235: Setting the Conditions for Victory. w/ Gen. John Gronski From The 2-28

0:00:00 - Opening 0:09:51 - General John Gronski. 2:49:51 - How to stay on THE PATH. 3:08:18 - Closing Gratitude Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Jocko Willink?

  This is Jocko Podcast number 235 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. Good evening Echo. Good evening.

• 0:11Jocko Willink?

  Cowie May Earl.

• 0:15Jocko Willink?

  One of my brothers.

• 0:18Jocko Willink?

  Awesome guy, incredible SEAL.

• 0:25Jocko Willink?

  But at one point in time, I didn't know if he would keep his leg.

• 0:32Jocko Willink?

  The Army doctors seemed neutral.

• 0:38Jocko Willink?

  In their assessment and my assessment was that they actually didn't know.

• 0:46Jocko Willink?

  And because they didn't know. My guess is they didn't want to get his hopes up, but at the same time.

• 0:54Jocko Willink?

  They didn't want to crush his morale either.

• 1:01Jocko Willink?

  And Cowie is the SEAL that I wrote about in the opening of the book, The Dichotomy of Leadership. This is the SEAL that.

• 1:09Jocko Willink?

  Told me he wanted to stay.

• 1:13Jocko Willink?

  He begged me to let him stay there in Ramadi with us. He did not want to go home.

• 1:23Jocko Willink?

  He wanted to stay with his platoon. He wanted to stay with the task unit. He wanted to stay with the soldiers and Marines that we were fighting alongside.

• 1:38Jocko Willink?

  But the fact of the matter was. That he had to go. He had to go. He had to go to better medical facilities with more capabilities to see if he could keep his leg.

• 1:57Jocko Willink?

  And we're kind of standing there talking to him, kind of saying goodbye because we know he has to go. The Brigade Commander walked in.

• 2:09Jocko Willink?

  And we all quietly came to attention.

• 2:16Jocko Willink?

  And I'd spent a little bit of time with the Brigade Commander at this point. I briefed him on our capabilities, been in some planning meetings, I'd seen him out on the streets during a few operations.

• 2:32Jocko Willink?

  He was very well respected amongst his troops, the troops that we were working with, Army and Marines and his Brigade Combat Team, the Second Brigade Combat Team of the 28th Infantry Division, the Iron Soldiers, they had been fighting in Ramadi for almost a year.

• 2:58Jocko Willink?

  And we, from SEAL Team 3, Task Unit Bruiser, we had nothing but the highest respect and admiration for all of them. They were professional. They were aggressive. They were courageous. And let there be no doubt

• 3:18Jocko Willink?

  that the soldiers and the Marines from the 228 saved the lives of some of the SEALs in Task Unit Bruiser.

• 3:30Jocko Willink?

  Because they told us where we should go and where we shouldn't go. They advised us on what to do and what not to do. They rolled out and guided us on operations.

• 3:44Jocko Willink?

  They mentored and they coached us.

• 3:49Jocko Willink?

  And they did an outstanding job taking the fight to the enemy. And at this point, when when Cowie got wounded,

• 3:59Jocko Willink?

  we'd been on the ground less than a month.

• 4:03Jocko Willink?

  And this was the first significantly wounded SEAL in Task Unit Bruiser.

• 4:13Jocko Willink?

  And this Brigade Commander, Colonel John Gronski, was there to pin a purple heart

• 4:20Jocko Willink?

  on Cowie's chest.

• 4:26Jocko Willink?

  And I watched, I watched the Colonel.

• 4:32Jocko Willink?

  Watched his attitude. Watched his behavior. He was solemn, but at the same time, he was uplifting. And what I could tell is, I could tell that he cared.

• 4:47Jocko Willink?

  I could sense that. I think we all could sense that. And understand that at this point, he had done this hundreds of times.

• 4:58Jocko Willink?

  In the last year, awarded Purple Hearts to combat wounded soldiers.

• 5:08Jocko Willink?

  And each time, I could tell that it mattered. And each time, I could tell that it left a mark.

• 5:21Jocko Willink?

  And I knew

• 5:25Jocko Willink?

  that the Colonel had also sent many men on their final flights home.

• 5:34Jocko Willink?

  Their angel flights.

• 5:40Jocko Willink?

  Colonel Gronski had lost scores of men at this point, killed in action.

• 5:51Jocko Willink?

  And those obviously leave an even deeper mark.

• 6:00Jocko Willink?

  They leave a scar.

• 6:07Jocko Willink?

  And I watched as Colonel Gronski spoke quietly to Cowie.

• 6:14Jocko Willink?

  I couldn't hear what he said, but Cowie nodded and affirmed whatever had been said.

• 6:23Jocko Willink?

  And the Colonel put the Purple Heart Medal on Cowie's chest.

• 6:30Jocko Willink?

  And they shook hands again.

• 6:34Jocko Willink?

  And the Colonel left.

• 6:39Jocko Willink?

  And Cowie was soon on a helicopter

• 6:43Jocko Willink?

  heading out of Ramadi.

• 6:51Jocko Willink?

  And he would not be our last casualty.

• 6:58Jocko Willink?

  But he was our first, and he was my first significantly wounded man while in a leadership position.

• 7:12Jocko Willink?

  And if you know anything about me, you know that I'm trying to learn constantly. And I learned from the Colonel that day, the way he acted, the way he carried himself.

• 7:27Jocko Willink?

  Maintaining that delicate balance.

• 7:34Jocko Willink?

  Because I could tell

• 7:37Jocko Willink?

  that he was steadfast, that these tragedies would not discourage his determination.

• 7:50Jocko Willink?

  But I could also see that he cared, that he truly cared about Cowie.

• 7:58Jocko Willink?

  My brother, my SEAL, a man he'd never met before.

• 8:06Jocko Willink?

  I could also see that this was part of our job as leaders.

• 8:14Jocko Willink?

  We have to bear this burden. I would have to bear this burden.

• 8:22Jocko Willink?

  And we would have to press on.

• 8:28Jocko Willink?

  We would have to do our duty in the face of horrible wounds.

• 8:37Jocko Willink?

  And tragic loss.

• 8:46Jocko Willink?

  And I knew that Colonel Gronski had been there for

• 8:53Jocko Willink?

  almost a year.

• 8:58Jocko Willink?

  And I knew that I was just getting started.

• 9:04Jocko Willink?

  And I knew I had to do my best to carry the torch forward.

• 9:14Jocko Willink?

  To bear that burden of command, to do my duty.

• 9:22Jocko Willink?

  And to follow that example.

• 9:39Jocko Willink?

  Well.

• 9:43Jocko Willink?

  It's a strange thing because those memories of war. Sometimes they feel like a long time ago.

• 9:53Jocko Willink?

  Sometimes they feel like yesterday.

• 9:58Jocko Willink?

  But we don't forget them.

• 10:03Jocko Willink?

  And I won't forget what I learned.

• 10:09Jocko Willink?

  And it's an honor today to have the opportunity to learn some more from that Colonel.

• 10:19Jocko Willink?

  Although he is no longer a Colonel.

• 10:23Jocko Willink?

  He's no longer in the Army. He retired as a two-star general.

• 10:28Jocko Willink?

  A major general who just wrote a book called The Ride of Our Lives. And he is here with us today.

• 10:40Jocko Willink?

  General Gronski, thank you for coming on the program.

• 10:44Speaker 01

  Jaco, thank you. Appreciate being here.

• 10:47Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it was really weird to see, I was sitting in my car as you pulled up into the parking lot today. And, you know, I mean, obviously I haven't seen you since the spring of 2006. And I remember meeting you for the first time. I don't know if you'll remember meeting me for the first time. And I know that's, you know, as the brigade commander, you're meeting people all the time. People are coming in and out. When I met you for the first time, I went to your tactical operations center. And right as I arrived, so we had been on the ground for just a matter of days. Do you remember this at all?

• 11:23Speaker 01

  Slightly. I'm going to be honest with you, not in the detail you probably do.

• 11:27Jocko Willink?

  No, I would be shocked if you remembered it. I walked in and as I walk into your tactical operations center, the report comes in that one of my SEAL snipers, who's actually BTF Tony, had just killed an IED emplacer up on Firecracker. And that kind of got announced in the tactical operations center. And you heard it. And I knew who you were because I had gathered intel on you and read your background and done research to figure out who you were and what, you know. And so I knew exactly who you were. And, and just that that announcement, following that announcement,

• 12:08Jocko Willink?

  you walked from the talk into your office and then people walked me into your office. It was the best introduction a human being could ever want in a combat situation. And you looked at me and, and you said, "That's one of your guys that just killed us, an IED emplacer." I said, "Yes, sir." And you immediately said, "I need your guys over in Eastern Ramadi." And I said, "We will go wherever you want us to go, wherever there's bad guys." And that was how the deployment kicked off.

• 12:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, Eastern Ramadi was a pretty, pretty bad place.

• 12:40Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah. And it was, I think it felt good. I mean, I could see the looks on the people in the, in the tactical operations center.

• 12:50Jocko Willink?

  The looks on their faces that we just killed an IED emplacer. And that was right where in Firecracker a few days prior, an IED had killed several Marines. And so often...

• 13:01Jocko Willink?

  The enemy just, you know, and Ramadi would just disappear. They take their shots, they do their thing and then they disappear.

• 13:06Speaker 01

  That was really one of the most frustrating things. You didn't, many times you just didn't have an enemy to fire back at.

• 13:14Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Before we get into all that, uh, let's, let's, let's go back because you know, we all, everyone wants to know about you, who you are. Um, and I want to start off actually by reading a little chunk of, of your book to kind of give a little background to everybody. And so the book is called The Ride of Our Lives. It just came out, I think in February. So I'm, I'm gonna read this chunk right here. My dad, Paul Xavier Gronski senior, was raised by his mother, a Polish immigrant. My grandmother never learned to speak English well. She owned a small grocery store selling primarily candy and cigarettes. My paternal

• 13:54Jocko Willink?

  grandfather, also a Polish immigrant, died in an accident in the coal mines near Scranton when my grandmother was five months pregnant with my dad. The son of a single parent, my father was forced to quit school after the seventh grade so he could work and help support the family. My dad served overseas during World War II in the US Army Air Corps. Dad opened a garage in 1954 doing minor car repairs and selling used tires. Soon he bought cars to fix up and sell, and so began his venture into the used car business. His family and his business were growing. But dad and my entire family faced a devastating setback

• 14:37Jocko Willink?

  in 1956 when my mother passed away when I was very young. Dad became a single parent with seven, seven children to raise and a business to run. It was a severe blow, but dad fought through it. By outward measures, my father was unimpressive, standing five feet, six inches tall. Dad weighed about 135 pounds. But my dad was a grinder and he had the blood of an entrepreneur. Through sheer hard work and desire, he raised his children while building an enterprise that included a garage, used car sales, a towing service, a boat sales and service business, and a bike shop.

• 15:18Jocko Willink?

  Known as Paul Gronski Enterprises, dad's business became a landmark in northeastern Pennsylvania. Paul X. Gronski Senior, a man with only a 7th grade education, became a pillar of the community and a leader in his church.

• 15:36Jocko Willink?

  So that's the environment you grew up in.

• 15:38Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 15:38Jocko Willink?

  Do you remember your mom?

• 15:40Speaker 01

  No, she died 3 days after I was born.

• 15:44Jocko Willink?

  And you were number 7?

• 15:47Speaker 01

  Right.

• 15:50Jocko Willink?

  What'd your dad do in the Army Air Corps?

• 15:53Speaker 01

  Well, he had a very basic job. He was a cook. You know, he worked in restaurants in the 20s and 30s. And he became a cook and I think his favorite war story was the time that he prepared a meal for Dwight Eisenhower in the mess hall.

• 16:11Jocko Willink?

  That's a pretty memorable story. I'd be proud of that story.

• 16:14Speaker 01

  Right.

• 16:15Jocko Willink?

  And what was it growing up? I mean, obviously you got no mom at home. I mean, look, I got 4 kids and I gotta, my wife is a stay-at-home mom.

• 16:23Speaker 01

  Right.

• 16:24Jocko Willink?

  And I could barely control the chaos and mayhem going on when they were little. That must have been complete insanity.

• 16:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, it allowed us kids to kinda grow up with a lot of self-discipline.

• 16:40Speaker 01

  I was lucky though, I had 2 older sisters. They became surrogate mothers to me. My sister Ruthie and my sister Ann. And then I had an aunt, my father's sister, who was also a surrogate mother. So although I lost 1 mother, I ended up having 3. And I did feel a lot of love in the family.

• 16:57Jocko Willink?

  Was Ruthie that much, or your 2 sisters, how much older were they?

• 17:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, they're both a little over 10 years older than I am.

• 17:05Jocko Willink?

  Got it.

• 17:06Speaker 01

  So, you know, they were, you know, 10, 11, 12 years old at the time.

• 17:10Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and that's like 10 or 11-year-olds, when they have responsibility put on them, they can pick it up and they can do a lot.

• 17:18Speaker 01

  Exactly. And, you know, it's just like anything else. You're put in that situation and you just gotta dig deep and you gotta figure it out and you gotta drive on. And that's, and again, this was back in late 50s. And I guess it was a little bit more of an austere life back then and people just were able to stand up to challenges like that.

• 17:40Jocko Willink?

  How big was your house?

• 17:42Speaker 01

  The house I grew up in...

• 17:46Speaker 01

  The best I could recall, my mother passed away, they were living in a single family dwelling. And then, again, I just know this as I was getting old enough to remember things. We were actually living in a house with my grandmother.

• 18:00Jocko Willink?

  Got it.

• 18:01Speaker 01

  So my grandmother was in one room, my aunt and uncle were upstairs. They kind of had the second floor of the house and then everybody else was spread out in bedrooms. I mean, I remember my brother Jimmy sleeping with my father in bed. I mean, they just slept together, that's how it was. I remember sleeping in bed with two other brothers. I mean, that's just the way it was back then.

• 18:22Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, if you couldn't come up with a good answer for how big your house was, I was gonna say, alright, how many kids slept in your bed with you? Because I know I wasn't alone. You're not in a seven family, seven kid family with no mom and not having to have, share some bed space.

• 18:35Speaker 01

  Exactly, that's the way it was.

• 18:38Jocko Willink?

  And then going to school and everything, I mean, what was, what was, what kind of school did you go to?

• 18:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, I went to a public school when I was in first grade and then I, I'm a Catholic. So I was put into a Catholic school for second grade so I could receive First Holy Communion without having to go through extra classes like I would have if I was in public school. And then I went back to public school again in third grade and continued my education in public school.

• 19:06Jocko Willink?

  Your dad's an efficiency expert.

• 19:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, I guess he is.

• 19:10Jocko Willink?

  And what were your interests in school?

• 19:14Speaker 01

  Well, as I, as I got older, my main interest was football. I just really loved playing football, I loved everything about it. I wasn't that great of an athlete. I ended up starting when I was a senior, finally when I was a senior, I got, I got to start on the football team and I was an offensive guard at 165 pounds.

• 19:36Jocko Willink?

  How big, how big was your school, was it a big school? Is this, did you go to high school in Scranton?

• 19:40Speaker 01

  Uh, in, outside of Scranton and it was a merged school district, Taylor and Musick, Pennsylvania merged together, name of the school is Riverside. I think we graduated around 100 kids.

• 19:52Jocko Willink?

  How big were the games? How many people showed up?

• 19:55Speaker 01

  Oh, I mean, the stadium was packed. And, and, you know, northeastern Pennsylvania, football is king. Even today, there's very little soccer and a lot of football, although soccer is getting bigger. And, you know, our school had, I think, three sports. I mean, they have, they have football, basketball, baseball, and I think there was golf. They didn't even have track and field when I went to school there. In my senior year, we had intramural track and field, but, you know, never competing against other schools. Now they finally do. But no swim team. There weren't that many opportunities for sports in the school that, that I graduated from at that time.

• 20:32Jocko Willink?

  What, anything else you were interested in? Did you have to work?

• 20:36Speaker 01

  Oh, my God. Yeah. I mean, you know, it was kind of like a family farm where, you know, I mean, all my brothers and sisters and I all worked in the garage. And I remember even when I was a young kid in grade school, I would be in the garage sweeping floors. I would be studying tires. You know, at that time, you put stud and snow, studs and snow tires. Then when I was 16, I began driving the tow truck. And that, that was pretty cool, you know, to go out tow cars. Although in the winter, man, you know, winter in northeastern Pennsylvania, every winter, we would get about, you know, maybe three or four weeks where it was like, you know, much below freezing. So you had to be out there towing cars, jumping cars, you know, with cables and,

• 21:20Speaker 01

  and all this, you know, changing flat tires in the freezing snow. It was pretty hard work. But so I, I guess I got used to using my hands and, and doing hard work at an early age.

• 21:31Jocko Willink?

  At what point did you start viewing the military as an option?

• 21:35Speaker 01

  Well, you know, my dad always, uh, really, he was very proud of, of the fact that he had an opportunity to serve. And he always encouraged me to serve. And when I graduated from high school, I went to a, a college in the local area, University of Scranton, and they had an ROTC program there. My dad wanted me to join the ROTC, but believe it or not, even though I read a lot of books about, uh, World War II, and I was very patriotic. I was brought up that way. For some reason, I just didn't want to have anything to do with the ROTC. And so the first two years go by, no, no ROTC, even though my dad was encouraging me to, to join.

• 22:15Speaker 01

  And when I was a sophomore, I get this letter in the mail from the ROTC program saying, "Hey, this summer between your sophomore and junior year, you go to this basic camp at Fort Knox and decide, you know, if you like the Army, and if you do, then you can sign a contract and join the ROTC." So I go to Fort Knox, Kentucky, between my sophomore and junior year because really, I just kinda wanted to do something different, you know? I guess I was tired of working in the family business. So I forget how many weeks it was, it might have been six weeks or eight weeks, and man, I just loved it. I mean, there was a lot of camaraderie even there. I mean, the drill sergeants, I still remember my drill sergeant's name there, Sergeant Ogden.

• 22:59Speaker 01

  He was a short, wiry guy, Vietnam vet, and, you know, profanity was all in. I mean, you know, the Jody calls, they could sing whatever they put out there, we sang, and it was pretty profane, and I just loved it. I just loved the physical part of it, I loved, you know, being on the rifle range, you know, the tactical part of it. So I was all in. You know, when I left Fort Knox, Kentucky, I signed the ROTC contract, and, you know, I was just so thrilled to be part of that.

• 23:34Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, so then you finished college, and so what year is it that...

• 23:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, I graduated from high school in 74, graduated from college in 78, and then I went on active duty. But the thing is, a lot of people don't know this, and I don't admit it to a lot of people, but it's kind of an interesting story. I was commissioned as a medical-

• 23:56Jocko Willink?

  Just so you know, you're about to admit this to about 2 million people.

• 23:59Speaker 01

  I know that, but, you know, I'm still proud of my service, but I was a Medical Service Corps officer. And the reason I was a Medical Service Corps officer is the eyesight in my left eye is, right now, it's about 2,600. At that time, it was 2,400, non-correctable. I had a lazy eye when I was a kid, it was never corrected. And once you go so long with that, there's no way to correct that eyesight. So because my eyesight and my left eye was so poor, I couldn't become an infantryman like I wanted to because most of my buddies were going infantry or armor, field artillery, combat arms. I was in the commandos at the University of Scranton, which kind of was really, was kind of a Ranger oriented group.

• 24:42Jocko Willink?

  Proud heritage at the University of Scranton, commandos.

• 24:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 24:46Jocko Willink?

  What does a medical service officer do?

• 24:50Speaker 01

  Uh, you're an administrative officer. So at Fort Benning, Georgia, where I was first assigned, I commanded a medical platoon in an armor, in an armor battalion. So I, you know, I wasn't a doctor or anything like that. Uh, but I was kind of like the administrative officer who would lead the medics, you know, provide them the leadership that they needed. And there's usually a physician's assistant assigned to your platoon as well. Uh, but that's what a medical service officer essentially does. They could be a platoon leader in an ambulance platoon, uh, you know, as a lieutenant or a platoon leader in a medical platoon, supporting an infantry battalion or armor battalion. That's what a medical service corps

• 25:33Speaker 01

  officer does. So I did that for four years. And then, uh, you know, I was assigned to Fort Benning, then I went up to Fort Lewis, Washington. And after four years, I left active duty mainly because, um, you know, as a medical service corps officer, to be quite honest with you, it was just something that didn't really interest me that much. And I figured, okay, I did my four years. Now I'm going to get out. And then I had a decision to make whether to stay in Tacoma, Washington and make a life for myself there or move back to northeastern Pennsylvania. What we ended up doing was moving back to northeastern Pennsylvania.

