447: Everyone Who Exalts Himself Will Be Humbled. With Lynda MacFarland.

Lynda MacFarland. Wife of General Sean MacFarland, and Author of "Drowning in Lemonade." 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 447 with Echo Charles and me, Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening.

• 0:07Jocko Willink?

  I did not want to go to be part of a unit in which people would die. But now it was a certainty. How many deaths was the only unanswered question? And I didn't want to become friends with these women and then have to deal with their grief when their husbands died.

• 0:29Jocko Willink?

  I had not spent much time in my life around grieving people. Very few people who I'm close to have died. I didn't know how to help, what to say, what to do. I didn't want the pain and the sorrow and the tears for them or for me.

• 0:48Jocko Willink?

  I did not want to go.

• 0:51Jocko Willink?

  When I said to the Lord, "Make this go away." It was followed by, "Not my will, but thine be done." So there was the mountaintop moment with more to follow.

• 1:09Jocko Willink?

  In the end, the brigade lost 96 soldiers and Marines to hostile actions. The death of each one was so costly. Too many families no longer have their loving son, nephew, grandson, father, husband, or daughter. It was the realization of my worst fears. The news of each death tore at my heart. And I worried for my husband, who felt responsible for each life.

• 1:42Jocko Willink?

  And of course, I worried for his physical safety. In this instance, as in my husband's other deployments, I asked that he be kept safe.

• 1:57Jocko Willink?

  My very first mountaintop moment, in fact, was at the beginning of Shawn's first deployment, Operation Desert Shield Desert Storm.

• 2:07Jocko Willink?

  It was the biggest, most profound leap in my journey of faith thus far. I placed my soldier firmly in God's hands and then said, "Protect him from harm." And I followed that with, "Not my will, but yours be done."

• 2:29Jocko Willink?

  Those words were uttered with sobs and tears, believe me, to entrust my husband's life to God to do with what he willed. It was a realization of utter powerlessness, mine and ours, and a challenge in trusting God's wisdom and a perfect plan for us. I never dreamed I would say it again and again.

• 3:05Jocko Willink?

  And that right there is an excerpt from a book called Drowning in Lemonade: Reflections of an Army Wife by Linda McFarland. And Linda McFarland is the wife of General Sean McFarland, who was on this podcast, number 439. He was the brigade commander of the Ready First Brigade of the 1st Armored Division during the Battle of Ramadi in 2006 and 2007. And he was an amazing commander, leader, and friend who oversaw one of the most violent and decisive battles

• 3:43Jocko Willink?

  in the Iraq War. And those of us who served under him in Iraq revered his judgment and his intellect and his bravery and his vision. And he led from the front. And I personally stood side by side with him on the battlefield countless times as he shared the risk and made sure he never asked his troops to do anything that he wouldn't personally do himself. But in any war, there is another front. A front that is different from the one where

• 4:20Jocko Willink?

  the enemy is met, and that is the home front. The home front is where families wait and worry and wish for the return of their loved ones. The home front is where fear and frustration can fester in the hearts and minds and souls of spouses and children and parents.

• 4:45Jocko Willink?

  The home front is where a knock at the door can bring the most wretched of all messages that a husband, a wife, a father, a mother, a son, a daughter is gone. And I cannot imagine that the fear of combat, the fear of bombs and bullets and battles can be worse than the fear of that dreadful knock at the door. The home front is a different type of war, but it is a war nonetheless, and it requires bravery and compassion and of course, leadership.

• 5:27Jocko Willink?

  And Linda MacFarland stepped up and led on the home front and guided families through the darkest of times with her care, her kindness, and her faith. And it is an honor to have her here with us tonight to share her experiences and lessons learned. Linda, thank you for joining us. It's an honor to have you here.

• 5:51Speaker 01

  Thanks very much, Jaco. It's an honor for me to be here.

• 5:54Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, when, when we got done recording with your husband and then talked to you afterwards, and I didn't realize that you had written this book. You know, obviously I had imagined and contemplated what you'd been through as the brigade commander's wife in a brigade that was so heavily impacted on the battlefield. But then when, when you mentioned that you had written this book, I thought to myself, oh, and I immediately asked you, I said, can you come and share what you went through? Because there's so many spouses and military families out there and they don't have the best guidebook. And I know, you know, you, you will hear military people say that the families have

• 6:39Jocko Willink?

  it harder, and I totally agree as, as when you're on the battlefield, you know what's happening, you, you see the risk, you confront the risk. It's all, it's all very real. And I think the fact that it's real and it's right in front of you makes it easier to deal with. But for the families on the home front.

• 7:01Jocko Willink?

  A lot of it is left to the imagination.

• 7:04Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 7:05Jocko Willink?

  And that is not a, that is, the imagination doesn't usually make things nicer. It usually makes things worse.

• 7:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, sure.

• 7:14Jocko Willink?

  So, um, thank you so much for coming.

• 7:18Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 7:18Jocko Willink?

  Really appreciate it. And let, let's get into this. Let's start off a little bit of background on you. Let's start from the beginning. So where, where were you born?

• 7:25Speaker 01

  I was born in Chicago, Illinois. But when I was about 10, I was the youngest of four kids. We moved to El Paso, Texas.

• 7:32Jocko Willink?

  What brought you down to El Paso, Texas?

• 7:34Speaker 01

  My mother's family. My mom was Mexican-American and that's where she was born and raised. Met my dad, the Chicagoan, when he was stationed at Fort Bliss, which is co-located with El Paso. He was just drafted during the Korean conflict and he never left, you know, he never went overseas. But he did go to Bliss and met my mom at church.

• 7:57Jocko Willink?

  And then what did he do? Well, cause did he stay in the army?

• 8:01Speaker 01

  No.

• 8:02Jocko Willink?

  So he got done with the army and what did he do for a living?

• 8:04Speaker 01

  Uh, well, various things. He was in manufacturing, kind of middle management guy. Eventually, um, we had his own restaurant for a time. We all worked at the restaurant.

• 8:14Jocko Willink?

  What kind of restaurant?

• 8:15Speaker 01

  Um, it was a steakhouse.

• 8:17Jocko Willink?

  Nice.

• 8:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, when I was a kid, it was a steakhouse. It was very nice. This is in El Paso by the time we moved down there. So like I was a hostess when I was in high school. It was like a little job I had. But, um, yeah, so that's kind of just a ordinary civilian kind of life.

• 8:32Jocko Willink?

  And then what, what were you into when you were growing up? Were you doing a good in school? Were you a troublemaker?

• 8:37Speaker 01

  No. I was editor of my high school paper, actually co-editor. So, and I, um, also I wrote for them regularly. I was always a writer. I always wrote. I wrote poetry from the time I was, could hold a pencil. Um, my mom had one in her purse for the longest time about our dog. You know, like I just always was writing things down. Uh, but I was a good student and, um, and so I, you know, was in honor society and all that kind of stuff. And then by the time I was a senior, I was senior class president.

• 9:06Jocko Willink?

  Oh dang.

• 9:07Speaker 01

  And you would not believe, that helped me so much as an army wife. Because it sounds crazy, but I learned how to recruit volunteers. To stand in front of people and talk to them. I was a very shy, shy person. I didn't like to be in front of people and are, you know, you have a class sponsor and he was the girls volleyball coach, Coach Van Lee. Big old dude and, and he's like, okay, you gotta do this thing and I want you to read Robert's Rules of Order and you know, just I'm like, what?

• 9:38Jocko Willink?

  So he gave you some good leadership training?

• 9:39Speaker 01

  He did, right from the start, right from the start. So, um, and then, you know, years later, I'm looking back and I think, wow, you know, cause we managed to get ourselves, uh, raise money to go to, um, Los Angeles to Disney World, Disneyland. For our senior class trip and I sort of organized that whole trip. I mean, I was doing all these things that I would do again, you know, decades later, it's kind of like.

• 10:03Jocko Willink?

  My personal political career peaked in eighth grade when I was the eighth grade class president. How you like that? Echo Charles, little known fact. Oh, hell yeah. My motto running was rock with jock. There you go.

• 10:15Speaker 01

  See, that's nice.

• 10:16Jocko Willink?

  And what I did was I took old record albums. But you know, like actual, the physical records and I made like an album cover and the album was coming out. And I wrote rock with jock, jock, class president.

• 10:27Speaker 01

  That's really nice.

• 10:29Jocko Willink?

  Victory, you know, but that's kind of the peak of my political career. And I did not take away a bunch of really good lessons learned, other than it didn't seem like I wanted to be having that job.

• 10:37Speaker 01

  Well, so you learned something.

• 10:39Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 10:39Speaker 01

  Learned about yourself. It's always a good thing.

• 10:42Jocko Willink?

  What did you, when you were in high school, did you have some vision for what you wanted to do when you got older?

• 10:46Speaker 01

  I was going to be a writer or an editor, which that kind of, uh, formed a little bit later in college. Um, I went to the University of Texas at El Paso, UTEP.

• 10:56Jocko Willink?

  UTEP, oh, yeah.

• 10:57Speaker 01

  Go minors. Yeah, I know Hawaii did play against, yeah. So, cause I went to all the games. I was a good student, you know, loyal student.

• 11:06Jocko Willink?

  Loyal.

• 11:07Speaker 01

  Uh, but you know, it's a commuter school. So like I lived one semester in the dorms as a freshman because I didn't have a car. So I told you, my dad was like middle management, manufacturing. There was not a lot of extra money and I was actually the first of us to go to college. Um, and I really.

• 11:23Jocko Willink?

  Did you say you were the youngest of four?

• 11:25Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 11:25Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 11:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. So, um, they, they were all for it. My parents thought that was a great thing, but they're like, I gotta pay for that. So I got some scholarships. I got some grants. I had a part-time job and then my dad helped definitely. Uh, financially, but, um, yeah, I lived at home primarily for financial reasons.

• 11:46Jocko Willink?

  And you were an English major?

• 11:48Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 11:48Jocko Willink?

  And that was again at leading towards looking to be an editor or writer at some point.

• 11:53Speaker 01

  Yes. And people would say, oh, so you're going to go to law school after this? Like that was usually the question because who gets a English degree, right?

• 11:59Jocko Willink?

  That's what people say to me too.

• 12:00Speaker 01

  But you have an English degree?

• 12:02Jocko Willink?

  I do.

• 12:02Speaker 01

  Oh, okay.

• 12:03Jocko Willink?

  That's what I got it.

• 12:04Speaker 01

  But when you like to write, um, it seems like a good fit, right?

• 12:08Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Well, for me, so I had become an officer before I went to college. I know it doesn't make any sense, but it was this program that the Navy did for a very short period of time. And so when I was an officer and all of a sudden I had to write evaluations and I had to write awards and I had to write fit reps. And I had to re, even writing like operational summaries or concept of operations, that's all writing. And it's also reading because you're getting directives and you're getting general orders and you're getting rules of engagement. So I was like, I need to get better at that, whatever that stuff is. It was English. And so I ended up when I went, when I did go to college, I, I studied English and it was so helpful. It was so helpful because not only writing, you know, writing evaluations and writing awards and writing fit reps

• 12:50Jocko Willink?

  and writing concept of operations, but also reading the rules of engagement and reading the general orders and reading the directives. Because I, I realized, oh, before I went to college, I thought if I didn't know a word, it, I just had to just kind of make my best guess and move on. Then I realized, oh no, you actually need to get out of dictionary and figure out what that word means. And then you can make sense of this whole sentence.

• 13:13Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 13:14Jocko Willink?

  That alone was worth going to college for.

• 13:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:18Jocko Willink?

  Uh, even though when, when I got back to the SEAL teams and guys would say, well, what'd you learn in college? And I'd say, oh, what I learned in college is don't ever, ever, ever, ever get out of the SEAL teams ever.

• 13:31Jocko Willink?

  That was my big lesson learned.

• 13:32Speaker 01

  Oh my goodness.

• 13:34Jocko Willink?

  So, did you meet General MacFarland when you were in college?

• 13:37Speaker 01

  Yes, yeah. My sister's now husband of forty-two years was in Third Armored Cavalry Regiment with my, you know, future husband.

• 13:48Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 13:49Speaker 01

  So, I met Sean through him and her.

• 13:52Jocko Willink?

  So, just like a dinner or something like this?

• 13:56Speaker 01

  No, no, no. I actually knew him for probably almost two years before we started dating. And we would just be groups of people going out together and having fun. And he was so funny.

• 14:08Jocko Willink?

  Well, he is hilarious. I got, I got a lot of commentary that when your husband was here, I was laughing a bunch.

• 14:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 14:17Jocko Willink?

  And I was doing it, I was doing it into the mic, probably because I'd never have done it enough to where I realized that I can't laugh into the mic. So, when he was, he's cracking all these jokes, he's got that dry sense of humor. I was just like, I was laughing the whole time. Well, at least like for the first hour, I'm laughing. And plus, I was excited to see him and we had a bunch of like little, little jokes going on. And yes, but I kept going, huh.

• 14:39Jocko Willink?

  So, I apologize for that. I won't do it again.

• 14:41Speaker 01

  Okay. Well, I'm not as funny as he is. But I will say that, you know, his wit, he was so smart. It was just so obvious. And he, you know, was this cute little college co-ed, whatever. But I was pretty smart and I was well-read and I had a pretty good vocabulary at the time. So, I think he liked the fact that I wasn't all fluff or whatever, you know, had a little bit of depth maybe to me. But I remember asking one time, years later, I'm like, I was such a silly little girl. Why didn't you? One of them goes, ah, I saw your potential. And of course, it made me laugh. That's the thing. He can make me laugh even when I'm mad at him, which is just infuriating. But he just, I always loved, I loved that he was so witty.

• 15:24Speaker 01

  You know, and he was this tall cavalry guy and I was so superficial because I was this silly girl. I was 22 when we got married, I think. And I loved the first time he came to my house in his uniform and we were not dating yet. But he had, he had asked me, I had offered to type some things up for him for work. He was a platoon leader or something. And he's like, oh, so much typing and I'm terrible. I type all the time. My job was a clerk typist, you know, to help pay for college.

• 15:50Jocko Willink?

  Sounds like a big setup on multiple fronts because not only is he getting to date, he's getting you to do the typing for him.

• 15:56Speaker 01

  Right.

• 15:56Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, this was all strategic thinking.

• 15:59Speaker 01

  Probably, but I mean, I think I kind of liked him when I offered to type the thing, right?

• 16:03Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's true too. More strategic thinking.

• 16:05Speaker 01

  So, but he came to my house to bring me something to thank me and my mother was there because I lived at home. And he gave me, I think chocolates, which I love chocolate, which I'm sure I'd mentioned at some point. So he gave me a box of chocolates, but I saw his name tag and it said MacFarland with an A, M A C, not M C. I love that. I was like, oh, that's so cool. I love that it's spelled a little differently. And that means it's Scottish, not Irish because my dad had told me that. So I was like, I love these guys, Scottish. And it was just stupid. Sean, S E A N. That's the way you'd spell Sean and this S H A U N stuff. Or, you know, like I love these stupid little things about him. So I think I was already, you know, we were friends. I was already like, he's so dreamy or whatever.

• 16:50Jocko Willink?

  How, how did you, now, did you know kind of about the military wife gig from your sister?

• 16:55Speaker 01

  No, nothing. Well, they got married two years before us and shortly after they got married, they left.

• 17:01Jocko Willink?

  Got it.

• 17:02Speaker 01

  And, and once we became engaged, which we only had like a six month engagement, which I think to me was short, but we, he asked me like after we, we get to marry him, we had our first date on my birthday, which was in September. And before Thanksgiving, he asked me to marry him. So

• 17:18Jocko Willink?

  So like two months?

• 17:19Speaker 01

  It's just a couple of months, but I mean, I'd really known him for two years.

• 17:23Jocko Willink?

  Oh, okay.

• 17:24Speaker 01

  And I really liked that we were friends first.

• 17:26Jocko Willink?

  Was he leaving or anything like that?

• 17:28Speaker 01

  We, there was a brief scare where we thought he was going to Korea.

• 17:31Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 17:32Speaker 01

  And so I had asked my grandmother to pray on novena that he wouldn't go to Korea.

• 17:36Jocko Willink?

  And it worked. Because sometimes military people make the marriage move because one of them's gonna

• 17:44Speaker 01

  Right.

• 17:45Jocko Willink?

  Oh, I'm gonna, I'm gonna get stationed in Korea. We better just get married. You can come with me.

• 17:48Speaker 01

  No.

• 17:49Jocko Willink?

  Wasn't that?

• 17:50Speaker 01

  No, not at all. He was there for three years and then he was gonna move on. And so he was not leaving anytime soon. The hardest thing was finding a date for the wedding. I had to keep moving it because like, oh, we're going to the field. Oh, we're going here. We're doing this. And the last time I thought we had a date and he called to say, oh, we have to move it. I started to cry. Okay. Because I was twenty, probably twenty one years old. And I was like, you don't want to marry me because you just keep pushing the date back. See what I mean? Silly little girl, right? And he's like, heavy sigh on the phone. And he's like, no, it's not me. It's, you know, the guy's upstairs, whatever. So we finally found a date that works and it stuck. And it just happened. Our thirty June was our fortieth wedding anniversary.

• 18:33Speaker 01

  And we had a big party in El Paso. We went back to El Paso where it all began.

• 18:37Jocko Willink?

  There you go.

• 18:38Speaker 01

  And went to mass at the church we were married in, St. Patrick's Cathedral. Because that was my grandmother's church, my parents' church, so.

• 18:45Jocko Willink?

  Did you go to Catholic high school or no?

• 18:46Speaker 01

  No, just Parkland High School.

• 18:49Jocko Willink?

  You didn't have the Catholic high school pedigree like he had.

• 18:52Speaker 01

  No, no. Well, he didn't do high school Catholic.

• 18:55Jocko Willink?

  Oh, I thought he did do.

• 18:56Speaker 01

  No, just lower grades. So.

• 18:59Jocko Willink?

  Um, so now, when you first leave there, where do you end up? You end up going to Germany right away, huh?

• 19:05Speaker 01

  Well, first, we did six months for the advanced course. They used to call it captain's career course now. And that was at Fort Knox at that time because armor went to Fort Knox and he was armored cavalry. So off we went for six months there. It was horrible. It was hot. There was no air conditioning in the home. It was humid. I'm from a desert climate. My people are desert people. So it's just like, I can't breathe. The humidity was just like oppressive to me. And I remember I was just like, in the afternoon, just lie in front of the fan because you had no air conditioning. We're in quarters. We're in government quarters on post with, you know, ice water or tea. It's like, this is horrible. So I was just such a weak. Silly girl.

• 19:50Jocko Willink?

  Were you thinking that he was gonna be doing this for a career? Cause I know when, when he was on, he kinda talked about like, there was phases where he thought it might be a career, then phases where he'd be getting in trouble.

• 19:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:00Jocko Willink?

  So, were you kinda just along for the ride? Would he tell you a lot about what was going on at work?

• 20:05Speaker 01

  He did initially. He used to talk all the time about what was going on at work and I had no idea what any of it meant. But I would listen patiently and smile and nod. But, um, he had said he thought he'd do 20, 20 years. And he's like, yeah, it's a nice retirement at 20 years and you know, we are newlyweds. But I'm like, well, by the time we start having kids, they could probably do high school in one location. Wouldn't that be nice? You know, that was, that never happened. But, um, so he was thinking a 20 year career at that point. And he was, uh, we got married in 84. He was commissioned in 81, so we're looking at, okay, 17 years of this, alright. But I had no idea what that meant.

• 20:48Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 20:48Speaker 01

  I mean, who could?

• 20:51Jocko Willink?

  Then you guys go to Germany?

• 20:53Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 20:53Jocko Willink?

  And how did you like being overseas?

• 20:55Speaker 01

  Well, I ended up loving it. I was filled with great trepidation. Told you I went to college, pretty much lived at home. So this was my first time away from my family, um, in any major sense. And then I went across the ocean, you know? And so I, I tell people the story, cause it's, it's kinda funny now, but I had a nightmare that we were in Germany, we had not left yet. And we were living in this little apartment that looked like something out of a movie. And sure enough, the Nazis broke into our apartment. Like guys dressed like Nazis with the helmets and the things. That's how much anxiety I had about moving to Germany. I think my subconscious was kinda getting away with me there, running away with me.

• 21:40Jocko Willink?

  But you end up, it's, it's, there's a bunch of Americans there when you're stationed overseas. So it ends up being a great community.

• 21:46Speaker 01

  Well, it ended up being a good community. Initially, it was kinda dicey for me. Um, I think Sean talked a little bit about our time over there. Um, it wasn't real family friendly initially. It was, um, you know, this is the army and this is what we do. And those ladies are over there doing whatever, you know? But it got better and it did become much more, I would say, family friendly. And we had our daughter there. Our daughter was born in 1987 and we brought her back as like a 15 month old from Germany. But I loved it.

• 22:20Jocko Willink?

  And the next step then coming back was Georgia Tech, is that right?

• 22:23Speaker 01

  Yes, they sent him to, the army sent him to grad school to get an aerospace engineering, you know, master of science degree.

• 22:32Jocko Willink?

  Cause that makes sense for an armored cavalry guy.

• 22:35Speaker 01

  And they called him. That was the cra- he was not like, you know, the highest grade point average guy at West Point, class of 81. So he's like, hey, I got a call from the branch ranger. And he's like, you wanna go to graduate school? So of course he had to apply and Georgia Tech was the first one to send an acceptance letter. So he's like, I guess we're going to Atlanta. I'm like, okay, you know.

• 23:01Jocko Willink?

  And that's kinda nice, right? He's just going to college and.

• 23:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. And I was there with little baby Maggie.

• 23:10Speaker 01

  And Phillip actually was born while we were there in Atlanta, but just right before we left. But during that time, I'm like, this is when I'm gonna get serious about my writing. Because I had time to do so. And I started writing children's stories.

• 23:24Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 23:24Speaker 01

  I actually wrote a ton and I just was rejected constantly. This is the story of my life.

• 23:31Speaker 01

  And so, but I also, at first, initially, I was very excited to get a rejection letter. Because back then you had to have the manuscript and your cover letter and put in the envelope. You put a self-addressed stamped envelope so they could send it back. And then you wait, you know, weeks and weeks and weeks.

• 23:48Jocko Willink?

  So it was almost like rejection was a form of recognition.

• 23:51Speaker 01

  It was. You get the rejection notice. It's like, oh, you know, but to me it was like, I'm doing this thing. You know, I said I would be a writer and I'm writing and people are telling me it's awful.

• 24:01Jocko Willink?

  It's so different now because you can just, you can just publish it yourself.

• 24:04Speaker 01

  That's true.

• 24:06Jocko Willink?

  Or you could, you can, you don't even have to make a book. You can just put your story online and. You can just get it out there, which is pretty awesome. And by the way, you can do that with music, you can do that with movies, you can do that with anything now.

• 24:16Speaker 01

  It's true.

• 24:17Jocko Willink?

  It's possible to produce something, which I think is awesome.

• 24:20Speaker 01

  I've heard, you know, professional writers with books under their belts say, I don't know why we need publishers anymore. Like.

• 24:28Jocko Willink?

  Oh, it's definitely a, a changing time for publishers. That's, that's for sure. Cause it's just a different world.

• 24:34Speaker 01

  I know. It's, it's kinda cool, but back then it was very.

• 24:37Jocko Willink?

  Of course, all props and love to the publishers.

• 24:40Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 24:41Jocko Willink?

  Only because my publishers are probably listening.

