281: Flying, Fighting, And Taking Care Of Our People in Battle and Beyond. Major General Clay Hutmacher

0:00:00 - Opening 0:07:42 - General Clay Hutmacher 1:41:58 - Final thoughts 2:02:30 - How to stay on THE PATH. 2:27:12 - 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 281 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. Good evening Echo. Good evening.

• 0:08Jocko Willink?

  Alarm goes off. I wake up. It's 0600 same time I woke up yesterday and the day before. Actually, since June 28th, almost 120 days ago. Four months.

• 0:27Jocko Willink?

  That's okay though, because if anyone in the Persian Gulf tries to interfere with the policies of my sacred country, the United States of America, I'll be there to stop them.

• 0:39Jocko Willink?

  Two months ago, it was anyone in the Mediterranean.

• 0:44Jocko Willink?

  Actually, we could stop anyone in the world.

• 0:49Jocko Willink?

  Breakfast time. 45 minute wait in line. Every meal is the same. Stand in line sweating.

• 0:58Jocko Willink?

  That's okay though. There are people in my country who neither know nor care that their freedom is being protected at this very moment.

• 1:08Jocko Willink?

  That too is okay, because I do know. I'm doing it.

• 1:17Jocko Willink?

  Go to work. The same routine day in and day out. It could be compared to being in jail, except that the work we do is too hard and too dangerous to impose upon a common criminal.

• 1:33Jocko Willink?

  It would be considered inhumane.

• 1:37Jocko Willink?

  That's okay though. I understand freedom and the sacrifices that have to be made for freedom to be achieved.

• 1:49Jocko Willink?

  The life we live at the cost of our military members cannot have a price put on it.

• 1:57Jocko Willink?

  If you saw our paychecks, you would understand.

• 2:02Jocko Willink?

  Dinner time. Chicken and rice again. That's okay.

• 2:10Jocko Willink?

  The opportunities we have in the States are limitless.

• 2:15Jocko Willink?

  There's nothing that any person cannot achieve if he or she has the heart.

• 2:26Jocko Willink?

  They don't have those opportunities in the parts I've visited.

• 2:31Jocko Willink?

  They don't even have Taco Bell.

• 2:38Jocko Willink?

  And that right there is a litter, letter written by

• 2:44Jocko Willink?

  Steve Voight. Written on October 23rd, 1996.

• 2:52Jocko Willink?

  He was killed in a helicopter crash on October 25th, 1996, two days after he wrote that letter.

• 3:01Jocko Willink?

  Steve was at SEAL Team Eight.

• 3:05Jocko Willink?

  When that helicopter crash happened while they were training.

• 3:10Jocko Willink?

  And I went through SEAL training with Steve in 1991. Bud's class 177. And he was an old man at the time. He was like 28 or 29 years old. And he was our, he was our class leading petty officer.

• 3:32Jocko Willink?

  And was just an awesome guy. And I know he was from the South. I think he was born in Georgia, but he didn't have

• 3:41Jocko Willink?

  he didn't have a typical Southern accent. He had this other, he had this other voice that probably one of the most distinctive voices I've ever known. And he was really loud. And so he had this distinctive loud, this distinctive loud, funny voice. It was kinda like this. He'd say, "Hey guys, get over here." He had this just totally distinctive voice. You couldn't miss it.

• 4:13Jocko Willink?

  And he was tough as hell and the instructors tried to crush him all the time.

• 4:18Jocko Willink?

  Because he was an older guy and a senior guy. He was a first class petty officer. So being that senior going through basic SEAL training, the instructors are going to get at you and they got at him and they hammered him.

• 4:31Jocko Willink?

  But they, they couldn't break him at all. They actually couldn't even get him to crack a little bit. Cause they'd be punishing him and he'd be hitting the surf and he'd be doing pushups and he'd be doing sprints. And they'd ask him about something and he'd still come off the same with that loud, just crazy funny voice and we'd rally right around him.

• 4:55Jocko Willink?

  Just a freaking awesome guy.

• 5:01Jocko Willink?

  And when he died.

• 5:05Jocko Willink?

  You know, it was 1996.

• 5:09Jocko Willink?

  There's no war going on, right? So it was definitely. A shock to the system to have. Someone killed like that.

• 5:22Jocko Willink?

  And just tragic and horrible. And I knew that, you know, he had a son and he had had a son. Cause like I said, he was older. He had, he had a son that was named after him. Another, another Steven Voight.

• 5:38Jocko Willink?

  And I knew that, but I, I, you know, I'd kind of lost track with him. I was on the west coast. He was on the east coast. I didn't go to the funeral for whatever reason.

• 5:47Jocko Willink?

  And I just carried on with my career. And, you know, continued to try and serve to the best of my ability. Always remembering.

• 5:58Jocko Willink?

  Always remembering Steve Voight and his sacrifice.

• 6:03Jocko Willink?

  What about his son?

• 6:07Jocko Willink?

  And what happened to him? Well. Fortunately. Fortunately. There was support for him.

• 6:18Jocko Willink?

  And he was able to grow up and he was able to go to college and all that was taken care of. By a group. Called the Special Operations Warrior Foundation. And what that group is. Is one of the things that they do, one of the main things that they do is they take care. Of the children of fallen members of the Special Operations Community.

• 6:41Jocko Willink?

  And, and Steve's son got taken care of in that respect. The Special Operations Warrior Foundation stepped up. And. Paid for his education and, and gave young Steven.

• 6:57Jocko Willink?

  The opportunities that his father was not there to give. To him, but that his dad had sacrificed for. And this story is one of thousands of stories of thousands of families that have been helped by this foundation. And we are lucky enough today to have the president and the CEO of this incredible charity. Here.

• 7:25Jocko Willink?

  A man who has quite a story of his own from an enlisted Marine at age seventeen to forty-one years of service resulting in the rank of Major General Two-Star with service in Panama, Iraq, Afghanistan, and a bunch of other places around the world. General Clay Hutmacher.

• 7:52Jocko Willink?

  Clay, thanks for joining us.

• 7:55Speaker 01

  Hey, thanks for having me, Jaco. I appreciate it. That's a great story. I had never heard of that letter. I appreciate you sharing that.

• 8:01Jocko Willink?

  I was looking at some videos that y'all have produced and Steve Voit's picture, I mean, just a picture of him and his son when his son's young. And, uh, man, I couldn't, I couldn't believe, couldn't believe when I saw that. And I just, it struck me that, you know, I was in, I was in the military. What, what can you do? This is something that we always feel, when you're in the military, you lose somebody, you, you want to help, but you also have a job and you're going to continue to do that job. And so organizations like yours that can pick up the slack for the guys that are still serving and, and have a long-term strategic plan to take care of these families and just seeing his son, who's, who definitely looks like him. You guys have a video of, of him on there as

• 8:46Jocko Willink?

  well. And just seeing his son who, who looks like him, uh, doesn't quite sound like him, doesn't quite sound like him. Man, his voice was distinctive. "Hey, what are you guys doing over there?" Um, but just awesome to, that, that you have that, that organization that, that helps in that respect. So we'll get to that. But before we get to that, let's, let's start it. Well, let's, let's start at the beginning. I always like to start at the beginning. So where, where'd you grow up?

• 9:17Speaker 01

  I grew up in Washington State. I was born in Wenatchee, Washington, uh, bounced around a bit and, uh, ended up before I joined the military in a little town outside of Everett, Washington called Lake Stevens.

• 9:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was living in a foster home, dropped out of high school and wrecked. All I knew is I needed a kick in the ass and I figured, well, the Marines, they'll definitely do that and they did not disappoint.

• 9:44Jocko Willink?

  So you're in, you were in foster homes from what age?

• 9:47Speaker 01

  Uh, that was maybe, I joined when I was seventeen, I guess fifteen. My parents divorced when I was young and I bounced around and then, you know, a lot of this was my own doing, you know, to be perfectly honest with you. I was, you know, sort of done with my parents and wanted to, you know, they had moved from Lake Stephens and I was like, hey, I'm not, I'm not doing that. With all the wisdom that a fifteen year old possesses, you know, and uh,

• 10:12Jocko Willink?

  So this is what, nineteen like seventy-five?

• 10:15Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah, if you want to round up a couple of years, that'd be fine too, but uh,

• 10:19Jocko Willink?

  But I'm saying it's nineteen seventy-five, you're fifteen years old, you're living in foster homes, you're like, to hell with the parents, I'm doing my own thing. What, did you have any, uh, did you think, we just, just short sighted, not?

• 10:35Speaker 01

  Well, it was, you know, actually it was a little later than that. My mother was a writer. She passed away last year, uh, December, a year ago last December. And she was in South Africa. If you ever saw that movie Cry Freedom with Denzel Washington? It was about this guy, Donald Woods, who was the editor of a newspaper over there, which was on the coast of, uh, South Africa. She worked for him. So I lost that whole year over there with her and in early seventy-six, I came back because the school didn't count, right?

• 11:02Jocko Willink?

  Oh, so you went there, you went to South Africa?

• 11:04Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, I lived in East London, South Africa, between Durban and Cape Town. And that was a little slice of the Marine Corps right there. I mean, uniforms, haircuts and school and the whole deal, which, you know, I did not adjust well to that, by the way. And I received the caning, numerous canings for that.

• 11:20Jocko Willink?

  Oh, they got their corporal punishment on, huh?

• 11:21Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, bamboo canes. I mean, a once in a wet speedo for not counting off properly and mandatory PT and, uh, you know, I got religion pretty quick. Learned how to count for sure. Uh, but, uh, yeah, I came back.

• 11:34Jocko Willink?

  And that's like prime apartheid time nineteen seventy-six.

• 11:36Speaker 01

  It was, yeah, and this was, this newspaper was obviously against apartheid. So.

• 11:43Speaker 01

  You know, we were right in the middle of all that. I mean, it was really stark seeing the way that the way life was over there. So anyway, I came back from that. I'd lost a year in high school and I'm like, well, you know, look, I wasn't, you know, an academic champion anyway. So I was like, I'm just gonna join the Marines. And I, and my, that's, and I got back from there, didn't want to move back where my dad was. I was living with a guy and then a foster home took me in. It was, it's a pretty cool story. He, this family, the Williams family, I'm still in very close touch with them. Their son had died and he was a, motocross racing is big up there for teenagers and he had died, he was my classmate, Jeff Williams, and he had died in a motorcycle crash. And so I

• 12:25Speaker 01

  knew the family from afar, not, not close. I wasn't close friends with Jeff, but, but we knew each other. And so then it was sort of fortuitous, you know, that I, providence that I came in his same age and ended up with this family. And her, the father, Charlie Williams, was a former Marine from Korea. And so he was telling me about the Marine Corps and I see, oh, that's what I need. So, signed up and shipped out to the warm embrace of the Marine Corps.

• 12:53Jocko Willink?

  So that, did, did, what did he do in Korea? Did you capture some of those stories?

• 12:59Speaker 01

  Did, he was in Korea. Yeah, he, you know, he was, I think he was a combat engineer. And, you know, so he was, you know, I mean, I don't remember a lot of them, but, you know, he talked a lot about combat and how, you know, bad it's like, but really the best stories for him were boot camp. You know, they pulled all of the, I never forget one, he said they pulled all of his teeth out and were giving him dentures, you know, when he's in boot camp, right? So, obviously dental care was not high on his priority list. And right after he had that, he had stitches in his mouth and the drill instructor pulled his dog tags, pulled him towards him real fast and then extended his fist and punched him in the mouth and his whole, you know, mouth exploded with blood and everything else.

• 13:38Jocko Willink?

  Are we supposed to be laughing at this?

• 13:40Speaker 01

  Yeah. I was like, hey, it sounds like fun. I think I'll join, you know, so. I mean, those were most of his stories for the trauma. You know, when I look at Full Metal Jacket and those boot camp scenes, I mean, my DI said a lot of those same phrases that they were, I mean, I thought that was authentic. What was that guy who ended up being an actor?

• 13:59Jocko Willink?

  Lee Ermy.

• 14:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. He was, you know, the, I guess at first he was a technical guy, but then he ended up playing a part. And I was like, that dude could have been Staff Sergeant Amerine, who was my senior DI when I went through, so.

• 14:12Jocko Willink?

  So you showed up there in 1978. So these guys, you're still getting, you're still getting Vietnam guys that are your drill instructors.

• 14:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, my company, you know, in the Marine Corps and a company, you have a First Sergeant, you know, and in the NCO ranks, you can sort of split at E8. You can either be a Master Sergeant or a First Sergeant. And in a company, traditionally have a First Sergeant who sort of runs all the admin and all that. Then you have a Master Sergeant who's does Ops, right? He's like the Ops Sergeant. And I remember my first Ops Sergeant, I mean, he had one eye from Vietnam and he was illiterate. I mean, he would sign like a X on the duty roster and stuff like that. I was, you know, I mean,

• 14:50Speaker 01

  yeah, there was some, there was definitely a lot of Vietnam era guys there.

• 14:54Jocko Willink?

  And how'd you adapt?

• 14:56Speaker 01

  Um, candidly, poorly at first, you know, I mean, when I got there, you know, I mean, it was shock and awe. And I, you know, I certainly didn't want to be there and for probably the first few weeks, thought I had made a monumental error in judgment. But there was just enough in me that I felt like, hey, I'm, you know, I'm not going to go back to my family hat in hand with my tail between my legs. So I just, you know, tried to do it day at a time. But I do remember, you know, the first morning they wake you up, it's brutal, right? Trash cans thrown over, pulling people out of bunks. And, you know, there was a lot of physical abuse back then. I mean, it was, you know, measured, but seemed pretty violent to me. But, you know,

• 15:41Speaker 01

  I remember laying in a, in my rack every morning before, you know, because I could hear them moving around like little mice positioning themselves before they launch the all out assault. And, you know, and I'd be laying there and I'd be like, well, what do I have to look forward to today? Well, that would be nothing. Once I got out of the rack and I started going, you're like a muscle memory, I was fine. But those were the worst parts was that morning laying there knowing this onslaught that was gonna, you know, start there in a couple of minutes. But all that being said, you know, I mean, and I, and I think I was sort of a jack wagon for my first couple, it's typical, you know, I did well in boot camp, I got whatever meritorious PFC and all that. I think primarily because my drill instructor was hot for my sister.

• 16:26Speaker 01

  But, you know, I could take any leg up I could get. But, you know, the first couple of years I did all this, I went to Lejeune to second mar div out there and I did all the stupid stuff that young troops did, you know, blow all my money the first three days after payday, you know, thank God I had a meal card or I would have starved to death. But then, you know, I went to Okinawa to third mar div and that's when the sort of the light came on and I started going to school, I got my diploma and started going to college and I mean, you know, and then once you get a little success, you know, you sort of build on that. I mean, there are setbacks along the way, but then I was like, okay, I can do this, you know.

• 17:03Jocko Willink?

  What was your MOS?

• 17:04Speaker 01

  I was an 1833 Amtracker.

• 17:07Jocko Willink?

  Get some.

• 17:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:09Jocko Willink?

  When you, when you say, was there anything that made you realize, hey, I need to kind of step up my game, maybe I should start, you know, going to college, maybe I should start my continuing education, maybe I should start trying to get advanced. Was there anything that in particular, did you have a leader that mentored you? Did you just look around and say, man, why don't I do a little bit better? Well, do you remember what that was? Was it one thing in particular?

• 17:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, it wasn't, you know, there wasn't a specific leader. There were later in my life, certainly those that, you know, that really inspired me to go above and beyond. But at that stage, I think it was more seeing people crash and burn around me. You know, I mean, getting guys getting kicked out for drugs was rampant back then. I mean, it was really rampant, I mean, and, and guys were getting caught, we didn't do urinalysis or anything like that, I mean, they were just physically caught with, you know, drugs in the barracks and it was open bays back then, we were open bay barracks. Courthouse Bay, which is where our, our battalion was. And I just saw all these guys and I mean, I just saw them failing and I mean, I knew

• 18:15Speaker 01

  they were on a downward spiral and I think over time I saw enough of that where I was like, okay, I don't want that to be me. And I went to Okinawa was sort of in, you know, my own personal mandate to, to turn my life around and, you know, make something of myself. Hey, you know, listen, it was never part of the training, on the training calendar for me to be a general officer. I remain amazed of the flaws in the promotion system of this day. But, you know, I just, I just, my goal was to be a sergeant, frankly. That was my goal. And, uh, and you know, but, you know, you get a little victory and you sort of build on that and, you know, and then low and behold, here I am, you know, with a flag flying and everything. So, you know, as you

• 18:59Speaker 01

  know, as a former aide, you know?

• 19:01Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah. So when you, when you, how'd you originally hear, cause you ended up going to the warrant officer flight program in the army?

• 19:09Speaker 01

  Right, right, right.

• 19:10Jocko Willink?

  How did you originally hear about that?

• 19:11Speaker 01

  Well, I re, when I was at The Rock, Okinawa, I re-enlisted and I went, I got my duty station of choice or whatever, and it was Marine barracks with the island of Washington, which is now long since closed. And I was working as a bouncer in the Globe and Anchor Club. You know, we had our own enlisted club at the corner of our barracks. And there was a reserve, a Marine Reserve Hilo unit that was, Huey unit that was on the base there. And some guy, Pixley Uryx was his name, was walking by with this brochure and it had a Cobra hovering over the trees in the morning mist coming up. And I'm like, hey, what, what's that? And he said, hey, it's this Army warrant officer flight training. I mean, I barely

• 19:55Speaker 01

  knew what a warrant officer was. I mean, I was like, you know, the Marines memorizing ranks and all that stuff every night. You had to recite them before you went to bed in boot camp. But, you know, and I said, well, don't you have to have a degree? And I probably had, you know, I don't know, less than a year of college at that time. And he said, no. So I started, you know, I was like, hmm. So I took the brochure, he gave it to me. And we both ended up, you know, he ended up ultimately joining the CO, he got into the Army warrant officer program and then flew a 58's, you know, little scout helicopters and ended up transferring into the Coast Guard. But- I went through the process. I drove down to Fort Lewis and did my physical down there. Took all my flight altitude tests. And of course, right before I was getting ready to ship

• 20:38Speaker 01

  out for this, you know, the Marine Corps being the Marine Corps, they're like, hey, you've been back, you know, for 18 months from the rocks. We're gonna send you back to the rock. And I was like, perfect, you know. So the Army graciously delayed my entry into flight school for the 18 months. I went over there, did my time, you know, came back from Okinawa, went to the Separation Center at Camp Pendleton. And then three days later, I was at Fort Rucker, Alabama. I had, I didn't know anything about the Army. I mean, I had nothing, you know. And it showed, you know, I mean, like drill and ceremony and all that stuff they do. You know, not completely different, but differently enough that I was dropped for pushups frequently in warrant officer candidate school. But went through that, opted

• 21:20Speaker 01

  for Blackhawks. That was like sort of a new airplane back then. It wasn't brand new, but it was, you know, pretty hot rock to get on. And I, and I went to the 101st.

