Jocko Podcast 292 w/ Admiral Joe Maguire: The Secret to Life is DON'T QUIT.

2021-07-30T07:21:53Z

Underground Premium Content: https://www.jockounderground.com/subscribe Join the conversation on Twitter/Instagram: @jockowillink @echocharles 0:00:00 - Opening 0:05:34 - Admiral Joe Maguire 2:28:12 - How to stay on THE PATH. 2:50:50 - Closing Gratitude.

AI summary of episode

It was my strike zone, uh, but then when the president asked me to come to the director of National Intelligence, not necessarily my strikes on him there, but I will tell you, uh, to, to start off, uh, and have a rubble boat in your head, uh, and then years later, you know, you're sitting there as the president's intelligence officer, uh, at the National Security Council, and even, you know, I had an interesting time there, I'm sure you know that I, I had a testimony, uh, there for three and a half hours, uh, the House, uh, the Senate Committee on Intelligence, uh, had had to do with the whistleblower complaint, but right, you know, for three and a half hours, you're on camera, and you've got some, you know, very, very bright and, uh, talented people asking you some demanding questions, but it was a, the very first time that I was really, really happy that I went to high risk here, and I'm just doing deterioration techniques. And, um, you know, I believe in a life of service, and, um, uh, and as far as a leader is concerned, you know, you've got to be a, you know, a leader who sacrifices, uh, you know, and when I was asked to come back in the government, it wasn't on my scope at all, but I came back in and, uh, you know, wound up being the director of the National Counter-Tourism Center, which I was very comfortable in that. Finalty, what you did with when you were in uniform, but, uh, you know, what you have accomplished is for as just not only personally, but the way you've been offered to give back with your leadership, and, uh, what you're sharing with the world, whether you're Brooks, your podcast, and there's so many people that I know that listen to this podcast, read your books and really learn a great deal about leadership, and, um, you know, folks, I tell you, uh, when people ask me, do I know what I'm, I do, as either, you know, as you, as you, as you, as you, as you real deal, he's the real deal. So, uh, Chuck's a tall guy, and I was able to get on Chuck shoulders, and jump up to the top, and then, you know, he handed me, you know, my droger, his droger, and then I was able to, you know, pull him up, and that the tool was just, you know, lying there, that we rolled over to the other side, and it just kind of dropped down, uh, with, with all of our toys, and just laid there for about 10 minutes to see, and, you know, nope, I mean, they had flares going off, and other things there. Well, I'll tell you what, it was wonderful, you know, between you and, you know, in beef treshler, you know, you know, folks out there, you know, you've got a good idea what Jaco looks like I'm sure, but beef used to be the center for Navy. But, you know, when you know, you know, you know, you know, no full well, this war, it was personal to you and me and to many of us. So, you know, we had some structures there and what I just thought we needed to do, you know, I'm not too into this as you know, Jaco, but I'd say, you know, I kind of have to drive a little bit of fear into these guys, just to mean you in a little bit too relaxed. Um, no, I've made that, uh, it was, because I, I will tell you this, though, Chaco, there, um, not only was I represented the, the entire United States and the United States and Telegis community, but having spent 36 years in our community, you know, I really feel like, you know, here I am, I know I'm on national TV, and it's going to be a, uh, a pretty important hearing, which probably would lead to what it did. You know, but I'll tell you this though, Jaco when I went to, you know, Buds and they, you know, folks out there, I'm sure you know this from listening to Jaco's podcast. And I mean, it's just, so as I'm going to the captain comes, and you know, to wish me well, and he can say a couple of things, you know, you know, target bears, one, three, zero, and so good luck, and good hunting. And it was, we did it the hard way, but we did it just, the tremendous satisfaction you get from being a seal, and being able to do a really hard mission, and, you know, even in my fitness report, you know, when that, you know, Rick, when I'd brought it there, they're very few people, if any, in the world, that could do with what these guys did, the sex-assize. You know, it took a basketball ball, he ball hocks, but you know, who really, but even if I was in UD-T, my LPO and my chiefs, who were Seal Team 2 guys, that's how I met Rudy, and Rudy and his wife, then mentored, Kathy and me, until we were close friends, until he, you know, started suffering from Alzheimer's disease. And, you know, now Marcus was good, but you've got a guy who, you know, these guys look like Pixies going over this darn thing. Yeah, well, well, just before I got the job, we was at the White House Chief of Staff, Mick Mowaney did the vetting, uh, and, uh, you know, Mick told me, said, you know, I've talked to everybody, especially everybody in the special operations community. But, you know, when it came to what we were doing and you know, been gasi and all these other places, you know, I mean, we had built target folders for full and that stuff. But to me, it just went hand in glove with being a SEAL that you know what to ask for, that we didn't really know what the menu was, because you didn't know. But, um, you know, to me, you know, several years later, as you know, we're christening a navy land attack cruise or up in Beth Maine. And I said, well, I don't know, but I know someone that does know. Well, I tell you what, you know, you know, people ask, well, you know, where did you honeymoon? And, you know, you know, you know, you're the instructors, watch this stuff. And then they're like, man, like I like jiu-jitsu, but I don't know if I'm down for these, you know, this hell week maybe seal 30% of the people that are there will have less experience in jiu-jitsu than you. And then, you know, be in charge of a UD-T-Platue, you know, back then was, you know, 25 men. Superfish, you know, whether it be palatable, you know, just that easy, that easy win, you know, tactical. and then I come out, think I come out and you know, look at me like, Mr. McWire, you gotta do something about this, you know? And you know what I got by the time I got to, you know, Buds Class in 93. But, you know, you know, the folks who are out there, the instructors, are the ones that really, they are the gatekeepers for who's going to wind up going to a seal team. But my father being a current owner, my other was just said, like, you know, that's just, I mean, you know, you were listed man yourself. And also figured, well, you know, Joe, General Mattis, the Secretary Mattis came back into government, and Joe's been there for 39 years, and, you know, I just said to them, well, if you guys do take a one for the team, I'll give it a go. And so, you know, about the time I got to work, you know, everybody's Jubilon. And we're out there, and, you know, now, you're five miles off the coast, and you're in the water, and you're looking, and, you know, you've got your little bends compass And the other thing is, well, more importantly, as you know this, Jaco, it doesn't matter what you got in your collar, it doesn't matter who you know in relationships. And so, you know, not a good time when, you know, the senior instructors and the doctor and the master chief come to talk to you about. You know, no, I've got a gun, you know, it's supposed to be a compromise, right? I know we probably could talk for another few hours, and I know that you got to go. And you know, the Kamaloo Channet, these guys, Lutenets, and I said the pilot command, you know, me, well, I'm strapped to the body board. You can watch all of Buds and, you know, guys know what the schedule's going to be and all that. So I had, I had an officer rank, I was a member of the faculty club, and it was just great to be able to have my mother, take my mother to the faculty club, and just tell her, you know, even C students can make it to the Harvard faculty club, you know, but it was really great because it was small seminars, focused on what I was up there really to do as advanced research in national security. But you know, he said to me, he said, well, you know, can I stay in? You know, we got, you know, he's blind. We came back, and then, and then the report, I got back from, from my Patoon Commander was that, you know, the, the, the, and Fabius ready group commander said, I thought these guys went in there during the night, and the, and the Patoon Commander said, they did go in there night. And, you know, I had saw you light us and just that said, I mean, so and that was inappropriate that, you know, we had to do that. And you get to know these people and you stay close to them, you know, for a long, long period of time. You know, because everybody's record, you know, when they're up for flag, just about every one of those captains, they're records of like manicured lawns.

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Episode transcript

[00:00:00] This is Jockelpontcast number 292.
[00:00:03] With echo Charles and me, Jockel Willing.
[00:00:05] Good evening, echo.
[00:00:06] Good evening.
[00:00:10] August 2nd 2006 was the worst day of my life.
[00:00:19] Ryan Joe Bedbin, gravely wounded by a single enemy round
[00:00:24] that hit his weapon as he looked down.
[00:00:27] It's sights and then ripped into his face,
[00:00:30] rendering him blind and critically injured.
[00:00:35] And then soon after, Ryan was wounded,
[00:00:39] markedly who had stepped into the enemy line of fire
[00:00:45] to engage the enemy and protect his teammates while assaulting
[00:00:50] a building was shot killed.
[00:00:53] Mark was a larger than life character in every aspect.
[00:01:01] Smart athletic charismatic charming talented, tough,
[00:01:09] and also hilarious and faithful and loyal and obviously brave.
[00:01:16] Now he was gone.
[00:01:21] And in tasking a bruiser, we closed ranks to get through it.
[00:01:31] We celebrated his life.
[00:01:34] We mourned his loss.
[00:01:37] And then we loaded him on his last flight home.
[00:01:43] His angel flight.
[00:01:45] And we got support from our chain of command from my commanding officer.
[00:01:53] That's the old team three are command master chief, the operations master chief.
[00:01:57] And the rest of the sealed team three backed us up and assisted us
[00:02:02] as we worked through this devastation.
[00:02:08] But it didn't stop there.
[00:02:10] I got a call in my tactical operations center.
[00:02:15] It was from Admiral Joe Maguire, the senior seal officer in charge of all of Naval Special Warfare.
[00:02:26] In charge of the sealed teams, in charge of the boat teams, in charge of the training center,
[00:02:30] and charge of everything.
[00:02:32] And I had previously worked for him directly for 13 months as his aide
[00:02:39] to camp and I knew how busy he was.
[00:02:42] And I knew what his daily schedule was like.
[00:02:44] And I knew the demands that were upon him.
[00:02:48] But I also knew that he cared.
[00:02:52] He cared deeply about the seal teams.
[00:02:54] He cared about his seals.
[00:02:59] And he cared about me.
[00:03:02] And he called to check in with me.
[00:03:06] And he called.
[00:03:10] He told me that he was reviewing the silver star that I had submitted for Mark.
[00:03:16] That he was about to send it directly to the chief of Naval Operations for a signature based on my recommendation.
[00:03:27] He told me that he was sorry for our loss.
[00:03:32] And he assured me that he would take care of Mark's family.
[00:03:42] He also told me that we were doing the right thing.
[00:03:46] And to keep doing it.
[00:03:48] To keep taking the fight to the enemy.
[00:03:50] To keep eliminating enemy fighters.
[00:03:52] To keep protecting the local populace.
[00:03:54] To keep the pressure on.
[00:03:58] Because the war wasn't over.
[00:04:02] And the enemy wasn't going to stand down.
[00:04:05] We still had work to do.
[00:04:09] Lots of it.
[00:04:12] And he knew that.
[00:04:15] And so did I.
[00:04:18] And that meant a lot.
[00:04:21] To know that the Admiral in charge of all the seals was there for us.
[00:04:27] Was there for Mark.
[00:04:30] Was there for Mark's family.
[00:04:38] About three months later.
[00:04:41] October 21st, 2006.
[00:04:44] My plane landed at Naval Air Station, North Island, with the last members of Task Unit Bruser to come home.
[00:04:55] And Admiral Maguire was there.
[00:05:00] To welcome the home.
[00:05:03] To be sure that we were okay.
[00:05:07] Because he cared about his seals.
[00:05:11] He cared about his troops.
[00:05:15] Then that meant a lot.
[00:05:17] And soon I was hugging my wife and kids on the tarmac.
[00:05:24] But even as I embraced my family.
[00:05:31] I knew I hadn't brought all my men home.
[00:05:36] And that burden will always be present.
[00:05:43] But it helped to know that leaders like Admiral Maguire were there.
[00:05:49] To help shoulder that burden to support us and to take care of the families of our fallen.
[00:06:00] And it's an honor.
[00:06:02] Tonight to have Admiral Joseph Maguire.
[00:06:05] Here with us to share some of his experiences.
[00:06:09] And lessons learned from his 36 years of military service.
[00:06:15] And his experiences in the civilian sector.
[00:06:19] Admiral, thank you for coming by.
[00:06:22] Jaco, it's an honor to be with you.
[00:06:24] I really is.
[00:06:25] Which has been entirely too long since you and I've been together.
[00:06:28] We've been through an awful lot together.
[00:06:30] It's an honor to be with you and an absolute honor to be with you on this podcast.
[00:06:33] So thank you so much for those kind words.
[00:06:35] And thank you for the warm welcome.
[00:06:37] Well, I'm sure we'll get into that a little bit more.
[00:06:40] But to start off with.
[00:06:42] Let's start at the beginning, which I believe is in Brooklyn.
[00:06:47] That's where you're born, right?
[00:06:48] You got a problem with that?
[00:06:50] No, Jaco forget about it.
[00:06:52] That's why I'm from.
[00:06:54] Yeah, you know, America's fourth largest city, four million people.
[00:06:57] And it was a street rat, you know, grew up in New York City.
[00:07:01] And, you know, people don't understand that actually Brooklyn is on Long Island.
[00:07:08] So I spent my time in the ocean.
[00:07:12] I started surfing when I was 16 with the money that I bought my first surfboard with the money I got from shoveling snow.
[00:07:18] That's pretty wetsuits or at least pretty good wetsuits.
[00:07:22] Well, I very loose.
[00:07:24] You know, but I'll tell you this though, Jaco when I went to, you know, Buds and they, you know, folks out there, I'm sure you know this from listening to Jaco's podcast.
[00:07:32] But, you know, when I did, you show up, they shave your head completely bald.
[00:07:36] And when I had my head shaved by the instructors, we'll have a sit and they will call the knee shot a rover to take a look at my skull because it's clearly a city kid.
[00:07:46] I had three concussions, but, yeah, no.
[00:07:50] But between growing up in Brooklyn and going to Catholic school, the seal instructors were, you know, he's absolutely melted to do it.
[00:07:58] But yeah, what would your parents do?
[00:08:00] Well, my dad was a World War II veteran and what he, what he doing, he was, he was a veteran.
[00:08:04] He was a military police.
[00:08:07] So my father was in Patin's third army, which till the day he died was the proudest thing he ever did in his life.
[00:08:15] And, but, you know, war was different back then that my father was there, but, I mean, everybody was there.
[00:08:24] My uncles were there, flight surgeons, and they went toward together.
[00:08:29] And he spent about, he actually joined the army in 1940 before the war started.
[00:08:37] And came home from Europe after being deployed for four years and in, in, in, in, in, in the July and married my mother, we're going to have later.
[00:08:48] They've been engaged.
[00:08:51] And on the 15th of August, he was shipping out to the Pacific for the invasion of Japan.
[00:08:58] And, you know, so fortunately, he didn't have to go and do that.
[00:09:03] Well, my father then joined the reserves after that and he spent 30 years in the United States military.
[00:09:10] And my brother Ben spent 26 years in the Navy as a supplier, core officer.
[00:09:15] He retired.
[00:09:16] And my other brother, Bob was an elistic guy for, for six years as well.
[00:09:20] And when I took my uniform off in July of 2010, it was the first time in 70 years.
[00:09:27] That immediate member of my family was not wearing the cloth of the nation.
[00:09:31] So, then I could say we haven't went them all, but the McGuire's were integral in winning the Cold War.
[00:09:38] There's absolutely no doubt about that.
[00:09:40] So, you're going up to high school.
[00:09:43] What did you play any other sports besides surfing?
[00:09:45] No, I swim.
[00:09:46] Yeah, no, I was a swimmer.
[00:09:48] And it's one of those things.
[00:09:50] Not so much in high school, but I would say, if it wasn't for swimming, I never would have gotten a bachelor's degree.
[00:09:56] So, the season would go in the fall into the winter.
[00:10:02] And I would be on the Dean's list while I was swimming in discipline.
[00:10:07] You know, we're about discipline.
[00:10:09] You teach you the whole time.
[00:10:10] But once this will be season, took a lap, so did I.
[00:10:13] And I just kind of got by and this brings some of us there.
[00:10:16] But, no, I spent, I swam for, you know, my college.
[00:10:20] I was the captain of the college team.
[00:10:22] And I also swam for the New York Athletic Club.
[00:10:24] And, uh, be honest with you, I thought, like most New Yorkers,
[00:10:28] that I was going to just live and die in New York City.
[00:10:32] So, be in a member of the New York Athletic Club.
[00:10:35] We will all on scholarship and the New York Athletic Club.
[00:10:38] They just took the top swimmers from all of the colleges and put us together after the college season.
[00:10:45] And back then it was a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a.
[00:10:47] And we have a swimming practice at the New York Athletic Club.
[00:10:50] We'd have to go and coat and tie to practice.
[00:10:53] But it was right next to Central Park South.
[00:10:56] But we had a stipend credit card for X amount of dollars a month.
[00:11:01] So after swimming practice, we went down to the bar.
[00:11:05] So to refuel.
[00:11:08] Oh, it is. So, so the, so the, over the course of a couple of years for the New York Athletic Club and graduating from college and there are a couple of businessmen that I knew there.
[00:11:17] And they said, sure, we want to take you to dinner.
[00:11:20] Okay. So we're in dinner in one of the stakeholders in Manhattan.
[00:11:24] And, you know, my friend made the pitch.
[00:11:28] He said, we want you to come into the advertising firm.
[00:11:31] Well, you know, guys, I'm not even a business major.
[00:11:34] So what is it that you want me to do?
[00:11:36] Joe, all we want you to do is entertain the clients.
[00:11:41] We're in the future of the business. I could do that, man.
[00:11:44] So, you know, I'm getting ready to be a man.
[00:11:47] And I'm going to the Madison Avenue. My brother is what year is this?
[00:11:51] This is 1974.
[00:11:53] So, so when, when you're grown up, I mean Vietnam is going on.
[00:11:57] I brought my brother, my brother's served Vietnam.
[00:12:00] Yeah, both my brothers.
[00:12:03] And obviously, you know, I've had to make that decision.
[00:12:07] Either graduate from college or, you know, go into Vietnam as an listed guy.
[00:12:11] But my father being a current owner, my other was just said, like, you know, that's just, I mean, you know, you were listed man yourself.
[00:12:16] That's the hardest part.
[00:12:18] But in Vietnam is the NCOs that are the military and is the NCOs that do the fighting and dying.
[00:12:23] But my father encouraged me to finish college and then go, if you, if you really want to go into the service, you know, then go in with your college degree.
[00:12:31] So I graduated in 1974, but the war was was over by then.
[00:12:36] And so my brother, from my father, I heard that I was going to go into Madison Avenue.
[00:12:43] So he was stationed here in San Diego on the USS Ranger and flew to New York City and arranged for an officer candidate school test for me.
[00:12:54] And I did not participate in this decision.
[00:12:57] So I was sitting at the kitchen table and my father goes, Ben, what do you want to tell your brother?
[00:13:04] You're going to take the test for officer candidate school tomorrow.
[00:13:08] He's five years old. My father looked at me. Okay, you know.
[00:13:13] So I mean, so I went down there. Now keep in mind, I'm swimming.
[00:13:18] I got paired down to my shoulders back then. It's all bleach blonde from the chlorine.
[00:13:23] So I go down and I take the test, which I like the SATs.
[00:13:28] And I'm very deliberate, actually slow.
[00:13:31] There were a lot of big words that I had to sound out the test, you know.
[00:13:35] And so you turn the paper in and they grade the paper and debrief the individual based on.
[00:13:42] And I was one of the very last ones to finish.
[00:13:45] And it was a crummy office there in Manhattan was downtown Manhattan right by city hall.
[00:13:50] And only had was a little crummy office dividers that you know, like 18 inches below and it only goes up about four and a half feet.
[00:13:57] And they got folding chairs at the other side and you can hear everything on the other side.
[00:14:02] So they're bringing them in and Guy sits down. He says, well, you know, Mr. Smith, you could take the test again next year.
[00:14:08] Oh, gee, Mr. Brown, you could take the test again. So nobody was passed to the test.
[00:14:13] So I'm there. I said to my brother, I don't think I'd passed. You said, well, we'll see.
[00:14:17] So I go in and I sit down and the recruit is go, so Joe, you want to join the Navy?
[00:14:23] No, man. I just took his hands off.
[00:14:28] My brother smacks me in the head.
[00:14:31] You're going to join the Navy? Okay.
[00:14:36] And they recruited a looking at me like, what do you want to do?
[00:14:39] My brother was a supply co-rocessor. He wants to be a supply co-rocessor.
[00:14:44] So yeah, that's what I wanted to do.
[00:14:49] So look at the score and I look at my brother. This is my brother's proudest moment.
[00:14:54] They got a little brother to score high enough.
[00:14:57] You can't be as a supply co-rocessor.
[00:15:01] And I said, well, what do you want to do? I mean, this is only about 15 hours.
[00:15:05] So I got the wheels turned in.
[00:15:07] And now back then, we were doing the Apollo recovery.
[00:15:11] And the astronauts would land in the water.
[00:15:17] And sometimes the recovery carrier wasn't there.
[00:15:19] They had, so they had these B-roll human interest stories.
[00:15:22] So recently, there was a human interest story about the recovery.
[00:15:26] And there were two seals, you know, who were on the Olympic team.
[00:15:31] Now, I was not on the Olympic team, not at that caliber.
[00:15:34] But because they were, I knew of them.
[00:15:36] And one was in COT-1 and one was in UD-T-13.
[00:15:39] And they did a human interest story on the seals.
[00:15:44] And now keep in mind, Jaco.
[00:15:46] This is 1974.
[00:15:48] We have less than 800 people in the community.
[00:15:51] Nobody knows what it is.
[00:15:53] And they said, so what do you want to do?
[00:15:56] You don't want to do?
[00:15:57] I want to be a UD-T as a seal-t.
[00:15:59] Give them a hard look, right?
[00:16:03] So the children, I mean, they just look at like,
[00:16:06] these guys were aviators and surface warfare guys.
[00:16:09] So they just turned in my brother.
[00:16:11] This will be back.
[00:16:13] So now, they went back for about 10 minutes.
[00:16:15] It was probably like, you know, buying a car.
[00:16:17] Where I got to go talk to my manager.
[00:16:19] They come back 10 minutes later.
[00:16:21] They talked to my brother.
[00:16:23] And I mean, well, my brother has to sat down.
[00:16:25] He's still standing over me.
[00:16:26] And I'm sitting in the chair because I was told this.
[00:16:29] And they talked to my brothers first and they turned to me.
[00:16:32] They say, well, sorry, Joe, but there's no commission officers in UD-T-T-A-C-L-T.
[00:16:37] And I was perceived at the time.
[00:16:39] That's BS, but I didn't say BS, right?
[00:16:42] And of course, my brothers max being the head again.
[00:16:45] And because Joe, they would lie to you.
[00:16:47] Now here I'm a civilian.
[00:16:48] I'm turning my brother.
[00:16:49] I go, they're recruiters.
[00:16:50] That's what they do.
[00:16:52] And they were lying.
[00:16:53] I went to me as you know.
[00:16:55] So I wound up going to surface warfare to the USS Coronado.
[00:17:00] And I spent time on that to become a surface warfare officer before.
[00:17:04] I got to Coronado, California to become a seal.
[00:17:07] And I will tell you this, that the demanding life on board ship.
[00:17:13] By the time I got to budget training, I thought that was good news.
[00:17:17] And with guys who are quitting, I just put my arm around them and give them the counseling session.
[00:17:22] It's just like, you don't know what it's like.
[00:17:25] Look, we got a mini mark down the street.
[00:17:28] Life is good.
[00:17:29] Did you have to go to Osirch Godo, yes?
[00:17:31] I did.
[00:17:32] Is that what you did?
[00:17:33] I did.
[00:17:34] How was that shock and awe experience?
[00:17:36] Well, you realize like in the first couple of days that you've been duped.
[00:17:41] It's five o'clock in the morning and then wake in the up.
[00:17:45] And you got to be outside in five minutes and you PT gear PT.
[00:17:48] Come on.
[00:17:49] You know?
[00:17:50] Yeah.
[00:17:51] So that was a great experience actually.
[00:17:54] And it was the beginning.
[00:17:57] It was a tremendous maturation start for me.
[00:18:00] Taxi, join the military.
[00:18:01] Go to OCS.
[00:18:03] Have drill instructors teaching you.
[00:18:06] They had expectations.
[00:18:07] They had standards.
[00:18:09] And then also, you were measured and you had to live up to something.
[00:18:13] And really it was transformational for me.
[00:18:18] And I wound up doing pretty well in OCS.
[00:18:24] And did well on board the ship.
[00:18:27] And you know what I got by the time I got to, you know,
[00:18:29] Buds Class in 93.
[00:18:31] We was a usual bit.
[00:18:33] You know, we started off with 147 guys in the class.
[00:18:36] And finished with 17.
[00:18:38] And I was standard there.
[00:18:40] And you know, be honest with you, Chaco.
[00:18:43] Nobody.
[00:18:44] But nobody was more surprised than I wanted to be in the army of man.
[00:18:48] Because I told a cat that I was married.
[00:18:50] Oh, you were the honor man.
[00:18:51] But I mean, I told, I mean, we came back from San Clemente.
[00:18:55] She was, how you doing?
[00:18:56] They got a couch up to me this week.
[00:18:57] I know I'm going to get killed this week.
[00:18:59] You just never know it to your graduate.
[00:19:01] And when they announced what the honor man was,
[00:19:03] I was just kind of like,
[00:19:05] it must be some mistake.
[00:19:07] But yeah, so that was a great experience.
[00:19:11] It's, you know, Buds is a defining thing.
[00:19:13] And hell, we could sort of find anything for all of us.
[00:19:15] But the one thing about that is,
[00:19:17] you know, all starts there.
[00:19:18] It all shapes it.
[00:19:20] And you know, every one of us, whether you're the Admiral with his
[00:19:23] folks in Ramadi in Felicia or the guys in Ramadi in Felicia,
[00:19:27] whether you are the guy with stars in his collar or the guys with
[00:19:31] shepherds on his collar,
[00:19:33] we all wear the same warfare insignia.
[00:19:36] There is no difference between a seal officer and a seal
[00:19:40] enlisted man as far as what he had to do to earn that.
[00:19:42] Now, the career is different over the time.
[00:19:45] But it's one thing that we all understand.
[00:19:48] It was the crucible.
[00:19:49] It's a defining thing.
[00:19:50] And you go through that.
[00:19:52] And, you know, it starts your journey.
[00:19:54] That doesn't really make you a seal.
[00:19:56] When you get your tried and pinned on you,
[00:19:58] that's your beginning of learning how to really become a seal.
