269: Don't Just Go With The Flow. Take Action Because It Makes a Difference

0:00:00 - Opening 0:02:00 - The Squad Leader Makes a Difference 2:21:44 - How to stay on THE PATH 2:45:15 - 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.

• 0:00Jocko Willink?

  This is Jocko Podcast number 269 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening. And also joining us tonight is Dave Berke. Good evening, Dave. Good evening. The last podcast with Leif, we covered the first part of this Marine Corps manual, which I don't even know if it's yet. It's not really a manual. It's like, somebody made this. It's called, "The Squad Leader Makes a Difference." And I know who made it actually, Lieutenant MM Abalde and Lieutenant AM Atero. They made it at the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab in August of 1998.

• 0:41Jocko Willink?

  And we're going to push through the last few pages of this book that we didn't cover last time, but then we're going to dive deeper into the last example, which I actually moved to the end.

• 0:54Jocko Willink?

  And if you've ever wondered where these podcasts come from, where my mind is going, or if you've ever wondered how I'm thinking through these things, this is an opportunity to follow me down a path of discovery, to learn more about leadership, to learn more about human nature and about war and about history and about fear and about sorrow and about life and about death.

• 1:18Jocko Willink?

  It's an interesting ride. And it all starts by picking up where we left off with this, this manual, "The Squad Leader Makes a Difference." The subtitle is "Readings on Combat at the Squad Level." This book is a book that by its very nature, simultaneously establishes and then reinforces a culture of maneuver warfare. It enforces that, it establishes it, it is decentralized command. It's literally a book about the frontline leaders making a difference and stepping up and leading. So, here we go. We're going to go back to the book right now.

• 2:07Jocko Willink?

  This one is Sergeant Joe Hooper. US Army, Vietnam, 1968.

• 2:21Jocko Willink?

  Sergeant Joe Hooper was a squad leader with D Company, 2nd Battalion, 501st Infantry, 101st Airborne Division, near Way City. A big salute right now, obviously, to the 2nd of the 501st. Awesome. In January of 1968, Way was captured by the North Vietnamese in the Tet Offensive. US forces fought desperately to liberate Vietnam's ancient imperial city. On February 17th, D Company was assaulting a defended position along a riverbank outside Way City when it was attacked by rocket and machine gun fire.

• 3:01Jocko Willink?

  The company had run into a defensive position manned by two North Vietnamese companies in dugout bunkers. With the company pinned down by fire, Sergeant Hooper located the source of the enemy fire. He rallied his squad and attacked across the river.

• 3:17Jocko Willink?

  He overran several enemy bunkers. This bold maneuver inspired the rest of the company to join the attack. During this attack, some of Sergeant Hooper's squad had been wounded. He ran out into the open to retrieve them, but was seriously wounded himself. Sergeant Hooper refused medical treatment and returned to his men. Enemy fire continued to hamper the attack. Sergeant Hooper led his squad through the bunkers and buildings, clearing a path for the company and mortally wounding a North Vietnamese officer.

• 3:45Jocko Willink?

  When his squad came under direct fire from a building to their front, Sergeant Hooper assaulted the building himself and killed the enemy with grenades and rifle fire.

• 3:56Jocko Willink?

  Upon reaching the final line of the North Vietnamese defenses, Sergeant Hooper destroyed four bunkers by running the length of the position, tossing grenades into each of the dugouts.

• 4:08Jocko Willink?

  The enemy soldiers began to withdraw from their positions. Sergeant Hooper then led his squad in destroying the last two Vietnamese bunkers with white phosphorus grenades. After the last pocket of resistance was eliminated, Sergeant Hooper organized his unit into defensive positions. When the remainder of his company had caught up, Sergeant Hooper allowed himself to have his wounds treated. Sergeant Hooper played a major role in defeating a large force of North Vietnamese. D Company's attack forced the withdrawal of North Vietnamese reinforcements attempting to enter the city. This action outside the city weakened the NVA defenders inside Hue,

• 4:49Jocko Willink?

  easing pressure on the besieged city and leading to the eventual liberation of the Imperial Capital.

• 5:01Jocko Willink?

  And oddly enough, it doesn't talk about him receiving the Medal of Honor or anything after he's charging bunkers by himself. That's just...

• 5:11Jocko Willink?

  I guess that's just what we're doing.

• 5:15Jocko Willink?

  Lessons: Sergeant Hooper displayed exceptional leadership. His endurance despite being wounded served as an example to his squad and his company. After taking initiative to assault across the river, Sergeant Hooper's squad assumed the role of the company's main effort and spearheaded the attack. His exceptional courage under fire inspired the remainder of the company.

• 5:36Jocko Willink?

  Sergeant Hooper's combat decisions and tactical leadership at the squad level contributed to his company's success in this bitter fight. With the North Vietnamese attempt to reinforce the city halted, other forces were able to clear the city.

• 5:54Jocko Willink?

  This is, um, obviously, this is the kind of initiative, this is the kind of bias for action that the Marine Corps talks about all the time. This is the kind of initiative that we try and train leaders to have at every level, that they are going to make things happen. That's what we want. And they followed up this quote. I've actually, we actually hit this quote before, but I'm gonna hit it again. We covered it a while ago on podcast 62. Ardent Depick. His book Battle Studies. Listen to this, though. Listen to this and think about this.

• 6:38Jocko Willink?

  Four brave men who do not know each other will not dare to attack a lion. Four less brave men, but knowing each other well, sure of their reliability and consequently of mutual aid, will attack resolutely. There is the science of the organization of armies in a nutshell. When I was in South Africa, Leif and I went down to South Africa and we worked with some companies down there. And I heard that. They wasn't in this context. But they were talking about how back in the day, the African tribes would hunt lions with spears.

• 7:23Jocko Willink?

  But they would say, you know, be like three or four guys that would be able to take a lion because they could maneuver in from different angles. And they could eventually kill the lion. And this was after the conversation that, I don't know if you know this, in South, in Africa, there's no lions living out in the wild. They're all in these, they're in these big giant game reserves, which are like the wild, but they're not in the wild. Why is that? Because then you have freaking lions roaming around killing people. I mean, you're no match for a lion. No, no match. But if you've got some friends, three friends, four, I mean, if you think about the, okay, what are the odds? If you were to do this, the odds of a human beating a lion in a fight? What are the odds?

• 8:08Jocko Willink?

  What, you know, like it is not, it's almost zero. How is, how is a human gonna kill a lion in a fight? Right? Okay. Okay, you give him a spear. He has some kind of a chance. But it ain't good when a freaking lion's coming at you. That thing's gonna just, it's a slaughter. But as soon as you've got some friends and you can make some maneuvers, now you can, not only can you win, you are confident enough that you do it on a regular basis.

• 8:43Jocko Willink?

  That's decentralized command. That's not only decentralized command.

• 8:48Jocko Willink?

  That's what a good team is. A good team, what's he call it?

• 8:53Jocko Willink?

  The, the, if you're sure of the mutual aid, if I know you got my back, that's the strength of the team.

• 9:02Speaker 01

  I like how he, he used the phrase in that quote, "The science of organizations." And we think of science, you think of like, all this research and all this analysis and all the things.

• 9:10Jocko Willink?

  Right.

• 9:10Speaker 01

  You know what the science of organizations is?

• 9:12Jocko Willink?

  I got your back.

• 9:13Speaker 01

  Relationships. Yeah, I got your back.

• 9:14Jocko Willink?

  I got your back.

• 9:14Speaker 01

  That's the science. That's all you, you need to know. Uh, I think that, that quote, that word, actually, I wrote that down because that, that rung loudly of... There's actually, it's not, it's not complicated. This is not complicated. You have to have someone that you trust.

• 9:28Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 9:29Speaker 01

  If you trust that person, you'll do so much more with some, with just one other person that you trust than what you'll do as a, on your own.

• 9:35Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and before I jumped on and completed your sentence for you, you were gonna say relationships, right? And I was already in the combat mode of "I got your back" because that's, you know, what are you, you don't, you don't tell a, a Lance Corporal, "Hey, you need to build a relationship." No, you say, "You gotta make sure they got your back," right? But if you're talking to a business, which is what we do, it's, "Hey, you gotta make sure you're building good relationships. You gotta make sure that they know they're gonna give you that support, that mutual aid if you need it." That's what we're doing. And if we have that, we're unstoppable. If we have that, three of us can take a lion.

• 10:16Jocko Willink?

  Corporal Gregory.

• 10:19Jocko Willink?

  Corporal Gregory was a squad leader, this is Vietnam, 1971, US Marine Corps. Corporal Gregory was a squad leader assigned to the first combined unit pacification platoon, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines. The unit was the northernmost Marine unit in Vietnam.

• 10:39Jocko Willink?

  Corporal Gregory's combat experience had made him an extremely proficient infantry leader.

• 10:47Jocko Willink?

  He placed strong emphasis on training in the field. Where? Wait, back in the rear where they had plenty of time to train? No, in the field. He placed strong emphasis on training in the field. He took every chance to conduct opportunity training with his Marines.

• 11:05Jocko Willink?

  There were numerous duties required of Corporal Gregory's squad. Each day Corporal Gregory assembled the squad and instructed them in a single practical infantry skill.

• 11:19Jocko Willink?

  I'm gonna say that again. Every day, well, they got all these duties. Got all these duties. And the reason I'm saying this is we hear this all the time from companies. Well, we don't really have time to train. So, so guess what? No one has time to train. And if you think that this Marine Corporal in the field has quote "time to train", you're wrong. So what does he do? Every day he assembles the squad and instructs them in a single practical infantry skill.

• 11:42Jocko Willink?

  How long does that take? 10 minutes? 5 minutes? 7 minutes? While in a patrol base Corporal Gregory instructed his men in such skills as helicopter medevacs, close air support, and call for fire. Corporal Gregory required that his squad members continue their professional development. Every day after returning from patrols Corporal Gregory's squad would work on their Marine Corps Institute correspondence courses. PFC Kirby, a member of Corporal Gregory's squad, finished the Marine Corps NCO, MCI in the field in Vietnam.

• 12:19Jocko Willink?

  In the field in Vietnam. Corporal Gregory took the initiative to train his Marines in the skills required by his unit's mission and environment. His training exceeded the basic requirements established by the Marine Corps and created a squad that was particularly well-prepared for combat.

• 12:39Jocko Willink?

  The Corporal used scenario-based training to run his men through multiple repetitions of probable combat situations.

• 12:49Jocko Willink?

  He made sure that each Marine in his squad understood their commander's intent, their role in the mission, and how each man affected the outcome of events during battle. Corporal Gregory is freaking squared away. And by the way, everything that I'm saying right now, apply it to what you're doing in your company, in your business. Think of, think of how much you could do to help, how much you could do to train your people. Not because you've got two weeks allocated to train your personnel, but because you've got 20 minutes to review with them how this product works, or how this piece of equipment functions, or what to do in an emergency situation, or how to handle a client.

• 13:33Jocko Willink?

  It was not long before Corporal Gregory's training proved vital. On the night of February 14th, 1971, Corporal Gregory and his unit came under heavy, heavy attack.

• 13:48Jocko Willink?

  Corporal Gregory was killed.

• 13:53Jocko Willink?

  Yet, because the squad was so well-trained and understood what it had, what had to be done, the squad was able to meet the challenge and skillfully engage the enemy. Corporal Gregory's exemplary leadership in the weeks prior to the attack had prepared his Marines for this firefight.

• 14:10Jocko Willink?

  The enemy was repulsed and the squad held its position.

• 14:15Jocko Willink?

  In the morning, over 30 dead NVA were found in the area surrounding the squad's position. Every Marine in the squad realized that it was Corporal Gregory's training emphasis that had won the battle and saved their lives.

• 14:40Jocko Willink?

  Lessons: Corporal Gregory displayed outstanding initiative in training his Marines. He assumed the responsibility for preparing his Marines for the demands of combat. This training greatly exceeded the established standards of the Marine Corps, which by the way are no, no low standards,

• 14:59Jocko Willink?

  and directly contributed to the combat success and survival of the unit after Corporal Gregory's death.

• 15:06Jocko Willink?

  Corporal Gregory, and by the way, if they ended up with 30 dead NVA, over 30 dead NVA, that was a big force that attacked his unit.

• 15:20Jocko Willink?

  Corporal Gregory used whatever time was available to instruct his Marines and hone their professional skills. This aggressive opportunity, opportunity training was necessary because few units could conduct formal training in the combat zone. I talked about this on the F online the other day. I absolutely learned more from informal training than I did from formal training during my time in the Navy. Without question, it's not even close. If you were to remove all the informal lessons I learned, I would be an idiot.

• 15:50Speaker 02

  Do you find that the formal training is like, kind of sorts itself out to be more valuable early on?

• 15:58Jocko Willink?

  Explain.

• 15:58Speaker 02

  So like, you know how you have like, basic training, right? That's where you learn like all the, the formal protocols that where everyone has to essentially do the same thing under very similar circumstances. And then the informal training seems to, and I'm totally just thinking about jujitsu right now.

• 16:15Speaker 02

  And at work, I guess, where when you get informal training, that's when you're trained up on all the basics. It's kind of like college in a way, you know, you have like all these prerequisites, like, hey, you guys all got to know this, this, this, this, and know it good. And then later on, then maybe we'll send you out to a specific company or whatever to learn kind of what they do. And then you can start to apply these things in specific situations.

• 16:38Jocko Willink?

  I think the example to use would be, let's say you went to some kind of a technical school, like being a doctor, being a mechanic, being a air conditioning repairman. You're going to learn some technical stuff in the classroom, but when do you really get good? It's doing the job. It's when, it's when someone pulls you aside and says, oh yeah, when you see this, here's the problem.

• 16:59Speaker 02

  Right.

• 17:00Jocko Willink?

  When, when you, when you go here, here's what you need to do. When you see this symptom from a patient, here's what's actually happening. It's all that informal training that, and maybe I'm wrong about the doctors because I don't know what medical school is like, but I can only imagine that you get a heck of a lot better by, once you're in the field and you're doing surgeries and someone says, hey, here's a better way to, here's the technique you need to use there. Here's, you know, something like that.

• 17:28Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah. I was, um.

• 17:31Speaker 02

  It's like, you know how, I think it was, it was a book you were reading a long time ago where, where they'd have a name. Shoot, it might have been.

• 17:40Speaker 02

  Might have been one of our guests, I don't know, but they'd have a name for the people who don't do. I think it was in the army, where they don't do it, they just do all the theory and they call them something like nerds or something.

• 17:49Jocko Willink?

  Pogues? Uh, I don't know.

• 17:51Speaker 02

  They, anyway, but yeah, there's the people who know and they essentially, they know what to do and what the protocols are in a vacuum. But once you start, when you get that out there in the field and the real world kind of thing, that's where that informal like, no. This isn't by the book over here. You gotta watch out for this because of it, you know?

• 18:08Jocko Willink?

  And there's also a difference between just learning from experience, which is, hey, I did this operation. Here's some mistakes that I made and all, and that's just experience. Classroom is classroom. I'm talking about in between where you're, you know, someone's pulling you aside and say, hey, Jocko, when you start to see this develop, that's not a good call. Here's a call that would be better to make and here's why. It's not formal training. It's my platoon chief telling me something. It's my LPO, my leading petty officer saying, hey, hey, new guy. Here's what you need to do. And you see that unfolding and you go, okay, Roger that. It's not formal training, but that's where you learn. And it's not just experience either. Experience alone would take you way longer.

• 18:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 18:47Jocko Willink?

  Than informal training. Like how many times, okay, jujitsu example, here you learn the arm lock. Now we're rolling. And you try and arm lock me and I say, hey, Echo, if you, if you don't squeeze your knees together, it's real easy to get out here. But look, give me your arm. Boom. Oh yeah. You feel that? Try and pull your arm out. Oh, I can't. Okay. Yeah. That's because all because I'm squeezing my knees. Okay. Infor, look, the instructor guarantee, the instructor said squeeze your knees. But you need that informal assessment of your actual situation to realize, oh, I, I, I see what I need to do.

• 19:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly right. That's exactly what I was thinking too, the jujitsu.

• 19:22Jocko Willink?

  What was the, the, I mean, you have to get informal training once you're in the, once you're done with the rag.

• 19:30Speaker 02

  Yeah. I, I think just how you described it, the, the. You talked about like being onsite or being in the field or doing it like that. You talked about even just the air conditioner repairman and what that looks like.

• 19:42Speaker 01

  The way you described what life would be like if all we ever did was formal training, you'd have no context for anything. You wouldn't even know how it applies. So I, I think that's true. And, and certainly in my case, in, in aviation, I don't think it's any different. Like, everything is taught by the book. Everything is formal training in the beginning. It's all these things. And the minute you get in the airplane and get up in the sky, and you are feeling things in, in a different way, it's really hard to apply them because you, you learned it on the ground. And the context of the informal, "Hey, hey, listen, look, do you see that?" Yeah, yeah. That's what it means in the book when it says this. That's what it looks like. And you go, "Oh, man, I would never be able to understand that from reading it in a book."

• 20:22Jocko Willink?

  They have to, you have to get a translation.

• 20:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, you do. You have to be able to see and feel it. And that will not happen in formal training.

• 20:31Jocko Willink?

  It's important to realize, if you have some experience, and you have people that are on your team, the amount of knowledge that you can transfer to them is so valuable. And, and the reason I'm pointing this out is because a lot of times, you forget that. Right? You think you've been doing this for a long time. You don't think it's a big deal. Hey, this is just what you do. You don't, you, you forget, you forget that you've learned all this. But taking that and saying, "Hey, hey, hey, pal, come over here. Let me show you something. Let me show you how this works. Let me show you a better way to do that. Let me show you a little trick." It's very powerful. Not to mention when you invest in people like that for 10 minutes, for 10 minutes, you're helping them. And you're building that relationship,

• 21:17Jocko Willink?

  which is what this whole thing is that we're talking about.