• 21:29Jocko Willink?

  How many, when you were going through the, the flight training, how many pilots were getting trained at a time? We just had a Vietnam pilot on and he said, you go out to take off in the morning, there'd be like hundreds and hundreds of helicopters taking off in the morning.

• 21:43Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. It's, it wasn't as bad as Vietnam. I know the intensity wasn't there, but I think they graduated about 50 warrant officer pilots. And then there was a commission class that was, you know, sort of our, you know, they went along through with us. And we, about every two weeks. So they were pumping out helicopter pilots like crazy.

• 22:05Jocko Willink?

  And what did you fly as a training bird?

• 22:07Speaker 01

  Uh, well, I started out in this airplane, the TH-55 helicopter, which was the civilian designation, I think it was a Schweizer 300. It was a recip, reciprocal engine. I mean, it sounded like a frickin' lawnmower. And it was like, you know, you said about hundreds of us, you know, we'd take off and we're all in a line, these orange helicopters and flying out to our stage fields to do our stuff. And then after we checked out on that, And I mean, it was a piece of crap. I mean, this thing was, I mean, its max speed was like 50 miles an hour or something. Uh, we, I switched over to Hueys, went through the, you know, transition into that and did all my instruments and combat training and, you know, tactical training and that. And then, and then post-flight school, I went into

• 22:51Speaker 01

  and went through the Blackhawk aircraft qual course.

• 22:53Jocko Willink?

  How much different is it flying a Huey from flying a Blackhawk?

• 22:57Speaker 01

  Uh, much different. The rotor systems, you know, this is, you know, I'm getting into techno geek helicopter speak here, but you know, the rotor system's different. It's a semi-rigid in a Huey and an articulated system. So that means you can do a lot more in a Blackhawk, you know, maneuvering wise than you can do in a Huey. Um, the Huey, I think I would put it, the Blackhawk is like a G5 in the civilian world jet, right? And the Huey's like a DC3, you know? So they're, you know, it's just they're Vietnam, all these birds were like, you can see on the tail numbers, there were 68, 69, vintage. But I still like it. I got about 350 hours in those things. I got about 160 in flight

• 23:40Speaker 01

  school and then the Blackhawks were grounded for a mechanical issue. So I flew medevac around called, in a, you know, called Flatiron there at Rutgers. So I got a lot of time in Hueys. So not a lot, but you know, pretty good time.

• 23:50Jocko Willink?

  We had a, we had a Top Gun, the guy that found, the guy that started Top Gun was on here.

• 23:54Speaker 01

  Oh, no kidding.

• 23:55Jocko Willink?

  And those guys were, would just get into random aircraft.

• 23:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:59Jocko Willink?

  And just take off in jets by themselves that they'd never flown before. Like, including, they had, they had captured a Soviet MiG and they'd go out and it was in, like out in, out in Arizona somewhere and they'd fly out there and they'd get in that thing and fly that thing. Is it, is it that transferable with helicopters?

• 24:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, I would say, I mean, each airplane's got its own unique handling characteristics, helicopter. But you know, the hard part is starting it for me. Like, okay, cause they're, you know, some you gotta modulate the throttle and give gas into the turbine to get it going and some you don't. I mean, so if somebody else starts it or walks me throughout to start it, I mean, I can, you know, you just sort of react to the plane, you know? I mean, you see what it's doing and you would, you know, you do the counter action or, you know, what you gotta do in the control. So the stick and rudder stuff, I think is pretty transferable. I mean, I hopped in a jet Long Ranger, I don't know, about a year ago and I hadn't flown in, you know, I don't know, five, six, seven, eight years and.

• 25:02Speaker 01

  It was no problem because he had to start it for me, you know, but and I wouldn't get into a like flying instruments in it or anything like that. You lose more of the procedural stuff like, you know, all instruments is, you know, flying in the clouds is a lot of procedure and things and you got to stay up on that. It's a lot of book work so you understand what's happening and what your, what your responsibilities are like that. I know it's at your feet for me, but as far as wiggling the sticks, yeah, I could, I could hop in a helicopter.

• 25:31Jocko Willink?

  No factor. Was it hard, was there, did you have any trouble going through flight? Was there a big attrition rate? Did you have any trouble with anything?

• 25:36Speaker 01

  Uh, no, not really. I, um, instruments was pretty challenging. You know, you start in a Huey simulator, which is, you know, um, which was, you know, doing climbing, descending turns with not, not, no outside reference. You know, you rely on your visual sense, right? So seeing and the horizon and all that way. Of course, you don't have any of that in the clouds. So they train you on how to, you know, get into instruments. So that was, that was challenging. A quick story. I was flying in the Huey simulator and it's this giant like warehouse full of simulators like this. They don't, you know, they're really basic. And I'm late at night getting some extra flight time in there and the simulator operator comes over to radio

• 26:20Speaker 01

  because he's your air traffic controller guy too, right? He's sort of your, you know, and I, you know, made some radio call and he said, Roger Huey one, two, three, four, five. You got a flight of geese at your altitude going opposite direction. And I'm like, you know, looking at this dude I'm flying with, I'm like, what the hell is this dude talking about? Next thing I know, this guy's got a mop and he's slapping it on the windscreen like geese hitting the windscreen. I was like, a little slow out there tonight, bro, you know?

• 26:49Speaker 01

  But yeah, I mean, that was a little challenging. It like me, I think with me, when everybody else would say the same thing. But no, I mean now going into special ops and meeting those standards in the 160th for you know plus or minus 30 seconds and all that, there was some, there was definitely some stress there, you know.

• 27:08Jocko Willink?

  So you get done with flight school and then that's when you went to the 101st?

• 27:13Speaker 01

  Yep, I was flying medevac for a Delta 326 med, 326 med battalion and I was flying air ambulance stuff there. When I actually, when I got out of flight school, I had orders to Germany to a place called Schwabish Hall, because one-third of the army back then was in Germany. I never realized that, I mean that's pretty significant, those are the investment we had in the Cold War. But I heard about this secret unit, you know, in Fort Campbell and I was like, hey, that's what I want to do. I mean, I don't know what they do, I probably ain't good enough, but that's what I want to shoot for. So I swapped with a guy who wanted to go to Germany and I went to Fort Campbell and within a month, you know, when I was in the 101st, I walked over to the recruiter.

• 27:58Speaker 01

  Back then the 160th didn't have any, they didn't wear patches, anything. There was just, you know, all there's, there was no signs in front of their buildings. And I said, hey, I want to join the unit. I was what we call a wobbly one, you know, a warrant officer, one junior grade. And they laughed at me and I went back every month and said, hey, you know, they told me what I had to do and, you know, make pilot in command and get a lot of night vision goggle time, so I was doing my best to do all those things. Anyway, I kept, you know, telling them I'm interested, you know, persistence. And then I made it, you know, I didn't realize the difference and you, you, you know, in your job in the SEALs, it was a little different, but a warrant is a technician, as you know, right?

• 28:41Speaker 01

  So our warrants in the 160th will stay in the cockpit and fly in the same missions, whether it's little birds or 60s or 47s for 20 years. And I loved flying, I still love flying, but I also miss the leadership side of that, you know, being an NCO and...

• 28:56Jocko Willink?

  From your Marine Corps days.

• 28:57Speaker 01

  Right, yeah, and you know, there's none of, there's, I mean, there is some of that in warrant officer ranks, but it's, it's not their main focus, right, by design. So I decided to go to officer candidate school and...

• 29:11Speaker 01

  And so, you know, I went to Officer Candidate School.

• 29:14Jocko Willink?

  So you had to apply for that?

• 29:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, I applied. I'd been going to college still, so I had to have, you know, two years of college to apply for OCS, and then you had to have your four-year degree by the time you made O3. So I applied and got picked up, but it was funny. I had to, I mean, you have to, you had to be commissioned, you probably remember this, by the beginning of your 10th year, so, because you had to be able to do 10 years of commission time was what you needed to do to retire by 20. I graduated OCS with nine years, 10 months and two weeks. Like, if I would have got a hangnail or something and got setback, I would have been out, you know? And I was a W2 when I went.

• 29:52Jocko Willink?

  Did you go to full, normal OCS?

• 29:55Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Listen, I got the distinction of having my head shaved more than anybody else I know. No offense, of course.

• 30:00Jocko Willink?

  You're getting indoctrinated on a regular basis.

• 30:02Speaker 01

  I'm like the high, high water bar for you guys on hair over here, which is not saying much, by the way.

• 30:08Jocko Willink?

  But you, yeah, you, so you've been through multitude of fresh indoctrinations.

• 30:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, and OCS was...

• 30:15Jocko Willink?

  So how was that? How'd they treat you at OCS?

• 30:17Speaker 01

  Oh, like crap.

• 30:17Jocko Willink?

  What year is this now?

• 30:18Speaker 01

  So I went, I started in July of 87 and graduated October 16th, I think, of 87, commissioned on that day. So I was technically your Group 88, because I was after the first of the fiscal year.

• 30:33Speaker 01

  You know, I thought the curriculum at the course was pretty good. We spent about between a third and a half of our time in the field, right? So we're doing, you know, it's really infantry-oriented, anti-armory ambushes and ruck marches and things like that, which I thought was really good. I would say, you know, the cadre at the time, and it could be different, and I'm in the OCS Hall of Fame, so they may, you know, disown me over this, but the cadre were not great. I mean, they were guy, you know, we had a couple guys, I think, that had gotten DUIs and got sort of stuck over there, you know, so it wasn't, they weren't like a great examples of stellar leadership in my mind.

• 31:13Speaker 01

  I thought the curriculum was really good. I thought the quality of the officers that were mentoring us were not. And, you know, a lot of the, most of the OCS people that go through in the Army are those that have gotten a degree and decide after they're outside the window for ROTC to go into military. So they got to go to basic. And then they go to OCS. So you had a bunch of, we had masters, we had a couple of PhDs, I think, in there, but I mean, they didn't, you know, they didn't know shit from Shinola. I mean, they didn't know, you know.

• 31:44Jocko Willink?

  How's that PhD treating you now?

• 31:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. But there was a small percentage of us that were former, you know, prior service, you know, and they sort of carry the class and do a lot of mentoring. There was three warrants in our class. We had about 240, 250 people in our class. So, again, good experience, you know, I learned a lot.

• 32:07Speaker 01

  I think, for instance, the Marine Corps does a much better job in investing in their training base than the Army does. I mean, I think that's changing now, but historically, you know, the Marine Corps puts their best and brightest to develop those young, you know, troops and officers. The Army, really, they're more focused on their tactical units, which I think is at the expense of their future, would be my, you know, my personal opinion.

• 32:35Jocko Willink?

  Well, when I went to officer candidate school, it's run by Marine Corps drill instructors.

• 32:39Speaker 01

  Did you go to Rhode Island?

• 32:40Jocko Willink?

  No, I went down to Pensacola.

• 32:42Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 32:42Jocko Willink?

  And they're just freaking outstanding. I mean, they're just like, exactly what you'd expect. They're just outstanding professionals across the board.

• 32:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was my experience. I mean, my DI's were really, really sharp. I mean, a little twisted, but, you know, a little sadism thrown in there, but, you know, they were very squared away. Set a great example for us.

• 33:04Jocko Willink?

  So, did you, so had you already gone to the 160th at this point?

• 33:09Speaker 01

  So I would, it was funny, I had graduated, I was getting ready to graduate OCS. I had my packet in, right? I've been over there all those times as a warrant. And I called the recruiter, right before I was getting ready to graduate, and I was on orders to go to the 82nd and fly for the 82nd. And I graduated pretty high. I wasn't the number one, but I was like the number two.

• 33:30Jocko Willink?

  I was gonna ask, what's the Hall of Fame all about?

• 33:33Speaker 01

  Well, if you, you know, listen, if you're, you know, if you make it past Colonel in OCS, they like, the funny thing is they say, hey, do you want to be in the OCS Hall of Fame? I was like, sure. I never went to the little ceremony, right? But they said, okay, send us 250 bucks so we can do your pick. I said, well, that's a great deal, you know? So somewhere in some hall over there forbidding my pictures up on a wall with a little bio, but I've never seen it, never went to it.

• 33:57Jocko Willink?

  Well, at 250 bucks a pop, you might be amongst a lot of company.

• 34:02Speaker 01

  I was like, seriously? You guys are gonna charge me to put me in the Hall of Fame? I was like, typical, right? I'm sure if you went to the Navy Hall of, OCS Hall of Fame, it's probably very similar. Anyway, I was getting ready to graduate and, uh, and I thought, you know what? I'm just gonna call this the recruiter. Cause you have to go through a week-long assessment process just to get accepted conditionally into the unit, you know, checkride, some physical standards stuff. And I talked to this guy and he said, and I was, you know, gonna be a second lieutenant. They only took guys that were, had previous flight experience, you know? So you had to get one or two tours, but because I had flown as a warrant, I had about, you know, 750 hours and I had approaching 100 NVG hours at the time,

• 34:47Speaker 01

  which was pretty good for back then, right? NVGs, you know, now, you know, that wouldn't even, you know, raise an eyebrow, but back then it was okay. So they agreed to, uh, put me through the assessment, which pissed my assignment officer off, cause I was on my way to the 82nd. But, and they told me going in, hey, look, we don't take lieutenants, but, you know, you do really well and maybe we'll bring you back. So I went, I sort of approached it with, uh, well, I'm gonna give it my all and, you know, they took me. So I went there as a second lieutenant. They made me go into headquarters for a while to learn how to, you know, collect for, you know, Army Emergency Relief and do all that kind of crap that you have to do as a young O. And then I went to a platoon.

• 35:31Speaker 01

  And I ended up being the first DAT platoon leader, the attack sixties, and he probably saw those in Iraq several times. You know, and had a great platoon, Mike Durant, Cliff Walcott, who was killed in Somalia, October. In fact, my middle son, who just graduated college a couple of weeks ago, was Mitchell Walcott, Hutmacher, and Donovan Bryley is co-pilot, they were killed in Super Six One. So I had a great platoon, went to Panama together, I went to the Gulf flying off the Herc, barge Hercules.

• 35:58Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, so what was going on in the, that's, that's what happened first? That was your first?

• 36:01Speaker 01

  Right.

• 36:01Jocko Willink?

  Big mish?

• 36:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was like, big time, you know, I mean, we flew into Bahrain.

• 36:06Jocko Willink?

  So this is what, like eighty-seven?

• 36:07Speaker 01

  Eighty, I got there, I did my, yeah, I got there, actually, I got to the unit, because I went through airborne school and did all that stuff at Benning. I got there around February of eighty-eight, and I did my first tour over there as like, there was a logistics cell at the ASU Bahrain, and so I did that, and then when I went through my training and got checked out as an MH sixty pilot, I went back over and did two more tours. We'd fly into Bahrain, and the outgoing crew would fly off the barge, park it on the ramp, and we, we'd basically swap vests with them, like, we'd get their combat vests, they gave us their kneeboard packets, you know, we've been on this friggin' rotator from hell for

• 36:49Speaker 01

  like, two days, you know, stopping everywhere, Ciganella, all those places. And we'd hop in the airplane, and they'd get on the commercial flight going out, we'd hop on those helicopters and fly back out to the barge and start missions the next night.

• 37:04Jocko Willink?

  Hey, when you, when you talked about the training, like, uh, so once you got to the one-sixtieth, how many hours are you putting in? What kind of stress are they putting, what are they doing to you to get you up to speed? How long does it take?

• 37:15Speaker 01

  Well, uh, it's different now than it was then, but we had a, about a, I think it's a three-week, three-week for the O's, the officers and warrant officers, ground phase training. So it's ruck marches, uh, uh, you know, grappling, you know, all those kind of things, shooting, we were carrying MP5s, which we ditched after Somalia, and, uh, so we do a lot of that shooting, and then we go into our, you know, we sort of split apart, the officers do, and so you're either a little bird driver, you're a sixty driver, you're a forty-seven, and then you go through that, you know, and you go through what we call a basic nav phase, and it's basically every night you go out, you got a compass.

• 38:00Speaker 01

  And a clock and a map. You have no, you know, there's no GPS, no INS, no nothing. And they still do it to this way, this way, to this day. And you're expected to hit targets plus or minus 30 seconds. And then you take a checkride and then you get all the bells and whistles and learn all the systems and how to air refuel and gunnery and all those kind of things. And they, you know, they're still very true to that. Hey, if we tell you we're going to be there plus or minus 30 seconds, we're going to be there. And, you know, once we put you in, we're always going to come get you out. I used to tell guys that all the time. Hey, we put you in, we're coming for you, man. Doesn't matter. You know, whatever it takes, we're going to come get you. Which I think is unique. I'm not saying that other folks aren't dedicated, but that's

• 38:45Speaker 01

  all we do, right? We're completely dedicated. We don't care if it's a SEAL, a Ranger, Green Beret, Marsoc Raider, AFSoC Special Tactics guy, we don't care. If you're on the ground, you know, you're our customer and we're going to do whatever it takes. So, the training really infuses that in you. I mean, I was taught at a young age, hey, they're the customer. We do whatever it takes to support them. And that really is their ethos in the whole unit.