[00:20:03] And it takes an, I'll tell you,
[00:20:04] until the day I took off my uniform,
[00:20:06] I learned every single day.
[00:20:08] And as you know, the same goes.
[00:20:10] You've got to earn it every single day.
[00:20:12] Was there anything at Buds that was hard for you?
[00:20:14] Because if you were a collegiate swimmer,
[00:20:16] the swim's must have been like a jail, a break for you.
[00:20:20] Yeah.
[00:20:22] Because that's question.
[00:20:24] What about Ron, were you good, runner?
[00:20:26] Oh, no.
[00:20:27] No, so, so, so, so, so, so that's the point that really,
[00:20:31] really, really upset me, Chaco, is that Buds is a running club.
[00:20:35] It's not a swimming club, you know,
[00:20:37] but that is what saved me.
[00:20:39] Because I don't think I ever told you this either,
[00:20:41] but I wound up with a broken leg in third phase.
[00:20:44] So, a severe stress fracture.
[00:20:46] And, you know, I was not a bad runner.
[00:20:50] We were up there, the third phase.
[00:20:52] We probably had about 20 guys, 24 guys in the class.
[00:20:55] And I was up in the top five,
[00:20:57] whatever finished time runs,
[00:20:59] or, you know, when, when, do you do your run,
[00:21:01] that's run back to the compound, do your run your own.
[00:21:03] But, I was having a lot of trouble,
[00:21:07] and I didn't know what it was.
[00:21:09] By a lot of trouble, I'm ten minutes behind the class,
[00:21:13] but I'm running.
[00:21:15] But I'm running.
[00:21:16] And, you know, you know, you know,
[00:21:17] you're the instructors, watch this stuff.
[00:21:19] So, back then, we did not have the facilities
[00:21:22] and the help that are young of candidates have.
[00:21:25] And, we had an E6, a quorum in.
[00:21:28] And, you know, he told me, he said,
[00:21:31] I want you to come in.
[00:21:32] I had to leave the class, no.
[00:21:34] We're willing to third phase.
[00:21:36] We hadn't gone to the island yet.
[00:21:38] But, he said, I want you to go across the street
[00:21:41] and get an X-ray.
[00:21:42] You're a instructor.
[00:21:44] You know, that's always the right answer.
[00:21:46] So, I come, I come,
[00:21:49] hobbling out of the third phase office.
[00:21:52] And, the senior, the list of guys,
[00:21:55] senior chief Johnny Johnson outside smoking a cigarette,
[00:21:58] like any good, sealed back.
[00:22:00] And, obviously, he said, you know,
[00:22:03] Mr. Guarher stop.
[00:22:04] You know, when his instructor tells you to stop, you stop.
[00:22:06] He said, get over here.
[00:22:07] So, I go over to him and he says,
[00:22:09] where you going?
[00:22:10] So, well, senior chief,
[00:22:11] from going across the street for an X-ray.
[00:22:13] No, you're not.
[00:22:15] Of course, I'm not senior chief.
[00:22:17] He goes, what's up?
[00:22:19] He said, well, you know, I got a little trouble.
[00:22:21] So, I tell you what, Mr. Mack,
[00:22:22] you got a broken leg.
[00:22:24] He said, there's no doubt in my mind.
[00:22:25] You got a broken leg.
[00:22:26] So, here's the deal.
[00:22:27] You go back in there.
[00:22:28] You put your medical record in there.
[00:22:29] I'm not going to get any guarantees.
[00:22:31] But if you will, in the gut,
[00:22:32] I'll see what we can do.
[00:22:33] You'll see, new chief.
[00:22:35] And so, went back in there.
[00:22:37] And I actually, you know,
[00:22:39] was able to, I was always behind in the runs.
[00:22:42] But I was able to hop on the obstacle course.
[00:22:45] I still finish at a top five in that,
[00:22:47] because that's all technique.
[00:22:49] But we used to run as, as you know,
[00:22:51] a little jacquo from the compound down to the center,
[00:22:54] center beach in Coronado,
[00:22:56] which is probably a little over mile.
[00:22:59] And then in the water.
[00:23:01] So, I would be the last one in the water by light years,
[00:23:04] but I would be the first one out of the water.
[00:23:06] So, at least the instructor's new that,
[00:23:08] I'm putting out.
[00:23:09] But the other thing I think that there was thoroughly
[00:23:11] entertained that they really didn't want me out of the country.
[00:23:14] But, you know, you know,
[00:23:17] the folks who are out there,
[00:23:20] the instructors,
[00:23:22] are the ones that really,
[00:23:23] they are the gatekeepers for who's going to wind up going to a seal team.
[00:23:27] And they are instructors for just a limited period of time.
[00:23:30] And then they go back to the seal team.
[00:23:32] And the young men that they're training
[00:23:34] are going to become their teammates.
[00:23:37] So, for the most part,
[00:23:38] they're sizing them up,
[00:23:39] not only to meet the standards,
[00:23:41] but also to kind of say,
[00:23:42] is this somebody that I want to be a teammate with?
[00:23:45] And if I get into the trouble,
[00:23:47] and I'm left,
[00:23:48] one of these guys in my left and my right.
[00:23:50] And I think that even if I was having a difficult time there,
[00:23:53] I was most fortunate to have good instructors.
[00:23:56] And back then,
[00:23:58] everybody was Vietnam veteran.
[00:24:00] Everybody had a solvest arm.
[00:24:03] And I was blessed to have a Medal of Honorary Scipient
[00:24:07] is one of my instructors.
[00:24:08] So, Mike Thornton.
[00:24:10] And that helps shape me as well,
[00:24:13] more ways than one.
[00:24:14] But these guys had known the crucible of combat.
[00:24:17] And they were looking at students,
[00:24:20] and nobody really cared if nobody graduated back then.
[00:24:22] But they were looking at,
[00:24:25] you know,
[00:24:26] can we trust this guy and combat?
[00:24:28] And I think that was the standard.
[00:24:30] But I have to say, in retrospect,
[00:24:32] it wasn't me.
[00:24:33] It was the instructors that really showed me tremendous kindness.
[00:24:36] But, you know,
[00:24:38] it just was not easy being able to do this stuff that we needed to do at the end of training.
[00:24:45] But, you know,
[00:24:47] I think it was a kid to try to do this.
[00:24:49] There was a class,
[00:24:51] and it wasn't just before.
[00:24:52] It wasn't a class 85 or 86 where literally no one made it.
[00:24:56] That's correct.
[00:24:57] What, what, what class do you know what a class number of that was?
[00:24:59] I don't,
[00:25:00] but I think you're close.
[00:25:01] But the other one was Admiral Eric Olsen's class.
[00:25:04] wound up with four people in that week.
[00:25:07] And the instructor has had to help them carry the IVS.
[00:25:11] Because the quick four guys could carry the IVS.
[00:25:14] You need to keep the IVS.
[00:25:15] It's got to be at least six guys here to get to the week.
[00:25:18] But yeah, Eric had four guys when he got his graduation picture.
[00:25:21] And one of the students is a foreign student in his class.
[00:25:26] So three Americans and one foreign guy.
[00:25:28] But it was a different, different, different time back then.
[00:25:31] But you know, the instructors,
[00:25:32] how to the back of their belt,
[00:25:33] the block app,
[00:25:36] we made them quit.
[00:25:37] We, you know.
[00:25:38] So,
[00:25:39] you know, there were standards.
[00:25:42] But they were pretty much on their own, as far as the,
[00:25:45] what they wanted to do.
[00:25:46] But I'll be honest with you.
[00:25:47] These are instructors that I had tremendous respect for.
[00:25:50] And, uh,
[00:25:51] respect for their combat experience.
[00:25:53] And they were,
[00:25:54] they were great instructors.
[00:25:56] Because they were intense.
[00:25:58] And if you didn't have the standard,
[00:26:00] uh, even if you were making the standard.
[00:26:02] And it was tough to see a class make go.
[00:26:04] But in retrospect,
[00:26:05] they were right.
[00:26:06] Uh,
[00:26:07] this guy would not have fit in,
[00:26:08] uh,
[00:26:09] to us.
[00:26:10] But yeah.
[00:26:11] So graduating and that,
[00:26:12] that off to jump school, which was always a,
[00:26:14] they're born.
[00:26:15] Yeah, that's it.
[00:26:16] You know,
[00:26:16] what do we call us,
[00:26:17] crammed into three?
[00:26:18] So you hit Airborne School.
[00:26:21] I'm sure it was the,
[00:26:23] uh,
[00:26:23] the challenge to keep your,
[00:26:25] I'm sure there's a lot of challenges that airborne school for you.
[00:26:28] I can imagine the runs were not as challenging as trying to control your mouth,
[00:26:32] talking to the army folks.
[00:26:34] No.
[00:26:37] No.
[00:26:38] I,
[00:26:39] I got called into the kernel a couple of times.
[00:26:40] So actually,
[00:26:43] so,
[00:26:44] uh,
[00:26:45] for those of you out there have been through forbending you understand this.
[00:26:48] Um,
[00:26:49] uh,
[00:26:50] uh,
[00:26:51] the army's a little bit different than,
[00:26:53] uh,
[00:26:54] the,
[00:26:54] the seal tubes.
[00:26:55] Uh,
[00:26:55] uh,
[00:26:55] it's a sum to great.
[00:26:57] And,
[00:26:58] uh,
[00:26:59] uh,
[00:26:59] they'd have an evolution.
[00:27:00] And then what they would do is they would have the,
[00:27:02] the class line up and you go online and you'd pick up trash.
[00:27:06] And,
[00:27:08] well,
[00:27:09] guys who are working picking up trash.
[00:27:11] And the block hats did just,
[00:27:13] Mr. Gwire,
[00:27:14] what are you doing? You supposed to be picking up trash.
[00:27:16] I'm not picking up trash.
[00:27:17] Pick up trash.
[00:27:19] I'm not picking up trash.
[00:27:20] I'll have to see the kernel.
[00:27:21] Okay.
[00:27:22] So I'm at the kernel.
[00:27:23] You have to stand in the narrative.
[00:27:25] Tension.
[00:27:26] Put me at parade rest.
[00:27:27] Watch out.
[00:27:28] I so well,
[00:27:29] uh,
[00:27:30] kernel.
[00:27:31] I'm a conventional officer in the United States Navy.
[00:27:33] Uh,
[00:27:33] did you ever see bridge on the river?
[00:27:35] Yeah.
[00:27:38] Yeah.
[00:27:39] Why's that got to do with it?
[00:27:40] I said,
[00:27:41] do you remember when the kernel wound up in the cooler because they were making his officers work because it was a violation of the GDP convention?
[00:27:45] He's looking at me.
[00:27:48] I said,
[00:27:49] so to have your commission officers picking up trash,
[00:27:51] you realized that you've got to,
[00:27:52] violation of your GDP convention.
[00:27:54] So he threw me out of his office,
[00:27:56] but me and the other sea of officers with me did not have to pick up trash.
[00:28:01] Oh, that's it.
[00:28:05] All right.
[00:28:06] So you're done with the airborne school and then it's after what?
[00:28:09] UDT-21.
[00:28:10] After UDT-21.
[00:28:11] So it was under one and demolition team 21.
[00:28:14] And um,
[00:28:15] but just like in SIL training,
[00:28:18] um,
[00:28:19] all of the guys there for the month,
[00:28:21] there were guys there from the Korean War,
[00:28:23] who just stayed UDT,
[00:28:24] didn't go to Vietnam.
[00:28:25] They went to the Vietnam as UDT,
[00:28:27] but they were former SIL team two guys.
[00:28:29] So we had SIL team two.
[00:28:30] And UDT-21.
[00:28:31] And they went back and forth.
[00:28:33] But so you wound up getting five or six jumps at basic airborne.
[00:28:37] And um,
[00:28:39] then we had a jump schedule shortly after,
[00:28:42] uh,
[00:28:43] I got back to the team from,
[00:28:45] from Fort Benning.
[00:28:46] And we went up to Fort Lee to,
[00:28:49] um,
[00:28:49] uh,
[00:28:49] do do because in,
[00:28:51] in the teams back then,
[00:28:52] you get your 10th jump.
[00:28:54] And you had to buy a kick of beer.
[00:28:56] So they got the Lieutenant J.J.,
[00:28:57] the nugget there,
[00:28:58] who is,
[00:28:59] so they're going to get me four jumps today.
[00:29:01] And so it was an old UH-1 Vietnam single-engine.
[00:29:05] And they,
[00:29:06] they take the doors,
[00:29:07] put them all the way back.
[00:29:09] And you're sitting there.
[00:29:10] This is a static line jump.
[00:29:12] And they take your static line.
[00:29:13] And they hook you into a cable.
[00:29:15] Just below the transmission on the helicopter.
[00:29:18] And you sit with your legs outside the helicopter.
[00:29:21] And there's just a little,
[00:29:23] um,
[00:29:24] uh,
[00:29:25] tape that goes across you.
[00:29:27] And you,
[00:29:28] you get on board at first.
[00:29:29] And, uh,
[00:29:30] the aircraft is not doing 80 turns up.
[00:29:32] So then,
[00:29:33] the aircraft command starts to do with the turn up.
[00:29:36] And the helicopter starts to rack in back and forth.
[00:29:38] As the,
[00:29:39] you know,
[00:29:39] and all of a sudden,
[00:29:40] I look around now.
[00:29:41] These are all senior and listed guys.
[00:29:44] And they,
[00:29:45] one by one,
[00:29:46] take their teeth out of their mouth.
[00:29:48] And put it in their pocket to the jump.
[00:29:51] I was the only one of the stick of eight that actually had teeth.
[00:29:54] They just laughed away when they were out there.
[00:29:56] And I'm thinking of myself,
[00:29:58] what did I get into?
[00:30:00] It's just a unity or a hockey player.
[00:30:02] So,
[00:30:04] well,
[00:30:05] make a long story short.
[00:30:06] It was a long day,
[00:30:07] but I bought a cake of beer at the end of the day.
[00:30:09] And then,
[00:30:10] what was that?
[00:30:11] What was the,
[00:30:11] what did you do at UD-21 to go?
[00:30:14] What were you doing for the deployments?
[00:30:15] Where there was ship board deployments?
[00:30:17] Yeah,
[00:30:17] there was ship board deployments.
[00:30:18] It made quite a few deployments to the Caribbean.
[00:30:20] Uh,
[00:30:20] you know,
[00:30:21] back then we had a much more robust fleet.
[00:30:23] So, we actually made Caribbean deployments.
[00:30:25] European deployments,
[00:30:27] northern European deployments.
[00:30:29] So,
[00:30:29] I made several Caribbean deployments
[00:30:32] and South American deployments,
[00:30:33] but in addition to that,
[00:30:35] we also had time to be able to go to schools.
[00:30:39] And, you know,
[00:30:40] just to some of our CIA schools and these other things in regard to,
[00:30:45] you know,
[00:30:46] how to do targeting and,
[00:30:47] and really,
[00:30:48] it was all explosives.
[00:30:49] It was under what a demolition.
[00:30:50] And CIA was really good at that.
[00:30:52] And,
[00:30:53] they're combat-dibbled kitchen demolition.
[00:30:55] These other things.
[00:30:56] But, I also then, at that point in time,
[00:30:59] Jaco,
[00:31:00] uh,
[00:31:00] with some courses decided to take some intelligence courses.
[00:31:03] And,
[00:31:04] just kind of,
[00:31:05] well,
[00:31:06] I think that Intel and Naval Special Warfare kind of go hand-in-glove.
[00:31:09] So, I want to learn as much as I can about the intelligence community,
[00:31:12] uh,
[00:31:12] well,
[00:31:13] I'm there.
[00:31:14] But,
[00:31:14] I had an opportunity to,
[00:31:15] you know,
[00:31:16] be a department head there as well.
[00:31:18] And then,
[00:31:19] you know,
[00:31:19] be in charge of a UD-T-Platue,
[00:31:21] you know,
[00:31:22] back then was,
[00:31:22] you know,
[00:31:23] 25 men.
[00:31:24] So,
[00:31:25] it was good.
[00:31:26] And, of course,
[00:31:27] my chief,
[00:31:29] and my LPO,
[00:31:30] you know,
[00:31:30] both of those guys have got silver stars.
[00:31:32] And,
[00:31:33] you know,
[00:31:34] they school was in session.
[00:31:35] You know,
[00:31:36] you're in charge of the officer.
[00:31:37] There is absolutely no doubt about it.
[00:31:39] But,
[00:31:40] you better know what you don't know,
[00:31:42] and be willing to listen to those who do.
[00:31:44] And,
[00:31:45] these guys,
[00:31:46] very lovingly,
[00:31:47] I mean,
[00:31:48] this is fairly.
[00:31:49] Took me under their wing,
[00:31:51] and adopted me.
[00:31:53] And, I'll be honest with you.
[00:31:54] Even back then,
[00:31:55] Rudy Bosch,
[00:31:56] who is the command master chief at
[00:31:59] at Seal Team 2,
[00:32:00] he became the command master chief in 1962
[00:32:02] and left in 1987.
[00:32:04] You know,
[00:32:05] it took a basketball ball,
[00:32:06] he ball hocks,
[00:32:07] but you know,
[00:32:08] who really,
[00:32:09] but even if I was in UD-T,
[00:32:13] my LPO and my chiefs,
[00:32:15] who were Seal Team 2 guys,
[00:32:16] that's how I met Rudy,
[00:32:18] and Rudy and his wife,
[00:32:19] then mentored,
[00:32:20] Kathy and me,
[00:32:22] until we were close friends,
[00:32:23] until he,
[00:32:25] you know,
[00:32:26] started suffering from Alzheimer's disease.
[00:32:28] But it doesn't hurt to be a young officer
[00:32:30] who wasn't in Vietnam,
[00:32:32] you know,
[00:32:32] to have these folks here
[00:32:34] who take you under their wing
[00:32:35] and teach you.
[00:32:36] And,
[00:32:38] the best thing that was not necessarily
[00:32:40] the operational things,
[00:32:42] but I think the thing that I owe them
[00:32:43] most for a jacco,
[00:32:45] is like a two o'clock in the morning
[00:32:47] when they put their armor on me,
[00:32:48] say it's time to go home, sir.
[00:32:50] Time to go back.
[00:32:52] Thank you.
[00:32:53] Just the New York kicked in this.
[00:32:55] New York comes out around
[00:32:56] through a clock at the morning
[00:32:58] after X number of beers.
[00:33:00] So you did,
[00:33:02] so you were married to Kathy
[00:33:04] before you went to butts.
[00:33:06] Absolutely.
[00:33:07] Well, I tell you what,
[00:33:08] you know,
[00:33:09] you know,
[00:33:09] people ask,
[00:33:10] well,
[00:33:10] you know,
[00:33:11] where did you honeymoon?
[00:33:12] Or not a California?
[00:33:13] Or not a California?
[00:33:14] No,
[00:33:15] so,
[00:33:16] it's kind of interesting.
[00:33:19] That, you know,
[00:33:20] I was on the ship and we deployed
[00:33:22] to the Mediterranean.
[00:33:23] I held orders to,
[00:33:24] to butts.
[00:33:25] And I came home,
[00:33:27] flew in on a McFlight
[00:33:28] into Philadelphia,
[00:33:29] Kathy lived in New Jersey.
[00:33:31] And I went to see her first.
[00:33:33] Now,
[00:33:34] this is a dangerous thing.
[00:33:35] Clearly,
[00:33:36] I've been overpaid all my life.
[00:33:39] And at that point in time,
[00:33:40] I was making the Prince
[00:33:41] League some of $8,000.
[00:33:43] But,
[00:33:44] when you,
[00:33:45] when you transfer a PCS,
[00:33:47] you're able to take
[00:33:49] what's called an advanced pay,
[00:33:51] which is sort of an interest-free loan,
[00:33:53] except,
[00:33:54] do you got to pay it back?
[00:33:56] So,
[00:33:57] I got,
[00:33:58] I don't know what I got.
[00:33:59] I've probably got a thousand dollars,
[00:34:00] twelve hundred dollars or whatever.
[00:34:02] So,
[00:34:03] now,
[00:34:04] in New York,
[00:34:06] walking down fifth avenue with my honey,
[00:34:09] and we walk into Tiffany's.
[00:34:11] And I say,
[00:34:13] let's get engaged.
[00:34:15] So,
[00:34:16] she picks out a ring.
[00:34:17] I get engaged in Tiffany's.
[00:34:19] We get married two weeks later.
[00:34:21] We're going to short honey moon
[00:34:22] to,
[00:34:23] to a sink Roy.
[00:34:24] Come back,
[00:34:25] pack up the car,
[00:34:26] and drive out to,
[00:34:27] to seal training.
[00:34:28] And,
[00:34:30] it's kind of a shock
[00:34:32] when you go off to work one day,
[00:34:34] and you come back after
[00:34:35] the instructors of shave your head.
[00:34:37] What happened to my boy?
[00:34:40] You know,
[00:34:41] but I won't tell you this.
[00:34:42] Now,
[00:34:43] I mean,
[00:34:44] it was a different thing back then.
[00:34:47] People didn't know about seal training,
[00:34:51] but it was helpful to me to be married.
[00:34:54] And,
[00:34:55] during that time frame.
[00:34:57] But,
[00:34:58] as I said,
[00:34:59] later on,
[00:35:00] years on,
[00:35:01] but we went through so much stuff
[00:35:02] that she'd been there from day one.
[00:35:04] And she understood the community.
[00:35:05] She understood how the community was built.
[00:35:07] And people even today rely heavily on her
[00:35:11] for that.
[00:35:12] But,
[00:35:13] yeah,
[00:35:14] it's not something I would recommend
[00:35:16] for everybody to be honey moon
[00:35:18] as you go through seal training.
[00:35:20] But,
[00:35:21] we did God bless her.
[00:35:23] Well,
[00:35:24] the thing about it is the
[00:35:25] newtherovice idea we're getting into.
[00:35:27] You know?
[00:35:28] Yeah,
[00:35:28] you didn't.
[00:35:29] You must have known very little about seal training back then.
[00:35:32] Yeah.
[00:35:33] I mean,
[00:35:33] even I,
[00:35:34] when I went through
[00:35:35] in 1991,
[00:35:36] and I had seen one,
[00:35:37] you know,
[00:35:38] the B-Summon Special Video.
[00:35:39] That's it.
[00:35:40] There was no books talking about it.
[00:35:42] Now,
[00:35:43] I mean,
[00:35:44] there's so much information out there.
[00:35:45] You can watch all of Buds and,
[00:35:46] you know,
[00:35:46] guys know what the schedule's going to be and all that.
[00:35:48] Yeah.
[00:35:49] Back then,
[00:35:49] it was just blind.
[00:35:50] They just ripped the blindfold off you and
[00:35:52] shave your head.
[00:35:53] That's it.
[00:35:54] Oh, yeah.
[00:35:54] So,
[00:35:54] fast forward 20 years.
[00:35:56] And now,
[00:35:57] the commander,
[00:35:58] commanding officer of the Naval Special War
[00:35:59] for a center of Buds.
[00:36:01] So,
[00:36:02] Kathy comes to meet me for lunch.
[00:36:04] We're going to go out to Coronado
[00:36:06] and have some lunch.
[00:36:07] And I'm on the telephone.
[00:36:09] You know,
[00:36:10] she comes to the office and
[00:36:12] the secretary says,
[00:36:14] you know,
[00:36:14] he'll be with you in a few minutes.
[00:36:16] So, she's standing on the balcony
[00:36:17] overlooking the grinder
[00:36:19] as the instructors are
[00:36:21] motivating.
[00:36:22] But suddenly,
[00:36:23] speak.
[00:36:24] The first phase class.
[00:36:26] Right?
[00:36:27] And so,
[00:36:28] come out.
[00:36:29] Off we go.
[00:36:30] You're going to lunch.
[00:36:31] Sit there at lunch.
[00:36:32] Now, we've been married 20 years.
[00:36:33] Went through training with me.
[00:36:35] And she said,
[00:36:36] I need to ask your question.
[00:36:38] Yeah, what sweetheart?
[00:36:40] Did you have to do that when you went through training?
[00:36:42] No.
[00:36:43] I said,
[00:36:44] sweetie, even then,
[00:36:45] they knew 20 years later
[00:36:46] I was going to be the commanding officer of this place.
[00:36:48] And then,
[00:36:48] of course,
[00:36:49] I did that.
[00:36:50] I'm so sorry.
[00:36:51] Go side, come home.
[00:36:52] And she go,
[00:36:53] let's go to dinner.
[00:36:54] Okay.
[00:36:55] So,
[00:36:57] how long did you do at UDT?
[00:36:59] 21?
[00:37:00] I did.
[00:37:01] I did,
[00:37:02] I guess about two and a half years,
[00:37:04] maybe three years.
[00:37:05] And then back then,
[00:37:07] we were for the longest period of time,
[00:37:10] just we got decimated after Vietnam.
[00:37:13] I mean, that's just UDT,
[00:37:14] but the whole community.
[00:37:15] So, we all...
[00:37:16] The whole Navy,
[00:37:17] you know, safe to say the whole Navy and the whole Navy.
[00:37:19] They're there after Vietnam?
[00:37:20] Yes, that's true.
[00:37:21] But then,
[00:37:22] the target was Russia.
[00:37:24] And we were going to handle Russia with the,
[00:37:26] what the nuclear triad got it.
[00:37:28] Right?
[00:37:29] And so, if you're not part of the nuclear triad,
[00:37:31] although,
[00:37:32] how is it in a nuclear weapons program at UDT?
[00:37:34] I mean,
[00:37:34] we had to deliver the B-54S atom.
[00:37:36] And so,
[00:37:38] we had 306s then.
[00:37:40] That's it.
[00:37:41] And the three of them got together and decided
[00:37:43] that we needed to send some junior officers
[00:37:46] out into the fleet as flag lieutenant's.
[00:37:49] And so,
[00:37:51] now this is always a bad sign.
[00:37:53] When I'm deployed down to the Caribbean
[00:37:55] and the Exo, Tom Richards.
[00:37:57] You'll run up,
[00:37:58] Tom Richards comes down to visit,
[00:38:00] and this is odd.
[00:38:02] The Exo is going to,
[00:38:07] so,
[00:38:08] he spent the day with this,
[00:38:09] doesn't say anything.