• 24:46Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 24:46Jocko Willink?

  Uh, but it is, it is interesting that what they don't, they don't, they definitely don't have the sway that they used to have. I mean, back like what you're talking about, you couldn't do it yourself. There wasn't an option.

• 24:56Speaker 01

  No way. Yeah. There was no way.

• 24:58Jocko Willink?

  So what were they telling you in these rejection letters? Did they even give you any feedback or was it just like, no?

• 25:02Speaker 01

  Most of the time it was, you know, thank you. It's not what we're looking for at this time kinda stuff. So, I mean, whoever knows. As I continued to write and be rejected, this was a multi-year thing, not just the time at, you know, Atlanta. Um, sometimes I got more specific, you know, uh, what I should do or, but a lot of times they were very encouraging. That was the thing. I think that's why I kept trying because I would get encouraging letters from editors. One time, cause I was still saying poetry off to poetry magazines.

• 25:34Jocko Willink?

  Man, I can't imagine how hard it is to get published in poetry.

• 25:37Speaker 01

  It's hard. Yeah. It's, it's very hard. And this one editor wrote me back and she's like, I really liked your poem. Basically paraphrasing here. It's been years, but, um, she's like, um, we passed it around. All the editors read it and ultimately we decided not to publish. I'm like, it was 50 bucks. You were gonna pay me 50 bucks if you published this poem. It went all around the office and you're like, no, it's not good enough for 50 bucks. I'm sorry. I don't know. I just thought it was so crazy. And that, but that letter that I got, I think by then Maggie was in high school. So this is, I mean, she was a baby.

• 26:11Jocko Willink?

  Well, so you did this for 18 years.

• 26:13Speaker 01

  Don't, it's not like every month, but on and off over the years I did continue. And, um, but that letter I threw in the trash. I used to save them as like a little scrapbook and I was like, I think the, you know, God's telling me something. And I threw it in the trash and I didn't attempt again really until drowning in lemonade, which wasn't that long after, interestingly.

• 26:37Jocko Willink?

  How about, um, after that, I know, I know your husband went to Fort Bliss for like the Star Wars Initiative type thing, but at a certain point, it's Desert Storm and he's in third ACR and he goes over there as the, as the operation staff officer. So now this is like a wartime deployment.

• 26:55Speaker 01

  Right.

• 26:56Jocko Willink?

  And I remember I was in the Navy at the time. I was about to go into SEAL training and reports were, I was watching CNN and reports were there's going to be 40,000 US casualties in the first 48 hours. It was something crazy. Don't quote me on that, but it was

• 27:11Speaker 01

  It was bad. I remember that.

• 27:13Jocko Willink?

  Amount of casualties.

• 27:14Speaker 01

  Oh, yes.

• 27:14Jocko Willink?

  So what was going through your mind at this point?

• 27:17Speaker 01

  Okay. So what you read at the beginning, that's that deployment. Um, I, as you said, your imagination can be way worse than actual, you know, reality. And so I was just, uh, not a happy camper and, uh, I did, um, watch a lot of CNN, which was a bad idea and I never did that again with any other deployment. I learned my lesson. Um, but I would watch it all the time and, you know, I'm trying to figure out where they are and what they're doing. Yeah. Cause they can only tell you so much. And the other part of our issue was, um, Sean joined the unit as it was deploying.

• 27:57Speaker 01

  And he had not gone to Bliss to be a part of the third ACR. He had gone to do the Star Wars stuff, right? Um, to use his degree, to use that aerospace degree he just got. And, um, so I was like, well, um, they probably won't take him because he doesn't belong to the unit, but, and it's just, you know, to me, it's all God. People could say fate, coincidence, whatever, but the regimental commander had been Sean's squadron commander when he was a lieutenant.

• 28:28Speaker 01

  And we knew this when we got there. He's like, oh, he's over there. I'm like, that's nice. Well, then when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait and then, you know, everyone's like, this is gonna happen, and this is gonna happen, and third ACR is going. And my husband, the news junkie, would get home from work, and it was kind of a nine to five job, and he would get home and put on whatever network he wanted to watch. You know, once the war started, CNN was the only 24/7 thing. That's why everybody watched it. But he's watching this, and he's just pacing the living room.

• 29:00Jocko Willink?

  Oh, because he's gonna miss it?

• 29:02Speaker 01

  Because he's gonna miss it, because he's doing this stupid R and D job, right? Instead of being in a combat unit, which he had just been in months before. Oh, the irony, or whatever. So I'm watching him pace, and it's every night, and he's talking about stuff, like, I bet they're doing this, and I wonder what they're gonna do when they get there. And so he always tells people that I sent him to Desert Storm. But honestly, I thought about it. I was like, if this is the man I'm gonna live with for God knows how long this thing's gonna last, he needs to go. And it was true. And this time, I had an infant. Our son Phil was about four months old, and Maggie, the three-year-old, and I'm like, you go talk to the regiment and see if they will have you. And he's like,

• 29:45Speaker 01

  really? I'm like, yes, please do that for me. Now, two things, I didn't really think they would take him. And two, I just was like, will he really go? Yes, he really went. And I kind of knew that part was gonna happen. And then he came home, and he's like, well, you know, I talked to the XO, or whatever they call the second-in-command at regimental level, maybe it's still an XO or Chief of Staff. He said, I talked to him and left a note for the regimental commander. And I'm like, okay, and this is where I start praying. This is where I pray, you know, your will be done. And we'll see what happens. And then I got a call from his senior, you know, the boss at the R and D job. His wife called me.

• 30:30Speaker 01

  And she's like, so my husband tells me Sean's wanting to leave our little family to go with their cab. And she said, and I told my husband, well, did you tell him? No. Did you tell him he can't do that? He's got a newborn baby at home. And you know, she starts, I'm like, like, I don't know this. I'm like, well, I kind of told him to go over and see if they had a job for him. And this was not Linda being the, you know, good army wife. I mean, this was just me with my husband.

• 30:58Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 30:59Speaker 01

  Looking at this man who to me seemed like he was in anguish.

• 31:02Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 31:03Speaker 01

  You know, it's like, this is what I trained for. This is why I'm here and I have to sit it out, you know? So I was like, I just couldn't be the reason he did that. Basically, I don't want to be the reason that he didn't get to go.

• 31:17Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's when nine 11 happened and the officer detailer who assigns us our jobs, I was in college at the time. So the Navy had sent me to college. So now I'm in college and the officer detailer who I knew who I'd worked for, who's a friend of mine. And as soon as nine 11 happened, I called him and I said, like, hey, you know, get me out of college. I can go to college when I die. You know, I don't care. I just want to get me out of here, send me back to a team. And he told me, you know, hey, though this war is going to last a long time, which I didn't believe at all, you know, because the Gulf War only lasted 72 hours. And I was no, please. And he goes, no, it's going to last a long time. Finish college and then I'll get you to a team. But a

• 31:59Jocko Willink?

  few years later, I had another conversation with him. And of course, I always thought, you know, I was the guy that called up. He everyone called.

• 32:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:05Jocko Willink?

  Everyone that wasn't in a combat unit called to try and get to one because that's what you want to do. That's what you came in for. And you don't want to like miss out on it as selfish as that might sound, especially when you got a family, you know, and I had a family at the time, too. I had, I probably had kids the same age. They were like three and. Yeah, yeah, yeah, they were like three and two or three and one. I had my kids were exact same age and my wife was telling me the same thing. Like she could tell here I am watching Fox News, watching all this stuff happen and it's she's going, gosh, you better get out of here. This is ridiculous. So there's a certain mentality that's very similar across the board.

• 32:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think so. I mean, it certainly happened in our case and I, uh, one day he came. I came home, I'd been somewhere with the kids and I walked into the house and there was all this desert camo stuff. You know, the old chocolate chip thing is what they're all over the kitchen, like on the, on the table and the chairs. I looked over and there was a little camouflage Bible with a little rosary because he'd obviously seen the Catholic. Or they asked him what religion he was and, and it was all out and he wasn't, he was in like the bathrooms. So this is all and like, oh, so I guess it worked out for you. And he came out and I'm looking at this and he's like, yeah, he said, I went back into the, you know, regimental office and they said, um,

• 33:29Speaker 01

  he showed, the guy showed him the note, the regimental commander, he never saw him up to this point. And it, you know, it said, Captain, because he was a senior captain at the time, Captain Sean McFarland is requested to join the regiment and deploy with us. And it just said, get him. The regimental commander had written, get him on it. So he showed that to Sean. And I was like, well, I don't know what they, you know, their experience is these were Vietnam vets, you know, like, but they were taking anybody who'd asked to go with them.

• 33:57Jocko Willink?

  What did you learn from a family perspective, from a home front perspective on that, on that first deployment?

• 34:03Speaker 01

  Okay, on the military side, on the army side of things. Third Army Cavalry Regiment was on it. They had a plan in place. We started up our, um, chains of concern where there was a spouse at the top and these are the ladies you call. Cause it's all women at the time, pretty much. This is who you call, um, and if there's an incident or any kind of news coming from uh, down range, this is how it's going to work. And I, they asked me to be one of the, um, people at the top to call some women. They gave me my list. Here's who you call. Roger, got it. I'm good to go. Okay. So that was that side. Then on the civilian side though, I mean, I'm in El Paso where I'm from, or my, you know, grew up since.

• 34:47Jocko Willink?

  Was your family still there at the time?

• 34:48Speaker 01

  My parents were no longer there. They had moved to Florida inconveniently.

• 34:54Speaker 01

  But you know, they get to live their life, that's fine. They didn't know. We never thought we'd go back to Fort Bliss. When we left, when Sean was, you know, after we got married, we're like, "It's been great, Fort Bliss." And we went back three times. So what do we know? But, so they were gone. But I had aunts and uncles and cousins there, and actually one of my sisters lived there. But everyone just kind of continued to live their lives as normal, you know, like, I got invited to Christmas, Easter, you know, every once in a while, a Sunday, something or other. But most of the time, you know, people weren't calling, "How you doing? What's going on?" You didn't get a lot of that. My sister, just because she's my sister, we do stuff together sometimes. But not a lot of anything. My

• 35:38Speaker 01

  across the street neighbor came over right after the ground war, no, right after Sean left. And I really felt kind of, I was in a civilian neighborhood, so I felt a little vulnerable with him gone. And the man across the street came over, and he was a family man, he had his wife and like teenage kids. And I opened the door, and we never met before because we'd just moved there, you know, Sean had only been there a few months doing the R and D job when, in August, the ground war started, so it'd been like three months. And he, he's like, "Ma'am, is your husband with the third ACR?" And I mean, I'm sure he just saw him coming and going. I said, "Yes, he is." He goes, "Well, I guess he's going to be deployed soon." He goes, "I want you to know, I am a retired NCO, and I'm

• 36:23Speaker 01

  used to taking care of officers. So if you need anything while your husband's gone, you just come across the street, do not hesitate to ask." I was huge for me. I never had to bother him, but it was nice to know. And I knew he meant it, because why would he do that? He had no, no reason to, other than he felt for our family. So that was pretty cool. I had an uncle about two miles away, and I, you know, saw him occasionally at family things. But the night that somebody knocked on my door at 10 o'clock at night, And I looked through the blinds just a little and there was a car, we lived on a corner on the opposite side, there was a car full of guys. And they were just sitting there and kind of talking to each other, but someone had come to my door and knocked. I called my uncle.

• 37:08Speaker 01

  And I was like, I'm sorry to call you so late. But somebody's knocking at my door and there's a car, guys across the street. And I don't know if anybody's noticed I'm here alone, or maybe they have a real problem, but there's other houses. I don't like this. And he goes, I'm on my way. And two miles away, and I don't know how fast he drove, but he was there and he whips into the driveway and jumps out of the car and the car was gone. And he's my, he was my mother's youngest brother, so he's probably in his 40s. He looked, you know, not like grandpa coming to the door, you know. And so I was like, oh, you know, and he came in, he looked around, he goes, oh, I'm going home, because I'm late. You know, I stay up late, I'll, I'll drive back by later and make sure everything's okay. You know, so that was wonderful.

• 37:52Jocko Willink?

  But we never found out what these guys were doing?

• 37:54Speaker 01

  We don't know, but it's just, it was just odd. You know, so.

• 38:00Speaker 01

  But overall, I really feel like, I knew everyone was there if I needed them. But nobody really got, the story that I remember very clearly is a holiday, I don't remember exactly which one.

• 38:15Speaker 01

  And all my family were gathered together. And my parents had come to town. And so they were all there too, and we're on the house and they're watching like the war on TV. You know, they're watching CNN. Stuff on TV and they're like, oh, that's, that's interesting, you know. And then, and I was like, I can't do this. I don't want to just sit there and act like it's a movie or a TV show. So I said, I gotta go, bye. And I took my little kids, I got home and I got sick. I got like physically ill and, and it's like, nobody there knew. You know, I just was like, do you not understand? What's going on?

• 38:54Jocko Willink?

  So did you, did you learn? Hey, sitting around and watching TV, watching the news and watching all these things happen is not probably the best idea? I know my wife. Really didn't, she was very detached. She wasn't gonna watch, of course, she had three kids, you know, during my deployments. So it wasn't like she had a bunch of time to sit around and watch TV. I, I wouldn't say she purposely avoided it, like actively purposely avoided it. But I, I think she consciously made a decision that to sit around and watch the news every night to find out what, you know, how many people were wounded that day, how many people were killed that day. I think she decided to, let's say, decided to focus on other things.

• 39:35Jocko Willink?

  And I think that was, and, and that's very, again, for, for my marriage. My wife, she didn't really, I, I didn't tell her a bunch of things that were going on. I didn't, I didn't bring home any of the drama, the gossip, the, the rumors, the, all that stuff that's happening. I didn't really talk, I didn't talk about any of that stuff with my wife. And so therefore, when, when the wars kicked off, it wasn't like I now started telling her. I just never really, we had, we always had a very, I always had a very compartmentalized knowledge gap between what's happening at work and what's happening at home. And, and I'm not saying that's the right thing to do. Yeah. Because I know other families that the wife knows everything. The wife knows more than the husband because she's getting multiple sources that are,

• 40:21Jocko Willink?

  you know, she's got the other wives that are telling, and, and so I'm not saying that's the right way, or there's, there's a right way or wrong way. I'm just saying for me, and for what seemed to be good for my wife was, hey, I don't know what you're doing. You go do it. I'll see you when you come home. And I'm gonna be over here with the kids and taking care of the home front. And that's what she did. And it was, it seemed to be very good for her. Right. Of course, you know, there's times where it, you're gonna, like, it's gonna hit you because, you know, when you lose people or people get wounded. And my wife was wonderful about going to see my wounded guys in the hospital and stuff like that. And then it's, you, you, you have to confront the fact that this is happening. Right. But other than that, I think she did her best to kind of

• 41:05Jocko Willink?

  live in a state, in a state of mind that was, you know, wife, or sorry, kids, family.

• 41:13Jocko Willink?

  Dance recital, jujitsu tournament, like all that stuff.

• 41:16Speaker 01

  Right, sure. I think, I will say, like during the day, I did not watch, I didn't have television on like all the time. It was usually after the kids went to bed at night that I would turn it on and kind of catch up with things. And then I kind of even steered away from that. I'm like, I'll watch a movie or whatever. So I did, because I did start to feel like I can't do this all the time. And I think that's why what happened with my family happened. I don't even know if any of my family listen to this. I don't know if it will surprise them to know, because I don't think I've ever told them that happened. But it was just kind of surreal. It's like, you know Sean's there, right? And this is not a fiction

• 42:01Speaker 01

  for me. This is very interesting. And I don't blame anyone. Like, I'm not mad. I don't carry a grudge. It's just you can't understand it if you haven't experienced it firsthand as your loved one, as spouse, or maybe child, or just someone you're close to in that way. I just don't think it really can penetrate something. And maybe people do it for defensive reasons. But I don't have that option, right? So, but I was like, I'm leaving now. I think that's what's best for me. And I blamed on the kids and I left without making a scene. But that's probably why I got sick when I got home. But it gets to bed and they're like, okay, I'm done here. I'm done being strong today.

• 42:47Jocko Willink?

  How long was he gone for?

• 42:48Speaker 01

  The actual time he was gone was like five months. Because he joined them as they were already deploying, they put him in the S4 shop initially. So he was helping push everybody out. That's what he, his job before troop command in Germany, he was the S4 for our squadron. So they're like, oh, that's a good place for you. But then when he got there, he moved to the S3 shop. And um, you know, did something completely different.

• 43:13Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 43:14Speaker 01

  But because I know, and I don't know why, no one's ever told me why, but I feel like he volunteered to go. He was an add on they, he was with one of the, not the very first group, and he kind of came back with the earlier groups. Um, which, you know, I wasn't gonna complain about. It's fine with me.

• 43:30Jocko Willink?

  What was next after that? A couple of years in college, is that right?

• 43:33Speaker 01

  Um, what did he do?

• 43:35Jocko Willink?

  Did he do a couple like?

• 43:35Speaker 01

  Oh, yes. Um, the Commander General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth. Um, so we took our two little ones off there. Maggie did kindergarten and first grade. Philip did pre-K, you know.

• 43:48Jocko Willink?

  And that's a good mental break and time with the family and all that stuff?

• 43:53Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm, pretty much. You know, Sean doesn't do anything halfway, so he was studied hard and wrote all these papers.

• 44:03Speaker 01

  I don't know, whatever they do.

• 44:04Jocko Willink?

  At least, did you sell the type for him?

• 44:06Speaker 01

  No, no, but I was there, or he was there for um, Philip's soccer games, which you know, three-year-old soccer games are hilarious. But that was fun. And uh, my daughter's dance recitals and she took up the violin in first grade. Um, it was the Suzuki method. You don't need to read music, you just learn by ear. Um, and I had worked, my part-time job in college, I don't think you ever mentioned, was as a clerk typist in the music department at the university. So all my friends were musicians and I learned all this stuff about music that, you know, but I was the English major in this music department. So I had learned about Suzuki method there. And so they can start kids as young as three on these little tiny violins.

• 44:48Jocko Willink?

  Did she get good at it?

• 44:50Speaker 01

  Pretty good. She played till eighth grade, eighth, what would have been eighth grade. She skipped eighth grade, so. But she, she played till then and then um, she switched to voice.

• 44:59Jocko Willink?

  Are you getting uh, are you getting indoctrinated into the military wife type of thing? Are they, do you take classes or anything like that?

• 45:09Speaker 01

  Up till that point, I had not, I did not. I, that uh, time we were in third Cav was a huge, really deep, good, deep dive into um, and learning about being a, an army wife.

• 45:24Jocko Willink?

  Was it, are there official classes?

• 45:26Speaker 01

  There are, there are. I'm not sure if there were yet, but they came around shortly after that. Cause then we went to Germany, to Schweinfurt, Germany. And, well, Wurzburg for a year and then Schweinfurt. But anyway, he was in a cavalry squadron in Schweinfurt. And by then, the army was offering these classes for spouses, starting, you know, zero to five years. You take this class, you know.

• 45:47Jocko Willink?

  And what are they teaching you in these classes?

• 45:49Speaker 01

  Oh, well, the very early ones, like how to read an LES, the leave an earnings statement. You know, like real simple, the rank structure, you know, enlisted and officer side. A little bit about protocol stuff, a little bit. And then with each section, you get a little more. Now, I never took those classes. I always said, I went to the school of hard knocks. So I learned a lot of that stuff, but on my own. I did do pre-command stuff though, like before battalion command. I took those courses. They even had, you know, pre-command courses for company level command. And I think I did one of those, but it was real, you know, few days kind of thing. So I really don't think, you know, as with most things in life, the classroom is not where you're really gonna learn,

• 46:32Speaker 01

  you know, the stuff that really matters. You're gonna learn that by doing. I am an observer of human nature. So I watched every command spouse around me and how they did it. And I took what was good and I said, that's good. And if they did a bad job, I'm like, I will never do that if Sean ever gets this type of command. It wasn't like super cut, like I didn't have a notebook or anything, but I was just watching stuff. And you see the, the results of a particular thing and you're like, okay, don't do that. Nobody seems real happy, you know, or whatever.

• 47:03Jocko Willink?

  So you did realize that at some point, if he got promoted and if he got like battalion command, for instance, you were gonna be, you understood that there was a role to play as a battalion commander's wife and you would have to. Execute on those duties.

• 47:20Speaker 01

  I I always understood I didn't have to. You know, the army can't make me.

• 47:25Jocko Willink?

  Oh, okay.

• 47:26Speaker 01

  They can't make me. They can't make me. I'm a private citizen and I get have that choice. But because I was blessed with some pretty good, um, you know, role models early on. I was like, why, why would I not like? It just felt like things worked better when somebody is there who knows what they're doing. And um, is trying to help others figure out what to do. So.

• 47:53Jocko Willink?

  One of the we're we're gonna get to the book in a second. One of the things you talk about in the book is there's something that you mentioned. There was like some negative, some negativity in the families at some point. What was that all about? You don't and I maybe I'm putting you on the spot. You don't go into too much detail in the book. Was it just like people with bad attitudes? Was it rumor mill type stuff? What what was going on there?

• 48:15Speaker 01

  It was. It was very strange. I don't know how much anybody wants to hear about this, but there were uh, our unit was being combined with another. Uh, part of a unit that had been training elsewhere in the United States and we were in Germany in Schweinfurt. And that was the Bosnia deployment. And they were getting ready to leave like anytime now, um, the the tankers who were here. And this other um.

• 48:39Jocko Willink?

  Here being.

• 48:40Speaker 01

  In Schweinfurt.

• 48:40Jocko Willink?

  In Schweinfurt.

• 48:41Speaker 01

  Sorry. So we're all there in Schweinfurt and we're getting our people ready and the spouses are doing their thing to be ready and. Of course, the soldiers doing theirs. And then they're like, oh, these other soldiers are joining us now. They're gonna be part of the squadron. And we've given the families the option. They can come, even though their soldier will leave immediately. Or they can stay in the States till they come back and they decided to come. And we all applauded that. We're like, good for you. You should be here with the other families where we can all, you know, be together, support one another. And um, but it was just a lot of issues with us integrating with them. We did on our end so much work, and I say we, that included spouses, to make them feel welcome to, um,

• 49:26Speaker 01

  you know, we gave them all sorts of information that we would not have gotten if we'd showed up as an individual that we had. We met the bus from the airport. They all came together on buses. Like, that's just unheard of. You just show up and you wander around till your sponsors show. You know, like, this was, we did so many things, and they, a lot of them, not all of them, but of course, the loudest voices were not happy and complained. And, you know, I do a lot of dime store psychology, so this is one of those moments. I think they were not happy that their soldier was gonna leave immediately upon arrival, but they decided to project that onto the unit they were coming to, instead of their husband or the army or life. I don't know. So it was kinda rocky. And, and at the time, the

• 50:09Speaker 01

  other thing the division decided to do, because this was a divisional squadron asset, so, cavalry squadron, so, um, they changed out commanders before the training for the deployment. And that was kinda weird. Um, and, you know, who knows what personnel reasons they had, but, so the new guy came, the new commander, but without his family, and Sean was the XO, and I was the XO's wife. And there was no senior spouse there, so I started taking up some slack, because I'd already done Desert Storm with Third Cav who was on it. And I'm like, I know what we need. We need chains of concern. We need to be, you know, trained in this and that. So I start working with the Army Community Services people who do

• 50:51Speaker 01

  that kind of training, and we're getting stuff set up, and we're doing all these things. And Sean's coming home, you know, prior to their deployment, saying, "You're being mentioned at our staff meetings. What the heck?" And I'm like, I'm sorry, but somebody has to help get the families ready and I guess it's me. And to me, I always felt like if there's a need and I see the need, I will try and, you know, alleviate what the problem is, or get people educated, or supplied, supported, whatever. So that's what I was doing. And my third ACR time, I felt like that was my training for this, you know. And it was accepted well by many, but not by others.

