44:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:44:57Jocko Willink?

  But one time, it was nighttime and they were launching mortars from a couple of blocks away, but you couldn't see because there was buildings, but they were not very far away.

• 3:45:10Speaker 01

  And you could see the flash?

• 3:45:11Jocko Willink?

  You could see the flash, you could see the spark, like a little trail going up, and you could hear it. You know, you'd hear

• 3:45:18Speaker 01

  It's terrifying because you don't know where it's gonna land. I mean, you can't see it, or you can wait, you gotta just wait.

• 3:45:25Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 3:45:25Speaker 01

  You gotta wait.

• 3:45:26Jocko Willink?

  I got a friend named Johnny, and so we were in that situation, and we were getting, they were launching mortars at us every so often during this one night. And another friend of mine, coincidentally named Johnny, but probably the third or fourth time that they sent this salvo of mortars at us, you know, I hear the

• 3:45:49Jocko Willink?

  and my friend Johnny comes up on the radio and says, "That's three boys, count them out." You know, he's getting all completely freaked out. "That's three boys, count them out." So that was pretty horrifying. But then as I was reading this, I was picturing you. You can see them.

• 3:46:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:46:06Jocko Willink?

  You can see that they're launching mortars. And you're turning to your bosses saying, guys, let me shoot, let me shoot. And they're saying, we can't shoot because we know we have friendlies out there.

• 3:46:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:46:17Jocko Willink?

  And that's one of those judgment calls.

• 3:46:20Speaker 01

  I know, I know, I know, you know, the officers, they were, they were squared away guys, you know, they, you know, they saved my life in Vietnam. Those, we had incredible officers, especially the, my one from Annapolis that was, you know, he was just a great guy. He went on to become a biggie, a head of the FBI in the Northeast. And anyway, he was a great man, but I know they made the right decision. Cause if I had opened fire and killed, and the guy that, that was coming out of the graveyard.

• 3:46:55Jocko Willink?

  Jeez.

• 3:46:55Speaker 01

  His name was Pat McCrery. He's the reason, one of the reasons they gave me the Silver Star. He, he got a little, a bullet wound that night and he had joined the Marine Corps at Jacksonville and saw me doing all that stuff to convince the Navy doctors that I was going in. He witnessed it and he, he said, I knew you were insane then. And so here he is that night, you know, he, he'd been wanting to come into combat. He, they'd had him in the rear and he finally gets out in the bush and he runs into this. And so anyway, years later, he wants a Purple Heart license tag. They had just come out and 30 years at ease, he wants that Purple Heart license tag.

• 3:47:37Speaker 01

  And he goes to get it and they go, we don't have, we need documentation. And he shows them the bullet hole and he goes, here's document. And they go, no, no, it's gotta be on your, on your DD 214 or something, you know, and, and he goes, it's not on there, but I, I, you know, I got shot. And he goes, I want my, and he threw a fit about this and caused a ruckus and went to his congressman and did all kinds of stuff. I want my license tag. Well, they did, they did a big investigation. It was because of Pat McCrery. They did an investigation and found out that he wasn't the only one in our outfit, you know, that medals, etc.

• 3:48:16Speaker 01

  They, a 122 millimeter rocket, one of the big Chinese rockets or Russian rockets, I don't even know what it was. But had hit the, uh, uh, record shack at Anh Hoa and blew it up and killed all the, all the guys in the, uh, record shack, but it blew up all our records. So thirty years later, he opens the can of worms on that and they start doing research on it and the company gunny, this was another gunny, wasn't the one that was with me all the time, the company gunny is one of the ones that had ripped me up for the Silver Star that night. Well, he found out that it, you know, it didn't happen. And now he had

• 3:49:01Speaker 01

  retired out of the corps, I don't know what his rank was, but he rewrote it. He wrote it up again and my old CO signed it and etc. And then he died two weeks later. And if he hadn't done it when he did, I would have never got it. But it was Pat McCrory raising a stink over his Purple Heart license tag that made him see that, yeah, you know, there's other medals these guys didn't get. And so that's how I got it. But it was that night, Pat McCrory getting a wound.

• 3:49:35Jocko Willink?

  So it was thirty years later, so it was in the 90s when you got awarded the Silver Star for this?

• 3:49:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, thirty years after.

• 3:49:41Jocko Willink?

  Wow.

• 3:49:42Speaker 01

  That's when they gave Big Red his, the Bronze Star. And he should have, and really, Undemstock should have got the Silver Star.

• 3:49:52Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, so the award system is...

• 3:49:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know. The Marines have never been big on handing out medals.

• 3:50:01Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, the Marines are definitely not big.

• 3:50:03Speaker 01

  No, they're not very good about that. And, you know, and they'll tell you, did you join the Corps to fight or to get medals, you know? So, yeah. But, but after it's all over and you're an old man, it's kind of nice to, you know, to have something.

• 3:50:21Jocko Willink?

  Of course, even after all that, it just, it's still on. We started after the NVA on a forced march. The jungle looked dense and black. The retreat was hurried and our portman followed it easily. Thirty minutes on their trail led us to a snake-infested jungle swamp. The unmistakable, sickening, sweet odor of rotting corpses filled the damp, humid air. I found solace in the stench, knowing there were dead gooks. I wanted to shoot more. I wanted them to pay. We marched on and on, in and out of the swamp after swamp. It was nearing evening when we finally climbed out of the swamps and onto solid ground. The terrain in front of us was rolling hills with scattered patches of trees and brush.

• 3:51:05Jocko Willink?

  Without my even realizing it, we had linked up with a huge column of Marines stretching past one hill and over another. The sun was dying on the horizon. We had to stop soon. I felt like I had to eat something. Cracking rifle fire broke the silence of the march. It was over as quickly as it started. Corman up. Swift Eagle round by me shouting. Get in the perimeter. Who's hit? Rogers asked. The chief kept running toward the lieutenant. Who's at there helping? Rogers pointed to the three Marines standing over another Marine twenty meters back. For a moment, I thought it was Chan. I'll go see, I said. I ran back. Who is it? Ellen Wood, Doc answered. Jack? Yeah. Is he okay? I think so. We need a medevac. Let me see my baby.

• 3:51:50Jocko Willink?

  Jack sounded dazed, like he was in shock. Let me see my baby. What's he talking about? Doc asked, his voice beginning to show strain. His baby. I know what he's talking about. Memories of Jack calming me down after my first confirmed kill by showing me pictures of his new baby came back to me. Give me his wallet. Another Marine handed me his helmet. I fumbled for his wallet. Here it is. I unwrapped the plastic around it, opened it up, and found the color picture of his laughing baby boy. Here, Jack. Here's your baby. It was too dark to see the photograph clearly, but he calmed down just by holding on to it. I wondered why it had happened to Jack out of the 500 Marines and with only two weeks left. Our night ended in perimeter, waiting for the medevac that didn't come. The next morning started with the humming noise of thirty to fifty helicopters flying in formation in the eastern sky.

• 3:52:35Jocko Willink?

  Good grief. What's all that? Rogers asked. I don't know, I said. Hey, Swift Eagle. What's going on over there? Swift Eagle looked up from his can of congealed Lima beans, Mima beans and ham fat. He gazed stoically at the huge formation. I think it's the Hundred and First Airborne. They get a noon meal. Hot, too. What? Are you kidding? John, I turned to see Doc, the arrogance replaced by a solemn face looking down at me. Jack's dead. Dead? How? He wasn't hit that bad. He had a stomach wound we didn't find until the morning. He could have made it, but we didn't get a medevac chopper. Doc spoke as though he was pleading for understanding. There just weren't any choppers.

• 3:53:17Jocko Willink?

  I followed the flight of the Army's Armada of helicopters until my vision blurred. Then I cried.

• 3:53:27Speaker 01

  That story, another, another mistake I made. It was a baby girl. It had a baby girl. And she, years later, she read Guns Up. I don't know why a girl would read it, but actually, a lot of girls read it. It's kind of funny. But she had read it and she knew that was her dad. She just knew. And she, she contacted me and sure enough, she sent me the picture. And then it came back to me. It was, I remember that picture. She had that picture that he had in his helmet. And she had it. She said, and his real name was Frank Burris.

• 3:54:09Speaker 01

  And he was, he was from St. Petersburg, Florida. And, you know, so that's why I knew him. But once again, names, you know. But yeah, Frank, he had that baby girl and she had never got to see her dad. And boy, that, that Guns Up really, really got to her, you know? I mean, we spent some time talking about it. It really got to me, too. I couldn't, couldn't believe the ghosts that kept coming back. But, you know, we called her Red Baby Girl because she had red hair. She's a red baby girl. But her mom, then Frank's wife, it was many years later now, and she had remarried, but she called me up and said, yeah, she, she's

• 3:54:52Speaker 01

  never gotten over the fact she never got to see her dad. And, yeah, it was pretty hard.

• 3:55:00Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that the, it really, really did get good in Vietnam, the fact that they could get wounded off the battlefield, you know?

• 3:55:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:55:11Jocko Willink?

  And then by the time, you know, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars kicked off, it was like, it's such a, people understand, they call it the golden hour, you know, of this, we're gonna get our guys to trauma care, like, within an hour.

• 3:55:26Speaker 01

  Right.

• 3:55:26Jocko Willink?

  And it just, so many, so many more lives have been saved because of that.

• 3:55:30Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 3:55:31Jocko Willink?

  A lot of it is the lessons that you guys brought back from Vietnam of how important that is.

• 3:55:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, I, I know. And compared to World War II, how many of our guys would have died without those choppers? But, but you couldn't always get choppers, you know, you just, and a lot of times, choppers couldn't land where we were.

• 3:55:48Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 3:55:54Jocko Willink?

  Fast forward a little bit. Guns up.

• 3:55:59Jocko Willink?

  I crawled back out of the bush, stood to a crouch and walked forward, firing from the hip first at the bunker, then sweeping tracers through the bamboo hooch. The hooch caught fire. Flames spread quickly. A moment later, the entire hooch burned out of control. I moved into the small clearing with sunlight, running to the right until I had a straight shot into the bunker door. A muzzle flash spit from the darkness inside the bunker. I hit the ground. Chan opened up semi-automatic. I shot a long stream of tracers through the door. The flash ceased. Suddenly, a ChaiCom grenade flew out from the bunker, landing 10 feet to my right. "Frag incoming!" I screamed as I shot another 20-round burst into the bunker. I covered my helmet with my arms and nose and into and nose dived straight into the earth.

• 3:56:43Jocko Willink?

  No explosion. I started firing again. "Cease fire!" Lieutenant Campbell shouted. A jungle breeze shifted smoke pouring from the flaming hooch into my face. Chan grabbed my arm. "Let's move." We stood, ran right and flattened to the ground again. Short, stocky Corporal James ran up to the dirt bunker, being careful to stay out of the line of fire. He leaned against a wall, put his rifle between his legs and pulled the pin of his grenade. He let the spoon fly, held for a count of two, stepped out, tossed the frag through the door, then jumped back. I opened fire on the bunker door to keep anyone from throwing the grenade back out. Out of the bunker grenade, the grenade flew anyway. James hit the dirt as the frag exploded, sending shrapnel slapping through the leafy jungle.

• 3:57:28Jocko Willink?

  "James!" Lieutenant Campbell shouted. "Catch!" James looked up from the dirt. Lieutenant Campbell threw him another grenade. James pulled the pin, let the spoon fly and held for another count of two. He threw the frag in, harder this time, like an angry pitcher. He dove back against the bunker. I opened up again. Orange tracers streamed into the dark hole. An explosion shook the dirt from outside the bunker. A cloud of smoke poured from the open door. The bamboo door fell shut just as the stick, holding it, collapsed from the explosion. James moved forward. He cautiously lifted the bamboo hatch and started to prop it up with a stick. A ChaiCom grenade flew out the open door, glancing off Corporal James's shoulder and bouncing to eight feet in front of Chan and me. James dove back, letting the bunker door slam. We buried our faces in the dirt.

• 3:58:12Jocko Willink?

  I tried to crawl under my helmet with my hands and waited. Nothing. "James!" Lieutenant Campbell called again. "Catch!" He tossed him another grenade. James caught it, then dropped it. He picked it up, pulled the pin, moved back to the bamboo door, grabbed it with his left hand and let the spoon fly, counted two, lifted the door and threw it in the frag. He jumped back away from the door and explosion rocked the bunker again. The door blew open in a cloud of smoke, then slammed shut. Lieutenant Campbell moved forward with Sudsy right behind him. Sudsy reached over the shoulder and pulled the antenna higher as he ran. The squad circled the bunker. I still couldn't see the chief squad or Murphy's squad. I stood up. Chan got to his feet and quickly linked up another belt of ammo. We moved forward cautiously. Lieutenant Campbell looked around at the squad, then shouted, "Fire

• 3:58:56Jocko Willink?

  in the hole!" He pulled the pin on another frag. James lifted the hatch up, out and up. Lieutenant Campbell threw in the frag. James let the door fall shut as they both stepped to the side. The bunker shook from the muffled explosion. The door flew open again, the cloud of smoke then fell shut.

• 3:59:16Jocko Willink?

  It's just grenade fight. Just hucking grenades at each other.

• 3:59:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, a lot of the ChiComs were duds.

• 3:59:23Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 3:59:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:59:25Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, when you refer to ChiComs in this, you're talking about these old Chinese Communist grenades that have a tendency to not work.

• 3:59:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, look, kinda like a potato masher, you know?

• 3:59:36Jocko Willink?

  Like a small potato masher.

• 3:59:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 3:59:39Jocko Willink?

  Let's get a body count. The lieutenant spoke quickly as he pointed to the thumb at the door of the bunker. James opened the hatch, propped it open with a stick, crouched over and stepped down and in. A moment later, he dragged a tattered body of an NVA out. His left arm and leg dangled loosely, only held on by a couple of tendons. James pulled him a few feet from the bunker. The smell of gunpowder filled the air. James stepped into the bunker again. A moment later, he dragged another bloody corpse out by the feet. The body was riddled with shrapnel holes and the head was cracked open with, from the concussion. James laid him beside the other. "That's it," James said with an obvious disappointment. "Can't be," Stryker blurted out. "I saw three of them go in there." "Are you sure?" Lieutenant asked. "Positive."

• 4:00:21Jocko Willink?

  Stryker looked mad that they doubted him. He moved forward, leaned his rifle against the bunker, stepped down into the hole. "Here he is," Stryker shouted from inside. "They hit him under the floorboards." Stryker came out near, came out rear end first, dragging the body of another NVA. "Hey, it's a woman," James said. "She's alive," Sudsy said. "How could anyone live through that?" James said in disbelief. "She ain't very alive," Stryker said, bending her over, checking the wounds. Oh, bad. Look, Lieutenant Campbell said as he pulled away her tattered shirt. Her whole stomach's gone. Yeah, no chance, Doc said from behind me. Come here and get a closer look, Doc. Lieutenant Campbell said. Doc moved forward, he bent her over and shook his head. She'll never make it. I don't know why she's alive now. Look at all the blood. It's coming out of her ears.