[00:38:10] And we're flying back up to Norfolk on the C9.
[00:38:13] We've got the whole plane to ourselves.
[00:38:15] And I'm sitting against the window,
[00:38:16] and the Exo comes in system X-DV.
[00:38:19] I mean,
[00:38:20] now I mean,
[00:38:21] like,
[00:38:21] I'm a popular guy.
[00:38:22] I know that,
[00:38:23] but I didn't.
[00:38:23] And I think I knew something was up.
[00:38:25] He goes,
[00:38:26] hey Joe,
[00:38:27] have you ever thought about being a flag lieutenant?
[00:38:29] No sir.
[00:38:31] No,
[00:38:32] you're serious to think about that.
[00:38:33] No sir.
[00:38:34] You know?
[00:38:35] And I tried to be persuasive to him,
[00:38:37] I said,
[00:38:37] look,
[00:38:38] I was in the fleet for a couple of years.
[00:38:39] I'm in UDT right now.
[00:38:40] I need to get,
[00:38:41] you know,
[00:38:41] after this I got to go to a sealed team.
[00:38:43] He says,
[00:38:44] well,
[00:38:44] the Commodore wants to see you tomorrow.
[00:38:46] All right?
[00:38:47] This was Storm and Norman Olson,
[00:38:48] who got bus and we just had a memorial service for Norman.
[00:38:50] And really,
[00:38:51] he's one of the guys that shaped this.
[00:38:53] He said,
[00:38:54] you're going to be a flag lieutenant,
[00:38:55] it's a simple,
[00:38:55] is that,
[00:38:56] yes,
[00:38:56] commoner.
[00:38:57] So,
[00:38:58] I wanted to go into Japan
[00:38:59] as a flag lieutenant.
[00:39:00] And wound up working for the first
[00:39:02] admiral that made a helicopter pilot that made
[00:39:05] admiral.
[00:39:07] And he made all of the appolarry companies.
[00:39:09] And every day was a space mission for me with this guy here.
[00:39:14] It had to be exacting an enemy.
[00:39:17] And,
[00:39:18] you know,
[00:39:19] when driver long one day,
[00:39:20] and he goes,
[00:39:21] I'm going to make you the best flag lieutenant
[00:39:24] in seven fleets,
[00:39:25] even if it kills you.
[00:39:27] I turned to my ghost,
[00:39:29] so you're going to be a great soldier.
[00:39:31] But I will tell you this.
[00:39:33] You learn.
[00:39:35] You learn.
[00:39:36] As you know,
[00:39:37] you learn.
[00:39:38] But the interesting thing is,
[00:39:41] now,
[00:39:42] I adured myself to all of the animals out there.
[00:39:45] And we had the fleet readiness board up in Yakuza,
[00:39:48] hosted by the seven fleet commander.
[00:39:50] So, it's about 13, 14 animals there.
[00:39:53] And a breakfast,
[00:39:55] you know,
[00:39:55] they sit there together,
[00:39:56] and all of us,
[00:39:57] you know,
[00:39:58] all of us,
[00:39:59] bad carriers,
[00:40:00] we go off to the side.
[00:40:01] And as I'm walking by with my tray,
[00:40:03] the fleet commander goes,
[00:40:04] hey Joe,
[00:40:04] come join us.
[00:40:06] It would be an honor.
[00:40:08] You know what?
[00:40:10] What's wrong with this picture, right?
[00:40:12] So,
[00:40:13] they went around the table,
[00:40:14] and they were telling me that,
[00:40:16] and this was really true with the time.
[00:40:18] You can't go back to Seal team right now.
[00:40:21] Your surface warfare officer,
[00:40:23] you've got tremendous potential.
[00:40:25] If you go back into the Seal teams,
[00:40:27] you will never,
[00:40:28] ever,
[00:40:29] ever get promoted.
[00:40:31] This was in 1981.
[00:40:33] And true,
[00:40:34] at that time,
[00:40:35] most of the commanding officers of Seal teams
[00:40:38] will lieutenant commanders passed over for commander.
[00:40:40] We only had a handful of captains,
[00:40:42] and there was no real career path,
[00:40:44] you know, for that.
[00:40:45] But I told him, I said,
[00:40:47] well,
[00:40:48] look,
[00:40:49] I'm going.
[00:40:50] And the only advice they gave me then,
[00:40:52] well,
[00:40:52] go to PG school.
[00:40:53] Okay.
[00:40:54] That was a good trade-off.
[00:40:56] But that was true at that time.
[00:40:58] And, you know,
[00:40:59] backing up a little bit about my father
[00:41:01] being a Colonel in the Reserves.
[00:41:03] He said the same thing back then,
[00:41:05] that,
[00:41:06] you know,
[00:41:07] you'll have a couple of good years.
[00:41:09] But, you know,
[00:41:10] you'll never,
[00:41:11] never be promoted past lieutenant commander.
[00:41:13] It's as simple as that.
[00:41:14] And, you know,
[00:41:15] I went to his grave one time,
[00:41:17] and put my three stars shoulder boards on his,
[00:41:20] what is student style?
[00:41:22] So that's,
[00:41:24] how long you doing that?
[00:41:26] How long you doing that job is the aid?
[00:41:28] The flag aid.
[00:41:29] 100 years.
[00:41:30] I know the feeling.
[00:41:32] No, I was 25 months,
[00:41:34] but I will tell you.
[00:41:35] Oh, I'll tell you.
[00:41:36] Jacob, one of the best things about that,
[00:41:38] I mean, this is surely,
[00:41:39] is that I was the aid for CTF 76,
[00:41:43] and a young,
[00:41:45] a,
[00:41:45] a,
[00:41:46] a first lieutenant,
[00:41:47] named Joe Dunford,
[00:41:49] was the aid for CTF 79.
[00:41:51] And,
[00:41:52] and Joe and I spent 25 months together,
[00:41:54] you look at the traffic,
[00:41:55] traveling everywhere together.
[00:41:57] And then after we both finish that tour,
[00:42:00] you know,
[00:42:01] Joe's during the course of our careers,
[00:42:02] we stayed close.
[00:42:04] And,
[00:42:05] you know,
[00:42:06] we'd see each other on deployment.
[00:42:07] He's a battalion commander.
[00:42:09] He wound up,
[00:42:10] you know,
[00:42:10] being the speech writer for the commandant,
[00:42:12] and a lot of other jobs that it will deserve.
[00:42:16] But it was actually Joe Dunford,
[00:42:19] and Jim Mattis,
[00:42:21] that asked me to come back into government.
[00:42:23] And,
[00:42:24] I hate them both for that.
[00:42:26] No,
[00:42:28] but,
[00:42:29] but,
[00:42:29] the thing about it is with both those goes of two men
[00:42:31] that I hold in the very highest esteem.
[00:42:33] And also figured,
[00:42:35] well,
[00:42:35] you know,
[00:42:36] Joe,
[00:42:37] General Mattis,
[00:42:38] the Secretary Mattis came back into government,
[00:42:40] and Joe's been there for 39 years,
[00:42:42] and, you know,
[00:42:43] I just said to them,
[00:42:44] well,
[00:42:45] if you guys do take a one for the team,
[00:42:46] I'll give it a go.
[00:42:47] I mean,
[00:42:48] we'll see how it goes,
[00:42:49] but I just could not say no to those two men,
[00:42:51] but just want an honor,
[00:42:52] and then to actually get into the administration,
[00:42:55] and be the director of National Intelligence,
[00:42:57] sitting at the National Security Council meeting,
[00:43:00] with Joe Dunford to my right.
[00:43:02] It's just, you know,
[00:43:03] you just,
[00:43:04] it's a small world,
[00:43:05] and you just don't know.
[00:43:06] But yeah.
[00:43:07] But you didn't take their advice,
[00:43:09] and you did go back to the field team.
[00:43:10] That was your next one.
[00:43:11] I did.
[00:43:12] I did,
[00:43:12] as a matter of fact,
[00:43:13] and,
[00:43:14] you know,
[00:43:15] so the journey continues.
[00:43:16] So I went into,
[00:43:17] to see a team too,
[00:43:18] and at that time,
[00:43:20] a commander Rick Woolard
[00:43:23] was the commanding officer of the team too.
[00:43:26] And rightfully so,
[00:43:27] he wanted to develop an undecided capability.
[00:43:30] So we wound up,
[00:43:33] now,
[00:43:34] to be honest with you back then,
[00:43:36] we were not very good.
[00:43:38] We had good swimmers.
[00:43:39] We had good athletes.
[00:43:40] We had a rotten equipment.
[00:43:42] We didn't have techniques and procedures.
[00:43:44] We really didn't know what we didn't know.
[00:43:47] And Rick through our senior officers
[00:43:50] and the chief and naval operations,
[00:43:52] were able to establish a personal exchange program,
[00:43:55] pep pellet,
[00:43:56] and bring over a French commando from Commander Ubehr.
[00:44:01] And in my estimation,
[00:44:02] Commander Ubehr,
[00:44:03] the best combat divers in the world,
[00:44:06] military combat divers.
[00:44:08] And,
[00:44:09] Francois was charged with establishing
[00:44:12] a combat swimmer program.
[00:44:15] That, to this day,
[00:44:17] was the most dangerous program
[00:44:20] that I'd ever been through.
[00:44:22] And,
[00:44:24] extremely high atrition rates.
[00:44:26] But not everybody could do it,
[00:44:27] but not everybody could swim oxygen either.
[00:44:29] But in addition to that program,
[00:44:31] Rick also,
[00:44:32] looking back on this,
[00:44:34] it seems hard to believe,
[00:44:35] get permission to buy foreign sales,
[00:44:38] things.
[00:44:39] So we were able to,
[00:44:40] we were able to,
[00:44:41] we were the first was to get the trigger.
[00:44:42] So the German.
[00:44:43] And we helped the trigger live jackets French.
[00:44:45] And there was a prohibition against that
[00:44:47] because we'd buy American,
[00:44:48] but it was the best technical
[00:44:50] undecide combat swimmer stuff that we had.
[00:44:53] And we did extremely hard work up,
[00:44:57] and I was just,
[00:44:58] most fortunate that,
[00:44:59] you know,
[00:45:00] I had a department head tour there,
[00:45:02] and then,
[00:45:03] a platoon commander,
[00:45:05] and in October of
[00:45:08] 1982,
[00:45:11] we just got fast ropes.
[00:45:14] So hard to believe,
[00:45:16] and fast ropes were classified in
[00:45:18] insertion means.
[00:45:19] And we got it from the British,
[00:45:21] I'll say yes,
[00:45:22] used.
[00:45:23] And I spent the night not a fortune.
[00:45:26] So we're up in AP Hill,
[00:45:29] and Rudy Bosch,
[00:45:31] brings the rope up.
[00:45:33] We got a helicopter,
[00:45:34] and we're doing,
[00:45:36] first we're doing Rudy is the repell master.
[00:45:39] He's the rope master.
[00:45:40] Talks to us about this.
[00:45:42] And now I used to be on the ship,
[00:45:44] you know,
[00:45:45] as a deck officer.
[00:45:46] So I know lines and stuff.
[00:45:47] So I said,
[00:45:48] Rudy,
[00:45:49] what's the tenthsl strength in this?
[00:45:50] How many can hold?
[00:45:51] Add the worry about a son,
[00:45:52] what's your whole platoon for Cadet,
[00:45:54] you know?
[00:45:55] That was Rudy, right?
[00:45:57] So,
[00:45:58] now Rudy,
[00:45:59] at this point,
[00:46:00] he's probably knocking at the door in his 60.
[00:46:02] So we did a couple of runs,
[00:46:04] and he's the first one out.
[00:46:05] And then after about four or five runs,
[00:46:09] I just say,
[00:46:10] he must have achieved this isn't too damn hard.
[00:46:12] You know,
[00:46:12] we could figure out how to curl a rope
[00:46:14] and throw it out with a helicopter flares.
[00:46:16] All right?
[00:46:17] So he sits this one out.
[00:46:19] And so my chief,
[00:46:21] but Denny,
[00:46:22] is going to do it.
[00:46:23] I'm following bud,
[00:46:24] and I've got four or five knuckleheads behind me.
[00:46:28] And we go out
[00:46:31] and for some reason or another,
[00:46:33] you know,
[00:46:35] the operative word is fast rope.
[00:46:37] So he just kind of going slow.
[00:46:39] And that all of a sudden,
[00:46:41] I don't know what was going on.
[00:46:43] I thought the helicopter was crashing.
[00:46:45] And I just knew that I was in free fall.
[00:46:48] And you know,
[00:46:49] getting back into fort betting,
[00:46:50] I kind of criticized a little bit there.
[00:46:52] But the thing that saved me
[00:46:54] is just going to a good PLF.
[00:46:56] I put my legs together.
[00:46:58] I put my arms in.
[00:46:59] And for one brief second,
[00:47:01] I avoided the chief below me.
[00:47:04] And I hit.
[00:47:05] And for one nanosecond,
[00:47:06] I go,
[00:47:07] I'm good.
[00:47:08] Then I had five big frogmen land on top.
[00:47:10] So I broke my back,
[00:47:12] and I broke my pelvis.
[00:47:14] So we're all lying there
[00:47:16] as a bunch of red dogs.
[00:47:19] And it's dead silence.
[00:47:20] I still don't know what happened.
[00:47:21] So obviously with the rope broke,
[00:47:23] the helicopter went up
[00:47:25] because no longer had that weight.
[00:47:27] And then he just flared it and went off.
[00:47:29] But all I could hear then was,
[00:47:31] you know, my teammates, my platoon.
[00:47:33] Everybody just kind of quietly moaning.
[00:47:36] And I just said to the guys,
[00:47:38] don't anybody move.
[00:47:40] Right?
[00:47:41] And then he goes,
[00:47:42] Mr. McGuire,
[00:47:43] we can.
[00:47:44] You know?
[00:47:45] And then obviously I realized,
[00:47:46] I can't move my legs.
[00:47:48] And so typical back then,
[00:47:52] our ambulance was a nine passenger van.
[00:47:55] And the only thing we had on the only thing we had
[00:47:58] on the LZ was one body board.
[00:48:01] You know?
[00:48:02] So we had to have the ambulances come in.
[00:48:04] So I got rigor taped to the body board.
[00:48:08] You know, with your head down and just to,
[00:48:10] so that your spine's not moving,
[00:48:12] but every time they moved you,
[00:48:14] it was like with the pelvic,
[00:48:15] it was like cracking your knuckles.
[00:48:17] You know, you could hear.
[00:48:19] You know?
[00:48:20] And then the helicopter goes back in this land.
[00:48:22] So the Colonel from AP Hillcums,
[00:48:25] and typical back then, we never told them we were doing aerops,
[00:48:28] which he did not think was a good idea.
[00:48:31] But he directed the helicopter pilot to take us to Mary Washington,
[00:48:35] a hospital, which is close up there,
[00:48:37] not closest to closest to trauma hospital.
[00:48:40] And so there were five of us loaded into the helicopter.
[00:48:44] And you know,
[00:48:45] the Kamaloo Channet, these guys,
[00:48:47] Lutenets, and I said the pilot command,
[00:48:50] you know, me, well,
[00:48:51] I'm strapped to the body board.
[00:48:52] They said, take us home.
[00:48:54] As the take us to Porsmith,
[00:48:56] I said, we're going to be in a hospital for a long time.
[00:48:58] I said, I don't mind how my wife,
[00:49:00] in what motel, I said,
[00:49:02] you know, just going to take a little bit more,
[00:49:04] but take us to Porsmith, they will hospital.
[00:49:06] So we flew there,
[00:49:07] and you know, we got taken in and taken off.
[00:49:10] And they cut your uniform off and do all such stuff.
[00:49:14] But as we're waiting for X-rays,
[00:49:17] we were all in this little waiting room together.
[00:49:20] The other guys in wheelchairs,
[00:49:22] and you know, there were two of us with broken backs.
[00:49:24] And one guy, Kevin Blake,
[00:49:28] Kevin wound up breaking both of his legs.
[00:49:31] But when he came down,
[00:49:33] he then hit,
[00:49:35] but his face went into his knees.
[00:49:38] And we still didn't know what was what.
[00:49:41] So we had one corpsman from the hospital helping us out.
[00:49:45] And Kevin says,
[00:49:47] man,
[00:49:48] I might know who's this is so stuffy.
[00:49:50] He says, hey, doc, do you have a tissue?
[00:49:52] Can I have a tissue?
[00:49:53] So the corpsman gets a tissue
[00:49:55] and Kevin blows his nose,
[00:49:58] but he broke all of his sinuses in his face.
[00:50:00] His whole face came away from the skull.
[00:50:05] And we're all laughing like her.
[00:50:08] And the corpsman just running out of the sweat.
[00:50:15] And we was like a Jim Carrey movie there.
[00:50:18] His face is out there.
[00:50:20] We got broken bones and broken backs.
[00:50:22] We're all laughing.
[00:50:24] You know, always look for the price side of life.
[00:50:26] Right.
[00:50:28] So whatever we want to eventually was able to heal up.
[00:50:30] No permanent injuries.
[00:50:32] No, no, so a couple of those guys left.
[00:50:34] It was a different time back then.
[00:50:36] I'm sorry to say that I wound up being admitted into an officer room
[00:50:42] with some retired Navy captain.
[00:50:45] But the troops wound up being on a ward.
[00:50:48] And there were probably 20 patients on the ward
[00:50:54] to include some sailor who had been an emoticycle accident
[00:50:58] and he's on a rotisserie.
[00:51:00] But it's pretty much a death watch.
[00:51:03] So George M. McRaven and Kathy,
[00:51:07] the two of them were the very best of friends.
[00:51:11] And you know, Bill and I are best of friends.
[00:51:14] And they come to visit me.
[00:51:16] And now Kathy is of course with me the whole time in Georgia.
[00:51:19] I said, hey, do me a favor.
[00:51:20] I can't get out of bed.
[00:51:22] Would you go down and check on the guys and see how they're doing?
[00:51:24] So they went down.
[00:51:26] And Kevin Blake is in traction with two hairdryers on his cast.
[00:51:35] And Kathy said, Kevin, what are you doing?
[00:51:40] The doctor said I could get out of here as soon as my cast's strong.
[00:51:43] But neither of them had been washed.
[00:51:46] So we've been in the field for eight to ten days.
[00:51:49] They had camouflage on them, your hair.
[00:51:52] So I mean, these are two sailors, mother's sons.
[00:51:57] They've been in the hospital for a couple of days.
[00:52:00] And they've still got them added hair.
[00:52:02] And so Kathy and George M. McRaven, you know,
[00:52:06] got shampooed the guys.
[00:52:09] Watch their camouflage off them.
[00:52:13] And you know, just do what you need to do for a fellow teammate.
[00:52:16] And you know, I'm glad to say, you know, when I've been in the hospital since then, unfortunately.
[00:52:25] And Navy medicine is really supportive now.
[00:52:29] But it was again, once again, after Vietnam, with the entire military suffering.
[00:52:33] But I deployed that was in Halloween of 82, and I deployed to Europe in March of 83, five months later.
[00:52:43] And jumped into McRaven, his Scotland.
[00:52:46] And then also conducted a major exercise, a flintlock exercise with my swim partner, Chuck Williams.
[00:52:53] And from a U-boat, you term in U-209, that we, you know, we,
[00:52:59] was a, so we had to lock in a lock out through the German torpedo tube, which was an excellent adventure.
[00:53:05] It's not for everybody.
[00:53:07] But when we left the submarine, we were in the one of the 13 hours in the Baltic.
[00:53:13] So this is in, you know, late March or early April of 83, that surface temperature was 39 degrees.
[00:53:21] But obviously, we'd down about 10 feet.
[00:53:23] And you know, it's just really glad that, you know, I had an Olympic and towing me.
[00:53:28] But, you know, we were able to do everything that, you know, we were taught to do.
[00:53:34] And the two Americans, one Paris successfully completed the mission.
[00:53:38] And the Germans, who, the conference room, were very, very good.
[00:53:42] So I mean, neither this one pair, we were able to do it.
[00:53:46] Once one pair wound up, but not finding the harbor and wound up in the hospital with hypothermia.
[00:53:51] And the other one pair bailed.
[00:53:53] And it was really kind of a defining thing for the seal community to be able to just say, you know, we did that.
[00:54:01] But the Germans couldn't speak English.
[00:54:03] And I couldn't speak German to be able to do lock out from a German torpedo tube.
[00:54:08] Yeah, something got lost in translation a couple of times.
[00:54:12] And you were diving triggers.
[00:54:14] Yeah.
[00:54:15] Man, and so that's like eight, yeah.
[00:54:17] So the wet suits back then were junk.
[00:54:20] So I grew up surfing in Maine and I had saved all the water.
[00:54:24] I had saved all my money and bought one of these modern wetsuits at the time.
[00:54:29] It was an O'Neill source was what it was called.
[00:54:32] And it had an embedded hood or a hood that was part of the rest of it had a dry suit zipper.
[00:54:38] Even though it was a wetsuit, it had a dry suit zipper just to keep as much water in there as you can.
[00:54:43] And I showed up to seal team one with this wetsuit, which was like the most modern technology.
[00:54:47] And we were doing swimmer lockouts, and I remember just that I was in heaven with this wetsuit.
[00:54:52] Cause the wetsuits back in the early eighties, which you were wearing, just junk.
[00:54:58] Yeah, well and even when we went through budgetishly, you didn't get a wetsuit during both..
[00:55:06] You did eventually after a, a, a, a, a, as, a Jocque will tell you folks.
[00:55:10] Though one of the big defining things there in seal training is the cold.
[00:55:14] And you know, if you show up to something California to see palm trees, don't be deceived.
[00:55:21] The water is cold.
[00:55:23] Yeah.
[00:55:24] You know, it probably several weeks in the training before they go.
[00:55:28] And of course it was just picked something off the shelf.
[00:55:30] Other fits or not.
[00:55:31] Well, we got wet suits, but again, I knew from surfing and main.
[00:55:36] And I was kind of on the forefront of wet suit technology.
[00:55:40] And then I showed up at buds and they're issuing these wet suits, which they don't fit you.
[00:55:45] It was an old school beaver tale with a zipper up the front.
[00:55:48] I mean, they barely helped.
[00:55:50] They barely. I mean, they provided some some bit of warmth, but barely.
[00:55:54] What's the swimmer lock up?
[00:55:56] So you're in a submarine.
[00:55:58] And then underwater, you get out of the submarine and you go.
[00:56:01] And it's a very common one was like on the U-boat, but for the American subs,
[00:56:05] they have an escape chamber, which is a little ball.
[00:56:08] It's a little, it's a little sphere that you're sitting in.
[00:56:11] And it's probably six eight foot diameter.
[00:56:14] Oh, that ball.
[00:56:15] It's a baller on the ballistic missile submarine today's, but on the attack boats,
[00:56:19] it's probably about four feet across.
[00:56:20] It's tiny.
[00:56:22] And you're in there.
[00:56:23] And so you get in there from inside the sub.
[00:56:26] And then that thing fills up with water.
[00:56:29] And as it fills up with water, the pressure, the pressure equalizes with
[00:56:33] what's outside, and you end up with just a little bit of air, a couple inches.
[00:56:38] And then it equalizes, and then you can, the door opens up,
[00:56:42] and you swim out of the submarine.
[00:56:44] So I, I, I deployed on 12 submarines.
[00:56:47] So back then, once you get, you know, no good deeds,
[00:56:51] those are not punished.
[00:56:52] You know that.
[00:56:53] But so that's how I wound up doing the German U-boat.
[00:56:56] And it was different now.
[00:56:59] The U-boat's up in the Baltic, their electric.
[00:57:03] So it's shallow up there as well.
[00:57:05] Our submarines are deep deep draft, but they're silent.
[00:57:09] Just like trying to listen to a battery.
[00:57:11] And so it was a completely different experience.
[00:57:17] And that German two-on-line have got eight-to-it-pito tubes up in the bow.
[00:57:22] And what they did is, in port, they took torpedo out of the port side
[00:57:27] and the starboard side.
[00:57:29] So there's no torpedo.
[00:57:30] Now keep in mind folks that this is only 21 inches wide.
[00:57:34] And I guess about maybe 21 feet in length.
[00:57:39] So we had to link up with the German U-boat in the middle of the Baltic.
[00:57:46] So now this was, you know, planned exercise.
[00:57:49] So we fly out of McRahanney, Scotland in a Air Force penetrating aircraft,
[00:57:54] with low level over Europe and then over the Baltic by low level.
[00:57:58] I'm talking about 100 feet or so.
[00:58:01] And we get ready to go.
[00:58:03] You've got your parachute on.
[00:58:05] You've got your limits.
[00:58:07] You've got your weapons.
[00:58:08] And the door opens.
[00:58:10] You're still at 100 feet.
[00:58:12] And they tell you to get ready.
[00:58:13] You stand up.
[00:58:14] And then the aircraft comes up.
[00:58:16] Just think like a bell curve.
[00:58:18] It gets to about 900 feet or so.
[00:58:21] And everybody just jumps out.
[00:58:23] So the last man's out.
[00:58:25] The aircraft dives back down.
[00:58:27] All right.
[00:58:28] So you wind up in the water.
[00:58:31] Ditch the parachute.
[00:58:32] You link up.
[00:58:33] And we all get together.
[00:58:35] And then I start taking one of my weights and banging it against the oxygen bottle.
[00:58:41] So that the submarine can through, you know, so no pick us up.
[00:58:46] So we're in the water for about an hour and a half to two hours.
[00:58:50] And all of a sudden, as out of nowhere, the parachute scope.
[00:58:54] Pairs go up.
[00:58:55] It just scares the daylight setting.
[00:58:57] So this is the best part about it.
[00:58:59] Right.
[00:59:00] So now we're in the middle of the Baltic.
[00:59:02] The submarine is there.
[00:59:04] I've got to go to the side of the submarine and tap on it to certain signal to let them know that it's us.
[00:59:09] Who else is it going to be?
[00:59:11] Who else is out there beside us?
[00:59:14] Right.
[00:59:16] So so that when they do that,
[00:59:19] they, they, the torpedo tubes have already been flooded.
[00:59:22] They open the shutters and this is,
[00:59:25] uh, not without great risk.