• 51:34Speaker 01

  And it really hurt to have people say that this had been an inadequate integration, that they hadn't been made to feel this way or the other. And I'm like, I'm not doing stuff with my kids right now to make sure your family is gonna be taken care of when they arrived. So, you know, I'm taking it very personally. But at the meeting, in this big steering committee meeting with all the leadership, just the spouses, mind you. And I'm sort of being an undated, like, people are throwing things at me, not literally, but, you know, metaphorically. A lot of unhappy people are telling me how I had not done a very good job. It's how I was taking it. And the squadron commander's wife was like, okay, we're done here. And the tanker

• 52:19Speaker 01

  wives with me were like, I can't believe you're taking all this. I can't believe you didn't say anything. And I'm like, no, no, no, no. Right now, we have the moral high ground and we're staying here. We're staying here. We're like, thank you for your input. Okay, sorry about that. And one of the girls is like, somebody needs to be thrown up against the wall. Like, you know, these gals were really very upset. So, you know, this just was going on. I went home that night, and I paid the babysitter, because my kids were at home. And I asked her if she could come, you know, the next night for some other stupid meeting, I don't know. And then I called my sister, one of my F2, I called my sister who was at work, and I just started bawling on the phone.

• 53:01Speaker 01

  I just, I just, you know, everything was like, he's gone now. I didn't really get a good goodbye because I was so busy and he was so busy. We didn't get any family time. He's just gone, you know? And then this happens and I was giving my all to these people who didn't seem to, not everyone, but a lot of the loud mouths, it's always, you know, the ones who complain are always louder, um, that weren't happy. And so I, I'm just crying, you're crying. And she told me later, she was at work, you know, because our time difference, it's nighttime where I am, it's afternoon in Mississippi. And, uh, people are walking by her desk and they see this stricken look on her face. And they're like, is everything okay? And she's like, it's my sister from Germany. I think she's having a nervous breakdown.

• 53:45Speaker 01

  So, um, I, I, I loaded everything up. I, I did not go to bed that night. I took all of my, uh, paperwork and all the rosters I had and all the information I had all over our bed and I organized everything and I made notes and I'm like, I am turning this over tomorrow to squad commander's wife and I'm resigning. And then I'm just gonna take care of my kids and me and good luck to you all. And, um, I called her like as early as I could the next morning. I'm like, ah, the kids left for school. I'm gonna call her now. And I told her that. I said, I'm resigning. I've got everything for you. And she said, the only thing she could have said that kept me in the job, my volunteer job, she said, but Linda, you are a light to these women.

• 54:28Speaker 01

  We need you to stay and keep doing stuff. Don't withdraw, don't leave. And I'm like, dang it. Cause really, truly, I was like, well, you know, I'm called to be a light and nobody said it was gonna be easy. So I stayed.

• 54:43Jocko Willink?

  Did you, did you learn anything from that in terms of, uh, people attacking you? And again, throwing stuff at you metaphorically. It seems, you know, it seems like you gotta develop a thicker skin at some point where you realize, you know, what people say, oh, you can't make everyone happy or things like that. Like, what did you take away from if your daughter was calling you going, this is ridiculous, those girls don't appreciate. Well, what would you, what would you tell her?

• 55:10Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, I did learn a lot from that and I did develop a thicker skin, which was really good because he just kept getting more senior. So there's just more people to hate you, you know? Not that they all did, but there's a bigger pool of people to decide you're not doing things correctly. I, I was really able to take those experiences and share with others. Um, you know, people would email me or call me and say, you know, I'm in this new unit and, you know, the wife isn't doing anything. And I'm like, well, she doesn't have to, first of all. And I'm like, second of all, have you offered to help her? I'll bet if you go to her and say, hey, you know, I was thinking we really need this program or this whatever, and I'd like to head that up. She'll be more than

• 55:53Speaker 01

  happy for you to do so. You know, like, don't just complain. Just how are you gonna help fix this? And how are you gonna help her? You know, we don't, um, get, um, hired, right? The spouse. Nobody, we don't fill an application. We don't even volunteer sometimes. It's like, here, do this, you know? Um, but definitely nobody was paying us anything and, and, um, nor do, you know, most of us don't expect to, don't want to be. But it's like, think about the fact that we have had no real training for this position. And so everyone's doing the best they can. And you know what? Some people, like, I thank you, God, got over my shyness and was able to stand in front of people and tell them things and ask them

• 56:36Speaker 01

  questions and, but some people will never be there. They have anxiety issues, they're shy, they're in, uh, you know, whatever it is. Don't expect things from them that it's not written anywhere. They should be that, you know. So I try to pass that along to people and, you know, make your corner of the world where you can be an influencer. Do that. Be that light. Be that positive. My watchwords by the time we got to Brigade Command were positive and productive. If this thing we're talking about doing is neither of those, then we're not doing it, you know.

• 57:14Speaker 01

  So I just, I learned so much in that very difficult time that helped me with Sean's Battalion Command and Brigade Command times. And so I'll forever be grateful, even though it was hard.

• 57:29Jocko Willink?

  And did, so you were more prepared when it was Battalion Command time?

• 57:34Speaker 01

  Yes. I, I basically, one thing I learned from our squadron commander's wife, the second one who came in, initially, when people would complain, we were bending over backwards to try and accommodate whatever their complaint was. And then one day she said she realized as one of the other ladies was hanging curtains in this woman's house for her, for reasons I couldn't understand. But she's like, what are we doing here? And I'm like, ma'am, what are you doing here? I don't know. Cause I wasn't there. But she said, you know what? What we're gonna do is what we can do. And then everything, if people are unhappy, they've got to figure out a way not to be unhappy. But it's not our job to facilitate that, you

• 58:17Speaker 01

  know, in their personal lives. So we actually had our fake T-shirt that said, oh, well. And she said, let's pretend we have a T-shirt underneath our blouse that says, oh, well. So when people come up and say, and this happened and that person, oh, well, you know, and I love that. And then the other thing she said was, If people are speaking badly about other people and you are there, your options are walk away, just leave the scene, or say, "I'm not comfortable talking about people behind their backs, so we need to change this conversation, I have to leave." I used that after that and throughout my life. And people said, "Oh, but that's so hard to do." I'm like, "Not for me. Not after I saw what happened when people just were

• 59:00Speaker 01

  backbiting and being awful to each other. I would much rather just tell you to face, 'I'm not doing this, I'm sorry.'" And as a senior leader, informal, not assigned, but one who took on that role, you know, you get to be that example for others. And then you can mediate, like and say, "You know, you two are not getting along very well. I see this. We can get together and talk about it and figure out, you know, how you can get along." Or, "Please stay away from each other and stop, stop talking about each other. Yeah, you're back." So, those are things, oh my goodness, I couldn't have imagined doing as that silly 22-year-old, but you know, take me down the line a little bit with a few punches to the face, you know, metaphorically.

• 59:43Jocko Willink?

  Did you go to school for battalion command? Do you go to school for that?

• 59:46Speaker 01

  You do. There's a pre-command course for the couple, the command couple. Actually, Command Sergeant Major and their spouse as well are invited. But we're invited. They have, you know, real-life orders to be there. And they're there for like three weeks. We get a week. But it's hard. You have kids in school and you have a job or whatever. It's hard to get there. So, not everybody makes it. And they do not have, this is not a distance learning thing. They want you there. And I understand why. And I've actually had to explain this more than once to working wives. They're like, "Well, I can't take a week off of work." And I'm like, "I'm so sorry." But you need to be in that room with the other spouses. And what they had finally

• 1:00:28Speaker 01

  come up with, and I had a little bit of input on this, the pre-command course for battalion command that I went to several years later was much different. Because I was seeing battalion commander's wives as a brigade spouse. I was seeing battalion-level commander spouses who were not really understanding, you know, the difficulties and challenges they might face, particularly during wartime, because we were now in wartime. And so there were several of us who were like, you guys got to make this a little more preparatory for what they're going into. And then also, we asked to please make the Brigade Spouse Course more relevant. Because a lot of time, when I did battalion commands spouse

• 1:01:11Speaker 01

  course, the brigade commander's wife was kind of like a resource for them, you know? And so I went as a brigade commander's wife, and they were like, Linda, what would you do in a situation like that? And I'm like, what, me? I was here to learn. Now you're asking me to what? Like, and I said, I must have missed a letter. They must have sent something that said, we will be calling. No, there was no letter. They just had a plan and they surprised you with it, you know, when you got there. So after that time, things began to change. And now, there really are good courses involved to help kind of, help you to be that person who can maybe mediate here and there and be the mentor that would be

• 1:01:56Speaker 01

  more helpful to the spouses and families in the unit. And I really like where they've gotten with that.

• 1:02:02Jocko Willink?

  So by the time you are in Brigade, so it's now 2005, so the war, and your husband went over there for, kind of pretty quickly in 2003, 2004. I know, we were actually both there at the same time. But we weren't co-located, but we were both in country at the same time. And I think he was approving some operations that we were doing. We were kind of chuckling about it on the podcast. But then in 2005, he gets assigned to command First Brigade, First Armor Division. And this is really what the book, where you really start getting into what you experienced in the book. And I'm just going to go to the book here. You say, I can't tell you everything. There's too much to tell, but I can share some of

• 1:02:46Jocko Willink?

  the mountaintop experiences, those moments that got me to where I am now. Those moments where I knew with absolute clarity, I was in the company of angels. The words that mark mountaintop moments are these, not my will, but thine be done. They are said without hesitation, no holding back. Whatever God does, or whatever He allows, I will accept. Why? It's not my call to make. The Creator makes the call. If I believe in His infinite love and mercy, how can I even think of holding on to any earthly thing? You want to know how I got here? How do you get to the mountaintop? You have to want to go there.

• 1:03:29Jocko Willink?

  And sometimes you'll be pushed and shoved. You'll fall more than once. And sometimes they'll kick you and whip you. They'll spit on you and call you names. But you'll know you're not alone. And don't fight back even though you could. And boy, would you show them? You can't be bitter, although there's plenty of reason. You're unappreciated, to put it mildly. Some even despise you, although you're not sure why. You asked to know the secret, but if you'd like to share the mountaintop with me, you need to know what'll happen. You'll experience some of this, maybe all of it, in different ways. I've gone before you, it'll be okay. How do you get to the mountaintop? By dying.

• 1:04:12Jocko Willink?

  Dying to yourself, to your desires, your comfort, your pride. Look to me for your strength, to be encouraged, and that's a capital M. Unite your sufferings with mine, capital M, in mine. Then you'll find the mountaintop. Then you'll find yourself on the mountaintop. And then, one day, one glorious, perfect day, you'll go beyond the summit. You'll hear my father say, you'll hear your father say, "Well done, good and faithful servant." And that's April of 2005, you wrote that.

• 1:04:51Jocko Willink?

  The idea that, "Hey, listen, you gotta accept what gets put in front of you." It's actually very similar. I echo Charles made a video of me one time. And I'm saying, "Hey, when something bad happens, just say 'good' and figure out what good is gonna come from this thing." And you've got this similar thing. "Hey, this is God's will, and we're gonna move forward with it." How does that encourage us to take action? In other words, what are you, you know, "Well, it's gonna happen, it's gonna happen, so I'm just gonna sit back and let it happen." As opposed to, "Hey, it's gonna happen, I need to make the most of it, and I need to take action." How do you reconcile those two thoughts?

• 1:05:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think everything you do should be intentional.

• 1:05:38Speaker 01

  You don't do things just because. I always say you have to know the why. You have to be able to answer the question, why? For other people, otherwise, why bother? There should be meaning behind the things you do. So, you know, anytime I was in a situation that wasn't the most pleasant, I always knew God was with me. And that the little, it's kind of little, you know, poem of sorts there. That's Jesus, right? And he was, to me, I always say, follow the leader with a capital L. He's the perfect leader. He never asked us to do anything he didn't have to do.

• 1:06:19Speaker 01

  The pain he endured and all of the stuff that went with his passion and death. And even before that, when he was, you know, unjustly accused, his friends abandoned him. You know, there's a lot of, a lot of bad stuff went on. So there's always that leader to look to, to say, well, okay, he went through this, I'm gonna go through this, and he is with me. So that's kind of where it is, you know. I mean, I'm human, so it doesn't always perfectly fall like that. But that's the goal, right? Is to do things with intention, out of love, and, and just be the person that you think God made you to be.

• 1:07:04Speaker 01

  And he made us to be like him, which is merciful and loving and kind. So.

• 1:07:11Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you know, you mentioned that in here. You say, "I've experienced it in a much smaller way," meaning what, what Jesus went through, right? The suffering. You say, "I've experienced it in a much smaller way, but real for me nonetheless." To be so tired, so drained, and then asked to give more to others who do not know what my life is like and don't really consider how difficult it is.

• 1:07:36Jocko Willink?

  On my, on my knees, I beg God to make this go away. You can do anything, but my husband's orders didn't change. This is when you were fixing to get orders to go to this brigade. But my orders, but my husband's orders didn't change. We were still going to Friedberg, Germany. So I had to accept it. And this was, you know, you talk about it. Again, I'm only reading the, uh, not reading the whole book. Get the book. So that you can get the whole story, but you're waiting for this brigade command and you know, your husband and I talked about when he was on the podcast, but he'd been promised one brigade and that brigade didn't come through and they changed some army policy about when you could switch out brigades and all these things kind of happened. And,

• 1:08:20Jocko Willink?

  yeah, it's just, he finally ends up with, with the 11 AD.

• 1:08:27Jocko Willink?

  And the brigade that Sean was given, Ready First was preparing to deploy in a few months to Iraq. So when he finally gets orders, it's like, oh, you're going to Iraq.

• 1:08:39Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I, it's, it's just so crazy because we had been in Germany. This was our, is this our fourth tour? I think it was our fourth tour. Yes, it was our fourth tour. We had never been in the first armored division. I didn't want to ever be in the first armored division. When we were in first ID, which is where the battalion or the brigade was supposed to be that he was going to get. And then they whooped it. No, that parade, that's just inactivating. We're just getting rid of it. I'm like, who does that? What? In the middle of a war, but okay. So instead he was going to get this first armored division brigade. And I'm like, no, we don't want to go there. Remember? We don't like first armored division.

• 1:09:20Speaker 01

  First ID was happy and sunny and everything was great. And first ID was dark and gloomy and all bad things always happened to first ID. Honestly, and so I feel like I was

• 1:09:31Jocko Willink?

  Where'd you get that impression from?

• 1:09:33Speaker 01

  Going to the jaws of the dragon. Um, just experiences. It always seemed like something weird was going on in First AD in our previous tours. My apologies to anybody who was in it. And it's not like every day was bad, but there'd be these big things that were kind of like, oh, like a division commander gets relieved because he's having an affair with a subordinate or, you know, like big stuff. And, uh, and then the part of the country that it was in, the part of Germany. We were in sunny Bavaria, you know, down in the third ID when he had battalion command.

• 1:10:03Jocko Willink?

  And it's all nice and

• 1:10:04Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:10:04Jocko Willink?

  It's the, the, um, built up. It's very built up. It's a very beautiful place.

• 1:10:08Speaker 01

  It is beautiful and, um, you know,

• 1:10:11Jocko Willink?

  Heavily supported.

• 1:10:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:14Jocko Willink?

  Like nice barracks and all that kind of stuff.

• 1:10:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, relatively newer things. I mean, it was night and day. And so I was like, really, Lord? And that's the thing. I just have conversations with God all the time. You ever seen, um, the movie Fiddler on the Roof?

• 1:10:29Jocko Willink?

  Hmm.

• 1:10:30Speaker 01

  If I were a rich man.

• 1:10:31Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:10:33Speaker 01

  Okay, so Tevye is the, um, you know, main character in that. And he talks all the time to us, the audience, breaks the fourth wall all the time. But he also talks to God a lot. And he asks him, you know, like, why us? You know, he's a, a Jewish, um, guy being persecuted as God bless them, they have so many times. And he's like, you know, we're the chosen people. Why can't you choose someone else? You know, and, and he has these conversations, but you know that as in like a relationship with a husband and wife or whatever, someone really close to you, you can have those conversations. You can be honest with your feelings. Tell them, you know, how you're feeling. And it's, you're still going to be okay, you know, you know, that the love is there and you're still going to be okay.

• 1:11:18Speaker 01

  So that's kind of what I do most times mentally. I don't talk, um, you know, occasionally pray a lot, but a lot of it is truly just talking to God, which I tell people. You know, because I don't know how to pray. You don't have to know how to pray. You just talk. Say, Lord, really? What are we doing here? You know? Um, and, and it's just, it becomes very conversational, which definitely what Tevye does. So I encourage everyone to watch Fiddler on the Roof again, because it's really a good movie. It's great songs. I'm a big musical theater fan, so. But so that's what I was doing. And so because I have that kind of relationship, I like to think with God, when weird stuff happens, or stuff I wasn't planning on, or didn't want to do like this,

• 1:12:00Speaker 01

  I just talked to him about it. And I've always felt like he's got this, like he's with me, it's gonna be okay, whatever it is, it's gonna be and that's just, you know, built over time, right? But that conversation, that prayer of just regular conversation has really, really helps me a lot. So when we had to do the Friedberg thing, instead of the Realsack thing, I used to, I think I say in the book, Friedberg was the land that time forgot. Did I use that phrase? If I didn't, I've said it many times to people, they were gonna close that community down, the army was gonna close it down. It was not well supported. It was falling apart. I was appalled.

• 1:12:43Speaker 01

  The first time I walked through, they had a pedestrian gate from the housing area. It looked like a bomb had gone off. There's stuff hanging off the little house that the guard was supposed, the guard shack looked like crap. And, you know, the roads were like this. I said, I told the garrison commander, you know, so he's back in the rear with us, sadly for him, because I was always complaining. But I'm like, I walk with my son to church, we're gonna turn our ankle or break something because of the potholes in the road and the sidewalks to get from the pedestrian gate to where the church was. So, you know, we, we worked really hard to get things improved there because we were not closing down until after they returned from Iraq.

• 1:13:27Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and it was interesting, or really good leadership lesson here. You say, "Some people may wonder why the decision of living an hour away," because that's what you, if you, you could have stayed in your old, you could have just stayed there in Heidelberg. But you say, but you knew you had to leave and you say, as one whose husband has deployed from within a community of many deployed soldiers and from communities where they're, where very few are gone, I know that the former is by far the better situation. To live with the other spouses who have soldiers deployed with your soldier makes a huge difference. You don't feel so alone. And as the commander's wife, I believed it was important to be there in solidarity with their experiences. Friedberg was not the most well-funded community. We

• 1:14:09Jocko Willink?

  did not have all the amenities of Heidelberg, the headquarters of the US Army in Europe. I couldn't live there and then tell the spouses in Friedberg that, or our additional housing areas, I know how you feel if I wasn't living among them, living their experience too. So, that's a good lesson learned. You couldn't be sitting there, oh, just, you know, suck it up down there in your crappy barracks and your blown out gate guard and all this stuff. You didn't do that.

• 1:14:40Speaker 01

  No. And I really, you know, again, it's like, it's like I said earlier about if I see a need, I'm like, well, how can I alleviate this? How can I help? And I thought, I can't do that from there. But if I'm living where they are, I can say, I walk those streets, right? And something bad's gonna happen to somebody. And, and I never, if I have, I apologize if I'm lying, but I never asked for anything for myself or my family. I asked for things for the families of our brigade because they deserved it. I'm like, you have soldiers dying every week in a foreign land at your behest, you better take care

• 1:15:21Speaker 01

  of these families. I, and I just felt that was a moral issue and that there was no, you know, wiggle room on that. It's like, can you please, and Sean, you know, God bless him, because he's very, very busy and otherwise engaged. We had a great rear detachment commander, but he said, Sean told me, he's like, you do whatever you need to do. Talk to whoever you need to talk to. I don't care, you know, get angry. Because I was at the point where I was getting ready to stand on somebody's desk, you know, and say, help these families! Because it was just, it just to me, they deserve better. So we were able to, you know, make, because everyone knew, well, I shouldn't say everyone, the powers that be in USR, US Army

• 1:16:03Speaker 01

  Europe, knew that that brigade was gonna go away and that community was gonna go back to the Germans, and they knew when. But the families didn't know that. And so, um, they didn't want to pour a lot of money into it, because they're like, well, in a few months, or whatever, ended up being, you know, almost fifteen months, but, you know, this is going back to the Germans. And, and that date was not a date that could change easily, because that was above, you know, USR level. That is, you know, Status of Forces Agreement stuff. So that's like State Department to State Department. They, they, we promised them we'd be out by this date in April or May, whatever it was. And so we had to, had to be gone. So they were not giving us a lot of money.

• 1:16:45Speaker 01

  The day they closed our movie theater, and they promised us they wouldn't close the movie theater. And so this was Garrison, this was not Division necessarily, but, you know, whatever it's called, Installation Management Command. They closed it because it was such a tiny community, nobody was going to the theater, and they only opened on the weekends. But we had teenagers there. And I'm like, can the teenagers have somewhere to go on a Friday night, or Saturday night? Can they go see some, whatever dopey movie? Um, and they're like, no. So they took down them. Because that's the thing, too. It's like, I have no power. I am the spouse of an active duty military officer, but I am not one. So I can complain

• 1:17:29Speaker 01

  and yell and scream, or I try not to do that too often. But I did go in with my argument of here's why we should do these things. And sometimes they listened, and sometimes they didn't. You know, so, but I was like, I don't have power, but I think I have a little bit of influence, um, because of his power. Which I didn't make this system up, but if I can use this to the advantage of our families. I will do that for them. And so, and that I continue to do that throughout the rest of his career as he got more senior. We, we divided things up. Sean had the army, you know, the soldiers and all that. I had the family lane. And, and he was so good about supporting the things because

• 1:18:13Speaker 01

  he knew I was talking to people. I wasn't just making this up out of my head. I was like, oh my gosh, you know, if I found things that needed to be looked at, I tried to, tried to help.

• 1:18:23Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you talk about what you were trying to, your goals were encourage others in their distress, distract them with healthy, good diversions, elevate them, their spirits, their moods, their outlook, inspire them with prayer and productive meetings. I didn't want to ever waste anyone's time and love them. With advice and input from my husband, brigade leadership and others, we devised this plan of attack quarterly brigade wide events that were fun, inclusive and not burdensome to those involved, particularly the leadership in the battalions and companies. Monthly prayer services for the safety of our troops and well being of our families. Care team training and implementation across the brigade with additional psychological, emotional support from our combat operational stress control teams. These were licensed social workers, therapists, counselors,

• 1:19:08Jocko Willink?

  and clinicians in our community who helped family members undergoing the stress of deployment or following a casualty or other critical event. So that, that, those were your goals. At what point did you realize that this deployment was going to be such heavy sustained combat? Like when you, did you, when, when your husband was hearing rumors of going to Ramadi, did you recognize how bad Ramadi was? Did you, where, where, what was that like for you?

