Jocko Podcast 11 with Leif Babin & Echo Charles: Jocko's Retirement Speech

2016-02-24T08:04:51Z

Jocko's retirement speech, Leif Babin, Charlie Platoon, Task Unit Bruiser, stories, memories, Heroes, and lessons learned. 0:00:20 – Jocko’s Retirement Speech 0:15:31 – Intro to Leif Babin 0:19:31 – About Leif 0:29:50 – Chris Kyle and the Movie, “American Sniper” 0:51:32 – Marc Lee 1:04:44 – Ryan Job 1:30:20 – Tony Eafrati 1:53:50 – [INTERNET QUESTIONS] – Best way to become a SEAL Officer. Enlist first? Or straight Officer commission? 2:01:44 – “Tell us a story about BUDS.” 2:10:23 – What is Jocko & Leif’s favorite Operator specialty? 2:21:47 – How to overcome the “Hand-cuffing” boss who isn’t a good leader and doesn’t trust his employees? 2:25:41 – To obey or disobey a bad order? 2:33:53 – What to do if you WANT to take ownership, but not sure how.

AI summary of episode

and he talks about being involved in a great conflict and a great struggle you know he had like the one we're involved and and it's I think that was very reflective of that this is this seeing that you know the enemy that we're fighting here this this type of G-hode you know this G-hodeism with this this strain of Islam that exports G-hode across the world and and once it goes out and terrorize and brutalize people like this is a great struggle this is going to be a generational struggle this is going to go on for a long time it's certainly transcends Iraq and I think he had he really seemed to sense that in a way that was pretty phenomenal in the movie is they they make him out to be this sad guy that's all serious and again they completely miss the mark just like they they portray Chris to be this ultra serious guy Mark was hilarious, grigarius, another guy that was joking all the time mostly at inappropriate times and had that you know he would just he would light up a room when he'd come in to a room because he was just on fire and to portray him as this guy that's all down in the dumps and depressed it was just it was horrible to see that it was it was just so opposite of the real mark I mean this is the brooding guy and and the head of miss this kind of like pencil neck kind of you know is the quote patent couldn't fight his way out of a piss soaked paper back I mean Mark was a badass guy he had massive arms he carried his his big heavy Mark 48 machine gun that weighs like 25 27 pounds fully loaded with all the gadgets on it it would no sling he cared his shoulder like it was a little him for rifle you know that weighs seven pounds I'm gonna air you know with all that's it's hey we just got dealt with an op everyone's tired everybody's exhausted drop your gear is what he tell everybody you know 10 minutes I want you in the mission planning space and we go through that post operation debrief just talking about what went right what went wrong will we learn from it what's the enemy doing now that we hadn't seen before how come we adapted that every single time there was no cut in the corners we did that every time we could do it and kind of a short concise concise form but he'd be happy we just got back from the op we just went out did some damage and then you could track Tony's like happiness factor it was inversely proportional is happiness factor was inversely proportional to the amount of time we spent in the camp so as at the longer we stayed in the camp he's like he's like getting angry I'm getting angry and if we had an op cancel which was pretty rare but ever once while we'd have a night where we didn't go out and he would just be angry I want to go out I want to go get some why are we in the camp and you know as we wrap up on Tony and Tony was definitely a force but just so everybody knows that this was a task unit of 40 plus guys and there was absolutely a core group in there and Charlie and Delta between of guys that were without question without any question whatsoever warriors that like I said held the line and told the line and went forward over and over again and and the rest of the guys maybe the guys that weren't quite in leadership positions but it was a very tough deployment casualties fire fights killed wounded and there was stress massive amounts of stress and there was combat fatigue and there was fear but all these guys overcame that fear to do their job so we could accomplish the mission that was put in front of us but of course my boss is wanted me to keep my guys safe and kill back guys and when the war of course they did it in an in businesses of course the boss wants you to be profitable and keep your troops happy but be profitable be ethical right that those are standard things and those are going to be aligned so if you send up an idea up the chain of commander you get told to do something and you don't do it because it's not going to help you be profitable why would your boss disagree with that it's not going to happen so you have to have the the wherewithal to actually know when to say no and on the moral and ethical things that Dave talked about those are clear cut those are clear cut if you're getting told to do something that's illegal or ill moral then it is your duty and responsibility to disobey that order and that's the way it is all right last question my team has missed our last two deadlines I want to take ownership but I'm not sure how it's not what you preach it's what you tolerate and look you have to you have to be effective we talk about there's two there's only two measures that really that matter and that's effective and ineffective are you effective or you accomplish in the mission and if you are figure out a way to become even more effective if you're ineffective you're not accomplish in the mission then you got to figure it out you got to take ownership of that you got to solve that problem so if your team is getting the job done you can't tolerate less than that you have as a leader you have to drive those standards I learned pretty early on that in the seal teams there's some strong personalities there which is awesome that's one of the great things about the seal teams and there's always this tension between people have there my we should do it this way we should do it this way we should train this heart we should focus here there and and that's also be have some incredibly talented great guys as we've just talked about but as a leader you have got to maintain the standards and there's some there are standards that just cannot be compromised you've got to push hard you've got to drive that performance you got to set the tone for that and if you don't do that no one's going to do it and you know if Chris were here today I think he'd tell you man is you know the the only reason he was able to do what he what he could was because there was a huge team of guys supporting and those the guys care and the machine guns in that were helping beat back attacks and guess what when you're attacked by machine guns and and rockets from RPGs and and you got a dozen enemy fighters maneuvering on you you're not breaking contact with a bolt action sample shot snagged you got to have those machine gunners that are going to beat back those attacks and that's what those guys did so you know without without without that whole team we we were carrying our own shoulder fire rock it's our leading peddaus or it was always a guy that would carry the carry that big heavy 84 millimeter recoil is rifle over shoulder this big bazooka looking thing and and the heavy rounds for that it was it was we had to have that kind of firepower with us so that was critical for all that we did but most of the shots were pretty close I mean you're talking urban combat is you know there wasn't a lot of real long range shooting ever once a while they I think I think Chris and Tony he had a couple guys from 1500 yards or so out in a rule there I went on that particular operation and you know where it's telling telling friend these where you are so you can get help you know directing help in where you need it you know and telling where the enemy is I mean all that stuff is absolutely critical I think as a as far as of favor it's specialty I like to shoot I like combat shooting combat rifle pistol shooting has always been one of my favorite things to do I love that about the seal teams you know training and combat rifle pistol shooting it you know moving and and hitting different targets and shooting against steel targets and we go to these amazing ranges and it's super fun and that being said that's not my job and that is that's a real realization you have to come to as a leader is that my job is not to shoot and I got to be able to shoot because there are times when I'm on the only guy can do that it's now what you preach it's what you tolerate and with that one thing I like to think about when when I hear about standards and what you're going to tolerate don't just think about your team you got to think about yourself you got to think about raising the bar on yourself you got to think about what you're going to tolerate from yourself and how you can raise that bar and raise that standard and get better with everything you do and thereby lead by example so that your team becomes the example and with that I think will close it out that was a long haul on the podcast I wanted to say thanks to everybody that's been tuning in and listening to the podcast it's been amazing getting all the feedback thanks obviously to my brother here Lave Babin for coming on I know he'll be on again if anybody out there wants to continue these conversations out there on the interwebs you connect with us on Twitter I'm at Jockel Willink Lave is at Lave Babin and of course as you know echo Charles is at echo Charles thanks for leaving reviews of the podcast and of the book on iTunes and Amazon that is very helpful to us so we know how we're doing and most of all for everyone that's out there in your little chunk of the world listening to our little chunk of the world thanks for getting out there and for getting after it and so until next time this is Jockel Lave and echo out so I think Chris or some like he's like hey jaco jaco turns around and bigels it's standing like one millimeter from his face given this like needle stared down and jaco just grabs him like you know grabs him like turns him around you know gets his back within like in like half a second and just throws a throw a rear naked choke on him and he had to go sleepy time and so we kind of had this I was spotting form looking through the camera we kind of got in situated kind of told him when it went to hold we kind of had like a ready fire terminology we came up with and one thing about Ryan is that dude could shoot and you know he he struggled at Nyland originally keeping up and you know with his physical fitness until he became bigdles 2000 then was born again hard but when we got to our shooting schools we realized what this guy could shoot he was a great shot and so when we were training with that that rifle we were on the range and we were practiced into going this elk hunt I'm talking a man on the target I realized right away like if we missed it's my fault because he's gonna be he's gonna write when I tell him to pull the trigger he's hitting that target and he's gonna it's gonna be right wherever that cross area I just I can remember that same land war for a chat of you were just talking about we're under fire we're in a very difficult situation there's a lot of chaos going on in this training environment here we are preparing for actual combat and of course they're trying to make that as realistic as possible and it's challenging as possible and we're getting shot at from like one of the target buildings and it's made out of like you know two by fours and and plywood the target building that's that's nearby Tony realizes that we got a self at target building now because we're taking fire from that building and he does a like full on sprit like wide open for about 50 yards and does human battering ram into the doorway one man clearance the building and like kills the role player who's shooting at us and it was like that's who's he's he's the total badass he's gonna handle the situation and that's the guy he was on the battlefield He was one of the three guys we had three guys that were on their third built-in and we called them the Triumvirate and these two other guys, she'll act of duty, I can't name them, they're outstanding guys but these guys have been together for three built-in three rotations through to the police, the middle east to Iraq and so we called them the Triumvirate you know which is the Triumvirate is a term from the Roman era where you had a group of three people who share a position of power to authority and these guys really drove they really they brought up the new guys, they trained new guys and got our opportunity really where they needed to be, we're kind of the heart and soul of the Baton and Chris was you know the real Chris that we knew and worked with was hilarious number one and you know that doesn't come across when you when you to a lot of people that he was a guy who's just funny is hell always could crack a joke sometimes when he shouldn't have been cracking the joke and I remember the first time that an IED I saw an IED going off about a block away for me and we were sitting on the rooftop and a sniper position as my first deployment before Jocelyn I were working together and all of a sudden there's a hundred foot fireball that goes up in the year I mean the blast wave hits me and just knocks me on my ass and frags just metal fragments and sure to concrete and stuff just raining down all over the place from from a block away you know from us and it was it was like damn that is that is not something I want to be standing on around interviewing when you hit that thing and when you see something like that like just the kinetic energy of a round coming in and just you know think of the biggest strongest guy you can imagine with a sledgehammer smashing a wall next to you and you know multiply that time seven or eight hundred rounds of man for a bell for a machine gun I mean we we hit guys from as close as I remember a couple of times were one time a particular me and markly and and Chris were sitting in a room and we look over and there's some guys like there's literally some moves like some enemy fighters with machine guns looking around the corner and they're like they're like 25 yards from this like like you know maybe 30 yards from this but that was that was difficult but Tony was just one of those guys that you know he was intimately evolved in the planning default aggressive I mean just incredibly aggressive we're gonna go in there and we're gonna hammer the enemy we're gonna go right in his backyard we're never gonna expect this and and we're gonna we're gonna win we're gonna crush them they're gonna kill bad guys and and one of the things that gained us momentum you know you talked about earlier Jockel of the the mortars that hit right outside the building you were sitting in and killed the soldier wounded several others we had IDs going often you were sitting in there and and the you were sitting in there and the you were going to brigade I went to I was actually I met the brigade commander once I think or maybe twice but one over watch position on this hill that's how we should do this and you looked at him and said that's awesome that's perfect let's get everyone over here and why don't you just go ahead and breathe them up and he looked at you and he said Nusser you tell him what to do it'll be better coming from you and so here was a guy that obviously because he'd been in the teams for 15 or 17 years obviously had more tactical experience than you did but he was so secure in his leadership and so secure in his tactical knowledge that it didn't mean anything to him and he realized that the best thing that he could do for the team and for your platoon was to let you lead this let you put out the word let you give the plan and I realized at that point and this was early in our work up that this guy was not just a tactician not just a tough badass frogman but he was a real leader and as I know you will say you are absolutely blessed to have Tony as your platoon chief I gotta say the seal team has produced some phenomenal phenomenal individuals some incredible battlefield leaders throughout the decades in the proud legacy and history of the seal teams and I can say with confidence that I believe that Tony for that he is probably one of the best combat leaders of seal teams has ever produced and I don't say that very lightly at all but he was a phenomenal phenomenal battlefield leader and you've heard of the break glass in case of war guys this is this is that guy and he was just his experience level was phenomenal I mean he had had at this point to put it respectly visible ten commander I'm on my second one but when we go into these these positions you know Chris would be he knew after the sun came up first call the prayer goes down and the kind of early dawn pre-done hours and then the sun comes up and the city comes alive and enemy fighters are moving around and you know he'd be on the on the weapon when he knew that was looking down his cypresscope when he knew it was it was that was the highest in the early morning you know as the morning comes around you know that 80 10 o'clock hour that's when we knew we were going to get contacted and you know late afternoon was kind of the same thing he'd be honest is gun and of course he had to rotate out at some point he could so you're only humanly possible this day when you're gun for so long

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Episode transcript

[00:00:00] This is Jocco podcast number 11 with echo Charles and me, Jocco Willink.
[00:00:10] And additionally today we have our first guest, Lathe Badham.
[00:00:17] Lathe welcome to the show.
[00:00:18] Thank you, glad to be here with you.
[00:00:21] Now to begin this podcast today, I'm going to start at the end.
[00:00:26] I'm going to start at the end of my Navy career when I retired from the seal teams after
[00:00:33] 20 years.
[00:00:36] And this is the speech that I gave on my last day of military service, my last day in the
[00:00:41] seal teams in about an hour before I walked back to the trade at building, cleaned the last
[00:00:48] things out of my locker, loaded them into my car, and drove away from the seal teams for
[00:00:56] the last time.
[00:00:59] With 20 years of memories and experiences and the best times of my life and the worst times
[00:01:06] of my life, all rushing through my mind.
[00:01:13] And this is the speech I gave that day.
[00:01:21] During my last deployment to Iraq in 2006, one of the first things we did was a series
[00:01:26] of operations on the eastern side of our body.
[00:01:30] In order to execute these operations, we took a majority of the seals to camp Corregador,
[00:01:36] home with the first of the 506 band of brothers, on the edge of the Malab district of
[00:01:41] the Marama of Ramadi.
[00:01:44] Camp Corregador was like four to pop lips.
[00:01:48] They received mortar fire, RPGs, and small arms fire daily.
[00:01:54] The barracks were an old partially blown out building with sandbags and the windows, dirt
[00:01:59] floors, and nowhere conditioning.
[00:02:02] There were no showers.
[00:02:04] It was hard-living.
[00:02:08] As far as the fighting, Charlie Company, from the first of the 506 who we were set to work
[00:02:14] with, had suffered almost 40 casualties in the time they had been in Ramadi and had gone
[00:02:20] from a fighting force of 140 to just over 100.
[00:02:26] Charlie Company loved having seals with them.
[00:02:29] After the first operation they conducted with seals, the company commander told his
[00:02:33] battalion CEO he wanted seals with him on every mission to help keep his men alive.
[00:02:41] As we continued these initial operations into the Malab district, there were heavy firefights,
[00:02:46] many dead enemy, and multiple coalition casualties.
[00:02:51] It was intense, sustained combat.
[00:02:57] Many would have considered camp Corregador an eastern Ramadi to be hell on earth.
[00:03:03] I knew it was exactly where seals belonged.
[00:03:07] We soon completed that first run of missions and headed back to our main camp.
[00:03:13] When we got there, I told one of the platoon commanders I wanted him to select guys to form
[00:03:18] a seven-man squad to take back to camp Corregador.
[00:03:24] But he told me he didn't want to just pick guys.
[00:03:28] He thought that some guys might not want to go back to Corregador due to the hard-living
[00:03:32] conditions, the tough fighting, and the high rate of casualties.
[00:03:38] That sounded reasonable to me, so I mustered the whole troop in the planning space.
[00:03:43] I explained to them that we were sending a squad to Corregador permanently because the army
[00:03:48] isn't a tough fight and suffering heavy casualties, and that as Americans as servicemen
[00:03:55] and as frogmen we cannot sit on the sidelines as that happens.
[00:03:59] If there's a fight, we need to be in it.
[00:04:05] I wrote on the dry erase board camp Corregador volunteers, and I said to this pack of seals,
[00:04:13] if you want to go over to Corregador, if you want to volunteer to be in the worst area
[00:04:17] with the worst-living conditions, with the hardest fighting, and with the highest chances
[00:04:21] of getting hurt or killed, then go ahead and write your name up on that board.
[00:04:28] And then I walked out of the room.
[00:04:30] A short while later, I came back in and I looked at the list on the board.
[00:04:40] It was filled.
[00:04:42] In fact, every single seal to a man had written his name on that board.
[00:04:48] Yes, every man had volunteered to go forward into that raging storm.
[00:05:04] And that is who we are.
[00:05:08] That is what we joined the seal teams for.
[00:05:11] To do what no one else can do.
[00:05:14] In the worst areas, in the worst conditions, we crave the dirt and sweat and fire and blood.
[00:05:23] Let there be no doubt.
[00:05:26] It is in our soul.
[00:05:27] It is in our nature.
[00:05:32] Sure seals can do any job well, but it isn't the belly of the beast where we thrive.
[00:05:38] I have seen with my own eyes the wholesale slaughter that occurs when seals are unleashed on the enemy
[00:05:44] as we were meant to be.
[00:05:47] And it is incredible thing.
[00:05:50] It is also a thing of strategic impact.
[00:05:53] Areas like Ramadi and Satter City, which after years of complete enemy control, become
[00:05:59] pacified, soon after the sword of overwhelming carnage, is wielded by the frogmen on
[00:06:06] the high ground.
[00:06:09] This is who we are.
[00:06:11] Death dealers, killers, executioners, and in being so, saviors, defenders, warriors.
[00:06:26] Now there are those that say we need to change, evolve and mature.
[00:06:33] They claim that the nature of war has changed, that it is more complex and demands a more
[00:06:38] sensitive approach.
[00:06:41] I say they are wrong.
[00:06:45] War may morph and appear different through the ages.
[00:06:49] And when you live through a war and you see it up close like we are now, you may notice
[00:06:55] complexities that you didn't perceive about the wars you studied in history class.
[00:07:02] But I tell you, there is nothing new.
[00:07:07] The nature of war has never changed and never will change.
[00:07:12] The nature of war is death.
[00:07:14] To kill the enemy before he kills you.
[00:07:18] The rest is details.
[00:07:24] Now of course we can handle the details.
[00:07:27] In fact, seals can excel at all of them, gathering intelligence, assembling in from
[00:07:32] information, forming alliances, rebuilding communities, training, protecting, treating,
[00:07:39] seals can do anything.