• 21:19Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I wrote down while you were talking, that, telling that story of, of that corporal, is, I, I just wrote down, I always take notes. It's all I do in this podcast. I just take notes. I take these things home and I write them down and I keep them. And I find places where they apply. And as you know, they apply everywhere. And this, this idea of this guy training his people is actually the best thing he can do to take care of them. It's the best thing he can do, is the best thing any leader can do to help them. Not give you a break, or not give you free time. And yeah, of course, there's a balance there. The best thing he could do is prepare them to be in a position, and I think the reason that stuck with me is that when we talk about decentralized command, which we talk about all the time in business, the scenario that always plays out is the reason why decentralized,

• 22:03Speaker 01

  one of the reasons why decentralized command is so important is that your people have to know what to do when you're not around. That's pretty obvious, but the scenarios are usually you're on vacation, you're on a different shift, you've got the day off, not that you're dead. So when you kind of think of it in these contexts of what he was doing is being able to prepare them to be successful without him being around is in the worst possible situation of literally him dying in that situation is the best thing he can do. So the same thing doesn't happen to them is train them, even if it's five minutes at a time. That's how he kept those guys alive, and that is something that you can translate to almost any situation.

• 22:44Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, your family. Yeah, we talk about this in the code, the protocol, the evaluation. It's like, hey, what can you do for your family? Can you give your family five minutes of training to pass on knowledge that you have? More lessons here. Corporal Gregory realized that combat is a dynamic environment which takes a heavy toll on leaders within an infantry company. He trained his subordinates to be able to assume his role. This saved the lives of his men during the chaos of battle. After his death, the men of Corporal Gregory's squad performed well, performed well because they had confidence in their training and in themselves, a confidence that was instilled by Corporal Gregory's leadership. You know, when we were talking, when we talk about confidence,

• 23:29Jocko Willink?

  how do you get confidence? You get confidence through work. You get confidence by doing something. Get confidence by doing something, not doing it well, doing it again, doing it a little bit better, doing it again, doing it even better. That's where confidence comes from. That's where it should come from. Otherwise, it's false confidence.

• 23:44Jocko Willink?

  Maybe I should just stop talking because the way he that was written in the book was a lot better than the way I said it. Well, here's what's really cool. So they have a if we he mentions he mentions Kirby in this. PFC Kirby, a member of the of Corporal Gregory Squad that finished this NCO MCI in the field. Well, I have a quote from him, not from Vietnam, but from 1998. And now Sergeant Major RB Kirby said, "The very worst night of my tour in Vietnam, when we were involved in a major firefight and we were losing Marines, our squad survived as a result of the corporal's training. We are alive today because of him."

• 24:37Jocko Willink?

  Next one. Corporal Abals, British Army, Falklands, 1982. In 1982, Argentina invaded the Falklands Falkland Islands in the South Pacific, South Atlantic Ocean. The islands had been British territory since British days as an imperial power, not willing to give up its territory. Britain sent a task force to the islands in order to reclaim them. After an amphibious assault, British forces pushed their way across the islands. The second battalion of the parachute regiment, known as Two Para of the British Army, was ordered to attack the Argentinian forces of Goose Green. It was to be the first pitched battle between British and Argentinian forces.

• 25:20Jocko Willink?

  The land bridge between Goose Green and the town of Darwin was the only way for forces to move between East Falkland Island and Laphonia Island. If Two Para could not break through to Goose Green, the British would have to spend valuable time mounting another amphibious assault of the Falkland Islands. Corporal Abals was a section leader, equivalent to a squad leader, in A Company, Two Para. A Company's mission was to attack along the battalion's eastern flank and assault the town of Darwin. On the night of 27 May 1982, Two Para attacked Goose Green. The Argentinians were well-prepared for the attack and the paratroopers could advance only yards at a time.

• 26:03Jocko Willink?

  As the sun rose, the battalion was left in a precarious position. Two Para was stalled, pinned down in the open by Argentinian mortar and machine gun fire.

• 26:15Jocko Willink?

  A Company was trapped in a crossfire between the Argentinians on Goose Green and those in Darwin. This is a nightmare scenario. You're in a crossfire, receiving both mortar and machine gun fire. Realizing that the trap could only be broken by persistent aggressive action, Corporal Abals decided to continue to lead his squad in assaulting enemy positions, seeking to break the deadlock himself. The commanding officer of Two Para charged a machine gun nest and was shot dead.

• 26:49Jocko Willink?

  The commander of A Company kept the event quiet, not wanting to demoralize the troops, whose predicament seemed to worsen at this critical point in the attack. At that moment Corporal Abals led an assault upon an Argentinian position. He decided to fire a 66mm shoulder-launched anti-tank rocket into the bunker. The penetration of this rocket caused such a magnificent explosion, which was followed by silence. The first flags of surrender then began to surface from the Argentinian positions. The Argentinians had been demoralized by the utter destruction of this single bunker and the ruthlessness of Corporal Abals' resolve. This allowed A Company to turn its full attention toward Goose Green. Momentum gathered behind the British attack.

• 27:32Jocko Willink?

  In the next 24 hours, Two Para opened the route to La Fonia Island. Corporal Abals' persistent aggressiveness had broken the will of the defenders. This action proved to be pivotal in A Company's attack. Two Para's victory at Goose Green assured a British victory for the Falkland Campaign. Lessons: Corporal Abals' squad-level action effectively turned the tide of the battle at Goose Green. This is an example of how an aggressive tactical action can have effects out of all proportion to the size of the action. His command decisions fully supported both his company and battalion commander's intent.

• 28:16Jocko Willink?

  His spectacular assault of that particular bunker affected the morale of both sides.

• 28:22Jocko Willink?

  Crushed the spirit of the Argentinians and passed the initiative and momentum to British forces and proved to be the action needed to continue the British advance. After this action, Argentinian soldiers began to surrender rather than die in combat. One person, a corporal, makes one move and it changes the tide of this battle. By the way, moments after his commanding officer was killed, heroically assaulting a machine gun nest. Corporal Abal's courage, leadership and determination propelled him to persevere and achieve decisive results in extricating his unit from a desperate situation.

• 29:06Jocko Willink?

  When all else fails, perseverance prevails. And if you want more on the Falkland Islands, Podcast 88, Excursion to Hell. Sergeant David C. Freeman, US Army, Vietnam, 1966. During Operation Crazy Horse, and pay attention to that name, Operation Crazy Horse, we're gonna go deep. In the Vinthan Valley in June of 1966, a company of Montney Yard troops led by special forces advisors landed at LZ Monkey for a search and destroy mission. Sergeant Freeman, a member of the command element, was the fourth senior man in the unit.

• 29:50Jocko Willink?

  Soon after landing, the company attacked and secured a bunker complex. The company suffered some casualties and a helicopter medevac was requested. The company moved back to LZ Monkey with their wounded. At the LZ, the company began receiving heavy small arms fire. The command element around Sergeant Freeman was devastated. The situation demanded rapid action. Sergeant Freeman grabbed a radio and took command of the company. He called in helicopter gunships, coordinated supporting arms and reorganized his defenses. The helicopter pilots flying above the battle were amazed at his coolness under fire. Under Sergeant Freeman's competent command, the perimeter held all night and the enemy eventually withdrew. Stepping up.

• 30:38Jocko Willink?

  Lessons Sergeant Freeman, a well-trained NCO was prepared to lead his company in combat. He knew the techniques and procedures for air support, supporting arms, medevac, and company defensive positions. And you know, they kind of rattled that off. And, and one thing that the Marine Corps does really good in this manual is they hit on the fact that you gotta have the skills. You gotta have these fundamental skills of combat leadership.

• 31:02Jocko Willink?

  The, the, the technical and tactical skills of combat leadership, meaning how to call for air support, how to call for supporting arms, how to call for artillery, how to call for medevac. These are technical skills that you have to have. And they reinforce that throughout this book. So if you're in a leadership position and you think, well, you know, I'm not gonna have to do that. No, actually, you better, you better, you better go and dig in and figure out how to do these things.

• 31:28Jocko Willink?

  In addition to his technical knowledge, he was able to match these abilities with strong leadership and cool competence in the face of disaster.

• 31:37Jocko Willink?

  Because of his experience and situational awareness, Sergeant Freeman knew that rapid action was required. Once again, what do we see? We see someone that's taking action.

• 31:49Jocko Willink?

  He immediately took control of the situation, making decisions and issuing orders, and extricated his company from a perilous situation.

• 31:58Jocko Willink?

  And here's a little Clausewitz on war, which we haven't covered yet. It's sort of one of those ones, is it like, uh, not playing the obvious one, you know? We haven't done that one yet.

• 32:14Jocko Willink?

  "The end for which a soldier is recruited, armed, and trained, the whole object of his sleeping, eating, drinking, and marching is simply that he should fight at the right place and at the right time."

• 32:29Jocko Willink?

  Check. Alright, now here we go.

• 32:34Jocko Willink?

  Here we go. So, this section that I'm about to read actually came earlier in the manual. And I pulled it out and I put it at the end. This is the last one of these examples. And, and there's a reason why, and it immediately struck me when I saw it. So, the title of this section is just Sergeant First Class, US Army, Vietnam, 1966. So soon as I read that, I was kind of surprised because all the other ones, they give the person's name. So I'm thinking, why, why, why aren't they saying this guy's name? Is this a top-secret mission? Well, no, this is 1998. There was no, no more secret missions. So why aren't we explaining this? And it becomes obvious when I read it,

• 33:17Jocko Willink?

  why they just called this individual Sergeant First Class. So here we go. "In May of 1966, C Company of 1st Battalion 12th Cavalry, 1st Cavalry Division, established a mortar fire base at LZ Hereford in the Ving Thanh Valley." So this is actually part of, and I'll get into this. This is part of that earlier operation that we mentioned. "The position was 150 meters long and 40 meters wide. The upper slope was covered in 6-foot-high elephant grass.

• 33:55Jocko Willink?

  The mortar section was led by a Sergeant First Class, no name given. His position lay on a hill which had previously been occupied by Viet Cong guerrillas. He formed his men in a weak perimeter."

• 34:11Jocko Willink?

  We're not off to a good start. "arranged in a U shape with the curve facing uphill, and set up the mortars in order to provide support for the company.

• 34:23Jocko Willink?

  The main body of the company went off to patrol the valley below, leaving the 22-man mortar section to defend their own position.

• 34:31Jocko Willink?

  The men fired off a few rounds to seat their base plates. The sergeant decided to give the men a break, and did not order anyone to dig in or examine the area around the perimeter. No security patrols were sent out. The men lounged, ate C rations, and walked around in the open. In the jungle heat, it seemed like a day at the beach."

• 34:57Jocko Willink?

  At 13:30, an enemy machine gun opened up at a range of 50 meters from the elephant grass uphill of the mortar position. A 200-man unit of VC had been waiting to ambush the lax mortar unit. Machine gun fire was followed by rifle fire and grenade attacks. The rest of the company, which had gone down the hill on patrol, the rest of the company took 35 minutes to rush back to the devastated mortar position. The enemy had withdrawn and left only a handful of dazed survivors.

• 35:30Jocko Willink?

  The failure of the sergeant to properly lead his unit, enforce basic security measures, or prepare for enemy contact led directly to disaster.

• 35:45Jocko Willink?

  With its support element eliminated, the company was not able to establish its patrol mission, which in turn negatively affected the battalion's mission in the Vin than Valley.

• 36:01Jocko Willink?

  So, I read that and of course I think about, okay, what does this mean? And they hadn't given away any names, right? So they didn't give this guy's name, but they had given away a date, May of 1966. They'd given away the LZ, LZ Hereford.

• 36:24Jocko Willink?

  So I start to do some research and it turns out that this battle, this specific battle was written about in a book on Vietnam called Battles in the Monsoon.

• 36:37Jocko Willink?

  And this is an out of print book.

• 36:41Jocko Willink?

  But I was really curious, what happened? What happened?

• 36:48Jocko Willink?

  So I found this out of a print book, ordered it. And the book Battles in the Monsoon is a book full of basically a bunch of short little stories. And this particular story, this particular section in this book about this battle is called Men Facing Death.

• 37:17Jocko Willink?

  So let's hear a little bit more detail about this situation.

• 37:25Jocko Willink?

  By the way, this is all Operation Crazy Horse. By the night of 21 May, the Battle of Vinthan Valley appeared to be slowing to a stop with the enemy fractionalized and everyone running for cover. Now, landing zone Hereford, that well worked over slope where the initial explosion has occurred, had occurred, and I'm skipping to this specific, they give a little bit of background, this LZ Hereford had been used a bunch. It looked like one of the safest places in the fire zone, such had been the constants, the consistency of armed traffic in and out of it. So this was a LZ that was getting used all the time. That was about how Colonel John J. Hennessy thought of it when he decided on a special mission for Charlie Company first to the 12th for the following morning.

• 38:10Jocko Willink?

  It was a courteous gesture. The main object being to return Charlie Company to its parent battalion. But before doing so, Hennessy planned to ask a small favor in return. The company, under Captain Don F. Warren, a taciturn Georgian, who had been with his same unit since winning his gold bars in 1961. So this guy's been in the same unit since, for five straight years. He was on the perimeter in Hill, on Hill 766, several ridges beyond Hereford. The airline distance was about 3,000 meters. Hennessy directed Warren to sweep back over the high ground to Hereford after sunup. Unworried about that passage, he was most concerned that Charlie Company should reconnoitre

• 38:52Jocko Willink?

  the lower slopes beyond the landing zone, which thus far, no one had prowled.

• 38:59Jocko Willink?

  That task done, it could rejoin the battalion in the valley not far away. Hennessy had no reason to be suspicious, he was merely being cautious. The ground around Hereford had not been worked over carefully for several days. Captain Jack Cummings and Alpha Company were in perimeter on the landing zone at this same hour. They were not left wholly, they were left, they were not left wholly undisturbed. But the occasional sniper rounds and grenades that innocuously bit into their ground were attributed to enemy stragglers. So there's a company there, they're getting hit occasionally, but there's just a bunch of stragglers is what they're assuming. Alpha Company needed to be back, so they send in Charlie Company. Word of that was afoot.

• 39:40Jocko Willink?

  And that reached Major Charles Siler at the on, at on K. Shortly after Hennessy gave his order, the division's public information officer was entertaining a visitor and a weighing problem all his own. Blatedly drawn by the news that Operation Crazy Horse was racking up a score, war correspondent Sam Caston, a thirty-two-year-old senior editor of Look magazine, had just arrived in camp, pursuing a theme worthy of Hemingway. Caston was the only correspondent drawn to the battle. He said to Siler, "I wish to know the thoughts of men facing death." So that's what this war correspondent says, Sam Caston.

• 40:24Jocko Willink?

  Siler voiced an honest doubt that the quest was logical, men's fears and reflections not being all of one kind, and the soldier hardly knowing how he thinks about death until he feels he is dying. It is just not the subject that makes for easy talk among combat men. That's kind of weird, right? We got this, this reporter saying, "Hey, I want to go get some men facing death."

• 40:50Jocko Willink?

  At the time, General Norton had put the on K position on semi alert and the whole camp was astir. Siler and his staff were in the bunkers around the press camp realigning some of the sandbags. "You don't have to worry about this ground tonight," said Caston. "I'm the luckiest reporter alive. Wherever I go, nothing happens." So even this guy who's looking for problems, he's got that attitude where, "I'm gonna go look for problems, I'm not gonna find them." Siler remembered the words, thinking them slightly ironic in view of what Caston was looking for. This guy wants to go find people facing death, but then he says, "Yeah, don't worry about there being any problems because I'm so lucky that nothing's gonna happen." "There's a big hill not far from here where a lot of men have died in the last few days,"

• 41:33Jocko Willink?

  he said. "Then I want to get up there first thing in the morning," said Caston. "And by the way, I intend to follow the subject all the way through. See the coffins in which you place the bodies." "We put them in rubber bags," said Siler grumly, hoping to close the conversation. But Caston continued to fret about getting up to Hereford soon after dawn. Siler broke off work to arrange for Caston's certain departure. These were the circumstances which resulted in Caston being delivered to Hereford by the same helicopter that carried ammunition, coffee, and a hot breakfast to Cummings and Alpha Company. His first hours were unrewarding, that the unit was too busy stacking supply equipment for an early getaway to talk with Caston about death. Besides, the morning was disarmingly fair and quiet. Warren and Charlie

• 42:16Jocko Willink?

  Company meanwhile, were beating their way along the ridge. On the way back from Hill 766, Haven Brokeen Camp at 1000, a fairly wide trail runs from the top of the scarp for the entire distance. So, fast forward a little bit. Alpha Company was lifted from LZ Hereford when Charlie Company arrived at high noon. Caston stayed. On the landing zone, Warren talked briefly to Lieutenant Colonel Rutland P. Beard Jr., the battalion commander, and his S3 Major role. It was arranged...

• 42:59Jocko Willink?

  That Warren and the main body of the company would continue their stroll downslope through the trees and across the river. Now, I just want to call out these words. It was arranged, because we're going to get some more information. So you've got the, you've got the battalion commander talking to the company commander, and they come to, this is what it says. It was arranged that Warren and the main body of the company would continue through the stroll through the downslope, through the trees and across the river. The mortar platoon would remain on Hereford to cover its further advance with the, with fire from the 81 millimeter tube. So now you can see where we're going. The Sergeant First Class of the mortar platoon that we talked about from the squad leader makes a difference.

• 43:43Jocko Willink?

  This is the guy. This is the guy. The platoon, 22 strong, was led by Sergeant Robert L. Kirby, a 29-year-old Negro from Los Angeles. Sleight of frame, solemn-faced, Kirby is rated one of the stoutest-hearted fighters in his brigade. So that's a little different, right? Now we're, now we're calling this guy one of the stoutest-hearted fighters in the brigade, but in this, in the, in the reflections from the manual, he's, you know, not going to do a good job.

• 44:23Jocko Willink?

  And by the way, he's going to get left with 22 people in a mortar platoon, which is, again, we'll dive more into that. Fewer numbers, his men seeming, seemed sufficiently armed. Each carried 300 more rounds for their M16s, and from two or four, from two to four hand grenades, the one heavy weapon was the 81-millimeter mortar, for which Kirby had only 18 rounds. That with the tube was as much weight as the men could carry. So sufficiently armed is an interesting way of saying it. Because we know that an M16 with 300 rounds, an M16 is fine. A mortar is fine. But if you get into a legitimate gunfight, there's something that you need called a machine gun, and you need a few of them.