• 1:19:39Speaker 01

  Because I had heard the report from the G2 or whatever they call them of the army, the intelligence guy at DA level saying Ramadi's all but lost. Just let's close up shop and go home. And then Sean's like, well, looks like I'm going to Ramadi. I was like, no, no, no. See, they said no, don't go there. So I was pretty aware. I, you know, I was reading the papers or whatever online. So I was kind of seeing what was going on. And when they said they had to move, you know, they were in Talfar and they had a pretty far way to go. To get there, and so that was dangerous, just the movement. They didn't lose anyone on that whole trip. But they had told the families that they were moving, like they didn't keep

• 1:20:22Speaker 01

  that a secret, but they did say, please don't tell anyone because soldiers' lives could be endangered if anybody knows they're moving. And no, there was no leak. There was not a leak to anybody. They moved as they were planning to move. But I was, I had a lot of grave concerns, grave concerns about what that was gonna look like. I mean, Fallujah, the big horrible stuff had gone on there. I had friends involved in that. We had been in that squadron. And so that was, yeah, definitely on my mind.

• 1:21:00Jocko Willink?

  Did you track at all, like, the 228 who the 118 took over for? I mean, they lost almost 100 guys themselves. And so, did you, were you aware of that and thinking?

• 1:21:11Speaker 01

  I did not know that particular thing till later. I didn't know it at the time. But I had been to Willsack for a memorial service for a friend of mine, her husband, had been killed in action in Fallujah. He was a company commander. And I went down to that community. Sean's still in Heidelberg. He's the deputy. He was in Iraq just like a month or two before, but he's back. And so, we both went to the service. It was for four soldiers who had died in the same weekend. Two had died in the same event, two in different incidences, but they just had one large memorial service for all four of them. And

• 1:21:54Speaker 01

  we knew, his name was Sean Sims, and we both knew Sean and his wife. She had, Heidi had been Philip's fifth grade teacher. And he was on seventh grade. We'd done, he had done sixth grade in the States, and we came back to Germany. So, I drove, it's three hours, in the car to Willsack from Heidelberg. Sean got to riding the helicopter with some of the brass. He was in the G3 shop. So, he's like, well, I'm gonna fly out there with them, like a space A thing. He was, he was even a colonel yet. He was promotable. So, he rode there. And I was like, well, I have to go, so I'm gonna go in the car. And I got there way before them because they left really early and it was just so quiet. It was just really quiet everywhere I went.

• 1:22:36Speaker 01

  And I got to the chapel, which had been enlarged since we had lived there the year before. They had just started working on it. It was all done. And they had monitors in like an overflow hall and then they had this big chapel. And I went in the chapel. It was practically empty because I was so early. And it filled up and it overflowed and there were just people everywhere. And the brigade commander at the time happened to be home on leave. So he spoke at the only memorial service back home station because he happened to be there. And he said from up there, he's like, I don't get to be here for these. And it was really kind of striking to him to see all the families there

• 1:23:21Speaker 01

  instead of just the troops that had been downrange with the soldier. But I just saw this broken community. They lost many, many soldiers. And this is, you know, like halfway or like three quarters of the way through their deployment, maybe. And I knew people there, you know, other than Heidi, I knew others there. And I just wanted to gather them all together and hug them and take them away. And what that was, that was just like the foreshadowing of our very own deployment that would happen a year or so later. And I just, it was very scary. What you read at the beginning, like, I don't want to go.

• 1:24:03Speaker 01

  And I'm telling the reader, just like I was telling God, I don't want to go. So fix it, figure it out.

• 1:24:12Speaker 01

  But the way God works and the way he fixed it is, I'll say, I was given the grace I needed for the strength to do that thing. I just believe that. You know, I told my sister one day, my sisters, they're like, how are you doing all this stuff? You know, running here and there and meetings and meeting with wives. And I said, you know, I just feel like the Holy Spirit animates me. I said, if I didn't have God's grace, which is just, it's participation in the divine life, it's me opening up and saying, "Come on in." I said, "If I didn't have that grace, I would be in the fetal position in the corner of the bedroom. That's where you'd find me. I couldn't get up and do this stuff."

• 1:24:54Speaker 01

  So, you know, that's just who I am and how I deal with things with God's help. So it was not pleasant, but I will also say, you know, maybe I say it in there and I certainly know it's been written before, it was the best of times and the worst of times, right? The best in people can come out, this amazing, amazing strength and thoughtfulness and, I mean, I was just, over and over, just encouraged by that, and so I was really grateful for that. And then, you know, you have other people who are just really struggling and they just can't handle it and they act out in all kinds of crazy ways, you know?

• 1:25:39Speaker 01

  And that, though, that's not really my lane because I'm not trained for that. So, we had our behavioral health specialists there, I had a really good relationship with those guys, and we were able to assign one each battalion. And there were different levels of participation from the families, because families always get to say, again, they don't have to do anything that you ask them to do because they're not in the military, so they don't take orders, and I love that about us. But it was offered to them, it was made available, and many people would take advantage. The greatest thing to me, those behavioral health professionals, those therapists and social workers, they all did that. Nobody asked for, you know, overtime pay or to be paid for those things, they just

• 1:26:24Speaker 01

  did them because they knew it was the right thing to do, because they saw a need and they filled the need. And I just have so much respect for them for doing that, because not all communities had that. You know, some people in other communities are trying to replicate what we did, are like, "Well, you know, why get an overtime for that?" And be a lot more hesitant to just jump in. So, we had beautiful people. Who just wanted to help. We started a support group for Gold Star Wives. And one of the women, you know, one of our therapists was like, well, I can, I can do that. And I went to the first meeting just to introduce them all to each other. I, I got one gal, she was German national,

• 1:27:07Speaker 01

  engaged to a fallen soldier. We got her on post to go to the meeting. They met in the library on post. And then I'm like, it's all yours. I claim no expertise in this area at all, but I can facilitate. You know, I love to be the connectors. You've got the talent. You've got the need. Let's get you together. God bless you, you know? So that was, that was a nice initiative we were able to do.

• 1:27:33Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, no, it's the initiatives that you do, you talk about in, in the book, the, um, the Super Bowl slumber party, the Combat Spouse Badge Challenge, uh, this, the All Spouses Holiday Gala.

• 1:27:48Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:27:49Jocko Willink?

  Or Gala.

• 1:27:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, it depends on who you talk to.

• 1:27:51Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I guess I'm not quite sure.

• 1:27:53Speaker 01

  We had the one that was supposed to be like, uh, you know, American Idol thing. That one didn't fly.

• 1:27:57Jocko Willink?

  No one, no one got up there and let loose?

• 1:27:59Speaker 01

  We got, uh, not a lot of enthusiasm for that one. So, and if I had to do it over, I just would, would have done a talent showcase. Like whatever you want to do, come up and do, you know? I think they thought, oh, there'll be judges or, you know, who needs that? So, but you know, you live and learn.

• 1:28:15Jocko Willink?

  You say the month, you say in the book, uh, the monthly prayer service occurred without fail, though it was not always well attended, but the community chaplains and I had an agreement that no matter the numbers attending, we would remain faithful to this time. And so every third Thursday of the month, one of our community chaplains would lead a prayer service in one of our two community chapels. We would pray for the safety of our soldiers and our troops. And we prayed for ourselves and all the other waiting families, known and unknown to us. We prayed for the healing of the wounded and for peace in the world. We prayed for the grieving of the families. And I always prayed for the troops who had died. One time, there was only a chaplain at the service. Sometimes it was the chaplain and me.

• 1:29:00Jocko Willink?

  One, or the two of us and one or two other family members. A few times, there were six or seven people in attendance. I prayed with strangers, friends, strangers who became friends. And remembering Jesus's words, "Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am in the midst of them." We believed our time was well spent.

• 1:29:22Jocko Willink?

  And then you go on to say, "In the midst of everything else that you're doing, in the midst of all these events, there were casualties. Death and injuries occurred throughout the deployment. Two units from our brigade's sister unit were attached down range to the Ready First Combat Team for about five and a half months. I attended as many of their memorial services as I could in their community, in addition to those in our own community. For several months, an armor battalion from Schweinfurt was part of the Ready First. I attended a few memorial services down there as well. We also had battalions from stateside units attached to the brigade in Iraq at various times. And I tried to email those commanders' wives after their units lost a soldier or a marine. I called a few of them on the phone as well.

• 1:30:06Jocko Willink?

  Those were always difficult messages to communicate, but I believed it was important to connect somehow. Their troops were fighting and dying alongside ours. It was the right thing to do, and I would pray for them every day. They were all part of our brigade combat team."

• 1:30:24Jocko Willink?

  My daily prayers were for the troops wounded, deceased, as well as those still fighting, the families of all three groups, my own family, my husband, and for wisdom and peace, the peace that passes, all understanding that only our Lord can provide. And I prayed for the wisdom and peace for myself as well. I ask God to be my strength, because I didn't have any.

• 1:30:50Jocko Willink?

  What is the, what are these notifications like? Like what is happening? That these, I mean, we were losing people every couple of days in Ramadi. What was that like from your perspective?

• 1:31:04Speaker 01

  Well, Sean always notified me of the losses and KIA's and wounded in action, actually. And it's one of those times I would pretty much curse every time I got an email with names. And, you know, not proud of that. It was just like my gut reaction. I'm like, no, no, no. So, and I, you know, family members, spouses are not a part of the notification. That's a casualty notification officer and a chaplain who go to see the family.

• 1:31:39Jocko Willink?

  So, did you have a CAECO that worked just on base? Was it just yours?

• 1:31:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, we had, well, we had several people who did the casualty notification. And we had, I don't know, I guess just our two rear detachment chaplains who were with our brigade went with them. So, God bless those two fellows. But, and sometimes I believe even our rear detachment commander, who's a major, would do the notification if he knew the soldier personally. So, you know, you're a small community, so you kind of get to figure that out for yourselves. But, so those two would go to the home. We had a policy Sean implemented before he left, because we met several times with the leadership of spouses and, you know, commanders and CSMs and spouses.

• 1:32:28Speaker 01

  We met to talk about what things are going to look like, including casualty notification, sorts of things. And so, the policy was if it was after, I want to say 11:00 PM, they would not wake the family. They would wait till morning to tell them, to notify them. And it just seemed like a compassionate thing to do because, you know, in civilian life, somebody dies in a car accident, the cops show up at your door at 2:00 in the morning, "Hey, your loved one died." I mean, that's, you just woke up and you can't even, and he's like, "The situation will not change. We're gonna do that." Um, so, um, I, I only had one night where somebody knocked on my door after 10:00 PM,

• 1:33:10Speaker 01

  and I almost fainted. Um, and I was on the phone, my daughter, who was in the States, going to college at the time, and I said, "Someone knocked on the door," and she knew how late it was there. And Phillip, our son, was upstairs doing homework. And, um, she said, "Well, I'll stay on the phone with you." I said, "Okay." Like, we didn't say anything, just that, "Someone knocked on the door." So she's on the phone, and I'm walking to the door, and there was a small window right next to the door, and I thought, "Well, I can look out and see, and it would be someone I know." You know, they would be in uniform, it would be someone I know. And I was like, "Can't do it. Can't look." And this is all happening within seconds, right? And, um, I grabbed the handle, and I, at that point,

• 1:33:52Speaker 01

  I had like tunnel vision, like I was so close to just keeling over. And I opened the door, and it was my neighbor's son, who wanted to see Phillip and ask him about a question for their homework. But they lived right across the street, so he just ran over, boom, boom, boom. I'm like, "Tony!" I told him, "It's Tony!" She's like, "Hey, hi, Tony." You know, we're just like ecstatic, and Tony's like, "Hi." "I felt upstairs, go, go, go!" You know, oh my lord. Um, but, you know, just in those few seconds, this, everything's running through your mind. So, I, you know, can't even imagine, for the, for the poor women who actually opened the door. And there they were. So, we did have the care team, and teams in place, and they were spouses who

• 1:34:37Speaker 01

  were, um, selected, and it was kind of a process. Like, we didn't feel like just anybody who says, "I want to be in a care team," could be in a care team, you know? You have to be, um, discreet, um, you have to be, um, able to kind of go with the flow. Different cultures have different ways of handling their emotions. Just, you know, no judgments. This is what's going on. That's what's gonna happen. You offer assistance. Are there children? What do we need to do with the children, depending on the ages of the children? We had training for this as well. You have pets? Do you want us to take your pets? What do you do with your pets? Like, all these practical things, as well as, get the best friend in here to sit with the wife.

• 1:35:21Speaker 01

  So, we, you know, had that sort of thing at play. I was not, and I encourage none of our Battalion Command spouses to be on a care team. I'm like, this is, you may have to do this multiple times. Let's, and you have enough every day. I don't think that's a smart place for us to be. I never visited a spouse unless I got an okay. I would ask either the Casualty Assistance Officer, or the Reared Detachment Commander, like, can someone ask her if it's okay for me to come and visit? Because, again, who am I? You know, I don't, I didn't feel like I had this right to be there just because, you know, Shaun's my husband. So, I was like, if it's okay with them.

• 1:36:04Speaker 01

  If not, and I actually only did that if it was someone I knew. Because, again, this woman will have never seen me before, possibly, or maybe ran into me in the commissary, but has no idea who I am, or who my husband is. I just didn't see that that was appropriate. So, I, but I knew that someone was there, you know, someone they knew was there. So, I just really kind of worked that that way. I went to all the memorial services, as you're seeing. A lot of times, I would see the spouses there. A couple of them who were, you know, I knew better, I'd see them be on that, at their home, or whatever, before and or after that. But, I mean, it was going all, all the time, and I remember going to the gym, I used to

• 1:36:48Speaker 01

  go to the gym to work out, and... Ran into one of the brigade spouses and she said, this is, it's like every day, we're just waiting to hear, you know, who we lost today, you know? And I was like, yeah, that's, that's pretty much where we are. So, you know, that real quiet community that I'd seen down in Willsack, we had become that very quiet community. Um, you're kind of in constant mourning and you're also in a constant state of, you know, what's going to happen today? And I think when you're in that smaller space like that, it's, it's kind of intense.

• 1:37:26Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I can't, uh, like I opened up with talking about the fact that when you're downrange, you can see what the threats are and you're, you can act against the threats. I mean, that's what you're doing, you're fighting, but on, on the home front, you're, like you said, you're waiting and I, I can't even imagine what the atmosphere was like on your base when these, when these calls are coming in. I mean, if you're talking about the wounded and the killed, that's a daily, there's a daily call coming in because that's, someone is getting wounded or killed just about every single day.

• 1:38:01Speaker 01

  Yeah. And, and I did not realize, uh, to my, um, shame, that some of the wounded soldiers who were coming back, lived in stairwell apartments and were being told things like, you can't walk up and downstairs. You know, they're in a wheelchair or they have crutches or whatever, but whatever the wound was, it's like, ah, and they live on the third floor and there are no elevators in stairwells in Germany. Um, so that was the whole thing. I'm like, so what is happening? Well, they're getting up there because I gotta get up there because that's where they live, you know? And then we had other wounded soldiers driving the vans to the Landstuhl Army Hospital because again, doctors oblivious, oh, we need to see you three times a week.

• 1:38:43Speaker 01

  Well, that was like an hour and a half, two hour drive. So we had less wounded, taking more seriously wounded to advance at hospital. It was insane. There came a point where the Ruda Tasha commander and I were like, can we talk to the hospital people? Because they're not understanding what's going on here. And can they keep them there? Can we figure out a way? And I, you know, that was kind of above my pay grade, but I just helped raise the initial flag. Once we became aware that that was happening. But I just felt like these guys are, you know, on another planet. I mean, they're dealing with wounded people, but they have no idea what they're, they live, you know, in Lanzdual where there's

• 1:39:25Speaker 01

  no, you know, none of those people are, they're all there. So they didn't really get what was going on back where we lived. Yeah. So land that time forgot, there we were again.

• 1:39:36Jocko Willink?

  Um, I'm going to fast forward a little bit in the book. You had these combat operational stress control teams, and these were again, made up of a bunch of people that could, could help in these situations. And one of the things they do is conduct debriefings when our soldiers returned from Iraq. This was combat to home transition training. The transition training allowed an opportunity to talk about their experiences and get professional advice on how to cope, and also to learn what normal reactions to combat stress are. Several soldiers self-referred to mental health or mental or medical professionals regarding alcohol related problems and traumatic brain injuries after their sessions. This also

• 1:40:18Jocko Willink?

  was very encouraging and demonstrated to the soldiers that someone cares. The battle mind briefings, which have been implemented army wide, have also been very helpful. One of the innovators, Dr. Amy B. Alder, who helped initiate that program, helped us with the combat to home transition training format. My husband and I both believed strongly that if even one person was helped by the combat to home transition training, or if one person sought help after their session, it was worth our time and efforts. But we know, we know from feedback that the, from feedback from the soldiers. That many more than one or two found the training helpful. I was very outspoken about my belief that spouses should seek help for emotional and psychological

• 1:41:03Jocko Willink?

  issues during the deployment. Generally, my message said it is not normal to send the person you love most in the world into harm's way and then act as if it is normal. It goes against natural self-preservation and protective instinct to say, run toward the fire, honey. We want to say, stay here with me where it's safe. No matter how strong our patriotic feelings or sense of duty, there's always a part of us that wants to protect those we love. There's nothing wrong with that. In fact, there's something wrong if we don't have those feelings. Seeking professional help to deal with one's emotions is not weak, it's smart, and it actually takes a great deal of internal fortitude to admit you need that help. I tried to be open about this so that other spouses would not be afraid

• 1:41:47Jocko Willink?

  or reluctant to seek help too.

• 1:41:53Jocko Willink?

  So you made some serious efforts to get people training so that they understand what they're going through when they come home?

• 1:42:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, we both felt that was important because everything's not PTSD, you know? Like, I think there are, you've become this hyper vigilant person downrange, I understand. And so upon your return, it's kind of hard to roll that back instantly. And so, just to be told that your behavior right now is normal, that this doesn't mean you're going to be this way forever, or that something's wrong with you because you're reacting this way even though you're out of harm's way, that that's okay. Yeah. And with the, you know, trying to debrief at battalion level, again, you know, my husband is very much of,

• 1:42:46Speaker 01

  that's your command, so you do what you will. He doesn't, you know, kind of...

• 1:42:53Jocko Willink?

  He uses decentralized command.

• 1:42:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, thank you. So, um, so they handle it different ways and some like here's the whole battalions where it's the soldiers, but others, well, here's the company. And it's more effective when it's a little bit smaller group. So there were varying degrees of of success with that, but we did, you know, I know at least one occasion, we had a group of guys from various units and he said, you know, who did the, and how many found it helpful and there were, you know, hands that went up and like I said, we had anecdotal evidence of people self referring. I heard that from the, the therapists that were working with us as well. They were getting people coming in. So that was very encouraging because people won't always do that.

• 1:43:34Jocko Willink?

  During this deployment, autumn of 2006, um, I'm going to go here at tall. Am I saying that right?

• 1:43:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, at all.

• 1:43:40Jocko Willink?

  It's all Bavaria's the most beautiful location of a Benedictine monastery that has been there for centuries. I was there to attend and participate in the Military Council of Catholic Women Conference. I think it's as close to heaven as I've ever been. Fast forward a little bit, you're in one of these sessions. I knew I was in need of such healing, yet toward the end of the priest's prayers, something he said touched me and I began to cry. It had nothing to do with my current situation, the current deployment. It dealt with something years before, and I didn't just get tears in my eyes. The floodgates opened and a torrent of tears flowed down my cheeks and I felt such relief as that dam burst. A woman I didn't know very well

• 1:44:21Jocko Willink?

  noticed my state and came over to put her arm around me. Then more women, friends approached me and engulfed me. It was beautiful to know that each of them was praying for me too. Then several priests stood at the front of the chapel to pray individually with the participants. I got up to have Father John, an amazing, inspiring servant of God, place his hand upon me and pray with me and for me. I can't recall his words, but my tears, which had not stopped and were freely flowing as I sobbed, only intensified during this very intimate, special prayer time. Some women were falling limply to the floor, slain in the spirit, it's referred to in the charismatic movement. I don't know what occurs between God and that person who loses all physical strength, but I know afterwards, they all talk about how profoundly moving and healing

• 1:45:05Jocko Willink?

  that moment was. I remained standing, but the tears and the prayers, the priests and the women's, my own, all melded into a profound experience for me, a life-changing experience. I had no doubt that the Lord had touched me and healed. What? My spirit, my psyche, my memories? I don't know which, maybe all three. I saw things in a new light. Moments from my past that I thought I dealt with, or at least put to rest, came to my mind, were revealed to me, and I was freed from the burden they had caused me to carry for close to 10 years.

• 1:45:39Jocko Willink?

  And this is kind of what we talked about a little bit, where you were just having all this negativity and you're doing your best and you're getting metaphorical daggers thrown at your back. And just that hurt. And then you talk about this, "I was also learned the second time around that words not only hurt, but that people can truly deliberately thoroughly harm with complete understanding and intent to injure." The, fast forward a little bit, "The battle with depression I was also experiences, experiencing, was helped by talking with a professional, some medication for a time, and lots of prayers from loved ones." "It would take a long while to restore myself. When Shawn headed to Iraq in the summer of 2003, our oldest was starting her senior year

• 1:46:22Jocko Willink?

  of high school, I was devastated at the thought of her leaving the family soon for college. I was also in denial about how difficult the separation from my husband and my concern for his safety was for me. When Shawn returned eight months later, a short time when compared to most, I know, but long enough for me, he returned to the most demanding job he'd ever held in his army career. He was named 5 Corps G3." As a good army wife friend advises, "On any army staff, avoid the three jobs." Those are operations jobs, which means you have to do everything. "These always tend to be very stressful, among other challenges. To be the Corps G3 during a war was especially so. Shawn never complained.

• 1:47:05Jocko Willink?

  He never brought the stress of his job home with him, but he was not home very much, and he was always very tired. I made it my mission to make his few conscious hours at home as pleasant as possible. As I was sinking further into depression though, that became enormously difficult task, but I was successful for the most part." At the end of the deep depression, Shawn made the comment that despite my emotional state- I had always been nice. He marveled at how, he marveled at that fact. I don't. I give all credit to God, who is stronger than anything and who is merciful beyond measure. In my darkest days, it was so uncomfortable to talk to people, to be around people, even my own family. All of

• 1:47:46Jocko Willink?

  that is alarming in retrospect, and it was alarming to my husband, who used that exact word when I finally told him how I'd been feeling. I'm normally an extrovert who loves socializing, but during that period of my life, I would cringe at the thought of being with people. It took more effort than I had. I actually thought I was successfully pulling it off, despite the horribly oppressive weight on my chest, and in spite of the air that felt heavy as I walked through a room full of people. I literally felt like I was forcing my way through a space, if it was filled with more than a couple of people, especially people to whom I was expected to converse. There was a heaviness all around me. The weight of the world was not only on my shoulders, it was on my chest, the top of my head, my arms, my legs, face, and neck. I felt

• 1:48:30Jocko Willink?

  as if I were walking completely submerged in about eight feet of water. Shawn told me I looked miserable, and I had thought I looked fine to so many observers. I understand now why he was alarmed. It was his concern and request that I see a doctor, that was the encouragement I needed to make the call. When the psychiatrist asked me a series of questions designed to determine if I was truly clinically depressed or worse, I answered in the affirmative to all of them but one. A person in a healthy state of mind would have answered no to most, if not all. As I recall, the one question I did not answer with a yes, was, "Do you have thoughts of killing yourself?" I indicated no on

• 1:49:14Jocko Willink?

  the questionnaire, but did tell the doctor that I had been thinking lately my family would be better off without me. I suppose that left me only a short stone's throw away from suicidal thoughts.