[00:59:27] So the first swimmer went in, uh, to feed first.
[00:59:31] And that was the my swim partner.
[00:59:33] But I would go away.
[00:59:34] And that was Chuck Williams.
[00:59:36] Chuck Williams.
[00:59:37] Who's that beast in the water for sure?
[00:59:39] He's that team to do it.
[00:59:40] I was a team to do it.
[00:59:41] It was a stud.
[00:59:42] I told him everything he does.
[00:59:44] And then I would go in next to Chuck.
[00:59:47] And we're right next to each other.
[00:59:49] That I mean, we can kiss each other.
[00:59:51] Now keep in mind, we've probably had 300 hours together under water.
[00:59:54] So far.
[00:59:55] Now then the second swim pair comes in, feed first.
[00:59:59] And that, he puts his fins on top of my thighs.
[01:00:03] Uh, and then the last guy comes in.
[01:00:05] And once he comes in, once he's clear of the shutters,
[01:00:09] you know, he squeezes his body,
[01:00:11] who taps me on my thighs.
[01:00:13] I've got the weight and that I tap the submarine.
[01:00:16] The submarine, so that they could close the shutters.
[01:00:19] So, all right, we're in.
[01:00:21] Now the torpedo tube is designed to let absolutely no light escape.
[01:00:28] So even if you had a flashlight,
[01:00:31] you can't see anything inside.
[01:00:33] I know keep in mind it's 21 inches.
[01:00:35] We're next to each other.
[01:00:36] And you have to take your drag or off to get in there.
[01:00:39] No.
[01:00:39] Okay.
[01:00:40] So I'll be in.
[01:00:41] So no, because the thing is, oh, now it comes to the life or death situation.
[01:00:44] So, so the reason why we figured we could do this is because an oxygen bubble is smaller than the nitrogen bubble because of what's going to happen next.
[01:00:52] So, um, we've got a lock into the submarine and come into the torpedo room.
[01:00:58] Now the torpedo room and the submarine is pressurized to sea level.
[01:01:02] But we're at 14 meters.
[01:01:04] So, um, it was, so you depressurize, then you do water.
[01:01:09] So I got a tap signal, we're all in.
[01:01:12] And then they said, you know, whenever it was, get ready to go.
[01:01:16] So get ready to go means we all had to breathe or air bags or, you know, down to is thin as a paper.
[01:01:24] Now our folks out there are bags or about the size of a football.
[01:01:28] Mm-hmm.
[01:01:29] That's it.
[01:01:30] But it had to be, you know, really sincerely paper.
[01:01:33] And once you had it down, then my partner would squeeze me.
[01:01:36] And then the guys would kick me, right?
[01:01:38] And then it was a, and I, and I would squeeze it, you ready to go, you ready to go.
[01:01:42] And then I would tap them, we're ready to go, right?
[01:01:45] And it goes, here we go.
[01:01:47] And then they would pressurize the torpedo tube that would,
[01:01:52] or take us from 14 meters to the surface in one second.
[01:01:55] So with the gas expansion, you know, that, so it was equivalent to,
[01:02:00] I mean this is surely a, get good you know.
[01:02:03] It was equivalent to, you know, having a small quarter pound half pound block of TNT
[01:02:08] or in the, in the torpedo tube, it picked the form, I saw it.
[01:02:13] And just the pressurization just rattles you it's a,
[01:02:17] all right?
[01:02:19] And you can see it, the guys,
[01:02:22] so, but it was done, you're okay, you're okay.
[01:02:25] So then they have to do water and you come out.
[01:02:28] So, you know, Chuck Williams comes out and then I come out,
[01:02:33] think I come out and you know, look at me like,
[01:02:35] Mr. McWire, you gotta do something about this, you know?
[01:02:39] And that's just your, that's it, we're just just getting into the boat.
[01:02:43] You have done anything, you have done anything, yeah.
[01:02:45] Oh no, this is showing up.
[01:02:46] Oh no, so now we've got a, now we've got a three day transit to the targets on board this,
[01:02:51] you know, German U-boat, which is, if you've seen dust boot,
[01:02:56] I mean, all about it.
[01:02:58] Everybody in the submarine is at a central casting.
[01:03:01] I mean, the captain is 35 years of age.
[01:03:04] He's got the white turtle neck, he's got the beard, he's got the Hayes,
[01:03:06] got the jack boots, and the sausages hanging back and forth.
[01:03:11] Now, it's a small crew, it's probably only about maybe 30.
[01:03:15] And around the clock, these guys are working,
[01:03:18] but we were supposed to be trying to sleep right by the torpedo room,
[01:03:24] which is also the Messe deck.
[01:03:25] So we'd get about two hours sleep, and wake us up,
[01:03:28] because they'd have to set up for a meal, and you know, go back to sleep.
[01:03:31] So we didn't actually sleep for a couple of days,
[01:03:34] but then as we start getting into the target,
[01:03:36] they take mattresses and blankets and put them all on the deck.
[01:03:41] Now, and, you know, we have our wet suits and everything,
[01:03:44] which was a mistake in the torpedo.
[01:03:47] You know, you're putting on a wet, wet suits that, you know,
[01:03:51] in 30 degrees.
[01:03:52] But we can hear the A.S.W. craft overhead.
[01:03:55] So as the summeries coming in, you're the ping, ping, ping,
[01:03:57] and then the summery we just sit in the bottom, and you're new.
[01:04:00] The propeller, the one by, once the propeller went by,
[01:04:04] the summery we'd come up, and take us at a little bit further.
[01:04:08] Now, the Germans are helping us get dressed, putting on stuff on,
[01:04:12] and they're going to be a little bit more comfortable.
[01:04:15] So, we're going to get some rest of the summer,
[01:04:17] and we're going to get some rest of the summer,
[01:04:19] and the Germans are helping us get dressed, putting on stuff on,
[01:04:22] and because the mattresses were going to floor,
[01:04:24] and the blankets were going to floor, so,
[01:04:26] these sonar from the surface ships, they're not picking any of that out.
[01:04:29] And then, one by one, they pick us up slowly, you know,
[01:04:34] load us in to, so, I'm the last guy to go in.
[01:04:39] And I mean, it's just, so as I'm going to the captain comes,
[01:04:43] and you know, to wish me well,
[01:04:45] and he can say a couple of things, you know, you know,
[01:04:48] target bears, one, three, zero, and so good luck,
[01:04:53] and good hunting.
[01:04:55] Then he gives me a plaque.
[01:04:58] He got a stick in my wits, right?
[01:05:01] So, we go through the reverse, and then we're, you know,
[01:05:05] 14 meters, and then we have to go, I get pressurized,
[01:05:09] or no, we're at surface, then we have to get pressurized.
[01:05:12] So, that wasn't as bad because you're getting pressurized,
[01:05:15] it's supposed to depressurize, you didn't have the gas expansion on that,
[01:05:18] but you had to worry about squeezes and some of the other things.
[01:05:21] And then you come to the surface, and, you know,
[01:05:23] we're probably about, oh, maybe five miles out,
[01:05:26] and we weren't supposed to be five miles out.
[01:05:29] What happened was that, you know,
[01:05:31] he couldn't speak to me on that, that he viewed the threat from the A.S.W. boats
[01:05:36] and the picket boats, two great to bring the submarine in,
[01:05:39] and get, get, get, get, get, get, get, get in compromise.
[01:05:42] And we're out there, and, you know, now, you're five miles off the coast,
[01:05:46] and you're in the water, and you're looking,
[01:05:49] and, you know, you've got your little bends compass
[01:05:51] and you try to figure out, and, you know, where is it?
[01:05:54] Where is it? Where is it? Where is it? Where is the target?
[01:05:56] And I said the truck, that's got to be at buddy.
[01:06:00] See that one area that's totally black?
[01:06:02] That's a giveaway, that's got to be the target.
[01:06:05] So, we started going towards that, and certain of the warpicket boats there.
[01:06:10] So, we had a plan dive that was supposed to start pretty much at the mouth of the harbor,
[01:06:14] and we had to start way before that.
[01:06:16] So, we actually spent a little over three hours submerged in this,
[01:06:22] that harbor and the open it's.
[01:06:24] And as we're coming out, Chuck, no, we didn't need to talk anymore.
[01:06:30] I mean, we could squeeze and, and, and, you know, we, we,
[01:06:34] we did what we needed to do. We put the, the, the packages on the ships,
[01:06:38] and he signals to me on Friday, which was, you know, gas Olympia.
[01:06:44] And, uh, I said, so, okay, let's go over to the side.
[01:06:48] So, now we go to the side of the harbor, and he takes his mask off.
[01:06:54] He goes, I'm screwed. He said, I've got this pounding headache.
[01:06:58] I've got narrow vision. I can't, I can't see much of anything.
[01:07:01] What we did, we screwed up.
[01:07:03] Um, we brought additional oxygen bottles on what the submarine,
[01:07:07] but we didn't bring in additional sodas or this grubber.
[01:07:11] So, what Chuck had done, working so hard for that much time in the water,
[01:07:15] is that, um, he overbreeth his rig. I mean, we're working hard.
[01:07:20] Uh, and then the, uh, the, the scrubber that takes the nitrogen out of,
[01:07:26] you know, your rebreathing, although he had more oxygen in the bottle,
[01:07:29] was no longer working. So, he was having a tremendous nitrogen buildup,
[01:07:33] and he said, I just can't go out of the further.
[01:07:36] Uh, now we've only got about a, maybe a little quarter mile more to get out of the harbor,
[01:07:41] but we're not going to, and now this, this pickets on one of the sea walls,
[01:07:45] waiting for us. So, we just kind of sit there and you figure,
[01:07:49] all right, so this is a Northern Europe harbor, and the sea wall is probably,
[01:07:54] uh, 12 feet high, maybe six to seven feet wide,
[01:07:59] and um, if you're going to, the only way we're going to do this is we've got to get over the sea wall,
[01:08:05] get to the ocean side, and see what we take it from there.
[01:08:09] So, uh, Chuck's a tall guy, and I was able to get on Chuck shoulders,
[01:08:15] and jump up to the top, and then, you know, he handed me, you know,
[01:08:20] my droger, his droger, and then I was able to, you know, pull him up,
[01:08:25] and that the tool was just, you know, lying there, that we rolled over to the other side,
[01:08:29] and it just kind of dropped down, uh, with, with all of our toys,
[01:08:33] and just laid there for about 10 minutes to see, and, you know,
[01:08:37] nope, I mean, they had flares going off, and other things there.
[01:08:40] And now, the rendezvous, we had a fishing boat that was from a Danish intelligence,
[01:08:47] that was supposed to be at a certain place, and, um,
[01:08:51] you're looking there, and they're not at that certain place,
[01:08:56] but there is one boat out there that is another couple of miles away.
[01:09:01] Right? So, um, I go, now, if we did make the rendezvous,
[01:09:07] then you had to go into the E&E nets, and if these are folks,
[01:09:11] they fought World War II, so this was, you did that, I mean, you know,
[01:09:15] I don't want to go into the E&E.
[01:09:18] So I said, Chuck, it's not where it's supposed to be, but that's about right.
[01:09:22] Well, it's about, I said, but I said, that's gotta be it.
[01:09:26] So let's go. So we take off surface warming,
[01:09:29] you know, on our back, and now he's kicking out the Olympic quality,
[01:09:33] and now my hip from my broken pelvis is kind of unspent.
[01:09:40] So while I'm trying to do, because my swim is getting to trim,
[01:09:43] and I'll hold him up that much.
[01:09:45] So we get to this boat, and before we get to the boat,
[01:09:48] we have to go back on back, and then we have to go underneath the fishing boat,
[01:09:54] and underneath the fishing boat, there were cab lights.
[01:09:58] Then displayed, that told us this is the right boat.
[01:10:01] Now here it gets fun again, right?
[01:10:03] So we go up to the fishing boat, and there's a ladder over the side,
[01:10:07] and the guys in the fishing boat, Danish.
[01:10:11] You know, we had to give them a certain bonus feedy.
[01:10:14] You know, no, I've got a gun, you know, it's supposed to be a compromise, right?
[01:10:18] I figured, there's two things.
[01:10:19] One, I'm getting, no, I don't care if it's Russians, I'm getting on that boat,
[01:10:23] and two, if they won't let us on, I'm shooting myself.
[01:10:26] So you're freezing, you're dehydrated, you've been in the water for 13 hours.
[01:10:29] They take it below deck, and it's a real fishing boat.
[01:10:32] So they add an artificial side of the boat that they take off,
[01:10:37] and put against the skin of the ship, and they put the tubeless linen
[01:10:41] against the skin of the ship, and give us a couple of these big beers and chocolate bars,
[01:10:46] and then put the back on there, and then put fish on top of that.
[01:10:51] No, I want to put the fish on top of that.
[01:10:55] No, I want to black us, and I want to go on a water.
[01:10:58] Said the tubeless just had to hug each other all the way, it did that like.
[01:11:02] What, you know, it's one of those things that, you know,
[01:11:06] the recruiters doesn't tell you that stuff.
[01:11:08] Sounds like a Navy achievement, that'll at least make me,
[01:11:11] no, no, they didn't give up, and that'll be back there, you know?
[01:11:13] No, no, I got the breast fig leaf for broncholeaf palms,
[01:11:16] I think that's what it was.
[01:11:18] Oh, that's brutal.
[01:11:20] It was brutal, but you know, you know, this chocolate is so surely,
[01:11:23] it was, but just to be able to come back in and just go,
[01:11:27] mission accomplished.
[01:11:28] Yeah.
[01:11:29] We did it, man.
[01:11:30] And it was, we did it the hard way, but we did it just,
[01:11:32] the tremendous satisfaction you get from being a seal,
[01:11:35] and being able to do a really hard mission,
[01:11:39] and, you know, even in my fitness report, you know,
[01:11:42] when that, you know, Rick, when I'd brought it there,
[01:11:44] they're very few people, if any, in the world,
[01:11:47] that could do with what these guys did, the sex-assize.
[01:11:50] So, that's, that's a freaking rough one.
[01:11:52] Oh, yeah.
[01:11:53] I did a, was on an art cartoon.
[01:11:55] I did a recon.
[01:11:57] We dove into a harbor.
[01:11:58] We took pictures.
[01:12:00] And the of whatever ship was up here at Camp Pendleton.
[01:12:03] You know, we dove in.
[01:12:04] We got out of the water.
[01:12:05] We took pictures, and this was the old school, you know, film.
[01:12:08] And we come back out, and I, I had gotten, I had gotten,
[01:12:11] like, purchased in the perfect spot.
[01:12:13] I was able to keep this shutter open for like minutes,
[01:12:15] and just hold it perfectly.
[01:12:17] And so I took a bunch of pictures.
[01:12:18] We came back, and then, and then the report,
[01:12:20] I got back from, from my Patoon Commander was that, you know,
[01:12:23] the, the, the, and Fabius ready group commander said,
[01:12:25] I thought these guys went in there during the night,
[01:12:28] and the, and the Patoon Commander said,
[01:12:29] they did go in there night.
[01:12:31] This is, this is good photography.
[01:12:33] But yeah, same kind of feeling.
[01:12:34] And I just tell guys, when you're doing a water off,
[01:12:37] it's a real world, Bob.
[01:12:39] But there's, there's all kinds of things that can kill you.
[01:12:41] Hopefully when you're out there, especially in 30-degree water,
[01:12:44] and 40-degree water, and on, you know,
[01:12:46] doing the, in and out of the submarine.
[01:12:48] Yeah.
[01:12:50] Oh, joke.
[01:12:51] Yeah, I'm in the,
[01:12:53] class, I had to be in Buds.
[01:12:54] We lost a young,
[01:12:55] trainee doing surf passage with,
[01:12:59] those big, heavy rakes that we had through the plunging
[01:13:03] Coronado surf.
[01:13:05] He hit his head on the back of his,
[01:13:07] regulator, and knocked him out,
[01:13:09] but then picked up the swim pair,
[01:13:11] and the tour of the body line.
[01:13:13] And they lost him, and finally got him some time later.
[01:13:16] Yeah, I mean, it's, it's, it's for real.
[01:13:19] And the ocean can kill you or the weather.
[01:13:21] You know, it used to be the patrol lead as car that we had years ago.
[01:13:24] The first thing you'd start off was listing enemy,
[01:13:26] and the first thing you'd list it was weather.
[01:13:28] So, what did you do after that deployment?
[01:13:34] Well, that's when I went to graduate school.
[01:13:37] Okay.
[01:13:38] So I, I went to, they've opposed graduate school,
[01:13:41] and studied scientific and technical intelligence.
[01:13:45] And I thought, alright, I got 18 months of surfing,
[01:13:49] and screw it off.
[01:13:52] And so my brother went to the University of Michigan,
[01:13:55] got his MBA.
[01:13:56] For 24 months, he took 40 credits.
[01:14:00] I went to the Naval Postgraduate School,
[01:14:02] and in 18 months to 96 credits,
[01:14:05] of which I had three electives, three credit electives.
[01:14:09] That's it.
[01:14:10] And a good portion of it was in the physical lab.
[01:14:13] And, you know, we're designing the shape of scientific intelligence.
[01:14:17] I kind of missed that.
[01:14:18] So, but it was a great education.
[01:14:24] And, you know, I really, one, I enjoyed living in Central California,
[01:14:28] do I mean, we want to do in triathlons and some other good stuff.
[01:14:31] But being able to complete that curriculum then,
[01:14:34] and then leaving there and getting all of the intelligence accesses,
[01:14:38] that you don't realize that those things exist
[01:14:40] and so you get into the secret clubhouse.
[01:14:42] And then I was in the secret clubhouse,
[01:14:44] and I left there and went to Naval Special Warfare Group 2
[01:14:47] in Virginia Beach, which is the oversight group command
[01:14:52] for the SEAL teams on the East Coast
[01:14:54] as the intelligence officer there.
[01:14:56] So it was a very, very good time to be the intel officer
[01:15:00] because we were involved in 1986, Elder Ronald Canyon,
[01:15:04] the Libyan campaign.
[01:15:06] We had the Central American Wars,
[01:15:09] and also we did a significant amount of work
[01:15:14] and other areas there.
[01:15:16] But, you know, that really is what I first got involved
[01:15:19] and deeply involved in intelligence.
[01:15:22] But to me, it just went hand in glove with being a SEAL
[01:15:26] that you know what to ask for,
[01:15:28] that we didn't really know what the menu was,
[01:15:30] because you didn't know.
[01:15:32] We just kept ordering burgers and fries.
[01:15:34] But once you realize exactly what the intelligence community
[01:15:38] got in this capability, you can really refine.
[01:15:41] And the other thing is, well, more importantly,
[01:15:43] as you know this, Jaco,
[01:15:44] it doesn't matter what you got in your collar,
[01:15:46] it doesn't matter who you know in relationships.
[01:15:49] It's all about relationships.
[01:15:51] And when you had folks who were there,
[01:15:53] the end two of second fleet,
[01:15:54] and I went to graduate school with this individual.
[01:15:57] You know, that really paid off great dividends,
[01:15:59] you know, for their community.
[01:16:01] But, you know, when it came to what we were doing
[01:16:04] and you know, been gasi and all these other places,
[01:16:07] you know, I mean, we had built target folders for full and that stuff.
[01:16:11] And when it comes to final jeopardy,
[01:16:13] if it's a geograph or question,
[01:16:15] I probably had a target folder on it.
[01:16:17] And then, didn't you end up going to now back to SDV?
[01:16:21] And when did SDV form up?
[01:16:23] SDV team too?
[01:16:25] SDV team too formed up in about 1979, 1979 or 80.
[01:16:32] Because we had a UDT,
[01:16:34] we had an SDV detachment in UDT-21.
[01:16:38] And that was siphoning off so much of our money
[01:16:42] and so much of our time because a great idea.
[01:16:46] But we did not have the technology.
[01:16:48] And the guy spent the great deal of their time
[01:16:50] switching out the bow holes because they kept crashing
[01:16:52] and it'd appear as a rocks and some other things.
[01:16:55] But called him miserable.
[01:16:56] But the other thing as well,
[01:16:58] it was a really good time for me to go to SDV.
[01:17:00] Because that when we first started to modify
[01:17:02] the nuclear power and submarine's to carry us,
[01:17:05] I suppose to just have it as go on there and
[01:17:06] putting towels on the deck and tell us not to make a mess.
[01:17:09] And we just had the dry deck shelter.
[01:17:11] We had the mobility improvement project,
[01:17:14] which was a national mission to the first dry deck shelter,
[01:17:20] which is, this is a garage folks that we put
[01:17:22] on the nuclear submarine.
[01:17:24] And we put our submersible boats in there.
[01:17:28] And we come out of the submarine and into that
[01:17:32] it's like a garage.
[01:17:33] And then we go off on a mission,
[01:17:35] probably about 10 to 12 hours and cold, wet, submarine.
[01:17:41] And it really, I'm glad that I had that other background
[01:17:46] in that that I was able to bring an awful lot to comfort.
[01:17:51] The commanding officers of the submarine,
[01:17:53] that you guys are going to run my career,
[01:17:55] it's going to be okay, Captain.
[01:17:57] We probably will, but it's going to be okay.
[01:18:00] But yeah, and Bill McCraver was there just before me,
[01:18:04] as a Flushoon Commander, an Evan Thompson.
[01:18:07] But also at that point, I didn't want to be that ambitious,
[01:18:11] Jaco, I mean, that's just early.
[01:18:13] But I just figured, if I ever do wind up being a charge
[01:18:17] of the community, I'd like to know something about everything
[01:18:20] in the community.
[01:18:21] And I really strive to at least have one tour
[01:18:26] and have a good sense of what it's all about.
[01:18:29] At what point did you realize you were just going to do
[01:18:31] as long as you could do?
[01:18:33] Oh, when my wife told me that.
[01:18:36] So I mean, this is really.
[01:18:39] So I guess I was at the 10 year point.
[01:18:43] We just, we, you know, we did Grenada,
[01:18:47] Vietnam is over, and we're going to do anything ever again.
[01:18:51] And it was kind of unlikely.
[01:18:53] I mean, we do it exercises and everybody was bored.
[01:18:56] And I was not, well, I don't know if my old,
[01:18:59] for me to see your guys listen to that.
[01:19:01] And we're not a whole lot of folks who were inspirational leaders.
[01:19:05] Adam, let me put it to you that way.
[01:19:07] And I just figured, okay, I'm going to go to law school.
[01:19:10] So I was applying to law school, and I'm, I'm dead serious.
[01:19:15] I'm going to go, be a lawyer.
[01:19:17] And I finally get this counseling session from Kathy.
[01:19:20] She goes, you're not going to be a lawyer.
[01:19:22] She said, you are a seal.
[01:19:25] You're a good seal.
[01:19:26] Every friend we have are seals.
[01:19:28] I'm not going to give that up for you just to become another crummy lawyer.
[01:19:32] Sorry counselors.
[01:19:34] But so, so I just said, you know, I feel like any good husband.
[01:19:38] Okay.
[01:19:39] So I just decided to, you know, jump back in with both feet.
[01:19:43] And then, you know, you take it as it comes.
[01:19:46] You know, at the 20 year point,
[01:19:48] we've all got to decide whether or not we're going to retire.
[01:19:51] But as you know, the service is like they put that carrot out for funny.
[01:19:55] You know, okay, I'll take that promotion.
[01:19:57] And then I'll get out.
[01:19:58] Then they put it on the car.
[01:20:00] Next to, you know, you're old and ugly.
[01:20:02] And you got 36 years into the Navy.
[01:20:05] So was that your, was that your ex-O tour at STV team?
[01:20:08] It was.
[01:20:09] It was.
[01:20:10] And at a lot of time, it's see, you know, onboard the submarines and do an operations.
[01:20:15] So yeah, that was good.
[01:20:17] That really was a really, really good tour.
[01:20:22] Really become.
[01:20:23] Was that was the first deployment that we ever made with the direct ex-Oltre.
[01:20:26] And you know, when you do do the first,
[01:20:29] There's nothing.
[01:20:30] You mean, you had to write everything.
[01:20:32] You had to write the tactic, techniques, procedures.
[01:20:34] And procedures working from a submarine or life in death procedures.
[01:20:39] Yeah.
[01:20:39] And you really had to know and be extremely cautious.
[01:20:42] And it really was the unknowns.
[01:20:44] And you just think, you go back and forth.
[01:20:47] And in the community, you know, we, we are a risk-taking community,
[01:20:52] But you never take a risk you don't have to.
[01:20:55] So we really had to put, you know, wasn't cons and most,
[01:20:58] Experienn folks.
[01:20:59] And then sometimes, honestly, pretty much we knew it.
[01:21:02] It's going to be okay, but you're still rolling the dice sometimes.
[01:21:05] But to credit really belongs to those guys, you know,
[01:21:09] the pilot navigator and the STVs.
[01:21:12] To be able to go from a nuclear submarine submerged in the middle of the ocean
[01:21:17] and go into a target and come back ten hours plus later
[01:21:23] and find that submarine is a remarkable feat.
[01:21:27] It really is.
[01:21:28] So, you know, really the credit goes to those young operators.
[01:21:32] Hard men.
[01:21:33] I still think that, you know, that is probably among our hardest
[01:21:36] missions that we've got.
[01:21:37] And as you know, there is not a wetsuit thick enough.
[01:21:40] To keep you warm.
[01:21:43] And so then what?
[01:21:45] Did you go, is that when you went to detailer after you got done with that tour?
[01:21:48] You became a team.
[01:21:49] No, I became the maritime-special purpose force commander.
[01:21:51] Oh, yes, yes.
[01:21:52] So I deployed for a year with, you know, the marine detachment
[01:21:57] and with art detachment and got over to the Mediterranean.
[01:22:00] Got involved with another submarine operation there for the evacuation
[01:22:04] of the embassy in Bay Root.
[01:22:06] Oh, okay.
[01:22:07] So, as this was the second time that I was in Bay Root, I evacuated
[01:22:11] when I was in Enson on board the ship in 1976.
[01:22:14] Because they were at war.
[01:22:16] And the ship pulled in a middle of the night and all the bay was on fire.
[01:22:20] And the Palestinian liberation authority gave us permission.
[01:22:25] You know, be able to have one boat command and a junior officer
[01:22:29] to take the Americans out to conclude the United States ambassador.