• 26:06Jocko Willink?

  Hey, I gotta, I gotta pick up the book here for a second to read through that kind of decision-making process. Cause, well, I'll just go to the book. You say here, after serving at Fort Lewis for about two years, I left active duty in the army in the fall of 1982. We stayed at Tacoma, Washington, where I worked as an alcoholism counselor and Birdie worked, that's your wife, Birdie, worked as a nurse. We enjoyed living in the Northwest, but we decided to move to Musick for a variety of reasons. First, my dad was getting older. I wanted to spend time with him. I also wanted to raise my family near my brothers, sisters and friends back in Pennsylvania.

• 26:47Jocko Willink?

  And then you say, "At the humble kitchen table, my plans are hatched and life, important life decisions are made. Homes are mortgaged, insurance policies are purchased, and weddings are planned." "The kitchen table is remarkable. In the winter of 1982, 83, it was at our kitchen table where two important decisions were made. The first decision was to leave Tacoma, Washington, in the great northwest and relocate to my hometown of Musick, Pennsylvania. The second decision was a bit more adventurous. We decided to make the trip by bicycle. The trip would be self-supported, meaning we would carry our belongings on our bicycles in packs known as paniers. Am I saying that right?

• 27:27Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 27:28Jocko Willink?

  Known as paniers. We would keep these belongings sparse to save weight, only one spoon each, no forks, a small pot to cook in, and only one bowl. The pot would serve as the other bowl. I drilled holes into the handles of our toothbrushes. Ounces mattered. We would carry our home with us, a two-person backpacking tent and two sleeping bags that could zip together. Our most precious cargo would be our baby, who at the time of our decision was only about nine months old. There was nothing we could do about controlling the weight of this growing boy. We would adjust elsewhere."

• 28:03Jocko Willink?

  So, so you make this decision to, uh, that you're gonna bike across the country. Did you, had you done any long-distance biking before this?

• 28:13Speaker 01

  Uh, the farthest I went before that would be a hundred miles, you know, in a ride of century.

• 28:18Jocko Willink?

  Did, did Birdie go with you?

• 28:20Speaker 01

  Not, not on a ride of that duration, no.

• 28:22Jocko Willink?

  So, so you kinda did a little maneuver to get her to say yes to this?

• 28:27Speaker 01

  Well, actually, you know, my wife is from Austria. Uh, I met her when I was at Fort Benning. She had spent her, uh, most of her life in Austria until she was in her early twenties, and then I met her when I was stationed at Fort Benning. She was staying with her aunt and uncle in Columbus, Georgia. So, we had only been married a little less than three years when we made this bicycle trip. And being that she was Austrian and didn't probably understand the vastness of our country, she, she agreed to it.

• 28:56Jocko Willink?

  She thought it was a four day trip, not a three month trip?

• 28:58Speaker 01

  Right, something like that.

• 29:00Jocko Willink?

  Uh, and, and really this book is, is a, is a great kind of recollection. Did you take notes during this?

• 29:07Speaker 01

  Actually, I kept the journal during the trip.

• 29:09Jocko Willink?

  I was gonna say, cause you've got some really good details in there that, that bring a lot of life to the story. And I was thinking to myself, there's no, if you have a memory like this, then you're the smartest man that's ever lived.

• 29:19Speaker 01

  Not my memory, it was the journal.

• 29:21Jocko Willink?

  So you got a bunch of great stories and, and really, you know, the, the, uh, the subtitle of the book is lessons on life, leadership and love. And you've got, you tell the story and you also work in a bunch of, you know, lessons that you're learning along the way. You've got some stories in here that are funny. Some of them are not so funny. You've got this situation here. You're, and in fact, obviously I'm fast forwarding through the book. I'm skipping around, but at this point you had, you had, you had talked to a farmer to see if you could stay the night in his field, which was, which the other weird thing about this book, in modern day, in the year 2020, a lot of the things that you're doing in this book might not be quite as acceptable in modern times,

• 30:03Jocko Willink?

  because you're going to random people and saying, can we stay in your yard? Can we stay in the back of your house or whatever? So this is one of those situations. You see a farmer, hey, can we set up in your field? And, and, and the cool thing was, and you point this out a lot, is people, a lot of people were, hey, yeah, no problem, you know? Come on in. You know, we'll, we'll make, we're making dinner. You want some hot dogs, whatever. So that, that was neat. But at this time, you, you had set up in this field, it, it, nice, nice open field. There's dry grass everywhere, tall, dry grass, and you sleep the night, get some good sleep. You wake up in the morning and here we're going to the book. My, the morning sun brought the promise of another good day of cycling. The camp stove proved more than cooperative for cooking oatmeal and boiling water for hot coffee than it did for preparing dinner the night before.

• 30:47Jocko Willink?

  I looked to the beginning of a great day until I got clumsy, just as our pot, pot of water reached a boil for our second cup of coffee, my left foot kicked over the camp stove. This sun drenched carefree morning immediately turned chaotic. White gas began to run out of the toppled stove. The flame from the burner wasting no time setting the dry grass ablaze. The wind howled from the west and fanned the flames, expanding the fire. The flame shot up to about eight feet in the air and singed my eyebrows. Everything seemed to move in slow motion. I had the sense that my life flashed before my eyes. Then we flung into action. Birdie righted the stove and I put my firefighting skills to the test. My only chance was to create a fire break by stamping down the tall grass. And that's exactly what I did.

• 31:33Jocko Willink?

  It worked. The fire fizzled out after burning only a few square yards of the field. It was a frantic way to begin our morning. There was no fire or smoke damage to our tent, sleeping bags, bicycles, or to Steven's trailer. That's your, now I think when you left he was 18 months.

• 31:48Speaker 01

  15 months old when we started the trip, yeah.

• 31:52Jocko Willink?

  Steven did not recognize the seriousness of the situation. We had a hard time getting him to stop laughing at our antics.

• 32:00Jocko Willink?

  So this is the kind of, this is the kind of things that you talk about in this book.

• 32:05Jocko Willink?

  Some of the lessons that you learn, you know, another section here.

• 32:10Jocko Willink?

  You're just talking about what, what you're learning. It says, "Throughout our cross-country bike journey, we were faced with countless decisions about which way to go and which path to take. What I learned was that the path we decided upon was always the right one. It was not so much about which path we chose, but how we chose to negotiate it. It was all about attitude." So those are, those are some of the lessons that you, you learned on this trip. And the books, the books really just kind of filled with a bunch of, you know, funny stories, good stories, lessons learned.

• 32:49Jocko Willink?

  And people definitely get this book so that you can kind of, kind of get that background. But eventually you, you make it across country. You make it back to Musick, PA.

• 33:04Jocko Willink?

  And there's all these things that happen along the way and you you kind of become a a minor celebrity, a minor celebrity in the biking world for sure. Maybe in the country, but in Musick PA, it's like you're a town hero.

• 33:17Speaker 01

  Right.

• 33:18Jocko Willink?

  Or and maybe it's Steven, your son is the ultimate town hero because he's the poor kid that had to, you know, survive with his crazy parents who biked across the states with him in a in a trailer.

• 33:30Speaker 01

  Well, I think the real hero is my wife, Bertie.

• 33:32Jocko Willink?

  Indeed, indeed.

• 33:34Speaker 01

  For her to make, first of all, like you said, agree to make the trip and then actually make the trip, never once whine, never once said, hey, why don't we, you know, pack it in and take a Greyhound bus home? I mean, she, I think she's the unsung hero for sure.

• 33:48Jocko Willink?

  What did you guys average a day?

• 33:50Speaker 01

  You know, um, 60 miles, 70 miles, 80 miles, you know, it all depended. We'd, we'd get up in the morning, you know, talk about setting goals and intermediate goals. Our ultimate goal was northeastern Pennsylvania, but we'd, we'd get up in the morning and look at a map, decide what town we wanted to make it to that day, based on terrain and and other factors. And then we would set off for it and usually it was between 60 to 80 miles.

• 34:17Jocko Willink?

  So when you get back now, you're out of the army and you know, you're going into, what, what's the business now morphed into?

• 34:25Speaker 01

  Well, the, the business was, was very big. Uh, there were probably about, I'd say about 40 employees working there at the time. And, and again, it was everything that you had already mentioned, you know, garage, used, used cars, uh, towing service, uh, very large boat sales and service business and, and a bicycle shop.

• 34:47Speaker 01

  All of that, you know, could you believe all that stuff? And it took up about a block in, in the town of Musick.

• 34:52Jocko Willink?

  Where are they using boats?

• 34:54Speaker 01

  Uh, oh, there's, there's plenty of lakes, a bunch of lakes in, in Pennsylvania. Uh, fishing is very popular there and water skiing is as well.

• 35:02Jocko Willink?

  So you, but you stay in the reserves?

• 35:05Speaker 01

  Uh, no, actually, well, I did, but when I get back to Pennsylvania, I, I didn't even know what the, I ended up joining the National Guard, but when I got there, I had no. No plan to continue my military.

• 35:17Jocko Willink?

  Okay, so I got that wrong. You didn't stay in the reserves. You had actually left active duty completely.

• 35:22Speaker 01

  Well, when I left active duty in Washington, I got in a reserve unit up there. And, and then I moved back to Pennsylvania with no plan to continue my military service. But somebody said to me, uh, after about nine months being back, they said, hey, why don't you go down to the Armory in Scranton and talk to the guys down there about joining the National Guard. I had no idea what the National Guard was.

• 35:44Jocko Willink?

  So, explain the difference between the reserves and the National Guard. I think everyone knows what active duty is. Active duty is what you think of when you think of the military. You're in the military. You're in the Army. You're in the Navy. You're in the Air Force. You're in the Marine Corps. You're in the Coast Guard. You're in one of those. That's what you do every day. That's the deal. Reserves and National Guard. Explain those a little bit.

• 36:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, Army Reserve is you have, uh, a federal mission. I mean, your main mission would be to get deployed to conduct operations overseas. In the National Guard, you have that same federal mission, but then you also have a state mission. So the National Guard generally during peacetime or steady state is under the, the command and control of the governor of the state. So that's the main difference. The reserves are not under the command and control of the governor. In the National Guard, the National Guard units are.

• 36:33Jocko Willink?

  And it's usually the National Guard that gets called up when a hurricane hits, when there's bad weather, when something like that happens, even some kind of civil unrest.

• 36:41Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 36:42Jocko Willink?

  It's generally the National Guard because they are controlled by the state's governors.

• 36:46Speaker 01

  That's exactly right. The governor does not have any authority to call up reserve units, but they do have authority to call up the National Guard units. Although there's some talk about changing that, and I'm not sure where we are with that, with that right now with the laws, but generally the National Guard is under the command and control of the governor.

• 37:03Jocko Willink?

  And so, so that life is similar to the reserves, I assume. And I remember this since I was a little kid. I would hear on the news, or I'd hear the advertisement, they'd say, uh, one weekend a month, two weeks in the summer.

• 37:16Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 37:16Jocko Willink?

  Is that similar?

• 37:17Speaker 01

  That, that was, and it was, it was that way for the most part up until nine 11. And then after nine 11, everything changed with the National Guard.

• 37:26Jocko Willink?

  How about the first Gulf War? Any impact on the first Gulf War?

• 37:30Speaker 01

  Not a lot. Not a lot. Uh, primarily because, um,

• 37:36Speaker 01

  It was, it was, a lot of reserves were called up. I don't know if any National Guard units were called up for the Gulf War. There may have been. If there was, there wasn't a lot. Uh, probably primarily logistical units in the guard if they were called up at all. And, uh, again, it was obviously very quick. I mean, you know, um, a hundred hours, you know? You know, the buildup certainly was longer, but you know, a hundred hour war there. So it wasn't very long.

• 38:01Jocko Willink?

  And so you're, you're doing your one weekend a month? And you're doing two weeks in the summertime and other than that, you're living your life. You're building the business.

• 38:12Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 38:13Jocko Willink?

  You're selling boats and bicycles and cars and towing stuff.

• 38:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:17Jocko Willink?

  And you're raising your kids. How many kids?

• 38:20Speaker 01

  Uh, well, I, my second son Timothy was born, uh, in 1984. So yeah, I had Steven and Timothy. And that's, that's, uh, the two children that we have.

• 38:32Jocko Willink?

  And this whole time, you're getting advanced in rank, right? And this is something that we would always, hmm, what's a nice way of putting this? So in the SEAL teams, there's reserve SEALs. And the, but there's not many of them. There's more now. Okay. Let me, let me rephrase this. When I was younger in the SEAL teams, there was not a lot of reserve SEALs. No one really even knew about it. And most guys just frankly stayed in the SEAL teams. And if they got out, they got out. They were done.

• 39:03Speaker 01

  Right.

• 39:04Jocko Willink?

  You know, they got out. And so there wasn't a lot of reserves. So guys that were in the reserves would make rank really fa- like way faster than a normal SEAL. At least it seemed that way.

• 39:15Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 39:15Jocko Willink?

  And at least we held that grudge against them. So if someone showed up for their weekend drill and they were a high ranking guy, oh, you're a reservist. You don't know what you're talking about. But that's what's happening while you're in the reserves, you're, or, or the National Guard, even though you're only working one weekend a month, you're still advancing in rank.

• 39:33Speaker 01

  You, you are, but, uh, it's different. The National Guard rank is much slower.

• 39:38Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 39:39Speaker 01

  Much slower. Uh. Just the way it is. I, I never knew it was that way in the reserve seals that they made rank quicker.

• 39:46Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and I don't know if it's like that anymore, and I don't even know if it's just the way that I was raised by,

• 39:52Speaker 01

  Right.

• 39:53Jocko Willink?

  by the guys that would look at the reservists and say, "That guy owns the only made rank because he's in the reserves. Otherwise, he's too much of an idiot."

• 40:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:01Jocko Willink?

  You know, it might have just been some prejudice against the reserves that was instilled in me by, by the active duty guys.

• 40:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:08Jocko Willink?

  But, um, but yeah, I guess my point is for people that don't, uh, that don't understand the National Guard reserves is that you're still advancing in your career.

• 40:17Speaker 01

  Oh, you, you are, yeah. And, and you know, you have your civilian responsibility, but you also have your military responsibility. So all of the things that go along with maintaining military standards still exist, even though you're drilling, you know, in theory, one weekend a month and, and two week annual training at some other time of the year, usually in, in, in the summer, but you've, in terms of physical fitness standards, you've got to maintain those physical fitness standards on your own. Uh, because you know, you, you have US Army on, on your uniform. And, uh, that was very important. One thing I did want to back up on a little bit though, Jaco, is, is, uh, you know, when I came back, when I, I did make that decision to join the National Guard

• 40:59Speaker 01

  because the guys there seemed like people I wanted to work with. And remember, I was a medical service corps officer when I left active duty. I got branch transferred to become an infantry officer when I joined the National Guard. And this was about 1984, 85 timeframe. And really I became an infantry infantry officer without having to go through any additional training. It was essentially at that time, and I don't know if it had happened today or not. But again, we're talking about 40 years ago, almost. Uh, you know, it was basically some paperwork that was adjusted to, uh, branch qualifying me as an infantry officer. And then I took command of an infantry company.

• 41:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, in, in West Pittston, Pennsylvania. And I commanded that company for about four years and just due to a lot of good teammates there and good soldiers there, the company really performed very well, so well, uh, that, uh, we were given the honor to go to the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, California as an opposing force company.

• 42:08Jocko Willink?

  Op four.

• 42:08Speaker 01

  Op four company, which was a big deal for us. I mean, that, the guys were psyched.

• 42:13Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 42:14Speaker 01

  Back then, I think this happened in eighty-six or so, if memory serves me correctly, that was a big deal for us.

• 42:22Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and that's, that's actually an awesome thing. So, op four, just to explain, people that are civilians, opposing force, that means you're going to be the role players that are going to be pretending to be the bad guys. And I, my SEALs, when I was the training commander out on the west coast, I had a pack of guys and that's what they did. They, they not only taught, but then they were op four as well. And the thing that, the thing that is very important about it, there's multiple things that are very important about it. Number one, the SEALs that we put through training were never going to face a tougher enemy than the other SEALs that were playing op four. Never. There would never be, there's never going to be a tougher enemy, ever. And number two, when you're on op four, you learn how to think

• 43:05Jocko Willink?

  like the bad guys. You learn what it looks like. You learn how to set things up. And so then you can counter those tactics. So it's a, it's a very important, it's a very important learning process. So for you guys, and you probably went out there for a pretty big chunk of time.

• 43:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, we were out there, I think it was, um, at least three weeks. You know, a normal annual training is, is two weeks, but we were out there for an extended, extended period of time.

• 43:30Jocko Willink?

  Did they send you to any schools or anything when you became an infantry officer?

• 43:33Speaker 01

  Me?

• 43:34Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 43:34Speaker 01

  Well, that, that's the, the next story is when I left command of that company after about four years. I just knew I had to do something to gain more credibility. And so I sought out and thankfully I was able to go to the Infantry Officer Advanced Course, the resident course at Fort Benning for six months, which was great. And then I, while I was there, I fought to get into Ranger School. And so I started Ranger School the day my class graduated the Infantry Officer Advanced Course. So I didn't go to the graduation. We call it IOAC at that time, Infantry Officer Advanced Course.

• 44:13Speaker 01

  So the day my class graduated was my first day setting foot in the Ranger School at Harmony Church. And it was just something I had wanted to do for a very long time because a lot of my classmates back at the University of Scranton went to Ranger School. Just something I really had my heart set on, just like you wanted to, you know, go through to SEAL training. And it was a very defining period in my life to go through Ranger School.

• 44:39Jocko Willink?

  How old were you when you went through Ranger School?

• 44:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, I started when I was 33 and had my birthday there. So I graduated when I was 34 years old. So I was one of the older guys graduating from Ranger School.

• 44:50Jocko Willink?

  That's, that's old.

• 44:53Speaker 01

  For Ranger School, that's, that's all. Now, there's been older guys graduating.

• 44:56Jocko Willink?

  Really?

• 44:57Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. I think there's, I heard stories about a Sergeant Major who graduated when he was 45 years old.

• 45:03Jocko Willink?

  I salute that guy wholeheartedly.

• 45:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. But I'll tell you, it was, it was an ass kicker for me, you know? And, and, but I was, you know, just didn't want to quit and just kept with it. And thank God, I made it through.

• 45:16Jocko Willink?

  So were you a captain at that point?

• 45:18Speaker 01

  I was a captain, yeah. Because I was a captain when I left active duty.

• 45:21Jocko Willink?

  And so you're still a captain? You were still a captain?

• 45:24Speaker 01

  I was still a captain.

• 45:25Jocko Willink?

  Captain for a long, were you, like, this is what you were talking about, the reserves thing?

• 45:29Speaker 01

  Exactly, exactly.

• 45:31Jocko Willink?

  So you're a captain, so, but you go to Ranger School, you go to the Infantry Officers Course, so now you're starting to feel like?

• 45:38Speaker 01

  Like an infantryman. You know, like, like I've got, like I've got the requisite training that, that is necessary for one to perform their job the way you should perform your job.

• 45:48Jocko Willink?

  And obviously, it was your was your dad still running the business?

• 45:53Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 45:54Jocko Willink?

  Yep. And so he took he he was okay with you being gone for?

• 45:58Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 45:59Jocko Willink?

  Ten months?

• 45:59Speaker 01

  Yes, yes. And that's about how long I was gone. It was about.

• 46:02Jocko Willink?

  Did he? Did he? Did he ride you about it? Or was he stoked on it?

• 46:06Speaker 01

  Oh, he was stoked on it. Very proud. Yeah.

• 46:09Jocko Willink?

  Because I could also see a little bit of, you go play army, I'll be back here working.

• 46:13Speaker 01

  No, no, he was. He was very proud. It wasn't that kind of attitude at all.