• 4:01:05Jocko Willink?

  Did you hear that striker said? Her stomach just made an awful sound like a drain opening. She's really suffering. Someone stepped forward with an M16, pointed it at her chest and fired a single shot. The body jumped from the impact. No one spoke. We stared, her nostrils moved sucking in to get oxygen. Good God. The word struck something in me. I wondered if she believed in God. He fired a second shot. Again, the body jumped from the impact. We waited, her nostrils flared again. Then her mouth came open. She's still alive, Doc shouted. He removed his glasses and wiped sweat from his face. Somebody shoot her with a 45. I wondered if she'd ever heard the name of the Lord, even as my hand reached down to my side. Chan looked concerned.

• 4:01:49Jocko Willink?

  I wasn't sure why. He handed me a sea rat. Can full of smoking hot chocolate. How are you feeling? He asked. Fine, how about you? No complaints anyone cares about. I looked around the perimeter, didn't look right. The rise of the small rocky hill on the other side of the perimeter from view. I couldn't remember coming here. I must be turning into a real space cadet. Why? I don't know why, really. I don't even remember setting up in this place. You remember the mercy killing? What mercy killing? I asked. Chan looked puzzled. I thought for a minute without speaking. Oh, yeah, the woman in the bunker. Are you all right? Yeah. Other than being in the Corps, I'm just fine.

• 4:02:31Jocko Willink?

  The dying yellow face of the woman in front of the bunker flashed vividly through my mind. No, I'm not all that good right now. How do you talk to God? When you just murdered someone?

• 4:02:56Speaker 01

  Years later, at a kind of reunion thing, Sergeant Stacy Watson showed up and he had a bunch of stuff from NOM and he had that girl's ID. It was his job to search the bodies, get maps and so forth. He had that girl's ID and showed it to me. He told all of you where she was born, all kinds of stuff. It's rough.

• 4:03:39Jocko Willink?

  Seven months in the bush brought on many changes. A lot of friends back in the world stopped writing, including a brother and a sister. Most never wrote to begin with. I would never have imagined that a simple letter could be so important, except maybe for old people. I remember reading about Vietnam in the paper. It had never seemed like it was really happening. But now, for me, Vietnam was no longer some bizarre fantasy war on Walter Cronkite. The jungler, the jungle, with all its death and fatigue, was the only thing that was real. Flushing toilets, cars, and knives and forks didn't exist. Civilization was the fantasy. I felt ready for a cage. I had to have R and R soon.

• 4:04:23Jocko Willink?

  If not, certain parts of my anatomy might never operate properly again. Female water buffaloes were looking better all the time. No one bothered explaining why Chan and I had gone so long without an R and R. Men who were a boot to us had already gone and come back. We guessed they were waiting for more gunners to show up before they trusted the gun to a rifleman. We did a lot of guessing. Like we tried to guess why we were still PFCs after so many months in combat. I had more than one friend in the Army, three to be exact. All three were sergeants after six months, and they were still stateside.

• 4:05:05Jocko Willink?

  So you're not getting any R and R, which is kinda crazy.

• 4:05:09Speaker 01

  And not getting any promotion.

• 4:05:12Speaker 01

  I, uh, my, uh, I don't know if I wrote, I don't know if I wrote that part in the book or not, but did you read how I finally got promoted?

• 4:05:21Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 4:05:21Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 4:05:23Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you get promoted like that by.

• 4:05:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:05:30Jocko Willink?

  Fast forward.

• 4:05:33Jocko Willink?

  Suddenly an NVA soldier emerged from the cover of the trees. He wore the usual green pith helmet. It looked greener than most, brand new, I guessed. Fresh troops from the north. My heart started pounding. He paused at the stream and looked both ways like a kid crossing a busy street. He carried his AK-47 with both hands. Something was missing, no pack. He finally crossed the stream. Two more pith helmets appeared. My heart joined my Adam's apple. Chan tensed up. I tightened my grip on the gun. I put the lead man in my gun sight. Someone started digging into the rocky earth behind me. The man in my sight turned. He stared straight into my eyes. I heard my teeth grinding. The noise didn't matter. It was too late. I squeezed. The first orange tracer seemed to go right through the lead man like he was made of paper

• 4:06:18Jocko Willink?

  mache. The first burst blew him back, arms flailing like a mannequin thrown into the air. I kept firing and firing. Cease fire, cease fire. Chan was shaking my shoulder. I felt like he was waking me from a hazy dream. My lip hurt, blood, a generous piece of my lip was wedged between my teeth. Guns up, let's get a body count. Got some ammo, ass Chan, we're ready. I stumbled down the hill following Corporal James squad, plus a couple of extra men for support. We reached the stream. One man lay in half in, half out of the water. His right arm and part of his shoulder had been torn from his corpse and were lying on the legs of another body three feet away. Crimson pulsing blood colored the crystal water of the stream. Good shooting, John. He looks like Swiss cheese, Sam said.

• 4:07:04Jocko Willink?

  A painful groan brought our attention to the NVA still alive. He lay on his stomach. Then he shuddered in pain. Corporal James cautiously rolled him over with his foot while pointing an M16 in his head. No weapon, everything looks safe. James knelt on one knee and removed the pith helmet. Long shimmering black hair tumbled across the face of an exceptionally beautiful Vietnamese woman. It stunned me. The last thing in the world I expected to see was a beautiful woman. Wow, how old do you think she is? Someone said. Twenty at the most, said Corporal James. I bet she's half-French. Yeah, she's too fine to be all gook. Chan and I were speechless. We appeared to be the only ones who were. All I could do was stare. Her flawless complexion matched her beautiful features.

• 4:07:49Jocko Willink?

  Her striking eyes, more round than usual, gave a hint of a Eurasian background. She wore the same khaki uniform that most NVA did, and the same hoachy men sandals made from American tire tread. I wanted to throw up. I knew I'd probably just killed one of the most beautiful women I'd ever seen. No one took their eyes off of her. The closest thing to a female any of us had seen in months were the two women who had popped out of that hut on a search-and-destroy mission. Village women looked haggard or hawk-faced. Most were toothless and weather-beaten from years in the patties. This woman was a flower in the desert. We gathered around her in a semicircle. Her khaki shirt, which was quickly sopping up her dark-red blood, had two holes just above the belt line.

• 4:08:34Jocko Willink?

  The semicircle of Marines moved a step closer. The moment felt dark, primitive. We stared hypnotically. She clutched her stomach in pain, looked up at us and said something in Vietnamese. She repeated again, her eyes squeezed shut. Then she said it again, this time with her eyes opened, steaming with defiance. I recognized only one word: Marines. Corporal James broke the trance. Chan, what's she saying? She says Marines are murderers and animals. Sam dropped the blooper gun. His eyes bulged. His coarse, dirty, furrowed skin matched the strange personality perfectly.

• 4:09:11Jocko Willink?

  He suddenly looked very old in an instant before anyone could stop him. He fell to his knees and ripped the woman's trousers down to her thighs in one violent motion. I was stunned, no one moved. By the time we reacted, Sam had ripped her bloody shirt up over her head. I lunged forward with two others, grabbed Sam by the shoulders and threw him onto his back. He gasped out of breath and panting. The woman started cursing us, large glittering tears trickled down her face. Chan yelled, "Corman up!" Then knelt beside her. He quickly tore her shirt in half and tried to stop the bleeding by tying two pieces around her waist. "How bad is she, Chan?" I asked. "Looks like three hits by the gun. Can she make it?" "I don't know. Looks like one round went through her back and out her side. It's the most serious."

• 4:09:56Jocko Willink?

  The huge hole in her side gushed blood each time she cursed at us. Sam jumped to his feet. "Why don't we all get her before she bleeds to death?" Sam shouted. "Yeah, why not?" Someone added. "That would be a mistake." Chan snapped at Sam, then stared at him, almost daring him to respond. For a helpless moment, it looked like a fight. I knew Sam was just crazy enough to grab his weapon. I took two steps back and put my M60 on my hip. Sam paid no attention to Chan or me, he kept a fixed stare on the naked girl. I could hear my teeth grinding. Stryker and Jones appeared from the brush, they stared at the woman without speaking. "Well, where's the gook?" James barked. "Couldn't find him." Stryker replied, his eyes glued on the naked girl.

• 4:10:41Jocko Willink?

  "He's in bad shape, though, there's blood everywhere. Hey, what's this? We gonna bang her?" "Keep it cool, she's probably dying." James said. "Oh, well." Stryker grumbled. "Ain't enough of her, anyway." Stryker looked at Chan, then down, as if he was embarrassed or maybe just regretting his choice of words. An hour later, a medevac chopper appeared overhead and lowered a basket for the wounded woman. A wave of pride swept through me. It wasn't the first time I'd seen Marines risk their own lives to save a wounded enemy, but this time, I felt wonderful. I wasn't sure why. Maybe, maybe it was because she was young and beautiful. Maybe it was because she thought Marines were animals. Or maybe because I was the Marine who shot her.

• 4:11:25Jocko Willink?

  Whatever the reason, I felt proud of being an American.

• 4:11:33Speaker 01

  The chopper that came in and got her, we were, we were real close to the Ho Chi Minh Trail that, that day and a ton of NVA and it was, it was almost suicide to call in a chopper there. But, but the guys, they wanted to do it. I mean, they had that moment of insanity, but they wanted to try to save this girl. And, and of course, the lieutenant and he was, he did it. He called them in and they had to hover above and I can't remember, it might've been one of the Jolly Greens, but it was, it might've been a Chinook, but it was a pretty big chopper, if I remember. But he had to hover above these big trees

• 4:12:17Speaker 01

  and, and almost, you know, it was hitting the trees and stuff. That chopper could've gone down. All those guys risked their lives to, to save that girl. I, I never, I never heard if she made it or not, but they, you know, they lowered a, a basket. We put her in the basket and hoisted her up real slow, but it, it took a while. And, you know, every NVA soldier in Cambodia knew we were there. It, yeah. So, the guys really risked their life. And, and yeah, they, when she said, when she said what she did about Marines, Sam went nuts, but they got over, you know, they acted normal after that. But as a writer,

• 4:12:59Speaker 01

  yeah, I wrote it. But, yeah, they, they wouldn't have done anything.

• 4:13:10Jocko Willink?

  Fast forward a little bit. An hour passed. The rain lightened from a downpour to a pour. Something sizzled bright colors like a sparkler moving in circles. Stay awake, I thought. I have to stay awake. The sparkler exploded into the mud on my right. Incoming! Another B-40 rocket sizzled overhead, exploding 20 meters behind us. Guns up! I opened up with the M60. There's a flash, Chan was shouting and pointing. 10 meters left. My tracer zeroed in on the latest, on the last flash. Cease fire, Chan said. Do you see anything? No. Ow, Chan, something just hit me, hit me in the helmet. Felt like a brick. A numbing explosion blasted me forward. A frag had hit my helmet and bounced to the ground nearby. The flash stayed on my eyes. I'm hit. God, I'm really hit this time. My back's burning.

• 4:13:53Jocko Willink?

  I rolled left. It's the barrel, Chan. Johnny, are you okay? God, I'm glad to hear you. Yeah, no, I don't know. There's a lot of warm stuff running down my leg and it ain't rain. Another rocket exploded to our right, throwing mud around us. Can you see? Not yet. Are you hit too? Yes, Chan said. Listen, I don't hear anything. Neither do I. Think we should call for Doc? Can you see yet? Chan asked. No, they might be on top of us. Have you got your rifle? Yes. I think I'm bleeding from the groin too. Bad? No, I don't think so. Chan, feel my legs. Are they okay? Chan moved closer. He hit my boot. I felt it. Thank God. They're bleeding, but still there. See if you can get the gun ready. I'll call Doc. I oriented myself and pulled the M60 to me. She felt like solid mud, but nothing was out of place. I still

• 4:14:38Jocko Willink?

  saw spots. Memories of being timed, memories of being timed, taking the gun apart and putting it back together, blindfolded, came back to me. The only sound around us was the pounding rain. The gun's ready. I don't know what good it'll do. I can't see or hear. Corman, Chan's call scared me. A moment later, the call was echoed by the position to our left. I tensed. I tried to straighten my left leg. It hurt. A sense of total helplessness swept over me. Then panic. I'll never run again, I blurted. What? I can't play ball. Hold it. You're okay. Am I crippled? If you avoid catching frags with your fat head, you wouldn't be lying here bleeding, having this absurd conversation. The exact words I needed. My panic subsided. I found myself giggling and

• 4:15:19Jocko Willink?

  feeling ashamed. I always wondered how I would react if I got hit. Now I knew, and my pride hurt more than my knee. Heavy boots splashed into a puddle of mud behind me. My night vision was still useless. Series of yellow spots from the blast. I can't believe it. Hit you right in the head, Chan started giggling. Oh, it hurts to laugh. He laughed again, trying to smother the sound with his hand. As always, the laugh was contagious. I started giggling and crying at the same time. If one of you isn't wounded, you will be soon, the threatening whisper of belonged to Corporal Swift Eagle. Another pair of feet hustled up behind us. Who's hit? Is that Doc, Chan asked? Yeah, we're both hit. Check John first. What's funny, Swift Eagle said. The frag, Chan started

• 4:16:00Jocko Willink?

  to giggle. Hit me right in the, I started snickering, snickering. I couldn't talk. Let's get him back to the CP, Swift Eagle said. Grab an arm. Think they're in shock? No, they're both too crazy to be in shock.

• 4:16:13Jocko Willink?

  Chan, you in much pain? Doc asked. Yes, Chan sounded weak. How bad is he, Doc? I asked. Doc lit a match and quickly removed it all around Chan, looking for wounds. A few shrapnel holes, but he'll be okay, Gunny. Hold a match over my pouch for a second. Gunny lit a match. Doc fingered through it, his pouch, until he found what he wanted. Okay, got it. I sat up and took a look at my leg. My trousers were covered with red mud. Wow, I've lost a lot of blood. A moment later, Doc stuck something into my leg. This is morphine. You won't feel anything soon.

• 4:16:46Jocko Willink?