• 39:11Jocko Willink?

  How much has your level of flying improved in that first, like, six months that you're there?

• 39:18Speaker 01

  Well, you know, it's sort of, you probably found it. I think, like, when you, when you go into that unit, the unit's operating up here, right? And you're down here. And it really is sink or swim. You either come up here or you're history, you know? And that's true across the SOF community, the Special Ops community. So, I mean, I, I improved, you know, significantly. I didn't really realize it, right? Because it's like when you're in the midst of it, I mean, you know, it's like leaving the SEAL team and getting in charge of a recruiting battalion or recruiting squadron or whatever they have in the Navy, you know, you're like, okay, I ain't in Kansas anymore, kind of thing, you know? It's the same thing. When you're in it, and remember, I came there as a second lieutenant my first tour outside a SOF.

• 40:03Speaker 01

  Was as an O5.

• 40:05Jocko Willink?

  Dang.

• 40:05Speaker 01

  So I did a bunch of time in the 160.

• 40:07Jocko Willink?

  Twenty years or something.

• 40:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, close to it. I mean, I went, um, I went to Air Force Special Ops Command as an exchange pilot. Uh, so I've, after Desert Storm, Downing wanted to sort of bring us together. You remember the, the MH53 Pavlos in the Air Force and the 160th. I mean, that was not a harmonious relationship back then. So, you know, and to his credit, General Downing and General Holland said, hey, we need to mend the fence. So I went to Hurlberg and flew and then they sent a guy up and I flew there from 92 to 96. It was an instructor pilot. I met my wife there. She was a squadron intel dude. So my version is, you know, she latched on to the first army guy. Uh, she has a slightly different version of that,

• 40:53Speaker 01

  but basically the army remains a subordinate service to the Air Force in my own house to this day.

• 40:58Jocko Willink?

  Check.

• 41:00Jocko Willink?

  So you, so let's, let's go back a little bit. Um, let's go back to Panama. So you're, so you're a platoon commander. So what does that mean? How many birds do you have when you're a platoon commander?

• 41:10Speaker 01

  Uh, eight, six, eight, something like that. Um, I had less because the DAP, the Direct Action Penetrator, Defensive Armed Penetrator depend on, um, when you, what you call it. Uh, we were brand new.

• 41:27Speaker 01

  But you know, that was big time, man. I mean, we went down there and, um, I had, uh, I had, we had two armed birds. Cliff Walcott and I were, were flying together.

• 41:37Speaker 01

  And, uh, it was funny. We got down there and they had Apaches from the 82nd down there, not with us, but you know, doing their stuff. And they wouldn't, uh, our commander at the time, for probably good reasons and wasn't good reasons to me as an O1 or O2, but he said, hey, you're not going to do attack. I need you to do assault. So the AH6 guys who, you know, out of general principle despise the DAP guys, said, hey, DAP, what does that stand for? Didn't actually participate or didn't attack Panama. You pick. And I was like, bastards, you know? So I mean, I laugh about, it was very funny, but yeah, I went down there. It was awesome. And we rolled off a C5. You know, I got in there about two in the afternoon and we started banging targets that night. Zero one was HR.

• 42:21Speaker 01

  They moved it up on the rescue with Kurt Muse and, uh, It was cool. I was assigned to a SEAL element. We were gonna put SEALs around the Cuban and Nicaraguan embassies. They thought that Noriega might squirt in there, you know. Whoever thought it would've went to the Catholic, you know, the papal enunciate, for god's sakes, you know. But, uh, yeah, we were, uh, I was, we were sitting in hangar three at Howard Air Force Base. And, uh, it was pretty exciting here. The AC-130 thumping targets in La Comandancia with their 105 and... At one point, somebody ran into the hangar and there was like, you know, I don't know, I wanna say a thousand. It was like Cot City in there. Somebody said, "Hey, they're breaching the front gate of Howard," and they shut all the lights off.

• 43:06Speaker 01

  I mean, you should've... Charging hams going over where, and I was sitting next to Walcott and I'm like, "No balls to say, 'Die gringo' and jump up and yell that in the dark."

• 43:21Jocko Willink?

  And that was, I mean, um, how lo- how long were you flying ops for then in Panama? It was pretty quick.

• 43:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, you know, the real, I mean, I've, we flew several night assaults. Of course, that was the hunt for Elvis, looking for Noriega for those first, uh, few weeks. Or first week, I guess. Um, you know, but really, major combat ops were, uh, were over, uh, pretty quick. And then they had, you know, then we started doing some, you know, sort of policing stuff.

• 43:52Speaker 01

  Remember the dignity battalions? They called, we called them the dingbats. That was Noriega's sort of thugs that would, you know, were trying to rig the elections and intimidate people. I'll tell you a quick story. So the Ranger, I can't remember the name of the town, um, but north of Panama City, that, we called them the dingbats. The dingbats had moved in there and they were, um, they were harassing the local populace, raping women, doing stuff like that. So they sent a Ranger company up there, you know, to, uh, sort of settle things down. And they sent up, set up this roadblock. And they had, you know, like any kind of blocking position, you have an outer cord on and then you have the main, you know, position here. And so they're all set up and they're checking cars

• 44:36Speaker 01

  and this, this car comes careening up to the outer, I think full of four MAMS, you know, military age males, bust right through the outer perimeter. So they, you know, they shoot a law at it, it misses it, it goes over the back of the car, but then they get to the main position and I mean, they just open up with them 60s, you know, clearly within the ROE and just shred these guys. Well, it turns out they were four PDF dudes that were completely drunk as hell and you know, and they had just, they just, you know, they were drunk. So of course Ranger humor in the hangar, uh, there was a poster put up rad, Rangers against drunk drivers. That was classy.

• 45:19Jocko Willink?

  Oh, that's freaking.

• 45:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't know who did it. I just remember seeing that. I mean, it was like a little humor there and, uh.

• 45:25Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that, that blue on blue thing is a nightmare.

• 45:29Speaker 01

  Well, these guy, PDF guy, these were bad guys. I mean, they were Noriega's dudes.

• 45:33Jocko Willink?

  Oh, they were, they were those guys.

• 45:34Speaker 01

  Oh yeah. They were just drunk, you know, they sort of.

• 45:36Jocko Willink?

  Just drunk as hell.

• 45:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, they were just, they weren't a threat, but we didn't know it. Hey, you breached the, you know, you know, the deal, you'd have lit them up as well.

• 45:42Jocko Willink?

  Oh yeah, yeah, for sure.

• 45:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:43Jocko Willink?

  For sure. No, I thought you were saying they were friendly forces.

• 45:46Speaker 01

  No, no, no, these guys were bad dudes. We didn't have any Panama partners.

• 45:49Jocko Willink?

  Then it gets really, then that, then that, then rad is definitely funny.

• 45:52Speaker 01

  No, definitely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, yeah, Rangers against drunk drivers. I loved it, you know?

• 45:58Jocko Willink?

  How was the, how was the, you know, from your looking back now, the mindset down there? You know, we just didn't have combat experience.

• 46:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:08Jocko Willink?

  As a country at that time. I'm sure, I'm sure there, there was a few Vietnam guys here and there, but the bulk of the force are a bunch of, bunch of guys that really didn't have combat experience.

• 46:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, I mean, I don't think there were any, there might've been a couple of like the senior, senior warrants that had some Vietnam, but most of those guys have sort of been out before this. I mean, you're talking 89. So, um, and we had practiced, you know, the original code name for that was Blue Spoon, you know, and then they changed it to something, you know, patriotic, you know, just cause or whatever.

• 46:41Jocko Willink?

  Something that sounds cooler.

• 46:41Speaker 01

  Yeah. But if you go back to the planning, it was Blue Spoon was the code name for it. Um, yeah, I was, I mean, I personally, I was like, hey, this was like, doesn't get any better than this. I mean, this is, you know, this is cool. Um. So yeah, I think we were over eager, you know, we, I'm sure we made a lot of mistakes, but you know, we're pretty disciplined in our planning and you know, I think we're much better now than we were then, obviously. We got a lot of combat time. So yeah, I just remember being, I remember we, I loaded the airplane, it was snowing at minus eight at Fort Campbell, or eight degrees, maybe it was eight degrees. I just remember I stripped off all my cold weather gear, gave it to some maintenance warrant that wasn't going with us, and I said, you know, if I get clipped, you can keep this stuff, you know,

• 47:26Speaker 01

  like you don't gotta turn it into the issue facility or whatever, you know, very bravado stuff, stepping up the ramp.

• 47:32Jocko Willink?

  Freaking John Wayne's going on a hop over here.

• 47:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, second lieutenant hutbacher, man, running with scissors, you know, and uh, but yeah, I was really excited about it and uh, you know, another funny story, we take off and my, this is my first combat mission, a log in combat time, you know, and we were flying from Howard Air Force Base out to Cologne to Fort Sherman out there, and it was a daylight flight, we were just, and we had our, you know, our miniguns, you know, it was standard procedure, I put master power on up front, and then each of the, each of the door gunners flips up on the minigun, he's got a toggle switch, and he puts, all he was looking for is power, cause then you got two triggers, a high rate and a low rate

• 48:17Speaker 01

  trigger, but we just checked, make sure you got power to the guns. And it was funny, Mike Durant, we were just telling, I was with him in Dallas last week, he's sitting there in the cargo door with his legs hanging out, they got a cargo strap up, and the gun is slued back, you know, just sort of facing aft, and the guy on the left says, yep, I got power, and then they shut it down. The guy on the right, as soon as he hits the toggle switch, it just starts shooting.

• 48:43Jocko Willink?

  Dang.

• 48:44Speaker 01

  Well, when it, those, those triggers were push buttons, and they had a rubber, like, boot over the top of it, and when they had, somehow something got pushed up against it and jammed the trigger in, and but you couldn't see it. So Durant, you know, he's like... You know, like right like maybe a foot in front of his legs. I got this stream of tracers going out. So it wasn't and actually just cleared the housing area right by the end of the runway, you know, and I'm like, so point oh one of combat time and I attack military housing. Perfect. So, you know.

• 49:19Jocko Willink?

  Uh, you get done with that.

• 49:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:22Jocko Willink?

  And that that had to feel like you, you know, you you got you got some at least.

• 49:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean, in rear view mirror.

• 49:31Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's the thing. I mean, we look at all the stuff we did before September 11. It's like, it seemed cool at the time.

• 49:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:40Jocko Willink?

  You get back from that and then how much longer it wasn't that much longer. We're jocking up for for Desert Storm.

• 49:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think it was like August when Saddam Hussein, you know, rolled in there and we deployed, um, we deployed out to a place called RR, A R, A R, way out west. We were completely separate from the ground war. We went out there actually to go after those scuds being shot into Israel to keep Israel out of the war. If you remember back then, they were threatening to put their own SOF elements in. And of course, the coalition, Syrians were part of that. So the Arabs, you know, didn't want anything, didn't want the Israelis involved. So that was our mission. Again, it was Durant, Walcott, me, and you know, several others, Bryley, you know, Bryley wasn't there. And we were flying, we had four

• 50:31Speaker 01

  birds, two would go up and do a little hunt. And the other two were QRF for the ground elements doing ground recce up there and attacking. I mean, it was awesome. Really, really tough flying. Um, crashed on one of my first flights, bounced off the desert floor.

• 50:49Jocko Willink?

  How'd that happen?

• 50:50Speaker 01

  Well, we were doing a, we were doing a little rehearsal in Saudi before we went up there. And I mean, you get out of town, there is black. I mean, there is no ambient light. Your nods are just, you know, that sparkle you get when you can't. I mean, and you're just like, oh, are these things working? You know? Um, so we had infilled the DAPs. We, we were, our original mission is we were gonna put in a OP. So we had two guys in the back and once they, the heavy birds landed with their mobility vehicle, their vehicles, we were gonna, you know, cover them, but then land, you know, out off their flanks and drop off these two dudes that were gonna just sort of be an OP for them while they were getting their vehicles ready for movement. And so we had dropped these dudes off and I mean, browned

• 51:34Speaker 01

  out like I'd never browned out before, you know, it was just, it was horrible. We were climbing out and the other guy was on the controls and I'm a head over in the cockpit, uh, trying to punch up something on this navigation system because GPS was brand new. And the crew chief, who I'm still very close with, I promoted him a couple of times since then, yells out, check altitude. And like I got a FLIR screen, you know, in front of me with a, what we call RAD out, a radar altimeter, which is absolute altitude over the ground. It's not a mean sea level. It is how far you are until you get to the ground. And it said zero. Oof. And I just reached over with one hand and pulled up on the collective and as we smacked the ground and came up in this cloud of dust and bent the antennas on the bottom of the airplane,

• 52:19Speaker 01

  split the tailwheel room in half. I mean, it was, I mean, I couldn't even talk for like 30 seconds. And I look over at the other guy, I'm like, dude, what the hell? He goes, well, I couldn't see. I was like, were you gonna tell me that when we were underground? I mean, what was the plan here? You know, because we just cheated death, you know? And we had, I had several close calls over there. Probably any time more than I've had not directly enemy related was, you know, those dust storms. You'd hit those things up in western Iraq, which were just fierce. They're biblical, those things. I've seen those biblical storms where I was looking going, this is straight out of the bible. There's a freaking wall of sand is coming and it's crazy.

• 53:01Speaker 01

  I mean, and then, I mean, and it's violent. I mean, when it hits you, it's just like, I mean, it's like a tsunami coming at you. I mean, you, I mean, I know you're, I can exactly picture what you're looking at. That churn at the bottom and there's coming at you and you're like, We're gonna have to redo the windows after this, you know, that was bad, yeah.

• 53:20Jocko Willink?

  So what were the profiles like? So what were the profiles like for those ops that you were doing out looking for SCUD missiles in the Iraqi desert?

• 53:28Speaker 01

  So we'd go up there, you know, we had ground elements up there and we'd fly up there and we'd get, sometimes we'd get some intel.

• 53:36Speaker 01

  Because there was, you know, before they'd launch a SCUD, there was certain things that would happen in advance of that. And I think I got the nomenclature right, but they had an NTR radar, which was a meteorological radar. And that thing would come up a few hours before it masked and do a 360 sweep, get a bunch of atmospheric data to plug in. Because I mean, the SCUDs weren't really guided. I mean, they weren't, you know, it wasn't like, hey, we're gonna hit this building. It wasn't like that. They had a target in mind, but it was a ballistic solution. So we, you know, we'd see that thing come up. And in fact, one night we were up there and a rivet joint or whatever called us and said, hey, we got a, we got, you know, we got a hit on this NTR radar.

• 54:19Speaker 01

  And I was chalked to flying off of Walcott.

• 54:24Speaker 01

  And sure enough, in this little wadi, this truck was sitting down there like a, looks like a commo truck with a big box van on it and a mast. And I mean, we smoked that dude. I mean, we came in and, in fact, we got so close, the lead bird got so close and they were shooting, they got a secondary off the truck. And it shattered the windshield and co-pilot, they said, every time they got over a hundred knots, the windshield started caving in. So he flew with one foot up there, holding the windshield out. We were going back into, I mean, it was, it was cool.

• 54:54Speaker 01

  So we, you know, shot that. We had some SCUDs and there's a lot of debate to this day. If you Google it, you'll see pictures of them. That they were probably decoys. But they stopped shooting after that. I mean, we basically, they quit shooting within a week of us going up there. And so we were all over them, you know, our missions were five, six hours long. We had to get aux fuel tank strapped, cargo strapped to the floor just to, just to make it up that far.

• 55:20Jocko Willink?

  Dang.

• 55:24Jocko Willink?

  That one didn't last very long either.

• 55:26Speaker 01

  Nah, I mean, for us, it started pre, like, I didn't even know the war started. Except that we had a 10K loop around the airfield that we go run. And I remember I went out and there was a little sign on an easel out there or something that said, "Got to run with your gas mask on your hip," which, of course, you know, again, I'm a first lieutenant, I'm like, you know, really? I mean, come on, that's a pain in the ass. And that was, and I learned later, I said, "The war started." Now, a funny story, I was out on my first mission flying, and you can thank your brethren in the Navy on this one. The other crews were sitting in the air terminal at this RR airfield. And in the middle of the night, kaboom, you know, a missile comes in.

• 56:11Speaker 01

  And, you know, and everybody, it wasn't, it was, it wasn't enough like a bomb, but it was a missile. And everybody's looking and they thought it was a chemical attack, so, you know, everybody's, you know, assholes and elbows, Entropene, you know, everybody's putting their mask on and all that. But what had happened is, is all nav, all navigational aids are supposed to be shut off. And they had forgot and left a tac an on, you know, a digital thing at distance. And an EA6 was coming back, going back to the Red Sea. Now, keep in mind, we're 35 miles inside of Saudi. I mean, it's not like, you know, we're right on the border. And this dude lets one of those harm missiles go. And it comes in, and, you know, those things are like a giant shotgun shell, they get

• 56:54Speaker 01

  to a certain point, and then it just opens up, and it's like a bunch of buckshot goes in and takes out the radar, and that's what it was. In fact, I, I don't think I still have it, but I had a piece of the, you know, US Navy on the canard on it, you know? So our only attack was from an EA6 off of a carrier in the Red Sea.

• 57:12Jocko Willink?

  Ouch.

• 57:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:14Jocko Willink?

  And, and did you notice, I mean, the mindset? How many, how many pilots or how much experience did you bring from Panama, and now you're doing kind of more operations? Or was it like, hey, we're still, we're still feeling pretty green at this?

• 57:29Speaker 01

  Um, you know, we certainly, I think the tension and the anticipation, we were getting used to that, you know, from Panama. Of course, the environment was completely different, this, you know, Panama was basically urban, really, I mean, for the most part.

