554: Maximum Efficiency On The Front Lines of Battle and Life

>Join Jocko Underground Full Episodes< https://app.redcircle.com/shows/64a89f88-a245-4098-8d8d-496325ec4f74/exclusive-content Breaking down raw, firsthand combat lessons from U. S. Army soldiers fighting their way through World War II—lessons written in the field by men who had just experienced the consequences of good decisions, bad decisions, aggression, hesitation, discipline, and leadership. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

• 0:00Jocko Willink

  This is Jocko Podcast number 554 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Will. Good evening Echo.

• 0:04Speaker 01

  Good evening.

• 0:05Jocko Willink

  I was running through some lessons learned, some combat lessons learned. Uh, one particular was dated 16 June 1944. And the location, you know, they have on, when you post something on social media, you can choose a location.

• 0:24Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, yeah. Like a tag.

• 0:25Jocko Willink

  Yeah, you can tag a location of where you are. Well, this particular document had that on it. And what it wrote was in the field. So, so already had me in a good place mentally. Because when you get, you know, these fresh lessons learned from people that had just fought significant battles, you know that they're going to be solid. Um, so that's what we have. And, and I read, as I was reading through these, I thought, man, some of these are really worth sharing with the people. So this is a, uh, document that eventually became unclassified from headquarters to Corps US Army and to Corps. Of course, these, this is the, the Corps that landed in North Africa for Operation Torch in November of 1942.

• 1:11Jocko Willink

  They got beat Kasserine Pass. They reorganized under General Patton. And that's when they started to achieve some victories, multiple victories, back to back victories, won the Battle of El Qatar. Eventually they pushed the Axis forces out of Tunisia, which kind of pretty much ended the fighting in North Africa. And then they participated in the invasion of Sicily under General Omar Bradley. And they did some hard fighting in the Italian mountains, including some grueling battles like, uh, Mont Cassino.

• 1:51Jocko Willink

  And that's, so after that battle is when they captured these lessons and they went on to help finish the war. In 1945, they, in Italy, they fought the spring offensive and they were eventually deactivated in October of 1945. But they certainly had some, some intense combat experience. And from that, some intense lessons which they captured in raw form. That's another reason why I wanted to read this. Cause a lot of it is first person accounts. It's just quotes from the captain, the lieutenant, the sergeant, the colonel, the private, and that's when you know you're getting the real goods, right? So let's get into this, um, headquarters to Corps.

• 2:31Jocko Willink

  In the field, 16 June 1944, subject lessons learned. Two divisions and separate unit commanders to Corps. One, a detailed analysis of lessons learned during the two Corps advance is being made. This study will be published at an early date. Rather than wait for the publication of the detailed compilation, I wish to give you my comments now so they can be acted upon. And he gets right into it. Towns must be taken from deep flank and rear out of the gate. That's just opening, opening stanza. Don't do frontal assaults, deep flank and rear. That's what we're doing.

• 3:12Jocko Willink

  The usual practice of battering towns with air and artillery serves little purpose as an, and is extremely wasteful of ammunition and time. That's a weird one because it's a good lesson learned. We're probably relearning it right now. When you bomb the shit out of people, it's not as effective as you think it's going to be. And the case in point was this was the blue on blue that we had and my guys in a building and having 150 rounds of 50 cal shot at them from freaking 30 meters away. And Matt Hasby got, got fragged, but other than that, like everyone was okay.

• 3:50Jocko Willink

  If you would have asked your standard human, hey, 150 rounds went into this building. They think, oh yeah, everyone's dead. So it is, and the same thing happened, you know, when they talk about the Battle of Britain in World War II, the Brits were getting bombed by the Germans and everyone talks about how devastating it was, but the morale of the British people actually increased during that time. Because you know, you get, when you get bombed, you ever had something where it's like a near miss? Some, some, something happens in your world and it's a near miss and your confidence kind of goes up. You look, it can have you the thing where like, oh gosh, we were lucky there, but that, oh gosh, we were lucky there is at least as often, or sometimes more often, like, bro, I'm kind of indestructible. You know what I mean? I can kind of do anything.

• 4:34Jocko Willink

  So that's why they're saying when, when people are dug in and they're in reinforced buildings or they, they're in the basements and they have sandbags. All of a sudden these bombs that you, that seems so devastating, like they don't have as big of an impact. Look at when the Jap, when, when the, when the Marines and the Navy would bomb the island campaign, they would bomb and bomb and bomb. And the Japanese would hardly take any casualties because they're dug in and it seems so effective. But it's just not as effective as you think it was. And here it is, this guy putting that word out. He says, the delay caused by small detachment, by small enemy detachments is

• 5:18Jocko Willink

  out of all proportion to the numbers and means at our disposals, meaning like little scraps of people can really cause a disruption. The combined, and he kind of explains why here, the combined use of armory, armor, armored and infantry units has been too cautious. The overemphasis placed on firepower of tanks during the period when the weather and terrain conditions prevented full use of our armor has not been overcome and mobility has not been restored to its proper importance and the employment of tanks. Too often a column of tanks has remained inactive on a road held up by a single SP or AT gun. So anti-tank gun. This, the time lost waiting for infantry to arrive, deploy and attack the gun

• 6:02Jocko Willink

  could have been reduced by 50% or more by a rapid deployment and movement of the tanks or by a wide envelopment, which would in most cases have resulted in the capture or destruction of the gun. Likewise, relatively large groups of infantry have been long delayed by a small enemy group with a machine gun or to astride a road. Again, the time wasted waiting for sev, for the arrival of an action of tanks could have been materially, materially reduced by early and wide deployment. So what he's saying is like, oh, you get like, there's an anti-tank weapon and you need infantry to go attack that. And so everyone just waits. When they could run the flanks with the tanks and same thing vice versa. You got

• 6:46Jocko Willink

  a machine gun, which a tank can just roll up to, but we're waiting and waiting and waiting for the tank to show up. The infantry guys could have flanked them. So he's, he's basically saying be more aggressive, which is, is going to be a very common theme you're about to hear in this. Too often, next one, too often commanders of all echelons waited for orders. Hmm. The rapid advance made the maintenance of communications difficult and resulted in instructions being issued and received based on, on out of date information. Under such conditions, commanders must act on their own responsibility, initiative and judgment. Inactivity is inexcusable.

• 7:29Jocko Willink

  So we're being default aggressive and we're using decentralized command. That's what we're getting at right there. Waiting for someone to tell you what to do. The communication's down, the battlefield changes. You gotta, you gotta freaking get after it.

• 7:42Jocko Willink

  Next, we must be prepared mentally and tactically for a change in the character of combat when we next go into the line. For we may encounter strong and bitter resistance. At some date or place, the German may seek to make a stand, but our constant pressure should greatly hamper him from getting set. The main bodies following our mobile advanced detachments must be kept so in hand that they can be employed rapidly in accordance with simple and prepared plans. So they kind of know, you know, they're not on German territory yet, but at some point the Germans are going to lock in and we gotta be ready for that. And we, when they lock in, we can't let them lock in. You gotta keep on them.

• 8:28Jocko Willink

  What he's called constant pressure. This is for jujitsu, theory and practice as well. This is business theory and practice as well. And then finally he closes it out with speed, not haste is still the great factor. So out of the gate, you can see where this is coming from and you can see it's just how all these things line up with, you know, decentralized command, default aggressive, keeping things simple. That's what we're doing. We make it prioritize and execute cover move. That's what this is all about. Fast forward a little bit here, lessons learned in combat.

• 9:04Jocko Willink

  This starts off with infantry operations. No attempt will be made to discuss tactics since the basic principles employed by Genghis Khan are still in vogue today.

• 9:16Jocko Willink

  We're still doing the same thing. The prompt shock action. So this is the first element in here, shock action. The prompt follow-up of a shock action by infantry is of paramount importance. Now we get into the first person accounts. Major Warren C. Chap, Chapman, 133rd Infantry. In many instances, our troops have not taken advantage of shock action and it has cost us many casualties. By the term shock action, all caps, I mean artillery concentrations, mortar fire, bombing attacks, tank fire, bazooka fire and hand grenades. All must be followed aggressively and with no delay.

• 10:01Jocko Willink

  Artillery concentrations and barrages are practically useless unless they are followed closely enough so that the rifleman can close with the enemy before the enemy frontline soldier realizes that the fire has lifted and runs back to man his guns. In following the artillery closely, you may have some casualties from your own artillery. But in the long run, your casualties will be much lower. This is classic cover and move. And it's such aggressive cover and move that they're like, hey, you may even take some casualties from your own weapon systems. And, and you can see, he's saying, listen, you can bomb the hell out of some, some element. But unless you're advancing under the cover of fire, if you just give them time, they'll pop right up and they'll still be there.

• 10:46Jocko Willink

  Cause it's not gonna, it's not going to do the damage that you think it's going to do. It'll definitely get their heads down. But if you're not advancing under the cover of that fire, you're not really gaining anything from it, other than wasting a bunch of ammunition. So it's a bad move. It's funny, um, shock troops. So.

• 11:06Jocko Willink

  We, I was at, in a platoon back in the day and we were hitting some targets in a fake city. You know, like a fake, uh, urban environment. And there was one, you know, several streets in this urban city. And one of the streets, on the other side of the streets, there was only the facade of buildings. Do you know what I mean by a facade of buildings? Like, you ever seen the old Hollywood cowboy movies and like, it's just the front of the building, but there's no back to it? So they had built something like that. And the trading guys, the trade at enemy was using those facades. And we, we were given some target. And as we were given this target, I said, hey, here's what we're gonna do.

• 11:51Jocko Willink

  We're not gonna go through the city. We're gonna run around this whole range compound. And we're gonna, we're gonna enter from the back of the facades where these guys don't even have any walls protecting. And we did, and we smoked them. But it was just shock action. It was like, oh, we totally surprised them. We just killed them all. Because they didn't, we came from somewhere they didn't expect us and we came very rapidly. And they had no cover and we annihilated them. Shock action, shock troops. Sometimes just the absolute violence of action is one of the best advan- advantages you can have on the battlefield. And listen, this applies to everything that you're doing in your war, in your life. Being super aggressive and making things happen has a, a winning characteristic of its own.

• 12:37Jocko Willink

  And I'm not telling you to run to your death every time and we'll get into that, but just remember the default aggressive mindset, which is seven out of 10 times is gonna be better. Three out of 10 times, like you gotta take a tactical pause. I get it.

• 12:52Jocko Willink

  Uh, continuing on, there is no fire more devastating and morale shattering than well-directed tank fire. German tanks gave us very little trouble in Casino, but at dawn, one morning, they drove up one Mark six and started firing at my OP. Needless to say, I was scared and was sitting in a corner, saying my prayers and trying to call the artillery. I stayed in that corner too, until five minutes after the last round was fired before I went back down the trail with the phone to try and splice it on the line. During those five minutes, the enemy would have, could have come into the building and found me in the corner with very little fight left. This is him openly admitting.

• 13:35Jocko Willink

  You know, you got that cover, you get that fire coming on you, you're just curled up in a ball. As soon as that fire stops, he's out there trying to make things happen.

• 13:44Jocko Willink

  In Casino, the battalion used on average 500 grenades a day. Hell yeah. One of our methods of advancing was to throw a grenade into a room and then get into the room with the Tommy gun right after the grenade went off. If there were any Germans in the room that, who were still alive, were found lying on the floor with no fight left. That's some good CQB tactics right there. Little section about street fighting, Sergeant Arthur Norman, 133rd Infantry. I'm experiencing most, I'm experienced mostly in village fighting. The main thing is not to miss a house.

