544: How Good Men Lose Their Moral Compass

>Join Jocko Underground: Full Episodes< https://www.jockounderground.com/subscribe Drawing from hard lessons learned during wartime, Jocko and Echo explore the psychological traps that cause individuals and organizations to drift from their values. A deep discussion on ethics, responsibility, leadership, and the warning signs that trouble is ahead. 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 544 with Echo Charles and me, Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening. Now, the last podcast we discussed, we were kind of discussing how people learn. And it was focused on sort of individual people learning skills. But while I was reading some background information about that, I found an interesting article about organizational learning that not only had some interesting information about learning, but being a learning organization, but also it gave some really good knowledge about some of the psychological and emotional challenges that a military unit and thereby any team, maybe at a less

• 0:43Jocko Willink?

  extreme level, can face in stressful environments and also, you know, morally ambiguous environments. So when you get into this, this is a article called REAL, which is italicized REAL, Lessons Learned for Leaders After Years of War. And it's written by Lieutenant Colonel Joe Doty, or Doty, who's a PhD, US Army, retired, and Master Sergeant Jeffrey E. Fenlessen, or Fenlayson, US Army. So a couple of guys put this together, and they say this, "The past 10 years plus of war have provided numerous opportunities for the Army to capture lessons learned for

• 1:28Jocko Willink?

  future leader development, for both officers and NCOs. How many and which of these lessons the Army will translate into actual content, curriculum, pedagogy in the Army, schools, or leader development programs is unknown." So we've gathered all this information. How much of it is actually going to make it into the curriculum that's getting put out? This article examines the Army as a learning organization and recommends the Army include studies on the human dimension in leader development schools and programs. I couldn't agree more. We've said it since day one on this podcast. This is about human nature. Leadership is about human nature. Life is about human nature.

• 2:10Jocko Willink?

  So they go into a little bit of how we learn because the army is a learning organization is imperative that it learn from its history, both the good and the bad. Such common reflective practices as after action reviews, AERs, talk about those all the time. Leader feedback, coaching and performance counseling all speak to a learning organization. Top down and bottom up forums that disseminate and share information from the army to the army. Things like companycommand.com, platoonleader.com, and I used to frequent with those things. I haven't looked at them in a while. I'm going to check them out again. Are forums that share lessons learned and best practices at the grassroots and junior officer levels. All of these forums empower users to share insights and lessons learned, but

• 2:50Jocko Willink?

  that information may or may not become institutionalized, informal, instructional, educational, or training material.

• 2:58Jocko Willink?

  So you can have people talking about stuff, but if you don't capture it and turn it into some kind of curriculum or doctrine that people can then follow, you can make the same mistakes. So we got to be careful of that and you got to be careful that inside your organization. You've got people talking about what they could done or will they make some change, but they don't capture it. It's a problem. In his seminal work on the subject, the fifth discipline, Peter Seng or Seng, one of the leading teachers and proponents of learning organizations defines a learning organization as one, quote, "where people continually expand their capacity, create results that truly, they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free and where people are continually learning how to learn together."

• 3:45Jocko Willink?

  He adds that learning organizations are possible because, and he is a quote, "not only is it in our nature to learn, but we love to learn. Most of us at one time or another have been part of a great team, a group of people who functioned together in extraordinary way, who trusted one another, who complimented one another's strengths and compensated for one another's limitations, who had common goals that were larger than individual goals, who produced extraordinary results. The team became great. The team that became great didn't start off great." It learned how to produce extraordinary results. Sange proposes that learning organizations be grounded in quote, "Developing three core learning capabilities, fostering aspiration, developing reflective conversation, and

• 4:30Jocko Willink?

  understanding complexity." Okay, so he goes into a section here where he's talking about, you know, some of these developments of doctrines and there's another guy he brings up, David Kolbe, talks about his learning style, style models. So there's some, there's some scholarly type information I am going to skip over.

• 4:52Jocko Willink?

  Uh, but it's good, it's good information, but I'm gonna skip through it if you want it. You can, you can read the entire article yourself. I'm gonna get to some of the meat here. "Completing the mission is only one part of a soldier's requirements in the operational environment. Thinking back about what happened and using that information and knowledge to influence subsequent actions for the better is another important requirement, and this equates to learning for performance." "The very simple habit-forming attitude, thinking back and acting forward," that's kind of a theme in this article, "thinking back and acting forward fosters aspiration,

• 5:32Jocko Willink?

  develops reflective conversations, and helps us understand complexity. Army stories and vignettes often capitalize on this powerful learning technique. If we make an effort to deliberately habitually reflect as we act, real learning will occur." So this is why at Echelon Front, we're so, we, we, we encourage using a debrief so much. That's what all this stuff is, is doing a debrief. And you may have heard me say this lately, the, the idea of being intentional. What does that mean? It doesn't just mean, "I'm living my life intentionally." Like, it doesn't just mean that, right? It means plan, execute, debrief. That's what it means. Plan, execute, debrief. You come up with a plan, you go execute it, and then you debrief. If you don't debrief, you don't know what

• 6:16Jocko Willink?

  you did wrong, you're not gonna learn from it, you're not gonna get better. So we have to plan, execute, debrief. And that's what this is encouraging as well. Donald Schoen's work on reflective practices further supports the notion of thinking back and acting forward. It discusses organizations that focus on reflecting and journaling about experiences to improve performance. The common denominator is systemic reflection at the individual and team level. A habitual team or individual after action review in which soldiers and leaders make a conscientious effort to learn so that they will not repeat mistakes of the past. Again, this is a debrief, but isn't it interesting?

• 7:02Jocko Willink?

  How little this happens, we work with companies all the time and we say, oh, did you do a debrief for this? Eighty million dollar project that you did? No debrief. Did you do a debrief for this? Extreme failure, tactical failure that happened? Did you do a debrief? No, not really. Did you, you had a big market win? Did you do a debrief? No, we didn't do a debrief. You had a big market failure? Did you do a debrief? No, we didn't do a debrief. We hired someone and they're outstanding? Did you do a debrief on what you looked for? No, we didn't. Did you see where I'm going with this, right? So we don't debrief and you know what? This can be a little bit tricky.

• 7:41Jocko Willink?

  But debriefing your kids or having them debrief you. This is something that more people need to do because kids are like, you know, just

• 7:51Jocko Willink?

  you know, goldfish, goldfish brain, goldfish memory, next play. You know what I'm saying? They're just on to the next thing. So they're not learning.

• 8:01Jocko Willink?

  You need to, you need to think and think about what happened.

• 8:07Jocko Willink?

  So debrief, that's what we're talking about. And the idea

• 8:12Jocko Willink?

  of journaling to debrief yourself, what happened and what went wrong and what went right and what can be done better? That's a powerful thing. I, I have not done that.

• 8:24Jocko Willink?

  I have not sat down for, you know, oh, this thing and, and journaled out. But what I have done is when I'm debriefing the team, oh, here's, I write down my five bullet points, my seven bullet points, my three bullet points. Makes you so much better.

• 8:39Speaker 01

  There's a few of those things that that you've kind of brought up that

• 8:46Speaker 01

  that aren't standard or whatever, but it's like dang, when you think about it, if you do these things, they help so much. But they're not like, you know what another one was, um, how you guys, like you compared SEAL training with, uh, I think it might have been like professional sports and then also like compared it to like the, what do you call it? I think might have been like the police academies or something like this where for an operation or for a deployment, you guys do this work up in this training, like so much training, right? For this thing and a football team, for example, they got a game on Saturday. Not to mention the whole fall camp, they just train, train, train, train, train. So even if you go week to week, it's a, let's say five days of training and one game.

• 9:28Speaker 01

  So that's a five to one ratio, training to performance, right? But we'll say in the private sector, there's not that much training, you know?

• 9:39Jocko Willink?

  If you don't reframe things and make everything training, which you can, I won't say easily do, but you can absolutely do that. You can do it. So yes, you need to reframe things so that there is training taking place. Otherwise, and yeah, law enforcement is the classic example. Law enforcement, you know, they work their hours and they, where do they, where does the head shed want them when they're working? They want them on the streets patrolling. But that means they have no room to train. And I can guarantee you, I, I think it should be 20%. I think 20% of the police time should be spent training. So you work for four days on the street and then you get one day where you're training. You know, it doesn't need to be broken down like that, but 20% of the time.

• 10:23Jocko Willink?

  And I promise you, I promise you, who do you want to come and help you when things are going sideways? The person that's trained. All a whole bunch of time or the person that's just been, you know, beat down by patrol, patrol, patrol, patrol, patrol and deal with and look, they're learning when they're dealing with stuff, especially hopefully because they're doing debriefs. But if you don't even have time to debrief, like you and I go on a call, you're my partner, we go on a call, something goes sideways, we have to handle it, we get done. And then what do we do? We go back on, we go back to our next call, or we go to our next call. We didn't even debrief, not even on the Friday, we worked for four days straight, we came to say, hey, remember on Wednesday when this happened? You're like, yeah, dude, I feel, I felt like I could have done this better. Yeah, it would have helped me a lot, but I also dropped the ball here. But thank you for doing this. Oh,

• 11:08Jocko Willink?

  I didn't even notice that you noticed that. Yeah, it really helped out. Yeah. So boom, if we're not doing that at all, that's a real problem.

• 11:14Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, I remember. And I forget if you said this, or I just thought this where we're kind of crunching the numbers where you're like 20% should be training, right? For the police department, we'll say. And you said, what would you rather? Would you rather if, you know, scenario with like a bunch of police that are required, do you want eight, eight trained guys, like highly trained guys, or 10 not so trained guys, you know? And yeah, that makes sense. And you're right. So 20% of training, training, training, that's so that's real intentional, right? Like training. And then when you're working, that's training too, technically, but especially if you do that part intentionally. But here's the thing with the working part, because if you compare to jujitsu, right, where let's say, the competition, the competition's kind of like training, like

• 11:59Speaker 01

  you're learning a lot in competition, you know, especially if you treat it as a training opportunity. So yeah, you can do it. But in, let's say, the police force, some days is like super like training, you know, some days you're not really getting that much activity, we'll say, see what I'm saying? And it's less like controllable. But yeah, if you treat it intentionally, you can learn everything you possibly can, even from those light days, see what I'm saying? So yeah, that made sense.

• 12:25Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And you and I go to a call, something goes sideways, or it doesn't go smooth. If we spend five minutes debriefing or 10 minutes debriefing, but we learn exponentially amount, an exponential amount compared to if we just go to an extra call.

• 12:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:41Jocko Willink?

  And that, by the way, that can all be included in the 20%. You know what I mean? Maybe it's, maybe it's you still work a normal schedule, but at the end of the day, you have an hour and a half to train.

• 12:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 12:50Jocko Willink?

  Like, that's, that's all good.

• 12:52Speaker 01

  That totally makes sense, because in football, it's like, we will watch tape of the game. So it's kind of that same thing, you know?