• 57:46Speaker 01

  The challenge, the flying was much more difficult on Desert Storm, for sure. But remember, we'd had Prime Chance, right, operating off the barges. We'd had Just Cause, now myself, and that was pretty much the norm. We'd all sort of been involved in that. And now this is our, sort of our, third gig for that current generation. So I think there was a sense of confidence there, maybe a little overconfidence. You know, I wish I would've got more time flying in the desert in those kind of conditions. I mean, that was like, that was definitely a different level than I'd ever experienced before. And humbling. So, yeah, you know, planning-wise, we were good. We knew what we needed to do.

• 58:30Speaker 01

  Gunnery-wise, we were good. Probably environmentals were our biggest challenge. Just those, like you said, those sandstorms. You see one of those things coming, I mean, you're like, mommy. You know, I mean, it's like, you know, this is not going to end well, you know?

• 58:44Jocko Willink?

  You get, you get done with that, where's your next, where'd you go after that?

• 58:48Speaker 01

  So we got out of, we got back from Desert Storm, and this is when I went to this, you know, then Downing said, hey, I want you, would you can, I was supposed to go fly with the Marines, fly Cobras at Yuma as an instructor pilot down there. That's where I was going to go. And then Downing said, no, I want you to go to Hurlberg to fly with Air Force Special Ops Command as exchange pilot. Let's start, you know, let's start combining you guys. You're like Catfield and McCoy's out there. So, I, that's where I went. I went through Kirtland Air Force Base out in New Mexico, you know, to go through the Air Force version of the 60 qualification course. And then I went to 55th Special Ops Squadron, and, I mean, loved it.

• 59:32Speaker 01

  Man, it was, you know, I was, I'd never air refueled before, I'd never done... You know, and they, it's just a completely different approach to aviation than the Army has. I mean, uh, and I loved it, flew there for four years and, uh, you know, flew my butt off. Ended up being an instructor pilot there and, uh, just really.

• 59:52Jocko Willink?

  And you were still flying 60s though?

• 59:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, cause they, they wanted me to, they ideally I would have transitioned over to 53s.

• 59:59Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:00Speaker 01

  The problem was, it was just one of those military things. It was a year-long course, so they had to done a permanent change of station to get me into Kirtland. And then another permanent change of station to get back to Hurlberg and nobody wanted to pay for that. So I went there on temporary duty for four months. And I mean, I, I'd already had 2,000 hours in the Blackhawk. I mean, what this wasn't, you know, like rocket science to me, you know? So I sort of went through the course pretty quick. I just had to learn Air Force regs.

• 1:00:30Jocko Willink?

  You, you couldn't convince them, hey, if somebody can just show me how to turn on this 53, I got it.

• 1:00:34Speaker 01

  I actually knew how to start it, but they, you know, the Air Force has like these, you know, they're, they have a lot more regs, regulations and stuff that you gotta learn. In the Army, it's like much less.

• 1:00:47Jocko Willink?

  What was it, so you said the, the view on aviation was different? What else was different?

• 1:00:52Speaker 01

  Um, the culture's a little different. I mean, they're great guys there, you know? I mean, the current JSOC commander, Scott Howell, was in my sister squadron. The current Air Force Special Ops Command, Jim Slyfe. And now they're both are three stars. They were, we were like running mates over there, you know?

• 1:01:09Speaker 01

  You know, the Air Force and the Navy, with the exception of the SEAL community, are really platform centric, right? They man a platform. The Navy mans a ship. The Air Force mans an aircraft. The Army and the Marines and, you know, and the SEALs, um, we equip the soldier or the sailor or the Marine. So it's a different, it's a different mindset there. And I don't mean, I would, I'm not implying for a second that they're not good at their job, but, you know, they're, you know, they value that platform. I mean, when I was the 160th commander, I lost three aircraft in a week. I had two Chinooks land hard and rip the gear off. One had to be blown in place. It was way up in the Hindu Kush.

• 1:01:55Speaker 01

  The other, we stripped it down in a 53. The Marines slung it out for us and the third was on a day mission in the Hellman and got hit with an RPG and crashed.

• 1:02:06Speaker 01

  I mean, you know, I think in the Air Force you'd get relieved for that, you know. In the Army, I never even got a call. I mean, I had to report it up, you know, standard op rep kinda stuff. But I think, you know, the Army's just, hey, did you have fatalities? And we didn't, you know, that we lost, you know, probably, I don't know, a hundred million dollars worth of aircraft, but we didn't have a fatality. And again, it's just a different, you know, and the other thing about us is we only exist to support the guy on the ground. I mean, the one sixtieth Army Aviation isn't a, you know, isn't strategic air power, right? It's tactical, you know, we only exist to support, so that's our mindset.

• 1:02:48Speaker 01

  You know, the pilots, a lot of the warrants, I mean, a good percentage of them are former Green Berets. I had some former SEALs, Bobby Moore was in the one sixty with me, a former SEAL, a lot of Rangers in there. So there's a great empathy for the guy on the ground, right? And I think, and that's just our culture.

• 1:03:07Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, when I had this guy, Colonel Matt Jackson, who was a Huey pilot in Vietnam, they sent five thousand Hueys to Vietnam, thirty-two hundred of them were lost in combat.

• 1:03:19Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, I know lots of guys that were shot down.

• 1:03:23Jocko Willink?

  We, and we were talking and I, I, you know, he said, well, Huey costs, I don't know, a couple hundred thousand dollars back then. I said, well, how much is a Blackhawk? And he goes, I don't know, maybe five hundred thousand. And I was like, I don't know if that's right, sir, but it's like twenty million, right?

• 1:03:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, one of ours is about twenty-three. I think you could probably, and UH sixty Mike is somewhere between fifteen and twenty million, somewhere around there, I would suspect.

• 1:03:50Jocko Willink?

  They're not throwing those things away.

• 1:03:52Speaker 01

  No, but they, you know, but again, I mean, I, when I was the one sixtieth commander at the time, I was told this and I can't prove it, but I'm pretty sure it's true. We had more casualties from any O six level command in SOF. We'd had more than anyone. And you think about it, we'd had Red Wing, we'd had a bunch of those. And, um, and, you know, but it didn't stop us. I mean, we're, we never changed, I mean, we just kept, we got better, right?

• 1:04:21Jocko Willink?

  Right, learn.

• 1:04:22Speaker 01

  But we, yeah, we lost a lot of aircraft and a lot of people. Shit, on Red Wings, we lost, you know, we had the QRF was eight SEALs and we had eight one sixtieth guys on there.

• 1:04:34Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, um, so you come home, you're now, so now it's like 1991, we're about to enter the kind of the dry years.

• 1:04:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, go to, go to, you know, AFSoC, Air Force Special Ops Command from there till 96.

• 1:04:50Jocko Willink?

  This is where you meet your wife?

• 1:04:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, she was a, the squadron intel officer. And then, of course, like I said.

• 1:04:57Jocko Willink?

  And she couldn't figure you out? What happened?

• 1:04:58Speaker 01

  Well, no, she's like, you know, who is the, you know, best looking dude, most manly dude here, clearly, you know, it was me, you know, I mean, I'm a total chick magnet. And, you know, but we end up, yeah, we end up getting married and then I went to a classified assignment from there and, and she, we'd already had one kid and then she went, you know, so it was one of those dual military, which is tough. And then when she got pregnant with our second, she, she elected to get out and, you know, and I'm grateful because we ended up having, you know, three boys total. And I mean, she gets all the credit in the world for raising them because I mean, her, her deal was, hey, you go out and play Captain America, I'll, you know, take care of the family here.

• 1:05:42Speaker 01

  So I remain indebted to her and very respectful of her because she would have been at least a colonel, in my opinion. You know, you know, you see a young officer, you know who's got it, who's not going to go far and who is, and she was clearly one of those that was going to go far.

• 1:05:57Jocko Willink?

  So you get, how long were you at this classified assignment for?

• 1:06:01Speaker 01

  Uh, let's see, six years. I did a year at Navy, Newport.

• 1:06:09Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 1:06:09Speaker 01

  That's where I met Colin Green. We were next door neighbors.

• 1:06:12Jocko Willink?

  Got it.

• 1:06:13Speaker 01

  And so I did that and from 96 till 02, then I went back to the 160th and was XO of First Battalion and then ended up commanding a couple of years later.

• 1:06:24Jocko Willink?

  So when September 11th goes down, you're in Newport going to war college or something?

• 1:06:28Speaker 01

  No, I was in Budapest on an exercise when it happened. We were over there doing a, you know, it was one of those, I think it was like a loose nuke kind of thing, you know, exercise.

• 1:06:44Speaker 01

  And that's where I was. And then, you know, a few, a few weeks later, I was deployed, you know, I won't go into detail, but I was deployed into Pakistan and then basically, you know, the world changed for all of us after that, you know?

• 1:06:57Jocko Willink?

  So when, when you started doing missions, when did you, when did you get back to the 160th?

• 1:07:01Speaker 01

  I got back to the 160th in June of, it was right around Father's Day of 02. And then, you know, I took over as the executive officer of first of the 160th, uh, which is, you know, the, the biggest battalion there. And that's where I grew up. And then we ended up, you know, a few months later, two months later, I was in Afghanistan, did back two back-to-back tours and then we invaded Iraq.

• 1:07:31Jocko Willink?

  How long were your tours over there?

• 1:07:33Speaker 01

  Um, back then we were doing, I was doing about, I did 60 days, was back for 30 days, went back for another 60 days. And then I came back, cause we had an alert package. So you had to mod, you know, you had to have that ready to go. So when I wasn't forward, I was back sitting on alert and then I ended up in Iraq in May.

• 1:07:53Jocko Willink?

  So what, what kind of ops were you running in Afghanistan? Were you, were you flying as the XO?

• 1:07:58Speaker 01

  Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. It was, uh, it was, it was fun. Now Afghanistan, I mean, that's some challenging flying right over there. I mean, you know, that, that, you know, that place is like, don't call it the rooftop of the world for nothing. I mean, I used, I was very, you know, my fondest saying, and I still say it, you know, if you compare Iraq to Afghanistan, the enemy in Iraq is the enemy. It's the insurgents, right? I mean, the terrain is, except for those, you know, biblical dust storms over there. I mean, it's not very challenging terrain.

• 1:08:27Jocko Willink?

  It's usually not, it's usually predictable too.

• 1:08:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:31Jocko Willink?

  It's gonna be hot.

• 1:08:32Speaker 01

  Hot, yeah.

• 1:08:32Jocko Willink?

  Or in the wintertime, it's gonna be cold, but it's pretty, it's pretty predictable. Yeah.

• 1:08:36Speaker 01

  But Afghanistan, I mean, you know, you're up at the highest altitudes. I mean, everybody's running on the, the little birds were essentially worthless over there to, you know, if they were carrying anything. And the Chinooks ended up being the heavy lifter for us to insert ops up, you know, way up in the Hindu Kush. I mean, Blackhawks couldn't even do it. So very, very challenging flying there. And the early days, you know, they were launching out of K2, out of Karchi Khatibat in Uzbekistan, going north into, uh...

• 1:09:03Jocko Willink?

  So was it like when you're flying at that altitude in a helicopter, is it like you're driving on? On like wet pavement where you just don't get the reactions that you would normally get?

• 1:09:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, it depends on the altitude. The aircraft is not as responsive, but where where you really pay the price is if you get, when you're doing an approach in there, I mean, you got to closely manage your power or you're going to get in trouble. If you let momentum develop on that descent into the approach, I mean, you don't have the power to go around, you know, you're committed regardless of the enemy situation. So it's just really, you're just very, very limited on the on on power and options up at altitude. So, you know, I remember flying missions up fourteen, fifteen thousand feet, so you got to be on O2 with forty sevens and they're, you know, their allowable load was like eight guys

• 1:09:57Speaker 01

  in a Chinook. I mean, usually it's plus or minus a ton in those things, right? I mean, you know, just keep packing them in. I've seen a hundred Rangers in a Chinook before.

• 1:10:05Jocko Willink?

  And you're down to eight?

• 1:10:06Speaker 01

  Eight.

• 1:10:07Jocko Willink?

  When you guys knew, did you have any time to say, hey, we better go start flying, you know, around the Rocky Mountains?

• 1:10:14Speaker 01

  Nope.

• 1:10:14Jocko Willink?

  Just figure it out.

• 1:10:15Speaker 01

  Later we did. Later we'd start prepping. We'd go out. In fact, we lost an airplane at Mount Massa, Colorado, guys training up to go in there. Lost four guys. I was the commander at the time, but in the initial days, no. Nothing, because, you know, it was a come as you are deal.

• 1:10:29Jocko Willink?

  So do you know, just knowledge that you know, like, okay, well, we're at altitude. This is gonna suck.

• 1:10:36Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, I mean, you do the performance planning, right? So you get, you you understand what the aircraft can and most, more importantly, can't do at those altitudes. So, but you're, you know, you're sort of in denial at those numbers, you know? I mean, I never thought I'd say eight guys in a Chinook. Plus, you had to deal with the brownout. That dust was just really, really bad. Worse in the southern parts, down in Helmand and down in those areas around Kandahar. Less so up in, you know, up in Hindu Kush Mountains up in the north, but, you know, I mean, it was brutal flying. Brutal.

• 1:11:13Jocko Willink?

  And so you, when you first got over there, your first deployment, what's your op tempo like?

• 1:11:18Speaker 01

  So I got over there the first time I was there, I think September of O2 or August of O2 through maybe October or maybe November. I can't remember, but. We did a fair amount of missions and, and then, you know, the last, next time I went over there, I think I was there in January, no, I left December, I remember, I left December right before Christmas, thirty days to the day, I was right back in the same crappy little tent up there at Bagram, you know, with rainwater, I mean, it was just water running through it and everything. And then from January through March, because, you know, they were

• 1:12:00Speaker 01

  spinning up at the latter part of that to go into Iraq, right? We were, they got the word, we're going in. And we didn't do much, I mean, because weather was really crappy. I did a couple of missions, some pretty challenging ones, way, way up in the, in some areas that were very tricky for aviation. In fact, one, I was so high in, in a place called Cantigua, that we couldn't have any fire support. I mean, the airplanes wouldn't perform. So I just elected to stay on the X, right? We infill and I got the ground force commander, said, give me a couple of guys to cover our blind spots, and we're just gonna go to ground idle while you guys clear and get whatever you're getting and then hop back in and we'll...

• 1:12:43Speaker 01

  Normally, you know, you know the deal, we come in, we land, drop off and then split. We did. We just stayed and, you know, pulled the engines back because I didn't, I didn't want to, it took us two hour turn to go get gas down the hill and come back and I didn't want to leave them up there for that long. So we said, hey, we'll just hang out.

• 1:13:00Jocko Willink?

  How long were you on the ground for?

• 1:13:01Speaker 01

  About forty-five minutes to an hour. It wasn't that bad. It was cold, though. I mean, it was freezing, it was snowing and everything else up there. It was, like I said, February or something.

• 1:13:13Jocko Willink?

  How, how, at what point did you notice that people were just like, this is what we're, this is what we're doing, this is the new reality? You know, when I talk to you, you know, you were talking about, I was talking about the mindset, you know, when you did Panama and then you did Desert Storm, you, you're not quite there yet, you know, you're, you're not quite there yet. And then, you know, we were talking earlier, my first deployment to Iraq, it's like, oh, we're doing another, you know, it's like, oh yeah, we're doing another op, this is just what we're doing, it's just like, becomes normal.

• 1:13:41Speaker 01

  Yeah. I think that really, you know, there was, the op tempo, the operational tempo in Afghanistan...

• 1:13:51Speaker 01

  Wasn't that bad, just because of the terrain and the planning and we didn't have all the ISR back then, you know, we didn't have all that, all the, you know, the tools to give us good situational awareness on targets like we ended up having in Iraq. Where I saw that it was, we really became just sort of another day at the office was in Iraq. So I went over in May and I'll never forget my boss. This is May, May of oh three? May of oh three. Got it. So my boss, you know, they had punched up there around March or so, I think. You know, they did that big one into Baghdad International Airport. I came in and I, you know, the XO is sort of the, you know, he's the guy in charge of

• 1:14:33Speaker 01

  all the staff and, you know, logistics and all that kind of stuff. And my boss said, hey, come over here, we're, we're, we're going to be out of here in 30 days. I just want you to make sure we got property accountability and you get all your stuff and get out. And I was like, you know, I mean, I hadn't been to Iraq, so I'm like, sign me up, chief. I'm in, you know? Yeah, so I showed up there and well, of course, you know, 30 days never happened, but man, I mean, the best time. I mean, we did, we did some ops that were just incredible. I mean, the op tempo was really, really high. I mean, we were banging targets. We did an op, it's been in several magazines, op reindeer.

• 1:15:14Speaker 01

  It was a bunch of, bunch of foreign fighters had gathered, they were getting ready to split up and attack coalition bases with teams of three. And we got the intel on them, went in with a half gaff kind of thing, you know? Helicopter assault force for the audience and ground assault force on each side of this wadi. And I mean, it was, it was game on. I mean, it went on, we fought for about two hours, killed about a hundred of them. Young Ranger took an RPG below the knee, you know, we casevac him, I'm still in touch with him, Matt Waters, he's up in Tacoma as a cop right now. Freaking out. Yeah, he is, he's, he's, I mean, second Ranger Battalion, B code 275, was he in it?

• 1:15:56Speaker 01

  I mean, I was a mission of a lifetime, you know, I was, I was air mission commander riding in the jump seat of a 47 tracer, we were coming in underneath the tracer firing, it was awesome. In fact, that was, the tracer fire was coming out my left side, you know, and of course your chest plate's meant to protect your chest, I was loosening up my side strap and slid it around this way. Like, oh, I'm going to get clipped, it's going to be over here, you know? But just a great mission. AH-6 is just crushing them and it was a fight went on for a couple hours. Did a lot of engagements, shooting M4s out of the side of the, because the Rangers were so close to the enemy, that we didn't want to use miniguns because of the ricochets. We'd just hover in there and the AH-6 guys would take them out with M4s and PEC-2s and

• 1:16:38Speaker 01

  all that. So it was a good, that was the, it remains the best mission I ever did. It was awesome.