• 14:25Jocko Willink

  And when you do, and when you go back in to take it, you want to be certain not to miss a room or any other place a person can hide. When you go up to a house, you want to go to the side where there are the fewest windows and where you have the most cover. It's, this is like day one, when you get to a SEAL team and you're learning close quarters combat. It's like you can't leave any uncleared space. Uncleared space. That's like a, a term. You know, it's a term you gotta watch out for and that's coming from World War II.

• 15:00Jocko Willink

  Okay, now we get into, uh, Major Warren C Chapman, once again, 133rd Infantry. Snipers weren't employed freely by both sides and I sometimes am inclined to think that the Germans had more success than we did. During lulls, our men got careless and became excellent targets. On the beachhead at Anzio, the opposite seemed to hold true. In the house-to-house fighting or room-to-room fighting, most of the men preferred the Tommy gun because of its size, preferred the carbine to the rifle for working in close quarters. For defense, machine guns, both light and heavy and bars, B A Rs, were placed with forward elements.

• 15:41Jocko Willink

  So that idea, even in World War II, getting that little bit shorter of a weapon, get a little bit easier to move inside the houses. Not that, you know, you don't have infantrymen with Mark 48 machine guns entering buildings and getting after it, heavy that happens. In many cases, no man's land consisted of about a 10-yard space between two houses. This was ideal for playing catch with grenades. A grenade that explodes on impact could have been used. That's a very interesting, I, I'm surprised that that doesn't exist. It still doesn't exist. Like a grenade that you just throw and when it impacts, it explodes. That doesn't exist. It's all time fuse. And I'm sure there's a bunch of good reasons for that, you know, from a demolition perspective.

• 16:26Jocko Willink

  But you hear all kinds of stories of guys throwing grenades and the enemy throwing them back.

• 16:32Speaker 01

  Cause of the time.

• 16:33Jocko Willink

  Yeah, cause the time fuse. And you also, I mean, you know, you could, you, you can cook, you're not supposed to. But in combat, like you cook off a grenade for like two seconds, you know? Thousand one, thousand two, before you throw it, cause you don't want the other person to pick it up and throw it back.

• 16:48Speaker 01

  Comes with some trade-offs there.

• 16:49Jocko Willink

  Oh, there's some definite trade-offs. But like World War II guys? They would get in some grenade, you know, some grenade.

• 16:56Speaker 01

  Hot potato scenario.

• 16:58Jocko Willink

  Contested scenarios. Some hot potatoes definitely going down.

• 17:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, the, the, the ones that explode on impact, kinda, remember, you know, those fireworks, those little fireworks?

• 17:08Jocko Willink

  The little, the little white things?

• 17:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 17:10Jocko Willink

  Whippersnappers.

• 17:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. It's kinda like scenes like that, right? But you know how those things, they don't go off sometimes, you know?

• 17:17Jocko Willink

  Throw them at a mushy target.

• 17:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly right. Well, I would imagine in the ca- chaos of battle.

• 17:22Jocko Willink

  Yeah.

• 17:23Speaker 01

  There'd be a lot of mushy targets.

• 17:24Jocko Willink

  Yeah, yeah, for sure.

• 17:26Speaker 01

  So I don't know. That's my theory.

• 17:27Jocko Willink

  Yeah, you definitely would have to put something super sensitive, but at the same time, how sensitive?

• 17:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:33Jocko Willink

  Cause even when you throw something, you're putting like a little shock value on it, right?

• 17:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 17:39Jocko Willink

  Yeah, it's a good idea, but it's probably, there's a reason why it doesn't exist, at least as far as I know.

• 17:43Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, I'm sure, yeah, the, the, the safety part of that whole idea would have to be pretty sophisticated. Cause it's almost like you would need like, first it would need at least a little bit of a timer, a little bit. Cause.

• 17:59Jocko Willink

  Yeah, you need a safe arming distance. That was what you're talking about. A safe arming distance, meaning when you pull the pin or whatever, you need to be able to have.

• 18:08Speaker 01

  A little grace period.

• 18:09Jocko Willink

  A little two, three seconds to figure some shit out.

• 18:11Speaker 01

  Exactly right. Cause you figure, I don't know, you know, maybe, you know, I was on a, I was here in San Diego. Uh, I'm not in the military, you know that about me. But it seems like when there's grenades flying, just the concussion of the grenade, even guns is like a physical.

• 18:29Jocko Willink

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 18:30Speaker 01

  You know, freaking imposition that might set off some.

• 18:33Jocko Willink

  Yeah.

• 18:33Speaker 01

  Some of those types of.

• 18:34Jocko Willink

  Yeah, especially inside buildings.

• 18:36Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 18:37Jocko Willink

  There's a huge, have you ever shot, we, you know, when you take, let's say you're Desert Eagle 50 cal? When you shoot that outdoors compared to when you shoot it indoors? That's a huge difference. It's a huge difference. In fact, like, I, I, there's, there's a mu- I like shooting indoors much less than I like shooting outdoors. You know what I mean? Just cause of that little concussion, you're like.

• 18:59Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, fully.

• 19:00Jocko Willink

  Annoying. Next, counterattack. Every soldier actively engaged against the German army knows its method of counterattack late in the afternoon to disorganize our forces, prepared, preparatory to executing in withdraw under the cover of darkness. The principle of counterattacking the counterattack has evolved, has been evolved in the division with excellent results. So they know what the German SOP is and they just get ahead of it. Like your Oodle Loop is, oh, you're gonna attack us in the afternoon? Okay, cool. Watch this. We're attacking you first.

• 19:38Jocko Willink

  Captain Richard H. Sugars, 135th entry says, in numerous incidents, we have been too slow in taking advantage of our enemy. Again, if you think the enemy's doing something, you gotta whack first. Major Fred H. Lipucci, 135th Infantry. It is recommended that immediately following any such spoiling attacks, the enemy be pursued vigorously, either by passing through the disorganized assaulting troops with a reserve or by rapid reorganization. This, I believe, will enable us to pass through, pass through in or around the retreating enemy force

• 20:21Jocko Willink

  and will prevent him from establishing himself on a new terrain feature.

• 20:27Jocko Willink

  That idea of being a little, when someone's a little bit off balance and pressing. It's like when in jujitsu, I remember I figured this out from my old instructor Fabio Santos. I was watching him. This was when I was a white belt or maybe, yeah, I think it was a white, straight up white belt. And I saw that when someone, let's say, passed his guard and was looking to mount him, he was escaping that position before the person got them out. And that's when I realized, oh, you can't let somebody settle. Never let anybody settle. If they settle, it's a problem. I mean, to this day, you can't let somebody settle. It's even more, you know, now we got those black belts, you know, they'll settle on you. You're not going anywhere.

• 21:07Jocko Willink

  So you can't let people settle. It gives them the opportunity to reorganize. It gives them the opportunity to reassess. It gives them the opportunity to redistribute their ammunition. All this stuff is happening because you're catching your breath. You cannot take that time to catch your breath. You gotta push. And even though it seems like it's gonna be backwards, like, well, we're not ready yet. No, you're more ready than they are. That's the thing. And, and by the way, if you're both equally unready, but you go on offense, you're gonna win.

• 21:38Jocko Willink

  So keep that in mind. Next here, First Lieutenant Burgess B. Wilson, 133rd Infantry. Of all the lessons learned on the field of combat, each only emphasizes the teaching found in the field manuals. Every time a cardinal rule was broken, a casualty resulted. I was a little surprised at that one because a lot of times you don't know what the field manual and you have so much, but this is World War II. Deep into World War II, these people are passing word. The fundamental principles of combat, when you disobey them, you're gonna take casualties. Little thing here on the night attack.

• 22:20Jocko Willink

  Attack plans must be the essence of simplicity. Masterly conceived double envelopments, envelopments generally only recruit, result in friendly forces shooting up each other. So I'm gonna say that again. A double envelopment is like when you're gonna completely surround the enemy or you're gonna make these big maneuvers. Too much. It results in friendly fire. What do we have to do? The essence of simplicity. Attacks have to be the essence of simplicity. Second law of combat leadership. Simple. That's why.

• 22:58Jocko Willink

  Lieutenant Colonel Joe L. Burn, Born, 168th Infantry.

• 23:04Jocko Willink

  The best laid plans of mice and men often run a gaffed now and then. Minefields and booby traps sometimes curse many changes in a pre-planned night operation. An attack seldom progresses exactly as planned. Therefore, you must have flexibility.

• 23:29Jocko Willink

  The best played, the best laid plans of mice and men run a gaffed now and then.

• 23:36Jocko Willink

  Simple, simple, simple. And the other key component that I always talk about when I talk about planning is flexibility. You cannot have super rigid plans. And by the way, this is very tricky when we're talking about this right here. So a night attack.

• 23:51Jocko Willink

  You, you, you wanna keep it simple and it has to be coordinated. Like there's things that you have to coordinate and coordination. The more coordination you have, guess what? The more complex things get. And then when you get to a point, when you get things really complex, now we can't be flexible anymore. So there's a, there's a tug of war. You have to play always and lean towards simplicity. And that usually gives you more flexibility, but you have less control, right? Everything's not gonna go perfect anyways. People get, people chase the, the dream of the perfect, things are gonna go perfect. And that's just a dream. You know, even something as simple as when you do, let's say simultaneous hits on a target.

• 24:35Jocko Willink

  And you try and get everyone to be in the perfect position before the three, two, one assault. And now everyone, you know, now both targets are getting hit at the same time. That, that, that sounds pretty easy. Does that sound pretty easy?

• 24:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 24:50Jocko Willink

  Right? Like, hey, you're gonna go hit target B. I'll go hit target A. You know, we'll both get in position. Once you're in position, give me a call on the radio and I, when I'm in a position, I'll call and I'll say three, two, one, attack, right? Seems pretty easy. How hard can that be? Now you get someone that gets a little hung up on a fence and now it takes them extra three minutes to clear. Now you got guys that are sitting outside the other target. So I would always plan things like, there's a, there's a thing called the last cover and concealment. Which is, hey, once we leave this position, you know, your target, you're gonna have to go 40 meters to get to the building, to get to the target, and I'm gonna have to go 30. Or maybe you have to go 100. But I'm gonna coordinate on that. So that way you're in there chilling. You're, you're covered and concealed. You don't have to worry about anything.

• 25:35Jocko Willink

  You're, hey, Jocko, are you ready yet? Nope. Okay, we'll sit here longer. But once you're outside that building, you can't sit there all day. So is it gonna be a perfect? Like simultaneous hit? No, because it took me seven seconds to go my last 30 meters and it, or 40 meters and it took you nine or 12 or whatever, but they're gonna be close.

• 25:58Jocko Willink

  And, and that was another thing is like guaranteed. The time you need that radio to work, it ain't working. The time you need me to come up and say three, two, one. So guess what the signal is for you to go? You wanna know what the signal is? A big boom. When you hear a big boom, it's go time. If you hear a big boom, go. Cause that means I went. So go and get it.

• 26:21Speaker 01

  That's funny that, you know, when you run a 40, 40 yard dash for time. At first they'd say, you know, ready, set, go, or in the market, set, go, right? But technically it's like, okay, you gotta account for that, that lag, right? The reaction of the timer, whatever. So what they started doing was the guy would start the timer right when they'd see the runner move. See what I'm saying? So it's kind of that same thing, right? When you hear boom, right? When you see boom, you know, that, and that's how they time, hand timing.