[00:07:42] But these details can also be done by others.
[00:07:46] You don't need to be a seal to conduct those activities.
[00:07:50] I say, send seals forward into the violent fray.
[00:07:56] Senses will no one else can go to do what no one else can do.
[00:08:00] The seal to find and butcher our enemy's soulless masses and leave nothing behind but
[00:08:05] scorched earth and rubbled buildings.
[00:08:09] That is our nature.
[00:08:13] As I look at the seal teams today, I say to you all, yes, absolutely evolve.
[00:08:20] Get smarter, better, faster, more creative.
[00:08:25] Learn to mitigate risk when you can.
[00:08:28] Figure out new ways to win.
[00:08:32] Attack the enemy in new ways using information and intelligence.
[00:08:37] Infiltrate the enemy and turn him against himself, evil against evil.
[00:08:43] Adapt and overcome changing enemy tactics.
[00:08:48] By all means, evolve and get better every day, every chance you get.
[00:08:56] You don't forget the nature of war and don't forget the nature of seals.
[00:09:03] We must train brutally and without mercy so we can fight the same way, brutally and without
[00:09:10] mercy.
[00:09:12] Our job is to close with and destroy the enemy and we do it better than anyone.
[00:09:18] Yes, our current wars will someday end.
[00:09:24] World war indoors before man was war weighted for him.
[00:09:30] As long as man is, war will always be.
[00:09:34] Always.
[00:09:39] And our great nation will always need men to do what is in our nature.
[00:09:45] Kill the enemy.
[00:09:46] Kill him as he sleeps.
[00:09:48] Kill him as he plots.
[00:09:49] Kill him as he hides.
[00:09:51] Kill him as he fights.
[00:09:53] That is our nature and that is our solemn duty.
[00:10:03] Light the fire.
[00:10:06] Take the torch, hold it high.
[00:10:09] Let it burn bright.
[00:10:13] Let it supply the warmth and light of freedom and liberty for our countrymen.
[00:10:19] And also let the fire and sinnerate our enemy.
[00:10:23] Let the inferno consume everything he is, everything he ever will be and everything he has
[00:10:29] ever held sacred.
[00:10:34] As I walk away from the teams today, I assure you I will never forget.
[00:10:41] I will never forget your service and sacrifice.
[00:10:44] I will never forget you, my fellow seals, forgetting me here to this day for leading me,
[00:10:50] for following me and for watching my back.
[00:10:54] I will never forget our fellow soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines that are fought and
[00:10:59] sacrificed so much.
[00:11:02] I will never forget those big tough frog men and hardcore seals that came before me.
[00:11:08] Particularly the ones that raised me in the teams and taught me the true way of the frog
[00:11:14] man.
[00:11:16] And finally, I will never forget our fallen brothers, the many seals who have sacrificed their
[00:11:22] lives for our freedom.
[00:11:25] Especially Mark Lee, Mike Mansour and Ryan Job of Seal Team 3 Task Unit Bruser who lived
[00:11:34] and fought and died like warriors.
[00:11:42] I am humbled to have served with you all and I will never forget.
[00:11:47] Thank you.
[00:11:49] God bless the teams and God bless the United States of America.
[00:11:54] And then I walked away.
[00:12:02] Now I often talk about the Marine Corps and I talk about the Army soldiers and I talk
[00:12:11] about the immense respect and admiration that I and that we as seals have for them.
[00:12:21] But if you haven't noticed, I don't usually talk about the seal teams and the frogmen
[00:12:27] that filled those ranks, probably because I was raised not to talk about what we do.
[00:12:35] But let there be no doubt.
[00:12:38] I hold the seal teams and the brotherhood of the teams sacred.
[00:12:43] The seal teams is not just what I did, it is who I am.
[00:12:50] And really, it all culminated.
[00:12:53] It reached his peak in the highlight of my life, which was being in command of Task Unit
[00:13:00] Bruser in Ramadi, Iraq.
[00:13:06] The student Bruser was my vision of the teams.
[00:13:10] It was everything I had always wanted the teams to be.
[00:13:14] Badass frogmen, tough, mean, funny, aggressive, professional seals.
[00:13:22] Seals that take the fight to the enemy.
[00:13:26] Like our legendary forefathers in Vietnam, seals that the enemy feared because we haunted
[00:13:31] them down and killed them.
[00:13:36] Task Unit Bruser was what I always wanted the seal teams to be.
[00:13:44] But I was not Task Unit Bruser.
[00:13:49] Yes, I was the commander, but Task Unit Bruser was by no means me.
[00:13:57] Task Unit Bruser was the men, especially a core group within the group that held the standard
[00:14:03] and carried the fire.
[00:14:08] It was those men that I am internally indebted for, for giving me that gift, for fulfilling
[00:14:16] the vision that I had, men like Mark Lee and Mike Montsour and Ryan Job, men like Chris
[00:14:25] Kyle.
[00:14:26] And those are the ones that we talk about, we talk about them only because they are gone.
[00:14:36] But there were many others in that core group who go on silently unknown to the world,
[00:14:42] most of whom are still in the fight.
[00:14:47] And it was those men, of course those fallen warriors that made the ultimate sacrifice.
[00:14:55] But also those unnamed men of Task Unit Bruser who held the line and marched into the
[00:15:02] fray over and over again for me and for the teams and for the navy and for our great nation.
[00:15:28] One of them here tonight, his name is Lave Babin.
[00:15:35] And I'm going to let him talk about where he comes from and how we ended up in the teams.
[00:15:40] But before I do that I want to tell you something about Lave.
[00:15:44] After we got done with our work up and before we went on deployment, before we went
[00:15:49] to Ramadi.
[00:15:50] I was talking to Lave and I was talking to the other platoon commander together, the Delta
[00:15:54] Platoon commander and Lave was the Charlie Platoon commander.
[00:15:59] And I said to them, both, I'm going to get you guys more combat than you can take.
[00:16:04] I'm going to break you.
[00:16:08] And I was half joking.
[00:16:11] But at the same time, I had actually already seen men break during a fairly simple deployment
[00:16:19] to Iraq.
[00:16:22] But I knew I would push these guys hard.
[00:16:26] And through timing and fate and force of will, the battle field of Ramadi gave me the
[00:16:35] opportunity to make that happen, to push them and try and give them more combat than they
[00:16:41] could take.
[00:16:48] But they took it.
[00:16:50] And they took it far beyond what I ever could have asked for.
[00:16:55] These two officers, the platoon commanders, and with them that core group of fragment of
[00:17:01] warriors in Task Unit Bruser, they never wavered.
[00:17:08] They never coward.
[00:17:11] They never faltered.
[00:17:17] They were in the face of bombs and bullets and fire and death.
[00:17:23] They held true.
[00:17:29] And I will never forget that.
[00:17:34] And so here is one of those men.
[00:17:38] One of that core group of hard warriors from Task Unit Bruser that held the line.
[00:17:47] My friend, my teammate and my brother, Lave Babin.
[00:17:56] Galco thanks for having me.
[00:17:59] I'm fired up to be here.
[00:18:01] Yeah.
[00:18:02] So it's interesting because, like I said, I mean, as I go back and listen to podcasts and
[00:18:10] hear what I talk about and how much respect and admiration that I always talk about.
[00:18:17] For the Marine Corps and for the Army.
[00:18:19] And I seldom talk about the boys.
[00:18:24] And as I was getting ready to have you on as the first guest, which is very appropriate,
[00:18:29] I wanted to make sure that everybody understood where I was coming from.
[00:18:40] And I think people were really excited that you're going to be on.
[00:18:46] Having a lot of them read the book that you and I wrote together extreme ownership.
[00:18:52] And being intrigued about that and having had me on the podcast and talk about my life,
[00:19:01] people are interested here in a little bit about your life.
[00:19:05] That's kind of one of the first questions that came across as soon as I told everyone that
[00:19:10] you were going to be on the podcast.
[00:19:12] And that was, you know, what was, here's a question.
[00:19:17] First question of the day.
[00:19:18] Let's break it down.
[00:19:21] What was the motivation behind life becoming a seal?
[00:19:26] And if he can give a brief resume of his career in the forces, break out your resume.
[00:19:37] I don't ever remember what to do anything else.
[00:19:40] And I've heard you say, you know, that you wanted to go be a commandil.
[00:19:46] I've never said you could remember being wanting to do anything.
[00:19:50] And I think I was exactly the same way.
[00:19:52] It was, I felt growing up.
[00:19:53] I grew up in the Pani Woods of Southeast Texas in a rural small town.
[00:19:58] And we're high school football is everything.
[00:20:01] It's just a few thousand people in the town.
[00:20:03] You get at least that or more at the games or Friday night lights every Friday.
[00:20:10] And I ran around the woods.
[00:20:13] I played Army and I wanted to be a combat leader.
[00:20:17] That's what I wanted to do.
[00:20:18] And I played Sandbox, my GI Joe figures, my little plastic army men.
[00:20:23] And that just kind of what I wanted to do.
[00:20:24] And then when I was, when I was probably in, I was probably in about junior high school.
[00:20:31] And I was kind of figuring out, I hear about the green berets.
[00:20:34] I had a cousin that was a green beret, highly decorated silver star recipient from Vietnam.
[00:20:40] And he was kind of a mentor to my dad growing up.
[00:20:44] And so I heard a little bit about some of those, you know, the snake eaters and sort of
[00:20:49] ring some books.
[00:20:50] And I sort of learned about the seal teams.
[00:20:52] And I remember distinctly a little movie coming out.
[00:20:58] And I think it was 1990.
[00:20:59] But a little movie called Navy Seals, starring Charlie Sheen, who's all about winning.
[00:21:06] And he should have actually joined the teams and saved the team.
[00:21:10] He'd probably be a better shape right now.
[00:21:12] No doubt.
[00:21:13] You definitely would have been better for him.
[00:21:15] No doubt.
[00:21:16] But that really was something that kind of propelled me out.
[00:21:20] What is this?
[00:21:21] Or is this sort of reading about it?
[00:21:22] Sort of learning about it.
[00:21:23] Reading a lot of books about seals and Vietnam.
[00:21:26] And decided that that's what I wanted to do.
[00:21:29] I wanted to be a seal.
[00:21:30] So I went to the Naval Canada, pursue that dream.
[00:21:33] And I knew that's what I wanted to do.
[00:21:37] I turned down an appointment to West Point because I wanted to go Navy.
[00:21:40] I wanted to be a seal.
[00:21:41] And law and behold, as I graduated from the Naval care, I came up with a service selection
[00:21:45] night before our graduation.
[00:21:47] I did not get selected for the seal teams.
[00:21:49] And that was crushing.
[00:21:50] It was a soul crushing of that for me.
[00:21:53] To think that I was going to go out in the surface fleet.
[00:21:56] I wasn't going to be a seal.
[00:21:57] I was going to go be on a ship.
[00:21:59] Be a service war for our officer.
[00:22:02] Yet it took me three years.
[00:22:03] I continue to pursue that.
[00:22:05] And persevere to a lot of challenges.
[00:22:07] And through a lot of luck.
[00:22:08] And a lot of our work, the doors were open for me to be able to go to get a bill to go.
[00:22:14] And I had some outstanding mentors that looked out for me.
[00:22:16] It opened some doors for me to make that happen.
[00:22:19] And then I was able to go and go to Buds, our seal training.
[00:22:23] And when I was there, I think looking back on that time in the surface fleet was awesome
[00:22:28] for me.
[00:22:29] It allowed me to gain immense responsibility and maturity.
[00:22:34] But I probably wouldn't have gotten otherwise.
[00:22:37] And in kind of the peacetime, pre-911 seal teams as an assistant to a commander, they
[00:22:41] wouldn't have an opportunity for leadership.
[00:22:43] And so I was thrust into leadership positions in the surface fleet.
[00:22:46] And I gained that.
[00:22:47] And I also gained a measure of just appreciation for where I was.
[00:22:50] And whenever one was, when other folks were whining about how tough training was, I was
[00:22:55] just excited and fired up to be there just for the opportunity.
[00:22:59] And so for me, I went and served at a seal team as a assistant to a commander and certainly
[00:23:06] the highlight of my time of the teams was working at the task of the bruser.
[00:23:10] And I felt like that's where I had not had that experience, which I almost didn't get,
[00:23:19] by the way.
[00:23:20] I mean, that was, I wanted to stay at, I was at seal team five.
[00:23:23] And I wanted to stay at seal team five with the guys that I loved and trained with.
[00:23:27] And I, my commanding officer at the time said, no, you're seeing you're going to rotate
[00:23:30] you to seal team three.
[00:23:31] You're going to deploy six months ahead.
[00:23:33] I was furious about that.
[00:23:36] Then I was going over there in Lomba Hold.
[00:23:38] I get over and get the word for Jocco and task in it, bruser.
[00:23:41] And that was an amazing crew of guys from Charlie Batoon.
[00:23:44] That was, and it just wouldn't have been the same otherwise.
[00:23:48] And I still love the boys from Team Five of course, but it was just a phenomenal experience
[00:23:53] to be able to have that.
[00:23:54] To talk me to be the combat leader, I needed to be through a workup cycle, preparing me
[00:23:59] and then unleashed me and Charlie Batoon on the battlefield to get after it in a way
[00:24:03] that was phenomenal where we were able to have a historic deployment that made it impact
[00:24:09] and save a lot of lives and to tremendous damage to the enemy.
[00:24:11] And we came back from that from lessons learned, provided tons of lessons learned and taught
[00:24:16] seal leaders for the next generation.
[00:24:20] And that, that to me was such an incredibly rewarding experience.
[00:24:23] And I think someone that built our company now, Eschelon, for what we're doing and the ideas
[00:24:29] that have become the book, Extreme Ownership, where when I was teaching that leadership
[00:24:34] training and you were running training for the West Coast teams, providing those lessons
[00:24:38] learned to teach guys to be ready for those most difficult combat situations.
[00:24:44] And I was proud to train those guys and see the next generation of seal leaders go out
[00:24:49] on the battlefield and accomplish some extraordinary stuff and reprove the principles
[00:24:54] that we learned and revalidate them in different environments.
[00:24:59] And that was incredibly rewarding for me and I think really shaped when I decided to get out
[00:25:03] a few years ago after you'd retired and really shaped what this has become and it's still
[00:25:08] rewarding to work with leaders in all aspects of businesses across industries and see them,
[00:25:15] see the light bulb come off in their head and watch them just go get after it and lead
[00:25:20] and win.
[00:25:21] Hey back when you said that you weren't selected to be a seal, what does that mean?
[00:25:28] You have to be selected.
[00:25:30] I can't just, hey I want to be a seal, let me join Buds.
[00:25:34] Let me get through that and become a seal.
[00:25:36] Like how does that work?
[00:25:37] You have to get a billet to go.
[00:25:38] We call it billets.
[00:25:39] What does that mean?
[00:25:40] That means that you have a slot.
[00:25:41] You get a slot.
[00:25:42] Here's an opportunity and for us.
[00:25:44] We're coming out of the Naval County.
[00:25:45] We had 16 seal billets.
[00:25:48] So 16 people got to go.
[00:25:49] We had a priori list of seal in my class.
[00:25:50] Only 15 guys were getting to go.
[00:25:52] Probably had 200 people that wanted to go be a seal and you go through a screening process.
[00:25:57] And after that you may be have 60 or 80 people that are eligible to go and at least
[00:26:02] 15 of those are going to get selected.
[00:26:03] I was not one of those 15.
[00:26:05] So as far as the process goes then you can't just be some dude.
[00:26:09] Like the screening process how you're saying.
[00:26:11] That's the case that you're missing is that there's two basically two parts of the military.
[00:26:18] There's officers.
[00:26:19] And there's enlisted guys.
[00:26:21] And they're officers.
[00:26:22] The basic requirement being officers you have to have a college degree.
[00:26:24] If you have a college degree then you can become an officer.
[00:26:27] And if you don't have a college degree then you're an enlisted guy.
[00:26:29] I enlisted in the Navy out of high school didn't have a degree.
[00:26:34] And therefore I had to.
[00:26:35] Therefore it was pretty easy to get to go to seal training because they take they need
[00:26:40] more enlisted seals than they need officers.
[00:26:44] And so it's pretty easy to get what they've talking about a billet as an enlisted guy.
[00:26:48] Because they just want to have they need you.
[00:26:51] The officers, there's all kinds of officers that want to be seal officers.
[00:26:55] So they have hundreds and hundreds.
[00:26:56] If not probably thousands of people that apply to be seal officers.
[00:27:00] And they you know they take a very small number of them at 30 or 40 a year.
[00:27:05] Topps.
[00:27:06] And within listed there's probably I don't know.
[00:27:08] A thousand a year that that that that show up and go through.
[00:27:11] And so that was the challenging part.
[00:27:13] And for me I actually didn't become an officer until I was already in the seal teams
[00:27:17] for eight years.
[00:27:19] And then and then once I once I did that it was it was a hard program that I got picked
[00:27:23] up for as well.
[00:27:25] But you know coming right out of the Naval Academy is very very hard to get one of those
[00:27:30] billets.
[00:27:31] But like Lave said and actually his sister, Patoon Commander that was in task in the
[00:27:35] freezer was the same way didn't get picked up had to go to the surface fleet and drive
[00:27:40] a ship for a while and then showed up at the seal teams and was he asking.
[00:27:45] We actually went through went through bugs together in the same blood class.
[00:27:47] Oh, okay.
[00:27:48] Yeah.
[00:27:49] And I actually liked it because you guys knew how to do some of the administrative
[00:27:53] stuff that most seal officers did not have any relations.
[00:27:56] Yeah, so that was awesome.
[00:27:58] So that so you say, um, if you're an officer it's harder.
[00:28:05] And they choose just a few guys, right?
[00:28:06] So if you're an officer, I'm not saying there's an officer it's harder, but there's
[00:28:11] there's less billets as Jack which is explained.
[00:28:13] Oh, okay.
[00:28:14] So what's that based on, you know, there's less like I'm going to choose him but not
[00:28:18] you.
[00:28:19] Is that based on the screening process or they based it on.
[00:28:22] Well, so you get out of the different commissioning sources, they've got a certain number
[00:28:26] of billets aside.
[00:28:27] So and then you, it's, it's not luck.
[00:28:30] It's based on your record.
[00:28:31] Oh, it's based on your grades.
[00:28:33] It's cool.
[00:28:34] I mean, you had to have a high GPA, which I did not have.
[00:28:37] And then you had to have a, like, why don't you just rub salt in the woods and go down
[00:28:42] on the line.
[00:28:43] Just try to understand, you know.