• 45:08Jocko Willink?

  And they don't have any.

• 45:13Jocko Willink?

  Not good.

• 45:16Jocko Willink?

  Moreover, it had been agreed that as promptly as the descending company passed beyond the range of the platoon, that the platoon would be lifted out by chopper. Alpha Company had a hundred or so mortar rounds behind. Kirby reckoned he would not need them. Caston, the reporter, had decided to stay on Hereford instead of moving with the company column. It's an interesting decision. It's an interesting decision because if you would think if you're looking for, to get in the fight, you would, oh, they're going to go with the patrol. Like, I'm sitting on this kind of LZ, we're kind of, it's almost like a little bit secure, and these guys are going to go on patrol. I would probably think I'd go on patrol. Caston, for whatever reason, he says, he decides to stay up there on Hereford.

• 45:59Jocko Willink?

  And it's Kirby, the sergeant, who says, "It will happen here, if anywhere."

• 46:10Jocko Willink?

  No, sorry, that's Caston that says to Kirby, "It will happen here, if anywhere." Like, "We're going to get in combat." And Kirby says about that, "You're dead wrong." And he honestly felt that way, though, as he looked about. What he saw of his position hardly warranted such assurance. It was all wrong from any reasoned tactical view. So now this is Kirby. He's looking at the situation, even though he says, "Yeah, it's not going to happen here." He knows it's all wrong from a tactical perspective. The landing zone at Hereford was by then a burned-off, trampled and rumble, rubble-strewn about the size of a professional basketball court, running lengthwise down the edge of a ridge. Its scorched earth and grasses were less apparent than the foxholes distributed more or less evenly around the oval-shaped perimeter.

• 46:51Jocko Willink?

  Originally, these had been enemy spider holes and were subsequently enlarged by American occupancy. The trouble was that Kirby did not have enough men to round out his holding. So the position became a U-pointed, a U-pointed up slope. And again, this is, where's, there's, you can see the similarity here from, from the manual. "The uphill, open end, fronting toward the high ground was not covered by weapons present since the platoon was sighting its pieces down slope, the company having gone that way and weapons platoon." So they have a U-shape, and they're like, "Well, the platoon went that way, so we don't really need to have much there." And that's where he decided to put light, and not any, any protection in that direction.

• 47:37Jocko Willink?

  In neither direction was the prospect of a fight, was the prospect good if a fight was to be forthcoming? There was beauty everywhere, but there was beauty everywhere for, to soothe the eye. Upslope and bordering the very edge of the defended ground was a sea of elephant grass standing six to eight feet tall. Downhill, there was a sheer and rocky precipice extending 30 feet and giving way to an extension in the field of tall grasses, which also invested the flanks. Greenness was all about except where the men looked to their weapons. The company took off down, so now here goes the company. The company took off down the steep, clutching to the rocks, creepers and creepers for balance. No preparatory artillery fires or airstrikes had been put on the slopes around Hereford

• 48:19Jocko Willink?

  because of Warren's movement, the earlier presence of Alpha Company and the all-around feeling that Crazy Horse Operation was slowing to a halt. This operation had been going on for a pretty long period of time. There's been all kinds of activity. They didn't feel like they needed to do any preparatory fire for this patrol. Kirby worried less about his platoon than about the movements and enterprise of Caston, the reporter. The men had gone to ground. The correspondent was moving from position to position, standing erect, taking photographs and asking numerous questions. Wanting to protect Caston, he did not know how to object his freewheeling, though he realized that his movements were describing the limitations of the force. In fact, these things little mattered.

• 49:04Jocko Willink?

  Caston was enjoying himself hugely. He asked Kirby, "How do you, how do you feel about these things?" Kirby answered, "If you think you're going to get a story out of this platoon, you're wrong. Nothing will happen here." Caston continued with his rounds of the perimeter, snapping pictures and asking the men, "How do you feel?" Kirby lost interest and Caston kept moving. The position of the mortar, of one mortar was near the bottom of the sloped LZ, just inside the U where the crew had dug a little pit. At approximately 1300, the platoon began supporting the descending company with the fire of the 81 millimeter mortar, the range 800 meters. It takes a while to hack through the jungle. Captain Warren got Kirby on the radio and told him bring it closer, which Kirby tried to do.

• 49:48Jocko Willink?

  So now you've got the platoons up there, they're, they're dropping mortars in front of the platoon that's, that's driving through the jungle. An hour later, Warren called Kirby again.

• 50:01Jocko Willink?

  This time, the message was an uplift, said Warren. Choppers are incoming to take you out within 30 minutes. So they're just about done. So just to recap, you've got the platoon, you've got the mortar platoon in this landing zone. You've got the rest of the company pushed down the hill and they're just on a patrol. And eventually they're so far away that there's no point in the mortar platoon being up there anymore. So now helicopters are going to come, grab them and take them out.

• 50:30Jocko Willink?

  30 minutes. That was what Warren and Kirby both fought, but the choppers had put down at landing zone Savoy, Hennessy's command post in the valley, just to make certain orders that the orders given still stood. From their delay, wholly unfallible came rocking General Jack Norton, rocking the high command, rocking us all. Kirby got off his 17th mortar round in support of the advancing company. That being the last one he fired.

• 51:01Jocko Willink?

  Remember they had 18 rounds. He just fired his 17th round. Then the thing happened. There was no advance warning. Sergeant Lewis Buckley and PFC Wade Taste were still collecting the company water cans and other materiel for the flight, moving carelessly in the open, even as was correspondent Caston. The other men, including Kirby, stayed put in their foxholes. That they did so was less a sign of their alertness than of their forthcoming operational routine. Once lodged in position, they had not moved to scout its surroundings. The long trek via the jungle trail had them half bushed. So they're tired.

• 51:44Jocko Willink?

  Over much of the distance, they had to move. They were crouching because of the tiny overhang. There was no shade where they were sprawled. The sun beat directly down on them and it was not less than 100 degrees. The word was passed from hole to hole that they were returning to home base. Nothing much else, not even the eccentric movements and questions of Caston interested them.

• 52:05Jocko Willink?

  The hour must have been about 1330 from up slope and from not more than 50 yards away came a came the fire of a heavy machine gun. Its bullet stream was dead on the mortar, the first rounds ripping through the tube as if the weapon had already been zeroed in thereafter, it beat directly on the mortar pit with never a pause. So came Kirby's first warning that he was engaged. He yelled out, "Fire." But it was superfluous, though he did not know it, being too close to the mortar, a split second before Kirby had reacted, his own men had started the fight. On the left of the inverted U, it would have been the right flank had these men been facing uphill whence the fire was.

• 52:46Jocko Willink?

  Specs for Paul J Harrison and Charles Stuckey had seen three enemy skirmishers moving in through the elephant grass, not five meters beyond their foxholes. Their M16s, their M16 fire signaled the detection of movement to which the enemy machine gun instantly responded. As swiftly as those three weapons spoke from the elephant grass on three sides of the perimeter rifle, fire cracked and Kirby sensed that his position was almost totally enveloped. So he gets the feeling that we're surrounded. He yelled to his radio man, "Spec for John F. Sbranza, call company, get them back, we're being hit."

• 53:28Jocko Willink?

  As the message was relayed to Captain Warren and as he remembered it, the words were, "Come back, we're being hit." Though the main body moving through the jungle was too far down the slope to get the sounds of the fight, Warren had his movement of agonized, had his moment of agonized shock. And that's an interesting tidbit, a moment of agonized shock, almost as if he may have expected that this would happen. He knew Kirby as a thoroughly brave soldier. And this is the unnamed person from, from the manual. Too steady, too seasoned to be stampeded by a little random fire.

• 54:13Jocko Willink?

  When he called for help, the thing had to be fully desperate. The confidence between the white captain from Georgia and the Negro sergeant from California was complete. So these guys had trust.

• 54:28Jocko Willink?

  Wasting not an instant, Warren called back on the radio to Lieutenant Robert McClellan of First Platoon, bringing up the rear of the far-stretch column, "Get your ass back up that hill." All hands reversed and started scrambling upward, men clutching at rocks, tearing their palms on thorn vines, sliding, falling, and panting in desperate effort to race up the steep. All did not fully understand the reason why. There was no attempt to observe security, and had they been, without knowing, moving into an ambush, the disaster that too soon followed could have been even greater. Far above them, on the slope of Hereford, men who still moved crouched below to escape the sheet of fire beating from all sides. Most of Kirby's men had died in the first 10 minutes, though he did not know that yet.

• 55:13Jocko Willink?

  The return fire from his people grew steadily fainter. Sergeant Isaac Johnson, a 27-year-old Negro, had been sitting with a plat board at the mortar pit when the fight began. He heard someone yell, "They're coming out of the woods." In his agitation, he tried to turn the mortar around a fired uphill, not even noticing that it had been drilled through. The incoming fire was too great and his strength too little, so he slithered up on his belly to the left flank and dropped into a foxhole. Upslope, he could see 40 to 50 men at a run out of the trees into the elephant grass where he lost sight of them. They were partially camouflaged and their shirts were of all colors.

• 55:55Jocko Willink?

  Looking downhill, he saw many more of the enemy, moving through the grass, some crawling, others hunched over, firing as they moved in. It came to him as a sudden idea that he should fire too. He thought, as he fired, he had dropped at least four enemy skirmishers with his M16. So, by the way, I mean, we're already talking about a totally outnumbered force. In one flank, he sees 40 or 50 bad guys. From the next foxhole above him, PFC Henry Benton and Joe L. Tamaio were alternately firing up slope and downhill, yelling as they pulled the trigger. Johnson saw his last of them when he ran out of ammunition and crawled back to the mortar pit in search of a magazine.

• 56:39Jocko Willink?

  Inside the pit, there were four men, heads down. The enemy machine gun and at least two automatic rifles were bearing directly on the hole and smashing its rim. Johnson could not be sure whether the men were ducking or dead.

• 56:56Jocko Willink?

  Sergeant Buckaloo, Paul Buckaloo, 22 years in the Army was having his first go in combat.

• 57:06Jocko Willink?

  The opening barrage cracked him wide open. He bolted straight across the perimeter, vanished into the elephant grass and was never heard from again. Sergeant Johnson couldn't find his spare magazine, so he picked up an M16 with 15 rounds in it from the dead hand of Sergeant Edward Shepherd, who had no business being there that afternoon, though he ranked Kirby and might have taken command, he was overdue to be lifted out by chopper for an appearance before a promotion board. So he passed up the honor and died inconspicuously from a bullet through his brain.

• 57:38Jocko Willink?

  Another longtime soldier, under fire for the first time, he had stayed motionless, petrified by personal terror as boundless as the horror exploding all about him. His 15 bullets gone, Johnson crawled toward the mortar pit screaming, "Come out, you'll all be killed." There was no response. It was minutes too late for that. The hole held four corpses, heads bashed in by bullet fire.

• 58:05Jocko Willink?

  In the nearby hole with Kirby was another bloody welter, a rocket, the Russian-made P40 around of so slow of motion that the eye easily follows the trajectory came arcing in dead center of the mark. Kirby saw it in flight and yelled, "Watch out," so did his foxhole mates, Spec 4 Austin L. Drummond and David S. Crocker, who cried warning in the same split second. Before any man could move, the rocket exploded just to the left of the hole. Crocker died instantly from a shard that crushed in his skull. Drummond took heavy fragments in the left arm and left leg. Such gouts of blood spouted from him that Kirby, who had taken four pieces of steel in his head but remained conscious, knew that Drummond could not last long.

• 58:56Jocko Willink?

  In physical torment, Drummond tried to rise. Kirby pulled at him. Drummond screamed, "Let me go. I'm hurting, hurting." Kirby pulled him down. Within a minute, he died under Kirby's body.

• 59:10Jocko Willink?

  Blood from Kirby's paint was streaming into his eyes, but the little sergeant could still see and think. He yelled to his RTO, "Spec 4 Sbranza, call Company. Say I'm being hit by mortars and rockets. We gotta have gunships and arty."

• 59:28Jocko Willink?

  Sbranza did his part. Captain Warren, struggling uphill, remembered this piece of the message coming in. "We're hit by rockets and mortars." He later could, later he could not recall that Sbranza had also asked for gunfire and air artillery. But anyhow, he relayed that message to the command capsule at LZ Savoy, and Sbranza got the word back from him, "It's on the way."

• 59:53Jocko Willink?

  Those were his final words. Right then, communication between the Company and platoon ended. Both radios worked. The mass of the ridge nose intervened. And what they mean by that is,

• 1:00:06Jocko Willink?

  these FM radios that they're using, they work when you can see them. So they work a line of sight, what we call line of sight. But if there's a ridge line in between you, then they don't work. So whatever the terrain was, they kind of dipped down the terrain and all of a sudden they lost communications.

• 1:00:22Jocko Willink?

  At that moment, the front men in Warren's column were halfway back to Hereford. The breakoff doubled Warren's anxiety, though he was already doing everything possible. He had asked that artillery be placed on the slopes alongside the perimeter, not on Hereford itself, for Kirby had passed on nothing about casualties, and Warren was still thinking of 22 live men holding the contested ground. The double time climb had begun to slow from sheer exhaustion. Men stumbled, dropped in their tracks, were pulled to their feet by their mates, and reeled upwards again. Warren realized now that if he continued the pressure, the Company would know, would reach the scene of the fight deadbeat.

• 1:01:05Jocko Willink?

  About that, he no longer gave a damn.

• 1:01:12Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's passing information on the radio is so freaking important and so hard, but if you always think that you're trying to paint a picture for the person on the other end, you've got to think that way. They don't know what's happening. And, you know, if you've got casualties and if you can give any additional information. Now, look, I mean, obviously, these guys are in such a horrible way, but that's what's happening. That's what's happening. He doesn't know that anyone's been wounded. He doesn't know that anyone's been killed. He thinks that they're in that position and he's saying, hey, start to put artillery on the outskirts of the LZ.

• 1:02:00Jocko Willink?

  The sounds of the struggle had not carried to LZ Savoy in the distant valley bottom. The control point was a throb, partly because of Warren's call for help, still more because of the monitoring of the conversations between eyewitnesses who were viewing the fight from platforms directly overhead. What they saw and what they said in no way lessen the confusions. Colonel Beard. So this is the interesting thing about Vietnam is that a lot of times there would be aircraft because they had air superiority for the most part. And so there would be helicopters that would just get up, CNT helicopters, command and control helicopters that would just get up and fly around and be watching this stuff. I have a friend whose

• 1:02:40Jocko Willink?

  dad was in Vietnam and he was a Silver Star recipient and the whole thing was photographed. This whole event, you know, there was a gunfight broke out and his dad sort of jumped into a dike and then crawled along and flanked the enemy and the whole thing. He had pictures of the whole thing. But that tells you what it's like.

• 1:03:02Jocko Willink?

  What do you got Dave?

• 1:03:04Speaker 01

  Look, I got all sorts of things going on in my head right now. This is a brutal scene that you're reading. This, this whole thing is, it's playing out and you're describing these different things as brutal. Partially because we already know, we know the outcome and you're describing these little pieces. But when you're talking about the, the, the inability for the, and I think it's the company commander, uh, that's kind of Warren's trying to visualize what's going on with, with Kirby in his, in his platoon. When you, when you as a leader get something in your head, when you kind of create what you think is the outcome, when you, when you, when you get comfortable with what you think you know the outcome or the situation is, and you sort of solidify that, it's really hard to change

• 1:03:46Speaker 01

  that. So if I, I picture this guy leaving and there's so, there's just complacency slipped into all these comments that you've, you've read through these little pieces of complacency of, yeah, it's not gonna happen. Yeah, I know what's going on. This is my best guy. Or, or all those little pieces are helping this guy Warren solidify in his mind what he thinks is, is going on. And it's impossible for him, and the part that I'm, I'm connecting to in my mind is how hard it is to, for him to visualize, things are nowhere near what you think they are. And he can't get it in his head that this whole thing has been wiped out. His best guy's getting overrun. And

• 1:04:23Speaker 01

  when you, in your own mind, predetermine the way the outcome's gonna be, it makes you so much less flexible and adaptable and incapable of maneuvering the way you need to. And, you know, it's all in retrospect, and I'm just thinking to myself,

• 1:04:39Speaker 01

  don't presume how this is gonna go. It's one of the worst things you can do. And you can, you can almost hear this guy's brain struggling, trying to accept what's going on.

• 1:04:50Jocko Willink?

  So it's interesting that you bring that up. And as we start to hear more sides of this story.

• 1:04:58Jocko Willink?

  You got this guy Warren, who's, he doesn't really know. He knows that his guy is a good guy and that he's calling for help. And it says, that's enough for him to realize that there's something really, really bad. But there's a panic, there's a panic of, hey, like, you know, if you call me and Dave, you're on the, on the else, you call me, hey Jaco, I need support right now. I'd be like, okay, hey, guys, listen, we're gonna start taking them back. They, they almost immediately go into, you know, go get your asses back up. He's literally says, get your ass back up the hill now. So there's a level of, let's say, urgency that he gets to almost immediately.

• 1:05:40Jocko Willink?

  And as we peel this onion back, you're gonna see that you're right. But the picture that he's painted is what's happening. He knew something was gonna go wrong. And as soon as it starts to happen, he's like, get back up there because he didn't feel comfortable with it. It's, like you said, it's just freaking awful. Yeah.

• 1:06:08Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book Colonel Beard, the battalion commander, Major Roll, his S3 and Captain Robert Offer, artillery liaison were at the brigade CP when the news came in. They took off in a Huey to view the fight from above.

• 1:06:24Jocko Willink?

  This is like, this is a Hackworth would get on the ground, just kind of FYI, just so everybody knows. Hackworth would get in the helicopter and then he'd land.

• 1:06:32Jocko Willink?

  When it made sense, obviously. Yeah.

• 1:06:35Jocko Willink?