• 26:54Jocko Willink

  Yeah, the Olympics, they don't even use a, a real gun anymore. It's all like fake because guys could hear the mechanics of the gun. Like there's all these things and even, even it started with, you know, if I was closer to the gun when, than you were, I would get a little bit of a jump start. So now they have like a fake gun that is just specifically designed to get an even start.

• 27:16Speaker 01

  I heard this, kind of, this is a crazy thing where they have it computer measured where they account for the lag between the sound of start. This might even be in swimming. I don't know. I could be wrong, but whatever. There's a lag between the gun, quote unquote, the gun and the movement of the, the racers, right? And if you're within that lag, they count it as a false start, even though technically it, you started after the actual sound.

• 27:43Jocko Willink

  Oh yeah. Cause they know that a human can't react that quickly. I've seen that.

• 27:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's kind of crazy. So that's how baked into real life, this non-synchronous, you know, thing is.

• 27:57Jocko Willink

  It's a little trickier than it seems. Captain Frank M. Cocket, 168th Infantry. It is my belief and others share the same opinion that some men are afraid of the dark. To be left alone and lost is nerve breaking.

• 28:17Jocko Willink

  Second Lieutenant, Second Lieutenant Santo Labella, 131st, Fifth Infantry. I was ordered to attack a certain hill with my platoon at daylight. The terrain was wide open. We had no cover whatsoever. The enemy allowed my platoon to proceed about halfway across the valley floor, then opened up with mortars, artillery, machine gun and 20 millimeter fire. My platoon dispersed. I lost control and the platoon was scattered until dark. When attacking an objective, if there isn't any cover route, covered route approaching the objective, the attack should be held off until dark. What a nightmare. It's kind of, it's

• 29:02Jocko Willink

  the fire discipline of the Germans is to wait. Just to wait, like, let them keep coming, let them get in the open. All right. Now the entire platoon is out in the open. Cool. Start shooting at them.

• 29:14Jocko Willink

  First Lieutenant Jimmy North, 135th Infantry. A heavy concentration of small arms fire is demoralizing to the enemy at night. If you can get a man to pull the trigger, the sound of his rifle and the rifle on the right and on the left will give him sufficient confidence to pull him right to, up to the objective. That's cover. That's covering fire. And getting people to engage. It's like a comfort, like a comforting, a comforting feeling, getting to shoot back at the, at the enemy.

• 29:53Jocko Willink

  First Lieutenant Harold C Bishop, 168th Infantry. It is of great importance in defensive positions to gain intelligence through reconnaissance and combat patrols. The following faults were common with many of our patrols. One, carelessness in careless less carelessness in moving forward resulting in discovery by enemy at distances

• 30:18Jocko Willink

  of as much as 200 yards. Lack of aggressiveness partly due to fear of AP mines or enemy ambush and partly due to lack of orientation of patrol members by patrol leaders resulting in doubt as to mission and methods inability to capture prisoners due to the above factors. But sitting in an OP, you have to get out there, sitting in a command post, you have to get out there, you have to get patrols out there. Again, this is just begging you to be aggressive, begging you not to sit back on your heels and think that everything is cool. It's not, I used to say, when we would be doing land warfare when I was in training, training detachment.

• 31:00Jocko Willink

  And there'd be a big gunfight, you know, big paintball gunfight would happen and then it would stop. And I'd walk over and I'd be like, you know, to the leadership, I'd say, what do you think's going on right now? And he'd be like, oh, I think we probably killed them. And I'd go, no, they're maneuvering on you right now. And you could see their face go, damn it. No, because that's what's happening. You have to assume that if the enemy's not making noise, the enemy's not shooting at you, they are maneuvering on you. That's what they're doing. They're in some dead space. They found a little ravine to get into and they're maneuvering on you.

• 31:32Jocko Willink

  So you have to aggressive, you have to stay aggressive.

• 31:37Jocko Willink

  Captain Reed B Huff, 135th Infantry. Be careful in sending patrols along the same route. Oh, we heard that lessons in our entire lives. Defensive Operations First Lieutenant Harold C Bishop, 168th Infantry. Improvement of positions must be continuous. Each man must have a foxhole standing type for fighting purposes. A slit trench is is much loss, much less satisfactory and offers less protection. Although it is advisable to have one in the immediate vicinity of the foxhole for a man to sleep in.

• 32:13Jocko Willink

  Digging in and continually improving your position. How often is it we get into a situation in life where we stop trying to improve our position? Like this, that's the kind of the standard, that's the standard deal. And that's not the right deal. You gotta continuously improve. You gotta continuously improve your position, always.

• 32:36Jocko Willink

  This section is about command post and observation post operations. The CP is the center of all operations and the OP is a business establishment for the purpose of observing and destroying the enemy. Established observation post should not be subjected to the carelessness of commanders and their staff. Major Allison M A Conrad, 135th Infantry. Control of movement in and around the OP must be continuous. It is fatal to relax this caution for one moment. Even in a unit as battle schooled as this one, I have seen occasions when excessive movement around the OP.

• 33:16Jocko Willink

  And in one instance, a CP brought immediate enemy fire which caused unnecessary casualties. What do we used to call this, like camping trip? Like you get into an observation point and these are obviously bigger than what we would do in the SEAL teams. We didn't SEAL teams, so one of our OPs might have like four or five guys in it. And then you'd have a, an element that's 200 yards away that has more, much more. But that little observation post, oh, you gotta be, you gotta keep, you gotta keep, you gotta keep that movement down.

• 33:49Jocko Willink

  Technician, fifth grade, Ernest J Langley, 135th Infantry. While under combat fire, one can never feel too safe. In one instance, our battalion had moved up and relieved another unit. And after the unit had oriented us as to the situation at hand, we settled down for the night feeling quite safe. As they, as they had informed us that the enemy hadn't shelled the immediate vicinity of the CP. They had been there for 30 some days without their CP being shelled. Well, the next day, the first sergeant and other non-coms commenced to instruct the men not to do any unnecessary walking around

• 34:30Jocko Willink

  and not to hang out their towels, shirts, or anything that could be observed by the enemy. We stayed in this CP for two weeks without drawing a single shell. But finally, a few of the men apparently forgot or disregarded their instructions and hung out a couple of white towels to dry and sweatshirts also. As a result, our CP drew enemy artillery fire costing the lives of three men.

• 35:01Jocko Willink

  Private First Class William Woodrow, 135th Infantry. If you can see the enemy, he can certainly see you. Do the things you have been taught when observing.

• 35:16Jocko Willink

  The enemy can see you, but you can see him, he can see you. This is a, this is the field discipline activity right here. This is what it's all about, having good field crafts, having discipline in the field. Light discipline, sound discipline.

• 35:36Jocko Willink

  That's the, that's what the professionals are doing. The unprofessionals, guys, they're hanging up a sweatshirt.

• 35:43Jocko Willink

  Second Lieutenant Clarence E Spike, 133rd Infantry. It has been my experience all through the Italian campaign that the American soldier is inclined to bunch up in groups. The doughboy of this war seems to think that as long as he has a number of his companions close to him, he is fairly safe. And by the way, this is not just some random thing. This is the herd instinct that we have as, as animals. Animals want to be together, that when we are pack animals, so we feel safer in a pack. And this is, this is, you know, don't bunch up. This is something we've talked about. This is a totally critical element of modern warfare. Don't bunch up.

• 36:28Jocko Willink

  Don't bunch up. I used to have to say this all the time, even with paintball, paintballs, people bunch up.

• 36:35Jocko Willink

  In October 1943, we were advancing in Italy. In the approach march, it was a fairly dark night and the men were walking on each other's heels when they should have been spread out. Suddenly, whom? A large caliber shell hit the column and wiped out the majority of a whole platoon of Company K. Had the men been at proper interval, damage would have been a great deal less.

• 37:02Jocko Willink

  Staff Sergeant Harold F Moosechamp, 133rd Infantry. One lesson I have learned in combat is there is no foxhole better than the one you are in.

• 37:16Jocko Willink

  That makes sense.

• 37:19Jocko Willink

  Next up, Sergeant George E Christensen, 133rd Infantry. The 60 millimeter mortar is of very little value against well-prepared positions. When setting up your gun, never set it up on the forward slope of a hill nor in a draw as these are usually zeroed in by enemy artillery or mortars. And then he underlined this, whatever you do, use a little common sense. Right? We have to use a little bit of common sense with what we're doing. And it's funny because there's some things in, in warfighting that instinctively are very correct.

• 38:03Jocko Willink

  I would say more so than in fighting. Like if you give a, a, an eight-year-old boy a squirt gun and you say, all right, I got a squirt gun, I'm going to hide in this room, come and get me. There's a decent chance that what that eight-year-old kid that's never trained, there's a decent chance he does some tactically sound things.

• 38:31Jocko Willink

  Now, contrarily, like in a fight, did you tell an eight-year-old that's never trained before? He's not going to have the instincts, like he might have the instincts to like throw big punches, but even his punches he'll throw be big looping punches. You know, just, there's a lot of fisticuffs of hand-to-hand combat that is a lot less instinctive than, oh, I'm sneaking up. It's almost like our, our hunting, our hunting instincts are better than our fighting instincts. Yeah. So it's good to remember that. And by the way, sometimes we get so wrapped up in, in, you know, modern tactical things.

• 39:16Jocko Willink

  That like, you know, I had this, this funny story that JP tells is like, we were out in desert training. And, you know, there's, you have protocols of where you're supposed to walk on patrol. You know, how, what your distance is supposed to be from other guys. And I'm watching JP, JP's like 20, 20, he's probably 22 or something like this, young, he's a one platoon guy at the time. And I'm watching him walk and he's just, he's following the protocol kind of to a T. Like he's in the exact right position according to the spacing that you're supposed to have. And I walk over to him and I'm like, hey dude, like, why are you kind of standing out in the open right now? Instead of, well, why are you standing in the open? And he's like, well, this is the protocol.

• 40:01Jocko Willink

  I go, if you were 10 years old and we were playing army, where would you be? And he was, I'd be over by that, that, that, those bushes right there. And I go, be your 10-year-old self.

• 40:13Jocko Willink

  Be your 10-year-old self, because even a 10-year-old knows I'm standing out in the open right now. We want to move cover to cover. A 10-year-old knows to move cover to cover. If I told you I was going to hit you with a squirt gun and we were 10 years old, you would move cover to cover instinctively. And by the way, occasionally you'd be like, oh, the hell with it, I'm going to charge. And that, that can be right too. But you wouldn't walk slowly towards me in the open, right? This is, wouldn't do that. So whatever you do, use a little common sense, please.

• 40:44Jocko Willink

  Staff Sergeant John T. Cowell, 135th Infantry. There have been many instances of rushing into a situation without full knowledge of what is happening. We experienced situations where a little more time and preparation would have saved time, material, and lives. This is why it's seven out of 10, right? You as a leader gotta know, hold on a second, I'm not sure what we're looking at. Hold on, let me take a minute. Now, if you have to, if it's 50/50, you're like, wait, should we go or not? I'm leaning towards go.

• 41:19Speaker 01

  So when you say seven out of 10, you mean like, seven out of 10, we should go?

• 41:23Jocko Willink

  Seven out of 10, you should go.