[01:22:33] And I'm in my whites with my little shoulder boards and, you know,
[01:22:37] they're the PLO or pulling these guys out from line,
[01:22:41] not let them get on board or our boat.
[01:22:43] I'm on the walkie-talkie-callin' back to the ship and talk it to the XO.
[01:22:46] I said, sir, you know, they're pulling people out.
[01:22:48] Just don't do anything we could do.
[01:22:50] Don't do a thing, Joe.
[01:22:51] Just don't leave that boat.
[01:22:53] And, you know, don't do anything till the Americans are on board.
[01:22:56] The embassy does on board.
[01:22:57] But it really to me, this was in July of 1976 with the, you know,
[01:23:02] 200th anniversary of our nation.
[01:23:05] And I think, and here we are, the United States of America,
[01:23:08] and we've got these folks dictating to the American ambassador,
[01:23:11] who represent the President of the United States and us,
[01:23:13] whether or not he can go to an unbored and else you.
[01:23:16] And that was a pretty defining moment for me.
[01:23:20] But so then, we did it again at that time frame.
[01:23:26] And I had the opportunity to go back to Bay Route
[01:23:31] when I was the so-com commander with the J-Saw Commander.
[01:23:34] And I had lunch with the Lebanese commandos.
[01:23:37] And it was a great lunch, was sitting there.
[01:23:40] And I'm talking to the Lebanese commander who's hosting the lunch.
[01:23:44] I said, well, I'll tell you, General, this is my fourth trip to Bay Route.
[01:23:50] And the other three times I've been here,
[01:23:53] I never spent more than an hour out of the three trips.
[01:23:58] And I said, well, we're in and out. And I, you know, so we spent probably,
[01:24:02] you know, better part of a day there in Bay Route.
[01:24:04] But it was just interesting when I went into 1976 to see it as a
[01:24:08] collapsed city on fire.
[01:24:09] And it go back in, in the 2019, I guess.
[01:24:13] And just see it, it looks like Hong Kong, except that they're bankrupt.
[01:24:18] But, no, it's funny how, from Ensign to political appointee.
[01:24:24] But it all, you know, it's always been a trouble spot.
[01:24:27] But what was the, when you, when you went there and pulled guys out or
[01:24:31] did the embassy evacuation with from a submarine?
[01:24:33] What was that operation like?
[01:24:35] We can't talk about that, right?
[01:24:37] Yeah, yeah.
[01:24:39] So the one was after that.
[01:24:41] So you did that, just wanted it with the, with the, with the, as the special
[01:24:45] force commander.
[01:24:46] Yep. And then, and then from there, up to D.C.
[01:24:50] So it was my first Washington tour.
[01:24:53] And as the assignment and placement officer for the community.
[01:24:57] And it was an awful lot of fun.
[01:24:59] That, you know, you're the one person in all community, making all assignments from
[01:25:03] Ensign to captains.
[01:25:05] And everybody hates you.
[01:25:07] Hard to believe, isn't it?
[01:25:11] But that was, that was a really good one.
[01:25:15] I did the best I could, even the playing field and, and, and,
[01:25:17] distribute.
[01:25:19] But the other thing is, I had an opportunity to,
[01:25:22] to work and serve on selection boards.
[01:25:24] So you're a junior officer and you're supporting the, the senior
[01:25:27] of the captains, and the admels as they make their selections.
[01:25:31] And you see the selection board process.
[01:25:34] And then you see who gets selected and who doesn't get selected.
[01:25:38] And you can just sit back there after a while and go.
[01:25:41] Don't sweat the low, man.
[01:25:43] Just do your job.
[01:25:44] It's as simple as that.
[01:25:45] You know, because everybody's record, you know, when they're up for flag,
[01:25:48] just about every one of those captains,
[01:25:50] they're records of like manicured lawns.
[01:25:53] But not everybody's going to get it.
[01:25:55] And it's just, it doesn't matter.
[01:25:57] If you're going to get it, you're going to get it.
[01:25:59] But if not, just relax and just do your job.
[01:26:01] And really took an awful lot of pressure off there.
[01:26:03] But, um, yeah, that was a time, uh, that,
[01:26:07] then we went up with, um, uh, first go for.
[01:26:12] So I went up leaving there and going down to,
[01:26:15] uh, devgrew is the deputy commander.
[01:26:18] And then how many years have you spent down there?
[01:26:21] I spent two years down there.
[01:26:23] And then, uh, left to take over a commanding officer's shield team too.
[01:26:27] Now, during this time, would you say that this is a time where, you know,
[01:26:30] you had, uh, the first go for what happened.
[01:26:33] Our seal start to kind of, kind of become popular yet.
[01:26:37] I mean, I came in in 1991 as we mentioned, as I mentioned earlier.
[01:26:40] I mean, there was the, the Navy seals movie,
[01:26:43] which I'm sure echoed Charles likes.
[01:26:45] The Navy seals movie, I think, came out in 1991.
[01:26:48] Yeah, I'd be a makes eye Chuck Farge movie.
[01:26:50] Yeah. Yeah.
[01:26:51] But there was still not a lot of, not a lot of popularity.
[01:26:55] It wasn't a big deal yet.
[01:26:56] No. So, you know, um, um,
[01:26:59] don't want to have a history lesson for everybody out there.
[01:27:02] But, uh, because of the failure of the Iranian hostage, uh,
[01:27:06] rescue mission, uh, in April of 1980,
[01:27:09] and then compounded by what happened in Grenada, um,
[01:27:14] that, uh, to civilian side of the house,
[01:27:17] you know, made the decision that,
[01:27:19] especially because of the failure of the Iranian hostage rescue mission,
[01:27:23] that if we as a nation want to have an organization
[01:27:26] that be able to conduct no fail missions,
[01:27:28] that we need to be serious about this,
[01:27:30] and there has to be one command that's organized,
[01:27:33] trained and equipped to be able to do that.
[01:27:36] That started shaping the, the community.
[01:27:39] But we were still in the Navy, the Army was still in the army,
[01:27:41] and through the Department of Defense Propheation Act of a 1987,
[01:27:46] senators none and co-in tacked on the end of that appropriations bill,
[01:27:51] the establishment of the United States Special Operations Command,
[01:27:54] and bringing in the Navy seals,
[01:27:57] army special forces, Rangers, and, and, and, and, and,
[01:28:00] uh, one 60th, uh, and Air Force Commandos under the United States Special Operations Command.
[01:28:05] So then we had our own line of, uh, of money for, for, for, for,
[01:28:10] for, for, for unique, but be honest with you, um, at that time, uh,
[01:28:15] my friend Tom Colter, who mentioned that, you know,
[01:28:19] okay, once once the seals came into the United States Special Operations Command,
[01:28:22] Tommy goes, well, congratulations.
[01:28:24] When now in the bottom of two food chains,
[01:28:26] hahahaha.
[01:28:28] Pretty much we worry, you know, uh, but, um,
[01:28:32] uh, we still, in spite of that, uh, the resources didn't flow.
[01:28:37] And, um, uh, the active duty military did not necessarily want to have this,
[01:28:41] and if they did, they wanted to have it three star command,
[01:28:45] you know, it's close to Washington.
[01:28:47] And it was our civilians, uh, that said, no, we know the military.
[01:28:50] It's got to be a four star, and, um, well, actually probably had an awful
[01:28:54] lot to do with a powerful flow of delegation.
[01:28:56] Well, they think else that we want of an, it make it ill.
[01:28:59] But, um, it took quite a while, and we would just be coming.
[01:29:03] And, uh, but, uh, the leaders of the community made very, very good decisions
[01:29:08] on what the limited resources we had, uh, and we had other opportunities
[01:29:14] to do away with certain types of things that we as a community did.
[01:29:20] And one of them was, you know, unconventional warfare that, uh,
[01:29:23] the special, the green berets were going to do away with that.
[01:29:26] And luckily, they decided not to, so when 9-11 happened,
[01:29:30] and they were able to send the fifth special forces in, you know,
[01:29:33] with John Mulholland, does the group commander and the other young folks
[01:29:36] that wound up being the horse soldiers, but that war was the defining thing
[01:29:42] for the community. Unfortunately, we pay the heavy toll to be where we are today.
[01:29:47] But, uh, when the opportunity presented itself for both Afghanistan and Iraq,
[01:29:54] um, special operations, mentality and capability was at a premium,
[01:30:00] and we were ready at that time to do that.
[01:30:03] And luckily, the active duty military had come around,
[01:30:07] as well as the scene just civilians, and completely changed the resource
[01:30:12] for the United States Special Operations Command,
[01:30:14] and I have to say really gave us all the tools necessary and bed
[01:30:18] over backwards to make us as successful as we possibly could be.
[01:30:21] And we were carrying all the water.
[01:30:24] And, um, so, um, she said, back then, nobody knew who we were.
[01:30:29] Now, everybody knows who we are, but that also has got to do with the tax that we paid
[01:30:35] and the brave people that you mentioned a little bit earlier, who, you know.
[01:30:39] And if I could talk about that just a little bit, um, with Mark Lee and Ryan,
[01:30:44] so, you know, Jockel mentioned about me welcoming the, the men home from combat,
[01:30:51] but I also, Jockel was already deployed to Iraq, and I would also see all of the guys
[01:30:56] off before they got to the plane and left.
[01:30:59] So, Jockel's got a bunch of guys from his task unit.
[01:31:02] I didn't want to bother them. They're talking to their wives,
[01:31:04] and that is time to kind of go out to the plane.
[01:31:07] And, um, so we're standing around when other plane has said,
[01:31:10] look, guys, one last thing.
[01:31:12] I said, the genies here, rub the lamp, make your wish, you know.
[01:31:17] And, and, guys, some folks have reluctant to talk to a guy with two stars in his collar.
[01:31:24] And now, Mark Lee was a new guy. This was his first deployment.
[01:31:28] And, Mark Lee comes up, he says, hey, Admiral, we talked to you.
[01:31:31] All right, what is it there, Petty obviously?
[01:31:33] Is he, you know, rover there, we'll fight in the war, and with these home fees,
[01:31:37] and these home fees are not air conditioned.
[01:31:38] We need air conditioned home fees.
[01:31:40] Well, Mark, I tell you what, you know, you're in a war,
[01:31:45] and you just can't stick an air conditioner in there because of a bomb goes off.
[01:31:48] You might wind up eating it. So, let me do this.
[01:31:51] Let me go to the United States Special Operations Command.
[01:31:53] I'll talk to General Brown and see what we can do.
[01:31:57] And, I went back to my office. I called General Doug Brown,
[01:31:59] who was our so-called commander. He says, look, got it. I got it.
[01:32:02] That was his big one. I got it.
[01:32:04] They said, but we have to do this smart.
[01:32:06] And we wound up with air conditioned home fees in Iraq
[01:32:10] because Markly asked for that.
[01:32:13] Now, to me, you know, as the Admiral, you work for the men.
[01:32:20] And if that's what they needed, that's what they got.
[01:32:25] But one of the most moving things in my life was when Mark came home
[01:32:31] to San Diego.
[01:32:34] So, when you come home, you get flown into Dover,
[01:32:38] and then from Dover to San Diego.
[01:32:42] So, there were a bunch of us that went down there to meet his body
[01:32:45] as it came off this commercial plane.
[01:32:47] And there were folks at San Diego Airport.
[01:32:51] We're very kind to us and let us, you know, come down.
[01:32:55] So, now everybody had to remain on board the plane
[01:32:58] with the exception of our escort officers that escort Mark's body back.
[01:33:02] And I'm down there with the Master Chief and the body comes off.
[01:33:09] And I mean, all of a sudden, I realize it's dead silent in the airport.
[01:33:16] There's no planes moving, there's no cars moving.
[01:33:19] I mean, I just, I was so focused on the coffin coming off.
[01:33:22] And I look up in the terminal and everybody's pressed against the glass.
[01:33:28] I mean, everywhere. And one of the airport,
[01:33:33] what's going on? He said, we stopped everything.
[01:33:36] We stopped everything.
[01:33:38] And they made a announcement in the airport.
[01:33:40] The first seal who was killed in Iraq is coming home.
[01:33:43] One of we all go out there and welcome a home.
[01:33:45] And that really, that was remarkable.
[01:33:49] And as far as, you know, Ryan Joe,
[01:33:53] I mean, you had to know Ryan folks.
[01:33:55] So, I mean, Ryan was just indomitable, absolutely indomitable.
[01:33:59] So now here he lost his vision and he's in Bethesda Naval Hospital.
[01:34:05] So I just coincidentally, I had to, it was going to be there anyhow
[01:34:10] because we had a Navy Cross ceremony for two of our seals
[01:34:15] that were with Michael Murphy in Operation Red Wings,
[01:34:20] who were killed and they were posthumously receiving the Navy Cross.
[01:34:23] We had a big ceremony planned at the Navy Memorial.
[01:34:26] So, a few of us in town, we go to visit Ryan,
[01:34:30] who is Bethesda Naval Hospital.
[01:34:33] Now, we go there and cat these with me,
[01:34:37] and he's asleep and there's a woman there.
[01:34:40] Turns out to be Ryan's mother.
[01:34:42] Right?
[01:34:43] So, go up and he wakes up.
[01:34:47] Hey, hey, guys.
[01:34:49] So, of course, all the knuckleheads go in.
[01:34:52] And we start talking now, he's blind.
[01:34:55] But he's himself.
[01:34:58] And so...
[01:34:59] So, then maybe a little more.
[01:35:00] Yeah.
[01:35:01] Yeah.
[01:35:02] I don't know.
[01:35:03] I don't know who did this.
[01:35:05] Now, we're talking, you know, Mrs. Job and you know, we take a carry a son.
[01:35:09] And we still didn't know what his disposition was going to be.
[01:35:11] I mean, he just came out of combat.
[01:35:13] He only went to the hospital for a couple of days.
[01:35:15] And so, somebody says to him, hey, Ryan,
[01:35:19] we're going to have a major ceremony at the Navy Memorial for the couple of guys.
[01:35:23] They're receiving the Navy Cross.
[01:35:24] You want to come?
[01:35:25] Yeah, I'm in.
[01:35:27] Now, he's blind, so he can't see this.
[01:35:29] His mother just points to me with the old you outside.
[01:35:33] So, she drags me into the lobby.
[01:35:36] And she has got her fingers in my chest.
[01:35:39] Right?
[01:35:40] My son just lost his vision.
[01:35:42] Yes, Mrs. Job.
[01:35:43] I got you.
[01:35:44] Yes, Mrs. Job.
[01:35:45] We got you.
[01:35:46] So, I said, Mrs. Job, I'm not sure.
[01:35:48] But if our team ate once to go.
[01:35:51] I mean, it's up to you.
[01:35:52] I'm not going to get involved.
[01:35:53] But I guarantee you, we will have a car for him.
[01:35:56] We will have a place for him.
[01:35:57] And we will have a big, bad seal who will escort him.
[01:36:01] Do you remember who you sent home to be as escort?
[01:36:03] I sent three guys home.
[01:36:04] I'm not sure which one.
[01:36:05] One was the American Snack.
[01:36:07] But, right?
[01:36:08] So, so, I don't know what's going to happen.
[01:36:11] But I mean, this is a very moving thing because we got the cold star family.
[01:36:15] They're and everybody was there.
[01:36:18] It was a sunset ceremony in Washington, D.C.
[01:36:21] And the Secretary of the Navy, the Chief and Naval Operations,
[01:36:26] all of Washington Senators, and that come out.
[01:36:30] And the lights are on me.
[01:36:32] And it's a semi-circle amphitheater.
[01:36:34] And as I'm talking, welcoming everybody,
[01:36:36] I start over the right.
[01:36:38] Where is he?
[01:36:39] Where is he?
[01:36:40] Where is he?
[01:36:41] And as I'm talking, I'm skinned the crowd.
[01:36:43] And all the way over the left at an end seat.
[01:36:45] There's one individual who has his head turned to the side.
[01:36:48] And I realize it's Ryan's who he can hear me.
[01:36:52] And I'm kind of looking.
[01:36:54] I figured, right?
[01:36:56] And then who stands up behind him?
[01:36:58] Right?
[01:36:59] I got him.
[01:37:00] Chris?
[01:37:01] I got him.
[01:37:02] Chris Kyle.
[01:37:03] I got him.
[01:37:04] Okay, he's in Goon Shreak there.
[01:37:05] You know?
[01:37:06] So, we went through that.
[01:37:08] And I got to tell you,
[01:37:10] there's Sir Money who is moving, but we had a reception after that.
[01:37:14] And then we went down, and then they do memorial for reception.
[01:37:17] And you know, don't frogman that we are.
[01:37:20] You know, we got, you know, he's blind.
[01:37:22] Put him in a chair.
[01:37:23] So it was almost like animal house when they come in to Delta House.
[01:37:26] You've got the nerves that they just got to stick to the side.
[01:37:28] Just sit, you know.
[01:37:29] So we keep trying to get Ryan this.
[01:37:31] And meanwhile, keep in mind, he two weeks since he's lost his vision.
[01:37:37] And there are hundreds of people there.
[01:37:40] And he's just walking around the crowd.
[01:37:42] And of course, I'm on him now.
[01:37:43] And everybody's going to all of them.
[01:37:45] And he bumps into this woman.
[01:37:48] And you know, he goes, oh, excuse me.
[01:37:50] You know, hi.
[01:37:51] I'm Ryan.
[01:37:52] Who are you?
[01:37:53] I'm Ryan.
[01:37:54] I'm Barbara Boxer.
[01:37:55] He'd have a clue that it was a senator.
[01:37:59] And he just got shot in a rope.
[01:38:01] I think it might God.
[01:38:03] You know?
[01:38:04] So it was a wonderful reception.
[01:38:07] And I stayed to the last gold star parent left.
[01:38:10] And I'm fried.
[01:38:11] I got to be honest with you.
[01:38:12] Because I had to do Navy business there at the day.
[01:38:14] And you're on it.
[01:38:15] And it was emotional.
[01:38:16] It's going to be.
[01:38:17] Because you can land that emotionally.
[01:38:18] It's just raining.
[01:38:19] So I figured if it was Danny Deets' family or Axelson's family, that left the last.
[01:38:27] And I just figured, okay, I turned to Kathy.
[01:38:30] I said, alright.
[01:38:31] Maybe let's get back to the hotel.
[01:38:33] She says, all you're a men.
[01:38:35] Or at the Irish pub.
[01:38:37] You gotta go have at least to be with the boys.
[01:38:40] You know, my name is Bokwara.
[01:38:43] So I went to this bar.
[01:38:46] And it is packed.
[01:38:48] Pact.
[01:38:49] So of course the guys would be a nice to kind of make a way for me and Kathy.
[01:38:53] And up against the bar with the beer in his hand and his elbow on the bar is Ryan Jo.
[01:38:59] Drink it up beer.
[01:39:00] Just be one of the boys.
[01:39:03] But what are my favorite stories about Ryan after he got medically retired?
[01:39:09] He became very good friends with our four star commander, General Doug Brown.
[01:39:14] And so he calls up General Brown.
[01:39:17] And he says, hey, sir, I'm going to climb Mount McKinley.
[01:39:21] I like you to come with me.
[01:39:24] Well, you know, Ryan, I'm in my 60s right now.
[01:39:29] I don't know if I could do that.
[01:39:31] General Brown told me to see cause General Brown, I'm blind.
[01:39:35] You've got no excuse.
[01:39:37] So just, I mean, he has a,
[01:39:39] Indominable, just wonderful.
[01:39:41] Just an inspiration.
[01:39:42] Yeah.
[01:39:43] One inspiration, both to Chris Chris as well.
[01:39:45] An inspirational person.
[01:39:46] Yeah, I remember, you know, he said he was medically retired.
[01:39:49] But there was a time where he was,
[01:39:52] not sure if he was going to medically retire.
[01:39:54] But you know, he said to me, he said, well, you know, can I stay in?
[01:39:58] And I said, well, I don't know, but I know someone that does know.
[01:40:02] And I came by to see you and I said, hey, there's a chance that Ryan wants to just stay in.
[01:40:06] And you looked at me and said, then he stays in.
[01:40:10] Yeah.
[01:40:11] And my thought was, when you look at your mirror,
[01:40:14] and you see yourself, you see a seal.
[01:40:18] And my thought was, I don't, and any one of us,
[01:40:23] telling our teammate he no longer could do it.
[01:40:27] Our teammate has to come to that realization on his own.
[01:40:31] And I just thought sooner or later, you mean, it's just hard to make that break.
[01:40:35] Especially, you know, you're coming from combat and going through all this stuff.
[01:40:37] Sooner or later, you realize, you know,
[01:40:40] because I learned that from Tommy Norris.
[01:40:43] Tommy was one of our Medal of Honor recipients from Vietnam.
[01:40:46] And Tommy was severely wounded.
[01:40:50] But because he was a Medal of Honor recipient,
[01:40:52] that, you know, Tommy, you could stay and Tommy the decision.
[01:40:56] I could stay, but I don't think I'm a full up round anymore.
[01:41:00] And I just, you know, so he made that decision as well.
[01:41:03] So I learned that years ago, and I just thought,
[01:41:05] let my teammate decide when it's time for them to go.
[01:41:09] That was awesome for him to have that option.
[01:41:11] And for him to know that as long as he wanted to be in the teams,
[01:41:15] he would be in the teams.
[01:41:17] That was his freaking awesome.
[01:41:19] Where were we? We were at what? You were about to take over Seal Team 2?
[01:41:27] Well, I took over Seal Team 2 and left there.
[01:41:32] And I had the misfortune of getting deep selected for captain.
[01:41:37] But, yeah, so I'm deployed on another submarine with the Seal Team down in the Caribbean.
[01:41:43] So we've been at Seal now, probably submerged for a week.
[01:41:48] And, you know, as you know, Chuck, when you finally finish,
[01:41:51] you come to the surface, they put the antenna up and you're down low to traffic.
[01:41:56] So we're just, we've gone admin now.
[01:42:00] We're up in the Seal.
[01:42:01] The submarine is running on the surface, and you know, you focus, you see pictures like that,
[01:42:05] and recruiting things, where the folks are up there.
[01:42:07] So I'm up in the Seal with the commanding office of the submarine,
[01:42:10] and the guys are in the, just after the Seal,
[01:42:14] putting our boats together and some other stuff.
[01:42:16] And the sound powered phone rigs on the submarine,
[01:42:21] and you know, the captain picks up the phone, you know, captain.
[01:42:25] And he's listening, and he starts looking at me,
[01:42:29] and I think it got what did my guys do now.
[01:42:33] And he hangs up the phone, and he looks at me goes,
[01:42:39] we just got a message, you just got selected for captain.
[01:42:44] I said, that can't be, I'm not eligible for another two years,
[01:42:48] because what's your year group?
[01:42:50] I told him because, damn Joe, it sounds fine.
[01:42:52] So with that, I wound up, you know,
[01:42:56] not staying as long as I would have liked to,
[01:42:59] but I left there, and then went to,
[01:43:02] got selected for Harvard as a national security follower up there.
[01:43:06] And that was another remedial education program for me.
[01:43:10] You know, the project cuts me about Harvard, really.
[01:43:13] I mean, it's got a good reputation, but who do the spelling counts?
[01:43:17] So, how long are you up there for?
[01:43:21] A giant 13 months, so it was a one year fellowship,
[01:43:24] but it was remarkable.
[01:43:26] So I had, I had an officer rank, I was a member of the faculty club,
[01:43:31] and it was just great to be able to have my mother,
[01:43:34] take my mother to the faculty club, and just tell her,
[01:43:37] you know, even C students can make it to the Harvard faculty club,
[01:43:40] you know, but it was really great because it was small seminars,
[01:43:47] focused on what I was up there really to do
[01:43:49] as advanced research in national security.
[01:43:51] But the folks that I had up there at the Kennedy School
[01:43:55] is really the holding tank for government.
[01:43:58] They were the former Secretaries, former ambassadors,
[01:44:01] and I became, because one year is sealed.
[01:44:05] And I just, and had the rank that I was included
[01:44:09] in everything there, just really remarkable.
[01:44:13] That, you know, some of the seminars I was in,
[01:44:17] I had to put a, maybe once a week,
[01:44:20] because we had to take turns submitting a memorandum,
[01:44:23] and then go to the two professors who,
[01:44:26] one would be the former Deputy Secretary of State,
[01:44:29] and then it was, you know, an under Secretary of Defense.
[01:44:32] And they'd go through this don't think,
[01:44:34] and they'd go, show you dope.
[01:44:36] You can't say that. They're going to link that to the Washington Post.
[01:44:40] And honestly, good just like, here's how you say it
[01:44:43] without, you know, in dining, I mean, just really good,
[01:44:46] practical stuff.
[01:44:47] But because I got included in everything,
[01:44:50] this is at a time when Ted Kennedy was still alive
[01:44:53] and the senator from Massachusetts,
[01:44:55] and John John was around, and they'd come to the Kennedy School all the time,
[01:45:00] but Senator Kennedy's sister was the ambassador to Ireland.
[01:45:05] And the Kennedy family invited jury atoms to come to Boston.
[01:45:10] And then he gave a lecture in the evening at the Kennedy School
[01:45:16] and then a small dinner.
[01:45:18] So, you know, these were all, or merit as professors,
[01:45:21] which I like to come Joe, boy, would I?
[01:45:24] You know, and we had dinner there were only about eight of us at dinner,
[01:45:27] and he was holding court.
[01:45:29] And I got to tell you, I just sit there watching,
[01:45:31] and they're gonna, no wonder, I mean, this guy.
[01:45:34] These are all senior, merit as Harvard professors,
[01:45:38] and they were eating out of his hand.
[01:45:40] And I think this guy's good, this guy's real good.
[01:45:43] And I said, then our four-star at that point in time,
[01:45:46] General Downing came up to visit.
[01:45:48] He came up on a regular basis to Harvard.
[01:45:50] And so what he'd been up to, well, I did it with jury atoms.
[01:45:53] Who would I think would go good?
[01:45:56] You know, because there's just, you know, Joe,
[01:45:58] he's one of the biggest terrorists in the world.
[01:46:01] I say, well, you know, the thing about it is boss,
[01:46:04] why don't you have to learn about him?
[01:46:06] You know, I mean, you just can't, I'm here to learn.