• 1:16:43Jocko Willink?

  And so this is, this is in like?

• 1:16:46Speaker 01

  That was June 11th, 2003.

• 1:16:48Jocko Willink?

  Got it.

• 1:16:49Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:16:49Jocko Willink?

  And this is, now, now we're getting into legit op tempo. This is what we're doing. Reload. Get jocked up again. We're going out tomorrow. Here's the next target.

• 1:16:59Speaker 01

  It went from that till, you know, you flash forward now, a couple of years later, right prior to the surge, and we were running, we'd be running seven, eight ops a night. I mean, I'd have those big screen TVs and ISR tracking multiple ops out of, out of Balad. And I mean, it was just non-stop.

• 1:17:18Jocko Willink?

  So you went for 30 days. How long did you end up staying for?

• 1:17:21Speaker 01

  Well, he said it was going to be 30 days. So I left in August. So I was there about 90 or so, and then I came back, was back for two months, and then I went over there for Christmas and spent, you know, another 60. And then I, you know, a lot of guys can tell you how many times they're over there. I don't, I have no idea. I just lost track. I mean, I was just, you know, it was back and forth, back and forth.

• 1:17:42Jocko Willink?

  And, and at what point did you go, were you XO the whole time, or did you eventually fleet up and?

• 1:17:46Speaker 01

  No. So the Army does it a little different. And so I was XO from 2002 till 2004. And then to command first of the 160th, it's a special board called the Special Mission Unit Board that meets. And you have to have commanded another 05 level command before that. So I got selected and went over to Germany and commanded for two years over in Germany, which was, you know, a great, I wouldn't call it a breather, you know, commands command, but I didn't deploy. And so I, you know, the family and I, you know, drank a bunch of Heffys and ate a bunch of chocolate and, you know, looked like a couple of sausage. My wife's like, man, this camera makes us look fat. Oh yeah, that's definitely it.

• 1:18:34Jocko Willink?

  And so you did that tour then?

• 1:18:35Speaker 01

  And then I got picked up to go back to 1160 and uh which was oh six to oh eight. And then the guy that was supposed to take the regiment opted to retire instead for personal reasons. And they I they did a special they I my name went into command, you know, to be considered for command in the regiment at the oh six level. So I did. I came right out of first of the 160th, moved my box, I love me stuff and walked down the hallway and took over the regiment. So I was in command six straight years.

• 1:19:11Jocko Willink?

  Dang.

• 1:19:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, but you know, you don't realize how tired you are. My wife's like, yeah, you're smoked. I'm like, no, I ain't smoked. I'm like a little Energizer Bunny here. I'm ready to keep going.

• 1:19:19Jocko Willink?

  When you when you went back as battalion commander, so what was that? So then now it's 2006. What was your most your focus?

• 1:19:26Speaker 01

  Iraq. So we were totally engaged in Iraq. So myself, my XO and my OPSO, we were on a three. You know, so there was one of the three of us was down range as a task force commander forward. So I was totally committed. We were totally committed to Iraq. We did some other stuff. We had some stuff in South America pop up where we deployed operationally. There was, you know, some hostage stuff going on down there. But we were completely mainly we were focused and I was really worried about keeping the team together. Remember, we've been in a fight now. This is for several years. So chronic fatigue was an issue for me. I was really worried the wheels were going to come off. So a lot of my focus was

• 1:20:07Speaker 01

  keeping, you know, making sure I'm monitoring the players and and making sure that we're, you know, doing the best. And I got my crystal there who is, you know, you know, aviation is the pacing item over there. So they're they want more and more and more. So, you know, and I always I told my crystal this several years later, my job was to try to meet your requirements, but you know, make sure the unit survived and we didn't, you know, we didn't start losing people to accidents and things like that. And we lost a lot of folks, but all, you know, combat related, I did have, you know, I lost one bird on Mount Mass of Colorado. We lost four doing high altitude training for preparing to go into Afghanistan when I was regimental commander. So we certainly had our

• 1:20:48Speaker 01

  share of accidents, but but overall I thought it was, you know, it was less than what I was expecting.

• 1:20:55Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you wouldn't think that when when.

• 1:21:00Jocko Willink?

  You know, after, after Desert One, right, and they formed JSOC.

• 1:21:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:21:04Jocko Willink?

  They weren't trying to put together a, a you, a bunch of units that would be on sustained combat operations around the world, right? This was not the plan.

• 1:21:13Speaker 01

  No, it was hostage red, it was short, intense ops, and then, you know, and then, you know, back home to refit and retrain and reset, right? It wasn't this.

• 1:21:23Jocko Willink?

  So, so taking this group of people and just going, oh yeah, you're gonna go to war. Oh yeah, it's gonna last about 20 years, which is what happened.

• 1:21:33Speaker 01

  It's still, yeah, I mean, you know, it's wrapping up there in Afghanistan now, but you know, the ones, you know, I always joked when I'd talk to my counterparts, I'd say, you know, we've deployed, we're just still waiting for that redeployment order. You know, because you stay, we're staying over there, so aviation is always there. Even the ground units are coming in and out, you know, the, they had more of a predictable cycle, right? You got your two-year cycle at NSW, and there's George and other cycles that the other units use, but because aviation is high demand and low density, I mean, you gotta spread the peanut butter a lot thinner. I mean, we were rotating all the time.

• 1:22:13Speaker 01

  You know, we had two C five, C seventeen's a month coming out of Campbell to replace, you know, combat damaged aircraft and bring aircraft back for maintenance and then rotate people in on them.

• 1:22:28Jocko Willink?

  Are they gonna try and make special operations bigger? It certainly doesn't seem that way.

• 1:22:34Speaker 01

  No, you know, I mean, I had the RAND guys come in and see me when I was the regimental commander and said, hey, there's enough demand for a second regiment. And I said, I'm sure there is, but there's no way the Army could sustain that. I mean, we're a talent thief from Army Aviation already. You know, you don't get assigned to the 160th, right, as a pilot? You, you have to be, you have to apply and go through an assessment process and get selected. And you know, and there's the brigades pay a price for that, you know, the aviation brigades in the army, they're losing solid folks. Now, the nation gains from that, but you know, if we doubled the size of that, there's no way, no way they could sustain that. It's just the nature of the beast, you know, I mean, we're gonna be, you know, we're gonna

• 1:23:18Speaker 01

  be the, we're gonna be forward and we're gonna have to operate at a different off tempo than our, than the ground forces we support, and it's just a fact of life. I accepted a long time ago, understood the realities behind it and never pushed back. Because at the end of the day, you know, I'm not gonna leave you in an HLZ and that, you know, and I'm not, you know, if you need combat power and we can provide it, if it's physically possible, we're gonna do it.

• 1:23:45Jocko Willink?

  So from a leadership perspective, that's like full commander's intent right there. Like, hey, we are going to support these guys on the ground no matter what it takes.

• 1:23:54Speaker 01

  Exactly. And you know, your greatest strength carries over to be your greatest weakness. I'm sure that some of my senior officers would say that I was pretty aggressive in that, and that, and they would be accurate. You know, I, but it was, it was, you know, burned into my psyche early on that, hey, that's why we exist. So, and I don't care if the ground force commander is an E6 or an O6, I don't care, doesn't matter. I don't care what uniform he's wearing, you know, what service he's in. I mean, if, if there are responsibility to support them, then we're gonna meet that responsibility no matter what. And I, you know, I take a lot of pride in that. But we also, you know, we can accept

• 1:24:35Speaker 01

  more risk in a 160th because we have a special assessment selection process to get our pilots. And our pilots stay with us for, I'm not saying forever, but I'll give you an example. When you saw the movie Black Hawk Down and you see that little bird landing in the intersection and they pull out the two wounded operators that get shot on, they were on Super 61. So one of the pilots in there was a guy Carl Meyer, who I went through green platoon with in 88, early 88, February. That happened in 93, right? So he'd already been in the unit five years. He retired like two and a half years ago, or not even two years ago.

• 1:25:13Jocko Willink?

  It's from the unit.

• 1:25:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, and he was still flying MH6 assault birds that whole time. So that's

• 1:25:18Jocko Willink?

  Freaking awesome.

• 1:25:19Speaker 01

  That'd be like you being on a team. I mean, you're going back into a building, yep, been there, done that, got a hundred of these t-shirts, you know. That knowledge and that competency and proficiency that you get out of being able to retain those pilots, what that really translates to is, you know, I'm willing, we're willing to push the envelope on ops because we know we have that talent and we rely on those warrants, you know, primarily to, you know, make good decisions and to push the envelope. We had an op up in Mosul area and they went long, right? This is, you know, ground guys doing SSC, it went

• 1:26:01Speaker 01

  long and I had to extend them beyond like 18 hours of flight time, which is a long time. And they were taxiing back into one of the airfields up there to get gas and one of the MH60s clipped the side of a hangar with his rotor blades and it was clearly from fatigue. And, you know, when we did the accident investigation, I told my boss, a three-star, I said, I own that. And they said, what do you mean? I said, look, I know we got to learn lessons from this, but the fact is, I extended them well beyond their day. And this was, you know, they weren't flying, you know, supplies back and forth, they're doing combat. The guys retired, I took the risk, so I own that. You know, I mean, we pushed them and we paid a price. I mean, it's a small price frankly, and I

• 1:26:45Speaker 01

  would have done it all over again. But, so it costs a couple hundred grand for a rotor blade. But, you know.

• 1:26:52Jocko Willink?

  What leadership lessons do you have when you look at yourself as a platoon commander in charge of eight birds to battalion commander?

• 1:27:02Speaker 01

  So first of all, you know, I believe that leadership is a learned skill, not a natural skill, and that those, the skill sets required at different levels change, right? So as a PL, a platoon leader, right, it's direct leadership. Jaco, follow me, you know, we're going here, we're doing that, right? And you and your troop. But as you get more senior, now you've got these layers of bureaucracy in between you, right? And, you know, think back to when you're a young 01, 02, down in the teams and you got, you know, that ancient dude who's an 05 up there, right? And he was clearly clueless, because anybody who's above you is clueless, right?

• 1:27:44Speaker 01

  That's a, you know, common held belief by all. And, and, you know, I just kept learning, you know? So when I was, and remember I told you I was really worried about chronic fatigue and morale and, you know, families are fraying because of what's, of this op tempo. So that warrant I was telling you about, Carl Meyer, who was a little bird driver and his wife Cindy, who I'm still friends with to this day. One day I was walking around the hangar and, and she said, you know, you ought to go spend some time with these young troops, you know, because they want to hear from the battalion commander what's happening, you know? And it really resonated with me. So I blocked out, and this is a small leadership technique, but it was very effective for me.

• 1:28:28Speaker 01

  I blocked out two hours a week, and I went, and I never told anybody where I was going. And it wasn't an inspection, right? I wasn't coming over there and saying, Willink, why do you got a crokey on your frickin' sunglasses? It was more, you know, just to sort of get a bird's, you know, a ground view of how things are going. And, you know, at first it was quite a, you know, quite a dust-up. You know, I'd walk into, you know, Little Bird Company and, you know, the guys are like, what the hell are you doing down here? Well, I said, I'm the commander of this outfit. I'd like to think I could come down here if I want. But over time, they realized it was no threat. I nature, I never chewed anybody's ass when I was down there. It wasn't, you know, it wasn't about that. If I saw something particularly egregious, I'd go back to the XO and say, hey, go down to, you know, Owens Hangar and police those dudes up.

• 1:29:13Speaker 01

  I'm the good cop, you're the bad cop, kind of thing. But what I would do is spend time with troops and it was very low threat. So I'd get them around, sit around and talk with them. Hey, you know, what can I do to make the unit better? You know, what do you think about it? Are you going? I was a big pusher of off-duty education because of my personal background. I knew how, you know, how powerful it was. And so I'd always encourage them about that. And I'd look for easy wins, low-hanging fruit, you know? Like if there was something going on that needed to be fixed, but they were just struggling through, you know, multiple forms and triplicate to get some crap done or something, then I would short-circuit that. And, you know, I've shared this before with other folks, but one day I was in the engine

• 1:29:56Speaker 01

  shop and we were turning aircraft from combat damage and, you know, maintenance. I mean, it was really, we could barely keep up with what we needed to have downrange. And I relied on these, you know, young 18, 19-year-old kids that were bore-scoping engines and, you know, doing stuff that they had no idea of probably their criticality to us maintaining the right number of aircraft to deploy, but I clearly knew. So I'd, you know, I'd come into their little engine shop this particular time and I'd call them all in, you know, round, you know? In fact, Cindy Meyer used to call it Uncle Clay's Story Hour, you know? So I'd sit in there and, you know, chat with them, but I'd always ask them, hey, you know, what, what could I do? You know, what can I do to, to make the unit better?

• 1:30:41Speaker 01

  What can I do to make your job easier? And this one young E4 said to me, you know, sir, I maxed my Army Physical Fitness Test, the APFT, you know, in Army lingo. And he said, but I gotta go out and run with like the slowest people out there in formation run, you know, it's a bunch of garbage, you know? Why don't we have an incentive PT program? Which is pretty common, you know? You score above a certain score and you, you know, you can sort of do your own thing. And I said, that's a good question. Let me get back to you. And that was about 1:00 in the afternoon. So I walked back up to the headquarters, got on email, sent email out to the first SARS and said, hey, do you have an incentive PT program?

• 1:31:20Speaker 01

  If, you know, if not, why not and should we have one? And they basically all wrote back and said, yeah, look, we've been in combat. We just, that kind of stuff has sort of fallen off our radar. We should have one. So, you know, I got with the S R major, typed up a policy, you know, the adjutant more accurately typed it up. I signed it and said, if you get above whatever, a two ninety, it's a possible score of three hundred. You can P T on your own. I walked right back down about two hours later to that same dude, you know, specialist, I don't remember his name. Handed him the policy letter and said, hey, thanks. You were right. We should have done this. It just fell off our radar. You've, you know, you have changed battalion policy.

• 1:32:04Speaker 01

  Here is our incentive P T program. You know, of course, that kid crowed about that, you know, and I mean, six months later, I'm hopping on a C seventeen, pulling a pump over to Iraq and the sergeant, you know, is crawling into my fart sack, you know, getting ready to take my Ambien, go to La La Land. And he, uh, he said, hey, sir, I just want to tell you, you know, that kid still just brags about changing policy. But, you know, little things like that, the force responds to that, right? They know you give a damn, and which I do. And, um, you know, they know they got a voice. And of course, I didn't, you know, you know, why can't we have, you know, women in the barracks, you know, blah, blah, blah. You know, like, you know, why can't we run a prostitution ring out here?

• 1:32:48Speaker 01

  Well, you know, they're not going to get everything, you know, but, you know, I, uh, I tried to, you know, make sure they understood they were appreciated and, uh, you know, and that doesn't mean I don't hold the standard, right? I mean, you know, you got to earn the right to be in these units every day and it ain't a job for life. But I also needed, you know, they, they should have faith and confidence in the chain of command. We're going to do the best we can and be transparent as we can. And, you know, I think it worked pretty well.

• 1:33:16Jocko Willink?

  How about when you elevated up to then regimental commander?

• 1:33:20Speaker 01

  A little harder, right? And it got exponentially harder as a general officer.

• 1:33:26Speaker 01

  But again, now the bureaucracy increases more. And now, you know, as a battalion commander, I'm down and in, right? I mean, I'm dealing with my boss, a regimental commander. But really, my focus is combat, right, in my unit. As the regimental commander at the time, I also had a humongous budget. You know, I was the most expensive O6 level command in the Army by orders of magnitude, by orders of magnitude. We were also geographically dispersed. I have a battalion up at Fort Lewis, Washington, 4160. I got a battalion in Savannah, Georgia, 3160. I got two battalions, operational battalions at Fort Campbell, plus a training battalion, plus an R&D outfit.

• 1:34:10Speaker 01

  I've got guys all over the world. And I'm, you know, I'm an O6. So most of my time, and that was the big change, is now it's up and out. Now I'm protecting my budget, right? Like, I'm the best-looking woman at the frat party. I mean, everybody wants to go out with me. They're trying to steal my cash, you know? So I'm, you know, and I'm an O6 and I'm dealing with GOs, you know?

• 1:34:31Speaker 01

  So it was much more resource stuff. I'm looking two or three ridge lines down. What do I need to do to make sure that we're adequately resourced and that we remain, you know, quoting General or Admiral McRaven, we maintain that comparative advantage over our adversaries. So that was my focus. That was the biggest difference. It wasn't down and in. It wasn't combat anymore. It was taking care of the regiment down the road and making sure that they had what they needed. And that was really this, I mean, that was a great training ground for being a flag officer. Because that's exactly what, you know, when you were aiding for McGuire, I bet most of his stuff was resource stuff, right?

• 1:35:11Jocko Willink?

  Oh yeah, absolutely.

• 1:35:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:35:13Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, he was, that's what, that's what he, that's what he did. That's what you do, you know?

• 1:35:17Speaker 01

  It's about money, man.

• 1:35:18Jocko Willink?

  It's about money.

• 1:35:18Speaker 01

  Title 10.

• 1:35:19Jocko Willink?

  And, well, I'm sure you know the Navy, the SEAL teams don't always do well in that category. So it's rough sometimes. And like you said, especially when you're going up, you know, against the Air Force and just the amount of platforms that they have is freaking rough.

• 1:35:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:35:35Jocko Willink?

  Because they need so much money for each one of those platforms. It's, it's like way more expensive than a boat.

• 1:35:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, much more. And I think now, though, we're now, we're, we got our, we sort of got our swim lanes, right? So we, you know, we do, we're rotary wing, that's what we do. We do have unmanned, we got Pred Grey Eagles, which are basically a Predator, you know, improved Predator.