[00:28:45] But now, you kind of think the other thing, you, they also based on, uh, PT scores as
[00:28:50] well, so it's physical training scores.
[00:28:52] You go through the seal fitness test.
[00:28:54] And so I mean, I'm going up against guys that are collegiate swimmers and, you know, cross
[00:29:00] country runners and, you know, folks like that who are crushing me on the test, you know,
[00:29:06] and, and putting up ludicrous numbers, whereas, so, so I could pass the test to go, but
[00:29:13] you got to go away and above and beyond that to even be competitive.
[00:29:16] So that's kind of where, you know, where it was difficult.
[00:29:19] The other issue I had was that I had a bit of a conduct record as well.
[00:29:24] I got a lot of trouble.
[00:29:25] I started restriction and, uh, I marks a lot of tours and I had a lot of the merits and,
[00:29:32] uh, I went ahead some upper classmen who told me to do something I didn't like a couple
[00:29:38] times.
[00:29:39] I told them what I thought about it.
[00:29:40] And then I don't know.
[00:29:41] And they didn't work out too good for me.
[00:29:42] I'll drop the maker.
[00:29:43] All part of the learning experience.
[00:29:44] Yeah.
[00:29:45] So, uh, now another thing that obviously came up when, you know, it's a great thing.
[00:29:55] It's been coming up.
[00:29:56] It actually comes up all the time.
[00:29:59] And, you know, being in task and a bruiser, people heard that name and they've heard it,
[00:30:05] you know, obviously around Chris Kyle.
[00:30:09] And I've been asked since the podcast started, you know, can you talk about Chris Kyle
[00:30:14] and the whole time, I knew you were going to be coming on at some point and I've been
[00:30:18] waiting to talk about Chris until you were here.
[00:30:25] And, you know, people say, did you work with Chris?
[00:30:27] Did you know Chris?
[00:30:29] And the answer is yes.
[00:30:34] We absolutely worked with Chris and wanted to take just an opportunity to talk about Chris
[00:30:43] and one of the things that I would like to try and do is talk about Chris, the Chris
[00:30:53] that we knew.
[00:30:54] Right?
[00:30:55] And the Chris that lay for nine new, the Chris that the guys that are actually served
[00:30:59] with Chris knew, who is a little bit different than the Chris Kyle that's often portrayed
[00:31:06] in the movies.
[00:31:07] For sure, I'd be happy to talk about that.
[00:31:10] And it's funny because people want people to tell Chris Kyle's doors, you know, and
[00:31:16] he really is the legend, which I think a lot of people don't realize it was a name that
[00:31:20] was given to him.
[00:31:21] You know, that was his nickname was the legend, it was given to him and his previous
[00:31:26] 14 before we worked together.
[00:31:28] And I remember our met Chris at that time because I was with SILTEEN 5 and I deployed at the
[00:31:32] same time under the EASY of SILTEEN 3.
[00:31:35] And so we were there and I remember meeting him in the talk and just come back from Felugia
[00:31:38] and doing some great sniper work there and working with a bunch of our mutual friends.
[00:31:45] And so his return was in the Pacific theater at the time and he got a chance to go forward
[00:31:51] and be one of the few guys from the guys that were going to the Pacific that were selected
[00:31:55] to go to Iraq and actually be in the fight.
[00:31:59] And so guys were pissed.
[00:32:02] They were pissed that they were sitting there and the Pacific theater trained in some local
[00:32:07] national forces out of shoot around on paper and Chris was over there shooting bad guys
[00:32:11] in Iraq.
[00:32:12] And so they made this nickname the legend which was, and it was very much ingest.
[00:32:18] So it's funny that as he continued to go on and do these great things and now he's just
[00:32:24] this incredible larger life theater he really is the legend.
[00:32:27] And it's really, so when I hear stories or watch movies or hear people talk about it
[00:32:32] away it's, it is.
[00:32:33] It's not the Chris Calde we knew.
[00:32:35] It's a superhuman.
[00:32:37] It's like a comic book hero and look at the reality is I think you know, I haven't worked
[00:32:43] really close with Chris and he was our lead sniper and point man just so people understand
[00:32:48] that in Charlie Baton I was the Baton commander of Charlie Baton which meant that on every
[00:32:53] patrol that we went on he was walking about eight or ten feet in front of me and that
[00:32:59] we talked all the time.
[00:33:02] We were in working about where we were going in, working together and what areas we wanted
[00:33:08] to take down, what buildings we wanted to utilize.
[00:33:12] And he was a guy that really drove a lot of our operations and so I knew Chris well.
[00:33:18] He was one of the three guys we had three guys that were on their third built-in and we
[00:33:26] called them the Triumvirate and these two other guys, she'll act of duty, I can't name
[00:33:30] them, they're outstanding guys but these guys have been together for three built-in three
[00:33:34] rotations through to the police, the middle east to Iraq and so we called them the Triumvirate
[00:33:41] you know which is the Triumvirate is a term from the Roman era where you had a group of
[00:33:46] three people who share a position of power to authority and these guys really drove they
[00:33:50] really they brought up the new guys, they trained new guys and got our opportunity really
[00:33:56] where they needed to be, we're kind of the heart and soul of the Baton and Chris was you
[00:33:59] know the real Chris that we knew and worked with was hilarious number one and you know
[00:34:05] that doesn't come across when you when you to a lot of people that he was a guy who's
[00:34:09] just funny is hell always could crack a joke sometimes when he shouldn't have been
[00:34:14] cracking the joke yeah but he was a guy that you know I think it almost does him
[00:34:21] a disservice to pain him in a way that was this superhuman because the reason he was so
[00:34:27] successful at what he did is that he worked really hard at that and was very focused
[00:34:31] on it to really perfect his craft and he you know not only that he he delved into the
[00:34:36] planning so we'd sit over a map and talk about where we wanted to go look at different
[00:34:41] buildings and say and then we go on a reconnaissance patrol which we had to run up through
[00:34:48] approval to the chain of command for certain types of operations but Jaco is our
[00:34:53] task in a manner approved our our reconnaissance patrols and meaning meaning that I could
[00:35:00] approve them so they didn't really have to go up that that chain of command so it's pretty
[00:35:03] easy to get them approved for people that are listening didn't quite catch that yeah
[00:35:07] so yeah so we just said hey Jaco we want to do this and he'd be like great so we go
[00:35:13] we'd go out and we patrol through some really bad areas and we'd hit like a dozen
[00:35:18] different buildings going buildings here check out observation points there see what kind of
[00:35:23] you know roads we could see in access so we could see so we figure out what gave us
[00:35:27] the best advantage and then Chris would figure out where he wanted to be and he'd put
[00:35:31] himself in that position and so he'd get I'm looking down this window I'm looking through
[00:35:35] this loophole and the roof wall and you know he so he said himself up success which is awesome
[00:35:42] which is so up maybe so for instance if the angle that he would pick from a building
[00:35:46] would be looking down the long access of a road where he could see four five hundred meters
[00:35:52] worth of possible enemy targets whereas another angle looking down a shorter road maybe you can
[00:35:58] only see 80 meters and he got a much smaller area to cover so he'd pick these areas that he thought
[00:36:04] would be the most prevalent most no the highest number of targets possible of course and
[00:36:10] and but that was obviously that was how we made the that's how we made the that's how we were
[00:36:16] so successful and that's how we were able to to prevent attacks on enemy forces and are on
[00:36:21] enemy attacks on friendly forces rather and and so you know not only that but when we go into
[00:36:27] these these positions you know Chris would be he knew after the sun came up first call the
[00:36:32] prayer goes down and the kind of early dawn pre-done hours and then the sun comes up and the
[00:36:36] city comes alive and enemy fighters are moving around and you know he'd be on the on the weapon
[00:36:41] when he knew that was looking down his cypresscope when he knew it was it was that was the highest
[00:36:48] in the early morning you know as the morning comes around you know that 80 10 o'clock hour
[00:36:53] that's when we knew we were going to get contacted and you know late afternoon was kind of the same thing
[00:36:57] he'd be honest is gun and of course he had to rotate out at some point he could so you're only
[00:37:03] humanly possible this day when you're gun for so long but when he was honest gun he looked down
[00:37:10] the scope of the weapon I mean he was very disciplined about that and I remember hearing some
[00:37:14] other guys being like oh man you know I only have I only have eight or ten kilos and Chris you know
[00:37:20] how has he got 85 now you know some some you know so at some point through into our deployment
[00:37:25] before it was completed and you know the route as you can see some of those guys were
[00:37:31] you know we had seven other cypressine on both and they did a lot of great work and they did
[00:37:34] they had some impact and certainly did great stuff but a couple of those guys I'd see that
[00:37:40] didn't have the same discipline Chris that they would they'd look down their weapon and you
[00:37:43] 30 45 minutes into it they're not as you know they're not seeing anything they haven't
[00:37:47] firing his shots and Xenoe they're kind of having a conversation with their buddy next to him
[00:37:52] next to you know they're sitting back from there they're rifle next to you know they're just
[00:37:55] kind of looking through binos and I remember watching Chris and just he's just looking through
[00:37:59] his scope for two straight hours and without coming off of it and it was you know that was that
[00:38:04] enabled him to be successful and that discipline really paid off and certainly certainly he was
[00:38:10] able to rack up the the damage to enemy fighters no doubt about it I know whenever I roll out to
[00:38:16] visit you guys and it over watch position see everyone and I would always notice Chris will always
[00:38:21] be on a gun but I'd never saw him not on his gun of course obviously like he said he's
[00:38:25] human and he'd take breaks but I I'd I'd notice that even on the planet you know I'd just say
[00:38:30] oh Chris is on his gun except for when you ruled in the cop falcon and he was crashed out
[00:38:34] sleeping with the rest of you guys so that was actually kind of a funny episode where we went in on boats
[00:38:41] and we snuck into we snuck down this is some Chris wrote about in American sniper we we went
[00:38:49] out on the the Marine Corps boat unit that was there was a great group of guys to the awesome
[00:38:54] guys and they they took his very quietly down at the river canal that kind of comes off of the
[00:39:00] river we were able to to launch off on the river bank very quietly foot patrol into the city
[00:39:06] and and get in an area that other people couldn't get into a super dangerous bad guys had no idea
[00:39:11] where they're and we were able to take advantage of that smoke who smoke a guy are to on the way in
[00:39:16] and then and then moving and take down the buildings that were gonna be this combat outpost as
[00:39:21] the army they were falling this giant mine clearance element coming down the roads digging
[00:39:27] ideas. Jockel was riding in in a Bradley fighting vehicle brave in the the some of the
[00:39:33] most dangerous roads in the world the time you know coming in with the the army battalion staff there
[00:39:38] and as our command and control and so we were already in we'd been there for I don't know
[00:39:42] three or four hours at that point maybe maybe longer and so we shot a couple guys and we're you know
[00:39:48] we're a couple enemy fighters and and we still had guys in security position certainly in guys
[00:39:52] on guns but at that point it was the I.D. Clarence team was like right underneath us I remember
[00:39:57] actually looking over the side of the building and seeing this giant buffalo is huge truck armored
[00:40:05] vehicle with a arm on it digging out of the street and I know you were in a vehicle kind of coming
[00:40:10] and just behind that a few few vehicles up the road you were maybe a few blocks away at that
[00:40:16] point and I'm looking down I'm like that's like 30 feet below me like directly below me right now
[00:40:23] so if this thing activates an ID that explodes like I'm gonna take it right to face probably
[00:40:28] I'd get up down and stop looking at what they're doing so we were just kind of hooked her down
[00:40:32] and when Jockel came in there it was it was fun because the the in particular the army
[00:40:37] operations officer for the battalion was a great guy and the battalion was awesome this was
[00:40:42] task force banded a bunch of tankers great guys we loved them they came in and and I remember
[00:40:48] you come to the rooftop with a major and he comes up there and he's expecting just bristling weapons
[00:40:53] everywhere at all seals on their guns and I'm looking over as the major stand in there and kind of
[00:40:58] looking around and there's a couple guys on there guns and there's some guys on machine guns
[00:41:02] and people watching this day security was definitely security was set of course but I'm looking
[00:41:07] over and Chris and our leading petty officer had just hammered down these like chef boy R.D.
[00:41:15] didn't want to eat MR.E. so they just crushed these like he had like three or four empty containers
[00:41:20] of like chef boy R.D. meatballs like who pleats like yeah it was just like like spilled all
[00:41:26] over as uniform and he's just like totally racked out like completely asleep
[00:41:31] slumber himself snoring and the major is like is this man who did it? it's funny because we
[00:41:40] would get the preparation for those big operations you'd be working so much doing the preparation
[00:41:45] of the coordination and the planning that you wouldn't even stop for a day and a half or two days
[00:41:50] and when you finally get in the field you're tired exactly and we we had to sleep and that's
[00:41:55] when we had to sleep when we knew we'd kill some bad guys we weren't going to get attacked or
[00:41:59] we less likely to get attacked in the next few hours while it was still dark we had to get sleep
[00:42:04] then and so there was a real reason for that because once the sun came up we were going to get hammered
[00:42:08] so we all had to be awake we all had to be ready to go so we had to get that kind of sleep when we
[00:42:12] could and that was you know that particular operation I remember in particular Chris
[00:42:19] he was he just kind of had a good sense about things we were arguing over a bill I was
[00:42:23] standing on the rooftop and I was okay there's a bill meet there's a big bill into the south
[00:42:27] that would give us a good vantage point let's move down what do you think about that
[00:42:31] building over there I'm talking it over with him and with our potential chief Tony and Chris was like
[00:42:35] you know what I like this building to the east let's go to the forest story yeah he's pulling a
[00:42:40] forest story and I was like I don't know man that building the south looks pretty good he's like
[00:42:44] I think this building the east is where we want to go and we talked about it for a little bit
[00:42:50] and I was like okay Roger that let's go to the east so we moved we moved about 350 yards down
[00:42:55] the street to this big forest story apartment building and it was it was absolutely the right call
[00:43:00] I mean and we not done that we would have because it was I think we had what do we have like 22
[00:43:06] enemy confirmed kill from that over the 40 years or I really was right but a couple of dozen you
[00:43:11] know probable kill so it was it was it was a great advantage point and we were looking right
[00:43:16] down a long access road that was able to prevent a whole bunch of attacks on the U.S. soldiers
[00:43:23] that were building that combat outpost and it was and they were under fire the whole time and as soon
[00:43:27] as the sun came up I know you were sitting in the camp with those mortars came in and you know and
[00:43:32] then lo and behold so this the mortars explode in the camp and we you know it's easy to just say
[00:43:38] oh mortars but the reality was a gigantic explosion goes off and we were 350 yards away
[00:43:46] frag was raining down fragmentation from that explosion was raining down on us from 350 yards away
[00:43:52] so it was massive 120 millimeter mortars coming in you know enforce a kill the soldier will
[00:43:59] go to a couple others and and that very I mean within about half an hour of that Chris
[00:44:04] smoked two guys out of like four that were low in a mortar tube in the back of a truck so
[00:44:10] and when when that's that's who Chris was and that's that's the impact that he had and yet a
[00:44:15] good sense about what what where to go and what to do and he was excellent at it and he was just
[00:44:20] it was just awesome to work with him he was so much fun to be around and always quick with a joke
[00:44:26] and that's the real Chris got when it you know to just go back to the fact that he you know after
[00:44:35] you know I was on I was in the combat outpost we take these mortars soldier gets killed I remember
[00:44:39] there and another soldier got wounded I think and a rack he got wounded as well and it's it's a nightmare
[00:44:45] right these guys are bleeding out it's it's a nightmare and the thing and we talked about this
[00:44:52] on the last podcast of how helpless you feel against mortars it's the worst and talking about
[00:44:57] it because they came from maybe they could have come from three four five kilometers away
[00:45:01] and Eugene sledge talks about it and we talked about World War One and how bad it is and so you
[00:45:05] have this combat outpost and all the guys are on their their now horrified right your scared
[00:45:12] when is this next random bomb gonna just blow up we cannot be safe if you can imagine
[00:45:19] the when I got word from you hey Chris just killed two guys with a mortar tube and I went to
[00:45:24] you know the company commander and the brigade commander was down there as well and said hey sir
[00:45:29] one of our snipers just killed two guys with a mortar tube loaded into a truck
[00:45:34] you couldn't do anything in the world better for them at that time nothing better in the world
[00:45:40] to walk into those guys and say hey you just lost a soldier to mortar we got him
[00:45:46] and that was one of those things that just helped build our relationship with the conventional
[00:45:51] unit so much and you know what we needed the relationship because you could sit here and tell
[00:45:56] stories all day long about what they did and returned for us which was also just incredibly
[00:46:03] brave and that we very same day we were calling QRF and I know you were you were trying to move
[00:46:09] vehicles out of the way so we could get the tanks out there to our guys that were pinned down
[00:46:13] and needed help and those tankers came out every time the soldier for amazing you know when
[00:46:18] they when Chris Kyle got those two guys hot like how far away is that typically
[00:46:24] or is there even a little before right that's you have to do with people talking about these
[00:46:28] sniper elements well first of all they have to understand that it's in Ramadi in downtown Ramadi in 2006
[00:46:34] this was this was like Stalin grad I mean it was just rubble pile buildings just we had this was
[00:46:41] alkydden Iraq battle space I mean this is the precursor of ISIS and it's the same people and they
[00:46:47] there were several thousand of these guys that controlled the city and it was it was just a nasty
[00:46:53] place so we didn't go out in these little two and four man teams it was we were going in with
[00:46:58] 15 20 25 30 guys you know sometimes we have to manage just 40 guys you're plus up with army and
[00:47:05] Marines that went in with us and we always had Iraqi soldiers what we didn't count them as part of
[00:47:09] our this part of our these are the guys going to help build this out if you think you go down so we
[00:47:14] had to have a big enough element that could get prevent us from being overrun and you know if Chris
[00:47:18] were here today I think he'd tell you man is you know the the only reason he was able to do what he
[00:47:23] what he could was because there was a huge team of guys supporting and those the guys
[00:47:27] care and the machine guns in that were helping beat back attacks and guess what when you're attacked
[00:47:33] by machine guns and and rockets from RPGs and and you got a dozen enemy fighters maneuvering on you
[00:47:39] you're not breaking contact with a bolt action sample shot snagged you got to have those
[00:47:45] machine gunners that are going to beat back those attacks and that's what those guys did so you know
[00:47:48] without without without that whole team we we were carrying our own shoulder fire rock it's our
[00:47:53] leading peddaus or it was always a guy that would carry the carry that big heavy 84 millimeter
[00:47:59] recoil is rifle over shoulder this big bazooka looking thing and and the heavy rounds for that
[00:48:04] it was it was we had to have that kind of firepower with us so that was critical for all that we did
[00:48:09] but most of the shots were pretty close I mean you're talking urban combat is you know there
[00:48:15] wasn't a lot of real long range shooting ever once a while they I think I think Chris and Tony
[00:48:21] he had a couple guys from 1500 yards or so out in a rule there I went on that particular operation
[00:48:26] but but there was but most of the stuff in the urban environment of downtown I mean we we hit
[00:48:32] guys from as close as I remember a couple of times were one time a particular me and markly
[00:48:39] and and Chris were sitting in a room and we look over and there's some guys like there's
[00:48:46] literally some moves like some enemy fighters with machine guns looking around the corner and
[00:48:52] they're like they're like 25 yards from this like like you know maybe 30 yards from this
[00:48:58] and they're they're looking down the street they knew we were in there somewhere but they got the
[00:49:01] building wrong so so you're you're talking a 30 yard shot there with that that's where guys coming
[00:49:07] on you know I think Chris ditched his right is his sniper rifle grab his info and shot those
[00:49:12] guys through the window and then you know some of those shots are making a lot of them I think
[00:49:17] the average was I would say probably anywhere from 100 to 300 300 and that's you call that
[00:49:25] pretty close like it's pretty close for 100 for sure for sure for sure these guys in their
[00:49:30] train to make you know 1,200,000 yards shots and so it's it's just a very different type of
[00:49:35] environment and that urban combat is it's personal you can hear those guys yelling at you you can
[00:49:40] hear me yelling the jahadi regret we're yelling back at them you know there's there's a lot of
[00:49:45] profanity going back and forth and but it's you know some of the stuff was anger-nade range
[00:49:50] definitely dang and call them what moves that we call them moves moves that's that's that's
[00:49:56] that was what the quality fighters that we so they call themselves Mujahideen which is
[00:50:02] God so in gauge in jihad that's their name for themselves and so we shot that to move
[00:50:08] and we actually got told that we weren't supposed to call the mouche. Yeah it's interesting
[00:50:14] you can take a real name short knit and it becomes derogatory. Yeah it was the interesting thing
[00:50:20] was we were told that it was derogatory and inappropriate to say mouche and that it was disrespected
[00:50:28] to the local populace and when we talked to the local populace you know what the local populace
[00:50:32] called the mouche. That's what they called them. It was funny we had the cultural experts
[00:50:39] telling us when we were actually we were talking to locals and understanding what was happening
[00:50:44] more than anybody else at that particular time. Yeah maybe it was like offensive to them though you
[00:50:49] know the actual mouche. Maybe they were offended. We were not concerned about offended mouche.