[01:46:09] And even if it's an unpleasant or, you hear to learn.
[01:46:12] And I learned to awful lot just about maybe the couple of hours
[01:46:15] that I spent there listening to that guy, just how good these folks are.
[01:46:19] But tremendous education.
[01:46:21] And then from there, I went to become the deputy's sock pack.
[01:46:24] So I had all of these beautiful suits and overcoats and things
[01:46:28] that I wore at that at Harvard.
[01:46:30] And you know, on a high tire.
[01:46:33] But don't throw anything away, you never know.
[01:46:36] And then what you're doing the deputy, what's the deputy position
[01:46:40] like out there in sock pack? What are you doing?
[01:46:42] It was wonderful.
[01:46:43] So in the Pacific, sock pack was co-located in the same building as the Pacific Commander.
[01:46:50] So we actually were, although a separate, subunified command,
[01:46:55] Admiral Prier, who was the Pacific Commander, actually made us a part of his staff.
[01:47:01] So we had the best of both worlds that in the morning,
[01:47:06] you know, it would be up there because the general traveled a great deal.
[01:47:11] And I would be the one that represented sit there with the four star and his,
[01:47:15] his staff getting the, all of the classified briefings up in the
[01:47:18] shift and then down to another conference room, we're brought our audience with the less classified
[01:47:26] things we discussed.
[01:47:27] But going through interesting things with sending two carrier
[01:47:33] bottle groups into the Taiwan street, and it's just seeing that unfold.
[01:47:38] But we also had a situation where this was the first time I really became aware of
[01:47:44] the headings. We had a group of Westerners. This is an August of 95.
[01:47:51] On vacation through the Hindu Kush. And this was up in the line of control in Shrinagar.
[01:48:00] And they were captured and held ransom by Muslims up there.
[01:48:06] And one of the captures of Norwegian ran away and they caught him.
[01:48:13] And they cut his head off and they put one, his body on one part of the town
[01:48:18] and they head on the other part of the town with the ransom note, you know, on either.
[01:48:24] And the Indian military then came to the ambassador who was the senior ranking ambassador
[01:48:30] in the United States State Department then who went to the secretary.
[01:48:33] And we had to deploy a Delta Force assault team there with General Pete Schumacher,
[01:48:40] who was the J. Suck Commander. So we were doing not command and control for them.
[01:48:48] Because the specific command was doing that. But there was nobody in the specific command
[01:48:53] that understood that. So I was standing next to the Force stars.
[01:48:57] Deaths, this before I am a priest showed up. This was Admiral Mackie.
[01:49:00] And he had to draft a personal form message to the secretary of defense
[01:49:05] and to the chairman every day. And I drafted those messages for him.
[01:49:11] And, you know, he changed a little bit. But it was that time I had it marvored.
[01:49:16] I mean, this is certainly, I never would have been able to do that before.
[01:49:20] As I said, spelling counted. But he would change a couple of things.
[01:49:25] And they would deploy there for 40 some of my days.
[01:49:29] And we never got the hostages back.
[01:49:33] So when just the word there, this now, it is September.
[01:49:42] So it is the anniversary of the end of World War II.
[01:49:47] And the president is there. The secretary of defense.
[01:49:52] Everybody's there. This is Bill Clinton.
[01:49:56] This is so this is 95. And now I've been locked up for 30, 40 days.
[01:50:04] I'm as white as a sheet. But because I wasn't going anywhere, I'd go home for four hours
[01:50:10] and sleep and shower and come back. I'm in my, you know, Aloha.
[01:50:14] I'm in my flip flops. I'm in my board shorts. And I'm in my t-shirt.
[01:50:18] Now, the Pacific commander is down there with the president.
[01:50:21] Everybody have a breakfast, but his aide is up there. And I've got to run all of these things by him.
[01:50:26] And I'm explaining, said, okay, you know, what they're asking for is they want to go forward.
[01:50:32] And be to the Indians are going to do a take down.
[01:50:35] And they want to have our guys to be with them during the takeout.
[01:50:38] And I'm trying to explain it to him.
[01:50:40] And he's in a, you know, a tack pilot.
[01:50:43] And he finally, you know, keep in mind, he's in shelters with all of his medals.
[01:50:48] And the big gold egg, you'll let's that the egg wear. And he finally says to me,
[01:50:52] well, I can't get this. You got to come with me.
[01:50:54] All right. So I'm following him. Again, flip flops.
[01:50:57] I got, you know, this bag hand cuffed to my hand.
[01:51:01] Right? And we jump in the car. And as I'm in the car, I'm sure I'm going to, I'm going to, you just kind of have to explain it yourself.
[01:51:06] Now, I completely forgot what was going on.
[01:51:09] But as I get down there, you got all the secret service agents. You got metal detectors.
[01:51:14] Right?
[01:51:15] And you've got two, you got an aircraft carrier, one side of the pier, and two cruises on the other.
[01:51:20] Right? And they're all at dress ship and everybody standing along, man in the rail.
[01:51:25] So my, my, my, my jumps out of the car.
[01:51:28] And he just runs through the metal detector and they've seen him for several days.
[01:51:31] And I know he's good. And I come after him.
[01:51:34] And everyone's, the secret service guys at the time, I'm with him.
[01:51:37] And he's with me. So walking down the pier and, uh, so, uh, with, with, with stand there and again,
[01:51:46] Everybody's in dress ship. I mean, folks, you got to understand just how impressive this is.
[01:51:50] You know, you've got several hundred guys in an aircraft carrier, the cruiser, you've got the flags up.
[01:51:54] And then, uh, the armoured vehicle comes down initially.
[01:51:59] And, uh, and these guys jump out. It's all the secret service guys. And then down comes, um, the beast.
[01:52:07] So the president and the first lady or in that. And then you hear from the aircraft carrier, a bugle.
[01:52:13] Everybody for attention. Right? So everybody's attention.
[01:52:17] And what likes to, you know, he's saluting.
[01:52:21] How many of my flip-flops and stuff? And the president gets hit the cover.
[01:52:26] And I figured be an appropriate to salute. So I'm just waving.
[01:52:31] And the president comes up and he shakes my head.
[01:52:36] And I said thanks, Mr. President. You know? So, so, so if they go, he goes on board the ship and the meanwhile.
[01:52:44] Uh, they, he went on and the rest of them had to walk down. Sorry, that comes the secretary, the Navy, the secretary,
[01:52:50] the four star commander. So, what goes, okay, you got to brief the Admiral. So, we pull them off to the side and I try to give him the dispensation and what they're asking for.
[01:52:59] And, um, what is your recommendation, Captain? I said, sorry. I think you need to support the guys and approve the decision.
[01:53:08] Well, that's about the stupidest thing I've ever heard of, well, do I get a second guess?
[01:53:15] He says, no, he said, that thing will go south. And who are they going to blame? You know? No, Joe, you go back and tell the general permission denied on undone.
[01:53:23] And I get thinking retrospective about it, right, but, you know, what do you think? I guess wrong.
[01:53:28] But I was an interesting job in the last thing that we did before I left is we had to evacuate Camp Odiea.
[01:53:39] So, there was a coup in Cambodia and the embassy needed to be evacuated. So, we deployed to Cambodia and, um, that was the last thing I did that I finally left and then took over the center.
[01:53:54] And so, you know, it was sleeping in my office, working around a clock, just an operational command, and now I take over the training command.
[01:54:01] And, um, you know, I've probably been there for a month and a half, and one of your previous guests, I will build my craving, and his driving along the strand is about 7.30 at night. He's going one way and I'm on the other side.
[01:54:12] He takes his Jeep and he makes a U-turn. He says, Joe, what are you doing? Come in home from work. Get the car.
[01:54:19] So, get the car. Joe, it's 7.30 at night. Don't want to show duty. You drive in everybody crazy.
[01:54:27] You got to take a deeper breath than maybe just kind of pace yourself a little bit more, but Joe, they can, they can, they can not keep it up this pace here. But thanks for the feedback buddy.
[01:54:36] Appreciate that. You come from an operational command. We do do it like that and it takes you a while to decompress and become a human being again.
[01:54:45] And how was Buds from now from the perspective, I mean, the last time you were there was as a student. Now you're back there as the as the she and your guy, you know, people talk about the changes it.
[01:54:57] But yeah. And there's other people that go, hey, look, doesn't matter. There's little changes here and there, but the outcome is the same.
[01:55:02] Yeah. What'd you say?
[01:55:04] Yeah. I mean, it changed dramatically and that as I said, nobody really cared about the numbers back then. That if nobody graduated, nobody graduated. But at that time, we actually and appropriately so people were looking for return to the investment.
[01:55:20] And, you know, we were still had a really terrible attrition rates, but we also had some other things that we did that.
[01:55:27] You know, when when I finished our week, you know, I had to cut my boots up, so my feet could fit in the boot.
[01:55:35] And, you know, I had saw you light us and just that said, I mean, so and that was inappropriate that, you know, we had to do that.
[01:55:43] But then, you know, the young troops back then, you know, every day that they'd come in and they changed their socks out for them and give them dry socks and just some other things.
[01:55:51] I mean, the mission of the command is to qualified to graduate qualified individuals to go to the seal team, not break them in bust up.
[01:55:59] So, you know, whatever's going to take date to get them there, but it was really still pretty much the same, but it needed a little bit of tightening up just a little bit.
[01:56:11] So, you know, we had some structures there and what I just thought we needed to do, you know, I'm not too into this as you know, Jaco, but I'd say, you know,
[01:56:20] I kind of have to drive a little bit of fear into these guys, just to mean you in a little bit too relaxed.
[01:56:26] So, I went to, you know, the guys at the development group and I said, can you send me a couple of wards or maybe some senior guys that would like to come on out here and help shape the community for the next couple of years.
[01:56:39] So, we had some of the dev group senior list of guys come out and so one of the guys showed up a worn officer who's a dear friend of mine.
[01:56:49] And we were one of the final days of hell week and the kids are in the demo pit.
[01:56:55] And the kids were in the demo pit, was set in all of explosives around them and these kids are still singing now.
[01:57:02] This is probably the Thursday or so I kind of forget.
[01:57:06] And they've already lost about a hundred people in the class.
[01:57:10] So, these kids aren't going to quit, but they are beat up.
[01:57:14] And the instructors are doing their thing and I mean, he just arrived at the command.
[01:57:19] I said, hey, Danny, we're down there. You want to come with me down to the demo pit and watch.
[01:57:23] So, sure, it's like to come along. So, you know, I'm just doing there.
[01:57:26] I got the master chief and again, I'm not into fear.
[01:57:29] And I'm watching. And I look over at this guy who is a dev group worn officer.
[01:57:35] And he's got tears in his eyes.
[01:57:37] I didn't say anything. And the way back, he said, Danny, how'd you feel about that?
[01:57:45] I forgot. He says I forgot what it was like.
[01:57:48] He said, I forgot. He said, I for a little while I was there.
[01:57:52] And he said, yeah, it's the same.
[01:57:56] And you know, master chief DeFelsky, who was a street-street wise force master chief.
[01:58:05] And he really muds sucked our instructors.
[01:58:09] So, now we all go through training.
[01:58:12] And as we look back on it in the review mirror, we were faster, smarter, stronger, better.
[01:58:18] And so, he's the master chief and charge of all of the instructors at buds training.
[01:58:24] And they're constantly complaining to the master chief about the quality of the individuals.
[01:58:28] They're not making this enough. They don't do this. They should be able to continue.
[01:58:31] So, to Felsky, really smart guy.
[01:58:35] On a Friday afternoon, we have one big classroom.
[01:58:39] It probably seats about 100.
[01:58:42] So, he's got all the new instructors in there.
[01:58:45] Everybody come, who's mandatory.
[01:58:47] And he's got the truck board up there.
[01:58:50] It's said, all right, first phase.
[01:58:52] What is the minimum standard to do need to have for the fore,
[01:58:55] to have for the fore mile run?
[01:58:57] And it went down for it.
[01:58:58] And the O course did, and a second phase third phase.
[01:59:01] And everyone wants everything to be, you've got to do better.
[01:59:03] You've got to be faster, got to be stronger.
[01:59:05] So, he really muds sucked them.
[01:59:07] So, he said, let me understand this now.
[01:59:09] He said, Chris, I'm going to go talk to the captain.
[01:59:11] And we're going to change things here.
[01:59:12] He says, so, but I want to make sure that everybody agrees.
[01:59:14] If you can't do this in first phase, if you can't do that,
[01:59:17] it's second phase.
[01:59:18] If you can't do that in third phase, you should never be a seal.
[01:59:20] Is that correct?
[01:59:21] That's right, Master Chief.
[01:59:22] And right.
[01:59:23] Well, gentlemen, it just happens.
[01:59:24] I have every one of you training records here.
[01:59:26] And what I'm going to do is I'm going to give each and every one of you
[01:59:29] your training record.
[01:59:30] I'm going to walk out of the room.
[01:59:32] Once you finish looking at it, and you see what you did,
[01:59:36] just put it back in the box, and I'll see you Monday.
[01:59:40] Well, because it was true.
[01:59:42] It's humbling to go back and look at your own record,
[01:59:44] and see what the instructor said about you.
[01:59:46] You know, okay, it's all that.
[01:59:47] We still have the same.
[01:59:48] We've got the, we've got every single record from day one.
[01:59:54] And so, as a matter of fact, when I was there,
[01:59:57] I tried to burn down the room there that I might not go to the table.
[02:00:00] And I can't pass it on.
[02:00:02] And when did you leave Buds?
[02:00:05] What's that?
[02:00:06] When did you win when you've done it, Buds as the commander?
[02:00:09] Well, I was, I was very, for 39 months,
[02:00:12] which is a really good, you know,
[02:00:14] and honestly, it was just a fantastic tour,
[02:00:19] not one that I wanted to do, because I was going to go someplace else
[02:00:22] in Virginia Beach.
[02:00:24] And we had trouble with our attrition rate and getting folks through.
[02:00:28] So I got changed from going out to Virginia Beach to the center,
[02:00:33] but it turned out to be probably the most rewarding tour I ever had.
[02:00:37] To have people like Marcus the Trail go through training.
[02:00:40] And, you know, remember, Marcus,
[02:00:43] because not many students break their femur in training.
[02:00:49] And so, you know, not a good time when, you know,
[02:00:52] the senior instructors and the doctor and the master chief come to talk to you about.
[02:00:57] All right.
[02:00:59] He broke his, what?
[02:01:01] He broke his femur.
[02:01:03] How?
[02:01:04] Stress fracture.
[02:01:05] Well, BS, right?
[02:01:08] So, I mean, we went through what I'm going through this stuff.
[02:01:11] So what happened was, I mean,
[02:01:14] I mean, and then we're covering for him,
[02:01:16] and he did break his femur.
[02:01:18] Yeah.
[02:01:19] And then, Marcus, if you listen to that, you know.
[02:01:22] So, to be instructors, you know,
[02:01:24] and if any of you think that you could beat me,
[02:01:27] of course, Marcus raises his head.
[02:01:29] But I'll beat this is the obstacle course.
[02:01:31] So, we have, it's all technique.
[02:01:34] And now you're dealing with a seal that's been doing this obstacle course for years.
[02:01:39] And, you know, now Marcus was good,
[02:01:42] but you've got a guy who, you know, these guys look like Pixies going over this darn thing.
[02:01:45] So, you're climbed to the top of the cargo net.
[02:01:48] Was that about 30 feet, Chocos?
[02:01:50] Yeah, right?
[02:01:51] And you throw yourself over.
[02:01:53] And, but you do it in a technique that then you drop down a little bit,
[02:01:56] and you can grab onto the rope and work the way down.
[02:01:59] So, Marcus got there, and he knows this technique,
[02:02:02] and he threw himself over.
[02:02:04] The only problem was he didn't grab it.
[02:02:08] And he went down the 30 feet and hit,
[02:02:11] and he broke his femur.
[02:02:13] So, I made to his credit, though, went out, got roll back,
[02:02:17] and came back, but you mean that's good old boy there.
[02:02:20] But they lied to me.
[02:02:22] And he could teammates should do because, you know,
[02:02:26] because they knew what the instructor was controlling.
[02:02:28] And I bought it.
[02:02:30] Unfortunately, it wasn't until later on that actually Marcus told me the story that I brought my life,
[02:02:34] Joe, but he's the one that came clean.
[02:02:37] Yeah, it must be like the glimpse that you get at human psychology when you're,
[02:02:45] because I never worked at butts, you know,
[02:02:47] I went through it, but I never saw from the other side.
[02:02:49] The glimpse at human psychology of what people are capable of and what breaks them,
[02:02:53] and that's got to be a, that's got to leave him, Marcus.
[02:02:56] Well, absolutely.
[02:02:58] And, you know, you literally learn a lot.
[02:03:00] I mean, no, you know, you and I go through it,
[02:03:03] but you go through it as different.
[02:03:04] You're experiencing it.
[02:03:05] When you have an opportunity to watch class,
[02:03:07] after class, after class, you know,
[02:03:09] I just remember, you know, the, my first hell week class.
[02:03:13] And this is Monday night of hell week.
[02:03:16] So they started off at Sunday.
[02:03:18] They've been out of for about, you know, 22 hours, 23 hours,
[02:03:20] they're having their evening meal.
[02:03:22] And the class, you know, outside.
[02:03:25] And there's a couple of students staying behind in the childhood,
[02:03:28] putting the chairs back into the table.
[02:03:31] Now, I thought that this was somewhat odd.
[02:03:34] So I'm sitting there with the instructors having dinner.
[02:03:38] I said, so what are these guys up to?
[02:03:40] Yeah, they just wait for the rest of the class to leave so they can quit.
[02:03:43] And it was true.
[02:03:46] So you can just, but what it was is,
[02:03:49] nobody ever quit in the evolution.
[02:03:53] Everybody quit before the evolution in anticipation
[02:03:58] of what was going to happen.
[02:04:01] And just, now, you can argue whether or not it is the most demanding physical course in the military.
[02:04:10] If it's not, it's close.
[02:04:12] So, well, it's not getting anybody.
[02:04:14] But I will tell you this, it is a far more psychological program
[02:04:19] than it is a physical program.
[02:04:22] Because it's designed to keep you off foot
[02:04:26] and the standards are raised and raised or the,
[02:04:31] you're told that this is going to be the evolution today,
[02:04:34] and then they change it.
[02:04:36] But specifically, that can you adjust to that?
[02:04:39] Can you adjust to that?
[02:04:41] So it really is most of the people who quit.
[02:04:46] No, I had a three and a half hour briefing today,
[02:04:51] down there with our teammates.
[02:04:52] An update on what the committee's up to.
[02:04:54] And beef trashler gave me the pitch.
[02:04:57] And beef just took over the center on Friday.
[02:05:01] And they bring in close to 900 students a year
[02:05:08] to get 180 out.
[02:05:11] 187 is his demand signal.
[02:05:14] And 900.
[02:05:15] So it's still in spite of everything that we've done.
[02:05:18] In preparation, it's just, you know,
[02:05:20] when you went through nobody knew,
[02:05:21] when I went through, it was a trivial pursuit question.
[02:05:24] You know?
[02:05:25] But these guys are prepared.
[02:05:27] They know what it's doing.
[02:05:28] And they all, I said to them today,
[02:05:30] what is it?
[02:05:31] They self-select.
[02:05:33] They raised their hand.
[02:05:35] And they, they, we lose a couple from academics.
[02:05:38] We lose some from pool comp.
[02:05:40] But the vast majority of it, this is not for me.
[02:05:43] And when I used to get the young men in the,
[02:05:45] you know, now I was not an instructor.
[02:05:47] And I would get them all after the instructor.
[02:05:50] After the instructor's talking about how weak I'd go in there.
[02:05:53] And I would just talk to these guys.
[02:05:55] And Marcus talks about that in his book.
[02:05:58] I just look, it's as simple as this guys.
[02:06:01] You know, everyone of you guys can make it through.
[02:06:03] Otherwise you wouldn't be here.
[02:06:04] I mean, you're already been here now for several weeks.
[02:06:06] If you're not going to make it, you're the one who decides you're not going to make it.
[02:06:10] It's not going to be us at all.
[02:06:12] And you know, it's as simple as this guys.
[02:06:15] I mean, this is certainly the secret to life is just don't quit.
[02:06:19] Just don't quit.
[02:06:21] I said, and don't doubt yourself.
[02:06:24] And, you know, these guys, they doubt themselves,
[02:06:28] but it's why am I here?
[02:06:30] And I used to say that when they first came,
[02:06:32] what you, you know,
[02:06:34] Buds is not the seal team.
[02:06:36] Buds is Buds.
[02:06:38] It is where you need to spend 26 weeks to get where you want to go.
[02:06:43] But don't even think for a second that this is the seal team.
[02:06:48] But I will tell you this, you put up with this for 26 weeks.
[02:06:52] And you get to that seal team.
[02:06:54] It will make everything that you did here worthwhile.
[02:06:57] Trust me.
[02:06:59] I was down there a little while ago, and, you know,
[02:07:02] I was walking around and there was,
[02:07:04] this was one of my friends that works there.
[02:07:06] And there's a hundred helmets by the bell.
[02:07:08] A hundred helmets by the bell.
[02:07:10] And he says, you know what?
[02:07:13] I said, I said, that's a lot of quitters.
[02:07:15] And he says, you know what?
[02:07:19] Everyone of those guys is a stunt.
[02:07:22] A stunt.
[02:07:23] A stunt.
[02:07:24] And he's basically referencing compared to us when we went through.
[02:07:28] You know, when I went through,
[02:07:29] I thought if you did a pull-up workout where you did 30 or 40 pull-ups
[02:07:34] that that was a pretty good workout.
[02:07:35] And you don't realize when you get to Buds,
[02:07:37] you're going to do 300 or 400 or 500 or 500.
[02:07:39] You just didn't know we didn't know back then.
[02:07:41] But every one of these kids now,
[02:07:43] their studs, physical studs.
[02:07:46] But they still quit.
[02:07:47] Oh yeah?
[02:07:48] Yeah.
[02:07:49] But the difference though physically, I would say,
[02:07:52] is when I went through Eric Olson,
[02:07:55] Bill McCraven was too close as behind me.
[02:07:58] The way Eric put it, and I think this is right.
[02:08:00] Back then, it depends on your parents' work
[02:08:04] if you're going to make it too much.
[02:08:06] Because it was endurance.
[02:08:07] Everybody had to run forever,
[02:08:09] and everybody had to swim forever back then.
[02:08:11] So it was a different type of body type.
[02:08:13] Now, not everybody looks like you, John.
[02:08:15] But, but, yes, you know,
[02:08:17] when I took over the center,
[02:08:20] and these young men lined up next to the pool
[02:08:22] and just there at this swimsuits,
[02:08:23] it was a completely different physique on those young men.
[02:08:27] But we were prepared for different things,
[02:08:29] as opposed to no long-range patrols.
[02:08:32] No 10-12 days in the field.
[02:08:35] No 13-hour swims.
[02:08:36] You're going to go to the Hindu Kush.
[02:08:38] And you're going to go to Balad.
[02:08:40] You're going to go to Malad.
[02:08:41] You're going to go to Follusia.
[02:08:42] And you've got to wear heavy equipment.
[02:08:44] And you've got to carry a lot of stuff.
[02:08:45] So it changed.
[02:08:46] And I don't know what's going to happen now.
[02:08:48] That we're changing.
[02:08:50] And Edmel Howard, rightfully so,
[02:08:52] is going back into the strategic competition.
[02:08:55] Great power competition.
[02:08:56] And put the community back into a maritime focus.
[02:08:59] Get those wetsuits ready, boys.
[02:09:01] That was a loop.
[02:09:04] Did you, you know, it's interesting.
[02:09:07] You know, people always ask who's going to make it through.
[02:09:09] And I would never put a bet on anybody.
[02:09:12] One way or the other.
[02:09:13] Who's going to make it through?
[02:09:15] I don't care where they came from.
[02:09:16] What their background was.
[02:09:18] I remember one of one of my commanding officers,
[02:09:21] a capitol comel.
[02:09:23] He told the story to me.
[02:09:26] And I never forgot it.
[02:09:27] He had, there was some officer that was putting
[02:09:29] in a package to go to Buds.
[02:09:30] And he said, I've never backed anyone before.
[02:09:32] I've never, I've never backed anyone.
[02:09:34] I've never said this guy's going to make it.
[02:09:35] And this guy had this pristine record.
[02:09:37] He was an athlete.
[02:09:39] This. He was captain of that.
[02:09:40] He was all these things.
[02:09:41] He spoke to languages.
[02:09:42] Maybe even three languages.
[02:09:44] Just a complete sudden, finally,
[02:09:46] Oh, Colonel, you know, signs office packages.
[02:09:47] He says, yeah, take this guy to Buds.
[02:09:49] And the freaking guy quit on him.
[02:09:51] And he said, I will never ever,
[02:09:53] Spacety buddy again.
[02:09:55] And to me, that was a captain that had been in the teams forever.
[02:09:59] And denied all these packages.
[02:10:01] And even with that level of discretion,
[02:10:03] you can't tell who's going to make it.
[02:10:04] And who's not going to make it.
[02:10:05] There's Jim, Jim, Jim, Jim, Jim.
[02:10:07] Yeah.
[02:10:09] Yeah. No, no, you really can't.
[02:10:11] And because you really don't know what's going on behind the eyes.
[02:10:15] So we've got members who are on the national teams,
[02:10:20] whether it's the nationalist for me team,
[02:10:22] actually, they're these very accomplished people.
[02:10:25] Division one athletes.
[02:10:26] And but the other thing as well,
[02:10:28] you get some kid that comes out of high school,
[02:10:30] goes to boot camp,
[02:10:31] and interview sports, and he's standing tall on graduation day.
[02:10:35] Yeah. That's me.
[02:10:37] August for that.
[02:10:39] August for that. I had an Olympic alternate gymnast in my Buds class,
[02:10:44] quit.
[02:10:45] And I had the NCAA Water Polo team captain in my class.
[02:10:51] Quit.
[02:10:52] Yeah.
[02:10:53] And like I was that guy that I was an average,
[02:10:56] if not slightly below average athlete,
[02:10:58] nice going, hey, stock it out. They weren't going to make me quit.
[02:11:01] That's the way it is.
[02:11:02] Yeah.