• 46:17Jocko Willink?

  And yeah, that's. Yeah, you said he was in the in the Army Air Corps.

• 46:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:22Jocko Willink?

  What? So what year did you graduate from Ranger School?

• 46:24Speaker 01

  Nineteen ninety one. So I went. I went to the advanced course, the infantry officer advanced course. I started in August of nineteen ninety, and we graduated in February. I think it was February second, and that's the day I started Ranger School, February second, nineteen ninety one.

• 46:46Jocko Willink?

  So that's the Gulf War happened while you were at the infantry course?

• 46:52Speaker 01

  Right.

• 46:53Jocko Willink?

  What were you thinking about that? Was it just kind of?

• 46:56Speaker 01

  No, no, I mean, very interested, obviously, in everything that was going on. Uh, but, you know, didn't, you know, didn't have to play a role in that.

• 47:06Jocko Willink?

  Did that drive you crazy?

• 47:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. I mean, absolutely. And, you know, when you're in the army, you want to do your job. That's what we trained for. So, yeah, absolutely, it did.

• 47:18Jocko Willink?

  Uh, the Gulf War goes over really quick. Do you remember? So I remember. So I was I graduated boot camp. I went to boot camp in September, September thirteenth nineteen ninety.

• 47:28Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 47:29Jocko Willink?

  So the war kicked off after that. But I remember I'm watching CNN with a bunch of other Navy guys. And the report CNN was saying there's going to be forty thousand casualties in the first forty eight hours.

• 47:41Speaker 01

  Right. I remember that.

• 47:43Jocko Willink?

  And I remember thinking, oh, I'm gonna, I'm gonna get mine. Because, you know, I was, I mean, you might have thought you wanted to go to war when you were thirty three years old. I was nineteen and I was, you know, completely was was was hoping to go to war. And, yeah, so I remember watching that thinking, oh, I'm definitely going to get a chance. Because if there's forty thousand casualties, that means this thing is going to last a while, and that means I'll be able to go.

• 48:08Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 48:10Jocko Willink?

  Which I know, I know people, um.

• 48:14Jocko Willink?

  I know it's hard to understand that concept of wanting to go to war, but hey, you're young, you're dumb, and that's what you want to do. Like you said, you trained for it, that's what you want to do.

• 48:24Speaker 01

  And the thing is, Jaco, you know, your buddies are going, and you feel like, man, you know, my buddies are going, I want to be there with them. I think there's a lot, a lot of that. And, you know, and when I say buddies, I'm using that in a very loose term, but I mean, my fellow, you know, sailors are going, my fellow soldiers are going, fellow Marines are going, so I want to be a part of it. You know, I think it's that type of attitude.

• 48:50Jocko Willink?

  So that, that war, like you said, is over a hundred hours, and now you're back to work. You're, you're, you're back hawking bicycles.

• 48:58Speaker 01

  Right.

• 49:00Jocko Willink?

  I mean, you got the experience. You must have been a hell of a salesman and selling bicycles.

• 49:04Speaker 01

  We had a pretty successful shop for a time there, yes.

• 49:09Jocko Willink?

  Time goes by, you're still getting advanced in rank, eventually you make major. Where are you on September 11th?

• 49:20Speaker 01

  On September 11th, I am a Colonel who had just successfully commanded a brigade for over three years, 55th Brigade, which is a Pennsylvania National Guard Brigade. And in the summer, I, I left command in the summer of, I'm trying to remember here.

• 49:42Speaker 01

  No, I, different. I spent a year in Lithuania in the year 2000. So I come back from Lithuania in January.

• 49:52Jocko Willink?

  And was that on National Guard duty?

• 49:54Speaker 01

  Yes, yeah, on National Guard duty. I was, spent a year in Lithuania because Lithuania is a state partner of the Pennsylvania National Guard, and I could get into that in a little bit. But to answer your question, I get back from Lithuania in January 2001, and then I take command of 55th Brigade in July of 2001. So I was actually in command of 55th Brigade at the time.

• 50:19Jocko Willink?

  Got it.

• 50:20Speaker 01

  And what happened is I took 2,000 soldiers from the 55th Brigade over to Europe.

• 50:27Speaker 01

  In 2002, to do a force protection mission there at the army bases in four different countries in Europe, Germany, Italy, Netherlands and Belgium, while the active duty troops were getting prepared to

• 50:42Jocko Willink?

  Deploy.

• 50:43Speaker 01

  Deploy either to Afghanistan or, as happened, to Iraq. So I took 2,000 soldiers over to Europe. I said, summer 2002, we spent a little over six months over there doing force pro. For me, that was an honor. I mean, I never thought I would have a chance to serve overseas, to command soldiers overseas. So, to me, that was a great honor. And did our mission as well as we could do it, and the soldiers performed very well over there. And came back from that mission, and then after about a little over three years, almost

• 51:27Speaker 01

  four years, I left command of the 55th Brigade.

• 51:29Jocko Willink?

  So that mission, the Lithuania trip, that was one year?

• 51:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 51:34Jocko Willink?

  What was that job?

• 51:34Speaker 01

  Okay, that job is, and let me explain the state partnership program, real quick. Right after the fall of the Soviet Union, the US European Commander, which is a four-star general, he has the Combat Command, UCOM they call it, is the abbreviation. He wanted to develop an engagement strategy with former Soviet republics, or Warsaw Pact countries, to just create better relations with these countries as they were leaving the Soviet Union sphere of influence. And so, he talked to the Director of the Army National Guard, or the Chief of the National Guard, about getting National Guard states partnered with some of these countries.

• 52:19Speaker 01

  And so, I don't know how the decision was made, but Pennsylvania was partnered with Lithuania. And as part of that partnership, as Lithuania was trying to learn, how does the United States military operate? Because they wanted to pattern themselves after us. We had various Colonels from the Pennsylvania National Guard go over to Lithuania.

• 52:43Jocko Willink?

  Got it.

• 52:43Speaker 01

  Spend anywhere from a year to three years over there. So, in 2000, I was tapped to go over there, and it was just a Something I was really excited about because again, this is prior to nine eleven. I thought, man, I'm going to get a chance to serve as a Colonel overseas. I mean, this is great. Who, because who could have predicted nine eleven? I mean, I couldn't, I couldn't predict nine eleven at that point. So I thought that was going to be my only shot to serve, serve overseas as a commissioned officer. So I was very excited about it.

• 53:13Jocko Willink?

  Did you get to take your wife on that?

• 53:15Speaker 01

  No, it was unaccompanied.

• 53:16Jocko Willink?

  Unaccompanied.

• 53:17Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. But my wife, you see that, that is just how my wife, Birdie, is. When I call her an unsung hero, she really is. I mean, she's supported me through everything. We've been married, we're going to be married forty years this September. So if she didn't leave me after that bicycle trip, you know, I guess I thought, okay, she's never going to leave, but.

• 53:36Jocko Willink?

  Put her to the test early.

• 53:37Speaker 01

  Yeah. And again, I come home one day and say, hey, Birdie, you know, um, one of the generals from the Pennsylvania National Guard wants me to go over to Lithuania for a year. How do you feel about that? She said, John, you do whatever you think you need to do. I mean, that's, that's her whole attitude.

• 53:53Jocko Willink?

  So you did that mission, then you come home and then September eleventh happens and now you deploy again as a, as a, as a brigade commander.

• 54:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, with two thousand soldiers over there in, in, in Europe. And the thing I'm, I'm most proud of is, um, the fact that if we had discipline, disciplinary problems, we, we handled it, you know, very quickly. Our soldiers performed well, uh, didn't embarrass anybody, did their job very professionally as they were conducting force pro at these, at these bases. Because again, after nine eleven, you know, uh, you didn't know what was going to happen with terrorist attacks, uh, at our, at our armed installations over there. So very proud of the way the soldiers performed. Uh, we had, I had three battalions tasked organized to my two thousand soldier brigade.

• 54:44Speaker 01

  And leadership at all levels functioned very well, right down to the soldier level and they, they performed well. One quick story, I had an, I had a former Navy SEAL.

• 54:54Jocko Willink?

  I'm sorry.

• 54:56Speaker 01

  I guess he was a Navy SEAL.

• 54:58Jocko Willink?

  I'm sure he caused problems.

• 55:00Speaker 01

  He really didn't. Now, this guy leaves the SEALs. He gets a job working for this pharmaceutical company because he had some type of degree that he got when he when he left the SEALs. He was making $250,000 a year with his pharmaceutical company. Navy SEAL. Now he's a staff sergeant in my brigade, working for peanuts, whatever a staff sergeant makes. So he leaves a $250,000 a year job to perform over there as a staff sergeant. I mean, just stories like that with guardsmen happen all the time where they they leave these very, very lucrative positions to get, you know, pay as a specialist,

• 55:40Speaker 01

  which is an E4, you know, I mean, it's incredible, the sacrifice these great Americans make.

• 55:47Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's that's true service right there.

• 55:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:51Jocko Willink?

  So you come home from that deployment and now it's 2002?

• 55:54Speaker 01

  Uh, we got, yeah, we, we, yeah, we got there in the summer of 2000, no, it was 2003. So we got there in the late summer of 2002 and we get back home after the first of the year 2003.

• 56:12Jocko Willink?

  And at this point, one of your sons is in the reserves or is in the National Guard?

• 56:18Speaker 01

  My son Timothy was in the National Guard.

• 56:23Jocko Willink?

  Okay. And so you're seeing September 11th unfold.

• 56:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:28Jocko Willink?

  At what point are you thinking that the call might come to deploy to Iraq or Afghanistan?

• 56:35Speaker 01

  For myself?

• 56:36Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, just, yeah, for yourself.

• 56:37Speaker 01

  Well, um, our second brigade, um, got notice that they were going to be deploying over to Iraq. And I think they got the notice, um, they actually got mobilized in January 2005. So they got the notice about six months prior to that. So.

• 56:58Jocko Willink?

  And were you the brigade commander yet or no?

• 57:00Speaker 01

  No, no, I was not. I, I had left 55th Brigade after commanding there for three years, a little over three years. And I was selected to become a general officer. So I was actually at our state headquarters in an O7 position, waiting to get promoted. When I heard that second brigade was going to be going over to Iraq. Now, Jaco, this is the weird thing. When I heard second brigade was going to get mobilized and go over to Iraq, something told me I was going to go with them. And I don't know what it was, I just believed I was going to go over there with that brigade. And, uh, and the way it happened is when they actually got mobilized and they, we went,

• 57:44Speaker 01

  that brigade went to Camp Shelby for about five months to train at Camp Shelby, Mississippi. And, um, this was January, um, January 2005. I get a call on a Friday from the division commander, the 28th Infantry Division that said, hey, the current brigade commander went through the readiness processing there at Camp Shelby. It was like the first or second day on the ground there. And there was a medical issue, no fault of his own, very honorable man who wanted to go with this brigade, but had a medical issue that was going to prevent him from going over. And so he was going to go through the SRP testing again on Sunday, just to make sure

• 58:26Speaker 01

  he couldn't go. And so, um, Sunday comes, he gets disqualified. And so my division commander called me back on Sunday and said, hey, John, he didn't make it through, could you be there on Wednesday? And so it's like, absolutely.

• 58:43Jocko Willink?

  Was the division commander a friend of yours?

• 58:47Speaker 01

  No, I mean, we had a professional relationship. I won't say he was a friend.

• 58:51Jocko Willink?

  Did you, had you told him that you were ready to rock and roll as a second?

• 58:54Speaker 01

  I actually told him, uh, months prior to that, that hey, if anything, and I don't even know what I was thinking, but I said, if anything happens where you need me to go with this brigade, I just want you to keep me in mind. Uh, and he, and he did. And I was thankful for that, just because it was an honor to be able to go over there and do that, that job.

• 59:16Jocko Willink?

  Did they put your, uh, your general selection on hold?

• 59:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was basically put on hold. I'll, I'll tell you the truth, and I'm not saying, I mean, honestly, if I had a choice, and I, I truly meant this, because I knew there was a chance I might not get promoted, you know, because I was taking on this mission, because just the way it is, you know? But if I had to choose between the two, serving in, in combat with, with those soldiers and Marines who are getting promoted to general, serving in combat would be the thing.

• 59:46Jocko Willink?

  And luckily, you found this out as soon as the workup kind of started, as soon as the training started.

• 59:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:52Jocko Willink?

  You went down there on, so you missed two days, right?

• 59:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:56Jocko Willink?

  You missed nothing.

• 59:56Speaker 01

  Exactly. I mean, I'm, I was down there, yeah, within the first five, six days of their training startup. And kind of an interesting story I want to tell you that kind of links the, the time we had in Europe with the time of me going to Camp Shelby to begin commanding the brigade. When we first got to Europe in 2002, I had a decision to make as a brigade commander. 2,000 soldiers spread throughout four countries in Europe. And I made the decision that, hey, when you're off duty, you could drink alcohol. You know, I wasn't going to tell these guys, you're over here in Europe and you're not going to be able to go out and have a beer.

• 1:00:36Speaker 01

  And that's one thing I believe in is not, not setting, you know, not, not setting out a, a standard or a rule that you're probably not going to be able to enforce anyway. And plus, it doesn't make sense. Just because a guy puts on a military uniform doesn't make them stupid. You know what I mean? And so, these are adults. So I said, yeah, you know, you could drink over there. But I said, just going to let everybody know, you get in trouble, you're going to be disciplined. We had a guy who was there about two weeks, gets drunk, gets in a fight with a German civilian, throws this German civilian off a balcony, the German civilian loses an eye. So we court martial this guy. And he ends up in the stockade in Mannheim.

• 1:01:21Speaker 01

  Busted him down from an E6 to an E1, from a staff sergeant to a private. Then I had another decision to make. Do I discharge this guy from, from the army? So I talked to the battalion commander and I said, hey, what do you think? And the battalion commander obviously knew this guy better than I did. And he said, you know, He is a good soldier, you know, he needs alcoholism counseling, etc., etc., but he said, "I believe he's worth retaining." So I listened to what this battalion commander said, so I retained him. Then on Christmas Day, this is about maybe four months later or something, I don't know, four or five months later. Christmas Day, and by the way, while I was over there with these 2,000 soldiers, I was

• 1:02:04Speaker 01

  on the road constantly, just going, doing circulation, seeing how the soldiers are doing. Christmas Day, I wake up and I say to my driver, I say, "We're driving up to Mannheim today." It's about an hour and a half north of where my headquarters was. So I want to see this guy in the Stockade. It was Christmas Day, something just told me to go visit him. So I go up, guard brings him out into the visitors' area. I was the only visitor there that day. And he was just blown away when he saw me. He goes, "Colonel, you know, it's Christmas Day, you're here to see me." I said, "Listen," I said, "You screwed up, you're paying your dues, you're still one of my soldiers." I said, "I wanted to come, see how you're doing, let you know that we're still thinking of you, you're still one of ours."

• 1:02:49Speaker 01

  Asked him how the family was doing, all that. I mean, he felt like crap being in that detention facility. Fast forward, I didn't think another thing about it, left, that was done, it was my duty to do that, I did it. And fast forward to the first day on the ground at Camp Shelby, after I went down there to take command of that brigade. Walking through the barracks area, and there's four soldiers standing outside of the barracks. And one of them comes sprinting over to me, you know, stands there, detention salutes, it's a specialist, an E4, same guy. And he goes, "You probably don't remember me," he goes, "but you came to see me in the Stockade on Christmas Day."

• 1:03:32Speaker 01

  He goes, "I just wanted to tell you how much I appreciate that." He goes, "I never forgot that." And then he yells over to the three other soldiers that were standing outside of the barracks with him, because a lot of guys didn't know who I was, you know, who's this new guy coming to take command of brigade heels, over to those three soldiers, he said, "This is Colonel Gronski, we're in good hands with him." And I'm sure, you know, coming from an E4, that meant a lot, if you know what I mean. But it just shows that you just try to do the right thing for people, you know, and you don't just discard somebody just because they made a mistake. Now, this guy was going to the most violent place on the face of the earth to continue to serve our country.

• 1:04:11Jocko Willink?

  Did you guys know you were going to Ramadi?

• 1:04:13Speaker 01

  We learned, uh, while we were at Shelby. Uh, we learned we were going to Ramadi. And then, uh, we kept thinking, man, are they going to change their mind? Cause you know, we, we were getting, you know, we were getting all the classified reports, you know, of what was going on over there and we saw how violent it was. And by the way, uh, 2nd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division was over there at the time. That's who we did the relief in place with and those soldiers and Marines who worked for that Brigade Commander. Uh, Gary Patton, who was a outstanding American, he ended up retiring as a Major General. Very proud of his leadership over there with that, with that unit. Uh, but we saw how violent it was and we thought, man, are they going to send a, you know, our Brigade over there?

• 1:04:58Speaker 01

  And they did. And, uh, I actually talked to a retired 3-star who was the MNCI Commander at the time. Uh, after he retired. And I said, sir, I said, you know, I'm just, I have to ask you, why, why did you send a National Guard Brigade to this most violent place on earth? And he said, well, I was talking to, uh, the 1st Army Commander and he said, you guys were ready. And he goes, then I talked to my boss who was the MNF Commander and he said, uh, he asked me my opinion. He said, sir, we've been taking risk everywhere else over here. I think we'll take some more risk and put 2nd Brigade, 28th Infantry Division in Ramadi. But those soldiers who were part of that Brigade and the Marines who were task organized to us,

• 1:05:44Speaker 01

  did a remarkable job just because of leadership at every level below me. And, uh, just so proud of the, the work those guys did in Ramadi.

• 1:05:53Jocko Willink?

  How, how well did the workup prepare you? The training cycle that you did and, and you guys went out to Fort Irwin as well, right?

• 1:06:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, we did. We'd, we spent a month out of Fort Irwin as part of that train up. You know, uh,

• 1:06:08Speaker 01

  counterinsurgency doctrine wasn't even, uh, published at that time. Uh, coin doctrine didn't exist until after we got back home after 2006. That's when it was published. So...

• 1:06:21Speaker 01

  We were given the best training that the Army was able to give us being what they knew at that time, but certainly not as advanced as it became. So, the Army did the best they could do with the training they gave us.

• 1:06:36Jocko Willink?

  And, what did you guys have for armor?

• 1:06:40Speaker 01

  I'll tell you, when we got over there, we had what we called hillbilly armor. It was basically armor that was welded on to Humvees. It wasn't up armored Humvees. And we had to fight to get the up armored Humvees we needed in Ramadi because with that hillbilly armor, there was a slight gap in the door. I mean, you could actually see space in between when the door closed and the rest of the vehicle. And you know how the IED threat was over in Ramadi. We had over a thousand IEDs used against us while we were there. And without the right protection, we were just going to take even more casualties than we

• 1:07:25Speaker 01

  did take. And by the way, the brigade that was there before us took, in the 80s, and killed in action. We took 82, killed in action, and about 260 who were wounded seriously enough who had to be evacuated back to the United States. That doesn't count the ones who were wounded who were able to stay there. And then the brigade after us, who you worked with for a lot of your time there, took about the same amount of casualties we took. So, you know, every brigade that was in Ramadi, every Army Brigade for, you know, three consecutive brigades, were all taking in the 80s in terms of KIA. So, you needed the protection. And we fought for the protection and we finally got the up armored Humvees that we needed to be able to better perform our mission.

• 1:08:09Jocko Willink?

  Did you guys deploy all at once and straight into Ramadi? Is that how it happened? Or how did it, or should I say, how did it happen?

• 1:08:19Speaker 01

  I'll tell you.

• 1:08:22Speaker 01

  My brigade at Shelby, I had over thirty-five different states contributing soldiers to my brigade. I mean, that's amazing. So, you know, you want to train with, you want to go to war with the unit that you've been training with. But because at that time, in 2005, a lot of National Guard had been used at that time. They, I had soldiers from thirty-five different states showing up at Camp Shelby, so now we could start training together as a brigade, team. And the other interesting thing, there was not a direct support field artillery battalion in the guard available to deploy with us. So, we had to use a general

• 1:09:06Speaker 01

  support field artillery battalion. The difference, the fire support element, a fire support element is where the forward observers are. Usually, in a direct support field artillery battalion, there's a hundred and thirty-five fire supporters, the guys who call in the fire. In a GS, a general support artillery battalion, there's no FSE, because they use forward observers from the direct support artillery battalions to call in the fire. We had to cobble together a hundred and thirty-five soldier fire support element while we're on the ground at Camp Shelby, and that took months to get everybody there in groups of

• 1:09:47Speaker 01

  twos and groups of threes to put this fire support element together. The reason I say this is, this is just to credit to these National Guard soldiers who came together like they did and then did their job superbly. That's why I'm telling that story. It's not a knock on anybody. It's not a knock on the Army. It's a credit to these soldiers who were able to come together and then form themselves as a team to do the hard work that they had to do in the most violent place on the face of the earth for a year.