[00:50:55] Yeah and you're all shooting them you're shooting them but the mouche that's too much
[00:50:58] another channel with that big culture warriors who just don't get it. Yeah it was a local
[00:51:04] people were praying for us to go killed them. Yeah killed the bad guys and then free them from this
[00:51:10] evil terrorist organization that is imposing this horrific just brutal rain of terror on them and
[00:51:17] so I mean it's exactly the same thing you see ISIS doing today and we saw it over and over again
[00:51:21] in the city where you you know you go into a house and there's a family there and they're trying
[00:51:25] to just not to get killed in the crossfire and they want your help and they're happy you're there.
[00:51:32] You know you mentioned Mark and Mark was in the movie Mark Lee he was in the movie
[00:51:38] American Snipers well and again there's something that comes across in the public image or
[00:51:47] the image that gets created through Hollywood and through books and through media and whatever else
[00:51:51] and they really in the movie American Snipers they really miss the mark with Mark I mean they
[00:51:58] really they really missed the mark no doubt made him into kind of a weak looking guy that didn't
[00:52:06] believe anyone he was doing which was obviously couldn't be further from the truth. Well to that
[00:52:13] point I would we get asked all the time like you know tell us about American Snipers was that accurate
[00:52:17] you know I think I think it's important to say that first of all I'm I'm very glad that Chris
[00:52:24] Kyle stores out there and I think that to get people to recognize what Chris did and you know the
[00:52:31] impact that he had and the fact that his his story is representative of so many hundreds of
[00:52:39] thousands of U.S. soldiers and Marines and sailors who at airmen that have deployed multiple times
[00:52:45] what their families go through and I think that's a great thing but it's it is a Hollywood movie
[00:52:51] and and so you know the the scenes in Iraq were not a reflection of the reality that we knew
[00:52:59] and in particular that depiction of Mark that's what disturbed those of us that serve closely
[00:53:05] with Chris and close to with Mark were most disturbed by that and it was just the way that
[00:53:08] Mark was portrayed you know Hollywood has they hate the Iraq war so they've got to they got to have
[00:53:16] someone in there that doesn't like the Iraq war and so they they tried they betrayed Mark in a way
[00:53:22] that you know he made some despair they got they got him saying I don't even remember exactly what
[00:53:26] what he says but he says some lines about he doesn't believe in what he's doing and that is just
[00:53:31] utter and complete horseshit I mean there's no Markly believed in that mission I mean he was
[00:53:39] he was an extraordinary warrior and you know other when other people were out to kill bad guys
[00:53:46] and try to you know do a bunch of operations I mean Mark truly believe we were there to help the
[00:53:51] Iraqi people we need to free these people from this brutal rain of terror and I think he had a
[00:53:56] he had strategic insight that I'm not even sure I had I mean I read back like Mark's last letter home
[00:54:03] and he talks about being involved in a great conflict and a great struggle you know he had
[00:54:09] like the one we're involved and and it's I think that was very reflective of that this is this
[00:54:16] seeing that you know the enemy that we're fighting here this this type of G-hode you know this G-hodeism
[00:54:22] with this this strain of Islam that exports G-hode across the world and and once it goes out and terrorize
[00:54:27] and brutalize people like this is a great struggle this is going to be a generational struggle this is
[00:54:32] going to go on for a long time it's certainly transcends Iraq and I think he had he really
[00:54:37] seemed to sense that in a way that was pretty phenomenal in the movie is they they make him out to be
[00:54:43] this sad guy that's all serious and again they completely miss the mark just like they they portray
[00:54:50] Chris to be this ultra serious guy Mark was hilarious, grigarius, another guy that was joking
[00:54:59] all the time mostly at inappropriate times and had that you know he would just he would
[00:55:06] light up a room when he'd come in to a room because he was just on fire and to portray him as this
[00:55:12] guy that's all down in the dumps and depressed it was just it was horrible to see that it was it was just
[00:55:19] so opposite of the real mark I mean this is the brooding guy and and the head of miss this kind of
[00:55:25] like pencil neck kind of you know is the quote patent couldn't fight his way out of a piss soaked paper back
[00:55:32] I mean Mark was a badass guy he had massive arms he carried his his big heavy
[00:55:38] Mark 48 machine gun that weighs like 25 27 pounds fully loaded with all the gadgets on it
[00:55:44] it would no sling he cared his shoulder like it was a little him for rifle you know that weighs
[00:55:50] seven pounds I'm gonna air you know with all that's it's gadgetry he's he was a just an awesome
[00:55:56] warrior and and yeah that's side of him that was just hilarious it was so many stories of him
[00:56:01] cracking jokes and just keeping everybody laughing and we kind of talked to if you if you're listening
[00:56:06] to podcast and you haven't seen a series called on the history channel called Live To Tell it is a
[00:56:12] fantastic series that actually a former seal friend of ours Raymond doze produced he did he produce
[00:56:20] he was in Ramadi actually and he relieved us in Ramadi when we got done with our deployment
[00:56:25] Ramadi he's one of the guys that came in the next task unit that came over and took our place
[00:56:30] and he worked out a camp carigador that's right we just spoke about so they made an episode one of
[00:56:37] the episodes is about chargoth patoon mark lee and we we got to tell some of the stories there but
[00:56:44] you know they're you don't have that you can't tell every story that you want to tell you want to tell
[00:56:49] every story every little member you have of these guys you know one that always sticks out my mind
[00:56:54] because he joined your patoon late and he came from another patoon came into your patoon after work
[00:57:02] up and one of the first trips we did with him was to was to Vegas and we went up there to work
[00:57:07] yeah what's there to tell us that was there for us now we've been working now as any of our
[00:57:12] soon dog will trip that whole boom dog will we would work from probably about noon until
[00:57:18] let's call it six or seven o'clock at night and then everyone would go gambling and drinking
[00:57:24] and partying until 10 o'clock the next morning and then gamble it was just one of those trips
[00:57:31] but but we we we we were we were getting after it and that's another thing about being a young
[00:57:36] seal you don't have you don't have you don't you don't owe any money right so you just when I
[00:57:43] remember when I was a young seal I was like the richest guy in the world because you know you go
[00:57:48] from being a civilian that's 18 years old making no money and all of a sudden you're getting a paycheck
[00:57:53] and then you get the seal teams you're getting dive pay and jump pay and demolish and pay and
[00:57:57] you're like the richest guy in the world you're like a rock star and that's kind of the mode
[00:58:01] that Mark was there night I would we were in Vegas was he was big time in it to get after it
[00:58:07] I remember you on that trail I'm gonna you coming in and say HDH are you with
[00:58:12] I was like I was like what is HDH like are you with you just after I said Roger that I'm in
[00:58:20] I did that with a bunch of guys HDH who's in and I went and I'm guys like I'm in I'm in no one
[00:58:26] even knew what I was talking about and then I at whatever we got together that night I'm like
[00:58:30] all right HDH who's with me and the everyone joined up I said it's $100 hands we're going to
[00:58:34] blackjack table we're all gonna play $3100 hands which to those guys and our Navy paychecks it was a big
[00:58:42] deal yeah so we did it but the plan gambling with Mark was was insane because he was so
[00:58:51] so like hostile and yet at the same time fun and I remember I came walking down to the casino
[00:58:57] and he's like hey sir and I look over and he's across the casino and he's at the blackjack
[00:59:04] table and he goes he must have been on a wooden street he goes where are the new Cadillacs coming out
[00:59:12] and that was just so so him just to be fired up like that was just awesome awesome he was just one of
[00:59:18] those guys and you know not only was he hilarious to be around you know a big strap and good
[00:59:24] looking dude he he he just was very comfortable in his skin as well you know and he he he
[00:59:29] uh he was absolutely in love with it as wife you know my I was in that in in Liffa tell and
[00:59:36] he she had given him this these uh I mean he's these little pajama pants I mean this is like
[00:59:44] and he he would wear them around the camp yeah these pajama pants and I was like bro
[00:59:49] what are you wearing pajama pants right now and he went yeah I was like why are you wearing I mean
[00:59:56] he's a new guy in a potato joke don't let jocos you I was like do you want to get you ask it like
[01:00:01] why are you wearing a pajama and she's like they're comfortable my again doing like a
[01:00:06] I mean he's like he just did like whatever you know like a muggares so that was just the way Mark was
[01:00:11] and you know he just was uh I remember a particular you know not he was he was a strong Christian guy
[01:00:17] definitely uh he'd gone to seminary for about a year or so I think you know to study to be a
[01:00:23] preacher and decided you know what instead of being a preacher I want to be in the sea
[01:00:28] of things but his Christian faith was certainly always a big big piece of that and I remember
[01:00:33] some of the most random things we were talking about uh I don't even remember how it came up
[01:00:38] but if you remember the old 1980 song of the warrior which is like cheeseball 1980s
[01:00:46] you know and we got an argument about who sang the warrior and Mark was like it's pat been a
[01:00:52] tar and I'm embarrassed to say that I said no it's patty smith because I had this guy
[01:01:00] you don't do it myth that right this gigantic collection of you know it he saw you
[01:01:03] a vaginal my uh on my iTunes and and and so we argued about it we had some weight I
[01:01:09] remember where the wager was but it was uh in fact patty smith that was right right on
[01:01:15] and I think that you know you talked about his faith and and we've talked about on this
[01:01:21] on this podcast before the when you get somebody that is is heroic that oftentimes
[01:01:33] they have a certain sense of the word that you just use was comfort and you could see
[01:01:42] that with Mark that he was comfortable in the fact that he might have to make the ultimate
[01:01:49] sacrifice and I remember one of the one of the things I'll never forget about Mark is
[01:01:56] as you guys would be rolling out on an operation and you would line up the vehicles right
[01:02:03] in front of the chow hall on our on our little base shark base and you know if you guys were
[01:02:09] going out I would go out there to see you guys off and just to help her by understand like we're
[01:02:14] rolling out on an operation into some of the most dangerous enemy territory anywhere and
[01:02:20] and people would come out with jocco and our from our task and shake shake folks hands up
[01:02:26] because you knew that it could very easily happen to not everybody's coming back from from that
[01:02:30] off and you always it was always reassuring to see jocco out there talking to people shaking
[01:02:36] people's hands and that was and we're going out particularly in our operation like that were
[01:02:41] IEDs are calling causing catastrophic damage and killing soldiers and Marines every single day
[01:02:48] yeah and those IEDs at this point were generally victim activated IEDs which means that
[01:02:57] the person that's going to get blown up is what activates the IED so they have some kind of
[01:03:01] a pressure plate or a crunch wire or something that a humvy runs over and causes the IED to detonate
[01:03:07] that was sort of the the premier mode that the enemy was in at this point which meant that if you were
[01:03:15] in the first vehicle you were most likely to hit that IED and I remember I'd you know one of
[01:03:22] those nights came out and looked up and looked up at Mark and and I said hey are you feeling
[01:03:29] lucky tonight and he said a big smile on his face and he said that the thing that one of the
[01:03:33] other things he had said in Vegas besides you know winner the new Cadillacs and one of the other
[01:03:38] things that he'd get everybody saying is when the dealer would bust you know he'd say
[01:03:42] everybody's a winner everybody's a winner as I looked up at him and he anyway said everybody's a winner
[01:03:49] and then it was another time I went out there and you know I said I said you read rock and roll
[01:03:53] tonight and he stood there in the turret and like like a movie you know there's have those
[01:03:59] cheesy salute scenes in a movie where the the guy is salute's the officer he like stood at
[01:04:05] attention to his turret and just cracked me a super crisp salute and I probably like flipped them off
[01:04:10] or you know which is highly unusual for a seal to do that yeah yeah but you could see man he just
[01:04:18] had that confidence in that comfort in who he was in what he stood for and he was ready for
[01:04:28] he was ready for anything including including the ultimate he was a phenomenal guy absolutely
[01:04:36] and just an honor an honor reserve wouldn't like that.
[01:04:44] I think the last guy that they kind of represent in in the movie American Cypher is
[01:04:56] Biggles
[01:04:58] Ryan Job nicknamed Biggles who if you're in if you're in the military if you're in the
[01:05:06] seal teams and you use it heavy weapon the weapon the nickname for that weapon is a big
[01:05:12] pain in the ass weapon of carry and the nickname for it's a pig and you're actually a pig
[01:05:17] gunner if you're if you carry that big mark 48 used to be in M60 now it's a mark 48 they call
[01:05:23] that weapon a pig because you know you gotta carry that pig and now you're a pig gunner
[01:05:26] and his nickname was Biggles and he nicknamed his weapon Piggles.
[01:05:30] Piggles.