[02:11:03] Where were you when September 11th happened?
[02:11:07] I always signed the United States Special Operations Command.
[02:11:11] And excuse me.
[02:11:14] I was a signed the United States Special Operations Command.
[02:11:17] And you know, we talked a little bit earlier,
[02:11:19] Chaco about the community and what,
[02:11:23] the fleet commander said,
[02:11:25] what my father said, and here I am,
[02:11:28] I got promoted to one star at the end of August of 2001.
[02:11:33] Wow.
[02:11:34] And a little more than three weeks later,
[02:11:36] I'm sitting in my office in the United States Special Operations Command.
[02:11:39] And you know, one of the troops comes and he leans against the
[02:11:44] the Deutsche and said, well,
[02:11:46] it's up. He said, a plane just hit the twin tower.
[02:11:49] So, you know, being a New Yorker.
[02:11:52] Yeah.
[02:11:53] I think it's okay. You know, this is foggy day and you got a small
[02:11:56] aircraft there.
[02:11:57] And he's not leaving.
[02:11:59] Yeah.
[02:12:00] And just again, okay, I got a TV.
[02:12:02] I said, do you want to turn a TV on?
[02:12:04] That's what I like to say.
[02:12:06] So, I'm behind the desk.
[02:12:08] I got the TV over there.
[02:12:09] And I look up, I go.
[02:12:11] It is a perfectly beautiful day in New York.
[02:12:15] And I mean, shortly after that,
[02:12:17] I mean, with moments,
[02:12:19] I see the other plane flying south on the Hudson River.
[02:12:22] You don't fly south on the Hudson River.
[02:12:24] The planes go in it to Newark.
[02:12:26] You got a flying north where you got to go around.
[02:12:28] And I'm thinking, what an idiot.
[02:12:30] That guy's flying that plane around just to get a better look at that.
[02:12:33] How stupid.
[02:12:34] And then boom.
[02:12:35] He goes into the second tower.
[02:12:37] And I made it immediately.
[02:12:40] And I get up.
[02:12:41] And I ran into the Socom Commanders office.
[02:12:45] General Holland.
[02:12:48] And I said, General,
[02:12:50] We're under attack.
[02:12:52] We're at war.
[02:12:53] So what are you talking about, Joe?
[02:12:55] I said turn the TV on.
[02:12:56] So we're at war.
[02:12:58] And so obviously, that was a long day to kind of sort everything out.
[02:13:03] And I finally got home about maybe one o'clock on the morning,
[02:13:09] two o'clock in the morning of the 12th.
[02:13:13] And so I'm just having a little bit of orange juice
[02:13:16] and maybe an English month or something.
[02:13:18] And I get a couple of hours before I got to go back and work and the phone rings.
[02:13:21] And I pick up the phone.
[02:13:23] I figured it was the headquarters.
[02:13:25] And there's the shrill voice on the other side.
[02:13:28] It's just kind of screaming.
[02:13:30] And obviously, it's my brother.
[02:13:33] And my brother was at 220 church street,
[02:13:36] which is a block down from the Twin Towers.
[02:13:39] And he was at a meeting.
[02:13:41] And so the first bill he didn't see the plane hit,
[02:13:45] but he saw the building on fire.
[02:13:47] I said, well, maybe we should adjourn.
[02:13:49] I mean, nobody could believe that it was happening.
[02:13:52] And you said, so by the time the adjourn,
[02:13:55] he went out to the street, he actually viewed the people jumping
[02:14:00] for their lives out of the Twin Towers, which is pretty traumatic.
[02:14:04] But then he had to walk home across the Brooklyn Bridge all
[02:14:09] of the way to his home, which probably wound up being,
[02:14:11] well, I don't know, maybe about 12 to 15 miles.
[02:14:14] Because there was no transportation, everything shut down.
[02:14:17] So by the time he got home, that's when he calls me.
[02:14:20] And it kind of broke down to Joseph Gettham.
[02:14:24] I know what you do.
[02:14:25] It's up to you guys, get them.
[02:14:27] I think I don't know.
[02:14:28] Just try to calm them down.
[02:14:30] Because it's okay, Bob, I'll do my best.
[02:14:33] You know.
[02:14:34] And so, I never thought I'd be an apple, never.
[02:14:39] And I certainly never thought I'd be an apple.
[02:14:42] When I nation was at war.
[02:14:44] And to have that opportunity to actually be a flag
[02:14:49] on general officer serving in the United States military
[02:14:52] when the nation is engaged in decisive combat operations
[02:14:56] who is quite an honor, but also as you know,
[02:15:00] Chaco, quite a challenge.
[02:15:02] And we took us a while, but we finally did it.
[02:15:07] And after it, and a 22,000, 11, I call my brother.
[02:15:12] And it took a while, Bob, but we got him.
[02:15:16] And I'll tell you what, when that happened,
[02:15:19] I know I retired in July of 2010.
[02:15:23] And I'm up early in the morning.
[02:15:26] Not as early as you, but probably about 530.
[02:15:29] And I'm in the kitchen.
[02:15:32] And you know, got a little bit of a cup of coffee
[02:15:34] and putting my own issues on.
[02:15:37] And I thought I heard something on the radio about the lawn.
[02:15:41] I mean, I just wasn't paying attention.
[02:15:44] That doesn't.
[02:15:45] So I just waited until six o'clock to hear the news.
[02:15:50] And folks who stayed up late the night before they knew.
[02:15:54] And I still had no idea.
[02:15:56] And I heard what had happened.
[02:15:59] And I just think, I mean,
[02:16:03] I just sat down there.
[02:16:05] I couldn't go for a run.
[02:16:06] I mean, I just had tears in my eyes.
[02:16:09] And that I know full well and so to you.
[02:16:13] The heavy road, the toll that was paid to get to a bottom-up.
[02:16:19] All of the blood and all the lives and all the brave men and women,
[02:16:23] you know, who got there.
[02:16:25] And so, you know, about the time I got to work,
[02:16:27] you know, everybody's Jubilon.
[02:16:29] And I said, you know,
[02:16:32] I had quiet pride because it was our teammates.
[02:16:36] And then the one sick teeth and the CIA.
[02:16:38] But it was really emotional for me just thinking about whether it be
[02:16:43] Mad Axelson, Danny Deeds or all of the other folks that, you know,
[02:16:48] Wujwa, all the men that we lost there in Afghanistan.
[02:16:54] And so, yeah, that was, you know, people
[02:16:59] be getting my haircut and how long you've been to the Navy.
[02:17:02] Thirty-six years, well, I'll just stay still long.
[02:17:05] Well, you know, we've been at war for the last ten years, buddy.
[02:17:08] And it was on our shoulders.
[02:17:10] But, you know, when you know, you know, you know,
[02:17:14] you know, no full well, this war,
[02:17:16] it was personal to you and me and to many of us.
[02:17:19] And the other thing as well, it's just hard to explain to people
[02:17:23] how you can become friends through death.
[02:17:26] That you meet parents and you meet family members that you never knew.
[02:17:31] But you knew their son and you buried their son.
[02:17:35] And you were on your knees giving a mother the flag that was on her son's coffin.
[02:17:41] And you get to know these people and you stay close to them, you know,
[02:17:47] for a long, long period of time.
[02:17:49] So, and I wound up there at Socom and, you know,
[02:17:55] it was an interesting time for me.
[02:17:57] It was a baby, baby one star.
[02:17:59] And it was a small place.
[02:18:01] We only had five flag in general offices then.
[02:18:04] The four star, the three star, two green beret, two stars in me.
[02:18:08] I was the baby.
[02:18:09] But, we, it was a great place to learn.
[02:18:13] And one of the offices there, Elden Bargewell,
[02:18:16] was a special forces in general officer.
[02:18:19] And up at two that point, Elden was the most highly decorated soldier
[02:18:24] in the United States Army.
[02:18:26] And, you know, school was certainly in session for me,
[02:18:29] you know, working with Elden.
[02:18:31] So that when I left there and then went to Naval Special Warfare to take over the community,
[02:18:36] I left there as the deputy commander under Admiral Lerick Olson
[02:18:40] and came back, you know, close to four years later.
[02:18:43] And I just remember, you know, we've been recaptured by it before it.
[02:18:47] Just so that after that she goes, oh my God,
[02:18:50] you turned into an admiral.
[02:18:52] We're, we're, you know, you had to.
[02:18:55] Yeah, so.
[02:18:57] My, my commanding officer at Seal Team 7,
[02:19:00] I was on deployment as an Iraq,
[02:19:02] having just the best deployment ever,
[02:19:04] just having a great time doing a bunch of operations.
[02:19:07] And, and he says to me, the last thing I do as commanding officer of Seal Team 7
[02:19:11] is I'm going to make sure that you become the admiral's aide.
[02:19:15] He pulled it off.
[02:19:17] So that's where that's how you ended up with me.
[02:19:20] Well, I'll tell you what, it was wonderful, you know,
[02:19:23] between you and, you know, in beef treshler,
[02:19:27] you know, you know, folks out there, you know, you've got a good idea what
[02:19:31] Jaco looks like I'm sure, but beef used to be the center for Navy.
[02:19:35] And he's also a pretty, pretty strong guy.
[02:19:39] Well, my name is Jaco.
[02:19:40] His name is beef.
[02:19:41] No, no, kind of says it all.
[02:19:43] But when, when, when, when, when,
[02:19:45] Jaco, when beef was replacing Jaco,
[02:19:47] we had the families over for dinner.
[02:19:50] And, uh, we're, they're at dinner and my daughter is sitting there.
[02:19:53] And she's probably about 10 at that point in time.
[02:19:56] And she looks at the two of these guys.
[02:19:58] And she honestly asks, beef and Jaco,
[02:20:01] uh, you guys, my daddy's flag lieutenant,
[02:20:04] or you guys, my daddy's body guards.
[02:20:07] And the two of them go, yes.
[02:20:09] I said, you guys screwed up.
[02:20:11] You should've told him, he might daughter,
[02:20:13] your daddy doesn't need a bodyguard.
[02:20:15] But the truth in the matter is I sure did.
[02:20:17] And if I had one, these two guys that could do it.
[02:20:20] But, um, no, you know, what I, what I always asked,
[02:20:24] I never interviewed anybody to be the, the, the flag lieutenant out there,
[02:20:27] folks, what I would do to go to the senior officers,
[02:20:29] I go to send me a champion.
[02:20:31] Send me somebody who's just come out of combat.
[02:20:33] Somebody somebody who's got a future ahead of them.
[02:20:35] Somebody somebody who's willing to work really hard.
[02:20:38] Um, and because, you know,
[02:20:41] don't use the flag lieutenant in the aid to carry my bag.
[02:20:44] I carried my own bag.
[02:20:45] What I needed was to bring a lieutenant into the meeting
[02:20:48] to hear what was being briefed or what we needed to be
[02:20:52] resource and be able to turn to that lieutenant and say
[02:20:55] to the med need this.
[02:20:56] Is this what they want?
[02:20:57] Well, what do they want that we have?
[02:20:59] And, you know, I, because that individual,
[02:21:02] whether it was, you know,
[02:21:04] a jocco or beef came right out of the battlefield.
[02:21:07] Um, and had that credibility.
[02:21:09] It was only a year.
[02:21:10] They're turning the barrel.
[02:21:11] And it's a very demanding job.
[02:21:12] I had been a flag lieutenant myself.
[02:21:14] I understand that.
[02:21:15] But, um, it was just.
[02:21:17] Jocco was a tremendous resource for not only me,
[02:21:21] but the community.
[02:21:23] And then as well, when Jocco then went back into,
[02:21:26] you know, his seal team and become a test unit commander,
[02:21:29] he almost becomes like an apostle to the rest of the community
[02:21:32] to explain why we do what we do because now he knew he'd
[02:21:35] picked up the inner psyched.
[02:21:36] But, uh, it was an absolute honor.
[02:21:38] And, you know, the way I considered the,
[02:21:40] the, the be, you know, you and me are relationship.
[02:21:43] It's just like in any relationship and the teams,
[02:21:45] we was one bunnies.
[02:21:46] And that's just really.
[02:21:47] We had each other's sex.
[02:21:48] We had each other's back.
[02:21:49] But, I mean, very, very heavily on you and you never,
[02:21:52] never let me down.
[02:21:53] You always came through, Jocco.
[02:21:55] Yeah.
[02:21:55] And then, um, obviously when we were going through that deployment
[02:21:58] in Ramadhi, it was just awesome.
[02:21:59] Like I started this as off, you know,
[02:22:01] this is the support that you gave me.
[02:22:03] And thereby the rest of my, my task, you know,
[02:22:06] was just, it was awesome.
[02:22:08] Well, you know, we were a community at war.
[02:22:12] It was on our shoulders.
[02:22:13] And I know that you were taking it very hard,
[02:22:16] because, you know, we were taking some heavies.
[02:22:18] But, um, when you're at war, you have to realize you're at war.
[02:22:22] And, um, you know, there's going to be casualties.
[02:22:26] And, but, you know, at the end of the day,
[02:22:29] you were highly successful in your mission.
[02:22:32] And you came out of that with, uh,
[02:22:34] extreme, high regard.
[02:22:35] But, um, you know, to me, you know,
[02:22:39] several years later, as you know,
[02:22:41] we're christening a navy land attack cruise
[02:22:45] or up in Beth Maine.
[02:22:47] And, um, one of the great honest that I've ever had,
[02:22:51] was normally when you christen a ship.
[02:22:53] I mean, everybody there, a senator is congressman.
[02:22:55] And the secretary of the navy is the guest speaker,
[02:22:58] the main speaker.
[02:22:59] And because of my relationship with, with, with Mikey Montsour,
[02:23:03] uh, and with you in test, test,
[02:23:06] you know, bruiser, uh, that the secretary of the navy
[02:23:09] asked me to be the guest speaker there.
[02:23:11] But, uh, I think I also mentioned the speaker.
[02:23:14] You know, it was test-givin' a bruiser
[02:23:16] if you got any questions or why we call it that.
[02:23:18] Look at Lieutenant Emmanuel.
[02:23:19] Well, that's awesome.
[02:23:23] I know we probably could talk for another few hours,
[02:23:26] and I know that you got to go.
[02:23:27] Which pretty much to mean means at some point you got to come back
[02:23:30] and we can tell the rest of your story, uh,
[02:23:32] because this was not the end of your career,
[02:23:34] uh, of service.
[02:23:35] And you ended up doing much more.
[02:23:37] And, um, yeah, we, we'll have to come back
[02:23:40] in next time you're in Coronado.
[02:23:42] We'll come up and finish the rest of the story.
[02:23:44] Yeah, well, I tell you, Jaco, I'd love to come back.
[02:23:47] And we've had a great visit here in Coronado
[02:23:49] with the center-changer command visiting our teammates,
[02:23:52] uh, spending, you know, three and a half, four hours,
[02:23:55] getting briefs from on the community this morning.
[02:23:57] It's just inspirational.
[02:23:58] And, um, you know, I believe in a life of service,
[02:24:02] and, um, uh, and as far as a leader is concerned,
[02:24:05] you know, you've got to be a, you know, a leader who sacrifices, uh,
[02:24:09] you know, and when I was asked to come back in the government,
[02:24:12] it wasn't on my scope at all,
[02:24:14] but I came back in and, uh, you know, wound up being the director
[02:24:18] of the National Counter-Tourism Center,
[02:24:20] which I was very comfortable in that.
[02:24:22] It was my strike zone, uh, but then when the president asked me
[02:24:25] to come to the director of National Intelligence,
[02:24:28] not necessarily my strikes on him there,
[02:24:30] but I will tell you, uh, to, to start off,
[02:24:33] uh, and have a rubble boat in your head, uh,
[02:24:36] and then years later, you know, you're sitting there as the president's intelligence officer,
[02:24:40] uh, at the National Security Council,
[02:24:43] and even, you know, I had an interesting time there,
[02:24:46] I'm sure you know that I, I had a testimony, uh,
[02:24:49] there for three and a half hours, uh, the House, uh,
[02:24:53] the Senate Committee on Intelligence, uh, had had to do with the whistleblower complaint,
[02:24:57] but right, you know, for three and a half hours, you're on camera,
[02:24:59] and you've got some, you know, very, very bright and, uh,
[02:25:02] talented people asking you some demanding questions,
[02:25:05] but it was a, the very first time that I was really, really happy
[02:25:09] that I went to high risk here,
[02:25:11] and I'm just doing deterioration techniques.
[02:25:14] I'll tell you what, uh, even as that,
[02:25:17] I knew that was happening, and I sat down and watched it,
[02:25:19] and, and, and you can, you know,
[02:25:21] they look like sharks in the water, you can see them there,
[02:25:23] they're thinking they're going to go, even though,
[02:25:25] who you got? Number one is from Brooklyn. Number one,
[02:25:27] number two is in the teams, Harvard,
[02:25:29] the whole nine yards, they said, this is going to go as well as they think it's going to go.
[02:25:33] No, I didn't, you know, let's say a lot. Um,
[02:25:36] no, I've made that, uh, it was,
[02:25:39] because I, I will tell you this, though,
[02:25:41] Chaco, there, um,
[02:25:43] not only was I represented the, the entire United States and
[02:25:46] the United States and Telegis community, but having spent 36 years in our community, you know,
[02:25:51] I really feel like, you know, here I am, I know I'm on national TV,
[02:25:54] and it's going to be a, uh, a pretty important hearing,
[02:25:56] which probably would lead to what it did. Um,
[02:25:59] and I just, I'm still representing the United States Navy and,
[02:26:03] our special operations community.
[02:26:05] So I just figured, well, I'm going to do is tell the truth and play it straight.
[02:26:10] Mm-hmm.
[02:26:11] Mm-hmm. And, um, and, um, and, and I did,
[02:26:14] I did, um, and I, um, I think, uh, at the end of it,
[02:26:17] I felt like, um, I did my job and I was able to leave with my head held high.
[02:26:22] Yeah, well, that was the other thing I knew.
[02:26:23] I knew you were from Brooklyn. I knew you were from the teams.
[02:26:26] I knew that you went to Harvard in the whole nine yards,
[02:26:28] but I also knew that if they were looking for something that you had done,
[02:26:33] that was a moral illegal or an ethical,
[02:26:36] I knew that they could not find it and they would not find it because I,
[02:26:40] I know you and I know that you do the right thing.
[02:26:44] And so that's why I watched that with, uh, with great joy.
[02:26:47] Yeah, well, well, just before I got the job,
[02:26:50] we was at the White House Chief of Staff,
[02:26:52] Mick Mowaney did the vetting, uh,
[02:26:55] and, uh, you know, Mick told me,
[02:26:56] said, you know, I've talked to everybody,
[02:26:58] especially everybody in the special operations community.
[02:27:00] And I couldn't find one person to say something negative about you.
[02:27:03] Now, I hadn't been offered the job yet.
[02:27:05] I said, Mick, give me a day. I'll give you a list of people.
[02:27:08] I did, I, I, I, I, I, I don't necessarily want that job.
[02:27:13] But I got it and it went okay.
[02:27:15] A joke always been a great honor.
[02:27:17] It's going to be with you, uh,
[02:27:19] and it's always going to be with the teammate,
[02:27:20] but I'm, I'm so proud of you.
[02:27:22] Finalty, what you did with when you were in uniform,
[02:27:24] but, uh, you know, what you have accomplished is for as just not only personally,
[02:27:29] but the way you've been offered to give back with your leadership,
[02:27:31] and, uh, what you're sharing with the world,
[02:27:33] whether you're Brooks, your podcast,
[02:27:35] and there's so many people that I know that listen to this podcast,
[02:27:38] read your books and really learn a great deal about leadership,
[02:27:41] and, um, you know, folks, I tell you,
[02:27:43] uh, when people ask me, do I know what I'm, I do,
[02:27:46] as either, you know, as you, as you, as you, as you, as you real deal,
[02:27:48] he's the real deal.
[02:27:49] And, uh, I've honored more than I could possibly tell you to be with you today,
[02:27:53] and folks, you know, I do plan on taking Chocco back up on this orphaned
[02:27:57] come back and visit you with you sometime in the future.
[02:27:59] So thank you, my friend.
[02:28:00] Be outstanding. And the things I say today are the things I learned from people like you
[02:28:04] from our great community, and thanks for coming to Chocco us.
[02:28:07] More important.
[02:28:09] Thank you for everything that you've done for America, for the Navy,
[02:28:12] for the teams, and of course, for me.
[02:28:15] It was an honor to serve with you,
[02:28:17] and I look forward to talking to you again.
[02:28:19] Like what Chocco, thank you.
[02:28:21] And with that, Admiral, Joe McGuire has left the building,
[02:28:26] and echo you didn't even get a chance to sort of ask a question.
[02:28:29] We were moving pretty quick, and he had another event,
[02:28:33] to attend.
[02:28:35] So you have to save you or whatever.
[02:28:37] Did you have any questions?
[02:28:38] Not at the moment.
[02:28:39] I actually asked the one, what's the lockout thing?
[02:28:42] Yeah.
[02:28:43] There's a lot of little stuff, man.
[02:28:44] You know, then I'm like, hey, wait, what is that?
[02:28:47] Not even necessarily because I don't know what it is,
[02:28:50] and I need clarification.
[02:28:51] A lot of times it's like, I don't know what that is,
[02:28:53] but it sounds kind of interesting.
[02:28:55] Maybe not to you guys, because that's part of your guy's everyday thing at the time,
[02:28:58] but for me, it's like, man, even that lockout thing.
[02:29:00] That's interesting. And I think it's one of those things where,
[02:29:04] imagine if you were hearing a Gigiitsu story about your cotton and arm lock,
[02:29:09] and you were, then they had to triangle two and you,
[02:29:12] all I would need to tell you, since you know Gigiitsu,
[02:29:15] if I was like, hey, I was caught in the arm lock,
[02:29:17] and the triangle both at the same time,
[02:29:20] I started having the walls closed in.
[02:29:22] You would know what that meant.
[02:29:24] Yeah.
[02:29:25] Someone that doesn't understand Gigiitsu is just like,
[02:29:27] it doesn't really mean that much to them.
[02:29:30] In fact, it almost means nothing to them.
[02:29:32] So when that animal was talking about that whole walkout thing
[02:29:36] and the German U-boat, that is a crazy story.
[02:29:41] That is a crazy story.
[02:29:43] The clostrophobia, the changes in pressures.
[02:29:48] Did that come across?
[02:29:50] Could you recognize how freaking crazy that was?
[02:29:53] Yeah, so it did come across,
[02:29:55] but you know what else was clear to me that,
[02:29:57] what you were explaining right now?
[02:29:59] That was the case.
[02:30:00] And I did not want to interrupt at all.
[02:30:02] I mean, aside from, at least so I can grasp
[02:30:04] and understanding of what the lockout procedure is,
[02:30:06] right, no even more.
[02:30:07] But yeah, so the clostrophobia thing,
[02:30:08] anytime you guys talk about submarines,
[02:30:10] I do remind myself,
[02:30:11] come my friend, Jiren, he'd tell me,
[02:30:12] would tell me about like,
[02:30:14] these submarines, and there's those little diver vehicle things.
[02:30:17] So seal delivery vehicles.
[02:30:19] Yeah, so he'd tell me about that,
[02:30:21] and it's like,
[02:30:22] it's not like cool, like on the movies,
[02:30:25] you guys are cruising into office with that.
[02:30:27] The thing is like super cramped and super,
[02:30:29] and I don't like that clostrophobia stuff.
[02:30:32] Yeah, I know.
[02:30:33] We'll put it this way.
[02:30:34] I'm attuned to certain cramped.
[02:30:36] Twenty one inch tube.
[02:30:38] Like I see.
[02:30:39] Twenty one inch tube.
[02:30:40] Yeah.
[02:30:41] Yeah, so you guys are talking about that,
[02:30:43] and I'm like boom, and then yes,
[02:30:44] then you guys are talking about these procedures,
[02:30:46] like, oh, we all know those procedures are.
[02:30:48] I'm like, wait a second,
[02:30:49] we have claustrophobia,
[02:30:50] you got freaking the submarine here.
[02:30:52] Underwater, you're doing all this stuff.
[02:30:53] I don't want to hear more.
[02:30:54] It's kind of nuts, you know?
[02:30:55] But that's not that wasn't the point that he was making at the time.
[02:30:58] So it's like, I don't want to derail the momentum of the conversation.
[02:31:01] Yeah, well, at some point,
[02:31:03] maybe we'll go into a little more detail about what those types of operations are like.
[02:31:07] I was lucky,
[02:31:08] because when I came in to the teams,
[02:31:11] we still did that in the normal teams.
[02:31:13] And once the war kicked off,
[02:31:15] we didn't really do submarine mockouts
[02:31:17] and the normal teams very often.
[02:31:19] If at all,
[02:31:20] not to mention,
[02:31:21] we used to just dive like it was going out of style.
[02:31:24] Like it was going out of style.
[02:31:26] And once again, once the war started,
[02:31:28] we're fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.
[02:31:30] We're not doing a bunch of combat swimmer dives
[02:31:32] to prepare training dives to prepare to go to Iraq.
[02:31:35] Like there's some rivers,
[02:31:36] but we're not doing harbor infiltration on draggers.
[02:31:41] But I was lucky enough to be able to do that a bunch of bunch.
[02:31:46] And just get some of that,
[02:31:49] get some of that.
[02:31:51] It is a freaking hard job, man.
[02:31:53] It's a hard job.
[02:31:54] You mentioned something kind of kind of impassingly kind of quick,
[02:31:58] where you have the operation,
[02:32:02] but all the steps to go through the operation are just completely painful,
[02:32:07] like completely painful.
[02:32:08] So like, you know,
[02:32:09] you talk about the temperature of the water.
[02:32:11] If you haven't swim or been in 40,
[02:32:16] 30 something degree where I have ice bath scenario,
[02:32:19] whatever, but nonetheless,
[02:32:21] I know what that feels like on that prow.
[02:32:23] What if that was just your world, you know?
[02:32:26] That's your world.
[02:32:28] That was what was interesting.
[02:32:30] He was talking about getting into the submarine.
[02:32:32] After jumping out of an airplane
[02:32:34] and then landing in the middle of the ocean,
[02:32:36] then you rock into the submarine,
[02:32:38] going.