  Before they could reach the scene, out of sheer happenstance, Major Otto Cantrell, the battalion executive officer of 112, was already hovering above it. He'd been flying in the area. He'd arrived at the opposite peak when he heard Warren's voice in the earphone saying that a platoon was being overrun. On Hereford. So, so Warren didn't know that the platoon was being overrun at this point. So he flew to station directly above and began orbiting, low enough to see people milling around and firing on the ground below him. Cantrell was yet too high to determine whether they were friend or enemy.

• 1:07:11Jocko Willink?

  Lieutenant William D. Fessenden, an artillery observer in another H-13, had flown the same way and was circling near Cantrell. He asked Cantrell, "Sir, can I bring in fire?" Cantrell replied, "No, I can't tell where our people are."

• 1:07:28Jocko Willink?

  Cantrell then flew lower, and at about that time Beard, the battalion commander, and his party arrived. "They could see forty or more men pressing close to the perimeter. They must be VC," called Beard. "Either that," replied Cantrell, "or GIs with uniforms soaking wet." So, this is a... I know it seems crazy to think that you couldn't tell the difference between, you know, American soldiers and Viet Cong. I'll tell you, when you're in a helicopter and you're looking at things on the ground, it is not obvious.

• 1:08:02Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:08:02Jocko Willink?

  It's not obvious.

• 1:08:03Speaker 01

  You don't need to be miles away. You can get fifty, sixty, seventy feet away and things get real... It's really hard to tell what's going on.

• 1:08:10Jocko Willink?

  I was... I learned this. I was up at Fallon, and we were calling in helicopters to pick us up. And I'm sitting there. I'm standing, you know, the terrain in Fallon, Nevada is not... There's no trees. It's just dirt. And we're standing there, and the helicopter... I'm sitting there looking at the helicopter. It's... It's... The wind is hitting me. That's how close it is. And they can't see me.

• 1:08:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:32Jocko Willink?

  And I was just like, "What do you mean you can't see me? I'm waving." They're like, "Ooh, coming around. We'll come back around. We can't..." And so I had to get out the red smoke.

• 1:08:40Speaker 01

  Orange.

• 1:08:41Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, the orange smoke or whatever. Yep, here we are, violet smoke, because red smoke was emergency.

• 1:08:44Speaker 01

  I was thinking the orange panel, but yeah, you got some huge signal, yeah.

• 1:08:48Jocko Willink?

  Well, I think I tried an orange panel. The orange panel, you know, wasn't big enough.

• 1:08:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:53Jocko Willink?

  So that's where these guys are at. Back to the book. His words merely aggravated doubts all around. Cantrell's trouble was that he simply could not make himself believe that one whole American platoon had been wiped out there, and he was right. Now, this is where what you were talking about. You have this idea, how could a whole American platoon get wiped out?

• 1:09:17Jocko Willink?

  And it says in the book here, "Therein he was right," and it is right. Why?

• 1:09:23Jocko Willink?

  And we'll get to this later. This American platoon, the twenty-two guys, is not a platoon, right? That's not a platoon. You think of a platoon, you think of multiple machine gunners. You think of forty guys.

• 1:09:38Jocko Willink?

  Then he dropped to 100 feet for one swift pass. The phenomenon of those few seconds doubled his perplexity. On the ridge crest above Hereford, he saw a company of men in dark suits marching to marching to the to the fire. Shellfire was breaking into the landing zone. Cantrell had no way of knowing that these were enemy rocket rounds, not American rounds coming from other bases. The dark suited men up slope, he identified his enemy. He knew that he knew that camouflage rig, which from a distance made made them to him look like so many turtles. But where were the Americans? If not on Hereford. Just then he heard a friendly voice on his FM radio, "Please, please, you must hurry."

• 1:10:21Jocko Willink?

  It was Spanza getting off his last message, but Cantrell had no way of knowing that either. Beard viewing from the same height was for a moment equally in the dark. From the start of the fight with good reason, Kirby had forgotten Caston, the correspondent. He remembered only when Caston slid into his position to ask, "When are we going to get the hell out of here?" Kirby didn't answer. Then Caston said, "I've gotta have a weapon." And Kirby silently handed him his own .357 Magnum. Quiet now, he briefly fitted into the hole beside Kirby. He spoke only once to say, "Sergeant Shepard is dead."

• 1:10:59Jocko Willink?

  So now Caston, the reporter, is in the foxhole and he's got a .357 Magnum. All curiosity about the thoughts of men facing death was gone from Caston. He had been eagerly questioning Shepard when the first shots were fired. That that soldier's swift moral collapse and sudden death were his first shock contact with the realities which mocked his quest. While Caston's opening words to Kirby rankled, they also rang a bell. Almost anywhere seemed to be better than the exposed ground to which the survivors clutched, now under a dust pall kicked up by the grazing fire. The fight had been going somewhere between 20 and 25 minutes and the fire was fastly becoming wholly one-sided. Next.

• 1:11:44Jocko Willink?

  To Kirby's position, the enemy skirmishers crawling through the elephant grass were not more than fifteen feet away. The fire buildup suggested they were bunching, probably for a rush. Kirby saw them fleetingly and vaguely, as through a haze, the flash of an arm, the bobbing of a head. Kirby got off three hand grenades in that direction as rapidly as he could throw. The explosion seemed to damp the close-up fire, but not for more than sixty seconds. In this moment of decision, Kirby did not doubt that the ring had been closed and that all the skirmishers waited on the lower slope amid the tall elephant grass between him and the company poised for the kill. So he's sitting there thinking, "Okay, we're surrounded."

• 1:12:24Jocko Willink?

  And I know the company's down the hill, but there's, there's bad guys in between us. Still, he yelled out, "Let's make it." With that, he rolled out of his hole and down the slope. Caston jumped from the hole just ahead of him and was running upright and in the clear. PFC Bob Taste and Spec 4 AV Spikes from the foxhole above Kirby went past Kirby, one rolling, the other sprinting, then Sbranza dashed by him. As he rolled, Kirby thought he glimpsed Isaac Johnson off to his left firing two M16s. He was wrong about that. Johnson had heard someone not quite echoing Kirby's shout, "Move down the hill." His own weapon was empty.

• 1:13:07Jocko Willink?

  He paused briefly to pick up another, only to find it in like condition. Kirby had seen him in that fleeting second when he clutched two useless pieces before throwing them both aside. Johnson's face was already a bloody mask from three superficial grenade wounds. Such was his tension, he neither heard the blast of the grenade nor knew that he had been hurt. Now in panic because he was unarmed, he made a running dive at the rocky embankment, giving him, getting him off Harreford Lower's side. Then he rolled on and on downslope till his body could take no more beating. In that spinning descent, he covered one hundred and fifty meters of rock-strewn trail.

• 1:13:48Jocko Willink?

  When and where he stopped, a twisting V-shaped cleft in the ridge back gave off to the left. Along this slit that trickled a stream no wider than the palm of Johnson's hand, he crawled into the bed of it twenty yards or so to where the jungle growth stopped him. Then he gathered bushes and vines down around him and lay with his face flat in the water. So he's hiding. Dove off a freaking cliff, fell down a hundred and fifty meters and now he's hiding in this little ravine. Not too far above him, the ordeal of the other few survivors continued to grow worse. Of this, Johnson felt and remembered nothing. Thought paralyzed by the grip of exhaustion, he had closed his mind to the sounds. Getting out separately, some running, others rolling.

• 1:14:33Jocko Willink?

  Kirby's men had stayed that way during the first few yards of flight. Through the short grass just off the LZ, coming to the rocky steep, they began to converge toward the center, whence the trail ran downhill. It is always so with men against fire. Fear and herd instinct brings them together, which is the worst, which is the worst thing that can happen since it just shapes up a broad target.

• 1:15:02Jocko Willink?

  Sbranza was the first to get it as they approached the steep. Kirby still rolling, others crawling, Caston standing. "I'm hit," Sbranza yelled and screamed like a panther. Three bullets, one in each leg and one in the head, but marvelously, he still lived and now he was erect and walking. Caston, the reporter, yelled back, "Hell, everybody's hit." That was news to the others. Caston had taken a bullet in one arm and several grenade frags in the back, saying nothing. In his last moments, the correspondent had the courage of a lion. Here was a man and they knew it. Spikes yelled, "I'm hit." It was a bullet through the right arm.

• 1:15:44Jocko Willink?

  They then moved twenty feet down the rock bank when Sbranza yelled again, "Hold it up, they're in front of us." Expecting it would come, Kirby froze right where he was. Caston kept moving in long strides, straight to the trail, which led downhill through the elephant grass. He had made up his mind and Kirby did not bother to shout a warning. Standing clear on the, on the trail was an enemy shoulder, soldier, rifle aimed. Kirby heard a scream as Caston went down.

• 1:16:14Jocko Willink?

  Though Caston was not fifteen yards from him, he could not see the fall as the body was enveloped by the sea of grass. He heard the whack of the bullet and the thump of the body, the bullet had drilled Caston through his left temple.

• 1:16:29Jocko Willink?

  Caston's personal effect were looted as soon after he fell. The camera, films, and purse were later recovered from the bodies of the enemy in the fight that soon followed. Many of the next of kin get not even that grain of comfort. It is an agonizing matter for the commanders, having to explain why the dead soldiers' most prized possessions and pictures cannot be returned.

• 1:16:57Jocko Willink?

  Kirby could now hear enemy soldiers moving up slope toward him. Their chattering, the clang of metal from their weapons being worked. He was down on his haunches, and so were Spanza, Spikes, and Taste. None was firing, their only thought was to hide in the grass which rose two feet taller than a standing man. They all knew Taste was slowly dying, two bullets in his neck, multiple mortar shards in his back. Though conscious, he made no complaint, only asking for water, of which there was none.

• 1:17:28Jocko Willink?

  The skirmishers were moving up now and beating the grass on both sides of them. Kirby saw seven of them coming right toward him, not ten feet away, and he knew he was discovered.

• 1:17:40Jocko Willink?

  He still held an M79 grenade launcher, so did Spikes. They fired right together, and the blast killed five of the enemy. The other two crawled away, leaving blood trails. Another skirmisher closed in from the left, spraying the ground between them with automatic pistol. Kirby had his M79 crooked in his arm. He had just taken another bullet through the right wrist and was feeling the wound. The skirmisher came on and looked through the grass straight at them. Spikes fired his M79, the range was so short that the grenade didn't arm, but the sheer velocity, it blew the man's head off.

• 1:18:14Jocko Willink?

  Had it armed, it would have likely killed both Spikes and Kirby. A second VC closed in from the left, only to turn his back as he almost stumbled over them. Kirby killed him at a range of five feet. Together, two more groups closed in on them from the right and left. Kirby took two hand grenades from Spreanza, who by now was wholly down, and throwing them in both directions with his wounded arm, he drove them off. He had no impression of how many he had killed, or whether he had even scored a hit. He simply knew that they had faded back, easing the immediate pressure momentarily.

• 1:18:46Jocko Willink?

  While this deadly hide-and-seek game went on down slope, Hereford LZ was being pounded by 105 and 155mm howitzers from the valley bases. Colonel Beard had called for it from his perch aloft, and still earlier, when Warren asked for it. Whether it might have been brought in sooner and done any good is an open question. There was no right moment for its use until the Americans had cleared away, which movement could only be guessed at.

• 1:19:14Jocko Willink?

  Now it had come and the perimeter was being cratered. One of the effects was to drive more of the enemy to the grass field lower down, where Kirby and his mates crouched. The game was still on. From down slope, a machine gun opened fire and skied the grass beside them. Kirby went flat in the nick of time and the bullets zinged directly over his head. Spikes didn't make it. One burst caught him in the head. The sound was enough. Kirby, two feet from him, didn't have to look to know he was dead. And he did not wish to look. Kirby crawled down slope about 10 feet, now looking for a weapon, thinking that the enemy might have dropped one. No luck.

• 1:19:55Jocko Willink?

  He was wholly out of ammunition and had no arm left but a flare pistol.

• 1:20:02Jocko Willink?

  So he lay flat on his back, wondering what to do. Another skirmisher came up, parted the grass and looked directly down on him. Kirby rolled over on his side in the same motion, fired his flare pistol upward. The round smashed into the glaring face not three feet above him, getting him right between the eyes. The body was spun completely over by the blast, with the figure kicking. Kirby did not wait to see more than that. He crawled back the way he had come to get Spreanza. The impulse was that if he had to die, he would rather not be alone. Both men were silent now. There was nothing to say. Time had about run out.

• 1:20:39Jocko Willink?

  They thought they were the only survivors, though this they were slightly wrong. Johnson was still face down in his private cleft. Spec four Charles Stuckey, whose swift reaction had started the fight, had moved obliquely to the others in getting away from the perimeter. Hidden in the tall grass alongside the knob, he had rare fortune until the final minutes, he came under a grenade shower, the last of the survivors to get hit. Directly towards Kirby and Sbranza, another enemy group moved down the slope. Kirby didn't wait for them. Having nothing to fire, he crawled upward through the elephant grass, leaving Sbranza and passing the skirmishers undetected. They fairly stumbled across Sbranza.

• 1:21:21Jocko Willink?

  He played dead, his head being gory from a bullet that had entered his left ear and emerged through his nose. It is less remarkable that the deception worked than that he stayed conscious and was capable of thought. They rolled him over, searched his pockets, took his wallet, knife, and cigarettes, and continued on. Having gone inert, Sbranza stayed that way. Kirby had no sense of the barraging of Hereford. Though the fire had been going on all of ten minutes, now as he crawled upward, he heard, at last heard the explosions and knew what they were. That determined him. He would crawl to the fire and try and hug it. Two thoughts were in his mind. Charlie will get as far away from this as possible,

• 1:22:03Jocko Willink?

  and if he had to die, that was still the preferable risk. Halfway back to the perimeter, his ear told him that the shelling had suddenly ceased. Not knowing what that meant, he still crawled on. It was a tortured, most labored movement as his last reserve of will and strength was draining away. He got within six feet of the first foxhole before he looked up. What he saw almost numbed his senses, and he felt as if he would faint. Sitting in the foxhole, pointing an M16 directly at his head, was PFC Morgan of First Platoon. He crawled a few more feet forward, still

• 1:22:44Jocko Willink?

  prone, looked around. Every hole at Hereford was occupied by an American. Captain Warren and the company had returned to the hill. Sergeant Owen L. Lewis and James W. Edwards came over to help Kirby to his feet. No words passed between them.

• 1:23:01Jocko Willink?

  They were not merely choked up, they were sobbing convulsively. And seeing them, Kirby knew tears for the first time that day. Later, Warren said if my men cried, it was because they were so damn mad. Kirby knew better than that. They were mourning mourning the death of the platoon. Kirby told them where to look for Spranza, not knowing that the Company had found him on the way up, or that he'd already been evacuated from Hereford by the chopper. Stucky appeared about that moment, and he and Kirby were flown to An Cay aboard the same Huey. It was some time later that Johnson came in. When the hill went quiet, he started crawling upward.

• 1:23:43Jocko Willink?

  Coming to the tall grass, he saw his friend Sergeant Wallace W. Hood standing in the clear on the forward edge of Hereford. And that sight brought him to his feet. Days later, he was still in a state of shock. Kirby, taken to the hospital of his own choice, returned to the Company duty. Within ten days, still convalescent. Unlike Johnson, he was fully coherent, with his emotions under tight control, till he spoke of seeing the Company in tears. Warren and the Company had made that frantic uphill climb to Hereford in exactly thirty-five minutes. The descent over the same trail had taken them an hour longer. If a record march, it was to little avail.

• 1:24:28Jocko Willink?

  They saw dead Americans in all but six foxholes, and thought at first Spranza was the only survivor. The platoon weapons had been taken, everybody had been stripped of personal effects. Warren deployed two of his platoons for a six-hundred-yard sweep to the eastward along both flanks of the ridge. The hunt proved almost barren of result, though blood trails were numerous and heavily marked, only five bodies were found, and they all too obviously had been felled by artillery. The fanatics must have hauled away a larger count of dead than was lost to the Company.

• 1:25:05Jocko Willink?

  So in the end, they departed as they had come, more suddenly than mysteriously. How the trap had been sprung was easy enough to figure out in retrospect. This enemy force of about 200 was much too fresh to have followed in along Warren's wake as he came over the trail from Hill 766. The time interval was not long enough to have permitted ascent from lower levels toward which Warren had kept moving. If there had been an assembly and movement, still no sound had been detected. Last, the enemy's main weapons were sighted dead on target. Thus, the enemy force must have been there all the time, some yards off the trail and

• 1:25:48Jocko Willink?

  along the ridge sides as Warren's column had walked through. Had Warren stayed in full strength on Hereford, there might not have been no fight. He carried out his orders. Of that came the most melancholy episode in Operation Crazy Horse. Now, you may have noticed that I didn't mention the author of this book that I'm reading. And the reason I didn't mention the author of this book is because I didn't want to

• 1:26:31Jocko Willink?

  cloud your impression. The author was a guy by the name of S.L.A. Marshall. And I talked about him on Podcast 142, where we covered his book, Men Against Fire. You heard him use that phrase in here. And S.L.A. Marshall was a famous...

• 1:26:57Jocko Willink?

  Military man, we'll say. And he ended up be being a general, he was a historian. He was a writer, he was, he was a reservist, so he was a civilian writer and wrote a bunch of articles and was worked for a newspaper. But he's also a very controversial figure and, and Hackworth toured, did a tour with him in Vietnam and kind of reveals the guy's character. He was very egotistical and he also, he also made claims about his experiences in war that were not true. He, he lied about his experience, you know, he, he lied about his militaries, about his combat experience in World War I.

• 1:27:42Jocko Willink?

  And then he also wrote in a way that supported his own theories and his own hypotheses and, you know, in Met against Fire, there's a lot of people that went back and broke down what he wrote in that book and we covered that book on this podcast, like I said, because we didn't want to throw away the, the baby with the bathwater. But there's a lot of things that were very controversial and some of them just straight up wrong and on top of all that, he never let the truth get in the way of a good story. So when I read this portion of Battles in the Monsoon, this was,

• 1:28:23Jocko Willink?

  this was on my mind and the article, I mean, th- this book didn't, it didn't paint Kirby in such a bad light as this, as the, as the manual did, which made him just sound like a complete, you know, lackadaisical guy that just let all this stuff go and, and didn't have any discipline and didn't follow any good protocols.