• 1:10:22Jocko Willink?

  You know what? It's interesting. I'm thinking about a podcast that we, actually a couple of podcasts that we just did about the Boer War, and the British went down there. And what's interesting is, it was only a very small part that I mentioned, and the reason I mentioned it on the podcast was because the TA, which is the Territorial Army, which is the reserves in England. There was a, they gave several examples, but one specific example where the guys that were reservists, so the guys that weren't professional soldiers, in many cases, were the first ones to say, hey, wait a second, the way we're doing this doesn't make sense.

• 1:11:00Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:11:00Jocko Willink?

  And they, so they had, I would, I guess, they had their, their minds were more open and, and they were, they could adapt, where they weren't so rigid. And I, I thought, I was, I was thinking when you were saying, oh, they made a decision to send the, the, you know, the, the National Guard there. If I was the commander, that may be something that you weigh in and go, look, I need someone that's going to attack this problem, maybe a little bit different. So that's a, an interesting concept, but also just knowing, you know, I mentioned this at the beginning, the effort that your soldiers and Marines took to take care of us

• 1:11:38Jocko Willink?

  when we showed up, uh, literally saved our guys' lives. There was missions, I mean, there's a specific mission that Leif Babin, who wrote the, these books with me, he was gonna go, he was getting, uh, uh, from a special operations group, was gonna do an operation, and he was gonna take some of his, you know, his SEALs and his Iraqi soldiers, they were gonna go and help them. And he brought it to, he brought the plan to one of, you know, one of your majors out of Vermont, I want to say.

• 1:12:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:11Jocko Willink?

  And

• 1:12:11Speaker 01

  I know exactly who that guy was.

• 1:12:13Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I do too.

• 1:12:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:14Jocko Willink?

  And, I mean, he's just, and he looked at Leif and said, if you go down the street, you're gonna get blown up.

• 1:12:20Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:12:21Jocko Willink?

  And you know what Leif said? Leif, you know, a SEAL Team guy, a special operations guy, said, "Thank you." And he listened. And that, that was our attitude. We were so thankful and grateful that, you know, you all helped us so much when we got on the ground. And just the, the, the other thing, you know, we just had complete respect and admiration, as I said in the beginning, because, look, we're looking at you, you know, a lot of the, a lot of you all are looking at us like, oh, these guys are highly trained. And we're looking back at you saying, you've been in gunfights every day for the last 11 months.

• 1:12:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:56Jocko Willink?

  So I can't say enough to thank you and everybody from, from that brigade that was there on the ground, that welcomed us, that didn't give us any attitude, that didn't give us any, they just wanted to help. And it was just, it was an awesome thing to, to be a part of and to see. Um, when, so you guys know you're going into a nightmare.

• 1:13:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:22Jocko Willink?

  When you got on the ground, like, what was the first thing that you said to yourself, this is real?

• 1:13:30Speaker 01

  It's funny, uh, you know, I had a, a personal security detachment, which was a platoon out of the Nebraska National Guard. And the platoon leader, awesome leader Jacques Smith, um, is a fantastic lieutenant. Um, we were out and, and I was out a lot, okay, but always with the purpose. Uh, I could tell you a little bit background on that in a minute, but we were out there shortly after we were there. And I, we have many IEDs used against our, our particular patrol, but IED detonates. Uh, nobody was hurt. It was relatively not significant.

• 1:14:14Speaker 01

  And me and Jacques look at each other and we go, you know, there's actually people trying to kill us, you know? And it's kind of like, yeah, reality set in very, very quickly. And it was like, like, there's people actually like trying to kill us, you know? And, uh, I think that reality set in for everybody pretty quickly.

• 1:14:36Jocko Willink?

  How did you, what, what was your approach when you showed up? So, um, by the time we got there in April of 06.

• 1:14:44Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:14:45Jocko Willink?

  You guys had really secured like all the main MSRs going in and out of the city.

• 1:14:51Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:14:51Jocko Willink?

  What, what was your, what was your kind of larger operational approach when you showed up there?

• 1:14:56Speaker 01

  I'd say it was a couple of different phases. The first phase was really getting situational understanding of what was going on. And, uh, the second brigade, second infantry division really helped us do that. Then the phase after that, I, I like to think of as, um, getting the.

• 1:15:18Speaker 01

  It was a leader engagement phase. We were really trying to get the sheikhs and the governor. You probably remember the governor. Mahmoud? Mahmoud. Yeah. To really support our effort there. We didn't see many imams there, to be honest with you. It was mainly the sheikhs and the governor we were dealing with. And we made a lot of headway there. And then the phase after that, I like to call the murder and intimidation phase, where the insurgents actually got the upper hand on murdering key sheikhs, which hurt our leader engagement effort, which had been successful. And then the last phase I like to call setting the conditions for the next brigade to come through. And that's where we were trying to do our best to set up combat outpost

• 1:16:02Speaker 01

  in certain areas where we could then stay there. Now, this is the thing you may not know about our brigade. Remember, we had from Ramadi to Habenia.

• 1:16:14Speaker 01

  In May of 2006, I was visited by two very senior generals. And the question they asked, what do you need to control Ramadi? And Ramadi was very chaotic at that time because of the murder intimidation and the lack of us able to engage leaders very effectively because of the murder intimidation of the sheikhs. And what I explained to them is you needed a brigade in Ramadi proper itself, if you want to control it. A brigade in Habenia, and then another brigade up in Jazirah, which was north of the Euphrates River. And the one general put his head in his hand and just kind of like shook his head

• 1:16:56Speaker 01

  and he said to his senior, he said, "Sir, that's an entire division." And at that point in time, they were trying to downsize. And he didn't push back on me, though. He basically just realized that, couldn't do that. One thing that happened when we were leaving and the next brigade was coming in, 5-5 easting, which was just east of Camp Karigador.

• 1:17:24Speaker 01

  That's where their area of operation ended. So they didn't have Habenia. So the brigade after us came in with, they were able to put three additional battalions into Ramadi. Okay, we didn't. Alright, so they were able, instead of putting a battalion in Habenia, they were able to put it in Ramadi. And then they came in with two additional battalion headquarters besides that. So they had, from what I understand, they had three additional battalion headquarters, one full battalion plus, plus another four companies. So, one of the reasons things started to change is because they were able to mass

• 1:18:09Speaker 01

  more troops in that area. And it's a difference between fighting a large-scale combat operation and fighting an insurgency. In a large-scale combat operation, you don't want to mass troops, you want to mass the effects of your combat power. You see, you know, if you're fighting a near pier or a pier, you don't want to mass troops, you want to mass the effects of combat power. When you're fighting an insurgency, that's where you want to mass troops. And I think what the Coin Doctrine came out with was, was one counter insurgent for every 20 civilians that are in that city. And Ramadi had a population of around 400,000. We had nowhere near what the Coin Doctrine called for. So we were struggling with that.

• 1:18:54Speaker 01

  So, I believed in the Hamburger Hill Principle of never ordering a patrol to go into an area that we weren't prepared to put a combat outpost in and stay in. I saw it as stupid to send a patrol into an area for two or three hours just to do a friggin' patrol and come right back out again. Because...

• 1:19:23Speaker 01

  I could, I, I, I could deal with losing a soldier or a marine if there was a purpose, a good purpose to, to lose that soldier or marine. I, I'd have a hard time explaining to a mother or a father why their marine or soldier got killed for just the sake of going in there for three hours and coming back out again. If it was to put a combat outpost in, I could accept that. You see what I'm saying? So when I say the hamburger hill concept, because you know hamburger hill, take the hill and then leave.

• 1:19:52Jocko Willink?

  Right.

• 1:19:52Speaker 01

  It's kind of like, why the hell you want to do that? And, and I was dead set a, against that.

• 1:19:56Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and I think that's well, well, once the 1-1 showed up, they had enough people that we could go in, set up a combat outpost, and then what you're doing is patrolling to clear bad guys because you're there, and it's a different game. You know, you, you mentioned the murder and intimidation of the sheiks, and this was all happening, I mean, I arrived in May. Yes, I arrived in May. And so this was kind of, uh, was it still happening? I remember, we're reading the intel reports, and, and from what I remember, there was like a one 48 hour period, or one very short period of time where seven or eight senior

• 1:20:41Jocko Willink?

  sheiks were murdered, and the rest of them, almost all of the rest of them, well, a large portion of the rest of them, left.

• 1:20:49Speaker 01

  This is what happened in, uh, probably around the September timeframe. And I'd, I'd be talking to the governor and the sheiks about once a week. Starting in September, they started to see that a lot of what they were telling us, we were starting to change the way we conducted operations. I'll give you an example. When I first got there, we would send patrols into homes.

• 1:21:15Speaker 01

  Without intel, just to search the homes. So how would you like it if you're in a house with your wife and two kids and all of a sudden this army patrol comes in and says, you know what, just for the hell of it, we're gonna start, you know, looking through the drawers in your bedroom dresser, you know? And so the sheikhs were complaining about that. It's like, you know what, that makes sense to me. So I said to our guys, listen, we're not gonna go in and do a search of a home unless there's targeted intelligence that gives us a reason to, because otherwise we're just making enemies of good people and turning neutrals to be helping the insurgents. You don't wanna do that. So, you know, that was one example.

• 1:21:56Speaker 01

  There was another outpost that we had north of Karigadore up by a hospital that was up in that area, which I took down. And the main reason I took that down? Because I didn't wanna drive that route. You know why I didn't wanna drive that route? Because you're gonna get blown up. Because we were having our soldiers get killed driving up there. And it's like, you know what? This makes no sense. Take it down. The cool thing is, is the sheikhs had been asking me to take that down. So when I took it down, I told the sheikhs, the reason we took this down is because you wanted better access to the hospital without your civilian, you know, your Iraqi civilians going through the checkpoint. So they saw that as, wow, this guy, listen to me.

• 1:22:40Speaker 01

  What was the outcome? The outcome is in the elections in December, where in January 2005, 2% of the citizens of Ramadi voted in an election. In December 2005, 80% of the Iraqis voted in the election. The sheikhs were encouraging them to vote. And so we saw that as, man, we turned a corner. Another thing is, we were trying to recruit Iraqi police, because we knew, we had to get Iraqi police to agree to join and then to go through to training.

• 1:23:21Speaker 01

  So we would have recruiting events, and we were getting two or three Iraqis to show up at the recruiting event and join. Until January.

• 1:23:33Speaker 01

  January 3rd, we had this recruiting event at the glass factory. 200 Iraqis standing in line to join. That's only because of the Sheikh encouragement. January 4th, we had about 500 Iraqis standing in front of the glass factory to join. Man, we were ecstatic.

• 1:23:56Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and just to give a little bit more detail, just to reemphasize what you said. These are 500 local citizens that are tribal tribesmen where the tribal leaders are directing them, "Hey, looks like the coalition, looks like the Americans, they're kind of, we're getting on board. Go down and join the police so we can get rid of insurgents in this city."

• 1:24:24Speaker 01

  The biggest mistake I made was I did it a third day in a row. And on January 5th, I think you know what happened. Suicide bomber detonated his vest in the middle of 1,000 Iraqis who were there that day. I mean, we were ecstatic. We had 1,000 Iraqis showing up to join, when months before we had 2 or 3. I mean, this was a turning point. So the suicide bomber detonates their vest, kills at least 100 Iraqi citizens, kills my best friend Mike McLaughlin, who was my leader engagement officer, and kills Sergeant

• 1:25:03Speaker 01

  Khan, who was a Marine dog handler, and wounds several other soldiers, but not, you know, seriously. And, but any wound is serious if you get wounded, I guess. And totally disrupted the whole thing. The thing I was proud of with that, though, is the Iraqis we already had inside the glass factory, we continued to process them.

• 1:25:29Speaker 01

  What I did the next day, and again, we were devastated by this. What I did the next day, I called all the leaders involved with that recruiting operation. Because that was a battalion plus operation to pull this off. Got all the leaders in. I said, "Listen, we're going to do an after-action review, a lessons learned thing on this." And I said, "Before anybody says anything," and I know, you know, your book Extreme Ownership talks about this. Not this exact incident, but in general. I said, "Before anybody says anything," I said, "I'm the guy responsible for that attack yesterday." I said, "So this review, this after-action review, isn't going to have anything to do with putting blame on anybody because it's my fault. This is what happened."

• 1:26:13Speaker 01

  I said, "What we're going to do is we got to figure out, we got 200 Iraqis showing up next week to get on buses so we could transport them to the police training." I said, "We got to figure out, how do we make this safe a week from now? Safer a week from now, so the same thing doesn't happen again." And so, we took some specific tactical measures to make it much safer. One of the things we did, we got these big Texas barricades, and we formed up 10 different stalls where only 10 people at a time could fit inside of a stall. So if a suicide bomber did detonate their vest, the most they could kill is nine other people, instead of 100.

• 1:26:57Speaker 01

  You see what I'm saying? And then we set up some other measures. I don't want to get into the detail on this podcast because it's not important. The point is, is that we made it safer. The next week, even after this devastating attack where 100 Iraqis were killed, and some of my soldiers were killed, we still had those 200 policemen showing, or 200 civilians showing up to go to police training that next week. And then the thing that happened, that was exactly what you said. When they saw that they couldn't stop these young people, these young men, these young Iraqis, coming in to continue to see the process through, that's when they started to murder the sheikhs. And that's what cut out our leader engagement completely, because these sheikhs used to

• 1:27:42Speaker 01

  come to the government center once a week to talk to me. Zero showed up. Once they started getting murdered, uh, they weren't showing up. So the thing we were not able to do was protect those sheiks. And that's what really caused a lot of the turmoil to occur up to the point where you guys got there.

• 1:28:07Jocko Willink?

  I've heard, uh, uh, Mike McLaughlin?

• 1:28:11Speaker 01

  Mike McLaughlin, yeah. McLaughlin, Mike McLaughlin.

• 1:28:14Jocko Willink?

  I've heard him referred to as the sheik of sheiks. You know, he was one of these guys that kinda got it.

• 1:28:20Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 1:28:21Jocko Willink?

  And was making friends and...

• 1:28:23Speaker 01

  He was that kinda guy. He was, he owned his own construction business. He was a field artillery officer. And since we had the triple deuce from Utah National Guard as the GS artillery battalion, you know, I had this extra field artillery lieutenant colonel there. And so, um, I made him my leader engagement officer. And he was just this type of guy, being a business man, talking about using National Guard civilian skills. You know, he's an entrepreneur. He was just able to connect with all these different Iraqis. He used to say that Ramadi, because of the Euphrates River and the, I think it was the Nassar Canal running into the Euphrates River, he said that reminded him of Pittsburgh, you know,

• 1:29:06Speaker 01

  with the rivers running together. So he told everybody, he told all these Iraqis that, you know, someday Ramadi is going to be like Pittsburgh and I'm going to come back and visit. You know, I'm going to bring my wife and kids back here. Yeah.

• 1:29:20Jocko Willink?

  How long after the, the glass factory bombing? So then the recruits start showing up again?

• 1:29:27Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:29:27Jocko Willink?

  The insurgents realize, oh, we haven't broken their will yet. We gotta start killing the sheiks. Was that a week later, two weeks later?

• 1:29:36Speaker 01

  I'd say it was within four, you know, I, I, I don't have this on the tip of my memory, but it was probably within about four weeks.

• 1:29:45Jocko Willink?

  The intel that I remember was, I think it was seven or eight of the main sheikhs got murdered.

• 1:29:52Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:29:54Jocko Willink?

  And then the other sheikhs, most of them, just fled.

• 1:29:58Speaker 01

  They went to ground. They either fled or went to ground. And the other, the other reason why Ramadi was so dysfunctional is right when the war started, there were some like really heavy duty main sheikhs living in Ramadi, they all went to Jordan. So the sheikhs that were left in Ramadi were the sub sheikhs. So, but they were still the power brokers there. But they just weren't as powerful as the sheikhs who actually left the country. But, uh, but even, you know, like, like you said, you know, they, they got murdered and that really, that really changed things because now the, the sheikhs were not cooperating with us like they had. They just kind of went to ground and were neutralized.

• 1:30:42Jocko Willink?

  And really, that's the purpose. I mean, that's, that's, that's, that's terror, right? We are going to terrorize you to the point where you no longer will step up.

• 1:30:54Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:30:54Jocko Willink?

  And that's exactly what happened.

• 1:30:56Speaker 01

  And that was the al Qaeda in Iraq segment who was doing that. Because, you know, as you, as you know, you know, you being there, there, there were different segments of the insurgency. One was AQIZ, al Qaeda in Iraq. The other one was the local insurgents who had a different goal than al Qaeda in Iraq. The local insurgents just wanted coalition forces to leave. We could deal with them, you know, because we could let them know that, hey, you, you know, when things settle down here, when you get enough of your own sons in the Iraqi police, we will leave. We'll be glad to leave.

• 1:31:28Jocko Willink?

  That's a good deal. You want us to leave? We want to leave. Let's, let's figure this out.

• 1:31:32Speaker 01

  And then you had the criminal element. And then you also, you know, in the criminal element, they were just concerned with making money by selling weapons. And then you also had this fourth contingent there who were former Iraqi generals. They knew where the ordinance was hidden. You know, there were caches all over the place. They knew where they were hidden. They knew to the terrain. And, uh, they wanted to regain their status and power again. That was their, that was their goal.

• 1:32:00Jocko Willink?

  You mentioned this very briefly, but you know, you just mentioned being out and I remember being out on an operation somewhere and there you are, you know, there's the brigade commander walking down the street. And you, you just said you were going to mention a little bit about what that mentality was. I mean, I'm pretty sure I know what it is because I did the same things like sometimes I was going on operations with my troops because I need to go on operations with the troops. Was that a similar mindset that you had?

• 1:32:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, um, you could only learn so much from hearing reports. You gotta get out there and see things with your own eyes. That was one reason. The other reason is it did a lot for morale. You know, when the soldiers saw that, hey, the commander's out there, they feel like somebody is sharing the load and in order to build trust, that, you know, I talk a lot about building trust and one of the, the keys to building trust is to share the load, uh, to, to show whoever is working for you that you're willing to do the same thing they're doing. And so those were the two reasons I felt it was very important to get out there. But, you know, I read this book, uh, it was called The Clay Pigeons of St. Lo.

• 1:33:12Jocko Willink?

  Oh yeah. We've covered it on this podcast right here.

• 1:33:15Speaker 01

  Great, great.

• 1:33:15Jocko Willink?

  Glover Johns.

• 1:33:16Speaker 01

  Glover Johns, who was also a hero in the Korean War too, by the way. But, uh, I read that book and one thing Glover Johns talked about in that book is when he was going with his little command group, uh, from point A to point B and he had his radio operator with him and he had his S3 with him and S2 or whoever he had with him in that command group from that battalion headquarters. He decided one day to go from point A to point B without a reason to do that. And mortars came in and killed about three or four of his soldiers in that command group. And he wrote in the book how the light bulb went off in his head that, hey, when I make a decision to go from point A to point B, it's just not my life I'm putting on the line.

• 1:33:58Speaker 01

  I'm putting the life of my command group on the line too, that the guys who are traveling with me. So because I read that, I, I said to myself, I am never going to go from point A to point B just to do a joyride through Ramadi. Whenever I take my PSD out me, out with me, my personal security detachment, a bunch of E3s and E4s and E5s.

• 1:34:21Speaker 01

  If they were gonna get killed because I was going from point A to point B, I wanted there to be a reason for them to die. And if, if, so I had to go somewhere with a purpose and I was out a lot because I had a lot of reasons to be out there. Uh, but I would never, ever go out just for a joyride because that, that's not what, because I was putting those soldiers at risk every time I went out.