• 41:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 41:26Jocko Willink

  If you're looking at something like, wait a second, what should we do? Now, if you see clearly, there's some things that you don't know what the threat is, probably a time to take that tactical pause. But if you're like, hey, I'm pretty sure I've got this figured out, get it. Because the more you sit, the more they set up, the more time passes, it's just, generally speaking, action is better than inaction. Generally speaking. And by the way, if you make an iterative step, right? Maybe you don't say, hey, everyone charge, but maybe you say, hey, get some high ground over there. Let me send it, let me put a machine gunner over on this building. Get some eyes on this stuff. Do that. Take some iterative steps. Don't run to your death, but take some iterative steps towards what you think might be the good move.

• 42:08Jocko Willink

  Second Lieutenant Dean P. Hamilton, 133rd Infantry. My company was ordered to advance one afternoon, and along, and along with the order, came information that the high ground to our left was occupied by friendly troops. We advanced with that assurance, and we were caught in a heavy, heavy flanking fire that supposedly occupied, from that supposedly occupied ground, and had to withdraw or be trapped. The lesson I learned from that one experience is never depend on reports, no matter how official, for protection of your flanks. Always take it for granted that both flanks are open and occupied by the enemy.

• 42:51Jocko Willink

  First Lieutenant John V. Pendegras, 135th Infantry. In several instances where my platoon was advancing through vineyards, where visibility was limited to 15 or 20 yards, we forced the enemy to surrender even though we had never seen him. After being fired on from positions hidden from our view, we would open up with every available weapon in that general direction and advance abreast in that manner. Several occasions, on several occasions, the Germans waved white flags and came out with their hands up, simply because we threw so much lead near his positions that he was afraid to expose himself to fire at us. A man also forgets about being

• 43:31Jocko Willink

  afraid, if you can get him to start shooting. That's the second time we've heard that. And that's just action to me, you know, action. And that's cover right there. Like, imagine this, you can't see through the wine freaking vineyard vines. You can't see. We, oh, we took fire from over there? Everyone shoot in that direction and we're gonna move forward. That's covering movement right there. And you can see, the Germans are like, they're not even gonna stick their heads up, even though they probably know that the Americans can't actually see where they are and engage them with pointed, aimed shots, but who wants to just go ahead and stick their head up under a massive barrage of fire? The answer? No one.

• 44:18Jocko Willink

  Technical Sergeant Roy Walker, 135th Infantry. On the night of July 7, 1944, Company G attacked and took Hill 163 completely surprising the Jerrys. We immediately began to dig in. The hard rock for the dawn would soon overtake us. Dawn broke, and everything was quiet, too quiet. To our front, a single Jerry jumped up, started running like hell to his lines. One of our riflemen fired and missed. Then another took him, took upon himself to fire. Soon the whole company was placing its whole firepower on the single Jerry. The whole Jerry army let loose with small arms and 88s, resulting in many casualties and deaths

• 45:02Jocko Willink

  just because we had given away our position, strength, and firepower on a single Jerry. We learned by experience to hold and control your fire until it is needed. It's definitely something we need to watch out for. We get super excited. That happens in MMA fights where a guy gets like a little bit rattled, and the other dude just unloads everything he can and gases. Like, not only did you gas, and I'm okay, but now you know that you gassed, and you know that I can survive your best. He's like when you see a, like a striker get taken down by a, you know, a quote unquote striker gets taken down by a quote unquote grappler in the first round,

• 45:45Jocko Willink

  and gets all over him, and like, positionally, but the dude avoids that submission. This is like, this is like Sean Strickland, right? He just, that first round, I wish I put money on that fight. I wish I put money on that fight. I didn't. I'm very nervous about putting money on fights. I have not done well. I've had insider information on fights, and just been like, oh, I know that, I know what's gonna happen here, and I've lost. With insider information.

• 46:17Speaker 01

  How do you get insider?

• 46:18Jocko Willink

  Insider information, uh, like, I train with Fighter A. Fighter A is trained with Fighter B, and Fighter C, and Fighter A is just like, oh, Fighter B is gonna kill him. I've trained with both those guys, this guy's way better. Oh, cool, thanks for telling me. Insider information, I'm gonna go back.

• 46:37Jocko Willink

  And this is back in the day when I was betting like 200 bucks, and it was like pretty significant, you know? Pretty significant to throw 200 dollars down the drain.

• 46:47Speaker 01

  Even if you bet like 20 bucks, like, the fight seems like way more nerve wracking.

• 46:51Jocko Willink

  Yeah, yeah. But the Strickland fight, I trained with Strickland, like, in, in, just in grappling, and like, oh, he's a good freaking grappler. You know what I mean? And, and not only, not just that, he's a good wrestler. And so, yeah, I was tempted. I also feel like I jinx, I jinx things if I bet on them. Like, that's the other thing I've taken away. Like, I have insider information, I know I'm gonna win, and they lose, like, that's, that's me. That's all me, you know? I'm bad luck. You know what I'm saying? So, a lot of times when I'm very excited about a sporting event, I can't say anything, because I feel like I'm in it. I feel like I jinx it.

• 47:28Speaker 01

  Makes sense. Seems real. But I don't know.

• 47:32Jocko Willink

  I could go, I should think back on some things I've straight up jinxed, but I didn't jinx Sean Strickland. I didn't bet on it. I didn't, I didn't tweet about it, you know?

• 47:44Speaker 01

  Let it play.

• 47:44Jocko Willink

  I just let it play out. And I had that, I felt like pretty good insider information, that it was gonna be hard for this Cosmo to submit. Like, you get taken down, like, you might get taken down, but you get submitted?

• 48:00Speaker 01

  Yep. Generally speaking, that's like, that's completely correct, where you spend energy, mental, emotional, physical energy on like getting this thing, and you're like, oh, wait, I think this is my opportunity, and I'm gonna kind of send it, send it. And then you fail. And in a split second, you run all the numbers. Like, oh, man, that's what it took for me to be like three quarters of the way successful, and then fail. I don't even think I have that much.

• 48:33Jocko Willink

  By the way, yeah, that was everything I had.

• 48:34Speaker 01

  Right.

• 48:35Jocko Willink

  That was everything I had.

• 48:36Speaker 01

  I gotta spend it all.

• 48:37Jocko Willink

  I spent it all. And this dude doesn't seem to care. And by the way, Sean Strickland did not seem to care.

• 48:43Speaker 01

  Didn't seem like he spent much of anything. And even if I do have something left, I'm like, bro, I'm gonna spend it again and then fail again, because this guy seems like he didn't really spend much. See what I'm saying? So you're like even more behind than him.

• 49:00Jocko Willink

  And I think for, for Cosmo also, he'd been so like dominant, you know? And all of a sudden, Sean Strickland was just like, what? Like, oh, you, you, you, you got good positions on me in one round?

• 49:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:12Jocko Willink

  Let's see what happens next round.

• 49:16Jocko Willink

  So legit. Yep. Good, good work, Sean Strickland.

• 49:19Speaker 01

  That's, yeah, that can kind of be for anything too, where, you know, you're, you're making this attempt at whatever, you know, even stuff at work or whatever. You're making these attempts, you're putting in all this energy or whatever, and then, oh, it comes out junk.

• 49:32Jocko Willink

  For sure.

• 49:33Speaker 01

  And you don't even wanna do it anymore.

• 49:34Jocko Willink

  Yeah, it happens in anything. It happens in anything. When you, when you dump your load, and you're like, okay, that was everything I got, and I still came up short. You see that in wrestling too, like someone almost get pinned, almost get pinned, almost get pinned, and then, and then they gave every effort that they could to pin somebody, and then that person didn't get pinned, and now the, the offensive person is now exhausted. It's like, oh. And, and it's, it's reassuring too, for like Strickland, coming out of that first round. Like, hey dude, you just had me as dry as I'm gonna be. And you're as fresh as you're gonna be. And you got me for four minutes on the ground. And I'm still here. That's, that's very good.

• 50:15Speaker 01

  It works both ways sometimes. So like even, okay. I'm gonna use you as the example. Let's say you have my neck. Your little guillotine that you like to do. And let's say, by the grace of God, and I put in all this energy to like, endure and then escape it, finally get out, I'm like, whoa. And then like, three seconds later, I'm back in it. I'm like, oh, bro, I don't, I don't have it. I don't have all that energy anymore. See what I'm saying? Even if I do, like, I can just look forward to this happening again, and then I really won't have it. See what I'm saying? So it's like you're, you're mentally defeated. Because of just the numbers themselves, emotional, physical numbers, you know?

• 50:57Jocko Willink

  I think about in that, in those particular scenarios, like, I can, it's, this is not an easy survival for you.

• 51:05Speaker 01

  No.

• 51:06Jocko Willink

  You're not like, oh, cool, Jocko's working real hard, but I'm not, no, you're like,

• 51:11Jocko Willink

  you're not breathing clearly, you're using your arms. I got in some kind of a war the other day with somebody, some kind of a submission war. And it was just like, both of us, we got dug, both of our arms were just smoked. But yeah, that can happen. And that's why, but, but I think what's important to remember is, number one, you know, maintained conscious control over what you're doing. You know, and good fighters will do that. Good fighters will be like, even, even with a submission, like even when I train fighters right now, it's like, hey, what's your next move? Because if you're in ADCC or UFC BJJ, and you get someone's foot,

• 51:53Jocko Willink

  and you think they're gonna tap just because we all tapped in practice to that, dude, they ain't tapping to that. Go ahead, break my ankle. I don't care. I'm gonna win this. You can, you can, and what actually breaks the ankle? You know what I mean? Because like, hmm. Now, listen, we, there's, there's kind of sickening videos now on the interwebs of just heel hook ACL compilations, where it just goes, and you can just see it go, you know? So it definitely can happen. But also, how, how many, if they made compilations of all the people that get caught in the heel hook, or get caught in straight footlock, or whatever, and it looks like, you're like, oh, gosh, oh, gosh, and then they get out and they keep fighting, because it literally did not do what it's supposed to do.

• 52:37Jocko Willink

  So there's a little bit of mystery there. So when you're in a competition, and you try and submit someone, and then you, it's not working, if you just keep cranking on it, you're gonna use up a lot of energy. And when they finally get out, they're gonna have this, this confidence, like, go ahead. When, um, yeah, those, those things just, they, they, they just occur. And you have to pay attention to what you're doing. And the other thing is, when you get out of that, you gotta go hard at someone. Like, you can't, you can't, you can't sit back. Like, if you escape my guillotine, the best thing you could do is like, try and like, attack me, right? But, but you don't. You're always like, so relieved.

• 53:21Jocko Willink

  You're like, oh, gosh, but what do I do? I freaking go, I go again. I go right for your neck again, too, by the way. I'm not like, oh, I'll try a sweep now. No, no. It's like, this is what I'm doing. So, you, being, also remembering, you know, it's like when someone, when there's some problem on the battlefield, or in the, on, on the sport field, right? Like, oh, man, it's really hot in here. Like, hey, we're, we're at this grappling event, it's super hot. It's hot for you, but it's hot for the opponent, too. It's, it's really cold outside, we're on a, we're on a mission, it's freezing cold outside. Yeah, it's cold for the enemy, too. So you gotta keep that in mind, and, and when you have that moment, when you feel tired, they feel tired, too.

• 54:06Jocko Willink

  They just used all their energy to try and get out of your guillotine. And they're breathing hard.