• 12:58Jocko Willink?

  That's a debrief 100%.

• 12:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's like an analytical.

• 13:01Jocko Willink?

  Check. All right, fast forward a little bit. Lessons learned for commanders and leaders. Operation Iraqi Freedom, OIF, and Operation Enduring Freedom, OEF, have provided countless stories from which to learn. Robert Miller, our Staff Sergeant Robert Miller, Salvatore Gunta, Private First Class Ross McGuinness, displayed selfless service, loyalty, and personal courage, as have countless others. And by the way, those are all Medal of Honor recipients. Countless other soldiers and leaders, named and unnamed, who've set the example, taken the initiative, performed courageously, and chosen the harder right rather than the easier wrong. So he's setting up like, hey, we do a lot of good stuff. Lots of great examples out there.

• 13:45Jocko Willink?

  But then he goes on to say, however, as is often the case with human nature, much learning and development comes because of failures or negative psychological and emotional events. Without question, the vast majority of soldiers in combat have done and are doing the right thing under difficult circumstances. But we also know that bad things are going to happen. They always do. And our adversaries will use the media, the internet, social network, to cleverly exploit the slightest misstep by US forces for their own strategic and tactical purposes. Right? This is what they're gonna do. You make a little, you can do 100 things right, you do one thing wrong. By the way, if you have a company, and you have all these great Yelp reviews, and then

• 14:26Jocko Willink?

  you throw, your one customer gets wild, or doesn't get treated right, they're gonna get all kinds of views when they write their crappy Yelp review.

• 14:37Jocko Willink?

  So you need to keep that in mind. Analysis of the unfortunate and tragic US incidents that have occurred in OIF and OEF provided common themes, insights, and lessons learned that leaders should be aware of and look for both in themselves and their soldiers. Now, this is a very good thing to remember because it's kind of talking about the debrief here. The purpose here is not to dwell on or highlight the bad stuff. That's not the purpose. It's not like, oh, we're going to rehash a bunch of bad stuff for no reason, or we're not going to dwell on it. It's not to second guess decisions. It's not to criticize with the benefit of hindsight. That's a real easy one, right? It's not to discuss the personalities involved in the events.

• 15:20Jocko Willink?

  So now we're going on a little witch hunt activity, and it's not to rehash or retell stories. Our purpose is to help army leaders learn, really learn. We want to capture and articulate what can and arguably should be put in leaders' kit bags. In this case, their hearts and brains, in terms of the human dimension of war to better equip them to look out for and not make the same mistakes made in the past. We also want to raise awareness of common themes that have occurred in combat over the years and will continue to come for years as well. What follows are brief summaries of some high-profile cases from OEF and OIF. So now it rattles off again, the high-profile negative cases.

• 16:05Jocko Willink?

  We talked about Medal of Honor recipients. This is the other end of the spectrum. The Kill Team. A small group of soldiers in the 2nd Infantry Division allegedly formed a kill team in late 2009 or early 2010. Some of the team members allegedly killed two or three unarmed, non-threatening Afghans, then staged the scenes to make it look as if the deaths were combat-related. They also allegedly committed other violations of regulations and law, such as collecting war trophies and photographing team members with dead bodies.

• 16:41Jocko Willink?

  The Hiditha killings in November 2005 in Hiditha, Iraq. 24 Iraqis were allegedly killed by US Marines as part of a retribution attack after a convoy from 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines was hit by an improvised explosive device that killed Lance Corporal Miguel Tarazas and severely wounded another Marine. At least three officers were officially reprimanded for failing to properly report and investigate the killings. All criminal charges against six Marines were dropped and one Marine was prosecuted and found not guilty. The squad leader was recently given a plea deal and found guilty of negligent dereliction of duty.

• 17:23Jocko Willink?

  And I've talked about that one before because this is November 2005 when this happened. And by the way, as I point out, these Marines were cleared, like they looked into it. But there was such a spotlight on civilian casualties. So when, when we arrived in the spring of 2006 in Ramadi, the spotlight was strong. Next one, the Canal killings. Three non-commissioned officers from the 172nd Brigade Combat Team were found guilty of executing four Iraqi detainees on or around April 2007. These quote canal killings were allegedly a response to detainees being released after having been detained only a few days and immediately returning to the fight.

• 18:07Jocko Willink?

  The next one, the Samara murders. Four soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division Air Assault were found guilty of killing three detainees in May of 2006 during Operation Iron Triangle near Samara, Iraq. Allegedly, the soldiers released the detainees and then shot them to make it look like an escape attempt. Tigress River Bridge Incident. In January of 2004, soldiers from the 4th Infantry Division allegedly forced two Iraqis off a bridge over the Tigress River. One of the Iraqis died. An officer and NCO were found guilty of crimes related to this incident. During the investigation, it was alleged that the battalion commander wanted to cover up the bridge incident.

• 18:51Jocko Willink?

  You can't cover stuff up. I'm gonna tell you that right now. It doesn't work. If you think you're going to be able to cover something up, you're wrong. Uh, the only people that don't talk about what happened is dead, are dead.

• 19:06Jocko Willink?

  If they're alive, they're gonna tell somebody. So you can't do a cover up. It doesn't work. And you need to tell your people that. Mumadiya murders and rape in March 2006 near Mumadiya, Iraq, four soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division Air Assault killed four Iraqi noncombatants and raped one of them before killing her. All four soldiers were found guilty of rape and murder.

• 19:29Jocko Willink?

  Abu Ghraib, 11 soldiers were found guilty of detainee abuse and other crimes in connection with this well-publicized case in Abu Ghraib prison. And then Bagram detainee abuse in the spring and summer and summer of 2002 at Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan, soldiers were allegedly involved in detainee abuse cases to which were featured on a CNN documentary Taxi to the Dark Side. At least 15 personnel were charged with crimes and five were convicted. So those are again, the high-profile cases and

• 20:04Jocko Willink?

  you know, again, they mentioned this already. The vast majority of the soldiers, sailors, and Marines are out there trying to do the right thing.

• 20:13Jocko Willink?

  But they're in tough environments. They're going to talk about how this stuff can occur. And it also, to me, it's it kind of shows you how much scrutiny there is on our troops.

• 20:27Jocko Willink?

  That these incidents, they don't happen very often. And when they do, they get rolled up. Even when they try and cover them up.

• 20:36Jocko Willink?

  Uh, back to the document. The eight incidences briefly described above, along with others from all conflicts, most notably, Milai Incident in Vietnam, 1968, which we covered on this podcast, highlights what can happen in war. Clearly, the incidents are not a reflection of our army, our professional ethic, or the seven army values. In addition, they may not be examples of leadership failures. They do indicate, I disagree with that, like if this stuff happens, there's a leadership failure. If you've got people raping and murdering civilian populace, there's a leadership problem. I'm not sure what they mean by that.

• 21:17Jocko Willink?

  They do not indicate a need for increased leader education about the, oh, sorry. They do indicate a need for increased leader education about indicators of ethics abdication. So this is when, what, what shows you signs that maybe people are forgetting about their ethics? Again, that was so weak. That's one of the most horrible things about the Mila massacre is these dudes were just regular dudes. From, you know, from all different backgrounds, but you know, a lot of guys from really good, normal backgrounds.

• 21:51Jocko Willink?

  But they lost their minds. They lost their moral code. They lost their direction, their moral compass. Additionally, we must face the reality that the military is a reflection of society. And one of the incidences, the rape and murder at Mumadiya, Iraq, was likely in part a result of criminal elements within the ranks. Okay. So you, you can have some just straight up criminals. And by the way, you got to watch out for that. And, and remember when, uh, we had Jordan Peterson on here? And I said, I said, hey, if you, if you're in charge of a platoon, there's going to be a sociopath in there. Cause I had said, I'd actually said this to a group of army soldiers. So actually a group of army officers.

• 22:35Jocko Willink?

  And they all kind of looked at me like I was like, I'm like, no, no. And then I, so I had Dr. Jordan Peterson on and I said, hey, is this, do you think this is accurate?

• 22:46Jocko Willink?

  And he said, so I said, like, he goes, how big is a platoon? I go, it's 40 or 50 guys. And he said,

• 22:52Jocko Willink?

  oh yeah, like one sociopath in there for sure. Especially what he said was there's a whole bunch of people that will not be sociopaths and therefore would not join the military. There's like a bunch of hippies and you know, whatever, hippies and flower children that they're, they're not going to be sociopaths. And they're not that, that half of the group or whatever quarter of the group, they're not even in the group. Yeah. So when you get down to just 40 people that are open to the, they're at least at a minimum, they're open to the idea of killing the enemy. Right? If you're in the infantry platoon, you're at least open to that idea. So anyone that's not open to that idea is in my professional psychological opinion, not going to be a sociopath if they're not open to it.

• 23:38Jocko Willink?

  So now you take, all of a sudden you take 40 people. Cause he said the normal numbers are like one in a hundred. So yeah, probably even bigger than that. So you may have just criminal people in the ranks. That's gonna happen. What you gotta watch out for is that if that person starts, you know, swaying the opinions of other people. So going back to the documentary, most important from a learning perspective is the fact that the incidents were the result of some, if not all, of nine psychological and emotional constructs that can be a consequence of stressful, complex, uncertain, and highly volatile combat environment. So here we're gonna get to these things that can lead to this happening, these types of things happening.

• 24:22Jocko Willink?

  The nine constructs are, and by the way, it's really interesting how you can find, you're like, we're talking about war crime activity, but these are also just sort of how people negotiate with themselves or convince themselves that they're doing the right thing.

• 24:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:40Jocko Willink?

  It doesn't necessarily have to be a war crime. It can be like, I don't need to, I don't need to change the ink in the copy machine. That's not on me. Like, you know what I'm saying? Even these little things.

• 24:49Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 24:49Jocko Willink?

  So number one, authorization. Authorization is the perception that the chain of command sanctions approves or directs a particular behavior. I was just following orders, or this is what my leader expects me to do. By the way, what you gotta watch out for is you, if you have a behavior as a leader, that's pretty much authorization. So if you show up late, other people are gonna show up late. You forget gear, other people are gonna forget gear.

• 25:20Jocko Willink?

  You, you use bad language, other people are gonna use bad language. By the way, this includes your kids. Think you're gonna swear around your kids and they're not gonna swear? No, no, no, they're gonna swear.

• 25:30Jocko Willink?

  So you've gotta remember that your behavior authorizes it within your team. Next one, transfer of responsibility. Transfer of responsibility is the perception that some other person bears the responsibility for an unethical act, i.e. someone else is responsible. Hey, this is not me.

• 25:49Jocko Willink?