[01:05:34] Just to think about the way they represented Ryan and I don't remember all that well again they
[01:05:42] they add a special screening of Americans sniper forest down here in Cornado that's when I saw
[01:05:45] I saw it one time and so I don't fully remember how they I definitely remembered how they
[01:05:52] represented Chris Mark obviously but you know Ryan they didn't seem as significant of as
[01:05:58] a role so that it was a little bit they didn't make such a production out of Biggles but obviously
[01:06:06] in doing that they again shortchanged just a fabulous character and an incredibly
[01:06:15] funny and lively and warm human being that was an absolute just an absolute treasure of a person
[01:06:35] and so no one's gonna you know if you if all you do is see the movie of Americans sniper
[01:06:39] and even if even if we wrote an entire book about Biggles you wouldn't be able to get across
[01:06:49] what any of these guys really brought to life yeah he was he was a phenomenal guy and
[01:06:57] I actually you know some some people some people talk to me people said to me before you know
[01:07:07] hey he was a greatest person you've ever met some phenomenal people in my life you know and I
[01:07:11] I think the my immediate reaction that is Brian Jo Brian Jo of the greatest person I mean he just was
[01:07:18] he was and it was actually what's crazy is when I when I first met Ryan and when he he joined
[01:07:24] our cartoon he got the nickname Biggles because he didn't exactly have the rippling six back
[01:07:30] he was just a toughest nails guy that just would not quit no matter what was determined to be a
[01:07:35] seal but struggle with the run struggle with the swams and got the what we call the full benefit
[01:07:41] in our seal train but he was he was known credible athlete or physical specimen especially when
[01:07:50] he showed up in Charlie Pettin and T.U. Bruser you know doubt he was not ready for the teams at that
[01:07:55] point when Biggles got the Charlie Pettin yeah we rolled the right out to the deserts of Southern
[01:08:01] California and got what we call land warfare training on and that was that's really man gap that's
[01:08:08] you know we talk about seal training and people think it's all about carrying logs around and boats
[01:08:13] and all that stuff that you see from that's really just our initial screening process what we call
[01:08:18] buds basically on our demolition seal training going out and working together in a workup is really
[01:08:23] where the training to be a seal to be a teammate to work as a as a unit happens and so our whole
[01:08:31] task in it from jacco all the way down to our lowest common denominator the most junior rank
[01:08:37] you man who happened to be Ryan J. We went out to we went out to Southern California deserts and just
[01:08:43] and we shot weapons we learned how to shoot we communicate and it is everything is difficult it is
[01:08:49] you're going you're dragging down men you know her killed in for training purposes over rocks
[01:08:56] and through cactus and you're running and gun in and it's hot and it's tiring and exhausting
[01:09:02] and it's awesome and it's the training we're same training that's kept seals alive on the battlefield
[01:09:07] and unable to do things for for a long time and seals have been training there since the
[01:09:12] Vietnam that particular place where we go and try in there and it's awesome I love it out there and
[01:09:17] when Biggles got out there he was he was struggling he was coming off of about I'd say 30 to 45
[01:09:26] days of leaving he's he living he was and he'd gone you know after buds where he'd had to make it
[01:09:31] to try and he had to be in shape and now you know one of the things some people struggle with when
[01:09:35] they get done with that training is now it's up to them now it's up to them to be in shape
[01:09:41] self this and some people have that self this man and some people don't and I certainly want
[01:09:47] to peak physical condition after that I I struggled with that but Biggles took that to a new level
[01:09:54] and you know he came out there all the summer hand in him 25 pound mark 48 machin gun
[01:10:00] which he named Biggles this yaku said and and he's got to carry this thing and carry the six to
[01:10:06] 800 rounds on him and move through the jagged rocks and sand and desert in 115 degree heat
[01:10:14] and and he was struggling he was struggling anyone even in a greatest of shape that's challenging
[01:10:19] but Ryan was really struggling to keep up on that and so I remember having some very he was in my
[01:10:25] squad and so I was witnessing this I was watching this and we pulled him aside and said hey
[01:10:31] listen if you want to be here you better aren't you you got a hard nut the standard is here
[01:10:39] you know the standard is way up here and you're here you're way lower than that standard so
[01:10:44] we had to we had to push him to get there and I remember some stern counseling sessions
[01:10:49] we assigned one of the guys from the the triumphant I mentioned before was one of the guys on
[01:10:53] his therapist tone great dude our most experienced machine gunner and we assigned we assigned him
[01:11:01] to to be a mentor to to big goals and train with him and so every morning we would
[01:11:07] PT work go for wrongs and we so when got other guys were resting Ryan's goal he's got to go out
[01:11:13] for run he's cranking out pull ups he's he's training and working and you know it was I didn't know
[01:11:18] how was going to go then he had a long way to go to get to where he needed to be to be physically
[01:11:23] able to keep up and not track down the rest of the guys and I don't think I've ever seen a guy
[01:11:30] make that kind of a transformation dude and there's an incredible transfer man Ryan must have looked
[01:11:34] himself in the mirror and said this is what I want to do I am going to turn this around completely
[01:11:39] and he became what we called big goals 2000 which is the new model and I mean he by the time we
[01:11:46] deployed you know six months eight months after that that that workup he was born again hard he was born
[01:11:52] again hard and he he was a he never fell behind anything and he always kept up with everybody
[01:12:01] and carried not only his way but sometimes others who were struggling and he would help them through
[01:12:06] and it was it was funny a couple of stories about him we were at at Nylon he's in the weight room
[01:12:13] and you know one of the things about bud you're doing pull ups and you know I know jocca when
[01:12:17] his twitter fetal is as the pictures of like ripped off calisers from dude pull ups or dead
[01:12:22] lifts you know with the with the barbell and that's just part of bud to me you tear up your hands
[01:12:27] on the ropes and all the oak horse and everything you're doing and so we're in the gym
[01:12:34] at out in our land warfare training facility and he's got these like the fingerless like
[01:12:40] weight lifting gloves on like you see in like gold's gym and I'm like not allowed I don't
[01:12:48] like seriously I was like big let's come here why do you have gloves on he's like well I'm just
[01:12:54] trying to protect my head you like getting some actually I was like no no you need a hard
[01:12:59] hands up man no gloves and he was he I was like Roger that no gloves and he took that to such an
[01:13:05] extreme on our operations we always work offs our operations because you're having a
[01:13:10] smash through a window or wrestle down a prisoner and grab a hot barrel of a hot barrel of a
[01:13:17] a smoking red you know red glowing red hot machine gun he was a machine gun or so he had to deal
[01:13:22] with that stuff so we were we're married we were in the cancels gloves are similar to to protect
[01:13:27] our hands from that and and I remember on patrol and and Iraq looking at me like no gloves on
[01:13:33] he took that to such an extreme is like I am gonna be a hard dude and I'm gonna roll out with
[01:13:39] with no gloves I want to carry this machine and I was like hey man where you go they're like hey where
[01:13:43] you go I'm good I'm good and I don't know if it was not smart not smart but hard but tough and
[01:13:50] he was unbelievably tough and you know after Ryan got wounded and people that know the story of
[01:13:56] Ryan he got hit in the face so it would be sniper round on the same day that Mark Lee was killed
[01:14:00] August 2nd 2006 and we thought he was we thought he was a dead man you know when when when he got hit
[01:14:07] the wound just looked so horrific I just didn't think anybody could survive that and yet he did
[01:14:15] and I went over to grab his hand it said hey man we're gonna get you out of your hanging there
[01:14:19] and he like sat up and told me he was okay I was like it was unbelievable to see that I'm
[01:14:24] just how tough that guy was and you know after that we were waiting for about three weeks to see
[01:14:35] he lost his right eye where he got hit and we realized later that he the only reason he didn't
[01:14:40] get killed is because he was disciplined and he was on that machine and we were we were two hours
[01:14:46] into an operation it was a brutally hot day you know probably hitting 117 degree high in
[01:14:52] Ramadi and and he was on his weapon looking down the sights and the round that was aimed for
[01:14:58] his head hit his weapon hit the receiver on that machine gun and and deflected kind of back
[01:15:05] toward the right side of his face rather than taking a set off and and that's what saved his life
[01:15:10] that discipline and but tragically not only did he lose his right eye but the shrapnel from that
[01:15:16] severed the the optic nerve to his left eye and he was left blind completely blind from that
[01:15:22] and it was devastating when I got the news from that and yet when I talked to him on the phone
[01:15:26] and he'd been intubated so he had this kind of really horse voice right so you know because they'd
[01:15:31] had him in an induced coma for a while I think it was a week or so several days it was a long time
[01:15:38] and it seemed like forever and so we're waiting to hear you know sights going to come back or he's
[01:15:43] going to you know have his left eye I mean this is the difference between you know
[01:15:47] permanently disabled for the rest of his life or just having a new sense of not having you know one
[01:15:52] eye and when we got that word is devastation I mean I'm talking to him on the phone and he
[01:15:57] didn't this horse you know horse voice he's talking to just tell me it's okay and he's joking about
[01:16:01] wanting to get a parrot on his shoulder and eye patch you know so he could look like a pirate and he just
[01:16:07] to just a phenomenal guy and I don't know that I ever had a conversation with with Ryan from that
[01:16:13] day forward that where we did it laugh hysterically I mean he was the kind of guy that just
[01:16:18] looked at all the things he could still do in life was not going to dwell on his disability
[01:16:24] was not dwell on the fact that his eyesight had been taken from him in the prime of his life
[01:16:28] you know and he just was a phenomenal guy he showed me the true meaning of toughness
[01:16:35] and he just was of selflessness and it was it was just it was phenomenal be around
[01:16:42] I mean he was just he would he was just such a fun again I you know you were I was thinking about it
[01:16:47] when I was I was listening to it earlier podcast and you were quoting from the book that I gave you
[01:16:53] about the time you gave me about face I think a few months after that you get I gave you the
[01:16:57] wars I knew it by a general geologist Pat and junior and I was thinking you know Jaclyn mentioned
[01:17:02] that we were watching Pat and in Ramadi and just to put that respect we were watching we were
[01:17:08] project the film up onto the back wall of the camp and literally it's about a 20 foot high wall
[01:17:13] just on the other side of this wall is bad guys I mean if we actually did a bunch of
[01:17:19] operations right outside that wall so I mean this so here we are you know watch we're all in
[01:17:23] PT geared smoking cigars it went in our like workout you know shorts and shirts we're in
[01:17:28] flip flops you had like a you know these huge camel spiders run across your feet you don't want to
[01:17:33] get bitten by those things they're pretty nasty but we watched that movie a patent and our
[01:17:37] member of a ticket Ryan was just so he was so he thought it was so hilarious there's a scene in
[01:17:44] the movie which is a phenomenal you had to say the George C. Scott movie is phenomenal but there's a
[01:17:50] scene the movie where Pat and gets passed over for promotion and one of his peers Omar Bradley
[01:17:55] who had actually been a subordinate to Pat and he is getting promoted above Pat and so it's obviously
[01:18:01] devastating it's obviously crushing for Pat and so one of his aides runs up to him and
[01:18:07] he has the news but Pat doesn't have the news yet and he's like Sir General can I pour you a
[01:18:14] warm glass of milk can I draw you bath and Ryan for some reason thought that was absolutely
[01:18:20] hilarious and I remember on multiple operations we'd come back you know what guys were smoked and tired
[01:18:25] and bigles a rope to me and say Sir can I pour you warm glass of milk can I draw you back
[01:18:32] and just laugh and stare if that was like shut the hell up but we had some good times the
[01:18:39] first one I remember talking to him on the phone when he came out of the induced coma and again
[01:18:45] you know like you I'm thinking you know what do you say right and of course
[01:18:55] he just put you at ease and just starts making jokes and then he says to me it's serious and he says to me
[01:19:03] I want to come back
[01:19:33] he says I want to come back can I come back and you know I said to him listen
[01:19:51] just get healed up and you can come back and he's like Roger that and he goes don't worry
[01:20:05] and I said don't worry what he said don't worry I can still shoot and I said okay and he goes
[01:20:14] and Sir I can smell that I said what he was I can smell the enemy and I'll know where to shoot
[01:20:25] and I said all right if you get healed up I will bring you back over here and unfortunately I mean
[01:20:32] he was in real rough shape it wasn't like he was just blind I mean he had massive damage to his
[01:20:38] signuses to his face and you know we didn't get to your home before he could even even
[01:20:46] would have a possibility of coming back but he certainly would have of course no doubt about it
[01:20:50] and that was incredibly genuine and that's just the kind of guy Ryan was and and what's amazing is
[01:20:57] you know he he went on to do so many things and you know he married his his girlfriend the time
[01:21:04] was it is a phenomenal lady incredibly incredibly phenomenal lady and he went back to school
[01:21:12] after he got out he was medically retired he graduated with a business degree at a 4.0 I was like
[01:21:21] Ryan I do I think I had like a 2.8 3 like but I got well I said man what like what in the world
[01:21:29] and I mean he just he just could not be kept down and and he went and climbed he's some
[01:21:35] of the mountain near 14,000 plus foot mountain completely blind I mean that's a difficult mountain
[01:21:41] a lot of people get killed trying to climb that mountain with the full use of their limbs and
[01:21:46] and eyesight and and he went and did that great organization called Camp Patriot that helps
[01:21:52] wounded that and it taken him up on that climb and he called me up and said hey life we're going
[01:22:01] elk hunting and something we talked about in Iraq because Ryan was a big hunter grew up in
[01:22:06] in Washington state and had going on and I grew up in Texas and I loved to hunt and and I
[01:22:11] went on a call rod I'd hunted up there elk hunting so we talked about doing an elk hunt and
[01:22:17] you know now I thought well it's we can go you know we can listen to the elk and he can be
[01:22:23] you know part of the hot but he can't you know how can he actually shoot an animal we can't
[01:22:27] actually do that anymore and he said it's like they got some kind of gadget tree for me
[01:22:33] you know set up he's like I'm gonna shoot an elk and I was like is it are you in it was kind of like
[01:22:39] hunter-divered and I was like I'm in absolutely I'm in and I think it was like my 10-year
[01:22:46] naval carrier to go I was like cancel that we're going on so Ryan and I went uh went up there with
[01:22:52] camp-pature they had this crazy like gadget set up on the on the the scope of the weapon and it was
[01:23:00] up it was a camera and and it was so you could look through it the sights and so we kind of had this
[01:23:05] I was spotting form looking through the camera we kind of got in situated kind of told him when
[01:23:10] it went to hold we kind of had like a ready fire terminology we came up with and one thing
[01:23:16] about Ryan is that dude could shoot and you know he he struggled at Nyland originally keeping up
[01:23:21] and you know with his physical fitness until he became bigdles 2000 then was born again hard
[01:23:27] but when we got to our shooting schools we realized what this guy could shoot he was a great
[01:23:32] shot and so when we were training with that that rifle we were on the range and we were practiced
[01:23:36] into going this elk hunt I'm talking a man on the target I realized right away like if we
[01:23:41] missed it's my fault because he's gonna be he's gonna write when I tell him to pull the trigger he's
[01:23:45] hitting that target and he's gonna it's gonna be right wherever that cross area so we kind of figured it out
[01:23:50] and we went out and tracked this this huge elk down that was donated by a you know a great
[01:23:57] great good folks and we went out the shot a gigantic like a little class elk and he was and then
[01:24:05] once we got it we're cleaning the thing and he just you know he just he wanted to got his hands
[01:24:10] in there like elbow deep and and in the cleaning process and just it was it was a phenomenal
[01:24:15] phenomenal experience and Ryan just couldn't meet he could not be kept down he he focused on everything
[01:24:20] then he could still do and it was some of the things I couldn't even explain I remember when
[01:24:26] he was living in the Phoenix area and I went out to visit him and we're dry we had gone out to breakfast
[01:24:33] and we're driving back to his house and this is he only moved there after his blind so he never
[01:24:40] been in this area before and we're driving past you like you just missed the turn and I'm like obviously
[01:24:47] I'm driving he's blind he's sitting in the past you're seeing it I was like what do you mean how do you
[01:24:51] know that is that I just you should have turned back there and I was like you know soon it
[01:24:57] I was from my little smart phone I met math it out and it was like you're exactly right
[01:25:01] I'm going to do a new turn go back I don't know he had laid it out in his mind just the grid the
[01:25:05] grid system and what how long it took to go where and it was it was phenomenal and he taught
[01:25:10] me so much about just toughness and selflessness and just the attitude of being a little overcome
[01:25:17] many challenge to be thankful for the bless is even given and he was just just of incredibly
[01:25:23] awesome warrior teammate and friend and and we miss him I used to grapple with him you know after
[01:25:33] he was blind and he wrestled he wrestled in high school and so he had some scrap to him and
[01:25:43] I remember you know first of all he used to have that tears that come out of that eye
[01:25:48] so he'd be like constantly kind of wiping the eye and getting tears all over me
[01:25:51] then I'd be given a hard time about that like quick grind on the baby
[01:25:57] Yeah, but it was awesome it was awesome that's a great sport that you can do you know just it's you realize how much
[01:26:02] contact is involved when you're when you're doing that and how you can it's so instinctual and
[01:26:08] but that was another thing he just was like oh yeah I'll grapple I don't care can't see no factor
[01:26:13] and I always had to make him pay for the for the the time
[01:26:18] wait where the Chris that's one of Chris Kyle's little you know little scams that he played was
[01:26:27] Let me let me let me tell that that was uh because I had I had a good eye witness to this scenario
[01:26:34] so jocco's our task in a commander you know and he's a black belt resilient you jits
[01:26:38] who never one knows this because we're training at five o'clock every morning and we're all showing
[01:26:42] up and doing jitsu and it's show can each other out you can always see our you could tell who our
[01:26:48] taskin it was because when you called a name of someone we would turn our heads return our entire
[01:26:53] shoulders at the same time because our next we're getting cranked up that's right because we had
[01:27:00] just battled Royale as you would encourage it but in particular you know Chris and we talked about
[01:27:06] Chris Kyle since the year was a phenomenal guy he had a great relationship with with with Ryan and
[01:27:10] really kind of took Ryan under his wing and and one of the things Chris like to do was
[01:27:16] instigate he was a huge instigator and and so they would they they talked Ryan into like hey
[01:27:24] bigdles come here you know some bigdles the new guys fired up like hey I want you to go get up
[01:27:30] in a safe space you know so you and they they'd have him come up and like standing your face in
[01:27:35] like stare at you like one like one millimeter from your nose yes that's what you do which was obviously
[01:27:40] it's very provocative and and so that was the whole point they were trying to just instigate some kind
[01:27:46] of which you know I I just shoved them across the room get out of my face you know they had him do
[01:27:51] it to jaco he wouldn't do it for a little bit he kind of did everybody else and and so they're like
[01:27:57] you're gonna do it to jaco you know you know you know he balls you would do it to jaco so finally he's
[01:28:03] like I'm sick of these guys tell me I got a poo I'm a new guy I mean they said these manhoods on the
[01:28:07] line I'm gonna go do it to jaco and we and he did it in a pretty public forum because we were
[01:28:13] we were planning this is on our trip we're actually practicing like urban assaults so we're in
[01:28:19] this kind it's kind of a theater type set and guys are you know planning the mission and I remember
[01:28:25] watching every so they not only they talked him into it jaco doesn't know this but we all know
[01:28:29] it's common so everyone's watching this and it's all of a sudden jaco turns around it's so I think
[01:28:36] Chris or some like he's like hey jaco jaco turns around and bigels it's standing like one millimeter
[01:28:42] from his face given this like needle stared down and jaco just grabs him like you know grabs
[01:28:48] him like turns him around you know gets his back within like in like half a second and just throws
[01:28:55] a throw a rear naked choke on him and he had to go sleepy time and he's like yeah so you got a rear
[01:29:04] naked choke on you're like tapping he's like tapping tapping tapping and jaco's like I don't accept
[01:29:09] taps and he just it's so he goes to sleep jaco just kind of gently lays him down on the floor
[01:29:16] and then we just kind of and he just went on about anyway that's kind of normal day of the
[01:29:20] year and then you know so like you know six or eight seconds goes by he like comes back kind of slowly
[01:29:25] comes to gets up to a knee then stands up he's like kind of moves around like what happened
[01:29:31] and we're all kind of jaco's just acting like nothing happened to the other day and everyone is laughing
[01:29:36] hysterically and then you know rhymes like you're going to have my back because they told like