  You guys got wounded, obviously. I'm gonna fast forward a little bit. I felt like a caveman. The electric lights fascinated me. The air felt abnormally cool. Maybe the loss of blood, I thought. Air conditioning, Chan, it's air conditioning. Where were you hit, Marine? I looked to my left to see the harried face of a young corpsman. My legs. He reached for a large pair of scissors and started cutting up one of my leg trousers to the hip. A grenade fell out of one of the trouser pockets and bounced between the corpsman's feet. He turned pale, then he lost control. You jarheaded moron? What are you doing with a grenade in here? His panicky scream startled everyone around us into silence. He was still too stiff with panic to pick up the grenade from between his feet. Haven't you heard, Squid?

• 4:17:31Jocko Willink?

  I said with, as a threatening tone as I could muster, there's a war going on out there and frags are tools of my trade. The frightened corpsman squatted slowly, delicately picked up the grenade with a forefinger and thumb and ran out of the room, holding it at arm's length.

• 4:17:50Jocko Willink?

  You guys are clearly in the, in the hospital now. PFC Clark. That is not a dream, that is a nightmare, I thought. I opened my eyes. A stern-faced major dressed in, dressed greens looked down at me. Yes, sir. I'm presenting you with a Purple Heart Medal on behalf of the United States Marine Corps. A young Red Cross girl handed him a purple box, then focused on me with a camera. He opened the box and showed me the medal. Would you like me to pin it on? He, he asked. I looked down to discover I was wearing blue pajamas. No, I'll just lay it on the box by me. As you wish. This young lady here is, wants to take a picture. We suggest you have the photo taken and send to your folks back home and let them know you're okay. Marines will come to their door with a telegram informing that you're next of kin, that you have been wounded in hostile action.

• 4:18:32Jocko Willink?

  So there you go.

• 4:18:33Speaker 01

  I still got that picture.

• 4:18:34Jocko Willink?

  Oh, really? Oh, that's awesome.

• 4:18:38Jocko Willink?

  Uh, this is just a note, according to your records, you've lost forty two pounds. So what'd you say you were one sixty when you showed up there? Now you're doing one twenty.

• 4:18:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:18:48Jocko Willink?

  Carrying the freaking M60s, twenty five pounds or twenty six pounds.

• 4:18:52Speaker 01

  Yep. I know that it was, it was a common joke in the Marine Corps that smallest guys would end up with the heaviest gut. But, you know, I was, I was always real strong, but that's before I lost forty pounds. Yeah, but a- and mostly that wasn't all just bad food. You know, sea rations, but it was getting the worms. Yeah, dysentery all the time. We're always getting dysentery. That, yeah, you, you couldn't keep weight on, but not everybody lost as much as I did. Yeah, I don't know, my metabolism or something, but.

• 4:19:32Jocko Willink?

  So you got some good medical treatment there? And that's not all the good treatment you got. Going back to the book, her name was Linda.

• 4:19:40Jocko Willink?

  She came from Dallas, twenty two years old, unmarried and physically luscious. Her ambitions centered around making enough money to buy a house. I only need about twenty five more guys, she said with a bright perky smile that came closer to her cheerleaders than a harlots. A house, can you make that much? I asked naively. Oh, sure, she said a matter of factly. Her sky blue eyes springing open with information. The girl I replaced made forty thousand bucks in eleven months.

• 4:20:08Jocko Willink?

  I tried stupidly to divide fifty into forty thousand on ten fingers, not enough fingers. I felt a bit upset, realizing she hadn't been swept away by my charm or at least my good looks.

• 4:20:22Jocko Willink?

  She stood to remove her gray red cross dress, stooping slightly to avoid bumping her head. I felt myself melting faster than the candle. Her dress fell lazily to the floor of the ambulance. So this girl was a, a working girl, a working red cross girl. And I did, actually did the math. Forty thousand divided by fifty is eight hundred, so.

• 4:20:44Jocko Willink?

  She was getting a pretty good body count herself.

• 4:20:48Jocko Willink?

  A few days later, the doctor, besides jungle rot, various worms and what may be a touch of malaria PFC. The stern faced doctor looked down at his chart with a slight hint of disgust. You now also have gonorrhea. I slumped against my pillow. I looked at Chan. His head was cranked to a sitting position. He pretended to be reading a magazine with his Snoopy grin plastered across his contented face. He said nothing. Every morning during the every humiliating painful penicillin shot, he grinned and said nothing. Oh, one day he hummed and said nothing. We spent over a month in the hospital for over a month. Chan held his tongue in check, not once succumbing to the temptation of I told you so because he had told you, hey, dude, don't do this. But you did.

• 4:21:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:21:34Speaker 01

  Yeah. I didn't want to die a virgin. I kind of remember saying that.

• 4:21:39Jocko Willink?

  And that wasn't enough for Chan?

• 4:21:41Speaker 01

  No, no, Chan had morals and eventually I I gained some morals too.

• 4:21:51Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. She sounded like, uh, did she ever, did you ever get a contact from her? You know?

• 4:21:56Speaker 01

  No, no, I didn't.

• 4:21:58Jocko Willink?

  She sounded like she was a pretty amazing looking woman. It seems like you're, you know, your, your morals got tested a little bit again. The next chapter is called Something is Smoking at Firebase Alpha. You got a, you got a great whole section here. Uh, you know, you, you roll out to this, you end up having to stop in a helicopter at this other firebase and these guys are living very differently than you guys were living out in the bush. These guys are, they got pot, they got booze and they introduce you to both.

• 4:22:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:22:32Jocko Willink?

  Or maybe not the booze, but they definitely introduced you to pot.

• 4:22:34Speaker 01

  But, you know, these guys were, they were in a pretty secure area.

• 4:22:39Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 4:22:42Speaker 01

  For the record, yeah, I mean, the guys I was with, if, if you even lit up a cigarette, I mean, there were guys who would, you know, the Swift Eagle, he would nick you with a K bar. If you, uh, if you, there was no screwing around out in the bush. So guys in the rear, yeah, they did, they did stuff, but you know, not the guys, not the guys I was with anyway, not out in the bush.

• 4:23:07Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Well, that, that's, you know, I, I should have read the section, but basically you're on a helicopter to get back to the bush and it can't get all the way out there. So you get, you get let off for a night.

• 4:23:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:23:17Jocko Willink?

  Basically in this firebase where like you said, there's no, there's no immediate threat going on.

• 4:23:22Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 4:23:22Jocko Willink?

  And so, you know, we end up with these, these guys are out there, uh.

• 4:23:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:23:27Jocko Willink?

  Hollywood Marines, I guess.

• 4:23:28Speaker 01

  Yes, they were Hollywood Marines. There's a couple of them were from California. So it's.

• 4:23:34Jocko Willink?

  Then you end up getting into, you end up getting dropped off again and I guess it's no shock for your level of luck that you seem to have, but when you get dropped off again, it's a really bad situation going on. Going to the book here, you get on the ground, we're surrounded Chan said, why did that chopper drop you in here? I don't know. He didn't even know that it was a hot LZ. Look at this, we have one belt of ammo left. Panic was beginning to creep into Chan's voice. Third platoon already lost four men back there that I know of. Third platoon, platoon is the whole company here? No, just second and third. We're in real trouble, buddy. Chan's eyes sobered me up with a serious stare. I'm going after some ammo. Somebody back there has some. Wait, Chan grabbed my arm. Let the CP know you're coming.

• 4:24:19Jocko Willink?

  Hey Gunny, I screamed as loud as I could. The chaotic firing all around the perimeter drowning me out. I turned to Chan, he'll never hear me over all this. I'm going for it. Gunny should know who has gun ammo. I swallowed back a small belch. Be fast, like the wind. You get over there. M60 ammo, I said, as I tried to catch my breath without looking up. Here, get out of here with it. You're drawing fire. He handed me two belts of ammo and ducked down. I grabbed it and jumped up. My feet couldn't move fast enough. Coming, coming in Chan. I dove in beside him. Pieces of fallen tree flew into the air from the barrage of AK fire. A small gray snake slithered under the fire, five feet to my right and wriggled away. I wanted to be that small. I wanted to follow him. Chan, we got airstrikes coming. I got two belts. When? Sounded soon. Want to trade places? I just don't feel right with this little pea shooter.

• 4:25:05Jocko Willink?

  Chan looked at me seriously, then broke into a smile. I wondered when you would want this thing back. Yes, might as well. You're useless as an A gunner anyways. We changed positions, staying under the cover of the tree. The gun felt good, like an old girlfriend. I fired a 10 round burst at a muzzle flash in the tree line 30 meters away. Three Phantoms roared overhead at treetop level. Like lightning, a sleek Phantom dropped from the blue sky over the banana trees low enough for me to see the pilot's face. Two long cylindrical bombs floated softly away from the screaming jet, tumbling lazily end over end until they crashed into the earth. The napalm spread like a violent wave coming ashore engulfing everything in fire. Clouds of orange and red flames swallowed the line of trees.

• 4:25:49Jocko Willink?

  My face burned. I jerked my head down behind the tree. My eyebrows and mustache were smoking. Chan, good grief. It singed the hair off your face. How bad is it? I was scared to touch my skin. An acrid stench of the singed mustache hair brought up another mouthful of whiskey. Cause you're still hungover at this point from the night before. And by the way, Chan had already, he healed up quicker than you. That's why he was back in the field.

• 4:26:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:26:13Jocko Willink?

  Looks like a sunburn. Chan peeked over the tree. Look. A man screaming in agony ran from the flaming banana trees on fire from head to toe. I took aim but didn't fire. Put him out of his misery. I don't want to waste the ammo, I barked angrily. A few seconds later, he collapsed. I could feel Chan staring at me. I hesitated to look him in the eye. I knew he would be shocked. It shocked me too. I turned to see Chan's face. He was looking at the fire. I'm sorry, I said. Don't be. You were right. A single Phantom swept over the tree line. At least three AKs opened up on the low-flying jet. How could anybody live through that?

• 4:26:51Jocko Willink?

  Um. And then you have choppers coming in, getting ready to drop some supplies. Guns up, guns up, guns up. The calls came from the right flank. I grabbed the gun. Chan grabbed the ammo. We jumped to our feet and darted toward the right of the perimeter. A blooper gun opened on the bush ahead. It was Sam. The entire perimeter was in the open. I could see the prone Marines spread on the line firing into the bush on the flank. Guns up! We ran toward the voice. I could see Swift Eagle, flat on his stomach, pointing at the flash of an enemy gun 100 meters straight ahead. The engine of the crippled chopper began palpitating. I dove to the right of Swift Eagle. An instant later Chan belly flopped to my right and began feeding the gun.

• 4:27:35Jocko Willink?

  I opened up on the enemy gun flash. Orange tracers glanced off a bump in the terrain. I stood up firing the M60 from shoulder like a rifle. Get down, someone shouted from my left. My orange tracers spiraled in on the enemy flash. This flash stopped as a pith helmet flew into the air then floated to the ground like a frisbee. I hit the ground, sand and rocks kicked up from around me from the incoming AK fire. An enemy rocket shot out of a thick brush 75 meters to our front. It climbed slowly at first spiraling toward the wounded chopper then gaining speed like a shooting star. It sizzled overhead. I followed it with my eyes as it zeroed in on the sputtering helicopter. I held my breath and cringed, but the rocket sizzled just under the front landing wheel

• 4:28:19Jocko Willink?

  of the CH-46, arced 200 meters past the opposite side of the perimeter and exploded into a tree, breaking it in half. Another machine gun opened up on the helicopter from the other side of the perimeter. A Huey gunship rockets firing dove at the enemy gun. The Huey pulled up at the last possible moment. The enemy gun went silent. The CH-46 started smoking. Flames shot up from the back rotor. Then it fell, straight down, the updraft of the wind shooting flames high above it. It crashed to the ground crumbling over the large net full of supplies. The flames spread quickly. The door gunner crawled from the burning wreckage, his back aflame and screaming in agony. His face red with blood. I could feel the heat of the burning helicopter on my scorched face.

• 4:29:03Jocko Willink?

  Marines from the CP ran to the aid of the burning crewman. One Marine shoveled dirt onto the burning door gunner with his bare hands. Another butt stroked the already broken Plexiglas cockpit in a frantic effort to free the pilot and copilot. Get your eyes on the enemy. You've seen choppers go down before. Corporal Swift Eagle stormed up and down the line of Marines, all of whom were still stunned and staring at the fallen chopper. It seemed to be a perfect time for the enemy to charge. Swift Eagle knew it. We were vulnerable. I'll kick the butt of the next Marine that looks back. You better know I mean it.

• 4:29:42Jocko Willink?

  Fast forward a little bit. Again, get the book. A faint whistle of a faraway artillery round getting closer brought us to our knees, straining to see where it would land. The white phosphorus would round would would round would send up a mushroom cloud of white smoke. From there, the explosive rounds would be zeroed in on the target. The white whistle grew louder, louder. That's too close, Chan said. The whistle got shrill. Get down, a voice from the CP shouted. A low muffled explosion erupted from the CP. I looked back as a huge mushroom cloud of thick white smoke billowed high into the night air directly over the perimeter. Agonizing screams from the CP filled the air. Three small fires lit up the CP. Men scrambled around. I could see someone rolling in the dirt,

• 4:30:26Jocko Willink?

  his back of fire screaming. The sulfurous smelling smoke spread over the area like a white fog. Alpha one, Alpha one, this is Alpha two, over. Sudsy's words ran together in excitement. Alpha two, this is Alpha one, over. Alpha one, that spot around hit the center of our perimeter. Lieutenant's been hit. He's burned. We need a medevac. Tell those idiots cease fire. Repeat, cease fire. Tell Firebase Alpha they are hitting Marines. Repeat, Marines.

• 4:30:53Jocko Willink?

  So another friendly fire.

• 4:30:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:30:56Jocko Willink?

  Terrible incident.

• 4:30:57Speaker 01

  We'd get short rounds.

• 4:30:59Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 4:30:59Speaker 01

  You know, it was it was a short round. You never knew when it was gonna happen.

• 4:31:03Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 4:31:04Speaker 01

  And uh, yeah, yeah, it was, it was bad.

• 4:31:09Jocko Willink?

  Fast forward a little bit. We got a new lieutenant. I hope he's not a gung ho moron. I said, what's his name? Lampy, Stryker answered. He looked at Chan. He's got a cross on, painted black. Is that right? Yeah. Does that mean he's a Christian? Chan looked up, then looked at me. His eyebrows went up as if Stryker had struck a chord.

• 4:31:32Jocko Willink?

  Fast forward a little bit. Lieutenant Lampy looks scared but not panicky. He looked like you'd expect a marine lieutenant to look. Six feet tall, about 180, white sidewall haircut, pug nose, clean shaven, acne under his ears and down his neck, or acne scars under his ears and down his neck. He was an Annapolis grad judging from his class ring, which he shouldn't have brought into the bush.

• 4:31:55Jocko Willink?