  Uh, next one, routinization. Routinization occurs when soldiers gradually acculturate to unethical actions or abuses. Unethical behavior simply becomes routine. It's just what we do. An athlete who has taken performance enhancing drugs for years, or teenagers paying for one movie and watching two or three in the cineplex are civilian examples. The routine and daily execution of the Final Solution by Nazi Germany during World War II is history's most horrendous example of routinization. This is where you just make these little things and you just kind of let them slide. And this is what's tough as a leader because you can't harp on little things that don't matter,

• 26:34Jocko Willink?

  but you also can't just let little things that don't matter turn into big things.

• 26:39Jocko Willink?

  You know, if I let you get away with, you know, at the end of the night, we're uh, we're, we're, we're cleaning the, the kitchen and we're putting away the, the steaks that we didn't cook. And, you know, you grab like one of the small steaks. And you're gonna take it home and eat it, but you didn't pay for it. And, you know, I could be like, look, man, we sold 280 steaks. Echo's been working here all day. You know, eh, kind of let it slide.

• 27:06Jocko Willink?

  Then you do it again. Then you do it again. Then you do it again. At a certain point, you start taking two or three steaks, got the family to feed. So you see what I'm saying? So you, you have to be careful that you don't let little, little ethical, little ethical transgressions, little tiny ethical transgressions become routine.

• 27:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, you can, I would imagine anyway, that you can slide into criminality in real life real quick. Like that, actually I have an example of that when I was young. Uh, maybe an 11th grade scenario.

• 27:43Jocko Willink?

  You slid into criminality.

• 27:44Speaker 01

  Me, my friend.

• 27:45Jocko Willink?

  Okay, alright.

• 27:46Speaker 01

  And he, he would choplift. And, and it started with like something super small. It was like candy or something like this. And he, you know, he was like, I'll just put it in his pocket or whatever. And, okay, so usually like my friends that I hung out with, they're not criminals at all. They're not bad kids at all. So to me, or to us, when he took that little piece of candy that first time, I was like kind of surprised.

• 28:15Speaker 01

  And one of the things I was surprised with is that he got away with it. For some reason, I mean, it kind of brought it to light where I guess I was under the impression that like, I don't know, there's freaking like Fort Knox cameras everywhere in the freaking 7-Eleven or the, you know. But he got away with it and I was like, right, is it that easy? Like you just go, you know, you just go in a aisle that no one's in there and you just take whatever you want in in a sly way and just walk out or whatever. So I was like, kind of surprised, but whatever. And then slowly but surely he would start taking like more stuff. And here's another part of it too, where he got to the point where he was like, kind of like, hey, you want to come see it? Like he was like, almost like a performance. And he would like, and he'd be like laughing and stuff. And I was like, bro, this is, and I kept being like more and more surprised.

• 29:00Speaker 01

  Like, bro, it's like that easy? You just, that's how, you know, you just do it.

• 29:05Speaker 01

  Of course, in hindsight, I'm like, okay, people don't just start shoplifting. You know, because it's like, everyone knows, like, brother, that's a rule. It's, you know, almost like the honor system is also in play. Along with the real law, you know?

• 29:18Jocko Willink?

  Isn't that weird when, like, I remember cases where like these rich, real, super rich, like Hollywood people would get busted for shoplifting.

• 29:27Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Winona Ryder did, I think.

• 29:29Jocko Willink?

  I think there, there might be another example, but I think that is the one. Did she go out with Johnny Depp?

• 29:33Speaker 01

  I don't know.

• 29:34Jocko Willink?

  But she, who could clearly afford like, pretty much anything, is in there just shoplifting. That's such a weird thrill you're looking for.

• 29:45Jocko Willink?

  But it's something to pay attention to. It's something to pay attention to. You know, when you, when you let little transgressions go, they will start to grow. And again, as a leader, you have to find the balance because, you know, you're, you're, you're going to have your platoons or your team, they're going to do some things that you're like, you know what? I get it, you know, uh, I'm trying to think of just a, some little thing that people will get away with. You know, they're going to get away with some little thing and you go, like, I can't harp on this little thing. It doesn't really matter that much. But you've got to figure out where that line is and you've got to make it very clear.

• 30:28Jocko Willink?

  You know, you can't, you, you gotta make it very, very clear what the line is. And it's got to be, hey, if you do this, you. I will not support you. And in fact, I'll go out of my way to crush you. You have to do that. And, you know, it's, Leif and I have talked about this on this podcast, as a matter of fact, you know, I got your back, right? Oh, Echo, I got your back. You should know I got your back like no. I got your back.

• 30:58Jocko Willink?

  Almost no matter what you do, but if you do something that's illegal or immoral or unethical, I don't got your back and you need to know that.

• 31:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:04Jocko Willink?

  You need to know that. You know, like, oh, okay, like, I don't got your back. If you do something that's illegal, immoral, or unethical, you better know that I don't got your back. Now, you make an honest mistake, I got your back all day.

• 31:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:15Jocko Willink?

  You want to push the envelope? Cool. You cross the line, though. We got a problem. And by the way, sometimes you got some things, you know, there's, there's rules that we have to go. I, the spirit of the rule is not good. And therefore, you know, we had interpreters in Ramadi. And interpreters aren't supposed to carry weapons. And our interpreters carry weapons. Because putting an interpreter in Ramadi without a weapon was wrong. It was morally wrong. Like, it was morally wrong. You asking a, a guy wearing an American uniform in Ramadi

• 31:59Jocko Willink?

  to go out there where, look, he, you know, he gets separated from people, whatever, there's a million things that can happen. He just needs to maneuver across the street where you like, you need a gun.

• 32:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:10Jocko Willink?

  And it was like, mm, yep, go ahead. And if I would have, you know, if something would have happened where I would have been held accountable to that, I would have, they would have said, well,

• 32:24Jocko Willink?

  you let your, did you let your interpreters carry weapons? I would have said, yes. And they would have said, that's against the rules. And I would have said, well, I should have gone about it better, but I could not in good conscience, send another person that's on our team into Ramadi without a weapon. And some of them were American. Some of them were foreign nationals, but they were on our team and they were risking their lives to help us. So yeah, the idea that and you know what it was kind of okay. But even my boss, you know, I don't know that I went through. I can't remember if I ever like discussed it with him.

• 33:06Jocko Willink?

  But he definitely saw pictures and knew like he knew that the guys were carrying weapons. So he probably felt the same way. And by the way, all the, you know, battalion commanders that are out in the street, like everyone saw wasn't like, oh, you know, we're trying to hide it. Doing it on DL. Yeah. So there's things like that that are gonna happen. You have to make a judgment call. And really it is like, would you be able to stand in front of whoever? And say, this is why I made this decision. And most of the time, you know, it should be pretty aligned. Now, are there things that? Yeah, and you should be able to tell the difference between, hey, I'm doing this. I'm making this decision right now. And I think it is completely justifiable. Yeah.

• 33:49Jocko Willink?

  And if you start feeling like, I don't know if this is justifiable, then you guess what? You're probably wrong. Yeah. You're probably wrong. So we have to pay attention to that to make sure that. Things aren't becoming these little, these, and you gotta explain that to the troops too. You can't just have little violations of the rules. And act like it's not there, you know, you gotta say like, hey, our Terps are carrying weapons. Yeah. Like boom, like that's what we're doing. Yeah, that makes sense. I know it's the letter of the law. We can't do that, but I'm not sending these guys who are risking their lives to go out there and help us. I'm not putting them in Ramadi with an American uniform without a weapon. That's not happening. So.

• 34:33Jocko Willink?

  And there's, and again, you, you're always going to run into things like that. And then you look up, if you're not careful, if you don't draw that line, you look up and things have gone completely sideways and you got someone that's doing things that's immoral, illegal, or unethical.

• 34:50Jocko Willink?

  So we gotta pay attention.

• 34:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, the, the, those small violations, like, you know, like, okay, there's a rule, right? And then let's say someone breaks the rule, but just not, not in a big way, just in the, in a teeny tiny way. Just like, it's like the whole being on time thing where, and I, I violated this, like, when I used to work at the, at the nightclub, I'd come like one minute, two minutes late, right? And then if my supervisor, who was kind of my friend too, if he would say anything, I'd be, I would kind of like, gaslight him a little bit and be like, bro, it's like two minutes and you're making a big deal out of it. See what I'm saying? But, and which I kind of got away with too. But he was actually right because it's like, hey, the violation or the rule isn't, hey, you have to come, um,

• 35:34Speaker 01

  within two minutes of this time or whatever. It's like, no, you start at this time and, you know, if you're late, you have violated the rule. See what I'm saying? Just like shoplifting, what if he, if he, uh, shoplifted a Jolly Rancher for two cents? It's like, probably is he going to jail for that? Hmm, yep, maybe, because he shoplifted, that's the rule, see what I'm saying? And so that, that's like a way, um, that, that big transgressions can happen because it starts just small. And then after, after a certain amount of time, it's like, where do you draw the line? See what I'm saying? Like, I got a, I told you this, I got in trouble for taking money at the front door as a bouncer.

• 36:13Jocko Willink?

  But like, I walk up to come to the bar, hand you a 20 and you let me in?

• 36:17Speaker 01

  Right.

• 36:17Jocko Willink?

  You get in trouble for that?

• 36:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, so, well, depends how you do it, it depends on the club, but how we had it, our club was kind of strict. And, you know, there, I, what I ended up, I even forget actually what I did, but the report came back that I took money, but I still made them pay the cover charge, but I let them skip the line. So I took money to let them skip the line. Which seems good, right? But our, our place was super strict and it seems even, it seemed even worse because the people that did that, that I hooked up like that.

• 36:46Jocko Willink?

  Were your friends?

• 36:47Speaker 01

  No, no, they were secret shoppers, you know what that is?

• 36:49Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 36:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, they're like hired, they're, they're the service that come in and give you like a, like a, what do you call it? Candidate in, in evaluation of your, the service that you're giving. And so, yeah, I got rolled up on that, me and another guy. So, and the thing is not that big a deal, right? The club got their money. You know, I made money on the side, but it had no bearing, you know, whatever, but it was a violation of the system. So I got in trouble, but here's the thing though, side note. We actually fought back, not like fought back against the owner or whatever, but we brought it to his attention. It's like, hey, like we, the club got their money. You know, like this shouldn't be that big of a deal technically on a technical level, you know, just like,

• 37:32Speaker 01

  forget about this, oh, we're strict here thing, just think about it from our perspective. See what I'm saying? And he, and he was like, bro, you kind of have a point. And then he allowed us to come up with a system to get money for people skipping the line.

• 37:43Jocko Willink?

  What was the system?

• 37:44Speaker 01

  They just pay double as long as the club got their money, we can run the line however we want, as long as it doesn't create chaos.

• 37:49Jocko Willink?

  So do you have like a left line and a right line?

• 37:51Speaker 01

  Yep, exactly right.

• 37:53Jocko Willink?

  And they just had the straight up 40 bucks to get in here, 80 bucks to get in here.