[01:29:42] we'll have you back and so I did like coach when I was like hey bigels look man they're not going
[01:29:48] to have your back to a whole point I wanted to see you get choked out so so after that I think it was a good
[01:29:53] learning experience but pretty legit good time and he was a great great sport about that just like
[01:29:59] everything else yeah yeah so like you said just an amazing amazing amazing guy and if anybody wants to
[01:30:08] anybody's feeling sorry for themselves or you know these people that ask about mental toughness just
[01:30:14] think yourself about about right there's one more guy that that I've been asked about a decent
[01:30:27] amount and it's a guy that was in the lift hotel in the markedly episode and again I was new
[01:30:37] that you'd be coming on at some point to talk about and we'd have an opportunity to talk about
[01:30:41] Tony and Tony Fraddy and Tony is a guy that I actually grew up with in the seal teams he was
[01:30:54] and and just as you might suspect when you watch live to tell and you see what his attitude is like
[01:31:02] he was a hard drinking fist fighting beer swilling frog man
[01:31:08] and you know and still is and still is to this day and there was you know how often he would
[01:31:16] come to work on Monday morning with a shinner or brood you know bloody knuckles it was just it was just
[01:31:22] a normal occurrence I mean no we didn't even get asked questions about it back then so Tony Fraddy
[01:31:27] was an old school seal team one guy that you know kind of like me grew up in the seal teams and grew
[01:31:34] up in that era of the 90s and the dry years still had some Vietnam veteran mentorship but
[01:31:42] didn't really get that opportunity to be in combat until you know until obviously until September
[01:31:48] 11th and what we actually even though we were both that team one together we were never an
[01:31:56] opportunity together so we were buddies we were drinking buddies we hung out but we never did
[01:32:00] a platoon together and so I knew he had a very good reputation he had a very good reputation as an
[01:32:05] operator he always had that but I never really worked with him it wasn't until we were in task
[01:32:11] unit bruiser together that I actually worked with him for the first time and when I realized
[01:32:20] for the first time what I had in Tony beyond the toughness and beyond the tactical prowess was
[01:32:32] when we were actually at we were at land warfare training the training that you were just talking
[01:32:36] about and you know there was a little kind of a quick operation to pull off and it was just a
[01:32:45] quick you know hey go and assault this area it was the daytime it was basically going through the
[01:32:49] mechanics of an assault on a target and I was watching you and Tony Tony was your platoon chief I was
[01:32:57] watching you to kind of figure out the plan and you threw a couple ideas out there and he just said
[01:33:03] hey sir here's what we should do boom put these guys over here set up a base over here bring the
[01:33:07] maneuver over here but one over watch position on this hill that's how we should do this and
[01:33:13] you looked at him and said that's awesome that's perfect let's get everyone over here and
[01:33:19] why don't you just go ahead and breathe them up and he looked at you and he said
[01:33:24] Nusser you tell him what to do it'll be better coming from you and so here was a guy that
[01:33:31] obviously because he'd been in the teams for 15 or 17 years obviously had more tactical experience than
[01:33:38] you did but he was so secure in his leadership and so secure in his tactical knowledge that it didn't
[01:33:47] mean anything to him and he realized that the best thing that he could do for the team and for
[01:33:51] your platoon was to let you lead this let you put out the word let you give the plan and I realized
[01:34:01] at that point and this was early in our work up that this guy was not just a tactician not just a
[01:34:06] tough badass frogman but he was a real leader and as I know you will say you are absolutely blessed
[01:34:17] to have Tony as your platoon chief I gotta say the seal team has produced some phenomenal
[01:34:25] phenomenal individuals some incredible battlefield leaders throughout the decades in the proud legacy
[01:34:32] and history of the seal teams and I can say with confidence that I believe that Tony for
[01:34:41] that he is probably one of the best combat leaders of seal teams has ever produced and I don't say
[01:34:48] that very lightly at all but he was a phenomenal phenomenal battlefield leader and you've heard of
[01:34:52] the break glass in case of war guys this is this is that guy and he was just
[01:34:58] his experience level was phenomenal I mean he had had at this point to put it respectly visible
[01:35:06] ten commander I'm on my second one so I had one deployment to Iraq joku had a few deployments before
[01:35:11] because he was you know he would have been a enlistment for eight years and but you know Tony was this was his
[01:35:18] eighth deployment I mean he had massive amounts of experience in the teams I think he had been busted
[01:35:22] down in rank like twice you know hard fight and guy and he was he wanted to be that platoon chief
[01:35:29] that's all he ever wanted to be and he was incredibly incredibly good at it I just I can remember
[01:35:37] that same land war for a chat of you were just talking about we're under fire we're in a very
[01:35:42] difficult situation there's a lot of chaos going on in this training environment here we are
[01:35:47] preparing for actual combat and of course they're trying to make that as realistic as possible
[01:35:52] and it's challenging as possible and we're getting shot at from like one of the target buildings and
[01:35:57] it's made out of like you know two by fours and and plywood the target building that's that's nearby
[01:36:06] Tony realizes that we got a self at target building now because we're taking fire from that building
[01:36:12] and he does a like full on sprit like wide open for about 50 yards and does human
[01:36:19] battering ram into the doorway one man clearance the building and like kills the role player who's
[01:36:24] shooting at us and it was like that's who's he's he's the total badass he's gonna handle the
[01:36:30] situation and that's the guy he was on the battlefield I mean he definitely he was he was a guy
[01:36:36] I mean we leaned on him the the only time that I ever had an issue working for Jockel will like
[01:36:43] he was when Jockel said hey I'm gonna have to put Tony with this other group of guys
[01:36:48] that's right and I was like I was furious and angry about that in a way that was and until
[01:36:54] Jockel kind of took me under his wing he said you said hey here's why I'm doing that and here's why
[01:37:00] I had to balance out some leadership you know and we put him with the most junior guy put on with
[01:37:05] most junior officer who isn't incredibly capable guy and and did phenomenal stuff but it was the
[01:37:11] right call the death it was the right call as much as I hated that but that was that was difficult
[01:37:16] but Tony was just one of those guys that you know he was intimately evolved in the planning
[01:37:20] default aggressive I mean just incredibly aggressive we're gonna go in there and we're gonna
[01:37:25] hammer the enemy we're gonna go right in his backyard we're never gonna expect this and and
[01:37:30] we're gonna we're gonna win we're gonna crush them they're gonna kill bad guys and and one of
[01:37:34] the things that gained us momentum you know you talked about earlier Jockel of the the mortars that hit right
[01:37:40] outside the building you were sitting in and killed the soldier wounded several others we had IDs going
[01:37:46] often you were sitting in there and and the you were sitting in there and the you were going to
[01:37:50] brigade I went to I was actually I met the brigade commander once I think or maybe twice but I
[01:37:56] went in there actually no what no it was the first time I ever met the brigade commander so I
[01:38:02] go into meet the guy that's in charge of all of Ramadi and as I go into meet him I'm into I'm
[01:38:11] in his tactical operations center and we had put guys Tony was out in the field doing a sniper
[01:38:17] Overwatch for an ID for ID in place there's in an area called Firecracker where there was IDs all
[01:38:24] the time and where days earlier an ID had gone off and had killed several Marines and wounded several more
[01:38:34] so I come into the tactical operation center and and I'm in there for 30 seconds and a call comes in
[01:38:41] and it's the Marines reporting back that one of the seal snipers had just killed an ID in place
[01:38:45] or on firecracker and the brigade commander came out of his office to kind of see what what wait what
[01:38:52] and then there I was and so it was the again like with the mortars I could not have ever
[01:38:59] set up a better introduction to the brigade commander than saying then then that happening at that
[01:39:05] moment in time and we've been on the ground for maybe two or three days and already starting to
[01:39:10] have an impact taken out these bad guys and and that fired the brigade commander up and he immediately
[01:39:15] wanted to employ us in different locations throughout the city and that was like a blank check for
[01:39:21] for getting after it for us was oh you want us to go into these worst the worst parts of
[01:39:25] our body we will do so and we will do so immediately and that's exactly what we did
[01:39:32] Tony really had a vision too as far as getting the platoon ready and making sure that we knew
[01:39:36] he he had a feeling that we might need some sniper capability and so we plossed up the number of
[01:39:43] snipers well beyond what the normal number is within our 60 man seal platoon to be ready for that and
[01:39:49] he trained him and got him ready and and certainly leaned on Chris and his expertise there but
[01:39:55] but Tony was really the driving force of getting our platoon qualified and ready to go and I
[01:40:00] remember one time I particularly where we were we were we were looking through a we had moved into a
[01:40:06] really really nasty area of south central mining and there were two buildings that were right next to each
[01:40:12] other and we were several of us where I was in a group that was at with across the street the
[01:40:18] Chris Chris and I were together on that one Tony was with another group of guys that were
[01:40:22] across that were in a different set of buildings and the building that we were in just it just
[01:40:27] wasn't a good position and we were trying to figure out where we need to go but it just was not
[01:40:31] a good position the sun was going to come up within you know pretty soon we needed to get
[01:40:35] it was just so we actually fell back and took a building right next to where Tony is guys
[01:40:39] where we actually smashed through the concrete wall connecting them the wall the support there
[01:40:46] there was no doorway or anything window but we had to make a walkways we could actually like
[01:40:50] get it out and communicate with each other and I'm sitting there listening the radio and
[01:40:55] you know my command control position after the sun came up and Tony was a sniper looking through
[01:40:59] a loophole in the wall which is like a hole that was maybe six or eight inches on a diameter that
[01:41:04] we smashed out with a sledgehammer sometimes we used explosive charges but it gave you a little bit
[01:41:09] of cover so that you didn't get shot in the face by some enemy another enemy sniper across the
[01:41:14] street or some ice you would have a machine gun and so he's sitting there on a sniper rifle
[01:41:19] and I just hear this crack and it was just a round coming in and it missed his head by like two
[01:41:26] inches maybe I mean it came right in just you know whizzed past his face slam into the wall just behind him
[01:41:32] and so I hear the crack and then I hear some profanity and then I hear some yeah I like Rambo Stel
[01:41:39] yeah and then I hear just machine gun fire yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah and so Tony
[01:41:46] had the round and coming in past his face and Tony was best and he reached over grab a
[01:41:52] Marnt 40 machine gun and dumped a hundred round belt through the you know through the
[01:41:57] the loophole we had no idea where the round really came from but a hundred rounds got shot back
[01:42:01] in the general direction and I think that was discouraging whoever was shooting in it so
[01:42:05] that's a kind of guy who told me what he was he was gonna you should want to bullet at me
[01:42:09] I'm sure I'm not going to let you back and you know he was the guy too we because he
[01:42:15] in that relationship with you when I first checked into Cilteam 3 me and the Delta
[01:42:20] Lieutenant Commander who's a good friend of mine that we gone through Budsweather,
[01:42:22] Jaco, Reference earlier you know we heard about this guy, Jaco and and interestingly enough I
[01:42:31] actually heard your name before mispronounce of course Jaco Willenek from a guy that I grew up with
[01:42:39] when I was in like high school and he started training in Jiu Jitsu and I was starting to talk
[01:42:45] about beat in the Cilteam so I wanted to be a seal on hitting the air our family friend and said yeah
[01:42:49] I rolled Jiu Jitsu with this guy who's a seal this name was Jaco Willenek and he beat me in this
[01:42:55] turn of his a great guy and I see he was talking about you and so so I had heard that name before
[01:43:00] and and then we were working together team 3 I was like okay I heard this guy Jaco it's actually
[01:43:06] for now to Willenek Jaco Willenek okay this is that same guy that I heard about you know years ago before
[01:43:11] I was even in the Navy and so you know who is this guy we had met him before I knew a bunch of the
[01:43:18] guys already in the Paltoon and Tony said I'm ever standing there looking at the board we have
[01:43:26] the boards like magnet boards of all the names are going to be in the Paltoon and you know I'm
[01:43:31] I'm at the top of the OIC and then Tony's next and then you know what's your guys in our
[01:43:35] youth Chris is kind of right up there and and he's like we're like he said what can you tell us
[01:43:41] about Jaco he's like Jaco is the guy we want us our task in a commander we're good to go
[01:43:46] that's like Roger that we're good so that was that was my first introduction to Jaco
[01:43:54] yeah yeah and then as the Delta Potigimit, Jaco gave us this typical stare down
[01:43:58] I am Jaco I don't like people when I face when he meets us I'm going to intimidate you
[01:44:04] and look at you with Ferrod Brow and jutting out Jaco and I might have to fire you guys and
[01:44:10] I don't know two weeks through weeks we never know so the Delta Potigimit is now you know just
[01:44:15] you start a good buddy years and a great buddy of mine was was like who is this guy me he's
[01:44:20] stared at me I don't know if you like so I can already tell yeah and Tony was like listen
[01:44:25] he's good to go don't you worry Tony awesome just outstanding and I think one of the things
[01:44:37] that impressed me about him was that he those old Vietnam lessons the old school just hardcore
[01:44:45] frogman stuff he held the line on that as far as getting ready as far as gear inspections as
[01:44:53] far as debriefs and the planning he just he just had that intense level of patience and of
[01:45:05] focus on the operations like nothing else in the world mattered to him a he drove standards
[01:45:13] no doubt I mean he enforced standards and he was just expected expected us to be hard you know
[01:45:19] when guys wanted to get soft and hey you know do we really need to push ourselves out like no
[01:45:24] we're going to be hard and you know is that new Hampshire new Hampshire ax that did say you better
[01:45:30] get you can't hide we're going we're going out to get it on and you know one of the things
[01:45:34] that became a mantra for our Patum was BTF big tough frogman and what Tony would say that like hey
[01:45:41] where we knew like we're going to be TF what are we going to do we're going to be TF in
[01:45:46] we're going to get a big mix it up which meant a big gunfight they're going to be TF out
[01:45:51] and then we added big child we're going to go to big child hit the child we're done but
[01:45:55] BTF meant we're going to go in it's going to be hard it's going to be tough we better you know
[01:45:59] we're going to carry a lot of these roads were so dangerous we didn't drive this we would
[01:46:03] put patrol in for you know kilometers carry in heavy gear tons of water with us we had to
[01:46:09] bring all that stuff in and it was just it was tough it was difficult and we were going to be TF
[01:46:15] and we took pride in that you know BTF pretty much came became a way to overcome any obstacle of any kind
[01:46:22] mental physical environmental all yet to do just BTF you know oh there's some kind of a challenge
[01:46:30] at BTF BTF and then what are we going to do BTF more I see a rubber Tony said he's you know I don't
[01:46:39] see a lot and he doesn't sleep a lot so we would spend time together we never really sleep it
[01:46:45] and he'd come down to my office and I say what are you doing up and he goes all is just laying in my
[01:46:50] bed just BTF BTF BTF BTF BTF BTF BTF so I've come and thank for you to come down and see
[01:46:56] I remember him sitting in the camp he would get you could track it we'd come back from an
[01:47:00] op he'd be happy he was fired up we drop our gear every single time with with great tremendous
[01:47:06] discipline I talked about him in forces standards hey we just got dealt with an op everyone's
[01:47:10] tired everybody's exhausted drop your gear is what he tell everybody you know 10 minutes I
[01:47:15] want you in the mission planning space and we go through that post operation debrief just
[01:47:19] talking about what went right what went wrong will we learn from it what's the enemy doing now
[01:47:23] that we hadn't seen before how come we adapted that every single time there was no cut in the
[01:47:27] corners we did that every time we could do it and kind of a short concise concise form but he'd be
[01:47:32] happy we just got back from the op we just went out did some damage and then you could track
[01:47:36] Tony's like happiness factor it was inversely proportional is happiness factor was inversely
[01:47:44] proportional to the amount of time we spent in the camp so as at the longer we stayed in the camp he's like
[01:47:48] he's like getting angry I'm getting angry and if we had an op cancel which was pretty rare
[01:47:54] but ever once while we'd have a night where we didn't go out and he would just be angry I
[01:47:59] want to go out I want to go get some why are we in the camp and you know as we wrap up on Tony
[01:48:09] and Tony was definitely a force but just so everybody knows that this was a task unit of 40 plus
[01:48:19] guys and there was absolutely a core group in there and Charlie and Delta between of guys that were
[01:48:28] without question without any question whatsoever warriors that
[01:48:37] like I said held the line and told the line and went forward over and over again
[01:48:50] and and the rest of the guys maybe the guys that weren't quite in leadership positions
[01:48:55] but it was a very tough deployment casualties fire fights
[01:49:01] killed wounded and there was stress massive amounts of stress and there was combat fatigue
[01:49:16] and there was fear but all these guys overcame that fear to do their job
[01:49:28] so we could accomplish the mission that was put in front of us I think that something has to be
[01:49:36] recognized you know and it's uh some of these guys are still active duty and we we can't we're
[01:49:41] not gonna name them we're not gonna talk about them but they were a critical critical part of the
[01:49:46] team and that it's not you know as we kind of back to what we were talking about with America
[01:49:49] Cypher earlier I mean I think Chris would be the first person to tell you that this is a team effort
[01:49:54] it is a huge team effort and so we could have done the Cypher's gonna do any of the stuff
[01:49:59] there doing without the machine gunners without guys carrying the rockets without the guys
[01:50:03] carrying the radio and all the heavy equipment that goes with that and you know the corpsman
[01:50:08] that's carrying his you know all of his equipment we couldn't have done any of that as seals
[01:50:12] without the support from the army and Marine Corps and would support those guys brought to us and so
[01:50:17] it was a massive massive team effort and just particularly those guys in in charge of
[01:50:21] the team and I was I just kind of been more proud of of our guys going through some incredibly
[01:50:28] difficult situations and and stepping up and getting the job done and and making the best of
[01:50:33] a very bad situation doing what they need to do and it is it was just an honor it was an honor
[01:50:41] to serve with those guys it always be we had some horrific days I would do anything to trade those
[01:50:45] days I do anything to trade places with with Marqulee and and with Ryan Job in Charitableton who gave
[01:50:54] their lives but most of those days were the best days of my life and always will be and
[01:51:04] it was just such an honor and a privilege to be part of that. Everyone damn it to get the Delta
[01:51:11] Platoon commander on here and I'm gonna tell you right now you're gonna say the same thing about
[01:51:14] his crew and the work that they did and the incredibly harsh environment that they went through
[01:51:21] and the sustained combat operations that they conducted as well so thanks to all those guys
[01:51:33] and thank you Jockel Willick for being our leader for training us for teaching us for inspiring us
[01:51:52] for instilling in us this default aggressive mindset to go out on the battlefield into the
[01:52:00] fray into the worst most dangerous areas and make a difference and win and none of that would have
[01:52:11] been possible without your leadership and I'm proud of served with him and I could tell you that was
[01:52:22] you read your speech earlier that speech was incredibly powerful it's something that
[01:52:32] resonated across the seal teams with me my generation of seals and every seal that I knew
[01:52:40] are worked with about what that meant and it really captured so much of what we'd think
[01:52:48] in a way that maybe other folks couldn't articulate it but it's certainly captured the message
[01:52:54] of what seals should be doing the nature of or how we need to train how we need to prefer ourselves
[01:53:01] and how we always need to remain there and when you gave that speech and I was honored to
[01:53:08] to give a speech as well at that retirement ceremony but as you pack your bags and retire to
[01:53:14] and let the seal teams I remember thinking it's a sad day in the jockel of seal teams
[01:53:23] and it really really was but you certainly left your mark on the seal teams not only for me
[01:53:30] and all the guys from T-Roo's that we serve with but the generations of seals
[01:53:36] that you trained that you passed on those leadership lessons out too so we thank you
[01:53:40] I'm not dead yet but thanks thanks brother appreciate it it's awesome and yeah let's
[01:53:54] let's quit talking about each other and let's get some questions from the internet out of that sound
[01:53:59] I'm with that echo by the way echo Charles is here today echo Charles yeah
[01:54:04] hey guys how are you doing it? I'm going to be here with you all the good. Well come back. Yeah right on well
[01:54:10] I might as well read you guys some questions right yeah it's filled in my way fire away
[01:54:17] all right cool first question I'm just going to direct these at both of you guys yeah
[01:54:23] so jockel and life assuming someone would be a good seal officer would you suggest they go
[01:54:32] and listed first get experience then becoming officer would you suggest that?