• 1:49:28Jocko Willink?

  Even when I knew I was not alone, that God was with me, I felt little to no comfort through the heavy, ugly oppression that engulfed me. I knew God loved me, but I couldn't do anything about it.

• 1:49:47Jocko Willink?

  The feeling of depression. So, did that come on slowly over time? Was that something that you woke up one day feeling? And how did you journey out of it?

• 1:50:04Speaker 01

  I think it was slowly over time. When we moved back to Germany, that fourth time, we'd only been in the States for a year. Maggie was going into her senior year of high school. Sean was going to deploy. Phillip was going into eighth grade. And, no, ninth grade. And I did not come immediately with him. He and Phillip went first because Maggie had been accepted into, I call it opera camp. But at that point, you know, I told you she switched from violin to voice? And she'd been accepted in the Washington Opera Summer Program. And it was three weeks and very prestigious.

• 1:50:47Speaker 01

  And her plans at that point were to study voice, classical voice in college. And I'm like, well, you gotta have this on your resume, man. This is, this is pretty cool. And I thought it'd be good for her, you know, development as a singer. So I told Sean, you go ahead with Phillip. And we had friends in the area and I'm like, he can hang out with them and you go to work. But at least half of us will be there. And I found a little, you know, kind of extended stay hotels in Northern Virginia. She was in DC, but we were right outside of DC. And so I was two weeks behind him. So there was two weeks I didn't get with him before he deployed. And we knew he was leaving. The Corps was already, you know, down there.

• 1:51:29Speaker 01

  So I made that work in my head, in my little strange way. And that one, I think that was a sign that I was not quite right. I remember talking to a friend of mine who was already in Germany and she called me to see how I was. And I said, yeah, I just got here. And, you know, Sean isn't deployed for like 10 more days. So it's great because I can do all these things, get the kids registered for school and da, da, da, da, you know what I'm telling her? And she goes, and then he deploys? And I'm like, well, yeah. That's the end of all this. But, you know, just like, la, la, la, la, la. I'll just not think about that too much or whatever. So I really think I was kind of pushing things down that I didn't want to deal with. And I, and that's never good.

• 1:52:14Speaker 01

  Uh, so.

• 1:52:15Jocko Willink?

  Is there some of that where you don't want to burden your husband with that?

• 1:52:20Speaker 01

  I think so. There's some of that.

• 1:52:23Jocko Willink?

  I know, I know. My wife would like not tell me, you know, little things when I was gone, like not tell me that the water heater broke, not tell me that the, you know, we don't, might not have enough money for, you know, ballet practice and whatever. She's, you know, starving the kids so we can pay for whatever, you know? So she wouldn't really tell me a lot of that stuff. And I think, well, I know she did that because she didn't want me to worry about that stuff. She wanted me to worry about my guys.

• 1:52:47Speaker 01

  Yes, exactly. And I was definitely of that same old, you know, it's me like, well, okay, you know, Philip got in a fight, but he didn't break his nose. So who needs to know about the fight, right? Or whatever, you know, it's just very much just the really bad stuff. And yeah, he was like, so I'm a little out of sorts, eh, you know, Sean doesn't, does not need to know about that. And then there's another part where you're kind of, now at this point in his career, uh, 25 years in, maybe where I'm thinking, I'm a senior army's boss by golly, and I've got it all figured out. And people don't help me, I help people. And, you know, I was just sort of lying to myself about the fact that I could be in a situation where I'm

• 1:53:31Speaker 01

  the one in need, you know, it's like I find the need and fix it. I don't, you know, I'm not the one who asks for help. So I think that was part of it. So that to me is kind of a little bit of pride, um, probably.

• 1:53:44Jocko Willink?

  What was the tipping point that allowed you to say, oh, you know what? I need help.

• 1:53:50Speaker 01

  Sean.

• 1:53:52Jocko Willink?

  He said.

• 1:53:53Speaker 01

  He said, I, we went to a hail and farewell. It's a little events we have to welcome the new people and say goodbye to the old. And, um, we sat down and I was sitting, I remember we got like squished into this table with some people because that's just where seats were available, but I didn't know anybody around us. I just knew Sean was over here. And I looked at this man who had never seen me before in my life. And I didn't care to know him. I was just like, oh, good. I don't have to talk to anybody. And I say my dinner picked at it or whatever, like nothing. And if I was like with a group of ladies and they're all chatting, I was saying nothing. And, and that's when we got home. He's like, what's wrong? You looked miserable.

• 1:54:38Speaker 01

  And I really was like, oh, I can fake this little smile on my face and all is good. I don't have to talk too much. And that was really, that's really what it took. I just like, I'm like, I feel horrible. And so a lot of the descriptions there, I gave him a, you know, quick little version of that. And he's standing there, I remember I was sitting, he was standing. He's like, that's really alarming to me. And I was like, really? Like, and I can't explain to you where you go in your head to make it all okay. Like, cause the other thing I did that none of my family knew, both, it was summertime. Both my children had a summer higher jobs. So they were, they left every morning at eight o'clock.

• 1:55:20Speaker 01

  They came home at five and, you know, Sean was never home till really late and left really early. So, um, I would send everyone out the door and then I would sit on the couch and turn on the television and pretty much be immobile till close to the time they were coming home. They'd be like, oh, I better take quick shower, I better, you know, figure out what's for dinner. And they had no idea, no idea. And, and I had been very involved in our church and I stopped volunteering for things and I made it work. I'm like, I guess this is just the new me. I'm tired. I've been doing this 25 years and, you know, I think it's time for a break and, you know. This was just craziness. I, none of that made sense to the real Linda.

• 1:56:05Speaker 01

  The person I'd become that was not really me, you know?

• 1:56:09Jocko Willink?

  So then you go, what, talk to, you go to the doctor?

• 1:56:12Speaker 01

  I went, I went to a doctor first and yeah, the Heidelberg Hospital, so that's where all the doctors were. So I went to the doctor first and, um, he wrote me a prescription for an antidepressant, sent me on my way.

• 1:56:24Jocko Willink?

  Isn't that what everyone jokes about that they do?

• 1:56:26Speaker 01

  He did it. I was crying in his office, telling him what my husband had said, how I'd been feeling, what was going on in my life. And he's like, oh, here you go, you know? And never said, come back, never said, why don't we set you up an appointment with, you know, a psychiatrist, psychologist, therapist, whatever. Nothing. He just sent me on my way. And even in my, you know, state of mind, I'm like, that's not right. That doesn't seem right. So I think Sean was in the waiting room and I came out and I was like, is I did? And he's like, no, I'm like, no, I don't think so either. So this is when, you know, God's grace comes into play again. I had friends there. Now that I told Sean, I felt like I could share with others.

• 1:57:08Speaker 01

  So I started telling my close friends about it. And one of my friends, I told her about the, the, the prescription and no other follow up. And she said, well, you know, we have a, um, a nurse practitioner who sits in the front row every Sunday with her husband and their baby. And she said, why don't you go see her? And I did, I made an appointment with her. Her husband was a psychiatrist, which my neighbor knew. She called her husband from her desk phone as I sat crying in her office. And she's like, yeah, I got a patient. Can you see this lady? And he's like, sure. And we set up an appointment for a few days later and I went to see him. And that's when I filled out that questionnaire and stuff.

• 1:57:49Speaker 01

  But, um, he, it turned out he was an adolescent psychiatrist. But I'm like, hey, I can be very mature. It works, works for me. But he did, he saw me through the rest of that time. I continued to come down once a month from Heidelberg, uh, from Friedberg to Heidelberg. It was an hour drive. So once a month I would go down and see him and have lunch with my friends and then go back home.

• 1:58:14Jocko Willink?

  And, and what are they doing? What is he doing? Is he allowing you, uh, sort of a, an outlet for what you're feeling? Is he giving you some perspective on it? Like, you know, we talked about it earlier, like saying, oh yeah, that's normal that you might feel sad that your kids are gone all day or sad that your husband's going on deployment again. That's totally normal and don't let it eat you up. Here, let's try these other things. Is that the kind of conversations you're having?

• 1:58:38Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:58:39Jocko Willink?

  Okay, tell me.

• 1:58:40Speaker 01

  I mean, I could tell him, I mean, he was one of the people I said, you don't take a three job, never do the threes, you know, like, he has no idea. He's an army doc, but he's a psychiatrist, you know? And I was like, just like telling him things that I hadn't even told myself, you know? And, and I remember when I was filling out that form, um, saying, and I just feel like, you know, this was a divine thing. It's like, tell them honestly how you feel or they cannot help you. Tell them, don't worry about, don't be prideful. Don't say, oh, well, I don't want anybody to know I'm feeling like this. Just tell them honestly or they cannot help you. I mean, that was a voice from without, you know? And I'm like, okay.

• 1:59:22Speaker 01

  You know, so I did, but it really was like that lying to myself. I could unburden that that, um, you know, I'm okay and I don't need anybody to take care of me or help me. I needed to let that go. Um, and I did, and I will tell you, the first day I walked out of talking to him, I felt lighter. I felt 10 pounds lighter, if only I had been, but I felt that way. And I was like, wow, that was really something. Cause to just be honest with myself helped a lot. I was on a very low dose of antidepressant and I stayed on that till Sean got home from deployment. I mean, but the fact that I had this deep depression before we went to the brigade. I mean, I think part of it was just anticipating

• 2:00:07Speaker 01

  the beginning thing. I don't want to go. I don't want to do this. Um, I think that um, all of that played into it. My daughter, I used to say I was going into semi-retirement because I have two children and my oldest was going to college and I'm like, she doesn't need me anymore. Poor Philip, it's all gonna be on, all my intentions turn to him. Um, but I think that, you know, we were very close. We still are, talk all the time on the phone and, um, you know, but I was like, I don't know how to do this. But I'm looking around me at all the other parents, the seniors, and they're all happy and excited. And I'm like, what's wrong with me? Why am I just so sad? As you start talking to individual parents, they're kind of sad too. You know, it's, it is a change in your relationship

• 2:00:49Speaker 01

  with your child, but people weren't clinically depressed. So it was easier to deal with. For me, it seemed like the end of the world. I'm just like, I don't even know how, how this is gonna work, you know? So, um, yeah, but I do feel like, you know, God was with me through it all. I did not understand why he wouldn't help me. I was like, I am, you know, and this is how many times do I do this? Beg on my knees, you know? Sorry about being on the table. But it's like, just, just make this go away. Let me be the person I was. And it's like, now you gotta go through this dark valley. I'm sorry. You're gonna have to go through this dark valley. But you know what? On the other side, you're gonna be stronger and you are gonna be that compassionate person who is gonna say, hey ladies, you know, predominantly women.

• 2:01:34Speaker 01

  Don't hang on to this stuff, you know, talk to someone, get the help you need. Um, I, I really felt when that, the first day the, the, his name was Bill, came up to me to say, I have this combat operational stress thing I can do to help debrief. And at first we were just talking about debriefing the casualty notification officers, because it's very traumatic to talk to a family and tell them these things. And he's like, they might need someone to talk to. When he initially told me that, like, I'd probably been, I don't know, a week or two on the, you know, seeing the doctor and everything. And I'm like, I hate this so much. I don't want to have this on my plate. I don't need this. What? And I'm like, okay, thank you.

• 2:02:16Speaker 01

  As I started to speak to him more, I started on my medication. I'm like, gosh, yeah, we need to do that. Oh, my goodness. We can't not do that. And always asking God to get me through this. And then one glorious day, and I don't even remember exactly what day it was. But it was around the time we moved, because I did stay in Heidelberg for a couple of months till my kids' summer jobs were done. Cause there was nothing for Philip to do up there, or Maggie. There was no, there were no jobs like that. So I'm like, I told Sean, I'm staying here through August till the kids are done. And he would come home on the weekends. We'd go up there and see him sometimes. But, I mean, he, he went to the field. They did their training part of the time. So he wasn't even around that much. Um, I did go up for a few meetings and I kept telling him, I'm coming, I'm coming. Just let me get my kids through their summer jobs.

• 2:03:02Speaker 01

  Um, and, uh, so that, that by the time I got there, um, I was ready to roll.

• 2:03:11Jocko Willink?

  I'm gonna fast forward a little bit here in the book. Let me say this. "When an extension for our soldier's year in Iraq was announced in September of 2006, we on the home front were all stunned. The spouses, many of whom had experienced an even longer extension during the unit's last deployment, were saddened, even momentarily demoralized by the news." I told, and this is to me, it's, you know, this is in, you're getting told this in September. You guys have probably lost.

• 2:03:44Jocko Willink?

  Seventy or eighty from, from the brigade at this time. So this is, you're going to be there longer. This is more people are going to die a hundred percent. That's what you're facing. This isn't like, oh, they're going to be gone for a couple more months. This is our spouses are going to be exposed to death for more months and we're gonna, it's a nightmare.

• 2:04:07Jocko Willink?

  You continue on, "I told a group of those spouses that I knew the news was hard to take, that even one more day was a day too many. I gave them my sympathy and empathy, which certainly wasn't a stretch because I was experiencing what they were. My husband's tour had also been extended. It was tough to bear. When Sean had called me the day before to share the news, my honest first thought was, oh no, those poor families. It took about five seconds to process that mine was one of those poor families. I didn't cry then. I don't know when I cried. I'm sure the tears of frustration over the extension came streaming down my face during the healing mass. They were intermingled with so many others. When I spoke to the spouses before a town hall meeting to answer questions they had regarding the extension,

• 2:04:52Jocko Willink?

  I used the following analogy. Quote, "There's an old saying that when life hands you lemons, you should make lemonade. I don't know about you, but right about now, I'm drowning in lemonade." End quote. I put my hand in the air in a gesture that they should do the same if they felt the same way. A majority of the hands went up as well and there was applause.

• 2:05:15Jocko Willink?

  When enduring a tough time in life, it's easy to deny your pain. It's easier to deny the main cause for the stress you're experiencing or to deny the symptoms that stress is causing. You have to own up to it. You have to say, this really stinks or something like it. You know it in your heart. Others recognize it. Just say it and then you can move forward productively.

• 2:05:42Jocko Willink?

  There you go.

• 2:05:42Speaker 01

  That's what I learned from my depression.

• 2:05:46Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:05:47Speaker 01

  It's like, just be honest. When it sucks, it sucks. I didn't say it's a, you know, Christian book.

• 2:05:51Jocko Willink?

  You said stinks. You said stinks here.

• 2:05:53Speaker 01

  I didn't say stink like it.

• 2:05:54Jocko Willink?

  We didn't use bad words like sucks anymore.

• 2:05:57Speaker 01

  But yeah, I mean, that was part of it. And I, it was so funny because the day the division commanding general came down with his staff and all these people and they're in the front row because they're there to answer any questions any spouse had. And he said, we will stay here until the last family member's question is answered. And, um, but before we start our little briefing, um, I want Linda to say something. And he had already asked me, someone had called me and said, they want you to speak. I'm like, okay. You know, and our, our family readiness support assistant, who's a friend of mine to this day, Amy, she's like, you shouldn't talk. I'm like, what? She's like, they're gonna throw things at you, like literally this time.

• 2:06:38Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, for sure.

• 2:06:39Speaker 01

  Throw things, they're gonna, she's like, can I stand in front of you? And kinda, I was like, no, no, no. It's gonna be fine. I'm sure it's gonna be fine. It really was. Um, but, um, I wanted to speak so badly to them because that's commanding general did not know how they were feeling, but I did because I had a husband with their husbands. So I, I was like, let someone who's walking this walk with them, say something to them. And, um, but I thought I'd be at the very end, like after all the military people did all their thing. But he introduced me first and I was like, whoa, okay. But I had actually had a prayer that I wanted to share with

• 2:07:21Speaker 01

  the women and I saved it to the end, but you know, I included that thing about the lemons. Um, and then I introduced all the combat operational stress controls therapists for each of them. Like this guy's with that battalion, that guy, this gal's with these folks, you know, and I said, you don't have to go as, you know, it doesn't have to be for the group. If you want to see your person, that's your person. If you're in this battalion, that battalion. And, you know, I didn't need any notes or anything. I knew these people. I worked with them all the time. I had asked them, would you take this battalion? You seem like a good fit for that battalion. Like, you know, I was intimately involved with this stuff. So, um, I was so glad that I was able to do that because there was nobody there who was going to be able to do that.

• 2:08:01Speaker 01

  And so, um, I did that and then I ended with the prayer and I think that kinda diffused things a little bit.

• 2:08:09Jocko Willink?

  There's also a huge leadership lesson here and people ask me about this. You'll say, well, what if, because I say, you gotta tell your troops the truth about what's going on. And someone will say, well, what if they're, you know, your boss is telling you something that you don't agree with, or something that's just bad news. What do you do then? And I said, you tell them the truth. You tell them the truth. And like in this situation, hey, this sucks. Oh, this stinks. Yeah. That's what you do. You say, hey, look, this isn't good. This is the situation we're in. Because the minute you try, you know, if you would have stood up there and said, hey, I got some great news. All of our husbands are going to come home in another three months and they're going to be at risk of death for another three months. This is a nightmare.

• 2:08:49Jocko Willink?

  But like, I'm looking forward to it. No, that everyone was seen right through it. You've got to tell the truth. Because the team knows the truth anyways. They know. So just own it. And, and then explain that we got to get through it.

• 2:09:01Speaker 01

  Yeah. And here are some ways to maybe help, help you do that. But yeah, no, I, the other thing. I had discussions over the years with other senior spouses about memorial services. Because as a commander spouse, they sit you right in the front row. At the chapel, in the chapel. And, you know, sometimes you're seated next to the spouse of the, you know, the Gold Star wife is there. You know, we didn't have any other family members because we were overseas. So there weren't any moms or dads or anything. We just usually had the spouse and, um, and I, the very first time I did that, and I'm sitting there and there's all these family members behind you in the pews, in the chapel.

• 2:09:43Speaker 01

  And you can just hear all the, all the sniffling and the sobbing. And so I'm crying along with the rest of them in the front row. And some women felt very strongly that you should be strong and you shouldn't cry. You know, they need, they need to see that. And I'm like, that would be a lie. Because I don't feel strong right now. And there was always a nice, pretty picture of the soldier up there. And this beautiful young face every time.

• 2:10:13Speaker 01

  I'm like, how do I not cry? Tell me how you do that, because I don't know. I'd have to like, not look at that and put myself in some place. I don't think that's healthy. You know, for me, it certainly wouldn't be. So I cried too with them. Um, and you need, you need that communal experience together to mourn together. And I did have all the respect in the world for our rear detachment chaplains, because you know, we're all sitting there waiting for them to make it better, you know, because he's the, the rear detachment guy talks and they'd read letters from downrange from the commander and friends and whatever. Sometimes it'd be a friend back who could speak. But then you're waiting for the chaplain to get up there and say something that's

• 2:10:54Speaker 01

  going to make you feel better. And I was like, I would not want that job. Um, they did beautiful, beautiful jobs. They did. They were great guys. Um, but, um, yeah, Chaplain Crawford and Chaplain Fredrickson, great guys. Um, but it was, it was very difficult. But I'm like, just, let's all just be honest here. It's hard.

• 2:11:14Jocko Willink?

  It is hard, but it's the right thing to do. Um, fast forward a little bit, you say this, "The following is excerpted from a letter I sent out to my prayer chain and to Catholic family and friends explaining the rosary for warriors and asking them to pray." And this is the letter. "This is not the way it's supposed to be. Fathers shouldn't outlive sons. Sons shouldn't grow up without fathers. But the evil that men do to each other is done through free will on their part, not God's will. Yes, the Lord sometimes allows things to happen, and we wonder why, but we must grieve and cry with hope, not despair. This world is not our

• 2:11:57Jocko Willink?

  home. That's what we must cling to."

• 2:12:02Jocko Willink?

  And you go on to explain this rosary for warriors. "I believe the rosary for warriors was divinely inspired. This devotion is prayed using the Marian Rosy of 59 beads with meditations on the sorrowful mysteries. On each decade, please pray for the following. First decade, for deployed service members and for their safety." Second decade for wounded service members and for their healing, both physical and spiritual. Third decade for deceased service members and for the repose of their souls. Fourth decade for all families of deployed wounded and deceased service members, for the strength and comfort only our Lord can provide.

• 2:12:41Jocko Willink?

  Fifth decade for the victims of war, our nation, and for peace in the world.

• 2:12:51Jocko Willink?

  So you put that together and shared that with your with your friends as a methodology.

• 2:13:02Jocko Willink?

  Another, fast forward, another thing that I found very powerful. You say this, and it's very something that that we talk about all the time. Humility. There is great strength in humility. The paradoxical, ironic Lord of our lives exemplifies this. Through the life of, through the life, suffering and death of his son, we see how in humbling ourselves, we gain the crown of heaven. Jesus's meekness in the face of the elders, the Roman soldiers, Pontius Pilate. God becoming man is the ultimate paradox of humbling oneself to be exalted. Jesus told a parable to those who had been invited, noticing how they were choosing the places of honor at the table.

• 2:13:47Jocko Willink?

  We read in Luke 14:711. When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not recline at the table in the place of honor. A more distinguished guest than you may have been invited by him, and the host who invited both of you may approach you and say, "Give your place to this man," and then you would proceed with embarrassment to take the lowest place. Rather, when you are invited, go take the lowest place, so that when the host comes to you, he may say, "My friend, move up to a higher position." Then you will enjoy the esteem of your companions at the table. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled,

• 2:14:31Jocko Willink?

  but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.

• 2:14:39Jocko Willink?

  Powerful.

• 2:14:40Speaker 01

  Well, thank you. Those Jesus words, so. But again, you know, following the leader. He's our fearless leader. That's what I call him. And, and um, I actually have a blog. It's really small.

• 2:14:55Jocko Willink?

  It's a Substack, right?

• 2:14:56Speaker 01

  Well, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm migrating all of my blogs to the Substack.

• 2:15:00Jocko Willink?

  And it's called Linda's?

• 2:15:02Speaker 01

  Linda's Substack.

• 2:15:02Jocko Willink?

  Linda's Substack.

• 2:15:04Speaker 01

  Cause that's how creative I am.

• 2:15:06Jocko Willink?

  Believe me, you're right now sitting on Jocko Podcast.

• 2:15:08Speaker 01

  That's right. There you go. Maybe I was inspired by you.

• 2:15:11Jocko Willink?

  Creativity.

• 2:15:12Speaker 01

  But um, so the, the blog I've done since 2017, and I actually wrote one about Michael Mansour. And, and I start off talking about how um, his body took the, the blows for others. Say, um, to save them. And then it transfers into Jesus. Who did the same thing. His body took the blows when he was scourged. And he was spit upon and he was pushed and he fell. And then he was crucified. And so his body took all of that for our sakes.

• 2:15:53Speaker 01

  And um, we like to say in my faith that it's not the nails that held Jesus on the cross, but his love for us. And um, so I just really feel that if you wanna know how to do this life thing, you know, look to Jesus, no matter how difficult it might be. You know, the day before he died, the night before he died, and he's in the Garden of Gethsemane. And he's praying and he's sweating drops of blood, which is an actual physiological thing that can occur if there's enough anxiety. And, you know, cause it's not just that he's dying and he knows he's gonna die. He knows he's gonna be betrayed by his friends and abandoned by them.