• 1:36:00Speaker 01

  But, you know, we're very focused on what we do. AFSoC is very focused on what we do. And, you know, going back to my tenure at AFSoC as a young captain, those relationships that I built with those Air Force guys really paid huge dividends later, right? Like, I'm a personal friends with the Air Force Special Ops Commander, Jim Slife. You know, I mean, he was the Chief of Staff, it's so common, I was a three. You know, we had a, we have a personal friendship. Scott Howell out of Fort Bragg, we're personal friends. I mean, when I call him and say something, it's, there's a trust factor that goes both ways. And it's with numerous other... So, I mean, that made my life a lot easier and really broadened my sort of horizons as an officer, realize that, you know, hey, it really does take a joint force to get this done.

• 1:36:45Speaker 01

  And understand the different perspectives, you know?

• 1:36:48Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, we, I was really, my last deployment was in, was in Ramadi and just, I mean, we, we wouldn't have been able to do anything without the Army and the Marine Corps to have our back.

• 1:36:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, QRF, all that stuff.

• 1:37:00Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, QRF, CASAVAC, it's just every, everything that we needed, we needed from those guys, they needed to support us and we needed to support them. It was just an awesome relationship.

• 1:37:11Jocko Willink?

  So you get done with that tour?

• 1:37:13Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:37:14Jocko Willink?

  And then what's next?

• 1:37:16Speaker 01

  So I had been deferred from the War College like three times, you know, I was supposed to go, you're supposed to go be 406 Command, as you know, you know, but I never went, I was deferred. And so I ended up going after and I made Flag Officer while I was in the War College. I mean, I didn't get announced because I had to go through all the joint credit stuff you have to do, you know? And, uh, but I ended up deploying to Afghanistan as part of NTMA, National Training Mission Afghanistan, and I stood up the Afghan Special Mission Wing to support their Afghan Commandos and the Kotejahs and all those dudes. And that was another education, so I'm in Kabul.

• 1:37:59Speaker 01

  And you know, we stood up this fleet of this unit of MI-17s and ISR birds, U-28 sort of, you know, not with all the high-speed kit that you got on an American bird, but fixed-wing ISR platforms, stood up all the units, got the funding through DOD, and it's still, I mean, they're still banging targets to this day. I ran into the unit commander a couple of years ago. He was at a conference here or something. We got caught up, but I mean, that was another real growing experience, right? Because it's all about money and I'd have to brief the Pentagon, the Afghan Resource Oversight Council, you know, why do we buy MI-17s and not American? And I'm like, well, you said we had to be out here December of

• 1:38:43Speaker 01

  14. There's no way I can train them on a new airplane between now and then. So, you know, I'm all about buying American, but you know, the Russian, the MI's.

• 1:38:53Jocko Willink?

  How many birds did they get for their?

• 1:38:55Speaker 01

  Twenty-eight, thirty helicopters, twenty-eight were operational. The ministers and everything, I always wanted to fly on them, so I bought two extra just to take care of the VIP stuff, which was, you know, we would, you know, it was a wicked pain in my ass. But, and then we bought, I think it was fifteen, fifteen fixed-wing birds, and we were split across. We had a squadron in conduits, we had a squadron in helmen, and then we had two in Kabul. And we did both CT, counterterrorism, and counter-narcotics. So DEA was a player in there, and that was actually part of the negotiation. The DEA wanted to make sure that we were still going to hit DEA targets. So, and which we, you know, I gave them my personal guarantee,

• 1:39:40Speaker 01

  you know, we're not going to blow that mission off. It's really not something the military wants to get into, but, you know, we, we kept that as a primary mission set for them.

• 1:39:47Jocko Willink?

  Who's running training for the Afghan pilots?

• 1:39:50Speaker 01

  Well, that was interesting, right? I mean, trying to find an Afghan that can read, first of all, back then, because the schools have been shut down for, you know, what, 20 years or so. So we had a corps of pilots that had been flying, that had been trained by the Russians that were there a few, but not enough. So we ran some of our pilots through UAE. They had some training there that they go over to UAE, about Abu Dhabi, and they go through, I think it was Horizon's Flight Academy, it's probably still there. And then we'd, we'd pick them, you know, and it was funny, because the DEA, you know, they're like, you know, they're very worried, understandably so, about insider attacks, right? So they came to me one day and they said, hey, we gotta give these guys a polygraph.

• 1:40:33Speaker 01

  And I'm like, okay, well, what are we gonna ask them? Cause I mean, everybody steals there, right? You know, patronage is part of the deal, right? You know, hey, we'd take my sister to, uh, you know, condos or whatever, here's 20 bucks. I mean, that in the mil- US military, that'd be like, you'd be prosecuted for that. Over there, that's just normal.

• 1:40:52Jocko Willink?

  Normal life.

• 1:40:53Speaker 01

  So I'm talking to the DEA guy and they said, so, you know, here's the way I think it needs to go. Okay, Jaco, you wanna come to the special mission wing? Here, put on this little light detector thing. They actually had a finger thing, which I think was, I mean skeptical about that, but. I said, okay, Jaco, did you steal anything today? The answer is yes, did you feel bad about it? And do you promise not to steal tomorrow? Okay, you're a go. You know, I mean, it's just a different, I mean, you know.

• 1:41:19Jocko Willink?

  Different culture.

• 1:41:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, so we had to be, you know, so vetting was a big thing. And then, you know, the insider attacks really got worse, you know, later. In fact, one of our families was a National Guard guy in this SOWF that was training with the Rangers. He was a guard guy out of Utah, Brent Taylor, shot and killed, I mean, by an Afghan doing a ruck march, pulled out his pistol and shot the dude. But, you know, that was a challenge. And human, it's always human talent, right? Humans are more important than hardware. I mean, and it's true, you know, getting the right guys. But, hey, listen, they, right after I left, they hit their, did their first NVG, uh, you know, I think it was to the Y or something, mission down near J-Pad. Man, I couldn't have been prouder of those dudes.

• 1:42:03Speaker 01

  And they, you know, I get feedback, you know, periodically from folks that they're still, I mean, they're by far the most successful aviation unit over there.

• 1:42:12Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's outstanding. We, we had a, a guy on this podcast, Captain Anh, who was a, who was a South Vietnamese pilot and flew SOG missions and

• 1:42:22Speaker 01

  Awesome.

• 1:42:22Jocko Willink?

  I mean, just freaking epic. But he got, he got trained over here.

• 1:42:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, Fort Rucker, probably, right?

• 1:42:27Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, he got trained over here and then went back over and, um, man, if you get a chance, listen to that one. He's

• 1:42:34Speaker 01

  Major Anh?

• 1:42:35Jocko Willink?

  Major, uh, he was a captain and then he eventually made major his, one of his, well, his last mission, he was Got shot, um, bird's going down. He's trying to save the bird as he's going down. Everything's on fire. The, uh, I guess the yoke, what, what, what is he holding?

• 1:42:58Speaker 01

  He's holding a cyclic.

• 1:42:59Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. So he's holding the cyclic. Everything's too hot for him to hold on to. You can't hold on to it. So he's got his hands up by his chest. And he sees the bird's going to crash if he doesn't just grab hold of these controls. So he just freaking reaches down, grabs hold of the controls, gets the, gets the pilot, gets the aircraft to the ground. Uh, his hands are just burned. Beyond anything. And he goes to undo his seatbelt and his fingers fall off. He goes to undo, but he manages to get it off, you know, hooked on something and get his seatbelt off. Goes to open the door, his, the rest of his other hand, fingers fall off.

• 1:43:42Jocko Willink?

  Eventually gets out of the aircraft. Get in, gets away, um, gets back to friendlies. Ended up going to hospital, loses both of his hands.

• 1:43:55Jocko Willink?

  You know, carries on for a little while, the war, the war ends, ends up in a, in a communist prison camp. Gets, you know, can't do, can't do anything really. I mean, he's got, he doesn't have hands. So they eventually just kind of let him out of the prison camp and he, he goes on multiple escape attempts. Trying to get out of there and eventually he does make it out, makes it to America. But, um.

• 1:44:20Speaker 01

  I'll definitely, I'll write the, after we're done, I'll write that number down. I'll definitely, I just subscribe, I'm gonna, yeah, I'll definitely listen. I'd love to hear.

• 1:44:27Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, those, those King B pilots over there. Um, this is also a guy who was going into a hot LZ where they'd already lost one or two birds. And he says, you know, he just takes his, leaves his crew chief there, leaves his copilot. He just takes his gunner. Cause he's like, hey, we're going in, there's, chances aren't looking good. I'm not risking anybody else. We're going.

• 1:44:50Speaker 01

  Nice.

• 1:44:51Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's, you don't see that very often.

• 1:44:54Jocko Willink?

  Freaking awesome.

• 1:44:55Speaker 01

  Inspiring, yeah.

• 1:44:57Jocko Willink?

  So you get that stood up, what's, what's next on?

• 1:44:59Speaker 01

  So then I get, I take command of the Army Special Ops Aviation Command at Fort Bragg. I was the second commander, followed the very capable, uh, now Lieutenant General retired Kevin Mangum, who was my boss at the regiment, I took over for him there. And really that's a Title X command, right? Remember I told you I was focused up and out as a regimental commander? So the army leadership recognized that they needed a general officer that sort of took care of the trained man and equipped stuff and let the regiment really focus on warfighting. So I did two years there, um, you know, and really it's like a lot of budget stuff and personnel stuff. Then I went to Korea as the DCG of the 2nd Infantry Division from 14 to 15, and that was a blast.

• 1:45:43Jocko Willink?

  I was gonna say, how awesome was that?

• 1:45:45Speaker 01

  That was. I mean, I have my family. My wife had just finished her masters and was teaching and my kids, one kid was in college, the other ones were in high school. So I said, you know, hey, um, you guys, I'll do this year. And, uh, you know, I mean, other than not having my family with me, I mean, I was a PT machine, man. I ate, you know, you know, Captain Crunch Berry and frickin' protein bars and worked out in the gym every day, man. I mean, you know, and dealt with the Koreans, learned a lot about, you know, the village idiot up north there, KJU. And, um, I mean, it was an awesome, awesome tour. I loved it. I loved Korea, loved the people there, you know.

• 1:46:23Jocko Willink?

  And how awesome is it that you get to go from your entire, your career of aviation, and then boom, you're deputy commander of the 2nd Infantry Division?

• 1:46:30Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, it was cool. I had a great boss. I mean, you know, and, uh, I mean, I learned, again, you know, it's all about the journey, right? There is real no destination in leadership. You're just continuing to learn and get better and you get a lot of failure around the, you know, along the way, which makes you better ultimately. But Korea was broadening my stuff. First of all, I hadn't really spent much time in the conventional military, except for that one battalion, Reston and Saw. You know, so I'm like, you know, they're giving me some army report about, you know, readiness. I'm like, mm. They said, so sir, clearly you know about this. I was like, mm, nope. Don't even know what that acronym means, you know? Yeah. I'm working without tools here, boys. So I need you to step up, you know?

• 1:47:13Speaker 01

  But you come with that sort of, hey, we can do this. And you know, I took more of a focus on the human side, you know, and, you know, building the unit and doing a lot of leader development stuff and PTing the crap out of them every chance I got, you know. So, you know, I mean, it was, it was a blast.

• 1:47:30Jocko Willink?

  And that was a one-year tour?

• 1:47:32Speaker 01

  One year, yeah. And then I came back. I was the deputy CG. Probably, you know, my boss was Tovo.

• 1:47:37Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 1:47:38Speaker 01

  Ken Tovo.

• 1:47:38Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, he was just freaking awesome.

• 1:47:40Speaker 01

  Best boss, best boss ever.

• 1:47:42Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. So he was the CG SOF commander when I was in Ramadi.

• 1:47:45Speaker 01

  And see, I was in Bilad when you were over there, because I saw Tovo. Mark Irwin was the TF-16 commander then, who's now the CEO of Bardstown Bourbon Company, by the way. I'm not sure how that skillset translated, but he makes some killer ass bourbon.

• 1:47:58Jocko Willink?

  I think I do know how that translates, but it's all good.

• 1:48:01Speaker 01

  But anyway, yeah, I worked for Tovo for two years and just under two years. Loved it. Great dude.

• 1:48:08Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, he, he, he gave us such incredible support, you know, to my task unit down there in Ramadi. You know, it was a slugfest down there and he knew it. And he just was awesome. Was just outstanding.

• 1:48:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, Colin said the same thing. You know, funny story about Tovo. He had a great sense of humor, right? You know, he's sort of a quiet, dry sense of humor. And so his aide was this guy, Carter. I won't use his last name, but Carter, just in case he listens to this podcast. So his, the way our office was laid out is he had an XO who was an O5, and then he had an aide who was an O4. But he worked right outside my desk. And so, you know, a great guy. Mustang, like me, was Ranger Regiment guy, went to West Point and then went SF and, you know, just a stud. His wife's a doctor in the Air Force, actually. Anyway, so we got a mutually antagonistic relationship, you know, one-liners. So it

• 1:49:05Speaker 01

  started this war between us. So my, my RTO, my communicator, was an SF guy. And his wife was the manager of Victoria Secrets in Fayetteville. And so he was going on an overseas trip with Tovo and Tovo had two knee replacements. So every time he went through TSA checkpoint, he got wanded. So we put a, we put a pair of like, I don't know, size 50 thong women's skivvies inside of Carter's coin bag, right? Then we put a throwaway on top. So like, you know, on his, on his day and a half bag. So he opens it up. He's like, oh, you think you're gonna get me with these underwear? Well, he doesn't check his coin bag. So he goes through the Fayetteville International Airport there.

• 1:49:49Speaker 01

  And Tovo's getting wanded. The bag goes through the, you know, the x-ray machine. Of course, you know, the TSA one's like, hey, we got a check. Yep. Yes, ma'am. No, it's my coin bag right here, right in front of Tovo. She pulls out those skivvies. And of course, he knew it was me behind, you know, the master criminal there. So then he starts having Tovo sign these like his command photos and putting them in a frame, like with messages, you know, Clay, I know I'm your mentor. You love me. And he put them in my bookcase, but I didn't have the key to get like the shit out of there, right? So I'm like, alright. So I have my XO blow up a command photo of me, like, you know, the drop down ceiling tiles, you know, they're whatever, they're 16 by 16 or something.

• 1:50:32Speaker 01

  And I put my picture over it and put it above the ceiling tile above his desk with like a little note, you know, for like three days. I'm sitting in my office and, you know, waiting for him. And all of a sudden, you're like, what the? You know?

• 1:50:46Speaker 01

  So anyway, you know, we should have been more responsible as, you know, senior gofos, but we weren't. At least I wasn't.

• 1:50:52Jocko Willink?

  You still gotta have a good time.

• 1:50:54Speaker 01

  Yeah. Oh, yeah. Tovo was definitely the adult leadership. I was the comic relief throughout.

• 1:50:59Jocko Willink?

  And then what was after that?

• 1:51:01Speaker 01

  So I went to the J3 at SOCOM.

• 1:51:03Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 1:51:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was March of 17. My wife joined me and the kids, we had a, you know, we had finished the school year and then they came down in June. And you know, there I, again, I didn't know what was next. I was thirty-nine years at that point, or you know, closing in on forty.

• 1:51:21Jocko Willink?

  Trying to figure out if you should make a career of it.

• 1:51:22Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, you know, I mean, I was still waiting for something to open up and, you know, like McDonald's or Dairy Queen or something. And, you know, and, you know, General Thomas was the SOCOM commander at the time, and he's now the chairman of the board of the Special Ops Warrior Foundation, and my neighbor. And he said, hey, I want you to, you know, I'm thinking about moving you to be the chief of staff, you know, and then let's see what happens with a potential third star, certainly not a lock. But, you know, I, I started thinking about that, and, you know, I said, hey, look, I'll stay if you need me to stay, if you're asking me, I think I'm ready to, ready to get out. I mean, I'll be close to forty-one by the time I, you know, punch out and sort of done,

• 1:52:07Speaker 01

  you know? And so he, you know, was very gracious and said, yeah, hey, good, you listen, you know, you got your time on the rock. And I was like, yeah, like twice over, you know? And when I retired there on MacDill, my youngest, who's now just finished up his sophomore year at Clemson, was like three months younger than I was when I joined, you know, so, you know, I go in at seventeen and I'm out at fifty-eight, so.

• 1:52:33Jocko Willink?

  How'd you end up at, you know, how'd you end up at the Special Operations Warrior?

• 1:52:42Speaker 01

  Well, I wasn't on my radar, right? I really didn't know what I was gonna do. I figured I'd, you know, be one of those, you know, dudes, you know, trying to sell helicopters to somebody or something. But General Brown, who, you know, we discussed before we went live, was the chairman of the board of the Special Ops Warrior Foundation, and I didn't know exactly what was going on, but I knew that Joe McGuire had been sort of nommed for that to go to National Counterterrorism Center. I know that was his last gig when he had, as a deputy, I think, up there before he retired. And that was sort of in the works, and they asked me... Would you be interested, they didn't, you know, they, would you be interested, do you have any interest in running a nonprofit? And to be honest with you, I hadn't really thought about it, you know?

• 1:53:27Speaker 01

  And so I, um, I almost said, no. I think, you know, I'm gonna go, I'll do that later, I'll maybe go make some money and then, you know, then I'll do that. But I thought, you know what? You know, just take a look. I said, hey, sir, you know, and this was not the only thing he talked to me about in the conversation, it was almost like a little sidebar at the end. I said, yeah, I'd like to learn more. And I didn't even know it was the SOWF. I just knew it was a nonprofit. Cause I was into running, I was a finalist to be the president of the Citadel at the time, which would have been a cool, you know, leader development job, right? Which I got X'd out by a four-star graduate, I can't believe it, you know? General Walters is doing great there.

• 1:54:08Speaker 01

  But then that thing came through with, uh, for Joe McGuire to go up there, and I didn't realize it at the time, but he was a big advocate for me and I remain, uh, grateful to him. And I ended up taking over for him. I graduated, I mean, I did my retirement ceremony, August 24th of 18, and September 1st, I was wearing my little special SOWF shirt and figuring, you know, and figuring out how to panhandle for money, you know?

• 1:54:37Jocko Willink?