• 37:57Speaker 01

  Yep, exactly right, but it wasn't, um, it wasn't a sign or nothing like that. It was, you know, there's one long line and then there's one teeny tiny short line. And, you know, people come up and everyone knows like, here's a line to get in, right? There's a little cover charge right here. And then people always ask, well, what's this line? And we say that's either the guest or the express line is for people on the list, or if they want to pay the express cover, which is blah, blah, blah.

• 38:19Jocko Willink?

  Damn, express cover, ECHO Charles, pocket in the game.

• 38:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, but then we came up with a good system and we, and the owner was like, yeah, that's, um, yeah, fine with me. As long as you guys don't start manipulating the line, you know how like some people, they'll be like, hey, they'll slow roll the line. So, you know, he's like, don't you dare pull that kind of stuff.

• 38:38Jocko Willink?

  I think it would be an interesting, I should have done this, but to just sit down and think of all the rules, like, rules that I either bent or broke. And then what was the line between, you know, hey, nope, you can't do that.

• 38:53Speaker 01

  Right.

• 38:53Jocko Willink?

  Like you can do this, but you can't do that.

• 38:55Speaker 01

  Right.

• 38:55Jocko Willink?

  Because it'd be interesting to figure out what that is, because I know like, you know, one of the things like the, the, when I was just talking like no cover up, like that's a thing that I would literally say. Like we are not, you, there's nothing getting covered up. If something happens, we're reporting it. That's what we're doing.

• 39:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:12Jocko Willink?

  Uh, and. That's one of those things where guys now they're not going to come to me and say like, hey, this happened. Can we? No, they already know that, which by the way, keeps people in check.

• 39:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:24Jocko Willink?

  Because if they know they do something, it's gonna be reported. So you, you have to, it keeps people more in check. If they think, you know, well, you know, Jocko covered up the whatever over here. So I think we'll be good. No, no, no, that's not the way it works. That's not the way it works. But it'd be good to figure out, you know, just rules. Some of those like that, that thing with the Terps is a, is a good one, you know, that I can remember. It's a very clear, hey, here was the rule. And here's what I did. And here's why I did it.

• 39:54Speaker 01

  So did you do that? Did you ask for, you know how they say ask for, either you ask for permission? Or say sorry or what, you know, that whole thing where it's like.

• 40:04Jocko Willink?

  So, uh, quite frankly, the Terps were just carrying weapons when I got there. And I was like, okay, so you guys are carrying weapons. They're like, yeah. And I'm like, understood. Continue. You know, it was one of those things. I mean, I, I knew the rules. The rules, there was a precedent of the rules not being followed for that particular thing. And so I continue, I checked with the precedents. I let them know that I was aware because I think that's important too.

• 40:32Speaker 01

  Let who know?

• 40:33Jocko Willink?

  Let the, everyone. Like, hey, guys, I know that this is, it's not like I'm, I'm.

• 40:39Jocko Willink?

  I'm unaware.

• 40:40Speaker 01

  So you let your guys know?

• 40:41Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, because otherwise they go, no, he's not really going to find out or if he doesn't know, like that type of thing. No, I know.

• 40:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, that's cool.

• 40:48Jocko Willink?

  I know. So I know and I'm okay with it. And here's why.

• 40:53Speaker 01

  Did you have to like answer for it or anything?

• 40:55Jocko Willink?

  No, I never did. I think it was, and look, it might be a bad example because it was so common.

• 41:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 41:00Jocko Willink?

  Like I saw, like the, most of the Terps carried weapons.

• 41:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:04Jocko Willink?

  Well, I shouldn't say that. Well, ours definitely did.

• 41:07Speaker 01

  Right. Actually, in a way, it's kind of a good example of how like, how easily these, you can cross over to these things because like, kind of how you said where it's like, bro, to you. And obviously not you, not just you, but it was justified. But it was still a rule. See what I'm saying? So once you kind of get on that side of the whole rules thing on the fence of it with the rules, it's kind of like, well, what else is there on that?

• 41:29Jocko Willink?

  That's why you, if you don't address the rule, the rule that you're breaking and why you're breaking it. And you just break the rule without any explanation, that it leaves room for interpretation to people go, oh, well, you know, we don't, if we do that, we don't have to do this. If we don't do that, we don't have to do this.

• 41:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, I wonder like, like even like the shoplifting thing that because that goes kind of deep to K. Have you ever heard of, like, I knew this girl and she was in a purse store and, you know, clothing store, Macy's or something like this. And she's like, oh, my gosh. And you know how like you try on stuff, right? So she had this, like she had this handbag or whatever. And she was like, oh, my gosh, this looks nice on me or whatever. And then then she goes and checks out this shirt or that thing. And she accidentally left this purse on her shoulder. Just like not thinking about it, you know? As she's shopping or whatever, like for a long time too, like can you literally put it on your shoulder and forget about it? Which I understand, like, think of like, if you have a scarf or something, you know, as you said, it's like you forget you have it on.

• 42:23Speaker 01

  And well, she legitimately did. Well, you know, that was her story, but she's not that kind. You're gonna be there, but to understand, but uh, so she's shopping for like a long as time. And then she walks out with the purse on accident. She got rolled up and she's like crying. She's like, oh, my gosh, this whatever. But it got me thinking, wait a second, that can happen all the time. And like, you'll forget about it or like, you know, like you do, uh, let's say you're at the grocery store or something. You leave like something at the bottom of the freaking, you know, like some batteries or something that gets smashed. You know, whatever. And you walk in, you realize, oh, wait, I didn't pay for that. But you're already like halfway home or something like this, or you're across the parking lot. It's like, all right, but I'm gonna pay this like three dollars. I gotta walk back in, go whatever. It's like, and you just, you already technically got away with it.

• 43:08Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 43:08Speaker 01

  Right?

• 43:09Jocko Willink?

  So you roll with it.

• 43:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, you roll with it. This phase, like how many times would you estimate, let's say, just in any town USA? A person would just continue to go home, fully, fully innocent, fully forgot, legitimately forgot.

• 43:24Jocko Willink?

  Three dollar value?

• 43:26Speaker 01

  Yep, say three dollar.

• 43:27Jocko Willink?

  Three dollar, I think of most people are like carrying on.

• 43:30Speaker 01

  Yep, carrying on, right?

• 43:31Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 43:32Speaker 01

  What about, so you see though.

• 43:34Jocko Willink?

  By the way, I left, I was, I went and got groceries the other day. And I left.

• 43:41Jocko Willink?

  The I the opposite happened. I like they were bagging my stuff up and I left a bag of groceries there.

• 43:48Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 43:48Jocko Willink?

  And I got home and I was like huh. And my wife later went to the store and she was like, your husband left.

• 43:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:59Jocko Willink?

  The stuff here and gave credit. She got they gave her credit because they had it. They said, well, we had to put it back, but this is what it was.

• 44:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:06Jocko Willink?

  She's like, they told her to go get it.

• 44:08Speaker 01

  Sweet.

• 44:08Jocko Willink?

  So shout out to Jensen's.

• 44:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:11Jocko Willink?

  Jensen's supermarket. Let's go.

• 44:12Speaker 01

  Some good service over there.

• 44:14Jocko Willink?

  They and it was a couple of days had gone by and they gave me the credit.

• 44:17Speaker 01

  Oh, that's a good little community right there. They remember you guys and.

• 44:22Speaker 01

  But the three dollar value.

• 44:23Jocko Willink?

  They got go they got they got milk there as well.

• 44:25Speaker 01

  Oh, hell, yeah. So they're in the game.

• 44:27Jocko Willink?

  They're in the game, bro.

• 44:28Speaker 01

  Full full understanding unknown. What where's the line drawn? And actually, I might argue that what if it was like a fifty dollar value?

• 44:36Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. So that's I that's where I think people start, you know, people would have people would have various levels of what where they go. That's fifty bucks. I, you know, I need to get back in there and pay for it.

• 44:48Speaker 01

  Or that's fifty bucks. I just got away with not having to pay.

• 44:53Jocko Willink?

  Fifty bucks.

• 44:54Speaker 01

  Legitimately too, like now you have to like expend the energy to adhere to some moral code that doesn't matter, by the way. Um, except for with you, within you. See what I'm saying? So when no one's looking, it's kind of like, and I'm not saying, hey, look, you're a bad person. You're a good person. It's not about that. It's about. It's about where is this line drawn?

• 45:15Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, no, that's.

• 45:16Speaker 01

  So let's say if it's a three dollar something, right? Three dollar value, right? You don't go in, you're like, uh, my time's worth more than that, you know, whatever. And then let's say it happens again a year later.

• 45:27Jocko Willink?

  By the way, there should be some kind of an equivalency here. Let's say you overpaid three bucks and you realize how do you go back to the store for it?

• 45:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:37Jocko Willink?

  Then what if it's twenty dollars and you overpay?

• 45:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:40Jocko Willink?

  Do you go back or like you get your bill and you got you got undercharged or you got overcharged? If you got undercharged by thirty bucks, oh, they missed the steak that I ordered. Hey, guys, I missed the steak. Or hey, you double charged me a steak.

• 45:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:54Jocko Willink?

  Those should be somewhere around the same number in my opinion, right?

• 45:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:58Jocko Willink?

  Because uh, that's for me, it's not even a matter of the money. It's like, bro. Like it has to be a pretty whether either either one of those things for me to go back in there. Hey, I think here's my credit card redo this stuff. I just want to go home. So my, my, my.

• 46:20Jocko Willink?

  Problem with the scenario isn't so much like winning or losing, it's just like inconvenience.

• 46:27Speaker 01

  But think of the person and there's a lot of people in there not bad. It doesn't mean you're a bad person, but there are people who would be like, okay, let's say.

• 46:33Jocko Willink?

  My wife is going back in there like, hey, you, you know, I owe you $3. My wife's doing that all like 100% of the time.

• 46:39Speaker 01

  I'll do that, especially now that I'm, I think, older. Like I actually feel better about myself. If I'm like, oh, wait, they didn't charge for this or you know what happened? Like you, you know how you put like, I don't know if you get like.

• 46:50Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, the lower part of the grocery.

• 46:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, we get like club soda. So we put it down there or whatever. And then like sometimes, you know, we'll forget it and I'll just. I will feel, I won't feel bad because I'm like, who's getting hurt? But if I go and say, hey, I forgot to pay for it, I actually just feel better about myself. Like I'm such a good citizen.

• 47:06Jocko Willink?

  Do you ever think that they're, uh, you're being taped? Like you're being videoed?

• 47:10Speaker 01

  When I was young, yeah.

• 47:11Jocko Willink?

  I'm like, bro, this is a test. This is a straight up test. Like people are trying to get me.

• 47:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:16Jocko Willink?

  You know, I'm looking over my shoulder like, oh, they got, they think they're going to get me, but no, I'm going to roll back in there because you. It is bad when you think about what you just did. If you're like, okay.

• 47:26Jocko Willink?

  If I just did something where I'd be embarrassed if people saw it, I, I figure someone's taping it.