  Uh, fast forward. Second platoon up, we ran forward. Again, you gotta get the book to get the continuity. This sounds like it's, you know, ju- uh, jumping around a little bit. It's because it is. I'm jumping forward.

• 4:32:08Jocko Willink?

  Second platoon up, we ran forward. I could see the captain standing in a shade of a huge oak tree, monitoring, motioning to us with frantic waves. He stood behind one of the tanks. As we ran forward, we passed three corpsmen working on five wounded Marines lying on the side of the road. "All right, listen up," the captain's red mustache seemed to flare out with excitement as he shouted over the rumbling tanks. "See that hill on the other side of that stream?" We hit a semi-circle of fortified positions on the hills and that clearing. The second battalion sent E Company up that hill. They had to pull back. "We're going to take that hill. We have tanks now and they will provide cover fire." A sleek new Cobra helicopter gunship swept in overhead with miniguns ablazing. It strafed

• 4:32:50Jocko Willink?

  the bald hill, then banked straight up, made a roll like a World War II fighter plane, then nosedived straight down at the top of the hill. He fired six rockets then leveled off, just missing the rocks and debris from flashing explosions. "Are you listening? This isn't a fireworks display, Marines." The captain's anger pulled our attention from the hill. His face was red. "Some of you are going to get hit going up that hill and I want you to know what you're doing. Do not stop to help the wounded. The corpsmen will follow up and take care of them. Don't stop for anything." "Now, E Company says that little stream you have to cross looks deep. They didn't get that far, so we don't know for sure, but find a shallow spot to cross and be quick. There are two hills to our right flank you can't see from here. They're on the far right

• 4:33:33Jocko Willink?

  of the clearing and the gooks have fortified positions on both them, so you may take fire from the right flank when crossing the clearing." Captain Nelson stepped away from the tank and pointed at the hill. "All right."

• 4:33:45Jocko Willink?

  When you cross the stream, don't go straight up the hill on this side facing us now because you will come under fire from the right flank. Go up the hill on the side facing near the river and the road.

• 4:33:57Jocko Willink?

  He paused and turned to look at us, staring for one instant into the eyes of each man in the platoon. As soon as you enter that clearing, you'll come under fire. There's an Arvin regiment on the other side of that river that should take care of our left flank. "Hey, wow, far out, man. We're gonna be on TV," someone shouted. Captain Nelson's face tightened with anger. I turned to see who said it, inwardly already knowing. Sam was pointing at two pudgy-looking men. One had a portable TV camera on his shoulder. The other carried a black box. They wore camouflaged baseball hats instead of helmets and a beautiful new lightweight Army flak jacket instead of the Korean, the clunky Korean War era flak jackets that Marines wore. They huddled behind a tree. The one with the camera was filming another Huey gunship firing rockets.

• 4:34:41Jocko Willink?

  "Does that say NBC on that camera?" "You better, you better can that mouth, Marine," Captain Nelson barked. "Aye aye, sir," Sam answered quickly. The thunderous echoes of heavy bombing further up the road took my mind off the camera. "Guns up." I moved forward and stood behind, beside the captain and Lieutenant Lampy. "We're moving across in squads. I want the gun teams with Chief's squad." Lieutenant Lampy held my arm as he spoke.

• 4:35:11Jocko Willink?

  So did they record any of this? Did you ever see any of this footage?

• 4:35:14Speaker 01

  We, uh, my wife and I and Chan, uh, we went to New York to see if we could find it. Uh, it was, I think it was CBS, but, uh, anyway, we, uh, we went to this place where they said they'd have this kind of stuff, you know, and there were archives and everything. And, uh, we found stuff. It was Thong Duck. It was called, it was, it was a Green Beret camp at Thong Duck. That, they got hit, they're being overrun. It was a big shootout. I mean, we were B-52 strikes. It was a pretty big day and we never had tanks very often. I mean, that was, and we were never in the open like that very often. It was always, so this was a pretty big shootout and, uh,

• 4:35:55Speaker 01

  We found videos, but it wasn't, it wasn't of that part of the battle. It was some videos that at the Green Beret where their, where their camp was, but it wasn't really their camp. And it was just, it wasn't anything, you know, that we could make out and just guys running, running across a field and, you know, incoming fire here and there, but we couldn't find anything with us in it, but we tried. It would have been, it would have been nice.

• 4:36:23Jocko Willink?

  Going back. Ready? Lieutenant Lampy shouted. He raised his hand. Go, go. Swift Eagle shouted from my right. I ran by the last tank in line of the three tanks. The lead tank had stopped 25 meters from the tributary. Two whining ricochets bounced off the steel tank as I ran by. AKs opened up on my right. I could hear machine gun chattering from the other side of the river. Green chasers streaked between the first and second tank. I looked left. Hundreds of muzzle flashes were firing at us from the jungle on the other side of the river. Corman, a scream came from behind me. I didn't look back. A sharp explosion threw rocks and dirt 20 feet into the air and left the second, into the left of the second tank, followed by another one five feet closer.

• 4:37:07Jocko Willink?

  Someone screamed in pain. Corman up, another scream from behind me. I started zig, started zigzagging as I ran. I passed the second tank. Bullets whistled overhead. Others twanged off the big metal hull as I ran by. The lead tank fired its big gun. Suddenly a mortar round hit between the lead tank and the tributary. Then another hit 10 meters closer. A third tank hit right on the tank's turret. I dove into the dirt 15 meters behind it. The tank rained from the explosion like a giant bell. I jumped to my feet and started running again. Another mortar blast hit behind me. Someone started screaming in agony. I didn't look back. Finally the tributary was in, was within range. A small telltale dust puff shot from the road as bullets hit the earth around me. I dove to the ground as another mortar blast hit behind me. I felt scared and confused.

• 4:37:52Jocko Willink?

  I pulled my face out of the dirt and looked back. I could see Swift Eagle running and pointing. Then a mortar explosion hit beside him. He fell. He didn't move. Chan dove in beside me. Let's go, Chan shouted. I hesitated. I wanted to help the chief. Then those last words kept shouting at me. Don't stop for the wounded. I jumped to my feet and ran. I took a running jump into the tributary, holding the M60 over my head. The ice cold water took my breath away. I tossed the gun up onto level ground and pulled myself up with both hands. I threw my right leg over the embankment and rolled onto the hard level ground. I reached back for Chan. He held out the butt of his rifle. I grabbed it with both hands and pulled him up onto the solid ground. Wait, Doyle struggled with the deep water towards us.

• 4:38:35Jocko Willink?

  His thick lens glasses looked too water blue for to be of any use. Give me a hand. The chief got it. Captain Nelson went down before we reached the first bank, Chan said. They abandoned that tank, I said, pointing to the lead tank. The three crewmen ran for cover behind the second tank. Look, two bodies to the left. My God, what are we supposed to do? Take the hill by ourselves? Doyle's voice cracked. Don't panic, Chan shouted. A thirty caliber opened up from across the river. His first tractor tracers hit the dirt road fifteen meters in front of us, then slowly walked toward us. Spread out. What are we gonna do? Doyle shouted over another barrage of enemy mortars hitting around the tanks. We can't just stay here, I shouted back. I looked behind me. I could see muzzle flashes coming from the brush on the other side of the river. They were firing from the riverbank.

• 4:39:20Jocko Willink?

  Bullets thudded into the hillside above us. I cringed with each winning whining ricochet. I'm not gonna die just sitting here, I thought. This is insane. I have to move. We have to move. I pushed myself away from the hill and started climbing. Chan did the same. Fifteen yards up to the steep incline. We flattened out again. I looked back at Doyle. Finally, he broke into a frenzied run, firing on full automatic as he stumbled and clawed forward. He flattened against the hill ten meters to my left. Thoughts of hand to hand combat slipped across my mind. Hey, look, Chan shouted to my right. He pointed at two Marines waving and shouted from beside the crippled lead tank. That's Lieutenant Lampy, I said to Chan. I thought you said he got hit. No, I said the captain. He's waving us back, Doyle shouted. He don't have to ask me twice, brother.

• 4:40:07Jocko Willink?

  So now you guys start to retreat. Keep running, just keep running. Lieutenant Lampy shouted as the three of us started running back across the clearing. And we reached them.

• 4:40:17Jocko Willink?

  Lieutenant, how bad was the chief? I asked. I'm not sure, John. Go get yourself an A gunner. We need Chan to take over the other gun. What? Yeah, we lost a gunner. Who was on the other gun? I asked. I don't know. Hurry up, get moving. We're going up that hill again. He turned away. I've already been up it, I snapped. Where was everybody else? My terse remark stopped him from walking away.

• 4:40:51Speaker 01

  Chan still talks about that stream that we walked across. We had to hold our weapons above our head. It was pretty deep, so you couldn't go fast. And his, his description to, to my family about that, that day is that it was like going through a rainstorm and not getting wet. There were so many bullets coming down, hitting the water. And none of us got hit. It was just God. I mean, the Lord wanted us to stick around a little longer and there was no doubt about it. We should have, should have been killed there.

• 4:41:33Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I agree. That's not, just luck isn't going to keep you safe on that one. And then what's crazy is you get through all that. And again, I'm not reading the whole thing. I'm not reading every detail. You're going through this massive amount of fire, mortars, machine gun fire, 30 cal fire. It's all around you. You get across the river, you get to the hill, you finally get told, hey, come back. When you get back, Lieutenant Lampy says, we're going again.

• 4:42:06Speaker 01

  Saddle up.

• 4:42:06Jocko Willink?

  Saddle up, boys.

• 4:42:08Speaker 01

  Yeah. And, and on the other side of the river, the Arvin Regiment that was supposed to secure the other side of the river. So we were taking fire from that side. Who knows what happened to them, but we were taking all kinds of fire from the other side of the river.

• 4:42:25Jocko Willink?

  So then let's go again. Let's go. Move it. I shouted back at Doyle as he rolled out of the water. I ran across the dirt road flattened out against the hillside until Doyle caught up. Are you ready? For what? Doyle gasped for breath. He pulled off his Coke bottle lenses and tried to blow some off some water. We're going up the hill. Doyle looked left as two more, two more Marines flattened nearby. He took a deep breath and sighed. "Yeah, give us cover," I yelled to the Marines on Doyle's left. "We're going up." Fear and excitement shot through me with a rhythm of a jackhammer. "Gung ho, maniac," I heard Doyle shout as I ran and stumbled and crawled. Twenty meters up, we took cover under a large, sharp edged rock. "Give us cover, we're coming up," a voice shouted from below.

• 4:43:08Jocko Willink?

  I moved to the right of the rock and laid down a fifty round burst across the top of the hill. There was no return fire. I fired again, still no return fire. We leapfrogged up. Twenty meters up, I could see a pile of fresh dirt ringing the charred blunt hilltop. The burnt scent of napalm covered the ground. Everything smelled like burning hair. For the first time in the assault, I felt too scared to go on.

• 4:43:30Jocko Willink?

  I knew there was a trench on the other side of that fresh dirt. I wondered why they hadn't hit us with grenades. "I can't just sit here," I thought. "Doyle, how many frags you got?" I asked impatiently. He slapped his chest, then felt his cartridge belt. "Four. I have three, and I ain't going over that dirt hill till I have none." "I'm with you. Let's make it up to that bomb crater before we throw them." "Which one?" he asked. I pointed to a small crater about ten yards away. It looked about three feet deep. "It's better than nothing," I said apologetically. Doyle went for it first as I laid down fire, then he covered me as I dove in beside him. We laid our weapons down. I pulled a grenade off my cartridge belt. Doyle did the same. We straightened the pins and pulled them. "Maybe we better pop the spoon and hold them for a two count," I said. "You've seen too many John Wayne movies."

• 4:44:13Jocko Willink?

  "Yeah, sucker, if these frags come by and flak it back in your face, you'll wish you'd seen a couple." "I'm throwing," he said. Doyle brought the grenade back behind his ear with his right hand and let it fly. He threw the grenade straight up the hill and over the fresh dirt. I let the spoon fly, brought back the grenade like a football, then counted. "A thousand, one, one." "Throw it," Doyle shouted as he stuck his face in the dirt and covered his head with his hands. I threw. I aimed left of where Doyle threw his. Doyle's grenade exploded, showering us with dirt and tiny rocks. My grenade exploded immediately after with the same effect. Still no return fire. We re- we repeated the procedure, minus me holding for a two count. "I think they pulled out," Stryker shouted from the far right. I couldn't see him but knew his voice.

• 4:44:57Jocko Willink?

  "I'm throwing another frag," I shouted toward Stryker. "Ready," Doyle said, his grenade already pulled off his belt and finger in the safety pin. "Outgoing," I shouted and ducked down. Doyle let fly. The explosions were the same. No screams, no return fire. "Let's go in." We moved up the hill cautiously. Finally, we waited just below the fresh dirt mound until most of the platoon caught up. Stryker stood in a crouch, stood to a crouch ten meters to my right and gave me a thumbs up. Everyone around me returned it. Someone screamed, "Go!" Ten of us rushed forward. My trigger felt slippery with sweat. I took a deep breath, jumped over the dirt mound and down into a waist-deep trench that ringed the top of the hill.

• 4:45:37Jocko Willink?

  I landed with the crunch of a charred corpse of an NVA soldier and stumbled against the inner wall of the trench. An unburned body lay face down five feet away, his back covered with dried blood. I stomped the man's head, then kicked him in the groin. No groan. Felt stiff. The heavy firing stopped, except for one occasional sniper round or a quick burst of M16 fire. The battle sounded over.

• 4:46:05Jocko Willink?

  A few minutes later, Elbon climbed over the top with Lieutenant Lampy beside him, hanging on to the field phone attached to a radio on Elbon's back.

• 4:46:15Jocko Willink?

  "We're moving over there for the night." He nodded to wood hill with marine helmets crawling through breaks in the canopy and trees and brush. I wanted to ask why, but it didn't matter. One hill was as comfortable as another.

• 4:46:27Jocko Willink?

  "Okay, saddle up," Lieutenant Lampy shouted. His words came a bit awkwardly, as if he were waiting for Chief or Gunny to staff or Gunny, the staff, to shout to the men into movement. Doyle muttered something behind me. I turned. "What?" "We just lost a lot of men." His voice was at the point of complete dejection. "I don't think many of them were KIA's, though," I said, trying hard to find something positive to think about. "Who says?" He asked. "I asked Lieutenant about Gunny and Chief. The Gunny's gonna make it, and he thought, and he thought Chief would." I turned to look for Sudsy. He'd know the casualty status. I couldn't find his antenna or his freckled face.

• 4:47:07Jocko Willink?

  Did you know, did you ask Sudsy who got hit? I asked, still looking for him in the column? He's dead. What? My stomach rolled and sank, and for a moment I felt sick. He didn't make it up to the first tank the second time across.