• 1:34:44Jocko Willink?

  How was it, you know, you show up and there was already a marine battalion already there?

• 1:34:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, one, one five, who, uh, excellent combat leader, uh, battalion commander who is now a three-star general, still serving in the Marines. Matter of fact, all three marine battalions who served with me, because they were on seven-month rotation, so the one five was there, they, they served with me for two months, then the three seven came in, served with me for seven months, and then the three eight came in. All three of those battalion commanders are general officers now. You know, the Marine Corps is a, is a small corps, and if you're gonna become an infantry battalion commander in the Marines, you gotta have your shit together. They don't put anybody in charge of a marine infantry battalion. And, and all three of those commanders were excellent.

• 1:35:32Jocko Willink?

  Was there any time, you know, people always talk about the, the competition between the Army, the Marine Corps. I'm not even gonna say Navy, because the Navy makes up such a small element, but you know, the Army and Marine Corps, I, I always tell anyone, and, and as a matter of fact, it's sort of a point for me, if anybody ever tries to, you know, get me to say something about the Army and the Marine Corps, I won't say, I won't, I won't say a negative comment, not even in a joking manner. I won't do it. Because of what I saw over there, what I saw from those soldiers, what I saw from those Marines. Did, did you feel the same thing, just nothing but, um, you know, nothing, but, nothing but let's work together to get this done?

• 1:36:16Speaker 01

  Absolutely, and I feel the same way about you. I will not joke about another service. One, one thing I learned over there. Even from the Army, you know, a lot of times in our, if you're infantry, you know, you think all the other branches don't matter. And I kinda had that attitude before going over there, to a degree. And, uh, one thing I learned is every branch matters significantly, every MOS of any soldier. I mean, it's all such an important team. And in turn, you know, in answer to your question with the Marines, man, I just learned to respect those Marines so much. They respected us. You know, I was a little bit concerned. Here I am, a National Guard Brigade Commander, and now I've got an active-duty Marine Battalion,

• 1:37:00Speaker 01

  task organized in my Brigade, and I have an active-duty Army Battalion. When I first got there, it was 269 Armor, before 1st of the 506 got there. And I'm thinking, man, what are these active-duty Battalion Commanders going to think of a National Guard Brigade Commander? They showed me nothing but respect. And I think that's the way you gotta do it. You, you have to, personally, I think, you know, if, if you're going to work with anybody in the military, you have to come, come from the perspective that these guys are professional, they know their business, until they give you a reason to feel differently. You know, and, and I feel that way about trust, too. Uh, and a lot of people don't understand this at first, but, you know, in, in order

• 1:37:44Speaker 01

  to create trust in an organization, I think you have to trust your followers first, before they will trust you. And the question I like to ask people is, is this. I say, have you ever worked for somebody that didn't trust you? And people will say, yeah, you know, there's, there's been an occasion where I worked for somebody who didn't trust me. I said, were you able to trust that person? And the answer is always no. How could you trust somebody who doesn't trust you? So if I'm a leader, and I don't trust my subordinates, if I just come in with the attitude that I'm not gonna trust you until you prove you could, I could trust you. How are they going to trust me? Because you cannot trust somebody who doesn't trust you. So you have to trust others first. But again, those battalion commanders from

• 1:38:28Speaker 01

  all three Marine battalions, all two Army battalions with active duty units that worked with me, showed nothing but respect and trust of me. And thank God, I never did anything to do anything that caused them not to trust me. So I'm just so thankful that I had such professionals to work with over there. And then, of course, the battalion commanders from the National Guard units that were with me. I had National Guard battalion from Vermont, who we never worked with before, that was task organized to me, from Utah with the field artillery unit that was task organized to my brigade. And everybody just came together. And again, I think because it was so violent there, people just knew that, hey, we got

• 1:39:13Speaker 01

  to do our job, you know? And it's funny, after coming back and continuing in the Army in a non-war time environment, it's funny how that attitude changes a little bit when you're in a peacetime setting.

• 1:39:34Jocko Willink?

  I've heard you tell a story about one of your Marines, EOD guys, and really just

• 1:39:45Jocko Willink?

  I would love for you to be able to share that story. And I think you know the one I'm talking about.

• 1:39:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. This happened on September 19, 2005. And I actually, earlier that morning, we had one of our soldiers killed. He was a driver of a Bradley fighting vehicle. IED went up underneath the driver's compartment of his Bradley, and he was killed. And later on that day, we had a patrol under the command of a lieutenant from the Vermont National Guard. Who was conducting a patrol down into Temeem area of Ramadi. And you may recall there was a railroad bridge down there. And we had an outpost at that railroad bridge that didn't exist before we got there.

• 1:40:31Speaker 01

  The brigade that was there before us just didn't have the, what it took to get down there and put that outpost in, but we put the outpost in and then we had to secure that area to keep the lines of communication operational so we could rotate troops in and out, get logistics down there, get a QRF down there whenever we had to.

• 1:40:53Speaker 01

  A quick reaction force. And so, anyway, we had this lieutenant from the Vermont National Guard patrolling that area and four up armored Humvees. And he began to get insurgent fire from around by the railroad bed. And so he ordered his platoon, which was four up armored Humvees, to start maneuvering toward that insurgent position. So they could close with them and destroy them. And as he was maneuvering in his vehicle, a subsurface IED detonated that had probably been there, maybe about a year in the ground, I don't know. You know, some of these IEDs have been planted there for months. And IED detonates and instantly kills the lieutenant and the two soldiers who were in

• 1:41:38Speaker 01

  that up armored Humvee with them. And so, 3 KIA instantly. And whenever we would have attacks like this, we would try to, whenever we could, send our EOD team down to do a post blast analysis to determine the type of tactics, the type of ordinance, the type of procedures the insurgents were using when they conducted these attacks. And the reason we did that is to try to prevent these attacks from happening again in the future. And so, Gunnery Sergeant Michael Burkhart was the...

• 1:42:10Speaker 01

  gunny sergeant who led two other Marines down to that site and it was chaotic down there you know but our guys were providing security the gunny gets down there with the EO with his two fellow Marines and he sees the destroyed up armored Humvee and near the up armored Humvee he sees this crater a couple feet deep about four feet in diameter he just made an assumption that that's where the IED had been placed so he jumps down in the crater to take a closer look and as soon as he was in the crater he realized uh he wasn't at a good place because he saw two 152 millimeter artillery shells in the ground in front of him with red detonation cord running into the nose of those shells

• 1:42:50Speaker 01

  so he took his K bar knife cut the red det cord believed he'd neutralized the IED he didn't see a third artillery shell in the crater behind him the devices those insurgents used there were Sineo base stations which were high powered cordless phones they use them a lot in Africa like in villages to get telephone reception within their village so it's a it's a very high powered cordless phone base and they would they would strap that base to the artillery shell and then use a cordless phone about a kilometer away they usually had about a kilometer distance they would hit the button on that detonation

• 1:43:29Speaker 01

  device to cause the ID to explode and insurgent was obviously out there in the distance watching hit the button on that detonation device artillery shell blows up in back of gunny Burkhardt knocks him about 15 feet into the air lands unconscious on the ground like a ragdoll our soldiers go immediately up to him they believe the wounds were very very severe they called in a medevac helicopter and they start tending to his wounds his pants were soaked with blood they cut his pants off uh he's unconscious after a couple of minutes he actually regains consciousness he's laying there on his back and he asked the soldiers if he has his legs because he has no feeling from the waist down he thought

• 1:44:13Speaker 01

  he had both legs blown off but the soldiers assured him he had his legs the reason he was concerned about his legs and he told me this himself is his dad served three tours in Vietnam on his dad's third tour in Vietnam his dad was shot in the back by a sniper Gunny Burkhardt had to grow up as a young boy with the pain of seeing his father confined to a wheelchair because his dad was paralyzed from the waist down. Gunny's worst nightmare was going back home to the States because his dad was still alive and his dad seeing him also confined to a wheelchair. That's why he was concerned about his legs. But anyway, they said, "No, you got your legs." A few minutes go by, they're tending to him. He gets a tingling sensation in his legs.

• 1:44:56Speaker 01

  He tells the soldiers he wants to try to stand up and the soldiers couldn't believe this. And he stands up and after only just getting blown up 10 minutes earlier. And we had an embed reporter from the Omaha World Herald on the ground with him that day. Gunny Burkhardt stands up and the medevac chopper lands on the ground behind him and the soldiers go to Gunny Burkhardt. They go, "Gunny, we got the stretcher here. Lay on the stretcher so we could carry you to the chopper." And Burkhardt raises his left hand into the air, throws a one-finger salute at the insurgents and he says to the soldiers, "I'm not going to have you carry me to that chopper on the stretcher. I'm going to walk there under my own power because I don't want the insurgents to have

• 1:45:41Speaker 01

  the pleasure of seeing me being carried to the helicopter." And he throws him the finger. And the reporter takes the picture at that exact second. So there's Burkhardt, finger in the air, defiant, groin protector in front of his groin, no pants on. And the reporter takes this picture. And later on that day, the reporter comes in to see me because he had been on the ground with us for almost a month. And he comes in to see me, has a little laptop with him and he goes, "Sir," he goes, "I know it's been a really bad day for you, obviously. I lost four soldiers that day." He goes, "But I want to show you this picture." He goes, "I won't release it unless you give me permission."

• 1:46:24Speaker 01

  He lifts up his laptop screen and he pulls up the picture and that picture, that picture is across the entire laptop screen. I look at that and I said, "You gotta, you gotta get this in the paper." I said, "You gotta get this in the paper." And the rest of the leadership story with Gunny Burkhardt is this though, because you know, it's a cool war story, okay? Except for the fact that we have these soldiers die. But the leadership component to the story, as I told you, he had two young Marines down there with him that day. Gunny Burkhard told me himself, the reason he didn't want to be carried to that chopper had nothing at all to do with what insurgents would be thinking. He knew with all the IED attacks we were getting, that those two young Marines were

• 1:47:07Speaker 01

  going to be out there later on that day, neutralizing IEDs. He knew he was going to have to be recovering from those wounds. He wanted to walk there to the helicopter as to not shatter the confidence of those two young Marines that were out there with him. So the leadership element of the story is even after getting blown up 10 minutes earlier, his main concern wasn't with his own wounds. His main concern was with the confidence of those two young Marines that he knew was going to be out there later on, neutralizing IEDs. So even after getting blown up, his main concern was with those two young Marines who worked for him. And isn't that what leadership is all about?

• 1:47:49Speaker 01

  Worrying more about the guys who follow you than you worry about yourself. I just think it's an inspirational story. We had very few politicians coming to visit us, or quote, VIPs coming to visit us in Ramadi, but whenever we did, if I had to brief them, the first slide I showed them was Gunny Burkhard throwing a finger at those insurgents.

• 1:48:11Jocko Willink?

  The, uh, the, the, some of the other things that are happening is you're spending a bunch of money trying to, you know, um, um, the provincial reconstruction and development. Tell us a little bit about that.

• 1:48:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, we had, we had a lot of money, uh, to, to dole out, and this was, this was the issue. Uh, we had nobody from the State Department there with us until I think the last month before we left because it was so violent. Uh, so we didn't really have that State Department support, and whenever we would fix, whenever we would give money to the Iraqis to fix a school, or a water plant, or whatever, the insurgents would destroy it. So we didn't really do that well with... With fixing infrastructure there in Ramadi, as you could probably remember, there was sewage running down the streets all the time because of the roadside bombs that were blowing up

• 1:49:10Speaker 01

  and breaking sewer pipes and everything else. So, we did do our best to get into schools. We had patrols going into schools all the time, passing out stuff to the kids. I was in schools. It was kind of weird environment there because some days, well, not some days, every day you knew you were going to have a high probability of getting shot at or blown up. And yet, we tried to create some normalcy, especially with the kids there. And so, it was really weird in that way.

• 1:49:42Jocko Willink?

  You know, we're talking about extreme ownership a little bit earlier, and, you know, I opened it up talking about a blue on blue that we had. You were there at the time, and I know there was a lot of different stuff going on, and it probably didn't even make the radar of what you had seen and what you were dealing with. But, and it was weird for me because, you know, in the SEAL teams, having a blue on blue, it seems like the most impossible thing that could ever occur. You know, how could it possibly happen that one, a good guy shoots a good guy? How is that possible? And so, in my chain of command,

• 1:50:24Jocko Willink?

  after that happened, that happened very early in deployment, for me to try and explain to people that this, this happens, this happens a lot in this environment. What was, how often were you seeing those situations unfold?

• 1:50:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. First, let me say, in the Army, just like in the SEALs, we take blue on blue very seriously. As a matter of fact, even in training events, if there's, if we're doing a warfighter exercise, which is a computer-generated exercise, if there's a blue on blue event in the warfighter, it's got to be investigated. That's how seriously we take it. I saw blue on blue.

• 1:51:07Speaker 01

  More often than I would have thought. And it was primarily units passing through another unit's area of operation where the, you know, the unit passing through wasn't clear on where certain combat outposts or observation posts were set up. And they would see what looked like, you know, again, a soldier with a weapon in the sand. And I know you talk about in your book with Chris Kyle, actually. Where that happens. I remember an interesting situation I'll just mention to you. We had a patrol down in Tamim, which is in southern Ramadi.

• 1:51:50Speaker 01

  And they were, you know, conducting their operations down there, dealing with Iraqi citizens and talking to them and such. And then there was a civil affairs team that was not part of my brigade that was also in that vicinity. And there was some small arms fire and the unit from my brigade that felt that there was insurgents up on top of a rooftop. And this is very similar to a story you tell. And the commander on the ground wanted a Super Cobra, since the Marines were supporting us. Not an Apache, but a Super Cobra. Fire on the rooftop at what he thought were insurgents up there.

• 1:52:34Speaker 01

  And I happened to be in the operation center at the time. And I guess it's just over time to get some type of intuition. Something just did not seem right. And the fire that this patrol was under wasn't really that significant, where I felt it wasn't, you know, life threatening to that patrol. And I said, you know, let's just let this play out a little bit more. Let's use some tactical patience here and let this play out a little bit more before I give an order for a Super Cobra to fire on that target. As it turned out, it was the civil affairs team on that roof. And I just thank God.

• 1:53:16Speaker 01

  I just thank God that God gave me the presence of mind to wait a little bit and just see how things develop before pulling the trigger on that thing. So it's, you just have to, again, use, you know, real big in the army, you know, especially when you're a lieutenant or something, hey, you gotta make a decision, you know, everybody talks about making decisions quickly. Sometimes the best decision to make is let me use some tactical patience, let me just see how this plays out a little bit until I get a little bit more information before I pull the trigger on something.

• 1:53:46Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, the other part of that is not, not getting emotional because as you know, and I, we were talking about earlier, I think before we even started recording, is a lot of times, you wouldn't see who's attacking you.

• 1:53:59Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:54:00Jocko Willink?

  And you're losing guys, guys are getting wounded, guys are getting killed, and now all of a sudden someone's telling you, we see the bad guys. It's, it's hard not to just have an emotional moment to say, hey, oh, there's bad guys there, let's get them.

• 1:54:15Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:54:16Jocko Willink?

  And you have to take a moment to make sure that the decision you're making is, is the right decision. And, and like you said, sometimes it's a pause, and I've been talking about this a lot lately. So one of the principles of leadership that I talk about all the time is default aggressive, which means you're gonna make something happen. Make it happen, like, like, don't wait. But there's, if you pay attention to that term, default aggressive, it's the default mode. It's not, it's not the mandatory mode. It can be overruled, it can be overridden. The, the Marine Corps just came out with a new book called Learning, and, and one of the, one of the terms that they use throughout the book is, they try to train Marines to have a bias for action. Same thing.

• 1:55:01Jocko Willink?

  It's not blind action, it's not take immediate action no matter what, it's lean towards taking action. That's the same thing with default aggressive. It's, hey, your, your default mode is, I'm gonna be aggressive. That doesn't mean you are necessarily going to be aggressive.

• 1:55:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, and, and you know, when you're engaged in fighting a counterinsurgency, uh, the other thing is, you don't, you don't wanna kill an insurgent at the expense of killing innocent civilians. And that's something, you know, from reading history... Since I was a teenager, especially WWII history, you know, all of the civilians that were killed during WWII. And I remember when I first got to Ramadi, this is how I had learned as I was there. You know, we talk about continuous learning, is I would say to the sheikhs, hey, this is a battle going on here. Civilians are going to die. You gotta accept that. They didn't want to accept that. That was their tribesmen, you know?

• 1:56:01Speaker 01

  They didn't want to accept that, you know, these civilians are going to die. And I learned through the course of time there that we had to do, if we wanted to win this thing, we had to do all we could do to not kill innocent Iraqi citizens. And if that meant not killing an insurgent in order to save three innocent citizens, you were better, you were better to, I felt, you were better to operate that way.

• 1:56:27Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I think that's the, that's the standard. That's the standard. That's what, that's, that's the American way. And that, you know, that's another thing, and we've talked about this a little bit, and this is, I don't like to get wrapped up in, in, you know, people that are gonna argue political points about, you know, the way things unfolded, that, the way things unfolded, right? But one of the things that you hear a lot is people will talk about, eh, you know what, I'm, when I say this, I'm really talking about, there's people that just look at the Iraq War as this complete horrible thing, everything was wrong, and one of the things that they say all the time is that all these civilians died.

• 1:57:09Jocko Willink?

  And, and something that I try and point out to people all the time is, yes, you're right, civilians died, and yes, Americans did kill some of those civilians. But we went through extreme measures and took extreme risks, always, to prevent any civilian casualties. And the amount of civilians that Americans actually killed...

• 1:57:40Jocko Willink?

  is not a big number. The reason that the number of civilians killed is so large is because of the insurgents and because of the the fighting that took place in the, you know, Shia versus Sunni, for instance. It really, the the amount of civilians killed by Americans is a very small number when you compare it to what the insurgents did to the people of Iraq.

• 1:58:05Speaker 01

  No, I absolutely agree. And, you know, I mean, it is our values. And the thing I'm most proud of the Marines and soldiers I worked with over there and the SEALs I worked with over there is that adherence to our military values and to our American values of of doing just that, taking great pains not to kill a civilian, even at the risk of not killing a bad guy. So, very, very proud of them. Quick story I want to share with you. The governor that we talked about, dealt with him a lot. He had to have a medical procedure conducted at one point in time. So, since Ramadi was so dysfunctional and chaotic, we had to send him to Baghdad to an American military treatment facility in Baghdad. He was gone about two weeks for this medical procedure. He comes back and

• 1:58:50Speaker 01

  sends a message that he wants to see me. So, I go see, I go see him. And he asked everybody in the office to leave. You know, you usually have this entourage of sheikhs in there and his staff. Everybody left except him, me, and my interpreter. He sits down beside me. First time, he takes my hand in his. And for anybody who knows anything about Arab culture, when an Arab man takes another man's hand in his, it's a sign of trust and respect. First time he ever did that. And he said, you know, Colonel Gronski, many times you have sat here, you've talked to me about American values and the values of the Marines and soldiers. I never knew what you were trying to tell me. But he said, when I was at that American medical treatment facility in Baghdad, I watched with my own

• 1:59:33Speaker 01

  eyes how a wounded insurgent was brought into the trauma center there. And I saw how your American medics, the nurses and doctors struggled to save the life of this insurgent. And he said, I could not believe how hard you Americans worked to save the life of one of your enemies. He said, now I finally realize what you were trying to tell me about American values. And I mean, that really hit home, that he saw with his own eyes how we treated our enemies, fighting to save the life of this insurgent.

• 2:00:08Jocko Willink?

  From a, from a leadership perspective and really from a personal perspective as well. I mean, I know there was months where you lost,

• 2:00:20Jocko Willink?

  lost to very significant casualties. You know, and, and when I look at the glass factory and what a just, just insane setback. And even hearing you talk about it earlier when we weren't recording, you know, just the, the,

• 2:00:39Jocko Willink?

  you know, that, that for you, seeing the local populace showing up, I mean, this is the, this is the dream for a, for a counter insurgency is that we're going to get the local populace. They're going to take to the streets and clean up the insurgents and this is how we win. And all of a sudden, in a matter of days, a pathway to victory is actually visible.