• 47:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:32Jocko Willink?

  As a matter of fact, I used to say this in Ramadi, I'd be like, hey, you have to assume when you're out there, you have to assume that. Al Jazeera is videoing you as you're carrying out whatever you're doing.

• 47:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:40Jocko Willink?

  And by the way, that was accurate a lot of times. There was video, like people were video stuff. So you have to have that in your mind that whatever I'm about to do right now. Could be on the 24 hour news, you know, headline story for the next three weeks. You do something stupid, it could be there.

• 47:56Speaker 01

  That's a good protocol right there.

• 47:58Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. So.

• 47:59Speaker 01

  So where did you, where, or you could see this line being blurred. Okay. The soda water on the bottom of the shopping cart cashier didn't see it. Right?

• 48:09Jocko Willink?

  Real quick, I had, I made that, I gave that explanation one time to some young officers in the military.

• 48:14Speaker 01

  Wait, what explanation?

• 48:15Jocko Willink?

  Of like, hey, assume that what you're about to do is gonna be on the front page of, what do you call like the, the headline story on headline news, because the front page, no one cares about the front page of the newspaper anymore. But when you're click, you know, when you click on the homepage of the news website and you immediately see the video, and it's gonna be you doing that thing. And one of the kids was like, um, you know, well, that doesn't make something right or wrong, you know, like, and I was, I said, well, no, you're right, but it should give you a feeling. If you're a little bit, hmm, what should I do here? Well, take a moment and picture that this thing is, it could still be, you know, you could do something that you might be embarrassed, which technically is right.

• 48:59Jocko Willink?

  Meaning you could technically get away with it, but you're still kinda holding your head in shame when everyone knows that's what you did. You know, so it's still a good test. Hey, if everyone is going to watch me do this, if millions of people on the news are gonna watch me do this thing tomorrow, you know, what's the deal? Do I feel good about it?

• 49:22Jocko Willink?

  So if the answer is I'm not gonna feel good about it, it's, it's, it should give you some, some, some hesitation on executing that action.

• 49:32Speaker 01

  That's a very useful guideline for sure.

• 49:34Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and you know when people get, when people, when people get rolled up, or when people get recorded doing stuff?

• 49:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:40Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's a bummer. Remember that whole thing with the couple that got busted at the Coldplay concert?

• 49:48Jocko Willink?

  You know what I mean? That's like, that's like the premier example probably of history.

• 49:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:53Jocko Willink?

  Of, hey, I just got rolled, I just got busted, videoed, doing something that I shouldn't have been doing.

• 49:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:59Jocko Willink?

  And if they would have had that thought in their mind, they wouldn't have been doing that.

• 50:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:02Jocko Willink?

  And by the way, when you're in a public place, that was, that was crazy. Yeah. Sorry, I cut you off about three minutes ago. What were you gonna say?

• 50:11Speaker 01

  Well, now I'm gonna add to, to what you're saying, that, that if you imagine that someone's videotaping you, you really mind your Ps and Qs, even more so than you might think, think, because then we've talked about this where. You know, when you're following through doing something like on the DL or whatever, there's a legitimate part of your mind that's like that miscalculates how bad you look. It miscalculates it for whatever reason. There's all this context in your mind and whatever and all this stuff, whatever. But when you see it on a videotape or read the transcript or whatever, you know, when you see it displayed from a detached perspective and you see yourself doing this, you're like, bro, I didn't realize I looked like that for stealing all this candy or whatever. You see what I'm saying?

• 50:56Speaker 01

  So it's like, bro, it's heavy. You know, if you, if you have that, uh, those guidelines in your head, bro, that's gonna be probably more helpful than you think, if you can remember.

• 51:03Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And, and to the point of this kid that, you know, said, well, that doesn't make something right or wrong. It's like, mm, but it's an indicator.

• 51:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:11Jocko Willink?

  And also, this is another thing, you know, getting, getting into the legality of things. And this is something that when Leif was teaching the Joty class, people, I, I would be talking about ethics and I'd say, guys, you have to do what is legal. Because a lot of times, you know, you can justify something. If you say, hey, hey, Echo, you just make sure you do the right thing. Now, if I say that to you, what's the right thing? That's a, that's a whole damn, you know, area, gray area.

• 51:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:42Jocko Willink?

  Cause what, by the way, what you think is the right thing might need, but might not be what I think is the right thing. Now, so that's why you have to make sure you're doing the legal thing. Cause if you're doing something illegal, we know it's wrong. Now, can you say, can you override what's legal? In some cases, yeah, because sometimes the, the spirit of the law of what we're trying to make happen doesn't make sense in certain scenarios. And so you as a leader have to be able to, to decide that sometimes. But your baseline, your baseline has to be what's legal. That's where you start from. And then if you start saying, well, this is the legal thing to do right now, but here's these nine extenuating circumstances that actually make doing the legal thing, the wrong thing to do.

• 52:28Jocko Willink?

  So sometimes doing the illegal, the legal thing is the wrong thing to do. And by the way, when we teach these types of classes, we will come up with examples where you're gonna have to make a decision that is against the rules, but is the right thing to do. So this is what happens. These, this is what makes leadership hard.

• 52:48Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Yeah. The, oh, what I was saying when you said that, um, As a human, how easy you can slip down that little slippery slope and the the whole soda water on the bottom of the shopping cart at checkout can be a slippery slope, but you do have to cross the threshold, but crossing that threshold of from moral to immoral can be very smooth transition sometimes. So the, let's say, uh, one instance, you forget the thing, another, the soda water, we'll call it, on the bottom of the shopping cart, you forget it, right? cashier doesn't notice. And you get away with it, you you get to your car and you're like, oh damn. And you're in the mindset, which is very common, to be like, oh wait, I kinda got away with it, right?

• 53:33Speaker 01

  Like, no one notices, no harm, no foul, you know, who cares? Chalk it up to a score that day, you know, a little what do you call it, come up, you see what I'm saying? Um, and then, uh, and then maybe the next time, right, you go through same soda water underneath there, you forget it, but right at the last minute, you, like, after you paid, right, you already paid and you're about to like push the cart out with all the bags and you realize, oh wait, you didn't ring that up, but they didn't notice, see what I'm saying? Got away with it last time, that was a cool little score that day. Then you just continue on. And you, and you made it, right? You could have, like, you already paid, you got away with it, but all it was a few more steps. See what I'm saying? And you see how that can progress. Then, before you know it, you're like,

• 54:16Speaker 01

  I'm gonna keep underneath there, maybe even putting some

• 54:19Jocko Willink?

  The paper towels above it.

• 54:21Speaker 01

  Or a newspaper or something like that, just to cover to make sure they don't see it. And I got plausible deniability, oh shit, I forgot, you see what I'm saying?

• 54:29Jocko Willink?

  I I'm sitting here trying to figure out why I hate stealing so much. And I'm coming, okay, first of all, first of all, when I was a kid, there was these little trend of these little, um, trucks, these little tiny, they were like this, a little bit slightly larger than a matchbox, but they had, they had rubber wheels that had like a monster truck looking

• 54:50Speaker 01

  Stumpers.

• 54:50Jocko Willink?

  Is that what they were called?

• 54:51Speaker 01

  Stumpers.

• 54:52Jocko Willink?

  So I was in fourth grade. And mine got stolen.

• 55:00Speaker 01

  Brutal.

• 55:00Jocko Willink?

  Mine got stolen.

• 55:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:02Jocko Willink?

  And because of the way they were, they were all kind of a little bit different. And the kid that stole it.

• 55:09Jocko Willink?

  He got busted. Like the teacher, you know, I went to the teacher crying or whatever. Somebody stole my little thing. And she did whatever kind of freaking search and seizure on the class. And dude, this kid got busted.

• 55:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:24Jocko Willink?

  And it was like shame. It's weird. I wasn't mad. I was, I was like, I felt ashamed for him. And he felt ashamed. Like you could see it. He was, he was a real pale, like holly looking guy. And he, his face like was bright red and tears and the whole nine yards. And I thought, man, that that was not worth it. Like I, I didn't even feel mad. Like I said, like I was sad, but then when I saw him, I was like, dude, that sucks.

• 55:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:51Jocko Willink?

  That's number one. Number two, in the teams, if you stole shit, bro, it was like, like there was a guy at team one that stole something. And they pulled his bird that day.

• 56:03Jocko Willink?

  And then one last story. I was on a ship. And I had a knife. A cool badass knife. And I had it in my gear and somebody stole it. And I was like, I was, it was like violation, you know? And that's why stealing, bro, that shit's.

• 56:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, it does have a weird deep violation, violating like freaking quality to it. And I think.

• 56:29Jocko Willink?

  Got my bike stolen one time too. And I was a grown man.

• 56:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:33Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. I, I was going to pick up my kids on my bike. I walked into a house. I walked into a house. Got, you know, hey, what's up? Blah, blah, blah. Walked back outside. My bike's gone.

• 56:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:43Jocko Willink?

  And that was a badass bike too.

• 56:45Speaker 01

  How much was it?

• 56:46Jocko Willink?

  Probably a thousand bucks.

• 56:47Speaker 01

  Yeah. I got my.

• 56:48Jocko Willink?

  It was old at that point, but it was probably 10 years old.

• 56:51Speaker 01

  Brother makes it worse. That's like part of you. It's like a, you get, you know, like people say it, I feel like, I feel like I was personally violated, especially like, you know, what if people um come home to their house being, you know, broken into or something like this. The I got my moped stolen is real common in Hawaii. There's a lot of mopeds, you know, by the university, whatever. And people will just steal them. I got mine stolen. Felt the same thing, bro. It's like, right. It goes deeper than just, oh shit, I don't have my moped anymore. Yeah, cuz all of a sudden, nothing is safe, right? It's like, all of a sudden, the whole world is gone. Yeah, bro. Everyone's lost their minds. Yeah, like, that's the game we're playing. Like, your stuff can just disappear and now someone else owns it. It's like, bro, that's weird.

• 57:29Speaker 01

  The, um, also, also too, it feels like most people don't just casually just steal stuff from the guy next to them. Like, on the DL like that. You see what I'm saying? Like, I, a part of me kinda understands these professional outfits that, you know, go and rob the truck or something like this. It's kinda like, oh, that feels a little bit different, um, even though it's not. But you, we had a guy on our football team, he stole a whole, like, video game console from a guy's dorm room, like, through a few doors down. Yeah, that's straight. It's the kinda where, bro, we're all playing this video game, right? He has the PlayStation two or whatever. And we'd go to his room from, you know, on the weekends or whatever. And then one day he came home and it was, it was gone.