• 1:28:48Jocko Willink?

  But at the same time, I'm reading this book thinking, well, you know, S L A Marshall, he's not necessarily a guy that's gonna, he just wants a really good story. So he's not, in my opinion, and just based on the things he's written in the past, this isn't some, this isn't a reliable source either. Even though he would go and interview people, like those quotes he's getting, he would interview people, absolutely. But still, he's gonna, he's gonna make that story kind of the way he wants it. And so I was still not satisfied with the information that I had in front of me. And so I did some more research and I found another article.

• 1:29:30Jocko Willink?

  I found an article on a, on a website called historynet.com. And there's an article written by a guy named Michael Christie. Michael Christie. So Michael Christie enlisted in the Marine Corps out of high school. And then he joined the army, yeah, became an officer, probably went to college, became an officer, served in the fifth special forces group in Vietnam from 1967 to 1968. And in 1970, he was the commander of C Company, First Battalion, 12th Cavalry Regiment. The very same company involved in the battle at LZ Harford. So he wasn't there, but you know, you're gonna have some connections, you're gonna be able

• 1:30:13Jocko Willink?

  to put some things together, you're gonna hear some, some backfill. And he eventually retired and became a writer and he produced a bunch of documentaries and then he made a series of leadership videos for, for the military. So the military hired him to make leadership videos. Some of those were hosted by Lee Marvin, which is pretty cool. Uh, but he wrote this article. And this article is called Last Stand at LZ Harford.

• 1:30:45Jocko Willink?

  Soldiers shield themselves as best they can from the dirt and debris stirred up by a Huey squeezing into tight one-ship landing zone around noon. The pilot touches down and two officers jump from the helicopter and land in a large mud puddle. One G.I. chuckles, pokes his buddy, and laughs quietly at the officers in fresh jungle fatigues stamping the mud off their polished boots. A dirty, unshaven captain greets them, wearing torn jungle fatigues and mud-covered boots toting an M16. So there's Warren. So now we're starting to get a little better picture. You know, you've

• 1:31:24Jocko Willink?

  got the stereotypical sort of officers rolling in with their brand-new fatigues and polished boots and out comes Warren, who's been out in the jungle now for a while on this, just this operation.

• 1:31:41Jocko Willink?

  The trio moves to the edge of the landing zone where towering elephant grass offers a bit of protection from the early afternoon sun. The major unfolds a map and the three begin discussing a mission. Within minutes, there is strong disagreement over the plan.

• 1:31:57Jocko Willink?

  Lieutenant Colonel Rutland Beard, commander of the 1st Battalion 12th Cavalry, 1st Cavalry Division, and his operations officer, Major William Roll, are insisting that Captain Don Warren, Charlie Company Commander, leave his 20-man mortar platoon alone on landing zone Hereford to provide fire support to Warren's company as it moves down the steep precipice toward the valley below.

• 1:32:22Jocko Willink?

  Warren is equally insistent on keeping at least one rifle squad behind to provide security. "Sir, my mortar platoon is down to half-strength because of malaria and has only M16s and a couple M79s. If I leave behind a rifle squad, they will have at least one machine gun for security."

• 1:32:43Jocko Willink?

  Beard tells Warren that the mortar platoon will be on the hill for less than an hour before it will be lifted out and taken to another LZ. Warren's eyes lock on Beards. "Anything can happen in hours, sir." Irritated at Warren's near insubordination, Beard warns, "Captain, if you don't do as I order, you will be in more trouble than you can imagine. Is that understood?" Warren hesitates a moment before answering tersely, "Yes, Colonel. Will that be all, sir?" Beard indicates yes, and Warren spins on his heels and walks over to his rifle platoon leaders to pass the orders.

• 1:33:21Jocko Willink?

  Beard takes a sideward glance at Roll, shakes his head, and returns to his helicopter. So, automatically, we see where this is going. And by the way, look, I love this book. The squad leader makes a difference. But the squad leader's getting put in a bad situation right now.

• 1:33:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:33:46Jocko Willink?

  Warren has every reason for concern about the safety of his under-strength mortar platoon. Hereford's topography makes it nearly impossible for even a fully armed rifle company to defend it from a determined enemy. It is a small saddle 165 yards long by 45 yards wide, is partially encircled by tall elephant grass. Beyond the elephant grass is completely surrounded by rugged, unforgiving landscape, the most hostile being the steep Razorback ridgeline, reaching northeast toward a towering mountain nearly 1,000 feet high. At the base of the ridge, Hereford's northern boundary begins to slope gently downhill. Continues on explaining what we already know. Hereford is also the center of fierce fighting that began seven days earlier on May 15th.

• 1:34:28Jocko Willink?

  So now, they give a little background to this whole Operation Crazy Horse. When word of that battle filtered down to First Cavalry leaders, they then decided the next day to conduct a major operation in the area.

• 1:34:43Jocko Willink?

  And that's what they're doing. Sitting on the edge of his foxhole on LZ Hereford, Staff Sergeant Robert Kirby watches as Captain Warren leads three platoons from his rifle company off the mountain and down a steep slope in search of the enemy. When the last man disappears over the rim, Kirby checks his watch. It's 1:40 PM, in less than 45 minutes, his mortar platoon is to be airlifted off Hereford to LZ Savoy where it will continue providing fire support for Charlie Company. Tasked to occupy a company-sized defensive perimeter with only 19 men. So now we're talking company-sized perimeter. That's 150

• 1:35:23Jocko Willink?

  people. He's got 19 guys. Kirby figured the best way to do this was to form a U-shaped defense and place two men into every third foxhole. This, however, left the top of the horseshoe open. Knowing his men are spread too thin, Kirby, a 29-year-old native of South Los Angeles, scans the perimeter from his foxhole at the bend of the horseshoe, beginning with the gun crew directly behind him. Inside the pit is Sergeant Charles Gaines and Spec 4 Austin Drummond, a former Golden Gloves champion. With fast hands, perfect at dropping rounds into a mortar tube, Sergeant Isaac Johnson sits on the ground nearby with a plot board on his lap. The gun crew is ready to place supporting fire when and where

• 1:36:05Jocko Willink?

  the company commander needs it. Most of the mortar platoon have been together since Fort Benning, Georgia, but a few are replacements who have never been in battle. So Kirby has no idea how they will react under fire. One of his new men is Spec 4 David Crocker, a 21-year-old medic who sits a few feet from Kirby, reading a paperback, his medical bag ready at his side. In the foxhole next to Kirby is longtime radio operator Spec 4 John Speranza, who is the platoon's link to the outside world and is never more than an arm's length away from Kirby. Communications are unreliable because of the high mountains and deep valley. "How's the commo?" asks Kirby. "So far, so good," answers Speranza, "but who knows for how long?" Kirby focuses on the western section of the perimeter.

• 1:36:50Jocko Willink?

  Holding down the most forward position at the top of the open horseshoe are two men who have fought bravely in previous firefights. Privates Lonny Sleepy Williams, whose deep sleep often resulted in heavy snoring, and Clarence Gomer Brahm, a good-natured hillbilly who looked and acted like TV's Gomer Pyle.

• 1:37:10Jocko Willink?

  Two empty fighting positions below them are combat vets Robert Radar Roder and PFC Harold Mack Jr. In a fierce firefight a few months before Kirby had been wounded and pinned down. When 18-year-old Roder ignoring heavy fire ran out and pulled him to safety, Mack and Roder have been close friends ever since airborne school. So, we didn't know that about Kirby, that Kirby's been in combat, he's been wounded, and he's still out there doing his job. This guy has combat experience. And now we're to think that he's just gonna be lackadaisical in this scenario?

• 1:37:43Jocko Willink?

  In the last defensive position on the western side, Kirby assigned a competent and respected leader Sergeant Lewis Buckley with PFC Henry Benton who joined the platoon only two weeks ago. Kirby knows little about Benton and the two new privates covering the southern sector a few yards away from Kirby's position, Joel Tamayo and James Francis Brooks Jr., both of whom joined the platoon just a few weeks earlier. So, he's got those guys that he doesn't really know too well, kind of close at hand. Kirby decides to walk the eastern side of the perimeter. But before he goes, he tells Buckley to collect and stack water cans, food containers, and other equipment in preparation for the helicopter pickup. Roger that, Sarge, says Buckley, as he springs into action. As Kirby walks away, he hears Sprezza take call, take the first call for reconnaissance fire in advance of the company's

• 1:38:27Jocko Willink?

  movement in the valley below. So, why is Kirby walking the perimeter? Because he's doing his job as a leader. And he's also prepping to leave, because when the helicopters come in, is it that the good time to stack up stuff and get it off the LZ? No, you want to have it prepped, so helicopters don't spend a bunch of time there, and you want to get all the stuff off the LZ, so the enemy can't use it.

• 1:38:54Jocko Willink?

  Sitting in the nearest position to Kirby's on the eastern sector is Spec 4 AV Spikes, who is complaining about something to PFC Wade Taste. Spike, stop bitching and keep your eyes open, warns Kirby as he approaches.

• 1:39:10Jocko Willink?

  Spikes 26 to seven year veteran whose disregard for authorities well known looks at Kirby but says nothing. Kirby orders 18 year old taste to help Buckley who's already picking up scattering cans and containers. So he's telling, "Stop bitching and keep your eyes open." This is what a platoon sergeant should be doing. Kirby moves to the next position where look magazine correspondent Sam Caston is interviewing Spec 4 Daniel Post and PFC Roger, Robert Benjamin. Caston came out of the field a day before to write a story about death. He had chosen to stay on Hereford with a mortar platoon rather than travel with the company. Post, known as Platoon's Practical Joker feeds Caston mischievous responses while Benjamin only responds in yes or no answers. Kirby queries the two troopers on what they will do if attacked. They tell them they plan on throwing

• 1:39:55Jocko Willink?

  hand grenades down the rocky prefaces below their position and firing interlocking fires with their positions on their left and right. So that's Kirby. Kirby's like, "Okay, what are you gonna do if we get hit?" They say, "We're gonna throw grenades over there and we already got interlocking fields of fire with these other positions." Satisfied, Kirby heads for the most forward position at the top of the eastern sector, manned by Paul Harrison and Charles Stuckey, both battle tested specialists. Harrison and Stuckey have established interlocking fields of fire across the open end of the Yushy perimeter with Williams and Brahm on the western side. So he set the positions, he went out, inspected the positions, make sure people understand their field of fire. Squad leader's actually

• 1:40:39Jocko Willink?

  doing his job. On the way back to his position, Kirby nods to Sergeant First Class Edward Shepherd, sitting on the rim of the foxhole not far apart from the mortar pit. Shepherd, 38, is the only soldier there who's not in the mortar platoon. He stayed behind to catch a helicopter where he is to appear before a promotion board. Kirby sits on the edge of the foxhole and watches Spanza talking on the radio with Captain Warren, who's calling correction on where to place another mortar round. Spanza yells back correction to the gun crew and it then fires a few more rounds shortly after 2:00 PM. Warren radios Spanza that the helicopters are on the way and that word spreads from hole to hole. What Warren does not know is that the helicopters are actually delayed and still sitting on the ground at LZ Savoy in the valley. Around 2:15, five minutes before the anticipated

• 1:41:24Jocko Willink?

  arrival of the helicopter, Stuckey spots three well camouflaged North Vietnamese Army soldiers watching him from the elephant grass. He opens fire with his M16 and Harrison joins in. The three enemy drop either dead or wounded. So.

• 1:41:39Jocko Willink?

  If you don't catch well camouflaged NVA if you're not paying attention. These guys are paying attention. Then in the next instant, a massive volume of automatic fire and small arms fires unleashed from the high ground to the north and a ravine to the east. Shepard, sitting on the rim of the foxhole, is killed in the first volley. Within seconds, the rocket propelled grenades, mortar rounds explode near each occupied position. Men burrow deep inside their foxhole under the terrifying shrapnel slicing through the air and bullets cracking overhead. The platoon is surrounded, outmanned and outgunned. Kirby yells to his friends at a radio Warren and tell him they are under attack and need immediate air and artillery support. A stunned Warren acknowledges, immediately calls battalion for fire support and orders his company to turn around and head back up the hill.

• 1:42:24Jocko Willink?

  So, to your point earlier, Warren, the reason he was able to turn around and head and go is because he didn't even want to leave in the first place.

• 1:42:37Jocko Willink?

  In the open, stacking equipment, taste falls to the ground with two bullets to the throat. Buckley, his shoulder covered in blood, dashes across the open perimeter screaming, "Get off the hill, get off the hill," and disappears into the elephant grass. Harrison yells for Stucky to go to the mortar pit while he stays behind to hold off the enemy. Stucky takes a few more shots at the enemy, turns and zigzags for the mortar pit when an RPG round explodes in front of him, throwing him to the ground. After the shrapnel and dirt stopped falling, he raises his head and looks to see where Post and Benjamin had been trying to make an escape. Both are dead. He sprints towards a large rock right just outside the perimeter. As he turns the corner of it, he encounters an enemy soldier about to throw a grenade into the LZ. Spotting Stucky, the NVA tosses the grenade directly at him instead.

• 1:43:19Jocko Willink?

  Instead, the grenade sails over Stucky's head, hits the rock behind him and explodes, wounding him. Managing to stay on his feet, Stucky fires three rounds into the NVA's chest, killing him instantly. Stucky then moves around the rock face, finds a narrow crevice and squeezes into it, hidden from the enemy. Paul Harrison, slapping magazine after magazine into his rifle, fires at every charging enemy soldier he can see. When he runs out of ammunition, he jumps up from his foxhole and charges the NVA, using his M16 as a club, cracking a few heads before the blood covered rifle slips from his hands. He then wades into the enemy with his fist until he falls dead from dozens of bullets.

• 1:44:02Jocko Willink?

  As North Vietnamese burst through the elephant grass, Spranza opens up with his M16 on full automatic, tearing three of them apart. He manages to fire off a few more shots before RTB rounds, RBG rounds, visible in their slow trajectory, plunge toward the mortar pit. One round slams in front of Spranza's foxhole, showering his back with shrapnel. Another explodes to his left, killing Doc Crocker instantly. The third round sends shrapnel into Kirby's arms, head, and chest. The last round hits the rear lip of the mortar pit, tearing off Drubbin's right arm and mangling his left leg. He dies in a pool of blood.

• 1:44:42Jocko Willink?

  Gaines is killed with a bullet through his head.

• 1:44:49Jocko Willink?

  Johnson, the only gun crew member alive, takes shrapnel in the face but continues firing on the advancing enemy. As attackers fall, others jump over them, running toward Johnson, who keeps firing until he is out of ammunition.

• 1:45:04Jocko Willink?

  He makes a running dive at the rocky abatement on Hereford's southern edge and rolls down the slope, careening off rocks and over tree roots, until finally coming to a stop. He spots a V-shaped depression hidden in thick vegetation with a stream running through it. He pulls himself into the stream and gathers brush and vines to hide his body, gripped with fear and exhaustion.

• 1:45:23Jocko Willink?

  On the western perimeter, Williams and Braim frantically fire their M16s on full automatic at the waves of NVA, as do Roter and Mack. A few NVA fall dead, but most brave the wall of fire, overrunning the position and killing Williams and Braim before turning toward Roter and Mack. Mack pops up to get a better shot when he takes a bullet to the head, crumbling back into the foxhole, dead. Roter fires his M79 until he's out of ammunition, then picks up Mack's M16 and continues firing until it too is empty.

• 1:45:54Jocko Willink?

  He throws two grenades at the charging enemy, forcing them to fall back, then jumps out of his fighting position and heads for Benton's foxhole. When he tumbles in, he finds Benton dead.

• 1:46:04Jocko Willink?

  He crawls out and with bullets trailing his every step races over to the foxhole of Brooks and Tamayo, but they are dead as well.

• 1:46:13Jocko Willink?

  The western defense has crumbled. Figuring everyone else is dead, Rotor does what he is trained to do, escape and evade. He tears down the side of the hill into the elephant grass, followed by several enemy. With bullets zipping over his head, he runs deeper to the elephant grass as fast as he can until he's overcome by exhaustion and drops to the ground. When he is gasping, when his gasping for air subsides, he realizes the enemy is no longer following him. He stays hidden, silently praying that he will be spared.

• 1:46:43Jocko Willink?

  Still in his hole, Sbranza sees a figure running toward his position. He fires off a quick burst, somehow missing his target. "Don't shoot for God's sake, it's me." Sam Caston screams as he drops into the foxhole. The reporter looks over at Kirby and yells, "We need to get the hell out of here." Kirby shouts back, "Where? We're surrounded."

• 1:47:04Jocko Willink?

  "Get six on the horn," Kirby tells Sbranza. "Tell him to hurry or we're dead." Sbranza screams into the headset. "Please hurry, we're being overrun." But Warren doesn't get the transmission as communication between Harreford and the company no longer exists. Sbranza turns to the artillery frequency and repeats the message. The artillery RTO passes the call to Warren, who now pushes his company even more, ordering his men to double time up the hill, a murderous pace in the mud and tangled vines.

• 1:47:37Jocko Willink?

  By this time, the battalion executive officer, Major Cantrell, is circling above Harreford in his observation helicopter and Colonel Beard is watching the battle from his command and control Huey. The swarm of enemy they see below is so intermingled with the mortar position, neither officer can distinguish who's who. Rather than kill the defenders by mistake, Beard holds off on artillery requested by Kirby. Meanwhile, Kirby sees four enemy crawling towards his position less than 15 feet away and tosses three hand grenades as fast as he can, stopping their advance. Kirby now realizes Caston is right, their only chance for survival is to get off the LZ. He cups his hands to bark the order, when the badly wounded Taste suddenly drops into his foxhole.

• 1:48:19Jocko Willink?

  Kirby ties a dressing on Taste's bleeding throat and yells over the enemy fire, "We gotta make a break for it, call Artie on the hill."

• 1:48:29Jocko Willink?