• 4:47:23Jocko Willink?

  Saddle up. I want squad leaders to put your squads in three man positions around the top of this hill and down the sides. The gooks can still control the next hill, so don't give them any targets. Is that clear?

• 4:47:36Jocko Willink?

  Then the lieutenant started again without waiting for an answer. The CP is going to be right here where I'm standing.

• 4:47:51Jocko Willink?

  It's a hell of a battle right there.

• 4:47:54Speaker 01

  It was. It might have been the biggest one I was ever in. Yeah. Most of them were firefights. You know, this, like I said, we didn't have Phantoms and, you know, Cobra gunships and all that stuff, tanks. That was pretty rare.

• 4:48:15Jocko Willink?

  Again, this might sound a little disjointed, just because I'm, get the book. An hour later, the sun turned into the moon and a shadowy fear of the night held my eyes wide open just barely. I wondered where Chan was. I knew he was positioned at the bottom of the hill somewhere. My eyes felt heavy.

• 4:48:32Jocko Willink?

  Suddenly, a quick burst of AK fire opened above us, followed immediately by five semi-automatic shots from an M16. Something heavy rolled through the brush. Silence. Doyle sat up. Something thudded into the bushes beside him. A ripping explosion shattered the silence. My night vision was gone. All I saw were bright spots. Doyle cried. I started firing the M16 into the brush in front of us until the gun went silent. I'm hit, I'm hit, Doyle screamed. Corman! A voice shouted from above us. Johnny, I'm hit. I know it. Don't talk, I can't see yet, I'm hurt. Shut up, they're right on top of us. I opened my eyes as wide as I could. My vision was coming back. I could see the outline of a tree line silhouetted by the flashes of the arc light raids. Finally, I could see Doyle holding his knee and shaking his head back and forth.

• 4:49:17Jocko Willink?

  His teeth shined white from the moon's glare as he clenched them in pain. Someone was coming up the path fast, breathing hard and stumbling in the dark. Corman, coming in, don't fire. Doc, we got wounded over here. Semper Fi, buddy. Doyle gave me a thumbs up. I returned it. They disappeared into the darkness. I sank into the lowest, loneliest, bluest funk I'd ever been in. I'd never make it home. No one will even remember that I died over here. Doyle's boot to me, and even he's going home. I should be happy for him. It's not his fault. He's lucky. That turd. He's really a good person. That turd.

• 4:49:59Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Um, you end up spending your birthday out there. October 12th, which is.

• 4:50:19Jocko Willink?

  Fast forward a little bit. Shake it off, John. James' voice broke me out of a numb, prolonged stare toward the dark path. I turned around. James and Stryker were both sitting up and looking at another arc light raid of a thousand pound bombs crashing into the mountains of Fong Duck.

• 4:50:35Jocko Willink?

  Darting spurts of abrupt orange spread through the Crimson Mountains, then reached into the sky, turning at Crimson. It looked like the end of the world. A small pop was followed by bright light, lifted my eyes up. Huff was dropping flares. The hills around us lit up from the reddish glare of twenty tiny suns swinging down under their midget parachutes. Now it was bright, as if daylight had shocked away the night. I looked down at my M16. Something hit the ground beside Stryker. I ducked, covering my head. A violent explosion rolled me toward the path. Stryker screamed piteously. I looked up. Ten meters ahead and slightly above on the slope of the hill,

• 4:51:17Jocko Willink?

  an NVA sprang out of the bush, firing full automatic from the hip. Corporal James screeched and fell backward on my right. I raised to my knees and fired full automatic. Suddenly I was lying on my face. My mouth was full of dirt. My thigh burned like no burn I'd ever felt. It ached like someone had knocked it off with a sledgehammer in one mighty blow. I raised my eyes with my chin still in the dirt and stared straight into the wide open dead black pupils of an Oriental lying stomach down ten inches away. Blood gushed from two small round holes in his forehead, one above each eye. Five or six straight black hairs stuck out from his upper lip in what looked like a futile attempt at a mustache.

• 4:51:58Jocko Willink?

  I could hear Stryker screaming. Everything went gray, then black. Snap out of it. Sam's pitted face was in front of me. Don't go in to shock you moron. He slapped me hard across the face. It stung. I felt anger and started to swing, but someone held my arm. Are you ready? I'm taking you off the hill. You're alright. Don't panic, he shouted to my face. His breath smelled like week old cat food. My leg, I heard myself shouting. Is it on? It's there, it's there. How many times do I have to tell you? Sam picked me up with a fireman's carry over one shoulder around his neck.

• 4:52:33Jocko Willink?

  The path was steep and treacherous. My leg ached and burned. I wondered if I was crippled. James and Stryker, I shouted as we reached the bottom. James is shot in the calf. Sam gasped for air before finishing. Stryker looks bad, he gasped again, but he's alive. How is he, Doc? yelled. Bring him over here. Sam carried me to Doc and Lieutenant Lampy. He laid me down gently onto my back. Here's a souvenir for you. Sam laid an AK Banana Clip magazine on my chest. Weak spring, it jammed. He put too many rounds in. That's why you're alive. Tell your kids.

• 4:53:08Jocko Willink?

  He turned and ran back toward the path, puff hammered overhead. Another batch of flares popped open, renewing the dissipating light. Thanks, Sam, I yelled too late for him to hear. The pain in my thigh felt worse. Doc tore off a small plastic container, pulled out a tiny needle and stabbed it into my throbbing thigh. Morphine, Doc said, you'll be feel better in a minute. What's it look like, Doc? Lieutenant Lampy asked. He held a field phone in his hand. I'd never seen him look so confused. His eyes darted up the hill, back to me in the back up the hill. Doc cut my pant legs away with his K-bar and looked close inside my thigh. Can you roll over? I rolled. Went clean through, made a big hole, Lieutenant. He's lost a lot of blood. We gotta get him to Da Nang. Can it wait till morning? No way.

• 4:53:52Jocko Willink?

  Memories of Jack Allenwood crept through the pain. I lifted my head to look at my leg. A flickering flare cast a pulsating light into the gaping hole in the inside of my thigh. Dark red blood shot out of the hole between the two pieces of torn muscle and steady spurts. I felt faint. I lay back down, Doc wrapping the leg tightly. An M60 opened up somewhere. I closed my eyes. The war went silent.

• 4:54:25Jocko Willink?

  You got him? A voice shouted. I tried to open my eyes. The steady cracking of AK fire resounded from every direction. A hard wind hit me in the face. A chopper. Give him cover. Get him out of there, quick. Someone dragged me along a metal floor. I could hear the engine get louder. We were airborne. A bullet smacked through the thin walls of the chopper just above my head. Then another. The old helicopter shuddered and dropped. I felt my life ending. Just as suddenly as the drop, we pulled up. The door gunner blazed. It flashes in the blackness below. I prayed. The door gunner stopped firing. Did they make it? The door gunner shouted at the pilot. They went down. Who? I asked, but my voice trailed off. A stuffy, overpowering drowsiness grayed out my mind. The choppy engine just faded.

• 4:55:10Jocko Willink?

  I wondered if I was dying. Jesus, save me. Jesus, save me. Silence. Black silence.

• 4:55:24Jocko Willink?

  Then I felt cool. I moved my head. Soft? There was something soft under me. My leg ached all the way to my stomach. I groaned. My eyes felt heavy, almost sealed shut with old tears and dirt. Guns up, guns up! I forced my eyes open. A bright white light stung them shut again. I jerked my head to the side. Someone was laughing. A deep, hearty laugh that made me wish I could laugh with him. Now I could hear others laughing. Their laughter echoed. I'm in a building, I thought. Pillow. I opened my eyes again. The room was white, too white. Guns up, guns up! A familiar voice called again.

• 4:56:07Jocko Willink?

  I lifted my head and felt for the gun like a blind man. My blurry vision began to clear. It was a small, round-looking ceiling, a Quonson hut. I grew up in West Virginia in a Quonson hut. And I know a Quonson hut when I see one. I thought, men were laughing. I knew that would get your butt up. The familiar voice shouted from my left. I raised onto my left elbow and looked at a row of metal hospital beds. Men in blue pajamas filled each bed. They all laughed. I tried to focus on the nearest one. Then I saw him. Chief. The room erupted in laughter. Now all the faces were clear. Staff Sergeant Maury lay in the bed next to him. In the bed after that was a Marine who looked familiar, but no one I knew well. He was laughing too. In the bed next to him was Corporal James and

• 4:56:50Jocko Willink?

  James. And next to him, at the end of the row, was Stryker. I looked to my right to see more beds and blue pajamas, but no familiar faces. Then one of the men on the right shouted, as if admitting the obvious, "Yeah, we're Fifth Marines too." Everyone started laughing. "How long have I been here, Chief?" "Better part of a day." "Where are we?" "Dinang." "But cheer up. Doc says you're on your way to Japan with that wound." "Japan? Really?" I looked at my leg. I had thick bandages from knee to the groin. "Your war's over, John." "Chan? Did anyone hear anything about Chan?" Swift Eagle's face looked uncomfortable with the question. And my heart sank to the pit of my stomach. "I don't know, John. I

• 4:57:32Jocko Willink?

  heard they took some more casualties, but no one knows who." I felt slightly relieved. So that's your final wound that gets you sent home, or gets you sent to Japan. And, and, um, yeah, you end up on a flight. I can't believe these bastards freaking woke you up from your thing with the guns up call. That's, I mean, that's just kind of a little bit uncalled for, isn't it?

• 4:58:05Speaker 01

  Marine Corps love. Yes.

• 4:58:07Jocko Willink?

  Um, again, you got a, you got a bunch of, um, details in the book. I'm gonna fast forward a little bit. You end up in Japan. Um, while you're in Japan, you say this, "I sent a steady stream of letters to Chan. They all said pretty much the same thing. Write me soon and let me know how you are doing, or I'll kick your butt all the way back to China."

• 4:58:32Jocko Willink?

  The letters started returning, each one stamped with four or five different locations, ranging from Alpha Company to Da Nang, to Anoa, to Casualty Company, Okinawa, and back to me with an address unknown, returned to sender stamped over all the other stamps in dark red letters. I wanted to kick myself for not letting Chan's parents, for not getting Chan's parents' address. It just had never occurred to me that I would need it. Then one day, the fat-faced nurse handed me a dirty, tattered envelope. It was another one of my letters being returned. I started to toss it in the wastepaper basket next to my bed when I noticed three letters scribbled in pencil down in one corner, K.I.A.

• 4:59:15Jocko Willink?

  My stomach reacted like a heavy ball of ice-cold lead had dropped into it, killed in action. I didn't cry, I don't know why, maybe because I wasn't going to believe Chan was dead just because some office pogue in Hanoi felt like using his pencil. Maybe just because it didn't look official. Frustration, confusion, and finally despair took control of my thoughts. After five weeks in Japan, I was sent to Okinawa for rehabilitation. By December, my leg was getting strong again. I hadn't received any more information about Chan. A strange, illogical sense of guilt began taking hold of me. I had left him. I had to go back to Nam. I had to finish my tour, or I'd be, or I'd never be able to live with myself. I knew my leg wasn't ready yet, but I didn't care.

• 4:59:59Jocko Willink?

  Each day, I requested orders for the Fifth Marines, and each day, my request was refused.

• 5:00:08Jocko Willink?

  So, there you are, wounded. You got your ticket home, your million-dollar wound, and yet, you want to go back.

• 5:00:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, I did. At that time, I would have paid money to go back.

• 5:00:26Jocko Willink?

  They're not letting you go back.

• 5:00:29Speaker 01

  No, they, I had nerve damage and, and I didn't have a critical MOS, you know, I mean, they'd always go by MOSs. You would think they'd still need machine gunners, but they, they said it wasn't a critical MOS and da, da, da, da, da. Yeah. So, and you had to go home and spend at least one year stateside before you could go back to NOM.

• 5:00:52Jocko Willink?

  That's based on what? On the number of wounds that you had or because you'd finished your tour or what?

• 5:00:58Speaker 01

  I, you know, I'm not sure what the reasoning was, but I think, I think if you had two forty eights, forty eight hour wounds where you were hospitalized for at least that long, if you had two forty eights, you had to go back to the States and I guess spend a year stateside duty before you could go back into a combat zone. I don't know, I don't know where all that came from. I, you know, I mean, I was a PFC. Well, at that, at that moment, I was now a Lance Corporal.

• 5:01:25Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And I didn't, I didn't read that part, but basically you, you wake up in the hospital and the guy says, why are you still Lance Corporal?

• 5:01:31Speaker 01

  I was a PFC.

• 5:01:33Jocko Willink?

  Why are you still a PFC? But there was another thing that he, oh yeah, didn't you not get paid or you hadn't had R and R? There's something else that he hit you with.

• 5:01:39Speaker 01

  Yeah. I hadn't had R and R. He wanted to know how that happened and I said, well, every time I was going on R and R, I got wounded. I never got to go. And then, then he wanted to know, and this was a Navy surgeon and an officer. So, you know, he had pull. But, but he, he pulled out the, he's looking at my, my, all my records, you know, and the little thing we're taking and he's quizzing me and he finally goes, boy, how can you be, how can you be a PFC after all this? He goes, you must be the biggest ship bird in the Marine Corps. And I said, he goes, how many times, how many times have you been busted? And I

• 5:02:23Speaker 01

  said, I've never been busted. And he goes, oh yeah, how many Article 15s? And I said, I don't have any. You know, I mean, well, they didn't give me one for the fight in Tijuana, but I said, I don't have any. And he goes, well, how can you be? And I said, well, they, they told me they froze promotions in the Fifth Marine Regiment. And he takes his chart and he just flings it down the hospital ward in Yakuza. And he goes, F and Marine Corps, you know, and he had a couple, and he goes, you're promoted. And he called a nurse and he said, this man's a Lance Corporal, get the paperwork. He promoted me in the hospital bed, but I gotta tell you, sometimes I wish he hadn't.

• 5:03:04Speaker 01

  Cause like I've gone to, gone to a couple of Marine Corps ball, you know, with my daughter. And, and I, first time I ever got to wear dress blues. And, and I had, you know, all the, the medals on there, you know, and, and it would have just looked even cooler. Cause they, they all kept saying Lance Corporal, you're a Lance Corporal, you know, and it was always the same. How many times were you busted? So it would have been even cooler if it was just PFC.

• 5:03:32Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 5:03:37Jocko Willink?

  Going back to the book here, Christmas came and went, then New Year's. I was still in Okinawa. I felt better every day. I was ready to go home. In March, they put me in casual company. That was a good sign. I knew I'd be going home soon. My third day in casual company, I got a letter that had been forwarded from Yokosuka. The return address was St. Albans Naval Hospital in New York.