• 54:12Speaker 01

  So right about being the, being conscious of it. Because I've felt that before, where, yeah, like if I escape a submission or whatever, and I feel like it was a battle to escape it, but then I automatically shoot, you know, whether it be a guard pass or whatever. It's like, you feel it, like, if you, you're conscious of, okay, now I'm about to escape, you know, that moment right before you escape, right? And you're like, okay, I feel this, this is about to be successful. So let's get ready for that next move or whatever. And every time that I've done that, you can feel the success, you can feel that little opening.

• 54:47Jocko Willink

  That's a good way to go about it.

• 54:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:49Jocko Willink

  That's a good way, because by the way, yeah, because when you escape, if that person was hanging on for the, for the life of them, and when they finally escape, they're gonna have that, that lapse in, in intensity and focus.

• 55:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:02Jocko Willink

  And that's when your opportunity is.

• 55:03Speaker 01

  So you ever did like circuit, because this, obviously, this is a mental thing, it goes without saying, but I'm

• 55:10Speaker 01

  analyzing how it works mentally. You ever done like circuit training, right? Like, you gotta, this circuit, that circuits. So I've found that when you're doing the circuit, you don't really get tired. I don't feel tired doing the exercises. I feel tired between the exercises. And then, so I'll start, you know, I do the circuit, right? And I'll, and I'm thinking to myself, oh, shoot, I'm making really good time right now. And the way I feel, I feel like I'm real energetic, I think I'm gonna do good. And then right when I finish this one movement, I feel all the fatigue just dump on me real quick. And I'm like, oh, this is a mental thing. I feel like, you know how like, just that feeling of, okay, I'm gonna relax now, you know? Rather than often, but mentally.

• 55:55Speaker 01

  And I think it, I mean, now I'm saying out loud, it goes without saying, where like physiologically, it follows your mentality, you know?

• 56:02Jocko Willink

  Yeah. So it's like when you're rucking, you take a break.

• 56:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:05Jocko Willink

  Like, you're totally good to go. You're tired, but you're like, fine. And then you take a break.

• 56:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:10Jocko Willink

  And if you take too long of a break, everything's just cold and miserable.

• 56:14Speaker 01

  That's everywhere, even, you know how they, they saying, I agree with this, and I've experienced it both sides, where, if you, let's say you work a, you know, eight hour shift or whatever at your work, and then you plan to go to the gym after work, don't go home first, because it's that same thing.

• 56:30Jocko Willink

  Next up, you know, there's a bunch of different sections in this, this one's about rations. Every effort should be made to augment the C or K rations, which must be of necessity be fed to the frontline soldier. The C or K type ration is an emergency ration, and is not designed to feed troops over long periods of time. Sergeant, Staff Sergeant John Devastes, 133rd Infantry. While troops are on the line, kitchens should be able to draw materials to make pastry, such as donuts, cookies, cakes, et cetera, to go with the man's K or C rations, whatever it may be. It builds up the morale and tells them that their kitchen crew is thinking of them and not sitting in their beds.

• 57:12Jocko Willink

  Staff Sergeant Delbert F. Leet, 133rd Infantry. When bringing rations up to the, up to the company, always be sure not to bring fire down upon the area or vicinity of the company by pulling in too fast with the vehicles. Always pick a secluded spot where the enemy cannot observe your movement. That's hardcore right there. When you're like telling the, the, the food guys, like, hey, bring us food, but don't make a spectacle out of it, if you get seen, we're gonna get bombed.

• 57:46Jocko Willink

  That's when you're hardcore. There's a section on interrogations. Interrogation technique could only be improved by actually practice, by actual practice, and much was learned in this respect, especially after we got a clear picture of what information the S2 and G2 are after, and just where and how we fit into the picture. We found that it often works out better if two interrogators work on one prisoner at the same time. The main advantage being that it keeps the prisoner on the hop, not giving him too much time to think, and also two interrogators can think of more than one.

• 58:27Jocko Willink

  It goes on to tell the story, two prisoners from the 7th Company, 211th PGR, were brought in together. Since both had Polish names, we took them on together. It turned out that one was a Polish Pole, hating the Germans, and was forced to fight, while the other one considered himself a German and was an ardent Nazi. Our fears that the Nazi would spoil our willing prisoner proved unnecessary as we, as the two wanted to show each other up, and tried to outdo each other on the amount and exactness of the information they had.

• 59:05Jocko Willink

  That's pretty wild.

• 59:08Jocko Willink

  And then we get into this last section here, which is about personnel. So what we're dealing with, human beings. The lessons presented in the previous chapters, and by the way, this is like a hundred page document, I didn't read a lot of it. The lessons presented in the previous chapters have to do with operations and technique employed in fighting the war, while this finer, final chapter has to do with the individual fighting man and his problems. One of the quickest lessons learned by the individual is that continued discomfort is not a necessary requisite to gain the status of a battle hardened combat soldier. The advantages of a feather bed

• 59:52Jocko Willink

  in a villa over a pup tent on the ground are soon recognized as the soldier learns to preserve himself for the period in which hardships are unavoidable. Basically saying like, hey, if you have the opportunity to be in good conditions, be in good conditions. It's like the, the old infantry saying, which we used in the SEAL Team as well, is like, what was it? Don't, don't stand if you can sit, don't sit if you can lay down, don't lay, and if you get the chance, sleep. Hey, if you get a, what do you call it, a pillow bed, what? A feather bed. If you can get in a feather bed, rather than a ground pad, get some. Dude, I see you, you have a look of full approval on this.

• 1:00:35Speaker 01

  I just think it's funny, because when you're in the moment, I think in certain environments, the culture is, says the opposite, you know? So like, you know, like the guy who's always taking a nap, you know, he's looked at as lazy.

• 1:00:48Jocko Willink

  Are you taking this personally?

• 1:00:52Speaker 01

  Maybe, but well, I've noticed this. I've noticed this for a long time where yeah, you know, someone's like basically recovering so they can be in good, in good uh, physical condition. You know, like there's so there's state of but yeah, they're gonna be sitting down, right? Resting, whatever. But it's like, oh, wait, why are you sitting down? In fact, I remember in football, you'd get punished for sitting down or or like, you know, go down on one knee, right? Be good. And then some people be, you know, let's say it's their first year. Yeah, they slouch and they go back on their foot, you know, kind of thing. And then they get in trouble for it. Like, bro, what? That guy's recovering between freaking plates. You see what I'm saying? Like, what up?

• 1:01:32Speaker 01

  But no, no, it's frowned upon. Looks lazy. So I'm glad my man is illustrating that there.

• 1:01:38Jocko Willink

  Yeah, you gotta get that feather bed, my homie.

• 1:01:42Speaker 01

  I'm with it. I'm with it. Whatever, bro. You know how like um,

• 1:01:45Jocko Willink

  Whatever. Whatever you mean now. Okay. All right. Okay.

• 1:01:49Speaker 01

  I saw these videos on like private jets, right? They're just talking about private jets and all the stuff. And they have a thing in there called altitude. Like, there's a, it's called altitude. So it's like, um, it's whatever the pressure or I don't know, something where the atmosphere in the private jet is like you're low. So and what that does is causes less fatigue. So let's say you have a, you know, you have a speech or something that you gotta be spot on with, you know, maybe a Q and A, you know, you know, after the speech, you know, and so you gotta be sharp. See what I'm saying? But it's across the country. So yeah, you can fly in that coach. You see what I'm saying? With that recycled air, you know, that freaking high altitude scenario, or you take

• 1:02:30Speaker 01

  the private jet. People be like, oh, freaking diva private jet. Oh, or is it? See what I'm saying? Cause you don't, you have way less fatigue. Now you go to your little speech and you're gonna be sharp. You see what I'm saying? So I agree. Hey, maybe this is personal. Maybe this document is literally for me.

• 1:02:49Jocko Willink

  Maybe just drink a go when you get on the ground. Cause you wanna pay, what'd you say? You said across the country?

• 1:02:54Speaker 01

  Across the country, wherever.

• 1:02:55Jocko Willink

  It's a hundred grand. So you might want to just have a go. Have have some good night when you get on the coach airplane that you're so in fear of.

• 1:03:07Speaker 01

  Yeah. What I'm saying is, but you see what I'm saying? So, okay, cool. We can have the go. But as far as recovery goes, if you want to be at your best, these things make sense to me.

• 1:03:17Jocko Willink

  Okay. I will order one feather bed.

• 1:03:20Speaker 01

  Their bed. Okay.

• 1:03:20Jocko Willink

  For Echo Charles.

• 1:03:22Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:03:22Jocko Willink

  There was a dude, I think, oh, no, it's JP. JP had like, what's, what's like a thing to clean yourself with? It's kind of like a.

• 1:03:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, the Louvre.

• 1:03:32Jocko Willink

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. JP had one of those, dude. He got some hell for having that thing. JP's a, but he's in your mode. He's like, hey, I need this for, you know, recovery, refreshment.

• 1:03:42Speaker 01

  Right. You want to be the best person you can be under all these circumstances.

• 1:03:46Jocko Willink

  Get good skin replenishment out there.

• 1:03:49Speaker 01

  Look, you, if we're trying to get excess skin, excess bacteria off of our body, so we can perform our best, that's what we're doing. Louvre all day. See what I'm saying? Well, I don't know. I don't use a Louvre. I'm way too tough for that, but.

• 1:04:05Jocko Willink

  So now you're tougher than JP, dude. Now. JP might have a word with you about that one.

• 1:04:10Speaker 01

  Kind of reminds me too, where these are, this is like a cultural thing. Cause it's like, okay, so, oh, you're sleeping on the job, right? You're sleeping on the job. Let's say I'm gonna take my lunch break, right? And I'm gonna go, I go take a nap. Like, oh, what's he being lazy? Or something like this, right? Okay. But if I put the word power in front of my sleeping, now it flips it literally 180, right? So it's like, oh, oh, you gotta take a nap? What are you tired? Whatever?

• 1:04:36Jocko Willink

  Branding. Better branding on the power nap.

• 1:04:39Speaker 01

  I'm gonna take a power nap. And actually, I remember you said that.

• 1:04:43Jocko Willink

  Yeah, power nap's a real thing.

• 1:04:44Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 1:04:45Jocko Willink

  Wait, well, I said it to you when?

• 1:04:47Speaker 01

  It was a long time ago. We were in New York. We're gonna do, uh, it might have been a live podcast. I forget.

• 1:04:52Jocko Willink

  And I was like, I'm gonna take a power nap.

• 1:04:53Speaker 01

  No, no, you told me, um, okay, this is literally, it played out. Okay. And I'm totally remembering this now. Okay. And you made a video. You're like, okay, you know, me, I'm getting, and this is your video. So this is me being jock right now. Video on myself. Oh, look at me. I'm getting in the zone. And I'm getting in the zone. I'm about to, you know, go on this thing and do this thing or whatever, and look at Echo. And then you pan over to me laying down on the couch, lazy, or whatever you said, right? All this stuff. I'm like, okay, that's funny. It was a funny video. Okay. And it looked funny because I was like splayed out all lazy. But later that day, actually later that, in that moment, it was like a few minutes later, you're like, actually, that couch is good if you want to take a little power nap before we start. And you were serious. I was like,

• 1:05:35Speaker 01

  oh, that's weird, because just a second ago, see what I'm saying? It was a little bit different branding.

• 1:05:39Jocko Willink

  Maybe I had a double standard, one for you and one for me.

• 1:05:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, sure. No, it was, to me, it was like how it looks versus the reality of it. And if you wanna, you wanna overcome that look of laziness, all you gotta do is like, just like you said, brand it different.

• 1:05:55Jocko Willink

  Was this in New York? Was this in New York?