  Sbranza reaches the artillery net shouting into the handset, "We're getting out of here. The place is covered with enemy. Just about everybody is dead."

• 1:48:39Jocko Willink?

  He is told artillery is on hold.

• 1:48:48Jocko Willink?

  With bullets kicking up dirt all around them, Kirby and Taste low crawl over to Sbranza and Caston. "We'll go over the rim in the direction the company will be coming in," hollers Kirby. "Let's go." As Sbranza struggles with his radio while he climbs out of the foxhole, Kirby screams, "Forget the radio, blow it." Sbranza pulls the pin of a hand grenade and throws it in the foxhole with the radio. The three soldiers and Caston move quickly away from the blast and a few steps later come across a wounded AV Spikes clutching his M79. Kirby and Sbranza have their M16s but very little ammunition. Caston, who is also wounded, has a .357 Magnum that Kirby gave him. Taste is unarmed. The five wounded men now move toward the slope descending into a deep ravine to the east.

• 1:49:31Jocko Willink?

  Kirby, Taste, Spikes and Caston run, crawl and roll into the elephant grass while Sbranza act as a rear guard before rolling down the hill to join them.

• 1:49:42Jocko Willink?

  As they reach a small ravine, they hear the enemy coming down from the LZ in hot pursuit. They lie down, figuring the Americans are hiding. The NVA began beating the grass. The first North Vietnamese to spot the Americans is shot in the face by Sbranza. Kirby kills another standing nearby. Spikes fires his M79 near the group, killing five. The other two crawl away wounded.

• 1:50:02Jocko Willink?

  Seconds later, another group of North Vietnamese spray the ground around the Americans. Sbranza takes three bullets in his right leg, one smashing into his kneecap, severing the tendon. Another bullet rips through his left leg. "I'm hit," Sbranza screams as he falls into a heap on the jungle floor. Kirby sprays the advancing enemy with the last of his ammunition, causing them to retreat.

• 1:50:22Jocko Willink?

  When he bends down to check on Sbranza, a bullet smashes into his right arm. He's now losing blood from many wounds. Kirby eyes an NVA peeking over the grass and pulls out a rusty French flare gun he'd found on an old battlefield and fires, hitting him between the eyes. The soldier falls backwards, screaming in agony as his flesh burns away.

• 1:50:44Jocko Willink?

  In the meantime, Taste silently bleeds to death from his throat wounds.

• 1:50:52Jocko Willink?

  Hearing something behind him, Sprenza spins around just as a bullet enters the back of his skull, travels through his jaw and exits out of his nose, tearing away the cartilage, teeth, tissue and skin. Eyes filled with blood, Sprenza goes down, badly wounded but somehow still alive.

• 1:51:13Jocko Willink?

  Possibly to regroup, the enemy stops firing. Kirby tells everyone to head farther down the ravine. Quietly, the four group survivors crawl, then walk down the slope. With help from Kirby and Spike, Sprenza manages to keep up. Feeling somewhat safe with a NVA about 100 yards behind, they move a little faster. Suddenly spotting a small group of enemy coming up a trail to their flank, Sprenza signals to get down. Caston does not see Sprenza's warning and keeps going, running straight into a group of North Vietnamese coming from another direction. One of the NVA shoots Caston in the head, killing him.

• 1:51:48Jocko Willink?

  The enemy now opens fire into the grasses from two sides. Spikes takes several bullets in his chest. Kirby checks his pulse, but cannot find one.

• 1:51:59Jocko Willink?

  The North Vietnamese troops slowly wade through the grass toward Kirby and Sprenza. Kirby's out of ammo. Sprenza's rifle is jammed, but he has two grenades left, and he gives them to Kirby, who tosses them into the advancing enemy.

• 1:52:13Jocko Willink?

  Just then, friendly artillery rounds begin pounding LZ Hereford. The deafening explosion stopped the enemy's advance. Kirby and Sprenza take advantage of the situation and begin to move slowly back up the hill, but it's too much for Sprenza. "Go without me," he gasps. "I can't move any further. I'm dying." "I'm not leaving you alone," says Kirby. "Go now," Sprenza yells. "Save yourself. I've made peace with my lord. Just go."

• 1:52:47Jocko Willink?

  Kirby believing Sbranza will die for sure reluctantly accedes to the RTO's demand and crawls away back towards Hereford.

• 1:52:56Jocko Willink?

  Sbranza although growing weaker from loss of blood finds the will to take off a scabbard knife strapped to his leg by a leather thong. He places the knife around on the ground next to him uses the raw hide as a tourniquet to stop the bleeding in his right leg. He then somehow manages to open his first aid kit, find a gauze bandage and begins wrapping around his head and eye. Before he can finish however, he hears rustling of men coming toward him through the grass. He takes his knife into his hand and rolls over face down in the dirt.

• 1:53:27Jocko Willink?

  Playing dead, Sbranza doesn't move a muscle as three or four NVA slowly approach. He smells their bodies and stale breath as they search him for anything of value. One man turns him over and roughly strips off his signet ring. Another's take his wallet, cigarettes and dog tags. Unable to stay motionless another second, he's about to jump up with his knife when he hears a helicopter rapidly descending. It sprays the ground with bullets, some so close they spatter dirt in his face. Screaming frantically, the NVA run for cover.

• 1:54:00Jocko Willink?

  Still afraid to move, Sbranza continues to play dead and seconds later he hears someone carefully moving toward him. He grips his knife a little tighter and when he feels a hand grab his shoulder, he musters all the strength he has left and tries stabbing the man. But the large shadowy figure batlicked by the sun drifting through the trees quickly grabs Sbranza's knife in hand screaming, "Hey, it's me, Carlos, Carlos Cruz."

• 1:54:27Jocko Willink?

  Charlie Company had made it back up the hill.

• 1:54:32Jocko Willink?

  The last of his energy drained, Sbranza lays down his head and slips into unconsciousness. Kirby is halfway up the slope when friendly artillery ceases falling. Uncertain what it means, he keeps crawling. His many wounds are taking their toll but he keeps going until he reaches the top of the hill where he sees Charlie Company troops everywhere.

• 1:54:52Jocko Willink?

  Unable to control his wounded body and frayed emotions, he slides to the ground. A medic gives him a shot of morphine and stops his bleeding. When the wounded Stucky comes crawling into the LZ, another medic rushes over, lays him down and treats his wounds. Sprentz is carried up the hill in a stretcher made from ponchos and shortly he, Kirby and Stucky are placed in a medevac helicopter and flown out. Passing the medevacs flying out, helicopters begin delivering reinforcements who pile out onto Hereford. A look of horror passes over their faces at the sight of so much death and destruction. One soldier throws up.

• 1:55:36Jocko Willink?

  Hearing the helicopters coming and going, Johnson, who got off the hill and evaded the enemy, slowly approaches the LZ, only to face the muzzle of an M16 held by PFC Morgan. He drops to the ground out of relief when he is recognized by Morgan. The last mortar platoon survivor to get back to the LZ is a dazed Roder. Company platoon leader asks Rogan to identify the bodies, all of which have been stripped of personal effects and shot in the head. He is able to name a few before the weight of the massacre takes its toll.

• 1:56:17Jocko Willink?

  He cannot look at another dead friend. As he sits down, the afternoon monsoon rains begin pouring down out of the dark sky. Roder shivers as the rain pelts his sobbing body. So much death in such a small place.

• 1:56:53Jocko Willink?

  So there's another view of this battle and clearly,

• 1:57:00Jocko Willink?

  you know, the, the difference is immense, the leadership issues.

• 1:57:07Jocko Willink?

  You know, and there's a whole discussion to have about that. You know, at what point? When you're being told to do something that doesn't make sense, at what point do you? At what point do you say, we're not doing that? And, and you know, this is leadership, strategy and tactics and they got the whole assessment of that. And it's not like, I'm not saying leadership and strategy and tactics tells you the answer. But it gives you the, the options. And it's heavy options to weigh. And, and you could look at Warren and say, well, if that, if it wasn't safe, I wouldn't do it. Okay. Well then he fires you on the spot. He puts some young lieutenant in charge of the platoon. And you get thrown in a helicopter and taken out. So, so what good did you do?

• 1:57:53Jocko Willink?

  Now, you could also say, hey, Roger that. By the way, give me, give me a fire team over here. Give me a gun, give me a machine gunner. This is what we're doing. Once the, once the boss leave, you could do that. It's a good option. I like that option.

• 1:58:07Jocko Willink?

  You could, and you don't know what kind of relationship we have. Because there's also, I mean, I guess we could say that appears that the relationship isn't great. I guess we do know that much. But sometimes if somebody is very convicted in the way that they're offering advice, it can be convincing. And this is something that I have to be careful of. Because I know I can be convincing. I know I can be. And I have to be careful. In fact, that's one of the, probably the original reasons for me being such a listener. Is I know that if I say, I think we should do this. A lot of people just go, yeah, Roger that. Like if that's what you think, we're on board. I mean, that, that's kind of something I had to watch out for.

• 1:58:51Jocko Willink?

  And it turned me into more of a listener because I didn't want to subdue people's thoughts. I didn't want to tamper with their ideas. And I didn't want to, to override how they thought something should go. So we have to be careful of that as a leader to make sure that we aren't just being so overbearing that people don't push back against us.

• 1:59:23Speaker 01

  The three different versions, if you want to call them versions, just the three different perspectives of that, you know, paint. Each one paints such a unique picture. And, you know, I wrote down on my notes again, everything that I write down are just the things that I'm thinking in real time and

• 1:59:40Speaker 01

  it's really frustrating to sit here and listen to this, knowing the outcome and seeing all these pieces play out, knowing that this was a totally, this was, this was a preventable, this is a leadership failure. It is a leadership failure. At, at a lot of different levels, and this last one really paints a more clear picture of how this predicament happened. But knowing that this is, this is not an unsolvable problem, that they were just in no way could this have been prevented. This is just simply not true. And, and the frustration of that. And when I, when I picture just the conversation of the, of the person in charge telling a subordinate, do it or else, just the, just the

• 2:00:23Speaker 01

  the philosophy that I lead through my authority. And the catastrophic events that happened, that has, and in this case, we're talking human life. I mean, this is a, a catastrophic thing. But those same, that same approach on how often leaders are emphatic and what they want. Not recognizing just how destructive that is to them as a leader. And I'm sitting here trying to picture these guys up in a helicopter looking down and the sickening feeling they must have had of this is what I, what, what did I create? How did I, how did this happen? Well, it happened because of you, because you as a leader demanded things happen the way that you want.

• 2:01:07Speaker 01

  And I'm picturing while, I mean, and I was struggling early with this guy with, with the company commander not being able to reconcile, and that's just me piecing things together. And, and I imagine this feeling of the entire time walking down the hill, knowing, knowing he didn't want to do that.

• 2:01:26Jocko Willink?

  The Pat quote frontline, the frontline, the leader in the field is always right, right? You're coming from your helicopter, you're getting off and you're telling me what to do. That just sits so foul for me. And the other thing that's interesting about this is you would think that we could be sitting here saying as two, you know, military leaders that you and I were, you, you, you, it's, it's very easy to say, we could, you and I could be sitting here having a conversation where, look, discipline is paramount. Obviously, we could sit here and say Jaco, Jaco saying discipline is paramount, no one would question that for one millisecond. Discipline is paramount.

• 2:02:06Jocko Willink?

  You have to, you have to get people into a point where they will obey what you say. And you, they need to do it. That's what military training is. That's what you learn in bootcamp. That's what you learn in officer candidate school to, to instant obey orders. Like that's what we want.

• 2:02:23Jocko Willink?

  And that's just, just so wrong. It's just so wrong. It's so wrong to think that. It's so wrong to feel that way. And you know what? Like I, I'm so thankful that I had the luxury of being in the military and being able to experience this and, and, and then on top of that, getting to see it while I was training people. And then on top of it, getting to see it with all these companies that we work with. Because occasionally to this day, someone will say to me, somebody at some company will say, yeah, but sometimes don't they just need to shut up and do what they're told to do? I get that. I get that. I still get that.

• 2:03:05Jocko Willink?

  And what they think I'm going to say is, well, hell yeah, that's what everybody thinks I'm going to say.

• 2:03:11Jocko Willink?

  And it's like, actually, no, you don't want that. And I actually, I actually had a good situation like this. I was working with a client and I had two people on the call. There's more than two people, but there's two people that kind of rose to the conversation. One of them was, you know, but they just need to do it. And, and I rebutted that guy. And said, well, if what you're going to do is just, you know, bark to them, shut up and do it, whether you believe it or not, that's not going to have a good outcome. And here's why I went through the whole thing. And when I got done with that, the other guy said, that's what we need to do. We need to actually listen to what they have to say. We have to take their input. They're like, all those things, we need to make their plan, all those

• 2:03:51Jocko Willink?

  things that we talk about all the time, which is, it's just shocking that people still,

• 2:03:59Jocko Willink?

  you know what? They think tactically. Because tactically, if I say, Dave, shut up and do what I told you to do, you're gonna do it. Just like this guy did. It's a tactical win. Hey, the battalion commander says, hey, you shut up and do what I told you to do. Yeah, Roger that. Okay, you just won the tactical battle. But what, look what happens. Look what happens. You won that little tactical battle and you lose these other people. And, and, and look, could there have been no one waiting on that LZ? Absolutely. There could have been no one wait, there could have been no enemy on that LZ and everything would have gone fine. And that guy's, that guy's tyrannical behavior would have been reinforced as the right way to lead. And it ain't the right way to lead. It's not the right way to lead.

• 2:04:41Speaker 01

  This guy's a battalion commander. He's probably been leading like that through his whole career with, with, with no consequence. Certainly no, nothing like this to this degree, this story.

• 2:04:52Jocko Willink?

  And you know what makes that happen? And I brought this up with a client the other day. In the military, because I say, look, you can be effective with that kind of browbeating, tyrannical leadership for, for whatever, for an hour, for a week, right? I can just yell, Dave, shut up and do what I told you to do. And actually, in the military, I can get away with it for my whole career. Why is that? Because you, Dave, you're working for me, you know, you only have to work for me for 18 months. You know, it's going to take me a couple of months to figure myself out. By the time my tour is starting to look, coming to an end, you're not even going to give me resistance anymore. You're like, cool, he's gone and whatever. So these guys can bounce from job to job to job, being in charge

• 2:05:33Jocko Willink?

  of this group. By the time he leaves, they, he's hated, but he's accomplished, he's quote, accomplished the mission, right? He's got his good fit rep. He's done his job. He's accomplished the mission. He's hated. They don't want to do it. They're sabotaging him or they're, they're, they're sloughing him off. They're doing all those things, but no one knows it. His, his chain of command above him thinks, oh yeah, well, you did a good job. You got the mission accomplished. First of all, they never got tested. Second of all, doesn't know the morale of the troops because that guy's able to hide it. So that's how these military leaders, sometimes they get through their whole career.

• 2:06:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:06:03Jocko Willink?

  And I mean, whole career. I'm talking 34 year careers.

• 2:06:06Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:06:06Jocko Willink?

  Where they never actually led anybody. All they did was bark orders. And they retire as an admiral, they retire as a general, and, and they don't know how to lead. They don't know how to lead. Now, obviously, there's some incredible generals and admirals, obviously, and captains and colonels, obviously. But just because you became an admiral, or you became a colonel, or you became a captain, or you became a general, that doesn't mean you knew how to lead. And you know what? You, if you were a tyrannical leader, you, you can get away with that in the military.

• 2:06:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:06:40Jocko Willink?

  You can get away with it because it's only a two-year command. No one wants to, they want, guess what? Everyone below you actually also wants a good fit rep. So you want a good fit rep, so you're going to bark at everyone, and everyone below you just wants a good evaluation. So they're just going to kind of follow your lead and put up with it.

• 2:06:59Speaker 01

  That, I mean, that's, that self-preservation, I saw that in my career all the time too. And, and we had a term for it. We called it a run out the clock scenario. And we'd sit, you know, and we'd have, you know, young captains, the junior guys would sit around and it was just us and we'd vent and we'd get frustrated and I'd see people complain and, and I'd see my peers getting this off their chest. And, and when you do the calculation of, hey, what are we going to do about it? Are we going to push back? Are we going to, you know, are we going to fight back up the chain? At the end, the conclusion is always, just run out the clock, man. This guy's gone in seven months or whatever, or.

• 2:07:32Jocko Willink?

  Just, just, yeah, this guy's gone in seven months. And by the way, we have a, we got a two-month trip here. He's not coming with us. We got this, we got that. He's going to this thing and it's really, what is it? We're going to be face to face with him for another month. Don't worry about it. Suck it up.

• 2:07:44Speaker 01

  And, and I don't mean to paint some picture that we just sort of resigned ourselves. Really what it was, was, you know, I'm going to focus my energy on my guys.

• 2:07:51Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:07:52Speaker 01

  I'm not gonna waste my time with this guy, but it does create that it helps perpetuate this scenario you just described. And to whatever small percentage, there are leaders in the military, just like every other organization, that got their way, they got their way through. And they're not good leaders, because they do exactly this. And I'm thinking too, of not just a scenario where you're my subordinate leader and I go, "Hey, I want it done this way, Jaco." And you're not like, "Well, I was kinda thinking maybe Plan B is better than Plan A." You're saying, "Dave, no way, man." What better position for me as a leader to have a guy who, the more emphatic you are

• 2:08:36Speaker 01

  about what you're doing, it's likely that the more loyal you are and the more you want the outcome to be good, that's why you're pushing back. And if you're in a leadership position and your people are pushing back aggressively, that's even more of a reason to listen to them, because there's clearly something. And what always happens is, we see people meet resistance with resistance. The more resistance I get, the more I should stop resisting, the more I wanna listen. Now, if you go, "Yeah, I mean, I guess so. Okay, cool, just do it my way," and that's kinda the end of the story. But if you go to the mat with me, no, this is a bad idea. And I'm not gonna listen to that as a leader?

• 2:09:20Speaker 01

  Why is this person pushing back? Because they don't care about the mission, they don't care about the people, they don't care about the outcome?

• 2:09:27Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, is Jaco pushing back because he doesn't care about his people? Because he doesn't want this to be successful? Why would Jaco possibly be drawing a line in the sand right now?