[01:54:41] or the other choice would be just go straight officer commission so right I guess we have both
[01:54:47] of those examples here I was enlisted first way to win straight commission out of the
[01:54:52] Naval Academy and I think we're probably going to say pretty much the same thing here in terms of
[01:55:02] to me it doesn't really matter it doesn't really matter where you get your commission from it
[01:55:09] doesn't really matter if you get a commission it doesn't really matter there's guys in the
[01:55:14] sealed teams there's enlisted senior leaders that are awesome examples there are awesome leaders
[01:55:18] they change people's lives they have a huge impact on the battlefield there's obviously
[01:55:22] officers to do the same thing I think you know I added incredibly lucky career and I had a great
[01:55:29] career and I wouldn't change any part of it at all you know I was lucky enough to to be an
[01:55:37] enlisted guy and do multiple deployments as an enlisted guy and then being an officer and do multiple
[01:55:40] deployments as an officer and it was great and I wouldn't change any part of it and I know plenty of
[01:55:48] guys that were officers in their whole career and they wouldn't change any of that and I know plenty
[01:55:53] of guys that wouldn't list the guys that are whole career and they wouldn't change any of that so I think
[01:55:59] the important thing is think about what piece of the puzzle you want to fit into the what you
[01:56:05] really want your expertise and your job to be I don't really think life you wish you would have
[01:56:15] done sometime as an e-dog as a sled dog for sure I mean look there's there's a part of me that
[01:56:21] certainly always wishes that but look I think it's it's just a different it's a different job you're
[01:56:27] going to always as an officer straight out of a commission source I had to lean on those I had to
[01:56:33] lean on those chiefs I had to lean on those leading pedda officers those folks who had experience
[01:56:37] who could help me and guide me and you know no matter who you are you're not going to have
[01:56:42] it all figured out and it's something that each I'll go you talk about often we talk about often
[01:56:46] and when we work with companies so having run our leadership course what we call the junior officer
[01:56:52] training course and every single seal officer that graduates from you know from every commissioning
[01:56:58] source that graduates from the seal training pipeline goes through this course it's about a five week
[01:57:03] course four week of classroom one week of a field training exercise where we're kind of out
[01:57:08] of field and putting these guys through some some challenges and I I led that for two years I
[01:57:13] instructed that course and I think we put on 130 something officers to that and the best officer
[01:57:21] we had some great officers that went through that and probably the best officer I put through
[01:57:25] was a prior-listed seal we had some officers that struggled and probably the they guy who struggled
[01:57:31] the most was another prior-listed seal most of these guys had been prior-listed a commission officer
[01:57:36] so it just goes to show you that you've every source whether it's a naval academy whether it's
[01:57:41] prior-listed and going to see an animal program whether it's coming in through OCS officer
[01:57:46] candidate school or or you know at universities you've got outstanding people that come out of
[01:57:53] those those commissioning sources you got some people that aren't that good that come out of
[01:57:56] those commission sources so it's about you and I think it's it's kind of immaterial. The physical part
[01:58:04] is pretty important right going in well of course you got to have some level of athleticism
[01:58:10] but it's not the two of it's not it's just it just if you yes show up and be ready to make it through
[01:58:17] the training but that's right that has next to nothing to do with your ability to lead people
[01:58:23] of course you have to be physically fit you have to be able I mean there's no doubt you have to be
[01:58:27] physically fit yeah that's like that's like a ground base no doubt about it so if you don't have
[01:58:35] that you're not even close so everybody that is gonna be in a leadership position in the
[01:58:39] seal teams is physically that period got you okay yeah for whatever reason thinking just to be a seal
[01:58:46] okay cool I have next question Jacqueline Lath are your books principles universal
[01:58:52] or only for us audience we work with audiences anywhere they applied anywhere I mean across
[01:59:03] the world human beings in any kind of leadership capacity in any capacity and you know business
[01:59:09] or life and Jacqueline I've actually done a lot of work internationally as well so we've done
[01:59:14] us spoken of groups in Europe I've worked with leadership training groups from China and
[01:59:20] spoken of Canada I'm at across the world where leaders or leaders are dealing with the same
[01:59:26] kind of problems same kind of issues this is not universal only applies to America to apply
[01:59:32] anywhere yeah and what I found is in jockey always talk about like how it's relationships building
[01:59:39] relationships up and down the chain of command so and really that relationships
[01:59:44] theme is it's kind of everything in life where whether it's like your friends or your
[01:59:52] spouse has been alive or whatever in the teams or in business right so relationships
[01:59:58] applied to everybody in the whole world no matter what culture you are otherwise so
[02:00:04] each different type of person right where people who read your as book isn't
[02:00:09] always going to be a military guy or a business guy but I just I just had a friend who sent
[02:00:16] me a picture he was in Frankfurt, Germany walking through out of his hotel and there's a guy
[02:00:22] sitting in the lobby I like the coffee bar reading extreme ownership yeah and Germany so I mean
[02:00:27] this is it's everywhere and I think leaders who seek to be better I mean this this
[02:00:33] focus for them the principals in this book are for them and a lot of the companies who work with
[02:00:37] they even if they're based in the US they have they have ties to other countries manufacturing
[02:00:43] plants in Mexico or China or across the world and do business across the Atlantic Ocean
[02:00:49] it's a very international interconnected world out there and and I mean there's most of the
[02:00:54] companies who are working with these days have offices in South America or Asia or Europe and
[02:01:00] are there kind of worldwide this could then this is gonna sound kind of crazy but this could easily be
[02:01:08] a relationship counseling guide as well well obviously if you take extreme ownership of your
[02:01:14] relationship and you you realize where it could be you that could be the problem in your relationship yes
[02:01:21] now that being said echo Charles this will not turn into a relationship
[02:01:27] podcast not a married we're here to talk about war you're not gonna be Dr Laura yes it's not
[02:01:35] happening here not happening good try good try I go okay thanks next question tell us a story about Buds
[02:01:52] so so Buds is the basic seal training that you see on TV and that you see carrying people
[02:02:01] carrying logs on their heads and boats around and doing pushups and pullups and getting wet and
[02:02:05] sandy and the reason that I don't talk about Buds a lot is because it's not it's a tiny, tiny
[02:02:16] fraction of what the seal teams is all about and in fact when you get in the seal teams
[02:02:24] you realize that Buds is nothing more than a screening process to weed out people don't really want to be
[02:02:32] there but if you compare it to what you have to do once you get in the teams it's actually nothing
[02:02:40] because there's no way that you can compare hey you got to go get in cold ocean water and
[02:02:48] then roll around in the sand oh no then and I always think back to the the first time when I was
[02:02:57] in the I was in at Camp Curricodor and I'm rolling out of the first major operation we were doing
[02:03:02] in the malob district of Armani and there's tires burning the street there's smoke you can
[02:03:07] hear the gunfire getting wet and sandy and being cold is a joke compared to that so that's why
[02:03:20] the the whole Buds thing is is something that I just it's not that big of a deal and I think I think
[02:03:26] some guys trying to turn it into a big deal especially if that was kind of a highlight of their
[02:03:32] career was going through seal training but if you were in the teams and you deployed overseas then
[02:03:37] that shouldn't be the highlight of your career shouldn't be the highlight of your knowledge it shouldn't
[02:03:41] be the highlight of your of your the the man test that people like to consider Buds not a man test
[02:03:49] means you didn't quit being cold good job it's and to that point I think it's you know for those
[02:03:55] folks it didn't really get tested and combat or didn't get a chance to go out on the battlefield
[02:04:01] and experience the just incredible physical nature of combat and how difficult it is then you know
[02:04:10] Buds is like everything so they talk about Buds all the time and so it's kind of this legendary
[02:04:13] thing and it looks like it's a great training program it's been around for a long time it
[02:04:17] it's screens out the people that don't have the characteristics as Jaco said that we think
[02:04:21] we're going to be successful and it works and we should keep those standard time and we should push
[02:04:26] that I thought Buds was a pretty good time we had some great times in Buds I love the guys I
[02:04:29] went through Buds with most of them and but it's it's gotten nothing on combat and you know it's
[02:04:36] interesting that some of the the big political discussions today you know one of the one of them
[02:04:41] is the integration of women into the seal teams and dispatch operations into infantry units
[02:04:45] and everyone's always focused on you know well if they can be standards and if they're you know
[02:04:51] if if they can make it through training then they should be they should be you know they should
[02:04:56] be able to go out and serve right and they're focused on training and the people they're talking
[02:05:00] about training at the highest levels because they don't know what it's like to be in a real combat
[02:05:05] and real combat is infinitely harder than the toughest I mean why are we talking about integrating
[02:05:10] the NFL we got huge big strong guys that are smashing each other and yet that's you know maybe
[02:05:17] you get a concussion maybe you tear your ACL maybe you break your your elbow you know or snap
[02:05:22] up but snap your wrist you're not going to get killed very rarely to someone get killed in the
[02:05:27] football game right and where in combat is is infinitely harder than that including more difficult
[02:05:33] than that and so you know and and unlike a football game that's over and you know just a couple of
[02:05:38] hours you're talking about something that can last weeks months even years and it's just the
[02:05:44] physical nature of combat cannot be overstated it isn't incredibly difficult and when people are
[02:05:49] shocked to hear that I can tell me some stories about bugs okay the bugs is care some
[02:05:55] locks man don't don't quit okay I mean it's it's making through you know it's combat when you're
[02:06:03] and you'll see it to guys who excelled in bugs because they're great athletes sometimes I'll go to
[02:06:07] the battlefield and I remember the first time that an IED I saw an IED going off about a block away
[02:06:15] for me and we were sitting on the rooftop and a sniper position as my first deployment before
[02:06:19] Jocelyn I were working together and all of a sudden there's a hundred foot fireball that goes
[02:06:24] up in the year I mean the blast wave hits me and just knocks me on my ass and frags just metal
[02:06:30] fragments and sure to concrete and stuff just raining down all over the place from from a
[02:06:36] block away you know from us and it was it was like damn that is that is not something I want to be
[02:06:44] standing on around interviewing when you hit that thing and when you see something like that like just
[02:06:49] the kinetic energy of a round coming in and just you know think of the biggest strongest guy
[02:06:54] you can imagine with a sledgehammer smashing a wall next to you and you know multiply that time
[02:07:00] seven or eight hundred rounds of man for a bell for a machine gun and I mean it's incredibly
[02:07:04] difficult and dangerous and overwhelming and so you see some of the toughest guys that did well
[02:07:10] buds are like oh not necessarily eager to go out in that and so it's a whole new level of difficulty
[02:07:17] and it's it's just it can't be overstated so I think that it's it's the difficult as it
[02:07:23] combat again just cannot be overstated people need to understand what the reality that is like
[02:07:28] I think this idea that America is not going to we kind of dictate the nature of wars and you
[02:07:33] know as we've been told the tide of wars receding and it's just not true as Jaco said in his
[02:07:37] retirement speech the nature of war does not change and we're going to always have to fight
[02:07:43] wars we're going to always have to be a difficult conflicts we don't get to choose that and so
[02:07:48] we better be ready for those those difficulties in the late nineties we would hear that
[02:07:53] from from senior leadership that we know look the direct action mission we're not going to be doing
[02:08:00] these those anymore why would we do direct action mission we can send into the Tomahawk missile
[02:08:05] and then oh why would we do a reconnaissance when we can send over a drone and why would we go
[02:08:11] clear buildings house to house when we have technology that can put bombs right into buildings
[02:08:16] so this idea that we're going to have the ground wars are over we need to move on to the next
[02:08:20] phase of warfare and adapt to a new way of doing things and of course what was it eight years later
[02:08:29] September 11th happened we spent 15 years in Afghanistan and whatever 10 years in Iraq that
[02:08:36] on the ground doing those very missions that everyone thought were never to again so so yes the
[02:08:42] nature of war does not change and it's not about technology either you know some of the guys
[02:08:46] it don't make it through that training thing oh man if I just if I can just get through somehow
[02:08:50] and I'll get all this cool gear and I'll have night vision and lasers and I'll be badass and it's like
[02:08:55] it's not about that and and while we need to when you're an invested technology certainly and
[02:09:00] a quick armuletary accordingly it's the people that matter it's leadership at all levels that matter
[02:09:06] you know one of the one of my favorite quotes from the hero the Pacific War who was in charge of
[02:09:12] of the entire the the commander chief of of all forces US forces the Pacific I got him
[02:09:18] chestroom nimmets fleet admiral chestroom nimmets good old boy from from central Texas and he said
[02:09:26] our armament must be adequate to the needs but our faith is not primarily in these machines
[02:09:33] of defense but in ourselves and I mean that's that's just exactly true and we've got to we've
[02:09:38] got to always push those standards keep those standards high prepare people for the difficulties of
[02:09:44] real actual combat and just how physically demanding it is and crushing it can be and and be
[02:09:50] ready so then we can execute and we can win next next back to buds real quick that's how long
[02:10:00] is bud six months right yeah but 27 weeks or so because a lot of things it's like you know hell
[02:10:06] week right that's the time where you don't sleep that much or whatever I think some people think
[02:10:11] that that's but you know like you just don't sleep ever and it's all hard they drown you and then
[02:10:18] they bring you back to life yeah yeah not anyway next question aside from command what is your
[02:10:27] favorite operator specialty machine gunner preacher corpsman et cetera thanks
[02:10:32] well my personal preference was a radio man because I was a radio man when I was a young
[02:10:41] enlisted guy I was standing on the quarter deck standing quarter deck watching this this
[02:10:46] senior guy said to me what are you gonna do what are you gonna do to put you and I said I don't
[02:10:50] know maybe a machine gunner because of course when you're a young kid you want to be a machine
[02:10:53] no you know they're a machine gun and he said don't be a machine gunner you want to be a
[02:10:58] radio man because they go on every operation I said okay fair enough when upstairs and volunteer
[02:11:04] to be a radio man so they put this 30 pound radio on your back and carry the radio and it was very
[02:11:09] lucky for me because that got me in the position where I was part of planning even as a very
[02:11:17] junior guy I was part of the planning so I learned a lot about planning I was lucky because I
[02:11:21] did shipboard deployments so then I was involved in planning and working with the Marine Corps
[02:11:26] so I had some experience with big conventional units and I learned a lot then so I was always
[02:11:31] very preferential to the radio man I thought it was the the most seribilly challenging job
[02:11:39] now that being said let me tell you what I wanted my platoon's to think I wanted my platoon's to
[02:11:47] think that each guy was the most important guy you know I wanted the the radio man to think
[02:11:54] that he was the most important I want the corner to think he was the most important because he was
[02:11:56] going to save everybody I wanted the snipers to think they were most important they were going to
[02:11:59] kill everybody I wanted the machine gunners to think they were the most important because they
[02:12:02] were going to lay down the fire and get us out so I was always a big supporter of all of them
[02:12:12] and you need them all because it's a team and and you get those people like oh this is more important
[02:12:17] or this sort you know my job is the best and you know as we were talking about Chris and then
[02:12:22] the kind of portrayal in America sniper as the sniper and you've got to have that entire
[02:12:26] element working together you've got to have those machine gunners you've got to have the
[02:12:29] corpsman you've got to have the radio man who's passing position and you know where it's telling
[02:12:35] telling friend these where you are so you can get help you know directing help in where you need it
[02:12:40] you know and telling where the enemy is I mean all that stuff is absolutely critical I think as a
[02:12:46] as far as of favor it's specialty I like to shoot I like combat shooting combat rifle
[02:12:52] pistol shooting has always been one of my favorite things to do I love that about the seal
[02:12:55] teams you know training and combat rifle pistol shooting it you know moving and and hitting different
[02:13:00] targets and shooting against steel targets and we go to these amazing ranges and it's super fun
[02:13:05] and that being said that's not my job and that is that's a real realization you have to come to
[02:13:14] as a leader is that my job is not to shoot and I got to be able to shoot because there are times
[02:13:18] when I'm on the only guy can do that and I've got to be able to eliminate threat and I've got to be
[02:13:24] able to do it accurately so I have to be able to do that just like everybody else but that's not
[02:13:29] my job and I really learned that in our advanced training you know after buds there's another six
[02:13:34] months of what we call steel qualification training and and one of my instructors you know as
[02:13:41] Joaquin I often say like failure is sometimes the the is the best teacher often the best teacher
[02:13:45] and I remember I was trying to shoot laid-down fire for my squad that we're under fire we're shooting
[02:13:51] and I was actually trying to look around and I got a safety violation for that for like trying
[02:13:56] to shoot rounds down range and trying to look around I was like guess what you can't do both
[02:14:01] and I was like Roger that I should have gotten to say to you Valice's dangerous you never want to pull
[02:14:05] the trigger in your weapon if you're not looking down your weapon control and where the
[02:14:08] sights are and it was exactly what it should you know what should have happened but it was really
[02:14:12] a sensation of me like I can't do both and why do I need to be shooting right now because
[02:14:16] there's like eight other guys in the squad that are laying down fire and there's nobody else that's
[02:14:22] looking around it's my job to high-port my weapon which means it's pulling at the sky and I
[02:14:27] got to be looking around take a step back off the line Joaquin talks about detach and look around
[02:14:33] so I'm making that call as Commander Control and if I'm not doing that nobody's doing it and so
[02:14:37] leaders have to have to always be reckoned you have to understand the specialties you have to
[02:14:42] understand how that stuff works what the capabilities and limitations of your guys are you know
[02:14:48] of the departments and the team of the of the the assets that you have within your team but you
[02:14:54] you don't you can't get sucked into the details you have to stand back and and and
[02:14:58] and high-port you weapon to attach yourself and be the command control to make those big strategic decisions.
[02:15:08] Next question how easy or difficult do you find it to delegate command and control?
[02:15:17] It's really hard.
[02:15:18] Until you are totally overwhelmed and guess what in combat you're going to be overwhelmed I mean you
[02:15:29] can't do it all and it's and so anything in life is like this and so when you know you know
[02:15:35] as a political commander I have got two junior officers who are my assistant with the commanders and
[02:15:39] they've they don't have the experience I have it's their first opponent and my job is to train those
[02:15:45] guys up and yet so I've got to give them responsibility and teach them how to be able to
[02:15:50] commander and empower them and train them and mentor them I'm sure it was incredibly difficult
[02:15:55] in fact I know it was incredibly up for Jaco who had a lot of experience done a lot of direct action
[02:16:01] capture kill missions you know in Iraq to let me be a political commander go out and plan and
[02:16:07] run that stuff but you have to do that and and so you have to train people we always talk about
[02:16:13] how leaders have to work themselves out of a job that's what they should be doing they have you
[02:16:16] have to do that so that you're training the people underneath you to grow and learn and take
[02:16:22] on greater responsibility so that you can constantly look up and out of them you can grow
[02:16:26] and learn and take on greater responsibility.