• 2:01:02Jocko Willink?

  And then to have that horrible incident take place. Losing, you know, your, your best friend over there.

• 2:01:13Jocko Willink?

  And yet you still have to press on. What, what is it about, how do you do that mentally? How do you get up? How do you move forward when you take these significant setbacks?

• 2:01:29Speaker 01

  You know, Jaco, I think the answer is pretty simple. Um, it's because especially when you're in a leadership position, you've got others counting on you. So because you've got others counting on you, you have no choice but to continue to, even in situations like that, to try to be as positive as you could. You know, one thing I, I did over there because you know, the days over there could seem like Groundhog Day to the average soldier out there on a patrol day after day, you know, seeing, you know, these Iraqis give them the stink eye and, and all that. And, and having his buddy killed and wounded and all of that. Groundhog Day. I actually put out what I called success cards on a monthly basis because the average soldier

• 2:02:12Speaker 01

  didn't understand the success we were having and had to be communicated to the average soldier Marine. So what would be on the success card? Okay, we found this many weapons caches this month. We detained this many high-value target insurgents this month. We actually did engagements in this many schools this month, etc., etc. So there was always something to be able to communicate that you succeeded on. That if you were just the average soldier out there doing your job day after day, you might not have seen that. But I think people have to understand when they're in a situation like that, leaders have to have a way to communicate the bigger picture to their followers so they understand you are making

• 2:02:57Speaker 01

  progress because otherwise it could seem like you're not. But to answer your question, I think it's just about the fact that people are counting on you. You gotta do your job.

• 2:03:04Jocko Willink?

  As you guys are nearing the end of deployment, I show up there, Task Unit Bruiser. One of the first things that we start planning for is like a Fallujah-style clearance of Ramadi. And the plan, as I understood it, and again, it seems like a long time ago in some ways, and this is one of those ways, trying to remember exactly, but the plan that, as I remembered, as we were starting to organize this thing, was that while, when the 11 AD showed up, and we have the 228 and the 11 AD on the ground at the same time, we got double the combat power, we're gonna do a massive push-through. And I was

• 2:03:46Jocko Willink?

  telling my guys, from a political standpoint, it made sense to me because, this is why I told my guys, I said, "Look, I think this is gonna happen." And the reason I think it's gonna happen is because Maliki, who just is the Prime Minister, and he's a Shia, and this is a city filled with Sunni people, and I bet he's gonna say, "Yep, go for it."

• 2:04:07Jocko Willink?

  I happen to be wrong and Maliki was a lot smarter and was a lot, a lot more willing to try and work towards a stable Iraq because he realized that, no, actually, we're not going to do that. There's too much death, there's too much destruction. It will look exactly like what it is, which is a big Shia army push into a city filled with Sunnis and a bunch of Sunnis getting displaced and it'll be bad. I actually, on one of my podcasts, was discussing this with one of my friends, Daryl, and he had read some information that that was all, the, the, the plan for a big push through was actually kind of a feint

• 2:04:49Jocko Willink?

  to try and get insurgents to leave. And I, I don't know if it's true or not. I don't know if you know it's true or not. What, what, what do you remember about that?

• 2:04:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, I remember there was talk about it. But the other crazy thing, there was talk about not having a brigade come in to do a relief with us. A serious talk about when 228 leaves, there's not going to be another brigade there. So there was, so it went from one extreme to the other. I did hear talk about a major push and I, you know, through the city to quote, "clean it out." And then I heard talk that there, there may not be another brigade to come in. Actually, the brigade that ended up coming in there wasn't really identified until shortly before we, we left. So I think it was a lot of leaders

• 2:05:42Speaker 01

  from both sides, Iraq and, and, and United States, trying to figure out what the best course was. And it was a very complex situation, very chaotic. And I think they were just trying to really figure it out.

• 2:05:54Jocko Willink?

  I was in, in between my first deployment to Iraq and my second deployment to Iraq, I was the admiral's aide. So I worked for the admiral in charge of all the SEALs. Great guy. And that put me in a lot of meetings, a lot of meetings that a 03 would never be in. Some of those meetings in the Pentagon, in, with, with the, the highest, you know, the highest leaders in the military. And I saw that. I saw that there was people inside the military that were wondering.

• 2:06:28Jocko Willink?

  If we could win. A- and wondering how we could win, if we could win. You know, the, the report that came out in, in that, that summer in oh six. What said, we can't win. It's, it's unwinnable, an unwinnable situation. So the idea that, that both those options were on the board actually kind of makes sense because you had, I guarantee you had some people saying, we can't win. We can't win in that area. And then, and, and obviously some people saying, hey, we can. We just need to get the combat power that's needed and we need to commit to it.

• 2:07:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:07:09Jocko Willink?

  So.

• 2:07:10Speaker 01

  You know, there, there's an old saying, you can't kill yourself out of an insurgency. You know, you, you can't kill enough insurgents. There's always going to be more insurgents. And even my mindset changed while I was there. Initially, when we went in, our mission statement was to defeat the insurgency, take away their will to fight. And it actually evolved into protecting the populace. And there's a big difference between, hey, let's see how many insurgents we could kill versus, hey, let's protect the population. And to protect the population, you need a certain amount of mass of troops there. And I, and I do think what happened when, when the follow on brigade came in, they, they did it.

• 2:07:54Speaker 01

  They were able to mass more troops, which is great. And I give all the soldiers and Marines credit for, for the great work they did with, with two, two, with second brigade, 28th ID. And then with, with the ready first. I mean, the credit belongs to the average soldier marine that was out there slogging, slogging it out every day. The average SEAL that was out there doing their job every day and not giving up. Yeah. I mean, they, I mean, there's, this is a perfect example of resiliency. Even with those odds stacked against us, our soldiers and Marines just would not give up.

• 2:08:29Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. We, my, my task unit, what was good about my task unit, I think what was really appreciated. Was we could kill those bad guys and we could kill those bad guys. And it was, you know, you could see, you know, you'd see, you'd talk to a company commander and in any one of those company commanders that were out there. They'd go out, they'd get in patrol, they'd get in a gunfight. They'd shoot at some people they wouldn't really know. We would leave dead bodies in the streets of the insurgents and it was of the insurgents. And that just seemed to be a really good asset and something that made the, made the conventional guys.

• 2:09:12Jocko Willink?

  Man, they were, they were so happy when we'd show up at one of their, one of their combat outposts. They would be so happy for us to show up there because they knew that they'd send out a patrol and they'd get in a gunfight for sure. And sometimes they'd kill a bad guy, but they knew that we would, we would rack up these kills. And what's, what's good about it is it allowed us to eliminate the bad guys. While protecting the populace. So it was a great tool in this environment to help out. And, and that was, you know, that's, that's one of the main things that, that people talk to me about is, you know, how, how do you build relationships? Right? And how do you build relationships with people? And for me, it's real simple.

• 2:09:57Jocko Willink?

  You build a relationship by saying, how can I help you? And, and that's why when I walked into your office and you've got, you know, what's 6,000? I guess you include Iraqis, 10,000 troops there. And I'm not thinking about me and what can I do? I'm thinking what, how can I help you? And that's the attitude and that's the same attitude we took with the 118D. When they showed up, it wasn't, hey, we're here. It was what can we do to help you? How can we, what do you need from us? How can we be of assistance? And, and then the relationship is, oh, we, we can definitely use your help. And then guess what? They give back to us help. So it was pretty, um.

• 2:10:36Speaker 01

  You know, Jac, a lot of things go through my mind as you're talking, and again, you had that great attitude of how could I, how could I help? I remember when 269 Armor left, they were with me for the first six months we were there, and then 1st of the 506 comes in. So what's the difference between 269 Armor and 1st of the 506? You're talking about an Armor Battalion versus a light infantry battalion, okay? So, you know, just because 269 was rotating out doesn't mean they didn't need tanks there. So this is a great story about resilience, I guess you could call it, with this National Guard platoon that I had working with 269

• 2:11:16Speaker 01

  Armor. It was a, it was a platoon from an Armor unit in the 28th ID, a platoon of soldiers, so that was, I think we had about 40 soldiers there. And they were tankers, though. But when they get to 269 Armor in East Ramadi to work with them, I task organized them to, actually, I task organized an entire company there, Armor Company. And, but, but 269 Armor didn't need them to be Armor soldiers. They said, hey, you guys be motorized infantry because we got enough Armor soldiers. So that's what they were, until 269 Armor leaves. And then the 1st of the 5, 1st of the 506 comes in, and they said, we still need tanks.

• 2:11:59Speaker 01

  So we took a platoon from this Armor Company, put them on tanks because they were trained tankers, and they just talk about pivoting, okay? We're talking about pivoting with COVID-19. These guys pivoted from being tankers to being motorized infantry while 269 Armor was there, and then 1st of the 506 infantry comes in, they pivot back to being tankers, get on tanks, and did just a fabulous job. And they had several main gun engagements in downtown Ramadi while they were working with 1st of the 506. And the 1st of the 506 loved them. I forget what month it was, but I know there was a IED that destroyed a tank in the Malab area, which you talk about, you know, where the soccer stadium was.

• 2:12:45Speaker 01

  And the tank commander was able to get all of his crewmen out of that tank without anybody getting wounded or worse. And there was a fight that went on down there for at least 24 hours. And a few soldiers were killed during that engagement from the 1st to the 506th. But it just goes to show how these soldiers are so adaptable, so agile, able to pivot like that without complaining. It's kind of like, this what you need us to do, we'll do it. Isn't that, isn't that an amazing story, though? How many, how many soldiers from other armies could make that type of pivot and do it in an outstanding manner like those soldiers did?

• 2:13:27Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's just, it shows you the power of the American military to have that kind of attitude. You know, because it's interesting, as you say that, hey, how many people could pivot? And you're just talking about the pivot. You're not even talking about the fact that these guys are doing combat operation after combat operation after combat operation in the Malab district with subsurface IEDs destroying tanks, destroying Humvees, you know, these coordinated attacks that they're doing, the vehicle borne IEDs. I mean, you were talking about the checkpoint on the railroad, right in between Tamim and, and, and south

• 2:14:11Jocko Willink?

  central Ramadi. That is one, that is, that is a checkpoint that got overrun.

• 2:14:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:14:19Jocko Willink?

  It got overrun by the enemy. Massive Iraqi soldiers killed and wounded. Most of the Iraqi soldiers deserted after that, never came back. But that's the kind of, the enemy there was really good.

• 2:14:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:14:34Jocko Willink?

  And they used the same, they, they used combined arms, you know, between RPGs and mortars and machine guns, and then vehicle borne IEDs. They coordinated over the radio, they had medevac procedures. I mean, they did what, what military units did.

• 2:14:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was a military unit. And they had a goal of creating a caliphate. I mean, that was their goal. You know, talk about purpose, you know, talk about inspiring people by giving them a purpose. That, that was their purpose in, in life was to create, was to take over Ramadi so they could have that as part of what they thought would be an emergent caliphate.

• 2:15:13Jocko Willink?

  So it's really interesting. That's full spectrum between a Fallujah style clearance and a hey, we're leaving and not coming back.

• 2:15:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:15:22Jocko Willink?

  That that shows you where the war was. I mean, it really does. Now, we we start getting towards the end of your deployment and we're starting turnover procedures. And at some point, obviously, it went from, hey, we're going to do a massive kinetic sweep to, all right, we're going to continue this counter insurgency. We're going to start doing this in a less kinetic way than a Fallujah style. And and it starts to become time for you guys to kind of kind of pack up, head home. You, when when you guys as a unit head back, how long does that redeployment take?

• 2:16:05Speaker 01

  Well, the the relief in place, about two weeks. So, you know, we call it left seat, right seat. So for the first week that the brigade that's going to take our place gets there, we're still in the left seat or the driver's seat and they're observing. And then for the second week, they're in a driver's seat, they're in the left seat, and then we're in the right seat observing them. So in theory, it's about two weeks. And that's about what it was. Maybe it was 10 days instead of 14. And then when we get back, we went back down to Kuwait for a few days and then got back over to the States here. I think it was Fort Dix where we actually de-mobbed at. And that was, I

• 2:16:47Speaker 01

  think, about five or six days. So there wasn't a lot of, there really wasn't that much time to decompress before sending these National Guard soldiers, which I commanded, obviously, like we already talked about, had some active duty forces with me, too. But for the National Guard units that were with me to go back into their civilian environments, it wasn't a lot of decompression time. I mean, you get right down to from leaving an environment like Ramadi, I mean, a dangerous, chaotic environment like that to going back and doing whatever their civilian job was. But that's the other thing about the guard that I just want, I don't know if we emphasize it enough, is The unique thing with the National Guard, they have their military training.

• 2:17:31Speaker 01

  So they could do their military skill, but then they also bring civilian skills with them. I'll give you an example. I had some officers who worked in the police departments here in the States and we had them working with Iraqi police to try to help them become better police. You know, we had, you know, we had everything there. We had bankers, we had carpenters, we had electricians. And a lot of that led to creating better, a better infrastructure at our combat outposts and other places so our soldiers could live a little bit more of a better life when they weren't out on patrol. So, a lot of these civilian skills that the Guard have actually pays dividends when you go into a combat situation.

• 2:18:16Speaker 01

  A lot of people don't think about that.

• 2:18:17Jocko Willink?

  It's crazy for me to think. Now, we've kind of changed our perspective now on how you decompress people and even like in the SEAL teams, when we came home from Ramadi, we got on a plane, we flew home and we were home.

• 2:18:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:18:31Jocko Willink?

  We, well, to be quite frank, what we did was they sent us, we went to a bar and we drank and we, and they had, they had guys to shuttle us home with our, one new guy would drive our car and the other new guy would drive, would, sorry, one new guy would drive us in our car to our house, another new guy would follow him and take him back to do the next run for the next guy. Not exactly what you would call a good plan for decompression and now they do a much better job. But I, it's, you know, one of the best things that you can do when you come home is you want to spend time with the people that you were there with, you want to tell stories, you want to get it out of your system, you want to laugh, you want to cry, you want to, you want to kind of, like, like you said, decompress.

• 2:19:13Jocko Willink?

  For the soldiers coming home and then they're rolling back into a civilian job and all of a sudden they're not seeing their, their friends every day, the people that they just served with, what did it look like from your position as the commander as all that unfolded? What were the reports coming back? Were guys getting in trouble? Was it useful? And one thing that I tell military guys all the time, active duty guys, when they get out, whether they just get out or whether they retire, like you got to find a new mission, right? So I imagine some people... Hey, it's time to go back to work. Okay, go back to work. They kind of get back into that mission, but for me, I always see guys that have the most trouble when they don't have, they don't have a job to go into. They don't have anything to do. And now they kind

• 2:19:54Jocko Willink?

  of, the devil's, what is it, the idle hands are the devil's plaything.

• 2:19:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. You know, I think in, again, I had 35 states contribute soldiers to 2nd Brigade 28th ID. And so, you know, the main states were Vermont, Pennsylvania, and Utah. So for those states, I think things were a little bit easier because at least you still had soldiers from your state, from your unit, even though you might be miles apart, but still relatively close in hand. But for the other soldiers that were, we might've got, you know, 40 soldiers from Illinois, or, you know, another 130 soldiers from Michigan. I mean, a lot harder because people don't know what those soldiers really went through. I mean, they read about it, they saw it on the news, but they weren't there. And you

• 2:20:44Speaker 01

  probably know, Jaco, that it's pretty hard to talk to somebody who hasn't been there about what we've been through. I could have a much easier time talking to you about this than I could to somebody who's never been there. And even if I'm just talking to an acquaintance somewhere, if they never served there, I really don't like to talk about it too much with them. Now, if it was somebody who was there, yeah, a little bit more of a bond. So, it is very difficult for National Guard soldiers because they aren't as, they're not staying in the same, you know, military post or base that a SEAL is, or that an active duty soldier or Marine might be. So, that is a difficult part. And we just try to keep

• 2:21:29Speaker 01

  an eye on each other. And that's what we tried to do when we came back home. I will tell you, there were some suicides. And there were some other issues that even to this day, soldiers are still, still trying to deal with. And it's, it's a never-ending fight once you come back from a place like that.

• 2:21:50Jocko Willink?

  What was your situation when you got home? Did you stay on active duty for a while? Did you go back to work?

• 2:21:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, I did stay on. At that point in time, I wasn't with the family business anymore. At this point in time, I was already off working with a consulting firm in the Philadelphia region. So, yeah, I stayed on active duty for a few months and then I went back to work. One thing I did have the opportunity to do, we did have 15 of our Pennsylvania National Guardsmen get killed in action over there. And I had an opportunity to, I just made it a point to go see the families. And I just have to say how much respect I have for the families. And as you know, whenever one of our brothers or brothers get killed, and thank God, although

• 2:22:37Speaker 01

  I had 200 female soldiers with me in the brigade, none of the females were killed over there. But I always feel bad for the family. You know, yeah, I feel bad if I lose a friend, obviously. Feel terrible about it. But the thing that hits me most emotionally is when I think about the family, what the family is going through, what that mother and father are going through, what the brothers, sisters are going through, what the wife or, you know, going through, the spouses going through. And that's what gets me most emotional when I think about that. And I wanted to go and visit those families and they're remarkable.

• 2:23:17Speaker 01

  I thought there might be some that would be very, very angry. And every one of them respected the sacrifice that their, that their loved one had made. So that just really heartened me about the fact that it was, even though it was the soldier that made the decision to join, the family still supported that decision and supported the sacrifice that they made. And that really heartened me in a way. I do want to talk about, I don't know if you know this or not, but... We created a war memorial to the fallen that we lost. Yeah, I do know that, I've seen it. It's pretty, it's pretty special. It was around December of 2005, I was talking to

• 2:24:02Speaker 01

  my sergeant major and we decided that, at that point in time, I can't remember exactly what the number of KIA was in December, but it was at least forty, I know that much. And we just decided that we should create some type of memorial to these soldiers and Marines. And, and by the way, at the end of the day, by the time we had left there, there were three Navy corpsmen that had been killed in action there, too. But, at any rate, we put out the word in the brigade that we wanted to have a memorial to these soldiers. And, one of our Pennsylvania National Guardsmen came forward with a design.

• 2:24:46Speaker 01

  It was a female, she was an art teacher in her civilian job. And she put out this concept. I remember when she described it to myself and the sergeant major, I think in early January, it actually brought tears to my eyes. It was an obelisk, and a pair of dog tags for every soldier that was killed would hang inside of this obelisk, and it would have cuts through it. The cuts looked like it was shrapnel cuts, and, and a machine gun fired into it, too. And as the wind would blow through this obelisk, as the dog tags would clink together in the wind, the symbolism was the fallen warriors as they continue

• 2:25:28Speaker 01

  to speak to us. So, think about that. And so, we, we, we had our soldiers in the maintenance units build this memorial in Ramadi. We dedicated it on Easter Sunday, April 16, 2006, we dedicated it. We had, I think it was, at that time, about seventy-two of our soldiers had been killed in Marines, and others had been killed in action at that time. And, we had the deputy commander from the Marine Division there for this ceremony we had, and all the battalion commanders were there. And it was just a special tribute, and we took a risk, because you don't want that many people.

• 2:26:11Speaker 01

  You know, congregated in one spot at any area in there. And we did have our share of rockets and mortars falling on the Fort Operating Base. And we had this memorial ceremony in April. And then when we left there in June, we deconstructed it, put it in a Conex, shipped it back home. And then in October 2016, we rededicated it at Fort Indian Town Gap. It still stands there to this day. I think it's one of the only war memorials that was designed and built and dedicated in a war zone and then deconstructed and rededicated back here in the United States. I don't know if there's another memorial like that. When we left Ramadi, there were 81 pair of dog tags hanging in that memorial.