• 2:16:33Speaker 01

  And um, you know, everyone is gonna say horrible things about him and he's gotta walk basically naked with this cross beam of the cross, probably not the whole cross historically, it's probably just the cross beam. But he's gotta carry this and. You know, there's no friends. There's, he's been abandoned by everyone. And all of that is part of this thing. And, you know, if you believe in a triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, He's divine. So, an innocent man does not deserve to be treated that way and to be killed, but certainly, Son of God does not deserve that sort of treatment. And yet He takes it all for us. And, um, so, uh, to me, it just seems like a really good,

• 2:17:18Speaker 01

  and, and like I said, He won't go anyplace. He goes before us. And He says, "Follow me." And He's like, "Um, if you want to follow me, take up your cross. Take up your cross and follow me." Never promised an easy life. Never said it'd be all sunshine and caviar, you know? And, and His, um, Apostles, the eleven of them, and then of course Judas betrays Him, so they bring in a new guy. So there are twelve of them. All but one died a martyr's death. They were all killed by the state for this thing, Jesus is King. Because, "No, Caesar's king. What are you guys doing? You don't call anybody else king." So they, they were all martyred.

• 2:18:01Speaker 01

  And, um, you don't die for, like that. You don't keep... Peter was in prison. He kept going to prison. They kept flogging him. Paul, same thing. And they're like, "No, no, this is real. This happened. This man lived and loved, and He's still with us now." Because He said, "I'll be with you to the end of the age." And He sends His Holy Spirit, which is what, you know, I count on, or who I count on now. Um, so, that's what gets me through. That's, you know, that's, I think, He's with me. He's, He's in me, actually. Holy Spirit dwells within us. So, um, that's, that's why I wrote the book. I actually started the book with the very last part, the Psalms at the end, that are meditations on Psalms.

• 2:18:46Speaker 01

  I wrote that when the ground wars started, 2003. I'm watching that on TV. I had been reading things, copiously reading online, and we used to get a magazine. I show you my name? But, um, they're saying, "Oh, it would be a really bad thing to start war in Iraq." "This is just a no-win situation." And they're telling me all the reasons why. And I'm like, "Well, our leaders are smart enough to not do that." And then we did that. And I just had, like, my heart sunk. And I immediately started thinking about the families because I think they're going to be casualties. There will be casualties. And I was like, I just started thinking about the families and the wives. I'm an Army wife. And so that's what I know. Just like I knew I had to speak to those brigade commander's wife.

• 2:19:30Speaker 01

  I'm like, I need to start writing stuff down for them. So I did the Psalms first. That was 2003. The, the ready first stuff, you know, that was three years later. But um, I started it then and I just went in my basement. Shawna each had her own little office spaces down there. This really great house in Northern Virginia. And um, I started typing them up. And it's because his first deployment to Desert Storm, at night, after turn the TV off, and the kids are in bed, I would read my Bible before I went to sleep. And I always went to the Psalms. And there was always a Psalm that spoke to me. Always something there that I found helpful. Because there's a lot of Psalms that are like lamentation Psalms.

• 2:20:12Speaker 01

  And, and the, the, whether it's, um, you know, David, King David is reported. I've written a lot of Psalms, but there are others, they're not so sure. But there's lots of whys to God. Why and how long? And you know, but invariably, they're going to end with a praise. And it's kind of like me. We don't know the whys of God. That's not our business. That's his business. But we have to trust and um, and, and ask him for strength um, to get through things.

• 2:20:46Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I think the, the first time I met you, I think was actually, it was a ceremony for Mike Monsour up on Mount Solidad. I'm pretty sure.

• 2:20:54Speaker 01

  No, that was, that was for Mark.

• 2:20:56Jocko Willink?

  Was that for Mark?

• 2:20:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, Debbie Lee had us all come out on the 10th anniversary to Mount Solidad.

• 2:21:02Jocko Willink?

  Oh, then no, we.

• 2:21:03Speaker 01

  That's the first time I met you, I think. Oh, maybe at this award ceremony.

• 2:21:08Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it must have been at something. I thought it was, because I, I read a speech for Mikey at Mount Solidad. But that was pretty. That was like 2007. It was pretty.

• 2:21:19Speaker 01

  No, this was in, it was 2016. Shawn was in Afghanistan. No, Iraq. I have to think where he was. And 2016, it was the 10th anniversary of Barca. And Debbie had asked you, we all went on a bus to North Island and then we came back and we went to Salton. And you did a speech on 10 years.

• 2:21:37Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 2:21:38Speaker 01

  And what happens in 10 years. And I sat in the very back row of the seats they had arranged because I knew no one but Debbie. And you know, family was there and all these friends and people who'd worked with you all. So I'm just like, I was just, I went on, you know, on the bus everywhere, but I just sat in the very back row. And, and I remember you, um, reading that speech and I was like, oh my gosh, this is so good. It was profound and it was, um, appropriate and it was beautiful. And so I was like, and people were coming up after and talking to you and I'm just waiting back. And I'm like, hi, you might know my husband, Shawn MacFarland. And you said, can I give you a hug? And I was like, please do.

• 2:22:17Speaker 01

  But that was, that was first I met you. Yeah, 2016.

• 2:22:20Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. 10 years. Now it's 18 years.

• 2:22:29Jocko Willink?

  Going to the book here, um, you say, I cling to certain things during times of adversity. And one of them is do not fix your eyes on the affliction surrounding you. Turn your eyes upon the risen Lord, who has all the power in heaven and on earth. His help will come. I've seen very good things come out of evil. I have seen the best in human beings revealed even during the most terrible of times. I've been inspired by the goodness of human nature and awed by the selflessness of others. Where is God when horrible events occur? He is within each one of us who still strives to do what is right. He is weeping with us in our pain. He consoles us through the hands and feet and voices of others.

• 2:23:12Jocko Willink?

  We can lift up our loved ones and those who suffer to him and ask for his healing presence and comfort and love.

• 2:23:23Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I think that's when you were talking earlier about the good, the best, the best of times and the worst of times. That's what war is. You see the absolute worst of humans and you see the best of humans.

• 2:23:36Jocko Willink?

  Fast forward a little bit more. Through my active duty army husband, I've learned up close what it means to be the good guy. In the military, laying down one's life for a friend is not just a platitude, it's a real possibility. The sacrifices required of military life are big ones, even in times of peace. But in times of war, in the heat of battle, lives are often lost and some are saved due to the extraordinary bravery and selflessness of others. It's been said that a soldier fights in battle not for his country or the flag or any cause, but for his buddies to his left and right. That's love and in some cases, it can mean the ultimate sacrifice.

• 2:24:15Jocko Willink?

  This is meant for women, wives who must endure while their husbands go off to a foreign land in defense of our country. That is where we find ourselves now. I am a veteran of six deployments, beginning in 1990 with Operation Desert Shield Desert Storm. With a three-year-old daughter and an infant son, I was left seemingly alone to cope with life's daily routines, joys and challenges. And of course, to deal with the fears for my husband, the rest of the service, members and families involved and our nation. If you've never gone through this, it sounds overwhelming. It seemed initially that way to me, but through that experience, I learned a lot about letting go and turning things over to God.

• 2:24:56Jocko Willink?

  Through that experience, I learned to put myself and my family in his hands in a way I'd never done before. It's the way it should always be. We have no control over what others may do to us through their own willful acts. We don't know how or when our lives will end. But with the Lord in our lives, what others do to us and our mortar shells doesn't really matter in comparison with eternal realities.

• 2:25:26Jocko Willink?

  I'm gonna close out the book with this section here. "I have a distinct memory of sitting on the floor in our upstairs hallway with one child in the room at the end of the hall to my right and the other child in the room at the opposite end of the hall. We were all crying. I couldn't take it anymore, I thought. And through my tears and frustration and loneliness and fear, I prayed. And I knew underneath all that pain, God was with me and He was listening. Now that I think of it, He was probably weeping too. But I knew He was there. I cannot explain how. It was more than imagination, more than a feeling. It was truth.

• 2:26:09Jocko Willink?

  I believe the Holy Spirit's presence was there. It ministered to my spirit." That's why I wrote this book. To remind you that God is with you and you will be ministered to if only you seek Him. Let's seek Him together. Let's look in His Word and find wisdom and comfort and peace.

• 2:26:39Speaker 01

  And then, of course, there were two more deployments after I wrote that.

• 2:26:43Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:26:44Speaker 01

  Under Afghanistan for fifteen and a half months, which was supposed to be a year also. And he's like, "No, this time it's really a year."

• 2:26:52Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:26:53Speaker 01

  And I was foolish enough to believe him. And then he's like, "I love this." He's done it's like the third time. "So I got something to tell you.

• 2:27:03Speaker 01

  I have to stay a little longer."

• 2:27:07Jocko Willink?

  And you finally got, so those are multiple more deployments. And again, he, you know, he and I have been exchanging a bunch of emails lately. And, and one of the things that he pointed out is, you know, he, he was overall in charge in the Battle of Ramadi. And then, what? Twelve years or ten years or six years or seven years later? I guess it was maybe nine years later. He had to go fight that thing again. And this time it was using primarily Iraqi forces on the ground and US coalition forces in the sky, but all that sacrifice that he saw.

• 2:27:43Jocko Willink?

  And the soldiers and sailors and Marines and airmen that sacrificed their lives to to secure the city of Vermont, which was successful and that city was absolutely secured.

• 2:27:56Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:27:56Jocko Willink?

  And victory was achieved.

• 2:27:57Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:27:59Jocko Willink?

  And then he had to go back and do it again after it was given over, basically, or taken back over by ISIS.

• 2:28:09Jocko Willink?

  And, you know, just, just incredible that he was overall in charge of both those operations.

• 2:28:16Speaker 01

  I know.

• 2:28:20Speaker 01

  You know, I think I said it, or you read earlier, that every loss he took very personally carries them all with him to this day. It's a book with everybody's name in it. He looks at it from time to time. I know he still prays for everyone and the families when we can. We go to Arlington and find whoever we can of Section 60.

• 2:28:43Speaker 01

  We were in touch with several Gulf Star families. I, you know, it's just, it will be with us always and it does impact how we live our lives. You know, we will always honor their memory and their families. If anybody needs anything, let us know. So, I mean, it's, it's with him always. And even, you know, and I think what makes him a good commander, what made him a good commander, is that he does take every loss personally. He knows I am ultimately responsible. That's his thought, but that wears on you.

• 2:29:19Speaker 01

  So I think you mentioned, he says, Linda thinks I have undiagnosed PTSD.

• 2:29:24Speaker 01

  And I stand by that, but that's part of my dime store psychology that I do.

• 2:29:29Speaker 01

  It's some things he can't really talk about, some things he, you know, keeps to himself to this day.

• 2:29:35Speaker 01

  But yeah, it was, it was tough. And when he went back, I was so concerned.

• 2:29:43Speaker 01

  I mean, as much as I had been when he went and was personally in combat, now that he was leading it from, you know, this big massive thing, I just felt like, you know, emotionally and all of that, that that was just gonna take a real toll on him. And I think it did. But I think I also like I was the, he could call me more often. So he would call and we would talk and but um, it's been very difficult.

• 2:30:13Jocko Willink?

  That was one thing, and I don't know how much you know about this. I know it's funny, like Mikey Monsour, he would, he told his family, you know, oh, we're just on base, we're just training Iraqis, it's boring. He's telling them all this kind of stuff. Meanwhile, he's was in countless firefights and obviously um, just in combat all the time. But yeah, I don't know how much, I mean, your husband, when when you before, I think before we hit record, we were talking about one of the battalion commanders who, when you met him for the first time, he looked at you and said, your husband's a badass. And you were kind of like, wait, my husband? And it's because your husband, as a brigade commander, was out on the battlefield

• 2:30:57Jocko Willink?

  all the time, like, all the time. It was, it was, he, like I, like I said in the, in the beginning, he was not asking his troops to do anything that he wasn't willing to do himself. And by the way, all the battalion commanders were out there. And I mean, obviously, the company commanders, the platoon commanders, but the battalion commanders are out there all the time. You'd see these guys like, I'd look over, there'd be one of the battalion commanders, you know, climbing out of a, climbing out of a Bradley, or climbing out of a tank, or, or patrolling down the street. It was, it was, and it was also interesting that it was so, the battlefield was so small. You know, Ramadi's a small city. It's like four miles across. And even though there was, you know, there's 5,600 people in the brigade,

• 2:31:40Jocko Willink?

  but there's what, there's a, I don't know, seven, eight, nine, 10 battalion commanders, and we'd all see each other all the time. Like, and then you'd see, you'd like, be sitting in a meeting, and then two days later, you're out, like, and some battalion commander gets out of a tank, or walks down the street, or comes into a building. It was such a close-knit group of people. And like I said, your husband, he, he shared the risk with everybody else. I, I.

• 2:32:07Jocko Willink?

  It's, it was, quite frankly, it was kind of surprising and very inspiring to see.

• 2:32:12Speaker 01

  Oh, that's, that's good to hear. I did not realize at first that he was going out. And then I don't remember when it was, somebody took a picture and he was out on patrol with a group of soldiers and he has this thing and all this stuff. I saw it either on, I don't think he sent it to me, but somebody sent it to me and I was like, oh, okay.

• 2:32:36Speaker 01

  You know, but it's, it almost doesn't matter like one way or the other. Like, I love that picture now, I do, but it was, you know, you know, they're in harm's way. And I don't know, when he deployed the last time, so 10 years later, it's 2016, he's in Iraq. Cause that's where he stayed all the time. He was actually in the embassy. And he would go other places, but that's where his room was, that's where he slept at night. And one day he called me and he said, I want to tell, he called me in the middle of the day, which was weird. And he said, I need to tell you something before you see it on the news.

• 2:33:14Speaker 01

  I'm like, okay. He goes, well ISIS put our home address out on the internet and they're like, anybody who wants to take care of this, you know, you'll get something. I don't know what they would get, but. It was like encouraging ISIS to come and blow up our house or kill the people in it. I don't know. But it was our home address in Texas. And I was like, okay, thanks. What do I do now? And he's like, well, I've talked to, you know, the rear D guy who was deputy commander and he's like, they're gonna, you know, take precautions.

• 2:33:48Speaker 01

  Yeah. No, they just put it in P car at the end of the cul-de-sac. But, you know, I talked to the, cause my daughter had just arrived with, she only had two kids at the time. She had two little girls. She said, should I go home? Like she was really wigged out by this. And I think I was too, but I did a little bit of, like I was in shock or something. No, no, you stay here and I'll go talk to, you know, the DCG and we'll see. And um, he told me some of the security measures that were gonna be in place. And I was like, okay, I feel, I feel good about that. So we're good. Um, he said, it's, you know, you live on the street with other general officers. So kind of the security is for everybody. Cause I think technically as a spouse, I don't really rate security.

• 2:34:31Speaker 01

  You know, I mean, honestly, it's like the guy in uniform rates, rates the thing. So I mean, I just don't think like technically or if it's legally or whatever. But I live with a bunch of other, and they were all home. So he's like, we got this covered. They did, um, they kind of wanted to know where I was. I was like, really? I didn't always tell them because I thought that was kind of weird. Um, just for me personally and um, but I did, I had this big thing. I was, it was a, it was a suicide prevention. Conference that we had on post and I was very involved with that because of my own experience. And so I was trying to make sure family members knew that there was help available and how they could get it. And I share my story. So I was one of the speakers. So it was kind of publicized that I was doing this.

• 2:35:15Speaker 01

  And I um, walked in and you know, Krista taking me table to table to meet all the different agencies who are there to help and oh, this is great. And I keep seeing this young man. In like a s- uh, jacket and a, you know, open collar shirt and he keeps smiling at me every time I look at this guy. I'm like, okay, what is going on with that young man over there? Cause you know, I'm fifty-eight, whatever. So I'm like, I don't think it's me. So um, and then I get up to speak and I'm, there's this, you know, room full of people and he's over there smiling. I was like, oh my God, what's happening? And so after it was all over and everybody had spoken or whatever, this older gentleman came up to me.

• 2:35:57Speaker 01

  And he's like, hi. And he was like CW five or something, whatever. And he was with the, not the MPs, but one of those military police organizations. And he's saying, this is, you know, specialist so and so. And it was the kid who'd been smiling at me all afternoon. Like, you guys really should have told me that somebody was kinda watching out here because I just thought he was a crazy person. And I was not sure what was going on there. But then I got to, I got to ask to be the grand marshal of the Belton, Texas, 4th of July Parade. Largest parade in Central Texas.

• 2:36:33Jocko Willink?

  There you go.

• 2:36:34Speaker 01

  And myself and our Command Sergeant Major's wife, they asked us to be the grand marshals because our husbands were deployed. And they said, "We know that you guys are back here." And it was really sweet of them. So we did, and I got to make a speech. Got to make the speech. And I did not give the speech they thought they were gonna hear. I talked about 10 years ago. Not your speech, don't worry, I didn't. I didn't plagiarize. But it happened that it was 10 years. So, um, I, I, I did that, but, um, they told us, I got a phone call from the Belton Police Department, a civilian police department, from this nice female lieutenant. And she's like, "I've been assigned security for you at the parade." And I'm like, "Really?"

• 2:37:17Speaker 01

  She's like, "Yeah, the MPs can't do that, but we can." So she said, "I'm gonna be in the car behind yours." And it's just like, you know, you're sitting on the back of a convertible, me and Sandra, my CSM spouse. And Meg's like, "Is she wearing a pillbox hat, Mom?" And I was like, "Thank you." Um, but we're on the back and we're waving at people. And so she said, "I will be in the car right behind you with my partner in an unmarked car." And I'm like, "Well, that's weird." I said, "Are you gonna be dressed like clowns or something?" Like, one of these two people in a unmarked car, but okay, whatever. And then she tells me, this is on the phone. And she said, "So if anything happens, I will grab you from the car and take you to the hospital."

• 2:38:00Jocko Willink?

  That's reassuring.

• 2:38:01Speaker 01

  And I was like, "Hospital?" And then she said, "Or a safe place." It's like, too late, you already said hospital. You're expecting, like, injuries here. And then we get, cause it's Texas, and we get in the back of this car, and we're sitting up there, and the driver, who was, worked for the city, he opens his glove box, and he had a pistol. And he goes, "Ma'am, we're ready for anything." And I'm like, "Holy..." And Sandra looks at me, and she says, "I will never do anything with you again."

• 2:38:30Speaker 01

  And it was fine. But um, so that was like this very weird thing out of nowhere. And it was, you know, it was a little thing on CNN or whatever on the news that the the commanding general of O I R that his home address had been put out there by ISIS. And that's not something, you know, we'd ever expected. I was telling my cousin this story and she's like, were you mad at Sean? Like, were you like, you put me in this situation. And I was like, it never dawned on me to be mad at him.

• 2:39:01Jocko Willink?

  Now that I think of it, maybe I should be mad at him.

• 2:39:04Speaker 01

  I just kind of thought, it's the price of doing business, I guess. I don't know. I felt very safe. I don't think I've ever felt physically safer when he was gone than, you know, knowing that they were out there and keeping tabs.

• 2:39:18Jocko Willink?

  And how was that? You end up going to TradeOC for a while, the Training Command, and then make the decision to retire? Do you feel like that was a good decision at the time?

• 2:39:29Speaker 01

  I was so ready. The day he came home from Iraq, I could have retired. I I was like so ready. And one morning I sat up in bed, he's putting on his army socks, putting on, I'm like, you have to retire. It's like, okay, okay.

• 2:39:47Speaker 01

  Like, I'm just so done here. You know, first of all, the 20 years became 37, right?

• 2:39:53Jocko Willink?

  You signed up for 20, you got 37.

• 2:39:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, I got 34 because I married him, you know, a little ways in. So I married him three years in. But yeah, 34 years, eight deployments. And, you know, some of them were short, but they were, even those were like unexpected. And that's never a good thing. And what was really good, though, and I will say this, which made me feel better. My daughter was telling me one time about how much her dad was gone. She's like, Mom, I don't think of it that way. Like, I don't think of my childhood and say, where was dad all the time? And she's like, I remember, my memories are of dad being there more than us being alone. That's a beautiful thing to hear, but it's something I try to share with young mothers, military spouses is when you're, when you're soldier or whatever, your service member's gone,

• 2:40:40Speaker 01

  just don't change your routine. Everybody has the same bedtime and they sleep in their own beds. We don't all jump in mom's bed. That's a bad thing because when dad comes home, he kicks you out and you're not happy about that, right? So it's like, keep them in their own rooms, keep the routine as much as you can. You know, that's what we did. Nothing really changed in their routines of their personal lives. When their dad was gone, we missed him a lot. We prayed for him every night. Um, when they could, they talked to him, but he always called it the weirdest time. So they didn't get to that very much, but they, their memory is not of him gone so much. I know, I think, um, Philip has some memories, you know, when his dad was gone, when he was younger.

• 2:41:23Jocko Willink?

  And he's in the army now, right?

• 2:41:24Speaker 01

  He is, he is. And, uh, but I remember saying, really? That's what you want to do? Like, I was very surprised. I was very surprised, but, um, when, when, uh, we were in, uh, Friedberg and, and you all were in Ramadi, he had a summer higher job there. Turns out they did have some summer higher jobs in Friedberg. Um, and, um, he was around, he saw wounded soldiers all the time. And I said, went to him one day, years later, I'm like, did you know that I was going to all these memorial services? Cause I, I mentioned, I was driving all over Germany going to memorial services. And he said, mom, every morning before I left to school, if you were going somewhere, you would tell me where you were going. I'm going to Bamberg today. I'm going to Baumholder today.

• 2:42:06Speaker 01

  I'm going to Schwein for today for a memorial service. He goes, I always knew. I have no memory of that, of telling him that. He was a sophomore, junior there. Um, so, and you know, there were kids at school who were losing their, their parents. So, um, he, he was, his eyes were wide open when he decided to do that. And it was totally his decision. His, his, um, dad told the kids, you've already served your country, just me and my kids. And he, you know, they know he meant that. He doesn't say anything. He doesn't mean. So then they're like, okay, great. And then Maggie marries a soldier and Philip becomes on something. Okay. I tell my daughter, have you learned nothing from me? Really?

• 2:42:48Speaker 01

  But then somebody told me one time, she did learn from you and she learned you can make this work and have a happy family and it's all gonna be okay. So that was nice.

• 2:42:56Jocko Willink?

  And so what are you focused on now?

• 2:42:58Speaker 01

  Well, I'm continuing to write, just about finishing up a second book. It's on hope.

• 2:43:04Jocko Willink?

  Mm hmm. What's the name? Do we have a name, a working title?

• 2:43:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, The Anchor for Souls and the subtitle is Certain Hope in an Uncertain World. And it's way different, not autobiographical. It's almost more devotion, like a devotional. So there's some of my essays in the front and then the middle section is scripture, some saints, and then just some regular people with their thoughts on hope. And then I write little reflections kind of off of those. And the last section is, I, seven people that I know who I asked to write their views on hope. Debbie Lee is one of them. So yeah, looking forward to that. I am self-publishing that one.

• 2:43:46Jocko Willink?

  Well, that's what we have the ability to do now.

• 2:43:48Speaker 01

  We do. And we're almost there. We're just shy of finishing that up. So great.

• 2:43:53Jocko Willink?

  And so you got, how many grandkids do you have?

• 2:43:56Speaker 01

  Five.

• 2:43:56Jocko Willink?

  Nice.

• 2:43:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, Maggie has three, Philip has two.