• 1:05:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:57Jocko Willink

  Dude, that was, what was crazy about that was you never know what the hell I'm gonna talk about. And like, I do, obviously. And I had this like whole, like, super crazy, heavy podcast about Seth Stone. And you had no idea what I was gonna do. And I'm like, I'm like, wondering if I'm able to get through this thing.

• 1:06:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:20Jocko Willink

  You know? And you're just over there just not giving a shit about it. You're just like, oh, I'm gonna talk about freaking whatever jujitsu. So, so it's pretty funny that I was actually probably trying to get myself a little bit, um, you know, like, like levity in the situation by having some fun. Cause I was like, we, actually, we talked about it. When did you realize, you said like when you, when I came out or something, like you looked at me and you were like, oh, shit. Like, this is gonna be heavy.

• 1:06:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Your whole demeanor kind of changed. Yeah. Yeah. It's true. But yes, I always look at it as this is part of the process. Napping, feather beds, you know?

• 1:07:03Jocko Willink

  Louvras.

• 1:07:04Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, you know, that one's a new one for me. But I understand where JP's coming from with it. See what I'm saying?

• 1:07:11Jocko Willink

  Well, Captain Fresh. You did damn good work.

• 1:07:14Speaker 01

  There you go.

• 1:07:14Jocko Willink

  Maybe that sniper, you know, has to have some fresh, you know, there's some word I wish I knew it. I've seen it before. Like it's, like it's removing a layer of skin, kind of. What's it called?

• 1:07:27Speaker 01

  Uh, exfoliate.

• 1:07:28Jocko Willink

  Yes, yes. Yeah. Maybe JP needed just like to be a little bit sharper. Exfoliation is gonna go a long way over in, over in Ramadi.

• 1:07:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:37Jocko Willink

  By the way, using a Louvre in, he's literally taking a shower in a shower tent, like with just moon dust everywhere. Getting mortared regularly, by the way.

• 1:07:49Speaker 01

  Didn't, didn't that shower tent literally get hit when he was walking over there?

• 1:07:53Jocko Willink

  I'm pretty sure that that shower tent literally got hit. I don't quote me on that. But something like that happened.

• 1:08:01Speaker 01

  Yeah. I think he got hit when he was walking over there.

• 1:08:03Jocko Willink

  Yeah. I, I, yeah, I forget. But no doubt, I mean, Camp Corregidor got mortared all the time. And it was not a big base. It wasn't like you're on this massive base. Like Camp Ramadi was bigger, was much, much bigger. So it got mortared a lot, but it was huge. So you, you know, you'd hear the sirens go off, but you, and you might hear the distant, you know, explosion. But you still just be like, keep going about your business. Now, we did get, Camp Mark Lee got hit with mortar, got hit with a mortar, like in our compound. And it blew holes into our water tank. And luckily, thank God, I mean, it could, if it would have hit one, because we were

• 1:08:47Jocko Willink

  in tents. You know, if we were in, if, if it would have hit one in tents, it would have been mass casualty. Um, I think Leif's tent actually got hit. But again, no one did. So we had to get a new water, uh, water tank. And these are like a massive water tank, like bigger than this room.

• 1:09:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:09:08Jocko Willink

  And luckily, our Seabees were able to go and make that happen, which meant that I think they stole it from somewhere.

• 1:09:16Speaker 01

  Making it happen.

• 1:09:17Jocko Willink

  Making it happen. The Seabees, that's one of the skill sets of Seabees. They're just like acquiring shit that you need. And they acquired it.

• 1:09:26Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's freaking legit. I think you're right, though. I think, uh, I think I do maybe take it a little bit personal.

• 1:09:32Jocko Willink

  Yeah, you're sensitive to this.

• 1:09:34Speaker 01

  I think so now. Now that we've explored it. I mean, as far as in regards to me.

• 1:09:39Jocko Willink

  Cause but you also, bro, you don't, you may say that, but you don't care. Cause there's times where you're just like, no, you just don't participate in activities because you're not participating because they could interfere with your rest.

• 1:09:52Speaker 01

  Echo Charles is not required for these activities. For the most part. But yeah, so yeah, that, but that part's right too. But every once in a while, I'll see, I'll find it in a, in, you know, this is hindsight, where I'm like, hey, wait, I feel like I might, this might bother me a little bit more than it maybe should. And like, and this is what will happen sometimes. Like, let's say someone will call me, right? It'll be in the afternoon. I know it's only jokes. That's the thing. That's where I gotta really tighten my whole shit up. Cause I know they're joking. But people will be like, let's say call or, uh, or whatever. They'll see me in the afternoon. They'll be like, oh, Echo, what up? You know, good to, good to hear from you, whatever. Did you just wake up? They'll say that. Like, I've been sleeping all day. Yeah.

• 1:10:30Speaker 01

  What the hell's wrong with me? Alright, cool.

• 1:10:33Jocko Willink

  Yeah, and, and the other thing that's, you know, the whole sleep thing, like, people think, oh, you, you do not recovery, like, you don't believe, like, no. Actually, I, I understand sleep is good for you. Sleep is great. Sleep as much as you can. But also the people that are like, if you have gotten less than s- six hours of sleep, it's the equivalent of having th- three alcohol drinks. It's like, no.

• 1:10:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:55Jocko Willink

  No, I've done freaking all kinds of crazy, very complex cognitive acts, acts, while on zero freaking sleep.

• 1:11:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:11:05Jocko Willink

  Zero. Now, I also, I know that I do have a little bit of a, of a genetic, um, um, predisposition to not need sleep. Cause when I go, like, toe to toe with someone, where we're not sleeping, like, there's no one that's ever been, like, with me, like, the whole time.

• 1:11:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:11:26Jocko Willink

  You know, it's like, always you could see, oh, they're fading now. Like, and I don't know what that is, but, yeah, I've never had anyone like, oh, like, waking me up, but I'm waking a lot of MFers up over the years.

• 1:11:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:11:39Jocko Willink

  I used to have, I had an, I had an assistant platoon commander who's a freaking awesome guy, and, when he would, he would be falling asleep, like, while we were working, and, and I, I, I would wake him up by going, you're losing the bubble, you're losing the ball, and he would look so, like, shell shocked when I would say it to him. Like, I would let him, you know, when you're watching, so you'd see, like, their eyes start to go, like, with a little kid, they, they'd start doing that, and I'd let it, I'd let it go, and I'd let it be, like, I'd let him sleep. You know, I'd let him get past just, like, the, the head, cause, you know, when your head falls a little bit, and you, you kind of wake yourself up.

• 1:12:18Jocko Willink

  I would let him do that until he stopped doing that, and he actually went to sleep, and then I'd freaking grab him, you're losing the ball, and he'd be all shell shocked.

• 1:12:26Speaker 01

  You're wrong for that, bro.

• 1:12:28Jocko Willink

  Yeah, that was kind of mean. But yeah, that's just, like, like I said, I don't know why that is, uh, but I've always been that way. Um, and, you know, like, oh, is it gonna catch up with me? Probably, you know, I, I guess. Like, if I haven't been recovering properly for my whole life, then it's probably at some point, I'm just gonna, like, get, you know, just, uh, fall off the cliff.

• 1:12:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:52Jocko Willink

  And just not, you know, just not wake up, just die, just be like, yep, that was it, should've slept more.

• 1:12:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, I feel like they do it.

• 1:13:00Jocko Willink

  I would like to see more, I can't, you know, it's like, oh, it's not like I'm actively going, oh, I wanna sleep this amount of time, but I'm gonna actively sleep less. Like, no. Even when I go, like, I'll go somewhere where there's no, you know, I'm, I'm going where there's no thing that I have to get up for, right? I'll go somewhere in the mountains, right? And I'm in a cabin in the mountains, I'm not, I've got no work to do, I'm with my wife. And it's like, okay, well, what time am I gonna wake up? Well, oh, no alarm clock, no nothing, nothing to get up for.

• 1:13:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:36Jocko Willink

  At four thirty-three, my eyes open, and I'm just like, PTF, PTF, PTF. So, it's not like some, and, you know, that's just the way it is.

• 1:13:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:46Jocko Willink

  So, I'm not, you know, over here, and I, I think I said this the other day, but, you know, if I, if it's, if it's like, if I'm gonna get less than four hours of sleep, like, five hours of sleep, it's kind of like, eh, I'll try and sleep in more. And so, and then I will. Like, I think six, six and a half hours for me is kind of what my body expects and needs and is programmed for.

• 1:14:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:10Jocko Willink

  So.

• 1:14:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, it feels like if you're, like, cumulatively, you know, jamming yourself up for, you know, sleep deprivation over time or whatever, there'd be so many symptoms and signs, and I don't think, uh, giving, even given your lifestyle or whatever, you know, you're bent on physical, like.

• 1:14:27Jocko Willink

  Yeah, we should already see them, maybe.

• 1:14:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly right. Something, but, no, I'm down for that.

• 1:14:33Jocko Willink

  We're gonna find out.

• 1:14:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, we're gonna find out.

• 1:14:35Jocko Willink

  We're gonna find out. Alright, well, sleep, so you know, sleep as much as you can, get your freaking feather bed out and your loofah, and make it happen. Alright, this next section is about replacement procedures.

• 1:14:48Jocko Willink

  It is an invaluable aid in the training of replacements in that it provides them a training and conditioning in the presence of battle itself, common to the conditions which they will fight.

• 1:15:02Jocko Willink

  So, you have to make your training as close to battle as you possibly can. Second Lieutenant Robert T. Hunter, one hundred and thirty-fifth Infantry, is difficult for an officer without combat experience to take over, to take command of a platoon in a battle-wise engagement experienced outfit. He is subject to his own doubt and misgivings, as well as to the doubts and misgivings of the men under him. So, it's talking about a new guy showing up, no combat experience, and what's gonna happen. He may be faced with the problem of taking command of a rifle platoon in a rifle company, right in the middle of an, of an attack.

• 1:15:44Jocko Willink

  His predicament may be further compliment, complicated by the fact that all his past experience has been limited to staff positions or a headquarters unit. The normal tendency is to attempt to stress his ability by taking immediate initiative in the attack, an attitude of, I'll show you all, I've got what it takes. Isn't it crazy? I wrote about this in Leadership Strategy and Tactics, like, however many years later, seventy years later.

• 1:16:17Jocko Willink

  Uh, his tendency is to stress his ability by, ah, by showing his initiative in the attack. I'll show you, I've got what it takes. The result is generally one officer casualty or fre- or frequently fatality. So, if you show up and you're a new guy, and you're like, I'm gonna show you guys what I'm made of, follow me, watch, I'm gonna give the orders here, you're gonna be a casualty or you're gonna be dead.

• 1:16:43Jocko Willink

  Remember that, that no experienced combat platoon expects a raw recruit. And that's what he is to his men, to be, to personally be the first man to jump out and land the assault of the regiment, or, I'm sorry, and lead the assault of the regiment on Hill Umpthie Bump.

• 1:17:09Jocko Willink

  So, they don't expect that of you. They don't expect, this is exactly what I wrote in Leadership Strategy and Tactics, like, don't act like you know everything, you don't, and everybody knows that.

• 1:17:20Jocko Willink

  They are expecting him to be as green as he is, and as scared as he is. He will be hitting the ground every time he hears a shell go over some buck private.