• 58:10Speaker 01

  He was like, what the, like, it doesn't make sense or whatever. So he's kinda looking around, hey, did anyone, like, borrow it or whatever? It's like, I don't know what you're talking about or whatever. And it was just gone. Come to find out, it was one of our teammates who lived in that dorm, it was like a few doors down, came in, cuz not everyone leaves their door, like, locked all the time. And he just goes in, takes, steals it, and like hides it under the bed, you know, cuz like summertime was coming or whatever. And I'm like, what the hell? And everyone was kinda confused, like, how would the, it doesn't make sense. Like, why would it, like, like, I'm gonna come and, like, go in your bag and, like, steal some, it just doesn't make sense. But they go in his room, I don't know how they suspected him, but they go in his room and they, they lift up all the cushions from his bed, you know, like beds in the college dorm room, they have cushions and like a little storage thing.

• 58:49Speaker 01

  And it's like way in the back, tucked in the back, real deliberately hidden. Yes, intentionally hidden. And, um, my friend, the guy, the guy's name is Davey, the guy who, uh, owned the, owned the video game console. He said, like, he went in there and when he saw it, he felt like, he was like, bro, it was like, I was like, sexually assaulted, seeing my stuff, like, just stowed away, like, freaking all covertly like that. I was, he was like, bro, it was like, he's like, bro, my heart started beating all fast. I was like, dang, bro. I was like, I can imagine. Because it's like it's it's a weird slimy violation to just steal from especially like from your like.

• 59:25Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, well, that's a huge part of it. A huge part of it is like you're stealing from a person as opposed to like a company, right?

• 59:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 59:34Jocko Willink?

  You know, um, all right, I'm gonna bring this back into the fold here. Uh, next one, and again, in case you forgot, these are, these are the indicators that there might be some ethical slide happening. Next one is dehumanization and disqualification. These occur when soldiers lose respect for others or think that they others are below them. Soldiers may feel like they are being forced to protect or help people who are not like them and who they do not like. During the Vietnam War, use of the derogatory terms gooks or slopes indicated that some soldiers had dehumanized the local people. And you, there's like, um, there's a derogatory dehumanizing name in every war for every enemy

• 1:00:19Jocko Willink?

  that we have. And you gotta be careful with that. And it's one of those things where you, you have to dehumanize the enemy a little bit. And as you may have heard me say, for us, the enemy dehumanized themselves through their behavior. When you're murdering and torturing the local populace, it's, they, they dehumanize themselves. But as a leader, you gotta make sure that doesn't carry on and go to a point where, you know, you get a melee massacre type scenario.

• 1:00:52Jocko Willink?

  Next one, moral disengagement. Moral disengagement occurs when soldiers are so physically, mentally, psychologically, and emotionally stressed and exhausted that they cognitively, cognitively disengage from moral and ethical reasoning, or simply do not think about it. This usually takes the form of some kind of self-deception, lying to themselves, rationalization, the ends justify the means, or even mindlessness or mind-numbing. It often results in routinization of unethical behaviors. In some cases, a soldier may simply not think in terms of right and wrong, or may not be thinking at all, just acting without thinking. Just going through the motions is what we're doing.

• 1:01:30Jocko Willink?

  This is an interesting one. Bracketed morality refers to a soldier assigning a different set of values or beliefs in one context, for example, while deployed, as opposed to another while back in the world. Or put another way, what happens in theater stays in theater, right? What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas?

• 1:01:50Jocko Willink?

  Bracketed morality, this doesn't count right now. Right. Misplaced loyalty. This refers to a soldier placing his loyalty to other soldiers, battle buddies, or the small unit higher than the organization's values, the seven army values. A soldier committing an unethical act to take care or cover for a squad mate is an example.

• 1:02:14Jocko Willink?

  Again, this is one, this is one of the very slippery slope. You got my back, right? Yes, I do. Hundred percent, ninety nine point nine percent. Cause if you do something that is illegally immoral and ethical, I don't got your back anymore. You need to know that. And if I don't make that clear, it's a problem. And if I on top of that give indications, like small transgressions that I let fly and those, they'll test the waters too. The boys or the troops are gonna test the waters. They're gonna see what up. Your kids are gonna test the waters. What can I get away with? So you can't be surprised when you've let them slide and let them slide and let them slide when they slide right out from under the reality.

• 1:02:57Jocko Willink?

  Peer pressure, peer pressure is the influence of the group or unit that can override a soldier's ability to act or think individually, obviously. Group think is similar to peer pressure when the weight of the group's ideas overrides a soldier's ability to think and act alone. Is a lack of moral courage. It's a tough one. That's a tough one. You're gonna be the guy that stands up and you know, again, in the Mila massacre, what's interesting about that is it was Hugh Thompson that flew in his helicopter, saw what was happening, and stopped it. One guy, as soon as he went back to base and said, hey, they're killing people, and base called out and said, stop killing people, they stopped. They just needed someone to snap out of it.

• 1:03:38Jocko Willink?

  Which means that entire company snapped in. No one snapped out.

• 1:03:45Jocko Willink?

  And that's the list. Some of the, some of the constructs above can act alone on a soldier's thinking and emotional well-being, although they normally work in combination. When several of these constructs in combination influence a soldier, bad things may happen. Arguably, all nine of them influenced soldier and leader actions at Mele and Abu Ghraib. Some are all played a significant role in the other incidents. Although there are volumes of academic research on these constructs, they really are not complicated for army leaders to understand or identify. Army commanders and leaders, both officers and NCOs are intelligence educated, intelligent, educated and well-meaning professionals. You know, this is like one of those things where it reminds me when we, when we did the machete season about,

• 1:04:29Jocko Willink?

  about the Rwanda massacre. They start talking about like the language that they use to describe

• 1:04:37Jocko Willink?

  the enemy, you know? And how that just became so common. It's like what they did in Nazi Germany. You know, you describe the Jews as the the vermin and the cockroaches and stuff like that. And that just slowly just seeps in, it just seeps in. So that's what happens. These little indicators. Oh, that's just a little indicator. You know, oh, oh, there's some dehumanization happening. Right? The Tutsis are getting called cockroaches. Oh, okay. That's what's going down, you know? And you just, so what they're saying here is you gotta pay attention to that as a leader. Okay. And go, it gets into it a little bit in a minute here. That doesn't mean like, oh,

• 1:05:17Jocko Willink?

  you know, Echo said this, that means he's lost his mind. No, it's a, it's an indicator. It's a symptom. Right? It doesn't necessarily mean Echo's lost his mind. He's gonna freaking start murdering people. It means I gotta pay attention, make sure he's okay. Make sure, you know, I bring him back a little bit.

• 1:05:35Jocko Willink?

  Their awareness of what can happen may be all it takes to help mitigate these threats. So there you go. More important from the leader development perspective is that these psychological and emotional threats should be known and understood by commanders and leaders. They should discuss them at the command staff meetings during and after during after action reviews and integrate them into their pre-deployment training. Even more dogmatically, they could be checklist items for leaders to carry with them. I totally agree. Like, are you making sure what is go? You know, is there dehumanization happening? Is the routinization happening? Is there a transfer of responsibility? Is there authorization? Like, what? You gotta make sure. The nine constructs are human issues. The army is in the business of leading human beings, individual, emotive, thoughtful, distinct people. No two are the same.

• 1:06:19Jocko Willink?

  You cannot produce the exact same model of them on an assembly line year after year. No rigid scientific method will influence people to accomplish the mission. Training soldiers and developing them into leaders is the work of thoughtful craftsmen, not the process of thousands of parts that come together to complete the organization. Because individual free will exists, friction, uncertainty, psychological interaction, and chance will also exist. Combat leaders must understand the complex nature of human beings. And not just combat leaders. If you're in a leadership position, and you are, you better understand some human nature. Because you gotta deal with individual free will, friction, uncertainty, psychological,

• 1:07:03Jocko Willink?

  not to mention ego, not to mention emotion, not to mention agenda.

• 1:07:08Jocko Willink?

  The statements below, taken from investigations and discussions of the incidents above and others, are examples of what leaders should listen for as signs that a soldier may be suffering from some of these threats. He displayed pure hatred for the enemy and often referred to them as savages.

• 1:07:29Jocko Willink?

  Are we going to protect the population or kill insurgents?

• 1:07:35Jocko Willink?

  When the world you thought was made of concrete turns out to be smoke and mirrors, the results can be devastating. No, I'm just going quote after quote. These are just so much quotes.

• 1:07:47Jocko Willink?

  I don't care if I die.

• 1:07:50Jocko Willink?

  We are undermanned and no one gives a damn.

• 1:07:55Jocko Willink?

  Certain people are not to come back alive. The army has great leaders and morally bankrupt leaders.

• 1:08:05Jocko Willink?

  I challenge you to imagine the frustration felt after being engaged in firefights for several hours with the enemy and then capturing them only to have them released two days later because you're told the holding area needs more information on them.

• 1:08:19Jocko Willink?

  The climate in the unit was toxic. We repeatedly found ourselves fighting the same enemy again and again. Kill all military aged males on the objective.

• 1:08:31Jocko Willink?

  We need more kills.

• 1:08:35Jocko Willink?

  So you can see these things are indicators. And it says, of course, these quotes must be taken in context. As standalone quotes, they may have a negative or threatening meaning while in context, they may not mean a problem exists at all. Context matters. But if a leader hears remarks like the ones above, his radar screen should blip with a cautionary note and he should start asking probing questions. In addition, leaders should look out for soldiers who behave erratically or antisocially. For example, a soldier torturing or killing dogs and cats would be an obvious warning sign.

• 1:09:12Jocko Willink?

  So. Yeah. I never saw anyone kill dogs and cats. Did I hear dehumanization? Yes. Did I? What's some other things on here? Hey, did I hear people say we're undermanned and no one gives a damn? Sure. Did I hear the military, the army or the Navy has great leaders and more? Yeah. Like, yeah, you're judging that is good and bad. So I've heard all these kinds of things. Calling them savages. Yep. A hundred percent. Myself included. Get some.

• 1:09:47Jocko Willink?

  But in context, like pure hatred for the enemy? That's a little different than name calling.

• 1:09:58Jocko Willink?

  And if you can't, but, but all these things should be a little indicator. A little indicator. Well, the guy doesn't like the enemy. Of course, doesn't like the enemy. Killed our friends. Guy hates the enemy? Sure. Hates the enemy. They killed our friends. Guy hates the enemy and starts to hate everyone that looks like the enemy? Now we might have an issue. So you got it. You got to pay attention.

• 1:10:21Jocko Willink?

  Interestingly, and coincidentally, after the Mila incident, Lieutenant General William Pierce's investigation found nine factors that influenced the tragic event. Lack of proper training, attitude toward the local people, which is a lack of cultural sensitivity, permissive attitude, we're just gonna let things slide, psychological factors, obviously organizational factors, nature of the enemy, plans, orders, and commander's intent, attitude of government officials, and leadership. Leadership, leadership, leadership. And yeah, you know, we covered the Mila massacre on the podcast, but you know, there was the, I think one of the biggest problems was the inflation of the intelligence, you know,

• 1:11:01Jocko Willink?

  going from like the division level, like there may be VC in this area.