[02:16:29] Yeah we talked about that a little bit too great I'm a delegation like
[02:16:33] but in my case the creative field where if I'm going to have someone to take care of some stuff it's
[02:16:37] hard to trust them to do it even though it's just in your own head because you're used to doing it
[02:16:43] this certain way and you even see that person doing it different even in that one way you're like
[02:16:48] oh you get all you know uneasy about it but how you were talking about how you give them a certain
[02:16:54] type of mission just like a you know you focus on that result and they know why they're doing it
[02:16:59] here's what here's what I want you to go out there and do yeah go out there and do it and I can't
[02:17:03] really get concerned on how you go out there and do it because you know in Ramadhi's a perfect example
[02:17:09] you know life had his element that was going out but there was multiple other elements that
[02:17:13] were going out in different parts of the city all the time and so I couldn't get in the weeds
[02:17:18] on the waves so I couldn't get in the weeds on the other four or five element commanders that
[02:17:21] were going out at certain times I mean all at the same times often and so I had to absolutely
[02:17:28] let go of it and let these guys make it happen now the reason I was able to do that was
[02:17:35] because we had built up trust I had put those guys through the wringer I had micro managed them
[02:17:41] and and just been a total um I don't know how would you describe it I mean when we first started
[02:17:47] work up I was really in the weeds with them like hey you know you kept tight reins you kept tight
[02:17:52] reins out of the gates so look this is how this is how you need to do it I wasn't telling them what
[02:17:56] to do but I was kept pushing them okay look what you did here think about this moving this direction
[02:18:01] a little bit you can't do that right there and and it didn't take long where the guys like okay
[02:18:06] they know what the expectations are they learn and now I now I don't have to worry about them so
[02:18:11] now what can I worry about now I can start worried about decinflection now I can worry about
[02:18:14] what the strategy is and you know for for bigger operations obviously when we were doing battalion
[02:18:19] not battalion size operations obviously I could go out there and coordinate with the battalions
[02:18:24] and and sometimes go out just to go out and make see how these guys are operating but I couldn't
[02:18:30] go out to with five different guys that five different elements at the same time or even two
[02:18:34] different elements at the same time and so you had to you have to build the trust and have the
[02:18:40] confidence in your leadership and then give them the guidance the parameters the expectations
[02:18:50] the goals make sure that's very clear and then you can let them go and you can let them run
[02:18:55] and you can do your job and that's how we rolled and and Jocco actually I mean I I remember this
[02:19:02] well because I knew that he wanted to be out on the battlefield with us on every single operation
[02:19:07] I mean that's just where he would choose to be and yet he saw his place is listen I've got
[02:19:12] man as these other elements and I remember a couple of times when I was like Jocco why don't
[02:19:16] you want to come on this up with us like go on this type of watch with us and you were like no
[02:19:22] I can't do that and even though I knew he wanted to do it he knew he had to you know whether it was
[02:19:26] approval plans for the other guys that were across the city or other elements that were out there
[02:19:31] doing those things that he understood what his role was and realized that if he was out there with me
[02:19:35] even though it had been fun he'd been getting gunned fights and and that was exactly where
[02:19:38] he wanted to be that he wouldn't be able to provide that support to some of the other guys and what
[02:19:42] they were doing and so so he couldn't do that and so it was I know that was incredible for you
[02:19:47] and it was the reasons that Laf knows that is almost as soon as we got there
[02:19:53] I said hey Laf I'm going out in the field for a little while you're gonna be
[02:19:57] tasked commander and I left him back and went out the seal so awesome and yet it was one of those
[02:20:03] things and I'll tell you that was that was actually one of the reasons why I did realize I couldn't
[02:20:09] go out as much as I would want to because I had to maintain command and control so like I said
[02:20:17] if it was a big operation where there was multiple units involved obviously I'd go out
[02:20:23] sometimes I would go out just to go out because you have to you know I always talk about this you can't
[02:20:27] be so far back in the rear that you don't know what the guys were doing through you know so I got
[02:20:31] to just go out there just to go out go over the regular go on some operation to start go out into the
[02:20:36] the one MC and go see what it's like up there but the fact of the matter is I had to be in the
[02:20:43] position to command and control and I had to kind of learn that out of the gate when I left
[02:20:48] Laf back at camp we had some significant operations happen and he got you know he got caught in the
[02:20:55] firestorm and I you know I wasn't where I should have been so I had to type myself up a little bit
[02:21:01] had to be more judicious in the way in the timing that I rolled out because it is hard to delegate
[02:21:08] it's hard to delegate especially not only do you want to do it but there's an element of
[02:21:17] you know pushing your kid out out out out out of the nest for the first time and you feel like
[02:21:25] I want to be there and want to make sure that this goes good and not that I didn't trust these
[02:21:29] guys not that they weren't perfectly fine on their own but no matter what these are your
[02:21:34] bros these are your buddies and you want to be there to make sure to give them everything that you
[02:21:40] can and so that's another little element of it that makes an art but you have no choice
[02:21:47] cool next question how do you overcome the handcuffing boss a boss who isn't a leader and doesn't
[02:21:54] trust his employees and he's a credit hog I know a little something about this jacco the credit
[02:22:02] jacco the credit hog handcuffing us didn't trust us you know not true at all that jacco was
[02:22:10] the opposite of that but this is listen the answer is pretty easy and this is something that
[02:22:15] jacco taught me because I have a hard time with this like you know somebody that if I'm more
[02:22:20] I'm one of those hard hit of guys that you know once they've just go accomplish the mission
[02:22:25] default aggressive let's get it done and if someone's preventing me from doing that or asking
[02:22:29] you a question that I think is even tangential I'm furious and frustrated at buy that and
[02:22:35] jacco had to kind of tighten me up a few times on that as they listen throttle back and
[02:22:42] you know you got really what that is it's just about putting your ego and check if you put your
[02:22:46] ego and check and you make that boss look good who cares who gets the credit for it it's about
[02:22:54] the mission and whether or not you're accomplished the mission and guess what if you go out and
[02:22:58] accomplish the mission the guy who's in charge is going to get the credit for regardless right so
[02:23:03] that's okay and you can't worry about that and there's the more you accomplish that mission
[02:23:08] the the credibility will be shared the the truth will be seen and and you're going to get you
[02:23:14] will read the rewards your team will read the rewards from that regardless of whether it's the
[02:23:19] overbearing boss are not who's trying to be the credit hog and so you just can't worry about
[02:23:23] that you have to put your ego and check you got to make your boss a good and you got to accomplish
[02:23:28] the mission the hand-cuffing boss the way you overcome the hand-cuffing boss is by building
[02:23:37] a relationship with them and I'll probably end up saying this on every podcast
[02:23:41] hmm I had the same relationship with every boss I ever had whether they were
[02:23:47] psychopathic micromanagers or whether they were tactical genius
[02:23:52] las a fair leaders I had the same relationship with all of them which was they trusted me
[02:23:57] they knew I was going to get the job done and they gave me what I needed that's what you're
[02:24:01] trying to accomplish and some people as life just pointed out you have to work harder to achieve that
[02:24:08] some people are less trusting some people are more more paranoid you're going to end up having to
[02:24:14] figure out these other human beings and that's what is hard about leadership especially up the
[02:24:20] chain of command so you've got to figure out this puzzle of a human being and you've got to
[02:24:24] get towards that strategic goal which is building a relationship of trust and once you have that
[02:24:31] the cuffs are going to get unlocked now the other piece the credit hog that
[02:24:39] life just talked about clearly clearly if you are saying to yourself he's taking all the credit and
[02:24:48] I'm not getting mine that's the red flag that's the alert saying hey brother your ego is calling
[02:24:58] you need to put it in check you like life said you want to make your boss look good there's nothing
[02:25:03] you can do better to build trust with your boss than make him look good and give him all the credit
[02:25:08] he's going to let you run those handcuffs are going to get a little looser every time you do that
[02:25:13] never cared about who got credit are you kidding me are you kidding me we're going to put that
[02:25:18] ahead of accomplishing the mission that we're here to a call to we're here to do no the credit doesn't
[02:25:23] matter give the credit your boss deliver it to your boss on a platter on a silver platter
[02:25:29] bringing that credit and walk away from it and say I'm going to go get you some more and those
[02:25:33] cuffs are going to come off make it happen just next question what do you do where you know
[02:25:43] in order is bad but if you don't fall in line the punishment will be terrible jacca you talked about this
[02:25:50] when you were reading the maximum Napoleon and I think the quote was something like every
[02:25:56] general and chief who in consequence of orders from his appears gives battle with a certain
[02:26:01] of defeat of his army's ruin is culpable and I think that's exactly true and what that really
[02:26:09] it means is extreme ownership you own it regardless and so you know in a military you've got the
[02:26:14] uniform code of mist military justice which is the the legal framework that the military
[02:26:21] falls underneath our laws our military justice system and you're you're obligated to not
[02:26:29] follow a illegal order so if someone gives you an order to go execute prisoners or do something
[02:26:35] that you shouldn't do you actually are legally obligated to not follow that and that following orders
[02:26:42] like you know whether you're it didn't work in Nuremberg right for the SS guard to set people to
[02:26:48] their death to say always just following orders it's not that is not a defense so you have to
[02:26:52] it's on you it's it's your responsibility and certainly under our own use to MJ it's it's on you
[02:26:59] and I think in those kind of situations you you have to own that if it's truly bad if it's truly
[02:27:04] catastrophic you have to be willing to take the punishment you want to punish me for that okay
[02:27:09] cool you want to fire me why I'm not going to do that because I'm going to sleep better at
[02:27:13] night knowing that I made the right decision I'm not going to go down this path that leads to
[02:27:17] you know the destruction of our team that puts people in harm's way that puts you know that
[02:27:21] causes people to do something that's unsafe and puts them in jeopardy and and you got to be
[02:27:26] able to stare yourself with the mirror and that's most important oh you want to fire me for that okay
[02:27:30] go I'll take that now some people you have to understand that you got to prioritize and there
[02:27:36] are those people that are like over the top everything is like you're telling me to do this and
[02:27:41] I don't agree with it and it's really not that big of a deal and one example I thought of
[02:27:47] people are shocked to hear about what it's like going to war in today's world the administrative
[02:27:54] requirements that are on you the massive amount of paperwork that we had to do just to get a
[02:27:58] approval for an operation all the things that we had to do better required on us and we're in the
[02:28:04] middle of a war and guess what we bitched and cried about that all the time no one more than me
[02:28:09] and jocke was probably sick and tired of hearing me about that and one of the things he sat right away
[02:28:13] was hey guess what all these admin requirements they're putting on us even though we're in the
[02:28:16] middle of a training right now they're asking us for this paperwork we're going to do them we're
[02:28:20] going to do them all all of them yeah and one of the reasons that I did that was because I did not
[02:28:26] want higher headquarters to have anything to hold over me at all and further more guess what I was
[02:28:32] doing I was building up myself a little relationship with the boss man because oh you want
[02:28:38] admin stuff done no problem don't even worry about it we're going to build it up that's what we're
[02:28:43] going to do and then there were times where the paperwork did cross the line and one of those situations
[02:28:52] that we ran into was not really a paperwork situation but they had they wanted us to work with
[02:29:00] Iraqi soldiers and talk about this before it's in the book the Iraqi soldiers are very unreliable
[02:29:07] unmotivated can be disloyal don't have good training don't speak the same language as us don't have
[02:29:12] good equipment I mean it's just a laundry list of reasons why you don't want to put your guys
[02:29:17] lives in their hands well in Ramadi the fighting was horrible in 2006 in other areas of Iraq the
[02:29:25] fighting had actually settled down well the command above us wanted us to work with Iraqi soldiers they
[02:29:32] wanted all the special operations people to work with Iraqi soldiers so they actually and and the
[02:29:37] all of the special operations people mostly were resistant to this and so everyone would kind of
[02:29:43] skate by and figure out how to not do it I'm going to take I'm going to take a 25 man element of
[02:29:48] US special operators and we'll take three Iraqis with us just to just to kind of check them off right
[02:29:54] and you could see why they were doing this you know why because it's safer it's it's a way they're
[02:29:58] okay we're doing what you said and they were actually using the term Iraqi face we're going to put
[02:30:02] an Iraqi face on this mission which to them literally meant one face in subcases so we get told this
[02:30:08] as well and if you you know if you read the book we'll talk we talk about the fact that yeah we were
[02:30:14] definitely not pro taking Iraqis but we realized that if we didn't do that if we didn't get the
[02:30:20] Iraqis out there fighting they were never going to learn how to fight and we were never
[02:30:24] able to leave Iraq so we knew that something we had to do but then they went one step further
[02:30:30] and they set up a ratio and I know this sounds crazy they set up a ratio and they said I think
[02:30:35] it was for every one American soldier you have to have five Iraqi soldiers with you it was
[02:30:40] some ratio like that some number and if you were out in some part of central Iraq outside of a
[02:30:49] small town and you were doing some kind of a simple mission you could get away with that all day long
[02:30:54] in Romadi wasn't happened that would have meant I would have been sending three or four seals
[02:31:00] out with twenty something Iraqis and that means if there's a firefight you got three guys that are
[02:31:06] alive both once you'll get hit who else is going to handle things it's a nightmare and so this order
[02:31:12] came down and I just ran up the chain of commands said we can't do that and we're not going to do
[02:31:19] that here is what we're taking we'll take as many Iraqis as appropriate but this is the minimum
[02:31:25] force we're going to have every operation that we go on and so we set that standard and of course
[02:31:30] and this is something I talk about a lot as well it was a sensible argument it made sense there
[02:31:38] was obviously casualties on a regular basis in the Romadi there were fire fights every single day
[02:31:43] the buttoon out in correct or their first twenty four missions in a row they got in a firefight
[02:31:48] twenty four missions in a row they got in a firefight then they had one day where they didn't
[02:31:51] and then the next day they did it again for another how were many missions so there were fire fights
[02:31:55] happening on every mission so for us to be like okay yeah we'll just bring three seals and 15 Iraqi
[02:32:01] soldiers it's a nightmare we're all going to get killed if we do that but one of the reasons that
[02:32:06] that we were able to do that the jacco was able to get approval for that is because
[02:32:10] all the little stuff that all you know other people it's like oh we don't want to do this
[02:32:14] paperwork that's too much and they complain we had done that we had done those little things
[02:32:19] yeah it's a pain for us yet do I want to do that of course not I'd rather be trying to do
[02:32:22] another stuff but we're going to do it and so because jacco had had set that standard and we
[02:32:27] made it happen then when we really push back for the stuff that really mattered which is what I was
[02:32:31] talking about you got to prioritize an execute prioritize the stuff that really matters we were able
[02:32:36] to get that approval guess what they didn't want to go out and get killed so is what we explained
[02:32:40] it up the chain of like listen if we do that we're going to we're going to get a lot of guys
[02:32:44] killed by doing that and I talk about this often the fact that leadership is aligned to the front
[02:32:52] troops and if not then there's something drastic wrong but of course my boss is wanted me to
[02:32:58] keep my guys safe and kill back guys and when the war of course they did it in an
[02:33:01] in businesses of course the boss wants you to be profitable and keep your troops happy but be
[02:33:08] profitable be ethical right that those are standard things and those are going to be aligned so if you
[02:33:14] send up an idea up the chain of commander you get told to do something and you don't do it because
[02:33:18] it's not going to help you be profitable why would your boss disagree with that it's not going to
[02:33:23] happen so you have to have the the wherewithal to actually know when to say no and on the moral
[02:33:33] and ethical things that Dave talked about those are clear cut those are clear cut if you're
[02:33:39] getting told to do something that's illegal or ill moral then it is your duty and responsibility
[02:33:45] to disobey that order and that's the way it is all right last question my team has missed our last
[02:34:02] two deadlines I want to take ownership but I'm not sure how it's not what you preach it's what you
[02:34:15] tolerate and look you have to you have to be effective we talk about there's two there's only
[02:34:22] two measures that really that matter and that's effective and ineffective are you effective or
[02:34:28] you accomplish in the mission and if you are figure out a way to become even more effective
[02:34:34] if you're ineffective you're not accomplish in the mission then you got to figure it out you
[02:34:38] got to take ownership of that you got to solve that problem so if your team is getting the job done
[02:34:46] you can't tolerate less than that you have as a leader you have to drive those standards
[02:34:53] I learned pretty early on that in the seal teams there's some strong personalities there
[02:35:01] which is awesome that's one of the great things about the seal teams and there's always this tension
[02:35:06] between people have there my we should do it this way we should do it this way we should train this
[02:35:13] heart we should focus here there and and that's also be have some incredibly talented great
[02:35:19] guys as we've just talked about but as a leader you have got to maintain the standards and
[02:35:29] there's some there are standards that just cannot be compromised you've got to push hard you've
[02:35:38] got to drive that performance you got to set the tone for that and if you don't do that no one's
[02:35:43] going to do it so it's not what you preach it's not the words that you say it's not
[02:35:51] the email that you sent it's not the banner that you created to put on the wall or the power
[02:35:56] point slides that you built it's actually what you tolerate it's the performance that you see and if it's
[02:36:03] substandard you got to push again and you get to push again you get to set that bar high
[02:36:10] now that being said you can't drive your team in the ground you have to lead them
[02:36:16] you can't be a slave driver you can't destroy your team you can't be overbearing
[02:36:21] but for that those things that really matter pushing performance to the next level you have
[02:36:27] got to set that standard and I think that's what makes truly the best military units the best
[02:36:34] teams out there great it's now what you preach it's what you tolerate and with that one thing I
[02:36:48] like to think about when when I hear about standards and what you're going to tolerate
[02:36:59] don't just think about your team you got to think about yourself you got to think about raising
[02:37:08] the bar on yourself you got to think about what you're going to tolerate from yourself
[02:37:14] and how you can raise that bar and raise that standard and get better with everything you do
[02:37:25] and thereby lead by example so that your team becomes the example
[02:37:34] and with that I think will close it out that was a long haul on the podcast
[02:37:52] I wanted to say thanks to everybody that's been tuning in and listening to the podcast
[02:37:58] it's been amazing getting all the feedback thanks obviously to my brother here
[02:38:06] Lave Babin for coming on I know he'll be on again if anybody out there wants to continue
[02:38:15] these conversations out there on the interwebs you connect with us on Twitter I'm at
[02:38:25] Jockel Willink Lave is at Lave Babin and of course as you know echo Charles is at echo Charles
[02:38:38] thanks for leaving reviews of the podcast and of the book on iTunes and Amazon that is very helpful
[02:38:46] to us so we know how we're doing and most of all for everyone that's out there in your little
[02:38:58] chunk of the world listening to our little chunk of the world thanks for getting out there
[02:39:08] and for getting after it and so until next time
[02:39:15] this is Jockel Lave and echo out