• 1:17:36Jocko Willink

  Oh, sorry, until some buck privately casually mentions, it's okay, Lieutenant, those are our, ours going over to greet Jerry. That was about as, like, hardened combat, you know, uh, in Ramadi, when, when, when, when counter battery would go out, and you'd see somebody that just showed up for, like, to come visit, and they get all freaked, go run for the bungee, it's outgoing. You act like the hardest MFer anyone ever seen, act like, uh, like, like Sergeant Barnes in Platoon.

• 1:18:09Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:18:09Jocko Willink

  You know what I mean? The outgoing goes, you see a guy shouting, you're like, that's outgoing.

• 1:18:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:18:13Jocko Willink

  You know, just like you're the baddest MFer that ever walked the earth.

• 1:18:16Speaker 01

  Cause you guys can tell the difference, like, it's all so naturally, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:18:20Jocko Willink

  It's outgoing. Just get a grip, you know?

• 1:18:26Jocko Willink

  Uh, continue on. Far better, let him take a deep breath, swallow hard for five minutes, forget all the saluting and chewing outs he used to be so good at back in the States. And thank the lad. Let him find out who among his non, non-coms have the most combat experience and learn their secrets. Give them full regard. Don't be afraid to take and ask their advice. Don't be, don't try to be a world beater. I always thought that was a modern term.

• 1:19:04Jocko Willink

  Don't try and be a world beater. The first few days, take it easy, ask a lot of questions, and learn as many answers as possible. With luck on his side, he may last the week out. If he lasts the week, he will have soon enough, learned enough, and done enough, in his own natural way to carry him through from then on indefinitely. That's just great advice. Just great advice. You don't gotta act like you know everything, you don't have to step up and try and prove yourself, you can, you should just be asking questions, trying to learn. You're saying in a week, like, this combat stuff, this isn't some freaking crazy, uh, rocket science.

• 1:19:47Jocko Willink

  There's some basic principles you gotta learn, you could take a week to learn them, and once you learn them, you're probably gonna be fine. But those first couple days, if he survives the first week, if he survives the first week, man, let's survive the first, let's worry about that. Let's not worry about, you know, trying to act like the, the, uh, Sergeant York over here.

• 1:20:09Jocko Willink

  Staff Sergeant Andrew Nordhill Jr., 133rd Infantry. I have found that recent replacements lack sufficient knowledge of automatic weapons. The bar is a very important weapon and should be stressed in basic training. Most replacements don't have the slightest idea of how a rifle crack sounds when fired in his direction. German weapons should be used for this type of training so that the individual soldier can distinguish them by sound. In other words, training should include more of battle drills with overhead firing. Last but not least, they have a tendency to bunch up on march or in other formations.

• 1:20:51Jocko Willink

  So familiarizing yourself with what that enemy fire sounds like is what we are doing. First Lieutenant Donald C. Johnson and First Lieutenant Clifton R. Farnham, 135th Infantry. There's not enough training giving for scouting. It takes a brave, quick-thinking man to be a good scout. The type of men which we are receiving as replacements at present are very poor. It seems that every man that is incompetent in other type units is put in the infantry. This results in the high percentage of casualties among platoon leaders and good non-commissioned officers.

• 1:21:32Jocko Willink

  The platoon leader has to be the first scout and also lead these replacements up to the fighting positions personally, or they don't, or they seem to disappear about the time you need them most. Half of my platoon at present has had different training than that of an infantry rifle company. And First Lieutenant Robert Logie, 133rd Infantry. All men in the squad should be given an opportunity to train, to training, to lead the squad. The replacement private of today is the NCO of tomorrow in combat. So you gotta get your guys leading out of the gate. That's so important. So important. Let them step up and let them lead things during training, please.

• 1:22:15Jocko Willink

  Now we get into morale. It is believed that the word morale is the most misused in the official language of the US Army today. Actually, it is far more than a USO, actually, it is far more than USO shows and donuts the word seems to bring to mind. It is confidence in self, unit esprit, and a will to carry out orders, all bound together by superior leadership. The former should properly, properly be called entertainment and has its proper place as a medium to relax the individual, thus simplifying the installation of a high state of morale.

• 1:22:58Jocko Willink

  It is well to note that in victory, however small the engagement, morale is highest. While in defeat, it is at its lowest ebb. That's interesting. They talk about morale. It's like, oh, the USO and the shows that they're gonna put in on all that stuff. That's just entertainment. That's not morale. It'll relax you a little bit, which will open up an opportunity for morale, but it's not morale itself. And you can throw all the damn, uh, shows and concerts and USO tours at the troops, but if they're losing, it doesn't help their morale. So keep that in mind. Second Lieutenant Roy L. Humphreys Jr., 135th Infantry.

• 1:23:42Jocko Willink

  There's been a lot written about morale since the start of this war. I've seen the effect of USO shows, mail, food, et cetera. These are all big type, big items, but the largest factor in combat is leadership, especially that displayed by platoon leaders and NCOs. On the front, there are in new, are innumerable difficulties such as bad weather, poor food, long marches, to mention a few. When a unit has been on the line for a long time, these things grow in importance. Leaders must be on guard and must not allow their men to believe that they are getting a raw deal. If the leaders can instill in their men an aggressive spirit and maintain strict discipline

• 1:24:23Jocko Willink

  throughout the campaign, they will find the morale of their men a lot higher when the campaign nears a conclusion. You know, he's not saying give them more donuts. He's not saying give them more USO shows. He's saying, hey, discipline and aggression. That's what keeps the, the spirit high, the morale high. What a mistake it is, you know, with your kids, buying them the freaking donuts, letting them watch the movie late, all that stuff. It, it's, it's a short-term win. Oh, dad, you're the best. Cool. Look at me in three months. Where are you at? Dad, what did you do to me? I'm sick. I'm weak. I have no capabilities.

• 1:25:08Jocko Willink

  Why not doing that? Hard training is the best thing for morale. That's what it is. Not donuts, not USO shows, not video games for your kids. That doesn't help. It might open up an opportunity for good morale. It's not gonna give them high morale. Lieutenant Colonel Harold, Harold L. Stip, Headquarters, 34th Infantry Division. Enlisted men appointed officers in the field of battle because of outstanding performance of combat duties have proved far more competent than the replacement officers received.

• 1:25:52Jocko Willink

  This is not due to lack of ability in many cases of replacement officers, but due to the lack of experience which can only be gained on the battlefield. This we get those, those David Hackworth Mustang officers getting battlefield commish. Reports indicate that men are far more willing to follow battle tried enlisted men who are commissioned than a new replacement officer. Reported confidence in leaders gained from this source proves that fighting efficiency of the small frontline elements is greatly improved. Experience within this command has proven that no battlefield appointee has ever been

• 1:26:34Jocko Willink

  reclassified for inefficiency or inexperience, while this is not true of the officer replacements received through normal replacement channels. I mean, you can't do anything better to screen somebody for combat leadership than put them in a combat leadership role. Like, you're not giving a commission to some sergeant that was, that wasn't a badass, right? So you're get, of course, there's none reclassified. That's, that's shocking. That's amazing. They're all just, hey, they, they get commissioned, they're doing their job. Outstanding. And by the way, like in, in the military that I saw, uh, oftentimes, the, it prior enlisted officers were some of the best officers.

• 1:27:18Jocko Willink

  Unfortunately, they were also sometimes some of the worst. You know, it depends on what that, depends on how that commission landed on them, right? If it landed on them saying, hey, you know, you've got an opportunity to lead now. You need to prove yourself. Cool. Usually it worked out pretty good. If it landed on them like, I finally got what I deserved. I should have been in charge all along. And watch out. And they have a different kind of, I'm proving myself. I want to prove how awesome I am, right? As opposed to proving that you're worthy of this, this, this leadership role. Two different things. Carrying on here.

• 1:27:59Jocko Willink

  In order to weld an efficient fighting unit, those who are ineffective, mediocre, non-aggressive, and without professional knowledge must be eliminated. Reports received from both officers and men have stressed this point and believe me that a more liberal system, and believe that a more liberal system of eliminating the type of officer above referred to be inaugurated. So we cannot have ineffective, mediocre, non-aggressive officers out there leading troops. We need a system to get rid of them. This is the wartime scenario.

• 1:28:41Jocko Willink

  Boy, the peacetime military just, it's rough. It's rough. You're not getting tested. No one really cares as much as they do. You know what I mean? Like when it's the nineties and you got some officer that's kind of a turd, but you know what? Where are you gonna go? You're gonna go to deploy to Guam for six months or whatever? You're gonna deploy to wherever and it's like you're gonna be doing some administrative training. But when people's lives are taken, it's like, no, hold on a second. What's this dude doing here? What is this guy's problem? He shouldn't be here. Now that's not the right attitude. I'm not saying that's the right attitude. The right attitude is like regardless, because you never know when your call is gonna come. You don't know when that's gonna happen.

• 1:29:22Jocko Willink

  By the way, when the, when the leader gets successfully deploys, because there was nothing going on and kind of got let slide, that doesn't go in his record. You know, six years later, when he's in another leadership position, people don't know that he was crap and now there's a war going on? So we gotta use caution there. And to close out this book, we have this. As in the case of officers, a system should be established by which misfits, incompetence, those who have let down because of extremely long periods in active combat can be reassigned

• 1:30:02Jocko Willink

  to non-combatant units, eliminated from the service or other disposition made of them upon recommendation of a unit commander concerned. So there's gonna be guys, like they're gonna be burned out, even though we gotta have a way to reassign them. Certainly if they're misfits or they're incompetence, like we need to get rid of them. This will ensure maximum efficiency in the front lines, creating greater drive and follow-through, resulting in the taking in of objectives with less casualties. This has long been a fault in combat elements in which no adequate answer has yet been

• 1:30:45Jocko Willink

  found and about which there is constant complaint and criticisms.

• 1:30:52Jocko Willink

  How do we get rid of the people that are not aggressive? That don't make things happen? And if we have people that are good, we're going to take less casualties. That's what we're doing, man. That's what we are supposed to be doing. I know it's kind of like, you know, that attitude I just talked about? Even that I saw in the military, in this, in the entire military, certainly starting on the SEAL teams is when there's a war, all of a sudden, everyone raises the bar. Right? Every bar got raised. When I went from the pre nine 11 to the post nine 11, the bar got raised.

• 1:31:31Jocko Willink

  People are now looking for maximum efficiency on the front lines. Right? The whole, everything should be stricter. Everything should be tougher. And I think it's interesting to think about that, not just from a combat perspective, right?

• 1:31:47Jocko Willink

  Cause in combat, right? We want to select the best guys. We want to weed out the incompetent losers. We want to keep the guys that have been on the front lines. We got to keep them fresh.

• 1:31:58Jocko Willink

  It's the same thing in the business, in the business world, right? We got to, we want to select the best people, of course. We want to get rid of people that aren't up to par. If people need a rest, you need to give it to them. But also in, in life,

• 1:32:12Jocko Willink

  in life,

• 1:32:14Jocko Willink

  are you operating with maximum efficiency?

• 1:32:22Jocko Willink

  What about your, your daily habits? Are you selecting the best, the absolute best daily habits for yourself? Have you weeded out things that are inefficient or, or causing competency or just a waste of your time and a waste of your effort?

• 1:32:43Jocko Willink

  What are you doing to, you know, speaking for us? Like how, are you getting the correct amount of rest that you need? So in war, we raise the bar. When combat is imminent.

• 1:32:56Jocko Willink

  And yet in life, like a lot of times you don't see combat being imminent. You don't see war being it, but you are at war.