• 2:26:55Speaker 01

  Our last soldier died after we returned. He was a sergeant, a field artillery sergeant, who had serious burns and for months was in treatment at Brooke Army Medical Center and succumbed to his wounds that he received in November of 2005. He succumbed to those wounds in July 2006. And he was the last set of dog tags that we hung inside of that memorial. And again, it took me years before I could explain to you what I just did without crying. And just that symbolism of the... And I was there on Memorial Day. The symbolism

• 2:27:38Speaker 01

  is the wind blows through that obelisk, those dog tags cling together, those fallen warriors continuing to speak to us, I think is just so powerful. And that's why I think events where we do something in honor of a fallen warrior is so important. Because I believe whenever we speak a fallen warrior's name or do something in their honor, we keep their spirit on earth alive. You know, I think there's something powerful to that, keeping their spirit on earth alive. Think about that. I'm sorry to deviate here for a minute, but we do this march for the fallen that I think you're aware of. It's a 28 mile ruck march we do at Fort Indian Town Gap. Very similar to the Baton Memorial Death March. We usually get about 1,000 people there every

• 2:28:23Speaker 01

  year. And everyone does that ruck march in honor of a fallen warrior. And when you're out there doing a 28 mile ruck march with a 35 pound pack, your feet are bleeding a little bit, you're sweating, you tear up now and then, when you're thinking about what you're doing, what better dedication to keep the spirit of the fallen warrior alive? It's just amazing. I just think it's an important thing to do. You know, Memorial Day is an important holiday. Remembering our fallen is so important. We could never forget the sacrifice they made, and we could never forget the families that are still suffering to this day that lost loved ones in Iraq and Afghanistan.

• 2:29:02Jocko Willink?

  And that memorial march is up, it's open to the public, right?

• 2:29:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's open to the public, September 26th this year. So far, it has not been canceled because of the COVID or anything. If people Google "March for the Fallen 2020," it'll come up. I just Googled it today to make sure, you know, it would come up, and it came up. I Googled "March for the Fallen 2020." It was the first thing to come up. You'll see it said "Fort Indian Town Gap, Pennsylvania, 28 mile ruck march in honor of those fallen warriors." And just a great tribute to keep the spirit of these fallen warriors alive.

• 2:29:38Jocko Willink?

  No doubt about it. And I remember seeing that obelisk when I got there. You guys were still on the ground. I think I got there right around the time it was dedicated. I forget the exact date. I'm gonna actually try and figure that out, because I should know that date. But, you know, you were telling me earlier, and then I agreed. You said, you asked me if I kept the journal in Ramadi. I said, "No." And you said you hadn't either, and both of us wish that we had, because, you know, you just, little dates like that of, they mean a lot. But I remember, I remember seeing that. And, you know, of course, it's very sobering, you know, for when I showed up there. And look, we knew what we were

• 2:30:20Jocko Willink?

  getting into. And so, you know, to see, to see that monument, to see those dog tags, and know what each one of those represents, was definitely a very somber and very solemn moment.

• 2:30:36Jocko Willink?

  You're absolutely correct. Every time you you talk about the the people that you know, the people that you lost, it it their spirit's still here. You know, that's one of the best things about the job that I do. You know, I go around and talk to companies and even right here, right now, this is what we're doing. You know, we got we got friends, we got people that sacrificed so that we can sit here today.

• 2:31:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:31:01Jocko Willink?

  And and we can never forget that. We can never forget their families.

• 2:31:06Speaker 01

  And you know, it should inspire our warriors to continue to adhere to our values and continue to drive on with whatever mission it is because of all these soldiers from every war that that that made the ultimate sacrifice to build a country that we have. And I know, you know, obviously, a lot of social unrest, and there's a lot of things that may not be perfect about our country. But I could guarantee you this. After being over in Iraq, after spending the last three years in Europe and traveling to about 40 different countries over there, there is no country that is as great as our country in in many, many different ways. So it's an imperfect country, but it's it's it's a country that people from all

• 2:31:49Speaker 01

  over the world want to gravitate to and and come here. We just got to all work together to keep this country great. That's what that was about. We all work together to to to gain the promise that our forefathers wanted this country to be. And they probably, you know, hey, when they wrote that constitution, they knew it wasn't a perfect constitution for a lot of reasons, primarily because of slavery. And we have to just keep working at things to make this country what it needs to be. And we all need to work together to to achieve that.

• 2:32:27Jocko Willink?

  You ended up going to forty different countries?

• 2:32:30Speaker 01

  When I, when I was over in Europe.

• 2:32:31Jocko Willink?

  In the last three years?

• 2:32:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, and many of them many times over.

• 2:32:35Jocko Willink?

  So was that, did you, so you picked up, so you got home from Ramadi, what was your next, what happened then?

• 2:32:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, when I got home from Ramadi, uh, I did, uh, get promoted to, to become a, a one star. I worked at our Joint Force Headquarters at, at Indian Town Gap and then, uh, in 2011, I was asked by our Adjutant General to come on full time, so I served full time for a year as the, as one of the Deputy Adjutant Generals at our, at our Joint Force Headquarters and then I was given the honor of commanding the 28th Infantry Division for over three years, so I did that full time from, uh, from, um, 2012 until 2016. And then in 2016, I had the honor of, of, uh, getting an assignment to go to US Army Europe in Visbad in Germany for three years as one of the Deputy Commanding Generals there.

• 2:33:25Speaker 01

  And I served over there, uh, again, for, for three years, uh, worked with our NATO allies and other European partners. Uh, and, uh, I have the greatest respect for our allies over there. Uh, was in Ukraine many times, uh, to the training center that we have there to, as a Ukrainian battalion rotates out of the Donbass region where they're, uh, still fighting the Russian-led separatists there. And by the way, uh, when I left there, about thirty Ukrainian soldiers were getting killed every month. Uh, so I mean, it's still a, a war going on in the Donbass region, but battalions would rotate out of the Donbass,

• 2:34:06Speaker 01

  the Ukrainian battalions, they'd come back to, uh, western Ukraine to a training area that we had there and the United States, Canada, Lithuania and Poland would work together to help this battalion train to be a more effective fighting unit. And, uh, so was, was there many times, but, uh, yeah, spent a lot of time in Poland and the three Baltic countries, down in the Balkans, uh, I mean, I was. All over the place.

• 2:34:34Jocko Willink?

  Did you, do you speak any Polish?

• 2:34:36Speaker 01

  Uh, very, very little. Yeah, very, I could say goodnight and hello and those type of things. The funny thing is, you know, my grandmother and father, you know, my grandmother died when I was 10. So I remember my grandmother and father speaking Polish together. And the reason they didn't want to teach any of us kids Polish is so they could talk in Polish without us knowing what they were trying to say. So they, they didn't try to teach us the language.

• 2:35:00Jocko Willink?

  Uh, one of my friends that was in the SEAL teams with me, his, um, he was, his dad was a, was a Mexican.

• 2:35:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:35:09Jocko Willink?

  And, you know, and the kid looked Mexican and, you know, I said, and he, and he, he had a little bit of an accent. You know, a little bit of an accent just from growing up with his dad who spoke, spoke Spanish and, and who, to this guy's, you know, admission, he said, you know, my dad didn't really speak. You know, didn't really speak English very well at all. And his mom spoke Spanish too. And I said, oh, so that's why you have a little bit of an accent. He said, yeah, you know, that's probably where it comes from. And I said, well, you know, at least, at least you speak Spanish. And he goes, no, I don't speak Spanish. His dad refused to have him speak Spanish because his dad wanted him to be an American.

• 2:35:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:35:52Jocko Willink?

  And, and even though his dad wasn't, you know, great with English, he wouldn't speak to him in Spanish. And I, I thought that's where you were going to go, you know, because that, that was kind of the old, the old attitude was, hey, we're in America now.

• 2:36:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:36:04Jocko Willink?

  So, uh, in, in, interesting story. You know, I, I, I did, you know, um, have this little thing that you, you put together. When, when you were the commanding general there at the 228, there was a couple of little things I just wanted to highlight.

• 2:36:17Speaker 01

  Oh, you mean at the 28th ID, not the 228?

• 2:36:19Jocko Willink?

  Oh, sorry. Yes. The 28th ID. Yeah. When you were the division commander.

• 2:36:22Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:36:23Jocko Willink?

  You had a, um, sort of a guidance for your troops and there's just a couple of good leadership things in here. It says, every leader is trusted and expected to use disciplined initiative. Within the commander's intent, without wasting time requesting permission. Report up as the situation develops. Request further guidance or support as necessary. Demonstrating a high level of initiative is worth the risk of making honest mistakes.

• 2:36:51Jocko Willink?

  So, great concise statement there.

• 2:36:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think that came from my time in Ramadi where I realized, you know, as we were in distributed operations there, I mean, most operations were conducted at the platoon level there. And, you know, the situation was so dynamic that you couldn't waste time asking your higher level leader, you know, "What should I do?" You know, you had to, you had to show initiative. And so when I came back, I knew our soldiers were going to continue to deploy overseas. As a matter of fact, we have elements of our aviation brigade in Pennsylvania getting ready to go over to Afghanistan. And I just knew this was going to be a long war, we were going to continue to deploy troops over there. And I realized, one of my jobs as division commander, even if we didn't deploy the entire

• 2:37:37Speaker 01

  division over there, I had units going over, had to get them ready to fight in chaotic situations. And the best way to do that was to help them understand the need to develop initiative. And we had to do that in a training environment, so that when they got to a combat environment, they would continue to do that. This is the thing, if in a training environment, you don't allow your soldiers, or in a civilian organization, you don't allow your, your people, say in a steady state operation, to demonstrate initiative, then when you get, as a soldier, deploy overseas, if you're not used to displaying initiative in a training environment, guess what? It doesn't automatically flip a switch and it's combat, "Now I'm going to show some initiative." That doesn't happen.

• 2:38:21Speaker 01

  The same in a civilian company, you're, if you don't allow your employees to demonstrate initiative, steady state, then when you hit something like the coronavirus, COVID-19, hey, you know, they're not automatically going to display initiative. So I think it's important to encourage that before you're in a crisis.

• 2:38:40Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, no doubt about that. That was always my main goal. You know, that's the fourth, the fourth law of combat that I talk about is decentralized command. And, and it's the most powerful of the...

• 2:38:54Jocko Willink?

  of the laws of combat that I talk about, not that the other ones aren't powerful, but you can't have decentralized command unless you have cover move, unless you have, unless you keep things simple, unless you prioritize and execute. Those things don't really work. Decentralized command cannot work without those three, but once you implement decentralized command, this is what allows a team to really do well. Yes, everybody leads. That's what you want. So what was your last tour in the army?

• 2:39:18Speaker 01

  My last tour into army was as, was as one of the deputy commanding generals at US Army Europe. I served there from 2016 to 2019. I left Europe in April 2019 and then retired in Pennsylvania in June 2019, two months after I left Europe.

• 2:39:35Jocko Willink?

  And then at what point did you start writing the book?

• 2:39:38Speaker 01

  Uh, you know, the funny thing with the book is, again, I did this bicycle trip with my wife and 15 month old son in 1983. So here it was 2019, just retired from the army, sitting around a fire pit with my younger son Timothy, and he starts asking me questions about this bike trip. Believe it or not, I didn't talk about it all that much for some reason. And I start telling him stories and we're laughing and he goes, Daddy, goes, you should write a book about it. And so I get back home, I'm talking to my wife and she goes, you know, John, I think that's a good idea because your kids and your grandkids need to know the story. And I do have two grandchildren. And I said, you know what?

• 2:40:19Speaker 01

  If nothing else, just for the family, you know, to have the story. So I, I took this journal that I kept on the bike trip that was sitting in a shoebox, literally a shoebox for over 35 years, use that as a basis to write the book. And then because I, I'm as passionate about leadership as you are, Jaco, I, I wanted to put a leadership component in there because there were so many leadership elements to that bike trip. And so I wrote the book. I started in the fall of 2019 and then was able to get it published in February of 2020.

• 2:40:56Jocko Willink?

  Quick turnaround. You know, I, like I said, there's a ton of stuff, great stuff inside this book. I want to read one more chunk of it. Pretty, pretty good chunk here. And then the part, this is a part called leadership. And, and look, you've got these leadership lessons kind of strewn throughout and you, you, you put an exclamation point on them here. You, you say this, "Character, competence, and resilience are essential, essential for effective leadership. Leaders must be true to their values even when their backs are against the wall. Leaders must cultivate trust by trusting others first, sharing the load, and following through on promises. Leaders must care more about those they lead than they care about themselves. Leaders

• 2:41:40Jocko Willink?

  must clearly communicate a vision or action, an action plan that is realistic and believable, be problem solvers, and have the courage to make decisions. Leaders must help others develop and become stronger, and leaders must be fit in many ways, including physical, spiritually, mental, and emotional fitness. Leaders must have the resilience to overcome adversity. Resiliency is not only about toughness, but it's also about exuding positive energy that inspires others. Having a positive attitude is essential. We choose how we feel. We can choose to be happy or sad, angry or calm, upbeat or down. Organizations and teams take

• 2:42:25Jocko Willink?

  on the attitude and person, and personality of their leaders. The attitudes of those on the team reflect the leader's attitude. If your team has a bad attitude, look in the mirror.

• 2:42:43Jocko Willink?

  And those, that's an example of some of the, you know, just, just powerful leadership lessons that you have inside this book. Um, ton of other ones in there. And, you know, I know we've been going for almost three hours right now. And as I told you earlier, I, I could sit here and listen to your perspectives on this stuff all day long.

• 2:43:06Jocko Willink?

  But I'm not gonna keep you as a prisoner here. Uh, General Gronski, where, let's talk about where people can find you, what you're doing right now. I know you've, you've got your consulting company. Tell us a little bit about that and where we can find you.

• 2:43:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, the consulting company is Leader Grove LLC. Uh, website, leadergrove.com or johngronski.com. Uh, both websites linked to one another. And, you know, I'm, I'm pretty active on Instagram, on, on Facebook, on Twitter, on, on LinkedIn. So people could, could, you know, search for me there.

• 2:43:42Jocko Willink?

  And, and your Twitter is JL Gronski. Your YouTube is John Gronski, your LinkedIn is John Gronski, your Facebook is John Gronski Leads. I didn't find your Instagram. You got an Instagram?

• 2:43:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, John Gronski Leads is Instagram. Yeah.

• 2:43:57Jocko Willink?

  You're getting on the gram, as Echo Charles likes to call it. Uh, that's where people can find you. And you're, you're available to speak, you're available to do consulting, the whole nine yards.

• 2:44:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, I'm, I'm a professional speaker. I, I do leadership consulting. I have many different clients throughout the country. And, uh, yeah, I love to do it. I'm passionate about it.

• 2:44:18Jocko Willink?

  Awesome. Um, Echo.

• 2:44:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:44:22Jocko Willink?

  You got anything? So, so just so, I know you've listened, you said you listen to the podcast and I'm sure you know that Echo's been sitting here for three hours. And something caught his mind two hours and 32 minutes ago. And he's been having this question brewing.

• 2:44:36Speaker 02

  You noticed that?

• 2:44:37Speaker 01

  But, but Jaco, I don't want to be like the only person in the United States who doesn't listen to your podcast. So yes, I listen to your podcast.

• 2:44:46Speaker 02

  Oh, this is, this is actually going to be super simple and easy, I think. You mentioned something real quick and brief. Um, the left seat, right seat, like in what is that in when you transition?

• 2:44:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, when, when, when one brigade is getting ready to leave and another brigade is coming in to take over that mission. The brigade that's getting ready to leave for the first, let's say for the first week is in the left seat, which means they're still in a driver's seat. They're still doing the mission. And the incoming brigade is observing in the, in the, in the right seat, in the passenger seat. And then. The following week, the brigade that is now newly taken to mission will be in the left seat or the driver's seat. The brigade that's about to leave is in the right seat observing. And then, once that is done, the brigade that was there has gone home.

• 2:45:39Speaker 01

  And to be honest with you, Echo, usually, most units want that to be done as quickly as possible, to be quite honest about it.

• 2:45:47Speaker 02

  Yeah. Maybe like, feel like they're holding their hand or something like that.

• 2:45:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:45:52Speaker 02

  Like, "Oh, we got this already," kind of thing. I thought of it in terms of like, you know how like with your kids, right? You wanna, you wanna train them to do their own stuff.

• 2:45:59Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:46:00Speaker 02

  Right? And just simplifying it like that, and having that to kinda like, consider like, the whole situation or whatever, I feel like that was kinda useful. Cause I figured that's what it meant.

• 2:46:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:46:11Speaker 02

  You know, left seat, driver's seat, passenger seat, after a certain amount of time when the passenger's like, "Yeah, I think I can drive."

• 2:46:15Speaker 01

  Well, that is kind of a way to train somebody.

• 2:46:17Speaker 02

  Right.

• 2:46:18Speaker 01

  You know, first, you do it and let them observe. No, first, you tell them how to do it. Then, you do it and have them observe. And then, you have them do it and you observe.

• 2:46:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:46:27Speaker 01

  You know?

• 2:46:28Speaker 02

  And then, after a while, you just kinda leave.

• 2:46:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, and they got it.

• 2:46:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:46:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:46:32Jocko Willink?

  That's the way it works. My recommendation is you stay humble when you're getting a turnover from somebody.

• 2:46:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:46:38Jocko Willink?

  Man, listen to what they say. They know things you don't know. And it's actually crazy to me to think about trying to transfer knowledge, like when the guys came into relieve tasking a Bruiser inside Ramadi. I was trying to tell them, you know, we're all, everyone in the chain of command's just trying to give them all this information, cause you know, you know how hard it is.

• 2:46:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:46:59Jocko Willink?

  And you're just, just trying to give them, there's no possible way you can transfer them all the knowledge that you have, and you're doing your best. So, when you come into those situations as a leader, open up your mind, open up your brain, try and absorb what people are telling you. They're, look, you might have a different vision, it doesn't matter. Listen to what they say. Have an open mind. Sir, you got any other, any, any final thoughts?

• 2:47:25Speaker 01

  You know, just one final thought. We, you know, we talked about the experience over there, and the final thought, I guess, is how important families are to everything we do. We can't do what we do without the support of our families. And I remember a senior leader telling me a number of years ago, you know, one of the Army values is loyalty. And he said, when we talk about the Army value of loyalty, it not only means loyalty to your unit, it also means being loyal to your family. And that really stuck with me because you don't, I didn't hear too many senior leaders talking about that up to that point. And so whenever I talk to soldiers after that, I will always remind them, you gotta be loyal to your family as well as to your unit.

• 2:48:10Speaker 01

  And that's, and I think that's very important. So I guess the final point is, we just gotta be so thankful for the support we have from our families, you know, whatever that family unit might look like, because we can't do what we do without the support of others.

• 2:48:26Jocko Willink?

  Amen to that. And once again, thank you so much for coming here today. Thank you for teaching all these great lessons about leadership and life. And of course, and obviously, thank you for everything you did for America for 40 years of service. And specifically, thank you for what you did for the soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines that served with you in the Battle of Armadi. You and your troops set conditions for victory, and the men of the 228 will always be revered

• 2:49:06Jocko Willink?

  by the SEALs of Task Unit Bruiser for guiding us into combat and standing by our side on the battlefield. And we will never forget the sacrifice of those fallen heroes, those iron soldiers who gave their lives for us. Thank you for everything.

• 2:49:32Speaker 01

  Thank you, Jaco. It's really an honor to be here with you. I love the message that, that you get out there and Echo gets out there alongside you. Thanks, thanks, thanks for those important leadership messages you got, you get out. I have to tell you, I did read Extreme Ownership, and I loved every page of it. It's an excellent book and something that anyone who's interested in becoming a better leader could learn from.

• 2:49:59Jocko Willink?

  Thank you, sir. Appreciate it. And with that, General John Gronski has left the building.

• 2:50:09Jocko Willink?

  Awesome to see him again and awesome to talk to him and awesome to get those lessons learned. Now they must be applied.

• 2:50:22Jocko Willink?

  Echo Charles, any lessons that you think we could apply? Any things we could do to make ourselves better?

• 2:50:29Speaker 02

  Yes. Left seat, right seat.

• 2:50:32Jocko Willink?

  You like that one?

• 2:50:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, very much so. And here's the thing, it made sense. Like I wasn't confused as to what it was. Cause once you, once you realize, oh, you're talking about the driver's seat and the passenger seat. That's what you're talking about and cause you know how like when you're trying to train somebody up, you know, which actually you talk about like a long time, you know, from a long time ago, I'm like, okay, yeah, cool, cool. But when you're trying to do that, it's like, what's the best, now I gotta be a good trainer and like all this stuff that I worry about. And I'm talking about like kids, I'm talking about like various, you know, things. But that's a good, just simplistic way of like keeping your mind wrapped around it, you know? And actually in a way, meth, a method, right? Like I'll just do it. You just watch.