• 5:03:58Jocko Willink?

  I was from some, it was from someone named Dr. J T Adelman, Lieutenant U S N. At first I thought someone else's, it was someone else's mail, but the name and serial number was mine. So I tore it open. The first line lifted me out of bed and banged my head on some, the top bunk. So hard I started bleeding, but I couldn't feel a thing. Dear Lance Corporal Clark, I'm writing in reference to Lance Corporal Richard Chan, who is a patient of mine here at St. Albans Naval Hospital. I hope you won't be offended, but I've taken the liberty of opening Lance Corporal Chan's mail. He has undergone three operations up to this point in an effort to repair serious fragmentation wounds to his right arm. We believe the arm will eventually be functionable.

• 5:04:40Jocko Willink?

  Even more serious than his physical injuries though, is the state of his psychological depression that he has fallen into. He refuses to open his mail or receive visitors, including family or clergy. If you feel that you could be of any assistance in this situation, please contact me at this address or call the number below between the hours of 8 a.m. and 4 p.m.

• 5:05:03Jocko Willink?

  He was alive.

• 5:05:06Jocko Willink?

  So you have to figure out, you know, in the book, you talk about how you have to figure out how you're gonna make this phone call. This isn't like modern day where you just pick up your, reach in your pocket, pull out your phone. You have to go to this restaurant. You have to get in this phone booth thing. You have to do some kind of ham operator's system.

• 5:05:23Speaker 01

  Mars calls. Yeah, they, they would patch it from one ham operator to another until they got to. Yeah, things were a little different.

• 5:05:34Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, they were. And then you get on the phone with him. Hello, Chan said. His solemn tone told me right away he wasn't going to be easy. You little turd, why didn't you write me? I thought you were dead. Did I wake you up? It's good to hear you. He spoke with no emotion, cold and detached. Okay, what gives? I said. The silence that came through the phone was deafening. For a moment, I thought he was going to hang up. Then he finally said something that sounded like Chan. How are you? Are you all right? Yeah, I limp a little, but I'm fine. Now talk to me, Chan. What's going on? How bad did you get hit? There was another long pause. Well, his voice cracked. There was another pause and I heard him clear his throat. Tears started tickling my chin as they dropped off, but I managed

• 5:06:19Jocko Willink?

  to swallow back any sound that would give me away. Let's just say I won't be tying any surgical knots. He forced out a weak chuckle, and I felt a burning need to hug and pound him on the back and tell him everything was great because he was alive, but I knew it would be of no use. He needed more than cheer up. Everything's okay. I pulled out my wounded Bible and asked God for help. Why won't you see your family? I asked, as I opened the Bible, praying for something to jump out at me. I wanted to kick myself for not going to the chaplain before I called. I don't want to see them. My folks got a divorce while I was gone. They didn't tell me. I found out when I called home. What about Valerie? She came by. It's over between us. It was just too painful for her mother.

• 5:07:02Jocko Willink?

  It's better this way. He sounded angry. I kept thumbing through the Bible, almost nervously. I could feel the tension, but I didn't know how to break it. You'll love coming home, Johnny, he snapped sarcastically. These skinny little long-haired wimps, fellow Americans, greet the wounded Marines with protest signs, calling us murderers. You'll love coming home. I never heard Chan sound this bitter. He sounded like a different person. I tried to think of something positive to say. You'll still be a doctor. Get your mind on that. You have a job doctor, he cut in. I was gonna be an open heart surgeon, remember? There aren't too many one armed, open heart surgeons operating out there. Your doctor said you'd be able to

• 5:07:43Jocko Willink?

  use that arm. They don't know yet, he scoffed. I'm going under the knife tomorrow. This will be the fourth time. There's no way I can be a doctor now. I'm glad you're okay, but I have to go now. Chan spoke quickly as if you were mad at me and in a rush to end the conversation. Suddenly it happened. Those words I needed jumped out of me. There they were, soiled with Vietnam mud, but still legible in fading red ink. The words Chan had written in the front of my Bible. Hold it, mister, I braked. I've been listening to you all the way from Hua to Laos. You're gonna listen to me this time. I waited for a long moment, expecting a loud click as he hung up. Nothing. Then a barely audible mumble told me he was still there. Yeah. A buddy of mine

• 5:08:27Jocko Willink?

  wrote this once to me. I pulled the phone away as a gush of emotion sealed up my throat and pushed out a couple of tears. I cleared my throat and started reading. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Just as it is written, for thy sake we are being put to death all day long, we were considered as sheep to be slaughtered. But in all things, but in all these things, we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor

• 5:09:10Jocko Willink?

  powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

• 5:09:23Jocko Willink?

  Are you listening? I asked. I heard him clear his throat. Then he tried to say something, but started crying. There's more, I said, trying to keep my voice from cracking. And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.

• 5:09:46Jocko Willink?

  We didn't say anything for a while. I knew my voice would crack and I'd start crying like a jerk, so I didn't say anything. I could hear him sniff every little bit and I knew he couldn't talk either. Finally, he managed two words before he hung up. Guns up.

• 5:10:13Speaker 01

  I still get choked up.

• 5:10:17Jocko Willink?

  That's powerful.

• 5:10:23Jocko Willink?

  Well, I guess just to really quick, let's turn this into a better, a more happy conversation. Tell us, tell us what Richard Chan did with the rest of his life. Cause it's a beautiful story.

• 5:10:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, it is. He went on to become the leading cardiovascular perfusion expert in the world. And he, he would travel all over the world to, you know, giving seminars to doctors, even behind the iron curtain, when there was an iron curtain and, you know, all over. He went everywhere and he, and he said invariably, no matter where he was, from Miami to Tel Aviv, you know, he, he said, when he'd finish, someone in the audience would chirp up or meet him after he was finished giving the seminar and say, I know it's not possible, but I read this little book. You couldn't be that Richard Chan, could you?

• 5:11:20Speaker 01

  And he, at first he was furious at me for putting his real name in, because a lot of the names I changed, you know, but him, I used his real name. And he was furious about it, but as the years went by and it kept happening and happening, he's real proud about it now. He, he loves it, but yeah, he's, he's still, he's still in New York. He's, and lives in, is it Boston Spalding or?

• 5:11:47Speaker 02

  Wester End.

• 5:11:48Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. So he's doing really well. He's, he just retired, you know, he.

• 5:11:56Speaker 01

  And he was coming down to see me not that long ago, but his wife's having some real issues, so he couldn't make it. But yeah, yeah, he's giant brain. He always had a giant brain.

• 5:12:08Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and I didn't do justice at all. I mean, the amount of classic Richard Chan quotes that you have in this book, when this chaos is going on and he'd rattle off these extremely verbose comments, they were all just hilarious.

• 5:12:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's a character.

• 5:12:24Jocko Willink?

  Uh, so for your recovery, as you're, didn't, did you, so you, did you pick up taekwondo when you were in Japan?

• 5:12:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:12:36Jocko Willink?

  And judo in Japan?

• 5:12:37Speaker 01

  I trained Shon Rou.

• 5:12:38Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 5:12:39Speaker 01

  And Ishin Rou in Okinawa.

• 5:12:41Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 5:12:42Speaker 01

  And, uh, yeah, that's, that was part, we had a young officer who's ahead of his time there on Okinawa, and he knew, depending on the wounds you had, he knew that all the stretching and the things you do in martial arts would help some of these guys with leg wounds and stuff like that. So he ordered us out in the village to train with this little Okinawan guy. Well, I didn't, it was, it was a grand master named Shimabuka, who was basically the grand master of Shon Rou, you know, really famous Okinawan. And, uh, so that was, that was my beginning in martial arts. And then I came back to the States. I hooked up with Don Cooee Park. He went on to become the head coach of the US Olympic

• 5:13:23Speaker 01

  team. But, you know, Olympic taekwondo now doesn't, doesn't thrill me too much. But back then, it was a little stronger, a little, it was a little rougher, you know. And, uh, yeah, they, but some people started getting killed in some of these matches. And so, you know, they start bringing in all these rules, but they were really wanting to get it in the, in the Olympics. So with that, you know, they, all the rules and stuff. But, so I'm disappointed in what taekwondo has become through the Olympic stuff. But, you know, it's, it's been a big move for the Koreans. They, of course, they got an Olympic sport, and that's all great.

• 5:14:03Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 5:14:03Speaker 01

  Uh, but, yeah, Don Cooee Park was, he's a very special man.

• 5:14:07Jocko Willink?

  So what'd you do when you got home? So you get home from Okinawa, what was your next move?

• 5:14:12Speaker 01

  I became a mailman and I taught martial arts. I started training them at home and started teaching martial arts at University of South Florida. And then, uh,

• 5:14:24Speaker 01

  Opened up a Dojang, you know, and been teaching for the last 50 years. Yeah, I do, I've done some seminars, some hand-to-hand combat seminars at West Point in Annapolis. It's kind of fun teaching these soon-to-be little officers. I mean, they're brilliant. They're like a bunch of Chan's, you know, they've all got great big brains, but they don't know how to kill anybody. And so I think I've been able to help them a little bit.

• 5:14:50Jocko Willink?

  Did you, did you stay in the mail service for the whole time?

• 5:14:53Speaker 01

  No, I, I had injured my back. Actually, I injured my back when I had to jump out of a chopper in NOM. That's where it started. But I had stayed in such good shape, I avoided the surgery. And, you know, if your midsection's real strong, you, so I avoided the surgery for a lot of years, but it finally went. I, we were doing, going in on a hot LZ, and the gun team, they wanted the gun team to go off last. It was one of the old Chinooks, you know, with the back ramp. And so he was hovering while all the Marines ran off. And then I, me and Chan ran to get off. And Chan made it off, but right at that second, the pilot got killed. And when he got killed, it went out of control and started going around.

• 5:15:38Speaker 01

  And it threw me all around inside the chopper. And so the copilot got control of the chopper, and he started to go up again, you know, because it was real low on the ground. Started gaining some altitude, and by then I've, I got my bearings, and I made a run for the ramp. But I had, you know, the machine gun, you know, and all that stuff. So I jumped a long way, and I landed in a rice paddy. And it saved my life, probably. But I was stuck, stuck in this rice paddy, totally under mud, and everybody's shooting at me, and I couldn't, I couldn't do anything. There was no ducking. I was stuck in the mud. But that was the beginning of my, I think, my back injury. I think that's where it started.

• 5:16:23Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that sounds like you could do it.

• 5:16:26Jocko Willink?

  But you stayed in, you stayed in great shape. I mean, you're, you're, obviously, you're in great shape right now.

• 5:16:30Speaker 01

  Well, you know, from, for an old guy, yeah. I had, had

• 5:16:36Speaker 01

  Back surgery, finally, and the back surgery was real successful. So I, I kept training and I, I, it, it hurt me though. I was training for the, to fight in the world championships at one time with Don Cooee Park and flying to New York to train with him. He, he taught there. You know, and then the back surgery kind of killed that. So, so, yeah, but, but I, I, martial arts has been really great for me to teach all these years. I, I've loved it. I, I kind of miss it. I, I kept having, kept getting surgeries. You know, a lot of things kept breaking. I think I'm, I'm on 15 now. I'm moving up towards 16, I'm afraid.

• 5:17:17Jocko Willink?

  And this isn't the only book that you've written. You've written, I think, a total of, is it a total of nine books or eight?

• 5:17:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, nine books. And, and a play came out of Gunner's Glory that, that was, it was called the Battle of Nong Song.

• 5:17:32Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 5:17:33Speaker 01

  And it's Melvin Newland, Newland, kid named Melvin Newland got the Medal of Honor on this mountain in Nohm. And it's a really fabulous story. It's an incredible story. And so they made, you know, they took that chapter out of my book and a playwright or a guy in New York read it and, or my agent read it and then she gave it to this guy and he, he went crazy about it. So they made a play out of it and it got standing ovations and it was a pretty big deal. I got to bring my kids to New York to see a play. So we didn't have any place to stay. There was a big deal going on in New York and we had no, so we're gonna have to stay in Jersey. And my, my agent calls her, her boss, she

• 5:18:13Speaker 01

  was, I forgot what she worked at also, besides being an agent, and told him the situation and, hey, he's coming. It's his first play. It's on Off Broadway. And he goes, oh, he can't stay at, at a hotel in New Jersey. Here, I, I've got the place for him. And it was Wesley Snipes, Soho.

• 5:18:32Speaker 01

  It was a bank. It was an old bank that he had bought and turned into this incredible apartment. So we got to stay there for my play for that weekend. And he had a TV set that was, you know, about the size of my house back in St. Pete. And so, uh, so my kids, I mean, they were in heaven. I mean, come on Wesley Snipes. You're looking at this giant TV set. Uh, and, uh, they didn't want to go to my play. They didn't want to leave the frigging apartment. So I had to force them to go to the play. It, it did. I thought it was, might turn into something. And this old movie star named Rita Gam, and, uh, just recently she was on an old movie. And we taped it so I could see what she looked like, cause I never even met her.

• 5:19:16Speaker 01

  She optioned the rights to my play and she was, you know, at this, at this time she was an older. But in the fifties, she was really hot, you know, and she was pretty, she named her, uh, took the name Gam because she had fabulous legs, like Gams. So anyway, she, uh, she, uh, she optioned the rights, then she hooked up with some young British guy about thirty years younger than her. Took my play and her, went to London, never saw him again. So nothing ever came of it, but, uh.

• 5:19:47Jocko Willink?

  How was the play? Was it good? When you saw the play, was it good?

• 5:19:51Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. God, it was great. Uh, everybody in the audience was, was crying. It's a pretty dramatic play. These guys at Nong Song, they did some amazing stuff. Uh, yeah, it, it, standing ovations. It did really great, but, uh, you know, it only went for that one week and then she took it. I thought, you know, and the, and the agent said, do it, cause she could do something with this, you know? She's got the clout, but all she did is go to London with a guy thirty years younger.

• 5:20:21Jocko Willink?

  I'm not gonna knock her, hey?

• 5:20:22Speaker 01

  No, no, no.

• 5:20:23Jocko Willink?

  I'm sad the play didn't go further, but you know, my girl's, my girl's making it happen with the younger man, I guess.

• 5:20:31Speaker 01

  Let me tell you how about Guns Up getting published. I mean, because all the other books, of course, came out of that. And that book had been-

• 5:20:41Jocko Willink?

  What made you decide to write it?

• 5:20:43Speaker 01

  Well, anger. I was real bitter and I had, you know, I came back from NOM and I was just a very angry guy. You know, a lot of NOM vets were like that. I mean, we weren't being treated real great. And then I, you know, I tried going to St. Pete Junior College and of course, the college campus. You go into a class and you'd have some professors standing up there going on and on about how-

• 5:21:06Jocko Willink?