  So tell us about the mission, um, of the Special Operations Warrior Foundation.

• 1:54:42Speaker 01

  So, you know, the fourth, the foundation is, just had our 41st anniversary. It was started in Desert One, when we lost those eight Americans, three Marines, uh, five airmen, left behind 17 kids, and there was a commitment by the members of that task force to take care of those kids. So that's how we started. And we've evolved over time. Today, um, we have two primary missions. We provide immediate financial assistance to severely wounded, ill, or injured special ops personnel. Um, and that comes in the form of an overnight check for up to 5K. If another organization like Navy SEAL Foundation takes care of, uh, their folks, and, you know, we work together with them. In fact, I had dinner with, uh, the director of Navy SEAL Foundation last night, her husband,

• 1:55:27Speaker 01

  Bill. And- So we do that. We overnight a check to them and that's really put the dog in the kennel money, fly in your mother to watch the kids so you can live with your loved one. And we also send them a device called the Echo Show, which is sort of like an Alexa with a video capability. So they can communicate with their family from the hospital room. They can stream videos and during COVID, that's been a really big hit. That's one mission, but our primary mission is a very unique approach to educating the children of fallen special ops personnel and the children of all Medal of Honor recipients, all, living and deceased and non-soft, right? So we cover all of them. And our program is, we call

• 1:56:10Speaker 01

  it Cradle to Career. It starts in preschool. We fund preschool for up to 8K per year per child. We fund unlimited tutoring from that time all the way through college graduation. We pay for their college visits. We bring our high school kids about 30 a year or so plus or minus to Tampa for a college prep course called EPIC, Education Preparation Information Conference. We talk to them about picking a major, picking a school, writing your essay for your Common App, financial management, study skills, time management, a lot of leader development stuff. Very, very effective. We pay, you know, we pay for

• 1:56:54Speaker 01

  all their college and we don't care if they go to a trade school. You want to be a plumber? You want to be a hairstylist? That's good. We'll, we'll fund that. If you go to an Ivy, we'll fund that. There is no limitation. It's your passion and potential that'll drive where you go and we're going to support you all the way through. We have a mentoring program. Keep in mind, these are kids in a single parent home, most likely, right? And you've been through it. You know the trauma that goes behind that casualty, right? That's, that's the real tragedy is just unfolding there. And so we have a mentoring program that starts in eighth grade with these kids. You know, hey, what do you want to be when you grow up, Jaco? You know, if I'm your dad and I'm telling you, you're like.

• 1:57:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, I'm not listening to you. So, we do that and that continues all the way through helping them secure internships. We pay for study abroad, we pay for internships. We pay a 5K stipend for them to relocate to do an internship. We have a special needs program that we got about 25 to 30 kids with varying degrees of special needs. And I consider special needs kids that have emotional issues associated with the loss of their parent, not what you would traditionally call special needs, right? Because, listen, their challenges, even in the discipline, are as a result of their parent's service, at least in part,

• 1:58:17Speaker 01

  I would say. Not that there's not accountability there, because there is. That's part of it, right? But, we fund that. And you take these kids from preschool, we invest in preschool, why? Because we've seen at that page dividends down the road. Last year, we had 41 kids graduate high school. 38 went right to college, two joined the military, and one took a year off, well above the national average. We had 93% of our kids last year graduate college on time with a degree. And that's consistent, and the numbers just get better and better and better. And these are kids that are, again, single parent home. And it's a great mission.

• 1:58:58Speaker 01

  Today, we have 996 kids in the program. The youngest is a, just last January, was a year old, Dustin Arndt. His father, Dustin Gabriel Arndt, was a sergeant first class in third group, was shot and killed in Afghanistan. And, I mean, our education counselors, who are really the tip of the spear for us, there's six of them, said he's class of 2042. And we make a promise, and we say, okay, hey, Dustin, we got you, all the way through. You know, you can count on it. We're going to fund that. And that's how we do that in accounting and everything, that we're going to fund that through.

• 1:59:35Speaker 01

  And you know, to see these kids reach their full potential after sacrificing for their country, which they didn't necessarily sign up for. I mean, to me, it's a great calling. And, you know, am I, you know, making as much money as I could selling helicopters to somebody? Probably not, but I look forward to coming to work every day.

• 1:59:54Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's, I mean, as I started the whole thing, talking about Steve Voight and just learning that impact that that the organization has had on him, obviously, and that, you know, like, like I was saying earlier, I didn't do anything for Steve Voight. You know, I was his friend.

• 2:00:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:00:13Jocko Willink?

  But the fact, I didn't do anything. I tried to serve the best I could, keep him in my mind, but to have an organization that actually steps in and take care of these kids, it's just, it's just outstanding. And it's an outstanding organization. And, I mean, you know, look at the impact, the mentorship with an eighth grader, like, everybody could use that, but especially someone that doesn't have their parent. So, just an awesome program. I appreciate what you're doing and what your whole team is doing. I know that the, I know people are going to be interested in, you know, in trying to find it so they can help out. I know it's specialops.org.

• 2:00:54Speaker 01

  That's correct.

• 2:00:55Jocko Willink?

  Is the website. Instagram is softwarriorfund, F N D. Twitter is softwarriorfund, F N D. So it's S O F warrior, F N D. Facebook is at Warrior Foundation. And you also actually have a YouTube channel, which is Special Operations Warrior Foundation. I mean, I think this is a good place to wrap it up. Echo, you got anything? No, sir. My pleasure.

• 2:01:21Speaker 01

  No, same here, guys. I really appreciate the time. And I just got to tell you, didn't, you know, I didn't know ahead of time you were going to tell that story and read that letter. But that was really awesome, man. I mean, you know, and to me, you get it. You know what we're doing and why we're doing it. And I really appreciate you sharing that.

• 2:01:40Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I was tempted to do it in Steve's voice, which would have been like this, man. He had the most epic voice. I wish I could hear it one more time, man. Clay, thanks for coming on. Thanks for sharing your story with us. More important, thanks for your service. Thanks for your service in the Marine Corps. Hoorah. In the Army in Special Operations. And most important, thanks for the service that you continue to provide for the entire Special Operations community. Thank you for taking care of our brothers and sisters in arms.

• 2:02:15Speaker 01

  Don't worry, it's my honor and a pleasure. And, you know, again, I'm a small part of the team, but there's a whole group of committed folks at the SOWF. We're very small, but 100% committed to the success of these families and being there for them, you know. So it's an honor.

• 2:02:34Jocko Willink?

  Thanks for the support.

• 2:02:38Jocko Willink?

  And with that, General Clay Hutmacher has left the building. And once again, Echo Charles, seems like we can do more.

• 2:02:49Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 2:02:50Jocko Willink?

  And at a minimum, it seems like we can do better.

• 2:02:52Speaker 02

  Better, yeah.

• 2:02:54Jocko Willink?

  What can we do to do better?

• 2:02:55Speaker 02

  Well, we can do a lot for sure. You know, not all of us are going to be flying through biblical dust storms to save people and support people. Not all of us.

• 2:03:06Jocko Willink?

  Those dust storms are crazy.

• 2:03:08Speaker 02

  Yes, sir.

• 2:03:09Jocko Willink?

  You don't want to be in one.

• 2:03:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:03:12Jocko Willink?

  Flying a helicopter. I'm going to tell you that.

• 2:03:14Speaker 02

  I imagine that that is true. But in the event of us trying to support others, we need to be as capable as possible. We'll just say that.

• 2:03:24Jocko Willink?

  Let's say you do, for whatever reason, have to go through a dust storm in any situation, scenario. How can we be more ready for that?

• 2:03:31Speaker 02

  Well, let's start with physical capability as much as you can. Can't just start neglecting your physical capabilities. So we're working out. We're doing jujitsu, hopefully. It's a big deal. I feel like we've slacked on making it a big deal as it needs to be made.

• 2:03:49Jocko Willink?

  It should be. It is a big deal.

• 2:03:51Speaker 02

  I think so, too. So through our workouts, exercising, we're reading, hopefully.

• 2:03:58Speaker 02

  Some people slack on that, you gotta be honest.

• 2:04:00Jocko Willink?

  Not this guy. I'm freaking reading so much, it's ridiculous.

• 2:04:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:04:04Jocko Willink?

  But you know what? Right now, I seem to be, I, you ever heard that thing when you're mining? You're mining and you hit a vein of like gold, where you hit a vein of silver? I'm like, I like hit a vein with reading. I'm just starting to get these books that are just stacking up and each one I'm reading. I'll like open, oh, I wonder what this one's about. And I start going, it's a vein. I just find a vein. So. That fear that I once, I don't know if that's a fear. When we started this podcast, I was like, yeah, I probably got ten, fifteen books to cover. We'll be good. Boy, was I wrong.

• 2:04:39Jocko Willink?

  Boy, was I wrong.

• 2:04:41Speaker 02

  Yep. So, yes.

• 2:04:42Jocko Willink?

  So, we're reading.

• 2:04:43Speaker 02

  So, we're reading, working out, physical, mental, all that stuff. Moral too, by the way, but that's a whole nother story. Unless it starts with physical, mental. So.

• 2:04:51Jocko Willink?

  Are you gonna help us out with our moral and spiritual?

• 2:04:56Speaker 02

  Maybe.

• 2:04:56Jocko Willink?

  Health at this time?

• 2:04:57Speaker 02

  Maybe not at this time.

• 2:04:58Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 2:04:59Speaker 02

  We're sticking with physical. So, through physical development, we, we might need some supplementation. It helps. Don't worry. Jaco has supplementation for us. Jaco Fuel.

• 2:05:09Jocko Willink?

  You know, I was about to commit a sin the other day.

• 2:05:11Speaker 02

  What?

• 2:05:12Jocko Willink?

  Cracked open a Discipline Go. I know, I stayed on the straight and narrow path. My spiritual health was strengthened.

• 2:05:18Speaker 02

  But that's not a sin.

• 2:05:19Jocko Willink?

  So, we're good.

• 2:05:19Speaker 02

  I don't get it. That's not a sin, is it?

• 2:05:22Jocko Willink?

  I said I was about to commit a sin.

• 2:05:24Speaker 02

  Oh, and instead of committing the sin?

• 2:05:26Jocko Willink?

  And then I, and then I cracked open a Discipline Go and I was able to get back on the path.

• 2:05:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, you were set free.

• 2:05:33Jocko Willink?

  On the righteous path.

• 2:05:34Speaker 02

  The righteous path. Boom.

• 2:05:36Jocko Willink?

  Spiritual health.

• 2:05:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:05:38Jocko Willink?

  I think we could, you know?

• 2:05:39Speaker 02

  It's important.

• 2:05:40Jocko Willink?

  There you go.

• 2:05:40Speaker 02

  It's important, a hundred percent.

• 2:05:41Jocko Willink?

  Guaranteed.

• 2:05:41Speaker 02

  Yes. So, you, you Discipline Go, you mentioned, right? Can you, can discipline be in a can? Can you just have a can of discipline?

• 2:05:51Jocko Willink?

  Well, actually, factually, there you go. I'm drinking it right now.

• 2:05:54Speaker 02

  Okay, so instead of this, okay, discipline go in a can is for us, those of us who are kinda down for the energy drink situation, but we're not down with the stigma or what that energy drink situation might entail.

• 2:06:07Jocko Willink?

  Does entail.

• 2:06:08Speaker 02

  From time, from, for the most part, not anymore though.

• 2:06:11Jocko Willink?

  No, we're good.

• 2:06:12Speaker 02

  Yes, clean energy, healthy, after you drink it, you're actually better off.

• 2:06:16Jocko Willink?

  I'm actually trying to pull you off topic and you're just bringing it right back. Good for you.

• 2:06:20Speaker 02

  I, look, these topics, I'm not saying are unimportant, the ones that you're bringing up or whatever, and they're just for another time.

• 2:06:27Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:06:27Speaker 02

  So we're talking about discipline go right now. Um, also, discipline go is also in other formats.

• 2:06:33Jocko Willink?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:06:33Speaker 02

  Powder. Capsules.

• 2:06:36Jocko Willink?

  Capsules.

• 2:06:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:06:37Jocko Willink?

  So those are good when you're, when you're rolling into something, you gotta speak, you gotta make something happen, you're gonna be, you're gonna be having to think on your feet, boom, get it.

• 2:06:49Speaker 02

  So it's a, it's a, all formats, it's, it's a mental, it's a mind boost.

• 2:06:53Jocko Willink?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:06:54Speaker 02

  See what I'm saying? So yeah, boom, some people drink energy drinks out of habit, some people drink energy drinks out of, oh, I just need a little bit of caffeine or whatever, all that's part of the game too. But this one gives you an actual mental cognitive boost and physical. Boom. So yeah, get that one instead of your whack, poisonous.

• 2:07:11Jocko Willink?

  And spiritual boost.

• 2:07:12Speaker 02

  Uh, well, you know, you know, again, that's a whole nother thing. Uh, also, we got, uh, health supplementation, uh, or supplementation for physical. So we got, uh, joint warfare for your joints, keep them in the game, don't even have to worry about them anymore. Also, super krill oil.

• 2:07:29Speaker 02

  There's a lot of studies, I'm not gonna say the studies, there's a lot of studies that prove the benefits of krill oil.

• 2:07:35Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you know what's crazy is the subscription rates on krill oil and joint warfare at, at Jaco Fuel? They're awesome.

• 2:07:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:07:45Jocko Willink?

  Because people get them and they're like, oh yeah, subscribe.

• 2:07:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:07:47Jocko Willink?

  You will feel it.

• 2:07:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's just part of the routine now. Cause yeah, we don't like worrying about our joints. And here's the thing, if you have, if your bedroom is upstairs and you wake up in the morning and you gotta walk downstairs, you know, when you wake up, that's when you're the most stiff, arguably, you're gonna feel the difference from day to day. If you're on the super krill oil and joint warfare, that's the best combo, in my opinion. Our opinion, we'll just say general consensus, best combination. You're gonna feel the difference if you're on it versus not on it. When you're walking down the stairs in the morning, that's the time you're gonna really feel it. Not to mention when you're lifting, but you know, it's of course a whole nother thing. Also, for your immunity. Vitamin D3 and Cold War. Two options for immunity, boom.

• 2:08:31Speaker 02

  Also supplemental protein in the form of a dessert. Best tasting protein mix. On the market.

• 2:08:39Jocko Willink?

  I kinda went, I hadn't had any mint chocolate for a while, probably like two weeks. Cause I've just been, just been dialing in the peanut butter.

• 2:08:49Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:08:49Jocko Willink?

  Which is, let's face it, the peanut butter is just freaking delicious.

• 2:08:52Speaker 02

  I am facing that fully.

• 2:08:53Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, but then last night. For my dessert. After I had chicken thighs. That my son cooked on the Traeger. They might've been the best chicken I've ever had. Think about that. I believe. I've eaten a lot of chicken.

• 2:09:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:09:08Jocko Willink?

  That might've been the best chicken. I, and it was just him and me. And so we just were standing there eating. Like plates, whatever, we're just standing there, he's got a big. Big tray full of chicken thighs and we're just eating it and I eat it. And I ate, it was delicious, I ate a bunch, but guess what I wanted when I was done?

• 2:09:30Speaker 02

  Dessert.

• 2:09:31Jocko Willink?

  I wanted dessert, bro. I wanted dessert. And I said peanut butter, wait. I could be wrong, peanut butter and chicken, is this, this seems weird, right? It's kinda weird.

• 2:09:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:09:43Jocko Willink?

  Anyways, this, the way this chicken was cooked, peanut butter wasn't gonna be the thing. I went back old school, back to my roots, mint chocolate chip that. Was good to go.

• 2:09:53Speaker 02

  Perfect, right on time.

• 2:09:54Jocko Willink?

  So good. So freaking good.

• 2:09:57Speaker 02

  So.

• 2:09:57Jocko Willink?

  This is Nobel Prize. Be little, be little, who formulated these things, you know, like, put it together. I think I'm thinking Nobel Prize Nobel what Nobel eat Nobel eat prize I don't know.

• 2:10:09Speaker 02

  Peace prize straight up.

• 2:10:10Jocko Willink?

  Not peace.

• 2:10:11Speaker 02

  Bro it brings peace let's face it.

• 2:10:12Jocko Willink?

  It brought peace to me last night.

• 2:10:14Speaker 02

  Does your boy have a recipe for your.

• 2:10:17Jocko Willink?

  I will find out. I will find out and there could be luck involved because let's face it you know it was that good where you say man if you could duplicate this tomorrow I'd be impressed one night I'm really impressed two nights now you got a situation you can open a restaurant.

• 2:10:30Speaker 02

  That's interesting. I have a chicken thigh recipe too.

• 2:10:34Jocko Willink?

  Chicken thighs are just good to go too.

• 2:10:36Speaker 02

  Yes. Yeah, you do start ahead of the game with the thighs in my opinion too. Some people don't prefer that. I do. Obviously you do too, but I got a recipe too. That's why it interests me. Very interested to see.

• 2:10:46Jocko Willink?

  Go head to head. Let's have a little cook off.

• 2:10:48Speaker 02

  And then you have the milk for the. You want any dessert with that? Yeah, I do. I want the milk. Yes sir. So yes, these items, this supplementation is available at jockofuel.com but if you want to go online, you don't got to shop online. Go to Wawa. Boom. Actually, Wawa is just for the energy drinks. Keep that in mind.

• 2:11:07Jocko Willink?

  If you want the rest of the stuff, you can get it at Vitamin Shoppe. And if you want to get this stuff delivered to your house for free. Well, how's it going to get there for free? We're going to have to pay some. No. For free? Go to jockofuel.com. Subscribe. Subscribe to that whatever it is you want. It'll come whenever you want it. It'll come there for free. How freaking legit is that? That's so we can do competition with the the elephant in the room, right? The elephant in the room got some weight behind it. But we're all we're over here scrapping. We're over here scrapping. Oh, you want to throw down some free shipping? Watch this.