• 2:51:14Speaker 02

  If you have questions, ask. I'll even walk myself through it while I'm doing it. Teaching my daughter how to make rice, or I did like a year ago, whatever. And yeah, I'm just walking her through and I actually did that. The whole front seat, I'm not front seat, back seat, uh, left seat, right seat. You know, did it. Said boom, this is how many cups of water, boom, this is how many cups of rice, you're doing it. And she's just listening. So I do it, so I do it. I just walk her through it, but I do it. Do it again, do it again, not, you know, the same day, I'm just saying day, day after day. And then after a while, you're like, okay, let's switch seats. Bottom in the front, so I'm in the passenger seat, right? Still offering, uh, you know, tips or whatever. Worked. We're good too.

• 2:51:55Jocko Willink?

  Tips on making rice?

• 2:51:57Speaker 02

  Yes, sir. Without a rice maker. In Hawaii, everybody has a rice maker. You just put the rice in the water, you press the buttons. Good.

• 2:52:04Jocko Willink?

  You press the what?

• 2:52:06Speaker 02

  The but, you press the button. Easy money. Either way, rice, no rice, whatever, this is what we're gonna do. Supplementation.

• 2:52:17Jocko Willink?

  Let me go deep on this right now. Okay, so I was up on the, uh, the Joe Rogan podcast.

• 2:52:24Jocko Willink?

  I got a COVID-19 test.

• 2:52:26Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 2:52:26Jocko Willink?

  There. When I got the test, the doctor came, a doctor came to give me the test. He gave me the test. He pricked my finger. We had to wait 15 minutes.

• 2:52:36Speaker 02

  The antibody test, though, to be specific.

• 2:52:39Jocko Willink?

  Yes, to find out if I've had this, if I developed this. He knew, you know, I was telling him, hey, look, I went to Seattle, I went to New York, I went to San Francisco, I went to LA. I mean, I was in the hot zones. I was at ground zero for COVID at the end of January, on planes everywhere. He, and, and kept traveling. I stopped traveling March 14th, I think. I was traveling in airplanes all over the place.

• 2:53:12Jocko Willink?

  I did not have the antibodies.

• 2:53:16Jocko Willink?

  And what he said was, with the amount of, the amount of travel I've done, the amount of exposure I've had, I've been exposed to it. He said, sometimes people's immune systems are strong to the point where it doesn't even register. This little COVID-19 rolls in and it just gets crushed.

• 2:53:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:53:33Jocko Willink?

  So, immune system, two things. Look, vitamin D3, which I take, Jaco Fuel, D3, I take it. I take it every day. As a matter of fact, I take more than the recommended dose. For whatever reason, I take one in the morning, I take one at night. I take Cold War, which has all those immune supplementations. And for some reason, look, I'm healthy, yes. I eat good, yes. Why not just kick it up? So, who knows? Who knows? I'm just saying, maybe not a coincidence. Like, you, you heard what Rhonda, Dr. Rhonda Patrick said, right, on Joe's podcast, talking about vitamin D? And how helpful it is, how it helps with that.

• 2:54:17Jocko Willink?

  I take that religiously. I take the Cold War religiously. And all of a sudden, I'm in all these horrible places and I'm just COVID-free, no factor. I'm just saying, look, can I make a claim? That these supplements will stop COVID-19? No, I can't make that claim, but I can tell you a little story.

• 2:54:41Jocko Willink?

  So anyways, look, those are the facts. A lot of exposure, no COVID-19, no, and oh, by the way, we're doing jujitsu at, I mean, it's crazy. What I expose my immune system to, no factor. What? COVID what?

• 2:54:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:54:58Jocko Willink?

  So try those out.

• 2:55:00Speaker 02

  That is crazy because even when you think about your like, your, it's not like you're, uh, let's say a singer, you know, or whatever you're putting on concert, singing into the microphone, sign a few autographs, even a bunch of autographs.

• 2:55:13Jocko Willink?

  I'm shaking a thousand people's hands.

• 2:55:16Speaker 02

  Hugging a bunch of people.

• 2:55:17Jocko Willink?

  Bro, hugging people. It's crazy.

• 2:55:18Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Shaking everyone's hands.

• 2:55:21Jocko Willink?

  Shaking everyone's hands.

• 2:55:22Speaker 02

  Everyone.

• 2:55:22Jocko Willink?

  Having conversations with them.

• 2:55:23Speaker 02

  Basically.

• 2:55:24Jocko Willink?

  Close in conversations where they're like telling me a secret about something.

• 2:55:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:55:27Jocko Willink?

  They're in my face.

• 2:55:28Speaker 02

  When they started the whole, the social distancing, when that became an actual like word or whatever, the number one thing, handshakes. Number one thing.

• 2:55:37Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:55:38Speaker 02

  And you're doing that with everybody, different cities.

• 2:55:41Jocko Willink?

  Lines of people from all over the country. By the way, when I went to those cities, there was, you know, whatever percentage of the audience, they didn't, they weren't from DC, they weren't from New York. They drove there from wherever else. So you got this massive cesspool of bacteria and I'm just all up in it. But I got that D.

• 2:56:01Speaker 02

  Got that. Yeah, sure. Hey, man. So your body was just like, hey, we don't, we don't need antibodies for this little thing. Anti, wait, it's kind of like, you know, when you're in a, um, like, I don't know, maybe the police force or something like that where it's like, hey, we have a situation. Then the, then the police force like mounts up and they're like, okay, what's the situation? Then they say the situation, they're like, oh, no, we don't need all these guys.

• 2:56:22Jocko Willink?

  Exactly.

• 2:56:23Speaker 02

  Bro, send Fred from the front desk or whatever.

• 2:56:25Jocko Willink?

  He's got that handled.

• 2:56:26Speaker 02

  Handle business, you know, whatever.

• 2:56:28Jocko Willink?

  So that's what happened.

• 2:56:29Speaker 02

  Yeah. Interesting. Oh, yeah. The Cold War is there to also, discipline. Discipline, go. This helps your brain, you know? So if you want to figure out how you did or did not get COVID-19 and you figured out better, I guess, with the discipline.

• 2:56:44Jocko Willink?

  You might need some protein, get some milk. Your kids might need protein, get some, or your kid milk.

• 2:56:50Jocko Willink?

  You might need some ready to drink cans, which I've been drinking today.

• 2:56:56Jocko Willink?

  Plus you can get this stuff at originmaine.com. You can also get it at the vitamin shop.

• 2:57:02Speaker 02

  Exactly right. Yeah. Also at originmaine.com. Get some cool jujitsu stuff, gees, rash guards, other stuff too.

• 2:57:10Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:57:10Speaker 02

  On there. Also jeans, American made denim, American made denim. Not the kind you go down to wherever and get them sewn and bleached and do they bleach jeans? Yeah, sometimes.

• 2:57:22Jocko Willink?

  Sometimes.

• 2:57:22Speaker 02

  Or acid washed. Remember acid washed?

• 2:57:25Jocko Willink?

  Yes, I do.

• 2:57:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's old school. Or, you know, distressed or whatever. Cause you know, they distressed jeans in the factory.

• 2:57:32Jocko Willink?

  Our stuff look like someone's lived in them.

• 2:57:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, like someone.

• 2:57:35Jocko Willink?

  Like someone did something cool. And by the way, it's so obvious when you see those pre. What are they? What do they call that?

• 2:57:42Speaker 02

  I don't know.

• 2:57:43Jocko Willink?

  No, there's a word distressed.

• 2:57:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, like pre distressed.

• 2:57:47Jocko Willink?

  Jeans.

• 2:57:47Speaker 02

  Factory distressed.

• 2:57:48Jocko Willink?

  Factory distressed, come on, man.

• 2:57:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, and then ship them over and then, you know, then hey, you know, here's some jeans, which, you know, I don't know. It's not that is what I'm saying.

• 2:57:59Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 2:58:00Speaker 02

  All made in America, the actual denim made in America.

• 2:58:02Jocko Willink?

  Also, we got boots.

• 2:58:06Speaker 02

  Works of art.

• 2:58:07Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:58:07Speaker 02

  As it were.

• 2:58:08Jocko Willink?

  According to?

• 2:58:12Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, order those. Get what you need, man. We're there and we're making everything that we're talking about in America. That's what we're doing. That's how we're doing it.

• 2:58:21Speaker 02

  Also, Jaco's store. We have a store, online store, jacostore.com. This is where you can get your discipline equals freedom hoodies. T-shirts.

• 2:58:33Jocko Willink?

  Rash guards.

• 2:58:33Speaker 02

  Hats. Women's stuff on there as well. Tank tops and shirts, whatnot.

• 2:58:39Jocko Willink?

  That's if you want to represent while you're on the path.

• 2:58:42Speaker 02

  True. Very, very true. I could not have said it better. That is true. Yes. Also, also on Jaco's store. We have an email list. I'm not, I'm not gonna abuse anyone's email ever, ever in my whole life, ever, straight up. I'm making that proclamation right now.

• 2:58:57Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 2:58:58Speaker 02

  But if you'd sign, if you want to sign up for our email list.

• 2:59:05Speaker 02

  When I say our email list, it's like mining Jaco's that those are the only people are gonna email you. Straight up. So if you want to sign up for this, it's mainly gonna be store stuff like and not like everyday emailing you. Oh, we changed the color of our website, bro. I don't, I don't email that kind of stuff because I don't think anyone really cares about that stuff. Only if there's like a new design or yeah, that's pretty much. So maybe like once a month, I don't know. It's not very often, but I'm gonna put extensive effort into making it stuff that I really believe that it is worth sending out. See what I'm saying? Worth receiving, worth opening up as an email.

• 2:59:43Jocko Willink?

  You're making me want to sign up for your email list just so I can make, just so I can police you to make sure you're not sending out stuff that you shouldn't be sending out.

• 2:59:52Speaker 02

  I should be.

• 2:59:52Jocko Willink?

  No, I'm saying if I was a listener, because I am on the email list, but if I was just a listener out there in the world, I might go Echo's making a claim. I'm gonna check it.

• 3:00:01Speaker 02

  Good. I think that that's a good thing to do.

• 3:00:04Jocko Willink?

  If Echo sends a lame email, let me know.

• 3:00:08Speaker 02

  Respond to it and just say, hey, this was a lame email. So maybe check next time you send, maybe like, you know, confirm it or something, you know, give it a once over. I don't know, but nonetheless, for real, I respect, I respect the inbox.

• 3:00:23Jocko Willink?

  Check. Also, we got a podcast right now that you're listening to. If you want to, you can subscribe to it. If you want to, you can leave a review. We also have some other podcasts. We got the thread that I'm still working on a name change. Every good name I think of is kind of taken, so I'm bummed out. We have the grounded podcast, which is about jujitsu and life. We got the warrior kid podcast for your warrior kids. We also have warrior kid soap from IrishOaksRanch.com. It's also available where?

• 3:00:47Speaker 02

  On Jaco's store.

• 3:00:47Jocko Willink?

  On the Jaco's store.com. Young Aiden making soap, building a business. Who here was building a business when they were 12 years old? Now he's older now, but he started that business when he was 12. Credit. Don't forget that we have a YouTube channel. And at some point, Echo Charles is gonna start putting Easter eggs of special effects into the YouTube version of this podcast. Maybe a little sound effect, maybe an explosion. Some good opportunities today.

• 3:01:19Speaker 02

  Uh, well, technically those aren't Easter eggs.

• 3:01:22Jocko Willink?

  Okay, what are they?

• 3:01:24Speaker 02

  Sound effects.

• 3:01:25Jocko Willink?

  Okay, well, he's not just sound effects, visual effects, maybe some smoke, maybe some fire, maybe some explosions. It's funny that you get, you make a four-minute video and you show 97 explosions, but you do a three-hour video and there's nothing in it.

• 3:01:41Jocko Willink?

  What do you think people think of that?

• 3:01:42Speaker 02

  I, I think explosions have their place in the world, you know, and in a

• 3:01:46Jocko Willink?

  I do too.

• 3:01:49Speaker 02

  Well, we'll have varying levels of agreement on that whole topic.

• 3:01:53Jocko Willink?

  People would, okay, do you think, do you think watching a three-hour YouTube video is boring? It's you and me talking. Do you think that might be boring to someone visually? Three hours?

• 3:02:04Speaker 02

  Well, visually boring and boring are two different things.

• 3:02:08Jocko Willink?

  I said visually boring. Yes or no?

• 3:02:11Speaker 02

  I can see.

• 3:02:12Jocko Willink?

  Yes or no?

• 3:02:13Speaker 02

  If, if, put it this way, well, it's not a yes or no question, really.

• 3:02:16Jocko Willink?

  It is a yes or no question. Is it boring to watch three hours of a video of two humans in a black room talking to each other? Yes or no?

• 3:02:23Speaker 02

  It's not a yes or no question. It depends who the humans are. It depends what they're talking about.

• 3:02:30Speaker 02

  We gotta get, you gotta, you gotta understand.

• 3:02:32Jocko Willink?

  Okay, well, let's say it was, let's say it was some subject, like someone trying to explain how to cook rice. Do you think that might get boring?

• 3:02:44Jocko Willink?

  Now, if the rice cooker was blowing up, people would be stoked. You see where I'm coming from here?

• 3:02:53Jocko Willink?

  Check.

• 3:02:54Speaker 02

  Anyway.

• 3:02:54Jocko Willink?

  Yes. Subscribe to the YouTube channel.

• 3:02:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, subscribe to the YouTube channel.

• 3:02:59Jocko Willink?

  Subscribe to the YouTube channel if you want to see that. And Echo does make other enhanced videos and if you want to see stuff blow up, you can see it there. If you want to see, if you want to be, if you want to be bored, then you can watch the four hour podcast of.

• 3:03:12Speaker 02

  It's not boring. How about that?

• 3:03:14Jocko Willink?

  Okay. Visually boring.

• 3:03:17Speaker 02

  Anyway, psychological warfare, psychological warfare. If you're having a moment of weakness, which we all do, had one the other day. Powered through it, by the way.

• 3:03:24Jocko Willink?

  What was it?

• 3:03:25Speaker 02

  Wait, I didn't wait.

• 3:03:27Jocko Willink?

  Oh, you didn't want to lift?

• 3:03:28Speaker 02

  I didn't feel like it. Freaking didn't feel like, but this was like next level, didn't feel like it. The kind where, you know, the kind where you don't feel like it's so hardcore where you're like, man, something might be like wrong with me. Like my physiology, you know, I wasn't feeling physically weakness necessarily, but I was just like, maybe like something's going on. Maybe it's like actual like burnout, you know, you know, that deal?

• 3:03:50Jocko Willink?

  The only, the, when I do 20 rep squats, heavy, sometimes while I'm doing them, I'm thinking to myself, I don't care. I, I don't care if I'm strong. I don't care if, I don't care if I'm in shape, whatever I'm doing right now. I just, I would rather be watching TV. I just want to stop this and that's right. That's, that's a bad thing. Watch out for that.

• 3:04:11Speaker 02

  Yep. So the point is.

• 3:04:12Jocko Willink?

  And then I get mad about that and then I do.

• 3:04:14Speaker 02

  Bro, I use that because you and your rugged were talking about that, how you like get mad at yourself.

• 3:04:19Jocko Willink?

  At that.

• 3:04:20Speaker 02

  And here's the thing, it's easy to be like, oh, that's a good thing. I'm going to try that. But if you don't genuinely get mad at yourself, it totally doesn't work. Like you can kind of get mad at yourself or maybe feel guilty later, but that's different. That's not even the same thing. If you're for real mad at yourself that you literally deserve punishment immediately, like right now for your ways.

• 3:04:40Jocko Willink?

  Load up the bar.

• 3:04:41Speaker 02

  Yep, exactly.

• 3:04:42Jocko Willink?

  Load up the bar and get under there and get some.

• 3:04:44Speaker 02

  Man, if you can get there, if you can pull it off mentally, very, very helpful, by the way. But let's say you can't, let's say you can't. Guess what? Psychological warfare. Boom. Listen to Jocko. He'll tell you. Pragmatically, give you practical ways to think and be like, oh yeah, wait, why should I? No, I shouldn't skip this. I should actually do this workout.

• 3:05:01Jocko Willink?

  Get yourself through that moment of weakness.

• 3:05:03Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 3:05:04Jocko Willink?

  Also, if you want to get a visual little reminder of what you should be doing, then check out flipsidecanvas.com, my brother Dakota Meyer.

• 3:05:14Jocko Willink?

  Making those, making things you can hang on your wall that will snap your brain into place a little bit. Also, we've got some books. Obviously, the book that we talked about today, The Ride of Our Lives by John Goransky. We got The Code, The Evaluation of Protocols.

• 3:05:34Jocko Willink?

  Check that one out. We got Leadership Strategy and Tactics Field Manual. We got Way of the Warrior Kid 1, 2, and 3. We got Mikey and the Dragons, apparently, which is the best little kid's book that's ever been written. A lot of people are saying.

• 3:05:50Jocko Willink?

  Discipline Equals Freedom Field Manual. Imagine that. A field manual on discipline. And then Extreme Ownership and The Dichotomy of Leadership, which I wrote with my brother Leif Babin. Also have Echelon Front, which is my leadership consultancy where we solve problems through leadership. Go to echelonfront.com. If you've got any issues, you've got any problems in your company, they're leadership problems. 100%. Think about what I just said. 100%. You do not have any problems that aren't leadership problems. If you don't believe me, go to echelonfront.com. We'll come and show you what's up. EF Online, this is our online leadership

• 3:06:29Jocko Willink?

  training. It's not just training. It's us. It's me. You want to talk to me? Go to EFOnline.com and come to one of the multiple per week live, interactive webinars that I'm doing right now with the rest of the Echelon Front team. Go to EFOnline.com. All kinds of good stuff on there. Unbelievable community brigade of people and they're getting after it. Also, the muster live event. We're doing the next one in Phoenix, Arizona, September 16th and 17th. Texas, Dallas, Texas, December 3rd and 4th. Go to extremeownership.com for details. And look, we are, might have to adapt when it comes to social distancing and whatever else we've got to do to pull these

• 3:07:14Jocko Willink?

  things off. So, the amount of seats that we have available might be smaller than what would normally be available. So, if you want to come to the muster, then...

• 3:07:26Jocko Willink?

  Get signed up now because we've sold out everything even with all the capacity being used. Go to extremeownership.com to do that. We have EF Overwatch if you or your company, you need experienced leaders in your company that understand the principles we talk about, go to EFOverwatch.com to find the people you're looking for. And don't forget about AmericasMightyWarriors.org. Mama Lee, Mark Lee's mom, she's out there. She is on a mission to help service members, active duty, retired, folks that just got out. Help them, help their families, help Gold Star families around the world. If you want to participate in that,

• 3:08:11Jocko Willink?

  if you want to donate, if you want to get involved, go to AmericasMightyWarriors.org. And if you haven't had enough of my tedious talking, or you need more of Echo's ridiculous rants, then you can find us on the interwebs, on Twitter, Instagram, and on Facebook. Echo is at Echo Charles and I am at Jocko Willink. And once again, thanks to General Gronski for coming on. And thanks to everyone in the military for your service, especially those, yes, especially those, those iron soldiers of the 2nd Brigade, 28th Infantry Division, for your service and your sacrifice in the Battle of Ramadi. We'll never forget you guys.

• 3:08:58Jocko Willink?

  And we'll never forget your fallen brothers. And to the police and the law enforcement out there. And I'll throw a special little shout out to Timothy Gronski, Pennsylvania State Police Trooper, General Gronski's son. To all of you out there, and then also firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, Border Patrol, Secret Service,

• 3:09:25Jocko Willink?

  you're doing all that hard work out there, getting very little support. Well, just remember that there are a lot of people that know what you do, know the risks that you take, and know how many people you help. And everyone else out there, we do not know everything. We do not win every time. We all make mistakes.

• 3:09:51Jocko Willink?

  Learn from them.

• 3:09:54Jocko Willink?

  Learn from them and get better.

• 3:09:58Jocko Willink?

  And get back on the path and of course, get after it.

• 3:10:06Jocko Willink?

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