[02:32:39] One person goes in thin first.
[02:32:41] It's crazy.
[02:32:42] And by the way, then you're just on the submarine.
[02:32:44] You still haven't even done the mission yet.
[02:32:45] You're not even close.
[02:32:46] You're not even close.
[02:32:48] You haven't even started the mission yet.
[02:32:50] Yeah.
[02:32:51] Yeah.
[02:32:52] So yeah, so it's like that kind of stuff where it's like,
[02:32:54] man, you can elaborate on the feeling of like a 10 second period
[02:32:58] for a long time and really paint that picture.
[02:33:01] That would be interesting.
[02:33:02] I'll be nuts.
[02:33:03] We'll have to get through at the some point.
[02:33:05] Nonetheless, as you like to say,
[02:33:08] we might not be in those scenarios,
[02:33:11] but we want to be ready for various scenarios.
[02:33:14] We want to improve our capabilities for diving, swimming,
[02:33:19] shooting, living, fighting, whatever we're doing.
[02:33:23] Whatever we're doing.
[02:33:25] How do we improve our capabilities a little bit here and there?
[02:33:28] We think I could just wish you were starting.
[02:33:29] Interestingly, you talk about diving and swimming
[02:33:31] about a man that's a few months ago.
[02:33:33] So I didn't know that masks
[02:33:35] for diving stuff had that many levels to...
[02:33:40] There's levels.
[02:33:41] There's some good masks anyway.
[02:33:43] I got a good one and I was like,
[02:33:45] all right.
[02:33:46] Makes you kind of want to go swimming more too, by the way.
[02:33:49] So it's like when you get these things,
[02:33:51] it kind of pushes you into the game a little bit more.
[02:33:55] All right.
[02:33:56] All right.
[02:33:57] So what are we doing?
[02:33:59] We're working out.
[02:34:00] We're eating.
[02:34:01] We're listening.
[02:34:02] True.
[02:34:03] When I say working out, there's various kinds of workouts.
[02:34:07] Obviously, there's jujitsu, there's weights, running,
[02:34:10] cardio, macons, all this stuff.
[02:34:12] Nonetheless, you can take some damage on the way.
[02:34:15] That's some dom, right now.
[02:34:17] By the way, it's got to yesterday's side now.
[02:34:19] And conditioning.
[02:34:21] Nonetheless, you might need supplementation.
[02:34:23] So good news is,
[02:34:25] Jocquass supplementation.
[02:34:26] So first, we'll start with a cognitive and physical stuff.
[02:34:29] Discipline, go.
[02:34:31] Kind of groundbreaking in a way.
[02:34:35] Very.
[02:34:36] Yes.
[02:34:37] So let's start with the cans.
[02:34:38] So energy drink.
[02:34:39] Boom.
[02:34:40] It's the new energy drink already.
[02:34:41] Established, ready?
[02:34:42] Yeah.
[02:34:43] The new wave, the new paradigm.
[02:34:45] Isn't it funny?
[02:34:46] There was all these other companies making,
[02:34:48] quote, energy drinks.
[02:34:49] And none of them saw this big, just giant gap in the market.
[02:34:54] They were just saying, oh, we'll put more sugar and more caffeine.
[02:34:57] Yeah.
[02:34:58] And more people will buy it.
[02:35:00] And they didn't see this big hole a bunch of people actually wanted to drink things that were healthy.
[02:35:04] And actually gave them real energy,
[02:35:06] not just a freaking sugar rush.
[02:35:09] Most applied times a caffeine jitter and call that energy.
[02:35:13] So anyways, they didn't see it.
[02:35:15] Cool. We did.
[02:35:16] Here we are.
[02:35:17] Yeah, and I get it because, like, you know,
[02:35:19] as a company or whatever, like you kind of,
[02:35:22] some, let's just say, some groups kind of play off of
[02:35:25] weaknesses of our brains or whatever and go for that.
[02:35:29] Superfish, you know, whether it be palatable,
[02:35:32] you know, just that easy, that easy win, you know, tactical.
[02:35:37] And they can play off of that.
[02:35:39] And you can get some good numbers with that.
[02:35:40] That's the thing.
[02:35:41] So they play on like people's weakness in a way.
[02:35:43] Play on the short term gratification of human beings.
[02:35:46] Yes.
[02:35:47] So if you call that a weakness,
[02:35:50] and we're playing their weakness, right?
[02:35:51] But think good thing about this is, you know,
[02:35:53] playing people's weakness.
[02:35:55] You actually play on their strengths to be honest with you.
[02:35:57] You helped their long term strategic goals.
[02:36:00] Oh, yeah.
[02:36:01] But the good thing, or one of the many good things about this
[02:36:04] is that it's both short term and long term.
[02:36:06] It's amazing.
[02:36:07] Discipline go the energy.
[02:36:09] And actually the one that is the most short term pay off
[02:36:13] as far as taste goes is the mango.
[02:36:17] Actually speaking, even though you're drinking
[02:36:19] a what pass watermelon.
[02:36:20] Well, you know, you ran out.
[02:36:21] You're right now.
[02:36:22] You're in short supply.
[02:36:24] I will say this one thing that's cool about these drinks
[02:36:26] the different flavors taste actually taste different.
[02:36:29] It's not like the some other quote energy drinks
[02:36:33] that you can there's a bunch of flavors,
[02:36:36] but they're all just basically tastes like sugar water.
[02:36:39] Yeah.
[02:36:40] Whatever.
[02:36:41] Yeah.
[02:36:42] You know, it's been a long time since I had any other energy drinks,
[02:36:45] but yeah, I can remember that that was kind of the case.
[02:36:48] One way or another.
[02:36:49] Nonetheless, okay.
[02:36:50] So discipline go.
[02:36:51] This is if you haven't gathered already.
[02:36:53] It's a healthy energy drink.
[02:36:55] You will literally be better off after you drink it
[02:36:59] than before you drink it.
[02:37:00] And if it feels all your energy drink needs.
[02:37:02] Very legit.
[02:37:03] Very legit.
[02:37:04] There's also like the mix, discipline go, the mix.
[02:37:07] Mix up with water, whatever on the go and capsules.
[02:37:10] So keep this in mind.
[02:37:12] First cognitive and physical supplementation in general.
[02:37:16] Also get your immune system in check.
[02:37:18] Vitamin D3.
[02:37:19] We got some cold war.
[02:37:20] We got the joint night nins.
[02:37:23] And repair kind of both in one.
[02:37:26] Get some joint warfare.
[02:37:27] Get some krill oil.
[02:37:28] And of course, of course, glory be to the protein.
[02:37:32] God's we have more.
[02:37:34] Yeah.
[02:37:35] That's true.
[02:37:36] But if you're trying to, and here's the thing, I don't know if we talk about this.
[02:37:39] Where yeah, if you're trying to like build muscle, which I think is a very worthy goal.
[02:37:43] By the way, we are in support of building muscle.
[02:37:46] You want more muscle?
[02:37:47] You want less muscle.
[02:37:48] Right.
[02:37:49] The day not that kind of me.
[02:37:50] What do you call them?
[02:37:51] The simple decision.
[02:37:52] The binary decision.
[02:37:53] By their decision.
[02:37:54] Right.
[02:37:55] One more you want less.
[02:37:56] All right.
[02:37:56] So if you want more, you need extra protein to add to the muscle that you're trying to build.
[02:38:01] So do you know the minimum amount of protein you need?
[02:38:04] One gram per pound of lean body mass.
[02:38:07] Oh, joccal coming off the top row.
[02:38:10] So it's a gross science from 1997.
[02:38:12] From what I understand, that's on the high end.
[02:38:14] For sure.
[02:38:15] Okay.
[02:38:16] Well, but keep in mind.
[02:38:17] Let's round it up.
[02:38:18] All right.
[02:38:19] Well, let's say the average.
[02:38:20] Let's say someone weighs 180 pounds.
[02:38:21] Okay.
[02:38:22] So you need 180 grams of protein.
[02:38:25] You know, much protein.
[02:38:26] That's a lot of protein.
[02:38:27] A lot of steaks in one day.
[02:38:30] And steaks are pretty high in protein, seems same.
[02:38:33] So the milk.
[02:38:35] This serves.
[02:38:36] This serves that purpose very well.
[02:38:38] Here's a good thing about milk.
[02:38:39] Like we already know it actually tastes good.
[02:38:41] Like actual dessert.
[02:38:42] So now you can have two desserts in one day.
[02:38:46] You'll be better off than you were.
[02:38:48] And if you're trying to build muscle boom facility.
[02:38:50] You have breakfast, dessert, lunch, dessert, dinner.
[02:38:54] dessert.
[02:38:55] Snack dessert.
[02:38:56] Get yourself some milk.
[02:38:57] But you can get all the stuff.
[02:38:58] Joccalfuel.com.
[02:38:59] If you subscribe, if you want to get it shipped to your house for free, subscribe at joccalfuel.com.
[02:39:04] We'll send you all the stuff that you order for free.
[02:39:06] You can also get the drinks at wall wall on the east coast.
[02:39:09] Vitamin shop.
[02:39:10] You can get all these products as well.
[02:39:12] And a lot of people hitting me up like, hey, can you get this drink?
[02:39:15] You know, in Milwaukee and in Tucson.
[02:39:18] And in LA, we're working across the country.
[02:39:21] We're literally having meetings all the time to get this stuff propagated throughout the nation.
[02:39:27] Because we don't want everyone to be stronger, faster, smarter and better.
[02:39:32] Yeah.
[02:39:33] So we'll let you know as we as we get out there.
[02:39:37] Yeah, it is about the long term and being prepared.
[02:39:40] 100%.
[02:39:41] Also, origin USA.
[02:39:43] So you go to originUSA.com.
[02:39:45] This is where you can get your American made stuff.
[02:39:47] A parallel got some boots on there.
[02:39:50] Boots and jeans.
[02:39:51] They say that's the what he called a flagship kind of scenario.
[02:39:55] Yes.
[02:39:56] There's some jiu-jitsu stuff on there.
[02:39:59] Pete was on there.
[02:40:00] He's demonstrating or how should I say displaying, showing whatever some new pants.
[02:40:05] The new work pants.
[02:40:06] Yeah.
[02:40:07] I got them.
[02:40:08] They're freaking legit.
[02:40:10] They're so stoked.
[02:40:11] Brother, there's some, you were talking about wet suits earlier today.
[02:40:15] Yeah.
[02:40:16] And to me, this is kind of the image I got.
[02:40:19] It's like, you were talking about those old wet suits and your new high speed wet suit.
[02:40:23] It's kind of like, yeah.
[02:40:25] Yeah.
[02:40:26] So these pants that Pete Pete was showing.
[02:40:29] There's a little video.
[02:40:30] That's the new work.
[02:40:31] Yeah.
[02:40:32] So it's like, oh, if you get regular work pants, cool.
[02:40:34] It's better to know it's actually not.
[02:40:37] It's like having one of those old wet suits.
[02:40:39] Yeah.
[02:40:40] But it's better to get no wet suit.
[02:40:41] It's what I'm saying.
[02:40:42] Marginally.
[02:40:43] And that's what I'm saying.
[02:40:44] And there's no reason to.
[02:40:45] It's not like there's going to be, you know, there's no reason to.
[02:40:48] Back in the day, it was, hey, this is the cheapest government contractor that can build
[02:40:52] us wet suits that suck.
[02:40:56] And then other manufacturers are out there making badass wet suits.
[02:40:59] But we didn't get them yet.
[02:41:00] So there's no reason for that.
[02:41:01] Oh, yeah.
[02:41:02] So now you got the same deal.
[02:41:03] Boom.
[02:41:04] You want to knew the updated effective work pants.
[02:41:08] This is the kind of stuff origin does straight.
[02:41:11] That's the game.
[02:41:12] We're going to make everything by the way.
[02:41:14] Everything.
[02:41:15] Also make guise.
[02:41:17] And hey, if you want to put your ghee to the test, come to the origin.
[02:41:22] Main, jiu-jitsu camp retreat intensive.
[02:41:27] Immersion.
[02:41:28] Yeah.
[02:41:29] Immersion camp.
[02:41:30] That too.
[02:41:31] And here's the thing about that too.
[02:41:32] Because sometimes people will be like, oh, is that, is that thing just super intense?
[02:41:35] It's like a lot of this is like freaking fun.
[02:41:37] What's up?
[02:41:38] Like three, do you just did three times, two times, whatever.
[02:41:40] And then they're like, man, like I like jiu-jitsu, but I don't know if I'm down for these, you know, this hell week maybe seal 30% of the people that are there will have less experience in jiu-jitsu than you.
[02:41:52] Even if you only have two weeks of jiu-jitsu.
[02:41:55] Yeah.
[02:41:56] And I'd be some freaking awesome badass black belt and brown belt and purple belts for sure.
[02:42:00] But there'll be a lot of people that are just getting their start in jiu-jitsu.
[02:42:03] So come and check that out if you want to origin.
[02:42:06] Check origin usay.com.
[02:42:07] Yeah.
[02:42:08] And it's not like it's this big competition training all the time.
[02:42:11] I'm not going to name any names.
[02:42:13] And actually it's cool.
[02:42:15] You can go there and not, not spar with people.
[02:42:19] Go there, just learn learn the technique.
[02:42:21] Talk with some people.
[02:42:22] Go swim in the lake.
[02:42:24] Straight up.
[02:42:25] Like it's a jiu-jitsu vacation.
[02:42:26] This is what it is straight up.
[02:42:27] We should have called it a jiu-jitsu vacation.
[02:42:29] Yeah.
[02:42:30] Yeah.
[02:42:30] And you can even call it a va- depending on your intent going there.
[02:42:34] You could call it a vacation with some level of jiu-jitsu depending on what you're going to do.
[02:42:37] You can go level 10.
[02:42:38] Yeah.
[02:42:39] You can train three times a day.
[02:42:40] You can train.
[02:42:41] You could train probably 14 hours a day if you want to.
[02:42:43] And you could train zero.
[02:42:45] It's up to you.
[02:42:46] It's just kind of a vacation with some level of jiu-jitsu involved if you want.
[02:42:52] And lobster and lobster and steak.
[02:42:58] So jing it out.
[02:42:59] Origin usay.com.
[02:43:00] Also we have a store.
[02:43:01] By the way.
[02:43:02] Yes.
[02:43:03] What's that store called?
[02:43:04] Let's go.
[02:43:05] Jiu-jitsu store.
[02:43:06] Jiu-jitsu store.com is where you can eat your shirts and hats and hoodies.
[02:43:10] Light and heavy.
[02:43:12] Rash guards on there.
[02:43:13] Some shorts on there.
[02:43:14] I'm going to update some shorts.
[02:43:16] Get some new shorts on there too.
[02:43:18] Are the ones that I've been asking for?
[02:43:20] Yes.
[02:43:21] Okay.
[02:43:22] That's good to know.
[02:43:23] As soon as those come out, I need five pairs.
[02:43:24] Okay.
[02:43:25] Just kind of FYI.
[02:43:26] You've got to.
[02:43:27] Just kind of FYI.
[02:43:28] 100%.
[02:43:29] So there's a lot of cool stuff on there.
[02:43:30] Disable and equals freedom.
[02:43:31] Good.
[02:43:32] When you want to represent all your other path.
[02:43:33] This is what you're going to do.
[02:43:34] You see the same material as the old shorts.
[02:43:37] You tell me.
[02:43:38] I say yes because they have materials.
[02:43:40] Good.
[02:43:41] Yes sir.
[02:43:42] I agree.
[02:43:43] Yes.
[02:43:44] Some shorts on there as well.
[02:43:46] If you want something, get something.
[02:43:47] That's a good way to represent.
[02:43:49] Also, we have the shirt locker.
[02:43:52] The new shirt.
[02:43:53] It's a subscription situation.
[02:43:54] New shirt every single month.
[02:43:55] Different designs.
[02:43:56] Not as good design.
[02:43:59] You're hired.
[02:44:00] Hey, look.
[02:44:01] For sure.
[02:44:02] That was a great experience.
[02:44:03] We collectively have been struggling to demonstrate or to explain the quality of these new designs.
[02:44:11] You say we got some cool designs.
[02:44:13] We do.
[02:44:14] You could have said that.
[02:44:15] Yeah.
[02:44:16] Well said.
[02:44:17] You said there.
[02:44:18] But that doesn't.
[02:44:19] That doesn't capture.
[02:44:20] Because every time people are like, hey, that design is cool.
[02:44:22] Can I have it?
[02:44:23] And I'm going to be like, well, that was two months ago.
[02:44:25] Okay.
[02:44:26] Same saying.
[02:44:26] So I got to convey it accurately.
[02:44:27] So people know going in.
[02:44:28] It's an element of trust.
[02:44:29] For sure.
[02:44:30] But sure.
[02:44:31] Check it out.
[02:44:32] The shirt locker.
[02:44:32] Yeah.
[02:44:33] So I'm John Kustor.
[02:44:34] Hey, also subscribe to this podcast.
[02:44:36] Don't forget we have some other podcast.
[02:44:37] We got Jockel on Ravling with Darryl Cooper.
[02:44:39] We got the grounded podcast, which we haven't done the long run.
[02:44:43] We got the Warrior Kid podcast.
[02:44:45] And we also have the Jockel Underground podcast.
[02:44:47] Jockel Underground.com.
[02:44:48] If you want to subscribe to that thing and get on board and help us build the underground.
[02:44:54] Where we're going to be laying and waiting things.
[02:44:57] If things go sideways, we'll be there.
[02:44:59] We stockpiling material.
[02:45:02] Sure.
[02:45:03] We got food.
[02:45:04] We got water.
[02:45:05] We got content.
[02:45:07] Jockel Underground.com.
[02:45:09] If you want to check out out.
[02:45:10] $8.18 a month.
[02:45:12] Some people know what that $8.18 cents represents.
[02:45:16] Not many though.
[02:45:17] Take a guess.
[02:45:19] And if you can't afford it, look, we want you in the game.
[02:45:22] Even if you can't afford that $8.18 a month.
[02:45:25] We'll still just email assistance at Jockel.
[02:45:28] And we'll take care of that.
[02:45:31] Also, we have a YouTube channel where a lot of the videos, some of the videos, I should say,
[02:45:39] some of the more premier videos have, I'm the assistant director on.
[02:45:42] And it's very obvious when they're awesome.
[02:45:44] You know, funny.
[02:45:45] They released a video recently.
[02:45:48] Mango, man.
[02:45:49] Mango, man.
[02:45:50] I don't do it.
[02:45:51] So people are catching on to the whole assistant director thing.
[02:45:56] Why is that like that?
[02:45:58] Because, well, because people, I think,
[02:46:02] might give you, well, I don't think it.
[02:46:04] And I guess it's not undue credit.
[02:46:06] Because the author, I know you say this kind of a joke.
[02:46:09] But like, everyone's in all, you'll add like a little detail.
[02:46:15] I had a critical detail.
[02:46:17] That turns out to be kind of critical.
[02:46:19] So, okay.
[02:46:20] So, in that video, it hurts you so bad.
[02:46:22] It hurts you so bad that whatever I add is usually critical.
[02:46:25] Okay.
[02:46:26] So, here's the thing.
[02:46:27] You're right in a way.
[02:46:29] It doesn't hurt.
[02:46:31] Okay.
[02:46:32] We'll use the word.
[02:46:33] It hurts me.
[02:46:34] Not because, oh, Jocco did it.
[02:46:36] Thought of it night.
[02:46:37] Didn't.
[02:46:38] It's more that.
[02:46:39] Jocco thought of it.
[02:46:40] I don't know you.
[02:46:41] It's hard to do.
[02:46:44] It's hard to do.
[02:46:45] That means like if I was writing a book about leadership.
[02:46:48] And then you added it.
[02:46:49] You were like, hey, you need to discuss this thing right here.
[02:46:52] And I couldn't not do it because it made so much sense.
[02:46:55] I know.
[02:46:56] And you know what, my ego would be affected by that.
[02:46:59] That's okay.
[02:47:00] So that's where you're at.
[02:47:01] That's the part.
[02:47:02] I like, well, maybe it is, but I don't feel overtly that it's my ego.
[02:47:05] It's more that like, oh, shoot.
[02:47:07] I didn't even see that.
[02:47:08] Like, how can I be so stupid?
[02:47:10] How can I be so stupid?
[02:47:11] How can I be so pathetic and not know how can I not be better?
[02:47:17] Better.
[02:47:18] Not a good person.
[02:47:19] You're like, you're, you walked up like in that video.
[02:47:23] You walked up right at the beginning.
[02:47:24] When you walked up and you're doing this, this part.
[02:47:26] Yep.
[02:47:27] Like that.
[02:47:28] That's pretty good.
[02:47:29] I've got to give it to you.
[02:47:30] I'll end it to you.
[02:47:31] Assistant Director Junk over here.
[02:47:32] So I have YouTube channel.
[02:47:34] You can subscribe to that.
[02:47:35] And we also have an album that's called Psychological Warfare that will help you get
[02:47:39] little moments, get through little moments of a weakness.
[02:47:42] I'll kind of get in your head a little bit.
[02:47:44] Press play.
[02:47:45] Go your MP3 platforms to get some of that.
[02:47:48] If you need a visual representation of the path, cool.
[02:47:52] We got that for you too.
[02:47:53] Well, Dakota Meyer does flipsidecampus.com.
[02:47:56] Got all kinds of cool stuff to hang on your wall.
[02:47:58] I've written a bunch of books.
[02:48:00] The the the latest edition.
[02:48:02] Oh, I can't have it on my table.
[02:48:04] Final spin.
[02:48:05] It's a book.
[02:48:09] I mean, it's hard to describe.
[02:48:11] It's a transcript.
[02:48:12] It's, it's a novel.
[02:48:14] It's a poem.
[02:48:15] We don't even, the publisher doesn't know what's called.
[02:48:17] They never seen anything like it.
[02:48:18] All they know is that it, they, they are impressed.
[02:48:22] All they know is that they are emotionally moved by this piece of work.
[02:48:27] So if you want to get some of that order now, final spin, get that first edition.
[02:48:32] You're going to want the first edition that.
[02:48:34] Because listen, hey, I'm going to write another leadership book.
[02:48:36] But guess what?
[02:48:37] That's another leadership book.
[02:48:38] So even though you get the first edition of a new leadership book,
[02:48:41] it still is the first edition of a series of leadership books.
[02:48:44] If you want to get in early on the novels, this is the dish.
[02:48:49] Leadership strategy and tactics field made an old quality evaluation approach
[02:48:52] called discipline because freedom field manual.
[02:48:54] Way the warrior kid one two three and four.
[02:48:58] Mike in the dragons about face by hack worth.
[02:49:00] I wrote a little forward to that one and honor that was.
[02:49:02] And then the OG's extreme ownership in the dichotomy leadership that are wrote with
[02:49:07] my brother, Dave Babin.
[02:49:09] We also have a leadership consultancy called echelon front where we solve problems.
[02:49:13] Through leadership, go to echelon front dot com for details.
[02:49:17] EF.
[02:49:18] Oh, sorry.
[02:49:20] Extreme ownership academy.
[02:49:22] Go to extreme ownership dot com if you want to get.
[02:49:26] If you want to go to the leadership gym.
[02:49:28] Leadership, you don't learn leadership in one day or by reading one book.
[02:49:32] You got to get in the gym.
[02:49:33] You got to be consistent.
[02:49:34] Go to extreme ownership dot com.
[02:49:36] Check out our online training platform.
[02:49:38] All kinds of activities going on there.
[02:49:41] We also have a live event.
[02:49:43] Next one is Phoenix.
[02:49:46] August 17th and 18th.
[02:49:48] We are not sold out yet.
[02:49:51] People are a little bit nervous.
[02:49:52] Some people, I guess, about Miss Rona.
[02:49:55] But we are getting close.
[02:49:58] So that's Phoenix, August 17th and 18th.
[02:50:01] After that, as Las Vegas, October 28th and 29th.
[02:50:04] Those of all sold out in the past.
[02:50:07] These will to get in on it early.
[02:50:11] Go to echelon front dot com.
[02:50:12] Check the events.
[02:50:13] And if you want to help service members active and retired.
[02:50:16] You want to help their families.
[02:50:17] Gold star families.
[02:50:18] Check out Mark Lee's mom.
[02:50:19] He heard about Mark Lee today.
[02:50:21] What a freaking hero he was.
[02:50:22] And his mom has been carrying on.
[02:50:25] His heroic attitude with her charity organization.
[02:50:30] If you want to donate or you want to get involved.
[02:50:32] Go to America's mighty warrior.
[02:50:34] And if you.
[02:50:37] Well, it's face if you want to any more of my tedious testimonies.
[02:50:42] Or you want to have.
[02:50:45] For some reason you want to hear more of echoes ridiculous reflections.
[02:50:50] You can find us on the inner webs.
[02:50:52] On Twitter, on Instagram.
[02:50:54] Which echo on your first two is the Graham.
[02:50:56] And Facebook, Echo's Adeclotrols and I am at Jockelwind.
[02:50:59] And thanks once again to Admiral Joe Maguire.
[02:51:03] For coming on for sharing his experiences.
[02:51:06] But more important.
[02:51:09] And I think you realize this.
[02:51:11] Thank you to the Admiral for your incredible service to our great nation.
[02:51:17] And to the rest of the military out there right now.
[02:51:20] Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps.
[02:51:23] Thank you for your service as you protect freedom and democracy around the world.
[02:51:29] And the same goes to our police and law enforcement.
[02:51:32] Firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers,
[02:51:35] Border Patrol, Secret Service, and all the first responders out there.
[02:51:39] Thank you for protecting us here at home.
[02:51:43] And to everyone else out there.
[02:51:49] Think about the impact that you can have.
[02:51:55] And yeah, think about it, you're on life.
[02:51:57] And you want to have a positive impact in your own life.
[02:52:00] Think about the positive impact that you can have on others.
[02:52:05] Think about what you can do by reaching out to people, by supporting them.
[02:52:11] By doing like Admiral Maguire did for me, by being there for people, by helping them shoulder some of that weight.
[02:52:22] It isn't about you.
[02:52:25] It's about the team.
[02:52:27] So support your team, support your family, your friends, your community.
[02:52:32] By going out there every day and getting after it.
[02:52:38] And until next time, the Zekko and Joko out.