• 1:11:09Jocko Willink?

  And then the brigade level is like, there's suspected VC in the area. And then battalion level, there's VC in the area. At the company level, they're VC. And that little, you know, that little game of, not game, but the little effort to make the person take something seriously, which was expanded each time at each level down.

• 1:11:35Jocko Willink?

  And that's why, that's one of the major contributors. Not to mention William Kelly was a bad officer who'd failed OCS a bunch of times. So you had a bunch of issues there. Uh, the same psychological constructs that were proximate cause of Milai are still a threat to our soldiers and leaders and always will be. From a learning perspective, the nine constructs previously discussed are a subset of the nine factors found at the Milai. The attitude toward the locals, psychological factors, the nature of the enemy, plans and orders, leadership. This back dates back to 1968 and highlights the need to learn, really learn from the past. Of course, atrocities by US soldiers have occurred throughout US wars to include World War II with the killing of German prisoners at Dachau.

• 1:12:18Jocko Willink?

  Uh, also the killing of German and Italian prisoners at Biscari. These historical examples are powerful reminders of how the dark side of warfare can influence soldiers and leaders' thoughts, emotions, and behaviors.

• 1:12:32Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's, it's the amount of war that America has fought and the amount of atrocities is like staggeringly small. We generally, I remember I got, uh, I was getting interviewed and I got asked about like, almost like put on the spot about, I think it was about Abu Ghraib. And I kinda said, hey, Abu, if you want to put me on the spot, let's talk about Sand Creek massacre. Let's talk about the Milai massacre. Those are like horrific. Um, but you know, if you, you want to put me on the spot in Abu Ghraib, you, you could, you could do better, but you have to go back. You have to go back to like, you know, Vietnam, you have to go back to 50, 60, 70 years.

• 1:13:17Jocko Willink?

  If you want to get, you know, those, now look, we brought up a bunch of examples, but they were much smaller on scale.

• 1:13:25Jocko Willink?

  Uh, other recommendations, other curriculum additions we propose involve contextual and environmental challenges that soldiers and leaders might experience while deployed. Teaching and discussing these and other challenges will better prepare future combat leaders for some of the challenges they could face. The list, while not certainly complete, winning tactically but losing operationally or strategically. This is something we teach at the muster very specifically, winning tactically but losing strategically. You go out and you kill, kill a enemy target, but you also kill four civilians, you might win tactically, but you're going to lose strategically.

• 1:14:06Jocko Willink?

  Even if you just destroy a bunch of infrastructure, you might win because you were able to take out a bad guy, but you now have the local populace going, bro, we can't turn on our lights anymore.

• 1:14:17Jocko Willink?

  Reporting of events truthful or otherwise, corruption and bribes, these are just things that, you know, is it good to say, reporting of events? Explain what that means to you? Like, my guys knew.

• 1:14:33Jocko Willink?

  If something happened, it was getting reported. You know, that's what we're doing.

• 1:14:38Jocko Willink?

  Corruption and bribes, how do you handle those contractors in the battle space? That's a real thing. Lack of resources, unrealistic expectations, commanders out of touch with reality at lower levels. It's good to talk about these things. Soldiers stretched too thin, good to talk about these things. It's good to present these things to people and say, this is what it's going to be like. This is what we're going to be facing. I was talking to one of the guys from Tasked to Bruiser the other day and we were talking about,

• 1:15:05Jocko Willink?

  the corruption in the Iraqi army, soldiers that we were working with.

• 1:15:10Jocko Willink?

  And it was like, you know, he was actually saying that he came to me and said, hey, man, this is what's going on. And I was like, do you want, are you, do you want to handle it? Or do you want me to handle it? He was like, oh, I got it, boss. You know what I mean? Like, it was kind of a good story of just, you know, me saying, look, dude, do you need me? And he's like, no, I'm letting you know, but if you want me to handle it, I'll handle it. And she's like, go handle it. But it was corruption. It was soldier, Iraqi soldiers not getting paid. Part of it was because it was corrupt. Part of it is because their culture, like their culture is, hey, you know, the boss gets a cut. That's how we do it. Like the mob, right?

• 1:15:45Jocko Willink?

  Some challenges on this list are clearly outside the average private or staff sergeant thought process and influence. In fact, squad leaders and even platoon sergeants and platoon leaders may have very little influence over most of these things. But leaders at all levels should be aware of them. Because, look, listen, you might not be able to influence the fact of like, why are we here? Why are we doing this thing? But you still have to make sure you frame those things correctly and you understand them and you can explain them and you can look out for how your troops are taking them. Because the last thing you want your troops to be is like, what the hell are we here? I don't care anymore.

• 1:16:23Jocko Willink?

  Um, other challenges leaders will have to be cognizant cognizant of and likely address include decisions regarding escalation of force. Oh yeah. Dropping or planting weapons? No. No, do not do this. By the way, if you refer back to those earlier examples, one of those examples is you shoot someone and you drop a weapon on them and make it seem as if it was, that's why you did it. This is not a good move. I'm gonna tell you right now, this is not a good move, especially because the way the ROE is written, someone doesn't have to be armed to be, to be engaged. They, if they have to be doing something hostile,

• 1:17:07Jocko Willink?

  but what is hostile? Even hostile intent, like it looked like they were gonna do this or that. When you, when you plant a weapon on them, even if you go, hey dude, I got scared and I pulled the trigger and I shouldn't have. You'll get in trouble, but if you plant a weapon on them, you're going to jail. You see what I'm saying? That's a huge difference. It's a huge difference. Uh, war trophies. You may know my thoughts on war trophies. We should be allowed to take war trophies. Sure, they should have to go through some kind of authorization, but I brought home nothing from Iraq and I want something, you know, and I don't even want

• 1:17:50Jocko Willink?

  that much, but I would have liked a little something. You know what I'm saying?

• 1:17:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, feels like that would be, well, as an outsider, feels like that would be a slippery slope scenario. So they might have just been like, hey.

• 1:18:02Jocko Willink?

  That's why they, that's why it's a plank. You're right. You're a hundred percent right. But there should be a process. You should be able to say, hey, I found a nickel plated AK-47.

• 1:18:13Jocko Willink?

  You can demilitarize it so it won't fire anymore, but I want that above my fireplace.

• 1:18:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:18:20Jocko Willink?

  Or whatever. And quite honestly, I'm not even that into it. I just, it seems like, it seems like other dudes would want. Maybe I, maybe I would have had something if they, if we didn't have that rule. Maybe I'd have a, a nickel plated AK above my fireplace.

• 1:18:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:18:35Jocko Willink?

  Cause god knows, we took a lot of AKs, man.

• 1:18:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:18:39Jocko Willink?

  Confiscated some AKs from these people.

• 1:18:42Speaker 01

  An understated maybe way to put it is like, bro, so many of those things and from that time and all those experiences, like they have sentimental value, you know? So a, all the way down to the point where, like if there was a, let's say a knife that was dropped on D day by somebody just dropped. And buried in the sand and all the action, whenever someone found it, that would like, you could auction that off for like, you see what I'm saying? And that's just because of like secondhand sentimental value. You see what I'm saying? And then for, yeah, for the guys to be in it and happen to come across something that was part of like a huge event that they participated in. Yeah, it makes sense.

• 1:19:22Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Yeah, watch the movie. I, I get why they do it, but there should be a protocol. And by the way, there is a protocol, but it's like at a very senior level, like if your unit wants to bring back something that they captured. Then you can do that, but you have to, there is a, there is a protocol for it. But it's only for like the very senior people that could actually pull it off.

• 1:19:43Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:19:43Jocko Willink?

  Because they have time. The freaking privates are out there in the streets, keeping it real. They don't have time to fill out a bunch of paperwork. You know, I know, I didn't, wasn't thinking about filling up paperwork. But, um, yeah, they don't let it happen.

• 1:19:57Speaker 01

  There was that movie called Three Kings. You ever watched that one?

• 1:20:00Jocko Willink?

  The. Yeah, I, I didn't watch it, but I remember they found gold or something like that.

• 1:20:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, yeah, so it, to me, that's like, obviously it's a movie, but it's like how that slippery slope could turn out. Cause it's like, all right, they're in there and you know, things are slowing down or whatever. This is in a nutshell, things are slowing down and then they get word that there's gold. Like in a town that's like Saddam's gold and Saddam, you know, it's basically it's like no one's really gonna claim it. You know, it's kind of up for grabs kind of a thing. And the war is like, it was, I think he was Desert Storm, I think. So it was like, they weren't doing anything. So they had time and, you know, the capability. So it's like, and then they, and then it, of course, it's a movie. So then, you know, he gets, uh, gets hectic, we'll say.

• 1:20:45Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's why they have that rule, but they should make it a little bit more flexible.

• 1:20:51Jocko Willink?

  Uh, revenge motives, clearly got to watch out for those. The need to control their own soldiers' emotions. The, I'm sorry, the need to control their own and their soldiers' emotions. And the attitude, if no one talks, no one will find out. I'm gonna tell you right now, that ain't, that is, that is not a good move.

• 1:21:15Jocko Willink?

  These are the kind of things that a squad leader, platoon sergeant, or platoon leader can directly control. They are individual, they are individual leader challenges, but also commander issues and influenced by command climate. The leader has to recognize when soldiers feel threatened and determined when he needs to resort to an escalation of force. The leader chooses or allows subordinates to choose to carry a spare weapon on a patrol to drop next to a shooting victim to make it appear the patrol is fired upon. Bad move.

• 1:21:47Jocko Willink?

  Leaders create a reality that justifies their actions when deployed.

• 1:21:53Jocko Willink?

  Leaders allow soldiers to give in to lesser instincts and succumb to bloodlust. These are just mistakes, man. Leaders allow for killing for revenge. Clearly, the army does not condone these things, nor does it equivocate that some, that they might be permitted in some circumstances. Nope, they're not.

• 1:22:11Jocko Willink?

  These are first and foremost individual choices and must be seen that way, but strong, educated, and knowledgeable leaders and leadership can influence individual choices. Leaders must be able to recognize a noncombatant, understand the risks to and treatment of noncombatants, recognize and know the risks to legally protected sites, provide a clear commander's intent, identify questionable command climate, know when to intervene to stop wrongdoing of others.

• 1:22:40Jocko Willink?

  And that's everybody's responsibility. And you should be, I was talking to some troops the other day. And if something, every, if something goes above your level, you should be a little bit embarrassed. You know, if the, the, the new guy sees something that shouldn't be going on, he should stop it. If his boss has to stop it, he should be like, damn, I dropped the ball. Now, if that guy, like the, the, the squad leader didn't stop it, and now the, now the platoon leader needs to stop it, the squad leader should be a little embarrassed. If the platoon leader didn't stop it, and now the troop leader needs to stop it, that platoon leader should be damned.

• 1:23:24Jocko Willink?