• 2:09:40Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:09:41Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you wanna know what the reason is? There's a reason.

• 2:09:45Speaker 01

  There's a reason.

• 2:09:46Jocko Willink?

  There's a damn good reason.

• 2:09:47Speaker 01

  And you need to figure it out. And also, in this thing, this scenario we're painting where you're my subordinate leader, I also have to give you a little bit of credit that you recognize you are putting your career at risk. Wait, you're gonna bow up to me, junior subordinate? I have to recognize that you even realize that this is a sketchy move you're making right now. You're going to the boss and telling him, "No."

• 2:10:10Speaker 01

  You don't think this subordinate leader recognizes the risk that he's taking by digging in a little bit and going, "Boss, this is a bad idea." I mean, of course, I'm sitting here with the luxury of having benefited from all the things that Echelon Front has done and all the things that you've written about and all the podcasts I've listened to. It doesn't make it any less easy to hear this story and picture that conversation and know that that tyrannical leadership is widespread and it's all over the place and it doesn't work. It's frustrating to listen to that story and to think about, you know, the catastrophic outcome. But even the subtleties of people leading through, "Hey, at the end," you know, we can go back and forth, "but in the end, you're gonna do it my way."

• 2:10:54Speaker 01

  What a devastating approach that is to leading the people around you.

• 2:11:00Jocko Willink?

  Horrible in every possible way.

• 2:11:08Jocko Willink?

  So, digging a little bit deeper on this, there were some people that wrote in to historynet.com and asked Michael Christie for some more amplifying information. Here's one of the letters that got written in. "The article 'Last Stand at LZ Hereford' by Michael Christie had me living the experiences as if I were there. I served in Vietnam with the Marines, including 40 days under siege at Camp Tiêm in 1967. We always feared a human wave attack like experienced by the soldiers at Hereford. I would like to know if Lieutenant Colonel Rutland Beard was ever charged with negligence for ordering Charlie Company Commander Captain Don Warren to leave his mortar platoon behind

• 2:11:50Jocko Willink?

  in a vulnerable position with no infantry support while the rest of Charlie moved out." Also, I was curious to know if Staff Sergeant Robert Kirby was recognized for his harrowing attempt to lead a small group of soldiers and journalist Sam Castin to safety.

• 2:12:07Jocko Willink?

  I have to wonder how John Speranza, who was badly wounded and played dead before his rescue and the other survivors are doing today after their dreadful experience. Well, for one thing, we know that Staff Sergeant John Kirby, though not named, was written about in a very negative way in this other manual.

• 2:12:24Jocko Willink?

  But guess what? Michael Christie responded.

• 2:12:28Jocko Willink?

  And here's his response.

• 2:12:31Jocko Willink?

  As one would expect, the horrors of the massacre at Elzy Hereford had a tremendous impact on the lives of all those involved. Captain Don Warren became an alcoholic and eventually committed suicide.

• 2:12:49Jocko Willink?

  So the decision that we're sitting here toiling over?

• 2:12:57Jocko Willink?

  He toiled over it too.

• 2:13:02Jocko Willink?

  Sergeant Robert Kirby retired from the Army and refuses to talk about Elzy Hereford, claiming he remembers almost nothing about it, although he did receive a Silver Star for his part in the battle. God bless him.

• 2:13:15Jocko Willink?

  Bob Roder has a severe case of PTSD, but still managed to succeed. He married his high school sweetheart, raised a family and operated a multimillion dollar medical supply business. John Speranza overcame his physical injuries. So Bob Roder was the last guy to be recovered, the guy that broke down trying to identify his friends. John Speranza, who's got shot in the ear, exit wound in the nose. John Speranza overcame his physical injuries but suffered from emotional damage. His drinking led to three divorces, yet the same determination that saved his life 46 years ago allowed him to work successfully in two long careers, first in the printing industry and then as

• 2:13:56Jocko Willink?

  a rural postman for 20 years. He and his wife of 26 years are retired and live in northern Georgia. Charles Stuckey died of cancer six years ago.

• 2:14:08Jocko Willink?

  No one has heard from Isaac Johnson since Elzy Hereford was overrun. No official record exists on Rutland Beard receiving any reprimand. He retired from the Army as a Colonel.

• 2:14:20Jocko Willink?

  As for the company members who rushed to the rescue,

• 2:14:24Jocko Willink?

  all are still horrified by the carnage they witnessed once they reached Elzy Hereford.

• 2:14:37Jocko Willink?

  There's another letter.

• 2:14:40Jocko Willink?

  "The story of carnage on LZ Hereford is a riveting piece of work, but as noted, it varied glaringly in spots from the SLA Marshall narrative published 46 years ago. Nonetheless, both authors accurately capture the overall horror of the event. About a week before the attack described by Christie, a company from another battalion had been overrun at Hereford. And my company from the 1-5th Cav, 1st Cav Division, was airlifted onto the LZ the following morning to assist."

• 2:15:11Jocko Willink?

  In his book Battles in the Monsoon, Marshall claimed that all, that the KIA's had been evacuated the previous evening, but I distinctly recall seeing the poncho-covered bodies of the US soldiers still ringing the landing zone. Dead end near everywhere. The Americans gave as good as they got.

• 2:15:37Jocko Willink?

  And there's one more little, well, maybe not so little.

• 2:15:42Jocko Willink?

  There's one more detail that I want to go into.

• 2:15:47Jocko Willink?

  So Sam Caston,

• 2:15:52Jocko Willink?

  the journalist,

• 2:15:55Jocko Willink?

  he was married when he was in Vietnam.

• 2:15:59Jocko Willink?

  And he and his wife, a woman named Fran Caston, had moved to Hong Kong while he was working in Vietnam. So they were,

• 2:16:11Jocko Willink?

  you know, close flight. Then he figured, well, I'll still want to see you. So we'll move to Hong Kong and then when I go work in Vietnam and then when I'm not working, I'll come back.

• 2:16:21Jocko Willink?

  And they'd been there for about a month before he was killed.

• 2:16:25Jocko Willink?

  And they had a 13-month-old toddler at the time.

• 2:16:31Jocko Willink?

  They're there in Hong Kong and after he was killed, she

• 2:16:37Jocko Willink?

  she packed up, she went back to the States.

• 2:16:43Jocko Willink?

  I mean devastated, obviously, and not only devastated, but

• 2:16:53Jocko Willink?

  now what?

• 2:17:00Jocko Willink?

  Now what?

• 2:17:03Jocko Willink?

  You know, whatever plans she had are now, obviously, gone.

• 2:17:13Jocko Willink?

  So she had to put her life together as best she could. She, she had been to school. She'd studied English, I believe. And she went and started knocking on doors and eventually got a job at the New Yorker magazine.

• 2:17:31Jocko Willink?

  And then she moved over to the Scholastic magazine.

• 2:17:37Jocko Willink?

  And eventually became a teacher at the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan.

• 2:17:44Jocko Willink?

  Teaching writing and, and that is when, at age forty, she started to write poetry.

• 2:17:57Jocko Willink?

  And she wrote a poem about her husband.

• 2:18:01Jocko Willink?

  Sam Caston, the brave journalist.

• 2:18:07Jocko Willink?

  Who was killed on that awful day. And the poem is called "Operation Crazy Horse."

• 2:18:16Jocko Willink?

  And here it is.

• 2:18:20Jocko Willink?

  "A grand Kowloon hotel. A hedge of red hibiscus, a tiled pool.

• 2:18:29Jocko Willink?

  A masseuse who pressed fragrant oil of almond into my body in the full heat of the sun.

• 2:18:39Jocko Willink?

  Elsewhere, northeast of Saigon, a man beheld you and fired."

• 2:18:55Jocko Willink?

  At The Undertakers, you were all made up.

• 2:19:01Jocko Willink?

  And your hair was parted wrong, so I smoothed it the way you would have liked.

• 2:19:11Jocko Willink?

  Someone shouted, "Stop",

• 2:19:14Jocko Willink?

  as if we were caught making love on the couch in my father's house.

• 2:19:23Jocko Willink?

  God knows what they feared.

• 2:19:27Jocko Willink?

  Unfamiliar streaks in your hair must have paled at the moment of terror

• 2:19:35Jocko Willink?

  and grown longer in the time since.

• 2:19:40Jocko Willink?

  Eerie as strands of ticker tape, still printing.

• 2:19:49Jocko Willink?

  Such dark hair shocked white.

• 2:19:56Jocko Willink?

  How afraid you were.

• 2:20:03Jocko Willink?

  All I could do

• 2:20:08Jocko Willink?

  was hold you.

• 2:20:25Jocko Willink?

  And there you go.

• 2:20:30Jocko Willink?

  There is

• 2:20:32Jocko Willink?

  more to every story.

• 2:20:36Jocko Willink?

  And

• 2:20:41Jocko Willink?

  more for us to learn.

• 2:20:47Jocko Willink?

  And what we need to learn here,

• 2:20:52Jocko Willink?

  in my opinion, from all of this,

• 2:20:58Jocko Willink?

  is that your decision and your actions make a difference and have an impact on the world.

• 2:21:08Jocko Willink?

  Again, like this is an incredible manual. The squad leader makes a difference and

• 2:21:21Jocko Willink?

  It doesn't just apply to squad leaders, it applies to all of us. Your actions make a difference and have an impact on the world. You're gonna leave a mark.

• 2:21:36Jocko Willink?

  You leave an imprint on the world and you leave an imprint on the people around you.

• 2:21:51Jocko Willink?

  So make it a good one.

• 2:22:02Jocko Willink?

  Well, Echo Charles.

• 2:22:05Speaker 02

  Yes, sir.

• 2:22:07Jocko Willink?

  Go ahead, man.

• 2:22:10Speaker 02

  Well, it's true. We do leave an impact on the people around us. And we do make a difference.

• 2:22:20Speaker 02

  And to make a difference, we need to be capable. Okay, so we do the right things for ourselves, for the people around us. We start with our physical health, in my opinion, as I always say. So on our journey through improvement and maintaining physical health.

• 2:22:37Jocko Willink?

  You know.

• 2:22:38Speaker 02

  We need supplements.

• 2:22:40Jocko Willink?

  I give you a hard time about just being able to press record.

• 2:22:43Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 2:22:44Jocko Willink?

  Because that doesn't seem like a very hard job.

• 2:22:46Speaker 02

  It's not.

• 2:22:47Jocko Willink?

  But what I just did to you is kind of a shitty thing to do, isn't it?

• 2:22:51Speaker 02

  Well, you're throwing out challenges and I understand. You know, I've come to understand these things, which is okay. It's okay.

• 2:22:58Jocko Willink?

  For those of you that might be joining us for the first time.

• 2:23:03Jocko Willink?

  Sometimes the podcast can be a little much, a little heavy. And so, early on, we realized that maybe a little decompression would be good. I know I need it.

• 2:23:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:23:19Jocko Willink?

  I know I need it sometimes. So, so I'm sorry for setting you up with the freaking horrible job of going from that conversation that we just had into whatever it is you're talking about.

• 2:23:34Jocko Willink?

  I'm sorry, bro.

• 2:23:34Speaker 02

  Hey, it's okay. And you know what? In, in the spirit of, of understanding and how should I say, doing my part, I should have took what you said and really gate, kind of gave my thoughts on it. Cause my thoughts can be a little bit like lighter than yours generally.

• 2:23:51Jocko Willink?

  So it'd be a little bit of a, a, a, a transit, a little smoother transition. Cause you just went straight into talking about, you know,

• 2:23:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, let's drink some supplements. Yeah. You know, yeah, it's, yeah. So it was kind of rough for sure. Still true.

• 2:24:07Jocko Willink?

  What would your thoughts have been?

• 2:24:08Speaker 02

  Um, I don't know, man. That's, I guess that's why I didn't go into it. Cause I was like, dang, I should just be quiet just for a little bit, you know, maybe.

• 2:24:17Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. That's, and that's part of the thing. That's part of the deal is it could, that could just be the end of the podcast. I get it. Right? But I actually don't want to leave anyone that way, to be honest with you. I don't want to leave. Look, the point has been made. We get it. Right?

• 2:24:37Speaker 02

  It's true. Yeah.

• 2:24:38Jocko Willink?

  I don't want to leave. So I don't want someone to press stop, walk out and like, that's what's going through their head.

• 2:24:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, they walk into work also.

• 2:24:45Jocko Willink?

  Right. We need a little, we need to bring it back around, right?

• 2:24:48Speaker 02

  Bring it back around.

• 2:24:49Jocko Willink?

  The world has darkness in it, right? We just saw that.

• 2:24:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:24:53Jocko Willink?

  We just saw that.

• 2:24:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:24:55Jocko Willink?

  By the way, the author, the, the, his wife, Fran Caston, she's alive. She's in like East Hampton or something. She's out there

• 2:25:06Jocko Willink?

  writing poems.

• 2:25:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:25:08Jocko Willink?

  Maybe we'll hear from her.

• 2:25:11Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:25:13Speaker 02

  I mean, given the circumstances, it's like, okay. It's a, what do you call like, good to meet you, but not under these circumstances? That whole deal?

• 2:25:23Jocko Willink?

  It's a common one.

• 2:25:24Speaker 02

  Anyway, alright, well, how can we make a difference if we're not capable? Right?

• 2:25:31Jocko Willink?

  True.

• 2:25:32Speaker 02

  We'll just say it's hard.

• 2:25:34Jocko Willink?

  I would say we're, we wanna make a good mark on the world.

• 2:25:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:25:38Jocko Willink?

  How do we do that? What, what, how could, how do you suggest us doing a better job of leaving a positive impression on people and on the world?

• 2:25:47Speaker 02

  I say, keep your stuff together.

• 2:25:50Jocko Willink?

  Cool, got it, edited, I like it, clean.

• 2:25:53Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah. Uh, you know, get it together, keep it together.

• 2:25:57Jocko Willink?

  You got Dave Berke over here, so bored, he's reading freaking cans, he's reading ingredients from Go.

• 2:26:02Speaker 02

  I'm not saying you're wrong. He's looking at, that's like a, what do you call, like a, not vanity, but he's looking at his own can, he's like, oh my god, my can is so awesome.

• 2:26:13Speaker 01

  FYI, I just happened to notice that these are two different cans, so it caught my attention.

• 2:26:18Jocko Willink?

  Oh really? Oh, I see that too now.

• 2:26:19Speaker 02

  That's it.

• 2:26:20Speaker 01

  So.

• 2:26:21Speaker 02

  Told you.

• 2:26:21Speaker 01

  I, I guess I could be more vain than I am, but honestly, I'm just, I'm just now barely noticing that these are different cans of the same drink.

• 2:26:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, cuz right before that, you were looking at your fingernails and like your, you know, I don't know if you worked out today or whatever, you're looking at your physique. I saw, I saw the whole deal, I saw the whole deal, so all good, and or, or he could be bored, whichever.

• 2:26:41Speaker 01

  Well, you've successfully lightened the mood.

• 2:26:44Speaker 02

  Alright, well, hey, you know, I press record, I do things from time to time, nonetheless, when we're working out, we need supplements, joints get, take a beating sometimes, we got supplements for your joints. You need protein, okay, so if you're working out hard, and hard isn't, you know, depends on who you are, whatever, you need a certain amount of protein to facilitate the gains. Or should I say the results, okay?

• 2:27:09Jocko Willink?

  Ah, you said gains, bro.

• 2:27:10Speaker 02

  I did.

• 2:27:12Jocko Willink?

  You said gains, you spelled it with a Z, I saw it.

• 2:27:14Speaker 02

  Gains. The point is, you need a certain amount of protein, otherwise we're not gonna recover correctly. Do you know the protein range?

• 2:27:26Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:27:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, see that.

• 2:27:28Jocko Willink?

  Yes, one gram. What, go ahead. You're like shaking your head.

• 2:27:33Speaker 02

  Actually, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I interrupted you. Go ahead.

• 2:27:35Jocko Willink?

  What, one gram per lean, one gram per pound of lean body mass?

• 2:27:41Speaker 02

  Yeah. I think that's like.

• 2:27:42Jocko Willink?

  Do I know correctly?

• 2:27:43Speaker 02

  I think that's the old school. It's actually less than that. Okay, the new school is a range from point six to, I mean, one, that's high. One gram per, you know, that's high.

• 2:27:55Jocko Willink?

  Stuff.

• 2:27:56Speaker 02

  Yeah. It might, it starts to level out. I think at like point eight or something like this. Okay. Nonetheless, not everyone knows that is what I'm trying to say. So, and furthermore, not only do not a lot of people know that, it's hard to do that unless you're like, just that's your jam, you know, you're planning the week and all that. Not all of us do that, you know? I didn't realize that. So look, let's say you have hundred eighty five pounds of lean body mass and you're trying to get the point seven, we'll say. It's a lot of protein. Not for you. I know, bro, not for you. I know. But I'm just saying for the rest of us, you know, like when you don't think about it.

• 2:28:35Jocko Willink?

  To sum everything up that Echo is trying to say right now, you need milk.

• 2:28:41Jocko Willink?

  You need milk.

• 2:28:42Speaker 02

  Okay, see, see, Brad, you're not like, you're not really understanding, like, okay.

• 2:28:46Jocko Willink?

  Point seven, one, range, what?

• 2:28:48Speaker 02

  No, Brad, no, no, Brad, look.

• 2:28:50Jocko Willink?

  Milk is needed.

• 2:28:51Speaker 02

  Let's say I didn't say any of that.

• 2:28:52Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 2:28:53Speaker 02

  What if I just said, hey, you need milk? People are gonna be like, alright, you have failed.

• 2:28:57Jocko Willink?

  Point taken.

• 2:28:57Speaker 02

  To describe why you even need milk.

• 2:29:00Jocko Willink?

  I'll stand down. But can you hurry a little bit? I'm standing down, but can you just like, we get the message.

• 2:29:06Speaker 02

  Do you wanna, do you though? Do you get the message?

• 2:29:09Jocko Willink?

  I think we get the message, bro. I honestly do.