  Was this like 1970, 1969, 1970?

• 5:21:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, 1970, yeah, 71, maybe 71, but right around there. And they, anyway, they, you know, everybody was anti-war and we were the bad guys. And I was a bitter, I was pretty bitter and, you know, I, there was a fracas here and there. I'd see some peace sign on a guy's car. You know, I'd get upset about it. And one of my friends told me one time, you know, you can't just go around beating up every hippie. You know, you're gonna, if you want to fight back, you know, you gotta, you gotta, you know, write your story, tell your story, tell what the Marines really did at NOM. And I said, you know, that's a good idea. So I started taking creative writing at night.

• 5:21:50Speaker 01

  And I, this is after the back surgery, you know, I figured I had to find another way to make a living because I couldn't teach martial arts and I couldn't be a mailman, bam, all at once. And so, so I started taking the creative writing thing and they would critique 10 pages a week. So I took, I took the same class 15 times and, until they critiqued the entire book. So I got the, I got the whole book and they, and finally I had to get a typewriter because I wrote it all with a pencil.

• 5:22:19Jocko Willink?

  Damn.

• 5:22:20Speaker 01

  And finally I got a typewriter and then I had to type it all up. But I started sending it out. It got rejected for four years. Every publisher from New York to California, I tried Presidio Press out here and I mean, I tried everybody. And-

• 5:22:37Speaker 01

  It was going nowhere. Well, my wife and I started a Bible study together and we were in this Bible study every week, they'd pray for the needs of the group. You know, there'd be people battling cancer, you know, a lot of life and needing jobs, this and that. And I was in that job category. I was working at an electronics place now. And so Nancy threw it out at the Bible study. I'd like prayer for Johnny's book to get published. Well, you know, it sounds like a good idea, but they hadn't read this thing. And so when I wrote it, I wrote it, I wanted it to be nonfiction and I, I didn't see any way to write about the way the Marines talked in NOM without all the language, you know, I mean, every

• 5:23:21Speaker 01

  other word. Well, you know, you're military. Sometimes the name of a weapon has a four-letter word attached to it. So, I mean, it was just all this foul language. And so I got all these people praying for it. Every week, go to Bible study and every week, and they're praying for Johnny's. And I'm just getting, I'm shrinking. Every week I'm getting shorter. And so I, I finally went to my pastor, this has gone on for a long time, and I said, hey, look, you need to read this book before you ask him to pray about it anymore. And, and he read it and I, and I said, well, what do you think? Should I rewrite it? And he goes, oh, no. He said, that's between you and the Lord. I, I'm gonna tell you what to do. And so I said, okay. So I went home and I told Nancy, all right, look, it's, I'm feeling

• 5:24:04Speaker 01

  like if I don't rewrite it, we had a memory verse. It was 1 Samuel 230, "For those who honor the Lord, I will honor." That's the end of that verse. And I knew this thing honored the Lord because of Chan's story and his witness and my witness to some of the guys in it. You know, you've read it. So I knew it had a witness for Christ in it, but it really didn't honor the Lord with all that language, you know. And so, so I, I finally, I was just so convicted, that stupid verse just haunted me. I couldn't even sleep. So finally, I sat down and I said, I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna do a rewrite. Well, my professors, my writing teachers at St. Pete College, they were, I told them what I was gonna do. They were all upset. They said, Johnny, you're gonna ruin the best war book we've ever read.

• 5:24:47Speaker 01

  It's gonna sound like howdy duty, joins the Marine Corps. It's not gonna work. And I said, I don't care. I gotta get the words out of it. I gotta change the language. I can't do that. I can't live with it. So I did. And it took months of rewriting just to take all the four-letter words out and, you know, and make it work. And The week I finished taking all the language out of that book, it's a true story, she's here, she could be my witness, I had sent off, I'd never had anything published, and I had sent off stories out of the book to magazines, I'd sent off excerpts, like Troy Bridge and other excerpts, you know, I'd sent off, well, that's, that week, out of

• 5:25:31Speaker 01

  nowhere, I'm getting phone calls from magazines, and the first one, I think, was Eagle Magazine, and then Soldier of Fortune, you know, so I'm picking up the phone, and I'm, "Yeah, Mr. Clark, you know, we'd like to, we'd like to buy, we'd like to print the story, you know, we'll pay you 300 bucks," and, you know, I'd never made a dime off my writing, so I, that sounded like a lot of money, and I, and I said, "Well, that's fine, but what story? I never sent you guys a story," and they'd say, "Oh, yeah, you did, you sent it to us," I said, "When did I send it to you?" And they'd look at the date, and they'd say, "Oh, well, you sent it to us four years ago," and I said, "Well, time out now, how come you're just now finding it?" And the publisher would say, "Well, I really can't

• 5:26:14Speaker 01

  explain that, it just turned up in our slush pile," well, one time, okay, then Eagle Magazine calls, same thing, "We want to, we want to print this story," "When did I send it?" "Four years ago," "And you're just now finding it?" "Yeah, I can't explain that," and I said, "Okay," and I sold another one, then, I think Soldier of Fortune, I don't know what else called, and it was the same story, it happened four times, so, I mean, the fourth time, even a Marine starts getting it, you know, I mean, and so, it's like God slapping me around, and you honored God, there it is, he honors you. So, within a month, I decided to send the book out again, and I sent it to Random House,

• 5:26:58Speaker 01

  I sent it to a bunch of people, but Random House had rejected the exact same book just a year earlier, and I had a rejection notice, Pam Strickler, senior editor at Random House, because I had a little, I tore a hole in the roof of my house, because when we had our second kid, I didn't have any place to write. So I built like a conning tower on the roof of my house, went over great with the neighbors. So, but, and I cut down a telephone pole and I built a little stairway up to my conning tower. So my wife had this telephone pole ladder in the center of our kitchen. So I would go up and I'd write on this conning tower, but my teacher, my writing instructor said,

• 5:27:41Speaker 01

  you know, to keep up your spirits, save all your rejection notices. And I had, so I had taped all the walls of my conning tower with years of rejection notices. So Pam Strickler calls me and she says, you know, Mr. Clark, you wrote this book called Guns Up. And I said, yeah. And she goes, oh, we want to publish this book. And I said, really? And she introduced herself and I said, Pam Strickler? And I searched my honor, go, hey, wait a minute. You just rejected this same book about a year ago and you read it? Cause I can tell the difference when they, you know, stamp it, no thanks, or when they've actually read it. And she goes, I did? And I said, yeah. And I read it to her and she said, well, if I,

• 5:28:24Speaker 01

  yeah, I did read that book. And I said, well, why do you want it now? And she goes, ah, well, it's fabulous. I don't know why we rejected it. And I said, is it because I took all the cuss words out? And she was stunned and she said, you mean, there's no profanity in this book? And I said, not a word. And she, she said, that's unbelievable. She said, all the readers, junior editors and me have read this thing. No one noticed that. Then after some conversation, she says, but Mr. Clark, listen, a Vietnam War book without any profanity, you know, we're probably going to ask you to put some profanity in the book. And I just started laughing.

• 5:29:09Jocko Willink?

  Is her against God. I wonder who's gonna win this match.

• 5:29:11Speaker 01

  I said, you know, Satan is so sneaky. I mean, here he dangles the biggest publisher in the world at me after never publishing even a sentence. And, uh, and, and so I said, nah, not a chance, baby. I said, two chances, slim and none. And, uh, and they, they printed it anyway. It opened up a, a whole, they, they published a couple of other Vietnam, a POW book, uh, about a bunch of guys who put together their own Bible in a POW in Hanoi Hilton or somewhere. And anyway, it opened up the door for other Christian war books. And then, uh, but before that, I had nine publishers that suddenly wanted guns up.

• 5:29:52Speaker 01

  And, you know, I, and then I had to get an agent. And so I got an, and I got an agent and who wouldn't represent me any other way, only because I'd already sold it. Cause I was a nobody. But, uh, and she, she made me go with the Random House and, uh, I'm really glad she did. So, so yeah, that's how this thing got published. It's an absolute miracle. And God's used it. I, I, I could spend weeks telling you all the ways that the Lord's used this, this silly little book. It's absolutely unbelievable what he's done with this book. Uh, I get, I get letters from, you wouldn't believe some of the places. Guys that were, they were in penitentiaries in Australia. I mean, you know, the Lithuanian

• 5:30:35Speaker 01

  soldiers. I mean, it's, it's unbelievable. The people that are touched by it, the, these Lithuanian soldiers who wrote me, they, they said, this was the greatest war book God ever published. Isn't that cool? Yeah. So anyway, yeah, the book's a miracle. Yeah.

• 5:30:53Jocko Willink?

  How, when you got home and, you know, your school, a bunch of hippies in there, how did you, you know, you probably, I mean, I'm sure there's a bunch of veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan that have had a really hard time transitioning it back into the civilian sector. What, what advice would you have for them?

• 5:31:17Speaker 01

  Well, you know what it's gonna be. Honestly, without, without Christ, I mean, really, I, I'd say get into a Bible teaching church, you know, non-denominational Bible teaching church somewhere that just teaches the Word of God, and go in and, and start studying the Bible and see if it's true or not. And, and, you know, that's, that's how I dealt with the anger and everything else and all the other stuff. And, you know, I mean, I, it's been a rocky road at times. You know, my, my wife's been, had to go through it, my kids too, and I was diagnosed with severe combat fatigue. And, you know, that's not even-

• 5:31:55Jocko Willink?

  I almost got combat fatigue from reading the book, for crying out loud, over here.

• 5:31:59Speaker 01

  I, yeah, I, I had, uh, yeah, it's, it's, it's been rough, you know, there's been rough moments. I still sleep with a, a K-bar and I sleep with a gun. And, uh, and when I don't have it, I, I don't sleep very well. And that's, that's, I haven't slept well since I've been in San Diego. But-

• 5:32:18Jocko Willink?

  Well, you're probably afraid that the Mexican, uh, police are gonna come and try and get you back.

• 5:32:22Speaker 01

  I know. I got, I, I got, uh, some of my black belts are starting up a GoFundMe page to get me out of, out of the brig this time. Yeah, I, so, yeah, I would say that, honest, all kidding aside, there, there's really no other answer. I mean, if you don't have a Lord, yeah, yeah, I don't know. I don't, I don't know how anybody can function. Life will, life will beat you to death. Uh, you, if you don't have faith, uh, faith in Christ, or if you don't know your Bible, you're, you're really, you're walking around blind. Anything could happen to you. Yeah, I, I couldn't give any other advice that more important than that. I really couldn't.

• 5:33:03Jocko Willink?

  And you ended up running your martial arts school for what, thirty, forty years? Something like that?

• 5:33:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, at least forty, uh, maybe. And, and, and I, I still would give black belt tests and, you know, like I said, do- You know, go to Annapolis and West Point on occasion and, you know, I still do stuff here and there. But, but, yeah, you know, you feel guilty because I like to, you've got to demonstrate, you know, you teach. And with all these stupid injuries, you know, I mean, the worst were shoulder surgeries, you know, that was the worst. Out of all my surgeries, shoulder surgery for me was the absolute worst. I've had a couple of back surgeries, no fun either. These stupid shoulder surgeries. So it takes so long to recoup.

• 5:33:55Speaker 01

  During that time, you can't teach any kind of takedowns, you know, if you can't use your arms. So, so, you know, surgeries have gotten in the way. But I, I might go to Korea next year. Graham Esther Park wants me to go to Korea with him. And I have, the highest you can go in taekwondo is ninth done. And I'm a ninth done in the Jeet Kune Kwan. And he wants me to go and get my ninth done in the Kookie one. And I'm an eighth done at Kookie one. And, you know, one last hurrah, see if I can, see if I can fire up again. But it's getting harder. It's getting harder, man.

• 5:34:38Jocko Willink?

  And so you're, you're fully retired now? That's

• 5:34:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, I just write. Yeah, I write.

• 5:34:45Jocko Willink?

  And does that, does that get us up to speed? Is that where we're at?

• 5:34:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, I think so.

• 5:34:51Jocko Willink?

  And

• 5:34:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:34:53Jocko Willink?

  And if people want to get ahold of your books, well, you're, you're at Johnnie Clark. So it's J O H N N I E Clark dot com.

• 5:35:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:35:05Jocko Willink?

  That's your website. Books are available on there.

• 5:35:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, there are, and on Amazon.

• 5:35:10Jocko Willink?

  And on Amazon as well.

• 5:35:11Speaker 01

  And Guns Up and Gunner's Glory are still in bookstores, you know, I mean, they're still in print. The other books, you know, like No Better Way to Die and The Old Corps, and those are some incredible, they're not my stories, but I wrote about some amazing men, like Francis Hugh Colleen, you know, in Korea. Some of their stories are just off the chart. And it's all based on real Marines, you know. So

• 5:35:38Speaker 01

  Those books, but they went out of print years ago. They were published by Random House too. But now, you know, then they went out of print and now they're on, they're on Amazon.

• 5:35:49Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, because you can still get Amazon print on demand.

• 5:35:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:35:52Jocko Willink?

  Print stuff for you.

• 5:35:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:35:53Jocko Willink?

  Um, well, awesome. Echo Charles, do you have any questions?

• 5:35:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, one quick question.

• 5:35:59Jocko Willink?

  Football question?

• 5:36:00Speaker 02

  No.

• 5:36:00Jocko Willink?

  Okay, he's a football guy, so.

• 5:36:02Speaker 02

  What's a blooper gun?

• 5:36:04Speaker 01

  An M, it's got an M79.

• 5:36:06Speaker 02

  79, but so like grenade launcher.

• 5:36:08Speaker 01

  Grenade launcher.

• 5:36:08Speaker 02

  Oh, okay, yeah. Why do they call it blooper?

• 5:36:11Speaker 01

  Boop.

• 5:36:12Speaker 02

  Because it made this. Also kind of like the burp gun because it makes the burps sound.

• 5:36:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:36:16Speaker 02

  Same thing.

• 5:36:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, it would be this, this very distinctive bloop and then you'd wait for the boom.

• 5:36:22Speaker 02

  Right. So, so now, or more modern day, do you have any guns like that where you kind of nickname it after the sound or?

• 5:36:29Jocko Willink?

  So just FYI.

• 5:36:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:36:30Jocko Willink?

  In Ramadi, Tasking Your Bruiser had that weapon. It's called an M79.

• 5:36:36Speaker 02

  Did you call it the?

• 5:36:37Speaker 01

  You still, you still had it?

• 5:36:39Jocko Willink?

  We had it. I, I think it's, might be gone now, but for whatever reason, the SEAL teams, we always preferred that.

• 5:36:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:36:45Jocko Willink?