• 2:44:00Jocko Willink?

  How often do you get to see them?

• 2:44:01Speaker 01

  As much as I can, which is hard because the one's on the East Coast and one's also in Texas, but Texas is a big state.

• 2:44:09Speaker 01

  But we, we make every effort and you know, if anybody says, could you come babysit? I'm there. I don't care.

• 2:44:16Speaker 01

  I tell Sean, you have to keep working till I, till the kids are old enough to not need babysitters.

• 2:44:22Jocko Willink?

  Awesome. So does that, does that get us up to speed? Does that get us up to current times?

• 2:44:26Speaker 01

  I, I think we pretty much are.

• 2:44:29Jocko Willink?

  And you're, so if people want to find you, you're on the internet, you've got the, the site drowning in lemonade. So it's drowning hyphen in hyphen lemonade dot com. You've got your Substack, which is very creatively named Linda's Substack.

• 2:44:47Speaker 01

  Linda with a Y.

• 2:44:48Jocko Willink?

  With a Y. It's L Y N D A Substack. You have Instagram.

• 2:44:54Speaker 01

  I do. I've, actually I have.

• 2:44:56Jocko Willink?

  You have Twitter.

• 2:44:57Speaker 01

  I do have, or X or whatever.

• 2:44:59Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's called X. Twitter X is what I call it.

• 2:45:01Speaker 01

  And there, I think, um, am I Lynn T. Mac there?

• 2:45:04Jocko Willink?

  You're Lynn T. Mac. Lynn T. Mac on both Twitter and Instagram.

• 2:45:08Speaker 01

  Well, okay, so here's the thing about Instagram. That's kind of my personal Instagram.

• 2:45:13Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's private, so I tried to look at it. I tried to stalk you, but I couldn't.

• 2:45:15Speaker 01

  I'm sorry, but I also have a more public one. That's Lynda dot with a Y.

• 2:45:21Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 2:45:21Speaker 01

  So, and, yeah, there's a dot between Lynda and with because that's the only way they would accept it on Instagram. I don't know why. So it's Lynda with a Y, um, because I go back to, you know, you personally should be able to explain why you do something or why things either way. God does not have that limitation put on him. That's, as I say, we do the best we can. The rest is God's business. I didn't create the universe. I'm sorry. I can't make a tree or a planet or a sky. So, you know, I just, I leave that to him. But I did do, I did a lot of, um, protocol and etiquette stuff. There's actually, ooh.

• 2:45:59Jocko Willink?

  I'm sorry to hear that.

• 2:46:00Speaker 01

  No. So here's the thing. I try to make protocol, uh, fun. And, and, and help people see why it matters. There's a why. If you cannot explain why we're doing something, don't do it. And I felt like in the Army, too many people were abandoning traditions that had good reason for being there, but no one had explained why to them. So I realized, oh, gosh, I'm a, at the time, Sean was division commander. I'm like, I'm a two-star general's wife, and I don't see anybody else doing, uh, you know, why this is important, so I'll do one. So I did one, um, that wasn't recorded. And then, and, uh, when we got to Fort Hood,

• 2:46:41Speaker 01

  they recorded it. And then Trade Dock, when we moved there, once Sean left Fort Hood, or Fort Cavasos now, they took it off, um, their website, Fort Hood did. But, um, Trade Dock very sweetly put it there, and it's still there. And it's a, it's a video. It's called Army Tradition and Why It Matters in the 21st Century. And I just, it's a little dated now. I've actually done an updated version that I haven't recorded yet. But this one has movie clips in it and stuff. And it's just to explain why we do some of the things we do and why we should continue to do them. And, you know, just give some meaning and context to things. I talk about George Washington and, you know,

• 2:47:25Speaker 01

  all kinds of stuff in there. But it's about 45 minutes, but it's still up. It's got like 1,800 views.

• 2:47:32Jocko Willink?

  Right on. And that's on the Tradoc website?

• 2:47:35Speaker 01

  Well, it's on YouTube. It's on YouTube. If you just Google Army Tradition and Why It Matters in 21st Century, there I am.

• 2:47:42Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. You get the views up on that thing.

• 2:47:45Speaker 01

  But, yeah, but it's, I just felt very strongly, in my time as an Army wife, I went to actual like, classes or lectures where some senior spouse would stand up there and tell you some things. And I think part of the resistance to that is people are like, oh, it's all, you know, hidey-toydy. But really, it's a lot of practical stuff. And the irony to me is that a lot of the customs and courtesies and all that kind of stuff, the protocol, was actually supposed to make everybody more comfortable. But it ends up making everybody really nervous, you know, like what to wear and what the attire is.

• 2:48:26Speaker 01

  But the bottom line, and what I tell everyone is, the bottom line is, always choose to be kind to others. If their manners are not correct, if they're in the wrong clothes, if they say the wrong thing, don't point it out. Leave them the heck alone. An observant person will notice. Oh, I probably shouldn't have worn this. Oh, I didn't know that was the fork for that. Start on the outside and move in. You'll never go wrong. But, but it's like, you just be kind to them. And you welcome them and let them know you're glad they're there. Don't be all, you know, well, this is how you do this, honey. It's like, no, just leave him the heck alone.

• 2:49:04Jocko Willink?

  Be nice.

• 2:49:05Speaker 01

  Be nice. Yeah. So I do, I have a scene from, um, did you ever see Blast from the Past with Brendan Fraser?

• 2:49:11Jocko Willink?

  No.

• 2:49:12Speaker 01

  It's a very funny movie. He spends thirty years underground because his dad thought that the bomb went off, the Russians. So he comes up thirty years later and he has nineteen fifty's sensibilities and manners. And, um, you know, it's like this, this guy that's, you know, hasn't been underground for thirty years. He said, he told me what a lady and a gentleman are. And he says, a lady or a gentleman is someone who makes you feel comfortable when you're with them. So you show your respect for who they are. He goes, I always thought it was someone who owned horses. You know, so, but really that's the thing. And I actually, I have a theory that people in the United States,

• 2:49:51Speaker 01

  we wouldn't be where we are culturally with so much, you know, vitriol if people had learned their manners. Honestly, why, why is it okay to just tear people apart like this? It's really not how we should treat one another.

• 2:50:06Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And social media makes that really easy too, because when you're on social media, there's no repercussions and there's not, you're not even a real human. I mean, most of the time you just, it's, you're just insulting or reading insults or whatever from a person that you're never going to meet and they're allowed to say whatever they want. And the way for them to get the most popular, uh, statement is to make the most shocking and heinous and offensive thing that they can make. And so that's kind of the norm.

• 2:50:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:50:34Jocko Willink?

  Unfortunately.

• 2:50:34Speaker 01

  I had a guy tell me.

• 2:50:35Jocko Willink?

  Not much manners on Twitter.

• 2:50:36Speaker 01

  No.

• 2:50:37Jocko Willink?

  Or anywhere else.

• 2:50:39Speaker 01

  I don't even remember what site it was, but I made a comment and this guy said, oh, you're so full of hate to me. And I was like, I don't hate anybody. That was my response. And he didn't write anything back. I was like, I don't know what? I think that's the other thing as a, as a writer, use the right words for things, you know? Hate is not the right word in every instance, you know? You might not like something. You might find it distasteful. You, but don't say hate all the time.

• 2:51:07Jocko Willink?

  Hate's a strong word.

• 2:51:08Speaker 01

  Hate's a very strong word. I know. Now I'm getting to my maternal mode here. And another thing, Jaco.

• 2:51:15Jocko Willink?

  Awesome.

• 2:51:18Jocko Willink?

  Echo Charles, you have any questions?

• 2:51:20Speaker 02

  Quick question. So back rewind back when you saw the, what was it, the teenager psychiatrist?

• 2:51:26Speaker 01

  Yes, adolescent psychiatrist.

• 2:51:27Speaker 02

  Adolescent psychiatrist. Um, what, what was it about the psychiatrist that made it, I don't know, effective or whatever? Cause only because every once in a while I'll hear of like, oh yeah, psychiatrist, you know, all they did was prescribe me this and it didn't even work. You know, you know, like they don't, I don't know. They don't get like the outcome that they wanted, but you say that you did.

• 2:51:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:51:46Speaker 02

  It was like, kind of like finally you got like some.

• 2:51:48Speaker 01

  I think, I think he listened and he didn't jump in. He didn't judge. He didn't, uh, offer solutions right away. Um, he was very kind. Um, you know, if I made a joke, he laughed. I, you know, you might get someone who even if it's funny, he wouldn't laugh, but I thought he genuinely appreciated what I was making. So I felt like it was a conversation. It wasn't like a doctor was here to help me do whatever. I just felt like, but he was a guy who, who had the training and the education. And I think the compassion to say, let's figure out, you know, a way for you to cope with this, a way to get over this.

• 2:52:32Speaker 01

  One of the things we discovered after all of my therapy is I had actually, I carried around a lot of anxiety because I was worried all the time when they were deployed. I had like this constant thing and I didn't know how to not be worried. I, I had, I had to like unlearn that.

• 2:52:49Jocko Willink?

  Part of your system.

• 2:52:50Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I had to really kind of learn how to realize. And then when, if I couldn't worry about people, oh, I did. I kept worrying about my kids. But, um, I, you know, I'm normally worried about things every time they weren't with me, but I worried about, you know, I might get lost in this city and I'm like, I drove all over Europe and I worried about getting lost, but all of a sudden, so I had to have something to worry about and, and I was helped out of that.

• 2:53:15Speaker 02

  And that was through the psychiatrist? Or did you find that out later?

• 2:53:19Speaker 01

  Oh, that actually was the, I saw a social worker, you know, when Sheikh Satar was assassinated? Shaun was home and he was working at the Pentagon and it was horrible. I'm sorry, I know we were ending, but I just thought it was.

• 2:53:32Jocko Willink?

  Sheikh Satar was a huge player in the Al-Lombard awakening and he was good friends with a bunch of the leadership and your husband definitely one of the leadership and he, you know, took huge risks to do what he did and unite the tribes in Al-Lombard and specifically in Ramadi and it was this, he was a big personality and, and your husband was totally critical in making that happen because he was the guy that said, well, when, when he ran that up the chain of command, hey, we want to work with this Sheikh and they said, that guy's a criminal, he's a gangster. And he said, well, you know, he's also powerful and he wants to be on our side now, so let's give him a chance.

• 2:54:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:54:09Jocko Willink?

  And so, and then after we left in 2007, he, he was assassinated.

• 2:54:15Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm. And so that, the whole thing ended up not being a great thing, how we were notified. I'm used to the army way, which, you know, it's, you tell the family before it's on television, right? When it's your family member, well, he wasn't related to any of us, so it was on the news. And so I had not heard, I'd been out for the day. Shaun's at work in a secure thing where you don't have phone, you know, cell phones. And so I got home and there was a message on our answering machine, because we still had an answering machine in 2007. And it was a, a friend saying, I just saw the news that Sheikh Satar was killed. That's how I found out. I just fell apart. Now, I had never met this man, but Shaun

• 2:54:59Speaker 01

  had told us, my kids too, all about him. He had stories about him and, you know, personal funny things, all kinds of stuff. We felt like we knew him. And, and that's not how I should have found out, but that's how I found out. And I was home alone and Philip was at school and Maggie was at school and college. Philip was a senior, because we were in Northern Virginia. And I said, I've got to tell the kids before they see it on the news. And so now I am right back in Friedberg and Shaun's in Ramadi in my mind emotionally, because that's what I always did. I was like, oh, make sure the kids know this, that, the other thing before they see it on the news, you know? And so I, um, cause we had friends who were killed that, you know, you just don't want them to find out from strangers.

• 2:55:43Speaker 01

  And so I, I called, Phillip came home from school. I told him, you know, he's upset. I called Maggie. She cried. She's like, when is it gonna be over? And I'm like, I don't know. How should I know? It was just awful. And then he comes home from work and he's like, did you hear? I'm like, yeah, I heard. It's awful. And he's, yeah. And he told me though, he said, like you, he said, he knew the risks. He had many, uh, attempts made and threats made, and he did it anyway. And he knew what could happen to him. And he said, I feel like he's okay with this. And I was like, okay. Well, so he goes back to work, does his stuff. I'm starting to slip kind of back into this sitting there all day thing.

• 2:56:25Speaker 01

  Um, I didn't quite get like I was in Friedberg, but I was not as energetic. I was sad all the time. So I did find a social worker and I just went to her for about, it was really only like four months. I just needed to, I was afraid I was gonna end up back where I was, but that was kind of when we realized that the worry thing was still hanging around. Um, another thing is when I did, um, you'll see family members, either when I went to their homes or saw them in the chapel for the memorial service. I saw grieving families and then they left.

• 2:57:01Speaker 01

  And I never saw them later, you know? That was my experience. That was my memory. So in my mind, months later, that's who they are. That's where they are. Yeah. And so I had to kind of get over that a little too.

• 2:57:16Speaker 02

  And then the social worker, the male, female?

• 2:57:19Speaker 01

  Female.

• 2:57:19Speaker 02

  And then did she ask a bunch of questions? Because, I don't know, I haven't been to any kind of therapy or anything like that. But from what I understand, like sometimes the, the therapist will be more into the listening part of it. And then sometimes they'll. Ask a lot of questions to get like, where does that come from? What does that make you know?

• 2:57:38Speaker 01

  You know, yeah, no, I did not get those kind. I think if people had asked me those kind of questions, I wouldn't have gone back, you know?

• 2:57:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:57:46Speaker 01

  If they'd been too like, so tell me about that. What did that feel like?

• 2:57:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:57:50Speaker 01

  I didn't get a lot of that. It was more really conversational. They were the two that I thank you God, were so like skilled, I think. And what they did, probably the adolescent guy was just used to talking to teens who don't want to tell you much of anything. So he was really good at kind of figuring out a way to get you to talk. And you didn't even know you were going to talk about something, you know?

• 2:58:12Speaker 02

  Yeah. So it almost like, I don't know, I'm trying to kind of conclude or figure the whole thing out.

• 2:58:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:58:18Speaker 02

  Like sometimes people need certain things and different types of people need different types of things as far as therapy goes. And then other people need other types of things, right? So it's a matter of like, almost like from a therapist's standpoint. They have to navigate, what do I think this person actually needs versus, oh, I'm, this is the kind of therapist I am. I ask questions all the time to get to the root of it. So I can solve your problem. You know, it's more about them. More so than it is like, kind of like how you said, it's more conversational. So he can kind of, or he or she can find out like, what does this person need, you know, to help them, to help them, you know?

• 2:58:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. I think one of the things that helps them, if they're the kind that I had, which I really appreciated. The, with the guy was the intake form where they asked all the questions. So he kind of already knows where I am emotionally by the time he gets down to the last question. And so he's, I don't know, I think that just helped him a lot figure it out. With the, with the social worker, they just asked me, what do you want from this time together? And I think one of the things I told her is, I don't want to worry all the time. And I don't want to be sad all the time. I mean, so I think that's hugely helpful if you kind of have a goal

• 2:59:33Speaker 01

  at the beginning. Um, at least it did for me. I don't know how many therapists do that sort of thing. But that was really where we started, not with my symptoms or how I was feeling, but just this is, I need to get out of this, help me get out of this, you know?

• 2:59:47Speaker 02

  It like sometimes will strike me because you know how like you have stuff going on in your head and you're like, well, I don't want to burn in my friends with it or whatever, because it's like, it's not big enough, you know, it's not a thing, you know, it's just, but it tends to like chronically bother you. And then finally, when you're like, I don't know, at a moment of whatever, you vent to your friend or your husband, wife, whatever, you just vent to them, right? That kind of almost on the uncontrollable side, you know, I just, I'm just kind of compelled to start.

• 3:00:17Speaker 02

  But that's a real thing, though. You know, you know how, I mean, we've all done it where it's like, it's hard to vent to you, you know, right? That's like a common thing.

• 3:00:24Jocko Willink?

  This is why sometimes our podcast starts forty minutes after it should start because I have to do therapy for Echo Charles.

• 3:00:32Speaker 02

  Here's the thing, that's my point where, Brad, that works though. So if, and you can't just vent to anybody. That's the thing. You start venting to the wrong person, right? They're going to use it against you. They're going to think you're weird. They're going to judge. They're going to like, all this like negative stuff can come from it. If you vent to the wrong person.

• 3:00:50Jocko Willink?

  Even though you keep doing it.

• 3:00:52Speaker 01

  And yet you persist.

• 3:00:55Speaker 02

  But somewhere in there, if there's like a legitimate element of trust, I feel like, I feel like it's beneficial. I feel like it actually helps.

• 3:01:02Speaker 01

  Okay, so I would say, because I think that's true to a point, but what I would tell people when I was trying to help them to get to a therapist is, um, I can tell my trusted friend how I'm feeling or vent to them, but when I walk away, I've still got my pile of crap that I started with. I haven't figured out a way to cope with it. I haven't figured out what about, and they have been able to tell me, well, you know, have you tried this coping mechanism or some people do this or, you know, there's no way to. To go from there. So you still walk away with all your stuff that you had when you initially yelled at them. And then or yelled them, shared with them, shared with them.

• 3:01:42Speaker 01

  And then they also now might walk away with some of your stuff, which isn't always fair to your friend. So that's why to me, therapy is good. If you get a good trained professional, they help you do something with that stuff. They help you to get it off your plate. So when you have a clean shiny plate, you can see your reflection in your own smile. But I will also say, find the people should find the right person. Like if you go to someone and they are being weird and you're like, I don't want to talk to you about that, my childhood or whatever it is. Then go to somebody else. Say, thank you. Goodbye.

• 3:02:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, fully. And the whole venting thing, you know, I'm not saying it applies to me.

• 3:02:21Speaker 01

  I know.

• 3:02:21Speaker 02

  Not saying it doesn't, but I feel like the whole vending thing is like a very, it's like a micro version of therapy.

• 3:02:27Speaker 01

  But if you find yourself, if you find yourself venting about the same thing each time, that might be when you need to talk to somebody just to get that thing out of the way.

• 3:02:41Jocko Willink?

  It'd be really nice if you went and talked to somebody else, Echo Charles.

• 3:02:46Speaker 02

  Who am I going to talk to? All right. Well, I have Linda now, so.

• 3:02:49Speaker 01

  That's right. Anytime, Echo.

• 3:02:53Speaker 01

  Send me a, send me a note. I'd be happy to talk to you.

• 3:02:56Jocko Willink?

  He told me, he told me a 25 minute story the other day. And the story was about having to listen to a story that he didn't want to listen to. It was very ironic.

• 3:03:11Speaker 02

  I know, deep down, you didn't judge, you know, I know. It felt like you were like looking for an opportunity to make a funny joke.

• 3:03:17Jocko Willink?

  I was happy to support.

• 3:03:19Speaker 02

  So, hey, man, it's a version of trust and love. See, it's a version.

• 3:03:23Speaker 01

  Well, that was really funny with that social worker. I mean, she learned so much about my entire family. That by the end, she's like, well, Linda, I don't really think there's much else I can do for you, but. When are you leaving? Because we were PCSing and I said in April or whatever and she's like, "Well, I can keep seeing you till you go." I'm like, "Okay." Just going once a week to talk to her. And she said, "I'm gonna miss your family."

• 3:03:50Speaker 02

  She knows them.

• 3:03:51Speaker 01

  So, yeah, yeah. So, I mean, it can even develop into that kind of a relationship with the person.

• 3:03:57Speaker 02

  I think a lot of times with venting anyway, I mean, it's different for everybody, but a lot of it is just hearing what you're thinking out loud. You know, it's way different when you're thinking it in your head and, you know, all these different ways. But then when you say it out loud, it's kind of like, it kind of puts it into perspective.

• 3:04:12Speaker 01

  No, that's, there is truth to that. I don't think anybody should leave it locked up inside.

• 3:04:16Jocko Willink?

  It's surprising how many people ask me a question and as they're asking me a question, they'll be like, "I know the answer." And they don't need to ask me. These are like leadership questions or life questions. And they'll be asking me the questions and as soon as they hear themselves saying it, they're like, "I know what I gotta do."

• 3:04:29Speaker 02

  That's me like probably 90% of the time, if it's like a question, you know?

• 3:04:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, that's a good thing.

• 3:04:35Jocko Willink?

  Good, good. Any, any other questions, Echo Charles?

• 3:04:39Speaker 02

  Nope, that's it. You know, if I have any more, I'll hit you up.

• 3:04:41Speaker 01

  You know how to get in touch with me.

• 3:04:45Jocko Willink?

  Lynda, any closing thoughts?

• 3:04:47Speaker 01

  Uh, no, I've, I mean, thank you for having me on. Thanks for, you know, sharing about my book. I do, I still would love people to read it. I did, I don't make any money off the sale of the book. It all goes to a nonprofit that actually makes these MP3 players. Um, for, um, they started off making them for wounded soldiers, um, and deployed soldiers. And now apparently veterans in veterans hospitals, things like that, they're getting requests from chaplains uh, for the MP3 player. It's, there's two versions. There's a Catholic version that's very specifically that. And then there's a Christian version. Um, I helped a lot with the content on the, on the Catholic version. Has a mass from the archdiocese of military services. They have their own archdiocese, which a lot of people don't know.

• 3:05:32Speaker 01

  It's worldwide. And the current president of that Archbishop Brolio is also president right now of the United States Council of Catholic Bishops. And so, that mass is on there, and they do one every May, right before Memorial Day. They record it, and then the Eternal Word Television Network, EWTN, airs it on Memorial Day. And this year, for the first time, it was the 20th anniversary of the Rosary for Warriors being prayed at the beginning of the mass. They always pray it, but they never air it on the network. And so, I happened to be somewhere Archbishop Brolio was, and I was like, "Do you think for the 20th year that they could air that as well?"

• 3:06:17Speaker 01

  And they did.

• 3:06:18Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 3:06:19Speaker 01

  And I was just so excited to see it there. And it doesn't matter where it came from. I just, the intentions can be prayed by anyone. You don't have to be Catholic and pray it on the rosary. You know, we can all pray. And one of the reasons I still continue to share it is because I don't want anybody to forget. I don't want to forget our fallen, certainly, but there are people with wounds that will carry them the rest of their, they'll carry with them the rest of their lives, and their families will be impacted by that. Of course, the families of the fallen, and we don't want to forget them. And even we have people deployed around the world right now that people don't think about, civilians don't think about. So, the rosary is a way to remind people that all that's still going on, and it just always will be, it's one fashion or another.

• 3:07:04Speaker 01

  So, I was thrilled that it got that rigor coverage at least once in 20 years.

• 3:07:10Jocko Willink?

  Well, hopefully it gets some more coverage with this, so.

• 3:07:14Speaker 01

  Yes, thank you so much.

• 3:07:16Jocko Willink?

  Well, thank you. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for sharing your faith and your experiences, and of course, thank you for your service to our country and supporting your family through decades, almost four decades of military life and years and years of combat deployments that you went through. And so, thank you for that sacrifice, and then thank you for the service and support that you gave so many families, and the support that you continue to give to families of the fallen, including my own brothers. I know you, you... Help Mama Lee so much. And I know there's countless others that you've supported with your, with your strength, your compassion and your faith. So.

• 3:08:02Speaker 01

  Well, thanks. It was always a privilege. It's always been, always will be a privilege. So thank you.

• 3:08:06Jocko Willink?

  Thank you.

• 3:08:07Speaker 01

  God bless.

• 3:08:09Jocko Willink?

  And with that, Linda McFarland has left the building on her way.