• 1:33:05Jocko Willink

  So it's easy to let things slide. It, you know, it's easy. When you're not going into combat, it's easy to kind of lower the bar and let some people on your team that maybe don't deserve to be there. Maybe you even keep some people on the team that aren't really A players. Maybe you burn out your top people. You're putting all the work on them. Right? That can happen.

• 1:33:26Jocko Willink

  It's, and it's, but it's easy for this to happen in our personal lives as well, right? Because we let bad habits creep in.

• 1:33:35Jocko Willink

  And we keep bad habits that we should be getting rid of.

• 1:33:41Jocko Willink

  And we let good habits that are strong, at some point, we let them fade away.

• 1:33:47Jocko Willink

  We don't give them the proper rest and recovery.

• 1:33:51Jocko Willink

  And, and this is a recipe for disaster.

• 1:33:56Jocko Willink

  So do not allow that.

• 1:34:00Jocko Willink

  Monitor your people.

• 1:34:03Jocko Willink

  And monitor yourself, monitor your own habits. Your own standard operating procedures for your life. So that you can operate

• 1:34:16Jocko Willink

  with maximum efficiency.

• 1:34:21Jocko Willink

  That's what we're doing. Maximum efficiency. Got to clean out some of the bad. And elevate the good.

• 1:34:32Jocko Willink

  And with that, some of the best habits that we can have. The one, early on in this whole podcast game, you said that there's nothing better that a human can do, just across the board? Then work out, then train, then, then, then condition yourself. Then be strong, then work out. Running, sprinting, jujitsu, swimming, lifting, throwing, just basically getting after it. This is going to have a positive impact across the board. All facets, all facets. Yeah, but what if I, you know, what if I do intellectual work, all facets?

• 1:35:09Speaker 01

  It's true.

• 1:35:10Jocko Willink

  Well, what if I, you know, if I work, if I work at a computer, this isn't going to help me. No, it is going to help you. It is going to help you. The physical activity will help you. In everything that you do, that's a habit you need to put front, uh, foremost in your life.

• 1:35:28Jocko Willink

  So please do that. By the way, when you're getting after it in this methodology, you're going to need fuel. And we, we happen to recommend Jocko Fuel. We released some pumpkin spice.

• 1:35:40Speaker 01

  Hell, yeah.

• 1:35:41Jocko Willink

  Activity today. Oh, my jam now.

• 1:35:46Speaker 01

  It's your jam now.

• 1:35:47Jocko Willink

  It is, it is. It's tasty. It's so good. It's good. But we, we didn't, you know, we didn't maintain kind of the, the, the, the spike pumpkin spice latte vibe, right? We're more hardcore.

• 1:36:04Jocko Willink

  So 30 grams of protein, ready to drink, get some. Check it out. Jacofuel.com. We also have energy drinks. We've got the healthiest energy drinks. We've got other people that are now trying to make their energy drinks kind of like ours.

• 1:36:18Speaker 01

  Can you blame them?

• 1:36:19Jocko Willink

  You know, I, uh, invitation is the best form of flattery. Is that the deal?

• 1:36:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:36:25Jocko Willink

  So, yeah, we get that. But guess what? We've made ours even better. We made them taste better, more efficacious ingredients in them. They're just all around. We're always improving. We've got hydration, got protein drinks, we've got protein powder. We got joint warfare. We got time war. We got, we got, we got everything that you need. Greens, everything that you need. So if you need to fuel your efforts, go to Jacofuel.com or go to any, any store around you and get yourself some Jocko Fuel there. And if they don't have it, just ask them, say, hey, where's the Jocko Fuel at? We want some and they'll get some. So check out Jacofuel.com. Also, since we are training, let's talk about originusa.com.

• 1:37:11Jocko Willink

  Originusa.com where we're making jujitsu gees. We are making rash guards, training gear, jeans, boots, hoodies, t-shirts, everything that you need, but it's not just everything that you need. Cause you can get everything you need kind of anywhere right now. But what we have is everything that you need is a hundred percent made in America. A hundred percent made in America. Which means that these freedoms that these soldiers in World War II fought for,

• 1:37:42Jocko Willink

  you can buy stuff that is made in this country. Not made by a communist country. Not made by a tyrannical country. Not made by a country that doesn't care about the workers and doesn't care about the environment. But made by an outstanding American company. Built by freedom. Check out originusa.com and get yourself the real goods. The American made goods.

• 1:38:12Speaker 01

  It's true. Um, I've been seeing recently, you know, the, um, made in America thing. I think Pete was putting it forward there. You know, where like it's, it's, uh, made in America, but it's not really made in America. That's not how origin is.

• 1:38:28Jocko Willink

  No, no.

• 1:38:28Speaker 01

  No, you get the buttons from the jeans. Those buttons made in America.

• 1:38:34Jocko Willink

  Zippers.

• 1:38:34Speaker 01

  The zipper.

• 1:38:35Jocko Willink

  Thread.

• 1:38:35Speaker 01

  Made in America. The thread, the cotton picked from the field, from the ground.

• 1:38:40Jocko Willink

  Yep. American.

• 1:38:42Speaker 01

  American. Yep. So this is different, you know? It's the real deal made in America.

• 1:38:46Jocko Willink

  It is indeed.

• 1:38:48Speaker 01

  Understand that. Also, don't forget about Jocko Store. This is where we're representing when, while we're on the path. Discipline equals freedom. We represent that. That's kind of like the whole foundation of the whole thing. Discipline equals freedom.

• 1:39:01Jocko Willink

  It certainly is. I would agree.

• 1:39:03Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:39:03Jocko Willink

  Death core.

• 1:39:04Speaker 01

  To the core. Also good, you know, things don't always go good. See what I'm saying? They don't go the way you want them to go.

• 1:39:13Jocko Willink

  They always do go good. From my perspective.

• 1:39:15Speaker 01

  If you understand it deeply, yeah, you can understand that, hey? Good, it's a thing. See what I'm saying? If things seem to not go your way, you say good, you'd be surprised what good can come from it. So anyway, we're representing that.

• 1:39:29Jocko Willink

  Echo Charles is breaking it down like a champ over here.

• 1:39:31Speaker 01

  I'm here to tell you.

• 1:39:34Speaker 01

  Anyway, you want to represent, go to Jocko Store. We got your, uh, your shirts on there, t-shirts. It's a big one. Uh, we've got some hoodies on there. It's fall. Temperature dropping. So you'll see more like hoodies and those types of options for you. But you know, all of them, you're representing. So you're, you're good to go either way. See what I'm saying? Um, stand by to get some. That's a kind of a sleeper one, but a lot of people, I see people representing hard on that one. I'm here to tell you. Uh, we will be coming out with new stuff. So these new things, right? That we kind of come out with, uh, you know, I'm kind of, I don't like go crazy with it. So they're kind of limited. So you kind of got to jump on them when they, when they drop, as they say. So, but don't worry, don't worry.

• 1:40:19Speaker 01

  You just put your email on the little email list on the front of the store, on the bottom. Jacostore.com on the bottom there. Put your email, I'll email you the day that they come out. So you can grab it. See what I'm saying? Ahead of everybody.

• 1:40:31Jocko Willink

  That's nice of you.

• 1:40:32Speaker 01

  But I'm here to tell you, don't worry, I won't spam. You already know that I don't spam. I don't believe in, uh, any benefits of spamming people.

• 1:40:41Jocko Willink

  No benefits.

• 1:40:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, there's no benefits. So I won't spam you. Don't worry about that. But yeah, if you want to be in the know when it comes out, boom, do that. I'll hook you up. Also the shirt locker, new design every month. This month has, or next month, sorry, August, wait, September is kind of a sporty one. All say, we'll say, that's all I'm going to say. But if you want to check it out, go to Jocko Store, click on the top where it says shirt locker. You can kind of see what it's all about. You can kind of see a hint of the next, the design for that month. You know, just see what it's all about. It's a subscription scenario. You get a new design every month. It's going to, people seem to like that one as well.

• 1:41:12Jocko Willink

  We like it, man.

• 1:41:13Speaker 01

  It's all on Jacostore.com.

• 1:41:16Jocko Willink

  Also a bunch of books. Put Your Legs On by Rob Jones, Need the Lead by Dave Burke. I've written a bunch of books. Adult books about leadership, about discipline. I wrote a novel.

• 1:41:27Speaker 01

  I don't think you should say adult books.

• 1:41:30Jocko Willink

  Oh, that's right. It's like a, it's like a thing. Yeah.

• 1:41:33Speaker 01

  I think it's

• 1:41:34Jocko Willink

  What would you call them?

• 1:41:34Speaker 01

  I think it's just books.

• 1:41:36Jocko Willink

  No, you're right. You're right. Yeah.

• 1:41:37Speaker 01

  And then kids books.

• 1:41:39Jocko Willink

  That's on me. Yeah. So I've written books for children and books for everyone.

• 1:41:45Speaker 01

  Everyone else.

• 1:41:46Jocko Willink

  Everyone else. Uh, yeah, they're not, they're not the, the whatever, the smut. You ever heard that word before?

• 1:41:55Speaker 01

  It's old school.

• 1:41:56Jocko Willink

  Yes, I've heard it before. Yeah. So these are not smut. These are about leadership. These are about discipline. There's one about a laundromat and things that unfolded. No pun intended. From a laundromat. That's called Final Spin. Uh, check out those books as well. Also, we have Echelon Front. We teach leadership and we solve problems through leadership. We have events. We also have embedded consultants for leadership that will work inside your company to help you get things squared away. Go to echelonfront.com for that. If you want to learn these leadership principles from the comfort of your own home, you can check out extremeownership.com.

• 1:42:40Jocko Willink

  This is where we have online training to learn the skills of leadership. Also, if you want to help family members, active and retired, you want to help their families, you want to help Gold Star families, check out Mark Lee's mom, Mama Lee. She's got an amazing charity organization. If you want to donate or you want to get involved, go to Americas Mighty Warriors.org. Also, check out Heroes and Horses.org. And also Jimmy May's organization, BeyondTheBrotherhood.org. Check out WarriorsNeed.org, StrongholdRescue.org. We got a lot of people we're trying to support. A lot of great organizations out there, people doing good stuff. So check those out. If you want to connect with us, check out Jaco.com and then on social media.

• 1:43:26Jocko Willink

  I'm at Jocko Willink, Echo's at Echo Charles. Just, just don't spend too much time on there. It's literally just a freaking waste of your life. Don't let it get you. Thanks to all the soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines that are currently deployed around the world.

• 1:43:41Jocko Willink

  Capturing lessons learned as you all fight to defend freedom. We are grateful for your service, grateful for your sacrifice, each and every one of you. Also, thanks to our police, law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, border patrol, Secret Service, as well as all other first responders. We're grateful for what you do here on the home front to keep us safe. And everyone else out there, you heard it throughout this book. And that is take action. And it's interesting that in a time of war, generals and colonels and captains and sergeants would have to be encouraged

• 1:44:23Jocko Willink

  to take action. It seems, because it seems obvious, right? If you want to move, if you want to win, you gotta move. You have to go. But the unfortunate reality is we tend not to move. We tend to be stagnant. We tend to wait. We tend to stall. We tend to allow inertia to put its hooks in us and prevent us from doing what we know we need to do.

• 1:44:50Jocko Willink

  And that is take action. That is go do the thing. That is be aggressive and make things happen.

• 1:44:59Jocko Willink

  So this is your final warning to go get after it.

• 1:45:05Jocko Willink

  And that's all we've got for tonight. And until next time, Zeko and Jocko out.