  If you're going to be shooting a lot of them to the 203, the 203 sometimes it get frozen, like it's just, it's not as accurate. It's a little bit harder. So if someone was, let's say, very dedicated to the M70, to, to launching 40 millimeter grenades.

• 5:37:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:37:00Jocko Willink?

  They'd carry that M79.

• 5:37:02Speaker 01

  Cool. Yeah, that, it, it's a neat little weapon. It breaks down like a little shotgun kind of, and you shove an M79 grenade. It's about like that.

• 5:37:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:37:10Speaker 01

  40 millimeter, shove it in there and, uh, uh, yeah, it, it, it was a neat little weapon. I, I don't know. It wasn't as useful as the M60, but.

• 5:37:20Speaker 02

  40 mic mic, right?

• 5:37:21Jocko Willink?

  40 mic mic, yes. We call that a 40.

• 5:37:24Speaker 02

  Did you guys call it the blooper gun though?

• 5:37:25Jocko Willink?

  No.

• 5:37:26Speaker 02

  That's, that's a Vietnam thing now.

• 5:37:27Speaker 01

  That's a Vietnam thing, probably.

• 5:37:28Speaker 02

  Even like burp gun, right? That's a Vietnam thing.

• 5:37:31Jocko Willink?

  Viet, that's, uh, Korea.

• 5:37:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:37:33Speaker 02

  Korea.

• 5:37:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, Chinese burp guns.

• 5:37:34Speaker 02

  We'll call it old school then.

• 5:37:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:37:36Speaker 02

  It's old school.

• 5:37:36Jocko Willink?

  Definitely old school.

• 5:37:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, I wish we had that, what, that 40 millimeter, mic mic? Oh, yeah, I wish we had one of those.

• 5:37:45Speaker 02

  Right on.

• 5:37:46Jocko Willink?

  Anything else? Echo Charles?

• 5:37:47Speaker 02

  Awesome. Good to meet you, sir.

• 5:37:48Speaker 01

  Well, thanks. Thanks, guys.

• 5:37:50Jocko Willink?

  Sir, any, uh, any closing thoughts?

• 5:37:53Speaker 01

  Uh.

• 5:37:55Speaker 01

  Well, no, not really. I just, I'm just really blessed and I really, I, I hope and I really wanted to talk about not just my, not just me, but you know, some of these guys I served with, you know, with a Sergeant Vince Rios, lost both his legs, came home, got, put two sons in the Marine Corps. I think they're officers and, and you know, got two master's degrees and he lost part of his hand too. I mean, these guys, you know, they, they need to be remembered. I served with a bunch of remarkable men. You know, I wrote

• 5:38:34Speaker 01

  the book, so you know, I'm getting, I get way too much credit. I was just a dumb PFC. These other guys, I mean, you know, some of these guys were real leaders. They were, they were the leaders. I was just an 18-year-old goofy PFC. And I, so I, you know, I hate taking too much credit for too much, other than writing the book. Cause I, I served with incredible guys. Corporal Hootson, lives out here in Washington, wounded a couple of times at Way City, went out in that graveyard, you know, crawled out there with me in the mud and the things they did every day, you know, they, they deserve to be remembered.

• 5:39:20Jocko Willink?

  Well, I'm glad you were able to come on and, and share some of those memories. I know I always feel the same way, you know, I've written books and certainly don't deserve any of the credit compared to the guys that are, the books are written about. So I, I, I share that same thought as you. But it's awesome that you are here and that you did write that book that does memorialize those guys. So thanks for writing the book. Thanks for joining us. Thanks for sharing your experiences, your lessons learned. And of course, thank you for the service and sacrifice from you and your brothers from the 1-5 Marines

• 5:40:02Jocko Willink?

  and to all the grunts and all the ground pounders and the infantry men, especially.

• 5:40:11Jocko Willink?

  Our beloved machine gunners.

• 5:40:13Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 5:40:15Jocko Willink?

  Um, we will, we'll never forget those guys.

• 5:40:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was, it was one of the harder ways to go.

• 5:40:24Jocko Willink?

  Yes, indeed. Yes, indeed. Well, thank you for everything, sir.

• 5:40:27Speaker 01

  Well, thank you. Thank you, Jocko. Thank you, Echo. I really appreciate you having me on. And I want to thank the Marines that ask you to have me on.

• 5:40:38Jocko Willink?

  What's his name again? And what's his company?

• 5:40:40Speaker 01

  Adam Crick.

• 5:40:41Jocko Willink?

  So Adam Crick, they got goons up, right?

• 5:40:44Speaker 01

  Goons up, yeah. He's, he's an Iraq machine gunner. And, uh, yeah, there was, there were a bunch of Afghan and Iraqi machine gunners, uh, that they really, they wanted me to get on here. I, so I don't know how they got hold of you, but.

• 5:40:57Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I think they just reached out through social media and I look forward to having those guys on and having them come and talk about what it was like for them, the machine gunners.

• 5:41:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's not, I'll, I'll let them know. But I think they'll probably hear this.

• 5:41:11Jocko Willink?

  I think they will. Awesome. Thanks again, sir. Honored to have you here. And of course, Semper Fidelis.

• 5:41:17Speaker 01

  Yes, Semper Five.

• 5:41:20Jocko Willink?

  And with that, Johnny M. Clark has left the building.

• 5:41:27Jocko Willink?

  Pretty awesome to hear. Just unbelievable story and

• 5:41:33Jocko Willink?

  makes us, of course, really appreciate

• 5:41:37Jocko Willink?

  the sacrifices that have been made

• 5:41:40Jocko Willink?

  so that we can do what we do through and live our lives. So appreciate it. Appreciate the guys that connected us with him. That was much appreciated. Goons up out there. I'm sure hopefully at some point we'll get connected and have you guys come and talk about the modern

• 5:42:00Jocko Willink?

  infantry machine gunner. And we'll get some. Until then, we're getting after it. JacoFuel.com. Right now, we're in Walmart. If you have a Walmart near you, you can go get some milk. You can go get some pre-workout. You can get some. Powder, jockofuel.com. You can get whatever you need for your fuel. Good, clean fuel, the best clean fuel. Joint Warfare, Super Krill, Hydrate, Greens, the whole nine yards. You can also get it at Wawa Vitamin Shop, GNC, Military Commissaries, AFE's, Hannaford, Dash Stores in Maryland, Wake Fern, Shoprite, HEB down in Texas, Meyer out in the Midwest, Wegmans, Harris Teeter, Lifetime Fitness Shields,

• 5:42:44Jocko Willink?

  and little gyms, small gyms, big gyms, everywhere. Lifetime Fitness, by the way, is not a small gym. That's a big gym. If you want to bring this stuff into your world, email [email protected] and you can sell it through a wholesale account. There you go. Also, OriginUSA.com. We are trying to support the United States of America and you can do a one-two punch, a combined arms attack. You can support the United States of America, you can support freedom, and at the same time, you can get the best gis, hoodies, jeans, boots. We have new boots out. I got a pair, by the way.

• 5:43:28Speaker 02

  The Moccasin.

• 5:43:28Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, they're so nice. There's like cork.

• 5:43:31Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 5:43:32Jocko Willink?

  In them.

• 5:43:33Speaker 02

  I was at the factory, the actual factory, and he had it laid out where it's like the different stages of development or whatever.

• 5:43:40Jocko Willink?

  Did you touch the cork?

• 5:43:41Speaker 02

  Yes, I did.

• 5:43:42Jocko Willink?

  It's

• 5:43:42Speaker 02

  I touched it, took some, it's like, it's crazy. Yeah. And then you can kind of imagine, wait, this is on the inside of the soul. So you can kind of imagine, I was like, they're very impressive.

• 5:43:51Jocko Willink?

  They're so comfortable. So if you want to support America, you want to support freedom and you want to support yourself with the best quality items that are made 100% in America, OriginUSA.com. Get some.

• 5:44:02Speaker 02

  It's true. Also, Jocko says, Jocko has a store called Jocko Store. Go to JacoStore.com. This is where you can represent. Discipline equals freedom.

• 5:44:10Speaker 02

  Good. Good. That's a widespread one. I'm just saying it's a good attitude to have. It helps, helps a lot. But you want to represent this? You know, we got shirts. That's the big thing, the shirts. We do have hats and hoodies and stuff like that. We also have shorts too, by the way. Board shorts. Multi-purpose board shorts.

• 5:44:26Jocko Willink?

  Check. You out.

• 5:44:27Speaker 02

  True story.

• 5:44:27Jocko Willink?

  I like it.

• 5:44:28Speaker 02

  Yep. Also, Shirt Locker. It's called the Shirt Locker. Subscription scenario. You get a new shirt, new design every month. Reflective, representative of the path in different ways.

• 5:44:38Jocko Willink?

  Do I see a Guns Up t-shirt in the future?

• 5:44:40Speaker 02

  That's one of the, once I heard Guns Up twice, I was like, hmm.

• 5:44:44Jocko Willink?

  You were asking Johnny when we got done if like that was the beginning of chapters and it's not just, I used it to start a lot of the reading.

• 5:44:51Speaker 02

  Oh, okay.

• 5:44:52Jocko Willink?

  Cause, cause a lot of times that's how the event starts. You know, he's on patrol all of a sudden Guns Up or they're sleeping all of a sudden Guns Up. So that's kind of the, definitely the crux, definitely the, and it's the title of the book clearly.

• 5:45:03Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 5:45:04Jocko Willink?

  So.

• 5:45:04Speaker 02

  Last, um, or this month, sorry. Uh, yeah, as of right now, this month, September shirt is Bust Em.

• 5:45:13Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, nice.

• 5:45:14Speaker 02

  Looks good.

• 5:45:15Jocko Willink?

  Bust Em. I don't really know the origination of that or the origination, origination of that, but it was in my first platoon and we had this awesome guy named Dog. He was kind of putting us through training and he's the first guy that I, no, I guess they said it in BUDs too. Stand by, bust em.

• 5:45:31Speaker 02

  Bust em.

• 5:45:32Jocko Willink?

  I really, I don't know if it was Dog. It might've been Dog. I don't know if they said it in BUDs or not. I forget. But it definitely is a good way to say go.

• 5:45:39Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 5:45:40Jocko Willink?

  But what does it mean? Bust Em.

• 5:45:42Speaker 02

  Bust Em. Bust like.

• 5:45:44Jocko Willink?

  I understand bust, so bust the door open. I used to say that, bust that door, like bust it open. But then it may be the evolve from there into just mean go, right? Bust it.

• 5:45:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:45:55Jocko Willink?

  Bust Bust Em. There you go.

• 5:45:57Speaker 02

  Yeah. Either way freaking sounds dope and I get, I get the message. You know what I'm saying? So, but I'm going to represent. Is you saying, anyway, yeah, it's called the Shirt Locker. It's all, all of it on jocko's store.com.

• 5:46:07Jocko Willink?

  Also, you might need steak. If you do need steak, check out coloradocraftbeef.com and check out primalbeef.com. Get yourself some steak. Get yourself some.

• 5:46:19Jocko Willink?

  Ground beef. Get yourself some beef jerky.

• 5:46:23Jocko Willink?

  Primal Beef has some beef jerky.

• 5:46:26Jocko Willink?

  So primalbeef.com, coloradocraftbeef.com. Check them out. Colorado Craft Beef has the beef sticks, which are like a Snickers bar. That's good for you. Also subscribe to the podcast. Also jockounderground.com. Also YouTube channels. You know where they are at. Psychological Warfare, Flip Side Canvas, Dakota Meyer, making cool stuff to hang on the wall. Books. I've written a bunch of books, but let's face it, there's a book called Guns Up by Johnny M. Clark. You can get that book and you should get that book. That is a, that whole, that whole book is just epic. So check that out. And like I said, I've written a bunch of books. I've written a bunch of kids books as well. Don't forget about those. They're good to go, as they say. Echelon Front, we have a leadership consultancy. We solve problems through leadership.

• 5:47:10Jocko Willink?

  If you want to bring us into your organization, go to echelonfront.com. If you want to come to one of our events, go to echelonfront.com. If you want to check out our online training, go to extremeownership.com and you can learn these leadership principles through a virtual platform, an interactive platform. Check that out. If you want to help service members, active and retired, you want to help their families, want to help Gold Star families, check out Mark Lee's mom. Mark Lee, machine gunner. Yes, machine gunner. Carrying that Mark 48. Yeah, that's what he was doing.

• 5:47:43Jocko Willink?

  Check out his mom who made an incredible organization called America's Mighty Warriors. It's at americasmightywarriors.org. If you want to help out or get involved, go to that website. Also heroesandhorses.org. You got Micah Fink helping out military personnel. And Jimmy May has got an organization called Beyond the Brotherhood at beyondthebrotherhood.org. All great organizations. If you want to connect with us, Johnnie Clark, Johnny M. Clark. He's on the interwebs at Johnny, J O H N N I E Clark dot com. That's where you can connect with him. And for Echo, he's on social media. He's at Echo Charles.

• 5:48:26Jocko Willink?

  I'm at jocko.com and also I'm on social media at jocko willink.

• 5:48:32Jocko Willink?

  Just be careful because there's an algorithm that will sneak up on you. Like a NVA. Trying to kill you. Just watch out. It's a monster. Don't let it get you. Thanks once again to Johnny M. Clark for joining us. Complete honor to meet you, to speak with you, to share your story and to share the story of your fellow Marines.

• 5:48:58Jocko Willink?

  And also thanks to all the machine gunners out there in the Army. In the Marine Corps and in the Navy as well, including Mark Lee, Mike Monsour and Ryan Jobe.

• 5:49:11Jocko Willink?

  And the rest of you. Automatic weapons gunners. Thanks for carrying the big gun. And protecting the rest of us. By putting yourself at risk to lay down the fire. Also, thanks to police, law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, Border Patrol, Secret Service, all other first responders. Thanks for putting yourselves at risk to keep us safe here at home. And to everyone else out there.

• 5:49:44Jocko Willink?

  Look, sometimes we think we're in a slog. Kind of slogging through things, think we've got some hard times going on. When that's happening, think about 110 degree heat. Think about the leeches, the mosquitoes, the rain and the wind and the cold and the monsoons and the dirt and the grime and the bugs and the dysentery. And the malaria and the booby traps and the ambushes and the horror.

• 5:50:11Jocko Willink?

  The horror. That these men faced.

• 5:50:17Jocko Willink?

  And yet, in the face of all that.

• 5:50:21Jocko Willink?

  When the call came. They moved forward.

• 5:50:26Jocko Willink?

  And got the guns up.

• 5:50:30Jocko Willink?

  Keep that in mind.

• 5:50:34Jocko Willink?

  And that's all we've got for tonight. And until next time, Zeko and Jocko. Out.