• 2:11:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, there's something very secure about a free shipping scenario. It's like one of those things you just don't have to worry about. You know, goes deep. Also, originmaine.com is American made stuff. Good durable goods as it's called. I didn't quite know what that meant. It just sounded durable, which I like of course, but it's like jeans, American made denim. We got some hoodies on there. We got some shirts on there. We got some jujitsu stuff on there. Now, when I say American made, this is from the cotton that's grown. In South Carolina, or is it North Carolina?

• 2:12:22Jocko Willink?

  The Carolinas.

• 2:12:23Speaker 02

  It's in America, I'll tell you that, the actual cotton seeds.

• 2:12:26Jocko Willink?

  It's actually different, it's actually multiple locations where the cotton is grown. Multiple locations. In America.

• 2:12:32Speaker 02

  Yes, sir. Boom, all the way up and at the end of the chain, you got a jujutsu gi, you got some denim jeans. Made hundred percent, uh, grown and sewn in America. Same thing with the boots.

• 2:12:45Jocko Willink?

  By the way, rift gi, the rift gi is another format of clothing. I don't know what else to make with that thing, but that material that the rift gi is. If you put it on, if you wear a rift gi, you will not, you look, you may wear another gi at some point. Cause you have to, but you won't be happy about it. That rift gi is freaking legit, I don't know what else to make, what else can we make with that?

• 2:13:10Speaker 02

  Well, we could go deep and make some shorts with that. Make a, make a casual jacket of some sort.

• 2:13:16Jocko Willink?

  I was thinking like, uh, you know, when you go to, you go to Mexico and you get one of the, you know, like the little baja jacket thing. You know what I'm talking about?

• 2:13:25Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, it's like a pullover, almost, like a, yeah, yeah.

• 2:13:27Jocko Willink?

  Maybe one of those.

• 2:13:28Speaker 02

  Maybe. Yeah, it's possible, yeah.

• 2:13:31Jocko Willink?

  That'd be dope.

• 2:13:32Speaker 02

  I think there's a lot of options, given the, yeah, the, the fabric and the whole thing. Here's the thing, is it a catch 22? And I oftentimes feel, I think about this, not under important circumstances, just wondering. Is it a catch 22 to have a like comfort like that for you? It's not quite austere, is it?

• 2:13:51Jocko Willink?

  Hmm, that's a good point. But we are highly focused on capability, right?

• 2:13:57Speaker 02

  Oh, that's true, yeah, yeah.

• 2:13:58Jocko Willink?

  So, not only does it comfortable, it's also highly capable. Because you go to wash a regular gi and then you dry it out, takes nine days in the dryer to dry it out, a regular gi. This thing's, this thing's dry in 14 minutes. It's functionality, bro. It's not about comfort, back off.

• 2:14:17Speaker 02

  Functionality and sustainability in the field. Bro, what if the, what if you got a regular gi on and then you're rolling, it's hard, you're rolling with somebody, I don't know, harder than you, they go harder than you, they're better than you, whatever, they have more skills. And that gi is rubbing against your neck, not even in a submission, just rubbing against your neck versus the rif gi not rubbing against your neck, or it could be rubbing against your neck, you don't feel that kind of stuff.

• 2:14:42Jocko Willink?

  But it doesn't feel bad.

• 2:14:42Speaker 02

  You're too focused on your defense.

• 2:14:44Jocko Willink?

  Right.

• 2:14:44Speaker 02

  See what I'm saying? So I get it, you're right, okay.

• 2:14:46Jocko Willink?

  So you're with me.

• 2:14:47Speaker 02

  Yes, uh, info assimilated.

• 2:14:49Jocko Willink?

  Jeans, boots, t-shirts. Go to originusa.com is what we're saying.

• 2:14:54Speaker 02

  Yes, sir.

• 2:14:55Jocko Willink?

  Get cool stuff.

• 2:14:56Speaker 02

  Grab something. Speaking of cool stuff, Jaco has a store called Jaco Store. Cool name, cool stuff. Discipline equals freedom, shirts, hats, hoodies, some soap on there. Warrior kid soap, Jaco soap, trooper soap, killer soap, the black charcoal activated antibacterial soap.

• 2:15:17Jocko Willink?

  Have you ever seen those videos, like on, uh, social media or whatever? And they're just under the broad topic of satisfying?

• 2:15:26Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 2:15:26Jocko Willink?

  Have you ever seen these things?

• 2:15:27Speaker 02

  I don't watch those videos, but I do know the category.

• 2:15:29Jocko Willink?

  My, my daughters will watch, quote, satisfying videos.

• 2:15:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, mine do.

• 2:15:34Jocko Willink?

  Right? It's like a piece of jello getting sliced. It's real weird stuff, right?

• 2:15:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:15:41Jocko Willink?

  I don't get it, but the closest thing I have is when you take a black soap, which is killer soap, you wouldn't think that you could clean yourself with black soap.

• 2:15:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:15:53Jocko Willink?

  But it works.

• 2:15:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:15:55Jocko Willink?

  It's so satisfying.

• 2:15:57Speaker 02

  Yes. I, I do understand, and yeah, every once in a while you'll come across something, you're like, yeah, that is, I guess, given what you're saying, as far as satisfying goes, yeah, it's true. And yes, the killer soap, uh, experience, we'll say, does fall under that category. Kind of has a, uh, what do you call it? It's not abrasive.

• 2:16:15Jocko Willink?

  Hmm.

• 2:16:16Speaker 02

  What's the last of, or what do you call it? Exfoliation or, I don't know, it's something in there that provides a little scrub.

• 2:16:23Jocko Willink?

  There you go. Look at this guy with the exfoliation on that one.

• 2:16:27Speaker 02

  On the last, that's on Jaco Store as well. Um, these are, though, these are American-made soaps too, straight up. No chemicals in this kind of stuff.

• 2:16:35Jocko Willink?

  By a kid, by the way. That built, building a business, a warrior kid.

• 2:16:39Speaker 02

  Aiden the man, providing. Also, uh, we have a subscription situation as well on Jaco Store. It's called the Shirt Locker. So these designs are a little bit more, I don't know how to explain them, I'm gonna try. They're a little bit more maybe creative, maybe fun, maybe, uh, they might jump out at you a little bit more. A lot of people have been contacting me saying that they want the shirt from like two months ago. I have bad news and I have potential good news. Bad news is you can't get it. It's because it was for that month, you see what I'm saying? If you're a subscriber, you'll get it. And it's hard to communicate like, oh, these are going to be cool designs. Because what does that even mean, you know?

• 2:17:19Jocko Willink?

  No one trusts you.

• 2:17:19Speaker 02

  It's it's hard. It's hard to trust me.

• 2:17:23Jocko Willink?

  I'm not saying you, but the proverbial you. No one trusts you. You say something's going to be cool. That's such a big opinion thing.

• 2:17:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's like, you know how like

• 2:17:30Jocko Willink?

  Unquantifiable, right?

• 2:17:32Speaker 02

  So Dean Lister, our friend.

• 2:17:34Jocko Willink?

  Oh, Dean List.

• 2:17:35Speaker 02

  Dean List, yeah. He's like, hey, I have this funny video I'm going to show you. And he's like, it's real funny. Trust me. Bro, I'm looking at him, bro. I don't trust you. I trust you on a lot of stuff, not this.

• 2:17:45Jocko Willink?

  You know you're about to waste one minute and thirty eight seconds of your life watching a Dean List video of whatever.

• 2:17:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, whatever, some abstract thing.

• 2:17:54Jocko Willink?

  Thing in Russia, whatever.

• 2:17:56Speaker 02

  And the video was like four and a half minutes long. I'm like, so right now I either suck it up and and and waste four and a half minutes. Or kind of offend Dean Lister, which, you know, depending on his mood, that might be a mistake in and of itself. Unless you see what I'm saying?

• 2:18:10Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:18:10Speaker 02

  Like, just because Dean says this video is going to be fun, doesn't mean it's going to be funny. So it's hard.

• 2:18:14Jocko Willink?

  So it's hard to trust opinions.

• 2:18:16Speaker 02

  Yes, but when it goes down and you already missed it, it's like, man, you kind of should have trusted me a little bit. See what I'm saying? That's kind of how it's working.

• 2:18:24Jocko Willink?

  You sound like a used car salesman. Trust me.

• 2:18:27Speaker 02

  You know, how about this? Do your best to trust me.

• 2:18:29Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 2:18:30Speaker 02

  That they're good and it's going to be fun. You'll be glad you subscribe for this thing.

• 2:18:33Jocko Willink?

  We could say that the evidence of past performance of, what'd you say, cool t-shirts?

• 2:18:39Speaker 02

  Cool, fun, desirable.

• 2:18:41Jocko Willink?

  Evidence of that is strong.

• 2:18:42Speaker 02

  Very strong.

• 2:18:43Jocko Willink?

  And predicts possibly high levels of coolness in the future.

• 2:18:48Speaker 02

  There is significant amount of regularity in the satisfaction of the current and past designs, yes.

• 2:18:54Jocko Willink?

  Check.

• 2:18:55Speaker 02

  Here's the good news, maybe I might bring one or two back later. I don't know when, I don't know which ones, I don't know if it's even going to happen, but I might. I don't know. So anyway.

• 2:19:05Jocko Willink?

  I think that's illegal.

• 2:19:07Speaker 02

  Uh, it's possible, but I'm gonna sidestep some of the red tape that I made, by the way, but I'm gonna sidestep some of it and also this is what I'll do. So we have an email list on the store, jocko store.com at the bottom. If you sign up for that email list, if we do bring that back past designs, I'll email you. Boom. Sign up for that.

• 2:19:26Jocko Willink?

  Check. Um, speaking of subscriptions, you can subscribe to this podcast, wherever you subscribe to podcasts. We got some other podcasts. We got Jocko unraveling with Daryl Cooper. We're going deep. We're going dark too. It's been getting real ugly. Sorry. That's the way the world is. You have to learn about history so that you don't repeat it. We have the grounded podcast. Dean List has been around. We need to get that one rolling. Warrior kid podcast as well. You can also join us in the underground. We have jocko underground.com where, look, we, we are doing a podcast once a week. We are doing this so that we have a contingency plan. We just did a podcast

• 2:20:08Jocko Willink?

  that when we posted on YouTube, we got, I won't say we won't, we got the warning, right? Controversial, whatever, fact checking. It was about the Armenian genocide and, and look, it's just an indication. It's an indication that we're not in control. So if that was to get really bad, we want to have a contingency plan ready to execute. So jocko underground.com. If you want to help us be ready for that happening, we hope it doesn't happen, but if we have to, you can help us out. That way we don't have to have sponsors. You only have to listen to echo talk for 98 minutes

• 2:20:50Jocko Willink?

  at the end of a podcast, but you know, you, first of all, you're probably not even listening right now. Second of all.

• 2:20:55Speaker 02

  First off, it's very valuable information. That's first off.

• 2:20:59Jocko Willink?

  Uh, $8.18 a month. If you can't afford it, we don't want you to not be a part of the underground. If you can't afford it, no problem. Email assistance at jocko underground.com and we'll take care of it. We just want to have a place to go should things get crazy.

• 2:21:19Speaker 02

  Also YouTube channel. We have a YouTube channel for the video version of this podcast. You know, you want to see what our guests look like? Or you just prefer the video version, which is a thing. I've said this for a while. You play it on the TV, in the gym, in the house. Wherever you play it on a screen, boom, we do have an official YouTube channel. Also, there's excerpts on there. So you don't want to listen to the whole podcast necessarily, like 20 minutes before work, or whatever, or a meeting, or some time constrained event you have. Just listen to some of the excerpts, get the value.

• 2:21:52Jocko Willink?

  What do you know about work and meetings?

• 2:21:54Speaker 02

  And time constraints? I'm learning, I'm learning fast.

• 2:21:58Jocko Willink?

  We're good. Psychological Warfare got an album with tracks. If you need a little help overcoming some momentary weakness, I'll be there for you. Press play. Psychological Warfare. We've got Flipside Canvas, which is Dakota Meyer's company where he's putting stuff for you to hang on your wall.

• 2:22:16Jocko Willink?

  Things that say discipline equals freedom. Go to flipsidecanvas.com if you want to get some of that. Got a bunch of books. I just posted a little post from Final Spin. What'd you think?

• 2:22:23Speaker 02

  I liked it. Yeah.

• 2:22:24Jocko Willink?

  What'd you think?

• 2:22:25Speaker 02

  It's funny because I've kind of, I've grown to know your kind of, I don't want to say signature, but some things that are pretty unique to you. When it comes to writing, like the, how you'll start the margins like later and later for a certain like psychological, the psychological effect. I noticed some of that. But what was, it wasn't necessarily surprising as it was like, oh, I see what you're doing there is that you'll talk and it'll talk like that and then it'll start to kind of rhyme in a way. And I'll be like, oh, okay, all right.

• 2:22:53Jocko Willink?

  It's going to be very interesting.

• 2:22:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:22:56Jocko Willink?

  The reactions to that, that, look, I posted one, it's 200 pages. I posted one page and people were like, what? I was gonna just, my, my original caption was, meet Jessica, right? That was, I was gonna leave it at that. I really wanted to, but, but then I was like, okay, that's, let's face it, we can be too vague in life, right? That was a little, that was a little too vague. But yeah, got a, a story, novel, poem.

• 2:23:24Jocko Willink?

  Um, tr- transcript. That's the new thing I added to it. Transcript. Because the dialogue in it is just like a transcript. This is what someone said. And there's no freaking, you know, playing around with it. This is a transcript of what's been said. Transcript, poem, book, novel.

• 2:23:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:23:47Jocko Willink?

  It's gonna, it's gonna be interesting.

• 2:23:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's, it's interesting how you physically write it adds to like what he call like the experience, you know? Where, you know, a normal book, cool, love it, of course, you know, boom, but it's pretty comparatively basic.

• 2:24:01Jocko Willink?

  It's strange because everybody that reads it gets that.

• 2:24:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:24:07Jocko Willink?

  It's like, oh, I know exactly what this does.

• 2:24:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:24:11Jocko Willink?

  It reads the same in your head. You're like, oh, boom, boom, boom. It's. Yeah. It's a new ver- new form of literature.

• 2:24:20Speaker 02

  Boom, choco, my man.

• 2:24:21Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:24:22Speaker 02

  That's gonna be good. It's gonna be fun one, for sure.

• 2:24:24Jocko Willink?

  So check that out, final spin. If you want that first edition, you know the deal. Leadership Strategy and Tactics Field Manual, The Code, The Evaluation, The Protocols, Discipline vs. Freedom Field Manual, brand new version. Way the Warrior Kid Four Field Manual, and then you've got one, two, and three as well. Mikey and the Dragons, Hackworth's About Face. And the OG's.

• 2:24:44Jocko Willink?

  Extreme Ownership and Dichotomy Leadership, Echelon Front, Have a Leadership Consultancy. If you need help in your organization.

• 2:24:53Jocko Willink?

  That help will come in the form of leadership. Go to echelonfront.com if you want help with the leadership inside your organization. We also do online training. EFonline.com. If you have a question for me, go to EFonline.com. And I will be there Monday, Wednesday, Friday. I'll be there one, two, or three of those days. Most of the time it's three of those days. Answering questions, talking about leadership, the rest of the Echelon Front team there as well. We have the muster, which is a leadership event live. We didn't do any in 2020 because Miss Rona. But Miss Rona has been kind of handled at this point. People are vaccinated and whatnot.

• 2:25:35Jocko Willink?

  So luckily, we made the decision to execute Orlando, May 25th and 26th.

• 2:25:41Jocko Willink?

  There's still some seats left. So if you want to come to the muster, go to extremeownership.com.

• 2:25:48Jocko Willink?

  Get there quick. We don't have that many seats left, but we do have some seats. So if you want to come, that's May 25th and 26th. After that's going to be Phoenix, August 17th and 18th, Las Vegas, October 28th, 29th. Get registered, extremeownership.com, EF Battlefield. Pay atten- if you're interested in doing that, we'll keep you posted. It's an awesome event, but we don't have another one on the books right now. As soon as we figure out when we're going to do it, we'll, I'll let you know. And also if you want to help service members, active and retired, their families, Gold Star families, check out Mark Lee's mom, Mama Lee, she's got a charity organization. And if you want

• 2:26:30Jocko Willink?

  to donate or you want to get involved, well, go to Americas Mighty Warriors.org. And of course, on top of that, we also have, and you heard me talk about it today, the Special Operations Warrior Foundation. You can go to specialops.org. You can go to Instagram or Twitter at @softwarriorFND. And on Facebook, @WarriorFoundation. You can check that out. It's just, you heard me. It's a freaking awesome organization. And if you want more of my We're Some Witter.

• 2:27:07Jocko Willink?

  Or you need more of Echo's incongruous interpretations, you can find us on the interwebs, Twitter, Instagram.

• 2:27:16Jocko Willink?

  Otherwise known as the Gram. And Facebook, Echo is at Echo Charles, and I am at Jaco Willink. And thanks once again to General Clay Hutmacher for joining us and for his incredible service and sacrifice to this great nation. And thanks to everyone at the Special Operations Warrior Foundation for looking after our most precious legacy, the children of our fallen heroes. And thanks to all the warriors in the military that are out there right now, standing watch. And keeping us safe from tyranny and from evil. And the same goes to those in uniform

• 2:27:58Jocko Willink?

  here on the home front. Our police and law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, Border Patrol, Secret Service, and all other first responders. Thank you for standing watch here at home.

• 2:28:14Jocko Willink?

  And to everyone else out there. Remember what my friend and my brother Steve Voight said before his last training mission. Quote, "There is nothing that any person cannot achieve if he or she has the heart." End quote.

• 2:28:38Jocko Willink?

  So,

• 2:28:41Jocko Willink?

  you can do it.

• 2:28:45Jocko Willink?

  But do you have the heart? And if you do well, then don't let the opportunities of this life go to waste. Instead, go out there

• 2:28:56Jocko Willink?

  and get after it.

• 2:28:59Jocko Willink?

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