• 2:29:11Speaker 02

  I don't think you do, and that's why I'm here. See, if it was between you and Dave, you'd be like, oh, drink milk. Okay, tastes good. They'd be like, Brad, you know, you think a lot of stuff tastes good. Anyway, take the milk, Brad.

• 2:29:21Jocko Willink?

  You had some discipline to go. You gotta never shoot him, bring it like this. I like it.

• 2:29:25Speaker 02

  Anyway. Speaking of discipline, go. Okay, and, and bear with me here, bear with me. So, discipline, go. It's a thing, it tastes good, it's a little drink, kinda like a soda. I mean, okay, it's not like a soda, but it's like a soda. So, and I'm, and I'm gonna tell a little story, short. So you know how like when you go to the movies, right? You go to the movies?

• 2:29:48Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 2:29:49Speaker 02

  Do you get soda and popcorn at the movies?

• 2:29:51Jocko Willink?

  Sure.

• 2:29:52Speaker 02

  Dave Berke, soda, popcorn?

• 2:29:53Jocko Willink?

  I used to.

• 2:29:54Speaker 02

  Sometimes, right? Yeah, that's the thing.

• 2:29:56Jocko Willink?

  I understand.

• 2:29:56Speaker 02

  So you go to the movies, you get your soda, you get your popcorn, you just have the, you watch the movie with your kids. It's awesome, right? You come home and you kinda remember whether it be later that night or the next day, you're like, oh yeah, that was a cool movie. Man, but I ate that whole thing of popcorn. You know how many calories are in popcorn? In junk calories too, by the way, there's a difference.

• 2:30:13Jocko Willink?

  I have no idea.

• 2:30:14Speaker 02

  It's a lot. It's like 2,000 calories, depends on how big the popcorn is. And then you got the soda, right? And there's a small tinge of guilt that comes with you. Same thing with the brownies, same thing with the other stuff that you eat, don't act like you don't.

• 2:30:27Jocko Willink?

  Oh, the pretzel wrapped, pretzel wrapped hot dogs that my wife made for me on Super Bowl Sunday. I, somehow my, I forget where everyone was, but like, they came out of the oven. And my fam wasn't around, and I was like, oh, I'll just have one or two while my family's not around. I racked it. I had half a rack, half a tray. I crushed them.

• 2:30:45Speaker 02

  How big was the tray?

• 2:30:47Jocko Willink?

  Uh, I don't know the specific, it's like a cookie type.

• 2:30:50Speaker 02

  Oh, like a sheet?

• 2:30:50Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, like a sheet.

• 2:30:51Speaker 02

  Standard cookie.

• 2:30:52Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, like a standard.

• 2:30:52Speaker 02

  That's a lot.

• 2:30:53Jocko Willink?

  It must have been at least. I'm gonna go ahead and say 20.

• 2:30:58Speaker 02

  20 of them?

• 2:30:58Jocko Willink?

  20 of those things.

• 2:30:59Speaker 02

  You figure what?

• 2:31:00Jocko Willink?

  Like no, like no factor.

• 2:31:02Speaker 02

  That's really like 300 calories per, probably, maybe two?

• 2:31:05Jocko Willink?

  They're real small.

• 2:31:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, but those are like sausages with freaking straight up biscuits wrapped.

• 2:31:13Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, okay, who knows? But I powered them. Oh, yeah.

• 2:31:17Speaker 02

  It sounded nice, but, and you, I get it, like you'll just go punish, you know, you'll pay the price the next day in the gym, and that's the protocol, I get it. A lot of us, we got a little bit more like guilt and we're like, man, I kinda just shouldn't have done that, you know? Anyway, the point is, when you drink the discipline go, and the malt too, by the way, you get that same sort of satisfaction that you would have had with the soda or the freaking Oreo cookie shake from the drive thru or wherever. You get that same front end, but you get a way better back end.

• 2:31:46Jocko Willink?

  You see what I'm saying? Well, you get actually positivity.

• 2:31:48Speaker 02

  Exactly right.

• 2:31:48Jocko Willink?

  It's actually better.

• 2:31:49Speaker 02

  What was weird was I kind of thought about it because I had a milkshake with a banana, by the way. And the next day I was like, man, last night I had that dessert. I was like, wait, the dessert wasn't something junk. It was something good.

• 2:32:00Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:32:00Speaker 02

  So it's like you get the refreshing.

• 2:32:02Jocko Willink?

  You got a double positive hit. Actual protein, getting to your point seven.

• 2:32:07Speaker 02

  I get you.

• 2:32:08Jocko Willink?

  And then you got guilt free, not even guilt free, but positivity.

• 2:32:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, so this is like across the board, win-win, front end, back end, tactical, strategic, all good stuff.

• 2:32:18Jocko Willink?

  I appreciate that. They've got a bunch of other stuff there. Super krill, vitamin D3, Cold War, Warrior Kids, Molk. You got all kinds of good stuff. You can get it from jockofuel.com. And by the way, if you subscribe to any of these things, the shipping is free. Because we know that that was kind of an issue. People are like, I want this stuff, but shipping is expensive. We're trying to allow people to more easily stay on the path. And also, if you're just, if you're just a person that doesn't quite stay on track,

• 2:32:53Jocko Willink?

  that doesn't quite

• 2:32:54Speaker 02

  It's a thing.

• 2:32:54Jocko Willink?

  Do things that they're supposed to do and they end up saying, well, I actually ran out of joint warfare or whatever. Just subscribe. Echo Charles. Just subscribe. If you subscribe, it's coming.

• 2:33:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:33:05Jocko Willink?

  And it's free shipping. Get some. Jockofuel.com. Also, you can get the, you can get the, the, the drink at Wawa. Chain wide, by the way. Chain wide. Apparently, there's some insurgency happening. Some other, some other brands are trying to, you know, maneuver.

• 2:33:28Jocko Willink?

  And they're getting ambushed. So appreciate everyone going in there and, and, and just getting after it. Clearing shelves.

• 2:33:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, and it tells kind of a good story.

• 2:33:38Jocko Willink?

  Did you see Cory? Cory? He, he, he went in with a cooler.

• 2:33:44Jocko Willink?

  He literally cleared, he posted it. He literally cleared, cleared the, the fridge out.

• 2:33:51Speaker 02

  Yeah. You can imagine the guy at the front desk or the cashier guy. It's like, bro, why, why do you have a cooler in here?

• 2:33:56Jocko Willink?

  He's like, oh, because I'm gonna go.

• 2:33:59Speaker 02

  My current favorite thing to do is I get tagged on Instagram all the time of people doing that and I just put it on my story and it's just story after story of people going in tagging Wawa and just emptying the shelves and like buying everything they can. It is awesome.

• 2:34:15Jocko Willink?

  Appreciate everyone getting after that and you can also get all the supplement, the whole line at Vitamin Shoppe and like I said, free shipping if you subscribe. If you might also need jujitsu gear, a jujutsu gi, you might need a rash guard, you can get all that stuff from originusa.com by the way.

• 2:34:36Speaker 02

  Implemented.

• 2:34:37Jocko Willink?

  Implemented, originusa.com. You can get that there. All this good stuff and plus, if you, if you ever are off the mats of justice and you need something to wear, because we know what we're wearing on the mats, right? We're wearing our origin gi or our origin rash guard. But if you're off the mats of justice and you need clothing, which you do, you can get jeans, you can get boots, you can get, dang, we got socks coming. We're getting there. We're getting there. We get everything. All this, all this made in America. Made in America, which is, which is what we are doing to rebuild manufacturing in this country. So, go to originusa.com, get whatever you need.

• 2:35:21Speaker 02

  Also, if you need more stuff, you know, to, to wear off the mats and on, by the way, go to jocko store.com. Now, here you can find your more disciplined themed, I don't like the word themed, but more disciplined slanted skewed apparel. Here's the thing, you do want to represent one when you're on the path. You do. Think about what you are representing though. Let's face it. You're, you, you do run the risk of representing the same thing your neighbor across the street who's not on the path, by the way, is representing.

• 2:35:58Jocko Willink?

  Are you an elitist?

• 2:35:59Speaker 02

  No, no, no, no.

• 2:36:01Jocko Willink?

  What if my neighbor across the street is a badass?

• 2:36:02Speaker 02

  Well then, okay, then there you go. That's cool. But I'm saying you do run the risk.

• 2:36:06Jocko Willink?

  Got it.

• 2:36:07Speaker 02

  See what I'm saying? Look, if you have discipline equals freedom, or you have good, or you have like one of the hoodies or something like this, you don't run that risk. You see what I'm saying? So if you're going to represent on the path here, this is a good place to get the stuff. And it's a good move overall.

• 2:36:20Jocko Willink?

  Where do you get it?

• 2:36:21Speaker 02

  JacoStore.com. We have a little subscription situation going on too called The Shirt Locker. That's a different.

• 2:36:29Speaker 02

  It's not different, but it's kinda different.

• 2:36:34Jocko Willink?

  Jack.

• 2:36:34Speaker 02

  It's a shirt every month, cool new design exclusive. You can't get them on the store otherwise. Can't. These new ones.

• 2:36:41Jocko Willink?

  You're into this elite.

• 2:36:44Jocko Willink?

  Kind of elite shirt wearer.

• 2:36:45Speaker 02

  I'm just, I'm just letting them know. Letting everyone know. Nonetheless, it's called Shirt Locker. It's on JacoStore.com. So yes, sign up for that, man. If you, if you think that that's cool, if you think you want to represent in that way, that's a good, good, good deal.

• 2:36:57Jocko Willink?

  Roger that. Subscribe to this podcast. Also, we got the Jaco Unraveling. We got the Grounded Podcast. We got the Warrior Kid Podcast. We also have the Jaco Underground. JacoUnderground.com. Where we give some amplifying information, other things, different topics, different subjects behind the scenes. We're setting up for a Q and A, right?

• 2:37:17Speaker 02

  Yeah. And that's like questions like, okay, so I get it. Dave Berke, Jaco, Echelon Front. I get it. They're gonna say, hey, how do I, how do I get buy-in from the team? Right? That's a common one. It doesn't have to be pro, uh, questions about like work, what to do at work. It can be outside of work.

• 2:37:33Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. We're setting that up.

• 2:37:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's set up. So go to [email protected]. Submit your question. Submit an audio or video question.

• 2:37:43Jocko Willink?

  Dude, I, that's proactive. You just made that happen. The squad leader makes a difference.

• 2:37:49Speaker 02

  I make a difference. Yes, sir. I'm trying over here doing my best.

• 2:37:52Jocko Willink?

  Are you the trooper squad leader?

• 2:37:56Jocko Willink?

  If you, if you want to, if you want to get all this and you want to support us, you can go to JacoUnderground.com. It costs $8.18 a month, which is a number with layers. And, and that just protects us from, number one, having to be a slave to sponsors.

• 2:38:19Jocko Willink?

  And protects us from if we if from people saying they didn't wanna they don't wanna host us anymore. They can try it. We got it. We'll be standing by. Execute contingency plan. So thanks to everyone that's supporting on that. We got a YouTube channel. We got a YouTube channel that Echo Charles. He makes videos and I am the assistant director of the good ones, which is important to know. Also, Origin BJJ has has they're putting some cool videos up as well. Check that one out. You got that one.

• 2:38:52Speaker 02

  Also, psychological warfare, an album. Don't forget about this. Okay. Sometimes we can shy away from the support that we need. See what I'm saying? Sometimes we need this support. We wanna slip on the diet, you know, skip the workout, turn a workday into a rest day. Let's face it. That's a thing. Anyway, psychological warfare is an album where Jaco's telling you why you just shouldn't do that. And then you won't do it. So anyway, you can find that on Amazon and you know, wherever you buy MP3s, boom, psychological warfare is there for you.

• 2:39:26Jocko Willink?

  Also, flipsidecanvas.com. My brother Dakota Meyer making cool stuff to hang on your wall. The coolest stuff to hang on your wall. If you're gonna hang something on your wall, is if you're gonna hang something on your wall, don't you wanna look at it and say, that's from Dakota Meyer?

• 2:39:42Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 2:39:42Jocko Willink?

  That's 100%. I can't believe I've never said that before. Yeah, that's 100% what I want. If I'm hanging something on my wall, I want it to be from Dakota Meyer.

• 2:39:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, I agree with that.

• 2:39:52Jocko Willink?

  Flipsidecanvas.com if you want that. We got a bunch of books. Final Spin. What is it? It's it's an it's a not. Dave Assessment. You've read Final Spin?

• 2:40:05Speaker 01

  Oh, I have.

• 2:40:06Jocko Willink?

  Assessment.

• 2:40:07Speaker 01

  I'd like I actually kind of secretly want to know where I sit in the. Log of readers, where am I?

• 2:40:12Jocko Willink?

  Actually, you know what I haven't gotten you? I haven't gotten you the final version.

• 2:40:16Speaker 01

  The final version. It is not just a book. I can tell you that for sure.

• 2:40:22Jocko Willink?

  Dang, interesting. It is, they're gonna have a hard time figuring out where to put this one on the bookshelves. Do they put it over there? And do they put it over there in the?

• 2:40:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:40:31Jocko Willink?

  Like, like where does it go? They're gonna have a hard time.

• 2:40:33Speaker 01

  My, my validation that it wasn't just me just digging what I was reading is I shared it with my wife, which I gotta be honest, I don't, there's not a lot of crossover in my world that I'm doing. Like, I don't share all this stuff with my wife. We got other stuff going on. I don't like, you know, bombard her with the work stuff.

• 2:40:52Jocko Willink?

  You're not talking about battles in the bonsu.

• 2:40:53Speaker 01

  Nope, I'm not. How was the podcast? It was awesome. Okay, cool. What do I need to do around the house? How can I help? I know I've been gone for seven hours. I shared this with her and she just burned through it, I think in two days. You know, and burned through it was like 10 o'clock at night, gets into bed and she stays up way too late and finishes in two nights. And she's like, that was really good. That's when I knew like my version of it being good had to be validated by a totally disinterested third party? With no, no bias?

• 2:41:20Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:41:20Speaker 01

  She was totally stoked.

• 2:41:21Jocko Willink?

  Well, interestingly, my mom, uh, so you would think what you just said, like, oh, biased, right? You'd think, oh, I send it to my mom. That's a given, right? You know my mom. My mom not like, it's because she was an English teacher. And so she's just there to just, just, she's just there, I would say throw darts, but she's not there to throw darts. She's there to huck machetes at your work, like at my work, right? And so I sent it to her for a final read and she sent me a text that said like, halfway done. I am loving this book. That was complete shock. In fact, I told Leif about it because Leif was, Leif was with me in New York City when Extreme Ownership made

• 2:42:06Jocko Willink?

  number, number one New York Times bestseller, which is, which is like sort of the thing, the cool thing for a book, right? And I, I called my parents on speakerphone and, and Leif's like standing there listening. I'm like, hey, I just want to let you guys know. You know, we made New York Times bestselling list, you know, with that book that I wrote with Leif. And my mom's like, oh, well, we'll see how long it's on their form. I was like, cool. Yeah, I guess we will. So a positive review.

• 2:42:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it'll be interesting. You know, you go into a bookstore and they have, I guess, categories, whatever they, I'll be interested to see where they put it.

• 2:42:44Jocko Willink?

  I will too. It's gonna be, it's gonna be very interesting. So we got that. If you want to preorder that thing. There's also, it's all, why preorder? Well, so you can get it. Because once again, we don't want you to not get it. We don't, you want, definitely don't want you to not get a first edition.

• 2:43:03Jocko Willink?

  When you, you want that first edition. And here's the other thing. The, the publisher, my publisher, do you think they're nervous about this? They are nervous. They're nervous. Because they're like, you, you just wrote, wrote, wrote, write leadership books. I'm like, what about all this? Well, yeah, that too. Are you gonna write a novel? Don't you just want to stay in your little lane over here? No.

• 2:43:33Jocko Willink?

  So.

• 2:43:36Jocko Willink?

  Put them at ease before they freak out. So final spin, Leadership Strategy and Tactics Field Manual, the code, the evaluation, the protocols, discipline equals freedom field manual, the way of the warrior kid four field manual, way of the warrior kid one, two, and three, miking the dragons, about face by David Hackworth, extreme ownership, and the dichotomy of leadership, Echelon Front, it's a leadership consultant. So you can hear Dave and I talking about it today. This is what we do. We solve problems through leadership. Go to echelonfront.com for details. EF Online, it's leadership training for everyone. EF online.com. It's, it's where you can get your whole team training tomorrow. It's tomorrow.

• 2:44:21Jocko Willink?

  You have to do something crazy. You have to contact that. You can go to Echelon, go to EF online.com. You can start training tomorrow. The mustard in 2021. We got these things lined up. Go to extremeownership.com. It's our live event. All these have sold out. These are going to sell out too. EF Overwatch, if you need leaders inside your company, go to EFoverwatch.com and we have leaders that understand the principles we talk about. They can go in your company and help you win. And if you want to help service members.

• 2:44:52Jocko Willink?

  Service members, active, retired, you want to help their families, you want to help Gold Star families, check out Mark Lee's mom, Mama Lee, she's got a charity organization. If you want to donate, or you want to get involved, go to Americas Mighty Warriors.org. And if you want more of my protracted parables, or you need some more of Echo's perplexing postulations, or you just crave some more of Dave's super serious sockers.

• 2:45:25Jocko Willink?

  You can find us on the interwebs, on Twitter, on Instagram, which Echo only knows as Legram, and on Facebook, Dave is at David R. Burke, Echo is at Echo Charles, and I am at Jocko Willink. And thanks to all the people out there in uniform, all of you, all the military, the police, law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, Border Patrol, Secret Service, first responders, and all of your families, waiting at home. Thanks to all of you for making a difference every single day with what you do. And everyone

• 2:46:04Jocko Willink?

  else out there, keep learning, keep evolving, and never forget that your decisions and your actions, they make a difference, not just in your life, but in the lives of other, of other people. And don't just go through life, don't just go with the flow, be intentional about what you're doing, set things in order, leave a positive mark in the world.

• 2:46:44Jocko Willink?

  You do make a difference.

• 2:46:51Jocko Willink?

  And until next time, this is Dave and Echo and Jaco. Out.