• 3:08:17Jocko Willink?

  Awesome to have her on here and hear that side of the story, hear that perspective on the home front. Home front's rough. You know, have you ever heard of a book called Mikey and the Dragons?

• 3:08:30Speaker 02

  I heard good things, yeah.

• 3:08:32Jocko Willink?

  You know how the dragons are bigger in your head than they are in real life?

• 3:08:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:08:37Jocko Willink?

  That's kind of case in point behind combat, you know?

• 3:08:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:08:42Jocko Willink?

  For the guys in combat, you're there. You see the dragons. You see how big they are.

• 3:08:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:08:48Jocko Willink?

  The people that are home.

• 3:08:50Speaker 02

  All of them are huge.

• 3:08:51Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And, and yeah, I forgot to talk about this too. Social media, like it's one thing to, during the first Gulf War to be like, oh, you know what? I'm not going to watch CNN, the one channel that has 24 hour news coverage. And you just could avoid that actual one channel. Channel 30 on cable or whatever it was, channel 31.

• 3:09:15Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 3:09:16Jocko Willink?

  Right now, because, because now you'd have to avoid CNN, Fox, MSNBC, the blah, blah, blah. There's, how many of those are? Newsmax? There's.

• 3:09:28Speaker 02

  All of social media, by the way?

• 3:09:30Jocko Willink?

  Well, no, that's, I'm just talking television.

• 3:09:32Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 3:09:33Jocko Willink?

  So I'm just talking, you've got probably 10 channels to avoid on television. Once you get into social media, well, actually now go to your, your news websites, right? Because all those things I just said, they all have a news website. And now go to your social media. And by the way, how many people are texting you with some news? Because they just saw it on social media. So now you have to avoid your friends.

• 3:09:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:09:58Jocko Willink?

  Because they're texting you about some stuff in the news.

• 3:10:00Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. Yep.

• 3:10:02Jocko Willink?

  So.

• 3:10:03Speaker 02

  It goes a lot, a lot. When, the more you think about it, the more it's like, it's kinda gonna be everywhere. So there's like apps that are open, by the way, I didn't, I never set this freaking, what do you call, status for this app to give me notifications, but it's like news. It'll just pop up.

• 3:10:20Jocko Willink?

  Coming across your screen.

• 3:10:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, what the hell, I didn't put, put this on freaking alerts, yes, or nothing like that. There's that. And then you go, you go shopping on, I don't know, freaking XYZ.com. They'll have breaking news on the website sometimes. So it's like, bam, everywhere you look, you know? Yeah, that's crazy.

• 3:10:38Jocko Willink?

  Bam. Uh, well, awesome to hear from her and the, the side of perspective that she had, obviously from her whole career. It's definitely from, specifically from the battle of Ramadi and, and just to connect with the McFarland's has been awesome to have them both on here to share what they learned and what everything looked like from their perspective. So really appreciate that and

• 3:11:06Jocko Willink?

  awesome to have them on.

• 3:11:11Jocko Willink?

  You know, she talked a little bit about mental health.

• 3:11:13Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 3:11:15Jocko Willink?

  One of the things she said was negative about mental health is sitting on your couch. This is like a precursor to bad mental health.

• 3:11:22Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 3:11:23Jocko Willink?

  So we're not sitting, sitting on the couch. Matter of fact, couch time should be minimized a lot.

• 3:11:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:11:29Jocko Willink?

  Do you have a comfortable couch?

• 3:11:30Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 3:11:32Jocko Willink?

  I don't. My couch is, it's, no, it's not on purpose. I wish it was more comfortable. Back in the day,

• 3:11:40Jocko Willink?

  back in the day, I had, me and my buddy, when we lived in an apartment, we had the most comfortable couch of all time. This thing was huge. It was low to the ground and you could fully sleep two people, like on it.

• 3:11:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 3:11:57Jocko Willink?

  It was ridiculous. It was gold velvet.

• 3:12:02Jocko Willink?

  We got it at a, you know, uh, one of those stores.

• 3:12:05Speaker 02

  Goodwill.

• 3:12:06Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, something like Goodwill.

• 3:12:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, like a thrift or like.

• 3:12:08Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, thrift store, thrift store. And this thing was huge, but it was so, because as it got used, it's probably 25 years old. So it was all softened up.

• 3:12:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 3:12:20Jocko Willink?

  Just softened up, it was worked in. But the thing was comfortable, but the current couch that I have, when you sit in it, the back pillow, the back thing is too tall, so it propels your neck forward.

• 3:12:34Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 3:12:34Jocko Willink?

  It's so annoying.

• 3:12:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 3:12:35Jocko Willink?

  It's so annoying, so you can't get comfortable there, which is good, because we don't want to be on the couch.

• 3:12:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:12:39Jocko Willink?

  We want to be training.

• 3:12:40Speaker 02

  You're right, especially when you're talking about your one that was close to the ground, because once you're down there, it's like, brother, to get up is like more work now, like, bro, what are you doing? Might as well just stay down here, you know? Like, get it.

• 3:12:50Jocko Willink?

  You know that this was nice. I always think about this.

• 3:12:56Jocko Willink?

  We'd get done, uh, like on a Saturday, wake up, work out, do whatever, train the jiu jitsu, and then come home, you know how you, if you wake up, work out, and then you train, and then you come home and you eat something? Now you're kind of like, you're kind of tired.

• 3:13:11Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 3:13:12Jocko Willink?

  And then you lay on my old couch.

• 3:13:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:13:14Jocko Willink?

  And the breeze is coming through. It's a nice, cool breeze.

• 3:13:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 3:13:18Jocko Willink?

  But then you've got some kind of a little blanket scenario going on, you can kind of get over your legs. You know what I mean? And this is back in the day when you have no responsibilities. Like, it's Saturday, you don't have to be work, you don't have to, you have nothing, you have no, no response, no kids.

• 3:13:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:13:34Jocko Willink?

  Nothing. You just have no responsibilities. You have to be work, at work in like 39 hours.

• 3:13:42Jocko Willink?

  You have 39 hours where you can do whatever you want, no responsibilities.

• 3:13:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:13:47Jocko Willink?

  And you, you, TV on, TV off, doesn't matter.

• 3:13:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:13:51Jocko Willink?

  Like, no, whatever's happening is happening, you have no responsibilities and you're just going to sit there and just lay there. And maybe sleep for 20 minutes, maybe sleep for two hours.

• 3:14:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:14:01Jocko Willink?

  Maybe sleep for four hours, doesn't matter.

• 3:14:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:14:04Jocko Willink?

  You're just, just going to feel a cool breeze over your, over your right shoulder, because your left shoulder is kind of covered up.

• 3:14:11Speaker 02

  That's, I think that's the worst I've ever heard you've mentioned that, but it's like such a real and magnificent part of like the lounging experience when you can find the time to have lounging experiences.

• 3:14:22Jocko Willink?

  But see that this, it doesn't exist anymore.

• 3:14:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:14:26Jocko Willink?

  Because once you're, once you're, once you have actual responsibilities in life, you can never escape them, at least me. I can't be like, oh, you know, who cares what I'm gonna do? I haven't, I haven't done what I just said in decades. You know what I mean? I'm talking, I was like, I was a E4 in the day.

• 3:14:45Jocko Willink?

  And there's no war going on.

• 3:14:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:14:47Jocko Willink?

  And even if there was war going on, it doesn't matter. You know, when we had the weekend off, Frogman Friday, get done, go out, whatever. And then Saturday, oh, we're gonna get up, we're gonna work out, we're gonna train. So we're tired. Maybe order up some, maybe order up some food on the way home, you know?

• 3:15:06Speaker 02

  Brad, the blanket over your legs, that, that is the. I did, right? Cause that's the kind where like you really are not expecting anybody come in, bother you at all. Like the, I know this cause it was today, Monday, so Sunday, yesterday.

• 3:15:21Jocko Willink?

  You see, I haven't had this in decades. You had it for yesterday.

• 3:15:24Speaker 02

  That whole scenario, it was, it was, it was very brief, but yes, the blanket was like on your legs. It's like a, cause it looks real dainty. Like it looks real like, you know, old lady knitting blanket on your legs. You know, it's like that. It's not, it's not very like hardcore. We'll say that. In fact, it's the opposite, but the benefits, just for that moment.

• 3:15:45Jocko Willink?

  It's nice.

• 3:15:45Speaker 02

  Are real.

• 3:15:46Jocko Willink?

  I was training yesterday.

• 3:15:47Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 3:15:48Jocko Willink?

  Did you just?

• 3:15:49Speaker 02

  No, no, no, I was.

• 3:15:52Jocko Willink?

  Anyways, I just need to mention this, but there was a guy came in to, to stop in and say, how you weren't there? He kinda didn't expect you to be here cause he kinda listens to the podcast. He was kinda, but he, his name was Daniel. He's from Poland. And he came from Poland to Chicago and then drove to San Diego to swing by and say what up.

• 3:16:14Speaker 02

  Oh damn.

• 3:16:14Jocko Willink?

  So props to Daniel for that. But what Daniel said, his favorite part of the podcast.

• 3:16:21Jocko Willink?

  Was when we start the support session. He's like, that's why I listened. I was like, bro, you and one other person. We haven't met the other person yet.

• 3:16:30Speaker 02

  There you go.

• 3:16:30Jocko Willink?

  He said, no, it's nice to hear you and Echo talking. I love to hear you guys speaking.

• 3:16:35Speaker 02

  Yeah. Was he kind of tall? Was he like maybe your height, maybe slightly taller?

• 3:16:40Jocko Willink?

  No.

• 3:16:40Speaker 02

  No.

• 3:16:41Jocko Willink?

  Big beard, blue eyes.

• 3:16:43Speaker 02

  Big beard?

• 3:16:44Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, pretty big beard. Yeah.

• 3:16:46Speaker 02

  Okay. I met a guy from Poland, but no, no. At Victory Training.

• 3:16:50Jocko Willink?

  Oh, really?

• 3:16:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, Friday.

• 3:16:51Jocko Willink?

  Huh.

• 3:16:54Jocko Willink?

  Good. Check.

• 3:16:55Speaker 02

  Nonetheless, uh, hey, I, I agree with them, you know, for, you know, partially, partially agree with them.

• 3:17:00Jocko Willink?

  But listen, the couch, wow, nice at times.

• 3:17:05Jocko Willink?

  Like Linda said, this can't become the protocol. The protocol should be lifting, running, sprinting, training, surfing, the jujitsu. Just, that's what we should be doing. And that's going to help everybody. And when you do that, you're gonna need fuel.

• 3:17:22Speaker 02

  Yes, sir.

• 3:17:23Jocko Willink?

  We recommend Jaco Fuel. Uh, Jaco Fuel, check it out. Uh, if you want to get like a voicemail from me on Mondays, text Jaco Fuel to 24672. If you're interested. Uh, also, we have a, like, I don't have a cool name for this yet. Didn't really explore into it too much, but basically we want to take care of people that are in the game, that are on board with the programs. We have, like, for lack of a better word, I think they call it, in the industry, they call it a loyalty program.

• 3:17:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. Hell, yeah.

• 3:17:59Jocko Willink?

  So we got one. And it's, the reason I'm bringing this up is because it's, there's good deals, right?

• 3:18:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, like a club card. Right at stores.

• 3:18:07Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's like a, a good deal thing where we can email you and like, oh, we got a little extra stock in this right now.

• 3:18:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 3:18:13Jocko Willink?

  We'll sell it to you, like, for cheaper, or you can get bonus points or whatever. So go to jacofuel.com/rewards. Check that out. That way you can get the inside deals, which is cool. Because we wanted to, we appreciate everyone that appreciates the, the Jaco Fuel. So we want to take care of you all. So check those things out. Um, and then you guys know what, you guys know what's happening at Jaco Fuel. We got everything. We got all the good stuff. We got, we got greens, by the way. We got greens. We got hydra, hydrates selling like crazy, which is amazing. But it, it's no surprise. Look at the ingredients. Just look at the ingredients. And then look at the ingredients in the other junk poison that's out there. Uh, we got protein. We got the energy drink.

• 3:18:57Jocko Willink?

  We got everything that you need. Joint Warfare.

• 3:19:01Jocko Willink?

  Super Krill. Combat Tested. Believe it or not, freaking huge subscription. On Combat Tested. People are loving that product. So anyways, check it out. Jaco Fuel.com. You can get the stuff there. You can also go to Vitamin Shoppe. You can go to Wawa. You can go to GNC. Military Commissaries, Afees, Hanafur Dash Stores in Maryland, Wake Fern, Shop Right, HEB down in Texas. You're getting after it. Meyer. In the Midwest. Wegmans. Harris Teeter. Lifetime. Lifetime Fitness. Shields. Small gyms. You can get, you can get the stuff if you want it. Also, if you want to put it in a small gym, email J F Sales at Jaco Fuel.com. That's what we're doing. Appreciate it. Jaco Fuel.com. Get the good stuff.

• 3:19:47Jocko Willink?

  All right. Also. You need clothing to work out in.

• 3:19:53Jocko Willink?

  And if you go to OriginUSA.com, you can get. The legit. Clothing for working out. Did you get any of the Burr?

• 3:20:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:20:00Jocko Willink?

  Burr? It's the new form of RTX.

• 3:20:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 3:20:04Jocko Willink?

  It's freaking awesome.

• 3:20:05Speaker 02

  I got, yep.

• 3:20:05Jocko Willink?

  It's awesome.

• 3:20:06Speaker 02

  I got a tee, like a tee shirt style and then the hoodie.

• 3:20:10Jocko Willink?

  The hoodie, the hoodie thing. Yeah, they're awesome. OriginUSA.com. Hundred percent made in America. Listen, this doesn't mean that we just take. Fabrics from overseas and bring them here and then some together know we're using fat, American made fabrics. And the materials that are in the fabrics are American made.

• 3:20:28Jocko Willink?

  This is a big deal. Support America. Support freedom. Support security. Support economic growth for our nation. Support manufacturing and jobs. Back here in this country and get the best possible stuff you can get. Jeans, gis, rash guards. Hoodies. Boots. Hunt gear. Check it out. OriginUSA.com. Get some.

• 3:20:54Speaker 02

  It's true. Also, Immersion Camp sold out. Sorry, but law enforcement, jujitsu training for law enforcement specifically. August 27th through the 31st. This is in Maine. It's the same location as the jujitsu camp.

• 3:21:07Jocko Willink?

  Yep, we're gonna go right into it.

• 3:21:08Speaker 02

  Camp Laurel. Yeah, so you go to, uh, originusa.com. Is that where you can sign up for? Same deal?

• 3:21:15Jocko Willink?

  That's it, man.

• 3:21:16Speaker 02

  Freaking awesome. Yeah, that's gonna be good. A lot of law enforcement already comes to the jujitsu camp.

• 3:21:20Jocko Willink?

  But now we got the special one.

• 3:21:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, cause specific for it. Cause let, I mean, let's face it. I mean, me, I've, I've never been a cop. You know that about me. But every once in a while, I'll think like, as a cop, like you can't, if you know jujitsu as a cop, you kinda can't help but be like, freak, I can't wait to use some jujitsu, you know? So anyway, it's a good, very beneficial thing to have. So it's very good that this exists. Uh, August 27th to the 31st, Maine. Also, Jaco's a store. It's called Jaco Store. This is where you can represent Discipline Equals Freedom. Good. Stand by to get some. Get after it. All these things. You wanna represent. This is where you can get your stuff. Shirts and hoodies, the whole deal. Also, uh,

• 3:21:58Speaker 02

  the Shirt Locker. New design, every month. People seem to like it. It's a subscription scenario. New design every month. Uh, that's also on jacostore.com. You go to the top right. It says, "Join the Shirt Locker." That's what it's called, the Shirt Locker.

• 3:22:10Jocko Willink?

  Pretty cool name.

• 3:22:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, so you click on there and it'll show you kinda what it's all about. You know, some designs from the past. Um, as far as designs from the past go, if you're a member, you can get any design from the past, unless it's sold out or something like that, which is, can happen, but you do have access to that.

• 3:22:26Jocko Willink?

  If we sell them out.

• 3:22:27Speaker 02

  Reprint them. Um, yeah, the, yeah, fully. It's, it's, it's basically you get access to the whole thing. It's only for members. So yeah, if you're a member, you get one every month. Plus you can, you know, bypass past designs, the whole deal.

• 3:22:38Jocko Willink?

  Be part of the whole club.

• 3:22:40Speaker 02

  The whole Shirt Locker Club. True. You know, yes, it's all at Jaco Store.

• 3:22:44Jocko Willink?

  Also check out primalbeef.com. Check out coloradocraftbeef.com. You need steak? Get steak from the good people out there.

• 3:22:52Jocko Willink?

  Get steak from the good cows out there. That's what we're doing. Awesome. I just had a massive primal beef steak. It was so freaking good. And the Colorado Craft Beef Sticks. Just to have in your back pocket at a moment of need. Yeah. Check those out. Primalbeef.com, coloradocraftbeef.com. Also subscribe to the podcast. Also check out jacowunderground.com. Also check out our YouTube channels. What is it? Jocko Podcast.

• 3:23:18Speaker 02

  Official.

• 3:23:19Jocko Willink?

  Official. We got, oh, there's the clips one that you made.

• 3:23:22Speaker 02

  Podcast clips.

• 3:23:23Jocko Willink?

  And then there's Jaco Fuel has one. And then there's also.

• 3:23:27Speaker 02

  Origin.

• 3:23:28Jocko Willink?

  Origin USA. So check those out. Uh, Psychological Warfare. Man, I'm supposed to make a new one of those, aren't I?

• 3:23:36Speaker 02

  Yeah. Still viable though. You know, it's one of those things.

• 3:23:39Jocko Willink?

  Still viable.

• 3:23:40Speaker 02

  Yep. Timeless.

• 3:23:41Jocko Willink?

  Timeless.

• 3:23:42Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 3:23:42Jocko Willink?

  Check you out.

• 3:23:43Speaker 02

  Bro, I'm here to tell you.

• 3:23:44Jocko Willink?

  Viable, timeless.

• 3:23:47Jocko Willink?

  Dang.

• 3:23:48Speaker 02

  I'm here to tell you.

• 3:23:49Jocko Willink?

  Uh, Psychological Warfare. Yep. Check that out. Oh, flipsidecanvas.com. Dakota Meyer is making cool stuff to hang on your wall. Books. Drowning in Lemonade by Linda McFarland. Check that out. We read probably 3% of it today. But it's a good read. It's a fast read. Lots of good actionable items in there. So check out Drowning in Lemonade by Linda McFarland. Also, I've written a bunch of books. Written a bunch of adult books, not adult like, uh, like adult film, right?

• 3:24:20Speaker 02

  Of course, of course.

• 3:24:21Jocko Willink?

  But books that are meant for adult humans.

• 3:24:25Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 3:24:26Jocko Willink?

  Is there a name for those? They're just called books.

• 3:24:29Speaker 02

  Books, bro.

• 3:24:30Jocko Willink?

  I've written a bunch of books.

• 3:24:31Speaker 02

  Adult, what, Fifty Shades of Jaco freaking books.

• 3:24:35Jocko Willink?

  No, we have not written that. We have written a bunch. I have written a bunch of leadership books. I've written a novel. I've written, and I've written a bunch of kids books as well. So check those out. Way of the Warrior Kid, one, two, three, four, and five. Letters to Uncle Jake. We got a movie coming. You should have to wait until a movie. You have to wait to see Chris Pratt as Uncle Jake. You know, it's kind of dope. You don't have to wait for McG to put together the perfect. By the way, I'm reading the script. It's good.

• 3:25:01Speaker 02

  We like that.

• 3:25:02Jocko Willink?

  So good. There's, look, it's a Hollywood movie. There's some Hollywood activity, and I mean that in the best possible way, like cool.

• 3:25:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:25:12Jocko Willink?

  Hollywood.

• 3:25:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:25:14Jocko Willink?

  Activities.

• 3:25:15Speaker 02

  Players on there.

• 3:25:16Jocko Willink?

  Parachuting. Like it's taking it next level. Yeah. So definitely looking forward to that. Mike and the Dragons, About Face, Extreme Ownership, Dichotomy Leadership. Check out those books. Also Echelon Front, we have a leadership consultancy. We solve problems through leadership. Go to echelonfront.com for details on that. We also have an online training academy, extremeownership.com, where you can learn to lead yourself and your friends and your teammates and your family through life. Leadership is a skill. You don't, you don't just get it and now you have it. Now you're good. No, it's like going to the gym. Got to go to the gym. Go to the leadership gym. Go to the life gym, extrememanship.com. Check that out. And if you want to help out service members, active and retired, you want to help out their families, you want to help out Gold Star families,

• 3:26:01Jocko Willink?

  check out Mark Lee's mom, Mama Lee, she's got a charity organization. If you want to donate or you want to get involved, go to AmericasMightyWarriors.org. And if you want to donate to having the Ready First Brigade Memorial Statue refurbished and repositioned, go to AmericasMightyWarriors.org and donate money and then just put in the notes that you would like it to go to the Ready First Brigade Memorial. So it's a beautiful memorial. The names on it of those that we lost in the Battle of Ramadi. So check that out. Also, heroesandhorses.org, Mike O'Fink up there in Montana,

• 3:26:45Jocko Willink?

  taking care of our veterans by taking them outside into the wilderness where they can find themselves. And finally, Jimmy May's organization, BeyondTheBrotherhood.org, helping SEALs go from their military career into the civilian sector with success. And if you want to connect with us, once again, Lynda McFarland, she's on the interwebs. She's got drowning-in-lemonade.com. She's got a Substack, which is creatively called Lynda Substack. She's on Instagram. She's on Twitter @LindtMac. What was the other one that she's at?

• 3:27:26Jocko Willink?

  Oh, it's Lynda with a Y. That's on Instagram. Lynda with a Y. She's also on LinkedIn. She's on Facebook. You can find her at Lynda, with spelled with a Y, McFarland. As for us, I'm at Jaco.com. I'm on social media, @JacoWillink. Echo is also on social media, @EchoCharles. Just be careful, because there's an algorithm. Everybody wants to tell you something. Everybody's got something to say to you. Get you looking some way or feeling some way. That's what they're trying to do. I recommend you go your own way. But if you want to connect with us, we're there. And thanks to all the folks out there in uniform and tonight, especially thanks

• 3:28:07Jocko Willink?

  to our military families around the world. You sacrifice so much to support your service members.

• 3:28:14Jocko Willink?

  You keep track on the home front.

• 3:28:18Jocko Willink?

  So that

• 3:28:20Jocko Willink?

  the service members can keep the front lines on track and you take care of kids and bills and broken cars and you handle doctors appointments and wrestling matches and piano recitals. You do it all.

• 3:28:33Jocko Willink?

  While worrying and praying that your loved one comes home. It is a burden and a sacrifice and we thank all of our military families for your service. Also, thanks to our police, law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, border patrol, Secret Service and all other first responders. Thank you for protecting us and thanks to your families as well. Who put up with sleepless nights, constant worry and continued sacrifices. So that the first responders can go out there and do their jobs. So thanks to the first responder families out there and everyone else out there. Let's remember what we learned today.

• 3:29:15Jocko Willink?

  From Luke 14 711 passed on to us from Linda McFarland in her book drowning in lemonade. Quote, "Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled. But the one who humbles himself will be exalted." End quote. Humility is the most important characteristic of a leader and of a person. So stay humble, everyone. Stay humble. And that's all I've got for tonight. And until next time, this is Echo and Jaco. Out.