  So you should handle it at the lowest level, but that takes moral courage, by the way. And it also takes detachment because you're all wrapped up in the situation, right? We're all wrapped up in the situation. We're all emotional, so we're letting something slide. Nope. You gotta stay detached. And you gotta say, hey, if this gets out, how's that gonna feel?

• 1:23:45Jocko Willink?

  How's that gonna look?

• 1:23:48Jocko Willink?

  Can you say, oh, well, that's what happened. It wasn't good, but here's what happened. It was combat. Shit got crazy.

• 1:23:59Jocko Willink?

  But if you're gonna be saying, uh, see what I'm saying?

• 1:24:05Jocko Willink?

  Um, yeah, all of these things should be addressed by the institution and the command. These are leader issues. Contextually, they all begin with command climate. And they're all about leaders being able to control their own soldiers. Their, their own and their own soldiers' emotions. First, the leader must master self-awareness and self-management, and then look at things in a political and emotional context. Only when he has mastered that, can he set the tone that will address other items.

• 1:24:36Jocko Willink?

  So the goal of the sessions should be real learning, not protection of reputations. Students could reflect on and discuss insights and lessons learned from their knowledge, experiences and understanding of the cases. This is if you do vignettes. It's recommending that you analyze and discuss real vignettes. And then look for those nine constructs inside those vignettes. Integrating similar vignettes into pre-deployment scenarios and training would also be an effective technique of learning. Real learning via self-awareness and self-management. Learning, growing and developing are lifelong choices that individuals and organizations make. They just don't happen.

• 1:25:21Jocko Willink?

  Being a lifelong learner is a conscious choice that requires a high level of self-awareness and self-management. Leaders need to be self-aware enough to know both what they do know and what they do not know. And when and where and what they need to learn. For example, lifelong learners must be self-aware enough to know that they lack knowledge in some areas and then take steps to learn or improve in those areas. That's self-management. The leaders who think they know it all or have nothing else to learn are setting themselves, their units and their missions for failure or worse. We have introduced some specific topics we feel leaders need to know in a combat environment.

• 1:26:06Jocko Willink?

  So that is important. Real leader development begins with oneself. The more knowledge of human behavior and the human dimension leaders have, the more they will understand and potentially influence it. Firm knowledge of the physiological and emotional constructs and reoccurring themes we have recommended can be a starting point. For example, leaders' thoughts and emotions may drive them to seek some kind of irrational revenge if the tragic loss of some of their soldiers to an immoral adversary. How and if leaders regulate this revenge motive, both cognitively and emotionally, will affect

• 1:26:50Jocko Willink?

  their decision cycle, their ethical reasoning and ultimately their behavior.

• 1:26:56Jocko Willink?

  So to sum all this up, in combat leaders must be aware of the many negative psychological and emotional effects that the stresses and violence of combat may have on their soldiers. The nine constructs we have discussed. Sound and sound planned training throughout our army can educate, train, and develop our leaders to recognize threatening signs in their soldiers, recognize threatening signs in themselves, ethically reason, and recognize an ethical situation that may not be self-evidence. And I'll close it out with this, self-aware leaders should habitually ask themselves

• 1:27:39Jocko Willink?

  and their trusted subordinates if there are any unhealthy signs or indicators in their unit. Self-aware commanders should also habitually ask their subordinates what ethical challenges their units are facing or may face in the future. If this ability or knowledge requires a checklist, so be it. The material for the checklist and the curriculum is based on years of lessons learned from our army of learning organization. So, there you go. Real lessons there. Those are real lessons. And those should be focused on extensively.

• 1:28:22Jocko Willink?

  Extensively, because if you're not ready for them, man, they will creep up. And you'll end up with group think, and you'll end up with peer pressure, and you'll end up in these morally ambiguous situations and making bad decisions. So, know your team. That's what we're doing. Also, in order to be mentally and emotionally fit, guess what? You gotta be physically fit, too. So, we're getting after it, dude. We're getting after it. We're lifting. We're running. We're boxing. We're doing jiu-jitsu. We need fuel. We recommend

• 1:29:03Jocko Willink?

  Jocko fuel. Get some protein. Protein's, protein's kind of what you need. Kind of across the board. You need protein. We got protein. We got ready to drink protein. We got powdered protein. It tastes delicious, like dessert. So, check that out. We also have energy. We have Time War.

• 1:29:25Jocko Willink?

  We have joint warfare. I met another person who told me their their mom uh put their mom on joint warfare. She's feeling good. She was like arthritic. You know what I'm saying? And then one more uh person, individual that I talked to, mom is drinking goes. And feeling like sharp.

• 1:29:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:29:45Jocko Willink?

  You know, like a step up, a little, you know, little cognitively fading because getting old, put down that go, getting the game on. So if you need fuel, which you do, check out jockofuel.com or just go to your store. We're in so many stores across America right now. You can get the good, clean fuel, Jocko Fuel.

• 1:30:06Speaker 01

  Is there a new flavor out from Oak?

• 1:30:10Jocko Willink?

  Yes, raspberry gelato.

• 1:30:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a good one, obviously.

• 1:30:15Jocko Willink?

  It's very delicious.

• 1:30:16Speaker 01

  I don't know that that cereal.

• 1:30:18Jocko Willink?

  Uh, yeah, fruity cereal is very difficult to beat. The chocolate's delicious. Vanilla's delicious. You know, like it's, it's so good.

• 1:30:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:30:25Jocko Willink?

  It's a little dessert. Which one haven't you tried?

• 1:30:27Speaker 01

  The that new one.

• 1:30:28Jocko Willink?

  The gelato?

• 1:30:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:30:29Jocko Willink?

  Oh, it's tasty. Oh, it's tasty. It's good. Yeah, we're kind of, you know, we're getting better.

• 1:30:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:30:35Jocko Willink?

  Taking us less iterations to make something taste good in our testing process. So, you know, it's just refined.

• 1:30:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:30:41Jocko Willink?

  So check that out. Jocko Fuel.com. Also check out originusa.com. We make clothes. We make clothes here in America with freedom. Yes, they're built by freedom. There's no communism there. There's no slavery. There's just freedom. Jeans, boots, and whatever you need, t-shirts, hoodies, jackets, we got it. Wallets, belts, we got all kinds of stuff and it's all made a hundred percent in America because we want America to win. Check out originusa.com. Get yourself some clothing.

• 1:31:17Speaker 01

  Also, don't forget Jocko's store. Discipline equals freedom. Uh, we got some shirts and hats and hoodies on there. Some cool merch, a little bit more than merch. It's beyond merch. So, you know. Uh, quality stuff. Also Shirt Locker, new design every month. If you didn't already know, people seem to like that. Subscription scenario, by the way. Speaking of freedom, Independence Day is coming up.

• 1:31:39Jocko Willink?

  Did you release a shirt for Independence Day already?

• 1:31:42Speaker 01

  No, not yet. But if you want to get the jump on it, because sometimes they sell out quick. Sometimes it takes a few days.

• 1:31:49Jocko Willink?

  They usually are pretty dope.

• 1:31:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:31:51Jocko Willink?

  If I may say so.

• 1:31:52Speaker 01

  This one is solid. This year's one is solid. Anyway, if you want to get the jump on it, you want to get the heads up when it goes live, where you can get it. Just, uh, sign up for the email, little email list there. Front of the thing, I don't spam, no spam. I'm anti-spam in that way. So don't worry about that. It's all useful information. Uh, for that, if you want to get the jump on it. But yes, so this year, 2026 Independence Day shirt. It will be available very soon. I don't know exactly when, but very soon. Anyway, it's all on Jocko's store.com.

• 1:32:20Jocko Willink?

  Right on. Also, check out Echelonfront.com. We teach leadership. And we have our, our next event, next big event. We do events all the time, but we have a next big event is the muster in San Diego, California, July 8th through the 10th. If you want to learn about leadership, bring your, bring some team members. Bring them down there. Let them learn. Extremeownership.com. We teach the skills of leadership online as well. We got books about leadership. I've written a bunch of them. Dave Burks wrote one called Need to Lead. Rob Jones wrote one called Put Your Legs On. I've written a bunch of kids books too. You can check those out. If you need steak, you can go to PrimalBeef.com or ColoradoCraftBeef.com and you can get the best steak.

• 1:33:04Jocko Willink?

  Don't settle for the crappy steak. Get the good steak. That's what you want. PrimalBeef.com, ColoradoCraftBeef.com. And if you want to help service members, active and retired, you want to help their families, you want to help Gold Star families, check out Mark Lee's mom, Mommy Lee. She's got an incredible charity organization. And it helps out our teammates and our military and first responders so much. She's just amazing. If you want to donate or you want to get involved, go to Americas Mighty Warriors dot org. Also check out Heroes and Horses dot org. Micah Fink up there saving souls in the mountains. Jimmy May's got the organization Beyond the Brotherhood dot org.

• 1:33:43Jocko Willink?

  Check out the swim happening in August. I think it's, it's, it's selling very, very quickly. It'll, it'll, it might be sold out by now, but go check it out. Beyond the Brotherhood dot org and then Warriors in Need dot org and Stronghold Rescue dot org. Those are all great people running great organizations. If you want to connect with us, check out Jocko dot com and then on social media. I'm at Jocko Willink, Echo's at Echo Charles. Just be careful because there is a, a mind monster in there. Echo and I were about to hit record and I'm sitting there and I got, I was checking something on social media and then three minutes of my life was gone. Gone. And I had to shut that thing down and say, Echo Charles, you

• 1:34:28Jocko Willink?

  see what happened there? You see what happened? And bro, I told you right away, I go, I was enjoying that. You know what I mean? Like it put me right in the comfort zone. I was seeing a bunch of things. Oh, little jujitsu, a little surfing, somebody's ripping on guitar. Oh, let's see what this next. And it was just serving them up, serving them up, serving them up. Just like a drug dealer serves up heroin. That's what's happening. So pull that needle out of your arm, shut that damn phone off and go out and do something productive in the world. Now, also right now, as we're sitting here comfortably, there are uniformed men and women around the world, holding the line and protecting America and our way of

• 1:35:12Jocko Willink?

  life. And we are grateful to all of them. We are also grateful to our police, law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, Border Patrol, Secret Service, as well as all other first responders. Thank you for holding the line here at home. And everyone else out there.

• 1:35:31Jocko Willink?

  You gotta pay attention. You gotta pay attention to what's going on. You gotta pay attention to these little, these little signs. You gotta recognize the signs in your people. You gotta recognize the signs in yourself. In order to do that, you have to be detached. But also, we have to, all the time, as often as we can, look back. We have to look back. We have to do that debrief. We have to do that after actions review. Not to dwell, not to highlight the bad, not to second guess decisions. And not to criticize from that, from that hindsight being 2020. But we have to look back in order to move forward.

• 1:36:12Jocko Willink?

  We have to look back and learn in order to get better. And that is what we are doing. That's all we've got for tonight. And until next time, this is Echo and Jocko, out.